Gives new meaning to al dente

A few weeks ago an office mate ("Gunner," a retired Navy warrant officer whom our commander says never really left the Navy and who's been here since Belgium was founded) gave Rita the business card of his dentist. She passed it to me, and I left it sitting on my desk, periodically looking at it and thinking that I should call and make us appointments for checkups. But since it's the dentist and I'm a human being, I never did. (To my credit, I did have it displayed in a prominent place so that I'd see it often. If I'm going to be bad I at least wanted to feel guilty about it.)

Then today after lunch (spaghetti) I felt like I had something really big stuck in my teeth. After going through a bunch of dental floss (it kept severing), several toothpicks, and a lot of worrying at it, I finally dislodged...a piece of tooth. No choice but to call the dentist, who just happened to have an opening. He was close by, a nice guy, and very competent. Turns out I had a cavity under an old filling. He had to do a three-surface amalgam, meaning he essentially rebuilt the tooth with filling stuff.

This was probably the most French I've spoken at one time since I got here, mostly because we had a nice long chat while we waited for the local anesthesia to take effect. No, he didn't run off to another patient; I was the only patient. And he has no receptionists, hygienists, or business managers. What he did have was thoroughly modern equipment. It was a very pleasant experience, even if he's not as cute as my regular dentist.

It was really tough spaghetti.

Cook 'im, Dano!

We don't often see the police in our neighborhood. Ours is a pretty quiet corner of the world. So it was a little unusual to see a police vehicle on our street as we left for our evening walk. It seemed to be just driving up and down the road, and as we came abreast of them, the two officers inside rolled down the window and asked if we lived on the street. We said we did (no use trying to lie to the fuzz), so they asked, "Avez-vous vu un cochon sur la voie publique?" "Have you see a pig on the road?" Thinking we were having a language problem, we responded, as we would have even if we were native French speakers, "Huh?" But no, we had heard correctly: they were looking for a pig. We've barely seen pigs at all in Belgium, much less on our street. But we'll keep our eyes open. And if we find him, we'll be sure to tell him not to leave town.

How we spent Thanksgiving

Ha ha, gotcha!

Actually, I'm going to direct you to Nathaniel and Felicity's blogsite (click the link from our blog) for some great pictures of how we spent the holiday. It was a lot of fun pretending to be grandparents (no pressure, girls!). We even cleaned the carpets in anticipation of William's crawling. (Good thing, 'cause the water that got sucked out by the carpet cleaner was REALLY nagsty.)

Anyway, we didn't get to show them a lot of Belgium because they weren't here long enough. But we did go shopping in Mons on Thanksgiving because, hey, it wasn't a Belgian holiday and the stores were open! We decided we have to go back to Ghent/Gent/Gand (pick your spelling) and stay longer next time.

Army-Navy from the inside

If you've ever watched any of the Army-Navy football game, you've seen a few of those often elaborate "Go Navy! Beat Army" and "Go Army! Beat Navy!" spots. Turns out that on Armed Forces Network (AFN) they start waaaay before game day; we've been seeing them for at least a week already. The ones on AFN are also sometimes a bit less...well, subtle than what they'll show on network TV. And every danged unit in the world seems to want to make one. We just watched one made by an Army detachment in Romania (who knew?). It featured Bill the talking goat and cluster munitions. They did not specify that no animals were harmed blah blah blah, so I wonder.

The game is Saturday. Dollars to donuts they don't show Bill the Goat getting waxed.

A different kind of worship

We had bagpipes at church yesterday. And a bugler. It was 11 November, so for the British and Canadians it was Remembrance Sunday. It was the biggest crowd I've ever seen there, and was probably especially big since this is the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele. The place was packed with UK and Canadian troops, all in dress uniforms; that alone was worth the price of admission (okay, so they don't charge admission...even if they are Anglicans). Linda, you would have just fainted dead away. During the part of service set aside for the actually remembering, the piper played a lament as he crossed from one end of the chapel to the other, the bugler played "The Last Post," and after a time of silence the bugler sounded "The Reveille" (not the one we're used to). It was quite moving. There was also some actual worship in there, and at the end they sang "God Save the Queen" and "O Canada!" I refrained from doing anything obnoxiously colonial, like singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at the top of my lungs during "God Save the Queen," but I was singing it in my head. I did sing along with the Canadians, though, in sort of in a spirt of continental solidarity.

Bikes in Denmark

Copenhagen is bicycle-friendly. Bikes have their own - wide- lanes on the roads. People go to work on their bikes: people in suits, skirts, jeans, stretch pants, billowing coats. All on bikes, despite the cold, rain, and wind. Because this city is set up for bike travel. I've never seen so many people riding bikes (except in the Tour, of course).

But what does that have to do with this picture? Well, these are the guards who guard the royal palace. They march from the Rosenborg Slot (that means castle) in one part of the city to the royal palace in another part of the city. They march on the city streets. In the bike lane. We snapped this photo while they waited at a red light, along with the cars beside them.

Come to Daddy

Big Daddy Deer next door is in rut. We know this because he's spent the last two days emitting this weird call that sounds more like a belch than anything else. So far nothing seems to be happening. However, this evening as I watched from our bedroom window, Big Daddy ran wildly over into a corner of the neighbor's year where I couldn't see him. A small brown deer ran in the opposite direction. After a few seconds, Big Daddy ran into another section of yard and stood there, bewildered. (Presumably it doesn't take much to bewilder a deer.) Soon thereafter, I saw the brown deer run away again. Big Daddy may be on to something here.

Fortunately it's too cool to keep the windows open at night; otherwise we might hear something rather private going on over there tonight.

Halloween in Hautrage

Pumpkin Man came to Hautrage even though there were no girls to be scared.

We had no idea what would happen on Halloween, since this is our first year here. We had our pumpkin carved and illuminated. We passed the word at work that we would welcome trick-or-treaters, and one of our colleagues, who lives in the next village over, brought his kids and their Belgian friends by. We asked the Belgians what they say when they trick or treat and one replied, with a puzzled look, "Merci." So we had to rephrase by asking what they say when they knock on the door. We got two answers: "bonbons ou mort" (candy or death) or bonbons ou sort (we're guessing this means "give us candy or be prepared to meet your fate").

We were rather disappointed that these were our only trick-or-treaters, but you know, that's only a few less than what we normally get at home in Columbia. Next year we'll make sure the neighbors know we're ready and willing to hand out American treats.

Walking in the dark

We meant to post this entry a couple nights ago.

One evening this week - maybe Wednesday - we stayed a little late at work to finish up some things. That meant we got home as it was getting dark and we had to go for our walk in the dark. We chose to walk along the canal, figuring that was safer. We took two flashlights because the entire path we planned to walk isn't lit. Well, walking along the canal kept us out of the range of cars. We hadn't reckoned, however, on one of the flashlights dying on us less than a kilometer out. By then we had discovered the dangers of walking the canal path: horse hooey. Big piles of it. Nevertheless we soldiered on, past the parts of the path that are lighted, saving the battery on our remaining flashlight. We encountered Mama cow and three calves OUTSIDE the pasture, grazing by the path along the canal. This was the second time I'd met Mama so I guess she figured we were harmless and she ignored us. (The first time she and the calfs ran along the path in front of me until I gave up and turned around.) Anyway, meeting up with Mama wasn't scarey; not knowing where she and the babies had been, if you know what I mean, was. We eventually got to our turning around point and headed home, racing the waning battery in our remaining flashlight and trying to remember exactly where we'd seen those big piles. Fortunately we guessed right and the light lasted.

The next day we walked at work.