off for vacation

I was hoping to catch up on all the little things I've been doing the past week or so, but I guess that didn't happen. In short: processing wedding pictures, stacking wood, picking berries, stacking wood, making jam, stacking wood.... You get the picture. All that wood we cut up in the spring needs to be stacked in the barn so that it will be dry enough to use this winter.

Tomorrow morning I leave for a week long vacation on Ärö, an island in southern Denmark. We're going with our Danish friends, and this is one of their favorite places. Both husbands have to work, so they'll be joining us on Thursday. As far as I know, I won't have access to the internet while I'm gone. Considering what an e-mail junkie I am, that might be tough.

more drama than anyone deserves

My husband's two brothers came from the US for their grandmother's funeral which was on Monday. The brother from Denver arrived the night before but awoke early Monday morning feeling miserable. He'd been recovering from bronchitis for over a month, and was now having difficulties breathing. To make matters worse, everyone on the airplane from Germany had been handed a paper listing all the possible symptoms of the flu (and the common cold) and instructing people to contact health authorities and tell them you may have been exposed to Swineflu. I gave him some ibuprofen and called the urgent care center. They were able to fit him in, but not until 10:30. I packed my clothes for the funeral and drove him to the clinic. Miraculously, they did take him right away, and when taking a blood test, a nurse came and took him to get it done right away (instead of the usual: down the hall, around the corner, take a number, and wait at least half an hour.) They gave him some medicine which helped him breath, and we were off in only 40 minutes. Luckily, this seemed to be enough to get him through the day. I wanted to meet on the way to the funeral to save time, but my husband wasn't ready to go, so we met up at home.

My husband had estimated 90 minutes driving time, which would not have been totally unrealistic had he been the only car on the road. He also planned to arrive at exactly 1 PM when the funeral was supposed to start, leaving no buffer time. An abundance of tourists, tractors, and motor homes on the road conspired against him. Denver also needed to stop to go to the bathroom. At 1:15 we got a call from his uncle; at this point we were only a few minutes out. Surprisingly, he asked if my Mother-in-law was with us. She and her daughter had driven directly. My first reaction was one of relief: grandchildren of the deceased being late would be overshadowed by child being late.

At 1:30, still no MIL (no answer on her phones, cell phone turned off), the decision was made to start the funeral. I realized in horror that the 5 of us were the only ones there who had not brought flowers to place on the casket. We had all forgotten about that tradition! Even though all three brothers had also attended their grandfather's funeral 9 years ago, none of them remembered either. I felt as though I should have been responsible for taking care of that kind of detail (as well as seeing to it that we were not late), and I was thoroughly embarrassed. When it came to the time in the ceremony when the grandchildren and great-grandchildren were invited up to place their flowers on the casket, we went and just stood there.

I was impressed that my daugher handled herself quite well during the ceremony and didn't squirm all too much in the squeaky chairs. She was very sad and cried a lot, but she did so quietly. Thank goodness I always keep tissues in my purse.

After the ceremony, the topic of conversation was: Where's MIL? Everyone seemed to think that we should know, but we didn't. I called many times over the course of the afternoon, but there was no answer at home, and the new mobile phone we had given her a month ago remained off. We adjourned to the wake which was held at the grandparents former house (now owned by one of the aunts and her husband).

It was nice to see the cousins again, and it was really surprising to see that so many of them had babies! With 5 age 2 and under, only one of whom we knew about, it was like a full scale family baby-boom. At 7, our daughter is the oldest in her generation. The cousins closest to her age were not in attendance (2 in Boston, 2 in Tokyo), but she amused herself playing big sister to the babies.

A caterer provided two Smörgåstårtor (sandwich cakes) which are Swedish delicacies. Imagine white bread layered with tuna salad (salmon in this case), shrimp, smoked salmon and such, decorated with mayonnaise, creme fraiche, veggies, fruit, eggs, caviar, etc. It's the seafood version of a heart attach on a plate, but it sure was delicious. The other one was cheese based and nearly as good (though a bit heavier). I was so engrossed with enjoying these that it didn't even occur to me to take a picture. I ate so much of these that I didn't have room when they served real cake and spettekaga (a local specialty that has always been a part of family gatherings, it's a meringue-like creation slow cooked over a spit that looks like a 2-foot tower of crunchy funnel-cake).

