World News: Nederlands Editie

So I'm here bored out of my mind but too tired and lonely to bother moving. I typed "Ik mis Nederland" (I miss the Netherlands) into Google and ended up at the website of De Telegraaf, where I found this:

Wildplasser krijgt bloempot vol op het hoofd

Een inwoner van Wommels is gewond geraakt toen hij een bloempot op zijn hoofd kreeg. De man werd door een 30-jarige bewoonster van een woning aan de Gedempte Haven betrapt, toen hij stond te urineren.

Here's the rough translation:

Wildpisser gets flowerpot on the head

A resident of Wommels was wounded when he got hit by a flowerpot on his head. The man was caught while he stood urinating by a 30 year old resident of Gedempte Harbour.

That in itself may not seem too funny to you, but the Dutch word "wildplasser" always cracked me up!

To My Girlfriends

Thanks Kerry S.

To My Girlfriends

A young wife sat on a sofa on a hot humid day, drinking iced tea and visiting with her Mother. As they talked about life, about marriage, about the responsibilities of life and the obligations of adulthood, the mother clinked the ice cubes in her glass thoughtfully and turned a clear, sober glance upon her daughter. "Don't forget your girlfriends," she advised, swirling the tea leaves to the bottom of her glass. "They'll be more important as you get older. No matter how much you love your husband, no matter how much you love the children you'll have, you are still going to need girlfriends. Remember to go places with them now and then; do things with them. And remember that "girlfriends" are not only your friends, but your sisters, your daughters, and other relatives too. You'll need other women. Women always do."

"What a funny piece of advice," the young woman thought. "Haven't I just gotten married? Haven't I just joined the couple-world? I'm now a married woman, for goodness sake! -- a grownup. Surely my husband and the family we'll start will be all I need to make my life worthwhile!" But she listened to her Mother; she kept contact with her girlfriends and made more each year. As the years tumbled by, one after another, she gradually came to understand that her Mom really knew what she was upon a woman, girlfriends are the mainstays of her life. After almost 50 years of living in this world, here is what I've learned:

Times passes.

Life happens.

Distance separates.

Children grow up.

Love waxes and wanes.

Hearts break.

Careers end.

Jobs come and go.

Parents die.

Colleagues forget favors.

Men don't call when they say they will.

BUT girlfriends are there, no matter how much time and how many miles are between you. A girlfriend is never farther away than needing her can reach. When you have to walk that lonesome valley, and you have to walk it for yourself, your girlfriends will be on the valley's rim, cheering you on, praying for you, pulling for you, intervening on your behalf, and waiting with open arms at the valley's end. Sometimes, they will even break the rules and walk beside you. Or come in and carry you out. My mother, sister, sister-in-law, "sisters," extended family, and friends bless my life! The world wouldn't be the same without them, and neither would I. When we began this adventure called womanhood, we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each
other. Every day, we need each other still.

Pass this on to other women in your life... I just did.

Long hours are good sometimes

Tonight I realised I actually welcome the long hours. I realised that as long as I can come in after 10:00 am, I'm fine with staying in. The later I can sleep, the later I can manage at work. There's a sense of comraderie in being able to compare the times we all leave down there. Mind you some of the paginators and graphic artists don't reach home until after 1:00 am but I've got a lot of them beat because while they don't usually come in until after 12 noon, on Monday and Tuesdays I'm at 9:00 am slaving on the page. But I really have started not to mind. The sheer satisfaction in seeing your page come to life as the paginators work their magic with the software is exhilarating. It's a drug, I'm actually happy my pages are spread across three days of the week.

The funny thing is though, although I've been bunkered down until after 7:00 pm at work most nights (Tuesday was until 10:30 am) someone apparently thinks that I've been all smiles and happy since J left on Sunday. Since this came up yesterday I've been wondering who saw me because I've only see other staff down at Beechwood... obviously they missed it when I burst into tears in the SAJ parking lot after seeing the people my Mom used to work with, and they weren't there when someone at work showed me an album with pictures of my mother when she was probably younger than I am now all smiles, head wrapped up colourfully, somewhere in Barbados... but "mouth mek fi talk" as Jas says his grandma told him.

