Note to self ...

NEVER piss off your phlebotomist!

I DO have a very strict "DO NOT PISS OF THE NURSE TAKING CARE OF YOU IN THE HOSPITAL" policy - and it has done me well- and often, but the phleb's? Hadn't really thought it all through before ....

This Morning:

Me: (counting a basket of vials the Phlebotomist was filling. She seemed to be done, then stopped, looked over at some equipment on a shelf, walked over there, grabbed 5 more different looking type of vials and tossed them in the basket) "Um, you have TWENTY vials in there! I am only having 15 tests done today, are those all for me?"

Phlebe: (in a VERY grumpy mood) "Some of these tests take two vials".

Me: "NO, they DON'T".

Phlebe: (with a look of total shock and awe that I had spoken back to her) "WHAT?!?"

Me: "Look, I have been having my blood drawn almost every month for over 20 years now. I know EVERY test you are running today and I KNOW FOR A FACT that THAT TEST (pointing to my lab request form) and THAT TEST (stabbing at the paper again) can be combined and tested from the same vial - in addition - why don't you throw in the xyz test there also - I have had all three done at once and they took ONE VIAL. ONE."

Phlebe: (looking a wee bit surprised probably because:

a) I was smart mouthing her

and

b) I might have been more knowledgeable about the tests I was getting today than she was

replies - with sort of an indescribable evil glint in her eye) "Well, TODAY, just for YOU, some of these tests are gonna take TWO VIALS!"

Me: *sigh*

As she then begins one of the most painful, what I call "blind jab and hunt" explorations of one of my many very bad veins I start my relaxation and visualization exercises since I have had mucho experience with bad blood draws (going in to have my daughter Rachael, when they tried to start an IV they yelled at me and said that I had gone into Hypovolemic Shock and my veins had all collapsed (due to a rushing of the blood to the internal organs to protect them) and I was all 'so sorry about that, this is sort of a really bad day for me ...' and it was probably actually Psychogenic Shock - which is something I try to avoid - thus the relaxation and visualization exercises to keep the veins from collapsing and 'getting yelled at') So ... as I said, while she was doing her 'playing with the human pin-cushion' act I sorta muttered ... accidentally ... but not really ...

"shit"

I am controlling my breathing, heavy into my visualization and relaxation when I realize that that last itty bitty outburst was not just in my head I hear a very mad Phleb say:

"Keep talkin' and imma gonna need to probably poke you AGAIN just to fill up these twenty vials here ..."

Oddly enough - for the next 10 minutes, while the Evil Phlebotomist drained my veins, I kept my eyes and my mouth SHUT. Wont go into the raging rant going on in my head, though ... mostly unprintable stuff anyway ...

Still not sure why she needed the extra blood, still pretty sure it was NOT for my tests, still so tired of medical personnel that when given a little power - tend to enjoy abusing it ...

Whatever - at least she didn't poke me again ...



I so proud of myself ...

So, Why Didn't They Come Today?

Why didn't they come today? Everything else did. Went to the mailbox, and sure enough, there were the familiar thick, plastic white envelopes filled with my mail order meds ... three months supply each.

I ripped open each bag, taking out its contents and setting it on my desk. I lined them up like ducks in a row ... one prescription was missing.

So, why didn't it come today?

I got on the computer and opened the e-mail that had merrily told me they were all on the way. Clicked on the tracking number for it and found out that it seems to be taking a detour through a North Houston Post Office. Clicked on a couple of the others and sure enough - the tracking was a straight shot to my mailbox and the status was "Delivered".

So, why didn't it come today?

You see, I had a plan. It was seductive, tantalizing - a siren whispering in my ear - like a soft, gentle tickle. Taking a three months supply of very heavy duty sleeping pills ... all at once ... would solve everything, she said. The sickness. The pain - especially the pain. The guilt. The being a burden to those around me. It was SO SIMPLE. SO EASY. She was rather driven in her quest, and made it sound oh SO tempting.

So, why didn't they come today?



Not to worry ... they will be here Monday .... Tuesday at the latest.



So, why didn't they come today?



Maybe, just maybe, someone, somewhere knew that I just might feel a bit different about this whole situation by then. Maybe, I will have the strength to banish the temptress ...


But who knows?






Maybe not.



