On Eggs and Baskets

If you ask me, I’ll probably tell you that I always have a back-up plan.

I’ll say, “of course, if X doesn’t happen, we’ll do Y or even Z!”  I proudly walk around calling myself the Queen of Just In Case. *  I can switch gears so fast you’d think I was a racecar driver. **

You probably wouldn’t expect me to be as floored as I was two years ago when I realized that I wasn’t going to be completing that PhD after all.  I sure as hell wasn’t.  Expecting to be so floored, that is.

I mean, there was a PLAN, damnit.  I was going to get that PhD, then I was going to get a postdoc, or an adjunct position, or a research fellowship - see, BACK-UP PLANS - and eventually work my way up to tenured professor.  Or I was going to work in a museum or as a contract archaeologist.  I HAD BACK-UP PLANS!!!

Except they all hinged on my ability to produce a dissertation that would lead to a PhD and some articles or a book.

Can we say “eggs and baskets” kids?

Rather quickly, my avenues to other ventures dried up.  A woman with a baby isn’t really available to spend months in the desert away from civilization.  An archaeologist with a specialty in Romans and the Middle East is not really suited to the Danish archaeology job-search.  Sure, I can dig anything…. Identify what it is?  In a general sense, sure.  It’s a pot.  It’s a pit.  No, it’s SUPERMAN!  Wait, whut? Date it to a particular period?  Not so much.  Post-holes? Urgh.  Lithics? Double urgh.  Uh, how about monumental structures with stone foundations instead, with a coin or two to give a girl an edge?

And at first I didn’t really realize it.  I was pretty shell-shocked by my failure-to-dissertate.  Then I was pregnant, which is a big distraction, if you don’t mind me saying so.  I did have some rather severe meltdowns last year, when friends were graduating with their PhD’s and I wasn’t even able to go to the ceremony to pick up my MA.  I think a graduation ceremony might have given me some closure, but I’m not sure.  This year I was much better prepared for when friends announced on Facebook “Just call me Doctor [name]!”

My apologies, by the way, to anyone who felt that I wasn’t enthusiastic about their achievement.  I really am so proud of all of you, because I know how hard it was to do, I really do. 

As the dust settled around the ruins of my plans (you’d think I’d be used to it, my life has always been in ruins) (archaeology joke!) (ba-dum-dum!  I’ll be here all week!), it kinda dawned on me that I had NO PLAN.  And I was all, “is this what it’s like for other people?”  Because I’ve wanted to be an archaeologist since I was like, eight, so while other people were having discussions with guidance counselors or looking up various career options, I was trying to decide between Egyptology and Roman Empire.

So there we have it, despite always applying for three or more schools (the dream, the sure thing, and the middle ground) and having a plan for “in case none of these work out,” I had still put all my eggs in one basket and then SAT ON IT.

What was I going to do now?

Well, Denmark has its perks from time to time.  One of them is, it assumes you are some uneducated buffoon when you get here (‘cause duh, you’re FOREIGN which means STUPID in Danish) and therefore gives you three years of free education (with stipend) so you can join the Danes in their 37.5 hour work-week, 6 paid weeks of holiday a year, and the 50% tax rate.

Wait, assuming you're stupid?  That’s a PERK?  Yes.  Denmark: lowering expectations of the immigrant class since 965 CE.

And I am so not kidding about the taxes, y’all.

One of the things they stress in Danish language classes is getting into the work force.  “It’ll help with your Danish,” they say.  “It will help you find friends and be better integrated!”  BULLSHIT.  Let's be honest here, it will help you pay the damn bills and will fill the state coffers.

When I was at school in Aarhus, with the other desirable (white, educated) students, we were encouraged to get our degrees approved by the Danish state (because, you know, that Anthropology degree from the University of California, Berkeley might not be up to Danish standards) and start applying to various multi-national companies as secretaries or something.  Obviously I wasn’t paying attention to this portion of the schooling, I was an archaeologist, damnit, *I* had a PLAN. 

Down here on the island, where many of my fellow immigrants are not educated (or white) we were encouraged to take a social-health degree.  So we could work in old-people care. 

Never mind that none of us wanted to do it, it was pushed again and again and again.  “But there are jobs available in elder-care!” we were told.  Do you know why there are jobs available?  Because no Dane wants to do it.  Working with the elderly and infirm is a thankless, dirty, backbreaking job.  “But you are so nice and friendly!” they told me, I shit you not, when I said I’d rather slit my wrists than work in eldercare.  Several of the women from my school are going to go for it.  They’d rather do just about anything else, but the promise of steady work is a siren song.

Anyway, back in March, when we were supposed to be looking up the requirements for taking a social-health degree (are you breathing?  GREAT!  YOU’RE IN!), I was looking up all kinds of other things, which may have included LOLcats, and chatting with the German woman, C., next to me.

I had contemplated going to a technical school and getting a degree in engineering, because I’m good at 3D visualization and math, and jobs are well-paid and I could be employed in just about every country…. But…  Well…

I hate offices.  I hate group projects.  I hate pretty much everything that has to do with corporate culture.  I would go crazy in a week and start attacking people with my stapler.  I’ve been there, done that. ***

The Danish Boy was emphatic.  “Don’t be an engineer!” he said.  “You’d hate it.  Do something with animals.  You like animals.”

Point.

If I had to do it all again, in which I would still end up with the same husband and child and cat at the end of it, and if I couldn’t be an archaeologist, I probably would be a veterinarian. 

So I looked up the education for veterinarian and was all WHOA! How about veterinary nurse?  Veterinary tech?  Veterinary shit-shoveler?  Because, damn, that’s a lot of years of education you gotta have.  And I had none of it.  A serious lack of life sciences, that’s me.  Also required: university level Danish.  Guess who had a snowballs chance in hell of doing that?  Me. ****

But I could, possibly, get into the veterinary nursing assistant program.  And that was my plan as I sat there, talking to C. and playing with the educations-you-can-take-in-Denmark website (and possibly, one with LOLcats, because you know what makes a boring day in school better?  LOLcats.).  C. asked me what I was going to do with myself and I told her, listlessly pulling the school website up again to show her.  Try as I might, I just could NOT be excited about this change in careers.  I asked her what she did, because she often missed school because of work, so she was obviously doing something right.

“Inseminøren” she replied.  At first I heard “seminary” and thought, “priest?” because, well, how often do you hear “inseminator” as a job?  There was some hilarious confusion before we got that straightened out (she’s not, in fact, a priest for cows) and then I was all questions.  Everyone else was grossed out, but I just thought this was the most interesting thing I’d ever heard of.  C. had a degree in farming from East Germany and had gotten an inseminator certificate when she got a job at a company that inseminates cows.

I had to stop her, “what do you mean a degree in farming?”  Like that’s a thing?  You would think that growing up in California, I would know this.  But I thought farmers became farmers because they grew up on farms, not because they went to school to become farmers.  Although this sort of explained UC Davis.

C. only laughed a little bit at my vast ignorance. “It’s also a thing in Denmark.”  “No way!” I said.  “Yes, way!” She replied.  And so I HAD to look it up. 

It was the most amazing half hour of research I’ve ever had.  Oh my god, you all, YOU CAN TOTALLY GO TO SCHOOL AND BECOME A FARMER!!

