When you go out for a Mammogram & come home with a Drivers license

And yes this way is much better than the other way around!

A couple of weeks ago i had to go to my three monthly check up with Dr Nala. Since we are still a bit worried about recurrence she checks me pretty good and if i have a little ache or pain she will MAKE SURE she tests and checks it before i can wander the streets again for three months...

At this visit i had some troubles with my breasts maybe because i found Aldi (a great German grocery store, were i bought HEAPS of German/Belgium chocolate) and i had been pretty much stuffing myself with that chocolate. And yes i even brought some chocolate bars to the hospital that day (you never know when it gets really scary) and since i don't smoke anymore i felt i needed some back-up besides my wonderful husband.

Anyway, Dr Nala thought it would be wise, to lay off the chocolate (because it can cause tenderness in the breast area) for a while AND do a Mammogram!

No...
No...
NO...
I KNOW hundreds of women do it every day, but I'm just a girl (don't want my boobies to get squished, they just got big since i stopped smoking, like everything else by the way)! Let me do the ultrasound and you can see everything you need and I'll be fine!

Dr Nala said "No", let's do a Mammogram this time... "OK"...

So the next week i go to the hospital in Bluffton to get my mammogram done. I didn't sleep for 3 nights and i felt pretty cranky. Also because at the farm things where NOT going like they should and it was just overall a bad week. But i went and sat down. This really nice nurse comes up to me and asks if i might be pregnant...?

Uhmmm, "No i don't think so". "Well, didn't you get your test done before the Mammogram?".
"Uhmmm, no, I nobody said anything about that". I asked her if we could just do the Ultrasound???

Turned out we couldn't do that  and i needed to get my blood test done (couldn't just pee over a stick?!?) and had to RESCHEDULE! My day didn't get better at all!  I didn't have my breast squished but i also had to make a new appointment, not sleep for several days and probably eat more chocolate because i was stressed and thus more pain!?!

Oh well...

Driving home from the Hospital i was pretty (read: really) cranky and from the corner of my eye i spotted a police car, and thinking, hmm i need to get my drivers licence. I have a Dutch one but it was (a little bit) expired and i still needed to get my Indiana one. And since i already wasted the whole day with not getting a mammogram done, i thought "Why not?!?"

Got into the BMV, had my social security number, a bill with my name and address, my visa, my passport, my Dutch drivers license and my translation of my Dutch drivers license. I was good to go! Until the nice lady at the BMV told me i needed TWO proofs of addresses... "you got to be kidding me?!" And she sent me away told me to come back with two bills or a bank statement or something.

Driving home i was even more (as in fuming) cranky. And then i passed my bank. I literally saw that little light bulb above my head going on and thought, "hehe I'm gonna print of a statement and go back to the BMV!".

And so i did, parked my car, right in FRONT of the door of the BMV (not the most smartest move but it felt right at the time) and walked in and showed the lovely lady all my papers AGAIN plus the statement. And yes i could do my written test.

Did i mention i didn't study, as in i don't even own a manual...

I turned in my papers and after 10 minutes she called me and told me i passed!!! I just couldn't believe my ears, because i was figuring on coming back at least 6 times before me passing this test and here i was getting my (really ugly) picture taking and with my drivers license permit coming to me in the mail in 10 days... hehe...

Now i have to wait (drive around in my fantastic car) for 6 months and then i can do my actual driving test...

And that is how you go for a mammogram and come home with a drivers license (well, permit is almost the same, right?)

And it is friday again so.... HOP HOP HOP to Verde Farm for Farm Friend Friday!!!

...

I am a Ladybug killer...

Freely translated from Dutch –Lieveheersbeestjes – The Good Lord’s little beasts
Freely translated from English – Ladybugs – The lady got bugs

And my gosh I had bugs all right!

At one of the best dairy practical training practices I have even been, I had a close encounter with ladybugs and that changed my mind about them forever.

