Home, To An Empty House

The week before I left to come, here, to Nova Scotia for Christmas, John had to make a trip to Malaysia. He left on the Sunday and I was to pick him up early on Friday morning. For some reason, on this particular week away the time dragged...usually it doesn't.....but by Thursday I was counting the hours.

Most of the time, when he is away, I'm pretty comfortable in the house despite its dubious past. I keep the doors locked, try to remember to close the curtains when it gets dark, and make sure (when I remember) the phone isn't at the other end of the house. When I heard a noise outside at 6:30 pm on his last night away, my cell phone was hiding in my purse, out in the front porch. I was sitting at my desk in the dining room nook.

The noise was unusual, but....after a little tingle of spidey-senses, I concluded that maybe something had fallen over in the laundry room....until a couple of minutes later when something hit the house very hard.

I looked around for my phone, abandoned the Yahoo conversation I was having with my mother, and made a dash for the front porch and my purse. Kenai, who had been sleeping by my chair, at least stood up and walked over to the kitchen door...wondering, I suppose, what had disturbed his power nap. He didn't go crazy with the barking that he normally uses to warn me of evil invading postmen and flier delivery boys.

With phone in hand, and my thumb on the "1" of "112", I waited for another sound but none came. I relaxed a little and tiptoed to the kitchen door. The curtains were wide open, beyond the window it was pitch black over the driveway, and there was a small stream of water running down the center of the large kitchen window....a small piece of snow at the top. It appeared that someone had thrown a snowball at the window....drilled would be a better description since I actually felt the shudder in my desk chair. My first thought was that the boys next door were out enjoying the fresh snow we had that day and had lobbed one over the hedge and hit the window....except the hedge is 12 feet high and whatever hit the house wasn't lobbed. I thought it was weird that someone would come up our driveway just to throw a snowball at the house. I wished the driveway wasn't as long, nor the house so private, surrounded by those tall hedges.

I turned out the kitchen light and looked down the driveway. Standing in the street, just beyond the end of our drive were 6 guys in dark jackets, all had their hoods pulled up over their heads....some were lighting cigarettes. They looked much older than kids having a snowball fight. I stood there and watched them as they started to walk away, taking their time....stopping....walking a bit....looking around...walking...stopping....and so on and such that it took about 10 minutes for them to completely disappear down the walking path that starts at the end of our cul de sac.

I didn't call the police. Why? Because while I was watching them, I came up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for them being in my driveway. They had come expecting to have a little party with the former ladies of the house and were leaving disappointed, having read the "Business Closed" sign that's still on the front door. Out of frustration, one of them threw a snowball at the window and away they went, slowly. There was a certain air of "so, what are we going to do now, asshole" in their exit. I'm a bit taken aback by the fact that I was able to relax knowing that it was just six guys coming to the door looking for hookers. How did I ever get to that place, I wonder? Funny, how you get used to your situation in life no matter what it happens to be.

At 7:00 the next morning, John was due in at the airport so I loaded Kenai into the backseat of the car at 6:30 am. I decided to check the driveway for footprints before I left, and discovered that there was only one set of prints in the fresh snow...but...that set of prints came only as far as, and turned into, the kitchen window. There was no way that who ever had come up the driveway could have seen the "Business Closed" sign. So....that was creepy!

The only explanation I could come up with was that one of the 6 guys at the end of the driveway had come up scouting the windows for signs of life (beyond the fact that the car was in the driveway) and for some reason, saw something that made him decide there was someone here. It's possible that he saw the dog when he stood up for the thump against the house. I think he was asleep by my chair when that happened but he did get up and go to the kitchen to look.

I collected John at the airport, brought him home, and told him all about the prowlers. He showered and I reluctantly drove him to the office around noon time. When I came back, I began to do some laundry and ironing for my trip home on Sunday. I was filling the iron at the kitchen sink and happened to look out the window to see a police car parked at the end of the driveway. After a minute or so of gawking, I see a policeman come out of the next door neighbor's drive with a man. He stops by the car, asks the man for some ID, and phones in the information on his mobile. All the while, I am peeking out of the window trying not to be seen by the "perp" who is standing facing our house. A few minutes after that, a policeman with a police dog comes up the walking the path....so obviously, something has happened in the neighborhood. I figured someone has been broken into or attacked in their home or something bad!

At this point, I figure I had better tell the police about what happened here the night before....except I want to wait until they have this guy being questioned either in the car or on his way. They let him go and he wanders off down the walking path. Not sure why they let him go....he was found on the neighbor's property...and didn't appear to be there for any reason at all. I pulled on my coat and boots, and headed down the driveway to "file my report" from last night (a day late but whose counting?). Well, I'm a little slow and the driveway's a little long, and by the time I got there....the police car was pulling away.

Well, since I was all suited up for the outdoors and ready to talk, I kept on going.... over to the other next door neighbor's house to ask her if she had seen the police car and to find out if she knew what was going on. As it turns out, the postman had come to her door and asked to call the police because he noticed a suspicious person hanging around my house, her house and the other neighbor's house. Nice....

I told her what had happened at our house the night before. It was one way to finally meet a new neighbor.

John stayed home from the office Christmas party that night and on Saturday morning we went to the post office to have the mail held while we were away. It sure looked like we were being scoped out for a holiday break and enter. Penny and Ulrik volunteered to check on the house while we were away, but we couldn't get hold of Lars, the landlord, whom we hadn't seen for a couple of weeks. When we tried to phone him, his phone was disconnected. He had no idea we were going away, and I was planning to give him a key, and tell him he could hang around if he wanted a break from his parents place. He also might have wanted to make sure his insurance was paid up since most the stuff in here belongs to him. Penny and Ulrik would be taking Kenai while we were gone, and most of that time would be spent with Ulrik's family a couple of hours away in Svendborg. They would check on the house before they left and a week later when they got back.

Oh well...nothing else to be done, except hope that the guy the police found skulking around on Friday was part of the Thursday night group, and that they were smart enough to realize that the cops now had a name and an address if a house did get broken into on the street. At least they would know where to start. I left two days later, relieved that I didn't have to spend anymore days and nights alone in the house for a while. The plan was for John to take the photo negatives and my jewelry box to Penny and Ulrik's, when he went to drop Kenai off, but instead of him going there, they came to the house to pick him up themselves and John forgot to give them the other things. I was pretty sure, despite John's theory that there was no way they would be dumb enough to try and hit our place again, that we would be coming home on New Year's Day to an empty house. A few days after he got to Halifax, he told me that someone was creeping around later on the day that I left.

