written by BeaG

BG 205 – The zebra crossing

This time, The Maakster was not on her daily walk through Quiet Belgian Village, but was driving her car through the center of a neighboring village.
Diagonally in front of her, a woman rode a bicycle on the designated lane, with a toddler on a cute little bike on her other side. As The Maakster approached a zebra crossing, The Cyclist suddenly turned left onto that crossing, without stopping first and without looking around.

Fortunately, The Maakster was paying attention and managed to brake just before the zebra crossing, at a good distance from The Cyclist. Who was extremely shocked, jumped off her saddle, and positioned her feet on the ground on either side of her bike. At the same time, she grabbed her child by the shoulder to make it stop. The little boy, wearing a helmet, naturally got startled, put one little foot on the ground with difficulty and staggered for a moment, diagonally on his saddle, before regaining his balance.

The Cyclist looked furiously at The Maakster and began to rage and yell at her. Pointing along the length of the zebra crossing, she shouted ‘This is a goddamn zebra crossing!’ …

Read More »BG 205 – The zebra crossing

BG 203 – Soccer match announcement

Team 1, in the blue and white shirts, consists of the players Deca, Hecto, Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera, Peta, Exa, Zetta, Yotta, Ronna, and coach Quetta.

Team 2, in the red shirts, fields the following players: Deci, Centi, Milli, Micro, Nano, Pico, Femto, Atto, Zepto, Yocto, Ronto, and coach Quecto.

Unfortunately, the second team has no chance from the outset…

BG 202 – Tons

What about that ton again?
What is it? What does it measure again? And how much does it measure again?
Let’s get it straight…

When talking about weight, a Dutch ton (metric ton) is equal to one thousand kilograms (often abbreviated as kilo or kg).
So: 1 ton = 1.000 kg.
That sounds simple, but from an international perspective it is somewhat more complicated.

The weight unit ‘ton’ can have different meanings in English (lbs = pounds):
1 ton = 1 ‘short ton’, US = 2,000 lbs = 907,18 kg
1 ton = 1 ‘long ton’, UK = 2,240 lbs = 1.016 kg
1 tonne = 1 ‘metric ton’ = 2,204.62 lbs = 1.000 kg

So what about that short and long ton? …

Read More »BG 202 – Tons

BG 201 – Haiku (EN)

autumnal storm wind
rages past house and garden
a branch loudly breaks

BG 199 – Past perfect tense

– Hey there! Long time no see!
She recognized him. He approaches her table.
He still has that silly haircut and he’s even wearing the exact same jacket.
There are other tables available. She’d rather have stayed seated here alone.
But he’s already grabbed the backrest of the chair opposite her.
– So, I said – you probably didn’t hear me – it’s been a long time!
His face beams with joy.
– Yes.
She answers. That could either refer to that long time or to the fact that she actually heard him.
He dramatically takes off his jacket, hangs it over the chair’s backrest, and sits down, huffing.
– Phew, I’m sitting.
Yes, everyone noticed that. He noisily slides his chair closer to the round tabletop and rests his forearms and elbows on it.
– Gosh, that I run into you here!
Just a little too loud, like in the old days. Not only meant for her, but …

Read More »BG 199 – Past perfect tense

BG 197 – Random Questions

May I ask you something? Do you think polar bears should be protected from extinction? What do you do for a better environment? Do you think you should do more? Do you have chest hair? Do you cut your nails every week? Would you rather eat an apple or an orange? Do you like to be always available? Would you like to go on holiday to a wonderful place even if there was no internet coverage? Who is your hero?

BG 195 – Terse Thunderstorms (Tautogram)

translate those tranquil testimonies
that together tempt the tendency
to tackle the testy temperaments
tick thump throb tumult trash them

technical throwaway tectonics
together tantalizing temptations
theatrically tarnishing themselves
than transgress transfuse taint

two three ten twenty terminating
their theorem too terrifying tough
then those terms to their taciturnity
tattered tails to take themselves

their typeface thoroughly thick
their thunderstorms typically terse

BG 194 – Counting sheep

How on earth can you fall asleep while counting sheep?
If you don’t pay attention, you’ll lose count and have to start all over again!
And because you make those damn beasts up and don’t have to feed them, they are infinite in number. Baa! Baa! Baa!
That way you’ll never fall asleep, right? Argh!

