A Parable for my Husband

Note: My husband and I have already had this conversation and if he actually reads this he’ll be all *sad face* “But we talked about this already and I understood the point you were trying to make.”  And I’ll be all *does-it-look-like-I-give-a-shit face* and say “And you’d do well to remember the moral of this story, then, asshole.”

Ah love.

Once upon a time there was a little old man and a little old woman who lived in a little old house on the edge of the woods.  One day the little old woman gave the little old man a basket with five eggs in it. 

“I want you to go into town and sell these five eggs for five crowns,” the little old woman said to her husband of many a year, “so that I may buy meat from the butcher for our supper.”

So the little old man took the basket and began to walk to town.  Just on the other side of the woods, he met a man with a rooster.

“Say, friend,” said the man with the rooster, “where are you going with those eggs?”

“My wife told me to take them to town to sell them so that she may buy meat from the butcher for our supper,” he answered.

“What a coincidence!” cried the man with the rooster.  “My wife told me to sell this rooster at the market so she could buy some eggs.  I don’t suppose you’d want to swap the eggs for this rooster?”

The little old man was surprised and delighted.  The rooster was easily worth ten crowns!  His wife would be so pleased with him.  “Yes,” he answered.  And they swapped.

The little old man continued to walk to town.  At the crossroads he met a man with a suckling pig.

“Say, friend,” said the man with the sucking pig, “where are you going with that rooster?”

“I’m going to town to sell it so that my wife may buy meat from the butcher for our supper,” he answered.

“What a coincidence!” cried the man with the suckling pig.  “My wife told me to sell this pig at the market so she could buy a rooster.  I don’t suppose you’d want to swap the rooster for this pig?”

The little old man was surprised and delighted.  The pig was easily worth fifteen crowns!  His wife would be so pleased with him.  “Yes,” he answered.  And they swapped.

The little old man continued on his way.  At the outskirts of the town he met a man with a cow.

“Say, friend,” said the man with the cow, “where are you going with that suckling pig?”

“I’m going to sell it at the market so that my wife may buy some meat for our supper,” he answered.

“What a coincidence!” cried the man with the cow.  “My wife told me to sell this cow at the market so she could buy a pig.  I don’t suppose you would want to swap the pig for this cow?”

The little old man was surprised and delighted.  The cow was easily worth twenty crowns!  His wife would be so pleased with him.  “Yes,” he answered.  And they swapped.

The little old man continued into town.  But when he got to the market, it was closed for the day.  He’d spent too much time talking and swapping!  “Oh, no,” thought the little old man, “what will I do now?”

Then he spied a man with a horse, coming into the square.  The man with a horse smiled as he saw the little old man and his cow.

“Say, friend,” said the man with the horse, “where are you going with that cow?”

“I was going to sell it at the market,” said the little old man, “but now the market is closed!”

“What a coincidence!” cried the man with the horse.  “I was going to sell this horse at the market and buy a cow, but I was also too late and the market is closed!  I don’t suppose you would swap the cow for this horse?

The little old man was surprised and delighted.  The horse was easily worth twenty-five crowns!  His wife would be so pleased with him!  “Yes,” he answered and they swapped. 

The little old man proudly rode his horse home.

“Where have you been?” cried his wife when he got home.

“I traded the eggs for a rooster,” said the little old man.

“Ah, well, that’s okay,” said the little old woman, “I can put him with the hens and we can raise chickens to eat.”

“Ah,” said the little old man.  “But I traded the rooster for a suckling pig.”

“Eh, well, that’s okay,” said the little old woman, “we can butcher the pig and have the meat for supper."

“Eh,” said the little old man.  “But I traded the pig for a cow.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay,” said the little old woman, “we can milk the cow and sell it to buy meat for our supper.”

“Oh,” said the little old man.  “But I traded the cow for a horse.”

“Uh, what?” said his wife of many a year.

“Uh,” said the little old man.  “But it’s easily worth twenty-five crowns!”

“So what,” yelled the little old woman, “we now have no money to buy meat for our supper and now we have to buy food for the horse!  With what money, I ask you?  We have no eggs, no rooster, no pig, and no cow, just a hungry horse!”

And with that she pulled a pistol out of her pocket and shot the little old man in the head.

The moral of the story is: if we need to sell my Volvo because we need the money, then I don’t want to hear any more about trading it for another car or a trailer because it *might* be worth more or because it *might* be easier to sell - because at the end of the day, we still will not have any money and I will f*cking end you.

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!

What is the opposite of writer’s block?

So I finally decided to write a novel.  People have been telling me for years to do such a thing, although they have also been telling me to go into stand-up comedy and take up knitting and since the knitting project was an abysmal failure, I think I'll pass on the stand-up act.

