The moment of truth

Today I am officially one year wiser. I never say older, but wiser. Like I am almost 20 years wiser than my beautiful French assistant Mademoiselle A. She asks me sometimes, as she says, for motherly advice, and we mothers are indeed not only older, but wiser than our daughters. What a frightening thought, she could physiologically be my daughter. I could be a grandmother.

I have a philosophic dilemma that keeps haunting me, and again today I reflect on it. What is worse:

Feel passionately about something, get carried away and eventually make a fool out of myself
or
Never feel passionately about anything, not get carried away and not feeling as such a fool I do at the moment.

Right now I wish I had chosen to live after the second option, but of course it is too late. I will though try again. One year wiser I must promise myself not to believe, no matter how seductive the thought is, that such a thing as soul mate exists. And for my own sake not to judge people on the chocolate they offer me.

For 20 years ago I read Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf, the strangest experience in my life. How could Hesse write about me long before I was born, was I his muse in my earlier life ? My husband says I probably was Hesse's schizophrenic wife. Reading Steppenwolf was such an out of the body experience that I was certain I will soon be abducted by aliens. I prayed God this not to happen and in return promised never to think about this book again.

Today for some reason I think about this book very much, and God will probably punish me by letting the aliens abduct me. So dear reader, if there will be no more blogging from me, you know what happened.

Birthday, one day to go

I have invited my in-laws for dinner tomorrow, so now I will get:
- 2 boxes of old chocolate
- 2 ugly bouquets of extremely ugly flowers
- “Happy Birthday, wife” and “Happy Birthday, Lotta”

Lotta was my husband’s previous girlfriend before I came along and ruined his life. My in-laws calling me Lotta used to provoke me enormously, but now I am in the game with different variations;

“Thanks Mao & Jiang Quing”
“Thank you so much Adolf & Eva”
“Good night Joseph & Natasha”
“See you soon, Saddam & Sajida”



PS. Even everybody forgets my birthday, I always remember my mother-in-law’s. It is the April 20th, the same as Adolf Hitler’s.

Birthday !

On Sunday I turn 40, again. At my age there is nothing to celebrate, and my birthdays are even worse as I usually never get any presents. Sometimes my husband does remember my birthday, and I get a homemade present card for a City break. But these are not to be used before I turn 100 as there is a small text in the bottom saying it is valid from August 31st 2066. He might also get me a subscription of Madame Figaro but doesn’t usually pay the bill, so I will only get it during 3 weeks.

But I can always wish !

Things I really want but have no chance of getting:
1) Gerald de Palmas singing to me “Je veux qu’elle m’aime”, and he must mean every word he is singing.
2) Orhan Pamuk reading me Ka’s poems. And between each poem he will gently kiss me on my forehead. Too corny? Okay, we will instead make passionately love between each poem; there is only 19 of them.
3) My husband cleaning his paper mess on our computer desk.

Things I have 1 % chance of getting:
1) Duffy’s new CD.
2) Orhan Pamuk’s “My name is red”.
3) A beautiful bouquet of white flowers from the fantastic flower girl at our neighbor village.

Things I probably get after I tell it is my birthday in the morning:
1) “Happy Birthday, wife”.
2) A box of old chocolate ("Best before October 1995") from the gas station.
3) A very ugly bouquet of multicolored flowers from the same gas station.

Mademoiselle A

Oh gosh, how I miss my beautiful French assistant, Mademoiselle A ! She went back to France for the summer to take her exams, and won’t return before October. I just can’t live without her. Life at the office is hell; I do actually have to work!

I have to share Mademoiselle A time to time with my colleagues, and I have found out that I am not at all the communist I thought I was (I have normally nothing to share, but I think everybody else should share whatever they have with me). I am VERY possessive when we are talking about Mademoiselle A, I want to keep her all to myself. She is first of all very beautiful. I certainly have the best view at the office; Mademoiselle A just in front of me and to the left the only hetero guy we have at the office. It is not easy being the only real man in an office full of women and gay guys, but I think he by now has gotten used to our inappropriate proposals for different combinations of threesomes.

Mademoiselle A is also very intelligent, for a half word she understands what I want and how things should be done. The only area in life where I can trace a certain stupidity is her eager to work. She was only hired on a short contract, but wanted badly to stay with us. With her good looks she could get any rich man she wanted, she doesn’t need to work! But as I in her age, she also has a poor boyfriend, and she is not very receptive for my good advice. Not that I try to advice her too much as her eager makes my life easier. And even my colleagues think that I exploit her, this is not true. I have been totally honest with her from the start; “Work hard, don’t expect any credit for your work as I will take it, and I guarantee you can stay.”

.

And I have kept my word. She does all my work so I can just lay back and read my Madame Figaro while the hetero guy gets me a Café Latte (he is now taking seriously my inappropriate proposals of threesomes). I try to avoid putting my high heels on my desk and commenting Carla Bruni’s choice of a handbag too loudly as this seems to provoke my boss unnecessarily. Then my boss might come over to my desk and complain that she doesn’t pay me to read Madame Figaro with my feet up. “But my doctor told me I should have the feet up for the blood circulation, and that I should regularly take some breaks to stress off, wait a minute, I have a paper from the doctor somewhere”. I am desperately searching for a suitable document in my handbag (which has the size of Sarkozy's ego) and finally I find something that looks like a doctor’s paper and give it to my boss. “But this is a prescription for prevention pills” my boss says. “As you know I am not getting any sex, why on earth I have to take these pills “I say. Then I start complaining about my non existing sex life, how the only thing that could get me pregnant is the Holy Spirit. I go on with my moaning until my boss forgets why she bothered to come over to my desk, and leaves. Then I go back to Madame Figaro, but feel a little bit irritated about the interruption. My café latte has gotten cold.

