Danish is going to kill me

So I’ve taken the first half of my Danish exam; the half that covers reading and writing.  I won’t know my grade for a few weeks, but I’m fairly sure I passed.  Probably not with top marks, however. There were problems.  Like, I forgot to put the location and date at the top right hand corner of my “email.”  (In quotes because it was an imaginary email sent to an imaginary foreign friend.)

This will cost me points and while I don’t particularly care about getting a high grade, all I want is to pass, it does cheese me off that a stupid error like this will be marked down.  Because putting the location and date at the top right hand corner of an email is THE STUPIDEST FREAKING RULE ON THE GODDAMNED PLANET!

First of all, NO ONE DOES THIS. 

NOT EVEN DANES.

I went back through buttloads of emails I’ve gotten from Danes, official ones, informal ones, company emails, doctor emails, immigration emails, and not one, NOT ONE, has the following:

København den 25. maj 2012

Kære [name],

Blåh blåh blåh

You get the picture. 

The reason for this is because it’s THE STUPIDEST FREAKING RULE ON THE GODDAMNED PLANET!  Emails are time and date stamped!  You don’t need to write the date in the text because I already know that!  It appeared in my email box with a little tag telling me what day it came!

Secondly, I don’t freaking care where you were when you sent that email!  When the lovely people in my computer store wrote to tell me that my Mac had been shipped from China (we’re talking about an event many years ago), I didn’t care if they were sitting in Copenhagen, San Francisco, or Shanghai.  They gave me the tracking number and an arrival date and really, that’s all I wanted. 

Thirdly, do you have any idea of the time and effort it takes to get one line in an email to align to the right hand side of the page? Yeah, you say, you just have to include “rich text” and hit some buttons and VOILA!  But it’s an email!  You’ve got it set up to include an automatic signature because you are too damn lazy to type your name (and contact information if you are an official person or like to pretend to be one).  My father-in-law wanted help getting his email signature set up so he didn’t have to type “Kind regards, XXXX” every time he sent friends and family an email.  And yet I’m supposed to write information that no one gives a shit about or already is included elsewhere in the email WITH SPECIAL FORMATTING or you will take points away???

That’s BULLSHIT.

Whatever.  I’m going to lose more points because of all the terrible errors I’m sure I made when writing my essay. “Write simply,” advised my teacher.  “Don’t try to write at a high level, keep it to what you know you can say.”  This is all very well and good until I’m facing the clock and an essay question.  Years of academic training mean that when I’m in test mode, I can only operate as I have been trained.  There will be an opening paragraph that ends with a thesis statement.  There will be paragraphs that back up this statement, using personal experience, scientific experience, and historical experience, if I have time.  I will include and discuss whatever various points you tell me to include and discuss.  I will write a concluding paragraph in which I restate the thesis in a different way that points to the evidence I have outlined above.  I will do all of this in the time provided and leave myself 15 minutes to check for errors.

In English, I can whip out a well-reasoned essay of varying length and complexity in a very short time.  I can type almost without pause.  Doing it in Danish is a bit harder.  Part of my brain composes in English and another part translates into Danish.  Great, right?  Uh, no, not really, because Danish grammar is close but not quite the same as English grammar, and sometimes it is violently different.  The position of adverbs, for example, change based on whether or not you are in a subordinate clause or a main clause, whether you have begun the sentence (or clause) with the adverb or a question word or a conjunction or a verb, and whether or not you intend on emphasizing the subject or the verb. 

To write simply, I would need to stop writing sentences JUST LIKE THIS ONE, and instead make sure my clauses were arranged in descending order.

Alas, this turns out to be impossible to do in the allotted time. 

As for the reading portion, I thought that I’d done fairly well.  After all, reading is my strongest skill and I can breeze through a newspaper and get the gist of the stories (except for opinion pieces and editorials, which often use more complex grammar and vocabulary, in any language - check out your newspaper at home and you’ll see the difference immediately).  BUT THEN, the next day, my phone rang a little after 10.  Italics=Danish.

