100 happy days :: day 37

new converse. because you can never have too many. 

wonderful wonder woman

in our second of a series of salons i've been co-creating at our local library, the theme was wonder woman. but not only the comic book character wonder woman, but the wonder woman in us all. this year is the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in denmark, so we brought in that aspect as well. we didn't get the vote in the US for another 5 years! afterwards, i looked up when women got the vote in countries around the world and there are some pretty surprising facts on that list. like that switzerland, which i would have thought was a pretty progressive place, didn't allow women to vote until 1971! appalling! and turkey gave women the vote in 1934, but france didn't follow suit for another 10 years in 1944. also appalling.

we prepared two rounds of questions for the tables to discuss. my thought was to start it off a bit lighthearted in the spirit of wonder woman and ask people what they thought their super power was. or what they would want it to be if they could have one. the age range at my table went from a bit younger than me (early 40s) to 60s, so approximately a 20 year span. and i quickly realized that aside from one (my partner in the arrangement), they actually didn't know what was meant by a super power. and they definitely didn't take the question in the lighthearted way it was intended.

i came to find out that they actually had no idea who wonder woman was at all! they weren't familiar with the cartoon, nor the fabulous series from the 70s starring lynda carter that so defined how i jumped out of the swingset for a good portion of my childhood. so, they looked a little blankly at my superman socks and wonder woman converse. they just didn't get it. and i have to say that it made me feel so sorry for them! but then, it hit me that they felt sorry for me for knowing about a comic book heroine. it was just another example of those shallow americans and their lack of culture.

they obviously didn't know that jill lepore (a harvard scholar, no less), recently wrote a history of wonder woman and the story behind her debut in 1940 as well as her place in feminist history. they didn't know that the book just beat out 132 other contenders to win the american history book prize. wonder woman is huge and awesome and a feminist icon. she is not merely a cartoon character, she is so much more. she is strong and brave, a real amazonian princess. and it was funny, because several people mentioned that they wished they could be more like those amazon women of legend. they just didn't seem to realize that wonder woman was the best known one of all!

next time, i'll not assume that everyone is on the same page and prepare a bit more explanation so that we all start on equal footing, or at least that we understand where we're all coming from.

in all, tho', a very interesting evening anyway.

summer is so fleeting

the weekend started at the beach at sunset and ended by a crackling fire in the garden. in other words, it was perfect. hope yours was too!

we didn't want it to end

yup, there they are again.

i can't stop taking their picture.

around 5:30 p.m., the three of us retired to the upper garden (our property has a hill behind the house, so this isn't as exotic as it sounds). 

a place to relax in the upper garden

sabin brought her basket of pens and pencils and a book to draw in. husband had a cider and i had a glass of spiers inspire chardonnay. i brought my sketchbook and some pastels as well. we relaxed and chatted and lit some candles and got our little bitty mexican oven fired up (mostly to smoke away any mosquitos in the area). we tried to count the buds on the peonies (more than 75) and the giant poppy (more than 20), we wondered aloud when the first strawberries will be ready (in a week or so), we discussed when the roses would be just right to pluck some and bring them in to sugar some of the petals for exotic desserts, like anna did on frilandshaven.

all of the recent rain made the creek overflow

it was so wonderful, sitting there in the cool early evening air, listening to the birds and talking and laughing that we put off getting dinner started. and then we decided to cook it and eat it outside because we didn't want the lovely day to end.

snobrød roasting on an open fire

i could hear the panic rising in sabin's voice as it neared 8 p.m., which was when we said we'd go in and start winding down and getting her off to bed. there's still two more weeks of school here, tho' we now officially have that feeling tara talked about a few weeks ago...we're just so ready for school to be done and the summer to start.  and after a weekend of climbing trees and walks in the park and ice cream and snobrød (bread cooked on a stick over a fire--see above) and a game of rundbold (a sort of baseball with really weird rules--like that you can have as many people on base at a time as you want), peach cobbler and rhubarb cake, a batch of hyldeblomst juice, two riding lessons, lots of sunshine, tons of sewing and making things--it just seemed so hard that it all had to come to an end.

at the top of the troldebøg (weeping beech?) trees at the little castle in jægerspris

i guess if weekends weren't so short, we probably wouldn't appreciate them as much as we do.  but we sure are sad to see this one go.

