Good vs. Cheap and Plenty

We shall not, said Erik when I met him at the airport for his brief visit with me, we shall not drink cheap wine. I shall buy some good wine, he said.
Well now, thought I. Who am I to argue.
So we bought a couple of bottles of good wine, and that night catching up on all and sundry, we finished them.
Somehow we never replenished the good wine but settled for the "in-house special" of cheap wine in cartons.
Of which I had plenty.
But not anymore.
Time to stock up again.

Et Gensyn

As a student at the art school in Copenhagen, we often went to the museums and art exhibitions.
Once in a museum I saw and fell in love with a painting depicting a hallway with open doors.
Today in the Guardian there is an article about a new show featuring the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershoi and when I saw his paintings I knew; this was the painter of the one that has haunted me for more than forty years.
Somewhere in time I had lost his name but now, now I know who the painter of my dreams is.
And I rejoice.

Stormy Weather

It was 3:35am when I woke up.
What woke me was a combination of rain, thunder, lightning and a dog barking.
Priscilla.
She had refused to come in after the late night pee stop, and now with the rain pouring, she had changed her mind.
So I went out in my birthday suit and opened the gate to let her in.
After that I could not go back to sleep, and the weather got worse with an enormous and loud lightning hitting something on the other side of the canyon.
Great, thought I, here goes the electricity.
And then a strike so close that it lit up the whole inside of the house with the appropriate sound track.
Here goes the computer, thought I.
Never mind, I said to myself. I shan't worry about this till the morning.
Which finally came and I got up and went to the loo to pee and
there was light.
And I checked the computer which was happily blinking all its little green lights.
We are safe, for now.
Till the next storm.

A Matter Of Guilt

Every morning when I strap on my new wrist watch, I first have a moment of joy, then the moment of guilt.
Sure it was purchased with an unexpected windfall, and sure it was only half the retail price and sure it was something I desperately wanted..... and still
there is a nagging little voice telling me how much I could have done with that money I so frivolously spent on a watch, like paying bills and buying groceries .
I have no clear answer for that.
And imagine what kind of guilt I shall have to fight when I buy a cellular phone.
And I am neither Catholic nor Jewish
just prone to guilt.

Another Dream

It suddenly came crashing into my consciousness as I was sitting reading the depressing news of the day, what my dream last night had been about.
Smocking.
The art of stitching folds together on a garment for either practical purposes or merely decorative.
SMOCKING.
I spent a whole night dreaming of this ?
I have never done it, I have never given it a second thought, I barely knew the name of the work.
The human brain works in mysterious ways

Misplaced National Pride ?

Last night on The Stephen Colbert Show, a guest was mentioning the creators of the communications phenomenon Skype as a Swede and an Estonian.
Estonian?, thought I.
I thought it was a Dane
and not wasting more time thinking, I hurled myself into a web search for the national identity of this person.
They all claimed him Danish.
So how come this author and guest on a show watched by millions didn't do his homework ?
Well, at least I found out, relaxed and can now concentrate on more important things, such as should I take the laundry to the launderette today or can I push it yet another day?
very important issues.

The Resident Rodent's Guide To Better Living

Canines sleep a lot and are sloppy eaters, which leaves great opportunities for liberating food from doggie bowls or just collecting scraps and spills.

Another Dream

In my dream I had finished an unspecified job in an unspecified location and was on my way home.
Home was Seattle.
The local bus had taken me as far as it could, and now I was left in a vast, white and snow covered landscape, with very few habitations and no traffic at all.
I had to find a bus to Seattle, so I walked
and walked
and finally found a public phone with a directory which told me that the long distance carrier, AAA, would get me to Seattle. It also pointed out that there was an attractive view from the overpass of interstate 251.
Then I woke up, so now I'll never know about the triple A bus line nor about the view from the overpass.
Is there an interstate 251 ?

Carbon Paper

They use carbon paper, hissed Erik incredulously when we left the bank.
Carbon paper. I thought that went out with East Germany, he said.
We had been to the bank to change money for him to buy more stuff to take home to Mallorca and presents for the family in Seattle.
Carbon paper indeed, I thought.
This is a vast improvement from the days when we had to stand in line for hours to change money and more often than not, the bank would run out of cash, or the cashier would need a lunch break and the window would come crashing down, marking the end of business for that day.
Now we have the ATM machines and money changers on every street corner, all the conveniences of modern life, so what does it matter that the bank is still using carbon paper.
Kind of quaint I say.
But then I live here.