Right now I'm relaxing, my Harry Potter is here, I'm wrapping up a great Amanda Quick--just found another one in the Lee's Rx bookstore, which made up for the cashier being quite rude--and I'm looking forward to getting my FIRST ever bucket seat put in next week. They're something I've always dreamed of having but never good afford. So thanks to Basil for a great deal! *two thumbs way up*

On Thursday I'd gone by the columbarium where my Mom's ashes are and all the orchids are dying. I dipped the green pots in the water fountain but I don't think that will help. The corner where she is looks so dark... tomorrow morning I plan to leave early enough so that I can go and get a lot of flowers to place there before I go into work. I'm also going to get a nice picture frame that should be able to withstand some sun and rain and I'm going to put a picture of the two of us in it and set it in the corner. As much as I love having somewhere to go--because many people don't have places where their loved ones are laid to rest--I also dread going, it reaffirms that it's final. She's gone... God, someone even said to me on Wednesday down at SAJ, "Bwoy is like everytime I see you, I see your Mommy." I wanted to just toss my glass away and just howl. I miss her so much.

• Mood:calm-the house is cool & quiet

Work, work...

Is it possible to suffer from burn out at week three? I certainly think so. Yesterday we got done with TA 1h4 45 mins earlier than we did last week. But then on my way out I got extra work to do in addition to DGS... last night I stopped off at Golden Bowl and treated myself to some soup and fried wontons (while the traffic ran off) and then came in and took a shower. I'm going to have to take an active approach to making sure I get down time. So yesterday I just relaxed watched 54 on TV, saw the ad for MTV's Sweet Sixteen and read for a little then went to bed. J called me later in the night and we had a nice talk and then it was back to bed. Unfortunately though for some reason I woke up this morning with a bitch headache. I'm guessing it's because the pillow flattened out a whole lot last night but oh well, I'll just grab two painkillers and take them with me to work.

Well time to grab my tea and go join the traffic... Oh but before I go, today's ODB had a really cool saying -- at least for me anyway -- at the bottom Tact is the ability to make a point without making an enemy. Okay, I'm really gone now...

• Mood:cranky bcuz of headache

What kinds of books do you like?

I'm a big historical romance buff... but I like the witty ones, not just beau meets belle and he's into her bodice like that and next thing you know they're married and she's pregnant with his heir apparent. My favorite historical romance authors are: Jude Deveraux, Julie Garwood, Catheringe Coulter and Nora Roberts.

They all write great contemporary romance novels as well. Roberts is especially great writing as JD Robb. She has a "In Death" series with a futuristic cop Eve Dallas that's really smart, sassy and edgy. The other day when I was scanning the bookshelf here at the house I snagged an Amanda Quick book and fell in love with it only to find out that AQ is a psuedonym for Jude Deveraux! I stormed through all the Quick paperbacks and after tossing aside an Amanda Scott, I settled on Jo Beverley. And man can she write. Her Malloren series -- and I love series, the Montgomeries are my favorite! -- but yes, her Mallorens are amazing and not at all conventional, which gives some wonderful twists to the historical romance genre.

Let's see, I'm also a HUGE Anne Rice fan. I'm kind of in stasis at the moment. On one hand I felt that the end to the Vampire Chronicles left me hanging but then I also understand that there's not much further she could've gone. Lestat had almost come full circle, it's like he could see himself in Quinn, young, brash, arrogant, gorgeous, vampiric and troubled... hmmm, I think it's time for me to visit her website again and see what's happening.

And of course, I love Harry Potter. I mean how could I not? This is not a badnwagon thing for me, I've always been a fan of British boarding school stories since I was younger. I think I've read virtually every one Enid Blyton ever wrote. Now THERE'S an authoress I adored growing up... I think my imagination was too good at times because I'd get really sad that I couldn't go off and have adventures like the children in her stories.

Um, oh Sydney Sheldon and James Patterson also deserver mention... and I like what I've read of Dan Brown so far. I also went through a Michael Chriton (sp?) phase and I managed "Caribbean" and "Hawaii" by James Mitchner when I was about 15 or 16 years-old.

Ahhh I think I'll cut this here for now... this is a really long entry :-)

• Mood:calm and sedate
• Music:i realize i don't really listen to that much music anymore

ODB tidbit for today

This last part of today's Bible reading caught my eye

Romans 8:38 - For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That's a strong link isn't it? Especially when you think about the things that we let separate us from other people like race, where you're from, what school you went to, whether you shop at Walmart or somewhere 'better'...

Well I'm off to work in a couple minutes. I have another edition that I'm going to be responsible for that rolls off today. This is my first time doing it so *fingers crossed* The person who was doing it before is going to sit and walk through the process with me so I should be okay :-)

• Mood:expectant, this should go ok

Still can't shake...

... those last two hours. Today everything ran over until almost 7:00 pm. Just when you think you have everything under control and going along smoothly you realise that you're missing a bunch of pictures that could seriously derail your edition. Then you have to wait on them... then the printer doesn't want to work, talk about snowball. But thanfully Tim (the paginator assigned to TA) was very patient with me today and we got everything rolled off eventually. *whew*

So now I'm just going to check up on some eBay and Paypal matters and then head back upstairs to finish watching a movie with J. I knew his three weeks here were going to go by quickly but this has just been ridiculous. And since he's not confirmed to come back at the beginning of September I really am starting to feel down about the whole thing. Oh, add PMS to that mix. I think I better make sure that I go to bed early tonight so I'm in a decent frame of mind for tomorrow!

