jordbo (earth dweller)

i decided recently that i need to get back to reading actual books. i listen to a lot of audio books, since i can do that in the car, or while mowing the lawn, cooking or puttering in the garden, but i need to hold a book in my hand and read again. no stupid homescapes on my phone or "just a few tiktoks" that turn into an hour. 

the author of this book was on our walk and wool tour the other day and read a lovely excerpt and seemed like such a lovely and thoughtful person, i knew i wanted to find the book. so when i passed by the bookstore in copenhagen where i knew it could be found, i went in to look for a copy.

the store is called brøg litteraturbar - it's a little indie bookstore and café and it looked like the kind of place i would feel very much at home. i could see why this book from a small, esoteric press would be available there. i looked around and found the book and browsed a little bit more. it's truly a lovely little store. 

the woman at the cash register was having a lively, warm conversation with the person ahead of me. but when i stepped to the cash register, her warmth vanished and she didn't say a single word to me. not even to tell me the amount. and she didn't ask if i wanted a bag for my book or anything. it was so strange. and very awkward.

i immediately felt flooded with a kind of shame. what had i done? i was in a good mood and she had been prior to waiting on me. was it just that i wasn't one of the regulars and she didn't know me? did she not like the book i was buying? did she hate my tattoos? was she resentful that i was carrying a small bag from sephora? she did look like the type who wouldn't approve of makeup. was that it? 

i approached the counter thinking that i would mention that i had met the author on a walk over the weekend and have a nice little chat, but she was completely closed to me and i didn't get the chance. she almost seemed angry at me. so puzzling. 

and while i've thought a lot about it since, in the moment, i managed to keep myself from letting it ruin my day. whatever it was, it was clearly her and not me. and while i do have the odd thought of writing it all as a google review, i think i would be a better person and a better earth dweller (that's what the name of the book means) if i don't.

occasionally (not often enough), when i feel down, i visit the daily delights on darrel bristow bovey's website. they make me want to price tickets to athens and get my ass down there. i especially loved the one from february 5. i wanted athens to be my favorite capital city all of a sudden. i've been there once and enjoyed it, but i'm not sure it's my favorite capital city. that's probably copenhagen, which seems a bit lame, given that i actually live in the country of which it's a capital. 

but copenhagen really is wonderful. it's colorful, walkable, beautiful. there are art museums, history museums, design museums, the oldest amusement park in the world, the #1 restaurant in the world, the best burger joint ever (gasoline grill)...i could go on. 

i was gobsmacked yesterday when someone i know, who is danish, said she hadn't been in copenhagen since 2016 and had, in fact, only been there 4-5 times in her whole life. i expressed surprise, perhaps too vehemently, and she got a little offended and said, "what would i need there? it's expensive," which is admittedly, true. but still. it's wonderful. though i didn't mean to offend her. i just can't understand that anyone wouldn't appreciate copenhagen. 

before i changed jobs, i was going more or less once a week. and i'm definitely suffering from withdrawal. that must mean it's my favorite capital city. 

one down, one to go!

i was so excited yesterday to get my first shot of the pfizer vaccine. actually, i was excited already a couple of weeks ago, when i got the invitation and made my appointment. i stood before my closet, wondering what to wear. i landed on my favorite mid-length navy blue cotton dress from cos. it has roomy black pockets and i've traveled many a mile in it. it's my favorite dress to wear when i fly because it's comfortable and it means that i don't have to take off belt and such at security. not that i expected there to be security at the vaccination station. it just felt appropriate to wear my favorite traveling dress to get vaccinated since being vaccinated represents being able to travel again. i wore it with a favorite infinity scarf and i made sure i took my fancy sequined mask with me, as it felt like a festive occasion. 

when i arrived at the vaccination station - it was in an unoccupied office complex on the edge of vejle - the parking lot was full and i wondered if i would even find a spot. everyone getting out of their cars was in my age range (so lots of grey hair). that makes sense because we are invited by age in denmark. people were silently going in and no one was speaking to one another. i had my health card scanned and got in the line. weirdly, the people who had just had their jab and had to go sit in the waiting area came back through the line, walking a bit too close, if you ask me. i felt like they should have gone back on the adjacent roped off aisle, but they just brushed past all of us who were waiting in line.

no one was speaking and no one looked happy. i was feeling really happy and excited, but no one else seemed to be. there was a long corridor of rooms with numbers on them and people were going in for a minute or so and coming out and then the brusk little grey-haired ladies administering the vaccinations would call out for the next one, like we were small, dull children who didn't understand how it worked. i don't think they are nurses, but i'm not sure. it just seems like so many people are needed for this job that there can't possibly be that many nurses in denmark. i suppose they're all kinds of healthcare adjacent people who have been trained to administer the shots. 

mine was a bit cross and when i said that i had to have a photo while she took it, she was quite sour about it, saying it wasn't technically allowed. i said that i didn't intend to have her in the shot anyway, aside from her gloved hands. and that the moment was too big for me not to photograph it. if she'd tried to stop me, i would have pitched a fit then and there and i think she knew it, so she didn't. 

then, i went out into the big waiting room, where you're supposed to sit for 15 minutes. as usual, no one was speaking and no one looked happy or elated or smiling, though that's a bit hard to tell when everyone is masked. we were socially distanced and no one said a word. i set my timer for 15 minutes and then left when it was over. i had one brief minute during the wait, where i felt a little bit dizzy, but i suspect it was due to my excitement, than an actual reaction to the vaccine.

i've read so many posts on instagram and online in general about how happy and moved people have been getting the vaccine after this long, tough haul of a year, but i saw absolutely no evidence of that. the danes are apparently a stoic, emotionless people. i think i'll never truly understand them. 

and when i got outside? the parking lot was empty save for my car and like two others, which kind of felt weird. 

i went to starbucks and got a latte to celebrate and then i went back home to work. 

i woke up in the night with a low grade fever, so i stayed at home to work today as well. our receptionist at work takes our temperature when we arrive in the morning and i thought maybe my slightly-elevated temp would make her turn me away, so i played it safe. i felt otherwise fine, though late afternoon, my neck on the lefthand side, which is the arm i got the shot in, started to ache and i felt generally lethargic and achy all over. good to know my body is busy building immunity.

i can't wait for the second shot in mid-july.

