VMDB

The August issue of the VMDB newsletter came today. The main theme was "Pills and Recovery"... I really did not feel like reading it and don't think I will be interested in reading it in the near future. So I cancelled my subscription, and that felt good, somehow...

HEATHER

Along the A27 the heather fields are blooming. It colours the area a beautiful dark pink/purple and brings a little spark to the boring drive home. I took this picture with my iPhone while driving, which explains the big ugly asphalt at the bottom and the slightly wiped image. I decided that later this week, I'll leave work early and take a long walk through the wonderful heather fields of the Zuider-, Wester- and Bussemerheide surrounding my school.

POUCH

A few years ago my dear friend Dr. S who lives in Perth travelled to Korea before paying a visit to her home country NL. She brought me this cute Korean pouch. It has been my iPod pouch since and I like it very much.

RELAX MAX

Over the summer break I downloaded Max Kristen's audiobook 'Relax Now', and last night I thought that would come in handy (fearing another insomniac night). Even though he looks a bit like a creep, Max' hypnotic 'guidance' either helped, or I was just too tired to care. Anyhow, I slept pretty good. I now find out he's got and ABC-Sleep app as well, perhaps that's even better...for "letting go...."

FIRST DAY BACK AT WORK

Today was my first day back at work. I learned that even with only a short 3-hour night following a week of poor sleep, I still function quite well. I have to admit that the absence of the 800 odd students normally running around in the building made things significantly more relaxed. It was a good day for a first day back at work: it rained cats and dogs all day. Stormy winds blew over Anne Frank's chestnut tree.

On the way home I drove by my new house, to get a feel for the new commute starting in a few weeks. Something small as taking a different exit feels relieving...., because it is different and, I guess, symbolizes a fundamental change in my life. This new perspective on the town I lived in for 14 years excites me. 

MOUTARDE VIOLETTE DE BRIVE

This is the purple/brown mustard I had the other day. The best known and perhaps only producer of this kind of mustard is Maison Denoix. It gets the purple colour from adding grape must to black mustard seeds and many other ingredients. I wonder whether Goeie Louisa has her own violet mustard recipe or just opens up a Denoix jar...

APT. + MOESTUIN

Yeah! I signed the contract for my new apartment. It is tiny, but it is cute and it is mine. I will move in three weeks from now and have started packing already.

This morning, my dear friend S. took me to De Moestuin: a beautiful bio/eco garden with greenhouses, a lunch-cafe and a shop where veggies, fruits and herbs are grown, served and sold. It is a lovely and peaceful place just outside of town and very close to my new apartment. I will definitely go there again soon. De Moestuin also provides in re-integration day jobs for people who have been out of the working process for a while. Would have been a great place for Mr. to have started working and set up a daily rhythm...

I took these pic's with my iphone, as most pictures for this blog.

NO COMMENT

Mr. left this morning. I feel empty, exhausted, alone, my eyes hurt and my head hurts from crying. I do not know what to write.

MESSAGES IN A BOTTLE

Today was Mr.'s last day at home and our last day together. The day began with a UPS courier picking up 9 carton boxes that contain Mr.'s life. My parents came over for coffee around 11am. Then Mr. set up Time Machine on my computer using my new and pretty LaCie by Starck hard drive as back up. My MacBook had become extremely slow as a result of running out of space. It was bothering Mr. more than me, and I guess this was something he wanted to take care of before leaving. While time machine was running we went to town to run a few last errands. We then had a wonderful late lunch in the peaceful courtyard of Grand Hotel Karel V's brasserie Goeie Louisa. This is were we spend our wedding night and celebrated our 2nd anniversary last April 18th. A memorable place, to say the least. The homemade 'bitterballen' came with violet musterd. I've never seen or tasted that kind of musterd before and I will find out what it exactly was. Mr. had his best burger ever in NL, ironically the day before he goes back to the US. This was not the kind of burger he'll have over there though: the brasserie shares the kitchen with the Michelin star Karel V restaurant, so imagine that burger... When we came home we decided to read the 'messages in a bottle'. This bottle contained personal messages from our dear group of friends we met almost 10 years ago when studying at UF. Each couple that marries, receives such a bottle on their wedding day. The bottle is meant to be opened on the couple's 12,5th wedding anniversary. Since it is clear we are not going to make that, we decided to open the bottle after 2 years and almost 4 months. The messages were sweet. They did not make us cry, they did make us smile and think about good times. Thanks gators!  


And then we held, talked, laughed, cried (me) and went to sleep. 

CHALK

Chalk art in my garden by Julian (3 yrs), his sister Isabel (2 yrs) and Pepijn (1 yr). The kids lightened up another sad goodbye.

- Posted from my iPhone

WIESEN

Tonight we had dinner with my sister Jm and her hubby D. They are very upset about the divorce and mostly sad about the fact that 'tio topo' is leaving for the US. Jm was my maid of honor and D was Mr.'s best men, so it must be especially painful for them to see this marriage failing so soon after the wedding. We had dinner at a new restaurant WIESEN in their hometown Eindhoven. They served delicious food and wines and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Mr. says I have become a food snob over the last few years and he is right I am afraid (all due to his master-chef cooking!), but this dinner was a real treat. Besides the culinary aspect, we spent a lovely and memorable last evening with Jm&D.

