In celebration of the fact that it is RAINING for the very first time since I moved to Berkeley nearly five months ago, here is a list of some of the choicer English words that originate from Old Norse (prompted by a very enjoyable post-dinner discussion tonight with half-Swedish friends). The list is I think remarkably evocative of Viking, er, ambiance, although ambiance may itself be too delicate and French a word in this context. It reminds me of a lovely quote from Jon Bridgman, who taught history at the University of Washington for a zillion years, to the effect that, 'If you want to tell whether an English word is Latin or Anglo-Saxon in origin, hit your thumb with a big hammer very hard; all the words that come out will be Anglo-Saxon.' Without further ado (ado also being of Norse extraction), voici la liste:
anger awe awkward axle berserk billow
bleak blunder bulk club crawl crook
cur die dirt dregs haggle heathen
hit ill irk keel knife knot
mire mistake muck muggy oaf odd
outlaw plough ransack rid root rotten
rugged scare scant scathe scrap scrape
skid skull slaughter sledge stagger stain
steak thwart troll ugly
... also, weirdly, 'ombudsman,' (you don't really think of the Vikings having ombudsmen, at least I don't, but it turns out indeed they did). And just in case I am accused of political incorrectness and inferring that people of Nordic extraction are all berserk scary ransacking rotten oafs, they also came up with 'Yule,' so happy very early Christmas to all and to all a good night. I am quite enjoying the early dark and the rain, at least for the moment; it is warming a little northern corner of my soul that doesn't entirely approve of all this eternal California sunshine.
Monday, 22 October 2012
Thursday, 4 October 2012
in praise of elusive sleep
Sleep is lovely sleep is nice sleep feels good sleep is delicious sleep is NOT HAPPENING arghghghghghgh.
Many reasons for sleep not to happen the last few days:
- All-nighter on labor and delivery in the hospital on Sunday night (fun but exhausting)
- Long long long long long long day in clinic on Monday followed by sleeping next door to croupy twins at lovely friend's house (fun to see lovely friend, albeit briefly, less fun and more exhausting to sleep next door to croupy twins)
- Clingy baby on return home Tuesday night; she is psychotically unwilling to let me out of arm's reach for the first 24 hours or so after I am back home with her. I generally feel the same way about her, and really don't see much point in doing anything but curling up on the sofa and cuddling and kissing her nonstop, but she's much stricter about it: I'm not even allowed to get up to get a Kleenex to blow my nose without her starting to shriek and grab onto my leg as if we were being dragged apart by Nazi soldiers onto different cattle cars destined for Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt respectively. Bedtime has turned into a complicated diplomatic negotiation: I want to sleep, she doesn't care where she is as long as I am within six inches, the Good Mummy reference manual which I do consult occasionally says really the best thing for Baby is for Baby to sleep in Baby's Own Bed, so what has been happening the last few nights I've had her is that Baby gets put in Baby's Own Bed, and keeps the requests to "SLEEP TOGETHER MUMMY SLEEP TOGETHER MUMMY" to a low whimper only as long as I stay right there next to the crib singing the Wheels on the Bus over and over and over again until eventually I am allowed to go to bed on the floor next to the crib - still holding hands, mind you - until finally she conks out and I can get up and get into my own bed, at least until 2 a.m. when she wakes up and discovers my heartless treachery and comes to reclaim me and we do the whole thing over again. It's like having an obsessively jealous lover, albeit one who is only three feet tall and intermittently incontinent.
Also I am getting sick.
I wish for sleep.
