monday funday

i was worried all night about the middle of the night uber i'd ordered for sabs to meet her 6 a.m. flight from newark and so i slept very restlessly. i dreamed that i had put regular gas in husband's diesel quashqai. and then i dreamed that i was reaching into a cramped space to lift out what i thought would be a kitten and i found it was a none-too-happy baby possum. scout, who hadn't been around for over a week, chose to meow plaintively at the window at a little after midnight. so when the dulcet tones of husband's north korean telephone (it's a huawei, which, i realize, is chinese, not north korean, but calling it north korean is so much funnier) called out that it was time to wake up, i wasn't ready. it felt like i'd only just gotten to sleep. plus, i didn't want to be in trouble for the gas tank thing. it wasn't the best start to a monday morning, which can be sketchy in and of itself. so i ate chocolate chip cookies for breakfast and made a pot of tea. i went to sit down at my freshly-renovated desk area to get to work and found scout sleeping in my chair. i couldn't possibly disturb him, i mean, what if he never got comfortable again? so i moved the chair over and brought in another one. let sleeping cats lie, they say, right?

* * *

some moron in the white house (there are so many), did not realize this was satire.

as of right now

a most pathetic attempt at winter. big, wet flakes falling from the sky in clumps, to join puddles of slush on the ground. dismal. grey. depressing. this may be the reality of our winters now in a time of climate change. they say we've actually had such a shattering effect on the earth that we've entered a new epoch, the anthropocene. i hate to always talk about the weather, but it somehow looms large and always affects my mood and outlook on the world. on the bright side, at least it indicates a connection to nature.

* * *

as of right now...

current netflix obsession: person of interest
drinking: carrot and apple juice
enjoying: alone time
should not have: driven for 4 hours today. turns out my back's not ready for that
appreciating: the little wood burning stove care package husband made for me (split logs of just the right size, some small bits to get the fire started, firestarter blocks and matches in a cool basket made of a recycled tire)
in need of: lip stuff
missing: my aunt's funeral. my dad's older sister. and the person who taught me to drink white russians. she had a long and full life. i'm sad to miss out on the stories.
best new accessory: bose wireless headphones
disapproving of: the pressure the danish education system places on 14-year-olds to decide what they want to be when they grow up already at 14 (hell, i still don't know.)
need to stop: listening to true crime podcasts (sword and scale). i'm probably going to have nightmares.
need to start: going to yoga
thankful for: good friends
loving: foggy mornings

* * *

sean penn interviews el chapo, the mexican escape artist drug lord in rolling stone.

he may be a self-professed luddite, but he can write.

* * *

an interesting read on the facebook algorithm. 

but let's face it, they are still pretty evil.

* * *

war & peace - digested.

arbness between coughing fits

i haven't got the heart to clean the outside of that window. those are frieda's muddy pawprints on it and i can't bear for them to be gone. not quite yet. i did, however, clean the inside of it, which you probably can't really tell by looking at this photo. maybe in the spring.

if the "recipe" calls for a box cake or store-bought dressing or jello or box pudding, it's not a recipe.

we finally saw star wars: the force awakens today. i enjoyed it, but i wasn't wowed. if you ask me, it all felt a bit too familiar...remote desert-y planet, cute, quirky droid containing a big secret, everyone tries to get their hands on said droid, guy in black helmet with voice modifier in torment, wise-cracking indiana jones type shows up, a visit to an out-of-the way quirky pub run by a woman who is ET's cousin by the look of her,  big battle where against incredible odds, a ragtag fleet defeats the baddies, ending left wide open for continuing sequels. along the way, echoes of lord of the rings with the odd horde of nazis thrown in. it's an odd mish-mash symbolically. highlights? adam driver as kylo ren, that badass rey girl, finn the former stormtrooper and carrie fisher as general leia.  and of course, harrison ford as han solo. there is comfort in familiar things. 

i hadn't had a bad cough in a several years, but i've got one again now. it keeps me from sleeping any appreciable length of time in a row. it gives my stomach muscles a good workout. and i'm very grateful it didn't happen a month ago, because if i'd had to cough like this right after my back surgery i'd definitely have insisted on being taken to the vet to be put down.

that's come up a few times of late.

i spent a lot of 2015 not sleeping enough and it seems to have continued into 2016. i hope to remedy that soon.

numbers 1 and 4 on this list are so much me. i'm going to try to remedy that this year.

karl johan and other randomness

it's good to have mushroom hunting friends who call and say, "we've got way too many mushrooms, can you use some?" and then they give you a full 10 liter bucket of beautiful karl johans (aka porcini). i'm thinking mushroom tart. dried mushrooms. maybe with butter and garlic atop a steak.

