Mulling

I get a monthly e-mail from the wonderful folks over at NaBloPoMo, they of the National Blog Posting Month. The monthly e-mail is the announcement of the theme for the next month, and a how-to reminder for listing yourself on the Blogroll if you decide to participate.

I want to, nearly every month, but it is less attractive to me for having done it once already. It can be a grind. This month's theme is "routine" and yes, of course, every time I read their monthly e-mail I can think of many posts that would fit the theme. (Unwritten, in-my-head posts.) The problem with doing the project last time around was that I chose to do it in a November, a time of the year that is hectic for me. The upside is that it forces you to write EVERY DAY, or to make contingency plans to have stuff post automatically if you're going to be AFK for a few days. If you're having Blogger post them automatically, then you've put in the screen time ahead of time.

Summer can be a little less hectic in my world, but this year I think it is asking for trouble to play along, because teh workload? I haz it.

So I'll be mulling that over for a few days.

Poor, poor baby. Let me organize a pity party for you.

A few years ago, anonymous sex-blogger Girl With A One Track Mind, Abby Lee, was outed by British newspaper The Sunday Times. Backlash from the blogosphere was swift, virulent, vicious, and according to a recent article in the same paper by the same writer, Anna Mikhailova, career ruining.

Mikhailova ruined Abby Lee's film career - she worked in production, not as an actress - and now has the utter brass cajones to whine about Abby's readers ruining her "reputation" and by virtue of that reputation-ruining, her career as a bottom-feeding journalist is just not thriving. Awww. Honey. I'm so sorry.

I have a vested interest in this not just for reasons of anonymity; I believe that Abby would not have been vilified for her sexual escapades had she been male, so there's the feminist angle as well as the fact that I myself write under a pseudonym. My reasons for doing that are my own. Abby's were as well.

When does "the public interest" or "the right to know" trump privacy? When there is something illegal going on, certainly. But if I'm writing about my own private Idaho over here, and you read it and like it, why does it matter if I'm the woman in the office next to you or if I live three time zones away?

Of course, the automatic comeback to my argument is that if I wanted to remain anonymous, I wouldn't be writing on teh interweb, I'd have a journal that I kept under lock and key. Guess what. I do. Writing is part of who I am, not just something I do for fun. Publishing my struggles with depression has been both about my own recovery and about the hope that someone, somewhere, reads what I've written and decides to seek help for their own issues. De-stigmatizing mental illness is a goal of my blog.

Writing here about politics, the abortion debate, my silly little inconsequential life, is something that I enjoy doing. I believe that I have the right to do that under a pen name. And so I do not feel sorry for Anna Mikhailova. The line for the pity party forms to the left, please. Right there, that sign that says "Exit"!!

Green, Green, Green

No, I am not done writing about Sweden. Not by a long shot! I still want to write about The White Buses, being "on" the whole time I was there, some stories about stupid things I did (like...um...accidentally putting train tickets into a mail slot, thus losing them for all time) and some cultural observations. Today, though, I'm taking a short post to note a few random things.

When I left for Sweden on April 19, spring had hardly begun in Ohio. It was a chilly and overcast day, but not so cold that I actually needed my winter coat. DH and I left to head towards the airport long before I actually needed to be there, because there's a mall near that airport that we don't get to as often as we'd like. I had tossed the coat on the back seat of the car, and was on the fence about taking it with me. (I did, and I'm really glad I did, but that's an upcoming story.)

I got back to Ohio on May 22, and it was warm. Spring had come and was rapidly rushing headlong into summer. Within days of my return, I cranked the air conditioning in the house, turning the temperature to about 72 (22C), because it was 80+ (26C) and I hate the heat.

Driving along a busy road near my house yesterday, I noticed how absolutely green everything is. Trees that were winter-bare when I left are in full leaf. A small yellow rosebush by the side of the road, carefully tended, has beautiful full flowers.

I didn't get to plant much of a garden this year. I was in Sweden during planting season, and I planted nothing before I left because I knew, sure as the sun rises, that DH would not water a single thing, and it would have all been in vain. I had tomato plants last year, and cucumbers and lettuce and mint and basil and cilantro and flowers and all sorts of things. This year, I have lettuce, cucumbers, beets (an experiment) and my herbs, a few flowers, and nothing else. No tomatoes. I am sad about that.

I glanced outside of my kitchen window yesterday and was surprised to see the flowers I had started from seed have sprouted and are looking like they might turn into something other than tiny green shoots.

As I drove to work the other day, I thought about the folks who start work super-early, bakers and the like, and as we approach the summer solstice, the days are long and if you drive to work at 5:30 in the morning, your drive is much lighter than it was in April.

Summer is so short here. It disappears in the blink of an eye. While it lasts, I savor the green.

New Friends and Old

I took nearly 500 pictures in five weeks in Sweden. Not quite 500, but awful close.

There was a team of Swedes here in Oh-hia-ia before my team went to Sweden, and we were fortunate enough to meet them before we left, and to see them several times while we were in Sweden. The Swedish team leader teased our team that we'd never be able to take as many pictures as they did. Five team members, five weeks, and they took a combined total of over 6,000 pictures. I did some quick math, and that adds up to somewhere between 35 and 40 pictures, per person, per day for the entire trip. That's some serious shutter-bugging.

For a basis of comparison, my 460 pictures works out to 13 pictures a day.

I don't know how many we as a whole team took - because my team hasn't compared notes yet - but one of our team members took all of maybe 5 pictures over 5 weeks, so there's no way we'd even come close to a combined total of 6000.

I don't consider myself a good photographer, and my digital camera is old. I have a really good 'real' film camera, but I didn't take it to Sweden because it is too heavy, too big, too much to carry around, and getting the pictures developed (it uses Kodak Advantix film, not just regular 35mm film) is bloody expensive. Even though I knew it would take better shots, I left it at home.

I was able to share my pictures online with the other team members as we travelled, updating nearly weekly with pictures I'd taken and using FTP to share them. There are several pictures I took that I love. But another team member has studied photography, and she brought a digital SLR camera. I've been nagging her to share her pictures, and she finally did get them shared with everyone yesterday.

As I looked through the pictures, there's a great one of my team leader with a Swedish friend of hers, someone she's known since 1987, and looking at it, I had an "awwww" moment. He's one of the new friends that I made and wish lived closer so I could see him often, although he's an old friend for my team leader.

Among the pictures I shared with my team were several of my Swedish Mama and Papa, people the team didn't get to meet. (That whole they-live-350-miles-away-from-Skåne thing was really a barrier!) I was bummed when I went to visit Mama & Papa that I didn't get to see any of my "old" Swedish friends; it was a holiday weekend when I was there, and almost everyone had skedaddled out of town for the holiday. My best Swedish friend: in Stockhom, roughly 90 miles away. My Swedish 'sisters': one went to Skåne when I went to Västmanland, the other was moving that weekend. Many of my host parents' friends from back then: retired, and either living somewhere else in Sweden, or snowbirds, and not 'home' in Sweden from various southern European places.

I didn't really have close friends in my class at school in Sweden, although I liked many of them. Since the inception of the EU, many of my former classmates now live and work in Germany, Austria, France, and England, so not much chance of seeing many of them. I ran around with mostly older kids, who had already graduated, and these days have families with young children. Perhaps it was silly, but I didn't want to intrude on what is a big family holiday and instead asked Mama to pass on my greetings to them. I also, selfishly, treasured being able to spend time with just Mama & Papa, something I've never been able to do before when I've been back in Sverige.

Some of this ties back into the hemlängtan I was talking about the other day. I've always said that visiting Sweden is more about the people than the place, even though I like the place a whole hellava lot. I miss both, but given the choice to go to Sweden, or to see the people, one or the other, I'd take the people over the place any day.

I hope that some of my new friends come to visit here in Ohio. I made the offer to everyone I met (well, everyone I met that I liked, of course!) The focus of both Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) and Group Study Exchange (GSE), is to further understanding, build networks, and to focus on how we're more alike than we are different. People who have been with either RYE or GSE learn new perspectives, and hopefully, work to make the world a more peaceful place. Yeah, yeah, lofty and naive ideals, I know. But I'm hopeful that that the new friends I made will remain part of my life. Even if all I can do for a while is look at the pictures.

At the core - MY body, MY decision.

I have been saddened and sickened this week by the stories in the news about the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in Kansas City. Saddened that this man was murdered and sickened by his killer claiming the closure of Tiller's clinic is a victory for the anti-choice movement.