Anyway, back when I was preggers and starting all kinds of projects, like a quilt which ONE DAY I WILL FINISH I SWEAR TO GOD, I also began a fantasy novel based on this crazy dream that I once had that ran for several months and was all kinds of interesting (no, JanetLin, it was not the one where I dreamt up the reason for Senator Palpatine to become the douche bag that he was, speaking of which, hey, Lucas, call me, we gotta talk) but never had a proper beginning until one day I was in the shower and it came to me.  Showers have long been a place of inspiration, many of the best parts of my dissertation were written in the shower.

Well, not literally written.  My computer would short out if I did that.  But you know what I mean.  So there was that novel started.  I pounded out quite a number of pages before I got stuck in the minutia of “what in god’s name is my main character’s NAME?” And then I gave birth.  Babies are so not conductive to writing novels.  Just sayin’.

That novel is currently languishing on my hard drive.  I know NaNoWriMo - that novel writing competition that several friends have enthusiastically taken part in - would be a fine time to wrap it up. Even if the rules say I must start a new novel, I could at least use the month as a challenge to just get it out on paper… er… screen… er… out.  But I swear that November is just the worst month ever for me to write.  Every time I sit down and say, right, I’ll write! I get distracted and then dismayed and then depressed.  No good. 

But then this last December (I know, you think I should write about November, since I brought it up, so maybe now you are thinking that there’s no way in hell that I should be writing a novel, my blog posts are disconcerting enough) while driving up the my MIL’s to get a car (long story, unimportant to the plot of this post, which does have a plot, maybe not much of a climax or dénouement, but it is what it is - a damn blog post) I had this mad vision.  The entire plot of a novel, not the one I had partially written, but another one, beginning, middle, and end, went BAM! in my head.

And then I had to wait five days before I could get to a computer to write it down.  I don’t know about you, but when I have a good idea in my head, it is imperative that I write it down as soon as possible before it escapes into the aether or worse, someone else’s head.  (I believe that brilliant ideas bounce from head to head until someone has the gumption to do something with it.)  It was the longest five days EVER!  And I wrote the ending first.  Because that way I could refer to it as I wrote the rest of it - that was the finishing line that I needed to reach.  Wherever the plot takes me, because it might decide to go wander off at some point, I realize that, it needs to come back and land THERE.

It’s not a fantasy, shockingly, since that’s my favorite genre to read.  It’s not a mystery novel either, sorry mom.  It’s just the tale of a small town and the people in it.  Yeah, there’s more to it than that, the characters are quirky and include a cross-dressing schizophrenic (self-diagnosed) and a scatter-brained hairdresser as well as other normal (what is normal anyway) people.

I only get to write every now and again.  I’m trying to keep the blog going and there’s the daily to-do list of things that need to be done or at least ought to be done or that have been put off for so long that really what is one more day, between friends, eh?  But when I do, the words just come flying out of me.  I can’t type fast enough and those who have seen me type know that I am rather speedy at it.  (Seriously, best skill ever.)  It’s like the exact opposite of writer’s block and I am trying to use it while I can.  I’m well aware that the dreaded block could come at any time and I’ll be stuck trying to figure out how Hank will come to be standing outside Annie/Andy’s house with a bullhorn demanding that he (or she - so maybe it is a mystery mom!) put the town limits sign back where it belongs.

Meanwhile I’m really enjoying writing for my various characters.  They are so different and it’s an interesting feeling to climb into their skins and see the plot advance through their eyes.  So much so that I was a bit uncomfortable just now as I finished a chapter about Violet.  Unfortunately for Violet, she’s in an abusive relationship and writing her excuses to herself why she stays just gives me chills all over.  Poor Violet!  I want to just grab her up and take her away and let her be free!  I’m the author, can’t I just do that?  Alas, no, she has to suffer.  She’s part of a greater story arc and she can’t be freed just yet.  After writing one of her chapters, I always find it hard to jump to someone else right away.  I need a moment to collect myself.  Especially since I need to write one from her mother’s POV and there’s a bitch on wheels if I’ve ever seen one!  The confrontation she just had with Violet left me all angry and I keep hoping that a house drops out of the sky and lands on her.  That’s not the sort of thing that happens in this town, though.  Even if Nick the journalist would love for that to happen.  He’d finally get something interesting to write about for the newspaper.

The process of novel writing is very different from dissertation writing.  I could write pages and pages of dissertation at a time.  I don’t know how I did it.  Perhaps because descriptions of objects and discussions of iconography, I think, are fairly easy and brainless to write, especially when you are simply citing all the relevant research and your original thought is relegated to one paragraph at the end of the chapter.  Which then your advisor cuts, anyway, because he says that you are wrong.

Novel writing takes longer.  Even with the words and the plot positively flowing out of me, there’s that pause as you rearrange the words to fit the character, the conversation has to be steered towards forwarding the plot or character development and be in the correct voice.  Mary, for example, would never tell Violet to leave her husband, she'd tell Violet that marriage is hard work and that if she gets hit, it's because she's not trying hard enough. 

Yes, I'm worried about Violet.

My god, isn't novel writing FUN?!!

Maybe I should tell people that I'm a convicted felon

I’ve got to stop telling people I’m an archaeologist. 