AG: Hej.

S: Hej.  Did you forget that we had a mother’s group today?

AG: No.  You cancelled it.  You sent me a text.  You have work today.

S: No, I have to work later today.  I wrote that I’d have to end it early. “Afslutter” not “annuller.”

AG: Balls.

So yeah, I can read a text on noise pollution and find within that text three examples of things you can do to reduce the impact on your ears, but I can’t understand a simple text message that relates to my daily life.

face/palm

A Day Out With the Family

I really wish this post had photos, but we didn’t bring a camera.  Why should we, we only all decided to go to the recycling center because we were really hoping the Spawn would take a hint and TAKE A FREAKING NAP ALREADY, WHAT ARE YOU TEETHING OR SOMETHING???

And on the way home, having gone to the supermarket (maybe if we just drive a bit farther…), the DB mentioned that the hardware store was having an open house and would we like to stop by?  There’d be beer.

Would I?!  I’d only be more excited if he’d told me that there was a certain Swedish mega-store opening up down the road and they were giving away free kitchen gadgets to American archaeologists!  AND THERE WOULD BE BEER???  WHY DID THIS NOT GET MENTIONED UNTIL NOW?

See, the not-so-secret is, I love hardware stores.  Home Rhymes-with-Meepo?  I’d live there.  If you could graft Home Can-those-tiles-I-keepo onto an I-Swedish-home-store, I’d never leave.  Home Deliver-me-from-Repo lets me fantasize that I can Do It Yourself and then an I-can’t-pronounce-this-style-but-I-wants-it-store makes it a reality, one little hexagonal-headed L-shaped screwdriver thingy at a time.

I think it might be the smell of steel nails.  Or the 101 types of sealant.  Or hearing the following exchange:

Big Redneck Dude to Sales Clerk: I need caulk.

SC: What sort of caulk, sir?

BRD: Hard wood.

SC: Hard wood caulk?

BRD: I need something to fill my holes.

SC: Here, I think you’ll find this caulk will fit your needs.  But you’ll need a more pliable caulk if you have a bigger hole.

Okay, I haven’t actually *heard* that exchange, but I’m sure if I could just hang around "Tiles and Flooring" long enough I would.  I live in anticipation.

I’m also a big fan of small town hardware stores.  The one in my hometown was fantastic.  It’s gone now, but it used to be housed in the old assayers office.  Yes, assayer.  It’s a Gold Rush town; we had mines, miners, and assayers.  In fact, now that one of the mines re-opened, it’s an assayers office once again.  It’s like the circle of life.  Ore not.

Get it, ORE not?  Maybe I should have been more dead-PAN, eh?

Anyway, being the former… uh, and is again, assayers office, it was built with solid stone walls and the windows had solid iron shutters.  The floor was a patchwork of thick wooden planks that had been worn down by the feet of numerous fortune seekers. As a hardware store, it held large bins of loose nails and screws.  There was gold-panning equipment and paint.  I’d go in there during the summer with my dad, who would need a hammer or other odd tool.  No matter how hot it was outside, it was always much cooler inside.  You’d step through the doors and leave the heat behind; I’d always get goose bumps from the sudden drop in temperature.  And there was the overwhelming odor of nails and oil, with a slight hint of pine from the two-by-fours stacked out back.  You would buy nails by the weight, so there was a large scale that I’d use to weigh various odds and ends while my father chatted with the shop clerk.  To this day, the smell of nails makes me think of summer.

The local hardware store here isn’t quite the same.  It’s more modern with clean white walls and cement floor, but it does have the same smells and it has something the old hardware store didn’t: power tools.

Jigsaws, be still my heart! 

