Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm not sure how I feel about Thanksgiving anymore. When I still lived in California, it was one of my favorite holidays. A day where you get to hang out with people who are important to you, and eat as much good food as is humanly possible - there is nothing not to like in that concept. In my family, it was and is a special day, spent either at home with a good home-cooked traditional meal, or in recent years on occasion in a trendy San Francisco restaurant with a good non-home cooked, not necessarily traditional meal.

When I first moved to Portugal, I worked and socialized with some Americans, and we had Thanksgiving together, going out for a meal after work on the day and/or having a larger 'official' celebration on a nearby date. In later phases of my Portuguese life, I hosted two of these myself, and learned to cook a turkey (breast...there weren't enough people either time to justify finding a full turkey) with all the fixins. But when I moved to London, I got lax. Yes, the first year, I had people round on the weekend after, and said that it was for Thanksgiving, but I knew that it really wasn't. However, I felt the need to pretend...after all, I had never had a Thanksgiving without an event to go with it. My second November in London, I meant to get some people together, but just never got around to it. Same with the third. But I thought about it.

In Denmark, I again have what could be called a 'local family'. Some of these family members have made it very clear that they would like to experience an 'authentic' Thanksgiving meal, even going so far as to ask me when I would be making them turkey. So, what has this inspired me to do? Nothing! I will get around to it...eventually. Actually, this week, I kept remembering that it was almost Thanksgiving, and then forgetting again. This morning, I was reading an article over the shoulder of one of my students, which mentioned the holiday. I felt obliged to stop the class to tell them (otherwise I would have brought it up quickly at the beginning of the lesson). I suppose it is just another sign that I am on the slippery slope towards permanent expat-ism.

However, that being said, today is still one of my favorite days of the year. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and for those who celebrate it, please, if you can, have a slice of pumpkin pie for me (I really have a craving for it, and no idea where or even if I can find it here), with whipped cream on top. Or maybe a bit of good cranberry sauce. Or fight someone for a piece of turkey skin. I will of course be extremely thankful.

photo credit: http://consumer.senecafoods.com/recipes/images/pumpkinpie1.jpg

Man-stench

Well, I have been enjoying a completely relaxing unproductive evening home by myself, as Thor is out with some friends, enjoying a mandehørm. This translates into English as a 'night out with the guys', or literally as 'man-stench', or as Thor defined it for me, 'mand is of course man, and hørm is, well, when there is something that smells really bad, but I mean really bad.' Yes, it's true, the man with whom I live in sin is right this moment out on a man-stench. The beauty of this is that, not only do I get the house to myself, but I also get to periodically think 'mandehørm'...and just laugh.

Thor doesn't quite get the humor of this. I don't recall his exact words, but there was something to do with 'you're having a lot of fun with this, aren't you,' and 'it's really not that funny'. But, of course, it is! I also had the opportunity to talk to the arranger of this particular 'man-stench' earlier in the evening, and asked him if Thor should show up to the event smelly, or if he would naturally acquire a nasty odor as the evening progressed. For some reason, Andreas seemed to think that my question was rhetorical, I can't imagine why. Unfortunately I wasn't able to speak to the other men participating, on the off chance that they would take my question seriously.

Anyway, here are what I think are the rules for a mandehørm.

1) Dress up, as you might be going bar-hopping, or to a nice restaurant, or to a formal event on Mars. Specifically you must iron a shirt, and then leave the iron and ironing board in the hallway where you can be sure to trip over them when returning home drunk at an ungodly hour of the morning. Ask your non-Danish girlfriend if you should be wearing a tie, as if she knows. When she asks, 'Well, where will you be going?', admit that you have no idea.

2) While ironing, listen to extremely loud German industrial music, so that your girlfriend spends the rest of the evening with 'We're all living in Amerika/Amerika ist wunderbar' going through her head. Don't worry - as you also have a rather scary fondness for disco (and Rammstein is pretty cool), your girlfriend will be more relieved than annoyed.

