Birthday Madness part 2

From 6 AM to the start of the party at 3 PM, I was frantic with preparations. My help showed up an hour before the party started, and we got everything ready in time.

A total of 13 out of the 24 kids showed up for the party. A couple of parents called the day of the party to say their kid was sick, or in one case "too tired." I know that kid well enough to suspect that she was too tired to behave and thus was being punished, but whatever. What really bugs me were the 5 kids who's parents never RSVPed at all. Some of the kids told my daughter that they were coming to the party, but they didn't show. You never know when a reply like that means the kid wants to come but the parent has other plans. I really wish the parents would call (or e-mail) to avoid communication problems.

The weather was pretty bad in the morning, but by the time of the party, it had cleared up. It was still a bit chilly because of the wind, but the sun made for a nice touch. As it turned out, the good weather was really a blessing because the kids really weren't so into dancing. The mom who's help I had enlisted did a fantastic job of getting the kids to dance and play a couple dance related games. Then we served the cake. I had made two cakes using a pair of American cupcake mold sets that we'd been given. I used Swedish muffin recipes instead of American cake mix since we had a milk-free guest, and they didn't really turn out like I'd expected. Luckily the kids didn't really care.

After cake, we let the kids out to burn off some of the sugar. The girls dashed for the trampoline which my daughter just got as a present from us, and the three boys in the group bolted for the ATV. Fortunately we never leave the keys in it, but this gave us an idea. My husband hooked the trailer up behind the ATV and took the kids for a ride through the forest. It was bumpy like a carnival ride, and it turned out that this was the highlight of the day for most of the kids.

When they returned, I served the kids hotdogs. We hid bags of candy for each of the kids that they got to search for, then the three hours were over and the parents arrived to take the kids home. Some of the parents stayed to chat for a while. It turned out to be a really nice day.

Birthday Madness

My daughter had her birthday recently, and she'll be having her party on Saturday. She has chosen to invite 24 kids between the ages of 6 and 9 to a Disco party. There's no way so many kids would fit in our house, so we'll use the little barn that I use as my gallery.

Yesterday was a holiday: Christ's journey to heaven day. As Swedes in general are not the least bit religious, I'm not sure how the day is supposed to be celebrated. The weather was lovely, so I imagine that most people spent the day gardening. My husband spent the day with a friend and his backhoe doing drainage and road improvements in the forest. Big boys, big toys.

My daughter went to play at a friend's house while I went shopping for her party. This friend has a huge trampoline, so they spent the day jumping.

I went to a big store that was having a finished remodeling sale. Big mistake! The place was jam packed. They had a dozen or so items for really amazingly low prices spread out around the store, and everyone was trying to push their way through to find the bargains. An hour after they opened, when I got there, they were already running out of some things. I got a few of the things I was looking for (including a mirrored disco ball) and gave up on the rest. I also got a headache. To wash down my Advil, I bought a can of Coca Cola Zero. I'd had a bit of this in Hong Kong and thought it was a pretty good approximation of the real thing without too much of an aftertaste, but this Swedish stuff was really nasty. It must be a different formulation.

When we got home later in the afternoon, my husband was assembling one of our daughter's birthday presents: a trampoline! She was so excited I thought she might pop. We all helped put it together, then she jumped for at least another hour. I jumped a little, and it's clearly good exercise, but I started getting a bit queasy.

Since the only party decorations I'd found were balloons, I picked up a roll of wrapping paper in the desired color, cut it into strips, and we made a chain out of it. Unfortunately, the roll of paper was only 1 meter, and it didn't make nearly as much as I'd hoped for. I also didn't find paper plates in the right color or anything close, so I got plain white ones. I mixed up some food coloring, and we painted the rims. It still didn't turn out like I was hoping, but hopefully it will be okay.

Around dinner time, it started thundering--not too close, but consistent enough to keep my daughter's nerves frazzled. She refused to sleep in her own bed. Then she refused to sleep in our bed. At 9 PM the power went out, so we gave up and all went to bed in our bed. It's amazing how much space such a small girl can occupy. My back's tweaked, and I didn't sleep well. Our power was out most of the night, but everything seems to be working okay now.

Today I need to clean out the little barn and start decorating it. I'll probably go to another store to try to find more decorations. Tonight I'll bake the cake.

Enough Already!

