Akerselva river in spring

Blackbird outside my window

Last year I posted a photo of a blackbird outside my office window (http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2015/01/a-winter-visitor-outside-my-office.html). I managed to get a few shots of a blackbird this year as well; I wonder if it's the same one? I set out bread crumbs in order to attract the birds; sometimes I get magpies, other times bullfinches, but this time I got a blackbird. He's a plump little bird and very cute.

Be the One by Dua Lipa

Really like this song.......Dua Lipa reminds me of Nelly Furtado.

The first bumblebee of the season

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Oslo, and the crocuses in the yard are in full bloom, loving the sunshine. The first bumblebee of the season also made its appearance (the first one I've seen at least), in love with the crocuses. It made its way from flower to flower, landing on each of them and then rolling around in the pollen sitting on the top of the filament, quite a happy bee. One cannot take the bees for granted anymore, due to colony collapse disorder and bee deaths. So I was glad to see that this bumblebee was healthy and functioning. A bumblebee watching site on Twitter contacted me to tell me that this is Bombus hypnorum, a tree bumblebee, also called a new garden bumblebee. These bumblebees often live near human settlements, like to build their nests above ground and often inhabit bird boxes. You can read more about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus_hypnorum.

Getting ready to plant our garden

We finally got word that we will be getting a garden plot in a nearby community garden (in Norwegian called 'parselhage'), and will pick up the keys very soon. We've been on the list to get a garden plot for about seven years; last year we were told that this year would be the year. My plans are to plant vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, beets, and spinach). My husband would like to plant fruit bushes, among them raspberry bushes. We haven't seen the plot of land yet, so we don't know how much space we'll be getting. Plots range in size from 800 to 2000 square feet, fairly large by my estimation. I've already started some plants from seed, and they are growing fairly well so far, especially the pumpkin plants (see the photos below).

cauliflower and broccoli

spinach to the right

pumpkin plants

beet plants

pumpkin plants growing large

Lyrics to 'Hey Look Me Over'

Don't ask me why this came to mind--our graduation song from kindergarten, a long long time ago. Perhaps I was thinking about going back to work tomorrow after having been on vacation for over a week, and I got to thinking about school days and the approach of summer vacation and looking forward to that when we were kids. In any case, the song was written by Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman, and our teachers 'adapted' the lyrics for a kindergarten scenario. The song has been performed by Louis Armstrong, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, and Lucille Ball, among others.


Hey look us over
Lend us an ear
School days are over
Vacation time is here
No more painting pictures
No clay in a cup
But when you are in kindergarten
The only way is up

And we'll be up like a rose bud
High on the vine
Don't thumb your nose
But take a tip from mine
We’re a little bit short of the elbow room
But let us stand and shout
Hey look out world
Here we come

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

and the original song:

Hey look me over
Lend me an ear
Fresh out of clover
Mortgage up to here
But don't pass the plate folks
Don't pass the cup
I figure whenever you're down and out
The only way is up

And I'll be up like a rose bud
High on the vine
Don't thumb your nose
But take a tip from mine
I'm a little bit short of the elbow room
But let me get me some
And look out world
Here I come

Yes, hey look me over
Lend me an ear
Fresh out of clover
Mortgage up to here
But don't pass the plate folks
Don't pass the cup
I figure whenever you're down and out
The only way is up

And I'll be up like a rose bud
High on the vine
Don't thumb your nose
But take a tip from mine
I'm a little bit short of the elbow room
But let me get me some
And look out, world
Here, I, come...

Songwriters: Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman

Daffodils and Happy Easter

A beautiful poem for spring by Robert Frost

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

Things I want

Sometimes the things we want are defined by the things we do not want. That’s true for me to some extent, but as I get older, I know pretty much exactly what I want:

a) Peace and quiet = without these, I cannot relax. I do not want to be around people the entire day, and that includes my work day. I want to be able to close my office door and to be by myself. I need peace and quiet at work and at home, in other words, some hours to myself where I am beholden to no one. I want alone time that is responsibility-free and guilt-free, and that is not invaded by pointless conversations or people wanting me to feel guilty for not paying attention to them.

