Perfect Men

One of the many upsides to finally acquiring enough Dutch is learning how to swear appropriately, terribly, and awfully in the local tongue. Another is getting a chance to...appreciate the, ah...finer aspects of Dutch cinema.

To be sure, New Kids: Turbo can hardly count as art haus--or, for that matter, bath house. It just might make "out house"...and then only because of the scatological humor that is (mercifully) sometimes employed. Sure, there are actually good Dutch movies about important things (Komt een vrouw bij de doktor), but nobody does self-parody like the Dutch, and if you want to understand that certain segment of the population that's the equivalent of "hillbilly" in the US, look no farther than the New Kids.

Yes, it's a parody, and as such, it's highly exaggerated, full of non-sequiturs that have non-sequiturs of their own. But if you think of it as one long Jeff Foxworthy skit, it starts to make sense. Kind of. As much sense as randomly running over people can make, anyway.

Two things to note: first of all, as a parody, it is grounded in truth. How much of it is true, on the other hand...there are some gags that just aren't that funny because they are, quite sadly, completely true, such as the violence some people degenerate into when appealing (unwisely) to have their uitkering geld limits increased. Secondly, you don't realize how much you lipread until you watch a movie full of mustaches. Apparently my ability to understand the spoken word is more limited than I thought, though that might also be due to the funky accents.

Oud Schiedam

At some point in my stay in the Netherlands, someone pressed into my hand a small glass of jenever and told me to try it. It tasted vile. Like turpentine, mixed with paint thinner, steeped in the original Listerine. Karel saw my experession of horrified dismay, and told me, "And that's why I don't drink jenever."

Jenever is gin, but since the drink received EU recognition, it can only be called jenever if it comes from the Netherlands, and two provinces in Belgium and Germany. Conversely, I have no idea if the British have trademarked "gin" for their own, but in any event, they are one and the same: juniper-berry-flavored vodka, essentially. And no city in the Netherlands is more famous for this fruity concoction than...Schiedam.

History buffs know that London did not originate as London, but rather as a cluster of villages that grew into each other. The same is true of Schiedam, and, for that matter, the entirety of the Netherlands in and around Rotterdam. At some point in history, Schiedam and Rotterdam were seperate entities, but these days, they've fused to become one, and really the only thing distinguishing them is...well, I have no idea, really.

We'd gone to Schiedam to take in the picturesque promises from the little brochure that came with Karel's order of oil lamps, and to visit the little store which sells them. It was a cloudy day when we boarded the water taxi out of Dordrecht, but boats are always a lot of fun and for some reason, even though the view was dismal for most of the trip, it was still quite an enjoyable trip. The only accepted mode of payment, if you're interested in taking it, is the OV Chip card, so make sure yours is loaded.

Once in Scheidam, we quickly discovered that it was not quite as picturesque as the brochure made it out to be. They didn't lie, exactly, about the windmills or the beauty of the Lange Haver. They just...failed to mention it was all surrounded by...Rotterdam. Nevertheless, we were here, on a rare day off together, and we were going to have fun, damn it.

"Fun" for the day ended up being a trip to the Jenever Museum, a museum showcasing the production and history of Holland's most famous drink. It's a nice little museum--you are free to poke and prod and touch and look at stuff--and in the end, you can have a nice little tipple at the bar (cost: €3 per dram of Oud Schiedam). There are those infamous "And this is how it's made" videos from the 1980s, complete with bad hair and worse beards, that can be played at the push of a button. It was no Ketel No. 1 tour, but there could have been worse ways to spend our day in Schiedam.

As for the Oud Schiedam: it tasted like a very mild whiskey--indeed, the bartender told us that the "good stuff" (as I was already thinking of it) was aged for 3 years in old whiskey barrels, which accounted for the lovely, almost creamy taste. A far cry from the engine-degreaser that I'd tried earlier--which just goes to say that there is, in fact, jenever worth drinking. But by far the best part of the tasting was, in my opinion, the little "hat" the glass came with. The glass-with-hat can also be bought at the museum for €5--but considering that it would be a 2-hour train ride back to Nijmegen, we decided better of it.

Wimp

Anybody who has had their wisdom teeth removed, or else knows someone who's had their wisdom teeth removed, has probably heard a horror story or two about broken roots and otherwise terribly nasty things that go wrong when wisdom teeth get extracted. Luckily, mine came out without a hitch. Thirty minutes was the total length of time it took for all three--I was back in our apartment within an hour--but even so, I was shaking so hard at the end that I had trouble with my bike lock.

