Fred

The receptionist at the chiropractic clinic poked her head into my treatment room in the middle of a massage I had with a new neck-injury patient.

"Who's that...?" she whispered inaudibly and pointed to my patient who couldn't see her since he was face-down on the table. "Fred..." I whispered back, also inaudibly. She nodded and closed the door.

A couple of minutes later she came back into the room, "That's Fred...?" she whispered, with poor Fred still not knowing what the hell we were discussing. "YES" I hissed back. "Ok," she said and disappeared. How annoying, I thought, it's on the schedule, his file is right there, why can't she just look at that?

A minute later she comes back again, now motioning with her hand horizontally in front of her neck, as if chopping her own head off. I said "excuse me one moment" to Fred and stepped outside into the hallway to figure out what was up. She blurted out "Fred just arrived, he was running late, who the hell is in there??"

That's when I realized I had been massaging the wrong Fred.

We hustled the wrong Fred into a waiting room for the physician and then brought the right Fred into my space and told him not to worry about that he was late, we will always have time for him.

Stink

May, June and July are usually ok. But in August it's as if the male species run out of deodorant in this city. The stench of armpit sweat is unbearable as men stretch their arms up to hold on to the straps (or bars or whatever) on the subway, and the rest of us stand there with our noses at armpit level, inhaling this crap.

Guys, it's simple - shower on a daily basis (use soap) and then you deodorize. There's no excuse not to. Especially for hairy guys. Hairy guys smell worse than regular guys. Get a grip.

Now where's my f$^#&-ing wine?

Struck

There are 700 students in my Bio lecture, I kid you not, seven hundred. Even more amazingly is that the first person I strike up a conversation with turns out to be a helicopter paramedic for the University of Maryland's Medical Center (UMMC). That is the best shock-trauma center in the world. For real, not just in my opinion, it's a fact, just turn on Discovery Health. As a rookie in the field (soon to be) I was in awe, completely star-struck to be in such noble company. Email-addresses were exchanged.

Defeated

My iPod has decided to rebel against me and it only allows me to listen to music from my '80s-folder. This would be semi-ok if I had any respectable eighties-music in my '80s- folder, such as classic Prince or Bowie, maybe tracks from "Purple Rain" or "Let's Dance" or something, but I do not. Instead, it's jam-packed with Cindy Lauper, Madonna and Bananarama - music you'd think only gay men would listen too.

Not only that, but the volume is stuck too, really high. So I'm doomed to walk down the streets in my neighborhood with "Venus" blasting against my eardrums. Other people can probably hear it too, when I pass them, that's how high the volume is. If I get beat up by some tough neighborhood punks over this, I'd deserve it.

I have always been worried about accidentally leaving my iPod somewhere in a public space, like a cafe or a bar, and somehow a good samaritan would track me down and call me up and say "Hey, I think I found your iPod at such-and-such bar, and I'd like to return it to you so call me back at yada yada yada". I would not be able to claim my iPod. For sure, whoever found it must have checked out what music I listen to, and I'd rather buy a totally new iPod than admit to listening to that stuff. And I'm not just talking about the '80s folder.

I do have good taste in music, I do, I really do, but somehow that just never translated electronically.

Back in the USA

Vacation is over. We're back in New York and I feel great. I didn't even mind that the construction workers called me nice names when I passed them by. I know as women we're supposed to frown upon such male behavior, but whatever, we all know that our egos deep inside kinda like it when random guys give us some attention (be honest now)...

Anyway, I enjoy visiting Sweden, but it sure feels fine to drink New York city coffee again.

Television

There are about ten networks (or TV channels) in all when you subscribe to basic cable in Sweden. First, there are the two nationwide nets (state-owned) that I guess are equivalent to the broadcast nets in the States - they're called SVT 1 and SVT 2. There are no commericals on these state-owned channels which means you can practically never go to the bathroom while watching SVT 1 or 2.

When cable was introduced in the 80's , TV 3 and TV 4 popped up, both with limited commercial time (TV 4 only had short commercials in between programs). As a kid I loved this new thing called 'commercial' (or 'reklam' in Swedish) and I would never go to the bathroom during one.

Today, the other basic channels include TV 4 Plus, Kanal 5, TV 6, Eurosport, Discovery Channel and MTV Europe. That's pretty much it.

About 30%, maybe 35%, of the programming is in English (this is my own estimate and may not be accurate at all, but probably it is). American sit-coms, dramas and movies, and British sit-coms, dramas and movies galore. Everyone on MTV speaks with a British accent, or with some European accent.

