föstudagur, apríl 30, 2004
Another quickie....(life is full of those). The kittens are born, 4 of them but the last one was dead. The three that are ok are mostly black with some orange? Úlla will give us photos and more details in the next few days. Manu was not home(he went to a town 2 hours away to play a concert and won’t be home until tomorrow evening) so poor Úlla had to be the ljósmóðir all by herself and Kisa needed her next to her all the time. We just finished talking with her and things are ok now. The little corpse is wrapped and in the fridge waiting for proper burial in the garden. And life goes on. So! stay tuned, good people, for more gerðurisms and the continuing reallife drama of Kisa and the Kittens. Góða nótt (why do I always attempt to blog in the night when I’m NOT a night person!?!)
mánudagur, apríl 19, 2004
A quickie bloggie ( a wetish doggie?...froggie?), just five minutes left of April the 18th here in Iceland....Mamma/Amma’s birthday. I’ve called my sisters and Úlla, and I’ve also talked with Dúdda and Enga (they called me). And so there goes the would-have-been 83rd year. These last two weeks actually may have been a kind of “turningpoint” for Mamma’s ethereal existence.....Esther Harris has joined her, and now I know that Mamma is glad that her trusted friend is with her to show her the way!(after all, it was Esther who drove Mamma everywhere in those last years!) And these two Wild Women are laughing and smoking and zooming around scaring the clouds and their inhabitants(See those feathers fly!!), looking for a good time while having a better one together. Yes these two are on their way, together. ;þ
And these past few days and those to come are choke full of birthday people!! All ladies!! Svala Daly is here in Iceland and celebrated her 70th on the 14th(?) Courtney turned 26 on the 15th. Steinunn’s mother Björg has her birthday on the 16th, and Mamma today....and then my best friend Mary-Win is on the 21st! So, til hamingju með afmælið hver og ein,....and now we can get on with the rest-of-our-lives. PARTY!!
(oh well, 8 mintues into the 19th)
And these past few days and those to come are choke full of birthday people!! All ladies!! Svala Daly is here in Iceland and celebrated her 70th on the 14th(?) Courtney turned 26 on the 15th. Steinunn’s mother Björg has her birthday on the 16th, and Mamma today....and then my best friend Mary-Win is on the 21st! So, til hamingju með afmælið hver og ein,....and now we can get on with the rest-of-our-lives. PARTY!!
(oh well, 8 mintues into the 19th)
miðvikudagur, apríl 14, 2004
Time to blog again, as it´s a pretty long time since I´ve written anything. I was actually too lazy to write during vacation which is what usually happens to me, when I´m on vacation I lose that desperate drive to finish everything I have to do, and end up doing nothing more than hang around and enjoy life. And that was exactly what I needed, a break from my normal life and a return to my preferred life, staying at home with Manu and Kisa, doing whatever comes to mind. We actually ended up spending more time with his family than we thought, since they decided that they would be coming to Iceland for our wedding (all of them: a total of 8, and some of them very big!) and they seem to be happy with the decision. So that´s fine, now it´s just wait and see how it´ll all turn out.
So, during vacation we caught up on video watching and moviegoing, we saw Big Fish which was pretty good, and the comedy with Jack Nicholson and diane Keaton (I don´t know the name in English) which is hilarious, J.N. doesn´t even need to do anything, just his face makes you explode with laughter. The videos weren´t as successful, we saw Master and Commander, a very thin plot, Dogville with Nicole Kidman, a movie that left us unable to sleep, it´s such a disturbing plot. Anyway, I know that Freysi won´t like my commenting on the movies, but anyway, the comments aren´t that specific,and he can just not read them. :) And what more? We saw Breakfast at Tiffany´s which I had never seen before, a great movie, with a great cat! And then of course they put on all the religious movies that have ever been made, Spartacus, Ben Hur, King of Kings.... I feel asleep in every one of them, since they´re in Spanish I always konk out, too tired in the evening to follow the language. Anyway, I found out that I have very scarce knowledge of what is supposedly my religion (although it really isn´t, I have my one personal beliefs), I hardly know the important stories. So there´s another study area I haven´t covered yet.
Kisa was very happy with us at home all day, that way she could ask for food several times a day and steal even more of ours. I took her to the vet yesterday, who said that she was huge for her time, so maybe she´ll have lots of kittens! They should pop out at the end of this month. I'm just waiting to see where she´s going to install herself, I hope it won´t be in our bed, though that´s the most likely place, she´s always there.
