Lilac Colored Glasses

On this day next year I will celebrate my 29th trip around the sun.
And I will also become a wife.

Prior to my tumble down the stairs, I was planning to come back to my blog with a little song I heard recently. It’s an easy going, simple little tune and while CB and I do get a chuckle over it’s schlageriness (made that one up myself), it’s been stuck in my head ever since I decided it’d be a good “end of hiatus” tune.

However, I thought it best to tell you about what happened Monday and I couldn’t see a good place to segue into a Dutch schlageresque song. It’s kind of hard to stay upbeat when you feel so beat up.  Much of my physical pain is subsiding (though my wrist is hurting more) and the longer I’m able to sit in one place, the more I’ve made the mistake of reading the news.

I usually avoid the news because it depresses me and considering the month I’ve had, I don’t need to be more depressed, but this week I found myself clicking around the headlines and reading about things like the Maori protest in Auckland, the court’s decision to uphold Prop.8, the GOP trying to find ways to deny the first ever Hispanic woman from a place in the Supreme Court, and Israel’s Knesset trying to pass a law to imprison anyone who denies Israel is a Jewish state.

What most of it boils down to is discrimination, for one reason or another and it really makes me feel sick to read the comments of the “Joe the Plumbers” out there who find any reason they can to put down those who are different than them. I can’t say I know much about council seats in New Zealand, but the disgusting amount of racism in the comments blew me away.  And I won’t even get started on Prop. 8 cause that’s just asking for trolls. But again, the comments I saw? I can’t understand how people justify some of their own heinous opinions. These people are minorities who protested peacefully for their rights to be represented as human beings and they were mocked for “pissing people off by wasting their time in traffic”.

Are you kidding me?

I doubt that the African Americans who no longer have to drink from separate water fountains feel as though the Million Man March was a waste of time.
I doubt that the women who vote on every election day think that the suffragettes were lazy or whiny for demanding to be treated as equals in society.

Point is, the world is really bumming me out today. So before I limp off to rest my rear (and back and arm and toes), I’m going to do my best to stay positive and upbeat, and in doing so, I’d like to offer you all a happy little song to be lodged in your heads (disclaimer: I never said the song is actually any good, but it is upbeat and chipper).

Heb je even voor mij (loose translation: do you have a minute for me) – Frans Bauer

Yesterday I fell down a flight of stairs.
Yes, the whole way down. I slipped on the first step and didn’t stop till I hit the floor. About 10-11 feet I’d guess.

On the way down I felt one of the railings catch between my toes and I heard/felt a crack. So when I did finally hit the floor I was pretty sure my foot or at least some toes were broken.

CB flew down the stairs to make sure I wasn’t in any sort of critical situation before getting dressed, bringing me some clothes, helping me get to the toilet (which is where I was headed when I fell) and I admit the impact made me spring a leak…but I managed to change my panties while CB called to our car sharing company, Cambio and reserved a car. He then took off on his bike to get the car.

On the way to the ER I noticed that my left hand was starting to swell and get sore around the thumb, my toes continued to hurt and I started to feel more superficial injuries too. A nasty scrape on my right forearm, a deep blue bruise and some cuts on my left elbow (my left side apparently hit the railing on the way down and knocked 5 of the dowels loose, so most of the damage is on my left side), but the scariest pain was across my butt. I had yet to look at it but even the tiniest movement felt like my skin was on fire.

In the ER all they focused on was what hurt the most, which was my foot and my hand (I said my butt hurt but they apparently felt no need to x-ray that). I will say, I was in and out in 3 hours, which is faster than any U.S. ER but I wasn’t thrilled about the fact that I had open scrapes that weren’t at least covered (“Hello staph infection, come on in!”) and that they never checked my blood pressure, despite the fact that CB told them I have a bleeding disorder (apparently socialized healthcare makes doctors less concerned with malpractice suits and liability…when I asked CB what would happen if I bled out last night because the doctors didn’t take my disorder and internal bleeding into account his answer basically boiled down to “I guess I could try to sue, but if I say I told them about the disorder, how could I prove it?” which is true since it doesn’t seem they keep that sort of thing on record here).

Anyway, very very fortunately my foot is not broken, just bruised and sore. My wrist, however, has a small fracture and is in a cast until June 4th when they cut it off and decide if it feels/looks better or if I’ll need a new cast for 6 more weeks.

And my ass?
I wanted to take pictures because you would not believe the hideousness of it, but then you’d have to look at my butt and that would just be cruel. I may still have CB snap a few, for posterity. Seriously…my cheeks look like 2 giant eggplants and the right one actually has a long, thin, depression through it…a stair print, basically.

