A Roll in the Universe

After a period of unexpected, uncharacteristic and unwanted booze-induced anxiety, it's wonderful to be back in the game of drinking and socializing without embarrassment. Basically, I used a lot of affirmations to get myself over that downer of a hump and also to regulate what I'll be drinking. "God guides me blah blah blah." So I end up with the bunch I do the website for (no, I'm not telling; my stuff isn't their stuff), and at Bergen's swankiest private restaurant. You know you'll be met by a butler, 'scuse me, Butler, I mean, I got out of the taxi, lost track of which door was which, figured out to aim for the one on the right and 3/4 seconds later a man in a tailored black suit with a badge on it opened said door, bowed me in, and informed me that my party was upstairs. As I arrived at the top of the stairs, same Butler offered "sparkling wine or..." (hey, how'd he get there before me?) and I replied as cultivated as I could,

Circumstances being what they are this year, I booked a trip for myself to Vienna and Budapest in July. 13 days of bussing and Norwegians and the occassional boat. Instantly, my mind turn to What To Wear For Two Weeks That Will Fit In One Suitcase. A woman's magazine announcing holiday packing advice caught my eye at the magazine stand. But I didn't buy. I've travelled before without stopping to do laundry, and most of what's in my wardrobe is already mix-n-match (I'm weak for dark blue). After pondering number of T-shirts and slacks for a bit, thoughts then turned to shoes. Walking shoes and other shoes. So into the shoe store I went... You know that feeling when you put on a pair and They Fit Without Protest? Well, these sandals did just that. And I know what they'll go with, too.

A comment to a friend in e-mail made me think back to school. I have not attended any one school for more than two years, due to moving or aging. And what do I remember from school (besides algebra)? The totally unimportant stuff. Of course. School life started out with kindergarten in a parochial school. I have no clue what school this was. I remember it as a series of creamy yellow buildings. I remember a Native American schoolmate named Naomi (my grandma's middle name, so it stuck); and speaking of sticking, the kid who left a popsicle too long on his tongue and had to have help from the school nurse. Some kid threw up in class and the teacher dumped a bucket of sawdust to cover and absorb the mess (do they still do that? and why do little kids puke so much?). And the neat blonde-curls-in-pink-ribbons girls who chided me for coloring outside the lines in my coloring book. At age 5 or 6, I already had a pretty good sense of self-preservation (aka "fuck you") because I

I heard them before I saw them, but that's typical of starlings. The dark, shiny ones are the parents, hunting for food, and feeding it to the lighter, duller ones, which are their constantly hungry youngsters. The adults get a bit stressed out, as you'll notice in the video that the photo links to. If you have PMS, turn off the sound first. ;-)

Over on Paula's UltraViolet blog, she muses over 13 rather ordinary things she's never done . I read her list and suddenly, my life doesn't feel quite so ordinary. To my own surprise. 1. Skiied (snow or H2O). I've done both. Snowwise, I've done both cross-country and downhill, the latter in both Norway and California. My one try at water-skiing also left me with one helluva sunburn. I don't do either type any more. 2. Drunk a martini. Sure. I was curious. So a friend and I had martinis on the ferry to Denmark. And Paula, dear, you haven't missed much. G&T's are way better! 3. Cheated on my taxes. Yes, in a minor way: I didn't report all the cash in my home as of December 31st (partly due to never knowing exactly how much cash I have at any given time). But I don't cheat on my taxes any more, nor am I no longer required to report cash on hand. 4. Shot a gun. Well, not shot, but definitely fired. ;-) On two different occassions, eve

The cute guys at the office. And giggling myself silly with a couple of female co-workers when one had to slalom past us.

That is to say, we've been ordered back to work by the minister of labor, who has demanded a forced wage negotiation (the "mandatory wage committee"). Any decisions made by this committe are binding. Our union is very disappointed that the minister of labor would do such a thing, especially since our current government includes both the Labor and the Socialist Left parties, parties that should understand and support more than most the right to strike. It'll be weird going back to work, to a workplace where things have been piling up for over a week, and where all previous deadlines and due dates are moot. And where we are still at odds with management since the strike issues are not yet resolved.

Experimenting with my camera (i.e. RTFM), I found settings that helped me capture the extremely small and quick blue tits better. But my best shots came with the aid of the neighbor's cat. He saw me up on my balcony and sat down underneath the birch tree with the nest box to watch me. I heard a new type of chirping from the tree, and realized it was the blue tits sounding an alert. Both parents were upset at the cat's proximity, and stayed in the tree above him, in hopes he'd leave (he hardly noticed the birds). I finally got something else to take a picture of besides "westbound butt"/"eastbound head" as they entered and exited the nest box.

My friend Alice was lucky enough to get pictures of a blue tit fledgling on her trip to Austria. I was a bit jealous because I've never seen them in person, myself. Until today. On the birch tree a few yards away in front of my balcony, hangs a nesting box my friend Torleif hung up for spring in 2004. Great tits, the most common tit bird in Norway, happily moved in two seasons in a row. Torleif had hoped that blue tits might find their way to the box. Today I sat out in lovely sunshine, trying to read, when I realized that the tit parents were feeding their young. I went and got my new camera and tried to get pictures of the little critters, but I and my camera were not quick enough. I tried the video feature. I discovered the birds had a certain timing: Both parents were flying off, bringing back live insects (I assume), one in each direction from the nest, so I didn't need to leave the camera running all the time (the birds were nearly like clockwork). I thought it was

The government arbitrator called a new negotiation meeting today at 10 am. No go. A new meeting was called at 4 pm today. Equally fruitless. We remain on strike. In the meantime, I'm finally revamping my website. I have the time for it now. (I got some ideas listening to Mozart at a concert Sunday.)

