A full choir weekend with 26 singers, a Flamenco dancer, excellent feasty meals and gulsippor* blooming. The best thing about choir retreats is being around people who break into song at any given moment and who spontaneously harmonize with you when YOU break into song. My friend Debbie is the only other non-Swede in the choir and during the evening when people were all sitting around playing singing games, she was the only one with a North American background to be able to catch and return all my musical cultural references.
One of the singing games we played was hilarious. It involved 2 verses of a Swedish song and the object was to come up with melodies that the words could be set to. In addition to numerous old Swedish chestnuts that you (and I) have never heard of it worked with the following: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, My Darling Clementine, I’ve Been Working On the Railroad, Love Me Tender, Jingle Bells, AND Tom Dooley.
I came home at 4:30 and both kids were glued to their respective screens, and didn’t even answer when I said hello, which means there will be a lot less TV and computer gaming going on around here in the near future. Then I had a knock-down drag-out fight with Karin over taking a bath in which I kept my temper, sort of, and in which Karin ended up in the tub with her underwear on and everything I was wearing got soaked. sigh. [bad mom moment] I can’t wait until she’s 18 and I don’t have to be responsible for her anymore. After that if she doesn’t want to take a goddamned bath, that’s fine with me. [/bad mom moment**]
It’ll be interesting to see how the next bathtime goes considering Anders is leaving again for Italy tomorrow and won’t be home until late Wednesday night. Somebody save me.
Reminds me of the shredded newspaper war I had in collage with a couple of guys on the brother floor, only way, way better: The War of the Rabbit (scroll down, her archive link doesn’t seem to be working)
*yellow wood anenome
**argh. I know. I know.