Here is a more detailed story of what has been happening with us at the end of 2010. I have already sent out my Holiday Greeting and kept it short and sweet as was recommended by a newspaper columnist. I'm not to include any stories about health issues in a Christmas card according to her. But at this point in our lives good health is vital to us all and to my story as well. And so here in my blog, I will tell all but keep my X-mas card as neutral, general, mind numbing, and one size fits all - as much as possible. But here on the spaghetti site is where I will spoon all the sauce for you to lap up.
Warning!!! this blog contains vulgarity, obscenities and pornography!! For those of you who like that sort of thing, sorry - you will be disappointed and most likely rate this blog PG-13 at worst. Are you tired but can't sleep? Then this blog is for you. Sitting on the pot but can't poop? Then this blog is for you. In a hurry and got an extra 2 or 3 minutes only to skim? Then this blog is
NOT for you. Seriously - don't try to read this if you haven't got the time. It's a full 9 page print out
without the photos. So don't even try to read all 9 pages on this screen - you'll end up with square bug eyes. Whatever you do - don't skim. You will miss the whole point. If you haven't got the time, it's best to just skip it all together. Go to my picture site instead and just flash yourself a few of my snap shots. Go to:
http://eddiespaghetti.shutterfly.com/
DUCK DUCK GOOSE
We transfer lots of newspapers at the airport and it is my department that has the responsibility of doing so to the papers that are sent as cargo. There are several other companies that also have the same responsibilities of shifting newspapers around from one flight to the other. Our newspapers have a trackable 8 digit airway bill number - just like the
bomb package that was sent from Yemen to the US via Manchester a few weeks ago. The other newspapers without the 8 digit number are collected and transferred by other companies that deal only with newspapers and not cargo.
Among the newspapers that I have to collect, a few of the bundles are USA Today newspapers. Once in a while, the customer that picks up the papers from us, will open a bundle there on the spot and hand me a fresh USA Today because he knows I come from the states. It was on this day - Wednesday, November 24, that I saw an article that reminded me that it is Thanksgiving tomorrow.
There is no Thanksgiving here in Denmark - nor anywhere else in the world for that matter - because it was America that the pilgrims sailed to and gave thanks there or so the story goes. There is however a big bird celebration here on the 10th of November. Bishop Morten Day. I notice that quite often I am telling the story to the Danes about what the day is for. I tell the story the way it was told to me. Looking up more info on the Internet is not so easy and rather confusing. What I learned is that in other European countries, Bishop Morten is Bishop Martin or St. Martin which may seem to be a more familiar name to you.
In short, Morten, who is now consider a French national saint, was a great warrior of his time, about 350AD, but didn't want to do battle any more. He wanted to praise god in private. The villagers of his town loved him as a hero and elected him bishop of the town. Not wanting any part of that, he hid from the villagers in a geese pen. And as everybody knows, geese are extremely territorial and noisy - thus it was easy to find him as the geese exposed his whereabouts. Bishop Mortin decided to take revenge on the geese by a yearly slaughter of geese in honer of becoming bishop. However geese are expensive but ducks are plentiful and are a good enough substitute for the poor folk of the time. Ducks are readily at hand and can easily fit in any oven. So over the years, duck has become the traditional main dish of choice for "Morten Bisp Aften" or Bishop Morten Eve.
A big event for me - I decided to roast a duck for my very first time. I've cooked a package of turkey breast before. Pretty simple; just cut the plastic wrap open, put the meat in a dish and dial up the heat. But a full size duck?! How in the world do I do that?! Those of you who have no problem doing a turkey will be able to whip up a tasty duck in no time at all. I had to look up recipes on the net to get ideas. And what about stuffing. Sorry - in Copenhagen you can't just pop down to the local market and buy Stove-Top-Stuffing. This ain't Uhmerhrika ! I tried to get my tong to recall the flavors of my mother's stuffing and I went from there. I knew I needed bread crumbs but I wasn't interested in searching for a market that sells a small box of laden, imitation garlic in boring white bread. Instead, I remember we had an old quarter loaf of bread from the baker. Jens throws out bread just after one day. I tend to hang on to it for good luck and this brick of bread was for sure loaded with good luck.