End of snoring ?

My husband is obviously not going to do anything about his snoring, so I have to take the matter in my own hands. I think I have seen enough ER and Grey’s Anatomy to go ahead and operate him myself. As my husband sleeps very heavily, I don’t even need an anesthesia doctor. But I might need a heart starter. If something goes wrong, I must prove my innocence. The worst case scenario, my husband dying during the operation (even George Clooney’s patients die sometimes), I must prove that it wasn’t a murder but a simple accident. Who would rent a heart starter if the purpose was killing somebody? Well, maybe a psychopath who thinks that the offer died too peacefully; let’s bring him to life again, and this time kill him in more painful way.

I know I can rent a heart starter at Hamlet for about 3000,- kr. Because of my clients’ perverse needs, I know many things. I know how much it costs to rent Krystalgade for private parking, National Gallery for a cocktail party or rent a helicopter and then throw the clients out in the open sea (I told you my clients are perverts). I also know how much I have to pay for a pretentious royal opera singer to entertain my party. No, I don’t know how much a not so pretentious opera singer costs, as far as I know, they don’t exist.

And my husband keeps telling me I have no idea what things cost!

So tomorrow I will pass by Hamlet and pick-up the heart starter. But I am getting my doubts. If my husband dies, my in-laws might be able to convince the police that I am a psychopath, and did murder my husband. This is only because they have no sense of humor. I often tell them that I have made a very favorable life insurance in their name, so I might very soon kill them. I am not so stupid I would kill them; I would hire a hit man to do the dirty work.

So I have to get rid of my husband's body if things go wrong. I saw once a film where Jean Reno got a dead man to disappear with some acid in a bathtub. That looked very easy; I think I can manage that. And as my bathtub has some annoying rubber marks from the anti-slide carpet, the acid will take care of that, too. Zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen !

Summer reading

As I am a working (??) girl, part time student, fulltime mom and overtime complainer, I haven’t got much reading done the last couple of winters. I think it is mostly because of my studies; I simply feel guilty if I read anything else than my study books. Last winter went with keeping my French grammar book in my hands and empty staring in the air. For my big surprise this empty staring in the air gave the same results as if I actually had been reading the book these thousands of hours.

But the studies over, I had the whole summer ahead with more inspiring literature. In the beginning of the summer I got finished Orhan Pamuk’s “Snow” (or with JB’s title rewriting “Violence, adultery and heavy drinking amongst Turkish Muslims”). This is a beautiful story of the melancholic poet Ka and his incapability of being happy. Almost 500 pages covering just a few days’ happenings and not being boring for one second. THIS MAN DESERVES MY LOVE. The opposite of Pamuk is Jean M.Auel who was very popular in my teenage years. She wrote hundreds of pages about nothing; she could describe how a tree looked like for 60 pages. And not enough with describing the tree while Ayla was standing in front of it, when Ayla passed it and had a look at the tree again, there was a new 60 pages description of how the tree looked like from the new angle. At this point I tried to kill myself, but managed only to kill the neighbor’s cat when it got hit by the “The Clan of the Cave Bear”.

Yes, Orhan Pamuk is probably the love of my life that I haven’t met in person yet. And when he one day comes along, I must tell him that he is one husband and two kids late, but we could have been so happy together. Then he will write his second Nobel winning novel about his unfilled and unfortunate love for me.

After Pamuk, I went back to classics and read Gorki’s “In the world” (with JB’s title rewriting “Violence, adultery and heavy drinking amongst Russians”) which is the second part of his self biographical trilogy. It was very poorly translated; the language wasn’t that simple and beautiful I remember Gorki for, but there were the same, totally unsentimental reflections on the horrors of life. And again I have to discuss the existentialism with Sartre. It can never be enough that one just “defines himself”, there must be a lot of predetermined essence, and this essence (= talent) is certainly more important than the existence. Gorki became a great author DESPITE the poor odds in his childhood, not due to that. You agree, Jean-Paul ?

I shouldn’t read bestsellers or see any blockbuster movies as I always get disappointed (I never understood the hype about “Rain Man” or “Titanic”). My next book was Khaled Hosseini’s “A thousand splendid suns”, and yes, I cried a lot while reading it, but stood afterwards with a very empty feeling. It was just too much, a real Hollywood thing that Danish has a good word for; FØLELSESPORNO. This is a book that most certainly has been "the book of the month" at Oprah’s book club (no offence Oprah, and now that I have your attention, did you like the last manuscript I sent you?). There was not a misery that Mariam and Laila didn’t go through; I was almost expecting a meteorite to hit Kabul in the end but then it hadn’t had the Hollywood happy ending.

In the end of the summer I run out of my favorite literature, Madame Figaro, and longed to read something more in French. I found Albert Camus’ “L’Étranger” in my book shell; I must have bought it for hundreds of years ago in Greece as it had the price tag of 700 drachmas on it. What a bargin ! Camus, were you a very unhappy man; did you ever really love anyone? Mersault’s indifference freaks me out, and I don’t think that anybody can write about this kind of state of mind not having felt the same way. JB, help me out here! You could send me YOUR book about Camus, and in return I will dedicate my first book “Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit” to you. Please, a signed copy of your first edition. When you become a world famous author, I will sell my copy to a horny middle-aged millionairess and buy some more shoes.

Queuing

I am one of these people who ALWAYS take the wrong queue at a supermarket or wherever I have to stand in line. And if I change the line in the middle of everything, the cashier in my new queue most certainly gets heart attack just after it is too late to change back.

