small purple california flower

small orange california flower

"bold, abstract art works" - imagine that

My favorite author reads The Wall Street Journal, so I don't have to. Today she found this article. It talks about the Obamas and the art they are borrowing to display in the White House:

The Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms, they are choosing bold, abstract art works.

I had a salmon scramble, delish

My friend Åsa came to visit last week. Saturday was the last day of her stay, and we had breakfast at Hobee's. This is the giant piece of cake they gave Åsa with her omelette.

When they saw me take a picture they quickly brought over a second piece, the more photogenetic blueberry cake you see in the background there. It even has the butter on top, instead of on the side, all pretty for the picture.

This made Åsa happy.

another memorial day

Link to something I wrote in 2003, in Swedish.

today's poem

I expect to pass through life but once.
If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show,
or any good thing I can do for any fellow being,
let me do it now... as I shall not pass this way again.

British religious leader William Penn (1644-1718)

what it means to be a woman

I had to go to the laundromat today. As I was folding something, out of the blue the woman working there told me that her sister-in-law has stage 4 liver cancer, and is dying.

Then she told me that her own brother tried to commit suicide last week.

We talked for a while. I showed as much empathy as I could.

Do men talk like this with people they don't know?

why do I feel like I am the last person on earth to figure this out?

I think worrying is the opposite of praying. Has to be, right?

eh-eh-eh-dhe

So I went in for the check-up mammogram on Tuesday. I was pretty nervous. But I didn't realize the extent of the nervousness until the receptionist asked me for my current address. I couldn't speak. I started bawling. She nudged the box of Kleenex over, and I proceeded to tell her my street.

Then she printed some forms for me to fill out, and attached them to a clipboard. I sat down and began.

The name of my street, as she had typed it, had about 3 extra syllables in it.

the 24 hour news cycle

I am getting twitters from my hometown newspaper. Yesterday they twittered that someone had left kittens in a cardboard box, in a downtown park. (It's in Swedish so you'll just have to believe me.)

(Kittens are fine, and will be available for adoption in 10 weeks.)

so that's a first

A (female) student followed me all the way into the actual bathroom stall today in order to give me her paper.

relieved

I had the first follow up mammogram after my cancer treatment today, and it came back all clear. My friend Steve said that was the best news he had heard in 250 years. I said he must be old.

make believe, and not in a good way

This morning my office mate asked me about something she'd seen on PBS on Sunday night. It had been a crime story set in Sweden, but with English speaking actors. She was confused.

She said it was weird, and wondered if they just couldn't find Swedish actors. Then she said the entire thing looked like a continuity problem, meaning that the occasional appearances (in documents, on a newspaper) of the Swedish language looked like they had been included by mistake. And the premise is an odd one: Actors speak English, but live in a Swedish environment.

Oh, wait, that isn't odd at all. That's reality. The world is bilingual.

Anyway.

Dan lasted 20 minutes. I lasted 21 minutes. Either it wasn't very good, or I am Americanized now and that's why I couldn't handle the slower than molasses pace.

Rape seed fields were stunning, though.

intertextuality

Remember the scene in Finding Nemo where the fish trapped in the aquarium plan an escape? There is lots of swimming inside tubing, and the issue of getting past a filter.

Watch for that same scene when you see Star Trek.

eggs

legs

evening sun

any info=too much info

Maureen Dowd writes in The New York Times about Elizabeth Edwards, and her new book. Ms. Dowd says it's a 'complicated question', and I agree.

I identify with Mrs. Edwards. I've had breast cancer, and I've had the experience of learning that I've been lied to over a long period of time (it was long ago, but still, it happened).

The interview on Oprah was hard to watch. Something isn't right. And I hate thinking that, because it makes me speculate about the Edwards's marriage, and their psyches. I wish I hadn't seen that interview. And I guess that also means that I wish she hadn't written the book.

On second thoughts: I know what didn't sound right to me. It was when she said she wanted to "protect him", protect the husband who had betrayed her. How about she protecting herself, and he taking care of the mess he created?

