Good night Erik (1914-2010)

So I went home. I left on January 5th. Took a bus from New Paltz. Then another bus to Newark. Then a 7 1/2 plane ride. Then a 3 hour bus to Örebro. Sweden is in the middle of another record breaking winter and I was all about it.

On friday night we drove up to Goat Valley, Getingedalen, where Kajsa and Gizmo live. 

An insanely gorgeous winter wonderland.

Getingedalen.

The old workshop.

The new workshop. Which also has a boutique and a garage. I did some late night "shopping" during my stay. For instance this handsome wood carrier that has already found a home by our fireplace. Handy!

We had Gizmo's home made pizza, baked in their wood burning stove. Heaven.

I spent the night and woke up to more snowing.

 Idun (only the coolest dog in the world) and I ventured outside.

Idun is a fetching fool. She would run herself into a coma if you just kept throwing. The item of choice this fine day was a frisbee. I really tried to stick to the shoveled path but sometimes it would take off unexpectedly. She tried to get it once or twice but after that this is the look I got:

Really? Really. So I got it myself and then we went back inside.

Where we plonked ourselves in front of the fire to watch a movie. A Somewhat Gentle Man with Stellan Skarsgård. Entertaining. 

If you go for a fika (coffee break, preferably with a baked good on the side) in a kondis (sit down pastry shop) in Sweden and you order a sandwich this is what will likely appear. Ain't she a beaut.

It's almost Semmel time! Fat tuesday is the correct day to start eating them but these days we cheat a whole lot. Semla is something that was traditionally served at the end of lent. Only bread was to be eaten during lent so people started digging holes in the bun and hiding goodies. A Semla today is a sweet bun with the top cut off. Then you dig a little hole and fill it with almond paste. Then whipped cream and you place the top back on and then sprinkle powdered sugar on it. I like it best served in a bowl with warm milk. If you follow the wiki-link as I did you will also learn that Semlan partly killed our King Adolf Predrik in 1771. So be careful.

Tuesday the 11th is the reason I came home. Grandpa Erik's funeral. 

It took place in Längbro church, the church where both Kajsa and I were baptized and confirmed. We also spent many years as part of their choirs, and Erik had asked for the service to be held here.

It was a very beautiful ceremony and we all got to say a special last good bye to our dad, husband, grandpa, brother, father-in-law and uncle. We were a small party, 15, another last request from Erik, only the closest family was to attend. 

Erik's little brother John (88).

We gathered at my parent's house for dinner. Erik had asked to be here after the ceremony. He considered Flugis his second home.

My sister Kajsa.

Grandma Annalisa with her kids. My mom Agneta and little brother Pererik.

Annalisa will be 95 this May. On April 12th she and Erik would have celebrated their 70th anniversary.

Little cousin Anna, Pereriks's daughter.

Dad reads telegrams at dinner. Erik asked for people to not buy flowers but instead donate money to doctor's without borders and a foundation that plants trees in Africa.

Guests also included Perra's wife AG, John's 2 sons, Lars and Per with wife Irene and son Kristoffer and Gizmo.

We play croquet once a year in my family and this is the group photo from 2008. Erik was 94 but still took part.

My very own special memory of grandpa is that he accompanied me to NY for a week when I was in college. He was 85 and he still had an urge to travel and loads of curiosity about the place that had become my home. He also started teaching himself English late in life, translating National Geographics with the help of a dictionary, calling it his crossword puzzle. He followed James around Flugis when we visited and would strike up random conversations, just so he could practice speaking. You had to be a bit of an interpretive listener, but yikes - A for effort gramps! 

He will be missed by us all. It's a beautiful thing we have such great memories of him!

Hej då lilla morfar. Sov gott.

Horse tranqs and ex-cons

Got in to Newark on Thursday night and it is not at all surprising that by friday afternoon I was a useless pile of snivel and snot. But at least I was in MY house with MY baby. We got right in to the Christmas spirit and dressed the tree. 

We exchanged one gift. We had both had the tree in mind when shopping and I got the perfect topper in Mexico.

James got me an Elvis impersonator angel. Duh what else?

Cozy Jones is reading Hoyles encyclopedia of card games, a christmas present, wearing slippers from Rosemary, another present

We have decided to not move very much for the next few days. So a few hours later Cozy Jones on the couch in the dining room, with Cali relatives on the phone. 

In other news, on Christmas morning I was asked to be MRS. Cozy Jones and I accepted of course. There is already light planning in the works and for anybody that wants to mark up their calender skip ahead to September 2012...

