Keys

Poor John. In Denmark we would let him play with our keys when we returned from a trip out. All the doors in our little flat had key holes and he could entertain himself for about a half hour pretending to unlock doors.

And then we arrived in America and suddenly key rings included rubbery buttons that were just perfect for chubby little toddler fingers – as John discovered early one morning when he climbed silently out of his Pack ‘n’ Play at 6:00am.

A loud car alarm went off. My Dad got up to investigate a minute or so later and found John standing at the door, keys in hand, brow furrowed with concern.

“HONK,” John said imitating this new noise that was just introducing itself into his Toddler World. “HONK. HONK.”

Now his old fun toy is off limits. Poor John.

An Ode to Apple

Our laptop is taking a week-long vacation at a nearby Apple Store for a few hardware and cosmetic concerns. This is all being done for free since my beloved MacBook is still under warranty. I love Apple - especially their great service.

I've been stewing over a few retrospectives that I hope to post here when MacBook is safely home again. (Look out. She's going to get all "deep" and "philosophical.")

Until then.

Snakes on a Plane

From the moment we found out Michael had the Fulbright I was dreading the flight back to the States knowing John would be almost two. It's just not the best age for flying. Bless their hearts and all that. But I became more hopeful when we got a flight that left Copenhagen at 3:30pm rather than the normal crack-of-dawn flight. This way John's bedtime would fall right in the middle of the nine-hour transatlantic flight. I wasn't worried about James since it's super easy to fly with kids who aren't yet mobile and who are still breastfed. Nurse them during take off and landing to protect their ears, and then the hum of the plane puts them to sleep. Easy-peasy.

We get our four carry-ons, car seat and stroller on the plane in record time, switch seats with a Very Kind Guy so we can all sit together in back middle row of the plane, and start to breath easy. And then discover the one thing John wants to do more than anything is kick the seat of the Very Kind Guy who is now front of us. We pulled out all the new toys we had saved to entertain John on the flight. We plugged him into Horton Hears A Who. We tried distracting him and threatening him. We each took a foot and held it. Four hours later, Very Kind Guy was into his sixth glass of wine and John finally fell asleep. I hope he knew we were doing everything we could think of.

To every person who has had a small child kick the back of their seat on a long international flight, I apologize.

The rest of the journey was physically taxing, but uneventful. We made it through customs in O'Hare at what felt like midnight to all four of us without incident. My first order of business after getting our ridiculous amount of baggage through customs, finding our way to the domestic gate and calling my mother was to buy a super-sized, corn syrup filled, icy cup of McDonalds Coke.

It tasted like America.

Doctor Who

Almost six years ago Michael started his doctoral journey and it all cumulated today with the defense of his dissertation. In between the beginning and the end were two masters degrees (one for each of us), two children, three moves – one of them abroad, one Fulbright, rich times, poor times and the better part of our 20-something life. And Michael celebrated, as only he can, with a bucket of chicken and Blue Bell ice cream.

These Choices

This generally tends to be a transitional time of year for our family since we seem to be forever wed to the academic calendar. I've been thinking a lot about choices lately; choosing to support a partner through grad school, choosing to have a child, choosing the hope of future successes doing what you love over short term security, choosing to leave a wonderful job to run off and live in Europe, choosing to have another child and, oh, have him in another country. I've often thought we never seem to do life the easy way but I honestly wouldn't change anything if I had it to do over again (other than leaving for the hospital about 23 minutes earlier).

The Big Fear about coming here to Denmark was that the philosophy job market would fail Michael and we'd be stuck on the exit end of the Fulbright without anything to go home to. Looking for work in academe is a cold, soul-crushing process that defies all other norms in real world job searches. Suffice it to say that it hasn't been an easy year in that respect. But there is a job waiting for us when we go back and it just so happens that we somehow managed to end up one small town over from the city we left last August in a job market were you go where the job is and hope you don't end up in the one place you swore you'd never live.

We have a plane ticket home and a place to go. Our adventure here ends June 10.

Friends Like These

On Monday I got to tag along with Michael and the rest of his Fulbright colleagues for a tour of the Danish Parliament by a top member of the Danish Social Democratic party and a dinner later that evening. As a former Political Science undergrad, I ate up getting an inside look at the Danish parliamentarian government. And the dinner afterward with a side of great conversation with a collection of Fulbright scholars and American embassy diplomats was a real treat. All of this was made possible by our friends Robyn and Joel who spent a huge chunk of a busy Monday workday playing with, chasing after and changing the many diapers of my two little people.

