Waking up

… to “All I see is love, sweet love, on the horizon” – is it Mel something, I wonder? – on the radio, which seemed oddly appropriate for once.

The Friday Five invites us to tell all this week:

1. When was the last time you cheated?
Dearie me. Well, actually I spent a lot of time looking up answers on google yesterday while doing a “test yourself and win” thing at digi.no, but as there’s no time limit, maybe they expect you to do just that? Still feels like cheating to some degree, though.

2. When was the last time you stole?
Ah. Now. That’ll have been a glass in a pub. Or three glasses. In a pub in London. And I’m not going to tell you which one, it might get back to them and then they’d ban me and I want to go back.

3. When was the last time you lied?
Walking through “Nothing to declare” on Sunday.

4. When was the last time you broke or vandalized another’s property?
I’ve never intentionally vandalized anyone’s property, I don’t think, but broke? Hm. Unintentionally, right? I really can’t remember.

5. When was the last time you hurt a loved one?
I don’t think I do very often, actually – not that I know of anyway – could be because there is such a small circle of “loved ones” that keeping tabs on them (or at least on what makes them happy) is pretty easy. I am constantly hurting my grandparents by not coming to visit often enough, but as “often enough” would really mean moving in next door, this is rather unavoidable.

Voices in my head: Kathrina and the Waves – Walking on Sunshine (and there is no sun, for once, hurrah!)

Feeling well?

A Monday Mission put up on Tuesday answered on Thursday. You can tell it’s summer, can’t you?

1. When was the last time you were in the hospital as a patient? As a visitor?
I tried to visit an aquaintance who was dying from cancer just before Christmas, but he was undergoing some sort of treatment so we couldn’t see him, that’s the last time I visited a hospital. Well, except the blood donor office is at the hospital, of course. Last time I was in hospital for treatment must be about ten years back – I came in for half an hour or so to have a mole removed from my back. I’ve never been in hospital overnight, actually – or not since my parents first brought me home after I was born, that is.

2. Have you ever been put under anesthesia or sedation? For what reason? Did it mess with your mind?
Only local anasthesia, and that doesn’t really mess with your mind, does it?

3. Have you (or someone close to you) ever had any major surgery? How did it go?
No major surgery. Not me, not anyone close. My grandmother has just had a minor operation on one of her eyes, though, and that seems to have gone pretty well.

4. How about the emergency room? Have you ever had to be taken there, or had to accompany someone else? What happened?
No.

5. Have you ever donated blood (or other fluids)?
I donate blood regularly, and have been doing so for the last five years. So should you.

6. Are you an Organ Donor? How do you feel about having your organs being donated to those in need once you die? Have you or someone you know ever been the recipient of donated organs?
I have a donor card in my wallet, and the family have talked about it so everyone’s aware that all of us are fine with our organs being donated if it should ever become an issue. I think agreeing to donate organs is of self-evident benefit and I can’t see any reason to say no. Why would I care what happens to my kidney, heart, whatever, I’ll be dead anyway, I mean, that’s the whole point. And the same goes for people close to me, if my brother were killed in an accident (touch wood), letting someone else die or suffer because I won’t agree to his organs being used is pretty lame, it’s not going to bring him back, is it?

7. Do you know any men who refuse, or are too afraid, to go to see a Doctor? Why are so many men like that?
Well, my grandfather should have been to the doctor to have his “continuing to drive is ok” certificate, and he says he’s been but my grandmother thinks he hasn’t. The reason for him not wanting to go is pretty obvious, though, and has little to do with any general reluctance to visit the doctor. On the whole I don’t think my male aquaintances are more reluctant to see a doctor than my female aquaintances.

BONUS: Do you remember when we used to sing?
Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl, methinks.

Voice in my head: Van Morrison, obviously.

Gasp

The temperatures did not dip under 20 degrees celcius at all last night. That’s warm. My flat, which is great in every other way, has two drawbacks in this sort of weather:

– It’s not possible to get a proper airing going, as all the windows are on one wall.

– The sun is on from when it rises in the morning until well into the afternoon, and on the roof (directly above my head, as I’m on the top floor) until it sets.

So. I slept on the couch with all the windows open and with the fan on full blast all night, and I still slept fitfully. This could be a long week – the forecast is for this weather to continue, though looking at the skies I’m hoping we might see a thunderstorm or two this evening.

Please?

Whining

Last night I was opening the bathroom door and putting my foot foreward in order to enter, unfortunately I was obviously a bit out of synch, at least I managed to hit the edge of the door with some force with my foot. As a result, it now feels like one of my toes is broken. I don’t suppose it actually is, in fact, I suppose it would hurt more if it were, but dammit, it hurts now! It was allright this morning, but now that I’ve had to walk on it (“Sorry, I can’t come in to work, I’ve hurt my toe”), it’s aching constantly.

Whine.

Whine. Whine. Whine.

Whine.

