The clunkety clunk of upstairs elephants

World full of Christmas charm up here in Oslo today.

I cleaned, I scrubbed, I decorated, I'm pooped.

I found out it takes an hour and a half to vacuum this new apartment. (I've done parts of it but not all in one go.) An hour and a half! I am not sure why it takes so long, but it's something about the circuitous nature of the place. It's all right angles, corners, nooks and crannies. Those crannies are a bitch to vacuum. Damn crannies.

I mopped all the floors with lavender scented natural French soap and scrubbed the bathrooms. Then I got going and decorated the dining room with the new stuff I bought before I went to the US. I bought some cute black, red and white linens that are Christmasy without being too cheesy. I had fun hanging little red and silver balls all over the very posh and staid chandelier. It took it down a notch in seriousness. I hung disco balls from the wings of the eagle at the top...hehe. I feel a bit like I decorated the Queen of England with Silly String.

While I did all this I had the music CRANKED. I like to dance while I clean. I figure, the upstairs and downstairs neighbors are so loud all the time, I can be noisy one damned day. Neighbors? Meet the Dali speakers. Why yes, they DO have punchy bass and crisp high end sound, don't they? You wanna hear it better? No? Oh damn, sorry, I can't hear you. My dance music mixed with punk and metal is too loud for me to hear anything. What? You might not like Goth Industrial? You don't like Godsmack? Well, shoot. Sorry about that. I sure like it when you play Europe "The Final Countdown" at full blast. I'm just returning the favor.

But now I'm quiet again and the elephants upstairs are stomping around in their military boots, high heels and Panzers.

It was nice going through the ornaments and Christmas stuff. I haven't looked at much of it in many years, apparently some time in the 90's. I have an ornament from 1999 and I think that is the last time I did anything for Christmas. (It's pretty funny, that ornament, a CD with a clay Santa wrapped around it. The CD? A Compuserve software CD. Talk about a time capsule!) I also put out some of the old German wooden stuff I got from my Mom. That stuff's been around since I was a little kid.

So now the tree is up, ornaments on, garland around the fireplace, and sparkly stuff all around the house. I know it's Norwegian tradition to put up the tree around the 23rd, but I am not gonna do all that work just to take it all down again a few days later. I'm enjoying it for as long as I can.