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have you noticed the improvements in the adding pictures thing here on blogger (in draft)? much better now. i can even drag & drop. it's a big improvement blogger peeps, thanks!

friday confessions happiness

(happiness) my new chucks

in the engine room of a brand new PSV

(confession) one of three new pairs of shoes i bought this week.

happy husband doesn't read my blog.

(happiness) a brand new engine room

(confession) it made me miss all the great engineers

from my old job. they were so cool.

(happiness) the view from up here.

(confession) i'm not that fond of heights.

(happiness) noticing a heart shape in this bit of a ship

(confession) i let everyone think i was just taking pictures of the ropes.

(happiness) mirror self-portraits

(happiness 2) my hair's getting long

(confession) this isn't that great a picture but it's the best one i got.

i was in a hurry.

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(happiness)--on monday SFgirlbybay used my most famous flickr moo pic in her post on inspiration boards. thanks SF girl! :-) (confession) hers is one of those blogs that i feel unworthy of, so it's especially validating fun. i knew someone had to have used it somewhere because hits on that pic suddenly went up dramatically. i've been woefully neglecting flickr of late. i guess because i'm all about twitter at the moment. oh yeah, and i've been working like a madwoman of late. (confession 2) i don't have that pic on this 'puter, so you gotta go look at it on flickr.

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(happiness and confession) i'm happy to be headed home today.

friday confession

i haven't confessed since that first one earlier this month, so i thought it was time...plus, friday confession was polly's original idea with it, so the day is even right.  it is friday, right? i've kinda lost track this week.

forgive me odin, for i have sinned...

: :  i admit this is just another way of doing one of those random lists i love so much.

: : i've used up a rather shocking amount of my kenzo eau de fleur de thé perfume this week instead of showering regularly.

: : sabin and i ate carpaccio for dinner three days this week. plus a soft boiled egg with spears of aspargus dipped into it. we always eat weird raw stuff when husband is away. and yup, that's a super cool heather moore skinny laminx egg cup cradling that egg.

: : i am fighting an urge to go downtown and see if there is anything summery and wonderful in the form of a dress for me. but (aside from the kenzo) i've done so well on extending austerity april into may that it would be a shame to break it here right at the end.

: : and i really want my own pair of converse all-stars, which are apparently affectionately called chucks, but which i can't really bring myself to call that because i am lacking the cultural reference for that name. but that's my own fault for removing myself from that culture for over a decade. i have the same thing with something called "wife beaters" that people keep mentioning. i have no idea what those are. anyway, i want light yellow converse all-stars. i don't know why that color, as i have nothing else that's yellow, it just that the thought of those makes my heart sing. i hope they make them in that color.

: : very often my kitchen sink area looks like above because it's where i draw the line as to how i want to expend my energy allotment for the day. so much for that feature on apartment therapy.

: : i am so relieved that all of my articles are done now and just awaiting the final approvals. and that the feedback that's come in from the various interviewees is very positive. that's a big relief. because my inner perfectionist is one tough cookie to please. and she had her doubts.

: : this week i spent an awful lot of time wearing my old green gap sweatpants and husband's big red gap hoodie, clutching my talisman stone and rocking back and forth in front of my laptop.

: : i took my talisman stone to the bathtub with me. after clutching it in my sweaty little palm all week, i thought it might like a bath. is that weird?  i showed my stone to my mom yesterday on a video chat and she said, "julie, get a life." i thought that was a little bit harsh. and i hope the stone didn't hear her.

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and now for something completely different

i'd like to do a post as cyndy suggested, where you ask sabin and me questions and we post the answers, so please leave your questions in the comments. that is right, isn't it, cyndy?  my questions--with a look on the past and sabin's view on the same questions, but what she imagines her answers will be in the future. as cyndy says, "First car? First date? First day of college? First house? The list is endless..." so think along those lines in coming up with the questions.

and happy friday to all of you. i for one am looking forward to the weekend.