I want flowers on my head too

Let's celebrate a belated cinco de mayo (or cinco de siete, as the president would say) with this photo of my favorite Mexican, and a bunch of pretty girls.

you can do it 'metric' or 'standard' - but isn't the US alone in the 'standard' corner now? is it really a standard, then?

Calculated my BMI (link). Normal weight. Yay.

sinuses not happy

This five minutes of each type of weather situation we're having is giving me a headache. For reals.

cosmic order

I've sold a few items on Ebay, and the funny thing is that my buyers often end up being other Scandinavians. And I am not talking Scandinavian-Americans either. I ship my stuff (used, but stylish!) back to buyers in Finland and Norway. Weird, huh?

wash your hands after you eat too

First there was Piglet (thanks Robyn for reminding us). And then there was Babe, hero of my favorite film of 1995. And now there is the flu.

For some reason all of it just makes me want to go live on a farm.

Real dirt doesn't scare me. But the menu that I am handed at the restaurant where I have lunch, out of which someone else's crumbs fall, that makes me nervous.

No, I don't think I'll catch the flu. But those crumbs do make me think.

sorry to be cryptic but I don't want to give away the ending of a really good story

So, I finished reading my latest favorite book, and turned on the TV. I caught the final 30 minutes or so of Once, the somewhat predictable movie about an Irish street musician.

The song When Your Mind's Made Up, and the last story in Unaccustomed Earth say the same thing, at least to me: don't be proud, don't be stubborn. It will only hurt. Or worse.

from robyn

read it already

Unaccustomed Earth, the collection of short stories by Jhuma Lahiri, is so good it takes your breath away. The last story, and the last line of the last story, is heart breaking.

vote for asha's mom

Click this link, and scroll down to 'Verna Bailey'. Watch, be amazed, and vote for Oregon Educator of the Year!

yellow grass purple flower

Unrelated news: I am selling stuff on ebay. It's fun.

tower

pinto lake park, watsonville, calif.

This is the shrine at Pinto Lake Park in Watsonville, where locals believe the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared on a tree. There is an enormous amount of flowers and candles, notes and pictures.

blue cloud

ground cover

different world

The Swedish Lutheran Church is electing a new bishop in Stockholm. Front runner is a woman called Eva Brunne. Eva Brunne is gay, and in a registered partnership. Do the Swedes care about her sexual orientation? No. The news story makes more of an issue of the fact that the couple has a young child. 'Why couldn't a bishop have kids? That's not a big deal', says Eva Brunne.

Imagine that, in the US.

modernity

When you have chemo, you know that you're going to loose your hair. Being bald isn't fun, but there is nothing you can do about it.

What they don't tell you before hand, is that it's very likely you are also going to get fat. That's a side effect from all the different medications that come with the chemo.

Yeah, bald and fat.

So, I've had a few pounds to loose. Most of it is gone, but I am still on a carrot heavy diet.

The other day Dan's truck needed work. I dropped it off, and walked home. It took me about an hour and a half, which was good. Carrot diets should be accompanied by lots of exercise, we all know that.

Yesterday I timed myself again, when I walked over there to pick up the truck. An hour and a half, on the nose.

The drive home? 12 minutes.

from one of my former students, also the author of the famed paper 'if it weren't for stereotypes, I wouldn't know I am asian'*

Today seemed like a regular Wednesday while walking one of my 4th grade classes across campus towards the lab. Everything changed when one of my female students, Christine, raised her hand. Since I was walking right next to her, I looked at her and asked what she needed. "What do you need?"

"Mr. Lau, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

The question surprised me. I was laughing inside of my head because I don't think she would have asked any of her other teachers the same question. She doesn't think I am an adult?

I replied, "A super-hero."

She gave me a puzzled look and said, "....really?"

I grinned and said, "I don't know yet. What do you want to be when YOU grow up?" She said she did not know yet.

I guess I have a lot in common with a 4th grader. Age means nothing here.

---------
* If I remember the title correctly.

see that yellow grass there?

one year later

It's a year ago this week since I started chemo. It was on a Tuesday, like today, and the date was April 22.

