Palestinians, Dutchies and Carnations

The other day, I heard an amazing story. An agreement had been signed.
Well, so far, not very special. But: it was an agreement upon carnations. Political carnations, you may say.
Carnations as a political statement.
I liked it. Say whatever you have to say, say it with flowers......

In this case, we Dutchies (our government) agreed to deliver carnation seed to Palestinians:
as we know, people derived from their properties, facing Israeli occupiers, unemployment and violence.

The beautiful thought behind delivering carnation seed is, that Palestinians find employment growing flowers and a solid exportmarket : we, Dutchies, will buy all Palestinian carnations in return.
It was not easy to realize this project. Diplomats had to convince the Israeli. Fortunately, the occupiers gave permission for this trade. Flowers are harmless.

I don't know who came up with this idea. But I like it! May many more problems be solved with the language of flowers. Flower Power Revival! What a great prospect. Me, wearing flowers in my hair, going back-in-time..... Senior-Hippies..... and hopefully: peace in the Middle East.

unexpected?

I like biking, very much! Not that I am a sportswoman, on the contrary! But I like wandering around by bike, following unknown paths, looking for the unexpected.

So I am an easy going one. In fact, I don't have a sportsmentality at all. I don't like to prove that I am 'the very best' in anything, I don't need medals to be happy.

This doesn't mean I don't like watching sports. In fact, I love it! 2008 is full of sportsevents.


First we had the European Championship Football. Good time: family-dinners and watching the matches on tele together. Spain as the right champion.
Then, tennis season: Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Sometimes spectacular matches! I will always remember the fabulous Wimbledon men's-final Federer-Nadal. Breathtaking, a real fight over many hours, with Nadal being the best fighter and right winner.

Now, I am watching tele to follow Tour de France. Because I like biking. I see giants climbing mountains I wouldn't dare to do so. I see cyclists racing little French roads, I used to explore searching the unexpected. I see the beautiful countryside passing by from my chair, I see Foix, Mirepoix, Montsegur, other places I know so well. While the cyclists do their thing, I remember great restaurants, nice people, lovely wines. But of course I also see cyclists fighting, I love watching the psychological games, the power of muscles, the best biking-materials. Tour de France has everyting in it: Tragedy and Romance.

I know, last year, there was tragedy. It was all about doping. Rasmussen, wearing the yellow shirt, had to leave the Tour. This year, the Tour-director declared that the organization would do its utmost to keep the Tour clean. All cyclists knew, doping had to be banned.

I watched good fighting, I thought.
I saw Ricardo Ricco from Italy winning twice, I thought.

In fact I saw a junkie winning, which means: losing. Yesterday he was found positive on using 3rd generation EPO. 3rd generation? Yes, indeed! Sports is all about money - 3rd generation EPO was supposed to be invisible in bloodsamples. And so, some stupid cyclist-cows tend to take dope to be the best, to get the yellow (or white, or green, or whatever shirt). They take a risk, just to be the best for one day. The best? What does it mean? Poor beggars!

So, again, a Tour de France, full of tragedy. Was this unexpected? Tour-Director said: 'no, not quite'. He also said: 'We will continue to bann doping - the battle must go on'. I wish him good luck. I am not a sportswoman. I don't want to be the best in something. Real sportspeople may be clean, some of them take any drug to cheat. What a pity.

Next month, another event starts: Olympic Games in Beijing - China. For sure, with more unexpected news to come up.

Miss Molly's Mystery Tour

Miss Molly is back in blog - Chips as well - Today: two new postings on Miss Molly's Mystery Tour.

Nuria and Giant

New Nuria story published, at www.nuriastories.blogspot.com
To be continued :-)

Horse&Rabbit&Horse&Rabbit?

Today I heard this true story - about very rich sheikhs, Saudi-Arabia, horses and famous stud farms. The story had all ingredients to write a romantic fairy tale. But in fact it turned out to be a horror story. Because of ......the RABBITS!!!!

So, what was it all about?

Rich sheikhs love horses and horse-racing - they love to own good racing-horses - they want to have the very best horses and they know where to buy them. Best stud farms are not in Saudi-Arabia. So, they shop abroad.

