The culmination of two weeks of work

There are some questions that get asked again and again and again and again and... oh you get the point.  One of these is: So what do you do?  This isn't Q: "What do you do?" A: "I'm an out-of-work archaeologist."  This is after we've covered my background, my schooling, my reason for being in this country, my reason for being on this island, and my reason for being in this village.*  It's a "good lord, woman, what the hell do you do all day??"  I think they imagine that I lounge about all day, eating bon bons.

HA!  Joke's on them!  I don't eat bon bons!

But for two weeks, I had an answer: I was painting the backdrops for the local theater production.

Some of you will be going "???" and some will be LOLing.  A little background: I did four years of drama in high-school, including more than my fair share of musicals.  This means I have a lot of experience with painting scenery.  And while I did a lot of acting during those years, I am not performing in this years production, "Treasure Island," because
A) it's in Danish and I have a hell of a time in Danish
B) there's a shit-ton of singing

Er, didn't I just say I did a lot of musical theater?

Yes.  And in all that time I managed to never have to sing a solo, especially after the choir director heard me sing that first year in try-outs.  Really, it was better for EVERYONE if I just blended into the choir or had a non-singing role.

So can we just agree that making me SING in DANISH would probably break several Geneva Conventions (I'm not sure who would suffer more, me or the audience) and leave it at that?

Anyway, last night was opening night and I snapped some pics before the audience filled the seats and the sun set behind the trees.

It's a big stage, so it's hard to get it all in a photo.  From the left, there's the Hispaniola, a typical English sea-side town circa 1750, the Admiral Benbow Inn, Treasure Island and the stockade, the jungle, and Skull Mountain aka Grotto where we hid the musicians (the musicians must have cover, this is Denmark, we can't guarantee good weather).  The town-scape actually opens up (you can see the seam) and becomes Trelawney's library.

Here's the library in all it's glory.  Can you see the flames in the fireplace?  I did that.  I'm terribly proud.

Now I'm no professional, but I was supervised by one.  Peter did all the fine details and together we painted the rest.  I'm very good at painting large blocks of solid colors.  I learned a lot too.  Like, if you mix yellow and black together, you do NOT get darker yellow, you get khaki green.  And black and white and ORANGE makes a very nice stone grey.

Dr. Livesey, John Hunter (manservant) and Trelawney

I spent most of the performance chasing my child all over the place and not really getting a chance to watch the play, but it sounded pretty good.  Some of those guys can really sing!  And there were some stand out performances too.  Doctor Livesey and Squire Trelawney were fabulous.  Trelawney managed to sound like an upper-class British twit IN DANISH.  Others made up for a lack of acting ability with enthusiasm, which is really what half of community theater is about.

Maybe next year I'll agree to be on stage.



*The answers are: California, A LOT, I married a Dane, he got a job, I like the countryside IS THAT SO WRONG??

Three not-so-blind mice

When the harvest rolled around, we were warned to keep our doors closed.  Mice, fleeing the harvesters, would be all “Rats of NIHM” and take up residence inside.

Raise your hands if you had a crush on Justin.
*crickets*
Just me then?
Liars.

But the weather!  Oh, the weather was glorious!  Warm sun, cool soft breeze, and the smell of woodstoves, drying leaves, and freshly turned soil!  How can you keep the door closed!?

The harvesters came and went and we closed up the doors and only then, after things had settled down, did we first hear it.  The unmistakable sound of scratching from inside the walls.  Inside the brick walls.  Yeah, ponder that one for a moment.  So mice had somehow gotten inside the walls of the house.  Not inconceivable, this is an old house, there are bits under the eves that aren’t sealed and there are climbing vines that go up and over and there’s also the chimney, so even if we kept the doors closed, mice in the walls was probably inevitable.

But then came the rustling from the trash bag.

Now, we throw away a lot of plastic wrapping.  The newspaper comes every day in a plastic bag and when it’s crumpled, it has an unfortunate tendency to unbunch and make a spooky “animal-in-the-bin” rustling and it has been known to leap out of the trash and scare the bejezus out of me.

Yup, I’ve lost my bejezus all over the kitchen floor.   The floor I let my child lick.  How else is she going to build up a bejezus tolerance, I ask you?  They don’t put bejezus in the milk in Denmark.

Milk: Bejezus-free!

