Pernille and I have been attached at the hips our entire lives.

Here we are, little-

Pernille’s photo was taken in 1971.

Mine was taken before color film was invented.

I rarely post about my family members because I’m afraid they’ll get mad at me and stop lending me money. Of course, I do post about the smaller children in our family because they always make for good stories and they don’t have any money anyway, so really, why spare them? I ask.

My sister has some serious man skills- as in skills that are stereotypically masculine. Her talents should not go undocumented for one more day.

You see, she can repair toasters and computers and put up dry wall and cut massive bathroom tiles with a ginormous tile cutter the size of a Volkswagen Beetle that she carries up the hill to her house, all by herself. Because she’s that strong.

She has like Schwarzenegger sized biceps that her husband forces her to show everyone when he’s had a little too much to drink or forgets to take his Adderall- or both.

In fact, her huge biceps were one of the selling points that my sister’s youngest son used to get my brother in law to marry her (did you follow that?). My then 8 year old nephew said to my now brother in law “Have you seen Mom’s muscles?, Man they are HUGE! even the doctor says so“. And then brother in law was so smitten that he married her right there on the spot, because he always wanted a pair of muscles.

(I have to say, in case you think I am being mean to my brother in law- that we have been friends for over 16 years so he won’t be offended that I may or may not have implied to the Internets that he has a drinking problem, has ADHD and has no muscle tone to speak of.

Anyway, Pernille and I were roommates even after the 16 years we spent together in our parent’s house. While we were living together in Denmark we had to move from one apartment to another.

Here is a picture of us that has nothing to do with living together or moving. In fact, it was taken much later, like in the nineties just as the back pack purse craze was sweeping the nation. Unfortunately there is also a penis in the photo. I thought about erasing it. Pernille suggested that I digitally enhance it- I ended up doing neither because I have better things to do than Photoshop wieners all day long.

Does anyone else think it is kind of funny that David ran off to battle Goliath and didn’t even bother to put on a pair of underwear?

okay back to the move. I became overwhelmed by this move because I don’t like to lift heavy objects or do things that make me dirty or physically tired. I whined alot and my sister needed to get me out of the way, so she just planted me in one of those cozy little European sidewalk Cafes, where I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking Machiattos and eating dainty little finger sandwiches, while she moved the entire apartment by herself!

She even moved our third roommate, who was still sleeping, on a mattress that had to be moved out.Third roommate never even noticed that she had been put into the back of a moving truck and taken across town, carried up 3 flights of stairs and deposited in her new room. Granted Third roommate was seriously tiny and seriously hungover and could easily have been overlooked anyway.

(By the way- because Third roommate very well could be reading this, I have to explain that this incident occurred many years ago and she is now a respectable mother of 2 teenage girls, has a job with real responsibilities and hardly ever passes out drunk anymore, I don’t think….).

Anyway, my sister never even complained. She NEVER complains. Which makes her seem kind of like a saint. A giant muscled saint.

It is truly a wonder that we are related by blood. Because I am such a complainer, a glass half empty kind of girl. And I have no man skills- come to think of it, I don’t have an overabundance of woman skills either. Once I attempted to iron my blouse with an electronic golf putter, while my sister quietly watched me until she finally could take no more and yelled ‘what the hell is wrong with you!‘.

I swear there is a point to this story.

I think the point is that Pernille very well could be one of the 7 wonders of the world. When she was born the OBGYN stated that she was the most beautiful child he had ever delivered (although I bet he says that to all the babies), she has freakishly long legs, is super smart, highly astute, patient, strong like bull and intimidatingly sensible which makes her seem really mysterious in that Hollywood leading lady kinda way. She has a highly developed moron radar that unfortunately is frequently pointed and beeping loudly in my direction- or in my brother in law’s direction. I sometimes wonder why such a smart person would voluntarily surround herself with so many morons.

This is brother in law

Just as an example of what she has to endure between me and her husband, I give you here a recent conversations between us.

Pernille (sister): Did you know that the population of Maryland is the same as the entire country of Denmark?

Charlotte (me): Really? Hmmm, I don’t think that is correct because the currency of the Danish Krone just went way up compared to the dollar.

Pernille (sister): What?

Charlotte (me): Well if you divide the dollar by the Krone it is nowhere near 5 million.

Pernille (sister): What the hell are you talking about? What does the currency have to do with the population?

Charlotte (me): Huh?

Or like when I called and interrupted her in the middle of an important phone convesation to ask her whether she spoke English or Danish to her dog.

If I didn’t have my sister around I would likely be living in a commune somewhere in New Mexico, with 17 adopted children and no money- Which is exactly why I had my nephew show my best friend his mom’s biceps, so that he would marry her and bring her to America to keep me off of the streets. And it worked!

