Category: general

15
Sep
2009

SEEING THE SIGHTS—MIDDLE

Mom got fired early on as navigator, even though she had several chances to redeem herself. She swears up and down that she CAN TOO read a map and follow directions, at least when she’s alone, but yeah, whatever, Mom, hand over the map. In her defense, it WAS damned confusing that we kept having to go what was actually north on a road called south and south on a road called north. Luckily, I had printed out directions and maps in advance to most of the places we were going and we knew that if we just kept backtracking...

14
Sep
2009

SEEING THE SIGHTS—START!

Having a 3-day weekend in the middle of my business trip was an unexpected bonus. I never think about Labor Day being in September anymore since the European Labor Day is May 1st and the only reason the American date ever crosses my radar is when I need an answer from someone in the US office and they’re not laboring because it’s Labor Day. The same thing happens on Memorial Day and St. Patrick’s Day and even, sadly, Thanksgiving. They’re not holidays here, so I don’t think about them as days off. Though I DO, now, think about Ascension Day...

12
Sep
2009

LIKE A WOLF

Does this give you any idea just how busy I was the last two weeks while I was away? In addition to only posting ONCE here (though I did try to keep caught up on the blog-reading), I am STILL READING THE SAME BOOK that I started the day before I left. TWO WEEKS AGO. Seriously. Two weeks and I am not done with a paperback. That’s insane. There goes my plan for beating my books-read-in-a-year record. On the bright side, I only have about 6 pages left and I have the biggest, gigandimundo pile of NEW BOOKS to read...

01
Sep
2009

DOING MY BIT FOR ECONOMIC STIMULATION

Hi there! I know, I know, I haven’t written in AGES. I have no excuse. Well, actually I do, but whatever. I flew to America on Saturday morning and I’ve been busy playing and working and shopping and shopping and shopping since. And I’m not done yet. Wheee! And every night we come back to the hotel, mom and I, and pretty much just collapse into bed because it is very late and we are very tired from all the shopping. I have been to the bookstore thrice. *happy dance* Nutshell report: Flight delay, hate customs, saw my suitcase go...

27
Aug
2009

GOOD THINGS

This week has been full. Stuffed full. Crammed full. Proppmätt, as they say in Swedish, though that usually has to do with your stomach and not your calendar. Life is ALWAYS full, it seems. Remember those long, lovely, boring days of summer when you were a child and there was nothing to dooooooooooo? Yeah, I dont either. Early Saturday morning I’m flying to Boston via Amsterdam (with only a 1.5 hour layover, eek!) for 2 weeks of working at our US office. If I wasn’t able to take this trip for work, it would have been over 3 years since...

23
Aug
2009

OH YES

Today’s Treadmill: 43 minutes/3.3km/103 cal…I seem to be caught in work-out-OCD. I planned to walk 40 minutes, but couldn’t stop because I was just under 3 kilometers AND just under 100 calories AND the song I was listening to was still playing when I hit 40 minutes, so I had to round everything off. Later, walked into the kitchen and found FIVE wasps in various states of upset against the kitchen windows. I am the catch-and-release queen. My nephew is ill in the hospital with an acute kidney infection AND the flu. Feel awful for the little guy. They are...

20
Aug
2009

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY!

There’s no way to capture the blue that the sky was today. It shifted through a spectrum of blue from power to powder to cobalt. The blue of a sky like today’s sky settles in my skin and warps around all the contours and makes itself a part of me. What is so compelling about a cloud-devoid heaven? Is it the forever falling upwards, the lift of your head, the endless eye? There is another moth inside the house on the wall. I don’t know what kind it is, but there have been several of this particular kind in the...

17
Aug
2009

ARE WE PEOPLE THAT YOU WANT TO KNOW?

Do you always remember a face? Even if you say you never remember names, I bet you remember faces. We have such an amazing ability to scan incredible amounts of faces and register them as known or unknown in the blink of a synapse. I read an interesting blog entry today by the artist James Gurney, written some time ago, that talked about this and it got me thinking. You get off a plane and as you come out into the arrivals hall, you are already scanning for the person who is meeting you. Your glance skims over dozens of...

15
Aug
2009

FESTIVAL MOOD

Busy morning after rising late: showered, dressed, made bed, ordered the kids around, cleaned up, laundry in, dishes loaded and washed, recyclables packed up, made rice krispie treats and 40 deviled eggs, finished my book and am ready to start another, uploaded activity changes to AWC site, answered emails, caught up on blog reading, updated book & CD wish lists, cleaned out old emails. We have a BBQ party to go to tonight, but I suspect since the weather is cold and rainy that we’ll be migrating indoors instead. It’s a potluck (hence the treats and eggs) with friends, though...

13
Aug
2009

STELLAR HYPNAGOGIA

Thwarted! Two out of three times the clouds have thwarted our shooting-star-watching plans. Clouds do that to you here in Sweden. They thwart you. Frequently. In fact, there’s no use moaning about it, it’s just the way things are and you’d better either get used to it or move on through. I don’t mind too much…most of the time. Because most of the time, it’s like it was today: if you don’t like the weather in Sweden, just wait 5 minutes. We had grey, then rain, then light, then bright, then grey, then rain,…wash, rinse and repeat: LITERALLY! hahaha! Last...

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