I’m putting this post together on the leftover days of our summer vacation. It goes all the way back to late May, I think, then goes barreling through June, where it takes an appropriately Mollicentric turn, because Molli Malou completed her primary education on June 23.
Okay, she had her last exam and got her hue on June 19, but she graduated and got her diploma on June 23.
She’s done!
So this blog, which began a few days after her—and because of—her birth, has covered Molli’s entire life from birth through her gymnasium graduation. (And it’ll keep going, no worries, I’m just sort of awed at how in many ways this has somehow become the biggest and most enduring writing project of my life.)
Because I had some extra time on my hands, and because I’d “stolen” Filmora from Maddie to edit a video for Beth’s 85th birthday, I even made an edited video of the graduation event. We’ll save that for last.
But before we get to graduation week, let’s look back at some of the other things that happened as the Danish spring warmed into the Danish summer.
Maddie spent a day in Tivoli with some friends…
One of whom helped her out with software to make me look like a cast member of CSI Hawaii…
Maddie was also inspired by her friend Jose to start playing around with the guitar…
And Didi was up to her usual mischief.
I spent a lot of time tidying up around the yard.
And found more Viking artefacts along the way!
(I call them Viking artefacts. Trine calls them “pointy rocks.”)
I had a lot of pictures of Didi romping around in the forest, but we have enough of those, don’t we?
Once the yard was tidied up the new orderliness only seemed to highlight what a disaster the storage bin in the carport was.
Out with the old…
…and in with the new.
So much nicer, right?
And it matches the terrace set.
By now (mid-June) Denmark went into full pre-summer mode. Companies had their summer parties, schools were having parties and special events (and diminished class times), and the whole country began to blossom—as it does every summer, eventually, to try and make it up to us for the six months of hell it just put us through.
Maddie went in to Tivoli with her head-banging friends to catch… Deep Purple.
She even sent us a video of the dinosaurs grinding out Smoke on the Water.
Not young, those guys… but I’m not surprised. The Stones are still out there and we saw them in Prague the day after Mick Jagger’s 60th birthday.
That was twenty years ago this month.
I spend one whole weekend finally finishing off the back path, including the stairs.
…and Didi was in full summer mode.
Maddie’s final art display at school:
And finally… Sophie is the first of the Lees to arrive!
That was the weekend before graduation week, so Molli wrote up a list of what she thought we should have in the house for when the wagon swung by:
English:
- 3 cases Carlsberg
- 1 bottle tequila
- 1 bottle sambuca
- watermelon
- 50 cheeseburgers
- THERE HAS TO BE A LOUDSPEAKER FOR MUSIC!
Monday 19 June
Mormor, Jørgen, Sophie, Trine, Maddie, and I make our way to Birkerød Gymnasium to greet Molli (and bestow her hue upon her) as soon as she gets out of her last exam.
Molli gave us the wrong time, so we waited a little longer than we’d expected to.
…and waited…
…until…
I swear I was there. Really. There’s just not a single picture of me to prove it.
After congratulating her we moved over to a table in a special area they’d set up for families to drink champagne and eat strawberries with their graduates.
We also all got to sign Molli’s hue.
And per tradition, Molli drank champagne off it:
We celebrated that evening with a dinner at the restaurant of Molli’s choice: C-Weed.
Molli had been very protective of her hat up until that morning. Tradition demands it. Anyone who tries it on before it’s been earned, for example, has to jump over it four times. So Sophie and Maddie were eager to try the hat on now that it could be done legally.
…which doesn’t mean Molli was thrilled to share it…
Asides
I don’t like breaking the narrative flow like this, but this is for the permanent record.
Didi’s bed had finally become so shredded we had to get rid of it. We got her a new one…
…and although she uses it, she clearly doesn’t like it as much as she did the old one.
Alas for her.
But that wasn’t for the permanent record. This is:
The sound of critters skittering about in the not-even-a-crawlspace between our ceilings and roof compelled us to call the kommune to check for rats. Apparently we have not one, not two, not three, not even four, but five sewer access points on our property.
Two in the northern hedges that we knew about (one of which had caused us problems in the past), two on the eastern walkway that we knew about, and one, get this, under the toolshed.
I had to clear out the hedges for the inspection of one of the sewers:
What they do is, they pump smoke into these big sewer pipes and then just kind of wander around to see where smoke is coming out.
It only seemed to come out one place it really ought not to have: you can barely see it here, but it was puffing out of the top of the drainage pipe.
This led the ratwoman (who was awesome and deserves a much better title than ratwoman) to conclude rats were able to climb through the sewers to that drainage pipe, up to the roof, and then into the space between roof and ceiling.
Another place smoke emerged: the tool shed. That was a mystery, until it was discovered that there was another manhole cover under one of the floor panels in the toolshed.
Another place: the back of our main hallway closet. Just trace amounts, but still.
Insurance will apparently cover all this, but the saga has only just begun: only an hour before I wrote this sentence (three weeks after taking those pictures), a sewer guy came by to make some final inspections before sending his report to our insurance company.