* * *

i've been branching out in my podcast listening of late. i listened to a few episodes of on being. i can't remember what podcast directed me there. it's deep and explores big, existential questions, but the host, krista tippett is so incredibly pretentious and annoying that i had to delete it from my phone again. i also listened to most of the extant episodes of food52's burnt toast, but didn't subscribe. the hosts are ok, but some of the guests were, again, too pretentious for my tastes (that brooklyn beer guy was downright insufferable). it seems like pretentious doesn't do it for me at the moment. today, via the longform podcast i found my way to another round, a buzzfeed podcast. i'm not that far in, but am already enjoying it. no pretentions, plenty of slang that i'm utterly out of touch with, and funny stories told by hosts who are having a cocktail or two. what's not to like? what are you listening to these days?

* * *

what is the deal with random people who think it's ok to give you unasked for advice? "you should put the link in a different spot on that post." hmm, just because you weren't computer savvy enough to find the highlighted word and click it, isn't my problem. and don't pull "well, i have a mac" shit on me. i. have. a. mac. 

* * *

i dreamed that a tractor pushed husband's car (which was inexplicably a black SUV, rather than the white soccer mom van it is in reality) from in front of our house (which was a different house than our real house, but our house nonetheless), down a hill towards a lake (not our actual lake), where it almost, but didn't quite go in, because it swung around in a wide circle (despite having no driver at the wheel).  and then a raging elephant chased the guy in the tractor, who had for some reason gotten out of the tractor and was on foot, running back towards the house, pursued by said raging elephant. for once, i'm glad a meowing cat that wanted in out of the rain woke me up.

* * *

as counterintuitive as it sounds, i kind of always wanted to be a flight attendant, it's actually kind of a bucket list item for me (if i had a bucket list). and now it seems that delta is looking for danish-speaking flight attendants, so i might even qualify. and here i thought i'd end up working for SAS, which, as we know, stands for Sexy After Sixty. :-)  but perhaps it's not too late and i'm not quite to 60 yet!

a bit of tuesday random

i woke up feeling rested. i know that i had long, involved dreams (something about trying to drive a vehicle  up steep cliffs of very loose sand), but it feels like they worked out whatever it was that was going on in my head and i'm feeling calm, relaxed and, dare i say, hopeful. something shifted. a good night's sleep will do that for you.

i had some fun playing with my new little friends motorcycle with sidecar last evening. the sun peeked out for a few minutes at the very end of the day, but the air is disturbingly autumnal for july. we haven't had much of a summer at all and i fear that i will really miss it once autumn starts in earnest. it seems the climate really is changing. it grows harder and harder for meteorologists to predict, at least our danish ones, who have reached new levels (depths?) of sucking at their jobs. i swear they can't predict the weather more than about 5 minutes ahead and even then i have my doubts that they ever take a look out the window. seriously, if we all were that bad at our work, the whole world would grind to a halt.

in my zen, peaceful state of mind, i allowed myself a wander around on freunde von freunden, the marvelous berlin-based lifestyle website. and i find myself wanting to live a more artful, creative life. like these so-called urban nomads in hamburg. i wonder, can you be a rural nomad? don't forget to set one of their mixtapes playing in the background while you browse. it'll help keep that zen feeling...

* * *

modigliani's 1911 sketch of anna akhmatova

"And a lady who calls a great painter a suckling pig can hardly enlighten anyone." - from a marvelous 1975 piece (written originally in 1958 & 1964) on modigliani by the great russian poet anna akhmatova. oh, to have lived then, in those heady, artistic, experimental, avant-garde times of the 1910s.

* * *

some good came of all that wind last week - danish wind farms produced 140% of our electricity needs.

* * *

interesting thoughts on the adult coloring book phenomenon.

* * *

must go back to hamburg before the photography triennial ends.
i especially want to see this satellite exhibition.

* * *

reading this makes me want to go back to seattle. soon.

* * *

thoughts from sunday night

we had a lovely spring day today. it was still and tho' not that warm, warm enough to eat outdoors for the first time this season. our grill table needs revamping, so husband put together a new top for it, sans the beloved grill boxes (they're quite rusted through and were never the right depth anyway), so really now it's just a table. and we have another grill anyway, so it was all good.

it's the first day of daylight savings time. and here in these northern climes, and being more of a night person than a morning one, i have to say that i loved the extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day. of course, i'm now awake at nearly midnight, with no sleep in sight, so i will undoubtedly be cursing that leap forward tomorrow morning when the alarm rings.

typical for husband, he had no trouble going to bed around 10, tho' it was only 9 in his head. he's infuriatingly able to fall asleep almost instantly no matter what. he claims it's some residual military thing, where he never knew how much sleep he'd get when he was on an exercise, so he learned to go to sleep very quickly. if there is ever a murder in this house, it will be because of this uncanny, unnatural ability of his (either that or that no one ever puts the scissors back where they belong).

