Back On Track

Wow, what a heavy two weeks!

Slow post-Lasek progress in my right eye but now it seems like things are starting to progress a bit better. My sight is progressing faster than it did after the first operation, and I'm hopeful I'll get to 20/20 in time. Check-up scheduled for next week at the 1 month mark, so we'll see.

Got smacked with a really severe but weird stomach flu that's going around. Put me flat on my ass in bed for 24 hours, included a fainting spell and stomach cramps and fever, but pretty much nothing else. Was gone again almost as quick as it showed up, all within the span of Friday - Sunday. Better last week than next week...

Wedding preparations are going very well. Am confident we have everything taken care of or at least thought of. Still lots to DO but nothing else left to plan, and good people taking care of the details, so we feel comfortable and happy.

We're also overjoyed with our guest lists and everyone who is coming! The only major disappointment is my sister, who unexpectedly gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Cristian Cruz Almodovar about 9 weeks early. He's healthy and doing great for a premature baby his age, but Heidi and Mel will be engaged in his care and probably won't be able to make it to the wedding. We're overjoyed and thankful for a healthy new nephew, but heartbroken they won't be with us. :-( At least they're still putting our flower girl on a plane to come be with us! :-)

A million things left to do in the coming 1 week before the Dutch wedding, but we know what they all are and are still incredibly looking forward to spending an amazing day with each other and with all our guests! If you're coming, see you there!

Touch Up Update

It's been a rough but bearable weekend, managed with drugs and insane amounts of sleep (hurts/bothers less with your eyes closed, and as long as your eyes are closed. might as well catch a few zzzz's!). Pain/discomfort worst on day 3, better on day 4 (though I can feel my eyes giving up towards the end fo the day). Everything super fuzzy/blurry right now. Am typing this a) because I'm an excellent touch typist, and b) because I'm using Widows Magnifyer and looking at 1-inch tall letters right now). Do it mostly with my eyes closed because I can't stand to have them open for long enough to read a single paragraph. Took a walking trip to the gas pump yesterday with Wilbert to buy cat food, and by the time we were back, my eyes had had enough and it was time to go to sleep. I ramble, but this is my life.

Going back to the doctor in a few hours to see if they will remove this counfoundingly uncomfortable "bandage lenses" from my eyes... condition of which is that the skin layer has fully grown back and closed. Last time they made me wait an additional 4-5 days, which I hated. I'm expecting the same today, but hoping for better. Wish me luck! I just want to get back up on my feet and (curiously enough, sick child that I am) get back to work! Staying at home doing nothing drives me stir crazy.

On the postiive side, wedding plans are going swimmingly, especially with attendance. Favorite people, beloved aunts and uncles and good friends from throughout time and space are all signing on for the party in D.C., while we've got a fabulous crew of people from our life in Holland joining us here, including a few surprises from the more bible-banging side of our family. We are honored to have them and will hopefully teach them a lesson by example.

Re-Lasek

At 10:30 this morning, my opthamologist will do a Lasek touch-up treatment to take me the rest of the way to 20/20 - hopefully. I started out with -6.5/-7 corrections, and am now at -0.25 - -0.50 in each eye. This happens in 10-15% of all Lasek operations, especially with large corrections like I had. Luckily touch-ups are free.

What they aren't is pleasant. I will essentially go through the same exact experience I went through last time, which was no fun to say the least. Bearable, but a serious pain. 5 days off work, burning/watering in my eyes, huge contact lens-like bandages in my eyes for 4 days. Worth the investment, but not something you really want to do twice.

Wish me luck, and I'd relaly appreciate it if friends and family would give me a call this week to check in on me, since I'm not going to be able to look up phone numbers very easily.

Queen's Day Eve Outing

So what did we do with our Sunday?

After a very lazy day with the kitties in the garden...

... enjoying the sweet smells from one of our several lilac trees in the garden...

...we ventured through the tulip fields of North Holland...

...to enjoy a wonderful day together in Amsterdam...

...sitting on terraces and stroling past the canals, meeting friends for Mexican dinner...

...and enjoying the fact that we live in a country where the Riot Police are so prepared to deal with large crowds of stupid drunk people.