The day before I started treatment Babs came with me for a training session. A nurse told us about drugs, side effects, what to eat during the months of treatment, and what not to eat. It was pretty overwhelming.

Then the next day Dan came with me for the actual infusions. It wasn't 10% as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn't 10% as bad as he thought it would be either. When we were done I waited outside while he got the car. He told me later that he thought he'd have to carry me the few steps between the bench were I was sitting and the curb, but I got up and walked just like a normal person.

The only images of cancer patients that are available in popular culture come from after school specials, movies like Terms of Endearment, and the cover of National Enquirer. It's not helpful. Cancer is a horrible disease, but many people go through treatment living relatively normal lives. It's perfectly possible to have a relatively normal life while being treated for cancer. But that doesn't make for any dramatic endings of movies, or dramatic cover stories.

and it's obviously a huge success

I read about (this links to a Swedish article, sorry) a Swedish grocery store where they've stopped throwing out the food when the dates expire.

What they do instead? They cook it. Just like you would at home. They've hired a chef, who cooks the food, and then they sell lunches. Genius.

fresh

blur

the tiniest

sugar

One of my students gives tours on campus for prospective students and their families. The other day she told me that a grateful mom had presented her with a bag of homemade cookies after one such tour. Job well done.

This reminded me of when one of my gay students had decided that he wanted to come out to the class. So one day he did, and as he was speaking the room was dead silent. Everyone, me too, was affected by his courage and honesty.

The next time the class met a girl brought him a plate of cookies. He accepted, puzzled.

windy

there aren't any european super heroes (did you ever think of that?)

I've seen a movie and a British TV series recently that kind of reminded me of each other.

First there was the Swedish film Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick). It tells the story of a working class Swedish woman in the early 20th century. Her 'everlasting moments' are the images she captures with her camera, and the movie shows clashes between creativity, poverty, and gender roles, in a changing society.

Then I watched the British TV series Cranford, which, similar to so many other British films and TV series (and novels), is set in the 1840s. It tells the stories of the people who make up a small village. The main theme is, again, the changing society; who stands to gain something from social change, who would loose.

Both stories put major emphasis on education. It is through education people achieve change in their lives, and education is what some of the young main characters in both stories long for, but are told they cannot have.

Probably because I live in the US, the stories struck me as extremely European. They show people living their lives within a societal structure, and they show the struggles that ensue when people feel limited by circumstance.

American popular fiction is not so much concerned with that. I think that is a pity. Because the limitations exist here too. We just don't talk about them as often.

gotta love the british

Click here for a surprise performance by a dowdy British 47-year-old.

the prettiest coastline

green green grass

translucent tulips

yep, that last birthday was a solidly middle age one

The gardens at Filoli are super pretty this time of year. They are also super crowded on the weekends. As a present to myself I've become a member, so I can go more often.

tulips

dying tulips

lilac

lily

happy monday everybody

Thanks to my favorite author.

from michelle, and the houston chronicle

My oh my:

AUSTIN — A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

longwinded association

In Wilhelm Moberg's series of novels (there is also a musical based on the novels, written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, the two Bs from ABBA) about a group of Swedes emigrating to America in the 1860s, the character Kristina spends most of her life in Minnesota being homesick for the old country. She has brought with her apples, and she plants a seed the first year. By the time she dies, the tree bears fruit in the new country.

The tree is of the Astrakan variety. Because of the popularity of the novels and musical, the word 'astrakan' has taken on a new meaning in Swedish. It connotates longing, belonging, homesickness, and loss.

So I laughed, and snapped a photo, when I found this sign at IKEA, the mothership of modern-times emigrant Swedes.

Min Astrakan (My Astrakan), from the musical:

birthday sushi/sashimi combo

little blue wildflower

I can't get over how green the California hills are right now, and will be for about three more weeks, before they go back to their normal yellow.

elephant seals at san simeon

Friends of the Elephant Seal.

unassuming little purple wildflowers

big sur, calif.

inland from san simeon, calif.

spring