Seasonal contrasts

Apropos my previous post, I'm a spring and summer person, and when you look at these photos, you'll understand why. I can't wait to get back to my garden (a plot in the Egebergløkka community garden). These photos are from last August, when the garden was in full bloom. There is nothing like it--warm sun, the greenery, the beauty, the peace. Summer cannot come too soon. I'm hoping for a sunny and hot summer.

Update on our garden--July 2017

It hardly seems possible that we've nearly reached August. It feels like gardening season has just begun. We put up the greenhouse in late April, and spent some time organizing and arranging it as documented in an earlier post (https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2017/04/this-years-garden-project-greenhouse.html). May, June, and July seem to have flown by. There are now six pots with tomato plants in the greenhouse that are doing well and starting to produce tomatoes. The tomatoes are still small and green, but I have high hopes that in a month or so we'll be able to try eating one. The two cucumber plants are flowering but have not yet produced cucumbers, whereas the chili pepper plant is producing a lot of small peppers.

In the garden itself, the corn plants are growing tall and straight and appear to be quite healthy; ditto for the three different types of pumpkins I planted this year--two French varieties and a Jack-o-Lantern variety. The pumpkins now have vines that are spreading happily in every direction, just like last year. Some of them have produced very small pumpkins already. It remains to be seen how fast the pumpkins will grow and mature. Last year at this time the pumpkins were a bit further along. I also planted three different kinds of string beans--standard green beans, asparagus beans, and dwarf beans. If you ask me, they're all variations on a theme; the type that stands out is the one with a mottled appearance, but otherwise they all taste pretty much the same--good. The snap peas are also doing very well, and have produced a lot of edible pods, also good.

The sunflower plants have grown tall and straight and I hope they'll stay that way as the summer progresses. One never knows, especially if a very windy storm comes along. My flower garden looks lovely--a combination of lavender plants, a butterfly bush, pink and purple Salvia, marigolds, hollyhocks, chrysanthemums, among others--and under the dead cherry tree that is covered in wild ivy, I've planted Heuchera plants (lovely perennials in gold, green and red colors) as well as daisies.

I love watching the garden grow a little bit more for each day that passes. Generally I just love being in the garden. There is always something to do--weeding, transplanting, cutting the grass, pruning, fertilizing, watering, or just puttering. The greenhouse has all the tools and accessories needed for doing all these things. Here are some recent photos from one of the wonderfully sunny days we've had:

corn and string bean plants in background, pumpkin plants in foreground

pumpkin plants

Heuchera plants and daisies

view of the vegetable part of the garden

view from the garden entrance

flower garden--lavender, hollyhocks, Salvia--among others

another view of the garden with hydrangea plant in the background

 

Summers and the ice-cream man

I suppose everyone has their own memories of the ice-cream man when they were growing up. For those of us who grew up in Tarrytown and who loved the long summer days playing outdoors, it meant a daily visit from Eddie the ice-cream man in his white truck; he worked for the Good Humor Company. He would drive into Tappan Landing Road, make a U-turn at Henrik Lane and park in front of the 26 Tappan Landing Road apartment building. There would be a line of children waiting to buy ice cream cones, popsicles and sandwiches from him. It was always exciting to watch him reach into the truck’s freezer to retrieve what you had asked for. In my case, it was a toasted almond dessert bar; they were heavenly (http://www.goodhumor.com/product/detail/114453/toasted-almond-dessert-bar-good-humor). More favorites were the strawberry shortcake dessert bar (http://www.goodhumor.com/product/detail/114303/strawberry-shortcake-dessert-bar-good-humor) and the standard ice-cream sandwich (http://www.goodhumor.com/product/detail/114441/giant-vanilla-sandwich-good-humor) (not a giant version but just the regular-sized one). I think Eddie enjoyed handing out his ice-cream products as much as we enjoyed receiving them. Of course nothing was for free; but I don’t remember that we paid more than about 50 cents for what we wanted. Nowadays we’d pay much more.

Here in Oslo, I am reminded of Eddie the ice-cream man each time I hear the ice-cream truck play its familiar song. The Oslo ice-cream truck tune is just the opening riff from the theme music to Norge Rundt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WadPQ9XIF4M) but it is so characteristic. You can hear it a mile away and recognize it instantly, knowing that the ice-cream truck is in the vicinity. I purchased some ice cream from the ice-cream vendor recently--ice cream sandwiches and Lollipop popsicles (http://isbjornis.no/?page_id=172 --also called saftis med sjokoladetrekk), both of which are very good. Even though it is many years ago since we were children, it is nice to have those memories of summer, and nice to know that ice cream trucks are not a thing of the past. 