For months Sweden has been preparing for the Eurovision Song Contest, and annual ritual of musical torture. All of greater Europe* contributes an act to a concert which is the television event of the year. People may call in to vote for any country other than their own. Since most people are hearing the song for the first time, it has to be catchy like a commercial jingle, and it has to have some memorable gimmick so that it stands out among the 25 entries. Sweden's most famous win was probably when Abba performed Waterloo in 1974.

It started with a seemingly endless series of qualification contests, all televised in prime time. Then there were semifinals, and the wildcards, and finally the final. Sweden chose a song that was not only vacuous and irritating, but it actually triggered my gag reflex.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32c8aaqXIuM
For the record, she really is a professional opera singer, not a drag queen. The worst part was that the aria got stuck in my head and I've found myself whistling it. Not surprisingly, this song didn't win. It placed 21st out of 25. Unfortunately such a crushing defeat was not sufficient to get Swedish radio stations to stop playing it all the time.

The following song from Norway won by a landslide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBFFlL58UTM
I just hope they don't start playing it on the radio here too, but I doubt I'll be that lucky.


* Including Isreal, Azerbaijan, Morocco, and a few more that I never realized were European.

Driving Slowly in Circles

Driving slowly in circles is something I do a lot of. From May through October I spend about 3 hours per week mowing the lawn. Yesterday I managed to get about 3/4 of the lawn done before it started raining too hard. Sometimes mowing the lawn can be sort of relaxing in a meditative sort of way. Yesterday I took some sort of sick pleasure in annihilating about a million dandelions. (This pictures is not from our house, but nearby.)

Last weekend, besides mowing the lawn, we did some driving in circles of a different kind. We went cruising. One evening every year, hundreds of cars and even more car lovers gather in a town about an hour from here. Most of the cars are vintage American cars which are incredibly popular in Sweden. For example, there are more 1959 Cadillacs in Sweden than anywhere else in the world. We had been planning on cruising in the Cadilac that my husband and daughter had been working on all winter, but we were thwarted by a really ridiculous bureaucracy.

The Caddy was originally imported to Denmark from the US, but it was never registered in Denmark because it was way too expensive to do so. It sat in a field for several years, then it was sold to somebody in Sweden from whom my husband bought it. My husband filed the registration papers for personal use when he bought the car last summer, and everything went through as normal. When he showed up for the safety inspection a couple weeks ago, they refused to take in the car because it did not have "personal use" status. Some bureaucrat had changed the status without informing us. We could not appeal that change because the appeal period had expired (without us ever knowing about it). In order to register the car without the "personal use" status, we'd have to remove the catalytic converter and other environmentally friendly features because they weren't available in Sweden in 1976 when the car was made. Besides being stupid, that would be a lot of work. Eventually a solution was found: export the car to Denmark, sell it to somebody there, buy it back, reimport it to Sweden, and file the registration paperwork again. We jumped through all these hoops, but we couldn't get a new safety inpsection appointment in time for cruising. Thus we ended up taking the Suburban. It's not nearly as cool, but we had a good view, and not being a convertable, we didn't freeze too much.

archeology and anthropology here in hicksville

We have very good friends who live just a few farms away. A week ago we were invited to their house for a very nice dinner, and we ended up spending the evening engrossed in conversation about archeology and anthropology.

Neanderthals are often portrayed as dark and hairy, and it's widely held that they died out during the ice age. I found it very interesting to hear the idea that what if Neanderthals were fair skinned and blue eyed? What if they retreated to the north as "modern man" came up from Africa? What if instead of dying out entirely, they interbred with their conquerors resulting in the Northern European traits people have now?

The discussion then progressed to the flint tools made by Neanderthals and where they are found. We've found quite the interesting assortment of flint tools around here, and last weekend my daughter and I went for a walk with these friends for a lesson in identifying flint tools. It turns out that my daughter is really good at finding them.

We also talked about some strange rocks that they had found in the area. Yesterday we went to look at these. They are bigger than the usual rocks that make up the stone walls around the fields, they are often oblong, and they have flat sides. None of these things by itself is that unusual, but to find so many of these stones in the walls around one particular field is interesting. A lot of stones in these walls also have interesting markings in them. These markings look like X, V, and I--Yup, Roman numerals.


We wondered if there had been some sort of stone setting in this field like Ales Stenar (about an hour from here on the south coast). We wondered also if there could have been a Roman outpost out here. Other signs of Roman activity have been found near Malmo, so it's not that preposterous.