Many reasons for sleep not to happen the last few days:
- All-nighter on labor and delivery in the hospital on Sunday night (fun but exhausting)
- Long long long long long long day in clinic on Monday followed by sleeping next door to croupy twins at lovely friend's house (fun to see lovely friend, albeit briefly, less fun and more exhausting to sleep next door to croupy twins)
- Clingy baby on return home Tuesday night; she is psychotically unwilling to let me out of arm's reach for the first 24 hours or so after I am back home with her. I generally feel the same way about her, and really don't see much point in doing anything but curling up on the sofa and cuddling and kissing her nonstop, but she's much stricter about it: I'm not even allowed to get up to get a Kleenex to blow my nose without her starting to shriek and grab onto my leg as if we were being dragged apart by Nazi soldiers onto different cattle cars destined for Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt respectively. Bedtime has turned into a complicated diplomatic negotiation: I want to sleep, she doesn't care where she is as long as I am within six inches, the Good Mummy reference manual which I do consult occasionally says really the best thing for Baby is for Baby to sleep in Baby's Own Bed, so what has been happening the last few nights I've had her is that Baby gets put in Baby's Own Bed, and keeps the requests to "SLEEP TOGETHER MUMMY SLEEP TOGETHER MUMMY" to a low whimper only as long as I stay right there next to the crib singing the Wheels on the Bus over and over and over again until eventually I am allowed to go to bed on the floor next to the crib - still holding hands, mind you - until finally she conks out and I can get up and get into my own bed, at least until 2 a.m. when she wakes up and discovers my heartless treachery and comes to reclaim me and we do the whole thing over again. It's like having an obsessively jealous lover, albeit one who is only three feet tall and intermittently incontinent.
Also I am getting sick.
I wish for sleep.
Thursday, 23 August 2012
Rule Britannia, marmalade and jam
A very happy contented wee postie from a bit south of the Scottish border: we here at the Insomnia Diaries are on day three of our Cumbrian holiday, and enjoying it very much. Baby and babydaddy are in Hawaii for the week, doubtless cavorting with nubile Polynesian maidens with flowers in their hair at a luau (baby could probably pass for a nubile Polynesian maiden at this point, or at the very least a barbecued piglet, based on body mass index, propensity for nudity, and delicious caramel colour, but I'm betting her appeal as an appetizer might be limited by her favoured beachwear look of sand glued on with SPF 50). My grand plan for week without baby (having had her to myself all last week) was to (a) work and (b) get my garden sorted, but my parents very generously offered to sponsor me for a week in sunny (not) Cumbria with the sheep, so woohoo! here we are.
I do have to take a minute to sing in praise of travel without toddlers: I crossed the Atlantic with just one small backpack (and half the contents of that were things my mother had asked me to bring for her). On the airplane, I didn't get out of my seat ONCE: no walking up and down the aisles jiggling and singing inane songs while avoiding eye contact with fellow passengers, no trips to cupboard-sized toilets to change a pissed off writhing hyena-baby on the fold-down changing table thing whilst simultaneously trying not to drop a fully loaded nappy on my foot, no endless apologizing to the people next to/in front of/behind me/across from me. Instead, I took a sleeping tablet, had a glass of wine, watched half of a terrible movie, and then whee! I was in Manchester. Beyond fantastic. (I also have to sing the praises of Manchester airport: I am never going to Heathrow again. Ever.)
Since being here, my main projects have been to get over jetlag (more or less check!), climb Barton Fell (check!), and build a super fancy paddling pool in the stream (check!). The last was something I have been fantasizing about for an embarrassingly long time: I had visions of a mini beach for the baby to play on next to the stream at the bottom of the garden, and then I realized anything resembling a beach would wash away the next time it rained (i.e. thirty seconds from now). So my dad helped me construct instead a set of stone steps, complete with surrounding mini wall and diving platform (hee!) on either side of the newly widened stream, and we dammed it at the bottom end so there's a tiny pool and it's just the most spiffy professionally constructed little swimming grotto you ever did see. (The construction involved use of a pick-axe, as well, so you just know we meant business.)
Tonight we are going to the grand maisang down the road to have dinner with neighbours, then tomorrow there are plans for outdoor cinema in Greystoke, which seems unwise given the weather forecast, but I think will be fun anyway. It's funny how oblivious I become to shitty weather as soon as I arrive in Cumbria; I get incredibly sniffy about even venturing outside when it's overcast in Berkeley, whereas here the only weather that might potentially stop us going out for a big long stride over the fells would be chunks of hail greater than an inch in diameter, and even then it would feel a bit pathetic to stay indoors just for THAT.
Things I don't like about food in the UK: how crap the produce is compared to California.
