news that I haven't felt like following.

I'm shocked that Kenneth Lay died. And that there's some wacky law on the books in Texas that could allow his widow to keep all that money. I think that's awful, but it isn't what I want to post about today.

"W's" press confrence from Chicago....North Korea launching nuclear test missiles...Kuwaiti women being allowed the vote for the FIRST TIME EVER....a great commentary that I read in the Wall Street Journal about women's rights in other islamic countries...

I have been very busy with work lately...if you know me IRL then you've heard all about that verboten topic...and I've not been able to post as frequently as I'd like. And I've been too tired to come up with intelligent commentary about the news. Since that's the case, why don't you run along to Dooce's post on Alpha Mom about Brittney Spears? Cause it is really well written even if you don't like Brit-Brit.

Cheers on a Saturday!

Midsummer Pics

The party was wonderful. I wanted to post the pictures and the recipes from the Swedish food. The picture above is of K's hand holding one of my Darlencian Horses, a very typical Swedish symbol. There's 4 types of crispbread and a Swedish cheese on the platter.

Next, Choklad Bollar



I know it is bad form to compliment yourself, but damn, that's a cool picture that I took. Chocolate Balls are comfort food for Swedes. I first encountered them in Västerås, at language school. They were sold everywhere and I got them at cafes, convenience stores, wherever. The first time I ever tried to make them myself back here in the states, though, it was a complete disaster. They've got butter, oatmeal, sugar, and cocoa in them, and how hard can that be? You don't even bake them, for heaven's sake. My mistakes weren't just in the ratios of the ingredients, but in my methods, as well. The butter and sugar must be creamed for a very long time by hand, or done in the food processor, which is the definitely the easiest way. Then the oatmeal; this time, I used steel cut oats. That wasn't a mistake, exactly, but I won't do it next time. I will repeat what I did with the steel cut oats, though. I ground them in the coffee grinder until they were powder fine. That makes a big difference in the final texture, so I will keep on doing that, even with rolled oats.

1 stick of butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 2/3 cups oatmeal (DO NOT COOK THE OATMEAL!)
6 TBSP cocoa, unsweetened (I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa)
2 tsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla extract
5-6 TBSP milk

In a food processor, grind the oatmeal into a fine powder. Remove the oats from the working bowl of the food processor and cream the butter and sugar in the food processor. Add the oats, cocoa and vanilla sugar and pulse until the mixture resembles gardening soil! Remove the mixture from the food processor and put into a large bowl. Add milk, one tablespoon at a time, and mix with your hands. After each addition of milk, check to see if the dough will hold together. When it does, you're ready to roll! I used a #60 ice cream scoop to make sure the balls were all roughly the same size. Roll the balls in coconut, cocoa powder, pearl sugar or nuts. Store in the fridge. You could substitute coffee for the milk, and have Mocha Balls. I don't know if rum or another booze would work, but it would be fun to try!

I doubled the recipe and ended up with 58 balls, and used only a couple of tablespoons of coconut. I had some trouble getting the coconut to stick to the chocolate balls, and I don't know why. The original recipe that I got off the web said to chill the balls first, then garnish. I didn't do that, I garnished them as I rolled them. But that seems counter-intuitive to me that the garnish would work better after they're chilled. I would think that they would accept a garnish better while warm.

Next is the dilled potatoes.

I love potatoes, and I love dill. There's no real "recipe" to this....
Boil 3 lbs "B" size potatoes and drain. Melt one stick of butter and add 3 tablespoons chopped dill. Allow the butter and the dill to hang out together for a while, like brewing a cup of tea! Toss the taters and the butter in a casserole dish and garnish with a blossom from the dill plants. Keep warm until serving time.


These are lingonberry pears, or lingonparon. You can find lingonberry jam if you hunt for it. Hell, my local grocer in Ohio carries it, so it can't be that hard. But check a local IKEA if your grocer doesn't. Anyway, I did these the cheating way by using canned pears. This means I didn't peel, core, or cut the pears. They are better when you use fresh pears, of course, but I was short on time. I bought pears that were in light syrup and rinsed them well to rid them of the syrup, although that doesn't get completely rid of it, it does decrease the sugar content a bit. Then I took the whole jar of lingonberry jam, added some water, lemon zest, a cinnamon stick and a few whole cloves, and boiled it for a few minutes. Add the pears and stew for a little while. Serve warm with vanilla sauce or sweetened whipped cream.

Add lots of friends, a bunch of alcohol, stir well and keep the stories going until at least 1 am. Repeat annually.
Cheers!

Midsommar fest var underbar

For the non-Swedish speaking population: the Midsummer party was wonderful. I took some pictures of the food and the friends and will post some of them soon. (I actually use a real film camera....so you will have to wait until they're developed!)

Getting ready for Midsummer

Midsommar afton, (Midsummer Eve) the date when Swedes celebrate Midsummer, is this Friday, June 23rd. I'm having a party to celebrate it on Saturday, since that works better into my life/schedule. Midsummer is one of Sweden's biggest holidays, perhaps only Christmas (also celebrated on the "Eve") is bigger. When I was an exchange student, we took folding chairs to the lake that lies near Kungsör and sat on the shore and watched the whole lack-of a sunset. While the picture below isn't EXACTLY where we were, it is close. Gives you an idea of what my environment there was like.




This is really hard to describe if you've never seen the phenomenon, so please forgive me while I explain some basic (very basic) planetary science. Here in Oh-hi-ia, the latitude lines that run through the state are numbered 40-41. Where I lived in Sweden, the latitude is 59.4167. The Artic Circle is at 66. Anchorage, Alaska is 61, so where I was in Sweden is pretty far north, y'all. And the axial tilt of the earth at that latitude is such that during Midsummer, the sun does not rise in the east and set in the west. It kind of makes a circle around the sky, dips down towards the horizon, and comes right back up. It is amazing, and I feel really lucky to have witnessed it. If you've ever heard someone talk about "The Midnight Sun", that's what it is!

