The American Adventure - Vol 22

1 - 31 March 99

If you want to go straight to Vol 23, you may do so now!

...

March was a busy month, as some people will have guessed from the lateness of the last chapter. Taltarni remains pretty much on track with her apparent plan to destroy at least one thing every day. She makes up for the days when she doesn’t destroy anything substantial by ripping books or writing on walls. Basically, she is well and truly living up to the "terrible twos" stereotype.

When Tim and Kajsa first lived together with Tim’s brother, Jeremy, we kept a special shelf in a cupboard for storing things that Kajsa and Jeremy broke (if Tim had broken things then, to be fair, they would also have been put there). By the end, the shelf was pretty full and we didn’t even include pieces of Wolfgang that needed to be replaced due to a little incident on a rainy day somewhere near Ultimo. Kajsa’s contribution, on the whole, largely comprised of coffee plungers. Jeremy was less specialised but most of his contributions were of a fragile nature (and should have been marked: "Keep out of reach of younger brothers!")

Well, there are two points to this story. First, if we were to put aside a shelf for Taltarni, it would be overflowing by now. Not only that, the cupboard would be getting close to full. If she maintained track, she’d be able fill a fair portion of a room by the time she turned three.

Second, Kalle went through a stage similar to the one Taltarni is now going through. Tim decided that he would give everyone a name that captured the natures of his nearest and dearest. Kalle became DestructoBoy, Kajsa was Shatter Woman and Tim as Mr Fixit (aka Fixit Man).

Well, he has been racking his brain to come up with a name to describe Taltarni. Disaster Girl doesn’t quite make it. DestructoGirl would be good but is already taken (partially at least) by a boy who was far less destructive. Finally he came up with a few options, "Little Miss Mayhem", "Little Miss Carnage" or "Miss Annihilation, Empress of Devastation". Personally, he thinks the third is a closer match, despite the extra effort needed to say it but he does like the sound of "Little Miss Carnage"!

For the sake of brevity, we will not catalogue every little breakage (plus it helps our sanity if we can just put the pain behind us rather than constantly dredging up memories of all those nice things that we used to have). As particularly memorable events occur, we’ll include them.

The big event of the first half of the month was the Swedish School Open Day. This is an annual event which includes an opportunity for new prospects to check out the school and also attend a bit of a fair-like thingamajiggy. Anyway, Kajsa volunteered to make semlor which are a sort of bun that Swedes eat on Tuesday’s during Lent. She started this baking effort well in advance, in fact it was on Thursday the week before.

Like many of the things that Swedes do as a tradition, making semlor is fiddly. Kajsa was no daunted, she struggled on, rolling and folding and pricking and brushing with egg. When she was finished, however, she was not happy with the finished product. After making all of us eat some of them, she pronounced that they were too burnt for people we didn’t know and she’d make a new batch. So, we’ll throw these ones out? Oh, no, they’re good enough for us!

The following Thursday, Kajsa dutifully made another batch. This time far fewer of them were burnt. She disposed of these is the normal fashion, that is by making us eat them. She actually stood there checking out the buns we tried to take saying "Don’t take that one, that’s a good one, there take a burnt one. Ooh look this one is really burnt, here Tim, you take it."

It really makes you wonder what sort of regard she holds her loved ones in. Are we the types who deserve nothing than the best, or suckers whose most important role is consuming all substandard product so that only the best is given to people she’s not likely to ever meet again? Tim suspects that it is just another manifestation of Kajsa’s intensely competitive nature.

The night after Kajsa made her second batch, Staffan dropped off another batch of semlor that Anna Carin had baked. Kajsa was appalled. After much discussion the night before about the relative merits of freezing semlor or just leaving them somewhere cool and protected, she had decided on not freezing her buns (nothing worse than having cold buns). Overnight, the buns had become a little less fresh and soft. Anna Carin’s, which were just out of the oven, were all perfect. Perfect shape, perfect colour, perfect fluffiness.

You could see the cogs rolling in Kajsa’s mind, should she "forget" Anna Carin’s buns on Saturday or swap them with hers (Anna Carin and Staffan were taking the kids ski-ing so they’d never know) or just sabotage Anna Carin’s buns (put in them oven for another fifteen minutes, see how perfect they are then). Tim was very supportive (especially of option one, forget them, leave them at home so we could get some good ones at last). In the end, Kajsa’s vestigial sense of fair-play edged out her desire to win and she took Anna Carin’s buns to the Open Day and made sure that everyone knew that the (disgustingly) perfect ones weren’t her own.