Proponents of the anti-choice movement have been very quick to distance themselves from Tiller's accused murderer, saying that he was not a volunteer, not a friend, not a supporter of Operation Rescue, one of the largest and most well-known anti-choice groups in America. In fact, OR's director, Tim Newman, has been quoted extensively in the press as saying, “This idiot did more to damage the pro-life movement than you can imagine” in addition to, “Good God, do not close this abortion clinic for this reason,” he said. “Every kook in the world will get some notion.” The nasty, cynical side of me wants to say that he's posturing for the media, but since I turn off the news whenever his name or face shows up, I don't honestly know.

Whenever September 11 rolls around, I declare a media blackout in my life, because I can't handle watching the towers fall again. This week, I've been turning off the news because me yelling at the TV or radio does nothing but raise my blood pressure, and won't change the way that these people think.

I find it very interesting that the name Operation Rescue is being wrangled over in court, and the two battling it out for the rights to the name? Are men. Of course. Fellas, when YOU can be raped and get pregnant from it, when YOU can be sexually assaulted by a family member and get pregnant from that, when YOU can actually get pregnant, I'll be much more willing to let you have a seat at the table. Until then, as far as I am concerned, it remains a woman's own personal decision, and not the hobby-horse of over-privileged men.

Hemlängtan

Swedish -- of course -- for 'homesickness'

How is it possible to be homesick for someplace that isn't your home? I don't know. The way I feel about Sweden is NOT the same way that someone would feel about a favorite vacation spot...like on a bad day, you wish you were there instead of wherever "here" happens to be. No, this is more than that. Sweden isn't my home, and really, I can't honestly say it was my home when I was an exchange student, either. Home then, just as now....Ohio, USA.

I got an e-mail last weekend from a Swede, showing a picture of his new sailboat and his faithful canine companion, a pug, in a harbor near Jonstorp, Skåne. As the picture opened on my browser, it showed the harbor in the background first, and then the boat and puppy appeared. The first house that came clear, a yellow 2-story with what must be a stellar view of the water, hit me like a shot to the gut.

Swedish houses out in the country, summer cottages, usually, or old farmsteads, tend to be one of two colors, red or yellow. A very distinctive red, and a particular shade of yellow. When I was 17, someone in Sweden told me a story of why, exactly, those two shades of those two colors were used, but I don't remember the details. It probably had something to do with class status, once upon a time, nobility vs. non-nobility, but these days, even though Sweden still has both royalty and nobility, they're pretty egalitarian.

That yellow two-story house in the picture my friend sent to me says "SWEDEN!" at the top of its lungs. I can imagine how the place is furnished. Light blonde wood. White walls. Light-colored window coverings. No attached garage. Sparse furniture. The windows have latches that require downward pressure to close. The kitchen is large, but the appliances are small. Everything is orderly. Bookshelves line the walls in every available space, and the books are mingled with small curiosities from all over the world. There's an orange or blue Dala Häst on a shelf, along with a few small pieces of crystal from Orrefors. Every wall has artwork. Family pictures from the recent past are small. Pictures from the early days of photography, or paintings of ancestors are large. Light is abundant, each room has big windows. There is no air conditioning, because until the very recent past, it has not been necessary. (Sweden has felt the realities of global warming.) Rooms that have been redone (at least the bathroom, if not the entire house) have radiant heat in the floors, and you never place a foot on an ice cold floor on chilly mornings. Places near the water, be it the ocean or one of the many inland lakes, have a breeze that cools the house when the windows are open.

I suppose that it is only natural to be thinking a lot more about Sweden than usual, having only recently returned from there. In the normal course of life, I did/do think about Sweden nearly daily, so it isn't that this line of thought is unheard of. I often wish I lived there. I often wish I could spend more time there. I often wish that I could see my host family more frequently, and I don't care which side of the pond that happens. (I've been trying to convince them for years that we should meet up in Florida in the winter, with no success. Of course, they've been trying to get me to Croatia, where they have a second home, for nearly two decades, with no success there, either.)

I wish I could say that I remember what I felt like when I came home from Sweden in 1992, but I can't quantify that other than by saying I was miserable, and an incredible brat to everyone in my life, I do remember that. I had wanted to stay so badly, and Mama wanted me to stay too. She in fact encouraged me to stay after my visa expired, enraging my mother a little. Ooops. At 17, I didn't know how hurtful me saying I didn't want to come back to America was for her. That was never my intention. On the other hand, I know that I could have done much more to attempt to stay, including the very easy step of having a conversation with the immigration authorities, but I never did.

I hate to say this, because it feels fiercely disloyal to the region where I lived as an exchange student, but I thought that Skåne was incredibly beautiful, even prettier in parts than Västmanland is. They're radically different, and so I treasure them each in their own way, but were someone to offer me a choice of job & apartment in Stockholm or Malmö, I'd have a hell of a time picking one over the other. (n.b., we ain't talking about reality here, folks.)

Hemlängtan means literally 'to long for home'. An accurate descriptor of how I feel about Sweden. It is with wistful longing that I look to the north and east, wondering when I will get to go back.

Just when you think it can't get any sillier

I mentioned the Eurovision Song Contest briefly in a recent post. I realized when I wrote it that if you've never heard of Eurovision, you'd be baffled by my passing reference to it.

There is an exhaustive Wikipedia entry about it here, but in its simplest terms, think American Idol meets the Grammy Awards. European countries that are members one of the Europe-wide broadcast networks send entrants to compete at a contest, which is broadcast live throughout Europe over 3 nights. Most countries hold a contest to determine who will represent them, and have very specific rules about who can and can't enter.

In Sweden, they hold a contest called Melodifestivalen, quite literally, the Melody Festival. I remember almost nothing about Melodifestival, so I looked it up, on the ever-reliable Wiki. Turns out it wouldn't matter if I remembered how it worked, since they changed it in 2002. I have no recollection of who won while I lived there in 1992, but it appears that the final of the whole Eurovision was in Sweden that year, as 1991's winner was Swedish pop artist Carola. Hmm. No memory of that, either. Clearly, this made a big impression on me.

Or - y'know - not.

Melodifestival is a big damn deal in Sweden, as is Eurovision.  I'm not sure why, although perhaps the facts that the contest begins in Sweden in February, when sun is in short supply, the nights are long, and the weather is crappy probably have a whole lot to do with it.

This year's contest for all of Europe was held while I was visiting Sweden. I watched the first of two semi-finals live with my Familjen Svensson, and the second I ignored. The final was on a Saturday night. Mr. & Mrs. Svensson took me with them to a stand-up comedy show that night, and so we only saw the end of it.

Watching the first semi-final had me in hysterics. Poor Daughter Svensson. She's 15, and this all matters a great deal to her. Her mother and I laughed our way through it, especially after the first act, Gipsy.cz.

If I'm supposed to take that seriously, sorry. Not so much. The superman costume was just too much. Once back home, though, I've been reading about the artists involved in Eurovision, and it turns out the Gipsy.cz has been influential in opening a dialog with the Romany people in the Czech Republic, and are highly respected there. Huh. In'trusting.

Although much of this contest is sung in English, the songwriters are mostly not native English speakers.  So there are hilarious song lyrics that rhyme or work into the rhythm of the song, but make absolutely no sense.  Or, even better, there is a blend of English and whatever the native language happens to be, just like "Aven Romale" above.

This year's winner, Alexander Rybak of Norway, is absolutely adorable, although it wasn't my favorite song of the contest by a long shot.  The opening riff on the violin is unmistakable, though, and very catchy.

I liked several others much better, among them Turkey with the very silly Dum Tek Tek, Portugal's Todas As Ruas Do Amor, Iceland's Is It True?, Romania's The Balkan Girls, which was just as silly as Turkey's entry, and my favorite, Armenia's Nor Par (Jan-Jan), sung brilliantly by sister act Inga & Anush.  I like listening to them sing, and shocker, they are actually classically trained musicians.  Plus, check out the costumes.

Jan-Jan doesn't have any more intelligent lyrics than the rest of the bunch, but even better, it has a dance.   I wish I had instructions in English, but there's only Armenian.

How can you not like a song that has its own dance?  Nor Par (Jan-Jan), by the way, translates to New Dance (My Dear).

As if that wasn't bad enough, hustling through the Copenhagen airport to catch my flight home, I stopped in an electronics store and bought the Eurovision CD, with every song in the contest on 2 discs.  To the tune of 221:-SEK, or roughly $30.  Who was I saying was silly?  The Europeans for getting all wound up in the contest, or me, for spending $30 on a CD full of trashy pop with no real redeeming qualities.  Tough call, that. 

get, acquire, take, recieve

All translations for the Swedish verb "att få". As in to receive a present, be gifted with something, or in the context of illness, to catch something.

