up, up, and away!

we seem to have done it.  

in denmark this morning... 

 waiting for the train...

waiting for the other train...

in canada in the afternoon...

and now (without any pictures to show for it), in boston.

tomorrow i can write more about our journey.  but for now, it's definitely bedtime!

10 stuffed animals and two feet of track

do you see the sparkly floors and general clean house behind greg and henry?  that's what greg and i spent the entire day doing. it got a little undone when the kids got home, but then we (verbally) locked them out of the house (banished to the trampoline) and got it clean again.  

after showers, the boys finished packing their bags.  henry brought home from school a suitcase with a stuffed animal in it and a journal to write down all his adventures in.  he promptly decided to fill the remaining space in the suitcase with all his stuffed animals from his room, along with a few random train track pieces.  so that's what he's taking to the u.s.: 10 stuffed animals and two feet of track.

william was more thoughtful, as a seven-year-old would be: toys, candy, two workbooks from school, his pencil case, and an empty wallet, because, as he said, he plans to make money while he's in the u.s.

and they both got new headphones for the trip and reading lights (you see greg putting in the batteries).  there's a "dollar" store here, called 'tiger'.  it's actually coming to new york city soon and they're billing it as a home goods store.  i don't know if i'd go that far, but it is cute and things are cheap and while i'm not so into accumulating lots of cheapy things for the sake of taking advantage of a good deal, it felt like a fine thing to do to pick up a couple pairs of $10 headphones for a long plane journey (and, fingers crossed, they'll last beyond the first leg and that the boys will take care of them).

it's nearly ten and we still have odds and ends on our packing and to-do list that have yet to be crossed off.  and i'm also hoping to fit in a little yoga as my hip is sore from too many days of not stretching (a very clear side-effect of my new-ish treatment change) and i don't want to sit for hours on end without at least trying to do something about it.  so i'll end here.  hopefully a little jet lag doesn't stop me from posting again soon.  see you across the atlantic!

your sun's coming out

spring to a T today... the beautiful blue sky, the warmth of the sun, the flowering trees, the thunderstorm in the evening.  it was all there. 

in the morning i dropped william off and he showed me the latest outfit for his classroom bear.  i told him he could learn to sew.  he told me he prefers to glue.  

then i took a different-than-usual path to pick up some groceries and got to see a field of rapeseed closer up...  

later, i walked to the train station using the normal path, and saw a different field of yellow.  the one from this weekend...

in a town near copenhagen...

 note the grass roof...

on my way home, i had to go to the hospital yet again because i foolishly forgot to ask for a refill on my medication when i was there yesterday.  fortunately, it's right across from the train station. after my stop there, i'd planned to walk back through the train station to the bus station to catch a bus home. that morphed into thinking i should just catch a bus to the closest stop near henry's school and pick him up and walk home with him (william being at an after-school play date).  but as i left the hospital the weather was so nice and i thought about walking in the slightly wrong direction to catch the bus and i thought about sitting on a too-warm bus and decided to walk the entire stretch instead (just a little under three miles to home via the school).

yesterday we loaned out one of our spare bikes to a woman who'd been here a few months without one.  she sent me a message today that it felt like she'd gotten her wings, since she'd been walking everywhere up until now.  turns out that glee goes both ways.  i feel like i find my legs every time i walk somewhere and realize they do not have to be attached to my bike to get me from one point to another.

i picked up henry and we went to the park for awhile, then walked home.  just a couple pictures from that walk...

here he is, looking as old and grown up as he's ever looked.

it was just the two of us for dinner tonight (plus a room full of neighbors) at the common house.  greg was (and still is) out with some co-workers before his hiatus here.  william ate two big helpings of spaghetti at his friend's house.  i bribed them with four jelly beans each to not give me too much grief tonight as the only grown-up running the show.  and they fell asleep just as the thunderstorm began.  

tomorrow we do everything we have not done yet to leave a house in perfect order by 9:30 in the morning on a friday with two little children for a three month trip.

small lanes, elation, forgiveness

first i took a picture of the newly designed milk carton because i think it's sleek and i think more milk cartons have the potential to look sleek...