    

Summer raindrops and winter frost

Both of these photos are 'water' photos--but in two different seasons. I happened to be in my garden during a thunderstorm this past summer, and after the storm, the plants still had drops of rain on them that I was able to photograph before they evaporated. The winter photo is of a plant whose name I don't know, but that was covered in frost one day last week. Frost is defined by the online Merriam-Webster dictionary as 'a covering of tiny ice crystals on a cold surface formed from the water vapor in the air'. You can see the ice crystal patterns--beautiful. Again, I was lucky to take the photo when I did, because the sun came out and the frost disappeared.

The end of summer

I have a feeling that autumn will come early to Oslo this year. This past week we had a lot of rain, and what I would have termed a mini-hurricane on Wednesday, with strong winds and stormy weather. The clouds looked threatening, so all in all, it signaled the end of summer, at least to me. Temperatures have become cooler; we’re down to around sixty degrees Fahrenheit during the afternoons, the warmest time of day. We had friends from Illinois visiting us for a few days at the end of August; luckily they flew out of Oslo about half a day before the weather turned from nice to stormy. While they were here, the weather was lovely, and that always helps to give a nice impression of Oslo. We enjoyed our visit together, and I spent some time showing them my Oslo—the small little places that tourists would not really know about. One of those places is Hønsa Lovisas house, a small little red house on the Akerselva River, not far from where we live, which used to be a residence and is now a cozy little café that serves very good waffles with jam and sour cream. It is also an art gallery for different kinds of modern art exhibitions. You can read more about it here, but for my non-Norwegian readers, the website is in Norwegian, so you’ll have to translate it using Google Translate (http://www.honselovisashus.no/html_sider/10_HJEM.html). It’s a nice place to spend an hour or so relaxing on a Sunday afternoon.

I realized today that I am a ‘four-seasons’ person. I look forward to the change of seasons and what each season brings. I would not want to live all-year round in a hot climate. My sister has discovered the same; the hot southern states are not for her. She prefers upstate NY. Autumn is always a reminder of the promise of a new school year; while I am no longer a student, I still like the feeling of a ‘new start’—projects around the house, new recipes to try, new photography projects. I look forward to the leaves changing color, to Halloween, to Thanksgiving, to walking outdoors in the cooler weather. Christmas arrives with winter, and that is always something to look forward to—buying gifts, making food, celebrating the holiday with loved ones. Plus the evenings are darker and longer, so it makes viewing the skies much easier with my telescope. I’ll be looking for Jupiter, Mars and Venus this winter. Spring signals rebirth; next spring, we may finally get our city parcel garden (we’ve been on the waiting list for six years), which will enable us to plant vegetables and flowers and tend to them. We’re looking forward to that and to seeing what kind of harvest we’ll get. Our discussions now revolve around what kind of vegetables and flowers we want to plant; we may plant an apple tree and a raspberry bush. And then of course there is summer to look forward to—my annual trip to NY to visit my friends and family, as well as vacation here in Norway or in another European country. I soak in the warmth of summer, to prepare me for the cold of winter. I could not face winter without having had the warmth of summer. I am glad to be able to experience all the seasons; as my mother used to say, each season has its charm.

A new poem--Summer

Summer

Days of puffy clouds

Spread out upon a sunlit blue canvas

Cycling along a country road

Scent of cinnamon from the meadow plants

Along the roadside.

Days of happiness

Spent in summer’s sunshine

Carefree days and long nights

Birds calling to each other young and old

In the trees outside the window.

Days of green grass and leafy trees

A harmony of colors rich and light

The scent of roses and of lilacs

And honeysuckle that grows wild

Untended bushes of perfume.

Days of voluminous gray clouds

Portend the thunderstorms in wait

Misty rain upon the parched plants

Ominous the sound of distant thunder

That brings the cooling rain.

Never quite so happy as in summer

Days of green of peace of sun of light

Days of meaning from doing little more

Than contemplating nature

And the life around us. 

-----------------------------

copyright Paula M. De Angelis

July 2015

A summer poem by Mary Oliver

I love this poem........

The Summer Day 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Summer moments in New York, Maryland and Virginia

I returned to Oslo last week after a wonderful vacation in the USA, where I visited the states of New York, Maryland and Virginia. As always, my trip was full of wonderful moments, all a part of my visits with my good friends and family. I did a lot of traveling on this trip; I arrived in Newark New Jersey by plane on a Thursday afternoon and spent Thursday and Friday with my friend Gisele in Manhattan. We visited the National September 11 Memorial, located at the sites of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. It was a very moving experience. On our way out of the site, we stopped in the gift store and I bought a book called ‘The Survivor Tree’, about the callery pear tree that survived the 9/11 attacks despite suffering extensive damage and burns, and was replanted at the Memorial site in December 2010. We got a chance to see this tree on the site; it has branched and grown quite high. One of the tourist guides told us that it is the only tree in which the birds will nest. I bought the book because it will be a positive reminder of a tree that symbolizes strength, hope and survival; something sorely needed in the midst of the sorrow and personal tragedies that the memorial site honors and asks us to remember. Afterward, we walked through Battery Park and up along the Esplanade (west side of Manhattan), where we had lunch at the Merchants River House restaurant. We then walked north as far as Vesey Street and then took a subway back to the Hilton Hotel in midtown. It was a beautiful day in Manhattan, and I shot some lovely photos of the boats sailing on the Hudson River, as well as some night photos of the hotel and the surrounding area. New York City at night is always a photographic adventure—the colors, the lighting, the digital effects.

