A Roll in the Universe

Obviously, something deep in my subconscious wants to imitate Nedry’s lock screen in “Jurassic Park”, doing his finger-wagging “Ah-ah-ah”. I had bronchitis in February. Was out sick for two weeks. Bronchitis was something I had a lot as a kid. Usually when the bullying over time finally got to me, my body would react with bronchitis. When I finally recovered, I blogged, intending to keep blogging. But I lost my routines, my momentum while sick and it took me until the end of March to get it back. That’s when I hurt a knee, just standing with a very straight leg on my living room floor. Sheesh. Got my PC from work delivered home because brain works, but dang, if this knee stuff isn’t darned distracting! After a week at home, a friend shopped for me and showed me a good exercise for knees. Can’t overdo it, though. Can’t do the steepest hill between my place and the office so have been taking the bus to work. It’s like everything just says “Ah-ah-ah” and I realize there’s somethi...

I cannot remember when men first landed on the moon, in 1969. I was alive and old enough to remember something like that. We had a TV. That is to say, my granduncle had a TV—up on the old farm, in a little valley above a fjord. There was nothing on it until 6 pm, when a children’s program would come on, then the news. All in glorious black and white. Actually, everything was in black and white until 1974 when Norway decided to allow the broadcasting of color TV even though protesters thought it would be bad for people. People have the weirdest reasons for not wanting change. My folks kept their black and white TV for quite a while. It wasn’t broken and we were used to it. The first thing I saw in color was at a friend’s house, a scene from a British series, “Black Beauty” (yes, the one about the horse). The only thing strikingly different from seeing the same show in B&W was the grass. Incredibly green in color. Black Beauty was still black. But why can’t I remember the moon...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

"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...

When I read that Bergen was getting ready to celebrate 950 years in 2020, I suddenly felt old. I remember when this plaque was new: Stones from all the counties of Norway were used to create this commemorative plaque for Bergen's 900th anniversary in 1970. The caption reads "1070 Bergen City 1970 / Norway's cities lay down these stones". (The number of cities has increased a lot since 1970.)

As a native Californian, I still feel a bit of worry when I let the water run, like I see so many Norwegians do. It's standard: They let it run to get it nice and cold. They well afford to: The one place that never seems to run out of fresh water is Norway. The never-ending supply of that most vital of fluids can lead to some bad habits and disappointments. Norwegians are always faced with culture shock when they leave their country, because the moment you set foot in Denmark, you get recycled water. Norwegians always complain about how tap water tastes elsewhere. They also complain about being told not to waste the water, especially when they want to shower every day just like they do at home. Norwegians are encouraged to take shorter showers at home, but this has nothing to do with water and everything to do with the price of electricity—used to heat up the water. During lunch at my first job in California, the discussion turned to personal hygiene. The showers-every-day woman ...

As healthy and as long-lived as Norwegians are, they are plagued by one baffling disease: Osteoporosis. As a woman who has lived here for part of her childhood and all of her adulthood, this is something to be concerned about. Is it genetic? Is it dietary? We may have the answer, finally. Good dietary habits when I was a child in Norway included a tablespoon of cod liver oil. As a child, I actually liked the stuff. Didn't like fish, but I didn't mind that spoonful of omega 3's and vitamin D, intended to compensate for the lack of sunshine. (The rule is to take cod liver oil or "tran" in all months with an R in it. There is also the rule not to fish in months without an R in it, so those two rules dovetail nicely.) As an adult I can't stand straight "tran" any more and get my fish oil in capsule form. In the years since, Norwegian researchers trying to understand the national epidemic of broken hips have proposed many theories: Sedentary lifestyle, n...