For my comfort, I am not alone with this; I have found out that many people have it like me. So if there is maybe half of the population being unlucky like me with supermarket lines, is the other half very lucky then? Is someone right now writing in her blog "God, how lucky I am always choosing the right queue at the supermarket" ?

Fernando esta aqui !

Site inspection day 2, not so much fun than yesterday as I had to drag along a Danish bitch of an architect. As I am myself a person who never does anything wholehearted, I just can’t stand people who take themselves seriously.

But fabulous timing at Marriott, the Spanish team was returning from their morning walk and this time I didn’t faint. I sacrificed though Casillas as my son would appreciate Fernando Torres’ autograph more (SEE THE PICTURE !). There are no limits for a mother’s love ! Fernando invited me to his room, but JB had just been kind (=mean) enough to remind me of my age, so I had to pass.

I expected to get on the Spanish news and called my husband to keep an eye on TVE. My husband told me that there had been an plane crash in Madrid, so no chance of having anything else on Spanish TV today. My ridiculous flirting with TV Espana’s camera guy was totally wasted.

Iker, donde estas ?

While I was on inspection today with a Norwegian client, we happened to have a meeting at Marriott just when the press conference for the Spanish Football Team was over. These half gods were casually coming down the stairs, and I fainted. My client slapped me trying to get me up, but I was just murmuring “Torres, Casillas, Fabregas….” . Very quickly my client understood what was going on; Casillas, Fabregas and Torres hadn’t come down yet. So he resolutely took me by my hand and off we went looking for them. We were asking around the Spanish journalists, but no luck, Fernando and Co. were nowhere! Back to plan A, and to the meeting with the Marriott guy. Most of the meeting went with desperate tries for getting the rooms numbers for the selective players but the Marriott guy was stubborn and kept saying, “You would just get disappointed”. What does he know !

I was so stunned by my experience at Marriott that I might have made quite a bad deal for my client later during the inspection. We were looking for a venue to arrange a party and went to Vega. I can’t really remember, did I actually rent their lounge for 120 million dollars?

My orthopaedic surgeon

When I rounded the pair number 500 in my shoe collection, my atheist of a husband became religious. He needed help to get me stopped and didn’t have any other means left than praying to God. As God is always excited when he gets new members to his heavenly club, he is ready to suck up the newcomers by filling their wishes. It is like a book club, you get the first three books of your choice free, then there is only crap coming in your mailbox once a month.

So God gave me a year ago problems with my right foot little toe, and I haven’t (almost) been buying new shoes since. Instead I have been a regular customer at my orthopaedic surgeon who loves to cut tendons over in my toe. This is a never-ending story, so last week I was again visiting my orthopaedic surgeon. He is a weird man, never looks one in the eyes, and talks to himself all the time. When he studies my foot, he doesn’t place it on a table but simply lifts my foot up between his legs. I must say I feel quite awkward having my toes separated from his balls just by a thin layer of clothing; he is probably not even wearing any underwear. Just like Hemingway. Yes, Hemingway didn’t wear underwear. I have an amazing ability to remember only irrelevant details from any biography I read, and this I remember about Hemingway. Like the only thing I remember after reading Simone de Beauvoir’s biography is, that during the Second World War she often ate rotten meat, and Sartre being quite discussed by this once had to throw a rotten rabbit out of the window. It is most likely that at this particular moment Jean-Paul saw the light of existentialism. While waving the rotten rabbit at the window, he claimed: “L'existence précède l'essence”; this rabbit could possibly not have been born stinking and rotten but it was a choice it had taken after being shot and sent from the countryside to Paris.

As you can understand, I don’t believe in existentialism. I am born this way, with all my character faults, and therefore not responsible for any of my actions. And every misfortune I certainly blame on God, like my lack of focus again (God created Mr T.).

So my orthopaedic surgeon is studying my toe and talking to himself. I am very ticklish so every time he touches my foot, I involuntarily move my toes (which are separated from his balls just by a thin layer of clothing). At some point this becomes too much for him and suddenly he throws my foot up so I hit my heel hardly on his desk. “What the f… are you doing that for? “ I complain, but he is already busy talking to his Dictaphone. He avoids facing me and just tells me to book a new time at the reception. Before leaving I have a last desperate look at him, but can only see his profile. Which for some reason makes me think about a famous scene in “Crying game”.

I am Xavi, Deco, Zhirkov…

My son's football season has started again. When he tries to learn Ronaldo tricks at the training, I hang around and kick the ball together with my daughter. The other day, a guy came over to us and said:

“Wow, a mom who can play football!
“It is not for my good looks they call me Raul” I said modestly.
“Wouldn’t you like to play in the ladies’ team?” he asked.
“Do I look like a lesbian (you know, one of the masculin kind...)?”
“No….”
“Why would I then play in the ladies team?” Now I honestly expected him to say that they would pay me very well. Instead he said:
“Well, it is a lot of fun and the ladies’ team needs more players”
I could see that this conversation was getting nowhere so I just told him “Get lost”.

.

I also wanted to kick him in the ass, not for any particular reason, just to see how it feels to kick a fat guy in the butt. But his pants were hanging badly, I couldn’t really figure out where his ass was, so I let go.

I don’t play if I am not getting paid. The only time I offer my principals is the season ending where we traditionally have “mothers against sons" match. As a competitive person I take this yearly match seriously. First I try to break these 8-year old boys psychologically by yelling them insults; “You bunch of useless sissies, can’t you even beat old ladies!” The only result is that my son starts to convince everybody he is adopted. When we mothers are behind 1-16, I have to take the physical methods in use. Not even a red card can stop me, and three of the boys are still recovering from their injuries from June. They should though be ready for the DBU tournament in September. Then the referee asks the fathers, who astonished are watching my solo slaughtering, for help. They are many, but I don’t surrender without struggle. I can proudly say that quite a few of these fathers are not going to make it to the DBU tournament in September !