the nettles are at the tender, brilliant green, fresh stage, where they are absolutely perfect for a pesto. just a quick dunk in boiling water to take away the sting, then whizzing them up with a few nuts (today it was almonds, but i've been known to use walnuts or pistachios if i have them), a couple of garlic cloves, salt, pepper, parmesan and plenty of olive oil. spring bliss, i say. this time of year, i could (and pretty much do) eat it on everything. i got the smoked shrimp from the fish guy on friday. they were perfect with the pesto, tho' i usually make aïoli to go with them.  we also fired up the grill and did some kabobs that i bought yesterday at the big grocery store down in germany (we made a run to stock up on gin and proper groceries).

the kebabs didn't last long, nor did the batch of potatoes, leeks and butter i threw into a tinfoil packet onto the grill. the best bits are the ones that stick to the foil and are a little bit burned. bliss, i tell you. and it was still and beautiful outside, birds singing and no bugs out yet to speak of. it honestly couldn't have been better.

i took a couple of our outdoor cats to the vet on friday to be fixed. i used to call them the wild bunch because their mother hid them from the fox all summer and we never managed to tame them. but in recent months, i've become friends with two of them and since they're rather chubby cats, i dubbed them ben & jerry after the ice cream. well, the trauma of being a cage for the first time, taken on a 20 minute car ride for the first time and being indoors for the first time at the vet's office (oh the horror) was too much for poor benny and he bit my finger as i tried to hold him for the vet. she was immediately concerned and advised me to see my own doctor right away, saying a cat bite could easily get infected. so, i took her advice (i think i've always respected veterinary advice more than medical doctor's advice, as i have also been known to take doses of horse painkillers in the past (a little bute never hurt anyone)). i felt a little sheepish at the doctor, because it is just a tiny little puncture wound and didn't look like much at that time. but it did hurt like crazy, and she was concerned about my tendon (the wound is between my first and second knuckle on my middle finger), so she prescribed antibiotics and gave me a tetanus shot and sent me on my way.

and as the evening progressed, my finger and then my hand swelled more and more. combined with the tetanus shot on my upper arm, sleep was nearly impossible, as i kept waking myself up bumping my arm or my hand as i turned in my sleep. eventually, i had to get up and try to get some sleep in the big comfy armchair, rather than lying down. when i woke up in the morning, my hand was alarmingly swollen and very sore, but i just kept taking the antibiotics and some pain relievers and finally, late last evening, it started to show signs of improvement. it's better today, but still very sore and stiff and a bit swollen. i can type and hold a pen now, so that's good. at the moment, my left hand is suffering more fatigue from abnormal use than there is pain my right. but am i ever glad i went to the doctor. i'd have had to spend saturday at the emergency room instead of in germany stocking up on gin. and that would not have been fun. so, if a cat bites you, take it seriously. tho' some part of me is still secretly hoping that i'll turn into catwoman from this.

but now it's very late, especially in light of the time change, so i shall leave you with this photo of solskin's little sweetheart, all nestled down in my hand sleeping. is there anything more precious than a chubby little baby bunny?

arbness: on lost planes, the fear of not knowing and which bond catwoman would prefer

i sit here at the computer, frieda on my lap, lying on the red curly sheep fleece pillow that is all of the cats' favorite bed, so it seemed appropriate to use a recent photo i took of another catwoman, this one perhaps much cooler than i am as i sit here, wearing my now beloved norwegian sweater which i found in a second hand store for 50kr, a comfy pair of pants and slouchy warm socks. (how was that for a very long sentence?) catwoman is very cool, canny and fearless. 

i am still voraciously reading every article i can find about the disappearance of that malaysian airlines flight and as i write this, there is still no news. what happened to the plane and all those people? how can a plane just disappear with scarcely a trace in today's connected world? and why is it so fascinating to us? why can't we stand the uncertainty of not knowing what happened and where it is? is it the people who are lost? oddly the articles i've been reading in places like the new york times and the guardian have had little mention of the passengers. is it our own fears of flying? i honestly don't have any, despite having some kind of feeling for years and years that i will die in a plane crash. is it just the 24 hour news cycle and endless access to information, no matter where we are, that has us obsessing over the lack of an answer? why are we riveted by this story? i flew malaysian airlines once, from KL to chennai. the worst part was a long layover in KL and no access to a lounge because none of the star(ve)alliance carriers cooperated on one there. alas, my plane carried me safely to chennai, where i didn't really want to be anyway (it being one of the most uncharming places on the planet). but really, where is james bond when you need him? i'm thinking pierce brosnan is the right bond for this case. it seems like it could somehow be a media-driven thing and that seems right up the alley of the brosnan bond. daniel craig is too deep and dark and mysterious (now that i think about it, maybe he is the right bond for this mystery). i suppose in the end there will be some shallow answer worthy more of roger moore as bond than either brosnan or craig. 

and while we're on the subject of bond, i think catwoman would probably like pierce brosnan as well. wonder woman, on the other hand, i'm not sure...

