Lilac Colored Glasses

Junior Eurovision.

Oh yes, there’s a kid version too.

The selections don’t happen until a few weeks after the end of Eurovision so I don’t have a preview of this year’s Belgian entrant but I do have last year’s.

The boy that Flanders picked to go to last year’s competition is Oliver Symons. He sings, plays guitar and piano and writes his own songs. Plus he’s a real cutie. Check it out:

The lyrics are in Dutch, obviously, but Oliver also has a version in English right here if you want to know what he’s saying. The translation doesn’t totally do the lyrics justice but it’s pretty close. And if you don’t know, take my word for it, poeticizing something like song lyrics in a language not your own is one of the hardest things to do, in my opinion, as far as translation goes.

Anyway, I love this song. I mean, he’s 15 years old so it’s got it’s share of angsty teen running through it but it’s angsty teen with a gritty edge. It’s like Nickelback but 20 years younger…in Dutch.

Oliver didn’t win Junior Eurovision (although I bet he’d have had a good shot at winning the adult version) but from what I can tell he’s still writing songs and if he ever comes out with a CD I definitely plan on picking it up.

Obviously, CB and I will not be having a traditional (or even non traditional) Jewish wedding. He’s an atheist who was raised faux-Catholic(as in, he was baptized and attended catechism as a child but did not otherwise go to church, never really believed what he was learning and when he was old enough wrote the church to have himself officially unbaptized) and I’m an atheist/Buddhist raised as a Conservative Jew and never the twain shall meet (well, as far as wedding ceremonies go). We won’t be married by a rabbi nor will we be in a synagogue.

I thought I would be fine with that. I was fine with that, until I saw pictures from the wedding of the daughter of my mom’s best friend. Ironically enough, Carrie was raised much less Jewish than I was. I had a bat-mitzvah and was confirmed while she wasn’t. But she met a Jewish man and they had a Jewish wedding. I think I always made the assumption that I would do the same thing but I guess it never truly hit home that I wouldn’t until I saw pictures from Carrie’s wedding.

We won’t have a ketubah or a chuppah although I can’t say I didn’t make an effort to have CB consider it. But he feels that those things are too religious for his comfort and I respect that (although I did push for the chuppah). Last night CB said he would have no problem breaking the glass at the end of the ceremony and, sadly, all the reasons that he felt fine doing that part of it were probably all the reasons that I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about including this in the ceremony. To me it’s the most meaningless tradition and that’s exactly why he’s willing to do it.

It’s difficult for me to let go of the traditions of my culture, especially when I always pictured myself being married under a chuppah by a rabbi in the same synogogue in the same chapel as my mother and my late grandmother. The god aspect of Judaism obviously holds no value for me, but the traditions…what is Judaism without the traditions? There are so many wonderful stories and holidays and traditions in the Jewish culture and I, like most anyone who was brought up in a traditional Jewish home, appreciate and cherish those traditions and the preservation of them throughout generations, regardless of my lack of religion.

When CB and I discuss certain aspects of the wedding service I am constantly reminded of the traditions that either smack of too much religion for CB or are denied to us by the synagogue because both of us aren’t Jewish. In response to that I’ve started reaching for other things to make the wedding ceremony feel unique or special to me.

Unfortunately several common parts of an American ceremony are already unique or different than a traditional Belgian wedding and I often find myself asking too much of CB as it is.

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What to do on the first really nice weekend of the year? Well, today we’re going to a baptism, but yesterday we had a little daytrip to Antwerp. Someone at work had mentioned a market that was held in antwerp centrum every Saturday so that’s where we went. Here’s some of what they had to offer. If you mouse over you’ll even get the Dutch words for some of these items. I figured I might as well make this blog educational on occasion.

Now, here’s the market:

Cheese, cheese and more cheese. So much cheese! But I’ll be damned if you can find any cheddar. We did see provolone though. Mmmm, provolone.

Cured hams, sausages, salamis, smoked meats

Mountains of fresh fruit, especially apples, although there were all sorts of pineapples, kiwis, plums, strawberries, etc.

