Saturday, April 20, 2013

Day 332: Some days...

...it's easier to write this blog than others. Today was not one of those days. I woke up with a headache bordering on migraine, spent the day in bed despite the glorious spring weather that finally made an appearance in Stockholm and canceled plans to go out for Culture Night. So how do you write a "finding happy" entry on a day like today?

If you're me, you go back to the blog's original idea, to find something positive to write about every day. After a long nap, the headache finally gave way to hunger. There's a good sushi restaurant next door that prepared my meal on a plate I brought along from home. And there's a movie on TV that begins in a few minutes that has a 7.6 rating in IMDB and that Roger Ebert called the best film of the Sundance Film Festival the year it was released.

Oh, and there's generic Excederin, the miracle anti-headache over the counter drug.

Plus, tomorrow's another day :-)


Friday, April 19, 2013

Day 331: You never know...

My little afternoon project was to update the bulletin board in our building's lobby with the names of the new board members. We have one of those boards that you affix gold plastic letters to. As it turns out, this year we have an unusually large number of Ks in our board members' names so I did not have enough letters to go around.

Fortunately, the name and phone number of the letter place is on a sticker on the storage box. I called to make sure they still sell them, which they do. As I was speaking to the nice woman on the phone, it occurred to me to ask if they would be willing to mail the letters to us. Now, bear in mind that I am talking about seven letters, hardly big business for them, so I did not hold out much hope for a positive response. Which only goes to show that if you don't ask, you're sure to get a No,
because this time, I got a Yes.

Her condition was that I send an order via e-mail which I promptly did. A few minutes later I received a confirmation. The letters would be mailed to us on Monday. In addition, she took it upon herself to send a payment voucher so that we don't get charged an invoicing fee. Now that's customer service!



Thursday, April 18, 2013

Day 330: Colorful

Have I mentioned that I have not bought a transportation card since my return from the U.S. on Feb 4? My reasoning was that I would not be riding the subway and buses regularly enough to make it worthwhile. It would be more economic to pay as I go. As it turns out, I have a strong resistance to paying as I go. Instead, I choose to walk. So it's win-win all around.

One consequence is discovering areas in my own neighborhood that I never knew existed. Today's surprise was this colorful view in front of a local restaurant:


Uplifting on a gray and rainy day like today.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Day 329: Nitrous oxide


More commonly known as laughing gas (lustgas på svenska), nitrous oxide is my hero of the day. When I had to have my first root canal and was dreading going to the dentist, my then sister-in-law suggested I find a dentist that can provide laughing gas. It doesn't exactly make you laugh, nor does it reduce pain. You feel the pain, but you simply don't care all that much. I tried it and I was hooked. Since then, no dentist may enter the room without it.

And so it was today. Now the Novocaine is wearing off and the throbbing pain begins. So my second hero of the day is the last batch of chicken soup that is defrosting even as I write. Thank goodness there is something I can eat that does not require chewing!

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Day 328: All's well that ends well

Not such a great start this morning. After yet another "can't fall asleep till the wee hours of the morning" night, up at 6:30 AM to make an 8:00 AM dentist appointment. Got as far as two stations from my place when the subway delays began. The train ahead of ours was stuck at the next station. Wound up turning around and going home after consulting with the dentist. (What did we do before cell phones?)

That auspicious start left me tired and cranky and not at all looking forward to this evening's meeting of the new co-op board. This was to be the first meeting of this year's board elected at last week's shareholder meeting. We have a relatively large board (7 members and 2 deputies, impressive given the building has a total of 24 units) and this year three of the nine are both new to the board and to the building.

The main order of business at the first meeting is deciding on a chairperson, secretary and treasurer. Our treasurer agreed to continue as treasurer for the coming year. I've been secretary for several years now and quite like that role. However, our chairperson left the board after several years of service and I suspected my name would be floated in her stead. And I was right.

To my delight and surprise, one of the new board members expressed an interest in chairing! He was ratified and I can thereby continue as secretary. Not only that, but in a round of introductions we discovered that we have a doctor, an electrician, a superintendent, two computer nerds, a couple of handymen and a lot of creative ideas on our board.

Great way to end the day!

Monday, April 15, 2013

Day 327: A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Eight PM and still a moderate amount of daylight. Walking through this town is enough to make me happy. Today, especially so. Today is the 65th anniversary of Israel's independence day and as I made my way toward the café where a celebration was planned, I passed by a number of people speaking Hebrew. A rare event and one that made me feel like part of a community, albeit a mostly invisible one. Nice.


Sunday, April 14, 2013

Day 326: Happy sleepy

At 4 AM, I was still reading. Not so fond of nights when I simply cannot fall asleep. At 5 AM, daylight broke. Sometime after that I finally fell asleep and woke up at about 10 fully aware that in four short hours the gamers would arrive and my place, simply put, was a mess.

Now it's 9 PM and everyone's left. The dishes are in the dishwasher, the place sparkles and I can go to sleep. Can't wait! Oh, and I received two energizing e-mails too.

It's been a good day all around.