3) Go out with the guys and try to recreate that Nordic mythological tale where Loke the trickster gets Thor to drink a tankard of beer that turns out to contain an entire ocean. In this way, prove that you ARE the real God of Thunder, and your mother's claim that she named you after Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl is simply not true. Do silly things, but not so silly that you can't tell your girlfriend about them the next day, or that you can't remember them the next day.

4) Come home late and drunk. Manage to get into bed really quietly, and then wake your girlfriend up by snoring loudly. Wake up the next morning with a hangover, and vow to never, ever do it again...until the next time.

Hmmm...that sound like it could be fun...with the right company...any of you ladies in the audience up for a 'kvindehørm' sometime soon?

I am procrastinating. I am a procrastinator.

Yes, I am still the patron goddess of procrastination. I was beginning to doubt this myself, just for a while. For the past couple of months, I have successfully managed my time so that I could go to school full-time, work half-time, and still have a life. I was planning my lessons more in advance than usual, ahead of the reading for my course, and not even that stressed - in fact, compared to how I usually am, I was practically comatose with relaxation. I was even able to read novels and blog a bit. Until I finished the assigned reading for my course that is, and my brain shut down. Now, I can't seem to do anything that I would like to do. My patron goddess status is back, in a big, big, really big way.

The timing of this is not good, though what would be good timing for procrastination? I am attempting to follow the Structured Procrastination approach to counter it, which in essence advises the procrastinator to have lots of different things to do, and to procrastinate some of those things by doing some of the other ones. I do this naturally, as I suspect do many others. And I have lots of stuff to do. A 25-page paper to write (and all of the researching and reading that goes with this, as well as a small experiment which must be planned and carried out). Novels which must be read before the library wants them back. Reading the newspaper in Danish (and reading some in Portuguese wouldn't go amiss either). A cross-stitching project which I have promised to have finished for a cute, friendly, well-mannered 4-year old of my acquaintance by Christmas (well actually by her birthday, which was last week, but I had warned her that it might not be ready until Christmas). Blogging, by which I mean writing actual posts, as well as commenting. Teaching myself HTML. Cooking a bit more than I do now. Cleaning occasionally. And I can't seem to do any of it. Well, or at least not without a lot of stress, nagging and grief before each activity.

Well, now that I've got that out of my system, and in so doing put off doing anything else, it's time to continue with my other work. Let me see, should I cross-stitch in order to avoid studying HTML? Or should I read one of the novels that the library won't let me renew in order to put off reading an article or two for my paper? Ahh, the possibilities, the possibilities are endless.

*Photo: The Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, August, 2005

What kind of pirate am I?

Arrrrr. I have tried to resist, really I have. I believe that too many quizzes shows a lack of creativity on the part of the blogger. Yet at the same time, I have always wanted to be a pirate, but have never found my true pirate nature. Can you not help me? All it will take is one little vote. Your one little vote. Yarr.

You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Happy J-Day!

Halloween is over. Soon it will be Thanksgiving (in the states), and then Christmas. But before we think about those things, please join me in celebrating one of the two biggest days in the Danish calendar, J-dag (J-Day in English). The 'J' is because this is the official day when Julebryg, or Christmas brew, will be available. At 8:59 this evening, to be exact. Yes, in a little under 2 hours from now, Danes will be able to forego drinking regular Carlsberg and Tuborg, and opt instead for the Christmas versions, which I've been told are heavier than the normal fare. They also have a higher alcohol content, explaining a lot about the Danish Christmas lunch (which I'll surely cover in a post of its own). Billboards and posters announcing the date have been up for a while now, so that no one need miss the opportunity for a first-day bottle out of ignorance. The only day that can even sort of match this is P-dag, which is when the Easter (påske) beer comes on the market.

It's hard for me to get too worked up over this day as I truly detest beer. Or, as I say to Danes (who tend to think that not liking beer is a sign of serious insanity), by not drinking beer, I am performing a social service, ensuring that there is more beer for others. So, it is up to you in the blogging world to help me give this day its true value. If you are a beer drinker, please have a beer, for me, and think of Christmas and 5 million drunken Danes. Thank you. I really appreciate it!

*copyright info for the picture: http://www.ratebeer.com/PictureCredits.asp