The American Adventure - Vol 23

1 - 30 April 99

If you want to go straight to Vol 24, you may do so now!

...

We may need to do a stream of consciousness type thing for April. There was much drama and the high emotions have made remembering the details a little difficult. The good thing about this is that the chapter might be substantially shorter than previous months. Then again, we've been trying to keep all of them manageably short ...

The first thing to hit us during the month was the fact that our posting here in the States is drawing inexorably to a close. That's right, we can't stay here for forever, we have to go home and not only that, we have to go home earlier than expected. Not for any good reason but basically because the Director of Naval Officer's Postings seems to have a little willy battle going. Just precisely with whom he is having this battle is not clear.

But we are digressing, so let's go back and explain how it all happened.

Petra and Hans are the ones who are really to blame, obviously. They came up with the idea of us renting a house on an island in the Bahamas (which we now know to be called Man-o'-War Island) for New Year's Eve. Great idea.

Petra and Hans took their kids down to the Island a couple of months ago and (despite a heavy schedule something along the lines of:

0900 get up

1000 walk to beach

1001 arrive at beach

1001 (plus one second) find space on beach

1002 lie down on beach

1200 roll over

1300 think about lunch

1301 think "bugger it"

1400 roll over again

1500 go in water

1501 discover water (at about 20 degrees C) is uncomfortably cold

1502 decide to go back home

1505 down first of fifteen piña coladas for the evening)

they were able to book us a house. (Note that we may have been unfair about their adventures in the Bahamas. Hans was trying to arrange with the Governer - house two doors down, the place with the coconuts out the front - for a work permit so that he could be the doctor for Man-o'war and neighbouring islands. Oh, and there was the occasional variation to the schedule:

0830 get up

0900 go down to marina

0905 get in boat

0915 arrive at beach on neighbouring island

0916 find space on beach

0917 lie down on beach

and so on until ...

1501 find that water is still unacceptably cold

1502 get back in boat

1530 get home and find that schedule has slipped

1535 down two double piña coladas in quick succession.)

There will be some photos of the house here soon, stay tuned for that one!

Okay, where were we? That's right - we have a house booked for us to stay in over New Year's. We were advised to book early for the flights down as they would go very quickly and the price for remaining seats would most likely go up to astronomical levels later in the year. So Tim checked out the prices. They were high. Not extremely high but unlike his normal flights around North America, we were going to have to pay for them so they hurt more. There was one nagging little problem. Tim had not heard from his poster in quite a while. It was entirely possible that he could get a posting back to Australia in December of this year and the air tickets to the Bahamas were non-refundable and couldn't be changed to another date.

So Tim did the sensible thing, he rang the poster and asked about when he was likely to be posted back. "Ooh," said the poster, "I hadn't thought about you for a while, let me see, oh I suppose I should advertise your job at the end of the month, with you coming back here sometime at the end of the year." Tim told him about the plans and the poster said that he could arrange for the posting not to happen until January at the earliest. - So, what have you got lined up for me? "Nothing at the moment, there are some jobs around." - Why don't you leave me here until the end of 2000?

How the conversation went after that is a historical anomoly. What the poster said and what Tim thought he said and what a tape recorder would tell us was said would probably be three different things. The bottom line is that Tim is convinced that there was no job lined up for him at this point of time. He told the poster that he would get a letter from the Naval Attache recommending that he stay in the US until the end of 2000 and that was the end of the conversation.

Tim did the little staff officer thing and got a letter together for the Naval Attache's signature, which in the final draft said that, at worst, we should be posted back no earlier than the middle of 2000.

Once it was signed, sealed and posted, if not actually delivered. Tim phoned the poster again and asked about what sorts of jobs were available for his next posting, given that the poster had had some time to think about it. The poster did have something in mind and, while this might be another of these historical anomolies, Tim recalls the poster telling him that, soon after the first phone-call, details about a new position came across his desk (note the word after) and he, the poster, thought that it would be a good one for Tim. Something in Sydney with DSTO, a job that had recently got a raise in profile and importance. Hm, raised profile, that means that it was a low profile backwater job before and may now be no more than a backwater job with a slightly higher profile.

On reflection, the job itself did sound okay, it was just that accomodation in Sydney would be a major issue for Kajsa and she would much prefer to go back to Canberra (to our home). Eventually, Kajsa came around to the conclusion that she could live in Sydney, it was just that she couldn't bear to live in the outer west (which is where most of the Defence accommodation is). So, Tim rang the poster and gave his proposal - guarantee that we won't be placed in the outer west and I'll do the job. The poster said that he couldn't promise anything so Tim said, sorry, he couldn't do the job. The poster seemed to be happy with that and he talked with Tim about possible Canberra jobs. At the moment nothing is settled, other than the next posting will be in either Sydney or Canberra.

