A Roll in the Universe

I'm back on Twitter . And Facebook . I'm kafox9 on Twitter and kafox on Facebook. There. I am no longer a dinosaur. I am no longer hitting myself in the face with a hammer. I have decided I can't beat them so I join them. And I owe it to these two ladies . Speaking of two ladies, here's a pair I want to be like when I grow up and here's why . I love people who call a shovel a shovel.

(This is an English translation of a Norwegian original .) Today I came across a well-written essay from a Swedish teenager . She was scared to death about her generation. She is worried about what will become of them. They seem to be so self-destructive. They are still embarrassed in the school locker room, while being happily posing in minimal clothes on the web. The Swedish teenager wants to know where we, who were kids in the 60's, are as parents. Why do we not look in on our kids? Why do we not read their Myspace or blog pages? Why do we not insist on making them come home at a decent hour? She touched a nerve in me, and I left the longest comment I've ever written on the Norwegian site that first pointed me to the Swedish girl's entry. This is my translation of that comment : To the Swedish youth who wrote that she was scared to death: I'm sorry. I am a 48-year-old woman, born as the 1960's started. I don't have children of my own, but I do have pow...

I dag kom jeg over et godt skrevet innlegg fra en svensk jente via Aftenposten . Den svenske jenten er livredd for sin generasjon. Hun opplever generasjonen sin som selvdestruktiv; de er sjenerte i fellesdusjen, men publiserer nakenbilder på nettet. Hun savner at foreldrene bryr seg, og henvender seg til oss som født på 60-tallet. Det hun sa fikk meg til å skrive det lengste kommentaren noensinne, og jeg gjengir den her. Til den svenske ungdommen som skrev at hun er livredd: Jeg beklager. Jeg er en kvinne på 48, født idet 60-tallet begynte. Jeg har ikke barn selv, men jeg har observasjonsevne. Jeg har ofte sagt at vi som var barn på 60-tallet var den siste generasjonen som hadde voksne rundt oss - kjente og ukjente - som passet på oss, kjeftet på oss, veiledet oss, _så oss_. Vi hadde grunn til å respektere voksne og regler. Så skjedde en voldsom oppmyking og endatil opphør av både regler og respekt i samfunnet. Det gikk ikke til helvete, men å bøye seg ydmyk for autoriteter var ...

When I woke up this morning and heard Michael Jackson had died, my first thought was, "Now he won't suffer any more." I have never had the impression that he was a happy man, an impression supported by what I've heard about his childhood, his family, his plastic surgeries and the accusation of his molesting children. So my first thought was that he was now finally at peace. A genius with music, but not with living. I do not write about celebrities, but Michael Jackson has the odd distinction of being one of only two celebrities I have ever said hello to in Los Angeles. It may sound weird, but you can live for years in Los Angeles and not meet any show biz people. All you have to do is not move in their circles. But sometimes circles overlap, if only momentarily. It was the autumn of 1979. I was a computer temp, mainly working part time while I went to college in the morning. One job was for an accountant in Beverly Hills. We were four girls in one office, enterin...

Wordless Wednesday

This year submitting the income tax forms was done entirely via computer. Forms were received via a web page, and submitted via a web page. A little too quickly on my part. (Next year I won't try to be first.) I should have reacted at the print-out my bank gave me; it showed me owning stock. I don't. The tax return was published this week, and I was notified via e-mail and SMS. Since I was a little too quick, and my bank's global correction came a week after I submitted my tax forms, I decided to file a complaint last night. Electronically, of course. Well, after a frustrating evening of being locked out of my own account (which may not have been my fault) and not getting passwords to my right e-mail account, I finally sorted out passwords, e-mail addresses and password codes, and merrily filled out the online complaints form. It protested when I neglected to check off the box for being within the complaint deadline. I checked the deadline box off. The numbers 108 app...

Wordless Wednesday

dialect (noun) a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group. accent (noun) 1 a distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, esp. one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class. (From my Mac's built-in dictionary.) My friend Sravana was musing about learning Norwegian. She was poking around LiveMocha and asked which Norwegian I speak: bokmål or nynorsk . The short answer: Neither. Here comes the (much) longer answer: Bokmål and nynorsk are Norway's two official versions of written Norwegian. Bokmål (literally book language) is derived from Danish and, as its name suggests, was used in official documents, university books, etc. It is the Norwegian you are most likely to see in print and in sub-titles on TV. Nynorsk (literally new Norwegian) was born in the mid-1800's fever of national romanticism and a desire to distance oneself from everything Danish. It is the result of gathering words an...

Wordless Wednesday

Sometimes pleasant surprises come with a pinching squeeze. In fact, the company doctor was baffled enough to check my blood pressure a third time. Probably because we'd both just been laughing. I was remembering my blood pressure as 120/80 (still not bad for a woman my age), but it was 110/70 18 months ago, too. In other baffling news, total cholesterol's down and lung capacity is still better than the norm for a woman of my size and age. I see the signs of aging creeping up on me slowly. Weight gain has added a belly and fledgling bat wings. It is so easy to find fault, to complain, to miss the younger me - and then my body goes and does this: Gives test results that say I am younger than my birthdate claims. What can I do except be very happy about the result? A bit awestruck, too, but mostly just incredibly grateful. Whatever's under the hood on this vehicle my soul travels in, it was very well-made! Oh, I do take care of it, in my way, but I don't really kno...

The pair sat side by side on the railing, gray backs facing in one direction, gleeming white chests in the other, yellow beaks moving as they surveyed their surroundings, shoulder to shoulder. Tenderly they'd nudge each other. Sometimes they'd open their beaks up wide, extending their necks, and call together. Then they'd shake their tail feathers and settle down again, still close. A week later, one was scratching some twigs together on the terrace floor, twigs brought by her partner. The fledgling nest was situated at the foot of a temporary fire escape staircase, erected temporarily while our office building is being renovated. The female would sit on the pile, and get up and adjust a twig or three, sometimes tucking a tuft of grass in. After a week of testing and adding to the nest, we spotted a grayish egg. The lack of human activity on the terrace itself may be why the gulls chose it as a site for their nest. Three eggs are in it now, and incubation is 24-28 days....

Gratitude is about making a list over everything you have to be thankful for: Health, family, job, home, food, a lovely day, a gift from a friend, a computer to write a blog on, electricity to run the computer. That's what some who teach about gratitude say. Me, I disagree. Oh, making a list every day is a very helpful tool for increasing awareness about how much you have to be grateful for. But that's all it is, in my opinion: A tool. The goal is not to make lists, but to be be naturally grateful without thinking. I have observed people who are struggling. They write a list all right - a list of all their troubles. Then they end it with a list of things to be grateful for, as if the two cancel each other out. They don't. Or: They write their lists to in order to make deals with higher powers: If I am grateful, then the Universe will take my problems away, seems to be the attitude then. Some people's gratitude lists or blog posts read rather like the bargaining some peo...

Wordless Wednesday