Road Trip Day 1: Finding Faluln

 Well, we had been in Sweden for two days, briefly exploring Gotenberg and eating pastries there, then a day in Stockholm, eating more pastries,  The word "fika" means a coffee and cake break.  It was our new favorite Swedish word and pastime!  One of the first things we did in Stockholm, however, was to secure our rental car for the upcoming seven-day road trip through central Sweden.  We needed to make the arrangements on Friday, as the rental shop was closed on the weekend, so we walked from our hotel to the rental outfit, and set everything up for our Sunday morning departure.  We'd pick up the car keys from a hotel next door.  We of course opted for the extra insurance, as Carla and  I are very cautious middle-aged ladies (assuming we live to 130!) , and we feel proud of always covering our asses.  We consider this a matter of financial responsibility and a public service! The agent gave us the paperwork and the GPS equipment we would be using to guide us on our travels to nifty sights, adventures, and our hotels.

Now in hindsight, perhaps we should have spent a bit more time (like ANY time at all!) reading the operator's manual for the GPS system, but we opted instead to go eat cheeseburgers and then hit the famous Absolut Ice Bar in our hotel.  I thought the bar would a fairly cheesy attraction, but entrance and a free drink were included in our tour, so off we went, donning floor length fur-lined capes and heavy gloves to enable us to partake of  our drinks in the frigid venue.  My predictions of a high cheese factor proved to be completely unfounded, as the bar was gorgeous --everything in it is made of ice--the bar, the chairs and bar stools, the  glasses, and the beautifully etched walls and panels.  These icy walls portray scenes from a  much loved children's book about a boy who is turned into a goose, which then  gleefully soars and dives through all of Sweden's different regions and biomes, creating a frozen panorama of the country's flora and fauna.  The book became a geography textbook  used by countless children throughout Sweden.  In short, The Ice Bar was gorgeous, classy, and educational!  What a combo!

 

"Skal" or Cheers!

After sliding out of the ice bar--no, we only had one lovely vodka cocktail apiece, but I like the imagery of us sliding smoothly out of the frozen pub--we headed up to our room for bed, so we could spend Saturday touring Stockholm by bus and boat, and then head out of town early on Sunday, aiming for the Unesco World Heritage city of Falun, home of the world's largest copper mine.

Bright and early, we slipped out of the hotel after  a fine Sunday breakfast buffet, picked up our lovely diesel "Superb" (we think it was a Swedish version of a VW Passat) with automatic transmission, which Carla had specifically requested-- manual transmissions being the norm in Sweden, at least for rental cars.  Carla hooked up the GPS, we plugged in our first stop, and off we went, after traversing the maze that was the multi-leveled underground parking garage.

Ready to Roll

"Exit"

Construction Speed Zone--yes, I am very juvenile!

Leaving quite early Sunday morning, we encountered virtually no traffic and soon found ourselves driving  out of Stockholm on a pretty darn spiffy freeway.  We would in fact find the roads we traveled on to be excellent in construction and in maintenance throughout our journey.  However, we were about to discover that actually finding the places we were seeking proved to be a bit of a challenge the first two days out.  A few of the designated "must see" destinations gave us no addresses other than the towns where they were located .  So we figured they must be big deals and well-marked within said towns.  That assumption turned out not to necessarily be the case.  I mean, you'd think we could spot a castle in a fairly small town, or signs leading to word-renowned silver mine.  Again, no luck. And by the way, all GPS devices are not the same, and have different set procedures to follow.  We hadn't reckoned with that little tidbit, and found that our particular device was particularly fussy.   Add to that, Swedish words are very long, and not easily entered into a GPS!   I had assumed my role as the designated "Read the Addresses and Spell the Words to Carla  Lady."  I of course read them in what I believed to be a Swedish accent. Oh, and have I mentioned that Carla has severe vision problems?  She's perfectly able to drive, but finding tiny letters on a teeny tiny keypad proved not to be her strong point.  So she had to hold her magnifying glass in one hand and one-finger type with the other hand.  Sometimes it took us ten minutes to actually enter a destination into the GPS, only to receive the message "Destination not found." Make that G-D GPS.  Here's a sample address: "Frimurare-holmen:  Engelbrektsgaten 52 , Ostra Nobelgaten. Orebro."

We had gotten pretty good at navigating the "rotaries"  or "round-abouts" as I called them back in my New Jersey days.  Once out of the really big cities (i.e. Stockholm, Goteberg, and Malmo), you rarely saw stop lights at intersections. Instead, you just enter the rotary or circle, and veer off it at one of its four designated  exits.  Kind of like flying off  a slow-moving pinwheel if you were a ladybug.  These rotaries are actually very efficient, and keep traffic from backing up.  However, on our first day's outing, missing destination after destination, with the GPS lady shouting at us,  "Enter the rotary!   Take the second exit from the rotary!"  (Which basically meant you just stayed going on the same road in the same direction),  left us highly annoyed.  Sometimes we'd get to take the third exit and go left.  Very exciting.  Sometimes we were directed to turn in 70 meters,  or 50, or 340 meters.  We  were not very good at estimating distance in meters, so sometimes we'd be all geared up to turn, and would make a wildly mistaken premature exit off the highway. I think I have new-found empathy for all those tiny little sperm who never make it to their destinations! Other times we were marking off 500 meters, and GPS gal, now affectionately nicknamed "F#*$#!g Bitch"  would yell "Turn left NOW!" and we'd careen off the road and find ourselves in yet another tiny little hamlet filled with red houses and nothing else.  Certainly no castles, silver mines, or fully operational museum villages with working blacksmiths and confectioners.