The reason that Sydney remains an option is that there is a good job in Sydney which has a duty requirement. This means that we would have to live within half an hour of HMAS Kuttabul in Potts Point. No way we could live in the outer west - perfect!

A short while after the Naval Attache returned from Australia, during which he says he argued valiantly for us to remain here for as long as possible, Tim got a letter.

The letter said that the Naval Attache's position was acknowledged but LCDR Pyatt is urgently required back in Australia to fill a new very important position in DSTO (Sydney). So sorry.

This was a fascinating letter given that the poster had been unphased by the fact that Tim had refused the posting (as a potential marriage killer) and, as Tim had discovered, the position that he was "urgently required" for was vacant and had been so for a long time. Don't forget that the job wasn't even known about until after Tim called poster the first time. In other words, it was total BS. They had decided that he was coming home and they weren't going to be swayed by logical argument.

The annoying thing is that if Tim hadn't called to make sure that there wouldn't be a problem with the Bahamas trip, the poster would probably have been happy to leave us here as long as we kept quiet. So, as we said, it's Hans and Petra's fault.

The first event of note to occur during the month was the arrival of Tim from Germany, Meike's boyfriend. He came for a couple of weeks, arriving on Good Friday and leaving on the 15th. He was very clean and quiet and he brought lots of chocolate so he was a very welcome house-guest (any people who are planning to visit should take note of this).

In America, despite being very religious, they don't celebrate Easter with a public holiday. Luckily the Embassy does so Tim got to have a long weekend. On his first day off, Tim took the kids to do some chores (Kajsa figured that he should be given a long list of things to do just to make sure it didn't feel anything like a holiday because she wasn't getting one). There were a lot of tasks but the most important were "get Kalle's soccer stuff", "buy a kite" (to replace the one that Kajsa lost) and "get rid of tyres".

The first task was simple to accomplish, the last two were not.

On the one day last autumn that was sufficiently windy that you could get a kite into the air, Kajsa managed to let go of the Batman kite that Kalle was so very proud of and it was eaten by a tree. She immediately promised to get him a replacement. The kite had cost all of $3 so it's cost was not an issue, the big problem was getting enough time to go to a store and buy a new one.

At the apparent rate of inaction, absolutely no action in six months, it seemed that it was never going to happen, so Tim decided that as it was now getting windy (spring is like that here) he would go and get Kalle a good kite.

He took the kids to Sports Authority so that he could also get the bits needed for Kalle's soccer.

While there, Tim came up with the brilliant idea of buying Kalle a better kite. Not some crappy fragile plastic one. A real man's kite.

Eventually, after tracking down a sales associate, he located the rack where they had hidden kites. Now check the name of the store. Yep, "Sports Authority".

So what sort of kites do you think they would sell at the Sports Authority? Aha, you got it! "Sports" kites.

For the uninitiated, sports kites are complicated beasts which come with two strings rather than one. Both these strings need to be co-ordinated in order to get the kite into the air. If you don't have that much co-ordination, the kite doesn't stay in the air that long. What it tends to do is plummet towards the ground and make a horizontal swoop at the last moment.

What, you may ask, is the purpose of this last-moment swoop? The idea is to take out innocent by-standers, either with the strings or, if you are lucky, with the body of the kite. It seems to be some sort of bizarre martial arts weapon and can be very dangerous in the hands of beginners as Tim proved on the grounds just near the Washington Memorial. It is only through pure luck that you have not read in the papers some story with the headline "Australian decapitates 4 at Washington Memorial, Baby gouged by Kite". Kajsa was not impressed and did a lot of shouting until Tim was shamed enough to put the kite away.

To be fair (on the kite), Tim noticed after this little incident that there is another way to assemble the kite that allows for better air flow over the lifting surfaces. Amazingly enough, he found this out by reading the instructions. On a later test of the kite, he found that it worked much much better when properly constructed.

Of course, after he made these modifications, Tim had an overwhelming urge to rush out and test it but he needed a good reason. Fortunately he had a good reason.

The sports kite is too complex for a five year old to handle (let alone a two and a half year old) so Tim still had not completed his original mission (to get a replacement for Kalle's Batman kite). They went to Toys R Us where they had crappy fragile plastic kites, very flimsy and badly made but boy do they fly well. Immediately after getting Kalle's new kite (a Spiderman one), Tim took the kids to a park to conduct test flights.

Basically it was "Okay let's test Spiderman, oh look there it is, it works, now let's test pappa's little baby!"

A little bit of advice for parents out there. Don't try flying sports kites when you have kids around. Remember the bit about the kamikaze tendencies of the sports kite? They aren't completely the result of alternative kite construction strategies. Even as you become more skilled with them, sports kites remain potentially lethal. Not only that but the kite can and does leap up off the ground after a plummet and the resultant twisting of strings can make it very hard to control. Another aspect which is hard to control is the kids.

