Møkkavær

Today we woke up to a blustery snow storm. I am not happy, to put it mildly. It's May, for goodness sake! For some odd reason I couldn't find my knitting bag last night, and since I had a bunch of left over Garnstudio Drops Eskimo and a crochet hook handy in my basket, I decided to start crocheting a hat rather than get off the sofa to look for my knitting. It's a rough life I lead. Turns out it was a good thing I did because it was so frigid on the way to work this morning that I really needed a toque. This one turned out better than nearly all my previous sorry attempts at making a warm hat for myself. Here it is:

It's supposed to be one-color with pompoms, but I'm not much of a pompom person (no surprise there), and I ran out of the rust. Luckily, there's a change in the pattern (from DC to SC) right where I ran out, so it seems almost natural to switch colors there too. It fits really well and is warm, though not the most attractive thing in the world. It's Drops number 93-36.

Today was a productive day at work, at least in terms of small nagging tasks. I took a little extra time on the way home to stop off in some clothing stores in Oslo. My clothing situation is becoming critical. Unfortunately, it was incredibly depressing to shop for clothes. There is so little that I even like, or that I think would be flattering and comfortable, and what little that does appeal to me here in Norway ends up being outrageously expensive. I don't know what it is with all the embellishments on women's clothing. Even a simple thing like a pair of jeans here has to have rhinestones or ridiculous heraldic crests on the back pockets. To make matters worse, this season's palette of colors is totally wrong for me. Lots of pastels and navy and cold tones of other colors, or else brilliant lipstick red. None of it works on me. It's a strange experience to walk into a store and feel totally turned off by just the impression that the range of colors makes.

Tomorrow and Thursday I'll be attending a two-day workshop on nynorsk i arbeidet, a crash course on how to improve one's communication in Nynorsk for state employees. I'm one of about 15 participants, and as far as I can tell the only non-native speaker. I'm actually pretty excited about it, though I'm afraid they're just going to kick me out since I've never had any formal training in Nynorsk at all. Should be interesting!

Kjedsommelighet

Today started out rainy and way too early with a bed-wetting accident (5:45 am), so none of us have been feeling our best. While valiantly washing the dishes, KE rather longingly asked if I had the energy to bake boller, everyone's favorite sweet snack here in Norway. E and I did it together, and it was probably our most successful co-baking adventure to date. We just used the recipe off the flour package:

You can't get any more basic than that--we didn't have enough sugar and were out of raisins, but they were still dangerously good. Here was the first batch:

KE and E ran around outside in the rain for a while until the buns were done, then we watched Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie and gorged ourselves.

Saturday is always pizza night at our house, so I roused myself from the sofa long enough to make a pizza dough too, so that's two yeast doughs in one day. Mine turned out yummy:

As you can see, I'm experimenting with the macro lens on my camera. The pizza combination is: spinach, onions, black olives, feta and norvegia cheeses. E didn't feel like having a pizza today, so I introduced him to a silly American food tradition, namely "Pigs in a Blanket." This was not something I ever remember having other than at camp one summer, but I thought it was worth giving it a try, since I had the dough all ready:

I think E thought it was a little weird and kind of pointless, but it entertained him for a couple of minutes, which was really the point.

This morning I finished knitting the front of the Silky Wool pullover and sewed the seams. Here's what it looks like unblocked:

I tried to get the collar started, but I'm afraid I couldn't decipher the French instructions for that. It's on hold while I figure out what to do. Instead, I started on one of the sleeves. I decided to do it in the round (magic loop technique) because that seems to go so much faster, and allows me to avoid extra seaming (even though I really don't mind that...). I'm not super excited about the project, and a little frustrated about the collar, since that's the most important design feature and the whole reason I chose this pattern. I do have a pdf of the Plain and Simple pullover (Veera Välimäki on Ravelry), which has the same type of collar, so I may just follow that instead.

What I'm really excited about is the fact that I finally made a decision about what yarn to use for the Alice Starmore Fulmar pullover, a project I've been anticipating and dreading for nearly a year now. I ended up ordering Jamieson & Smith 2 ply jumper weight yarn in color number 1295. It's super hard to tell what the actual color will end up being (kind of a gray-blue-green heather?), so I'm very anxious for the yarn to arrive in the mail! Here's a really pretty one someone knitted. I'm planning on altering the shaping pretty radically. First of all, I'm planning on knitting in the round and making it much more fitted. I'm definitely going to at least do set-in sleeves, and may even try to convert it to a raglan. This will be my major project of the year.