Back to the university yesterday, that wasn´t too fun. Too many assignments and too many of them have to be done in groups. I´m getting pretty tired of it all, and wish that it was over already.. I have six weeks left of classes, and then all of June is tests. And then vacation again! :)
So for now I can´t really read anything else than what I have to study, which sometimes gets me pretty annoyed, seeing that a lot of the things we have to study are not related to music at all. But I did manage to read a few other things during vacation, which was a nice change. I´m trying to read something in all three languages, the university covers Spanish, on the train I´m reading Mind, Brain and Art by Howard Gardner, very interesting, and at home I´m reading Laxdælasaga, I only just started it and it can get a bit confusing,the sagas always have too many characters and you confuse all of them, so maybe I´ll pick something easier for now.
I´m glad you all liked the invitations :) Bless í bili, úlla.
So, during vacation we caught up on video watching and moviegoing, we saw Big Fish which was pretty good, and the comedy with Jack Nicholson and diane Keaton (I don´t know the name in English) which is hilarious, J.N. doesn´t even need to do anything, just his face makes you explode with laughter. The videos weren´t as successful, we saw Master and Commander, a very thin plot, Dogville with Nicole Kidman, a movie that left us unable to sleep, it´s such a disturbing plot. Anyway, I know that Freysi won´t like my commenting on the movies, but anyway, the comments aren´t that specific,and he can just not read them. :) And what more? We saw Breakfast at Tiffany´s which I had never seen before, a great movie, with a great cat! And then of course they put on all the religious movies that have ever been made, Spartacus, Ben Hur, King of Kings.... I feel asleep in every one of them, since they´re in Spanish I always konk out, too tired in the evening to follow the language. Anyway, I found out that I have very scarce knowledge of what is supposedly my religion (although it really isn´t, I have my one personal beliefs), I hardly know the important stories. So there´s another study area I haven´t covered yet.
Kisa was very happy with us at home all day, that way she could ask for food several times a day and steal even more of ours. I took her to the vet yesterday, who said that she was huge for her time, so maybe she´ll have lots of kittens! They should pop out at the end of this month. I'm just waiting to see where she´s going to install herself, I hope it won´t be in our bed, though that´s the most likely place, she´s always there.
Back to the university yesterday, that wasn´t too fun. Too many assignments and too many of them have to be done in groups. I´m getting pretty tired of it all, and wish that it was over already.. I have six weeks left of classes, and then all of June is tests. And then vacation again! :)
So for now I can´t really read anything else than what I have to study, which sometimes gets me pretty annoyed, seeing that a lot of the things we have to study are not related to music at all. But I did manage to read a few other things during vacation, which was a nice change. I´m trying to read something in all three languages, the university covers Spanish, on the train I´m reading Mind, Brain and Art by Howard Gardner, very interesting, and at home I´m reading Laxdælasaga, I only just started it and it can get a bit confusing,the sagas always have too many characters and you confuse all of them, so maybe I´ll pick something easier for now.
I´m glad you all liked the invitations :) Bless í bili, úlla.
mánudagur, apríl 12, 2004
Annar í páskum is just 2 hours and 20 minutes away from ending and tomorrow morning Darri is back in school at 8 AM (definitely not looking forward to that, so he’s normal.....). I looked up this holiday in our Saga Dagana, and found out that there used to be a third and fourth day of Easter as well!! (maybe this had something to do with how long it took in the old days to return to your own farm?..), but it’s only the Second that actually got “recorded” in almanacs, and so is here to stay. We also have Annar í jólum, which is basically the same as Boxing Day in England (and THE biggest sale day in the states!!), but does anyone else do a second day for Easter? As it turns out, this is a standard day for fermingar, and yes we went to one veisla today: Vera’s son (and Skúli’s) Þorvaldur. And it was held at Kaffi Reykjavikur, in the same room that we’ll be using for Úlla’s and Manu’s reception!! Very nice, undir súð ( a long sort of attic/sky-lit room with a cosy bar/corner that has a big window facing out towards the nearby square). We also went to a fermingarveislu Sunday a week ago, Pálmarsunnudagur, when Grettir’s granddaughter was being confirmed. This is Hrönn, Elisabet’s and Gunnar’s daughter. So her great-grandmother (Maggý) and Mamma were sisters. And Darri (who is the same age) and she are second cousins once removed. Got that? Much easier just to say “frænka og frændi”.
