Escape from Grey Gardens

In Danish, that's: Mit luftpudefartøj er fyldt med ål.

I don't know how I stumbled on this site, but here's how to say "My hovercraft is full of eels" in just about any language. Now that so happens to be one of my favorite Python sketches.

I got a Danish phrasebook, and I hope it's more trustworthy than John Cleese's phrasebook. However, I seem to sound like I am chewing marbles whilst parodying Bergman movies, which aren't even the right language, when I try to say things from it. I've been told repeatedly I don't need to do this, English is widely spoken, but why miss the opportunity at least to try?

Anyway we are off tomorrow. I had to repack after I looked at the weather forecast: lows in the 50s, brrrrr. It's been in the mid nineties every day here all summer, so that's quite an adjustment.

Packing has been a bitch because due to the great remodeling project everything I have to wear is in weird places, and I can't find anything. Little things like the European plug adapter--why can't that stay in the place I know I put it? Packing is another kind of bitch since I have to go to this conference with European scholars whom in my mind are ultra chic--of course they aren't, well, most of them aren't--I learned that in Aix last year. Still it's difficult to pack light for work and stuff like biking around Hven. Likely it will rain a lot.

The phone is still broken. That's the third "promised repair time" not met. The car is fixed; it was only the battery, thank heaven. None of the dogs has been sick again, so whatever it was, um, passed. The reno project is progressing at a snail's pace, but then I knew that going in. The fleas are abated, although we have only been able to put a flea collar on one of the kitties, the brave one, Edie or Shackleton, and it wasn't easy. The other one got really angry when I tried to grab her/him and now won't let me touch him/her. It looks like they are staying. We got hooked up with a feral cat program that will loan us a trap so we can catch them, get them to a vet, get them fixed and get them shots. They ask for a donation which I will gladly give. It feels good to have a plan in place, also to know the next kitties who get dumped here will have options besides animal control, that death sentence. It will be nice to know if they are male or female so I can stop calling them "Edie or Shackleton" and "Cinclare or Dixie"--they must be more confused than me. They have killed a couple of wrens, I suspect, I found a wad of feathers on the porch. I hope we can nip that in the bud. But, they are, face it, feral.

All that adds up to leaving with some loose ends, but if I waited to tie them up, I'd never get out of here, and even if I could tie them all up, no doubt more would appear. Time to escape from Grey Gardens.

I am taking the heavier-than-sin yet oh so pretty powerbook, so hope to blog from there, if the apartment really does have internet and I can manage to connect through it. One of my flat-mates is on the same flights; the other is going up to Jutland first then catching up with us Wednesday. We have to go through Memphis and Amsterdam. I hate that we have 4 hours to stew in Amsterdam, but that's how it worked out. It's not enough time to go anywhere and it's too much time to wait. Out of curiosity I Kayaked our flight plan this morning and it's up to over 3 grand, yikes. I'm in for 1200 which I thought was not great, especially considering the 2 stops, but not horrendous.

Next entry, should be from Copenhagen.