Fuck off snow

Fuck off snow, originally uploaded by karlakp.

And let the little flowers grow!

random shots from Munich

Rich was on a shopping spree and somehow ended up on top of a mountain. So he decided to take a picture. (Grant took this picture, it was on Zugspitze.)

Rich, Keith and Gilly take a drink from their delicate, dainty drinks at the Hoffbrauhaus in Munich. Prost!
White out snowstorm! Taken from a window at the Glyptotek, it was too wild to go outside.

Rich giving good head at the Glyptotek. I'm sorry, I know art and history are very serious, but a girl has to have her fun somehow. Rich let me take a few pictures before he lost patience and quit playing.

Series of statues at the Glyptotek, placed as they were originally. I think these statues were taken from Turkey. I am fairly certain they want them back! (Love my wide angle setting on my camera. Go Lumix!)

As I was posing for a picture on top of the Zupspitze, a gust of wind carried along and got me. Notice the one bit of my hair standing straight off my head? Almost every picture that day has that same damn lock of hair, trying to escape. Girl with a curl indeed. Winds were gusting up in excess of 90kmph. Turned the snow and ice into sandpaper.

Skiers got off the train that went up to Zugspitze and commenced to skiing right there.

Me playing Beirfrau at Paulaner am Nockherberg. Those beers were full, heavy and cold. The floor, by the way, was so sticky that I was really worried I would not be able to pick my feet up again.

Mmmm. Art is good

Mmmm. Art is good, originally uploaded by karlakp.

What can I say? I am an art lover!

Art and avoidance

Art and avoidance, originally uploaded by karlakp.

Absolute blizzard in Munich today! Snow wind and odd flashes of sun. We got blown in to the Glyptotek which houses an amazing collection of Greek statuary. Might be here for a while with this weather!

Hofbrauhaus

Hofbrauhaus, originally uploaded by karlakp.

The world famous Hofbrauhaus in Munich. It's a party! A big huge beer soaked oompah band-swaying party!

Top

Top, originally uploaded by karlakp.

On top of Germany Austria on Zugspitze. We are taking the cable car down. Wind gusts to 90kmph! Yikes! Extreme blogging!

Alps

Alps, originally uploaded by karlakp.

On the cable car up to Zugspitze. Wow!

My heritage is obvious

My heritage is obvious, originally uploaded by karlakp.

Noch einmal Bier bitte!

Greetings from Munich!

Greetings from Munich!, originally uploaded by karlakp.

travelling with my boys

Off to Munich with my band of boys (and, this time, a girl, Gilly, not pictured and her husband Keith). Yes that is a beer in Rich's hand. We will drink many more.

Starkbierzeit!

Spring

Spring, originally uploaded by karlakp.

May not look it to some but this is a gorgeous spring day!

Too white white, baby.

You know you are Just Too White when a coworker complements you on matching your hose so nicely to your cream colored outfit….but you aren’t wearing any hose. Those, unfortunately, are just my baggy, fish-white knees.

 

Sigh. I’ve entered a new realm of whiteness, one in which even my red-headed mother teases me.

 

Scary thing is I still have tan lines from last summer. White on white, baby, white on white.

 

Must. Get. Sun. On. Skin. Soon.

follow up to hair cut experiment

I was sitting in the living room reading a book yesterday when I heard this noise, like a bunch of angry hornets caught in a knapsack that was opening and closing, interspersed with muttered cursings and cussings. Then the hornets would start opening and closing their sack again. Then more cursing. (Rich, when he’s really mad, says “Fucker!”, which I always think is kind of funny. Not FUCK or MOTHER FUCKER, but just FUCKER.)

I went to investigate and saw Rich trying to cut his own hair with the clippers and making a bit of a hash of it. The clippers kept getting gunked up with hair and they wouldn’t clip any more. Rich’s hair, after a three month growth period, had entered the phase I call Einstein, as it sort of stands on end in curly loops and exclamation points. With the clippers in his hair and the hair standing all fuzzed and confused, he rather resembled a smart cranky baby chick, all fuzzy and puckish. One area above his left temple was shorn, the rest of his hair was just irritated and rebellious.

I should mention, that I was a bit peeved at the boy at that moment, for a variety of reasons, so when I saw him trying to cut his hair, my first thought was ‘REVENGE! I can give him a really bad haircut! Gimme those clippers and let me at that hard head!’ but that quickly fell by the wayside as I realized he really was screwing up badly and who wants a husband that looks like a cranky baby Einstein chicken anyhow?

