Yearly Archive: 2008

14
Aug
2008

IT’S HUGE, EUGENE!

I don’t know why I’m continually surprised that southern Germany is so lush and green. There are endless fields of grass and pasturage and every village and town sports buildings layered with flower boxes in storied rows, filled to overflowing with geraniums and petunias. John and Simone have a garden now, for the first time, and it’s their passion and delight. They’ve built a raised bed rock-wall herb garden and filled a large patch with vegetables and a second one with flowers for cutting so that Simone can have fresh flowers in the house cycling constantly through the summer season....

12
Aug
2008

EACH TIME SOMEONE SHOWS THAT HE CARES

The day we walked around Paris was boiling hot. The sun beat down and baked the city to a fine simmer and the white dust of the Jardin des Tuileries rose up and coated the trees silver and dusted the tourists. The Garden is 63 acres and was designed by landscape artist, Andre Le Notre in 1664 (he was also responsible for the park at Versailles); it still looks much like his original design. We entered at the end by the Place de la Concorde and walked all the way through to the Louvre. Because it was such a relentlessly...

11
Aug
2008

BORTA BRA MEN HEMMA BÄST

I can think of much better ways of spending my birthday than 7 hours of nausea and fever in the car, culminating with a bout of stomach flu. Regardless, now we are back and I am oh so glad to be here. Sweden, even with a thick cloud cover and pouring rain, never looked so good as when we crossed the bridge from Denmark and knew we were nearly home. Although maybe it was partly the comparison with eastern Germany where we spent the weekend that helped. We left my brother’s place on Friday and drove to a little town...

06
Aug
2008

DANCE UPON THE MOUNTAINS LIKE A FLAME

It’s 8 o’clock in the evening and the church bells just rang in the little white church tower with the verdigris onion top that I can see out the window, across the pasture. They ring on the hour, but they don’t necessarily count it…this time there were only 5 bongs. This morning at 6 a.m., as on most mornings, there were, like, TWENTY bongs. It’s a crapshoot, apparently. And sometimes the bell peals out again at a quarter after, just to see if you’re paying attention. This is what I see from the window: the crossed wooden bars of the...

05
Aug
2008

EUROPEAN VACATION

It’s hard to get writing again when so much time has gone by and all of it crammed with things you want to remember. I’ve thought about posting several times in the last few days but wasn’t able to motivate myself that last little necessary bit. There was always something to do, or someplace to go, but today the clouds are hanging low and heavy white over the Alps and the wind is rising; we might see another spectacular thunderstorm before the day is over, they seem to be a specialty down here. 3 days in Paris wasn’t long enough,...

31
Jul
2008

ON THE ROAD

Not dead, traveling! We were in Paris for 3 days and are now in Germany visiting my brother. More soon when I get a chance. 🙂

23
Jul
2008

EVERY DAY IS A JOURNEY AND THE JOURNEY ITSELF IS HOME*

Bring up moving in conversation and it jump-starts things. People either love to do it or hate it with a passion, it seems. Even talking about packing and/or unpacking in conjunction with a trip raises all sorts of sympathetic flutters and groans of compassion. I’ve always liked packing and unpacking. There’s something very Christmassy about it. When it’s for a trip, packing is like wrapping up presents to give to yourself during vacation or traveling. And when it’s for moving, unpacking is all about opening great big boxes of presents you haven’t seen in awhile, and giving yourself the gift...

20
Jul
2008

ONCE REMOVED

Today made me miss my family terribly. We hosted a sort of mini family reunion with a couple of Anders’ cousins and their kids…cousins that he hasn’t seen for 25 years (despite the fact that they only live about 1.5 hours away), and that I’ve never met either, despite having lived here for 11.5 years. They had another get-together some years ago, but we were out of town and couldn’t make it. Anders’ mom was the youngest of 12 siblings (she was 25 years younger than her oldest sibling…I’ll just pause for a moment while you contemplate the horror there)...

17
Jul
2008

STUPID HUMAN TRICKS

I’ve talked about my freaky kids before. They’ve got quite a bag of stupid human tricks between them. Karin can splay her toes abnormally wide and pinch with them. They can both roll their tongues, and Karin can turn hers over to the left or right or from the front down under. Martin can vibrate his eyes (I used to be able to do that, too, but found it started hurting to do it as I got older). Karin recently discovered she can also do the tongue flower! I shudder to think what effect she’ll have on the boys when...

15
Jul
2008

REMINDING MYSELF THAT ATTITUDE IS ALL IN WHAT YOU FOCUS ON

Things I am loving right now: ♥ A thought-provoking and challenging book by a favorite author ♥ Being able to find things when I want them ♥ The sound of crickets in the evening ♥ The way the air cools down at night and breezes gently through the house ♥ Nearing the climax, chapter by chapter, in a gripping story that I’m reading aloud to the kids at bedtime ♥ The way they both groan and say “Keep reading, mommy!” when I reach the end of the chapter and put the book down ♥ Open-faced mini pavés with ham &...

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