I needed an escape for my mind, while my hands are busy knitting, so I ordered Read Country audio book. I have the hard cover and have read it, already. It's just that good.
The good thing about books, is that they are the perfect escape and/or medicine there is. The good thing about audio books, is that you get to download instantly and start listening right away.
Say one thing for Read Country, say they got it worse than you.
Did I mention I miss summer? I miss summer so bad, it hurts. I want to sit outside up at the farm, listening to some randy audio book and knit and then have hubby walking by, stopping in his tracks, jaw gaping and totally taken aback - for completely different reasons, though - asking: "Did he just say what I think he said?" and I'll have a proper belly-laugh, because there is nothing like a flabbergasted husband on a summer night's eve up on the mountain.
Showing posts with label Dreaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dreaming. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Summer Ramble
Vacating in Denmark is not bad. The bed
mattresses are ROCK hard.
Rock hard beds and Cara's don't mix well.
Even with a great effort at trying to stay up late in order to get
the most out of it, I keel over at around 11pm. By 11:30 Cara the
body drags me off to bed by my eyes. The eye lashes are pulling me
towards it by using the structure of the carpet. Blink by blink. All
because I have to move and/or turn every 1.5 hours or so, or I'll
ache too much to sleep and by 8:30am the next morning, I have to get
up no matter how much I try to sleep in just a bit more. Vacating can
be such hard work, I tell yah! :P
Other than rock hard beds and fighting general tiredness, I'm enjoying myself immensely. I just saw a beautiful rainbow. Sickening, isn't it?!? I've got nothing to tell you that isn't dead boring, so I'm going to give you some of the stuff I rambled on about during the summer while up at Vintland.
***
This is what I wish would have
happened.
This is sometime during the summer when I noticed that some of my favorite authors were attending book festivals in the UK and I started pondering on how to get there and what excuses to use, so that I could possible spend that much money. There wasn't any book festivals with all of these gathered, or at least none that I know of, but this was before I had checked them out, while the possibility seeds were sown...
This is sometime during the summer when I noticed that some of my favorite authors were attending book festivals in the UK and I started pondering on how to get there and what excuses to use, so that I could possible spend that much money. There wasn't any book festivals with all of these gathered, or at least none that I know of, but this was before I had checked them out, while the possibility seeds were sown...
I'm in one line to get my King of Thorns
signed by Mark Lawrence and Helene is in another to get Red Country
signed by Joe Abercrombie. I'm already holding the copy of Blinding
Knife by Brent Weeks in my arms, my arms wrapped around it like the
treasure it truly is. (or will be – I might be fast forwarding that
statement to Oxtober sometime after I've actually read it). And while
I'm standing there waiting for the person ahead of me to disappear,
so that it can be my turn, I hear someone calling my name and
Helene's annoyed voice; “Mom!” I look up and Joe abercrombie's
voice: “You really from Norway and chose this festival for your
first Mother/daughter trip abroad?” And I reply: “Yes.” and he
invites us to join him for dinner together with a bunch of other
authors and Mark Lawrence takes time to write me a personal greeting
and I feel like a queen for a little while.
Then I fast forward to the dinner and
China Mieville asks me if it is true and I reply “yes” and he
continues: “You drag your daughter to a book festival, forces her
to stand in line and dare call it a Mother/daughter trip?!?”
And suddenly I'm hated by everyone and
immediately wins “Worst mom of the year” prize. I naturally start
pouring down wine, get wasted and behave obnoxiously and when some
stranger, who incidentally stays at my hotel, loudly declares he's
taking his leave, Joe Abercrombie says that's my ride, that I should
ride with him to the hotel and let my daughter have at least some
fun.
The stranger naturally turns out to be
a sociopath who, when I refuse to have sex with him, throws me out of
the car in the middle of a destitute, creepy industrial area.
I get robbed by a bunch of TV-babies
and threatened at gunpoint and then get rescued by another
non-sociopath stranger, who brings me to my hotel, whereupon I freak
out and have a miniature breakdown in the lobby, because even if I
can act tough when I need to, I always go down like a house of cards
afterward, when I know I'm safe – and someone sees it and then
everybody knows, even Runar, and then he'll realize that all his
fears about me being naive and completely at risk when on my own, and
he'll never let me out of the house, ever again, which, you know,
will really suck. And I go
FotherMucker!
...did I just explain luck in practice as well?
