Tagged: borkborkbork!

01
Jul
2006

SALT LICORICE SACRILEGE AND PUPPY LOVE

Around here, Friday evenings, and sometimes Saturdays, are known as myskväll. It’s a hard word to translate properly, since mys means, essentially, “to enjoy oneself”…but it often gets used in the sense of cozy and cuddly. As our family has interpreted it, it means staying home and gathering in the living room to watch a movie or special television program, with popcorn and candy (which is forbidden the rest of the week), and an 1.5-hour extension on bedtime. At first, the candy bags were huge, and completely out of control. But after one of Martin’s dentist visits where we discovered...

01
May
2006

TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPIN’ SLIPPIN’ SLIPPIN’ INTO THE FUTURE

I had dirt under my nails today for the first time in god knows how long. I love green and growing things but gardening? Is not one of my passions. However, in the great job jar of life, the front yard flower bed and the little bed under the kitchen window had my name on them this morning and I could no longer avoid their accusing looks. So I went out there and weeded the damn things and then I loosened and raked up all the dirt. I didn’t water because it rained ALL DAY yesterday. And then I went...

28
Apr
2006

TODAY IS THE FIRST FRIDAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE

On April 28th, 2004, the sun was shining in an electric-blue sky and Anders was gone for a week to Italy, which meant I had to take the kids with me to choir that night. On April 28th, 2005, the leaves were greening, the house was flooded with evening sunshine and an airplane had delivered a loved one safely home. Also, the children did not have headlice. On April 28th, 2006, the sun has been shining all day in an electric-blue sky, and Anders has been gone for a week to Italy, which meant I had to take the kids...

22
Mar
2006

NOT A TOP TEN LIST

Some Things I Love About Sweden: 1. that tarragon is dragon in Swedish 2. Men who can wallpaper AND change diapers AND knit AND fix the car 3. Pettson & Findus 4. barnbidrag and föräldrarledighet* 5. Rebecka, Marie and Cajsa Stina 6. The pretty, pretty money 7. Rapeseed in bloom 8. Carl Larsson 9. Mazariner, lyxbiskvi and vaniljhjärta 10. that television and films are subtitled, not dubbed 11. Moose! Hey! If I bring 4 friends on a moose safari, I get to go for free! Who’s with me?? Tell me something YOU love about Sweden! *governmental dependent subsidies and parental...

04
Feb
2006

ALL HANDS ON DECK

Sometimes I feel like my life is like the water in the ocean. Waves lap at the shore and retreat with the tides, a palette of colors and motion that stays basically the same, unchanging from day to day. But once in a while a storm blows in, and suddenly the breakers are huge and scary and the dash of spray against the cliffs is drenching everything, and things break up and float away, and it’s hard to see where the lines in the sand once were, and if I’m not careful, the undertow will grab me and pull me...

09
Jan
2006

BORK BORK BORK!

My friend brief_therapy has admitted that she can’t cook. She’s even gone so far as to PROVE it on a few occasions. So, another friend of ours, Marie ozswede MarthaStewart sent her a Cooking By Numbers website to help her out. I thought, HEY! That sounds like a good idea. You enter in the ingredients you have to work with that are currently in your fridge or your cupboard and it gives you recipes that work for those particular items. Cool, eh? Here’s my favorite. I told it I only had apples. Apple on its own – Serves 1 Ingredients:...

05
Dec
2005

STICK A FORK IN ME, I’M DONE

3 julbords in 5 days is just way too much. I’m julborded out and it’s the FIFTH of December. The Swedes eat basically the same feast for every holiday but they really pile it on for Christmas. Julbord, for those of you who have never been initiated into this particular Swedish extravaganza, is, literally, “Christmas table.” It traditionally consists of a fish course of up to THIRTY different kinds of pickled herring (herring in tomato sauce, herring in mustard sauce, herring in cream sauce, herring in dill, herring in garlic sauce, herring in onion, pickled FRIED herring, herring with you-name-it....

21
Oct
2005

EVEN IF YOU DO LEARN TO SPEAK CORRECT ENGLISH, WHOM ARE YOU GOING TO SPEAK IT TO?*

You know I must feel like hell if I actually cancel a sushi date. 🙁 Sorry, galestorm, if my throat had been any less sandpapery and my headache any less poundy I would have been there snarfing down salmon nigiri and infecting you with the heebie-jeebies for all I was worth. Bleah. *** Mom and Judy took the amazing sunshiney autumn wonderweather with them when they left. Damn it. *** I have a problem that I have brought upon myself, sort of, and I don’t really know what to do about it. See, we use the OPOL method at home...

15
Sep
2005

THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE A FRIEND IS TO BE ONE*

Half an hour south from us, the leaves on the chestnut trees are singed with brown around the edges; autumn in the hems. The lights are on in the sugar beet factory although the chimneys are not yet pouring sugar-smoke into the darkening evenings. It’s dark when I arrive for choir practice, or nearly, and the lights in the fountains of Pildammsparken glow unearthly across the water. It’s dark when I drive home, the choral-aid CD for the concert plunking out an alto harmony in monochromatic style. It’s dark when I drag my reluctant self out of bed in the...

25
Jun
2005

MIDSUMMER MADNESS

The weather cooperated and for one of the very few times in the 8 midsummers I’ve celebrated in Sweden, everything went off just right under a warm summer sun. Everywhere you looked, blue and yellow flags and pennants were snapping gaily in the breeze. We met up with a group of Anders’ old friends in Älmhult, a little village 2 hours north of us, and celebrated a compleat midsummer, rife with the smell of strawberries, wildflowers and sunshine. We joined the village celebration and were treated to accordion music, the sight of ladies young and old sporting flower wreaths in...

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