missing my new york window

it's rather easy, when you're walking down the busy streets of new york city, to forget to look up. cyndy tried to warn us about this, but i'm not sure i fully appreciated it until wandering alone on my last day. i looked up at the imposing structures lining 5th avenue ahead of me and found them quite surprising and surprisingly the opposite of beautiful. they are dominant, cold, masculine, insurmountable, full of inhuman perfect lines and squareyness. they're not comforting or hyggeligt. at all. and i wonder whether they were shaped by the people who made them or whether the people who made them were shaped by them. or whether those lines blurred along the way and it's now impossible to say. do they inspire a cold, clinical, hard view of the world? one that resulted in the hubris of the financial crisis, which we're all still trying to shake off? would the world be a different place if the architecture of new york city was different? but could the architecture of new york city be any different than it is? or was it destined to be this way?

what is it that draws us to a place? makes us love it? or hate it almost instantly? everyone always told me that i would love new york. and in many ways, i did. the pulse, the vibe, the walkability, the whole sense that it was just alive and happening in every imaginable way. the food. the people having total screaming matches on the street at another person or into a telephone. the diversity. but i wouldn't want to live there. i think it would get to me after awhile. all that erect, hard, agressive squareyness.

so while i loved every minute of my first trip to new york, i'm not a new york person. i didn't fall head over heels for it the way i did with cape town. or london. or istanbul. or seattle. or san francisco. or moscow. to be fair, i'm not sure i'd fall for moscow in the same way today. it had to do with a certain phase and time of my life. and perhaps i just missed my new york window.

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the architecture of new york city got amy thinking as well. 

hello there, my neglected blog

it may seem that i've turned my back on this blog. the days go by and by and with each of them, i think that i will finally sit down this evening and catch up. and then life intervenes and there's dinner to make and stalls to clean and horses and cats to feed and lawns to mow (yes, we're still mowing, it's been that warm) and speeches to give and pumpkins to buy and books to read and netflix to watch and entryways to tidy and work to do. and somehow, i don't find myself in front of the computer to blog. and i miss it. my sanity misses it. my inner sense of well-being misses it. so i think i'll just have to pick up the threads and go on and not worry about catching up. eventually, one day when i'm hungry, i'll do another post of new york food, as there's much more of that to share and i'll write that post that's rattling in my head about the differences between seattle and new york. and through writing it all, i'll work out what i think and i'll find my way back to myself and this space. because this space plays a great role in keeping me in touch with myself. and that job is far from complete.

one of the reasons i've had a hard time sitting down to write is because a great tragedy befell the great majority of photos that i took on my recent trip. i had downloaded them along the way into iPhoto on my work computer because my memory card was nearly full and i had all of new york ahead of me. with the jetlag and everything else, i didn't get them moved over to my backup drive when i got home on the weekend. then, on my first monday back in the office, i had all kinds of computer problems and went over to IT for help. and their solution was to delete my profile and create a new one. and in doing so, they wiped out my entire computer. and all of those photos that aren't anywhere else. luckily, most of my nyc comiccon photos were uploaded to flickr, but i hadn't had a proper chance to go through any of the ones i took in seattle, so they are all lost. 

luckily, i took a lot of shots with my new iPhone 6, because it was easier and it has a great camera, so i'm not completely without photos of my trip, but i did suffer a devastating loss of the sculpture park in seattle and the good photos of chihuly, aside from the few i uploaded for my daily photo project, thinking i'd do the rest later, when i'd had a proper chance to go through them. i can tell you that the loss of those photos has awakened me in the night on more than one occasion over the past few weeks. we trust so much to bits and bytes these days and i trust so much of my memory to my camera, that i feel like there may be great gaps in my memories of my trip without those photos. technology is not entirely trustworthy and neither are those guys in IT. back up your photos, and/or send them into the cloud, it's the best advice i can give. and i intend to take it myself in the future.

* * *

love these lamps.

* * *

i forgot how much i love design for mankind.

erin is just so delightfully, unpretentiously real and authentic.

she even makes homeschooling sound ok.

