so many things to ponder

whoa, it's been awhile. things have been busy. it's been a pretty intense period and there's no end in sight. i've been trying to take creative breaks - a lovely weekend away with my creative group, the yearly trip with my weaving group, going to weaving, going to a gourmet knitting day, a pampering event with a friend (think facial and foot bath), followed by an art show and a really nice lunch, several work trips to copenhagen - but it has all left little time to think about personal writing. i miss the way this space allowed me to process things and it would be nice to get back into the habit. odin knows there's plenty to process.

today, as i made dinner - a roast chicken, jerusalem artichokes freshly dug from the garden and some roasted beets, plus a salad with avocado, mango and tomato - i found myself pondering topics to write in the way that i used to and it made me think it would be nice to be back here again. 

things that crossed my mind...the need that everyone seems to have acquired to have a diagnosis, the latest james bond, growing older, the individual nature of grief, what lumke would have wanted to be could she have chosen anything, how to best talk about kitchens from a warm, sympathetic perspective, the natural order of adjectives (thanks, molly), an obsession with growing things from seeds extracted in the kitchen (see the mango plant above, which i started myself), old friends i got to see again this week, sharing what i love about copenhagen, our upcoming trip to arizona (i SO need a holiday), tomorrow's make-your-own-ravioli dinner with friends, what tattoo to get next (i'm thinking a cactus), the chestnut man on netflix. so many things to ponder and write about.  

i think i need to start blogging again like it's 2010 and no one is reading. because, after all, it always came back to me. and it's extremely likely that no one is reading.

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wow, what a story that was released on the day of the seafarer a few months ago (yes, i started this post awhile ago). tales of politics, containers, big tobacco, cancer and whitewashed company histories. i worked for maersk for 5 years and never even heard a whisper of this - only that sealand represented the great maersk move towards containerization. that and the banana plantation that they bought somewhere in africa to push containerization of bananas, which were hauled on refrigerated bulk carriers before containers came along. 

* * *

a national geographic piece on adult fans of lego that, if you ask me, doesn't give enough credit to the actual fans themselves. 

* * *

best ad for wearing a bike helmet ever. the danes are just so good at these things.

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fantastic cooperation between marina abramovic and wetransfer.

the danish model rears its ugly head

i love the danish model. NOT.

honestly, there are times when i'm less than fond of the danish model. i mean in general, not the union model being referred to in this headline (i just couldn't resist using it, since it fit my ironic mood). even down to the word nydansker - new danes - in the little headline below the big one. that term has, in the past decade, taken on a negative connotation. and really, does anyone expect to be allowed by the old danes to actually become a new dane? i don't think so. the danes are too much of a tribe for that. i could go on and on about this, but today i'm thinking about one aspect of the broader danish model that i'm not that keen on...and that's blind allegiance to bureaucracy.

sabin will move over to what is effectively middle school next year. in connection with this, there is a form we had to fill out. after name, address and social security number, the next questions are "mother tongue" and "land of origin," followed by whether or not danish is spoken in the home. it is unclear how this information will be used.

i wrote to the principal yesterday, expressing worries about the purpose of that information. i said that i hoped that the fact that we speak mostly english in our home wasn't going to be used to discriminate against or exclude my child in any way.

i promptly received the answer that the reason it was there was that the school had to send a report about two-language (tosprogede - another word that's taken on a very negative connotation in danish) students to the municipality every year. she assured me that it was not, under any circumstance, used to discriminate or exclude children - tho' she offered no proof of this and provided no information as to what it was to be used for. she also offered no information as to the municipality's purpose in gathering such information on a yearly basis. i can make some guesses about this, with extra funding being at the top of the list. she further advised me to contact the municipality if i wanted further information.

if you recall, this isn't the first time the school has tried to pigeonhole my child with objectionable questions about the languages she may consider native. in that instance, they were also very poor at explaining the purpose of the questions.

and i've thought a lot about that. and i think the answer is twofold. 1) danes trust blindly in their bureaucracy. if the municipality wants a yearly report of what languages the school age children speak in their homes, then they must have a reason for it, so we'll just provide them with that information without asking or even wondering how it will be used. 2) the danish higher education system does not include a set of general education credits which force students to have at least been exposed to basic rhetoric and argument-building. therefore, the principal of the school thinks she actually answered my questions and concerns, not realizing that "the municipality asks for it" is not an argument and does nothing to persuade me that there are not ulterior motives behind it. nor does her proof-less assurance that the information is not used for discrimination or exclusion. these are not arguments, but i have encountered such statements so many times that i have come to believe that danes believe they are arguments. because they don't know any better. me, however, i'm grateful to the TA who taught my rhetoric course at iowa because what i learned from him is still helping me recognize bad arguments on a daily basis.

leading edge humor

a danish comedian named omar marzouk has had both the audacity and the guts to create a terror cell sitcom. the first episode hasn't even been shown and already it's getting a lot of buzz. the program, which will be in danish, is called Cellen or The Cell. omar marzouk plays osama, the main character, and danish actor nicolas bro plays poul abdul, a danish convert to islam from the so-called "whiskey belt" where the rich live north of copenhagen. apparently poul abdul is the most rabid member of the group.

they will have adventures such as participating in the world championship in terror and a wine-tasting style sampling of explosives. apparently in every episode, the main characters blow themselves to bits in some or other terror action gone wrong. they are sent back every time from heaven and the 72 virgins because they never manage to blow anyone but themselves up.

it sounds to me like a hilarious opportunity to bring some humor to what can only be characterized as a touchy subject, to say the least (especially if you're in line at airport security - do NOT under any circumstances attempt any humor about it there). humor has a way of allowing you to get at the underlying meaning in things and it may very well be the only way forward after eight years of "you're either with us or against us" rhetoric from the previous US administration.

it strikes me as very danish to come up with such a concept, though of course there is a tradition for it elsewhere (think monty python's life of brian)...because one thing the danes excel at is laughing their way out of things, especially in an ironic manner. and after the mohammed cartoons that rocked the world and the recent absurdity of yale university cowards press publishing a book about them that does not feature the actual cartoons (talk about giving in to the terrorists), i think it's time to start laughing about this. it's the only way to really get things out in the open and deal with them. comedy has a way of getting at the true heart of things, if it's well done, of course. i'm looking forward to seeing this

apparently some british comedians have already stolen the concept and made a copy-film that's on you tube...here's their first episode. the danish episodes aren't yet available and they're even being filmed in some revolutionary new RED-camera technique, so they will be worth waiting for even tho' the concept has already been stolen by someone else.

cultural perspectives

this afternoon, we put the child, age 8, on the train by herself, to go into copenhagen to see a movie. her big sister was meeting her halfway, but for half of the journey, she was all by herself on the S-train. it felt momentous both to her and to us. she was giddy with excitement and pride. when she's proud of herself and you praise her, she does the cutest little exhale through her nose, not quite a snort, but quick, heavy breath. it's one of my favorite things. she met her sister as planned, saw the movie and came home again on the train, the last half of the journey by herself. in all, a wholly successful journey. she was proud and we were proud that our little girl was so grown up.

