Monthly Archive: March 2010

31
Mar
2010

PASS THE CHOCOLATE

I’m a little stressed out about our 4-week vacation this summer to the States and I haven’t even done anything yet but book the flights. You would think that 4 weeks is enough time to fit in everything and everyone, right? But I’m beginning to believe that while it may be possible, it won’t be RESTFUL. I don’t want to come home from my vacation needing another vacation. The list of people we want to see is growing: my mom (of course), my brother and his wife, my sister and her family, my grandmother, my aunt & uncle and cousins...

29
Mar
2010

WHAT’S NEXT, I ASK YOU?

Trip-planning, like party-planning, gives me hives, a headache and a bad attitude. I suppose I should be thrilled at how quickly the Internet and its myriad trip-planning sites can digest the information I give it (dates, places, price requirements) and spit it back out in the form of quickly scanned multiple choice format; nothing could really be easier. However, it’s taken me 3 days and numerous howls for help to my husband and my mom to figure out the best possible combination of departures and arrivals and layovers and airlines and prices. And that was only for 3 of us;...

25
Mar
2010

THIS HAPPENED; THIS, TOO

Two words: Moose sushi That’s what I had for dinner tonight. I met up with my neighbor Catherine and her husband Nik for dinner after working late and before book group, and suggested a new sushi place in Lund that a colleague had highly recommended and it was great! They only opened a month ago, and they have 2 tables plus a couple of counters, and they’ve decorated in Early Swedish Attic and all their ingredients are local or environmentally-friendly. So, no tuna but lots of creative sushi creations which included (variously) moose, duck, apple, horseradish and red onion. DELICIOUS....

22
Mar
2010

WHERE WE BLOG FROM

There’s nothing really cozy about the place I blog from. If I were more pretentious, I’d call it the Den. Or the Study. Or the Office (which is actually kind of close to what it embodies, this room). I can’t really refer to it as the Library since there are books in every other room in the house, and this room doesn’t even win for most. It has a desk but no one studies at it. It has a rocking chair, but it’s not very comfortable. It’s the guest room when my mom is here and a sort of every-room...

21
Mar
2010

FAR-AWAY HEART

Feeling torn, feeling worn, wanting to write here but feeling as if my heart and head are elsewhere. Would I had the money and time to fly across the ocean even if just to BE there, to do what I could to help, even knowing that nothing I could do will help. Thank you all for your kind words. And thank you, thinkum for a really concrete way to BE there for my friend. I’ve spent the weekend staring at my children, hugging them a little too hard, talking to my mom, my husband, my brother and sister, writing letters...

18
Mar
2010

:(

My best and oldest friend’s son died yesterday. Just over 20 and gone. She called me today to tell me and I was so shocked and horrified I barely knew what to say to her. She told me a story once, when I was visiting them, and he was still a child, about how she had given him a hug and he had said to her, “Mommy, when you hug me, hearts fly around my head!” I can’t imagine what she’s going through. I can’t imagine anything that will help her or ease the pain or make any difference to...

15
Mar
2010

WINNING FOR LOSERS

The kids and I bought the first season of Glee on DVD on Friday night and it consists of 13 episodes and we have already watched 9 of them. Way to ration ourselves, eh? It’s been a really long time since I’ve gotten hooked on a TV show like this. I don’t think Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs count, exactly. They’re not the same kind of show. We missed the showing of the season on Swedish TV (which runs about 6 months behind the States) except for the last couple of episodes. I think the last TV show I was hooked...

12
Mar
2010

GOOD STUFF

Such clear skies tonight: frosty & chill and full of stars. The longer you stand on the frozen lawn looking up, the more stars appear in your vision. As if they’re multiplying. As if they never end. “Mom,” Martin asked me, just as we were walking back out the door after getting home, to enjoy the heavenly display for a few minutes longer, “when are the shooting stars again?” “August and November,” I answered. We still had our coats on, as we stepped from the door to the back yard. Just as we lifted our heads to the sky, all...

09
Mar
2010

HEALTH IS MERELY THE SLOWEST POSSIBLE RATE AT WHICH ONE CAN DIE

We take so much of ourselves for granted. The way our bodies work, our senses, the fact that we can reason and think and feel. In fact, we rarely give any consideration to how well things go until something goes wrong, stops functioning, changes gradually or abruptly. We don’t even catalog the amazing powers of this skin we live in until it’s suddenly sliced open by an errant edge of paper or a mis-timed knife and our attention is yanked ferociously to a heightened awareness of pain. We often don’t even realize what muscles we have until we feel them...

08
Mar
2010

SPRING IS WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE WHISTLING EVEN WITH A SHOE FULL OF SLUSH*

Martin told me I looked like a toddler today. It was because I was kicking snow and hollering “take that!” at it. It’s melting, but there’s so much of it, it’s taking forever. And it’s melting from underneath in places so that it’s hanging in lacy little ledges, tempting little wedges of rotten, diamond-bright, icy snow. If you kick it just right, with a roundhouse sort of swing to your leg, it sprays up and out in a glittering arc. Ha ha! Take that, snow! Your time is UP! He did clarify that I would look more like a toddler...

March 2010
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