random travel destinations - Sweden

Let us begin with an equation.

POSTMAN ≠ ARCHITECTURE BUFF

That being said, I gave serious thought to converting to Christianity when I saw this church. ...and not just because it's flippin' amazing, either. It happens to be located in Kiruna, Sweden. That's the northernmost city in the country, about 90 miles north of the Arctic circle, in the province of Lappland. How awesome would it be if you had to shoulder polar bears off the road on the way to Sunday services? (That's assuming you had enough light to see them by.) Doesn't look like the place is hurting for precipitation, either, does it? Kiruna's other big claim to fame is its proximity to Jukkasjärvi, where the world's first ice hotel was built. Yes, you read that correctly. It's a hotel. Made of ice. Sounds like my kind of joint already. Ice hotels are these novelty inns built in the far North, where guests repose in sleeping bags laid on reindeer hides. Supposedly it's an interesting way to spend a night in the Arctic circle. I don't give a darn about any of that. It's a HOTEL. Made of ICE. It looks just like the White Witch's ice palace in The Chronicles of Narnia. And if you slide sideways into Finland, you'll be very near where they filmed all the outdoor scenes for the Rebel base on Hoth VI in The Empire Strikes Back. So, all in all, northern Sweden scores high on my list of best places to geek out.

XXIII

September 25 was my 23rd birthday. Seeing as how I am back in Apple Valley, where I once lived for seven years and attended high school (among other things), I was in a unique position. Many of my old high school chums were back in town, either living with their parents, too, or working, or attending Victor Valley College. Not only that, but September 25 fell on a Friday. Not only that, but my parents would also be out of town that weekend, in Wyoming, signing over the Cheyenne house to the buyers. So, naturally, I decided to throw a party. I put the word out on Facebook, a dozen people signed up to come, and before you knew it the 25th had rolled around. And it was a fun party. No, more fun than that... Okay, now we're getting there... Perfect. I'd been dismissed on Thursday (see a small dose of the real world). Nevertheless I had set my teeth and created a master to-do list that evening, including the comestibles I needed to buy, the cleaning I had to do, the unrelated errands I had to run, and so forth. Let's take a look at the liquor-and-snack page: BOOZE

1. One liter gold tequila
2. Two 750-ml bottles of sparkling wine
3. Four 750-ml bottles of Sauternes
4. Two 24-packs of beer

COMESTIBLES

1. One bottle of lemon juice
2. Two or three 12-packs of soda
3. Three bottles of assorted fruit juice
4. Several different bags of chips
5. Several bags of Chex mix
6. Some jars of peanuts
7. One honeydew melon
8. Broccoli florets
9. Carrot sticks
10. Cherry tomatoes
11. Celery
12. Ranch dip [I meant to write "dressing"]
13. Tortillas
14. Microwaveable chicken fingers or cheese sticks
15. Pizza Rolls
16. Three cans of dog food
17. One block of ice
18. Paper cups