Swedes generally gather at the lake or seashore, have family picnics, drink vodka, dress up in their national costumes and dance around the maypole for a midsummer celebration. It is a leftover from pagan rites, and the missionaries who converted the Vikings just folded it right into the Christian calendar, conveniently taking the birthday of John the Baptist, which falls on the summer solstice. Bonfires are also traditional, but my homeowner's association might frown on that, so we'll be skipping it here in Oh-hi-ia. I’m not erecting a maypole for the same reason, sorry.

It is difficult for me to find a comparable holiday in the American calendar, but if I was pushed, I'd have to say that it is a bit like the 4th of July. But Midsummer isn't a celebration of independence like the 4th. Swedes do have a national day, June 6th, I think. But not the same thing at all. And I don't remember fireworks on Midsummer, but there might have been.

Traditional Midsummer foods are sill (pickled herring) new potatoes with dill, strawberries and cream, always always knäckebröd (a crisp bread that looks like big crackers). Personally, I don't care for sill, so I didn't buy any. I did buy some Gravlax, though.

I'll be serving
Lingonberry Mousse
-Lingonberries taste like cranberries, but better. They're yummy.
Swedish Meatballs
-my DH informs me that I'm not allowed to have a Swedish-themed party without them.
Blueberry Soup
-Not a traditional Midsummer thing, but definitely Swedish. I like it; I'm encouraging everyone to give it a taste by serving it in shot glasses.
Bratwurst
-OK, not Swedish at all, but a summer thing for me personally. I boil the brats in beer with onions, garlic, and cracked black peppercorns. Then I grill the brats. I strain the onions out of the beer and fry the onions with a stick of butter. Serve brats with onions, with or without a bun. Gooooood.
Potatoes with Dill
-I'm hopeful that I'll be able to find some "new" potatoes, but it isn't likely.
Gravlax
-I only bought a really small amount of this b/c I think I might be the only person who will eat it. Smoked salmon, and it is yummy.
Knäckebröd
-of course. About 6 different kinds
Strawberries and Cream
-I'm thinking no explanation needed there.
Vanilla ice cream with Cloudberry Preserves
-Cloudberries look like little orange raspberries and are delish served warm over ice cream.

You're only invited if you know me IRL...but if you didn't get an Evite invitation and want one, let me know. Cheers!

Again with the Friday.

Wozzat? How'd Friday get here again? What happened to the week? Wasn't it Tuesday just yesterday?

I've been reading the fun across the pond bloggers that I check in with oh, daily or so and have discovered that the resto the world is caught up in World Cup fever. I did see a bit on ESPN about the US beating Italy, and I was pleased that the yanks managed a good showing, but then in the next heartbeat disappointed when my local rag of a newspaper printed an article on the front page of its sports section titled, "Why do we hate football(soccer)?" The article is typical of my local rag...not very well written...the writer is too fond of parenthesis, as if I have room to talk about THAT. But while I wish I could link it to show it to you, that would give away where I am, I'm afraid. And the reasons listed about why Americans hate footie are silly. One of the dumbest things the writer sites is the fact that soccer matches can end with a score of nil-nil. He says that isn't life. Haven't you ever had a situation in your life that was a draw? Really? I think you're lying if you say no!

I've said many times before that I detest American football; soccer players are lithe, athletic, hell, those dudes RUN for the majority of the matches. I'd love to see the average linebacker last for an entire match. Oh, and a must jab, and slightly off topic, sorry. Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers QB was injured in a motorcycle accident last week. He WASN'T WEARING A HELMET. D'ya know what they call motorcycle riders who don't wear helmets in the Emergency Room? Organ donors. That isn't Steeler's hating. Or big Big Ben hating. Or motorcycle hating. I love motorcycles; have been known to ride from time to time. But I wear a helmet, long sleeves, sensible shoes, and jeans EVERY TIME. Know why? If you ride, you WILL fall. Digging gravel outta your skull should never be on your list of things to do today. I truly hope that he's OK and still able to follow his chosen career path, but I also hope that he starts to wear a helmet if he continues to ride motorcycles. Anyway.

I guess we can only chalk the football (soccer) hating up to yet another thing that America stands in opposition to the rest of the world; see system, metric and Iraqi war, opposition to for other examples.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Blatant photo-op, blatant photo-op, blatant photo-op

So W's ratings in the polls are way, way down. What does he do about it? Why, he takes a trip to Iraq, of course. What else would ya do? And then he lands himself on the cover of every daily newspaper in the country with the new Iraqi PM. And his ratings are bumped up a notch. Could this possibly have anything at all to do with the fact that there are primary elections in several key districts in the south this week? Noooooooo, course not. Why would you think that?

A good rant.

Went to see Dave Matthews Band on Friday and Saturday nights in a land far, far away otherwise known as Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. I love Dave Matthews Band. If you don’t, you probably want to skip the rest of the post as I will be geeking out over the songs they played each night and what my friends and I thought. Sorry, anyone who is looking for political stuff today. It ain’t happening.

Friday night’s show was a much different vibe than Saturday’s. While B from AZ said he thought the crowd was younger on Saturday, I thought it was older. And older fans would have loved Friday’s set. They played “Satellite”, “The Dreaming Tree”, “Grace is Gone”, and “Jimi Thing”, all of which are older. The opener, “The Best of What’s Around” is one of my favorite ever DMB songs. Brings back memories of being on the train, in Sweden, traveling from Stockholm to Kungsör. I haven’t seen that live before, so that was a big thrill for me. But just about every song that I mention, I’m going to end up saying, “One of my favorites.” I’d be hard pressed to find a Dave song I didn’t like.

One of the things that JAMIL and I have noticed as we continue to go to shows (our first together ever was, according to her, in 1998. I think it was 1995, but what do I know?) is that we don’t see them play a big fan favorite, “Ants Marching” very often. After seeing more than 20 shows together, we have become even bigger fans, but more than that, sometimes guides to the much younger concertgoers around us. More about that later. In our infinite wisdom, we think they play “Ants” rarely because the band gets tired of being drowned out by the crowd when they play it. Yes, the crowd screams along to the song so loudly that they drown out the band. That takes some doing, let me tell you. A few other songs are becoming a problem with the crowd…”Dancing Nancies” being a great example. You also don’t see them play one of their biggest radio hits, “Crash” for the same reason.