MiN New York: and i'm officially a niche fragrance convert

if you've been reading this blog for some time, you know that i love perfume. i've always been a pretty mainstream perfume kind of girl and admittedly, most of my scents have been acquired through the years in the duty free shops of airports around the world. my sister has a good friend who is a scent aficionado and she has sent my sister to small, esoteric shops in paris after some amazing, exclusive scents. so it was no surprise on my recent trip to new york city, that monica had a couple of perfume places on her list. we lost quite a lot of one day of her stay (we won't say why, but a late show at a comedy club and a cheap bottle of wine on top of oysters and foie gras might have had something to do with it), so we chose to visit just one of them - MiN new york in soho.

just peeking in the window of this beautiful shop made me quiver with intimidation. if my sister hadn't been there, i don't think i'd have dared to go in on my own, thinking the experience and the prices would be far above me. i expressed a bit of that intimidation when i came into the dark, warm, richly scented interior, but the people in the shop very quickly put me at ease - one was the president of the company, an attractive guy with longish hair and a cool manner and the two sales girls, with their exotic accents and easygoing, totally not snobbish manner.  they quickly made us feel welcome and as if it was exactly our kind of place. i realized very quickly that i could get used to niche fragrances.

in addition to a lot of exciting niche scents from around the world, they have their own line of what they call scent stories. there are 11 chapters to their scent story book, each with their own personality and heady fragrance. we tried only three of them (your nose can't really take that many more) and we were also trying some of the kerosene scents (more about them in another post).

my sister fell in love with one called magic circus, which the folks a MiN describe as: "Turn of the century, a carnival travels at dusk. A scrumptious gourmand perfume. A splendid wonder swirling in enchantment. Candied nuts, cotton candy, caramel, sprinkled with pink peppercorns, bergamot, labdanum, geranium, patchouli, and woodchips." all of which rings scrumptiously true in the complexity of the scent. it smelled wonderful on her, but less so on me.  it was obvious that my sister needed the magic circus and she serendipitously got bottle number 72 (of 1000 - they only make 1000 of each of the scent stories per year), which is both the year of her birth and her lucky number. it was meant to be. i went away with samples of memento and barrel, as my skin chemistry can be temperamental with perfumes and so i need to see if they go bad on me over several hours (when that happens, it isn't good, believe me).

and in the end, tho' i had decided that i loved the barrel most, but was chickening out on going all the way back down to soho and spending $240 on myself, when my sister called and said, "can you get back to MiN by 6 and pick up your barrel, i've just ordered it for you." i couldn't believe it and told her not to buy me a christmas present for the next five years. but i also jumped on the subway and headed to MiN immediately. there was a film being made on the street right outside of MiN, so i didn't have quite the same slow, drawn-out experience i had when we had visited together, but that was ok, as i wasn't in the market for more scents right then anyway. i did grab a sample of barrel to send to my sister so she could test it out as well.

my bottle of barrel is #86 of 1000. as the MiN folks say of barrel, "Evident in the first sniff, a slight floral opening gives way to bold, beautiful notes that we taste in full-bodied dark spirits and wine. Peaty, smoky, smooth, and earthy, this is the scent of the selfless vessel that rest in halcyon, incubating the finest spirits throughout the years. A complex cocktail of spirits, spices, dirt, tannin, and woods: absinth, coriander, pink pepper, rum, myrrh, orange blossom, tuberose, oak, oak moss, leather, vanilla, patchouli, and vetiver." in other words, deep, dark heaven. and i would love to go back and try some of the other scent stories. i have a feeling my book of scents in nowhere near complete.

2014 was an eventful year

january 2014

i started a new knitting project (a blanket for my mom and no, it's not finished. i got knitting-induced carpal tunnel and stopped working on it.). my 6-month wait for the job at LEGO was finally over. i learned to crochet at a blissful beachside drink & draw. sabin turned 13. and i spent a lot of time with cats.

february 2014

february brought the actual start of my new job and whole lot more LEGO into our lives, but there was still time in the kitchen and for daily meditative photos. the crocheting continued, as that was less demanding on my wrists. the first of spring's stedbiderrogn (a fish roe that's a sure sign of spring in these parts) showed up at the fish guy towards the end of the month. we saw The LEGO Movie and built some of the sets from it.