I was spending 3 months with a fantastic family and they were teaching me pretty much everything they knew about dairy farming in America. I would eat, sleep and work with the family and things were going great. They had converted their basement into a cozy bedroom for me, so I had my own space after hard day learning and working (read working as looking and absorbing on how they worked) and every night I would go to bed, feeling pretty happy about what I had seen and learned.

And then it started to warm up in America…

I was laying in my bed, reading my book, I can’t remember what particular book but the chances are great that it was a Stephen King novel and I didn’t have a little bedside lamp so I had the “big” ceiling light on. You see, this was pretty much a bulb with a wire sticking out of a plastic (not finished) ceiling. Which was all right by me, the house was pretty old and it gave it all a pretty comfy (in a strange way) feeling.

My book was very good but felt sleepy so I decided to go to sleep and i turned the light off…

Nothing is more scary than reading a Stephen King novel and then hearing creepy little noises from above you, after you turned off the light… TRUST ME, I KNOW…

So finally I got the nerve to sit up and pull on the little cord which would turn the light on. And what do I see…Like FIFTY ladybugs crawling out of the plastic besides the light bulb… O my Gosh! They were piling on top of each other trying to get out and dropping down on MY bed!

You see I am not a sissy, but I did NOT like that at all! It would have sent me flying if it were spiders but after all, it where just ladybugs, right???

So I decided to talk action, I couldn’t just lie there and pretend to sleep. So I got out my cigarette box (yes I know, the good old days…) took all my cigarettes out and decided to stuff them (as in the Ladybugs) in there, to let them go in the real world tomorrow morning. One by one I caught them and stuck them in my box. After I got them all crammed in (or so I thought), I put them beside me on the table and watched the box for a while.

Those stupid little buggars crawled so much that eventually they came out of the box! So I put my lighter on the box to seal it off, that’ll teach them!!!

Pretty content with myself but all awake again after my “hunting” I picked up my novel and read some more. Feeling pretty sleepy again I turned off the light…. And YES, the sound of hundreds of little feet started crawling above my head AGAIN…



This repeated itself three times! I would stuff Ladybugs in my box, try to sleep, get fustrated, stuff more ladybugs in the box, try to sleep...

At one point I knew I couldn’t stuff more Ladybugs in my little box, it was already crowded as it was, so I decided to do two things: you might know (if you read "Mouse hunt in granny pants") I normally sleep without peejees but on this occasion I thought It would be better to put on a t-shirt and to build myself a little cocoon of blankets and just hoped they wouldn’t crawl underneath the blankets…

I think I killed HUNDREDS of Lady Bugs in those months… and I can’t say I’m sorry…


...

Tractor Disaster!

I love my live on the farm! But that doesn’t mean I am good at everything that I sometimes need to do as a farmer…

I have had multiple experiences with tractors and maybe it is safe to say I should stay away from tractors, or everybody around me should stay away from me if I’m trying to drive one!

Bastiaan in front of a tractor







When I was 16 years old I wanted to get my tractor drivers license.

In the Netherlands you just can’t go hop in a tractor and drive around your farm or on the road. If you get in an accident, get pulled over or do something stupid you are in serious trouble, with the police, mom and dad or the insurance company. And since I liked to do it all (not the get in trouble part)… I wanted to learn how to drive a tractor and get my license.

Across the road from us our neighbor farmer raised hogs and owned and operated crop fields where they grew asparagus. I used to work there every weekend, after school and on my vacation days and he had a tractor. I asked him if he could teach me how to drive the tractor after and during work and that way I could practice for the exam. After weeks and weeks of practice, with a very patient neighbor (i DID NOT have a natural talent) the day had come to do my written exam and driving test. The AG teacher from my high school came to my house and we checked the tractor and went inside to do the written exam.