* * *

a couple of really cool articles on the cinematography of the LEGO movie...

here and here.

* * *

rené redzepi on copenhagen in the guardian.

random friday thoughts in the haze of a headache

three days of headache in a row. at first, i chalked it up to too many new year's eve libations, but now that we're on day 3, it's just a really, really pesky headache. i'm impatiently waiting for my new job to begin and feel in a state of limbo anyway, so it kind of fits. so i putter around, doing laundry, knitting, reading a bit, pinning on pinterest, perusing the interwebs and just generally not getting out of my pajamas. so, i thought i'd share a few of the things i've stumbled across, as well as my knitting progress:

there's a new blogging platform called marquee. it's in beta. i love the very clean, simple look of it and the way it scrolls. i discovered it through narratively, they're using it for their platform. i requested an invitation (they're still at that stage) and just got it, so i'm going to play around. i'm thinking of using it as a place for more creative writing endeavors, rather than therapy, like around here. i'll link you up once i'm ready. but in the meantime, check it out and request an invitation, it just might be the next best thing.

* * *

and speaking of narrative.ly, read this story about how hard it really is to give it all up and move to a farm.

* * *

my sister sent me a link to a new blog called soundtrack of a life. it's only a couple of days old, but already i like the premise...storytelling and conjuring of memories through songs. it wasn't that long ago that the storyteller made me think about this whole way that songs are intertwined with memories (or is it memories with songs?).

* * *

i'm off to make salmon and spinach quiche for dinner. happy weekend everyone!

catching up after an unseasonably warm monday

unseasonably warm temperatures have the birds around here singing like it's spring, the mushrooms and other fungi going crazy, the raspberries continuing long after they are usually finished and it's even confused a few of the strawberries, which are blossoming again. and here we thought global warming was a bad thing.

* * *

the child is home from russia and she had a wonderful time, tho' she says she doesn't think we should go there for a family vacation (it might be a case of been there, done that syndrome). highlights were the circus and a fabulous piece of cake she had in an old theatre turned café. after all my worries, it all turned out ok (tho' she admitted that the rhino was no fun when he was stressed, which was most of the time). i'm glad i had those flight numbers in the end, so that i knew her flight home was delayed by half an hour. it's not that much fun hanging out at midnight in billund airport.

* * *

just saw a piece in the local newspaper about a recent wine tasting evening for women. like in english, there is but a small difference between the words wine and whine (vin - hvin) and our local journalist didn't hesitate to use it in characterizing the evening, adding insult to injury in the headline by referring to it as a henhouse on top of it all. aren't we beyond such sexism disguised as smug cuteness on the part of male journalists? sadly, apparently we are not.

* * *

i want need a projecteo!

friday randomness

little chocolate-colored flowers from the garden on the windowsill. i've been collecting acorn caps every time i go out to the barn as well, to try my hand at lisa's famous felted acorns. i want a more natural look to our christmas tree this year.

i thought the raspberries were finished after we had a couple of frosty nights in recent weeks. but they were most decidedly not finished and the frost seems to have rendered them sweeter and more delicious than ever.

* * *

in the wake of the recent weeks of madness in the US congress, i find myself wondering what passport i will have when the US completely falls apart? will illinois issue passports themselves? or south dakota? or arizona? and what will the requirements be? place you were born? where you last lived? where you hold your driver's license? or will i qualify for asylum in denmark as a stateless person?

* * *

have you seen these fabulous dressed sculptures? they bring hipster to a whole new level.

* * *

i'm missing the child, but she's having a wonderful time in st. petersburg. and thanks to the wonders (and ubiquitousness) of wifi and FaceTime, we've been speaking to her daily. things have most definitely changed since i studied in russia nearly 20 years ago (holy crap, it was nearly 20 years ago!)

* * *

our local scouts hold a big two-day flea market every year at this time and i can't wait 'til the doors open at 2 so i can go to see what treasures are there! photos will most surely follow.

* * *

happy weekend, one and all.

an assortment of bottled-up thoughts

an assortment of bottled-up thoughts are tumbling through my head after a weekend of mad amounts of cooking (on saturday, i made chutney, pickles, raspberry jam, bread, ricotta, lasagne, garlic mushrooms which i picked myself in our forest and a plum cake). i did it all while watching doctor who on netflix (except the walk in the woods to pick mushrooms, i took a break then). i'm not sure i'm fully onboard with the doctor. there are a few too many zombies and crude robots with funny voices for my taste. it leaves it seeming a bit cheesy in a way that becomes tiresome after awhile. so today, while patching up all of husband's work jeans and shorts, i went over to the spinoff - torchwood. i think it's a bit more up my alley. but how great is netflix? what did we do before we had it?

