sink holes and spiderman

not a busy or exciting day.  a rainy day.  day three of not running.  i know, i know.  how am i going to form the habit if i simply stop doing it?  you just have to know that a) me and optional, extra-curricular exercise routines are sort of... not very good friends... and b) me and routines that never change are sort of... not seen together very often.  it's okay.  my type A and my type B are working it out.  A will probably win out, at least for the time being, and so we should have movement shortly.

otherwise, we cleaned up, looked at houses (online), pinched some kroners at the grocery store, played with the guys, made kidney bean burgers and fries, and later, william and greg made the dough for more cinnamon rolls.  that last one's making me very happy!

tomorrow we walk a block over to view a house whose rental ad garnered so much interest that they are doing an open house.  when greg first found it, i went past and thought-- no way.  it's a flat-roofed house and looks run down from the front, but then we found pictures online from when they'd tried unsuccessfully to sell it, and it looks really nice inside and in the backyard.  so now i'm trying to figure out how we might beat everyone else to the punch.  it's at the very top of our budget, but still puzzlingly cheap given the street it's on and the price they'd listed it for.  it's probably haunted by ghosts or sitting over a sink hole or something.  still, i would ask you all to cross your fingers for this one, just in case!

okay, i have a goal for myself tonight-- to get to sleep before tomorrow happens in two hours. so, for now... goodnight!

bits and pieces

our pillows are square.

we've lived with two dishcloths and three dish towels... until last week... when we inexplicably lost one of the dishcloths.

$2 dishcloths from the grocery store down the street lack absorbency.

roses grow well here.

if you're in denmark, chances are good that even if you share a bed, you won't share a blanket.

and you won't sleep with a top sheet.

you'll just wash your duvet cover more often.

this is where gloves come to die... but not in pairs.

our neighbor brought us a homemade elderflower cordial yesterday.  like a sweet perfumed lemonade.

another neighbor brought us a homemade dandelion syrup that tastes just like honey. the same neighbor who shared her cinnamon roll recipe with us.

the light turns green, then yellow, then red, then yellow, then green.

before you go on vacation, you might consider bringing a cake to work.

everyone rides a bike.

everyone drives a car.

everyone runs.

everyone smokes.

company christmas parties are scandalous.

the bakery has a separate check-out, and it's open on sundays.

so is church, but no one goes.  except for those who do.

and they might claim it has a separate check-out too.

dogs are off-leash.

cats are outdoors.

crows are more than one color.

squirrels have bunny ears.

they use military time, except in conversation when common sense allows one to stop at 12 and start over.

they keep track of what week we're on.

twenty-seven.

and start the next one on a monday.

vegetables are a new-ish phenomenon.

meat is not.

either is cheese.

either is denmark.

the emergency room was moved from roskilde (population: 47,828) to køge (population: 35, 295).

køge burned at least 15 witches in the 16th century.

though there's some question about whether they really were witches.

when you get to work in the morning, you might go around and say good morning to all of your colleagues.

the grocery store carts have rear-wheel drive.

and if you think a door should open out, it opens in.

and if you think it should open in, it opens out.

a comma is a period and a period is a comma when you're working with numbers.

baby toothpaste has fluoride.


william counts to 11 in danish. 

the water is very good to drink.

but don't drink it warm out of your sink.

ring your bell if you're going to pass somebody on your bike who might not be paying attention.

and watch for the light to turn yellow.

and then go.

thursday

you will be as disappointed as i am to know that the thatched roof house in the beautiful countryside didn't win me over so completely that i could shrug off the idea of a 20 mile per day school commute as a minor inconvenience, or, slightly more sane, way less hard-core, and completely financially unfeasible, that our love for this house didn't have us running to the car dealership to make this scenario work.  or that i put the guys on the waiting list for a new school.  

but it was a nice lead-up (even if the sky couldn't make up its mind today)... 

and the ducks were something to behold...

oh well... i'm still hopeful.  there will be another house.  i'm not being naive when i say that.  but... i'm coming close to losing the luxury of pickiness.  so it could be a 400 square foot, one bedroom, fifth floor walk-up, two towns over.  which might be okay if there weren't four of us.  but maybe i'm being naive about our capacity to live in close quarters.

okay, time for sleep.  happy 5th of july.

fourth

at my father's prompting, i thought about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and how a government might go about securing those things.

and unintentionally dressed my children in reds, whites, and blues.

and even went to the beach.

