Adventures in CaitLand

Okay, so we all know the book "No Good, Very Bad Day" right? So I left out the day of the VP dinner.

Cait buys bike bags and feels really cool because they are bright orange with pink flowers.
Cait buys ingredients to bake cake for VP dinner from Asian market.
Cait puts all ingredients on one side of bike bag, stops at light, and proceeds to fall over with bike on top of her.
Cait jumps back up with a new bruise, but a teethy grin - "I'm alright!" she shouts to no one in particular.
Cait goes to grocery store to find rest of cake ingredients.
Cait can't find cocoa powder. It does not exist. It is an important element of said cake. She calls sister in panic. Sister does not answer. She calls friend, JB in panic. JB leads her to cocoNUT things. "No!" she yells at kind and helpful friend - "Don't you know what cocoa powder is?"
Cait leaves store pissed off.
Cait drops lightbulbs she just purchased and breaks them.
Cait attempts to shove grocery bags in new bike bags, but they don't fit and bike falls over on Cait hard. New bruises, no teethy grin.
Cait drops grocery bag and the entire contents fall out on the sidewalk.
Little random girl laughs at Cait.
Cait yells at little random girl and then feels very bad.....but not bad enough to say she's sorry.
Cait has nervous breakdown, kicks the bike, yells a bad word, and gets another bruise.
Cait walks the bike home and has no time to bake cake.

So to follow the (ahem) burp story, it turns out that I got a huge case of food allergy/food poisoning that lasted longer than a lifetime. My tongue swelled up, and leaving out the gory details, it was the kind of sick where you can't sleep, you can't read, you can't do anything but sit in a lot of pain and feel reeeaaallll sorry for yourself. At that point, I wanted my Marme big time, and lo and behold - the phone kept ringing off the hook. Almost to the point where I needed it to STOP ringing. So here's the shout out to my peeps:

To J (my sis): Thanks for everything - the calling, the cleaning, the sunflowers, the medicine, the caring.
To BIL: Thanks for letting me tell you the gory details and being the brother I never had.
To Marme: Thanks for calling and caring and loving from far away.
To Papa: Thanks for calling and caring and loving from far away.
To JB: Thanks for calling every two hours b/c you are my best friend here, and you know you are the one I turn to in the time of need.
To my other friends: (sniff) I love you all - even though you didn't call. You just didn't know.

To add insult to injury, I was screamed at last night by the train conductor ticket puncher guy b/c I got on an international train. Oops! He decided to yell at me not once, but twice - and the second time he got in my face I calmly said "Does it make you feel better to yell at me? Because if so, please continue." His face turned about three shades of red, but then he just stopped and turned around in a huff. He was doing it just to embarrass me, but I was too tired to care. I'm just getting too old for these shenanigans ;)

The Gas We Pass...

Okay, by those of you who know me and love me - know my "hidden" secret. YES, I am lactose intolerant, and it's getting worse which possibly makes me the World's Gassiest Person. (sigh) The vice-president at J's company invited us over for a lovely dinner with her partner and her brother. They live in a fantastic house that looks like the model for every Crate & Barrel catalog with three huge dogs and not a dog hair in sight. We had some wine with dinner, and I am discovering that wine affects my level of stomach tolerance as well. After dinner was game time! My favorite time!! We played Taboo, and during my turn I open my mouth and the loudest, most disgusting burp reverberates off of the wall. What was even more embarrassing was the fact that it was so unexpected that it looked like I meant to just "let one out." It was the type of burp that exists in a room full of men hollering at a football game while drinking huge amounts of beer. It was the type of burp that doesn't actually come out of a woman's mouth, let alone a woman sitting at the dinner table of the vice-president of her sister's company.
Holy crap!
But I did redeem myself in a way.....I made the VP's partner laugh so loud that beer came out of her nose :)

I am including in this blog a picture of a package sent by my dear Papa to my sister. My father has never been one to master the art of wrapping - most of our Christmas and Birthday presents have been covered in newspaper or plastic bags, but this one takes the cake. If you look close enough, you will see the gift covered with masking tape wrapped around.....a hand towel. A hand towel. Papa, I must ask....was there a plethra of hand towels in your house? I mean, I guess it is more environmentally conscious to use what you have and not give into the world of bubble wrap. Ah, we love you - it made for some HI-larious laughter!

The Wells Girls at the Concertgebouw

Gay Pride

Man, oh man! Yesterday was crazy fun! I went to the Gay Pride Parade with a new friend who actually looks like George Michael which was fitting. At first I had to sit on his shoulders to be able to see, but then he found a guy he knew on one of the boats in the actual canal. We got to watch the parade from front row seats - so close to the boats that we could touch the people going by. It turned out the boat we were on was THE party boat - much drinking and dancing involved. Needless to say, I was dancing like crazy every time a boat would pass with loud music playing and somehow bruised up my legs so badly that I look like I have purple stumps for legs. The news boat kept filming our boat, so I think I was on the news yesterday! Oh yeah, and when I meet people, they just call me "Texas."
I guess I now represent the entire state :) Be afraid....be very afraid.

An Afternoon with An Important Person

So today I went to visit the only Dutch music contact I have over here. He is a retired singer and knows many people and is a very important person. He invited me over for coffee, so I dressed up in my nice (but not too nice) black wrap dress for our first meeting together. Yeeeeaaahhh....wrap dress + bike does not mix! It was too late for me to go back and change, so I steered with one hand while ever so ladylike and delicately bunching up the dress in the middle of the seat while holding it with all of my might. Of course braking proved to be a bit of an issue as well - I simply discovered that braking with one hand does NOT mean that the bike will actually stop. Awkward times. Not as bad as when I was with my friend Amanda and for no reason at all just
ever....
so....
slowly....
tipped to the left and completely fell with the bike on top of me.
Back to the dress - I found the man's apartment and stopped to park my bike, not knowing that he was standing directly in front of me parking his bike, and right at the moment that he looks up and recognizes me, a huge gust of wind comes by and there goes the dress. Way to make a first impression.
The next episode appeared in the actual house. Everything is going swimmingly, and he is offering much advice and help. I asked to use the restroom and it was up not only the typical steep, teeny, tiny, twisting Dutch stairs...there was no railing. Right....and I'm in heels. To climb the stairs, I had to actually put my hands on the steps to balance and pull myself up. Okay, fine because he is in the other room. However, to come back DOWN the stairs, I had to sit on each step and scoot my bottom down like the five-year-old kid on "The Sound of Music" who sings "the sun, has gone, to bed and so must I" and of course, he walks into the kitchen with the coffee pot right at that moment. My "scooting the butt" moment. I didn't know what to do. He kind of stopped and looked at me with a confused look upon his face.
(Sigh)
Good God...
I was "butt scooting" in the house of a very famous classical singer who has an entire bookshelf of performances that he has recorded over the last forty years.

Sunset on the Amsterdam Beach