Then one day something dark scurried across the kitchen floor and up under the stove while I was sitting in the dining room, having lunch.  I didn’t want to tell the DB, also known as He Who Is Scared of Rodents, but I figured honesty was a better policy. 

Okay, okay, and because I knew he’d be all “OMG EEEEEEE!” and then I’d feel all manly inside.

But he was a champ.  He put on his big girl pants and decided to move the stove and look behind it.  I was against this, because moving a stove to look behind it will accomplish nothing other than maybe convincing the mouse to run across your feet and under something else, but the DB was adamant.  I think he was expecting to see a little mouse hole in the wall.

Silly DB.  I would NEVER paint my walls this color of pink!

Nope, no hole and no mouse.  We’ve since found mouse droppings in the bottom of the oven, so now we know where the mouse was hiding and how he felt about being shaken in the oven for half an hour.

Not the shake 'n bake I had in mind.

The DB was frustrated.  There was a mouse in his house and it was obviously mocking him!

Then one day, a rather excited husband calls me to the kitchen.  “There’s something in the garbage!  I think it’s the mouse!!”

I’m no idiot, so despite doubting his assertions, I am careful as I begin to remove trash from the bag.  Suddenly the bag rustled.  And then something moved.  Gently I pulled an orange juice box out and under it was a small, plump, brown, fuzzy body with black eyes looking up at me.  As mice go, it was really quite cute.

Quickly I closed up the bag and carried it outside and to the back of the property.  I laid the bag down on the ground and opened it.  A bit of prodding the bottom of the bag with a stick and a sudden streak of brown shot out of the top of the bag and bounded into the bushes.

I was proud of mah self.

I was even prouder when I did it again a day or two later.  This was a smaller brown body with black eyes, but he or she bounded away from the trash bag with the same enthusiasm of the first mouse.

So now we had a system.  And I’m sure if the third mouse had read the script, it would have worked.  But OH NO, he had to be difficult.  I opened the pantry door in our mudroom a few days ago and something leapt behind the beer bottles.  Something brown and furry.  Something with big black beady eyes.

Damn.

“Chase it outside,” the DB cried. And I tried.  But have you ever tried to chase a mouse outside?  When there are so many other things to run and hide under?  When outside is cold and there’s no food and inside is full of warmth and fruit peels?  Yeah, you’d be swimming in my coffee grounds to, you know you would.

I apologized to the DB.  Not ten minutes later I walked over to the changing table (also in mudroom) to straighten it up and something jumped into the box with the diapers.  Something brown and furry.  Something with big black beady eyes.

I leaned over and looked inside.  The smallest mouse yet looked back up at me.  I reached over the box, behind him.  I opened the window.  Never did I take my eyes off of his eyes.  I reached out and slowly tilted the box towards the open window.  I used one hand to hold the box and the other to hold the diapers.  A gentle shake and he spun about and leapt out the window, onto the sill and ran off.  It wasn’t the back end of the garden and he’s probably right now taking up residence in the garage, but he was out of the house.

Since then we’ve had no scratches from inside the walls.  Apart from the faint traces of mouse discovered in the drawer under the oven, there is no sign we had three mice living with us for a few weeks.

Certainly you’d never know if from looking at the cat.  Did he once look in the direction of the scratching?  Did he meow at the garbage?  Did he try to get into the pantry?  Nope.  About as useful as a tiger skin rug.  Except, unlike a rug, he tries to bite your toes if you rub him with your feet.

Should have named him “Useless.”

It's a really small island

So a week before we moved to our new home in a small village, away from the small town that we lived in, we got a letter.

It was addressed to our new address.  The one we hadn't moved to yet.

But it was delivered to our old address... where we were currently living.  Without any corrections being added to the envelope.

Not only did the letter sender already know where we were moving to, but the postman also knew we hadn't moved yet and so delivered it to where we actually lived.

It's a small island.

Work Ethic

A lot could be said about the Danish work ethic.

Things like:
What ethic?
I've never met such a lazy group of drunken sods in my life!
Danes work smarter, not longer.
Family is more important that work.
Danes are extremely hard working and industrious.

I've heard them all.  I've said a number of them.  I've doubted the sanity of some of the people who have said others.

My own experiences with the Danish work ethic have been, well, mixed.

