A Roll in the Universe

It's leap day and by rights I can get the day off from blogging, according to Blog365. But it strikes me as so boring! I love daily updates on all the blogs I read so I can't let my own readers miss out! The proposed law change in Norway to give gays marriage rights equal to those of straights has prompted some sheriff somewhere south in the country to claim that gays getting married will mean an increased crime rate in Norway. Never mind that the crime rate has been rising for quite some time now. One commentor to the debate posted this amusing comeback to the fallacy of seeing a correlation between trends simply because they happen at the same time: Before the Christian People's Party was formed, there were far fewer divorces A rise in the price of housing in Norway gives Norway more Olympic gold medals An increase in the Moslem population in Norway gives Norway more chances at getting Olympic gold medals More asthmatics means more criminals A higher average in e...

Bergen has a club of sorts for people in the insurance and finance industry, and since that's the industry I am employed in, I meet a lot of current and former co-workers at the meetings. Tonight we our venue was one of the Hurtigruten's ships. We heard a talk about a new insurance company starting in Norway, and after the talk, we moved to the ship's forward restaurant for an excellent cod dinner and a view of fog settling on Fløien. (When codfish is so good it almost tastes like meat, you understand why it is such a prized fish.) We had coffee on deck 7 and I left as they were testing the ship's alarm systems; the ship will leave for Kirkenes tonight after 10 pm. I enjoyed the company, the conversation, and mentioning my 25th anniversary party (which conflicts with the club's own 80th anniversary party). But what got to me was how many of my colleagues had gray or even white hair. One had been a dark brunette before, and I had to comment on her new blonde look....

Before I visited friends and family in the US last summer, I had read a lot about Wal-Mart and its business practices, which made me decide I never wanted to shop there. But when the toilet clogs at 11 pm, and you really have go (and it's a no. 2), and your host has no plunger, Wal-Mart it is. And Wal-Mart's bathroom it is. I must digress a bit: One thing I like about American stores is the fact that they have bathrooms. It's a surprise if you encounter one that doesn't. Grocery, book, clothing - all have a restroom. Here in Norway, you never hear of a store apologizing for the inconvenience because the north bathrooms are closed for renovation, so please use bathrooms at south end because Norwegian stores don't have bathrooms. At least, I've never discovered any. Considering the lack of public toilets in general in this country (a 7-story shopping mall in town has a few stalls on the 5th floor), I'm sure tourists believe Norwegians are like TV-heroes: Yo...

I have nothing to report, nothing to add, nothing to say, so I find myself wishing it were leap day today so I could just ignore blogging today. It's not like absolutely nothing happens in my life or that I'm unhappy or whatever. I have a friend laid up in a hospital in Austria because on his last day of winter vacation, he got run down by a Dane on the ski slope, and got his leg and wrist broken. We've been texting each other. Funny thing is, I dreamt about running over a cat, leaving it with a broken leg. In other news, I ate spicy noodle soup, and changed purses today, just because, and am pleased by that (and the soup). I was a bit tired of the other purse and wanted something a tad classier looking, and anyway I was looking for the lottery card, because of course, the gang at work put me in charge of purchasing the lottery tickets every 10 weeks, and for that I need the lottery card with the pin code (oh, what was that code again?) so that we don't have to moni...

Because she really was fast ! (And totally game.) It really wasn't until I got an orchid as a gift and took a good look at this odd plant, that I began to realize why people like this flower. It is one of the planet's most common flowers, with the tropical varieties being what we appreciate as potted plants, while local varieties, just as beautiful but far more modest, get left alone next to a rainy path in Fyllingsdalen. Some time this summer, I will try to get a good picture of the local wild orchid. In the meantime, here is a Photoshopped version of an immigrant that used to sit on my desk:

Read through the comments below about your friend (that's me, in this case; you didn't know we were friends?) and then follow the instructions at the bottom. Have fun! What time is it? 
1:52 pm What's your full name? 
Keera Ann Fox (not exactly a secret) What are you most afraid of? 
Spiders, heights, and being helpless What was the last movie that you saw in a theater? 
Rattatouille Place of birth: 
Long Beach, California - because its hospital was the closest, according to my mom Favorite food 
Stuff that didn't originate in Norway, with the exception of brunost What's your natural hair color? 
The one I have now: Ash brown Ever been to Alaska? 
Yes! Ever been toilet paper rolling? 
What's that? Love someone so much it made you cry? 
Yes, I'm happy to say Been in a car accident? 
Not really. Was in the car at the time my mother hit that lady's garage post but can't say it was an accident so much as sudden parking. And I wasn't in th...

