whatever is beautiful

I leave my house when it is still dark, which is not difficult in Sweden during the winter. This morning was filled with a frost that just sparkled off every bit of surface of the gravel-covered path. It was so much sparkle that it hurt my eyes and I had to look away. Too much sparkle for a dark Sweden morning.

Train Tales, vol. 2

Some of my favorite time of nearly every day is my time spent on the train. Train commuting suits my person very well. I've had the pleasure of witnessing plenty of interesting/strange/lovely/funny things, and now I'll pass some of that on to you, in the form of Train Tales.
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I am sitting in my usual morning seat. Two people come into the same section, seemingly a mother and teenage son. I first took note of them when they were buying tickets from the ticket checker, since most of the people using the early trains have commuter passes. They are sitting in a row of three, the son slouched next to the window and the mother in the middle. The mother gets up to find the bathroom, which is located behind them. Upon her return, she is looking only at the seats on one side of the train. The side where her son is not sitting. So she passes him right by. Passes by me. Continues on into the next car. She is gone for sort of a long time. 

When she comes back, she is once again only looking at the wrong side of the train. Her son and I are the only ones in the car, but she doesn't see him, and continues on toward the bathroom again. She isn't gone for long, but once again passes by her son and on to the next car. I'm starting to wonder if I should  intervene, because this is starting to feel so ridiculous. I guess it is possible that she is intentionally stretching her legs with a bit of walking, and that she has known where her son was sitting the whole time? When she finally returns to our car she looks toward the opposite side of the train for the first time and spots her son. She gives him a shocked, almost playful, scowl. I am fairly convinced that the son was accused of changing seats or hiding as a trick. You sneaky sneaky son, you;)

The End!

A lot of words about salad

Here is a theory I have. When I was doing research, my life needed a creative outlet, so I turned to cooking to fulfil that need. Now my days are spent submerged in a creative outlet, and maybe this explains why I have little desire to cook.

Until last night, I hadn't done any dancing in eighteen days, and keeping with my theory, I had really been wanted to do some cooking. Plus, I think I spent the entire holiday not eating vegetables, so that needed to be addressed.

Food in bowls had a lot of appeal to me in my search for the perfect thing to make yesterday. (As an aside, how do you google that for recipes? I just kept getting info about foods to make for the super bowl, which is pretty much the opposite of vegetables I think.) I ended up taking inspiration from this kale salad bowl, this big vegan bowl, this big salad, and this other salad to come up with a bowl full of food that required no separate cooking (one day I'll try the sweet potato thing though). Then I topped the whole thing with the dressing from this kale salad recipe, which was a wildly delicious choice. I'm kind of into reading about salad dressing these days. Tahini is a brilliant emulsifier (or is it only a stabilizer?).

I hope my future self looks back on this post one day and thanks her former self for the documentation of this thing.

Also, to future self, here is my current run-down of kale salads (or non-salads, I guess).
-the recipe I make 98% of the time I have kale on hand
-the backup recipe, which is also really good, but not as good as the above recipe (even using half the sugar that recipe calls for seems abundant, and tastes just fine)

I did also make the one with the tahini dressing from above, and that was pretty tasty, but I think that is largely due to the dressing. And I also used this recipe once when I felt like I was eating too much raw kale, which worked out well for me.

The End!

adventure to the US

Greg and I went back to the US over Christmas. It had been a year and a half since I was last there. I was wondering if things would seem really different, or if everything would just feel familiar. I think if I had driven a car, that would have felt really strange, but I didn't, so no need to even talk about it.

Here are some things I do feel the need to talk about.

On the flight over, as they were giving people beverages, I asked if they had ginger ale. The response I got was, "No, I'm sorry. But if you want… I can mix you up something." At this point my curiosity is peaked. Am I about to get a treasure chest?! He immediately continues, "Sometimes people like to mix Sprite and Coke, and the Coke sort of makes it taste like ginger ale." Is this guy being serious, because that sounds disgusting. So I decline, and opt for Sprite without any mix-ins, which actually turned out to be 7-Up. And now, fifteen days later, I'm still kicking my non-adventurous self for not just going for it. How could I have passed on an opportunity like that?

Here is another thing. How did I never notice how many people in NH have vanity license plates? They are hugely abundant. And watch out for the one that had 'poodl' in it, because they cut us off twice in one day.

I also had not had so many conversations with strangers in a long time. Previously, I would compare New Englanders to Mid-westerners and consider the New Englanders to be quite reserved. They are the kind of people who are friendly only after you know them. Although… no. That is totally wrong. Chatty chatty people.

Then on the flight back my luggage got lost. One of my biggest regrets was that all of the chocolate I purchased had gone in my checked bag and none in my carry-on. So I went home without my suitcase, with hopes that they would call me within 24 hours to say all was well. And they did! I was really happy about that, and also really happy that I know the Swedish word 'baggage,' while spelled the same, is actually pronounced sort of like the b'gosh of Oshkosh b'gosh.

Train Tales, volume 1

Some of my favorite time of nearly every day is my time spent on the train. Train commuting suits my person very well. I've had the pleasure of witnessing plenty of interesting/strange/lovely/funny things, and now I'll pass some of that on to you, in the form of Train Tales.
________

For a large part of my life I refused to eat bananas. I really didn't like anything about them and would occasionally claim to have a banana allergy to avoid being hassled about not wanting to eat them. I don't know what happened in August, but I ate a banana and now I am eating them daily. However! I still don't really like hearing or smelling someone else eat a banana… It is something I need to get over, but until that happens, be assured that when a man sat across the aisle from me on the train and started eating a banana, I was certainly aware of it and anxiously waiting for it to be gone. The train hadn't even departed yet, so any background noise I could hope for was severely lacking. But alas, it is one banana. It will be gone soon. And then there is nothing to worry about.

