The House, the Spring, the Accidental Take Your Daughter to Work Day

There doesn’t seem to be any point in saying once again how busy we’ve been these past few weeks, but I’m going to say it again for the sake of posterity. I am busy at work and Trine is busy with school. She needs extra time to study. I am doing side work for Eidos and the occassional on-demand article for Newsday. We are preparing our apartment for sale and working on the house every weekend to prepare it for our move there at the end of June. We are also preparing for the logistics of the move itself. We are planning the logistics of our vacation. All of this complicated by a teacher’s strike that kept Molli Malou out of school a couple of days a week and the usual picked-up pace of social gatherings brought on by spring.

Our life is divided between Frederiksberg and Værløse. Every trip up from the city we’re bringing a few more things that never come back to the apartment.

And of course, life goes on.

First a flashback to the end of April: another Mille & Molli Malou worm hunt in the back yard.

Now we’re going to wander away from our primary subject for a minute to share the joys of our yardwork.

I’ve discovered the joy of before (and during) and after shots. Here are the huge hedges filling most of the lawn space between Hybenvej and the living room windows (which are to the right here).

Hold on, let’s step back a little to get a better angle on the shrubs and the front of the house.

Those were your before shots. Here’s an almost after shot.

And a little further after:

But wait! Face paint break!

Before:

After:

Could you spot the difference?

On the other side of the driveway from the shrubberies you saw above, the land drops steeply down in a kind of recessed yard encompassed by the L-shape of the northern wing of the house.

I’m not going to bother making your eyes glaze over by trying to describe the exact angles from which these before pictures were taken… just try to get a general sense of the sheer jungle-like profusion of it all.

Did you know there was a roll-out canopy for the patio? I guess I did, but I’d forgotten. Also notice how there are no weeds or grass growing out between the paving stones of the terrace. That was hours and hours of backbreaking work a few weeks ago. I’m writing this on a sunny Friday evening up at the house and the dandelions, grass, and other weeds have come back stronger than ever because I didn’t get around to blowtorching the bastards while they were down.

I am officially no longer worried about the environment. It is impossible to keep these damn plants in line. We cut them down, the grow back in like a week. The apple tree that looked like a cartoonist’s stick figure of a bony hand last week is now lush with leaves. The bushes I trimmed to within an inch of their lives are roiling with buds and blossoms. It keeps reminding me of the story “The City” by Herman Hesse. I haven’t read it since high school, but … now I’ve digressed too much.

Trine and I continue to be astonished by the magnitude of the ignorance of fauna our city living has engendered in us.

Hey, remember that lush jungle I took so many pictures of? Look, I’m a gardener!

And I did it without napalm!

Oh, wait… Molliblog. Sorry. Here she is showing off for Oldemor last weekend.

And helping us prep the back office (our bedroom until move-in).

(Yes, that is a pet bat in her hands. The bat has also been very helpful.)

The shots with Molli Malou are actually supposed to be before shots. The walls are blue. In the after shot they’re white, but I’m afraid it doesn’t read well from the photos.

Emma’s confirmation was last Sunday and Molli Malou had more silly time with crazy great-uncle Michael.

(The above shot is great of both of them and captures their relationship perfectly.)

Molli Malou stood beside Sofie as she opened her confirmation presents.

I should mention that at one point during the dinner, a huge shelf of CDs came crashing down onto the dinner table where Molli Malou was sitting beside Mormor and spilled jewel cases and CDs and smashed glasses all over the table right in front of Molli Malou herself. Twice! (One of those, “okay, folks, relax, we’ve got it balanced again — whoa! look out!” moments) Then at one point the gift-bearing table in front of Sofie suddenly gave way and collapsed on top of and all around poor Molli Malou. Traumatic moments, but she came through all right.

The next day was Monday but due to the teacher’s strike I took the day off from work to take care of her. We went to the zoo.

At one point Molli Malou was running up and down the stairs to the “Tiger Observation Post,” a little elevated shack that looks out over the tiger area. She was having so much fun running up and down the steps, and hopping up and down them, that I had to get a picture of her glee… and just as I lined up the picture, there came a sudden tiger roar that caught Molli Malou totally off guard. She froze in her tracks. I caught the reaction on (digital) film!

A neighbor of ours took these two outstanding (really) photos of Molli Malou in the yard of the apartment yesterday and was kind enough to email them too me. They are super-high resolution, about 3.5MB each, but if you want them in all their glory just let me know. I think the second one is one of the best pics of her from recent months: it captures her exactly as she is.

The second strike day last week, Tuesday, I didn’t feel like I could take another day off from work… but there were no other options. So it became Take Your Daughter to Work Day by default.

What have you learned about Daddy’s job? He goes in and out of an office, up and down stairs, feeds fish, eats fruit, and sits at a desk. Yes! My exact job description!