after she left for the movie, i was thinking about how such a thing wouldn't be possible if she were growing up in the US. we'd surely have been turned in to social services for trusting our 8-year-old child to make a journey by herself on public transportation. and for a moment, i was really glad she's growing up here, where kids are trusted and so are the other people in the society around you. because in addition to us being confident that she could make the journey, we also knew that no harm would come to her on the train, especially not on a sunday afternoon.

i guess i have the US on the brain because of the IOC meeting last week in copenhagen.  as you may be aware, the IOC met in copenhagen last week to decide where the 2016 olympics will be held. with top officials, royalty, sports stars and VIPs from spain, japan, brazil and the US fronting up to campaign for their respective cities (Madrid, Tokyo, Rio and Chicago), it was a big news week for the danish t.v. stations. since oprah and michelle obama were speaking on behalf of chicago, the news was fixated on them for several days. they were only eclipsed by president obama himself coming into copenhagen for five hours on friday.

after chicago was out in the first round of voting, much to the shock of everyone, who had thought it was a dead heat between rio and chicago, oprah apparently sneaked quietly out of town, as we didn't hear anything more about her. sadly for president obama and michelle, their departure was a bit more public, as cameras were obsessively trained on air force one from the moment it landed 'til well after it was but a shining dot in the sky. however, at the time they left, the results weren't yet known.

the coverage was non-stop and it was DR's (the state-owned television station), turn to pretend they were CNN. and pretend they did. speculating like mad about who was in an unmarked white plane parked on the runway near air force one. speculating like mad about which city would win the olympics. asking danish rock stars their opinions as to who would win (as if they knew). commenting live on a big event held for the IOC members and the cities' celebrities at the copenhagen opera (without knowing more than a handful of the names of those arriving, which ended up rather embarrassing and far more comical than they meant it to). and then there was the bringing in of danes with loose connections to the obamas and oprah to the studio to comment on all of the hype. one connection was so thin that all a danish model living in the US had to offer was that her african american husband reminded her a lot of obama. i laughed quite a long time at that one. poor DR, they were totally unaccustomed to being on air nonstop and clearly struggling with the task.

i hope they learned a lot of lessons because the next big international event on the horizon is the COP15 climate meeting here in copenhagen in december and i hope at least they get a list of names of the attendees at that one, so they can at least say who people are. copenhagen will be filled with strangers then, so i don't think we'll be putting the child on the train alone.

VisitDenmark anyone?

ok, sometimes, denmark really makes me laugh. the sense of humor and the creativity among advertising people in this country is astounding. take this case, of a danish tourism video released by VisitDenmark which was recently pulled from you tube (but not before it had 800,000 hits) on the grounds that it promoted promiscuity. i got it (via twitter) from the BBC website. and it really made me laugh. i really wonder who thought this would sell people on the notion of visiting this little country...



and it has spawned some seriously hilarious creative video responses. this one from the perspective of "august," the baby in the video who is all grown up 25 years later.



this is seriously funny stuff. and there's way more on you tube.

these are the things we'll remember

the queen was in town today. she goes around denmark every summer on her yacht and today, it was our little town's turn. the town is celebrating its 200th anniversary and the queen came to honor that. it was a beautiful sunny, perfect autumn day for her visit (thank you google weather gods).

the entire school gathered in the schoolyard this morning. i went along to take pictures and to be together with sabin on this momentous occasion. tho' the queen is no kennedy (they're the closest we have to royalty, right? tho' maybe the obamas are in that category now), she's still the queen.

3B had to fall in line for the walk across town to where the queen's carriage would pass by. that's sabin's fabulous former business class stewardess teacher (look, isn't her hair perfect?) capably herding the third graders into line.

everyone got a flag to wave as the queen passed by. there wasn't much left of some of the flags by the time the queen actually came, so it might have been a bit better to hand them out once we got there.

it took quite awhile for the queen to come once we were in position. i think they managed to ask how long it would be approximately 438 times before she finally came.

doing a little practice flag-waving

finally the hussars mounted on horseback came.

it was all very grand with the horns heralding the arrival of the queen

i love the shell-covered bridles. they were very festive.
even if these two look like they wish they were somewhere else.

and there she is - queen margarethe II of denmark

and prince henrik, her french husband
don't you love her earrings? kind of viking-y.

the queen's flag

and bringing up the procession, a big truck to clean up the "heste homhom" as sabin calls it.

that's horse poo to you and me.

i know jelica will love this. it's a well-functioning society, what can we say?

i'm really glad i was able to go with sabin and take pictures.

this is the stuff you remember when you grow up.

now that's a funny memory

i know i'm always complaining about the absence of common sense in the country of my birth, but last evening, i heard a story of an utter lack of common sense right here in denmark. it involved husband's middle daughter, M.

she went to a summer camp on børnholm, an island in the middle of the baltic sea below sweden that belongs to denmark. now M is 14 but looks about 25, so it's easy to forget that she's still a kid. so, being a kid, she and several other kids decided to walk down to the local grocery store for some candy and sodas. as kids will do.

while they were gone (i'm not clear as to whether they said where they were going, but suspect they didn't), some of the adult supervisors at the camp freaked out because the five kids were suddenly deemed missing. they rushed down and found them at the local grocery store and proceeded to bawl them out, citing all kinds of horrible things that could have happened - they could have fallen in the water and drowned, they could have been hit by a car (walking on a path), they could have gotten lost. in my view, the worries should have been that they were buying alcohol and cigarettes, but that wasn't the case (they didn't worry that and the kids really did go out after candy).

the camp personnel were so upset by the incident that they decided the group of kids had to be sent home early, because they couldn't be responsible for such renegades with a sweet tooth. so, they elected to put the five on the next ferry off børnholm. to sweden. without any chaperone. or instructions as to which bus to take from sweden to get back to denmark. and frankly, with M's sense of direction and ability to get lost inside her own bedroom, it was risky at best.

so, to sum up. it wasn't ok for kids to walk a few blocks to a grocery store for a bit of chocolate, but it was perfectly ok to send them home alone via another country.

and i thought the danes had cornered the market on common sense.

the danes are a happy people

in a hyperlink world, your progression of thoughts goes something like this...starlene sends you an email citing this quote which came from here:

"Despite not having money, do you still love your life?:  That’s such an American question. Somewhere behind those 10 words is the reason the US continues to linger in the mid-30s of the world happiness index. You know, we get crushed by the Danes in that index every year? -Fucking Danes are so happy! 