It seems that we are ahead of ourselves. On the first Saturday, two days after Kajsa’s first baking efforts, Anna Carin offered to take both Kalle and Taltarni for the afternoon so that we could spend some time alone together, doing … whatever. That was a big issue. What would we do if we didn’t have the kids around? Naturally Kajsa’s first response was, wow, what a great opportunity to clean the house! After a relaxing lunch we eventually decided on a movie and went out to see Billy Crystal and Robert de Niro in "Analyze This!" A good movie.

The next day, Jill and David came over with their kids for dinner. This was a huge contrast to the peace and quiet of the previous day. Neither Kyle nor Patrick seem to have effective mute settings, although Kyle is a little better. For the most part they stayed in the basement so the long-term effects of their visit were limited.

All through winter, the weather services and news programs have been teasing the inhabitants of Greater Washington with promises of snow. In the long range forecasts (up to seven days) they first predict snow and, usually, take it out of the forecast two or three days before it is supposed to arrive. In the first week of March they predicted snow for the following weekend. On the Wednesday they took it out and predicted rain. Then they took that out as well. All we had on the weekend was reports of a big storm that had been hitting the rest of the country and was "coming our way". Day after day there were reports of feet of snow in places like Chicago and Milwaukee. The forecasters, to cover their bets, put in snow for the following Wednesday but only as "flurries", changing to rain. One inch accumulation, at max.

Think how happy we were when we woke up on Wednesday morning and we had about six inches of snow – and it was still snowing! The snow had actually started the day before which made travel home from work a real trial. There were accidents all over the place and the trip along Route 66 which normally takes about 45 minutes took three hours. Tim was dropped off by a colleague who was kind enough to make a detour to get him home and he spent another hour or so getting back to his home which is less than two kilometres away. Even Kajsa had some trouble this time and had to get someone to help her push Baldrick out of a snow drift that had developed around him.

Tim stayed home on Wednesday and played in the snow with the kids. By afternoon the temperature had gone up enough so that the snow was good for making snowmen. (Usually it is too dry.) They made three snowmen. Well, to be precise, they were actually snowbugs with lots of sticks as legs and antennae!

The following weekend was quite busy, first with Swedish School Open House. The Open House meant that Swedish Preschool in the basement was off for the week. It didn't mean rest and relaxation though. As Vice President of the Swedish School (you'd all forgotten that hadn't you!), Kajsa had to be there to run the semlor stand and make sure that they were fairly shared (free to children and two dollars for adults). There was also a little stand selling svenska grejor (Swedish stuff), so we ended up with some more jigsaw puzzles and some books.

Then afterwards there was the most important bit, tidying up. Even though she almost reeks of executive power, Kajsa is very egalitarian when it comes down to it. Which can also read as she has no delegation abilities beyond bossing Tim around. Knowing this, Tim sneaked away to class as much as he could.

That afternoon we finally were able to host Bill and Glenna Hemschrodt in our home. As some will recall, we have been to their place many times and have not been able to repay the compliment. It was great to have them over, sit and talk and give them a good meal. Bill has been working very hard recently as he has been starting up a new business with his son. It's good timing because his work at used-to-be-Vitro-then-Tracor-but-recently-Marconi is looking shaky. Every time they have a consolidation, some people lose their jobs. Bill has survived so far but the company may yet be bought by someone else. It can't be a comfortable position to be in. Anyway, he has his parachute ready, even if it is a lot of work.

The next day it snowed again. Again it was quite deep, about four inches and we spent quite a bit of time playing in it. It was quite bad timing though, it was on a Sunday and therefore there was no day off work (well, it was already a day off work, but you know what we mean). By this time, despite the snow, the weather was warming up and the snow was mostly gone the next day. In between the snowfalls, flowers had started to sprout and some buds were starting to appear so it was really starting to feel like spring.

The next week was quiet, the only event of note was that Kajsa went to Kalle's school and did the quilt thing. What exactly the quilt thing was is a mystery.

