I Know You Got Soul

Last night, the 18th Letter (Rodney) and i did our stretching routine in preparation for the night of tomfoolery that was to come. We headed to Diamond Girl & Lichiban's house warming party (i forgot to bring flowers, sorry ladies) a couple blocks up.
By far the coolest bottle opener i've ever seen. i sorta have a thing for hands.
What a mighty good time. Lots of mind elevating talk that i forgot to take notes of - but more will come! And clementines, oh my.
That's right.

- jelsen

Intercontinental Mail x2

More mail for me! hooray! The first package is from my buddy Nora in Hamburg. She travels to nyc a lot and a couple months ago finally got to meet Bahareh. For the longest time she didnt believe she actually existed outside of my imagination. ha.

These are pics from that visit.
The second package was from my dutch homie, Benjamin, in amsterdam. He works for Frame Magazine and i just fucking love this publication. It's focus is primarily on international interior design, architecture, and they dabble in some product design.

These cats DO NOT PLAY.

The layouts of every issue is like....uhm....a well executed experiment. Graphically, photographically, typographically, and everything else-ically. I dream of working with these guys. The printing methods they switch up for the covers are always exciting, too.

The only way i get em is if he sends em to me; these bitches are expensive.
That's my re-refurbished baby nicely nestled back at the casa.

- jelsen

Click Clack Click Spacebar?

Yesterday, i finally got to pick up my baby at Tekserve. Their store is cluttered with day-to-day stuff but they also place vintage hardware throughout the space.

Check out this Burrough's typewriter. The logo is ridiculous. Man, and that arrow.

- jelsen

More Trucking Graphics

This one hardened my nipples immediately. My only beef with this mark is its redundancy (CS&S logo w/ CS&S text). I also dig the lil' truck - the main logo would def work without it but i do enjoy the playfulness of a truck drawn on a truck owned my a trucking company.

At least they didnt place a huge 'TM' or 'R' or....

- jelsen

Happy Easter!

Norway doesn't separate church and state, so we all get about 10 extra days off for it every year. The kick off was today. Easter is my favorite season in Oslo because it clears up and feels like a totally different city once everyone has left. Lovely.

The average Norwegian goes to his cabin or a ski resort and proceeds to ski all day and drink all night - or vice versa...or any other combination of alcohol and ski gear you can think of. Kids get their own little buzz going when they get their easter eggs filled to the rim with candy and run around in constant sugar highs.Yes, for 10 days. And although I am very much against the combination of sugar and children, I surrender to tradition and give my niece and nephew these "little things" every year as well.

Hey, I'm trying to win the "aunt of the year" award, h'ok?

-bahareh

Paper cuts

I got an accidental day off work today and ended up (among other fun activities) paper shopping with my best friend Katharina. We found the most gorgeous stuff at "Norway Designs" and the "Paper Gallery". After searching high and low for the perfect little gift for my awesome friend and self proclaimed paper freak, Stephanie, I finally narrowed it down to a few choices. Hopefully she'll dig them cuz they're already in the mail! The rolls and the bottom blue one are from Italy, the pink and gold is hand made in Nepal and the crazy pattern is handmade in India...and since they all made a detour through Norway before they find Lady Land in the States, we can pretty much say they traveled the world to get to her. Enjoy, sweets!

-bahareh

Monkey gave birth to an elephant.

During my field trip of fun today, I found a new thrift shop that I'm sure I'll be a frequent customer to in the near future. They happen to sell beaded art from my favorite charity, Monkeybiz , and since elephants just happen to be my favorite animals...I had to snap some pictures.

-bahareh

Spring IS coming!

And I present to you; the blooming proof from Oslo this morning. Spring is my season. I'm even named after it, so our love was kinda predestined.

-spring

Good Morning // 08

Long story short: the Immigrations Office told me to make an appointment with the Federal Office (in the Financial District) to be 'sworn in' on all things Bahareh/Jelsen. The appointment was set (by them) for 7:30am. Since i only had about 2hrs of sleep last and woke up at 7, i opted for a cab into the city.

I get there, wait an hour for my ticket to be called, get my ticket called, pull out my paperwork, and then watched the teller's lips tell me, "...you shouldnt have come here for this. Get this signed at any public notary".

"the customer service (YOUR service) told me to specifically make an appointment here to get this document signed..."

"...nope", he said, "yeah - we've been having issues with our phone customer service people. They've been giving a lot of wrong information. See, we contract out our customer service."

"WOW", jelsen said. wow.