* * *

i'm pondering ways of displaying my minifigure collection. i think i need a new typecase drawer, as i don't want to use the "official" display cases made by lego. i wanted husband to make me a little shelf that goes all the way around the ceiling, but he's not really that keen on the minifigure collection. something about plastic junk we don't need that i tuned out. there are worse things i could collect. shrunken heads, for example. or human teeth. or toenail clippings. it could be much, much worse.

* * *

this morning, a friend on facebook posted this piece on the power of language and the power of appropriating someone else's terminology (e.g. racism) and i found myself thinking about it all day. i've had racism on the brain of late, as i look around at denmark and find it becoming increasingly racist (just check out this proof). i've also been uncomfortable using that term, as i feel it's reserved for the black vs. white discussion and have hesitated to appropriate it more broadly. in the danish context, it's less about skin color and more about general xenophobia - fear of The Other, many of whom are as white as the danes. i've wondered if racism as a term really applies. but when considered in terms of power, oppression and privilege, it is in many ways racism which is on the rise in denmark. and if we don't use that stark terminology to point it out, we contribute to allowing it to happen (remember what happened last century when no one spoke up against a little moustached fellow named hitler?).

i do realize that this isn't what the ambiguously-gendered jamie of the article is saying - s/he's saying that outside of the black-white context, we shouldn't go bandying around the word "racism." but i think we not only should, we need to (tho' i agree with the examples given that it is a misuse of the word on the part of a bunch of whiners who have been slighted by someone). because racism needs to be stopped and it needs to be said, out loud, that it's not ok. 

oh, and i completely disagree with jamie that anyone's mind will ever be changed by a discussion on facebook.

* * *

a month or so ago, i came across a reference to ray bradbury's zen in the art of writing and ordered it from the library. i've not read any bradbury before (perhaps the odd short story back in school), but it is absolutely uncanny how i keep running across him all of a sudden. zen in the art of writing is a marvelous little book and i've got to own it, not just have it from the lbirary, it won't do to be without it. i am already making lists of nouns as he advises and can't wait to see what kind of stories come out when i sit down to use them.

then, on friday, i came across this spoken word piece by corin raymond and who does he refer to but ray bradbury? it's an hour long, but very much worth it. play it in the background while you're cooking or ironing or sewing or painting, it's about listening to it anyway. after listening, i ordered fahrenheit 451 and dandelion wine from the library. how can i have gone this long without reading them?

and then just now, i sat down with infinite perspectives, a book on the history of mapmaking. and who do you think wrote the foreword? ray bradbury. 

this can't be a coincidence. 

* * *

amazing albanian women who have lived as men for their whole lives.

the view from sunday night or how i had antlers before they were cool

the air was heavy and it felt all weekend like it was waiting to storm. i(t) never stormed. denmark is very restrained that way. in south dakota, a good old fashioned thunderstorm would have blown through and cleared out that pesky, heavy waiting and left it cool and rinsed clean. no such luck here. the air is still heavy and too warm for sleeping. we can't even have the windows properly open as molly is in heat and desperate to get out to the papa kitty. we think she's had enough kittens for one year, so she's got to stay inside until it's over. i don't want to fix her yet as i want one more batch of kittens next spring - no sense bringing those good minnesota cat genes over here and not taking advantage of them properly. but she (and perhaps i) have been through enough for this year, so she has to wait until spring. she's lucky i love her or she'd have driven me completely crazy with her meowing and cajoling to go outside and rendezvous with the papa kitty.

i went on an uncharacteristic cleaning frenzy today, dusting, tidying, rearranging, organizing, vacuuming spider webs (they say spiders are a sign of a healthy inner climate in a house, so we're very healthy, let me tell you). i wonder how those spiders are all getting along inside the bag in our vacuum cleaner. do different kinds of spiders like each other? it feels good that things are tidy and clean. it gives me that essential sunday evening feeling that leaves me ready to face the week ahead. it's the last full week before school starts, so i want to spend some time together with sabin, who has been flitting off with one friend and another to summer houses and car races.

have you noticed that my photos and my words are quite disconnected? i took the photos after vacuuming up the spiders, otherwise, they would have been more connected. now i'll try to connect them a little bit more. i was out picking this bouquet of verbena by the road when i ran into our cat tiger (also known as pelle haleløse (pelle the tail-less) as he came home last summer without most of his tail) out there, relaxing in the grass and trying to stay cool. i was chatting away to him when some people came by, walking their dogs and thinking i was insane to be chatting animatedly with myself in english (they couldn't see the cat in the grass). oh well, they'll chalk it up to the crazy canadian, since it's rumored in the area that i'm canadian. i can live with that. oddly, i felt no compulsion whatsoever to explain and no embarrassment. i wonder if that is the first sign of madness?

