Snow driving...

I haven't driven in snow since 1980 probably; so why start now? Because in Stryn, where we were last night there was over 1 meter of snowfall and towering mounds of show piled up on spare street corners. We left Stryn for Bergen this morning and I'm happy to say that we made it safe and sound, and the car is still in good shape with four fine fenders. One stretch of road is very narrow, only wide enough for one car. There are turnouts intermittently where you stop and wait if you meet a car. Today I saw a sign there that I've never noticed before, It says "Olden - Innvik
Norway's worst road"
I was in a little car wreck on that stretch in the late 80's, so I thought about that today as we carefully skidded across the snowy washboard textured surface, to our left was the unyeilding stone mountainside, to our immediate right the frigid, grey fjord. Then we met a car, and I had to stop and back up to the nearest wide spot.. got stuck and couldn't get out of there The nice man stopped and got out to push, and Inger J got out and pushed, and a truckdriver stopped and got out to help push, push from behind...no good, push from the front, no good...it's starting to snow...a car caught up behind us and couldn't get past, then a big bus came and had to wait...oh dear, then the nice truckdriver man got great big snow chains out and laid them out front of our right front tire, then they pushed, and we're on our way! We drove very carefully from there, up over the Utvik mountain pass, and ever so carefully back down, because of those nasty slippery hairpin curves - hitting the brakes to slow down can have unpredictable consequenses when the road is as slippery as an old soap dish...finally after Førde we had clear roads, now all I have to watch out for is those speed cameras...

the six days of facebook

On the first day of Facebook my network gave to me: forty-one new-found o-old friends.
On the second day of Facebook my network gave to me: two rude refusals a-and forty-two new-found old friends.
On the third day of Facebook my network gave to me: three inbox messages, two rude refusals a-and forty-three new-found o-old friends.
On the fourth day of Facebook my network gave to me: four mystery seeds, three inbox messages, two rude refusals a-nd forty five new-found o-old friends.
On the fifth day of Facebook my network gave to me: five on line friends! Fou-r mystery seeds, three inbox messages, two-o rude refusals a-and forty-seven new-found o-old friends.
And on the sixth day of Facebook the fates hand out to me...no-broadband-basement!
No more online friends, no mystery seeds, inbox is all dead, two rude refusals, but still all my new-found o-old friends!

My brother and the King of Norway

This was also in San Bruno; my mother found out that King Olav was flying in to San Fransisco. This was before the days of terrorism as we know it today, so we could go in to the gate area and actually meet the plane. The Mayor of San Fransisco (Mr. Alioto?) was there along with a gaggle of officials to present the king with the keys of the city. We were also there, dressed in our Norwegian national costumes. My brother was sitting on our dad's shoulders and he was waving the Norwegian flag, so of course it was quite natural for the king to bypass all the black suited officials and come right over to us to shake our hands! My dad says he made one mistake that he's regretted ever since: he should have introduced the Olav to the San Fransisco mayor!

The car

This summer in Denmark a young man gave me the keys to the Diesel Toyota Corrola, then he took me out for a test drive to teach me the finer points of driving a modern car.

It's got a gearbox, a stickshift, a dashboard, a cockkpit;
It goes into 5th gear, no fear;
Sure Joe, we have a turbo, fog lights, so we can see the streetlights
We got a CD player for sound bites.

We have seat warmers for cold mornings
we have a super sonic back up warning signal system
studded snow tires and please don't forget the 60,000 km service
all under full price warranty guarantee...

It's a modern automobile...