BG 193 – Auda Cious

Auda Cious and her brothers Cons and Injudi are attending primary school.
They are being raised strictly at home and have learned that they not only should not put up a big mouth against adults, but they shouldn’t talk to them at all. Instead, they’re supposed to go play quietly somewhere and not bother the adults.
But Auda doesn’t understand what’s so ‘bothersome’ about a harmless conversation and why she can’t be a part of the same world as the adults. After all, she’s supposed to become one herself someday, right?

Auda assumes that the teachers at school are an exception to this rule. She’ll have to answer if they ask her a question. Oh wait, but that’s right, she can – actually, she must – answer if an adult asks her a question! But she has to be careful with what she says because not everything that happens or is said at her home is meant for other people’s ears.

For her age, she has a pretty good sense of when she can or cannot speak an answer aloud. Nevertheless, she finds it difficult …

Read More »BG 193 – Auda Cious

BG 191 – Noisy hobby

Our sympathetic neighbor J has a noisy hobby.
No, he’s not tearing around on a motorcycle with a modified muffler.
He is a recreational leaf blower.

In autumn, when thousands of wet leaves lie around their home, but also in summer, when it is difficult to find even a single dried leaf, he spends a lot of time enthusiastically and noisily moving those things from place to place with his leaf blower.

And when there really is no more leaf to be found, he still does not need to feel bored, because fortunately he has a number of spare noisy hobbies.
He then trims tiny hedges with a large electric hedge trimmer, or vacuums the plastic grass that lies on a concrete surface next to their home, or pressure washes the floor of their garage and their driveway, while enjoying loud music from a Dutch folk singer.
When he’s done making noise, the neighborhood breathes a sigh of relief.

BG 190 – On the tip of my tongue

Marc and I like to watch quizzes on television.
For example on the Dutch TV Twee Voor Twaalf and De Slimste Mens and on the English BBC Eggheads  and Mastermind.
And we also like to join in on the couch at home.
We are both interested in a lot of things, but unfortunately we don’t have such a good memory. So if you could observe us watching a quiz, we’d seem unintentionally hilarious.

For example, a question is asked about a certain historical treaty.
Then one of us says:
‘Oh yes, uh…, wait! I just read about that last week!
Uh…, what’s it called again?’
Or: ‘Oh yes, I just saw a documentary about that two days ago!’
Or: ‘Yes, yes, I learned that in school! Uh…?’
Or, ‘I read this on the internet the other day! Uh… Come on! I know this!
Uh… But not right now…’
Meanwhile, the time in which the answer had to be given has already passed.

And on a next question, about …

Read More »BG 190 – On the tip of my tongue

BG 189 – A thriller in 33 words

He had slept blissfully deep and blinked his eyes against the bright light.
When he tried to turn with satisfaction, he noticed his wrists were bound.
Startled, he looked into an evil face.

BG 187 – Ajam and her Oriental rugs

The road through Ajam’s village on the dry plateau is a soft and colorful carpet almost all year round. Literally.
Ajam’s mother runs the local carpet workshop, where carpets in many different designs, colors and sizes are woven or knotted by hand by women and children.
Her mother told her that some of the most intricate designs have been made the same way for hundreds of years.
And when they’re done, Ajam helps spread the carpets out on the sandy road, so their colors can fade in the bright sunlight.
The villagers walk over the carpets. And they even let their donkeys and goats walk over them. Ajam and her friends play on the carpets, and the boys from the village play football on them.
And every now and then a car or a motorcycle drives through the village, also over the colorful carpets.
About once a week …

Read More »BG 187 – Ajam and her Oriental rugs

BG 186 – Artificial Intelligence

No AI (Artificial Intelligence) was used in the making of this Blog.

Everything you see and read on this Blog was made by me and is the result of my imagination, my creativity, my thoughts, my feelings, my intelligence, my knowledge, my individuality, my memories, my experience, my attentiveness, my fallibility, my sense of language, my talent, my effort, my faltering concentration, my perfectionism and my perseverance.

I have not illegally copied any sources of knowledge, violated any copyrights, or committed any intellectual theft (plagiarism) for creating this Blog.

Artificial Intelligence, on the other hand, is nothing more than super-fast reproduction and combination of other people’s data. Data that in many cases has been obtained illegally.
I don’t think intelligence is the right word for that.
What it lacks are empathy, (various levels of) awareness, conscience, feeling, morals, memory, self-correction, interaction, and everything else that distinguishes us humans from super-fast copy and combine software.