Impressive, isn't it? Just to clear the air, the dog food was, indeed, for the dogs. We were running low, so I thought I'd just grab some while I was out. With the exception of the beer, all the of the booze (and the honeydew melon) was intended for the punch I was going to make: Frank Davis punch, as borrowed from The Bartender's Bible. And so I sallied forth boldly on Friday morning, shaking off whatever self-esteem issues were still lingering about after Thursday's events, to buy up these materials. It took two and a half hours. True, I had to stop and buy some hoses for my car (see how to register a car in Southern California), but that was still the longest food-shopping trip I've been on in a while. I managed to procure all the ingredients at WinCo except for the block of ice. I was originally going to buy a head of broccoli and make the florets myself, but I saw an inexpensive bag of pre-cut ones already on the shelf in the produce section. I had to double back once because I forgot the honeydew melon, but apart from that my progress through the store was chronological and orderly. I shouldn't have gotten paper cups (or plates, or napkins) because we'd just had a rather large get-together at our house (see Swedish farriers and so on) and there was a stockpile of artificial dinnerware heaped in our pantry already. WinCo didn't have Sauternes in the strictest sense of the word, so I substituted white zinfandel instead. The beer was a monstrous success. I got three twelve-packs of Widmer's Drifter Pale Ale, Newcastle Brown Ale, and St. Pauli Girl, respectively. I couldn't find a block of ice to save my soul, not even at Rite-Aid. Oh well. For better of for worse, I acquired the ingredients, completed my errands, and got home without losing anything (either my groceries or my marbles). Then came the cleaning. I managed to avoid tying a handkerchief around my head, but it was a close thing. I vacuumed the whole house, hard floors and everything; swept the front and back porches, and the garage; cleaned the bathroom (yuck); spot-mopped things like the kitchen counter and the bathroom scale; cleared all the zombies out of the attic (just joking); and picked up all the dog poop in the backyard. Then I sat myself down and waited. I decided I wasn't going to set out a whole bunch of snacks before the party began; I wasn't expecting an enormous influx of guests right off the bat. Whoever came first would come first and then I'd start preparing munchies (and punch...uh, punchies). I turned on the Yankees/Red Sox game and settled in for the guests to arrive. About 5:00 I got a call from Chris, class of '06 (two behind me); I'd asked him an hour earlier to bring me a bag of ice. He called up and said he had, so would it be okay if he could come out an hour early? I said fine, I was just sitting around. A ridiculously short time later, Chris pulled up. (He has a tomato-red 2004 Ford Mustang, and drives it as such; he told me he was doing 40 mph up the dirt roads to my house.) We secured the ice in the freezer, poured some into the cooler to chill the faux-Sauternes and the bubbly, and then Chris suddenly gave me my presents. And what presents! I'd dropped a little hint on Facebook earlier in the week, suggesting that I was low on particular varieties of liquor. Little did I guess how zealously my guests would take it to heart. Chris had brought me not one, but two bottles: Stolichnaya and some 15-year-old Glenfiddich. Real Russian vodka and some single-malt Scotch which I'd always wanted to sample. Needless to say, I grabbed his head and gave the man a big ol' kiss right on the forehead. And then I went ahead and made us both some kamikazes. Two ounces of Stolichnaya and a little sweetened lime juice, drunk in one go. It was tricky (Stolichnaya's got a little bite to it) but fun. Then I poured Chris a beer and we chatted for a while. I set out the grapes, some chips, and some Chex mix. Before long, Crystal called in and said she was on her way, and which road should she turn down again? I filled her in, and she showed up quickly. From her small white car, she unloaded her baby son, Andrew; a backpack filled with toys and diapers; some oranges that had been injected with tequila; and half a bottle of Jose Cuervo Black Medallion. This was going to be good. Andrew was a marvelous little chap, and was so throughout the whole party. Our rambunctious talk didn't faze him. He didn't cry, he just looked around at us all with an adorable, bemused expression on his face. Crystal kept a close and loving eye on him, and didn't drink hardly a drop. (All of our designated drivers, Crystal, John and Amanda, did splendid work and demonstrated exemplary restraint: all were stone-sober when they arrived, stone-sober while they partied, and stone-sober when they left.) Little Andrew conked out about midnight and slept right through our Apples to Apples game, except when I was stupid and loud. The tequila-laced oranges were good; I couldn't really taste the booze in them but there might have been a hint of it lurking just underneath the citrus flavor. I haven't sampled the Jose Cuervo yet. That comes tomorrow. After Crystal arrived, I set out some peanuts and some watermelon. I was working off the theory of graduated snack increase. Crystal, Chris and I stood around and chatted for another hour and half until about 7:20, when the rest of the party began to trickle in. John and Basel were