The Further Adventures of Miss Kitten

This is the second of thirteen articles I wrote for the now-defunct Grid World News website. Please see the Grid World News page for more information.

Tea and Zen: Enlightenment Awaits at the Museum of Teacups
by Gwen Maddy aka Weng Merlin (my Second Life avatar name)

If one visited a spot that calls itself the “Museum of Teacups,” one would naturally expect it to be full of…well, teacups, and probably very little else. But if there’s one thing we’ve all learned from time spent in Linden, it’s that things here are rarely what one expects them to be.

With that in mind, it’s hardly surprising that the Museum of Teacups, located in Dreamtime, contains very little in the way of teacups, but the cups that are on display are delightfully quirky and look nothing like your grandmother’s china. The collection features some eclectic and unique, if not entirely functional, designs. Notable examples include the Eiffel Tower-inspired Eiffelcup and Kittea cup, from which it appears impossible to drink without poking out an eye.

Head up to the roof to see more teacups on display, as well as engage in a variety of activities. One can relax in the big teacup chair, play a riveting game of hangman, try one’s hand at Whack-a-Mole, or sit down for a cup of tea while contemplating the magnificence of the Great Golden Teacup. Should you wish for a more intimate experience with its Greatness, fly on over to the Great Golden Teacup meditation spot – one of many meditation opportunities in the museum. Take a deep, cleansing breath and be one with The Cup.

The remainder of the museum is more spirit than sponge cake. It’s full of mandala tapestries, bronze Buddhas, meditation candles, cushions, and musical instruments – all of which one can interact with and/or buy. Relax on a cushion-covered sofa in front of a soothing fire, while the serene sounds of wind chimes and fountains fill the air. If you’re not in the mood for relaxation, there are plenty of other, more stimulating activities to try. I recommend firing the big cannon or blowing the Elven horn. Indeed, there’s so much to see and do here that one almost needs more than one day in order to experience everything.

A visit to the Museum of Teacups may at first seem like a rather dull way to spend an afternoon, but fear not, oh unenlightened one. Yes, it’s a museum, but it’s not the kind of place to which you’d take your Great Aunt Mildred. Light up the nag champa and say ohm. You’re about to be one with the universe.

This is the first of thirteen articles I wrote for the now-defunct Grid World News website. Please see the Grid World News page for more information.

The House of Sweden: More than Just Free T-Shirts
by Gwen Maddy aka Weng Merlin (my Second Life avatar name)

After a visit to the House of Sweden at the Swedish Institute, you’ll take away much more than just a fancy fashion statement. The cultural gifts here are varied and plentiful.

The word “Sweden” might conjure up images of blonde girls named Inga driving Volvos in the snow, of cheap, easy-to-assemble furniture, or of a majestic moose or two. However, one can deduct very little in the way of expectations from the name “House of Sweden.” Would all of Sweden be enclosed in one house? Would I be intruding on some modest family’s day to day? Would they offer me a choice of t-shirts? And would they serve meatballs?

All of these insights were waiting at the House of Sweden, which not only houses the Swedish Embassy but offers visitors a variety of ways to experience some of what this unique culture has to offer.

The House of Sweden building is a stunning work of architectural art. It features classic Swedish design, clean lines, and reflects the Swedes’ affinity for light and space. Inside the building the art galleries are the first areas with wow factor. The National Museum in Stockholm has loaned several of its most famous works of art to the House of Sweden, including Midsummer Dance by Swedish painter Anders Zorn and The Cloud by German artist Prince Eugen.

There are also several objects scattered around the House which might at first appear to be art but which are actually furniture. Go ahead and sit down on them–if you can figure out how. Swedish retailer extraordinaire IKEA naturally provided all the furniture in the House from the comfortable to the weird. I saw two chairs there that resembled giant letter U’s with legs, which makes me wonder if IKEA has other alphabet furniture available. What’s the U for, anyway?

If art and furniture designs are not your thing, fear not–there’s still plenty to see and do. Nearby the House of Sweden is an outdoor stage and cinema where one can enjoy performances and films highlighting this intriguing culture. There are many acres of beautifully landscaped grounds and gardens to explore, along with lots of benches in the gardens. These are great places to park your older relatives or simply sit and enjoy the view.

Of course there’s the bastu, also known as a deliciously hot sauna. No valuable Swedish cultural experience would be complete without one. Any Swede would tell you you’re supposed to enter au natural. However, if you forgot your bathing suit and are stricken with a serious case of modesty, there’s no need to panic. You can rent suits, trunks, and sauna towels in the changing room.

If you’ve ever wondered if whether there’s more to Swedish culture than funky furniture and ABBA songs, then by all means, check out the House of Sweden—if only for the fashion-forward freebie.

