Biking, Bicycle Sundays and the Bikecentennial

We are experiencing an early autumn in Oslo this year, not that I am complaining, because the sun is shining more than it did the entire summer. So for some few hours a day, in the early afternoon, there is actually some sunshine and warmth. Today was a perfect day for a bicycle ride up along the Akerselva river, which is something I have done quite often in recent years. Biking up along the river from the beginning to the end (Oslo fjord to Maridalen reservoir) is a total distance of about five miles, so it’s not a long river. My trip today was about six miles round trip (from Ila to Kjelsås and back); for the most part fairly hilly on the way up, but an easy and enjoyable return downhill for those (like me) who end up being a bit tired afterwards.

I have biked all my life, it seems. There is something about getting on a bike that spells freedom for me. I learned like most other children to ride a two-wheeler when I was around eight years old, and after that I was sold. I can remember biking around Tarrytown as a teenager, exploring back streets, the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, Philipse Manor and Sleepy Hollow Manor, and maybe once or twice I got as far as Rockwood State Park, slightly north of Tarrytown on route 9. I didn’t go much further north than that. Sometimes I had my friends with me, but most of the time I was alone. When Westchester county officials decided in 1975 or 1976 to close off the Bronx River Parkway to cars on Sundays during the summer and early fall, I was thrilled. Bicycle Sundays still exist as I discovered when I googled them (http://www3.westchestergov.com/news/2674). The course ran from the Westchester County Center in White Plains south to Scarsdale Road in Yonkers, which was a round-trip of about 13 miles. I would first bike from Tarrytown to White Plains and then bike the entire round-trip course, together with a lot of other bike enthusiasts. There was no question of biking fast—you were limited by how fast the others biked. But sometimes I could break away from the pack. My brother joined me on some Sundays and that was always nice. He became quite a good biker and went on to participate in triathlons in his early twenties. In early 1976, the year of the bicentennial of the USA, I and my friend Loraine from college decided to try and join one of the cross-country trips that was offered by BikeCentennial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikecentennial), now called TransAmerica Bicycle Trail (http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/transamerica.cfm). She left it up to me to do the planning. I do remember getting the brochure/maps in the mail and poring over them, trying to decide what route would be best for us, and settling on a week-long trip through Virginia; I don’t remember the exact route, but the present routes are probably the original routes. We both bought fairly expensive bikes for that time, in April 1976, in order to be able to train for this trip. Unfortunately, by the time we registered for it, it was booked solid and we missed out on that opportunity. Many of the other trips were not on the East coast and we were limited in what we could choose, since the Virginia trip was the one trip that fit our time schedule; we had the month of August free and after that we had to return to college. So we didn’t manage the Bikecentennial trip, but I at least kept on biking and am still doing so today. I still flirt with the notion of attempting another such trip—shorter distance and shorter time, in the USA or in Norway. But it has not come to pass and I must admit that I have not actively sought it out. After I left college and moved to the Bronx, my biking days became more limited because I did not feel comfortable biking in the Bronx. When I later moved to New Jersey in the mid-1980s, I bought a new bike at the urging of my brother who by that time was a triathlon biker. My new bike was a racing bike; to go with my new bike, I needed biking shoes (that attached to the pedals) and biking gear. Biking in America at that time was really taking off (this was around 1986-87), thanks to Greg LeMond and his 1986 win in the Tour de France. Bikers needed trendy gear. However, I never really felt comfortable with any of it, and I hated that my shoes were attached to the pedals when I biked. It felt claustrophobic. So if I biked, it was in the old way, comfortable shoes—unattached to the pedals, regular pants, no helmet—as non-aerodynamic as possible. I have relented somewhat over the years—I own bicycle pants with padding that reminds me of a big diaper, and a seat cover with padding, and bicycle gloves to grip the handlebars better. But this is about comfort and nothing else—if seats were comfortable like in the old days I wouldn’t have bought a seat cover or bicycle pants. I also own a helmet that I never use; I don’t like the feeling of having it on my head and it seems to interfere with my hearing—too much swooshing in my ears. I’ve fallen off a bike twice in my life; the first time as a child and a passenger on my friend’s bike--I smashed my front tooth, and the second time as an adult—I ended up with skinned knees that were painful and took weeks to heal. But small injuries have never deterred me. After I moved to Norway in 1989, I didn’t bike regularly for a number of years, I’m not even sure why, not until I bought a bike again in 1997 and used it to bike to and from work. But after I injured my back in 2001, I didn’t get on a bike again until 2009. I was afraid of injuring my back and for some reason I associated biking with back problems. This fear turned out to be unfounded. So now I am biking again, not as much as I’d like, but much more often than I thought I’d manage.

