La Débâcle Des Sentiments

Some of the weirdest couples make the most beautiful duets. Wishing everyone Muy Feliz Año Nuevo along with Stanislas and Calogero!



Notre amour
Faute de combattants
De guerre la
À déserté le temps
Drapeau blanc
Nous battons en retraite
On se rend
On ne compte plus les pertes

Refrain:
C’est la débâcle des sentiments
C’est la déroute des faux fuyants
Signons le pacte sans faux semblants
On a plus le coeur à se battre
C’est la débâcle des sentiments
C’est la déroute des faux fuyants
Signons le pacte sans faux semblants
Autant en finir sur le champ

Nos soldats
Ont déposé les armes
Les trompettes
Ont joué l’adieu aux larmes
L’armistice
On ne le fêtera pas
Pas non plus l’amour mort au combat

refrain:
C’est la débâcle des sentiments
C’est la déroute des faux fuyants
Signons le pacte sans faux semblants
On a plus le coeur à se battre
C’est la débâcle des sentiments
C’est la déroute des faux fuyants
Signons le pacte sans faux semblants
Autant en finir sur le champ

Sonnez trompettes
Sonnez tambours
Sonnez trompettes
Sonnez tambours
Trompettes
Sonnez tambours
Sonnez trompettes
Tambours
Sonnez, Sonnez, Sonnez

Refrain:
C’est la débâcle des sentiments
C’est la déroute des faux fuyants
Signons le pacte sans faux semblants
On a plus le coeur à se battre
C’est la débâcle des sentiments
C’est la déroute des faux fuyants
Signons le pacte sans faux semblants
Autant en finir sur le champ

Sur le champ
Sur le champ
Sur le champ ………

New Year’s resolutions

I love making New Year’s resolutions, just to see how many minutes or hours I can keep them.

In 2009:

- I will stop reciting Puccini for my son’s friends. They don’t think Mimi’s death scene is tragic but comic.

- I will stop hating TV2. I simply won’t acknowledge it as a TV channel anymore (just like I don’t acknowledge TV3, 3*, Kanal 5 etc being TV channels).

- I will start hating chocolate.

- I will stop embarrassing the kids in front of their friends asking them questions about their girl/boy friends, and if they have done a lot of kissing at school. I will stop insinuations as “What son, don’t you have a girlfriend? Maybe you are gay; do you have a boyfriend instead?”
(Poor kids, but this is entirely the school psychologist’s fault. We parents were forced to go to a lecture where he told us that we are not supposed to ask our children these kinds of questions. It really pissed me off him telling me what to do, and now the kids are paying the price.)

- I will start charging for my kids’ friends eating dinner at our house. They all have rich parents, what the heck they always eat my food for free?

- No matter how much rage there is in my head, I will remain cool and calm like Lady Marjorie Bellamy (remember, Upstairs, downstairs).
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Second hand sales

Even I often buy things second hand, I have never sold anything myself. Until today. I have usually just given all the baby things etc. to my friends or colleagues, but now I got tired of waiting for a friend to pick up some things, so I put them on sale on dba.dk. With a great success, after just 2 hours in cyberspace I have already sold two children’s beds and tomorrow someone promised to pick up the bunk bed.

But I wonder if I act the same way when I buy things as these people?

The wife on the phone:
“Are the beds in perfect condition? No marks or anything?”
“Well, they have been used for kids…”
“But do they look like brand new?”
Is this lady stupid or what?
“Yes, they look like brand new. My kids are angels and having wings, they barely touch the beds when sleeping.”

Later the husband comes and picks up the beds.
“Hm…there are quite many stickers on them.”
“Yes, I thought about selling them for 100 kr extra, but you look like a nice guy, you get them for free.”
“I don’t know, the kids would like to have beds that look brand new.”
Is this guy stupid or what?
“In that case you have to go to Ilva and buy new beds for 1500 kr each instead of my 300 kr.”
“Okay, I take them. I guess Ilva is closed now…”

Women's magazines

On my couch camping I have finally had time to read some of the women’s magazines a friend of mine gave me for some time ago. I don’t actually like women’s magazines, not even when I am at the hairdresser. I don’t like reading about ordinary real life people, it simply doesn’t interest me. Reading about how cancer, having kids or moving from city to countryside changed somebody’s life, what do I care? And if these women’s magazines have an article about a famous person, the whole article is about how this famous and extraordinary person in fact is very ordinary just like everybody else. Why on earth do they want to give this impression to everybody?

No, the only women’s magazine I like is Madame Figaro. Madame Figaro is about extraordinary women; women who have eight kids, two storey apartment in the 16.th arrondissement in Paris, a country house in Normandy and skiing cottage in Chamonix. These women are beautiful, elegant, strong and volunteer fundraisers for charity projects. All this while they work as rocket scientists or neurosurgeons.

