Felix, any time you want to redo our bet on the Lord of the Rings movie, this time for the third installment, let me know.
LOTR, Return of the Bet
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Category Archives: Personal
Julkommitté
HELP. I’ve been volunteered to the Julkommitté, or Christmas committee, where I work: It’s my very first representative position at a Swedish institution, no less, and so far I’ve managed to avoid embarrassment by agreeing with most everything that is suggested. It’s shouldn’t be hard, really: We get a sum of money and have to spend it creatively on a Christmas party. This year, we’re going on a boat around the harbor.
But there has to be a theme, apparently, involving a quiz. You cannot have a julfest without theme and a quiz. Not ever having been to an organized julfest, I suggested Who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire-style multiple choice questions involving fun facts about Sweden, like: The percentage of foreign students in Sweden is a) 7.8% b) 14.3% c) 19.0% d) 40%.
This was met with jahas and the short sharp intakes of breath, both of which mean “not necessarily no, but certainly not yes.” So I really want to wow them for the next meeting, today, Tuesday at 3pm Stockholm time. Any ideas?
The Letter, part 3: Margaretha writes back
[If you haven’t yet read The Letter, parts one and two, please do so first. This post won’t make any sense otherwise]
Margaretha wrote back this afternoon. I think it is time to take a backseat and let the story tell itself…
After our conversation my son absolutely wanted to have a look at the letter so we checked it out yesterday already. Today at work I told several colleagues and also my daughter. Everyone thinks it’s a great story and wants to hear more.
I grew up in Halmstad and had just graduated from high school in 1970, after which I found work at the Swedish Central bank in Stockholm. In the spring of 1970 I was going out with Bengt, who that year began his military service at P2, which was an armoured regiment in Hässleholm. Bengt came to visit me in Stockholm, but I had made new friends and so I broke up with him when he visited. I met Bengt one more time during the Christmas holidays that year, but since then we have not been in touch.
I don’t remember the letter, but it is correctly addressed to me so I could well have had it. In the autumn of that year I moved to Vasastan. The theory about the bookmark may well be right, but I do not remember the letter, alas.
In 1976 I married Rolf, with whom I have two children — Monika, who is 22 and studying to become a journalist, and Olof, 18 and in high school. We have lived most in Stockholm, but also some time in Luxembourg and Gothenburg. I work as an economist at a waste management firm called S—.Efter ditt samtal igår ville absolut min son titta på brevet så vi gick in redan igår. Idag har jag berättat om det för flera arbetskamrater och även för min dotter. Alla tycker det är en fantastisk historia och vill gärna höra mer.
Jag växte upp i Halmstad och hade tagit studenten 1970, därefter fick jag arbete på Sveriges Riksbank i Stockholm. Under våren-70 hade jag sällskap med Bengt som det året påbörjade sin militärtjänstgöring på P2 som var ett pansarförband i Hässleholm. Bengt besökte mig i Stockholm, men jag hade fått nya vänner och hade väldigt roligt så jag gjorde slut med Bengt vid hans besök. Jag träffade Bengt ytterligare en gång under julhelgen det året, men sedan har vi inte haft någon kontakt.
Jag minns inte brevet, men det var rätt adresserat så jag kan ha haft det. På hösten det året flyttade jag till Vasastan.
Teorin om bokmärke kan stämma men jag minns inte brevet, tyvärr.
1976 gifte jag mig med Rolf som jag fått två barn med Monika som är 22 år och utbildar sig till journalist och Olof som är 18 år och går på gymnasiet. Vi har bott mest i Stockholm, men även en tid i Luxemburg och i Göteborg. Jag arbetar som ekonom i ett företag i sopbranschen som heter S—.
Margareta, who signs her name without an h, goes on to mention that she’s found a Bengt M— (the letter didn’t contain his last name) living outside of Halmstad. And shall we contact him?
This story isn’t over yet, in other words.
