Bring on the sacred gluttony

The rain has well and truly arrived here in Northern Belgium (Flanders) and I am enjoying my first Low Country Autumn (“herfst”) with its deeply amazing colored leaves, green holding on in places amid wholehearted golds and unabashed reds and ardent yellows.  But a few days ago the rain really began in earnest, and after continuing with barely any interruption for a fair stretch of the calendar I am getting a tad nervous that the only person I know named Noah lives 4843.29 miles away…  (What ever did we do before the internet?)  In the meantime I am learning all sorts of useful Dutch vocabulary relating to flooding.  Er zijn veel celders en huizen dat onder water staan.

I am fortifying myself for a winter that can encompass half the year, but first a short break, as I fly back to California in three days for Thanksgiving.  I have consciously decided to remove all limits and self restraint when it comes to eating while there.  At the fancy-pants gym here I had a little fitness evaluation not long ago; they did a spot ultrasound of my arm and told me I have 10.6% body fat…we’ll see what it says after two and a half weeks of pizza, sandwiches, cheezie-poofs and Kettle Chips (even though those latter ones are actually English), frozen yogurt (heaped with m&ms), ice cream (chocolate sauce), pumpkin pie (whipped cream), caipira omelettes, tandori chicken, garlic naan, lamb souvlaki plates, Pacific Cookie Company chocolate chip cookies (from the factory shelf), and, oh yes, burritos, burritos, and more burritos.  Wet, dry, vegetarian (hey, it could happen), pollo asada, and carnitas, I loves me them burritos.

Sitting here in this solemn and dignified rain saturation, and preparing for sixteen days of gluttony, I cannot help but remember the very different reality only a couple months ago in Morocco.  It was in the mid-40s every day.  I remember in particular the thermometer on the board outside the band reading 46 degrees, which is 115 for you/us Fahrenheit people.  And 319 for you Kelvin people, 574.47 for the devoted fans of Rankine, and a whopping 36.8 for those who prefer Reaumer.  (Seriously, how did people find erratic and generally inconsequential tidbits before Google?)

46/115 degree heat is enervating enough, but it was also Ramadan, so no one could eat all day.  Well, no Muslims anyway, us soft tourists gathered sheepishly in the cafes, nibbling honey-soaked msemin flatbread and hoping the locals didn’t hate us for it.

Austerity has its place, and I have enjoyed the severity of isolation and the occasional (unplanned) fast, but I am very much ready for the candid emotional warmth and sacred appreciation for the joys of being alive that I plan to find back home this Thanksgiving.  Occasional and conscious gluttony is not a vice but a virtue.  A very happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Wait, what?

Okay, I want to go to bed but I just poked around blogspot for a second after posting that and found my stats page and there are a couple of things I need to mention before I can rest.

By far the most viewed post I have ever had is the Belgium vs USA fundraising contest, with over three times as many views as second place.  This is somewhat peculiar because there was so little there, and a tad embarrassing since the US got so badly beaten (a thousand more thank yous to everyone stateside who helped us!)

I have had exactly one pageview by someone using linux.  I want to know who it was and send them a Christmas present.

The fourth and fifth most common countries to read my blog are Russia and Ukraine, beating South Africa, where I actually know a couple people.  Also with enough to make the list is Bulgaria, with 19 views.  I now want to go to Bulgaria.  Either it doesn’t show all countries or my friend in Costa Rica was lying about reading this…Costa Rican friend, send me a message if you read this…

Finally, the search keywords that have lead people to my blog include “lastbussout”, which of course makes no sense whatsoever, a couple about vervet monket images.  And then there’s this one. “www;satanporno;be”

That was the thing that made me post this.  The only problem is I don’t even know where to begin to question where the f*ck that last one came from.

Okay battery is dying and confusion and bemused entertainment is voiced to the ether.  Good night.

Riding home from class again

Riding my borrowed bicycle home tonight was nice.  Since the October time change it gets dark early, and the coolness of day spreads unflinchingly into cold night.  This was one of those nights of undeniable mist, which was already seeping from the fields as soon as the sun stopped fighting, and by my homeward ride at nine thirty it was thick and lovable.

It lurked in that unique irresistible stillness of heavy mist.  The occasional car shwooshing past was oblivious and didn’t belong, like litter fallen out of passing spaceships cruising through our solar system on their way to someplace less beautiful.

The season has turned, and acorns no longer pop beneath my tires.  The only sound is the steady whine of the bike-light, which true to its Belgian heritage is slightly different and/or more advanced than what I am used to.  It has no battery, instead powered by the small wheel which presses against the rim of the front tire and turns as I ride.

The light stops as soon as I do, and walking it into the garage set behind our building is not enough motion to really get going, so I always look to see the ghouls hiding in the back among the forgotten rubbish of forgotten tenants, expecting them to skitter away from the wetly dismembered corpses they feed on, but they are staunch and hold mostly motionless among the moist cardboard, dried paint cans and rusting bicycles.

But while I ride the light shines proudly, warning drivers of my presence.  Belgian drivers have impressed me over and over with their awareness of and respect for cyclists.

I pass repeating scenes of square brick houses resolutely bare of adornments, and open fields where soil fraternizes familiarly with pools of rainwater in the furrows, at night the puddles a quietly confident navy blue that would be mistaken for black if it weren’t for the dirt proving the point.

The corn is all harvested down to stubble stalks now.  But only a week or so ago I passed a beautiful nightmare as a looming threshing machine annihilated a field of dry corn stalks.  It was mechanical thunder in the air, menacing power filtering in fleeing shadows between fear-rooted corn stalks as flood lights stripped away all resistance.  If a human walked into the front of that thing it would briefly make a slightly different noise and there would be a splash in an unexpected direction and the driver would probably not notice.

