Motherhood is also known for it's heavy dependence on caffein

Do you ever do something so dumb that you just stand there for a minute revealing in the dumbness of it all?  I'm not talking about bungee-jumping or getting George Wendt's face tattooed on your ass, but more of an every day dumbness that is magnificent in both it's banality and stupidity.

Like dropping your socks into the toilet the day after you've decided to save water by not flushing after every pee?

Like the things immortalized in Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic" which of course weren't ironic, but instead just a lot of bad timing.

Like this morning when I discovered that I needed to refill my little sugar jar and over the course of the next hour managed to give myself type 1.3333333 diabetes (the diabetes you get by consuming waaaaaay to much sugar in waaaaaaay too short of time).

Backstory: I'm the type of person who has dreams of a tidy, ordered kitchen.  I salivate over kitchen design and have been known to stroke kitchen surfaces in kitchen design stores (just window shopping... with my hands) and in Ikea (hey, did you know that sometimes those stove tops are plugged in?  Just sayin').  So of course I have (from Ikea) multi-sized jars to hold various powders (you should see my jar of refined heroin) (OH I AM SO KIDDING, MOM!) including the sugar, which is not in powder form (and strangely enough, the powder sugar is still in a box, gotta fix that), but is in a lovely and very large jar.  This is of course completely impractical for daily use.  So I have a smaller jar that I decant the right amount of sugar to, so I have something that is small enough to put out for coffee.

Some people have those cute little sugar jars.  I have one that says "Marmalade" on the side but is instead holding a cinnamon-sugar combo used for oatmeal and risengrød (a Danish rice porridge that you eat once a year right before Christmas) because that's the way I roll.

I have my eye on a set of coffee cups, saucers, and cruet set from a particular store here on the island.  But who of you are willing to bet that I
a) never get around to buying it?
b) buy it but continue to use my little glass jar in order to save the fancy sugar jar for company?

You are probably right, no matter which option you choose.

Anyway, like I was saying, I was out of sugar in my little jar, so I began to transfer sugar from the large jar to the small jar by means of a large table spoon.

Only my coffee cup was sitting next to the small jar.

I don't know how I did it, but my hand missed the small jar completely and dumped the entire table spoon of sugar into my coffee.  My only defense is that I hadn't had any coffee yet, because there was no sugar in the little jar, so part of my brain was still working on automatic.  Sugar, said that part of my brain, goes in coffee.

Well, crap. Said the other part of my brain.  What do we do now?  And it decided that if I didn't stir it, the sugar would sit on the bottom of the cup and I could just drink the coffee.  And then we don't have to put sugar in the next cup or the next cup! Thought my brain, proceeding to use the type of logic that this part of my brain is known for. In fact, this is a brilliant idea.  I'd like to tell you that the other half of my brain chimed in here, but it was still holding the spoon and that took all of it's concentration.

Spoon goes in coffee.  No! We are done putting things in coffee!  We drink the coffee for tomorrow we die! Or something! Quick, drink the coffee!! Milk goes in coffee. Yes, okay, milk does go in the coffee.  If we throw a dab of milk in it will slowly spread through the coffee due to the process known as osmosis... or possibly one of the other mosises. I vaguely remember something about this from science in high school. Nevermind, here, milk, now drink! I have the spoon. Very good, we are all very proud of you and your spoon.

This turned out to be a spectacularly dumb idea.  The very scientific principle that allowed the milk to spread though the coffee without stirring also allowed the sugar that dissolved in the coffee to spread and although there was a considerable amount of sugar left at the bottom of the cup once I had drunk the coffee, there was also a considerable amount of sugar IN ME.

You might be thinking, hey, with all that energy, now would be a good time to get some stuff done.  Alas, I currently have the attention span of a fruit fly.  And also, some rather odd twitching in my left arm.  And some slight nausea.

Ooooo, I think I'll go eat some chili-flavored corn nuts!

The wind against your cheek...

...was the holiday season FLYING past.

Holy Crap, what was that?

Hope your holidays were filled with laughter and light and the coming year be filled with joy and wealth (of the spirit and the pocketbook)!

Done and Dusted!

I passed my driver's test and am back behind the wheel... legally!

And I did the hair chop!

From long hair....

To pixie!

Why yes, we ARE just that cute!

Alas, that's not going to be the picture on my driver's license.  Instead it will be a pudgy-pregnant-Archaeogoddess-direct-from-snow-storm-to-photo-chair photo taken months ago when I first started this whole crazy process.  Oh if only I looked glowing in that photo, instead of sweaty.  It's melting snow, dammit!  I swear!!

Well, it's a forgone conclusion that you will look horrible on your driver's license, right?

I don't need no stinking resolutions

So let's see, this is the end of the year post where everyone lists what they've done and what they plan on doing for the upcoming year, right?

What I've done:

Stuff.

Some of it was fun, some of it paid, some of it was a waste of time and energy.

Seriously, people with the lists of accomplishments?  Knock it off already, you're giving me a complex.  I don't tally my accomplishments, I like to just go with the assumption that I'm awesome and leave it at that.  So when I read that some people have learned other languages or published a novel, I'm sitting here thinking "crap, I didn't do that... but I got out of bed this morning AND brushed my hair, DOUBLE WIN FOR ME!"

'Cause it is waaaaay too easy to list the things you didn't do this year.  The things that left you disappointed.  Isn't it?

I wanted to be graduated by the end of the year.  Not that I made a resolution about it, because graduating resolutions are made at the beginning of every semester and I was becoming regularly accustomed to emailing the graduate school and saying "kidding, ya'll, I'm not graduated yet.  LOL!"  So when I told my department WAY BACK in April that Enough Was Enough and they were all Tru 'Dat I thought for sure I'd be stroking my degree by now.

But apparently it's harder to get off the chain-gang than it looks.  I mean, the Warden is all "paroled!" and the Parole Board is all "Time Served!" but the idiot with the key is all "yeah, but see we only do scheduled releases during certain times of the year and the rest of the year we don't actually keep the paperwork around because that would give people the impression that there was a system and it's not a system, it's more of an organic process, so the paperwork will be available on-line in December, wait, did we say December, we meant January, and did we say on-line because I'm not sure if that's really possible, have you checked our web-site?"

Seriously Graduate School - don't you want students to, I dunno, GRADUATE?

I.  Guess.  Not.

So the one thing I wanted to get done this year: FAIL.

Whatever, at least the organic process, or whatever the hell it is, means I don't have to keep writing the bloody thing and I still qualify for "student membership" for the organizations I belong to.  That's my silver-lined Purgatory!  Whoot-whoot.

My resolutions for this year are:

Continue to not make resolutions!

I've been wicked good at keeping this resolution.

You could argue the logical fallacy of this argument, but do I look like the kind of girl who bows to logic?  Logic??  I laugh in the face of logic!  I put underpants on my head and dance around slapping my butt in the face of logic!

Instead of sitting down and making a list of things to do and making promises I'm only going to break spectacularly, I'm going to keep my cat inside tonight, watch the fireworks from my deck, and spend the next two weeks writing the wrong year on everything because I'm a little bit special like that.  And I'm not going to dwell on my failure to end the year as Master of Archaeology, Art, and Other Stuff because it'll get done at some point not dependent on a calendrical division imposed by Julian or Gregory or whoever we have to blame for this particular temporal junction.  And I'm going to keep on celebrating the little accomplishments of the day right along side the major ones - I started a fire in the fireplace, it took me two hours to get it going, but finally I made wood and paper BURN - I WIN!!