On Christmas Eve morning we were woken at 7:00 by John's phone. I heard John say, "Ulrik?" and then he asked me if I was awake. In my experience, so far, only bad news comes at 7:00 am, and bad news it was. Penny and Ulrik were at a vet hospital in Svendborg with Kenai. They told us that Kenai was very sick. We knew he'd had a couple of episodes of vomiting the previous afternoon, but they had continued through the night, and he was now so weak that he couldn't walk or stand. The vet wanted to do do some blood tests and x-rays and he came on the phone to discuss what he thought should be done. He suspected liver failure, probably caused by a tumor. He could tell for certain after the tests, but he let us know that Kenai was a very sick dog. If the tests confirmed his suspicions the best thing we could do for him was to put him to sleep. He could have the results very soon. We agreed to the tests, hung up, and then laid back down in bed, stunned, to wait.

We couldn't believe it. Our beautiful, funny, lovable boy, so sick and us so far away. But we knew in our hearts, even before those tests results came back, that we were never going to see him again. We quietly talked about what to do with him after, we felt terrible about our good friends having to deal with such a difficult thing....on Christmas Eve, no less. Penny and Ulrik had so been looking forward having Kenai for the holidays, and since Ulrik is Kenai's best friend in the whole wide world, we kept telling him he was going to have the best Christmas ever when we were gone. He almost did. I bet he didn't know there was a Christmas dinner coming along in about 6 hours time.

When the results came a half hour later, the vet's suspicions were confirmed. There was a large tumor on Kenai's liver and there was no choice of what to do. The liver had shut down and the poisons were going through his system affecting the other organs, causing them to shut down, too. Thank you, Penny and Ulrik for staying with him until the end and saying our goodbyes for us. I am heartbroken that we weren't there to be with him at the end. He was such a big and important part of our family. We are going to miss him so much when we come home, to an empty house. I don't care about any of that other stuff anymore.


R.I.P. Kenai ~ April 8, 1998 - December 24, 2010

Y'all Like Piano Music, Right?

The end of another semester. I'm never going to post anything that I ever did in my Basic Illustration class....even though my instructor was a dear and didn't ask me not to for fear of his job. I was happier with my other class....2D Design. We had to put together a presentation called "My Visual Journey" with samples of our classwork. So here is about 25% of what I did in that course.

Warning....it comes with sound.

My Visual Journey from Karen MacKay on Vimeo.

In a few minutes, I'm going out to tidy the kitchen, figure out where I left my Christmas beer, and when I get back I'm going to write my Basic Illustration exam. Then it's Christmastime!!!!

Time to pack in a few days. Leaving Denmark on Sunday morning and will be in Halifax that night. John is now in Kuala Lumpur but he'll be back before I leave. There is way too much stuff piled on the spare room bed to fit in my suitcase, so I guess I'll have to him bring those things when he comes. Please, please, please let him come back from Malaysia with a big bag of Batiks for moi!

Sunrise/Sunset

For the past couple of months, I've been chasing the sunrise I can see if I'm up early and lean really really far into my kitchen window. If I look way off to the right, down toward the end of the walking path, I can sometimes see what looks to be the most spectacular sunrise. Many Friday and Saturday nights I've told John that we were getting up early, in the dark, to drive the few kilometers to the coast so I could photograph the sun rising over the water of the Oresund. We, somehow, never managed to actually drag ourselves out of bed in time. It seemed pretty hopeless, since we weren't missing the sunrise by a few minutes....it was hours.

But, with the seasons our luck changed. Daylight is coming later every day, and now, we can get up at seven instead of six fifteen. A couple of Saturdays ago that's exactly what we did, crawling out of bed in the dark, throwing on whatever clothes were handy, tossing the dog in the back seat, and remembering to take the camera. (It would have been a good idea to remember to charge the camera battery, I suppose.)

We drove to a parking spot along the beach and waited. I sipped tea from my thermal cup, ready for the big show.....except just like the fireworks when I was a kid in Halifax. The sunrise over the Oresund was a fizzle. The sun came up with a slight tinge of pink over yonder in Sweden. It was the dawn of another overcast Danish fall day. Bummer.

On the up side we were up in time to make it to the dry cleaners before they closed at noon time. The following Tuesday I was up early and stole a peek out the kitchen window. There was the blazing sunrise down at the end of the walking path and John backing out of the driveway on his way to work. I had formulated a Plan B which was that we would make a quick run over there on a weekday since half of us was already up anyway. It looks like if I want this to happen I'm going to have to be in the front seat, waiting, when John gets in the car in the morning because I don't think he's going to volunteer to miss a meeting so I can snap a few pix.

I am still going to chase that sunrise and the pressure is on to get it done before the time changes next week and sunrise falls back another hour. In the meantime, though, I did get another thing on my list of things to do done, last weekend. That was to drive over to Jyllinge to catch the evening sunset over the Roskilde Fjord. We've been talking about that since before summer vacation. We had been out driving around with no particular place to go and were about to turn around and go home.


Instead of going home we turned in the opposite direction and drove to Jyllinge. Turns out it was worth it. The sun was starting to set as we got there, there was a great place to park above the marina, and I took lots of photos.

Look At What I Made In School!!

Last night John came home and told us the next move will be to Abu Dhabi. He doesn't have a date yet, but we're guessing after Christmas because that's kind of a convenient date to imagine. I don't think it has anything to do with what the company might want, though. However....I know how long these things can take and I'm taking late January in the pool....um...not that pool. I guess it's time to make my list of all the things I want to do in northern Europe over the next month and a half.

So, I've been sort of busy. An instructor at Dallas County Community College is attempting to teach me how to draw via the internet. I believe he has met his match! Now the trick to this whole enterprise is to get an A without actually showing any ability what so ever. Let me tell you.....it is taking a lot of time. My only hope is that my willingness to constantly redo, to accept criticism and revise will be enough. I think I've got that part down pat. To accompany the pen and pencil set, I'm also taking something called Visual Design for New Media which lets me use my good old computer. There is something wonderful to be said for "Edit>Undo" and it's cousin "Edit>Undo Delete."

Anyway, this was my first project in VD.... the goal was to portray the concept of transportation with some parameters thrown in, one of which was to generally keep the use of a vehicle to less than 60% of the original image just to make me think harder about how to do it.

Summer Time & The Livin' Is Easy....

The pool is ready!! The water is blue, all the bits and piece are working and none of the floaty chairs have holes in them. Life is good and we realized last night just why it was so important to get that thing done and filled with water again. It looks lovely, and I won't have to go down into it with a can of spray paint to make a decorative yard mural. I've already stuck my feet in....it felt nice and warm.