I had studied really hard and had my mom and dad gave me “fake” tests to see if I could pass. I would pass every time! We were in our own kitchen and the teacher gave me the papers. I ended up doing the test 3 times!?! I was so nervous I couldn’t get the answers straight although I knew what they were! Eventually my mom vowed for me that I really studied hard and the teacher should let me do the driving test and he would see I could really drive a tractor… Maybe the cookies that my mom gave him helped too.

The teacher put some pillions out in the field and I was supposed to drive the tractor with trailer in a big S, drive straight, make turns, park the tractor and back up with the trailer and park in a designated area.

Well…. I did it…

The tractor were we feed all our
cows with.





But I hit my hand on the door handle and I didn’t go fast and it didn’t go smooth. When I got off the tractor I was very flustered, adrenaline rushing true my body, still incredibly nervous,  I went over to my teacher. He just looked at me, looked down and looked at me again. I had no idea what I needed to do next but he looked in SHOCK!

While I was standing there in front of him, awaiting my verdict, thinking about all the things I did wrong ( I didn’t run nobody over so it couldn’t be that bad???) I decided that if I didn’t get my drivers license this time I surely would get it next time because I would have better control of my nerves!

After 3 grueling minutes (I know it doesn’t sound long, but I can tell you it was!) he said that I had passed!

Whooohoooo!!! I was so happy, I hugged him and told him thank you!!! Then he said something I didn’t understand… “You better wash your face”.

Wash my face? Why would I was my face after driving a tractor???

Well, when I went inside and looked in the mirror, while my mom and the teacher were catching up, I saw that apparently i busted my hand open when I hit the door handle and because I was so nervous and sweating I tried to wipe away the sweat. I wiped the sweat away all right… but all over my face was blood from my hand!

I looked like I was killed, slaughtered and left for dead! No wonder my teacher looked so shocked!

Putting new sand in the barn every week with

a little tractor

I really don’t think I passed my tractor drivers license test if it wasn’t for my mom and her cookies and if my teacher didn’t feel incredibly sorry for me.

And since this is only the beginning of my disasters with lovely red/white/blue and green tractors I can tell you, there is more to come…

Happy Friday!!!

…

Oh Canada!

This is the first part of a 3 piece post about my adventures in Canada… I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had “doing it for real” in my 6 months there!

In Holland when your about 17 years old and you go to “college” you get the chance to go on a practical training period in the profession you most desire. And yes I am a dairy farmer now, but at that age I still had my heart sold on horses…

My stud: Fox Trim Classic with Christina Jones





Everybody knew that I was the (slightly crazy) girl who went to America and Sicily all by herself and had a need to go far, far away again if the option was presented. My favorite teacher asked me one day where I would like to go for my practical training period. And without a hesitation I blurted out, Canada!

To this day I have NO idea why I said Canada, but I did and so I had to face the consequences.

My favorite teacher told me a couple of days later he had the perfect spot for me. They had hundreds of horses, right where the Rocky Mountains rose up so lovely surroundings, tourists would come daily to take trips on horseback into the mountains AND they had a pool!

Well….. Sign me up!

Not that I like swimming (I HATE SWIMMING) but the rest sounded like a dream come true. And for the rest of the school year I was preparing for my practical training period. I dreamed about training horses during the morning, showing people the surroundings/mountains in the afternoon and relax in the evening by the pool!

My teacher made it only better and better (he told the best stories about other students who went to Canada), the drive from the airport would only be one hour and the people would pick me up, so I shouldn’t worry…

The day of me leaving came and I went in good spirits, longing for another adventure, to Canada.

Mares and fillies at Touchstone Farm






After a close to 16 hour flight, we had some delays and stops; I arrived in Edmonton, Alberta. By the baggage claim there was a scruffy guy holding up a sign that said Touchstone Farm...

That would be me…

So I went to meet the guy and he told me “sorry” for looking so scruffy, he just had an incredible busy day and I didn’t have time to get changed. I didn’t mind I was already happy I saw a friendly face. We hit the road and after an hour I started wondering if we were going to get there… “Just a little bit further” Chris (the friendly guy) told me.