The answer is a resounding “sure”. Like most people, I get bummed out a lot, but not about money. I just try to remind myself of my friends, the cool town I live in, and that once in a while I’ll make someone laugh who kinda needed a chuckle. Hell, it’s not Denmark-Euphoria, but most of the time it’s enough.

starlene's path to the quote had started at tangobaby, gone to tangobaby's i live here: SF project blog, then to broke-ass stuart's blog, which led to the link above featuring broke-ass of the week: jeff cleary. and then, all of these links made me go in search of that world happiness index report thingie that the danes come out on top of year after year, so i googled and i found this analysis and this one (featuring a clip on the happiness of danes which was done by 60 minutes) and this one. and naturally, it got me thinking...

actually, every time i see this report of the world happiness index, which the danes have come out on top of for like twenty years, it makes me think. because frankly, i don't think you can tell it by looking at them. you'd expect more overt smuggery (thank you for that word spudballoo) from them, walking around all satisfied and happy like that. but honestly, you don't see it. in fact, if you looked around at the lack of interaction between people (best observed when someone has just run over your foot with their big-ass baby carriage and not apologized) and the no smiling as they walk down the street (especially not at a stranger, ew, shudder at the thought of strangers), you'd actually get the impression that they were quite an unhappy little nation.

starlene asked if it was true that the danes were so happy and i dashed off an answer on my iPhone...one that strangely, in all of my thinking about it over the years, i hadn't actually articulated before. previously, i'd flippantly suggested that it was about low expectations...if you don't expect much, you're pretty satisfied with what you get, right? but there is something more to it than that.

i think it has to do with people feeling generally valued. minimum wage is 120 kroner/hour, which at today's exact exchange rate, which i just ran on XE is $22.41, so even if you're working for minimum wage, you might not go to mallorca for two weeks every summer, but you can live an ok life. (i also think this high minimum wage has to do with why the service culture sucks, but that's the stuff of another post.)

people also feel that their things are valuable. just as an example, our house, which is an ordinary four-bedroom 200m2 house in an ordinary neighborhood and might cost $200,000 in a decent suburb in an american city of similar size, would list for an asking price of $672,000 if we were to put it on the market. this is after the market adjustment that's happened in the past six months. not that i'm saying that people feel happy sitting around converting their real estate to dollars in their heads..it's more a content knowledge that your assets are worth something.

people also feel safe and they trust the people around them. i have to admit that we rarely lock our house and we never lock our car. half the time, i leave the key in the car and our bikes stand out in the bike shed with the keys in their locks (granted i wouldn't do this in the center of copenhagen, but where we live, no problem).

then, there's also that it's a more egalitarian place. there's less hierarchy between jobs. when i first came to denmark more than a decade ago, i remember being struck by the fact that if someone worked in a factory or as a clerk in a store, they didn't seem to have any desire to downplay that. they would openly talk about standing on an assembly line, doing monotonous repetitive work in a positive way that wasn't familiar to me from the US (ok, since i came to denmark straight from the U of C, i might have had a skewed world view, i'll admit). but the fact is that it's a shorter distance from richest to poorest in denmark and there are a whole lotta people in the middle, so people feel equal and worthy of their fellow man.

the danes don't have the baggage of having to live "the american dream," that we as americans are both blessed and cursed with. that's actually one of the things that i was worried about with sabin growing up here...that she wouldn't grow up with the expectation that she could become anything she wanted to be. i no longer feel that way and think she's growing up with a different view on being whatever she wants to be--one that's less competitive and healthier and far more relaxed.

because if anything, i think the danes are quite relaxed. i know that when i go to the US, i feel far more stressed and pushed--to be faster, to do more. here, people work hard, but they leave at 3 p.m. to pick up their kids, spend a few good hours with them between picking them up, dinner and getting them to bed and then get back online and attend to work again after the kids go to bed. they're accustomed to dealing with other time zones and know that it's sometimes necessary to join a conference call across the world at 9 p.m. and they do so without thinking much about it--it's just normal.

because although danes like to come back home and think denmark is the greatest, they are outward-looking and travel a lot. they are informed about what's going on in the world and interested in it. as VEG wrote recently, there are lots of americans who don't even really know where canada is and it's sitting right there on top of them. danes have a remarkable awareness of and interest in the world. and this may make them happy to be back at home in their little country where although there are problems, there's a secure social welfare system and free medical care as well as a good public transport net and safe roads.

just an example of the social welfare system: i keep reading about people in the US who are laid off from one day to the next. that can't happen here. you can be laid off, of course, but the company must continue to pay you for three months if you've been in the job for less than three years. if it's more than three years, they have to pay you another month for every year, so 4 years = 4 months, and so on. this gives you time and breathing room to recover from the shock and find another job before you run completely out of money. and even if you don't find something, there's social welfare to keep you from having to sell off your firstborn child on ebay (tho' you may want to do that some days anyway, depending on the behavior of said child and your level of patience).

while i believe that all of these factors contribute to the danes' general level of happiness (and frankly, i'm  a pretty happy and content person myself, so it does rub off), there are flip sides to it. like a general level of impoliteness and a lack of service culture that i also believe are results of all of this equality.

but for the most part, it's true, denmark is a pretty happy place. just look at that cheerful red and white flag? how could that not make you happy?

it was a dark and stormy day...

blame it on the moon

Rxbambi tagged me earlier this week to do a list of six things that get me pissed. initially i was going to make a list of my favorite kinds of gin, but then i realized it wasn't that kind of pissed.  on that particular day, i was feeling that the world was quite rosy and couldn't actually think of six things, but let me tell you, now i can...

1. big sisters using sabin's mobile - sabin's big sisters have their own mobile phones, but they always go nuts texting all of their friends on hers when they're here, because theirs are the pre-paid card kind and they don't want to use up their own SMSes. i'm normally fine with this because we've got an unlimited SMS plan on sabin's phone, she doesn't use any herself and so it seems ok that it gets used. UNTIL....i learned today that they had subscribed to some stupid spam-like SMS thing that repeatedly sends you texts about a hummingbird and it costs 15DKK every time. that's $3. which translates to $36 a month. which pisses me off like you wouldn't believe. especially because i hadn't looked closely at that bill and it's now the 3rd month the charge appears there (so much for my attentiveness to bills, eh?). i hadn't looked at it because sometimes sabin calls my norwegian number when i'm in norway and i thought it was just that. it wasn't. grr.
2. whipping wind - it's been blowing steadily for two days and i'm really. really. really. tired. of. it.
3. people who send an invitation to a party (that's not a wedding but just an ordinary dinner party) three months in advance - i have no friggin' clue whether i want to have dinner with you three months from now. call me the day before. fokken danes.
4. sexist misogynist dinosaurs in shipping - i don't actually encounter them very often, but when i do, it pisses me off like nothing else. do. not. underestimate. me. just. because. i'm. a. girl. or i shall plant this jessica simpson stiletto squarely in your eyeball.
5. Thuesen Jensen - they're the danish importer of Kitchen Aid products. they have no web presence--their "website" goes to an eLearning log-in thing. they are impossible to contact, no phone number, no email and they are absolute rubbish at service (which one supposes is why they are impossible to contact). they are giving Kitchen Aid a bad name. i have on two occasions now had a problem with the Kitchen Aid food processor i bought last summer. and twice, instead of just giving me a new one and then dealing with it on their end, they made the shop send it in, taking nearly a month to fix it both times. so, i've been without my food processor (which i use regularly) for two of the eight months i've owned it. i just got it back again, with a new bowl on it. why didn't they give me that the first time they took it, since it was the same problem both times. i really think Kitchen Aid should know how bad they are and what a bad name they're giving to Kitchen Aid. i only know their name because i dragged it out of my local shop. and now, i hope that this reference to their name comes up the next time someone googles Thuesen Jensen, because they are complete and utter crap and should have their rights to import Kitchen Aid taken away. when someone pays 3500DKK ($700USD) for their fokken food processor, they expect it to work and if it doesn't, they expect to have a new one that does work inside of about 3 minutes. end. of. story. it better stay fixed this time, or you all will be reading about this on a daily basis. (sorry to threaten you when i'm really threatening them.)
6. people with the wrong priorities - certain family members recently failed to be there on two big occasions--mathilde's confirmation and the party celebrating aunty M's dictionary. i think that's really friggin' selfish and egotistical. you can put off going to your precious summer house where you go every weekend all summer long for things that happen only once in a lifetime. how often does a young person get confirmed (if they're not baptist or whatever)? and how often do you celebrate the culmination of ten years' work? get your fokken priorities straight. there are certain things you are simply obligated to do. these two things were prime examples of them. 