So I took those clippers, and a deep breath, and set to.

It wasn’t too hard, but he had a lot of hair that needed trimming, so the clippers got full pretty quick, necessitating clean outs every few seconds. I learned if you just shake it the hair falls out of the clipper part rather easily. So far so good. I got a bit nervous around the ear area, I really didn’t want to nick him, but it seems to be well designed safety clipper and I couldn’t really see a way to cut anything other than hair unless I, like, stuck my tongue in there or something. (In the clippers, not his ear, though either would make the haircut a bit more exciting!) His hair grows in many different directions so it was a challenge to go against the growth patterns as they changed all the damn time.

After my first round his hair was definitely shorter with little wafty bits here and there and some random fuzzies on his forehead, where, sorry honey, there just ain’t that much hair left to cut. So I went after it again and it seemed to work out rather well. I left him to the cleanup and added another life experience to my ever growing CV of stuff I have done that I was afraid to do.

The problem is this: When my husband gets to cuttin’, he really doesn’t have an off button. I stopped letting him trim bushes and shrubs in our yard in Austin because he’d just cut and cut and cut until the poor tree/bush/hedge/flower was nothing but a nub on the ground. And, apparently, he takes this same tack on his head, because after I was done, the hornets got busy in that sack again and when he came out I am pretty sure I was seeing a lot more scalp than I had been seeing previously.

It’s really damn short now. Baby Chick Einstein is gone, replaced by Army Recruit Boy.

Oh God

Oh God, originally uploaded by karlakp.

Rich bought hair clippers yesterday. Haircuts are really expensive and these clippers will 'pay for themselves in 2 cuts!' he tells me. Except? I don't think he factored in the emergency room visits needed after I accidentally lop an ear off as he wants ME, Disaster Girl, to do the haircuts! I really don't think he thought this one through!

Elegance

Elegance, originally uploaded by karlakp.

Kristin drinks her wine at the Hard Rock.

SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW FUCKING SNOW.

• I'm sitting at my desk by the window and watching a little toddler trying to climb up a snowy bank out on the piazza outside. He keeps sliding back down. His mom, bless her, just stands him back up and encourages him to go again. Patient kid and mom. Norwegian moms tend to be pretty cool, not too coddling, but supportive of their kids figuring things out on their own. I think that's cool. That's what my mom did. If I hurt myself, she was like, "Well, you won't do that again will you?", after first checking for breaks, broken arteries or lost eyeballs. No mollycoddling! Fall on your ass, make sure it ain't broke, and then try again.
  

• I'm also watching a rerun of an awesome documentary on heavy metal. I saw it last night, and now Rich is watching. Really well done. A logical historical disection of heavy metal music and fans from an anthropologic perspective. (Helps that the guy making the doc is a total metalhead himself.) The doc does sort of lampoon the whole Norwegian black metal thing, which I think might be justified. At least, in the interviews here, they take themselves SO SERIOUSLY. I mean, sense of humor much? You are entertainers, metal guys, not standard bearers for cultural and religious change. (The interviewees being totally wasted didn't help.)

• The doc reminds of, in the 80's, when Tipper Gore campaigned to put parental advisories on music. Remember that? I remember the very name "Tipper Gore" being the absolute essence of lame grown up censorship and close mindedness. I remember HATING HER. So when Al Gore was running for President, even though I was for him? I knew there was a reason I didn't like Tipper, though I couldn't remember why. Hah. Now I remember. She totally was the "the man" keeping us kids down and not understanding anything we did. This documentary really captures that time well, and was Dee Snyder awesome or what?
  

• Seems I am guilty of blog neglect, as some other bloggers have also admitted. In my case, it's not so much that FaceSpace has taken over, more that life is pretty boring and I am just trying like hell to claw my way to spring and activity and better weather. Plus, things are a bit Groundhog Day (the movie) lately and I don't really want to blog about how I got up and went to work and then came home and fixed dinner and had a bath and read a bit, every day. Currently reading an autobiography by Stephen Fry, "Moab is my Washpot". Such a frigging good writer!
  

• I AM, however, completely besotted with Twitter. It's amazing who you can follow. And who might follow you back! It's a bit like having a direct line to the Gods. Stephen Fry is an especially thoughtful and interesting tweeter. As to be expected from his writing. Also? He's lost, like, 50 lbs. He looks FABULOUS!
  

• Today is the day we celebrate St Patrick's Day in Oslo. There will be a parade and a rugby game and some fun with the Irish. If you can't have fun when hanging out with Irish people, you are either dead or seriously mentally depressed.
  

