Everything is amazing, and nobody is happy...

When I was little we didn't even have a rotary dial - we just wound the phone up and were put through to the operator...

This guy makes a lot of sense! And yes, I still think technology is pretty amazing!  :D

Random facts that you always wanted to know

About mememe. I was tagged by DevilMood and how could I turn down such an offer...

The Rules:
- Link to the person that tagged you. Check
- Post the rules on your blog. Check
- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. Ok, I'll get to it
- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. We'll see about that...
- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

So I get to pick 6 random facts that I think you may not know about me, but don't come running back complaining if you're not shocked or repelled by any of these facts - I promise no such thing!

1) I had one doll as a child, a boy doll, named [same as hubby]. Sadly, the doll was very much neglected for my cars...

2) I sometimes get as far as the lift at work before looking at myself in a mirror (it's inevitable in that lift, they're all around!). Some days I don't look too bad, this morning I had to laugh...3) I have roamed around campus (uni. of Surrey...), pushing my friend in a trolley, while we were both screaming and / or trying to laugh like Eddie Murphy does in that film. (You may have done this too -- but we were sober, and this was in broad daylight. And we weren't even slightly embarrassed. Our friends were, though...)

4) Hubby is my first and only Norwegian boyfriend. And my last :) Before there was a Kenyan, a Dane, a South African, a Greek - and a few English. Very international, me ;) Got a very soft spot for Brits, though - and hubby's a gentleman as good as any of them!

5) I'm not interested in politics. Domestic politics. At all. I vote, but I don't read about it, and I certainly don't read detailed news. I read the sports section..

6) I always finished early on every exam, mock exam etc. I ever had. My university exam in English (in Oslo) was 8 hours, I was finished after 4. (I stayed on another hour and a half not to discourage my friend who would even be writing as she handed the stuff in, but I simply drew stickmen and wrote little poems that I threw away afterwards.) The trick is not to know too much. After 4 hours my brain was drained. I may not have passed with distinction, but I passed with enjoyment...

- And now I'll randomly choose not to tag anyone, except if you really want to, then you're it!

I met my childhood!

If anyone was watching, they may have found the following scenario slightly peculiar. It happened the other day. I was walking down the pavement towards my boat. A woman came up the pavement. Neither of us spoke, but as we got closer, we both opened our arms wide, and gave eachother a great, big hug. And another. As we hug, there is suddenly summer all around, and I'm about ten years old.

(Do you remember that scene from The Fisher King, where all the people at Grand Central station suddenly started waltzing together, for a brief moment, as our hero was watching his loved one walk past? It was just like that. Only without the music.)



No, I haven't completely lost it...

The woman was a vital part of my childhood summers. Every year until I was twelve, we'd spend summer at this island off the Swedish west coast. Every summer I'd play with this woman's sons and their cousins. I haven't seen her since then, but it was just like we'd never been apart.

And then winter returned, and I had to swish off to catch the boat and get the kids from school.

But we've got a lunch "date". Summer will return!

1968

Devil Mood did a great meme, and I feel so uninspired these days I'm letting her inspire me... The task is simple - type your year of birth and click google images, and voilà! A story to tell. Being born 1968 the difficult part is what not to post. I failed miserably on the leaving out bit...

The Norwegian king-to-be is finally allowed to wed his non-royal fiancée of 9 years. The bridal bouquet... The assassination of Martin Luther King jr.
"Pepsi-cola - the taste that turns you on!" Yeah, right...
And how gay is this? H & M advertisement


The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

Local council somewhere in Norway. Just look at them...

The riots in Paris!
1968 Cadillac ...
Yeah, it was still the 60's... Jimi Hendrix ruled!

The Beatles released The White Album
The fun people had...
Elvis at his most attractive... This was the year for his "sitdown", dubbed the world's first Unplugged...
.. and not forgetting the Black Power sign by Olympic gold and bronze medalists Smith and Carlos

This is my life (yeah, I Robbed that)

It took me 38 1/2 year, but I think I've figured it out now. I think I know what is me. These are all me, at various ages. (Note how the only grumpy face is me in a dress - and a headscarf! What were they thinking... And the only made-up face is from our wedding.) I've always loved being with kids, and having my own (here with Jakob) is no exception.I've always felt alright about me, about life, about what's happening. I tend not to dwell on what's not so good - in fact I actually forget the worst bits, and then I'm truly surprised when others drag old stuff back out again.

