June and the first week of July whipped by in a flash. The end of the school year and wrapping up of all extracurricular activities made it a season of recitals and parties and transitions.
It was an especially bittersweet period for Molli Malou, whose beloved class (6.b) was dissolved so the entire sixth grade could be reshuffled for seventh grade. She is going into 7.v, now, with just two old classmates from b; the rest of them were redistributed among 7.x, 7.y, and 7.z. When the news of their imminent change broke abruptly on a Friday before a long holiday weekend, Molli was traumatized. Some of her classmates started an Instagram hashtag, #prayFor6b. And honestly there were a few parents who went over the top in their reactions. But by the time the new class lists were announced about ten days later, she was elated. So were most of her former classmates. And most of the parental rage had ebbed.
I note for the permanent record that the source of Molli’s elation was that her new class included “all the cute boys.”
I have an undated picture that Trine sent me from one warm day early in the month: Molli with her friends Louise (left) and Fie (right) at the Furesø beach.
Although we had great warmth in June, we also had a lot of rain. Once again I encountered a herd of snails while walking Didi after one particularly violent downpour. It’s a phenomenon I’ve never experienced outside of Denmark, and one I’m reluctant to share on Facebook because Stéphane and Sovi keep oohing and aahing over the potential deliciousness, which is ruining escargots for me.
Those are the little guys: plenty of big guys around, too.
Sorry, but no amount of butter and garlic is going to make that appealing to me. Some things are better left uncontemplated.
Dropping Maddie at her class one morning, this bulletin board display of 2.a’s artwork caught my eye. Since it’s from 2.a none of it is Maddie’s, but I actually think they work together as a pretty intriguing bit of art. Individually, sure, it’s kid stuff, but aren’t they kind of fun all together like this?
Pinse weekend was the rainiest of the month — and that Sunday included both a handball tournament for Molli Malou (her first on the first team of the 14-and-unders) and the annual Kammer picnic. The rain made itself felt at both outdoor events.
First, the handball:
It was a huge tournament, with dozens of courses set up across a vast acreage of grass that was, thanks to the rain, essentially tractionless.
And the ball was like a greased watermelon.
(Molli is number 6 in these photographs.)
This picture doesn’t play very well, but Molli has at this point reached such a state of supersaturation that all she can do is laugh — in its full resolution you can see the laughter on her face.
We went straight from the tournament to the picnic, which the weather forced indoors instead of the usual spot in Frederiksberg Garden.
The weather changed overnight, which was a relief, because there was yet another outdoor event on Pinse Monday: Maddie’s choir singing at an outdoor Pinse mass. We had a hell of a time finding it — seriously:
.. but find it we did.
The pastor or priest told a lovely story as her homily. It was engaging, it kept the kids’ attention, and it was very thoughtful.
But the amazing thing to me was the other priest or pastor — the one with the trombone:
I think I can safely say it was the first time I’d seen a clergyman with a trombone.
You can see Maddie’s back — third from the left (in the “inside” ring, not the outside one).
After the singing it was time for campfire bread for the kids…
And time for Didi to get a romp.
A few days later, the choir had an even bigger event: singing “Denmark’s History” with Sigurd in Gentofte town hall.
All the kids were instructed to wear a costume representative of some part of Danish history.
I was very sick at this point with a nasty summer cold, and we were all very busy and stressed, so we just helped Maddie be a poor farm girl.
I didn’t think a depression-era farm girl would be so smiley so I tried to depress Maddie into crushing despair.
Better, honey, but come on. Your parents are out of work. You can’t afford to eat. You live in filth and misery. Last week you had to eat the family dog. You’e so miserable you–
Stop laughing! It’s not funny! It’s soul-crushing despair, day after day. . .
So much for the photo op. In town hall, where the event was taking place, Mor applies some last minute filth to the poor waif’s face.
Other historical figures busily tend to their own toilettes:
Showtime!
We didn’t have very good seats. . .
But I loved that when I zoomed in, I could see Maddie had seen us and was beaming straight out at us!
It was a great success.
One upside about the unstable weather was the fantastic cloudscapes we got to experience.
AS SEEN ON FACEBOOK: Maddie’s remarkable tutorial how how to be a spy.
…and here’s “the girl here on the next page:”
Out of curiosity I did some internet searches on “how to be a spy,” “girl spy,” and the like, and that image never came up. I wonder how she came across it. And based upon the results of my own searches, I wonder what else she might have found during that search. (Note to self: check her browser history!)
The Queen Elizabeth pulled up on our jetty in June. It was the first and only time I’ve ever seen it. When I was a kid, she (or one of her precursors) was the go-to metaphor for hugeness: “Wow, didja see that car? It was like the QE2!”
Spoiler: it’s not actually that big, as cruise ships go. Another childhood touch point bites the dust.
The last class activity of the year for 6.b — and therefore the last class activity ever for this group of young teens who’ve been together since they were five years old — was a canoeing trip for the class followed by a family picnic in a public park.
The canoeing pictures are courtesy of one of the parents who chaperoned the voyage.
At the end of their trip, all the families met up with the kids for a little spring dinner al fresco.
It was mid-June or so when I found these (next picture) in our mailbox:
That’s the book I wrote this spring. I’m very proud of this one, because apart from being the only lengthy thing I’ve written on a subject I knew nothing about (since college, anyway), I pounded the whole thing out from concept to publication in about ten weeks.
