Wedding music serenades planetarium art as banks and homes collide
“… Saturday wedding, Dan. Remember? Meredith and Steve.” She explained as we were waiting at baggage claim.
“Of course. What time is the wedding?”
“Well, I don’t know.” Nazy replied. “I’ll call and ask.”
I could overhear Nazy’s part of the conversation: “4:00?!”
“It’s 3:22 now!” I interjected.
“There’s my baggage!” Nazy exclaimed. “We have to get home quick.”
“Luckily, my dear, I brought the new car.”
We drove home and Nazy quickly changed.
Editorial note: Although it was the fastest I’ve ever seen Nazy get ready, I was even faster. And, remarkably, everything I wore matched perfectly — at least until I spilled salad dressing on my tie.
We arrived at 4:04 PM and..
“They’re playing music for us, Nazy,” I observed as we walked to our seats just in front of the bridal party. As you can see from the photo, taken with a very high shutter speed, it took several hours for Nazy to wind down.
Darius had a few minor items to complete before welcoming Christiane and little Leandra to the country.
“Minor Dan?” Nazy interrupts. “He had to find a place for them to live.”
“A detail.”
“And, Dad.” Darius (also) interrupts. “Although the University is paying a relocation fee, they don’t give me the money until my first paycheck — at the end of October. But I have to spend that money before they give it to me.” “The story of my life, Dar,” I replied. “And your point?” I thought as I flashed back to my first six weeks in The Netherlands.
Flashback
Rijswijk, The Netherlands
Shell had an extremely generous relocation package that included a munificent stipend for ‘general expenses’. Fund, I was told, would be transferred to my account (along with my pay for the initial six weeks) during the normal pay cycle. After paying a large bill, I had moved out of the Pullman Hotel in The Hague into a (princely) villa on Prinsvinkenpark. The Shell housing allowance would cover the rent and the deposit — when it (finally) arrived. The retail shops didn’t normally ‘do’ credit cards: cash reigned supreme in The Netherlands. Nazy and the children were still in Hanover, New Hampshire. And I was running out of money.
As you can imagine, I paid very close attention to the pay schedule. I discovered that my guilders would be available on Friday.
“Great,” I thought. “I can transfer money to the USA and get cash for the weekend.”
As a relatively new arrival, however, I was cautious. I called the bank (ABN) next to my office to confirm their Friday hours.
“We will close at 16:00 on Friday,” they informed me.
“Dank je wel,” I replied. “16:00 is 4:00PM,” I thought. “I’ll get cash for the weekend right after my 2:00PM meeting.”
At 3:20, I walked into the bank to withdraw several hundred guilders.
“That service is not available at the present time,” the clerk informed me.
“This is a bank. It has my money. I just want to take some that money with me.”
“Cash services are closed after 14:00.”
“I called. You said that the bank was open until 4:00PM.”
“The bank is open. But we don’t have money after 2:00PM.”
“Can I transfer money to the USA?”
“Of course. Except that Ingrid is the only one who provides that service and she doesn’t work on Fridays.”
“Can I assume that you’ll be open on Monday.”
“Of course.”
“Will you be open on Monday?”
“Ja.”
“Will you have money on Monday?”
“Naturally.”
“Starting when?” I asked. “And will Ingrid be working?” I thought.
The ATM card arrived several weeks later.
End Flashback
Young Arrow is getting rather nimble — both physically and mentally. He has growing confidence in his walking. And, he wants to help out around the house. When I was watching him at Melika’s, he opened the kitchen cabinet, took out a can of cat food, carried it to Monster’s dish and deposited it in the dish.
“Good job, Arrow!” I exclaimed, exuding encouragement. “Monster might be more appreciative if you let me open the can,” I thought. “And he probably would prefer that you put his food in the food dish instead of the water dish.”
While Nazy was gone, I had time to click on too many items advertised on the Internet. I actually purchased a free watch (just pay the shipping). an absurd tee shirt (41% off of an incredibly low price) and a planetarium.
The tee-shirt didn’t fit, I couldn’t figure out how to tell the time with watch. And the planetarium, which looked, on the web, like the one at the Hayden Planetarium in New York arrived in a very small package (covered in Chinese text). The small package included a billion even smaller parts, and a set of instructions that featured poorly translated English phrases in a font that had been perfected by the CIA for hiding the Encyclopedia Britannica on the period at the end of this sentence. I took the only reasonable course…
“Hey Nazy!” I began. “Tiger will love this!”
Nazy dove in.
“These instructions are not helpful, Dan,” She claimed mid-way through the project. Listen to this:”
“A-O each letter will appear two times. Will have the same letter writing part of the bonding together. After the completion of all paste, as shown in figure next shows”
“Hmm,” I replied helpfully. “I’m surprised that you could read that with a magnifying glass. I thought you’d need a microscope,” I thought.
In the end, Nazy assembled the device and it actually projected stars. It was an astonishing tour de force.
Tiger was also creative this week. He handed me my iPad..
“Tiger!” I said. “I was charging the iPad. You shouldn’t have unplugged it.”
“It’s charged, Dan.” He replied. “I asked Siri.”
“Well..”
“I’m going paint now. I found a button that gives cool colors.”
And.. he generated something pretty cool.
For last week's letter please click here
The Grandest Children
Arrow, Tiger & Leandra