There’s no real coherency here, just observations and dribs and drabs of thought, as if my brain were a giant mixer and someone’s set it on permanent pulse. It’s like the damn dishwasher. Something is wrong with it and it stops in the cycle every 2 minutes and one has to come and restart it each time. After half an hour of this, it will run for awhile and then start the whole stop-and-start cycle again until the bitter end. What does it want from me? Just SOME ATTENTION??
Anders is in Italy again this week. He was there 2 weeks ago (for a week) and will be gone all this week, and then again for the first 2 weeks of April. I knew when he started this job that his travel time was going to increase; double, in fact, with all likelihood, though when it was under discussion it certainly seemed worth the price of his getting a job that he THRIVED in. But single-parenting is sure no fun and I miss him when he’s gone even though he returns bearing Italian sausage (haaa! get your minds out of the gutter) and pasta and other goodies.
It’s funny how my brain is running on ahead of itself, thinking of things that need to be done in preparation for my trip to the US that is still WEEKS away. I think: I have to make lists! I have to go through my cabinets and see what I need to pick up at Target. I have to think of hostess gifts and of buying enough chocolate to satisfy the entire office when I show up for work the first day, totally jet-lagged. It would be fun to work in America again, I think. Sometimes. Though the pace of working life there would probably kill me now. I know how good I’ve got it here in Sweden, but sometimes I think it would be great to move back and work there again.
My brain says I need to make a list of the children’s books so that I don’t buy duplicates when I’m there. It says I need to print out copies of my book lists and music I want and toiletries and cosmetics and clothing my family needs. My brain says it’s heard that iPods are cheaper in the States. My brain says I need to think about Christmas gifts, for crying out loud. Geez! Shut up, brain! Do you think I’m made of money?? I won’t have any money since it will probably be spent on a new DISHWASHER.
Which I have gotten up and re-started, during the writing of this post, I kid you not, no less than 42 times.
My brain says I should go lie down now. But I’m not done talking, so there.
Martin had chess club tonight in Södra Sandby, so Karin and I dropped him off and then went for a walk. We got completely lost and ended up discovering that we’d gone in a giant circle ending up coming from exactly the opposite direction we’d started out in, halfway across town. Despite the fact that S. Sandby is the next town over, where we regularly grocery shop and where our bank is, and where the kids had swimming classes, and where we take the recycleables, and where we will now (Hallelujah!) be able to pick up packages, I’ve never spent much time in it otherwise. I’ve certainly never really walked anywhere in it.
Karin and I passed lots of ducks and a very burbly fast-moving stream. It was too big to be called a creek but wasn’t really big enough to be called a river. We ended up crossing it several times in the course of our wandering circle. We saw a black cat sitting watching us from amidst a thicket and lots of people out walking their dogs. As we approached each intersection or branching, I asked her which way to go and we strode along quite happily; she was always a little way ahead of me (she “wins” that way, you see). It was fun and the best part? It was LIGHT all the way until we got back to the community center at 6:40 p.m.!
Martin is going walking with me on Wednesday evening after we drop off Karin at karate and we’ll see what we can do about getting lost in Eslöv again this time. I guess single-parenting has its good sides.
*Edward Abbey