One thing I've really come to appreciate about expat living is how quickly and how strongly connections between people who sometimes share little besides their nationality develop. People are naturally drawn toward those who are like themselves - single, married, married with kid, married with multiple kids all in middle school, single parent with high school kid who doesn't take school seriously, married parents with kid in college who has troublesome boyfriend, etc. - though we miss out when we segregate ourselves like this.

Within the next 18 months or so it's likely that we'll move into a completely new American community where we have no ties to family or friends. I tend to think it's unlikely that I'll find another working, childless couple who will take time off work to volunteer their babysitting services so a stay-at-home mom can spend time out with her husband and his colleagues. Sadly the thought never crossed my mind when I was in a similar position before we started popping out the kiddies.

Thanks Robyn and Joel!

Firsts

It's funny how one day can encompass so many firsts.

Like the first time I sat up all night with a fussy baby. Poor James was not feeling well for some reason and seemingly could only find comfort in the arms of his parents. So he and I cuddled the night away with me catching a few catnaps whenever he was able to find a few stretches of relief from whatever it was that was troubling him.

Or the first time I lost one of my children in a public place. John, James and I were in the toy store at the mall. Fueled by hunger and the weariness preceding naptime, John didn’t want to return to his stroller and ran to the back of the store. With James strapped to me in the Snuggli, I turned to grab the stroller and started toward the back of the store after him. And then quickly back to the front. No sign of John. Five minutes or an eternity later I found him three stores down right before he ran into the pet store to visit with the birds.

Or the first real snow of the winter. Here it is St. Patrick’s Day and instead of green beer we have a couple of inches of snow. It snowed all afternoon and I got to enjoy it in the best possible way: inside my warm apartment, with hot drinks, snuggly babies and a big pot of hot soup.

Speedy Baby James: A Birth Story

I have distinct memories during this pregnancy of three separate people telling me that the second birth is much faster than the first. They weren’t kidding.

They tell you labor is never how you expect it to be. With John I imagined a horribly long, unpredictable labor, and it ended up being a textbook labor that only lasted 12 hours. With James I was expecting the same experience except perhaps shorter. Ha. There was almost nothing about this labor that mirrored my first.

This birth can pretty much be summed up as “Zero to 140.” With zero being me sitting on my bed watching an episode of Veronica Mars while having mild contractions and 140 being the speed in kilometers per hour the cab was going down the Danish interstate about an hour later; me in the backseat trumpeting at the top of my voice, "I CANNOT HAVE A BABY IN A CAB! I CANNOT HAVE A BABY IN A CAB!"

The morning of my due date Michael and I got to sleep in until 9:30a because my sister Rachel had arrived two days before and took care of John when he got up at 6:00. Rachel and I made plans to stop by the mall before my midwife appointment at 1:00p. I started feeling a little crampy around 10:30 or 11:00 – around the time we started our half-mile walk to the mall.

We had lunch at Amager Centret and then walked a few blocks over to the midwife’s office. Camilla (my regular midwife) was on vacation so I saw her substitute. We had a brief talk about how Danes handle post-dates; at 10 days post-date you go to the hospital for a vaginal check and then at 14 days post-date they induce. Then she palpitated the baby who was still right-lying – and told me she could still move the head a bit which indicated it wasn’t quite engaged – typical of second pregnancies. She estimated James was about 3900 grams – or about 8 pounds 8 ounces.

We were planning to stop back by the mall on the way home so Rachel could go to H&M, but John had a diaper blowout so we headed home. I was kind of glad because I was feeling more crampy and uncomfortable. We got home at 2:00p and I was happy to see Michael was already back from the library where he had been working on some dissertation changes. John and Rachel both laid down for a nap. I was pretty sure at this point I was having true contractions that were going to amount to something later. I puttered around for a bit folding laundry, putting a few last things in my hospital bag and checking email. Michael was encouraging me to lie down but I told him I didn’t feel like it, so we settled on watching Veronica Mars while he insisted on timing my contractions. So we watched two episodes back-to-back; when I felt a contraction starting I would tap him on the leg, he’d start the stopwatch and then stop it when I tapped him again. We never paused the show though I started to ask him to put counter-pressure on my lower back at some point during the second episode.