Too fat to die ?

Danes don’t have many problems; in fact the only problem they have is not having any problems. So the media must find problems amongst the dead people. Now they have found out that many Danes are too fat when they die and don’t fit in standard size coffins. Yes, we have a crisis in Denmark; Anders Fogh should call for state of emergency. Who cares if there is a major conflict in Georgia with tens of thousands of refugees and 2000 casualties? This kind of news has very little chance hitting the Danish newspaper headlines. Maybe if they find out that there also was an Ossetian offer that was too fat and now they cannot find a coffin big enough, not in Georgia nor in Russia ? Maybe then we have this news on the front page: “Ossetian casualty too fat for a coffin”, and as usual, ordinary people on the street are asked if Denmark should contribute humanitarian aid by sending a special made coffin to the fat dead Ossetian.

(And just one serious comment; what really bugs me is that we are left with Western pro-Georgia news on television and if I try to get wiser and get a second opinion from “Russia Today’s” news, I just get Russian propaganda. This conflict has been going on for hundreds of years and these latest tensions started for almost 20 years ago; why don't these Ossetians just shut up ?)

But what are we going to do with these too fat Danes? I could read that the family members are devastated when they find out that their dead father or aunt is simply too fat. Can that be such a big surprise? If it is, maybe you didn’t visit your dad or auntie the last 20 years. Now these families must order special size coffins and unfortunately these oversized coffins don’t fit in the doors of the old village churches or the crematory ovens. The journalist interviews a daughter who with tears in her eyes tells about his father’s last wish; he wanted to be cremated but he simply is too fat. Yes, we all feel her pain. Houston, we have a problem !

But don’t worry, families for fat dead people, I can see a fantastic business opportunity in this. I will start a clinic for “Liposuction for fat dead people”. As they are already dead, I don’t think I will need any authorization, just some equipment (I guess they come with instructions?). And if something goes wrong, what is the worst thing that can happen? So no need to order a special size coffin anymore and the funeral can be held in the same village church where Aunt Karen got married for 50 years ago. And the before so oversized auntie is looking better than ever.

I will take this idea to the States, I am gonna be rich.

Intelligent women

I just found this Baudelaire’s quotation on JB's literary blog (yes, I am supposed to be working);

« Aimer une femme intelligente est un plaisir de pédéraste. »

I don’t know really how to take it but I got very offended. I do consider myself as an intelligent woman, even I hide it most of the time. For my comfort I found a quotation from angry Claude, also offended by Baudelaire;

"Aimer une femme intelligente est à la portée de n'importe quel imbécile, mais être aimé de cette même personne est réservé à une élite. "

Eye surgery

A couple of my friends have had a laser eye surgery with great success. I am also thinking about this, but being a border case, I don’t know if I should or should not. I manage to find my way to work without my glasses, but I don’t see all the trash along the sidewalk. It is also quite expensive but I have started saving up, until now I already have 500 kr in that account. I am only missing the remaining 25.000 kr.

But this seems to be a vicious circle. If I get my eyes operated, then in the morning I can see in the mirror all too clearly how my breasts are hanging after breastfeeding two children too long. Maybe I should get my breasts lifted up instead? But if I get my breasts done, then I get to see my belly and that definitely needs liposuction. The stomach gone and looking down I can see the cellulites on my thighs. I should really do something about that. Stomach I can hide in one-piece swimming suit, but the tights require my wetsuit (which has disappeared). The cellulites gone from my thighs I would probably start staring at my legs in general and see that my feet desperately long for pedicure. They look like I have crossed Sahara barefooted, and to be honest, it is a while ago they got any treatment. Well, pedicure only costs 500 kr, which I have, so I will book time for that instead.

At pedicure the food therapist looks at my feet disgusted and asks:
“Did you climb on top of Mount Everest barefooted?”
Ashamed I respond “No, I crossed the Sahara”.
"Can’t you see how awful your feet look like?”
I lie and say “No, I can’t really see that”.
“Really ? Have you thought about eye surgery ?”

Indecent proposals

This story is not about getting 1 million dollars for spending a night with a millionaire, but marrying someone for money. When I was au pair girl in France, my family’s father was quite worried me not getting married with wealthy enough guy, he had seen my boy friends and didn’t think they could offer me the future I deserved. So he had a couple of, for me at that time indecent, more or less serious proposals. They had a family friend, a young count from a famous champagne chateau, and the father thought he would make a perfect match for me. Come on, this young count, very rich I don’t deny, had a little fault. He stuttered very badly. I could possibly not spend my life with a stuttering count, not when I was just 20 years old. Today I am wiser and know that even if this count had been missing all his three legs and his face had been eaten by a crocodile, it wouldn’t matter. It is about the inner beauty (yeah, sure).

Well, me not even wanting to discuss this matter, the father suggested I married the slightly alcoholic Oncle Bob. I and Bob had spent a lot of time together playing tennis when ever we were at their chateau at the countryside, but no, I couldn’t see myself together with a guy 3 times my age. The father kept telling me that for just a few marital duties I one day would inherit his apartment in a very fashionable quarter in Paris and live happily ever after with my heritage. But Oncle Bob could easily live 30 more years! And I did have my not so wealthy Jewish Frank, whom I was very much in love with. I couldn’t know that a year later my Jewish lover dropped me in an embarrassing scene of jealousy. However, from every relationship and from every break-up we learn something; I learned that never try to tell a French guy your male acquaintances are just friends. They know better. But the worst part of it all was that Oncle Bob died of pneumonia just two years after, without leaving his apartment or his money to me.