I called MIL and checked my phone regularly, getting increasingly worried about MIL. What would cause her to miss her own mother's funeral? Had she been stung by a wasp and had to go to the ER? Car accident? Was the daughter having an MS episode? Why hadn't she called anyone? Around 5 PM the Aunt finally got a call from MIL: they did not make the funeral because the daughter wasn't feeling up to it. They'd driven half way, then turned back. (It's only an hour drive for them.) This didn't make much sense, but at least we knew she wasn't dead.

A couple hours later, when we were on our way home, I finally got a call from MIL. As has regularly been the case for the past couple of months, she didn't want to talk to me and asked to speak with her sons. She told them that they did not attend because her foot hurt too much. This didn't make any sense either, nor did it explain why she waited four hours to call anyone and another two hours to call us (with a different explanation). We would eventually find out that because MIL's foot hurt, her daughter had been driving and thus making the decisions. Apparently the daughter had come all the way from Los Angeles, but at the last minute could not bring herself to attend the funeral because that would involve contact with her brothers whom she had actively shunned for the past several years. This drama would continue for the duration of the brothers' visits.

So for the brothers, two of whom had made considerable effort (and spent a whole lot of money) to come all the way from the US to support their mother/family, this was a slap in the face and an embarrassment in front of the rest of the extended family.

visitors

It's kind of a shame how seldom we get visitors here. After all, we do live in a very beautiful place. I suspect the main reason we so seldom have visitors is because I'm ashamed of the condition of our house. We started renovating it as soon as we moved in (1998), but there was so much work to be done that we've lost steam since our daughter was born (2002). In retrospect, we should have taken the hint when the bank said they could recommend a good demolition firm. So here we are in our disaster of a half-renovated house.

My husband is the oldest of three brothers. (They have an older sister, but she wants nothing to do with them.) The brother who lives in Boston arrived yesterday, and the youngest brother, who lives in Denver, will arrive this evening. I really like them both and enjoy their company. They're here for their grandmother's funeral on Monday. It's a shame that Boston's wife and kids couldn't come too, but it's a very short visit for him, and flying at peak season costs a fortune. They'll save some money by sleeping in our living room.

I've heard that Sister will also be attending the funeral, and she's staying with her mom. She does not speak to any of her brothers, nor does she wish to be spoken about to them, so that's all we know. We haven't seen her in 7 years. She came to see our daughter shortly after she was born (we had a big party instead of a baptism). While she was here, she had some difficulty with her online bill paying, so my husband paid $300 worth of bills for her. He did this somewhat reluctantly because it had been his grandfather's dying wish that he not loan her any more money (she'd been quite a black hole for borrowed funds from the entire family). When my husband asked her to pay him back, she got mad and stopped talking to him.

Boston has been on her shit list for a long time. I believe that's because he's the only one of the siblings who maintains any contact with their father. He and his family came to visit us when we were in San Diego. They drove all the way up to LA with their baby to deliver something to her, and she refused to see them. They had to wait in the parking lot. Denver probably maintained contact with her the longest, but she eventually shunned him too. I believe that was because he kept in touch with his brothers.

It will be interesting to see what happens at the funeral when we all have to be in the same room.

thank you for the music

Sunday evening we took our daughter to her first real* concert. We took her to see an ABBA tribute band at an amphitheater in the area. We had planned on packing a picnic and eating dinner there (like my parents used to do with me at the Hollywood Bowl), but it dumped rain all afternoon, so we decided to eat at home and show up at the last minute. Apparently we weren't the only ones with that idea because there was quite a bit of traffic, but we were able to find decent seats in the bleachers. The only disadvantage was that they involved climbing over a lot of people to get it, so there would be no trips to the portapotties or gourmet coffee cart.

We were impressed to hear that this band had performed at the Hollywood Bowl just a week ago. I thought the music and costumes were pretty good, but the choreography/stage presence (especially of the non-front people) and the sound could have been better. They repeatedly had problems with feedback which was very annoying. Below is a clip of a previous performance by the same group, though this time without the symphony orchestra. (Please excuse the quality of the photos, they're from my mobile phone.)

It was neat to see the special guest appearance by Ulf Andersson, the original saxophonist from ABBA. He looked rather old, but he still new how to work the stage. They also had original ABBA guitarist Janne Schaffer, but it was clear that he was a studio musician.

I suppose we had luck with the weather in that it drizzled intermittently but didn't rain nearly as much or as hard as it had all afternoon. Some people had umbrellas; a lot had disposable rain ponchos; pretty much everyone was wearing rain gear of some kind. I had a rain coat, rubberized pants that I use when working in the forest, and rubber boots. I'm sure I looked like a total hick, and I couldn't help but remember how I used to get dressed up for concerts when I was in college: high heeled black leather boots, tight black jeans, a glittery top, and a borrowed black leather jacket with fringe.

