weeds vanquished

this weekend, i was able to weed and tend the last two beds in my upper garden because the strawberries have stopped producing. actually, they hadn't entirely stopped and i did pick one more cereal-sized bowl before i went to work on them.  but i do think it's the last for this year. they have been absolutely heavenly and we have thoroughly enjoyed them.

i had to keep reminding myself (out loud) of one of the lessons learned previously in this garden:  "strawberries that are growing where you do not want them to be are weeds."  it hurt a little bit to pluck those little buggers up, but the big plants are sending out so many runners, there will soon be plenty more.

i spread new "stenmel" (stone flour?) on all of the paving stones. it's sort of like sand, but has slightly larger bits of flint and shells in it and the slugs don't like it, so it helps keep the garden slug-free. tho' the slugs haven't been bad at all this year. i think because we had a relatively dry late spring/early summer. we've had a good mix of rain and sunshine of late and the garden is looking wonderful. 

gardening is such a soothing and wholesome activity. i'm not sure why i didn't realize that before. you can immediately see the results of your labors. i can't wait for that big hollyhock on the right to bloom, as it's from seeds i took from my mom's hollyhocks a few years ago and it's finally really big this year. 

the neighbor was digging up her front garden and gave me a whole mess of rhubarb roots! yippee!  i love rhubarb and although we have one big plant, it's always nice to have more.  the lavender border that's surrounding this garden on two sides is in full bloom and full buzz and smells absolutely heavenly. it may have contributed some of its aromatherapeutic goodness to my relaxed mood while i was weeding.

next, i've got to make a big cushion and some pillows for the iron bench that you can just barely see in the bottom picture. it looks so perfect with the rose trellis and once i get a cushion on it, i'll be able to sit up there with my morning mug of tea or my late afternoon cold glass of sauvignon blanc and enjoy the garden and the birdsong all around. 

eddies in the space-time continuum

it's been one of those weird days. i initially woke up rather early but then, since it's saturday, went back to sleep. but it was that weird kind of sleep where you have very vivid dreams and awake from them feeling exhausted. i dreamed that i was in a plane and we were landing in way too narrow a space between some really tall buildings and it sheared the wing right off. and then i dreamed something about a cat. and then there was this strange man in a long black waistcoat and a tall back hat, but i don't really remember what he wanted.

and so i got up and made tea to make it all stop.

it felt like it took awhile to come back in touch with this reality. i always have the feeling that i'm living a totally other life over there in my dreams. i even have recurring locations where many things take place (but that's the stuff of another posting).

anyway, i went through my day in this strange, murakamiesque state, slightly out of synch with reality. i spent a lot of time looking for various things...like plastic trash bags and a paintbrush. i kept thinking i saw them, but when i reached the place where i thought i saw them, they weren't there...which i why i think that there have been eddies in the space-time continuum today.

some days are just like that.

filching friday

since i stayed up late composing my last entry in the 5 big things category, this morning, it's all about whatever i ideas i can lift from other blogs. from magpie musing, i filch the notion of filching friday. and from tangobaby, the wordle.

get your own wordle here. it's fast easy and oh so cool. and you could spend hours playing with it. not that i did...

#5 - what if?

this week i'm writing each day about a person, place or thing that has had a big effect on my life. i'm going to be leaving aside parents, sister, husband and daughter because those are a given for having had a big effect and writing about that effect would be way more typing than i should do with the angry nerve in my left hand.

this is the last installment. it has been a very interesting assignment and i have even discovered a few things along the way (the thing about reagan) and confirmed others (the iPod posting proves what we have long suspected--i have a very deep shallow streak). i think i'll try to come up with some other writing assignments for myself in the coming weeks. if there are any ideas/suggestions out there, please do leave a comment!

this last of the 5 people, places or things that have had a big effect on my life is another professor. as i pondered this one, i found myself thinking how different my life would be if i'd never met her.

if i'd never signed up for a graduate course called intro to comparative literature during my first semester at playboy magazine's #1 party school, i might not ever have met elizabeth horan. 

i was interested in comp lit because i thought i eventually wanted a ph.d. in it. in fact, i had applied to a ph.d. program (only one, silly me) and didn't get in because i had had only russian lit and thus nothing to compare, so i found myself seeking another master's degree, in humanities, to try to get something to compare to the russian stuff.

if i hadn't taken that course, i wouldn't have:

• had my first exposure to magical realism.
• or reception theory.
• or had my first thoughts on the implications of translation on the literary work.
• met two fantastic and interesting people who i am still friends with to this day.
• had a truly fantastic discussion about the poetry of osip mandelstam and anna akhmatova.
• found my voice and thus my confidence in the graduate classroom (despite already having a master's degree when i started, i wouldn't say i'd really found my graduate feet).
• met the professor who would head my thesis committee.

and i certainly wouldn't have signed up for another of prof. horan's courses:  nobel prize winners from north and south america. and if i hadn't done that, i wouldn't have:

• made the completely hilarious and annoyingly consistent mistake of referring to the swedish academy as the "swiss" academy throughout the bit i wrote for a group assignment! (in fact, i still haven't lived that one down!)
• suggested that a figure like camille paglia might eventually win a nobel prize for literature (i was a bit off there, but i intentionally wanted to go for a longshot and my arguments were good).
• i wouldn't have stuck my foot in my mouth about annoying high school teachers who thought they could fit in in graduate courses, saying it TO one of said annoying high school teachers. (sigh...we learn from these experiences).
• had the chance to prepare in depth and teach a session on octavio paz.
• read a whole lot more gabriel garcia marquez and pablo neruda and gabriele mistral.
• gone out to casey moore's for beers and wings twice a week with the gang after class.

