Crazy Americans and yard obsessions

Even before you actually enter the country you can see it from the skies… You don’t even have to look that closely, it is just beautiful and it is everywhere here in Indiana!

And yes of course you guessed right away that I am talking about YARDS...! And no, not any yards I am talking about American Yards and Lawns!

me mowing the lawn

I have NEVER ever seen such huge lawns with sooo much grass! Yes, I was used to yards and lawns with some grass, but overall it would be scrubs and trees and flowers. I was in for a big treat because here you have just lots and lots of grass and a couple of trees and scrubs… Found out later that it sometimes (depending on the year) that flowers and such might get too cold in the winter and to hot in the summer, so to keep your yard looking nice people pick plants that can survive this great climate change between summer and winter. Another thing i learned is that we only have 2 seasons here, summer and winter, no messing around with spring and fall...

Now, we were not used to all this grass and in 2006 when we had our first spring here you can image our surprise when we saw grandpa’s, grandma’s, men, women and teens cruzing around on their lawnmower with a big heavy “barrel” behind it…

We check and found out that it was to flatten the ground, so when the grass would finally start to grow the smoother your ride would be! Amazing! We never flattened out yard to get a smooth ride! We were always pushing and pushing our lawnmowers and if we were lucky we would run over the electric cable… (Oh, sorry daddy…) and could quit early!

Bastiaan mowing our yard

But the most fantastic thing about these smooth well maintained lawns is the fact that sometimes there are “things” in the yard. And yes “things” vary from, houses that not have been painted in 50 plus years, buses, cars, farm equipment in all stages of life, tires, toys, lots and lots of toys, shoes, scrap metal, barns that have not been occupied in this century and oh did I tell you, cars…sometimes with flowers, sometimes with all kinds of gorgeous weeds...

We would see these beautiful yards/lawns, mowed all the way to the neighbors property line, yes besides the road too (both sides!) and think oh my gosh! And then you would really look in the yard and you can see 3 different layers of paint on the house all coming off, or a vehicle that people have been mowing around for over 15 years…. And we would just stop and stare.

I know this is not very polite of us, but we just could not help it.

Americans spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on good looking lawn mow machinery, and gallons of gas to run that fine piece of equipment but they did not save up some money to buy some paint for the house they live in, so the house can match their beautiful yard? Or remove the truck where the snakes and other varmints live in out of their yard, so their kids can play safely? I can also think of smoother lines you can drive with your green grass eating monster then making circles around that old piece of junk?

Jan willem and Roxi mowing the yard

But then again, maybe I am just a new Duchie and should look at this a different way….

It is absolutely gorgeous to see all these beautiful lawns, and when we were back in Holland last year I must admit I was kind of disappointed to see grass as tall as my hips besides the roads. I also talked to Bastiaan and almost got him to OK the fact that I wanted to store my old BMW in the yard and make a flower bed out of it….

Yeah! getting closer to be a real American…. To bad Bastiaan isn't ready for some lawn ornaments!?!


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If you want to catch up on some Crazy Americans;
Crazy Americans and public Restrooms
Crazy Americans, now where is it that you left your keys?
Crazy Americans smoking like a chimney



Crazy Americans! Smoking like a Chimney

Oh how I loved smoking!
Really!

If I could smoke just ONE cigarette whenever I would feel blue (as in extremely stressed) and then quit smoking again, I would do it in a heartbeat! Hmmmmm, maybe not.....

I used to smoke... a lot.

I started this nasty habit when I was 16 years old. Yes, the age where you think you are invincible and you can take on the whole world. My friends were smoking and in The Netherlands there was no official law that you couldn’t, besides it wasn’t that hard to get cigarettes. It started with a couple of cigarettes a week. Mostly when we would go to a bar or a club, or after school in the school yard, hanging out with my girlies on our bicycles.

But soon, it got more and more. Life wasn’t easy (as for any teenager) and so when I was studying Agricultural Economics I was up to 1.5 packs of cigarettes a day. Yep, I did not drink but I did smoke A LOT!

That all changed on the first day of chemo. I figured I might as well quit the bad habit (read NASTY addiction to nicotine) while starting a much MUCH more harmful chemical “medicine” that would mess up my whole insides anyway. I thought of it as, “Well better stop with the smoking while they are pumping all this other stuff in my body. I can’t handle both!”

Of course that was just though talk! It isn’t as easy as it seems to quit a 13 year old habit/addiction that easily. Good thing was I had my chemo working for me!

Because of the side effects the Interferon had, smoking was ABSOLUTELY impossible! The first day after we started I could not even smoke half a cigarette without running (as in crawling, I didn’t have the energy) to the bathroom and throw up! Trust me; if you have to throw up every time you light up a smoke, you will STOP SMOKING, FAST!

