Archive for August, 2007

Tetris floor is on hold. We didn’t get the tiles yesterday as planned, because one color was out of stock. The tiles should now arrive next Friday. We also learned that it’s highly advisable to allow the tiles to sit for a few days in the apartment, and adjust to regular, non-warehouse temperatures before laying them down. So it looks like it could be two weekends away before we get to laying them down.

In Denmark, it seems that putting “American” on the description of food means that it has corn on it*. Although this makes sense from a geographic perspective, it has very little bearing on actual culturally American food. Thus you end up with things like corn on hamburgers and corn on pizza. I finally dared to eat corn on my pizza two nights ago. I decided to go all out and get the one with both corn and peas. Unfortunately, this one had no egg. That’s my next pizza. It’s not actually called an American pizza, but a “Chicken Du Luxe.” I figure it you use the word “chicken” in English, and butcher a French word, it’s basically like calling it American. My review: it tastes ok, but you should really put the cheese on top to keep them from falling off. Especially if you have Tycho the food hoover nearby.

Last night was my first Meetup after becoming Organizer. We had a Labor Day Weekend Kickoff at Central Park Café in Vesterbro. One of the attendees, a woman named Armelle who is from Côte d’Ivoire, Paris, and London (you have to love the international crowd answering questions like “where are you from?”), showed sincere interest in how I managed to go barefoot. Even in the rain. Even in 13º. Even in Vesterbro. She asked if it was a trend, as she’d seen so many others going barefoot. I’m a bit jealous; I haven’t seen any others. After leaving the festivities, I managed to have my first barefooting injury. A few meters outside the Hovedbanegård I stepped on something sharp. A quick brush-off of the sole did not help, so I kept weight off it until we got down to our platform. T helped me find it and remove it while waiting for our train. It’s still a bit sore when I put weight on it, but it’s not major. We’ll see how I feel about it after another day of walking on it.

*An exception to the American = corn rule is ice cream. When you ask for an Amerikaner at the ice cream stand, you get a ginormous ice-cream-stuffed waffle cone with jam and a flødebolle (chocolate-covered cream ball) on top. Nevermind that flødeboller basically only exist in Scandinavia.

After attending just one meeting, I’ve become the organizer for The København Expat American Meetup Group. (København, which is pronounced sort of like curb-en-HOWN, is the Danish word for Copenhagen.) I managed to attend a meeting of LINK without becoming organizer, but it was a lot of fun anyway. (Currently, that link takes you to a page saying they are redesigning their site, and I just want to say “hallelujah!” about that. Maybe I won’t be forced to volunteer for that after all.)

I presented my little darlings with a whole fish. I have no idea what kind of fish it was, because the Danish word was so unfamiliar to me I didn’t bother remembering it. It was probably 8 to 10 inches long. (I still don’t think in centimeters yet, but I’m working on it.) Between the two of them, all that is now left is about half an inch of the head. I never thought I’d say this, but it’s incredibly satisfying to hear my Lidja crunch on fish bones. And yes, once more, raw animal bones are safe.

Last Friday, T & I went to Tæppeland to place our order for the tiles we need to do our Tetris floor. Yes, for those of you who have not yet heard, we are putting a Tetris floor in our living room. What does that mean? We’re using Marmoleum Click (details in English | color options in Denmark) to create a floor in a pattern made of Tetrominoes. I’ve included my design for your enjoyment. The tiles are to arrive on Friday, and we will begin installing Friday night or (more likely) Saturday.

Many people have made comments along the lines of, “that won’t increase your property value.” You may be thinking that as well. I have a couple of things to say about that. a) T & I want a Tetris floor. If we worry about our property value more than what we want, when are we going to get it? Never. That’s dumb. b) Marmoleum Click doesn’t nail down, so it’s a snap to remove. Maybe we can even take it with us?

If, on the other hand, you recognize this for what it is, which is a totally awesome idea, and you might want to do it yourself, I have a couple of suggestions for you. Here in Denmark at least, the tiles are only sold in packs of seven. Had I known this, I might have made my design more divisible-by-seven-friendly, but by the time we were at Tæppeland ready to order, we didn’t really feel like changing the design. Call ahead and find out how many are in the packs you need. Secondly, Forbo has a floor planner on their website (English | Danish). If you want to stay true to the game, Wikipedia has a comprehensive table of what tetrominoes were what color in what version. I’m pretty anti-magenta-or-purple-in-my-living-room, so I chose not to do this. I’m hoping to include pictures and maybe even video of the installation and finished product. Stay tuned.

Here’s a fun little meme via Fredchikk. She gave me the letter S, and I have to list my ten favorite songs beginning with that letter. This was really, really hard because there are so many great songs beginning with S. In fact, I had originally planned to put them in preferential order, but I had to give up. So here they are in semi-random order. (If you wanna play, leave me a comment and I’ll give you a letter.) 