march 2014

march brought with it the returning light and snowdrops in the garden. and with sabin's little p&s nikon, a first proper shot of the moon. it also meant a work trip to london. my first work-related trip in a number of years and that was most welcome. it's also when i met the amazing group of people surrounding the LEGO Space book. what a lot of creativity and good times began there in london!

april 2014

april was baby animal time around here - we got bacon & bacon, our first pigs and fell a little bit in love with them. there were baby bunnies and a gorgeous moon. sabin chose to be confirmed (after a little private baptism ceremony, since she hadn't been baptized as a baby).

may 2014

may always brings the fields of rapeseed flowers. they just so signal the beginning of danish summer to me. our strawberries were in bloom and we picked violets to make cordial. the pigs grew quickly and were ever-so-charming. at work, i got to assist behind the scenes at a video shoot!

june 2014

june brought mom to denmark to attend sabin's confirmation party. the weather was perfect and glorious and a truly wonderful day was had by all. the strawberries were in full swing and we lived an outdoor life in the glorious weather.

july 2014

july was the month of kittens! there was also a fun visit from cousin emily and we hated to see her go. and at the end of the month, the culmination of the project started in march - with the release of the LEGO Ideas Exo Suit in london. after the work, there was a little time for play in london as well.

august 2014

in august, bacon & bacon were growing and had reached their slaughter weight (and then some), so we reluctantly had them made into actual bacon. it was a bittersweet moment, but the one we had been working towards since we moved to the countryside. and once we tasted the bacon, we couldn't be sad anymore. we will definitely be getting pigs again come spring! the kittens were at their cutest and so we had a lot of kitten photoshoots! there was a trip (or two) to the west coast - for the tall ships regatta in esbjerg and to an art museum with friends (and their dog). there was a big sale of all of the things from the local kulturhus and we got lots of amazing stuff for a song!

september 2014

in september, things settled down in the golden light and the days were filled with raspberries and museum visits and games and yes, more kitten time. the iPhone 6 came out and mine arrived as one of the first! years of loyalty will do that for you.

october 2014

on october first, i headed off for a wonderful work trip to seattle. after seeing old friends and making loads of new ones, i continued to new york city! my first time! there i also saw many old friends and new and had an amazing time working with fans at new york comic con. i was exposed to the pleasures of upmarket perfumes, walked the the entire length of the highline and spent a blissful afternoon in brooklyn. when i got home, we outfitted a new dining room and at long last, hung a lot of pictures that hadn't been up since we were in the old house. in all, a very good month.

november 2014

november started well, with an amazing salon evening at the local library and another visit from emily. but then an emergency trip to say goodbye to my dad came into the picture. it was bittersweet, for sure, but we also laughed so much at the many stories of his wonderful, long life that was so well-lived. i rounded out the month with a world record for largest video game diorama (17.1m2) at brick2014 in london.

december 2014

and december was spent sending out surprise packages of LEGO goodness to the volunteers from the event in london. a task which truly and thoroughly brought me joy. to package up a box full of things that you know that someone will love as a gesture of gratitude must be one of the most satisfying things a person can do. there was also a lot of Bionicle fun, with the winding down of the battle for the gold mask and choosing the winners from over 1800 entries worldwide. and after that, christmas with family with all that entails - games, laughter, presents and way too much food! what a way to end the year. you've been a good one, 2014, but i can't wait to see what 2015 brings.

processing. processing. processing.

my eyes have changed. it seems like it happened suddenly. i've been wiping off my glasses all day, thinking it was because they were all foggy. but i think it's because my eyes have made a sudden change. i wonder if it means i have ebola?

kidding.

that's not one of the symptoms.

and it's also not what i had intended to write about.

i'm winding down my trip. one more day in the office, then back to nyc tomorrow evening and a last few hours there before i fly home. it's been an awesome trip. i've met so many new people, gotten together with old friends (some for the first time in person, even tho' they felt like we'd been friends for years, which, i guess, we had), and made new friends.

as amy wrote earlier today, she's still processing. and so am i.