 

a few random things i've been thinking about

into the fog

after listening to that great episode of the ezra klein show with george saunders yesterday, i've definitely been pondering how to get more ideas and less netflix into my life. one big step would be just to read more actual books. after four years of being glued to my phone by the latest antics of the former guy (twitter's new name for him, thanks to biden), i feel like i got dumber. hell, the whole world did. i think we're going to have to have to claw our way back to intelligence, one great book at a time.  and we need to have deep conversations about those books. in fact, we need to have more deep conversations in general. 

i feel like my ability to understand the world has degraded. perhaps because i more or less stopped reading books. i didn't stop reading - i just do most of it on my phone these days. and that's clearly not good for me, nor for my understanding of the world. after four years of constant abuse at the hands of a sadistic narcissist, i feel bruised and damaged and my brain is fogged and confused and it honestly feels harder to make sense of things. mostly because truth is so strangely up for debate. i hope it's not a permanent state, but i feel like i will need to work hard to make sure that it's not.

even just my ability to understand people and their motivations and actions feels like it's degraded. perhaps it's from working at home and not seeing or being around other people - more or less not really seeing anyone but husband these days. and all those old people i try to avoid at the grocery store don't count. i feel like i'm forgetting how to be around people. and communicating via messenger and email and teams doesn't help.

as usual, i find myself bewildered by people who don't look like who they are. that's kind of ironic, since right here on this blog, i wrote a post about how i didn't look like who i was. but in this case, the person looks super creative and alternative and fun and turns out to have the equivalent of a very straight-laced, persnickity, finger-wagging, rule-following accountant on the inside, without actually being an  accountant, in fact, i don't really know what this person does for a living, but it must involve following lots of rules and even coming up with new ones to also follow. maybe i object because it's so disappointing. i think if it was the other way around - someone who looked like a straight-laced accountant, but was actually super creative and alternative - i wouldn't be disappointed, but pleasantly surprised. and maybe even a little bit giddy. which is maybe why the actual situation leaves me confused and maybe even a bit sad.

 * * *

oh oh, bye-bye laughing emoji. i guess it's gone the way of thumbs up.

* * *

found a new substack - psychopolitica
i'm hoping it helps with the whole deeper thoughts and conversations thing.

* * *

there's also the sad news that they will stop making the dumle suckers. that delectable caramel, chocolate-covered goodness handed out in danish primary schools. the child is bereft. and i may be wondering if we can get into germany at the moment, so i could run for the border shops.

first steps towards danish citizenship

when the spray-tanned one became president, i vowed that i'd seek danish citizenship. as he sank lower and lower, i wondered what i was waiting for. i'm not sure what made me finally do it, but last autumn, i signed up (and paid some hefty fees) to take the danish citizenship test and the danish language test that i need to pass for citizenship. back when i got my permanent residence, you got it after 3 years and there were no tests involved. but times have changed. and that's fair. if you want to be a citizen, you should speak the language. and you should know the history and culture of the country. and it's perfectly understandable that you should have to prove it.

i took the citizenship test a couple of weeks ago and have officially passed it. this week, i took the written danish test and on monday, i'll do the oral exam. i'm reasonably certain that i did well on the written part and i'm ready for the exam on monday. i have to prepare a whopping 1 minute monologue and also answer some questions from the examiners. i can do both.

but these tests are only the beginning. after i have the results, i'll have to file my formal application and then wait for maybe two years while my case is handled and my eventual second citizenship is written into danish law. because that's how they do it - it becomes a law.

and in these times, i've been thinking a lot about what a privilege it is, to have a citizenship that affords me a sought-after passport and voting rights, which i exercise to this day. and to be in a situation where i can seek a second citizenship in a country that's also a desirable citizenship - where there's a safety net and national health care and free education and where being a citizen gives you the ability to easily work anywhere in the european union. and when so many people are persecuted and stateless and have so many fewer privileges than i do, it somehow feels like a luxury that's unfair. and it surely has to do with the color of my skin. an unaccountable privilege, one i didn't ask for. but, if i'm honest, one i wouldn't trade away easily either. and so i'm jumping through the hoops, taking the tests, and doing my best to fulfill the requirements to acquire a second passport. and most importantly, voting rights where i live. right now, i have taxation without representation, and feeling not so good about that, after all, is a product of the citizenship i hold now - and will continue to hold, as denmark no longer makes you give it up.

but thoughts about fairness and privilege are on my mind as i go through this process. and i honestly don't know what i think, or where i stand, or what to do about it - to make it easier for others who might not have the privileges i do. i feel these are turbulent times, but also i see so many signs of hope. i honestly don't know what i can do to help, other than do my best to read and understand and learn and try to do better. i think voting is an important part of that, and i think our individual votes count. and i guess that's why i'm seeking danish citizenship.