"Sit behind me, stay there. Don't get up, stay there. No, Kalle, leave it, Kalle come back here, I don't want you to help!"

The kite had tumbled out of the air and was at the very end of the strings which remained taut, Kalle ran towards it and the kite leapt up into the air and swooped towards him. Fortunately the body of the kite missed Kalle but the string caught him on the edge of the eye and he had a little rope burn there for a few days. Ever try explaining that sort of thing to your ever-suffering wife? For some reason the exclamation "But the point his, it didn't gouge out his eye!" doesn't seem to have much calming effect. As they say here, go figure!

Okay, let's get back to the tasks Tim had on Good Friday. He bought soccer stuff and the wrong kite, the other important task was to get rid of the tyres.

It is now time for an admission.

Wolfgang is not completely gone. Not only is his number plate still around somewhere but his tyres are here with us in Virginia. Strange you might think, why did Tim keep Wolfgang's tyre and why are they all the way over in the US? (The quickest of you will have asked that question back in Volume 18.) Well, it's a weird story. The major problem with telling it is knowing when to start. (Note that there are a few paragraphs of background here, purists may want to skip ahead to read only America based tales.)

Wolfgang was Tim's beloved VW Passat, the second one he owned. The one he bought after Klaus (Tim's first Passat) died in a little altercation involving a few potholes, a sudden dip and an embankment on a country road near West Wyalong. The one that he used to drive Kajsa around all the time when he first met, before she bought her old Fort Escort.

Tim liked Wolfgang and that meant one thing for sure when things got serious with Kajsa - Wolfgang had to go. Kajsa tried to throw away everything Tim liked. For the most part, Tim bore this campaign of momento cleansing with dignity but he put his foot down when it came to two things - Wolfgang and his pink Kimba the White Lion t-shirt. (He wasn't actually allowed to wear the t-shirt but he got to keep it and now it is used for pajamas for Kalle and will eventually be passed down to Taltarni. It's an heirloom.)

Eventually, despite his butch stance on the matter, Kajsa was able to persuade Tim that maybe it was time that Wolfgang moved on. At first Tim only weakened a little, making some halfhearted attempts to sell him - to Phil de Chazal once and through the paper a couple of times. Once he tried to give Wolfgang to his brother, Jeremy. Jeremy gave him back.

Tim readily admits that Wolfgang had his quirks. There was a strange fault in the electrics that no-one was ever able to determine the cause of. The windscreen washers were erratic to say the least. The headlights only worked on high beam and sometimes they would stop working altogether for no apparent reason. You could only get them going again by gently stroking fuse number 8. For a while there was a switch on the dashboard that you had to flick to make the engine stop running because otherwise it just kept motoring on even after you took the keys out. Tim figured that it wasn't good for Wolfgang's engine to have to stall every time to get him to stop and there was that unnerving leap against the parking brake forward everytime you parked, just before the engine cut out. Not good when parking near a Porche 911 Turbo, like the first time the problem manifested!

For a long time you used a pair of long nosed pliers to get Wolfgang to start and stop because the key-ignition had fallen out (for some reason, no-one took this opportunity to steal him). Once the brakes were so bad on him that the poor bunny taking him in to get fixed was sworn at by the repair man (lucky Jeremy!) Another time, Wolfgang had grass growing in the front seat passenger footwell because Phil de Chazal (who was looking after him while Tim was at sea) had left the window open when it rained and then disappeared to New Zealand for a fortnight. The neighbours kept putting notes on the car saying that they were going to get the council to drag the car away.

While we are being brutally honest, there were a couple of times when Tim had dreams of taking to Wolfgang with a sledgehammer, a can of petrol and a match. Like when it seemed to all intents and purposes that Wolfgang had a special link to Tim's bank account and was able to suffer some sort of catastrophic failure everytime he had scraped a few dollars together. But, despite all that, there were many happy memories, all those long trips between Sydney and Melbourne and Sydney and Canberra and Tim really liked that car.

When the posting to United States came up, Tim saw that the writing was on the wall. He started trying to sell Wolfgang in earnest. First he tried ringing around the VW dealers - what would they give for a 1980 VW Passat? Tim very quickly determined that he was not going to sell Wolfgang that way. So, he went to Plan B. He rang around all the wreckers and asked what they would give for a 1980 Passat. The usual response was "Ha ha mate, you gotta be kidding." The closest he got to a positive response was when he rang somewhere that specialised in VW parts (motto - "We will buy any VW from 1945 to present models!"). The guy said "Hang on, I'll ask the boss. .... Nope, not interested, thanks." At least there was a short period when Tim could fantasize that he was going to get a yes (Change that motto to "We will buy any VW from 1945 to present models with the obvious exception of Passats!").

