Ah, why the hell not?

The Christmas toss-up continued

2010-12-28T19:50:00.002+01:00

The main alternative to flat-out Jesus kids get at Christmas is Santa. So, this would seem a natural choice for our household, especially being as fond as we are of fairy-stories. But there's something about the whole Santa masquerade that's rankled me as long as I can remember, so I've kind of begged off just laying him out on a platter as where the presents come.
But...
Somehow, the kid's latched onto him as THE source of Christmas gifts. She told me plainly that there should be NO presents in the house, and that Santa would take care of it on Christmas Eve. I was tempted to do as she said, and take any existing presents out, but not even I'm that cruel (plus I'd been looking forward to her getting the dollhouse we'd gotten her way back in early autumn). I wouldn't concede, however, to the wife's suggestion that we tag some gifts as 'From Santa.' I don't know how to handle her self-created belief in the Jolly Old Elf, but one thing's for certain: I won't be resorting to the emotional blackmail that makes up the 'Santa's Naughty-or-Nice' list myth.

The Christmas toss-up

2010-12-23T19:27:00.002+01:00

I'm an atheist, but I wasn't raised that way. Nor was I raised in any religion. I'm trying to bring up the kid a little more spiritually informed than I was, and with an open choice to make re: religion when the time comes. Christmas can, naturally enough, make this a little tricky. Especially in this house.
See, we kinda love Christmas around here. We have to have a tree, we like to have the holiday with some kind of family (this year it's our nuclear one for the first time), make sure we watch the old movies that brought out the spirit in us as kids, listen to our own brand of Christmas music and usually have a hearty meal on the day. So, the kid's getting that it's important to us.
However...
She's in a nursery, and this year they did a little Nativity play. She was Joseph. It was the first exposure she'd had to the whole story, and indeed to most of the idea of Jesus (or at least 'Baby Jesus'), and she was almost immediately enamoured. I wasn't too surprised: she loves a good story, and it's a pretty decent one. The folks at the nursery didn't seem to be indoctrinating her with any kind of scriptural brainwashing or anything, so I couldn't really mind. Sure, every once in a while she was coming home with little gems like, 'Baby Jesus is very strong. Stronger than anybody,' but her understanding of Mary, Joseph, the Angel Gabriel and the Baby himself amounted to something more like Super Friends than saviour and family.
But, of course, there's the questions. And she's reaching the point where my vague style of answering such questions in an even-handed manner (e.g., 'There are people in the world who believe...') is not really cutting it for her. She's somehow worked out that, for some people at least, this is Real, and not just the Fairy Story she was first understanding it as. I try to make sure to talk with her about it, in the very least to feel out where she stands mentally on the whole issue of it's reality, and I can only come to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter to her.
Because, really, her memory reaches to about a month ago lately on casual things, and much longer on things that matter alot to her. Seems like this is a thing that is ending up not mattering any more to her than that there's more to the Sleeping Beauty story than '...happily ever after.' And quite possibly less.
When it comes right down to it, though, I'll be grateful when the season's over and we can get back to not talking about Baby Jesus, Angel Gabriel...and their occasional encounters with the Wicked Witch of the West.

A good day is a good day

2010-12-21T19:42:00.002+01:00

I made a deal with the kid a couple weeks ago.
I'd been finding myself a little...short-tempered to be dealing with a three-year-old every day, and I knew she was starting to reflect it. We'd gotten into this weird, antagonistic dynamic, and I needed it to stop. So, we made a deal: I'd be nicer to her, if she'd be nicer to me.
It was simple, but effective, and the house is so much better to be in every day because of it. I make an effort to take extra deep breaths before responding if I feel my patience/temper shortening, and I can see she works a little harder to adjust her tone with me.
Our days together can be long, especially when she's just here at home alone with me all day (as is happening right now with a killer cold snap, no nursery, and mum not having started holiday yet), so it's been vitally important to us both for them to be calmer, if not always better.
But they're usually better, too.

They ARE real books, but...

2010-12-20T19:38:00.002+01:00

I worked in a comic shop for about a decade, so I'm pretty aware of the stigma attached to funny-books. Chief among these is that, regardless of packaging or content or style, they're just not 'real books.' They are, and I'm not really going to go into why they are, since I'm sure there are at least dozens of people who've done it better than me already. The trouble is, though, that while I'm reading a stack of classic-literature Real Books, I've been reading comics/graphic novels/trade paperbacks on the side. The classics, and there are 23 of them, have been mostly enjoyable and satisfying, though there have been a few honest-to-god hard slogs in there. The comics...well, mostly the same can be said.
However, I've probably read around 100 comics in the time it's taken me to read less than 20 of the others. And therein lies my own problem with comics as Real Books. They meet any criteria you can throw at them to stand up next to standard literature (save that real books aren't illustrated, but who would make that one up?), but damn do they read ALOT faster!
The latest example of this are my latest coincidental readings: in one corner, the hefty Edwardian series of stories making up John Galworthy's Forsyte Saga; in the other, Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. I have roughly 100 pages left in the former, and have only just (re)started the latter. Still, I have this lingering suspicion that I just might make it through all 10 volumes of Sandman before I finish Galworthy's saga.
So, what? Does that delegitimise comics as literature, or indeed as books? Of course not. But it does make them -- at least for me -- substantially faster reading.