Many of the shows are the same as in the US, but they're produced in the UK. For example - and this is almost sacrilege - "Pimp My Ride" on MTV Euro is hosted by some scrawny, spindly English bloke instead of x to the z Xzibit. That's just not right.

When you turn on the Discovery channel, you get either TLC, Animal Planet, or Discovery Science, it's completely random. It's a medley. And the voice-over is never American.

The game shows seem more brutal here than in the US. In the States you always have the "good cop/bad cop" thing among the judges, Paula and Simon, but here it's almost exclusively "bad cop/bad cop" - "aaaaaand you just lost ten million quid, that's a bloody shame, isn't it?"

On Swedish-speaking channels, weather is extremely important. Not in the tacky American way where the weather forecast is entertainment and a window to other people's misery - flooding, tornadoes, storms. In Sweden weather is all about praying for sun. There's no friendly banter between anchormen, no smiles, no joking around... just straight business. Will the skies be gray? Will there be sun? Each weather map has at least five layers of information that are completely incomprehensible to the untrained eye.

Oh, I almost forgot Danish TV - DR 1 and TV 2. Pretty much the same as Swedish 1 and 2 but they speak much, much sillier.

Strong

The coffee in Sweden is so strong you can probably make tobacco out of it. Sean and I can hardly finish half a cup. We pour tons of sugar and milk in our coffee to dilute it which is something I would never do at home in New York.

Another thing about coffee is that people drink it at anytime of the day, not just in the mornings. If you turn down a cup at let´s say 10pm, Swedes look at you like you must be sick. Something must be wrong with you. And when you explain that ordinarliy you'd love to have a cup, but just not this late because you don´t want to be up all night, they look even more confused. Often, any type of conversation ends right here, with the rejection of coffee.

Sweden

Sean and I are in Sweden. It sure is a quiet country. It's evening as I write this and my ears hurt from the silence. No sounds of cars, no sirens, no people walking around. All the birds and hedgehogs and other animals seem to have gone to sleep already. It is beautiful and peaceful here though, a good place to think about Katzu.

We met an orange cat today. His name was Sven (we later found out). Sven let me pet him after I had sat down and talked to him for a little bit. He meowed and then he walked away and started cleaning himself where my hand had touched him. Cats are very subtle that way. Sean and I argued whether Sven was a tabby or not.

There are many cats in my mother's 'hood. The neighbor names all his cats after Swedish soccer-players. "Zlatan" was recently hit by a car and he passed away. Now they have "Chippen" (Christian Wilhemsson, Bolton) instead. I have not met Chippen as of yet.

Tomorrow we're going to church to light a candle for Katzu. ;)

Sweet Katzu

Katzu went to kitty heaven on 8/14/07.

I love him tremendously and he will forever be in my heart. It was the saddest and the hardest day of my life. He and I had a remarkable relationship (at least in my opinion...). We miss him so, our lives are not the same without him.

Love you Katzu.

Neuro

Spent a day volunteering at the hospital (in the neurological unit's physical therapy department). The department I was assigned to deals almost exclusively with patients with neurological damage caused by head trauma. Many patients had long irregular scars with sutures across their scalps. Some were noticeably unaware of their surroundings while others were mentally present.

There were about a dozen physical therapists in the hospital's gym, guiding the patients through their physical rehab. My role was to help the therapists with whatever they needed.

So - I fetched sheets, towels and pillow covers, I disinfected machines, beds and heart/oxygen monitors, I pushed patients around in their wheelchairs, I carried oxygen tanks, I followed the patients around as they struggled to walk, I kicked a soccer ball back and forth with a patient who could barely stand up by himself, I threw a ball back and forth to another patient who was learning how to balance, and I stabilized tables and chairs and other structures as patients leaned on them for support.

I also got enormous blisters on my feet which made it quite hard to keep up with the patients ambling about in the hallway. It seemed kind of inappropriate to complain about blisters in this company though, so I had to work through the pain - which I did heroically...

EMT for real

After a month long wait I finally received my EMT license and certificate, wohoo. My plan is to get on an ambulance asap, sending in all my stuff on Monday. I'm totally laminating my EMT card.

Peg is already hooked up with an ambulance in Westchester. She has a badge with her EMT number and her name on it. And she wears a dark blue uniform that makes her "look like a giant lesbian" she says.