i've waited 15 years for this

we've had starbucks in the airport in copenhagen since 2007, but they never really spread beyond there. i heard tales of one in a mall that's near the airport in copenhagen, but alas, that's far from me and i no longer spend enough time there. so my visits to starbucks are too few and far between.

but that is no longer the case! on saturday, i learned that one had opened just a few weeks before in a mall in kolding, only about 40 minutes from where i live. tho' i was running a low-grade fever and had a cold coming on, i packed up the child and her friend and her friend's mom and we headed down there for pumpkin spice lattes and frappuccinos and berry-hibiscus refreshas (with their high does of green caffeine, those are sabin's favorite).

and then on monday, after school, i said, "let's go have a pumpkin spice latte" to the girls and we went back. just to have coffee. real live starbucks coffee. the people who work there were trained at starbucks in ireland and they are friendly and wonderful just like in a usual starbucks anywhere in the world. and the PSL is just as heavenly as i remembered.

and you can never get the children started on their caffeine addiction too early, eh?

the choices we make: coffee places

there's been a lot of talk around here lately of starbucks. i may even seem a little obsessed. and strangely a hankering for a really good latte has replaced my desire for a really good south african chenin blanc. i've tried not to think too much about that, but what i have thought about is what draws you to a certain café over the one right next to it (in the absence of starbucks, of course - because we always are drawn to starbucks if there is one and by we, i mean me and sometimes husband).

i'm thinking about this because i downloaded a bunch of iPhone photos into iPhoto this evening. and i realized that i take a lot of pictures of coffees with my phone. oh, and shoes, but we're talking about coffees at the moment. maybe there will be one gratuitous shoe shot at the end (if i remember).

when i walk through sandvika storsenter, which is the most direct route from the train station to my hotel, i pass half a dozen coffee places. why do i, time after time, choose steam? it might have something to do with these beautiful cinnamon bread thingies (husband is right, the norwegians can do a mean cinnamon bread thingie (that's the technical term)).

but fattigmanden also has really nice things to eat. like this shrimp sandwich. but still, i had to force myself to go there, just to try something different. but i really wanted to go to steam. and both of them even do those pretty hearts on top of the coffee, so it shouldn't really matter.

but you can see that a double latte at fattigmanden just isn't as creamy-looking as it is at steam, so that's part of it. but there's something more, something i can't put a finger on.

it's about atmosphere too. or the light. or the lighting. the decor. the pillows. whether they have comfy chairs or tall barstools. the availability of guinness. wait. that was just in dublin. but you have to admit it is rather coffee-colored.

i think it's only partially about the coffee, tho' the coffee does have to be a rich, robust roast and the foam creamy and i never order skinny because i think only whole milk truly foams properly. it's mostly about how i feel in the place. whether people can sit too close to you. whether there's wifi. whether it feels hyggeligt (that wonderful danish word that means so much more than cosy).

and it helps if they have really cool lamps. i'm a sucker for a really cool lamp. but strangely, i don't seem to photograph them, i'll try to remedy that.  but now, i promised shoes...

happy weekend one and all. i, for one, i'm happy to be headed home today. because there's starbucks in the airport in copenhagen. and i'm looking forward to it already.

an interview with magpie of magpie musing

next up...the inimitable magpie of the witty and clever magpie musing. she's one of the bloggers i feel like i've known from the beginning and every year on her birthday blog post, i am amazed that she's like at least ten years older than she looks and than i think she is. and i forget every year. and how can you not love someone who uses words like filch and acrophobic and assumes her readers use them too. i probably leaned a little too heavily on the silly side of my questions to her...


1. which Wii game is the best?

I was going to say whichever one we're playing, but I think the real answer is whichever one the six year old can win, because she has not learned how to lose with grace. Just tonight, she howled when I made better blueberry pancakes in Cook Wars.

2. have you ever been tempted to call in sick due to a Wii-related injury?

No. First, I don't think I've ever incurred a Wii-related injury, and second, I'm too honest and responsible - I hardly call in sick when I'm actually sick.

3. do you ever worry about the world you're leaving to your child? in what way?

I worry about the climate conditions that people seem to be too short-sighted and politically hamstrung to address; I hope the world is still habitable in her lifetime.

4. nature or nurture?


Yes. Nature plays a huge role, but without nurture, nature is fragile.

5.  what do you order at starbucks? 