I was having a conversation with one of my hosts in Sweden about Sweden and Swedish. (wow, that sounds a weeee confusing. Are ya with me?) We'll call him Per. It was all I could do not to roll around laughing on the floor at this comment of his:

I think you like Sweden.

Hmmm, I wonder what made him think so! The rest of the conversation was also amusing, but more for semantics of grammar than 'funny'. I have to take it in Swedish, then in English for it to make sense.

Per: Du få flytta hit. (You should move here)

Lucy, (through giggles): Gärna! Det finns några problemar med det; jag har ingen jobb, kan inte lasa eller skriva så bra på Svenska.... Willingly! There's only a few problems with that; I don't have a job here, I can't read or write so well in Swedish....

Per: Nejmen entligen. Du skulle trivs har, och vi behover ju folk som ville vara har, och ville jobba. (No, really. You'd do well here, and we need people who want to be here, and want to work.)

Translation is NOT an exact science, and translating directly to English from Swedish can result in errors like this:

"Since five years, I have been working for ABB,"

instead of

"For the last five years, I've worked for ABB."

Yes, I really read that in a Swedish person's English translation of their own bio. Urgh. Doesn't anyone proofread ANYTHING, anywhere in the world? Good to know that the crappy grammar of the common era isn't limited to English. /rant.

So what he said, du få flytta hit, can be translated a few ways.

There, it means 'should', but that's not what he said. By saying it that way, his intention is that Sweden should make it easy for me to move there, that someone should take care of all the logistics and paperwork for me, and hand me a residence permit. The mythical "they" should just handle it.

That'd be nice.

Perhaps the correct comeback would have been "and when do I start working for you?"!

The "Yes, I do TOO speak your language" game.

Oooooh, one of my favorite games to play.

For a reason that is unknown to me, many Swedes that I met in Skåne simply didn't believe that I speak Swedish until they actually heard me talk.  I don't know if there's been a rash of Yankees there that couldn't or wouldn't learn the language, or if they've been told so by their educational system.  We filled out a massive amount of paperwork prior to leaving.  In the space provided for "languages other than English spoken" I wrote Svenska.  I wrote several e-mails in Swedish to various people who contacted me before we got there.  Even after all of that, if I had a dollar for every time I heard the following sentence, I could retire.

Men Gud, du pratar otroligt bra Svenska. 

But, God, you speak unbelievably good Swedish.

I heard it so often that I got tired of hearing it, and had to contain my urge to roll my eyes.  I wanted to say, 'yeah, srsly, it wasn't that hard' or blow them off somehow, but that would be both obnoxiously rude and incorrect.  Learning Swedish WAS hard, took me a long time, and has been a struggle to maintain.  But I got tired of being complimented for something that comes kind of naturally to me, like being complimented on riding a bike well.  It just got ridiculous.  I realize that this is petty and a very inconsiderate attitude.....and that doesn't change it a bit.

Because I got fairly tired of explaining how and why and when I learned Swedish, and how I've managed to keep it up over the past 17 years, sometimes I just didn't bother to inform someone new that I did, in fact, understand everything they were saying.  

We visited a very special secondary school, a high school that is a boarding school for students who want to major in agricultural studies in college.  We were given a warm welcome by the school director, and then spent time with the two sub-school directors, one who dealt with animal husbandry and the other who handled the crops.  The school is huge.  As we were touring campus, we were ferried around by 4 horse-drawn carriages, each driven by a student.  Each time we stopped, two additional students would hop off the carriages, and keep the horses still while we were shown around.  

The two students riding along with me had no idea I spoke Swedish.  I have a hearing problem, and mostly I wasn't listening to their conversation because it was windy and I couldn't hear them.  However, when I heard the words, "han är snygg" (he's cute) I listened a little harder. 

Turns out they were talking about one of my colleagues, another Yankee team member.  

It is possible that we are the only Americans some of these people will ever meet, and I hate for them to have the impression that we're all rude, obnoxious, loud boors.  (See my previous post for further info regarding my opinions on that.)  But I also enjoy tweaking the occasional nose!

As I looked around, a question occured to me.  I saw a parking lot, a small one, and I wondered if students were allowed to have cars at school once they had their drivers' license.  So I asked.  In Swedish.

Both girls blushed a lovely rosy red, having been caught like a kid with their hands in the cookie jar.  They answered, in the negative.  They are not allowed to have cars at school, even after they get the license.  But most students wait to get the license until after graduation anyway, because getting a license in Sweden is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming.  (That's a story for another time.)  They're far away from Mom's (or Dad's) car, and don't have the time.

After they answered my question, they started whispering to one another.  The wind had died down a little and I could hear them if I strained.  The conversation they had after they found out I speak Swedish....well, let's just say it makes me laugh thinking about it.

"Ooh, that's embarrassing," said the blonde one.

"I feel a little dumb," said the brunette.  "Did she tell you she spoke Swedish before we got in the carriage?"

"No," said the blonde.  "I wouldn't have talked about that cute guy if she had, or maybe I would have asked if he has a girlfriend.  Is she Swedish, or is she one of them?"

"I don't know," the brunette said, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.  "She doesn't sound American.  Do you want to ask?"

"Absolutely not!" The blonde replied.  "We already look like idiots, let's keep quiet."

I didn't interrupt them, but I was having a hard time contining my giggles, and reining in the few motherly urges I have.  No, he does not have a girlfriend, but he's also much too old for you, young lady!!

I've pulled that trick, explaining only after the fact that I speak Swedish (and even once or twice English) to someone, and it never gets old.  Never, never, never.

An ugly - and sadly familiar - demon rears its head

I've had trouble sleeping for years.  Long years, as in perhaps more than ten.

I hate to say it thusly, but 'tis true; this started happening when DH and I had been dating for a while.  A year.  Maybe slightly more or less.  Was he the source of stress?  What-ever!  No, of course not.  

The problem started with me falling asleep at his house, waking up, and driving home around 1:30 or 2:00 AM.  Then I'd have problems falling back asleep.  Then I'd get up the next day and start all over again.

This went on for years, quite literally, until we got married.  Once we lived in the same space, I didn't have to wake up and drive anywhere in the middle of the night, but my body couldn't get used to that.  Additionally, our first apartment was above ground, and my bedroom at my parent's house was in the cellar.  The dark, cool, silent cellar.  Every single outside noise woke me; cars, wind, the birds, rain, the early morning light....

After we'd been married for a year or so, the stress level at Ye Olde Evile Bank ratcheted up by 1000%, and I had trouble sleeping because of the worries and woes of work.  Fights, ahem, "discussions" were had about DH's alarm at that time, too; he sets it for almost 2 hours before he gets up.  Oh, yes, he plans to be out of bed at 4 AM and off to work, but that seldom if ever happens, and his alarm wakes me during those last few precious hours of sleep.  He, however, falls back asleep, and then leaps out of bed at 6:30, rushes around frantically, and makes it to work at 7.  Not that the alarm thing still irritates me all these years later.  Nope.  Not at all.  Have I mentioned that he sleeps like the dead?  I'm more jealous of that than annoyed over the alarm thing, honestly.  Wish I could too.

It was then that I started investigating alternatives to OTC sleeping pills, which I leaned on back then when I'd slept badly for a few nights in a row.  I've listed so many times the things I've tried for sleep:  melatonin.  Lavender.  Chamomile.  Valerian Root.  None of it worked well.

I changed jobs, and then we moved out of that horrible apartment.  The stress at the new job was different, and at first I thrived on it.  But later, around the end of 2005, it got so much worse.  The death of my old non-profit job was a slow and painful thing, like watching someone die of cancer that wastes away a vibrant person and leaves a nearly skeletal shell.  

By that time, I'd tried both Lunesta and Ambien, and discovered the wonders of prescription sleep aids.  Ambien has always been my favorite.  It is like turning off a light; BAM, you're out, blissful unawareness for at least a few hours.

As the deterioration of my beloved non-profit escalated, and I got progressively more depressed, sleep was such a wonderful refuge.  When I could sleep, that is.  Mostly, I got an hour or two, and then I'd be awake worrying about things outside of my control.

A quick aside here; the meds seem to help with the worrying.  I worry less about a lot of things, and I know that's the medication, not me mellowing with age.

When I was unemployed, when my world finally imploded, I slept a little better because I could sleep whenever I wanted.  I'd sleep until 10 or 11 AM, and then I'd go work out, come home, spend some time surfing the J-man forums, look half-heartedly for work, made dinner for DH, and wait for him to go to sleep so I could go back to the forums.

In 2007, my Auntie H got really sick, and I was on night duty at the hospice.  That further messed up my internal clock.  After she passed away, I started working that horrible sales job, and we all know what a really shitty year June of 2007 through June of 2008 was for me.  The winter of 2008 was easily the hardest of my life, bar none, and I relied on Ambien for getting more than 2 hours of sleep.

