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A Slippery Slope

Aah, Wednesday. Sweet Wednesday. My day off. My friend in need, my friend indeed.

Actually, yesterday wasn’t too bad. We were all sent home early. Because the busses were going on strike. And as you’ll remember TMU is located out in the middle of nowhere. So while I was getting ready for our lunch break suddenly they came and said “you better go home now if you don’t want to be stranded here”. Weet. For once a bus strike comes in handy.

So I went to the playground. The goats were grazing on the slope behind the house.

magnethe vanilje

A slope is really good for sort of half-sitting, half-lying-down. And as the sun shines on you Vanilje comes and sits down next to you. And life is pretty good. Oh sorry, I meant “me” not “you”. Not that I’m rubbing it in or anything. But I get to hang out with Mads, Magnethe and Vanilje, and you don’t!

Except if you’re Stu of course. Stu is coming to Denmark. So he’s going to get to meet the goats. And me. Which scares me. But it also delights me that I get to share the love of these goats. I am so happy to get to share them with all of you guys, and I guess I do a half-way decent job since it makes a guy from England want to come all the way over here just for the goats. Oh he might be going to Skagen and doing some other stuff too. But we all know it’s just an excuse to see the goats! Haha. I hope it’ll be fun. It’s in June, so still a ways to go. It’s too bad America is so far away, otherwise we really could make a group meeting sort of thing and I could be tour guide. Even though it would scare me to death it would also be great. And the goats would surely love the worshipping.

Anyway. Back to the goats. If I ever did leave. Some more sloping.

mads

It was fairly cold, but the sun was shining beautifully. Even Magnethe decided to have a good lie down.

magnethe

She was even rolling around and pushing her head down in the grass and looked to really be chilling out good.

magnethe

Don’t you just wanna kiss her right on her nose? I am not crazy, I am not.

mads

A little scratch for Mads.

vanilje

And not forgetting Vanilje of course.

Also, let me show you what is on the other side of the tall buildings next to the playground.

pond

Maybe I have shown you before, I don’t know. It bares repeating.

pond

The sun was nicely shimmering in the water. That’s where I “rescued” the boy on the ice, you remember? Herodaydreamer.

Talked to Kurt today. News about the piglets. They will be arriving next Wednesday. It will be nice to have the pig sty filled up again. Although two piglets probably won’t even come close to the grand size of Yvonne. I’m not sure how big they’ll be when they get here. It’s a different breed of course. Kurt said they won’t grow as big as Yvonne. But they should be really nice and friendly pigs.

So, on Monday I had a meeting with Trine, the social worker and my contact person at TMU. We talked about how it was going. And frankly, last week hadn’t been the greatest. I don’t always let on in my blog, but sometimes I don’t do that well. Sometimes when there’s a blog entry full of 50 goat pictures that’s my way of avoiding writing about the fact that I didn’t go to work or that I left early.

We talked about all that. And it was decided that I now have Mondays off as well. Yes. That means I only work Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. You may think that’s cushy and I’m lucky, but it’s really not funny to not even be able to work for 20 hours per week. The way it looks right now, and from what I could sense from our talk, it looks like I might be headed for disability retirement. And then a skånejob. In fact we’re going to see if it’s possible maybe for me to get a skånejob at the playground. Wouldn’t that be something? Goat caretaker haha. Well, I don’t know if it’ll even be possible. The government pays most of your salary when you have a skånejob. But there could still be lots of reasons why the playground couldn’t hire me like that. And it’s still not sure it’s going to be a skånejob. Another possibility would be simply for me to go to the playground as a visitor. But have a schedule for it. So I keep myself busy and getting out instead of isolating myself. Anyway. I’m okay with retirement really. I know that by some people it will be seen as failure. And with the grades I got in school I really should have “done better” with my life. But as I wrote recently, my ambitions have changed. My definition of success is no longer to make lots of money in a fancy job. I want to wake up and not have to debate myself whether I’d rather die or get up. I want to wake up and feel happy about going to work. And if that’s a skånejob then that’s fine with me. Waking up and going to work at the playground would make me so happy, I’d be excited to wake up in the morning. So to me that would be a success.

We’ll see.

I also talked to Trine about finding a place to live. We’ll start working on that. I’m going to get some support when I move out too. So that’ll be nice. I can’t remember if I wrote this already, but for the first time in years, maybe ever, I actually feel like I have a chance of getting to feel okay and have a decent life. I feel like it’s within my gasp to move out and live on my own, to get a job (skåne or flex or whatever) and to be alright. To have my situation finalized and settled and to be okay with it.

That’s why I gotta work hard to keep the tmu situation going. Not waste this chance. A small price to pay for being okay.

Okay, then. Bye bye, babes.

4 Responses to “A Slippery Slope”

  1. Debster Says:

    Hay, you’ll do just fine with Stu. When you have goats in common, you don’t need to worry about talking. You’ll both just take a million pictures of goats. And I’m good aren’t I? I was the one who predicted you would become Denmark’s Goat Boy Tour Director of the Playground, now wasn’t I? Do I win a prize???

    Well, I’d figured it out awhile back when you post 1,055 pictures that it means you’ve got something else working in your mind. And you’d get around to telling us about it sooner or later. I just didn’t know if you knew I knew what was going on or if you were aware of it.

    It takes awhile to make changes or even think about making a change. You’re doing fine Plume. In fact, you’re doing great. I don’t see any failures going on here at all. I’m glad you said there would be some support for you after you get a place of your own. I really feel it would benefit you and keep you on track for all the changes you’re making in your life.

    You are doing so much more now, even if you are a little scared, you’re still making progress and doing unfamiliar things and not letting that stop you. You aren’t avoiding so many things now that make you anxious, you’re just taking action and doing them. Goats all over the world are proud of you! Take a bow, dear danish goat boy.

  2. hanne Says:

    be on

  3. Plume Says:

    Debster – You got me all figured out, in oh so many ways! Any more predictions about my future? Will I ever be prime minister of Denmark? Or minister of agriculture, specifically goatiness.
    Don’t forget that sometimes I post 1,055 pictures of goats just because I love goats. You never know with me, I’m a complicated guy! But you seem to have a good sense of plume.
    *bows*
    Thank you for the supportive words. As always. I’m going to have to put you in my acceptance speech, right after god and my family. Mý acceptance speech for the “I’m okay” awards, I mean. Yup. I make sense!

    hanne – am on

  4. Debster Says:

    So sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, is what you’re saying.

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