I reached to the back of the cabinet and pulled out the old piece of bread that was in it's noisy paper bag with cellophane window. I tried to crumble the bread in my hands but seriously, it was so hard, you really could repair a missing brick in the wall with the bread. I had to grab my wooden mallet for tenderizing meat and beat the hell out of the bread. Really! - I had to beat it silly with all my might and give it some serious whacking. I added fresh walnuts, onion, celery, prunes, apple, herbs, salt and pepper and stuffed in as much as I could pack into Miss Daisy Duck, threw her into the oven and 2½ hours later, Jens and I were up to our elbows in duck grease. My dog went totally nuts when I threw the gizzards her way.
You wanna talk about sauce? Wow - it was heaven - I should have won a few Michelin tires for the sauce. Jens taught me how to make a basic sauce - guaranteed lump free - then add the juice of the bird and the gizzards (before giving it to the dog) and let it simmer for a while. The 3 of us were in duck dish paradise.
FRENCH FRIES
I was hoping to make duck dinner for our French friends Fabian and Patrick but they were to arrive in Copenhagen in the evening of the 11th, so instead, they got broccoli toast and stuffed mushrooms upon their arrival.
We met Fabian on his first visit to DK 14 years ago. He was only 19 at the time and just starting to come out. A week later his vacation was over and he went back home to Paris. We never saw him again.
A few months ago, due to some Facebook frustrations, I decided to close my facebook account. I never really used it and I didn't care for the shortness of it; " picking my nose this morning - what are you doing? ". I need a medium that will let me breath and freely spoon the sauce into the big cyber bowl in space. So just before closing down and locking facebook for good, I took a last look in my in-box or whatever it's called on fb and noticed a mail from a guy named Fabian. "Hi Eddie, this is Fabian from France, do you remember me, bla bla bla...." Fabian? Fabian? Fabian? OH! Fabian! Yes of course, Fabian. "Hey Jens", I exclaimed, "We got a mail from that guy from Paris that we met 14 years ago when we lived on Vesterbrogade.
We sent Fabian a return message with our real e-address and I slammed the door for good on Facebook and never looked back. Since then about 1000 e-mails have been sent back and forth between Copenhagen and Paris. After that, we made plans to do something other than just mails. We decided to really tie a knot in this new found relationship and make plans for a visit. We opened our home to Fabian and his partner Patrick. I was a bit nervous about how it was all going to turn out. I will spare the details but recent previous friendships with others have been nightmares. I could tell Fabian was a nice guy from his e-writings but I've been fooled before. Likewise, we didn't know a thing about Fabian's boyfriend.
SELF CENSURE
Here is the part that I was going to write in my X-mas card but have instead decided to put here. It was the beginning of October. Things started to get a bit rough for Jens. Unannounced to me, he did manage to get himself to the nearby shopping mall after a dentist appointment. He called me from the mall and said he was ready to be picked up. Here comes Jens with arms full of packages. "What are you, nuts or just plain crazy" I shouted at him. He was in no condition to do all this crazy shopping "....and what are all these packages anyway?", I demanded. They were b-day presents, X-mas presents and Welcome to Copenhagen presents. We loaded up the car and I drove us home. Little by little Jens was getting worse. He was feeling more and more uncomfortable. My 52nd year came by on Oct 14 without any big to do but Jens surprised me with a huge, beautiful designer candelabra. We did lunch and then I went to work.
Now it was the beginning of November. For the first time in 14 years - twice - Jens got up in the middle of the night and came down to the basement where I was sleeping. He was holding his arm and crying from excruciating pain. The next several days included ambulances and hospital stays, scolding of doctors due to lousy medical attention and in general a lot of sadness, frustration and confusion.
We got Jens checked-in at the hospital on the 4th of November. Jens begged them to let him go home for the weekend since there were no doctors on staff anyway. They were against that but reluctantly agreed only because I promised to have him back by Monday morning. It was also his birthday and he didn't want to spend it in the hospital - again. Though it was his birthday, happy was not really a part of his day.
The doctors decided to turn off his electronic pacemaker and are now going to start all over again making adjustments - very very slowly. They all believed that he had way too much electricity being delivered to his brain. Probably so. The way he was flinging his body all over the bed was just unbelievable. It was like watching a scene from The Exorcist. But Jens says it was due to the pain and not the electricity that was making him flip out. Jens was very angry at the hospital and made his angry clear to the doctors. They were shocked. They had never seen him like this before. They blamed it on too much electricity. I blame it on Jens being too nice all the time and I mean ALL the time. He is always happy and never complains and it makes him seem like all is well. This allows the doctors to focus elsewhere and take him less serious.