Snowballs in Hell

2010-12-19T19:19:00.004+01:00

Something I've gotten used to living here in northern England is the almost total lack of snow all winter long. So, imagine my surprise yesterday morning.
There'd been a light snow the day before, one that I'd totally missed somehow between bringing the kid home from her Christmas party and looking out the window about an hour later. But it'd been nothing like the 3 inches or so we got hit with overnight.
It didn't even cross my mind to be bothered by the snow. I grew up in central Pennsylvania, and this is the sort of behaviour we naturally expect from the coldest part of the year. We don't have a car, and over the weekend had nowhere we had to be, so we could just play in it! (It was only later, when being offered by a friend kind wishes to 'make it through this awful weather' that it even occured to me this might not be something everyone was enjoying.)
It was our wedding anniversary, and spending that morning with the wife & daughter out building a snowperson, shoveling snow into a pile and then fashioning a crude snow-hill & tunnel, frankly it all felt like the perfect way to celebrate 6 years of marriage and what's happened in the interim.
I couldn't help but feel like passersby thought we were a little nuts for frolicking about in our front garden in heaps of snow, but that doesn't really seem anything new in this town. And we had a great time doing it, so nuts to them.
(Of course, sometime early in the evening last night some chucklehead had the balls to walk right into our aforementioned garden and knock the head off our snowperson. I rebuilt it today, though it's not the snowperson it once was. I expect the head to be off again tomorrow...and I'll probably rebuild it again.)

Back in the swing?

2010-12-17T15:57:00.002+01:00

I'm at the point in my life where I either need to get serious about writing, or just give up on the concept entirely. If I can make any kind of an effort to keep writing here, I think that should be an indication I'm not utterly hopeless.
Since the last time I wrote (ages and ages ago) anything about my life here, my life has changed again. We've had the kid I said we were having, and she's superb. The kid's now 3 and a half years old, and smart and funny and lovely and just about everything I could've dreamed or hoped of her.
The missus came up with the idea that we should try to get the kid to earn a recent trip somewhere we know she loves to go (with the added bonus that Santa would be there, for whatever that means to her). The goal was to earn a star a day for good behaviour, with the cumulative sum of four equalling the trip. Well, she did it, and life around the house has been superb. Today, however, (the day after earning the 4th star) she was starting to act up. When we both asked her to settle down, she said: 'But I already got my four stars.' Serves us right, I suppose.
I reasoned with her that all our lives have been so much more pleasant for the past week, and wouldn't it be lovely if we could be like that all the time? She saw the sense in this, and settled down to go get dressed. It's swell having a smart kid.
(I don't mean to suggest she's a monster on her usual days, but she -- like her Dad -- has trouble with her temper. We've been trying to get it under control/give her alternatives for venting. You know, like NOT hitting other kids when they take a toy she's not really playing with but is integral to her environment somehow.)
Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. We're going on the kid's trip. To a kids' science museum. Not the most romantic destination, but a suitable reflection of what our life is now with me, the wife, and the little girl. Should be a good time. Oh, and of course I've gotten the wife a little something (the US anniversary this year is for iron; in the UK it's sugar -- guess which way I went).

Pilgrim's Progress: The Motion Picture

2008-06-07T13:18:00.003+02:00

It's been forever since I posted anything, and I'm going to kind of cheat now by posting something I wrote to one of the handful of people liable to be reading this!
Anyway, a few months ago, the missus and I scored more than 20 hardcover classic books in a series for less than 10 bucks American. I'm working my way through them, and am currently on 'The Pilgrim's Progress' by John Bunyan. I hate it. To entertain myself whilst slogging through it, I've fabricated a loose model for the book to be adapted into a dark, modern 'road movie,' with incidental music (using lyrics from the text) by Tom Waits. My friend asked if it would be as horrible as 'The Wiz,' misunderstanding when I said it'd have music by Waits.
If it were a movie, I don't think it would be as horrifying as 'The Wiz'...at least not in the nobody-needs-to-see-Nipsey-Russell-cavorting-about-like-Mr.-Bojangles kinda way, possibly in the more usual horror-movie kind of way, though.
As it goes in my head, it'd be directed by David Lynch, and the Waits music wouldn't be in the all-singin' all-dancin' sense but just him performing the stupid 'songs' that appear throughout the book. They'd show up on radios and suchlike. The main character would be called Chris (or just go the whole ridiculous road, make him Asian and name him Chris Chan), and Evangelist would have to be played by some grizzled old fucker like Harry Dean Stanton or maybe Brad Dourif. Oh, and it'd just be called 'Pilgrim' and all the allegoric stuff would be MUCH more subtle. It'd be a sneaky-ass Christian-doctrine flick!
This is what I do to keep me getting through the book, y'see.
All those terribly named characters would get either Dickensian names to give the sense of their purpose, or just their names in foreign languages or something (maybe jokey names like the Chris Chan thing, then Evangelist could be a woman named Eve-Ann Jeliste!).
This is how much I dislike this book! I would rather see it turned into the worst piece of cinematic shit I can imagine, than continue just reading it.
My friend liked it, but it's a little more up his alley than mine. But when set next to something as beautiful, subtle and marvelously crafted as Milton, it just gets worse than it already is! The ham-fistedness of it is what really kills me, otherwise, I might enjoy it. I guess that's what you get when you have a Christian-first write a book about how to do it properly, as opposed to a poet-first writing an epic poem about the mythology. As it stands, I can't
wait for the book to be over.
Next up in my list is 'Grapes of Wrath,' by John Steinbeck. I don't think I've ever read it, and my wife loves it so much she shuffled my reading order just so I'd read it next! (Though I, stupidly, moved 'Pilgrim's...' ahead of it because after 'Moby-Dick,' 'Gulliver's Travels' and 'Of Human Bondage' I wanted something shorter! How could I know it would take me the same amount of time to read 3 pages of this that it did to read a chapter in '...Bondage'?) Anyway, I've read shamefully little Steinbeck, but remember him as eminently readable. I'm looking forward to something lighter, i.e., something written within the last century!

The DUMBEST pants EVER!