I hardly ever go to Starbucks. Really - maybe three times a year. When I go, I'll get a small skim latte - small because I have no truck with that Italianate sizing they use, and skim because it's less cloying than whole milk. I almost never drink coffee outside my house - two cups, freshly ground, freshly brewed, black, every morning, and that's it.

6. iPhone or Blackberry?

iPhone.

7. is BlogHer really all it's cracked up to be?

What's it cracked up to be? It's fun. It's a way to meet a lot of people with whom you have something in common - kind of like going to a college reunion.

8. what parenting ideas did you have before you became a parent that you abandoned almost immediately upon actually being confronted with your child?

I thought my little girl would wear little smocked dresses until I realized how ridiculous dresses on a crawling baby are.

* * *

despite my deep and abiding love for starbucks, i love that you hardly ever go there. as for parenting, i had firm ideas about how much candy the child would be allowed..sigh. thank you, magpie, for playing along with the interview game.

she's back on that inspiration thing again

like many out there, i was inspired by the women of 3191, quietly, mindfully depicting their lives on opposite coasts. and again like many, i longed for such a project. one which would push my photography. one which would push me to be more mindful of everyday things myself. one which i would share with someone whose photography and view of the world inspired me. and i am so happy that i have found kristina and that project. we were just discussing last evening that we found each other thru the überfabulous sandra juto's blog. and we all know she's very inspiring too - so thanks sandra, you undoubtedly don't know it, but you brought us together. and i'm so pleased with what's unfolding.  both kristina and i were traveling last week and we're sharing our travel photos all week, but first, a little glimpse of the weekend just gone by. do go check it out here.

* * *

as you all undoubtedly have noticed, i travel quite a lot. i need the excitement. i need the pulse. i need to see new things, to experience new things. going away makes me more grateful for home as well. in short, travel is a sort of life blood to me, keeping my perspectives fresh and my eye honed. it makes me tick. i was thinking about the things that i look for when i travel. i find i'm drawn to the familiar...

starbucks only recently came to denmark and it's only in the airport, so i associate starbucks with travel (sorry bill, i love a good starbucks latte, despite what they did to the sonics). and look how relaxing it is!

but mostly, i'm drawn to the strange, the unexpected, the challenging...

and i'm a sucker for a good ruin--tho' this one--newgrange, a stone age site, was a bit reconstructed (in the 60s, can you tell?) for my taste...

there were some marvelous petroglyphs (my beloved helleristninger) there, which i am certain will be showing up soon in my art.

* * *

i've been vicariously watching the results of rachel's latest art journaling course go up in the flickr group and have been doing a bit of art journaling along with it...as you saw last month. and i've got a couple of pages going, where i have created a lovely background and i'm totally stuck on the words. me, stuck on words, imagine that. i wonder why that happens? i'm trying not to obsess about it and just let them come in their own good time and in the meantime, enjoy making pages that will be great bases for the eventual words.

* * *

hmm, what else inspires of late?

there's a lot of shoe and foot photography out there in the blogosphere these days and i'm finding it has made me a little obsessed with both buying new shoes and photographing them. hmm. i wonder if this particular bit of inspiration is healthy? got these in dublin (which you already know if you've been hanging out on twitter). they're super comfortable and they look pretty in the afternoon sun. 

* * *

i find myself going back again and again to look at jude hill's marvelous spirit cloth creations. both on her blog and on flickr. her small quilted stories are so dense with layered meaning that i am just drawn to them and inspired by them. i've worked a bit farther on the first piece that has arisen from her inspiration and still don't know what it will be. i'm using it as an exercise in patience as well and just enjoying the process of watching it unfold before me and trying to listen to my inner muse when she tells me what comes next.

where are you finding inspiration these days?

blog camp: reflections on the beginning

when you plan for something big, you have all of this anxious build-up to it...both literally and in your mind. you imagine what it will be like and you plan for what it will be like. with blog camp, it was the same. only it was difficult to really imagine what it would be like. it was a little strange to think of meeting five people who i'd never met in real life, but felt like i knew through their blogs--what would they be like for real? what kind of chemistry would be there between the group? or, even worse, might there not be chemistry between the group members? yikes. so many thoughts.

with all of the personalities and talk of tiaras, would anyone be a prima donna? would we all be? would it make it insufferable? or would there be one nice person who got crushed under the force of stronger personalities? or would one person dominate totally? would the weekend go quickly or drag on endlessly? so many questions.