Finally, Tim resorted to calling scrap metal merchants. Even they weren't overly keen. Finally, he found someone who would come and pick Wolfgang up and take him away to be turned into a little cube. "We'll come get it tomorrow," they said. - How much? Tim asked. "Oh don't worry about that, we'll do it for free."

Tim could hardly believe his ears. These cold-hearted bastards were going to take Tim's pride and joy and squeeze him into something near the size of Darryl Eastlake (well, perhaps a little smaller) and they weren't willing to fork over a few dollars to ease the pain.

Tim wouldn't have been happy with this under the best of circumstances, but there was one additional factor ...

Tim had only recently accompanied Paul on a little odyssey to sell his Holden Camira to the wreckers. After much driving around in some very dodgy parts of Sydney, Paul walked away sans car with no more $50 in his hand to show for it. Tim thought this was very funny and he was stupid enough to laugh out loud about it. Of course, as a result of this he was now committed to getting more than $50 for Wolfgang - even if it was as little as $75, even if it was no more than $55.

But no-one was willing to pay for Wolfgang, the people who eventually took him away made it sound like they were doing us a favour by not charging for services rendered.

One of the galling things was that Tim had just filled the tank (there's $30 for you). Another was that the tyres were almost brand new. He had an idea. The people coming to get the car had said that it wasn't necessary to be at home when they came because they would just pick the car up with a crane and put it on the back of a flat-bed truck. Therefore - the car didn't need to have the wheels on it. The sale of five second hand tyres, plus the value of the petrol has got to be worth more than $50! Ta da!

After that brainwave, Tim rushed home early so that he'd have enough daylight hours to achieve his mission.

The first effort, rescuing the petrol, was a dismal failure. In case anyone was wondering, petrol tastes disgusting. If you happen to get some in your mouth, the taste takes ages to go away and it has been noted that "prolonged exposure to (petrol) fumes causes cancerous growths in rodents". Tim quickly came to the realisation that he would gladly pay $30 not to have to taste petrol again, ever. On to the tyres.

When you are sweating and straining at getting the ridiculously tight wheelnuts off not one but four wheels, you have some time to think. Your mind wanders. You might start to think, for example, about the very old fridge in the laundry which broke down a short while ago and which you need to get rid of. You might think about how your car is a station wagon and it is going to be taken away tomorrow by scrap metal merchants. You might reflect that the fridge is largely made of metal.

If your very good friends, Paul and Helena, dropped by, you'd certainly try to enlist their help in moving the fridge and putting it into the car - wouldn't you?

The fridge, as mentioned, was very old. So old that they probably built it entirely out of cast iron. It certainly felt like it. We quickly established that the fridge was so frigging heavy that there was no chance that we would be able to move it.

Well, we couldn't move it in one piece.

If we took it to bits and we would have a proposition on our hands. We spent the next two hours breaking the fridge into small pieces and carrying the pieces out to Wolfgang (who was wheel-less and being held up on eight bricks). God knows what the neighbours thought of the performance!

Anyway, for the remainder of our time in Australia, Wolfgang's tyres graced the front steps. Tim had "take tyres to store and sell them" on his list of things to do but it was a long list and for some reason it never got done. Before we knew it, the time came to move to America. The removalists came and went - two lots actually, the ones who came to take stuff to America and the ones who came to take stuff to put in storage.

Guess which lot took the tyres? Well, we didn't know either until we got our belongings delivered over here and amongst it all were five nicely wrapped tyres all marked PYATT - WASHINGTON.

For the past year and a half Wolfgang's wheels have sat quietly in the garage. There was no plan to do anything with them. Maybe, we thought, we would leave them in the garage and let the removalists take them back to Australia and try sell them there (not much wear for the distance they've gone!)

One day, however, Tim reached saturation point vis a vis the mess in the garage and he went into a cleaning frenzy. He threw out everything that wasn't needed. It was crap liberation day. Fly, be free.

He put heaps of junk out on the kerb for the trash collectors to take away, which they dutifully did. Everything was taken - with the exception of the tyres. Why? Because, in the US, you have to pay to get rid of old tyres.

We are now back at Good Friday and Tim needs to get rid of the tyres - still with us?

Recycling is not a big thing in the States like it is in Australia or Sweden or Germany. If something is old (read "last season's") you throw it away. Meike was amazed that you just throw batteries in the rubbish here. In Germany you have to clean them meticulously, put them neatly into a special container and fill out a dozen or so pages of paperwork (actually we made that last bit up but it sounds about right).

Tyres are treated slightly differently to batteries, you can't just throw them in the trash. Apparently they cause trouble at the land fills because they aren't particularly biodegradable. In fact, they are very durable, that's one of their selling points and a very nice feature for something that you have to rely on when driving at high speeds. Not a good thing when it comes to disposing of them and in this land of opportunity the user pays for everything and in this case you have have to pay people to throw tyres away for you.

