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...

Waiting with baited toes...

The best thing about my job is the crap people ask me that has nothing to do with my job.

Question of the Day: What’s the origin of the phrase, “Waiting with baited breath?”

Well Researched Answer: Well...it’s actually spelled “bated” and is a phonetically shortened form of the word “abated.” So the literal meaning of the phrase is “waiting with shortened breath.” (Billy Boy clipped it for increased iambic pentameter value in The Merchant of Venice. Silly poet...clips are for kids.)

So what does this actually have to do with my job? Nothing...I’m just the answer gal for this sort of thing. Because I'm the department's writer...naturally I know all sorts of obscure points of grammar and the etymology of every word in the English language. (Ah...no...not really.) Luckily I have a handy copy of the QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins…so I can amaze my co-workers and win big $$ playing NTN Trivia.

Two weeks ago I corrected a co-worker’s spelling of “tow the line” for about the zillionth time. It should be “toe the line” and is a reference to boxing...not sailing. (Boxers getting up off of the mat after being knocked down would have to put their foot at a pre-marked line on the floor of the ring before the next round could start...so someone who gets up from a beating over and over is “toeing the line” for their manager.)

So...I wonder...can you toe the line while waiting with bated breath?

Contract...

I have quite a few bi, lesbian and gay friends....who are disappointed by the anti-gay crap that flies around the political scene in the name of preserving marriage...or the family...or whatever.

It's a bunch of bull. Marriage. Legally...it's a contract and should be blind to gender. If two unrelated people want to legally enter into a contract providing for mutual financial support and responsibility...legally they should be able to do so. Period.

Preserving "marriage" is semantics. Does marriage mean the holy union between a man and a woman...or does it mean a contractual state of cooperative cohabitation and responsibility for the others welfare...where you become responsible for the others debts and can share in their assets?

Can it mean the first in a secular state? No...not really.

This is one of those fuzzy cases where our legal system allows the encroachment of religion in a way that is not only damaging...but inconsistent. I can go online...be ordained by the Church of Universal Life...or the Church of the Holy Hand Grenade...and perform wedding ceremonies. Why...does paying $40 make me capable of ascertaining the fitness of two people to enter into a legal and binding contract? Is there not a flaw here? When I got married...my ID was checked when I applied for the license with my husband...but my gender wasn't. Nobody asked to check "underneath the hood." Obviously it was important...but not THAT important.

And there are biological conditions that put gender into question. If you're born with both sets of gonads...and by some miracle allowed to keep them both until the age of majority...can you pick your gender? Are you both? Does a team of doctors need to evaluate and decide for you? Do you lose your right to marry because you have a chromosomal problem and can't decide what gender to be?

And transgendered people...now I know that the same folks who want to see marriage "preserved" probably also think that transgendered people shouldn't be allowed to exist...much less marry....but do they lose their rights? I mean...sex change operations usually aren't performed until extensive psychological evaluation and therapy happens. It's not something you can just "have done" like a nose job. People change their gender in response to identity issues that can in most cases...cause severe mental illness if NOT addressed. Do they lose their right to Marry because of what modern psychology considers a mental illness/identity crisis?

If marriage is a state designed to keep us from sin...and allow for procreation...do sterile people lose their rights? People who don't want to or shouldn't have children because of a medical condition?

Either marriage applies equally to any two people with the mental capacity to enter into a contract...or we should just abolish it all together. No marriage penalty...and no benefit. You want your life partner to share your assets...be entitled to your retirement...or have legal guardianship of your biological children...you get a lawyer to draw up a bunch of expensive paperwork assigning those rights and responsibilities. Man...it would create jobs for a literal army of paralegals...think of what it would do for the economy!

*sigh*

The world isn't overflowing with love. Love in all of its forms is beautiful...and should be cherished when it happens.