JAMIL and I are often older than many of the concertgoers around us, which mortifies me and amuses her. Friday there were 2 very young couples in front of us that were so incredibly cute that I couldn’t stand it. They couldn’t have been any older than about 16, all 4 of them. The boy who sat in front of us was at not only his first ever DMB show, but his first concert. We told him our theory about “Ants” and “Crash” and he was really disappointed, and then we felt bad. Those were his two favorite Dave songs. But the band proved us wrong, playing “Ants” as the final song of the encore.

DH and I went to the Saturday show together. I had said on Friday that I wanted to hear “One Sweet World”, but they didn’t play it Friday night. Saturday, though, what did they open with? Yeah, that would be “OSW”. God, I love that song.

Nine planets around the sun
Only one does the sun embrace
Upon this watered world, so much we take for granted
So let sleep outside tonight
Lay down in our Mother’s arms
For here can we rest safely

Tomorrow I’ll be back to my usual politicking. Cheers!

Soundtrack: Dave Matthews Band Live at Central Park

Really, Friday Can't Come Soon Enough.

Having had a miserable week at work, which is a verboten topic, I must just instead say praise whatever you find holy that tomorrow is Friday.

I'm intentionally coy about where exactly I call HOME, because it is a small place and I don't want to be "outed" professionally, so this won't be a clue to where I live. That said, I'm going to see Dave Matthews Band on Friday and on Saturday at a venue called The Post-Gazette Pavillion, which isn't really in Pittsburgh, PA, but close enough. I'm really excited about it, I've seen the band in concert every year since I was 19 or 20, and that's been awhile. Last year I got to see about 3 shows and this year there are a bunch of old high school pals are going too. So that should be lots and lots of fun.

It can't come soon enough.

Back!

Didja miss me? I went to Naples, Florida, to visit my grandmother and several cousins who live there. I had a wonderful time; took long solitary walks on Vanderbilt Beach each morning, shopped a bit, and had an unbelievable experience in a Target that has me reconsidering my views on the "English as the official language of America" debate. More about that in a second. There are a couple of topics I want to get to today.

First, I want to talk about this article that ran in the Naples Daily News, Gran's local paper. Can you say YUM? I'll be giving this very fussy recipe a shot soon and let you know how it goes. I'm not sure about being able to find banana leaves in Ohio, but I do mean to try.

I don't know if the Naples Daily is a conservative or liberal paper; I was down there for all of 4.5 days, and only read it twice, but since Florida in general is very conservative, I'll assume that the paper is too. That said, great heavens, how much better that paper is than my local rag. I was impressed with their balanced coverage of local news, and the first day I was there, there were about 10 foodie articles! Gotta love that.

It was hot there. F-ing hot. Really f-ing hot. Hot enough to remind me why I don't live there. Each day would start in the mid 70's (maybe 17 or 20 for you Celsius fans) and get to 90 or 91 (30C) by the middle of the day, with 100% humidity ALL THE TIME! Ugh. Too hot. I would get up each day around 6.30 and get to the beach by 7, but I'd be done there by 9 or 9.30, because by then it would be too hot. I'm very pale white, and I wore 30 SPF the whole time I was there, along with a big floppy white hat to keep the sun off my face. The dangers of skin cancer are very real, and I know I'm neurotic about it, but I don't care. I would rather be the palest girl at the party than making an appointment to have my 3rd melanoma removed. Ya know?

I managed to get all the way to Grandma's house without a bathing suit. I'm blonde. I know. I just forgot to pack one. So the first night I was there, we went to the Naples Target, located at 2322 Pine Ridge Road in Naples, Florida, United States of America, to get a cheapie suit, and I'm astonished (still) about what happened next.

There were a bunch of Isaac Mizrahi swimsuit separates right inside the front door that were selling for $17.99 for each piece. I'm a cheapskate and didn't want to spend $35 for a bathing suit that I would use for 3 days. I looked around for a salesperson, and there was a woman folding t-shirts sitting on the floor with the Target red polo shirt and a name tag on. Before I could open my mouth, Gran asked her where the fitting rooms were. She pointed to a HUGE sign on the wall that said, "fitting rooms" and while I thought that was a little rude, it wasn't uncalled for. I worked once upon a time in a dollar store, and people would come up to the cash register all the time and ask, "How much is this?" And I would answer in a monotone, "Everything in the store is a dollar." So I can understand being irritated that about 50 people a day ask you where the fitting room is when it is really clearly marked. But I didn't see any other bathing suits, so I asked her if the two racks by the front door were all the bathing suits they had, and she looked up at me and said, "¡No hablo ingles!"

Now since I was with my 86 year old grandmother, I did not do what I would have had I been alone, which was to say, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Instead, I smiled, nodded, said OK, and thanked her in Spanish. I looked around for someone else to ask, and Gran suggested I ask her in Spanish....I can't. I know enough Spanish to ask where the bathrooms are (important, no?) and to order a beer (also important), but my conversational skills are pretty limited. I told my Gran that I didn't know enough Spanish to do that, and another customer standing nearby offered to translate. So no big problem, and I did find a cute tankini in a wine color that only cost me $17, which means that the adventure ended well. The thing that astonishes me is that you can apparently work in the United States of America at a job that requires you to interact with the general public and not speak English. I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around that one. WTF? As I have said on this blog before, if you are going to live in a country that isn’t your native soil for 20 years, learn the $@%^$ language, dammmit.

Many European countries require that you take language classes as a prerequisite to getting the equivalent of a green card. As should we. When Gran and I got out to the car, I asked her if things like that happen all the time in Naples, and she told me that the last time she went to the grocery store that the check-out clerk hadn’t spoken any English either. Gave her the total of her grocery bill in Spanish, counted her change in Spanish, and told her “Thanks and have a nice day” in Spanish. When I told my cousins the above story, none of them reacted with any surprise. My aunt works in construction down there in FLA, and she told me that her company offered free English classes to their employees, with transportation provided, books paid for, and not one single person took the classes.