To you all, readers and friends, known and unknown:
I wish you the best of luck with your resolutions and may the new year bring you greater peace and prosperity, may we have all learned from the lessons of this year and may we not repeat the mistakes of the past, may there be more cookies and less boiled cabbage, may we all forgive and be forgiven, and may we all find our inner grace and beauty and find a way to share it with the world.

The Blizzard of 2010

Okay, maybe it wasn't technically a blizzard on the 23rd of December, but we'd had a heap of snow and then a Very Strong Wind which took said snow and made landscapes of it.

Drifts were indeed drifting.

Drifting across roads.

To take up residence at bus stops and other sundry places where drifts hang out.

It was a white-out kinda day.  A day where I was profoundly thankful that:
A) I had a Volvo
B) it was stick shift
C) it was black

Ever try to find a silver car in a white out?  I'm sure I'll be kicking myself when I have to find my black car in the dark, but for now I am very grateful that I can find it in the snow, because I got a lot of snow.  I have a lot of dark too, but rarely do I need to drive somewhere after dark these days.  "These days" being here in DK where I am not really supposed to be driving but sometimes you have to bend the law in order to obtain a Christmas Duck.

The Christmas Duck is very important to Danish Christmas, unless you are eating pork for Christmas, in which case you don't need a Christmas Duck and driving out into a snow storm to get one is Incredibly Stupid.

I had just returned from the land where pork is Not Allowed and really would probably have been very happy to have a Christmas Pig, but I do like duck and I can do things with duck that you can't do with a side of pork - like stuff it, and make gravy from the giblets and drippings.  And I'm really rather opposed to pork crackling.

Pork crackling is skin and fat that has gone crispy in the oven and it just stares up at me and says "Cardiac Infarction" and I don't like it when my food talks to me.

So anyway, The Duck.  The Danish Boy had ordered a fancy-pants duck, I think it was free-range and organic, but at the very least it was Never Frozen, from the butcher's in the neighboring village (we don't have a butcher here, although according to the sign in one of our bars he does visit on Wednesdays, but whether that's to sell his wares or to get drunk we've never quite established, I mean, a sign saying "Butcher is here Wednesday 12-4" is rather vague, don't you agree?) to be picked up on the 23rd.

When we had a white out.

I'm fairly sure that the Danish Boy had not anticipated this turn of events and even if he had, I'm sure that he fully intended on being done with work in time to go get The Duck himself, but with the white out there was a surprising little amount of news for the newspaper because everyone stayed home and you can't really write a full news spread about how no one did anything because it was bloody awful out.  So while my husband waited for someone's kitchen to catch fire (never did happen), I was left to sort out The Duck.

(At this point I should state that my MIL was completely panicking about the prospect of me out on the road and insisted that the DB would surely not wish me to do such a thing.  I mollified her by calling the DB and telling him my plans and the DB, knowing his wife is freaking AMAZING was all "right, call me if there's a problem with the butcher.")

I loaded my BIL, his girlfriend, and my SIL into the car with two shovels and we drove off.  Hey, I'm not stupid, if I got stuck in a drift I knew I couldn't dig myself out or push my car out of the snow - I'm freaking 6 months pregnant!  I drove the entire way in 2nd gear, dropping into 1st to bring the car to a controlled stop.  I did manage to get the car into 3rd when we were on our way to the supermarket in the other town on the island (hey, after a successful duck acquisition, it seemed prudent to go ahead and get the rest of the shopping done in case the snow got WORSE). I navigated by sign posts and trees, which generally mark the edges of the road, but I also had to try to remember where the road might be because in some cases the snow drifts gave the impression of bends where there were none.  This would have been easier if I drove the roads regularly or hadn't been out of the country for the last 7 weeks, but I'd ridden shot-gun enough times to remember the way.

Apparently everyone else in the car was slightly terrified and very relieved when we made it home, but Spawn and I had a blast.  We'd totally do it again!  I'm thinking that I should be one of those rescue vehicle drivers because I think the "where is the road again" game is ACE!

We (and I use that term loosely, I kept the car going and the heat on for the others, I'm all heart like that) dug a Mercedes station wagon taxi out of the snow on our way to the butchers.  We never got stuck.  We never slid.  We came home with a Christmas Duck and loads of other food, including more citrus fruit than I've ever had in my house at one time.  If anyone manages to come down with scurvy in this house, it can only be through willful negligence.  Or a surfeit of gingersnaps.

OMG do you remember this?

I blame my friend Heather who linked originally to "C is for Cookie" and then I found the Sesame Street playlist.  Apart from my personal anthem, "I love trash" there was also this song.  When I was little I knew the lyrics by heart.  It's a little high pitched, so if your cat runs away and your dog begins to howl, I'm sorry.  But I forgot how completely amazing this song was.  Especially for 1982, when this song first aired.

I don't know how I'm going to do it, but Sesame Street is going to be part of my child's childhood.  Even if I have to pirate every single episode and burn 100 illegal DVD's to do it.

Goals (and not the sports kind)

"Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars!"  I used to like that quote because, hey, moons, stars! It's what girl geeks decorate their rooms with.  Raise your hand if you have an inflatable space shuttle decorating your room!

*crickets*

Okay, glow in the dark stars!

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!  Y'all my girls! (And geek boys - you be stylin' too!)

Right.  Anyway, the inner geek in me googled this quote so I could use it in this post and then realized, it's a totally stupid quote.  The moon is waaaaay closer than the stars.  If you are aiming for the moon and miss, you better pray you are lucky enough to have fuel for a return trip to earth, otherwise you're going to be drifting in space for a REALLY LONG TIME because stars are REALLY FAR AWAY and as they are VERY HOT SUNS you don't really want to "land among" them.  Really.

But this post is not about astronomy, it's about goals.  And the importance people put on you having lofty goals.

To which I call bullshit.

See, you can have lofty goals, but if you never attain them, well, it's like running a marathon that has no end.  Where's the sense of accomplishment?  Where's the bit where you can pat yourself on the back and say "way to go, you!"  This is why they came up with the "it's not the destination, it's the journey!"

"They" being the folks in middle management that have the inspirational signs hanging in their offices.

There's a special hell for those people.

You're welcome.

Aim lower!  Win every now and again!  Instead of having a list of 20 things you need to do and only accomplishing 10 and then trying to convince yourself that you did your best, make a list of one thing to do and do that one thing (or not, cause why do today what you can do tomorrow?) and then rest on your laurels!  Just don't eat your laurels.  I hear they are poisonous.  Or bits of them are poisonous.  Or maybe they aren't poisonous at all because we do use them in cooking.  So maybe you *should* eat your laurels.  You know what?  Do whatever you want with your laurels.  I won't judge you.

Currently my life goal is to make my husband laugh so hard he cries.  Without resorting to tickling.  'Cause I accomplished that goal already.  (I'm now working on the smaller goal of "touching my husband without tickling him" and it's harder than it sounds, Danish Boy is TICKLISH.)

I had great success a few nights ago when I told him "Denial is a large river in Egypt."  

Sometimes, marrying someone who completely lacks all of your culture references is fantastic.  All those old puns and jokes you have heard since birth?  Oh, yeah, it's like a never ending gold mine of mirth 'round here.