Anyway.... the electricity was turned off and honest and open conversation was exchanged between Jens and the doctors. Jens had demanded that he be treated by a different doctor than the one that was recently assigned to him. He could not stand this new doctor. I had just walked into the hospital room after a day at work and I couldn't believe the way the doctor was talking to him. Finally Jens managed to get the one doctor that he ever really cared for. She is the best but has, unfortunately for all her patients, become hospital administrator and no longer works directly with patients. Jens happened to say some choice words that got her attention and is now she is looking in on him.
A lot of testing was done and one things they found is that Jens is extremely low in vitamin B-12. He had to now have 5 shots of vitamin B-12 over the next 2 weeks. This means many more visits to hospitals and doctors offices. One day was not feasible to get him to the doctors office so I called Preben. He is a good friend of ours and just happens to be a doctor. He lives in town Monday through Thursday so I asked him if he had time to make a home visit when he was in the city. He was more than happy to come by and "...give Jens a shot in the ass", as he said.
One thing Preben told us and it was confirmed by another doctor, is that lots of older people have too low levels of B vitamin. It is not really known why this is so. When levels reach this low, handfuls of vitamin B bought over the counter will never be enough to raise you back to normal levels. Normally, B-12 shots, bi-monthly or every so often is the only answer. Jens was explaining this to his mother and she said that her sister also has way too low levels of B vitamin. She has recently had some shots just like Jens and she is feeling much much better.
We can now see that these 5 shots that Jens has just received and with better monitoring of his electric pulse maker, he is feeling much much better. I have notice big improvements. In October he couldn't even bring me a cup of coffee from the kitchen to the sofa. I would always have to meet him half way and carry the coffee myself. When departing from the sofa, he would always have to swing back and forth several times just to get up. Just last night he had an empty desert bowl in each hand and got up in one try to take the dirty bowls to the kitchen (Christmas desert in case you are wondering) (
ris al amond with cherry sauce for the 3rd night in a row)
I am so amazed at how well he is doing now. At 7 am this morning he was out shoveling snow off of the sidewalk. Well this is good news for sure. I hope it continues this way.
FRENCH TOAST
So our French visitors had already bought their flight tickets and Jens was so confused as to what to do because more than anything he wanted to see Fabian and meet Patrick. We had made a busy tourist plan to take them here and there and show them all the sights. Dinners were planned, brunch, outings and so forth. Jens had to call Paris and give the guys the update that he was not feeling well. We had talked about delaying this visit to another time and this really bummed out Jens. I told Jens that the flight tickets were already bought. They surely will not be able to get their money back. We can reschedule the visit for a future date, but we still wont be able to say for sure if Jens will be feeling better or worse. Let's just go ahead with the plan we have now and if we have to trim it a bit or send the French guys out on their own for part of the time, then that is just what we will have to do.
Our first dinner was here at home. We made a trial run 2 weeks earlier of the recipes that Jens found in an old Danish cook book. Imagine the pressure of having to cook for the French! One of the main dishes was stuffed mushrooms with shrimp. Just before serving the food, Fabian announces he is allergic to shell fish. I panicked.
I smiled and calmly said - oh no worries, we have plenty of other things. Not true! and how do you just whip up something else when you should be serving here and now! Quickly but calmly I walked into the kitchen from our finished appetizer at the dinning room table with new designer birthday candelabra in full blaze. When I got to the kitchen I panicked and swung all the cabinet doors wide open to see what, if anything, I could whip up in T minus 10 seconds and counting. There is this weird cooking show out of the UK where 2 locals go to the market and buy a bag of food each and then bring it back to the studio to see what 2 competing chefs can come up with in a matter of just 15 minutes. I pretended like I was on the show and presto! or as the French would say - Volià! Along side of shrimp stuffed mushrooms, I also had stuffed mushrooms with Vienna sausage, olive, pimento and walnuts smothered in a lemon/butter cream sauce.
The second dinner was to be a "boyz night out" at a restaurant we frequent from time to time. But early in the day, Jens told me and the 2 French guys that we should consider dinner tonight without him. That was a bit of a bummer for all of us. But what else could we do? Jens just was not feeling at all well at this time. We were even lucky that Jens' last day in the hospital was the day before Fabian and Patrick arrived in CPH.
Over the past few weeks, I have really been tired trying to do what I could for Jens, back and fourth to doctors offices and hospital visits and then getting the house ready for guest and bla bla bla. I was greatly touched that these 2 wonderful souls would do this for us. That they would come all the way from Paris, do the shopping and do the cooking and not let me lift a finger - it was heaven. I don't know how to write how this wonderful gesture touched me but it makes me cry every time I think of it. It was the one thing that I probably needed most right at that moment. These guys were like angels and treated us with such kindness that I can't even begin to explain.
