A Roll in the Universe

If you follow me on Instagram, you will recognize some of these photos. Leaving the good stuff only to IG isn't fair to my blog only readers, so here you go! First up is from earlier this fall, in the neighborhood of our university, at Øysteins gate. I think Øystein was a king. We have a bunch of king names in this neighborhood, like Sigurd and Sverre and Magnus Barfot (Magnus Barefoot; apparently, he wore shorts).   Next is from two months later, i.e. last night. Another street named for a king: Olav Kyrre, who was the founder of Bergen, Norway, in 1070. The street now is a main transit hub in town. (Weirdly, our bus station isn't.) I was waiting for my bus after my annual lutefisk dinner. (It was delicious.) I need to go back because the Christmas lights in the city park (Byparken) are new this year.   And finally, one of those rare moments when everything just comes together. Right place, right time kind of thing. Last week, we were covered i...

A little musing and sharing via eleven questions thought up by Lisa and found via Paula . 1) Socks? Love them or hate them? Handknitted socks a co-worker made for Secret Santa. And I won them! They keep my feet toasty in rubber boots. — I have cold feet. Socks, please, and they have to cover my ankles. I've chosen to get different patterns and stuff, inspired by a co-worker wearing a pair of bright orange ones. That's when I realized that colorful socks are important. IMPORTANT. Nobody ever sees mine since I wear bootlets at work. 2) Is there a God? — Paula starts off with "I wonder why peeps are so obsessed with this question." Since I have constantly asked myself this question, I don't find the obsession weird. The answer is yes, by the way. The real question is: What is God? 3) Is a pizza a pizza without cheese? I like Paula's answer (must have cheese!), but since pizza is one of those incredibly flexible dishes, it can also lack chee...

In my ongoing journey to figure myself and life and all that stuff out, I’m now trying to learn about non-attachment. Attachment = expectation. In “The Shack”, they suggest you ditch the noun and go for the verb: Expecting. That is making more and more sense to me. Expectation sets you up for failure; expecting opens you up. I have noticed lately that unopened messages produce their own kind of stress in me. I have been feeling overwhelmed so am back on 50% sick leave (had tried to reduce to 30%). It just doesn't take much to get me worked up, and it doesn't feel like excitement or anticipation. It feels like dread. So not good. The thing is, it's just the mind playing tricks. Because every single message or email I opened was harmless. Utterly harmless. Nothing overwhelming or negative or difficult. Just a message. There are a variety of techniques for dealing with stuff, some physical (like taking deep breaths), some more mental (like saying you're safe as long ...

Once physical disease is ruled out, it is time to consider the root cause of most mental depression: a lack of love and connection in life (not a lack of serotonin). Source: Wikipedia Commons Via Paula's blog comes the idea of grabbing some book, going to page 62 and line 6 on that page to use for a blog post. I opened Kindle to the last book I'd been reading (Graves MD, Harrison. Mantra Meditation: An Alternative Treatment For Anxiety And Depression (pp. 62-63). Novus Energia. Kindle Edition) and Kindle being what it is, I chose what it claimed was page 62 and what was the sixth paragraph (or line shift, if you will) because the sixth line was a header. My sixth paragraph is the quote above. The quote also echos another book I'm reading: The Shack . I saw a quote paraphrased from it on Facebook: "Why am I here?" "Because this is where you got stuck." That resonated with me, so I decided to reread the book. I'm stuck, you see. Stuck somewh...

The spring of 1969, I traveled across country with my grandma and grandpa. Just before leaving California, I had heard The Beatles song "Help!". The movie had been showing on TV one evening at my mother's. I liked the song and I remember singing it in Maine, where we'd stopped off at Grandma's son's place and I got to meet my cousins. Only days after that visit, we were on our way to Norway. In trying to understand where my anxiety comes from, I've tried a number of different meditations (I've shopped here a lot lately). In the latest one that I tried, I was to name my anxieties. I had only one: Helplessness. Moments from my childhood made me feel helpless. I fended for myself on Saturday mornings when my parents slept in. I didn't actually like that. (To this day, waking up to the sounds of voices or activity in the kitchen is hugely pleasing to me.) I would rather a grown-up helped me because I was a clumsy child. Moments from an imagined old ...

