Bummed Out

If your husband--or you, or your cat, or your kid--is anything like mine, there is no other visceral pleasure quite like wiping your bum with a moist towelette.  I enjoy the extra bit of cleanliness, myself.  However, I do not enjoy paying €2 for a packet of this --> every month:

Now, I'll be the first to say that €2 is chump change.  It (usually) won't break the bank.  But it's about more than money.  The suction cup it hangs from (not shown) is great to keep for future crafts, but it's such a shame to toss out the little handy-dandy door-thingy that you can pull the wipes out of.  It's perfectly serviceable once it's empty--you just have to figure out how to refill it.


And that's the evil of Edet:  they want you to keep paying for their bum wipes with the suction cup that lets you hang the package above the toilet paper and the little door that keeps the contents moist.  They know that other companies, like Page, whose bum wipes do not come with these handy little things, are a paltry imitation of the sheer brilliance of their product. The wipes themselves are more or less the same. The price difference is about 25%, and it is entirely about the packaging. Without the little door, the adhesive eventually wears out, and the flap hangs open, letting the moist wipes de-moisten, so that when you reach in for a little shot of bum-cooling wetness, you get something that feels like cardboard instead.

 But what if you could take the contents of a Page packet and put it into an Edet container?  Enter this:

OK, I'll be the first to admit my tastes aren't all that refined when I'm having a chocolate craving.  But more important than the LION is the fact that it has a zip-lock closure.

It's a simple matter to cut off the zip-lock closure, cut a slit into the back of the empty Edet package (you could do it on the front, too, but the whole point of having one of these things is to be one of "those people" who don't have to jury-rig a reusable packet because they're too cheap to pay for a real one), and glue the zip-lock into the hole.  I suppose tape would also work as well, if you don't have a glue gun, but it's hard to find a good decent Scotch tape in the Netherlands.  Not to mention pricey.

And, voila--you have a reusable wet-wipe package.  

Santa in Black and White

Apparently nobody is safe this year:

This year the UN took Mark Rutte to task over Zwarte Piet.  Then Aisha Harris at Slate fired off a complaint about Santa:  namely, that he's only white.  That, as a black American, she wants the institution of Santa to be more inclusive, but that it would be better off if we ditched Santa altogether and used a penguin, instead.

There's only one problem with that--everybody knows pandas are way cuter than penguins.

The piece was written tongue-in-cheek and I skimmed it at first, and then went on to read Dear Prudie, because honestly, it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.  But then the Internet exploded--people started screeching that Santa had to be white.  The very people, I would hazard, who get all huffy and say that Zwarte Piet is racist.  Irony much?

Personally, the whole thing amuses me because it reveals how incredibly ignorant some people are when it comes to even treasured icons like St. Nicholas (i.e., Sinterklaas before he became Sinterklaas).  "Santa Claus is white because St. Nicholas is white"--St. Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra, near Turkey, and he was most likely dark-skinned. "Santa Claus is white because people who live at the North Pole are white"--actually, if you do a survey of most of the people living in and around the North Pole, you'll probably find that most of them look like Inuits, or Asiatic.  Which is another way of saying, "Not white". "Santa Claus is white because he's always been white." Maybe.  But I can't recall a single Christmas poem or song that explicitly mentions Santa's race.  At most there's a mention of "ruddy cheeks" or something similar, but surely some black people are light enough to have ruddy cheeks, too...?

It also exposes the incredible contradictions that people swallow without stopping to think about them.  Suffice it to say that the people screeching the loudest are the ones who bemoan the commercialism that has taken over Christmas, who want a "return to the true nature of Christmas", celebrating the birth of Christ and all that.  Okay, except that the birth of Christ has NOTHING to do with a fat guy in a red suit delivering presents.  Do they want to commemorate Saint Nicholas?  Fine--that'd be December 6.  Or would they rather do the exchange of presents with the magi?  That's January 6, nativity scenes be damned (the three wise men were late).

As should be obvious, I have no real attachment to Santa Claus.  Indeed, I couldn't care less if he disappeared entirely, surviving only in Christmas carols and our copy of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas". I never believed in him, not even as a child, but when I was little I remember feeling like I had to say something as if I believed, because otherwise the adults would get upset.  Suffice it to say that my tolerance for pandering hasn't gotten much better since then.