2007-03-31T13:47:00.000+02:00

Here in Sweden, there is a fashion trend among young men that is, frankly, ridiculous. And I REALLY hope it's isolated at least to Europe. The trend right now (and for the past 2 years we've been here) is a tangent on the gangsta style of wearing one's baggy jeans around one's ass. These chowderheads have taken it a step further, though, and made the jeans skin-tight with what I have to call an abbreviated crotch that makes the waistline run only a few inches above the joint of the legs. The effect is having awful, awful underwear all bunched up and hanging out over a waist that would otherwise be exposing the majority of the kid's ass! Strangely, it's only the boys wearing these things, even though they're very similar to the thong-exposers in the US a few years back.
Anyway, it was only a matter of time before this started going to even newer extremes, and one night while on the bus, my wife and I saw the result. Ladies and gents, I present to you now, The Dumbest Pants Ever!

No, your eyes do not deceive you: those are skin-tight jeans from the knees down, and HammerTime parachuters from the knee up! I truly could not believe my eyes when I saw these. Thankfully, they're the only pair I've seen so far...

Having a baby!

2007-03-31T13:14:00.000+02:00

If you're reading this, you probably already know...but my lovely wife and I are having a baby! And VERY soon. It's due April 25, and here's one of our only pics of it thus far (from months ago):

With the impending fatherhood comes all sorts of feelings, but I have to confess I'm not as anxious as I once was. When the baby first started to show, I was filled with what can only be described as mild panic at the concept of spending the next 20 or so years of my life raising another human being. I'm not sure I did such a great job with my own upbringing (what there was for me to do of it), so how can I be expected to do a better job with a new one? I don't know that I can, but I also don't know that I can't, so all I can do is what parents have done for time immemorial: do my best.
Of course, this wasn't by accident -- having a baby, that is. The wife and I have wanted to since...well, since we fell in love, I think. We had to weigh some issues before settling, though, and chief among these was why have a baby to begin with! Of course, any loving couple wants some issue of their love to nurture and adore, but let's face facts: the world sucks, it's overcrowded, and neither my wife nor I feel entirely comfortable bringing another life onto the planet to fill it even more and then just suffer through existence. So, why have a child?
What it came down to is pretty much narcissism. Similar to my attitude on teaching, we kind of came down to the concept that if a person feels they can do a good job at something (in this case, making a human), then they should do it. The world does suck, and it is overcrowded, but it won't get better with the worst parents having the biggest families! My wife and I feel like we can do a solid job of raising a rational, decent human being, who will hopefully have some talents with which to improve life on this planet in his or her (we don't know the sex yet!) brief time on it. Whether we're successful only time will tell, but we intend to give it a better shot than just raising another blob of meat to take up space, energy and food. Obviously, we have high hopes but they feel attainable. We'll see how we're feeling after a year or so of nothing but feeding and changing diapers, though...
Wish us luck!

Living in Sweden, pt. 3: Bureaucracy

2006-11-17T17:41:00.000+01:00

My wife and I have been here just over a year now, and that means we have to renew our one-year visa to extend to the current end of her contract next August. As usual, she took care of it. She's great at any kind of organising thing (except when it comes to the household, which is pretty much my domain), so I always feel safe in the knowledge things she does get done right. However, when you're dealing with the government -- anywhere -- what you do only goes so far.
So it was with our Resident Visa renewals.
She applied for them online back in August, since they were due to expire in September. We had no idea how long this would take, but knowing we were planning a trip Stateside in December, we figured that was decent leeway. How could it take 4 months, right?
Well, come October, we started to get nervous. We contacted the office in charge of doing these things, and they said we should just wait it out and not panic. This was not too late for it to be taking the proper amount of time. Placated, we went back to not worrying about it. Kind of...
Then, November arrived with still no word from the Migrationsverket, so the worrying began anew. We were, after all, leaving next month to visit the US, and without the renewed visa we would not be allowed to come back! This time, she had her (Swedish) boss -- who has a reputation for getting shit done -- call the office. They told him they were missing the piece of paper that said she had a job here! Now, we had sent this in with all the other stuff, so either they hadn't gotten it then, or the copy we sent was crap (we had no scanner, so photographed it and sent in the jpeg). The question was, of course, if they were missing this piece of important material, why didn't they tell us back in October when we first called?! The pat answer we got from anyone we asked is that the Swedish are racist and don't really want immigrants here, so make it as hard as they can for immigrants to stay.
So, with this new info, we actually faxed the paper in, and were notified the next day that our renewal was accepted! Then, a day or two later, we got letters (one each) explaining now that our renewals were accepted, we'd have to trek to the local Migrationsverket for the actual completion of the procedure. We'd have to bring with us two passport-sized photos, the specifications for which were given both in the letters as well as (more explicitly) on their website.
We were armed with knowledge and ready to do the damn thing! I took off from school for the day she usually works from home, and we planned to go in and do the pictures and everything at once. Now, the office is only open from 10-noon every weekday, so we had a small window in which to do what we had to, but (once again) figured it couldn't take that long. Add to this that we woke up a little late and then caught a later bus than we might've, and we ended up with only about an hour to get everything done. Even though the photobooth we intended to use was at one end of town and the Migrationsverket was at the other...and it was raining...we figured we'd be alright.
When we got to the machines, we saw a sign that said as of such-and-such a date, these photos were no longer useable for passport photos. We naturally assumed the same went for visa photos, so went to the police station where they said such stuff was now done. After the 10 minute walk there, we found that they did do passport photos there, but only for Swedish passports...and certainly not for foreign visa renewals! So, back to the booths.
First, we had to get out money, then we had to make change: the booth was 40 kronor (about 5 bucks American) and only took 5 and 10 kronor coins. We did this with little trouble at a shop right by the booths, but only got enough for one shot at it each. This came back to bite us when we realised, after both taking our pics, that we'd used the black-and-white booth instead of the colour one right next to it!
The wife had enough for one more go, so I took the bank card and went out to get more money. Of course, the machine we'd just used now said to come back later. I went to the next nearest one and it said the same thing. I was on the way back in defeat, but tried the first ATM (Bankautomat) again and it mysteriously worked! Triumphant, I returned to the shop, got change, took my pictures and we were finally ready to hit the Migrationsverket...with 10 minutes before they closed. We knew the police station had taken 10 minutes to reach, and we needed to go further than that, but decided to risk it anyway.
A heated 15-minute walk later, we arrived at the warehouse-style building next to the highway (this place couldn't have been much less welcoming, really), and had a struggle to find the office itself once we were inside. Once there, we were relieved to find a window still open and a couple customers standing in line. However, when we approached we were told that they were, in fact, closed. Not willing to leave completely beaten, we interjected that we had just one question: were the photos we had taken acceptable? No, they were not, the woman at the window replied and gestured to the machine standing beside us, we now do our own photos...
After this flurry of activity, we were a little exhausted, so sat in the office and got thoroughly upset. As we sat there, my wife noticed a sign on the wall: as of October 31, applicants are no longer required to bring their own photos! October 31, mind you: our letters were dated November 13; we'd been on their site that day looking at the photo requirements. But they knew as of October 31 that applicants need no longer bring their own photographs. The utter irony of the situation was that, with that information beforehand, we wouldn't have been late to begin with!
Count for yourself how many times this scheme went wrong, but it's a classic example of bureaucratic red tape...which apparently the Swedish excel at creating. An Egyptian classmate of mine (in Swedish language class) has said if it veers from the bureaucracy, the Swedes don't know what to do with it. Apparently, they don't know what to do with it anyway.
We'll try again next week.