Even though most of it was painless--honestly, the most painful part was the anesthesia--I was still on edge for the entire procedure. When I was little, I had terrible cavities in my baby teeth, which warranted their removal. Our dentist wouldn't believe me when, while he was yanking out my teeth, I started crying because it hurt so badly. He'd given me the anesthetic, and it wasn't supposed to hurt--so therefore, it had to be in my head. Fortunately, this time, they believed me when I said it still hurt, and they gave me an extra shot. Unfortunately, this time, it meant that the anesthesia took twice a long to wear off.

But I kept expecting it to hurt, and it wasn't until they took off the cloth covering my eyes (ostensibly to protect my eyes from sharp pointy objects, but also because dental patients are like birds--if you can't see it, it can't hurt you) that I was able to relax. Some things just don't get better, even twenty years later.

"Nobody move! I dropped me brain."

24 Oranges first picked up the story, which one of my FB friends linked to: Rick Santorum, now a "serious contender" for the presidency (and I swear, I wish I could say that that was a typo), says that the Dutch practice euthanasia on the elderly.

Which is ridiculous, and Reddit has already done a thorough refutation of everything that Santorum said about the Dutch. Starting with "wearing special bracelets". Dude--the Holocaust is still within living memory, and Karel's parents still remember the Dutch famine of '44-45. We are so not going there.

There are a whole host of other things about Santorum's quote that rubs me the wrong way. "Elderly people in the Netherlands don't go the hospital, they go to another country", for starters. I live closer to the Germany than I do to Amsterdam. If I do need urgent medical care, it is actually pretty reasonable for me to seek it in Germany. Happily, we live in a city serviced by a major medical center, so I don't need to learn another language.

Now, to be fair, it is easy to point to the Netherlands, with all of the hash and hookers, and say, "What a degenerate country!" But if you look beyond that, to see how people who actually live here actually live, it's quite the opposite. You can point to the ridiculously long wait times for elective procedures (one month to get a wisdom tooth extracted, for instance) as evidence that socialized medical systems suck, but honestly--it's an elective procedure. It's not like it's going to kill me if I wait another month. It's like tossing out a Maserati because a bird crapped on the hood.

Right now, the US is embroiled in another "controversy" over mandatory birth control coverage for women who want it. Detractors have framed it as a question of religious freedom, which sort of begs the question: if a Catholic woman wants birth control, are they then suggesting that she can no longer be Catholic? Or to put it another way: what better way to celebrate religious freedom, than to let people decide how they want to practice it?

All of which gets lost on morons like the ones that are (God knows why, I've long given up trying to understand the Republican psyche) running for the highest office of one of the most powerful nations on the earth. Perhaps I didn't actually drop me brain. Probably it fled rather than confront the idiocy.

"Everything's gonna be all right"

There are moments when I wish I knew Latin, so that I could swear like Batiatus (my favorite whiny man, from Spartacus) and say things like, "Finally, the gods see fit to remove c**k from @$$," which is fantastic in plain English and is grandiose enough to vent with. But for true vexation and petulance, only Latin will do, although I understand that Japanese is a close contender.

Last week, we found out that Noodle, like the Tweeb, has chronic renal failure (or, in more PC parlance, "chronic kidney disease"). It's a bitter, albeit not unexpected, pill to have to swallow: Noodle's kidney values were elevated at last spring's dental, so we all decided that a six-month checkup would be a good time to confirm or refute the findings. Alas, the findings were confirmed: Noodle's kidney values moved from "high-normal" to "high", and since then we've been feeding him the same prescription diet as the Tweeb has been getting. Luckily, Noodle will snarf anything, and I don't think he's noticed the change in his food.

As a quasi-public-service announcement, though, I'd like to point out that neither Noodle nor the Tweeb displayed any symptoms of renal failure prior to their blood tests. They did not drink excessively, the number of pee-balls in the litter box hasn't changed, they were not reclusive or lethargic (although, being cats, I must admit it is hard to objectively qualify what counts as "reclusive or lethargic"). In most cats, by the time symptoms of CKD start to appear, they only have 25-30% renal function left, and by then they usually only have a few more months before crossing the rainbow bridge. We caught both Noodle and the Tweeb well before that point, and indeed, besides an occasional bald patch (where they shave the fur before drawing blood), there's no indication at all that they are sick.

