mondays

things are a bit blurry these days, but i'm hoping for clarity soon. just a few moments of perfect clarity would be most welcome.

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this flickr stream by dagmar franolic totally speaks to me right now.

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murakami is answering questions on a temporary website.
i sure wish i read japanese.
happily he is answering in english to those who ask in english.

seeking comfort

events of the past week. the past few months for that matter. four days of gusty winds, driving rain and sleet. general uncertainty. it all has me wanting to hunker down. light candles. stir up a real batch of cooked oatmeal - like the kind that you have to cook for 15-20 minutes (jamie tells you how here.) - and top it with blueberries (don't ask about the food miles), butter, real maple syrup and a drizzle of cream. seeking comfort. finding it. and also having it find me in unexpected forms that i only realized were needed after they arrived. life is like that sometimes.

the monday wizard

some (mon)days, you just need a wizard to work a little magic and make it not monday anymore. it appears to have worked, so let's see how it goes...

likes and dislikes

i started my day reading susan sontag's list of likes and dislikes on brain pickings. that led me further to a similar list compiled by roland barthes, which made me want to start my week listing (but not in the nautical sense)...

i like: the first, piping hot cup of sweet, milky tea of the morning. hyacinths in winter. nail polish. kiddie band-aids. pinterest. a stack of new books. yarn. washi tape. cats. new stædtler fineliners. making lists. sparkly things. knitting. reading. lego minifigures. candles. sitting by the fire. procrastinating. new shoes. dressing up. wearing sweatpants. airports. snail mail. petit basque cheese. coffee (starbucks, of course). learning new things. going to ikea. staying up late. collecting. snow. silver rings. converse. ships.

i dislike: taking down the christmas tree. waiting. cold tea (when it's supposed to be warm). tight flight connections. procrastinating. gløgg (or any hot wine). chapstick. marzipan. people who have no queueing manners. the jerks who drive like maniacs on our road. danes in grocery stores on a friday afternoon. not being instantly good at something. getting up early. going to bed early. winter rain (it's so grey and dreary). bilka. taking photos of things i dislike (hence the lack of mosaic for dislikes).

what do you like and dislike on this rainy, grey monday morning?

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amazing art by judith scott.

proving artistic expression will find a way.

just another mundane monday

turns out i was premature in my being pleasantly surprised by the efficiency of the fabric-softener scented washing machine repairman. you see, he fixed only one of the two problems and he left a totally NEW problem behind. which i didn't realize until after i did the first load. and naturally, they can't send someone back 'til thursday. grrr. crappy ass miele repairmen. actually, i have to give meile credit, now that i'm naming them by name, the girls on the customer service phone are great and you get to talk to a live person right away, rather than wading through some kind of automatic system and being directed to bangalore or bangulu as they're calling it now. i guess they just don't have very strict requirements as to whether you, as a washing machine repairman, have actually ever repaired a washing machine or might be capable of doing so.

then, around noon, husband called in a panic and asked me to bring him some clothing suitable for fencing. that took nearly two hours to locate said clothing (in dirty clothes pile since washing machine still not fixed) and drive it to him and get back home. note to self: ask husband more questions about what kind of course it is he's attending anyway....

and then i realized that although it was cloudy and dreary as hell in denmark, the sun was shining in sweden and that just seems unfair on so many levels--they've got nicer cars, more style, lower taxes, all the good names on the ikea stuff (the only stuff with danish names is insignificant stuff like bottle openers and the like) and now this:

after that run, it was time to pick up sabin. she did the absolute sweetest thing and completely restored my faith in humanity (which was waning in the face of extreme lack of sunshine) by filling a bag with all of her heinous bratz dolls and announcing that she wanted to take them to school the next day and give them to her friend aleyna, who is a girl from a turkish family (which somehow makes it even sweeter to me, tho' it shouldn't really matter). how cool is that?

and on top of it, she made a crown for the cat out of pipecleaners. i picture build-a-bear clothing on this cat's horizon:

i did very little that was on my list--my excuse being that the hardware store was out of the good firewood thingies so i couldn't warm up the studio without risking life and limb and of course, husband blowing a two hour hole into my day. and i made chicken for dinner--i found a package in the fridge and felt i had to use it up before it went bad, plus the child is a huge carnivore. but tomorrow is another day and we can be vegetarians then.

the coming darkness

how unlike me, it's been almost a week since i blogged! the autumn holiday is over. it's affectionately called the kartoffelferie--potato holiday--because at one time it meant that children were released from school to help with the potato harvest. now, it's just a week off where children are ushered from one fun activity to the next. we squeezed in a couple of learning activities as well, like a visit to an old mill, where we watched flour being ground and bought some to take home to make bread (and where i took the above picture of some old, broken millstones).

but now, it seems we settle in in earnest to the dark winter months. the sun gets up late and goes down early. the yard is covered in leaves, although no killing frost has yet come to my dahlias (they are IN the greenhouse after all), it will come soon. we've harvested the last tomatoes and made warming sauces and soups with them. we're using the fireplace in the evenings and in general, closing down and tucking in, ready to wait out the long, dark winter.

although fall is my favorite, the dread of the darkness weighs heavily on me. maybe it's the darkness and the rain along with all of the negativity of the election (seriously, are there REALLY two weeks left before this madness is over?) that has me feeling a bit down. it didn't help that last night, i watched this movie--en soap--by danish director pernille fischer christiansen. very well-acted, but very disturbing because the two main characters are just so completely messed up. i'm not sure why i kept watching it, as i could actually feel it getting me down. i actually went to bed with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach from watching it. i'm not sure it's enriching to the soul to watch people with totally fucked up lives further fuck them up, even if the acting is great. it wasn't a "there but for the grace of god" feeling it gave, but more the feeling of having come upon a horrible accident and being unable to look away from the mangled metal and bloody limbs. disturbing.

i think it's time for some tea and some candles and some cheerful music to snap me out of this funk. what do you do to cheer yourself up when you need it?

some days are just like that...

it's been a blah monday. maybe because of the change to summer time, it just felt wrong getting out of bed this morning. all day i've been wondering if i'm getting sick, which would be bad because we're going to barcelona later this week and i don't want to be sick if i have to fly.

i've been dragging all day. and on top of it, i got a HUGE tax bill in the mail today as a little surprise, which just underlined the extreme mondayness of the day. sometimes there are just days where you should simply go back to bed. unfortunately, i didn't get the hint, so i did not go back to bed.

it isn't really that anything has gone especially wrong today(other than the tax thing, which husband says isn't really as bad as it appears), it's more that it felt like a blah and uninspired day. i got the things done i needed to do, but i didn't do them in a particularly engaged fashion. i just kind of floated through, feeling sluggish and heavy, so not really floating at all, more like trudging, actually.

i guess it was just a monday. not a day to remember at all. in fact, probably one to forget. maybe some days are just like that.