By three in the afternoon, we had failed to find  the Gronso Castle,  the cluster of medieval churches, the Viking Age rock carvings, the old silver mine and its museum, the police museum, and several suggested craft and souvenir shops on our Sunday itinerary.  We were batting .0000.  We were tired, thirsty, and hungry (read:  no pastries!). We were exceedingly frustrated, and Carla and I were each displaying a sharp sense of direction that was the dead opposite of the other's. We had disconnected the GPS, as F.B. seemed to be pointedly ignoring us.  We were now relying on my Lonely Planet's Guide to Sweden, which, by the way, I highly recommend.  Only if you are going to Sweden.  If you are journeying somewhere else, check out one of their other books!

Having completely missed all the tour's suggested "do not miss!" destinations, so far, the only  highlight left was "The World's Biggest Dala Horse."  Looking back at my itinerary, I see it is merely the biggest Dala Horse in Sweden.  But given that the brightly painted carved wooden horse is Sweden's national symbol, I think it's safe to call this the world's largest damn painted Swedish  horse.  My map and my keen navigator's eye told me that we were entering the town of Avesta, home of said Dala horse.  We turned the GPS back on, and the voice trapped inside started shrieking at us "Exit highway in 20 meters!"  We of course missed that exit.  Twenty meters comes up on you pretty fast on a freeway!  So we  kept going.  Suddenly on the left side of the road, at what appeared to be a shopping center, was a gigantic red horse festooned with brightly colored flowers.  We'd found it! But, the tantalizing beast eluded us as we could not figure out how to get back to it from the freeway.  That should have been a no-brainer, but of course it wasn't.  Carla and I were each sure that we knew how to backtrack to the horse, and each or our planned return routes completely canceled out the other's.  So, it ended up taking us 45 minutes to back-track three miles.  But we were AT THE DALA HORSE!

From our tour brochure:  "...your first stop in Dalarna  province is Avesta, where you will find the largest Dala Horse in Sweden. This is the perfect place to stop for a great photo and afternoon snack at the nearby cafe/restaurant.  Now I don't want to complain too much, but I have to say that I think the Dala Horse here in Avesta has seen slightly better days.  Not yet decrepit, but definitely a bit faded in the paint department, and slightly cracked.  The garden it is standing guard in now has some rather weedy looking shrubs instead of the lovely rose bushes pictured in the brochures. It all made me think of a roadside Brontosaurus  in America's southwest, maybe on Route 66.   I know, I know,  Brontosaurus never existed--Apatosauraus was the real dinosaur, with Brontosaurus a fraud, or a paleontologist's inadvertent mistake.  But trust me--this was the Brontosaurus of Dala Horses!

And the aforementioned cafe/restaurant was also a bit past its prime.  Kind of dreary, but attempting to be cheery with red checkered cloths on white tables that were laden with various and sundry antiques available for purchase,  it was a serve yourself type of place--pick out a pre-packaged delight, and then I guess have it microwaved. Now I am not an adventurous eater; I didn't hear any English being spoken; and I was unable to tell what most of the food was.  I am also very cheap when it comes to wasting money on  food I might not like.When I don't know what I may be getting to eat when it is unrecognizable,  there is always the dread fear that someone might slip me some kind of hideous fermented fish hiding out in lingonberry jam.  I do, in fact, seem to be particularly leery of seafood. And if  I would have paid for the meal , I'd have completely wasted my money, 'cause no way would I eat that fish! I'd rather starve! I nudged Carla, and we decided to head back out on the highway and find a better, slightly classier food venue on our way to Falun.

We ended up at a 7-Eleven about ten minutes away.  I had a candy bar.

By this time we were tired of cursing at our drive-tour itinerary, at the GPS the we still hadn't figured out how to use, at the general lack of road maps that made any sense to us, and at our inability to find the cool stuff we had been looking forward to seeing.  Our spirits were lifted, however, when I pulled out the travel voucher for our hotel that night in Falun, and saw that most unexpectedly DINNER was included with our stay!  We were giddy with excitement, and every time the GPS broad would would mumble something at us, we would holler back, "We get a free dinner!  We get a free dinner!"

In no time at all, we had checked into the Falun Clarion Inn, unpacked our stuff, and found  a delightful local museum within walking distance.  Now we were doing the tourist stuff!  The museum  was wonderful and very informative, with a huge array of interesting examples of Swedish culture.  My favorite?  (I am SO boring and provincial.)  An ancient 10- minute black and white  film on the history of laundry washing!  That and the embroidery displayed in the clothing exhibit was about all the excitement I could take by then, so we headed back to  enjoy the dinner that awaited us gratis.

It was fish.  Thankfully not fermented.  And the broccoli soup was delicious.  Plus, I did get this very cool picture of a slightly worse-for-wear me hanging out with a slightly worse-for-wear Dala Horse!

Adventures in International Texting!