These are the kind of real life women I love to read about. The less successful ones, the offers of miserable love and diseases, they belong to my world of fiction; Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Flaubert’s Emma Bovary, Solohov’s Natalya, Kundera’s Tereza, Hemingway’s Maria, Steinbeck’s Rose or Fitzgerald’s Nicole. Great reading, but just as long as they stay fiction.

WW3

You people should be grateful that neither I nor my mom posses military power. Just 40 seconds on phone would be enough to start World War III.
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Christmas presents 4

My best Christmas present isn’t the complete Edith Piaf Collection, nor the Milan Kundera novel or the exclusive make-up I got. No, my best Christmas present is Søren Stryger!

Søren Stryger is about the sexiest man on earth. I have his picture just next to my kids at the office; I guess that a photo of an imaginary husband and real life kids at the office is okay. As my sister-in-law’s husband knows Søren Stryger very well having been the assistant coach for the national handball team, I often ask him about Søren. Today at the family Christmas gathering I again just had to know how Søren is doing.

“Well, he is just fine; he is now living quite near by where you live.”
“WHAT? Next time you are going to visit him you just have to take me with you.”
“Hm….”
“Hey, I would like to write an article about him to the Finnish Handball Association’s magazine; do you think he would go along with an interview?”
“I am sure he would, I can fix that.”
“GREAT, I LOVE YOU.”
“You just must promise not to giggle stupidly, it has to be serious.” (Why on earth did he say that?)
“I promise, not a problem. Unless he tries to tickle me. “

And you know what, I wouldn’t mind at all if Søren Stryger tickled me!

Autism

The things I learned about autism the other day were in fact very useful, almost scary present in my life. I found out that I am married to an autistic person! My husband’s behaviour corresponds perfectly with an autistic person’s;

- Impairment of communication: my husband hardly speaks to me.
- Impairment in social interaction: he doesn’t listen to me either.
- Restricted interests: his only interests are the computer and his work.
- Repetitive behavior: he keeps leaving the wine prop on the table.
- Atypical eating: he likes his mom's food.



PS. I hate this film. I hate it as much as Titanic.
PS 2. It is nice to have a blog and get outlet for things I hate.

Le Père Noël est une ordure

I got my intelligence fall down to be on stand-by after watching yesterday a French documentary about autism. Now I can add to my already quite wide knowledge of irrelevant information many facts about autism, I could compete with Michael Caine (he is the English champion of irrelevant knowledge).

But when I look at the TV program, I am afraid that the IQ fall down will continue as soon as I turn on the television. How many corny American Christmas movies there have been made? Many. I throw up just reading about them, I cannot even think about being forced to watch one.

No, if you want to see a Christmas movie, it has to be the totally crazy French one, Le Père Noël est une ordure. It is cult, everybody should see it. Teaches you the real lesson of Christmas; never shoot through a closed door, the elevator repairman might be standing behind it.

Couch camping

Couch camping turned out to be a lot of fun, I really enjoy it. I am the queen of the house, I possess the TV remote control and I am fussing the family around. “Husband, get me coffee”, “Daughter, get me chocolate”, “Son, get me painkillers”.

All this while I am desperately zapping on my remote. Heavens, how bad can television be? BAD. Even with all my 100 French channels, there seems to be nothing worth watching. But I do watch anyhow. On my bedside table there are many books waiting, but somehow the wonderful “Kierkegaards København” cannot attract me right now as I am captured in the house far away from Copenhagen. How about Hanan Ashrawi’s biography? She is a woman with a REMARKABLE life, but she shouldn’t have written the book herself. Even she is a lady with many talents, writing isn’t one of them. Schoolbooks? No rush, they aren’t to be read before 48 hours to the exam.

No, television is for these kinds of situations, no matter how bad it is. But I also know that there are side effects. First of all, before I am recovered with my toe, I will probably weigh 200 kilos. And noticing my choice of TV programs, my husband just wondered how much my IQ will fall the following four weeks. A lot.

Express yourself

I don’t usually have problems expressing myself, but I cannot really put words on the pain I feel when I keep hitting my toe in the furniture. I have a long metal thread stuck in my toe and even it sticks out quite abnormally, I keep forgetting it is there. Until I hit it and feel the xxxxxxxxxxxx pain.

I guess I have two solutions; commit a fast suicide or camp on the couch (no, the morphine and the liquor didn't kill me).

Suffer for beauty?

When I was 9 years old and got my ears pierced, I was crying of pain. My mom said coldly to me that women must suffer for their beauty; that didn’t really comfort me then.

And that doesn’t comfort me now, either. Today I got my toe operated so that I can wear high heels without discomfort, but I found out that God has started his evil plan with painful punishments for my unethical behaviour. First the nurse tried to pump the blood out of my leg to avoid excess bleeding, but the meter wasn’t working so the she kept pumping until I felt my leg will explode. I screamed of pain, and the nurse tried to unpump the pressure out again. The bloody machine didn’t work so in panic she had to tear off the wire. Good try God, but I survived.