I have been to the US embassy in Norway only twice. The first time was when I was 13, and had to say an oath in front of some embassy officer in order to get my passport renewed, seeing as how I was living in a foreign country. I remember my first passport, probably lost in a move, and I assume I'll remember my last, currently on its way to the Department of State in Washington, D.C. My first experience at a US embassy was why I was expecting an office and a massive desk and flags all over when I went in for my renunciation appointment. Instead, I got a typical waiting room, and numbered windows, and some magazines to read while waiting. Basically travel magazines about the US in Norwegian. I remember getting my first passport. Or parts of getting it. Sometimes, being a child is a lot like being a dog: The grown-ups stuff you in a car (or plane or bus or whatever), maybe first it involves dressing differently than usual, then you go somewhere else, and you don't know why but yo...

Of all the life advice I've ever been given or heard, the only one I've ever faithfully followed is the admonishment to stop and smell the roses. I did that last when I was visiting the museum garden at the university of Bergen earlier this month, even thinking to myself, "Roses. Stop and smell." When I was a very little girl and still living in Los Angeles, my maternal grandparents had a rose garden at their house in San Pedro. Dark earth covered a triangle bed bordered by fence, garage wall and garden pathway. Several large rose bushes with different colors and levels of scent filled the space. I loved my grandparents' rose garden. Many years later I saw that it had been replaced by swingsets and seesaws; the owners had children. I remember feeling sad that the children would not get to enjoy the beautiful sight and scent of roses. The parents were perhaps afraid the children would hurt themselves on the thorns. I thought that that would be an excellent thing t...

Disastrous: Causing great damage. Fortunately (heh, see what I did there?), I have never experienced a disaster. Neither of the natural kind, nor the personal kind. And that leads me to the word's origin: From " disaster " which means "ill-starred" or to be ill-fated because of the stars. Modern astrology is more psychological and less about fate, more about choice and less about destiny. If I really want to scare myself all I have to do is read an old book and my own birth chart will horrify me. I should be in prison or a psychiatric hospital, or perhaps married to a violent man whom I stay with because he's stinking rich. Here's where I like the modern stuff better: Understanding that a birth chart is exactly that: A chart, a map, not a reality. You can experience your map in many different ways, and how you do will be colored by the people in your life and your circumstances. We all share a birthday with many people and none of us are having the e...

My own egg cups The thing about growing up with a Norwegian grandfather is that you assume everybody has a cheese slicer and egg cups. Turns out that one of the things American immigrants left behind in Europe were egg cups. I was reading an article on Lifehacker about how Americans eat soft-boiled eggs, seeing as how there is no such thing as an egg cup in the US. It was only then that I realized why a British friend who lives in Hawaii asked if I could get egg cups for him. In every hotel I've been in in Europe, they serve soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. That is to say, they serve a hot egg that is still nearly raw, or a hot egg that is nearly hard. I therefore rarely eat soft-boiled eggs in hotels. But they do have egg cups (and teaspoons) for the eggs. And I have egg cups at home. Any complete set of dishes also includes egg cups here in Europe. 60's fashion: Coffee cup and egg cup from my childhood Now for some etiquette on eating a soft-boiled egg: I learned b...

Lygra As Eddie and I carefully set our feet down between sheep droppings, we caught a whiff of fresh manure. Instantly, I was transported back to my childhood in Norway, spent in the country with a potato field in front of the house, a couple of steers grazing in a pasture next to the carport, and my uncle's sheep passing by our house on their way to and from their barn. With nice weather, there’s customers and house painting at Feste My friend and co-worker Eddie decided to take a drive out to Seim and Lygra and wanted to know if I'd like to join him. Our goal was to deliver a life preserver our company hands out for free. For both of us this was a nostalgic trip. Eddie family name comes from a tiny island on the fjord that passes by Feste, and the way there was the way my family drive through to get to the family farm in Mundal (not the one off an arm of the Sognefjorden but an unnamed valley in the municipality of Lindås north of Bergen). We drove on narrow, win...