Other archaeologists will know exactly what I’m talking about.  It’s The Conversation.  You have The Conversation every time you mention what you do for a living.  Every archaeologist has had it at least once, usually when on a long plane flight somewhere, when you are stuck for several hours next to a complete stranger who is trying to make small talk.  I know archaeologists who have developed coping mechanisms for such.  Some immediately put on headphones and dive into a book hoping that this indicates that they do NOT want any small talk thankyouverymuch.  Others say “I’m an accountant” when asked what they do for a living (I suggest if you use this tactic only if you have some knowledge of accounting in case someone asks you about “this quarter” or something and you reply “well, if it’s flanged it may date to earlier than the Hellenistic period, but you should have someone look at that for you, wait, whut?”).  

This is how The Conversation goes:

Friendly Conversationalist: So what do you do for a living?

Ambushed Archaeologist: Uh, I’m an archaeologist.

FC: *suddenly very attentive* Oh really?  How interesting?  Is there any archaeology in [where you are going]? (and yes, this does include the time I was flying to Israel, which has so much archaeology that people say things like "another ossuary of Jesus? *sigh*")

AA: Yes.

What the archaeologist wants to say is “No, shockingly, despite thousands of years of habitation by humans, not a single human ever dropped, buried, or threw away anything, nor did they build anything or change the landscape AT ALL, which is why I'm going there to look for it.”

Alternatively the FC, if he wants to be funny (or she, but let’s be honest, only men think they are this funny), says: I thought you guys had found it all!

AA: No, there’s still stuff to find.

What we want to say “Nope, we found it all.  And keep it in a bunker away from dipshits like you, asshole.”

The FC will then ask the following questions:

• Have you found any gold?
• What’s the most interesting thing you’ve ever found?
• Do you get paid well?
• How do you guys know where to dig?
• And will probably have a story about some artifact they found somewhere that they took home with them.

The answers are:

• Yes, but it was only a tiny fragment, no I didn’t keep it, it would be completely unethical to keep it so no, I wasn’t tempted.
• Dead people buried where we did not expect to find dead people buried.  (Seriously, ain't nothing like finding dead people where and when they aren't expected.  It happens so often, I should just start expecting to find dead people every time I dig a hole.)
• No, sometimes we don’t even get paid at all.
• Lots of research, talking to other archaeologists, GoogleEarth and sometimes, but very rarely, an ancient map.
• Dear God, you’ve just ruined an archaeological site please stop talking now.

Okay, we don’t say the last thing, but we are thinking it!!

What I’ve discovered, however, is that there is a far worse conversation that I’ve had many times now.  This conversation happens with people who know that I am an out-of-work archaeologist living in Denmark.  And they are trying to be helpful, I know, so I shouldn’t complain about it, but OH MY FREAKING GOD PLEASE MAKE THEM STOP TALKING!!

FC: So how’s the job hunt going?

AG: Um, I’m not hunting… there are no jobs.

FC: Oh, but you said there was archaeology on your island.

AG: Um, yes, but no money to dig it.

FC: Oh, but I’m sure if you just go into the museum, they’d be thrilled to have you!

AG: Um, no, no they would not.

FC: Have you tried?

AG: Actually, yes.

FC: Oh, but I’m sure if you try again…

Rinse, repeat.

Okay, I’m going to explain this once and only once.

1) I’m an archaeologist with experience in the Near East and an education in Roman culture.  I know jack shit about the archaeology of Denmark.  Why would someone want to hire me to dig?  (Don’t answer this, you need to read reason 2 first)

2) Local museums do not have the money to hire archaeologists, no matter what their training.

I’m so sick and tired of explaining that I am not qualified for the job that doesn’t exist.  Even if there was a job, I would be hesitant to take it because I wouldn’t know what I was looking for if I was to start digging.  Hey, look ceramics!  But is it a clay sewage pipe from 20 years ago or a storage jar from the late Iron Age I don’t know.  I actually give enough of a crap that I don’t want to ruin archaeology that we have here, so no, even if a museum wanted to hire me, unless there was going to be a supervisor or other archaeologist above me who could help me with interpretation, I wouldn’t want to do it.  Secondly, how come people will just not understand that if there is no money, there is no money?  Do people suggest to out-of-work construction workers to drop into an architect’s office and say “hey, I’m here to build houses, let’s go!”  Do people really think that by going in somewhere slightly related to what you do and saying “here I am, hire me” that suddenly a job will appear?  If that worked, I could solve the unemployment problem right now!

Please, just no more suggestions!  No more “maybe you could write articles about the archaeology and then people would be interested and give money and then you could organize an excavation and do it yourself” or “maybe if you read up on Danish archaeology, the museum would want to hire you” or “you could start up your own archaeology business!”  No more "I'm sure if you just..." and "But couldn't you try..."  

