Chronicles Continued

This beautiful performance space has some of the best acoustics. The building housing this space sits on a corner in Amsterdam, ‘down-the-street’ from the Rijksmuseum.

This is what I saw and heard. Have a listen

Heard it from the mother of a doctor, read it in print. The Netherlands has a higher number of deaths during the C-virus due to making the decision to let people die. If one is sick and there is no statistical chance of getting better, rather than go through all the machinations of trying to save/heal the person, they have a discussion with the family and the patient is put in palliative care for their final days. At first it sounded like a ‘Trump directive’ but the mother/article explained that the situation has to be terminal and this is a no resusciation order. Good reason to keep one’s health at a high. Also a Dutch specialist said that overweight and diabetic is the reason for 80% of the deaths. Eat the kale, salad and those veggies!

Nothing short of… This rental year purchased an electric kettle from England [came with an alternative wall plug, didn’t think of that at the time]. The motivation: electric is more energy efficient to heat water than a kettle/or pan on the gas-fired-stove. Have been delighted with the all glass kettle, except for the layer of calcium deposit that builds on the inner base. Due to the clear glass sides, it’s presence is noted daily as it thickens. Yesterday, in my time allotted slot to shop, popped into the ‘variety store’. [This register too accepted my USA bank card. Forget to clarify that was the difference. Prior to this, stores only accepted Dutch bank debit cards]. My need was a tea tin, for the ‘spring tea’ ordered and delivered. Finding one quickly and after paying, a brochure was proffered. At first I thought to refuse it, but took it anyway. At home read through it, and read a 5 point article on lemons. I’m a sucker for kitchen hacks – try them all, and so many don’t work. for example: the zipper on the fork, or the dying of clothes with food. One of the five points was, calcium deposits in the shower. Rub half a lemon on the stainless steel faucet, let it sink [no pun intended] in and voila! Worth a try on the stainless steel inner bottom of the kettle. Up to now it has been attacked with SOS/Brillo, elbow grease and thoughts of this is too much work, as it again builds up with use. Full of scepticism, cut the lemon in half, applied with a bit of to-and-froing to the deposit and waited. A miracle indeed. Lifted. Gone. The hack worked. Am want to say it was as ‘easy-as-pie’ or if you’re a cake baker, piece of cake!

One of the activities I can do in this time of forced-non-social-contact is bike. That is perfect for me. Aimlessly biking is not my speed, a destination is a motivation. The best motivation is to the farmer that wholesales tulips. Should i die doing this pandemic I can just be laid out on the couch….my parlor looks like a funeral home given the bouquets of flowers. A great way to go.

Giving the Dutch undo credit, I thought, they won’t horde. They won’t do this crazy run on toilet paper. Wrong. Early on, not because it was needed but to check my hypothesis, I rolled by the paper product shelves in my local grocery store. All Gone. No toilet paper, but there were other products. Dumbfounded. A few days later, rolling by again, assuming this time it would be filled up there were NO paper products. The English had a news item that the British government was concerned about sewage backups due to ‘foreign’ additives to the system. Should be a Dutch government concern as well given the absence of good sense demonstrated by the lack of paper goods.

Will wonders never cease. If you encounter me having to spend cash, constantly, you would have heard me bemoan the fact. I prefer to pay with a credit card. There are incentives to pay with a card, most notably travel points. If one keeps current monthly it is like cash. Every where in smaller cities there is little opportunity for card payment. Never at the drugstore, or the grocery store or the variety store. But today! Went to gather needed supplies after 5 days of only buying flowers and biking and came to the cashier at the drugstore where there was a sign in Dutch ‘debit card’ only. I don’t carry a Dutch debit card so i asked if i could try my credit card. No expectation of any sort. Well, well, well. it accepted my credit card. Could not wait to try it at the grocery store. Again, success. And to think, of course. they could have done this all along!!! The shops only accept payment by debit drawn on a Dutch bank. I am using an American bank credit card.

The Dutch Government is worried, they need to be. The populous travels a lot and hordes pass through Schiphol airport. The government mandate: Social Distancing was sent to every mobile phone holder. To aid in this, the grocery stores decided to have an hour for the ‘old folks’ to do their shopping. This hour is from 7-8 am. My reaction: obviously no time for dressing first… bathrobe, slippers and hair curlers it is. Then a friend suggested we actually do it! Fun idea! However I would first have to bike through the streets so dressed and might be apprehended for reasons of insanity. As it still involves being there by 7 am it won’t happen on my watch. I also wondered who thought this up? Obviously a non-child-having-adult. It is those little ones, full of energy who are raring to at 6 am. Their mothers would love to be out of the house by 7 am!

The Quest began when a friend handed me a newspaper clipping and said “This is something for you!” The clipping told the story that for the past five years, on a specific Saturday, if you showed up on the Dam in Amsterdam you could take home some tulips. A kick-off for Spring by the Tulip growers. What stuck me was that I had never noticed such a massive amount of tulips growing on the Dam, how had I missed that? The article did not give much detail, rather a ‘heads-up’. A few days later in Amsterdam, I went to a food cart which had no customers but sat on the Dam. To the lady looking down at me, asked where would I find these tulips, as I could not see them? Looking at the pictures, you’d wonder how I could miss!

She had a good laugh and explained: On the specific Saturday, very very early, the trucks arrive and 200,000 tulips are planted in sand exactly where I was standing. A pop-up viewing bridge was also constructed to walk across and view from ‘above’. At 13:00 hours the fun begins. The Rules in order given are:

Watch over your belongings, watch out for pickpockets.

You will be given a bag to put your tulips in.

Do not bring your own bag. Not allowed.

You may take 20 tulips, bulb and all. [the dirty little secret is that these bulbs will not procreate they are a one-time bloom]

Enjoy yourself.

What was not on the rules list that the wait time is approximately an hour. Those selfies in and among the tulips, better here than in the fields.

interesting facts: 9 of 10 tulips are exported, Germany is the largest importer, buying 1000 million [een miljard] or in other words: 1 billion cut tulips per year. 2000 million or 2 billion are produced annually.

Not the work of FH but another painter from the time period.