scenes from a weekend

what a weekend. one of my work besties was let go on friday. it was such a shock and i felt so badly for her that i didn't sleep that well on friday night. but it got better on saturday - i went with a friend to moesgaard museum, a sort of extension of the danish national museum, near aarhus. only it's much better. their exhibits present bog people and pottery shards and bits of gold and bronze dug up from the ground in a new light. literally - the exhibits are lit so well. it's actually quite dark in the museum and then well-placed light shines directly on the objects, highlighting them perfectly. we had lunch there as well, then went for a walk on a nearby beach.

this iron age bog man - grauballemanden - looks more well-lit than he actually is thanks to my phone's light compensation. he's really wonderfully displayed - in a circular room, with very subtle light, which feels quite like a sanctuary. you can sit on the bench and contemplate him. instead of feeling like some kind of exploitation of someone who has no choice in the matter, it feels like a reverent and respectful space. 

husband managed to find someone who was giving away a greenhouse if you were willing to take it down yourself, so we spent sunday morning dismantling our new greenhouse. it's one that had plastic panels, rather than glass, and they were extremely fragile and sun-damaged. but we're going to cover it in netting and use it for growing brassicas and hopefully keeping away those pesky caterpillars that eat up all the leaves in the late summer. 

the wind is rising outside and in the coming week, it will already be february. interesting to see what it brings. 

the view from sunday night

it was the kind of weekend that happens all too seldom. still, sunny days, not too warm, not too cold, just hours and hours of glorious sunshine. we spent as much time as we could outside. me, fighting with the lawnmower, which for some reason is puffing out billows of smoke. we briefly thought it was because we had accidentally put diesel in it, but it seems not. it's going to have to go to the lawnmower doctor if i can find one that can be trusted. when i couldn't mow, it meant i had more time to go for a long walk and to sit in the sunshine with a cold drink and a good book. i've just started salman rushdie's latest, quichotte. just a little ways in and i'm getting a humbert humbert vibe from the main character, though so far, he's exhibited no pedophile tendencies.

the elderberries have all been harvested and i got 8 bottles of dark, deep purple cordial. our blueberries are still producing and i'm not yet done picking them - they're all going into the freezer for smoothies, aside from the ones that i threw together with the last of the blackberries and made into a lovely, jammy dessert that i invented after reading this recipe and this one (sorry, you'll need a subscription to access those).

there was a harvest market at our local little historical museum and someone was selling the most beautiful baskets, so i had to have one - it's important to support local artists, and how could i resist with that hole-y stone attached on the side? paws mcgraw approved the purchase.

these autumn days feel slow and a bit lazy, i poke around in second hand stores,  finding treasures. i'm also gathering and preparing second hand textiles for the rug i'm going to weave for the kitchen. while i'm doing this, i'm still pondering what's next. i'm not sure what it is, but i'm starting to feel like i need to figure it out and i'm wondering a bit why i haven't. and feeling a little bit stuck that i don't even really know how to go about it in a more active way.

the view from sunday night

a luxuriously lazy weekend - sleeping in, leisurely tidying up, sorting and throwing out a bunch of old papers (what a relief that was!), hanging with the cats, and husband, watching netflix (altered carbon = meh due to odd casting, dirty money = too distressing, comedians in cars getting coffee = just what i needed), baking bread, making spelt "risotto," because it's what i had in the cupboard, roasting a chicken, getting all the laundry done, catching up my 365 tumblr, planning husband's birthday dinner, photographing the first snowdrops - in the snow, no less, making and keeping a vow not to get dressed all day, cutting out and painting pages of an old book, reading a frivolous and unserious novel. it was, in other words, exactly the weekend i needed.

we are so pressured these days to make sure every moment has meaning, but sometimes, what you need is to slow down, stay in your pajamas, read a rather trashy novel (carl hiaasen's skinny dip, in this case), light some candles, drink coffee with extra cream, snuggle with a cat and damn any guilt feelings over any of it. down time like this is as important as all of the things we chase and the hours we work to make and do things that are important to us and/or our jobs. and i would do well to remember that. 

maybe allowing yourself a shouldless day* is the best way to take care of you and give yourself the mental space for the rest that life offers. and by you, i mean me. but i do also mean you. 

* * * 

collect all the books.

it's good for you.

* * *

the case for reading bad.

* * *

some cities are just better for revolutions.

* * *

magazines - collected.

* * *

lovely, lovely audio stories (in danish) by julie thing.

* * *

what you leave behind when you immigrate.