Although I enjoy walking and hiking in the forests and our occasional trips to the mountains, I think I enjoy biking best. It is something I can always do, anywhere. I prefer it to jogging, which I find somewhat monotonous, although I do jog at times. I have biked to work on occasion; that is real training, again mostly uphill all the way. Suffice it to say that my energy level is not at its peak in the morning, so I do struggle a bit. I am an early afternoon biker from the standpoint of being able to tackle all of the physical challenges involved. I think what I have always liked about biking is the freedom, the fact that you get to different places faster than you would if you walked, and that you are outdoors in nature. The latter is most important to me these days. I cannot wait to get outdoors now—to breathe fresh air, to be out in the sunshine, to be a part of the nature around me. In such respect, I don’t really miss my health club training; although I am still a member, I am rarely there, because it means going indoors and stepping onto machines—treadmills, cross-country machines—that take me nowhere. The only way I survive the boredom of training is to have my iPod with me. That saves me. I train indoors during the winter—I don’t enjoy biking in the ice and snow, although I have one friend who does and she says it’s fine as long as you have the right tires. Perhaps I will get to that point one of these days, if only to find my way outdoors again during the long winters. 

What Steve Jobs said

As most of you probably have heard already, Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56 after a long battle with cancer. I have read some of the obituaries already, so I won't repeat any of what is already written about him. Suffice it to say that not only was he a brilliant innovator, he also had a lot of wise and inspirational things to say about life and working and doing what you love here in this short life on earth. I am posting some of his wise words here in honor of his life and many achievements. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. 

Perspective on life, on following your heart and on doing what you love

·         Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

·         We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and everyone should be really excellent. Because this is our life.

·         Life is brief, and then you die, you know?

·         And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.

·         Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

On being different and standing apart from the crowd

·         Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

·         Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?

·         I want to put a ding in the universe.

On wealth

·         Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.

·         I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.

On working, management, quality, excellence and innovation

·         Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.

·         My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.

·         Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

·         A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.

·         Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

·         Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data.

·         We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place – the last thing we were going to do is lay them off.

·         I mean, some people say, ‘Oh, God, if Jobs got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.’ And, you know, I think it wouldn’t be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that’s what I try to do.

·         So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know – just explore things.

·         People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

·         I think the key thing is that we’re not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things.

·         I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

·         Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

Woyzeck at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet

Last night my husband and I went to see the modern dance production of Woyzeck at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet. It was in fact the fourth performance of this modern dance piece; it premiered in Oslo during the last week of September. The story of Woyzeck, written originally as a play by Georg Büchner, has also been adapted as an opera and as a number of different films, but this was one of the few times it has been presented as a dance piece. It was created by the German choreographer Christian Spuck to music by Martin Donner, Philip Glass, Gyorgy Kurtag, and Alfred Schnittke. As fate would have it, Inger-Margrethe Lunde, the theater critic for Aftenposten (the Norwegian newspaper), did not like it. In fact, she strongly disliked it, going so far as to call it ‘bullshit’. I am attaching the link to her review (in Norwegian—it can be translated using Google Translate but you have to tolerate some weird translations here and there): http://oslopuls.aftenposten.no/kunst_scene/article605271.ece.  She headlined her review with the words “Embarrassing and disappointing”, followed by “Bullshit, I think, despite the frantic, endless standing ovation”. And the review gets worse from there, ending with the same-- “Bullshit, I think”…… I cannot remember ever reading a review of any production, dance or otherwise, quite like hers. When I read her review, I thought, yikes, just our luck; we have season tickets to the ballet, and Woyzeck was the first dance of the season for our subscription. I have to say I was dreading it, because there is nothing worse than sitting for two hours watching something that is boring. That has happened on occasion—that I have been bored by an opera, but I do manage to differentiate between my subjective feelings and my objective appraisal of the actual performance—were the singers good, were the sets attractive, and so on. I am not opposed to someone writing a negative review, but hers could have been more professionally-done. In any case, as luck would have it, we ended up not sharing Lunde’s opinion of Woyzeck. And in fact I have to wonder if we actually saw the same dance piece. I cannot understand what it was she did not like, and have to conclude that it was the theme of the story (the humiliation and cruelty that one man is subjected to that results in a tragic outcome) that bothered her. That I can understand—that it would have bothered her. But not that it would lead to her disliking the entire production or calling it bullshit. Because it wasn’t. I was actually quite moved by this dance production, especially by one of the final scenes where the low-ranking soldier Woyzeck dances with his girlfriend Marie who has been unfaithful to him; the dancer who played Woyzeck last night, Kaloyan Boyadjiev, was wonderfully expressive with his body and his arms, and really made you feel his humiliation, his pain and his desperation. His murder of Marie is the culmination of a long series of humiliations that he has been forced to endure because of his poverty; he is often humiliated by the army for which he does odd jobs and by the scientists who poke and probe him as part of the experiment that he is a part of. He endures all of these humiliations in order to earn some money, and when he comes home in the evening to Marie and their son, he is free and you see that in the way they dance with each other. They actually know some happiness and they seem to be in love. So that makes it all the more tragic and poignant at the end when he realizes he has lost her, lost the only thing that means anything to him.