And this year, instead of having a fancy dinner on Easter Sunday, we invited Kiddi and his whole family for a nice dinner on the Sat. before, and it just so happened that Lísa was in town along with her Danish boyfriend, Kasper. ( He’s very nice, and funny, and speaks very good English, so jokes flew in all three languages). When I was setting the table before they came, I counted in my head all the people twice and kept coming up with the number 10, so I set 10 places. And then when we all sat down, I see there’s an extra place, between Kiddi and Mundi.....so Mundi said, it must be Amma Didda....(or maybe it’s both the Amma’s, who always enjoyed the meals Mundi cooked!). So, I left it there. (and get this, I actually said to myself when counting, twice!, “they are 6 and we’re 3 and that’s 10”!! boyohboy...) So, as I said above, 3 languages were spoken, and some very funny stories were exchanged, especially those having to do with animals, of course. Kasper’s family has a dog and cat and turtles (interestingly, so do Manu’s family!), and once when he was little, he wanted to give the turtle(at that time) a bath, so he did, but when he took the poor thing out of the water he burned his hand and the poor turtle no longer moved! It was cooked! Turtle soup. And then Malla (Lísa’s mom) admitted that something similar had happened to her, but she was an adult! They had a parakeet once (one of several) that had developed a cough (now what does a coughing parakeet sound like....?), and so she thought that maybe warm, moist air would help. She turned on a humidifier and left it in the room, and when she came back later (the next morning?) he was lying on the floor of his cage, steamed to death. Ah!, the perils of pethood! Unfortunately, not much human-type “medicine” can be translated into pet-terms.
And now it’s just 40 minutes left of this day! (I took a break to watch episode no.3 of Carnivale, an HBO series that is really fascinating, about a traveling carnivale during the Depression years in southwest USA....when people were so desperate that anything and everything was believable.) And now it’s less than a week to Mamma’s birthday. Where are all the stories? Maybe it’s time to switch gears and talk about funny Mamma/Amma stories.....in fact, some of those have animals in them! There were always cats here and there(I can think of 17 of them); and just think, she who absolutely shuddered at the sight of a little furry animal, allowed us over the years to have both hamsters and gerbils. Now that’s a good mamma.
And this year, instead of having a fancy dinner on Easter Sunday, we invited Kiddi and his whole family for a nice dinner on the Sat. before, and it just so happened that Lísa was in town along with her Danish boyfriend, Kasper. ( He’s very nice, and funny, and speaks very good English, so jokes flew in all three languages). When I was setting the table before they came, I counted in my head all the people twice and kept coming up with the number 10, so I set 10 places. And then when we all sat down, I see there’s an extra place, between Kiddi and Mundi.....so Mundi said, it must be Amma Didda....(or maybe it’s both the Amma’s, who always enjoyed the meals Mundi cooked!). So, I left it there. (and get this, I actually said to myself when counting, twice!, “they are 6 and we’re 3 and that’s 10”!! boyohboy...) So, as I said above, 3 languages were spoken, and some very funny stories were exchanged, especially those having to do with animals, of course. Kasper’s family has a dog and cat and turtles (interestingly, so do Manu’s family!), and once when he was little, he wanted to give the turtle(at that time) a bath, so he did, but when he took the poor thing out of the water he burned his hand and the poor turtle no longer moved! It was cooked! Turtle soup. And then Malla (Lísa’s mom) admitted that something similar had happened to her, but she was an adult! They had a parakeet once (one of several) that had developed a cough (now what does a coughing parakeet sound like....?), and so she thought that maybe warm, moist air would help. She turned on a humidifier and left it in the room, and when she came back later (the next morning?) he was lying on the floor of his cage, steamed to death. Ah!, the perils of pethood! Unfortunately, not much human-type “medicine” can be translated into pet-terms.
And now it’s just 40 minutes left of this day! (I took a break to watch episode no.3 of Carnivale, an HBO series that is really fascinating, about a traveling carnivale during the Depression years in southwest USA....when people were so desperate that anything and everything was believable.) And now it’s less than a week to Mamma’s birthday. Where are all the stories? Maybe it’s time to switch gears and talk about funny Mamma/Amma stories.....in fact, some of those have animals in them! There were always cats here and there(I can think of 17 of them); and just think, she who absolutely shuddered at the sight of a little furry animal, allowed us over the years to have both hamsters and gerbils. Now that’s a good mamma.
sunnudagur, apríl 11, 2004
As this Easter Sunday winds down, and one is looking forward to the fact that Iceland is “civilized” enough to have a “second day of Easter” (Annar í páskum) so that everyone can recover enough from “holiday-izing” before going back into full swing....I sit here and yawn and yawn knowing that it never works for me to sit at my computer and actually write a blog when it’s already past my bedtime!! And even though I have a list of topics/events to tell about, it will all have to wait til tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I did talk with all my close family abroad, sisters and kids and ne-phew(!), and at the moment all seems well and in motion. Yes the Spanish family is coming in August, and maybe some of the USA contingent. Fun times ahead!! Plan, plan, plan! So, more real news á morgun, mañana, buenos noches mis amigos y hermanas y hijos, og svo fr. Gleðileg páska. (and here in Iceland the flag was flown at halfmast on Friday......wonder if other countries did that?)