I don't think that as a child I was alone in having tremendous fear that my parents would die.  I remember many nights lying in the darkness under my chenille bedspread, gripped by the terrifying thought that something could happen to Mommy and Daddy, leaving me a wretched orphan.

Apparently I have passed this delightful sense of  angst on to my daughter, Melanie.  And she has maintained at least some of it well into adulthood.  She took me white-water rafting about eighteen years ago.  I had a great time.  I think she did too, although through most of the trip, she was certain that I would bounce out of the raft and either drown or be ground to a nub by the rocks.  In any case, DEAD.  When I went on a cruise to Alaska this summer, she made me promise not to fall off the ship.  That was not in my plans, and I think that when one does fall off of a cruise ship :  a) huge amounts of alcohol are involved; b) a lover or spouse has been enraged to the point of committing murder; c) the ship has sailed into a massive typhoon.

My recent trip to Sweden would be the longest adventurous foray of my life, and was far away, to boot.  So, before I left, Melanie wasted no opportunities to remind me that I was required to text her every day to assure her that I was not DEAD.  I do love that child, so of course, I agreed to keep her mind at ease.  I made calculations (I had to count backwards on my watch every day to do it!  Mental math is not my forte!) to account for the nine hour time difference and make sure that I could advise her of my continued existence  on a regular basis and at a convenient time.  I'm such a good mommy!

Thus began
The Great International Texting Adventure!

Text Message  Thu, Sep 17, 7:47 AM pst 

We are safe in Goteberg!


Fri, Sep 18, 10:18 AM pst

Now in Stockholm after great train ride.  Ready for pj's!

Sat, Sep 19, 2:12 PM pst

Spent the day in Stockholm touring on foot, by bus, and by boat.  Such a beautiful and fascinating city--and so old!  Will start our road trip tomorrow.  Hope all is well at home. Not much luck with wi-fi here.

A bit later later, around midnight, I was asleep when my phone loudly alerted me to an incoming text.

I'm SO sorry!  You have texted the wrong number.  But do you want to know something frighteningly random and coincidental?  I think I know who this is....:-)
Marilyn Souza, second grade teacher extraordinaire and fabulous world traveler!?!?

iMessage

Good grief!  Who have I been texting????                 !
                                               Not Delivered

Good grief!  Who have I been texting???
                            Sent as Text Message

iMessage

This is Shawna Yaple. The funny thing is I have been thoroughly and vicariously enjoying your FB posts about your trip!  And that's when I started receiving your texts.  And then it dawned on me!  By George, It's Mrs. Souza!



You may have noticed the one-sided nature of my conversation  with Melanie, reassuring her that I was still among the living.  Not hearing a word from her since my arrival in Sweden had my own head spinning thoughts of doom and death.  Perhaps Jim had kicked the bucket in my absence, and Melanie didn't want to tell me about it, knowing that would cast quite a pall on my jaunt.  I had emailed Jim to see if he also continued to live, but received no reply.  My son hadn't been in contact since the night before I left San Francisco, either, so I feared a massive conspiracy involving anyone who was left alive in my family while I traveled the world.

I must admit that when I received the text message from Shawna, I was quite taken aback.  I had taught three of her four children, and had known her for many years.  But, aside from maybe scheduling a parent-teacher conference with her, I'd never called her or texted her, and didn't even have her phone number.  It seems that when setting up my kids'  "from Sweden" phone numbers, I had transposed a couple of digits in Melanie's number.  I still hadn't memorized her new cell phone number, so I guess it didn't register in my jet-lagged and generally addled brain.  And what are the odds that the number I mistakenly entered into my contacts belonged to someone I actually knew, and who was following my adventures on Facebook?  A happy little social media miracle, in my book!

And yet there was more to come in my International Blogging Adventure.  My last text of the night pretty well wraps it all up.

Good grief again, Shawna!  This is so weird!  My phone has lost its mind here in Sweden!  I can't shut off the ringtones on my phone and my travel buddy is asleep.  I've come into the bathroom to try  to set a quieter ringtone.  Failed at that, too, so now a bunch of different ringtones keep going off at full volume and playing forever, even tho I have the phone set on mute!  They won't stop! I think the plane I was on over here took and unscheduled detour into the Twilight Zone.  My daughter told me to text her every day so that she would know I wasn't dead.  She's probably ticked off at me by now.  Either that, or she's putting tags on all my belongings for dispersal to my loved ones!  I hope she at least saw my Facebook posts when I had wi-fi!
                             Sent as Text Message


Text Message

Sounds like an amazing adventure in every way!  I'll tell Mel we talked, and that you're alive, if I see her!

Safe Travels! 


Well, there you have it all, minus a few emojis, which don't format well on my blog.  I can definitely see where Melanie got her "Oh, my God!  Mom is Dead!" disorder.  Though as adults, we have all had ample experiences that demonstrate the incredible randomness of life's fortunes.  Some are indeed devastating.  Fortunately, most of those random connections and convolutions are benign.  And some, like randomly connecting across a continent and an ocean with Shawna Yaple instead of my daughter, strike me as nothing less than perfectly wondrous, miraculous, delightful serendipity!

Marilyn Goes to Sweden, Part 1: Adventures in Videography!

Adventures in Videography!