1. “Special” – Mew
2. “Strange Glue” – Catatonia
3. “Solar Sister” – Posies
4. “Scar” – Missy Higgins
5. “She Floated Away” – Hüsker Dü
6. “Shrine” – Dambuilders
7. “Så Gik Der Tid Med Det” – Tøsedrengene
8. “Setting Sun” – Chemical Brothers
9. “San Diego Zoo” – The 6ths
10. “South Central Rain” – R.E.M.

Many misguided cat servants spend money on things marketed as cat beds only to find their cat never uses it. Cats sleep wherever the hell they want. If you want them to sleep in a particular place, you need to put whatever the hell they want in a particular place. Lidja, like many cats, has a penchant for curling up into things she doesn’t quite fit into, and has taken many a nap in my laptop bag or random boxes and baskets she happens upon. I noticed recently that, in lieu of my laptop bag (which I freecycled before moving) and random boxes (which we took to the basement storage), she was seeking out the quilt my grandmother made and gave as a wedding present. I also noticed that the box in which Thomas’ new FiveFingers arrived was just about Lidja-sized. So I wrapped the box in the quilt, and waited about an hour.

Thomas and Peter got a 10* on their presentation yesterday, and their schoolwork is officially complete forever. (*If you’re unfamiliar with the truly bizarre grading scale of Danish education, Århus University has a nice explanation.) 

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. The postal service here is amazing! We ordered a pair of shoes online yesterday afternoon and they got here about an hour ago. High praises not just to the post office but to Alun for getting the order shipped out so promptly as well. When T gets home, he’ll get to try out his new Vibram FiveFingers and I’ll report on the experience. They certainly look neat.

I made another pair of barefoot sandals today. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the beads when I bought them, or actually until a few minutes after starting the first sandal. After I decided what to do, I wasn’t sure it would work. Fortunately it did, and I know I’m biased but I think they’re really great. I made them really long so I wrap them around my ankle an extra time. 

I spent 104 kroner to get these beads, which is about $19. The first pair was about 90 kroner, including the elastic and needles, which I used again for these, and I have enough beads leftover to make a matching bracelet or necklace. This is including the 25% VAT. I’ve seen barefoot sandals in the US online starting at about $17 (94 kroner) before tax! Granted, I did get a steal on those red glass beads. They were originally 39 kroner for two square, and 49 for two rectangular. They were marked down to 11 and 14.

Tomorrow, Thomas and his project partner, Peter, give their presentation on their final project. Assuming a passing grade, this will be their final act before being conferred their degrees from DTU. Were I a Muslim, I’d be shouting alhamdulillah tomorrow afternoon. I’m not, so instead I think we’ll imbibe alcoholic beverages to celebrate.

This project, which was originally intended to be completed last summer, and then last December, and then this April, has contributed to pushing back our wedding date, delaying my expatriation, and most recently, stealing my husband away for evenings and weekends. Today, once again, Thomas is meeting with Peter directly after work.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m really excited about it for what it is. Thomas is getting a kandidat degree, which is the Danish equivalent to a master’s, and that’s a fantastic thing. But, this is my blog, and I’m allowed to be selfish and say I’m really thrilled to get my husband after work and on weekends. And when he and Peter want to hang out, it might not necessarily be where Peter’s desktop computer with all the data for the project is.

With T not coming home for dinner, it’s harder to motivate myself to do something interesting in the kitchen.

I made a pair of barefoot sandals today. Using this tutorial as a basic guide, it took about an hour to make the set. I really like how it turned out! My long beads are not as long as the ones on the tutorial, so I used some extra beads (basically small round – large round – small round in most of the places where she used just a pony bead). In the pic, you can kinda see how deformed my pinky toe is, as a result of traditionally-shaped girls’ shoes I was forced to wear to church growing up.

P.S. Tycho didn’t want to be left out of the pictures. He’s doing great on raw too!

While Tycho has devoured any kind of meat I put in front of him, whether chicken, pork, beef, or even pork liver (man, that crap stinks!), Lidja has only been interested in chicken. This morning, she didn’t even seen interested in the chicken, so I put it in her favorite spot: on the floor. She ate it up off the floor and looked up at me to request more. I threw down some ground beef instead. She sniffed it a bit, seemed to shrug it off, and then dig in. She ate just a couple grams of it before deciding she was full, but she clearly liked it. No gravy, no oil! We are well on our way.

Now, to those of you who are asking me, “what on earth are you doing feeding your cats raw meat,” those of you who can’t be bothered to look it up yourselves, I have a question for you. This is an honest question, and I’d really like to hear your answer. Comments are enabled, so please use them. Why is it that when I report that Lidja has partially eaten a mouse, or that Tycho has hunted and devoured a moth, or that David’s neighbor’s dog ate one of his pullets, that you don’t bat an eye? What is so different? If I put a mouse or a moth down for them instead, would you feel better? Perhaps that’s two questions, but you can answer either or both.

Hyldeblomst means elderflower. Now you know.