Not needing to start preparations for Hanukkah, I was wasting my time in Cannes (just a matter of speaking, one could never waste time in Cannes) for the next couple of summers. During the Cannes Film Festival the first year I had a chance to work as an assistant for Mrs Dauphin who organizes the Deauville Film Festival. We arranged a cocktail party for important people like every body else, with tough competition from Joan Collins. Dear reader, can you say that you once arranged a party and some one didn't come as he went to Joan Collins' birthday party instead ??? Mrs D was very happy with my assistance, even I had tried to deny entrance for an important film director as he didn’t have his business card on him. “Don’t you know who I am?” “No, non, njet, and I don’t care. Just give me the bloody business card if you want some free drinks !” Mrs D asked if I would be interested to help her in Deauville in September as the American stars need to be taken by hand and I said, sure, I will call her later. I never did. This I will use as an evidence of my insanity if I one day commit a murder.

Instead I packed my bags and went back to my very comfortable life in Morocco. Why would I assist anyone if I can have a life with maid, gardener and even someone to carry my groceries at the local souk. I am sorry little Hassan if you broke your back under the basket of 60 kilos of oranges ! Easy living with piano bars and nightclubs, and the only worry being which handbag will go with my new pair of shoes.

Not even trying to get my hands in a rich American producer really pissed God off. One night God said to me (God always appears when you are tired and can’t defend yourself): “I have given you three chances of getting a rich husband, but you didn’t use them. I will punish you by making you marry a poor Danish guy”. Sorry my dear husband, I didn’t put it that way, God did.

End of holiday, again

My week’s holiday at home has become to an end. This time I really excelled myself, I didn’t get one single thing done on my 2 meter long “To do” list. Not even cleaning the oven. How lazy can one be? Spraying a product in the oven (20 seconds), leave it there for 3 hours and then wipe it off (30 seconds)?? But I did get a lot of other things done.

As a compensation for the world’s worst museum, I once again took the kids to the Post & Tele Museum. There I happened to pop in to my ex-French teacher as she joined the guided tour with her son. After the tour, my son said to the sweet guide “Thank you for the guided tour” and my daughter even more advanced “Thank you for teaching us things”. My French teacher was very impressed of their polite behavior, and I modestly said, well, that’s the way they are. It probably helped that I just had told them, (in Finnish) to thank nicely the guide or I will break their necks.

We also got to visit the Round Tower and Jens Olsen’s world clock. What the f… was that about? We were wondering that for about ½ hour, then left the City Hall quite puzzled. At home my time passed easily without even looking at my "To do" list. I was playing with Barbies and doll’s house, or trying to beat my son in Playstation. I really get into my role with the dolls, usually I am playing the mom and my 6-year old daughter my teenage daughter. In the middle of the play I am often yelling at my daughter why she came home too late last night or about having boys in her room. Shocked she looks at me, is this still just a play or what? Well, she certainly knows what to look forward to when she reaches her puberty.

I also take any competition seriously. My son has found out that I am a poor loser, so to avoid any more broken furniture or more draft from the broken windows, he now let’s me win at Playstation. Besides dressing the neighbors son in princess clothes (yes, I took pictures, and one day I will most likely blackmail him), a lot of tickling (poor people always find their fun), we danced to quite many music videos. Now the kids’ favorite music video is William Baldé’s “Rayon de soleil”. This is indeed a very catchy and a real feel-good song. So when we sit at the dinner table, first my son begins to sing “Humba, humba”, then my daughter joins him “Humba humba” and then I cannot keep myself from singing along “Humba humba”. My husband joins us with a quite loud “Shut up”; cannot he hear that this song is in French? He is supposed to sing now “Uuuuuun rayon de soleil, dort sur tes cheveux longs…” But again, not wanting to embarrass my husband because of his poor knowledge of French, I let him sing for a while “Shut up, shut up….”

Shopping again

I just hate when people behind me in the supermarket queue criticize me reading the gossip magazines without buying them. Again and again I have to explain them that these magazines are on purpose close to the cash register; the customers are expected to read them so that they don’t get bored while waiting for their turn to pay. Sometimes the unsatisfied fellow customer tries to get the cashier’s attention, but the employees know me too well, they just know they cannot win. If there is a new girl working, I might need to comment, still not lifting my eyes from Angelina & Brad, that they again had put meat and strawberries in the same counter, I wonder how the food control authorities will look at that matter. So usually I get to read the very important news about Brangelina without further interruption.

Today when I went to my weekly amusement tour to my local Netto, I saw a big sign outside the shop; “Service-minded person wanted 30 hours a week”. Knowing that one will never meet a service-minded employee in Netto, I wondered what on earth they are going to do with this service-minded person if they find one. Put in a cage and ask people to pay to see it ? I would definitely pay to see one, and I would pay a lot of money if the person was a native Dane.

Focus

Someone will probably accuse me being time to time unfocused with my writing. This I can only blame my Finnish literature teacher at lycée, the dreadful Mr. T; compared to him the French Revolution’s Régime de terreur was just a bunch of Sunday school boys. But this scary man had a soft spot for me as I in my eager to get good notes had found out what kind of essays he liked and wrote accordingly. He loved abstract writing where no sentence had anything to do with the previous or the following one, just like my blog. So I wrote a lot of weird essays that he loved to read in front of the class and slobbering how wonderful life would be if everybody wrote like me (the water running out of his mouth and landing on my essay made me usually to tell him just to keep it as a gift and dedication). My class mates didn’t understand a word, neither did I. But I had understood that the less I understood of my own writing, the higher the note will be. I remember particularly one essay causing more eye rolling amongst my class mates than usual, it started with something like; “I take a Roman helmet on my head. Slowly I walk to the pathologic department. I am dying of my profound sadness.” What the hell was that about? I still don’t know, but it certainly was unfocused and worth a very high note.

