Archive for April, 2009

I should have been including the cool badge all along, but… nah, who am I kidding.  I don’t have a good excuse.  I’m doing it now, so… yay!

Geez, Mom, that flash is totally damaging my calm!

Isn’t that a supercute jumper?  I was standing in BabySam holding it for several minutes trying to convince myself that it didn’t make any sense to spend that much money on a jumper.  In the States, even when there isn’t 70% off everything in the store, you can get Carter’s or other similarly cute stuff for not much money, but in Denmark they sell miniature version of adult clothes for the same prices as adult clothes.  I don’t quite understand it, but that’s how it is.  We’re not talking about tons of money here, but it’s baby clothes.  When it costs more than $10 for three onesies, I’m thinking, “wtf?”  So I was standing there with this jumper, balking at the price, but completely unable to put it back on the rack.  Then they called our number.  (Yeah, BabySam makes you take a number to check out.  I know, right?)  I took it up there and we bought it.

So it’s been a couple weeks now, and I’m glad I bought my Patricias. Even better, I haven’t fallen off them again. Have I converted to a shoddie? It looks like, at least some of the time. Ordinarily, on Money Monday I’m supposed to gush about how awesome the thing that I bought it, but this time you’ll get to infer all that by the fact that I’m looking at buying more.

Pros: Still pretty sassy.

I left Meetup today.  It’s not because of you, any of the groups I was in, any of the groups you were in, any events organized by any of the groups, or anything you did.  It’s not even because of certain annoying persons.  It’s because I am too big of a moron to be on Meetup.  Seriously, I had one too many experience of not finding the event when it was perfectly well organized, all the relevant information was easy to find and interpret, and I just did the wrong thing.  I know it’s 100% me, but I’m tired of feeling stupid when I waste an hour of my day walking around the wrong park looking for people while my phone errors out on every call I try to make even when it says I have full signal.  Maybe after a while I’ll join again, but for now I need a break.  Last straw kinda thing.  If you want to meet up with me outside of Meetup, I’m more than happy to, especially if it’s at a place I’ve already been to.  Thank you for your understanding.

Since there is a small but non-zero chance that the people I mention, directly or indirectly, in my Franky Foreign Friday posts could actually read my blog, I just want to make something absolutely crystal clear.  I write about things I don’t get.  Don’t read more into that than I write.  I don’t get it.  That doesn’t mean I think it’s stupid, that I think it’s wrong, that I think it’s impossible for me or anyone to understand, or anything other than this: at the time I wrote it, I didn’t get it.  So, without further ado….

You might have noticed (or maybe not, especially if you read this via RSS or facebook [btw, facebookers, yeah, almost all my "Notes" are actually blog entries but facebook doesn't indicate that in any way or link back to my blog at all, which kinda sucks but there you go]) there were some links in my navigation menu to other blogs.  There were four such links.  I don’t really know why, because I added about 50, and Blogger decided to show four.  I tried fixing it a couple times, it didn’t work, and I just let it go for a while.  I decided today I would try to fix it again, but now Google Reader isn’t displaying the list of subscriptions at the bottom left like it’s supposed to, so it’s not easy enough for me to add all the blogs I like for me to bother right now.

When I was growing up, my mother and my grandmother were both Mary Kay beauty consultants.  I was surrounded by cosmetics, skin care, and perfume.  Part of my teenage rebellion consisted of complete and total rejection of all things beauty-related.  In part because I’m a stubborn person, and in part because cosmetics cost money and I didn’t feel the need to use my money for that particular thing, I just never got around to wearing make-up.  I’ve decided to start embracing my inner girly-girl.  I mean, I’m wearing shoes now and everything.  I shaved my legs (OK, that’s not totally revolutionary as I’ve done that before but anyway) and went out and bought some make-up.  I’m starting out small.  I got foundation and lip gloss.  I still don’t know what I think.  It’s different.  But I’ve giving it a shot.

I love my iPhone.  Before my iPhone, I was using an old Nokia that I got for free because my father-in-law had upgraded (probably multiple times, but I’m not sure) to something better.  I hated that Nokia so much, but I didn’t want to spend money on a phone unless it was an iPhone.  I kept looking at other phones, and I’d always think, “but it sucks compared to the iPhone.”  Unfortunately, the iPhone wasn’t available in Denmark and I kept suffering with the Nokia.  (I don’t mean this to sound like I’m bashing Nokia.  It’s just I was using the model that was used by Neo in The Matrix, but several years after The Matrix, ifyougetmypointhere.)

A – Age: 31
B – Bed size: 200×140
C – Chore you hate: vacuuming
D – Dog’s name: I’ve never had a dog, but if I did, maybe I’d name him Vladimir
E – Essential start your day item: my glasses
F – Favorite color: YELLOW!
G – Gold or Silver: gold
H – Height: 5′ 2″
I – Instruments you play(ed): piano, recorder, clarinet, marimba, ratchet, chimes, cowbell, triangle, Celtic harp
J – Job title: honey, or mama, depending on who’s talking
K – Kid(s): Dagmar Lee (D.L.)
L – Living arrangements: Tetris-floored condo in Herlev, Denmark
M – Mom’s name: Ruby
N – Nicknames: none at the moment
O – Overnight hospital stay other than birth: n/a
P – Pet Peeve: smoking
Q – Quote from a movie: “A naked American stole my balloons!”
R- Right or left handed: right
S – Siblings: older bros, Wayne and Brent
T – Time you wake up: anywhere between 5 and 8, when D.L. feels like it 
U- Underwear: brand new, just went shopping
V – Vegetable you dislike: Brussels sprouts
W – Ways you run late: baby doesn’t want to go
X – X-rays you’ve had: teeth, spine
Y – Yummy food you make: spaghetti al carbonera
Z – Zoo favorite: polar bears & lemurs

I like themed posting days so much, I’m making another one.  This time I get to talk about anything foreign, and I get to be frank about it.  Obviously as an American in Denmark, I have foreign stuff all around me, but I’m leaving it open to anything foreign to ME, so it might be “I don’t get women who like to wear stilettos” or “I wonder what it’s like to be a man” or whatever.

To kick off FFF, I’m doing a special double issue.  Another foreign thing is that I made Wienerschnitzel.  Not only is this foreign for the obvious reason that I’m not, nor have I ever been, in Vienna.  But I’ve also never eaten Wienerschnitzel much less tried to make it myself.  This means I have nothing to compare it to so I can’t tell you how authentic it was, but I can tell you that it was de-friggin-licious and I’m definitely doing this again in the future.  I had planned to make German potato salad as the side dish, but totally spaced at the grocery store and didn’t get some of the necessary ingredients, so instead I made baked potato slices with roasted onions, mustard, and mayo on top.  I had no idea how that would turn out in the oven, but it was also yumlicious.  It’s super easy.  Slice potatoes, put mustard, mayo, and roasted onions all over it, swish it around so it mixes a bit, and then bake until your husband is happy with the softness of the potatoes.