Meanwhile, Mads had come by with a 10-kilo (22 pound) ham hock, and we planned to serve it for a big meal with the whole family once all the Lees arrived. That would require defrosting, but we didn’t want to defrost 22 kilos of meat, so I had to saw the damn thing in half.
It wasn’t easy.
Also meanwhile, it hadn’t rained since May 28 (we’re deep into June now), and the temperatures were getting into the high twenties on a regular basis. We thought that was very hot. We were so naive.
(I had a picture of the car thermometer registering an outdoor temperature of 25 C, but that’s silly, right?)
Permanent record: Maddie had a superlative report card:
In Memoriam
Onkel Klaus had passed away on Saturday, June 10th. Peacefully, at home, surrounded by family.
We were very lucky to have had him at Maddie’s confirmation:
It’s not for me to eulogize Klaus: he wasn’t my relative and I didn’t know him all that well. But I did write the following:
He was ninety years old when he died. He’d led a rich and independent life, very much his own man, living on his own terms right up to the end. He was the sort of man who filled every room he entered by sheer force of presence, the sort of man who called every male a knægt (lad) and every woman a tøse (chick) without anyone ever taking offense. He was a master carpenter by trade, a man’s man, builder of his own house. He was devoted to the wild animals around his forest home and spent a small fortune feeding them, which ensured his devotion was reciprocated. He loved music and singing and was sure to lead at least one song at every family gathering. He had an odd but endearing habit of tracking people’s ages in months instead of years.
Adored by his family, beloved by his friends, his loss was neither tragic nor unexpected but deeply saddening because it was a very large loss. The family has a great hole in it now.
The little church in Copenhagen in which his funeral was held was full. The priest eulogized him beautifully—and with ample references to, and echoes of, his mischievous humor. At his own request, his coffin was borne out of the church by his brother, children, and a couple of grandchildren while everyone sang along to We’ll Meet Again.
That was the afternoon of…
Thursday 22 May
…and that made things a little tricky, because long before his death we had planned the evening of the 22nd as the time for a big family celebration of Molli’s graduation. Trine, Maddie, and I literally had to leave Klaus’s wake early to rush home and get things ready for the dinner.
It was a day of emotional schizophrenia: of turning on a dime from sorrow to celebration.
Mormor was remarkable: mere hours after burying her beloved elder brother, she was there to celebrate her granddaughter. (And you’ll notice the Lees had by now arrived.)
Unbeknownst to anyone else, Molli had apparently been telling Sophie how cool Danish graduation hats were compared to the stupid American mortars. “They’re so ugly,” Molli said. “The Danish ones actually look cool.”
So after the meal Sophie played Pomp and Circumstance and presented Molli with an American graduation cap.
Emotions were unleashed.
More emotions were unleashed when Aunt Deb presented Molli with one of Nana’s precious rings, giving a lovely speech explaining how she was sure Nana would have wanted her to have it.
Aunt Deb also had one of Nana’s beloved necklaces to present to Maddie.
It was all very emotional, so it was a welcome relief to deliver Trine’s and my graduation gift to Molli—raw cash—by means of a trivia game called “How Well Does Molli Know Molli?” It consisted of a bunch of stupid questions about Molli’s childhood, followed by “relative challenges” in which various other relatives were permitted to submit their own questions or challenges to Molli in order for her to claim more money.
Aunt Deb pointed out there were no pictures of Maddie with both of her aunts.
We remedied that immediately.
It seemed like a good night, especially coming after a hard afternoon.
Molli actually thanked us for it and told us it had been “perfect.”
What more can a parent ask for?
Friday 23 June
The big day!
There were too many of us to fit in the car, so we split into a Car Group and a Bus Group and then joined forces at Birkerød sports hall for the ceremony.
The graduation was scheduled to begin at 10:00, and Nordic precision didn’t let us down: the kids began filing into the hall at 10:01.
And there she is!
It was a long, tedious graduation just like its American equivalents, but after about 90 minutes Molli and her class were finally being presented their diplomas. (You’ll see her actually receive hers in the video below: in these hard to see pictures she’s sixth from the right.)
Many, many thanks to whoever sent me these next two pics, because they’re the only evidence of my having been at the graduation!
After the ceremony we all went out to the school parking lot where the studentervogn were idling and ready. I took dozens of pictures of the trucks and the slogans, many of which referenced COVID-19 and ChatGPT, almost all of which referenced alcohol, nudity, and sex, and all of which were actually pretty funny.
But I’m only including Molli’s truck because really, who cares about the other ones?
And off they go!
While Molli and her classmates rolled around northern Sjælland getting drunk and being silly, Trine and I finished our work days and then scrambled to prep for the arrival of the bus at our house, scheduled for 20:30.
I hadn’t mentioned it before, but both Trine and I had been working full time all week. (On Thursday I’d actually been at the office, fortunately only about 100 meters from the church.) So we weren’t just finished for the day that afternoon: we were also both finally on vacation.
When I showed up at the McDonalds in Ballerup to pick up the 50 cheeseburgers we’d ordered a week earlier for 19:30 pickup, the manager met my request with a blank expression.