Mr. T. loved to play God and the last school day he told us how the future would turn out to be for us. Everybody else ending up with a mediocre life, I had a great future ahead me; I would become something. But he was no God, just a bad prophet. Everybody else in my class became rich and famous; I ended up being nothing. Well, Mr. T. got the thing part right, but I never attend class reunions.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have asked Mr T. HOW I will become something. But I have always exercised the art of not asking too much if a sentence or statement can be interpreted in my favor. Like a year ago before going on my summer holiday to France. Looking at my exhausted and burn out face (what you are is not important, but how you look), my boss told me to go out and eat a good dinner in France with my husband. “But how much can we spend” my husband kept asking. “I am not a fool, I am not gonna ask, it is for me to decide what is a good restaurant”. So I booked a table at a 2* Michelin restaurant (the closest 3* was fully booked), enjoyed a wonderful dinner and a 40 euro Cohiba to end the evening with. My boss fainted when she saw the 400 euro bill for my company credit card, but I just shrugged my shoulders and said that I honestly thought I was worth it. Now my boss has gotten wiser and literary puts a price tag on my exhausted and burn out face. And when I complain being too stressed she doesn’t either say anymore “Well dear, take some time off”, but “Take two days off, remember two !”.

So I didn’t ask Mr. T. how I should proceed if I wanted to become something. I was maybe afraid if I asked, he would tell me not to waste my youth on travels and partying. He would instead suggest that I rent myself a room in an addict without toilet and running water, be depressed and start writing. But an 18-year girl doesn’t want that kind of advice. So I didn’t ask, in stead I accepted the fact that he is God and it was his will me to become something. And I haven’t lifted a finger; I wouldn’t dare to interfere God’s plans.

Guinness Records

My 8-year son has been for a while obsessed with Guinness Records, and the only books he brings home from library besides the “Star wars” literature, are the different yearbooks with the weird records that seem to be a meaning of life for quite many people. And as a parent of today, I am glad whatever my children read, just the fact that they read is impressing regarding the huge amount of other available entertainment. So I don’t care if the book is about a man who has eaten 18 bicycles, 15 shopping carts, 2 metal beds and a light weight Cessna airplane. I just wonder that this man is a Frenchman, I could have understood him being an English guy and therefore preferring this kind of diet.

So my son has been begging me to take him to the Guinness World Records Museum in Copenhagen and as having holiday again this week we took there yesterday. I think that normally the museums in Copenhagen have reasonable entrance prices, but this bloody place wanted to have 85 kr (EUR 11,5) for adults and the half for the children. I tried to settle with 3 children’s tickets, but the guy at the ticket sale said I really needed to buy an adult ticket. “But aren’t we all children of God ?” I asked. No, he hadn’t read his bible and I had to pay 170 kr for the three of us. After 35 minutes we were out again, the kids totally disappointed and complaining that this was no fun, nothing like the very entertaining and childfriendly Post & Tele Museum where we easily spend 3 hours. I wasn’t just disappointed, I was furious paying so much money for this non sense. So I went resolutely to the guy at the ticket sale and demanded my money back. Quite shocked and looking at me as I was from Venus (how did he know), he stuttered that he had no authorization to give me money back, I had to write to his supervisor. While I was accusing the place to be a total rip-off, he though agreed that there maybe wasn’t that much to see; I see this as a small victory itself. But I am going to write to the supervisor to demand my money back. They can at least award me giving them two new records; the worst museum in the world and the most unsatisfied customer of all times .

Women and driving

Men always have plenty of prejudicial comments about women and driving. Even that the statistics show that men are involved considerably more in car accidents than women, they somehow manage to ignore this fact. For me, my husband is the second best driver in the world, just after Kimi Räikkönen, the Finnish Formel 1 driver. Räikkönen being Finnish has nothing to do with patriotism, he just is very good (everyone knowing me can assure that I would never miss an opportunity to backstab my fellow citizens). But for my big fortune, my husband made a major fuck-up with our rental car this summer in France. This was so bad that he will never, I repeat never, comment my driving again. The Portuguese maid from next door run out and in one minute she managed to mention at least 120 catholic saints while turning hysterically around and making an impressing amount of signs of the cross. Well, she is a woman and therefore can multitask. No men, you cannot multitask, sitting at the toilet and reading a newspaper at the same time is not multitasking.

Thanks to the camera in my mobile phone, I now have plenty of evidence of my husband’s misfortune, and even a short video showing how my usually always calm husband in frustration tries to strangle the Portuguese maid. I don't think I'll ever need to use this evidence, it has been enough just mentioning, "Do you remember...."

I am myself a fairly good driver, never had any accidents involving human beings. I have though some problems when I have to back the car from our garage, as the garage is on top of a big mountain (as Denmark is a flat country everything rising more than 5 degrees is a mountain) and the drive-way is very narrow. I have a mail box on the left side and a trash bin on the right side and somehow these attract with magnetic force our car. I have hit both objects several times (but only one at time), but sometimes I also manage to reverse whole way down and not touching either one. Now my husband has attached thick rubber tires on both side of the car, this he says is to protect me if I hit the mailbox too hard. Is he stupid or something? Our car is quite new and has side airbags to protect me. But not wanting to embarrass him because of his poor knowledge of our car, I say nothing.