Travel Broadens the What, Now?

2006-11-01T09:51:00.000+01:00

The best thing about living in Europe, no contest, has been the travel we've managed to do. While I was in the Navy, I was on an airbase in Washington state, and was only on a ship once...for two weeks...floating off the coast of California. Since we've been here, though, we've really managed to get around a bit. The strange part of it is that we have yet to go anywhere in Europe apart from our home country of Sweden! Of course, this isn't all that strange when you consider the travelling we've done has been almost entirely due to my wife's work. With the exception of our stop in Bangkok.
Sounded fine, but first the wife had to go to another thing in London!We were going to Australia for a conference my psychologist wife was attending. It was in Melbourne, which meant that in addition to the overwhelming other-side-of-the-globe flight, we had an extra couple hours across Australia to fly before we stopped. So, it was agreed amongst the group from her center that we should really stop off in Bangkok for a few days on the way. Through some deft travel arrangements by my clever and proficient lady, we worked out a way to meet on her way back from the London thing (we couldn't afford to send me to Britain AND Thailand AND Oz, after all, since it's all on her bill) and travel from there to Bangkok.
Unfortunately, the good woman was feeling poorly by the time we met up, and got progressively worse. The notorious odours and clamor of Bangkok did nothing for her well-being, and when we'd reached our hotel lobby she was perched on the edge of nausea. She tried valiantly to hold in her spew until we reached the room, but it wasn't going to happen. She did manage to reach a garbage can in the lobby, however. With little display, she discreetly threw up at the front desk and I gently ushered her up to our spacious room overlooking the street.

This would be pretty much all we saw of Bangkok for most of the time we were there, as she ended up pretty much unable to get out of bed. We kept a trashcan beside the bed for her regular spewage, and I tried not to be too worried as I sat and watched over her. Toward the end of the few days we had, she tried to get out and at least enjoy some authentic Thai food (if you don't know my wife, she's all about the food), but these trips invariably ended back in the room with her buried in the blankets. At least it was a nice enough room.
On our next to last day, she felt well enough to go for a walk, so we went to the nearby Wat Phra Kaeo, a Buddhist temple that was pretty much the reason we got a room in this part of town. On our way there, we were introduced to the line we'd heard about: 'Oh, the temple is closed today. Buddhist holiday. I take you to another temple near here. Very nice. Then fireworks later.' This comes from any random guy on the street, who then leads you (at best) to some jewelry kiosk or something that is WAY out of your way. We actually ran into a couple of these guys, but we're not idiots and we'd been forewarned by online toursists about this exact ploy. Unfortunately, our distrust of the locals (which led to Bangkok being dubbed by us The City of LIARS) wouldn't serve us as well as we'd hoped later. This time, though, not believing what this fella said did alright by us, and we found our way round the temple complex to the main entrance. We were made to don some flimsy long pants to cover our bare legs (we'd been warned about this, too, but...I guess we chose to ignore it), and went on our way into the temple.

It was pretty amazing to see and be in, really. We'd read about it and knew what to expect, but to see the buildings 'in person' and be able to view the HUGE Ramakien mural that wraps round the entire complex was certainly worth the doing. We managed to get all the way through it and the attached royal museum before the wife started to nosedive and wanted to go back to the room. It was just as well because it was sweltering out there!
We went back to the room, and she had a lie-down, but then we went back out later to try to make it to a dinner with our co-travellers. Unfortunately, they all went before us, and the restaurant was a bit away, so we had to try to make our own way. We would have to take the water-taxi to get to the place, and on our way, someone told us the ferries were done for the day. We, of course, didn't believe them...but found out they were telling the truth after all! So, we missed the boat and the dinner, and ended up back at the one restaurant we experienced while in Bangkok. It was right in the square/center of Old Town (where we were staying), and the night before we'd seen an elephant on the street!

