Author: lizardek

17
Dec
2012

IT’S BEGINNING

Our washing machine is trying to escape. Every time it hits the spin cycle, it vibrates so ferociously that it moves forward at least a foot. “Back!” I say, when I come in to check how far it’s gotten, “Back, I say!” and I manhandle it back into its space under the counter. Then it hits the next spin cycle and lurches forward again. We can hear it all through the house. I’m on load 3 of packing preparation. Packing hasn’t actually commenced, though suitcases have been brought down by (protesting) children from the attic. I refuse to go up...

16
Dec
2012

SAYING IT BETTER

I’ve been too busy and too tired and now too sad to write. I just read this and it says everything I’m feeling about what happened in Connecticut a few days ago: http://truefornow.livejournal.com/111441.html As usual, someone else says it better. Thank goodness, there are others who can write & say what we are all feeling. To be honest, I don’t understand why anyone thinks it’s a good idea to have mass availability to guns. There is nothing but heartbreak and despair down the barrel of a gun and anyone who thinks otherwise is insane on some level that I have,...

09
Dec
2012

BIRTHDAY BOY

Friday was Martin’s birthday…his fifteenth. Normally I don’t think of 15 as being any sort of “special” birthday…it’s just another year past 14. It’s not the first time he’s in double digits or the first teen or a legal milestone like 18 or 21. But here in Sweden it’s both the age of consent and the age of criminal responsibility, meaning that 15-year-olds are old enough to have sex and also to be punished for any crimes they might commit, though I’m not sure if the punishments are equal in severity to what a legal adult might receive. Martin called...

05
Dec
2012

AUTO KNOW BETTER

I keep meaning to write, but when I look up from whatever it is I am currently working on so I can cross it off my to-do list, it’s after 10 and I need to go to bed. I keep meaning to read, but that darn to-do list squeezes out new items when I’m not looking and grows again. I keep meaning to get things done, but first I have to do this, and before this, I have to do that, and before that, well, let’s just say that it squeezes in both directions. Every time I looked out the...

02
Dec
2012

PREP WORK

We went to see Skyfall tonight, finally. We enjoy the Bond films and the kids have pretty much grown up on them. It snowed today, for the first time this year; we woke up to a powdered sugar coating but it melted during the day when the sun came out, though it never actually warmed up. More snow when we left the theater, having to struggle to get the door open as it was blocked by a group of young adults ensconced in sleeping bags and camp chairs, all waiting for tickets to The Hobbit to go on sale. I’m...

29
Nov
2012

EVERY POST SHOULD HAVE COOKIES & BOOKS

I just wrote down a list of every day between tomorrow and the day we leave for the States and nearly every day has something scheduled. I don’t feel ready for the holidays at all. I’ve barely bought any presents and we still have to figure out when to celebrate with Anders’ family…it will probably have to be beforehand, but it feels too early and I’m not ready! How will I find time to do Christmas cards and a Christmas letter and presents and then we have to pack! Eek! Everything is zooming along, every day zooms from start to...

23
Nov
2012

THINGS TO DO

….and suddenly it’s Friday again and an entire week has gone up in ether. It’s been a particularly crazy one, it seems, though it wasn’t REALLY anything out of the ordinary. Karin was sick on Monday with a sore throat and head cold and Martin was sick on Wednesday with an upset stomach. Martin and I went to a gymnasium open house at Kathedralskolan in Lund and now he’s considering IB again for which I’m glad, and today we went to his half-year parent-teacher conference and he has some things that haven’t been turned in which is risking major bad...

15
Nov
2012

DARK DAYS

I’m feeling the lack of light these days; after nearly 16 years here perhaps I shouldn’t rule out the very real possibility of seasonal affective disorder, though I still manage to peel myself out of bed each morning when the alarm rings. Even with the clock bumped back an hour recently, the constant cloud cover means that it’s dark in the morning when I rise and dark already in the early evening when I leave the office. I’m not depressed, just a bit down. Today when I drove home from work, after picking up Martin at school, we took the...

10
Nov
2012

GOOSE CHASE

I feel like writing, so here I am. Not that I have anything particular to talk about, but so what? That shouldn’t ever stop a blogger, right? I look at the little calendar at the top right hand side of my blog and see that I have only blogged twice this month: pathetic. It seems to be a good month if I manage to write once a week. How will I remember anything if I don’t write it down? I already have plenty of evidence about how threadbare the net of memory has become. We ate a Mårtensgås dinner at...

09
Nov
2012

LON-DONE

Trying to wrangle 30 people, over half of whom are teenagers, through across over and around a major city is a lot like herding cats. A HERD of cats, in fact. Sometimes I was reminded of a spastic octopus wherein legs and tangents shoot out in all directions and have to be reeled in. At other times, I was reminded of a very lethargic amoeba who was plasticly and constantly stretching out and smooshing back together, as we stretched and smooshed our slow way from block to block. Usually I was either far in the front of the majority, frustratedly...

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