• I've already got 'hangover' on my calendar for tomorrow.
  

• Just a week until Starbierfest in Munich and then a week after that I get to go home to my parents! Yeay! Travel! Shopping! Beer!
  

I suppose I'll be random today

As usual, I have everything and nothing to say.

• Yoga class is tonight, I hope it’s in more English than last time, otherwise I am not sure that I will continue. The idea is to work off stress, not feel it. I do, however, have actual clothes to wear to the class, having gotten my left bag back from the train people. Yes, someone did indeed turn in my bag o’ duds and so I now have something (other than my underwear) to wear tonight.

• I’m wearing the dress I posted a picture of yesterday. LOVE it. Of course, almost destroyed it today, when, in typical Karla fashion, my buttered and raspberry jammed bread fell, upside down, on the very edge of the table. It missed crashing into my lap by a millimeter. Strangely enough, I NEVER eat jam and bread for reasons very similar, so of COURSE it had to fall today. Lesson learned? Only eat jam on days when wearing black.

• There’s this orb of bright light in the sky. I think it is called ‘the sun’. Have you heard of this thing? It’s interesting, it makes people cheery.

• Oh yesterday in my shopping I got that scarf in the picture, the dress and a top that I also luuurve. I haven’t really bought any clothes in ages, it was nice to find a few things I actually deemed worthy of adding to my (admittedly bursting) closet.

• Sometimes I wish I was a boy. It seems so much easier to be a boy. You always have girls to take care for things for you. Boys really don’t seem to understand how much they depend on girls for stuff. Girls just take care of things and the boys never know. Things just appear, and they take them for granted, not understanding that a GIRL DID IT FOR THEM.

• Hmm. Maybe I don’t want to be a boy. Maybe I just want to smack a couple of them.

• I was up early this morning. This ‘sun’ thing woke me up. Now I am tired. Summer is coming, and with it comes light light light!!!!!! I do love summer here.

• Have I at all mentioned how obsessed I am with Twitter lately? I like it way better than FaceSpace. I’m chatting with famous people! And sometimes they respond!

• My hair is back to normal today. No rollers or curlers last night, just the usual blow dry this morning. Back to my curly frizz.

• A girl at work today was wearing a Daniel Johnston tshirt. My homesickness on seeing it hit me so hard I lost my breath. If you are from Austin, you KNOW that little creature. I had to talk to her about it, she seemed unimpressed at my excitement over it. To her it’s just a t shirt, to me? A slogan that says home. Home in a big, quirky, ohmygodimissaustin way.

• There’s another guy who wears a Roky Erikson T-shirt at work. Norwegians love Austin music, maybe more than many Austinites do. They GET it, you know?

• But none of them love Austin more than me.

• I need to get back home. Certainly for a visit in short term, but for damn sure permanently in future.

Pretty things make me happy

Pretty things make me happy, originally uploaded by karlakp.

I bought this dress and this scarf today. No they are not meant to be worn together but I was obviously in a black and cream mood. Also got a silk wrap top in a black and cream Islamic scarf print. The Moroccan style dress is gorgeous on (I hope the sparkly paillettes on the neck show in the picture) and the scarf made me buy it, it's so Edwardian grandma meets Goth Punk grandkid.

After

After, originally uploaded by karlakp.

After a rather uncomfortable night on curlers my hair is very bouncy and full. Don't know if it's worth the sleep loss but it does look good!

Bored on Sunday

Bored on Sunday, originally uploaded by karlakp.

Snowy day becomes Spa Day. Exfoliate, facial, mask, touch up hair color (trying to cover red and grey with soft light brown, but the red and grey always come back!). Bath, body scrub, soak in bath salts and essential oils. Then, experiment with putting hair in curlers for old fashioned 'set', like my mom still does. Scarf over head to hide and hold curlers. Hello, I have become my mother! Rich isn't sure what to think. Who took his wife?

Sunday morning; 2 weeks til spring

Sunday morning; 2 weeks til spring, originally uploaded by karlakp.

View from the bedroom. Snowing heavily out there. Snow on the deck piled up over a meter (not from shoveling!). Snow on the banister 6 inches high, just from yesterday and today. I hear there are flowers and green grass in England?

Where the hell did THAT week go?

Damn! Sorry about that! Before I knew it, it was Friday and I realized I have totally neglected the blog.