Around 4:00p, John was up from his nap and, even though he wasn’t being disruptive, I really didn’t want to be around him in anticipation of the harder contractions to come. Michael and I moved into the bedroom and watched another episode while Rachel entertained John in the living room. Toward the end of the episode, I had to close my eyes and focus during contractions. Once the show ended close to 5:00p, Michael told me the contractions were floating around 45-60 seconds long and 5-6 minutes apart. Two weeks before Camilla told me to call in to the clinic when contractions were about 60 seconds long, 5 minutes apart and had been that way for about an hour. I decided to call in, though I thought it was a bit premature, in part because I felt like we needed to leave. The clinic picked up and told me to call the Hospital because they were so busy. This perturbed me, surprisingly not because I was so interested in doing the whole Danish birth clinic thing, but because I had this nagging feeling we really needed to leave.

I spoke with a hospital-side midwife who suggested that we wait another hour, though she made it clear we could come if we felt we should – just that we should call again before we left. I hung up the phone and immediately had two much stronger contractions much closer together that I moaned a bit through. I told Michael it was time to go and he immediately called a cab. I remember trying to give John a hug and kiss – he was playing with Rachel’s iPod and ran into the bedroom to show me. Then I called the midwife back and told her we were on our way.

I stepped into my Crocs and decided to use the bathroom before we left. While I was sitting there I felt like I needed to pass gas and then suddenly my water broke with a small pop and I realized that what I was really feeling was an urge to push just as I launched into a huge transitional contraction. Michael called out that the cab was there. I yelled at him to shut up. He came to the door and asked what was wrong. I expressed at the top of my voice that I was having a contraction, roared loudly and cried that I didn’t want John to see me like this. Michael later told me that he rolled his eyes at Rachel to let her know I was just freaking out and not to think anything was wrong.

I was completely torn by the strong urge to not move and the equally strong urge to get to the hospital as fast as we possibly could. But I hustled into the calf-length, black wool London Fog coat my friend Robyn gave me – the only coat that somewhat covered my baby belly – and charged down the stairs toward the cab. I called out for the cab driver and Michael to hurry and launched into another mind blowing contraction right as the wheels started to roll. It felt like I’d been picked up by a tornado.

The next 20 minutes are fragments of memories – holding myself off the seat with my arms and leaning toward my right side because it hurt too much to sit; waiting endlessly for the cab driver to turn left onto Amagerbrogade dodging bikes and two lanes of rush hour traffic; Michael patting my leg and telling me to relax; my expressing every thought that came into my head at the loudest possible volume; WE’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT; I CANNOT HAVE A BABY IN A CAB; I CANNOT HAVE A BABY IN A CAB; a car driving slowly and then stopping in the middle of the road blocking us; the cab driver honking insistently; between contractions my praying that God would make them move and get us to the hospital; the cab driver jumping out the car and telling the driver the situation before the punk finally drove off; blazing down the interstate; MY BODY IS PUSHING THE BABY OUT; I CAN FEEL THE BABY’S HEAD; I CAN’T STOP IT; Michael telling me that I’m doing a great job and we’re almost there; the contraction stops and I think "Yes, we will make it. Everything will be ok"; I drop my head back on Michael’s shoulder and see the most beautiful piece of Copenhagen sunset sky; I CAN FEEL THE BABY’S HEAD; OH GOD; I reach down and can feel the baby’s head crowning; I CAN FEEL THE BABY’S HEAD; IT’S RIGHT THERE; Michael calmly telling me that’s good because the stretching will keep me from tearing - we’re almost there - here’s the exit - you’re doing a great job; I struggle to follow my Bradley labor training – low pitched roars, allowing my body to do it’s work – yet doing so only seems to make the baby advance even more quickly down the birth canal; THE BABY IS COMING; I feel the ring of fire and pull off one of my pants legs and half of my underwear; I FEEL THE HEAD; the baby’s head is out and my palm is around it; the cab suddenly pulls up to the maternity wing of the hospital and the cab driver jumps out and runs in for assistance; THE BABY NEEDS TO BE BORN NOW; GET SOMEBODY; THE BABY NEEDS TO BE BORN NOW; Michael looks over and sees James’ head and shoulders, realizing for the first time what I was getting at when I said "The baby’s head is right there," then jumps out of the cab to run around to my side.