We do not have 50 cheeseburgers, he said. Nobody order 50 cheeseburgers for 19:30, he said. He showed me a notebook in which there was no entry for 50 cheeseburgers at 19:30.
I called Trine and handed the manager the phone.
A few moments later he handed the phone back to me.
“We’ll make 50 cheeseburgers,” he said. “Give me 10 minutes.”
And lo:
I was home with the burgers by a little after 20:00, and from then it was just a waiting game.
At this point it was just us, the Lees, and Maddie’s friends Jose and Freja.
And this ol’ girl:
Around 21:00 Trine gets the call: they’ll be at our house within half an hour!
Burgers ready!
Entire house ready!
The arrival was quite dramatic: the truck pulled up to our house blaring The Star Spangled Banner, and everyone sang along. You’ll see that in the video. (And you’ll notice I jumped in on the wrong verse, and you’ll actually hear Hannah punching the right verse in over mine, at which point I correct myself. Thanks for the save, Hannah!)
There are a gazillion pictures of the ensuing twenty minutes. My own, and all the many shots sent to me by relatives and friends. I’ve boiled them down to a representative handful.
Possibly my favorite picture ever of me and my girls:
What a whirlwind! They came, they partied, and they were back on the bus in less than 20 minutes.
And yes, that’s Sophie beside Molli on the bus—also Selma. They rode along to the next house along with Molli and her classmates. (Selma’s mom had volunteered to pick them up and bring them home after.)
And that was it. Nothing for the rest of us to do but nibble away at the leftover booze and junk food.
There was no fat lady to sing and let us know it was all finally over, but we did get Sophie’s interpretative dance to Bohemian Rhapsody, and that was close enough.
Saturday June 24
The Lees wanted and deserved some time in Copenhagen, and with Sophie scheduled to depart on Sunday that left only Saturday.
We took the train down to Christianshavn and enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the canals.
Thinking ahead, I had suggested we paint up a posterboard wishing Beth a happy 85th birthday and get pictures of ourselves holding it at various spots around Copenhagen. Everyone agreed it was a lovely idea, but no one wanted to make the posterboard. So we decided to take pictures as if we were holding such a sign, and I’d just add one digitally afterwards.
I no sooner took that one than I realized the placement of their hands would require a digital placard to cover half of Hannah’s face and all of Sophie’s. Reshoot!
Better!
But my digital wizardry was pretty half-assed:
Somewhere there on Christianshavn some enterprising “artist” had constructed a two-meter high bench to illustrate how high global warming would raise the canal levels of Copenhagen.
Because of course they did.
But I love this photo of Maddie and me ready for the deluge!
We thought we could add a “little” placard for Beth:
Turned out there’s such a thing as too little.
More protest art—some artist was angry about Copenhagen municipality’s intention to create a parking garage in this location (across the street, more or less, from Glytopteket) and had somehow been commissioned to express that anger.
I’m with Gene on this one.
On the other hand, the sculpture show real craft and workmanship. That’s a lot of labor to put into a simple “fuck you.” I like sculpture and would have liked to see what this artist could do in pursuit of beauty instead of ugly municipal politics.
We were too close to avoid Tivoli at this point: its gravity sucked us right in.
(Poor Hannah had a bad episode at a McDonalds on the way in—an episode involving the stupidest use of automation I’ve ever seen—and went home to chill it off.)
While drinking those beers in the Biergarten, Trine got a call from Mormor: she was also in Tivoli, she said, and was waiting to see the queen over at the Chinese pavilion.
We hurried over at once, and there she was!
That’s Queen Margrethe II of Denmark smiling at waving to me. This pic was sent to me by one of the girls: as you’ll see, my own photo of the moment was compromised by angles, but really: I had eye contact with and a wave from the queen.
Here’s my pic, from my phone, and you can see she really is looking at me. (And really, who wouldn’t?)
We meandered around for a while, but the four adults finally settled in the big boat on the lake to have some more drinks while Sophie and Maddie did some rides before hooking back up with us.
We caught the 22:30 illumination…
And then the 23:30 fireworks.
I love the next picture so damn much…
Not a bad day in Copenhagen!
Aftermath
That was pretty much it.
The next morning we made a video of all of us singing happy birthday to Beth, which video made its way to the film loop shown at her party on the 9th.
At the subjects’ request: the family autistes.
Sophie left Sunday and I drove the rest of the Lees to the airport on Monday.
It started raining on my drive home from the airport, and that was the end of the drought.
The very next day we got a photo from Deb & Gene down in Malaga…
Which brings us to the travel portion of the summer, which will come in another post.
For now, it’s finally time for the graduation video I’ve been talking about.
Filmora chose this photo as its thumbnail:
But as I draft this post the video (below) is only previewing a black screen.
But the video does play, so enjoy… and see you in the next post, in which we travel to Portugal, Spain, and Gibraltar!
Note: I’m in a damn hurry to get all these posts up before vacation ends, so I’ve chosen to publish this post now that I’ve completed it without going back to correct any errors, omissions, or other fuck-ups. I apologize in advance for any and all of them.
I just read this on August 26th and thoroughly enjoyed seeing pics of our trip there. What a special time. As Dad would say, “how lovely!”