so, in the end, all i could really do to mentally prepare was get ready in the physical sense...house cleaned and tidied, beds ready for people to sleep in, food and drink supplies laid in. if the house was ready i would be ready.

and largely, i would say that i never second-guessed the decision to invite five strangers to come hang out at my house for a weekend. it was done a bit on a whim and quite possibly began as a joke on husband's part (he should know better by now), but i never regretted it, even if i couldn't really imagine what it would be like.

i headed for the airport on friday with good butterflies. i had a sense of trying to consciously preserve the "first time-ness" of the experience--because you only have one first time experience of anything. and it's not that often that you know you're going to experience something for the first time--most of the time, things just happen and they end up being the first time. this was a unique opportunity. i knew i was going to meet my blog camp friends for the first time. and that felt somehow special.

my only doubts as i headed there were, "oh dear, will i recognize everyone?" i thought i'd know extranjera and B and polly, but i'd never seen seaside girl or kristina, so i wasn't sure. we'd made a plan that i'd buy a little flag from each country and be standing there waving those and they would thereby find me. however, i got to the airport and realized i didn't know for sure what the flags of poland and spain looked like and the shop was out of all of the others! yikes! so, i'd have to hope they recognized me.

i saw kristina first, she was leaning against a big pillar near starbucks, where we had agreed to meet. although she didn't look as i expected, i knew it was her right away from the way she looked at me like she recognized me. she had spotted extranjera, sitting in the starbucks and we went over to greet her. we knew it was her from the murakami she was reading. (oops, still owe a discussion on that one on the hermit book club blog).

i'd had word from polly and B that their flight was delayed, but we knew that seaside girl would arrive soon from gatwick, so we went over to wait. we giggled quite a lot about how we would recognize her since none of us had much of an idea how she would look...we couldn't even really agree on what she'd said about her recent haircut. thankfully, she recognized us and came right up to us. we all immediately started laughing and headed back over to starbucks to wait for B & polly's flight to come in.

we chatted away, only having a couple of minutes here and there of wondering what to say next. but it helped that we felt we knew one another from our blogs. then, it was time for B & polly's flight. while we were waiting, we tried to catch a photo of a weird nu skin cult leader girl for molly's sake, but kept missing the opportunity (ok, it was me who was too slow to get out the damn iPhone at the right time). at last, just when their flight had disappeared entirely from the sign and we were beginning to wonder if they had had to report a lost bag, they came out. and we were off towards the train to the center of copenhagen.

i entered my usual chaos mode and it took extranjera and i quite a bit of discussion to determine how many tickets to buy and which color of clip card was best, but soon, we were on a train and stowing their bags at the central station in copenhagen so we could be free to walk around.

it was so much fun walking around the city, cameras constantly at the ready, seeing copenhagen anew through their eyes. and it was quite amazing how quickly any nervousness and awkwardness melted very quickly away. i suppose because we did, in many ways, know one another quite well through our blogs and everyone proved to be very like their bloggy self.

more later from the first evening...

100 happy days :: day 3

a cup of fragrant, milky, sweet tea. my manila starbucks mug. a bit of sunshine. 

i chased all over manila for that mug. they'd been tucked away so the christmas mugs could be brought out.  and it was only in the 4th or 5th starbucks that i thought to ask if they had some put away in the cupboard. because i had to have it. and i'm still glad i do.

kitsch on the brain

even before going to munich, i had kitsch on the brain. matei calinescu characterizes kitsch as one of the five faces of modernity. it is the very manifestation of the modern condition--endless replication. it's easy, not demanding anything from the consumer but consumption--no thinking, no processing, no intellectualizing, just enjoyment. and a consumer is indeed required. kitsch requires a receiver of the kitsch in order for it to function.

kitsch takes many forms--from the hundreds of lidded beer steins lining the tourist shops of munich to small plastic replicas of neuschwanstein to posters of the "arbeit macht frei" sign over the gates of dachau concentration camp. it's a way of trying to objectify memory. you don't have to remember the sight of neuschwanstein yourself if you have the little replica at home on the shelf. you preserve the memory of it there in the little hunk of kitsch plastic. a sort of false memory.

national costumes embody kitsch as well. rooted in some sense in some long-forgotten history, people wear them in ignorance of their original purpose. the stories behind the embroidered patterns and the reasons for certain details--like an apron made in some special way--are long since forgotten. they become a cultural artifact disconnected from culture, especially if they're taken home as a souvenir.

