Monthly Archive: November 2004

30
Nov
2004

GOING, GOING, GONE

There are people everywhere. I doubt there are very many places left in the world now where you can walk very far without coming across the obvious spoors of mankind. Tracks, roads, garbage washed up on the beach, cultivation, jet trails across the sky, we’re taking over. Not long ago I read an article that claimed the earth would run out of oil and gas within the next 30-50 years. I keep foreseeing a science fiction future of no grass, no trees, no animals except pets and domesticated breeds for slaughter and it’s in my lifetime. All the little villages...

29
Nov
2004

GOBBLED

Whoa! Having houseguests and a huge dinner party makes it easy to miss posting on your journal! You would think that we took it pretty easy yesterday but you’d be wrong. Well, you’d be half wrong. Anders got the Advent lights put up and all the Christmas decorations down from the attic so that I can start decorating at my leisure. Leisure! *snort* She said leisure! While John and I went to drop Martin off at a birthday party (the boy he doesn’t like, if you remember, whom he subsequently got into a fight with AT THE BIRTHDAY PARTY) and...

28
Nov
2004

I WON!

Muahahahaha! I did it! With ozswede‘s inestimable help, we bad-copped, good-copped my brother into starting an LJ! A great big welcome to johann_metzger! Woo hoo, Mom & Sarah, you’re next! 😀

27
Nov
2004

MAKING MERRY

We are having so much fun! My brother and Simone are here and she not only brought sushi with her on Thursday but she and John made chicken casseroles yesterday for dinner. 🙂 Unfortunately, one of them got overturned in a casserole catastrophe, but the other 2 were great. 🙂 ozswede and tallefjant arrived last night, along with little Lambi and Bruce & Sheila (the birds) so we have a very lively household at the moment. Thanksgiving dinner preparations are in full swing. The turkeys were done last night and the rest of the guests are arriving at 5 p.m....

26
Nov
2004

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

One of the ghost stories that stuck with me from childhood was The Monkey’s Paw. It’s the story of a well-intentioned wish gone horribly wrong. I’ve read other such stories that also send a twisting shock back on the wisher in one form or another. Once, when asked what I would wish for if I could have any wish, I thought a good one would be to have back everything I had ever mislaid or lost or had stolen from me. The friend who asked me the question, upon hearing my answer, said something that made me stop and shudder,...

25
Nov
2004

THINGS FOR WHICH I AM THANKFUL

that my addictions do not include reality television or computer games that my children are healthy, intelligent and well-behaved in public that my paycheck was really big this month relieving the usual Xmas-and-end-of-year-bills worries that our house is so nice and so warm that I’ll have friends and family to eat turkey and stuffing with this weekend that my husband is coming home tomorrow and wasn’t in the area of the earthquake that hit northern Italy last night that when I cleaned out my closet last weekend I didn’t end up documenting the shame on the internet that Sophie wasn’t...

24
Nov
2004

SOME LARGER WAY WHERE MANY PATHS AND ERRANDS MEET*

I could never be a single parent. Well, I mean I could if I had to (and do on occasion), but I wouldn’t be very good at it, and I would hate it. I hate it when Anders is gone for more than a day at a time. We have such a good division of labor where the kids are concerned that I get grumpy and unsettled when he’s not here and I have to pick up the slack and do his part. Can you believe this week I have to do EVERYTHING? *insert pity party noises here* I miss...

23
Nov
2004

HEADACHE

I have a brain full of post-it notes. I’ve read psychology studies that say it’s a woman thing, this multi-tasking we do on a mental level. I’ve trained myself to crumple the mental post-its up and throw them away whenever I write the item down on a real live physical list or cross something off my mental to-do list, but even then little brain gremlins are grabbing them from the floor, smoothing them out lovingly and filing them away so that if something happens to the REAL list, I can retrieve the post-it note from the archives. At any given...

22
Nov
2004

AT LENGTH

Oh, the weather outside is frightful! And I’m at work which isn’t quite delightful, but since I need to learn to be careful what I wish for, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! The fog has clumped in with big wet feet, smothering the wind, following the rain, a snow wannabe. We had a right blizzard this morning, and it took me forever to get to work since we got a late start and then I had to drop Anders off at work before heading through the traffic jam that was Lund this morning. Does snow lower...

21
Nov
2004

CLEANING SPREE

I am so damned productive it’s not even funny. This weekend has been a whirlwind of activity, and crossing things off to-do lists. My mother-in-law is here today helping me clean the house (they’re eating lunch while I write this). Yesterday I filled four big paper bags with clothes from my closet to take to the Swedish Salvation Army, and was very proud of myself because I managed to release several garments that I have been hanging on to for YEARS. Now I just have to get Anders to clean up and sort through HIS clothes and I’ll feel quite...