Some more poems from the past

The first time I heard John Mayer's "Half of My Heart" on the radio a few months ago, I almost fell off my chair. I wrote a poem in eighth grade (or was it seventh?) called "Half of My Heart." Did he go to Sweden and dig up my old poetry book, have it translated and write a song from it?

I doubt it. Here's the chorus from the John Mayer song:

"Oh, half of my heart has a grip on the situation
Half of my heart takes time
Half of my hearts got a right mind to tell you that I can't keep loving you
Oh, with half of my heart"



And here's my poem:

Half of my Heart (May 14, 1993)

With half of my heart
I will always think of you
In half of my heart
you will always remain
I'll never forget you
You will always remain
and you will always impact
my decisions
even if
I'll never see you again

You've meant so much
to me
Even if you never noticed
You've helped me
over and over again
just by existing
It will be like that
forever

I will always remember you
as my buddy, as my friend
With half of my heart
I will always
love you

(Original in Swedish)
Halva mitt hjärta
Med halva mitt hjärta
kommer jag alltid at tänka på dig
I mitt halva hjärta
Kommer du alltid leva kvar
Jag kommer aldrig glömma dig
Du kommer alltid finnas
och du kommer att
påverka mina handlingar
även om jag aldrig får se dig igen

Du har betytt så mycket
för mig
även om du själv aldrig märkte det
Du har hjälpt mig många gånger
bara genom att finnas till
Så kommer det nog att vara
i all evighet

Jag kommer alltid att minnas dig
som min kompis, som min vän
Med halva mitt hjärta
kommer jag alltid att älska dig!

Updated blog with some music

In the right-hand rail, you can now see some links to songs that I've posted on the internet using the iPhone app called Audioboo (free for uploading audio under 3 minutes).

I've organized them into songs in English and songs in Swedish. Take a listen and let me know what you think!

Poems from the past

I came across my old poetry book that I started writing in when I was 11. Most of them are in Swedish, but I have tried to translate some of them - others wouldn't make sense in English at all, because they are based on silly Swedish rhymes.

Arg blir glad (skrev när jag var 13)
Jag blev arg
tog cykeln
åkte iväg
då, såg jag Tomas
Han vinkade
Jag vinkade
Jag blev glad
tog cykeln
åkte hem

(From angry to happy (wrote when I was 13)
I got mad
took my bike
rode away
then, I saw Tomas
He waved
I waved
Was happy
too my bike
rode home )

Jag ska visa dej (skrev när jag var 12)
Du gör vad som helst
Du tror du får bestämma jämt
för att du är äldst
Men jag ska visa dej
att du inte kan regera över mej
Jag ska ge mig iväg långt bort
och aldrig återvända
Och det ska ske väldigt fort
så slipper så mycket otäckt
hända

(I'll show you - wrote when I was 12
You do whatever you want
You think you get to make all the decisions
Because you are older
But I will show you
That you do not control me
I will go far, far away
and never return
And I will do it fast
Before anything bad happens)

Och min favorit från sjunde klass i religion:

Högtiderna
Advent firades av det skäl
att förberedelserna inför Jesus födelse
anordnades väl
På juldagen föddes han då
i en krubba fylld av halm och strå
Men ack, på långfredagen spikades han
på ett kors
och ingen man som han
kan ta sig loss.
Men stor glädge blev
det när Jesus på påskdagen klev
upp från sin grav
och uppfyllde sina lärljungars krav
40 dagar efter påsk
tog sig Jesus upp till Gud
Därför firar man Kristihimmelsfärdsdag
och uppfyller Jesus bud.
På pingst som betyder 50
föll Jesus ande över lärljungarna
Men allhelgonahelgen är endast bra
för då får vi lediga va!

What happened?

I used to be a neat and organized person.

I never missed people’s birthdays. I never lost socks to the dryer monster. I was always on time or early to meetings. My pen caps were always matched up with proper pens and always pushed on tight.