hmmm...it seems like it might be that time that rolls around every month when husband gets really annoying. why do you suppose he does that? speaking of him, where is he and why isn't he making me some dinner?

perhaps i need that gin list after all:

1. hendrick's
2. beefeater crown jewel (in the purple bottle)
3. g'vine
4. bombay sapphire
5. beefeater 24
6. the local indian gin i had one time in chennai (believe me, it was the only good thing about chennai)

on that note, i think i'll go check out how we're fixed for tonic. i know i just bought limes...

see, not always ranting

far too often, i'm complaining about some aspect of denmark and the danes that i simply cannot understand or appreciate, but not today. today, i'm madly in love. with all of it. that pretty little red and white flag. the copper roofs, the efficient public transportation. even that ridiculously tiny statue of a mermaid (granted, not a misrepresentation, as the word "little" is in her title). i am just loving it.

it's probably spring. it's probably because i'm flying today and flying always makes me happy. it's probably because the trains were totally on time and i was 20 minutes early for my morning meeting. maybe it's because i'm sitting in the gold lounge and they have some really yummy bread and sandwich fixings and english newspapers and a l'avenir chenin blanc from the western cape. maybe it's because i'm gonna get a venti latte at starbucks before i board my plane.

perhaps it's because since i got on the metro to the airport about an hour ago i've heard the following languages: russian, danish, english, portuguese, dutch, swedish, german, japanese and norwegian and i love hearing lots of languages. maybe it's check-in via SMS and then direct bag drop at the gold counter, followed by fast track security which means i'm in the lounge within 2 minutes of arriving at the airport (odin bless you, SAS). maybe it's that the computers for public use in the lounge are, you guessed it, iMacs (odin bless you again, SAS).

maybe it's light, bright, tastefully decorated government offices filled with top end designer furniture (so that's what they're doing with all that tax money). maybe it's unexpectedly realizing that the guy you've got an appointment with is the top guy and he made time for you. cool!

but really, it's because of the extremely pleasant hour and a half i spent discussing the environment with that top guy. i was completely reminded of all of the personality traits i really love about danes. they're so pragmatic and straight-forward. they're honest (as in candid) and logical and have lots of common sense (something i see lacking in my own country of birth whenever i visit--just think of airport security before your hackles raise, my american dahlings). danes are so funny in an ironic, dry way that i adore. and lastly, they don't hesitate to swear for emphasis. they're really, really good at swearing at the right moments to make a point or put you at ease.  and did i mention smart and well-thought out? well-argued?

so today, no ranting about the danes and denmark. just love. mad, spring love.

i feel a rant coming on...

sabin's school has a parents' portal. it's one of those typically badly-designed, no usability studies conducted, homemade kind of unhandy, old-fashioned things, which isn't really what this post is about, but as i said in the title, i feel a rant coming on, so i shall indeed rant about everything.

yesterday on the parent portal, the school posted what i can only term a decree outlining their "principles for parental financial responsibility for damages." it reads as follows (in the original):

Hvis en elev bliver taget i, forsætlig at have forvoldt skade på skolens materiel, vil elevens forældre modtage en regning til betaling – efter endt reparation eller ombytning.

Når det er billigere for eleven og skolen, at servicepersonalet reparere materiellet, vil elevens forældre modtage en regning på 250 kr. pr påbegyndt time samt omkostninger til materialer.

Elevens forældre vil ikke modtage en regning, med mindre skolen er sikker på, at det er vedkommende, der er skyld i skaden.

Elevens forældre vil altid blive informeret i godt tid, inden der kommer en regning.

Forældrene orienteres inden arbejdet påbegyndes.

basically, it says that if your child causes damages to school property, you as a parent will receive a bill for the damages or replacement of said property. it further declares that if it is cheaper for the student and the school, the school's own service personnel will make the repairs and the parent will be billed for 250 kroner per hour + the cost of materials. it does allow one caveat that the parent will only receive a bill if the school is sure that the student in question caused the damages. and it also says that parents will be notified before work begins and before they are sent a bill. 

at the bottom of the word document, it says that the decision about this matter was taken at a school board meeting at the end of march. the document was simply put in the intranet with no accompanying explanation. and this is part of what i object to. i'm sure that there are extenuating circumstances which made the school think this was necessary, but none of those are given (perhaps if i were truly a resourcestærke forældre i would simply KNOW what the background story was). i cannot believe that i'm the only parent who would be interested in knowing the context of this decision and i would think that could be done diplomatically without naming names.


i think this is another example of how language manifests culture..i find it to be written in the same cold, righteous, distant manner that i sometimes find the entire culture to behave. it just hits me as very harshly put, even tho' if you dissect, there's not anything that's really wrong with it. maybe i feel this way because i'm missing the context for the decision.

or maybe the main reason that this is rubbing me the wrong way is that last week, sabin hurt herself when she fell on a wooden structure in the schoolyard that is in dangerous disrepair. i don't know if the hole she fell into was already there or if she actually made the hole in this wooden decking/bench structure that surrounds a tree in the schoolyard.  i had a look at the bench and counted no less than four places where there were jagged pieces of broken-off wood or holes where children could get hurt. it wasn't blocked off from kids playing on it until i brought sabin's injury to her teacher's attention (by which time it was already too late). i have to give her a big hand because she immediately acted and there is now tape up and the kids have been instructed not to play there. and look, the maintenance guy fixed it today--where the new boards are is where there were jagged edges, holes and dangerous protrubances (is that a word?):

this is the one where sabin fell in (before the repair).