Via Boing Boing , I got to this Science Daily article on eating habits, specifically, French vs. American eating habits. Why don't the French get as fat as Americans, considering all the baguettes, wine, cheese, pate and pastries they eat? Because they use internal cues -- such as no longer feeling hungry -- to stop eating, reports a new Cornell study. Americans, on the other hand, tend to use external cues -- such as whether their plate is clean, they have run out of their beverage or the TV show they're watching is over. This is not just a French vs. American issue, however. I see this as a general difference between individuals. The traditional breakfast of a Norwegian is a couple of slices of bread topped with only one slice of cold cut or a spread of jam or a slice of cheese. That is generally also the traditional lunch. The Norwegians used to be poor, which is reflected in their spartan open-faced sandwiches. (In spite of introducing "real" sandwiches - a...

Had I known I was going to be writing stories about her paintings, I would have taken notes when Grandma told me about her works. This seascape hangs in my living room above my couch, and I see it whenever I look up from my computer. What I know about this painting, is that it is from the coast of Maine, and it is a copy. Grandma copied another artist's seascape (I don't know who that artist was, except that it was a man), and that's how the painting is signed (barely visible at bottom left): Marion Mundal, copy. I remember when I was younger that that amused me. It made me think of my grandma as a copy. I have always loved this painting. I think it was painted well before I was born because I can't remember this seascape not hanging on Grandma's wall. This painting has so many things about it that keep me fascinated: The movement of the water, the spray of the waves, the contrast between the dark rock and the moonlit sea, the moonlight itself coming from an o...

Yep, this is making the rounds (again). I snatched it from Sparkling Red . Fortunately, this time I had a different book lying around. (I'm not tagging but you are welcome to feel tagged.) Rules: 1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). 2. Open the book to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the next three sentences. 5. Tag five people. But there is as it turns out other Egyptian evidence for a tradition of astrometeorology. We shall see from a look at the fourth-century BC Saft el-Henna naos that the hypothesis that Harkhebi was doing astrometeorology is strengthened by comparison with an earlier Egyptian tradition. The Saft el-Henna naos (sometimes called 'the naos of the decades') is now in several major pieces. That scholarly bit of writing is from "Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World" by Daryn Lehoux.

I never learned any racial slurs growing up. Nobody in my family ever used such terms. There was a reason for it: My grandma was half English and half Irish, and never heard the end of it - from the Irish side of her family. They made "Englishman" sound like a swear word, making it extra hard for her Irish mother, who herself retaliated by being one of the biggest racists my grandma ever knew. My grandma was understanding, though, because she knew the Irish had been the victims of more discrimination than the English. She told me of signs in New York city before the war that read "Help Wanted (NINA)". NINA stood for "No Irish Need Apply". Grandma, however, found all people interesting - no matter what their last name, social class or skin color, and no matter what her mother said. She was her mother's exact opposite in that respect. The rest of the family - on both of my parents' sides - never expressed anything negative about any group of peopl...

Surrounded by palm trees, dressed in light summer clothes, sporting dark sun glasses in the glaring and hot sunlight of Spain, we were totally enjoying the experience of being tourists. We didn't know a word Spanish, hardly knew where in the city we were, simply looking for the next store with cheap leather goods and moving single-mindedly towards it. We almost tripped over the legless man on his homemade skateboard, propelling himself forward with his hands, a cup with money in it where his lap should have been. "Spain is so uncivilized!" said one Norwegian in my group, offended at the sight of a beggar.[1] In America I had seen physically handicapped people begging. Not often, but I had seen them. I have never seen them beg in Norway. I had never seen anyone beg in Norway. There was a good reason for it: Until 2006, begging was illegal here. Now, I have given money to the city's "loose birds", as we say in Norwegian. The sort that huddle together o...