On Saturday a special event was planned, the "huger than life", get some Guinness in you and top o' da mornin', to be sure, to be sure, St Patrick's Day bash at Glenn's house (because he has the best Oirish accent around). So that we could go, Kajsa worked an early shift. There was some sort of mix-up because she wasn't supposed to work at all that day but given that she had had the Wednesday free, she couldn't push too far and decided to work early. Working early means leaving home early, like really early. Really, really early. Like, pre-Tim getting up early. (Quite a lot pre-Tim getting up actually.)

Some people who know Tim well will note that he is not a morning person. Most people will not know that Taltarni and Kalle both are. Well, take it from us that both Kalle and Taltarni tend to get up earlier than Tim would like, especially on weekends. On this morning, Taltarni was awake not long after Kajsa left. Kalle had also woken up but he had gone straight downstairs and was watching TV (all the sins of TV are forgiven at 7:00 on a weekend). Taltarni climbed out of her cot and tried to wake Tim up. She jumped on him, she babbled endlessly about something, she went to the toilet by herself, she came back and brought Tim books which she used to hit him on the head a few times. Tim sought refuge in unconsciousness. At some point Taltarni went away and it was quiet. Bliss.

Tim did gain some semblance of consciousness a couple of times but heard no screaming (other than that on TV) and went back to sleep. Eventually Taltarni tried one more time to wake Tim up. This time it was successful.

The main reason was that the first thing Tim saw, when he opened his eyes, was Taltarni's blood red arms. Then her blood red face, and her blood red legs and feet. Then he noted a whitish patch on her face. Omigod, she's got into Kajsa's makeup! Taltarni was very happy, she was beautiful!

What made Tim wonder the most was why the insides of her elbows were so red. She seemed to have concentrated on them before doing the rest of her body. The first concern, of course, was getting the camera and collecting evidence. Tim took a couple of photos and then looked for Kajsa's makeup. Amazingly, her makeup was untouched. That meant that the makeup came from somewhere else ... which must mean - Meike! But Meike said that Taltarni had not been in her room. Hm, another mystery!

After Taltarni had been showered (getting most but by no means all of the red stuff off), Tim took her downstairs to search for whatever she had been playing with. By this time, Tim, although not an expert on makeup, was pretty sure that she had been using lipstick. He had visions of the scene downstairs - red lipstick on the walls, red lipstick on the floors, red lipstick on all the furniture, you know, general carnage. It was quite the opposite. There was a small area where there was a little bit of lipstick on the couch, a fair amount of baby powder and a few red finger marks, no wholesale lipstick graffiti and everything else was quite tidy.

The main problem confronting Tim was that there was no lipstick to be found. He had visions of it all happening again when Taltarni found the lipstick later. He searched and searched, under the couch, in the toy cupboard, on the table, upstairs, downstairs. He questioned Kalle, who said that Taltarni had put it away quickly so pappa wouldn't be angry. Actually, surprisingly enough, Tim was quite calm and collected about it. It must have been that extra rest he got.

Eventually he rang Kajsa to see if she knew of what it could be. "Lipstick." - Yes. "I only have one lipstick, the expensive one. It should be on the vanity." - Ah, the vanity where Taltarni can reach it. "Yes, that vanity."

Mystery solved, Tim thought - but it wasn't. Taltarni had not found the expensive lipstick. It was still there, safe and sound. So where had she found the lipstick and more importantly, where was it now?

When trying to put the clues together it is good to not ignore the clues given to you, even if they are provided by a five year old who is sometimes given to flights of imagination.

In the downstairs toilet, there is a cupboard above the cistern. A little person can reach the cupboard by standing on the toilet. In the cupboard was a lipstick which had been left at our place some time and no-one has claimed (or will now be able to). There was also a small container of baby powder. Both, which were now empty, had been returned to their rightful place by Taltarni. She may be destructive, she may make a real mess of herself, but she's great about putting things away. In the cupboard was one other item that made everything else make sense.

It was a tube of Bepanthan.

Bepanthan is a salve which sooths itching and fixes dry skin. Taltarni gets eczema on the insides of her elbows. She knew that the cupboard was where the Bepanthan was kept, so, feeling itchy, she decided to self-medicate. The only trouble is, not yet being three, she couldn't open the tube. Not to put off by this technicality, she decided to use whatever else was around. Namely, lipstick and baby powder. She had taken the lipstick and rubbed it on her arms, then her legs and finally her face and body. Once she had used it all up she neatly put it back.