On Saturday, I took the Vamoose bus from Penn Station to Bethesda Maryland to visit my cousin Karen and her husband Naj who live in Potomac. The Vamoose bus is the cheapest way to get to the Washington DC area and I recommend it; the wi-fi on board worked very well and the bus made one pit stop during the four hour trip. Karen, Naj and I spent Saturday talking and catching up; on Sunday, we decided to hike in Gambrill State Park, a lovely mountain park located on the ridge of the Catoctin Mountains in Frederick County. After hiking we ate a delicious brunch buffet at The Cozy Inn & Restaurant in Thurmont Maryland, not far from the presidential retreat Camp David. The inn has an interesting history, having been visited by a number of presidents through the years, understandably a source of pride for its owners. Maryland is a beautiful state, with lush green forests and meadows; this was reinforced for me when I took the Amtrak train further south (from Washington DC) to Williamsburg Virginia to visit my sister Renata and her husband Tim (from Monday until Wednesday). The train passed through some amazingly beautiful rural areas and marshes in Maryland and Virginia on its way to Williamsburg. My sister picked me up there and we drove to their home in Poquoson (not far from the ocean), where they were living up until this past week. We had a very nice time hanging out, watching movies, talking, eating and laughing. Their dog Dale ended up with his head in my lap while we were watching movies; this kind of trust from a dog that has been reasonably skeptical to having me around on previous visits. I also had an early morning visitor in the form of their cat Sugar, who spent one hour with her head in my armpit, sleeping and purring. I have not spent much time in Virginia; I remember that we may have visited Virginia on a family vacation long ago when we were children, but details of that trip are mostly forgotten. In any case, it too is a lovely state from the little of it I got to see.

I returned to Manhattan by Amtrak train (an eight hour trip) from Williamsburg on Wednesday; I thought I might go stir crazy sitting all that time but the trip went surprisingly well. Of course I had my iPad with my Kindle books, music and Candy Crush game to keep me occupied. Again, the onboard wi-fi worked well and I was able to write and send some emails as well. So time passed fairly quickly. I was however quite tired by the time the train arrived at Penn Station in Manhattan, and I still had to get to Grand Central Station, where I boarded yet another train to take me to Peekskill. My friend Jean picked me up there, and from then on I was in upstate New York, in Cortland Manor where she lives and where I love being, until I left to return to Oslo the following Monday. Thursday found us in Sleepy Hollow, first to have lunch with my brother Ray and his children (my niece Tamar and nephew Eli), and then to visit the cemetery where our parents are buried. Our friend Maria joined us on Friday, and we hung around, talked, laughed, ate, watched a movie, went to see Menopause the Musical (quite funny), went to her nieces’ birthday party for cake and coffee, then to hear her brother Jim and his three sons play good ol’ rock and roll in their band Crucible (the youngest son, Dean, is fourteen years old and an unbelievable drummer). We also managed a trip to the Garrison train station so that I could see Guinan’s Pub (now closed) which is situated right behind the train platform on the river side. It was the subject of Gwendolyn Bounds wonderful book Little Chapel on the River (I wrote about this book in a March 2013 post---http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2013/03/reading-about-and-remembering-hudson.html). Someone had written on the pub’s green door—R.I.P., referring to the owner Jim Guinan who passed away in 2009. I took some photos of the pub, and took a long look inside through the dusty windows. The bar has long since been emptied of inventory and furniture, but I could ‘see’ how it must have looked in its heyday. If you walk down to the Hudson River from the pub and look across to the other side of the river, you can see West Point; it reminded me of the parts of the book about the West Point cadets who sneaked across the river in order to visit the pub and have a beer or two. 

On Sunday, another sunny blue-sky summer day, we drove to Poughkeepsie and walked across the Hudson River on the old Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge that was converted to a pedestrian footbridge and opened in 2009 as The Walkway over the Hudson (http://www.walkway.org/, and http://nysparks.com/parks/178/details.aspx). It is the longest footbridge in the world, according to Wikipedia, about 1.28 miles long. A very nice walk, with signs hung up along the bridge with interesting information about its history, the turbidity and pH of the Hudson River at different locations, the bird life in the area, and so on. As we stood on the bridge facing north, we could see and hear the freight trains passing on the Highland side of the river, but we were not sure where they ended up. Each time I am in the vicinity of the Hudson River, it hooks me, and I want to explore it more, hopefully with them. I decided then and there that on future visits to New York, I want to do the Hudson River Walk as well as to take a boat ride up along the Hudson River. This river is in my blood, I grew up in a small town on its banks, and its history continues to fascinate me.

