Saturday, November 22, 2008
p.s.
We finally caved, bought a new bed at IKEA yesterday. I was sick of waking up with cramped shoulders from gripping so tightly to my 1.5 feet of space. So Thor hooked a trailer up to his car and we carried the bed home and loaded it in. Ol' Agnes walked into our apartment and looked around. "But where's Ben's bed?" she asked. Apparently we've been like Ernie and Bert in her mind.
Six Hours of True Daylight...
No, seven.
The sun is "up" at eight and it's dusk by three. The true bright sunlight is from about ten to two these days. I did my daily walk at 3:30 today and caught another of Oslo's brilliant sunsets through the trees skirting the Vigeland Park.
These are the koselig days...I just stocked up on candles at IKEA, and so far, so good on the seasonal affective disorder. At this point, only a month or so into winter, the dark feels sort of festive and romantic and nice, and I value the light so much when it's here. I wonder how I'll be doing in January? February?
We went to England for a few days. My parents were there and I went and spent two days with them at my aunt and uncle's place in Reading. Ben met me there in time for an Indian feast and then the two of us went into London for three days. Nice times in London; despite some rainy weather and a little travel-weariness on my part we saw some great art and some great friends. The Rothko at the Tate Modern was fabulous, but then, I have seldom met a Rothko I didn't like.
We also saw the Turner Prize finalists at the Tate Britain, which to my mind was not worth the seven-pound entrance fee, as well as a Gerhard Richter exhibit at the Serpentine Gallery that was good but made much better by the quality of the Serpentine Gallery's bookstore, where Ben and I spent an hour and would have spent more had our old friend Sarah not called to arrange immediate lunch plans. Sarah is our friend from Peru, a woman we lived with for a month in Cusco in 2004 and whom we'd not seen since January 2, 2005, when, still hungover from New Year's Eve, Ben and I left her in the pouring rain to catch a bus to Bolivia. She hasn't changed--it was lovely to see her.
Then an amazing vegetarian Indian meal with my relatives Sue and Derek. I think I would have enjoyed the meal even more if I hadn't had Nepalese for lunch and Indian the two previous nights. Oops.
Then back to winter in Oslo. Agnes clearly thinks it's time to ski:
But Inga just wants to lie around doing eye-rubs.
And this, friends, is truly the man of the hour: guess who passed the California Bar on the first try? The one, the only...
Marcus Benjamin Eichenberg. Hurra! Gratulerer, Ben!
Vi sees,
Susie
The sun is "up" at eight and it's dusk by three. The true bright sunlight is from about ten to two these days. I did my daily walk at 3:30 today and caught another of Oslo's brilliant sunsets through the trees skirting the Vigeland Park.
These are the koselig days...I just stocked up on candles at IKEA, and so far, so good on the seasonal affective disorder. At this point, only a month or so into winter, the dark feels sort of festive and romantic and nice, and I value the light so much when it's here. I wonder how I'll be doing in January? February?
We went to England for a few days. My parents were there and I went and spent two days with them at my aunt and uncle's place in Reading. Ben met me there in time for an Indian feast and then the two of us went into London for three days. Nice times in London; despite some rainy weather and a little travel-weariness on my part we saw some great art and some great friends. The Rothko at the Tate Modern was fabulous, but then, I have seldom met a Rothko I didn't like.
We also saw the Turner Prize finalists at the Tate Britain, which to my mind was not worth the seven-pound entrance fee, as well as a Gerhard Richter exhibit at the Serpentine Gallery that was good but made much better by the quality of the Serpentine Gallery's bookstore, where Ben and I spent an hour and would have spent more had our old friend Sarah not called to arrange immediate lunch plans. Sarah is our friend from Peru, a woman we lived with for a month in Cusco in 2004 and whom we'd not seen since January 2, 2005, when, still hungover from New Year's Eve, Ben and I left her in the pouring rain to catch a bus to Bolivia. She hasn't changed--it was lovely to see her.
Then an amazing vegetarian Indian meal with my relatives Sue and Derek. I think I would have enjoyed the meal even more if I hadn't had Nepalese for lunch and Indian the two previous nights. Oops.
Then back to winter in Oslo. Agnes clearly thinks it's time to ski:
But Inga just wants to lie around doing eye-rubs.
And this, friends, is truly the man of the hour: guess who passed the California Bar on the first try? The one, the only...
Marcus Benjamin Eichenberg. Hurra! Gratulerer, Ben!