Here's a picture I took several years ago at Ales Stenar.

movie review

It's been forever wince I've been to the movies, yet I do occasionally see a new movie anyhow, and sometimes I do that without being on an airplane. Recently I saw two surprisingly good movies and one dud. The dud was The Accidental Husband starring Uma Thurman. It was a light romantic comedy, which I usually like, but this one was so predictable that it was uncomfortable to watch. The other two movies were not predictable at all.

First was Flawless starring Demi Moore as a diamond thief. For a movie about a heist, it was surprisingly slow paced, yet it was not at all dull. I think Demi Moore was excellent as the only female executive in a 1950s man's world. I won't reveal the plot--you'll have to see it to find out.

I also saw Gran Torino, and it was totally not what I expected for a Clint Eastwood movie named after a car. For example, there were no chase scenes. Clint Eastwood plays a newly widowed Korean War veteran bitter about everything, especially his southeast asian neighbors. Again, I won't reveal the plot, but I was pleasantly surprised and really liked it.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

...if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

I spent my long weekend chucking wood. We have three years worth of logs that need to be cut up, so we started that on Friday. My husband chainsawed, and I stacked and chucked the cut up wood into a pile. We did this all day Friday, half the day Saturday, and all day Sunday. I think we did about 2/3 of the wood, but it's plenty to last both us and our mother-in-law through next winter.

On Saturday afternoon, my daughter's gymnastics class had a show. It was the gymnastics club's 75th anniversary, so they put on a huge show. Every class did a routine, including the old ladies from the water gymnastics class. Even the community youth marching band was there together with the baton twirlers. They seem to perform whenever there's something going on in this county. Unfortunately they're so stiff and awkward that it pretty much hurts to watch. Fortunately the gymnasts at least seemed to be having a good time. My daughter's class did a routine to music from High School Musical, and it was nice to see them having so much fun. I must be the worst mother in the world, but it didn't even occur to me to bring my camera to this event. My phone has a built-in camera, but I knew that it would be completely inadequate. So sorry, no pictures. We celebrated by going out for ice cream afterward.

Also noteworthy this weekend was the continued fantastic weather--sunny jeans and t-shirt weather. The beech trees have just sprouted their leaves, so everything's a brilliant light green, and the fruit trees are in full bloom. Our plum tree is especially impressive. It looks like there will be plenty of plums for plum jam this summer.

The wind died down on Sunday, so Sunday night we had a bonfire and grilled hot dogs. When we had finished eating and were listening to the birds singing in the forest, it started to rain. It's been about a month without significant rain, so we really needed it. The forecast shows intermittent rain for the rest of the week, but I hope the wonderful weather we had in April comes back soon.

Rites of Spring

Thursday was the last day of April, and here in Sweden, that's something to celebrate. I think that's because it's the day before the First of May, which is a holiday, and holidays are celebrated the night before.

This particular holiday had been completely off my radar until the previous weekend when my mother-in-law invited herself to our festivities. I'd had absolutely nothing planned, but I couldn't say no. The centerpiece of this occasion is always the bonfire. We did have a pile of twigs and stuff that we'd planned on burning, but unfortunately it had been surrounded by mountains of building debris, so the setting certainly lacked appeal. To make matters worse, my husband had a cold all week--bad enough that he stayed home from work on Wednesday. I had invited our good friends/neighbors, but they were anxious to finish their remodeling project before guests came the next day, so they didn't want to commit. Because of this, I'd hesitated about inviting a lot people over to celebrate with us. Maybe we should just forget about it.

Thursday morning dawned windy, and it remained windy all day--exactly what you don't want when planning a bonfire that's a bit too close to a bunch of building debris. We decided to cancel and go see what was happening in the local town instead. It turns out that they had a bonfire in the middle of a field where it was somewhat safe despite the wind. The local commerce club sold hot dogs, everyone sang the national anthem and a few songs about spring, and someone made a speech welcoming spring. It was low key, and we actually had a pretty good time.

The first of May is a holiday for the purpose of expressing solidarity with the Social Democrats. I've always wondered how one political party can get their own holiday. None of the other political parties have holidays. According to the newspaper, the SDs had a parade with a few people holding protest signs in the county seat. A total of about 50 people turned up. I imagine most other people were doing what they usually do on holidays: nursing a hangover after the previous evening's festivities.

Survey for Immigrants

Last week I received a survey from the Swedish Department of Statistics. They wanted the opinion of foreigners with higher education on the job market in Sweden. I have opinions on just about everything, and I certainly have plenty to say about this.