* * *

*shouldless day - from the episode of death, sex & money with ellen burstyn. 

the view from sunday night

foggy and snowy - it made for a grey landscape, but it was still and quite beautiful, and at least it makes it seem less dark, even if it is still a bit dreary. i took a solitary walk down to the lake with the camera, following deer tracks in the snow. there's a regular deer highway down there. what is it about a walk that settles the soul?

three swans and a bunch of ducks? geese? they were a bit far away for me to see, even with the zoom, and i'm not a birdwatcher anyway. there's but a thin layer of ice on the lake, no skating this year, but just that open spot they're hanging out in. i wouldn't walk out to it tho', that's for sure.

as i crunched through the snowy landscape, i thought about how nice it was that i didn't take my phone with me. so for a few minutes, i could escape from the latest antics of the cheeto in chief. i could have a small break from the constant humiliations he rains down on us...i very sincerely often feel embarrassed when i read the latest news...deportations of lawful greencard holders, absurd claims, baldfaced lies. there's just. so. much. and my overwhelming feeling genuinely is embarrassment. it's embarrassing to think that people in the land of my birth are indisputably that stupid. they knew he was a sexist, lying, cheating, racist son of a bitch with the attention span of a gnat and they elected him anyway. it's humiliating.

but, for a few minutes out there in the hush of the foggy, snowy, still morning. i could just breathe in and let go.

* * *

fire and fury - a postmodern book for a postmodern presidency.
and to think i once loved postmodernism.

* * *

podcast pioneer (or rather) storyteller extraordinaire joe frank has died.

i only recently heard some of his stuff on home of the brave.

the difference sunshine makes

my winter-weary spirit got some much-needed sunshine this weekend. it was clear and cold, but the sun shined gloriously and continuously.  i feel renewed and uplifted by it. it's amazing how that works. husband and i went for a walk down around the lake. we planted a couple of oak trees in the oak alley to replace ones that hadn't made it. then we had some fun with another young tree, tying its branches into curved shapes and attaching some of the stones with holes in them that i collected last summer - turning a tree into an ongoing art project. it was nice to work on something together again - we can each get focused on our own projects and forget to have projects we work on together. it started with my back troubles two years ago - i wasn't able to help with projects for some months and spent a long time afterwards scared to injure my back again, but now that i'm back to normal, it was good to find my way back to working together on this huge project that is our home. it made husband happy too.

* * *

this must be the coolest airbnb on the planet

you rent it and you get to run a bookstore!

and it's not even expensive.

the view from sunday night

i doodled this with a feather and payne's grey ink while watching goldfinger with my family. we're making our way through all of the james bond films, from the very beginning. i'm struck by that sean connery wasn't actually that cute when he was younger and he's kind of a terrible actor. the fight scenes are the worst and there are hilarious low budget moments in the film. it doesn't hold up well and yet it's still somehow iconic. i was happy that i was drawing during it tho', i think it might have been wasted time if i hadn't been.

* * *

it was a good weekend - spent mostly in the company of kittens, who are at peak playful. i opened a photo exhibition (more about that below). the afternoon was sunny on saturday, so i mowed the lawn, which makes me surprisingly happy. i only stopped when it started to rain and would have liked to have kept mowing. we have a big lawn and to do all of it takes over an hour, but i'm always a little bit sad when it's done. i made homemade sweet & sour chicken for saturday dinner, which is easier than i thought it would be, even making the sauce from scratch. we had homemade black currant ice cream with hot fudge sauce for dessert. i saw not one, but two tiny baby hedgehogs in the garden. i picked blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and pears in the garden and made them into a beautiful crostata (just another name for a rustic, lazy person's pie). i did all of the laundry, which gives me satisfaction as well, less than the lawn mowing, but satisfying nonetheless. i picked elderberries and made juice. they're small and tho' i picked a kettleful, it only made one bottle, so i'll have to go in search of more, because just one bottle won't do. there's nothing better than a warm elderberry beverage on a winter day.

* * *

i hung some of my photos as an exhibition in our gallery space at our local library. i was a bit disappointed in the quality of the prints i ordered online (photobox, i'm looking at you), but now i know not to order there. it is still nice to see them printed, framed and hung all together - in this digital world, we don't do this enough. i thought i was choosing photos on the theme of "in the wild," with a focus on nature, but they all seem to be rather still and quiet and not wild at all. it's interesting, actually. it must be something i instinctively sought - moments of peaceful stillness.