So yeah, a boring, lazy, relaxing, laid-back Saturday...

teselskap

Over the past few days I've been trying to figure out just what this Tea Party protest movement in the US is all about. I've been getting glimpses here and there, but because of a debate on Ravelry I decided to try to track down more information. What I've discovered is that it's a total moving target: there is no identifiable leader or political platform, the message morphs frequently, and the participants tend to scuttle back into their foxholes whenever anyone tries to pin them down on anything. It seems to boil down to rogue aggression, and it's hard not to see an undercurrent of at least class-ism, if not outright racism bubbling under the surface.

The "voices" of the movement appear to be Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and this Glenn Beck fellow, who is new to me because he cropped up on the national stage after I left the US (I apparently went to high school with him though, since he graduated at the end of my Freshman year at Sehome High School). In other words, a perfect storm of people who are diametrically opposed to me ideologically.

Recently pollsters have attempted to map the movement (in this case, quite literally) and determine its make up. The New York Times/CBS poll suggests they're richer and better educated (WTF?!) than previously assumed. Not surprisingly, their own website doesn't reveal very much, particularly since you have to register to gain access to anything but the most superficial information.

The best opinion piece I've found is Ron Rosenbaum's from Slate.com. He takes the movement to task for its imprecise (understatement!) use of big words like "tyranny," "fascist," and "progressive" on all those hilarious (but scary, and often misspelled) signs they've become famous for.* I think Rosenbaum's article a must-read for anyone following the current US political scene.

* I just discovered that a counter movement of infiltrators have begun making a sport of displaying equally ridiculous, but far more witty fake signs at Tea Party demonstrations. That's almost enough to make me want to go to a rally!

A Tea Party operative (or missionary, or organizer, or whatever you call them) apparently gave an address at the Norwegian Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) national convention last week. So I guess it won't be long until we start seeing misspelled signs expressing random anger at misrepresented targets in Norwegian too. Or not. Surely not even Fremskrittspartiet is that idiotic?

Mens vi venter på våren

It's still cold and bleak here, despite some intense sunshine. I don't understand how the sky could be so brilliant but the air so cold and the ground so barren. It's like Afghanistan or something. KE has been doing his best to perk up the yard. He sowed grass seed on the part of our yard that we cleared and graded last fall:

How unfortunate that we have the manhole covers right there in the middle. Not sure what to do about those. We're also hoping (eventually) to fill in some kind of hedge along the road for privacy and to reduce the amount of dust we get in the yard. Then he planted one of the two rhododendrons:

The good news is that all the soil he used to fill in the hole is from his compost pile, and it looks really rich. Yay compost. He dug out two huge rocks, which meant that he had to back fill with a whole lot of compost. I love rhododendrons because they're evergreen. We have tons of flowering shrubs in our yard, but most of them are deciduous, which is part of the reason everything looks so bleak right now. The one corner that isn't bleak is our little volunteer Christmas tree farm:

Unfortunately, this is more of a problem than an asset. They're on the slope between the upper yard and the lower yard. KE is hoping eventually to clear that slope and reduce the grade so that we have one big open lawn.

Sigh. I don't even want to see or hear about gardens in Oregon, Washington, and England right now. Spring (or what passes as "spring" here in Norway) is definitely the hardest time of the year for me. I can deal with winter because I take it for what it is here, but every spring I am programmed with a set of expectations based on having grown up in a mild climate. Those expectations are invariably dashed here. So disheartening. But I did find one small encouraging sign yesterday:

Hvitveis, or (as Hans E. Kinck would say) hvitsymre, Anemone nemorosa. I think it's called Wood Anemone in English. Lovely, and the first time I've noticed clumps of it on our property. The picture's terrible since gusts of wind kept blowing these tender little flowers. I hope they continue to spread!

Knitting: Finished the back of the Silky Wool pullover yesterday, and got most of the ribbing for the front done yesterday.