But God didn’t give up. Somehow I wasn’t given enough anaesthesia to start with, so when the orthopaedic surgeon started cutting my toe, I could not only hear and see the assault, but also feel it. Instead of getting immediate heart stop, I both screamed and cried, and eventually they shot some more anaesthesia drug in my toe. I survived again.
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The rest of the operation I couldn’t feel a thing, but I felt extreme psychological discomfort when the surgeon took the drill and started boring in my toe. I turned on my MP3 at maximum but the awful noise from the drill couldn’t be beaten by Florent’s singing.

Now I am beginning to feel my toe again. I wish I couldn’t. I got a huge bag of painkillers to take home with, including morphine for extreme pain. I think this is extreme pain. I start with the morphine, all of them at once. After that I will take all the other pills and empty our liquor stock. This time I might not survive.

Christmas presents 3

This is gonna be such an inexpensive Christmas. I skipped the books for my in-laws, too expensive. Instead they will get something from my collection of supplier presents.

- My husband, racer bike, founded, price 0 kr.

- My daughter, horse equipment box, bought in sales for under half price, 150 kr.

- My son, 3 PS2 games, bought from my husband’s nephew, 150 kr.

- My mother-in-law, a Georg Jensen Christmas decoration. This is a yearly present from our coach company, they are awful ! I think someone has made a bet that you can sell anything as long as you call it Georg Jensen. 0 kr.

- My father- in-law, 2 x golf green fees, a present from one of the golf courses where I send clients once in a while, 0 kr.

- My family in Finland, a telephone call wishing them Merry Christmas, 0 kr (collect call).


As I will sell the Brøckhouse beer gift package (also a supplier present) for 300 kr to my in-laws explaining that it is something my husband wants, I have all the expenses covered. Or almost. I will of course give myself something.

- Red leather boots, 1700 kr.

- A red cashmere cardigan to go with the boots, 1200 kr.

- A red D&G handbag, 2200 kr.

Ma liberté de penser

For the past few days my sound track has been Florent Pagny’s “Ailleurs land”, what a great CD for my unbearable loneliness of being…



Quitte à tout prendre prenez mes gosses et la télé,
Ma brosse à dent mon revolver la voiture ça c’est déjà fait,
Avec les interdits bancaires prenez ma femme , le canapé,
Le micro onde, le frigidaire,
Et même jusqu'à ma vie privée
De toute façon à découvert, je peux bien vendre mon âme au Diable,
Avec lui on peut s’arranger,
Puisque ici tout est négociable, mais vous n’aurez pas,
Ma liberté de penser.

Prenez mon lit, les disques d’or, ma bonne humeur,
Les petites cuillères, tout ce qu’à vos yeux a de la valeur,
Et dont je n’ai plus rien à faire, quitte à tout prendre n’oubliez pas,
Le shit planqué sous l’étagère,
Tout ce qui est beau et compte pour moi , j’ préfère que ça parte a l’Abbé Pierre,
J’ peux donner mon corps à la science,
S’ il y’a quelque chose à prélever,
Et que ça vous donne bonne conscience, mais vous n’aurez pas,
Ma liberté de penser.

Ma liberté de penser.

J’ peux vider mes poches sur la table,
Ca fait longtemps qu’elles sont trouées,
Baisser mon froc j’en suis capable, mais vous n’aurez pas,
Ma liberté de penser.

Quitte à tout prendre et tout solder,
Pour que vos petites affaires s’arrangent,
J’ prends juste mon pyjama rayé , et je vous fais cadeaux des oranges,
Vous pouvez même bien tout garder,
J’emporterai rien en enfer,
Quitte à tout prendre j’ préfère y’ aller,
Si le paradis vous est offert,
Je peux bien vendre mon âme au diable,
Avec lui on peut s’arranger,
Puisque ici tout est négociable, mais vous n’aurez pas,
Non vous n’aurez pas,
Ma liberté de penser.

Ma liberté de penser

Nobel Peace Prize goes to...

The former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari will receive the Nobel Peace Prize today. He has contributed to solving many global conflicts and with great results. Do you know how?

Ahtisaari (with totally incomprehensible English): You guys should really stop fighting now.

Aceh rebel (terrorist, murderer, whatever you call them, in Indonesian): Did you understand what he said? Is he making fun of our English?

Indonesian government official (in Indonesian): No, I don’t understand a word he says. Still, after 5 days, I don’t understand anything he is saying. I also think he is mocking us for our English. I can’t almost take it anymore.

Ahtisaari (looking very hungry): Guys, we should take a break for lunch now. Think over what I just said.

