Revelations from my (fake) trip to Norway

So rather than go to Spring Camp Dogwood… my husband and I… and about four dozen other intrepid Norskephiles trecked up to the hinterlands of Minnesota for a weekend of fun, frolic and lefse.  (No Lutefisk… thank you Jesus!)  I had no idea what to expect really… a frustrating weekend trying to ask for toilet paper in Norwegian while superior Counselors secretly snickered behind their bunads?

Here’s what I learned at Skogfjorden….besides Norwegian:

1.       Norwegians eat better breakfasts than we do.  They call it “frokost” and it’s one of the six meals they eat in a day.  (Well… it SEEMS like six.)  It’s typically a bit of a buffet of sliced tomatoes and cucumber, ham, turkey and some sort of salami, pickled herring, smoked salmon, mackerel, sliced onions, pickled beets, three cheeses: brown, herb and Jarlsberg Swiss, gherkins, hard boiled eggs…and a couple kinds of bread.  I think I identified a potato bread, some sort of røgbrød (ryebread) and the ubiquitous flatbread.  (What we call crackers… or Wasa.)  There was usually also some fruit, muesli… and Scandinavian style yogurt which is a little more runny than the Baltic-style we’re used to thanks to the nice folks at Dannon.  Bread and cheese and toppings were made into several small open faced sandwiches.  (Which are eaten with a knife and fork… unless you’re JUST having cheese and bread… then you can pick it up with your fingers.)  A little butter, mayonnaise and mustard was also part of the “spread” and could be used to zip up the sandwiches. 

2.       Norwegians drink coffee like they have a hollow leg.  Thank God the Skogfjorden policy was to switch the “big pot” to decaff after 2pm… or I would have been a shaking insomniac by Sunday.  Kaffepause usually happened two hours after eating anything… and consisted of coffee and some sort of small snack.  A raisin roll with brunøst.  (Brown cheese.)  A slice of spice cake.  A cookie.  A roll of lefse with butter and sugar.  And more coffee… and more coffee.  But not with dinner.  Coffee is for AFTER dinner. 

3.       Norwegian adults drink milk as a beverage.  I don’t mind this… I’m one of the few people I know who really enjoys drinking a glass of milk, and doesn’t suffer any ill effects.  But it’s fun to see a table of adults look at a half-gallon of milk on the table like it was a jug of snake venom.

4.       Formiddagsmat or “Lunsj” is pretty simple.  Either a nice selection of salads and bread and maybe a soup, or a simple one pot dish like meatballs.  One day we had pea soup and pancakes.  Norwegians are pretty enlightened on the pancakes… cream and jam.  Not that I don’t like American pancakes… I do!  But bringing them away from the breakfast table to position as a side-dish for lunch or dessert… mmmmm. 

5.       Actual dinner… well… besides the one meal we had shrimp at… was even more simple than lunch.  The shrimpalicious dinner consisted of a composed salad of shrimp, shellfish and veggies.  The chef at Skogfjorden was nice enough to make me a shrimpless version.  And because the peel and eat shrimp for dinner would have covered me in hives… I got a replay of the kjotballer from lunch. Everyone seemed appalled that I’m allergic to shrimp. I have the mild version of the shrimp allergy. And so far… it just makes me itchy and/or causes mild tummy distress.  It’s not like my throat swells closed and I risk death.  Most commercial “cocktail shrimp” doesn’t bother me at all… it’s been de-shelled and de-veined and cooked to the point of being almost unrecognizable.  It’s handling shrimp that really does me in.  One other lady who just poo-pooed shrimp rode in on my coattails to get a shrimpless meal.  But since she didn’t pre-notify them… hers didn’t include a salad-for-one.  Snap!  

For our banquet night we had a roast pork filled with prunes. This… was fall apart tender and fabulous. I’ve had roast pork with prunes before… but Grandma never bothered to do the stuffing and rolling required. It was accompanied by lovely mashed red potatoes and asparagus. Yum!

6.       Norwegian folk dancing is a lot like Irish Folk dancing… but not at the same frantic pace.  Tim and I actually kept up for the first few dances, but I quickly got exhausted… and we were cruelly out-polkaed by a bunch of people in their 70s. The music is… lively. But there’s something really haunting about the sound of a Hardanger fiddle.  Like it’s hard to play sad music on a banjo… it’s equally hard to play purely happy music on a hardingfele… the instrument is designed to cry.