When Kajsa came home that evening, her first response was, Oh no, look she's had an allergic reaction!

"Lipstick is red, älskling. Red lipstick doesn't come off that easily." - Oh, yes, that's right.

An event so rare that it is worth noting happened later that day. Kajsa bestowed on Tim what could, in some circumstances, pass for a compliment. Apparently, she and Anna Carin had been talking about their respective spouses and came up with the conclusion that Tim and Staffan were not "little old men" and that that was good. For some reason, Kajsa thought that Tim would be happy to know that. Actually, Tim was appalled to think that there was any doubt in the first place.

Being told "You know, we were talking about you and we decided that you're not a little old man! Isn't that good!" is equivalent to something along the lines of "You know, you're not really that fat!" How well would that go down as a compliment to the average wife or girlfriend?

"You know, dear, I was just checking out your figure and I thought you'd like to know that there are some women who are saggier than you are!" or "No, really, while it wouldn't look good at all on normally shaped people, that dress suits you very well!"

That evening, as already alluded to, we went to the absolutely massive St Patrick's day bash at Glenn and Vicky's house. We had to go early as Tim was responsible for taking some Oirish music (U2, The Cranberries, Sinéad O'Connor, Mike Oldfield). Tim was devastated to find that Rum, Sodomy and the Lash by the Pogues seems to be missing. Hopefully, it is with the stuff we have in storage (and we hope all the other missing albums are also in storage).

Anyway, we got to the party early and we stayed forever. Tim suffered terribly for two reasons. One, to be in the right spirit he wore a green pair of shoes (a very nice birthday present, $99 on special, Thammie has a pair). They are boaters and not conducive to long periods of standing up in. By about 10pm he was wanting to go home and soak his feet. He couldn't because of reason number two, Kajsa decided that it was Tim's turn to drive. This is the logic, "You drive home and I'll get up early in the morning!" - So, I stay sober, you get drunk and then when you're suffering in the morning all bets are off?

Tim stayed sober. Kajsa got drunk.

Staying sober is rather depressing when you are at a St Pat's party and you're standing around in shoes that make your feet ache. Tim entertained himself by getting into to light-hearted but deep discussions with various drunk people (including a long dissertation on why it is good to not have opinions). Kajsa got into her "I am very serious and what I have to say is very important and you will listen" mode. In this mode, Kajsa talks like a repressed Italian (there is some arm waving but it remains close to the body), she fixes you with her steely (well, glassy actually) eye and talks without breathing for periods of up to twenty minutes.

Tim knows this because he was trying to get her attention at one point when there were only a half dozen people left at the party, us, Andy Mierisch and his wife Karen (who Kajsa had cornered) and Tony and Shosh. Shosh was plastered and was in party mode because she is on night shift and these were her waking hours. Tony wanted to go home (actually Vicky and Glenn wanted us to go home too). Tim had been keen to go home earlier but was getting a second wind. Kajsa was incommunicado, she was talking but no-one else was.

Eventually, she took a breath and Tim and Shosh were able to let her know what the new plan was. The next problem was getting two drunk women out of the house and in the car.

It should be noted that the following statement is only Tim's opinion:

Women cannot just walk out of a house. It's impossible. He's not sure why, but he suspects that it might be some sort of primitive instinct to check for any left-over berries or perhaps lost children. Anyway, there is some sort of arcane women's business that needs to be performed before leaving any house. During this period, Tim and Tony stood around talking about how this happened every time they were supposed to leave somewhere.

But that's not all. Even when the secret stuff (also known in some circles as dithering) is finished you've still got to get out the door, then there are the air kisses, the promises ("We really must do something, sometime!"), the standing around on the steps saying "Well, we really must be off now!" and finally the waving and yelling of "Bye!" just to make sure that the neighbours are really pissed off.

Then, and only then, you'll be ready to get in the car. Of course you can't just jump in the car. There is the "You go in the front!" "Oh, no, you go in the front!" "But I'm shorter than you, you need the leg room!" "I'll be alright!" "Well you sit behind me and I'll put the seat forward as much as I can! Have you got enough room?" "Yes, I'm fine." "I'll move the seat forward." "That's not necessary." "It's no trouble. How's that?" "It's fine, I'm really fine, don't worry about it!" "I'll bring the back of the seat forward." "No, please, I beg of you, don't touch the seat....."