There are the paper pushers who sit at a desk for 3 hours every other Tuesday who look shocked and appalled if you ask them to do something so awful as GOD FOBID look something up on their little computer screens because their job is too look things up for people on computer screens and WHY THEY HELL ARE YOU ASKING THEM TO DO THEIR JOB??

There's the team of painters that came to paint our apartment building who showed up at 8, had a coffee break until 9, painted until 10 when it was beer-and-cigarettes break time (yes, beer, Danes do often drink on the job), started again at 11, broke for lunch at 12 (more beer), started up again at 1:30 and then went home at 3, after having one last beer and cigarette break.

There's the mechanic who opens his doors at 6 in the morning and doesn't close up until after 7 at night.  You can drop your car off in the morning for it's tune up and pick it up after work.  He's cheap, efficient, accurate, and at 23, very ambitious.

There are the pharmacists who are either open or on call, day or night, so when you have an anxiety attack at 3 in the morning and you need your Xanax NOWRIGHTNOWNONOTWHENTHEYOPENATTENRIGHTFREAKINGNOW, you ring them and someone will throw on a robe and fill that prescription for you.  (This does not apply to all pharmacists - you have the best luck in very small towns or very large cities, if you live in a mid-sized city, you probably have good reason to be anxious, so enjoy your demons until opening hours, m'kay?)

But by and large Danes believe that if you go into work earlier, you go home earlier and therefore you have more time to be with your family.

(I call bullshit on this one, by the way.  Because by getting up earlier to go to work earlier you are also going to bed earlier and your net time with the family is still the same whether you start work at 8 or horror of horrors, 9 am.  Do the math, folks.  And stop asking me to be somewhere at 8!)

At some point this "getting to work early" seems to have gotten out of hand.

The mason who is doing some patchwork on the house we are renting arrived yesterday at 6:30.  In. The. Morning.

Six FREAKING thirty.

Do you know when my alarm was set for?  Eight.  8!  Because I don't need to be at Danish class until 9.  In the morning.  When decent people go to work.  When the sun has actually risen.  Right now it's the dark times, the time when the sun doesn't rise until after 8 and sets before 4.  So this means that the mason has no light.  Except he does.  He brings his own flood lights.

FLOOD LIGHTS!  OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW AT 6:30 IN THE MORNING!

This isn't the first time the mason has shown up at some ungodly hour.  Last time the DB had to throw on a robe and run downstairs because he thought burglars were trying to get in through the window.  The mason was surprised that my husband wasn't dressed.  The DB said, "???" which translates to "I'm very sorry, sir, but we are neither farmers nor ranchers nor sheepherders.  We have no earthly reason to be up and dressed before the sun rises.  My wife, for example, when she does not have to be up for school, tends to sleep until 10 and then wanders about for a while in her pajamas.  You are just lucky that we're still pregnant because if this were to happen in a few months and you WAKE THE BABY I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my wife.  She's an American, you see.  They tend to be violent."

Alas the mason doesn't speak Tired Confused Husband, which is probably why he came yesterday AT THAT UNGODLY HOUR.

Only the joke was on him.  We didn't know he was coming and because it had snowed, we'd closed and locked the back door.  And since it was Trash Thursday, we thought the flashing lights and the banging noises were from the garbage man.  So we stayed in bed and the mason had to wait in his truck until we got up, showered, and then came down for breakfast.  HA HA!  I WIN!

One last hurrah!

The weather has been less than conducive to me leaving my home of late.  And when I do leave it's with long underwear, heavy coat, mittens and a knit hat.  But Saturday was one of those sunny days where if you stand in the sun, it feels rather pleasant and since there were few clouds, it did seem that the day would be one to be out and about in, minus the winter gear.

We went to Ærø Naturpark and "took a little tour" as they say in Danish.  Only with Danish words.  Usually.  Sometimes they'll say it in English, a direct translation of a saying in Danish and sometimes this makes no sense.   Although the saying "fit for fight" is apparently something the Brits say and the Yanks do not, so my confusion is sometimes completely cultural and I resort to the smile and nod and slowly back away.

Right.

The Danish Boy and I took a picnic and as we packed it my dear husband looked at what I was making and sadly said, "I should have just asked you to make mine for me."  This is because he fell back on his Danish upbringing and made a "food pack" - regarding which the non-Danes living in Denmark will all agree is a travesty unto culinary science.  I meanwhile whipped up a salami-cream cheese-jalapeño sandwich, apple, green olives, bag of popcorn, and cookies.  I didn't have time to boil any eggs, alas.