My work now is different again from anything else I've previously done, and I love it.  Wholeheartedly, but my entire life is not wrapped up in it, as it was at the old non-profit.  This job is super-stressful in short bursts, and in between, is not so horrible for stress.  But years of bad sleep habits are hard to break.

Spending more than a month in Europe isn't helpful either.  That 6 hour time difference...hooo boy, does it mess with MY head.  I dunno if it bothers everyone else the same way, but I've been home for more than a week now, and at 3 PM in Ohio, its 9 PM in Sweden, and I think it is bedtime.  I didn't get to bed in Sweden even one night of the entire trip before 10 PM, but I'd be ready to end the day before that most of the time.  So at dinner-time here, I'm dragging.  But at midnight, its time to get up!  

I slept better there than I do at home.  I'm unsure of exactly why, but there are a few solid reasons.  One, I had the window open in my room, wherever I was staying, almost every night.  Cool nights and cool rooms make for wonderful sleep conditions.  Two, we had 16-18 hour 'work' days.  You slept when and where you could, and I'd sleep pretty solidly 5 hours at a time.  Home, its rare I get more than 3 hours at a time.  Three, the stress I was under in Sweden is a vastly different thing that here in the states.  What I did there was often emotionally exhausting, and I think I'll write about that more soon.  But you were essentially "on," being cheerful and friendly and agreeable whenever you were awake.  That does take its toll on you, but it isn't the same as worrying about work.

I'm tired.  So, so tired.  But not sleepy.  After midnight, with a spring thunderstorm raging outside, and I'm chillin'.  Relaxed, in my jammies, at home.  I am not, however, asleep.  As the Brits say:  BUGGER!

The reputation proceeds us.

A glimpse into my traveling journal.

Copenhagen International Airport.  22 May.  Waiting for the international flight from Denmark to Atlanta to board.  Homeward bound.

The stereotype of "the Ugly American" is alive and well, for good reason.  I'd like to think that I'm not one of those people, but I probably am from time to time, just like the rest of the population.  

The United States has a restriction on carrying liquids on to a flight, no more than 3 ounce bottles, and only what can fit into a quart size zipper bag.  Fine.  I abide by the rules, even though they're a) stupid and b) don't do anything to keep us safe on flights.  C4, the world's most explosive device, can look like a solid bar of grey soap, but you can bring solid soap on board no problem.  You can't clear security at any airport with a big bottle of water.  But you can buy a bottle after you clear security, or fill your own bottle from a tap or water fountain, noooo problem.  You can also buy larger sized bottles of shampoo or hand lotion or liquid soap or soda or whatever at the shops inside the airport after clearing security. Yep, this makes excellent sense.  Why the rest of the world jumped on board this boat of insanity, I have no idea.  But they did.  Even flying within Europe, you can't take more than the prescribed amount of liquids for a flight within the US.  Gah.

I drink a whole lot of water.  Lots.  Every day.  I like water.  I'd rather have water than almost anything else (except coffee) most of the time.  Airplane rides always make me parched.  Instead of buying a bottle of water in those BPA-plastic-fossil-fuel wasting containers, I have a Nalgene that I fill up, usually from a water fountain.  

Copenhagen airport has you pass through security, and then a second checkpoint at the gate, where only ticketed passengers for that particular flight can sit in a waiting area.  Once you're there, you're there.  No running elsewhere to buy a book.  Fortunately, there was a restroom at the gate, although it was sans water fountain.  So I went to stand in line for the bathroom, knowing that tap water would be available.  Not my preference (especially from a bathroom sink, although public restrooms in Scandinavia in general are really clean) but not going to kill me, either.  

Of course, there was a long queue for the ladies room.

There was a group of Red Hat Ladies traveling home to Pittsburgh.  There was a group of college kids from some school in (I think) Idaho.  They were all Chatty Cathys.  One of the Red Hat Ladies decided that since there was no queue for the men's room, she was going to use it.  She told the rest of the people on line so, loudly.  

I'm not opposed to using a men's restroom (or a handicapped stall) when there is no line for those facilities and there is a line for the ladies'.  I am opposed to you declaring it for all and sundry, at the top of your lungs.  Say it with me:  TAAACKY!

Directly in front of me in line was one of the college students, and she was full of complaints.  The food on her European trip hadn't been to her liking.  It was colder in Denmark than wherever she had been last.  It was raining.  Europe is full of pay toilets, which had both surprised and annoyed her through her travels.  She was thrilled that the airport restroom didn't require a payment.  Her group had been in Europe to study European religion, both before and after the Protestant Reformation.  She hadn't been impressed with Europe's cathedrals, or the various local guides they'd had in said cathedrals.  (I should note here that she had been in Europe for all of two weeks.  Um?  Not enough time.  And she wasn't impressed with Notre Dame or the cathedral in Vienna?  WTF?)  She told me all of this with no prompting and no questions from me, other than a raised eyebrow and occasional "mmm-hmm".

She also was very annoyed that the airline required everyone to be at the gate an hour before departure.  That was the biggest complaint; sitting still in one place for an hour.  They're not even boarding, ffs, why do we need to be here?  Whine, whine, whine.  I can't keep my mouth shut (who knew!) and I felt the need to explain to her that we need to be there before the plane takes off because 200 people are going to board, and that takes time - you ain't the only person on the flight, sister - and if you get there and board the plane at the scheduled departure time, along with 200 of your closest friends, the flight?  Will be late.  Ohhh.

The line moves forward, slowly, even with everyone using either restroom.  College Girl goes into the men's.  When she comes out, the water in the sink was still running.  I glanced at it as I walked by, and thought that it was an automatic tap, one of the ones with a heat sensor or motion detector.  So I didn't turn it off, because I thought it would turn itself off.  When I came out of the stall, though, it was still running.  Grrrr.  Waste of water, environmentally irresponsible, rude....pick any one of those, and you have enough to really irritate me.

When I returned to my team in the waiting room, College Girl was a few seats away, and I heard her telling her friends (again, loudly) that she never turns off the taps in public restrooms because she's just washed her hands and the sinks in public restrooms are sooooo dirty, you know?  Someone else will turn it off.  Whatever.  And like, I don't want, like, to get germs on my clean hands and stuff.  

Much eye-rolling from me ensues.  She wasn't paying attention to me, and I didn't want to get into an argument, so that's a good thing that she wasn't watching.  Her thoughtlessness and very self-centered outlook were annoying.  It also embarrasses me when people that I share citizenship with act like that: loud, full of complaints, bratty, self-centered, and a closed mind.  Yeah, things are different in Europe.  It isn't America.  The Europeans operate a little differently than the Yanks.  That does not mean that you should be passing judgement on the way of life in another country.  And things like that are the reason that Americans have such a bad international reputation.  

I do realize that some of my irritation was misplaced.  A convenient target and outlet for other feelings I can't do much about.  When I'm leaving Sweden (OK, technically Denmark this time, but just across the bridge from Malmö, Sweden) I'm always tired, a little bummed because I never know when I am coming back to Scandinavia, and dreading the trans-Atlantic trek home, as it is long, boring, and usually crowded.

Thankfully, College Girl and her compatriots were way in the back of the plane, and I didn't have to listen to their inane chatter over a 9 hour flight.  The Red Hat Ladies sat by us, though, and man!  As we were boarding, they were rude and impatient with everyone in front of them in line stowing their luggage in the overhead compartments.  Simmer down, sweetie, it takes all of 30 seconds to shove a carry-on up there, and no one is taking "your" space for their bag.  I promise.

Hm.  I think it is time for me to either get some sleep, or lock myself in a room alone away from other people for a while.

here endeth the entry.  A note after getting home, though:

The college kids all applauded and cheered when we got on the ground in Atlanta and the pilot or the lead flight attendant said "Welcome to the United States" which I thought, again, unnecessary, tacky, & loud.  But I realize my interpretation of that behavior -- which is that they were cheering because Europe was just so different than home, so awful -- is unreasonable.  They were just glad to be home.  

As am I (mostly) to be perfectly frank.  I just wish I was able to visit Sweden more often, preferably on an annual basis.  For more than the two weeks of vaca I'm allotted.  That'd be nice.

Obligatory Complaint

I had a list.

I usually do, but this one was different because the opportunity to purchase the things on the list had a limited window.

Five weeks.

With very little shopping time to myself, I think it is important to note.

Because my time was limited, the list was long, and I stayed mostly with families who lived far from the centres of the cities I visited, I knew it was important to tell my hosts what I wanted to buy while I was in Sweden.  Without me telling them, how would they know?  Generous hosts, all, but mind readers they are not.