Brussels Flea Market

Yesterday was a good day.  I got up at 2:30, morning still distantly in utero, to listen to the Giants win the World Series, which culminated at 3:30 just as the alarm was going off for Katrien and I to start our day-trip to the flea market in Brussels.  I ate my cereal and drank my green tea and I listened to interviews with the nostalgic giant Giants of my past, specifically Will Clark.  I bet his bald spot was shining proudly.  I wonder if he was wearing eye black?

Misty pre-dawn ride to Brussels in the camionette/fulgonetta/van, hips pressed close on the bench seat’s chilly upholstery and the ubiquitous lingering of cigarettes past.  Still streets of brick buildings with the rare, one or two, pedestrian looking confused at the solitude of Halloween’s non-event here.  A red devil mannequin sat on a bench, with a sign around his neck declaring the Halloween party sold-out, his plastic face wet with dew.

It was All Soul’s Day, November 2, and Brussels was waking up a little later than usual on this bureaucrat-inclusive holiday.  We passed a bus stop with a man sitting inexplicably and smoking in the paltry shelter of the plastic panel and pulled up to the curb opposite the small plaza where the daily market happens.

It was just after 5:00 AM, the trucks of flea market rubble had not yet arrived, so time for a drink in the café.  Green tea for myself and Katrien, coffee for the others at our table, beer for everyone else in the room.  The proprietor was a mountain of a man, with pockets the size of backpacks on the expansive backside of his jeans under a blue T-shirt with a dark ring of sweat around the neck and spreading from the arm pits; we were bundled in jackets, scarves, and gloves, he was a caloric wonderhouse.  His sweat’s domain grew as he served occasional beers.  I drank my tea and tried not to think about salt.

At no visible signal or glance at a watch our table stood up in lax military precision and headed out into the plaza where the first trucks were belching broken plates, warped records, and tarnished faucets onto the cobblestones.  The Regulars were already flitting between piles, flashlights in hand flicking around piles as they grew, impatience and the lust for Their Deal driving them sometimes to climb right up into the truck itself, wending between the unloaders talking at each other in rapid Arabic.

Most sellers also spoke French, and could probably understand Dutch, but Arabic was their comfortable language.  I shudder at the thought of the bitterness that must have sat rancid in this place as the traditionalists gave way to the new crowd.  The wailing and trills of Al Manar Radio’s mijwiz, qanun, and durbakke replacing traditional Belgian music; did you know the saxophone was invented in Belgium?

I cannot imagine the transition from Raymond van het Groenewoud to Mohammed Abdel Wahab went without rancor in this somehow simultaneously impressively multi-cultural and tragically prejudiced country.

We wound from pile to pile, Katrien catching Flea Market Fever’s irrational fear of losing a deal to someone else and flitting off authentically while I meandered about, taking pictures and trying without success to detect if doing so was pissing anyone off.  I  37% suspect it was.

Three hours later I was tired and the sun finally lightened the sky in the brief gap of time between one pile of clutter and the next, and Katrien had bought a retro, red, two levelled table-thingy that we are now deciding whether to put next to the sofa or the fridge.  As a frequent partaker of hot cups of tea, I favour the sofa.

We witnessed the clientele shift with the day’s arrival, the wreckage aficionados disappearing like vampires who would never make Twilight casting were replaced by dog walkers and idlers who picked through disinterestedly.

We clambered back into the van, pulled up to load our driver’s purchases, a sliding-front podium-desk-thing, a 10 euro table that can hopefully be trimmed and revarnished to resell for 50, and a baby seat for the new niece, then headed home.

A nap, a trip to the high-tech gym, and a casual birthday party for Katrien’s sister rounded out the day and I went to bed happy, eyes ready to close, tongue reminiscing of good wine, and muscles adequately loose-tired from the rowing machine.

Clearing my blog clog and seeing what comes tumbling out

Well I’ve certainly run out of blogging steam, haven’t I?  I suppose this is okay given that this was supposed to be a travel blog and I am not travelling right now, so I would tend to post opinionated rants which I would fear lean generic and would most likely make my mother cry, and since she is 50% of my confirmed readership (en ook goede dag Chris!) and I am hoping for a ride from/to the airport in a couple weeks, I probably shouldn’t upset her.

The only thing I’ve typed in the last couple months, a discussion of religion that degenerated into a diatribe against Christianity.  That would definitely make her cry.  Shit.

Most things I felt like talking about fit in a facebook status update.  Like my embarrassment that gay marriage is still such a controversy in America.  How can people still claim that its legalization will lead to the decay of society when the world is splattered with countries that have legalized it and not suffered one iota of moral decay because of it.  (Pot and hookers were already legal in Amsterdam, just for the record, though I would contest their characterization as decay also, but that’s another post.)

Even Spain legalized gay marriage 5 years ago, and this is the country that still hasn’t realized you can put something on a sandwich other than ham.  I love Spain, though I think the custom of men wearing thongs and strutting is indicative of a certain lack of subtlety and patience, no?

I give Spain credit for something else too, although the decision was made by a court in Luxembourg, in true inscrutable European Union fashion…

Dads in Spain are now entitled to Breastfeeding Leave.  This is awesome, albeit initially ridiculous.

The idea is for fathers to have more time to bond with the child and help the mothers.  What’s better are the court’s words that not giving fathers this time would be “liable to perpetuate a traditional distribution of the roles of men and women by keeping men in a role subsidiary to that of women in relation to the exercise of their parental duties.”

That’s beautiful.  So men should be allowed to be just as active in parental duties.  Hopefully this will extend to a mindset that they also be expected to do so.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=74928