Day 339: Count on it

Spent a part of the afternoon "taking" the national math test for 9th graders in preparation for the Math Center convention which takes place in mid-May. Figure I might as well get a head start. Plus, this is actually my idea of fun :-)

Would have liked to report that I got 100% but alas they got me on an area question that was less than obvious. It's in the photo if you want to take a shot at it. Oh, well. Still, got all the rest correct and let me just say it's been a day or two since I was in 9th grade. Next up, the 10th grade test.

Day 338: American history

Spent an interesting couple of hours helping a Swedish high school student with some history homework. The topic happened to be the American Revolutionary War to which this history book devotes four pages (contra the French revolution which gets twice as much print space). It's been a long time since I visited this chapter in American history and it was fun (not to mention challenging) to find myself explaining it in Swedish.

As a bonus, I walked to meet the student at the library and then home again...10.4 kilometers in total. Now here's to a good night's sleep! And tired legs :-)

Day 337: Spring has sprung

How do I know? I switched from winter gloves to thinner ones and to a lightweight blanket on my newly made springtime bed. Did not have to wear a hat outside today. Medborgarplatsen was teeming with people sitting in outdoor cafés. The neighbors are grilling outside. I could have normal shoes on my feet rather than construction boots.

Plus, the air smelled like spring.

It's about time!

Day 336: An evening at the ballet

It's been ages since I last was at the ballet. It will not be ages until the next time!

Giselle (Royal Swedish Ballet)

Day 335: Seen about town today

On an extra long walk today ( 5 km), I saw a number of things that I felt moved to photograph. Here they are in the order in which I saw them. Some were puzzling, others entertaining. I do love my walks :-)

Attention Swedish readers: What on earth does Lura inte i vassen mean???

A bit hard to tell what this is from this photograph as it was taken from too far a distance. It is a double-decker bicycle rack. We've discussed installing one in our garden for quite some time. I finally got to see what one looks like.

Seen on the bulletin board at the library. Rudebeck is one of my Swedish brothers. I was tickled to see this poster advertising his fabulous cabaret act.

Coming to our civic theater in December. Needs no further explanation. Aforementioned brother got online and got us tickets for January.

Day 334: Something to chew on

And teeth to chew it with. What a pleasure to be able to use both sides of my mouth again. The root canal is not complete but the roots have been removed and the Novocaine soreness is gone and I can chew again! Food tastes completely different (or perhaps simply complete) when it hits a larger surface of your tongue. Terrific to get the entire spectrum of taste again.

Day 333: Triple crown

Earth, wind, fire and water...spent a good part of this afternoon exploring the four elements in song, drawing and dance under the guidance of a play therapist and in the company of seven other women. Drawing is so very definitely not my thing but today I simply let go of any expectations and just let my hands fend for themselves. The results are far from what I would consider works of art. Still they represent strides forward from the days I simply refused even to try.

The dancing was energizing and I know I will feel muscles tomorrow that I'd long forgotten I have. Plus, I missed the bus stop on the way there and wound up walking back three stops...about 1.2 km...so I even got a walk in today in the glorious sunshine. Love it when my unconscious mind takes such good care of me!

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 :-)

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!

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

Day 325b: We're off, we are...

325a
Not exactly champagne and caviar if you catch my drift. Equally enchanting not doubt, Being good isn't good enough (Sånger om längtan...songs about longing) with the ever wonderful Johan Rudebeck at Café Tjärlek. Four o'clock if you care to join.

Update coming afterwards...'cause this is for sure today's happy :-)

325b

And a report after. Fiaf, Jacque Brel, Hasse o Tage, Kander and more in the most charming café ever! Go Johan and Eric.

(Note to self: have a party at this café! Soon.)

One sings...

...the other plays...

...in the coziest café ever!

Day 324: (Still) Gotta love those Swedes

Today is gray, gray, gray. Reminds me a lot of my first visit to Sweden in 1991. It was also April and the weather was chilly, overcast and damp, just like today. But I made lunch plans with a friend near her place of work and was determined to walk the 5.2 kilometer there, rain or shine.

Along the way, I passed a number of different daycare and school classes taking an excursion. It's the cutest sight. The really young kids are dressed in reflective vests and hold on to each other or the teacher or the stroller if there is one. They look something like this:

Today, for the first time, I noticed the very clever "walking rope" for children who are a bit older It functions to keep the kids together and connected to the teacher at the same time. It is a length of rope with evenly spaced handles. Each child grabs hold of a handle while the teacher grabs the front of the rope, and off they go. The advantage over holding hands is the contact between the kids and the adults (there are typically two, one at the head of the line and another at the end). Here is what it looks like in action:

Clever, no?

Day 323: Popularity

On Sunday, it will be that time of month again. No, it's not what you're thinking (been there, done that, doing it no more...hey, another reason to be happy!). No, it's Board Games...Yeah! on Sunday.

I organize these event via Meetup and have done for several years now, limiting attendance to 12 people, which is who many I can comfortably accommodate in my apartment. It's a good number too for playing. We can split up into two or three groups and switch around during the afternoon.

Nowadays, the event always has a waiting list. So I sent out a mail to the people who registered, including those on the waiting list, asking them to change their RSVP to No if for some reason they cannot make it. To my surprise, over the next two days, the waiting list got longer. Tickles me pink that these events are so popular.

Let the games begin!

Day 322: Statistics

Never before have I been as excited to get an update from the Apple App store! Today's Wordfeud update features game statistics! That is music to the ears of a math nerd like me. And they are well designed stats too. You can see your wins, losses, etc. for each language and board combination that you play. These stats only cover games that were started on February 16 or later.

Here's what I discovered:

• I play a lot of Wordfeud (OK, I already knew that but I put it at the top of the list so that you won't have to comment :-))
• My percentage win rate in English (83%) is only slightly better than in Swedish (78%)
• I resign very few games, and those I do are never because I am losing
• It is easier (for me?) to score high points and to make 7-letter words in English than in Swedish

But anyway, see for yourself...oh, and do send me a game invitation if you want to play. My username is OdellaBella.

Day 321: Commuter no more

With the best of intentions, I set my alarm bright and early so that I would have time to walk to my dentist's office for today's 8 AM appointment. And then the snooze function popped up. Four times. There went my walk. Fortunately, Stockholm has a great transportation system and the subway got me there in time.

It's been a very long time since I've ridden the subway at that time of morning. As I was being squeezed by morning commuters I found myself thinking how glad I am to no longer be doing this every morning. Perhaps that was the whole meaning of the snooze function...to bring me to this realization.

The 4 kilometer walk home was all the more delightful!

Day 320: Jewish penicillin

Lunch

The wonders of FB. My neighbor posts that she's come down with a bad cold. I comment that I have homemade chicken soup to help her get better. And so it is! A batch of "Jewish penicillin" on its way next door. Perfect way to commemorate the Shoah and help a friend and neighbor. Plus, I got to eat some for lunch too :-)

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