Falling off

My friend Simone, who is living in San Miguel, Mexico, just sent me a slideshow of photos from her trip to Zacateca. Can I just admit that sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing in NORWAY when I could be in MEXICO?? Colorful buildings, hot and dry weather, cheap and delicious food, lovely faces...I felt a physical pang of jealousy when I saw those photos. Oslo is dark until 9:00 in the morning and then we get a few hours of gray before the sun sets again at 3:00. Today it's snowing, sort of, but melting as soon as it hits the ground (isn't that the worst?). I haven't left my apartment yet but soon, soon, I will--have to bust out another chapter revision, then start work on a freelance proofreading job I picked up. Maybe I will be able to lose myself in my book, which is, after all, about Latin America. A girl can dream...

Still no news on the job front. I have blanketed the city in my resume and CV. The greatest phenomenon of the Norwegian job hunt has been the almost absolute refusal of anyone to actually return an email from me. Even people I know through friends, colleagues, my Dad. Someone told me it just isn't very Norwegian to return an email. Uh, great.

Ben said on Monday that he has this very Zen sense that things are just going to fall into place for us so I should just feel positive. Hope he's right. I mean, things already have--don't get me wrong. We have this wonderful grant, an opportunity to live abroad, etc. I'm just being grumpy, and a little worried about my end of the money stick for the spring. My life has been like this for years--always scrambling to find work, semester after semester, all so I can lead the writer's life and not work too hard. I shouldn't complain. But it gets old.

My brother is here. Actually he went to Bergen for a few days, but he's in Norway. We're trying to just circle him with love and kindness for a few weeks. He's still himself, just a sort of bruised and crushed version of himself. But he's going to be fine, he really is.

We had Thanksgiving...s. One last Wednesday, one on Thursday, one on Friday. The Thursday one entailed us cooking for Thor and Kristin and Petter, with little Agnes allowed to stay up with the grownups for the first time in her life. She sat very quietly at the table until she went and fell asleep on the couch listening to us talk. Her dad carried her to bed around 8:45. It was very sweet.

Here are a few pics.

Agnes and Rannveig helping us make pies:





Our beautiful table, thanks to Kristin and her excellent design sense:



And the first course, a roasted beet, arugula, and smoked mackerel salad that was, if I do say so myself, delicious:



On Friday Jodge and I explored Oslo a little, which was fun. Jodge is pretty excited about the pølse med lompe, the hot dog in tortilla, essentially, so we stopped for one of those on our way to the Resistance museum and the Akershus Schlott og Festning, which remains one of my favorite places in Oslo. The Resistance museum is really cool, if a bit more chaotic than I remembered. It details how the Norwegians stood up to Hitler and would feel like a very grave and serious place if you didn't find yourself cracking up about the seventies-style dioramas that display dramatic events in the lives of resisting Norwegians...rendered with the use of plastic army men, styrofoam, and cotton balls (for clouds, and, when colored with gray paint, explosions). We both totally cracked up when we got to the diorama where the army men were plagued not only by Nazis but by a giant life-sized spider:



Look out behind you!

We had a busy and social weekend, and a nice hike up in the Normarka on Sunday. It was nice to be the snow.



Love,

Susie