Vi sees,
Susie
Monday, November 10, 2008
Nesodden, Hafsjell, Oslo
Hei hei,
Probably because I'm procrastinating on all the many things I hope/have to do before I fly to London for five days on Friday, I decided to check in. Not tons to report; it's been a fairly busy and fairly happy/happier/at least not-so-bad couple of weeks. One highlight was our trip to Nesodden, a peninsula outside of Oslo, on the Sunday before Election Day (another highlight, of course, was election day. I surprised myself by feeling pretty blasé about the whole thing in the end, though I did get sort of emotional when I talked to my Norwegian students about how proud I was that we have an African-American president-elect--and they all looked up at me and nodded solemnly in agreement). Pattie Belle, another Fulbrighter, and her husband Bjørn, and her daughter August, are renting a tiny ancient Norwegian house that overlooks the Oslofjørd and is just...so...perfect. I mean, check this out:
and the company was good, too. We of course talked politics and drank tea all afternoon, and after a walk where we posed for a photo--
we caught a ferry back to Oslo. It was about four thirty, and the sky was lit up in the most outrageous oranges and yellows and even purples. It turns out that one of the upshots of days that start to end at 4:00 is they go out with a spectacularly elongated bang.
Norway is indeed beautiful, a lot of the time. I'm realizing that it's a wet and rainy place, though (do I always end up in these places, or is it just me?), and some days are so gray it looks quite drab. Last night, driving home from Hafsjell--near Lillehammer, in the mountains, where we went to ski but there was no snow--it was pouring the whole time, and passing through one of those areas of highway that's all empty space and occasional industrial-type buildings just outside Oslo I said to Ben, "This place kind of reminds me of Moscow." Ben insists that because I was in Moscow when I was fifteen I can't remember it very well, but he's wrong, and I do, and for a second there I could see a long, cold, and very gray winter ahead...
Ben has been stressed out because exams are in a month and he missed a lot of school when Samm died. Ben is also a major procrastinator, but you didn't hear it from me. So he's been hitting the binders pretty faithfully as I do my own thing: read for class, read for fun, go for walks, write, teach, and stress out about marketing my book.
My brother has announced that he's coming for three weeks. Three weeks! It's a long time for anyone to crash in our twenty-by-fifteen apartment, and this is another reason I'm trying to get a lot of work done so I feel I can relax with J. when he comes. Since it's now public knowledge I might as well just come out with it: his wife of four months left him, out of the blue, with no warning and no reason that I can wrap my head around, and has proceeded to bad mouth him all over town--and because he has five weeks off from medical school he's coming here (Hawaii first, then Oslo...hmm). My little brother and I are extraordinarily close. We have that sort of relationship where, when I hear that someone has hurt or wronged him--though I know objectively he's a grownup now--I feel it in my own body. I got so upset when he told me what had happened I thought I might have a breakdown. (It didn't help that Samm had just died.) What's been funny about the whole thing, though, is how many people have told me that I shouldn't feel that way. "It's just a divorce," someone said. "It isn't about you," someone else said. "She's behaving like I'd expect someone to behave," someone else said. I finally took Thorbjørn to task on it this weekend. We were on a long walk and I happened to mention the fairly violent and angry dream I'd had about my brother's wife, and how I realized that it was better to work that out in dreams than in real life (duh). Then he told me he didn't understand why I was angry. As I explained to him, it's easy for him to say--and while I wish I could be the sort of person who looks at lemons and starts rattling off a lemonade recipe in her head, I'm not. So while, intellectually, I can see that what I need to do is put the whole thing behind me and encourage my bro to do the same, it's been hard. I am much better, but I took this photo of myself a few weeks ago. I was out at Bygdøy, looking into the water and feeling awful. It's a terrible picture. I mean, thank God I don't look like this all the time, eh?
But, to continue with this thought, I love that I have the sort of relationship with Thor where I can tell him when he's full of it. I was ruminating on it this weekend, when we went with him and Kristin and jentene--the girls--up to Hafsjell. We have this really nice friendship. He's sort of like a brother and an old friend wrapped up together. And lovely Kristin is just the icing on the cake.
Ben and I both had visits from Samm this week; him in a dream, me in an email. Mine I know will challenge even those of you who think you're woo woo, but I swear it was profound. I was looking through my email account, my old one I don't use too much but check weekly, and all of a sudden there were all these new emails I hadn't seen--some were resends, because I'd opened them before but there they were, new; and some I hadn't seen ever. Samm had written me an email for my birthday, just four days before she died, and when it appeared in my inbox, new message from Samm, I sort of gasped. I think what was most neat about it was that she said she wished she were in a foreign country, and in a way, I guess she is now, whatever it might look like there.
We're off to London this week, both of us. My folks will be there on the weekend, and I'm excited to see them. Then we'll spend a few days in the city with some friends of Ben's from Portland. I'm looking forward to it, both getting away and seeing some pals. My students turn in their mandatory essays this week, and I'm done teaching on Thursday--but with a fair amount of grading to do until my contract runs out at the end of December.
A few more pics of Norway I wanted to share:
Bygdøy; Ben with his old pal John McCain at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, circa three a.m., Election Day; and Stine and Kreg, new pals, with Agnes, on Halloween:
Smiling Rams:
Smiling Agnes:
"Smiling" Ben:
And "smiling" Thor:
Hope all of you are well. Drop me a line!