The food there was pretty great, and the atmosphere couldn't be beat as far as I was concerned. It was like an upper class restaurant for the locals, so there were very few tourists/non-Thais there, and there was live entertainment in the form of a band and rotating singers (who we couldn't tell were pros or just pulled from the clientele). However, the little lady was still feeling poorly, so we made it back to the room before long.
The final day of our stay, we all went to the nearby street-market to pick up the finest in pirated software, tunes, and clothing! Our bartering tips came in pretty useful (ask for half what they're asking, and work from there) and we got all the things we came for. The best thing about the last day, though, was that the wife was finally feeling better! Just in time to go to Australia.
I know it's probably unfair to use this largely botched trip as any estimation of our experience of the country, but I can't help feeling a little vindicated by it nonetheless. I've always held to two universal truths about people: they're idiots and they're the same everywhere. Our brief time in Thailand only reinforced these ideas. I have nothing against the Thai, or the country, or anything there, and in fact it was comforting to find that the people there (for better or worse) were pretty much what you'd expect anywhere. But what I'm finding generally true as we're getting around to more of the world (so far Bangkok, Turkey and Australia, with her going to London as well...and of course our usual trips to Puerto Rico) is that my view of the world isn't getting greater, but smaller. The more I see, and the more people I meet, and the more new things I experience, the less I think of the world and humanity on the whole. So, why travel? Got me, but we're having a good time...and I'm getting to lick alot of old stuff!

But perhaps that's a story for another time...

Living in Sweden, pt. 2: White Man's Hell

2006-10-06T15:42:00.000+02:00

It's midnight. Normally, I'd be home, comfortably sleepy -- or asleep -- with my wife. But instead of being groggy and close, alone with my sweet woman, I'm trapped at a 'party' with no end in sight. The few remaining revelers are gathered in the main room, some struggling through high-volume conversation while others stand round the piano performing -- at even higher volume -- classic radio mainstays from such whitebread pop stars as James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel and John Denver. It's so loud and unbearable I can't even be in the same room, and it's only made worse by one man's choral improvisations (an occasional churchly 'aaaah-aaaah' to accompany the melody).
This is so like my nightmares it's shocking.
Even more shocking is that these people a) are not drunk and b) have (for the most part) never heard of, much less seen, 'The Big Chill.' But there they are.
This is kind of typical of my experience of the Swedish dinner party. Maybe it's just because I never knew people who had 'dinner parties' per se, or maybe it's a cultural thing, but I thought environments like this died off with men wearing hats all the time. But the few shindigs like this we've attended have ended in this or a similar way...though usually with more people drunk, and usually with at least one person I could talk to.
To be fair to our truly gracious, nice and incredibly decent Swedish hosts, I 've never been a fan of parties to begin with. They're too much like enforced fun for me to enjoy them much. And Swedish parties are even worse. These things have often had activities meant to reinforce the fun being had...which makes the experience that much more nightmarish to me. Our first one here was at the local castle (yeah, we have a local castle...jealous?). The food was okay, but the best thing going was that it was in the dungeon! I was caught almost unawares (everybody was supposed to bring something, so I knew something was up) when we spent easily an hour doing songs, having readings, and finally dancing around the room to Swedish nursery songs!
The above experience wasn't as bad as the castle party, but suffered from the common down side these things too often have: they don't know when to stop. The previously mentioned party could've been done around 10, and some were wise enough to cut out then. We, however, ended up in the dregs of the evening...and that's where you came in.
It was nearly two when we finally got home. I would've been relieved, if it weren't for the certainty another one would be coming soon enough.
Hallowe'en's just a few weeks away...

Living in Sweden, pt. 1

2006-06-24T16:00:00.000+02:00

I've said it before, and I still wonder: how did anyone ever get Sweden to convert to Christianity? I've never in my life seen such an ardent band of sun-worshipers! I'm not Swede-bashing, honest. In fact, I find it a little endearing that the towns go quiet when summer rolls around, because the entire population has pulled chocks and flocked to their summer houses in the country. Of course, this makes living in the towns a little harder.
Maybe I should back up.
We need an iron. In moving here nearly a year ago, we had to put most of our MANY possessions into a storage unit in the States and pick & choose what would come with us. Most of what we brought was in our luggage when we came, but we also had some later-essentials (winter coats, a wall clock and such) shipped to us by some friends. Nowhere in that plan did an iron fall...in fact, I'm not even sure we had one to begin with. Anyway, my wife has been travelling to conferences and will shortly be interviewing for a new job, so the condition of her clothing has become a matter of increasing concern to her. Hence, we need an iron.
She's away right now at one of her things, in London, so I'm on my own here at the homestead. While I was here, before I travel to meet her in Stockholm and on to Bangkok and Australia, I thought it might be a nice idea to go into town to try to track down a travel iron (or indeed any iron). (This was further encouraged by a recently-acquired shirt of my girl's sitting here getting no less wrinkled before I pack it to go with me...)
It was afternoon before I decided to head into town, and I'd already started burning a CD I wanted to listen to on my way in when I discovered the next bus was in 15 minutes. In waiting for the disc to finish, I missed it.
The next bus was in another 20 minutes, at five past the hour, so I felt I could just catch that. I waited until on the hour, and headed over to the stop just a couple minutes' walk away. I got there with, by my watch, time to spare, but when it came to 15 past the hour I figured I'd missed it and came back home.
It would be another 40 minutes for the next bus, and it was still pretty early, so I just hung out and read until my watch showed it was about time I should be going. For some reason, though, I looked at the time on the computer and it read THE time I was supposed to be at the stop! I rushed out the door, but as I was putting the key in the lock, I could actually hear the unmistakeable sound of the bus going by...
Back in I went, and checking the schedule yet again I found the next bus wasn't for another hour, at about ten to four, and I knew the shops downtown would be closing by then. So, I just bit the bullet and decided to ride my bike in.
I don't have any problem with riding my bike, in fact I quite enjoy it. But since the wife's been gone, I haven't been sleeping well and a long trek into town on a windy day was not something I was looking forward to. In truth, riding bike on a windy day ranks high on my (VERY long) list of things I don't like to do. But what choice did I have: tomorrow's Sunday and shops may not even be open, and Monday afternoon I'm leaving the country!
The ride was as arduous and unpleasant as I'd expected, though it's really a beautiful day outside and (other than the severe wind) fairly ideal to be out biking in. Any biking trip around here tends to be hampered by the strangely idiotic behaviour of other bikers and pedestrians in this town. I'll never understand that: everybody bikes around here, but nobody seems aware that anyone else is there! I had two guys in front of me at one point who were taking up the entire path riding side by side, then at the crosswalk, when I thought I could pass them, one of them couldn't get his bike going and the other suddenly decided to turn right into me. Jackasses.
But I did get into town, and it really should have been a dead giveaway that there was only one other bike in the usually busy parking area at the edge of downtown. I locked up my bike, though, and headed for Clas Ohlson, the chain hardware, etc., store where I hoped to find an iron. Instead I found closed doors and little else, in spite of all the posted hours saying they would be open until 4.
For some consolation, I went to the grocery downstairs (which was open) and picked up a bag of Rollos (not the chocolate-covered caramel American candy, but a fudge-filled British soft toffee I've gotten totally addicted to). Then, I thought I'd walk over to the magazine stand where I buy MOJO, on the off-chance the new issue'd come out since I checked three days ago, and then I'd be halfway to another shop where I wanted to pick up something for the wife. The way there is through a store-heavy people's mallway, and every store that didn't sell food was closed. And they all had hours posted saying they'd be open until four! The newsstand was closed, so I didn't even bother going to the other place, and instead went back to my bike and headed home.
Now, I don't know if today's a national holiday or not; I would have almost no reason to know, and it's not as though we have a Swedish calendar to tell us. But, I blame it all on the Swedish population not working on a beautiful day, because they love the sun.