After presents and and surprise engagement speeches we played some cards (our latest game is SPITE & MALICE. Lots of fun even though the name does not exactly embody the Christmas spirit...) and started fixing the JULBORD. The Swedish Christmas smorgasbord. The center piece is of  course the ham. We had an 8 pounder and it cooked in the oven until the thermometer showed 160˚. After that we mixed 2 egg yolks, some mustard and sugar and brushed it on. Then pour bread crumbs all over and back in the oven for about 15 minutes. 

James is in charge of the deviled eggs. He mixed the yolks with mayo, mustard and some capers. The topper is roe.

I made the press cucumber the night before. Some white vinegar, sugar, salt and dill and something heavy on top.

Jansson's temptation is a must on the JULBORD. It's simply scalloped potatoes with anchovy.

James made the gravlax when I was still in Mexico and I'm very proud of him. I made the hovmästar sås.

Meatballs and prince sausages from IKEA are a must.

We enjoyed our little meal all by our lonesome and then our friends from down the street showed up for some cards and desert. Quite the perfect little christmas!

This was in my Mexican gift bag. Organic Mezcal, you can drink it but also use it to take paint off the walls.

The snow started coming down on 2nd day of christmas. We bunkered up and I sniveled my way through Gone With the Wind and we enjoyed it immensely. When you watch a 4 hour movie in one sitting you know you're on vacation. Or unemployed... 3 days after Christmas we had to get off the couch finally.

Ugh. The cottage.... Long story short, our last tenants moved out on the 15th. I try so hard to keep this blog positive and happy but what happened here is just crap. The last few weeks of them living there was one cuckoo email after another. Unfortunately James had to deal with it since I was away. Strange complaints taken out of thin air and blown way out of proportion. Things had been trashed in the house by the dog and other factors and the return of their deposit was looking mighty bleak. When they realized this they got up and left what seemed like in the middle of the night. Garbage still around, furniture on the lawn and a general nasty mess. An eyesore of a mattress that had been sitting around for months already leaning against the house. If you are as poor as you told us then how can you just throw your deposit away? Now we are stuck cleaning YOUR mess on our vacation. 

Anyway, we decided to give the old place a complete overhaul and we are painting it. We hope that our new tenant that's moving in on the 1st will want to make this her home for awhile. Welcome.

It was a strange Christmas to be away from my family though. Grandpa Erik passed away on the 22nd of Decemeber. He was 96 years old and lived a long, rich life. Until only a few years ago he would ride his bike around Örebro. I grew up spending a lot of time with my grandparents and have MANY fond memories. 

Morfar and my uncle Per-Erik, mom's little brother.

Here's almost the whole gang. Grandma Anna-Lisa, Grandpa Erik, Uncle Per-Erik, Aunt AG, my mom and dad. Missing are my sis/Giz and cousin Anna. We're going for a short walk to have a fika honoring my grandmother's 90th birthday. That was almost 5 years ago. 

And of course there was another week in Mexico. We drove from San Cristóbal to Palenque on tuesday afternoon. The ride was fine and went pretty quickly. On wednesday we revisited the ruins. It's such an incredible place.

One last snap of the cam girls of The Blue Eyes. With the wind in our hair and the sun on our faces. In the back of a pick up driving to our last location in the San Cristóbal area.

We filmed in a preserve with animals from the area. Some were in cages and some just dropped in for a visit.

Goodbye to the Unidad, grips and electrics. A fine bunch! 

The Blue Eyes has been wrapped for a week now. It was a HARD movie but I love a challenge and looking  back on it I'm really glad I went.

Jake has been moving along with the master bedroom and the pastry shop. Jose and his team sheet rocked, taped and primered. Then Jake came back and started trimming the windows.

This is the wall where the bed will be.

The east wall.

The south wall.

Closets and entrance to the bathroom.

He also did the wood wall in the pastry shop and that deserves some before and afters. This is when the J's gutted the place. 

They found that the foundation was falling apart and that our Azaleas were poking through the rocks.

Their solution was to build the wall out and pour cement inside. It also helped hide the plumbing for the upstairs bathroom.

This is the wall today. We found rough sawn boards at Ghent Lumber, 6 inches wide and James has put 2 coats of primer on so far.

The depth of the wall gave us a really nice boxed window.

Jake has also trimmed the windows in the pastry shop. We are very close to painting down here.