Ducksembourg palace

In the gardens at Luxembourg Palace...isn't this the most arrogant looking duck?

rosey memories

Me in Paris in the gardens of the Hotel de Sully.

back

I'm back.

I'm tired.

Work pissed me off today.

So I am going to have a good night's rest. Our flight getting back was over two hours late leaving and then there was a luggage issue so did not get back til after 1am last night.

We had a great time.

heat wave!

It's gonna be minimum 30 degrees F warmer in Paris than here...at time 40 degrees!

I don't know if I should pack the swimsuit or not!

Maybe not...as it's 18F here now.....but it sure makes 48 seem like spring, don't it?


I'm getting my packing together and for this trip I am planning an all black and white pallet based on the awesome graphic damask prints that are out right now...people used to pay me to stencil those on their walls, and now they are freaking EVERYWHERE. My art was ahead of its time, what can I say?

Anyhow, as part of this fashion plan, I have re-acquainted myself with leggings. Yes, leggings. I always did love them, just not in the 80's way with just a big shirt over them. That looks lazy and like you forgot your pants. Oh no, I like them peeking out from under a dress with mary jane flats, or worn with a short skirt and boots. Or, as I have been doing lately, a sort of multi-level multi-layer thing with a lace-edged slip worn with another, shorter dress over that, all tightly belted. So that you have the legging going to the ankles, the slip to the knees and the dress three inches or so over that. I like the way it looks, for me at least. The key is to keep the colors (in my case, black, always black) simple and let the layering speak for itself.

And I am eyeing this awesome bag with a very similar print to the one in the picture, but it's in patent leather...how cool is that?

I mean, it's PARIS, and I must pay attention to my wardrobe, musn't I? One great thing about living in Scandinavia is that even though the fashions here tend to be very same-same, if you do want to experiment it's a great atmosphere for it. The chain stores do have small fashion forward collections that are at least a year ahead of the US. You just have to dig for them.....

Planning ahead

I'm doing some planning ahead for upcoming trips.

Like, when I go to London, I've booked myself a haircut at a highly recommended salon for girls with curly hair. I'm gonna go for a big change because my hair is driving me nuts. I know i need some change when I keep my hair pulled back more than I wear it down. It's just kind of lame lately.
I'm not sure what I will have done. but I think it might be one of those things where i tell the hairdresser "Hey go nuts, just don't dye it purple or make it flat". Because no matter what, Texas gals like me keep the hair BIG.

Then that night when I have (hopefully) gorgeous hair, I got a ticket to Spamalot.

Spamalot! Who! I've only wanted to see that show for, like, EVER. And I so don't mind going by myself....not for something like this that I really want to see. Rich and I tend not to go to the theatre together because he is usually too tall for the seats and ends up being very uncomfortable all night, thus making ME uncomfortable when he puts his legs in my space. I don't mind being uncomfortable if I can see a show I really want to see. Like Spamalot! Woo!

While on the topic of British stuff, have you ever seen a very short and hilarious show called Posh Nosh? It's on BBC food, it lasts about 10 minutes. It's frigging hilarious, a total send up of those hoity toity food shows that Brits seem to excel at lately. Richard E Grant is one of the actors in it, and I have always had a slight crush on him. When you first see it you think it's for real, but then you start to catch on that it's a total spoof, just excellently and very cleverly done. As Wikipedia says: . For instance, they employ words in odd ways in parody of specific culinary terminology, such as "interrogate a lemon"; and their cooked vegetables are not peeled but "embarrassed," after which they might be "annoyed" instead of boiled. They also frequently insist on ultra-specific, often prohibitively expensive, ingredients - such as Greek currants that you actually have to fly to Greece to buy.

Here's a YouTube of one of the episodes:



Your daily giggle is on me. Enjoy!

updates and changes

I'm working on updating the labels on this blog, so that you can go through and search the archives by subject. I've had a few people mention that I should do that, so am attempting it.

And it's taking a damned long time, as I need to go through each of my almost 900 posts (!!!!) to see what I wrote and what labels it needs, then add them. So if your RSS feeds are going nuts for my blog, sorry about that. I have to republish each post to get the labels on there. There might be a better way, which I will attempt to find out today.

So far my most populous label seems to be "wierdness". Figures, don't it.

A Siberian cold front is moving through the Oslo area this week. Holy crap it's cold. This only reinforces my intense desire to never live in Siberia. If this is their leftovers, I don't want to be there for the freshness!

Movie Crack

I'm sure you have them too. Movies you must watch every time they come on TV no matter how many times you've seen them? You can't help it, you just do? Yep. Thought so. Well, here are mine.

