Tanja in the Oval Office

President Josiah (Jed) Bartlet

Lately, I have been confused about American politics. Oh yes of course, you say, it’s easy to mix it all up, when you think about the Health Bill that was adopted last Saturday by the House of Representatives. Actually, that’s not why I am confused. I am confused because I am addicted to the West Wing. I am a few years late, but – for the younger people among us – 10 years ago, the West Wing was a wildly successful TV show about life in the Oval Office. It was on the air for 7 seasons straight! And I have been a huge fan ever since I started watching it. The president on the West Wing – his name is Jed Bartlet – is a smart democrat, the opposite of everything W. ever was. President Bartlet is extremely politically correct and integer. I feel virtuous merely by watching him! But recently, I have been watching too many West Wing episodes. So many that I almost started to believe that the American president’s name is Jed Bartlett.

Number One

Today was a special day for me. Annelien opened our mail this morning and discovered a pretty gold and blue ribbon. It said: 1^st Place! TDC (that’s my office nickname) is the fastest woman! Well, uhm, it all depends of course on the group that’s running with you. I am not exactly the fastest woman on earth. Only the fastest woman of a bunch of …snails on the Big Sur Marathon. Actually, we did the out-and-back 5 mile track. It was incredibly hot and steep and beautiful. In my age category – I am not exactly the youngest of the pack anymore – I finished first! Annelien was running in her own age category with a gang of bio-dynamic Bollywood aerobics teachers.

My performance was entirely – or at least in a very large part – due to my streamlined sunglasses. Originally, when I bought them a hundred years ago, they were intended as ski sunglasses. They make me look like a big human bumble-bee and they make me run superfast. I never achieved similar successes in my short lived ski career though. But as Frank L Wright said (I just heard it on the radio, while I was typing away): “The older you get, the more beautiful life becomes.”

After the run, we washed up in the creek and drove to a bar with a deck stuck on the hill and had an amazing view of the ocean. Annelien and bumble-bee finally took some rest. We had to stay alert though, because the waiter warned us: “Watch out for the birds, because they will take your food immediately!”

Into The Woods

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau

We decided to drop out of society for a weekend, Thoreau-like. We packed our bags and hit the road. Up to Big Basin, where we would spend the weekend with friends, but without electricity or running water. On this picture, you can see that Annelien is carrying a huge bag. Mine was even bigger; we felt like llamas. Our bags were stuffed with indispensable outdoor equipment and supplies: freeze dried scrambled eggs, a real goose down camping pillow (Annelien made me put it back though), very practical head lamps, and more of that fun stuff.



My camera was not in my giant backpack though, so I can’t show you my pictures. I’ll summarize the weekend for you: We had an amazing hike through the woods, we set up camp near wonderful waterfalls, cooked our yucky meals on our friend’s little stove and had “Happy Camper” wine and great conversations that only the redwoods and woodpeckers overheard. It was a wonderful weekend! And in the end, we decided to return to society, with the sound of butterflies still in our ears.

Pimpin' My Ride

Two weeks ago, we took our bikes to Berkeley Hills. Annelien's book 'Biking in California' promised an ‘easy to moderate’ ride (the author gave it a 2 on a scale of 5, a ride for whimps in other words). After an hour, we took our first break on a hilltop. The view was amazing, we could see the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge covered in a mysterious fog and then again uncovered. We couldn't wait to continue our trip along the Wildcat Canyon Trial. The name alone sounded so unbelievably promising. We marveled about the author of ‘Biking in California’. What an exceptional person, that she had discovered this incredible trail. After 2 hours and many uphill battles, we still liked the writer, but began to question her judgment. After 3 hours and numerous awfully steep hills (we were afraid to ride off the hills, so you can imagine how steep they were), we started to hate the author of the book. What a bitch! How inaccurate was her stupid guide! Jeez. And one more hour later, we knew it for sure, that crazy woman had written a guide for Lance Armstrong and her difficulty assessment was meant for folks who are selected for the Olympic Team. Ugh!

That's when I decided that I needed to pimp my ride!

As you can see, my bike is now proudly sporting a new bell and rearview mirror – the new chic in San Francisco.

