He thinks I should paws for his edits. An open laptop is a laptop needing his touch.
This weekend was a blur of quiet family life, the kind of weekend that I suspect will be vaguely remembered. There were no major events, no milestones, no memorable travel. It was the kind of weekend lived once but repeated often; forgettable, but beautiful in the simplicity of its own existence.
Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?
― Thornton Wilder, Our Town
Saturday morning we made family breakfast — Kip, with the bacon that I always complain about but love to eat, me, with a Trader Joe’s pumpkin bread mix that I stashed in my luggage when we were in Los Angeles last month. (I still miss Micah every time I set the Saturday morning breakfast table for three, but I talked to her Friday night and she seems to be doing really well in college, genuinely enjoying her classes, excitedly recounting details of her church history class.)
Saturday we also cleaned the apartment, so much easier now that we live in a two-bedroom apartment instead of a three-story, four-bedroom, four-bathroom house in California. (That sounded like a complaint. It really is a bonus to clean up faster. Simplicity.)
Then Kip and I went grocery shopping together. I like to stock up on nuts and veggies, fresh bakery bread, and a boxed soup that I eat for lunch on cold days when I am home alone. I try to keep the processed food to a few “emergency” frozen pizzas and boxes of cereal for our ever-hungry teenage boy. Of course an occasional carton of ice cream or Swedish chocolate bar makes its way into the basket too.
Kip usually picks out the cheeses and meats, and he does a good job of it. Had we been in Los Angeles he would have gotten wine and beer too, but they are not sold in the grocery stores in Sweden. The only retail store allowed to sell alcohol in Sweden is the state-sanctioned monopoly Systembolaget.
Recently I got a very small bottle of tequila that was more than twice the price I would have paid in a grocery store in the US. Most Swedes will defend this government-controlled monopoly, saying the government has its people’s best interests at heart with its prohibition-style regulations. Systembolaget claims to be taking the negative aspects of alcohol out of society by eliminating the profit. Of course at $30 for a small bottle of budget tequila, I think someone is making a profit.
One memorable moment of the weekend was Saturday night when we invited friends over for dinner to celebrate one of their birthdays. I made dinner. They brought drinks. We had my childhood-favorite American apple crisp with ice cream, and we talked about living in Sweden. One of them is Swedish, the other from the UK. They have only lived in Malmö for a few years so they still see life here with both an insider and outsider perspective.
Easy like Saturday morning.
Sunday afternoon we made a quick family trip to IKEA. It was mostly River’s idea, as Kip can easily get to IKEA any day he works in Älmhult. But I was more than happy to go because I had not been to our favorite Swedish mega store since before Christmas. I realized when we were walking into the store that River mostly wanted to go because he was craving IKEA’s mashed potatoes, a soothing comfort food for his newly braced teeth.
We decided to start orthodontia for River this week. It is something that has been on the to-do list for awhile now, but for the last few years we have never felt settled enough to commit the time to braces. You don’t start orthodontia if you are planning to leave town. I have known too many friends who had to make unplanned trips back to LA to finish their teenager’s orthodontia treatment.
So as River starts this new dental treatment, I know it will also be a solid reminder that we are planning to be in Sweden for at least the next year, maybe a few months more or even longer. And what else will happen during that time?
At IKEA I also got a green plant for the apartment. As the last remaining Christmas decorations make it into the clearance bins, little green windowsill plants are popping up like the first promise of spring.
I put the plant on our bedroom windowsill, next to the crocuses Kip picked up at IKEA last week. I’m hoping our kitten-cat who does not seem to be able to resist temptation of any kind, will not find them. Plants have not fared well under his teeth and claws, but I really like these little green reminders of new life and I plan to keep them shut behind our bedroom door until we have trained the cat to respect the plant life. Coexist kitty.
In November this plant met its end under the kitty’s paws. I am hoping a couple of months has matured our feline friend.