first, and after I greeted them at the door, beer in hand, they unloaded their generosity upon me: bottles of Grey Goose vodka and Speyburn 10-year-old Scotch, plus a couple of cigars, Cohiba and Ashton respectively. The words "yippee" and "Jumpin' Jehoshaphat YEEHAW" were running through my head at this point. John and Basel got settled in, and I washed the veggies, sliced some celery and set out the vegetable platter (with ranch dip). I also toasted up some Pizza Rolls. The five of us stood around and gabbed about things like deadly weaponry, the state of our alma mater, and politics while we drank beer. It was about this point that I switched off the baseball game (which had since ended, and turned into Spider-man) and put on the music, a nice little selection ranging from AC/DC to James Brown. People seemed to enjoy it. And then the girls arrived. Beth, Amanda and Virginia pulled up to the front of the house. It was dark by this time, so as soon as John and Basel spotted headlights on the road they leaped out of the front door and into the shadowy recesses of the shrubs. Crystal edged left, out of the harsh yellow glare thrown by the porch light. Chris and I were left to stand on the stoop, already half-drunk, and wonder innocently where the rest of the guests had got to, speculating loudly on the identities of the three girls who had just arrived. Amanda, Beth and Virginia were escorted inside, Basel and John and Crystal monitoring their every move like hungry tigers, and then the party really began. We made the punch (a messy process indeed, especially without a melon baller), I mixed up cocktails for everybody, refilled the Pizza Roll dish almost constantly, and kept up what intelligible conversation I could under the hectic circumstances. Virginia presented me with a giant two-liter bottle of Smirnoff, while Beth and Amanda had chipped in for some Admiral Nelson's Spiced Rum and Wild Turkey, respectively. That's not to mention the wonderfully thoughtful cards that they got me, which lent to my heart that abnormally pleasant fuzzy feeling. Jeez, could this birthday possibly get any better? It did. Once we'd all had a few drinks of the punch (and some cocktails: screwdriver, Mozart, tiger juice, etc.), we sat down to play Apples to Apples. For those poor suckers out there in the audience who don't know what that is, here's the skinny. There are several varieties, but the one played most often goes like this: you put a "green apple card" down in the middle of the table (floor, car hood, stripper's stomach, as the case may be). Each player is dealt seven "red apple cards." Each of the green cards has an adjective on it. It could be anything: cute, dangerous, frustrating, pretty, fuzzy, morbid, exemplary, extraordinary...while each of the red cards has a noun or a noun phrase on it. Rolling the car, elephants, Liberace, guns, hippies, the 1970s, Richard M. Nixon, Indiana Jones, all of those and more. Each player puts down the red card (face-down) that they think matches the green card best. Say, if the green card was "adventurous" then a player might put down "Indiana Jones." Another player might put down "the 1960s," and so on. The dealer judges these cards, saying them aloud and laying them down on the table for extra hilarity. (For even more hilarity, players can put down the card they think least approximates the meaning of the adjective; i.e. the proper noun "Richard M. Nixon" being matched with the adjective "trustworthy.") Whoever put down the red card which the dealer selects as the best match gets to keep the matching green card, and scores a point. First person to a certain number of points wins. Man, this game is always fun, and always hilarious. Seeing the words people put down to match up with certain adjectives (particularly when they don't have a very good hand) is a gut-busting experience. And so we played until late into the night, Andrew curled up on the couch, all of us sitting around the coffee table (in the armchairs I had huffed and puffed to get out of the back bedrooms into the living room), laughing and joking and insulting one another, occasionally getting up to go to the bathroom or make another cocktail. All too soon, at about 1:30, John, Basel, Amanda, Beth and Virginia headed home, either because they had work in the morning or had to get back down the hill. I thanked them again profusely and saw them out, mentally praying that the horrendously bumpy dirt roads wouldn't defeat them on their way out. Chris, Crystal and I lingered a little longer, but soon Crystal was packing up the baby things and departing with much cheer (not before she masterfully and selflessly cleaned up the kitchen and front room; I hardly had to do anything the next morning). Chris and I were rather soused, so I insisted Chris stay the night and prepared a bed for him. We both fell asleep almost immediately and snored until about 9 a.m. the next morning. We rolled out of bed, popped a couple of ibuprofen, drank some fruit juice, and ate some fried eggs and ham. Then Chris climbed into his hot rod and headed off into the hot morning sunshine. And the party was over. (Only in a nice way, not like in The Shining.) Echoing George Harrison, I would just like to say "Thanks for the pepperoni": pepperoni here meaning booze, thoughtful birthday cards, booze, cigars, booze, good times, booze, kind words, booze, and more booze. Thanks, guys. You made my century.