Of course, I neglected everything else also, so it's not like the blog is being picked on. My husband hasn't had a home cooked meal once this week (well he made himself spaghetti one night, from a jar) and the house is a fright.

It's just been one of those weeks, you know? What with busy-ness at work and then after work activities, I get on the computer just to catch up on stuff from home and a couple checks on email and then I need my sleep.

So, to catch up:

Sheer busy busy busy at work, and it will only get more so. We've had an office move, so there is a bunch of niggly detaily stuff to follow up on with that. And, as the ONLY GIRL in my group, the boys tend to stand around my office to chat. I think men need a certain amount of Girl Time each day, they must talk to a woman to center themselves, and I am the one they come to. Just call me Mama Karla.

Tuesday evening I went with some friends, Pam and Kristin, to Jan's beautiful old farmhouse to go cross country skiing. She and her husband Peter rented this old house, a traditional Norwegian farmhouse, that has fields all around it, and they are lovely and flat and covered with nice thick snow and it is perfect for this somewhat nervous beginning skiier. There was only one downhill slope worth mentioning, and both Jan and I were a little "Oh Shit!" about it, but it was no problem and we both glided down like, if not pros, then perhaps semi gangly storks on skis. I really enjoyed myself, fell twice, both, I might add, when I was standing still, so obviously I should keep moving and not stand around. Jan made us a wonderful fat free veggie soup for apres ski, tasty as hell. It was a very nice evening. I am glad that I have fallen into a good group of smart, funny women who are also slow skiiers like me!

Wednesday was my after work yoga class, this time in Norwegian, which I found very frustrating. Why he did English one class and Norsk the next I don't know, as we were told the class would be in English, but that's how it went. (The class is sponsored by my ofice, in our canteen, and we are an English speaking company, though many Norwegians work there.) I don't really know the yoga words in Norwegian, not an area I really ever focussed on, so it was hard to follow along without looking around, but he had us all facing away from center so we had to follow along by listening. It's not very relaxing to concentrate so hard on the words AND try to relax and breathe. Many people in the class were lost. He said he would do more English next time.

Thursday I went out for sushi with Kristin. We have a new place here very close to our house, it's very good, though the wait staff can be iffy. The waitress this time was kind of bossy and trying to force me to use chopsticks and treating me like a Stupid American. (Europeans do tend to think that if you are American, you don't know shit about shit and need educating on things. Kind of annoying, after a while.) I'm like, "Honey, I'm 40. If I had WANTED to be proficient in the use of chopsticks, I would have done so by now. I have ruined too many clothes by using the things. I don't like them. As it is, for me, it is very low on my list of life priorities to master this particular skill, just bring me a damn fork now and quit trying to educate me. I just want to eat my fucking raw fish!" I didn't say that, but it certainly was the wording running through my head. As I said, though, the food was good. That's why we go there.

Last night was pub night. We were home early, by 10:30. Bless them, they have bought a couple cases of a very nice rosé wine, just for me. The other girls have caught on to my new rosé habit, and now THEY drink it too. I think the pub should give me a cut of the business I bring them, I really do.

And today? Snowing absolute puppies and kittens out there, fluffy fluffy all over. We had a big melt this week, and there was a slight hint that Spring might actually arrive some day, but Winter really likes to hang on and show its strength. It's probably bucketed down 4 inches or so, and more to come. Well, that just means decent skiing tomorrow. (Holy shit, yes, I am becoming assimilated by the Norwegians. Did anyone EVER think they'd hear me say something like that?)

So, to the shower and then some grocery shopping. Saturday errands!

This is the kind of shit we get for tv ads here

This guy is SO cheesy, I can't even begin to describe it. I wanted to blog about it? But I think I will let the ad speak for itself. Three's no way I can quantify the lame-osity except for you to see it. We have ads for new albums like this ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Especially check out the last few seconds of the ad and his insanely stupid preening for the camera.

It's like the 80's came back? But sort of pulled ass backwards through a time warp and tossed in a salad of glossy emptiness.

Team Triple X

Ha ha. Psyche.

Here's me, Kristin and Elaina after skiing on Sunday.

Well, they skiied, I puttered around practicing.

I'm better at both falling and going forwards.

It's all the bits in between that need work.

Winter on the fjord

Winter on the fjord, originally uploaded by karlakp.

View from the coffee house window.

Spring looking at winter

Spring looking at winter, originally uploaded by karlakp.

4 foot icicles

4 foot icicles, originally uploaded by karlakp.

Apres ski

Apres ski, originally uploaded by karlakp.

Cocoa along the fjord