The American President
Dave
Guarding Tess (I heart that movie)(and what's up with the presidential theme?)
Moonstruck
How To Marry a Millionaire
Funny Face
Singin' in the Rain
Evolution
Return to Me
Steel Magnolias
Point Break (on tv now, I think it's Keanu Reeve's best role) (shut up.) (no really, shut up.)
Princess Diaries
Face Off
Fight Club
Star Wars 1-3 (and I do mean the original 1-3, not the crappy new 1-3. I'm too damned old for you to change the numbers on me now, Lucas!)
Blazing Saddles
History of the World Part 1
Galaxy Quest
Dangerous Liaisons
Anything with John Cusack or Doris Day

It is irrelevant that I own at least half of these movies. Nor does it matter if any of them are actually all that good or not.

Gay Paree

Ah Paris. The memories....the good times....

Though I must admit, whenever I go to Paris, at some point I end up being really, really drunk. I think it's mostly because the wine is so good, so cheap and so everywhere. Actually, forget mostly. It's just because. I just can't resist good wine.

The first time I went to Paris, I went with my friend Julia, whom I have known since I was five. We were 17 that time. We went with a busload of German tourists from Hamburg. (I spoke neither French nor German, so relied on Julia to translate German when I needed it, which taught me to never trust your German best friend when climbing mountains, but that is another story altogether. ) I discovered rose' wine and drank alot of it one night. Pink wine! Cool! I was rather fond of the new (to me) idea that wine could be bought by the liter in these cute carafes and they would just refill them whenever you wanted. And it was cheap! And I was 17! And the waiter was cute! Woo!

That night I ended up quite wasted. I vaguely remember falling out of the elevator at our hotel when it got to our floor. The elevator landed an inch or so below floor level, I tripped over the height difference and did a face plant, landing giggling on the floor of the hall. Julia gamely picked me up by my armpits and dragged a laughing me back to our room. That night a windstorm blew through Paris and I distinctly remember being woken by the sounds of windows slamming and doors rattling and an American voice ringing out "Auntie Em! Auntie Em! It's a twister!" I giggled, then groaned at the discovery that 17 is not too young to have your first hangover, and went back to sleep.

The second time I went to Paris was in February 2005. You'd think I would be smarter after 18 years, wouldn't you? Hell no.

This time I went with my friend Karen. We went for a long weekend. It was cold and wet and rather bleak, but still, Paris worked its charm on me. I was a bit apprehensive to go, I will admit. I had some wierd experiences there that first time I went that I did not want to repeat. But, the people were nice, the food excellent and, as would be expected, Karla got drunk.

This time Karen and I went to this restaurant that was all inclusive, one price, including all the wine you could drink. ALL THE WINE YOU COULD DRINK. To someone living in Norway, this is not an offer, this is a dare. This is a life goal. This is nirvana.


So I drank. And drank. And drank. I vaguely remember the meal, something meat based. And then I drank some more. Sitting next to us at the restaurant were two nice guys, a little older than us (two years maybe, ok, but I still feel 23, so any guy who looks 40 to me is an older guy, I know I KNOW I'll grow up some day). They genially watched us drink our way through carafes and carafes of red wine. We chatted with them and found out they were pilots for Fedex. Nice guys. All of us were married except Karen, so it was not a pick up sort of situation, more like some Americans just saying hi in a foreign place. I got a definite "nice guy" vibe from them.

Anyhow, they said they knew a bar around the corner that was nice and would we care to join them for a drink. Yeah, like I hadn't heard THAT line before, but being drunk, and there being two of us, so we felt a bit safe, we said "Yeah, sure". So we went to a bar to have some more wine. I had an inkling that maybe I was three sheets to the wind when, on the way, I totally racked myself on one of those iron posts that they imbed in the sidewalks to keep cars off them? I learned that a) those things are exactly crotch height when you are almost 6 feet tall and b) girls can, in fact, nut themselves severely in the jumblies. OW.

Anyhow, drunk as I was I realized fairly soon that maybe it was time to get back to the hotel. I was shutting down and losing the ability to be charming (if I ever had it). I was a bit worried, also, about how to get the guys to not follow us or whatever. I mean, they had a very polite vibe but you never know.

Turns out, my impressions of people are pretty right on. And that my belief in the inherent goodness of people is always reinforced.

The two guys from FedEx were, in fact, born again Christians and were only walking us back to the hotel to make sure we were ok! There was brief talk of soul saving, but I think even they realized that might be a discussion wasted on two women who, at that point, were high-fiving each other for managing to get one foot in front of the other and snorting in laughter when one said the word "tree" and the other thought she said "pee".