* * *

i'm really sick of the punditry dissing hillary for writing a book about her experience as the first woman presidential candidate of a major party. of course she should write a book and of course she should analyze what happened and what went wrong. she has every right to do so. she may not have sufficient distance to come to the ultimate conclusion (i don't know yet, as my copy hasn't arrived), but she has every right to write it. she lived it and it must have hurt like a motherfucker to lose to that buffoon. so shut the fuck up already and let her have her say. i can't help but think that if she were a man, there wouldn't be the same snide comments about the book.

* * *

the venerated TLS published a cover story by a nicholas gibbs, who claimed to have deciphered the voinych manuscript. the atlantic (and others) say, not so much. and this guy claims, on twitter, that nicholas gibbs doesn't even exist, and the whole thing is a pale fire-style stunt. whatever it is, that infernal manuscript continues to fascinate.

* * *

they say that postmodernism is dead. but aren't we still living it? what were we thinking, questioning reality and whether anything could be real? what a mess that's gotten us into now, with a post-truth spray-tanned president spewing his daily lies on twitter. could it get any more postmodern than that?

* * *

what happened to leftovers?

the view from sunday night

did you know that until this week, i'd never been to brussels? since i've started my new job, i've added two countries i'd not visited before - poland and belgium. i do hope things continue along those lines.

it's very exciting and wonderful to travel, but i miss writing on a daily basis like in the old days (read: five years ago). i find i get a congested feeling, not processing all of these experiences through my fingers and onto the page. i definitely need to find my way back to that. it feels like time has accelerated and i just don't have the same time to sit down and write that i once did. and i miss it a great deal.

but today, with glorious sunshine at last, i didn't manage it either (until now), despite my head spilling over with words that want to find their way out my fingers, thoughts that need to be processed. instead, i used my fingers to plant tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in the greenhouse, as well as starting broad beans, squash, pumpkins, tomatoes and kale. may 1 sounds late to start things, but it's been such a cold spring, they'd never have survived before this, not even in the greenhouse. but planting feels important as well and it's time i get with my precious molly, who is a garden kitty. she loves when i'm working in the garden, it's the one thing that visibly makes her happy.

i guess one of the reasons i've been writing less is that i'm working more on getting in touch with my body. my autumn back problems were a real wake-up call. i feel like it happened because i'd neglected the physical side of my being for years. i'm not sure i've ever actually been in touch with my body or really listened to how it's doing. when i'm in copenhagen, i go to yoga nearly every evening, so i'm working very diligently on getting in touch with my body. and trying to learn to listen to it. and it's not easy. while i'm holding a yoga position and i'm supposed to be concentrating on it, i find it hard to keep my mind from wandering off to lists of things to do, emails to write, photos to upload. but i love the feeling that my body is getting stronger and more reliable and i'm learning, slowly but surely, to listen to it and let it be the boss once in awhile, rather than living entirely in my head. it's about finding a balance. i'm not there yet, but i'm practicing.

the past week has been full of wonderful experiences and conversations. getting to know one of my new colleagues, who i really click with, and laughing a lot and buying plenty of belgian chocolate with her. getting together with an old friend and having a wonderful catch-up and deep philosophical discussion over good food. that evening made husband and i think about the way our relationship works and gave both of us a genuine (and thankfully positive) experience of seeing ourselves through someone else's eyes and coming to new appreciation for our relationship. then, a party full of music, dancing and good food in the heart of copenhagen. and today, seeing husband taking his first steps as a politician and candidate for the city council and then enjoying some hours of sunshine in the garden, preparing to grow food to nourish our bodies in the months ahead.

i just have a rich sense that it's all interconnected. i need both mind and body and awareness of both. i need travel to inspire me. i need deep conversations, wine and good food. and i need physical time with the soil and the cats and some sunshine and podcasts in my ears. put it all together, add a little time to write about it and i am filled up and ready for the week ahead. it holds a workshop and meeting a lot of new people. and they promise sunshine. what more can one ask? a couple of days off at the end of the week? go on then, i'll take those too.

enjoy the week ahead, one and all. you never know what's in store!

more mundane musings on pain

I would like to be able to say that i've developed a sophisticated and erudite philosophy of pain over the course of recent weeks, but i fear that the deepest thought i have about it is that it sucks. i do, however, have a new appreciation for how involved our backs are in virtually everything we do. tying our shoes, putting on socks, bending down to fill the cat food, coughing, sneezing, turning over, walking, sitting, standing, just riding in a car, let alone driving it. the back is playing a constant and key role in ways you do not realize until it cannot fulfill that role without hurting like hell. but i am on the mend now - the nerve pain is gone, the surgery pain is fading fast and i'm going back to work this week - at least part-time.

