Cinnamon Rolls and More

"The Cinnamon Bun Day" must be one of the most successful campaigns ever in Swedish advertising history.

October 4th in Sweden means we have all stuffed ourselves with, or been stuffed with, the pastry anywhere and everywhere we have gone. 

No decent employer has forgotten to serve the staff with this traditional pastry. Any visit with a friend or to a cafe without a damn bun would be considered a complete failure. 

I had three of them today and now I don´t want to see another for three months at least.

For a recipe of this traditional Swedish pastry see my post last year, Swedish Cinnamon Bun Day.

As the good son I sometimes try to be I brought along a couple of buns to my mother today. She looked at me tiredly and then told me "I have already had one and that was quite enough, thank you very much!". I told her to give them to the night staff.

The problem is if I hadn't brought them along the hospital staff would probably have looked on me as an utter failure as a son, probably my mother also.

Beside that it was a good visit. My mother was very chatty and in a great mood and had been without the additional oxygen supply the whole day.

On Joe Jervis´s ever watchful blog Joe.My.God. I read that "Anonymous" is planning to take down the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) from the Internet in a concerted attack on Monday the 10th, "Anonymous to Wall Street: We Will Take Down Stock Exchange On October 10th".

There is a video declaring their intentions and their motives for the raid, see it.

I cannot really comprehend how creating more disturbances and unrest for the International banking system will accomplish their goals. It seems to me that the only ones who will suffer from more unrest in the economic markets are the 99% "Anonymous" claims to act on behalf of. But who am I to judge, people say I am too judgmental anyway.

Mothers

"Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist´s Mother" (1871)
by James McKneill Whistler

In the early evening on Sunday, as I was getting ready to visit with my mother at the hospital, I got a phone call from my father.

He told me he had just had the strangest conversation with mother. She had claimed that my brother in-law had visited her that day with his granddaughter and during the visit said the most awful things to her in front of the girl. When my father started questioning her about if this really could be true since she had always had a good relationship with my brother in-law, she got very angry with him and hung up the phone in his ear saying "Well you can believe it or not, but I know what happened!"

My mother and I have some similar traits. We are both usually quite even tempered but sometimes blow up. To be completely honest, neither of us are the most patient of people, although of course everyone tells us we are just that - repeatedly.

When I arrived at the hospital ward she was still upset, but now because after thinking about it she had realized that it had been a very vivid and realistic nightmare. So together we called my father on the phone and settled things to his great relief. For some reason, she also felt the need to call my sister and brother in-law and tell them about her terrible dream and tell them she was sorry she had actually thought it had really happened.

Somehow this incident told me - more than any doctors could - that my mother was getting better, even if she is still weak and tired her passion is back. She is of course still on her antibiotics but can now be without the additional oxygen most of the time.

We have started planning for her return home and the help and support she and father may need the first four weeks  and in the long run - to cope with living at home. Hopefully this will all sort itself out during the days to come. She is longing for her own comfortable bed.

1 000 posts

Woooohooooooooo!

I actually didn't notice until just after I had pressed "publish" that the previous post was the 1 000 post on "Bock in SecondLife".

I knew that milestone was coming soon because I remember thinking about it when I wrote up the last statistics report, but then I forgot all about it again *sigh* I actually didn't believe I would stick with it that long when I started it.

At Sacred Trance with DJ Butch

On Sunday evening I went to the first regular set at my buddy Butch Diavolo´s new club "Sacred Trance".

The club will have a regular Sunday set from 12 PM -  4 PM with two DJ´s on for two hours each. There will also be sets on another day of the week, but I was too immersed in IM´s when Butch told us about that so I have actually forgotten which day that was. Hopefully Butch will drop the information in a comment or I will add it at a later time.

The has been built by Butch himself by "ripping out" and "sticking together" two churches that were originally built by Van Auster. The builder and designer Van himself was there to inspect what damage Butch had made to his building and was impressed by the result like the rest of us.

Van Auster is of course best known as the owner of the store "Post", that apart from beautiful buildings also sells wonderful furniture. Butch boldly claims that he has everything in the store and that his club and home are really a showcase for Van´s work because "almost everything (he) has in his club and home is from the Post".

The music was great, even if I joked with Butch and threw Ars´s old truth "Everyone is a DJ in SecondLife, or at least they think so!"

We Crashed the Sim

Photo courtesy of my buddy Apmel Goosson

Yesterday was a messy day in SecondLife, partly I guess due to the usual overpopulation during weekends but Linden Lab seems to be doing some major overhaul of their servers also. I crashed two times the same evening, which actually hasn't happened for a very long time.

Anyway, as I promised in my post yesterday, I could be found at the Fride Club & Lounge´s fourth jubilee most of the evening.

