Just Two Things

JUST 2 THINGS

You know the drill. Post it on your own blog or e-mail it if you want.

1. Two names you go by:

a. Lani (pronounced with an a like in cat)

b. Lani (pronounced with an a like in car)

2. Two things you're wearing now:

a. long underwear

b. jeans

3. Two things you would want [or have] in a relationship:

a. someone who makes me smile

b. someone to talk to

4. Two of your favorite things to do:

a. eat chocolate (or good food in general)

b. spend time with friends

5. Two things you want very badly at the moment:

a. Sunshine

b. Warm weather

6. Two people who will fill this out

a. Tammy already filled this out

b. Betty?

7. Two things you did yesterday.

a. Made jam

b. Finished insulating the attic over my gallery

8. Two things you ate yesterday

a. homemade pecan butterball cookies

b. pasta with homemade meat sauce

9. Two people you last talked to:

a. my husband

b. my daughter

10. Two things you're doing today

a. laundry

b. chopping firewood

11. Two things you're doing tomorrow

a. laundry

b. packing for our vacation in the US

12. Two favorite holidays:

a. Halloween

b. Christmas

13. Two favorite beverages:

a. chocolate milkshake/malt

b. cream soda

14. Two people no longer alive that you'd like to talk to.

a. my husband’s grandfather

b. Winston Churchill

Lice

My daughter has lice again. I could just scream. Or cry. With so much stuff going on getting ready for Christmas and our vacation, I really don't have time to deal with this. I guess I should try to think positive--since this is the second time, I know what to do, and at least I should be done doing it before we leave for our vacation. Last time was just before our vacation to Norway, so even when we were dead tired, we still had to comb every day.

Even thinking of lice makes my head itch. To be on the safe side, I treated myself and husband too. Part of the routine for ensuring a louse free house is washing or freezing all the bedding, clothing, and stuffed animals that she's come in contact with. I've been doing laundry all weekend, so I'm pretty much caught up now. Does anyone know how long do the stuffed animals need to be in the freezer? Good thing I'm not doing any entertaining here before Christmas, or I'd never be able to cope with a freezer full of toys.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving in the US. There is no such holiday here in Sweden, and I miss it. I like the idea of giving thanks and spending a day reflecting on what we are thankful for. After all, we really have so much to be thankful for.

Since today is not a holiday here, I celebrated Thanksgiving last Saturday with our Danish friends from San Diego at their house in Denmark (less than two hours away). Our friends are going through some tough times now and did not have time to prepare a special meal, so I did the shopping and whatever I could do ahead of time. I didn't have all that much time either, and since we were only 4 adults and 2 kids, I kept it relatively simple.

The menu:
a special Swedish smoked sausage
stuffed mushrooms
broccoli casserole (my mom's recipe with artichoke hearts--I substituted cauliflower for some of the broccoli)
stuffing with mushrooms and celery (also my mom's recipe)
herb-roasted turkey breast (recipe from Rachael Ray)
gravy
lingonberry jam (instead of cranberry jelly which we couldn't get here)
baked yams and potatoes
sour-cream apple pie
pecan pie

The turkey breast turned out really well; even my husband liked it, and he usually hates turkey. I cheated and used frozen pie crust, and that was a big mistake. Unlike the stuff I used to get in the US, this was hard, didn't taste good, and it was almost impossible to use since the roll stuck together when it thawed. It didn't matter so much though since we were all so stuffed by the time we got to dessert.

To make the day extra special, there was snow for the "kids" to play in. Snow is pretty uncommon where they live since it's on the coast. We had a few inches here, but there was pretty much none in Malmo and Copenhagen. Luckily, they had just enough for a little sledding.

Farewell Winter Wonderland...

Welcome back Skåne. The snow that we've been enjoying since Thursday is now gone. In just a few hours, the temperature shot up to 43 F/6 C and the snow (only a couple of inches, but enough to cover everything and allow for snow play) melted leaving mud, ice, and fog in its place. The snow had done so much to lighten the landscape. Now that it's gone, it's so much darker. Sunrise is at 8 AM and sunset at 3:30 PM--well, they would be if you could see them behind the clouds. At least I don't have to scrape the car.

Like Screaming at Deaf Ears

On Monday I was invited by the local government's business relations department to speak to a visiting politician on behalf of the network for female small business owners of which I'm the chairperson. We're only about 20 members, so I invited the others to come along, and two of them did. So along with a kinesiologist and an internet specialist I met with a city councilman and a member of parliament. I was disappointed to find out that the MP did not represent this area; she was just here to visit a power plant and make a speech on the behalf of her party (part of the somewhat conservative coalition, but on the liberal side). There are 7 major political parties in Sweden, 4 on the right and 3 on the left, though by American standards the most conservative would be liberal democrats. While this may seem confusing, the differences between parties are so slight that it is essentially a two party system at the national level and a free-for-all at the local level.