inside of ourselves

"you never know how inside of themselves people are." i read that long ago in a barbara kingsolver novel and it's stuck with me ever since. in any given situation, you don't really know where people are coming from. maybe they've had a completely shit week. maybe it's been awesome. maybe it's been both - up and down, like any other week. maybe they've just learned they have a terminal illness. maybe their father just died. maybe their mother with alzheimer's just failed to recognize them for the first time. maybe they just lost their job. maybe they just got a new one. maybe they just learned they're pregnant. or perhaps they miscarried. maybe they're tired or have a toothache. maybe they feel lonely or sad or joyful. you just don't know. maybe the path ahead of them seems clear. or perhaps it's obscured and murky. maybe they're relieved the sun is finally shining after too many days of rain. maybe their awesome boss just quit. maybe they feel like they're in limbo. perhaps they're caught up in needless office politics. what if they have a need to be right? to be comforted? to be understood? what if they feel bewildered and alone and cast adrift? what if they are newly in love and their stomach is full of butterflies? you just don't know. you can never really know. and quite possibly they'll never really be able to tell you. but maybe what they most need from you is that you see them - really see them. no matter how inside of themselves they are.

when grown women act like they're in junior high

you know that moment when someone calls you out of the blue and is angry with you? you get a whole litany of complaints from them, some which are perfectly valid, but they were so off your radar that you’re taken aback by the whole thing? it’s an instant of insight into another perspective; one which you definitely would never have arrived at on your own.

during that phone conversation (which feels strange in and of itself, because honestly, who makes phone calls anymore these days?), you realise that the person actually just wants to be mad and doesn’t want to resolve anything with you. she just wants to communicate her anger. repeatedly and insistently. and she definitely does not want to listen to you, nor does she actually want the information that she claims you have been withholding from her. she mostly seems to want to give you lessons about a culture that you clearly don’t understand, what with your being a foreigner and all. and while it’s all very unpleasant, people are entitled to their emotions. and sometimes situations make us angry. but you’re actually quite zen about it because you have no vested emotions in this person. you’d met her a few times, but actually felt quite ambivalent about her, not disliking, but not liking either. and you chalk the whole thing up to what you have to endure if you’re going to head up a little artsy organisation involving a bunch of women. because women are always worst to one another (why is that?).

however, it doesn’t stop there. the angry person takes to facebook and airs her complaints publicly on the group’s facebook page. you’re traveling for work at the time and don’t have time to address the complaints in the public forum, but thankfully one of the other members does so. a few weeks later, when you try to do so and actually to thank her for motivating the board to start an electronic newsletter to keep members informed, you discover that you are blocked from commenting on the post. and also on another post, which is complaining that the angry woman can’t see the information you posted about an upcoming event. and you realise that the reason she can’t see it, or any of your other posts, is that she has blocked you. and you investigate how one goes about that on facebook and you realise that it’s not something that could have been done by accident – it had to have been intentional. she wanted to spew her complaints and she didn’t want you to be able to answer them. and while that’s normal behaviour on the internet, it’s actually not that often that you encounter it in real life. and you move away from ambivalence towards dislike.

but you try to actually curb your knee-jerk response to such a person and handle it from another, more zen place. so you send an email with the comment that you wanted to post, praising her for sharing her experience with the group and for prompting us to start a tiny letter newsletter. and you say that it’s perfectly ok that she has blocked you on facebook (and you actually mean it), but that she should know that it’s why she can’t see the information you post in the group and could she kindly refrain from publicly complaining about that when she has chosen it herself.

she responds with pleas of a lack of tech savvy and asks you to explain how she can fix it. so you play tech support and give her a detailed description of where/how you block and unblock people (after googling your way to how it's done). and when she stops by the exhibition, you also show her the same on your own computer, which you happen to have along. but you maintain a wary distance and are not warm and friendly, because hello, she did block you and now she’s standing right in front of you, lying to your face about it.

some hours later, you hear that she proceeded to go down to the square and talk shit about you to several of your friends. and with that, you’ve had enough and you write to her once again, kindly asking her to please take the conversation directly with you and not go around talking about you on the streets. and, while lying to you directly that she hadn’t done so, like a child, picking up their toys and going home – she petulantly picks up her paintings from the exhibition and says she is leaving the group. and you wonder how grown women (seriously, she's in her 60s) can behave like that.

maybe we really do learn how to behave when we’re in junior high.

and then your ambivalence returns. and you realise it’s all just fodder for an eventual novel. if people didn’t want you to write about them unfavourably, they should have been nicer.

et småligt land

these days, there are many refugees on the move throughout europe. leaving their war-torn homes in syria and iraq, coming ashore in barely seaworthy boats on greek islands, getting on trains or trucks, or failing that, walking their way up through europe. they're trying to get to germany and sweden, which are the main european countries standing up and taking responsibility, opening their doors, their stadiums and hearts. meanwhile, the minority, xenophobic and apparently tone deaf danish government took out ads in newspapers in the middle east, discouraging people from coming to denmark. this means that the hundreds of people who need to cross denmark to get to sweden are being stopped at the borders these days. yesterday, several hundred of them walked along the motorway and it had to be closed at one point for their safety. some danes form "welcome" committees on the overpasses, spitting down on the refugees and screaming obscenities in broken english. these are shameful, dark times.

last night, instead of standing up and taking any responsibility, the danish prime minister, lars løkke rasmussen, apparently went to a wine tasting. the police, overwhelmed with people at the borders, have elected to stop trying to register those who don't wish to seek asylum in denmark and just let them go on through to sweden. yesterday, they were stopping them, but the numbers are too large for that now and taking people off trains and buses to forcibly register them was only creating chaos and large crowds of people walking on the motorways.

for all of my complaints, i do love living in denmark and i love many things about it, including the welfare state which allows people to get back on their feet when they're down. but this makes me (and a whole lot of danes) sad and embarrassed and ashamed. and it's the direct result of years and years of heightened xenophobic rhetoric. and now the whole world is watching and it's not a pretty sight.