I stole this from Paula's 2 x 13 questions (which had me thinking about one half of a deck of cards, and the fact that the Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters, but I digress). Current profile pic from last year. Heh. 1. Share your profile picture. Shared. 2. Who are you named after? Nobody. My mom saw "Keera" in an obituary. 3. Do you like your handwriting? Yes. But sometimes I can't read it. 4. What’s your favorite lunch meat Gudbrandsdalsost—Norwegian brown cheese. 5. Longest relationship? That would be either my friend Ann in actual years or my friend Torleif in years in a row of regular contact. Or the parental units. 6. Do you still have your tonsils? Yes. The only thing I've had removed are my wisdom teeth. 7. Would you bungee jump? If I'm sitting in my own couch with VR goggles, sure. 8. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Always. I was taught that to not to would ruin the shoes. Wait, do I even still have shoes that tie? 9. Favorite i...

Here's a blast from the past (September 13 2008). I love the play of shadows and the blue reflecting in the water. Somewhere-north-of-here fjord I actually did not recognize where the above was until I looked at some of the other photos from the same day: This was from an overnight trip with my then-department. We went to Flåm and Nærøyfjord. The latter is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The former is the destination for the "Norway in a Nutshell" trip that combines bus, train and bus—not necessarily in that order. The photo above is as we sailed out the Aurlandsfjord from Flåm. Below the highway headed to Aurland, decoration made out of rocks and plants mimic Viking hieroglyphs. Or maybe it's just modern art deer. Where the deer and the antelope play? Nærøyfjord has tall mountains on either side, and in the winter only the midday sun manages to shed any light there. The rest of the time it is in deep shadow. In September the sun was making its way d...

Norway has been good to me, dentally. My grandpa was also good to me. Orthodontics are subsidized but still cost out of pocket. So the year I had no cavities I started wearing a retainer. One thing Norwegian children have been through together, is the school dentist. In my part of Norway, the school dentist got the nickname "pinaren", which translates to "the tormentor". An awful lot of kids ended up afraid of the dentist. Somehow or other, I didn't. I got my first filling at age 8 while I was still living in California. They filled my mouth with all kinds of weird things there; I remember a ring-like device jammed in to keep my mouth open and some sort of small rubber sheet jammed in there, too, in addition to the usual suction device and tampon. In Norway, it's just suction and a tampon. When I was 12, the school dentist looked me over, then called my grandpa in. Grandpa had been waiting in the hall. Seriously, the dentist told me grandma that I had no ...

I have seen the plans for the light rail station coming to my bit of the 'burbs. I know that the footbridge I have crossed to and from work since 1986 will become history and I'll get a new bridge about 50 meters to the west. "My" footbridge as seen on the way home It may happen sooner rather than later. At some point, the slope this bridge connects me to, where the trees are, is going to be dug into and reshaped. A new path to a new bridge will appear, forever changing my walk to work. It may happen sooner than I realize. Barely two weeks ago, I noticed neon streaks on the pavement. I'd seen them before and knew the construction crew had left them. Today I saw why: Aha! A hole! They're still moving pipes and stuff around underground. But I see more paint streaks. I wonder how much longer I'll get to enjoy the sight of this tree: More digging to come!

I tripped over a book on using yogic mantras to help with anxiety and depression. So I said OM a lot this morning, and maybe that's exactly what I needed to get going again (as well as three days of rest and downtime). I once upon a time, back in California, meditated and chanted OM, so I dove in and played with harmonies, with going silent, with going up an octave or two, and even whispering. You can do it all. Or just repeat internally, soundlessly. The OM on YouTube (you don't need to read the book): The Cosmic AUM The book that led me there: Mantra Meditation: An Alternative Treatment For Anxiety And Depression

Yesterday's grouchiness was a warning. My body and my moods are basically klaxons trying to get my attention. This morning I had no energy, no desire, no absent Grumpy. He was still with me. He had a message. I hate when I'm like this. I hate that my emotions so easily rise to the surface and I have neither the inclination nor the ability to force them back down, not even when the situation demands that I do. (Blowing up at work is a really bad idea.) I got a reminder today that dealing with mental exhaustion, with panic attacks and its attendant issues, takes time. I was feeling too good Tuesday. I know now that I was not on the way up, but out of balance. Yesterday that lack of balance made itself known. I thought I'd headed it off at the pass, armed with hugs, but nope. On a good day I can wrestle with my feelings, but on a good day I'm not even in this battle. So I'm trying to face a dragon and all I can muster is a "whatever". It takes energy to...

