The art of going bugshit crazy

I have a new-found nemesis. Rather, lots of nemesises. Is that a word? Nemesises? Never mind, you know what I mean. What I would love to do, is kill off the entire insect population in this house. Just in our home, mind you. I fully understand the concept of an ecosystem and that if a butterfly farts in my garden, there will be a tsunami in China, or however that saying goes.

I think that snuffing out so many littles lives is justified in the face of what might happen if I don't; yours truly having a psychotic melt-down and doing something potentially dangerous. Like running naked down the street while screaming "they're crawling all over me!"

The flies are by far the most crazy-making. You have the big, fat ones. They're kinda swarthy, with bristles. If they were people, they would be the kind with shoulders and backs so hairy, they could compete with your dog when it comes to shedding on the furniture. They would proudly show off said body hair by wearing washed-out tank tops. They would also sweat a lot. These kinds of flies are loud. Like tiny chainsaws with wings. They're impossible to kill, because they never bloody land. In stead, they constantly fly around and around at ridiculous speeds, making as much noise as they can. You sort of have to give them a good knock while they're in the air and kill them while they're still dazed from the blow. Then you have the smaller ones. These aren't very loud, but ours like to travel in two's or three's and they keep trying to crawl into your coffee mug. The little bastards always know when you have your fly swatter ready, at which point they will vanish without a trace, until you've put it down.

Pooch thinks flies are terrific fun, though. To her, they're basically special toys that were invented so that she can bounce around like a maniac, trying to catch them. Although she's far more likely to injure herself or knock over furniture.

Tonight we tried to save our sanity by using bugspray. Mister walked around from room to room with a huuuge (seriously pink) can of spray. There's something very odd about a hot pink surface with insects painted all over it. Pooch followed him. She' easily entertained.

I was in the dining room when I heard him shout: "Godammit, dog! Stop trying to eat the bugs that I've just sprayed!"

Not the smartest tool in the shed, her.

My brainfart on terrorism and such

By now I guess that most people have heard about the terrorist attack in Norway. I heard, myself, about an hour after it first happened. Naturally, I was as shocked as anyone else and I spent most of that evening with my eyeballs glued to the online newspapers.

I couldn't shake the feeling that I should say something semi-intelligent on the subject, being norwegian and whatnot.

The act itself - a madman butchering close to 100 innocent people - was disgusting, but in a way I've been as disgusted with things that have been said around this tragedy.

As soon as the story blew, long before anyone knew who was behind this, people started blaming the Muslims. Suddenly my Facebook newsfeed was dotted with exclamations like "throw all those bastards out of the country!" and "death to Islam!" posted by people that I had always credited with normal levels of intelligence. I'm not saying that I can't understand why many would think of religious extremists when faced with an act of terror like this, but since when is an act of hatred an acceptable excuse to spew more hatred? How do you solve a problem like terrorism by acting like a rabid little s***brat in a kindergarden fight?

Then the attacker turns out to be a blonde, blue-eyed, right-wing extremist. He looks like 1/4 of the people I went to school with. After 9/11 we sort of forgot about the "regular" nutjobs and focused all our attention on fanatical muslims. There's a lesson in this to teach us that skin colour and religion isn't a symptom of fanaticism. We can't classify it that way.

The threat of violence is always present, no matter where we go in the world. It's just something we're going to have to live with. There are potential mass-murderers, but there are also serial-killers, muggers, rapists and other creepy crawlies out there. Then there are natural disasters, poisonous snakes and people who drive like bloody lunatics. Does that mean we should spend our lives looking over our shoulder and worrying about those that come from a culture we might not understand? Does that make us any more safe? Why the hell are we so petrified of the Muslims? I'm sure I have a much better chance of falling down the stairs and breaking my neck than I do of being blown up by a jihadist.

I know a lot of people in Oslo, they're alright. One friend had just walked into a building downtown when the attack happened. The windows had all exploded, their car had been totally destroyed. They were incredibly lucky. Another friend was safe at home, outside of the city, but the force of the explosion still made their whole house shake. I can't eve imagine how much worse this could have been. But you know what? I'm not going to spend my life being afraid of what might happen. You can't function that way. We'll be heading back to Norway in a few days and we will have a lovely vacation, free of fear and worry.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I totally needed one, I tell you!

The other day, I was sitting in my comfortable chair - the one that makes my butt happy - feeling very comfortable, when suddenly a little voice inside my head shouted "I want an iPad!"

Now, I recognize Tootie when I hear it. Tootie is that silly, irresponsible (slightly psychotic) part of my brain that keeps trying to talk me into buying a hat. Luckily I also have Bergerac. That's the rational bit of my brain that keeps Tootie somewhat in check.

I sat there in my chair for a few minutes, while the inside of my head went "iPad, iPad, iPad, iPad!" I figured Bergerac would pop up any time, smacking Tootie in the mouth and putting a stop to this nonsense. That didn't happen. Because, as it turned out, Bergerac wanted an iPad too.

The next day, Mister and I drove into the city, we hit one store after another and they were all sold out. Bergerac had had some time to think things over by then, and was somewhat relieved. Tootie, on the other hand, hasn't thought anything over in it's life, and was plummeting into a deep hole of depression. It was a very strange state of mind.

I was so obsessed with my new quest, I almost forgot to pick up the book I ordered at the library, and that is not like me at all. I mean, I google "books" regularly, just so I can sit around and stare at pictures of books. They don't even have to be actual pictures. A drawing can be quite satisfactory.

In the end we found a pretty, white ipad2 that was just sitting there, waiting for me to come fetch it. You'd think the day would be saved at this point, wouldn't you? But no. After years of being a student, I am still not accustomed to having or spending money. Spending a lot of money all at once, makes me dizzy. After this purchase, my entire world was spinning around and I had to sit down for a little while. I eventually managed to give myself a migraine.

Then I used my new baby to google "books" and that made me feel much better.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Miami minus the palm trees

We did and up going out of town, to luvely Blokhus. It's a bit like Miami without the palm trees. We'd ordered a transport cage for Pooch, but it didn't arrive in time. See, Pooch just loves cars. As soon as you open the car door, she'll hop right inside and sit there, trembling with excitement as she waits for the car to start moving. This will happen even if Pooch isn't your dog. You may never have met Pooch before in your life, but if you leave your car door open where she can get to it, you WILL find a wide-eyed dog happily shivering in your backseat. This is one of the reasons why I'm careful with where I let said Pooch off her leash. She usually listens to her mama, but why tempt fate? Especially with the way she sheds...

To keep her from bouncing around in the car in fits of unsurpassable joy, we have to use a leash on her. We also have a fancy doggy seatbelt harness thingy, but we can never find that when we need it. She still manages to get around a wee bit, though. We can't exactly tape her to the car seat.






Conversations from the car:


Mister: the way she's hanging off the back of my seat, is a bit like I used to climb all over the drivers seat when I was a kid.

Choochoo: so now you now how your mother felt.

Mister: except that I never slobbered all over my mother...





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

May or may not

We may or may not be leaving town today, in which case I may or may not need to pack a suitcase and some food for the road trip. I may or may not need to figure out where all my various chargers and gizmos are and I may or may not need to decide on a holy-crap-I've-left-my-house reading list for my kindle. With all this indecision, I'm very grateful that I'm not being chased out of town by an angry mob, like the Frankenstein monster was when he had to leave town.

One thing is certain, though: Pooch is DEFINITELY going to the vet today to get her rabies shot updated. She'll be crazy pleased.

oh noes!

I've been doing it all wrong. NOW they tell me :/ Oh dear...