So, we were off and headed into town to go have a drink and listen to some music and (in the case of Kajsa and Shosh and, to a lesser extent, Tony) talk drunkenly about important stuff. We decided to go to Ozio's because that was the only place that we knew that might be open at that time in the morning, as it was getting on for 2am. It also has a slightly older crowd, rather than being full of teeny-rappers.

We never made it. We got close. We were across the road from it, shivering in the cold. We had been to the auto-teller and had money. We were all set. As usual, there was one minor problem ...

Shosh was quite drunk, so drunk in fact that for a short period she got confused about the traffic and started to cross the road against the red light. She had after checked that the road was clear - but in the wrong direction. A couple of cars were barreling towards her and the bastards didn't swerve and they didn't slow down. Fortunately, Shosh did and all that happened was that her shoes got run over.

Still, it scared the daylights out of us. Tony drew the line right there and then and demanded that they go home, now! Shosh wasn't deterred by the incident but the rest of us decided to call it a night.

While we slept that night, both of us dreamed that Shosh actually got hit by the car. Not pleasant.

(Bonus joke: Why did the medium cross the road with her eyes closed?

To get the Other Side! Ha ha ha ha KADUNK, KADUNK.)

The next day, we were both very tired. Very little really happened, Tim lay on the basement floor for a while, until the kids found him (blasted kids). In the evening we even got out of having to cook because Jill and David were too tired from a busy week to cook and did the sensible thing, they ordered in Chinese. We took over some beer and cider and vegged out.

The next day, Tim went up to Rhode Island. Usually getting to the airport is not much of a big deal. We have an open contract with a car service that picks you up and drops you off at the airport any time of the day and meets you on your return to take you home. The problem is that the least expensive airport to fly out of is also the furthest away and the car trip costs $100 - each way!

Dave Wakeling (Ed Lawler’s replacement for people who haven’t been keeping track) is the consummate supply officer and didn’t like the fact that it was costing the Australian tax-payer so much. Unfortunately, after telling Tim this, he then headed off for Canada (or some such) for approximately seven weeks to study the mating habits of kodiak bears (or maybe to discuss Naval Training, it was one or the other). That meant that a viable alternative to the limo service had not been established.

So, Tim rang around and eventually found a less expensive method of transportation. Namely a shared van, called a Super-shuttle, which would pick him up four hours before the plane departed. Super-shuttles are absolutely huge blue vans, guided (note not driven, but guided) by insane "pilots" with a lot to say. Fortunately there were a group of girls picked up after Tim so he was not the sole target for "Anthony"’s personal service. The other positive aspect was that, despite some close calls, the van did not embed itself in any passing trucks on the way to Baltimore.

After arriving in Providence, RI, Tim headed off confidently for Newport (original home of the Australia’s Cup). He confidently drove straight past the road to Newport and was heading off to New York State before realising that it had been a long time since he saw any signs for his destination and, hey, not only that but the road number has changed.

It is indeed fortunate that Tim has no godly powers because, if he did, there would be some major parts of New England missing. Basically, he got more and more pissed off during his days away because signage in New England is even worse than other parts of the country. At one point he drove down a major road on the island that is Rhode Island proper (as opposed to Rhode Island State which includes some mainland as well) for six miles before there was any indication of what road he was on, despite having passed two dozen or more intersections. He got more and more frustrated and then, a short while later, got messed about in a little squalid town in Massachusetts called Fall River (more like Foul River!) Anyway, if he had had the power, he would have sentenced Rhode Island, Fall River and Boston (on an earlier offence) to be expunged for Crimes against Humanity subcategory Inadequate Signage. This would have been very sad because Rhode Island is very pretty.

It seems we are ahead of the story somewhat. When Tim finally got to Newport he checked out the tourist magazine and noticed that there was a place that had poker machines. Very interesting, considering his last adventure in Las Vegas. He decided that he would do the sensible thing and get the gambling out of his system as his first priority.

Well, imagine how happy he was when, after initially losing $17, he won $80 something. And then later he won $250 and then $79 and then $250 again, with a bunch of smaller wins in between! He walked out of the place four hundred dollars richer than when he walked in. (Yes, you're right, it doesn’t add up. Some money was re-invested.)