Swedish farriers and so on

This weekend was somewhat...odd. I had a Swedish man in my living room the whole time talking about horses' hooves.

His name was Ove Lind, and he was a farrier (somebody who works on horses' hooves, clipping them and making sure they're healthy). He's attracted the attention of a well-to-do horsewoman in the area named Melissa who is busily showing him around. He lives out of a van somewhere in Nevada and gives talks on his revolutionary new method of hoof care and feeding. These techniques are supposedly guaranteed to extend the life of the hoof (and thereby the horse).

Our neighbor, Sharon, was supposed to host one of his talks at her house, but it seems that her domicile is ill-suited to large groups and prohibitively hard to reach. Our house being lower down on the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains, easier to find, and larger, Sharon convinced Mom to host the event. In return, Mom and Dad didn't have to pay the $150 admission fee.

All the previous week Mom and Sharon were out at Smart & Final buying up the necessary supplies: buns, lunch meat, mixed vegetables, fruit salad, potato salad, tortilla chips, plastic forks, paper plates, and all that lot. They moved all the furniture out of the family room and into the living room (where the computer is) and unfolded all of the tables and chairs Sharon rented. Then, all Saturday and all Sunday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (and even after), Ove stood in the front room with a projector and some hoof bones and talked. And talked. And talked.

A refreshingly different and charming accent he may have had, but even that got to be wearing after the first six hours; especially all the endless jive about coffin-bones and foundering and ionized silver. Honestly, the man didn't know when to quit. There were occasional breaks for snacks and lunch, which was the only time I budged from my room and greeted the half-dozen or so Apple Valley horsewomen who'd come to our house to hear Mr. Lind speak. The rest of the time I stayed in my hidey-hole and read comic books, or wrote, or fooled around on my computer, or blogged. It was nice having all that time to myself, but it became hideously boring all too soon.

On a lighter note, the weather's been lovely: for some reason, yesterday, the sun was mild and the breeze almost cool, so that it never strayed much above 90. Then in the evening a truly temperate sea breeze began blowing and the temperature dropped further. It got down to 54 last night, and it didn't get above 80 today. Yippee! Mom and I took a glorious walk in the cool wind with Maggie and Harriet. It was glorious. Feels like fall's already here.

This weekend was also opening weekend for NFL football season. Normally I've had only a passing interest in sports, but I've decided to follow football more closely: particularly my favorite team, the San Diego Chargers. Tonight's game was San Diego vs. Oakland: my most beloved team versus my most hated adversary. The Raiders play so dirty and their fans are so ill-mannered and disreputable that everybody in the western conferences hates them. When I finally got tired and left during the third quarter, the score was tied up 10-10. The Chargers were having a horrendous time on defense, and despite decent showings in offense, including a couple of brilliant catches, the Raiders kept turning over the ball. I'll see what the score is tomorrow morning. It had better be good.

In current events, Saturday was September 11th: the anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers. Of course there was a humongous memorial celebration in New York, with live music, speeches, and an impressive cluster of spotlights whose combined beams imprinted the ghostly images of the World Trade Center on the damp night sky. There were a few news stories here and there about 9/11-related charities and political rehashes...and of course, the obligatory slew of documentaries. Apart from that, the day was just like any other day.

...except that I got called into work unexpectedly early. Mark, the editorial assistant, phoned me at 9:06 a.m. He asked if I could come in. I said I'd be there at eleven when the Pastor was scheduled to come in and talk to me about his Life Changing Mentor Program. Mark said the sooner I could come in, the better. I put down the phone, sighed, got ready, and left. I arrived at just after ten, and got some obituaries done. Then the Pastor (from Ontario) and his Victorville counterpart sat in Ron's office and gave us the rundown on their program. I scribbled notes like mad, trying to keep up and not look like a fool in front of the editor. I think I managed to be pretty thorough. I paid close attention to the questions that Ron asked the pastors, to try to get an idea of the news values involved in such a situation as this, as well as which story angles Ron places the highest priority on. Afterward, Ron assigned me to write an article detailing what Life Changing Ministries was doing up here in the High Desert (starting up the mentor program), what they needed most right now (volunteers and partner organizations), and any upcoming events (a talk given by the Presiding Judge of the San Bernardino County Juvenile Court, Marsha Slough). I think I did pretty well on it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Wish me luck, William Zinsser.