There are always things - about myself mostly - that I wouldn't mind seeing changed. I could've been smaller, I could have been calmer around my kids (or they could start listening, it's an option...), I could've spent less time in fron of this screen... But basically, I'm content. In fact, blogging / fooling around online keeps me content. And real life makes it all add up to happy.

It's been like that for a while already. But only recently I've made some sort of self-knowledge. At 38 1/2 it's like I woke up, stopped up, to think - hey, this is me!

This is me. I have done a lot of waiting. I've waited to grow up. I've waited to become slim (pah!). I've waited to somehow fit into 'adult woman' kind of clothes. Or conversation. But I'll stop all that. This is who I am and I really don't want to be anybody else. (Ok, I guess I'd stay myself even if I lost a pound or two. But I'm digressing. As usual...) I'll never enjoy dressing up, or cocktail parties, or exquisite food*. I'll enjoy snooker, blogging, pizza, rock concerts. And I will have an LFC tattoo after sun & bathing season...

*Seriously, I think gourmet food - 1 shrimp finely adorned in seaweed on a plate / 2 squid legs tied in a bow and spattered with liquer / 1 strip of red meat on a bed of fungus ... You get the idea - is all some lame excuse to distinguish between classy and not so classy people. I'm right there with the not so classy. And I thrive there...

Class of '81

Some of us have kept in touch after school, first with the unavoidable Christmas cards, later with occasional text messages and e-mails. When I was still single I'd be home at least once a year, after the quads we've all been there once, I was once more - on a junior high school reunion.

But yesterday a childhood friend, J, came by. She was down south for a work seminar.
You can see us both in this photo, along with the rest of a clearly pastel influenced bunch of pre-teens...

I was thinking about old days and feeling rather nostalgic driving down to get her from the boat. The radio somehow picked up my vibes, and suddenly Kiss' "I was made for loving you" came on. It was THE hit in our class the year this photo was taken. I was screaming along at the top of my lungs! And suddenly I felt like I was 12. Away with my class for a week at a school camp, staying up past curfew to "collect" goodnight hugs from the boys (we kept a list), listening to Kiss during daytime and the hushed whispers of the girls in my room at night.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, backing up the car to park. I could see the 12-year-old still lurking.

Roots = Routes?

The first time I ever went to Greece I was 13 years old. I went there with my dad, who'd been longing to go ever since he studied Classical Greek at university.

This was a long time ago, and Hersonisos, Crete, was a simple fishing village with the odd tourist added. We were adding to that!

As soon as I set foot on Crete - literally - I felt so exhileratingly happy! As if I'd been homesick all my life and finally had made my way back to my roots. You can see from this photo comment how I felt about it all...

Needless to say, it wasn't mine - or our - last trip. The other photo is from the following summer, taken on the boat going to Chora Sfakion from Agia Roumeli, where we ended up having walked down the Samaria Gorge. Again. (Daddy's girl, me...?)

I've only experienced the same homecoming feeling one other place. Not at home. But the first - and so far only - time I went to Dublin, the exact same feeling set in when I stepped out of the plane. The fog, the rain, the customs manager waving me past as an EU citizen although I insisted I wasn't (I came on a plane from England) - it meant nothing, I was home.

Go rabh maith agat and ευχαριστώ πάρα πολύ!

My kids sometimes ask where they were before I met their dad. I have settled for "in God's heart". But perhaps, more accurately, they were hopping between Greece and Ireland too?

Play house

When I was young, free and single, I sometimes used to babysit for my friends. Or their kids, rather.

For one family in particular, I used to love coming to babysit their kids. Whether it be their firstborn, in their tiny student flat - or later, babysitting all three lovely girls in their terraced house, not far from where we're currently living. (These kids now babysit mine. A win-win situation! Here they are, admiring our firstborn, New Year's Eve almost 8 years ago...)