Apart from what Lunde explained about the story of Woyzeck in her review (and I forgot the plot by the time we went to see it), I really did not know the story in detail nor what we were about to see when we walked into the theater. It was the same for my husband. During the dance, I had so many thoughts and feelings about what was transpiring on stage. Franz Kafka came to mind (as it did for my husband as well), as well as the brilliant English series, The Prisoner, with Patrick McGoohan (where the prisoner, a former spy, was just a number, surrounded by a nameless bureaucratic system of jailers all trying to probe him for information). The feeling of systematic cruelty, of a total lack of empathy, pervaded the piece. I found myself thinking about totalitarianism and communism and the loss of personal dignity and identity. So if a dance piece can make me feel all those things, as well as move me because of its poignancy, then for me it was something of value that I was privileged to experience. It is impossible to defend the man Woyzeck because he murdered Marie, but it is completely possible to understand what drove him to do that. I felt sorry for him in spite of his tragic choice. That is a testament to the quality of the dancing and the quality of the production. I’m proud to say that I disagree completely with Inger-Margrethe Lunde, and I truly hope, as my husband also commented, that her review did not discourage people from going to see the production. My guess is that it did, unfortunately. So perhaps she should take heed for the future and remember that the dancers have worked hard, likewise the choreographer. She should separate her personal feelings from an objective appraisal of the production. There do exist objective criteria for the evaluation of cultural events and creations. Perhaps she had a bad day going into the theater—car broke down, problems at work, or other irritations. Let’s hope she manages to write a better review next time. 

A short October update

It’s shaping up to be a busy week, in fact, probably a busy month as well, with all of the different work projects I’ve taken on. In addition I’ve decided to write a novel, and am contemplating joining the project that WordPress is sponsoring during the month of November, called National Novel Writing Month. This is a project that entails working toward completing a 50,000-word novel by November 30^th, which means writing 1667 words per day. Who knows, maybe I will manage to do it. And then again, maybe not. One thing is for sure. I know what I want to write about and that goes a long way toward getting me started. I’ve been tossing ideas around for the past few years, but there hasn’t been much that has held my focus as long as this idea has done. I’m not going to talk about the idea; I will rather say that it will fall into the sci-fi/horror genre. I’ve started researching it and I’ll keep you posted on my progression (or lack thereof). 

Cartoon time

I have been meaning to write a short post about one of my favorite American animation series—’Courage, the Cowardly Dog’, a brilliant effort by John R. Dilworth and team, which originally ran on Cartoon Network from November 1999 until November 2002 (four seasons), with a total of 52 episodes produced. At present, it is running on Cartoon Network here in Oslo each night at around 8:15 pm and again shortly after midnight (on weeknights). I’ve seen most of the episodes, some of them several times, especially my favorites. I really cannot find enough superlatives to describe the show. I love everything about it—from the clever storylines, excellent animation, attention to detail, interesting backgrounds and overall creepiness at times. It is not really suitable for small children, since it is a fairly graphic horror cartoon of sorts, although there are a few sweet episodes as well. The star of the show, the pink dog Courage, must deal with all sorts of challenges in the form of freaky people, were-moles, dragons, murderous vegetables, mysterious CIA types, evil snowmen, evil magicians—the list goes on and on. He overcomes his initial fear and cowardice and protects his family—Muriel and Eustace Bagge—from all of the monsters and assorted creatures who want to do them harm. They all live out in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas in a farmhouse. Eustace, a cranky old man, is supposed to be a farmer, but nothing grows for him and the land around the house is pretty barren. Muriel, a housewife, is his direct opposite, a cheerful, helpful, sprightly older woman. Eustace is greedy and always looking to make a quick buck; Muriel keeps him in line and is definitely Courage’s supporter and protector. Courage loves Muriel, not Eustace. Whenever she gets into trouble, he loses his cool completely and freaks out, but he always comes around to ‘I’ll save you, Muriel’. And then he goes about the business of saving her. I’m including a list of some of my favorite episodes here.

The Last of the Starmakers 

The Magic Tree of Nowhere 

Food of the Dragon 

Dome of Doom 

The Snowman Cometh 

Snowman’s Revenge 

The Sandman Sleeps 

The Night of the Weremoles and Mother’s Day

The Quilt Club 

A Beaver’s Tale 

Some wise words about good intentions

I looked up these quotes about good intentions today because today was one of those days when I realized that having the best of intentions in certain situations is no guarantee of a happy outcome. I realized that no matter how good one's motives and intentions might be, they can be misconstrued by others who have their own personal agendas and vulnerabilities. Good communication is the way to deal with such misunderstandings, but it is so difficult to achieve that sometimes. It is sorely dependent upon both parties meeting each other at the negotiating table as peers, and that does not often occur. Sometimes the offended party would rather judge, lecture, and otherwise dominate the situation in order to make the other party feel small. And it works--the purported offender does feel small. But feeling small is not an apology or an admission of wrongdoing. It is merely one way of dealing with judgmental controlling people and letting them have their say before one offers up a reply. The problem is that the reply can often lead to more problems, because by pointing out that one's intentions were good, one is defending oneself and the act of defending oneself for some people is a big no-no, because if you do that, you are guilty as charged. And I don't agree with this. I think that people who always give in or act like doormats, no matter the criticism, are the ones who are guilty. If you are innocent, you will try to defend yourself against an attack on your motives or character. I have experienced this at times in my workplace, and it is not easy to wage a counterattack. But it is necessary for your identity and self-value. And if you are wrong and know it, then an apology is in order. But if you are not wrong, then it’s just foolish to play the part of the offender. You hand over more power to the offended person, who may enjoy the power game that has ensued. In any case, I am not interested in the power or the game. I’m simply interested in the truth, in the reality of each situation that arises.  