Somewhere along the way, things changed. I guess it had something to do with becoming a newspaper editor.

All of a sudden, there wasn’t time to worry about trivialities. All that matters is getting the darn paper done, preferably on time.

Now I am always late to meetings. I forget to send in reports. I forget birthdays and other important things like dentist’s appointments. I’ve even worn my clothes inside out.

So how do these things happen? And does one go back to having things in order?

I do not like to be the person who forgets to send my grandma a birthday card, or forgets what my significant other’s favorite food is. I do not want to have a checklist for how to get dressed in the morning, but I would like to have time to actually write a to-do list before midnight. I certainly don’t want to be the one who never fills out her SMS report for corporate until the fourth reminder email. And I don’t want to have missing socks.

I’m trying really hard to remember everything, to do everything that needs to get done. I guess sometimes, it’s just not possible.

But this year, at least, my Christmas cards WILL be sent out on time. I guess at least I can check that off the list.

Solving problems

The challenge with trying to solve problems for other people is to figure out how get those people to clearly identify what the problem actually is.

"The bullets are gone on my pages," someone told me recently.

OK, explain. Are they gone from the template? Do you not know how to put them back? Is the font missing? Did they disappear in printed or just from what you can see? Where exactly are they "gone" from?

"They just won't show up."

Not helpful.

I also get the "it just won't work" complaints, the "something just happened to my monitor/screen/camera/phone" issues and the "what should I do?" questions.

However, it's my job as an editor to be a mind reader, an innovator, a mom, a caretaker, and of course, the in-house IT person, so eventually, we get to the bottom of things. Most of the time, at least.

And the bullets? Well, it was a systems issue. The font just wasn't compatible with our printing software. Haven't solved that one yet, but at least we got to the bottom of the problem.

The haunted condo

I'm beginning to think that our neighbor's condo is haunted by an evil spirit.

For the past 45 minutes, my neighbors have been slamming doors (louder than usual, and even in the bathrooms and the closets) and screaming at each other. "Fuck this" and "I don't CARE" and then there was some crying.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so weird if they weren't the fourth couple living there since we moved in four years ago.

First, there was the Unit Owner. He lived here the first year. A few weeks after he introduced us to his girlfriend/fiancee/wife (depends on what day you asked him), he moved in with her in another unit and we haven't seen him since.

Loud TV Guy stayed in the unit for about a month. He wasn't living there full-time, so he doesn't really count. But he was painting or helping out with something and slept on a mattress on the floor. The sound from his television would bounce off the empty walls into all hours of the night, and a few times I think I even banged on our wall with a broom to get him to turn it down.

Woman With 3-year-old and Dog moved in after that. They seemed really nice - the girl was sweet and quiet and the dog was adorable. They must have lived here around the time of my abdominal surgery, because I remember during my first walk outside that the little girl looked at me, pointed and said "mom, why is she walking so funny?"

The trouble started when the husband came up here from North Carolina and couldn't find a job. Maybe he got laid off, maybe he got fired, we're not sure. From the noise he made when running up and down the stairs, he must have been at least 250 pounds. And boy, would he go up and down those stairs.

Turns out, that was the least of our concerns. He had a real bad temper as well. We heard a couple of nasty verbal arguments, but they always ended before we had a chance to really worry it would be taken to the next level and feel the need to call the police. Then there was The Big Fight. Banging, stomping, crashing. Door slamming. Angry man leaving. Quiet. Woman on phone crying.

We're not sure he ever came back. Bills started piling up. Termination notices came in the mail (we frequently get mail that's supposed to be for our neighbors and have to hand deliver it). Next thing we know, Woman With 3-year-old and Dog move out.

Mom With Teenage Son came next. We think there were actually two sons, and one of them might have lived in a basement room without windows. But we only saw them - or smelled them - when they stood out on our patio smoking cigarette after cigarette after cigarette. The smoke seeped in through cracks around the doors, and watching TV in our own living room became unbearable.