Friday, April 8, 2011
Mysteries
Mysteries had a large part during my childhood years. I’m sure some
of it is due to me having been read to from an early age, thus sparking
an already vivid imagination, but the mystery of folklore and fairy
tales was very much a part of my everyday as a child. For me magic was
real and my logic for why it was real was simple. Magic is created by b...elief
– as long as I believed, magic existed. The same applied to Santa, by
the way. We had an ironing board closet in the kitchen and inside it
were also the chimney with a little hatch that could be pulled open far
up under the ceiling. My father would gather us young kids and tell us
he heard something and that if we truly watched closely, we might just
barely catch a glimpse of his red topped cap as he scurried downwards,
or a bit of his boots as he climbed upwards. I would solemnly swear I
saw him and toasted toast, I firmly believed I did.
In Norway there are more than one type of Santa. There is the American Coca Cola Santa, of course, but we also have our Norwegian type of little santas from our ancient folklore that we call *nisse’ or, if you live on a farm; the farm-nisse and it was this type of nisse that would reside in our chimney around Christmas time. He was there to check up on us kids, to make sure we’d behaved well.
The barn nisse was not necessarily a kind guy. Oh, no. The little nisse was of the fae people and could be both mischievous and downright mean if he felt he was not treated with the proper respect. There were stories of how farm animals would get sick, how the cows started milking blood instead of milk and all sorts of bad luck happening to both man and mouse on the unfortunate farm that’d insulted the farm nisse. On the other hand, he would also ensure healthy animals and good crops if he was pleased. I would always greet the nisse I believed lived in my grandpa’s barn when I entered. Nothing fancy, just a “hi, it’s me”, or a nod, if I was not alone – it was important to keep all knowledge of the barn nisses secret and not discuss their ways out loud, etc. For a curious girl constantly exploring in old barns and in the forests around my town and those surrounding our mountain farm, I figured it was best to be on the safe side and ensure that I had the faes’ aid should I ever need it, or be in danger. From I was around 6 years old, until I was around 10-11 I would remember to bring a bowl of rice porridge to the barn santa in my grandpa’s barn. It’s an old tradition to eat rice porridge on the 23rd of December. We’d make twice as much as we’d need, because the left over porridge was made into Rice pudding, which is the traditional dessert served on Christmas Eve up here.
Grandpa’s farm was just across the road from our house and it didn’t take me more than 5 minutes to do it. Sometimes a friend came with me the next day to check if the nisse had accepted my gift and eaten up the porridge and thus would continue to guard the barn and watch out for the people and the animals. It never failed, the bowl was always empty and we never ceased being amazed that he was for real – In our minds this was more than proof enough for his existence.
The nisse could make himself invisible, or as my grandpa used to explain, he was such an expert at hiding in plain sight that he was near invisible. I kept believing in the mystery of the nisse long after I stopped believing in Santa. I think having parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts all telling us “true” stories about him and how and where they had spotted him, kept the mystery surrounding him alive. I had relatively old parents and my grandpa was so old for us kids, that he was sort of considered a grandpa for half the neighborhood.
My friends and I would sit with eyes as round and wide as plates while he told us all the old fairy tales and the local folklore stories from our region. Stories about “nøkken” were especially frightening. Nøkken is a fae creature that lives in ponds in the deep forests. Those quiet black lakes you can’t see the bottom in, with water lilies and a myriad of life crawling and buzzing and swimming in and around them. There is always a mysterious ripple or several on the quiet surface, if you just have the patience to sit quiet and watch it for more than a minute. Naturally, as I grew older I knew that it was just the natural creations of nature making the sounds and the ripples, but as a child, boy, were there a lot of fascinating and frightening mysterious creatures about. Magic was very much alive and not only that, but it could threaten of death and danger too. Nøkken was said to drown children who ventured alone near ponds and lakes. He could drown grownups too, if they were careless.
The marshes were filled with mysterious creatures working for nøkken, and then there was the “huldra” too. The beautiful female wood nymph with a cow’s tail, that was known to lure men of all ages with her and keeping them all captured among the people of the underground. We called them underjordiske, which translates directly into under-earthlings. They were greatly feared by everybody in the old days and I recall more than one old aunt who refused to walk home alone on paths through the forests in the dark.