My friend and the club owner Midnattsdotter "Mid" Fride gave us a great line-up of amazing live artists this evening, among which could be found my buddy Strum Diesel. Zelator Bahomet, Mid´s business partner, had built an wonderful set befitting the theme of the party, "Super Mario Characters".

All of Mid´s patrons came teleporting in to celebrate Mid and the club, which eventually led to the sim crashing on us. I have always maintained, "Every great party needs at least one sim-crash!" 

The sim-crash occurred during The Rails set, and after that I unfortunately had some troubles with getting the sound to work properly. This meant I had to raise my volume way high to hear Hazideon Zarco and Strum Diesel sing, but still had difficulty hearing them talk between the songs. The sound problem seemed to have solved itself by the time the last artist, AM Quar, started his set but by then I was too tired to stay.

Overall I had a wonderful time and saw many friends and others.

Saturday Fun

Among all the other events going on in SecondLife on a Saturday evening I would especially like to recommend the following two.

My friend Midnattsdotter "Mid" Fride and her crew are celebrating the 4th anniversary of Fride Club & Lounge with an impressive line up of great SecondLife entertainers for four hours, featuring among others my buddy Strum Diesel. This event starts at 12 PM SLT with a new artist/group every hour. Theme for the party is "Super Mario characters".

This is the event I will try to squeeze in to. The line starts behind me, don´t use your elbows but any other body part is OK, with the exception of boobs!

SLurl to the party

The second event I would like to recommend is arranged by the great LGBT news blog Gay World News and starts at 8 PM SLT (which is 5 AM for me so I will most likely miss it).

This party takes place at the BLU club at Boystown and the theme is "Super Villains". The event will be covered by GWN in-world.

SLurl to the BLU Club

Breast Cancer Awareness 2011

October is the International Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Breast Cancer is a disease which affects all of us more or less frequently by striking down someone in our families or among our friends, co-workers, neighbors and acquaintances. Although the disease can hit both sexes it is much more common among women.

Friday morning when I came to work all the staff was called to a gathering in the office lunchroom where we were informed that Helena, one of our co-workers and a friend of mine, had passed away late Thursday evening at the early age of 56.

The news did not come as a total surprise as Helena had been on sick leave for almost a year.

Helena started working with us two years ago and soon after discovered she had a lump in one of her breasts. She had had the disease about 15 years earlier so she immediately recognized what it was and sought treatment at once. This time the treatment was not at all successful and the cancer spread fast to her liver, lungs and skeleton.

Although Helena only worked with us for a short time she was well liked by all of us for her energetic, outgoing  and positive personality. She was also a friend of mine and we would usually celebrate New Years Eve together with other friends.

We will all miss her strong personality and her kind spirit. I will miss a friend who was dear to me.
----

Early detection is crucial for the success of treatment in Breast Cancer, as in many other diseases. Please make it a habit to regularly exam your breasts.

If you are a woman living in Sweden you should also make it a priority to go to the mammography check-ups offered by the public healthcare system at regular intervals.

The Five Steps of Breast Self Exam

Step 1: Begin by looking at your breasts in the mirror with your shoulders straight and your arms on your hips.

Here's what you should look for:
· Breasts that are their usual size, shape, and color
· Breasts that are evenly shaped without visible distortion or swelling

If you see any of the following changes, bring them to your doctor's attention:
· Dimpling, puckering, or bulging of the skin
· A nipple that has changed position or an inverted nipple (pushed inward instead of sticking out) Redness, soreness, rash, or swelling

Step 2: Now, raise your arms and look for the same changes.

Step 3: While you're at the mirror, look for any signs of fluid coming out of one or both nipples (this could be a watery, milky, or yellow fluid or blood).

Step 4: Next, feel your breasts while lying down, using your right hand to feel your left breast and then your left hand to feel your right breast. Use a firm, smooth touch with the first few finger pads of your hand, keeping the fingers flat and together. Use a circular motion, about the size of a quarter.

Cover the entire breast from top to bottom, side to side — from your collarbone to the top of your abdomen, and from your armpit to your cleavage. Follow a pattern to be sure that you cover the whole breast. You can begin at the nipple, moving in larger and larger circles until you reach the outer edge of the breast. You can also move your fingers up and down vertically, in rows, as if you were mowing a lawn. This up-and-down approach seems to work best for most women. Be sure to feel all the tissue from the front to the back of your breasts: for the skin and tissue just beneath, use light pressure; use medium pressure for tissue in the middle of your breasts; use firm pressure for the deep tissue in the back. When you've reached the deep tissue, you should be able to feel down to your ribcage.

Step 5: Finally, feel your breasts while you are standing or sitting. Many women find that the easiest way to feel their breasts is when their skin is wet and slippery, so they like to do this step in the shower. Cover your entire breast, using the same hand movements described in Step 4.