I then distinctly remember saying, "honey, could you grab the camera."  However, when I turned to him at the pond where the frogs were being so cute and photographic and there he was standing there with the picnic bag but NOT the camera... I cut my loses.  He had, after all, remembered to take the food.  Priorities people, food always trumps all in my book.

But it was a lovely day.  We hiked up and down hills, over some fences, through some fields and was molested by nary a cow.  There was a distinct lack of cows, in fact.  But cow pats we saw a plenty.

DB: Watch out, there's poop right here.
AG: Ummhmm.
DB: Oh, here's some over here.  And some right there.  Look, right there.  Watch where you step.
AG: Well it IS a cow pasture.
DB: I'M ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU!
AG: OKAY!
*pause*
AG: But it IS a cow pasture.  Cow poop is everywhere and you don't need to point it out to me.  I'm already on the look out.

May I remind my gentle readers that I grew up in the country and he grew up in suburbia.  If anyone knows cow poop in this relationship, it is I.

After lunch we picked up some asshat's beer cans some asshat had left behind.  Hey, Asshat - it's a nature park.  Pick up your damn trash!  Besides, those cans would have been worth a few kroner if you hadn't smashed them to hell and back!  Asshat.

We then came across a large wood pile.  The DB tried to figure out how we could sneak our Volvo into the field in the dead of night and make off with the wood.  He had to give up the plan, there's no way the surrounding farms would not hear us trying to maneuver the car into position.
AG: You're too close.
DB: I am not.
AG: You're going to hit it.
DB: I have loads of space.
*clunk*
AG: I told you you were going to hit it but OH NO you never listen to your wife and who's always right, I'm always right.
DB: I barely touched it!

So instead we found ourselves some nice walking sticks.  And if they were 6ft/2m tall and as thick as your upper arm... well, they were just really SERIOUS walking sticks.

Is it the circle of life or signs of the impending apocalypse?

Right, so at the beginning of summer I was amazed that seagulls were rare and bullfrogs plentiful in my little town by the sea. I mean, that's all kinds of backwards if you think about it.  But it was what it was and the croaking of amorous bullfrogs punctuated our sleep for what seemed like months.

But I didn't mind the bullfrogs.  One, it sounded a lot like where I grew up, where the sound of frogs drifted up from the creek, and two, I hoped they would keep the mosquito population in check.

I'm not entirely sure what happened but suddenly the cacophony of the pond came to an end.  And nary a frog was to be seen or heard again.  Perhaps they over-ate and died.  At any rate, it's been a long time since the frogs croaked.  (Boo-yah, that was an awesome pun!  Fist-pump to the sky, yo!)  And true to form we were quickly swamped with mosquitos.

It was as horrible as it sounds.  Doors and windows had to be closed before turning on the lights and several times the ceiling had to be vacuumed because a swarm had landed and looked like they were in for the long haul.  The bedroom was a scene of carnage.  Thankfully the ceiling is lower there and I could kill the little buggers with some toilet paper.  Tallies were kept of the daily kills, though usually when you hit 10 you just go with "lots" as the final number.  The old Israel mosquito killer was plugged in. (It's a red thing that looks like a plug adapter, but isn't.  You put a special tab into it that releases something into the air that repels mosquitos when it's plugged in.  Possibly very toxic but also very effective.  Far more effective than my other option: waving my arms and yelling.)  The mosquitos also got increasingly larger as the summer progressed.  I even stopped asking my husband to eject the spiders out of the house, it got so bad.

Yes, you heard me right.  I LEFT THE SPIDERS IN THE HOUSE!  That is how serious the mosquito pestilence was.

The temperature dropped a bit and we thought, ah, this will end 'em, but still they came.  The bathroom, or should I say the blood-bath-room, was a region of strategic importance.  Oh, the battles that were fought!  The number of times I peed in the dark!  *shakes head*  Numerous spiders were allowed to spin in the window in a desperate attempt to bring cool air in without letting in the swarm.  The spiders, alas, were useless.  I don't think I saw one desiccated mosquito corpse in any web, either in the bath or bedrooms.  In fact, yesterday I found the corpse of a full grown mosquito on my desk.  He seems to have died of old age.  OLD AGE!  He had a grey beard and a mechanical wheelchair!  Or would have if they made them for mosquitos.  And that beard may have been part of a dust bunny he tangled with.  But still OLD AGE!!