wednesday witterings

i have wasted 24 hours of energy and sacrificed a good night's sleep over the most ridiculous casual vacancy-esque local control-freak, power-hungry, senseless game-playing situation that should never have been a situation. but i always think of these things as fodder for an eventual novel. or at least a memoir. i do wonder when i'm going to get around to writing that? and somehow, just like that, my brain cleared of it sometime this afternoon. possibly because we are having glorious autumn weather - sunny days, just the right temperature, no wind. i am so affected by the weather, both good and bad. and by a new set of possibilities opening up. dare i say there is excitement and hope stirring in the days ahead? and a trip to copenhagen.

a toothy problem

it's windy and blustery outside and grey and the weather seems generally cranky. and it's rubbing off on me. and it's not improved by an email exchange with the municipality dentist people. you see, children's dentistry is provided for free until they are 18 in denmark. they should be called in yearly for a checkup and until the 6th grade, sabin was. and it occurred to me (and her) recently that she hadn't been invited for a checkup in nearly two years! 

so, i went to the municipality's website to look up contact details. they have a "self service" button that you're supposed to press and make your own appointment (the government in denmark wants everything to happen electronically, but alas, hasn't really set up the systems to support it). right above that is a big long message about how the self-service is currently out of service. so i managed to find an email address to write to, since no one ever answers the phone numbers that are buried about three layers in. i think they have a secret 5 minute window where they answer the phone that you have to try to guess. and probably as soon as someone guesses it, they change it, so good luck getting through.

originally, i wrote on february 4, asking for an appointment for the child. funnily enough, i didn't get any response. no email back, not even an automatic "we received your mail," and definitely no appointment. and this, even tho' i wrote in danish, so it wasn't that they were intimidated by an email in english. so yesterday, i wrote again, this time specifically requesting a response (and a little put out that that was even necessary). 

a couple of years ago, i did a big research project where i talked to a lot of foreigners living in denmark and from them, i repeatedly heard a story of how the municipalities are a bit lax with the children's dental offer towards children with foreign parents. i heard again and again how kids with crooked teeth were assured they didn't need braces and how checkups were offered less often than to purely danish kids. and i rather smugly thought that i had never experienced that. but now i'm starting to wonder. with an aging population, the welfare state in denmark has to begin to make choices regarding their resources. so to let a few children with a foreign parent slip through the cracks on the dentistry offer would probably save a few kroner here and there. in my second mail, i brought this up and said i hoped that wasn't the case.

this morning, i had an answer. although i had signed my name, the answer was rudely not addressed to anyone, no "dear julie," no "hi julie," it just launched into a question regarding the child's social security number, which, unfortunately, i had typed incorrectly in my original mail. i answered back with her correct number and received an answer with a time in one month, at 9 a.m., during the school/work day. in other words, not a convenient or possible time.  she also provided a link to the non-functioning self-service, as if it were working (or perhaps she was unaware that it wasn't working), pedantically telling me how i could look up the records and make appointments there myself. if only it were working. i took a screenshot of the message about how it's not working and said that i would have been happy to make the appointment that way, were it possible. and while she was generally responsive and answering my mails right away, she ignored that part of my mail.

she also tried to tell me that they had sent multiple appointments to us and that maybe we hadn't checked our e-boks (the electronic system where all communication from the state now happens). i do check my e-boks regularly, because i have it set up to send me a mail when there is something there. but i checked it again and funnily enough, there were no mails from the municipality regarding dentist appointments. oddly enough, husband doesn't have any either. and the only conclusion i can draw from that is that she lied about that or sent them to some other parents.

being a conflict-shy dane, she also completely ignored my question about sabin being pushed allowed to fall through the cracks because she has a foreign parent. like she didn't even see that bit. and in all of her answers, despite my modeling back to her the correct way to write a mail, with a salutation of "dear so-and-so or the more normal danish version of "hi so-and-so," she continued to rudely refuse to follow the conventions of basic email etiquette and politeness.

funnily enough, in the middle of this, the postman came to the door with the mail and in it, there was a postcard from the local school dentist, with a time for sabin on february 18. and it arrived today, on february 24. so we missed it because we didn't know about it. and a postcard is quite different than an electronic letter. i tried to call the number of the local school dentist that's on the postcard, but i apparently missed today's 5 minute window, because it just rang and rang and cycled back through the system. so we are still appointmentless and it's been two years and counting.

well done, vejle kommune. well done.  (you might recall that this isn't the first time vejle kommune has had an epic fail.) 

* * *

the day continues in weirdness mode. the telemarketers are getting more and more cheeky. on principle, i don't answer my phone if it is a blocked number, but i suppose that happens quite a lot for telemarkers, so they have started to call from numbers that show. because of my waiting state, i answer the phone, even if i don't recognize the number. this one was a young man who wanted to ask me some follow-up questions about a contest i'd supposedly participated in online. not having participated in any online contests (buzz feed quizzes don't count), i laughed and said that was weird. he got really mad and said i had and that i had provided my full name and address and phone number, tho' funnily enough, he wouldn't tell me what my full name was, or even my first name, nor my address. i just kept laughing and then he got petulant and said he'd give the trip to spain to someone else. you go right ahead and do that, buddy.

