Tagged: culturalquagmire

22
Apr
2023

GONE TOO LONG

I put together a list of things that struck me as weird while I was in the States. I dictated it to my sister during our road trip, because it had been taking up space in my brain for the first 3 weeks I was “home” but I hadn’t yet written it down or, really, formulated, what was so weird about these things. Some of these things are maybe specific to the Carolinas, or the South, but both of those things are just smaller subsets of things that struck me about being back in the USA after such a long...

10
Jan
2023

HALF MY LIFE

26 years ago today, I boarded a plane and left the US for Sweden. I arrived the next morning (January 11) and went straight to the hospital with Anders to see his sister, whose oldest child Henrik was born the day before I arrived. Everything about it was pretty much a blur, though I remember being impressed with the “patient hotel” that Maria was roomed in. I never got to stay in a patient hotel myself, when my kids were born, since they were both C-section babies, and major abdominal surgery requires that you stay in the ward. We already...

24
Apr
2021

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

About a week ago, I started a post with this sentence: Man, it’s *crickets* around here. It never even occurred to me how very specific that particular phrase is. To English-speakers, of a certain age, and a certain kind. And also how recent its use is. yourdictionary.com gives this definition: (US slang, humorous or derisive) Absolute silence; no communication. Derived from the cinematic metaphor of chirping crickets at night, signaling (otherwise) complete quiet. May be used alone or in metaphorically descriptive phrases. Merriam-Webster has a whole page in their “Words we’re watching” site dedicated to it…because it’s a word that...

04
Jul
2020

PATRIOT ACT

It’s the 4th of July today but we aren’t celebrating. We had tentative plans to attend a social distancing picnic with the AWC at the beach, but the weather and pandemic fears caused it to be cancelled anyway. It’s been raining steadily all day, an unending downpour in various degrees of severity from drizzle to hard-enough-to-bounce off the asphalt. Ah well, the lawn needed the water. Despite the rain, we were super busy today. Anders was up and out of the house before 8 am to fetch a rented trailer van and as soon as he came back we filled...

28
Sep
2019

SPEAKING OF WHICH

Years ago, a friend who was a teacher asked me to speak to her English students about my thoughts and opinions of living in Sweden. I don’t remember much about it, except that I stood in front of a class of high school kids and told them what my experiences were and answered their questions. My kids were small then, and I had only been in Sweden for a handful of years or so. Now, I’ve lived here for nearly 23 years. My kids are, to all intents and purposes, grown and heading out on their own adult journeys. They...

24
Jun
2019

SWEDISH EVERY WHICH WAY

If the first part of this year is any indication…heck, if the first part of this LIFE is any indication, the rest of this year will fly by and I’ll be left gaping at the fact that it’s Christmas time YET AGAIN. I’ve been gone for 2 weeks and even though I managed to post quickly last Monday before we zoomed off again to Stockholm for a week of city and sun and Swedishness, it feels like I’ve not really had a chance to sit down and gather my thoughts here. We had a lovely week, despite some bobbles at...

20
Apr
2019

SPRINGY WEEKEND WITH EXTRA TISSUES

If I did internet quizzes, which I don’t and neither should you, the one I would be providing right now, for your pleasure and edification, is “Which one of the Seven Dwarves is Liz?” Hint: I do not have a medical degree, and while I DO like to sleep in, Sleepy is not the correct answer either. I thought, after the interminable 3 weeks in March where I would have preferred to actually remove my eyeballs from my head rather than endure one more minute of unbearable itching, that I was done, HA HA HA, with allergy symptoms for the...

05
Apr
2019

WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT

I recently saw an article about common words and phrases that have racist origins and it really got me thinking about how language gets whitewashed (heh) with time. When I tried to find the article again so I could reference it more easily, it turns out that there are LOTS of articles online about such words and sayings. Many of them are so commonplace today with such a wide usage that it’s hard to believe they had an unpleasant beginning. One of my college roommates wrote not too long ago about a vivid memory she has of playing Euchre with...

26
Mar
2019

AUGH AND HMMM AND YAY

I was at the AWC monthly meeting yesterday evening, and it was the first time in 3 months that I didn’t have to run it because the woman that is our President is back from her 3-month sojourn in the US. She went home abruptly right after Christmas as her dad was dying, and ended up staying until this past weekend. She’s a powerhouse and we’ve really missed her, especially on the board. And especially as right after she returned, she got THREE messages, from ALL THREE of our Activities officers saying they are 1) stepping down immediately due to...

24
Feb
2019

LIZ IN LISBON

We were supposed to be three friends going to Lisbon but Camilla was super sick the whole week before and on Friday, 2 days before we were to leave, she called Debbie and I and told us she was probably not going to go since she was still so poorly. WAAH! What a bummer. She was able to get her airline ticket refunded but it ended up being just Debbie and I headng to to Portugal last Sunday. Despite our disappointment about Camillla’s absence, we managed to have a good time. I had so many people tell me how great...

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