The point is, if you have a cat that's getting up there in years (10, thereabouts), please consider getting them tested for chronic diseases (CKD and diabetes), even if they show no signs of disease. We intend to get Shadow a blood test at her next visit (she'll be 8 years old!) just to see how things are, and every few years after that. Catching something as insidious as CKD early on might make a world of difference between simply changing their food and having to administer subcutaneous saline and a battery of pills every day. The Tweeb has been with us for five years since she was diagnosed, and at the rate she's going, it won't be her kidneys that kill her. We're hoping that the same will be true of Noodle. Of course, every cat is different, but early detection and good management will maximize your kitty's chances.

Care Bears

In the US, when you're about to lose your job, you panic for a bit, and then, when you stop panicking, you arrange for unemployment, and find another job.

In the Netherlands, apparently, the correct response is to arrange for uitkering benefits.

Uitkering is welfare, plain and simple. It's a bit of money you get from the government so that you can still buy food, and, depending on the circumstances through which you are unemployed, pay your mortgage, provide child care, and gives you a vacation "bonus" (in quotes because, being American, bonuses are something you need to earn). The exact amount you get depends, I would imagine, upon the probability of your finding a job and whether you have any disabilities. There are, of course, rules that you must follow in order to receiver your benefits (such as not having a successful business), and frankly, I'm not even sure I'd qualify, seeing as I am healthy and sound of body and mind. But the gist here is that it seems that applying for benefits is the first thing I should have done upon receiving notice of contract expiration. No less than three people this week have asked me whether I will be applying for it. It's starting to make me wonder if I should...

But I won't, because, as I learned today, applying for uitkering could complicate starting a business considerably, and it would limit my ability to work as much as I want to, to say nothing of finding another job. Of course, I am sure there are some sneaky Dutch people who flip the bird at the rules and do whatever they want and collect uitkering money, but the government can't deport them.

The Saga Begins

As wonderful as our dentist is, he's still a dentist, and charming though he may be, he's still the one poking at your mouth with a tiny ice pick and admonishing you to clean your teeth better. So it follows that we ignore, for the most part, his little cards that remind us that we should be getting checkups. Prior to my arrival in the Netherlands, my last visit to an oral hygienist (not even a "real" dentist) happened a good decade earlier, when I was 18. I don't even remember how old I was when we stopped seeing our family dentist in the US. I believe we stopped because our dental insurance ran out, or something like that. Suffice it to say that one of the first things we did when I finally got my health insurance (with dental coverage) here was to visit Karel's dentist. Romantic, right?

I have been unusually fortunate, in the sense that, until last month, I have not had any problems with my teeth at all--not with my wisdom teeth, nor have I had any cavities since childhood. Last month, one of my wisdom teeth, which hadn't yet broken the surface after two years of sitting just under the gum, decided to go for broke and try again, much to my dismay--and pain. The pain is only intermittent, but when it's there, it gives me referred headaches. And after two days of headaches and teething agony, I decided the damn thing needed to go.

And here's where the whole thing gets weird: I made an appointment with our dentist to rip the little f*cker out. Our dentist poked, he prodded, but because it wasn't out, he didn't have the ability to take it out. So he gave me a referral letter (no phone number, strangely--I had to look that one up myself) for the oral surgeon at the university hospital.

I made an apointment with the oral surgeon. ("Hello, my name is Jules, and I'd like to make an appointment." "All right, can I have your insurance information?" "[insurance information]" "So wait a minute--what's your first name again?") I was told that this was merely going to be for an x-ray, that they wouldn't be traumatizing me any further. Which was fine by me--like I said, the pain is only intermittent, and I wasn't in any rush to get another tooth extracted. I'd had the same procedure done as a child, and was in screaming agony for every minute of it.

The oral surgeon appointment went well enough. They poked, they prodded, and then they asked me to stand in this machine which whirred and went 'round and 'round, by which they obtained a panoramic view of my jaw. My little problematic wisdom tooth turned out to be stuck under a ridge of bone, and they also advocated that I take out my top wisdom teeth as well--"a simple procedure", they promised me, as they were not only all the way out, but nice and straight, as well. But because they are so difficult to keep clean, mine were in danger of developing cavities and other issues.

I made a third appointment for the surgery, so soon I will be blogging about lidocaine injections and squicky crunching noises.

You might be wondering what makes this whole thing so weird: not once was I asked to make a payment. Our dentist threw in a cleaning, but never presented me with a bill. The oral surgeon never asked me whether my insurance covered this procedure. Instead, I expect that I'll get an extra bill from my health insurance company next month for my deductible (which is what happened after I paid a visit to our huisarts). It almost felt wrong to not have to whip out my PIN and pay for something. I'm as much a fan of some kind of health care system for everybody, but it still feels weird.