So...is Santa racist? If it is racist, it's racist in the way that making Barbie blonde is racist--it's a sin of omission, rather than someone actively adopting a guise.  Better or worse than the Zwarte Piet controversy?  Worse, I think, because it's not Santa that's racist in always being white (as I mentioned above, most Christmas songs don't mention his race altogether)--it's us, who imagine him as being white.  And it sucks to realize that you're not as good a person as you once thought you were.  But the adults amongst us take a moment to reflect, learn from our bruised feelings--that maybe it's possible to have a black Santa every now and then, or maybe a Christmas penguin is the right way to go, after all-- and move on.

Like I said before about ZP--this isn't stuff I think a lot about.  It's a fun frivolous thing for the kids over the holidays.  Period.  I won't shelter the kidlet from the nonsense, but I also won't let him believe that it's anything other than a story, either.  The magic of the season isn't about magical people who leave you presents.  It's about showing the people you love that you love them, and being with them.  

Changes, they are a-comin'

Maastricht is famous for its citywide Christmas bash.  The city goes all-out for the season, and the open squares are full of stalls selling delicious foods and .  In the Vrijthof, there is typically a Ferris wheel and a skating rink; sales abound in every store; food and drink flow freely, while cars do not.

Sales abound in every store in the rest of the Netherlands, as well, but the country as a whole must content itself with the little neighborhood Christmas market--de kerstmarkt, as it is callled.  The one by our apartment is quite nice--they make little "streets" in the little plaza with the kramen, and there's a stage with singers providing entertainment while people mill around and buy little gewgaws (not all of them Christmas-themed) from the vendors.  Some of the vendors are associated with a charity, so your money will go towards a good cause, in case it makes you feel bad to buy stuff for such a consumerist holiday.  The C1000 sells hot dogs and hamburges, and kids get free popcorn (our kidlet did not partake--it's a choking hazard at his age, and anyway he'd probably have been more interested in dropping them and watching them bounce).  This year, they had a mini-version of swings and a "dragon ride" as well.  It all ends with a raffle, and then it's over.

But this Christmas thingy really only kicked off about 3 years ago, maybe 4.  Prior to that, Christmas was, well, Christmas--you went to church, if you were so inclined.  You stayed home, slept late, had a nice breakfast, prepared to receive visitors for dinner.  For the second day of Christmas (yes, Christmas is two days, here), you went visiting friends.  There might be presents exchanged; there might not be--some people do, some people don't.  If you do, it's great--if you don't, nobody worries that you didn't like them or gossips about you being a stingy bastard (do bring your host a bottle of wine or something similar, though).  As long as the booze is flowing freely and the food is tasty, presents are an afterthought.  Most of what Americans take for granted about Christmas--photos with Santa at the mall, caroling--just doesn't exist here.  Lately I've been seeing more Santa Claus (de kerstman, as he's called), but so far he's never had the requisite 8 reindeer, and in most cases he's not even fat. I don't know if it's out of laziness or vanity, but at least the children won't be getting mixed messages about obesity...

But consumerism is like a virus, and this year was the first time that koopzondagen--the Sundays where stores are allowed to be open, which is typically once a month--got extended to every Sunday of the month.  The Albert Heijn XL is open every Sunday.  The Schoenen Reus has been open every Sunday this month, as well.  And strangely--even though I like taking the kidlet out to see the sights--it makes me a little sad.  It's strange, but not having the option to go to stores and having the sole kidlet-entertainment be the local kinderboerderij (petting zoo) was actually quite relaxing, simply because I didn't have a choice to make.  Now that the stores are open on Sunday, I find myself thinking, "Well, we can go to the kinderboerderij and then stop by..." And I end up spending more of my day out and about and unable to relax.  Not that I relax much with a kidlet, these days.

This year, I am once again making most of the presents that I'll be giving away.  Part of this is that yes, I am a cheap and stingy wench.  Part of this is that it's hard to get out of the apartment with the kidlet for the lengths of time needed to go shopping.  Part of this is that I have most of the materials already.  But most of it is that I'm just not in the mood to buy more stuff--that the option of koopzondagen have removed the urgency to buy.

The Eyes Have It

In the Netherlands, the norm of the working man is to bring a lunch, in a reusable container, preferably.  This being the Netherlands, though, the norm is to pack a sandwich in a plastic box and add an apple.  Maybe toss in a packet of Cup Soup if you're feeling fancy.  But in a nutshell, the art of having food look nice is lost here.  You won't see pretty bento-box-like lunches.  On the one hand, I understand, kind of--it's food.  You eat it, and it's gone.  What's the point in making it look nice?  .