After an hour and a half, being sleep deprived and watching the landscape changing from “pretty out in the bush to NO CIVILIZATION AT ALL) I really got a bit worried… The further we got away from the airport the lonelier it got, I started to wonder if Chris was really who he said he was... No lights from cities, no street lights, more trees, a bit more trees and only trees…. and mountains… NOT the Rocky Mountains but mountains to me… Holland is as flat as a coin so if you have a little hump that would be a mountain all right!

I found out later that the Rockies were two hours away…

Beautiful landscapes and skies at
Touchstone Farm



Finally after driving for a good two hours we got to a drive way, and Chris told me “This is it!” By this time I was awake for over 23 hours. It was getting dark, and the first thing I saw was the indoor arena…

And the thing that stuck as a bullet in my scull was, “I Can see TRUE the indoor arena!” No state of the art arena like I was used too in the Netherlands, no, just a very sturdy, see true arena.

We drove up to the drive way and to my left I see a huge pond… No cemented pool with little benches and towels and martinis (I don’t even drink, but that was in my head) ready to go. No, a dug out pond with lovely little birds and critters (I didn't even think about the bloodsuckers until later!)

We drove even further up the driveway and I see a BARN… But the barn was rebuilt into a house… And I thought “O my Gosh”, I’m gonna live in a barn for the next 3 months!!!???

In front of the barn/house were a little lady and another lady standing/waiting for Chris and me to get out of the car. As soon as I stepped out of the car I felt the love of the two ladies surrounding me. They welcomed me into their country and into their house and they asked me if I would like to call home to tell my parents I arrived safely.

Until that moment I hadn’t been homesick, EVER!

The house!










I called my mom and dad and as soon as I heard their voice I started crying. Not quiet crying, no bawling like a maniac! And the worst part was, I just couldn’t stop! I was crying because I missed them, I was missing my friends, that teacher lied to me, I felt swallowed by this huge country, it’s loneliness, an because I imagined this place soooo much different and these people were soooooo sweet!

The little lady (Mavis, the mom), the other lady (Wendy, Chris’s sister) and Chris showed me the house which was actually pretty amazing and put me to bed…

The next morning I woke up by the sound of horse feet thundering down a pasture, I jumped out of bed and looked out the window and saw 50 broodmares coming over the hill running towards the house true a creek…

Right at the moment I thought…. “Well…. I think I can handle 3 months here in Canada!”

Next week… part 2 of Oh Canada!



…

Fort Wayne’s little angels…

The nurses in Fort Wayne are just incredible! They always made me smile, no matter how bad of a day I had.
They were always interested in my life outside of the little cancer box and they always pronounced my name wrong (even though I always told them they pronounced it right because they tried so hard and my name is really difficult!)…

They really made going true this almost unbearable task of dealing with this sickness (and treatment of this sickness) a little more bearable.

AND if they say it feels like you have to pee….. YOU BETTER BELIEVE THEM!

One of our angels, Indi












We did a lot of CAT/MRI/PET scans in those days. Mostly just to check if the cancer hadn’t spread. For me it was a first time for every one of them. I had been in hospitals before but never this up close and personal.

Dr Nala had ordered me another scan, to check out my lower abdomen and I am still not sure what scan it was (the CAT or the MRI, my brain was pretty much mush at that time) but I went together with Bastiaan and waited until my name (or the nurse in question would just look really confused) was announced to get my “pic” taken.

The nurse showed me a little locker where you can put your bra and jewelry in and then you have to wait for a bit. The waiting never really bothered me because during that time I could just doze off a bit and seek my bearings.

This particular nurse was very young and very sweet. She asked me the standard questions and explained to me what the big noisy machine did. I was already a little more at ease because the machine was only half the size of the machine the week before! Your head and your feet would actually stick outside the machine, so much better than the ones you lie in completely.