My friends and I always manage to do a lot of interesting things in the time we have together, and it's always enjoyable because we are doing those things together. And the same goes for my family too. I only wish I could spend more time with everyone. That will come to pass next summer, God willing. I will be posting some photos of this trip in my next post.

A blue-sky day

This past Tuesday, I left work early in order to enjoy the sunshine, the warmth, and the gorgeous blue sky. I was apparently not the only one who had that idea; there were many people who left early that day. It was an exceptionally nice summer day in Oslo, even though it's not officially summer yet. I was lying out in the sun, looking at the sky and the life around me. The colors of the green trees and the lilac bushes in the yard where we live against the blue-sky backdrop were vivid and lovely, and as usual, I took some pictures. Enjoy......

The promise of summer

I could just as well have entitled this post ’a taste of summer’. Either way, you’ll understand what I mean about fleeting glimpses of summer—those tantalizing warm sunny days that lead you to believe that real summer is right around the corner. But somehow real summer never materializes. That has been the summer experience in Oslo this year. Perhaps it is more correct to say that summer (as most of us define it—sunny and warm days) came and went in May, which had some wonderfully warm summer-like days (in fact, I wrote a post at that time called The Smells of Summer: http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2012/05/smells-of-summer.html). May was followed by two months of gray skies and rain. Temperatures have hovered around sixty degrees Fahrenheit since then. Summer has been struggling futilely to return. And then, it happened. Today is a real summer day. Yesterday was also a real summer day. Tomorrow is predicted to be a real summer day. I’ll believe it when I see it. I trust nothing and no one, not the clear night sky of tonight, not the balmy night temperature, not the golden moon, not weather reporters, and least of all the newspapers that are constantly telling us that ‘summer is finally here’. No, it’s not (well maybe it will be for the rest of August—hope springs eternal. I’m not a pessimist). Real summer is what I just experienced for ten glorious days in New York. So hot (temperatures hovering around 90 degrees Fahrenheit) that it feels like the heat is rising up from the street pavements, so hot that you have to throw off the bed sheets at night, even though the ceiling fan is on (can’t run the air-conditioners 24/7—the electric bills would be out of sight). So hot that my friend’s terrace is too hot to walk on in my bare feet. So hot that you think about running through the sprinkler that is watering the plants that need the water more than we do. But I am not complaining. My friends complained about the heat. The New York media reported and complained about the heat. Not me. I savored every chance I got to soak in the sun’s warmth and the summer’s heat and humidity. I walked when others drove their air-conditioned cars, although I enjoyed the a/c too, don’t misunderstand me. I had my water bottle with me on my walks and sipped it when I got thirsty. I rested when I got tired. That’s what the heat forces you to do—slow down. You can do everything you normally do, just at a slower pace. And really, what’s wrong with that? I took the train into Manhattan from Irvington, and sat on the platform benches waiting for the train, breathing in the smell of the wooden platform and the tracks. I see what I never saw before, because now I am a tourist in my home state, and I get to appreciate what I took for granted before when I was younger and lived there. I never get over how beautiful New York State is during the summer months. It doesn’t matter if I am upstate (in Tarrytown, Cortlandt Manor, Albany, or Pine Bush) or in New York City. New York is a beautiful state; it has the Hudson River, the lovely Hudson River towns and estates that I have written about many times, lakes, lush green parks and forests, and abundant farmland. It also has the Catskill and Adirondack mountains; I have not spent much time hiking in them, but it’s on my bucket list. Once you get outside of the city, you come into contact with a myriad of insects—mosquitoes, spiders, flies, crickets, and cicadas. You hear the latter two in the evenings, especially. Do I get bitten by mosquitoes? Yes I do, and the bites are irritating enough so that I ended up buying Benadryl to alleviate the itching. Ticks have become a real problem in semi-rural and rural areas; I actually know several people who have had Lyme’s disease—hikers, golfers, and fishermen.

Back in Oslo. I hope for some continuous weeks of summer from now on. Why? So that the feeling of anxiety disappears, that nagging, slightly frantic feeling of wanting to pack a summer’s worth of experiences into one or two warm days, as though we have gotten a reprieve from prison and have to make the most of it. That feeling that you cannot waste a single warm day, because a real summer day wasted is a summer day gone forever. It has felt like that for some of us this summer. You make the best of it, you don’t complain, you live one day at a time, and you hope for better weather. But many Norwegians decided early on to abandon their country for warmer lands—and did so in droves. The charter trip companies made out like bandits this summer. Financially-struggling countries in southern Europe found themselves invaded by northern Europeans seeking sun and warmth. So it’s not just me who misses real summers. And I can remember real summers here in Oslo during the 1990s when I first moved here; the shift toward cooler, shorter and rainier summers has occurred during the past five to seven years. If this is what global warming is doing to our planet--changing weather patterns to this degree--then I can only wonder about what future summers will bring.   