This being Denmark, where if you can’t do it slightly buzzed on beer, why bother to do it at all, the free beer was flowing and men in blue boiler suits and garden clogs stood around and chatted.  There was a treasure hunt, which invited the participants to go ahead and wander through all the back rooms and workspaces.  People took tractors for test-drives (I didn’t, alas) and the Spawn sat on one of the riding lawnmowers and said “Vvvvvvv!” while violently turning the wheel.  The DB got a slightly crazed look on his face and I had to remind him that she can’t mow the lawn until her feet can touch the pedals. 

All in all, it was a fantastic afternoon.  And on the way home, the Spawn fell into a nice deep sleep.  Happy days, my friends, happy days.

The Guilt, I Has It. Also, I Has Two Days of Rest a Week.

I always over-think things.  I know I do.  Every single one of the good decisions I’ve made in my life was made spontaneously, from the heart.  Usually followed by a good amount of supportive data collected after the fact, but always first proposed in an “OMG I’VE GOT IT!  I’M GOING TO [insert crazy thing here]!”  And if I try hard to make a good conscious decision, thinking and weighing the consequences, I’m likely going to make the wrong decision.  My past regrets are always ending with “well, it made sense at the time.” 

Sure, there are decisions that were made that made sense at the time that did not turn out to be bad.  This epitomizes that logical saying, “all trees are green things but not all green things are trees.” 

But because I over-think things, I then go back over the decisions that I made that I deemed “made sense at the time” to make sure that they still make sense and that they weren’t one of those bad decisions, because I know that I didn’t make it spontaneously so it could mean, in fact, that it was a bad decision but sometimes they aren’t bad, so which one is this, a bad decision or a good decision and oh, my god, someone hand me a drink ‘cause my head hurts.

If that last sentence made sense to you, you should have a drink too.

So what am I over-thinking these days?  Well, I put my child in childcare at 9 months of age. I could take a year off of school, but I wanted to go back before I forgot everything and when I went on maternity leave I was only a few months from finishing.  So I went back when Spawn was 6 months old and the Danish Boy took his three months of paternity leave to watch her.  But after three months, I wasn’t done with Danish, so once again I had to cross off another “when I have a child, I’ll never X” on my list. 

She’s in a private daycare, with one woman and a total of 5 children (including mine, the only baby), not one of those massive institutions that they have in DK, which may have a better ration of adults to children, but where the adults are often spending time with the other adults or focusing on one child exclusively because they assume the other adults are watching the other kids.  I get some flack for this, not just from Danes, but from other foreigners who say “oh, that’s a lot of children for one adult” but I feel far more comfortable watching our daycare minder keep tabs on her charges than when I see the ten children running wild at the large daycare while three adults sit on a bench chatting away with each other.

We originally chose our daycare minder because of location, but then when we met her, it just felt right.  And it always feels right when I drop the Spawn off (she tends to tear away from me and dive head-first into one of the toy boxes) and when I pick her up (she’s always glad to see me, but she’s never in a hurry to leave).  To this day, I’ve never once had to unwrap a crying child from my neck when we get to daycare.  The DB once remarked on this to a colleague, who suggested that it was because OBVIOUSLY we are such awful parents that our child must be glad to get away.  I told the DB that it would totally have been justifiable homicide, but he prefers to think that that not cutting the bitch is evidence of his highly evolved nature.  As an American, I am by default not as evolved… so she best sharpen her “It was just a joke, don’t you get Danish humor?” defense because I am sharpening my knives.

But why the guilt?

On Wednesday and on Friday, I don’t have class.  And on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I am out of class at 1:30.  And I don’t go get the Spawn from daycare.  I leave her there, until 4:30, every day.