But Wolfgang's tyres were almost brand new, there's hardly any wear on them. Damned if Tim was going to pay someone to take away perfectly good tyres so they could put them into some pool of acid to render them down to their base components. There must be someone who would buy second hand tyres!

Sure enough, tucked away in the Yellow Pages, are a couple of likely sounding places. Being smart about it, Tim tried to ring the places to make sure that they would be interested. Eventually someone at one of the places within an hour's drive answered. "Sure, we'll take a look at them, just bring them in, whenever."

So, on his day off, after buying the sports kite and Kalle's soccer stuff, Tim dragged the kids off to find this place. First a bit of local geography.

We live in Great Falls, one block from a major arterial route called Route 7 (note that Americans pronounce this word as in "During the battle, the army was routed" rather than "After the battle, the soldiers were rooted"). Route 7 has various names along its length including King Street and Leesburgh Pike. Unlike in Australia, where a long road changes its numbers whenever it goes into a new suburb or it changes its name, roads in these parts are numbered in blocks which often are imaginary. That's why a street like ours which is two blocks long has number in the 9400s.

The nearest second hand tyre place (we'll just ignore their spelling) was in the 44000 block of Route 7 in Sterling. Tim headed off happily enough. That was before he thought that it was about time to check out the street numbers.

Americans really have to pick up their act in this area. Why bother giving houses and shops a number when they hardly ever bother to display it? This blatant stupidity forces everybody to come up with elaborate descriptions on how to get to their houses (past the fire station, look for the little yellow mail box on the corner then fifth house on the right) rather than something simple like, "Look for the house with 34 on the front. It's next to the one with 32 on the front."

At least, unlike when he was in Rhode Island, Tim knew he was on the right road but he drove for almost five miles without seeing any indication of what the numbers had got up to. When he finally saw a number, it was something like 13000 which meant he might have had more than 15000 lots to drive past so he gave up in disgust. Perhaps the store was in Sterling Pennsylvania, not Sterling Virginia.

State of play, tyres have sat around cluttering front porch of house in Burwood for a few weeks, travelled many thousands of kilometres to the US, sat around cluttering up the garage here for more than a year and a half and have now wasted about an hour and a half of his day off work. The sensible thing to do would be to give up and take the tyres to a normal tyre place and pay the $12.50 or so that it would cost to get the people to take them away. But that's forgeting that there's still the $50 to think about.

- "Must get more than $A50 for tyres, must get more than $A50 for tyres." It was a mantra.

The tyres stayed in the back of Rusty the whole week until the following Saturday when, after doing all Swedish school stuff and taking Kalle to his first day at soccer, Tim tried again. Another of the places that was in the Yellow Pages as a second hand tyre dealer was apparently located at "1800 Wilson Boulevarde, Arlington". This would be about a twenty minutes drive, in good conditions. In bad conditions, like there were on the day that Tim drove there, it can take forty minutes. Tim took the delays well because he knew that, by the end of the day, the saga of the tyres would be over.

The suburb of Arlington can difficult to get around. If you are just passing through and don't care what road you are on, it's fine. If you want to stay on the one road (that is a road with the same name) it can be very tricky. Sometimes the roads just stop and then pick up again a mile or so away, sometimes they dogleg and unwary drivers will suddenly find that they are on a completely different road to the one they thought they were on. Sometimes, the two-way road you are on turns into a one-way street, two or three blocks short of your objective. Wilson Boulevarde does that. No matter, we can find our way there. We'll just drive down here, take a left and another left and here we are - 1800 Wilson Boulevarde.

A nightclub. 1800 Wilson Boulevarde does not sell tyres, new or second-hand. They sell drinks and play loud music until the early hours of the morning. They weren't even open yet. Bugger bugger bugger.

Despite a rising feeling that Wolfgang has managed to reach out from the grave and mess his life about again, Tim managed to maintain composure. He just calmly started driving home. Kalle piped up from the back "Don't they want the tyres?" - No, Kalle, I doubt it.

In closing, the tyres, which wasted another couple hours of Tim's precious time that day and contributed significantly to his increasing defollicularisation, will be travelling back to Australia sometime next year where they will probably clutter up the garage of wherever we live until Tim gets around to taking them down to the nearest Goodyear (or dump). If anyone has a Passat that needs some newish tyres, just let us know.

Back to Easter.

On Saturday, after Kajsa received a visit from Deanne Inman, who generously volunteered to help Kajsa sort out her tax filing, we went to visit Helena and Thor-Björn for an Easter Egg Hunt. Even though this is not a usual Swedish tradition, it was a good excuse for a bunch of Swedes (and their partners, as appropriate) to get together, eat potatoes and get drunk. We got there sometime shortly after one in the afternoon and Tim had to almost physically drag Kajsa out as it got closer and closer to nine in the evening. (Does anyone else note a trend here?)