Unfortunately my bad luck with the reverse gear also invites our male neighbors out of their couches as soon as they hear I open the garage door. They entertain themselves watching how I do my best avoiding as usual the mailbox and the trash bin. The other day I experienced an unpleasant change in these gentlemen's normally just silly staring. I could see on the rear mirror that there was money being exchanged between them, and lively pointing left and right. My god, they are betting which one I will hit this time ! I got so mad, I decided to show them. When I backed the car out, I deliberately first hit the trash bin on the right side, then made a skilful zig zag maneuver to the left and hit the mailbox. I bet they didn’t see that coming!

Huis Clos

After once reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Huis clos” I have often wondered what hell would be for me. In “Huis clos” four persons rightfully end up in hell, and soon one can understand what hell really is; “l'enfer, c'est les autres” (“hell is other people”).

Do I end up in hell ? Probably. Already before reaching the age of 7, I had committed two major sins, killing and betraying a friend. I was playing with matches with a friend of mine behind my grandpa’s chicken house, and somehow we came to put the fire to it. All 150 chicken died. As it wasn’t bad enough, there was another minor detail. Some weeks earlier my grandpa had tried to get a loan from the bank to build a new chicken house, but his loan application was refused. So indeed it seemed very suspicious for the insurance company. I still remember very clearly the day the police came to interrogate my grandpa, and my grandpa crying and insisting his innocence. It was a scene worth of an Academy Award for “Performance by an actor in a leading role”. The Oscar that year went to Marlon Brando for his role in Godfather. Did Brando deserve it ? Yes, if the criteria was stuffing the maximum amount of cotton pads in one’s mouth, and then trying to speak as un-understandable English as possible. So my grandpa didn’t win the Oscar but he was declared innocent and got money from the insurance company to build a new chicken house. As I am a modest person there was no need to tell him that all this was thanks to me.

The second sin, betraying a friend, was my accomplish from the earlier episode. Once getting very mad at her, I peed in my grandpa’s boots (he was not wearing them at that moment), and then told my grandpa that my friend had done it.

In my later years I can add a considerable amount of sins. And if it wasn’t enough that I have sinned, I even plan future sins. Next week my boss will be on vacation, so I will add some more cheating and lying to my already impressing list. I have decided to misuse her computer log-in and fire a couple of unpleasant colleagues. I will send a mail to these colleagues sacking them and end the mail with, “You might think I am a coward firing you during my holiday but I simply cannot stand seeing your lazy face any more. Don’t even for one second think about disturbing my holiday by phoning me or I push the company lawyer on you (this is a terrifying threat, he is so ugly that even dogs avoid him). Before I return from holiday, I expect that you have packed your belongings and disappeared.”

So I will definitely rot in hell.

But what will the hell then be for me? My biggest fears are sharing a room with:

- The 150 chicken I killed in the fire.

- My boss, and as a revenge for the sexual harassment law suit, she will not only finish all her sentences with “I hvert fald” but also start them with it.

- Tom Cruise and Tina Arena. I can take one at time, but both would definitely be hell.

- And the most terrifying thought. Ending up in a room with my father-in-law and a television, my father-in-law possessing the remote control. This thought makes me so sick that I am in fact willing to become a better person. I will start seeking forgiveness for my sins at any possible God right now.

Blogging

Blogging is so much fun that I am thinking about quitting my job. While writing my blog at work I am all the time interrupted by too social colleagues or irritating clients. Give me some peace, please! But then, being a person loving material stuff like shoes and bags, I cannot live without my salary. Maybe I could just shorten even more the hours I spend at the office ? I have already with great success managed to fade away such conventional terms as “working hours” on my behalf. Nobody knows what time I am supposed to come to the office, leave home again, and which days I am working. In fact, I don’t know it myself either anymore. In the morning when I wake up, not for ringing of the alarm clock but for the wonderful silence when the rest of the family for hours ago has left the house, I used to be a little bit troubled until I found a perfect solution. I simply take a coin, if “head or tales” can be used at Championships League final to decide which one of teams gets to kick the ball first, it definitely can be used for this daily banality. So “heads” means it is my day off, “tales” that it is a day I am supposed to work at home, and if for some particular reason the coin will be standing up, I have to go to the office.

So from now on I will just quite briefly pop in the office. I go to my desk so that my nearest colleagues see that I am there. Then I laugh a couple of times very loudly so my colleagues in the other departments also know me being there (they always say that they can hear I am back from holiday). And just before leaving the office, I will irritate my boss by going over her desk and making fun of her exaggerated use of “I hvert fald” (‘at least’). Stupid of me? Not at all, just my long term plan for getting rich. As I don’t at my age have much chance finding a rich man I must find other ways for getting rich. So I hope that one fine day my boss will be so irritated at me that she will kick me in the ass. Then I will sue her and the company for sexual harassment. As I am a hetero woman, I expect this lesbian act to provoke a many doubled compensation (nobody knows about my crush on Juliette Binoche).

My boss is though demonstrating an annoying patience with me. This can go on for years! So I haven’t totally given up the rich men. I have just ordered from Amazon.com “Yearbook 2008 – available rich, blind men”.

I thank my friends, my family….

I guess one needs to thank people whatever writing process they are involved in, if it is a book, a blog or just a graffiti at the bus station. If I ever write a book I will thank a lot of people, but I won’t write it in the beginning or in the end of the book, this would be too easy and not good for the book sales. The purpose of thanking people is getting them to buy your book as people being vain creatures simply hunger after seeing their own name on writing. If you put the “thank you” in the traditional place in the start or in the end of the book, they quickly can find their name in the bookstore without buying the book. If you put it in unpredictable place, they have to buy the book to find out where they are mentioned. And the more people you thank, the more copies you sell, so I will remember to thank everybody I have ever met in my current and recent lives. I am guaranteed a booksale of over 20 copies.