A blood drive at work (I didn't participate at this time) offered some trivia about the distribution of blood types, which got me thinking. I gave blood a couple of times back when I lived in California, so I knew my blood type (O) was very common and very much in demand. I was therefore surprised to learn of the high number of type A's in Norway. While hunting for the US statistics, I learned that the majority of the A's in Norway live in the northern part of the country. So I looked up the statistics for the Sami people, who live primarily north of the arctic circle: People/per cent Type O Type A Type B Type AB USA (whites) 45 40 11 4 Norway (Norwegians) 39 49 8 4 Sami (Lapps) 29 63 4 4 The distribution for Danes, Swedes and Finns is pretty similar to the Norwegians. The Icelanders, however, show a very clear preference for type O. My own blood type seems to be influenced by my British Isle ancestry.

As I passed by the Bryggen Museum on my to my hairdresser's, I noticed the poster advertising an exhibit of Tutankhamun's wardrobe . So I went in after I got my haircut. I quickly found out why photography was allowed: The garments were replicas, not the original articles, inspired by what had been found in King Tut's tomb. What I didn't know, was that Egyptian pharaohs wore gloves. There were both ceremonial gloves (top in photo) and protective (bottom). This garment, which looks like a modern fashion statement, was actually a clever piece of protection. It's one long narrow strip of cloth. Laying it across the shoulders protected those from the sun, and the tight criss-crossing of the ends around the waist functioned as a kidney belt for those jarring rides in horse-drawn chariots. There were several tunicas on display. Several were gorgeously beaded, producing a three-dimensional effect. The photo shows a tunica for an 8-year-old. Several garments foun...

One of my fellow Blog365-ers pointed me to this numbers game . It's similar to this pick a card game, so you should be able to figure out how it works.

I'm still happy with my new Mac, and am discovering more joys of having a new Mac - especially one as zippy as the one I got (got extra RAM and extra MHz, didn't I): Videos on YouTube aren't choppy Image-intensive web sites load fast I can finally use Google Earth I can check out all the effects in Pixelmator without any waiting (or crashing) Uploading photos to Blogger is a lot snappier Having the speed and power to enjoy Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), which includes: Slide show function and RSS feed in Mail Added screen space and less screen clutter with Spaces Front Row - the media center for playing podcasts, music, DVDs, etc. Overall snappiness and stability Downloading a half dozen photos from my camera happens in a split second Watching DVDs on the gorgeous, glossy flat screen Built-in "Word of the Day" screen saver - and the screen saver shows the time Showing a clip from a web page in a Dashboard widget, in my case the daily weather graph from m...

...the afternoon sun returns to my apartment, like it did today. It splashed its gold all over my living room's north wall. Why? What day did you think it was? Oh, all right. Here: Your Candy Heart Says "Get Real" You're a bit of a cynic when it comes to love. You don't lose your head, and hardly anyone penetrates your heart. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: is all about the person you're seeing (with no mentions of v-day!) Your flirting style: honest and even slightly sarcastic What turns you off: romantic expectations and "greeting card" holidays Why you're hot: you don't just play hard to get - you are hard to get What Does Your Candy Heart Say? (I'm not that cynical. Not really. It's just that I'm the sort of woman who likes to browse hardware stores.)

"Describe a place you remember from your childhood" is the prompt from Imagination prompt . A friend once asked me if I had ever ice skated, a question that brought back one of my fondest childhood activity - and memory. When I was a kid, I lived in a rural area about 15 miles north of the city of Bergen. We would get a good, long freeze in January and if it stayed cold long enough, a small pond a couple of farms over from where I lived would freeze over. It wasn't really a pond, but a marsh that had a small body of water. We'd walk down a trail, past what in the summer were cow pastures until we got to our pond, almost hidden from the trail. A couple of yards out in the pond was a solitary rock. That was where whoever measured the thickness of the ice would punch a hole and measure, leaving a pole behind to mark the hole. To be safe, the ice had to be a minimum of 15 centimeters (6 inches) thick - and clear. Steel ice, the Norwegians call it. When we were on th...

