8 Nov 2008

A BLOODY SURPRISE

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Did it ever happen to you, that early morning you arrive in your kitchen with half closed eyes fishing for your first cup of coffee and you find blood stains on the floor ?? This happened to me yesterday morning.



What had happened here ? Did the CSI Waterloo (not Miami) work in my kitchen overnight and cut corpses in pieces ? Or was it simply my old cat Lisa who had forgotten herself but now had blood in her urine ? My first thought was rather impossible because there would be more blood probably. The second one was not exact either because after checking the "blood" it didn't smell at all. I pushed a deep sigh of relieve I had seen myself already running with cat Lisa to the vet.

Then I looked closer. This red stains seemed to come from my fridge !



I opened it and ....



it was the deepfreezed red cabbage !! I had put it in the fridge and not in the deepfreeze because I wanted to prepare it for the evening. But then I had changed my mind forgot about the cabbage and had prepared another plate.

I took a sponge and cleaned it up, taking the opportunity to clean out the whole thing !

Next time I will put such red stuff in a plate !

7 Nov 2008

SHOW & TELL

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Last time I went shopping there was a lady selling table cloths. They were all very nice and I liked this one. I bought it for only 8 € !

It is a very practical table cloth. You can pour wine or juice or whatever you wish over it and it wouldn't make a single spot !



Here is a little demonstration with red wine. See the catastrophe ? It would be very difficult to get red wine stains out of a fabric. But not with this one



with a sponge I wiped it off.



and it looks clean again. It's just a wonderful invention. You think it is an ordinary fabric table cloths but it behaves like a plastic one.



I thought it would also be nice for the Christmas meal and bought two, one for our son and one for us ! Now we can push our drinks around without fear and also eat like pigs !

6 Nov 2008

DONA NOBIS PACEM

BLOG FOR PEACE A WORLDWIDE PEACE MOVEMENT

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This story is not that long ago ! Only 63 years.

Today is OUR day to all claim "Give us Peace" Donna Nobis Pacem, and I thought about my childhood. I was born during world war II in 1943. My mother gave birth to me in a bunker in the heavily bombarded Frankfurt (Germany) and apparently I spent my first night in a drawer because there were no baby beds.

From the war itself I personally don't remember anything of course. My souvenirs start when the war was over and we (the germans) were occupied by the liberators. I was lucky I lived in an area which was occupied by American soldiers. The once in Eastern Germany had less luck they were occupied by russians who as I had been told, molested the population by raping, tortures plundering etc.

I only remember my mothers fear which made me anxious. She used to take me and look out of a window in the roof to watch drunken american soldiers trying to get into houses especially into the neighbor house where a pretty young girl lived. I only remember the banging and bawling.

I also remember my mother and her sister running home hysterically (that's probably why I remember something) crying and screaming that they had tried to collect some potatoes on the field which farmers had forgotten and a tank had persecuted them with laughing american soldiers on it who tried to catch them.

I am convinced they found it very funny and just wanted to amuse themselves a bit. They had to participate in this war, they just did what they had been told, fighting the enemy.

Sometimes tanks were crossing the little city where my grandparents lived and it's strange I don't remember the tanks but I remember the asphalt of the street braking into large gaps due to their weight and the noise it made.

I didn't realize the daily fight for something to eat. Food was an omnibulant problem there was nothing to eat. Of course I always had enough food and it was normal to me that I had, but I didn't know how difficult it was for the people to get some. The "rich" people at that time were farmers. They had a paradise in the eyes of the hungry population. They even had milk and eggs.

One of my favourite occupations when I was a little older, was to listen to the Red Cross broadcasting where thousands of names were mentioned, each person looking for a missing brother, sister, father or mother. I found it very interesting and would have liked my name to be mentioned just as if I had disappeared too.

For me as a child it was completely normal that all fathers (except mine) had something missing. A leg, an arm, an eye, sometimes both legs and I only realized that it was not so normal when for the first time I went to the Belgian coast and saw men there at the beach. It seemed very strange to me that they had all their body parts.

Once, spending a night at my friend's I entered the bathroom in the morning and saw an eye starring at me in a glass. It was her fathers glass eye. (you can laugh, I laughed too) or at another's place where I opened the wardrobe to look for something and found myself with a leg prostheses in my arms.

All this was so normal ! That a lot of girls in my class had not fathers anymore, that a lot of them were still expecting them because they were war prisonners, that my uncle the youngest brother of my father came home from Siberia, looking fat and grey and was only 25 years old !

Thanks to this foolish mad man named Hitler he had spent ten years there. He was 15 when they forced him to "fight for the country".

Our blogworld proves that people don't need wars and that we are all for peace ! We realize that we are all the same over the world with the same problems, the same happiness and the same feelings. We don't have any colors or any borders, we all have our ideas, we don't need any war, nowhere on this planet !

5 Nov 2008

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY





Rosie, he won, now we can go to bed !