So I want to thank my friends, my family, my colleagues and many strangers in my current writing process. Your weird manners, peculiar looks and ridicule thoughts have been an enormous inspiration.

I do though want to mention specially three persons. Thank you for JB’s funny blog getting me started. I was stalking his blog with irrelevant comments until he either left for holiday or simply went under cover. And not being able to disturb him any more, I started my own blog.

I want to thank my oldest friend Saga for sharing your absurd humor, thousands of hours of laughter and due to that the constant threats from teachers to be kicked out of the class.

And Vips, Taivaan lahja, thank you for always believing in my talent. You even found a publisher for my great idea for the series of children’s travel books. The fact that this publisher now has retired, tired of waiting for any concrete action from my side, has taken a heavy pressure off my shoulders.

Shopping late Saturday afternoon

I keep making this mistake week after week. As I don’t really like doing grocery shopping I try to postpone it all Saturday. Then I finally pull myself together ½ hour before the shops close. At this time, our local Netto looks like a Russian supermarket. Or I should say Soviet one, as today in Russia you can buy everything, people just don’t have money. In Soviet time people didn’t have money, and there was nothing to buy, this was without doubt more logic.

In lack of any other food I go to the shell with dog and cat food (there is always plenty of that as I live in the country side where people keep cows and pigs, not cats and dogs), and then fill the rest of the cart with unnecessary “Spot of the week” offers. When I finally make it to the cashier, I try to be funny and ask if I can pay with "rubles". The cashier doesn’t understand my question and says “What” (Danes are as impolite as Finns and the use of “Excuse-me” is quite seldom). I repeat my question, and the cashier is now thinking about calling the security. Then she remembers that the security goes home at 11.00 am when they run out of items to sell (and therefore there is nothing left to steal, ergo no need for security).

.

At home my husband wonders about the guidebook to Milano I have bought in lack of food. Well, I am in fact planning a trip to Milano with a friend of mine, as an incentive when we both have lost weight and are back to our 50 something kilos. My husband comments that the Duomo will probably not stand as long as the pyramids.

Hamster

I cannot use the hamster as a weapon anymore as the kids have found out that I am terrified to touch it. So now they are using it against me ! How did this happen ? In one short week I am reduced from a despotic house tyrant to a nervous wreck. Whenever the kids want candy and ice-cream, see Disney channel until midnight, or play Playstation until 02.00 am, they just take the hamster out of the cage and start walking towards me. There is a lot of running in the house at the moment. But being Pangloss again, this might be good for my diet.

Night traffic

At most homes the nights are peaceful time. But not at our house, and there are two reasons. My husband’s snoring and the changing preferences for beds. Last night was quite a typical night for us.

20.00 hrs My daughter goes to bed in her room.

20.30 hrs My son goes to bed in his room.

21.30 hrs My son moves to his little sister’s room seeking comfort as he has quite a vivid fantasy at the moment. I am not aware of the empty bed in his room.

23.30 hrs I go to bed in our bedroom.
00.30 hrs My husband joins me.

00.31 hrs I make an sleepy inquiry if we could have sex. My husband refers to the headache that started for 10 years ago. People knowing about my husband’s constant headache (only a very few of my closest friends, quite a few of not so close friends, all my colleagues and ex-colleagues and a huge number of strangers I meet every day while waiting for bus, train or metro) wonder how on earth we have two kids and the answer is in now an almost 32 years old embarrassment. As a 10-year old on my weekly trip to the library, I had to ask for Märta Tikkanen’s book my mom had ordered, “A man cannot be raped”. It was extremely traumatic and embarrassing for a 10-year old girl having a mom reading a book with that kind of title. I whispered the name to the lady at the library desk, she said irritated “Speak louder” , I wrote the name down on a paper, and then she screamed from the bottom of her lungs to her half deaf colleague in the next room “Mari, has 'A man cannot be raped' arrived ?”. Well, the point is that I have proved this statement wrong. Twice.

00.32 hrs My husband starts snoring.

01.00 hrs I am desperate, I try to suffocate my husband with a pillow. For a second I think I have succeeded as the snoring sound seems to disappear. Then I hear a weird echo of the snoring and see a snorkel pop up on left side of the pillow.

01.30 hrs I am even more desperate. I try to strangle my husband but either my hands have gotten smaller or my husband’s neck thicker. No success.

01.45 hrs This is enough. I go to the hall, find our neighbor’s key in the drawer, and leave the house. I tiptoe to the neighbors, open the door, but somebody is snoring quite heavily there, too. So no chance of sleeping on their couch (our couch is too close to the bedroom). Instead I go to their study and take Mr B’s shotgun from the closet.

02.00 hrs I am back in our bedroom. I aim carefully and shoot my husband on the breast. The hamster wakes up, but my husband keeps on snoring. He is wearing a bulletproof vest under his pyjamas.

02.05 hrs I give up and decide to find out if there would be a bed available somewhere else in the house. In the living room I am about to collide with my daughter who is on her way to our bed. In the last second I make a quick maneuver to the left and avoid the collision.

02.07 hrs I have a look in my son’s room. Bingo ! An empty bed.
03.00 hrs My son leaves our daughter’s room and goes to our bedroom.

04.00 hrs My husband finds our double bed crowded with both kids in it now and goes to my daughter’s room.

So in the morning I wake up in my son’s bed, my husband in our daughter’s bed and the kids in our double bed. Somebody might be wondering about the truthfulness of this story. But as I have told, every word in this blog is true, just as I remember it. Sleeping very poorly for the past ten years might though have affected my brain so much that I sometimes mix fantasy and reality.