Things I love about food in the UK: Jamaica ginger cake and sausages (not together).
I do have to take a minute to sing in praise of travel without toddlers: I crossed the Atlantic with just one small backpack (and half the contents of that were things my mother had asked me to bring for her). On the airplane, I didn't get out of my seat ONCE: no walking up and down the aisles jiggling and singing inane songs while avoiding eye contact with fellow passengers, no trips to cupboard-sized toilets to change a pissed off writhing hyena-baby on the fold-down changing table thing whilst simultaneously trying not to drop a fully loaded nappy on my foot, no endless apologizing to the people next to/in front of/behind me/across from me. Instead, I took a sleeping tablet, had a glass of wine, watched half of a terrible movie, and then whee! I was in Manchester. Beyond fantastic. (I also have to sing the praises of Manchester airport: I am never going to Heathrow again. Ever.)
Since being here, my main projects have been to get over jetlag (more or less check!), climb Barton Fell (check!), and build a super fancy paddling pool in the stream (check!). The last was something I have been fantasizing about for an embarrassingly long time: I had visions of a mini beach for the baby to play on next to the stream at the bottom of the garden, and then I realized anything resembling a beach would wash away the next time it rained (i.e. thirty seconds from now). So my dad helped me construct instead a set of stone steps, complete with surrounding mini wall and diving platform (hee!) on either side of the newly widened stream, and we dammed it at the bottom end so there's a tiny pool and it's just the most spiffy professionally constructed little swimming grotto you ever did see. (The construction involved use of a pick-axe, as well, so you just know we meant business.)
Tonight we are going to the grand maisang down the road to have dinner with neighbours, then tomorrow there are plans for outdoor cinema in Greystoke, which seems unwise given the weather forecast, but I think will be fun anyway. It's funny how oblivious I become to shitty weather as soon as I arrive in Cumbria; I get incredibly sniffy about even venturing outside when it's overcast in Berkeley, whereas here the only weather that might potentially stop us going out for a big long stride over the fells would be chunks of hail greater than an inch in diameter, and even then it would feel a bit pathetic to stay indoors just for THAT.
Things I don't like about food in the UK: how crap the produce is compared to California.
Things I love about food in the UK: Jamaica ginger cake and sausages (not together).
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
A new culinary low
In no particular order, the least appetizing things I have ever put in my mouth are probably
1) a sad collection of flaccid chicken "tenders" from Burger King, more out of need for a bathroom plus hurricane refuge than actual nutritional requirement
2) fish eyeballs in Japan (social pressure. I was surrounded by Asians and wanted to prove I could casually eat fish eyeballs too. As it turns out, no one except me did.)
3) clumps of peanut butter and stale breadcrumbs wadded together in a ball (the last food from a camping trip in Patagonia that accidentally went on two days longer than menu planning had allowed for).
To that sorry catalog, I can now add tonight's dinner, as an example of how motherhood has broken me. Baby and I went to the Google office in San Francisco today for lunch (we have an insider contact, and Larry & Sergei periodically treat us), which was as usual excellent: delicious, healthy, and varied. Baby was therefore (duh) totally uninterested in it, and decided, after dropping as much as she could down her jersey and smearing the remainder into her hair, that the crumbs of stale oatcake in the bottom of my handbag were way more appealing. I scraped as much of the Google lunch as I could off her jersey/hair, stuck it in a baggie, and thought, well, it'll still TASTE good, and I can give it to her for dinner tonight. Come dinnertime, I pull it out of the fridge, warm it up a bit on the stove, and stick it front of her with a cup of prune juice (we have issues at the moment), and announce "MMM! Lovely dinner! Eat up!!" in chirpy mummy voice. My usually voracious miniature packwolf is uninterested; she condescends to eat maybe one and a half noodles and half a green bean, and then sets about the enthusiastic creation of three dimensional abstract art with the rest (including the prune juice) on her high chair tray.
I wash her off, stick in her pyjamas, read "Party Time" and "Goodnight Gorilla" for the 3021st time (each), put in her bed, and come out, hungry for my own dinner now. I had been planning to grill some chicken and have it with leftover brussel sprouts, but that seems like a lot of work. I also have to clean up the high chair and the floor under the high chair. I have no pride. I went to get a fork.