Seriously, though, it was a lovely day with Wilbert in the city (which despite its proximity, we don't often make it to), and a very enjoyable evening with Jeroen, Peter and his new beau, Alp. I came home early (midnight) and the boys stayed out for another few hours before coming home. Not sure what we'll do today, but relaxation on one of our few public holidays in the year sounds good enough to me. :-)

Queen's Day Weekend

Miscellaneous thoughts to share with you this Queen's Day weekend (3 days!):

* Wedding plans coming along OK... still a week left for Dutch RSVPs to come in and the numbers are a little bit low... please hurry and get your reply cards in ASAP! Thanks! Things are coming along a little bit better in the U.S. where people are more accustomed to RSVPing.
* Our garden is glorious. Wilbert and I gave it a good clean-up and planted some new clematis vines a few weeks ago, so it's looking snazzy. The lilacs (white, lavendar and dark purple) are in full bloom and looking fabulous, and we also put in a new fence with the neighbors during Easter weekend. We barbequed for the first time this season last night (hamburgers) and the weather has been unbelievably good for April in Holland.
* Can't say too much, but I am very satisfied with my annual performance appraisal and salary increase this year. I had been unhappy with this in the past (for the first time in my carreer - this is not usually my primary driver), so now I can leave it behind and move on.
* This is also the year that I lose a significant expatriate tax benefit, so I will as a result of my boss's generosity at least end the year even or slightly ahead of this year.
* We scored an amazing deal on our long stay in Washington D.C. during the wedding: Combining points and miles, we are getting a $45 per night rate at the hotel for 9 nights! If you are a Starwood Preferred Guest member, check into it at SPG.com.
* Only about five weeks until our (first) big day!

Mandatory Day of Rest

Angel and I enjoy some much-needed rest in our recently cleaned-up garden. I was exhausted to my core today and really needed some extra rest, as I feel I'm on the verge of coming down with something nasty, so I stayed at home all day and caught up a little bit. I think all the travel (Denver, Beijing, Denver, London, Las Vegas, London) has got to me.

Going to bed early tonight again in the hopes that I can work one more day before the 3-day weekend (Monday is Queen's Day). Plan to CHILL all weekend so I can stay strong in the final stretch up to the wedding in June!

Evidence of Mid-Life Crisis

Gave myself a 24-hour waiting period and then jumped in and did it. My first "ink". As I understand it, the triquestra, and ancient Celtic symbol of the elements and/or the three aspects of the Goddess, later co-opted by the Christians to represent the Trinity (with the addition of the circle). The number 3 is a very sacred and mystical number in Pagan belief: earth, water & sky; body, mind & spirit; me, you & us. It's Northern European in origin (as am I), so all of the above is attractive to me. I'm going to try this one out for a while, but anticipate later putting a matching Celtic armband around my arm at the same place (at about 1/3 the total height of this one). Should be cool.

Why now? I'm getting married, so it's a major milestone in my life. It sort of represents everything I've accomplished, everything I've suffered, and everything I'm giving up (willingly) to become co-responsible for another human beings happiness and well-being. It's also a reminder and a symbol of my inherent spirtual nature, which I sometimes neglect. And it's sort of masculine and cool.

:-)

The Simple Things In Life...

I've been chronically exhausted every since I got back from the U.S. about two weeks ago (although that seems like a lifetime!), so I needed a lot of rest this weekend. Wilbert left for Cologne on his annual trip to the Handwork & Crafts Exposition early on Sunday morning, so I had the whole day to myself. Had no idea it would turn out like it did.

After getting most of our Dutch wedding invitations addressed and ready for mailing, I took four of them out to deliver to our neighbors, and found 3/4ths of them camped out in front of our townhomes in the sandpit where our parking spaces used to be (the city is rearranging, updating and fixing the whole street because of an initiative I started last year). A spontaneous block party! And it was a blast... we stayed there all afternoon; chatting, drinking, eating, everybody contributed something (see my tea set left). The weather was gorgeous... the first really springy day to fall in a weekend, so everyone was in the mood to chill and enjoy the outdoors. The street was closed off, so it was nice and quiet. We did a tour of the neighborhood and talked about ways we might redo our front gardens together as a team.

We talked about everything and nothing, caught up on each other's lives (Daren and Annette had just gotten back from a 9-month assignment to Aruba), enjoyed each other's company, and just had a good, simple time together. Very good for the spirit, and helped put life a bit more into perspective after I had been far too wrapped up in Work & Wedding for the last few months. The kids built forts and castles in the sand using the wooden scaffolding and bricks the road builders had left behind. They found an enormous mess this morning when they arrived.

We're lucky to have such good neighbors. We all have pretty much nothing in common (well, besides two of them having young kids): we're businessmen, shopkeepers, military, heavy equipment repairmen, housewives, pre-school teachers and airline cargo workers, but none of that really seems to matter when you're just good people.