I wanted to leave you with a photo of my sister and her biceps, but when I asked her to pose like a bodybuilder, once again I got the ‘what the hell is wrong with you?’ reaction. So this will just have to do.

]]> http://www.villakulla.us/?feed=rss2&p=650 6 http://www.villakulla.us/?p=492 http://www.villakulla.us/?p=492#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:21:57 +0000 admin http://www.villakulla.us/?p=492

So much has happened, and it’s kind of like when you haven’t called a friend back for too long and the longer you wait the harder it gets, because now you need to set aside hours for the conversation in order to catch up on everything- and who has time for that?

Maybe I will just skip everything that has gone on here for the past 4 months and start all over. I will begin with our dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, an impromptu idea I had while I was at the eye doctor today, where I do some of my best thinking.

I convinced John to meet us at the restaurant on his way home from work. It has been 2 years since Kaia came home with us from Ethiopia and although we don’t officially celebrate ‘Gotcha day’ because I really hate that term. Gotcha Day sounds like Jason Bourne and I flew to Ethiopia- in disguise, hopped on a motorcycle, sped through the streets of Addis Ababa and snatched some unsuspecting kid right off of the sidewalk on her way to school, stuffed her in a backback and brought her home, all in one day.

And mostly, because- the actual day that we got her was really extremely sad and difficult for her. Instead we mark her arrival to America with something special. Usually an ice cream cake for dessert at home, nothing too fancy. Okay, I just said that she has been home for 2 years and then I go on to say that we usually have cake, which is kind of lame since there only has been one anniversary so far. so there really is no usually just yet.

Back to our dinner; John thought it was a terrible idea- to go to the restaurant. He is not a risk taker like I am, he does not seek out drama like I do, but he agreed to meet us there anyway.

The dinner was going well and the kids were uncharacteristically well behaved, until Noah almost died choking on a french fry. I am not exaggerating, I had to Heimlich him like 4 times! I didn’t even know that I knew how to do that! and it seems that I have mad skills too. The ordeal caused quite a scene in the restaurant. While this was going on, Josie, who is not one to be bothered by the misfortunes of others, slid under the table and wandered off to explore the ladies room. This is always the first thing she does when we enter a dining establishment- one never knows what kind of undiscovered treasures could be hiding in a public restroom.

I did not realize she was gone because I was busy saving my son’s life and John did not notice her sly little escape either because he was super duper busy watching me saving our son’s life and when Noah finally shot his french fry out of his mouth, like a Scud missile covered in ketchup, halfway across the restaurant, followed by projectile vomiting onto the table- only then did we notice that one of the others had gone missing. We were strangely calm though- because this happens frequently and we usually find her anyway. Also, we had just saved a life and we needed to take a moment.

A waitress returned with Josie shortly thereafter, the table was cleaned and we tried again to have a nice, calm dinner- except now John makes the fatal mistake of saying “I told you this was a bad idea“. And then I was all muttering some profanities under my breath, but just loud enough so that he heard the part where I called him a dick, where after we lunged into two completely separate and urelated arguments that were running simultaneously, wherein John complains about my unrefined use of the English language and it’s long term effects on our children (he seems to forget that I am a foreigner) and I am complaining more generally about his general dickyness that evening.

So all in all a very pleasant dinner, which I am sure Kaia will file under “family celebrations gone terribly awry” for her soon to be published blog or myspace page. I shall now leave you with this lovely photo of our little anniversarian and with promises of more regularly scheduled blogging in the future- kind of wondering if there is anyone out there even checking my blog anymore…Mom??

Firstly, I am making my own rugs. For every room in the house. They have to be hand stenciled, primed with gesso, hemmed, and protected with 7 coats of finish- this is time consuming. When I am not making the rugs, working or taking care of the family (in that order- of course), I am usually out getting more supplies.

My second excuse is that I have become addicted to ‘Dexter’. You know the friendly neighborhood serial killer on Showtime. John and I cram in one or two episodes pr. night. More on the weekends. I usually don’t watch much TV- but this show is phenomenal. The actors are superior to anything I have seen in a long time and well- I just can’t get me enough of ‘Dexter’ oh and rug making. But soon I will tire of both and will be back to blogging. Because I am non commital that way. I was the kid who bought all of the horseback riding equipment, took two classes and then became obsessed with synchronized swimming or something equally obscure, only to take up boxing two weeks later.

I do have a bunch of posts up my sleeve. I must post about Bangkok- which was amazing- and I must show you all the Buddha’s I brought home. Way too many- according to my mother and sister. How many Buddhas can someone possibly need? they asked alarmed at my compulsive Buddha shopping.