But then, after just a few weeks of oh-my-god-honey-look-at-the-ceiling shrieking and pointing, the mosquitos were, for the most part, gone.

In their place came the spiders.  I don't know what they've been eating, because it sure as hell wasn't the mosquitoes, but they have thrived all the same.  What was once a few spiders in a window or one corner of the room because a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Yeah, that scene.  The one that gives me the shivers.

This is my house after one day of not cleaning.  I think the poor bastard in this photo was trying to stuff some ads for Netto under my door when the mosquitos got him.





Meanwhile the dust-bunnies have been gathering in strength because we're too busy vacuuming the ceiling.  I might as well just attach the chandelier to the floor and tell everyone the house was built upside down.

But today I noticed something very different when I threw open the curtains (scattering several spiders and rolling at least one up into the pull-down shade).  Swarms of sparrows and swallows.   As I look out my window now, they are mostly swallows, but this morning my garden was full of dust-bathing house sparrows.  It's like I'm living "The Birds."

Only with small cute little birds that chirp and that had better be eating spiders and mosquitos instead of the large cawing crows and ravens that infested the movie.

Omygod, is that a "The Birds Barbie"?

I want one!  I'd call her Lenore and the birds Edgar, Allan, and Poe!  It would freakin' rock!!

Someone, please, mark this down for my birthday present.

Right, where was I?

Oh yes.  So Act of God or Act of Nature?  Am I looking at signs of the impending apocalypse or should I rent "The Lion King" and a set of bongo drums?

So far, Alot has not taken to lying down with dogs (a trusted and true measure of impending doom, right up there with an enraged Stay Puff Marshmallow Man terrorizing downtown New York) and the only mass hysteria I've seen is in Netto (although it looks like it's been hit by a plague of locusts so maybe a point towards apocalypse should be awarded).  But I did see a ginormous ginger cat on a boat the other day.  He looked completely calm and not at all like a Turkish Van (a breed of cat that likes water).  That might have to go on the pro-apocalypse list.

Any other signs of a Revelatory nature?  Pia K. converts to Islam?  Dub-ya joins PETA and gives away his millions to help clean up the Gulf?  Joe Biden manages to go a week without putting his foot in his mouth?

If you've seen a sign of the End Times, let me know in the comments, will ya?

My Home: enter at your peril...

So lots of "want photos!" come my way regarding the house.  And I ran about taking photos here and there and then there was the usual hysteria on the couch where I tried to figure out how to put all of these in a post that wouldn't be a complete disaster and then it came to me.  Like the Virgin Mary, speaking words of wisdom... only it was Bill Bryson.  Or maybe not, because I haven't actually read the book yet, it being brand spanking new and I not having money for random books of bliss...

I seem to be wandering.  Where was I?

Oh, yes.  We are going to do a home tour.  Room by room.  Or maybe more than one room on some occasions.  Screw it, folks, we'll do as many damn rooms per post as I freakin' feel like, okay?

So without further ado: the entry way.

 

This is the front door.  Is this not an awesome door??  And yes, my house is yellow with white trim.  Strangely enough, a vast majority of the houses I've lived in have been yellow with white trim.  My mom has an obsession for yellow houses with white trim, especially if they have green shutters.  Someone, please make my mother's day by bringing her 16 green shutters for her house?  Oh, and while you are at it, you may want to finish painting the trim.  Bring a ladder.  Oh, and repaint the house... it's faded a lot over the years.  Especially on the south side, facing the sun.

Going in through this door, which is RIGHT ON THE STREET, because front yards happen to other people not living in this town, you enter my vestibule.

If I were to be staging a house to be sold, I obviously would have cleaned.  If I had not been worried about being hit by a car while I hunkered down on my front stoop to take this photo, I would have at least moved the jackets so you could see the newel post.  You'll just have to trust me that there is a newel post and not a small child under all of that mess.

Anyway, the door on the left leads to the parlor.  Which we just found out will be stocked with a large dining set that we are getting for free from the inlaws.  In fact, all the furniture we had "bought" is now "free" and we aren't paying a dime apart from the cost of getting it from there to here.  Seems that attempts to sell it for a small fortune were undone by a Danish public obsessed with Arne Jacobsen egg chairs, who are all noses up at heavy wooden country-style furniture.  I WIN, Denmark!