But now you might be thinking what does all of this have to do with this week’s “Crazy Americans”? Well, actually a lot! Because as a former smoker I always look, see, find people who smoke. It is like a second nature. If I see somebody smoking, anywhere/anytime my sub consciousness automatically registers it!

And I must say living in America was not what I had expected it to be as far as being a smoker goes!

All over the world you used to see those amazing appealing commercials, big signs, in magazines of those though cowboys with a cigarette. Well in the “real America” that I have come to love, there is NO such thing as what those advertisements promise. You are not allowed to smoke in a club/pub/bar. You are not allowed to smoke in a restaurant and your are not allowed to smoke in any public building. And don’t get me wrong, I think this is good/fantastic for us human beings, but it is kinda disappointing as a smoker coming into this country!

Now to get to the root of my “Crazy Americans” post. Why is it that woman and normally I ONLY see WOMEN smoke while driving their cars???

YEP, it is the ladies that I see… everywhere!

Driving too town, driving too another state, driving around just to drive my car. I see ladies, girls (cause yes you can drive a car here at SIXTEEN!!!), older women, girlfriends and grandma’s behind the wheel, smoking like a chimney! What is up with that!? Maybe it is something that women do in the Midwest but I have no idea why? I don’t see them smoking on the street and of course I don’t see them smoking at home cause I don’t know them, but why???

Maybe it is much more fun driving and smoking in the own comfort of your car, or maybe they are not allowed to smoke at home, they sure are not allowed to smoke anywhere else so the car is the best option…? I don’t think so…. Smoking and driving isn’t the safest thing to do….

BUT as a former smoker and relatively new to America (Indiana) seeing women smoke whenever they drive their cars just makes me wonder. Is it something they grew up with or is it something new because society doesn’t allow them (the smoker) anywhere else anymore?

Do you see ladies smoke behind the wheel, or do you see as many guys as girls smoke while driving? Or haven’t your noticed this “smoking trend” at all and is it just me being "crazy"?

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You can also enjoy:
Crazy Americans & public restrooms
and
Crazy Americans! Now where is it that you left your keys

Crazy Americans! Now where is it that you left your keys?

OK, so this was in the local newspaper (or something really close to this) about a month after we immigrated here from The Netherlands.

“The Bluffton Sheriff’s department is asking all residents to take their keys out of the car and or close car windows while shopping at the local grocery store (Yes, this would be your local Walmart).”

And I just could NOT stop laughing, I really almost peed my pants while running over to mom and dad to show them this little article on page 4 of the local newspaper!

We really had a hard time believing what we just read so we read it again, and again...

We had already noticed a HUGE difference in “what people do” here, and with here I mean, local Indiana, in the middle of nowhere, county living, RURAL AREA, Indiana. They sure had different methods of leaving their keys somewhere else than what we were used to coming from the Netherlands.

In Holland you need to lock EVERYTHING. This includes: Cars; first of all, lock them with CLOSED windows! Second, hide your CD player, phone, I-pad, kids toys! And do not leave laptops or other important devices in your car because your car will be broken into or (worse) just be plain GONE! Bicycles; have at least two locks, and maybe an extra chain that you can put around your bike and wrap it around a lantern post. You probably will lose your bike anyway to some drunk person who couldn’t find his or her bike and just took yours. Good thing we have HUNDREDS of bikes in Holland… Your wallet; have a big HEAVY chain on it, chained to your jeans otherwise somebody else WILL TAKE IT!

Especially walking in a big city like Amsterdam it would be even smarter to keep your wallet close to your body under lot’s and lot’s of layers of clothes. It WILL be gone before you have even noticed it! Your tractor; yes, in these days even tractors are not safe anymore, they will take them and run them into a big semi and ship them off to different parts of Europe. And finally your house, never ever leave your house unlocked, not even for five minutes to borrow a cup of sugar at your sweet little old lady (that your barely know) neighbor! Your house will be empty by the time you drank her tea and eat the old stale cookies and got back!

Soooo now you know how it works in Holland. Well, this is how it worked in rural Indiana. And maybe you can understand our confusion. And my big “WHY?” Every time I would see something like a running or unlocked car.

People leave their cars running in the winter while they are shopping. “Why???” Because otherwise the car will be cold by the time they get back. People leave their cars running in the summer while they are shopping. “Why???” Because otherwise the car will be hot by the time they get back. To me this sounds like “LAZY” all over, but maybe I’m just looking at it wrong and should I look at it as “SMART”?!? But what if somebody would see you car and drive off with it...