Or that's what I told John who donned his trunks and actually went in a couple hours after my temp test. He thought it was a little chilly but "Hey!" this is Denmark after all...

Lars never did show up last Sunday to finish the driveway. He eventually turned up on Tuesday and before he got started pressure washing, he went out for the pool chemicals and showed me how to use them. No more Mojitos in the pool, the water is a nice bluish turquoise now. It's had a thorough vacuuming and we are all happy again. John really wanted to have a big party in its honor, but instead we had a few friends over last night for a barbecue. And man it was soooo hot!! It's sweltering here in the land of no-air-conditioning! What's up with that? It's supposed to get up to 32 degrees today.

Lars and his brother left for Thailand yesterday. On one of the many days he was here this week, he took a lot of photos of the backyard and the pool. Doubtless, he is hoping to meet a new girl and he wants to make a good impression by showing her pictures of his house in Denmark....considering his brother showed up one day wanting to show his girlfriend around. Sheesh!

I wish him well but I hope he doesn't give out the address while he's over there.

Here's a little after shot of the pool. What a difference a few weeks and some elbow grease can make.

Mojito Pool

Saturday was our anniversary but we were so tired from yard work that we just stayed home and barbecued some burgers for dinner. Lars came back and almost finished his pressure washing. He just has the driveway left but the pool deck and patio are done. John and I swept it up, got some mulch for the rose beds, finished planting, cleaned the garden furniture and last, but not least, we stuck a full running hose into one end of the pool at 19:20 hours. Woo Hoo!! (Will not think about how fast the water meter is turning as I type this.)

It's almost full. I would say that we'll be able to turn it off early in the morning before I take John to the airport. He's off to Abu Dhabi this week for some meetings. Those of us who guessed 60 hours to fill the pool will be taking home the big prize. I just have to find out where to get the chemicals for it...I think blue water would be much nicer than the green it is now. Does look like a cool refreshing beverage, though.

Dilemmatry

We are less than one day away from our 28th wedding anniversary...and more importantly...less than one day from turning the hose on in the pool. It's finally ready for water!! Well, not officially since the pool guy told Lars that we had to wait 2 weeks for the paint to cure, but Lars figures that since it's been so nice and sunny it should be fine. We're going with his version of the instruction manual.

Guesses as to how long it will take to fill? John's rough calculation of volume and flow rate from the hose (all done in his head) comes out to 31 hours. I think I'll check the flow rate more scientifically and apply a little calculus to the problem to come up with mine....or maybe I won't. I have better things to do.

The backyard is beginning to look spiffy again. We bought plants. Lots of plants for the pots and took advantage of the free compost. Because if there's something for free in Denmark you want to take advantage. I don't care if it is dirt. I want some.

Lars told me the other day that his Dad charged him 1,000 kroner to come with his pressure washer and clean off the patio stones. I guess you can't even get family help for a couple of beers and a barbecued hamburger around here.

A few weeks ago I asked Lars if he was interested in cleaning the grassy bits in between some of the stones. John had bought this special brush for digging it out and I thought maybe, since he wasn't working, Lars would want to do it for some extra cash. He pretty much balked at the idea, saying it was too much work. It was then that he mentioned that his Dad had a pressure washer that he could bring over. The pressure washer, he said would take care of everything (including the dark discoloration of the bricks) with a lot less effort. He did not mention, at that point, that he had ever paid his Dad to do this for him.

Lars never did show up with the pressure washer, so John sent him a text about when he was planning to come. He got a reply that the Dad's pressure washer is broken, so he can't do it.....unless we pay 600 kroner for a new pressure washer. Now, this begs a few questions. 1) Where can you get a pressure washer for 600 kroner? 2) Is this 600 kroner on top of what he wants to be paid for doing the job? 3) Can we take this 600 kroner out of the 1300 kroner he already owes us for the pool paint?

I don't mind paying him to clean the patio bricks but I'm not into buying a lot of equipment I can't use in North America. Since he was only asking for 600 kroner ($100) for a new washer, John was convinced that it wasn't really a new one...maybe a rental...or maybe his Dad's for a fee....suddenly and miraculously repaired. I dunno.

Last night John and I discussed this whole who's paying for what, and when, thing. It came up because he started getting texts from Lars during dinner about buying the pressure washer and how he used to pay his Dad 1,000 kroner to do this. Didn't we think 600 kroner was a good deal. Well....yeah it is....if that's what it's costing including the labor. It's a very good deal. It's just weird.

Trying to pin John down on the details of his agreements can be difficult sometimes. He always figures everything will work out in the end, so he doesn't sweat stuff as it goes along. I wanted to know if I was supposed to pay Lars in cash for cleaning the house this month (he showed up a few times) or was he supposed to be working off the paint money. I never really got a good answer on that one. John said he figured he'd be working off the debt, but I guess what I really wanted to know is what "Lars" thought. Because if he was expecting cash when he got her today, maybe I should have some in the house. John couldn't really tell me what Lars thought.

In the end it was determined that Lars was coming to the house at 3 PM today to collect our share of the pressure washer money. John had a serious of texts with him this morning that determined (in John's mind) that he was coming for 600 kroner. Following John's series of texts, I had my own with Lars and it was determined (in my mind) that he was coming to collect 1500 kroner since the pressure washer cost 1300 kroner.....I guess math isn't his strong suit. This little thumb and finger conversation prompted a phone call to John who was steadfast in his impression that we were paying him 600 kroner. OY!! Confused yet?

Well, Lars shows up a little past three with a brand new pressure washer in 2 boxes. I guess he was able to pay for it up front after all. I have 1000 kroner sitting on the bookcase for him because I've decided to pay him for June's housecleaning and let our share of the pressure washer, which John swears is 600 kroner, come out of the money owed for the paint. (I hope you're keeping track of all this in Excel.) He takes it out back and starts to fiddle with the parts. Before too long, he knocks on the back door and asks me to come out and show him how to connect the hose to it. I take the spray nozzle off the end of the hose, hand it to him and point to the spot on the pressure washer where it attaches. He takes the hose connector off the end of the hose and tries to jam the rubber of the hose onto the nozzle where the pressure washer connects. I start to worry and take over....telling him he has to put the connector back on, showing him how it works.

