Sunday, September 27, 2009 9:24:59 AM
I was in Norway the first week of the month. There was a family reunion in Kristiansund, and even though I am a rather distant relative I went there because of my grandmother. She was born there, but had to leave with her mother and father in 1941. Her parents were in the resistance and escaped from the Germans in a small fishing boat. I lived with my grandmother in London after my parents separated when I was 13, and I inherited her flat which is where I live now. My name, Jenny, is from her as well. So I gave a talk on her at this reunion.
On my way to Kristiansund I stayed a couple of days with friends in Trondheim, and I feel I am still a little bit Norwegian whenever I visit the country.
The rest of the month I have been very busy on a design project in Glasgow, but I look forward to a week's holiday in a few days when I go to Burma. I may return with more about that trip.
Friday, March 20, 2009 11:18:05 AM
from another blog, but I suspect it is a more or less universal thing. I really had a good laugh which I want to share and it goes like this:
A Lebanese man walked into a bank in New York City one day and asked for the loan officer.
He told the loan officer that he was going to Lebanon on business for two weeks and needed to borrow $5,000.
The bank officer told him that the bank would need some form of security for the loan.
The Lebanese man handed over the keys to a new Ferrari parked on the street in front of the bank. He produced the title and everything checked out.
The loan officer agreed to accept the car as collateral for the loan.
The bank's president and its officers all enjoyed a good laugh at the Lebanese for using a $250,000 Ferrari as collateral against a $5,000 loan.
An employee of the bank then drove the Ferrari into the bank's underground garage and parked it there.
Two weeks later, the Lebanese returned, repaid the $5,000 and the interest, which came to $15.41.
The loan officer said, 'Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled.
While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multi millionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow '$5,000'
The Lebanese replied: 'Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return''
To mee this is good news and certainly a trick I should like to play myself. Useful too!
Monday, March 9, 2009 2:56:50 PM
I didn't come here in February, but I am here today. What is this? A space where you may peep in when you're bored or feel lonely? A place to look for friends? Hardly. A catwalk where you fret and strut for a short while? More like that. You hope somebody sees you and approves. Possibly.
But it feels ok just to write these words. To have expressed.
Monday, January 5, 2009 11:55:55 AM
and I ask myself whether what I am doing is of any significance in the world today. I follow closely the work of the democratic movement in Burma, and I am appalled at what is going on in Gaza. It is as if I am drained of strength and should better keep my mouth shut (or my hand still) and stay quiet. But that is no option either, so these words just to go on ...
Sunday, December 21, 2008 9:26:48 AM
and I found this one in The Sunday Times Literary Supplement now:
Different Places To Pray
by SUSAN RICH
Everywhere, everywhere she wrote; something is falling –
a ring of keys slips out of her pocket into the ravine below;
nickels and dimes and to do lists; duck feathers from a gold pillow.
Everywhere someone is losing a favorite sock or a clock stops
circling the day; everywhere she goes she follows the ghost of her heart;
jettisons everything but the shepherd moon, the hopeless cause.
This is the way a life unfolds: decoding messages from profiteroles,
the weight of mature plums in late autumn. She’d prefer a compass
rose, a star chart, text support messages delivered from the net,
even the local pet shop – as long as some god rolls away the gloss
and grime of our gutted days, our global positioning crimes.
Tell me, where do you go to pray – a river valley, a pastry tray?
---
there is something here that I feel akin to
Monday, November 17, 2008 6:18:39 PM
in what I hope will be an uneventful week. I plan to do some consolidating work in my firm and towards my customers which I have been neglecting for several months. So I may not be very active in my blog, but I shall be back when things stabilize.
Saturday, November 15, 2008 8:50:32 AM
and I'm tired after a late Friday night. I was giving a talk on Burma to a group of people, and a heated discussion took us late into the night. The British are ambivalent because of former colonizing, and there are no natural resources there which today's powerful regimes can readily lay their hands on, so nobody cares much what's happening to the people at large and the marginalized minority groups. It's a lesson in cynicism.
Thursday, November 13, 2008 5:37:16 PM
has been busy getting my business up and going again after my absence. It's nice being back too, and I enjoy cudling up in my flat after a day's work hacking some words in this blog. Aimless writing you might say, but that is the pleasure and bonus. Actually it's better than just slumping down in front of the telly digesting what might pop up. Let me put a pair of woollen socks on and find mye book ...
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 12:50:39 PM
on this blog again and two weeks since I returned from Burma, or Myanmar, as the generals call it. It was depressing. And returning was as depressing. The rest of the world is forgotten in a US presidential campaign that replaces one puppet with another, no matter how young and symbolically colourfull.
It's difficult to tell what is real these days. Sometimes I feel I have to choose between the everyday chores and details on the one hand, and what the press finds opportune to spend time doing on the other. Where is the world with all the good people? Are there anybody out there, and what do you spend time doing?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 1:25:32 PM
after more than a year in dire straits, I must say. Personally, family like, economically, politically, but I shall try to focus now, on some words and sentences, preferably some contiguity, in this blog - welcome back Jen - who else cares
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