So, as usual, I am Mercurial and go up and down more than a rollercoaster. After a great day yesterday—which I realize now may have taken more out of me than I thought, with all that talking to the psychologist—I ended up grumpy today. Total raincloud-right-over-my-head grumpy. Grumpy At the end of the day, a co-worker caught up with me and I admitted I was frustrated, annoyed, and feeling grouchy. Whereupon she gave me a proper, squishy, ribcage-melding bear hug. In fact, such a good and helpful hug we both started to tear up. Now, that is some serious hugging! And yes, it did chase the proverbial raincloud away. PS: My favorite dwarf was Grumpy because I related best to him. Still do. PPS: WordPress is rolling out a new blog editor called Gutenberg and it's, uhm, well, at times raincloud-inducing. :-D

I am in love with the city light rail in Bergen, Norway, called "bybanen" (BEE-bah-nen). It took five years after it was built for me to actually ride the darned thing, but after that, it has become my most popular modern addition to this old medieval town. And now they're building a line to my neck of the woods! I am excited about getting the light rail in 2022! Yeah, that is a long way off. They started digging in February of this year. I walk past the construction site for the station in Fyllingsdalen (the suburb where I live and work) nearly daily. I've been trying to document (sort of) the changes construction is creating in my neighborhood. The start of construction of "bybanen" in Fyllingsdalen, March 2018 5 months later and all those pipes on first picture are underground Bergen being Bergen, there are strong opinions for and against the light rail. A lot of people think it's a waste of space and money, inferior to better bus route...

The final day of being lyrically challenged (in more ways than one), thanks to one of my inspirations for blogging, Paula at Light Motifs . If you're feeling inspired, please do your own challenge and let me know about it! And now for the third song with lyrics I not only paid attention to, but also bothered to learn by heart. But that came later, because when this song first played on the radio back in 1979, it made me cry. Every. Single. Time. This is one song that is on the short list as a song you may play at my funeral (the other songs are mostly happy disco tunes so bring dancing shoes). It is "The Rose" by Bette Midler. Teen years are intense years, and the evening I saw the movie "The Rose" has moments that I will never forget. I had two friends at the time (I always end up in a trio of two girls and a guy; I'm on my third such grouping), Ann and Grant (hi, Ann!), and we went to see "The Rose". I drove us to the movie theater in my littl...

My comfort zone: Sitting on a bus on a rainy day I don't like ever talking about what goes on deep inside of me. A few close friends may find out, but not co-workers or you, my reader. But the truth is, I've gotten a taste of what it is like to be struggling with something psychological. And I've decided to let you in on that. I have a busy mind, and a strong sense of responsibility or duty. That sort of thing easily leads to stress because I've lost the ability to say "no" without guilt. So anxiety has been creeping up on me for almost two years. It's mostly work, but that means that anything bad happening outside of work becomes harder than it needs to be because I have nothing extra to give. I canceled a trip to Czechia this summer. Prague, home of the astrolabe clock tower, is a city I've wanted to see for years. But it went back on my bucket list due to being so utterly stressed out I couldn't even think about packing without crying. I...

It is Day 2 of the song lyric challenge that Paula at Light Motifs has lobbed at me. With friends like that, et cetera. So I mentioned yesterday that I'm not really aware of what people are singing because not enough enunciation. (By the way, I was double-checking that I had the right word, and discovered it's not spelled "annunciation", which is a totally different thing . Heh.) There was a time when being proud of America and happily waving the flag and feeling all kinds of good was the norm, rather than either a rarity or something that now makes you throw up in your mouth a little (take your pick). Point is, things have changed since the 1970's. But at the time, even if we got pretty beaten up during that decade, too, with resigning presidents, falling Saigons, soaring gas prices and waiting hostages, we still had reason to like ourselves and the rest of the world sort of usually liked us, too. And there was always the Muppets to give one a bit of repriev...

I have been challenged by Paula at Light Motifs to do three days of song lyrics. I thank Paula for making me update my blog (no, really, I needed this) but I have no one else who is actively blogging to pass the challenge on to. That doesn't matter. I don't do anything that reminds me of chain letters, anyway. :-D I rarely listen to lyrics because I rarely catch what they're singing, anyway. But some songs had a singer with good enunciation, and even good lyrics, and so I became aware of the words. A favorite band of mine from the 70's is Little River Band, originally from Australia. I still listen to their 70's stuff (because I don't know if they did 80's or even 00's stuff), and some songs put me right back in California. They had that mellow, west-coast soft-rock sound. And good lyrics. Several of their songs tell good stories, dealing a punch here, a good tug on the heart there. LRB became a part of the tapestry of my life in late 70's Cal...