And can you imagine - who do you know that has, not only 1, but 2 French cooks in his/her own kitchen? "French food?", the guys at work asked me after I told them the story. "No", I answered, "Mexican!"
It was such a joy to have them come and visit us that after we dropped them off at the airport and drove home, I was missing them already - still do. We are shooting for another visit this May. Hopefully it will work out.
NO L
Get it? No L ? Have you noticed I got a French theme going on here? Please say you noticed. I remember as a kid, sitting in the back seat of my father's huge Oldsmobile, driving along the 10 freeway high in the sky over the city of El Monte and looking out over warehouses below with tin corrugated roof tops. On one of the roof tops I saw a very clever Christmas sign in lights: a green letter L with a red circle and slash through the L. No L. Still confused? It's French in it's most abstract form. It's what the
angels did say to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. No L, No L, No L, No L. Born is the King of Israel!
So here are a few pix of our dear French friends having dinner at Tivoli which had just opened for the No L season.
It was after Patrick's and Fabian's return home when Jens started on his vitamin B-12 shots. It was already middle of October that I asked to have off the 18th of November. I bought a pair of concert tickets and conveniently added a Happy Birthday tag to them. It was part of Jens' b-day present. I've been listening more and more to the classical radio channel driving to and from work - a whopping 13 minutes each way - and let's face it - who can take much more than 13 minutes of screeching violins and brassy bassoons?
Well naturally I had miss understood the info on the radio about the up coming concert. And it really should have been called "The History of Hollywood's Music". Jens and I were not so keen on all of the music but what was interesting was the historical part of it all. Before each number, John Mauceri would tell a little story about how the song came about and about the composer. It was really interesting. Like the one fact that Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho was such a low budget film that the studio could only afford violin players for this now classic film. Did you ever notice that all the music in the film is only played on violin? It's really amazing to watch the music. The shower stabs are screeching violins playing a sound you will never forget.
So luckily Jens was feeling just well enough to make it to the concert. Included in the price was a warm up info meeting which Jens was not feeling well enough to go to and I wanted to buy him a nice birthday dinner at the concert house but for sure he was not up to that either. Today it would most likely be a different story but that's what happened that day.
The radio concert house is an amazing work of art. You walk in on the ground floor and take an escalator, elevator or stairs to the next floor up. There is where you can have half time refreshments, check in your coat or just mill about. When you look up at the ceiling, you are actually looking at the bottom of the concert hall floor about 20 feet or 7 meters above you. The concert hall itself is like a ball floating inside a big box made of glass walls but covered in a blue net - totally weird and bizarre.
And how about this for a coincidence? The
big white cube in Paris is Danish designed and the big blue box in Copenhagen is French designed.
1st ADVENT SUNDAY
The 1st of the 4 advent Sundays are a big deal here in Copenhagen. Actually the festivities start on Amager - that's the island that we live on - with a Christmas parade. It's just the way I like my winter parades, short and sweet and just long enough to keep my toes from turning black and green with frostbite. Here are a few pix from this years parade. You can also see Jens making an Advent wreath. He does this every year but this time I had to do the bows as Parkinson's keeps him from doing many small detailed things that we all just take for granted. 
On 1st Advent Sunday we light one candle. Then on 2nd Advent Sunday we light 2 candles and so on until the house burns down.
Once again, I am working on Christmas Eve - the biggest of the 3 day celebration here in Denmark. But I am off early so I will be home in time to enjoy the traditional delicious side of roasted pork with crispy rind that Jens will be whipping up in our kitchen.
I also took off December 8th. I'm am off the 6th and 7th as well. Jens has another doctor appointment on the 6th and we thought of driving to the west side of Denmark to visit Jens' mother for an early celebration with her. But as I write, the snow will most likely be keeping us home. It's not a heavy snow fall in Copenhagen but the country is out of salt and the temps are so cold that the snow is melting too slowly for safe driving. The temperature on November 30th was the coldest day in that month since 1882. Even though the snow fall is not great, it was enough to close the airport for half a day on the 29th of Nov. Plus the further west we go, the heavier the snow fall. So for now we are home alone sipping hot Danish glögg and enjoying an extra large tin of Danish butter cookies.
Hope your holidays are happy too.
And this is our bedroom window with ice - on the inside of the house.
Play with your balls and give them a good spin.