March update

OK, it's been forever, I know, and very little time now, so here are the headlines...

• Finished designing wedding invitations with Wilbert; did it 100% ourselves. Then had a heart attack at how much it would cost to print them ($2000).
• Went to China for a week. Barely slept. Got wedding invitations printed there instead, saved $1000.
• Spent the weekend at home. Went to Uncle Arie's 80th birthday party. Addressed U.S. wedding invitations with Wilbert.
• Left for Denver, spent the week there. Barely slept. Food was too good. With excellent help from hotel got U.S. invitations out.
• Am overjoyed to be staying at home for 3 weeks (with the exception of a 24-hour trip to London next week).
• Work is currently insane. Crisis management central. Last week it was stressing me out; this week I've reached a state of zen about it.
• Our street at home is closed for more than a month after I proposed some changes and repairs about a year ago. Amazing the chaos I can cause when I put my mind to it.
• My April looks like this: London, Las Vegas, London. Fun.
• Please vote Sanjaya off American Idol. This is getting really silly. I predict it's going to take at least another 2 weeks, though.
• The Dutch Tax Authority is paying for most of our wedding this year. Unexpectedly fabulous.
• Spring has sprung in Holland. Probably has something to do with the zen thing (see above).
• Still can't wait to get married! Our plans are comming along swimmingly.

So that's the news from here! What's going on in your neck of the woods?

American Idol 1st Elimination

One of the advantages of having the flu and having sat at home for three days is that I've caught up on a lot of TV. And one of Wilbert's and my ADDICTIONS has started again: American Idol, broadcast every Friday on the U.K.'s ITV2. It made me think I might start adding my own personal commentary to the millions of other people who write about it every week online. I won't be as fanatical (or timely) about it as others, but it'll be my $.02 worth.

I really only have two things to say about the first live show:

1. Black girls threw down! Go, sisters! Damn! Blew the white girls out of the frickin' water (though Gina wasn't too bad)! Especially LaKisha at the end was da bomb! Girl, took some damn nerve to sing Jennifer Hudson's song the week of the Oscars, but you worked it out, dawg! These gals are definitely among my favorites to win. Stephanie, Melissa, Jordin and Sabrina were hot too. Nicole, girl, what was you thinking? Go back to being a white girl, it suits you better.

2. HOT IDOL BOYS ALERT!: Blake (love me some blond idol boy!) and Chris Richardson are HOT and sing pretty well too. Big Chris scored some points with the "Il Divo and Teletubbies" comment, referencing some of Simon's past successes, but not my type. And Phil worked it out on stage with his performance too, but I prefer guys with hair. :-)

BTW, Paul Kim wasn't that bad, and I don't think he deserved to go. I think that America has never really seen an Asian singer before, and it doesn't fit into the stereotypes they have of what a performer/entertainer should "look like". Just a theory.

Homophobia & the NBA

From CNN: "The NBA has banished Tim Hardaway from All-Star weekend because of his anti-gay remarks made after another former player came out. "I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I'm homophobic," he said during a radio interview. After the comments caused outrage, NBA commissioner David Stern on Thursday pulled the retired player from a series of All-Star public appearances."

Good to see the sports world dealing with its own homophobia as being unacceptable. Maybe there is hope for the human race after all.

I just hope there's no NBA PR guy who is telling Hardaway in the background, "Listen, this isn't a big deal... just wait for it to blow over and you'll be back again. We hate fags too." And the story is nowhere to be found on NBA.com.

Another Gratuitous Proud Uncle Photo

My niece is the blonde with the monkey in front. :-) Apparently at birthday parties in her area you have to take practically the whole class (girls only, of course!) out for some special activity. Monkey, Bear and Bunny Making 101 seemed to be the activity of choice here.

Happy (belated) Birthday, Mer, and have lots of fun at Disney World! Love, Uncle 'Ris & Uncle Wilbert

My sweetie is 40; our nieces turn 6!

Wilbert turned 40 today, so I made him breakfast in bed before getting about my work for the day. Then after work we went out for Japanese and had a nice quiet evening in Amsterdam. Happy birthday, sweetie! Today he's off to England for a quick business trip and some sightseeing, so I get to play bachelor for two days. That doesn't happen often; usually it's the other way around!

This past weekend, we had a lovely 6th birthday party for his niece, Isabel. A lovely family occasion. Here is the birthday girl with one of her gifts, sporting some couture provided by her uncles. :-) It's great being able to share Wilbert's family when mine is so far away.


