Upon our return from the states we were repeatedly informed that it had been a horrible few weeks in Denmark, weather-wise. That was a quiet source of satisfaction to us, especially since we seemed to have brought the lovely weather we’d experienced in the states back across the ocean with us. We had a couple of weeks of temperatures around 25 degrees, with sunshine and virtually no precipitation. It was perfect summer weather and it very nearly lasted to the stroke of midnight on August 31: September arrived once again in a surly mood, gray and cool and rainy. Thus do the Danes consider the first of September to be the first day of autumn; thus do I no longer correct them with astronomical details.
Despite the bonus weeks of summer weather, however, we were thrown pretty much straight back into real life as soon as we got back.
For one thing, we had a new leak. Chris and Maria had mentioned it to us while we were still in the states, so it was something we looked into right away.
It appears we’ve got a spot on the roof where mildew or mold or whatever that green stuff is has perhaps nibbled a little hole or seam into the roofing, so water is dripping down into… our shower. So not a hugely big deal but obviously something that needs to be dealt with.
(In the time between drafting this post and editing it prior to publication, I looked it over with a carpenter from down the street: he determined there was a leak around the air vent there — the caulking had cracked — and a little roof tar will patch it up just fine. Now I just need a day without rain to apply that tar!)
While I was checking that out, I noticed that the cats have apparently been sharpening their claws on one of the chimneys, thereby plying out chunks of mortar. (I hope it’s been the cats, in any case.) Gonna be a fun day when they claw out the wrong piece of mortar…
But the roof check wasn’t all bad: the gutters were mostly pretty clear (until I brought the carpenter up the other day and they were mostly clogged), and the new roof lining I built on the toolshed last fall is holding up very well!
Did I mention how happy Didi was to have us back?
Now, the following pictures are not actually of Molli, Fie, Sophie, and Maddie playing in the sprinkler, although they may give that impression. Actually the girls just got in the way. The subject is Didi, who was simultaneously trying to play along with them and drink the sprinkler water, but I could not persuade the girls to get out of the way even for just a few photos.
On one of our walks in Hareskov, Didi and I were stunned and nearly flattened by a car whizzing by us impatiently. The driver and her sole passenger were a couple of clueless looking young girls who seemed to think it was all great fun, despite their having come within a hair of sideswiping Didi and me. (Or because because of it.) Cars are strictly forbidden from the forest in any case.
(Didi’s going, grrrrrr…..)
Horatio Cain says, “See if you can zoom in on the license plate…”
Busted! (Well, they could be busted, but I’m not actually a CSI.)
August 9 was nothing special this year, but at least we didn’t forget it.
It’s odd to think we’ve been married twelve years now, but even odder to think I’ve lived here that long. In fact, at some point in the next few weeks I will have lived exactly one quarter of my life in Denmark (12½ out of 50 years). So everything is going according to plan!
The reason August 9 wasn’t particularly special this year was that in addition to still recovering from jet lag, we also had to get things ready for August 10.
What was August 10? Why, it was one girl’s first day of fifth grade:
And another’s first day of frist fricking grade!
There’s only the one picture of Molli Malou because that was all she would allow me. We couldn’t even follow her to school or anything: she just hopped on her bike and disappeared.
Maddie, of course, got the full treatment. We walked her up to school and met her teachers and got to see where she would be sitting. Her main teacher, Susanne, is new to Søndersøskolen and is therefore an unknown quantity but seems nice as well as competent. We’re uncertain about her other teacher and are watching developments very closely because the other teacher does not seem very engaged in actual teaching. There’s a lot of singing and drawing and very little education with that one.
We’ve instituted “homework hygge” every night from 19:00 to 19:30 Monday through Thursday. We play classical music, drink herbal tea, and sit around as a family to do homework. (Maddie doesn’t get a lot of homework, so most nights we use the workbooks and readers we bought in the states.) It’s a calm and relaxing time and the girls seem to love it, although of course some homework assignments can sometimes prove… disruptive. Anyway, the whole idea behind was that Trine and I thought if we created an environment where “homework” would be associated with coziness and family time, we might help the girls establish good study and work habits in later life. It’s a little late to try and mold Molli Malou so flagrantly, but it does seem to be helping. Maddie actually looks forward to it.
(Oh, stop it, I can hear you laughing from here. Maybe if I’d had hot tea and good music I might have done a better job on my own homework. It’s not inconceivable, is it? Oh, come on!)
# # #
First day of fifth grade and first day of first grade… and, of course, one dog’s four-hundredth-day of immersing herself in muddy swamp water.
If I’d had a real camera I think the picture below would be stunning.
Maddie, her friend Emma, and Molli Malou came giggling into the living room one afternoon to announce they were playing a new dress-up game: Elsa, Belle, and Morfar!
(Apparently none of the princess dresses fit Molli anymore, but Morfar’s robe does! … sort of… )
Friday is legetøj (toy) day at school, and Maddie decided to bring her Elsa and Anna dolls one of the first Fridays of the school year. She insisted I put them in the back pouch of her backpack “so they can see something besides our house for a change.”
