Michelle Obama

I like the Obamas. And I really like Michelle Obama's style. It echoes Jackie Kennedy. The key is the dress (vs. the horrible pant suit). Check out these photos.

The Alfred Nobel Museum

I recently returned from Finland and Sweden traveling with Crolace. We went over for a mutual friend's wedding. Many things from our trip were fun, interesting, enlightening, and meaningful. One of those things was the Alfred Nobel Museum.

It is a small, modern looking museum in the heart of Gamla Stan, the old city. The building was formerly the stock exchange! Our tour guide told us the story of Alfred Nobel. He domesticated nitroglycerin, inventing dynamite. He built factories world wide and the invention was a major contributor to construction projects undertaken worldwide. He collected 

great wealth and sadly had no family of his own to share it with. However, Nobel is more famous for his will, establishing the Nobel prizes, than dynamite. His will instructed that the interest on his fortune (which has now been proportionally added to) be given yearly as five substantial monetary prizes which "shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." The categories for the prizes are physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature, and peace. (A sixth category for economics was established in 1969.) 

The museum celebrated prize winners, around 800 in all! We heard and saw some of the winners' stories. I was so impressed with them. They are passionate for their field. They are good. It is so refreshing and uplifting to hear about 800 people who have really, really made our world better. From Marie Curie to the inventor of x-ray to Jane Addams (the mother of social work) to Elie Wiesel. 

The winners are also great examples to me of taking time to meditate into creativity. Our guide told us of a scientist who was working on light or something who was observing the river in a quiet moment. He saw the water move in waves and it gave him the idea that perhaps light also might move in waves. Also, the cafe in the museum, is designed to replicate the cafes where the Nobel laureates gathered to discuss ideas and form ideas and become inspired. This is something that I sometimes feel is missing from my life -- using my time to be creative in anything. 

So when people have asked me about my trip, among the story about sauna and Drottningholm Palace, is the story of the very small Nobel museum, with it's inspiring message. There stands a neon sign in the museum which reads, "What is now proven, was once imagined."

Witty Title

Every once in a while we meet up with someone who just makes us feel awful. Or speak I just for myself? They aren't trying to be awesomer than us, they just are. (Note: I'm really not this down on myself. I have lots of really great talents too.) Artistic people! Oh, I covet! One of the people is the owner of The Black Apple. I don't know who the chick-a-dee is but let's just say she is freakin' awesome. Jealous, party of one. There isn't an artistic bone in my body. Herman Fox is another artsy-fartsy type who just sees the world in a different way from the rest of us. And their art is just genius. I guess that's why we (I) need these people. Because their art really does something for us (me), or at least for me, deep down that words can't explain and that I could not have come up with on my own. 

Nine in the Afternoon

It's the first song from Panic At the Disco that I actually like. Nine in the Afternoon. It's catchy, peppy, and rhyming noon and moon is neato. I looked up the lyrics to see if there was some deeper message. The band alleges there is not.

Now maybe I'm jaded being a therapist and all.

I looked up meanings of the song according to fans. I looked up what the band said about the song. All very innocent. It's a song about love (according to fans) that the band came up with one evening pretty quickly (according to Panic).

But I think it's about drugs.

The music video is a little trippy and kind of high on meth. "Eyes the size of the moon," "Back to the room where it all began," "Feeling so good, just the way that we should, when it's nine in the afternoon." These lines are suspect. I don't really see a love story. 

Dang it! Why does the universe toy with me this way!