Doors would still slam, but there was no screaming, at least not that I can recall. I'm pretty sure the mom said she was divorced. She had many decorations and garden tools with her when she moved in, indicating she had downsized from a large house.

A few months later, I caught them packing boxes into a moving van. "My son got kicked out of school," Mom With Teenage Son said. "There's no reason for us to stay here now."

Couple With Tiny Cars moved in next. They've probably been living here eight or night months now. Doors have always slammed, but nothing like tonight.

And the eavesdropping was inevitable, as they took their fight outside on the patio and it's finally a cool enough night to have the windows open. After one of them left and then came back, it is finally silent again.

We'll see which one of them - or both, perhaps - is moving out tomorrow.

And the deck plans start happening...

Transporting wood home from the store to start making the deck extension.



Our grill got a new home, in what used to be my wildflower garden. Well, at least it's off of the deck part, giving us more space to move around! More rocks will come, and some flowers to cover the ugly cinder blocks, but first we are getting a new grill!



I was experimenting with the cinder blocks to see if I could get them as high as the regular deck, but it wasn't really working. Will have to work out another removable foundation.



And here's the frame of the deck extension. Complete with metal corners and all! (but you can't see those in the picture)



And thanks to IKEA, we have covered our ugly existing concrete patio in some fancy (removable) wood decking. Now we just need some new outdoor furniture!

Chernobyl - 25 years ago

It makes me feel really old to think that the big nuclear accident in the Ukraine that peopel still talk about happened 25 years ago today.

I can still remember my grandmother ushering me inside - no more outdoor time until the radioactive clouds had passed over Sweden.

Of course, I was only 7 years old at the time, so I wasn't thinking about the 31 people who lost their lives. I didn't even know what a nuclear reactor was. All I knew was that there had been a big explosion somewhere in the Soviet Union, that radioactive fumes were in the atmosphere, and that inside became the new outside for a couple of weeks.

I'm not even sure there was radioactive fallout where we lived in Sweden, but my grandma insisted it was dangerous, so inside I went. It was springtime, which made it so much harder to stay indoors. Flowers were starting to come up, the grass was getting greener. For months, my grandmother would warn me not to touch the grass or eat leaves or whatever we did as 7-year-olds, because there could be remnants of radiation.

Now, all I can think of are those poor souls that lived within a close proximity of the blast, all of those who later died or got sick from the radiation, and all animals near the plant who died off within a couple of years. It took days for the Soviets to providing information to the outside world - who knows how long before it told its people the truth. But people obviously knew something had gone terribly wrong.

Back to writing... sort of

Here's a link to the first newspaper editorial I've written in almost a year... Not much time for writing anymore, as I'm sure you've all seen on this blog since there's been NOTHING on it...

CLICK HERE TO READ IT

Continuing in the kitchen

Home Depot had a sale on glass tiles for the kitchen this weekend. That motivated me to spackle the entire back wall (the yellow glue from the ugly fake wood floor tiles has been showing for months) in preparation of some tiling.



Of course, I don't know how to tile, but at least the walls will be ready soon. I just have to sand and spackle them one more time... And we still have to order and install the counter tops...



But at least this motivated us to get some painting done on the lower cabinets. One step closer to having a completed kitchen...

A wonderful piece of history

Today I navigated to the New Haven Register website to catch up on some local news. Instead, I came across THIS ARTICLE about the famous "Treskilling Yellow" stamp once again going up for auction.

The stamp, known to me as the Treskilling Banco, is of importance because it was postmarked in 1857 in Kopparberg, Sweden - my hometown of 3,100 people (You can see "Kopp" on the postmark). It was a big part of history growing up, and there's a museum in my town dedicated to the stamp.

There's even a celebration on July 13 every year - the day the stamp was postmarked.

The Treskilling Banco stamp is worth more than $2 million, and all because of a mistake. You see, the stamp was supposed to be green, but due to a misprint, it was printed in yellow.

