Thirtyfiveandahalf

I have started to show my age. For real.
Picture this:
A Swede walks in to a bar with her husband, sits down, orders a cocktail.
That's it.

I just don't function properly in loud environments any more. The music is too loud, the acoustics's is bad, people are shouting, I have to raise my voice and scream to get my self heard, not a romantic thing to do when you're on a date. My throat gets all ripped to pieces and I can't hear myself think.

I need silence, maybe some very soothing background music at the most, but that's it.
I'm too old for the after-work crowd drinking and playing Nirvana on the Jukebox.
Too old!

This is how interesting my life is

I buy a new body wash and leave it on the kitchen counter after I unpack the shopping. Several times in the next few hours, I see the bottle and make a mental note: Don't forget to put it in the shower next time you go in to the bathroom otherwise it will be left there for days and you will end up annoyed every morning when you yet again have to use Richards generic shower brand.
A few more times clocking the bottle I say out loud: Just take the frigging bottle to the bathroom now! What are you waiting for?
Before bedtime, turning out the lights in the kitchen on my way to the bedroom I see the bottle on the counter.
- Must remember to go grab it in the morning before having a shower.
(Note to people who've never been to my house: the bathroom is next to my bedroom.)

The next day, coming home from a sweaty spin class at the gym, getting in the shower, turning the water on, I have a mental image of the bottle, still on the kitchen-counter.
See, I told you so, I say to my self as I grab Richards generic brand from his shelf.

The bottle will be there for the next week or so, for sure. That's just how it is.

It is a sad affair of nothing to do because of the rain

How can I say this so that my message is loud and clear?
I do not want any more rain!

IalsoHeartAntonyHegarty

Watched Anthony and the Johnson's at the Nob Hill Masonic Center last night, he is an amazing act to experience. The clip is not from last night, but the set up was the same, and it was a really good cover!

IheartSlumdog

I'm, as always a little late in joining the crowds in congratulation Danny Boyle et al for the amazing landslide Sunday night at the Oscars.
I love Slumdog Millionaire. I think the end rocks Bollywood-style! I think Dev Patel is cute. I love the soundtrack.
Didn't really make me want to go to India, though....

I know this much is true

One thing you can always count on is that in America, it will be done bigger, and grander and more explosive than anywhere else in the world, that much I have learnt from living here. Lately, I have come to realize that this includes their bugs and viruses too. Over here, getting hit by the flu won't put you to bed for tops two to three days, oh no. You will be floored for a week, or longer, and it will take you up to a month to fully recover.

I could do without it. Sometimes, small and discreet is a beautiful thing.

It's starting

Since Holly and I had to go to Tahoe and leave the boys behind, I have discovered new-found qualities in my daughter, namely, the "I don't trust my mother to be able to handle anything on her own"-quality.
As we head out on pass Corona Heights, I hear Holly in the back:
- Maybe we should stop and fill the car up with gas so that we don't break down half way there.
- Yes, sweetie, we're heading to the petrol station right now.
Silence.
- Mummy. Do you have both hands on the steering wheel?

I'm back!

Since Richard and Finn had to stay in the city because of the flu while me and Holly go skiing in Tahoe, I come back to my babysitter and a snotty son. She hints that the house has been a little quiet while we were away.
- Has Finn eaten any thing but bolognese all this time? I ask.
- Yeah, I've fed him different things today. When I came in this morning there were only lonely man food in the fridge.

I wonder what Richard will think of that statement:)?

I'm off!

The rain is getting to me, we're packing up car for Tahoe! It's still cold, but skiing in the snow is nicer than to try to keep out of the rain.
I will be back Wednesday
see you then.

Rain isn't my forte

It has been raining like mad today, and of course, it affects my mood. I manage to keep it together for most of the day. I keep it together during the four calls from the person who refused to understand that she called the wrong number. And when I have to circle around the block three times because the teacher is super-late letting the kids out at pick up. And when I queue up for hours for a parking meter card in the corner-shop only to find that you can pay for everything with a credit card, just not parking meter cards. Until I have to call swim-school and ask them if my daughter might have left behind her pink swimming-goggles.
- She might. We have a lost and found box where they might be, if you'd like to take a look.
- Well, I'm on the phone, and can't really see the box so would you mind checking for me? I snap.

Poor guy. It's been a long day.

A new blog!

A close friend of mine has started a blog and asked me if I could plug it to my readers as she's looking for some much-needed traffic in this blogger-saturated market of ours, and of course, I promised I would. Her project is a very intimate and personal one and I will look forward to reading it since her situation is very similar to my own, and we share a lot of common interests.
I hope you have time for a quick glance at it, and maybe even some comments, and since we all know how tough it is out there in the blog-sphere - if you like it, maybe you could even plug it on your own blogs?
Thank you so much for your help,
xxxx

It's all relative

Holly and her friend are competing in the car about who has the most quarters, and then who has a wallet for their money or not, when Holly gives the friend her killer blow:
- Well, do you have a library-card?
Silence.
- No.
- I do!