Summer movie viewing

Some really good (old and newer) movies that I have seen recently, in no particular order:

·         Mon Oncle (1958) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050706/

·         Elementarteilchen (The Elementary Particles--2006) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430051/

·         Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335119/

·         Midnight Cowboy (1969) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064665/

·         The Skeleton Key (2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397101/

·         Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056625/

·         Bloedbroeders (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071201/

·         Harrys döttrar (2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456972/

·         Puss in Boots (2011) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448694/

·         Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1515091/

·         Prometheus (2012) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/

Summer cottage at Nesoddtangen

We are currently vacationing for a week at a summer cottage on Nesoddtangen (the tip of the Nesodden peninsula). We have rented this particular cottage many times during the past twenty years that I have lived in Norway. The cottage was willed to the cancer hospital where my husband works, like several others available for summer rentals, by patients who felt that they had received good treatment there. At present, there are at least six (perhaps more) such cottages available for rental; through my hospital the number is about the same. Some are cottages in the mountains; others are cottages on the sea. Our cottage, situated on the Oslo fjord, is about a twenty-five minute ferry ride from Oslo. It is far enough away from the city to get the feeling that one is out in the countryside, yet near enough to it via the ferry if there is reason to make the trip. In the ‘old days’ (early 1990s), we would sometimes take the ferry or our own boat into the city, to the Aker Brygge shopping area, to do some necessary grocery shopping, fill up on supplies, eat lunch at one of its many restaurants, or just walk around and window-shop. With our boat we were able to take longer boat trips around the Nesodden peninsula or to Drøbak, a lovely little coastal town about an hour’s boat ride from Nesoddtangen. One year we rented the cabin in September, even though we no longer were on vacation; we lived there for the week and went into work each day by boat. We would make a thermos of coffee for the trip and drink it on the way into Oslo harbor, shivering in the chilly autumn air.

Cottage at Nesoddtangen

The other night, as I sat writing in the cottage’s large living room, I noticed that storm clouds were gathering and the wind was picking up. I could hear it blowing around the cabin. It was only 7pm, but storm clouds filled the sky, threatening rain later on. The weather has been so unstable this summer; torrential rains one day followed by a day with hail and snow (in some areas of Oslo). That was last week. Other days are warm and sunny, like today, a real summer day, when the blue skies seem to go on forever. But as far as the weather goes, one needs to be prepared for all eventualities. After twenty years here, I have learned to take the weather in stride. 

Fireplace at the cottage

The first evening of our arrival at the cabin, it was chilly, so my husband lit a fire in the large red-brick fireplace in the corner of the living room. The fire’s warmth, topped off by a cup of hot chocolate, made everything alright with the world, and it didn’t matter if it was chilly outside in the middle of summer. The following day, the temperatures were warmer, although the sky was still a bluish-gray, dominated by large storm clouds--rain was predicted. During late afternoon, the winds pick up and don’t die down until around 8pm. Sometimes you can hear the wind blowing almost mournfully through the trees during the night, a sound that takes some getting used to, because it is so continual. And this year, unlike previous years, the cottage grounds are literally infested with brown Iberia snails; it’s difficult not to step on them. They have become quite a problem in recent years for the eastern part of Norway.

Brown snail on road

My early memories of being in Norway are bound up in visits to this cottage during the summers, in large festive parties that we managed to throw on meager budgets in the early days, pleasant times with relatives, friends, and their children. We often sat out until late in the evening, talking and laughing. It would be light outside until 11pm. Sometimes there was someone who played guitar, and we sang along. During the day, the children played along the shore, looking for mussels to crack open so that they could be used as bait for crabs. The crabs were always tossed back into the water; too small to eat. I used to love photographing the jellyfish—two kinds-brennmanet (Lion's mane jellyfish, which is a stinging jellyfish with long tentacles) and glassmanet (generally non-stinging). The former look like fried eggs sunny side up; the latter are fragile-looking, glassy in appearance, and quite beautiful with their green and pink hues. I love watching how they move and swim. I don’t see many of them this year, unfortunately. 

Brennmanet or Lion's mane jellyfish

Sometimes at night we would go down to the wharf where our boat was moored and look at the small bioluminescent creatures in the water (phytoplankton). They were like little dots of light flickering in the dark water, which was filled with them. During lazy afternoons we would go berry-picking; there were raspberry bushes in front and off to the side of the cottage (there are still a few) and along the road leading down to the ferry. If we were lucky we found wild strawberry bushes.