Monday, 23 July 2012
Saturday, 21 July 2012
Beatles in Berkeley
So, in an effort to develop a social life which does not involve (a) driving an hour and a half north and (b) has nothing to do with small children or medicine, I signed up for a meetup group which advertised itself as sort of a lowkey folk singing jam session, meeting once a month (ish) in the East Bay. This is the kind of random internet thing which I used to dread because I was afraid that everyone would be way cooler than me and no-one would talk to me and I wouldn't know what to say to anyone, and now I have learned to dread because there are VERY WEIRD people in the world, and they are EVERYWHERE and they ALL HAVE INTERNET CONNECTIONS. I think I just need to develop younger, hipper interests - I'm a little worried that when I'm sixty and looking for a Renaissance polyphony/stained glass interest group, everyone else in the world who shares my interests will be either dead or completely mad.
Anyway. I drove out to the guy's house who was hosting (mini McMansion in well-heeled cul-de-sac in well-heeled suburb) and the crowd was definitely neither young nor hip, but! interesting factoid: the host guy, 50ish, socially a little off-kilter, but interesting because it turns out that he is an absolutely terrific guitar player (see below) and he holds the world record for weight lifting. As in, he can lift the heaviest weight of anyone in the world. His world record is currently for 396 lbs (I think he said), and he is training to break 400 lbs now. He got started weight lifting when he was stationed in Iceland in the Navy when he was younger, and there was nothing to do but drink and go to the gym, and he wasn't much for drinking, so he spent all his time in the gym. His house is, by the way, in the appropriately named town of Hercules, and he has two cats, one of whom tried to bite me.
After I'd come in and said hello and avoided getting bitten by the cat, I plonked myself down on the only free spot on the sofa, next to an obese toad of a woman whose first question for me was whether I was planning to drink any of the pinot grigio that I had brought, because she was deathly allergic to the smell of red wine, and she'd already had to move once because someone else was drinking red wine near her and really didn't feel she should be expected to move every time someone selfishly drank red wine within fifty feet of her (VERY WEIRD PERSON ALERT!!!) so I purposely got myself a drink and made a big show of considerately moving out of range of toad lady, thinking arghghghgghgh oyoyoyoy how's this going to go...
However, host guy was an absolute machine on the guitar - he had printed up a big packet of song lyrics for everyone, and other people had brought things they wanted to do, and soon after I arrived we got started: the dude knew every single pop/folk song down cold, not just chords strummy strummy bits, but all the picky picky notes as well, and even though for the most part the singing was crapulent, the fact that the we had someone on guitar who was very, very solid and that we had lyric sheets to help us along, meant that the songs stayed recognizable, and by the end of the evening and a couple of glasses of wine, I decided I was having a brilliant time. There were a couple of other people there who seemed both nice and reasonable musically speaking, and I sat next to them and we had a good time harmonizing. lalalalallala. Now I'm hoarse. Tomorrow I'm signed up for a different amateur music thingy, being one quarter of the alto section at a pickup Bach Cantata...
I also heard Gillian Welch and her guy, David somebody, on Prairie Home Companion this afternoon on my drive home, singing a parody of "Orphan Girl" that had me both in stitches and also in deep envy of singer songwriter duos, and I have decided that in lieu of a standard boyfriend, what I most would like is a guitar slave. I would say, "hey! do you know X song?" and my guitar slave would bust out a perfect rendition of it in a key suited to my voice and be sort of a self-effacing but helpful presence if I got lost or forgot lyrics or whatever, and provide harmony for me. The thing is, I really don't have time for all the movies and candlelit dinners out and things you are supposed to do with regular boyfriends, and also I am not sure where I would meet one (there were two guys at the thing tonight within ten years of my age, but one appeared already very firmly attached and other had a weird laugh and loudly declared 'Across the Universe' and 'Let It Be' to be the best Beatles songs ever, which they most definitely are NOT, so no likely candidates there), but a guitar slave really would be very nice. Also a handyman. And a cleaner.