It has become the center of all the conversations I have these days.  Right after “how’s Danish?” comes the discussion of what I should be doing to get a job in archaeology.  To the point where I grab my child and say some outrageous parenting thing in order to bring the conversation around to what a horrible mother I am or what I’m doing wrong as a parent, anything to change the subject.  

No more suggestions!!  Shutupshutupshutup!

Wherein I can say "I told you so" all I want

On Sunday the DB came into the house, all worried and fretful, to tell me that there was something dripping from his car.

"It's probably just condensation," I said, "because it freezes overnight and then thaws in the morning."

No, he insisted, it was fuel!!!

But, I pointed out, that was crazy talk.  It doesn't smell like fuel.  The last time we had a fuel leak in a car, I could smell it from a meter away.

He insisted.  He brought a paper towel soaked in the liquid in for me to sniff.

Okay, it sorta smelled like fuel, but not that strongly, it could just be random engine smell.

No, no, the DB said, it was fuel!!!

You know those arguments you have with people you love?  The ones where you know you can't win, no matter what you say because they are freaking out and insist that you aren't taking them seriously and for the love of god, don't you trust them to not be idiots???  Yeah, it was one of those.

He wanted the emergency-car-peoples (AAA in the US, Falck in DK) to take the car all the way to our mechanic half-way across the country.  I said, uh, shouldn't we determine if it *IS* a fuel leak first?  Because I'd feel really stupid sending the car that far away if it's nothing.  Because in order to get it back, we'd have to spend a weekend up at his mom's and really, who wants to do that?

Okay, maybe it wasn't the best reason, but since my MIL has been known to drive us both batshitcrazy it's a valid reason.

But but but, he argued, blah blah blah fuel leak!!!

We compromised when he finally said he could have the emergency guys come out and look at the "leak" and if they thought it was a fuel leak they could take it far far away and if it wasn't they could take it to the mechanic in the next village.

So today the Falck guy came and looked at the car.  Not a fuel leak, he said.

But but but, said my dear husband (whom I love, really, I do), fuel leak!!!

Okay, said the Falck guy, I will take it to the local mechanic and if he says it's a fuel leak, I'll take the car to your mechanic, okay?

The DB agreed.

And the mechanic said: Condensation.  No fuel leak.

I'm sure he managed not to make the DB feel stupid.  A bit of manly "you were right to be concerned" and all that.  In fact, I'm positive of this because he came home and said "thankfully, it turned out not to be a fuel leak, but just condensation" and he managed to say this without betraying any embarrassment or damaged pride, but with a touch of defiance, as if I was somehow going to challenge his proclamation.

I tried not to shout "I told you so!"  But his tone was a bit "I told you so" and a bit "now, now, dear, I knew there was nothing to worry about."  And well, I couldn't just let that go.  I'm not that good of a wife.  So I smiled beatifically and said "Well, I'm all pleased with myself.  My car skills are pretty good, if I might say so.  Did I not say that it was condensation?  Why yes, I do believe I did!"

I'm pretty sure he would have preferred "I told you so!" and a fist pump.

Weather alert: a great wave of depressing crap will envelope the earth for all of January

It's not just me.

Everywhere I turn it seems that horrible shit is happening to good people.  Houses burning down, couples taking time apart, mothers having to make difficult decisions, people battling serious depression, serious serious depression, the universe conspiring to make life difficult for people, a good friend's father was in a serious accident, and dogs getting hit by cars.

You know it's all kinds of crappy when the best news you've heard in days is that the dog only has a broken pelvis.

In comparison, my life is fine.  So I should be all glad and shit, right?  I should just stop reading about sad things and focus on the happy happy or count my blessings or something...

Except.  Well.  Balls.

All of the women I've linked to above have helped me through some tough times.  Their words have lifted me up when I'm down or made me laugh at something I was taking far too seriously or have gone through some of the same shit (or worse) and let me feel just *that* bit less alone.  Or has just been my best doggammed friend since the dawn of time (which was in high school, in case you were wondering).

So their pain kicks me in the taco when I'm already feeling the SADs and I want to just reach out and hold them all in my arms and make it all better somehow.  Why can't I employ my superpowers to protect us all from this global storm of depression?  Why can't I purse my lips and blow the bullshit-crappiness away?  Why don't I have the words that will make it all better?

The depression comes like a thunderstorm, rolling in off the sea.  Whispers of regret and disappointment in the wind, an increase in pressure that is the very air, pressing pressing pressing until you can't breathe.  Tears and shuddering sobs of thunder don't bring release.  The urge to punch, bite, kick, makes me almost insufferable and only a great deal of apologizing (and one particularly understanding DB) settles the static before another charged particle sets me off again.

I try to yell at the ugly regrets that rear their heads and tell me that I've made the wrong choices in life.  Obviously I could have done it all differently, made different choices, gone in a different direction.  But I know that when I made my decisions I made them with the knowledge that I had AT THAT TIME and I did what I thought was best.  Sure, in retrospect some of the choices were stupid (hello first marriage) and others led me down a different path that ultimately led here and not, say, to a professorship or a job as a professional archaeologist.  But those other paths don't include the DB or the Spawn and I wouldn't trade either of them for another life.