To say I am a novice international traveler is an understatement.  In sixty-six years I have left the US for a week in Mexico  when I was eighteen, and about a week total in Canada.  So, traveling to Europe was quite the big deal for me, and of course I wanted to capture large swaths of the journey on film and video for later scrapbooking and viewing.  At the same time, I didn't want to spend so much time peering through a camera lens that I lost the moments of actually being there!

I took a few photos in Goteberg, which was our first stop on our way to Stockholm  where we would begin a week long driving tour of central Sweden.  My high school friend Carla had won round trip plane tickets for two and was able to arrange a direct flight from San Francisco to Copenhagen, and then on to Goteberg.  Since our tour's departure was from Stockholm, we both decided that it would be fun to try the high speed train to cross the country and would allow us to really see the Swedish countryside.

We were not disappointed.  Leaving Goteberg, we were quickly barreling through the most gorgeous landscapes.  Lush and verdant, the country is a vision of forest, farmland, and sparkling lakes, all mixed and mingled together.  Having left California, which, due to four years of drought, was brown,  tinder-dry, and on fire, the sight of such greenery was indeed a treat to behold.  Also, California's forests and farms are mostly in different regions or at least elevations, so seeing fields of freshly harvested hay and other grains right in the midst of forests of both evergreens and deciduous trees, already beginning to don autumn colors, was new and exciting to me.

I marveled that nearly every home, barn, shed, outbuilding, for the two hundred mile trip was painted the exact same shade of deep brick red, with white trim.  Set against the deep greens of the grasses, trees, and bushes, the contrast of the red homes is very appealing.  I knew there had to be a reason for the red buildings everywhere, and I looked forward to finding out what lay behind this uniformity that stretched mile after mile.

The train was amazingly smooth-riding and quiet, allowing me to snap some pretty decent photos from my iPhone.  Carla had dozed off, so I spent my time peering out the windows, wondering what delights awaited me.  Suddenly it dawned on me that I could video the countryside as we sped by, giving both a panorama of the many sights and a sense of how quickly we were zipping along.  I took a quick trial video to see if it would be too blurry, and discovered that it worked just fine, so I was ready to VIDEO TAPE SWEDEN!  I got nice and comfy, steadied my hand, and began to film.

I couldn't believe my good luck and timing, as we zoomed past homes, barns, corrals, and commercial areas.  I captured horses, cows, and sheep grazing on the emerald green carpet that lay in front of dazzling waterways.  I was surprised to see windmills of varying design, but all looking like they had been operating for many, many years.  What a perfect first glimpse of the country that is Sweden!  And, as my phone camera did all the work, I just sat there holding it while the world outside my window rolled by.  I could film and be present!  Cool! 

Imagine my surprise when I swiped the play icon on my phone, and learned, much to my chagrin, that I had spent the entire time filming my own headband!  Guess I'd accidentally put the camera in selfie mode.  I burst out laughing, waking Carla up.  She was highly amused.  I was once again reminded why I will never become too cocky or swell-headed--the all too frequent reminders of my own ineptness!

Herewith is "Marilyn's Amazing Video of the Swedish Countryside!"  I have pared it down to a mere 30 seconds or so from the original four minute study of my head and its adornment. I even added some ABBA!  Behold the wonder of my cinematic talent!

Alas, there is a sad ending to this tale, in addition to once again proving myself to be world-class fool.  The next day, unbeknownst to me, while touring Stockholm by bus, by boat, and on foot, the self-same headband, my favorite, by the way, was completely blown off my head in one of the many gusty blasts of Baltic wind.  Luckily I have this nifty video to remember it by!

The Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss

The Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss, Part 1  April, 2015

Amazing how time, cats, and the Spirit of Christmases Past can upset the apple cart that you call home.  Not that I actually live in an apple cart.  But right now my home does look like the aftermath of a truly horrific apple cart disaster, minus the apples.  Perhaps this is a bad analogy.  I'm sticking to it anyway.

 Below is what I see when I peer through the French doors between my current hideout in the family room and the original part of our home, which was built in 1978.  Notice my husband Jim propped up against the couch that this morning was a deep garnet red.  Notice his head of completely white hair, that, just this morning, could still claim to have a decent portion of pepper mixed in with the salt. Notice the layer of ash that might make the reader think that the aforementioned apple cart was in the path of a destructive volcanic eruption.

I found myself entertaining a guest this fine April morning, relegated to one corner  in the family room, serving tea and pastries on Christmas dishes, unable to access my kitchen.  Luckily there is an attached apartment on the other side of the family room, complete with a fine kitchen that was once well stocked.  Luckily, I was able to serve up my tea party fare using the melon baller, butcher knife, plastic cocktail forks, and poinsettia-bordered plates that I still had access to.  How did it all come to this, anyway?

Tea and Crumpets, Anyone?

Now serving in the back corner of the room!  Luckily crumpets are small!

Well, much in the manner that the war was lost due to the loss of a horse, the horse lost for the loss of a shoe, the horseshoe lost for the loss of a nail, etc.  I have to reach back a ways to explain the current state of my home.  Let's see now...where to begin?