yugoslav writer dubravka ugrešič writes about the nationalist kitsch which destroyed her country a number of times in her book of essays--the culture of lies. she suggests that kitsch, whether it's nationalist or socialist, is deeply connected to folklore...to the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. and as such, is an insidious and seductive strategy. kitsch attaches to national symbols--crosses, sculptures, landmarks. of course, this sort of kitsch is much more dangerous than a souvenir of a trip abroad. but, at its base, it's the same cheapening of the real.

kitsch takes something away from the real. a replica of neuschwanstein does not stand in for seeing the real thing. a young girl's room full of monet water lilies posters does not replace seeing a real monet in an art museum. the serbian brotherhood symbol has little or nothing to with actual serbians or brothers. the unending duplication inherent in kitsch cheapens and demeans the real object.

and yet, sometimes i DO embrace the kitsch. my starbucks mugs collected in starbucks around the world are surely a form of kitsch. i have a framed poster of a matisse paper cutout (i could, after all, never afford a real matisse). i love those little russian nesting dolls--matryoshka--and buy them whenever i'm in a country where they are made and sold (ukraine, lithuania--it doesn't have to be russia--proving my point about the diluting factor of kitsch). but shouldn't we be more careful about doing that? shouldn't we be more interested in preserving authenticity?

as i pondered the notion of kitsch while i was in munich, where it seems to be screaming at you from every corner, i at first thought that there wasn't much of it evident in denmark. but, it seems that every country has their own brand of kitsch. in denmark, where everything is sleekly designed, it's just more attractive--but the same duplication is going on...hans wegner chairs in every home (including my own) and for those who can't afford them, ikea has a version that's hard to tell it's not the real thing. which brings me back to my point. kitsch dilutes the real. but, how can we escape it?

pretty bleak musings for a rainy monday...

reflections on the blogosphere and real life

it's back to school time. back to work (tho' technically i was working in singapore last week). back to daily routines. and back to the airport - tho' today it's husband who is going (to north carolina, via chicago, oddly enough). me, i don't fly 'til friday, when i head for blog camp 1.5 in london.

looking back on the past month, i realize how busy it's been. i didn't really have time off, since i haven't officially earned any yet, so our small holidays were sneaked in here and there along with work. but we did manage to add three new starbucks mugs to our collection, so three new places were visited - KL, amsterdam and dublin. i didn't get a new singapore mug, tho' they had some that match this new series, because i already got singapore years ago. it's rather fun to have the style of the mug reflect the period in which you first visited the place. and i won't at all devote any reflection to the implications of the cultural imperialism of starbucks in places as different from one another as KL and dublin. me, i'm just grateful for a grande latte, loungey, comfortable seating below the herstal lamps and free wifi, wherever it's found.

* * *

over the past couple of weeks, where i have been largely away from the blogosphere (at least from the reading blogs side of it), i realized a few things. the blogosphere isn't as different from real life as i thought it was. there is lots of drama, catfighting, petty annoyances, pettier obsessions and women being hard on women (why do we do that to ourselves?). happily, that negativity is easier to avoid than in real life, since you can just stay away from the places where it's going on and there's no danger of actually running into someone you'd rather not run into. and there's so much goodness going on in the blogosphere--things to inspire, make you laugh, things to learn, things that make you think there is hope for the world--that it more than makes up for the negatives. maybe it's just normal that in cyberspace, as in real life, we make friends, keep some of them, grow apart from others, move on and make new friends. i'm not sure why i thought it was any different online than offline, but somehow i did.

* * *

and speaking of new friends, in singapore, i got together rather spontaneously for a quick drink with a blogger who i haven't known for that long...kim of measure of all things. kim is a south african who lives and works in singapore. she very good-naturedly allowed herself to be subjected to our questions about how on earth she can take living in the plastic world that is singapore. and she did confirm my suspicions that singapore is a great place to be an ex-pat. it's safe, clean, it functions very well and there are cheap flights to more exotic, real destinations in the region. i still have half a mind to spend some time there working at some point. it is difficult for me to imagine being from cape town tho' and wanting to be anywhere but there, but on the other hand, i do love a good adventure, so it was great fun to meet kim. and for that opportunity, i am very grateful to the blogosphere. and if you really want to both crochet and be really inspired in a really brainy, deep way, you must read kim's latest blog post. and take the time to watch the video. it's blow-you-away amazing.