**** Disclaimer - while it may have been tantalizing and seductive and wonderful to dream about - I WOULD NEVER DO THIS TO MY FAMILY. I WOULD NEVER LEAVE MY HUSBAND AND CHILDREN. Suicide is a purely selfish act - so I will keep on .... keeping on. Whatever it takes.

I pray I don't have many days like today, though ...

And yet still I wonder: So, why didn't they come today?

Fast Car

July 1988 - I had fallen into a routine of sorts.

I was staying with my gracious in-laws who lived in Ogden, Utah - where Jessie had been born prematurely on that awful day - July 5th, 1988. I don't remember how many days later - so many doctors, so much bad news, so many horrific new discoveries - that she was life flighted to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah - a bit of a drive south.

She had gone into renal failure and they wanted to do emergency surgery and close the PDA (a valve in the heart - lung system that should close right at birth, but sometimes did not - as in the case of Jessie) and while in there mucking about with her heart - repair the moderate sized VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect) she had. The PDA was probably the most casual of her problems, but it needed to be closed and so they were taking her by helicopter to the best surgeons to operate on a teeeny tiny heart. While getting her ready for transport, the paramedic in an off hand remark mentioned that sometimes they close when they get the kiddos at a higher altitude. The handsome young man smiled at me and said "We can always hope".

I was waaaay beyond hope by that day - day seven or eight or nine - I had lost count. Too many birth defects, too much guilt - too much "What did I do to her?" rolling around and around and around in my brain like a never ending roulette wheel.

Well, her PDA did close in flight and thus no emergency surgery. Her open-heart surgery that was guaranteed to happen would happen another day, at another hospital in another state. Good news - probably the first we had experienced since my water had broken at my parents cabin on the Fourth of July.

So as I said I fell into a routine of sorts.

Every sleepless night I would sneak into my in-laws WONDERFUL phone booth downstairs next to the room I was trying to sleep in. It was an actual enclosed booth in their family room - so I could call the hospital and check on my baby - unheard by all those trying to sleep. They had told me that I could call as often as I needed - so I did - when ever I was freaked out or worried I would call, check on her O2 stats, her billirubin levels, so many pieces of information and they would patiently give it to me.

I don't remember what time I told myself that I could get in my car and go spend the day with my daughter - 5:00am? 6:00am? 7:00am? It eludes me now - but I would get up - having stared at the ceiling most of the night (when not hunkered down, sitting in that small phone booth talking, telephone clutched tight in my hand and held tight to my head, as I spoke to one nurse or another), shower, get dressed and try to steel myself for what was to come.

The sitting with my baby in the hospital?


No.

That part was easy - if you (unsuccessfully) ignored all the other sorry, horrific stories of beautiful, flawed babies that were her neighbors.

I am digressing for a moment - but just to show you how you should NOT get involved with the beautiful neighbors in a Neonatal ICU. There was a boy - a BEAUTIFUL, beyond beautiful boy next to Jessie. He was older than the newborns and the nurses seemed to know him and his mom was a nurse. Overhearing conversations I learned that he could somehow not digest food so was not going to survive if they could not figure out a fix. They had tried many things and nothing was working.

One day, they packed him up to take him home. The nurses all came in to give him a hearty goodbye and tearfully hugged the mother goodbye. They had given his smiling beautiful mother a heart rate monitor that I was used to seeing and I wondered why?

After he was gone, I ventured a question because he was so beautiful and I had fallen in love with him. I had spoke with him often - loving to hear his beautiful giggle. This must be good news! He was going home, I said. Why the heart monitor?

The nurse that I asked smiled at me with eyes that looked so sad and so wise and so, so, so very old and said - "Sweetie, they are taking him home because we cannot do anything more for him. They are taking him home to die. The heart monitor is so that if he should start to pass away and they are not right with him, they will be alerted and get to his bedside to hold him while he passes away."

I SO could have done without knowing that. Thus my advise - NEVER ASK. His obituary was posted on a bulletin board some time later ...

But - as horrific as all that went on in that Neonatal unit at Primary Children's Hospital, the drive there was .... tortuous.

Why?


Because I could not turn off the DAMN radio!


If you can recall the summer of '88 - there were two songs that were HUGE, beyond huge hits. And it was a GUARANTEE that I would hear each as I drove from Ogden, Utah to Salt Lake City, Utah to sit with my baby all day.