Everything about the education and the schools that taught it were 100% more interesting than veterinary nurse assistant.  Driving a tractor?  Oh hell yeah! 

So on my way home, I carefully constructed my argument for the Danish Boy on why I was going to become a farmer.

1) It’s not in an office. *****

2) It involves animals - and if I go into dairy-production: milk and cheese, which are my favorites.

3) Sustainability.  We are not going to run out of a need for farmers any time soon, people gotta eat.  Yeah, the economy is shit for farmers (nothing new there), but seriously, people gotta eat.  If worse comes to worse, we can start our own farm and become self-sustaining.  We'd be ready for any climate or world meltdown AND the zombie apocalypse.  Win-win, really.

4) It’s an education I could use anywhere in the world.  

5) It’s a job I respect, even if I know whole swaths of the population (certain in-laws, for example) do not.

I got home and said, “Honey, I want to become a farmer!” and the DB replied,

“AWESOME!!”

and got really excited and started planning our lives, where I would be a farmer and where we’d buy a farm and then he’d also become a farmer and we’d be farmers together on our farm and I had to stop him and say “hey, I came up with some very good arguments on why I should become a farmer and you need to shut-up and listen to them, OKAY??”  Because there is nothing worse than putting together an argument and then not getting to use it.

I did eventually get to try out these points on my family, who were a little stunned, my best-friend who totally took it in stride (seriously, if I told her I was going to be a burlesque dancer, she'd be all, "ooooh, with red tassels?  Red tassels are cool!"), and my in-laws who think that we’re insane for not wanting to live in Copenhagen and work in offices as consultants or sales-people (*GAG*) anyway.

Since then

• we’ve visited two agricultural schools (who were all, “of course a +30 year old woman wants to go into farming!  Let us show you our facilities!!”),
• chosen the one that best fits me (and the ferry boat schedule),
• talked to half a dozen farmers, trying to get an internship (PAID) before deciding
• to get some school done first (the education is split up into theoretical and practical, you can do some school [i.e. the theoretical] first or some of the practical [i.e. the internship] first, whatever floats your boat).  

I’m signed up to start in September. 

And you guys?  I AM SO EXCITED!!!

---

Here be shit ton of footnotes.  Because you can take the girl out of academia, but you can't take the academia out of the girl.

* Although not out loud, because I’ve already noticed that people stare at you when you talk out loud to yourself and I’ve been trying to cut back on looking like a crazy person.  Really I should just get myself one of those Bluetooth ear-pieces and wear it all the time and when people start looking at me funny I could point angrily to my ear and say loudly “I’m sorry, could you repeat that, I was distracted from this very important phone call by eavesdroppers.”

** Except when I’m driving.  But not because I’m a bad driver, I just forget that there are other gears and that I should be in them.  This is why people invented the automatic, for people like me.  I’ve heard people say that manual transmission gives you more control over the car, but I call bullshit.  If I had control over the car, it wouldn’t be telling me “you need to change me into another gear now” it would be all “oh, you want to go that fast, pardon me while I change that gear for you then.”  Manual transmission is where the car has control of YOU.

*** Only not the bit about attacking people with a stapler.  Probably because my job involved working with animals (for teaching, not research purposes), so when the going got tough (or the people got stupid), I could go cuddle a bunny.  Or if I was feeling particularly vicious, I could feed a rat to a snake. ^

^ Feeding the snakes was part of my job.  I wasn’t just going around feeding rats to snakes all willy-nilly.   Because that would be irresponsible.

**** And I was right, too.  I did not do so hot at the written portion of my exam.  (Hot?  I barely passed!) But that’s a WHOLE OTHER POST, lemme tell ya.

***** Damn, that’s a lot of asterisks.  Anyway, if you’re thinking, “but what about your allergies?”  Can I just point out that I’m also allergic to the mold that grows inside heating and cooling ducts, so every time someone turns on the central air in an office building, I die?  I’m allergic to something EVERYWHERE, so I might as well be hopped up on meds doing something I like rather than being hopped up on meds doing something I hate.

Operation Floor: I'm still sanding...

Okay, *I'm* not sanding, the DB is.  And he's almost done.

With the center of the floors.

Let's not talk about the perimeters.  Oh gawd, the parameters of the perimeters... meters of perimeters!

But after five! 5! FIVE! days of non-stop sanding, he's declared a vacation is in order.

A vacation from his vacation.

And since I am sick to death of scrubbing sawdust off of everything and listening to the buzzing and the sawing and the sanding, I said, "yes please" and we're going camping.

We don't know where.  Somewhere NOT HERE.

Until we get back and/or I post again, have some pictures of the cat.  He's not enjoying the floor process, Alot.

We often find Alot on the changing table.

And here's Alot in our bathroom window.

I tell you now, while sometimes I think we should have named the cat something more normal, I still get a kick out of his name... Alot.

Bwahahahaha!  Oh, the punny!  The PUNNY!!

Operation Floor: The Never-ending Sanding

Here we are, day three of the floor project (not including all the days of moving furniture).  And. We. Are. Still. Sanding.

"Master" Bedroom

Looks pretty good, right?  It damn well should, the DB has been sanding for three days.  Things we've learned about this floor?

1) The wood is fabulous.

2) It was stained and then lacquered within an inch of it's life.

3) It's warped a bit.

4) It's made of room length boards that go under the skirting board.

5) There are no nails.

Wait, no nails?  How does the damn thing stay down?  NO ONE KNOWS!!!

Other things we learned?

A) Carpet glue is an asshole.

B) Carpet glue is an asshole.

C) Carpet glue AND THE PEOPLE WHO USE IT are ASSHOLES.

So I spent Tuesday on my hands and knees, scraping glue off - not with the floor scraper one normally uses to remove softened varnish - but with a paint scraper held as a 45 degree angle.  I considered whipping out the trowel, but I worried I might start removing wood, rather than just glue and varnish, so I resisted.

Meanwhile, in the dining room...

Dining room

We've learned all about woodworm.  If we had the money, we'd just rip up the floor and lay a new one.  But if we ripped up the floor, we'd find the bare earth "foundation" our house is built over and feel the need to neoprene and insulate with foil faced fiberglass insulation, or whatever it is you do when your house is about a hundred years old and leaks heat like an unstable nuclear reactor.  But that would be $$$$$$$!!!!

So it's on to a pesticide to kill the buggers and then a thick lacquer to hold it all together for a few more years.  Eventually, we'd like to move the kitchen into this room and turn the kitchen into the dining room, so we'd be ripping up all the floors for insulation and pipe laying anyway.

But before we get to that, we obviously have to finish sanding.  It's just more of that ASSHOLE glue, old varnish and staining that has to get out of our way.  And even though it is in a bad condition, and this wood is not as fine as the wood in the bedroom, it's still made of room-length boards held down by god-only-knows.  Sheer ornery-ness?

Finally, the cat is not pleased with the disruption to his life.  He can't use his cat door, it's noisy and it smells weird.  Poor kitty!

Operation Floor: carpet removal

Because daycare was closed for vacation last week, the Danish Boy had his hands full of moving furniture while I ran around after the Spawn.