On Easter Sunday, after we missed church for the 91st time running since we arrived in the US, we went over to Jill and David's for another Easter Egg Hunt. Actually it was also in our garden but we only provided the real estate - they provided the candy. Well, we also provided the very important Australian beer which is highly regarded by our neighbours. In fact, it was so highly prized by David that shortly after he finished lunch he stumbled off for a little rest and promptly fell asleep in front of the TV. And snored, loudly.

Kajsa worked again on Monday, which allowed Tim (who had this day off as well) an opportunity to complete some more chores.

Spring had really arrived with a vengeance at the beginning of April. If you are not allergic to pollen, Washington is a great place to be in spring. There are blossoms everywhere and they all comes out in stages - first the tulips and daffodils, then the tree blossoms (phasing from cherry blossoms to dogwoods and some others that we don't know the names of) and finally the azaleas come out in glorious riots of colour.

Many years ago, a short time before the nastiness of World War II (1941-1945, in case you were wondering), Japan presented a number of cherry trees to the US as a gift of friendship. Obviously it wasn't long-term friendship as, at the beginning of the following decade, they bombed Pearl Harbor and a couple of years later the US obliterated two Japanese cities. Then again, the mark of a true friendship is to be able to have the occasional spat, resort to extreme violence, get over it and then go back to enjoying rather awkward trading arrangements.

Anyway ... each spring, there is a great fuss about the Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin. There is a huge lead up with people making (informed?) guesses about when the blossoms will be at their peak and how relatively good they will be as a result of the late winter/early spring weather. About 50% of the country's population descends on Washington and all the traffic in the region grinds to a halt (this might be a slight exaggeration). Despite how terrifying this sounds, Tim was able to persuade Kajsa to take Kalle out of school early on Wednesday afternoon and come into town to walk around the Tidal Basin.

There were a lot of people there, but not quite as many as we expected. The Mall is absolutely packed on Independence Day so we had witnessed huge crowds of Americans before and half expected to see something like that clustered around the Basin. Fortunately, there were only a few thousand people there, not tens of thousands. Kalle was really good and walked all the way around, which must be a couple of kilometres at least, without complaining. As a treat we took him and Taltarni to a very special McDonalds. The one that is closest to the White House - the one that the Secret Service visit when the President wants a Big Mac. Probably the only McDonalds that has portraits of all the Presidents. (Just in case you are wondering, there is a Burger King - American for Hungry Jacks - quite close to the White House also. Very useful for when the President is in need of a Big Whopper!)

The experience was so pleasant that we decided that it would be a good idea for Kajsa to come in to do things in town on a regular basis on her days off. Naturally, nothing of the sort has happened. The first opportunity that presented itself, the following Wednesday, was taken up by Tim's first golf game of the year and it just doesn't seemed to have worked out any other time for one reason or another.

The golf game, for those who are interested, was great. Not that the actual game itself was great, pathetic would be a more accurate description, but getting out of the office for a day and seeing North Virginian nature in spring was really nice. On one hole, while he waited for the group in front to play, Tim counted more than fifty turtles sunning themselves on logs in the lake.

Staffan was supposed to go as Tim's guest to the game but he pulled out the evening before. "Sorry Tim, but I can't go tomorrow, I have a meeting to prepare for later in the week and I thought I'd be able to sort everything out today but I haven't been able to, I'm very sorry." Tim tried to get him to change his mind, even pointing out that SAGA (Service Attache's Golf Association) is normally charged a fee by the golf courses for non-attendance of players once the places are booked (to be paid for the SAGA member). "I'll pay it, don't worry about that but I can't come." - OK, I'll see if I can get anyone else to come along.

Tim thought hard about whether there was anyone who did so little at work that they could drop everything at the last moment and play golf. The only person he could think of was Tony Halberg. Unfortunately, Tony had already booked himself on a course to get out of the office for a few days. Fortunately, there was no problem at the course because more people turned up that had booked and the real issue was squeezing more people in, not paying fines for too few.

It was the following week before Tim found out the real reason why Staffan had pulled out of the golf game. His mother had suddenly become seriously ill and he had to rush back to Sweden at short notice (he had a flight on the following Sunday and a pile of work to get done before that time). Being very stiff upper lip and all that, he didn't tell Tim about the situation. As a result Tim felt very guilty later on, poor Staffan was worried that his mother might be on her death bed and Tim was hassling him mercilessly about not taking a day to play golf. Oh well, the good news is that Staffan's mother recovered and Staffan is back in the good books and he'll play next month!