My first day in Sweden, I explained to host #1, A, that I wanted the following before I left Sweden, and that I thought mailing these things home was the best way to go.

1.  Harry Potter, books 2-7, in Swedish.  I already own the first one in Swedish, and reading books like HP are helpful in retaining my language skills.  Nothing too challenging, I'm not reading Proust, ffs.

2.  Metric measuring cups.  I bought a set when I was 17, because even then I liked to bake cookies and make dinner.  But I bought cheap plastic measuring cups, and they've been through the dishwasher about eleventy billion times.  They're getting brittle.  So I wanted a metal set.  Natch, all of my Swedish cookbooks are in metric measurements, so of course I need metric measuring cups.

3.  Swedish pop music.  Yep, bubblegum Brittney-esque pop, by artists like Kent, Carola, Lisa Nilsson, stuff that is repetitive and frivolous.  For the same reason as the HP books; listening keeps my language skills active.

4.  Solstorm, by Åsa Larsson. [Sunstorm]  This has been translated into English, and I read it in translation a few years ago.  Good book; I've been trying to get my grubby hands on the original Swedish since I saw the book on the library shelves.

5.  Geisha, chocolates made by Finnish candy-maker Fazer, for my sister.

6.  Digestiv (brand name) crackers.  Mmmmmm.

7.  Stig Larsson's "Männen Som Hatar Kvinnor," [Men Who Hate Women] which was published in the US as "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo".  No relation to Åsa.

8.  Billinge cheese.  A long shot, but a hopeful one.

9.  Swedish coffee.  Lots and lots and lots of it.  The Swedes drink far stronger coffee than we do, roast the beans to a darker hue.  Gooooooood stuff.

10.  Orange marmalade.  Yes, I know it can be purchased in the United States.  I don't care, I wanted a specific brand.

11.  Dalahästar.  I have one of these traditional symbols of Sweden of course, but I wanted a few to give as gifts.

My host A told me that she'd need to stop at a grocery store on our way "home" that first day, and I mentioned a few of those things.  "Ah, you should be able to find everything there," she assured me.

I doubted that; in my experience, Swedish grocery stores were small, especially in the smaller towns like where she lives.  

I had a bit of a shock when she parked the car in the parking lot of an enormous department store.  Bigger than a Super Wal-Mart, this place, an ICA Maxi Stormarknad made me feel like the country cousin in the big city.  It had everything.  Shoes.  Clothes.  Books, magazines, small appliances, groceries, just about anything you can buy at a Super Wally's or SuperTarget.

I picked up the Harry Potter books, measuring cups, the Digestiv crackers, and some coffee there.  I found the music later that week while in the big city.  I mailed everything except the fragile crackers home to the US the first Saturday I was in Sweden.  

I looked for the rest of my wish list throughout the rest of the time, and found most of it, too.  I bought Swedish organic honey in addition to the marmelade, more coffee, (hey!  I have to stock up when and while I can!) Solstorm and even found Geisha and mailed it to my sister in New York.  I never did pick up the Stig Larsson book, but someone else did, and agreed to trade Stig for Åsa when I finish reading it.  

The weeks flew by.  I stayed with a divorced lady in her 60s, a family with older kids (20s-ish), I stayed in an apartment that I shared with another team member, a retired couple who were both on marriage #2, and then the most fun, a "familjen Svensson", typically Swedish family.

Where we would be talking about the average American family in the media or in conversations, the Swedes talk about "The Svensson Family".  2.5 kids, house in the suburbs, both parents with full time jobs.  My Familjen Svensson were a hoot.  It is important for me to note here that I really liked all of my hosts, and they were all very pleasant to live with.  All were very welcoming, extremely generous, helpful with my inability to navigate anywhere on my own, and tolerant of my foibles when I speak Swedish.  When I say they were the most fun, I mean Familjen Svensson had the sense of humor that most matched my own, and the parents were about my age.  Agh.  I'm botching that explaination.  

Anyway.

In their guest bathroom, they had some wonderful soap, bliw Björk & Äng.  Bliw is the brand name, and it took me more than a week to figure out WTF 'bliw' meant.  Not that brand names need to mean anything (Xerox, anyone?) but 'bli' is one of the many "to be" verbs, and so I thought it had to mean something.  Yeah.  It does.  Print b-l-i-w on a piece of paper, and then turn it over and hold it up to the light.  (small letter b, alltså) b-l-i-w backwards is W-I-L-D.  Duuuuuh.  "björk" is birch, and "äng" is meadow, or heather, depending on your translation source.  It smells wonderful.

So I bought some of that, too, and decided that I was carrying it home rather than shipping it.  I bought a 300 ml pump soap dispenser - 300 ml = about 1-1/4 cups - plus a refill for the dispenser.  Both made it home just fine, in a suitcase that I ended up checking.  Tripple-wrapped in plastic.  Just in case, y'know.

As soon as I had a chance when I got home, I Googled BLIW.  Here's a shocker: a scented soap that I love, and can use on my sensitive skin.....is available only in the Nordic countries: Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, & Greenland.  Grrr.

I did not find Billinge cheese, either.  Rather, I did find it, but weeks before we were due to come home and it would have gone bad before I got back to the States.  So I opted instead to wait, and that was folly indeed, because I never saw it again.

I didn't buy nearly enough coffee, either.  (Cosmic question:  is there such a thing as 'too much' coffee?!?) 

When does that next flight back to Scandinavia leave?

Processing...

You know how the computer gets too much information or tries to open too many objects and it tells you "PROCESSING" along with the gif of the hourglass?  That's how I'm feeling; I'm attempting to process everything I've seen and experienced over the past five weeks.  I have no idea where to start to begin telling the story of this journey.  

Fortunately, I kept a journal, and was zealous about writing in it nearly daily.  So if I wanted to, I could detail each day for you.  I think I'll resist that urge, though, and keep it to broad impressions and a few specific stories.

I've been to Sweden four times; as an exchange student in 1991/1992, visits to my host family in 1999 and 2003, and this 5 week visit.  When I was an exchange student, I didn't want to return to America.  It felt like a sentence passed by a stern judge; as punishment for being born in the United States, you must return there.  I have a very hard time being objective about Sweden, and I would still like to live there, very much.  So many things they do make sense and work so well; and yet, for the first time ever while visiting, I could see the cracks on the surface of a not-perfect society.  

Every other time I've been to Sweden, I've been supremely reluctant to leave.  This time, as our departure date approached, I had mixed emotions.  I wanted to come home.  I missed my husband.  I got tired of living out of a suitcase.  I was tired of having my daily schedule set by someone else, and tired of being dependant on someone else to drive.  (The team was not permitted to drive in Sweden.)  I also wanted to stay, as usual.   Nothing new there; what was new was that I thought long and hard about just what, exactly, I would do for a living in Sweden. The short answer to that is: I don't know.  My Swedish Mama would love it if I lived there, and I have an existing network of contacts, too.  That certainly doesn't guarantee employment, however.

Quickly, the big changes that I noticed....

1.  There is more English in the Swedish language.  

When I made this observation, Mama said, "Yeah, and in 30 years, the Swedish language will disappear."   I don't agree with that assessment, but she's partly right.  They don't even realize that they're sprinkling everyday conversation with English words...prime example?  I sat in the terminal at Hven Traffiken, a ferry that runs between Landskrona, Sweden, and the island of Hven.  I was early that day, and waited for the rest of the team inside because it was chilly.  I deliberately eavesdrop when I'm in Sweden; my excuse is that I'm improving my language skills, and even if a conversation is deeply private, the chances of me ever meeting (or hell, even seeing) these people again is nil.  Anyway.   I was eavesdropping on the conversation between the clerk at the ticket window, and a woman inquiring about the schedule of the ferry and ticket pricing.  As the clerk detailed the information the woman answered by saying, "Ja.  Ja.  Javisst.  Yes.  Yes.  Ja.  Ja."  You don't need to speak Swedish to spot the impostors in that phrase.  Responding to a yes-no question by saying "yes-yes" in English isn't uncommon, or even noticed by native speakers.  

When I was an exchange student, it was cool for kids to use bits and pieces of English, but that was something that they did intentionally, for attention.  This is not the same thing, but I guess if you're not observing the phenomenon, it would seem like nothing new.  Whenever I pointed out the increase in the use of English, though, my hosts would say that it was hardly surprising, considering the increase of use of computers, the rise of the Internet, and the rising cooperation between Sweden and Denmark, since the Öresund Bridge opened in the early 2000s.  