i've eaten everything from oysters and foie gras pops to dill pickle sunflower seeds (way yummier than you might think). i've laughed until tears streamed down my face (seriously, google monsignor meth and you will too). i've walked until my feet weren't speaking to me. and i've seen everything from firetrucks attempting to speed down manhattan streets to spiderman strolling across times square to some odd, large, unattended canisters of liquid nitrogen on a curbside. i photographed the original starbucks and the apple store in grand central. we danced until the wee hours in an irish bar across from penn station, singing at the top of our lungs to 90s songs (by the way, cyndy knows all the words). i had an amazing scent experience at MiN, thanks to my sister. i've taken a bunch of photos in a museum (even tho' you probably shouldn't do that). i've corresponded with the child, who is in london at the moment on a school trip (she's 13 and has big business plans). i've been frightened by american television (good morning america, 19 and counting, the political ads...). and i've enjoyed a real, thick, beautiful sunday new york times. in new york.

suffice it to say, it's a lot to take in. a lot to process. so i'll be back with more soon...

eating my way through the usa: the new york edition (round 1)

funny, the street food in denmark never includes lobster rolls.

or awesome greek chicken pitas that claim to be made of all sustainable ingredients.

and oddly, the main station in copenhagen does not have a gorgeous oyster bar with 25+ kinds of oysters to choose from.

nor are there macaroons with the most creamy, velvety filling ever on every corner.

and i've never been served heavenly, creamy mushroom croquettes that make you wonder how on earth they did that amazing combination of crunchy and creamy.

tho' i'll admit foie gras pops with a surprise fig filling do seem vaguely new nordic.

our pizza runs more to mince and bernaise (yuck. i tell you.)

and we do not do our crust nearly thin and crispy enough.

i've never seen green bean tempura with a zesty mustard dipping sauce on a danish menu.

nor has my spinach craving ever been assuaged in denmark.

some things are just bettter in new york.

secret 10 - i've never been to new york city

me. world traveler extraordinaire. been to the philippines sixteen times. india more than i'd care to admit. china. hong kong. singapore more times than i can count. cape town (not enough). moscow. the balkans. but never ever to new york city. passing through JFK and newark airports don't count.

and we're back

new york city burning

after a long summer hiatus, kristina and i are back on across ø/öresund, sharing creativity across the sound separating denmark and sweden. we'll be posting highlights from the first roll from our summer film swap. i exposed a roll of expired slide film (oops, those pretenses again) in south dakota (or should i say sabin took most of the photos one evening when we had a bonfire) and then sent the roll to kristina in new york city. then kristina got it cross processed and here is the first of the results.

while of course the entire roll doesn't turn out as well as you might hope, there are some very cool and unexpected effects. kristina's camera rolled the film differently, so not only are they double exposures, but also half frames on top of my originals. i think it's especially effective on this shot of city streets.

be sure to stop by across ø/öresund in the next few days to see more. and do check out the interviews we did of one another. kristina's interview of me and mine of her.

we've got more fun planned over there, so keep checking it out. we'll definitely be getting up to photo fun at blog camp berlin in 10 days.

50 things about right now (mostly awesome)

i totally copycatted was inspired by molly's 50 things about right now post.

1.  in a word, kittens. two of them, tho' we thought she had 6 in there, her belly was so big.
2.  sunshine breaking through.
3.  working at home.
4.  sitting for too long in one spot when i work at home.
5.  building excitement over our coming holiday in london.

7.  flowers in bloom all over the place.

8. did i mention the two perfect, tiny kittens?

9. awesome projects at work.

10. great people to work with on awesome projects at work.

11.  a trip on the (rather distant) horizon to seattle and then new york.

12. yes, me, in new york.

13. for the first time ever.

14. cold white wine in the garden.

15. and the odd gin & tonic.

16. the coolest business cards ever. and i have some.
17. long, light summer nights.
18. being invited to a party this weekend.
19. horses with fly fringe attached to their halters.
20. the antics of our pigs.
21. the child hanging out with her good friends.
22. the awesomeness being submitted to the turtle competition we're running on eurobricks.
23. these are the ultra-creative people i get to work with. all. the. time.

24. pinterest.

25. looking forward to molly's kittens.

26. yes, that's more kittens.

27. awesome neighbors.

28. summer visits from friends.

29. rewatching friends from the beginning on netflix.

30. shark burgers for dinner.

31. salmon burgers for dinner.

32. burger burgers for dinner.

33. berries to pick.

34. the strawberries are done.