that's as far as 4th of july celebrations go around here, with the exception of one, apparently extremely conservative group of danes who put on a large, multi-day, very pricey celebration each year, somewhere not near here.

the plan today was to go visit the house out in the countryside, north of greg's job.  i picked up, ran the dishwasher, prepped dinner, and then sat down for an early lunch before leaving when i saw an email from greg:

"w's sick. call me."

once again, i excelled in domesticity but failed utterly in answering the phone.  something about these smurf phones... or danish smurf phones.  i don't know.  i haven't looked at mine yet, except in frustration as it keeps telling me i have a missed call from last friday as if it's still news!  

i told greg to take lots of pictures and i picked william up.  but on my way (my first call while biking... not to become a habit), i called greg and left him a message i can see he still hasn't looked at (because getting to one's voicemail is all in danish and it takes some concentrated effort to guess which numbers to press from the menu) suggesting that we might put off the visit until friday.  because i didn't want to miss it.   i wanted to fall in love with the house, because i wanted a house to fall in love with, but i was nervous because the distance thing seems like such a good reason to say no.  but i needed to see it all for myself.  but greg went.  took pictures.  and he scheduled another visit for tomorrow morning.  william, who is showing very few signs of illness, should be attending school tomorrow... so this shouldn't be a problem.  but the danish germs and the american molars have ruled in this family the past few weeks so i can't be certain what tomorrow will bring.

anyhow, we could end up living in a house far, far away, with this roof...

the owner promises there's only one thing to do with it this year and then it's good for another five years.  and the outside of the house... from the 1750's.  before the declaration of independence!  maybe i said that already.  also, there are ducks, living in the chicken coop, to eat the snails.  and tall, tall apple trees, a pear tree.  raspberry bushes. currant bushes.  8.5 kilometers from their school.  i don't know... maybe that's not so bad.  i'll see tomorrow.

here are scenes from the beach...

the beach-park...

a healthy looking boy

noticeable size difference.  otherwise quite similar.

pushing the sock-sandal combination for his age group.

making a difference... one rock at a time.

oh, big news-- i pulled both guys up vestre kirkevej tonight after the beach.  in the lowest gear my bike has ever been in.  it was a slow journey.  a cardiovascular workout.  when we were two-thirds of the way up, william suggested we stop and look at the sheep.

"i think we're going slow enough that you can get a good, long look at them from here."

we got home and skyped with family tonight and learned that people are eating a homemade apple pie and brats and brownies and guacamole, and the sheer volume of food alone makes us sorry to miss this holiday.

and then, as the boys were mostly in bed, i went out to run.  day 5.  back to my original route.  i only deviated once, on day 3, and decided i didn't like it.  i'm not ambitious enough to go any further at this point.  maybe i'll never be.  i also realized that it's been gorgeous weather to run in every day that i've done it.  and that i can run at 9 o'clock at night because the sun's still out.  i have some reservations about my pursuit of this sport when the nights get longer and the weather gets worse (which, of course, can happen any day around here).

well, it's late.  our 4th is almost over.  time for bed.

not necessarily in that order

a long night.  they won't always be like this, but when you have several long nights in a row with a little one you start to wonder.  his fever was gone today and when greg opened up the burley to take william to school, henry climbed in, so he went too.

blurry, but cheery this morning...

and i finally made headway on what i need to do for the immigration attorney.

tomorrow we will go see that faraway farmhouse.  probably fall in love with it.  and not know what to do.

tonight i showed william a cool episode of mr. wizard with starch and iodine.  and we made gumbo.

this morning he ate breakfast on the patio...

 and before bed we went to the shovel park...

at 11:00 we're still in negotiations with henry about sleep. i'm not predicting a satisfactory outcome before sunup.  

molar skating redux

henry was a little sick bug today.  he's been doing that lately.  today i think it was teething.  he had a fever, carried over from the middle of the night and was generally worn out and sleepy.  i can't remember if worn out and sleepy is part of the teething fever thing, but he was also drooling a bit which he hasn't done for a year, and spitting out his food at a higher rate than normal-- so that's a lot of rejected food.

so for most of the day i either sat or stood or walked with a little boy in my arms or in the ergo.  i read, got some fresh (brisk, windy) air, listened to the radio, watched crappy american t.v. shows in three parts on youtube, ate, and that was about all.  well, writing it all down it sounds like i had a pretty productive day for having a sick child sleeping on me.

william rode his bike to school and back for the first time here.  i ran again tonight-- and walked... and ran... and walked.