* * *

this time of year, as summer transitions to fall, i always feel reflective. and i think that transition is an apt word. also here in the blogosphere. when i look back a year, things have changed a great deal. that's partially due to BoN, but i think it's more natural and organic than that. i think that here in cyberspace as in life, we make transitions. new interests that we write about bring new readers and we make new friends. some of the old friends drift away because at the same time, they have moved to different interests and have new readers and new friends on their own blogs. some blog friends endure and sadly, some do not. some go to a place that you simply can't follow. but the beauty and wonder of it to me is that there are always new blogs to discover, new connections to make. and i've noticed that i have a lot of new people leaving comments and i'm really happy for the discoveries of new blogs and new perspectives that gives me. this is not to say that i don't love comments from the old crowd too--i'm just trying to say that i love the expanding sense of community. so thank you ALL for your comments, they're wonderful.

i have found some really good friends here in this bloggy world. and i've drifted away from others. but there are a few, that although we've drifted apart, i know our relationship would prove to be cat love and at some point, something will again strike a chord and we'll be back to our wonderful, deep level of friendship that we had developed. because in some sense we do get to know one another quite well here, don't we? the medium of the blog is very personal and diaristic at times (sometimes nauseatingly so, admittedly). we simply reveal so much of ourselves through our words and pictures, even if those pictures don't necessarily show us. the things we choose to share (or not share) speak volumes and in many ways, we are laid bare for all to see.

maybe that's why failed friendships in the blogosphere hurt as much as they do. we've revealed ourselves, left ourselves vulnerable and open. and when we're rejected or worse, ignored, it hurts that much more. or maybe i'm being too deep and philosophical - forgive me, it's a rainy monday - maybe real life simply intervenes and it's so much more compelling than online life that people just drift away. or maybe it's just that sometimes you feel all vibrant and sometimes you feel like earth tones, so as i said, more natural and organic than anything else.

* * *

at the end of the week, i'll go to blog camp 1.5 at Bee's house in england. Bee is one of several soul sisters i've found in this bloggy world. she and i are the same age, we both married a european man and uprooted ourselves from the land of our birth. we both abandoned Ph.D. studies before the dissertation stage. she has daughters and so do i. strangely enough, we even have an LNG thing in common. i feel i already know her so well and i know that from the minute i see her this weekend, we'll be completely at ease together and we won't even come close to running out of things to talk about. i have that wonderful feeling of anticipation of meeting her. the one where you want to capture that first time moment because you only have a first time once and you want to treasure it so you can mull it over later.

so i'm really looking forward to the bloggy world and the real world converging once again this coming weekend when B, polly, seaside girl, kristina, spudballoo and me get together at bee's house. and i'm certain that i will not be disappointed.

well-rested

today's gonna be a good day, today's gonna be a good, good day....monday, tuesday, wednesday... (loosely adapted from the black eyed peas)

good things that happened today:

:: waking up from a really good night's sleep.

:: a surprise in the mail from the lovely tracy. she sent me this ceramic starbucks mug that looks just like the real take-away ones, but is reusable! thank you so much, tracy!!!

:: an energizing conversation with a friend and soon-to-be business partner. i am consistently amazed by the ways that we complement one another.

:: an invitation to sell handmade goods at a market in april!

:: another collaboration in the works with another friend - this one very near and dear to my heart (and which will potentially keep me on the straight and narrow where it concerns all of that consumerism).

:: at the grocery store, i ran into an old colleague and had a hug and a nice chat.

:: coming across these charming stories of travel.

just a small collection of things, but altogether, they added up to a very good and energizing day. it's good to be in flow, or maybe it was yesterday's wish?  or perhaps arianna huffington is right and it's all about a good night's sleep.

an interview with megan of running wild

megan runs marathons. and usually, something like that would mean that we have nothing in common and so our paths would never cross. but, being a runner, she's also got feet, which meant she was a shoe-in for being part of the shoe per diem project(pun intended). :-) actually, back when i first got acquainted with her, she was known as OP - the optimistic pessimist. and i always thought that was a very clever bloggy name. but anyway, on to her interview. being both horrified and fascinated by runners (especially after reading murakami's what i talk about when i talk about running), i had to ask her about that. and she scores extra points for actually mentioning him!

1. you are a running madwoman, what drives you to do it, even if no one is chasing you?

At first I was driven to run just to see if I could do it. I can’t really say that I liked it all that much and at some points I hated it. After my marathon, something just clicked; it was one of the most soul-searching times of my life.

