Schrodinger’s Goat
I managed to sleep quite well last night. Imagine that. Today I had parents with the dinner, and vice versa. Tick, tock, three weeks till the Greenland trip.
Got a couple of prepatory things done. One was a sticker from the postal service saying “please no advertisements”. Every weekend we get a big stack of ads. If you don’t take them in then it’s a dead give away that you are not at home. The stack is so big that usually it doesn’t come through my mail slot. The delivery guy just lets it hang in the slot, or even just throws it outside my door. All the burglars will know I’m gone. So I went to the post office to stop the ads. You have to fill in a form and show ID and everything. Then I got a neat little sticker, which now resides on my front door. The brochure said it could take up to 2 weeks before it works, the lady at the counter at the post office said 3 weeks. So it’ll be just in the nick of time. If it works. You’d think the delivery boy could just see the sticker and not leave the ads, but I guess there’s a whole system to it and it takes time to update it. Or something.
What are they call? Ads? If they’re on TV then they’re commercials. Whattaya call that big stack of leaflets and pamphlets and stuff. Advertisements? I feel like there is a word that I am failing to grasp. I hate when that happens. Oh well. You know what i’m saying right?
It’s such an incredible waste by the way. It’s 2008 and we still can’t make some kind of system where you sign up for the advertisements you actually want, or you get them delivered electronically. We still have to have those giant stacks of paper delivered. 90% of it just gets thrown right back out. What a waste of resources. It boggles my mind that in this day and age when we can put a man on the moon and a black man in the White House we still can’t come up with a better system than this. Oh well. It’s not like we need trees anyway. When they’re all cut down then we’ll be happier and constantly smiling.
The other thing that I have gotten done, almost at least, is my insurance. Yes, believe it or not I have been living on my own for more than a year without having insurance. Kinda dumb, eh? In this day and age etc. When I first moved out I didn’t even think about it. Then my dad brought it up one day. But that was right around the riots in Gellerup. The Mohammed drawings. Everyone was lighthing fires and fighting the cops. I figured it probably wasn’t the best of time to buy insurance, what with living in a warzone and all. The insurance companies would probably charge through the roof. And then I sort of forgot about it all again. Until my window got broken. It seems like the housinge company paid for that, at least they’re the ones who ordered the glassmasters and no one has mentioned anything about paying for any of it. So they probably have their own insurance for that stuff. But it made me think about insurance again of course. And what with me going to Greenland and almost surely being burglarized it would seem to be a good time to get some insurance.
I was quite intimidated by it all. Insurance is such an adult thing. And talking to insurance salesmen and dealing with all these things, it’s not my favourite cup of tea. But then when I finally worked up the nerve to just check the website of the insurance company I knew I wanted to use, well it turned out that it was dead easy. You can calculate it all right there on the site. And I did. And asked for them to send me the contract and details over email. I’m waiting for that now. Assuming there’s no snag, like them going “wait a minute, you live in a warzone. No way we’re going to insure you buddy. Deal’s off!”, then it should all be worked out soon. And my ass will be insured. So that’s good. And much easier than I had thought. My situation is pretty simple anyway. Maybe if you have a big house and big family and big responsibilities then you’re better off actually talking to the insurance company and working things out in person. But mine’s just a little one. I don’t even need the “windsurfer/boat owner” addendum. And there was a dropdown box where you had to choose the total value of your possessions. The lowest possible number you could pick was something like 570,000 kroners. If I added up all my worldly possessions and doubled them I’d still not be even halfway there. So my calculations were fairly simple and my insurance fairly cheap and it’s nice to have actually gotten it done. Again, assuming the email with the details doesn’t start with “ARE YOU KIDDING, DON’T EVER CONTACT US AGAIN UNLESS YOU MOVE THE HELL OUT OF THAT DUMP”. We shall see.