b) Real communication = without it, nothing works. If I cannot have real honest communication, then I’d rather not waste my time and other people’s time talking. I don’t want to fake conversations or interest in things I have no interest in, nor do I want to compete with others for listening time. If I am in conversation with you and all you want to do is to talk about yourself and how lousy your life is or how important your life is compared to others, then I don’t want to be your conversation partner. In other words, don’t waste my valuable precious time complaining to me about how miserable your life is or how important you are, because you have no idea what others might be dealing with on a daily basis. And they don’t burden the world with their problems or their inflated ego.

c) Simplicity = without it, life becomes a meaningless drudgery. The trend these days is to complicate everything. Workplaces are exercises in frustration and lack of effectiveness because administrative routines and rules have become too complicated. We worship on the altar of triviality. At home, the same can be true. I’d rather cook simple hearty meals from scratch, with fresh vegetables and foodstuffs, than load us up with excess salt and sugar from processed foods, pre-packaged foods, or foods that have been suffocated in plastic to ‘protect’ them (plastic wrapped so tightly around vegetables that it cannot be healthy for them). Why can’t vegetables and fruit be free and uncovered? Why must we waste time, money and energy on packing each individual vegetable into its own plastic housing? Why can’t we keep it simple? Grow some of our own vegetables, or support local farmers who do. Buy unpackaged vegetables or those that will be tossed away because they don’t ‘look’ appealing. Cut down on the amount of food purchased. You don’t need pantries stocked full of food, unless you believe the apocalypse is coming.

d) Farewell to competition and to expectations = I’ve reached that point. I no longer want to compete. I don’t see the point of competition anymore. I no longer want expectations of greatness placed upon my shoulders by others who mean that I should aim high and have grandiose ambitions. Those days are gone; they belong to a past time when I was much younger. I’ve seen the light and accepted it, why can’t my leaders at work also see it? My super-productive days are over. I want an ordinary life, with ordinary cares and small worries each day. I want to putter, to garden, to hang out at home, to pursue my hobbies, to not have to measure up to specific metrics imposed on me at work, and to not have to worry about how I look or what I wear. If I want to walk around in jogging pants and sneakers, so be it. I want to walk in the sunshine, to be free to do so, to not have time constraints on me, to not have to have homework anymore in the form of articles to write or articles to read or review. I want to be free of grant applications and progress reports. I want peace, quiet, real communication, simplicity, and an unencumbered life.

Things I do not want

Sometimes there are dry spells when it comes to creativity, energy, and motivation, and I’ve had some dry spells recently, when it seems that writing, photography and all of the other creative things that nourish the soul, are not worth pursuing. A spiritual malaise sets in, and sometimes spills over into the physical realm. The darkness and grayness of winter can sap a person for strength, ditto for soulless workplaces that do nothing to nourish the soul. They rather destroy it slowly.

What I don’t want at this point in my life: I don’t want to work anymore, at least not in the traditional sense. My soul derives nothing from the daily 9 to 5 grind that I used to love so much. It gets zero nourishment from a public sector workplace that is dominated by a bureaucracy that kills all motivation, by numerous leaders who are completely ineffective and who could care less about their employees, and by a level of inefficiency that in and of itself could drive a normal person to drink. Albert Einstein wrote that “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work”. He wrote that line during the early part of the 20^th century and was completely spot on! The saving grace of any workplace is of course your co-workers, many of whom feel the same way as I do, so there is some amount of shared commiseration while we all plod onward in the muck. But some of them are younger and haven’t experienced soul-sucking environments for years on end, so they are not as weary of the whole thing as I am. I still have several years to go before I can retire, and I honestly wonder at times how I’m going to survive those years without burning out.

I also do not want to work all day in an office the size of a tiny kitchen that I share with another person, with windows that open a crack, with fluorescent lighting that can never in a million years take the place of sunlight, for the prescribed number of hours. I find all sorts of excuses now to be out of my office, to be outdoors, or to leave early. Modern workplace buildings, for all their so-called environmentally-friendly architecture and technology, are completely divorced from nature, from wildness, from the outdoors. There is nothing like fresh air, a gentle breeze, sunshine on your skin, a walk along a river, or just being outdoors, to restore the soul. I want to be outdoors any chance I get. My body makes those decisions for me, and I am learning to just follow what it wants, because it wants healthy things for me.