• Mood:mentally exhausted

We've made MSNBC

This one is definitely too long to copy and paste, it's a two-pager on MSN.

Jamaica braces for Hurricane Emily’s wrath

After ravaging Grenada, storm expected to pass island Saturday morning

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8547218/

• Mood:what hapens if they call me in

On the J-O-B

Feels so nice to be back up here, especially now that it's in an official category. I've actually got my own desk, computer, phone and filing cabinet. So I don't have to share a login with my old editor anymore, which works out great because we both can't be on the server at the same time and with my increased workload that might have started to cut into her work time and I really don't want to hinder anyone.

Hurricane Emily is set to brush the south coast of the island tomorrow afternoon so we advised the TA writers not to come in. I wouldn't want to tell anybody's pickney to come out of them yard and den them go get wash weh and you hear my name call!

• Mood:accomplished

Today's Interesting News

Brazilian bandits pull off big boob job

More than 400 breast implants nipped from postal service van

Updated: 6:59 p.m. ET July 12, 2005

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Armed bandits in Brazil robbed a vehicle carrying more than 400 breast implants, officials said Tuesday.

“It happened last week, but we only learned about it recently as our clients started complaining. It is the hottest period of the year in terms of implant sales,” said Margaret Figueiredo, director of silicone implant manufacturer Silimed.

A spokesman for the state postal service confirmed that assailants, apparently men, robbed the postal van with implants Thursday night in Rio de Janeiro. Each Silimed breast implant costs nearly $400.

The popularity of Brazil’s plastic surgery pioneer and trendsetter Ivo Pitanguy, whose clients include celebrities such as Sophia Loren, has made the tropical country one of the leading international nip and tuck venues.

Figueiredo explained demand is the highest in July, during the southern hemisphere winter, as women schedule surgery during the winter school holidays, which precede the beach season.

Figueiredo said the implants, each bearing an individual number, could now only be sold for clandestine surgeries. Horrific stories abound in Brazil about the illegal operations, which can cause gangrene and death.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8556473/

Not knowing when...

Hebrew 9:27-28

²⁷Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Just a part of the passage from today's Our Daily Bread that caugt my eye. The devotion was talking about two young girls that were sure of their belief in Jesus Christ and their place in heaven and that they had just affirmed this belief--one on the way home from a children's event and the other at her church--then a fire swept through their home the next morning killing them both. Thank goodness you really only have to die once, it would be hard to live through multiple "not knowing when you're going" feelings; it's hard enough not knowing when you're going to go this one time we do have.

Answers with no questions

Today's Our Daily Bread reminded me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything was 42 but unless I missed something we never really did get the question. So ODB for today was discussing a similar tendency in Christians to give prepackaged answers to non-believers without really listening to what they would like to know. To drive home the point they used the example of, when someone scrawled the words "Christ is the answer!" on the side of a building. A cynical passerby added these words: "What is the question?"

You have to admit that's kinda funny isn't it?

• Mood:settling down to work

Still Going At It

I just looked at the clock and realized that it's minutes to 1am and I haven't finished editing all the articles for Tuesdays section much less even begun to make the changes on the documents on my laptop. (I hard copy edit with a pen first and then make the changes on the various documents.) This is just a break to clear my head. Not to mention my thumb hurts like hell now but hey, this is what I get for typing this much...

• Mood:tired

A Couple Miles Good

No one can tell me that I didn't do at least 5 miles worth of walking on the editorial floor of the Observer yesterday. I know it was probably more than that, but 5 miles seems a good place to start. Yesterday was my first day as a new coordinator at the Observer and the writers for the section--who come in droves on Saturday to write their various pieces and meet together--definitely put me to work.

And I didn't mind in the least.