People leave their cars windows down in the summer while they are shopping. “Why???” Because (normally these are the crappier/older cars) they have NO air condition and otherwise the car will get hot while they are shopping… I do have to admit having a older BMW with no air conditioner it was pretty tempting to leave the windows down… And then my CD collection of Matchbox Twenty kicked in and I walked back to my car after walking 10 steps away from it and closed the windows… What if somebody would take my Rob Thomas…

People leave their cars unlocked while shopping. “Why???” I have no idea…. Maybe because it is always a hassle to find your car keys when you are pushing a full cart…? That was the only reason I could think off…. Well... It is pretty annoying to dig out your keys while your cart strolls off into a empty neighboring car that DOES have the engine running…

People have their houses unlocked while they are going on a vacation for THREE WEEKS?!? “Why???” Because they forgot to lock it and they took their keys with them? Maybe? I really didn’t get this one but after a couple of nights laying awake pondering this I came to the conclusion that maybe grandma didn’t have a spare key…

So yes, crazy American’s. Right?!?

To be honest I am a bit torn on this one. One side of me says, “Who is the crazy now?” The Dutchies because they have come too such a sad society they cannot trust anybody anymore and have to lock everything everywhere…  And the other side of me says; The “Crazy Americans”, who just leave everything out in the open and don’t lock a thing, anywhere, because they trust each other to leave the stuff that is yours, yours and the stuff that is mine, mine?!?

I kinda like the idea of not having to lock up your belongings all the time and that you have enough faith in your fellow earthlings that they don’t steal your stuff all the time….

But… I still lock my car…. And our house…. And I still hide my wallet in a special compartment in my handbag…

Crazy me?


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If you missed the first "Crazy Americans" please check out Crazy Americans & Public Restrooms !

Crazy Americans & public restrooms

Ok…
American’s can be a tat crazy…
I know I know, Dutch people are cheap…
Belgium people are not so smart (or so they say)…
And French people just DON’T wanna talk English when you are on vacation in Euro Disney…

No typing and peeing!







We love to put people in small little boxes, so we can make ourselves feel better. This post is not about that! I love everybody, every ethnic group, every religion, every culture, every “we do it our way” and this post is just meant to be funny and make you think (a bit).

Since we immigrated to this beautiful country I have noticed some strange things and some of them make me lay awake at night and think and some just make me chuckle and turn my head. I would love to share these thoughts with you and hope you’ll enjoy and maybe get a chuckle out of it as well…

So here we go with my first “Crazy Americans!”

The things you see when you first come into this country are astonishing! EVERY THING IS BIG, OR BIGGER, well except for the public restrooms that is!

And i'm sorry to say but he people are truly bigger here too. (I see the difference getting smaller, USA versus Europe lately, but 15 years ago the difference was really shocking). My sweet aunt took me to a local grocery store and that is where I encountered my first “obese lady”. I can tell you my mouth and jaw almost reached the street, and I had to sneak behind her to watch again, and again, to make sure my brain was NOT playing tricks with me. She had a normal big size torso, normal big size legs but her butt was almost as big as the whole sliding door of the grocery store! I looked at my aunt and she just shook her head, as if to say, "keep your manners and don’t stare". But I just couldn’t help myself. I had seen nothing like this in my sixteen years being on this planet…

An American restroom...














A couple of weeks into my stay here we went to the movies. I think it was Star Wars but I could be wrong, and I desperately needed to go to the bathroom. I walk into the bathroom and the first thing I notice is that there is about ONE INCH AND A HALF of room between the door and the frame!

“WHAT’S THIS?!?”

“How am I suppose to pee, if anybody that walks by can just watch me sit there and do my business!!??” You feel embarrassed enough when the walls don’t go all the way up and if you pee everybody can hear you, but SEE you… Well that is a whole different dimension!

So while I’m sitting there figuring out how I can pee comfortable without anybody peeking in, I was thinking about how I came in this little restroom in the first place. The door opens INWARDS!!! “Hmmmm, why would that be….?”

Soo I finally got the peeing done with and was pretty proud of myself for not sounding too loud and I got up, try to open the door and to my amazement (what I didn’t “get” coming into the toilet) I almost had to sit back on the seat in order to open the door and get out! And you have to keep in mind at age 16 I weighed about 50 kilo’s…. uhmmm… 114 pounds...

Even in Moscow they have doors that open outwards!






From that moment on I have checked every public restroom (I know, I know, who’s crazy now…) But for every 20 public toilets there is only one that has a door opening OUTWARDS! So now we go back to that lady at the supermarket in 1995. If I already have so much trouble getting in an out a public restroom (and yes this includes, your Walmart, your rest areas, your restaurants, your movie theatres, your casino’s, your schools, your racetracks your airports, your public buildings, your hospitals, and so on and so on) besides the fact that it is just embarrassing to hear or SEE somebody pee (or worse), how on earth does the average American women who in most cases is slightly bigger than me, manage to get in and out of the restroom in a decent manner???

And no I haven’t had the guts to check the men’s restrooms, but I’m sure it can’t be that different from the ladies…


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