2.  The popular game of "Blame the Immigrants" is sadly on the rise.

Sweden accepts refugees from many war-torn regions of the globe, and because the Swedish population is mostly the same ethnicity, foreigners stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.  Being "different" is not desirable.   Sweden is a welfare state; refugees get an enormous amount of help from the government in the form of: providing someplace to live, Swedish as a second language classes for free, money for food, utilities, schooling for their children, and free medical care.  Who wouldn't want to come to Sweden from places like Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia?  But then after opening those doors, the Swedes get vastly annoyed by refugees then bringing their entire extended family into the country, and the fact that many refugees don't work and form expatriate societies.  Shocker, right?  Shell-shocked people from warring countries band together in a foreign country.  Huh.  Whoda thunk it?  This game of blaming immigrants for rising crime and flagging property rates irritates the living hell out of me.  All of your society's ills can not be placed at the feet of a small number of foreigners.  If that is indeed the problem, then to me, it seems that there's quite a simple solution: quit allowing people to immigrate.  Wow.  That was tough.  As an American citizen, I can't just decide that I want to move to Sweden.  I need to a) have a job waiting, b) marry a Swede, or c) have a lot of money.  Believe me, during the Bush administration, I thought often about applying for political asylum, but that really isn't even possible.  If however, I'm fleeing war or political persecution, getting a residence permit in Sweden isn't as hard.  Change those laws, and you solve the problem, right?  I know, it is hardly that simple.

3.  Somewhere, in the last 5 years since I've been there, Sweden completely revamped their postal system, and local post offices are a thing of the past.

IMNSHO, this is BRILLIANT.  The postal system operates sorting facilities, and still employs letter carriers.  But if you want stamps, or to mail a package, they've outsourced that to grocery stores, convenience stores, and lottery outlets.  It is still official Swedish Post; but they slashed operating costs by billions.

I sent postcards home, lots of them.  After we'd been there for a few days, I started looking for a post office, because I needed stamps.  The logo is easy to recognize; a blue horn on a yellow field.  I looked EVERYWHERE.  Finally, out of frustration, I asked one of our drivers if she could help me find a post office.  She looked at me like I had three heads, and then burst out laughing.  "When were you here last?" she asked, still giggling.  

"Five years ago," I said, mystified.  

"Oh, yeah, then you wouldn't know," she told me.  "We lost all the post offices a few years ago.  It was huge news.  You didn't hear about it?  Your family in Kungsör didn't tell you?"

"Um, no...we usually talk family news, births, deaths, weddings..." I trailed off, feeling dumb.  

But that's the truth.  I seldom -if ever- discuss the news in the US or in Sweden when I call them.  So the closure of several thousand post offices was not on my radar.  Once I was clued in, the official retailers were easy to spot...same logo, just smaller, and instead of "Sveriges Post" (Sweden's Mail) the signs said "Post erbjudande" (Postal retailer).

4.  The murder rate, and crime in general, is on the rise.

One of our official visits was to a regional police headquarters, and we met both the regional chief of police and the information officer, i.e., press secretary.  I asked them point-blank what they attribute the rising murder rate to, and they both told me murders are on the decline.  There's just more media attention when someone is murdered.  Riiiiiiiight.  There's a bridge in Brooklyn for sale, too.  I don't think they were lying to me; I think they're lying to themselves.  Statistics can be spun any way the wind blows.  I don't know what the deciding factor in that increase is, but I am very sorry to see it.

5.  In the same vein of things that I'm sorry to see, huge retail outlets on the outskirts of towns are also on the rise.

Think Super-Wal-Mart.  These huge "varuhusar" are something new for me in Sweden; my small Swedish hometown had a town center, and a shopping street closed to vehicle traffic.  Most if not all Swedish cities had the same layout.  Sadly, the big retailers are doing the same thing they've done here in the states:  they're killing the mom-and-pop shops, killing the traditional butchers and cheese shops, along with small and unique stores in very small retail space.

Finally....

6.  The Eurovision Song Contest is still a completely ridiculous circus of insane pageantry and silly music.

And I loved every minute of it.

Over the coming weeks, you'll hear lots more about all of this, I'm sure.  For now, though, I'm processing.

The Return of the Horns

The Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)

According to a website run by the National Park Service, their time for breeding runs from February until July.  I saw my first Great Horned Owl right here in Ohio, when I was about 12 or 13.  Maybe a little younger, the memories get fuzzy with the mists of time.  It was at my parent's old house, which is across the street from a forest preserve.

The call of the Great Horned is a very particular ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo, which actually sounds like "Who cooks for you?  Who cooks for yoooou?"  Once heard, and identified, you would never mistake this giant for any other owl.  As kids, my sisters and I would search the trees whenever we heard the call to spot the owl.  The call is as loud as it is unmistakable.

I haven't heard it in years.

Last night, lying in my warm bed, just about my favorite place in the world, as I tried (unsuccessfully) to fall asleep around 8 PM, I heard the call plain as day.  I was determined to try to get to sleep without any artificial aid, you see.  No OTC sleeping pills.  No chamomile, no melatonin, no valerian, no prescription!  I was adamant.

Hearing the owl, I smiled, and turned over on my back, listening again to see if he or she was close.  (n.b., I actually have no idea if it is the males or females or both that make the distinct call.)  I heard it several more times before giving up on falling asleep on my own and dragging out a book after dosing myself with chamomile tea and melatonin tabs.

I have such good memories of looking for that owl with my parents and sisters, the excitement we felt when we spotted them during the day (a rarity) and the straining to see the owl in the falling darkness.  Their silent flight, graceful as it is deadly, is a beautiful thing to watch.

I know they never left; I probably should say the return of my awareness of the Horns...but it is an unmistakable sign of spring to me to hear them ask, "Who cooks for you?  Whooo cooks for yooooouuu?"

Cancer just sucks.

"Take time with a wounded hand, 'cause it likes to heal" 

sang Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots in 1992.  STP were known for their metal-leaning hard rock.  I wouldn't have called myself a fan, necessarily, but I didn't turn the radio off when their stuff came on, either.

That line, 'take time....to heal' is something that's on my mind.

I wrote a while back about my hairdresser, and his struggles with cancer.  A battle that he was losing, slowly.  The beast won the battle just a few days ago, and the wound of his passing is still very raw.  

He and I had been playing a merry-go-round game of 'cancel the appointment' for a few months.  He cancelled on me because he wasn't up to cutting hair.  I cancelled on him when I had a miserable head cold, and knowing his immune system was weakened, I didn't want to expose him to the germs.  He cancelled on me again a week or so later.  We'd been having a game of phone tag, where I left him a message, he'd leave me one, and we hadn't talked for about 2 or 3 weeks when I heard of his death.

The last message he left me (which I hope I will always be able to remember) went something like this: "Lucy, its C.  I'm sorry about not getting to you, but I'm just not having a very good time.  We'll get you in before you leave.  I'll talk to you soon."  I didn't call him back, worrying that if I did, he'd feel pressured to....hell, I don't know.  I wish I had called him, because I didn't really have a chance to say goodbye.  Not that I would have known I was talking to him for the last time.  He wasn't keen on a big emotional scene, anyway.

I didn't find out about his death until 3 or 4 days after it happened, and I was not surprised that he had passed, but saddened that I hadn't heard sooner.  As I had known would happen, the job of telling both of my sisters (they of the opposite coasts) and my mother of his death fell to me.  I did not make it through even one of those phone calls without breaking down and crying.  The hardest was my NYC sister.  She had not heard either, and it broke my heart to be the one to break the news to her.

You might be reading this and wondering why so much sturm und drang over the death of a hairdresser; but he was so much more than that to me.  Friend, artist, teacher, fellow liberal, collector of off-color jokes, a real character.

After that last phone message he left me, I called someone else I know that cuts hair and asked her if she could trim my hair for me.  I had been putting off doing that, knowing if he called me on a day that he felt up to it, and I was to show up with my hair pre-trimmed, his feelings would have been very hurt.  I put it off by trimming it myself around my face, to keep it out of my eyes, even though cutting your own hair is generally not a good idea unless you know what you're doing.  I don't.  But I figured me hacking at it would be less hurtful to him than actually seeing someone else.

Two days after I heard of his death, I had the appointment with the someone new.  DH told me that he was surprised that I had someone else do my hair so quickly after his death, but I'd had the appointment for more than a week, and I'm leaving in 9 days, so I went.

No one has cut or colored my hair besides C in 15 years.  No joke.  

I spent the entire appointment with the new hairdresser blinking back tears.  Every thing she did, everything she touched, brought back memories of conversations I'd had with C, every discussion about cut and color and dyes and products reminded me of something else he'd done.  I always liked the way that C washed my hair.  Don't ask, I can't describe why what he did was different than any other hairdresser, it just was.  He moved through 4 salons in those 15 years, and never varied at all the way he set up his station, laid out his scissors, washed hair, put the color in.  My hairstyle and color changed drastically, and clothing styles altered too, techniques for coloring and cutting hair went on a roller-coater ride from grunge to highly styled in that time, but the methodical way he worked through each client was consistent.