Something About a Puzzle

2006-06-20T12:19:00.000+02:00

We've been in Sweden for just under a year now, so we've only experienced one winter. I wouldn't call it harsh, certainly not compared to the winters I'm accustomed to in the northeastern US, or the ones I experienced in the Pacific Northwest...on an island. It was cold, certainly, but it rarely got windy or completely, bitchingly, make-you-want-to-die freezing (not like nights I remember my friend Matt and I would work until 3 or 4 in the morning at a video arcade in Pennsylvania and then have to walk home...). It would just snow alot, and never in any life-threatening way (well, not to us, who walked or biked everywhere and didn't have to deal with the long, flat stretches of highway here). So, the day in February when I decided to walk the pathless way from our nearby 'mall' to the almost-near-that Toys 'r' Us, there were maybe two feet of snow on the ground, but it wasn't very cold.
Still, why would I do that at all, you may ask. Why would I trek through deep snow, with no more than thermals and jeans covering my legs, just to go to a toy store? (Well, I guess that's not a question you'd ask, since you probably know me if you're reading this, and if you know me that doesn't seem so outlandish, but...) As trite as it's going to sound, I was doing it for L-U-V love!
About a week before, my wife's sister had come to visit us. Right after her visit, my wife was going on a trip of her own. So, we decided to cap off the sister's time with us, as well as see off my bride, with a couple days in Stockholm. This was the first time we were there, and we had an excellent time. The last day there, though, my wife and I (having seen the sis safely departed) went to a toystore in the city, a place called BR that's roughly equivalent to the US's KB -- right down to the logo. I'd wanted to pick up one of those plug-and-play video game controller dealies and this was looking like the only place to get it.
While there, we stopped off at the puzzle section, which was not as large as one might expect and in almost total disarray. Well, even in the mess, my wife found one puzzle that completely caught her attention. She's got a slight thing for egyptology -- or at least the imagery thereof -- so it was pretty natural for her to like the 2000 piece jigsaw we found of a painting titled 'Israel in Egypt,' though the box just called it 'Egypt.'