35. the child buying a nikon D7100 with her confirmation money.

36. arranging lunch dates with friends in london.

37. and tours of oxford with other friends.

38. packing up the "dining" room so it can become sabin's room.

39. reluctantly. because packing all those books away again feels wrong.

40. our independent, awesome feral hen keeping her babies safe up a tree every night.

41. overusing the word awesome.
42. but it's because everything is pretty much awesome.
43. looking at the calendar to find the best time for a weekend in rome.
44. and maybe one in berlin.
45. did i mention we're going to london?

46. getting to write at work too.

47. mowing the lawn.

48. strawberry shrubs.

49. staying up late.

50. sitting in the golden hour light with husband in the garden, sipping a cocktail and talking about our days, the future, living abroad, the angle of the roof, and what to do with all these cats.

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seriously awesome reflection photos by kiripi katembo siku

they are stunning and so full of subtext and depth.

a big thank you to molly for sharing them with me.

distracted is the new black

as i did my morning scan of what happened on the iPad while i was asleep, it was such a relief to read this piece on chucking mindfulness out the window. i thought it was going to be a humorous piss-take on all that mindfulness claptrap that's so pervasive out there these days. but instead it was a thoughtful and in-depth look at what's wrong with mindfulness (can you say narcissism?) and why it doesn't necessarily make you happy.

i've actually been suspicious of mindfulness for awhile. and while i relish my daily moment, camera in hand, where i wander the backyard, looking for my photo opportunity for the day, in reality that moment lasts only 5 minutes. the rest of my day is spent in a rather distracted state - juggling tasks, articles and emails on two computers (sometimes 3), tethered to my scribbled to-do list. in between, i make myself a cup of coffee, put on a load of laundry, occasionally vacuum and fight a never-ending battle against the spiderwebs and dust. i plan dinner, i pick strawberries, i run to the store for milk, i send some emails, i work on blog pieces and articles and my freelance tasks, sometimes i go to the office, but often i work on all of this from home. i feed the bunnies, throw the horses some hay, prepare for community board meetings, discover new podcasts, read voraciously, drive the child to a friend's house. and while i spend a lot of my day in front of screens, it sometimes feels like i never sit down. and to be honest, the more of these activities there are, the more content i feel. my moments of restlessness and discontent come when i'm not busy enough, when my mind doesn't have a million things to process.

i find my moments of downtime in the midst of all of that...when i'm working in the garden, i'm usually listening to a podcast. while i make dinner, i have a series going on netflix. when i'm waiting for the child at the train station, i'm checking facebook or instagram on my phone. while i eat a solitary lunch, i scan the new york times on my iPad or catch an episode of sex and the city and decouple for awhile. these moments send me back to my tasks ready to concentrate again. but are they mindful? i'm not sure. and i'm unconvinced that they have to be.

i think we naturally seek towards the things we need...when the writing isn't going anywhere, i get up and take a walk or just hang up some laundry and start a new load. sometimes i take a short 20 minute nap. then i come back and i'm able to work. and i instinctively do these things. sometimes, yes, i wait too long and try to force the words to come and that never works. but stepping away, doing something else, and then coming back always works. it seems that allowing myself to be distracted from the task at hand is a good thing for that task in the long run.

maybe mindfulness is just another word for listening to yourself and what you need in order to get things done. and maybe what you need is to juggle 20 tasks at once, shifting between them at lightning speed. maybe that makes you tick. and you know what? that's just fine. maybe distracted is the new black.

and seriously, do go read the piece on good. and while it's a little bit hard to take someone named taffy seriously, don't be put off by that. it's definitely worth reading.