The Letter, part 2: Finding Margaretha Lennerbring
[If you haven’t yet read The Letter, an earlier post about a letter I found on a New York City sidewalk sent to a Swedish woman in 1970, please do so. The rest of this post won’t make any sense otherwise.] I don’t know why I didn’t follow my one big lead on this story until tonight; I’ve been meaning to, and were I a paid private detective all this would have been over months ago. Maybe I was afraid the lead would be a dead end; perhaps the mystery of the letter was something to savour before solving, much like one lets fine wine linger under the palate. Or perhaps my Swedish was just so godawful until now that I didn’t want to subject anyone to a cold-call of mine.
But tonight I did call Gunnar Lennerbring, the only Lennerbring I had found in the Swedish phonebook. After a few rings, a woman picked up. I couldn’t tell from her voice how old she was. I asked for Gunnar Lennerbring, and she immediately said Gunnar är död, Gunnar is dead.
What a start.
I knew that there is a phrase in Swedish for such moments, and I knew that I had forgotten it. So instead of saying Jag beklagar — I’m sorry (for your loss) — I stammered Ursäkta — excuse me. Dumb dumbMaybe I should have waited a few more months before finally calling.. I thought I should perhaps explain, before she slammed the phone down on my manners, that my Swedish wasn’t in fact that good, and that I was looking for a person called Margaretha, and that this phone number was my only lead.
Margaretha is my daughter, the woman said gently. She married. She lives in Stockholm. Her married name is I—. Would you like her number? Here it is…
Suddenly somewhat breathless, I now dial Margaretha’s number. A male voice picks up. Can I talk to Margaretha? The voice calls for his mom. And then I’m talking to her. Aware that all this might sound a bit bizarre, and nervous because of it, I begin telling the story of how I found a letter in New York four years ago mailed in 1970 to someone that I believe to be her.
I read out some of the letter’s place names. Do they sound familiar? She sounds noncommittal, though my ear is untrained in the various ways Swedes signal assent…and there are many ways of signalling assent: Å, Nja, Ja, Jo, Jaha, Just det, Kanske det, Visst, Klart, Möjlig, Säkert, silence… And then there are all the ways in which they don’t: Å, Nja, Jaha, Kanske det, Möjlig, silence…. Perhaps she is understandably wary of disclosing her personal history to a stranger bearing leading questions.
Not knowing how I’m coming through, I ask her if she has web access. She does, at work. Then she can see the letter online, just type Lennerbring into Google and it’s the only page that comes up… Does she know about Google? She asks, does her son know about Google? Yes, he does. I posted the letter there in my attempt to return it to the addressee, I say — and in a retreat to the tentative — if that is her.
But about that she is sure: She is the only Margaretha, maiden name Lennerbring, there isMargaretha should stay anonymous, I’ve decided, because while I’m fine with posting anonymous letters on the web, I am not, absent her permission, fine with posting personal letters on the web..
In that case, I say, perhaps she could look at the letter tomorrow, and then email me, so that I could arrange to meet her sometime and return it?
She will. She said so.
iChat unbound
I’m watching the 2003 All-Stars Scrabble Championship on ESPN on a television in New York… via Apple’s iChat AV! Fellow Scrabble player and MemeFirster Matthew has pointed his video camera at his TV and turned up the sound… It’s works like a charm.Actually, Survivor is the American Robinson. The Swedes invented reality television. I’ve offered to return the favor by beaming the Swedish Survivor, Robinson, at Matthew, but he’s respectfully declined the offer.
Northern plight
Why oh why am I never allowed to see the Aurora Borealis? It’s the solar storm of a lifetime up there, it was one of the main reasons for moving to Sweden, and now we have stupid clouds.
This is not the first time I’ve moved to a place for the astronomy. I pleaded with my parents to move to Australia in 1984 because Comet Halley was all set to make a splash in the southern hemisphere in 1986. (It proved worthwhile. And the southern sky is definitely more impressive than the northern offerings. Unless, of course, there are northern lights in them.)
Blog for life
There are a growing number of these around, but this is the first one made by a friend: noahjoaquin.com, a most excellent baby blog.
Yes, the idea is now being commercialized by babyblog.com but the site name indicates the entrepreneurs there don’t appreciate how grand the idea can be: A blog for life, a present from the parents back to the child as it grows older, one to which the kid starts contributing drawings, then writings; eventually it becomes a group blog, a place for family holiday reports, or elegies to deceased pets. During the teenage years, it’s a place for articulated selfabsorption — at college, for reporting back to the parents. Eventually, it’s time to start a new baby blog.