Funny enough, my niece Merrick also had her birthday this week; they're only a week apart! Photos from her celebration below with her Auntie Lorie and Mom (my sister):

Home Sweet Home Part 59

Seems like I'm always coming home from somewhere, but it's always just as sweet! :-)

Had a great time in the U.S. (wonderful to see Mom & Dad - always have a great time when it's just the three of us - great to see Stacey and Jordan, hit some major clearance sales and did some potentially very good business), but I was chomping at the bit after a week to be back home with Wilbert and the kitty krew!

Above is a picture of the annual company party, which had a Arabian Nights theme this year, which we loosely followed. Others were far more fanatical in their approach, as is to be expected. :-)

Plan is to stay home until China next month. How else are we going to get this wedding planned!?!

Dad is too cool!

I'm in Des Moines visiting my folks on my way to a business meeting in Denver. In this picture, my dad is sporting his new coat, a present from my mom for his upcoming birthday. It is a Ralph Lauren parka with a coyote-fur hood. Pretty fancy. They bought it off of E-Bay. Goes to prove you can find anything there. Yesterday I found some great deals at Dillard's in Jordan Creek Town Center, West Des Moines' newest mall. Marked down 50%, and then another 40% discount on top of that. So I picked up a new $300 winter coat for about $90. Which is about 78 euros for a brand new brown leather coat. Love that. Today not feeling so hot, skipping the Super Bowl party to get some rest. Signed up for Vonage and got a Des Moines telephone number I can use in The Netherlands. How cool is that? So all you Yanks who haven't been calling me because you think it's too expensive... I am calling your bluff! :-)

January Update

It's been a busy month! Started out the New Year at home with Wilbert with a nice dinner, a glass of champagne in some beautiful, colorful new champagne glasses Wilbert's sister had given us for Christmas, and the usual 12 grapes (a Spanish tradition, for good luck of each of the two months of the new year). We went outside, chatted with our neighbors, and made it to bed pretty early.

Work has been busy because we're down one team member right now... hoping to hear tomorrow if a great lady from the U.S. will join us.

Started working out at the gym and was doing pretty well for a while, but about two weeks ago injured by back and ended up flat on my back for two days and in physical therapy. I will get back to it again next week... had pretty much just been walking... and will continue sticking to a balanced diet. My back (the middle part of it... not the lower, funnily enough) is getting slowly better.

Which is a good thing, because after a month of rest, it's back on the road again, and when it rains, it pours. First it was just going to be Denver, with a nice weekend stopover in Des Moines to visit my parents and friends. Then all of the sudden it was Des Moines, Denver and Ottawa. Now just the day before yesterday, Kiev, Ukraine, has been added to the list. There and back in 36 hours. This is the craziness of my life.

Wilbert and I had a great meeting at the hotel where we're holding our wedding party in The Netherlands on Friday night. Good progress on nailing down all the details. We're very happy with the place, the arrangements and the way we're being treated. We're looking forward to it. We're now reviewing the contract for the party in D.C., which, in typical U.S. fashion, is far more complex and legalistic. Now we need to get to work on the church ceremony. The minister in D.C. is being really lovely and flexible about how we put it together, and I got some great books in the U.S. and seen some great resources online, especially the from the denomination I grew up in, the UCC. They support gay marriage and have a Rite of Marriage ceremony that is gender neutral that we can use as the basis for our ceremony. We have also decided to abandon the idea of using the church's own music department because we are not happy with their attitude and lack of responsiveness. At the same time, the minister is really lovely and we are looking forward to working with her. We'll ask friends and family to provide the music as well as choosing some recorded music ourselves.

My in-laws are coming over this afternoon so we can ask them to be our witnesses at our Dutch wedding, just as we've asked my parents to be our best man and matron of honor in the U.S. Since neither set of parents will be at both weddings, it's a beautiful way to connect the two ceremonies together into one, beautiful whole.

So that's the update for now.

The reason for the season...

Safely home now after a relatively comfortable flight back from the U.S. INFINITE thanks to my sister for the gift of Ambien! Couldn't have had a better Christmas present! :-)

Well, despite all the ups and downs of the trip, my favorite part was getting to see my niece and how incredibly intelligent and grown up she's become. She's a little spitfire and despite all the whooping and hollering she does, I love her to death!

The flip side of the family coin...

No sooner did everything blow up than everything went back to normal again. It's very weird.

I was sitting around fuming and planning my revenge (as triple scorpios will tend to do), and my mother came up and did that thing only mothers can do and coaxed me from my fury.