Aceh rebel (in Indonesian): I understood lunch. Eating again, I think he should look at a mirror. Isn’t he fat enough.

Indonesian government official (in Indonesian): This guy’s eating is costing our government a fortune. Only after 5 days we have spent the whole budget for one year’s official government dinners. This must stop now.

Aceh rebel (in Indonesian): Let’s sign the bloody papers, nobody can take this torture any longer.

Indonesian government official (in English): Dear Ahtisaari, we have come to an agreement. Let’s skip the lunch, we will sign the papers in the limo on your way to the airport.

Duck Soup

I don’t know if Marx Brothers are just very primitive, but they make me laugh…

Firefly: Not that I care, but where is your husband?

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Mrs. Teasdale: Why, he's dead.

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Firefly: I'll bet he's just using that as an excuse.

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Mrs. Teasdale: I was with him to the very end.

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Firefly: Hmmph. No wonder he passed away.
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Mrs. Teasdale: I held him in my arms and kissed him.

Firefly: Oh, I see. Then, it was murder. Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.

Mrs. Teasdale: He left me his entire fortune.

Firefly: Is that so? Can't you see what I'm trying to tell you? I love you.

Mrs. Teasdale: Oh, your Excellency!

Firefly: You're not so bad yourself.

Christmas Parties

Important advice to anybody attending a company Christmas Party; shoot the person bringing a camera along. It is best to shoot the person right away, in the beginning of the evening. I have to shoot the person from our party afterwards (now, in a couple of minutes), when a lot of damage has already been done.

Olympic Games

There are the normal Olympic Games, Olympics for gays, Olympics for handicapped people and Olympics for seniors. The day someone organizes Olympic Games for high heels, I will attend. Every morning I run as hell to the bus stop and I keep beating my record every time.

Madrigal Triste

Despite Baudelaire's remark about intelligent women, I have totally fallen for him. He just writes so beautifully, it is almost impossible to imagine a man being able to write like that. I think this is about the most beautiful passage ever written:

Que m'importe que tu sois sage?
Sois belle! Et sois triste! Les pleurs
Ajoutent un charme au visage,
Comme le fleuve au paysage;
L'orage rajeunit les fleurs.

I would cry even if Groucho Marx was reading it to me.
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“You, me, whipped cream and handcuffs “

This Friday we had our company Christmas Party. We are only girls and gay guys (the hetero guy has left us; a lot of crying in November, as Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick hadn’t been enough), but fortunately our IT guy was invited to join us. When he arrived I had to tell him how brave I thought he was, joining a Christmas Party with only girls and gays. But that he also should know that he was invited because this year we couldn’t afford a stripper. Well, now he was warned.

Again inspired of JB’s blog, I tested this pick-up line: “You, me, whipped cream and handcuffs" during the evening. It worked very well! At the dinner I sent paper airplanes with this message to selected girl colleagues and no one got offended, just very excited (I interpret hysterical laughter as excitement). And even the usually always so shy and sweet IT-guy only said “Just tell me what time!!”.

Mocking others...

Yes, I know that when I make fun of others and especially of my mother-in-law, it is just a sign of my profound insecurity! In fact I really fear that she one day challenges me in something she definitely will beat me at; slaughtering a pig and then parting it correctly.
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Christmas presents 2

The really interesting part with Christmas presents is the ones I give to my in-laws and the ones they give to me. My in-laws usually ask my husband for help and my husband gives names of some books that could have my interest. But somehow these books are not to be bought at my in-laws supermarket kiosk; I get a Barbara Cartland novel instead.
“Mother-in-law, did you really get me this year’s Nobel winning book?”

I also give my in-laws books. For my mother-in-law I am going to give ”How to become World Champion in Weightlifting in 30 days” and to my father-in-law “How to learn Serbo-Croatian in 30 days”. If they wonder what the rush is, I must remind them of their age and wish them good luck, I hope they make it before kicking the bucket. If they make it, I can just say that my money for the books was well paid off. And if they don’t make it, well, I guess it’s called a win-win situation.

Christmas presents

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I am a woman of principles (as long as it suits me), and I refuse to spend a lot of money on Christmas presents. I don’t understand the idea about giving expensive gifts from people’s wishing lists; if I need something, I buy it, and I expect everybody else doing the same.

My husband is the yearly target of my principals; giving him something with a thought but costing the minimum. A couple of years ago I planted him an olive tree in Palestine but he was quite disappointed opening a package telling he just had donated an olive tree on the West bank. So last year I thought I must give him something he in facto can keep between his hands. In our local church second hand shop I found a wine board game for the fantastic price of 30 kr. It had probably never been used but stayed in someone’s closet for years. We had quite fun playing it as you could get questions about the wine production in countries such as East-Germany or Yugoslavia.