I wonder: …

Read More »BG 186 – Artificial Intelligence

BG 184 – Changed forever

They changed it, the sidewalk
in front of their house. They
put up a little bookcase there,
their ‘Little Free Library’.

Therewith they have changed
the experience of walkers and
cyclists on that sidewalk forever.
Henceforth those will think, whether

they like it or not, of books,
of reading, of shall I or shall
I not, of I’m actually in a hurry,
and I have no bag with me.

Or of: …

Read More »BG 184 – Changed forever

BG 183 – Haiku (EN)

suddenly through holes
in the fresh green canopy
burning summer sun

BG 182 – Sex education

Some parents worry that school sex education leads to premature sex.
But I have never met parents who are afraid that their child will put into practice other things that they have been taught at school.

For example, they never seem to worry about their child starting to speak French as a result of French class, starting to help them with their tax returns after math class, starting to apply the laws of logic correctly after physics class (oops, sorry mom!), or starting to learn to play the piano after music lessons.

In fact, having a teacher (yuck!) explain sex to them, does not make it more attractive to them and rather causes them to put it off a little longer.

BG 180 – Have a nice day!

As they checked the last messages on his phone, before erasing them and setting the device aside to later give it to a niece or nephew who didn’t have one yet – after all, grandfather had been buried and no longer needed it himself, and they were engaged in the emotionally demanding task of sifting through some sixty years of collected items in his cluttered little retirement home and deciding what to divide among themselves, what to take to the thrift store, and what to the container park – they saw that the last message he had received while alive was from his granddaughter Maddie. It read ‘Have a nice day, grandpa!’ They were touched. Maddie was only six years old, had just learned to read and write, and had only had her first phone for a month.

Three weeks later, at the end of a fun day at school, Maddie said goodbye to her classmates before going home. She had first taken her friend Joris aside and solemnly wished him ‘Have a nice day, Joris!’, to which Joris had said with a smile ‘Thank you!’; after all, the day had already largely passed and she had looked so unusually serious. He watched her as she hopped away.
The next day Joris did not come to school. …

Read More »BG 180 – Have a nice day!

BG 179 – Special Compliment

Special compliment from various people over the years, for things she had (designed and) made herself:
‘So beautiful, how clever, it looks like it came from a shop!’

Seriously? You mean it looks like cheap mass production? Thanks…

BG 178 – Multiple lives

Everyone is free to believe what she or he (or they) wants and everyone else is free to agree or disagree.
Life knows no absolute and unchangeable truths, no matter how much we try to capture it in our stories and firm beliefs.
Having said that, I am of the opinion that some people have misunderstood the subject of multiple lives.
You cannot convince me that there will be other lives for me after my death.
Not as a human being and not as another living being, such as a favorite animal.
And it just seems pointless to me if such a next life is all about punishment or reward for the current one.
The shelf life of a living being is finite.
I’m more into science and not into wishful thinking, also where my own life is concerned. When I die, it’s over for me, and that’s fine.
I also don’t like the pseudo-science that would have us believe that our ‘soul’ is a tangible thing, that *poof* leaves our body at death and that, weighing about 300 grams, then makes its way to a newborn next living being to live on in and learn new lessons in.
No, I think that, like all other living beings …

Read More »BG 178 – Multiple lives

BG 176 – Weather experts

If there is one thing we can say with certainty about the weather, especially in small countries with a temperate maritime climate like the Netherlands and Belgium, it is that it is unpredictable.
It is therefore admirable that meteorologists, like other deities, inspire great confidence in their followers, though they are seldom correct in their predictions.
You would expect that their constant blunders would cost them their jobs, but nothing could be further from the truth: they remain as popular as ever.
So is the weather forecast, which despite, or precisely because of, all its misses remains a never-ending source of conversation for many people.

BG 175 – Podcast, meow

Daisy, also on behalf of Leo:
‘Say boss, listen up!
Almost everyone has a pod caas* these days, except us.
What’s up with that? Meow?’

* ‘Pot kaas’, pronounced like ‘podcast’, but without the ‘t’, and with the emphasis on the second syllable, means ‘bowl of cheese’ in Dutch.

