Jack Daniels was here too

Sometimes a Friday night drink is a Friday night drink. Other times it's a bit more fun.

Gotta love those work colleagues.

Desperate housewife

Due to Liverpool playing the qualifying finals in UEFA Champions league at the same time as Desperate Housewifes screen on tv I'v been missing out on a few episodes, and I therefore believe I can justify the fact that I lack some housewifey tendencies. Like, for instance: what is the object below:My first guesses were a) flour, b) white paint in powder form, c) cocaine.

No, no, I was wrong there, I'll give you a few hints, it fixes your dirty laundry, and not only that, it fixes your white dirty laundry...

It all started a few weeks ago, I was at work and Helga asked me if I had a new shirt on. New? No. I look down and see, it sure was quite crispy white and with no creases. But not new. Hmm...I wondered about the story behind it until I realized I left my shirt at my mum's last time I was home. And voila, it has not only been ironed, it has also been washed with white washing powder, something which appearantly does the trick and make stuff look new again.

I told my mum who laughed heartily and said yes, didn't I know that I had to wash my whites with white washing powder (and of course with no coloured stuff, but that's given right? Ehh...you should see my white clothes. Rather gray as my sister puts it). So no, I didn't know that. I might have briefly seen that there are different types of washing powder in the stores, but I only though they were expensive ones, or more expensive ones, not that they actually influenced your clothes in one way or another.

And here comes my real question: Why did I not know this? My mum knew. She knows everything there is to know about a household and she has a career too, so it's not because of abundance of time at home. I think nowadays kids (I refer to myself as one in this situation as I can't even wash my clothes right) don't learn these kinds of things any more. We have our mums or cleaners or gardeners or you-name-it to fix any ordinary things around the house and as a result end up not knowing what to do if things don't work. I can do my tax return online, send photos around the world with one click or print out last year's bank statements in a tic, but I struggle at lots of essential stuff.

These following things I could do if I had no handy-man around:
- Unclog the shower drain
- Cut the grass with a manual lawn mower
- Screw together Ikea furniture (proved several times) and other furniture items

What I couldn't do or would definitively struggle more with is:
- Plant a bulb in the garden (I'd kill it with to much water/sun/soil)
- Change a fuse
- Change a bicycle tire

Kids these days don't learn elementary things that will save you for a lot of trouble later in life. If you get a plumber to pull your hair out of the drain it's gonna set you back at least 500 kroner for ten minutes work. And the bicycle tire-change will cost you 200 at G Sport. Not to mention the ridicule you'll expose yourself to if you call the electrician to change a fuse. It ain't that hard. But I still don't know it.

So I believe some of the nynorsk in high school should've been replaced with a subject called Bare Essentials or something similar. I think they had Home Economics at my high school in Australia where people learned amongs others how to bake bread (there are lots of people who don't know how to). I was so pro-girl-scouting as a kid because now I briefly know how to rise a tent, knit knots, make bonfires etc, but there are lots of housewifey stuff I wouldn't mind getting my head around.

And to finish it all off, I was having some beers with Kristin last night and she sincerely expressed the fact that we were not going to be someones housewife when we grew up, no, we were going to be careerwomen! And successful ones at that! I'm very pro that thought as well, but realize the very convenience of constantly not killing your garden plants and managing to save a New Year's turkey in the oven if the electricity blows.

A fruit, a bird, a nation

Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Tenei te tangata puhuru huru
Nana nei i tiki mai
Whakawhiti te ra
A upa…ne! Ka upa…ne!
A upane kaupane whiti te ra! Hi!!!

I die! I die! I live! I live!
I die! I die! I live! I live!
This is the hairy man
Who fetched the sun
And caused it to shine again
One upward step! Another upward step!
An upward step. Another… the sun shines.

That's one way of greeting the world. Spring's here - yay!!