So, while I was planning on ending my little hiatus sometime next week, it looks like I’ll be getting back onto the blogging horse a bit early.

I’d wave hello, but I have to use my good hand to type.

I got fired.
Apparently I can’t clean for shit and no one wanted me to come back.

I feel as low as anyone can possibly feel.
Okay, no that’s a lie, but I’m feeling very very low.

I think time will be the best consolation. Also, lately it seems not too many people are taking an interest in my blog. I appreciate and cherish those of you who do read and comment and I will be reading all the blogs that I usually do.

But I think it’s time for a hiatus from Lilac Colored Glasses. It probably won’t be for very long, but right now, when I feel like everything I do is a failure, it hurts too much to feel like I’m failing at blogging too.

I’ll be reading you all and hopefully I’ll be blogging again soon.

So I forgot to tell you yesterday but CB’s computer died Monday night.

We’re not sure what’s wrong yet, but it doesn’t start up and this computer, the only one between us, is not super new or even moderately new. Since CB often works from home and is also still working on his doctorate and I am now working 4 days a week and am rarely home during the day this computer is sort of defaulting to CB until we’re able to afford a new one or able to get the other one fixed.

Sadly, my ability to upload digital pictures died along with CB’s computer so I won’t be able to participate in Jientje’s “A Thousand Words in Idioms” for a while, but I hope some of you do. It’s a really fun meme. I have pictures sitting on my memory card for this week and when we do get a new/fixed computer I’ll be sure to catch myself up.

In the meantime, I have what some of you have been waiting for (except for Goofball, who was watching “Mijn Restaurant“): our picks and pans from the first Eurovision semi-final! After 8 hours of house cleaning, two buses, a tram, my biweekly maatschapelijke orientatie class and a bike ride home, I sat down with CB(who had dutifully taped the show on the DVR) and recorded our reactions to each of the 18 songs showcased in the first semi-final. Embedding them all here would be a pain in the ass, but I’ll link to the videos and you can watch whichever ones you like.

1. Montenegro
   - Disco lives in Montenegro! And it’s very, very horny.
2. Czech Republic
   -Super Mario and Captain Marvel had a love child…and it’s doing a bad Borat impression.
3. Belgium
   -You could tell Patrick had a cold.
4. Belarus
   -These guys have been watching waaaay too many Monster Ballad infomercials.
   -Is that chick naked under that sheet? And is she holding sticks?
5. Sweden
   -CB’s comment was “ABBA goes Pet Shop Boys” and “her dress looks like a jelly fish”
   -I say pop-opera can only work in The 5th Element. They need to pick one or the other.
6. Armenia
   -Egyptian goth
7. Andorra
   -CB says they should have spent an hour teaching the girls how to pretend to play the guitar.
   -I don’t think they could afford fake guitar lessons…they couldn’t even afford costumes.
8. Switzerland
   -GooGoo Doll wannabes…they tried waaay too hard to be cool.
9. Turkey
   -Hadise doesn’t have a stellar voice to begin with, but it was really lacking for her performance. I liked the costumes though…very cool despite the magenta.
10. Israel
    - Themessage was good (unlike their song “Push the Button” a few years back, but their voices just didn’t blend well, and that’s sort of important in a duet.
11. Bulgaria
    -It’s like Conan meets the Legend of Zelda. On stilts!
    -Said CB? “Woah. Her hair.”
12. Iceland
    -CB says this is classic Eurovision style and we both thought it was a very pretty, very nice song and performance. I think the fact that Iceland was able to afford costumes and enough plane tickets to send the whole group is a miracle in and of itself.
13. Macedonia
    -When they opened, we started laughing. Then CB told me I really should have a drink because his beer was making the whole thing much funnier. After a minute or so though, we realized the song itself actually had a decent sound.
14. Romania
    -Pretty costumes but not enough of an instrumental section.
15. Finland
    -CB called this Eminem meets New Beat. I call it further proof that white people shouldn’t rap. And what the hell is up with the fire jugglers?
16. Portugal
    -CB really liked her voice, which I also thought was very nice. The music was really fun and they get extra props for working an accordion in there.
17. Malta
    -The song was written by a Belgian. We thought the singer had a unique voice and presence.
18. Bosnia-Herzegovina
    -The music was okay but it was more theater than song…would’ve fit well in Les Mis.

So, there you have it. Our picks and pans from Tuesday’s semi. The ten countries in green are the ones from this round that are moving on to the final. We’ll be watching tomorrow night for the other half of the competitors and I’ll try to get a review in there for you too.