The door "straight ahead" is to the kitchen.  Just to the right of that door, hidden by the staircase, is another small door to a tiny bathroom.  Not a half-bath, but one fully equipped with shower.  And hidden closet to utilities.  Oh, and a blocked up doorway to the world's smallest courtyard.  All ahead on "My Home"!!

Standing in the door from the kitchen looking back at the door that is now CLOSED!!  You are trapped!!

You decide to approach the tiger saying "nice kitty kitty," wishing you had a steak in your pocket.  Turn to page 83.

You decide to claw at the door and cry like a baby.  Turn to page 15.

You decide that the tiger is a figment of your imagination and stride boldly towards the next door.  Turn to page 106.


I sucked at "Choose your own adventure" books.  I just thought you should know.

So welcome to my home.  Toss your jacket over the rail and kick off your shoes.  I'll bring you a gin and tonic and we'll wander into the next room...

Adventures in Gardening

We purposefully set out to destroy a plant in our yard this last week.  We don't know what it is, but it's wicked spiky and it is trying to kill the rhododendron.

At least *I* think it's trying to kill the rhododendron.  I tend to anthropomorphize plants.  Actually, I tend to anthropomorphize everything, but I like to think it's part of my charm.  A small quirk of my overactive imagination, if you will.

You can't see it in this picture - but it's totally beating the crap out of the rhododendron!!

The spiky plant had to be brought low.  And it was, with help from some garden sheers.  But it will be back, oh yes, it will be back.  I fully expect it to become my nemesis.

There was a plant just like it back in my parents front yard.  Both myself and my sister have tried to kill it.  One time I completely chopped it up, dug down, and poured paint on its evil tap root, all in an effort to poison it completely.  Water-based paint being the most dangerous thing I could get my hands on at the age of 12.  My parents were careful people who were obviously two steps ahead of their possibly dangerous children.

Anyway, the plant wouldn't die and now that my dad has landscaped the yard to the point where we can't get at the Satan Plant, it is happily thriving.

But back to the garden I have now, not random patches of scrubby grass I have had in my past.  The New Satan Plant will continued to be attacked, the rhododendron will be nurtured and I have learned the great secret of gardening.

***SOMETIMES YOU PULL OUT THE WRONG PLANTS***

Oopsy-doodle.

I would now like to tell you about the lavender plant that I have.  It's not a rosemary bush like I thought.  But I am happy to report that I think it will survive and I'm glad I almost killed it discovered it was a lavender bush before I tried to cook with bits of it.  I'll make sure to say nice things to it whenever I pass by.

In the garden of evil... baby....

I've been a very good girl and taken pictures of my garden for you all.

This is my garden from my bedroom, right before spring errupted.  Across the road is the duck pond, where the nefarious Ducks of Doom await and plot world domination.  Then there's the harbor and the sea beyond that.  My uninterupted sea views are, in fact, interupted by the harbor.  But come Fleet Week, I get a great view of both ships.

BWHAHAHAHA!

Actually, we did have two small navy vessels in port a few days ago.  It was a little dark to take a non-flash photo and I only take military photos when I am sure no one is going to catch me because I don't want to get shot, thankyouverymuch.  So you'll just have to trust me that we had sailors in town.

*Insert seaman joke here*

Of late I've been suffering from insomnia.  This is partially exasperated by having my husband rush off back to Aarhus to make money as a taxi driver until his job here beings in July (more specifically, until his first pay check is deposited) and I just kinda forget to go to bed.

I'd forget to breathe if it wasn't a subconscious act.

But it means I end up getting to watch the sun rise over the duck pond.   Once I even managed to photograph it!  I love sunrises.  Provided that I've been up all night to watch them.  I'm very unfond of seeing sunrises because I've had to get up early.  I like watching the sun rise and then going to bed.  I also like wandering around town after everyone else has gone to bed.  But taking pictures in the dark is a little difficult - I would need to find the tripod, learn to use a camera properly, and have patience.  Posh!  The point of wandering around in the dark at night is the wandering around in the dark at night!

I hear tonight is a full moon.  I'm so tempted to go out and wander around in it.

Anyway, my garden.  I didn't plant it.  According to our landlord, he spent a Great Deal of Money on it and we must take care of it.  This would be much easier if I knew anything about plants.