There’s a huge Hispanic population there, and I think part of the problem is that the communities enables them by staying pretty insular. There’s Spanish-language TV and radio stations, and I get that; I don’t object to folks holding on to their native culture, in fact I think it is a great thing that we no longer push people to subsume their foods and customs in an attempt to be “more American” as my great grandparents were. And please don’t mistake this as an anti-Hispanic rant. It isn’t. I want you to learn English if you come here from Germany, Indonesia, or Saudi Arabia.

I said above that my opinion about the official language thing has changed, and I’m contradicting myself a little bit by restating that everyone who lives here or intends to live here for 20 years should learn the language. I didn’t really have an opinion before, kind of thought that making English the official language of the US was really more than what we needed to do. Now I think we do need to take that step.

Here in O-hi-ia, the woman that I talked to at the Naples Target wouldn’t have gotten hired, because there isn’t anyone to do your interview in Spanish. We too have a sizable Hispanic population in my part of the state, and companies are thrilled if you’re able to speak Spanish. But they wouldn’t hire someone who couldn’t speak English. Is that prejudicial? I don't think so.

Wow...the more I learn, the less I know.

I got a comment on my site from mylifeinstockholm and after reading a bunch of her posts, I had a look at her links list and found Amerikanska (which is Swedish for "American").

I so desperately wanted to become a Swedish citizen while I was an exchange student, and the more I check out the forums, the more I realize that it would have been really tough, especially the way I thought I COULD do it, which was probably not legal anyway. I wanted to either (a) just stay in Sweden with my legal student visa, but overstay the visa and just "apply" for citizenship {uh, yeah, I was 17, it seemed like a great idea} or (b) come back to the US, finish High School and do the application process while I was doing my final year of HS so that I could attend University in Sweden. Why didn't I? Well, my parents hated the idea, and I was 17, for one.

I've spent about 3 hours reading all kinds of posts on Amerikanska, and seems to me that lots and lots and lots of the folks who post there moved b/c of the Swede in their life...boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse. I had a Swedish boyfriend that I would have totally moved there for, but praise Jeebus that I didn't. Bastard. He broke my heart, but it was more than half my lifetime ago now, and no, I'm really not still bitter about it. I married my Prince Charming more than 6 years ago and wouldn't change it for the world.

The thing that would have been scary about moving to Sweden for the ex's sake is that I noticed a statistic that 17% or 21% of the relationships actually survive, the rest end, and while it might end badly, or it might end well, any marriage that ends before "till death do us part" wasn't a resounding success. That's really scary. What a leap of faith, too, and how incredibly awesome, to move for the sake of love. I admire the hell outta that. It has to be exciting, terrifying, wonderful, and heartbreaking all at the same time.

I wanted to move there because I loved Sweden, and by the end of the year that I lived there, I spoke the language fluently. A large part of wanting to live there was the fact that I thought my parents were way too strict, my host parents were pretty easygoing, and I got away with just about anything I wanted to do. I was 3,000 miles away from home. Europe was so cool, so cosmopolitan.

And then it looks like the Swedish immigration authorities make it really hard to move there if there isn't a spouse, family member, a company who has a job waiting for you....you can't really just "move" to Sweden because ya wanna.

Which leads me back to my rants on immigration here in the states. I'm going to have to do a bunch of research to find out what the rules are to become a legal immigrant here in the states, since I've never had any occasion to check into that.

We're heading out tonight for the Indy 500, and then I'm going down to Florida to see my relatives, so I'll be offline for a while. Probably for the longest amount of time that I've been without a computer since 2000. Yikes. Hope you're well!!

More thoughts about the culture wars

How could I have forgotten MUSIC!! as an essential part of any culture? Food, too. The exchange program that I participated in 15 years ago (GAH, can it really have been that long?) had/has a strong emphasis on culture. But I couldn't sum up the Swedish culture in a few paragraphs any more easily than I could my own, unless I used some broad stereotypical generalizations. And I won't do that, because I hate it when someone does that to me.

If you know me IRL, then you've probably been invited to my Midsömmar party, (June 24th, 7 pm!!) and in the next few weeks as the party draws ever closer, I'll be doing bits about Midsummer and Swedish culture so that any newbies have some all-important backstory.

Weft, weave, warp.

I attended a Boy Scout graduation ceremony the other night. I was there for work, and while I'm intentionally coy about what I do for a living so that I don't get dooced, I will tell you that I gave a speech. I don't have any kids, and my siblings were both sisters, so I've never had any exposure to the Boy Scouts. The only thing that I knew about them was the Supreme Court cases that made the news a coupla years ago when they tossed a boy who was an atheist. And my assumption was that it was a cult of sorts. This meeting didn't change my opinion of that, really. I still think it is a cult of sorts, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. While the focus of the evening was very incredibly scarily religious, the things the Boy Scouts teach aren’t all bad. But that’s not really what I want to talk about tonight. What I got to thinking about instead of the cult as I sat there and listened was something else.

What makes a culture? What weaves together the fabric of a society? What makes us identify with one culture or another? Boys all over America take part in scouting, and have that shared experience as part of their cultural heritage. As I drove home, I called my oldest friend, and we talked about what the quintessential American childhood experience is. Is it playing baseball? Scouts? I did both, and yet, when I was a teenager, I would have rather died than admit to my citizenship. And baseball and scouting are only a small part of the picture; there’s so much else that makes a culture. Language, dress, ritual. Although I suppose if you stretched the definition of ritual, baseball and scouts could both fit comfortably in there.

