IT IS ETERNAL AND CAN BE LOOKED UPON WITH JOY*
121 Figures Top to Bottom: Vigeland Obelisk More Photos From Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo, Norway: Page 1, Page 2 *from a quote about sculpture by Auguste Rodin
20
Sep
2005
Author: lizardek
19
Sep
2005
FEELING THE LOVE
Being in Oslo for 3 days was a lot of fun, but man alive, am I totally stressed out now at the amount of stuff I need to deal with to catch up. 🙁 I’m just going to rant really quick and then I’ll calm down and tell you about my weekend. Okay? I hope that’s okay. Oh well, too bad if it’s not! My kids are performing in a circus show, taught by REAL clowns from a circus on the same night as our biggest AWC meeting of the year, which includes a Year-in-Review presentation (PowerPoint) that I am...
18
Sep
2005
HOME AGAIN
Home again after a 7-hour drive (me at the wheel), after a great weekend. Too tired at the moment to be coherent. More tomorrow! I MISSED YOU!
15
Sep
2005
THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE A FRIEND IS TO BE ONE*
Half an hour south from us, the leaves on the chestnut trees are singed with brown around the edges; autumn in the hems. The lights are on in the sugar beet factory although the chimneys are not yet pouring sugar-smoke into the darkening evenings. It’s dark when I arrive for choir practice, or nearly, and the lights in the fountains of Pildammsparken glow unearthly across the water. It’s dark when I drive home, the choral-aid CD for the concert plunking out an alto harmony in monochromatic style. It’s dark when I drag my reluctant self out of bed in the...
13
Sep
2005
MY CHILDREN ARE FREAKS
You’d never guess it by the picture-perfect photos that I usually post (hahaha!) or the ones that Tracey has just posted, but my children are FREAKS OF NATURE. I could get them on Stupid Human Tricks! My sister can turn her arms all the way around and inside out with her palms flat on the table, and I used to be able to vibrate my eyes (now it gives me a monster headache), but I don’t know where my kids got their freaky freakishness. The apple may not fall very far from the tree in most cases, but this time...
12
Sep
2005
GROUP COMMITMENT TO AN INDIVIDUAL EFFORT
How many things can you do at once? Can you walk and talk? Can you walk and talk AND keep track of a child? Can you walk and talk and keep track of a child and follow directions that are only in your head to your destination? How many things can we multi-task at once and still do any one of them halfway decently? Can you pat your head and rub your stomach simultaneously? Can you talk on the phone and surf the web at the same time? Is there some law of diminishing returns that governs how progressively less...
11
Sep
2005
REMEMBERING
Something to Read Today Even Though the Day is Nearly Over in Sweden: 9/11 (thanks to megancrane for the link)
11
Sep
2005
HUNTING AND SHOOTING, NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER
Blue sky days…I can never have too many. Each one a gift wrapped up with a sunshine bow. Yesterday, I was privileged to meet another online friend, the inimitable Tracey Marshall. She’s a talented photographer, and an American expat living north of Gothenburg in Sweden. She and her boyfriend Tobey drove down to visit and brought the camera. Tracey is one of a handful of photographers that I admire greatly, one who also writes passionately and amusingly about her experiences adjusting to life in Sweden. In addition to her engaging online persona, in person she is friendly, talkative and charming....
10
Sep
2005
SING OF GOOD THINGS NOT BAD
I’m not a very religious person in the conventional sense of the word, but I have a reverence for spiritual settings, and there is something about singing in a church that gets me every time. It doesn’t matter whether I am singing alone or with a group. And it doesn’t matter whether the music is secular or not. It’s not so much the song as it is the SINGING. Something about the engineered raised spaces, the way the nave and the sanctuary draw your eye upward, exposing your throat and opening it up. Something about the acoustics, the way the...
08
Sep
2005
SOMETHING IN THE WIND HAS LEARNED MY NAME
Something That Made Me Giggle Today: shazzerlive reading the instructions on a package of Raspberry Chai…”Entice your water to a gentle boil…” Hee! I was interviewed today, by a newspaper! in Swedish! A journalist contacted the AWC last week, wondering if there was anyone in the club who had moved to Sweden “for love” …ho ho ho, only at least half of us, I laughed. So I called her and said, hey! I’m up for it…want to me to call some of my girlfriends? And she did, so I did and they all came today, except for Emily who hurt...