The first: Bobby McFerrins: "Don't Worry Be Happy" - every time it came on I felt as if he were mocking me. It just was not the song I wanted to hear. And - go figure - it didn't help. I tried some days to take it to heart - but it just didn't work - thus the mocking tone after a few of these drives.

The second one scared me more than anything had scared me up until this point in my life - and that TOTALLY INCLUDED all the news we were getting about our firstborn.

The song: Tracy Chapman's: "Fast Car" Every time it came on, I started to sob, and to shake and to tremble and to try my HARDEST to turn off the sound. I only succeeded in turning the radio off one time - not a personal best by any means. Why was this so disturbing?

Here I was - in my car, driving fast to a place filled with unanswered questions. What was my future going to be like? Was Jessie going to be a vegetable? Perfectly normal after all her birth defects were repaired? Was she, as they suspected mentally retarded? I could not deal with this, I was not prepared for this, I was more terrified than I have ever been in my entire life and as the song ended with her beautiful, melodious, seductive voice singing:

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
You leave tonight or live and die this way

EVERY TIME, every stinking time, my hands gripped the steering wheel, my arms locked in place and I dreamed - sometimes for a minute or two, sometimes for just seconds of how ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL it would be to just keep driving south on I15.

Just keep driving. Leave all this scary stuff behind. Or stay - and live and die this way. Those were my choices.

Well, I am pleased to say that I NEVER did just keep driving - even to turn around and come back - I always took the appropriate exit to reach Primary Children's Hospital. Depending on when the song came on, sometimes I had to sit in my car for a while to wait for the sobbing to stop - but a woman sobbing in the visitors parking lot at Primary Children's Hospital was not an unusual site, so not to worry.

I am still here - twenty three years later.


So - why am I writing about my "Horrible Summer of '88"?


Two words: Colbie Caillait

DAMN HER!

I listen to Satellite Radio when on the computer which with me is most of the day and they have guests come in and are interviewed and they are expected to end the interview with a song - an original, fun song. She decided in all her wisdom to do a mashup of The Script's "Breakeven" and Tracy Chapmans: "Fast Car" - thus I am haunted again - although, not so much when I hear them play this mashup.

But lately, the real song comes to my mind and torments and tantalizes me. Today I decided I needed to do some 'Overload' therapy and I bought Tracy Chapmans "Fast Car" from iTunes and listened to it over and over and over. I thought that if I listened it a hundred times - got it out of my system - that that feeling of fleeing to my car and just driving away would go away. It's not working.

Life is different here in February of 2012 than things were in that July/August of '88, but things are not good with me and seem to be slip sliding downhill and that feeling of fleeing is back. The difference?

I cannot, no matter how fast the car is ....




.... escape myself.





Damn.

Sunday Afternoons at my House ...

An EXCEPTIONALLY wonderful Sunday afternoon with Jessie. Started out with a few necessary 'beauty' treatments, then on to dinner that Dad had cooked, next Disney.com on my laptop - set up next to my desk on a small table ... Two gals just surfin the web .... all the while chatting and having a delightful time.

We start getting ready for her to go back to her Group Home since she likes to throw fits about leaving ... even though she ADORES the place, her Day Hab and her friends. It is just something she does (and SO, SO hard ....).

Got her goody bag packed, the Group Home aide came to get her (this had stopped her fits, she will happily skip off to THEIR CAR ...) hugs all round and the door closes.

I breathe a sigh of relief to have dodged "The Monster Tantrum" yet another week. They really bother me and the sadness, frustration and depression that is generated by them seems to stick to me like a second skin that only time will eventually slough off ...

Minutes later we hear her very, very loud high pitched banshee wail coming from the vicinity of the aides car. I want to run and hide in my closet ... anywhere, where I don't have to hear the "I don't want to go back"s, the manipulative crying ... 10 volumes too loud, but I open the door and step outside - determined to not let her in the house. That's one point for me ... one thing she will not win just by screaming at the top of her lungs.

She is strong and trying to barrel past me, the aide standing there wondering what to do. Her kind, brown, gentle eyes are wide and frightened ... she has never seen Jessie act in any way but happy and bursting with enthusiasm and joy .... she clearly does not recognize this young woman in front of her - pushing, and screaming, and hitting - this is a private show - for parents only ...