7.       My Great Grandparents came from a very nifty country. Looking at Norway now… one could wonder why anyone would want to leave… but when my Great Grandfather left… the land-laws had just changed (making it hard to “break up” land if you wanted to leave it to multiple children… rather like the “entail” property laws of England) and there was nothing for a sixth son to do but leave.  And the potato famine of Ireland didn’t stop there… but also devastated the Scandinavian crop… causing mass emigration in the mid 1800’s. So coming to America meant a better life. And life here IS good… but like almost all mixed-breed Americans… I’m occasionally nostalgic for some sense of cultural unity.  I love America… don’t get me wrong… there are things that we take for granted… and I don’t mean life, liberty and all that… though it’s pretty nice… I’m thinking about going to the store and being able to pick from more than one brand of maxi pad.  (I’ve been to Turkey… it’s Orchid or bust over there.) We have amazing cultural diversity here… we’re just too myopic to see it… and too divisive to really appreciate it. But if I had to pick a people besides Americans to claim as my own… I think I’ve been more influenced by my Norwegian relatives… Grandma Helen, Mom… than I have any of my Scotch-Irish relations… cause my father did little more than provide me a last name.


Most of all... I wish my mother had known about Concordia Language Villages when I was little... because I looked at some of their Summer programs... and I would have had a blast.  I'll have to save my pennies to send my Goddaughter when she's old enough...

Have Exact Change

I’ve tried pretty hard to adopt some of the Buddhist and Christian beliefs in compassion, equanimity… and some of the precepts against gossip... along with the grandmotherly wisdom of keeping your mouth shut if you don’t have anything constructive to say.

I try… I really do. But I’m human. Like most humans I occasionally get a little happy about someone else's misfortune. Whether out of bitterness or jealousy… I’m not sure where exactly the feelings come from. I could tell you I wasn’t crying into my soup when Andrew Beitbart died earlier this year. Yes, I know he was relatively young and yes… I know he had young children… but the stuff that came out of the man’s mouth was vile… I never wished him dead… but if I had the ability to wish someone back to life he wouldn’t be the first pick on my list. I made an ill-thought out post on my Facebook... and a long list of people felt the need to chime in and tell me how callous I was for thinking... "Yay... one more crazy loudmouth down... a zillion to go...!"

A co-worker of mine… who I worked with for 10 years before changing buildings… is dying as I type this. A series of heart attacks… one in the hospital… and he’s been on life support for several days. He’s brain dead. They’re turning off the machines tonight.

Now I realize that I can’t spend my entire life watching what I think or say just in case that person drops dead the next day and makes me look like an unfeeling bitch… but though I did my best to get along with this co-worker… I also thought he was a bit of a slacker. He smoked rather heavily… was very fond of his smoke breaks... and it's something I’m sure factored heavily into his heart attack. He was always looking for a reason to leave his desk… would “meet salespeople downtown” for lunch whenever his supervisor was out of the office… and would regularly tell his supervisor he was leaving early to take the train when I knew darn well his car was in the parking lot. He also took off early two summers in a row to coach his kid’s little league…. Something which I’m pretty sure he was supposed to be doing on his own time and not on the company’s. He was also on the anti-social side… and whenever the group of us got together for pizza… or holiday lunch… he’d skip out. I didn’t like him. I didn’t actively dislike him. You know... the relationship you have with most of your co-workers.

For all of his real or perceived faults… he was someone I knew… knew for a decade… and he was a very good father to his kids. His sons regularly came in for “Bring your child to work” day festivities… and they were well mannered boys… seemed bright… and he was very good to them. He talked about them all of the time… in a way only an interested and involved parent would. Some people have one talent… and maybe his was being that perfect blend of stern and compassionate that seems to make someone a good father. Especially the skinny, chain smoking types sporting moussed comb-overs. His children are both in their teens… one mid- one early… and they will lose their father today. They will live a life without a father to straighten their cummerbund before they leave for prom… one where their father doesn't attend their weddings and dance awkwardly with the bride… and in a world where their kids' Grandpa is a photo in an album... and not a skinny old guy who still chain smokes from the first base bleacher section. The thought makes me sad… terribly sad… because I lost the only father figure I knew at that age… and remember how much I tried NOT to grieve. To be an adult… while the adults around me fell apart from grief in their own special ways. How much I miss having him around now... how bad I feel that my husband never knew him... except through the filter of my memories.

So I’m going to forgive myself for any and all ill thoughts I had about him when he was alive… and I can say was because a co-worker just stopped by as I was writing this to tell me he’d passed… and I’m going to wish his kids well… his family well… and hope that if there’s someplace after this… he’s there and happy. I'm sure that some of my co-workers grumble about my bad habits... and I'm sure they'd be equally as shocked and sad if I suddenly passed away. But there's no use holding onto guilt. It's the acid that turns everything sour. Another lesson learned on the path to treating the people around me with compassion and love… but one that has already been given to us both by the Buddha… and Jesus Christ.

1. I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
2. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.


“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”