The next night he went back and cured his gambling bug for the week with a cold loss of $80. Still it wasn’t bad to walk away $320 up on the deal and the killing of the gambling bug allowed him to spend more time doing other things in his spare time, like sleeping.

Actually, he did his best sleeping during the day. This was partly due to a mild flu and partly due to terrible sleep during the night. One day he decided to miss a couple of inconsequential sessions (something about computer graphics and a repeat of a topic he had heard about before) because his headache wasn’t responding to medication. He lay down to rest at 10:30am, with CNN blaring in the background, and woke at 2:30pm. He really needed the rest but, sadly, the flu still lingered for a few days afterwards.

The other things he did was drive around the island, looking at the cottages (read absolutely huge manor houses), drive around looking for cinemas (cursing about lack of signage) and attend a dinner at Lady Astor’s Beechwood. Beechwood is one of the Rhode Island cottages, a stately manor which was owned by, you guessed it, Lady Astor of the Astor family. Apparently, some of the Astors were aboard the Titanic (Colonel Astor and his second wife and their retainers). The males never made it off the ship (nor did their dog - although gender was not specified, it was an Airedale who had been named Kitty and it probably wanted to die).

The house is maintained in museum condition and prior to dinner there was an interactive self guided tour. What this means is that you could wander around the house and talk with actors who were portraying family and friends of the Astors in each of the rooms.

They were stuck in the year 1891 and knew nothing of modern inventions which they played on often. "Hello sir, George Gray, pleased to meet you. May I ask where you are from, I can’t say I recognise you?" - Washington. "How fascinating, you must know President Harrison then? How did you get here?" - Ah, by car and plane. "Car, plane? I have no idea what you are talking about. Please explain, this is very fascinating."

The actors were quite good at their roles but Tim was pretty sure that none of them knew enough about Australia to actually ask him where he came from (that is, did Australia exist in 1891? – There was no need to be embarrassed really as many Australians would get the answer wrong too.)

They were all very big on the startling new research just released by Harvard which stated that women who thought too much were at risk of significantly shortening their lives. (Don’t say you weren’t warned.) One woman was playing a character who was a bit of a rebel and liked to ride her horse like a man (that means "not side-saddle", there is no rude implication). She was quick to note that she had had garments specially designed to cover her ankles. "Not that that should be such a problem, after all once you’ve seen one set of ankles you’ve seen them all, that’s what I always say!"

She was kind enough to teach us a bit of the languages of the fan and the face, essential parts of the courtship ritual in the 1891 social scene. It is a bit complicated to repeat here but for starters, be careful about winking and if you must wink, make sure you use the correct eye.

There was something else that Tim did while he was away. That’s right. He got a haircut.

Oh, alright. And he ceased shaving for a few days.

Why? Because it was less permanent than getting a tattoo. A bit of a crisis thing, Hertz wouldn’t let him have a sports-car and he had to make do with a Mazda 626.

Anyway, he got a haircut. And he stopped shaving. And he noticed two things as a result.

It has been noticed before that Tim is becoming, ahem, more interesting. Forehead enhanced. Follically challenged.

During the previous unshaved weekend, Kajsa had made an unkind (but nevertheless true) observation about Tim’s facial growth. She noticed that it was growing out grey. Tim realised that this was a rather vicious attempt to make him shave on weekends and responded in the most sensible way, he decided to surprise Kajsa by returning home with a distinguished (not to mention bushy) beard. (For those who don’t know, Kajsa hates beards. Tim had one only once before during the time he has known her and it was while he was away at sea.)

Seeing his beard grow out during the week, Tim came to the conclusion that there was a full scale race on, between his burgeoning forehead and his increasingly distinguished look. (Women who become grey look old, men who become silver haired look distinguished, a sad but inescapable fact.)

The fact that he is becoming more interesting is not a big problem, per se. Becoming more distinguished is not a big problem, per se. The problem is that, during the period of transition, the person undergoing the transition is neither distinguished nor particularly interesting. Almost everyone else that Tim knows had had a quick transition to either interestingness or distinguishment (a new word, coined here for the very first time).

Either that or they were already as old as the hills when Tim first met them (like Russell and Simon) and hence their hair was age appropriate.