He was not nearly as entertained by my "where I grew up 'debate' is what you stick on your fishing line."  

AG: You know, debate.  De bait.  The bait.  The stuff you put on the hook at the end of a fishing line.  To fish.

DB: Yeah, I got it.  Um, heh heh.

AG: (ooooh shot down!) Moving on...

Like any good comedian, you gotta know your audience.  Only I never claimed to be a good comedian and my audience, as you can see from above, is fickle.  I got a pretty good laugh out of him once for explaining why mosquitos vote for DF (the Danish Peoples Party - think American Tea Party, only with actual power in government).  

So imagine my surprise when I had him sobbing with laughter the other night, by simply reading my very dull Danish class work.  IMPORTANT NOTE: He was NOT laughing at my Danish.  

The set-up is this: boring day in class.  Our assignment for the hour - "Imagine a new student sits down with you in the cafeteria.  What questions would you ask him or her?" Seriously?  A minute ago I was working on possessive pronouns (mine, mine, it's all mine!) and questions in the simple past-tense using inversion (did you take my bike?) and you want me to regress?  To "what is your name?"  Snore-fest!  Bore-apalooza!

Here is my list of questions (English translation in parenthesis):

Hvad hedder du? (What is your name?)

Hvor gammel er du? (How old are you?)

Er du gift? (Are you married?)

Hvor kommer du fra? (Where do you come from?)

Hvor bor du? (Where do you live?)

Hvor længe har du boet i Danmark? (How long have you lived in Denmark?)

Hvad laver du? (What do you do?)

Er du studerende? (Are you a student?)

Hvad læser du? (What do you study? - really "What do you read" but it means study in this context.)

Hvilken sporg kan du taler? (Which languages can you speak?)

Har du familier here? (Have you family here?)

Hvad tænker du om Pia K. og Danskefolkparti? (What do you think about Pia K. [think Sarah Palin, but MEAN and OLD] and the Danish People's Party [mentioned briefly above]?)

Vil du gerne har en kop kaffe med mig? (Will you like to get a cup of coffee with me?)

Hvor købte du den sød jakke? (Where did you buy that sweet [as in "cute"] jacket?)

Hvorfor du løber væk? (Why are you running away?)

Kan du ikke lige mig? (Don't you like me?)

DB started laughing at "Pia K." and promptly died over the "kop kaffe".  Was it the juxtaposition?  Is there a slang meaning here that I don't understand?  (Like asking for a bread roll can be a euphemism for asking someone for sex.)  Or do I have to just accept that I will never understand what is funny to a Dane?

Oh who cares!  I made my husband laugh until he cried!!  I WIN!!  GOAL!!!

Meet: Alot

Alot is not mine. 

*snicker*

Alot wandered into my back yard the other day *heh* while my husband and I were gardening.  Until this point, he wasn’t known as Alot.  *guffaw*  He was known as the-cat-that-wasn’t-the-ginger-cat-or-the-little-black-and-white-one.  After a five minute description of the cat THAT WE WERE BOTH LOOKING AT just to say, “and he’s very friendly, this cat,” that I suggested we give him a name.

I mean, we simply could not go on this way and the cat was certainly settling into our garden with intent.  Intent to loiter.  Intent on being cute.  Intent on entertaining the Archaeogoddess with his little fuzzy butt antics.

“Why not ‘Alot’,” said my husband, who is still reeling from the humor of Hyperbole-and-a-Half’s brilliant Alot post, even though I read it to him over a month ago.  Mind you, it *is* genius.  I laugh every time I read it.  My husband, who thinks puns are possibly the highest form of humor, secretly harbors a desperate love for Allie.  At least I think he does.  It's okay, I harbor a not-so-secret desperate love for David Tennant.  We all have our little quirks.  Anyway, I suggest you read it, not only because it's ridiculously funny, but also so that you’ll get the ongoing joke in this post and realize that I’m not stupid, I know an a lot from an Alot. 

But dude, I’m telling you, we named the damn cat Alot.

*bwahahaha*

This let to all kinds of hilarity in the yard.

“Honey, look, there’s Alot in the car!”

“Is that Alot in your jacket, or is it just happy to see me?”

“Oh my god, Alot just fell into the pond!”

Alas, I didn’t get a picture of Alot falling into the pond.  Even if I’d had the camera and been pointing it his way, I would have collapsed in hysterical giggles without ever firing a shot.

I knew it would happen.  I was pretty sure it was going to happen a few days earlier when Alot and the black and white cat, who has of yet no name but I’m leaning towards “Heck” so I can yell “It’s a Heck and Alot!,”  were bounding around the garden chasing each other, their own tails, and the various flying bugs that frequent my yard.

But nope.  Alot’s downfall came when trying to stalk my husband’s hoe-thing.  Hoes will lead you astray, man, every time.  So while Alot was trying to sneak around behind the Danish Boy, he headed towards that nice flat green patch, beyond which the bushes offered a safe location from whence to pounce.

Imagine if you will, dainty cat feet.  Dink-dink-dinking across the ground. 

Dink-dink-pause-dink-dink-pause-dink-dink-plop-plop.

Up to his armpits in algae. 

He withdrew to a safe distance to try to salvage his dignity. 

And we laughed a lot at Alot.

Yesterday Alot wandered into the house, causing my dear Dane to exclaim, “Alot scared the crap out of me earlier today.”  Today we almost took Alot with us to Århus.  One of the great things about Alot is his ability to do things that let us maximize the punning potential of his name.

He’s obviously not our cat.  He does go home, wherever that is, in the evening.  We don’t usually see Alot out at night.  He’s well fed, well groomed, and very friendly.  He’s not neutered, which I think adds to his roaming nature, but so far he’s not treated our yard like a giant litter box.  As far as my husband is concerned, he’s the best pet ever - the kind that costs nothing and gives you hours of entertainment and joy.

We like him, Alot.

Maybe I'll post something more serious later....

Yeah, right.

But until then - there was this meme going around Facebook that asked me what song I had stuck in my head. And I totally fought the ear-worm and was song-free for two days. But then I saw this. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is one of my favorite ear-worms because it can be erradicated by singing it loudly in the car. In fact, I almost always sing it loudly in the car. God, forgive me, I freaking love singing this song in the car. You'll have to pardon me, I need to go get in the car... I have a song to sing. Did I mention I sing it LOUDLY??

Anyway - this is the best use of YouTube: funny redo of a music video. And I thought "Pop-Up Video" was the apex of movie meets music entertainment.

Success!

It turns out the letter was only referring to my participation in August not SINCE August as I had thought. Well, they did send the letter in Danish and HELLO I'm not graduated yet, I can't read your letter!!

But I talked to a VERY nice caseworker who made all kinds of notes for my file and then I got an email follow up from her because she'd checked my file and saw that my visa was expired and wanted to know if I'd gotten the paperwork back and that if I was thinking that I might not get it in time, I should get a special notation in my passport. I have since responded and said, well, I did renew my visa, but it hasn't come through yet - how do I get this stamp just in case I don't get my visa in time? I'm thinking that she might be a helpful caseworker! Praise god and pass the ketchup! Her English was phenomenal and she read my file! She READ my FILE! And then contacted me to make sure I hadn't gone and forgotten something HUGE!

I'm very excited.