Like this plant.

I like it.

It's all spiky and the red flower thing is even more red in real life, but I'm not a fabulous photographer and I lack photoshop.

And I have no clue as to what kind of flower it is.

There is also this flower that's growing in the gravel and nowhere else in the garden.  This suggests it's a weed, but it's pretty and I want to keep it.

Then there is this flower.  Bush.  Flower.  Bush.  Flowerbush?

It's got spiky thorns like a rose, but it doesn't look much like a rose.  I was going to lean in and sniff it, but I'd have to step on some things that may or may not be baby plants and possibly grasp another spiky plant-bush thing in an effort not to fall on my face into the flowerbush and that would just suck.

This picture also shows how much lusher my garden has gotten since I took the picture at the top of this post... just a few days ago.

I also really like this plant.  It's a purple plant.  Has little bitty flowers that remind me of a plant back home that I used to think was Fox Glove, but now I know is not.

Oh, you say, I thought you said you didn't know about plants?

Yes, well, I am sort of a nut for poisonous plants used in murder mysteries.  And Digitalis is one of the fun ones.  But I did just learn that it's considered a weed by the USDA.

Then there is this little yellow flower growing right next to my ornamental pond.  It's got leaves that totally scream "weed" or possibly "romaine lettuce" but a quick wikipedia trip doesn't tell me if lettuce has flowers.

Because of the whole Fox Glove thing, I tend to not eat random plants in gardens.

That and my mother liked to tell us kids the story of the boy scouts who went camping and then used Oleander sticks to roast marshmallows and DIED!

Speaking of the ornamental pond...

Here is a picture, with a newspaper for scale.  Or perhaps I've kidnapped this pond and this is a proof of life photo.

It's about two feet across and probably about that deep.  It seems to be made of a cement ring, sunk into the ground, with some solid bottom keeping the water from leaking away.

And it is full of dead leaves.  Topped by small green plants that do not seem to be algae and perhaps are meant to be there.  Not really sure on that one.

My husband is at a loss as to it's purpose.  In my husband's world, things have purpose.  I like things to have a purpose, and in my house, if you don't serve a purpose (which sometimes just has to be "entertain the Archaeogoddess for half an hour) you don't get to move with us then next time we change addresses.  It's a harsh old life in the Archaeohousehold, but it makes it easier to move from house to house.  However, I recognize that sometimes we don't need to know the purpose of a thing to appreciate and like it.

That being said, the ornamental pond creeps me out.

I went and fished a plastic bag out of it the other day and I thought, just for a minute, that I was about to fish a foot out as well.

A human foot.

I mean, come on, doesn't that pond just scream "body dump" to you?

It would have to be a small body.

Which just makes it all the more creepy, doesn't it?

Don't worry folks, if I was going to go about killing people, I would definitely not put them in my ornamental pond.  Because putting the body in your own backyard is how they catch you.  There is also the problem of size.  My pond is just too small.  To fit a body in it I'd first have to cut it up and deep fry it until it was crispy and then run it through the wood chipper, and if you are going to go through that much trouble you might as well just dispose of the body somewhere else, like the fertilizer ponds that are all over Denmark.  Your victim could be spread out all over Samsø without you having to lift a finger.

Then there is all that business about pig farms.  Lots of pig farms in Denmark, you know.  This country is just crying out for a crime syndicate and a mob boss.

Island life...

So I may have mentioned that I moved to an island who's name I cannot pronounce, to a city who's name I cannot pronounce, to a street who's name I cannot pronounce.

This is the joy of Denmark, constantly being unable to ask people how to get home because you can't tell them where you live.

I think this is the real reason they invented identity cards in this small nation.  How else could the Copenhagen police know which train to put west coasters on?  It's not like you can understand the words that are coming out of their mouths.  I mean, jeez!

And at some point you *will* need help getting home.  Maybe because you've had too much to drink, but it's just as likely that you'll discover that the bus stops have moved and the buses have been rerouted and suddenly you shouldn't be taking the 15, because that no longer goes by your house, or stops anywhere near your house. In fact, the 15 now goes to Hamburg.

Which is in Germany.

And we don't go to Germany.

Unless we are buying ridiculous amounts of cheap snacks and liquor which would have cost us the same amount if we'd just gone to Bilka because we used half a tank of gas to get us to Germany and will use half a tank to get back, and petrol is viciously expensive in Denmark, but going to Germany to load up on crap reminds us why we fought the war.