A struggling friend reminded me of a situation I was in the autumn after my dear grandma died. Re-reading that gave me a surprise: I'd forgotten how down I was then. I remember crying during the meeting with my bosses, but I don't remember taking sick days and waking up angry every day. But yes, it all ended up well, better than expected, and yesterday, as I told a potential boss about my strengths and weaknesses during a job interview, I could honestly say I didn't lose my cool with customers or co-workers any more. "I have no reason to be angry at work," I said. Sweet. Today, I woke up feeling pretty good, and I mused on the messages in the book I am currently re-reading (here is a description of my first read ), and my praying to the Holy Spirit yesterday, and that the interview went swimmingly—personality test and all—and it hit me: I didn't second-guess myself after it was over. I usually find some fault with how I interact with people after the fa...

OK, I knew my last post  would not appeal to everyone, but as I said in a comment to a comment, I take my wisdom wherever I can find it. Which happens to include astrology. Because of my family's interests, I grew up in a home that not only had huge picture books showing the treasures of the Sun King and Tutankhamen, but also books by Teilhard de Chardin, Krishnamurti, Alan Watts and Agatha Christie. The one common thread: Mystery. Life's mystery. What makes us tick? What else is there? Travel, whether literally or metaphysically. That's what my family does. We like to wonder and dream and think big and if there's a UFO encounter thrown into the mix, that's fine, too, but most importantly: Enjoy humanity. So I knew my Sun sign at the age of 7, and pretty much knew when all the other Sun signs were, too. My grandma had my chart made for me, so I also knew that there is more to astrology than just Sun signs. (The whole solar system is in on the act.) There are so ...

A miracle is an authentic switch from fear to love. When we speak from the ego, we will call up the ego in others. When we speak from Holy Spirit, we will call up their love. In 1967, my whole family fell apart. Mommy, Daddy, baby sister and I all ended up at separate addresses. I spent the next eight years living with my maternal grandparents—seven of those years in Norway. I saw my mother every two years during this, and my father and sister not at all. No wonder my parents’ divorce left me in such turmoil. It wasn't the end of just a marriage; it was the end of an entire family. The harm done was lessened with the love from my maternal grandparents. The problem with not growing up under the same roof as your parent(s) is that you end up not knowing them. Nor they you. For over 40 years, my mother and I struggled with having the label mother and daughter, but not the relationship. In metaphysical circles, we are told we get the parents we deserve because we planned it th...

35 years ago I saw "Rocky" for the second and last time—until now. I am surprised at how much I've forgotten about the movie, and what I did remember no longer matters. So many icons came out of this movie: The trumpet fanfare of the theme song, the personal triumph run up the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rocky's "Yo, Adrian!", manual meat-tenderizing. My 15-year-old self thought Carl Weathers was gorgeous and his character Apollo Creed fantastic. She liked Rocky himself, and his turtles, but didn't much care for any of the other characters, except for Adrian. The scene where Rocky drinks five raw eggs got loud "eww"s in the movie theater. The girl herself only freaked when watching Rocky for the second time, from the front row because the scene where they cut Rocky's eye lid to ease the swelling and the blood squirts out got a little too bloody when seen 10 feet away from a big screen. 35 years later, the movie is at...

Black and white and grainy video is very forgiving. Now I know how Rolf Harris did it, but as a child, I was completely baffled by how he got that third leg to act like, well, a third leg. In spite of knowing the secret now, I must say that this bit still makes me laugh. I can better appreciate both the funny lyrics and the visual gags.

I have always been interested in Christianity. More specifically, I have always been interested in the answer to this question: Does Jesus save? I have always struggled with having a faith in Jesus. My own family is made up of theists, but nobody ever bothered with the traditional religions. Grandma couldn't understand why anybody wanted a faith where you looked up at a bloody, half-naked man every Sunday (good ol' Catholics), and I couldn't understand how anybody could put their faith in a man who looked like a hippie (good ol' Protestants). So while Grandma and I both ended up deists (that's not a typo), we found our spiritual sustenance outside the mainstream. Still, I've always had the question. Norway has a state religion. It allows for freedom of religion for everyone - except the nation itself and its monarch. The reigning monarch of Norway must be - according to the country's constitution - an Evangelical Lutheran, since the Evangelical Lutheran ...