The hose connector works but the pressure washer doesn't. Lars tries a few things and decides to go back to the store for help. He's gone an hour. When he comes back. it still doesn't work, so he goes back to the store for more help. Eventually, he gets the motor running and he starts on the patio. It isn't very long before he's stopped again. The brushes on the bottom of the patio cleaner aren't rotating, he informs me he'll go back to the (now closed) store in the morning to see what's wrong this time. Before he escapes, John gets home from work, and changes a few parts around so that the brushes turn. Poor Lars has to spend the better part of Friday night working on the patio.

He's coming back tomorrow to finish the job. We're waiting for the mud to dry so we can sweep all that crap up, and Lars didn't take any money...yet. But he sure did a lot a grumbling about how much time he's got invested in this project so far.

Come back tomorrow to see how it all comes out in the wash.....

Visit To The Doctor

It had to happen eventually. I would run out of blood pressure pills while I was overseas and I'd have to see a local doctor. I was really careful not to let that happen in Baku, but I got a little slack with it since I am here in a nice modern country with good social medicine.

There is a cool website in Denmark where you can look up everything medical and health-wise...right down to the set prices of prescription and over the counter medicines. It lists all of the approved and available medications; and you can look up dental fees, too. It even breaks down wait times by hospital and clinic for specific surgeries or treatments, so you can decide where you might want to go. It's all very very efficient...but you can waste spend hours in there just browsing.

Anyway, I made an appointment, via email, a couple of weeks back and Friday was the big day. I think it's been a while since my blood pressure was last checked and typical for me, since I knew it would be checked at the end of the week, I ate a bunch of chicken nuggets at McDonald's , we barbecued hot dogs and sausages twice, and I made pork chops with the canned mushroom soup gravy the night before. Which just goes to show you that it is possible to live dangerously while not breaking the speed limit, or a sweat. Have some salt, already!

Like any new experience, you gotta learn the drill. Learning the drill in a foreign language has interesting moments and the trick is to learn it without appearing to be stupid. First rule of thumb when waiting your turn always direct your attention at the object upon which you are waiting. Daydreaming and gazing at the pictures on the wall will get you a "She's talking to you" from a stranger. I think it was told to me in Danish first but I was too busy with the art work to catch it.

The doctor's office is in a clinic of 3 doctors that occupies a ground floor apartment of a 4 story building. Instead of the waiting and reception area being at the front of the office it's at the back, so you have to wander a bit through some hallways in order to find it. There was a room with some chairs, and across the hall from that there was an office that looked like it was reception. I told the girl in there that I had an appointment (after I figured out she was talking to me) and she took me into the waiting room and showed me how to swipe my health card through this card reader gizmo that was mounted on the wall.

Lesson One....find the right entrance to building, enter, swipe card and take a seat.

I didn't get to take a seat this time because I no sooner had the card back in my wallet, than the doctor came looking for me. What? No clip board? No medical history in Danish? Where was my privacy statement to sign? Never mind that I wouldn't be able to fill out a Danish form anyway and there really isn't any privacy here. I know this because the government sent me a summons to come in for my mammogram. Come to think of it my first communication from the Danish government was the summons I got to come in for a pap test a month after I got here. That really creeped me out! I was so sure I had gotten this summons because I was living in a house registered to the sex trade.

So, the doctor turns out to be a petite gray haired lady wearing a turtleneck and no bra. She was very sweet. She took a smattering of information from me and entered it directly into her computer. I guess they are beyond the file folder here. It's also apparent that what happened to you before you came to Denmark isn't all that important because she pretty much only asked me the reason for my visit, and did I smoke. She asked me where I was from, about the kids, and what had brought me to Denmark. She then takes my blood pressure and it's 160/110!! WOW! That was the highest it had ever been.....ever! I saw my last chicken nugget flash before my eyes. Crap!

The doctor had me lie down on the exam table, told me to relax, and said she'd be back in a minute. I tried but was sure she had gone off to call the government to let them know I needed a saline monitor attached to my ankle. A few minutes later she's back and proceeds to take my blood pressure again. This time it's 130/80. Where it usually is...I'm not dying after all. I'm just chicken. Scared of little grey haired braless doctors in foreign countries! I can haz nuggetz! Okay, every now and again...

Prior to my appointment someone had told me that the doctor would send the prescription directly to the Apotek (pharmacy). But that didn't happen in my case. She printed a slip from her computer and I got to take it to the Apotek of my choice.

I chose the one at the Horsholm Mid-Punkt (central place), took my number as I entered and though I was 7 numbers back in the queue, I don't think I had to wait more than 10 minutes. Kind of a sweet set up. They sell some skin care products and first aid gear, so there was something to browse through while waiting. But the main focus is definitely pharmacy. There were 4 counters set up along the wall, each one manned by a pharmacist or a pharmacy technician (not sure which). Behind them was a big room full of people and drugs.....shelves and shelves of drugs...and lots of people, too.

When my turn came I handed the pharmacist my prescription and my health card. She swiped me again, told me to wait for a moment, then she disappeared into the shelves. A minute later she's back with my meds. They came pre-bottled, so she didn't have to count them out, 100 pills a container. One of them was in an old fashioned glass bottle. Her computer had printed out the little personal labels for the bottles, she stuck them on and handed them to me in a bag. That was quick and I didn't have to go back to pick them up. The best part was the price, though, I paid the equivalent of $60 for 2 kinds of BP medication that will last me more 3 months. That works out to ten bucks a month each! That's incredibly cheap. And no worries about the pills being made in some Chinese backwater factory. If they're not making Legos or blue cheese, the Danes are making pills and colostomy bags. Ladies your HRT is made less than 10 miles from my house. Medical manufacturing is a huge industry here....right up there with Carlsberg beer!

I suppose I should add a qualifier to all this excitement over reasonably priced drugs. This morning we dropped off our first ever load to the dry cleaners. Many of John's work pants were in dire need of a good pressing. My humble iron can only do so much once they've been washed at home enough times. We expected some sticker shock and were not disappointed. Twelve bucks a pair for a grand total of $72 for 6 pair of pants!

Deep End Drama

John is determined come hell or high water to get the water back in "his" pool. He doesn't swim in it. He gazes at it...at night. He finds it very relaxing, and I'll give him that...it is relaxing. Right now he must be as uptight as a cat on a Cracker Barrel veranda. There is no sign of water in the pool. He wasn't satisfied with my attempts to get Lars to empty out the rest of the water, so he took matters into his own hands and worked out a deal.