First he had to organize the garage.  I FINALLY got to label the boxes that I've spent the last few months sorting though and repacking.  Then they were stacked in an orderly fashion in the garage and I just hugged myself with glee.

Yeah, I'm a little sick.

We decided to get rid of a bedroom set.  (Pictured, hopefully, to the left.)  It was in the spare room in Ærøskøbing, but since we didn't have a spare room here, it was dismantled and placed in the garage.  Also with the set was a beautiful mirrored wardrobe (dismantled and in the garage) and a mirrored vanity that sat next to my bed.  Alas, the drawers were overly large and ungainly, so I didn't actually use if for anything other than a night stand.

Since none of it was really being used, we (I, because the DB was willing to hold on to it if I couldn't stand to be parted from my vanity... heh) decided to let it go.  Part of me is heartsick over it, but that's the hoarder side of me that keeps birthday cards from previous years stashed in drawers of my desk.  The rule of thumb here is: it must be useful and it must be pretty.  So some ugly night stands went away as well.  Night stands out of Miami Vice, they were, and so were banished to Red Cross.

All our extra furniture goes to Red Cross.  Anyone wanting to make a killing in antiques should check out Red Cross.  There's a fine collection of very old furniture there.

Slowly, but steadily he moved closets and bed into Spawn's room, dining room furniture into the garage and kitchen, and in one case, moved a closet into the mud-room where we now have to go around it to get to anything.

Well, no one is perfect.

Now the rooms looked like this:

"Master" Bedroom

Dining Room

Skanky carpet in the MB, very dirty carpet in the DR.

The carpet was peeled back and...

"Master" Bedroom

Oh, look!  Sisal.  What would posses a person to put sisal carpeting in a house?  And what would posses that person to GLUE IT TO THE FLOOR??

Dining Room

In the dining room, under the carpet, was evidence that there had been sisal glued down as well.  However, this carpet (unlike the skanky one in the MB) was laid professionally, so the sisal (and a good amount of the glue) had been removed.

Back in the MB, the sisal was attacked by a rabid Dane wielding a scraper removed.  Now, on one wall  under the bang-up wallpaper job, was evidence that there had been a wood stove in the room.  You could see the circular plug where the stove-pipe had gone into the chimney and there was a small rectangular bump where the chimney could be accessed by the chimney sweep.  So when we removed the sisal, we were only sort-of-surprised to see a zinc plate where the stove would have sat.

Can you sort of see the zinc square?

Here seen after it's removal

So now the floors are ready to be scraped... or probably just attacked by the Dane with his big sanding machine, rented from the local hardware store.  I'll be brought in for the fiddly bits, like edges and corners, that have to be done by hand.  Since the Spawn's daycare is open again and I'm toddler-free, I really don't have any excuse for not helping.

Um, I think I'm developing a pain in my... um... ugaritic bone.  Yeah, that's it.  Ugaritic bone.

Home Improvement: Operation Floor

So it's time to get to one of the major projects we have for this house.  Pull up the skanky carpet in the "master" bedroom (it's exactly the same size as the other bedroom, "master" is really a matter of opinion) and dining room.  We know that under the carpet in the bedroom is the nastiest sisal carpet EVER (which is staying something because the entryway to the apartment in Aarhus had one NASTYASS sisal carpet), but the dining room is a surprise, since the carpet is not only tacked, but glued to the floor.

I'll be taking pictures and hopefully uploading them over the coming days.

First major discovery: under the sisal carpet in the "master" bedroom, is the zinc (?) plate a stove used to sit on.  We can see the old hookup for the stove in the wall, under the wallpaper.  This must be from when our bedroom was originally a sitting room.

I had my fingerprints taken, what have you done this week?

So Tuesday I went to turn in my application for temporary residency extension and to get biometricked.*  As a result, I’ve got some advice to Denmark and to the foreigners who live here.

Denmark:

Your English pages for New to Denmark are a little, how shall we put it, vague and confusing?  Let’s, for example, take the page for residency-based-on-family-reunification-extension.  There’s a whole bit about fees.  It’s linked to another page, dedicated to fees.  So, I spent hours pouring over this and determined, there would be fees for my residency extension.  This is because, while it is specifically mentioned that there is no fee for applications for family reunification visas, it doesn’t mention extensions of said visas.  “Application for family reunification” is not the same as “application for extension of existent visa, based on family reunification.”  Just sayin’.  Thankfully, since it was unclear, I tried reading the Danish, realized it was way over my head and made my Danish husband read it.  Boy has to be useful for something.  Final discovery?  NO FEE!  WHOOT!**

Also, your list of places to go to be biometricked.  Could you be a bit more specific about where to go? I mean, yeah, you list the police stations, but most require you to go to a specific office, not the main office, and the opening hours are much shorter.  I had to go wander around on the police webpage for a while before I figured out where I needed to go.  I couldn’t remember the exact path I took, so the Danish Boy had to call and get the information again.  Would it be too much to ask you to write Fyns Politi in Odense: Borgerservice, Udlændingkontoret, [correct address]?  Or maybe make it a link to the correct website?  Because I bet a number of people wander into the main police station, and that sort of disturbs the cops, who are probably hella busy with all the crime we foreigners commit when we aren't waiting in immigration offices.

Udlændingkontorer?  (That’s plural for “immigration offices”.) Could you possibly be open for more hours?  I don’t know if there was something special about Tuesday, but there were waaaaaay too many people packed into that small room.  I felt we were just one crying baby away from a disaster-relief center.  You were feeling harried; we were feeling hot, crowded, and stressed.  If you were open for more hours, perhaps we wouldn’t all be there at the same time.  Perhaps we wouldn’t all be stressed that you’d turn us away the minute the clock struck noon. 

Foreigners: yes, you/us/whatever.  We have things we could to do to make it all go so much more smoothly.

BRING THE DAMN PAPERS, for a start.  ALL OF THE DAMN PAPERS!  If there are 9 pages in a form, bring all fucking 9 pages!  Don’t bring 8!  Don’t leave the one that says “for office use only” at home!  You need all those freaking pages!!  Hell, bring the first three pages that are only instructions BECAUSE IT’S EASIER TO THROW AWAY WHAT YOU DON’T NEED THAN MAGICK UP A PAGE THAT’S NOT THERE!!!

Also, what are you, 7?  Don’t fold the papers up and carry them around in your pocket.  This isn’t your homework (although I’ve had teachers that would be mighty pissed off if you had the audacity to turn in rumpled papers).  It’s not a shopping list!  These are forms that need to be legible and the office needs to be able to write on them.  Kinda hard when you have to spend five minutes flattening them out with your sweaty palms.

Have a photo ID ready.  It says very clearly that you need to be able to prove that you are the applicant and then gives you a list of all of the photo IDs that are acceptable.  Don’t be looking at the officer all fish-like.  It says RIGHT THERE.  Great, now we need to wait while you empty your purse.  By the way, they invented these great things called WALLETS that will hold all your cards for you in a tidy package.  Do you do this every time you go to the supermarket?  ‘Cause, DAMN GIRL!