But this year I will totally excel. While I was jogging yesterday, people had put their heavy garbage out for the monthly collection. Someone had put out a perfectly functioning Raleigh racer bicycle so I asked the owner, just to be sure they really had thrown it away, if I could take it. She was happy making me happy and said that even it was really old, it was in good condition, no rust or anything. She got just tired of having it around as her husband hadn’t used it for years.

Well, Merry Christmas my bikeless husband, and it didn’t cost me a nickel!

Sushi

I love sushi; I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yesterday we had the "family & friends" birthday party for both kids and I had made lots of sushi. This wasn’t because I love it, but because my mother-in-law hates it. I just love to say: “Oh dear, I had forgotten you don’t like sushi, let me make a leverpostejmad to you instead.”

I am not only going to end in hell, I am really going to have a painful death.

REO Speedwagon

You know how some songs just bring up memories; REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on loving you” is for me one of the very best ones. This is when I was an exchange student in States, one year long celebration being away from my best friend, my mom (Yes, I have a mountain of unsolved mother-daughter issues, but I am not gonna go to a shrink and get them solved. Who the hell am I going to blame for all the misery in my life if I one day get over my mom????).

So even my year in States was one long party, I also had a lot of heartache. This is the price to pay being passionate and falling in love very easily. Many nights I fell asleep listening to this song, and singing it in my mind to the love of my life. As the text says, I kept loving Greg, Jeff, Brad, Jay, Greg again, Terry, Mario, Chris, Greg again, Mike, John…

Let it snow

When did these boots become obligatory in Denmark?

Everybody is wearing them, and I don’t know why. These boots are rated to -40 degrees, come on, hardly a temperature even near by Danes will experience. This is just like Danes riding mountain bikes or driving land cruisers; where are the mountains? Denmark is about the flattest country in the world, but maybe Danes didn’t learn this at school. Which explains the poor PISA results.

Today it has in fact been weather which almost justifies a pair of these La Crosse boots. It has been snowing and as one never knows if this is the one and only time during the winter, I went right away sledging with the kids. I LOVE SNOW! I love sledging, making snowangels and snowmen. I love throwing snowballs at my kids. For these few snowy days I have a pair of very ugly, flat Ecco boots; they are so awful that people stop me and tell me how ugly they are. I can only agree, maybe I should get a pair of La Crosse instead.

Men

What is wrong with you men? There are things you are not supposed to do;
- Send bank account saldo by mail or by any other means either. You are just supposed to take care that there is always money on your wife’s account. If you cannot, you are a failure.
- You are not supposed to say “There is one more gear” when you are sitting as a passenger in car driven by your wife because you had a bottle of Amarone and the wife just a club soda.

But as Simone de Beauvoir said:“One is not born a woman, one becomes one. Men on the other hand are born fools and stay fools forever.”

Manners

In Finland and in Sweden the employees at supermarket‘s cash register always say “Hello” to the client. This never happens in Denmark, I am about to give up. I have now been trying for almost 11 years always saying “Hej” to the daydreaming employee, but they just ignore it. Sometimes I tell them how impolite it is not to say “Hej” back, then I get a “Huh?” from the employee. Well, at least it starts with “h”.

But I won’t give up, I am a fighter. Maybe one day I get lucky and the employee is a Nazi. When he hears my “Hej”, he might hear it as “Heil” and will eventually greet me back.

The Poet Of Ignorance by Anne Sexton

Perhaps the earth is floating,
I do not know.
Perhaps the stars are little paper cutups
made by some giant scissors,
I do not know.
Perhaps the moon is a frozen tear,
I do not know.
Perhaps God is only a deep voice
heard by the deaf,
I do not know.

Perhaps I am no one.
True, I have a body
and I cannot escape from it.
I would like to fly out of my head,
but that is out of the question.
It is written on the tablet of destiny
that I am stuck here in this human form.
That being the case
I would like to call attention to my problem.

There is an animal inside me,
clutiching fast to my heart,
a huge carb.
The doctors of Boston
have thrown up their hands.
They have tried scalpels,
needles, poison gasses adn the like.
The crab remains.
It is a great weight.
I try to forget it, go about my business,
cook the broccoli, open the shut books,
brush my teeth and tie my shoes.
I have tried prayer
but as I pray the crab grips harder
and the pain enlarges.

I had a dream once,
perhaps it was a dream,
that the crab was my ignorance of God.
But who am I to believe in dreams?

