The mix (I)
Door: Elke
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Elke
07 Maart 2011 | Verenigde Staten, Cincinnati
From the second I landed here, people have been asking me how I am doing. And I come off blunt and uninterested (which perhaps I am) since I don’t return this inquiry. Two weeks ago I was in my car on my way to the gym, thinking that I would not give in and pick up this habit. I was not going to ask people how they are doing, unless I actually wanted to know. Then when I walked into the gym I saw the personal trainer that introduced me to the facilities a week earlier. I could not ignore him and had to say something to the guy, so in a split second I figured that ‘Hi, how are you doing’, was the only line that would work in this situation. So there went my principles….
They are still set on bleeping ‘bad words’ on tv. So you will not hear the words f*ck and sh*t on tv or the radio for that matter. However when there is a sentence with a dirty connotation, that does not really have a single dirty word in it, bleeping becomes a bit difficult. So guess what word was bleeped out in the following sentence in Sex and the City: “He was so sexy it made my nipples hard”. I hear you thinking, it’s probably nipple, but it’s not. It’s ‘hard’, or maybe it was not hard that got bleeped, but ‘popped’ was censured (that’s the thing about bleeping, you don’t always know what it was supposed to be). Also, in asshole, the ass part is okay, the hole part they bleep.
George Clooney has been shooting a movie in and near Cincinnati, so the first few weeks when I was driving to work, the radio show that I listen to would give updates on where George was spotted the night before. Turns out, he has been spotted in the supermarket that I go to AND in my gym (or at least the chain of supermarkets and gyms I go to, but I like to think it was actually ‘my’ supermarket and ‘my’ gym). Unfortunately, I have never spotted him personally, although I did go to the gym a lot. The funny thing about the gym is that they have a separate section that is only accessible for women, you can even get straight into there from the ladies locker room, no trip passing man necessary. Additionally, they have a ‘cardio cinema’, which is room with cardio machines, it’s dark and has a screen with a movie playing (although you’d have to pass men to get there, the fact that it’s dark was still very ‘discrete’ according to the guy that showed me around). Of course nobody spends 1.5 to 2 hours doing cardio, so you can never see both the beginning and the end of a movie, and due to the noise the machines make you cannot hear anything that is not being shouted, but still the idea behind it is fun. And admittedly I go there for the cardio part of my training as well.
One of the bigger mysteries here is ‘Where did all the road workers go?’ The number of signs that announce road work, outnumber the locations with actual road work. This is not because the road workers don’t work, these signs outnumber the locations where there are road workers or road work materials present. And interestingly, the number of signs announcing the end of road construction are even more abundant than the once announcing the beginning.
Did you know that in Indiana you cannot buy alcohol on Sundays. That is, you can go to a bar and order beer, wine or something stronger and even get it, but you cannot go to a store and buy it. Yay for the bible belt!
March is not only ‘Black history month’, it is also ‘National nutrition month’. Would that mean that you have to eat a lot of jambalaya?
The employees of the hospital received an e-mail to make us aware of the fact that there is a volunteer team here that will pray for you. Seriously, if you need some divine help, just drop them a note and they will beg for it. This service is available for both patients and employees.
They are still set on bleeping ‘bad words’ on tv. So you will not hear the words f*ck and sh*t on tv or the radio for that matter. However when there is a sentence with a dirty connotation, that does not really have a single dirty word in it, bleeping becomes a bit difficult. So guess what word was bleeped out in the following sentence in Sex and the City: “He was so sexy it made my nipples hard”. I hear you thinking, it’s probably nipple, but it’s not. It’s ‘hard’, or maybe it was not hard that got bleeped, but ‘popped’ was censured (that’s the thing about bleeping, you don’t always know what it was supposed to be). Also, in asshole, the ass part is okay, the hole part they bleep.
George Clooney has been shooting a movie in and near Cincinnati, so the first few weeks when I was driving to work, the radio show that I listen to would give updates on where George was spotted the night before. Turns out, he has been spotted in the supermarket that I go to AND in my gym (or at least the chain of supermarkets and gyms I go to, but I like to think it was actually ‘my’ supermarket and ‘my’ gym). Unfortunately, I have never spotted him personally, although I did go to the gym a lot. The funny thing about the gym is that they have a separate section that is only accessible for women, you can even get straight into there from the ladies locker room, no trip passing man necessary. Additionally, they have a ‘cardio cinema’, which is room with cardio machines, it’s dark and has a screen with a movie playing (although you’d have to pass men to get there, the fact that it’s dark was still very ‘discrete’ according to the guy that showed me around). Of course nobody spends 1.5 to 2 hours doing cardio, so you can never see both the beginning and the end of a movie, and due to the noise the machines make you cannot hear anything that is not being shouted, but still the idea behind it is fun. And admittedly I go there for the cardio part of my training as well.
One of the bigger mysteries here is ‘Where did all the road workers go?’ The number of signs that announce road work, outnumber the locations with actual road work. This is not because the road workers don’t work, these signs outnumber the locations where there are road workers or road work materials present. And interestingly, the number of signs announcing the end of road construction are even more abundant than the once announcing the beginning.
Did you know that in Indiana you cannot buy alcohol on Sundays. That is, you can go to a bar and order beer, wine or something stronger and even get it, but you cannot go to a store and buy it. Yay for the bible belt!
March is not only ‘Black history month’, it is also ‘National nutrition month’. Would that mean that you have to eat a lot of jambalaya?
The employees of the hospital received an e-mail to make us aware of the fact that there is a volunteer team here that will pray for you. Seriously, if you need some divine help, just drop them a note and they will beg for it. This service is available for both patients and employees.
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08 Maart 2011 - 01:34
Elke Krekels:
Oh, and BTW for those of you that were waiting: Turns out not all the paper work that needed to be filled out for me to be allowed to be present in the OR, was filled out. So no bloody mess for me (although the parents of the patient that was scheduled for the scoliosis surgery did not consent to inclusion in the study, so this one I would not have been able to see anyway). -
08 Maart 2011 - 08:43
Robin:
Elke, can you send in a request on my behalf to the "pray-team" (you're sure it's not "prey-team"?) that Barcelona will beat Arsenal 2-0 tonight? -
09 Maart 2011 - 00:33
Elke Krekels:
Robin, they have taken the request into consideration. They will get back to me by the end of the week. -
10 Maart 2011 - 20:15
Anne:
hmm, misschien was je kans om George Clooney daadwerkelijk live te zien groter geweest als je je buiten het dames-gedeelte en de cardio-cinema had begeven..;-) -
12 Maart 2011 - 15:29
Elke Krekels:
@ Anne: Het dames gedeelte doe ik inderdaad niet aan, maar om de een of andere reden heb ik het gevoel dat ik juist in de cinema cardio moet zijn om George een keer te kunnen zien. -
14 Maart 2011 - 17:32
Marianne Krekels:
hallo Elke
Marij heeft van het weekend de zaadjes geplant bij oma, ben benieuwd wanneer de tomatenplanten uitkomen,
groeten ook van Jan
Marianne -
22 Maart 2011 - 01:43
Elke Krekels:
na een reeks slechte films, heb ik George dit weekend dan toch gezien in de cardio cinema (samen met Rene Zelweger).
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