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Friday
Aug 06
 Today was
devoted to visitors. After breakfast two sets of my dad’s cousins came
and stayed to lunch. When Svein & Randi arrived, Emma & I were
back on the dock with her net and the white laundry tub. Emma had
relented on her no-animals-capturing stance, and two minnows and a
sea-snail were darting/snailing around their mini-habitat, furnished
with sand, rocks, and seaweed. The sun broke through, and Randi asked
if the girls didn’t want to go wading, to take advantage of the
weather. No sooner said than two naked girls were puttering happily
along the shore. Emma busied herself with constructing a channel for
the water, and Lizzie stood blowing at the water before resolutely
marching in up to her knees, crying “Ow! Ow!” and marching right back,
then repeating the performance. It took a while to persuade them back
into their clothes at lunchtime. -K
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 We ate on the deck, keeping a wary eye on the
sky, which was threatening rain any minute. Cousins Svein & Randi,
Reidar & Haldis, airily assured us that there was no need to worry;
they were experts at packing things together and shifting inside a
moment’s notice. That expertise was called on just before dessert, and
we stood around the living room sipping coffee and watching the daily
vacation slideshow.
After some more good conversation---Reidar & Haldis’ son is a space
scientist whose company has provided some real-time air-composition
analysis capabilities to NASA---the company left. Then the girls fell
asleep and Thomas & I claimed our losers’ rights for a re-match
against Aaron at Settlers of Cataan, and we set up the board. Fifteen
minutes into the game, my dad’s cousin Tore stopped by. He’s our
favorite, an affable, endlessly energetic guy whose hair has turned
into a thick white thatch in the last couple of years. With him he
brought his foster son, Reuben, who’s 15 and autistic. Reuben rocks
back and forth a lot, radiates endless goodwill, and stammers out
repeated questions while affectionately draping an arm around you and
patting your back. “Do you have a dog?” “Are you flying tomorrow?” “Do
you know Bertha?” When Emma woke up, Aaron & I were wary about how
she would react, but she was pleased at Reuben’s attention, and they
got along fine. -K
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When Tore and Reuben left, Aaron & I got ready
to go out. It was to be a romantic evening out for the three of us,
because while the children could stay home, the laptop of course would
be coming with us.
 We headed into downtown Bergen and went to To
Kokker. It’s a restaurant built into the old dock warehouses from the
1700’s---the older warehouses burned down in 1702. We went upstairs and
followed the waiter across the slanting floor to a small gallery
overlooking the narrow cobbled thoroughfare below. We were up among the
roof gables, more rain was threatening, and the air smelled fresh
except for some cigarette smoke drifting from a group of Russians who
seemed to be on a BMW motorcycle touring holiday. The restaurant was
full, the service was swift, and the food, wow. For the grand finale,
Aaron learned to his dismay that the honey-soaked roasted-nut basket
we’d been enjoying was made with walnuts, a nut he claims to have
loathed and despised all his life. Afterwards we walked around a while,
then mobilized in the car: Laptop open, MacStumbler on, and we drove
around, listening for beeps and booing at all the WEP’d
(password-protected) hits. In the end we headed into the university
district, found a good connection, and settled in. It was after
midnight, and it felt vaguely spy-thrillerish to be sitting there in
the dark, illuminated by the glow of the laptop, and being politely
disregarded by the passing groups of students. We got the postcards
loaded and email checked, then Aaron started the engine and made to
turn the car. As he did so, we saw a curtain twitch aside, and a potted
plant was ostentatiously shifted a little. We could see the back of a
computer terminal through the gap in the curtains. Was it the source of
our piggy-backed internet connection? I believe so. -K
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When we got back we got the run down on how the
evening went from Thomas and Nina. Things had gone great there was much
playing in a fort that Thomas built and the girls ate well. Things were
going swimmingly untill mormor mentioned pajamas. Apparently at that
point all hell broke loose and we were lucky that the cabin was still
standing. It took a good long while but Lizzie finaly wore herself out
and colapsed. -A
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