GOODBYE TOUR

Our goodbye-tour has come to an end. The last two weeks, and especially the last few evenings we have visited family and friends for last get-togethers. After all Mr. and I are not only saying goodbye to each other, he is also saying goodbye to his NL life for 8 years and to all his friends and family who he has grown very attached to (and vice versa!). The goodbye-tour has been good for us, for me at least, in many ways. It has also been exhausting and very very sad. Tomorrow we have some more friends coming over for last goodbye drinks and then... Monday, the last day. We intend to spend Monday together. This is really hard.

CASA CURACAO

Casa Curaçao was sold within weeks. Yesterday, the 'for sale' sign on the front window was covered with a 'sold' sticker. It is visible, it is real! October 1st I have to be out of here. I will start packing soon. As soon as Mr. is gone.

- Posted from my iPhone

JAPI(E)

One of my favourite stories, a jewel in Dutch literature is De Uitvreter by Nescio from 1918. In the beginning of the story the main character, the Uitvreter Japi, spends hours sitting at the waterfront in the village of Veere in Zeeland. At the end of the story Japi commits suicide by stepping of the railway bridge over the Waal river by Nijmegen. I thought about Japi quite a lot this week: last Saturday Mr and I walked along the waterfront in Veere and tonight we had dinner in Nijmegen overlooking the river Waal and the bridge. Both times it rained and bulky grey clouds made (mid-)day appear like dusk. The water reminded me of Japi's big blue eyes. And then I had to think of Japie: I named my first car, a matte light blue Volvo 240 DL from the early 80's, Japie, after the frat boy Jaap who sold it to me for $1000.

PACKING

Mr. started packing yesterday and was done in three hours. We still need to decide who gets the wedding album.


- Posted from my iPhone

NEW NAME

I changed my blog's name from Dutch Divorcee to THE JANSEN STRATEGY. This title is much better as this blog is about me and my approach to life in the broadest sense of the word. This approach can be summarized as the Jansen Strategy: an effective and rather practical though somewhat illogical method to go about things. It is a scientifically meaningless and seemingly random approach, with unexpected twists and turns driven by subjective, and possibly inconsistent desires. The Jansen Strategy is named after the playing strategies (or rather lack of strategies) used years ago by the two alfa Jansen Sisters during a game of RISK, that left their two beta partners startled because their play made absolutely no sense, but the Jansen Sisters conquered the world anyway... ("Where is the logic in that!?") Good night!

GRASSHOPPER

There are two grasshoppers in my bedroom, a small one and a slightly bigger one. They have been sitting on the wall since yesterday. They are the bright, almost fluorescent green type. I ate deep fried grasshoppers once, they were served on a bed of lettuce... The grasshopper on the picture here is French, he was huge and sat on a shopping window in a provencal village last summer. Last week there was a grasshopper on my car's side mirror. We were going 120K/h down the highway and he was desperately clinging on to the mirror. I'd like to think that the small grasshopper in my bedroom is the same one, he made it all the way back home and hopped into the house, into my bedroom.

MTTHS

To put things in perspective: instead of choosing to leave the person you love, you can be losing your beloved to cancer. Yesterday I received the terrible news that the wise oncologists of Rotterdam do not have a treatment plan anymore for my dear friend I's hubby MTTHS. I can really not imagine how difficult and intensely sad this must be for the two of them.

DIVORCE ADMIN

Today Mister and I dealt with 'divorce admin': cancel his medical insurance, changed our joint bank account into an individual account for me, cancel his mobile phone service, signed paperwork for the mortgage investment policy, made an appointment with a notary's office to legalize Mr.'s signature (so I am authorized to sign the transaction papers of our house in his absence), filled out a form to unregister Mr. as a citizen of the beautiful city of Utrecht. This was a reality check. It all went pretty smooth though and ticking these boxes on the to-do-before-mr-leaves-for-the-US-list is satisfying as well.

PLUMS

As I am still in the making of this blog, a little about the use of plum purple: the colour scheme of this blog was inspired by plums. Last week, just a few days before I started this blog, I made a delicious plum tart combining a recipe from The Italian Dish with a Julia Child original (applesauce spread from her tarte aux pommes recipe (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I, p. 635). I love plums and I love their colours. I love the word 'plum', it sounds rich and voluptuous. Mister would say it sounds like a turd hitting the water...

WORDLE

I like WORDLE, it is simple and pretty and makes me feel as if I've got design talent. I will use it in the fall with my students and put their wordles up on display. Unfortunately once wordles are done, there's not much you can do with them, but print or create a link to the public gallery. They're kind of over protected. Goes against the idea of digital design in my opinion... Click on the image for a larger view.

DESIGN CALENDAR

Design Sponge started celebrating its 5th anniversary about a year ago with cheerful calendars/wallpapers for DS lovers to download. I only now find out, but with a bit of 'Jansen creativity' I can turn these designs into a 2011 calendar!

HIT ME

It is starting to hit me that MISTER, my big love for 10 years, is actually moving back to the US next week and that I will be by myself. I can't define what I am feeling, I wouldn't know where to start. It feels pretty shitty though.

IN THERAPIE

No not me, at least not now. Currently my only MUST SEE television show: 'In Therapie' based on the Israeli 'Be Tipul' and the American 'In Treatment'. I follow therapist Paul and his patients in a fascinating development of story lines. Five days a week for six weeks, on television and twitter. Characters have their own twitter accounts, great! Dutch production has amazing actors, such as Carice van Houten and Jacob Derwig.