rant slash confession

I really can't stand it when Americans make dumb assumptions about Sweden, or when Swedes make dumb assumptions about the US. I also can't stand it when Americans think that just because I am a foreigner I don't know the first thing about anything. And I really can't stand it when Swedes start lecturing me on what it's like in the US, or when Americans start lecturing me on what "Europe" is like. And I absolutely can't stand some of the most common misconceptions Swedes have about Americans.

I know that the first rule for intercultural relationships is never to take anything personally (that's what I teach my students too), but a person only has so much patience.

Lately I have had enough a couple of times. I am tired of Americans assuming I don't know what a verb is (that happened on Saturday), Americans lecturing me on Swedish food, when all their experience stems from Solvang, the fake Danish town in Southern California (it only happened once, but I can't let it go), and Americans being surprised I know something about New York that they themselves didn't know (that happened last Friday).

I will leave for Sweden next week. I know what will happen. People there will lecture me on US culture, and American life.

I rarely say anything. I can even find it interesting sometimes, how people react and what they think. But right now I am tired of it.

I am sure every bicultural person has these experiences. It comes from the situation, from having two homelands and from being stuck in between.

-- Thanks. I feel better now.

and yes, I bought a boomerang. the hunting kind that doesn't come back.

My memory is bad but I think maybe this year it's 30 years ago since I got myself a pen friend in Adelaide, Australia. We wrote letters back and forth for a few years when I was still a kid in Sweden. I remember looking at the map thinking we were really on opposite sides of the globe.

In 1996 I went to visit my friend and her husband and their cute kids. It was great. In addition to the kids and her parents and a brother and the other brother's wife (I think that was it) I also met a koala, some kangaroos and a class room full of first graders. And we saw a whale. It was in August and in the middle of the south Australian winter and the sea was gray and pretty.

A couple of days ago I had an email from her with new pictures of her cute kids. Only now they are cool teenagers who refuse to take off their sun glasses for the camera and only mom put her head in the stuffed crocodile's open mouth, true holiday photo style.

I am glad I have a far-away friend and I am glad she does silly things, and I still love her kids.

thank you, pioneer woman

I am on day 2 of a pesky migraine-like headache (complete with an unmentionable incident in a gas station restroom), but boy have I found two good sites to get me through:

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman and The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

This is good stuff, I am telling you.

I am old

The weird thing about seeing 1980's fashion return is not having worn it before, but having given it to Goodwill already.

red wings

only 2 days left of summer school would you believe it

hooked on a feeling

A skip and a jump from the fennel, obviously.

I am hooked on the fennel, sorry

you pretty much can't go wrong with bacon

That's my fat little dinner taco there. It had rice, bacon, and spinach inside, a little bit of sour cream on top of that, and hot sauce on the side. It was super yummy.

¡Manuel! I know that's a white person's tortilla but we were out of the real stuff.

thistles are very pretty

My neighbors like classic rock.

whenever I can have my middle class with a touch of surrealism I am so much happier

Right now I am reading a little book by Danish writer Leif Panduro. It was first published in 1958, and the English title is Kick Me in the Traditions. It's great (never mind what one of those amazon.com reviewers said there). And it's a refuge from the appearance-is-everything middle class values you run into once in a while.

fun for all ages

Click.

little geranium

more youtube

Sometimes a cover is better than the original.

I just found this

All the things that go unsaid, 99% of the time.

getting out of there

not under water

not dill

fennel

no, we don't see race

Dan and I met a new person the other day, an affluent white American woman around 55.

She treated us differently. I am pretty sure the reason was that I am European, and Dan's grandparents immigrated from Mexico. I think it was the first time I saw difference being made so fast and so brutally, and which such a sweet demeanor.

If I never see her again that's fine by me.