there's nothing like a really great bookstore

london's daunt books in marylebone oozes with atmosphere. it's quiet and was cool on an otherwise sweltering london day. i only had about 10 minutes to pop in on my way back from lunch with the wonderful beth and kristen (where yes, i made them build lego). there are tables heaped with inspiration for what to read, beautiful papers to select and take home, gorgeous old wooden floors interspersed with tiles, inviting chairs and an enormous curved window. i would love to have spent the rest of my afternoon there. but alas, i didn't. instead, i grabbed, without thinking too much, a few books from the delectable displays, feeling a bit like i was choosing macaroons in a fancy bakery. vasily grossman's an armenian sketchbook, audur ava olafsdottir's butterflies in november and one mistake, a pretentious crime novel called don't point that thing at me by kiril bonfiglioli, which i selected due to an attractive cover and an endorsement on said cover by none other than stephen fry (a mistake i made previously when i bought hugh laurie's atrocious attempt at a novel, but somehow conveniently forgot in the heat of the moment in daunt). the bonfiglioli was an utter waste of time, but i'm 80 pages into the grossman and savoring every word. the icelandic novel waits patiently beside my night table, still full of that mysterious possibility that all books you haven't yet read possess.

i miss bookstores. most of my books these days come from the library (which is awesome, but i do feel guilty writing in their books) or from amazon (mostly work-related), but there is still nothing like browsing a bookstore, especially one as charming as daunt, which i'd oddly never visited before on all my trips to london. it had a library-like hush and atmosphere that i breathed in during the few minutes i was there. the clerk behind the counter, with wrinkled shirt and ruffled hair, looked as if he'd just roused himself from a book to wander over to wait on me. he placed my purchases into a reusable cloth bag (not the green one, i didn't manage spend that much in 10 minutes) and i regretfully went on down the street. we just don't have any bookstores like that in my part of denmark (there are a couple still in copenhagen that fit the description, but i visit them far too seldom) and i miss them. we can do a lot on the internet these days, but there really is nothing like visiting a really great little bookstore.

royal kittens

because i couldn't resist trying to explode the internet with cuteness.

happy weekend, one and all.

hello august

this face got so cute while we were away. i have a hard time not just squeezing her to bits, she's so sweet and adorable. on another note, i can't believe august is here already, time is flying by. school starts again in less than two weeks and it feels like we've barely had time to play. well, that's not true, i get to play pretty much every day at work if i want to. i'm more thinking of evening games of kongespil and painting in the garden on a warm, sunny afternoon, like we did last summer. we'll have to be sure we do some of that before it's all over. our long, golden nights are still with us, but it won't long before a hint of autumn enters the air. as far as i'm concerned, it can wait a little longer.

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this zoo with big ambitions is in my (broad) neighborhood (thank odin for that).

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check out how awesome our turtle competition is going.

and it's not too late to enter (last day is august 10) if you fancy building a tiny turtle
(on an 8x8 plate).

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so many interesting things to read:

ira glass' lifehacker interview.

a piece from the nytimes that i can only hope is taking the piss.

an interesting approach to the induction of new employees.

what they've found in a shipwreck.

before digital photography was mainstream.

a photographer who staged her spam emails to awesome effect.

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and if you need more, the new yorker has opened their archives all summer long.
here are some suggestions as to what to read.

london calling

a few blissful days in london. part work, part play. all wonderful. meeting old friends. and new ones. seeing the sights. taking in the crowds and the noise. going to museums. eating new and interesting food. trying on clothes. drinking loads of starbucks. battling the heat. and ducking rain showers (in the gap, of course). tracking down bathrooms (after all that coffee). it was a full (almost) week.

landing from travels, even if they're only a time zone away and a short hour-long flight, always takes time. processing. finding your feet again at home. settling into the old rhythms after the disruption of another place. but disruption is good and healthy and shakes you from your complacency. it gives you a different view of the world. makes you appreciate home a little bit more. and tho' there are mountains of laundry to do, i'd rather just sit for a little while with a cat in my lap and absorb it all. i really did miss those cats.

50 things about right now (mostly awesome)

i totally copycatted was inspired by molly's 50 things about right now post.

1.  in a word, kittens. two of them, tho' we thought she had 6 in there, her belly was so big.
2.  sunshine breaking through.
3.  working at home.
4.  sitting for too long in one spot when i work at home.
5.  building excitement over our coming holiday in london.

7.  flowers in bloom all over the place.

8. did i mention the two perfect, tiny kittens?

9. awesome projects at work.

10. great people to work with on awesome projects at work.

11.  a trip on the (rather distant) horizon to seattle and then new york.

12. yes, me, in new york.

13. for the first time ever.

14. cold white wine in the garden.

15. and the odd gin & tonic.