She said a “pic” would be taken and then she would turn on the IV and have a bit of fluid (contrast) run into my bloodstream and take another “pic”. She also mentioned, that when the fluid started running, you could have a little strange sensation down under….

Me being extremely BLOND and DUTCH did NOT understand what she meant…

So I asked: “What does that mean???”
She got a red face (probably all the smart Americans understand when she told them, “you get a little strange sensation down under”) and explained to me that I might get the feeling I had to pee when they turn on the IV…

“Pee???” as in “Going to the bathroom, pee???”
“Yes…”
“Hmmm, I see…”

Little
"naughty"
angel,
Jones







Again being very stubborn, I really did not think it would be that bad, I laid down on the table and waited until they hooked me up to the IV. After a couple of minutes the table started moving and I rolled nicely into the scanner. The first pictures were taken and over the little intercom, while looking at a smiley face plastered to the inside of the machine, the announcement came that the IV was going to start…

OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WAS PEEING!!! The whole machine and table and everything else would be covered with my bodily fluids!!! OHHHH, HOW EMBARISSING….

And then I did a check, check, double check, like I often do at the farm, checking the boys…

No pee, or better described, no wet stuff anywhere. I could swear (hands in the fire, on my grandmother’s grave, on my unborn (hopefully in the future) child) I lost my power to hold my urine on that table.

Try to lie completely still when all this goes true your mind…

The sweet voice on the intercom told me I was done and they were going to roll me out. Thank God!
I did another check that I really didn’t wet myself, looked at the sweet young nurse and said:
“YOU WERE RIGHT!” she just laughed and got a red face,…. Again.

Such sweetie pies!








After finding my bra and jewelry she escorted me back to Bastiaan and of course I just had to tell him what just happened… He didn't think it was that sensational... Wait until HE gets a scan... hehe...

Thanks to Verde Farm for hosting "Farm Friend Friday"!!!



...

Boy trouble

Long, long time ago, when I was still young and dreaming about moving to the United States and still living with my parents I used to go out with my friends every weekend. We had a pretty neat disco about 30 minutes from our house and we would go there every Saturday evening.
At one of those Saturday nights I ran into an old flame of mine. We dated a couple of weeks in high school until he got a car (the car was MUCH MORE fascinating than I, and so I got traded in, so to speak)... it was about 1 am in the morning…

He already had a couple (as in plenty) of beers to drink and he was remembering the good old times (before the car that is), I agreed with him and soon he suggested that maybe he should come over later that night. He said he would come by at 1 am. I told him that was impossible because it was already 1 am, maybe he should come by at 3 am?… Ok, he said, “I’ll come by at two.” (Like I said, enough beers)…

“No Joey, it is already 1 am, by the time it is two I’ll be still here dancing and who will open up the door for you….”. He finally got it (or so I thought) and told me he would come by my house at five in the morning. That was all right with me, I figured he would go about this business drink some more beer and would have forgotten all about me and our so called date the second he turned around…

I got home at about three in the morning and got myself into bed and slept like a rose…

Until 2 minutes past five that is…

I wasn’t sure what I was hearing, but something woke me up. My window was at the back of our house and the last part had a flat roof. You could climb via the gutter onto that flat roof and you would stand right in front of my window…

In Holland you have some kind of heavy shades on the outsides of your windows, to protect you from the sun and… intruders. It’s not really a shade (but I don’t have a better word for it right now) but you can open in half way to let a little bit of sun in or all the way, usually during the day. I had mine closed during the night except the last 4 slots so a little bit of light would come in.

There was defiantly some scratching going on. And I could see movement true the slots…

Oh my gosh, somebody is trying to get in the house!?! I COMPLETELY freaked out and thought about my little talk with Joey! And I thought, “O MY GOSH, HE DIDN’T!!!!!!”