but what i wonder now is if i will be presented with the bill? where does responsibility begin? if sabin had maliciously damaged the wooden structure, i would happily take responsibility. but, if she got hurt playing on something that should have been kept in good repair and it happened to break further when she was playing on it, should we have to pay? you might imagine that i do not think so. and i should hasten to add that no one has asked us to, these are just the thoughts that go through my mind as i read the proclamation.


i think it provokes me no end that parents are basically being threatened with having to pay for damages on school property when the school isn't even taking care to maintain it properly themselves. 

i was so incensed by this last evening that i couldn't sleep and i stayed up late composing an email to the school which i sent late last evening. it's now late afternoon here and do you think anyone has acknowledged my mail and my concerns? they have not. and do you think that's making me happy? it is not. 

there is a parents' meeting this evening and i am attending. the right people are probably not at this meeting, but you can bet i'm going to bring it up, even if i am painted ugly american for doing so. i just don't think it's acceptable to send out such a strongly worded statement with no accompanying background information, nor do i think it's appropriate to ignore my email. and most importantly, i don't think it's ok to let play areas become dangerous so that children are hurt on them during playtime. if it were the US, we could definitely sue over the injury sabin got on that broken decking. denmark isn't like that, but my litigious inner american has been awakened and she's not happy.

an eye-opener

today was the day of the inaugural meeting of the artists' group that's being formed in my community. i decided last month to join and paid my 100DKK fee to be part of the group, but as the meeting approached, i felt less sure i wanted to go. however, i took hold of myself this morning, flat-ironed the hair and drove over to the meeting, artwork in hand for the photo for the local newspaper. it was one of those moments when you dress up a bit too much because it feels like the best way to feel psychologically prepared. so, on with my fave gap dress, funked up with electric blue tights, grey socks and purple furry boots--looking suitably arty, right? (why did i not have someone snap my picture--oh right, because they were all still asleep when i left.)

thankfully, i pulled up at the same time as a very nice, smiling older man who actually spoke to me (i actually wondered for a minute if he was danish--he was) and walked in together with him and ended up finding a chair and sitting next to him in the back of the already-crowded room. no one said hello (not that i expected them to). soon, the meeting got underway. strangely, it started off with a list of what the association wasn't, given by the presumed chairman of the board (she wasn't elected yet at that point). i found it a strangely negative tone to start off on, especially as it mainly consisted of a lot of whining and pushing away of responsibility by the board that wasn't even yet elected and foreseeing of problems caused by group members who weren't yet causing any trouble. i sat back and reminded myself to put on my anthropologist hat and just observe the natives in their natural habitat. they say that anytime there's a group of at least five danes, they will form an association of some sort, so i wanted to see this in action.

one of the most interesting and to me, incomprehensible, aspects of the meeting was the presence of what they called an "overstyrer." this seems to translate, as near as i could tell, as meeting nazi--as she rudely interrupted people, spoke in the most patronizing, agressive manner, only allowed grown adults to speak if they had raised their hands, cut them off and loudly answered "no" whenever the gentleman taking us through the by-laws point by point asked if there was any feedback--thereby preventing anyone from offering any feedback at several junctures. what was most strange is although this particular individual was not elected to the board, she ran the entire meeting, even closing it with a little speech that conveyed that she thought it was a room of small, dull children rather than grown-up adult, creative artists, most of whom were in their 50s and 60s. it was really quite astonishing as a cultural phenomenon. i'll admit i don't yet have my head around it.

i wasn't the only one astonished, as at the end, one of the older gentlemen--one of six in the room that i had decided really looked like an artist--called her on her patronizing speech. she didn't take it well and the other righteous women in the room rallied around her, so she didn't actually learn from it at all, which was a real shame.

however, there are good things about the group. it's cool to be part of a group of 68 artists that live in my community. there's going to be an "art route" on may 17, where the public can go around and visit the studios and workshops of all who want to participate. i signed up for that, as my studio is perhaps my main point of pride (other than the famous kitchen, of course, which i'm still a little giddy about) and it will give me the push i need to be ready for that (i'm a girl who needs an assignment). i think it can only do me good to meet artists and find sources of inspiration within my own community, rather than almost exclusively online (as much as i love and appreciate all of you).

i guess overall, what surprised me most is that i thought that a group of artists would be extremely open--open-minded and generally open as people, but quite the opposite was true. their views on the incorporation of the group were really very square and what i can only characterize as non-artistic in nature. at one point, several people wanted to exclude young people under 18 from joining (not that there were any there), but why should young artists not be welcome? i just really didn't get that and luckily one of the elder voices of reason spoke up on that point and it was voted down. there was a closedness that surprised me, tho' i suppose it shouldn't have in light of how denmark is in general. i just expected artists to be different. in all, i guess it was an interesting experience.

i'm curious to get to know some of the others and find out why they got involved. i think it could be a real eye-opener for me to learn that, because i'm beginning to think that it's not for the reasons i would have imagined.

a WTF? wednesday experience

ok, i swear that the bizarro world thing is spreading....

i just got a phone call from someone who was trying to sell me a hospital clown. or at least a sponsorship of a hospital clown. i could not make this up people, this is a true story. i had a rather hard time understanding what he was getting at and he thought i couldn't speak danish, but i think that my ears simply couldn't believe that someone was trying to sell me a hospital clown. what is a hospital clown, you ask? apparently, it's a clown who goes around to hospitals, trying to ease the fears of children who are facing surgery. frankly, i find clowns deeply disturbing and i would imagine that what really happens is that the children end up preferring the surgery to the clown.

anyhow, this guy said that my clown would be at my closest hospital, which he said was the big main hospital in copenhagen, which is definitely not my closest hospital. he also mentioned another hospital that's nowhere near where i live. since i have an unlisted phone number, i asked him where he thought i was. he then said, somewhere in jylland (which is the bit of denmark that's attached to germany and definitely NOT where i live and REALLY far from the hospitals he had named). he actually said this right after he READ OUT my address, so he knew the name of my town and didn't know where it was in HIS OWN COUNTRY. please people, the place is the size of wisconsin, it's not that difficult.

i know he was just doing his sucky telemarketing job, but i told him i thought clowns were scary and there was no way i was going to play any part in paying one. then, i suggested that he try to know something about the people he's calling, otherwise he shouldn't really call. i also asked him to remove my unlisted number from his call list. i pointed out that it was unlisted so that i wouldn't get calls from people who didn't know who the hell i was or where i lived and that if i wanted to purchase something or sponsor something, i would seek out that information on my own, but it would never, ever, under any circumstance be a friggin' clown!!! and then i hung up. seriously, WTF?

this is the second telemarketer who has called in as many weeks. they never used to call, so i guess it's a sign of the GEC that they are resorting to this technique. telemarketers are something i most decidedly do NOT miss from the US. in fact, the only thing i really miss is the Gap. and really good fajita salt. oh, and proper mexican restaurants.

