Dagmaraka goes Dutch

yeah, scarves are popular here...to my annoyance, because they drown out my collection.

CJ, surprise parties are not my cup of tea either.... in fact any parties where i don't know most of the people. i find them draining.
walter, that's a must see for me. fashion AND men, certainly ideal.

Love the photos. Your co-workers seem such a good group, I like them from far away.
Loved the pictures of the horsies. Men weren't hard to look at either.

I've never been a surprise party fan. I was probably forever burned by one for myself, which of course was meant well, even very well. I might have been turning eleven. My friends built a house of horrors in the basement of one of their houses for ME to go through at my surprise halloween and birthday party.

Right, orange iced cupcakes.. I was scared - not so much by horror, as having to work my way through it alone, I think - and annoyed and hating to be the butt of fun, as I saw it (my early sort of isolated-ness, and these were kids from fairly big families) and - I assume from here - ruined all the fun. I've been to enough of them as an adult. I don't get why people love them so much.

The house of horrors made perfect sense, in retrospect.. we used to build houses out of chairs and sheets and cardboard all the time when we played outside in good weather. Might even be part of the start of my liking architecture. But that evening, I was the 'compleat' wet blanket personified, brat with attitude.

So glad to see pictures! Is the guy with the sideburns your 'boyfriend'?

Dasha, can you give me something else to say to the kid? With maybe some phonetic guidelines?

When he first saw me this morning he nearly jumped out of his seat to make some sort of contact. Then he remembered where he was (science class) and sat quickly back down.

ALREADY?!? Damn, the girl doesn't waste time, does she?!

Supposedly he's a "co-worker", but we all know different, right?

No, my "boyfriend" is the blond one. But both my "boyfriend" and Sideburns live with their girlfriends for quite some time now and both put together are about half my age... or so I feel. But I feel to be about 165 today.

Hahahaha! Speaking of "boyfriends".....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdYeQRH3VYI&NR=1

Now I feel discriminated against. All those movies about middle-aged single career women, but none, not a one, about middle-aged single carreer men! Show biz is so unfair!

Well, no movies with male counter-parts on Target Women - it is a feminist schpiel.

Far be it from me to be more feminist than thou, but I don't think this is selection bias on Target Women's part. It does seem to be genuine movie-script-selection-bias by Hollywood. Or can you think of three movies about male counter-parts over the last year? I can't think of a single one myself.

what about all those movies starring colin firth and Hugh Grant?

Colin Firth? Not sure which movie you mean. The Accidental Husband is in your episode of Haskin's Target Women; the only others that come to my mind, Bridget Jones Diaries I and II, are mainly about middle-aged, female journalist Bridget Jones, not the Tom Haskins character she ends up with. So, to the extent that I know Colin Firth's recent movies, they would seem to prove Huskin's point, not rebut it.

I might grudgingly give you Hugh Grant though. If I wanted to stickle, I'd point out that Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral are older than a year, that Notting Hill isn't exactly about the carreer-making kind of bookshop owner, and that Grant's job in Four Weddings
is peripheral, if that. But I'm not in a mood to stickle, so I'll grant you that these two come close to the kind of movies I had in mind, and Haskins isn't talking about them.

also 2 Weeks Notice and About a Boy. I can't name ANY movies that are not older than a year.

Well, we haven't heard from you in a few days. How's it going in the old country?

I think she's writing.

I'll be in Holland next week for one day (either -most probably- Thursday or Friday), in Leiden.
Which is rather close to Den Haag ...

Walter my friend you can't go wrong by taking Dagmaraka to the Espreszobar at Rabbijn Maarsenplein 20, in the heart of Den Haag for a "lekker bakje koffie".

hey, internet is going down in the building for a bit, but i'll be back. walter, just let me know if you'll be here. i'll check back here.