We made it home safe and sound. The hangover the next morning, however, was definitely punishment from whatever God we had refused to have save us the night before, and his vengeance was severe.

That next day was also memorable because when we were walking around Montmartre and the Sacre Couer, a freak thunderstorm occurred and I saw a huge bolt of lightning hit the church steeple. Then there was a fierce hailstorm and everyone ran for cover under awnings and whatever we could find. The hail was marble sized and larger. And it was COLD. And WINDY. I was expecting frogs at any minute.

So, twice I've been to Paris, twice I've gotten way to drunk for my own good and twice freak wind storms have hit while I was there.

I really wonder if I should warn them before I come this time? Seems prudent.

Snausage Poetry.

So today everyone at work was talking about this article in the Aftenposten. It's pretty gross and has definitely turned me off hot dogs for probably the rest of my life. Consider yourself warned.

Anyhow, me and one of my co-workers have lately discovered that we both have the same talent for impromptu poetry. After our discussion about the sausage with extra snacky goodness, she sent me the following poem:

Ode to a rat's foot

One happy day I sat and ate

My lunch of sausage meat,

When to my great surprise I felt

The crunch of little feet.

I chewed and chewed my lovely meal

But it ended in such grief;

Removing with a toothpick....

Tiny toenails between my teeth.

Poor little rat fell in among

The innards and the snouts.

No matter how hard he tried and tried,

He never made it out.

So now he's lunch and that's a fact

I'm very sad to say.

But I'm still hungry, so I think,

I'll eat him anyway.

I really like my job. The people there are just wierd enough that I fit in quite well.

A Valentine's Day Greeting to You, a la Karla

Happy Valentine's Day, Goth Style.

Today I am wearing my Special Valentine's Day Shirt.

I bought it sometime in the very early 90's, so it's practically vintage. It's red with black hearts all over it. I like it because the hearts aren't cutesy and red, but evil and black, like mine.

I only ever wear it on V-Day. I wore it with black jeans and black combat boots and a black turtleneck and blood red lipstick, because I really sort of hate Valentine's Day and I like to subvert it as much as possible.

Nobody at work noticed my holiday cheer until I mentioned it. I wonder why.

I swear this is me at work.

Thanks to my friend Dan for the link.

snow snow so and so

It's been snowing for two days straight now.

I kind of like it. I have the blah's big time, and I like the silence and quiet of the snow. It forces contemplation. Hibernation. Solitude. It slows down the world and allows rest. (Unless you are a skier, which I am not.) It allows me to crawl into my hidey-hole and not come out. No excuse needed except.... "It's snowing. Blah." Snow is a great excuse for being a lazy, mopey "so and so". (So and so being an expression from my Omi, it was the worst thing she'd say about someone, "Oh, that So and so!")

So...blah. Someone tell me a funny story or something nice. I need it.

Also tell me ...do you title your blog posts first, or do you wait until after you have written it to title it? I find my titles usually change by the time I end the post as I go off on a tangent that was patently NOT addressed in the original title. Half the time i have no idea what i am going to write about until I'm writing. This also tends to be my approach to life, wing it and see what happens.

But right now, blah.

So, you wanna know what happened, don't you?

Puppetry of the Penis. Curious?

Well, let's see.

The crowd: A mix of everyone, from 85 year old grandmas to men with their wives. Every age, every sort of person. Same crowd you'd expect at a movie, for that matter. My friend who came with me was all nervous and acting like I was dragging her to some sort of horrible nudey perv show, full of sticky seats and slimy people. (I took a bit of exception to that, I felt like I was her executioner or something!). Once she saw the crowd she mellowed out, though. The theatre was packed, it held about 300 people.

Our seats: Third row. Center.

The Stage: Two mics. A large video screen (!!!).

The Actors: Two Australian men and their tackle, which, to be honest, was larger than the average, but not scarily so.

The show: So, the two guys came out on stage wearing capes, socks and sneakers. One guy wore a hat, sort of a Gilligan hat. They talked for a while and introduced the camera man, who, it turned out, was there to video the close ups of the "installations" for those in the back row. That meant, for those of us closer up, not only did we see two dicks doing tricks, but we also had a 10 foot CLOSE UP VIEW of it all on the screens. I can honestly say, now, that I am very familiar with the private anatomy of two complete strangers. Moles, hair, one guy had a largish zit on his bum.