i adored prof. horan's teaching style. she was very laid back and very much let the course be student-driven. we took turns presenting the assigned readings and it went a long way towards preparing us both as researchers and as teachers, which is more than most graduate programs do.

but the most important thing she did for me was point out a poster for meetings regarding applying for fulbright scholarships. she said, "you should go, they'd be crazy not to give you one." i was blown away. i hadn't even been considering it. what would i research? where would i go? how would i pitch it? would they really give one to me? but those are prestigious! how could that be?

so i went to the meeting. it seemed that the #1 party school year after year wanted to shed that image and raise their academic reputation (and in all honesty, at the graduate level, it was awesome--very engaged teachers and students all around!). they saw helping their students gain fulbrights as one way of doing that. and help us they did. there were 7 or 8 of us receiving a fulbright that year.

and prof. horan was probably the biggest help to me of all, not only by suggesting i apply, but in helping me shape my application (she'd had at least one herself, so she knew how it all worked), but also writing me what my dad called the mother of all recommendation letters. it was like having a letter from god that would open any door. and although i hardly recognized myself in it, i was and will be eternally grateful for the kind words that were there.

but the biggest "what if" in this is that if it hadn't all gone as it did, i wouldn't have been in the right place at the right time to meet that lovely danish boy who is now my husband (and has been for nearly 10 years!) and i shudder to think about that. i would have lived a completely different life without elizabeth horan. so i am forever grateful to her for all that she taught me--both in the classroom and about myself and even more so for the guidance she gave. she definitely steered me in the right direction.

and we have a floor!

husband laid the last floorboards in the kitchen today. he's such a keeper.

i think he may have left all that junk in the floor

doesn't he look happy with the big sander?

i've been painting the island.

i'm not done yet.

oak totally rocks.

it's gonna be beautiful!

and totally worth the pain and suffering.

#4 - ode to the iPod

this week i'm writing each day about a person, place or thing that has had a big effect on my life. i'm going to be leaving aside parents, sister, husband and daughter because those are a given for having had a big effect and writing about that effect would be way more typing than i should do with the angry nerve in my left hand.

after three days of serious entries, it's time for a bit of levity.

i give you the iPod...ahem, or should i say iPods:

we have quite a lot of iPods in our household (those above are only mine, husband and sabin also have several) and 3 docking units with speakers to play them from. this is actually because of the importance of music in the daily life of our household. but could it be just any old MP3 player? no it could not. it must be the iPod. why? why the obsession with this particular little gadget?

because they're just so damn sexy. good design is very important in scandinavia and that has clearly rubbed off on me in my ten years here. i LOOOOooove the design of the iPod.  they're beautiful, sleek, shiny and even sparkly if you add bling like i did to my white 30GB one. (our friends refer to that one as the porn pod because they think it's almost pornographic that i blinged it out like i did.) (you can buy those stickers all ready made to just stick on.)

it all started when husband brought home a little black nano that his boss gave him as a christmas present 3 years ago. whoa, that was cool! and it was enough for the first year, until he left it on in the little pocket in the side of the seat along with his new bose headphones on SK944 ORD-CPH.  damn those business class seats. we were iPodless again and something had to be done.

at first, i thought i could get along with just one, the white blinged out one. 30GB is a lot of music. 5,924 songs, 9 videos and 135 photos to be exact. but then one day, it was full. and i still had other things i wanted on it. and i didn't want to throw away anything that was already there. so i got another one, a black 30GB one. and when nike came out with that running shoe tie-in, i had to get the green nano because i was SURE to start running regularly if only i had that. (strangely, that hasn't really worked, hmmm...) and let's face it, it's better to use a shuffle for running (we each have one of those too, i just forgot to include it in the picture). 

then, they went and changed the design of the nano. one couldn't be seen in the gold lounge with the old model, right? that wouldn't do at all. and i began to want them for different purposes. the smaller black nano has only podcasts on it, for example. and it's easiest to carry in my purse. 

then, my dear sister bought me the iPod Touch, which is the most beautiful, sexiest one of all. and which has only my "music of the moment" on it, since it's only 8GB, you can be selective about it and not use it really for storage, but for the best bits. i tend to carry it and the nano around in my purse, the big ones stay at home in the docking stations now, but at least one of them is playing all day long.  

it's odd that a small gadget can bring such joy, but it really can. i love getting out my iPod on the train and lovingly putting it away when i reach my destination, just seeing it when i do that makes me smile. i wouldn't get through all the painting i've done this week and have yet to do without the Scissor Sisters or the latest Alanis on full blast to accompany my brushstrokes.

music has such a capacity to soothe when you're wound up, or to get your heart rate up when you're feeling lazy. it can put you back in a good mood when you've had a bad day. it can underline your bad mood if you feel like wallowing in it. you can get it all out of your system, just by listening to the right song. it's so great that music is so portable now, so you have the ability to change your mood right there tucked inside your Crumpler (which is also brilliant design, i must say).

and tomorrow the 3G iPhone will be released, also in denmark! i'm so excited!!

what a difference a day makes

july 5, 2008

july 6, 2008

july 7, 2008

july 8, 2008

july 9, 2008

it won't be long before i'm writing this blog

 from inside the "writing house" above.

i can't wait!!!

but first, i have to decide what color to paint it on the inside...

ahhh, luxury problems.