But for whatever reason, knowing that this life is better, feeling like I have exactly what I want, does not keep that little voice saying "you totally could have been that other person" and "you let down 16 year old you" at bay.  Despite knowing that 16 year old me also thought that Latin was a language that no one knew any more and that "rendezvous" was pronounced ren-DEZ-vuhss, I mean, let's be honest, 16 year old me was an idiot (yeah, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the American education system!) - despite all that, the storm rolls in.

So on Monday, feeling the darkness all around and trying to fight it, I employed the Furiously Happy method of dealing with shit.  I turned the radio up and the Spawn and I danced like lunatics in the kitchen.  Not like lunatics-in-the-kitchen, but like lunatics.  We just happened to be in the kitchen.  And technically, a 10 month old can not dance like a lunatic, but like a 10 month old, which is to say, she bobbed and wiggled and looked dammed cute.



And for a while, I felt light and free.

Spring and it's feeling of new beginnings can really not come too soon.

To anyone else out there feeling the sads, keep dancing, you aren't alone.

Is this what life is like for other people?

I got up this morning and sent the Spawn off to daycare (that's another post) with the DB and settled in to my first morning of deadline-free bliss. [Edit: Friday!  This is what you get for writing a post one day and posting it the next, without checking to make sure you haven't made dumb ass errors like this!]

I was sitting in bed, reading and drinking my coffee and it suddenly hit me.

Deadline-free bliss.

I wasn't sitting in bed, convincing myself that I needed to have an hour of relaxation before I got up and did X, Y, Z or prepared for Q, R, or S.  There was no X, Y, Z, Q, R, S, or anything else for that matter!  The dishes had been done the night before.  I did my homework yesterday.  The Spawn was going to be of playing for hours and hours.  No one is coming to visit.  There are no holidays coming up.  I had nothing that needed to be done.  Anything I could think of could just as well be put off for another day.  Or two.  Or ten.

So I continued to sit there, reading and drinking my coffee, and reveling in the complete lack of guilt and anxiety that normally accompanies such indulgent behavior.  For once, this wasn't procrastination - this was freedom!

And then I got up and starting working on projects that I've been wanting to get to for MONTHS.

Like unpacking.

And organizing.

Sounds boring to you, but these are things that have gotten shoved aside because I've had childcare, homework, Christmas, and of course the DB's list of things he wanted to get done while he had time off. But now I had time to do them because there wasn't anything else I had to do first!

I made a corner for the Spawn.  She has two bookshelves that hold her toys.  Decorations will follow.  (Yes, when it's something more than what it is, I'll take a picture and post it for you guys.)  Some books are now in bookshelves rather than stacked on top of bookshelves.  And it is becoming apparent that I have more books than space.  Not that that's a big surprise.  The Spawn has two bookshelves and we used two other bookshelves for kitchen things, so I'm down four bookshelves.  But still, it *is* an impressive amount of books.  Especially since books cost so much here that we acquire books at a much slower pace than I would if we lived in the US.  And we are lacking all the books I lost in the divorce all those years ago.  (Nope, I still haven't replaced them. And yes, I sometimes spend an hour looking for a book only to realize that I don't have it any more.)

http://bookshelfporn.com/

Love it!  Want it!

Someday I will have enough bookshelves.  I will never have enough books.  But if I could keep up with enough bookshelves, I'll be a satisfied woman.

So slowly I'm working my way through the house, organizing and cleaning.  

And if I can get this much done in just one day, I might just have the house in order within a year!

There will be bookshelves and boxes with labels and file cabinets with color coded tabs!

Oh, *swoon* bliss!!

(Yes, I do realize that this much joy surrounding organization suggests an illness.  But you gotta admit, of all the illnesses to have, one that causes you to organize and clean is really not that bad.)

The Best and Worst of Advice

Now I know that having a child is an invitation for universal, unending, unsolicited advice.  What, you thought that because it’s your child, you were the expert on it?  No, no no, having a child means you are an expert on other people’s children and other people are experts on your child.  You cannot be the expert on your own child.  It’s just not how it works.   So it does seem a little silly to be complaining about the buttloads of advice we now receive, because we knew we were in for it... but come on, it’s hilarious half the time!  I really must share!

So don’t think of this as a lament, think of it as a celebration of the absurd.

And if I had to narrow it down to the best and worst of advice I've gotten so far, it would be regarding my child's eating habits.

Yeah, she's not even 10 months old and already people are picking on her eating habits.

My child is an enthusiastic eater.  Wait, correct that, she's enthusiastic about food.  Not so much the eating of it, but the rubbing it all over the place, feeding the cat, the DB, the AG, the floor (which used to get so hungry, but thank god we had a baby, now the floor will never go hungry again!), putting some in her hair for later, in her nose for a midnight snack, and in her ears for, well, god knows when she'll eat the stuff she put in her ears... or it could be to use as ear plugs because the DB and I both snore.