Now I’m driven to run for two reasons:

#1 – Physically, I have to.
Not running isn’t an option. My body is used to running and when it doesn’t get taken out for a run it gets antsy. I often tell people I’m like a dog that needs to be walked. If I don’t get out for a few runs in the week I physically feel bad and pace around a lot.

#2 – Find my center, emotional stability, inspiration.
Running has allowed me to reach a level of peace and calmness that I never thought possible. All day long I’m a mother, a daughter, a friend, an employee, a student…I’m somebody’s something. Running is for me, it’s mine. It’s my time to purge and process all that’s happening in my life. I have the best ideas when I run. I’ve often thought about taking a piece of paper and pen with me as my thoughts aren’t always as clear after the run. At some point it became less about the exercise and more about feeling inspired. In a way, running is my art.

2. if you were going to run away, where would you go? and would you literally run?

Currently, if I were to run away I’d go to Hawaii. My running partner is going there tomorrow and I miss her already, AND that’s where Haruki Murakami wrote some of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – an inspirational book for anyone, even non-runners. There were times where I just kept chuckling to myself and nodding my head in agreement while reading this book. I’d love to channel Haruki while running on the beaches of Hawaii.

Would I run there? Of course not! I’m not exactly known for my light packing skills. That and the whole issue of the ocean.

3. the best thing about 9-year-old boys?

What isn’t great about 9-year-old boys? Their views on life, food, and bugs. Nine is by far my favorite age to date. He’s independent enough to do his own thing, but still loves spending time with me.

One of the things I love most about him is his innovativeness. His way of exploring and trying new things never ceases to amaze me. I often wonder if we put 9-year-olds in charge of world issues if they could do a better job than those currently in power. Sure this would result in entire towns made out of marshmallows, lego sculptures in every city, and mandatory weekly nerf gun exercises, but hey, we’d have world peace.

4. the worst thing about 9-year-old boys?

Laundry time. Ughhh. Yuck. I’m seriously contemplating starting to wearing gloves. It’s something new and unusual every week. Although, I must admit I do get a kick out of wondering what would inspire him to put what he puts in his pockets. What must be going through his head at that very moment. I have yet to find a living creature, but it’s only a matter of time.

5. iPhone or blackberry?

iPhone – a no brainer. Just yesterday my neighbor had a confused look on her face starring at her blackberry. She said she’s had it for a week and can’t figure the thing out. She was planning on watching the CD to help her figure out how to use it. As I struggled to understand her woes, I caressed my iPhone and thought about my first week with it. There was no figuring it out or watching of a CD. It was completely intuitive. I shudder to think of having anything other than an iPhone at this point in my life.

6. your wine of choice?

Inspiration Red from the Imagine Moore Winery in New York. Ménage a Trois

7. what's your starbucks drink of choice?

Carmel Frappucino

8. your guilty pleasures?

Starbucks, sea salt & vinegar potato chips, going to a movie in the middle of the day on a weekday, chinese food in bed on a rainy day, The Real World....the list just goes on and on.

9. your life philosophy in one sentence?

Keep moving, no matter what – mentally and physically.

Seriously – if you become stagnant why bother? No matter how tough stuff gets if you keep moving forward, things will get better.

10. what child-like traits do you retain despite ostensibly being an adult?

Lying in the grass, watching the clouds for hours.
Giggling at words that sound dirty, but aren’t....caulk anyone?

* * *

thank you, megan, for answering a few of my questions.

but damn you for making me think running might be a good idea...

go check out megan's blog and stop by to see what shoes she was wearing today.

guess where wonder woman and i went?

a fantastic weekend in london. a bit of shopping (mostly involving me sending photos to the child to see whether she wanted various items - what did we do before iMessage?), hitting some bookstores (the wonderful foyle's and an enormous waterstones near picadilly), walking with lizzi (you may know her from many steps sideways and do go check her blog, as she wrote about our day much more pithily than i will) until our feet were nearly bleeding, some legography at big ben and parliament square, lunch, starbucks and a last-minute inability to stop myself from going into the gap (like google, apple and the new york times, they just get me). all of this and glorious sunshine, cherry blossoms in full bloom and a surprisingly delightful stay in a little radisson blu edwardian just off oxford street, not to mention a workshop and meeting some really wonderful lego enthusiasts who were generous in sharing their ideas. in all, it really couldn't have been a better weekend (except that my feet are still a bit reluctant to speak to me after i subjected them to nearly 12 hours of tromping around london in doc martens (so much for those cushiony air soles).