* * *

fat cat photobombs famous paintings with hilarious results.

kittens make everything better

there's a lot of crazy out there in the world. some of it is messing about in the ukraine. some of it controls an area of iraq. closer to home, some of it runs the local school. and some of it apparently buys horses for its children in denmark without putting an acceptable amount of investigation and thought into it until it's too late and then they panic and spew all that crazy in your general direction.

we sold sabin's horse matilde several months ago and apparently the new owners didn't get along with her, so they sold her on (that's their prerogative, tho' i'd have preferred to be left out of her madness). i talked to the new owner a couple of weeks ago and answered some questions she had. then today, it became apparent that that new owner didn't really get along with her either, as i was contacted by yet another new owner who apparently passed a whole new level of madness test (seriously, this horse never attracted madness before to our knowledge), tho' i didn't pick up on that at first. for one, i spell way better than she does in danish (which doesn't say all that much for her) and for another, she's a stark raving mad lunatic who, i suspect, is illiterate, because she doesn't seem to have understood a word that i wrote to her. she has morphed a one-time hoof abscess into asthma (really?) and regular massage sessions into undisclosed issues (possibly related to asthma?). unbelievable what desperate, illiterate morons with too much disposable income will get up to. and subject total strangers to.  i can only hope that this too will pass. and that i will learn from it that i should not try to help people, even when they ask for help.

thankfully, i have kittens to play with. because despite what the cat trolls say, it's ok to live in a first world country, have kittens, take good care of them, find good homes for them in the end, but love and photograph them like crazy in the meantime. kittens really can right a whole lot of what's wrong with the world.

at least someone's floating on air

after a horrendous european parliamentary election yesterday, where an actual convicted racist from denmark's xenophobic party (the so-called danish people's party) won the most personal votes of anyone ever, the part of the country with functioning brain cells is reeling. i guess tho', that an awful lot of the country cannot be said to be sensible, but instead insular, protectionist, fearful, racist, xenophobic and easily fooled by a smooth talker. hmm, sounds familiar somehow...

but in the garden, the sun was shining and sabin was levitating and somehow that made it seem like everything would probably be all right in the end.

send in the clowns

ahh, it's a day and a half until the school group departs for st. petersburg. still no visas and still no flight details, tho' we did, late thursday evening, get a more detailed itinerary as to the actual sights the kids will see. we were told they have to be at the airport at 4:30 a.m. on tuesday, tho' no flight number or time or anything to accompany that enlightening little fact. we were given a link to the air baltic website and a reference number so we could check in online. sadly, since it's a group reservation, i cannot actually access flight numbers, flight path or flight times (e.g. an itinerary) and it's still too early to check her in, so i can't see it that way either. so i wrote back and said that i thought that the flight information was missing on the information we received. 

the clown who sent it responded, "what specifically is missing?" 

i answered, "times, flight numbers, airline, just the usual flight itinerary, like any normal trip." then i further explained that i couldn't see it on the air baltic website, due to it being a group reservation. i said i couldn't imagine there were direct flights between billund and st. petersburg, so there must be at least one flight about which we lacked any information at all.

then, while impatiently waiting for an answer (he had answered quickly the first time, despite it being sunday, so i expected an answer just as quickly), i thought i'd dig out an old flight itinerary and show him what i meant (tho' in this day and age, imagining that someone hasn't seen an airline's flight itinerary is a bit of a stretch). so i sent him an old one from my days of traveling with SAS (they once owned Air Baltic, so i figured the same systems would be in place). and since his tactic is to treat me as if i'm a small, dull child, i carefully explained it all to him:

"When you travel, the travel agency or even just the airline provides a PDF with all of the flight details on it. I have attached an example, in case you're not familiar with these. It contains all of the information needed for the flights - flight number, airline, departure time, terminal, arrival time, how much luggage is allowed. All of this information is included for each of your flights. Everything you need to know about your flights if you (or more importantly, your 12-year-old child) are going on a trip to another country. Depending on the airline, it's even available electronically, so you can use Passport on your iPhone as your ticket/check-in.

I expect to receive such an itinerary tomorrow morning at the latest. Specifically."

he initially responded that he didn't have such a detailed itinerary, but that he would look into it.

then, a little bit later, he sends this:

BT146 Billund - Riga
BT442 Riga - Sct. Petersborg (sic)
BT445 Sct. Petersborg (sic) - Riga
BT145 Riga - Sct. Petersborg (sic - believe this should read Billund)

we're getting closer, but still no flight times or the actual dates of the flights (tho' the dates i more or less know, since a previous 8-mail conversation finally revealed those).

why be so difficult, i wondered and so i remarked "no times/dates? very mysterious."

then he has the nerve to answer that they were included in the previous mail. which they were not. if they were, i wouldn't have been asking in the first place.

and i couldn't help myself, i had to ask:

I sincerely do not understand why getting this perfectly normal, logical information out of you is like pulling teeth. What possible reason would you have to keep essential details like this from us? It was the same way with the changed dates, it took 4-5 emails to get the new dates from you. I don't think I'm asking too much or for anything out of the ordinary. I am a parent who wants to know the details of her 12-year-old daughter's trip.

and funnily enough, it's been nearly and hour and he hasn't answered. and i still don't know the actual flight times of these flights. tho' now, with the flight numbers, i could look it up and probably will. we have exchanged ten mails and i still don't have the information i need and it's not like it's something special i'm asking for, just a simple, normal flight itinerary, which every travel agent or airline provides when you make a booking. i just wonder why it has to be so hard? 

i would have canceled this whole thing long ago, but somehow i want to see how it plays out. and if we cancel, sabin's friend is left alone on the trip without anyone she knows and we didn't want to do that to her. i'm still holding out hope that it won't happen because they won't have the visas by 4:30 a.m. tuesday morning, but only time will tell. 

i'll keep you posted.

update: i finally got a response from the clown, he said, and i quote (translation mine), "i have read your mail and have nothing to add. that's it from here." 

* * *

"Society is telling us, like, be true to yourself, authentic, develop your potential, be kind to others. It’s kind of what I ironically call a slightly enlightened Buddhist hedonism."