The mysterious creatures and superstitious beliefs were numerous. I can’t mention them all, but two creatures that particularly haunted my childhood were “fjellgeita” (mountain goat) and “harekjetta” (slang for hare). My father and grandpa loved scaring us kids with those. I have to admit that today, I can’t quite understand how they could scare me into hysteria with two animals as innocent as a goat and a rabbit, but they sure did. Up at the mountain farm, we didn’t have an indoor toilette, but used an outhouse in the barn instead. There were no streetlights up there. I’m not sure you can truly understand how utterly dark the night is away from city lights, etc, unless you have experienced a night in the forest or up on the mountains far away from civilization. The nights were pitch black, unless there was a full moon casting an eerie dim light in open spaces. A somewhat odd thing happens when you are outdoors in utter darkness. Every sound becomes that much louder. The hooting of owls sounds otherworldly. The barking of foxes, the grunting of larger animals like deer and moose sounds quite frightening to a young child. And let me assure you, the sounds of a hare’s death-cries will freeze the blood to ice in your veins. I kid you not!
There were no lights in the barn and we’d have to use a torch light or a candle light with us if we had to visit the outhouse at nights. I would hear noises nearby that I was certain came from murderous creatures. I would see movements and shadows just outside the limit of the lights from my torch/candle. It was a mystery to me, that my heart didn’t beat itself right out of my body. Even when I forced my dad to stand on the steps waiting for me, I would have Goosebumps and be a shivering wreck barely able to breathe when I finally reached the safety of his side on the steps or closed the door to the realm of darkness outside. Not that he would make matters better by chanting “Ooooo, the “fjellgeita” and “harekjetta” are coming, hurry!” And for some irrational reason, it didn’t help either, that I was well aware of him and the others just pulling my leg with these two creatures, nor that they would laugh their heads off of me. I could not let go of the fear. To me, the darkness was a completely different realm from the daylight.
Even after I married, there would be nights where I pleaded with my hubby to stand watch at the steps while I visited the outhouse. We didn’t get an indoor toilette until my youngest were 5. It still remains a mystery to hubby how it is possible to be afraid of a goat and a rabbit when I am grown up and fully aware of what they are. Honestly, I don’t think it is those two creatures I was afraid of as an adult, it was more the eerie feeling of having utter darkness behind me, a darkness that could hide all sorts of imaginable and unimaginable monsters ready to devour me with hair and bone and skin. Rational logic simply does not abide with one who’s afraid of the dark.
Still, I wouldn’t be without the many frightening mysteries of my childhood. Even the scary ones were exhilaratingly fun to discuss with my friends on lazy hot summer days while hiding in the fields to avoid all the chores we knew we’d have to help with if we were spotted.
Even if I utterly failed in making a mystery story for this assignment, I firmly believe that I owe my creative imagination to my early childhood mysteries. All my crazy stories that have been created in my mind and all those who have yet to be created, have been born in some sense through the magic and mysteries of my childhood.
In Norway there are more than one type of Santa. There is the American Coca Cola Santa, of course, but we also have our Norwegian type of little santas from our ancient folklore that we call *nisse’ or, if you live on a farm; the farm-nisse and it was this type of nisse that would reside in our chimney around Christmas time. He was there to check up on us kids, to make sure we’d behaved well.
The barn nisse was not necessarily a kind guy. Oh, no. The little nisse was of the fae people and could be both mischievous and downright mean if he felt he was not treated with the proper respect. There were stories of how farm animals would get sick, how the cows started milking blood instead of milk and all sorts of bad luck happening to both man and mouse on the unfortunate farm that’d insulted the farm nisse. On the other hand, he would also ensure healthy animals and good crops if he was pleased. I would always greet the nisse I believed lived in my grandpa’s barn when I entered. Nothing fancy, just a “hi, it’s me”, or a nod, if I was not alone – it was important to keep all knowledge of the barn nisses secret and not discuss their ways out loud, etc. For a curious girl constantly exploring in old barns and in the forests around my town and those surrounding our mountain farm, I figured it was best to be on the safe side and ensure that I had the faes’ aid should I ever need it, or be in danger. From I was around 6 years old, until I was around 10-11 I would remember to bring a bowl of rice porridge to the barn santa in my grandpa’s barn. It’s an old tradition to eat rice porridge on the 23rd of December. We’d make twice as much as we’d need, because the left over porridge was made into Rice pudding, which is the traditional dessert served on Christmas Eve up here.
Grandpa’s farm was just across the road from our house and it didn’t take me more than 5 minutes to do it. Sometimes a friend came with me the next day to check if the nisse had accepted my gift and eaten up the porridge and thus would continue to guard the barn and watch out for the people and the animals. It never failed, the bowl was always empty and we never ceased being amazed that he was for real – In our minds this was more than proof enough for his existence.