That’s about all. Tomorrow is feeding animals time. Maybe there will be lambs? You never know.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:26
Ads or “junk mail” or flyers – you’ve got it right. We get them on Tuesdays with a local shopper that we can advertise stuff in to sell or buy. Kitties to give away, goats for sale, cars, etc.
Sounds like you’ve taken some action in getting ready for your trip. Now all you need is a timer. You set the timer, plug it in to the outlet, and then plug your lamp or radio into the timer. At the pre-set time (when you’re on vacation), the lamp or radio comes on for however long you’ve set it for.
That way, neighbors think someone is at home. People also use them to turn on their Christmas decoration lights so it will be all lit up when they come home and it’s dark outside. Cool idea, huh?
I think Billy is part Italian, even if he’s a pygmy goat and originally from Africa. How do I know, you ask?
I had pizza the other night and Billy was enthralled with my breath! He likes to see what we’ve had for supper, but he really liked the pizza smell. I was laughing so hard when I came out of the barn to tell my husband.
He started laughing, because right behind me was Billy wanting to smell my breath again! Must be the oregano or something. Maybe the herbs smell like grass or hay?? I know, what a reach!
I had left-over pizza tonight and Billy was mine for the taking. So, it’s not “what’s that after-shave you’re wearing” for Billy. It’s pizza breath!
Do Vanilje and Magnethe sniff you to see what you’ve been eating?
LuisLemmings is thinking to himself: Why are they putting their faces that close to a goat, a goat with really, really big horns in the first place?
October 18th, 2008 at 6:06
That’s my first question.
My second question: Do goats eat pizza, too?
October 18th, 2008 at 13:53
You know, there is actually an electronic alternative to junk mail in the post. There’s tilbudsugen.dk – or you can visit the individual sites of the places you shop to see what’s on offer that week. However, as we’re renovating, I need the builders catalogues every week because I can save thousands and thousands of kroner by buying when there’s an offer. Like I saved nearly 2000 kr on floorboards for the loft room alone. And I could obviously check on ther website every week to see if the floorboards or whatever else I need is on offer, but I don’t, so it’s nice they send it me instead. Having said that, the nearest Bilka is a couple of hours from here, I don’t drive and you do the math. I probably could do without their 200 page weekly input of stuff I don’t need and can’t get even if I did feel I needed it. But I’m really, really glad you got a No Reklame sign. Everyone should have one! Including me, really!
October 19th, 2008 at 14:50
They like the vegeterian pizza. They don’t get the meat lover’s pizza!
It is too hard for them to push the phone buttons with their little hooves, so they don’t call for pizza very often.
(I’m just kidding LuisLemmings. I’ve never given them pizza, they only get to smell my pizza breath!)
October 19th, 2008 at 22:37
Debster – Hmm, goats for sale. Maybe I oughta look through that… although I should probably look at the “houses big enough for goats to live with me” section first.
I am looking into the light situation. Maybe I can get a setup like in that Home Alone movie.. was it number 2? When the kid is acting up a party to scare the burglars away. We shall see.
Billy is quite the food connaisseur, I wonder if he would like other things than italian? Maybe you should share a spaghetti meal with him, he would probably push the meatballs to you with his nose. like that Disney movie. Lady and the vagabon? Hmm.
The goats don’t usually smell my breath. But if I make chewing motions then they’ll be interested and come sniff at my mouth. Probably wondering if I’m eating something delicious that goats might also like and that I might share. I don’t eat pizza, so I don’t know if they’d be into that.
LuisLemmings – It’s a well known fact that when put through a blind taste test goats always prefer pizza over lasagne.
Desiree – I guess in this day and age we do have alternate systems after all. I still think we oughta be able to have system that doesn’t waste so much anyway. But small steps then.
There are some of the ads I like to peer through sometimes anyway. The computer/electronics ones mainly. I always have a hanker to buy a new camera or hard drive or joystick or dvd recorder or whatever else takes my fancy. Probably better not to get the ads so I don’t get tempted!