·         It is not good enough for things to be planned - they still have to be done; for the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation.”

Walt Kelly

·         Let your intentions be good - embodied in good thoughts, cheerful words, and unselfish deeds - and the world will be to you a bright and happy place in which to work and play and serve.

Grenville Kleiser

·         Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

Mohandas Gandhi

·         Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

Peter Drucker

·         I don't know anyone in the public eye who has not made a mistake and said something in a manner that does not truly reflect their intentions.

Jim Jeffords

·         Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.

Aldous Huxley

·         The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

·         The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

Albert Camus

·         Our intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake - a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for sin comes out of a wrong intention.

E. Stanley Jones

·         A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

Oscar Wilde

·         I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

Douglas Adams

Until you value yourself

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.    (M. Scott Peck)

I posted some little pearls of wisdom from the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck recently, but it is this particular quote that has stayed with me since then, so I know that it struck a chord in me. I have been preoccupied with this very thing since I started my blog in May of 2010—the idea that my time is valuable, that it is worth something and that it is important to use it well. Some of you may be thinking that this sounds strange. Didn’t I value myself and my time before then? The answer is yes, I did, but I often lived in an unaware state, perhaps thinking that I had all the time in the world to do this or that, to change my life, to pursue this or that hobby, or to get involved in this or that cause. But now I know better. Life is short. And my saying this is not about my being unduly or morbidly focused on mortality and a certain end, although that would be a good enough reason in and of itself to get up and get moving on the things I want to do and accomplish before I leave this life. It’s about being focused on living, on being a part of life, in all ways possible. It’s about living now and giving and getting as much out of life as is humanly possible. It’s about getting up off the couch and not watching too much TV or sitting in front of the computer for too long, it’s about not buying into everything that is written in the newspapers or in magazines, it’s about thinking for yourself and valuing your own ideas and creativity. It’s about not letting work take over your life to the exclusion of your family or your creativity. It’s not necessarily about parachute jumping or extreme sports (unless you really want to do that!—I don’t). But I do want to step up to my own plate—be present in my own life, be aware of the opportunities and freedoms that have been given to me. Because they are not few, I have realized that. We are given so many opportunities each day to be present to ourselves and to others. The question is whether we stay aware during our daily lives, or if we just end up doing things by rote, living according to worn-out routines, and not doing anything about it. There is comfort in old routines, that must be said, and I am not for discarding all of them just for the sake of doing so. But it’s important to figure out when to let go of things that don’t work for us anymore or when to let go of certain people who drag us down because they don’t want you to rise because it means that they might have to. And by letting go I mean, putting things and people in their rightful places and rising above their petty concerns, envy and negativity, not necessarily pushing them out of our lives completely. And that takes a change of mindset. It may not mean quitting your demoralizing job if you cannot for economic reasons, but it may mean separating yourself mentally from that job and rising above it in order to survive mentally and emotionally. It may mean a radical change in how you look at that job. It may mean a radical change in how you look at the people in your life as well. There are always some few people who are naysayers no matter what you do and say; instead of letting them get the better of you, just let go of their words. Don’t give their words any power over you. It is amazing how easily that can happen, almost as though there is a little person who lives inside each of us just waiting to be fed the negative words. We suck up the validation of ourselves as ‘not good enough’; we suck up the negativity and feel as though we deserve it--deserve the derision, negative comments, hostility, aggression or envy. We think that if we rise, it has to be at the cost of the happiness of others. It’s not true. This is negativity at work—this is what happens when we do not value ourselves. Because if we do not value ourselves and if we let the negativity in ourselves and from others win over us, we will not think about our time as something to be valued, and we will remain passive observers in our own lives because it will be easier not to rock our own boats or the boats of others. 

The turbulent Akerselva River---25 September 2011

We usually take a long walk up along the Akerselva river on Sunday afternoons. This is something we often do during the different seasons, but it is an especially lovely trip during the autumn months when the foliage is starting to turn colors. Oslo has had a record amount of rainfall during late August and most of September, and the Akerselva water levels are quite high now. The river is quite turbulent, especially in the areas where there are waterfalls. One of them is located near the Hønse Lovisa house which is in the vicinity of where we live, and this is where I took a lot of photos and video footage. It was so exhilarating to watch the water churning and bouncing along on its way to the Oslo fjord, creating a spray that reached all the way up to where I was standing with my camera. Normally the river is not as turbulent as seen in these videos, so it was exciting to witness it and to capture it on film. I did a lot of filming yesterday afternoon and evening, and I thought I'd share some of videos with you. This river has become very special to me, and I film it during all seasons. Enjoy the videos, and if you have any comments or feedback, let me know. I am new to the video game, but will probably be making more of them, because it's fun.......