Bowls and bowls of all sorts of stuffed and marinated olives, green, black, kalamata, spanish…

Dried and candied fruits…remember the beginning scene from Disney’s Aladdin where the street vendor is yelling “Dates! Sugared dates and figs! Sugared dates and pistachiooooos!” Well that’s what this reminded me of…and yes, there really are guys standing up on stools yelling at the crowd.

So many flowers, mostly fresh but some silk too. I’m pretty sure these are silk but they were too vibrant for me to pass up.

After the market we went to the shopping street and the performers were out and doing their thing.

For lunch we went to the Chinese street and had some fantastic dim sum as well as other yummy dishes.

For me the most difficult thing about the whole expatriatism business is the fact that my family is so far away.

I will eventually be able to speak Dutch fluently (or close enough). I will eventually find some sort of full time work, even if it’s at a packing plant or as a cleaning woman. One day I will achieve my goal of developing curricula for gifted toddlers and preschoolers.

But there is no way to magically ship my family over here to Europe.

I have 2 remaining grandparents: my father’s mother (Gram, 86) and my mother’s father (Grandpa, 83). They are both very important to me and one of my greatest anxieties is that one or both of them will fall ill and I’ll be unable to see them before they pass away.

This is why I found it reasonably upsetting to hear from my mother this morning that my grandpa is in the hospital with cellulitis in his leg.  Cellulitis (for you lazy people that didn’t click on the link) is basically a bacterial infection that occurs when bacteria that are normally on the surface of the skin get into the subcutaneous layers of skin via cracks, cuts, bites, etc. Apparently they’ve put Grandpa on a regimen of IV antibiotics and they’ll send him home in a couple days with some follow up anti biotics as well.  It sounds relatively harmless (compared to the 3rd degree burns and resulting skin grafts he needed on his hands a few years ago and the lung cancer that showed up on the x-ray they took before they did the grafts) right?

Yeah, well, I’ll reiterate that Grandpa is 83. A relatively spry 83, but 83 nonetheless. He’s had a heart attack, skin grafts for severe burns on his hands and he’s short the half a lung they removed to get rid of the cancer I mentioned. He had cellulitis once before while he was recovering from the lung surgery and it was bad enough then that some of his organs were very close to shutting down.

I am feeling very far away from my family today. Pittsburgh is playing in the Superbowl tonight (RAAWWWRRR) and I think if I was there I’d get some chips and dip and go watch the first half with my grandpa.  I wouldn’t even mind if he started yelling “break his fuckin’ leg, tear his arms off” or if he started snoring ten minutes into the game. I would just be happy and thankful to be close enough to spend some time with him.

April can’t come soon enough.

Lately CB has been keeping track of things that come up in conversation that he thinks I should be blogging about. Personally, I think it’s because he wants me to stop mucking around in the off and on depression that I’ve been dealing with for several months now. And while part of me wants to rant and rave and be all “it’s my friggin blog and I’ll do what I want” I do realize that no one is interested in my moping (except maybe me when I’m feeling self indulgent) so I caved and agreed to posting about some things that have been compiled on CB’s list.

One thing that CB came up with entirely on his own (I’ve never even dared to think about blogging about it) is the matter of penises (penii?). More specifically, the difference in attitudes regarding circumcision between the USA and Europe. And there’s the added Judaism aspect that also plays into the whole circumcision thing as well. Last weekend CB allowed…nay, encouraged me, basically, to blog about foreskin (including his…actually, especially his, since his is the only foreskin I’ve ever been up close and personal with).

Sadly, within the past 2 or 3 days there was some sort of blog-splosion all over the A-List Blogger territory (Dooce, DGM, Finslippy etc.) regarding circumcision and blogger/parents’ reactions to it.  I balked at continuing what will likely be a series of 3 or 4 posts that I had decided to dub “Fridays For Skin” because I figured a lot of you out there probably stumbled over the circumcision hoopla just like I did and I didn’t want you to think I had ganked my inspiration from the big guns.

Thing is, CB totally wants me to tell you all about his schlong.  He’s been bugging me all damn week about Fridays For Skin. And if my fiancè wants me to tell all of my readers about the joys of foreskin, that’s what I’m gonna do.

I have to keep my man happy after all.