I haven’t mentioned the Olympics much here, because as you may or may not know, I don’t watch TV hardly ever, except for West Wing which disappeared from Swedish television like 8 months ago and apparently likes vacation so much it is never coming back, and Little House on the Prairie re-runs which I would totally sit slowly down on the sofa for, relaxing into a slack-jawed state because Michael Landon OH HOW WE MISS YOU!<\/p>\n
I’m secretly hoping that Swedish TV will start I finished the most excellent book yesterday, Haven Kimmel’s first novel, The Solace of Leaving Early<\/i>. I marked several pages with tiny dog-ears where there were passages I have to copy into my notebooks for remembering, but since I’m writing this from work I can’t share them with you. Ms. Kimmel published her autobiography first, A Girl Named Zippy<\/i> and I can recommend that one highly as well. I can’t wait to get my hands on her next book.<\/p>\n In other news, the cherry tree is planted. It’s taller than me, but I can’t see it from our bed, more’s the pity. I really, really hope that it has cherries next year because that will give me an excuse to steal my Michigan Cherries Recipe book back from Angie, cuz I’m an indian-giver that way. And in a not-so-subtle attempt to completely cement our Swedishness (because we already have 2 children and a Volvo), we’re heading to IKEA tonight to buy a new kitchen table<\/a> and chairs<\/a> because you can NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF FROM IKEA. Okay, I lied. You can.<\/a> I used to be winning the furniture wars. It was my dark-wood, heavy-footed, curvy, thick-n-nubby upholstered furniture against Anders’ Scandinavian-design blond wood, straight-line, cotton-striped stuff. Not anymore, alas. My stuff is barely holding Walking with my brother around Flyinge the last couple of evenings has made me see it with unfamiliar eyes. Even though I think I have decently powerful powers of observation, it’s still nice to push aside the contempt of familiarity and see things anew again. It reminds me that I really want to take my camera with me on my walks.<\/p>\n Cracking Me Up:<\/b> (hello, Olympics, were your ears burning?)<\/font> Woo Your Woman<\/a><\/p>\nsending<\/strike> showing Little House re-runs on Fridays so that Karin can be properly introduced to the Ingalls as a part of every child’s necessary education, during our Year of Free Fridays. Although, Martin would probably enjoy it more, I can so see Karin stealing riffs off Nellie Olsson and incorporating them into family life. When I was home with infant Martin, 2 different Little House seasons were showing on 2 different channels and it was a very colonial time-warp, watching teenage Laura in the early afternoons and little Laura about 2 hours later with a cold-dash-of-reality-Oprah in the middle. Thank god my normal television-watching habits reverted soon afterward and I went back to reading instead of watching TV. People used to tell me I looked like Laura Ingalls when I was young, but what they really meant is that I looked like Melissa Gilbert<\/a>. Nobody tells me that now<\/a>, dammit.<\/p>\nit’s<\/strike> its<\/strike> it’s<\/strike> its own nowadays against the IKEA incursion.* Damn their inexpensive and streamlined ways.<\/p>\n