The guinea-pig in winter

I´m not a zoologist, but I imagine most rodents will spend the winter sleeping most of the time (if not hibernating), and possibly making short trips in the cold wintry world outside to find something to eat, although I guess a good store of food hidden safe in your nest would be preferable. But that´s not what Mr Plinge does.

After spending most of the year pretending he´s going to die any time soon now, he´s gone all lively and full of activity. He even eats most of the stuff I give him, even though he still complains noisily when he thinks it´s high time for another lettuce leaf. And he´s taken to lying in the hay instead of in his house. It might be because he can watch over all the food he´s got, but then, he´s been known to simply move all his food inside the house if he wanted to keep it close.

Maybe he´s trying to show us that we shouldn´t forget about him when we go shopping for Christmas presents?

Marry Styxmas?

When I take the underground to go to town and look around on the escalators, it´s obvious that Christmas is really coming again. All the advertising spaces are filling up with posters promoting ideal Christmas presents. But there´s one that´s been entertaining me for a couple of weeks already.

I don´t actually remember what it shows, other than that it´s generally black and green a I seem to remember a reindeer or something like that – or is it a wrapped-up package? But what I know is that there´s a slogan in rather prominent red writing which says: Marry Styxmas!

Let me tell you it´s not the word Styxmas that caught my eye; although I´ve wondered briefly whether it´s been used in other countries or whether it´s a result of some local copywriter´s efforts. Deciding that the latter was probably the case, I can just imagine a creative person who decided that their secondary-school English was more than sufficient for the job, and that there was no need to waste money on proofreading because what would spelling checkers be for?

Then, however, I found myself intrigued by the possibility that the spelling marry was used intentionally.  (After all, most of the escalators are rather slow.) What kind of message could it possibly be hiding? Is it secretly encouraging men to become bigamists? Or, since I guess it´s generally aimed at young people who are not usually married yet, is it telling them that quality underwear is on the whole better to spend your life with when compared with a specimen of the opposite sex (seeing as, for example, it won´t make a fuss if you decide to exchange it for the latest model)?

Well, I suppose it is going to remain one of life´s little mysteries…

November in detail

The weather this November hasn´t  been very nice – with the exception of those days when I´ m at work from before sunrise till long after dark (not particularly difficult in this part of the year). Today the morning was foggy but no too cold. I decided to go out and try to get some pictures – after all, I haven´t photographed in the fog before.

However, once I arrived in the park the sky cleared up and I ended up with a beautiful sunny day (or two hours, to be more precise). I took advantage of the new camera with a better macro, so here go some pictures of things up close.

Going to Vienna

For several years now I´ve wanted to go on holiday over Christmas – a nice week without having to worry about the presents and family, preferably somewhere nice and warm. Unfortunately, my husband said he can´t possibly leave work for a whole week before the end of the year. (He can´t leave after New Year for that matter, but that´s not such a problem as I can´t either.)

So the compromise solution is that I´ve invented a long weekend in Vienna just before Christmas. There are lots of museums and galleries to go to even if the weather is horrible, and some Christmas markets I guess. So I booked a hostel and then went on to book the train tickets – which I didn´t.

The thing is, the railway schedule here gets changed regularly at the beginning of December. And as there´s no new schedule yet,  you can´t buy the tickets. My husband phoned to ask when the new schedule would become available, but was informed that they didn´t know. Why worry when they still have a whole month to go, right?

If I weren´t afraid of what the weather might be like in December, I´d just go by bus… Or maybe if I´m lucky I might get plane tickets cheaper than the train ones… I wonder why the railways are so baffled all the time by the fact that nobody wants to use trains here.

Film Sunday

Last week there was a festival of queer film I wanted to attend. (I guess I feel one should do at least something at least a bit cultural on a more or less regular basis, and since we have no epidemics closing down cinemas yet, it would be a shame to miss it – the way I had the previous nine years.) Unfortunately, with my schedule being rather busy plus a family reunion on Saturday, I only managed to see two films on Sunday. Good thing I´d bought the tickets in advance, because otherwise I´m pretty sure my tiredness would have got the better of me.

Anyway, the afternoon film turned out to be worth it. It was The Man who Loved Yngve (Mannen som elsket Yngve) and I really enjoyed it, it was good fun and (as far as I can tell) pretty accurate in its picture of teen age. In the evening we attended the award-giving ceremony; the winner was Patrik Age 1.5 (Patrik 1,5 – also Swedish I think), which I´d wanted to see but couldn´t. In the evening we saw Jarman´s Edward II, but I was really too tired for that.

Incidentally, as we were leaving the cinema my husband was given a package containing leaflets about hepatitis, AIDS, and testing, a booklet with advice for boys who like boys, and two condoms. Ididn´t get anything, which may mean either that women are more reasonable than men, or that women are discriminated against everywhere…

The threat of Christmas

There are some clear indications around that Christmas is coming once again. Apart from shop decorations (which I haven´t seen yet beause I haven´t been in a mall for weeks), they include the freezing mornings and all-day leaden skies, the chain-reaction car crashes on the highway, and the declining number of students who actually seminars.

Of course this means that the end of the semester is coming closer and there´ll be a two-week holiday before the exams start. I´m really looking forward to it. But I just can´t help feeling that the holiday would be nicer without Christmas.

Let me explain the problem with Christmas. Basically I think this should be a time people can spend with their family, which in my case is my husband and the guinea-pig. While I spend some time with the guinea-pig all year round, I get the feeling I hardly ever see my husband, the reason being I´m usually too sleepy after 10 p.m. and before 7 a.m. But as he´s going to work around Christmas, and we´re going to have some relatives in for the actual holiday, I don´t think the situation is going to get much better. (I´ve suggested the idea of going away for a regular holiday, but it seems he can´t leave work for a whole week.)

The other thing is that I´m going to have to spend most of the upcoming weekends running around shops and buying presents for all my relatives as well as for myself. I do realize  it´s nice of everyone to give me money and let me decide myself what I really want, but trying to do this in December shopping malls is rather exhausting, to put it mildly.

I must say I really dislike disliking Christmas. But I guess I do dislike it…

Better than normal

Autumn is really great, especially when the weather´s awful and your husband is too busy all the time and you´re the only girl at the school reunion who doesn´t have kids (and still the weirdest of them all, of course) and you´ve been feeling depressed for a week. Oh, and the guinea-pig still bites your hand when you feed him.

Which is the perfect situation to skewer the guinea-pig and roast it for dinner go and shout at someone until they feel as bad as you do be quiet and then jump out of the window unexpectedly watch another episode of Futurama.

You´re better than normal – you´re abnormal!

Autumn pics

This year´s a bit weird… First we had summer till the beginning of October, then winter complete with snow while the trees were still green. You couldn´t really get any normal autumn pictures until this week.

Addicted to lettuce

Mr Plinge the guinea-pig looks like he isn´t much affected by the rather early dose of winter weather we´ve had here (I turned the heating on for him especially, so he can´t complain). The only problem is that there is no grass outside for him. However, he solved this difficulty by finding out that if he won´t stop bothering me, I´ll just keep buying lettuce for him because that´s just about the only thing that will shut him up.

He actually behaves as if he were addicted to the stuff, and unless he gets his daily dose, he´s really unbearable. But it´s kind of nice listening to him crunching a fresh leaf, so I don´t mind very much. Plinge having eaten his lettuce and lying happily in his cage almost creates an illusion of a sweet pet (as opposed to furry little terrorist).

Amber Love

So cold

One step away from stone

Empty hands

In the glove compartment

Memories put away

To sleep

Your love captured

In amber