being a perfume aficionado

just read this interesting piece on alternative perfume. and now i want me some of this:

i love libraries and books, so it must be great. and i'll bet it wouldn't go all horrible on me. but how do you suppose they distill it? maybe i should have read the entire article.

have you done this?

made yourself as a manga?  you can do it here. 

check out mik's in gmail.

he started it.

i know mine doesn't really look like me, i tried to put a few wrinkles on it, but i didn't get the nose right.

halloween approaches

halloween is coming and since poor sabin never really had a birthday party clear back in january because the house was torn apart, we've invited her whole class to a halloween party. last sunday, we all sat down to make the invitations together.  here are some of the results:

i started off by gocco-ing the words onto one side of the cards.

i love how the gocco-ed cards look in the drying rack.

we stamped the word "Halloween" with rubber stamps.

orange is so cheerful!

even with a skullie on it.

then we proceeded to decorate the other side of the cards.

we used halloween paper goodies i bought at scrap shops in singapore.

sabin did this one.

this one was mine.

one of mathilde's

sabin's favorite one.

we saved this one to remember them by.

and then there was far...

this was tame enough

and rather amusing since it contains an image of

the evil pia kjærsgaard of dansk folkeparti,

the "afraid of the world" party in denmark, 

caught in a spider web.

but then there was this:

husband was quite inspired by the newspaper.

he took a cartoon with the seals and bats,

put it over a picture of a swimming pool of happy children,

and then liberally used a red marker.

i think we'll set to work producing such cards and sell them on etsy ,

in a shop called "totally disturbing cards."

what do you think?

what IS that thing?

seen in a bakery window in hamburg:

i didn't try them, but whatever they were, they were usually gone by the end of the day.

Where I Am

The boys and I loaded up our bikes yesterday and took them to a park across town.  There's a little charming bike trail near this park.  It's nice, because while I'm unloading and loading bikes, the boys can go and swing and slide.  

After I got the bikes all loaded, I thought I'd let the boys play a while longer.  I plopped myself onto a park bench and busied myself with my iPhone.  

In front of me, there was a little rocking horse.  A grandpa came along with his little toddler grandson and made him pose for many, many digital pictures on the rocking horse.  I giggled at them.  When they were finished, a grubby little girl climbed up onto the rocking horse and struck up a conversation with me.

"I want you to take my picture!" she said.

"You want me to take your picture?  Where's your mom?"

"She's over there and she doesn't have a camera."

"Well, I need to ask her permission before I can just take your picture." I really couldn't just start snapping pictures of someone else's kid.

"How come?" as we say in Iowa.

"Cuz it's against the rules for me to just take your picture.  But if you get your mom, I could snap your picture and then send it to your mom's computer?  Does Mom have a computer?"

"Yeah, she has one at our new house, but not one at our old house.  We have two houses." she put up two fingers and then smiled at them.  "Cut, cut, cut!" she said, making scissor motions with her hands.  

I laughed and then she turned the two fingers upward to me and then tucked the index finger down.  

"Oh goodness, that's not a nice finger!"  I said, stifling a laugh.

"How come?" as we say in Iowa.

"Because it's a finger we use when we're not very nice!  You should put that away."  

She tried the two fingers, palm facing out once again.  

"Those fingers are nicer.  That's a nice girl!"  I noticed that she was barefoot, playing in wood chips.  And it sunk in a little further, her totally dirty face.  She flipped me the bird again.

"Where's your mom again?  Maybe I can just take a nice picture of you right now." I said. 

one good reason...

...to move to singapore:  posh BLTs with lobster instead of lettuce. :-)

don't go there!

i found the juicy couture in changi airport (singapore)...it goes DESPERATELY WRONG on me, for the love of god, do not buy me any!!! unless you plan to remain a continent away from me! which you probably do, but then at least think of those around me who would have to smell it.

i did, however, buy vera wang's new one--bouquet. i'd gotten a singapore crispy back from the tax thing, so i used it on that. at least some of it. i hadn't had any vera wang before. i almost went for a wintery chanel--allure sensuelle--but the vera wang seemed more right now. :-)

i've had so much summery stuff, but it feels like time to put that at the back of the shelf and bring out more autumny scents. don't you think?

the one i return to again and again tho' is kenneth cole black. and it's getting pretty low. i like that one, even if it doesn't last that long. might have to reinvest in that at some point.

unbelievably weird

strange things seen in singapore:

wait, it gets worse.

WARNING: might not want to show this to finnie:

people apparently PAY for this!!

to have fish nibble on them.

ten minutes for $10.

you'd have to pay me more than that to try it.

and then there was this:

will admit i didn't taste them.

i did, however, taste this:

it was delicious, w/crunchy tempura shrimp and unagi. mmmm.

happy early birthday to you...

isn't it pretty?

it has one of those little hood thingies.

and i'll go get it a hoya UV filter tomorrow 

(they were out at the store where i bought it)

too funny

laughed uproariously to myself when i saw this:

it's a clothing store in singapore.

i didn't dare go in in case it was stinky. :-)

self-portrait in hotel mirror

the latest in my ongoing series of self-portraits in hotel room mirror with good hair and camera covering half the face, featuring silver rings.

maybe you can help me come up with a better title?

murakami's wisdom

the asian edition of time has 10 questions with haruki murakami, you'd like to read it, so click the link.

my favorite thing he says is, "...style is very important. if prose has a natural rhythm it won't be spoiled by translation."

oh, and this too:  "when i write a novel or story, i don't know what is going to happen next."

he's working on another of his long, weird love stories! yippee!!

great idea

i should be straightening up and packing and generally getting ready for my trip to singapore, but instead i'm hanging out in the blogosophere, where i found this idea. everytime the child(ren) say(s) something cute, you write it on a little note and put it in the jar. of course, at our house there will be admonitions to "stop quoting me," but how can we really help ourselves when she says stuff like this:

"don't think of it in dollars, think of it how it is." --sabin, nyhavn, september 2008

you must have a million of them too from finn and owen.

that's one big mushroom

found in the woods at buresø, just a few days after our mushroom hunting expedition:

unfortunately, we weren't able to identify it, so we didn't dare to eat it.

since there were two, it would have made a fine meal!

they looked like overgrown, chernobyl cantarelles.

they did smell great, so it probably would have been ok to eat them.

even tho' i missed...

there's just something i really love about this picture...

charming

she asked me to take pictures of her....

what the x*#€%*?

what it looks like when your 2GB memory card says it's full after only 73 pictures and you're not shooting in RAW.