All About Plums

Each year during the late summer and early autumn my husband and I take some time to make preserves or jams as they’re usually called.  He usually makes a big batch of strawberry jam, which can last for several years unless we give it away as gifts. A few years ago we made a big batch of cherry preserves, along with a cherry pie and cherry liqueur. It is both a challenge and a pleasure to make all of these things yourself, and the work involved makes you appreciate what our grandparents and great grandparents’ generations did for themselves; they had to, since there were no giant supermarkets offering nearly everything you could think of. We never made jams and jellies at home when we were growing up; my parents did make pies and Italian desserts together at the holidays, and my mother made some great pies and cakes otherwise, but we never as far as I can remember made our own jams and jellies. Of course we didn’t have to—they were readily available in the supermarkets. But the fun aspect is invaluable—it really is fun to ‘make it’ yourself. And after some years I have learned to make apple butter and my own applesauce with cinnamon, as well as different kinds of marmalades. But this post is about plums.

I have been making plum preserves the past few years; they are easy to make and the jam is superb—mostly sweet but with a hint of tartness. No matter how much I make though, it is never enough. I have made preserves from several different types of plums, from the dark purple plums called Damsons to the more reddish plums that are the most common types of plums available. One of the women who used to work at my hospital had a lot of plum trees in her backyard, and she would bring in bags of plums for us—just gave them away, that’s how many plums the trees produced. I took them gladly. Besides the plum preserves, I also make plums in rum, a dessert that is heavenly and pretty simple to make—all you need are plums, rum, sugar and a big canning jar (if you have a kilo of plums then you will need a kilo of sugar and half a bottle of rum). You cut the plums in half, remove the pits, put them into the jar, cover them with sugar, add more plums, then more sugar, and when the jar is 75% full, you pour the rum over it all, close the lid, mix carefully, and then let the jar stand at room temperature for a few days until the sugar is dissolved. This is a great dessert, and when the plums are gone, the rum-sugar liquid is great as an accompaniment to vanilla ice cream. I made a jar of plums in rum today as well as a couple of jars of plum preserves. And I’m not finished yet; I still want to make more preserves. This is the kind of housework that is immensely gratifying; you see the finished results, it tastes good and the people you serve it to will be happy to eat what you made—what more could you ask for? And all of these food items make great Christmas gifts. Since it seems to be getting more and more difficult to buy Christmas gifts for friends and family (everybody has pretty much what they need), I have a feeling that I am going to opt for making food gifts for people—preserves, liqueurs, cookies, cakes and breads. They’re appreciated, they’re fun to make, and they come from the heart.  

Plum preserves

Plum preserves

Plums in rum

City Gardeners

During the last ten years or so, my husband and I became city gardeners, despite the fact that we live in a co-op apartment building without a balcony or terrace on which to set out plants and flowers. Of course we wish we had one, because we love to experiment with growing different plants from seeds as well as buying new plants at the local plant store or at Plantasjen, the larger garden center. Our kitchen, living room and dining room window sills are filled with different kinds of plants. My husband loves to nurture his orchids, and has about six orchid plants at home and about as many in his office at work. He is the only person I know who manages to get orchids to bloom more than once, and he has his weekly routines for spritzing them with water and keeping them happy. I prefer nurturing food plants; that is to say, plants that produce fruit or vegetables. I have grown tomato, pepper, orange and fig trees in our apartment, with some success. Right now I am the proud parent of an orange tree that is very fruitful, as well as a fig tree that manages to produce about three to four figs per season. My husband brought home a small cherry tomato plant at the beginning of the summer, and it has grown to some height and has produced (so far) about five cherry tomatoes. We also have a small coffee plant in the kitchen; the leaves smell good but we don’t expect to find coffee beans on the stems one day. But it looks nice in the window and one can of course dream.

The first vegetable plant I ever purchased was a small pepper plant; the peppers looked like small chili peppers but I don’t remember if we ever got more than the five or so peppers that hung on the plant when I bought it. In the summer of 2005 I grew tomato plants from seeds; only one seedling plant really took off though and I did my best to keep it happy. It even joined us on vacation that year; we rented a cottage on the sea, not so far from where we live, and I took it with us in the car and let it stand out on the large terrace that overlooked the ocean. It was there in the morning that it got a lot of sunshine. I think we may have gotten several tomatoes that year; the problem is that the plants don’t always get enough sun, or get it long enough. Summers are short in Oslo and it amazes me that my orange tree produces the numbers of oranges it produces. We got about twenty-three oranges off the tree the first year we had it; the second year saw only a yield of about four oranges, whereas the third and fourth years have been very fruitful—with yields of about twenty-five and thirty-five oranges (this year) respectively. The oranges are not large and sweet, they are small and sour, but they are beautiful to look at and during the flowering season before the oranges begin to grow, the smell in the room is wonderful. The white flowers that will produce the oranges produce an intense sweet smell that dominates the room. I use the oranges in the smoothies that we make from fresh or fresh-frozen fruit each morning, and I have used them in marmalades to add a kind of ‘bite’ to the sweetness. Last year I made pear/ginger/pineapple marmalade and added a few small oranges to the mix—it was a heavenly result and the marmalade disappeared rather quickly. I’ll probably do the same thing this year.