At the time, it was worth 3 shillings - less than a penny. The boy who found it, Georg Wilhelm Backman, sold it to a stamp collector for about $1 in 1886.

Today, it's the most valuable stamp in the world.

SVT World

I recently saw an ad in Nordstjernan for SVT World, and I’m considering trying it. Through SVT World, you can watch Swedish television in the United States. You basically buy another type of cable box and it lets you watch certain Swedish programs like debates, music and sports as well as children’s shows.

The limitations, however, are that the company is not allowed to air any shows already broadcast in the U.S. I doubt SVT would have been allowed to broadcast the Olympics, for example, since the network NBC owns the rights to those here.

And you can’t watch shows like “Friends” or “Seinfeld” through the Swedish stations. I believe they also edit them and just air certain shows internationally, so you can’t watch the same show as grandma is watching in Sweden at the same time on basically the same channel.

But still, the idea is intriguing. I just haven’t decided yet if I want to pay an extra $25 a month for watching television.

Is that really Swedish?

People ask me about anything, from "Swedish meatballs" to Swedish massage. "Is that REALLY Swedish?" they say. The answer depends on the question.

Swedish meatballs are, of course, just called “meatballs” in Sweden. They are made by mixing ground beef and chopped up onions with bread crumbs soaked in milk. The meatballs are softer and less dense than the larger ones known in America as Italian meatballs.

In the U.S., I think people avoid the onions because so many people don’t like them. But the Swedish meatballs are very popular. So popular, in fact, that there’s a song about them. http://coolswede.blogspot.com/2008/05/swedish-meatball-song.html

But what about Swedish massage? Is that really Swedish?

The Swedish massage if often attributed to Per Henrik Ling, the father of Swedish gymnastics. As it turns out, Ling visited with a Chinese martial artist to improve body treatment. But a Dutch doctor, Johan Georg Mezger, was the man who adopted the basic strokes of massage known as the Swedish massage we know today.

Mezger may have known Ling and called it Swedish massage because of Ling’s influences, but the massage isn’t Swedish at all. Nor is it called “Swedish massage” in Sweden – it’s called “classic massage.”

I can’t find much online about the Swedish braid, but when I first heard a woman’s hair referred to as having Swedish braids, I thought of Pippi Longstocking. I believe Swedish braids are two braids flying freely, one on each side of the head. A French braid, on the other hand, is more complicated since the entire braid is attached to your head.

And finally, the Swedish fish. It is based on the soft, chewy candy made by Malaco, but in Sweden they come in all shapes and colors, not just fish. For some reason, whoever exported it must have decided that red fish would sell the best in the United States.

More garden pictures

Planted some leftover marigolds in a pot.
Perhaps I stuck too many of them in there,
but we'll see how it goes.

The first lilies, the Stargazers, are starting to poke out
of the ground. I am trying to protect them this year
with bigger rocks, although a termite guy already stomped
on one of them. Don't know if it will recover.

My first batch of "protected" lilies are starting to
come up in a giant pot on the patio. At least the
maintenance guys won't touch these! (I hope)
I planted 10 more in a separate pot this year.

And in the kitchen window, I have strawberry
and tomato seeds growing. They will later be planted
outside in an upside-down topsy-turvy pot,
where they will hopefully grow upside-down.

Spending time in the garden

When I brought home my new plants from the garden store on Wednesday, I couldn't wait to get outside to plant them on my patio. But by the time I got home, it was too dark and too cold, and the plants ended up getting tucked into the garage with the soil and other supplies.

Today I woke up and it was a beautiful day - I also didn't have to go to work, so it was time to plant my petunias and marigolds in a flower box on the front porch.

Then I ventured in the back yard, and it looked like this:


So I spent the afternoon digging up dandelions by the roots. And now it looks like this:

It's spring!

Some energy left over for home improvement

It's always good to set some goals. I have a hard time getting anything done unless I have a deadline - perhaps that's why I work in the newspaper business.