But would I be writing my first Train Tale about a man who ate one banana? No, no I would not.

This is a very hungry guy who sat near me, and shortly after finishing the first banana he starts in on a second banana. And if you are a person who hasn't eaten breakfast, I suppose two bananas could be justified. Especially if you are taking your breakfast on a train, because bananas come with their own portable packaging. I can understand two bananas, but when he cracked open the third one I started to be amazed. And I started thinking about how I needed to remember this and tell my friends.

Now this is starting to sound mythical, but I am so serious when I say: This guy ate four bananas within a twenty minute time span. Four.

The End!

7QT: swedish, and jumping on trees, and posture

1. I think these are the most important Swedish words I know. First, fika. Second, lagom. Third, jantelagen. These mean, approximately and respectively: coffee and sweet treats, everything in moderation, and don't try to stand out above any others.

So pretty much Sweden suits me just fine(:

2. Just two short weeks ago I wrote that I really wanted to make an effort to just speak Swedish at school. I just have to be honest and say that is not really happening. I am doing a good job of hearing Swedish, but I am starting to develop the habit of responding in English. I'm really slow at formulating things to say in Swedish, and I also find it nearly impossible to express myself in Swedish. So for now, English dominates. le'sigh

3. I think it is safe to say that making friends at folk dance school is pretty much nothing like making friends at the office of a job in academia. Guess which one shared this link on fb and which one shared this link. And to be honest I didn't even read the first article, but definitely enjoyed watching the video from that second link. (And apparently 50 years is not enough time to change the fact that NASA is dominated by white men with moustaches…)

Anyhow, I didn't start this intending to go that route. I intended to make some comments about how unusual it is for me to feel so close to people that I haven't known for very long. For one thing, we are physically close because we spend all our days dancing together (and also, that general strong affinity for hugging). But there is also an emotional closeness that comes from spending all day, every day interacting with the same small group of people. You quickly move on from discussions about the weather to topics with a little more heft, which suits me and my introversion just fine.

4. Greg and I were laughing about how our facebook feeds exploded with halloween costumes on halloween. I commented about how strange it was that there were at least four alligators, surprised that this was the most popular costume choice of the year. He kindly pointed out that I was probably looking at mostly dinosaurs. Good point, my friend, good point.

5. I really like this video.

Ever since watching it, I've been thinking about how I'd like to be able to jump onto a tree like that (go ahead and skip to 2:30 if you don't want to watch the whole thing). So the other night I just tried it out. My tips for those wanting to try this: choose a tree with no low branches, and just commit!

6. Apparently posture has become such a central concept in my life that I am now dreaming about it. My posture needs improvement, and now I am just thinking about it all the time. Plus maybe we all read this already, but I am coming out of ten-ish years of being hunched over a computer screen full-time. So I've got some correcting to do.

7. The other day Greg was watching some MJ videos. I commented that Smooth Criminal was probably my favorite song of his. But then I had to quickly correct myself, because that and the song from Free Willy are both favorites. Just so good!

Fun fact: I've gotten into the habit of writing these posts over a timespan of… weeks maybe? So every time I would open a yet-to-be-finished post and read the takes I had already written, I'd find that I wrote a reference to 'yesterday' almost every time. For example "yesterday Greg was watching some MJ videos." So I'm trying to learn to just type "the other day" because it keeps things more honest around here.

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The End!

flood of consciousness

Hej there you old blog, you old pal. I think I want to be one of those people that keeps track of some daily details of life. These people exist, right? It started when they installed this new bike counter leading to central station. Realistically, there are probably over five main ways in which bicycles can arrive at central station. On the one that I use regularly, they just installed this bike counter. It is amazing. I don't know how they can even do these things. Not counting people. Not counting too many bikes. It works through a sensor that is installed under the path, and what happens when a unicycle goes by? These are important things, but from what I've seen, it looks accurate. So then I decided to start writing down which bicycle number I was each time I passed. This is at least once or twice a day, depending on whether I go directly home or go in some other direction. I've got big plans for making some sort of plot with this information once I've gathered up a good collection.

Sometimes I think I only write about bicycling so much to give myself more dimension. It doesn't feel bad to me to be so enthusiastic about folk dance, but I can see other people register my enthusiasm as overzealousness. Overzealousness doesn't win hearts, but neither does an awkward attempt at hiding my enthusiasm or making it seem less. I'm not bothered by my love of folk dance, but I'm so sensitive to people having a negative reaction to it. I don't expect people to match my enthusiasm (or even be anywhere close to it). I sort of expect that the majority of people would have a neutral and open opinion about folk dance. Even if they don't share the same enthusiasm, they understand what it is like to be enthusiastic about a thing. Sort of a "That's cool that you are really into a thing that you love. I'm like that about [insert enthusiasm of your choice]." But it makes me sad when I'm made to feel like it is a bad thing. I don't want to hear people tell me that I shouldn't want to dance more in the evening if I already danced all day long. I have so many feelings about this, but it is not so easy to put words to it. The words really help to sort through the feelings, so I'll keep thinking on it and perhaps come back with more later.