I snuck out of my bed, commando style, with my tummy on the floor and my bootie sticking up, crawling, and opened my door so I could slip true without too much light shining in from the hallway (otherwise Joey would know I would be on to him)… And there was NO WAY i would let him into the house!

My mom and dad slept downstairs and I got to my mom’s bed side. “Mom… MOM, there is somebody outside my window!!!” She woke up a bit and looked at me funny and told me I had a bad dream… I said “No, no bad dream, there is somebody outside my window and want’s to come in!!!” "It was scratching at my window shades!!!" She sat up in bed and told me maybe it was a bird… “A pigeon perhaps!?!”

“NOOOOO MOM, I think it is Joey….”

My mom looked at me if I just came from another planet and turned around to wake up my dad.
“Wim, wake up! Leontien thinks’ Joey is up on the roof”…
My dad was awake in an instant! He pretty much jumped out of bed, and RUN to the outside door! I had NEVER seen my dad so incredibly mad.

I stayed inside too ashamed to go and see Joey, because I DID tell him he should come over, I just never ever thought he would really take action (being as drunk as he was)!

If my dad had a baseball bat he would knocked Joey of off the roof. Instead he yelled:
“GET DOWN" and "WHAT THE F*&^%*CK ARE YOU DOING UP THERE!?!” (in Dutch, but with the same effect)…

Joey refused, and yelled back that he was trying to find a dry place… It was after all raining cats and dogs that night…

After 10 grueling minutes Joey finally got off the roof and my dad told him to go home.

After my dad got home and put on dry clothes he looked at me and asked why Joey was up on our roof…? I told him, “I don’t know daddy…”

I found out later from friends that Joey refused a ride home at two in the morning, because “he needed to be somewhere” and WALKED the 4 miles to my house in the rain.

He also refused to talk to me for a good year and a half.

I did find the nerves to tell my mom and dad what happened (eventually) and now almost 15 years later we still think about the crazy boy that would climb up on the roof to come see me...


...

The bird who lost it

Ever seen the movie "The Birds" by Alfred Hitchcock???
Scary movie...
But i wasn't going to tell you about that movie, i was going to tell you about my adventures with birds here in America...

In Holland I never saw many different kinds of birds (but maybe I didn’t pay enough attention), here you have red ones, blue ones, yellow ones, big ones, little ones and all the “normal ones”. We even got a book (!!!) so we can watch the birds and try to figure out what it is we are looking at.

I just think this is one of the cutes
pictures ever...





Maybe there are just more birds here, now that I think about it…

While on chemo I had no energy or strength to do most of the normal stuff (see: What cancer does to somebody like me) like everybody does from day to day. I spent a lot of my time during treatment in bed and a lot of those days I would hear a strange sound. First I thought it was just in my head that I was hallucinating but then I figured out it would happen EVERY day around 9 o'clock...

Everyday around 9 am there would be a ticking sound. It was like there was somebody or something, hitting tapping, ticking to the outside of the house. Not very loud but persistent and usually by the time I would get out of bed and into the next room I didn’t see or hear it no more. I couldn’t figure out what it was that made that sound, and it drove me nuts! So I would check up on our cats, maybe they went looking for some mouses and somehow were making that sound with their claws.

But it wasn’t…

See the little drop of water???






One day Bastiaan stayed home a little longer than normal because he worked the night shift at the farm the night before and we were lying in bed together. Around 8.30 am the ticking noise started again.
I pushed Bastiaan out off the bed and told him to go find out what on EARTH was making that noise!?! He went downstairs and he saw a sparrow sitting in front of one of the basement windows, ticking with his beak against the glass. He or she flew away as soon as he/she saw Bastiaan and flew to our guest bedroom window (which is on the same side, just higher up, on the house) sat down and pretended to be a woodpecker again…

Bastiaan and I discussed this whole crazy bird theory:

These yellow birds kept us company
during the summer





Maybe he/she saw the glistering of the light in the glass and decided he/she wanted it…
Maybe he/she figured in our basement is some good stuff for him/her to munch on…
Maybe the bird always wanted to be a woodpecker and a crow at the same time and decided to pick (as in hammer) at shinny things…
Or maybe he just lost it…

Whatever his/her motive was, that same bird kept me company for the 64 weeks I was on chemo, and because of that, I love my birds here in The States!