Today, when W makes a speech and says things that are counter to every ideal that I hold, I cringe. The last time I was in Europe in 2003, someone asked me where I was from because my accent confused him. I took a deep breath, looked at the floor, then squared my shoulders and looked the guy in the eye and said, "I'm an American." That was really hard for me. Isn’t that terrible? I was not ashamed, but rather more fearful. The political climate wasn't good then (and isn't better now) and I expected a backlash. Didn't get it that time, but I feel that I have to be careful about expressing my beliefs, even here in the states. The other day, I told someone that I keep a blog about the abortion debate after talking to her for just a few minutes. She grimaced, and then asked, “Pro-life or pro-choice?” When I answered pro-choice, she frowned, and since it wasn’t the time or place to get into a loud verbal disagreement, I smiled, and said, “Isn’t that what makes this country great? I can have my opinion, and you can have yours, even when it is wrong.” Then I walked away. :-p

I remember being told in elementary school that America was the greatest country in the world. That’s an opinion, not a fact. Yet it was preached as the gospel. And it irritates me beyond belief how much of that bullshit I was spoon fed as a kid. Not just in school, but at church too, is it any wonder how distrustful I am of organized religion these days? But last night I was reminded again that my doubt and distrust of the establishment and of religion is a minority viewpoint.

The people at the church where the Boy Scout meeting was held weren’t monsters, nor were they really out of the mainstream. I am. While that bothers me a little bit, it bothers me for a couple of reasons. One is that I can’t believe that the majority of folks can’t see through all of that craziness. Another is that the conditioning I got in school worked well; I don’t like being out of the mainstream so much when it makes me a target.

Important parts of American culture are the freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, and in two hundred and thirty years, that hasn’t changed. The things that have changed are too numerous to list, but I wonder what the framers of the constitution would think about the medium and the message today. The neat thing about the constitution is that it is adaptable, but the writers and signatories of the document wrote something that has only needed to be amended 27 times in 230 years. I think the starting point for any discussion about American culture needs to be there. I wonder where it might be for the rest of the world?

Today, Cancer-Free!

I went to have my stitches removed this morning, thank goodness. They were ITCHY! It looks like hell, but according to cute doctor man it is healing well. And it wasn't cancer, but since I didn't write down what he said it was I can't remember. He did say it was just as well that I had it off, it was large and went deeper than he expected. Whooooooo, I don't have skin cancer!

Next up? I'm heading to Florida to visit some family next week. I'm taking lots and lots of sunscreen! I burn super-easily....thanks to my Northern-European heritage, I'm about as white as you can be. In the summer, I am rarely without my SPF 30, and you can be sure that while I'm in Florida, applying sunscreen will be the first thing I do as soon as I get out of the shower each morning. Sunburn is NO FUN. I won't have access to the computer at all from May 30th to June 3rd, so I'll be suffering internet deprivation, but I hope you're all doing just fine.

And over Memorial Day weekend I'm going to the INDY 500!!!!!!!!!! (Not that I'm excited about that or anything.) Strictly speaking, DH and I aren’t NASCAR fans, but anything with engines and wheels, as my dad says, can hold my interest. We visit antique car shows every summer, and try to make it to the North American International Auto Show (NAIS) in Detroit every January. I’ve always liked Formula 1 racing, and you can’t grow up in America without having been to a drag racing strip, but this will be my first major race, so I’m excited about that and about the chance to possibly meet Danica Patrick, which may or may not happen, but I’ll post a pic if it does. If I do, I want to ask her about what she thinks about women’s rights, but I doubt I’ll get the opportunity. She was in a Parade article the other day talking about her weight, and how she needs to stay a certain weight for racing. Interesting, nes pa, that I’ve never heard Jeff Gordon or Dale Jr. talk about their weight…

~Cheers!

Annoyed

Something I like to do when I don't have any particular task ahead of me is to click the Blogger Nav Bar's "Next Blog" button. I've found some interesting (and terrifying) things that way, but mostly it is just entertaining. Tonight, however, I'm reminded of the Dollis Hill loop that Scaryduck had going on in his Mornington Crescent game post recently. I kept getting tossed to a site called "Yadda Yadda News", which somehow doesn't have a Blogger Nav Bar, so I could only get off of it by going back to the last site and clicking Next Blog again. Supposedly, that is completely random, but I got shunted to Yadda Yadda about 4 times, from different blogs. That was annoying. And then I also got tossed to a couple of sites with really bad spelling. Am I the only one who uses spell check? One woman spelled cholesterol colestral. ICK.

Fighting mad, but also very glum.

Check out Dan Savage's latest column, which is syndicated, but I think easiest to find in The Stranger, (he just happens to be the editor, too). In particular, the last few paragraphs, where he talks about the Straight Rights Update. I knew things were bad on the contraception rights front, but I had no clue they were THIS bad. Take this quote, for instance. Judie Brown, president of the American Life League: "We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion. The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an antichild mind-set.... We oppose all forms of contraception."

Because having sex for fun is BAD, BAD, people. You should apparently only ever have sex with the intetion of creating a child. Otherwise, you are anti-child, anti-christian, and according to the President Idiot Administration, anti-american as well. Now, I'm used to being called anti-american. It only ever serves to amuse, because the fact that I am expressing my opinion in any public forum is the very heart and soul of American democratic rights, but in the early days of the current Iraq war, whenever I expressed opposition to it, I was branded, you guessed it, anti-american.

I do a lot of public speaking in my work, and I tell stories about small groups of people who changed the world. I'm feeling glum b/c I don't feel like I can change anything, and these attacks on your civil liberties are serious things. Aren't you frightened? Worried? You ought to be. DO SOMETHING!

Personal Ick Factor: 7 out of 10.

Although I know that writing blog posts about dreams and medical problems isn't a great idea, I'm going to do it anyway. I wrote about some odd dreams a week or so ago and today I'm going to describe a medical thing that I went through.

Once upon a time, I was 15 and in my school's drama club. I had a small non-speaking role in our spring play, and while at play practice, was sitting on the scaffolding that was stored backstage. Hearing my cue, I jumped up and promptly missed a step off of the scaffolding, thereby giving myself a lovely wound on my shin, which besides hurting like the dickens, left a scar that I still have today. About a week later, near that same spot, I noticed a little brown bump, kind of like a mole, but not a mole, exactly. I thought that either I had a new bruise or a new mole and never really gave it much thought.