On the Friday - totally oblivious to events that had unfolded in Middleton, Colorado - Tim went off on a boy's night out with the Navy types and a token Army whacker. Given that at least one of the wives reads this regularly (Hi Vicky!), we cannot divulge what happened that night. Let's just say - ever wonder where that bruise came from? - or didn't he let you see it? Oh, and he's learned the lesson about apple schnapps.

The next day was tiring, Swedish School in the morning as usual after which Kajsa rushed off to work. After a complete waste of time trying to find someone to take Wolfgang's tyres, Tim headed off to Best Buy to purchase a new state-of-the-art computer that was on special. He'd read about it in the paper and was all excited, as was Kalle. They located the computer pretty quickly but it took ages before someone came to give them some help. Eventually someone from the store did come past but he was doing his best to get some other person to buy the computer that Tim was interested in. Finally the other guy left and Tim and the underling entered negotiations. - It should be $xxxx with all the bits, Tim said. "What? Let me look at that." Tim handed over the paper. "Oh that's the price tomorrow." - But I'm here today. "Well, I can sell it to you today but it will cost more." Yeah, $700 more, you 've got to be kidding. "You'll have to come back tomorrow, Sir."

The thing that really got Tim (apart from the fact that this was his second "failure to complete mission" of the day) was he was listening in on the sales pitch to the earlier sucker and the sales guy was more than happy to sell the computer at the full price with no mention that it was going down in price the next day. It makes you wonder how many people get stuffed around like that everyday? Oh, well, it just goes to show that it pays to shop around and know when the specials are on!

That evening, Kalle was going to be staying at Johann's house. Tim took him over just before dinner and was going to leave him there but was persuaded to stay for dinner. A short while after he gave in to the incessant pleading (please stay for dinner, it's no trouble, oh look I've cooked too much), Tim realised that he had left Meike at home without a car and she might have had some plans that evening. He rang her up and, sure enough, she was going out. - When? "Oh, sort of like around 6pm." - Aha.

It was 6:15.

- If I come home, can you drop me back here? "No problem."

At least it was no problem until later. Tim and the kids had a very nice meal at Staffan and Anna-Carin's. Taltarni didn't actually break anything (although she was involved in a potentially nasty incident with a tipped over shelf) and there were no tantrums. At the end of the evening, Staffan drove Tim and Taltarni home in their nice new company Volvo S70. All seemed well until we pulled into the driveway.

When Tim gave the car to Meike, he had given her a set of keys. His set of keys. The set that also had the keys to the house. As a result he had effectively locked himself out of the house!

After a check of all the windows and doors, Tim and Staffan convinced themselves that it was going to be very difficult to break in (a reassuring thing in most circumstances) and the only way to get around the problem would be to drive to Kajsa's work and get keys from her. So, not only did Staffan have to make dinner for us, and drive us home, he also had to drive us all the way out to Kajsa's work and back again (about a half hour drive each way). Needless to say, Tim felt very foolish. Staffan didn't seem to mind ("We do this all the time!" which might have meant "Anna-Carin does this all the time!") and Taltarni was very happy in the back of the Volvo even though it was way past her bedtime.

The most exciting thing that happened the next day was that Tim bought the computer but to save everyone from extended technogeek ravings, that is all that will be said on the topic!

Kalle was very happy early the following week when Johann and Jesper stayed over night while Anna-Carin was off at an exam (Staffan had gone to Sweden on Sunday). The visit was pretty much a success with the exception of the fact that Johann refused to eat anything. Kajsa especially made pancakes because Johann can be a fussy eater. Unfortunately, we are talking about the son of the woman who bakes perfect semlor. Not all pancakes are equal and Kajsa's just didn't make the grade. "Thank you but they're not as nice as mamma's."

As is often the case the sleep-over was more "over" than "sleep". Both sets of friends (Johann and Kalle and Jesper and Taltarni) were awake for a long while with the excitement of the unusual accomodation arrangements. Still, while they didn't actually go to sleep that early, at least they were willing to go to bed early - and, for the peace of mind of parents, that's what really counts!

Tim and Kajsa had a special night on the following Thursday when they went to see Kitaro in a small concert in Georgetown University. It was a strange crowd in one way, with a very wide range of people. In another way it was a perfect audience. Unlike many of the musicians with mass popularity, Kitaro had an audience which consisted entirely of people who really appreciated his music. There are many bands who get lots of people turning up to see them because that think everyone that else is. How else could you explain the popularity of the types of artists like Marilyn Manson?

Anyway, the concert was excellent and the music divine. It is an incredible experience to see Kitaro live because he seems to have an almost mystical, or spiritual, approach to his art. It certainly is different to the "let's have a concert and make a lot of money, please go and buy the record and the t-shirts" sort of event that are so common. He didn't refer to his audience as fans but as "friends". It was very refreshing.