Meanwhile, I still haven’t finished the novel I’ve been working on for the past 2½ years. Sigh.
At work we had a “team day” out on Trekroner Ø (Three Crowns Island–so named for the name of a ship upon whose wreck the island was originally built several hundred years ago), a little former fortress out in the harbor just a few hundred meters offshore from our office. I prepped too many pictures for the blog, and just now remembered my commitment to minimizing the number of pictures without people in them. Still, it was interesting, so although I’ve deleted most, here are a bunch… you can whiz right by them if you like, but I’d like to keep them in the permanent record.
Note: the below is (or was) a map of the German Reich circa 1941-1945, which the occupying Nazis had drawn up on one of the interior walls of the fort.
Back to our main subject.
Last day of second grade!
Last day of sixth! (That’s Josefine with Molli. Unless it’s Josephine. Each girl has one in their class and they spell their names differently and I can never remember which is which.)
Maddie’s class sommerfest was held that evening, which also happened to be Skt. Hans Aften. Unfortunately the witch was burned while I was elsewhere.
But I don’t feel too badly: Maddie missed it, too.
Surely, however, the witch’s ashes are somewhere in the photo below, so that’ll have to count for my 2017 witch burning photo.
While the second grade graduates ran amok, their parents enjoyed plenty of wine and, eventually, a delicious (but dangerous) cocktail whose name I can’t remember, but included these three ingredients.
The full recipe was, if memory serves (and, thanks to this cocktail it probably does not), Liqor 43, Merlet C2 (coffee liqueur), vodka, and a shot of espresso.
Consume at your own risk.
Naturally the first two days of the girls’ summer vacation it poured rain. Poured.
The first Monday of her vacation, Maddie had “cooking school” with her friend Astrid. Astrid’s mom (Nete) was kind enough to send us pictures.
My big summer project, I decided long ago, would be to make the downstairs “evening terrace” a wonderful oasis. Step one: clearing all the weeds and stones from the “shelf” garden.
AS SEEN ON FACEBOOK (sort of): Molli Malou just a few days before turning 13, so among the last of her pictures as a twelve-year-old. (On Facebook I cropped Maddie out of the image because it was a picture about Molli.)
No cropping Maddie out of this one!
We met Ned and Maureen Dunham during their brief stay in Copenhagen. We had a nice lunch with them in Tivoli, during which Ned tried to Skype Pop-Pop on my phone. We thought it had succeeded wildly until I got an email from Pop-Pop later that day asking who had been with us in Tivoli. Had that been Ned?
Oh well.
I forget the name of this ride. Maddie probably won’t. She’s in the purple pants on the left, directly opposite her sister in the striped sweatpants.
She’s terrified.
I’ve zoomed in a little on one of my shots to share the terror.
But after a while the terror is mixed with a smile.
And by the end of the ride she’s a happy camper.
For the record, however, her screams on that ride were so blood-chilling I was actually afraid they might stop the right to let her off. She says she was only “fun scared.” I won’t contradict her.
It’s hard to get pictures of Molli Malou, so I take what shots I can.
Maddie is still at an age where she loves to pose.
And here, proof that we were in fact with Ned and Maureen!
What Ned is pointing at above is this peacock with its little chick (you’re gonna have to squint to see the chick right behind it):
Like I was saying, always read to pose:
Ah, Tivoli:
And hey, look! I’ve got the shelf garden tarped down and sanded a little. Now I just have to figure out whether or not I really want to go with the white stone bed or try something different. Ideas?
Didi in her favorite bathing lake:
I was going to use this picture for a birthday card to Molli:
I was going to talk about how the track she’s worn into the lawn actually makes me proud of her because it’s visible evidence of her dedication to her sport, of her relentless drive to keep practicing and practicing. And to use that as a springboard to generalize into all of the amazing things about her as she turns thirteen, and how she should always remember that the things we work at always leave their mark, even if we’re not always happy with the end result.
Then I remembered she was turning thirteen, not forty, so I made a happy funny card and kept it simple.
The next two pictures are just a reminder to myself why I will never bother trying to bake bread again.
(It was supposed to be sourdough. Jamie Oliver’s recipe. Instead it was like a terra cotta roof tile for a UFO…. only not as tasty.)
And lo! The third of July is upon us! Molli is thirteen!
I’ve broken protocol by not doing a collage of pictures for Molli’s birthday — not too long ago I celebrated the girls’ birthdays with a sequence of shots from every year of their lives. Before that I made one from every month of their lives.
But first of all I just didn’t have time for that this year, and secondly — isn’t this whole blog a montage of their lives? I find myself coming back to the blog all the time for its use as a permanent record — when did this or that happen, how old was Maddie when we she did this, how hold was Molli when she did that, what was it like when our bedroom was the big room? I can answer almost any question the girls have about their past with a few taps of the iPhone.
Molli Malou is thirteen, now. A bona-fide teenager. But we’ve seen it coming for a long time, and it’s going to last quite a while. And all of it is right here.
Happy birthday, Molli Malou! You are still one of the great joys of my life. I cannot believe my luck in having my first kid be someone whose company I have always enjoyed.
(That I had the same good fortune with my second is astonishing, but this isn’t about Maddie.)
And now to switch gears rather abruptly: here’s a shot of a neighbor’s house being torn down!
And a picture from Mick of a hard cider named for me!
And at last it’s deep into July and we’re just a few days away from vacation! See you on the other side of that adventure!
