For the weekend:
Husband stuck in NY, all flights are canceled. He was meant to arrive today.
Now do I get angry with him, or with the weather?
I need to get angry at someone, or something, so what should it be.
On top of that, the son is feeling worse by the day. This morning he woke up with a stonking 101F, despite being drugged up to his eyeballs on antibiotics and ibuprofen.
And the DVD player crashed. Great timing. How do you explain to a short tempered two year old that he can watch Elmo but not Fimbles (we both hate Elmo - what's wrong with that guy? Can anyone actually understand what he's saying???)

And it's pissing down with rain. Still. So, what's new?

We're cut from the same cloth

Listening to Radio Alice this morning, Holly made this astute observation.
- All advertising is the same. "Hello, my name is so and so, and this is the best, biggest, bla bla bla. It's like one shop versus all other shops. One car versus all other cars. It's boring. I don't believe them, anyway.

My daughter, ladies and gentlemen.

My brother sent me this clip, it was a nice way to wake up this morning

if I could just have a little more time

When you have work to do, after 8 years of procrastinating as a full-time mother, you take your laptop and your note-book and you go one of the coffee houses on Haight Street with wire less and strong espressos.
You're guaranteed a few more hours of not working, knowing that you will have to do this tonight when the kids are in bed.
But how could you work, when you can sit and people watch in this best of all SF locations?

I didn't go to this gig but

this is what's playing on the Ipod over and over and over again because it makes both me and the kids happy - please, download the album version and crank it up - it's so good!

My Saturday night

How to guarantee a night in: get five girls to organize a night out.

I have no life but that's OK, I have coffee

I was going to write something suitably interesting, but then all my thoughts disappeared.
I am blaming old age.
I am also blaming the continuous sinus infection that is keeping me from getting a decent nights sleep.
I am also blaming the incredibly strong latte I got from Starbucks in the Castro a few hours ago.
The barrista looked at me and said:
- You look like you need some strong coffee.
- It's this cold I have. It zaps the energy out of me.
- Don't give it to me. I will hunt you down, if you do.
He sounded like he meat it.
And then he gave me a caffeine kick I have seldom experienced before.
And now I seem to loose my thoughts.

Just when you think you can't take it anymore, things turn around, and what once was a grey, slushy pile of rain and misery is suddenly warm sunshine and happiness.
Spring has come to San Francisco. Foggy mornings linger stubbornly until around mid-morning and then turn in to the most amazing, warm, sunny afternoons.
This is why we live here, this is what we love.
Or, to quote the guy in Trader Joe's:
It's awesome, man. Totally inspiring, dude.

Things you should know about fruit bowls in swedish people's homes

I found a hilarious discussion on a Swedish chat forum about whether it would be OK to help yourself to fruit from a fruit bowl if you were in a friends house, or if you should ask first.
People have some serious opinions about this.

* It depends on where the bowl is situated. On a table in front of you when you're having coffee: go for it. If on the kitchen counter out of immediate reach: no.
* It depends on which types of fruit are in the bowl (although not specified).
* If it was me, I would say: you can have the banana but not the orange, cos we're using it for ... (insert action).
* I would help myself at my brother's but not at my friends house.
* I would NEVER do this without being invited to first. It is rude and bad mannered.
* If you've been a guest in this house 150 times before, it's OK, but if you're picking up your kid at first playdate, no.
* It would be OK with me, most people are keeping an eye on their weight and would prefer a banana to a cookie.
* Interesting discussion, today's modern architecture diffuses boundaries with open plan living, so it's hard to keep some things private these days.
* No, I wouldn't mind, but fruit spoils if you leave it in room-temperature so you should keep it stored in a cool place anyway.

I suddenly realize that there is a whole fruit bowl etiquette that has gone me by, and that I need to get in the game. I might unknowingly have offended Swedish people left, right and center (although, I don't eat fruit, so I might be OK).

I am a good driver

I made sure I was a law-abiding driver yesterday, going down the Stop and Go streets of the Lower Haight with a police car right behind me.
I drove slowly, cautiously, took good time to get to a full stop at the corner of every block, looking both ways before gently, carefully driving off again.

They couldn't wait to get away from me when it was time for them to make a turn.