This past week, I decided I would try to get Albie's work area done before his 30th birthday next week. As I'm sure I've told you all before, his area is the hallway - we got stuck on several points there.

First, there was the corner by the stairs which we couldn't reach. One ladder was too tall, the other too short. And it was overall just awkward. So it's been on hold for about a year, with the rest of the wall painted and just a corner and some upper edges near the ceiling left white, framed with blue tape.

Of course, this is the corner I see every morning while waking up, since there's a direct view from the bedroom.

Another corner, directly across from the stairs, features Albie's desk and computer work station. So when we first painted, we went up to the desk from both directions, then we stopped. His actual work corner has been a dirty white, unpainted area for way too long.

The third project is that 1/3 of the rest of the upstairs wall only got one coat of paint - what's the point in continuing when 2 corners still had to be done?

Well, yesterday I finished off all of those "problem areas."

Albie helped me move the desk before he left for work - I did the rest. With a corner pad taped to a pole, I finished most of the top edges by the stairs with minimal stains on the ceiling (a few stains on the rug though as the pad slipped off and bounced down the stairs). With a brush taped to the pole, I the finished the corner. Getting the tape off was the worst part, and it included taping a paper towel to a stick and then taping a paper knife to the same stick to cut slips off that had gotten stuck.

The best part? Hanging the shelf, the curtains and the framed Mets memorabilia that's been tucked away in various nooks and crannies for over a year.

Birthdays galore

I feel like my new job should be to host birthday parties. Or to be involved with them in one way or another.

At work, we've started a Birthday Planning Committee (you fans of "The Office" will know exactly what I'm talking about). Every time it's someone's birthday, we plan a theme and we make that person feel really special.

It really started with a very low attendance at our Christmas party. This inspired us all to plan better and make everyone's day feel special so they would want to help out for all the other birthdays.

In January, we had a Twilight party with vampire cupcakes, bloody drinks and blood-smeared popcorn. February's theme was Polish, since two people in our office both had birthdays close to each other and they are both from Poland. A designer brought in pierogies and we ordered a cake with the Polish flag on it.



For March, we had to keep it simple since everyone was stressed out and I was going out of town the two days before the party. We decorated everything in green in honor of St. Patrick's Day, and I brought in my blender and made non-alcoholic apple martini slushies. Another co-worker baked a green cake.

We won't have another work-related party now until June (unfortunately our boss who got laid off would have been the next one on the list). However, I had a 30th birthday party to attend for a friend today, tomorrow there's a bridal show er for another friend, and in 2 weeks Albie is turning 30. Lots more planning to do!

More forgetfulness

I've certainly been neglecting friends and relatives this year when it comes to their birthdays.

My friend Carmen, whose birthday was March 3, had to wait until February for her Christmas present and will probably have to wait until June until her birthday card arrives.

You see, I make or buy birthday cards for people. I even address them, but then they get stuck in my car for weeks since I never have time to go to the post office.

Poor grandma, my aunt and my dad. They never got any cards at all. I did remember to call my grandma, though, a day later, but not my dad.

And no, I'm not pregnant.

Today, I was the guest speaker in a journalism class at Middlesex Community College (they had cake and everything!). When I got back to the office, I realized I'd left the power supply to my laptop in the classroom back at the school.

My staff and I scheduled a whole bunch of community meetings for next week, and were just about to publish the schedule in the paper for tomorrow, when - and hour before deadline - I realized Monday is my first wedding anniversary and I'm taking the day off. Whoops.

Oh, and I just pulled into my driveway at home tonight when I remembered I never returned my husband's movie to Blockbuster. It's still in my car.

Can I please order some extra memory for tomorrow? I would only need like 5 gigs or so.

Those were the days

Remember when VHS tapes used to get stuck in your VCR and you had to take a hanger and jam it in there to get the tape out? Those were the days! Apparently, some people still remember how to do this.