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Melancholia

As I often don't have any money, I must find other means than buying things to cure my winter depression. My favourite ones, always working, are:
- Reading Madame Figaro
- Watching Sound of Music or Mary Poppins. The wonderful Julie Andrews…
- Listening to Cole Porter

And if I for some odd reason want to drown in my self pity I can always
- Read Sylvia Plath or Anne Sexton
- Watch again and again “In the mood for love”
- Have a look at the saldo on my bank account

What a life

I have a feeling that I am not using my time very reasonably. The hours I am not sleeping, I use my time in average

- 20 % for laughing
- 20 % for crying
- 20 % in a state of mind I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
- 40 % for daydreaming

Liar, liar

I don’t know why I lie so much, but I guess that sometimes getting my way is so much shorter with a little lie. Today at Piscine Municipale someone had taken my swimming track, the one next to the middle cord separating the swimming section from water gymnastics. I just cannot get in the spirit of Michael Phelbs and dreaming of winning my 117th Olympic gold medal if I am not swimming on my usual track. So I asked the lady who had taken my track if she would mind changing the lanes as I feel more secure next to the cord being epileptic. She could perfectly understand my point and went off swimming elsewhere.

Once on a flight we were served coffee with very boring vacuum packed sand cake. It looked quite disgusting so I told the stewardess that I had diabetes, maybe she had something else for me. After two minutes she came back with a sandwich with smoked salmon. My husband tried in vain to convince the stewardess, half of the sand cake in his mouth, “I am diabetic, too!”.

The way getting things done at the office

My phone headset hasn’t been working for weeks; these kind of technical problems really annoy me as I have no interest in getting involved with cords and codes, it is a man thing (I am sure that all the cordless inventions are thanks to women). The hetero guy has tried to look at it, but without results. Finally last week I got so tired of not having the head set that I used the last possible mean to get it fixed; I told the hetero guy I would agree to have sex with him if he fixed the phone. HE FIXED IT.

I am not going to the company Christmas party, hell no.
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School evaluations

Just as much as I fear my son’s school evaluations, I love my daughter's. The teachers always start with the positive stuff and on my daughter’s part the evaluation stays positive for all the 20 minutes. My son’s school evaluation starts with the very short positive part; how the teachers are impressed of his perfect spelling of dirty words he certainly hasn’t learned at school and hopefully neither at home (both I and my husband shake our heads firmly to convince he hasn’t learned them at home either). Yes, that was the positive part, then comes the negative one for the rest of the 19 minutes. Well, he is a boy, he likes to put living frogs on girls’ desks, I personally think dead ones would be much worse.

Today we had my daughter’s evaluation and as expected, it was very positive. My daughter is wonderful and fantastic, just like her mummy. But according to the teachers she has a very weird sense of humour. HOW CAN A 6-YEAR OLD GIRL HAVE A WEIRD SENSE OF HUMOUR? Like all the children, she thinks Mr Bean and Louis de Funes are funny. That she also laughs at my jokes doesn’t make her sense of humour weird, or does it?

WW1

Jean-François Delassus has made a fantastic documentary about World War I that ended for 90 years ago. EVERYBODY SHOULD SEE IT. What madness, I can’t believe that the human kind doesn’t learn from it's mistakes.

My grandpa was a messenger in World War II. He had to deliver the messages, no matter how many grenades were exploding around him. Still in the fifties my father had to witness my grandpa’s screaming in the middle of the night when he was having nightmares about the war.

And as my grandpa hadn’t been suffering enough, I just had to go and burn down his chicken house. And pee in his boots...

I have a dream

I dream of building a boat, I have had this dream for more than 30 years. I will ask my dad again, but he doesn’t really share the dream with me. He dreams only of the day I stop asking him.

One cup of coffee = xxx litres of water

I drink far too much coffee and keep saying that I should quit drinking it or at least drink less. But just saying that is as absurd as I would say tomorrow I will become Afro-American. I cannot, I won’t, it’s just not gonna happen.

But in these green times I should really reconsider. Do you know how much water is used to produce just one cup of coffee? 220 litres! The coffee plant, just like cotton, is very water demanding (a pair of jeans is equal to 11.000 litres of water).

Before was excessive alcohol use something to be ashamed of and people tried to hide their red wine in coffee cups. These days one must fear being regarded as environmental pig, are people putting their coffee in wine glasses now?

Does God exist?

No if God is equal to justice and fairness. Why does this guy get sexier and more charming for each year that passes by while we women wear out like a pair of jeans?

Quand vient le soir
N'allez pas croire
Qu'on fera l'amour dans le noir
Et dans la chambre
Elle rit, elle ment
Et moi, je meurs
D'amour pour elle

Julien Clerc, "La jupe en laine"

Things we fear

A friend of mine told me a story about her childhood that explains some of her strange behaviour today. I don’t want to mention her by her real name, let’s just call her Ane (any similarity to any living person is purely coincidental).

Ane had (she still has, the proof that there was no reason to be afraid) 3 smaller sisters and sometimes she had to babysit them. If one of the sisters wanted her to sleep with her, Ane always insisted sleeping next to the wall. This was to protect herself if a gun man entered the room; the gun man would shoot the sister first.

I was always wondering why Ane always insists that I enter a café, a shop or cinema first. Now I know. If there is a gun man waiting, he will shoot me first.