i know i've been a bit absent here in the past week. i was fighting off a cold and that left me zapped for energy.  plus i've been reading a good book (popco by scarlett thomas) and watching a few too many episodes of fringe. but i can feel that i'm missing my daily writing! blogging is, after all, cheaper than therapy and nothing else quite does the trick for keeping me sane like sending all those thoughts which tumble around in my head out my fingers right here in this blogger compose space. so i hope to be back on form this week. for all of our sakes.

oh, and catwoman had to come along too and see the london eye. she nearly blew off into the thames, but i grabbed her in time. that would have been a tragedy.

* * *

and speaking of tragedy, 

i can't get enough of the story of the lost malaysian airlines plane.

what do you think happened?

will they be found safe and sound?

and where are they?

isn't it a job for james bond at this point?

or maybe for catwoman.

ready for the weekend

husband comes home today! we're ready to see him and hang out with him again, for sure! i've volunteered to pick him up at the airport (and no, it's not ONLY because i want a starbucks grande venti latte).  i really can't wait to hear his stories of places with names like belo horizonte. doesn't a place with a name like that sound just wonderful? (more wonderful than clayton, NC, in any case, which is also where he was.)

i'm also looking forward to seeing the D60 and what pictures he managed to take with it. i don't really know what it thought of being sent out into the world without me and i'm a little sad that it's been to brazil and i have not, but i know it was safe in husband's capable hands. i told him he had to take a few hotel mirror self-portraits, but i'm not sure he did that (for some strange reason, he doesn't always do what i say). it's just that the D60 will expect it.

* * *

husband said the other day that we should go to the states sometime this year. 

my response, "oh yeah, i just got a sale email from KLM and there are super cheap tix to joburg, like under 4000DKK or something like that." 

husband said, "that's not the states."

oops.

* * *

watching all of the leaders arrive at the G20 summit in london it struck me that they're there to talk stimulating the world economy and about the environment and such, but they all pulled up in giant, bulky, beefed up armored gas guzzling big-ass cars and vans and SUVs.  is that really any better than the message sent by those assholes from the carmakers who showed up for their first meetings in their private jets? i also thought that instead of "growth" in the subtitle of the G20 conference, it maybe should have said "sustainability." because we can't sustain the kind of growth we saw. we've only got the one planet, you see.

* * *

this is a screenshot of my flicker view stats. check out the spike when my kitchen was on apartment therapy! i normally have a rather steady amount of  views (between 200-400), but that day it shot clear up to 1854. it helped that the moo people tweeted another of my photos that day. i guess i don't really care about any of this one way or another, but i thought it was pretty funny visually.

* * *

this is the weekend where we attend the wedding party for husband's sister. i'm so excited to see what they thinks of their atelierBB goodies. the party will be at the wonderful gamla kassen in landskrona.  these shots are from another party we attended there early last summer.

* * *

note, i've been on a roll of late and put up a bunch of single entries over on balderdash, be sure to go check them out. they're autobiographical, but there's a couple of pretty funny ones.

* * *

they promise sunshine and up to 15 degrees this weekend, so you won't see much of me here. i hope the weather is fine where you are and your weekend is filled with laughter!

stories abound

priorities straight - pedicure first, everything else comes second.

already, just being on the road has promoted so many thoughts and topics to blog about that i am practically unable to type because so many ideas want to come tumbling out of my fingers. there's nothing like travel to get your juices flowing...whether you're standing in line at passport control or looking around on a crowded plane or watching the sociology of baggage collection at the belt, there are stories everywhere. stories in the shopping center, at the starbucks, in the lingerie section of a department store, at the salon/spa where they pampered you for three hours, leaving you completely relaxed and with the most gorgeous blue nails.

stories hit you in the face, knock you down, whisper to you, sit beside you and right in front of you, they jump out at you from the pages of a newspaper and drop stuff on your head from the overhead bin, sometimes they curl themselves into such a small ball next to you that you wonder if they're still there at all...stories, stories, wanting to be told.

and since i've been 36 hours without sleep, the stories will have to continue to wait to be told.

