a sad day

My husband's grandmother died early this morning. She'd been suffering from Altzheimer's for several years, and it's been at least a year since she could understand who I was. About a month ago, she tried to walk without her walker and fell. She didn't break anything, but she hurt her back and has been on pain medication ever since. My husband went to visit her two weeks ago when she'd taken a turn for the worse. She wasn't eating much, just nutritional supplement "ice cream," but she could follow a conversation, and with a little help could recognize my husband as her grandson. She has a lot of grandchildren, but she doesn't see most of them very often. Three live in the US, and one is in Japan. I don't hear much about the others.

My mother-in-law called us this weekend to say that the end was near and grandmother was unconscious. We were out of town having a family outing (more on that later). I don't know if she expected us to come, but we did not.

My daughter was very sad to hear the news when she came home from school today, and cried for a few minutes. Then, like with the flip of a switch, she wanted to go to see if the neighbor kids were home.

keeping busy

Summer weather has finally arrived with temperatures in the 70's, but it's been oddly windy--not just the usual breezy, but blow the patio furniture around windy. Elk have been unusually scarce this year, but we have had regular visits by a roe doe and her fawn.


I've been working on processing the pictures from the weddings I photographed the last weekend in May and then two weeks later. I'm definitely getting faster with this, and I'm pleased to be making good progress. I also had the pleasure of photographing a cat-lady. She had the most adorable british shorthair kittens. We will probably meet again next week, and I'll give do a workshop with her on how to use her deceased husband's camera. He was a professional photographer who had a lot better stuff than I do. He died about a year and a half ago. She sold some of his most expensive stuff, and I'm giving her camera lessons in exchange for gadgets.

My daughter has been enjoying her swimming lessons and has for the first time earned a milestone pin. There's about a hundred of these pins for various combinations of accomplishments, and they're sold by the swimming club. Naturally she wants to collect them all, so this could get expensive. I told her I'd buy her the pin for the highest level she completes at the end of swimming lessons. Last year, she did not earn a pin beause she refused to jump in from the edge of the pool. I found that really strange since she's usually so fearless, but she's also phenomonally stubborn.

Swimming lessons cost only 200 SEK (~$25) and are every day for a month. What a deal! Luckily for me, for the first three weeks she gets to go together with her after-school program (which is full time now that school's out). Unfortunately, the after-school program is only open for one more week, then they are closed for a month. I'm not sure what we'll do with our daughter then since we both have to work.

Today we're off for a family outing to a classic car show.

Midsommar

Happy summer solstice to everyone! Here in Sweden, Midsommar is the kickoff to summer. The festivities start on Friday, Midsummer's Eve. While not officially a holiday (except for those with government related jobs), pretty much everyone takes the day off. Despite very stressful times at work with layoffs, reorganization, and such, my husband was able to take the day off too. (One of his colleagues made the mistake of taking the week off, and may have been cut because of it. Nobody dares to take a real vacation this summer even though it is customary that people take at least a month off during the summer.)

Our daughter went with my husband's mother to celebrate with some of her friends on a farm. She had a great time, and we had the luxury of not having to do anything. I went grocery shopping and attempted to tidy up around the house. The pantry and freezer are restocked, but the house is still a disaster.

It rained less on Saturday, so between showers we did some gardening. I trimmed the dead stuff off the cottoneaster bushes and pulled four wheelbarrels full of weeds. It has rained so much recently that it was not that difficult to pull ragweed and thistles, which usually sit pretty tight. I also got a whole bunch of stinging nettles, and a ton the vine-type weed that sticks to everything (I don't know what it's called). I used gloves and wore long sleeves, but my arms are still tingling from being nettled. It's like when your foot wakes up after falling asleep, except it lasts for days. Then it starts to itch a little. For me it usually takes about a week to get over nettle stings. For my husband, it takes about 5 minutes.

Between spurts of gardening, we ate the traditional Midsommar food together with my mother in law. For lunch we had: pickled herring, boiled new potatoes with dill, sour cream, and chives, veggies with dip, meatballs (for those of us who aren't into herring), hard boiled eggs, bread and cheese. For dinner, we finally assembled the propane grill I baught last year, and we grilled some marinated pork and ate that together with leftover veggies and potatoes. Dessert was the much anticipated strawberries with whipped cream, and I also made lemon bars since I don't like strawberries.

Today we're off to visit friends in Denmark.

been a while

I know it's been a while since I've had time to blog. Time flies. We're now about half way through a three week visit from my mom and her husband. They've been having a great time playing with their granddaughter after school and on weekends. Right now they're on a mini vacation to Båstad, but they're coming back this afternoon.

Anyone who's seen my house knows that we don't have anyplace to put guests, so they've rented a house in the town where my daughter goes to school. This works out quite well. They have room to spread out, they aren't plagued by my cats, and they can walk to the grocery store and school.

I photographed an all day wedding last Saturday, and I'm doing another wedding next Saturday. I've been struggling to get as much as possible done on the first before I have to start working on the second. Luckily couple #2 will be taking a honeymoon, so I'll have that time to get caught up.

Tomorrow is Election Day here--yup on a Sunday. We're supposed to vote on which parties will represent Sweden in the EU. I read the newspaper every day, but I feel like I have very little information on what the parties want to accomplish in the EU. I know what they're about here in Sweden, but what gets decided at an EU level? I don't even know what the issues are. The only party which has done a good job explaining their position is the Pirate party. (That would be copyright pirates, internet style, named after the famous Swedish website for sharing movies and music, Pirate Bay.) Polling says they're likely to gain representation in the EU even though they're a one-issue party. That doesn't surprise me.

I suppose I'd better stop blogging and go try to get informed.

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.