Anyway. I drove out to the guy's house who was hosting (mini McMansion in well-heeled cul-de-sac in well-heeled suburb) and the crowd was definitely neither young nor hip, but! interesting factoid: the host guy, 50ish, socially a little off-kilter, but interesting because it turns out that he is an absolutely terrific guitar player (see below) and he holds the world record for weight lifting. As in, he can lift the heaviest weight of anyone in the world. His world record is currently for 396 lbs (I think he said), and he is training to break 400 lbs now. He got started weight lifting when he was stationed in Iceland in the Navy when he was younger, and there was nothing to do but drink and go to the gym, and he wasn't much for drinking, so he spent all his time in the gym. His house is, by the way, in the appropriately named town of Hercules, and he has two cats, one of whom tried to bite me.
After I'd come in and said hello and avoided getting bitten by the cat, I plonked myself down on the only free spot on the sofa, next to an obese toad of a woman whose first question for me was whether I was planning to drink any of the pinot grigio that I had brought, because she was deathly allergic to the smell of red wine, and she'd already had to move once because someone else was drinking red wine near her and really didn't feel she should be expected to move every time someone selfishly drank red wine within fifty feet of her (VERY WEIRD PERSON ALERT!!!) so I purposely got myself a drink and made a big show of considerately moving out of range of toad lady, thinking arghghghgghgh oyoyoyoy how's this going to go...
However, host guy was an absolute machine on the guitar - he had printed up a big packet of song lyrics for everyone, and other people had brought things they wanted to do, and soon after I arrived we got started: the dude knew every single pop/folk song down cold, not just chords strummy strummy bits, but all the picky picky notes as well, and even though for the most part the singing was crapulent, the fact that the we had someone on guitar who was very, very solid and that we had lyric sheets to help us along, meant that the songs stayed recognizable, and by the end of the evening and a couple of glasses of wine, I decided I was having a brilliant time. There were a couple of other people there who seemed both nice and reasonable musically speaking, and I sat next to them and we had a good time harmonizing. lalalalallala. Now I'm hoarse. Tomorrow I'm signed up for a different amateur music thingy, being one quarter of the alto section at a pickup Bach Cantata...
I also heard Gillian Welch and her guy, David somebody, on Prairie Home Companion this afternoon on my drive home, singing a parody of "Orphan Girl" that had me both in stitches and also in deep envy of singer songwriter duos, and I have decided that in lieu of a standard boyfriend, what I most would like is a guitar slave. I would say, "hey! do you know X song?" and my guitar slave would bust out a perfect rendition of it in a key suited to my voice and be sort of a self-effacing but helpful presence if I got lost or forgot lyrics or whatever, and provide harmony for me. The thing is, I really don't have time for all the movies and candlelit dinners out and things you are supposed to do with regular boyfriends, and also I am not sure where I would meet one (there were two guys at the thing tonight within ten years of my age, but one appeared already very firmly attached and other had a weird laugh and loudly declared 'Across the Universe' and 'Let It Be' to be the best Beatles songs ever, which they most definitely are NOT, so no likely candidates there), but a guitar slave really would be very nice. Also a handyman. And a cleaner.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
le divorce
So this weekend I decided that (due to complicated and expensive San Francisco recent real estate shenanigans and the fact that babydaddy, like the endangered white rhinoceros, does not breed well in captivity) I am going to be moving back to Sonoma County full time as of the end of April. Baby will be coming with me every other week, and I will be flying solo for the alternating weeks. This is the first time that I have been back in my house with a) no tenants plus b) the intention for this to be my primary residence, which you wouldn't think would make a difference, and yet... it might be the cold and the paint fumes (broken heater (bad) & beautiful fresh paint (good)) or the post-prandial glass of limoncello & dark chocolate that I'm indulging in right now, but I'm having fleeting fantasies of painting Gauguin-esque murals on the baby's future bedroom walls and reviving my papier-mache elephant furniture project or possibly going out to the movies or possibly having another glass of limoncello or possibly doing nothing at all. Weird...
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