Life before computers

The kids often wonder what we did when we were children as there were no computers. This is the answer:

I remember it being quite harmless. Or was there maybe some one who got so addicted that she played it for 70 hours without interruption and collapsed?

Wise words...

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."

Ernest Hemingway (wonderful author, real life macho pig and the one who didn't wear underwear)

My new orthopaedic surgeon

My orthopaedic surgeon couldn’t help me any more so he sent me to a colleague. He might also have gotten offended when I took the earplugs on when he begun his preacher about how high heels are bad for women. I told him I wouldn’t listen to it but he just kept going. Come on, I am one of those women whose femininity is totally depended on the size of the heels. I do envy women who in fact feel feminine in their flat Ecco shoes, but I don’t belong to them.

This new orthopaedic surgeon was a real macho man; his kittel was wide open, he was wearing a net shirt under it, and thick, black hair was popping out all over his body. Perfect! This is a guy who would never ever start talking about giving up high heels; he is a man and can see that I am a woman. And quite right, he promised to fix my toe so that I can wear as much high heels as I want to as long as I will live. Amen.

Indecent proposals 3

I still have no idea how I get the money for the eye surgery. I wonder if there is any expire date for suing someone for sexual harassment? Then I could sue my physics teacher from lycée (the one always whispering the exam assignments to me in advance). He was supervising my French exam at baccalaureat and made a quite indecent proposal to me. Funny enough I didn’t get shocked, I just giggled very stupidly. But as he must be very old today, he cannot certainly remember this. I can tell the court how I instead cried of anxiety and shame. How much would this bring me? Enough also for a liposuction and a breast job?

Indecent proposals 2

The hetero guy at work is also very bored at the moment and made just a very inappropriate proposal. If he wasn’t a colleague, I wouldn’t mind at all. He is very good-looking, athlete (Ironman!) and the most important, he really makes me laugh. But I had to tell him “Sorry honey, I don’t have sex with colleagues. Look what happened last time I did, I ended up getting MARRIED!”

20 years!

I have another reason to celebrate (??) today; I have been together with my husband for 20 YEARS! My husband really surprised me and sent flowers to the office. As I just love white flowers, it still puzzles me after 20 years that my husband for the rare occasions gives me multicoloured roses. I could tattoo “I love white flowers” on my butt and he still would ignore the fact. And not that he doesn’t see my butt. As a Finn I am very relaxed about nudity (despite all my complexes) and often walk around naked in the house, for a big irritation of my husband and great fun for the neighbours. But flowers, he just doesn’t get it. But as Ane would say, just be happy I get flowers, and I am.

So 20 years together, but only 10 years of marriage. It was Un long dimanche de fiancailles. As people these days get divorced just after a couple of years, I wonder what has kept us together such a long time. A great deal of compromises. Accepting that a romantic evening means reading Mary Wesley or Jane Austen, accepting that sex is something I read about in Tidens Kvinder and accepting that also Emmanuelle (my new painting of Emmanuelle Beart) will end up hanging in the garage.

Congratulations America!

I cried of joy this morning, way to go Obama! Even I wanted Hillary to become the first American female president, the first black one is almost as good. I had put a cava in the fridge to celebrate the occasion, but came to drink it accidentally last Monday (I had to listen my husband reporting an antenna meeting, I needed some encouragement).

John McCain was not a bad guy like Bush, he was just too old (and of course too republican). He would probably have had a stroke soon after entering the White House; can you imagine Nailin Palin taking over? Sending a troop of Huskies to Iraq?

Now the Americans just have to take the last step, a black president deserves a proper domicile. The White House must be painted and called The Black House.

I am an optimist!

Nobody can accuse me being a pessimist. I have booked time for eye surgery examination even I don’t have any money to pay for the eventual surgery. But a lot of things can happen in the next month’s time. I can win in lottery (this requires though that I buy a lottery ticket, I try to remember it), a rich relative I know nothing about dies leaving a heritage to me, I get my yearly bonus 6 months in advance, I find 20.000 kr on the street while walking to work, a rich blind guy falls in love with me or Bill Gates answers my letter enclosing a big check.

The Year of Living Dangerously

When the great Spanish dancer Luis saw me doing the splits from a hop, he told me how dangerous it is without first warming up. “Hey, danger is my middle name, just f… help me up!” I answered. Yes, this line was mine; Leslie Nielsen stole it and used it at Naked gun 33 1/3 without my permission.

Well, Danger isn’t definitely my middle name anymore. The most dangerous thing I do these days is asking once a month for a salary raise from my boss. Then she calmly drinks up her coffee and hits me on the head with the empty coffee cup. But even this isn’t that dangerous anymore, now I am wearing a helmet when I walk over to her desk.