Game over.

We are all so very different from each other and it's all about ME.

Is it a sign of times or am I just getting plain old? But young people today. It's all about individuality, about the personal space, about being unique, about carving out your own identity, set apart from the rest of the herd, and in the end, they all end up looking alike, everyone a copy of what has become a very mainstream, marketable idea of definition of self.

But then, I'm not in my twenties anymore. I had my go years ago. It wasn't any easier then. Except, we didn't want to stand out, we kind of wanted to look the same. Not carbon copy's, but kind of shaped by the same moulded with a personal touch on top.

Today, everyone is covered in very personal tattoos, wearing very unique vintage clothes, listening to their very personally managed ipods and doing some kind of out-there hobby like rock-climbing or lizard-collecting. And to me they all look the same. No one stands out form the crowed.

In the night-club I went to saturday there was a sea of youngsters dressed in black. I wouldn't be able to tell one guy from another. Me and my friends stood out. We were wearing colors.... I guess I finally didn't look like everyone else. An it took me no effort what so ever.
My very own individual look, like no one else. At least if I keep going back to that particular night-club.

I'm in need of sleep

The things you do when you have children.
Sitting through Hotel for dogs is one of them.

It was painful, but not made easier by the mother two seats away who thought it would be a great idea to bring her 5 month old baby along for extra sound effects. And who would hush her every time she made a noise.
Because babies should know how to behave in a cinema.
I can't blame the baby, though.
The film was truly bad.

This sounds familiar somehow

The pediatrician thinks my daughter is a bit underweight and I have to nip it in the bud immediately.
Yes, she eats, no, nothing is bothering her, yes, school is great, no, she's not a picky eater, and yes, I was exactly the same when I grew up.
I won't have my daughter being sent to the school-nurse back and forth, to have her weight scrutinized and discussed and poked at as happened to me because, rest assured, her diet is perfectly normal, and there is no better way to encourage unhealthy eating habits in a young, impressionable and sometimes stubborn little mind than to keep telling her that it isn't.

Iheartsunshine and idontheartrain

If I'd have one complaint about my beloved city it would be that it doesn't do rain very well. There's nothing to do. Everything caters for sunshine.
In London we were so used to be ruled by rain we always had a back-up plan, but in SF it is always taking us by surprise and every time it happens I feel lost for ideas.
I need ideas.
Or better, we need the sunshine to come back, and stay for ever and ever.

Things you'd sometimes like your partner to say....

* You know, this hand-bag looks nothing like all the other hand-bags you already have, so why don't you buy it?
* It's still really early, so why don't I get up and feed the kids and make breakfast and you just go back to sleep.
* I found some clean, dry clothes in the tumble-drier by accident, so I took them out, folded them, and loaded the washing-machine with a new load, and I'm just waiting for it to spin before putting that load in the tumble-drier too, since I'm on a roll.
* I thought I'd leave the office early all week to beat rush-hour and come home in time for the kids' evening melt-down to start.
* I know you don't like to nag me, so I have done my own 'honey-do list'.

Of course, Richard already says all these things, regularly, so me writing this has nothing to do with the situation in our own home:)

We see things differently

The pediatrician thinks it's very problematic that my son is nearly 15 months and still reluctant to walk. I see the lazy boy attitude in him and the over-cautious, too careful for his own good mind, and thinks it's OK. He'll walk soon enough.
He is also a late talker, as was his sister, in a bilingual household where everything has two names, and that is a worry to the pediatrician as there are levels of suspicion for autism and other stuff.
The pediatrician also thinks it's a disgrace that my son still goes to bed with a bottle of milk, for what about the teeth, his eating habits, and everything else. I think I am a mother who will do whatever it takes to get him to sleep without a houseful of hysteric baby-noises.

I think the diaper-rash looks really awful but my pediatrician thinks it's not bad at all, and that I should stop worrying.

Never forget who you are, where you're at, where you're coming from

Yesterday, we spent a few hours on the beach, complaining about the sun being too hot, and thinking we'd better pack up and head home before we get a heat-rash.
Meanwhile, London had it's heaviest snowfall for a decade.
'Nuff said.

Super Bowl

Super Bowl Sunday is one of those American concepts I have yet to really get in to, mean, I have done the Super Bowl thing, but could someone please tell me, because I still forget from one year to another - is it baseball, is it football, or, as someone kindly suggested, is it Lacrosse?
I only do it for the wine and company, the rest is not that important.