And it is most definitely a "show" she can turn it off whenever she feels like it. Happens all the time. If I weren't in the process of rejoicing that the ordeal is over, I would probably be much more angry about how she does it so easily ...

Gary arrives just in time to help me with the "not going back in the house" stance. She moves on to " Act 2" sitting on the ground, removing her shoes and kicking me if I get too close.

Our mode of operation during these 'tantrums' is to calmly talk to her - ask her questions "Why don't you want to go back?" She doesn't know. "Why are you acting like this?" She doesn't know. The screaming follows a wave pattern - at it's lowest, neighbors a block away can hear her ... At its highest - those same neighbors can hear her from inside their house, windows closed, air running and a football game on the Telly ... up loud.

It's running a typical course, the logical part of my brain saying "Just ride it out" while the "Mother" part of my brain ... that part with a direct, non-stop path to the heart ... is off in a dark corner somewhere weeping quietly ...

Things apparently are not going in a manner that would most keep her amused, so she decides to head on to "Act 3" - a very common act ...during the last months she lived at home you could count on this skit played out almost daily ... sometime with multiple encores ....

I see it in her eyes a second too late. I involuntarily yelp out "Jess!" the WORST thing I can do ... react. In fact, this is how she has perfected her show - by seeing what gets the biggest reaction ...

We try not to react at all, but much easier as a theory of "How not to hand your daughter ammunition to break your heart, freak you out, make your blood boil in anger, etc, etc, etc" than it is to accomplish in actual reality ...

She balls her fist and hits herself in the nose as hard as she can. My hand and lung mere milliseconds too late. She has won this round ... but not entirely. True ... she now has blood POURING from her nose, and true ... she is letting it drip from her face onto her hands and arms and clothes and the ground. But the ground in this episode happens to be the front porch, not the light cream colored carpet inside that she loved to defile ....

A small victory, but you haven't lived until you get to ... daily ... clean hundreds of blood drops from your carpet ... And in later years - wipe down the walls after she discovers the joys of finger painting and discovers what happens if you get close to the wall and just blow out, hard, of your nose ...

(just an inappropriate side note: the blood? SO MUCH NICER than during the stint where we tried to get her to sleep in her own room and locked the door from the outside - giving her MULTIPLE times where we got her a drink, she used the toilet, etc. But every night the screaming continued ... and every night, be it one, two, three or four hours since we had put her down for the night - she decided it would be fun to fingerpaint the walls, herself, the carpet, her bed ... with her feces.

Every.

Single.

Night.

Discovered our breaking point was 3 months ... gave up trying ...

My motto?

Since around 1988?

"It can always be worse ...".

See?

Now the blood doesn't sound all that bad, does it?)

But as for her latest trick - the blood flowed freely and often ... If you, for fun, decided to Luminol our house? You would have me down at the "Station" in Interrogation asking me where I hid the body ....

Her arms are dripping blood, half her face is covered. The pretty dress she was wearing was beginning to look like a crime scene photo. I sigh and go inside for a washcloth. Old, familiar territory.

The logical part of my brain is starting to panic. I call the woman in charge of the group home ... Jessie ADORES her. She talks to Jess, she tells me she is coming to pick her up herself ... we hang up. I small ray of hope enters my psyche - Jessie loves Iffy, she will go with her, no question about it.


The Group Home aide leaves.


Gary says he will take Jess to the backyard and wait with her until Iffy arrives, cleans her up a bit.


I return inside. When Jessie is like this - I seem to fan the flames and make everything worse, so usually my actual self can be found approximately in the same type of spot as my "Mother" brain .... hiding in a remote corner ... trying to keep that 'weeping' part bottled up ... Generally depends on the day whether or not I succeed.

As I am standing in the office looking at my computer monitors, but not really seeing them ... overwhelmed yet again by my emotions. I marvel that it really, truly - after hundreds of 'productions' - NEVER, EVER stops feeling as if someone has drop-kicked me ... then ripped my heart to shreds just for good measure.


There is no hardening here ... no "getting used to" not even a smidgen of 'learning to cope' ... just me


Staring at nothing ....


Shaking. ...


Thoughts all a jumble ...


Tears dripping from my chin ...


Heart in tatters ...


Wondering -


How long?


How long this time?


How long will it take to put all my pieces back together again?