Obama

People from the Impeach Obama campaign had a stand on 24th and Castro this morning. Ultra liberal Noe Valley seems to be the last place to rally supporters from.
The second time I walk past they ignore me, saying: this one's not gonna go for it. The first time I walked by I gave them the Evil Eye. I can't vote, but Obama still has my devoted, if silent, suport.

The Thick of It

I'm completely hooked on a oldish-new British sit com (yes, I'm 4 years late, but who's counting) called The Thick of It, which takes place amongst the politicans and lobbyists around Downing Street. The PM spin doctor (no guessing who he's meant to resemble) Malcolm Tucker is so cutting it gets uncomfortable. Think The Office (British, not American) meets House of Cards. Or something like it.
Watch it. It's great.
(Ps: for more sensitive readers, this clip contains constant, outrageous, inhibited rants of very very bad language)

I've been disqualified for jury service. Now, if I could only contest the unfair parking ticket, my faith in the sytem might be restored.

Tat's

I think I might get another tattoo soon, might head up to North Beach on Saturday to talk it over with my guy.
If I only knew what I wanted to get....

I escape the house for a few hours and take a long drive across the Golden Gate Bridge down the 101 and then back again. I stop at Falletti's on the way home to pick up some food and a coffee at Peets. The barista is making small talk as he's frothing the milk.
- Man, look at it. It's like we're in this cavern or despair and disillusion. And doom.
I know where he's coming from. This rain has everybody wishing they were somewhere else, somewhere warm.

and again, and again, and again

OK, pneumonia and ear-infection, all mixed in to one, big, hefty concoction of illness for the poor girl in my home. The anti-biotic seem to help though, I just found her dancing away in the living room to random jazz on the radio and she has also managed to wind up her brother with pettiness all morning. I think she's recovering perfectly well.

My fellow blogger friend, the angry mother, has written a few posts on the current state of flu and illness. I take solace in knowing that I am not alone.

And more of the same....

I finally went to Abu Zam Zam on Haight Street last Saturday. The infamous owner Bruno, who refused to serve you if ordered anything stupid, ie: anything beyond Martinis, Manhattans and Old Fashions I should guess, passed a away a while ago, but the bar, and the out of place Arabian Nights decor, along with the all American classics juke box is still there. I didn't personally experience this, because I was a good girl and ordered Martini - and a pretty decent one at that - but allegedly the new bar-staff can still refuse to serve you your choice of beverage should they feel like it.

Besides this, I am really, really crying out for some kind of life. The kids are still home sick, and I am going crazy. This is 5 days in a row now, not counting the spell we had two weeks ago.

Another day in the life of my

Sick children are an abomination and a liability and they should not be allowed to become sick until old enough to take care of themselves.
Extreme views, some might say, but trust me, I have been tied to one sick child or another for what seems like a very long time now.... I know what I'm taking about....
Cynicism's aside, I hope you get better soon, my darling Holly.

Avatar

I wasn't a big fan of Avatar, I have to say, and I regret watching it in 3D rather than on a normal screen, my eyes are just not cut out for this 3D business. Regardless of sitting through 3 hours of blurred vision and my ears bleeding, I found Avatar very average. It's too long, yet it's very obvious that it's been extensively cut already, great chunks of continuity missing, it's predictable, too much of a normal action movie bla bla bla. But I deepley regret that Zoe Saldana was overlooked for an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She deserved a nomination. She held up the entire movie. She was the breath of fresh air in the entire sad long thing. Her movements and her facialexpressions - which had her endure very long and hard training for about a year prior to shooting - are a joy to watch and makes the whole movie a little more enjoyable.
Maybe the Academy doesn't recognize it as "true" acting? I don't know, I just know that would love to ride next to her on one of those birds, she made it look wicked!

New year, old routine

I went running in Golden Gate Park this morning, for the first time in over two months, which was embarrassingly noticeable when my breath started getting very heavy very early on. I don't fall in to the category of people who try to change their diet and exercise habits on January 1st every year, only to then fall right back in to old, bad habits a few weeks later. I am very different. Unable to tolerate anything resembling cold, fog, rain and wind, I seem to take a long, unwanted break every winter, and then I desperately struggle to get back in to shape the rest of the year. It is some kind of yo-yo way of keeping fit, not very Californian.

Every time I go running after a long break though, I always think how nice it is, how good i feel afterwards, and how lucky I am to have all these incredible places of dramatic nature to enjoy.