On Monday night, Lars and John worked together to get the rest of the water out. John's contribution to the effort was to bring home a fancy pump from work that took care of it in a couple of hours. While John's pump was pumping, Lars started scraping. He then came back on Tuesday to prime the spots he painted. So it looked like the pool was going to get a fresh coat after all. What I didn't know, since he didn't want to tell me, was we were going to be paying for it.

Even though I had been harping on the fact that, given Lars' financial circumstances, we were going be stuck paying for the paint.....John kept insisting he wasn't. And "Um....yeah...sure"... was how we left that conversation. I found out that we were picking up the tab as we drove to the ATM machine to get the cash to give Lars. John fessed up quietly under his breath when I asked him why we needed to get money. Here's how John found out he was paying.....

Lars called the pool guy to price paint and was told 4,000 kroner. He called John at work and passed this on, but John said he had to think about it. Lars called back 10 minutes later to see if John had thought about it yet. Lars is such a funny guy!! He tells John he can't afford to buy this very expensive paint. John tells him that he doesn't want to spend that kind of money on his pool, either. A little while later, Lars' calls back. He has found cheaper paint at 1,300 kroner, and he'll order that. It has to be white though, because to get this paint in blue costs double. At this point John hasn't told Lars that we are not going to pay for the paint....mostly because in the back of his mind, John knows he will pay for the paint if it means it gets his water feature back in the yard. And John can be kind of stubborn about something when he gets it in his head. He'll find a way to make it happen.

After Lars ordered the paint, he asks John if he can come by and collect the 1,300 kroner to pay for the paint. It's at this part of the story I began to laugh and instead of "I told you so", I ran with a chorus of "I knew it"s.

Lars was supposed to be here on Thursday but the paint was a day late getting here.
When I came home from the store this morning, Lars was already here...standing in the pool, roller and paint brush in hand. He's wearing a mask with a couple of filters in it over his face, so I figure the stuff must be really smelly.

Fifteen minutes later Lars is out of the pool tapping at the front door. He doesn't feel so good. The fumes from the paint are getting to him. He has a headache, is sweating, feels dizzy, and his throat feels funny. Jeez Louise! He doesn't think he can paint anymore....gosh, ya think so?

He spends some time in the bathroom trying to shake off the effects of the paint. And it takes some time before he feels like he can drive again. When he starts to feel better, he packs up the paint and the rollers and brushes, and says he'll come back another day to take it to the recycling center. One of the cans isn't open yet but, since it was a special order, it's not returnable. He is sure he cannot use the paint anymore and I don't blame him. Forget the paint, let's just fill that sucker and be done with it!

During his recovery phase, Lars informs me that the pool guy told him he would have to use a respirator when he used this paint. He didn't rent out respirators but he could buy one for 10,000 kroner. I tried to find out if he was told this after he ordered the paint or before because if he told him after, then he damn well ought to take the paint back. John could make sure that he did because he's determined that way. But, I was unable to come to a conclusion on the timing...just that the guy told him he needed it. But.....not so lucky for Lars, some other guy, told him he might be able to get away with the kind of mask he tried to use today. You gotta love the wisdom of the amazing "some other guy".

When Lars left here, he went directly to the pool guy's store to find out if he had suffered permanent neurological damage. He called later to say he was coming back tomorrow with a long pole and his mask. Someone suggested that he might be able to do it if he put the roller on the end of a pole and stood outside the pool where the air mix was better. Okay then....

Exhausted from my ordeal and the near death of Lars in the empty pool, I fell asleep on the couch halfway through "Say Yes To The Dress". An hour later there is more tapping at the front door....I grumbled and stumbled my way to the door and there he is....he's got a long pole in his hand and he's ready to tackle the painting again....from the pool deck. Fine.

I go to the kitchen to make some tea and when I come out, there's Lars, roller attached to the end of his long pole, standing and painting....in the pool!! Seriously....what part of "this is bad for you" don't you understand?

I gave up. I sat with my tea to watch "What Not To Wear" taking an occasional peek over my shoulder to see if he was still standing up. I think Lars spent about 20 minutes in the pool then he quit for the day. His new plan of attack is to paint really fast, and get out after 20 minutes. He thinks he can finish the job spending 20 more minutes in there tomorrow. He also said that the paint has to dry for a week, then we can start filling it....a fact that conflicts with John's version of events in which Lars told him you could fill it within a day.

Yes, we have one more week of empty pool. Lars told me he asked the pool guy what he would charge to paint it and he told him 40,000 kroner. WOW! Lars thought it was more money than he could pay but reasonable considering it was a dangerous job and the respirator cost 10,000 kroner. I dunno...the pool guy should have one already. I tried to ask Lars if there weren't any rent-all places here for things like this but he just kept shaking his head, "No". I'm not convinced there isn't. They have internet after all, and cable TV. Why not rent-it places.

I'm getting really bored with the pool saga now. I want it to be over. John has reassured me that he only loaned Lars the money for the paint and that Lars is paying him back. I wonder if that will be before or after his trip to Thailand in July. Say what??? Thailand??? You have no money.

But he does have his girl back...in a couple of weeks Lars, his girl, and his brother are jetting off to Thailand for the "Dane's three week holiday abroad"....bestowed upon all Danish people by divine right....etc. etc. etc. Try boarding a dog in the summer here!

I'm still scratching my head. I sort of suggested that he might now want his mail redirected back to where he lays his head at night. But, no, he was fine with having it come here. He could pick it up every Friday (except he rarely shows up on Fridays anymore). So....does he not want his "girl" to see what's coming in the mail? I think we need to discuss the mail thing one more time or else I can have John set up a dialogue about it. We could probably make it happen if we agreed to pay the Post Office redirect fee.

***After we moved out of the house, John's company had to go chasing Lars for the return of the 3 month's rent damage deposit they had put up when we moved in. He took a while to track down and when they did catch up with him he said.......he didn't think he should have to return it because we had caused damage to his pool by repainting it and used the wrong paint. They nerve of some people!***

How Do You Make an Empty Pool Look Pretty?

I'm looking for ideas.


It's not looking so good out there right now. The pool is still a gaping turquoise hole in the backyard and pool month in Denmark is fast approaching. I guess there are actually 2 pool months, July and August, but I'm going to be in Nova Scotia for the second one, so it doesn't count.

John was so confident that we would be able to start filling it this weekend, he was ready to send out invitations to this gigantic pool party he wants to have on July 3rd.....I gave him the hairy eyeball...the one that says "down boy". Big parties are stressful enough without having the main focus of the party out of commission and beyond your control.

We got some nice weather and the pool guy did show up on Tuesday and Wednesday. He was out there for about 5 minutes (tops) each time but I have no idea what he did since his English is about as good as my Danish. Nothing appears to have changed.