This new job is going to be alot of work, I see that from now but it will be fun and challenging with something different every week. It's going to be hard taking of from the previous coordinator if only because the writers have become so attached to him and I'm sure quite a few of the writers see me as nothing more than a usurper. I take comfort in knowing that I was one of the original writers involved in this section when it was first expanded from 2 to 6 pages and took up residence in the Tuesday Observer. So I know where they're coming from and I see my job as trying to help them make this product not only number one, but so strong that all others will be used as papier mache :-)

• Mood:exhausted but in a good way

So much for family

So I come down this morning to see 'London Terror' on CNN. Jason's a sleep and none of these people here had the decency to say to me, 'Kim, call your Aunt Pat and your cousin Laura to see if they're okay.' I mean they do live in London and all. Other family members can call to say they've spoken to their brothers and they're okay but no one thinks of my Aunt and cousin? You know what, I think I expect too much, my mom is dead and all, so their ties with her family are cut, 'till death do us part' was the vow. And it's only after I'm complaining to my mother-in-law on the phone how nobody don't ask me anything that I do infact hear some commentary on the situation. Now of course I can't get through, there's a hurricane coming so that means the lines are jammed anyway and then now with this it's like 9/11 all over again, phone lines jammed solid. *sigh* I went upstairs and woke J and he's definitely concerned--this is why I married him, we're very like-minded--but anyway, I think I'll take his advice to 'stay calm' because right now my heart is racing a mile a minute and this doesn't feel good at all.

• Mood:scared, i need to reach my fam

I love you more than fry dumpling

I think this is a statement only a Jamaican could make :-) J' sure knows how to cheer me up and make me laugh even when I'm hopping mad at him!

Well time to sit out this downgraded hurricane that's skirting just north of the island... and there's so much I wanted to get done today, oh well.

Hurricane Dennis

I had to ask my friend Dennis in Holland is what we do him so why he had to send this hurricane down onto Jamaica *rofl* Sometime within the next 24 hours Hurricane Dennis should be passing to the north of Jamaica. So we're in batten down mode here. Just got back from dinner at Dragon Court with J, my father and his girlfriend. We took them to dinner to celebrate me getting a 1 year contract at The Jamaica Observer but truth be told it didn't feel like much of a celebration to me--kept thinking about what it would be like if my mother was there.

Putting the finishing touches the newsletter we're sending out to family and close friends for our first anniversary. J brought down this picture of us from back in 1998 at either the quarter or semifinals for the Pulse Faces of Summer fashion show. This one is going on the front page with the piece entitled "Before they became the Andersons."

And then on the last page with the piece titled "The First Year and Beyond" we're going to put these two pictures from the dexterity on Sunday gone. :-)

• Mood:long day, can't wait for bed
• Music:rain, hurricane coming

Dex30 #4

The Jamaica Millenium Motoring Club (JMMC) Dexterity #4 was today out at Vernam Field in Clarendon. Honestly, last night when I got in at 3am I did not want to run at all... don't get me wrong, I wanted to go. I definitely wanted Basil to leave me drive Thunder (his killer Nissan s12 240sx!) down to Vernam and even back to Kingston, but the Lord knows I didn't want to actually take part in the dex30.

Why? Well my first JMMC dex30 was when I got the news about J's stepfather and proceeded to do one run and have the slowest time of the day. I was mortified. I mean I'm a Leo, we never place last! *strangled sob* So when Max started spitting power steering fluid all over the engine bay at the Palisadoes practice and then when the driver's seat broke later that night I said, "Yes Lord! I can kick back, leave J be Basil's second driver in Thunder and just chill!"

Right. Neither J nor Basil were having that and this morning found us in Liguanea at a garagde getting the drivers seat welded back together. Power steering fluid was bought and J said he's drive Max because he was strong enough to handle the lapses were the power steering chipped out. So I was going to be Basil's second driver. Now I love driving Thunder, that car is amazing, so don't get me wrong.... it's the thought of all the people, the track, the tyres and the cones that were making my stomach clench. To top it off we get there once the dex30 had already started so there was no chance of walking the course. It was similar to the previous one but so I figured I could get it but J had never done a dex30 here much less even been to Vernam Field, which is why he DNFed his first run... it's hard to see what the whole long course looks at from the officials tent.

So I proceed to embarass myself in fantastic fashion :-S I pull up to the line (it's a box with 4 cones at the corners and then the starter places a stick with a green flag attached to position you at the top of the box). All I remember is the flag being moved and hearing someone yell, "LAUNCH!" and the next thing I was barelling around the first tyre... however, like my MSN nickname says, apparenty you need a countdown and not just the flag out of the way and somebody yelling "launch!" :D

They called me back and Larry, whose on the JMMC board, explained to me that I'm only supposed to listen to the starter, not people in the crowd--turns out it was Basil shouting--and then asks the starter to come to my side of the car (LHD versus the RHD we normally have in Jamaica) and that I'm not to start unless the starter says so. Once again I'm glad that I'm brown-skinned because if I was white you would've been able to see me blushing from a mile away!

I managed to get the starting bit right and it went really well. I was by no means anywhere near the championship 10 but I improved my time on every run, didn't DNF and I didn't hit any cones... got some applause from the crowd when I managed to successfully handbrake the car around a turn and yeah, I got to drive Thunder back to Kingston :-D

I'm DEFINITELY running in the next one!