BG 174 – SAI Search

She sits at her computer and types in the search window: ‘google search’
And gets the answer: [Unknown.]
‘I want to use google search, but I can’t find it on my pc anymore’
[But BeaG, that’s not necessary, after all, you now have SAI Search.]
‘oooookaaaay….’
[What do you want to know?]
‘fireman’
[We don’t use the word fireman anymore, BeaG.]
‘fireman!’
[Firefighters can be either male or female or both or neuter.]
[And you really can’t extinguish fires with that little attached hose.]
‘what goddammit is the definition of a fireman?’ …

Read More »BG 174 – SAI Search

BG 172 – Random Questions

May I ask you something? What is the square root of 81? Have you ever looked after small children? Did you enjoy doing that? Where can one find a pair of scissors at your home? Do you like to go to the hairdresser? Can you ride a bicycle with no hands? If you were ever in Pisa, would you take the usual picture? Do you like to take selfies? Do you post a lot on social media sites?

BG 171 – All the times I missed you

That time when I was at that party, had just fetched two drinks and moved through the teeming mass of people with the drinking glasses at head height, while I thought I heard my name being called out somewhere in the crowd, but wasn’t sure, and I had to keep my attention while I maneuvered to the right spot, where a female friend was waiting for me, without spilling.
Or that time in the supermarket, when I had collected everything I needed in my shopping cart and I joined the queue for one of the cash registers, checking my watch to see if I would still be on time for my next appointment and then pulled out my debit card to pay with, so I didn’t see that you tried to get my attention from the queue in front of another checkout.
Or that time in the cinema, when, just before the film started, I was having an intense conversation with a good friend and we were almost bent over to hear each other better, just before the room lights went out and we were being urged to silence by the people around us (shhhh!), after which you became invisible like everyone else.
Or that time in the woods, when I …

Read More »BG 171 – All the times I missed you

BG 170 – Special Compliment

Special compliment from A. from a parallel universe:
‘I really like your Blog, well done! But it’s kind of artistic, so I don’t understand it.’

BG 168 – The shriek

A chilling shriek cut through the cold foggy night.
She was startled. What was that? A woman? She muted the TV, held her breath, and listened.
She heard nothing at first, but just when she had to breathe again, the muffled sound of running shoes echoed down the deserted street, followed by a charged silence.

What was she supposed to do? Go out to help?
Did someone really need help, or had she just imagined that cry of terror?
She turned off the lights in her living room and studio. Now only a faint strip of light from a street lamp shone in, where one of the shutters no longer closed properly. She walked over, bent down and peered out through the opening.

At first glance there was nothing to see.
Again she held her breath to listen carefully.
For a moment she thought she heard another scream, but it turned out to be …

Read More »BG 168 – The shriek

BG 167 – 100 Words Fiction

Her brother

A girl and her grandmother are at the cash register in the store.
Cashier: ‘So your brother has been admitted again?’
Girl: ‘Yes. Unfortunately.’
Cashier: ‘But he is used to it, isn’t he? Well, I mean, he has been there before.’
‘He has to stay there,’ the girl says, shrugging her narrow shoulders.
Cashier: ‘Give my regards to your mother.’
Grandma: ‘We will do that.’
Girl: ‘He doesn’t mind. Well, he does mind, but he is used to it. He has to stay.’
Cashier: ‘That is unfortunate. Well, goodbye now!’
The girl cheerfully hops after her grandmother: ‘Bye!’

BG 165 – Name confusion

I suspect that I am the only Bea Graansma in the world.
And also the only Bregtje Graansma.

Bregtje is my baptismal name. But in my country of birth, the Netherlands, there are two kinds of official first names: your baptismal name(s) and your possible ‘call name’
A short summary of my birth announcement: ‘Born: Bregtje Graansma, we’ll call her Bea’. That’s how it was being solved.
In the 43 years that I lived in the Netherlands, I always used the first name Bea.
Only in very exceptional cases, those where I needed an extract from the population register, did I have to use my baptismal name.

I feel like a Bea. But the name Bregtje does remind me of …

Read More »BG 165 – Name confusion

BG 164 – Trigger warning

Trigger Warning: please note, this piece contains content that may cause a strong reaction in readers who are sensitive to it.
So you have been warned!
And triggered…
Damn it, god damn it, typhus!
Good thing I already warned you about that…
What’s wrong with strong reactions during reading anyway?