Since we were there for one thing, though, and she was on her way out of the country, I couldn't convince her we should drop the bills and pick up the one copy they had of the thing! We left the store (with my video game thing), and the next day she was on her way to the US and I was on my way home.
I don't work, so I had to have some cash to survive on while she was gone, and as soon as I had it in pocket, I decided I was going to find that puzzle and get it as a gift on my wife's return home. Little did I know what I was in for.
When I got back into town, I went into our little downtown and checked our two toystores. One didn't really have a puzzle section, and the other just didn't have the one she wanted. I knew there was an actual BR at our nearest mall-type shopping center (more like an inside strip mall, but the best we get), so I figured I may as well just bus out there and check it out (a decision made even easier since the bus would be free for 3 hours after my first trip).
The bus system here is pretty simple, and equally reliable, but it can be easy to screw up right in the center of town where all buses must stop...and that's what I did. I got on the wrong side of the road -- in spite of having checked the schedule posted -- and had to sit on the bus while it went in what I knew was the wrong direction, figuring I'd just stay on until we turned back 'round. Well, we reached the far end of the route, and I was the only one on the bus. The driver turned around and yelled something at me in Swedish (I barely know any now, and I knew even less then), so I went up to him to see what was going on. Turns out this was the stop where he took his break. He'd be going out to Marieberg (where I wanted to go), but I had to step off the bus for ten minutes while he had his required intermission. We were in the middle of a distant residential area (near a lake where folk go ice-skating), so all I could do was get out and stand at the snowy stop and wait. In about five minutes, the bus doors opened and he let me and the one new passenger in, telling me it was 'a short ten minutes.' Nice fella.
So, we had to go back through town to get to where I wanted to be, meaning a trip that should have taken only about 20 minutes was already an hour and a half! And, of course, when we finally got to the shopping center, it was to find that the BR there had about five puzzles in the store. I knew, however, that there was a Toys 'r' Us nearby. I'd never been there, but the same bus here went on to IKEA and we'd always pass TRU on the way. Unfortunately, it'd be another half-hour or so for the next bus. Rather than wait, I did the American thing and just forged blindly onward, pointing myself in the general direction I wanted to go and walking straight ahead.
There may well have been a path, but I couldn't see it for the deep, smooth snow covering the entire area. All I could do was first walk along the highway to get around the least hospitable looking area, then just plow right through whatever stood between me and the store. That turned out to be easily 50 yards of dense, powdery snow, with no concept of the underlying terrain. I came out of it with my legs covered in white up to my thighs, but I got to the store!
That should be the end of this story -- I buy the puzzle, get on a bus and go home -- but I (and you) should be so lucky. It took almost no time to find the store's puzzle section, which was well organised (by company and then piece-quantity) and covered about a sixth of the warehouse length back wall. The puzzle HAD to be here, right? Well, I spent about twenty minutes checking every one of the puzzles they had in stock, and there was no 'Egypt' in sight. Having worked in a store like this before, though, I knew that the stock wasn't necessarily rotated as regularly as it should, and that overstock was kept above the shelves. So, I started squinting at the overstock shelf atop all these puzzles, but it was about two feet above my head AND there was a rising lip that was blocking my view of most of what was up there.
Now, in an American store this size, you wouldn't normally be able to spend five minutes staring at a given section without someone accosting you, but here I'd been for about half an hour and none of the three or four employees who'd passed (I was right next to the store's back employee section) had offered to help. So, seeing that I was at an impasse, I went off looking for some assistance. The first person I found was diligently stocking wrapping paper, and just as I was about to ask her help I noticed a tall ladder laying on its side down the aisle. Being bold, I told her all I really needed was to use that ladder. She gestured to indicate 'go ahead, what do I care?' and away I went! (That's right, folks, this store employee just told me to go ahead and climb a ten foot ladder on their premises! Definitely not in America anymore...)
Okay, cutting this part of the story short, they had the puzzle, and I didn't fall off the ladder. I retrieved the jigsaw, returned the ladder and remitted my payment without bother to get a bag. Now, I just had to get home.
From where I was, I thought the nearest bus would be the one at IKEA (I'd find out later there was one a little nearer). I trekked the lots dividing the two shopping areas, as well as another few feet of thick white, and got to the bus stop only to find out there were no buses scheduled for that day! This meant I'd have to get back to the shopping center, where I'd first gotten off...
The trip back was easier than the trip there, as I could see from this way that there was actually a paved and shovelled sidewalk connecting the two places! I didn't see it the first time because it was in the opposite direction of where I wanted to be, so I didn't even look.
And NOW all I had to do was wait for the bus, and go home...
The story ends happily, of course, because I did get the puzzle. My wife came home safely and was surprised and delighted by the gift, and we got right on assembling it. It took us about two weeks of on and off hardcore work...

(It's pretty enormous! That's a pencil in the upper right of the table, for scale.)
That was around March...now it's June, nearly July, and there it sits taking up an entire table. Occasionally, I'll dust it off. Last week, without thinking, I tried to vacuum it! After a moment of panic, while pieces were clattering up the tube and falling all over the table, I was able to shut off the machine and reassemble the damage I'd done. I'd only sucked up three pieces in the end, and thankfully the machine's designed in a way that makes it easy to retrieve things from the bag.
Was it worth it? Worth the trip and the trying, the space it takes up now and the money we'll eventually spend to (probably) frame it and hang it (yeah, we're like that...)? Damn right it was! Worth every second, just for that moment of seeing my girl smile. I know, how sappy can it be? Well, you were warned...

The Things What Come From My Body! Part deux

2006-06-15T12:22:00.000+02:00

The last time I'd really been in a hospital in the US was about 15 years ago. While home for the holidays on leave from the Navy, I was out driving around with a couple female friends of mine. It was the last day of December. One was driving and the other was in the passenger seat, I was in the back left seat. We'd just been into town to get one of my favourite things to eat back then: a baked sub -- extra mayo -- from the Italian place downtown. I was pretty excited to be eating it, but had agreed to go for a drive with the girls before going home (at which point I should mention there was sort of a 'thing' between me and the driver).
Now, this girl hadn't had her license for long, and that's what I blame for what happened. We were tooling around on some quiet back roads, and I could tell she was going a bit too fast for the curves. I had my left hand out the partially open window, holding onto the top of the doorframe, and my right hand in my lap protecting my beloved sammich. On our way up a hill where the road curved against a rather steep drop into a field, I guess the driver lost control and off the road we went. The last thing I remember of the driving bit was hurtling through winter-dead overgrowth on our way down the hill, the trip feeling like going too fast on a dirt road.
Next thing I knew, I was laid out on my back in the field, looking up at faces looking down at me (just like that inevitable shot in some movies, where the camera's at floorlevel and all these people are encircling it saying something like 'You alright?'). Within minutes, and ambulance had driven into the middle of the field and I'd been hauled into it, the whole time insisting I was fine and demanding to know where my sub was. I'd find out later I was in a bit of shock.
Once we got to the hospital, I was set off into a private bed behind curtains. Some nurses came in and pulled off my pants, leaving me in my coat and shirt. My coat (a vintage Marine wool trenchcoat) was pretty precious to me, so I insisted we not cut it off...in spite of the injury I didn't really know I had yet.
When the doctor showed up, he explained what had happened and finally drew my attention to my left hand. It was a mess and still pretty bloody in spite of having been cleaned at some point. Apparently, at some point in the powerdrive down the hill, the window I had my hand out of had smashed. It looked as though when that happened, I decided to shake my hand wildly in the broken glass: I had some large gashes on the outside back of my hand, minor cuts on the sides of two of my fingers...and my ring finger's tip was hanging by about a quarter-inch of flesh! The doctor found this amusing somehow, holding up my hand and tapping the dangling tip with his finger before finally sewing it back on.
After I got sewn up and drugged up, I was left to leave. The driver (who was pretty shaken up, but physically fine, as was the other passenger) had phoned my mum, who showed up understandably worried. We all went home, but as it was now New Year's Eve, plans were already made or needing to be made amongst the family and my friends. If I remember correctly, we went to a pretty dead party and ended up home before midnight. I don't know, but it's really not the important part of this story.
The important part is that, after my hand had healed, I noticed a hard little welt or something in the scar on the back of my hand. Not knowing any better, and not feeling any kind of pain from it, I just assumed it was some rigid scar tissue under the skin or something...though I occasionally mused that is was a piece of gravel lodged in my hand.
And I never did get to eat that damn sammich!
Cut to the present. Much time has passed, my hand wound is more a 'distinguishing mark' on forms than anything else, and I've long since forgotten the little hard bit in there. I'm married and living in Sweden, soon to be flying to New Orleans to see my wife ceremonially hooded for her PhD. About a week before the trip, she points out that my hand scar has been looking different lately: darker, swollen, something. I put off her concerns, insisting it was the same. Within the days before and after the flight, though, I finally admit that there is something going on.
Shortly after arriving in NOLA, I see that my swollen and darkened scar is breaking open. Loving, as I do, to pick and worry at festering parts of my body, I start scraping. I'm convinced there's just an ingrown hair or something in there. Sure enough, once I scrape off enough skin, I can see what appears to be a curled up, very thick and dark hair. Try as I may, though, I just can't get a grip on it. At last, I resort to sucking on the wound to try to work the hair out. In doing so, I feel something VERY hard against my tongue. I'm alarmed, but all it does is make me more determined (if more cautious) to get this thing out!
A little more work, and out it came:

(I shot it next to my ring for scale.)
That's right, it was a nugget of AUTO SAFETY GLASS! Lucky for me, though it was overlooked in the cleaning of my hand, it was clean enough to not cause me any problems for 15 YEARS! I guess it just took all that time for my body to naturally work it out of the skin, causing me to marvel anew at the amazing machines we are.
After taking the picture, though I was (again) tempted to keep it, I threw out the piece of glass that spent a decade and a half lodged in the back of my hand.
Au revoir, second foreign object to be removed from me in the space of a year!

The Things What Come From My Body!

2006-06-14T10:40:00.000+02:00

Being, as I am, a lower middle class American, I tend to avoid medical care unless and until it's absolutely necessary. This kept me from seeking any kind of help with the large bump that started in the back left of my head sometime in the mid-90s and grew larger steadily until it was about the size of...oh, I don't know, but something bigger than should be growing out of a fella's head. This thing was clearly not supposed to be there, and I was worried about it, but I just couldn't afford/justify going to a doctor about it until it a) hurt or b) seemed to be causing a problem. It had never done either of these (save for a dull ache if I laughed too hard), so I kept the Bump there.
Of course, it wasn't really noticeable for years, until I shaved my head. That was maybe 7/8 years ago, and the Bump continued to grow since then, becoming more apparent now that it was out in the open. Still, the above reasons still applied, so there it stayed.
My wife and I, however, moved to Sweden nearly a year ago. For those who don't know about the way this country works, it's basically set up with a government that's meant to take care of the populace. This will sound pretty strange to Americans, I know, who have become accustomed to being at the bottom of the long list of governmental concerns (well after war, oil, major industry, etc.). We were, and are, the same way. Though our life in America seems a distant dream already, we still find it hard to understand a government that cares if we live or die...and not just for statistics.
Anyway, part of being a citizen in Sweden is that you pay HUGE taxes (about 30%). This would (and does) stun most Americans, who fail to understand that when you pay taxes, the money is supposed to go into the betterment of the State and the people (as opposed to spending more on an already-overwhelming 'defense' structure). Here, for example, that money partly goes to VERY inexpensive health care. When we were all set up to be recipients of said health care, we decided it was time to excise the Bump.
Through a brief series of doctor visits, I learned it was a cyst of some sort. It was caused the clogging of pores (so keep your skin clean, kids) and then the buildup of the secretions that would normally, um, secrete out of the skin. It was a minor operation, during which I was anaesthetised in the back o' my head, and the doc sliced open my scalp. After some scraping -- which resounded through my skull but caused only a slight mental discomfort rather than any actual pain -- the good doctor sewed me up and was through.
When the whole thing was finished, I sat up and asked if I could see the removed Bump. I mean, I'd lived with the thing for so long, but never really gotten a good look at it even while it was in my scalp. He surprised me by picking it up and essentially saying, 'Here you go!' as he handed the gory little mess to me! I wasn't grossed out or anything, just shocked: an American doctor would not be very likely to just hand you a piece of yourself and wish you both good tidings as you walked out the door. This fellow, though, was perfectly content to hand me this odd little piece of meat to carry home in my hand.
I kind of wanted to keep it, to be honest, if for nothing more than to show my wife what had been nestled against my skull for so many years. So, I got a little plastic cup (nothing elaborate like a specimen container or anything, just the plastic version of a Dixie cup) to take home my little friend.
Of course, once I got home with it and had shown it to my wife (who was pretty disgusted by it, as well as by the doctor's method of delivery), I didn't know what to do with it. I wanted to be able to have it around...but I didn't really want to physically keep it, and didn't really know how even if I wanted to. So, I did the next best thing in such situations and photographed it:

I would truly love to say that this was the last thing that I'd left in my body that shouldn't have been there to begin with, but sadly that is not the case...

A beginning, at least...

2006-06-14T09:03:00.000+02:00

So, in the effort to continue the unending flood of crap people spew onto the internet every day, I figured I may as well be one of the countless bloggers who lay out their thoughts online. Why? Well, why not? I have an opinion, just like most folk, and anybody who knows me knows I make no bones about yakkin' about any given one on any given topic...at any time. Now I have a place to do it where nobody has to listen to it! Hoo-ray for progress!