It became apparent this week that something hinky was going on with Lars. After not showing up on Friday, he texted Sunday night to say he would be there on Monday but he no showed again. Not a word from him until Wednesday when he magically appeared out of the blue. When I asked him where he had been he told he is very busy....okay....

He told me he lost his job. I handed him his stack of bills. He shrugged and said he was getting almost as much money from the government. But how much bad luck can one dude get? Would it be really the last straw if his tenants moved out? Does he remember that I told him the roof is leaking?

Anyway, he did have news on the pool when he came. The pool guy told him that it was going to cost 11,000 kroner (about 2k) to fix the light in the pool, and since he doesn't have that kind of money, he is just going to seal around the edges with silicone. Then when the silicone is nice and dry we can refill the pool. Sweet! Except, he doesn't want to bail out the rest of the water from the deep end. He said he's going to add chemicals to clean it up.

This isn't exactly how the plan goes. He's supposed to take out the rest of the water, clean out the sludge of leaves that's accumulated below it and then scrub the rest of the pool. I'll sacrifice my brand new to mop to the cause. There's also the matter of the chipping paint that needs to be removed along the sides. But, I tried 5 times to get this across with no luck. He just kept shaking his head and said he would treat it with the chemicals. Arrggggghhhh!!!!!!

Last summer the shocking process took a long time, and it took us a few weeks of skimming and dragging with the net to get all of the crap out of it. He didn't seem to get that taking out the last bit of water was going to be a whole lot faster. It makes me wonder if he cares anymore. He used to be interested in what was going on with his pool, and his yard, but now he is barely paying attention to it. Maybe it IS going back to the bank soon. In his shoes, I wouldn't be doing much either.

Sprucing Up The Joint

What's a girl gonna do when she wakes up at 7:00 on a Saturday morning? I'm all caught up on everything for the week. I've weeded through my email, and picked out the 5 real ones out of the 40 that came from concert halls and arenas all across America, the 50 that came from hotels and hotel reward plans, and the 20 I got with offers from plus size clothing shops. Ah.....the remnants of tours past.

Anyway, I had a look at this blog and decided it was desperately boring in appearance. Time for a redo, and redo I did. Voila! The brand new Sally's is up and running with some sidebar sprucing to come if I happen to wake up at 7 again tomorrow. If that doesn't happen my short attention span, may mean it stays as it is. So far, I'm liking it!

When Houseboys Go A.W.O.L.

Where is he?? The dirt is beginning to show on the light wood floors and I bought him a brand new broom last week! Man, there's even fresh Ajax and Bang waiting in the closet. Lars has disappeared. He didn't make it on Friday. Then Sunday night he called and said he was coming Monday at 16:00. No show again. It's now 19:00 on Tuesday and no Lars....no text message. The last time he was here to clean the house he didn't clean the house, he cleaned some of the pool and mowed the grass. Cleaning the pool cost me both of the scrubbing brooms that he uses on the floors. Hence, the new one.

My spidey senses are telling me foreclosure is imminent and he's done doing anything with this house. I wouldn't put another nickel in it if the bank was taking it from me, so why should he? No sign of the pool guy who was supposed to finish what he started two weeks ago. I'm guessing Lars is hanging back in typical non-confrontational Danish style. John's going to have to ask the legal guys to call him up to find out what gives pretty soon. I sure hope he's keeping up his payments on the flat screen TV.

While all of this house drama is going on, John is planning (or recruiting me to plan) a party for his department at work. Depending on how wide a sweep of it he makes, we're talking about 30 to 60 people who would expect a pool with water in it. I wonder if we could ask each of them to bring us 20 gallons of water with them. Probably not....I asked and was told that pot-luck isn't done over here.

I can't say I'm too comfortable inviting people to a barbecue with the backyard looking like an open pit mine. There is still a hole in the patio that I`m trying to hide with a big slab of cardboard and a lavender plant.

Just for Shits & Giggles

Ever wonder where I go when I disappear for long periods of unaccounted for time? I do, too....

I took 2 online classes this winter...neither of them Danish language. These ones we a lot of fun!! Danish language classes wouldn't be near as much fun as this. The assignment, in Flash, was to create an animated interpretation of a movie. I think I covered all the high points.

In another class, Adobe Illustrator, things were humming along pretty smoothly until the instructor slapped us with a last minute final exam. That resulted in this....which turned out much better than I expected. I guess I learned something.



Reason for choosing to illustrate a butterfly....you only have to draw half of it, then you can mirror image the other half....using your noodle counts too, you know.

Using Our Oyster Cards

A few months ago I decided it would be a good idea to drag John away from work for one of the many May long weekends we get, here, in Denmark. Two days after I booked and paid for a trip to London the $#*&(@@(&$^&$%^@*&##(&*%%$) volcano in Iceland started to spew ash and I became a little concerned that we might not get away after all. But the beast calmed and (knock on wood) seems to remain calm and we got there....and bonus! We got back!

The trip was great! But man, there were a lot of people. We used our Oyster cards to get around on the tube and the buses and despite John having a little trouble tapping his mollusk at first, it was a super way to get places.


The weather was hot and sunny....we burnt our foreheads on the bus tour, and I came home with a head cold since a person can only hold so many loops and rails on public transportation without becoming ridden with microbes. The London underground also throws in lots of escalator and staircase railings to sweeten the mix. I knew at first glance I was being offered a free souvenir.

Luckily, the full blown snorgies waited until I got home and a good time was had by all. The new camera performed superbly. John only drifted off to sleep at the beginning of 'Les Miserables' and I only had to poke him up until the 'Master of the House' number. He seemed to rouse after that. He stayed fully awake for all of 'Jersey Boys'.....maybe because I sold it to him as 'The Sopranos, the Musical'...dunno but he liked it better.


One of my favorite things, since I love architecture, was the Natural History Museum. What a beautiful building!

We missed the London Eye because we saved it for our last day and got lazy.

After touring the museum we decided to sit in the bar at the hotel until it was time to go to the airport. Since 3 days doesn't even scratch the surface in London, we have to go back. And I need to do some more shopping there...it was amazing!

Not sure where we're going on our next little jaunt. We've decided that we really HAVE to get out and see more while we are here. Our second year of a 2 year contract has begun and weekends are a wasting. So far on the table for consideration are Budapest, Vienna (which lost out to London by a hair this last time), Greece (friends have a house there), and Paris (since we can use the Marriott timeshare right outside of the city). The thing is though, you can drive to Germany in a short time from here...Berlin is only 7 hours away by car and that sounds awfully interesting, too.