i almost didn't have the heart to throw out these fetchingly dried daisies, but after photographing them, i replaced them with fresh ones. i almost think they're prettier when they're withered and dried. i suspect there's a lesson in that somewhere. or maybe i'm feeling philosophical after reading my fourth douglas kennedy book in as many weeks. tara suggested the first one (pursuit of happiness) to me on goodreads and that got me hooked. i devoured state of the union in about 24 hours. it's my favorite one yet. all of the ones i've read so far (i'm now on number 5 - the big picture) are about people whose choices led them feel they've lived the wrong life. they make me feel like writing, tho' i finish each one reluctantly, sad to leave behind characters who quickly come to seem like friends. i've got several more on order from the library. his style and characters suit my mood of the moment perfectly, tho' i feel far from having lived the wrong life.

antlers are everywhere on pinterest at the moment. i got this little skull last fall at the boy scout flea market for 20 kroner. i don't know what kind of deer it is, but i love it. all of the deer in this country are freakishly small and this one is no exception. i'd like to think that i was way ahead of that antler trend.

the wind has blown my thoughts into confusion

i seriously blinked and then it was thursday. where has this week gone? i'm nowhere near ready for my family to arrive, but am looking forward to it anyway. they'll just have to live with the chaos of this old, falling down house. tho' my cooking mojo has been nowhere to be found, a visit to the awesome butcher in farre and some wonderful smoked meats made locally by a friend make me think that i can at least wow them with some components of various meals.

husband is sick. really sick, as in horrible chills in the middle of the night due to his high fever. he has been in the big, comfy chair all day, under three blankets, watching netflix and drinking sprite. he's covered in a shiny glaze of fever sweat. it's not a pretty sight. i really hope he's better by tomorrow when they all get here!

the wind has blown today like a hurricane and yet the weather folks didn't say a single word about it. i was actually lifted off the ground at one point when i went outside. not really. but almost. it was that bad. i hope it stops and the weather shapes up before they land at 5:35 tomorrow. at least there's a tailwind for their trip.

we're actually happy there's no end in sight to the teacher lockout, as it means we won't have to take sabin out of school to go do fun things with family. but honestly, if i hear one more parent complain on facebook that they don't have any babysitting for their kids, i'm going to scream. is school really just babysitting to parents in this country? i haven't seen one iota of concern by a parent that they're worried their children are falling behind on what they should be learning. i know i said this already the other day, but it really gets my goat.

speaking of goats, i'd like to have one. then i'd make goat cheese. and i'm sure that would help my cooking mojo immensely.

on that note, i'm off to make up beds so people have somewhere to sleep when they come.

vignettes of a life (while we wait for spring)

i can't believe it's almost friday.

the week is flying by.

things are picking up, getting busier.

that is both good and bad.

time hurries at breakneck speed.

but we still haven't seen spring.

we've hardly even scented it on the air.

the only evidence is in the birdsong.

and even they sound a bit chilly.

i took frankie to the vet today.

he has a sore on his haunch.

he's fine, but he's wearing a collar of shame.

seeing him in it makes me laugh.

which seems a little bit mean.

i'm aware this isn't a poem.

i just wanted to play with margins.

my writing is going elsewhere this week.

can you tell?

it's like i'm only allotted a certain amount of words.

and when they're used somewhere else.

i have none left to use here.

apparently they're not like doritos.

the horses were mysteriously out in the pasture today.

i couldn't imagine how they got there.

and locked themselves in.

turns out they didn't.

a kind person driving by saw they were out.

(no one was home.)

and put them back in.

isn't that fantastic?

the danes can be nice.

when they want to be.

they just don't want to be very often.

that's not really fair.

another dane was nice today.

she gave me a whole shoebox full 

of vintage embroidery thread.

in colors from the 70s.

ones you can't get today.

it was wonderful.

and it made me happy.

i could see it made her happy too.

i'm working on a project

that i'm finding difficult (what else is new?).

it's difficult because it breaks my heart

to hear the stories i'm hearing.

i'm not sure yet what to do with them.

what i have a is a chance to make a difference.

if only i knew how.

my family will arrive in a week.

i hope the weather improves.

because this house isn't great.

and it's not going to get better in one week.

but we'll make it through.

if we stock up on gin.

and laughter.

* * *

this made me laugh so hard today.

repeatedly.

and hysterically.

* * *

go see ulrika's gorgeous photos of kristina's wonderful home!

* * *

inspiration on making a difference here.

* * *

and a thing of dark, exquisite beauty here. 

exposing scams and wondering about random things

pretty photo i took at esbjerg harbor yesterday - more like this to come as soon as the internet arrives

the internet has promised to arrive at our house today at the most precise time of between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. - it's 1:19 p.m. as i write this, still via my highly unstable mobile connection - made even more unstable by it being a cloudy day, and there's no sign of those jokers skilled technicians. but since a blog post is bubbling in my head and standing in the way of me getting anything of substance done, here are a few things i'm pondering as i wait for the real internet to come:

~ i'm not keen on energy-saving lightbulbs. there, i said it. i miss the soft light of the old-fashioned kind. i know they're not good for us and for the environment, but can't someone please make an energy-saving lightbulb that lasts as long as it claims it will and also gives off some kind of soft, glowy light? i replaced the lightbulb in the lamp by the bed yesterday and it already burned out this morning. that's not cool and was by no means the 6 bazillion hours that phillips promised on the package.

