Kitty’s Place

I was saying at dinner tonight that it is hard to believe we are soon going to be in 2006. It is no time at all since my fellow came and spent new years 2000 with us in Canada while we were waiting to move to Sweden and here we are almost 6 years later.

Yesterday was quiet, I spiked a 39.8 C fever in the morning, took lots of tylenol and a cool shower and have been fever free since last evening. Hopefully that was the last hurrah of this darn bug that just did not want to leave. Susan is feeling perky after a couple days of antibiotics. No more desperate dashes outside, barely making it out of the courtyard before she has to pee. No more fever, no more incessesant panting. I tuck her pill inside a meatball and she gets one twice a day. She wanders about hopefully afterwords, thinking she might get another meatball but they are rationed. *laugh*

We have had fireworks going off here for days now. Tuesday evening there was a 20 minute display we could see from our window here. Tonight there was a shorter one but kids are out lighting off whatever they can get hold of. I am amazed at what people buy here for home use. They set off fireworks that would only be set off by the fire department in my hometown. I wonder how many fireworks injuries they have every year. I have never really thought about it before because this is the first year I have actually sat down and read the flyers coming in telling what is for sale. Tonight I saw a commercial where a little girl says to her dad “you promised” and he hands her an automatic weapon. Then there is a little script about you wouldn’t arm your kids with dangerous weapons, don’t give them dangerous fireworks and the little girl reappears holding parcels of fireworks. It certainly caught my attention. *laugh*

We will spend new years eve with my fellow’s parents. His mom and I organized what we will bring over, which is basically cheese, crackers, herring, smoked salmon. The stuff we didn’t open at christmas. They have sparkling cider and julmust. Tomorrow I will go and get a small bottle of champagne, since my fellow can’t have cider and we like to toast the new year with champagne. I read something on another forum about “New Year’s being amateur night for many, how much can I drink?”. I thought it was hilarious even though it is true. While I still enjoy an occasional drink, I am quite content to have ended up in a family of non drinkers. It makes holidays so much more fun not to worry about who is going to drink to much and make a fool of themselves or to worry about how much of a hangover I will have. *laugh*

Christmas has come and gone. It was really hard this year not talking to my grandparents, the first time in my life I haven’t seen them or spoken to them on christmas. When we were little we always had to wait for Grandpa to come with the movie camera before we could open our gifts. First we all headed downstairs in the wee hours of the morning and got to look in our stockings. My mom would go back to sleep on the couch while we ate up or played with the contents of those big socks. Then we had to wait. Grandma and Grandpa usually got to our house about 11 am and then we had to eat before the gift opening. But once it began, there was mass bedlam under those bright lights. *laugh* I love looking at those old film clips of us as children tearing open gifts and tugging on our parents to show them all the wonderful gifts we got.

Our weekend in Gothenburg was fun. Our last couple of days at school were fun too. Then it was time to get things organized for christmas. My fellow bought the tree while we were away and we decorated on the 20th. We were having christmas at our place this year and my fellow’s grandparents decided that instead of sending gifts they would pay for the food. So I went shopping with my fellow’s mom on the 21st and we got everything we needed for christmas dinner.

On the 24th there were 8 of us here, we 3, my fellow’s parents and sister, farmor’s little brother and his girlfriend. My fellow and I were exhausted because in the middle of the night on the 23rd, the dog got sick. She ran a high fever and was so weak we had to carry her up and down the stairs to take her out. She was lethargic the whole day of the 24th but was feeling better on the 25th. We took her to the vet yesterday and she still had a low grade fever and is now on penicillin. She does not look sick at all now though. Everyone arrived about noon on the 24th and we sat around visiting. I had cooked the pie and done the sweet potatoes the night before and the turkey went into the oven early. So there really was not much to do for dinner. We watched Kalle Anka and then we had dinner. Afterwords, while we were doing up the dishes, the doorbell rang. When LL opened the door Tomten had left a sack of toys and a note asking LL if he could please help out this year and hand out the gifts, so Tomten would have time to make it to Canada. So gifts were handed out, everyone was spoiled silly and fun was had by all. Poker playing was the event of the evening, since both my fellow and his uncle got Texas Hold’em poker sets.

Everyone came back on the 25th for dinner again and that evening there was a Trivial Pursuit tournament. I did not play, I was swedished out and did not want to have to concentrate that hard for something that is supposed to be fun. I dream of the day I get my english version games over here. *laugh*

Dinner here again on the 26th, that night it was just we 3, my fellow’s parents and a friend of the family. We sat around after and chatted, a very relaxed time.

Yesterday farmor came for lunch and then they both came for dinner. My fellow made espresso for us all after dinner with the new espresso maker we got from his parents for christmas. We finished off most of the leftovers from christmas, there is still some ham left that I will use for hash later this week. Today my fellow is at work and the kidlet will be heading out in an hour with farfar. They are going swimming at the local sporthall and then they will use the jacuzzi and have a sauna. LL thinks that is the life of luxury and has been asking his grandfather when they could do it again. So today is the day. I am relaxing, still have a low grade fever that refuses to leave, my cold sore that sprouted a week ago is almost gone though, so perhaps when it goes the fever will too. *laugh*

YAY! Our snow had pretty much melted and turned to ice but this afternoon it started to snow again and now it is a white christmas. I guess singing along with Dolly and Kenny worked. *laugh*

Merry Christmas!!

