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.

Bodil Malmsten

I am really sad for people who don't read Swedish, because they can't read this blog by Bodil Malmsten, one of the best authors ever. (Her post from April 6 is multilingual, though.)
Half a minute later I realize that one of her books is available in an English translation. Amazon has it. Their review doesn't sound like much though. They are wrong. But only read the book if you are prepared for Scandinavian subtlety.

BBQ

Best early birthday dinner ever,
served up by Uncle Frank at
Uncle Frank's House of Barbeque:He used to be in East Palo Alto,
now he's in Mountain View.

The food is the best.
Here is the catfish:
Here is what's left of a pork rib:
Thanks Kathy!

one month and three days later

Happy Birthday Noel!

Jennifer J

This is Jenny in her Victorian Lesbian Dress,
making herself a part of her senior art show.
Her friend is really proud (you can tell).
This is the backside of the dress.
I think it's lovely.

This girl has a mind
of her own.

Jessica Lange

I just have to say that I think Jessica Lange is a real interesting actress. Here she is as the wife of a transgendering man in Normal (a real good film).
And here she is as Doreen in Don't Come Knocking, a beautiful film that I liked a lot. It actually became even better when later the same night I saw Walk the Line, the film about the life of Johnny Cash (and June Carter). Now that's a bad film.

mud

Today there was a mud slide in the Santa Cruz mountains that covered all four lanes of highway 17. It's been raining like crazy for a really long time. There is water on everything, everywhere. My car leaks so I don't like driving it. People don't use their headlights in the rain. Yesterday I saw a silver colored early 1960's VW bug on the freeway, no lights. The car was the color of the rain, and pretty much the size of the raindrops. I hope whoever drove it survived.

Dan took the photo of the rain on the nasturtium. (Later by me digitally altered.) Credit where credit's due.

Somewhat related: Starbucks makes mud pie ice cream bars that make loosing weight really very hard.

gelukkige verjaardag!

Grattis Karin!

It's my friend Karin's
birthday on April 4.
Karin looks like this:

Only cuter!

map

Putting myself on the map.

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.