Eat, Drink and Be Merry

It's my turn again at Vision and Verb, where I expand on the subject, of course.
Eat, drink and be merry...for tomorrow we die...or diet?

In the spirit of that celebration, I'm dying to show you what just happened recently.

Remember the Koorfestival (Choir Festival) I told you about in my last post? At one of the venues I just happened to see our town photographer for the paper who is often out-n-about at the same times and places we often are, especially when we're home on a Saturday. He, Dries, also just happens to live here at our Lindeborg senior-living complex, along with his wife. He is one of the writers and photographers of our De Lindeborgpost magazine which comes out at the beginning of every month.

What happened is this: When I saw Dries at the one choir venue, I started snapping away, taking pictures of him. I remembered once eons ago, when Bill and I were married, that one of Bill's uncles died but when they tried to find photos of him, there were none/few. He was the photographer of the family and was never in any of the pictures. So I wondered if the same happens to Dries.

When the choir finished, I ran over to Dries and told him I had more fun taking pictures of him than of the choir. HA! And that evening I sent him the ones I had taken, just for his enjoyment. Here's a collage of a few of them:

Well, you know how one thing leads to another! Dries checked out my blogs from my e-mail signature and before anyone could say Jack Sprat, he wrote me asking if I'd be willing for him to interview me for our October De Lindeborgpost magazine. Since flattery gets almost anyone almost everywhere, YES, OF COURSE! The lucky cherry on top was that Astrid was home (because she had a sinus infection, remember?) and was able to fill in all the gaps of our broken English and Dutch.

After 2+ hours and almost nothing written down on his paper, we all got to know each other better...before he was off to another photo assignment. He wrote nothing down because...you guessed it...he learned everything he needed to know from my 3 blogs: this one, Hart & Soul, and Vision & Verb. Wow. The computer of his brain must have been working overtime. And that's when I realized my whole life's story is there on the internet for the world to see. Gulp!

So, on October 1st last week, our new Lindeborgpost hit our mailslots and look what was there, on four separate pages:

Okay, so it's in Dutch (click to enlarge)!
But you get the idea of it and the honor for me to be included this way. Dries was very kind and even included Astrid in it, writing about how we met, our marriage, etc. He was the one who chose which images to use. My only stipulation was that he would include one of the images I took of him! And he did (as you can see).

Speaking of Eat, Drink and Be Merry...this past Saturday we drove a total of 310 km (193 miles) to and from the Zeeland province in SW Netherlands. I'll post more about that starting next week but for now, two fun things.

Zeeland is known for its mussels. Surely you've heard of "mussels in Brussels?!" Since Zeeland borders Belgium (where Brussels is , of course), our guess is it's the Zeeland mussels you get in most of Belgium. So when Astrid said her wish was to have mussels for lunch, I knew I would make it happen for her (lunch/supper out is always my treat on Saturdays, no matter where we are). Sure enough, in Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, there on the city-hall square, we found a delightful restaurant that served mussels even better than Astrid was expecting. It's her thing, not mine, but I enjoyed it for her as though I, too, were queen for the day:

My dancing queen with her mussels in Middelburg, capital of Zeeland province.

The other thing (reminiscent of my last post and the pictures of the Middle-Eastern boys), as we were walking off lunch through Middelburg, we passed these guys hanging out their window. I said to Astrid, as I often do, "Now that's a picture!" But just then, they started looking at us and I put my camera down before shooting even one picture. Astrid was shooting, though, and they asked her if they'd now be famous?! That started a conversation between her and them, while I took advantage of the moment...and she got their e-mail address (which she's picking up in the image below). These guys are students at the Roosevelt Academy there in Middelburg and were totally respectful and adorable:

Maybe I have a calling: to shoot young men everywhere we go and see if I can make a photographic case study of them. HA!

Eat, drink and be merry! Why not. Tomorrow we either die...or diet! Not bad, considering the alternative! (Don't forget my Vision and Verb post today. Thanks.)