Monthly Archive: May 2014

28
May
2014

BLUE SKIES & LONG WEEKENDS

O! Long weekend, how I am happy to see you! It’s Wednesday evening, a half-day today that ended even earlier since I had a doctor’s appointment to get my hurty shoulder checked out (inflammation, referral to naprapat, possible cortisone injection if that doesn’t work) at 11:30. The wind was blowing hard this morning but now it’s cool and still and the sky is so blue it hurts…not a cloud in sight. We have no plans for the weekend to go anywhere or do anything special…though some of us have things we want to do. Anders is going biking with friends...

25
May
2014

FULL OF WONDER

As always, in the spring, all the gorgeous colors and blooming madness everywhere make me grab for my camera. I notice, especially when driving, how much closer in everything is…the horizon is harder to see, grass and fields and trees hide the far corners of the sky. The bones of the world are covered in greenery and it’s all so THICK. Usually I prefer photos of people, and I’ve taken some of those too, but I wanted to gather some of the flower photos here, a pictorial paean to spring. The horse across the ditch got curious when we were...

20
May
2014

NILS EINAR EK, 1926-2014

I’ve been to four funerals in Sweden. And four in the US, if I remember correctly: my father, his mother, her housekeeper’s husband, and my maternal grandfather. Here in Sweden, the funerals were for the wife of one of Anders’ friends, the girlfriend of his uncle, my friend Carol, and now Anders’ father. We spent most of the day in Oxie, at the church and the congregation home afterwards. The church is tiny and whitewashed, from the 12th century…it’s Malmö county’s oldest church. Anders was five when his parents moved to Oxie; his sister was 3. They only moved to...

17
May
2014

IN BRIGHTNESS

The air is full of flying, floating things. If it were winter, I’d suspect snow but since it’s a beautiful, hot, late-spring day, a closer look tells me most of it is dandelion fluff or maybe milkweed puffs. They move with seeming purpose, skimming sideways, caught on every waft of air. Some ARE actually moving under their own power—insects: butterflies, gnats, tiny beetles, spider younglings, the small flying lives that populate the world, mostly unseen until the sun illuminates their journey. The air shines silver on the tops of the green hedges. Trees, even the lawn shimmers under the force...

12
May
2014

IN THE MIDDLE OF MAY

Karin stayed home sick again today: another sore throat. She missed two days of school last week, and I suspect she’ll be home tomorrow, too. She’s zombied out on the couch, didn’t even wake up for dinner, so I know she’s REALLY not feeling well. I took her to the clinic this morning, because after she said that her throat was hurting really bad and the glands were really swollen I thought, what the hell? and printed out the absentee record. She missed 6 days of school in the last 20 weeks, 7 if you count today. All for sore...

07
May
2014

THINGS I AM THINKING ABOUT

The yellow of the rapeseed. The horses out back. The black cat that hangs out on the neighbor’s porch across the street but never seems to get let inside. The fact that the lilacs are almost here. ALMOST! The way the sky went blue and the clouds went puff and the rain went away. The way the lights bends down to bless us in the evening. The funeral for Anders’ father. Weight-loss. Walking. Surgery. Eye infections. The fact that Karin stayed home with a sore throat again today for the 45,589,382,411th time this year. The fact that I have to...

01
May
2014

ALWAYS TOO SOON

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks since I last wrote anything, with work filling up my brain and renovation projects at home squirreling in around the edges. Last weekend we did a big shop at IKEA and bought 3 new bookshelves for the computer room to replace the ones that have moved out to the garage storage. And yesterday I picked up another one from my friend Debbie, a skinnier model. So that made 3.5 new bookshelves to fill and organize. I started earlier in the week but finished it up today and everything looks nice and new and...

May 2014
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