p.s. i looked for clown pictures to go with this post, but they were all too friggin' scary to share. which only proves my point.

sewing our way to happiness.

since i most often complain about the service (or lack thereof) in denmark, i thought that today i would present another side of the story. because i recently had a truly excellent service experience and it involved danes.

last week, i decided it was time to buy a new sewing machine. i'd been limping along with an old husqvarna that i bought at a flea market back in 1999 for 250DKK (about $30 at that time). it was ok as long as you were just sewing simple straight seams and it served me well (mostly because i didn't use it that often) for nearly 10 years. i've been sewing more of late, making pillows and quilts and things. and i'd come to a bit of a standstill on some of those projects because the old machine simply didn't handle the layers of a quilt very well. the tension got all messed up and it bunched the layers as it fed them through.

so i googled sewing machine stores and found a number of them within driving distance. several of them appeared to be owned by ancient folks who i wasn't sure would be particularly open to the foreign girl who spoke danish but didn't really know any of that sewing machine terminology. or at least that was my perception. i also found one that looked like it was pretty big and had a wide selection. i had in mind that i wanted a used machine again, just a newer one than the one i had. i figured a large store would have a larger selection of traded-in used machines. so headed off for the storkøbenhavns symaskine center (greater copenhagen sewing machine center). it was strangely placed in a really industrial area, but i found it after driving by a couple of times and went in, tho' i suddenly wondered if it was a sewing machine factory rather than a store.

right away, a man around my age came and asked me if i wanted help. i was a little surprised it was a man, because i had a perception of sewing as a woman thing. but, i told him that i was a beginning quilter and that i was looking for a used machine and he showed me a couple of the ones he had. they weren't really that much better or newer than the one i already had and he could see on my face that i was a bit disappointed. he said, "i wish i could show you a new machine." and because the room was filled with row upon row of new machines, i caved in.

sewing machines these days are pretty amazing. they can do a lot of complex stitches. they have slots for cards where you can insert elaborate embroidery patterns and set them going on their own while you walk away. in other words, they are really smart. and rather of overwhelming. i've been sewing since i was a kid and would characterize myself as a pretty good seamstress, but i wasn't sure i needed a machine that complex. he seemed to get that immediately and led me to the pfaff row, where he showed me the 2134. i was a bit dazzled by the 100 stitches and the alphabet it could do and how easy it was to make a buttonhole. it had a zipper foot. as well as several others (the purposes of which are still a mystery to me). it was smart enough to tell me which foot i need for the stitch i've selected. and if i wanted to do all of the fancy embroidery stuff later, i could buy the attachment for the machine and be able to do it. he knew the machine well and very smoothly showed me all it could do, making it look super easy. and then he gave me what he presented as a really good price on it, as well as including a service agreement that means free servicing for five years! so, i agreed to buy it.

i was anxious to get home and get started, but then i learned to my dismay that they didn't have any in stock. he said they expected to receive them the next day, but i wasn't going to have the car the next day because husband had to take it to a meeting over on another island. then, he immediately offered to send the machine to me as soon as they got them in the next day, so i'd have it by thursday, the same as if i picked it up myself only without me having to drive all that way. and, he didn't even charge me for this service.

i had mentioned to him that i had trouble finding bobbins for my old machine, so he gave me a dozen or more bobbins for the machine as well, also for free. it did make me wonder whether the price he'd given me was really so good, but then i got home and did a bit of after-the-fact research and found out that it was an excellent price, even with all that VAT. and it was delivered, as promised, on thursday morning. service that really made a difference for me and which other danish businesses could definitely take a lesson from.

and i've already quilted together my quilt-in-a-day (which turned out to be quilt top in a day, but which i didn't finish due to the limitations of the old machine) and on the weekend, husband's oldest daughter, k, and i made this pretty, sunny little lap quilt:

and we even did the binding! tho', she has to do the final hand sewing the next time she's here. and as for me, i'm off to do the binding on my quilt, so more pix once it's done.  sabin's home sick today, so perhaps she'll help or sew something herself and we'll thereby get the next generation sewing as well.

just say no...

if there's one thing you can say about danes, it's that they have a great sense of humor. i just saw evidence of this on the TV2 evening news, where they reported a story of the director of a factory in jutland (the bit of denmark that's attached to germany) who has banned all of the bad news regarding the global economic crisis (hereafter GEC) in the workplace.

he and his assistant spend the first hour of every workday cutting all articles which reference the GEC from all of the newspapers in the building. they then distribute the severely shredded newspapers in the canteen and breakrooms. his idea is that all of this negative talk isn't helping. and perhaps he's right.

he's serious about it at the same time as he realizes the absurdity. the workers took it very well, laughing and not feeling it as censorship in their workplace. if people make reference to the GEC, they owe 5 kroner to a kitty. i didn't catch what they were going to do with the money, nor did i catch the name of the company and it doesn't seem to be up on the TV2 website as of yet. when it appears, i'll update this post.

in the meantime, i think i'll go cut all of the articles which reference the crisis out of the two newspapers we get on a daily basis, just to see what's left. who knows, maybe it will help.

stranger in a strange land

i did, in fact, survive my ikea run. turns out that going on an ordinary tuesday morning, half an hour from opening time is a great time to go. i parked second from the end closest to the door (that usually only happens to husband, he has the world's best parking karma) and didn't have to battle any crowds. it seemed to be largely old people and a nursing home for younger handicapped folks on an outing. they seemed to be enjoying themselves, so no stress. the only drawback was that they were out of the shades i went there for (which didn't stop me from buying 2,000 kroner of other stuff--why can't i just walk past the fabric section?). i did, however, find the shades in another store nearby, so no return trip to ikea anytime soon (phew). but enough of all that boring crap...i just thought i had to give you an update since i had issued such a dire warning this morning.

