Ceci n'est pas un blog

Mostly there's been no new news here.

Many of my colleagues are away on holiday, work is progressing fairly well, the apartment hunt continues to be drawn out by our first choice's owner hestating about the dogs and waiting to see whether anyone else is as interested in her place as we are, and still no word on selling our house in Texas. </sigh>

S is juggling single motherhood with a job, dogs, house showings, and a little girl who is acting out and testing her bounderies because she is three and because things are changing all around her, and because it gets attention. S is amazing; still, I wish there was more tangible I could do.

I left my unmbrella at an apartment visning and am getting by dry enough in my raincoat but I mention it because I learned a greatr Norwegian expression today: there's no bad weather, just bad clothing. It's a good idiom for a wet and mostly cold place, not sure it applies in Texas. The other great Norwegian expresion is "it's like peeing in your pants to stay warm" which basically means the same as the English "penny wise, pound foolish".

One nice thing that happened this week was that my Swiss roommate went home for his father's 80th birthday and left me his Kylling (chicken) and leeks and milk and so on. Chicken is amazingling expensive here, so this was a nice treat. My boss and I were speculating that it's more expensive because they do not have the poultry factories that we have in the States, growth hormones are also not allowed. So the cost to "grow" a chicken is higher and they yield less meat per bird. Karla also pointed out that they have less of a tradition for it as eggs, historically, were sustainable while eating the chickens, less so.

Anyway, made a couple of nice little dinners with sauteed leeks and onion in butter with chicken and hearty bread.