saturday musings

we're on the third day in a row of absolutely glorious weather...clear blue skies and golden sunshine, plus it's about 23°C, which pretty much couldn't be more perfect. everyone is talking about how they're soaking it all in, for the coming darkness ahead. it's so glorious it almost feels like that's possible.

it's one of those saturdays, where you run around, doing a lot of small tasks and thinking a lot of small, not very profound thoughts. you know days like that, right?  thoughts like....

~ who decides the smell of things? i accidentally bought some detergent tabs that i thought were for the dishwasher, but they turned out to be for washing clothes (luckily i read the package and didn't find this out the hard way). and after years of buying detergent with no perfumes (i started when sabin was a baby), it is so strange to have the clothes smell so strongly of a scent chosen by someone else. yuck. but throwing them away seemed worse (i had opened the package before i realized the mix-up, so i couldn't just return them to the grocery store) than using them up (tho' with this scent, i'm no longer so sure about that).

~ the way you're treated at the beginning of a job is so important - if your computer and phone and office are ready and they give you a big bouquet of welcome flowers and invite you to their big annual company party on your first day, they've pretty much set the tone haven't they? (all of this just happened to husband. and shall we just say that there's a vast difference between vestas and siemens wind power in this area. and by the way, vestas wins.)

~ you can never underestimate the righteousness of danish women. nobody can do righteous like they can. nobody.

~ we're (and by we, i mean husband) scraping the horrible nasty plastic paint off the house that the morons people we bought the house from painted it with. it was catastrophic for the bricks with that paint and a house that had always been washed with white chalk and not painted. sometimes i still feel so ANGRY at those people and the cheap, nasty solutions they came up with around this house.

~ the roaming gnome arrived at my house today. looking forward to seeing what adventures he gets up to. and if you'd like me to send him to you next, just let me know, as you too can host this little adventurer.

~ what do you wear to a party with 7700 other people (none of whom you know), at which roxette is going to perform? (who even knew roxette was still alive?)

~ we're now up to three eggs a day from our chickens. they're still pretty small, but each egg makes me unaccountably gleeful.

happy weekend, one and all....

believe it or not

an equally random photo for a random post

i am consistently amazed at people's need to tell their stories. seemingly especially if the stories are full of strife and sorrow and woe. they have a great desire for commiseration and in being confirmed in their sense of having been done wrong. it makes it easy to gather material for a book, but i have to say that it is making for a rather bleak story. but maybe there simply aren't any bright spots in the welfare state, even the lauded scandinavian kind.

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believe it or not, there are still people (in this otherwise very prosperous ostensibly western society) who don't have any education beyond primary school.

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it's election day in denmark today. the race is close, but it looks like after ten years of the blue guys, it will go over to the red. because denmark seems to have adopted those same colors as they use in the US elections. tho' the politicians are all well to the left of the american ones - blue or red. i don't get to vote, as i'm not a citizen, but i'm confident husband will vote correctly.

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believe it or not, there are people who don't know how to type.

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it's sometimes really, really hard to maintain anthropological distance. but absolutely essential for maintenance of sanity. (this is really a reminder to myself, so if you don't understand it, that's ok.)

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believe it or not, there are people who still have nokia phones.

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my drunk kitchen is totally cracking me up.

thank you bill.

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i'm feeling much better now. sometimes you just have to clear your head of all the little stuff.

wednesday musings or seven random things

1.  many mornings, when i step outside, edie brickell's song picture perfect morning runs through my head unbidden. the light, no matter what time of year, is spectacular and somehow unique and singular. this morning, filled with a cold, steady rain, was not one of those mornings. as you may imagine, this photo is not from today.

2.  one of my favorite things is to hear husband talking to the cats when he thinks no one is listening.

3.  the new issue of *joie* is out. it's a gorgeous online magazine by indiefixx and lisa and i wrote a story about foraging for it. get a fresh cup of coffee or tea and enjoy it. the whole issue is just lush and gorgeous.

4.  one of husband's favorite things is to reread john seymour's classic complete book of self-sufficiency (the version from the 70s, with those wonderful 70s illustrations). he reads it over and over again. with a cup of tea, in the big armchair in the living room. he learns something new every time.

5.  me, i'm reading dubravka ugresic's museum of unconditional surrender. (hence the numbered paragraphs, it's a stylistic device of hers.) amazon just helpfully informed me that i purchased the book august 3, 2004. i do love that about amazon, even if it is a bit big brotheresque.

6.  speaking of the 70s, husband announced yesterday that he has a crush on them (he was reading john seymour at the time). he feels like it was the last time anyone truly believed in anything. tho' he admitted he wasn't ready to embrace bellbottoms and a granny square vest. there was an earnest innocence to the 70s that i think he feels nostalgic for. me, i just really like orange and yellow.

7.  is it just me, or are those blythe dolls that seem to be everywhere on flickr really friggin' scary? people not only sew for them, but make them new hair! actually, i think dolls in general sorta skeeve me out. (see what i mean about being out of touch with the latest cool phrases? i'm so 90s.)