....insert three days here....

it's now several days later...i wrote the paragraph above on sunday and then never got a chance to sit down again and finish. i've been at work three days now and it's been great. i actually forgot all about my pain meds yesterday until late afternoon, so the healing is headed in the right direction. i may have overdone it a bit and i've been low on energy today, but i'm starting to sleep through the nights without waking around 3 when my pain meds wear off. and all of that is great progress.

all this play-by-play of my health, i know it's boring, but since this blog is also where i store my memory, it's more for my own sake than for all of you (sorry about that). this has been one long haul, even tho' it's only been about 6 weeks or so since it began. from what i hear from many people who have had back troubles (and there are surprisingly many), i'm lucky to have gotten it taken care of so quickly. for some reason, they often make people wait months and months in dire pain, thinking it will get better on its own. i don't know why, but they didn't think that with my pain. thank odin for that.

and i do promise to get back to writing about more fun things in the near future...like a little trip i'll be taking to amsterdam on monday. which is really a minicruise to newcastle and back to amsterdam. i'm even taking my trusty camera teenager assistant to carry all of my equipment. it's good to be feeling semi-human and functional again. 

* * *

i have an overwhelming desire to visit chernobyl. none of the other intensely polluted destinations in andrew blackwell's visit sunny chernobyl have the same affect on me.

* * *

the fascinating story of how one hundred years of solitude came to be published.

* * *

speaking of beautiful literature, 

here is a collection of beautiful quotes.

buzzfeed rocks lists.

* * *

vintage images of the soviet space dogs.
i'm loving atlas obscura.

swept away by the winds of gorm

there's a storm raging outside. they've named it gorm. anytime there's the slightest chance of drama, they name the storm. and these winds definitely sound like they're hurricane force. i'm trying not to have my inner view seem as stormy, but it's hard. the week brought that nasty email and i'll admit i let it suck a whole lot of my precious energy away. then, on friday, my beloved frieda cat was coughing and so i took her to the vet to see what was wrong. it was much more serious than we thought - she had torn her diaphragm and the rest of her organs were pressing in on her lungs and restricting her breathing. to fix it would have required a complicated surgery where she had to be on a respirator. and it just seemed like too much - a cat on a respirator? and what would her quality of life be? so, with great sorrow, i chose to have her put to sleep. bitter tears were shed. she was a special one - molly's baby and my favorite (despite all of those kittens) - i miss her sorely.

friday morning found me at the back specialist, meeting with the surgeon and the anesthesiologist in preparation for my upcoming back surgery. when i left, i didn't know yet when it would be, but i woke up to a letter on saturday morning with a time next friday. a bright spot in the darkness of losing frieda. this continuing nerve pain has worn me thin and i find it harder to cope. so much energy goes to the pain, it's difficult to have any left for everything else.  and it hasn't helped that i had to stop with the high grade ibuprofen in preparation for the surgery. the oxycodone i was given to replace it makes me feel strange and doesn't take the pain to the same degree. ibuprofen is definitely the best pain reliever for me.

i've been trying to just ignore the pain and go about my life as if i were a normal person - walking around, going to dinner and a movie with my family, but admit it's not really working. we went to see spectre on friday evening and i had to fidget through the whole movie to try to find a comfortable way to sit that gave me relief from the pain. usually, sitting isn't the problem, standing is, especially standing still - as the pain is mostly in my left leg, thanks to the nerves that are affected. but friday evening, probably due to the change in meds, sitting comfortably was a problem. i even wondered if i should have gone to the movies at all. but luckily, no one was sitting beside me (on the one side) or in front of me, so i did get through it in the end. i think husband was a little annoyed by all my fidgeting, but he also knew i couldn't help it.

i will go back to work this week, taking it easy like last week. it was great to be there and i can't wait to be back to normal so that i can be fully present. there are so many fun tasks to do and great people to work with. with the sound of that wind out there, i think i could fly there right now if i put on a billowy coat.

there were other bright spots in the weekend - a beautiful thanksgiving feast prepared for us, here at our house, by good friends, who knew i wasn't up to standing in the kitchen for hours, but that i missed thanksgiving very much. it was beautiful food and great company and a silky pumpkin pie and precisely what i needed. we had originally planned it for actual thanksgiving, but work schedules got in the way (those silly danes have embraced black friday, but alas, not yet thanksgiving) and we had to move it to saturday. that worked out just fine. what's important isn't the day of the week, it's the company and the food and the candles and the wine and the laughter. and those go a long way towards soothing the wounds of the nasty email and the loss of my precious frieda.