Fast-forward about 15 years, to last year, when my mother had a bout of skin cancer. Her skin cancer was a small bump on her nose that had changed color. They removed it, no worries, no chemo, and warned her to use lots of sunscreen and keep an eye on things like that should they change size, color, or do anything else weird. OK, duly noted, thanks! I thought about my leg bump at that time, but since it was still the same color and shape, and didn't hurt or anything like that, I left it alone. About 3 weeks ago, my bump started to itch. Lots. I actually broke through the skin by scratching at it in my sleep. And the color had changed from a brown very similar to Crayola's brown crayon to a sickly greenish with some brown bits. Not good. I called my family doc, someone I've known forever, since before he was a doctor, and explained all about my bump. Since it wasn't really raised up from the skin like a mole, I expected that he would refer me to a surgeon to dig it out. (First ick factor.) No, he thought he could get rid of it just fine in the office, which is A-OK with me. I'd MUCH rather deal with him and his office staff than have some outpatient surgery.

Today was my appointment, and ick-s number 2-7 are all about how he really dug this thing out of my leg. The easily grossed out should probably not read the rest. Fair warning has been given!!

First, the nurse had a look at the spot, and assured me that she though he could get it out without referring me to a specialist. Then he had a look at it while the nurse shuttled in and out of the room with all kinds of sterile supplies that I was very careful to not look at....scissors, some weird tweezers, two packets of sutures, a syringe (which is what I really ought to not look at, because I haaateee needles) a scalpel that he wouldn't let me see, and what seemed like a huge amount of sterile sheeting. Then there was also a specimen bottle, cause they need to ship this thing off to the lab after they remove it to make sure it isn't skin cancer. 2nd ick factor, the thought that I might end up having cancer. Fan-fucking-tastic. Oh, and the nurse brought in Novocain.

They covered my leg with the sterile sheeting, which had a hole in it just a wee bit bigger than my bump. They rubbed the spot with alcohol, then started giving me shots of Novocain. Damn, that shit burns. And the bump is right near my shinbone, so the skin's pretty thin there. I lost count of the number of shots. I had a knitting book in my hand and was determined to not look, but who was I kidding? I looked, and asked lots of questions. He made 4 straight cuts, all around the bump, boxing it in. At the tail end of the last one, I felt the knife and said, "OW!" and he said, "You can feel that?" Yup. So he gave me about another 4 shots of Novocain and then started to remove the bump. I stopped watching for a bit then, but he snipped the skin and used the weird tweezers to pick up what he cut out. 3rd ick factor, hearing the snipping and knowing it was my skin.

He explained that the two types of sutures were because he needed to build back up what he took out, and one type of stitch goes in the sub-cetaceous layer of skin and the other goes into the dermis. Maybe I'm crazy, but that kind of thing is interesting to me. I watched while he began the sub layer of stitches, then noticed how much the spot was bleeding and was freaked out (4th ick) and looked back at my book. When I looked again, he was working on the dermis layer of stitches, and was using the weird tweezers to hold the skin while he stitched. Ick, again. That's 5. He gave me about 11 stitches, all told. The little teeny tiny needle they used for the stitches was really cool. A curved tiny little thing, as long as I wasn't really paying attention to the fact that he was punching through a layer of skin for every stitch, it was really cool. He put 5 in the sub layer and 6 in the dermis. That’s another ick, because I’ve never had stitches before unless you count the self-dissolving kind I had when I had my wisdom teeth out in 1994. Which I don’t, because I never knew they were there. Stitches you are unaware of until after they’ve dissolved don’t count. The six have to be removed in a week or 10 days time, and they should have the lab results back by then. I’ll post whatever they tell me, but I asked the doc what chances he thought I had of having to have further surgery for skin cancer and he said, “almost none.” So that’s a good thing. I’m counting having to have the stitches removed as ick number 7.

When he was all done, he showed me where he thought the scar line would be, and how it should heal. I said, “I should worry if….” and he said, “If it bleeds profusely, gets red streaks around the wound or gets hot to the touch.” He showed me how the Novocain blanches the skin, which is really odd, and told me he had to give me lots more than he usually gives people because I felt the cutting. I asked if it would hurt when the numbing wore off, and he said not anymore than what acetaminophen or ibuprofen over the counter pain relievers could handle. He offered to give me samples of Darvocet, but I thought that was silly. (DUH! Always take the drugs! LOL)

I’m going to mix myself up a big Bloody Mary with some of the wasabi I got in the mail today for an article I’m working on for Fitfare. Who needs meds when you can have booze?

Soundtrack: O.A.R’s “Love and Memories”, please check them out if you’ve never heard of them, they rock!

!*@$%

Woke up in a foul mood this morning due to the new neighbor in my duplex POUNDING ON THE MOTHERFUCKING WALLS at 06.45. I'm usually an early riser, and would have normally been out of bed around 05.30, but I've been having trouble sleeping lately and have been going to bed much later than usual. I heard the neighbor in the shower at 06.00, but went back to sleep. The place next door has been vacant for more than a year, so this is new to me. In her defense, DH leaves for work most days around 06.30, so she may think that we're both gone, but I was STILL SLEEPING, goddamit. I understand that you want to hang pictures, but for christsakes, is 8 am not a good time to do that?

How do you politely ask someone to not do that until after at least 7 am on weekdays and preferably 9 on weekends? It is HER home, after all, but she may think that we can't hear it and I don't want to have a confrontation about it, because I hate fights.....