I've been packing Karel's lunches ever since I moved here--there've been brief hiatuses, towards the end of my pregnancy, for instance, or when the kidlet and work have left me pulling my hair out with stress.  But by and large, if Karel's working, I cut up some food and put it into a box for him.  Karel's particular brand of laziness means that he won't eat fruits or vegetables unless they are pre-cut into neat bite-sized chunks, with annoying things like cores and seeds removed.  For a while, I've been throwing random bits of chopped produce into old take-out containers and Tupperware-knock-offs, but that came to a spectacular halt, accompanied by much indignant squawking on my part, when he came home empty-handed yet again, and we had no more boxes for him.  Somehow the man has managed to lose no less than six containers.  

In a move that might seem counter-intuitive given his penchant for misplacing boxes, I finally had it and bought a pair of sectioned boxes on the right.  They were expensive, at a bit less than €6 apiece, and the little red container you see inside it came in a separate package of two. I don't mean to be a shill for sistema--but bento boxes are in short supply in Western Europe, and this was as close as I was going to get.  But Karel finally got his ass in gear, and has been bringing home the containers.  Probably because I go through some extra trouble to make it look like this on the inside:

 It's nothing fancy:  On the left side, a kiwi, sliced in half.  A handful of grape tomatoes.  A mini candy Two toothpick kebabs, with sausage and candied ginger.  A mini candy bar.  Cucumber, sliced.  Baby carrots.  On the right side, sandwiches of ham and sandwiches of nutella, cut out with cookie cutters, and a small container of cashews and almonds and dried cranberries and apricots.  But arranged nicely, and it looks like I put some seriously time and effort into it.

I didn't.  The whole thing took me maybe 10 minutes to assemble--less time than normal, even, because I didn't peel the kiwi.  But it looks nice, and because it looks nice, it tastes better.

You might think I'm being facetious, but I'm not. According to Karel, his colleagues are actually a bit jealous of his lunches. There's nothing exotic or fancy about the stuff that goes into it--everything I buy is either on sale, in season, or in bulk from Walid's (besides being an excellent source of chicken, he has an admirable stock of dried and canned goods at a reasonable price).  Presentation matters, though--jumble everything together, and it becomes distinctly less exciting, and the thrill of opening the box and finding out what the lovely contents are is dampened.

And that is the point of making food look nice:  when you're excited to see it, it becomes exciting to eat.  And for Karel, anyway, that means he brings the boxes home, because he wants to see what's next.  

Zwarte Piet again

So it's that time of year when I bemoan the obsession foreigners have with the Dutch Zwarte Piet, and the Dutch stubborness for insisting that such a display of racism isn't actually racist.  In previous years, I've treated it with the distance that my expat status allows me--"let the peons have their gods, I will follow my reason" sort of thing.  And honestly, it was a stance I was more than happy to maintain, since the arguments for and against the Zwarte Piet are like the Titanic and the Carpathia--gliding past each other without ever hitting the real mark:  why do Dutch people care so much about him, anyway?

But now, that's all changed.  Because I'm a mom, now, and in a few years the kidlet will be old enough to want to partake in Sinterklaas, and frankly...well, this'll probably get me into some trouble with the IND, but I don't want him to.  Because it is racist. Say what you will about Santa and his helpers, everybody knows elves aren't real.

I've always maintained that there are better things to get your panties into a twist about, and I do stand by that.  See:  child marriage, modern slavery, Texas.  But here I am, getting my patnies into a knot about it, because on the one hand I don't want my kid to be the one kid who ruins Sinterklaas for everybody, but at the same time, it's not a celebration I would weep over if it were to disappear next year.  It's especially tricky, because his father loves Sinterklaas and genuinely isn't racist (hell, he married me) but Karel is perhaps the only person who still remembers that it's Sint Nicolaas who is the ultimate arbitrator of the presents, and one of the few who isn't pathologically attached to Piet.

What makes it even harder is that I kinda like the tradition of writing a little poem and reading it aloud before opening the little present.  Putting your shoe in front of the fireplace--in our case, leaving a "key" outside our apartment door (yes, they sell keys for Sint and Piet in case you don't have a chimney)--is quaint and devestatingly cute.