Voice in my head: Stevie Wonder – For Once in My Life

Blogathon

Well, it has to be done, hasn’t it? Ever heard of the Blogathon? I’m participating this year, so please: Sponsor me!

I’ve chosen Plan International as my charity. It’s seems like a logical choice, as I am currently sponsoring two children through them. They do a pretty good job (including keeping costs down, which means more of your money goes to something worthwhile) – I’ll probably be writing more about them leading up to the Blogathon.

By the way, I’ll be updating both Little Voices and Den norske dagboken on the 26th, so if you can deal with Norwegian you can follow both.

Since I found the first link to the blogathon this year on Anything but Ordinary, I guess I’ll be sponsoring Melissa myself.

Cartoons

Now let’s do the cartoon edition of this or that and maybe demonstrate my earlier point about not watching cartoons all that much…

1. Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck?
Bugs.

2. Tom or Jerry?
Jerry.

3. Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck?
Neither.

4. Rocky & Bullwinkle or Boris & Natasha?
Huh?

5. Road Runner or Wile E. Coyote?
The Road Runner, though I guess I’d quite like to see Wile E. win just the once…

6. Sylvester or Tweety?
Tweety.

7. Popeye or Bluto?
Who cares?

8. South Park or The Simpsons?
I once watched a whole South Park episode to see what the hullaballoo was all about. I laughed once. And I wasn’t offended.

I guess that means The Simpsons, huh?

9. Jetsons or Flintstones?
I’ve never actually watched the Jetsons.

10. And finally, the eternal question asked by all good Scooby-Doo fans: Velma or Daphne?
Huh?

And I’m sure you all enjoyed reading that…

Voices in my head: The Backstreet Boys – I Want it That Way (was just on the radio. Ugh. Off to put on some other music in order to drown them out, quickly.)

Yikes!

Two men just appeared outside my window!

I live on the fourth floor!

Ok, so they are painting the window frames. I knew they were painting the window frames. Still, they gave me a bit of a shock. For some reason I hadn’t quite realised the implications, neither had I expected anyone to be working this late.

Luckily I’m decent – or at least decentish. I tend follow Alanis Morrissette’s advice (“I recommend walking around naked in your living room”) quite frequently, as there is not, normally, any chance of anyone looking in on me, but at least I’ve got a top on this evening. Phew. I’m sure they’ve seen it all before, and I’m not the most easily embarrassed person in the world, but I think I would have found it harder to greet them with equanimity and a reasonably steady “Oh, you made me jump” if I’d been sitting at the computer with no clothes on. Not to mention all the stuff they could theoretically have caught me doing (I’ll leave it up to you to imagine – I mean, what sort of stuff do you get up to when no one’s looking?).

Voice in my head: well, it’s obviously Alanis now, isn’t it?

Such a pity

You can’t help feeling sorry for A.S. Byatt. Just think of the enjoyment she’s missing out on, since she thinks Harry Potter is crap (thanks to Martin for the link). Apparently:

It is written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons and the exaggerated – more exciting, less threatening – mirror world of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip.

Now, I must admit I’ve never read Byatt (maybe that’s her problem?), but I fail to recognise myself in the picture she paints (oh, that could also be her problem…). It’s been a while since I watched TV cartoons, I prefer a book (Proust, anyone?) to soaps, reality TV makes me dive for the remote (to press the OFF!! button) and uhm, well, I bought a celebrity gossip mag last week (for the first time, ever, as far as I can remember), but that was after getting up at five in the morning, four hours on a bus and five hours waiting around at the airport, so I think my mental state at the time could be described as “unusual”.

I’m not a great fan of Tolkien (read it, enoyed bits of it), and I’ve never managed to finish an Alan Garner – I did, however, enjoy Susan Cooper (I assume ‘Cropper’ is a misprint, if not Byatt is talking about a very obscure writer, that not even Google has heard about – unless ‘Loving and Losing a Pet’ is the book she’s referring to…), she really is excellent (and, yes, serious). Her choice of examples seem somewhat weird, though. Tolkien, at least, had an intended audience of adults. Garner and Cooper seem to have a target audience of “young adults” – I read Cooper long before I was 12 and had no problems with her – and I’m one of those people who suspect Rowling would have given me nightmares when I was 11.

Thanks to google, here’s the original article by Byatt in NY Times.

I see from The Leaky Cauldron that Fay Weldon admits to finding it “troubling” when she sees grown-ups reading HP. Why? Surely there is nothing inherently wrong with reading children’s books when you’re grown up? They are written by grown-ups, aren’t they? Does it not occur to these people that some authors are actually able to write books that are mulit-layered, on the surface simple enough that children can read them, at heart complicated enough that adults can find them challenging as well as entertaining?

What I find “troubling” is when seemingly intelligent people turn out to chose The Sun as their daily paper (and their main source of information about what’s going on in the world). This is worrying. Adults reading well-written children’s books is not.

And, as I said, Byatt is missing out – majorly.

Voice on the tv: George Michael – Careless Wispers