I've got to figure out a way to pay for all this traveling and a week of touring in August...hmmm...details. A couple of weeks ago John said he was going to take the 'Business Closed' sign off the door since it had been a while since any customers had shown up here. I told him that as long as I was living in this house, that sign was staying on the door. I'm glad it's still there because the very next day, at 4 pm, a customer came up the drive, read the sign and left.

Those 2 ideas in the previous paragraph are totally unrelated. Here's a few shots from London.

Picadilly Circus

Lost in Leicester Square

Blackpool vs. Leeds

St.Paul's Cathedral

Buckingham Palace

Along the Thames

That's us flying home. No sign of nasty ash anywhere.....one of these days I have to write about living with Mt. Redoubt when it decided to mess up our nice pristine Alaskan winter.

The rest of the London pix are here...

Sally's London Smugmug Gallery

The Further Adventures of Lars & The Little Woman

When Lars came by to clean a few weeks ago, he sheepishly asked if he could have his mail sent here. He said he didn't have his apartment anymore, he had split with 'his girl' and is living at his parent's house. It seemed a little strange that his mail couldn't go to Mom & Dad's but he told me there wouldn't be much, and so feeling sorry for the guy, I agreed.

It's been about 20 days that his mail has been coming here and a conservative estimate would put the volume of mail at 30 pieces.....almost all of them from banks, card companies, the mortgage company, and collection agencies. I wonder if I need to be checking into the rights of tenants in a foreclosure in Denmark. Will I come home someday to find a bailiff's padlock on the door? The Danes put a great amount of importance on addresses. This is a country where your bank automatically sends your account information to the tax authorities every year at tax time. Funny that Oprah didn't point that out when she did her show from Copenhagen last fall. Did she mention the drinking age is 16? But I digress.....

It's been quite a few months since we've started to suspect that Lars was having financial problems. Every time that we mentioned some work that needed to be done around the house, he put us off....saying he had no money. A broke landlord is not the best thing to have when the big burner on the cooktop has only one setting left and thats 'high'. What's he going to say when I tell him the roof is leaking? I guess buckets are cheap enough.

Our biggest immediate concern is the pool, or as it is in its present state, the big cement hole in the back yard. The pool guy has been out to investigate. He claims the leak is fixed though he didn't actually DO anything. Lars dug up part of the patio so he could fix the light that doesn't work,but apparently that wasn't necessary. He wanted the rest of the water out of the pool so he could do the electrical work without toasting his underwear. The water is out...except for a small mosquito breeding pond in the deep end....and if it ever stops raining pool guy might come back to finish. There is some question about who is going to pay for last year's chemicals though. It seems we didn't pay a bill we didn't get. The pool guy couldn't remember how much was owed, just that he wasn't coming back here until he got his money.

Now, we have to refill the pool and how is 'Lars of No Money' going to pay for it, should it come out of the rent? The lease says (and we told him when we took the place) we weren't going to pay to maintain his pool) If only he'd fixed it when we first told him about it! But, we pay for the water so why bother....hmmmm....since his address is here now, I could probably call the kommune and switch it back over to his name. I suppse that means some day our water will be shut off for non-payment.

Yesterday, Lars sent me a text that said he was on his way over to clean the house. He comes once a week and does the floors, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the lawn mowing....um yeah...the light yard work. But, he didn't show up. He didn't answer when I texted him back a few hours later wondering if he was still coming. Something must have happened in the half hour it usually takes him to get here after he texts. I dunno. I don't get him just not showing up. He sent a message he was on his way and Lord knows he seems to need the money. It's hard not to feel sorry for the guy. He's still fairly young and he must feel like his life is in the crapper right now. My gut is telling me that his 'girl' got the 5 years in Denmark she needed to stay here without him, and said "See ya' later."

I'm also going to guess that she wasn't happy with her new digs, considering she had this nice house with a pool to look forward to when she moved here. And it's probably damn near impossible to run a business from a 2 room apartment with 3 people living there. Something had to give.

As Lars problems mount, those of Lena, my housekeeper in Baku, are over. I found out last week that she succumbed to her cancer a couple of months ago. She was 47 years old.

I'll stop whining about my house now and be grateful the Danish government sent me a note in January to tell me it was time to come in for a mammogram. With all this moving around I had been very very bad and missed quite a few years. I really thought about blowing off my summons to Bjipsberg Hospital on the morning of January 19th, but I went. They send you a letter with your results, in Danish of course....most nerve wracking Google translate ever....but all was okay. See you in 2 years (even better).

I was told that Lena remained feisty and fought her cancer hard right up until the end. The last time I saw her she was so angry and it was heartbreaking. I hope she eventually found some peace in her final months. R.I.P. Lena.....

Mystified

Around here, a person answers the door with some trepidation...for good reason. This morning while John was in the shower, there was a tap on the front door. I sort of wondered what the mailman had that he had to hand it to me in person. With my new found comfort in this house, I assumed that the shadow that had passed by the dining room window was him. It wasn't. It was Lars' brother (I'll call him Claus, which in Danish, rhymes with 'house') and his girl friend, also Thai (like Lars girl/wife?). I guess the brothers got a package deal.

He wanted to come in and look around because they were interested in renting it when we moved out. I curbed the "Huh???" at the back of my throat and formulated a "What???"

However, I dare say the look on my face was 100% "Huh???" So....we have 13 moths left on the lease. What the hell??

If only we had gotten out of the house on time....we were on our way out for groceries...we could have avoided this little encounter. I sent them away, telling them John was in the shower, and they couldn't come in until he was out....and we were back from groceries....if ever at all. Claus asked me to call him when we got home. I said "no" you can come by at 5 o'clock....BUT.....being as you're Lars' brother haven't you been in here before? Shouldn't you already know what the house is like? Don't you know we have until next year on the lease? He seemed to understand all of this but... who knows?

I guess he wants to show it to his girlfriend. I wonder if she'll think the furniture is staying....it isn't. I wonder if they're thinking of setting up business again. Lars has been crying poor mouth a lot lately and I don't think moving out of this house has really done much to alleviate the financial difficulties caused by the loss of a certain income. John's theory is that Lars would like to move back into the house, with his brother and his girlfriend, to restart the business, and this little expedition was to plant the seed of us thinking we've got a way out of the lease. I don't know about that but it sure seems odd that someone would come for a look see more than a year out, and that person happens to be the landlord's brother.