Meanwhile, I may have just gotten my international drivers license. Well, I missed the FedEx guy, but he'll be back tomorrow and I've posted the note saying he can just leave it in the mailbox if I'm not home. Or peeing. But I didn't add that to the note. He might wig out and not let me have my proof of my mad driving skills. It will of course be in my maiden name because the department of motor vehicles will not change my name unless I walk into the office with a marriage certificate and/or a new social security card. I haven't gotten the new SSC or been anywhere NEAR a department of motor vehicles so instead I'm going to photocopy the document I got from the Danish Ministry of People Who Change Their Names, who brilliantly provided me with a document in English saying, "yes, you short sighted bureaucrat, she did bloody change her name now let her go about her life with some form of dignity." Because I'm running around with half of my official documents with one name and half with the other.

It's like having a secret identity. Or schizophrenia.

And I spend a lot of time explaining myselves to people. Yes: Myselves. Don't argue with me, I may be a dangerous schizophrenic, you never know.

Despite all the madness, I've had a good couple of days. I mean, I've had a cold, but I managed to work around it.

I worked a volunteer bar shift at a club/party Friday night, resulting in good times and a sexy voice (hoarse, very hoarse). You'd think it'd be dreadful to have to interact with drunk Danes, but really, it was pretty good. Think of it as another phase of projekt dejlig: interacting with Danes on their own turf, i.e. any place of inebriation. I managed fairly well in Danish and when it no longer worked and I apologized, in English, for not understanding or being unable to remember the number 80, most gasped and said "Oh my god, I didn't know you didn't speak Danish! I'm so sorry!" and then proceeded to repeat their request in English with good humor. It also helps that pick-up lines for foreign women by Danish men are very simple: "Where are you from?... WOW! What brought you here?" And are easily, gently, shot down by responding, "America... I married a Dane" and flashing the ring. I got my hand kissed several times. Even the guys who were trying to get me to discount their drinks finally gave in before my dazzling charming non-danish self.

Then today I worked out my little Danish problem, photocopied oodles of things that I needed for my research (although I just got an email saying now I have a print ready up at the library and I'm thinking: why didn't this happen EARLIER today?), returned books and, this was BEFORE NOON mind you, made my way towards the bus stop - this afternoon I went out of Århus to meet up with another blogger and her deliciously madcap children for some coffee and fresh air.

We both got a lot of it (FRESH AIR you Weirdos!), so if the blogosphere suddenly falls silent, it's because we both caught pneumonia and died.

(BTW: I've been drinking these vitamin C dissolvable tablets in water and they are AWESOME! You can't OD on vitamin C, right? 'Cause they're really tasty. I may have a slight addiction. Can you even be addicted to Vit C dissolvable tablets? God I hope not. Right, so I may die either from too much fresh air or possibly a slight over indulgence in vitamin C. You may take up to a year to morn my passing. Wear purple and sing dirges while you sweep. Yes, I meant to say sweep. 'Can't very well sing dirges while you sleep, now can you? And if you sing and weep at the same time, it'll sound all hiccupy and awful. I'm tone-deaf, but not deaf-deaf.)

Updates and things

Boy it's been a while! I managed to post a quiz and I've run around commenting on some blogs, but otherwise it's been all anxiety, highs, and lows in the archaeogoddess universe. I've written about a gazillion blog posts in my head... often at 2 am when I trying to get myself to sleep and I'm too tired to get up and write them down, but it doesn't keep the brain from type type typing away behind my sandpaper eyes.

News:

• I am going to Qatar for 5 months, beginning Oct. 31st for a PAID archaeology gig. This is excellent because I need the money and I need to start building a career, neither of which is happening because I spend all my time researching for a never-ending dissertation. (See below)
• Because I'm going off to work and contribute to the mortgage, my advisors on my dissertation don't think I'll finish any time soon. In fact, they've suggested that I've got so much work to do that I should go live in the library. Somehow I've got to balance Danish class with research. Somethings going to give. I wonder if I can take a break from Danish not just for the time I'll be out of the country, but also now that I need those extra hours every day....
• Suggestions from my advisors have included the following vague and scary bits: "...you may need to change the title of your dissertation and your focus." Since the title is a very exact description of what I am doing, not a nice vague sexy title with jargon, I am very worried. Focus... eh, I knew that was coming. Like I ever had a chance to write an anthropological dissertation when I've got art historians for readers! And they are all asking me to dump the economic section and I want to scream "I TOLD YOU IT WAS F**KING POINTLESS YOU STUPID NAVEL GAZERS! BUT OH NO YOU KEPT QUOTING BILL CLINTON AT ME 'it's the economy, stupid' AND I TOLD YOU IT DIDN'T WORK BUT YOU SAID 'I'M THE PERSON WHO KNOWS THINGS AND I SAY YOU DO THIS' AND SO I DID AND NOW YOU ARE ALL PRETENDING LIKE IT WAS ALL ME WHO'S BEEN FORCING THIS POINTLESS SECTION FORWARD!!" But that's why I blog this stuff. So I don't end up killing little old men.

Things done:

• The laundry.
• The Twilight series from start to finish in a little over two days. Heh.
• A haircut.

Things left undone:

• Knitting. I've got to start knitting while watching tv. I should watch more tv.

Evidence of love in an increasingly cold world:

• My birthday was a few days ago and my husband, who has been in Holland since the last week of August, had bought my birthday present and hid it in his sock drawer before he left. He called and told me where it was so I would have a present from him on my birthday (well, actually a day late since I was out with friends on my birthday and nowhere near the sock drawer). He rocks my world, that man.
• Say what you will about Facebook, getting happy birthday wishes from people you know from all over the world is fan-freakin'-tastic. Having people checking up on you from time to time to make sure you haven't gone crazy or dropped into a spiral of depression = awesome!

Completely random crap from my head:

• I finally figured out how to make pre-made frozen pan-fried spring rolls that don't suck. Fry them in oil. I think my husband burns them in butter. Ugh. I love him dearly, but WTF? Then they are all soft and mushy on the outside, completely lacking in the crunch that one needs. And I bought kick ass sweet chili sauce that I would drink if I could. Instead I'm just putting it on everything. Oh, and if you are going to drop frozen spring rolls into hot oil... hold the lid of the pan like a shield in front of you and have a pair of long handled tongs to reach around to flip them. Because ice meets hot oil is a terrible thing. Why some idiot thought that it would be a good idea to make frozen spring rolls that must be fried is beyond me. Obviously someone who doesn't cook at home.
• Going to Qatar means Projekt Dejlig will require some alterations. No American Thanksgiving at my place. Sorry!! I figured by this late in the year there'd be no way we were going to be leaving before December, but I figured wrong. Well, that frozen pumpkin mash will still be good for a non-Thanksgiving pie, right? Also means severe cuts in Christmassing. I'll get a Christmas vacation, but it's not going to be the overthetop extravaganza I was fantasizing about. But finally, after all these years, I am going to be a real, paid, archaeologist.

My own projekt dejlig

Projekt Dejlig was started by another expat living and working in Denmark. It pretty much focuses on doing things to make the time you are here happier and better than it currently is.

There are no rules for projekt dejlig, because things that make you happy vary from person to person.

So anyway, I was reading through the blogs as I do, now that I've run out of images to sort and organize and I really need to get my butt up the hill to the library but once again today is NOT that day, and I saw on Moving at the Speed of Life some pictures of the Minnesota State Fair. And can I tell you what sort of homesickness that caused? Wait, why am I asking, it's MY FREAKIN' BLOG!