Much has changed during the past twenty or so years, in regard to the cottage itself as well as its visitors. When we first used to come here, drinking water had to be drawn up from a well, and drawing it up was hard work. The cottage had no bathroom—no shower or toilet; rather an outhouse that I do not remember fondly. I remember hating outhouses already as a young child; one of our favorite family picnic areas in Pound Ridge, New York had outhouses instead of regular bathrooms-- the outhouses themselves were unpleasant places to enter—dark and filled with flies, and the smell was awful and pervasive. Over the years, the outhouse at the cottage was replaced by what was called an environmental toilet located in a ‘bathroom’ of sorts attached to the house, and this year, to our (happy) surprise, that room has now been converted into a regular bathroom with a full shower, sink and toilet. Most ‘cottages’ now in Norway are quite luxurious (and not really cabins at all)—arrayed with all the trimmings—radiant floor heat, state-of-the-art kitchens and bathrooms, exemplifying the accumulation of personal wealth in this country over the past twenty years. People want convenience and comfort now. When it comes to having a nice bathroom, I am in that group. But otherwise, I am content with the simple trappings of this cottage. Many of the couples with whom we socialized early on are no longer together. Some have new partners and new lives, and are no longer in our circle. Those couples who are still together now vacation in warmer places—where sun and warmth are guaranteed. I can honestly understand their wish for sunshine, warmth, and stable summer weather. Sometimes I miss the old days though. Some relatives are quite elderly now, too frail to make the journey to visit us at the cottage. We make the journey to visit them instead. The children who used to come here are grown up now and will soon be having children of their own. My husband and I are alone at the cottage this week, enjoying our time alone, reading, writing (me), sleeping, shopping for groceries, watching TV in the late evenings, and being generally lazy. Time passes slowly, but it passes and moves us onward. Next week I will be in New York for my annual visit. When I remember back to our time at the cottage, during the wintertime perhaps, I will wonder what it was we did each day at the cottage. But then I look at photos and remember; today my husband picked wildflowers, yesterday we were able to barbecue, today we took a long boat trip, and so on. I look at him, at our life, and wonder how it is that more than twenty years have passed since we first got together, since I first moved to Norway. Time for reflection will do that to you; nostalgia, memories, common sense, acceptance of life, of aging, of watching the next generation take over for ours; all of these things seem more intense to me when I have the time to reflect upon them. It does not make me sad; it’s more that I register my tiny place in the scheme of things, in the universe, and my small contributions to the life around me. I have to say that things feel right with the world when you know where and how you fit into the scheme of things. It’s good to get perspective.

Fjord view from the cottage, with our wooden boat (mid-picture)

Sunset at Nesoddtangen and the docked passenger ferry

Wildflowers that my husband picked

Monday morning in Oslo

Update on the weather—about the same as it’s been the past few days. Raining today; it rained yesterday (although it cleared up nicely last evening—long enough for me to get in a bike ride), and it rained a bit on Saturday as well. But we enjoyed two restaurant visits in spite of the weather, sitting indoors of course—on Friday evening at Mucho Mas for excellent Mexican food, and on Saturday evening we found our way to Jonoe at Ringnes Park for some excellent sushi. We’re on vacation now for the next four weeks, so it’s only to pray for some nice weather. I hope whoever created the Higgs boson is listening to our prayers!!

I saw an article today in Britain’s newspaper The Guardian, that the weather in England isn’t much better than here. Rain, and lots of it. And more to come. That’s what’s predicted for Oslo this week. So I guess I better tackle my indoor projects that are waiting for me. No time like the present! Still working on my photo and writing projects, so I guess I won’t complain (too much) about the weather. I’ve sorted through my recent photos and organized them. I’ve created a few photo blog posts and written a few posts for my other blogs. The house is in order, household tasks are mostly done, and now I can read and write to my heart’s content.

The USA is experiencing one of the worst heat waves on record, with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I can attest to that, as I grew up in New York, and I can only remember one or two summers in my growing up when the temperatures even approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (about 38 degrees Celsius) or went slightly over that temperature. New York summers were always warm and humid though, and it was nice to come inside to an air-conditioned home or office to cool down. Or perhaps we ran through someone’s sprinkler to cool down; I remember doing this often as a child. There were always some homeowners who were watering their lawns and who didn’t mind that we ran through their sprinklers. I remember some wicked New York thunderstorms, with intense thunder and a lot of lightning, followed by torrential rains. And then, the storm was over and the sun came out and life went back to summer normal. But when I talk to family and friends now about the weather in New York, many of them say it’s nothing like it was when we were young. So I have to conclude that either we all have collectively bad memories, or that weather patterns have definitely changed. Whether the changes are natural or the result of global warming, I cannot say. But I can also say that summers in Oslo are not like they were in the early 1990s when I first moved here, so I really do believe that weather patterns are changing. I can remember longer periods with sunshine in June and July in Oslo, where it was possible to go out on the boat without being drenched by a sudden rainstorm. It’s harder to trust that there will be stable weather now, anywhere.