We often debate the advantages and disadvantages of moving into our own home; one of the advantages would be that we could have our own garden. We know for sure that we would fill the backyard with fruit trees and plant a garden, both flower and vegetable. So why haven’t we moved by now? That’s a good question. Part of the answer lies in the fact that we don’t have the time we would need to tend a large garden, at least not in the way that would be required. Also, we would like to live in Oslo and not commute into the city each morning; traffic is horrendous and we would like to avoid that. But to buy a house in Oslo is not really a viable option—houses cost a fortune; we’re talking upwards of 800,000 USD for a decent-sized house (two bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, living room). It seems a tad unrealistic to want a house in order to have a garden. There are so many hidden costs attached to owning a home. The garden has to supersede all the problems of owning a home in the city. Time will tell. In the meantime, we have our gardens in the different rooms of our apartment. I’m waiting for the day when there won’t be room for any more plants or any more room for us. I believe that day is coming soon.

Ripe oranges

My orange tree

Our tomato plant

My husband's orchid plant

Times Square at night

Times Square in New York City has really changed during the past twenty years or so. It used to be a seedy, dirty, and unattractive area of Manhattan, but no longer. I was there for a few days in April 2009 when I visited New York for my high school reunion and I stayed in Manhattan for a few nights. I was together with a good friend and we walked around Times Square one evening--a particularly clear and lovely night. I took a lot of photos (as always). The medley of sights, sounds, colors, and shapes appeals to the eye. If it is possible to say that advertising can be beautiful in its own way, then that is definitely the case for Times Square. I love the light shows that advertise everything from candy to electronics to beer. I am sure that advertising agencies have understood the power of color and lights to sell their products against the backdrop of the dark sky. In any case, it all makes for some really cool photos. And I can again say (like the famous commercial)--"I love New York--there is no place like it." Enjoy!

What M.Scott Peck Said

M. Scott Peck (1936-2005) was a psychiatrist and the best-selling author of a terrific book called The Road Less Traveled. I read it during the 1980s and it had a profound effect upon my life in terms of helping me deal with my life at that time and in making some necessary changes. I recommend it because it contains some real wisdom and advice on how to deal with life and its trials and joys.While Peck himself didn’t always live up to the high ideals he espoused for others (he didn’t always practice what he preached), he was an inspiration and a man of wisdom, perhaps all the more so for his failings and weaknesses, and he shared his wisdom and thoughts in his writings. 

·         “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. ”

·         “The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

·         “Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”

·         “Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other.”

·         “Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. ...Conversely, it is not only possible but necessary for a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love.”

·         “We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.”

·         Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another...The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness. ”

·          “The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior. ”

·         “Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity. ”

·          “You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time. ”

·         “It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. ”

·          “If we know exactly where we're going, exactly how to get there, and exactly what we'll see along the way, we won't learn anything. ”

·         “Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a PROFOUND tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.”

·         “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

·         “There is no worse bitterness than to reach the end of your life and realized you have not lived.”

Vincent and Theo Van Gogh

I have been meaning to write a short post about the Vincent Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum - The Museum about Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam - The Netherlands). My husband and I toured the museum in August; I found it to be one of the most interesting and emotionally-engaging art museums I have ever visited. I cannot remember that I have ever been moved to tears by an art exhibition, but this one had that effect on me. Van Gogh’s life lends itself to this type of reaction—he suffered from epilepsy, depression, and lack of self-confidence, and at the age of 37 shot himself in a wheat field in Auvers, France and died two days later. He was very close to his brother Theo who supported him at different times during his life; Theo died six months after Vincent and the two of them are buried side by side in Auvers. After Vincent’s death, Theo’s wife saw to it that Vincent’s paintings received the recognition they deserved; she came across in the exhibition as a generous and compassionate woman who had great understanding for her husband Theo and his close relationship with Vincent. 

I think the museum did a great job in depicting the emotional depth of the relationship between Vincent and Theo—you really felt and understood the empathy and love that Theo had for Vincent, and the utter humanity and frailty in their individual lives. I found myself thinking—‘there but for the grace of God go I’ as the expression goes. Because we all suffer from lack of self-confidence or from depression at times; and if you have experienced these then you have empathy for others who are weighed down or destroyed by them. By the time I got to the section that showed a photo of the gravesite where both brothers are buried, I was quite sad. I have never seen the Robert Altman film from 1990 about the Van Gogh brothers—Vincent & Theo—but I want to get a hold of it so that I can. It received very good reviews when it came out; I don’t know how I missed it--perhaps because I had just moved to Oslo and was not paying attention, or perhaps because the movie never opened in Oslo at all.