Annelien was even more thorough. She decided just some extra grooming was not good enough. She got herself a whole new bike. According to her, it’s the best in the world.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Until very recently, Annelien was in a loving, committed relationship with her iPhone. Then, all of a sudden, things turned sour. The iPhone (covered in a nice green skin that she bought on eBay) was sitting in her purse with a small bottle of water when she went to the public library at the Civic Center. As we discovered, an iPhone can get two drops of water and then it breaks down, forever. The relationship between Annelien and her iPhone ended in the worst possible way. They are not on speaking terms anymore. And now she also hates her in-laws at the Apple company, because they were so unforgiving and harsh about the two drops. Annelien asked me to be her divorce lawyer and since I am studying for the Bar exam, I felt sufficiently qualified to represent her in this delicate affair. The break-up was painful and yet, Annelien is in a much better place now. Life is worth living without the iPhone. She now has time to go on walks and talk to the neighbors. And no one breaks down when there is a drop of rain or two.

Wooden House

Until recently, Annelien assumed our downstairs neighbor had a very active sex life, especially during lunch time. When she worked from home, she would hear strange noises around noon. A lot of Ooohs! and Aaaaahs! would be audible from our apartment. We live in a wooden house that has 2 units. We live in the upstairs unit and our neighbor lives downstairs. We share a garden deck, a garage and a hot tub. And a lot of noise. San Francisco has a lot of wooden houses, so moving elsewhere is not really a good alternative and anyway, we really like the place where we live. However, I felt a bit uneasy when I heard about the neighbor’s lunch time activities. All that noise, every day. We were a bit surprised, because our neighbor doesn’t look like a womanizer. But after investigating the situation, we discovered that he has a pool table in his living room. He brings his friends over for lunch and they play pool and they yell “Oooh man!”, “Aaaah!”, “OMG!”.

Legal In Vermont

Here are some ads that made me laugh out loud. Or to say it in other words: they are really kewl! [For the folks who - unlike me - don't speak urban slang: Kewl = Cool]

Dirty Hands

In California, signs everywhere say: “Clean hands lead to good health”. Every morning when I arrive at my desk at eBay, I go to the kitchen and pick up some wipes from a huge box of Lysol ® (“Lysol. Disinfect to protect”) and start the recommended cleaning of my phone and desk. Who would have thought I was in a high risk profession? We use enormous amounts of soap and then gigantic amounts of hand cream to beat the most aggressive germs. The way I used to wash my hands is nothing compared to our professional hand washing these days. Now we wash our hands before we wash our hands and after we have washed our hands. And according to some very reliable sources, that’s why we are in such great health.

Move over, alligator!

Friday night, we went to our friend Amy’s graduation party at her parents’ house. They live in the East Bay and we left our cozy house and crossed the Bay Bridge to get there. We were driving peacefully through the hills of Pleasant Hill until the Highway Patrol all of a sudden stopped us. As a kid, though my parents didn’t allow me to watch much TV, I knew and loved the Chips Highway Patrol officers. This Chips-like officer looked more serious and I was afraid to get a ticket or, God forbid!, lose my license. He asked me to roll my window down. I remembered my Miranda rights and laughed sheepishly at the officer, hoping that would show our good intent. I felt even more sheepish when he shouted through his megaphone that I had left the gas cap open.

Stimulus Weekend in Napa Valley

Anneliens sympathieke ouders, Herman en Marianne, hadden wat ontspanning nodig na 6 drukke maanden in Boston. We namen hen mee naar een wine tasting in de chateaux van Napa Valley, the perfect excuse om in het midden van de dag al te pintelieren. Je waant je in de jaren '50, toen het nog bon ton was om te ontbijten met een flinke whisky on the rocks. We leven nu echter in 2009 en onze generatie kan duidelijk niet mee met de vorige generaties. Nadat Annelien en ik aan een paar glaasjes hadden genipt, lieten we de ouders achter bij het zwembad en reden wij op onze fietsjes door Napa Valley.

Very strange dog

I wonder what kind of dog lives behind this fence. If it would have been a really strange dog, the sign might have said "super strange dog" or "extremely strange dog" or "the strangest dog you've ever seen".

Californians loooove superlatives. When the bag says that the chips are lightly salted, they are heavily salted, but just slightly less than the really salty stuff. Californians yell 'I loooove you' and they mean 'hi there, how are you, what's your name again?' Despite all the stereotypes, we love the Californians – not as in “I loooooove you” but really as in “Je t’aime”.