Please do not take calls in the tiny office.  If you have to make a phone call, keep it short and quiet.  How the hell are we going to hear the Danish mangling of our names if you are yakking into your Nokia?  (As a personal aside: can all the Nokia phone users find a different ring tone than the default?  ‘Cause every time a Nokia phone rang, something like 12 people reached for their phones.  Funny, but also kind of annoying.)  I’m sure you are a very important man.  Talking loudly for a long time while waving your arms about is *totally* proof of that.  NOW HANG UP THE FUCKING PHONE!

Finally, if the office is only open from 9 to 12, don’t show up at 11:45.  Seriously, 90% of the people in that office arrived fifteen minutes before closing time.  Did y’all have to drop your kid off at daycare at 8:30, so you could make it on the only ferryboat connection that wasn’t fully booked, so you could drive like a crazy person to Odense too??  And I still made it to the office half and hour before you people.

Total time spent on my case, including biometric data taking?  15 minutes.  From start to finish.  Of course it took 15 minutes before they even got to me, but I was ready with my papers, my ID, and *I* didn’t need to primp before my photo was taken.  Not that I’m saying that’s what you did, lady who sent her husband back out for her purse… but I sure as hell am implying that that’s what you did.  The officer took my papers: 15 seconds.  Checked that I was who I said I was: 15 seconds.  I waited to be called: 10 minutes, while my data was entered and the officers dealt with other people.  I went and got biometricked: 5 minutes.  BAM!  Homeward bound!

Of course, going home meant trying and failing to catch a ferryboat (fully booked, but you gotta try), waiting for the ferry we did have a reservation for, and all that driving to and fro, so by the end of it all, we’d spent 7 hours on the trip. 

Yeah, SEVEN.  We left the island at 9 am and got back to the island at 4 pm.  For a half hour in the immigration office.  Fan-fucking-tabulous.

*They only took the fingerprints of my fingers, but not my thumbs.  So I’m gonna totally commit a bunch of crimes using only my thumbs.  HA, DENMARK!  I WIN!!

**Wait, was that your plan, Denmark?  To instill a sense of dismay and despair before being all "psych! Here have a cookie?"  'Cause, then, well played, Denmark.

Into the cornfield with you, Timmy!

Yesterday I threw some clothes on and looked at myself in the mirror.

"Gah!" I went, "Can I look more unattractive?"

I tried buttoning up the sweater, but that only made it worse.  So then I tried putting a belt on, "to create the illusion of a waist" as I'd seen successfully accomplished on a TV show.

Fail.

I tried unbuttoning the sweater with a belt.

Fail.

I took off the belt.  Unbuttoned the sweater.

Fail.

As I was trying to get my child into her fleece, and the sweater kept slipping off my shoulders, I found myself thinking, "I'm so hideous and fat and I can't even keep this sweater on!"  Then it suddenly hit me.

Everything that was wrong involved this sweater.  IT WAS THE SWEATER!!

One handed I ripped the sweater off and threw it at the floor.

"It's YOU DAMNIT!" I yelled, and as the DB was about to say "*I* didn't do anything, why are you yelling at ME?!" I clarified, "THIS SWEATER IS THE SOURCE OF ALL THAT IS UGLY ABOUT ME!  I'M NOT UGLY!!  THIS SWEATER IS UGLY!!  AND I SHAN'T WEAR IT ANYMORE!!  LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO WEAR CLOTHES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL UGLY!!"

And with that I threw it into a box.

I feel thinner and prettier already.

It's like "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" only without the tomatoes. Or the killer part. Probably.

I got two tomato seedlings a while back.  I felt bad about taking them, even though the woman was giving them away for free.

"Please, take one," she said, pressing the little bundle into my hands.  "Take two!"

I want to raise my own food.  I mean it.  I really do.  But I can't keep herbs in my window alive for more than a week!  Animals?  TOTALLY!  Plants?  Eh, your days are numbered my green friends.  Giving me these tomato plants was condemning them to a short, miserable life.

But I took them home, because tomatoes, I was assured, are the easiest thing in the word to take care of.*

A quick aside: my paternal Grandfather grew GINORMOUS tomatoes in his garden in Los Angeles.  Heaps of the things the size of a child's head.  So I know a thing or two about growing tomatoes.

Thing 1: They need sun.
Thing 2: They like it warm.

And those would be the two things I know about growing tomatoes.  Everything else... um, they like water (totally guessing here) and uh, need soil to grow in?

My god, they're going to give me a PhD in tomatoes here, I'm a freaking genius!

The Danish Boy was totally skeptical.  "You're going to grow tomatoes?" he asked, in the tone normally reserved for "You're going to grow wings and fly to Aruba?"  But I was going to TRY, unlike his plans for growing potatoes, which seems to be:

Step 1: Buy huge bag of potatoes.
Step 2: Eat all the potatoes except the last dozen or so.
Step 3: Put the bag in the shed and tell the wife you're going to grow potatoes.

I mean, call me crazy, but aren't you supposed to plant them or something?  I don't think they make baby potatoes just because you left them alone in the dark.**

Anyway, so the little seedlings languished in my kitchen in the window for a while.  Until I remembered to tell the Danish Boy to get me some soil.  He brought it home with a "my god do you know how many types of soil there are?  And how much they cost?!  I went with the cheapest from the supermarket, I hope that's okay."

I was all "nope, nope, sure I guess" and went hunting for a big enough pot.  I had managed to keep some basil alive for a few weeks and figured, heck they should all go together.  Basil and tomatoes are like peas and carrots, surely if you eat them together, you can grow them together.***  And if you are a herb and survive my kitchen, you deserve a shot at life in a pot in my greenhouse.  Or maybe that's like damning the basil to Siberia.  Who am I to know these things?  I know nothing about basil.

I removed the desiccated remains of an olive tree from a pot.  The previous owner of the house had this languishing olive tree and I finished it off last winter.  It then sat as a mute testimony to my ability to not be able to cultivate Mediterranean plants in a northern European climate.****

I popped the basil and two tomato plants in with some soil, watered heavily, and placed the pot next to the wall in the greenhouse, figuring that the sun would heat up the greenhouse and the wall, which would radiate heat throughout the night, keeping the plant warm.  Also, because we've lost three panes of glass in the greenhouse, it doesn't get that hot, so radiant heat would be important.

But I neglected to remember the grapevine.  We have two, and the one in the greenhouse is a monster.  It bides it's time in the winter and then in the summer BANG!  Leaves and grapes!  GRAPES!!  GRAPES OF WRATH DOOM!!

So as I went out every day to water my tomato plants, I failed to notice that the grapes were taking over and very efficiently blocking out the sun.  Until I noticed that my tomato plants were growing at a weird angle and turning yellow.  Mold began to grow on the soil.

At this point a gardener would probably have cut back the grapevine.  But since I'm a "grow as you will and let others grow as they will too" type, I just moved the tomatoes to a sunnier location at the front of the greenhouse.  I patted myself on the back, because I placed them where condensation drips, so it was like they would be under an automatic drip system!  And surely the wind wouldn't be that bad...

Cue Danish summer.  Or more accurately, non-summer.

My tomatoes are suffering from weather extremes, but even with leaf-curl, they gamely struggle on.  The basil, having taken a beating, seems to be pulling back from the brink.  I finally had to go get some supports for the tomatoes, and now they are really taking off.  I even have some flowers, which suggests I may someday have tomatoes!