And as I wonder how long, this time, will it be before I gain some sense of emotional control, I hear Gary and Jessie laughing in the backyard ...

Finally! My Final Day in Norway ...

Gary and I had one day to drive around and go visit whatever we wanted on Thursday after a quick meeting Gary had - so we made sure to make wise choices on where we wanted to go.

First stop, of course was 'My Mountain' - where our house was. We wanted to see the house but also - the ski jump - Holmenkollen Ski Jump - that we drove by every time we came off the mountain had since been torn down and a new one put up. It was not within code and they wanted to be able to host international ski jump competitions - so Oslo was building something new and up to code. We wanted to see if 'we approved'.

The old ski jump on a beautiful day when I was above the clouds that covered Oslo Fjord:


And the new ski jump:


We decided that we approved ...



Drove by Holmenkollen Hotel - our home for the last week we lived in Norway while we supervised the packing and move out of the house:


Tried to find that 'perfect spot' to take a photo of the ski jump. I think this is it. Gary thinks not since he did not remember a fence - but there was a fence on both sides of the road that looked new. I am sure we will never know ...


A quick photo of the church next to the ski jump. I cannot remember the name and Google is being a butt right now and not letting me see a map of the area so I can find the name. It is where all the royals are baptized and such ... (OK - Google is back and it is surprisingly called "Holmenkollen Chapel")


We drove by the house, but it was high enough that it was in the clouds - thus no great photos. We were also chickens and didn't go knock on the door and see if Hans lived there or if he had rented it out again. His plan was to move back in and it would have been good to see him - but ... chickens ...



Then off to Holmenkollen Restaurant since it has a bitchin' view of the Oslo Fjord. This sculpture of a speed skater is new since we lived there - I like her:


And the beautiful Oslo Fjord:


The sun does not get very high in the winter - just skims the hills - but it is beautiful in its own way ...


Sigh ... I LOVE this view ...


I looked down from the deck I was standing on to see THE CUTEST LITTLE ROUND HOUSE EVER!!! I sort of remember that something yellow was down there, but had never really looked - isn't it ADORABLE?


One final photo, a quiet goodbye, and back to the car ...


And on to Bærums Verk!!! My favorite place to shop - all hand made crafts made the old fashioned way in an old iron works factory (I think ... I have forgotten SO MUCH ...)


There are a ton of statues and sculptures there - this one is new. It is concave but seems to look convex:


Beautiful river flowing through it. Can you see the (new) blue scuba divers?


And a shot of the inside of my FAVORITE STORE!!! They sold hand made wooden containers called Tine's and I was addicted to buying them - they are all over my house now holding treasures of all sorts ...


One of the cute buildings on the complex (sold chocolate if I remember right ...)


Then on the road again and on our way to our final destination: THE NORTH POLE! Yes, we were heading to where Jule Nissen (Santa) lives. A total town dedicated to Christmas. You know you are in Drøbak when you see the yeild sign with the silhouette of Santa and his bag running across the road ... (you can see the yeild sign in the very next to last photo hanging on the cash register).

On our way - the sun began to set - it was 3:00 in the afternoon. If there is one thing that Norway knows how to do - and do well - is paint a beautiful sunset:




So by the time we hit Drøbak it was dark. I spent some time with my tripod taking HDR photos while Gary looked through the stores. This is the cutest little church just outside of the town square:


I saw this cool tree and decided it needed photos also:


And then a shot of the town center:


Then into the main store (the one where you can mail your letters to Santa:






An old fashioned cash register that I really liked and the 'Santa 'Watch out For' Sign':


I was beyond pooped (aka sick) and so Gary gallantly went to get the car while I waited on the porch of the main Christmas store. It was quiet, and peaceful, and beautifully lit. I had a minute or two to reflect that this was it, my final moments in Norway. We would be getting up in the morning and heading to the airport in the dark (of course) and a feeling of sadness washed over me.

Would I ever be back? Was it enough? Why was I so in love with this country? I don't have any of the answers to those questions ...




.... maybe in another chapter of my life I will figure them all out








.... or maybe not ...

Karl Johan's Gate ... in the daytime!

I know that it has been almost forever since I was in Norway, but the holidays got in the way, then when I went to pick out what files I wanted to show y'all - there were 124 - which isn't so bad if some good music is playing and you are mindlessly downloading them to your blog. Can be done in no time at all ...