At first it was because she naps in the afternoon, so getting her at 1:30 was interrupting her nap.  We did that the first week she was there and it SUCKED.  Then there was the problem that her schedule was all out of whack.  She only went three times a week, so establishing a routine was impossible.  See, it totally makes sense.  *Sound alarm bells!*

The truth is, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I really need non-baby time.  Yeah, time to do homework and housework, but also time to catch up on sleep and read and cuddle the cat.  *Open the big bag o’ guilt.*

It was only after I pulled a chest muscle and couldn’t lift the Spawn, which forced us to put her in daycare every day, all day, that I realized how much better it was for everyone.  Sure, I miss her bunches and I’m glad when she comes home.  But that’s just it - I actively look forward to seeing her!   After a long weekend, where I am the Spawn’s main companion (Dad and the cat are fun, but nobody beats the Mommy-lady), I’m exhausted.  Before I had the Spawn, I worried that I would be the kind of mom who just couldn’t wait to go back to work.  I discussed it with the Danish Boy, what would happen if I just really didn’t like being a mom?  What if I felt trapped or felt resentful?  So really, I like being a mom a hellufalot more than I thought.  But then the pendulum swings the other way.  Why can I not be the perfect mom who wants to stay home and nurture the child?  Some moms are forced to go back to work (cultural or economic reasons) and they would LOVE to be able to stay home or have more time with their child. 

So yeah, I’ve got some nice excuses: routine is good, she’s socializing, she’s getting her Danish lesson of the day, blah blah blah.  The truth is I cannot parent full-time.  In order to have that boundless patience, to be able to interact completely, to be able to read the Barnyard Animal book one more freaking time, I need to be able to sit in my pajamas until 3 in the afternoon twice a week.

One Year In

Okay, actually it’s 13 months because I had weeks of catching up to do.

But there you have it.  One year (plus) of livin’ in the Mommy 'hood.  A year of burp-rags and poop-filled diapers.   A year of surprises.  And yes, sometimes poop is the surprise.

You know how there’s this whole joke about babies not coming with a manual?  LAME!  There are a gazillion books about pregnancy and birth and then everyone stands around and goes “boy, I really wish that they had a manual for babies!”  What the hell man!?  I spent half the year googling “is [insert behavior/strange physical manifestation] normal?” A book would have been really handy.

And there ARE books out there on childcare and development and all that other stuff that you might want to know about.  But no one ever gives those books to you.  No.  They gift you with a dozen books on pregnancy and then it’s up to you, in your sleep-deprived, manic-new-parent way to wonder how long does projectile spit-up last and when, exactly, should one begin to worry.

I went with the old stand-by: until there’s blood, there’s no problem.

I still really could have used a book, though.

Here are some things that I’ve learned over the year.  Some of which came as a surprise. 

1) Whatever annoying behavior your child has, he or she will soon grow out of it.  And develop an even MORE annoying behavior.

2) Poop is just gross.  It never gets any easier, in fact it gets worse, but you do get better at holding your breath. 

3) Why the hell did people keep going on and on about doing Kegels?  Push-ups, people, PUSH-UPS!  You can wear panty-liners or Depends, but if you have weak arm muscles, you are in for a world of pain when you have to hold that baby for a few hours.  And you WILL have to hold the baby for hours at a time. 

4) The reason that you lose so much weight while breast-feeding is not because your fat is magically transformed into milk.  No, it’s because you end up trapped on the couch, nursing, while your dinner goes cold and then is eaten by the cat.  You miss a lot of meals while breastfeeding. 

5) When you are pregnant, you always have to pee.  You get very good at holding it and being uncomfortable until you can get to a toilet.  This is good practice because you will always have to pee while breastfeeding and you’ll just have to hold it until the baby a) falls asleep and you can hand her off to someone b) decides he’s done eating and is ready to play.  Either of these scenarios can also end with you holding a sleeping baby or a baby who is determined to beat you senseless with a stuffed bear WHILE YOU PEE.

6) When I was little, I imagined what it would be like if I had no hands.  (Didn’t everybody?  No?)  I taught myself to write (badly) with my feet.  Just in case.  Turns out this was great training for parenting.  Almost everything can be done one handed.  This does NOT include putting on a watch.  Try as I might, I cannot put on my watch while holding my child.

