Tagged: martinbean

08
Sep
2008

IT GETS SO LATE AROUND HERE

The days just whiz by. Sometimes at the ends of them, I suddenly stop what I’m doing, and give a little shake of my head, blinking a bit, wondering, “What just happened? What have I been doing all day?” when the truth is life keeps motoring along whether I’m consciously partaking or not. Living on autopilot is a bad habit. Some things I have listed quickly so I wouldn’t forget to talk about them: Dirty Jobs, election ballot, rotating CDs, spider season, weird mom. Then I look at the list, a list of things that I kind of mentally wrote...

15
Feb
2008

LIGHTENING UP

Amazing how Friday comes along all bouncy and sunny and nonchalant; all “what cryck in the neck? what? where? hey! vanilla hearts for Friday fika! Awesome, dude!” and then I got a lot done at work and I left on time and the sun was shining and we went out for sushi and it was gooood and then we went and bought a bunch of junk food and there might have been melty brie and crackers involved and then we…I mean I…oogled Viggo for an hour and a half while simultaneously fending off questions from concerned fellow watchers: “Does he...

12
Jan
2008

AS USUAL: WALKING, WRITING, WORKING, READING, LAUGHING

This was today’s Treasure Hunt Walk list: someone smiling a 4-legged animal (not a dog) a man in a hat something purple flowers a truck a bicycle the letter X 2 triangles Martin made me laugh before we’d even left the neighborhood by quickly drawing an X and 2 triangles on the page and then he grinned up at me and said “You’re smiling!” but I called him a Cheater Peter and squashed him good. He used house roofs for the triangles and the man in the hat was eventually supplied by a garden gnome with a bright red hood....

01
Jan
2008

WALKING AND TALKING

Best way to end a year: enjoying the first sunny day in WEEKS, then driving under a clear crystal-studded sky to spend an evening with good friends, including some not met in far too long. Handing lit sparklers to a wide-eyed child as champagne glasses clinked and kisses were exchanged with dragon breath and chilled cheeks. Cheering as fireworks exploded overhead and all around you in the distance. Sitting around the table telling your most vivid memory moments from the past year. Loving your mate in the wee hours of the morning. Best way to start a year: sleeping in...

18
Sep
2007

EATING OF THE FRUIT (AND VEGETABLE) OF KNOWLEDGE

The best way to say the word ‘vegetable’ is like this: veggie-wobble. It’s addictive, beware. Not one but TWO sugar beets were sighted today, outside of Gårdstånga on E22 heading toward Lund. Fall is officially here. It’s the annual I-Saw-a-Sugar-Beet-on-the-Side-of-the-Road-so-it-Must-be-Autum journal post! Yay! New favorite veggie-wobble: KOHLRABI. Like George Martin, this one is all my brother’s fault. Have you ever had a kohlrabi? I bet you have, but you didn’t know it. Sometimes they’re the mysterious white crispy veggies in frozen wok mixes or the pale thin strips of veggies mixed in with the red peppers and julienned carrots in...

20
Jul
2007

THE ROAD TO ENLIGHTENMENT

Lately, when we’ve been going on our walks and martinek has actually deigned to accompany me, he’s done a lot of mysterious dodging and hopping about behind my back as we go. “What the heck are you doing?” I asked and was treated to a long discourse on the different values assigned to different designs on manhole covers in the streets. The ones with A are “bad luck”…the ones with V are good luck because they stand for vänskap (friendship) meaning you’ll get more friends the more you step on them, and the ones with “K” are good luck because...

17
Mar
2007

THE FRUIT DOESN’T FALL VERY FAR FROM THE TREE

Martin is spending the night…with his girlfriend ! I was warned this day would come, but I didn’t think it would be quite so soon. I had quite an “American” moment when he first asked, but Anders and I talked about it, and we figure it’s fine…this time. In a year or so, it won’t be appropriate, but for now, they’re just kids. He and Ebba have been a special “couple” since they were in daycare together. Apart from a period in 2nd grade when they got teased too much by some older kids and “broke up” they’ve been steady...

16
Feb
2007

HOW I WONDER WHERE YOU ARE

We borrowed a nearly full-sized eletric keyboard from my friend Debbie for Martin to practice on for the next several months while he’s taking piano lessons. I brought it home late last night and set it up on the dining room table.* Martin headed straight for it when he got home from school. It has 99 song and style settings, allowing you to change the pitch and sound-style of the keys to just about anything you can imagine except quacking duck. It’s got harp, polka, rock-and-roll, softbeat, tango, and honky-tonk to name just a very, very few. It rocks into...

07
Dec
2006

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARTIN!

My firstborn turned 9 today. No matter how much I squish him down on the top of his head, he keeps growing. All he wanted for his birthday, and all he got, was books and Lego (and one Bamse DVD). If you were 9 years old and your parents asked you what you wanted for your birthday dinner, what would you say? Pizza, maybe. Tacos! Hotdogs…hamburgers, salmon even. I was pretty sure he would say salmon or the inevitable sushi, but he wanted JULBORD. He and Anders made a list of all the absolute must-haves for his julbord birthday dinner,...

14
Nov
2006

HOW TO TURN YOUR FROWN UPSIDE DOWN

For some reason, my mood, never the best in the early morning when I stumble blearily and resentfully from bed 10 minutes after smacking the snooze button again, ended up on a rapidly declining downward spiral that escalated as the day wore on. Don’t ask ME how that metaphor works, but it was true. My bad mood went from bad to worse and by the end of the day, as big fat raindrops began smacking the glass of my window while my back was turned, I was pretty sure that I had metamorphosed, sprouted a snout and fangs, a wiry...

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