The grapevine finally reached epic proportions and had to be cut back.  I attacked it with clippers and we can at least get back out into the greenhouse.

I really should have done a before and after picture, because DAMN it was crazy.  But instead you'll just have to make do with a picture of the box I stuffed all the clipped bits into.

You'll just have to believe me when I say, there IS a box under all of that.  This year I am determined to do SOMETHING with the grapes.  The DB is pushing for wine.  I'm thinking grape jelly.

* The one plant that thrives under my care?  The orchid.  Aren't orchids supposed to be difficult?  Because this one is great, the less I do with it, the happier it is.  It's like the perfect plant.
** Another thing I learned about potatoes - if you have a big bag of them in the pantry, they make the pantry humid.  And that makes your onions and garlic go moldy.  And your lemons will grow mold on the skin, but you can wash that off.  But really, a nice basket for your onions and garlic to hang in your kitchen is not only decorative, but also a good way of not having to throw away onions before you can use them.  
*** Actually, I don't think you can grow peas and carrots together.  In which case, basil and tomatoes are NOTHING like peas and carrots.  Other than that you can eat them together.  
**** Although, come to think of it, the fig tree is doing okay.  Probably because I'm not trying to save it's life.

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??

Feeling a bit like *that* weatherman

So you know how there's always a weatherman standing in really horrible weather, screaming about how horrible the weather is, while the two newscasters sit in their warm, dry studio and say, "Gee Bob, that's some horrible weather they're having out there in Chattanooga" or wherever the poor weatherman happens to be standing?

Or in any disaster movie, there's always the idiots who are standing right where the disaster is about to happen, holding up their cameras and trying to get a picture?

And you think to yourself, "Morons!  I'd never be so stupid as to stand around watching a disaster or inclement weather unfold!  I'd be getting the heck out of there!"  

You'd certainly not be eating an ice cream cone, taking pictures one handed, while your child clutched at your leg (not 'cause she's scared, but because there's chocolate ice cream going on and she wants some of the action).

We were on our way back to home yesterday and had an hour wait until the ferry came.*  So we decided to take a stroll.  We made it back to the car before the storm broke.  Had we not stopped for ice cream, we'd have been farther away from the car, so really, my need for pistachio/chocolate/mint-chocolate-chip saved our butts.  For a while the rain was so bad you couldn't see anything out at sea.  By the time the ferry came in, the storm had mostly passed.  It was clearing by the time we got home.  Wild weather, man, wild weather.

*I use a date stamp because I've learned the hard way that after about a week I can't remember when I took any given picture. It's day first, month second.  I have not travelled into the future to record the weather of August 7th.  So if you have plans to be outside in Faaborg on August 7th, you don't need to bring an umbrella.  Or maybe you do.  This is Denmark, after all, and the weather this summer sucks.

If wishes were horses... OMG IS THAT A PONY??

So no sooner to I rant about stupid residency laws, then they get changed!

I would add a link in English, but it's not updated yet.  Oh, here, let me Google Translate that for you!

The big news is, you can now use education as part of the employment requirement.  And it's three years of the last five, so you aren't completely screwed if you've had a child.  In fact, you might even be able to have TWO!  And maternity leave will be included as time served towards those three years.

You can take an education outside of Denmark, you can include work outside of Denmark (provided it all relates to Denmark in some way, lots of fiddly bits here), you can combine study and work.  All in all it's far more inclusive and flexible than before.

There is no "active citizenship" bullshit (apart from signing a piece of paper that says, I will learn Danish and I won't be a dick - kinda wish they'd make Danes sign this too).

The suddenness of it all makes me feel a bit like Jay in Dogma.



Maybe instead of ranting about immigration, I should have been ranting about how no one randomly gives me $10 million dollars.  HA!

We're talking Serious First World Issues here, man

I want to talk about something that is seriously wrong with the world today.  An important topic that I am sure is near and dear to your hearts.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BABY CLOTHES DESIGNERS??!!

What, that’s not on your list of crimes against humanity?  Oh.  Well, I guess you can just keep reading this post as a humorous rant.  The rest of us will just be over here, rending our clothes and gnashing our teeth THANKYOUVERYMUCH!

Baby clothes designers are obviously mentally incompetent asshats, who (and this is very important) have NEVER seen a baby in real life.

Kind of like how Karl Lagerfeld has never actually seen breasts and therefore designs clothes for women who don’t have them and Manolo Blahnik, who has apparently never seen a woman try to walk on anything other than a runway, keeps designing objects for foot-fetishists.

But baby clothes are so cute!  How can you say such a thing?!

I’m glad you asked, Voice of Unreason. 

Because those cute baby clothes are all “wash cold” or “delicate cycle” or “hand wash separately.”

WHAT THE HELL, MAN!?

Have you see the shit that gets on baby clothes?  I mean SHIT gets on baby clothes!  Cold water, delicate cycle, hand wash separately BULLSHIT!

Secondly, WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE BUTTONS?

Have you ever tried to button a wriggling child into clothing?  Let me ask you this, do straightjackets have buttons?

Warning to readers: be wery wery careful if you Google to find out the answer to this question.

So then tell us, oh wise one, do straightjackets have buttons?

I note a tad bit of sarcasm in that question.

Moi?  Never!  I am the Voice of Unreason and I would never use sarcasm… or irony!

Hm.

The answer, since you crave enlightenment-minus-the-Power-of-the-Google, is NO.  No buttons on a straightjacket.  Because trying to button a person that needs restraining into any garment is the apex of ridiculousness.  Someone is going to lose an eye!  So why on god’s green earth would someone put buttons on baby clothes?  Babies are simply smaller mental patients whom you aren’t allowed to sedate!  Or sit on.  APARENTLY.

Then there’s the size issue.  As a woman, I’m used to clothes that say one size but mean another and never believing the size on the label anyway.  But whereas I can try on clothes before I buy, it’s kinda hard to try clothes on a baby.

Doubt me?  Go take a drunken frat boy shopping.  Try to get him to try on clothes.  Try to keep him in said clothes.  Try to keep him from peeing on someone.

I’m pretty damn lucky, though, I get huge boxes of hand-me-downs (in good condition) from a SIL.  I can chase my half naked child through the privacy of my own house.  Provided that all the doors to the outside are closed, I stand a pretty good chance of catching her too.

But there’s always that moment where I’ve picked out something to put on my child for the first time and even though the size should be appropriate, it just SO DOESN’T FIT!  Problems include:

• My child is not a linebacker and doesn’t have the shoulders to fill out the onesie
• My child is petite (takes after her mother, she does, not that you’d know if from looking at me these days, but trust me, we have gelfling ancestry) and so wears 6-9 month onsies with 1-1½ pants
• So normally our problem is that clothes are too big, this then renders me completely unprepared for clothes that are too small

There is nothing like wrestling your child into clothes and then discovering that said clothes are too small.  Really, there isn’t. 