Very curious. Maybe Lars thinks he can't afford to fix the pool, and he was really worried that the company was going to after him for the excess on the water bill. I don't know, but this might all have to come up when I see him next week. I assume he didn't call to ask me in advance because he knew I'd tell him to get stuffed (in a nice Canadian kind of way).

This warrants some definite feelers, though. I could move out of here if I found the right place. Moving is a hassle but we don't have that much stuff.....errr....maybe we do. And getting everything hooked up again.....there are charges for all those new hook-ups. But, it would be nice to be withing walking distance of a market and a few shops. Something to mull over, just in case. Claus kept saying they wanted to move in when we moved out and even when I said "If we moved now, you want to move in?" he agreed.....but often the finer details get lost in translation (or lack thereof).

***A little bit later (6:55 to be exact)...***

I must have done a great job of scaring them off because they didn't come back at five. Maybe "Fuzzy" the dog frightened them half to death with his barking and hairy fierceness. I'm still going to Scandia Housing's website tonight to look at what's available. Maybe Claus is anxious and we CAN get a new place before next year.

I bet if the neighbors saw them coming up the drive, they were freaking out.

Back in Business

I just paid a $2,000 water bill. That's our estimate of usage for the next six months....because the pool continued to dribble water back into the ecosystem all summer long and we kept dangling the hose in it to keep the water level up to the skimmers so as not to burn out the pump. Lars, the landlord/pool & house boy is a little worried because I told him that the company's accountant (who is kindly reimbursing our outrageous utility bills) might go into shock when he notices that the water bill has doubled since the last time we sent one. If we don't get our money back, I told him..."I'm coming after you. Since you let it go on all summer and didn't get anyone in to fix it."

I was a little nervous when the notice came to read the meter....being that we had been feeding the pool all summer. It turns out we doubled consumption. All summer long Lars babbled about why it might be happening but he always came back to evaporation. Okay, fella...let me go get the "Pictou County Water Resources Evaluation Study"....I know it's over 30 years old, and I know it's out of print (though you can get it still online)...BUT!! That's my name on there! Right below the title. So, I do know a little bit about evaporation, or did.....so don't give me any chatter about the sun stealing my H2O.

At least the evaporation idea was less wearing on John's nerves than the "John must have vacuumed the drain plug out" theory.

We will know in a few weeks because he has consulted the pool guy who will come in "April or May" to investigate the problem. Luckily the rate of water loss increased sufficiently that we recognized the futility of keeping up. We turned off the pump in early October and let the thing drain. It reached a level of about 2 feet from bottom and stopped. Apparently is drains out into the ground and not into a pipe because Lars thinks that it met the level of the water table and stopped.

That pool was a beautiful thing last summer. Very relaxing.


It might be a big concrete hole this year. I suppose we could store things in it or make it into a vegetable garden.

When I last wrote anything significant, I was just starting to get unpacked and settled....the movers never did come that day. We had to wait another few weeks before our things were released...because the company paid the Baku office of the movers, but no one communicated this to the Danish branch....who just didn't believe anyone had been paid. It seems like a long time ago now. Despite a less than confident beginning, not one thing was broken or missing from the move. That was a first! I can only conclude that the roads are very smooth in Belarus and Ukraine. We did get settled, bought some more stuff at IKEA and now we're all nice and cozy in the little Danish whorehouse.

We had a few more visitors, the last one about six months ago at 2:30 in the morning. I was still up when I heard a soft tapping at the front door....so soft I had to point at the dog and tell him to bark. I got John out of bed. He went to the door and spoke with a gentleman who appeared to be drinking, but well dressed in a nice suit and tie. John said he looked like he was in his thirties.....never got one dirty old man, ever. Knock on wood, but it seems like the word of our closure has filtered through the ranks, and folks are going elsewhere for their fun.

Getting Kenai into the country was easy in the end. I did all of the things I was supposed to do to make him legal and EU ready, and when the big moment of truth came at Danish Customs, there was no one to be found. There was supposed to be a vet there to check his papers and his microchip....but no...they were renovating the customs area and one of the carpenters had to search for a border agent. It all sounded so serious on the web site. It just didn't seem right that we went through this long separation for nothing.....to think that I could just follow the green arrow on the baggage hall floor, and be out into the fresh air and freedom.

No way! I wanted something official. When a customs guy finally showed up he asked where we were traveling from, he handed me the microchip reader, I scanned Kenai's chip, and handed it back to him. He said okay.....I backed up two paces, turned right and that was it. Welcome to Denmark, Lassie!


I got him some insurance. I didn't know that one must have insurance for one's pooch in case he damages somebody's property or chews their leg off. It's compulsory here. This information came from the lady at the boarding kennel where Kenai stayed for the Christmas holidays...."Bring with you when you come: blanket, contact information, proof of shots and insurance." I wonder if we can get him replaced if he runs away or gets stolen. Today I was trying to get an appointment for him at the groomer and made several calls. The first place said it would be June before they could take him, and another said a month. The third and the fourth places hung up because I couldn't speak Danish.....or they couldn't speak English...whichever is more important. I will try again tomorrow.

So far, and this is likely to remain the case, there have been no Danish lessons. The Danes take this "Danish" thing way too seriously. And not just the language. Being Danish is a "thing" not just a language. I've absorbed enough to get by so I think I'll leave it at that and the book learning to the people who are going to be here permanently. Officially, thirteen months to go for me. It seems whenever I attempt to say something in Danish, I'm immediately recognized as non-Danish and the speaker reverts to English anyway. And most infuriating is the fact that most people will pretend they haven't got a freaking clue what you're trying to say even though you "know" you're saying it right. I "know" because when they repeat it back to me, it sounds just the same! Honest!!

Over the course of the year I've found places to shop for groceries that don't close at six. It isn't that big a deal to drive 40 kilometers to get there when you really have to have some yogurt at 7PM. If only John was home from work with the car by then. Now that the time's changed, his biological clock or whatever it is that regulates these things, hasn't twigged to the fact that he has to come home in the daylight. He might be catching on a little bit now that we're in the second week of daylight savings time. He turned up last night at dusk.

I meant to post this picture a very long time ago. I stealthily captured this image during the busy Saturday afternoon shopping crush at Fotex, one of our grocery stores. I really hoped no one saw me do this because acting weird and unusual is very un-Danish. But I had to get this one....I wasn't sure how much pork a cute little boy holding his 4-H project in his arms would sell back in Canada....


I translated the caption. It says....."Happy pigs have curly tails." Doesn't particularly make me want to by any sausages.