In those few seconds alone, I was suddenly gripped with the notion that I needed to push the baby out IMMEDIATELY and voluntarily pushed for the first time. James plopped out onto my coat just as Michael opened the door on the other side. Michael picked him up and handed James to me, and to my immense relief he immediately started to cry. I could see from the light in the cab that he was pink and healthy, and he quickly calmed.

A nurse entered the cab behind me and rubbed James with a towel and piled more towels on him to keep him warm. They brought a stretcher to my side of the cab and helped me maneuver around my coat, the part of my pants that were still on and the umbilical cord. We were rolled down the hall into a delivery room, with me holding a quiet James close as I watched the ceiling tiles pass above my head and sighed a huge sigh of relief. Relief that James was fine; that labor was over; that we were in the competent hands of medical professionals.

.

Ten days before James’ birth I read a fascinating blog post from a Brooklyn midwife about how the taxicab birth narrative can shape other women’s childbirth plans. Everyone seemingly has a friend of a friend who has given birth in a cab and it can fundamentally form their choice of homebirth or hospital birth, how they prepare for labor and delivery, etc. To be honest, I am somewhat compelled to tell this story in so much detail because I feel the need to justify the fact that I DID end up having a baby in a taxicab. I consider myself to be fairly ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding and being prepared for childbirth; from taking independent childbirth classes to reading extensively about birth to having experienced an unmedicated childbirth once before. Yet I was still surprised by the overwhelming force that is childbirth; unpredictable, powerful and unharnessed. And its ability to go from nothing to something in the blink of an eye.

But I also should say that as much as I was overwhelmed by the speed and uncontrollable force of James’ arrival, I sit here days later still unable to be "traumatized" by the experience. It was extremely uncomfortable bouncing along in the back of a cab during transition and my body’s involuntary second stage pushing, but being knowledgeable about the birth process helped considerably in my ability to control the one thing I could control about the whole experience – my reaction to it. It helped me focus when I was frantic. And I had some notion of what was normal and abnormal about delivery that gave me some peace of mind that James was ok even if he was exiting my body at 140 kilometers per hour.

I am a little sorry that I missed out on trying the labor tub. Not sorry enough to wish that I had been in labor much longer though.

Trial by Up-Chuck

Today my little blond toddler is 18 months old and today he came down with his first 24 hour stomach flu. We spent a lot of time sitting on the floor this afternoon, alternately cuddling and my attempting to shove a plastic bowl under his chin at the increasingly familiar sound of approaching up-chuck. I ended up batting .250 for the day.

I'm not the most patient person but for some reason taking care of my sick child - even a vomiting one - isn't such a chore. He's still just a baby and he feels bad. And there is something a teeny bit gratifying about the fact that just being there can make him feel that much better.

And a big kudos to Michael for cutting his day of dissertation writing short to pick up supplies on his way home, holding John until he fell sleep and then heading out in the rain with a IKEA bag full of soiled laundry. He's a keeper.

Advent

Advent is an important part of lead up to Christmas here in Denmark. My churches back home would usually have advent candles that we would light during the four advent Sunday's but the notion of advent being a time of waiting and preparation was never impressed upon me very deeply. Here many of the Christmas traditions are built around advent such as Danes tend to not put up their Christmas trees until the 23rd or even 24th, and the unveiling of the tree is a central part of the Christmas celebration. And the advent wreaths are large and exquisitely beautiful.

Perhaps this season of advent meant a bit more to us this year in part because we're in the midst of a period of waiting for Providence in our own life. Michael left the day after Christmas to fly back to the States for the annual philosophy conference where he presented a paper and interviewed for jobs. And the waiting to find out what the future holds for us post-June continues.

Preparation

This has been a week of preparation (and thus my lack of posting). Lots of cookie and yeast roll baking, trying to finish up the last of those advent ornaments before Christmas, washing sheets for our friend Kristi who is coming in from Belarus to spend the holiday's with us and (for once in my life!) actually taking the time to relax over a cup of coffee with a friend less than a week before Christmas.

And, if you must know, making three of those ElfYourself flash do-dads. A little early Christmas gift for my family and my in-laws from the four of us.

Mental Mud

There are about eleven ideas for a blog post floating around in my head but I am finding that I lack the mental energy to make much of those ideas. We have had a full, fun week of Christmas shopping, dinner with friends and other special projects in addition to the normal every day. And now it's 7:25p and I can barely find it within myself to form a grammatical sentence let alone try to describe the lovely scene of Copenhagen in winter twilight that I was able to experience recently.