And without a word, my sister and father dropped the whole subject and acted like nothing had ever happened. I think this is something that can only ever happen in a family.

On the one hand, this is a good thing, and we enjoyed the rest of our holidays. On the other hand, there's something inherently disingenuous and incomplete about the whole thing. Nothing has changed. We have not learned anything from one another. We haven't resolved anything. I have no faith that things will be any different the next time. The pattern is still the pattern.

I very much enjoyed the hospitality and generosity of my sister, brother-in-law who we stayed with, and also my brother and sister-in-law who served us a glorious Thanksgiving-like dinner one night. It was a far more relaxed Christmas than we have had in the past and took a lot of pressure off my mom, which was all good. But I still wonder if I'll ever come back for another Christmas without some additional reinforcement in the form of Wilbert. It is certainly nowhere near as fun without him! And that's something the whole family can agree on.

Ahhh. family for the holidays...

I'm in Boston with my family for Christmas. Every year, I spend all year over-romanticizing what it's going to be like and looking forward to it. And every year, about half-way through the thing, I have a blow-up, usually with my father or my sister, that has me calling the airlines to find out if I can go home early.

This year it took a whole three and a half days for the shit to hit the fan. It was the dumbest of things: my mom knocked on the bathroom door while I was using the toilet, then immediately opened it withiout waiting. I got really upset at this rude breach of protocol (she claims it was justified by just having seen my niece having left the same bathroom - typical, she sees the 5-year old but manages to completely miss her 400-pound son) and came out of the bathroom simply telling her: It's not KNOCK->OPEN, it's KNOCK->WAIT->OPEN.

Well, apparently this was perceived as distrubing the delicate peace in the household, which was not appreciated, and everyone decided to attack me. It was my fault for not locking the door (shutting it is apparently not enough in this house). I didn't need to be so rude and confrontational.

Then precisely at the moment I was trying to make peace with my mother (who was being the least confrontational about the whole thing), my sister jumps in again to let me know what a rude and worthless human being I am. I'm furious at her interruption and tell her to shut up and mind her own business, that I'm talking to my mother, but she wouldn't let me get a word in edge-wise. and the whole thing re-escalated again right at the point I was trying to difuse it.

It's so typical of my family to gang up on me like this, and I hate it. It doesn't happen anywhere else in my life... aren't families great? Mine goes from being fine to being a fucking lynch mob in 10 seconds flat. If they would just give me a few seconds to listen to me express my feelings before immediately ganging up on me and attacking me, it wouldn't happen. Maybe I do come out swinging and come on more aggressively than all the other superficial, fake, polite people in their perfect suburban lives, but if they haven't learned to deal with it after 38 years, then I guess there's no hope and I need to give up.

Here's what a typical conversation between my sister or father and I looks like:

Christopher: I am upset about... I am angry about... I feel hurt by... Why did you...?
Dad or Sister: You're wrong, it's your own fault, you are selfish/mean/wrong for thinking that.
Christopher: But...
Dad or Sister: No, you need to show some respect; don't speak to your mother that way; you're in my house and you won't talk to me like that, etc.
Christopher: I just wanted to...
Dad or Sister: Why are you so confrontational? Why can't you just drop it? Why do you have to keep pushing it?
Christopher: Sigh... I wish I'd bought a changeable airline ticket.

There was a perfect example of us having done things correctly and civily in an adult fashion yesterday (my father and I), for which I actually consciously thanked him and spoke to him about in detail... but apparently memories are short and old habits die hard. I am and always will be the family bad guy - the one with a big target painted on my forehead. I guess every family has one. But I am seriously contemplating resigning from that role for good.

Right now I'm still furious, hurt, and really resentful that these people have slam-dunked me back into the most miserable feelings of my youth. Historically I have always let things go and forgotten about it. I'm not so sure it's going to be as easy this time. I'm pretty sure this is the last Christmas I'll be spending with my family in the U.S. - it never lives up to my expectations. Starting next year, I think it's time to start spending it with my future husband and his family. I've missed him a lot and can't wait to get home.

Marcos in Holland

DSC00293, originally uploaded by Christo's POV.

One of my best friends from when I went to school in Spain in 1990-91 has been visiting this week for the first time, and today we went to Madurodam (www.madurodam.nl) in The Hague. It was fun, and Marcos got to show off what a big guy he is! He's headed back tomorrow, but we've had a fun time catching up and seeing Holland! Gracias por venir tio, y espero verte muy pronto aqui de vuelta o en nuestro querido Euskal Herria! :-)