and now we're looking for houses.  the junker down the street is suddenly not for sale anymore.  all the cheap places are in other towns.  we'd be taking the train or changing schools.  the farmhouse is still available though-- the one north of greg's office.  with the thatched roof and chicken coop.  tonight we see that they've lowered their price, making it closer to affordable for us.  we will email them and set up a time to look at it.  it couldn't hurt.  but the distance to their school is a big drawback and i have great reservations about changing schools on them as they're finally, mostly settled in.  big enough change moving to denmark.  school is a good place for stability, especially as we move again, and alexander just told his mom today that he wants a haircut like william's.  imagine if all the boys get that haircut and then suddenly the trendsetter moves on?

well, henry is awake now and seems unlikely to be consoled anytime soon, so i will end this post and hope we get a molar out of all this discomfort.

sunday

july 1st.  the calendar flips so much faster than it did those first two months when it seemed so monumental to me that we were no longer in the month of our arrival, and then that we'd completed one full calendar month here.  you can't really keep having those bewildering moments the first of each  month, but i still do make a note of it... april... may... june... now july.  and i'm still finding myself easily entertained by notions such as "i'm in denmark!"  "could i have even imagined this time last year that i'd be running... in denmark?!" ("could i have even imagined that last week?" "no.") "what if someone had told greg and me ten years ago that we'd be married with two little kids, living... in denmark?!"  it's all the same and all, as i said, very entertaining for someone who likes those silly, impossible hypotheticals.

today was a warm enough day to wear summer clothes.  greg mowed the lawn as it was our turn.  they have such a simple system here (at the 'old school' where we live) that i'm surprised in all of our efforts to divvy up tasks where we lived in madison, that we hadn't thought of something like this... they just pass around a laminated sheet of paper that tells you it's your turn to mow when the grass gets long and to pass it to the next household on the list when you're done, and fill up the gas containers and get reimbursed.

henry, william, and i had a plan to go down to the beach at the fjord while greg did this, and he'd meet us there and we'd have a picnic lunch, but they couldn't resist watching and waving to greg from the back patio anytime he'd come into view and i don't trust henry not to put worms into his mouth so i sat out there with them and by the time i finally had the picnic lunch put together they were hungry so i heated up our leftover chili and fed that to them so we could still take our food to the beach and then greg was done and so we all went together.  (in case there's ever a run-on sentence competition, i'm going to keep that sentence, as is.)

on our way out we stopped and talked to the neighbor who's selling his place.  they'd rented a little ikea trailer and were moving things out today.  "were you able to sell your place?" i asked him.  of course i didn't really mean it in such a hopeful way, but it's hard to tell someone your objectives are at odds (as if he didn't know).  no, he hasn't sold it, but they've purchased another home and they're hoping to enjoy the summer in it, so they're moving now.  he's still got us in mind.  what is our timeframe?  how much would he want to rent it out for?  we leave with no firm agreements on anything.

william is on his bike and so i take henry in the burley while greg runs next to william.  they take a different route... through the forest, which is not really a forest, to avoid the steep downhill of vestre kirkevej.  henry and i arrive first.  when i first imagined going to the beach today i pictured us having it all to ourselves and i'm not sure why.  maybe because the last time we were there it was deserted.  then i realized that i was in summer clothes, so of course everyone would be out again like they were back when we had that burst of summer a month or so ago.  but when we got there, it was just as i'd imagined... well, there were a few people, but i parked my bike at a deserted stand and got one of the few sandy spots in between beach (which is sand covered over with broken shells, seaweed, etc.) and grass.  william and greg were not far behind.  william showed me the playground he and greg had discovered the last time we were here, and then the guys played at the shore-- throwing rocks and shoveling sand back into the water.  we ate our second lunch and henry fell asleep.  william decided he wanted to go swimming so he changed into his suit.  greg took him out while i stayed with the sleeper, looking at clouds, enjoying the warmth.

someone else's waterproof dog...

making his entrance...

showing me the shovel...

throwing rocks... and the shovel...

eating the picnic lunch...

sky...

william.  he picked this warm outfit today... but it wasn't hot out so...

beach bum...

big kid, sky...

warming up in the sand, after the swim...

we all took vestre kirkevej back home.  my first time up the hill with the burley.  amazingly the bike did not start going backwards down the hill, but then i only had the lighter of the two children to manage.

we ate.  we got henry to bed early.  we played "holdmaid" with william and while he and greg read ('runaway ralph') i jogged.  same short course as yesterday, only today i ran the whole thing... in denmark!