I can tell you that John said his first non-consecutive two syllable word on Tuesday. "Apple."

Hello, Internets. I am tired.

It's 5:00PM here in Copenhagen and already pitch dark. It feels more like 8:30PM. Michael asked if I wanted him to turn on the Glorified Toaster Oven to bake our dinner biscuits and it sounded like a reasonable idea until I realized it was 4:45PM. It seems like we should celebrate the big 3-0 before we take up the eating habits of Florida's senior citizen population.

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment so I packed in a bunch of housekeeping into one day. Two loads of laundry, one mushroom stew, one golden cream of potato soup, one vacuumed apartment, two separate shopping trips, one teething toddler and the washing of approximately 72 dirty dishes later and I'm ready to call it a night.

I have been trying a number of new recipes lately. One of my very favorites is this great recipe for vegetarian chili that my graduate school/church friend Elizabeth posted recently on her blog. I didn't have any chili powder so I substituted with various things including two red hot chili peppers and a teaspoon of ground red pepper. Needless to say it had enough heat to keep us warm despite temperatures being in the windy mid-40s.

Oh! The Places We (May) Go!

The JFP came out last Wednesday. Michael has been working nonstop since then tailoring pre-written cover letters, CVs and writing samples to 57 different schools. He just mailed off the last of them yesterday morning. As in Monday. As in about 120 hours after the list came out. And we're both pretty tired from the effort of it all.

The wonderful, crackerjack of a department secretary at ol' State U. is mailing out the bulk of Michael's application packet: teaching portfolio, transcripts, recommendation letters and so forth. Michael had all of that material to her well before we left for Denmark and all recommendation letters were in by October 1 so the packet has been ready to go for over two weeks. All this makes my organization-loving soul so proud of my man.

People keep asking me what my preferences are and at this point I hardly see the wisdom in picking my top five out of those 57 jobs. I'm going to wait to see where he has first round interviews and then I may start thinking about it. Well, I mean, of course I've thought about it but I'm not getting my hopes up.

The JFP

Wednesday is a pretty big day if you're a graduate student or newly minted PhD in the academic discipline of philosophy. On October 10th the JFP - Jobs for Philosophers - list is released by the American Philosophical Association. While I did the MA and have friends who have careers in academia and did my part to recruit law professors for my old employer, I am slowly gathering that the college and university philosophy job market is a whole different beast.

There is a blog out there written by three philosophy grad students called Philosophy Job Market that Michael found a few months back that gives a decent glimpse into the madness. The blog somehow manages to be both obscenely hilarious and deeply troubling from the perspective of our own job search. (I say "our" because this is a family endeavor. And it will likely determine where we'll live for at least the next 5-10 years.) I comfort myself by telling anyone that will listen that the reason these grad students from this decent philosophy program haven't found jobs yet is because they have fundamentally unemployable qualities. Like bad b-o. Or dandruff the size of snowflakes. And you can tell this from their CV alone because the paper smells and dandruff floats out of their application packet. And the good people at Nor'eastern Nebraska figure they have enough philosophy professors with huge dandruff and bad b-o already.

When Michael asked my Dad for his permission to marry me (oh, the patriarchy!), reportedly my Dad's primary question was exactly how many jobs there are in philosophy. Let's say the number was 4,289 jobs every year. That may not seem bad until you consider the 21,425 desperate people applying for those jobs. Good thing we've been married for five years now. No take backs, Dad.

Open Letters

We've been here a month and it's starting to settle in that this isn't just a really long vacation. With the overarching message being "I miss you all," a few letters:

Dear Mom,

You’d really like the coffee here. We were told at the Fulbright orientation that Danes like their coffee “strong and often” and it made me think of you. I finally found the seconds bin at Royal Copenhagen. Rather than a single coffee mug costing $80, it’s discounted to $40 as a second.

