Happy Birthday, Mangopants

We almost didn't get her. Wait, we said. Don't just get the first shelter dog you see... not just because she is a happy, goofy, beautiful dog who stole your heart. Be practical, we thought. Sleep on it.

I went back the next day because, of course we wanted her, loved her already. I went right to her cage, ready to liberate her from the hot, stinky captivity. But she wasn't there. She was being held for someone else.

So I drove home, thinking about how Maricris--who'd never been much of a pet person--had fallen in love with this silly yellow dog. I drove back.

It turns out, the family never came. And so we had a dog, a dog who loved to run and jump and chase... everything. A dog who was a little nippy, sure, but who came when you called her. A dog with stinky feet and silky soft fur... a dog named--most improbably--"Shelly."

It seemed pretty obvious to us that she was a Mango, though. That was July 28, 2006.

Today, Mango is being fostered by Maricris's brother, a veterinary resident in Texas. And she is as happy and healthy as a young dog with hip dysplasia and a bulging disc can be. If she plays too hard, she is often in pain, which is sometimes debilitating. And maybe, just maybe a complicated back surgery will make it all better.

How do you decide? How do you make a decision for a being with no knowledge of her condition, no voice of her own? The surgery could leave her paralyzed. Doing nothing might end the same.

How on earth do you decide?

Olympic Hopeful

The other night I attended a little get-together at the Niels Bohr Dark Cosmology Center--known professionally and affectionately as simply "Dark." (I have no credentials for this, or even the remotest idea of what people do in "Dark," but somehow I manage to talk my way into these things.)

Anyway, at Dark I pretty much held my own with science people in serious conversations such as this:

Me: "So, do you know if there'll be any Danish coverage for the Olympics?"

Science Person: "Who cares? It's just the Winter Olympics."

Me: "But the Winter Olympics are awesome!"

Science Person: "No one watches the Winter Olympics."

Me (disliking Science Person, who eats pistachios and refuses to look at me): "Where are you from?"

Science Person: "Athens." (And then, as if I clearly wouldn't know) "Greece."

Me: "Oh, ha ha. I didn't realize I was speaking with an Olympic expert."

Athenian Science Person: *much self-satisfied pistachio eating*

So the rumor is confirmed. I have it from a Doctor (probably) of Science Stuff. And not just normal Science Stuff, but Space Science Stuff. The Winter Olympics is dead. And anyone who's anyone from a hot climate knows it. Except for me.

I freaking love the Winter Olympics. And, I don't care what people know, science or otherwise: I love it way more than the Summer Olympics. You know why? Because I've never done any of it.

Oh, you can swim? Awesome, great. You can ride a bike? Me too! You can run, fling a rock across a field? I've been doing that since I was three.

Eh, fine: I'm not an athlete. I'm not even athletic. And I am profoundly in awe of anyone who is, regardless of the season. When I run, I do it because I must. In tennis shoes. While someone chases me. But I don't ever, ever do it on a sheet of ice with razor blades attached to my feet.

I have a reverence for snow that can only be defined as childlike. A frozen puddle, icicles off the roof--these things send me to near giddiness. When I watch the Winter Olympics, I reflect not only on the dedication of the athletes, but also on the sheer joy they must have known once, when they first fit their feet into skates, into skis, and glided across and over winter's quiet places. It's a glimpse of snowmen through the trees, of frozen crystals on the window pane.

Maybe this is the fantasy of a someone who grew up with hot sandy beaches at her door step, the romance of a girl who imagined moguls instead of waves. But I have always loved the smell of ice over salt. For it, I would have suffered scarves and snowsuits gladly.

In a few weeks, I will be in Norway. On skis and hopefully on my feet in a little village called Lillehammer. If that name sounds familiar to you, it should. I can't tell you how stoked I am to learn on slopes first known by some of the world's greatest athletes--for the awe and the joy of it--as the Olympics.

And I'm pretty sure I'm going to break something. This is about as cool as it gets.


_

Language Barrier

So I started my Danish language class tonight. Intensive lessons. The pretty blonde woman who interviewed me said that, if I apply myself, I'll be fluent by the end of the year. Fluent. In Danish. A language spoken by like .008 percent of the world population.

(I'm going to stop bitching about that. Really. Would it be nice to learn French or Spanish instead? Sure. Will that help me living in Denmark? Not even a little bit.)

The class is free. And, at the moment, I have nothing better to do. So, tonight I shlepped myself over the icy sidewalks, through the immigrant and working-class neighborhood to my own little culture club. Of the ten students, I am the only native English speaker. This, I think, gives me a leg up as the lessons are initially in English.

But then I realize this means I am also the only monolingual student. That I speak only one language is something that separates me from literally every single person I know in Denmark. How lame.

At home, I know only a tiny handful of people who speak another language. One of these people is my girlfriend. They all grew up somewhere else, of course. Middle class, public school Americans don't do languages.

But I am. I'm going to learn Danish--glottal stops and 87 vowel sounds be damned. I'm going to read Hans Christian Andersen in the original, and when you come to visit, I will wow you with my ability to order from the sausage wagon.

Until the sausage guy realizes I'm not Danish. And immediately switches to English. Because everyone here speaks English. Perfectly.