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the air was heavy and it felt all weekend like it was waiting to storm. i(t) never stormed. denmark is very restrained that way. in south dakota, a good old fashioned thunderstorm would have blown through and cleared out that pesky, heavy waiting and left it cool and rinsed clean. no such luck here. the air is still heavy and too warm for sleeping. we can't even have the windows properly open as molly is in heat and desperate to get out to the papa kitty. we think she's had enough kittens for one year, so she's got to stay inside until it's over. i don't want to fix her yet as i want one more batch of kittens next spring - no sense bringing those good minnesota cat genes over here and not taking advantage of them properly. but she (and perhaps i) have been through enough for this year, so she has to wait until spring. she's lucky i love her or she'd have driven me completely crazy with her meowing and cajoling to go outside and rendezvous with the papa kitty.

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i went on an uncharacteristic cleaning frenzy today, dusting, tidying, rearranging, organizing, vacuuming spider webs (they say spiders are a sign of a healthy inner climate in a house, so we're very healthy, let me tell you). i wonder how those spiders are all getting along inside the bag in our vacuum cleaner. do different kinds of spiders like each other? it feels good that things are tidy and clean. it gives me that essential sunday evening feeling that leaves me ready to face the week ahead. it's the last full week before school starts, so i want to spend some time together with sabin, who has been flitting off with one friend and another to summer houses and car races.

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have you noticed that my photos and my words are quite disconnected? i took the photos after vacuuming up the spiders, otherwise, they would have been more connected. now i'll try to connect them a little bit more. i was out picking this bouquet of verbena by the road when i ran into our cat tiger (also known as pelle haleløse (pelle the tail-less) as he came home last summer without most of his tail) out there, relaxing in the grass and trying to stay cool. i was chatting away to him when some people came by, walking their dogs and thinking i was insane to be chatting animatedly with myself in english (they couldn't see the cat in the grass). oh well, they'll chalk it up to the crazy canadian, since it's rumored in the area that i'm canadian. i can live with that. oddly, i felt no compulsion whatsoever to explain and no embarrassment. i wonder if that is the first sign of madness?

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i almost didn't have the heart to throw out these fetchingly dried daisies, but after photographing them, i replaced them with fresh ones. i almost think they're prettier when they're withered and dried. i suspect there's a lesson in that somewhere. or maybe i'm feeling philosophical after reading my fourth douglas kennedy book in as many weeks. tara suggested the first one (pursuit of happiness) to me on goodreads and that got me hooked. i devoured state of the union in about 24 hours. it's my favorite one yet. all of the ones i've read so far (i'm now on number 5 - the big picture) are about people whose choices led them feel they've lived the wrong life. they make me feel like writing, tho' i finish each one reluctantly, sad to leave behind characters who quickly come to seem like friends. i've got several more on order from the library. his style and characters suit my mood of the moment perfectly, tho' i feel far from having lived the wrong life.

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antlers are everywhere on pinterest at the moment. i got this little skull last fall at the boy scout flea market for 20 kroner. i don't know what kind of deer it is, but i love it. all of the deer in this country are freakishly small and this one is no exception. i'd like to think that i was way ahead of that antler trend.