7) At some point, you realize that you are missing too many meals and start making your child more food than they need, just so you can eat the leftovers.

7b) Baby food tastes better than I thought.

8) There is nothing better in the whole wide world than when your child wraps their chubby little arms around your neck and gives you a hug. 

9) The three-second rule* becomes the three-day rule and I’ve decided that cat food can’t possibly be that bad, it hasn’t killed the cat, so it shouldn’t kill the child either.

*Wherein you can eat food that you’ve dropped as long as it has been on the ground for less than three-seconds.  Not applicable in every situation. 

10) Every “when I’m a parent I’ll never…” promise has been broken.  If fact, I’ll guarantee that if you say, “When I’m a parent I’ll never…” you WILL.  It’s like the Murphy’s Law of parenting.  Better not to verbalize what you won’t do.   People who have kids WILL CONTINUE give this advice to people without children and those people WILL CONTINUE to say, “When I’m a parent I’ll never…” It’s a vicious cycle.  It will never end. 

11) Being a parent has not made me less selfish or a better person.  I’m just too tired to give a crap about looking pretty.   

12) Having a child is like wearing a huge sign saying, “Please make snap judgments about me based on the performance of a small, willful, cranky human being with impulse-control issues.”

13) I have discovered a vast reservoir of patience that I never knew I had.  Unfortunately, the husband and the cat cannot tap it.  Neither can the stupid old people who pull out right in front of me when I need to get somewhere and DON’T THEY KNOW THAT MY CHILD IS SCREAMING IN THE BACK SEAT??  DIE, YOU GREY HAIRED BIDDIES, DIE!

14) I do amazing impressions of dogs, cats, sheep, cows, roosters and pigs.  Geese, on the other hand.  Geese are impossible.

15) Everything is more important than shaving your legs.  However, you should trim your toenails because it’s faster and easier to do than darning socks.

16) So far the weirdest thing I’ve had to do as a parent is hold my girl’s hands and whisper encouraging words while she has a particularly difficult poop.  Constipation is a BITCH and I would stab it in the eye if I could.

16b) Prunes work wonders.  And now you’ve been warned.

17) Buttons on baby clothes are the work of the devil.  After a child reaches 6 months of age, no buttons should be in use until they learn how to sit still again… approximately age 18.  Also, after six months, Velcro is a dumb idea.  “Hey let’s put something that makes an interesting noise and is easy to use on this article of clothing!  We’ll put it here where it’s easy for the child to reach!  And we’ll put soft, fluffy, decorations all around it for the Velcro to also stick to!”  Who the hell designs this stuff anyway?

18) There comes a day when you realize that your child is smarter than your cat or dog.  Suddenly, you can no longer assume “out of sight, out of mind” and you have to remember that they have opposable thumbs.  The only safe place for your valuables is in a locked trunk at the bottom of the sea.  Until they learn to swim.  Which they will, clever little monkeys.

19) Develop the “ah, how interesting” face - slight smile, slight lift of the eyebrows, slight nod of the head.  Non-committal and non-confrontational.  You need it for Judgy McJudgersens and it will probably come in handy when your child reaches puberty.

20) I look forward to doing things and seeing things even more because the Spawn will be part of it.  It’s like the whole world has been made new again!  It's amazing and awesome.

Putting the War in Wardrobe

Why does the New Year have to begin on January 1^st?  I think we should move it to April 1^st, get rid of April Fool’s Day (a stupid non-holiday only enjoyed by lame child-like men who find other people’s discomfort or distress amusing) and let the new year begin with the arrival of spring!

I bet more resolutions would be kept.  February was created just to ruin people’s best intentions of bettering themselves.  Valentines Day wreaks diets.  The dreary monotony of the weather ruins everything else.