* * *

after my big spree in ikea, i went to buy groceries. in the grocery store, i witnessed one of those things that i simply cannot, from a cultural standpoint, even after more than ten years living in this country, understand.  from my perspective, danes are really closed. there's no public chatting with strangers. there's no greeting you if they don't know you. and there is a curious lack of awareness that other people exist in public spaces.

nearly every time i'm out in public, i have at least one experience wherein i'm standing, waiting patiently to get past someone who is taking up the entire aisle and is entirely oblivious to the fact that anyone might want past. this happens both in the grocery store and in the car, especially in a parking lot. a total and utter obliviousness to the very existence of other people. and, because of cultural pressure, no one ever says anything, so i end up feeling that i can't even really say "excuse me" to go by, you just have to wait until they meander on to the next door of the dairy case. most of the time, it never even dawns on them that they were in someone's way.

this obliviousness to others can also result in them directly running into you or over your foot with their cart or their baby carriage. and 8 out of 10 times, you will not get an apology for this. you will hardly be deemed worthy of a look and by god, what the hell were you doing there anyway, they completely didn't notice you because you didn't meet back in kindergarten when they met all the people they needed for a lifetime.

so today, while i was standing in line for bread (and feeling rather soviet), i saw a woman run smack into a person in a wheelchair--totally her fault, not even remotely his, by the way. and not just any wheelchair, but a really special, motorized one that the person in question was operating by resting his chin on a special joystick. so an extremely handicapped person. and this woman just gave the man some kind of a smirk, but did not utter even the slightest whisper of an apology. it may very well be that the person in the wheelchair lacked the power of speech, but didn't he deserve an "excuse me?"

i was dumbfounded and found that my heart was actually pounding. with some effort, i held myself back from leaving the line and going over and asking the woman, loudly and in front of all of kvickly (that was the name of the grocery store), what her problem was that she couldn't even have the common courtesy to apologize to a deeply disabled person. and i have kicked myself ever since. what is it that stops me in such a situation? it's the pressure of the culture around me. but it's also a desire not to appear righteous, which i also deeply dislike. i could have overcome the culture by confronting her in english, thereby displaying that i'm not of this culture. but i didn't do it. and i really wish i had.

i fear i'll never really understand the danes, because i can't make up an explanation in my head that makes such a situation ok. there's no common courtesy, no common decency in it, especially for a people who are otherwise all about welfare and being certain people are provided for. maybe it's that people think they did their part in giving 50% of their salary in taxes, and that's as far as their human decency extends.  it's not that i feel superior, i just don't think i'll ever really get used it.

DHL bites

there is a distinct lack of customer service in this country, i guess because minimum wage is in the neighborhood of $25/hour and people are not dependent on serving customers well for their salary. it drives me absolutely batty at times. let me give you the latest example...yesterday, DHL tried to deliver a package of MOO cards to me when i was not at home. so i take the half-filled-out form that their driver, who apparently had a palsy of some sort, left in my mailbox and go to their website. there, typical of all too many companies today, they try to make it completely impossible for you to get in touch with them except through some wholly incomprehensible and very narrowly defined forms and drop-downs that don't really quite describe your problem. so i fill out a form and i get a chance to enter the package number and my phone number and email address before some glitch happens and it submits itself and won't let me back in to try to fill it out completely. it apparently "knew" better than i did that the form had been submitted once and you can apparently only do one per day (i pity companies that have more than one package coming).

so, this morning, i tried again. and after filling it all out with my address and phone and the times i am home, i get a mail asking me where i wanted it delivered. hello? to the address that is now both on the package and on your stupid form, people! AND on top of it, they tell me it cannot be delivered before monday, despite the fact that i actually sent the request YESTERDAY! what do they not understand about their business--it's about getting a package quickly, for which they charge a small fortune. and then they have the audacity to be pissy that i'm a little pissy that i cannot get my package in a timely manner! after i expressed frustration that it was to the address that was on the package and on the form and why were they asking me for an address...they actually sent a mail telling me to "speak nicely or they wouldn't help me get my package." (just because i wrote in all caps.) righteous bastards. unbelievable. and it caused my blood pressure to go through the roof! on top of it, i write to them in english and they keep writing back to me in danish! not that i can't read it, but still, it's just such a lack of customer service!

and it's not the first time DHL has been less than stellar. i had a box of brochures sent to me to take to a conference and they claimed they had tried to deliver (which they couldn't have, because there had been someone home all day that day) and so i asked them to forward it on to my hotel in germany because i had to catch a plane and didn't have time to pick it up. they told me that would be impossible, and although they took the hotel address, they said they would call me if it was possible. well, they never called (and i had given them two different mobile numbers, both of which i had on me). and the package never came. however, an invoice for nearly 3,000NOK ($428) came to me at work! WHAT? the absurdity! for a service they said they couldn't do and apparently didn't do, but had no qualms billing for. and it was a small box, the size of 2 reams of paper! unbelievable.

ok. i'm done ranting now.

a day i'll never have back...

this was one of those days...so full of promise, so much time stretching before me and so utterly wasted.

you know the kind of days where you go from task to task, doing a little of something here and little of something there, but finishing nothing. you drive to ikea. you find the stuff. although you are very focused (this is, after all, your SIXTH trip in 10 days), it still takes forever--mostly because you are unable to shed the cultural and societal pressure of following those damn arrows through in the right direction, not to mention the irresistible call of the meatballs. the line is long but that doesn't really matter because you have the world's worst queueing karma anyway, the cashier is slow and then a little suspicious when your addled brain accidentally tells him you have twelve shelf brackets when you really have fourteen. despite this, it still occurs to you that maybe it would have been easier to just move into ikea. because if you lived there, you wouldn't really have to worry about the check-out. plus, everything is so pretty! and very swedish! ;-)

on the drive home, the meatballs let you down and you crash hard (not literally, but almost), feeling very, very sleepy, so you have no motivation whatsoever to pick up any of the million tasks you were working on (lining drawers, hanging pictures, arranging books) before you embarked on the ikea mission. and then you have to take husband's oldest child, who is suddenly mad for bonsai trees to the plant school where you needed to go anyway to get dirt to repot the very tall palm tree you bought for the addition in ikea. you drag yourself through this as though there is lead in your shoes.

you make a coffee. it doesn't really help. you go into the dining room where you see that husband has actually removed a bunch of the books you so carefully arranged yesterday and you try not to cry because he is just trying to get the new shelves in place correctly. but it seems a little overwhelming. they send you to get pizza for dinner because let's face it, you're not in the frame of mind to make any dinner. then you remember that you have a parents' meeting at the school this evening. so you know that this day is now completely a wash-out.

the first bit of the parents' meeting is good--it's interesting to hear what the teachers have to say. they give an overview of what's on the agenda for second grade, aside from some worrying statements about a subject called "christianity," you think it sounds pretty ok. you spend a few minutes having a conversation with yourself in your head, reminding you that they have such a subject in a country where there is a state church rather than a separation of church and state. you make mental note (and actual note in little black book) to discuss the subject with sabin and encourage in her a healthy skepticism.

your mental reverie wanders to the difference between the two second grade teachers. one is a traditional teacher-type--a little bit hippie-agtig (that's one of those danish words that's just better than "ish") in clothes she made out of hemp fibers she wove and dyed herself (or so you imagine--it is your reverie, after all). the other in a tailored white blouse, smart jeans and an expensive haircut--still looking every bit the lead stewardess flight attendant she was before she became a teacher.  you're a little bit glad that your teacher is the former flight attendant. she looks like someone who belongs in business class and seems like someone who would keep a cool head in an emergency. tho', of course, you hope there aren't any of those in the second grade.