During my recent trip to the US, I went through all my grandma’s and mom’s old photos. I had almost no pictures of me and my brother when we were kids and none at all of me when I was a baby. Here’s a few that I selected:

Me, about seven weeks old, and my mom:

A little later on, I’m about seven months old here:

A nice one of my brother and me. I’m about nine and he’s probably seven or eight:

Taken the same year as the one above, here I am with my favorite doll on Easter Sunday. We’re wearing the matching dresses my grandma had made:

I have some more of when I was a little older: me in my cap and gown when I graduated from high school, and a really cute one of my sister and me. Those are hard copies and will have to be scanned later.

I don’t mean me, personally. Well, I sort of do. I developed a door neurosis when I was living in my old apartment.  The apartment was on the ground floor and about two meters away from the outside door. For some reason, whenever I came home I felt like I had to open my apartment door, step inside, and close it before the outside door closed. If I didn’t make it in time I’d feel slightly panicky. The Swede is decidedly a lot more neurotic than I am, and he thinks that it has something to do with feeling safe in my own space. That could be it. Anyway, we moved out of that building and I haven’t had any other door-related problems.

I just discovered a website called i am neurotic, where people submit their neuroses for posting. Some of them are downright weird and others are simply hilarious. This one is both:

My ex-coworker had to flush the toilet before she used it, just in case someone had already used the toilet and she couldn’t see their pee. She was terrified that if she didn’t start with ‘fresh’ water she was risking acquiring some sort of pee-transmitted disease.

This one is not so much neurotic, but paranoid:

I cannot use a hairdryer while no one is home. I think must be to do with the fact that I’m scared someone will sneak in and kill me without me hearing. It’s so bad I didn’t wash my hair for two weeks because no one was home.

I love this one because it’s so….neurotic:

My boyfriend has to have 4 quarters, 2 dimes, 1 nickel and 4 pennies in his pocket at all times after he gets dressed. He will not leave the house without this, and he will make change if necessary to keep this exact amount in his pocket at all times! A little neurotic I would say!!

My boyfriend actually does this:

Whenever I read something off the internet, I have to highlight and drag what I am reading a few times or else I am not going to understand the paragraph…

And this one is my favorite:

I take my right contact lens out first, and after putting it in its case, I hold my thumb over it and repeat “forget my secrets” three times. I repeat the process for the left lens. When it’s time for a new pair, I have to cut the old pair into tiny pieces, just in case they haven’t forgotten everything they helped me see.

Much more delightful weirdness can be found on the website.

I’ve really been on the go lately, haven’t I?

First I moved to a new city and now I’m visiting the beautiful people and places in California and Arizona. My brother and his fiance (now wife) tied the knot in the city of Sedona, one of the most unique and beautiful places in Arizona and the rest of the world. I took dozens of pictures of the wedding and the scenery, and I plan on putting an album up on Facebook later. For how however, here’s a bite-size sample of the world-famous Red Rocks:

A day or so after we returned from AZ, my mom suggested that we take the Metrolink train into Los Angeles and do a little sightseeing. You probaby didn’t realize that the Greater Los Angeles Area has a reliable, safe, and cheap rapid transit system. I certainly didn’t. We bought two round-trip Metrolink tickets for $14 each and they were good for unlimited travel on all the trains, Red Line subways, and DASH buses all day. We boarded the L.A/Union Station bound train in Upland and were deposited in downtown L.A. exactly one hour later. It was much easier and less stressful than taking the freeway. Here’s the back of me standing on one of the Union Station subway platforms, just as the train arrives:

We had decided the night before that the first place we’d like to visit was the El Pueblo State Historical Monument and Olvera Street, celebrated as the birth place of Los Angeles. Olvera Street was established back in 1781 as the first neighborhood in LA. The street is a long line of booths and stalls with a variety of Mexican wares for sale. It reminded me of what one might find at an across-the-border flea market: sombreros, sarapes, tooled leather belts and handbags, terracotta figurines, dresses and peasant blouses for women and girls, and even $35 acoustic guitars.

We arrived fairly early in the morning, and while we were waiting for the stalls to open I decided to treat myself to a Mexican donut-like treat called a churro. There were a couple of news crews parked nearby and a camera man from the L.A. Times asked me if he could film me handing the money over and taking my first bite of the churro. Here he is interviewing me while he’s filming me:

We hadn’t made any definite plans as to what to do next, but after we’d seen enough of Olvera Street we decided to viisit Hollywood Boulevard and the famous Walk of Fame. I figured it’s something that the Swede, as a first-time visitor to L.A., would really like to see, and even though I was born and raised in Southern California I’d been to Hollywood Boulevard only once in my life. We hopped on the Red Line subway bound for North Hollywood and got off at Hollywood and Highland. The star-spangled sidewalk went on for miles, and we walked all the way down to Vine Street before we decided to cross the street and head back the other way. We went into a few of the shops and one in particular was a rock and roll shop, where Tobbe bought a studded black leather belt and a Slayer t-shirt that he’d been wanting for a long time. Every now and then we’d come across a star for a celebrity we really liked and we’d take a picture of it. Here’s a frameworthy picture of Tobbe/The Swede next to Jimi Hendrix’s star:

Tomorrow we’ll be headed to the famous O.C. for a few days’ visit with my grandmother and uncle at their house in Dana Point. Their house is only a short walk away from the beach and the big blue Pacific. Then on Sunday we’ll be driving up the Pacific Coast Highway to the picturesque University of Santa Barbara campus for my sister’s graduation.