I came with three main points that I wanted to make. The first was the proposed increase in the gas tax that her party was pushing for. Gas is already about $6 per gallon and most of it is taxes. Her party's argument was that ethanol is better for the environment than gasoline, and since the market for ethanol has driven the price up so that it is now higher than gasoline, an additional tax on fossil fuels is needed to make ethanol a more attractive alternative. Sure, I'm all for reducing emissions and dependence on fossil fuels, but ethanol only works in certain new flexi-fuel cars, and there's some debate if it's really that much better for the environment when you consider what it takes to produce it. Since public transportation really is not an alternative in rural areas, the people that are most impacted by the price of gas are women/families with small children in rural areas. I thought I made a good argument, and she saw my point, but her response was that her party (which supposedly is the one that represents farmers and small businesses) was driving this tax increase because it is politically correct and nothing else matters.

A related point that I made was the need to maintain the roads in rural areas. She promptly agreed that this was necessary but could not defend why all the budget was being spent relieving congestion in a few big cities and putting up center barriers on a few major arteries that had been working pretty well before. These barriers are used to make 2 + 1 roads which means that instead of being able to pass into oncoming traffic, it is now one lane in each direction with alternating passing lanes. This sounds pretty good in theory, but out here, you spend a lot of time stuck behind a tractor, or a harvester, or a load of beets going only a fraction of the speed limit. This creates long lines of traffic which then drive like maniacs to try to get by the obstacle during the short passing sections. Also, if there is an accident, all traffic is stopped in that direction and it is very difficult for emergency vehicles to get through. But I digress. Instead of maintaining the smaller roads, the department of transportation has been lowering the speed limits on them. This just teaches the locals to ignore the speed limits. This might not sound like that big a deal for a Californian, but Swedes are generally a very law-abiding folk and I think the little things like driving the speed limit are a part of their culture that is in danger. I'm digressing again. Just fix the damn roads! It's better for everyone (locals and tourists), good for the economy (more tourism and more spending money for people who don't have to pay so much in car repairs and fuel), and good for the environment (better fuel economy).

The third thing I wanted to mention was the poor mobile phone coverage out here. Like most small business people, I use my mobile phone for my business. What's not so good for business is that the first thing I have to say to people who call is that I need to call them back from my regular phone before we lose reception. In general, I have only 3 minutes to talk on my mobile before the call is dropped. My colleague the internet specialist has the same problem, and it's unfortunately not uncommon. Apparently the problem has to do with how far apart the cell phone towers are placed. Most were built for GSM, but now it's 3G that everyone is using, and they need the senders to be a little closer together. But when the government renewed the licenses, there was no requirement for extra senders to make sure that the service still worked. What's really scary is that the next generation of phones (4G) requires contact with two senders at the same time.

My colleagues backed me up and also had their own issues to discuss. Since the MP was interested in entrepreneurship among women, we tried to put everything in that context. Both she and the local politician took a lot of notes, and I hope that some of what we said will be of some use, but I'm not holding my breath.

Driving Test

On Wednesday my daughter's school had a field trip to the recycling center, and they needed parents to help drive the kids there (they took the bus home). I turned out to be one of about 15 drivers. What made this interesting was that it had rained the evening before (actually more like the whole week before), then it cleared up and everything froze. My car was encased in about a quarter inch of ice and the doors were frozen closed. I was running late by the time I managed to get into the car and get enough of the ice off that I could see to drive, but as soon as I got out to the paved road, I realized that I wouldn’t make up any time driving.

I was the last of the drivers to get to the school, but they were still waiting for a couple of students. There was black ice everywhere, and even walking in the parking lot was nearly impossible. Amazingly, winter tires make it possible to drive even when it’s that slick. Obviously, I wouldn’t want to risk crashing with my daughter in the car, but I was extra careful with somebody else’s kid in the car too. So then I end up in the middle of the caravan that was going a bit faster than I was comfortable with. Luckily I caught up at a stop sign, and then the whole group got stuck behind a tractor with a load of beets, so speed was no longer an issue. Still, I felt like I was doing a driving test the whole time because the only thing worse than crashing with somebody else’s kid in your car would be causing a chain reaction crash involving the whole school. I’m relieved that’s over.

Since then, we’ve had gale force winds, rain, sleet, hail, and now snow. Fun, fun!

Thoughts on the Election

Even here, in the Swedish equivalent of hillbilly hell, we couldn't escape news of the election. I lay low as far as my American citizenship is concerned, so there was no flag waving, celebrating, or pre-election preaching on my part. But now that it's finally over, several of my friends have asked me what I think.

I am somewhat relieved that Obama won, though not nearly as relieved as when McCain locked the Republican nomination. That was the high point for me, since I considered McCain to be the least scary of the Republicans. That meant that either way, things were destined for a significant improvement. I feel that McCain shot himself in the foot with his choice of vice-presidential candidate because that woman is really scary! I understand that it was necessary for a token female to balance the ticket, but honestly, was she really the best he could find? It was such a flashback to Arnold Vinick being driven to the right as a last ditch attempt to secure the Republican vote after a crisis shook the country.

While I'm on the subject of the West Wing, why is it that Hollywood screenwriters can create more likable politicians, with better messages and better speeches, than real life political operatives and writers? Sometimes reality sucks.

Now what really gets to me about the election was that Californians could vote to ban gay marriage. I like to think of my fellow Californians as open-minded people, but apparently there are plenty who are not. What a shame.

P.S. A friend of mine drew this, and I thought it was just too cute not to share.