The Start of the New Year

All hopes of a quiet start to the New Year were dashed shortly after 9 AM when my Mom called to wish us Happy New Year (thanks Mom!); it was just past midnight in California and she thought we would be awake, maybe having breakfast, or getting ready for a brisk morning jog. :-) No, we were sleeping and Leysia (who answered the phone) had the bright idea of asking my Mom if she wanted to have a video conference. So, around 9:30 AM, I found myself having a video conference in my pajamas with Leysia, Max, and Lilja talking to my parents and all of the friends they had at their house celebrating the start of 2006! :-)

All kidding aside, it was nice to talk to them and reflect on how weird it is to be able to celebrate the end of 2005, sleep for eight hours, and then talk to people who had been living in 2005 while you slept.

After the video conference, Leysia prepared breakfast and we were just getting ready to settle into the day when Max started complaining about pain in his left ear. And when I say "complaining", I mean lots of crying and holding his ear saying things like "I really don't like this ear" and "I wish this ear could come off" and the like. Kids are amazing, they can be sitting next to you, acting just fine, and then WHAM! somethings wrong with them. So, we called the Lægevagt ("on call doctor") and they said if we came in right away, there would be no waiting. (Fancy that, they weren't all that busy on the morning of January 1st!)

So, we took very quick showers, got the kids dressed and inserted into their one-piece winter suits (they look like space shuttle astronauts in these things because the coats are so big and puffy), packed them into the car, and then drove to the hospital. We had one false start when I went to the emergency room first and discovered that they have nothing to do with the Lægevagt service. We then found the right building and got a number and sat down to wait. We received one small kindness this morning when the woman who had the number before us, offered to switch numbers with us, because she felt bad for Max (who was sitting in my lap, holding his ear, and crying) while we were waiting.

The doctor looked in Max's ears and declared that he had an external ear infection and that he just needed to get some ear drops. Leysia and I both asked the doctor the same thing: does the hospital have an apotek that we can use to get the ear drops. We were both thinking the same thing: "Its sunday and every apotek is closed!" It turns out that the hospital does have an apotek but it was closed! Instead, we peeled back another layer of Danish society today, when the doctor told us that the city of Aarhus has one apotek that is always open. No one had ever mentioned this to us. Apparently, this piece of information is jealousy guarded and only given on a need to know basis. But, down by the cathedral, there is an apotek that, sure enough, was open and, sure enough, has a sign that proudly says "Always open, day or night" (in Danish, of course).

So, now we see how this system of the stores being mostly closed actually works. When there is an important service, such as the dispensation of medicine, that the public requires on a 24-hour basis, there will be enough pressure to ensure that somewhere someone is providing that service.

I finally got Max to stop crying at the Apotek when I told him that soon we would be home and we'd give him the ear drops and they would go into his ear and start "kicking butt"! He laughed when I said that and looked at me with fascination and said "What?" I explained that the things in his ear that were causing the pain were like the bad guys on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whereupon Max interrupted me to say "You mean Shredder?" and I (not knowing the names of the bad guys on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) said "Uh, yeah, Shredder!" and continued to tell Max that by pouring the ear drops down his ear, it would be like pouring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in there to fight Shredder. Max immediately pointed out that "one time, Shredder beat the TMNTs" (this was said solemnly while looking at me with very wide eyes) and I (thinking quick) said, "Oh, well, uh, the TMNTs are delivered into the ear on the first drop, and we have to put three drops into your ears, so we'll just deliver some extra superheros on the second and third drops." Max's eyes grow even wider and he says "You mean, like, Spiderman?" and I said, "Yes, and Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman... all of them!" Max at that point grew very happy and started discussing the battle that would be shortly occuring in his ear.

However, about halfway home, Max switched the topic to how he would like to someday have a secret laboratory under his room ("where I can make stuff") and we discussed various cool ways that he could both enter and exit this lab

Once we got home, we got Max setup on the couch where he could watch the Tom and Jerry marathon on Cartoon Network while I cleaned and Leysia made a fabulous lunch.

Now, Leysia is going to get Lilja down for a nap, I'm going to do some final organization of the apartment, and then we'll see if we can finally get to that "quiet start of the New Year" that I mentioned up above.

Whew! Hope your New Years Day is less active than ours!

Ken