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About 40. 000 Americans are living in Belgium. Yesterday evening they gathered in a big Hotel in Brussels, together with Belgians. They were following the elections in their country on big screens. No sign was there for McCain, it was as if he didn't exist. They all voted for Obama.

4 Nov 2008

OBAMA OR MC CAIN ?

Somebody wrote in his blog : If you are an American then vote tomorrow, if you are not an American then remind an American to vote !”

I live in a city (Waterloo) in Belgium where the majority of Americans live because of the American school we have here. Most of them are working for their American Company.

Many of the women are in my fitness club and we chat together also about politics right now. One thing is sure what I read here on some blogs and what Americans tell me in real life is very different because they don't live in America, they now see their country through other eyes and are all sure of one thing, there has to be a change ! and a big one. America has to realize that they are not the only country on the planet and that there are other countries too.

When I read some of the American blogs I get the impression that they are still living in the past century and didn't follow at all what is going on in the rest of the world. They haven't realized yet that the "Great Nation" doesn't exist anymore.

As the USA are the only country in our civilized world who only has two parties to vote for, it doesn't make it very easy. To this comes the fact that they mix up religion with politics, which is also impossible elsewhere.

Remember what John F. Kennedy said already more than 40 years ago

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."?
and he also said
"My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."?

When you go today and vote, please keep in mind what our blogfriend Tor from Norway wrote on his blog :

I hope Americans will realize once and for all on November 4:
It's about 6 billion human beeings not living in "The Homeland" on this Planet Earth.

Change is needed .... to be continued here

And I fully agree with him.


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3 Nov 2008

FUN MONDAY - Why do I blog ?



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Our host this week is Bee Dancer and her assignment :

I'd really like to know WHY you blog. Tell me how you got started or why you got started and why you keep it up. Plus there's a photo requirement: Post a picture of the one person/place/thing that most symbolizes the town or area where you live.


I didn't start blogging. I just fell into it. In 2006 coming back from Egypt I was looking for documentation about Egyptian cats. Mr. Gattino told me to look in Internet.

Now I and a computer were two very different things. I just used it as a typewriter and from time to time I managed to send an email. Otherwise I didn't know anything about this thing standing in Mr. Gattino's room since 1994 !

Since he started working at Analyst and programmer in 1972 I was allergic against computers. He spoke about programs, back ups and I don't know what all the time with his collegues and friends and I sat there like an idiot. I refused to learn anything, I was allergic !

After he had explained to me how Internet worked I suddenly became addicted ! I found my Egyptian cats, then cat forums and suddenly a cat blog ! I never had heard about a blog and nobody around me either.

As I started to love to fumble around on the computer, I created one in Yahoo (must still be there) and was quite proud of my result. But then ? I wrote and published pictures, and nobody read me. I don't know how but in June 2006 I suddenly discovered Blogger. I subscribed. I didn't know anything about htmls or links or whatever, feed and atoms and such stuff was chinese to me. But I subscribed. I subscribed to everything I could without knowing to what I subscribed. I subscribed to Feedblitz,Technorati, blogflux, blog linker etc. I inspired myself from other blogs and meanwhile visitors started to come. Slowly slowly, but it worked. Now when I want to subscribe to something to my big surprise I am already member !

As I am retired and have nothing special to do anymore blogging became my hobby. I started with photography and I learn a little about htmls. I learned how to change a background and how to make headers. I love it and I still learn a lot. It allows me to make friends all around the world and to see how people live in other countries or continents.

Around me only some friends of my son know what a blog is. In my generation only very, very few do ! and I gave up to explain. It's useless !

I live in Waterloo the famous town where Napoleon lost his battle and which was taken as a song by Abba. Waterloo is situated only 15 km (9 miles) from Brussels the capital of Belgium. Most of the people living in Waterloo are working in Brussels.



The Lion Hill of Waterloo



The Atomium of Brussels

2 Nov 2008

A PHONE CALL FOR SARAH !

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That's the last and biggest blunder or boner or whatever you call it from Sarah Palin !

just read this ! US vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin has become the victim of a prank phone call by a Canadian comedian posing as the French president.

Can you believe that such a naive and simple minded woman wants to be President of the USA in 8 years ??

It would be cute for a little housewife to believe that the President of France wants to have a chat with her, but for a future political leader it is rather a shame and a scandal ! It proves that she has no idea of what is going on in the rest of the world.

And she proves too that she is dangerous because ignorant. Now whole Europe laughs about her, and probably the rest of the world too.


WEEKLY WINNERS - HALLOWEEN


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For the first time I went to the "Bruparck" in Brussels where the Atomium is located. The Atomium is the symbol of Brussels, just as the Eiffel tower for Paris or the Statue of Liberty in New York. (you can click on the pictures to make them bigger)






The entrance



witches, Devils and even a Mickey Mouse






In the background is the Atomium





A beautiful very old caroussel is standing there permanently









and of course the kids had a lot of fun. A Halloween celebration is quite new in Brussels and it was the first time in 50 years I am living here that I saw such an event !