But, if you happen to be psychotic, have a severe case of OCD and want to show details in what you are displaying on the blog (mainly because the details are why I picked that particular photo in the first place ...) it involves no less than Photoshop editing, 3 plug ins and a wee bit of time. Plus a TON OF PATIENCE. Which I, of course, don't have. I would edit a few some days and just sit there and say to myself that if I had to edit one more ... I would put my fist through one of my very pretty monitors ... so I would (surprising, no?) stop.

Some days I got quite a few done and was having so much fun, I would take an hour on one photo! No good for a blog and a ton of photos - but ever so much fun for me. Those days I didn't stop ... well - until I decided that if I didn't get up and walk around - I might be crawling to my bed ...

There seemed to be no happy medium. Some days I liked using the 'Bleach Bypass' process to pull out the details - makes things look a wee bit like an overblown HDR photo - but shows detail. I used it more than I ought to have and would try to reduce the impact by lowering the opacity of the bleached processed layer - but you can still tell that this month I am infatuated with it.

One of the plug ins has a way of pulling out the detail also - and at high levels, it starts to look the same as a bleach bypass photo - so lots of funky photos this time around - they just look a bit ... off. But - if you look closely - you will find that you can ... look closely! That all the little tiny details of something are all right there just waiting for you to explore them!

OK, enough about the photos - I will pretty much just dump them on the screen and try to keep the nattering down to a minimum.

This first one (I will mention) is the first view of Oslo Cathedral we get as we walked from the Radisson to its location (I say we - since Gary and I walked the same path the night before - I was alone during this photo taking session. There are simply a TON of wires in the sky, along the buildings - part of a trolly system (? I can't remember) or just there to annoy photographers? This photo I tried taking all the wires out since it looks just divine without them - but since it took me hours and there were over 30 wires in this one photo alone - I told myself that y'all were going to have to see the wires and I had to stop wasting time taking them out - so most of the rest of the photos have wires in them unless they were quick to get rid of or bugging me more than usual ...


Beautiful arches into what look like stores in the annex portions of what looks like the Cathedral.


Two beautiful statues above the main door into the chapel - and the door:




Various views of the Cathedral as I walked around it and on to my destination:






One word:


CHICKENS!!!




SERIOUSLY?



WHY, WHY, OH WHY would you make a

STATUE OF CHICKENS???


It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma and all hard boiled ...



A photo that seemed to have wandered out of place ... I thought that I had them all in order. This, as we have mentioned before in earlier posts, is Stortinget - Norway's beautiful parliament building.


AND THIS - is the entry to "Oslo Sweater Shop". Yeah, beautiful, knit woolen Norwegian sweaters.

Let's just say that they really, really liked me there ...

Oh, and it is way before Stortinget - after the Cathedral, but on the way to Stortinget - thus the reason I said Stortinget is lost ... (Cute troll, yes? We have grundles of them at home and LOVE them! Though, ours are a wee bit smaller ...)


You know that part about me shutting up? It WILL HAPPEN - soon I think ...

THIS LOVELY LADY is MAGICAL. I took (no kidding) about 10 photos of her. With my big, sophisticated camera. Each time, I used the auto-focus and each time a tiny red light showed up on the screen - HITTING SOME PORTION OF HER - not the wall, not the sky, not the street - and beeped saying it was in focus. And so each time I snapped a photo. Got back and downloaded my photos AND NOT A SINGLE ONE WAS IN FOCUS. That is a very cool trick ... well, FOR HER, not so much for me. She was an absolutely breath taking sculpture attached to a wall and I really liked her. And I had no time to go back in the light and shoot her again.

So - I did basically the only thing you can do with an out of focus photo - posterized it to make it useable as a bit of 'abstract art' that is fooling no one. Just wanted you to see her.

Still wondering how she did that ...





I have included a lot of details that I find on the buildings. I could probably tell you which building it came from and the building probably has a name - but I don't care enough right now (I want to go lay down) to figure that all out for you - so I hope you can enjoy them anonymously ...




Apotek - A version of the word apothecary (I think) - which in Europe seemed to be the word for Pharmacy - in some sort of spelling of the word - everywhere we went ...