My middle name nowadays is most probably Inferiority complex. Everybody else is smarter, more beautiful, richer, skinnier and more successful. I better see a shrink. Or a plastic surgeon.

French Can Can

I had this fantastic idea to have a little French Can Can show with Mademoiselle A at the company Christmas party. There is just a little detail I had forgotten, I am not naturally supple. That I once was able to do impressing splits was indeed a result of hard training, and the only thing I train these days is my tonsils (and it isn’t opera I am talking about). I thought that maybe the extra body weight would help my legs to straighten out, but God, how they resist! I tried yesterday, and there is missing, not just a couple of centimeters, but a meter or two.

I think I need help from Luis, a great Spanish dancer I knew for ages ago. If he still isn’t in chock after I once demonstrated one of my impressing splits from a little hop, and wasn’t able to get up again. Luis became later the artistic director at Moulin Rouge, but he never contacted me to join the dance girls. Was I too short?

Mademoiselle A was quite delighted about the Can Can idea, but we have postponed it to next year. This year I just stick to the same old theme entertaining my colleagues; getting drunk and telling embarrassing stories from my past. There is enough of them until the day I retire.

Albert Camus

"Les doutes, c'est ce que nous avons de plus intime."

Am I scary?

On my bicycle tour the other day there had been an accident and a police car was holding partly on the bicycle lane. It had one of the doors open so I had to yell at the police officer: “Shut the fucking door!” He hurried to shut the door, and I got by without taking the car door with me. Do I look or sound really so scary that even a police officer wets his pants when I yell at him?

Once a hundred years ago a guy told me that he had broken up with his girlfriend a year earlier because he was in love with me. It took him one year and a bottle of vodka to tell me. Nom de Dieu. I must be scary.

My husband is still gathering courage, he hasn’t said he loves me since we got married. I better give him some whiskey and then force the words out of him. Then I can say that it only took him 10 years and a bottle of whiskey to tell me “Je t’aime”.

Cat on a hot tin roof

Maggie: You know what I feel like? I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof.

.

Brick: Then jump off the roof, Maggie. Jump off it. Cats jump off roofs and land uninjured. Do it. Jump.

.

Maggie: Jump where? Into what?

Things we regret

I don’t believe a word when people say they don’t regret anything they have done. This is so bullshit, everybody would change something, some people would change about everything. Many songs lyrics are also full of this crap, like the beautiful Julie’s wonderful song, Completely fallen; “Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't go and change a thing”.

I would change thousands of things. Not even thinking about the more philosophical choices in my life, there are a lot of banal things that I wouldn’t have done:

- I wouldn’t have parked the car illegally twice in one week resulting two bloody parking tickets.

- I wouldn’t have put the car in reverse instead of first gear and making a huge whole in electric hence and causing a getaway for 2000 cows.

- I wouldn’t have been drinking too much peppermint snaps when skiing with friends, and hitting a tree afterwards.

- I wouldn’t have surprised a boyfriend one morning entering his apartment with the key he had given me. It is funny how it only takes one second for a boyfriend to become an ex-boyfriend when you find him in bed with another girl. I certainly wouldn’t have kicked him in the balls causing him lifelong impotence, now I must fear he one day sues me for this.

- I wouldn’t have provoked a Cuban police officer to confiscate my passport. I did get it back and didn’t have to arrive in Denmark in a container ship, but I had some quite awful flash backs about the prison in “Midnight Express”.

- I wouldn’t have ignored my physics teacher’s whispering when he always a few days before an exam told me what I should particularly study.

- I wouldn’t have broken Tomeo’s heart so brutally, his revenge was gruesome (but sophisticated).

- I wouldn’t have gone to toilet just in the beginning of Palme d’Or Award Show in Cannes; they didn’t let me in again before the evening was over. I got to see Gregory Peck though.

- I wouldn’t have believed the midwife when she said I can do it without epidural when giving birth first time.

- I wouldn’t have started this list; I can go on for years. I can see that the only solution for settling with my past (which apparently is one long embarrassment) is to become a newborn Christian.

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

.
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

.

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan's men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,

But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

(Sylvia & Ted, so much love, so much pain...)

At the beach

This afternoon the sun was shining wonderfully so I had two options:
- Polish the windows
- Take the kids to the beach

It took me two seconds to make up my mind, instead of the usual one second hard thinking. The windows were so full of kids hand prints that I really should clean them, but remembering that it will rain again tomorrow, who cares. You can’t see a thing any way.

We have a beautiful nature reservation with a loooong beach near by so off we went collecting mussel shells. One hour and 2000 mussel shells later my Houellebecq depression was gone, la vie est belle, and I am sure if Houellebecq had been with us, he would have agreed.

Now we have a collection of about 2 million mussel shells at home. On Monday I will order 5000 cubic meters sand and fill the garden with sand and mussel shells. We will have a private beach and there will be no need to moan the lawn ever again.