Christmas 2011--almost four years ago.  We had replaced our aging pellet stove with a lovely new and much more efficient one.  I always put lots of effort into decorating for the holidays, removing pictures, sconces, wreaths, and plaques and replacing them with jolly Christmas art and doo-dads.  I was quite horrified to see dozens of soot frames decorating said walls when seen in their pristine (read empty) glory.  Luckily, my festive holiday decor somewhat camouflaged the sad and smudged walls.  After Christmas( ok-mid-January!), when I traditionally un-decorate the house for  my yearly observation of Martin Luther King Day, I was too worn out from year-end celebrations to tackle a major project, so I just re-hung all the stuff that had sat in storage boxes in the shed since Thanksgiving.  Remember, I said that I enjoy having a nicely decorated house.  Actual down and dirty house cleaning and maintenance, I do not enjoy not so much.  And the concept of "in a timely manner" is completely foreign to me.  Out of sight, out of mind. All in its own good time.   Those are my mottos!  

 

Three more Christmas seasons passed, and by 2015, I knew that something would definitely need to be done to freshen up the place.  Luckily, Jim doesn't mind painting too much, so I figured this spring or summer, we'd deal with soot and smudges.

I kind of rushed ahead through those winter holiday seasons in this telling, but verily, other seasons had passed in the interim.  Three full springs and summers.  Plus several other seasons, maybe ten.  At any rate,  Jim and I were experiencing problems in the bedroom.  No, not that kind.  The kind related to cats and curtains.  I think Jim must be a saint for putting up with my decorating motifs.  Our bedroom is very feminine, a vision of tiny pink roses on blue latticed wall paper, very outdated, and I love it.  It matches a handmade pink teddy bear I was given from a student well over thirty years ago that sits atop the bed.  That's how I decorate, baby--start with one accessory and build a whole room that will remain largely unchanged for decades. 

We don't have much in the way of curtains in our house, because we like light, we have a lot of privacy, and at this point in time, I figure if some random stranger is stricken blind from viewing me charging through the house in my underwear or less, well, that's his problem for being too close to my windows with his eyes open.  But the morning sun shines bright into our bedroom so I had hung white sheer panels with a lovely  blue valance (note: same adjectives apply to window treatment as to previously mentioned general bedroom style).  This blocked enough sunlight to allow us to sleep at least until  the alarm clock woke us.  Or until my cat would screech and hiss as she clawed her way from the floor up to the curtain rod.  This was a fairly regular occurrence.My cat does not play with laser toys, catnip mice, spring-loaded fish, or any of the many other amusements I have bought for her.  No, she really only thrills to the opportunity to shred the one pair of curtains I have in the whole house!  Also, Miss Butterfly McQueen seemed to particularly relish  opportunities to hide behind the panels and cough up fur balls onto the white window sills. Now, lest you think that I would allow my bedroom to be festooned with tattered and puke-stained rags, please be assured that I removed them while they still only evidenced enough snags in the fabric to have given the once opaque sheers the texture of a tapestry.  And I always cleaned up the fur balls. But the curtains had to go!

.

  Butterfly McQueen, Resting Up for Next Assault on Bedroom Curtains

& Growing Fur for Hair Balls

So, about a year and a half ago, I took them down.  Then the sun began to awaken us too early.  We solved the problem as best we could, by mashing pillows over our eyes or burrowing under the covers, neither of which was too comfortable in the summer.  Plus you woke up with hard-to-get-rid-of pillow case and sheet wrinkles smooshed into your morning flabby face.  Not attractive.

I was rummaging through the linen closet one day when I came upon four panels of white dotted Swiss curtains that had formerly been in the Cherry Bedroom (so called because the wall paper border in Melanie's room had gorgeous cherries emblazoned on it.   I know, out-of-date!).  Hot damn! Re-purposed curtains would allow more shut-eye for the puffed and creased Jim and Marilyn.  Ever on the lookout for time-saving tricks when it comes to household drudgery, I decided that I wouldn't bother to iron the curtains until I first hung them to see how they looked on the window.  Clever, no?  Even though ironing is the one chore I enjoy.  I believe that is called irony.  Working somewhat feverishly, as I was quite taken with both my thrift and efficiency, it wasn't until I had single-handedly  wrestled with and hung the curtain panels that I noticed  the panels were from two different completely sets of curtains.  One was floor length; one fell  six or eight inches below the window sill. In other words, both sets were all wrong. At least I managed to hang them in an artful short-long short-long pattern.  One thing I can always say for myself, I can never be accused of succumbing to hubris, as I am constantly reminded that I am an idiot.

Well, at least I can sew.  I figured that when the spirit moved me (I seriously think that I was a Quaker in a former life),  I would shorten all the panels to a right-to-the-windowsill length.  Weeks passed.  The spirit felt a slight rustling.  So I got out my very nice, but infrequently used Bernina sewing machine, thread, pins, measuring tape, and set to work.  Only problem was that the machine would not stitch.  I checked the bobbin, took everything apart and cleaned all the casings, gears, and whatever else inhabits a sewing machine body.  No luck.  I'd exhausted my bag of tricks.  I determined that it had been awhile since I'd taken the machine into the dealer for regular maintenance and cleaning. so I knew what my next course of action must be.  Several weeks later I actually put the sewing machine in the trunk of the car so that if I actually drove down to Folsom and passed the sewing center, I would have the ailing machine with me.