The nisse could make himself invisible, or as my grandpa used to explain, he was such an expert at hiding in plain sight that he was near invisible. I kept believing in the mystery of the nisse long after I stopped believing in Santa. I think having parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts all telling us “true” stories about him and how and where they had spotted him, kept the mystery surrounding him alive. I had relatively old parents and my grandpa was so old for us kids, that he was sort of considered a grandpa for half the neighborhood.
My friends and I would sit with eyes as round and wide as plates while he told us all the old fairy tales and the local folklore stories from our region. Stories about “nøkken” were especially frightening. Nøkken is a fae creature that lives in ponds in the deep forests. Those quiet black lakes you can’t see the bottom in, with water lilies and a myriad of life crawling and buzzing and swimming in and around them. There is always a mysterious ripple or several on the quiet surface, if you just have the patience to sit quiet and watch it for more than a minute. Naturally, as I grew older I knew that it was just the natural creations of nature making the sounds and the ripples, but as a child, boy, were there a lot of fascinating and frightening mysterious creatures about. Magic was very much alive and not only that, but it could threaten of death and danger too. Nøkken was said to drown children who ventured alone near ponds and lakes. He could drown grownups too, if they were careless.
The marshes were filled with mysterious creatures working for nøkken, and then there was the “huldra” too. The beautiful female wood nymph with a cow’s tail, that was known to lure men of all ages with her and keeping them all captured among the people of the underground. We called them underjordiske, which translates directly into under-earthlings. They were greatly feared by everybody in the old days and I recall more than one old aunt who refused to walk home alone on paths through the forests in the dark.
The mysterious creatures and superstitious beliefs were numerous. I can’t mention them all, but two creatures that particularly haunted my childhood were “fjellgeita” (mountain goat) and “harekjetta” (slang for hare). My father and grandpa loved scaring us kids with those. I have to admit that today, I can’t quite understand how they could scare me into hysteria with two animals as innocent as a goat and a rabbit, but they sure did. Up at the mountain farm, we didn’t have an indoor toilette, but used an outhouse in the barn instead. There were no streetlights up there. I’m not sure you can truly understand how utterly dark the night is away from city lights, etc, unless you have experienced a night in the forest or up on the mountains far away from civilization. The nights were pitch black, unless there was a full moon casting an eerie dim light in open spaces. A somewhat odd thing happens when you are outdoors in utter darkness. Every sound becomes that much louder. The hooting of owls sounds otherworldly. The barking of foxes, the grunting of larger animals like deer and moose sounds quite frightening to a young child. And let me assure you, the sounds of a hare’s death-cries will freeze the blood to ice in your veins. I kid you not!
There were no lights in the barn and we’d have to use a torch light or a candle light with us if we had to visit the outhouse at nights. I would hear noises nearby that I was certain came from murderous creatures. I would see movements and shadows just outside the limit of the lights from my torch/candle. It was a mystery to me, that my heart didn’t beat itself right out of my body. Even when I forced my dad to stand on the steps waiting for me, I would have Goosebumps and be a shivering wreck barely able to breathe when I finally reached the safety of his side on the steps or closed the door to the realm of darkness outside. Not that he would make matters better by chanting “Ooooo, the “fjellgeita” and “harekjetta” are coming, hurry!” And for some irrational reason, it didn’t help either, that I was well aware of him and the others just pulling my leg with these two creatures, nor that they would laugh their heads off of me. I could not let go of the fear. To me, the darkness was a completely different realm from the daylight.
Even after I married, there would be nights where I pleaded with my hubby to stand watch at the steps while I visited the outhouse. We didn’t get an indoor toilette until my youngest were 5. It still remains a mystery to hubby how it is possible to be afraid of a goat and a rabbit when I am grown up and fully aware of what they are. Honestly, I don’t think it is those two creatures I was afraid of as an adult, it was more the eerie feeling of having utter darkness behind me, a darkness that could hide all sorts of imaginable and unimaginable monsters ready to devour me with hair and bone and skin. Rational logic simply does not abide with one who’s afraid of the dark.
Still, I wouldn’t be without the many frightening mysteries of my childhood. Even the scary ones were exhilaratingly fun to discuss with my friends on lazy hot summer days while hiding in the fields to avoid all the chores we knew we’d have to help with if we were spotted.
Even if I utterly failed in making a mystery story for this assignment, I firmly believe that I owe my creative imagination to my early childhood mysteries. All my crazy stories that have been created in my mind and all those who have yet to be created, have been born in some sense through the magic and mysteries of my childhood.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)