To start with, I was pleased that they sent a copy of the survey in English. Unfortunately it was so badly translated that I needed the Swedish one to figure it out. For example, it had questions like "I would have gotten between work details if I had Swedish nationality." Huh? I would have translated that to "I would have had better work duties if I had Swedish nationality." But what do they mean by nationality? Do they mean citizenship? Ethnic background? Frankly I think that makes a huge difference.

During the first three years that I lived here, I applied for about 50 jobs in my field (chemist, biochemist, analytical chemist, etc) , and I got a total of three interviews. All of these were first interviews. The official language for each of these three companies was English, yet the interviews were conducted at least partially in Swedish. It turns out that the official language only means that they occasionally have to write reports in English. All day-to-day activities require one to speak Swedish.

Now I had nothing against learning to speak Swedish. Two weeks after arriving in Sweden, I started Swedish for Immigrants at the local adult school. I've got plenty to say about the quality of this class, but I'll save that for another time. The following year, I switched to taking Swedish with Swedes. This turned out to be Swedes who needed to retake the equivalent of seventh grade in their own language, but that also, is another story. The following semester, I moved up to eighth grade. At this point I could converse fairly well in Swedish.

Not having a job or anything better to do, I started my third year in "high school" taking not only Swedish but science, social studies, religion, and even a class in web design. Now I have a bachelor's degree from UCSD which is valid in Sweden, so I didn't need to retake high school. I only did it to improve my Swedish. By the end of the semester I was really sick of school. My only friends were other immigrants.

I found an ad for an administrative position at Akzo Nobel, a huge international chemical company, in their paint department. I knew nothing about paint, but I could do admin in English. I asked a friend's husband who worked at the same company if he knew anything about this position, and he ended up hiring me as a temp to help with his department's year end bookkeeping crunch time. This eventually lead to me getting the job in the paint department. The title of R&D Coordinator was misleadingly interesting. I liked having co-workers and especially missed the company of other adults, but the work was rather dull, and my salary (1/3 of what I'd been making in the pharmaceutical industry in the US) hardly made it worth the hour-long commute. I worked there for over a year until Lina was born. Since then, I have not bothered looking for a job here. Instead, I started my own business as a photographer.

But back to the survey. Was I discriminated against at work? No. I was paid pathetic secretary wages because that was my job. I'm quite sure that the reason I got the job was because I'm American. My boss was Danish, and he worked long hours both at the facility in Copenhagen and in Malmo. He said he was looking for somebody who could write about chemistry in English, but that turned out to be only a very small part of the job. I think what he really wanted was somebody who would work as needed regardless of the time. When there was something that needed doing, I stayed and did it, even if it was time for coffee, or lunch, or time to go home. I knew he did not like my predecessor, and I heard that he didn't like my successor either. Both were Swedes. Unfortunately the survey didn't ask anything about work ethic.

It did ask a lot about my education and work history, both in Sweden and abroad. There was one question about what I was doing specifically last week where I was able to answer that I was working for my own business, but otherwise starting your own business had not been treated as a normal activity (such as being employed, being unemployed, or going back to school). Because of the way the Swedish Employment Office works, I was never technically unemployed during the three years that I was looking for work because I went to school at the same time. Another thing that I wish I could have said in the survey was that I would have better off had the local employment office not existed. I realize now that it was not their goal to help me find a job. They got their funding for enrolling me in one of their retraining programs; I would have been much better off without their so called assistance. First of all, they had no idea what I did as a biochemist/analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry, and honestly I don't think they cared. They did not consider my skills in English as anything noteworthy. Every now and then they would send me a tip on a job (something like manufacturing hair care products) but never anything for which I was remotely qualified or interested. Mostly they tried to get me enrolled in a training program to be a network technician. Mind you I had no interest in that, and my aptitude test certainly didn't point in that direction (it said I should be a judge). They also said my bachelor's degree was only valid for 10 years, so I'd have to retake all the background requirements including math. I think that was the last time I talked to them.

The one piece of advice that I got from the employment office was that I should use my husband's last name when applying for jobs. When they found out that I was already doing this (my husband's last name is Swedish, but very unusual), they mentioned that I may consider changing my name. This was mentioned only once, sort of hush-hush as an aside, but I'm pretty sure they were on to something here. I suspect that many of the resumes and cover letters I sent out were read no further than my name.

In short, are immigrants discriminated against here? Absolutely! Are employers racists? I doubt it. I think the problem lies in the labor unions, and the labor laws. But again, they didn't ask those questions.