puzzle

Krasse.

the coziest of TV-series

As Time Goes By features Judi Dench
and Geoffrey Palmer as Jean and Lionel,
newlyweds in retirement age.
It's on PBS, and it's great.
Witty in a BBC kind of way,
and extremely comforting.

To do a little research I went to
the BBC America homepage.
There I found this William Morris
Nature Shawl, and I like it more
than I care to admit.

An antidote for Anglomania,
please, quick.

(Hi Anna... as you can see,
I love your people.)
(And Orkney Fudge.)

those tables were turned alright

We went to see Hard Candy.
It's not a great movie, but
it's not bad either.

And there is something
to be said for female revenge.
(It's rare, for one thing.)

random playlist

Laurie Anderson
Kai Martin & Stick!
Kinks
Frank Sinatra
Arrested Development
Laurie Anderson
Pretenders
Martha Wainwright
Stefan Sundström
Style Council
Lambchop

Chorizo in the air in the park.
Birthday cakes and balloons.
Walking past ultra fast.
Weddings to go to
this summer.
Need to get skinnier.

completely unrelated/Hej Hasse!

I really like to turn desk
lamps upwards like this
and use them everywhere.

Current count:
at home -2
at work -1

it's just around the corner

I went to IKEA again.
Their products for
summer were there,
appropriately named.
Those things in the
cardboard container are
for making your own
popsicles.
Those pretty things
in front are tea light
holders for the outdoors.

And I got cod roe
and I got
stinky fish.
And a table cloth,
and place mats.
And a shawl...
throw... shawl...
whatever.

-Who are you
wearing?
-IKEA.

12 hours of nothing

This girl came to class
with duct tape over her
mouth today.
The gay, lesbian, transgender
and transsexual students
were trying to draw
attention to how
they are silenced
in the world.

greenish powder everywhere

I never had allergies
before I came to
California.
Now I have them a lot.
Everybody does.
This is the allergy
capitol of the world.

There is even an expression
for what I have that
I never heard before:
sinus headache.
I have that, and I
have itchy eyes.

Some years I take
a lot of pills.
Then one by one
I tell my office mate
to make sure I never
take them again.
The side effects are
worse than the
original symptoms.

(The drug interactions
can be fun, though.)

recycling

Somebody did a
google search
for "creepy Jesus"
and ended up
here.
I think that was funny.

www.overheardinnewyork.com

This is funny: overheardinnewyork.com
(This one is Swedish: Tjuvlyssnat.se)

food

It said on the box I had
macaroni and cheese for dinner.
I am not so sure.
But it was pretty and yellow,
and it was comforting.

For lunch I had sushi
prepared by a Korean woman.
She was in a car accident
last week with her family.
Today I asked how her husband
and daughters are doing.
"They are fine", she said.
"I am the problem."
She hurt her back and arm
in the accident, and now she
is in pain. She has
a hard time
running her cafe.
I put all the change
she gave me in the
tip jar.

Grattis Åsa!

(This is Happy Birthday number 1.)
(Just you wait.)

we went to Safeway

We went to Safeway and got
cake for Åsa's birthday.
It was super yummy.
Happy Birthday Åsa!

shrimp

Dan made really good shrimp.
They had turmeric and
tarragon on them.
Mmmm.

sewer line cont.

Nice plumber guy
fished out something
unmentionable
that had made
everything back up.

Cleaned the pipes with
pine pulp (??).

Went on his merry way.

Flower is there to clean
our nostrils before dinner.

we have a plumbing situation

Sometime a pipe
is just a pipe.

fashion pig

This made me laugh so hard
the dog next door started barking.
(I was indoors, and he in his yard
on the other side of the wall.)

Alberto Caeiro

I have been introduced to
the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa,
and his heteronym Alberto Caeiro.
So I went to the library today,
and got some books.
I got a library card too,
as a matter of fact.
I am going to read now.

(I've learned that
a heteronym
is more than a pseudonym.
It's not just a name:
it's a whole
invented person,
with a past and
a future.)

4+ hours later

This is my car
without a ticket.This is the rear wheel
without a chalk mark.
Today was a good
slightly illegal
Thursday.

the way it happened

7:31 I leave to get emergency ice cream

7:55 I return with Häagen-Dazs Light,
toothpaste, and National Enquirer

7:56 My boyfriend yells at me for buying NE

7:57 Boyfriend reading National Enquirer,
ice cream forgotten

8:04 Boyfriend asks what story made me get it

8:04 I indicate the headline
CHELSEA COCAINE SCANDAL

finally

Back to normal.
Blue skies everywhere.

circa 6PM

People like to do their shopping after work.
Me too.
People are lazy, though.
They rather circle the parking lot
for hours than take a spot
further away and walk.
One thing I hate is when people stop
and wait for someone to load their car
just so that they can get their spot.
It always takes forever.
And no one can get past.
The line of cars behind them is
super long.
You hear someone honk?
That's me.

around 2:30

Seriously good stuff.
Sorbet in a can.

at 3:30

I was randomly visited by these boys today.
They are nice.
If they read this I'll say they are my favorites.

it's a big world

I just made this map.
It shows the countries I have visited.