But so does the cat!!

I'm such a tattle-tale.

Anyway, apart from being cute and annoying at the same time, cute because hair sticking out with mashed carrots in it is just cute and annoying because dammit I just washed the child and now it's like I dipped her in egg and rolled her in bread crumbs (I could tempura the heck out of the Spawn), I don't really have any problem with how we spend meal times.

This, however, does not stop the advice from coming in.

Best advice ever: There are clean babies and there are happy babies.

Okay, maybe it's not advice, per se, but it's a great rule to live by nonetheless.  And evidenced by my furiously happy (read: not clean) child.

Worst advice ever: You should hold her arms down so she can't touch the food.

Wait, what?  Are you suggesting I pin the arms of my child down so she can't a) examine the stuff I'm trying to stick in her face b) help learn to feed herself c) move?  Can we talk about great ways to introduce food issues at a young age?  Because I think you may be on to something here!

I'll cut the advice giver some slack, she's over 85 after all and it was a different time.  But it's still the funniest awful advice I've ever heard.

Moth????

My fairy name is Moth Reedwand
She plays reed pipes and sings spellbinding songs.
She lives close to caverns and stalactite grottoes.
She can only be seen when the seeker holds a four-leafed clover.
She wears dresses stitched with crystals and has deep green butterfly wings.
Get your own fairy names from The Fairy Name Generator!

And that's the first and last time I make a resolution

I normally don't make New Year's resolutions.  There's nothing that I want to change about myself that I put off doing or need some sort of arbitrary date to say "hey, NOW I'm going to do That Thing I Said I'd Do But Don't."

For the things I've needed to do, most of the time they came with their own deadline that was WAY more scary than some New Year's promise to myself.

But this [last] year was different.

This [last] year I spent the twilight months whining about the little pokey belly I have left over from pregnancy.  It's little.  It's pokey.  It pokes out like I'm three months pregnant.  And I'm not.  I'm SO NOT.  So, I'm WAY over it.  Everything else about my post-pregnant body I'm totally cool with.

150 lbs (68.6 kg)?  Sure.
Balloons for boobs?  Both inflated and sometimes not so inflated? Sure.
Stretch marks?  Whatever.
1,001 new let's-call-them-beauty-marks-and-not-moles-'kay? Fine.
Thighs to finally go with women's shorts/jeans/trousers?  Oh, hell yes, thank you pregnancy!
Hips?  Hey!  Whoot!  HIPS!!  Hip hip hooray!

From the front I look like a normal woman.  Heck, from the back I look like a normal woman (hello sexy butt!)!  But then I turn sideways and it's all, wait, what is that?  It's like I'm carrying the keg they normally hang around the neck of a St. Bernard around my waist under my shirt.

And it throws off EVERYTHING.  Pants have to be big enough to go around it or low cut enough to go under it.  The problem with low cut pants is plumber butt AND the waist band then acts like an underwire bra for my belly, pushing it up and out.  Oh, if only men were turned on by stomach cleavage.  Shirts have to be loose enough to not accentuate the belly, but shouldn't look like I'm wearing a tent.  I'm still wearing a handful of maternity shirts, only a few of them I had to quit wearing because they were too tight.  How messed up is that?  And sweaters... well, I can't button up a single cardigan without looking like I'm going to fire off a button at some poor unsuspecting bystander.

So the belly had to go.

But when do you start something like that?  If I lived in Hollywood, the answer would be "30 seconds after popping out the child" but I'm a normal gal with a normal aversion to exercise, so obviously I put it off because I needed the extra fat for lactation.  Obviously.

Roll in the New Year.

"Aha!" thought I, "I will begin my exercise program as a New Year's Resolution!  I will begin to work on the belly and I will not stop until it is gone or I can button a cardigan!  Whichever comes first because I HATE sit-ups."

I googled a bunch of exercises aimed at toning my core (as if I'm some apple or pear and not, as I believe myself to be, an avocado).  I commandeered a blanket to use as my mat.  I began my exercises on January 1st and successfully did 30 kegels, 30 scrunches (or whatever you call those half sit-ups, because I'm not strong enough to do proper sit-ups) and 10 leg lifts.

I did not get a "high" from working out, as some people breathlessly tell you.  "Oh, I just love a good workout!" they gush "The endorphins from 30 minutes of rapid movement is just SO FANTASTIC!"

I have never felt a rush from working out.  Frankly, I think people who do are just suffering from a lack of oxygen during their exercises.  That's not endorphins, you fools, it's brain cells dying at a rapid rate because you aren't breathing enough!

But anyway, there I was, doing my bit to lose a belly.

And it was all going swimmingly until yesterday when I was picking up some groceries and felt a *pop* followed by waves a pain throughout my chest. I'd dislocated a rib.

Probably because my new chest muscles are just that ripping.