ETA: found this Aftenposten article about a little wooden house in the center of Oslo. If you click on the link under the title you can see 15 pictures of the interior. Very cute.

Utlendighet

Lately I've been feeling like I'm not on the same wavelength as a lot of the people I come into contact with on the internet. This has particularly been the case in a thread on a discussion forum I frequent. The topic was whether expats should have voting rights in their country of origin. Since I'm a relatively new expat, this is an emotional issue for me. I was upset to read that so many feel my right to vote in the US should be terminated. I'm pretty ambivalent about the US, but one of the things that I have valued most is the democratic process, and I have always taken my right to vote very seriously. I've never missed an election and work hard to inform myself on the issues. I would say that voting is one of the few things that really makes me feel specifically American, rather than just a cosmopolitan mutt.

The overwhelming majority of participants in the thread have made it clear that they think I forfeited my right to vote when I moved overseas, regardless of the fact that I maintain citizenship. They may well be right about this, but so far at least, I would be really devastated if that right actually were to be terminated. In fact, if it were to happen, I would most likely apply for Norwegian citizenship (not planning on doing that otherwise) in protest.

I thought I'd quote from one of the most negative comments. The poster quotes and responds to a number of my statements (in italics) from earlier in the thread:

The problem with this is, as the OP states, that the person essentially becomes totally disenfranchised, since the “host” country doesn’t grant the expat voting rights either. It feels very unfair to not be allowed to vote in either one of the two countries. Not sure if it actually is unfair, but it feels that way.

No, not unfair. You made a choice to leave your birth country.

In my case, I still have two more years of continuous residence to go before I can begin voting here in Norway, and then only in local elections (kommunevalg). I will never be able to vote in parliamentary elections unless I relinquish my US citizenship, which I don’t plan on doing. I have always voted in US elections during the years that I have been abroad (5 spread out over various periods before moving permanently). I plan to continue to do so, and the very thought of having that right terminated really gets my hackles up.

You know what? I personally don’t want people like you, living overseas permanently, having a say in what happens in the country I live in. Why do you feel you should get a say in what happens election wise, in a country you don’t care enough to live in? That gets my hackles up.

What exactly is the rationale for taking the right away? Who is to say that a given person is more informed simply by being in residence? I think we have plenty of evidence that a high percentage of the US voting public is woefully uninformed, regardless of country of residence

Because you don’t live here? Because without living here, you’re getting very filtered information about the political scene and can’t make an informed decision? I’m sure that there are people in France that are more informed politically than some people here in the US, by choice of course. However, that doesn’t mean that those folks in France should have a say in our political system. What it means is that we need to be more pushy about letting people know it’s not OK to stay ignorant. And more than likely, those folks that don’t care enough to know? They don’t care enough to vote either. (from personal experience). And those people in France? They don’t get the same coverage we do, they don’t get the rallys, they don’t get the campaigning.

There are a lot of reasons why people want or must live abroad. For example, I have a child with a non-US citizen. If we were to divorce, I would relinquish my parental rights entirely were I to move back to the US without the consent of my co-parent.

Having a child with a non-US citizen was entirely your choice though.

Expat life is hard enough as it is (one small example: I do two sets of income tax forms every year). I think the UK law is terrible. I’m very grateful that the US has not terminated this right.

many lives are hard. In fact, if your largest complaint is having to do two income taxes (which hubby and I have had to do a few times, every time we’ve moved states), then I don’t feel sorry for you. There are people here that work three jobs and still go to bed hungry. I for one, wish the US would terminate the rights for people to vote that don’t actually live here. It gives people a voice they shouldn’t have, and the thought of someone who lives permanently overseas having a say in MY country downright pisses me off.
ETA some formatting and: I didn’t specify that I don’t mean all people living abroad with US citizenship. I do mean people that choose to leave, have no plans of coming back and have been gone for at least 5 years.

 Obviously it's the poster's second statement that is the hardest to swallow. Why all the ire, I wonder? I hadn't realized that the general level of animosity toward expats is so high!

It bums me out.

L'Heure bleue

My, I'm getting all French all the sudden, what with knitting in French and all. How many times can you use "all" in a sentence?