Anyway, while I’ve been fighting to overcome the flu and a secondary infection (fancy words for shit-full-of-snot), I finally went though my wardrobes.  Yes, wardrobes plural.

The Danish Boy complained that I’ve gone through more clothes than he could possibly comprehend in the years that I’ve known him.

I told him that he was an idiot.

There was the skinny-chick wardrobe (wardrobe 1), that I had when we met, because I was unhealthily skinny when we first started dating, for a wide variety of reasons.  (None of them being the obvious ones.  I didn’t have an eating disorder or a body image issue, I was just a poor student who was in a bad relationship and I’m a comfort reader, not a comfort eater.)  Almost immediately I put on weight, bumping me up to normal weight and requiring a new wardrobe.  So that was wardrobe 2.  That wardrobe lasted until I got pregnant, 7 YEARS LATER.  Maternity clothing was wardrobe 3.  A woman’s body is permanently changed after giving birth, she simply does not go back to the way she was shaped, so I needed more clothing and that would be wardrobe number 4.

I pointed out that there are women who buy a new wardrobe EVERY YEAR.  I don’t think he believes me.  We even watched “Sex and the City: The Movie” (it was on TV, don’t get all excited) and he was all “don’t be silly, it’s a movie, women like that don’t exist in real life.”

Is there anything more frustrating than a man who doesn’t know how lucky he is?  I should switch from an Oreo cookie dependency to Manolo Blahniks.  (Although, let’s be honest, if it was a choice of overpriced footwear or more Oreo cookies… I’d say, pour me another glass of milk, good sir!)

ANYWAY.

I pulled all my pre-pregnancy clothes out of storage and went through them.  Out with the too small, the horrifically ugly (alas, I sometimes make huge fashion errors of judgment), and the seldom worn.  Some people might ask, “why get rid of something that you haven’t worn frequently?  Why not wear it more often?” and I would answer, “Because if I’m not wearing it regularly, it’s probably because I don’t like it and life is too short and my closet too small to keep clothing that I don’t wear.”  This doesn’t mean I got rid of *all* rarely worn outfits.  Obviously my wedding dress remains.  Fancy clothing gets a pass because it is a rare event when I get a chance to gussy up, but I’m not going to buy a new party dress ever time I have a party to go to.  Out went clothing that might-fit-if-I-just-lost-a-few-pounds, because who needs that shit?

Of course, in order to find out what fit, it meant a lot of trying on clothing.

The only thing more awful than trying on clothing is trying on clothing that you KNOW is going to be too small.  And obviously my mirror hates me.  How is it right that 90% of my shirts were too short, so that the post-baby-muffin-top hangs out in THE MOST UNFLATTERING WAY?  Or they were too tight across the shoulders.  Heck, some of them were both.  I looked like a quarterback squeezed into a cheerleaders uniform.  And how come the Hulk can hulk out and still fit in his pants and I go and have one little baby and suddenly it’s like no amount of fabric can cover my ass?

Ugh.

The worst part is that I know what I used to look like in those clothes.  Cute.  Svelte.  Dare I say, sexy?  Okay a few of the tank tops bordered on “trashy” and I wouldn’t wear them now… but at least let me be able to get them over my head!!

I was able to salvage a number of shirts, a sweater, and a pair of pants.  I shockingly still fit in most of my shorts.  I now fit perfectly into my oversized dig clothing (*sob*).  But what is noticeable is how much of my clothing was purchased for a woman who had a flat tummy.  No muffin top.  “Clingy” and “fitted” were apparently my guidelines.  Solid colors, no decoration to draw the eye upward or distract from unwanted bulges (can you tell I’ve been studying “What Not To Wear”?), no delineation of a waistline (because I used to have a pretty obvious one, now, not so much).

It’s become apparent.  I need a new wardrobe.  One that says “yummy mummy.”  Will someone be so kind as to distract the Danish Boy while I go shopping?

My apologies!