It is not easy to watch people you know and love sink into depression or mental illness. I have seen that happen in my own family and in friends’ families as well. It is terrifying to watch the descent into severe mental illness like schizophrenia; daunting to witness what chronic depression can do to a person’s overall health. It makes you realize that the brain is the last great frontier in a research sense—how the brain works, why do certain aspects of normal brain function go awry, what are emotions really and where are they based? There are so many questions that remain unanswered to date, and one can only hope that some of them get answered in our lifetime. 

A Decade of Mourning

Ten years ago today, around 3pm Norwegian time, I was at work and one of my colleagues met me in the hallway of our research institute and told me that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. I remember standing there in the hallway looking at her for a few moments in disbelief, and then I quickly ran into my office to check the internet for news. And then I called my husband and asked him to pick me up earlier than usual so that we could go home and watch the TV news. That was the beginning of a long period of nearly uninterrupted TV watching—where the news became something to dread rather than to look forward to in the evenings after work. But I sat there glued to the TV anyway—my connection to my home state and to the country of my birth. No matter where I turned, 9/11 was there. After the disbelief came shock, then tears, more tears, an explosion of emotions I never thought I had, grief, and then more shock when I talked to those people I know in New York who had lost someone or who knew of someone who had lost someone or many people. My sister knew a man who had lost most of his employees who worked at the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. My brother knew several people who had witnessed people jumping from the Towers and who were forever haunted by that sight and by the sounds of bodies hitting the pavement. Besides the sheer tragedy of horrific deaths that smashed into us that day and destroyed whatever feeble walls of defense we had, the sight of the Towers themselves crashing down is a sight I will never forget. To this day, I cannot watch this footage without becoming emotional. I guess this was how it was for our parents’ generation when Pearl Harbor was bombed. All I know is that the unthinkable became reality on 9/11. It changed me forever, and I was thousands of miles away from the tragedy that unfolded. So I can imagine how it must have been for those who experienced it firsthand or who lived in the area around the Towers or who lost friends and family on that day. My first instinct was to want to take the first plane back to the States to help, in any way possible. But I couldn't do that for economic reasons--that was the same year my mother passed away (in March) and I had already flown back and forth to New York several times in connection with her illness and death. I remember my sister and me talking after 9/11 and saying that it was best that my mother had passed before the events of 9/11. She was spared that atrocity. I still feel that way.

The American Embassy here in Oslo had a small memorial celebration today to honor the tenth anniversary of the events of 9/11 and to pay homage to the dead. I wanted to go and then I didn’t want to go, was very ambivalent right up until it happened, and ended up not going. I am not sure how I would have reacted to being there, and I was not sure that I wanted to feel again all the feelings of that day and the time afterwards. I feel sometimes like we have been in mourning for ten years, as a country and as individuals. I know that I feel that way personally. That day had a momentous impact on me, in part because I was not there when it happened, and that made it all the more poignant and intense. It was also the year that my mother died, and the grief of that year will stay with me for always, indelibly imprinted on my mind and soul. Although the news coverage of 9/11 faded in Europe sooner than in the USA, it was intense enough so that my feelings were always right on edge. It was impossible to get distance from the happenings, and that’s a good thing. But now that a decade has passed, it is a good thing to have some distance, without having become blasé.  It would be impossible for me to become blasé because I am very much wrapped up in what happened that day in New York and in what happens in the USA generally. I may live abroad but I never think of myself as anything other than a citizen of the USA, for better or for worse. And now that Norway has experienced its own 9/11 (the terrorist attacks of July 22^nd), I understand even more how it must have been for those I know who witnessed the events of 9/11 firsthand. The past decade in the USA appears to have been characterized by a focus inward—trying to figure out the whys and the meanings of that fateful day in September 2001. For my own part, I don’t know if the whys will ever be answered. There is evil in the world, and each generation has seen it—seen the atrocities resulting from the specific evil, be it world wars, or the Holocaust, or the destruction caused by the atomic bomb. Every time I think that evil does not really exist, I need only think of these events, and then I know that it does. After ten years of trying to come to some understanding of evil, it is time to move toward the light again, to focus outward. Because too much focus on trying to understand evil will not lead to much good. It is the same in Oslo after 7/22—there is no point in trying to understand the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik’s twisted views about immigration and the world—they will only drag us deeper into despair about what is happening in the world, and despair can immobilize us. That is why it is heartening to read the stories of 9/11 heroes like Jeff Parness who reached outward—starting an organization like ‘New York Says Thank You’, which sends volunteers from New York City to disaster-stricken communities every year (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/04/21/cnnheroes.parness.new.york/index.html), or which has gathered volunteers to help sew back together the tattered American flag that flew at the site of the Towers (http://national911flag.org/?page_id=37). These are positive and uplifting endeavors that move us toward the light—for those actually working in these organizations but also for those reading about them. As I read about these efforts across the ocean here in Oslo, I am filled with hope, hope that the decade of mourning will evolve into quite something else—a new spirit of empathy and activism and a real desire to eradicate hate and pain in the world. It is, as the old Chinese proverb says, ‘better to light one candle than to curse the darkness’.