I don’t want to listen to or to watch endless news stories about all of the horrible things going on in the world for which there are no solutions. All those stories do is create despair. Newspapers and television have become like the Dementors in the Harry Potter books—soul-sucking creatures. They bring up a problem again and again, propose few to no solutions, and suck the energy from those who try by bombarding them nonstop with stupid questions. If you are going to have an opinion about the problem, then for God’s sake have an opinion about the solution to that problem. I know the world is in deep trouble; tell me something else. Tell me about the people working to change things, trying to solve problems, trying to help, and tell me about all that in an intelligent, respectful, and decent way. Stop being belligerent, aggressive, nonstop pandering machines. Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator in listeners--to the basest instincts in people, every chance you get. Don’t encourage bigotry, hatred, and violence by talking about it ad nauseam. Stop making the rest of the world think that America is filled with pro-Trump and pro-Palin idiots. There are over 315 million people in the USA; the news media in Europe would have us think that all Americans support Trump; the American media are doing very little to dispel that notion. All of the Americans I know that are family and close friends, do not support Trump or the other GOP idiots. So there. My appeal to the media here and in the USA—please shut up unless you have something positive to say or some solution for how to get rid of Trump before November.

And while we’re at it—could we please end the reality TV culture and celebrity worship? I don’t want to see another Kardashian (any of them) on my TV screen or in any newspapers for as long as I live. I don’t watch these shows, never have and never will, but it seems as if whatever so-called 'celebrities' do is news-worthy. Here's a quick tip--NOT. Is this what money does to people’s brains? Can heads of the media no longer see what quality is and what crap is?

I no longer read the newspaper at breakfast. I read the comics page (since it is actually more intelligent than much of what passes for news--you need only to read Bloom County to know that) and then put the paper aside until later in the day. I refuse to discuss the grotesque goings-on in the world when I first get up. There are many things to be thankful for--the life we have been given, the chance to live another day, the chance to wake up to sunshine, the chance to love those in our lives (humans and pets), to chance to choose healthy, and the chance to appreciate the world we live in and to take care of it. That's how I want to start my day, and live my day. 

The Serenity Prayer

The best prayer of all---so much wisdom contained in one little prayer. If we followed its advice, we would save ourselves so much pain, complaining and irritation.

The benefits of doing yoga exercises

I found this short article, Yoga Eases Symptoms of Chronic Low Back Pain, at http://www.ahealthblog.com/yoga-eases-symptoms-of-chronic-low-back-pain.html. It's quite interesting, as I just started doing yoga exercises in January. I am not practicing yoga, only doing the exercises, and I am only doing the simple exercises, but have already discovered that I feel more relaxed and have less lower back pain after doing them. I will keep on doing them to see if these effects are long-lasting. Many of the yoga exercises remind me of the types of stretching exercises I used to do for my modern dance classes years ago. The fact that I can still do many of these exercises makes me feel quite good, after many years of not doing them.

Image via: Yoga Eases Symptoms of Chronic Low Back Pain

Change the World by Eric Clapton

Every now and then I wish I really could change the world in a big way--make it less brutal, less bigoted, less cold, less money-oriented, just simpler and kinder....All those things at once. Not sure where we're headed anymore; it all seems so chaotic and out of control--climate change, the overwhelming refugee/migrant situation in Europe, the utter brutality of terrorism, and the looming possibility of a loud-mouth bigot as president of the USA. The latter bothers me immensely, that my fellow countrymen believe in this man, who is clearly a sham. If people think that he has even the faintest idea of what it's like to be poor or lower middle class, think again. He has NO idea what it's like. He's never been poor. Daddy gave him his cushy start in life, and that's ok, but he could have used it for the betterment of mankind, and he hasn't. He just says the things he thinks bigots, whiners and the failures in society want to hear. What surprises me is how many people I know who actually support this man. I find it sad. Listening to Eric Clapton sing 'Change the World' is what I want to do right now--because it reminds me to keep believing in the good. But also, that if we don't do something soon, it will be too late to change the world.