Anyhow, as for the show itself. As much as this would not seem to be the appropriate word, I have to say it was cute. Once the robes came off (the scariest bit, actually) everyone in the audience sort of settled in to it and accepted that yes, there were two naked men on stage doing very strange things with their bits and pieces. As they said, it was not a "stand up" show, and they had awesome genital flexibility. Also, they never touched each other, they both did their own, um, handling.

The "Installations": The Loch Ness Monster. A Windsurfer. An Escargot (pre cooked). Kentucky Fried Chicken (Finger Licking Good!). A Wristwatch (they did not use the slogan "Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking", which I thought was a massive oversight on their part.) A Fan. Ayers Rock in Australia, both from the side and the aerial view. A Baby Kangaroo in its Pouch. A Frightened Sea Urchin. A Girl. A Vagina. A Thong, from the Back View. A Hemmorhoid. The Hotdog. The Hamburger. Yoda, from Star Wars. A Beating Heart. A Crank Starter On a Car. The Eiffel Tower. A Hungry Baby bird. (These last two were only possible because one guy was not circumcized.) A Cocktail. haha. Etc.

Are you getting the idea? (And boy am I going to get some strange google hits after this post.)

My favorite "skit" was the one with the props. Specifically, one guy goes back stage and come out with a picture frame, which he places around his crotch so as to make art of it. He then says, "Here, ladies and gents, is a portrait of the World's Most Dangerous Man and the Biggest Dick: George W. Bush". He then whips the frame around to his ass and quips "And here's Tony Blair".

I DIED, I tell you, just DIED.

Then they had the Audience Volunteer portion of the evening. This poor girl, whose birthday it was, was called onstage and told to hold her hands over her head. She did, and the one guy very handily flipped into a hand stand in front of her, his ankles landing in her hands. So now he's naked, spreadeagled upside down, facing the audience. She's behind him, his ankles in her hands, and his, um, bunghole, basically directly in her face. The view from the camera was hilarious, as it looked like her head was coming out his ass and she was wearing his "family jewels" as a necklace. He quipped that he was "not a wishbone" because his legs just got farther and farther apart. The poor girl desperately tried to not look down at the black hole that confronted her. I for one, would have been more worried about him farting. I don't think there are many people in the world who can boast of having a view of a guy quite like that.....

They took a polaroid of the event to give her for a birthday souvenir. Wow. It should be her Christmas card as well. Wow.

The show lasted about an hour, it was short. Well, short on time, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink. The Dick Artists came out afterwards to meet the crowd, selling DVD's and such. They looked strange with their clothes on. Must be wierd to be THAT naked in front of people and then just stand their with clothes on, like everything is normal. Those guys have got balls, let me tell you. And I saw them from EVERY angle.

Actually, it was kind of educational. I mean, ladies, how many times in your life have you spent with naked men frolicking in front of you who never, um, stood to attention, never expected anything from you and let you see the silly side of their willy? I would think maybe never? It was amazing to see how flexible it all could be, as we are usually trained to Respect The Tackle and Do Not Hurt It. So to see these guys doing this stuff that I honestly never thought was possible, at least not without great injury and writhing pain, was vastly enlightening.

Though they did say "Do Not Try This AT Home, and Ladies, You Especially Don't Just go Doing Dick Tricks On Your Man Without Prior Authorization".

Afterwards, of course, we were hungry, and so went to the most appropriate place to go to after a show such as that: The Hard Cock, oh, sorry, Rock, Cafe.

snow, buns and travel

It's getting cold outside. Winter is now here, finally. Earlier this week I ventured out in a skirt with no tights and a t-shirt and sweater, it was quite warm. Now the cold is coming back and according to the news, it's gonna be a doozy. Rrrgg.....

Last fall I gave away my two warmest coats because I thought we were going to move to Dubai. Occasionally, as now, I sort of regret doing that. But I still have my puffy full length parka that I call The Duvet. So not sexy, but I could sleep outside in it and be fine.

In other news, color me confused. I think I have mentioned my addiction to boller. Oh yummy, yummy yeasty goodness sweet buns. They come in two forms, with and without raisins. I prefer without. The ones with raisins always make me feel like there is a bug in my bun, y'know? All brown and lurking.....

So this morning, giving in to the craving (I have gone a week now without a boller, and it's been DAMNED hard, let me tell you) I went to get me a bun, and they only had the ones with raisins. Fine, fine, but when I asked if they had any without raisins, they said they were 'out of them' until tomorrow. Out of the ones without raisins? Until tomorrow? And yet they still make the ones with?

Um, can't they just make up a batch of the dough, but not put raisins in and poof they have boller without raisins? Does this seem strange to anyone else? How can they be out, when it is simpler to make the damn buns without the raisins anyhow? Of course, to suggest that to the baker, you get a look that says, "But these come with raisins. I don't have any without." I felt like I was talking to that guy in Spinal Tap who insisted his amp "Goes to 11".