Sorry, y'all for not posting these last few weeks.  I'm laid low with a sinus infection and even after a few days of penicillin, I'm still a snotty, coughing, feverish mess.

*cough*  Arghhhhh....

I Hate Vacations

Actually, that's not true.  Or rather, while it is to some extent true, it is only true for a given value of true or dependent on the variable Who.  Who is vacationing?

I hate when everyone is on vacation EXCEPT me.

There.  That's a whole lotta true right there.

First it was most of Denmark that was on vacation.  Winter holiday.  Schools are out, so parents who have children and who can (in that their bosses allow them to because their bosses are not also parents with a summer home in Turkey) go away.

For reasons that mystify, we toiling away in Danish class did NOT get holiday.

But my daycare minder did.

She deserved it, really.  Five kids and just her, and since she's a private daycare minder, she normally keeps working through other people's holidays.  So I'm really not going to begrudge her a week off.  And I would happily have stayed home with the Spawn for a week.  But no, I had to juggle school and baby.  I hate that.

Then came the Danish Boy's vacation time.

Once again I set myself up for failure, because once again I envisioned one reality in which he was on holiday and he envisioned a different one.  I see holidays as relaxing times where you get to be with the people you love.  He sees it as time to finally get things done that needed to get done but haven't been getting done because there was no time to get them done.

So last week as we were going over our schedule to make sure we knew where we were going and what we were doing (okay, so *I* could figure out where we were going and what we were doing because I never remember plans that were made six months ago or plans that have changed for the umpteenth time, look, just tell me where to be and I'll bring the baby, m'kay?), I remarked "boy, I'll be glad when all this vacation time is over and I can get back to relaxing" and the DB took it amiss.  Amiss?  No, he was downright pissy about it.  I tried to explain that really, what I meant was that we've been running all over the place and I was barely getting my homework done (and on a few notable occasions, didn't get it done at all) and I hadn't actually gotten to do any of the things I had wanted to get done.  This got me a "I thought you said you were sick of living in a pig sty!"

Yes, I *am* sick of unpacked boxes, piles of unfolded laundry, dishes everywhere, and overflowing recycling bins.  But, as I tried unsuccessfully to explain, my list of things I thought we could be doing did not include "hanging drapery" in the top ten.  I didn't think "oh, joy, the DB will be home - now he'll chop LOTS of wood for me!!"  And while I admit that "finally, someone to help me wash dishes" was in the top three spots, my main project was "spending time together as a family."

Ha.

Ha ha ha.

Hahahahahahahahhhhhhhh.

We did get to go on a walk, which did end in a picnic.  There, you happy, woman?  There was quality family time.  Now get the screwdriver.

And some curtains were hung and some wood was chopped and more wood was schlepped and family was visited (or came visiting) and some dishes were washed and some laundry was folded and the recycling was recycled and I baked a ridiculous amount of chocolate cake for the Spawn's birthday (for which no party was held, but people were still miffed that they weren't invited and other people invited themselves and the Spawn slept through her own non-party, because obviously I suck as a parent [actually, I think my parenting skills are top-notch, it's my hosting skills that are lacking]) and despite repeated vacuumings, the floor is still just as filthy as ever, not that you can tell because it's strewn STREWN with baby toys.

And now, weeks later, I am finally sitting on my own in the house.  Peace and quiet.  Just myself and Alot (who has been bringing semi-live mice into the house for his own fun and amusement.  When I tried to take one away he bit it in two [I luckily caught the back half on the dustpan, so no mouse-bowels landed on the floor] and after I had caught another under a pot, I had to fight off the cat while trying to scoop up the mouse [seriously, who's idea was it to give cats so many claws and teeth?] and the latest one got clean away and we have no idea where it is currently).

But what I'm really looking forward to is Friday, when I will get the WHOLE DAY OFF!!  Finally, a vacation for ME!!!

ZOMG, I think I'm going to pick up toys!!

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!