balance beam

a long time ago i went to the bank here, the one next to the super best, and deposited money.  i know i did.  i remember waiting in line, and then being told to fill out a deposit slip.  at least... i remember going to the bank, standing in line, and being told to fill out some kind of paper for some reason.  i assume it was for some sort of financial transaction.  greg remembers going to that branch 'lots of times' in the beginning and depositing money ("okay, maybe not lots of times, but i definitely did it.").  

why so many times in the beginning and nothing recently?  i guess because greg's paycheck is automatically deposited.  before that first paycheck we were probably taking money out of the atm from our u.s. accounts and putting it into our (offshore) danish bank account.  wow. that sounds so much like tax evasion.  in any event, it's been months since either of us have entered that bank.  

so today, when i went in to deposit money once again, i looked for the table on the left side wall that held the deposit slips.  nothing.  i looked to the front counter.  no one.  a woman sitting at a desk in the open area to the right walked up and asked how she could help me.  

"i need to make a deposit," i said.  

"but you can't do it.  there's no money here." 

she thinks i said withdraw.  

"no. i want to give you money," i tell her.  

"but you can't.  we don't keep money here."  

"but i swear..."  

"you have to do it at the downtown branch."  

huh. 

oh, it's just life doing a little balancing out.  it's because i wasted two hours of my life earlier today that now i'm riding as fast as i can to the downtown branch.  i've timed this bank trip to occur right before picking up the guys, and i'm anxious to get them because this week they're at the school next door.  the two schools have merged for three weeks, and this week everyone's at the other school.  i'm anxious to not leave them there for too long on the first day.  but now the bank branch closest to us seems to have whittled away at its responsibilities and instead of picking up the guys i'm headed to the pedestrian street to seek out the main branch.  it's a steady, barely detectable (to the eye) uphill ride to town.  but you feel it.  especially when the wind is fleeing the city center, which it always seems to be doing these days.  regardless, getting to town is always closer than i imagine.  i think it was those initial walks there and back, with children on our backs, before we had bike or burley, that have me remembering it as a long, arduous trip... no matter how many times i've made it since on my bike.  

i make the deposit.  necessary because we must pay our equivalent of four month's rent to our new landlord (typical here, though you can be made to pay up to 7 month's equivalent by the first day of your lease).  it's a much faster ride back, because of the steady downhill, the pushy wind, and the fact that i can cut off a significant corner by going to their (or the neighboring) school.  

i interpret henry's somewhat disinterested offer to me of the blade of grass in his hand to be his response to my leaving him at an unfamiliar place.  william is happy though.  he wants to make sure we bring his "swim trousers" tomorrow because there's going to be a water fight and in case there's enough water swirling around the playground, he's going to swim.  and he wants us to buy him a water pistol, though his teacher assures us these will be provided for him.  

my little water guy... 

man, couldn't those little guys be henry?  they're william!  

well, so why did life have to balance itself out today?

a clean loft and a sore throat i suppose, gave me the excuse to go upstairs and turn on the tv in the middle of the day.  something i have maybe never done since we've been here.  i can probably count on one hand (okay, two) the number of times we've had the tv on.  there was nothing noteworthy on the five or so channels at that time of day... maybe never.  i could have watched a documentary about napoleon, but instead i spent two hours out of my life watching a danish film from our landlord's dvd selection.  a drama... married doctor falls madly in love with the girlfriend of the man his wife hit with her car.  you say that plot out loud and you wonder how it ever made it off someone's laptop. 

it featured an actor who is on the cover of at least two other dvd's in the collection.  now, you might say that my landlord is just a big fan, but i think he might just be one of denmark's only actors.  i've seen his face on the cover of magazines and newspapers multiple times since we've lived here.  imbd.com tells me he's been voted denmark's sexiest man "over and over."  i showed greg his picture and he was able to name him!  he is mads mikkelsen.  you might know him as the bad guy in casino royale.  something i would not have remembered without reading it.  

here he is... remember?  le chiffre... 

so now you know about as much danish pop culture as i do, and the reason i needed the life reaffirming  bike ride to our bank's main branch today!