Oh, and we go to Germany to visit Berlin.

But as we all know, Berlin is not *really* Germany.

So OTHER THAN THAT, we don't go to Germany.

Speaking of Germany, if I went to the south side of my island I might be able to see it, on a clear day.

Thus giving me enough foreign policy experience to run for Veep.

*hurried whispers* What?

*stressed whisper* Oh.

Apparently, my associates tell me, I live in a foreign country and have worked in several other foreign countries, thus giving me OODLES more foreign policy experience that some people who have, in the past, may have run for certain public offices.

Moving on...

This island.  Under 7000 inhabitants.  Which still makes it a larger community than what I grew up in, shockingly enough.  You can only get here by ferry boat.  There are three ferry boats leaving from different cities and arriving in different cities.  This does mean that from time to time you race from one end of the island to the other trying to get on a ferry boat.  Important note if you ever visit me: make a reservation for your car.  We get weekenders.  *scoffs*

I have lived a good chunk of my life in tourist destinations.  This is because I share my parents philosophy of "why just visit a lovely place when you can freakin' live there!"

(They probably wouldn't put it that way, or they'd point out that they have other, more important philosophies like "be kind to others" and "please don't bring the car back without any gas this time" - but they did decide to move us all to a charming town in the country rather than raise us in suburbia because it is way more awesome to live in a beautiful place all the time, instead of living in a sucky place and only going to pretty places when you can.)

So I tend to have a bit of impatience with tourists and a certain smugness when it comes to where I live.  Add that to my irrational hatred of summer homes... and well, I'm an islander by nature.

My husband and I have had oodles of fun exploring the island.  We've been beer tasting at the local brewery, we've gone in search of the butchers so that I can get a shoulder of pork (not a common cut in Denmark, by the way) and we've been antiquing (which is very touristy, but also a great way to find out if you can afford to decorate your house... and the answer is NO).  We've found out that although we live on an island and a huge number of people living here are fishermen, you cannot buy fresh fish in any stores.  But some fishermen may be keeping some fish from their catches, which they aren't supposed to do, and these men may be willing to sell you some under the table, which they aren't supposed to do, but of course, no one really knows if this is *really* so...

For those who wonder, yes, there *is* a hospital on the island.  Somewhere around here.  I just had it a minute ago, must have set it down somewhere... forget my own head next...

We've discovered that we can get just about everything we used to be able to get in Århus, except some American foods (no SuperBest here) and I'm having an herbal issue, where I keep buying potted herbs and then eating them instead of planting them.

I feel strangely guilty about that.  I mean, I buy my chickens pre-dead, cut and packaged for my dining pleasure - why can I not get herbs the same way?  Having me buy herbs in a pot forces me into some big lie about how I'm going to take this potted herb home and care for it, give it a good life, nurture it.  When the reality is, I'm going to go home and pull it's little leaves off!  The herbs even come with little tags telling me how to care for the plant.  I tell you, it's just sick.  Now if I bought a bush of mint, it might last - although the care tag tells me that mint is not meant to survive in northern Europe and therefore needs plenty of sunlight - ohmygod, set me up for failure why don't you!  Denmark, sun?  WTF?!  But a small, scrawny mint plant is just not going to hack it in my house if I'm making a Jamie Oliver risotto (ever notice the man asks you to throw in handfuls of everything?).  The guilt is compounded by the similarity between the scrawny mint plant and the Christmas tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas special.  I feel like I should be swaddling the mint in a blankie and singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" at it instead of systematically stripping it of the ability to photosynthesize.

If you are also wondering if you remembered correctly that I get seasick... uh, yeah, I do.  Does this mean it's really rather silly that I live on an island that can ONLY be reached by BOAT... uh, yeah, it is. But I also hate flying and yet spend a lot of time traveling long distances by plane, have allergies and yet spend a lot of time outside, suck at learning languages and yet live in Denmark, etc.  If I avoided things I do not like or make me uncomfortable, I'd have to live in a lab somewhere in Kansas.  And never leave.

Boring!

I shall now leave you with two photos of the town in which I live that I did not take.  Alas, the photos I seem to have taken of this island SUCK.  I'm going to have to do something about it, but not now.  Not while it's so cold the ducks have frozen to the sidewalk.