my brother and the garbage man

The muse struck me with a vengeance, but it was short lived as you will see.
I finished first grade at Carl Sandburg Elementary in San Bruno California. At that time My brother would have been 3 years old I think. I remember he had two favorite toys, one was a police car made by Mattel. He loved it so much that he spent one morning pounding it bang bang bang flat with a silver hammer. His other favorite toy was a little two wheeled scooter made out of bright yellow and orange plastic of the type that the “Big Wheels” of the 70's were made of.. He used it so much that he wore holes on the wheels. I remember thinking that they should have been made out of something real, like good old fashioned rubber...anyway, my brother was totally impressed with the garbage man. The garbage man had a great big dump truck and he came once a week with a big impressive bang and crash, then he'd bump and rumble away with all the romance and valor of a modern day action hero. As the trash collector moved on my brother would follow him on his rounds. His little scooter didn't come equipped with GPS, so he got lost lost and didn't find his way back home so my mom had to go out all over the neighborhoods looking for him. It got quite dramatic because it would be hours before he'd be found. It's probably a good thing that the wheels were made out of plastic and not rubber.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to chase trash trucks,
let them build plenums and peddle cold air.
Momma's don't let your babies grow up to chase trash trucks,
They'll never stay home cuz they're hero's a sanitation engineeeeeeeeer

But a Trane man's good man,
he grew past the trash can
and now he's got a wheelin dealin real estate careeeeeer.

the season is closing in on us

To share some cheer:

From Drop Box

We will be on the road for several weeks, I may take the opportunity to give the keyboard a break, rest my elbow and heal the tendons.
Or I may be back in a few days to blog my garbage truck chasing little brother...we'll see.

Grudgingly from the Pensieve

By special request from an English teacher (I think)

August 10, 1974 I was at Gilroy for a four day convention. That morning at breakfast as I was pouring her a cup of tea, Elizabeth Jamison told me that President Nixon had resigned. That was a surprise to me in that same way that Edith Hansen at the 5&10 surprised me. I didn't expect her to have read the paper before breakfast! Well, Elizabeth was an informed lady. And I remember she was cool and calm about this news.
Now, I knew about the Watergate thing, and there was plenty of turmoil and strife over the Vietnam war, also the gas crunch which all had taken place during the Nixon era. So this is some of what likely set the stage for Nixon's imminent impeachment or resignation.
Poor Gerald, the first thing I remember him doing was pardoning Richard, which was a fairly decent gesture, perhaps absolved himself in the process?
Ok, without resorting to wikipedia, this is all I can come up with. I was busy in High School: first for six weeks in Castro Valley, before we moved to Livermore. I tried to get my mom to sign me up at the continuation school down the street, but they wouldn't take me, so I had to go to Granada High. By then I'd had plenty of education and would have gladly done high school by correspondence, but it didn't seem to be an option.
What do I think of Gerald's presidency? He never asked for the job, but somebody had to do it. Just like I had to finish high school.

Lurking around in the resthome

I'm going to try and be nimble with words and think on my seat to give you a flavor of life at "Hegratun"
We are just temporary where ever we are so now we rent an unused wing of this old folks home. It's a very interesting experience for me in many ways. The residents are very friendly and kind, and a few of them are eager to chat with us. Of course they are lonely, but there is a prevailing spirit of good cheer.
My cohort volunteers to go in after meals and help with dishes. She only does this when we are here, of course we have lots going on, so it doesn't work for her to do that every day.
The community is good at coming in and looking after the residents in different ways. A month or so ago the kindergarten was here and took the place by storm.
This week a choir came to sing for the seniors. They were a fun group of retired folk who just sing, they don't do parts, they just belt it out whether they can sing or not! Their leader, a man with eleven siblings, told us that he and his younger brother (also a member of the choir) were told not to sing at school because: "you can't sing, so you just sing inside yourself" Well now they have overcome this childhood repression and are making up for lost time! (My dad, who belongs to that same generation has had the same treatment, but he sings too now!)
We all sang several songs together then we had a beautiful coffee and Norwegian open faced sandwich party. It was really touching to see how pleased the seniors were and how much they enjoyed the treats. And I loved the singing. There is something about the Norwegian language that moves a primitive chord in me. I can't explain it, but that's just how it is.
If you were once Amish you might understand.
Oh, I thought I was done, just one more thing:
The knitting cafe meets here every second week. This is also nice for the seniors who are here, because they mix with others. Today was a knitting cafe day. We are invited too, so today I was sitting there furiously knitting away, then I discovered I had gone too far and had to unravel a bunch. "So do I unravel it all here now in front of all these ladies who are pros?...or do I put it away and sit here and twiddle my thumbs?" "Aw what the rip, just go for it" So then I had a lap full or unraveled yarn, but no big deal.
Afterwards we were invited in for dinner, we had "pinne kjøt" which is traditional Christmas food. It's cured lamb ribs, we ate it every Christmas eve when I was growing up. In the picture you see the mashed rutabaga, it's the orange stuff. It was truly delicious!

