Lizardek

03
Nov
2011

WELL VERSED

My cousin Cate jokes about Inappropriate Movie Night which she’s ended up at more than once, taking her young daughter along to a film that turned out to be…more adult than she had bargained for. Anders and I have accidentally had the same thing happen to us more than once ourselves, getting all excited about showing an old film for a Friday night family myskväll that we remember as being great (and that usually WAS great), but which turns out to be…more adult than we remembered. A Fish Called Wanda, for example, which both my kids still cite as a...

02
Nov
2011

NOT EVEN 15 MINUTES OF FAME BUT I’LL TAKE WHAT I CAN GET

I had a phone call early this morning as I was getting ready for work. Karin had spent the night at a friend’s house (she & Martin are on Fall Break) and Anders had just left to go pick her up and drive her to an all-day soccer tournament somewhere. I figured it was Anders calling to remind me about something. It was Sveriges Radio, the local public radio station broadcasting from Malmö. They were wondering if I would be agreeable to being on the program in FIVE MINUTES to talk a bit about Halloween and trick-or-treating, since I’m apparently...

01
Nov
2011

WRITE, RIGHT?

I think I shall unofficially NaBloPoMo if I can manage it; we will see. Does anyone still do this anymore? Does anyone stilll do the NaNoWriMo anymore? I haven’t seen a thing about either one this year. And I’ve never done either, though back when I first started journaling online, lo these many years ago, I DID write nearly every day. Sometimes twice! Of course, it seems the inverse ratio of quality versus quantity decreases steadily, but what the hey, it’s better than not writing at all, right? I don’t plan on signing up or adding my name to any...

30
Oct
2011

MAKING IT THROUGH AND MOVING FORWARD

Well, I made it through 2 Anders-less weeks! He made it home this afternoon and we’re all together again, for which I am very glad. His suitcase was overweight though and he had to pay a fortune in fees, which means my 4 cans of Campbells soups cost approximately $17 dollars each. SUCK. We are dogsitting London, my cousin Cate’s dog this week, while they are in Dubai. They are, like, the 4th people I know that have recently gone to Dubai. This, despite Reykjavik coming in first as travel destination of the year for 2012. (We’re so ahead of...

25
Oct
2011

JUST ANOTHER MANIC …WAIT, WHAT DAY IS THIS?

Last week was crazy, this week is, if anything crazier. I feel like I go go go from 6:15 in the morning when the alarm shrills to 11:30 pm when I finally get my brain to turn off and actually fall asleep. Work is nuts, life is nuts. Am I nuts yet? It sure feels like it. Yesterday was supposed to be the only day that we didn’t have something in the evening, but it suddenly filled up with unexpected stuff and I did an excellent imitation of a chicken running around with my head cut off only I wasn’t...

24
Oct
2011

MARVELOUS CARVERS

How many more years will I get to enjoy this part of Halloween WITH my kids? Martin is nearly 14, Karin 12…time flies so fast and when I look back at all the years of jack o’lanterns I can’t help but hope there are still a lot more in our future. This was the first time that I handed everything to the kids: spoons, knives, bags, ideas and let them have at it. I helped out with the hard parts and stuck knives and tiny teeth cuts here and there but mostly they did it all from start to finish....

23
Oct
2011

HALLOWEEKEND

This has been a very Halloweenie-weekend. Karin had a girlfriend over to spend the night on Friday who wasn’t going home until late afternoon on Saturday and to stave off any whining about having nothing to do, after breakfast I got out the meager bag of Halloween decorations (which include toilet-paper ghosts made by the kids when they were around 4 years old) and told them to have at it. They had a great time decorating the kitchen and little hallway, hanging ghosts from the ceiling lamps and paper pumpkin strings across the bay window in the kitchen. They found...

18
Oct
2011

HOW TO DATE YOURSELF

Watched a DVD with the kids last night that contained the first 3 episodes from the TV series Bewitched, which I used to LOVE. They were…ASTOUNDED by the special effects. I thought Elizabeth Montgomery was great, and I must have heard back in 1995 that she had died of cancer, but I didn’t remember it so I was a little sad when I googled her last night and found out she’d passed away at 62. Do you remember when Dick York was just quietly replaced with Dick Sargent and nobody seemed to notice? I was too young to pay attention,...

16
Oct
2011

SPUN ABOUT

Wait, where did the week go?? Anders leaves for Texas tomorrow (for 2 weeks, wah!) and to make it worse his taxi is coming at 3:00 a.m which means he has to get up at 2:30 A.M. and his being gone means I have to get up 25 minutes earlier every school day in order to get Karin moving on time. It’s been a crazy week and I’m having trouble remembering what exactly I did that made it so crazy. Busy, yes, but unusually so? No. I saw the naprapat again and while the pain in my shoulder, arm and...

09
Oct
2011

BLAHGUM

Martin and I were talking, while taking turns mowing the lawn (though, to be fair, he did the lion’s share) about how the other day in school one of his classmates complained that he was always using fancy words, and why couldn’t he just use regular words like the rest of us? I asked him what fancy word he used that caused the complaint and he said, “Ecological”. Which, to be fair, has 5 syllables, which I pointed out to him, (during one of my numerous pauses to rest on the handlebars of the evil push-mower). So I asked him,...