Musings about science and scientists, and the weather

I’ve been at a scientific conference (dealing with the cell cycle and regulators of cell proliferation) most of the week; it started on Monday night and ended this morning. I wasn’t able to attend all the sessions each day, but I managed to be present for some really top-notch lectures delivered by Nobel prize winners and international experts in their respective fields. That’s always an encouraging and inspiring experience; it reminds me of why I chose this profession—a scientific research career, when I hear top speakers talk about their work. Many of the top speakers were older men who more or less summed up their research careers in their lectures. I have more appreciation for that type of lecture now—maybe because I’ve been in research a long time myself. I know the ins and outs and ups and downs of this business, and I appreciate hearing the opinions advanced by these speakers, because they know what they’re talking about. So when a few of them talk about the importance of small research groups as opposed to large ones, I’m suddenly all ears. I agree with them. Small groups are the places where innovative ideas are born. We should not be getting rid of small research groups. We should not be discouraging younger people from pursuing academic careers. But the granting powers that be are doing so. By not funding scientists who lead small research groups, they ensure that younger scientists cannot continue because they will never get the chance to start their own small groups. By not encouraging younger scientists to fly free rather than clipping their wings which happens all the time now, we are eliminating the pool of future scientists that each society so absolutely requires. Younger scientists are leaving academia. There is no place for most of them. There are no jobs for them and there is no real future for them. This is confirmed for me at most conferences. Younger scientists in this country (post-doc level and above) are little more than slaves for their group leaders. They are doing two and three post-doc periods and finding themselves without any prospects after they finish. They are not being offered staff scientist positions or group leader status. They’re rather told that they’re too aggressive or too independent. And they are, of course. Who wouldn’t be after three post-doc periods? That’s the point of post-doc periods—to create independence and self-sufficiency in intelligent and enthusiastic scientists. But their wings are being clipped in huge numbers, and the granting situation for the future will ensure that there will eventually be no post-doc or staff scientist positions at all. But there will be a lot of PhD student positions. God knows what this country will do with all the new PhD recipients. There aren’t jobs for them. And little is being done to create new jobs for them. Many of them will end up as salespeople or will leave the profession for greener pastures. The only reason there are currently so many PhD positions is because the principal investigators who run research groups need slaves and lots of hands to do their work for them while they are busy writing grants and networking with their fellow group leaders. They know there is no real research future for the PhDs they’re turning out, either in academia or in industry. And industry is not really stepping up to the plate to meet the future needs either.  

The meeting was held at the Holmenkollen Park Rica Hotel at the top of the city of Oslo, literally. On a clear day, there is an amazing view of the fjord and of the city from this vantage point. But of course, the weather this past week was not cooperative, so the hilltop and hotel were mostly shrouded in fog, and when there wasn’t fog, it was raining. I cannot remember a summer like this one—it has rained steadily, if not daily, at least several times per week. The non-Norwegians at the meeting were asking me if the weather was always like this. It isn’t. Today was a perfect example. The last day of the meeting is of course when the sun chose to reappear and blue skies took over--just perfect for walking. So I walked to work from the top of the city to my hospital. It took me about an hour door to door. Relaxing and enjoyable to walk downhill for the most part, take in the nature around me, and just enjoy being outdoors in the sunshine. It was a sharp contrast to Tuesday night, when the entire meeting was treated to a boat trip on the fjord. It happened to take place on exactly the one night of the summer when a storm (remnants of Hurricane Irene in fact) blew into Oslo, causing flooding and all sorts of other problems. We did sail out on the fjord though—the trip was not cancelled. We stayed more or less on the inner fjord, so the waves were not very high. The boat was quite large so it was actually not a problem to be out on the water. But the wind whipped the sails about and the rain was unrelenting, so we were forced into the boat’s innards where dinner awaited, and that was cozy. People had a good time and that was the most important thing. I know that the foreigners at the meeting will remember this particular trip. It’s not often you get to sail on a boat during a fairly intense storm.

It was heartening to meet a lot of the scientists who were at this conference. For some reason, most of the top scientists who attended were actually quite down-to-earth people—friendly, interested in others, and interesting to talk to. It made me wonder about the correlation between real intelligence and humility. If you are really intelligent, perhaps you don’t need to flaunt it or to treat other people poorly. So perhaps this is one explanation for what I see in my workplace—several rude people who think they are intelligent (but who really are not), and who need to be arrogant and rude to others because they are insecure about their intelligence. They need to make others feel inferior in order for them to feel superior. Kind of makes sense to me now. This has been reinforced for me by some of the lecturers I have had the privilege of listening to at the Science library at the University of Oslo. They have been given by some really incredible human beings, people you’d be proud to know. This gives me hope for the future of science generally.