Sometimes soccer takes precedence...

I haven't posted in eons. I've been becoming a Dane again - I've been watching loads and loads of soccer. Ahem - football, I should say, as I have now returned to my snooty European roots.

And it's been great.

Recently, at work, I sang the national anthem with a 93-year-old woman before a game against Ukraine, while I was helping her get her socks and shoes off. That evening I drove home on my bike in tears. There's something so beautiful about an old woman singing the national anthem with a 20-year old fart-factory worker like me.

Also my new boyfriend is helping in an impressive way. I'm learning so much - and I'm starting to see the beauty and intelligence behind this game more and more. I saw him play yesterday for the first time - his team won 10-1. I love the fact that that is a boring game... and this is something I've discussed with many Americans. A soccer match in which the final score is 0-0 can be a helluva lot more fun to watch than a 3-2 game. Give me 0-0 any day if I see some fun tricks played on the other team - that, and not goals, is what wins respect in my mind.

Yesterday Football Club Copenhagen (FCK) played against our arch nemesis (I always want to say enemesis..sounds so much cooler) Brøndby. My boyfriend Mikkel is a Brøndby fan. I didn't seriously consider breaking up with him when I found out... but I was pretty bummed.

And that mentality is just so cool. Danes don't like to accent their own gifts and capabilities. One never says "I'm pretty smart," but rather, "I'm not dumb." This, though it adds a certain charming touch of shyness to most, generally bothers me. What happens instead, though, is that we're proud of each other - the hometown pride I experience when I see FCK play is indescribable. And that is something I've missed for 8½ years.

Even if they lose 3-1 to Brøndby - Mikkel, of course, was thrilled.

Did I mention that I'm in love?

Taxes and welfare and work - Oh My!

www.glyf.dk will be my new blog address sometime in the not too far, not too near future. This blogger thing is immensely boring... I want to post pictures, but in order to do so, I have to download some sort of a chat program. Confusing.

At Bard I was always known as the Danish girl (or at least I assume so...?) and back home I've, for the past 8½ years, been known as some sort of ex-Dane, a traitor - an American.

And for the past few weeks, I've had to get to know my country again.

First of all, I'm paying taxes like you would never think possible. Lack of picture-posting abilities (and lack of a scanner, too, but that's my fault, and who wants to blame oneself?) keeps me from showing you my actual paycheck, but I thought you might find this amusing:

In the past two weeks, I worked 47½ hours. Out of those hours, some are paid regularly, some have evening/weekend bonuses added in.

Point is, I make between 17 dollars and 26 dollars an hour. Not too shabby! I even get 25 cents an hour for tear on my work clothes.

SO:

Pay: $855.82
Tear on clothes: $11.69
ATP*: - $4.36
Pay Before Tax: $863.16
8% Working Tax¤: - $68.89

Now I've got $794.27

*ATP is an amount of money I pay to the government, so that people working within the health sector, like me, who do not have a job, can receive wellfare. I think. Really, I'm not sure.
¤ This is a tax only working people have to pay. It covers some of the costs of welfare and what not.

From the 794 bucks, there's a certain part of which I don't have to pay taxes. Whatever that percentage is - it comes out to be about $250.00

That leaves me with:

A taxable $542.64 x 39% = -$211.51

I earned: $ 855.82
I end up with: $582.75


I'm feeling very poor right about now. I'm going to go find some pork or something - that'll cheer me up.

No SMS

Ignore the SMS thing.

 It doesn't fucking work. It has cost me quite the amount of money SMSing Jean-Pierre (who's moved to SF), so I've been looking for a cheaper (read: free) alternative. The word "bogus" comes to mind.

 My grandmother died. Thus I haven't written. I apologize. I was sad. No more about that.

 I've been on a cooking adventure the last few days and it's been awesome cause my dad hasn't been home. Thus if it fails, I just make sandwiches. P-Diddy (That's my dad. His name his Peter. Nickname "P." I thought it was fitting. He gets a kick out of it) is now the night nurse at a home for mentally and physically handicapped people.