* * *

is this the perfect american roadtrip?

double digits

sabin turns 10 today! her father said to her yesterday morning that if there was anything she had wanted to do while she was 9, she'd better get it done. she snorted that little snort she does when she's satisfied with herself. she knew she had done an awful lot while she was 9. and at her age, you just want your birthday to hurry up and come.

my 365 project once again helped me to remember all of the things she did.  it was a busy year and a year of big changes. we moved to a new house and she moved to a new school. the transition was made very smooth by a wonderful teacher and her new class very kindly taking her under their wing. despite that, we still had moments of tears and missing all her old friends and her old class and especially her old riding school - in particular zidan, who was her favorite of the lesson horses (in retrospect, we should just have bought him).

you can see that horses were a big theme this past year (which perhaps reflects more on my obsession with photographing them than her interest, tho' her interest is pretty high). most importantly, in may, she got her own horse, matilde, a large pony of the "breed" they call danish sports pony - which means an elegant mix and not just a shetland. sabin has continued riding lessons at two different riding schools (she rides on wednesdays and fridays) and still uses the lesson horses there, since we don't have a horse trailer (yet).

since we live out in the country, sabin had to have a pet - so we got bunnies when we got back from our summer holiday in the US. we thought they were both girls, but learned (as most people do) that they were a boy and girl. happily that incestuous first batch of baby bunnies were stillborn and now we keep them in separate cages. i really can't believe what nice pets they are - well, aside from that part where they chewed 9 buttons off our of t.v. zapper.

we didn't travel much this year, due to the move, but we spent two weeks visiting family in the US and sabin and i had a wonderful trip to manila together at the end of november. this year will be exciting because it's a tradition in our family that when you turn ten, you get to decide where we go on holiday. sabin had been set on the philippines, but getting to go in november seems to have cooled that desire and now she's pretty set on new york city, tho' i believe her big sisters are working on convincing her that hawaii would be a better bet.

this fall, she started going to spring gymnastics and it's really her sport - she flips and cartwheels her way through the house - never walking normally out of the living room, but flipping over the back of the couch. we're trying to enjoy these waning years of her loving to spend time with her parents for all they're worth, as we know that the teenage years loom large. but for now, she still is at her happiest and most chirpy if she's sewing or in the kitchen with me or dictating the dimensions of a bunny cage to her father out in his workshop. 

i love watching her make her way through the world - jumping in with both feet, being curious and interested in everything around her. happy birthday, pooka.

sunday morning reflections

sunday morning finds me leisurely looking through pinterest, facebook, my flipboard blog feed and the new york times on my li'l iPad. husband always gets up and makes tea and delivers a cup, milky and sweetened with honey, so i don't have to leave the warmth of the quilts. the cats curl up next to me, purring and jockeying for position and it's pretty much my favorite hour or so of the week.

if i view the world through the lens of my various feeds, i have learned that vladimir putin has some canny editorial writers, we can no longer use the words lame, crazy or insane, disney has been infiltrated by the illuminati, the reason that time magazine didn't put putin on the cover in the US this week (he was on the cover everywhere else) was because the media is controlled by 6 corporations, sweden is awesome, there are a lot of injured, homeless animals in need of homes, iowa beat iowa state (i surmised this more from the silence of certain iowa state folks in my feed), people think it's homemade if you combine 4-5 premade ingredients (cake mixes, oreos, cool whip, jello and tortilla chips), eating the resulting sweet dessert will likely bring you closer to jesus, there is major flooding in colorado, berlin is where all the cool stuff takes place, triangles are the new circle, autumn is upon us, the latest trend in photographing food is to place it against a dark background, which serves to make it more moody and poetic and according to my myers-briggs profile (ENTP), i am sirius black from harry potter. 

i do wonder what effect this melange of input has on me? does it connect new synapses in my brain or reinforce the old ones? are my horizons expanded or narrowed? do i end up feeling helpless about my ability to do anything about the state of the world? do I even have the first clue about what state the world is in? does it take away my desire to argue against the madness before i even begin? am I even allowed to call it madness (that illuminati thing is pretty out there)? is it all a load of bullshit?

i listened to a pretentious panel of "experts" yesterday on P1 (our NPR equivalent, only even better) debate the ability of individuals to live more sustainably in practice. they justified their purchases of non-organic food, designer bags, frequent airplane travels, long showers and wasting of energy with homes filled with electronics they never turn off and ended up concluding that we as individuals cannot do anything about living more sustainably. we might as well load our grocery cart with cheap chicken and sit in front of our enormous flat screen televisions, clad in prada, planning our next holiday in bali. they decided that we should wait for governments to wake up and regulate us, since we were too lazy to take steps ourselves.