Whitsund weekend in Norway means Monday off, so today it's back to business as normal. Except for me, for those of us on strike. I woke up this morning, to a regular Tuesday, and thought, "I'm not going to work. I'm still on strike." I think the best way to describe the feeling I have about this is limbo. We are waiting for a resolution, but can do nothing in the meantime (we regular members, at least) and so: limbo. I read the online news and everyone's concerned about the banks and banking system stopping as of Monday June 12 because of the lock-out. No paycheck, no vacation pay (by law in Norway we get vacation pay, usually in June), no using ATMs or paying by debit or credit card in stores. This means the government will step in very quickly, which is what management wants. By Friday, I'll transfer some funds, take out some extra cash, and wait some more. Our union has a lot of money saved up so I will get full compensation for this strike. I have no

Reported at 12:35 pm today, was a traffic accident caused by a drunk who suddenly staggered out onto a local highway, forcing two cars to avoid him but hitting each other. About a half hour later, an SAS jet had to make a swan dive shortly after taking off from Bergen's airport in order to avoid a small private plane. At 3:40 pm in Oslo, the accelerator on a passenger bus got hung up and police had to clear traffic to give the runaway a chance to stop, which it finally did. These not common occurrences in Norway got my attention mainly because they all happened so closely together. The chart for today shows an exact square between Sun and Uranus. Astrologers say that with Uranus you must always expect the unexpected.

There is one European habit I wouldn't mind Americans adopting: The rhythmic applause used to show huge appreciation and/or demand an encore. The audience starts out with the usual applause: hundreds if not thousands of hands all clapping, according to each pair of hands' owner. And then, as if someone throws a switch, in one beat the applause is in unison, hands now clapping a regular beat together, firmly, loudly. This performance by the audience is just as fascinating as what was performed on the stage. In Norwegian, this type of concerted clapping is called "trampeklapp" - "stamping clapping". And yes, the concert was great and we got our encore.

This morning from 8 to 10 am I stood in a picket "line" with a few co-workers in front of my place of work. Today was a cloudy, rainy day and after two hours of standing still, we were all feeling a bit chilly. There just wasn't much to do for two hours. We didn't demand to see ID or anything from the few unorganized or exempted who did pass to go to work. We chitchatted about this and that and the strike, and one unorganized cafeteria employee brought us coffee, the sweet girl. So we stood outside the locked, main entrance (locked because the entire reception staff was also on strike) and were essentially ignored. I talked the whole time, so I enjoyed myself (ha!). The pictures show (above) my boss (at right) and some others getting vests and leaflets, and (below) four of us all suited up, ready to bombard the public with leaflets (yeah, right. What public?). I'm the creature on the left wearing what looks like a misguided Goth outfit (actually my black lac

— Dere tror vel at boken min heter "Bang!" ... Det gjør den ikke. Den heter BANG!!! Slik innledet Norges riksastronom, Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard sitt foredrag i går kveld her i Bergen. Norli i Galleriet hadde invitert ham i forbindelse med lanseringen av hans nye bok. Ødegaard er kjent for sin entusiasme og snakkesalighet. Men engasjerende og lett å følge er han, og resultatet ble en meget underholdende og samtidig tankevekkende aften (som inkluderte noen biter asteroider og meteoritter og sånt som ble sendt rundt). Jeg kjøpte boken hans, hilste på ham og fikk boken signert. Jeg hadde spurt ham om Plutos status som planet og ba derfor om en kommentar om Pluto. Ødegaard mener forøvrig at Pluto kommer til å bli degradert; astronomene tar beslutningen i august.

The oystercatchers have abandoned their nest and remaining two eggs , just like last year. Fun while it lasted, though. Maybe we'll see them again next year.

I attended the strike meeting for our area. Nothing new; the union's webpages have been good about keeping us updated. But I did find out that we are historical. Never before in the history of the insurance industry in Norway, have insurance employees gone on strike. That shows just how serious this is. We have the right to union wages so why not the right to union pension plans? But management says "no". It'll be weird being on watch tomorrow, and having to keep the attitude that bosses are now "the enemy", but we've been told that since nobody in our industry has done this before (not our employers, either) to take it all in stride and with a big smile. Maybe even tell some strike jokes. (Do you know any?)

We're on strike. No work today. Members' meeting in town at 11 am, but no work. Although I am personally excited simply because it's new and different for me, this is actually very bad news. And they did keep trying until 3 am this morning. Excuse me while I hunt around for all the correct terms in English. I hardly bother with the Norwegian ones (plassoppsigelse, meglingsmann, tvungen lønnsnemnd) and am even more lost with English ones. I managed to find this glossary and can now tell you that the government appointed mediator (or arbitrator) is the Norwegian equivalent to the National Mediation Board (NMB) in the US except that ours functions on behalf of all unions. This May they have been busy; we had to wait until May 30 to get our arbritator. [Edited paragraph] So the Norwegian NMB arbitrator didn't find any compromises for the two negotiating parties and 6020 of us are on strike. On June 12, we will expand the strike to include 75 76 member banks. The empl