Two months later, I did drive  past the sewing center, on a day when it was open, and lugged the machine inside.  It would be worth the hundred or hundred and fifty bucks to have my machine back in good working order.  Well, apparently, it required a bit more than just routine maintenance, including a completely new bobbin mechanism.  Oh, and from rattling around in my car's trunk for two months on bumpy country roads, it looked like I'd also cracked the actual body of the sewing machine.  Just a hairline crack, but still!  Long story short, a mere month and a half later, and four hundred twenty dollars lighter, I had a beautifully working sewing machine again.  I think.  I haven't actually used it yet.  But that will have to wait for Part Two of the Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss.

The Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss, Part 2

It looks like I forgot to mention in part one that I opted to wait to claim my back-in-good-repair sewing machine from the shop until well after Christmas, as the four hundred and twenty dollars required to get it out of hock was needed to buy Christmas gifts for the family. Especially since I would (again) be sewing no gifts for anyone.  In fact, we decided that instead of exchanging gifts with each other, Jim and I would make a short get-away down the coast in mid-January.  I did force myself to take down all the Christmas decorations and put back up most of our non-holiday items before we left for our coastal escape.

Using my Groupon and Living Social accounts, I had gotten great deals on a night on the water in both Morro Bay and Monterey,  with neither hotel room even costing a hundred dollars per night.  Score!  And they were nice places!  In Morro Bay, our room had beautiful wood shutters that afforded both privacy and light.  Actually, I thought these would be perfect for our bedroom window at home, as Butterfly McQueen could not sneak up into them to use as a scratching post or repository for coughed up fur-balls.  Plus, the shutters could be considered a practical update for our quaint, totally out of style bedroom.

Now I may do nothing of note for  weeks, months, years, even decades, but once I make up my mind to do something, I throw caution to the wind and charge ahead with unbridled swiftness.  I zipped off to Home Depot and began checking out blinds and shutters.  I broached the subject with Jim, who agreed this would be a good project.  We ordered the blinds a couple of weeks later, as there was a great sale at that time.  The sale was so good, that I decided we should order blinds for the living room as well, so the next day we returned to the store and ordered them.  Our house has over-sized windows.  Lovely for letting in light.  A pain for ordering curtains, drapes, or blinds.  We had measured very carefully--twice-- just to make sure.  As soon as we returned home from ordering the second set, I realized we had measured incorrectly, so I raced back to Home Depot with the new measurements.  Formerly eager salespeople appeared distressed to see me barreling back to the window covering department for the fifth time in two days  with my little notebook and measuring tape in hand. But I thought I'd finally gotten it right, and hey!  I'm always a polite and self-effacing customer.

Of course, now that I had ordered shutters for the living room as well, we could not hold off til spring  to paint the walls in the living room.  And while we were at it, we'd better do the dining room, hallway, and family room.  I could see Jim getting a bit panicked at the thought of throwing the whole house into upheaval, so we agreed to start with just the two main walls in the living room, so we'd be ready for the shutters installation.  But, planning ahead, I began to systematically take everything down from the walls in the living room, hallway, and dining room, including all the books and brick-a-brack on the floor to ceiling bookshelves.

Enter our daughter Melanie.  "Mom, if you're going to re-paint the whole front part of the house, you've GOT to get rid of these hideous popcorn ceilings!"  Melanie is nothing if not direct, but she also has boundless energy and is always more than willing to lend her help to any projects we undertake. "I did it at the house in L.A.  It's easy to do, a bit messy, but easy to do."  I thought back to that house she'd lived in fifteen years ago.  "Was there any furniture in the house when you did this?"  Of course not--the house was completely empty at the time of the ceiling work as no one was yet living in the abode.

 Truth be told, I'd long been sick of the popcorn ceilings, with their grimy look and  constant cobweb sprawl.  I had wanted them removed for quite some time It seemed that if we were doing all this work, why not get rid of the popcorn ceilings as well?  We contacted a friend who'd done a nice job re-doing our front bathroom the year before, and he said it was something he and Jim could complete in just a couple or three days.  Poor Jim.  I see now that his hair had started going white long before we started scraping the ceilings!   Naturally, I  wanted to get all this done before the shutters were installed.  We scoped out Home Depot for the necessary supplies, and lined up a time to get started on the popcorn project.  Joe, our friend who would be helping us, suggested we look at some YouTube videos before we got started.  All internet videos and articles on popcorn ceiling removal had one thing in common:

MAKE SURE THERE IS NO ASBESTOS IN YOUR POPCORN CEILINGS

 before you do anything else!   Failure to do so can result in DEATH!  WHAT???

  

This cheery news caused us to stop in our tracks.  Our house had been built during the transition year between when asbestos was not banned and when it was.When faced with any kind of dilemma, this is what I do.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  For days or weeks.  Eventually I come up with  a plan, but not after quite some time of staring vacantly into space, coming up with contingency after contingency, and casting off each one in turn.  The wheels spin, but I go nowhere. I take to the couch. And I'm depressed.

Choices From The Couch:

1.  Do nothing.  Keep the house exactly as it is
2.  Paint, and just re-paint the ceilings.  Asbestos is not a danger unless it is released into the air--like when taking down acoustic ceilings.
3.  Do nothing.  Eat ice cream
4.  Hire a contractor and a HazMat team to deal with it all.
5.  Do nothing.  Take another trip to the coast.
6.  Do an asbestos test and take it from there.