First you have a moment of incomprehension.  Did I put this on wrong? Followed by a tense face-off between you and your spawn.  You have less than ten seconds to magically remove the offending garment while your child inhales for that piercing shriek while simultaneously tensing his or her body for the coming fit.  Then there’s the struggle to get the item back off.  No matter how easy or difficult it was to get on, it has now shrunk another two sizes and WILL NOT COME OFF!  Somehow your child is now trapped in a garment that has no flexibility, one arm pinned across the chest, hand struggling out the neck opening with the elbow still caught in the sleeve… how did this happen? 

The moment you ask “how did this happen,” it’s all over.  The child is screaming.  You are wailing.  Your spouse will choose this moment to enter and ask, “What are you doing to our child?” and all you can think is “THIS IS ALL HIS/HER FAULT!”

But let’s be honest.  It’s the designer’s fault.

Fuck baby clothes designers.

Visa Roulette

I find myself sinking further and further into “I hate this fucking country”-mode, which can only mean one thing:

TIME TO EXTEND MY RESIDENCY VISA!!

Whoot.  Whoot.  Joy.

I follow changes in immigration law like other people follow sports teams.  Currently the laws are like the underdog.  You cheer when they suck less and you keep hoping that they’ll get better, even though in your heart of hearts, you know they never will. 

Expats love to compare immigration policies.  People who have brought spouses to the US claim that the US wins for ass-suckery.  They point out that you get questioned in private matters and that many of the questions are outright offensive.

For future reference, American INS: My husband and I don’t have sex nearly enough and I am more than happy to deliver my husband and child over for you for paternity testing because, yes, I am THAT confident that my husband is the father of my child.

But whereas the US INS only ass rapes you the once (and it’s a good buggering, let’s be honest), Denmark likes to do it again and again.  And every year they learn of a new way to fuck you.  Denmark is proud of this.  The people (and I use the term loosely) that work in immigration like to point out how few visa applications there are and how few of those are granted, as if the goal for the country is to stop people from coming all together.

Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but the goal is to stop people from coming to Denmark all together.

Anyway, after a bit of a hullabaloo about Danish citizens being unable to bring their spouses to Denmark just because they happen to not be EU citizens (the EU rules make it impossible for Denmark to keep EU residents from entering DK, possibly another reason DK would like out of the EU), these laws were relaxed.  Not completely repealed, but relaxed.  The Department of Integration was liquidated.  Now the blame for any immigration shenanigans can be passed from department to department.  By the time you figure out whom is behind any shitty rule, the author has been promoted to a different ministry.  (Finger pointing is a Danish pastime.)  Sure, it is now possible to bring your non-EU spouse to DK.  But Denmark is going out of its way to make sure they don’t stay permanently.

Here are the rules as they stand right now:

The rules that really get my goat? 

1) The working for 2.5 out of 3 years and currently being employed at the time of application (and granting of the permit).  Why is that a problem?  Where I live, most of the Danes don’t have full-time employment.  So I would need to move somewhere where I there’s the possibility of getting a job.  Which means that my husband would have to try to get another job.  Can I just tell you that now is not a good time to be looking for a job in journalism?  Even if you are a Dane?  As an archaeologist, I’m not going to find full-time employment for 2.5 years in a 10-year period.  So I guess a new career is in order.  I’m limited in my degree choices by my Danish language scores.  And I need to take a degree in something that will result in steady, full-time employment.  I’ve got an idea for that - but we’re looking at +3 years of education before entering the job market… so I might be able to apply for permanent residency in 7 years if I’m lucky. *

A lot of expats applaud this law, especially if they are gainfully employed.  This is kind of like how healthy people in the US don’t like socialized medicine, it’s easy to judge the people who lack the right cards when you have a full deck. 

Of course it’s my own fault I don’t have a full time job!  I should have majored in engineering or become a doctor because OBVIOUSLY I was going to meet a Dane and fall in love with him and decide to immigrate and I should have realized 15 years ago that the Danish government would change the immigration laws after I first applied for residency in 2008 and planned accordingly!!  And I certainly have no right to complain now, because I should have instructed my husband NOT to take the only job that he was offered because it required us to relocate out of the big city and be tied to one location when obviously he should have continued to work as a taxi driver so that we could move to wherever I might some day get a full-time job (that I would have already gotten if I had just made better career choices before I met my husband and if I’d just been better at learning languages).

Of course Denmark doesn’t mean to catch little ol’ WASP me in its big bad net.  It’s meant to prevent all those other immigrants who come over here to milk the system. But who exactly are these other immigrants?  ‘Cause I know when you (the uniformed masses, not you the reader, because obviously I don’t mean you the reader, you are the exception to the rule okay?) say other immigrants what you mean is “Somali” and “Iraqi” and “Afghani” and you do realize that they are here as asylum seekers (or my favorite phrase “quota refugees,” ‘cause Denmark doesn’t want them, but you know, the EU makes them take these damn refugees) and not here on a family-reunification visa? So, all those other other immigrants who married Danish citizens, then? 

2) Active Citizenship.  Seriously??  I need to be on the board or an “active member,” whatever that means, of an organization for a year?  Do you require this of native Danes?  No??  The only Dane I know who is involved in an organization is my husband, who also happens to be the head of the housing association where we own an apartment.  I’m pretty sure that having him appoint me to the board is nepotism.  I’m involved in a mother’s group and the local theater group, neither of which has “articles of association” that need to be documented.  Well, I’ll be sure to quit doing things that interest me and bring me into contact with Danes that I have things in common with and start volunteering at the Red Cross with the blue-aired brigade.   I’m sure that with a full-time job, I’ll have tons of time to be an active member!

3) It’s going to cost my Danish citizen husband 2,880 DKK ($483.16) to apply.  That’s just to apply.  If I’m denied, no refund.  If I get through, we get to do this again in a year or two or maybe, if I’m really lucky, three years.  Because the taxes that he pays are for Danish citizens who DIDN’T marry foreigners (excepting the royal family, who are free to marry any damn foreigner they want), so Danish spouses wanting to keep their dirty foreign wives had better be prepared to pay for that privilege. 

4) Biometric cards.  I have to present myself at either the center for immigration or one of a few selected police stations to be photographed and fingerprinted.  For my special identity card.  I didn’t have to be biometricked (new word, Webster!) for my driver’s license or for my Danish social security card.  But you know how us Family Reunification immigrants are, always stealing shit and leaving fingerprints…

Now I’ve been one to counsel patience for this government.  I know government moves slowly and in Denmark, where nothing happens unless there is a consensus, getting 89 Danes to agree to anything is a miracle (that’s a basic majority in the Parliament).   But I’m feeling a bit hoodwinked.  Sure, they softened the requirements to get the temporary residency visa for family reunification (I mentioned this above, it was a moment we all cheered that our team sucked a little less this year).  But then they stopped.  And added the biometric cards.  Yes, this government added the biometric card.  In May.  (If you have applied for extension but not gotten it before May 20^th, you will have to go be biometricked.  This ends your public service announcement.)  Instead of continuing with immigration reform, they’ve hammered out a tax reform that no one likes, forgotten that the last government’s border wars were still ongoing and that the EU Parliament is quite upset with Denmark.  (In case you haven’t been following, Denmark used the it’s presidency [which revolves between member states every 6 months] to change the EU laws so that it can do whatever it damn well wants without EU approval.)   