--yup, zizek has still got it.

sometimes you have to call a spade a spade

that pipe says "danger zone"

imagine this scenario: you're coming down with a cold and feeling a bit achy and under the weather, so you're making yourself a nice warm cup of elderberry cordial. your phone rings and you answer, stating your name in lieu of hello, as you've been forced into coerced taught by the culture of the country in which you live. the person on the other end doesn't identify himself, but instead sarcastically asks who he has gotten hold of. you repeat your name, mentally kicking yourself for not asking who the hell he was first. then he finally reveals that he's the rhino from the ungdomsskole (remember the one that's supposed to be taking sabin to st. petersburg in 10 days?) and you've filled out the visa application totally incorrectly (despite filling it out exactly as he advised you on the phone last saturday) and you need to turn some password over to him immediately, as he's sitting at the russian embassy in copenhagen. you say that rather than turn over a password (who does that to someone on the phone?), you would gladly log into the application and make the requested changes (tho' he hadn't said what they were yet at that point), since it should probably be you anyway as the child's parent. and despite not having said what the changes should be, but just condescendingly accusing you of filling it out wrongly, he gets very snippy and demands your password again.

you're standing outside, since the reception is rubbish in the house, but you can't for the life of you remember any password on the visa application site. and if you did set a password, it's one you commonly use (you bad) and you don't want to just hand it out to some condescending asshole on the phone. so again, you try to calmly state that you would be glad to log into the russian embassy system and make the changes (provided you are told what they are, since, again, you filled it out per the rhino's instructions while on the phone with him last saturday). since he was at the actual embassy, they would surely be able to access the updated form on their end and use the correct information.

but he goes on in the most condescending tone, as if you are a small, dull child, saying the equivalent of "listen here missy" (høre nu her) that you must immediately turn over the password to him or you can just go to copenhagen yourself next week and secure the visa. and that point, you completely see red, switch to english and end up calling him, and i quote, a fucking asshole, among a rather lot of other things, which may also have included swear words. bearing in mind that danes use the word fuck freely and it doesn't have the same impact to them that it does to you, you mean it with every fiber of your being in that moment and you mean it in the strong american sense of the words, even as you realize you probably shouldn't have gone there. but seriously, this asshole, who has been abominably disorganized and has still, tho' the trip is due to leave in 11 days, not provided an itinerary, flight details or any other information about the trip, has the nerve to be a condescending prat to you on the phone because you filled out a form as he instructed. unbelievable.

as you might guess, all of this happened to me this afternoon. and after i hung up and went inside to make changes to the visa, i learned that there isn't a password - all you needed was the visa application number (which he had on a physically-printed piece of paper) and the first five letters of sabin's last name, which was clearly stated in the blank beside it. there wasn't a password. so he was a complete ass for absolutely no reason.

there is a worrying thread running through all of the encounters i've had thus far with the ungdomsskole. it started already at our parents meeting when the leader of our local outpost told a highly sardonic and condescending (not to mention sexist) story about how sometimes young people's mothers call him to sign their kids up for things that he thought the kids should sign themselves up for. i suppose i'm being put in this box as well, as i am a mother who, funnily enough, is involved in preparing her 12-year-old daughter's visa application for a trip to russia. apparently, these kids should just do these things for themselves. and if, as a mother, i want to know something more about what my child will experience, is that seriously too much to ask? an itinerary, possibly some flight details, for a school trip to russia? isn't that just a given? these disorganized clowns haven't even managed that. on the other hand, it's likely that the trip will fall through, as they've gone to hand in the visa applications far too late. from what i can read on the russian website, it will take at least ten working days, maybe 7 if we're lucky, and there are only 6 working days left before their departure.

i truly hate to find myself becoming one of those sort of righteous danish women, but there you have it. i've been pressed into it by a condescending, misogynist ass of a danish man. and while i will admit i shouldn't have called him a fucking asshole. he really was a fucking asshole.

* * *

and to take our minds off all of this, some interesting photos.

or have you read sinead's open letter to miley cyrus?

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.

missed opportunities in vejle kommune

here's what they ended up with as the last "kulturhus" they built.

oh, the joys of bureaucracy. and small minds. and small thinking. it's enough to make a girl want to just throw up her hands, tear her hair out and just ask, "why, why, why?" (and that last bit isn't just because i've been listening endlessly to paul simon's graceland in the car.)

we chose our falling down farmhouse at least in part because it was located in the outback of vejle municipality (more like a county in american terms), but it was still part of vejle, which made it seem less like the back of beyond and more part of the real world. vejle (population 51000) seemed like a happening place, progressive and successful and not all THAT far into jutland (the bit of denmark that's actually attached to the continent). but the more i encounter this municipality, the more i realize we really had the wrong impression of them. or perhaps vejle is changing, becoming increasingly small-minded and afraid to dare anything - i think that crisis will do that to some places and if those in charge aren't strong and full of ideas, well, things disintegrate a bit and devolve into increasingly impenetrable bureaucracy that seems to be lazily circling the drain. it's arguably true of the current national danish government as well, so vejle isn't alone in their lack of big thinking.

but let me back up a little teeny bit: as you know, denmark is proud of their welfare state, but financing it is becoming, shall we say, a little bit problematic. it's all well and good to be generous to those who are out of work, but when unemployment rises, there's suddenly quite a LOT of those people and it's a big burden on the system. so there's a whole lot of talk every day in the news about how to stimulate growth and create jobs and prop up that welfare state.  there are special "acute jobs" advertised (the government promised 12,500 of them last autumn). they are for people who have been out of work for more than 2 years and the company who provides the "acute job" will get paid a bonus if they still have the employee after a year. it's kind of like affirmative action for the long-term unemployed.

another thing the government talks about is creating jobs in the public sector by initiating infrastructure projects and building things like "culture houses" out in little towns on the far flung edges of the municipalities. so the process as the bids were let for our coming culture house was quite surprising to me in light of this.