I wish there was a way to separate the celebration from the icons.  I don't see much wrong with celebrating a saint's death--it is a bit morbid for my tastes, but kids in Catholic countries seem to do all right.  But why does Sint need a Piet?  Why the silly Sint report on the nightly news, with the made up drama about lost packages and boats sinking?  (No, there is no Santa report in the US)  Why does it matter so much that the Sint has his Piet?  The way I see it, that's the real question that needs answering.  And until someone can point me in the direction of a good answer, Sinterklaas in our place will be devoid of both a Sint and a Piet.

Back to the grindstone

So it took a while, but life has finally settled into a more-or-less pleasant rhythm with Rijntje, and I've been getting the blogging bug again.  I don't think I'll be updating quite as frequently as I used to, but with a new accountant, Vierdaagse pictures, and rediscovering the markt, there's quite a bit of material to work with.

I'll leave you with perhaps the best tip I've ever encountered about zucchini.  Alas, I ate everything before it occurred to me to take a photo of it, but I'll be sure to make the lemon-herbed zucchini again before the summer's out:  salt.

Zucchini (or courgettes) are deceptive:  you slice them open and they're nice and dry, but when you cook them they go from raw to stew in the space of minutes.  Harold McGee says that this is because all plants release water when their cell walls are broken down, and zucchini have more water than most.

So what you do before cooking zucchini is salt it.  Cut it into the size you want, and then put it in a bowl and sprinkle liberally with salt.  It might seem ridiculous, and it might seem terribly unhealthy, but after about an hour or so, you wash off most of the salt and all of the brine that's accumulated.  You probably won't be able to get all of it off, but odds are the dish you're making probably requires a smidge of salt anyway.  The end result is a zucchini that hits the sweet spot between tender and crunchy quickly and easily, and never ends in soup.  

Finger wags

I suppose I owe my readers an explanation as to where I've been for the past two weeks.  Then again, the picture of Rijntje in the last post ought to be sufficient.  Thing is, it hasn't been busy exactly, just that the time available isn't conducive to writing thoughtful blog posts about life in the Netherlands with cats.  My days have blurred into a mix of feeding the baby and getting as much stuff done in between the feeding sessions as possible.  Which is hard to do on the best of days, when Karel's around.  When he's not, well...peanuts count as a vegetable, don't they?

Not that I'm complaining.  Rijntje is one of the easiest babies ever--he's pretty mellow, content to sit in his carseat and watch me do stuff or play with him.   He's a good sleeper, too, falling asleep with a minimum of crying, provided that you catch him at the right stage of tiredness (tired, but not so tired he's wired again). There are days when nothing goes right, but more and more are the days when I'm on top of things and everything works out and the apartment is even clean.

Being on top of things means running errands, unfortunately.  And this is when I'm glad I've lived in Philly and have acquired ample experience ignoring people.  To understand this, you have to realize that, as part of our baby-stuff-buying, I bought an enormous Quinny from an older couple whose grandson had outgrown it.  (They, in turn, bought it from a woman whose child had outgrown it--there's a whole set of stuff floating around on Marktplaats that just gets passed around the country).  Said stroller is too big to lug up the stairs, so it stays in the basement storage unit, and I take it out for longer trips--the vet, or the Albert Heijn, or to the consultatiebureau (an upcoming post), or to town.  In other words, the trip has to be long enough to justify taking 10 minutes to wrangle the thing in and out while juggling a baby and the bags.  However, most of my errands are merely across the street, either to the DA for something like moisturizer or hair ties, or to the C1000, for groceries.  Not worth the effort of taking out the stroller, in other words.

So I stick Rijntje in the Moby and pull my ginormous maternity coat over both of us, and skedaddle across the street, get stuff, and skedaddle back.  And this is when I get the stares.

I'll confess that I hadn't ever paid much attention to how people transport babies earlier, but apparently wearing one in a wrap is a novel sight and every other person stops and gawks for a moment.  The friendlier ones coo and start up a conversation about kids.  The gereformeerd ones give you the stink eye and seem to want to lecture you about how you're abusing your child by wearing him.  No joke--on my last trip I kept running into an old woman who just kept scowling at me.

The funny thing is, wearing a baby isn't unknown in the Netherlands.  You have websites selling draagdoeken that are far more flamboyant than our modest navy-blue Moby.  Maternity magazines have glossy ads showing babies in slings and beaming parents.  I very much doubt that babywearing is so new that I'm the only one doing it, but I'm pretty sure that not living in the trendy part of town (or the part of town that can afford to be trendy, if it so desired) has something to do with it.  After all, not everybody is willing to drop €70 on a giant bedsheet.