I'm tired, so don't expect this post to be linear, let alone grammatically correct

The brain has been churning out some doozies lately.  Mostly the "oh my god there's a ghost standing next to your bed NO DON'T OPEN YOUR EYES IT'LL TOTALLY KILL YOU IF YOU OPEN YOUR EYES!" variety.  'Night terrors,' my mom calls them.  Last night I was trying to help a talking lab mouse come up with a plan to defeat the evil wizard who had transmogrified him (I guess you had to be there) when something grabbed my shoulders and dragged me, backwards, through the wall and down a dark well.  I could smell the dank air, I could feel the wind rushing past my face, and all the blood was rushing from my head towards my feet because I was moving That Fast.  I think it was a well.  I was a little preoccupied to ask what manner of architecture I was falling through at the time.

As I was plunging towards god-knows what, all I could think of was "if you hit the ground in your dream you will DIE and if your peacefully sleeping husband doesn't wake in time, SO WILL THE BABY!" and I flipped myself around in that dream and began clawing at the air trying to either stop falling or wake up.  I don't think I've ever struggled so hard in a dream before.  I was crying, I could feel the tears on my face - complete and utter gibbering panic.

I'm shocked that I didn't wake with a kick or a scream.  I hadn't actually been crying in my sleep either, because my eyes were dry.  And I hadn't flailed about.  Apparently I was completely silent and still because my husband continued to sleep peacefully next to me, and since he wakes up if I so much as roll over, the exertions in my dream had to be completely in my head.

Trying to get to sleep after that was pretty near impossible.  I kindly let the DB continue sleeping.  But then he was a bit of an ass (in my humble opinion) this morning, so we'll see if I'm so freaking nice TONIGHT!

And today hasn't really been my day.  Danish went really well, so that's something to hold on to.  But yet again I'm having trouble with my Nem-ID, the brilliant idea somebody came up with that ties all of your accounts, both government (like your tax info) and private (like your bank account), to one 9 digit number and a randomly generated four digit code that needs a special card to find the random 6 digit response.

Previously on Life in The-Land-Where-We-Fix-Things-That-Aren't-Broken: I was sent a Nem-ID by my bank.  It arrived when I wasn't here.  It got mislaid.  I got another Nem-ID.  The bank had on record that I had one Nem-ID, let's call it #A, the government that I had another, we'll call that #B.  Got bank to transfer my account from #A to #B.  Used #B to do important things like check taxes and paystubs.  Happiness and joy all around.

Got mail today from the Nem-ID-issuing-peoples that they've blocked my Nem-ID because it isn't being used.  Called them up.  They tell me that they've blocked #A oh, and that bank is using #B, so I need to call the bank and get them to transfer account to #A.  Which they've blocked.  Did I mention they blocked #A, the number they *want* me to transfer accounts to?  I say, I don't use #A, I use #B, I don't want to use #A, I want to keep using #B, that's the number I had signed up to use to check taxes and paystubs.  Ah, says the man, but we changed your account to #A.  Well, I say, change it back.  We can't, says the man, unless you have a Danish passport or Danish driver's license.  You gotta be fucking kidding me, I say, I haven't either of those things.  I'm 100% foreign.  Ah, well, the man says, then you probably don't need to use the civic/government services that require you to use Nem-ID.  Ah, no, I say, I do in fact need to be able to check my taxes and my paystubs, both of which are civic/government services WHICH IS WHY I GOT #B IN THE FIRST PLACE.  Oh dear, says the man, this is awkward, you'll have to go to the citizen services in your local city hall and ask them to change #A to #B.  Brilliant, I say, because I got #B from them in the first place and made sure they had set my civic/government accounts to that number and I certainly never asked them to change it to #A so why is it now changed, I ask you, because *I* didn't do it.  I'm afraid I don't know, said the man, and all I can say is that I'm really really sorry that you are getting bounced around like this.  You're telling me, I say, this is the least NEM (nem means "easy") thing I've ever had to do in Denmark! [Insert pleasantries] End Call.

Nem-ID is NOT EASY.  Taking the bus is easier.  And I have serious issues trying to take the right bus in the right direction in this country.  THAT'S HOW NOT EASY THIS NEM-ID IS!   And I'm pretty sick and tired of telling you all about it, cause it's boring.

Most of the time I can solve my problems with one phone call.  Or an email.  It's a pretty small country.  But it is also highly dependent on it's overburdened bureaucracy and it seems that for every time it tries to make things more streamlined or simple, it actually doubles the amount of work and the number of complications that can arise.  But hey, at least now my tax information is SAFE.  'Cause you know that thieves love nothing better than to see what exemptions you've signed up for and how much is in your retirement account.  And thank god my bank account is safe.  It's a continual problem, all my American accounts are constantly being hacked and... wait... no they haven't.  Heck, my bank calls me if they think I've been hacked, meaning I've gotten some middle of the night calls because they think I'm in the US and that some whack job is running around some weird land called "Denmark" using my cards.

The only improvement is that it got rid of the digital signature that was wedded to your personal computer, meaning you couldn't check your bank account from just any computer without 20 extra passwords and account numbers.  Except of course, if you used a Mac because the digital signature wasn't always compatible with the OS or internet program you used (say, if you refused to put Internet Explorer on your computer because IE is the DEVIL) so it didn't matter if you had signed up for a digital signature because it didn't freaking work.

Meanwhile I called up this pathology clinic in Odense because they are pestering me about having a pap-smear because YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE from irregular cells, often caused by HPV, even though they aren't CANCER, but can lead to CANCER.  AND YOU CAN DIE FROM CANCER YOU KNOW.  I gave them a ring because, dude, I'm pregnant, pap-smears are not really the best plan for me at this time.  The nurse lady agreed and then said, how about three months from now?  Three months?  Seriously?  I won't be done [TMI] oozing bloody bits by then [/TMI].  I may have started my first post-spawn [TMI] menstruation [/TMI] but really, I DO NOT WANT YOU GOING UP IN THERE RIGHT AFTER I PUSHED SOMETHING THAT LARGE OUT.  So she'll send me a letter again at a later date.  How lovely.  God knows that when I wanted a damn exam I had to stomp my feet to get one, now they're all HAVE A SMEAR!  GO ON!  HAVEAFEAKINGSMEARTODAY!

Sigh.

On the plus side, the DB has found a driving school that I can go to, so I can get the damn Danish drivers license and play with the Nem-ID people drive a car legally in this country.