***CORRECTION: Not "Moving at the Speed of Life" but Melissa Barrett, seeing at Jacki lives in VIRGINIA! How embarrassing! Thanks Jacki for pointing out that I am completely insane!***

Okay, I don't come from MN, though I have relatives that live there. But really, American state fairs and many county fairs are really similar. Take the arts and crafts barn/building/tent. You will find some really nice stuff and some stuff where you think to yourself "An Obama portrait made of BEANS?? I hope they've hospitalized this poor woman and the neighbor is feeding her cats, 'cause WHOA!" And I'm looking at these pictures and, since I'm a very imaginative person, I completely lose myself in the memory of county fairs and summer in California and I can TASTE the ice cream and FEEL the hot nights when you pray for a breeze and I can even HEAR the dogs barking at the cats. (Wait, that's the neighbor downstairs walking the pomeranians.) And this wave of homesickness washed over me. It's also a wave of nostalgia, because now if I went to the county fair I'd be worried I'd run into my ex and his family, since at least one cousin will be entering a cow or a pig and so spend my time ducking around corners, not sitting on benches, kicking my heels in the dust and wondering if I should spend my last tickets on the ferris wheel or the graviton.

Feeling rather maudlin, I wandered next to the blog of the original inventor of Projekt Dejlig and realized that, yes, Virginia, it really is September and that means Fall and then the march to Christmas! And this is one of my favorite times of the year, because APPLES and CHRISTMAS! Every year I have great goals to really whip out a fantastic Christmas (last year's dinner for two rocked, but was slightly marred by the fact that we still had two of the former horrible tenants living with us and the house was a wreck and my Dane was driving the taxi that night and we'd not gotten each other presents because we really couldn't afford it and I couldn't go home and visit my family) and there's always something to sort of keep it from happening. Like a dissertation. Or work. Or Christmas suddenly sneaking up on me. I am LOUSY at sending out cards and I am ALWAYS putting off shopping until the last minute (even though I do love to buy people presents, I just never get around to it).

So my projekt dejlig for the moment is to have a hygge fall. Not necessarily a Danish hygge fall, but my own Americana version of it. Apple pie, apple cakes, applesauce. Big bulky scarves. Weird rain boots. (I need to get a pair of weird rain boots, but that's all part of the projekt.) Wool hats and mittens. If I do not suddenly hear that I'm going to Qatar for a dig, I will invite everyone to a Thanksgiving meal, American style with SWEET POTATOES WITH MARSHMALLOWS and an oversized turkey to feed twenty. The Christmas season will then commence and I am going to celebrate the hell out of it. Christmas music until I'm sick. Eggnog until I get e. coli or whatever is in raw egg. Mulled wine!! And I'm going to wear a Santa hat at inappropriate locations. (Adds to list: buy santa hat.)

In other news:

As you can see, this is my progress. Despite my best attempts, it has decided that it is 10 stitches across, not eight. I try to narrow it back down and then the next row, there they are: 10 stitches! Since it gets lumpy every time I try to fix it and since it seems intent on being 10 no matter what, I've decided to give in to it's wants. I've also decided it is NOT a bookmark, it is a scarf for my penguin. It'll match her little hat that's stitched onto her head. And since this is the nicer wool, it will feel soft when we cuddle (whut? why are you looking at me funny?).

And now I'm off to read Calvin and Hobbs in Danish to a friend. I sorta missed Danish class today as I was rocking out to the 90's until late last night and it hurt so bad this morning! I think I'm getting old.

A rather eventful day

Yesterday was rather eventful. There was the obligatory 3 1/2 hours of Danish, followed by a power nap. My Dane and I then headed off to look at this camper that he'd seen on the side of the road.

[Insert flashback special effects]

My husband, who leaves WEDNESDAY, for Holland (I have part II of my Danish test that day, how unfair of the universe is THAT?) had still not found a place he was willing to live. Most of the places that were almost affordable were shared rooms or in a dormitory-like environment. My husband, bless him, is a little old for returning to college life. I could see him coming out of his dorm room and shaking his fist at the noisy kids. Or giving the evil eye to a roommate. He only puts up with me because I'm cute and I show him my boobies.

(Off topic note: He is forbidden to call them anything other than "breasts." I hate when people refer to someone else's breasts with some stupid pet name or childish term, but I also retain the right to call my breasts whatever the heck I want if it will imbue a story with a bit of levity. I'll stop talking about breasts now. This could be the post where my parents finally get around to reading my blog and I would hate to embarrass them.)

Anyway, so on the topic of husband travelling/lacking a home, he'd made cracks about living in the car. I, however, do not get Danish humor, and so promptly pointed out that if he were to live in the car, he'd have to live at a campsite so that he would have bathing and toilet facilities. I'm really big on people not peeing freely. I'm not sure who pointed out that the most sane idea for staying at a campsite would be to have a camper, but it came up as a frighteningly good idea. He did a bit of research and discovered that campers are insanely expensive in Denmark. I swear, you could put wheels on a dog turd and sell it for millions. He even went to a used camper dealership, where they were selling campers held together with duct tape for 50,000 kr. Heck, I'm going to start putting wheels on my OWN poop!

(Toilet humor getting to you? Sorry, blame the mad storm of yesterday, I may have been struck by lighting.)

That would have been the end of it, except that while driving home from Grenaa the other day, he saw a camper for sale on the side of the road. He looked it over, called the guy, poked, prodded, did whatever two men do when they contemplate an exchange of wheeled objects (my poop not included) (SORRY) and came home to talk with me about it.

Ever so practical, I asked him if there EVEN WERE campsites near his school. That's what I'm here for, killing the joy. Oh yes, I can kill the joy. [Insert lots of boring details here that I won't... er... bore you with.] Yes, Virginia, there is a campsite... open until Oct. 4th and in the woods. After that he might have to get creative, but that will be his anxiety, not mine. He decides it will be a great adventure, I see it as a way to go camping in France. I hear they have good wine. So, because it was under 15,000 kr., and in good condition, we bought it. It's little. It's bitty. It dates from 1980-something and so goes great with the Volvo station wagon. (I tried to find a comparable one on-line... but I couldn't.) It's got a bed, a table area that could become a second bed, sink, two gas burners, a fridge, a toilet (an empty yourself kind), and an attachable tent with walls (thereby doubling your living space... when it's warm outside). It's very brown and green, but doesn't smell at ALL. This is vitally important.

I swear we are now the perfect middle-class American family... without the kids. Lousy Danish family though. We lack privet hedges and a summer house.

Right. So, now we've caught up with where I started (and slightly overshot, but do I look like a hollywood director?). We had a date with some friends back in Århus, but since we were running late, we took the camper with. It was a hit and our friends' adorable little girls declared that mum and dad should buy one with their DanKort (think Debit Card meets Visa).

And then it started raining. Whoa boy, did it start raining. And there was the lighting and the thunder and all in all it was a very impressive summer storm. We thought it was over by the time we parked the car and camper half a mile from our home (free parallel parking where you don't actually have to maneuver between two other parked objects is not that easy to find in Århus). We were mistaken. We took shelter in the doorway of a lonely store in the middle of nowhere.

Note to all: It is acceptable to pee freely when it is pouring rain, you are far from home, and surrounded by closed non-residential buildings, provided that you pee somewhere where it will be washed away by morning. Also, always accept an umbrella from friends. Always.

