Wordless Wednesday - Fruit furniture
Wordless Wednesday
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Håkonshallen - and Grandpa
This is a response to the comments on my Wordless Wednesday post showing a part of Håkonshallen, especially Alice's thoughts that it looks like a prison. Nothing could be further from the truth so I thought I'd give you a whole post about that. First, the pronounciation of Håkonshallen (the hall of Håkon): That funny "a" in the first syllable is a Scandinavian vowel, and pronounced like a very open "o" (approaching an ah). HOH-kohns-hahllenn. The 750-year-old Håkonshallen is beloved by the people of Bergen, and those massive stone walls make an excellent backdrop for outdoor operas. I've seen "Aida" there. The walls would have been painted white in medieval times, as was the custom then. It has occurred to me that many tourists miss this building, because they are distracted by the rather fascinating row that precedes it: In really old days, when the main mode of long-distance transportation was the boat or ship, Norway consisted of to...
Getting my beliefs challenged II
I am going down yet another rabbit hole. It diverges from the one I was falling down about a year and a half ago . At least somewhat. All roads lead to Rome, but not all are main highways and will get you to your final destination; they do move you forward, though. My new rabbit hole is all about how, if I forgive everyone and everything, we will all cease to exist and happily so. Some background: I accidentally learned of ho'oponopono . In looking for more information, I ended up reading Joe Vitale's book "Zero Limits" (and I really liked it). All my decades of swearing to affirmations to accomplish something got set aside while I instead practiced on chanting "I love you" inside my head. I have since gone back to using my usual morning affirmation since that seems to be such a good set-up for me and my day. 1 However, the ho'oponopono method makes perfect sense to me and it is far simpler (and more foolproof) than affirmations. Affirmations req...
Test post
This is a test for my friend Alice , for whom Blogger is not working. You may ignore this post completely, but if you've read this far, you haven't so ignore what I said.
Food. Again.
OK, yesterday's post came out of the blue. For you. For me, it was the result of a Friday at work full of carbs: Bread, fruit juice and two kinds of cake. And that was breakfast at work. Still under the influence of all the carbs, I let myself take some leftovers home with me. I had tasted the carrot cake and it was yummy, and chocolate cake has always gone down well, too. But this, my dear reader, is what has changed and why I wrote yesterday : I have absolutely no desire for the leftover cake. I find myself having to talk myself into eating it so that I don't have to throw it out. I woke up this morning laying out strategies for how to get to a point where I would want cake. My current plan is to have my two pieces in lieu of dinner; dinner itself will be eaten mid-afternoonish. I was never a carbaholic, but I used to buy donuts, Danish, carrot cake, chocolate cake, brownies, etc., on a regular basis (i.e. 1–2 times a week). I would happily buy some cake to have at hom...
A food post (with kale and rambling)
So I've heard of the wonders of kale (called "green cabbage" in Norway) and this time of year our supermarkets carry it. The plant is perfect for temperate climates because a bit of frost makes it taste better. It can be used in anything you would use (cooked) spinach in and has about the same nutrients. I'd heard of kale chips and made a batch. They came out all brown because the recipe said 10 minutes (very crispy they were!). I tried again today. I tore the leaves into bite-sized pieces, dribbled olive oil over followed by a sprinkle of tasty BBQ-type spice mix ("grillkrydder"). I let them bake for 7 minutes at 150 degrees Celsius. For my oven, that was perfect. The kale chips were still green but now crunchy. I ate the whole tray in one sitting, and I've realized that if you make kale chips just right, they're like all those other chips: You can't stop after just a few. These melt in your mouth! For that reason, I'm not sure I'll ...
Aiming for the smallest annoyance
My high school teacher told us students that we may not have anything to vote for, but we always have something to vote against. That statement has often been the only reason I have bothered to vote. In the US it is easy to find who or what to vote against. Most questions there are yes/no: The Democrat candidate? Yes/no. A yes means the Republican candidate gets a “no”. I definitely voted against Jimmy Carter in 1980, and against Sarah Palin in 2008. I have no vested interest in the candidates who got my “yes” since all presidents annoy me (they just do), and since I know that politics – and the presidency – tend to be like farming: Hard to do without producing a pile of manure. Now, the US does have more than two political parties and they often offer presidential candidates, but due to changes in how the presidential debates are held, you never hear from them. In Norway, as with most European countries, there are several political parties. Norway ha...