then i took a picture of a pruned tree, danish style.  someday i'll know the reason why... 

and i walked through small lanes to get to 'hospital the second' in the town where it's always raining.  today being no exception to this certainty.  

i had my yearly mammogram plus ultrasound.  my second year of yearly.  i passed with flying colors as they say.  i suppose this ("this" being the recurrence of breast cancer in the breast) has always been the least of my worries.  maybe because i think if it happens, i'll know what i'm looking for.  something like metastasis to the bone or the brain or the liver or the lungs all seem a bit less palpable, more mysterious, more stage 4ish, and therefore, much scarier.  regardless, as confident as i felt going in, i was really quite elated upon leaving.  i'm nearing the two-year mark (since diagnosis) with no sign of cancer in my body.  two years of living since it felt like my world was ending.  well, the world as i'd known it (that is, my sense of being able to control it, my assumption that i'd been given an unchallenged spot in it for seven to, oh, say ten decades, etc.) did end in this town two years ago, but that i can walk through it elated surely says something (about renewal, about time, growing, learning, modern medicine, change, hope, adaptation, and getting used to cold, rainy days).  

and as i got to the train station, the rain really did start coming down with more determination... 

but i sat on the train, watching the yellow fields out the window...

 and enjoying my favorite pastry (kærnemælkshorn... buttermilk 'horn'), which i treat myself to every time i walk to that hospital.

generally i try to think about eating well on days i've had major x-rays, anything that might potentially help my damaged cells.  the kærnemælkshorn is an exception to this, but it's there to help keep my spirits up.  i think about the exercise i got today and hope that helped in some way... biking to the train station, walking to the hospital, walking back to the train station, walking to the next hospital (for my quarterly shot), running through the train station tunnel and up to the bus station to catch the bus back to the (other) train station where my bike was parked, biking home, biking to our old neighborhood to tutor, biking to henry's school and hooking up the burley and biking him home... plus all the cabbage and cauliflower i ate at lunch and dinnertime... surely my body can forgive me today's x-rays.

(we're working on a long-term forgiveness plan for all the other treatments and diagnostics.)

strange americans in denmark

i took a train down to a town south of us, to a hospital i've been to at least four times before today, got a good report, and took the train back home-- stopping in town on the way to pick up a couple gifts.  one for william's good friend whose birthday we will miss by one day.  a few more for his teachers and the pedagogue helper in his class.  then i heard that it is not normal here to give teachers gifts at the end of the school year (which for william, is coming up in just a few days).  i debated whether to take them back or not, but figure we'll just go ahead and give them, and they can chalk it up to us being the strange americans.  i'm sure we've gotten out of a few awkward situations that same way in the past (probably in america as well).

and i met a friend, who was also doing some errands in town, at a coffee shop.  she's on maternity leave right now.  and though she didn't grow up in denmark (she came here around the same time we did), she's adopted the practice of leaving the pram, with her sleeping baby, outside the cafe while she goes inside, as is the norm here.

i must admit, when she went up to the counter to order, and i realized i did not have my eye on the pram i had a culturally-instinctive-(strange american in denmark)-thought: "oh! i should probably be watching it!"  so i did.  and took a picture for good measure.  and watched some more, as people walked past it not giving it a second look.

and when my friend hears her daughter start to squirm on the baby monitor, she goes out and brings her inside...

where she, who is used to hearing chinese and danish from her parents, has to listen to that strange american cooing at her in some funny language.

sunday

we got a few things done today.  another half suitcase packed.  a floor scrubbed.  laundry, of course.  always laundry.  

and in lieu of the little pool coming out of the shed (because it was still pretty cool today and windy), they dipped their feet in a bucket of warm water while drinking tea (william, via a green onion straw).

but when being cooped up at home and on the porch was too much, we headed back to the stream...

dinner was a soup, trying to use up our vegetables, as we'll eat the rest of our meals here, until we leave, at the common house.

tomorrow i begin my tour of hospitals again, on the lead up to our departure.

to the grocery store and back

the pictures can tell the story today...

to the store... 

and back...

showing us frog eggs he found...

and a frog...

note the water in the left boot...

back in the water...

in his element...