Ceci n'est pas un blog

Last weekend was the Lunar Year and we are now several days into the year of the Gold Pig on the Chinese Calendar. This was the first year in a while that we have not marked the occasion but the only events we could find here were a bit expensive and held by the Chinese Embassy, limiting the amount of information in English.

For a couple years we joined the Families with Children from China for their Ne Years feast but ultimately I, at least, found these to be clique-ish and frankly a bit odd -- to have so many people with no first hand knowledge or experience trying to celebrate a tradition they have only read about. Depending on the group, it can feel a bit appropriating and cloying. Basically there are bunches of people who have almost nothing in common except for being adoptive families. The events that we have found to be more fun are when the Asian community centers have had festivals of food, dancing, music, and art celebrating their traditions. This has seemed like a more genuine expression of cultural pride and heritage for our wee one to experience.

Oslo is interesting in that it has a huge immigrant population but no Chinatown or Little Lebanon, etc. There are areas with a more dense immigrant population than others but none of the clearly demarked "you are now entering a separate zone" feel that you get in New York, Victoria, D.C., San Francisco, etc. I think on the whole this is a good thing. But it is different.
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This was the warmest January on record for Oslo. We were getting spoiled by the light snow and no real Nordic cold. A couple Sundays ago, we walked to the market that our neighbor runs and dropped to -14 (C). The river was frozen over, ducks walked across leaving footprints in the snow across the top. H cried from the cold on her toes and fingers. There is a point at about -7 when a normal jacket and light gloves no longer cut it and we realized the limits of our outerwear that day. But then the thaw came.

Snow melted into water running down all the paths in the park, ice and snow slid dangerously from roofs onto the sidewalk below, the little brook in the park started to appear from under the snow and ice that had hidden it for the weeks prior. The frosted trees and white lawns turned to grey and brown, the rain turned the snow into the consistency of a slushy but grey and dirty.

Today at last, we are back below freezing and had a lovely dusting of snow in the morning. >The city begins to look pretty again but it is far more treacherous. The frozen run-off turned into slick ice sheets is now hiding under a thin gauze of snow, the slippery indistinguishable from the stable. Tosca dog stepped on an ordinary looking patch that turned out to be a lightly frosted sheet of thin ice over a deep dark puddle. I had several unexpected slips and slides but fortunately no spills or tumbles.
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For the past few years we have taken our dogs over to our friend's house and let our dogs romp together during Westminster dog show. We root against the tiny dogs and lament the endless line up of terriers. Akitas, Pyrs, Newfies, Mastiffs, Wolfhounds, and the occasional amazing smaller dog all get our cheers. S calls her sister as soon as the corgies come on. But this year the time difference meant we could not share in the live event even over Skype. However, we caught up with other dog lovers the next day via email and chat and praised the lovely and amazing winners and booed the miniatures and the silly poodles (yes, there are non-silly poodles).

At about this time, I met a woman in the park who I had met once before right around Christmas. She walks a 10 year old Bedlington terrier and I was introduced to them by the very nice lady who walked an older standard schnauzer named Rufun. It seems that on New Years Rufun's people were talking about how lucky they were that he was so healthy but then just days later Rufun had an epileptic style seizure and passed. They were incredibly nice and shared our walking schedule. A few minutes chat with Rufun and his owner were a fixture of most of our walks but without a dog to walk, Rufun's person is no longer out in the park at midnight or just after sunrise as we are and I have not been able to express our condolences.

Lately we seem to be sharing the same schedule as a young woman and her Australian shepherd mix named Jesse. Jesse loves Tosca and Seamus and runs circles around them while they play. Jesse is never far from a stick and loves to play fetch. Her owner, although raised in Norway, has Scottish(?) parents and therefore speaks English with a thick accent acquired from her folks rather than the standard slight Norwegian accent over American pronounciation that is so common here.