Wanna hear a somewhat awesome story?

                                                                                                           03.february 2014

It's from last summer. And I didn't think that much of it then, but my mother keeps retelling it to people so it occured to me that maybe I should tell it to people too. It is, after all, kinda cool.

In the summer my neighbor's dog managed to break free from her leash and chase my cat. Said neighbor chased the dog at once and stopped her before any damage was done, but my cat zoomed off like a rocket and we couldn't find him anywhere. I looked for him around the house, through different neighbors's gardens, up and down the street, and I started to get really worried and frustrated.

After a while I just stood at our terrace and called for him, almost ready to give up.
Right then, this common magpie lands at a birch-branch right next to me. And I mean right next to me, I could almost touch him. And I was like "well, hello old neighbor, you're awefully intimate today, what gives?"

Now I've always thought of the common magpie as a fairly dull bird. But I read somewhere that they can get over 10 years old and that they are intelligent enough to recognize themselves in a mirror (wich makes them, not only the most intelligent species of birds, but one of the world's most intelligent animals). They also, apparently, have a very strong family bond. And I realize that the bird I found in my company must have grown up alongside my 13 year old cat and that this bird's parents must have been the ones chasing my cat across the lawn when he, as a young'un, had been raiding their nest.
Anyways, this bird flyes up and sits down on a telephone line outside our garden.
And he waits until, it seems, he's certain my eyes have followed him.

He then flyes up again and this time lands in a tree next to my neighbor's garage. A tree that also contains my, still terrified, cat. It took us an hour, but my brother and I managed to lure our cat down with some tuna and he's now living happily ever after. Hopefully; so is the gentleman magpie.

True story.

Setting fire to our insides for fun

Sometimes (or actually most times) I write elaborate blogposts and then at last minute it feels wrong to post them.
I wrote three during this winter/spring without daring posting them, but for some reason it feels ok now, when some time has passed.
I don't know what I'm scared of, but that's just how it is.
But I am trying to clean up this mess that is me, and I will post those blogs.

I am going away on holiday for four weeks. (madness. four whole weeks. I'll be dead tired when I return.)
So I thought I would schedule said posts to appear on the sundays when I'm away.
When I return I promise to write (and publish!) a post about southern Germany and my adventures there. (we'll be taking a quick quick stop in France too, I'm really quite extatic about that part.)

I'm also working on a post about my absolute favourite cities around the world, inspired by my trip to Turku this spring, but it's not finished yet.


Oh, and here are some wonderful music. Daughter really makes the most beautiful music I know of right now. I love the lyrics. And I love how the sound builds up with the guitars and the drums. It's so simple and yet so massive. (and yes, it's the one from the Widerø-commercial).

A reflection. (on my socializing capasity)

I haven't blogged in ages.
But I have done some thinking. (And I've been through my annual autumn-depression, during which blogging feels hard and redundant.)

Here's the thinking I've done:
I kind of want this blog to be filled with... thoughts. You know like my "If you garden them and water them"-post or the post about synesthesia. And filled with events like when I went to Edinburgh and such.

These thoughts and events doesn't happen every day so there's gonna be gaps between posts.
I feel that for trivialities (you know like pictures of my food and what TV-show I'm watching) platforms like tumblr, twitter and facebook are more fitting.

I wont start using my facebook.
This may sound as if I'm opposed to facebook as a concept, but I'm not, I'll try to explain:
I am somewhat weird when it comes to socializing. I can only handle it in limited doses and in certain forms.
I am capable of pushing myself out of this comfort zone, but if I do this for an extended period of time, I collapse, I black out, I freeze. And then we get weeks where I isolate myself, to the distress of friends sending me texts I never reply to, until I feel fit to go out and socialize again.
Facebook, for some reason, makes me feel uncomfortable and have this paralyzing effect on me.
I don't know why. There's something about the way it works.

It's like.
With twitter or tumblr or this blog it feels like I'm hanging my thought up on a billboard and whoever is interested can come and read it.
With facebook it feels like I'm standing in front of my new class, wearing only a bathing suit.

It's pretty irrational, I know.

I'm not comfortable in a bathing suit.



BUT I have been hanging around tumblr lately, and found I quite like it there.
So (and finally I get to the point) for those people sick of the gaps between my composed thought-posts, who just want to know how I am doing, what I had for dinner and what TV-show I'm watching... I made a tumblr:

meanwhileinreallife.tumblr.com

where I will share trivialities and probably reblog silly pictures of cats.

Ich habe Sauerkraut in meine Lederhosen

I have acquired an extra family (potential in-laws) that love Germany.
And I have decided that if I am to go on vacations to Germany every year in my future (and bring my future kids?), I can't keep having my boyfriend translating the restaurant's menu for me every single time.

So I'm teaching myself German.
I'm not going all out, I just want to be able to read signs and menus and to understand what the lady behind the counter is asking me (other that if I want a bag, I know that one. Eine Tüte bitte).

I feel mighty clever.
Though the thing I thought would make things easy (that the language is so similar to Norwegian) is actually making it harder. I have to learn which words are just versions of the Norwegian ones and which is completely different. And I'm no good at choosing the correct article (das, der, die), but I'm getting there.

Soon I'll be able to tell you more than that I have pickled cabbage in my leather pants.

Look. A picture that shows how committed I am (the German word sticker) and my boyfriend's painting skills!
(I got it as my Valentine gift this year. It's originally a painting by Picasso that means a lot to my boyfriend. Isn't he clever? :) )

If you garden them and water them

As a kid I was utterly useless when it came to houseplants. I once killed a cactus in less than a week. (Because I decided that this time I wouldn't forget to water my plant ...It drowned).

15 months ago I found a tiny Saintpaulia. It looked so lovely I decided to give plants another shot. And, worst case scenario; I would at least have some fun while it lasted.

I still have it, it is thriving and occasionally blooming.

My grandma loved houseplants. Her window sill would always be full of them. She and Mum would regularly go on shopping sprees dedicated for plants. And even though she liked lots of colors and would go into the shop with an open mind to what she'd get, she always came out with a pink one.

I have discovered a sort of ceremonial behavior within myself. When someone dies I want to do something that to me hold a strong connection to my image of that person. When my grandfather died I surprised my boyfriend by asking for a cup of coffee, which I usually didn't care for (now I kinda do, it's been two years), and when my grandma died I told my mother I would go out and buy a pink houseplant.

I didn't buy one; I inherited one of my grandma's (a Kalanchoe). And I still have it; It's growing at the speed of Alice and blooming merrily.

Watering my plants now, knowing it's been over a year, I can't help giving it some extra thought. I inherited two more plants of my grandma's and I've bought myself some more. They seem to be thriving, which makes me happy.

I guess as you grow older these things happen. You loose things. And you learn to take care of things.