the project was officially let on EU terms (oddly, not with the intention of applying for EU funds for it, which i would have thought would be the reason). since denmark is (to a limited extent anyway), part of the EU, it meant just following the EU bureaucracy surrounding the bid process around public projects. i also (mistakenly again) thought it would mean that the project description would be provided in other languages than danish, to truly open it up to the whole EU, so that there might be an influx of fresh ideas from abroad. wrong again. it was an EU bid, but only in danish (so good luck to anyone not happening to speak/read that minor language) and only advertised locally.

but worst of all, in view of the way that the government goes on and on about how the economy needs a kick start and people need to start businesses and create jobs, was that the requirements on the experience front were so extensive and long, that no companies but the largest, oldest, most established could possibly bid in on the project. completely excluded were the young architects who might come with fresh, amazing ideas, just out of architect school. completely excluded were new companies (and new ideas, i fear). it was, in short, a direct suppression of the entrepreneurial spirit by the very government that's purporting to want to support it.

when i dared to bring it up and point out that we were actually excluding young entrepreneurial talents, i was assured by our dear friend the tender manager (you may remember her from this post), that the big firms would engage them, so we would still benefit from their talents. no supporting evidence was provided to back up this statement. and i'll believe it when i see it.

so, out here in the sticks, we are going to have a new "culture house" and it's going to be built by some old, established firm who has built 10 others and it won't be unique, or special or give some young architect a leg up in his first job. and i think that's a shame. but apparently there's not so much action behind all of that government talk about supporting entrepreneurs and creating jobs.

* * *

meanwhile, elsewhere in the same municipality, the little museums have all been consolidated under one big bureaucratic umbrella. this has left some of the little ones, like my favorite one in randbøldal, to be run largely by volunteers, who do an absolutely splendid job. an active group of weavers and paper-makers ensure a wonderful, relaxed and welcoming atmosphere, as well as events - like a historical market and a second-hand market. it is a real haven.

but recently the big central museum decided they needed a bit more control over the place, so they began sending out a young woman (who has the curious (and slightly alarming) title of formidlingsleder - literally "leader of dissemination") to meet with the volunteers. sounds like a title that would have fit right in in nazi germany, don't you think?

the volunteers have, for ten years, had a big array of projects which they have done, finding money for them themselves by applying for various grants and to various charitable foundations. for example, they've just released a book featuring ten years of their tea towel designs and they have created an absolutely lovely little museum shop that is filled with handmade goods, artfully displayed.

the replica of egtved pige's dress (one of those well-preserved danish mummies) used to come to randbøldal for the winter, when the little building at her gravesite is closed. i say used to, because as you recall, her dress was stolen late last summer. so these fearless and conscientious and ambitious volunteers in the weaving group decided to get in touch with the textile artist who had created the replica (the real one is safe in the national museum in copenhagen) and work with her to weave a new one to display at the grave and in randøldal in the winter. they did extensive research and were even working with someone who had special, traditional sheep for the fibers, so they could spin wool that would be as close as possible to the original.

i'm using the past tense, because the leader of dissemination put a stop to it (and they weren't even being asked for funding) - in a very confusing and not direct way (it's typically danish to be afraid of conflict and pretty much a national disease among danish women) that left the weaving group feeling very bad indeed. she later sent a mail wherein she explained that it had been decided that an expert with a degree in reconstruction of ancient textiles would be engaged to make a new dress (because those are a dime a dozen in denmark and surely won't cost anything). remember, the real dress is safe and sound in the national museum, so they are being denied the opportunity to make a well-researched replica (which is precisely what the one that was stolen was). and the woman who made the original replica was a dancer who did dance performances as egtved pigen, so not an ancient textile expert. what a silly decision, don't you think?

* * *

so where is it all going wrong? i think that both are instances of very limited thinking. there's no room for imagination and ideas and creativity and solutions and definitely no room for initiative. and i think our world is going to become a sadder and poorer place for it. we need open minds and open hearts and open thinking. but how on earth can we have those things today?

so this is christmas...

the best gift so far? loads of notes for future blog posts. there's something about trauma that inspires like nothing else. let's just say that thomas vinterberg's festen is quite demure and underplayed in comparison to the reality. more soon...

and merry christmas one and all! hug your families! enjoy them for all their eccentricities.

christmas angst

christmas angst. every year, i declare i won't have it and every year, i have it. of course, it's deserved to an extent - i still have a pile of presents for my parents sitting here on the sideboard, not sent. ditto my sister. i tell myself it makes it more exciting to get unexpected presents in january. or february. but i hope i won't wait that long. what is it with me and procrastination?

i found out this afternoon that we were expected already today at the more local family christmas to-do. i never knew that (husband made the arrangements and obviously didn't adequately communicate them). but because of cold weather and bunnies and kitties and chickens that need their water thawed twice a day, we had never planned to go already today - it's just too long to leave all the animals home alone. but i have to admit that now i'm very worried that they're thinking we're horrible not to be there. which may sound like i'm a little paranoid and over-reacting, but we are talking here about a person who didn't speak to us for a couple of years because of a misunderstanding over a handful of smoked shrimp, so you never know.

but we're as ready as we're going to be. presents and goodies are packed, as well as good humor. let's hope that's enough. and if not, it's only one day. but i do just once wish for a christmas free of anxiety.

denmark you are a mystery to me: or when life turns kafkaesque

there is a deep and abiding faith in clubs and associations in denmark. they're called foreninger. it's something that i, as a non-dane, find really quite incomprehensible. and the ability to create a new association, which is focused on a very specific, narrow purpose (instead of expanding an existing one to include that little focus area) is simply breathtaking. sometimes it appears that they'll create a new association simply to get away from some other people they don't like in the old association (instead of relying on democracy and voting them out). heaven forbid that people made room for one another or adjusted their thinking a little bit to be more inclusive within existing groups. no, no, let's call a general assembly, create a convoluted set of bureaucratic by-laws (which we will debate down to the last comma) and by odin make a new group - one that preferably will really show that other group that we maybe could have been part of, had we had even an ounce of open-mindedness.