I'm getting the hang of this anniversary thing. I'm not supposed to do anything. At all. Except make suggestions for the meal. Yeah, you're asking the right person, all right. I know as much about food as I do flowers, meaning I know roses, dandelions, pizza and hamburger. I'll eat anything, but I rarely remember its name. Anyway, a few edible items have crossed my way that tasted so good to me I actually found out what they were called. And since scallops and flan both start with a K in Norwegian, I started getting an idea for the menu: All items must start with the letter K. We will likely have a four-course meal (or five, if you include the cake that comes with the coffee). So I offered my suggestions, and put the working out of details in the capable hands of a far more food-savvy co-worker (he knows how to actually make stuff like roasts and broiled fish). Said co-worker loves the idea of all K's, too, and it has given him ideas on how to design the p...

Wondering what to post today (so I stay daily), the Universe Internet gave me this gem: Find and Replace Text with FART Which concluded with: FART is a free download for Windows only. I guess we Mac users have to eat beans. (Not to criticize Lifehacker, where I found the above ; my sense of humor just never evolved past the fifth grade.)

This is the photo my co-workers chose to use on the invitation they made up for my 25th anniversary party. I'm not frowning; I'm squinting into the sun with a candy pacifier in my mouth and awful hair (for some damned reason), trying to adjust the photographer. Or the camera. I forget. This photo is from almost 10 years ago and was taken during a departmental picnic. I may not have been entirely sober, either. (That probably explains the hair.) It's a crappy photo of me, but I love that it's used anyway. I love that my co-workers dare use it, dare play such a joke on me, dare risk getting me mad at them. (I did try to. I can't disappoint.) I love that I am able to shake off any upsets about not looking perfect (or even normal) on the invitation. I love that everybody in my department is having fun with my 25th anniversary. Sometimes planning a party is as much fun as the party itself. I love that I have the sense to appreciate my loony co-workers with th...

It is a relaxing, lazy Saturday morning. My stomach is feeling better so I can genuinely enjoy a cup of coffee. I'm probably also feeling good because last night I finally did all my dishes, I even put them away, and I decluttered several piles. It was about time. I've been neglecting my chores for far too long, doing only the absolute minimum, feeling unmotivated. I kept wanting to get my mojo back, but my best motivation (or threat, depending), having people over, was missing. The Universe, however, is magnificent and gives you what you need: In my case, a cucumber. A preference for the grocery store's plastic shopping bags in the bad weather, and laziness when I got the shopping home, meant a pile of half-emptied grocery bags. Things for the refrigerator and freezer got put away, but everything else stayed in the bags. Which meant that if I wanted something I knew I'd bought, I'd have to hunt in the bags for it. Which is how I came to disturb the bag that had...

NameThatDisease.com - The Disease Test A little shaky on the sexually transmitted stuff, but a whizz on the pandemic things. Go figure. (Via Paula .)

Today is the start of the Chinese new year , and the start of the year of the Rat. I was born in the year of the Rat , so I'm wondering if this can be seen as some sort of "return" like in western astrology, where a new cycle starts when a planet returns to the same position it has in your birth chart. The sun does this every year, which is why English speaking folks say "many happy returns" to someone on their birthday. The Wikipedia description of the Rat more or less fits, with one huge exception: "Will not think twice about exacting revenge" is accurate only if it means I won't think about revenge at all. Even if it would be nice to see people who hurt me get their come-uppance, I can't be bothered to bring it about myself. Too much work. And too much karma.