He had a gentle voice for someone as tall as he was, and a very slight tinge of his native Arkansas could be heard every now and then in his speech.

I was looking for something upbeat to put as my Facebook status that also was meaningful, something that my friends would know I was still thinking about him, and I found something by Thomas Campbell that seemed to fit, and I will leave you with it.  (n.b., I have no idea who the bloody 'ell Thomas Campbell is, but I like the sentiment.)

To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.

He touched the hearts of many.  I will miss him something dreadful.

Never Enough Time. Ever.

Counting down the days to Sweden, and I have not enough time to get everything done, done, and done.  If I was the worrying type....sigh.  We all know I am.  Between the amount of things to get done and the amount of worrying I apparently "need" to do, I have a devil of a time falling asleep.  I also have been dealing with a lot more heartburn than I really need to.  

One of my many, many faults is that I'm a procrastinator.  Yes, I freely admit it.  It is a very, very bad habit, and I have learned over the years that if I get things done ahead of time instead of everything last-minute, huh, I don't feel like a nervous wreck.  How 'bout that? 

Since I've known for a few months that I'm going to go, I'm ahead of my usual curve, and really, I don't have all that much left to do for the trip itself.  Everything else in my life, though, I'm not so sanguine about.  

I know what I'm packing.  Get this  - which should give you a big chuckle - I am really and truly attempting to cram absolutely everything that I need for the 5 weeks of the journey into bags that I intend to carry on the plane.  Every time I fly international, my luggage gets lost.  Every time.  So I have a nicely matched set of a small rolling suitcase and tote, and that's what I'm taking.  I'm not taking enough of any liquids to need to check them.  I have Lush to thank for solving the shampoo/conditioner problem; they make a SOLID SHAMPOO that is wonderful.  They also make a solid conditioner, and I'm not as crazy about that, but it at least eliminates me trying to either check through big bottles (and hope against hope that they don't explode all over my clothes)  or to locate small bottles of stuff that fit into the stupid TSA restrictions.  

I plan to take 1 week's worth of clothes.  I will have access to laundry facilities, and I plan to take advantage of them.  I have a bunch of stuff that can be balled up and crammed in a suitcase and still come out looking like a million bucks.  The only fly in the ointment for me is shoes.  I love shoes, and trying to figure out 2-3 pairs to take and no more....is torture.

A good friend suggested making a list of absolutely everything that needs done in my life, and as they get completed, checking them off, and leaving the list displayed where I can see the progress.  Things currently not done:

Write a newsletter article

Clean the closet room

Write a press release for a non-profit board I sit on

Compose voice-mail "away" message

Compose e-mail "away" message

Add international calling to my mobile telephone plan so I can use the Crack Berry in Sweden

Mail my sister's birthday present to California

Write some ads

Pretty short.  In the midst of this is Easter, which I have hosted at my house for my husband's family every year for about the past 5.  My darling beloved begged off to his mother on my behalf.  I love that man!  If I were hosting, you could add about 17 more things to the list, all involved with trying to make the house spic-n-span and cooking Easter dinner.  Instead, I have 2 things I need to make, and more than a week before they need to be made.  That's working well for me.  

Except for the fact that my oven is still broken.  

(Which is a story for another day.  A calmer day.  A day without screaming insanity surrounding me in a 360-degree manner.)

Counting down

I'm leaving the country very soon.  To go where, you ask?  Sweden! I shout.

I haven't written about this to date even though I've known about it since January 4th because I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to explain what I'm doing.  Without talking specifically about my job and where I'm going and why.

I'm not sure that I've figured that out; muddling through as usual.  

I have partly my job to thank for this; and partly the fact that I was an exchange student in high school.  Part of my work takes me to community groups to speak about our product.  My overall field could - -partially - - be explained by one word:  Marketing.

There is one large specific civic organization that I particularly enjoy speaking to, because it gives me a chance to mention my exchange year, and how much it changed my life.

Someone in the audience always, without fail, asks where I went, and if I can still speak the language.  I almost always smart off to them på Svenska as a response, after telling them it was Sweden.

Early in January, I spoke for this group.  About an hour after returning to my office, I got a telephone call from one of the members, asking if I wanted a spot on a team going to Sweden in April/May.  Ha, twist my arm, buddy.  Nooooo.  *eye roll*  

After jumping through a few hoops, and some crazy machinations, I got permission from my employer to do this, to be gone for about 5 weeks.  I still can't believe they said it was OK, that all the relevant details just kind of fell into place.  And there were a lot of them.  Insurance, for one.  My employer provides INCREDIBLE health insurance, but my leave of absence is 5 weeks long, most of it unpaid.  If they're not paying me, then I don't have the insurance benefits.  Hurdle #1.  Hurdle #2 was the whole money issue; unpaid for 5 weeks?  Eeek.  Got around both of those with some time, effort & planning.

Hurdle #3 was just work in general.  How to be gone for so long without causing harm to my employer?  I'm still not sure that's going to work perfectly, but s'OK.  The work will still be waiting when I return.

Times like this, I'm glad that I have OCD.  I make lists, obsessively.  The current to-do list tacked to a magnetic board in my office is 5 pages long.  Probably 2-1/2 pages of the list have a check mark, meaning they're done, next to each item.  Every time I think of something else that needs done, I write it down, no matter where I am or what I'm doing.  It gets added to the master list at the earliest opportunity.  Hopefully, nothing slips through the cracks that way.

So what the heck am I doing in Sweden for 5 weeks?  Um.  Lots?  How to explain without all the gory details?

The trip is a vocational exchange.  That means that I will visit businesses similar to the one that I work for here in the US.  We will visit schools, civic and community organizations, government offices, hospitals, almost any place of business or work that you can think of.  The idea is to see how someone in another country does your job, what challenges they face, how they work around it, what government regulations they have, how they solve problems.

There are many reasons that this is so exciting, but the primary one, for me, is this:

At 16, when I was an exchange student, I thought Sweden was perfect.  Their public schools are in fantastic shape.  Ditto their roads, their cradle-to-grave health care system, their government, their public transportation system, hell, their EVERYTHING.  From the perspective of an unemployed high school student, that is.

What I have come to realize with the passage of time is this; I was NOT a taxpayer, I was NOT a voter, I was NOT a gainfully employed member of society.  I didn't pay bills, or have any responsibilities, and I was 3,000 miles away from my very strict parents.  In my mid-30's, I recognize now that the strict rules of my parents' house did me more good than harm, but at 16, I wanted to be able to do whatever I pleased.  I was a grown-up, after all, of course.  (Somewhere in Florida my mother is rolling her eyes!! {Hi Mom!})

So it will be extraordinarily interesting to see things from an adult perspective, and to learn things that I didn't last time around.  How it all works, and does it all work, if you're out there trying to make a living?

I'm also going to get the chance to visit some Swedish traditional craftspeople, among them weavers of traditional patterns.  I'm so excited about that.  Has nothing to do with what I do for a living, but it is still something that fascinates me.

Finally, I hope to have a chance to see the family that I lived with as a teenager; I am still in close touch with them, and they know I'm coming.  Where I am spending the vocational exchange, though, is about 350 miles south of where I lived as an exchange student, so I won't just be able to pop in to see them whenever I have a minute.  The Swedish spoken in my destination spot is different from what I'm used to, as well; the best example I can come up with is that it would be like dropping an upper-crust Bostonian in the midst of Cajun country; yes, they're speaking the same language, but no, they don't understand one another so well.  My inner language geek is ecstatic, the opportunity to study the differences between regional dialects! The part of me that doesn't like being able to understand the answer when I ask where the bathroom is, on the other hand, abjectly terrified.

During the time that I am away, I sincerely doubt that I will have any time at all to update Well Behaved.  Posts usually take me about an hour to write, and I am given to understand that almost every moment of every day is taken up with something.  We've been told to expect 16-18 hour days, and to sleep whenever and wherever we can, because it will be a mighty precious commodity!  I am not taking my laptop, and therefore internet access will probably be restricted to checking e-mail on my Blackberry.  Mobile blogging is a PITA, so I doubt I'll be doing any of that.

Departure is on April 19th.  Between now and then, I have two major events to cover at work, and countless details to take care of for the trip.  I've already decided what to pack (ha, OCD @ work again, I have a list!) but there are all kinds of things I need to actually gather together and put in suitcases.  I may not be able to write much between now and then.  We come back on May 22, when I'm sure I'll have so many stories to tell that I think it is safe to assume that regular posting will resume then.