then, the meeting breaks into the two classes and out comes the cake and coffee.  you gaze around the room. these public institutions are very alike--they have curtains of a certain pattern that can only be called offentlig and they all have designer arne jacobsen chairs. you try to focus, but it's a lot of talk of planning obsessively some picnic tour next may. that's may 2009. you have difficulty focusing on such discussion as you have no idea what you'll fancy doing tomorrow, let alone may 2009. you can't commit to that date.  you think, wow, this discussion is really danish. is there no viking spirit left in these people? the vikings surely didn't obsessively plan the raping and pillaging months and months ahead. they just packed up the boats and rowed away when the wind was right.

then came the great risengrød discussion (it's a christmasy rice porridge) and for the past two years, we've had an evening where we all eat it together and make christmas decor. i think we may have decided to do it again, but by then i was heavily into fox-like thoughts of chewing off my own arm in attempt to escape.

then there was the great homework discussion, during which it transpired that there wasn't really too much homework, but the kid of the one who brought it up was just really, really slow.

i amused myself by going around the room and making a mental note of which newspaper each person/couple was. i have a theory that you can tell by looking at people, especially danes, what newspaper they read. there were 2 politiken couples, one jyllands-posten, possibly 2 berlingske (including myself), no information (unless i include myself again and it doesn't really count because it's my auxiliary backup newspaper) and the rest (read: overwhelming majority) were either BT or extrabladet, which are arguably NOT newspapers at all. i told myself that this internal dialogue was anthropological in nature and definitely not elitist snob in nature. but by then my brain was mush and i might be a little bit wrong about that.

anyway. tomorrow is another day and the new version of my list, while still long, shall be done tomorrow. wish me luck!

#300 - this had better be good

this is my 300th blog posting since i created the blog, which i did in '04, but i didn't actually start blogging in earnest until this past january. it's really weird how those round numbers seem to have some sort of significance. why is that? luckily, i have something to write about, because it feels wrong to fill a round post with the mundane. this should really be a moment of perfect clarity. let's hope it is! 

some friends of ours got married yesterday on 08.08.08. they got the infinity symbol engraved on their rings, pushing the whole 8-thing to the maximum. i think that was pretty cool. they are in their 40s, both have children from previous relationships and so this is a real true love kind of marriage, they're not proving anything to anyone but themselves and that was so nice because it meant that it was all about relaxing and enjoying the day.

the ceremony was in a little country church that must have been added onto several times over the years, as the main part was really quite tiny and we (who got there only about 5 minutes before the bride) were actually seated in another "wing" that went off from the main aisle, which meant that we couldn't actually see any of the ceremony except for a quick glimpse of the bride as her son escorted her down the very short aisle to the front and out of our line of sight. 

it was one of those church services where i felt totally out of place...everyone else seemed to know when the standing and the singing and the sitting and the standing again and sung "amens" were coming, but i was bewildered and a beat behind all of them. i had a terrible time understanding the minister, as his accent sounded very strange. later, even the danes said they felt the same way (whew, i thought my few days in norway this week had somehow wrecked my ability to understand danish!). they thought he'd had a stroke at some point and his speech was affected by that. i was quite relieved that it wasn't just me.

the bride and groom meandered on foot over to the local community centre where the party would be held. it was a very relaxed and happy procession and many of the guests also walked over. it's so nice with second weddings, the couple in question always seems to enjoy them so much more!

i will admit that i was nervous about attending a danish wedding. i had been to one 8 years ago and had had such a miserable time that i had to step outside twice to bawl my eyes out. or perhaps it was just the smoke from the chain cheap cigarillo-smoking grandfather that was seated next to me. or the fact that i was in the early stages of pregnancy with twins and not yet ready for anyone to know that, so i couldn't even drink to cope. or perhaps it was because there were 11 songs and speeches, including one from the cat, for a couple with a limited range of interests (which had pretty much been covered in the first 2-3 songs). or maybe it was because my husband's ex-wife was also invited and i was feeling a bit insecure about that. in any case, i was totally unable, on that previous occasion, to appreciate it in any way, not even from an anthropological or sociological standpoint--observing the natives in their natural habitat and such.

so, i was a little bit nervous. these are friends, but not our closest, best friends (tho' our closest, best friends were there). we have spent new year's with them a couple of times and been to birthdays and summer parties, but only knew a few of their friends. i didn't feel i knew them well enough to know what the level of sentimental songs/speeches would be and i was dreading those.

let me say that when danes have big, significant parties, they often make up songs for the guest of honor. think cheesy lyrics featuring anecdotes of trips to mallorca set to famous melodies. you actually see ads in the paper for people who do this "songwriting" professionally. if you're too lame to actually put together a song for your friends, some stranger who doesn't know them at all will gladly do it for you. in my experience, the cleverness of these songs is limited at best and is only meaningful to a very small percentage of the audience that attends any such party (it can be birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, confirmations that are the occasion for such songs) and pretty much a vaguely embarrassing situation for everyone else.

i don't know what was different about this party. for one, there were only two songs and 3-4 speeches. the speeches were very appropriate to the one giving them--the groom gave a speech that was just very much him. his mother gave a good speech that said a lot about the generational shift that i don't think knew she was saying (more about that in a minute). friends spoke, from the heart and in a very real, grounded and caring way (more about that too).

it was also about me being in a different place. i could have wine because i wasn't pregnant this time. and i understand danish a whole lot better than i did 8 years ago. and a really charming, lovely girl from namibia (who lives in iceland and will be an icelandic citizen in october) was sitting across from me and we had a very interesting conversation with her. 

the groom's parents are rather elderly and they were an old shipping family whose shipping company was wrestled away from them in some uproar years ago. there is a clear generation gap that is also a gap in social standing. his mother, who is 82 and was perfectly lovely in a long, formal purple gown, with perfect earrings and coiffed hair, is clearly of an old fashioned upper-class family. she speaks in the same accent as the queen and isn't entirely comfortable in a provincial community building, nor does she entirely understand why her son wants to live in an unfinished summer house with his new wife and now four children while working as a pedagogue to handicapped children. for me, knowing the story of no-longer shipowners generation, there is an air of sadness over her that isn't there in her son, who apparently never really knew that life and embraces the life he lives. very interesting to observe if one is anthropologist for an evening. and was very revealing of family dynamics. 

the friend who gave the most touching speech was also an interesting study of the natives. i've often ranted on this very blog about people being very cold and closed in denmark. but, what is quite amazing is their capacity to open up and stand up in a room full of people that they largely don't know and speak completely from the heart and sincerely (in this case without sentimentality) of their feelings with regard to the friendship they have shared with the guest of honor. it is an ability to be admired and treasured. i even got tears in my eyes from this friend's speech. they had both been lonely 40-somethings together, despairing they would ever find "The One," and he was so sincerely happy for his friend to have found her. 

although i never really danced...the DJ was a bit too all over the place-Abba one second and techno the next--we sat together with a big group of friends and had lots of laughs, doing ridiculous parlor tricks (pat your head and rub your stomach) and just simply having a wonderful time with friends.  my faith in danish weddings was restored. it was a wonderful way to spend 08.08.08.