So the kidlet and I are here in Gothenburg for the weekend. We flew done yesterday after school and then took the airport bus to central station where we met up with LL’s grandmother. We left our luggage in a locker and went to huge shopping centre. We walked out and ended up at an outdoor rink where we saw a singing christmas tree. It was a platform in the shape of a christmas tree and then a choir dressed in green with red hats climbed up and formed the tree. It was cool! After that we went and ate and then took the bus to farmor’s apartment, which is really cute. She lucked out on this one. It is 15 minutes by bus to central Göteborg, there is a grocery store where she gets off the bus and it is a 2 minute walk to her building. A very cute little studio apartment, perfect for her, since she is down here every other week to study.

Today farmor has school and LL and I went to Liseberg, an amusement park. We had so much fun there. Then we met up with farmor when she was done school and we walked around downtown Göteborg. We saw a outdoor living Nativity Scene, a play put on by the church, city mission and the high school. Real sheep, real donkey and real camel. It was wonderful. We shopped, had coffee and then came home here. Tomorrow LL and farmor are going to see a movie together and I will have a couple free hours to shop before we head back to the airport and home.

Tomorrow is Lucia Day. For three weeks or so there has been a forewarning in the weekly newsletter from school that the kids would need an empty toilet paper roll and if we had candle stumps or little containters to melt wax in, they would appreciate it. I am not a candle person but I did gather up toilet paper rolls. Then the latest newsletter requested a tall beer/pop can with the top cut off. We don’t drink beer and I have never seen the tall pop cans in stores, just in bars. So I bought a can of cider to empty, wash and send with him. He informed me when he got home today that he needs to take plaster with him tomorrow too, his teacher told them that today. Well being the bad parent I am, I have no plaster hanging around the house. *laugh* He also informed me has to take some tea candles with him but those I have a lot of. Poor LL was in tears when I informed him I was not heading out to a hardware at 5 pm to pick up plaster for school. I figure there is a limit and taking the bus to the station and then switching buses and walking to the store from there is mine. *laugh*

I am basking in the sunlight that is streaming through my window. We have mild temperatures again, it is showing 9 on our balcony but that is becuase the sun is shining on the sensor. I would guess it is about 3C at the moment. The sun is lovely and I am taking full advantage of it while it is here, since it will be heading away when I leave to pick up the kidlet in half an hour.

Life is rolling along, LL had a laryngitis on the weekend and my fellow was all sinusy again. I have a sore throat but it is not anything to worry over. The usual when we have this kind of uncertain weather. I am home from school today because we have a sick dog. She started with diarrhea yesterday and had some blood in her urine in the morning (noticed because she did the very unusual thing of peeing on the floor). As the day progressed the blood did not reappear but she did have lots of diarrhea, drank lots of water and so had to be taken out every couple of hours to pee. I was up with her at 0200, 0400 and then got up at 0630. She is not drinking so much now, is not having the urinary frequency she had yesterday and the diarrhea has slowed. I am still taking her out every couple of hours, but now she just prances about and sniffs things, so I know she is feeling better. *laugh* We will keep an eye on her for the next day or two but I really think that whatever bug she got has been flushed out of her system.

Now I know this sounds crazy, but after working so many years as a nurse, I can sometimes smell when people are sick. Yesterday Susan smelled ill, today she smells like a dog and that is a good thing. *laugh* Actually it is not a pleasant thing, two or three times a year I smell someone on the bus or in a store and my nose tells me that they have cancer. I always worry that one day I will detect that odour on someone I know, not a happy thought at all.

In the 10 minutes I spent typing this, the sun has already gone done behind the building across the way. So it goes this time of year, at least I enjoyed it for a bit. *laugh*

Last Sunday we went grocery shopping. Before we went we were relaxing here and LL was telling knock knock jokes. I asked my fellow if there were knock knock jokes in swedish and before he could answer (and now that I think about it, he never actually did *laugh*) LL decided to show me that there were, so he did a literal translation. “knack, knack … vem är där? … vem …. vem vem? …” and it was at this point he realized that owls say whoo, not vem and there was no way the joke would work. The three of us were in hysterics.

It has been a tough week, I am way too emotional. I had a stomach flu at the beginning of the week but I am not sure how much was virus and how much was just stress. Wednesday I was at school and there must have been a dozen times I had tears welling up in class. I stayed home Thursday since I had to go for a medical appointment in the morning and knew it would be a hard day knowing everyone was at the funeral. It was so fitting that the first song I heard on the radio when we took LL to school was Amazing Grace, which I later heard was sung by one of my nephews at the service. I think this is the hardest part of not being there to grieve, that everyone else has each other to talk with and reminisce with, but here I have no one who remembers my gram in the same way I do.

Today I had decided to keep the kidlet home because he has a rash on his trunk that is not measles or chicken pox, very dry but not itchy. I thought it might be excema of some sort from being bundled up and sweaty in all the clothes they wear going in and out at school and a day inside with cream on the rash would help. But when he got up he was also sporting a fever and a cough. So we stayed home and are still in pj’s at 3 in the afternoon. I have been watching the video my oldest brother did after my mom died. He compiled years worth of 8 mm home movies into one video. I watched it when my dad died and have watched it a couple times since. I usually watch it alone, because 2 hours of old movies of people you don’t recognize really are boring to others. I however laughed and cried and pointed out people to the kidlet. His favourite part was a clip where grandpa was holding a cake on a board and blowing out the candles. He tipped it and the cake slid forward on the board and grandpa made a great save before it actually hit him. *laugh* It made me think of of the time they had company from “down home” and grandpa went and got take out pizza. The box was hot so he tipped it on to its’ side and carried it that way, totally not thinking about the fact that the toppings on a hot pizza would slide at that angle. So the pizza was bare when he got home and the cheese and toppings were a clump along one edge of the box. *laugh*

I have no weekend plans. The kidlet still has a fever but says he feels ok. He was not thrilled with the cream I put on his rash but it does actually feel better now. We will just play it by ear, not a bad way to spend a weekend at all. *smile*