A summer moment

From the future I remember

Days in my past, etched in memory

Close my eyes halfway, I can see the sunlight

Glittering through the tree’s green leaves

Magician’s haze

In the heat of summer, feeling the warm sun

On my bare arms, loving that feeling.

Wondering if heaven had descended

Sitting there next to you on the bench

You reading your magazine

T-shirt slung over your shoulder

Me watching you and the life around us

No particular cares

Us watching the new magpie parents strut about

Three little ones to care for, wondering if they could fly

In case a cat came slinking by.

I can see the future in the present moment

Remembering this day this exact moment in time

And the past from the present

When I remember back to what I thought life would be

When I was younger

It starts with happiness, that warm melting feeling

When boundaries dissolve

Feeling gratitude, because it could all die away or change

And I am grateful that it hasn’t.

Watching the new generation take the place of the old

Spectator in my life, watching others, watching myself

Everyone gets older

Wondering if you have the same thoughts

But I cannot articulate them to you

You would think that I was feeling melancholy

When the opposite was true. 

copyright Paula M. De Angelis

28 May 2012

The smells of summer

Out biking earlier this evening. Breathing in the smells of late spring/early summer. This is the season of lilacs, my favorite flowers, of freshly-mown green grass, a smell I love, of grilled meat on the barbecue, asphalt roads baking in the heat—the smell of tar. Reminds me of the ocean boardwalk at Rye Beach Playland, also baking in the sun. Love that smell—it always brings me back to childhood, summers, and our annual trip to Playland that was a treat from our parents to us and our friends. Loads of fun. Opened the door to my house, the hallway was filled with the pungent (but not unpleasant) odor that comes from my fig tree, which now has three figs on it. In the living room I smelled the lovely delicate fragrant scent that comes from my mini-orange tree, which has at least six oranges growing on it now and many new white blossoms. The fragrance attracts the bees, who love it when they get the chance to alight on the blossoms; and that is only when they get a chance to come into the house when the windows are wide open as they have been the past few days due to the heat. And then of course my basil plants, with their wonderful smell that always remind me of my aunt’s garden in Tarrytown. When we visited her during the summer, she would make dinner and send us children out into the garden to pick tomatoes and basil leaves for her salad, and also raspberries (for dessert) from the bushes that surrounded her house. I always remember the strong smell of basil from her garden. The smells of summer are peaceful, a kind of aromatherapy for the mind and soul.

Warm weather musings and updates

Summer has finally come to Norway, at least to Oslo and the surrounding area. And it’s not even officially summertime yet according to the calendar. So guess who’s happy? It’s my favorite season, summertime. It brings with it no work or very little work, vacation, sun, warmth, travel, long lazy days, boat trips, bicycle rides, a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables on a daily basis, salads, enjoying a few hours with friends or my husband at outdoor cafes—the list is endless. My plants are happy; it’s just to take one good look at them. Their leaves seem greener and they just seem to be healthier. Just like us, how we respond to the sun. Everyone seems happier, more patient, less aggressive and more open. I wish it could be like that all year long. Summer always seems to be the time when new beginnings blossom, for me at least. More than spring, although you might say that spring is where those new beginnings take root.

I haven’t written too much about work lately, I guess because I’ve moved into a new phase now at my workplace—the ‘wait and see’ phase. For the time being, my work life seems to have evened out a bit. All that means is that I have found a new research group to settle into and so far, so good. It feels good to be a part of something to which I can contribute. I just hope this new group is allowed to grow and flourish. One year ago, the other ‘new group’ that I was a part of was just getting onto its feet and learning to get to know one another. And then the end of 2011 came and that group went ‘poof’ and was no more. Management decided to move the pawns around on the chess board once again, and came up with new suggestions for new constellations. And of course they know best. The uplifting part of these political scenarios is that they happen now in public for all to see, so that it is no longer possible for my friends and colleagues to say that they don’t believe me when I tell them how it is. They’re now experiencing some of this personally and they don’t like the treatment either. I’m a couple of years ahead of them, having graduated from anger to depression to cynicism to healthy skepticism. ‘Trust no one’ as the main characters on the X-Files used to say. In a work-related context, I’d say that’s where I am now. Still like the research work I do, though. I just hate work politics, but they’re part and parcel of the whole arena, in fact of most business arenas.

