I cannot remember when men first landed on the moon, in 1969. I was alive and old enough to remember something like that. We had a TV. That is to say, my granduncle had a TV—up on the old farm, in a little valley above a fjord. There was nothing on it until 6 pm, […]
Apples makes me think of the old gold mining town of Julian in Southern California, a charming and tiny place that today specializes in apple pie. Warm apple pie with cheddar cheese on it is a wonderfully delicious combo! Lasers make me think of when laserium shows were new. There were shows in Los Angeles, […]
So something a bit shorter today, rather than the lengthy letter home of yesterday’s two blog posts (wherein I mention yoga). I can’t ever seem to go to a beach and not want to pick up a seashell or smoothed rock. Bad habit, really. It sadly just becomes clutter because I’ll never do something fancy […]
I belong to the generation that followed the boomers. No, not Generation X. That other generation. The small one that is considered boomer but really isn’t. We’re just the tail at best. We aren’t the ones that rebelled. As my high school history teacher said: We’re the nothing-happened generation. There’s a lot of good to […]
I did. I laughed till I cried, and then I kept laughing. Especially the picture on the left. Just thinking about it makes me start laughing again! Nabbed from ICanHasCheezburger. LOL! The Daily Prompt: Laughter
There is one thing I will never flaunt, and that is my cooking skills. I am grateful if I enjoy what I made, because that’s not a given. I’m about to declutter my kitchen and I think a number of spices will disappear when I do. I never use them. I don’t know how to […]
“Not all those who wander are lost.” —J.R.R. Tolkien Let me just say—as someone who loved to get lost in an encyclopedic dictionary when she was a kid, wandering from definition to definition like exploring room after room in a pre-computer adventure game—that this is one of my favorite quotes. And that love of following […]
The great national holiday in Norway, on May 17th, is a far more involved and formal event than the equivalent celebration in the US, on July 4th. There are also a lot of traditions and traditional food associated with the day. This year, I’m going to partake in a 17th of May breakfast in town. […]
I like that the word “parallel”—if written in a sans serif font—contains a parallel. What also contains a parallel, is astronomy and from there, astrology. Keep reading if you want to see me attempt to explain the tilt of the planet. First of all, let’s get one thing in our heads: All the planets, except […]
There are some real-life genies: Ones who can give you exactly what you want, without any effort on your part. Like my hairdresser. I think the modern term is “stylist” but my hairdresser doesn’t style the rest of me—just the hair. But he does do magic with that hair. My hair has its own version […]
I could give you all kinds of astrological reasons for why my flow suddenly choked, but suffice to say that the communication planet Mercury is slowing down to turn around and right itself on Sunday. Until then, I shall amuse myself—and hopefully you, too—by wondering about the “false friends” language has. Things that look related […]
“Luminescence is emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat; it is thus a form of cold-body radiation.” Wikipedia’s definition of luminescence immediately put me in mind of a literal cold-body radiation. I still don’t quite understand it. It happened when my then-boyfriend attended church with me. “Church” was not really church the […]
Pardon the unoriginal title. Being creative just before dinner is hard. So’s knitting. Well, knitting with difficult yarn, or knitting a difficult pattern, or combining the two. I finally got so frustrated that I decided to (re)learn crocheting. I haven’t crocheted in years, and although other family members have done it, I never quite felt […]
When I see the word “haul” the American in me automatically puts a “U” in front of it. I haul, however, without a truck or trailer. I own no car, so life is about getting stuff home without one. Or getting stuff back out. Hauling becomes a project as well as a test of wits […]
Snow in Fyllingsdalen as seen from my living room A lot of people think I live in the frigid north. I don’t, actually. Where I live, an umbrella is far more useful than a fur coat. Norway is more like Washington state than upstate Alaska. The sister cities of Bergen and Seattle both tend to […]
Explore:1. travel through an (unfamiliar) area in order to learn about it. 2. inquire into or discuss (a subject) in detail. I tend to “explore” according to definition 2. You’d think I’d be quite the globetrotter, since I live abroad and have always had a passport. However… I am not a bold or unconventional traveler. […]
Coughing so hard, I can hardly breathe. Coughing so hard, I start to feel twinges I shouldn’t. This is what I had in February, and for a while I thought I had the flu. I didn’t. Instead, my body has decided that some foods are not good for me. The baffling thing was the fever. […]
I always joke about how I don’t make threats; I warn. That’s because I don’t believe in idle threats. I think if you threaten somebody, you should also mean to carry the threat out. So I may as well warn. It’s a bit weird to write the above, because I’m a relatively harmless person. But […]
I’ve seen “visceral” used to describe something I perceive as instinctual or pathological from the context, but honestly, I don’t know what the word means, so I looked it up. Oh, what do you know: It can mean instinctual. Visceral means “relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect” according to my dictionary, […]
I’ve never eaten at McDonald’s as much I have in Norway. Ironically. You’d think I’d be a regular when I lived in California, but no. Meanwhile, in Norway, McDonald’s has been vote Best Employer for 2016. If Burger King had moved into my local mall some 20 years ago, I’d be eating Whoppers. But it […]
A Roll in the Universe 