deep breath.

it's a fascinating study in group behavior and if i still wanted to be an anthropologist, i'm sure i could easily write an entire dissertation about it. it has everything - social darwinism, cultural capital (ahh, bordieu), biology, psychology, even a bit of pop business theory between the lines. there's jockeying for position, there's the constantly determining who is with the in crowd and who's not. there's the determining who is the albanian (remember my theory that everyone needs their albanian - someone who they feel superior to?) in any configuration (and oddly, it seems to be an ever-shifting thing). and there's the scheming beforehand because of an inherent lack of trust in the democratic process. and don't even get me started on conflicts of interest...

but among the things that strike me most (there are 2), is how utterly meaningless it all is. it's a small town that's part of a larger municipality (more like a county in american terms) and the mayor and politicians on the city council are those ultimately allocating funds and deciding things - so these local councils and committees and associations and clubs are actually full of powerless little wanna-be kings (who to the cool anthropological observer are actually a whole lot more like a flock of banty roosters). ones who apparently couldn't even make it on the pathetic plane that is the municipality level. so the supposed power of the little clubs is utterly impotent.

the second thing that strikes me is how proud the little banty roosters are of their bylaws and their long history of being involved in this whole culture around the little associations. one stood up at a recent meeting and proudly declared that he was a foreningsmenneske (a person of the association - it's one of those things that just has a better ring in danish, mostly because i can't imagine that it truly exists outside of denmark) and went on to pontificate on how bylaws were the glue holding the society together. it was a critique of another association which had mistakenly (and rather publicly) not followed their bylaws to the letter and managed, as happens if you accidentally dissolve the very glue holding the society together, to embarrass themselves - having to call a new general assembly according to the letter of their bylaws. they were even ridiculed in the local press for not announcing the first general assembly two weeks in advance, as required. yes, the behavior, especially between generations, is that petty and small-minded.

and for all of the group mentality, they really don't want to work together across groups - not even if those groups share an interest. it's all very petty and quite exhausting. and even as i try to maintain an anthropologic distance, i couldn't help but feel i had stepped into the bureaucratic hell of a kafka novel as i observed the natives in their natural habitat last evening.

* * *

speaking of boring things, i keep reading really interesting stuff about the boring conference.

* * *

the t boards on pinterest: tattoo in the near future. that's funny. the eyes have it. the hats (and possibly the crowns). tiny houses (this is one of my best boards). to dye for. topographies (another winner). treehouse.

democracy is ugly

as an american, it shouldn't surprise me that democracy is ugly, i have but to harken back to the 2000 election and the hanging chads and the wrong guy ending up sitting in the oval office, book held upside down, reading to small florida children on september 11. but aside from eating pickled eggs in a dingy bar in wagner, south dakota while my dad campaigned for the state legislature as a child, i've not really been that involved in democracy first hand (other than as a chicago voter, where it's a tradition to vote as many times as you want). by which i'm trying to say that i've never run for office.

so it was a bit of an experience last week when i presented myself as a candidate for a new board that will create a new "culture house" here in the little town where i live. the new board was created at a public meeting, where the by-laws that are to govern it were read and approved by those assembled. after the by-laws were approved by the assembly of interested local citizens, paper was handed around and everyone could nominate the candidates they wished to be on the board. then, all of the names were put up in a powerpoint and the people who were present got the chance to say whether they wanted to be on the board or not. a good 30+ names were on the list and after people had had their say, it was whittled down to ten. with a board consisting of 7 people and 2 alternates, this meant that nearly everyone who wanted to be on the board would be, in fact, only one person would be left out.

everyone who remained got a chance to stand up, introduce themselves to the assembled 75 people and give a little campaign speech. i went 3rd to last and will admit my heart was pounding by the time it was my turn. not only did i have to suddenly speak in front of 74 people, only a handful of which i knew, but i had to do so in a language not my own. i probably made some small mistakes (those et/en are impossible in danish), but i felt i conveyed what i wanted to say with a sufficient level of charm. and i must have, because i was elected - in fact, when they announced the results, they read my name first, which was nice, because then there was no waiting on pins and needles to see if i had been chosen. (oh, the horror of rejection!)

but throughout the evening, as points were debated during the reading (and adjusting) of the by-laws, i observed that when it comes down to it, people are actually pretty pissy about democracy. those in the majority are impatient with the petty concerns of the minority and the minority are grumbling aloud that they're not really being heard.

as you all know, earlier this year, i joined the local group that plans the activities and events that are going on in the local culture house. i did so because i want there to be stuff going on in my local community. no less than 5 members of this group presented themselves for election (including myself) that evening. two of them had been part of the planning all along and had been part of writing the preliminary by-laws. i had been asked by several different parties before the meeting to present myself as a candidate and the other two just volunteered that evening, out of interest.

as it happened, myself and the two who had been involved were elected. one of the other two became an alternate and the last one was the lone person not elected that evening. this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those who were ostensibly the losers. they feel that democracy failed them - they're looking for ways in which the election wasn't fair. there were even tears. and one decided to pack his toys and go home - leaving the activity-planning group as well after not being selected for the new group.

which leaves me feeling that people ultimately don't trust the democratic system. it was in place, it functioned, people ran,  people won and people lost. and the losers looked for some way in which it wasn't fair and the cards were stacked against them. they didn't use the opportunity to reflect, they just cried and quit (respectively). they didn't at all let the light of democracy shine on them and say, "hmm, why was it that i wasn't chosen?" which leads me back to the notion that democracy is basically an ugly thing.