The fear of Vermeer

Two weeks ago, when we visited Den Haag and the Mauritshuis, I bought a few postcards. My plan was to cover the bullentin board that serves as the off center, default headboard to Jake and I's bed with some nice Dutch wrapping paper. Tthey have very nice wrapping paper here, I'm looking forward to the Christmas selection... Anyway, after the wrapping paper I was going to add postcards, train tickets, brochures, etc of our travels. This is an improvement over the street map of Utrecht and digital photos of the building remodel and our bathroom being forklifted down the street that had remained from our move-in.

Anyway, Elena and I covered the bulletin board one afternoon and I put a few of the postcards...including one of the 'Girl with the pearl earring.' Elena became obsessed. 'The girl is looking at me.' 'Where is the girl.' 'Where is her orobelle.' She had to be carried past the girl and stood frightfully in the kitchen watching the postcard. It climaxed the following day when Jake and Elena arrived home for nap and Elena walked into the house asking where the girl was, would she be looking at her? So Jake took the picture down (so much for my interior design plans...I was hoping it would 'blow over' because I really do like that painting.) A week has passed, and though her picture is gone, the 'girl in the painting/girl with the pearl orobelle/girl with painted orobelles' remained in Elena's mind. In fact, night before last she had quite a few nightmares, crying, yelling, waking herself up and for a good part of the night she was yelling in her sleep, 'no girl with orobell, go away painting girl.'

Guess the dutch masters have made quite an impression. Maybe we take her to too many museums.....