Soundtrack: "11 AM" Incubus

A memory

A year ago today my cousin passed away. She wasn't sick and died unexpectedly, in her sleep, one of hundreds of thousands who are killed by PE every year. She wasn't a celebrity. You, interweb, were not fortunate enough to know her. She WAS a wonderful mother. And a hell of a neat lady. When I’m counting regrets in my life, I thank whatever powers that be that I got to tell her that I thought she was a fantastic mom. I managed to tell her just what I thought the summer before she died. It is hard, sometimes, to tell someone how you really feel, when you want to say wonderful things to them. They get embarrassed, or waive off your praise because it isn't modest to accept kudos from someone, but I managed to find those right words, for once in my life, and told her how proud I was of her for being fantastic with her kids. Somehow, I think maybe there can be no higher praise, and maybe since I don’t have any kids myself I’m not qualified to say that one way or another. But anyway. It makes me both happy and sad to recall that day.

We were at the pool at my parent’s house (don’t I sound like the pampered princess…here’s a hint: I AM.) and it was a cold summer day. That happens sometimes. Cold summer days, that is. Anyway, she was pregnant with her 3rd child, and the other two were happily playing in the pool. Those of you who love the water will understand when I say that the water temperature was higher than the air temperature. So as long as you were in the water, you were, relatively speaking, warm. I had been playing with her younger daughter, and she was laughing at silly, childless me for trying to teach her 18 month old to swim. After a while, I left off trying to teach the baby to swim and sat at the edge of the pool with her. She complained good naturedly about being preggers, and speculated about how well she would handle having 3 children. I told her, I don’t know how you do it with 2, let alone 3. Your kids are so well behaved, so sweet and so goddamed cute and from the outside looking in, it looks so effortless. I think you’ll do fine with 3. You are a great mom. I’d be in the corner in the fetal position, rocking back and forth with my hands over my ears and humming a little tune to myself. She laughed. And then she said, “It’s easy.”

!!!!

I may be clueless when it comes to kiddos, but I know that AIN’T true by a long shot. But she was looking at her daughter, and had such a smile on her face. I’m starting to understand what she meant by living vicariously through friend Jen and her love for her two babies. The moment they’re born, your whole world changes. Love you didn't even know you were capable of overwhelms your soul.

The thing that makes me most angry about her senseless death is that she isn’t getting the opportunity to see those kids grow into amazing people. Dwelling on it has me sobbing, gasping for breath. They were amazing, beautiful kids before she died, of course, but I want her to know about the women they will become. I want her to be there when they graduate from high school, graduate from college, choose their careers, and when they marry their soul mates. I want her to know who they choose to be their soul mates. And I want her to be able to be there when they give birth to their own little angels, should they choose to do so. Those who believe in an afterlife tell me that she can see them and that she does know.

I dunno about that. I struggle with my own religious beliefs every day. Especially since she passed away, I have trouble believing anything that the Catholic church of my childhood taught me. Please tell me what greater purpose her death served. Why a loving and benevolent higher power would choose to end her life when she was only 28 years old. 28! Why a loving and benevolent higher power would choose to allow her kids to grow up without their mother, and her husband to endure without his soul mate. A friend of a friend who is a bishop in the Baptist faith came to see me about a month after she died, and I was still so very angry. He told me that I had to imagine all that questioning about why she died as being in a room with no door, and that I had to make a door, leave the room, and close the door behind me. That at another time in my life, I could go back to that room, and try to answer some of those questions. Somewhat surprisingly, that was really helpful to me. At the time, I was making myself nuts by not being able to focus on anything other than WHY. He told me that if I didn’t stop asking why, I wasn't going to be able to survive the grief.

A year later, I’m not “over” her death by a long shot; I don’t think you ever stop grieving. When I think about her mom, all I can think about is her incredible pain. The huge, raw, gaping wound that she lives with every day. Every waking breath she takes, every day, she lives with the fact that her youngest child is gone. The extreme pain of having to pick out the clothes that your child will be buried in. And then her husband having to pick up the pieces and raise their kids on his own, his pain is something I can’t contemplate, even after a year, because it hurts me too much. I can’t even imagine how it feels for him. He is the strongest man that I know. The day of her funeral, he had many folks willing to keep the kids for a few days (or weeks), but when the rituals were all over, he picked them all up, and took them home by himself. When family members offered assistance, he said, "I've got to start doing it on my own." And every day since then, he’s done just that. His strength, his skill in surviving, is inspirational to me.

About six months after she died, a TV crew came to town and filmed the story. Now, potentially everyone with a TV in America has seen her story. The week the TV show was here was difficult and very inspiring at the same time. The support that the family received from our community was extraordinary. And yet, we’d all rather be anonymous with her in our lives than “known” with the publicity and her gone. Bittersweet. There’s no better word for that feeling.

People who live here and do not know my connection to her bring tears to my eyes when they speak so casually about the week the TV crew was here. How cool it was, how it was on the local news every day, how they liked or didn't like the show. I want to stop them and ask if they remember that all the hype happened because someone died. Someone real, with kids and a husband, a huge extended family and co-workers who all loved her. (Please don't leave me comments or send me e-mails asking which TV show, in the interests of protecting my extended family's privacy as well as my own, I will not answer.)

I re-learned a lesson the week that she died, something I had forgotten. A vital lesson that I now work hard every single day to remember. We’re on this earth for such a short time. Think about it. If the average lifespan of a healthy person is 80 years, that really isn’t that much time. In that short space of time, we do not have the TIME to hate, or to fight with our families or carry around a bunch of regret. Did you wake up this morning, swing your legs over the edge of your bed and put your feet on the floor to start your day? Well, you ought to count yourself as pretty damn lucky then, because you had a warm bed last night, you can walk, there's a roof over your head, and hey, you're still alive.

Moral of the story? Take a good, long, hard look at yourself, your life. Discard whatever isn’t working for you, even if that IS your familial relationships. Count your blessings if it isn't your family. My sister said very memorably when she gave the toast at a friend’s wedding that “Friends are the family that we make for ourselves.” I think she was quoting someone, and I'm not sure who, but it is a great line. Cherish those that you love. Tell them you love them. Give frequent hugs. Be one of those people that spreads joy. Kiss someone in the rain. (Thanks to Milady for the recent reminder about how that’s one of life’s great joys.) Oh, and eat the chocolate. Worrying about cholesterol and how much you weigh is a waste of energy. (She typed while eating a pop-tart.)