Seems I need to go to Africa.

Make your own: here.

monday april 17 2006

This is one of the first
flowers of the season.
Just took the picture.

It's also tax season.
I filed online this year.
Maybe I didn't have a choice,
I don't remember anymore.

I have submitted the thing
three times today.
Apparently I didn't get my
date of birth right the first time.
When I corrected that,
I accidentically identified
myself neither as a citizen or
a resident alien.

I have corrected that
mistake also, and am now
anxiously awaiting a response.
Sleeping here by the computer.

end of the story

I glued tiny pieces of tissue paper
over the openings to close the eggs.
Then they were hidden, found,
and smashed over the heads of people
by little kids.

See that's a good tradition now.

almost done

The multi-step project continues.
The eggs are painted,
and filled with confetti.

creepy Jesus

My boyfriend has been playing.

watercolor

on the 3rd day...

So it doesn't really work to use
natural dyes to color eggs.
Don't try rosehips, spirulina,
beet water, or anything else
suggested by natural dye people.
Those things will stain most things,
but not egg shells.
Turmeric will give a healthy glow to white eggs,
but it won't do much to brown eggs.
All this effort resulted in this
beet, oranges, and black olive salad.
It was good.

Now on with the real paint.

the last of the gang to die

This is one marshmallow Peep.
You buy them connected, five in a row.
Three sets of five cost 99 cents.
They taste a sweet sugary nothing.
They are great.

those scissors are warm now

You can't really tell,
but this is the bulk of
an issue of Interview,
and a Target catalogue,
cut into confetti.

Tomorrow I am painting eggs.

To make boiled eggs prettier
you can add onion peel to the water,
packing it snuggly between the eggs.
The shells come out red and bright yellow.
Random patterns, very pretty.

spring has sprung

I was on the trail this afternoon,
and so were plenty of other people.
This one on his bike.
Sunny, warm.

A little further down it looked as if the creek had
risen enough to flood the area where
the homeless people had lived.
I never saw anybody before,
but now the brush had been cut back and there were
wet garbage and wet sleeping bags in a messy pile.
People had been living there,
a few feet from the trail,
in the middle of one of the most exclusive
zip codes in the state.

easter's coming up

I have saved hollowed out eggs
for a couple of weeks.
I am making my own confetti.
(Glossy magazines+scissors.)
I will fill the eggs with confetti.
I will decorate the eggs.
On Easter Sunday my boyfriend
will reenact a childhood memory.
On Monday his aunt,
uncle, and cousin will vacuum.

In Sweden on the Thursday before Easter
little girls dress up as witches,
and ride their brooms off to a
distant island to party with the devil.
(Swedish folklore often involves the devil.)
(The little witches also go door to door collecting candy,
Halloween-style.)

water. fish. pickled ginger.

Rain.
Rain.Rain.
Emergency lunch.

stocking up

I am Swedish, and that means
I like to replace whatever I use in the pantry right away.
Subconsciously, genetically, I am always
preparing for a long cold winter.
I have been told that third or fourth generation
Swedish-Americans in the mid-west
do the same.

This behavior is odd to some people,
for example my boyfriend.

no more fried anything

So I have been trying to clean the filter that collects grease above the stove.
When it starts to smell like steak all on its own, it's time.
I used regular liquid detergent, the kind you use in a washing machine, and super hot water.

There was a pleasant smell of artificial sea breeze for a second around the stove.
Then the bacon fat took over.
I've cleaned everything except the light bulb.
---
Update: Attempted to clean the light bulb.
Apparently glass and fat can chemically alter each other.
This new, fused, surface is now clean.
Smell still there.

that one disappeared fast

Banana Split from Dairy Queen.
My dinner.
You only live once.
(If that.)

1968+38

One of my students sent me this photo of himself
and the statue of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on
the San Jose State University campus.
He did what the inscription suggests:
climbed up and took a stand.

Those giant Pumas (the tennis shoes, I mean)
are part of the monument, by the way.
Smith and Carlos stood there in their socks in 1968,
representing the poverty of the American Negro.
They also had olive branches under their arms,
as signs of peace.

The kid in the picture is named Mandela.
(He actually is.)

lots of learning there

We went to Stanford University bookstore
so I could look at books and steal ideas.
I had only brought my phone with the camera in it.
But it looked like this.
And like this:
Cherry blossoms, semi-old stone walls,
and future Nobel Prize winners.

HH

That's a 1953 Hudson Hornet back there.
We passed it on 280 today.
Then when we came back I googled,
and found this photo of the same car
(or one exactly like it):
That's what it looks like.
I think it's super pretty.
And there is always something special
about seeing one of those
beautifully designed things
amongst all the Hondas.