on the road

Hello all, this is Dan blogging for Lotta.
Bad news. Something really unexpected. With the recent upsurge in paranoia over illegal immigrants, the INS (now the ICE) has been trying to clean up its files not just with Latin American immigrants, but ALL immigrants. There was glitch in Lotta's green card paperwork over her work status and they sent her an official letter asking her to clear it up. At first we thought we could just refile but they forced her to leave the country and clear it up from Sweden. Lotta got on one of the last flights out of SFO tonight, and right now she is on her way home to work this all out. She hasn't been deported, as she chose to leave voluntarily, but she's scared they won't let her back in.

The only flight she could get was this horrible flight with all of these layovers. She wasn't sure which route she would be on, but she said she might be able to blog from airports during stop overs.



















Hi!
So this thing really threw me for a loop... I hate paperwork, and I really thought I had it all in order. And then I got on this crazy flight with lots of stops. It's going to take forever.
My first stop was actually in LA. Things were tense, but I felt I needed to be a part of the protest. Someone lent me their hat and it was great.

I also went through Antarctica. It was really cold.
From there I went north:
It was really big.

My last stop was Amsterdam. Things are crazy there!

Happy April Fool's Day everybody!

le petit ecolier

A little schoolboy
made of dark French chocolat.

And yes I am up in the middle of the night,
reading papers.
3:06 AM.

puzzle

The very last petal.

fast food

When you are a girl, and you are about ten,
you learn how to make scones.
Then you make scones a lot.
And then you forget.

Today I remembered.
I used olive oil instead of butter,
and I eyeballed all ingredients.

Scones turned out fine.
And I had one very happy boyfriend.

at home (2)

One screwdriver, one pinch of luck,
one loud scream of "jag blir galen".
Who fixed the heater?

solstickan

The end of the tulips and my favorite souvenir, the Swedish box of matches with the little boy with no pants on it.

at home

It's cold, because the heater doesn't work.

at the pizza place

lunch.

at the coffee shop

Dan wrote, and I corrected exams.

for a rainy day

Manuel!
Kathy!

it's on its way

Oh, I mailed off Åsa's surprise last week. On the customs form I put "fabric". It's always a balancing act between honesty and not giving away a surprise. Sometimes I put "toy", thinking that in some sense most presents can be played with.

yet another reason to love the Dutch

I am sorry, but you just can't have enough pictures of tulips.

I'll eat anything good

Gilroy, Calif. is the garlic capitol of the world.
It also has a lot of outlets and fast food restaurants.
Dan got new shoes, and we got hamburgers.
I don't know what these flowers are called,
but I think they are pretty.
They were in Hollister.
We got coffee right there, and a snickerdoodle.
Snickerdoodles are sugarcookies with a mix of cinnamon
and white sugar on the outside. They are tasty.

Later in the evening we got Menudo
made by Dan's sister's mother-in-law.
It was super tasty.
Menudo is a traditional Mexican soup
made from a cow's stomach lining, chili,
and hominy, a form of corn.
Food is the best.

Mr. Braugher

Andre Braugher is back.
He is just one of the best actors ever.
There is a new show on FX, Thief.
It looks good and I've read good things about it.
This is from Homicide: Life On the Street.
As far as I am concerned that was just the best TV show ever.
Andre Braugher was also in Soldier's Girl,
one of the best films ever.
It's based on a true story,
and it pretty much blows your mind.

(The woman whose story the film tells is actually in Transamerica.
There is a party scene, and she's one of the guests.)

I played

I messed with the tulips.
It's too easy and way too much fun.

And, oh, another thing about V for Vendetta: the ending is not great. We Are the World, your average Coke commercial... that's what it reminded me of.

that was a long walk

I took a walk this afternoon, and Santa Clara Valley looked like this:
with a rainbow and all.

V

I liked V for Vendetta. I think it's a good movie.
I just read a review that said it was simplistic,
but some aspects of the world we live in aren't
too complicated, so why pretend?

Besides, I always like Stephen Fry.

Wisteria=Spring

yummy

There is a sweet pink grapefruit coming from Texas. Kathy says they grow in the south, towards the Mexican border. I have eaten so many of them lately that this bag of sugar is almost empty:

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Weird but great movie about a flock of wild birds in San Francisco,
and the guy who feeds them, and learns to understand them.

yep!

Hip-hop kid in my class liked them.
Black kid in Whole Foods liked them.
My spring shoes!

I am really angry

I was talking to one of my students today. Her mother is white, and her father is black. Her twin sister actually came out white, and she came out black. She is about to transfer to another school, because she believes she will be happier at a big school. She wants to "take on the real world" she says.

My student wants to go into journalism. She is working on a story right now about racism on campus. It's an interesting story, but it's not going to make her popular. There are incidents of racism for her to report, of course, because racism is everywhere.

Some people don't want to believe that, though. For some reason it's hard for (white) people to take it seriously, and to believe those who are made victims.

Racism is everywhere. We show weakness only if we don't accept that, and address it.

Unrelated photo of former student:
Unrelated photo of current student:

nothing much happened today

I just think this is a cool picture. It's shopping from the snobby store, sitting on a black metal bench. (The snobby store is Dan's name for a high-end grocery store that I like. I don't think it's snobby though, I think it's good. But it is heavy on the biodynamic and the crowd is heavy on the upper middle class.)

I found a website that lets you draw. Unfortunately they don't let you copy and paste your drawings, so I can't show my blue flower I just made.