Humming
birds have a special
place in
my heart





Have a great weekend and have fun at the Farm Friend Friday at Verde Farms!!! (I know, I'll get the hang of that button thingy sometime soon!


...

Once upon a thunderstorm

Whenever people find out that we are not from the US, one of the first questions is;

“How’s the weather over in the Netherlands” or “what is the difference between the weather here in Indiana and the weather in Holland?”

My answer is pretty much always the same. “It is a bit warmer in the winter and a bit cooler in the summer”, “ours (as in ours, the Dutch weather) is a bit more the same all year round, we don’t have the high’s and we don’t have the lows.

With that said, Oh my gosh, if it rains in Indiana, it RAINS. If it is warm, it is WARM (with 85% humidity) and if it is cold, it is COLD (as in my little nose hairs will freeze against the inside of my nose cold).

And thunderstorms, Yes, you kinda know what is coming;
The thunderstorms are mind blowing even without the occasional twister…

It was 2008 and I was in full chemo mode.
To cheer me up and comfort me, my little sister came from the Netherlands and helped my hubby, mom & dad and brother driving me back and forth to the hospital and assisting me from my bed to our living room. Every Sunday I would almost feel like a human being again and this particular Sunday, because my sister was here, my mom suggested to go out to dinner. She wanted something fancy but all I cared for was a Big Mac.

I really didn’t feel like going at all, but to please my mom and because my little sister was here I agreed to go to Mc Donalds… Best thing ever, Mc Donalds, even if you do nasty chemo…

The funny thing here in the US is that if there is a thunderstorm, or big rain or anything like that coming, they usually do a really good job in letting you know. But us stubborn foreigners and not to familiar with the news broadcasting saw the news (and the HUGE storm coming our way) and decided to ignore it…

My sister even asked us if we could go, with the thunderstorm coming our way and all. But i was like, “Yeah, sure!”  I had after all set my mind on a Big Mac! Nothing could stop me fromg getting to dinner now!

We went to Mickey D’s and got myself a nice Big Mac and watched TV (because there are TV’s EVERYWHERE here) on which they kept announcing bad weather. My little sister (and yes she is 30 now, and not so little anymore, but she is my little sister) got a tiny bit more worried. She asked pretty much everybody every five seconds if it was safe to drive home and what that (meaning the tornado alarm) was on TV….? “Nothing to worry about” I told her. “American’s like to over react…”

After 5 minutes, it really doesn’t take long to eat a Big Mac, the sky turned into a real ugly green…

By that time the news lady sounded a bit panicky too…

It started lightning, and the sky turned into an even uglier green and reddish color…

The Amish buggies were flashing by Mc Donalds, probably trying to get home in time, and I felt a bit sick. Not because I eat too much (or because my stomach had shrunk to the size of a peanut during chemo, and I couldn’t possibly eat a whole Big Mac), no… I did NOT like the way the sky looked and I wanted to go HOME!

But of course I couldn’t let my sister feel whatever it was that I was feeling, I after all told her not to worry and that those crazy Americans exaggerate immensely, all the time… storms included…

My sister didn’t want to leave! By that time she was so scared she decided to stay put.

So we pretty much PUSHED her in the car, telling her we had to go home, to the farm to be exact, we had over 2000 cows we needed to look at, not to mention 7 employees, that probably were as scared as we were, trying to keep the farm running (power outage, looked more and more an issue at hand).

