I can’t keep up this week. Cracking Me Up: On a Lighter Note… Can’t Stop Staring: Cold Water

Anders is watching Jägarna,* a Swedish movie starring Rolf Lassgård and Helena Bergström, whom I normally really like when they’re together in movies. It’s on Swedish TV regularly, but after watching a short portion of it once and finding it extremely distasteful, I’ve never bothered to watch the whole thing. So when I realized what movie it was, I asked Anders just now, “oh, is that the movie with the hunters and the horrible things and the mean people and the killing and ickiness?” and Anders gave me this sort of very patient guy look and said, “well, yes, I...

My mother-in-law fell badly yesterday, the 2nd time it’s happened. The first was 2 Christmases ago, right as we arrived to celebrate her birthday with dinner, when she slipped on the kitchen rug and fell, hitting her head severely. This time it happened while she was walking to the building where she weaves. She doesn’t remember tripping over anything and it wasn’t ice or snow at that point, but regardless she fell, hit her head again, and sprained her wrist, lying there on the sidewalk for some time before managing to get up and get to the weavery. She and...

My father’s: a lion-headed meerschaum pipe, tinged a warm golden brown, nestled in the velvet lining of a worn black leather pipe-shaped case. His father’s: a photo of himself as a small child in a white smock sitting astride a tall black ostrich, reins in hand, one small foot dangling. His mother’s: a snub-footed footstool, rounded in beige plush, a needlepoint bouquet in muted colors centered for resting feet. Her mother’s: a large tarnished silver brooch, its circled edge framing a standing waterbird with one wing raised, a smaller bird crouching beneath. My mother’s: a doll-sized china teapot, teacup and...

My son is a snaggletooth boy these days. His adult teeth are coming in with a vengeance, both top and bottom, pushing his tiny, pearly baby teeth willy-nilly about in his mouth. They lean drunkenly against each other, waggling at the touch of a tongue or a probing finger, the gaps between them widening and narrowing with each wiggled test. He actually brushed one out the other night, while preparing for bed, but wasn’t fast enough to prevent it washing down the drain of the sink, so the tooth fairy was forced to go home empty-handed after dropping her bright...

Next year, do not go on vacation the week before the biggest trade show of the year and the week before 4 major publications need to go to print. 11-hour day today. I am totally beat. Expat Bloggers in the News! Blogging’s Cure For the Expat Blues (thanks for the link studiozoe…can I say I knew you when?)

I have now had a mountain fix. Mountains AND snow to be exact. The snow in Bavaria is so SNOWY. It’s 2 feet, nay, 3 feet deep and white white white WHITE. It’s fluffinated, caked on candy coating, sugar puff loveliness. And there are fairytale castles there, and mountains. O mountains! covered in conifers and frost-blasted, fog-sweatered trees. We spent the last day of our vacation frantically whisking ourselves around and about because 4 days of foot-pain-induced relative immobility gets old SO damn fast and I was determined to get out of the house at least one day and see...

I can walk! Well, I can hobble! Without a crutch, even, if I take it slow. Although, using one crutch helps a lot. My entire right heel and the top of my foot are a delicate cyan blue, and I´m filled with cabin fever after having been mostly prone for the last 4 days. Everyone else has been skiing every day since Sunday, and today John and Anders went to St. Anton in Austria, leaving me homebound with the kids. Simone is at work, but gets home early today. Vacation is really boring when you can´t get out of the...

2 hours sitting on the runway, in the very last seats which were right next to the constant engine running and didn´t recline, plus 1.5 flight, plus no wheelchair to meet me when departing, meaning I had to hobble UP a long ramp and down a hall, while my hip and butt cramped and my leg threatened to collapse under me to where the cart was waiting, plus a 2 hour drive through the snow-covered landscape and darkness, plus getting lost in Füssen because we couldn´t read the poorly-lit roadsigns and having no access on the mobile phones, and finally...

Look at this! Love is in the air! It’s everywhere! And it’s WONDERFUL! Really Great LOVE Writing Out There Right Now: My Heart Wears a Letterman Sweater The Birthday Boy Love Letter Who do you love? Why don’cha tell me about it? Anders is picking me up in about 15 minutes, with sushi in hand,* and we are going to get the kids, go home, pack the car, eat dinner, and head on out. The weather could be better for flying, but my foot doesn’t hurt too much when I press down on it now. And I get to ride...