More photos and posts to follow.

Well, I’ve been preoccupied with my recent move a new city, which I mentioned in a previous post. My trip to the U.S. is coming up in less than a week, but so far I haven’t had the time to make any preparations for that. Anyway, I promise I’ll post a longer update later complete with pictures of the new place. For now here’s an amusing article from The Local. I hope you enjoy the headline just as much as I did.

Chocolate penis craving lands man in court

Published: 28 May 08 11:18 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/12058/
Photo: Stephanie Chan

A 28-year-old man is headed to court after being unable control a strange urge that overcame him while visiting a condom shop in Gothenburg with his finance last November.

As he was strolling through the store, the man became so enamored with a chocolate penis and a Playboy bunny that he decided to stuff both in his pocket and exit the store without paying.

“I lost my head. I even had money with me. I don’t know why I took the stuff,” the 28-year-old said to the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper.

The man had thought of giving the items to his finance as a present until he was caught with the chocolate penis protruding from his back pocket.

During questioning the man admitted to taking the dildo delicacy, but initially denied snatching the bunny.

Had the man come clean and pleaded guilty to stealing both items, which have a combined value of 148 kronor ($25), he could have resolved the matter by simply paying a fine.

Instead, the man’s lie has landed him in court, where he will once again be asked to explain why he attempted to pilfer the chocolate penis.

I was googling around for pictures from the Monty Python “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!!” sketch, and found this picture:

It’s from a website called H.E.R.B which stands for:  Had Enough Religious Bullshit? Check it out for more funny cartoons, pictures, and quotes.

After languishing on waiting lists for apartments in the Göteborg/Gothenburg area for nine whole months, we’ve finally received and accepted an offer for a suitable place. The apartment is located in a part of town which admittedly isn’t the nicest area, but one could sure do a helluva lot worse. For example: Angered. I just love how there is a crappy part of Göteborg called Angered. Whenever I see the #9 Angered trolley I always imagine that it’s full of either currently angry people, or people about to become so when they reach their destination of Angered. But I digress…

The last place we looked at was located in Frölunda and that place was (for lack of a more suitably descriptive term) a real shithole.

Our new apartment is a nice and spacious three-roomer (US/Can = two bedroom), with twice as much square footage (meterage?) as our current one-roomer (US/Can = studio) here in Uddevalla. It has a nice big master bedroom, a smaller child’s bedroom (which will do just fine for an office or computer room) a good-sized kitchen, and a bathroom that not only has an actual bathtub (finally, a bath after two years of showers…*sigh*), but also a space and hookups for a washer and dryer. There’s even a space in the kitchen for a dishwasher.

There are also lots of windows so I’m planning on making curtains.

The previous occupant was still there when we went to take a look at the place (so we took only a couple of pictures before the guy showing us the place asked us not to) but they should be gone by now. We went down there and signed the lease on the 30th, and the place was officially ours as of the 1st of May. Another plus is that both our names are on the lease this time, and more importantly due to a positive reference from our previous rental agency, it was unnecessary for Swede’s dad to co-sign on the lease.

The place is ours, but it will be a couple of weeks before we’re able to move in. We’ve got some loose ends that need tying up here in Uddevalla. Still, within a month we’ll be living in Göteborg.

It still hasn’t really hit me yet. We were waiting for an apartment for so long that I’d ceased to believe in the reality of us ever moving.

I also thought the Japanese were better at assembling stuff than us barbarian westerners. After all, they lead the world in producing engineers, don’t they?

Japan tells Ikea to give better instructions

Published: 28 Apr 08 08:33 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/11394/

Swedish do-it-yourself furniture giant Ikea has been ordered to give better instructions in Japan after a customer suffered minor injuries assembling a chest.

The man in Chiba, in suburban Tokyo, was hurt in the eye by a broken screw last July, the Japanese industry ministry said.

“The cause of the accident is believed to be the customer using an inappropriate size of straight slot driver instead of a cross slot,” the ministry said in a recent report.

“But the instructions on the product failed to give enough information on what kind of screwdriver should be employed or to alert customers on the risk of building the product,” it said.

Ikea has won legions of fans with its affordable yet stylish designs, but its no-frills self-assembly approach has also caused legendary tales of frustration.

Ikea, which re-entered the Japanese market in 2006, said it believed its instructions were already detailed.

“It was the first and only accident reported,” Ikea Japan spokeswoman Yuki Kusama said on Monday.

“But we were told by the ministry to provide more comprehensible instructions,” she said.

The company now sets out written instructions in Japanese after earlier relying mostly on illustrations, she said.

Ikea arrived in Japan in 1974 but was forced to withdraw after failing to win over the country’s notoriously finicky consumers.

The Swedish giant competes here against against well-known retailers such as Muji, the “no brand” Japanese homeware outlet which has become increasingly popular overseas.