When will reality TV shows disappear?

We’re now well into season 6 of The Walking Dead; episode 10, entitled The Next World, aired on Monday evening here in Norway. Fear the Walking Dead starts up again in April, and tomorrow night the sixth (and final so far) episode of The X-Files airs. I’ve been watching them all and loving them. The return of The X-Files after so many years (it went off the air in 2002) made me very happy; I looked forward to getting involved with Mulder and Scully’s cases and their relationship all over again. And these episodes didn’t disappoint; despite mixed reviews (as always), they managed to hold my attention and left me wanting more. It’s not just that all these shows are sci-fi, horror, apocalyptic, or fantasy shows that appeal to me because I find those genres interesting. It’s that we get involved with the characters at the same time, characters that are dealing with life and death situations, survival, family matters, sickness and death. The zombies have to be dealt with and/or dispatched on The Walking Dead; likewise the mutants and monsters on The X-Files. No matter how fantastic it all becomes, no matter that the survival of the main characters is sometimes very surprising or even unthinkable, I am rooting for all of them to make it. This is television at its best—series that I enjoy following, that give me something to think about and look forward to each week; that entertain me, surprise me, shock me, and involve me. There are other good series too; Sleepy Hollow, Game of Thrones, Wayward Pines, and American Horror Story are just a few that come to mind. I’ve watched them too, but The Walking Dead and The X-Files remain my favorites. I’m just thankful that they exist at all, because most of what is available to watch is reality TV. I wish someone would take a hatchet to anything that even remotely smacks of reality TV, and put all these shows out of their misery forever. They include The Kardashians, all the cooking competition shows, all the lip-syncing competition shows, all the ‘how to survive on a desert island or on a mountain-top’ shows, all the shows about bratty children who fall in line when a nanny appears, all the shows about spoiled adults whose credit cards are maxed-out and who suddenly need professional help to get them out of debt, all the shows about presumably fashionable (not) women telling other women how to dress, all the shows about pawn shop users or those who go scrounging through other people’s garage possessions, and rich men’s wives. The list goes on ad nauseum.

I don’t know what I’d do without the TCM channel that serves up films from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, that even at their worst, are one hundred times better than anything offered me by reality TV shows. Most of the old films had real substance; a few were fluff, but the majority were not. These were films made about characters you wanted to get to know, involved in life dramas that mattered. Not so for reality TV shows. I wonder how our Western culture became so obsessed with the latter, and with one family in particular; that family’s every move is reported in the media. How did that happen, and why? Or is it just a matter of watching them because there is nothing else on? Why do I not care what happens to a single one of them? Why do I wish they would all crash and burn? All I know is that I am glad I grew up when watching television was an enjoyable experience, when shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Leave it to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maya, Bonanza, Kojak, Sanford and Son, Bewitched, The Bionic Woman, The Bob Newhart Show, The Partridge Family, The Waltons, The Brady Bunch, Hogan’s Heroes, Dallas, Knot’s Landing, All in the Family, MASH, The Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows, Night Gallery, The Night Stalker, Columbo, Cheers, Miami Vice, Magnum PI, Married With Children, Murder She Wrote, St. Elsewhere, Moonlighting, and Remington Steele, among many others, were popular. I watched them all and followed them all. They made an impression on me that has lasted. They were funny, sad, moving, provocative, entertaining, scary, intelligent, but above all, memorable. That cannot be said for reality TV programs. I feel sorry for this generation that has grown up with these shows; they have no real idea of what good television is, except perhaps when they sit down to watch the TV series that we grew up with. It is no wonder that streaming has become so popular; I can watch the shows I’m interested in and ignore the junk. That’s progress.  

The wisdom of Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver intrigues me with her simple wisdom that goes right to the heart of things. She writes about the things that matter in life. There is no way that you can read her words without being affected by them, without some part of you knowing that you've been touched by the truth. And having been touched by the truth, that you know that you must abide by it. Here are some of her words of wisdom in the form of quotes and poems........

·         Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

·         Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

·         Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

·         Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

•   To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

·         Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

·         The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.

·         You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.

·         Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled—

to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

·         to live in this world

you must be able

to do three things

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go

·         When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.