Sköldpaddan och jordgubben

Our dog Bella is asleep near my feet, never more than about 1 foot away from me. She is "dogging" me since Chris and the kids went up to the Adirondacks with grandparents yesterday. Perhaps she thinks if she can sleep on me, I won't leave (last time we left, we were gone for 10+ months... it's hard to know if someone is going to up and leave for that length of time again). Lucky her, she gets to go to the lake herself with me later in the week. Today is the day we were supposed to come home from Sweden. I received a message yesterday from Delta. "We're sorry, you're trip has been canceled." Not quite sure what we would have done if we were still in Sweden and received this the day before we were supposed to fly home. What an odd alternative reality since late February. I've been picking through my own blog posts to craft a more synthesized post for Penn State's social science research institute that looks at Sweden's experience jux...

Glad midsommar (happy mid-summer eve!)... like most Swedish holidays, you celebrate the day before. Friday, 19 June is Sweden's midsommar holiday. We had been looking forward to celebrating- perhaps inviting ourselves to someone's family celebration and joining in. Heck, we even managed to learn at least some of the dance moves for a few of the songs. Alas, it is not to be. Reading reports about Sweden yesterday, the lines were out the door at the systembolaget (the state run alcohol store). People were trying to figure out what to do for midsommar- normally a raucous revelry of a lot of friends and family dancing around a maypole. From watching the facebook page for our neighborhood, people are planning to shelter in place to some extent- our local produce market asked for reservations for the much sought after strawberries, a key piece of the midsommar meal.  Today is also Juneteenth in the U.S.- June 19th, or the day that the final slaves in Galveston, Texas were fr...

A thunderstorm just passed overhead, rain running in sheets off the road and into the nearby field. The crash of the storm seems to echo events in society- cataclysms of noise and maybe change. Today in Sweden, they announced a suspect in a 30 year old case in the murder of Olof Palme . Who is Olof Palme? He was perhaps one of Sweden's more famous prime ministers, killed in Feb. 1986 at the age of 59. Anxious to preserve normal life as much as possible, he and his wife Lisbeth had gone out to a movie with family members and they were shot on their way home as they walked through Stockholm's streets (sans body guard). In perhaps Sweden's most famous unsolved murders, there were more than 134 confessions of the crime , one person previously convicted but then exonerated, and now the announcement of a closed case this morning. While big news in Sweden, why should anyone else care? Palme was apparently outspoken as a prime minister, drawing attention to the colonial past of...

You may not know that today is Kristi Himmelsfärds Dag and tomorrow is a klämdag. To translate, today is Ascension Day in Sweden, and tomorrow is a "squeeze day." If we were in Sweden, most things would be closed for the four day weekend (and since things are still relatively open despite covid, they would be closed today and tomorrow). Ascension Day marks 40 days after Easter- the 6th Thursday to be precise. A religious holiday marked by extinguishing a candle that has been lit since Easter, it also marks a day for picnics at dawn and the start of the Swedish fishing season. A klämdag - a squeeze day-- is an unusual term but I can appreciate what it is: A  squeeze day  is a single work day that falls between one  holiday  and another work-free day. On squeeze days, many people take time off from work through  compensatory  leave ("complete") or  vacation  . A regular recurring squeeze day in  Sweden  is the day after...

We left Sweden a week ago. It's been quite a time period- both in the time period leading up to leaving and even this week. On a day to day basis, what we've experienced just feels like what we've experienced... but when I briefly sketch out the events to others, I realize the collection of events are more than a bit nutty. To recap- around 22 April , we decided that it was time to leave Sweden. That following week, Chris ended up in the Stockholm ER twice: on a Friday for dizziness (discharged and sent home), and on Saturday night/Sunday morning after he woke up thinking he was having a stroke and passing out and hitting his head. A long 40 hours later, he was cleared of having a stroke or a broken neck, but did have nerve pain, a hematoma (bruise on his brainstem), a concussion, and the underlying symptoms impacting his lungs. We moved our tickets to fly back to the US from 2 May to 9 May, giving him time for another CT scan. The next scan on 7 May came back clear and...

Homeward bound, part 2: re-entry into the State College area and our rental house in Houserville. Warning: this post is pathetic, but things do improve. Stephen managed to be relentlessly cheerful and Elizabeth stalwart all day, which helped. We decided that we're going to re-do Mother's Day (and most of the family's birthdays too) When we realized that we'd be returning to the State College area early, we knew we needed to find a place to live. Our house is rented to a Spanish family through June. They have been self quarantining since February, watching the debacle in Spain unfold. We asked if they'd be returning early to Spain? Nope. Staying through the school year (mid June). We asked if they'd be willing to move? Nope, staying in our house. After Chris was hospitalized and we contemplated transitioning multiple times, an offer to pay their rent for another house suitable for their needs in State College didn't work either. Nope. Staying put. Though...