*
Dear Monday night group (the Bible study we belonged to for five years),

Monday nights just aren’t the same without you all and Angela’s soups. We have the picture you gave us from our going away party in a prominent place in our living room. It’s even more special because somehow it is the only picture we brought with us from the states. We’re praying for you all.
*
Dear Guinever and Elizabeth,

A church friend of mine here who has been feeding me information about the Danish maternity system told me last week that you can opt to have a home birth if you’d rather not have your baby in the hospital or birthing center. The midwife will come to your house, set up a tub and help you birth your baby; all on the Danish government’s dime! Can you imagine? It was such a sharp contrast to it being practically illegal to have a home birth back home. Guinever, are you sure you don’t want to come to Denmark in February to be my doula again?
*
Dear Cooking Club,

Michael is making Uncle Ricky’s Texas Chili tonight with ground pork since it’s so cheap here. I cooked a traditional Danish dish with ground veal this week. I felt guilty about the baby cow but, wow, that is tender meat. I ran across a soup recipe that needed a chinois strainer for the preparation. Another cooking instrument that I’ve only known Phil to own. ;)
*
Dear Doherty,

Can you believe that UK v. UofL game???


Love to all,
Rebekah

Remembering

It's odd being here in Denmark and not in the States on September 11th. It all seems very far away. Much further than usual from my undergrad senior political economics class and the phone call from Michael in Texas six years ago.

Wash on Monday, Wash on Tuesday…

My first three days of stay-at-home motherhood has basically been dominated by trying to do the laundry. Today is the two-week anniversary of our arrival in Copenhagen and as of this weekend we were starting to feel the underwear shortage. We finally got in touch with the lady in the building who has the magic laundry tokens, and bright and early Monday morning, John helped me sort out four piles of laundry (help meaning joyfully fling socks and shirts around) after which we set off to find the washing machine in the basement.

It took three separate trips up and down the narrow corkscrew backstairs to find the laundry room, but it was finally located in the unlit basement hallway and I put in the first load. Things got a little complicated after that. I can’t read Danish yet and, of course, all the washing machine settings are in Danish so I guessed my way through picking the settings. Thus my first two loads came out with soap all over them. I finally found the right setting and completed two loads on Monday. There is no dryer so I either hung the clothes outside on a clothesline under one of the bike shelters, or lugged the wet laundry upstairs to hang on drying racks in the apartment.

Monday was exhausting because half the time I was carrying John with me during these trips up and down the stairs and he’s a solid 23lbs. Tuesday I wised up and worked out this system:

8:00a – Carry John, laundry and soap to basement to start first load. Rather than walking back up all stairs to apartment, walk up short flight to courtyard where John plays for 20-30 minutes while I recover from our first little adventure.

10:00a – John goes down for a nap.

10:02a – Carry second load down to basement. Take first load to courtyard and hang to dry.

10:20a – Collapse on couch and moan about how much my legs ache.

11:00a – John has approximately 30 minutes left to nap. Go to basement and hang second load before he wakes up.

It’s 10:47a now and my very last load for the week is almost ready to hang on the line. That’s because my four piles of laundry were really six loads not counting the two loads I had to run twice. Everything is miniature here including the washing machines.

I remember the good old days when my huge washing machine was right next to my huge dryer and I had to carry my laundry about seven steps to the washing machine. I know, I know… whine, whine, whine… but you have to remember, I am a big, soft American. An active lifestyle for me was purposely parking in the middle of the parking lot, taking the stairs and not going through the drive thru at Starbucks.

Come December when I’m really pregnant, we’ll have to start categorizing our clothes a little differently. “Is this shirt just a little stinky, or does it truly reek? Because I can’t really smell anything so I think you’re good to wear it another day.” Or “You’re not out of underwear. Oh please. Don’t pretend you didn’t reverse it when you were in college.”

Walking

That pretty much sums up my day! We left around 9:30a to get a CPR number (the Danish equivalent of a social security number) and what we thought was going to be a half mile walk turned into a three mile trek. Michael and I were able to register though we're listed as unmarried and since we couldn't prove John was our child, we were unable to register him today. I called Dad and he's going to scan our marriage certificate and John's birth certificate and email them to us later today, so Michael and I will be married and John a legitimate child in the eyes of Denmark.

I spent about three minutes this morning trying to figure out how to turn on our stove. It's a new glasstop, digital range and I final figured out I had to hold down the start button to get it to turn on. Then I tested to see how high the heat would go (9), and also learned this thing heats fast and burned the egg I was poaching. Lucky thing eggs are cheap. Today I started down the road toward becoming a domestic diva by making homemade chicken noodle soup. I'm talking whole raw chicken, skinning the sucker, making my own chicken broth, the works. Tomorrow I'm going to make shrimp salad. Yum!

It's mid-60s here in Copenhagen and I'm going to have a cup of hot chocolate before bed. I just called Kentucky to talk to a friend and it's 100 there. I can't say I miss the weather (yet).