~ are TED talks just the new sermons for the secular? don't get me wrong, i love TED in many ways, but i'm getting an evangelical vibe from them of late.

* * *

i have for you a sordid tale of a collection scam that's apparently made its way to denmark. i wrote previously about an insidious scam that student loan debt collectors had going in the US. this one is much more small scale and probably much more lucrative for its perpetrators, as i guess it probably works most of the time. we had a magazine subscription to a garden magazine. we stopped the subscription and had a final bill to pay of about 245 DKK ($40). this bill ended up on my desk, where other papers piled up on top of it and i'll admit i forgot all about it. for a couple of months.

one day, last month, i was going through the stack of papers on my desk and found it. looked at the due date (a couple of months previously) and thought, "shit, i'd better pay that!" so tho' it was a thursday evening, i opened up the netbank and immediately paid it.  

lo and behold, five days later, i receive a collections notice from a company called advis on the subscription, now adding an additional 480DKK ($83) to the amount of the bill i had already paid, for their "collection costs." on a bill that was paid. so i wrote to them at the generic email address that was provided and asked them to please check their records, as the bill was already paid the previous week. five days is ample time for a payment to be registered.

they responded that it had already gone to collections (suspicious timing in my view) and so i needed to pay the extra 480 to avoid court. really? i find that to be utter bullshit, so i have continued to dispute the claim. 

i find the timing very suspicious as well as the amount - double the amount of the original bill, and on an item, like a subscription, where i imagine that there are many people who forget to pay the bill on time. it's a small bill, you lay it on your desk, thinking that the next time you sign into the netbank for something a bit more significant, you'll also pay that one. and then, like me, the paper disappears down a pile and you forget. 

i imagine the collections trick - sending it out as soon as you realize the customer has actually paid (what was admittedly an overdue bill) - works pretty well. people feel guilty that they forgot about it and they just pay the additional amount. the original non-payment of the bill wasn't due to a lack of funds, more due to the general insignificance of the amount and feeling it wasn't worth the whole getting out the code thingie to sign into the netbank just for that. i imagine that doubling the original amount as "collection fees" also represents an amount that people will swallow. and it probably works most of the time.

but i find it to be utter bullshit. there was ample time in this electronic age, for the payment i made to have been registered in their system. i believe the system is designed to kick out these collection letters to try to get more money out of people, to prey on their guilt. are things really that bad in the publishing industry that they have to resort to this? it strikes me as one of those "businesses" that arise in a time of crisis. and honestly, i think it's crap. so i'm continuing to fight it. the next step in my fight is to send them a link to this post. after that, i'm going to a DR program called kontant, that exposes consumer fraud. i can't be the only one who has had this little scam played on me.

the blue light of winter

i do love our blue winter light. it was nearly dark and it started to snow.
but i'll admit i've had enough winter now.
and cold.
unless it means skating tomorrow at last.
on our lake.

* * *

first they complain that you don't loop them in. then they complain when you do. there's no pleasing people when it comes down to it. but then, there are those who are only happy when it rains. or when they have something about which to complain. and i shall be happy to oblige (insert evil laugh here). #silverlining

* * *

an unexamined life really isn't worth living.

conclusions on a weekend without facebook

i agreed with bill on friday that we would both stay off facebook for the entire weekend. i did still let my instagram posts go there and i did upload a few photos via iPhoto (out of habit), but i did not, not even once and not even when i saw that i had 60+ notifications on sunday morning, open facebook itself - not on my phone nor on my computer. i'd like to say that i felt set free. and i'd like to say that i never thought about it. but that wouldn't be true.

i should have tried to count the times when some (pithy, of course) status update crossed my mind. it was a lot. and i had to consciously suppress my desire to reach for my phone and share it. every stupid stray thought. facebook has conditioned me to share those. and it's really rather scary.

the cat woke me up around 3:30 this morning and my mind started racing with monday's to-do list. since i couldn't sleep anyway, i got up and opened the computer (i'm still here, typing this, an hour later) and i thought, "yes! i can check facebook now." and weirdly, my "home" feed was only my own posts, everyone else had disappeared, leaving me to think (realize?) that we really are talking to ourselves in there. and i wonder if it's good for us.

so the things i didn't get to share were my immediate thoughts on the lance armstrong-oprah interview, which i watched on saturday afternoon. they were the things i was cooking (vegetarian lasagne on friday night that turned out brilliantly and a slow-cooked pork roast on saturday). they were the excitement of how the hol(e)y stones were turning out. they were my usual friday evening james bond (we've reached golden eye) report. and my sorrow at coming to the end of my buffy the vampire slayer marathon and feeling a little lost without her.