 And on that side note - people might experience vomitus proximus at the thought of wiping old people's asses (I totally got farted on today in the midst of an anus-cleansing) and wiping snot off their walls (my limit was almost reached that day... poo over snot ANY day), but I could never imagine myself in a home where people have absolutely no means of communicating. The word "vegetable" really fits my father's clientele. We're talking about people whose intestines are paralized along with the rest of their bodies: shit galore. All over the fucking place. When they attempt to eat, 90% of their food reaches walls, windows, nurses... whichever. And the 10% of what actually DOES enter their mouth, goes straight down to the lungs... no such thing as a working epiglottis in a completely paralyzed person. Which of course results in hacking up the 10% food and other cute bits from the lungs.

 Not gross. But fucking depressing. I think I'd wither away in a place like that. Fortunately my father is the night nurse - he just has to change diapers and turn people and stuff. Seriously - I'd kill myself if I had to watch 40 people without ANY meaning in their life day out and day in.

 My hat off for those people who can. You are true heroes.

 Back to the food. Currently I'm waiting for my quiche-dough to "relax" in the fridge. I boiled a ham (Denmark: we've got more pigs than people. I'm not even lying.) yesterday in water with laurel leaves, lavender, and peppercorn. Was frightfully good with lots of mustard - made ratatouille on the side. I'm using the rest of the ham for a spinach, walnut, ham quiche which will be served with a beet and feta salad.

Fuck yeah.

 

I'm sending you an SMS...

Send en SMS-besked via www.sendsms.dk:
Mobilnummer :
Dit navn :
Besked :

Plug in my cell phone number, which is.. (ahem, it's eight numbers..)

1+1 3+3 3+4 4+5 3+3 3+4 4+5 4+5



and then your name and a message. It's free!

Why pee when you can poop?

I had my first day of work today.

For those of you who don't know, I've been hired as a nurse's aide (in Danish, socialist terms: a social and health assistant) at a nursing home about ten minutes from my apartment. 'About ten minutes' meaning about 35 minutes - walking. Here, everything is calculated in bike minutes. And ten minutes it took me this morning to get to work; I was due at 7:30. There is something simply fantastic about being up that early. It's now 4 in the afternoon and I feel as if I've lived through three days already. And with the amount of old vaginas I saw today - I think I might actually have aged the aforementioned three days. Working at a nursing home is both exhilarating, depressing, challenging, and disgusting. So many diapers. So much talk about poop and pee - the poop is totally cool with me, but the pee gets annoying. Most of the old people love to poop - probably because they know it's a fucking hassle to change their diapers when it's been a soft day. But the pee - now there's a problem. We have to get the residents (we're not allowed to call them patients - it all has to be as homey as possible) to drink at least a liter of fluid a day. That's a lot. See, old people don't want to drink - cause then they have to pee. And by peeing, you don't really get people as dirty as you could if you pooped and if you do it where you're supposed to, no one gets angry. No one! And you have to be brought from wheelchair to toilet by various machines, depending on your weight and standing-capabilities. And where is the fun in that? That's right! No fun! It's all about pooping instead of peeing. Which leaves the nurses and nurse's aides to squeeze them for every last little drop they have. Goddamn you, urine!

I knew it all along: there has been a reason for my obsession with poop. I'm getting ready to grow old.

I, too, have become a nerd.

After playing a card game called "Chez Nerd" with my sister Louise and her boyfriend Martin this evening, I decided that I cannot hide. "I AM a nerd," I decided. I also decided something else.

I needed a blog.

Which is to say, I've moved from the land of big to a land that we Danes call "The Duck Pond." And it's hard to keep in touch. And somewhere, I figure, there's at least a handful of people who have an interest in my day - which is just a fantastic concept to begin with.

Now that I've accepted my newer, higher level of Nerd (it all started with Vampire: The Masquerade sometime in ninth grade), I'm wondering how often I will actually post. I give myself exactly a month - if I don't post at least once a week, it's game over.

So today, before I decided to increase my level, I also became a Danish person again. I went and registered at the Frederiksberg City Hall - free health care and 45% taxes are comin' my way and I'm totally excited. While I was there, I was complimented three times on my Danish, which made me feel kind of odd.

I was apprehensive at first - how the hell do you respond to that kind of compliment? "Yeah, thanks, I practice at home in front of the mirror - and I always cursed in Danish Over There , just to, you know, keep up with the Mother Tongue."

Meanwhile, I couldn't remember the word for "foam" the other day and told my cousin I have a sofa made out of marshmellows.