Sloth or leisure?

And do I care? Nope.

Good afternoon, all!

The weather, which seems to determine so much of life here, this weekend has been unstable, at best. Yesterday, it was drippy and chill. Nonetheless, I biked with an office friend who lives here in Leiden to one of the city's three swimming pools, paid EUR 49.50 for a season pass, padded to the pool (in the rain) and took three excrutiating steps into the water. After a half-lap, the water was fine and we swam several laps. The nice thing is that we were virtually alone in the pool. Biking home with soaked hair and damp everything else (it kept drizzling) was fairly nasty.

Today is lovely (and my primroses and hydrangeas are revived by the rain) and while not warm enough to sit outside in the sun, I've put two big chairs by the southern window of my living room, added cushions, a fuzzy throw, my mother cat (Lady Alice Elgar), my coffee, the laptop and a delicious little book by one of my favorite small authors, Alice Thomas Ellis, who for a long time wrote a column in "The Spectator" called "Home Life". She is incisive and very funny. The little book is called "A Welsh Childhood", and since I know almost nothing of Wales, I'm eager to read it. I call this well-spent leisure, but it does feel a bit like sloth.

My trip to Lebanon on the 29th still hangs, looking more promising than it did a week ago, but still uncertain. I long to go.

Perspective is all, isn't it? I read in my firm's e-mail this week that our firm was rated #1 law firm in Europe this year. 'Wow', I thought. This being my first truly global firm, I'm still amazed to see ratings like that. Such ratings are compiled by various means: size and number of transactions, mainly (I think), so if that's the case, we're still riding the wave of the Royal Bank of Scotland/ABN AMRO Bank deal (the biggest in banking history), with which I had nothing at all to do (fortunately; it was a killer). It's interesting: in U.S. firms, lawyers are always urged to "cross-sell" to clients, which means to show clients how practice areas in addition to one's own are able to help client needs. In reality, this is tricky, since lawyers don't want to lose a penny of client business to other lawyers, even within one's own firm! However, in my global firm it's taken for granted that other lawyers and other offices of the firm can help clients, since the clients are also multi-jurisdictional ("cross-border" is the term). Most of our interaction so far has been with the London headquarters office, but this is beginning to shift, with regular communication with Paris, Frankfurt and Duesseldorf, Moscow and others. Such range provides for all sorts of help -- usual (tax advice in various countries) and unusual (other than translation from unusual languages to English, I'd better not say). When the phone rings, though, the caller ID often is hard to figure out, instantly, so one tends to answer in English and not Dutch.

The afternoon wears on and the sun shifts, so I'm off to enjoy "A Welsh Childhood", which is far from sloth!

'bye for now,
Pamela

Pentecost, Mother's Day, Men, Dr. Betts in Lebanon, 1st Kir of the Season

So!

It's 19:42 or pushing 8pm here, although from the light, one would guess about 4pm. Dutch summer light is very sneaky. It's been unnaturally dry here, with blazing sun, about 75 degrees or quite warm, for nearly a week, and the Dutch (and everybody else) have gone a bit mad, sitting out everywhere, basking like blind moles. My primroses collapsed and the hydrangea nearly did, too. I gave them all buckets and buckets of water today, and they'll likely revive, but summer is here -- at least, for a little while.

Summer here seems to come in late April and last until late May. Normal summer here (June through August) can be quite nasty, with chilly weather, wind, hale (yes: little frozen pellets) and generally hostile forces. So, one seizes the day here. If nice weather is on the charts, people take off, since there's no telling how it could be next week.

Tomorrow here is a national holiday, Pentecost or Whitsun, or in the Bible, the day 50 days after Easter . . . well, you can see its history on Wikipedia. In any case, Holland being a largely secular country, I'm boggled that this and several other days are still national holidays. Jews and Islamics must be very annoyed. Still, a holiday is lovely, whatever its reference, and mine will be quite lazy -- maybe a long bike ride.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecost

Today is Mother's Day, and I tried to reach mine, who is living with my younger brother in Erie, Colorado, about 20 miles north of Denver. Mom is holding on to life, but not very well, and I admit to hoping to hear that she has gone in her sleep. For those of you reading who know me well, you know that I sorted out her life after the first two sets of strokes, starting in 2003 (move from her home to a luxe assisted living, then to more assisted living after the second crisis). My brother is now coping, I hope, with her living with him and his live-in girlfriend after the third stroke crisis, and I doubt that he knew what he was getting into. No matter how well one recovers from stroke, the weakening remains, until the next one. I've missed my mother, since she had her first strokes, since while she was emotionally softened by the strokes, she lost some of her oomph. When my time comes, I hope to be living with someone who loves me enough to give me an overdose of something.

Men: I continue my quest for a partner/husband on match.com, with interesting, frustrating and unexpected results. What does amaze me is that men, regardless of their age, often choose no alternative to ending even a correspondence but to go silent, like 12-year-olds. I'm sorry to be so annoyed in print, but I've been writing to a very compelling Scot, tied with one other man (my pal Tim, the London economist) for most intelligent, best read, most cultured for best match.com-er, but it seems that he's disappeared. This drives me wild. I don't know why! Perhaps it had nothing to do with me, but it's hard not to take it personally (the cardinal rule in these situations is not to take it personally, but it's impossible not to). We never even spoke! It was a month of the most compelling letters I've ever exchanged with anyone. He's brilliant, deeply cultured and funny. So, I've leapt back onto match.com, seeking the illusive Mr. Not Bad.

And my life-long friend, Dr. Betts, whom I've known since about age 15, is in Tripoli, Lebanon, likely listening to machine gun fire. He has lived twice in Lebanon, both for extended periods, but will retire to Greece in August. I'm due to fly out in late May, to sing in his last set of concerts. I've bought the ticket with KLM, but may have to try and get a credit of it. Dr. Betts wrote yesterday that things were NOT good. It's so annoying, and so predictable: virtually every year in May, some sort of strife goes on there. It's my last chance to visit the most fascinating part of the world I've yet seen, with the world's best tour guide. Last visit (1995, I think), we went into Syria, saw the famous Crusader castle, Krak des Chevaliers, which is mammoth, and had superb food in Syria and all over Lebanon. I saw the exquisite Lebanese girls and met lots of expat friends of Dr. Betts. Since I have no intention of visiting Israel, this is my last chance to see safe parts of the Mid-East.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_des_Chevaliers

And tonight I'm having my second Kir of the season. I adore Kirs, ideally with champagne. The one tonight is with ordinary white table wine, but nonetheless is lovely.

I find it hard to be philosophical about things like men and the Mid-East. Neither is sensible. The two bits of good news are 1) that Mr. Obama seems to have secured the Democratic nomination (he certainly has my vote), rising above the sewer politics of Mrs. Clinton and 2) I'm promised that my employer will get me a permanent residence permit sometime soon.

So, it's time to sign off and go cook the stir-fry. Stay safe, everyone.

Love,
Pamela