Eventually I recovered my equilibrium, called up a lab in Sacramento, and we did an asbestos test, which showed no asbestos in the house.  Hooray!  Now we could proceed.

In the interim, when I was couch-bound, Jim had decided to go ahead and paint the family room, an addition to the home that already had nicely finished ceilings.  Away with all the memorabilia in the family room!  Off it went to the apartment, which, at one point had been perfectly organized with all the front-of-the-house crap. Now it looked like several small explosives had gone off in there. But the family room was now ready to receive the furniture from the living room and dining room.  Rendering it the complex maze of chairs, sofas, end tables and lamps, that greeted my guest and me for our mid-morning tea.

Which, I believe, brings me full circle to the beginning of this all-too-lengthy, but still condensed  version of home repairs a la Souza.  The tea turned out just fine, and the pastries were delicious.  The popcorn was removed from the ceilings in what had to be the messiest project we had ever undertaken.  We have decided that the popcorn ceilings can remain in the three bedrooms, and can be painted if we ever feel like it, which we probably won't.  I do worry that if something were to happen to Jim, I'd be forced to sell a house that is dated and in need of repairs.  Jim, on the other hand, has informed me that I worry too much, and if I should kick the bucket first, he'll just load a few things into his little racing camper, and take off to parts unknown! He would most likely abandon the cat. I should prepare the kids for those eventualities, I guess.




In a final note of irony,  once all the popcorn had been removed from the dining room ceiling, I was on the phone, looked up, and spotted a  tenacious little creature.  Sure, let us try to de-popcorn his habitat!  You can take the popcorn out of the ceilings, but you can't take it out of a Daddy-Long-Leg's web!

Final Note:  It is now July 11.  We have decided to re-texture the ceilings.  Not with acoustic popcorn, but with a hand troweled effect.  So, nothing has been finished, walls are still largely empty, ceiling vents are still missing, and ceiling lamps hang precariously by wires.  We survived a  ridiculously stressful  window blinds installation imbroglio---perhaps a future blog post, but it's too exhausting to recount now. The Daddy-Long-Legs have vacated the front part of the house, and are apparently ensconced in the front bedroom, which they are happily and copiously decorating with their webs.  And hopefully, I will be able to put up Christmas decorations before New Years!

Granny Goes Wheeling, Part Une--Beware the Squeezeburger

I love cheeseburrgers.  Always have, always will.  I have spent the better part of my life, once I got over my childhood aversion to most food, in search of the perfect cheeseburger.  Many I have tried, and a select few have been deemed worthy of my quest.  For years, I have read of Sacramento's renowned Squeezeburger, so named because it was fried up in a burger joint so small that patrons literally had to squeeze in just to place their orders.  Given my continuous high-caloric search for perfect cheeseburgers, I had always assumed that this giant burger was so labeled because after eating it, you could no longer squeeze into your jeans!

I was delighted to find an online coupon deal for a Squeezeburger.  Now the main reason I hadn't tried one yet was that there are no Squeeze Inns within fifty miles of my home.  Fried food fancier that I am, it was still hard to justify driving a hundred miles just to cram a burger into my mouth.  BUT, what if I included another activity with the burger jaunt?

Terribly excited, I checked around and located a roller rink not far from the Roseville Squeeze Inn.  I needed accomplices, so I asked the two grandkids with the heartiest appetites if they'd like to go skating with Granny.  Nine year-old Jaiden and six year-old Briar were pretty stoked.  Briar had gone on a skating field trip in pre-school, Jaiden would be a newbie, and I hadn't skated for probably twenty-five years, but what the heck!  It would be fun,  and I'd be careful, so that I wouldn't end up in the hospital, with some young nurse calling my daughter to come pick up her kids because her crazy old mother had broken her hip in a freak roller rink mishap!

Saturday arrived, and I loaded the kids into my car.  Then I loaded the Squeeze Inn's address into my navigator program.  Off we went!  We'd have Squeezeburgers for lunch, and then an afternoon of rollicking, rolling good fun.  I'd waited years for this burger!  Briar ordered a hot dog.  The counter person suggested that Jaiden and I share a burger, given their hugeness.  I was skeptical, and I am not good at sharing my food!   I'm ashamed to admit that, but there you are.  Nonetheless, not wishing to appear to be a total hog-beast, I ordered one burger, fries, and drinks.

What makes a Squeezeburger unique is the large cheese skirt that hangs out beyond the bun.  The slap on to the patty, I'm thinking, about a half a pound of shredded cheese, which melts out onto the griddle, forming a crunchy  and lacy skirt, or as Jaiden calls it, a cheese doily.  With slab-like slices of tomato, pickle, onion, and a crispy chunk of lettuce, the result resembles a very colorful flying saucer.

Jaiden and I proclaimed it splendid and promptly ordered another one to split.  Thirty napkins later, we'd managed to eat most of the second burger.  Put another notch in my Perfect Cheeseburger belt.  On second thought, just buy me a bigger belt!

