Keeping up with the (Van) Joneses

Living in this sleepy Dutch town means many things. It means your lawn is immaculate and your flowers are always blooming. It means every February you go to the Almond Blossom Festival…rain or shine. It means you never speak poorly of the crop (almonds) that has made this town what it is. If you don’t have a pair of wooden shoes or a windmill on your front porch, you might as well have a scarlet letter 'A' embroidered on your cardigan, which is hopefully 100% cashmere. Basically if you aren’t doing these things, you aren't keeping up with the Joneses… or in Ripon’s case the Van Joneses.


In my attempts to keep up with the Van Joneses, I have acquired a very Dutch piece of décor for my not so Dutch home. A few months ago I came upon this little Dutch liquor bottle. It’s blue and white with windmills all over. Now I am not a big drinker of Dutch liquor, (whatever that may be) so I converted the bottle into my handy dandy olive oil dispenser. I realize that olive oil is from Italy, but when you are keeping up with the Van Joneses it’s really not the inside that counts.

So we Vander Lehrs are one step closer to Riponian assimilation. Now I just need to remember to plant some tulips when the season comes around.

 

If you are just reading this blog and are finding yourself confused about all these Dutch references, I suggest you read this:  http://myslightlysillyworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/riponizing.html
blog entry to make sense of it all.