- jelsen

Bye Bye Boston

The way to get back to the Fung Wah bus was first to call a cab to take me from Waltham to downtown Boston then catch a train to the bus terminals. My cabbie's name was Vincie - and she's hilarious. She gave me advice ranging from "how not to get married twice like i did" to "how to make money for your own damn life". She also had a great monologue on "...every fucking time i turn on the radio its Obama's black this and Hillary's a woman that...get the fuck over it people! jeez, we're one goddamn country!"

"You tell em", i said. And the cherry on top of it all was her wonderfully heavy Bostonian accent.
Also, riding on the bus i saw a whole lotta cool trucking company logos. hmmm....a future project in the making?

- jelsen

Vehicular Cough

Before i headed back southbound to new amsterdam, my brother agreed to rep Walrus & Tesla in a special, sorta permanent way.

nice.

- jelsen

Andrew's Last Supper/Laxative

I had the entertaining pleasure of meeting and co-cooking with Rasheeda, a friend of Andrew's. We all enjoyed the tasty lasagna as well as the milkshake that dubbed as a potent laxative for the entire trio.
I leave the following day.

- jelsen

My favorite adults

As I'm packing up my belongings to move to the US indefinitely...I came across these little wonders. You know how when you're little you walk around thinking your parents are the coolest people in the world? Well, I could never shake that feeling off. They are still one of my main sources for inspiration and admiration. I'm definitely putting these in my little treasure box to bring "over there".

The coolest couple in Iran in the 70s? On the right corner is a picture of my dad with his old boxing team. He is standing, second from the right (yes, without a shirt on).

I love my moms wedding attire. They are posing for a wedding picture with my grandparents on my moms side. My grandmother wore a mini dress.

Once they were Abbas Badavi and Shahnaz Shekar (which means sugar!), now they are just known as my parents.

-bahareh

Hello, Good Sir

In the lobby of the municipal building this gorgeous portrait stood there to greet me. He's the mayor of something, im sure.

Is that an eagle fixed on a clock?

Unfortunately for Andrew, he wont be able to get the permit till friday.

- jelsen

Andrew's Post Surgery

Alive and well! Andrew made it through a successful ACL reconstruction procedure. It took 1hr30 to patch him back up.....then 4hrs more for him to wake up and leave the OR.
Fully rested, we load him into his car (i had to learn stick-shift that morning) and headed to our friendly neighborhood drugstore. We also had to pick up his much anticipated handicap parking permit.

- jelsen

Good Morning // 07

...and here we are. Since we had to rise & shine far earlier than Andrew's usual collegiate mid-day, he was more than happy to be back in a horizontal position.
This machine here is basically a motor controlled icebox. After the surgery we'll wrap his leg in it so that he can stay comfortably numb to the guns.
This is America....anytime's the best time for red tape. I think Andrew's most excited about getting a Disabled Parking pass.

Now, that's positive thinking.
While he's under ive been trying to keep to my daily routine. Since my baby (a refurbished macbook pro i bought 5mos ago) is also under the knife back home at TekServe (then i'll have a re-refurbished mac)- ive had the privilege of using a device called a 'PC'.

My digital productivity is limited to emailing. Andrew's an accounting major for pete's sake....at a business school. So, no CS3 for miles. The pen & pad it is.

oh yeah - and bloggin'.

- jelsen

Boston, here i come

After my bloodymary-assisted brunch at The Speakeasy i jumped on the Fung Wah Bus ($15 NYC to Boston each way) well prepared for the 4hr mini-journey ahead.

My little brother, Andrew, has been going to school [Bentley College] up there for almost four years now. I rarely get to visit the lil fella, so when he tore his ACL during a soccer game i couldnt think of a more applicable reason to come to Boston: surgery.

Aaaaw, dont feel so sorry for him. he doesnt seem to be worried about the surgery at all.

See? its 8hrs before the procedure and he's calmly ordering tex-mex.
Dattaboy. tomorrow's a big day, indeed.

- jelsen

Semi-Squeeky Cleaning

Bahareh thinks that i only clean the house when friends are visiting - which is completely untrue. i believe that i clean best on rainy days.

Its been raining a lot, lately.

Coincidentally, my highschool buddy Nydia - visiting from DC - is gonna crash for a night. the odds?!
A few interesting observations whilst tidying up. First, in the bedroom, i realized that our sheet 'ensemble' accurately matches my Ronald McDonald nikes! Second, cleaning out the fridge, i pulled out four (4) different kinds of milk and/or alternatives that were ALL expired (not drastically! just by a few days - except for the...)

Soy egg nog? gross. i have no idea how that one survived AT LEAST 5 rainy days since the new year.

Maybe i do need more friends.

- jelsen