Life in the retirement home

New President and my views on politics

I know that there is stuff going on that's important in the big picture of the world. But I have to think about stuff for a long time before I write about it. Check back in 30 years to hear my views on this campaign.

Tennis lessons

One summer we got signed up for summer school, it was the summer we were on Pacific Ave. in Olympia. My mom took us down to the sporting goods store and got us each a racket. Not the best ones in the store of course, because who knew if we were really going to like playing tennis or not? I was quite proud of my collegiate looking wooden tennis racket and spent a lot of time gripping its handle and studying the way the tape was wrapped around the grip. I looked at the strings how they were threaded into the head of the racket; I admired my new possession, and as a result admired my self a bit more than I had admired myself before.

I'm pretty sure that my brother and I had these lessons together, maybe. Anyway once we got to the tennis court we met our teacher. She was a short, wide, pale, husky woman with a severe haircut wearing white shorts and a yellow cotton top. As soon as I saw her, and saw the other kids already lobbing shots to each other with shiny bright aluminum rackets that reflected sunshine, skill and future victories, I got a bad feeling about my future as a tennis champion.

But I learned to enjoy just serving onto the gym wall, and amused myself that way while the mysteriously skilled and privileged kids hogged the court. I was glad not to play with them. I froze up as soon as she said I wasn't swinging my racket with proper form. Her hero was Billie Jean King; I was glad to see the last of her, Ms Tennisteacher.

Well anyway, nothing is in vain in this life. Because I have learned just in the last few weeks from my gentle readers that tennis rackets are effective weapons with which to defend oneself from bats! That information brought to mind a great game of badminton I had with some May flies.

It was the spring of 1994 in Lviv. It was May, and the flies were thick. We had an excellent view of the garbage cans from our every window; it was a straight shot for those flies to come to our place looking for desert.

They buzzed and bombed around our fifth floor apartment in the most annoying way and finally I snapped. I grabbed the flyswatter and instead of smacking a fly when it landed, I made contact with it in mid-air and shot it back across the room. I had the greatest fun! It was like a magical tennis game or badminton with several live birdies! It was better that a computer game where you get a burst of balls, because I could dash around the room and swing my arms and feel the satisfying soft THUD of connecting with a fuzzy furry fly. It was also great therapy since we didn't have anywhere to go to workout we didn't get much aerobic exercise. I had a great time with those May flies, and every year since then I've really looked forward to spring.

The forming of a nonconformist

In my infamous bellybutton post, (after which my parents nearly disowned me and Anita had to do overtime counseling) I mentioned leotards, or tights, or whatever we call them. In our house we said 'strømpebukse'. And like I said there I had to wear them and they were a sagging-down type of a garment. I also had a beautiful hand knitted sweater made for me by my mormor. I'm pretty sure she had made it. Anyway, I wore that sweater to school one day, (this was kindergarten – first semester). My fashion conscious classmates got the message across to me that it was not cool to wear hand knitted sweaters to school...it was so un-Barbie...or whatever. So I went home and explained to my mom that I'd be needing a new sweater because I wouldn't be wearing that one anymore. Also I needed a lunchbox with the Monkeys on it with a matching thermos. So my mom told me how special it was to have a hand made, hand knitted sweater made by mormor far away in Norway, and that if I was the only one to have such a beautiful sweater of course that would provoke jealousy in kids whose grandmothers couldn't even knit. They were lucky if their grandmothers could crochet afghans.
Thereafter I wore my sweater, and many other garments with defiant pride. It is interesting to remember that Mrs. Pyland, our kindergarten teacher read us a story about a little boy who had special hand made socks which he wore to school and was mocked by his classmates. It seems he also was an overcomer.
Oh yes, and I decided that I didn't want a stupid lunch pail either.

Horses I've known