Our daughter was thrilled by the experience. She's a huge fan of Mamma Mia (the movie) and knows a lot of the songs. It was really cute to see her singing along. However, two hours starting at her bedtime was a bit much for her, and she was also bothered by the music being so loud.


* Previous "not real" concerts include local musicians performing at a local church.

major bummer

While doing laundry in the basement on Sunday, I discovered water dripping from the ceiling in the corner. No stalactites or stalagmites yet, so this was a relatively fresh drip. We quickly put this together with the strange noises from the radiators and realized that it was a leak in the radiator system. We stopped the leak by turning off the radiators. Good thing it's summer.

It turns out that the leak was under the cement floor between the front door and the bathroom. We redid this floor and put in insulation and in-floor heating about 8 years ago. In order to fix the leak, we'll have to break up the floor and repour the cement. If we're really careful and lucky, we might be able to get away with redoing only a few square feet in the corner. If we're not so lucky and the in-floor heating is damaged, we'll have to redo the whole room.

My husband's grandmother's funeral will be on Monday, and his brothers are coming from the US this weekend. For now, everything's moved out of that half of the room and the vinyl floor is pulled up so the cement can dry. The repairs will have to wait until after our guests leave.

Happy 4th of July!

the view from our bedroom window

Yesterday evening after the thunder storms had passed, a ground fog started rising off the field.

Weekend in Blekinge

Last weekend we went to the Nostalgia Festival in Ronneby, a couple hours away. We went there last year and found it quite pleasant. This year we took it a step further by spending the night and attending the following day’s activities in Karlskrona. Both my husband and daughter love cars. My husband loves all sorts of cars, but my daughter is partial to 1950’s American cars with fins, the bigger the better. There were plenty of cars with fins, older cars, muscle cars, performance cars, and unusual cars. There were also mopeds, motorcycles, camping trailers, and even some trucks. (Pictured, the mid-life crisis club.)

Some of the finest specimens were brought up on stage and their owners were interviewed. The owners were often in period costume with all the appropriate accessories. Some even had matching camping trailers completely decked out like time capsules on wheels.

There was also entertainment in the form of a band that impersonated Elvis, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis. They were really quite good. My daughter wore the poodle skirt that my mother made for her, and she danced to the music and talked to the other (mostly older) people in costume.

The weather was beautiful—sunny and in the upper 70’s. Unfortunately we weren’t so well prepared for this since we’d believed the forecasts for low 70’s and very windy. We got a bit hot and sweaty, but we had a nice time.

We spent the night at a 60’s style motel in Karlskrona. We’d stayed there a year ago when we spent a few days in Karlskrona with my mom and stepfather. It’s simple and not particularly attractive (by today’s standards) but it gets the job done for a reasonable price. It impressed me that the entire place seems to be run by one woman. It’s weird to come to the reception area and find it locked, but if you can read the sign and call the number, she comes from wherever she’s making up the rooms.

We went into town for dinner and found a nice Italian restaurant. The food was very good, but we were hungry and the service was unbelievably slow. After dinner we went for a short walk then had dessert at an ice cream shop. The serving sizes were enormous. I ordered one flavor (chocolate marzipan), and it turned out to be 7 small scoops which filled a large waffle cone. It was good, but nothing compared to Ben & Jerry’s.

It was 9 PM by the time we made it back to the motel, and we all went straight to bed.

Sunday was even warmer, but the day’s activities were on the waterfront by the naval museum. We watched the cars finish the rally then examined them in the parking lot. My daughter ran around and took pictures with the little digital camera, and then she went and played at the beach. Since we weren’t with her, she was only allowed to go in up to her knees, but she had a lot of fun anyhow.

Besides the cars, all the boat museums were open, and there was an antique boat parade. We weren’t so interested in the boats, but we poked around the museums a bit then headed home mid-afternoon.

About half-way home, we got a flat tire. I imagine that it’s always a surprise, but this doubly so since the tires were only a couple months old. We pulled over immediately, so quickly that we were slowing down by the time I even noticed that there might be something wrong, but the tire was ruined anyhow. We pulled off the highway onto a little dirt road, and my husband changed the tire. Luckily my car has a full sized spare. This was the first time the spare was used, and the air pressure was rather low, but it turns out we were only about half a mile from a gas station where we filled it properly before any damage was done to the spare.

We made it home without further ado, and I’ve been driving on my spare all week. My replacement tire should come today. Take home message: make sure your spare tire is in working order.