those happy danes and one slightly disgruntled guardian reader

recently, the danes topped yet another survey of happiness - this time, one conducted by the UN. the guardian published a piece by a freelance british journalist who lives in copenhagen in order to explain glorify the happiness of the danes (or more accurately of a possibly delusional brit living in denmark). the guardian piece is categorized under news » world news » denmark, but it reads like a blog entry. it's the extremely personal bloggy-style view of one freelance brit journalist with a small child (and even features a photo of said journalist and her child) who happens to live in copenhagen.

while much of what she says is true - denmark is a child- and family-friendly country, design, especially of everyday objects, is awesome and common in every home, and you can swim in the harbor in copenhagen. but (you knew there was a but coming), none of this explains in the least why the danes top out these happiness lists year after year. it explains why cathy strongman, transplanted brit, is happy in denmark. that and they surely slipped her some seriously good drugs when she gave birth to that child because she has a fanciful description of her birth experience that nearly made me spit my coffee all over my keyboard. some tale of a maternity hotel to which she was apparently sent and tended to for three days after the birth of her child. i'm pretty sure the maternity hotel was her own home, and the attending, helpful nurse a drug-addled hallucination, as they're pushing mothers out the door if they can possibly stand and nobody gets coddled in the hospital these days.

i question as well the availability of a bagel in copenhagen as i've never seen one, tho' i grant her that it would likely set you back ten quid if there was such a thing. but perhaps a bagel is different in the mind of a brit than it is in the mind of an american. i think it may just have been a bread roll.

and then no self-respecting danish government institution (like the "local college" (which i'm pretty sure is copenhagen university) she cites) would have eames chairs when they could have arne jakobsen -  danes are loyal to danish design, especially where public funds are concerned.

and as for the well-dressed danes she mentions, i'll bet you anything that if you walked up behind them and listened in, they'd be speaking swedish. she's right that starbucks is (sadly) confined to the airport, but local cafes and shops are not as common as she says, it must be that she just isn't familiar with which brands are ubiquitous in denmark (baresso coffee, all of the bestseller brands of clothing, company's clothing stores, h&m). there are small streets of independent shops but i guarantee they are not paying affordable rents.  and even the cutest of them are packed with the same rice and sia baskets and frames as the one next door.

but the bottom line is that i can't fathom what all of this has to do with the danish position on the big happy list. not that i necessarily have an answer for that either, as i don't think you can necessarily SEE the happiness of the danes on their faces. nor do they go around acting smugly content. in fact, i'd call it a well-concealed inner happiness that apparently manifests itself best when they fill out surveys.

however, the article is worrying in that it's a personal, bloggy-style blog post masquerading as journalism. and as much as i love the blog as a genre, a blog is not a newspaper. newspapers have blogs and should have blogs and this type of article has its place on such a blog. but it didn't belong in the news section of the guardian. and the guardian should know that.

sights and well, sights...

several things about the journey. long layover in amsterdam due to optimization of ticket prices. happily, we decided to take the train to amsterdam and walk around. it was a beautiful day and that was wonderful. and no doubt fortified us for the horrendously long flight ahead. because it is a horrendously long flight. and there is a world of difference between monkey and business class (which i will regale you with tales of another day, when i don't have to get up early and fly to kuala lumpur for the day). in the meantime, here are some snapshots of the journey thus far...

totally adore these retro-painted SAS planes. SAS has class. too bad we flew KLM.

love those silver converse all-stars

mmm, frozen hazelnut coffee in (you guessed it) amsterdam

and little pancakes with lovely, tart lemony sauce.

worth the 7-hour layover alone.

playing drawing games in the sunshine.

an interminably long time later, cut to a japanese restaurant at clark quay, singapore

a fountain to play in and keep the sleepies at bay.
crocs are good for something, they can be wet.

and a couple of martinis for the folks.

plus a shirley temple for the pooka.

yes, that's outdoor air conditioning. indefensible.

sneaked a self-portrait in the fitting room of miss whatever while sabin tried on a dress.

gee, i don't look tired at all, do i?

keeping the jetlag at bay with a grande latte.

sorry, i just gotta do starbucks when i see it.

i adore this system of wooden clothespins used by the waitresses
at bi feng tang in the wisma food court.

also adore the sambal kung kang, but failed to photograph it.

will have to go back.

seen in the window of some telecom provider.

loved it.

and it seems like a good note to leave on...

see you soon...

p.s. blogger cutting off the right edge of my photos strangely and i don't have the energy to figure out why, so just know that i'm aware they're kinda cut off, but the originals aren't...i promise to fix it later.