it was good to pause and be thankful for the time i did have with frieda and being happy that i told her every single day that i loved her. good to be consciously grateful for how understanding my new job is about my back problem - they even put a couch in our nearest meeting room so that i could lie down when i need to and have ordered me a special office chair that's good for my back. good to take a moment to be grateful for husband and the days he's taken off to drive me to the doctor and for all of the cups of tea he's brought to me when i've been miserable and in pain and no fun to be around. and thankful for what a cool young woman sabin is turning into. and thankful for friends willing to prepare my favorite feast. in that light, that nasty email seems unimportant and just gets swept away by the winds of the storm named gorm.

the view (of kittens) from sunday night

my new job is just great - friendly colleagues, a good atmosphere and exciting tasks - really it's everything i could ask for. but, is it terrible that what i miss most about being away from home during the week is the cats? especially these adorable kittens. i spent my whole morning with them. they will never be cuter than they are right now, so i'm trying to enjoy every second of it.

of course, i also miss husband, but him, i can talk to and i do, sometimes even more than once a day. usually, to try to make sure he listens to the podcast of the day's korte radioavis, which is radio's answer to the daily show - current events satire at its finest. we have to discuss it every day.

i've tried to make husband put the cats on, so we can chat, but it just doesn't work. even tho' scout is a talker and i'm sure he'd talk to me if husband would just put him on. meanwhile, the kittens are growing up so fast and i'm missing it. i wonder if someone is making a smart phone for pets?

one nice thing about being away is that mail accumulates and there were a couple of packages waiting for me - my latest cathy cullis brooch and the scarf i ordered from skinny la minx months and months ago. i wonder where it was hanging out all this time? if only packages could talk.

i don't yet have a laptop, but as soon as it arrives, i will do a proper catch-up here. but now, it's time to pack for the journey back to copenhagen early tomorrow morning (thank odin for the time change). it's so good to be over there again.

* * *

what is up with all of the talk of finding your passion today and what if it's crap?

* * *

south dakota is better than you think.

the view from sunday night

that yearly crayfish party is awesome. seriously a highlight of the whole year. i love husband's family. there are always great conversations. deep conversations. confessions even, but in the best, most understanding of environments. it cleanses my soul and leaves me feeling less alone. part of a tribe even. in the very best way. it was just what i needed.

there was a creative workshop today in our fantastic new library/kulturhus. it was good, but it wasn't all easy. it had its moments. where i am right now, lacking excess energy due to the waiting, it's hard for me to give space to another person who is in a possibly lifelong energy deficit. it's like those two lacks clash and make one giant black hole that neither of us can climb out of.  and it's not the most pleasant of feelings.

and as workshops often do, they bring you further than you think they have while you're in the midst of it. as i tried to draw the threads together afterwards, i was surprised to find that they did indeed come together. that's a good feeling. it had been too long.

i've had multiple dreams of wolves of late. they keep coming. there are rumors that the wolf has returned to denmark, but this is getting absurd. i did think i saw one a week or so ago in a freshly-harvested field. for real. it was lean and looked wild. but maybe it was just a dog? would i know a wolf i saw one? and why does it keep appearing in my dreams? what does it all mean?

the view from sunday night

some time spent with sharpies. as a person who is utterly unable to sit down and meditate, the adult coloring books are the next best thing. precisely what i needed late friday afternoon.

frieda, with her eye on a bird out the window. she brought in two live ones, one dead and also released a live mouse in the house. she's very thoughtful and so hopes that pretty soon we'll catch on ourselves and she'll have to stop working so hard.

on saturday, betty went her new home with a young girl who appreciates her. it's always good to know you've found a good home for the horse. with the child away at efterskole, we decided we'd go out for dinner. we tried the newly renovated kro in billund and it was brilliant. totally unexpected for billund, but they have apparently hired a real chef and they made truly delicious, exciting, innovative food that delighted us and made us think and prompted conversation. this photo above, however, is our sunday night dinner at home - steak & halloumi tacos using authentic corn tortillas from the mexican food truck that now comes to...you guessed it...billund (it's like billund is almost a real place now) on thursdays. with mild temps and some sunshine, and a whole afternoon moving hostas (20 of them), i feel rejuvenated by the weekend. and maybe just a small bit of that spark i've been missing is creeping back in.