Love,
Susie
Probably because I'm procrastinating on all the many things I hope/have to do before I fly to London for five days on Friday, I decided to check in. Not tons to report; it's been a fairly busy and fairly happy/happier/at least not-so-bad couple of weeks. One highlight was our trip to Nesodden, a peninsula outside of Oslo, on the Sunday before Election Day (another highlight, of course, was election day. I surprised myself by feeling pretty blasé about the whole thing in the end, though I did get sort of emotional when I talked to my Norwegian students about how proud I was that we have an African-American president-elect--and they all looked up at me and nodded solemnly in agreement). Pattie Belle, another Fulbrighter, and her husband Bjørn, and her daughter August, are renting a tiny ancient Norwegian house that overlooks the Oslofjørd and is just...so...perfect. I mean, check this out:
and the company was good, too. We of course talked politics and drank tea all afternoon, and after a walk where we posed for a photo--
we caught a ferry back to Oslo. It was about four thirty, and the sky was lit up in the most outrageous oranges and yellows and even purples. It turns out that one of the upshots of days that start to end at 4:00 is they go out with a spectacularly elongated bang.
Norway is indeed beautiful, a lot of the time. I'm realizing that it's a wet and rainy place, though (do I always end up in these places, or is it just me?), and some days are so gray it looks quite drab. Last night, driving home from Hafsjell--near Lillehammer, in the mountains, where we went to ski but there was no snow--it was pouring the whole time, and passing through one of those areas of highway that's all empty space and occasional industrial-type buildings just outside Oslo I said to Ben, "This place kind of reminds me of Moscow." Ben insists that because I was in Moscow when I was fifteen I can't remember it very well, but he's wrong, and I do, and for a second there I could see a long, cold, and very gray winter ahead...
Ben has been stressed out because exams are in a month and he missed a lot of school when Samm died. Ben is also a major procrastinator, but you didn't hear it from me. So he's been hitting the binders pretty faithfully as I do my own thing: read for class, read for fun, go for walks, write, teach, and stress out about marketing my book.
My brother has announced that he's coming for three weeks. Three weeks! It's a long time for anyone to crash in our twenty-by-fifteen apartment, and this is another reason I'm trying to get a lot of work done so I feel I can relax with J. when he comes. Since it's now public knowledge I might as well just come out with it: his wife of four months left him, out of the blue, with no warning and no reason that I can wrap my head around, and has proceeded to bad mouth him all over town--and because he has five weeks off from medical school he's coming here (Hawaii first, then Oslo...hmm). My little brother and I are extraordinarily close. We have that sort of relationship where, when I hear that someone has hurt or wronged him--though I know objectively he's a grownup now--I feel it in my own body. I got so upset when he told me what had happened I thought I might have a breakdown. (It didn't help that Samm had just died.) What's been funny about the whole thing, though, is how many people have told me that I shouldn't feel that way. "It's just a divorce," someone said. "It isn't about you," someone else said. "She's behaving like I'd expect someone to behave," someone else said. I finally took Thorbjørn to task on it this weekend. We were on a long walk and I happened to mention the fairly violent and angry dream I'd had about my brother's wife, and how I realized that it was better to work that out in dreams than in real life (duh). Then he told me he didn't understand why I was angry. As I explained to him, it's easy for him to say--and while I wish I could be the sort of person who looks at lemons and starts rattling off a lemonade recipe in her head, I'm not. So while, intellectually, I can see that what I need to do is put the whole thing behind me and encourage my bro to do the same, it's been hard. I am much better, but I took this photo of myself a few weeks ago. I was out at Bygdøy, looking into the water and feeling awful. It's a terrible picture. I mean, thank God I don't look like this all the time, eh?
But, to continue with this thought, I love that I have the sort of relationship with Thor where I can tell him when he's full of it. I was ruminating on it this weekend, when we went with him and Kristin and jentene--the girls--up to Hafsjell. We have this really nice friendship. He's sort of like a brother and an old friend wrapped up together. And lovely Kristin is just the icing on the cake.
Ben and I both had visits from Samm this week; him in a dream, me in an email. Mine I know will challenge even those of you who think you're woo woo, but I swear it was profound. I was looking through my email account, my old one I don't use too much but check weekly, and all of a sudden there were all these new emails I hadn't seen--some were resends, because I'd opened them before but there they were, new; and some I hadn't seen ever. Samm had written me an email for my birthday, just four days before she died, and when it appeared in my inbox, new message from Samm, I sort of gasped. I think what was most neat about it was that she said she wished she were in a foreign country, and in a way, I guess she is now, whatever it might look like there.
We're off to London this week, both of us. My folks will be there on the weekend, and I'm excited to see them. Then we'll spend a few days in the city with some friends of Ben's from Portland. I'm looking forward to it, both getting away and seeing some pals. My students turn in their mandatory essays this week, and I'm done teaching on Thursday--but with a fair amount of grading to do until my contract runs out at the end of December.
A few more pics of Norway I wanted to share:
Bygdøy; Ben with his old pal John McCain at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, circa three a.m., Election Day; and Stine and Kreg, new pals, with Agnes, on Halloween:
Smiling Rams:
Smiling Agnes:
"Smiling" Ben:
And "smiling" Thor:
Hope all of you are well. Drop me a line!
Love,
Susie
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