Okay- back to the rugs. Because I know you are wondering who in their right mind would make their own rugs. Of course clearly I am not in my right mind- but still. We have 3 kids. It rains and snows and they drag it all over the house. Our dog does gross stuff on our rugs and frankly I have had to throw out way too many in the past years. I have been searching high and low for rugs that could handle our lifestyle. I have cried to husband ‘why hasn’t anyone invented a family friendly rug?” Husband told me to invent one myself. So I did. These are made out of painters drop cloths. You know the kind you buy at Home Depot to protect your floors when you paint. They are skid proof, water proof, snow proof, dog pee proof. They can be mopped, spilled on, wiped off and best of all they are painted to match our decor.

I am very proud of myself, can you tell? So do you guys think I can finally open my own Etsy shop? I really want one. And you don’t have to be honest.

This first one is a runner for our kitchen. The purple one is not finished but for the girls room- the last one is very bright and playful and will be for the kids play room. The chair shows the drop cloths in their original form.

It’s not a big deal, you see I often just hop on a plane and fly halfway around the world WITHOUT my children. I am a jet setter like that, and us jet setters are really blase about taking 21 hour flights to hang out in a country where they have tsunamis and gun fights in the streets between anti-government protesters and police and where weaver ant eggs are considered a delicacy and giant water bugs in red curry sauce are served for dinner- oh and where my parents live.

The kids will be fine, their dad is going to be home 24/7 tending to their every need in much the same manner as I do.

This is their dad:

Oh God help us!

The truth is that I don’t really jet set anywhere, but of course you guys know that already. In fact, that pumpkin I carved  last Saturday was the wildest thing I have done in a long time . I free handed with a very sharp electric pumpkin carver, so it  really was pretty risky.

Also I am a nervous flyer.

Someone once told me that people who are afraid of flying are generally control freaks.

Which I am so not!

These oversized spread sheets were just something I whipped up to make things easier for John.

I know that everyone of you would do the exact same thing if you were about to get into a flying machine with 300 people who all have the H1N1 virus and will likely plunge into the Pacific Ocean just as we clear Alaska.

The good news is that my sister and I will be traveling together.

The bad news is that she is even more afraid of flying than I am.

She is also not particularly fond of our layover in Seoul, which she thinks is way too risky due to it’s proximity to North Korea. She pointed out that there is a whole list of ways our lives can be ruined or end, before we even get to Bangkok. For example what will we do if Korean Airlines runs out of gin and tonic 3 hours into the flight?  or another major concern of hers (which now also has become mine)- besides, of course, the very real threat of being taken as a POW by Kim Jung il- is that someone might plant 60 lbs of cannabis in our rucksacks just as we board the plane in Dulles and we will get arrested in Thailand, where our particular case will be used as an example to deter other young free spirited backpackers from doing this sort of thing (except we are well into our 40′ies, uptight and carry purses). Whereafter we will be thrown into a hellish Turkish prison in Bangkok, where we will live for many years in a nightmare of unspeakable conditions before we go to trial and lose, despite Secretary Clinton’s efforts to negotiate with the Thai authorities.

So, no, I don’t think I am being too overbearing for making sure that my family knows what to do every hour on the hour, in my perhaps permanent absence. They will thank me  one day for these past five evenings of power point presentations of who needs to have their butt wiped by dad one extra time for good measure and who has to return their library book on what day, as well as which day to clip fingernails and what soap to use on which child with the sensitive skin.

These are the faces that will keep me going as I am clinging to the life boat, resisting the urge to let the North Pacific Drift take me away into the cold November night.

Farewell my friends thank you for everything……

With the colder weather came more indoors stuff- like snuggling on the couch while watching ‘Cat in the Hat’ 86 times in a row.And here is the only photo I appear in for the entire month of October

Noah is on his way to the local University to teach his Latin class. He told me that he looked distinguished. Noah knows a lot of very big words and likes to use them whenever he can. For example he told me this morning that his oatmeal tasted very fascinating. Which I took as a compliment.

My mom just left to go back home and Noah has been very concerned that I might feel lonely while he and the girls are in school. He told me that he could easily skip his teaching job today to stay home and keep me company and so that I won’t cry from loneliness. I said that he was very gracious but that he has a lot of work to do at school and then he informed me that he had quite a bit of work to do at home too; like lifting boxes and repairing stuff. He cracks me up.

Might be a little overkill on the photos, but it is so hard to pick just one photo from all this cuteness. You can’t see it in the photos but there are, of course, leather patches on the elbows of his prerequisite professor blazer.

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