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Now off to the roller rink. As a southern California kid, I'd done my fair share of zooming merrily around on the old-fashioned, strap-onto-your-shoes numbers that you tightened with your handy-dandy skate key.  As I got older, I'd go skating with friends at the local rinks with real lace-up skates.  I was never a great skater, but I could go zippy-fast, could stop by performing a controlled crash into a wall, and rarely fell,  When my own kids were younger, my husband and I often took them  for Saturday night skating at the rinky-dink  roller rink in the small Gold Rush town where we live.

I helped Briar and Jaiden into their skates, and laced up my own.  Suddenly I felt a little trepidation.  What's a granny doing in a roller rink?  Justifying the consumption of a giant Squeezeburger, that's what!  I vowed to be cautious.  I also had two neophytes in my charge.  This might be problematic.  Amazingly, the skating proved to be like riding a bike--it felt great to me right away, and I hadn't forgotten how to do it.  Jaiden and Briar lurched their way around the rink, crashing repeatedly, with me in close attendance to their needs.  Being kids, they just picked themselves up and started all over again. 

At one point, I noticed that Jaiden was down and very upset.  I tooled over to her, bent down, and started to help her up.  that's when our skated got tangled.  In an instant, both my feet flew out in front of me, and I became airborne.  A second later I crashed with a resounding thud, rump-first, then the back of the head.  Even better, I managed to plant myself right onto the side of Jaiden's skate, its wheel waiting bludgeon-like in repose, to greet my right butt cheek.  The pain was incredible and took my breath.  But I was evidently not dead and I didn't think anything was broken.  I became aware of a great stillness that overtook the rink as I lay splayed out on top of my granddaughter. A number of horrified skaters came to my rescue and got me to my feet again.  

"Oh, I'm fine," I muttered.  "We just got our skates tangled."  I figured that since I was neither deceased or broken, I'd better get moving to prevent my muscles from freezing up, although the flaming pain I was feeling seemed to preclude that eventuality.  Stoically, I wheeled on (Granny is nothing if not stoic! An idiot for sure, but a stoic idiot!).  I managed to enjoy the skate, especially as the breeze I generated while my flattering granny-float-sleeves fanned me gently, as if mocking the searing pain I felt in my nether regions.

Uh-oh!  Briar was now down in the dead center of the rink, and obviously needed some help.  I was not going to do another butt-plant this time, no matter what.  Very carefully, I tried to hoist him back to his feet, only to lose my own footing again. Nothing spectacular this time.  Just a minor case of "Granny Down!'  But, and  it proved to be an even bigger but than my own throbbing Granny butt, I was completely unable to get back to my feet, and not for want of trying.  There was nothing for me to grab hold of to stabilize myself, or to push up and off the floor with.  Trying to use just my wheeled feet and a push off with my hands left me all akimbo on the floor, sitting morosely in the middle of the rink. 

Well, I had to do something.  Briar had recovered nicely from his fall and was off once more skating herky-jerky around the rink. Panic slowly started to set in as I sat there planted center-rink, under the pulsing strobe light.  I had to do something, but I absolutely could not get to my feet.  There was only one way for me to escape from my own self-inflicted disco inferno.  I would have to crawl back to the safety of the padded floors and benches off-rink.  The thought of that, however was too embarrassing--even for me, the Queen of Frequent Humiliation.  I would not, could not, be reduced to crawling off the rink.  I proudly (pathetically?) pulled myself up to full height--when standing on one's knees, of course--and began to inch my way off the planked and polished oval of my shame.  

The skaters who had previously come to my rescue had now apparently deemed me unworthy of further assistance--a lost cause for sure--and I watched them in terror as they now raced past me at top speed.  Now it seemed that I really could get killed out here, mowed down by a swarm of uncaring and and swift skaters.  Luckily, there were gaps between the clusters of skaters who now took on the appearance to me of professional Roller Derby blockers and jammers.  I was able to burst forth in a fast knee-walk for just a foot or two before having to stop and wait for another opening.  I proceeded thusly, knee-walk/stop/look left and right/knee-walk/stop/look  until I finally made it to the carpeted zone, where, huffing, humiliated, and exhausted, I dragged myself onto a bench,.

"That's it, kids!  Skate time's over!"

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I was pretty damn sore on the ride home.  I turned on the heated driver's seat and availed myself of its semi-soothing warmth.  Granny might have to re-think this whole skating thing.  But the Squeezeburger was AWESOME!

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This post originally  appeared in a slightly different form in my blog "Plumpfeet Wonders."

Granny Goes Wheeling--Addendum and a Geography Lesson

The rest of April and into May, 2012

At truly nasty bruise was forming by the time the kids and I got home.  What made it especially hideous, yet strangely wondrous, was the perfect imprint of Jaiden's skate wheel on my right buttock, like a crater left by a speeding meteorite.  It was complete right down to the indentations left by the little lug nuts used to tighten the wheels.  As the weeks wore on, I outclassed any orangutan you've ever seen at the zoo or on Wild Kingdom with the magnificence of my swollen and multi-colored butt.  A constantly changing kaleidoscopic palette of scarlets, violets, lavenders, magentas, grays, greens, and yellows graced my cratered patootie.

 Now for the geography part.

Picture a map of the western United States as my behind.  Now picture the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana.  That was the bruise!

Can I just say, "Ouch!"

This post originally  appeared in a slightly different form in my blog "Plumpfeet Wonders."