Mostly, I’ve floated myself back into the world that I love the most after science—the world of the creative arts--literature, movies, art, and music. That world always fills me with hope and the feeling that I am being renewed—new beginnings within myself. I’m reading again, listening to new music, appreciating art where I find it, and going to the movies as often as I manage. Or renting DVDs to catch up on the movies I’ve missed. I just read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and enjoyed it; he describes evil behavior in mankind in a way that can chill you to the bone, and he does it in a way that seems so ordinary. I’m currently reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and enjoying it immensely; Olive is a prickly middle-aged woman but her life is so worth reading about—all the different people who cross her path and who interact with her. I recommend it. I got tickets to see Deadmau5 at Oslo Spektrum concert stadium next week as I wrote about in my previous post; in a few weeks I will see Sting at the Norwegian Wood music festival in Frogner Park. I recently went to see the movies Dark Shadows, Hunger Games and Martha Marcy May Marlene, and I got tickets today for the opening night of Prometheus (can’t wait!) next week. I’ve rented The Rum Diary with Johnny Depp, and watched Source Code and Another Earth (another film I wrote about recently). All of them were good films, and all of them inspire me in a way that no other art form can. I’m hooked on movies—always have been and always will be. Some of you may ask where I find the time to do these things—yes, I know and feel the time constraints all the time. The answer is that I am making the time now. Again I ask, if not now, when? Academia can eat up every spare minute of life including evenings and weekends, and I don’t want that. So yes, I am choosing the creative world of the arts any chance I get, as I’ve written about here in this blog many times before. It helps to balance out the administrative, political and other demands of academia. The actual research and experiments though are the creative part of science, when we are actually permitted to pursue them. There is a lot of creativity in the world of science research; the trick is to not get buried by all of the other demands that eat up that creative time.

Crazy summer skies in Oslo

It's been a rainy summer here in Oslo. Accordingly, there have been some interesting skies to look at. I usually photograph most sky views from my kitchen window, and have been doing this for many years and during all the seasons. This summer there have been some really interesting cloud formations in connection with thunderstorms and regular rainstorms. Many of these are followed by beautiful rainbows. I don't think I have ever seen so many rainbows in my life as I have just during the past several summers. Some of the cloud formations shown here look so ominous, a portent of dark things to come. I often wonder as I watch the clouds swirl and move and shift and gather--how does the start of a tornado or hurricane look? Sometimes it seems as though the clouds will form a tornado. But they never do. We are not in a tornado alley. Oslo doesn't really even have hurricanes, although it can have some severe thunderstorms, especially during the past few years. But you cannot beat New York for lightning and thunderstorms. They are intense there. I've tried capturing lightning here with my camera, but it's difficult. I've gotten a few good shots but not close-up enough. I'll keep working on it. In the meantime, enjoy the shots............

Summer moon over Oslo

Just thought I'd share a couple of photos I took last night of an extraordinary summer moon over Oslo. The clouds kept passing over it and creating such interesting shadow effects. Yesterday was a gorgeous day in Oslo, sunny and warm. Perfect for a long bicycle trip, which is exactly what I ended up taking. Love being out on my bike, together with the warm breeze and the sun beating down. Nothing beats that feeling of being outdoors and being active.

Today is the opposite of yesterday--rainy, chilly, the wind is blowing, and nothing about today reminds me of summer. How unstable the weather is from day to day. I know from friends and family in New York that the weather is unstable there as well. So what is going on in the world? Is this all part of global warming? Or are these just fluke years in an otherwise fairly stable weather pattern in the context of a century or two? Whatever it is, I just want one summer to be a long uninterrupted stream of warm sunny weather punctuated by a short thunderstorm or two (but no more). Like what I remember from my childhood in New York. I never remember that we had so much rain.

Vacation time

Here it is July already. Vacation time. Plans and things to look forward to. I will be in Dublin Ireland for the next few days—A New Yorker in Dublin. I hope that the hotel has wi-fi so that I can connect to the net and write when the mood strikes me. I hope I get inspired to write by the country itself—Ireland, the home of WB Yeats, my favorite poet. I won’t get a chance to visit County Sligo, where he lived for most of his adult life, at least not on this trip. But he was born and educated in Dublin, and there is a Yeats exhibition this coming week, so I will at least get a chance to see that. I will be traveling with my friend Gisele, and we usually manage to pack a lot of sightseeing into a few days, merely by walking around the cities we visit. We’ve walked a fair amount around Paris and have really gotten to know the city. Amsterdam is another city I will be visiting this summer together with my husband. We’ve both been there before but only for a couple of days. This time we’ll spend a few more days there. We were hoping to visit the famous Keukenhof tulip park, but apparently it is closed after the spring exhibition. I’ve been there once before in April 1998 and it was just an amazing place to see, with all of the different tulip arrangements. A pity that we won’t be able to see it now when we’re there. Next time…….

And then in August I will be A New Yorker in New York for a week or so—my annual trip to NY to visit friends and family. Lots of events planned, as always, get-togethers, shopping, sightseeing, etc. My schedule is usually packed and I like it that way. Summer vacation here we come. 

A New Yorker in Oslo on vacation reading The New Yorker

Just for fun......from a few summers ago.