Plus, I always notice that the ones without raisins sell much faster, yet they always make more with. What the hell is up with that?

Dammit, this annoys me. I make space in my day to indulge (after a week) my craving and I am thwarted by a dunder headed baker who can't just leave the raisins out?

And it still snows.....

I have had some folks ask me about upcoming travel. I mean, it HAS been a month or more since I've been anywhere, last trip was to Tallin at New Year's.

Obviously, January was a travel free month, bummer.

But, coming up, I've got three trips planned. These are all places I have been before, but two of them I have never been to with Rich, so that will be new.

We'll go to Paris for a late Valentine's day trip. I've never been to Paris with someone I could actually, um, make out with, so that will hopefully make it even more interesting than my other trips. Not, of course, that I did not enjoy those, just that now I have someone to mack on.

Rich will have to go to the US for some family stuff in March, so I will take a long weekend in London while he's gone. I've been needing some things from Boots and definitely need a pub visit, or three.

Then not long after that, we will go to Istanbul. I really think Rich will like it, alot, and I feel like I have unfinished business there and that there is so much more to see.

We also looked at Barcelona for a trip, as neither of us has been to Spain, but Oh. My. God. the hotels were so expensive.....so that might have to wait a little, like, after Easter when prices drop a bit. It's expensive to travel around Easter, a big holiday in Europe. Everyone leaves.

Photo gallery

The Me/ Not Me photo gallery Badger came up with. DAMN this is alot of work! I've spent more time on this post than any other i have done....Well, they do say a picture's worth 1000 words.
___________________________________________________________________

Me.

Not me.

Me.

Not me.

Me.

Not me.

Me.

Not me.

Me. Oh yeah, me me me!

Not me. Oh so not me.

Me.

Not me.

Me.

Not me.

Me.

Not me.

Me...wheee!

Not me.

Me.

Not me.

Me.

And me.

Not me.

Me.

Not me.

Me.

Not me.

Whew!

spam bastards

The fucking blog spammers have found my comments and are attempting to spam me into oblivion. I just spent 10 minutes removing spam comments.

I have thus replaced the moderating for the near future. I also have posted an IP block, so maybe that will help as well. So far the spamming is mainly from just two IP's.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but in order to keep this a spam free zone I have to act.

At least Haloscan doesn't use that word verification thing. I hate those....

In which this week finally kicks my ass

Fuck. (I mistyped that us "Fuick" which oddly pleases me, like a Buick gone bad.)

This will not be a penis weekend.

My friend that I was going with is sick and she cancelled on me. And I really didn't have the balls (haha) to go alone. I'm not mad at her, I understand being sick, but I was bummed because i was REALLY looking forward to tonight. It's been a shit week.

Fuick.

The theatre was nice enough to let me exchange the tickets for another night next week. This could be because I called them practically in tears, all "I can't see the penises tonight and I am so DEPRESSED and it's been HORRIBLE week and PLEASE can I exchange them?" Luckily it was a woman who was the ticket agent and she understood my penis angst, so she kindly said that if I got my unhappy ass over to the theatre ASAP she would exchange them for me. As it was almost end of work day and I had pretty much cleared up my stuff at work, I hotfooted it over there and she exchanged them for me, I even got better seats! It was all women working there, and I joked around with them and told them that I had been looking forward to the penises all week, and was even wearing my penis viewing outfit. That got a good hearty laugh out of them.

If you are curious what a penis viewing outfit is, in MY case (I am sure this varies from person to person) it was a black sweater dress with a deep v-neck, under which I wore a black slip with lace at the top. This was all worn over black tights with knee high black pirate boots. Over all this went my embroidered black Cavalli coat with the Persian lamb edging all over collar, cuffs and hem, tightly belted, Russian style. I looked, on hindsight, a bit like a really high class, yet modest Russian hooker. Appropriate for the viewing of penis puppets, no? Well, no, as I don't get to see them tonight.

Crappy crappy week. I need beer.

Penis weekend!!!!

This is Penis weekend!
Woo!

Puppetry of the Penis is this weekend! Woo!

Honestly, though, those are probably (and hopefully, as I tend not to enjoy Random Penis Encounters)(ew) the only penises I will actually encounter, but still, how many times do you get to say that you are gonna have a penis weekend?

Well..unless you are a guy, and you HAVE a penis. Then I guess you have penis weekends every weekend, don't you.

Hmm.

I need to rethink.

Pretend like I didn't post this, ok?