So there you have it.  Denmark is a pot of water heating up on the stove and we are the frogs, slowly being boiled to death.  It’s still currently more difficult and expensive to move elsewhere, but only just.

*Note: there’s been some talk of allowing education to count towards employment, but the rule still stands for “regular” family-reunification visa holders. 

Obviously I’ve confused myself with someone else

I don’t know if you’ve heard about the “Muppet Theory.”  I’ll let you go check it out, quick like.  It’s fun and shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but like many oversimplifications, you can still learn a lot about yourself from it.

For example, if you’d asked me before I read the article, I would have told you that I’m a Chaos Muppet.  I mean, OBVIOUSLY!  As I was reading the article, I laughed at “if your house catches on fire and you know precisely how to rescue your Schumann CDs in under 15 seconds, you’re an Order Muppet,” because I don’t have a Schumann CD!  LOL!

Cue slight delay for maximum humor purposes.

I know I don’t have a Schumann CD, because when I organized our CD’s based on frequency of use, I would have noticed if we had Schumann…

face/palm

I am such an Order Muppet. 

And I really ought to know better than think of myself as anything but.  I am The Keeper of Knowledge in my relationship, after all.  My desk may look like the set of a post-apocalyptic disaster flick, but I could leap up and collect all of my family’s passports in under five seconds.  My passport and those belonging to my child (yes, she has two) are in the file on my desk, the DB’s is on the table in the entry hall, under a pile of other random crap that belongs to him that he has yet to put away.

And probably will never be put away, that’s the beauty of the system.

The Danish Boy is most assuredly a Chaos Muppet.  He looks like an Order Muppet on the outside.  His shirt is tucked in, his hair is gelled, he’s on time… but he’s carrying half a dozen different bags because his note pad is in one, papers he’s got to turn in to the municipality in another and his camera in a third and one of those bags is probably carrying another few bags for shopping which in turn may be stuffed with more shopping bags that he’s forgotten he’s already packed. His brain is constantly popping and fizzing with ideas and half-baked plans.  He looks so calm, but if anyone is going to suddenly say, “let’s go to Germany today!” it’ll be him. 

I look like a Chaos Muppet, wearing whatever clothes I grabbed out of the drawers in the dark (I never remember to set out my clothes the night before, but my clothes are organized so that I can grab a complete outfit out of the drawers even if I can't see what I'm grabbing), I’ve probably not had enough coffee because I was child wrangling, and I’m carrying one ridiculously large bag.  But that bag contains everything that anyone might need on whatever trip we’re taking.  Chances are that the bag was packed the night before.  Chances are that it only took me a few seconds to pack that bag because everything we might possibly need is stocked, at hand, and probably already organized in smaller, easy to assemble containers.  If anyone is going to be able to be out the door and in the car, ready to go to Germany at a moment’s notice, it’ll be me.

We’re Kermit and Miss Piggy.   Sure, I can organize an event in under two weeks, but I need my Miss Piggy Danish Boy to kidnap invite the celebrity host. 

Yes, I just called my husband Miss Piggy.  I’m sure he’d be just as appalled as you are.

But have you ever noticed that the more hysterical Kermit gets, the more calm and focused Miss Piggy is?  And when Miss Piggy is frantic, it’s Kermit who keeps the show moving?  Yeah, that’s kind of how it works around here.

Even if I secretly wish I was Gonzo.

A less than stellar idea

I was just out trying to garden.

I've been trying all "summer" (in Denmark, summer is what happens to other countries because sun and warm, dry weather sure as HELL don't happen here) to take part in garden management, because

a) it's good for a person to get outside and I actually like being outside
b) the DB doesn't have time to do it all himself and hates using any tool smaller than an ax
c) I harbor dreams of being one of those women with a large straw hat, humming contentedly while tending my vegetables

But I've been done in by the weather.  And Danish homework.  And an ill child.

Finally, the planets aligned.  I finished Danish.  The child recovered.  The weather turned not-thunder-and-lighting.  In fact, it turned lovely and warm.  They say today is summer.  Not today-is-the-first-day-of-summer but today-is-the-only-summer-day-we-expect-to-have-this-year-go-enjoy-it.

Only it also happens to be the height of the grass season.

I have allergies.  No surprises there.  But this is the first year I've really paid attention to what's specifically blooming during my bad patches.  Sure, I could go in and get another scratch test, but since I don't like to voluntarily subject myself to torture and I know I have allergies already, it seems like a waste of time.

AG at the Allergist
AG: I have allergies.
The Allergist: Let me test you.
AG: Really I have allergies.
TA: Well, let's just see about tha- HOLY SHIT YOUR ARM SWELLED TO THREE TIMES NORMAL SIZE!
AG: I *told* you I have allergies.
TA: Don't scratch.
AG: Then give me cortisone, motherfucker.
TA: Let me prescribe you this ridiculous drug that I'm paid by the pharmaceutical companies to promote.
AG: That drug doesn't work.  I have tried it.  I have also tried these other drugs that I see advertised on your wall.
TA: Don't be silly, it will cost you $2 a pill and you have to take it twice a day, but with your health care coverage, you should be able to use it for two months before running out of your alloted medical co-pay amount.
AG: It won't work, I'll still be miserable.  If I take this generic over-the-counter drug, I'll be fine and it's cheaper.
TA: Nonsense, you are allergic to a long list of things, some of which don't even grow near you, but I tested you for anyway.  You're welcome, by the way.  Obviously, you are dying.  Here is a pamphlet on all the expensive equipment you must buy in order to lead a normal life.  This mask, for example, not only will make it so you can breathe in your own home, but also will let you look like Darth Vader.
AG: Um, it's not really all that bad except during certain times of the year.
TA: You must under no circumstances be out of doors.  Nature is trying to kill you.  Also, you can't be indoors, because mold and spores thrive there.  You should wear natural-fiber clothing because people like you tend to be sensitive to chemicals and you should under no circumstances wear any natural-fiber clothing because you will be allergic to it.
AG: So I need to be naked all the time and live in a bubble?
TA: Yes, and get one with a very expensive HEPA-filter breathing system.  Here's the pamphlet for it, it's sold by another major pharmaceutical company who gives me kickbacks.

Shockingly, I have NO food allergies.

Anyway, I noticed this year that while others were complaining about their allergies, I was doing okay. "Argh," said one friend, "birch season is killing me!"  Odd, thought I, I'm not having any problems.  Maybe I'm getting better.

HA!

I was hit hard last week.  Like a small steam engine crashing into my brain-pan.  Sinus pain, liquid leaking from every hole in my head, small leprechauns up my nose with feathers... misery.

So I went looking for the pollen counts.  And discovered that it was grass season.  Now since every allergist I've ever been to has told me that I'm allergic to everything, I knew I was allergic to grass.  When the DB was shopping for a lawn-mower, I told him that he had to get one with a bag on the back to collect the grass clippings because I have allergies and grass clippings are my kryptonite.  Also, he has to leave his post-mowing clothing somewhere else than the house and take a shower, because I will otherwise sneeze in his food.  But I couldn't have told you when grass season was.  Grass has a season?