and while that's a pretty dire and cynical conclusion, and it rather pissed me off when i heard it (as i was driving instead of biking, no less) upon reflection, i don't think it's that illogical in light of the input we feed in to our brains. a lot of what we read and expose ourselves to points to individuals not being able to make one iota of difference (after all, the illuminati and those 6 corporations are controlling everything). and i'd like to say that it's lame and crazy of us, but apparently that avenue is now closed as well.

also in my various feeds, i came across a guardian piece by jonathan franzen about our frustrating way of conducting ourselves in the modern world. he harkens back to an austrian intellectual, karl kraus, who was  blogging in a journal called the torch, before blogging was invented. maybe we need to do as kraus did, and spend a lot of time reading stuff we hate, so as to be able to hate it with authority. i'll admit i'm not good at that, as i blogged the other day, i've been turning off those who post the most objectionable stuff on my facebook feed, because i don't want their vitriol polluting my mind or messing up the steady stream of photos of kittens and lego minifigures. 

i think i've said it before, but we have to start fighting back. we've been slacktivists long enough. it's time to start arguing against the madness. because not doing so clearly isn't working.

seriously?

melting down

disclaimer: i have a knot in my back that just won't quit (i think it's from hunching over the sewing machine for a week) and it's making me generally out of sorts. especially as i'm a little alarmed at how much ibuprofen i've taken for it for the past few days and i'm trying not to take any today.  the items in this post may reflect this rather crabby out-of-sortsness. you have been warned.

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i may have to do some unfriending on facebook. not because i can't take dissent (one might even say i thrive on it), but when the dissent is so ridiculously thick as to suggest that the new york times is a purveyor of "hate rheteric (sic)" simply because the person in question disagrees with their political leaning,  and apparently reason and intellect, that's a bit much for me. but mostly i might have to unfriend because i believe someone who is a teacher should be able to spell rhetoric.

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and while we're on the subject of free speech(!), i can recommend this very well written blog post. and stay to check out betsy's blog - there's good stuff there about changing perspective.

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thank you to lynne for her continued posting of the journey sea shepherd is making, protecting whales from japanese "research" (aka murderous whaling) vessels in the southern ocean. i'm riveted by these stories. lynne's son is onboard one of the vessels, but thanks to her links, i think i'm nearly as engaged in sea shepherd's crusade as she is.

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[this whole section should be read with your teeth clenched.] i wonder if anyone in this house will ever put back the scissors in the kitchen drawer where they belong when they're finished using them in some far corner of the house. i tell you, if one day, i am at last driven over the edge, it will be because i can't find the friggin' scissors when i need them.

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on another less ranty note, if you, like me, love japanese pattern books, here's some great advice on working with them if you, like me, don't know japanese.

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these loose engrams are making me smile. in that knowing, wise way. but don't expect to be able to comment, you'll just have to nod to yourself.  and enjoy.

i am thinking about maps and topographies.

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i'm doing a new 365 project and you can find it here on my new tumblr:
365 moments of perfect clarity

updated: apparently the blog hop thing below (which i've never tried before, nor even seen), is from a post a couple of weeks ago (started by jillsy, #1 on it - and should have been about balance). i saw it on lynne's blog and only read her post and the second to last person on the list before her, and balance had already dropped off (or else i simply didn't get it).  i think it's pretty funny, actually, because it's kinda like those games you played as a child, where you whisper something to your neighbor and send it around the circle and by the time it gets back to you, it's nothing like what you said. i think i rather like that about the blogosphere.

into the fog (or perhaps out of it)

it's been pretty foggy in the mornings of late. i actually really love the fog, except in the areas where there are often deer, but it's ok to have to slow down a little bit and take my time. i've been rushing around with last minute preparations for being away for nearly three weeks! back to the land of my birth for work and fun. first to seattle, where i've not been in ten years and then to new york city for the very first time. it's been hectic and crazy in these weeks leading up to the trip, so i'm ready to see some new sights and have some new experiences. the kittens will likely be all grown up when i return, as will my child, who is off to london for a week during the autumn holiday and has all kinds of plans for getting around there on her own. poor husband, he'll be home all alone and have to take care of all of the animals while we're both away. i think he'll manage, tho' i do imagine that the cats will have to get used to another level of service than that to which they've become accustomed. i'm sure i'll check in from along the journey, so stay tuned...