facebook lets us preserve the immediacy of our thoughts. i'm not sure now what i initially thought about lance and oprah, because i've mulled it over too much now. but that's probably ok. it struck me that if his back wasn't against the wall, he'd never have admitted it, even tho' the whole world knew it - it's the nature of the sport of cycling that they're all doped to the gills and you definitely don't win 7 tour de france without it. tho' he's definitely been kicked off his pedestal, there was an underlying defiance and arrogance that was quite off-putting. and i did wonder what was up with his marriage? didn't he leave his wife and get engaged to sheryl crow for some years? it sounded like he was back with his original wife and had had a couple more kids. i wonder why she would take the arrogant bastard back? i guess you can never know how people's lives really are. and perhaps all of that is what i thought initially.

but what is this compulsion to share our every thought as we have it, without mulling it over? i blame CNN - they're the ones who started us on this path with their coverage of news events as they happen, rather than waiting for them to happen and then formulating an informed reaction. poor CNN has been a bit left in the dust these days and now we have a choice of 7 or 8 24-hour news channels (that's just here in denmark, you probably have even more) and a plethora of other outlets. like facebook. 

it won't be the last facebook break i take. ultimately, it seems like it was good for me. i stitched for hours. i cooked for hours. i spent time outdoors. i played a board game with my family. and i read a good book (or two). i took back my time and i used it mostly wisely.

a bit random for today, but it's been grey and dreary for days

small stone :: four

chickens pecking in the herb beds. a little half-grown grey cat stalks, doing the pre-launch wiggle of her haunches and then running straight for one little black hen. she aborts at the last minute, not daring after all. and the chicken gives her a good scolding.

small stone :: five

looking at a friend's photos of armenia on facebook. hearing the echoes of memories not my own in the beautiful, evocative images. feeling provoked to tears.

~~~

vignettes of memories:

going to a bar in kazan with my russian (tatar?) girlfriends. it wasn't something they did often (or ever). all i really remember is their big, round eyes and the decor - which was faux cave, draped in plastic plants.

defying the last of winter in kazan (apparently my brain is in kazan) with long, cutoff jeans shorts on an april day. 

stuffing myself and my backpack onto a VERY busy tram (also in kazan) and at one point, being held up completely by the surrounding crowd, as my feet left the ground.

what is it about watching living daylights (the first bond with timothy dalton) that reminds me of kazan?

~~~

is america in decline? and how much does it have in common with europe?
read more here.  

~~~

i really like maria konnikova's thoughts on language.

while you're there, stay and read more of her blog posts, you won't regret it.

~~~

have you read j.k. rowling's casual vacancy?
what did you think?

boot sparkle bokeh

sorry for the long and convoluted (read: boring) entry earlier...this is where i work through stuff and try to understand it and sometimes it means you all have to suffer. but i do apologize. and i am aware it was heavy and boring (hence the links to the fun boring bits). i'll try to lay off that for awhile, tho' i can't guarantee, because there are a lot of things these days that i don't entirely understand. but i hope these bokeh-filled shots of sabin's fabulous uggs in the snow and sparkling sunshine from this afternoon might help you forget.

* * *

speaking of UGGS, there's an awful lot of ads for fakes on my facebook.
and i think that's pretty uncool of facebook.
but here's a hint: if the site wants you to pay to some random chinese guy via western union, you should interpret that as a BIG RED FLASHING LIGHT.
just don't do it.

* * *

i'm reading the second installment of ken follet's century trilogy.
and i'm hooked.
he's good at creating characters and the history feels right.

* * *

check out the first installment in lisa's fabulous stone project.
(hint: it's one of the stones i brought her last summer).

* * *

you know i love maps, but a literary map? swoon.

* * *

the u boards on pinterest: utterly fabulous. upcycling.

monday ephemera

you know what can totally make your monday? when someone starts it off by saying, "if you tell me to jump, i'll say how high." in fact, i think that's set the tone for my whole week - it's going to be a good one.

gold's curio store, sante fe

wouldn't you like to visit this place?
perhaps take in the monster show?

colorado, a pioneer merchant

this photo makes me think you don't have to have everything perfectly in order to be able to get started. you should just jump right in.
that's another motto for my week.

 these photos are from this fascinating collection of images of america from 1897 to 1924 by the detroit photographic company.

* * *

last week, the voynich manuscript, this week, the book of kells.

* * *

if you really love words and writing and even reading, read this.  

it will make you want to wake your verbs right up.

* * *

the h boards on pinterest: hairy, halloween, helleristning, homesteading, house ideas (this was one of my first boards on pinterest), husband could make this (a personal favorite).