George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." That works for both individuals and nations. Another reason not to forget history, is so you don't accidentally upset those who remember it, and who may even have lived it. Currently, the citizens of Bergen are arguing about whether or not to hang a huge portrait of Joseph Stalin on the side of our city hall , a 14-story tall building. The suggested display, done by a Norwegian artist, is based on Picasso's portrait of Stalin , in connection with the Picasso exhibit currently showing in Bergen. "It's art," says the artist, "art is meant to provoke." "Stalin was the worst mass-murderer in history," say the critics, "Nobody in their right mind would accept a portrait of Hitler hanging on a public building in Bergen, so why should we allow a portrait of Stalin?" Myself, I understand the artist's point of view, especially since it see...

According to Paula I must write five things about myself: My throat needs a facial. Or whatever they call facials done to the throat area. I subscribed to TIME magazine last summer, read three issues, then fell behind. Still falling behind on my reading as in I have no clue what's been going on in TIME for the last three months. I don't make my bed at all. This is because I believe in airing out the dust mites. I can't see them, but I'm told they are there and if I can take God on faith alone, I guess I can do that with dust mites, so I roll back my "dyne" (down comforter to you non-Norwegians) to the foot of my bed, letting most of my mattress air for the day. I'm due for a haircut and can't make up my mind if I want to let my hair keep growing or lop it all off. I do want to look fantabulous for my anniversary party. I was putting laundry away in another room and found an old bottle of "Rose D'Or" nail polish. I've been havin...

Go here to see me casually spreading my unique name around the internet. Actually, I wasn't expecting to see my name in full. Don't know what I was expecting. At least I won't mind if and when Google coughs this up when someone searches for "Keera Ann Fox". And, if you want to see more of that coyote (without squinting), go here . PS: "Mighty Optical Illusions" and "The Daily Coyote" are two of my daily reads.

The phone rang. Caller ID showed it to be the same Oslo number that had called several times this week. For some reason, I thought it was the local newspaper, trying to sell me a subscription to its dead-tree editions because, well, my brain was AWOL this week. I answered. It was a Norwegian polling company, wanting to ask me about the media - TV, radio, internet. I decided I was in an answering mood (being the last one in the household to turn 15), so I agreed to answer the questions. These sort of things always end up feeling a bit bizarre to me. My habits are not standard, and are comparatively limited. It started with questions about the radio. I listen to the radio only in the morning, and then to only one station, which is the main Norwegian national broadcaster's regional broadcast; it's the only way I keep abreast of some of the daily things (including traffic reports and newspaper headlines) in my county. After answering "no" to all the other stations, ...

A dream last night featured, at one point, an audience in front of a stage on which lay several cats and a couple of bunnies. The audience was free to go up on the stage and cuddle with an animal. I ended up petting a cat that was wearing a full-body stocking in a bright, multi-colored harlequin pattern. It was a very friendly cat, eagerly enjoying getting its ears rubbed. I was trying to sort out in my head by googling if the pattern the cat was wearing was argyle or harlequin, when I remembered a funny incident in the elevator at work: I was on my way to my office on the top floor and found myself entertained by a threesome who were headed for a lower floor. The two girls were very interested in how the one guy was dressed. He was in a black shirt, black leather jacket, black pants, and black shoes, stylish and casual. One of the girls wanted to know if his socks matched his outfit. She asked the question several times. I found myself wanting to know, too. To her and my satisfactio...

I went back to work today. I'm not well yet, and there were moments at the office when my brain refused to function because a bit of fever and a bit of nausea reappeared. I haven't drunk any coffee for several days, either. Didn't dare. The chili ayurvedic tea went down well, though. It was nice to be back, because I really needed the break from going stir-crazy at home. I spent the day trying to catch up on business cards. I'm the one responsible for making the business cards for all my co-workers (fortunately, not all of them at once). I also discovered that the fly in January was an illusion. When the outdoor blind rolled down and I saw the fly again, I made a closer inspection and discovered that it was quite dead - mummified, actually - and, perhaps caught by surprise, had become flattened and embedded in the rolling blind. Waiting for me when I got back was a buff-colored envelope, nearly square in shape and about six inches wide, with my name in full typed s...