When the kids were tucked away in bed (and I'd finished reading an entire book and singing all the lullabies I knew), I'd play house... I'd pretend it was my house, my kids, and - more often than not - my mess. I didn't really bother about the mess I left around my own place, but these nights I'd tidy as if my life depended on it. Fold clothes, clear away all toys, put all books back in their shelves, do the dishes, vacuum the floor... Needless to say, my friends didn't mind having me over!

The thing is, though, I'm still at it. Playing house, that is. Because if I tidy & clean around here (mainly after being urged by my sweet hubby, who's a much better housewife than I am - without becoming a housewoman, I hasten to add!) - I mean really bring the house to shine - I feel like I've done a great part in a play, or performed well in some avantgarde theatre.

I feel I may not be taking housekeeping seriously! To think I should be doing this, voluntarily, without even considering doing such unhousely things as blogging first, on a daily basis, worries me. A little. If I think about it... I play "let's wear blinders/blinkers* and not see the mess" rather better than "let's do the chores first and then, if time permits, do other, not quite so necessary business, like blogging", I'm afraid...

*British and American. As they say, two (more!) nations divided by a common language...

Train of birthday thoughts

My birthday's coming up, so I thought about other birthdays I've had. Quite a few, my birth certificate tells me, but I can only remember a few of them, so I should be ok...

The first one I remember is my 12th or 13th birthday (see? I can't even remember which one..). My sister was in the States as an exchange student, and called home to congratulate me. I didn't come to the phone because "I didn't know what to talk to her about"! The first and last time in my life I kept my silence...

Then I remember my 16th, I spent most of it outdoors with a couple of friends, fighting our way through the sleet (on the ground and falling from the air...), tossing the odd snowball at passers-by, and not doing anything worth mentioning, really. Why we were out there I'm not sure, but even if I weren't enjoying it particularly at the time, it's one of the few I remember...

My 18th birthday my friends came round and had cake and all, while I was hacking away one the last many pages of a dissertation that was due the next day... Oh, and they gave me a teddy bear that I've still got - that is, I donated it to the kids (super kind).

No. 23 (will this never end, you say, is she now 75? But not quite...) I had a whole lot of people over, I think everyone were having a grand time. But me. I was rushing around making sure everybody was happy, had plenty to eat and drink and generally cleaning up. Hmmrphf.

When I turned 24 my flatmate, Børge, arranged the whole party in our flat - he cooked, served, cleaned, etc. and made me look good to my friends (amongst them, Rarity). I loved him for it - still do!

At 30, my hubby managed to arrange for a surprise party - about 20 family and friends were there when I got home from town! Excellent work... And when our then 11 month old Jakob spilled all his food on my (only!) dress, I was told to open one of the parcels that contained - you guessed it! - a new dress... Was Jakob in on it all along?

Now, I'll stop right there. Never trust a woman who tells you her age, she'll tell you anything! Oh, and I'll be 37 next...

Armaedes had a list of horrible things happening to him on his every birthday! Hopefully others have had more pleasant celebrations most years...

Madonna and I

I used to think I was gay. Until I hit puberty and my body came out - a girl! I'd never noticed until then. Even though I spent more time with the girls in school than the boys, I still felt that whenever I was staring at them (i.e. the boys) I really shouldn't be... I secretly listened in on news relating to gays, because nobody had to know that was me, right?

Even at uni - obviously not the most feminine of girls (never knew what make-up was, still don't!) - people would often think I was gay. Only - they would think I was a lesbian... Until they got to know me better and found out that I really, really like boys. (Now, I'm not talking man-eating here, far from it, mostly man-watching!)

I've always wanted to be a mum, though, and now I've been blessed with five - and a gorgeous husband! - I do feel I'm on the right shelf (or whatever it's called), but I still prick up my ears when I hear the word 'gay', as if I was mentioned by name.

I guess that's one of very few things Madonna and I have in common (if she really did say this, that is!) - 'I'm a fag trapped in a girl's body'...