Stortinget IN ORDER (of appearance while I was walking):


And MY FAVORITE building along the walk - I think it is rather beautiful: (lots of photos of it to follow):






A Candle holder. Used everywhere and usually not three feet high like this one. I used them, I HAVE them. Sadly they are shoved in a closet somewhere ....


so pretty ...


"Time For Aftenposten" - the newspaper that I still read sporadically ...




And my second favorite building. This one just boggles my mind that they could add all that work to a building .... what? Just to make it pretty? I am no expert in architecture, but this seems rather inefficient ...

and very thankful for those that deem this beauty more important than efficiency!







Seriously my FAVORITE DUDE on the street (less one - but he can't be called a 'dude') there are a TON of these on the front of the building (you can see them in other photos) ... what are they? The welcoming committee?







Seriously creepy looking statue - only because his eyes look like they have been poked out ...








The ever present gaggle of children. I tend to not take photos of them, because I don't want to alarm the adults that I am taking photos of children - and have had some (humorous) run ins while doing so - so I took one from far away (this being at minimum the 10th group I had passed on my walk - and this is not a 'special' day - you will see this many children's school classes out and about every day). The children in Norway are taught school in a very different manner than the children in the States. They truly believe that every minute sitting at a desk is one more minute the children are NOT learning. They teach by doing, by seeing, by going places and learning about things. They have recess - just sheer play time for at least 3 hours of their day. It was interesting to learn about the school system in Norway - Jessie attended a special education Norwegian school and the teachers there loved to tell me the differences between our schools and theirs and why theirs were so superior ...

looked kinda fun ...





One of our favorite sights as a family when walking around downtown ...





Pretty, pretty lady ...


I cannot BEGIN to tell you how much fun I had with this 'fellow'!!


I kept TELLING HIM, AND TELLING HIM while taking his photo that

"THERE IS NOTHING OVER THERE, REALLY"

and

"I REALLY THINK YOU SHOULD CALM DOWN ... NOTHING THERE (in singsongy voice)"

I am unsure how the Norwegians took to me speaking with him, but he, well - seems so ...


ALARMED


I felt he needed a good talking to ...


Was impressed as I started looking closer at this building (belonging to "Pretty Lady" and "Freaked Out Guy" also) that each of the decorations were different, not just duplicates:





And,

NO


this guy WAS NOT TO THE LEFT OF "FREAKED OUT GUY" ...




In the winter, Norwegians hang out these bundles of straw for the birds to eat the seeds. I thought it was quaint and pretty and I was surprised when we drove up to our old house to see one tied on the entrance onto the property. Not surprised that it was odd that it was there - but it surprised me that we went through two winters there and not once did I think to buy one and hang it anywhere ... I must not have any Norwegian in me.

BUT!

I did have my bird feeder and rather enjoyed the birds COMING TO ME and letting me watch their antics as they ate birdseed outside my desk window ...



A Festival of sorts was set up around what in the summer is a big pond with fountains and in the winter is an ice skating rink.

Be VERY PROUD of me ...


I did not buy anything ...


Here are some of the lovely Nordic sweaters that I loved so much ...



While these fellows look like they are enjoying themselves in the summer - I worry about them freezing off their little naked butts in the winter ...



Again with the freezing naked butts ... (I don't mind the naked - been in Europe too many times and too long for naked to bother me - but the FREEZING ... BRRRRR)



Note the arrow pointing to the water - I GOT THAT CLOSE to the fjord and the Harbour - but my feet were getting sore ...







I know it might come as a shock after reading the big name on the building - but this is the National Theatre ...


















See that taxi down there? I was all taking photos of these three matching buildings (I forget what they are - thus the lack of labels above), with the Palace right to my left and the National Theatre behind me and I was all ...

"Turn around and walk to the Harbour? Take more photos?"

or ...

"The Taxi?"


"Turn around and walk to the Harbour? More photos?"


or ...


"The Taxi?"



"The Harbour? More photos?"


or ...


"The Taxi?"




"The Harbour?"


or ...


"The Taxi?"


And as you can see by the imminent end to this post which one won out!!!




Walked into my hotel room to the prettiest light coming in the window ...


Because of this! It lasted for about 5 minutes ...


Five full minutes of sunshine!!!



Well, I am not promising when my last day of photos from Norway will be posted. Every time I make a promise - "The Fates" intervene and it takes at least 4 times as long as had I not made the promise in the first place (it is my theory ....)



So ...




Later ...