REMEMBERING
Something to Read Today Even Though the Day is Nearly Over in Sweden: 9/11 (thanks to megancrane for the link)
11
Sep
2005
Yearly Archive: 2005
11
Sep
2005
HUNTING AND SHOOTING, NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER
Blue sky days…I can never have too many. Each one a gift wrapped up with a sunshine bow. Yesterday, I was privileged to meet another online friend, the inimitable Tracey Marshall. She’s a talented photographer, and an American expat living north of Gothenburg in Sweden. She and her boyfriend Tobey drove down to visit and brought the camera. Tracey is one of a handful of photographers that I admire greatly, one who also writes passionately and amusingly about her experiences adjusting to life in Sweden. In addition to her engaging online persona, in person she is friendly, talkative and charming....
10
Sep
2005
SING OF GOOD THINGS NOT BAD
I’m not a very religious person in the conventional sense of the word, but I have a reverence for spiritual settings, and there is something about singing in a church that gets me every time. It doesn’t matter whether I am singing alone or with a group. And it doesn’t matter whether the music is secular or not. It’s not so much the song as it is the SINGING. Something about the engineered raised spaces, the way the nave and the sanctuary draw your eye upward, exposing your throat and opening it up. Something about the acoustics, the way the...
08
Sep
2005
SOMETHING IN THE WIND HAS LEARNED MY NAME
Something That Made Me Giggle Today: shazzerlive reading the instructions on a package of Raspberry Chai…”Entice your water to a gentle boil…” Hee! I was interviewed today, by a newspaper! in Swedish! A journalist contacted the AWC last week, wondering if there was anyone in the club who had moved to Sweden “for love” …ho ho ho, only at least half of us, I laughed. So I called her and said, hey! I’m up for it…want to me to call some of my girlfriends? And she did, so I did and they all came today, except for Emily who hurt...
06
Sep
2005
FIRST NAME BASIS
Man, I’m tired. I’m so tired my eyes feel stretched and red and rubbery around the insides, as if my eyeballs had receded.* I felt, at 6:30 p.m, as if I could go to sleep and sleep for 24 hours. But I went back online to check email after fighting off the sleep monster for a short amount of time, and Sam has posted, and she’s okay! *happy dance* And then I wrote you all a note. Jennifer, don’t sweat the small stuff. And don’t let the big stuff ruin the good stuff. Hang in there. Carolyn, I hope and...
05
Sep
2005
GOOD THINGS
Is there anything better than friends and books and food? Don’t answer that, it was rhetorical. e11en, your surprise package was waiting for me when I got home, and I was literally floored by your kindness. Thank you so very, very much. There’s nothing better than friends, and the ones inside my computer are wonderful. (Click Here for More Night Trampoline!)
04
Sep
2005
WINDING DOWN
It seems as if the sun is setting so much faster these days, but here it is 8:30 at night and there is still a westerly glow. Maybe it’s just that we don’t notice it when the skies are overcast or it’s raining, compared with the clear and crisp weather we’ve been blessed with this week. The trees are a bit droopy, on the verge of being droppy, but they haven’t started shedding yet. Most of the fields have been cleared, and there are only a few dotted with thick wheels of hay still waiting to be collected for winter...
03
Sep
2005
REVIVAL
A morning of sleeping in was just what I needed to revive me. Awakening on my own, with no alarm incentive, rolling over and lying in the bed alone, listening to the breakfast clinks and clatters as Anders and the kids spoon up cereal. I stretch my toes, rotate my feet, feel my ankle pop a bit. The window is open and morning sunshine is slanting across the backyard, illuminating the pines and the far side of the ditch. It’s heating up and the dew has already faded. A last-of-the-season fly is desultorily buzzing about, slow and heavy. He’s not...
02
Sep
2005
THE WORST OF TIMES
Why steal TVs when there is no power? Why shoot at policemen and rescue helicopters and neighbors who planned ahead and prepared for worst-case? Why add to the hurt and the pain? Is the veneer of civilization really so thin? It’s easy to sit here, so far away, in the warmth and cozy darkness of my home, with running water and lights shining in the windows and shake my head in wonder and despair. If it was my children starving and my house in a soggy pile around me, what would I do? I wouldn’t be shooting people for their...
01
Sep
2005
NOODLE POST,* OF SORTS
I’m beginning to feel a bit like a weekend blogger. The will is there and the desire, but I can’t seem to find enough time. I don’t really want to be writing journal entry after journal entry detailing my to-do list, my crossing off of items on said to-do list, the amount of sleep I’m missing and the fact that I’m too busy to devote the time I’ve been accustomed to producing here. It’s making me feel guilty and sad that I can’t keep up these past few weeks. I’m behind on writing, on reading, and on cleaning. I hope...