Let It Rain

I've finally found a reason to just maybe, kinda sorta, like rainy days. Hunter Wellington mud boots. I have wanted a pair of these bad boys since I saw fashion queen Kate Moss stomping around the Glastonbury Festival mud. Alas, I have never have had a need for a pair living in the desert. Until now.

I've started my collection today. I am downright giddy at the prospect of owning many, many pairs.

It's the little things I tell ya. The little things.

What is this? Poll in sidebar

Personal Space...What A Concept!

The whole idea of personal space seems lost on the average Swede. In queues that stand right up behind you, their hot breath on your neck and their conversations in your ear. Walking behind you they walk right on your heels never quite walking around you but right on top of you. Stopping to read a sign or a menu, they'll stealthy stand right behind you, closer than your shadow. You will never hear them come up but if you quickly turn around you will find yourself nose to nose and you'll wonder "why, why, why are you standing so close to me".

In check out lines, where you bag your own groceries, they'll hastily start throwing their groceries in with yours. You'll stand there side by side picking your groceries out of a big pile of yours and theirs. The other day I was filling a bag with potatoes. There were five large bins filled with potatoes. A man came over, ignored the four other empty bins, and stood right with me picking through the same bin. Weird. I wondered did he think I somehow had the better bin?

What makes it even more unusual is this is pretty much a society where there is no real sense of urgency. I'd expect it in the hustle and bustle of achievement driven and space deprived Tokyo or Hong Kong. Let's face it, this is a place where you may not get a reply back to an email for three weeks. Nothing can't wait and it often does.

I wonder if it is some latent side effect of collectivist type societies? Is personal space and the idea that we own the 12 inches of space surrounding us an American conception? The difference between an individualistic culture and a collectivist mindset? Hmmm, food for thought.

The Flea Market

I haven't written about the place until now, well, because it was just too damn depressing. Now that it is August 4th and I have passed the halfway point I am feeling better about it. I am almost outta here...27 more days to be precise. Not that I am counting or anything.

I should preface this to say, we rented a flat just down the road from here in the picturesque district of Vasastan. However, it would not be available until September 1st. We had to find a temporary apartment for those two months. We used an online service and rented the Flea Market, sight unseen. I reasoned:

a. it was only two months
b. I had looked at several places and didn't see anything that wasn't decent
c. It was large, fairly expensive and in Vasastan

I should also preface this by telling you that I really don't like stuff. I have some material objects that I really like but they are few in number. Please note, I don't say this to point out some great moral positioning. Less stuff is just easier. The couple of things I do love -- my Dyson vacuum, my Mac, my Kitchen Aide fridge with (sob) icemaker and clothes and shoes. Other than that and as far as decorating goes, I am in the Georgia O'Keefe realm. Chair, table, lamp and I am good. We are talking real minimalist use of things like curtains, knick knacks, and pictures.

So, really, if the fates wanted to play a cruel joke on me and invent an interior that is so anti-everything I could ever want in a place this would be it. Antiques-check. Really, really bad paintings by the truckload with even worse ugly frames, check. Bad, bad, bad antique like tables and mirrors--oh, yeah, we've got 'em. Throw rugs everywhere, yes siree. We promptly rolled up all the rugs and hid them under beds about five seconds after the owner left. Ugly ornate lamps and clocks. Check and check.

Can I also mention that clutter makes me crazy? This place gives clutter a new name. And because they were only at their summer home for two months, they only packed up half of their clutter. Drawers and drawers full of crap. Bags full of old newspapers--for what purpose, I have no idea.Trick closets that would make Bugs Bunny proud. Book shelves over flowing with pretentious books that I am sure she's probably never read, old school notebooks and ledgers. She has old notebooks from college. On display in bookshelves. She's like 40, I've seen her pictures.

Yep, and to add insult to injury she's some sort of a, dare I say, liberal. All the obligatory titles are here. The Story of Bob Dylan, The Works Of Marx, Nietzsche, Is Hetrosexuality Normal. The full set of classic music. Brochures for the local theaters. The whole gamut of liberal merit badges on display for anyone who cares enough to be impressed by them.

Even weirder, is, though four people live here, every room is overrun with her stuff. As far as I can tell, the husband has one closet that he keeps very neat. The kids have their own wardrobes and a dresser. The rest is hers. Every drawer, every bookshelf, every nook, every cranny. Wow! And I thought I was self involved.

I am just thankful, in 27 days, she can have it all back. In the meantime, I need to remember where I put all those throw rugs and where they go.

The Rational Jingo

In an effort to keep my OAIS blog separate, or as separate as humanly possible, from my political views I have started a blog specifically for political and related topics. For anyone interested.

The Rational Jingo

Sweden's Secret Paradise

What would you call 30,000 islands, clear blue water, islets and skerries; spanning from the barren to the lush and leafy, seaside cottages; spanning from the quaint to the downright decadent and idyllic scenes of children tire swinging and cliff jumping into the water? Naturally you'd call such a place paradise. And rightly so.

It's Sweden's best kept secret, it's archipelago. A day at the archipelago and suddenly you get it. You understand the vacation homes at the expense of the first home, the two month holidays and why and how they stay and tolerate the long, cold and dark winters. You understand better how so many are able to maintain near oblivion that not only are the barbarians outside the gate but that they have a firm foothold inside the gate.

It's the kind of place, I'd check off the list for being too cold, too far north, too not tropical or desert enough for me to bother with. Which is probably how and why it maintains it appeal. Because even at the peak of summer time, though brisk with activity, the waters are still vast and roomy, the air still clear and the breathing room still plentiful.

It's a step back to a more innocent time. A simpler time. A slower time.

Red Skinny Jeans Are Never a Good Idea

There seems to be a widespread fashion phenomenon here in Stockholm. Colored jeans. Really, really hideously colored jeans. The kind of jeans we see on our clearance racks for about $4 a pair and we wonder where they came from and where they were before they were on the clearance rack. Well, now we know.

The most prevalent of these colored jeans would be of the fire engine red variety.

It takes a special kind of person to pull off red jeans. It takes an even more special kind of person to carry off red skinny jeans. It takes a really, really special kind of man to pull these off. I don't know that I have seen one yet.

I didn't know how bad the problem was until I was looking for jeans for my eight year old son in the boys section at Åhlen's. Åhlen's is a popular Swedish department store and what's interesting is that it still breaks clothes into men's and women's and boy's and girl's. Some of the newer more trendy stores do not. And, silly retrobate me, I am still living with a mindset that there are definite differences between the sexes. A concept not popular among the mainstream left in Sweden.

Back to red jeans. I can unequivocally state that my son will never own a pair of red jeans. As long as I am paying for them, at least.