I wonder what effect such a public platform for self-expression would have on children, especially if it is interactive, with positive feedback from grandparents and teachers. Kids must get as much out of it as we do, surely?
My Swedish dentist
American and European dentists must really loathe each other’s work. In the US, my dentist was agape at the coarseness of the European works in my mouth, and proceeded to finesse all manner of things in there. Today, I visited a Swedish dentist, and she was equally aghast, this time at the hurried look of American efforts.
So I need a recent American-made filling replaced. But first, a medical questionnaire. In Swedish. Rather than accidentally admitting to having sold off a kidney, I leave most of that blank“Snussar du?” is one question. Do you use snuss, a teabag of tobacco you stuff between your gums and your upper lip, making you look like an out-of-whack Don Corleone? It doesn’t get more Swedish than this. I’ve tried it, and as the buzz builds up, you begin oozing brown drool whenever you smile. Apparently, it takes practice. Whoever makes it should really expand into New York City bars, though..
My Swedish dental vocabulary is about as good as my dentist’s English dental vocabulary. As I lie there, open mouthed, with an 800,000 rpm diamond drill in my mouth an inch from my brain, she proceeds to rattle off all manner of Important Dentistry Observations in Swedish, to which I nod earnestly, incapable really of asking for vocabulary clarifications. I get an irrepressible flashback of that Gary Larson cartoon where a dog owner tells off his pet but all the dog understands is “blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah.” Yeah, I’m the dog.
I’ll find out next week if I agreed to having all my teeth pulled and getting dentures. I hope not.
A block of writers
I already know how my next post will begin:
The bus from Newark discharged its passengers — a … of Swedes and myself — into the halogen murk of the Port Authority bus station on 42nd.
But now I’m stuck. I can’t think of a good collective noun for Swedes. This is what I’ve come up with so far, but rejected. What do you thinkI have, however, found an excellent collective noun for my fellow city dwellers: A syndrome of Stockholmers.?
A binge of Swedes? (Doesn’t cover the sober ones);
A curiosity of Swedes? (Doesn’t cover the drunk ones);
A share of Swedes? (Too Third Way. Or too First Way? In any case, too confusing);
An angst of Swedes? (Too stereotyped);
A collective of Swedes? (Too literal for my tastes).
Any suggestions?
Ryan Air Watch
Ryanair is taking its philosophy to the logical extreme. I saw the future of air travel on my way to Ireland for the weekend and it is cramped. Ryanair’s brand new Boeing 737-800 plane, in service for just a month and the vanguard of their new fleet, sports some interesting “innovations:” Gone is the little pouch in front of you that was stuffed with crash instructions, magazine and barf bagPrevious watches: Here, here, and — obliquely — here.. Instead, the space is now taken up with your knee. The space between the back of your seat and the one in front has been shrunk to exactly the length of a human femur bone. Luckily, the seats no longer recline, so you are in no danger of being bashed in the head by the shiny yellow plastic seatback in front, upon which crash instructions are now afixed in the form of a sticker that takes up most of your field of vision for the duration of your flight. The lack of a barf bag is elegantly rendered moot by upholstering the seats in a dark blue wipeable plastic material.
There are still trays that can be prised from their locked, upright position, though the little plastic thing that holds them up no longer has a hook for a jacket, as my neighbour spent most of the flight figuring out. But these trays waste valuable space too, especially if they go unused for an entire flight. I will write Ryanair and suggest they start using feeding bags. They work fine for horses, and can double as barf bags. Perhaps the oxygen masks, which I’ve never seen used, could be refitted to deliver liquid nutrients. And on a flight from Stansted to Dublin, do we really need toilets? The bus from Victoria Station to the airport didn’t have any, and that trip took much longer. The bus didn’t have cabin crew either. How about having ground staff give the crash course instead of doing it on the plane? What about selling us feeding bags before we embark? And when is the last time you saw two bus drivers sitting up front? Plenty of room for improvement. Literally.