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 be said for the Baby Boomer generation. They changed the rules, making it possible for patients to get a second opinion, to have sex (and babies) outside of wedlock, to get women into management and politics and marathons. A lot of important things started before the boomers became old enough, but they were the first generation to live the change as teenagers or college students or young adults. I admire their chutzpah and appreciate their efforts. My "tail" generation, c. 1958 to 1966, just followed along and got the fruits of the "older kids'" labors. Now they're approaching retirement or have retired. They're st...

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 use them. And no, I'm not interested in learning. I can't learn. My mother and her mother (and her mother) are/were all good cooks. Not fancy cooks, but the kind of cooks who can put together ingredients in a way to make a nourishing and tasty meal, and they can do that every day. (I do remember Grandma saying the biggest challenge to cooking was coming up what to make. Her tomato meatloaf was divine, by the way.) I did not inherit this talent from them. You know how some things are interesting enough to make you want to find out more? I'm like that with computers or astrology, but not with cooking. I don't even watch cooking shows. I may as well be watching a quantum physics lecture for quantum...

I remember strikes used to terrify me. I was so brain-washed by the American view of unions that I quit mine here in Norway once in a panic. I rejoined quickly and have a gold pin for 25 years' membership and first-hand knowledge of what it's like to be on a proper strike. As April rolls around, unions start negotiations. It's a bi-annual thing. My union (the union of financial and insurance employees) does its thing in even-numbered years. This year it's a tad more interesting than usual. We've broken off negotiations. There are three main points of contention that my union won't agree to. If we don't get anywhere, even with mandatory negotiations, there will be a strike. This whole process will take at least a month. So I lied when I said May is for strikes. It can just as well be June, or April, or September. Or whenever. But Norway revolves around May 1, and most unions release their new wage scales on that date, and the government sets the value for G ...

Nothing is certain but death and taxes. And swear words. Back when I still lived in the US, my mother and I got window seats at Philippe's in downtown Los Angeles on the evening of April 15th, to watch people slowly driving by to toss their returns into huge hoppers on Alameda, which was one-way that night. I've also kept a Norwegian friend company on her walk to the tax return receptacle at 11 PM on April 30. We noted as we turned to walk home that we weren't the last. You may have seen there how I slipped Norway's deadline in. So I have been swearing in English at my Norwegian forms this morning because I own pretend money that the government wants to know about. Yeah, I'm late. For some darn reason I've been putting this off this year. I've been putting everything off. Even breakfast. I'm doing taxes on coffee alone. Every year I tell myself I need to learn more about the stock my employer gives me every spring for being a good little worker bee, bec...

I read about this very bright object being shot up into orbit around Earth earlier this year, just to twinkle in natural sunlight as an artificial star for a few months. And I noted that it would be visible from Norway on April 24-25 2018. I've had this date marked on my calendar since I read about the controversial launch of the Humanity Star . Although I understand the arguments against this bright object that the astronomers had, I thought I may as well take a look since it's up there. I read somewhere that it would be visible in my part of the world today or tomorrow. First of all, it's overcast now and it will continue to be overcast the next couple of days. Never fails. I guarantee that if they announce some awesome celestial phenomenon visible from Bergen, the skies will not be clear. I pretty much treat forecasts for southerly viewings of the Aurora Borealis as forecasts for rain now. (In case you're wondering, auroras are a polar phenomenon that weaken the fa...

"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 a path to discover more, especially in words, made me love html and hyperlinks. That's what the internet is: A huge encyclopedia with cross-references all over and "see …" everywhere. The encyclopedic dictionary I lost myself in also included a list of the meanings of names, a thesaurus, famous quotes, as well as French, German and Spanish dictionaries. It was published by Reader's Digest, and it is one thing I sometimes wish I'd taken with me when Grandma died. But then I remember I have the internet. So off I go, wondering if "vague" has anything to do with the vagus nerve, and it does. The Latin root of both words means t...

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. In some ways, Constitution Day in Norway, is not exactly a Sunday or religious holiday. It's a day off but buses run on Saturday schedules and restaurants are open. Some Constitution Day ribbons that people wear on the day  A bunch of us got Norwegian citizenship during 2017 and have decided to go All Norwegian the only way foreigners can. So we've decided to have the 17th of May breakfast buffet, which is a tradition. It includes rømmegrøt (sour cream porridge) and that's all I need to know (although cured meats and smoked salmon with scrambled eggs are also traditional fare). I've booked a table that should also offer a fantastic view of the parade(s). There are thre...