Visitors From the Motherland

August 13, 2007 · Filed under Dutch, Photo Album, Seattle

Some time this past winter or early spring, I got an email from my Uncle in Dutchland, Oom Max. He and my aunt were planning a summer trip to the United States and were wondering if, hypothetically, we would be “willing” to have them and Oom Max’s sister stay with us a few days in August. Michelle and I are very fond of them - Tante Doortje and Oom Max - and were delighted at the idea of having them stay with us.

Dutch Lesson: “Tante” [tahn-tah] means “Aunt” in Dutch, and “Oom” [oh-m] means “Uncle”. Doortje is pronounced as Door-t-yah, and has the American equivalent of “Dorthy”. Max is pronounced with the same “ah” that my name has, M-ah-x, and has the American equivalent of “Max”. Max’s sister’s name, Anyez, is pronounced as Ah-n-yez, and has the American equivalent of “Agnes”. Take-away message of the lesson: Dutch people rule.

My response back to them appears to have been a bit “overly excited” because, in hindsight, I’m quite convinced they had not finalized their decision to come to Seattle, but my enthusiastic reply left them with no choice but to come visit us.

A few months later, they emailed again, wondering if we had any suggestions for a car route from Minneapolis to Seattle which avoided the usual suspects like Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore (which looks “fakey”, by the way). We were stumped, but, as luck would have it, we met a great guy at the Tasting Room who highly recommended the Canadian Rockies via Banff as a worth while route.

Taking nearly two weeks to drive from Minneapolis to Seattle via the route we suggested, they arrived in Seattle on Wednesday evening. Unfortunately, we were both unable to take much time off work, so we were left with evenings to spend with them. We recommended various activities for them to undertake during the day while we were at work, including the Underground Tour, Pike Place Market, the Japanese Garden, the Ballard Locks, and a drive along Lake Washington Boulevard. Each evening, we met up with them and showed them a part of Seattle that we love - like Fremont and Ballard - and then we went out for dinner.

For us, this was a wonderful three days of spending quality time with dear family and sharing with them our favorite parts of town.

The basic trouble with seeing family is that it really makes you miss them just that much more.

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Fred the Tambourine

May 26, 2007 · Filed under Dutch

As Michelle and I were hanging out having a nice bottle of wine and reading some magazines, Michelle decided it would be cool to have pillows on each chair in the house which indicated whose seat it was. For example, I would have a pillow labeled “Frank” on my favorite chair.

This would be significantly cooler, apparently, if there was someone in the family named “Fred”. “Who could we have who would be named ‘Fred’?”, asked Michelle. I assumed the domain of items this included was not restricted to people, but could be anything ranging from wildlife to pets to inanimate objects, so long as a name could be assigned to it. (Michelle has a habit of naming almost anything.)

Suddenly, my memory jumped back to my older brother and his first goldfish named Fred. Shockingly, Fred died. When he did, Erik placed his corpse in a tin Sucrets box, wrapped the box entirely in masking tape and carefully labeled it, “Fred”.

“We kept that box for years. I remember it very well”, I told Michelle, who immediately winced. I continued, “I remember we used to shake the box. The bones rattled.”

And then came the reply, “There’s a dignified death. Becoming a tambourine for a bunch of Dutch kids. Nice.”

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D’Oh-ah’s Ark (And Starbeam, Colbert’s Unicorn)

May 18, 2007 · Filed under Dutch, Entertainment

Not one week has passed without some high-profile celebrity disparaging the Dutch. Last week, it was Rainn Wilson. This week, it turns out that Steven Colbert is also guilty of Anti-Dutchism. (Ok, maybe neither of those are really high profile but it’s still bad.)

In the shocking video below, Steven Colbert lashes out at the Dutch - drawing bold, unfounded conclusions that the Dutch are somehow all doped-up “bong troopers.”

Warning: this video contains disparaging remarks about the Dutch and may not be suitable for all audiences, especially those who don’t like fluorescent light or the Irish.

The entire transcript can be found after the jump. Well, maybe not the entire transcript. I’m a little too lazy and don’t care enough to do the entire transcript. But most of the good parts can be found after the jump. And they may not be transcribed exactly, either, but they’re probably pretty close.

Read the rest of this post »

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Sabotage is an ancient Dutch art?

May 11, 2007 · Filed under Dutch, Entertainment

Come on. What’s the deal with all the Dutch hammering? Huh? Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute on The Office has disparaged the Dutch. And here I thought he was a good kid from Seattle with a heart of gold, a dream - and integrity. But I guess not. I guess he’s just like everyone else. We were spending a nice evening eating gratin dauphinoise, enjoying a nice bottle of French wine, and watching The Office. It was nice. Perhaps a little too nice. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Dwight made the following statement:

Sabotage: The ancient Dutch art of screwing up your own team.

It still hurts. It cut deep. Real deep.

Isn’t Sabotage a French word?

This painful stab comes on the heels of my good friend Tim telling me about the arrogant purple duck on Peep and the Big Wide World who “…talks incessantly about ‘Duck intelligence this, Duck strength that…’ - he’s like the Dutch.”

OK. I get it.

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