Yes, grass has a season.  During June and into July it germinates.  And if you start pulling it out of your flower beds, the seeds or spores or whatever it's called leaps joyfully into the air and covers EVERYTHING.  Twenty minutes is all it took out in the garden, trying to get the grass out from my wild-strawberry patches.  After twenty minutes my eyes were swollen and I was dripping snot out of my nose.

I've retreated to the house, taken MORE medicine, and studied the pollen calendar.  I'm screwed for another four weeks at least.  Doubly so, because with the weather being so bad lately, I've got to throw the doors and windows open to try to air-out and dry-out the house.  All that lovely grass pollen is going to come in and take up residence.

So here is my "note to self": garden in May.  In the rain if you have to.  Garden in thunderstorms and heavy wind.  Remove the grass before it starts to seed.  Because in June you will not want to be wading through it to get to your strawberries or your roses.

Alot in the car

Today is Wednesday (YOU'RE WELCOME).  Wednesdays are my Now-I-Can-Catch-Up-On-Game-Of-Thrones days only we've reached the end of the season so WHAT THE HELL DO I DO NOW??

I suppose I could do the dishes, but how lame is that?

Anyway, the best part about Wednesday is that I don't have to get up early, I don't have to change out of my pajamas, and all I have to do is wrangle the Spawn until she and her father trip merrily off to day-care and work, respectively.  That's respectively, not respectably, because sometimes my child is dressed from head-to-toe in cotton-candy pink because beggars can't be choosers but we sure as hell can be embarrassed.  

And that's what Spawn and I were doing when the Danish Boy went out to the car to make sure that everything that needed to be in the car was in fact IN the car.  

He quickly returned, very distraught.

Alot had been in the car all night.  He'd gotten in yesterday and although this is a common occurrence, as the cat adores the car, the DB had completely forgotten to check before closing up the car.  

You'd think we would have noticed that the cat hadn't been around that evening, but the weather was fairly good and sometimes he's just busy doing whatever it is cats do, so it's not that unusual for him not to be in the house in the evening.

But there he was, frantically pawing at the window when the DB went out this morning.  And yes, twelve hours in a car was too long of a wait, so he'd left us a present.  In the brand-new car seat.

Oh was the DB pissed.  Not at the cat, but at himself for not checking the car.  "The new car seat!  That we just bought!  Oh, gauraghhhhh!"

I was a bit more pragmatic.  "Solid or runny?" I asked.  I happen to be the resident poop expert, not just because I am The Mommy and therefore have a high degree of exposure, but also because I have a great deal of experience with animals and their feces, I've worked in a pet store and a children's "zoo."  I found a book on animal tracks in the in-laws summer home and avidly read the section on poop.  Only the pictures were in black and white and lacked a scale so HOW DOES THAT HELP ANYONE IDENTIFY ANYTHING, I'D LIKE TO KNOW!?  So, yeah, me and poop?  No problem.  

Vomit, on the other hand.  Can't stand vomit.

"Solid," said the DB.  "Do you think he peed?"

At this point if you are reading this and thinking "oh my god, this entire post is about the bodily functions of her cat" you'd be right and you can totally stop reading now if you want.  "But hey," I'm betting you'll rationalize to yourself, "I got this far and I just want to know how it ends.  Not that I'm one of those weird people who like to read about defecating animals, I just want to know if they have to go buy a new car seat, or a new car."  

Keep telling yourself that, poop-lover.  

Anyone who's owned a cat knows, you KNOW when your cat has peed.  So I asked, "Does it smell of pee?"

"No."

"Then he didn't.  You would know if he had."

But of course the DB wasn't convinced, so he brought the seat in for me to smell, after he'd de-pooped it and sprayed all-purpose cleaner on it.  And with my allergies running high at the moment, it was a miracle I could breathe, let alone smell, but okay, whatever, I'll lean over while holding a wriggling child and sniff.

"I don't think he peed.  But use the old car seat and we'll wash the cover, it'll be fine."  

This did not mollify the DB.  He was beside himself with loathing.  If he was any more distraught over the event, he'd be a Brontë heroine.  As it was, he stomped around and slammed doors and sighed loudly and pointedly.

"Don't worry about cleaning it," he declared magnanimously.  "I'll do that when I get home."

Yeah, because what I want is to leave a stinky car seat next to the clean laundry for eight hours.  "It's no problem," I said.

"But, well, it's the washing machine..." his anguish was palpable.  I'm not to play with the washing machine.  Bad things happen.  Like clothing getting washed at the wrong temperature, spun at too high a speed, or other unbelievably horrible sins.  It's not that I've once dyed my socks pink, ONCE mind you, it's that I wash darks at 30, colors at 40, and whites at 60 (all temperatures in Celsius), irrespective of their instructions.  The Horror.  Never mind that because I've played with the machine, I know more about the various settings (he only recently discovered that you can tell the machine that you've got chocolate stains that need removing), I might decide to skip the pre-wash or something!

"Fine.  Whatever."  And after he left, I stripped the car seat, put the cover in the washing machine but no, I didn't turn it on, it's happily waiting to be washed, and then carefully cleaned the foam padding.  I've looked up the washing instructions and have set them out for his approval.  Then I fed the cat, who's looking a bit betrayed, but is otherwise fine.

Then the cat promptly jumped into the closet, because being trapped in one confined space in the last 24 hours wasn't enough.  If he poops on my sweaters, I may just skin him and use him for slippers.

I can't see you... go away!

Who needs the big bad wolf?

The wind!  DA WIIIIIINNNNNND!  I may be the third little pig, all snug in my brick house, but seriously, I'm starting to wonder if another good gust might just pick me up and deliver me to Oz.

Although, if it's warm in Munchkinland SIGN ME UP!  I had to go digging for some woolen socks this morning.  Woolen socks!  It's JUNE for crying out loud!

I dressed my daughter in fleece and wondered if I should have given her tights as an added layer under her pants.  Not that she cares.  She's just figured out where the local playground is and she'll be damned if she stays inside with me and her buttloads of toys.  Wind, rain, cold?  Bah, these are but concerns of the parental units!  Come, the slide awaits!

I have two tomato plants that really need to be potted in a planter if they are ever going to grow.  I even have picked out which of my planters I'm going to de-weed in order to use, only it's right in the maelstrom that is my back patio and at the moment the wind is doing my weeding for me.  My little tomato plants will be naked if i try to put them out there!  I'LL be naked if I try to go out there!

I'm wondering if we'll lose another glass pane in our greenhouse.  I'd like to put the planter and the tomatoes out there, but not if it means being killed by flying shards of glass.

Most of the birds have decided to stay in today.  Every now and again a small black shape goes tumbling past the window and I know a blackbird has foolishly tried to catch lunch.  A seagull just went by... backwards.

I can't be sure, it could just be my over-active imagination, but I think the lamps upstairs are swaying.  Just slightly.  It could be a breeze, forcing it's way into the house through a crack or improperly sealed joint.  Or you know, it could be because the whole roof is swaying.

Once again I have to put aside the summer recipes I've been hoping to make and come up with something cozy and stodgy to keep us warm.  I dream of salads and ice cream, of iced coffee and mint juleps.  I watched a program about barbeque the other day and almost cried.  We got three days of summer over the weekend.  I wore shorts.  And then it was gone!  GONE!!

[in a hoarse whisper] GONE WITH THE WIND!