In this very specialized trade, of course, Customers are always Right, so if Sheikh Customer decides he wants to buy his promising racing horse in the embryo stage, he wil get his latest acquisition in the embryo stage. Guess why they want embryo-horse-delivery? Because it's easier to ship! So, Sheikh-Customer gets a special delivery!

Including: Perform surgery on pregnant mare - take out the embryo very carefully and implant little precious racing-horse-to-be in the womb of a rabbit.

A RABBIT????? Yes, a rabbit. WHY????? Because rabbits are easily to handle, nice, soft, warm and - most important - comfortable to travel in for Sheikh's thingummy. First class, little horse-rabbit/rabbit-horse-animal, is transported to the desert playgrounds.

And then, very very carefully, horse-rabbit/rabbit-horse is transformed again in two originals. A beautiful Arab mare is offering her womb for the embryo-gadget; best surgeons place little horse in this warm shelter to develop to a price-winner.

And Rabbit? Well..... here, my story-teller stopped. He couldn't tell me what happened to Rabbit.

Was she carefully operated by skilled professionals? Or was she roughly opened by a knife, left alone, as soon as the Royal Gadget was taken out? Did Royal Servants take her home, R.I.P. in an Arab rabbit-stew?

So, now I wonder, yes, I wonder...... in Vickx Wonder World.

I know, money makes the world turn around - money, money, money - we all know this lyric by Lisa Minelli. Embryo-shopping sheikhs in the World of Money - may we say: beyond dignity ?

Burping around

The other day I ended up in a take-away restaurant in Rotterdam's china-town. It was Friday-afternoon and the small-sized place was loaded. Some people were having a meal at one of the few tables available but I queued up. Finally, after ordering, I had plenty of time to look around. The crowd was as exotic as the menu. All varieties between black and white were there, united in liking this restaurant that day. Some of them enjoyed Surinam cuisine, others ordered from the Carribean or Indonesian meals. And all this food together gave a wonderful spicy aroma. It felt good, being there. People seemed happy, looking forward to leisure time in the coming weekend. This place was a colorful, bright one.

Yet, all of a sudden a dark cloud came over the place. A tall black man pushed his way through the gathered crowd. People stopped talking, everybody was staring at him. So did I. Who was this eye-catching person with a suggestion of evil around him? Was he about to rob the restaurant? Was he a blackmailer, offering so called protection to chinese community? He stood right beside me, waved with some money in his hand, and said: 'I wanna pay'. Phew!!!! The crowd started humming again, and while the waiter prepared the bill this tall guy and me looked at each other.

On his pokerface no trace of a smile, nothing at all, but..... was this really true? The man was burping!!! Little inner-burps escaped from his body in a funny way. I couldn't help it but I kept on staring at him. And then this giant showed he had a weak side too. He explained his burping to me, as if he wanted to make excuses. 'I can't help it', he said, 'I ate too much. It's the air, you know, I ate too fast, now the air must go out.' He looked a bit vulnerable. I nodded full of understanding. The restaurant listened in breathless silence. 'Of course', I said, 'this is just normal, it is good for your health.' Now he nodded, burped again, paid the bill and walked away. At the same time, evil left and the restaurant was a cheerful place again. I saw the man disappearing into Rotterdam's early evening. Who-ever he was, I liked him. My eyes had seen the little child inside of him, even the little baby-boy he once was; hanging on his mother's shoulder, caring hands patting his back, asking him to make little burps.

Please NOTE that all stories in VickxWonderWorld are under copyrigth of Vicky van der Hof.

Time Flies

When I started blogging, one of my friends warned me: blogging is like a drug - be careful - before you know you only are blogging all day long! I thanked her for her good advice; though blogging is a great way of communicating, there is much more in life to enjoy.

But noticing my last posting was more than 5 weeks ago, I wondered what I had been doing lately. Sure, days had been full of working, housekeeping and social events. Nothing particular came up in my mind, there was only a general feeling of peace and lightness, a kind of tralala-song in my mind.

My grandmother used to say 'dear Vickx, Time Flies' when she was over 80.

Right she was. Now, summertime is here. Soon, I will be travelling, Flying Time will be my companion. Stress and anger will not be in my basket. I'll stick to my own summerhit; indeed, a kind of tralala-song.

You are welcome to visit Nuria Stories and Miss Molly's Mystery Tour as well - updates coming up real soon!