Just as we were starting to wonder if we'd have to swim home, my husband saw a bus. I couldn't see the bus stop, but my Dane said there was. We actually chatted about this as the bus pulled up on the other side of the road and sat at the stop. Realizing that we'd be kicking ourselves if we didn't take it, no matter where it went, it had to be drier than this, right? We ran across the road. Correction, we splashed across the river that just happened to be partially navigable by car, and got on the bus. Bless that bus driver, he'd seen us and waited. We determined that he was actually going to go right by the street our house is on (yippee!) and we were so grateful we bought bus tickets. (Note: in Århus, you buy the tickets in the back of the bus at a little automatic ticket booth. Think of it as a strange honors system. The bus drivers do not check the tickets. But there are special bus police that do, so you do have to watch yourself.)

Where was I? Tickets! Okay, so we bought tickets. Then the bus driver dropped us as close to our house as possible, not where there was a bus stop (the closest bus stop being farther away). What service!! We were impressed. We were soaked. We were having a ridiculously good time for people caught out in the rain with only a borrowed umbrella to protect us from pneumonia.

I think it was the excitement of purchasing a camper, eating a good meal with friends, drinking wine with friends, and that it was not that cold out which made it so much fun. The thunder and lightning didn't bother me a bit! I think if we hadn't had a loaf of fresh homemade rudbrød (SO YUMMY), a bag full of important papers, and the fancy camera we would have pulled a "Singing in the Rain."

Or at least I would have. I'm kind of a freak like that.

Marriage: a year later

Here's something I didn't expect: to be called by all and sundry to be wished a happy anniversary.

Not that I'm complaining, no one called before noon and the fact that we were still sound asleep when people did call, because my Dane worked the night shift at the taxi, is no one's fault but my own for forgetting to turn off the phone.

But how was I to know that people call and wish you a happy anniversary? We don't do that where I come from. Well, at least not in my family.

****UPDATE: My family did call to wish me a happy anniversary. Good heavens! I guess this is something one is supposed to do!! I now feel incredible guilt for not contacting friends and family to wish them happy anniversaries. To all of you out there who have an anniversary to celebrate, no matter what it is or when: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!****

---

The Dane is working taxi today, but has called and informed me that he's gotten us a table at my favorite Mexican restaurant, because he knows me and my stomach.

That's love.

I imagine that had we more money, he'd be taking me somewhere fancy, but we are currently holding back on spending because we are finally taking a honeymoon.

Sorta.

Is it a honeymoon when one person gets to go see a bunch of archaeological sites that interest her and the other person is along for the ride? I'm not sure. But the Dane has indicated that we should take this extended weekend vacation because we have yet to honeymoon.... so I'm thinking this may count as it.

Does that mean I should buy something sexy?? Not that he'd care, particularly. This is the man who can't figure out why I bother to shave as it is time consuming and sometimes bloody and he doesn't mind either way.

But back to the "honeymoon." We have a wedding to attend in the UK. Cambridge, no less. Yes, I move in exalted circles. Or know too many academics. And I may have mentioned before my Anglophilic tendencies. My one regret in life is that I never went to school in England. (Really, is that all I regret? Yeah, cause if I'd gone when I wanted to go I would have saved myself much heart ache and stress... but then I wouldn't be married to this lovely man.... but then I wouldn't have to be learning to speak Danish.... but then.... screw it, no regrets! I regret NOTHING!! You hear me?? NOTHING!!)

Lost my train of thought... Speaking of which, have I told you the story of the time I was on a train in England and it got lost?? Yeah, totally went down the wrong track at a switch and instead of going to Birmingham we went to Shrewsbury. (Great set of mystery novels set in medieval Shrewsbury. Brother Cadfael. Played by the delightful Sir Derek Jacobi, who was a GENIUS in "I, Claudius" and possibly the reason I decided to go into Roman archaeology.) Had I not be completely confounded by this change of events I might have wandered off to have a look at the cathedral, but I was trying to get to Wales that day. Got there eventually. But, seriously, who heard of a train getting lost??

So my darling husband, who knows that I have this small obsession, suggested we take a few days and go see some things in England that I may have always wanted to see.

Does he have any idea how many things I want to see? Yes, he does. Now. Poor thing.

He started it! He asked me if I could go to England for a week, with a car, what would I like to see? I said: Roman stuff.

Now, in a week, I suppose I could go from Dover to Hadrian's Wall, but that sounded a little intense. And there are LOADS of Roman remains spread all over England. So I opted for Roman England - South. Or as it is entitled on my itinerary: From Canterbury to Cambridge.

We'll be seeing:

• The Canterbury Roman Museum
• Canterbury Cathedral and Canterbury itself
• Dover Castle/Roman lighthouse
• Dover Roman Painted House
• Pevensey Roman Fort/Castle
• Brighton (hear they have fantastic fish and chip shops)
• Bignor Roman Villa
• Fishbourne Roman Villa
• Cissbury and Chanctonbury rings and the South Downs
• Old Sarum/Salisbury
• StonehengeandAvebury
• Bath
• Chedworth Roman Villa
• Cirencester aka Roman Corinium
• The Cotswolds
• Cambridge

It's actually a combination of Iron Age and Roman and Medieval sites, heavy British history pre-Tudors. (Sorry Laura, I am not going to any Tudor castles. Maybe some other time.)

I'm thrilled to bits and ever so excited. My passport has returned with new name and snazzy photo. Of course, now my name on my passport does not match the one on my license, so I hope they'll let me drive the car anyway. They might not on principle, I am a little too eager to get behind the wheel on the wrong side of the road!

So there it is. I've been married for a year and THIS time I don't need heavy medication or therapy. I'm going out for Mexican food tonight and I'm off to look at old piles of rock and eat mountains of fish and chips in a week! Best of all, I'm married to a man who finds all of this not only acceptable, but enjoyable and encourages my habit.

I love to laugh.

I imagine most other people do. If you are one of those sad sorts who don't like to laugh, fearing that it will cause wrinkes or the universe to become unglued, then you should skip this post.

No, I have not written the funniest blog post in the history of the world. Sad. I know, you had such high hopes.

But I am going to post some fantastic videos.

I love Eddie Izzard and I love Legos and so what could be better than Eddie Izzard stand-up in Legos?

(By the way, if you've never seen it, take yourself to The Brick Testament because that is HILARIOUS... though possibly not intentionally... I'm never sure when it comes to religion.)

ANYWAY!



Cake or Death!!



Beware of Brits bearing flags (or possibly why Denmark is so hung up on it's Dannebro - watch out Denmark, the British are coming and they have a flag! No worries, we've already got one!! Have you seen it? It's all red and white and we wave it around all over the freakin' place, no we aren't nationalistic wackos like you Americans, we're completely sane, which is why we wave the flag on your birthday and put small flags on your cake and decorate your card with little sticker flags, oh and we also put out flags when we have a party or someone takes a particularly large dump in the loo.)

At this point I would like to note that I have watched WAY too many of these. Eddie Izzard is catching, you know.



And finally a bit about remembering to always wear your jam trousers... (in case you stupidly left your towel at home - Happy Towel Day Everyone!)

That other dig I do...