By way of example, Steve Gatward quickly transitioned to the distinguished stage, after one haircut he had a perceptibly lighter shade of black to his hair and after the next he was as grey as Bob Hawke when he gave up drinking. Actually, by amazing co-incidence, Steve turned grey about the same time he got married. We are reliably informed (by Jeremy) that Tim’s brother (Jeremy) turned grey over night. Bruce McCarthy, once he got his act going, became interesting very quickly.

Phil Anderson made two transitions, first to distinguished and then to interesting. Actually, now that we think about it, there are always exceptions to the rule but the bottom line is that Phil turned grey and got bald QUICKLY.

All Tim wants to know is, why the shilly shallying around? Why the big lead up? Either go grey or go away. None of this mucking about thinning out or greying gracefully. Just do what you have to do, but get it over and done with. "… and then we can all get some sleep!" Ha ha ha.

This is bad enough but there is another element which has emerged. It is no longer just a race between the hair turning grey before it falls out or the hair falling out before it has the chance to turn grey. There is a third competitor. Well, perhaps it is just that one of the competitors has decided to attack on two fronts.

After the haircut, Tim was looking down at the hair on his lap, of which approximately half was white. The hairdresser took a mirror to show him the cut from behind and Tim saw something that he has never seen before. The back of his head. You might think that he has seen the back of his head before but he hasn’t. It was always obscured by hair. This time, he saw a distinctly lighter patch which, under later scrutiny in the hotel room, was revealed to be due to light gleaming off his scalp. You think they were shocked when they found out about the ozone layer!

Now Tim has the emergence of a bald patch to worry about. Just a day after sitting in a conference looking at a vast array of bald patches thinking, "I am so glad I don’t have one of those!"

Tim's options are limited. He could become Jewish (the little skull cap would solve the problem at least until the patch meets up with the forehead). He could shave everything off (probably not allowed by the Navy and most definitely not allowed by Kajsa). He could adopt a crew cut (very close to option 2 and has been done before, it didn’t look good then and there is no reason to assume it will look any better now).

Alternatively, he could buy spray paint that matches his hair colour and apply touch-ups every morning (hm, now that's promising!). He could cunningly comb his hair in a strategic circular fashion to cover the patch (experiments indicate that Tim's hair won’t go along with this cunning plan, the few remaining wisps are far more interested in poking out like a cockie’s crest than covering up the absence of their erstwhile colleagues).

Or, and this is the most likely of the lot, he could join a Bald Pride movement. More specifically, the Bald Pride movement that has a motto along the lines of: "I’m not completely bald, in fact I’m not really bald at all just thinning a bit, but I am, slowly, very slowly, getting there, and, by god, I, eventually, may be, at some time in the future, possibly, to a certain extent, bald and I’m proud as punch and I’m going to be so goddamn proud to be completely bald, if I ever am!" Of course, in reality, Tim will represent a rather small splinter group of the Bald Pride movement (the splinter group that girls still talk to).

Enough about Tim. Let’s ignore him for a while and talk about what Kajsa did. She went with Kalle on a field trip to see signs of spring and she had a shopping day in which she bought lots of great stuff (including an outdoor furniture setting). Well, that's enough about Kajsa!

Kalle was very excited the day Tim got home. Not so much because Tim got home but more because Johan was staying over. Actually, Jesper came for dinner as well so that Anna Carin and Staffan could have a nice dinner together. They picked Jesper up later and Johan stayed. Kalle was very impressed with his first sleep-over.

On the last Saturday, Kalle went to one of the huge productions that substitute for birthday parties here. Rather than have a group of screaming kids in the house eating cake and sweets and playing games, Elias Cajet's parents had a group of screaming kids at a Pizza Hut (eating pizza, naturally) after which they descended on a tae-kwon-do place where they screamed and ran about with a martial arts instructor. Kalle had a great time. The most important part was the gift giving. Can anyone guess what he gave Elias? We'll give y'all a hint. Starts with B, first word rhymes with "cat", second word rhymes with "can".

And then Kajsa got old.

Yet again, most of you forgot Kajsa's birthday. This one was a big one, the day that she officially became middle aged (three score and ten years [the measure of a man's life according to the Old Testament] is seventy - 35 is half that therefore, if you are 35, you must be middle-aged). Actually, it was the first birthday that Kajsa began to feel old. Oh well, it'll happen to us all eventually.

