Monthly Archive: May 2013

26
May
2013

IN THE CITY OF LIONS*

I’ve always considered myself to be somewhat of a traveler, but I never really considered myself a WORLD-traveler because so many of the major continents have been excluded from my reach…I’ve been all over the United States, of course, thanks to an military-brat upbringing and a road-trip-filled childhood, and we covered Europe rather extensively, at least western Europe, in our 6-year stint abroad when I was a teenager, which actually included a day-trip to Morocco, though I don’t think that’s enough to really count Africa in my checklist. Altogether I’ve been to 24 countries (that’s a lot of silver charms...

21
May
2013

TIME DOESN’T CHANGE THINGS, YOU HAVE TO DO IT YOURSELF*

I don’t have to be anything here. I don’t have to be myself, behave, be all that I can be. I can just write and then decide whether or not I care whether anyone reads my words or cares. If no one reads a word in a book, does that fallen tree in the forest that was cut and planed and milled into paper still make a sound? Some days the effort of writing is beyond me. In the grand scheme of my writing life, it’s more like most days. So, those days when I actually DO write, I feel...

16
May
2013

BLOGILICIOUS

OMG, how good do these peanut butter brownies look? NOMNOMCITY! I had to confess to The Things I Don’t Drink again today, this time to 3 colleagues during a training course I was at. They all boggled at me. I couldn’t decide which one each of them was boggling at me most for which beverage…as they seemed to be equally divided, all three. Yeah, I don’t drink coffee. I don’t drink tea. And I don’t drink alcohol. “For health reasons?” …no. I just don’t like the smell. Or the taste. Here in Sweden, most Swedes can’t decide which is worse:...

12
May
2013

BABY, IT’S NICE OUTSIDE

It’s true I love my job. I’m good at what I do and I like doing it, and every workday when the alarm goes off, I hop right up (albeit a bit more slowly than in younger years) ready to start the day…but after a long weekend like this? Retirement sounds pretty good. It’s nice to relax, spend the day doing the things I feel like doing, getting things done at my own pace, having time to set chores and projects down and just read for a while. Time to sleep in, go to bed late, plan excursions and enjoy...

04
May
2013

SHEEN OF GREEN

The best thing about spring isn’t the flowers. It isn’t the clear robin’s egg blue sky or the puffy white clouds or even the warming temperatures. It’s the sheen of green. The sheen of bright, neon green that blooms on every living surface…every bush, every tree, every field, every hedge. It transforms the whole world, just like the hoarfrost does in the winter or the first snow. Today was so clear you could see forever. It was the kind of day when the hot air balloons come out, though we didn’t actually see any. I cut back last year’s growth...

02
May
2013

DON’T DO IT!

Don’t rub your eyes, don’t rub them, don’t no no no nooooo RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB!!! AUGH! Spring is here.