When we got to the first intersection I looked right, and I shouldn’t have done that …

I saw sparks coming off of electric posts breaking and crashing to the ground. Tree tops flying by and police cars and firefighter trucks speeding to the far end of town (All the Amish buggies had disappeared by that time). This was the direction we needed to go, but my dad wisely (after seeing the look on my face) decided to drive straight South.

Limbs (no not branches, LIMBS) were flying by, leaves everywhere, hail the size of golf balls, and RAIN, so much RAIN…. We couldn’t drive fast, but my dad drove as fast as he dared to go. My little sister was ducked down in the back of the car cursing at us and screaming “that we should have listened to those weather reporters!”

I agreed…

We turned on the road leading to our dairy and the wind suddenly disappeared. We pulled into our drive and the sun was shining. No storm, or there was a storm just seconds ago, scene anywhere!
The power didn’t even blink!

The next day we found out there was indeed a tornado, touched down, merely half a mile from our Mc Donalds at pretty much the same time we left the building and it ripped up trees, posts and houses. Luckily nobody was hurt (al the SMART Americans listened to the TV or radio and went to the basement).

My little sister and I drove up to the hospital the next day, watching all the rubbish and trees and phone poles lying around and she told me, if she ever was to come back to the US and if they ever were to announce a storm, she was staying home! In the basement!

And I agreed...


...

Heavenly roads

The roads here are like heaven.

They are big, long, straight and well maintained (most of the times).

Heavenly roads...






So what is more heavenly than to drive 75 miles an hour at the highway and enjoy the music and the flashing by of the road markers…

Actually nothing, until you see a nice white and blue marked car, spinning around on the opposite lane and turn on nice red, white and blue lights…

And as a “new” citizen of this country it is very hard to recognize those cars and slow down in time because they can be green and white or gray and black or white and black. VERY CONFUSING, it would be much easier if they were just all the same!?

Heavenly roads that you can't see...








So I slowed down, and pulled over. The policeman in question gets out of his car with of course his sunglasses on and walks his very manly walk over to my car. Well it was my mom and dad’s car so I was still fumbling true the glove compartment to find the insurance papers.

“PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE STEERING WHEEL!” he yelled. "Oh my gosh, sorry sir". If I wasn’t sweating like a little piglet before, I was now! How am I supposed to know that you are NOT allowed to fumble in your glove compartment for you insurance papers???

“Hand me your driver’s license”. Hmmmmm, I didn’t have one, as in an American one, and the Dutch one I had was in MY car at MY house. "Sorry, sir".

“What is your name?” Well it is Leontien Oostdijck, but it probably is in your computer Leontien van de Laar (I just got married you see). It is never a good idea to tell more information to the police officer, I found out. "So sorry, sir".

Heavenly roads old style...







“What is your Social Security Number?” Hmmmmm, I don’t know. … I knew but I am so flustered that I just CAN’T remember the numbers. "Even more sorry, sir".

“What your address?” And yes, I even messed that up by giving him my house address street name and number but the farms town and zip code part of the address . With a very red head, sweating like a maniac, sorry sir.

After these 4 questions and me giving wrong or no answers too all of them the policeman got a little nervous.

He walked away to his car with my mom and dad’s insurance card, and after 20 minutes he came back. In those 20 minutes I already pictured myself in an orange jumper in the Fort Wayne jail, getting one phone call, trying to explain too Bastiaan why I ended up there. It is not uncommon that they put our Hispanic employees straight in jail if they don’t have the proper ID’s so I figured I would have the same faith.

He looked at me, handed me a ticked for speeding!?!

Roadsigns that made it all the way over the
ocean...





He told me it would take him too much time to tow my car, do all the paperwork and book me so I got lucky?!? I needed to promise him to go get my Indiana drivers license and never leave the house without proper id AND memorize my Social Security Number.

No jail, no orange jumper again (Like in Worst plane rides ever) just a ticked and a warning. I couldn’t believe my ears.

I mumbled a “YES SIR” and went on my merry way.
Without passing the speed limit...
At least for that day...