vikings and bunkers and dinos, oh my!

hmm, it seems they can help out if it's for their own end-of-the-school-year party. 

a dino spotting in the pathetically small corn across the way.

it's been so cold, the corn wasn't happy.

but a few days of sunshine and it's already double this size.

husband and my cousin try out a viking game.

i swear i don't remember that many bunkers at søndervig strand.

i wonder if some of them have risen up out of the sand.

and a raptor chomps a flower in the golden hour.

and we wished upon paper balloons instead of 4th of july fireworks.

gorgeous naturally-dyed yarn and fabrics at the viking market.
it was too hot for me to be tempted to buy any.

summer has come at last and around here it's been filled with an end-of-the-school year party, a visit from family that ended up rather viking-themed, a stroll on the west coast, lots of ice cream, playing cards, doing puzzles and drinking wine until the wee hours. oh, and a few dinosaurs, just for good measure.  and boy, have the strawberries started to come on! they were clearly happy to have some sunshine and warm temperatures as well. i've been juicing and freezing and quite literally spent hours today picking. luckily, i had a helper - molly the garden cat.

tho' things tend to slow down during the danish summer, the week ahead promises good things. and even more strawberries.

the view from sunday night

doodling in my art journal and pondering both the week that's gone and the week ahead. i love how art journaling stimulates the meditative thoughts.  my thoughts return again and again to the germanwings plane crash. authorities seem to have rather quickly jumped to the conclusion that the co-pilot intentionally flew the plane into the alps, killing himself and 149 innocent people. i do not envy those who listened to the recording from the flight data recorder and came to that conclusion. i find the articles and op-ed pieces, laying the blame on depression quite alarming. it seems to me that what merits a closer look is the practices of low-cost airlines that would cause a young pilot to hide his medical condition and not use a note from his doctor, excusing him from work on the very day of the flight. did crewing personnel from the airline bully him into flying anyway on that day, perhaps even threatening him with firing if he didn't fly? knowing what i know of crewing department bullies in the shipping industry, i wouldn't be a bit surprised if that wasn't the case. and i hope that person has a very guilty conscience right now.

today marked the switch to summer time (daylight savings time to my american friends) here in europe. it was a grey, rainy, dreary day and we didn't much notice the switch, other than that the day seemed to fly by all too quickly. i have to wonder if we still need these time changes. wouldn't it be best to just stay on the summer version, so that light is always extended into the evenings? people want the extra light when they get home from work, don't you think? shouldn't we just stay on this time instead of switching back again come autumn?

i find myself still thinking about the enormously provocative exhibition of photographs and a video installation by richard mosse we saw at louisiana last weekend.  mosse is an irish photographer who uses infrared film developed in the 40s by the american military to expose camouflaged landscapes. it makes everything that's green a bright, vibrant pink. mosse used it to photograph the forgotten (by the world) war in the congo and the effect is sobering. it took several hours for emily and i to shake it off and it has lingered in my mind for days. it's a bit of a gimmick, using such film, but the candy floss landscapes of horror it creates definitely make you think about war anew. we are so numbed by horrible images today, that it takes such a jarring shift - horrible scenes in bright, surreal pinks - to make us notice it afresh. he somehow really does achieve an art of war. they had posters there that you could take, featuring a couple of the striking images and we took them before we had really looked at the exhibition. i don't think i can bring myself to hang it on the wall. google his images and you'll see what i mean.

and now, to shake it all off again...i'm smiling to myself about...

~ bacon and eggs going for a scooter ride between showers.
~ pairing husband's socks all wrong. it started off as an accident and now it's a little game i play. 

~ how my sis and i saw aziz ansari at a comedy club in nyc and i had no idea who he was. it seems he's a rather big deal comedian at the moment.

~ the gentle wisdom of mma ramotswe. i needed some comfort reading and so i'm rereading the no. 1 ladies' detective agency series of books. it seems several more have come out since i last read them, so i've just ordered them up from the library. mma ramotswe is so gentle and wise and there is much to learn from the old botswana morality.
~ getting a rather larger bonus than i expected and how these things often come exactly when you most need them.
~ doing a job where i can learn a lot and not have to have any emotional investment or anguish about the intrigues going on around me.

* * *

creations somewhere between toys and art by the sucklord.

perhaps moving us towards an answer of why adults today still want to play with toys?

i don't know yet.

* * *

love the dear data project!

i found out about it here.

it makes me want to do a snail mail-based project with someone.

anybody got an idea?