Usually, in August, I also dig in Jordan with the University of Copenhagen. Well, I don't actually dig, I use my prodigious skills as registrar, who is the person who sits in the non-air-conditioned metal walled office recording all of the things that have been excavated. The students usually think I have a cushy job until they come into my office to get something. "Phu, it's hot in here," they say. Ah, ja, so it is.

The Roman city of Jerash is the second most famous site in Jordan, right after Petra, of course.


Most of what remains are Roman and early Christian ruins. This is because most archaeologists from the last 100 years were western archaeologists who helpfully cleared away those pesky muslim ruins in order to get to the good stuff. You can't hear the sarcasm in my voice, but it's there.


The director of the dig, however, is one of those more interesting fellows who wants to know about the whole history of the site, specifically the Umayyad period (that would be the first rulers after Mohammed), when we know the region was full of life and progressive architectural programs. The most important building in an Islamic city was the mosque. A small mosque-like building was found on the edge of town, but that makes no sense when you consider that Jerash was one of the largest cities in the area with something like 14 *known* churches (more will turn it, Jerash is paved in churches). So Herr Director looked at an overhead photo of the site and said, there, that's where the mosque will be.


And BAM! He found it in the first season. They've been digging there for a while now. Under the mosque was a Byzantine bathhouse and next to the mosque are shops and a rather odd collection of buildings that we don't quite understand yet. This is common in archaeology. You have a bunch of walls and rooms and then, one day, there will be the "ah ha!" when it all fits together.

People often ask, "how do you know where to dig?" We tell them, "we have a map." Intelligent people will get the joke, but some of the workers on our site truly believe that the dig director has a map in his room with X's telling him where to dig. They wonder why he doesn't just dig up the gold and stop all this dirt moving foolishness. Then maybe they'd get paid early. Sorry, the answer is much more disheartening. We don't know what we're going to find. We make educated guesses based on what we know about city planning and ceramic surface finds. We aren't always right either. Take my dig in Israel, we had NO ceramic from the Hellenistic period and only some from the Roman, but as soon as we began to dig, we hit a good sized Roman farm (possibly farm, we only have a few rooms and a floor at the moment) and a large Hellenistic god-knows-what under that. Ceramic surface finds are often like that. You only get what happens to have been dug up by rodents. Perhaps the rodents at our Israel site like Roman and Hellenistic vessels. For putting on their little rodent side tables, doncha know.

Life at Jerash is very different from what I get on the other side of the Jordan River.


I usually go without the mosquito net, since I get up in the night and find it very difficult to escape. I just slather myself in bug spray. Including the hair. The damn mozzies are determined. We also keep the fan on during the night, even though it gets cold, because it keeps us from hearing all the buzzing. The toilets don't flush, you take the water you save from your shower and dump it in the toilet ONLY when you must. Toilet paper goes in the trash. We empty it regularly. And it could be worse, down in Egypt they often don't even have toilets, let alone showers. Some of the stone age sites in the Jordan desert are in the middle of NOWHERE and you are on SERIOUS water rationing. I'm glad I don't have to check my bed for scorpions. (Though they have been known to get into the rooms sometimes.)

Because it is a muslim country, we go about in pants and longer sleeved t-shirts. Women don't have to be veiled, but we do take a man with us into town. There won't be trouble, but it makes the locals more comfortable to know that the women are properly looked after.

We work a 6 day week. We head into Amman on Friday night and come back Saturday night. The first Friday night we're all exhausted but are also desperate for beer. It's a dry dig, no drinking on site. Ever. What's hilarious is watching all the Danish students not realize that a week of sobriety and hard labor means you get smashed after two beers. No one feels very well when they have to go out on a tour of ancient Amman Saturday morning.


No, that's not ancient Amman. That's one of the more humorous things I've seen in Amman. Between the New Yourk Nigt Club and the Kempinski, you really need to know your way around to find somewhere affordable that is NOT a dive. These locations are still a hazard, I was watching my step (it was dark and there were uneven stairs) and walked into a metal beam, giving myself a mild concussion.

The "long" weekend (two nights free!) the students head for Petra.


Yeah, yeah, everyone takes that picture. No, there are no Nazis.


Is that a more unusual Petra shot? Unadorned rock cut tombs are everywhere, and if you have a tall person in your group, they can boost an archaeogoddess into a window for a funny picture.

This year I am not going to Jordan. August is Ramadan, and it would be completely unfair to ask the workmen to neither eat, nor drink, nor smoke during the day while making them do hard manual labor in 50 degree CELSIUS heat (that 122 F, for the rest of y'all). So the dig got moved to June. Which is when I'm in Israel. And since I'm an area supervisor working on the final publication of the site, I should really be THERE instead of sweating in my little metal office in Jordan.

But I'll be thinking of my dear friends as I sit in my air-conditioned cabin, cutting lemons for the gin and tonics.

200th post?!? How about I tell you a little more about myself?

Good grief! 200 posts? The posts will slow down a bit, now that the sun is out, I have fun and friendly roommates and I have to read my entire dissertation for "conversational english" and remove it (poo on that). But I am dedicated to trying to keep people informed about my life, since one blog post is SO much easier than writing 10 emails and there seem to be some other people out there who are interested/entertained by what I'm doing, so although the posts may slow up a bit, I'll keep blogging. I'll even try to blog while I'm out digging this summer.

But for today's special 200th post, I figured I'd give you a treat. A little taste of what I do and why I am the Archaeogoddess. (These pictures were not taken by me. When I'm out in the field I can check with the director and get permission to use better photos that I will try to take for blogging purposes.)


We live on a kibbutz in some swanky air-conditioned cabins with hot and cold water, cable-tv, and did I mention the air-conditioning? The dig director has lived in tents and other crappy accommodations when she was a volunteer archaeologist and decided she would never do that to her volunteers or staff. Bless her!


Alas, because it's a kibbutz, we aren't getting fine cuisine. In fact, many jokes were made about our starchy dinners. Lunch was hot with meat... dinner.... well, we were glad we had gin to wash it down.


We get up at about 4 am, Monday through Friday (we work the American week, rather than the Israeli), tumbling out to the site before 5. This photo  of our site was probably taken around our "fruit" break, 10:45ish. We go in at about 12:30, because it gets to be too hot.


Believe it or not, we spend a lot of time "cleaning" the dirt. We sweep the sides of the square and we sweep the ground. Then we pick axe the dirt and scrape it flat with our back-breaking hoes and sweep it again!  Look at the dust.  Imagine for a minute what happens to the poor archaeologists who work in areas without daily showers.


After lunch, we wash the ceramic finds that have been soaking overnight. We have to soak them or the soil would never come off.


Then, after all of this work, four weeks of excavation, a bulldozer comes and fills in the squares you have "finished." This is very depressing and usually none of us wants to go to watch. We sit on the porches of our cabins and drink instead. When you work in a muslim country, where drinking alcohol is prohibited, the atmosphere can get particularly morose. Of course, filling in the excavated squares means that you no longer have to walk around four open pits to get to the soil dump, but it's hard to not remember the hours of work put into digging those holes in the first place!

And just in case you weren't jealous enough of my life, a final picture:*  

* The Archaeogoddess appears in this photograph - can you find her?

What a mad 24 hours!

