Why on earth they had to make the page yellow, I don't know. But I do love reprints. This drawing finally made a decent hourly fee. It is in De Stem today, the same newspaper I do the parental advisory columns for. And as for my own experimental garden, a typical lovely Saturday. I cleaned the kitchen and went shopping with my offspring. Shoes, pants, socks, sweaters. And horrible horrible line-ups at the check outs. My feet are hurting. But not as much as the fitting room lady's knees. I always chat with her while waiting for Michiel or Otger to come out of the fitting room. She is going to spend the holidays in the hospital, getting a new knee, she injured one knee in a motor cycle accident some forty years ago, and now the other one is going bad too. She takes eighteen pills a day, just to be able to walk without crying. She hopes to be out of the hospital and back at work quickly, because she is paying off her husband's 5000 dollar funeral, and she is afraid he will be dug up and repossessed. (I warned her they might even resuscitate him.) In Holland she would totally be on disability benefit, wao. But our society here is a bit harder than the Dutch one. Still. This woman would be off worse, spending her days at home, I am almost certain. She seems to really enjoy chatting to all her co-workers and customers. And now for our daily giggle: my brother just sent me this photo, he was enjoying a typical Saturday as well, clearing away his mess. It's me and my two brothers, god knows when.
niks veranderd, die eliane
My father worked for De Stem half his life! As a result my mother has a free subscription for the rest of her life - my fathers reprint, I suppose - but she mainly uses the paper when peeling the potatoes.