In the meantime, Söt om dej, och vi sees/hörs snart!

Take care of yourself, and we'll meet again soon.

 

Pet the yarn

Although I'm not done (by a long shot) with the shawl/stole I'm knitting for myself, I've already got the next project planned.

Actually, truth be told, I've got the next twelve or sixteen projects planned, but for the sake of my sanity, I'm attempting to do ONE AT A TIME.  It is a little hard for me, but I desperately need the lesson in patience anyway.

The next in line is called April Showers scarf, and it is a knitted lace pattern that looks well within the scope of my ability.  I found the silk yarn the pattern calls for on Ravelry, from someone who was willing to let it go for $8, rather than the $26 price tag at Purl Soho.  Sweet!!!  The lace weight yarn the pattern calls for is likewise a ridiculous price, and so instead I bought a lovely lace weight from Knit Picks, a very reasonably priced online yarn store.

I got it yesterday, and it is as soft as a baby's skin.  Feels like what I imagine touching a cloud would feel like, if we could indeed do that.

Everyone I've run into since the moment I got it into my hands has been asked to "pet the yarn.  C'mon.  You know you want to!"

It was only after I said that a few times did I realize it sounds vaguely obscene. 

Down and out-ish

Facebook status today:

Lucy looked in the mirror this morning and saw a woman who looked like she'd been sick for a week.  Wonder why.

That would be - er - because I was sick for a week.  Ugh.  No one I know likes being sick, so I'm not going to state the obvious, that I hate being sick.  Of course I do; so does everyone else.  I don't often catch whatever bug is running about; chalk that up to my innate health, or the fact that I eat right and take decent care of myself, or the fact that I take a daily dose of Oregano Oil (sold under the brand name Oreganol).  It doesn't really matter why I don't often catch cold (although I do wish I could figure out exactly what the direct cause is!).  What matters is that I don't often get sick, and I often feel inordinately smug about my ability to resist the bug du jour.

So then it is a karmatic crunch when I do get sick; as if Mother Nature wants to remind me that I ought not be so smug and smarmy.

DH came down with something a few Saturdays ago, after a tame night out with a few of my friends.  He spent a weekend in bed, sleeping, awake for a grand total of about 6 hours out of 48.  I'm not good with the sympathy when someone else is sick; not that I lack empathy, but I lack the ability to DO anything about you being sick, so please don't whine incessantly to me about how miserable you feel, especially after turning down my offers of a blanket, water, chicken soup, analgesics, cold medicine, tissues, or any of the other things that I CAN do to help you.

Mostly, then, I let him sleep, although doing my utmost to be sympathetic and supportive whilst he was awake.  (Add that, please, to the list of reasons that motherhood is NOT for me.)

Monday morning, he and I both went off to work, did what we needed to do, met up at home, and went to bed at a reasonable hour, all per usual.

Tuesday morning, I woke with sinus pressure under my right eye, and a worldview made grumpier by the fact that I felt like someone had run me over with a Mac truck.  I went to work, did my best to keep to myself and stay productive.  I made it through about half a day, and went home ostensibly to sleep, although I ended up watching WALL-E on my computer in bed instead.  Wednesday, I worked a full day, but felt even crappier; everyone at work was irritated with me for coming in at all, as they didn't want me to share my germs.  All-righty then; Thursday and Friday I stayed home.

Late Thursday night, I woke with blurred and shaky vision, which scared the bejeebus out of me; it looked as if everything was both wobbly and out of focus, and mattered not if I had glasses on or didn't.  Friday, then, blurred vision abated for the moment, I took myself off to the doctor's, and armed myself with an antibiotic prescription.

It wasn't until late Sunday that I felt like myself again; I knew I was finally going to kick the cold when I woke up around 10.30 PM hungry.  I wasn't hungry at all while sick, in fact, in addition to the pain of the sinus pressure, achy joints, and general miserable-ness, I was nauseous for most of the time I was ill, and food?  Ugh, thanks, but no.  But as a thunderstorm raged outside, I ate two bowls of an organic granola cereal I had purchased (with two coupons, thankyouverymuch)  and all but licked the bowl clean.  It was goooood.  (I could go for more right now, in fact.)

It doesn't help matters much that I chose a poor time to be off sick; things are too busy at work for me to be away, and I'm leaving the country soon for an extended period of time (umm...I haven't told you about that yet, interweb, sorry) so I have lots to do, little time to do it in, and don't have my usual energy to get it done.  

I need both a nap, and a clone.  Anyone want to get to work on that for me?

By another name

Fair warning: this post is a massive amount of me geeking out over Lord of the Rings.  If you've never read the books or seen the movies, move along.  You'll be bored to tears by the end of the second sentence.

Lord of the Rings was on TNT over the weekend.  Not the extended versions, which any real geek knows are the TRUE versions...but at least they played the entire trilogy.

I've read all three books more than once, and seen each of the movies many times.  I have both the theatrical versions and the extended collector's edition box set DVDs.  I can do lines from almost everything Tolkien ever wrote, starting with The Hobbit.  So I'm a fan.  You could say.

When I saw the first movie, "The Fellowship of the Ring," I was heartbrokenly disappointed that director Peter Jackson left out Tom Bombadil and Galadriel's gifts.  The extended version corrects the omission of the gifts, but not the Old Master.  Isn't it sad that I'm able to pick apart such detail?

As usual, I digress.

Something new sticks out to me each time I watch the movies or read the books.  This time around, what I noticed was the many names for the character Gandalf.

• Olórin
• Mithrandir
• Grey Pilgrim.
• Gandalf Greyham
• Greycloak
• Gandalf the Grey
• Gandalf the White 
• The White Rider 
• Stormcrow 
• Incánus 
• Tharkûn 
• Greybeard 
• Lathspell

(List partially acquired with the assistance of Wikipedia)

Although Gandalf is hardly unique among the Tolkien characters; Aragorn and Frodo also have multiple names.

What this made me think of was completely off-topic from the movies and the books; sure, there are multiple names for the characters, but we too, ordinary people, also have multiple names, related to the roles we play in various people's lives.  Nicknames a-plenty have we all, from grade school and college, from adventures and day-to-day life.

I'm not going to list the myriad nicknames I've acquired over the years.  (Sorry.)  Some of them I treasure, and more than a few I despise.

When I was growing up, my friends and family called me a shortened version of my legal name. I used to introduce myself to people by saying, "My name is X, but my friends call me Y."  Implying, of course, that even those whom I'd only recently met were friends.

Around about 16, I decided that the short version of the name reflected a child, a kid with bad teeth and messy hair, not the sophisticate I imagined myself to be, and I started insisting that everyone call me by my legal full name (i.e. the name on my birth certificate).

It took a few years, but eventually, even childhood friends had mostly adapted to it.  I hated when I ran into cousins or other extended kin who would still call me the nickname; I bitched about it, and frequently got angry at those who refused to conform to calling me the "right" name.

I remember complaining about a particular cousin to my dad; with 19 first cousins, there were still a few holdouts well into my 20s who I had (I felt) to correct at every opportunity for using the wrong name.  My father told me that a time would come when I wouldn't care which name people used for me, that there would be a point in the future where I would shrug and go along with whatever, it would just not be as important to me as it had been.   

That day hasn't come yet.  I don't know that it ever will; I still really hate being called my childhood nickname.  These days, though, I don't get angry about it.  I just say something polite along the lines of oh, you know, my real name is _____, and I prefer that now.  I don't get into arguments anymore over it.  (I will still kvetch privately, long and loud, about it though.)

I wrote a week or so ago about old school-mates "finding" me on Facebook; most of these are people who I have not seen since 1991-ish.  That is, of coure, pre-name-change days.  Many of these people I'm happy to reconnect with, it is nice to know where they are, what they're doing, but there are a handful that I'd rather they'd left well enough alone.  Playing the "what-have-you-done-since-I-saw-you-last" game is only fun once or twice.

There was a cop movie in the early 90s that starred Michael J. Fox, about a child actor who wants to be taken seriously, who wants grown up roles, called The Hard Way.  I remember a portion of it where he's complaining about not being offered the 'important' roles, where he throws a temper tantrum to his manager/assistant/publicist saying, "I'm the only one who wants me to grow up!"  And that's how I feel about people calling me The Nickname.  That they're not taking me seriously, that they still view me as that wallflower with the secondhand clothes and poor social skills.  At the same time, though, I recognize how immature and ridiculous it makes me seem to insist on being called my real name.  It is a no-win proposition.

(Watch at about 5-15 seconds into the trailer to see just what I mean.)