Or possibly because the cough I'd developed over the last few days was nice chest rattler and every cough threatened to dislodge a lung.  Maybe it loosened a rib instead.

Or maybe my body was all "exercise if for assholes" and decided to do something about it.

I don't know.  All I know is that I can't lift much, bend over much, or breath deeply.

So much for my exercise regime.

So much for my New Year's Resolution.

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)!

California Awake

The visit home (the other home, you know, the one a person grows up in) was great.  The Spawn did fantastic on the flights, she took to her American family without a hitch and even came to love the dog.

The dog, meanwhile, discovered that children are not nearly so much fun as previously thought and that they follow you around the house!

The return trip was uneventful, but by-god jet-lag is worse when you have a baby and not enough time to reset your internal clocks before you go back to school or work!  The problem is that our "buffer" weekend got used to go pick up a car in northern Jutland, so the Spawn slept merrily in her car seat for the drive up and back.  Effectively keeping her on California time.  It's been a week and she's only now sleeping until 5:30 in the morning.

And she started day care this last week.  So we have no schedule as of yet, too many new things.  I'm completely exhausted.

But for now, pictures!

Main Street

The creek

From the other end of town.

My home town is smack dab in the middle of Gold Country.
Remnants of the Gold Rush are everywhere.

The Bunker Hill Mine dates from the 1850's.

There is something rather romantic about
old, crumbling mines.

Compared to old, crumbling homes, which I think are
rather tragic.

The Thanksgiving spread.

We retuned to a cold, damp, dark Denmark.  Our cat was thrilled to see us.  He'd learned to use the cat door while we were gone, so he now could go out and come back to make sure we hadn't left again 100 times and we didn't have to keep opening and closing the door.

And now it's suddenly Christmas time and we haven't decorated yet!  Or bought presents!  Or finished the laundry!  Holy cow!

At long last.... California

It's been 4 years, but we finally made it out to visit my family in California.  I've been taking some pictures, but as usual, I've forgotten to take even more.

I'll post them later, when I've uploaded them and stuff.

Meanwhile, it's a bit reverse culture shock - different baby products, different sleep systems, different weather...

The weather here is great.  'Cause, duh, it's California, man.  Mostly sunny, cool to (dare I say it?) crisp.  Not quite lighting-a-fire weather, but is hot-apple-cider-drinking-while-kicking-leaves weather.  Points to California.

But I think I'm a duvet-convert.  This sheet thing with blankets and quilts is so not working for us.  I keep getting tangled up and kicking the DB.  He keeps trying to throw off blankets only to pile them on me, so then I try to kick them back, and a-tangled we get.   Points to Denmark.  Also, I miss my huge bed.  How did I ever sleep in a queen size?

Baby food here is way grosser.  That came as a shock.  I expected it to be better.  I don't know why, maybe because there are more choices and more choices means better choices, yes/no?  But the baby cereals we bought?  Blah!  Like newspaper!  Alas, although the Spawn loves to eat newspaper, she wasn't buying it in mush form.  I really miss the rice cereal from Denmark.  Tastes like tapioca pudding without sugar.  Quite yummy.  Thankfully, she's taken to Saltine crackers and watermelon as well as bagels and sourdough bread.  So we have something to entertain us her while we eat.

Then there are two things about the US that make me all unhappy in the pants.
One - every foreigner needs to buy a visa before going to the US.  Every One.  These must be purchased BEFORE you get to the airport.  DUDE, WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?  Two years ago, said the flight attendant at check in.  TWO YEARS AGO??  OBVIOUSLY I DON'T FLY ENOUGH!!  WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE WARN ME?

Like Orbitz, when I bought the tickets.  Or American Airlines when I checked their web-pages for international travel with babies.  Or ANYONE!

We had to slink off to the special counter to buy the DB a visa, getting the whole "you should have done this days ago" speech and "this is how it's been for years [you idiots]."  But but but... I'm a savvy traveller!  I know how many ounces and grams of liquids I'm allowed (and yes, stupid woman in Heathrow, baby food is exempted in reasonable amounts so stop your 'pre-check' bitchyness and let me advance to security) (seriously, they hired someone to 'pre-check' you before you enter security - the least they could do is teach them the rules!  it was like listening to a dalek, only instead of saying "exterminate! exterminate!" it was "no liquids! no liquids!").  I know how to whip off my belt with one hand while taking my computer out of my bag with the other!  I have small travel bottles of everything I need in a tidy ziplock bag!  HOW CAN I NOT KNOW ABOUT A VISA???

Dammit, America!

Secondly - what the hell happened to the newspapers here!?  Your broadsheets are... not broad!  They're skinny! What is that all about?  I feel like some incredible hulk trying to hold the newspaper.  I keep opening it and ripping it in two because my arms stretch out to the normal width of a paper and the paper is just not that big.  It's bad enough that half of Denmark's newspapers are now tabloid format (which means I can't even begin to take them seriously, I keep thinking I'm going to turn a page and read "President Obama is a gigantic alien baby in a man suit! says former aid"), what the hell is this all about anyway?