It's finally really starting to feel like spring here. We are also starting to beat back the virus that has had us all feeling miserable. Today E went to preschool for the first time in over a week, and on the way to pick him up KE and I swung by the farm that sells gardening supplies here on Nesodden and bought grass seed (for the lower part of our yard that we cleared out last summer) and two rhododendron plants. I realized a while back that a garden isn't really a garden for me unless it has at least one rhododendron bush. Chalk that up to growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I guess.

Preschool also made it possible for me to get a bunch of work done without having to make the long trek into campus. I dusted off the article on the two classic children's books that has been on ice for over a month. It was a little hard to get back into the project, but at least I made a good start at it today. I always feel so much more optimistic about life in general when I'm getting writing done. Here's a visual representation:

It's probably just me, but I find this picture--or rather the juxtapositioning of two early twentieth century, right wing Norwegian children's books and Homi K. Bhabha's The Location of Culture--hilarious. Not sure if it's going to work, but I am using Bhabha to talk about the construction of national identity in these books. We'll see...

I can't believe I was so ambivalent about the Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool yarn for so long! It's knitting up really nicely, and I'm discovering that I love the color. I thought it was more of a navy, but now that I have it out in the light it's a much richer, more muted indigo than I thought:

This picture is too dark, and the next one is too light:

It's somewhere in between, but my woeful camera skills aren't up to the challenge of capturing it. Regardless, I like it a lot, and have some hope that this will be a wearable finished product.

ETA: the cat's out of the bag now, and the recipient has received it, so I can finally reveal this year's best gag gift, the OS-mössa, OL-lue, or Swedish Olympics Toque in all its (oversized) glory:

I must have a weird sense of humor because I find this totally hilarious on all kinds of levels. Why do I find crochet so funny? I totally screwed this up by using the wrong size crochet hook. It is the size of a large purse. The colors are, as Grannie used to say, as ugly as home made sin. The two skeins of blue yarn that I used are different dye lots and they totally don't match. But it makes me gleefully happy, and I especially find it funny to think of the poor guy I made it for opening the package and thinking "WTF?!" and then being mortified at the thought of having to wear it in public some time. Hehehe.

Det snør, det snør...

So what you don't want is to wake up on the morning of April 21st to find that it's snowing outside. Welcome to Norway. It's even worse if you have developed a nasty head cold that keeps getting worse for every day that passes. I'm giving up and staying home from work today.

One of my friends from Eugene posted a link to the Great White Snark's blog, where there is a hilarious venn diagram explaining the difference between geeks, dweebs, dorks, and nerds. I found it extremely entertaining in my current viral state, and had no trouble placing myself on the chart. What about you? I don't know why venn diagrams are so appealing to me, but they certainly are.

Last night I had a stash-busting breakthrough. After agonizing for months over what pattern to use with those ten skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool that I've had in my stash for almost two years, I finally came up with something and cast on. The yarn looks like this:

The pattern is Bergère de France number 829 on this website, and golly, it's in French. Since I took years of French in high school and college, theoretically this shouldn't be a problem. I don't use or practice the language all all though, and I certainly never learned knitting vocabulary or French knitting pattern conventions (which are pretty funky). I found what I hope will be all the help I need on the Chez Plum blog, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to pull this "Pull col asymétrique" off. I took it slowly last night, not even venturing past the ribbing on the back piece.

I got a quick response from Edda rejecting my Frobenius article, which was a bummer. They thought it was too speculative, and said that they were trying to cut down on the number of articles in English. That last point is very odd, given that at least the UiO administration makes it very clear that they prefer that their researchers publish in English, as a way of demonstrating the university's commitment to "internationalization."

I decided not to revise the content or approach before I give at least one more journal a try. Maybe I'm being arrogant, but I actually think it's a strong analysis. It's perhaps more "cultural studies" than strictly literary, which may be why the editors rejected it before sending it out to peer review. I spent the day at work yesterday translating all the Norwegian quotations, and then sent it off to Scandinavian Studies. It's a pain that their review process is so slow. It can take over a year to get something published there. My plan for today was to finish up the Storm article (finally). I have just got to get that one out somewhere, and I may send it to Scandinavica. But give the sorry state of my head right now, that will have to wait.