Soundtrack for the day: U2’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” album, but especially the song “Beautiful Day”. In memory of a beautiful mommy.

Just an exercise in vanity, thanks.

Amanda had a post about songs on her iPod that are somewhat embarrassing to admit that you like. Which made me think about my own eclectic music tastes. DH and I made an effort over the weekend to put CDs back into their proper cases, because even though he is the Über-computer master, we don't own an iPod or any other digital music storage device. No, instead we have a great surround sound system that has a 5 disk CD changer as part of the whole Star-Wars looking array, and we're lazy and don't put CDs away when we change them out. So there were about 40 that needed cases found and anytime I look at that music collection, it makes me laugh. He: Journey, Styx, Floyd, and Jimmy Buffet fan. Me: Ani DiFranco, Def Leppard, Dave Matthews Band, Tori Amos, U2, and Shakira fan. Plus there's a bunch of stuff that we both like, and before we got married, we'd each buy a copy of the CD, so we have 2 copies of a CD by Amanda Marshall, 2 of Blues Traveler's "4", 2 of Santana's "Supernatural", 2 of Fleetwood Mac's "The Dance", and about 10 others that I am too lazy to get up and look at. Yes, an eclectic collection, not a weird one, nod along with me here.

But when we're talking about I'm embarrassed to admit that I like, I'm going to have to go with the techno habit that I picked up while an exchange student in Sweden in the early 90s. Prodigy, looooong before that whole controversy about that stupid song, "Smack my bitch up" which I never liked, had a CD that I liked a whole lot, called Experience. Then there was the Chemical Brothers, and some German techno that was about a movie about a sinking submarine, which really makes you want to hop up and DANCE DANCE DANCE, doesn't it? I listened again to Das Boot again about 8 years ago and hated it, and the computer I'm working on doesn't have a soundcard, or I'd download it again and listen, just to see what I think now. In small doses, probably, it is OK. I remember an ex-boyfriend who hated, hated techno, who told me that any 3 year old with a computer can compose dance music. I disagree, but that’s probably because I love to dance and have such fun when there’s techno music on.

Since I can’t do a “what’s in my iPod”, here’s a list of what’s in my car’s 10 CD changer.

1. Nickel Creek-Why Should the Fire Die?
-I saw them @ The House of Blues, and WOW, they rock. I wish I had access to the version of “Toxic” that I saw them do live, cause it was AWESOME
2. Incubus-Morning View
-the summer that I was so miserable at work (this has been a few years ago now) the song, “Wish You Were Here” got me through the drive in to work each morning. This CD has been in the changer ever since. I never take it out.
3. Shakira-Oral Fixation, Volume 2
-this is new for me, but I’m enjoying it. Makes me wish I spoke Spanish.
4. U2-How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
-Mmmmm, U2. That’s all I have to say. What’s not to like here?
5. Powder Finger-Odyssey #5
-An Aussie band that my sister burned a copy of her CD for me, they’re really neat. Kind of like Beck, you never know exactly what you’re going to get. Love it.
6. Bruce Springsteen-The Rising
-“Lonesome Day” might be the best expression of grief that I’ve ever heard. But there’s other stuff on here that’s really cool, too.
7. Sheryl Crow-Wildflower
-This is new for me too. I really like her strength.
8. The Clarks-Fast Moving Cars
-A freebie from a radio station, this is something that I love to sing along to. “Hell on Wheels” is a favorite, but the title track is great too.
9. Def Leppard-Rock of Ages Volume 1
-uh, haven’t I blogged about them enough lately? I can sing every song on both CDs.
10. Def Leppard-Rock of Ages Volume 2

So that’s my list. Nothing in particular on that list that I’m embarrassed about. But probably not a good representation of my whole collection either. None of the new age stuff I like is in there, nor any of the punk from the early 80s, like the Clash. None of my jazz, or classical made that list either. And none of the Swedish pop that I have tons of, which keeps me in practice with my language skills. It is probably a good thing that most of my embarrassing music choices occurred before CDs, and I don’t have the tapes anymore. Like New Kids on The Block.

French Politics

Something I have no business commenting on, of course. But why should that stop me?

I heard a quick 30 second bit on NPR about a proposed French law that would require potential French immigrants to learn both French language and culture before emigrating to France. Considering that we've been on about illegal immigration in this country for a few weeks now, I thought that was very interesting. I wrote a post just the other day suggesting that people learn the official language of whatever country they choose to live in, and now realize that the statements I made make me sound nearly as xenophobic as the French Interior Minister, Nicholas Sarkozy. Which was NOT my intention. I don't support mandatory classes before you immigrate. Just once you decide that's where you're going to live, then you ought to take an active interest and learn to speak the language. What irks me is folks who live in a country for 20 years and can't speak the language. That seems inexcusable to me. And I've run into those types of folks here in the US and in Sweden, so I conclude that you’ll have that pretty much anywhere.

My local paper started running "Annie's Mailbox" after advice columnist Ann Landers died a few years ago, and there was a recent letter from a nurse who was pissed that her co-workers, who are Filipino, would chatter to each other in their native language at the nurses' station in the hospital. Apologies, but the link takes you to the current column, the one in question ran on 26 April 2006. "Annie", which is actually two women, gave an answer that I thought was high-handed and smug, but essentially is how I feel. If I'm speaking privately to my sister, who also speaks Swedish, then tough rocks to you. If I am trying to conduct official business, however, then I expect that I should be able to speak English to the official and that they would be able to speak English back to me. Or, that I would provide my own translator, on my own dime, to translate for me if I couldn’t speak English.

Much like I followed the German Chancellor’s race a few years ago when someone really nationalist was running, I’ll be watching the French presidency race this year with much fascination and curiosity. I’m sure that there are those out in the wider world who watched in horrified fascination as we elected President Idiot (not once but TWICE!!!!!) and with the same degree of detachment, I’ll be checking into this issue from time to time.