Didi remains vigilant against the rogue buoy of Søndersø:
But for all her flaws — and all her adolescent rebellion — she really is a well-trained, well-behaved dog. Mostly. (We’ll come back to that thought later.)
There are so many “Nordic Retrievers” in the area that we rarely get out without encountering at least one, and it’s not that unusual to encounter more than one.
Again: if I had a real camera, the picture below would also be spectacular. It would also make a great flag, which is what I thought when I saw it in real life.
I have an ancient memory of a poster on the wall of the Tiffany’s den in their house on Muriel Drive. It was a photograph of a very little boy and girl holding hands and stepping out of a forest into a clearing, shot from behind, and it gave the feel of watching them exit a tunnel made of forest. It’s an image that’s stayed with me all these years and I’ve tried many times to get a picture of such a “tree tunnel,” with or without the boy and girl holding hands.
…so we can add those two pictures to the long and ever-growing list of my failures to do so.
One night Trine and I were surprised by a kind of perfect social storm: it was a Saturday night and both girls wound up not being with us for dinner for some reason or other. We went to the grocery store and spent a little more money than we probably ought to have on a couple of aged, dried steaks.
On the same evening we grilled those beauties, we opened the bottle of Ardbeg scotch we’d brought home from New Hampshire.
It’s an odd color for a scotch, right? But it’s about the most perfect I’ve ever tasted. I will cry when we reach the bottom of that bottle. (Another funny thing happened between my writing this post and my last-minute edit…)
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The next picture won’t mean much to any of you, but future Molli Malou and Maddie will probably find it as surreal as I did when I took it.
It’s the parking lot that serves the swim hall, gym, and Søndersøskolen. And it is completely empty. I have never seen that before, despite six or seven years of seeing it several times a week — at all times of day and night, in all kinds of weather. It was kind of chilling — like seeing Times Square without any people.
(But why were you there, Greg? Because the dog.)
The dog continues to bring me into contact with sights I never would have encountered without her.
Maddie loves school so much she decided to start her own school in the house.
Toward the end of August we had a visit from Morfar. After years of his visiting every few months — and often even more frequently — this time it had been nearly 18 months since his last visit.
The following shot is actually just a bad picture, but for some reason I like it.
And in the picture below my lens apparently got smeared… but I like it.
One of the fun things about having daughter’s is that every once in a while I’m told, “Daddy, take a picture of the back of my head.” And I do. And I am then asked to show the picture. And I do. And then the girl goes skipping away without any kind of explanation.
(I assume in this case, and in most others, it’s for purposes of hair accessory appraisal… but then why raise her arms?)
Restaurant Hai Long, still Maddie’s favorite restaurant in the whole world!
Despite the visible stress in the above picture, Molli Malou uncharacteristically asked me a moment later to take a bunch of pictures of her. So I did.
She looked them over, deleted one or two, and handed back my phone.
“Thanks,” she said.
I have no idea why she wanted me to take those pictures.
# # #
Once in a while it dawns on me that although I have way too many pictures of the girls, most of them are from “moments.” There isn’t much quotidian photography: pictures of just regular life being lived in the regular way.
So… as soon as they’re done eating at the restaurant, the girls rush out to the playground in the middle of Bymidten. (In bad weather they just lurk around the fish tank in the restaurant, but on this particular evening we were sitting right next to the fish tank anyway, and the weather was fine.)
I have lots of rainbow pictures, but rainbows are just rainbows. Maddie said, “get a picture of me with the rainbow!” — so I did. I suppose that makes it a moment, but only if you don’t live in Denmark and see rainbows on a pretty regular basis.
Molli got a little math assist from Morfar during one homework hygge:
And every night there is the fresh hell of making the girls’ lunches. It is something we do every fricking school night, all year, every year. And there is no photographic evidence of that agony… until now.
(It’s actually finally getting better: Molli Malou is now in charge of making her own lunch, and Maddie is nowhere near as picky as Molli Malou.)
We had to unload a bunch of old iPhone 5’s at work, so they made them available to us for 500 kroner (to be withdrawn from our checks before taxes). So I was able to get a good-as-new iPhone 5 for about forty bucks.
I knew Molli Malou would be thrilled, because she had cracked the screen of her own iPhone 4s, inherited from her mother.
But what on earth would we do with that old iPhone 4s?
Who wants an iPhone without a sim card?
# # #
I had to attend an IBM training course at a downtown location and while in the middle of my own thoughts on the way there from the Metro, I suddenly looked up and realized, “Whoa… I live in Copenhagen.”
It still catches me by surprise sometimes.
And lastly —
Bad dog.
(That’s why I said “more later” way back when.)
She will not get a new bed. She will learn to love the floor.
Thus endeth August 2015.
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I just finished editing this and it’s Sunday night, September 6. Besides having the usual fantasy football drafts today, we also had to get Molli Malou through two handball games and prepare for spending Monday through Friday on a field trip to Ribe (in Jylland). It’s going to be a very educational trip and the kids aren’t being allowed to bring any phones, iPads, or anything else like that. Meaning we’ll be completely cut off from Molly from Monday morning through Friday afternoon.
She’s going to have the time of her life!
As always a wonderful post. Thanks for keeping them up to date.
AML