16. the coolest business cards ever. and i have some.
17. long, light summer nights.
18. being invited to a party this weekend.
19. horses with fly fringe attached to their halters.
20. the antics of our pigs.
21. the child hanging out with her good friends.
22. the awesomeness being submitted to the turtle competition we're running on eurobricks.
23. these are the ultra-creative people i get to work with. all. the. time.

24. pinterest.

25. looking forward to molly's kittens.

26. yes, that's more kittens.

27. awesome neighbors.

28. summer visits from friends.

29. rewatching friends from the beginning on netflix.

30. shark burgers for dinner.

31. salmon burgers for dinner.

32. burger burgers for dinner.

33. berries to pick.

34. the strawberries are done.

35. the child buying a nikon D7100 with her confirmation money.

36. arranging lunch dates with friends in london.

37. and tours of oxford with other friends.

38. packing up the "dining" room so it can become sabin's room.

39. reluctantly. because packing all those books away again feels wrong.

40. our independent, awesome feral hen keeping her babies safe up a tree every night.

41. overusing the word awesome.
42. but it's because everything is pretty much awesome.
43. looking at the calendar to find the best time for a weekend in rome.
44. and maybe one in berlin.
45. did i mention we're going to london?

46. getting to write at work too.

47. mowing the lawn.

48. strawberry shrubs.

49. staying up late.

50. sitting in the golden hour light with husband in the garden, sipping a cocktail and talking about our days, the future, living abroad, the angle of the roof, and what to do with all these cats.

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seriously awesome reflection photos by kiripi katembo siku

they are stunning and so full of subtext and depth.

a big thank you to molly for sharing them with me.

what happened to amazon?

i used to get mails from amazon that were filled with one thing after another that i couldn't resist - books, cameras, lenses. i couldn't click in and add them to my shopping cart fast enough. but the mails i get from them today are generic and lame, full of crappy stuff - tools, hip hop albums, non-apple electronics (gasp!) - that indicate that they no longer know me at all. even worse, today i got a mail from them that had no less than a dozen mega bloks halo sets. mega bloks for me? what? really? don't you know i'm a lego girl? amazon, are you trying to tell me you'd like to break up? or that we already broke up and i just didn't realize it?

i used to think amazon was as close as you could get to shopping in an actual shop in the virtual world. the suggestions below the items you're looking at are always related in a good way, but could easily lead you to other things, just like browsing in a bookstore. but it seems they've changed their algorithms and that's just not true anymore. i hate to sound like a crabby old woman who thinks everything was better in the old days, but really, amazon was better in the old days. luckily, i'm going to london next week and i can hang around in some real bookstores.

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i seriously need to visit chernobyl.

slow sunday stretches to the wee hours of tuesday

it was raining steadily, if gently, all day sunday. that was fine, as there was plenty of tidying up to do inside that's been sadly neglected as we spend all of our waking hours outdoors. the monotony of the rain and the grey skies gave the day a slowed-down feeling. the slow feeling didn't let up that much even as we spontaneously decided to watch the world cup finals, as it was an awfully long match with very little scoring. if it hadn't been for twitter, and laughing with friends, i'd have nodded off.

a rainy quiet day leaves me feeling introspective and so it was only fitting that i came across this piece on virginia wolff in the new yorker. she had this notion that there was always this place inside of us which we hide, even from ourselves. she even embraced this hiding, like a gift of sorts, a core which we keep eternally as a surprise. i'm not sure that i agree that we hide these places from ourselves so much as that we are unable to articulate them, even to ourselves. i would argue that we know very well they're there, and the keen observers of us around us sense them as well. but there is something at our core that's inarticulable (i think that's possibly a word that i just made up), something that might well be the very stuff of who we are. and we probably come closest to it when we are alone with ourselves and our own thoughts. and maybe it's even why we crave time alone, to be closer to ourselves.

one of my favorite quotes of all time is from one of barbara kingsolver's early novels (the bean trees, i think), she says, "you never know how inside of themselves people are." i think that's what virginia wolff was getting at as well and perhaps the reason she had to end it all is that she couldn't really stand the revelation of self there at her core. she couldn't face that it was as inexpressible as it is. for a writer, the inexpressible must be the very worst thing. or maybe the fear of finally expressing it and getting to the bottom of it and having no mysteries left there in the core. or just the raw, naked, stark truth of who we really are at the base of it.

see. i told you the rain made me introspective. and there are times when i just have to write these things down in order to illuminate what i really think about them. and sometimes that writing only gets me part way there. thank you for reading.

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on a lighter note...

i really love this food blog.

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and how fabulous are these moody family portraits?

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and you thought LEGO was just a toy.

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are americans really too stupid for GMO labeling?
a congressional panel thinks so.

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here is a really great and thorough account of the project i've been working on since march.
i might have mentioned that i love my job.