Other news: Dan is wearing contacts again. For the first time since he was punched in the eye in November.

Immigrant predicament

The San Jose Mercury News has an article today about the life of an immigrant worker who has spent 25 years away from his family in the Philippines. I don't know how long it will be on the front page, but maybe this link will work for a while. It's kind of heartbreaking.

cool?

Got them. My new spring shoes. It was raining like crazy today but I got them anyway.

And then someone randomly gave me this Dave Chappelle t-shirt:
So all in all it was a good day for casual wear.

Wilco

Today on the ipod: Wilco.
Saw half of a documentary last night.
Great film about the best band.

your average Sunday

The poinsetta died when a lamp fell on it.
Otherwise it was doing real well for a Christmas plant.

Cleaned the bathroom.
Found something I am going to send to Åsa.
(Not in the bathroom.)
Washed my hair. Thereby also putting more color in it.
Went for a walk. There is something about sunshine and Frank Sinatra.
Ipods are great.

Dan knows even the boring commercials by heart.
He is watching way too much television.
(I am too but my memory is not as good as his.)
And we are definitely down to the peanuts in the mixed nut container.
(Trying not to eat them because if I loose a little more weight my OK-sized jeans will fit.)

the ultimate spring shoe

Saw these shoes at REI today.
Somehow they seem to scream spring.
And that's a bilingual pun.

anti-war and anti-anti-war

This is from an anti-war demonstration that was held in Palo Alto today. Among others a few relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq were there, holding signs with the dead young men's pictures and their graves.

A couple of men held anti-anti war signs. One called anti-war protesters "lefty-fascists." Another said "If I was a suicide bomber, you'd be dead."

The entire thing made me sad. So many people have died, and sometimes I can't see how a few good people gathering on a Saturday afternoon will make much of a difference. I know that is not the right attitude, but sometimes it seems incredibly hard to influence things.

Adur

They give awards for paddling big waves. This kid is up for one. His name is Adur, and he is Basque. The photo was taken off the coast of Spain. Adur was in a class of mine last year, when he did a study abroad year in the US.

Dan's new favorite people

Dan's new favorite people are the Dutch, because they are the makers of Stroopwafels, Dan's new favorite cookie. The result of one Johnny Depp movie:
One empty bag of Stroopwafels.

Dinner

This is a side of salmon on a bed of kosher salt. It has slits on the skin side (underneath), and a brush of olive oil on top. It went into the oven: 440 degrees (Fahrenheit, 225C) for about half an hour.
This is the side of salmon after we had dinner. It was yummy. It came with a sauce of yogurt and horseradish and a little bit of sugar.

Åsa's walk to work

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The most American of holidays.
But according to CNN they actually celebrate it in Dublin too.

here you go my favorite Mexicano

Surprise.

the updated truth

Seems Dan picks out the PEANUTS, so that the good stuff will be left.
Seems I pick out the good stuff.

Seems I am the pig.

The end.

the truth

I bought a National Enquirer today. What got me was this headline on the front page:

EXTREME CELEBRITY FLAWS

With pictures. Inside the magazine there is a big spread. Martha Stewart and Courtney Cox have big ugly ears. (And we are talking BIG and UGLY ears.) Angelina Jolie has boney hands. Jennifer Lopez without her makeup looks just like a normal girl. And so on. It was so worth it.

Completely unrelated: my boyfriend picks the cashews out of the mixed nuts. This is irritating to me when I want to pick the cashews out of the mixed nuts. So I have to pick out the almonds instead, and it seems Dan picks out the hazelnuts. And then we are left with all the peanuts. (The two or three pieces or walnuts that are in there to start with are gone so fast it is as if they were never there at all.)

mmm pretty

This is Lysekil, a small town on the Swedish west coast, about half an hour (or so) from where my parents live.

This is the ferry that will get you there:
Right now there is winter and ice storms and cold and nasty over there, but this is what it looks like in the summer. Everybody should visit. It really is the most beautiful part of the world. The California coastline is pretty too, but the grey of the bare little islands and the blue of the North Sea, that's something else. When I lived there I took it for granted, but now when I visit it takes my breath away. (Making me look like a tourist.)

photo by John

More distraction.

from the bottom of the pile

I have so many papers to read it's not even funny.

three hours of Sunday afternoon

So St. Patrick's Day is coming up.
And Dublin and San Jose are sister cities.
What does that mean?
Boxing, obviously.
And Guinness.

Beer and testosterone.
Chieftains and The Pogues in the breaks between fights.
And one of the California boxers draped in the Mexican flag.

I had never seen boxing live before.
I liked it more than I thought I would.
That sticky thing under your feet is Guinness.

not for the faint of heart

I worked in that big brick building summers and holidays and weekends when I was in highschool. It's the hospital in the town where my parents live. And then there it was in the background of a movie I got from Netflix. A Swedish movie, but still. I got very excited. (So I paused the movie and took 50 pictures all of which turned out like this one, grainy and weird.) (Swedish movie: please note the overrepresentation of Volvos in the background.)

And oh, the film. It tells the story of Alzheimer's desease with full on Scandinavian honesty. It's called A Song For Martin, and you might not want to see it.

music

Today on the ipod: Rufus Wainwright.

waste some time

Here you go Kathy. Click. Click.

black white

In the oddest reality show/documentary series ever, Black White on FX, two families switch races. With the help of heavy duty make-up blacks turn white, and whites turn black.

It's weird. The critics aren't all that positive. But I sure know what I'll be doing six Wednesday nights this spring.