On the day before Kajsa's birthday, Tim and the kids picked her up from work. It was late by this time and neither of us felt like going home and cooking so we decided to go to a restaurant instead. We ended up at the Lone Star Steak House, eating steaks. One of the trademarks of the LSSH was that you got served peanuts while you waited for a table and you could throw the shells on the floor (a bit like the Raffles bar in Singapore but the drinks are cheaper). That didn't last long in the land of the litigious. Somebody sued for something, either slipping on the peanut shells or nearly choking on a peanut and now it is all gone. Now, if only somebody could go into an epileptic fit due to the country music they insist on constantly playing ...

Part of the reason that Tim was late picking up Kajsa was that he was totally disorganised about buying presents. He just didn't seem to ever get the time to duck away and buy something. Therefore, during the time that he should have being picking Kajsa up, Tim was trying to find her a present.

In the land of choice, do you think that you would be able to find a nice picnic hamper? Do you think that the average person knows what a picnic hamper is? Do you think that the average person knows what a picnic is? He went all over the place. Try as he might, he could not find anything that day and so he was destined to wake up the next morning with very few presents for Kajsa (good presents but not what he was trying to find).

Kalle had already given Kajsa one present, he had got her a video which had been carefully selected for wide appeal - namely "Dragon Heart". It was presented early, the weekend before, so that Kalle could watch it and to make sure that he had limited time to spill the beans given that he was so keen to see it himself. Anyway, to make sure that he still had something to give to mamma on her birthday, Tim took Kalle on some creative shopping. One concern that Kalle had was that Kajsa was going to be old on her birthday and that her hair would turn grey (now where would he get that idea from?)

The solution was paint. Well not paint, dye perhaps.

Tim and Kalle took Taltarni to a beauty shop where they went up and down the hair-dye aisle looking for a colour that was just right. Rather than go for something radically different, Kalle was fixed on making sure that his mamma would have the same hair colour as before. No matter how much Tim tried to persuade him to go for something like "Autumn Russet" or "Mojave Sand" or that fake burgundy red that he finds strangely alluring, Kalle wanted the Mouse Blonde (or something like that) that Kajsa acquires during the winter months.

So, on Kajsa's birthday, she got videos and more videos (Dragon Heart, The Princess Bride, My Life as a Dog and Fanny and Alexander) plus a packet of hair-dye (and a huge number of gifts from Meike). Kalle was amazed and somewhat relieved to see that Kajsa's transition to grey hair wasn't as swift as he had come to believe. Kajsa also got birthday cards but only from the kids, not from Tim (he just ran out of time so he'll make up by buying two next year).

Being the stubborn type that he is, Tim didn't give up while there was a still glimmer of hope (it was technically Kajsa's birthday and there is no law saying that you have to get your present first thing in the morning). He continued to search for picnic hampers, even resorting to checking out the internet. There are a few hampers on offer from various people but they tend to be prefilled baskets of goodies. Finally, he mentioned his dilemma to someone in the office (Greg Tindall) who knew a store that sold proper picnic hampers. Not only that, but the store was within easy walking distance of the Embassy. Tim checked it out and found that they had exactly what he was after. So, he snapped it up, filled it up with goodies from Fresh Fields (a gourmet grocery chain) and took it home.

The weather that evening was glorious so we were able to have a sort of impromptu picnic on the balcony. All-in-all, it was one of Kajsa's most pleasant birthdays.

An honest to god real conversation on a train:

"He was so, like, you know, like, whatever!"

"I can't believe that!"

"Yeah, what about my needs?"

Two young women desperately seeking closure.

From the "Only in America" files:

Let's say that you were psychotic. Let's say that you were seeing a psych about it. Let's say that the therapy wasn't going too well and you went a little off the rails and killed a couple of people. Let's say that you went to court and were found not guilty by reason of insanity.

What do you do? Of course, you sue the psychiatrist. How much would you get? Try $500,000.

Not bad for a day's work!

At sometime during the month, Tim and Scott (the technical wiz and person who Tim gets a lift with to and from work) saw Bob Dole. There was surprisingly little security for such an important person. Anyway, neither Tim nor Scott knew who he was at the time, we just recognised him as someone important (like a Presidential contender).

What was he doing? Just standing around on the corner seeing what came up.

Almost forgot. Another war started during the month.