At an ungodly time the next morning, there was a parent/teacher meeting with Kalle's teacher. We thing we passed but it was touch and go there for a moment. Seriously, Mrs Olms is a good teacher and seems to be more interested in the welfare of the children rather than in rigid conformance with the latest pedagogical fads.

Tim took the whole day off but he wasn't allowed to spend any time with the kids because it was Kajsa's special day with them. He got to hide in the basement with his beloved computer while Kasja and Anna-Carin took kids to the local Meadowlark park to see the ducks and all the spring flowers.

On the Saturday, Tim had his last day at Swedish School for the semester. It was followed by a smorgasbord at the teacher (Margareta)'s house. For the second year running our table won the little competition (based on answering some Swedish trivia - questions like "What is the best brand of car in the whole world?", "What is the most successful furniture company in the world?" and "You find that you are out of cheese, do you A: eat something else, B: jot down that you need to buy cheese the next time you go to the shops or C: panic and send your husband to the supermarket immediately?") We stayed for a long time celebrating our victory and eventually Margareta had to kick us out.

Unlike the previous year there were very few children but Kalle and Taltarni seemed to have a good time anyway.

For Kajsa, the most of the following day was taken up with a Swedish School board meeting (and lunch). She was going to be home by four but got back sometime around six. The surrounds were very nice out at a farm near Leesburg and Kajsa had quite a bit of colour from sitting out in the sun the whole afternoon.

Actually, the only person who did anything remotely interesting for the remainder of the month was Kajsa. She took a day off on the last Wednesday to pamper herself. She got a massage and her hair done at a salon. Very self-indulgent!

All that self-indulgence did not come without a price. She had been bothered by a wisdom tooth for a while. By the last Friday, the pain was too much for her to bear and she had to make an emergency visit to the dentist to get it taken out.

When normal people are in this situation, they take the day off. Not Kajsa. She turned up to work and only left when her appointment was due. A couple of hours later, after a visit to a dental surgeon (because the tooth was in too awkward a position for your average dentist to remove), she didn't go home to recuperate.

Oh no, not our Kajsa.

She went back to work. Sometimes her work ethic borders on insanity.

There have been some events that haven't been covered in the preceding meanderings. Taltarni has really come on with her speech, she is now living up to the t-shirt that Tim saw in New Orleans and now regrets that he didn't buy.

"Help me! I just learned to talk and now I can't shut up!"

She is very much in parrot mode and will repeat what you say to her (or anything that her big brother says). She will also tell you what she is doing and what she wants you to do. In great detail. Over and over again. Especially at night when she has her parents to herself and she should have been asleep a couple of hours ago.

"Taltarni go bed. Yes? Taltarni go bed?" - Yes Taltarni, go to bed. "Ah, Taltarni go bed." Bump bump bump, clamber clamber. "Mamma." - Yes, Taltarni. "Taltarni in bed." -Yes, Taltarni. "Taltarni, go sleep." - Yes, Taltarni, go to sleep. Then, half an hour later. "Pappa?" - Hurrumph, yes, Taltarni? "Taltarni, go sleep" - Yes, Taltarni, for god's sake, go to sleep. Don't just talk about it, do it.

We took advantage of the nice weather a few times trying out our skills at rollerblading (in-line skating to be more accurate). It is a lot of fun even if we haven't got much further than a hundred metres of the house at any time (less distance to crawl home in the event of an accident). All but Taltarni, who just rides her trike, get out there and wobble around. So far none of us have fallen over significantly.

One of the negative things about spring is that there is a lot of pollen around, pollen that we aren't used to. Australians seem to be quite susceptible to pollen-related allergies. Taltarni certainly seemed very snuffly and wheezy for a couple of weeks. It didn't seem to make her unhappy and she never registered a fever so we weren't too worried. Eventually it all went away.

Another brilliant parenting technique - ignore problems long enough and, with a bit of luck, they'll go away.

The war that isn't a war (with Jugoslavia) kept on going during the month. This is regarded as the world's first dysfunctional war. The Serbs won't fight in the air and NATO won't fight on the ground. Bizarre.

Another bizarre thing is the strange relationship between China and the US. China has Most Favored Nation status. This is despite the fact that China has been spying on the US and walking off with nuclear weapon technology on a regular basis. And, it seems, Most Favored Nation status does not mean that your embassy is safe from being bombed. I suppose Madeline Albright or one of her goons would have sidled over to the Chinese at some function and said something along the lines of "Pity about da embassy, doncha tink? Imagine what coulda happened if you weren't Most Favored? You tink about dat next time you tinking a stealing our technology, comprendi? Da boss don't like it. We might hafta come over and start breaking some legs and we donna wanna hafta do dat. Oh, and stop it already with dem Beanie Babies!"