Dammit, America!

There's only one solution to all this... more wine tasting!  Yaaaaaaay vineyards!

Three not-so-blind mice

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

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

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

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

But then came the rustling from the trash bag.

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

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

Milk: Bejezus-free!

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

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

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

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

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

Not the shake 'n bake I had in mind.

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

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

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

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

I was proud of mah self.

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

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

Damn.

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

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

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

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

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

Should have named him “Useless.”

I love quizzes

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Not much of a post

Oi vey.

In the middle of the night I write brilliant posts in my head about the inequalities of the world, or assholes that need a swift kick in the taco, or silly things my child has done.

But as I sat here with an hour on my hands, a precious hour where the Spawn was being walked in her stroller by the DB, an hour where I had no laundry to fold, okay, maybe I had dishes to wash but screw them, and no pressing need to shower, I could sit down and write one of those blog posts.  I just couldn't bring myself to write a single one.

• A post about how people need to stop asking the childless-by-choice people when they're going to have children and going on about how "I don't want kids" is somehow not a good enough reason or deemed selfish, god only knows why, and this leads to justification, which leads to those of us with kids to justify (if only to ourselves) why we decided to have kids, and there's frankly no good reason other than "I wanted to pass along my genes and my knowledge" but because this is also deemed selfish, what you get is two groups of people yelling "you selfish bitch" at each other and really, seriously WHO THE HELL CARES?  By God, if you don't want to have kids, you should be able to say, proudly, "I don't want to have kids" and people who can't accept that should be shot.  Because I'm sick of hearing from each side how much better they are than the other.  The only reason we find ourselves doing that is because of the assholes who keep demanding that people have some deep reasoning behind their procreative choices.  GAH!

Unless your parents turned in a well-constructed essay on why you deserve to exist, as well as a balanced budget, letters of recommendation from people who can testify to their abilities to parent, you shouldn't even BE here, you planet-cluttering sprog!

• A post about how shocked I was to discover that while I am at the perfect BMI number, right between too skinny and too fat, I STILL don't fit into any clothes.  I know from my plus-sized friends that clothes don't fit big girls.  I know from being rail-thin that clothes aren't made for the skinny (no matter how much you may whine about "only models fit these clothes," I tell you, not the clothes on the rack, nosireebob). So now at the perfect size and shape, if I still don't fit into anything, I can only come to one conclusion - clothes were not made to be worn.  They are made only so that closets, chests of drawers, and wardrobes have a function.  It's a plot from Ikea to sell more flat-pack furniture.

Looks a lot more insidious now, doesn't it?

• A post about how the Spawn continues to teach me about life, the universe and everything.  Including: Mommy can pick Mommy's nose.  Baby can pick Mommy's nose.  Nobody on this planet is going to pick Baby's nose!  Back off bitch!  I bite you!  NOM NOM!  

Trying to get the snot out of my child's nose is like reaching into a sink garbage disposal in a horror film.

That's not soap bubbles!  It's Soap Slime from Space!!

It kills you DEAD!  And leaves a nasty waxy coating on your wine glasses!

AHHHHHHHHHH!

• A post about how culture shock makes friendships hard because you're all moving through the stages at different times so one day you are all Honeymoon stage and hating on the haters and then the next day you are telling the newbies to take off the damn rosy glasses and then suddenly you are over it and focusing on the important things in life, like who ate the damn After Eights because *I* sure as hell didn't get any and people are telling you that you've drunk the kool-aid and you're all, take that back or I'll cut you and then you feel like you can't even tell people that you're happy because they get all nasty and tell you that you must not be paying attention or are deluded or are naive and you start thinking deep thoughts like "misery loves company, while happiness is a solitary pursuit" and think about changing your name and leaving no forwarding address.

Or until you block me, whore

• A post about teething and why did Mother Nature arm infants before they learn how to understand "NO" and "OUCH"?  Mother Nature is a total bitch.

I did a Google image search for Mother Nature and the hippistaria overwhelmed me.

I feel like I'm having LSD flashbacks and I've never even DONE LSD, so how sucky is that?

In the end, I just couldn't be bothered to write those posts, or finish those posts.  Maybe in part because I know that some people might read one of those posts and get offended or hurt or pissed off, even though I'm not writing about a specific person or event although I am inspired by a collection of people, events and no small part by some rather violent mommy-forums that I am SO not going to read any more.  (Childless-by-choice friends - if you ever feel like the Mommies of the world are judging you, don't worry, they are saving their major judgements for the Other Mothers.  Google "cry it out.")  Maybe I'm too distracted because I've gotten a damn head cold, which I am sharing with the Spawn.  She gets the runny nose, I get the stuffy head.  Maybe it's because just one hour to be brilliant and focused is just too much pressure.

So instead I opted for this post which isn't much of a post but a series of post-lets.  Which took me all damn day to write anyway.

I was going to say "post-it" but that term has already been taken.

Apparently.