In the last 24 hours I have:

- read 3 books in Danish, preparing for a test that, as it turns out, isn't until the 24th of April

- turned in the polished draft of my dissertation to my advisor, for further polishing (YES, THAT MEANS I AM NO LONGER DISSERTATING, I AM NOW REVISING!) (don't get out the champagne yet, my advisor may suggest I write a whole 'nother chapter or rewrite a chapter or something horrible - we'll party once he gives me the 'all clear' to proceed to sending my disastertation to my readers)

- presented my dissertation research to reputable scholars who didn't laugh of disagree, but did suggest that 350 years of scholarship on one particular plate was wrong and it was not 4th century but 6th century. I looked at the evidence they suggested, my god they're right, I changed it and if I can whip it into a paper I can actually do something meaningful in my field!

Right. So what do I do now?? Oh, wait, I have a bibliography to check, plates of images to prepare, a list of illustrations and plates to put together and corrections to make once my advisor gets back to me on that THING.

No rest for the wicked they say. But what do they know? They got the dates wrong! They assume Julian was responsible for the "classical renaissance" that didn't happen (there was a rise in classicism in the 4th century, but we can't really attribute it to one unpopular emperor who only reigned unopposed for 18 months). They are idiots!! Screw them! I'm taking the night off.

BTW, since it was such a small select group at my presentation, we had more of a round table chat. I spoke and answered questions for 2 hours. TWO HOURS!! But I answered every question. I sounded intelligent. I got people excited about what I was doing. And I made people laugh at my jokes. I rock.

Double shot of whiskey for me!! Although... I think I have vodka and tonic and a lemon around here somewhere...

I would gladly have Jon Stewart's baby

I just wanna throw that out there.

There is this widely held belief that funny people are not smart. I think it dates back to the class clown in elementary school. You know, the kid who used to put pencils up his nose because that was the only way he could gain approval? And because you knew one funny kid in your class and you knew he was a total idiot, you extrapolated your experience and assumed all funny people were not necessarily the brightest crayon in the drawer.

And by "you" I do not mean to point the finger at "you" the reader but more of a general drunken pointing around the bar at "youse" who may not be in the bar at all, but is in fact a cow in the field over yonder.

So don't be all up in my face and saying I'm calling you stupid. Especially if you were the class clown. You all scare me with the pencil thing - don't you know it can go into your brain and you could DIE!?!

Anyway not all comedians are smart and not all nerds are brilliantly funny. But sometimes you get really funny crazy smart people. Jon Stewart is one of these people. Yeah, he's got writers to help him out, but in the hot seat, going head to head with someone, it's all on him.

I call on you to witness the YouTube Jon Steward vs. Crossfire showdown. Check out time stamp 7:51: bow-tie boy (what WAS his name?) says, "Wait, I thought you were going to be funny!?" And Stewart replies, "No, I'm not going to be your monkey." I usually lose track of the conversation at that point because I'm hootin' and hollerin' and making a damn fool of myself, pointing at the screen and doing my impression of "That's the Way." It's not pretty.

But most recently there was Crammer vs. Not-Crammer. The whole thing built up over several days and I only just got around to watching all of it. Hey, yesterday I rocked my dissertation, thank you very much, I need me some articulate comedic commentary to make the little angry German in my head go away. But you can see in this episode where Crammer, having just gone on Martha Stewart and beaten the heck out of some dough after she says he should think of someone he hates... like Jon Stewart..., goes on The Daily Show and tries to make nice. Sort of smooth over the whole thing. See, Crammer got GREAT publicity out of this "show-down of the hosts" (reported on all news media - CNN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? I'm shocked Wolf Blitzer didn't do 'round the clock coverage and the Countdown to the Debate of the Century), and now on The Daily Show he wanted to sort of say, "yeah, we could have tried harder. Oh well, what can you do?" Smile, shake hands, walk away and declare victory.

Stewart wasn't having any of it. He goes after Crammer with a mission, to point out that Crammer, among others on CNBC, knew the crap that was going on behind the scenes and then instead of calling people on it, were cashing in on it and encouraging others to cash in too. On a Business NEWS Network. I think Stewart put it best the day before, when he talked about creating an atmosphere of excitement. That's what these programs were doing. I mean, Crammer's is called "Fast Money" it's all about how to make money fast. (There are some clips shown that suggest that not only did Crammer know that there were questionable activites, but that he was going to promote them anyway. Oops. Never have the discussion about how you are going to do highly questionable things when there are cameras around. That's like rule #1 of romantic comedy. If there is a camera it will be on and you will rue the day you walked in that door!)

There is a very valid point that didn't get hammered home (well, there were a lot of points to hit) that I'd like to talk about, muhself. Crammer mentions in the interview that he's only a commentator. But his show is filled with advice, not commentary. His motto is "In Crammer We Trust" and he comes across as a financial advisor, advising the viewer on what to do with their money and where he thinks the market is going to go. His excuse on why he is not responsible for the chaos that came from his advice is that he wasn't giving advice, he was just commenting.

But does a commenter take calls and tell people to buy or sell stock?? I mean, a sports commentator is in a booth above the field looking down and talking about what's going on, he's not coaching the damn game! The sports commentator is saying, "Ah, did that look like a mask-grab Bob? I guess the ref didn't see that one!" "Oh, no wait, Jim, there's the yellow flag now!" "Boy is couch Fred going to be mad, that was Jack's 33rd personal foul this season, I think he'll be out for the championships!" That's commenting!! (And can you tell I don't watch sports?)

But I must be confused, I mean, hey, I still find The Daily Show one of the best news programs on TV. (And it will be as long as Wolf I-can't-stop-talking-to-let-my-coanchors-you-know-anchor Blizter is moderating. Wolf, SHUT UP! Your monotone makes my flesh crawl, you pretend to be stupid in order to lead an interview which insults your viewers intelligence, and you never say anything remotely interesting! Get back into the trenches and learn to be a reporter.)

Anyway, this all connects with my life in a very important way, I just managed to work "America: The Book" into my dissertation. I came across "My Life" by Bill Clinton in a bibliography on coin hoards of the second-seventh centuries and I've always wondered if it's actually cited in the text or was thrown in the bib for comic effect. It made my day! I read a lot of bibliographies and I get very bored. I was rather morose as I couldn't work any sci-fi or fantasy comparisons into my dissertation, because I also want to perk up some graduate students life someday. Thank you, Scriptores Historiae Augustae, not only did I manage to get something odd into my bibliography, but you actually made it relevant!!

O Wonderus Internets!

So I had a comment from an amazing person, GutsyWriter, which I traced back to her blog (as one does). The post she had today included a video. It was kinda long, 20 minutes and while I was intrigued by her post, I wasn't sure if I was going to watch it or not. I ought to be putting new data into my dissertation. But then, it was lunch time and I can't type while I eat a salami sandwich with jalapenos (you have to keep the top of the sandwich tight against the bottom because those jalapenos want OUT, you really need both hands).

I highly recommend this video. It's smart, it's funny, it's not really that long. It's about creativity, intelligence, and education. I felt very validated for my choice of profession, even if I never make any money at it. I also feel slightly embarrassed for being one of those disembodied heads he mentions. Explains my inability to keep myself from running into things that are quite obviously hard and unyielding. If you have ever been educated in a school setting, you will relate. If you have children who are going through the system, you will relate. If you think British people are funny, you will relate.



I think I would very much like to have an art room now. I want to get my paints out and do something with glue. That would be the room for any kind of creative expression, not just picture art, because creativity comes in all kinds of forms and I want to celebrate them all!