Boobies: To squeeze or not to squeeze
Yes, this post will be about boobies. Also known as tits. Mugs. Jugs. Bazongas. Melons. Breasts. Breasts and the big squeeze. Also known as getting a mammogram.
In Norway, all woman are automatically offered bi-annual mammography examinations between the ages 50 and 69. Just before Easter this year, I got the letter informing me of my first appointment, accompanied by a questionnaire and a brochure, all delicately done in pleasant shades of pale green (now long recycled).
Every time I see the picture of a well-endowed woman (they always seem to have pendulous, D-cup boobies), topless, standing next to a large piece of machinery, with one breast flattened between two plates of glass, I cringe. I cringe mightily.
Breasts are sensitive and don’t like rough handling, and it hurts like hell to get them squeezed. So I’ve read about breast cancer and mammography and I’ve also read about alternative technologies of spotting growths in mammaries, like shining a light through like wh...
The grace of a hawk
A commenter to this movie on YouTube wished hawks were like dogs so you could pet them when they do stuff like this. That's what I was thinking! Birds of prey are both so beautiful and so graceful. Just how graceful is shown in this BBC video. I'm also fascinated by how feathers move in slow-motion.
A week later
Yesterday all flags were flown at half-mast in Norway, in honor of all those who lost their lives Friday July 22 2011 . I offer my own condolences to all those who have lost loved ones, and to Norway itself. It's been an intense week. I have learned that those of us who actually turned off the TV and distracted ourselves with something totally different did the right thing. It has been non-stop in the media and now I find myself praying that my daily newspaper will have a normal cover tomorrow. For the seventh day running I have been treated to a single photograph with one large title covering the whole front below the masthead, all related to the horrible, unbelievable events of July 22. I’m looking forward to some photo and blurb above the fold, the usual sidebar and something below the fold including the ads, which I never read. Norway's holding up pretty good. People are always better than their reputation: Humanity tends toward good, not bad, though it sometimes tak...
10 years ago - and now
Ten years ago I got to see the Manhattan skyline for myself. This photo was taken with not so good camera 10 years ago this month. Two months later, the two characteristic towers of the World Trade Center were gone. I bring this up now because, right now, as I type, rescue workers are still searching through the office buildings belonging to the Norwegian parliament, looking for more explosives, as well as injured or killed. The main theory is that a car bomb went off around 3:30 pm today in downtown Oslo and blasted out windows in a 1 kilometer radius. The pictures of twisted metal window frames many floors up on a run-of-the-mill office building coupled with the knowledge that this is taking place in quiet, out-of-the-way Oslo is both unbelievable and upsetting. I hate that this is happening here. I hate that this is happening again. Bizarrely, someone dressed as police are shooting at a summer camp for Labor party youth while the bomb search goes on. A talking head on the news...
Paper or pixel? Book readers want to know
I have a bookmark that reads, "You are never lonely with a book." Books have been my allies for as long as I can remember. Getting immersed in a story that takes double-digit chapters to resolve or following someone's theory or life over hundreds of pages adds a break from life like nothing else. And unlike other pauses in life, what you read in a book can stay with you for years, and maybe even change your life. Alice has written about the paper-based book and has linked to an article whose author feels that a Kindle would be as distracting as his computer apparently is. First of all, anybody who wants to have a good read will shut their computer off. You are not a Real Reader if you can’t figure out how to hide away (i.e. have an arsenal of sneaky tricks and good excuses) from things and tasks and people and clocks so you can Read! Secondly, when I’m reading something that really interests me, I lose all sense of time and place, anyway. (Which is absolutely wonde...
We are not a muse
So over at Chez Alice's, Alice herself posted about the dearth of postings on her blog. Specifically, postings that feature writing, rather than photography. I recognize and sympathize with Alice's sense of lack since my own blog has the same dearth. The amount of time has not changed. The interest in the world around me has not tapered off. Yet all my time at the computer no longer produces creative output. Repeatedly, my creativity is spent on a comment or three on someone's Facebook status or on someone's blog. Short bursts of opinion weigh in after writing, editing, and more editing - at someone else's place. And it baffles me. Where is my initiative to polish and publish something on my own dear blog (which has been with me for 8 years and 11 months today)? Why does my creativity remind me more of junk food grabbed on the run than a proper home-cooked meal eaten where it was made? And how do I reverse this? Alice and I have challenged each other to a ...
