So, wow. The health care bill in the U.S. seems to have passed. At least the first step and all that. It lacks in certain aspects, that is for sure, but no longer being denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition is a big plus, no matter what. It’s fucked up that they had to pretty much kick all the abortion coverage out to get it this far, but I’m hoping it’s a small step. Reading the comments to this on Feministing I was reminded of some of the bad things about it – one commenter mentions the likelihood of employers firing people rather than paying for mandatory health insurance, and another is concerned about it ending up forcing people to pay for a service that doesn’t cover the bare necessities – but others seem to be cautiously optimistic.

Me? I have to admit that I haven’t followed the ins and outs of this debate all that closely, but I am shocked at some of the appalling tactics used at those opposing this reform. There has been death threats, lynchings in effigy (which apparently means lynching an image of a real person), nazi symbols, claims that this is a “Hitler like policy”, people standing outside the offices of congress men calling them faggots and (insert N-word here, racial slurs are among the few words I will never say or type). And that’s just a few examples. There is a clip of Rachel Maddow speaking about this in her show here. It’s twelve minutes long, but if you prefer the transcript it’s available here. It’s from August, but still eerily current.

There is talk about death panels and equating it with the concentration camps of World War II. That’s not what they mean, actually. I read a good explanation of what it actually is at Shapely Prose. And should you not care enough to read that link I can say that it’s more about advising elderly about their rights, allowing them to put down their wishes before they become too ill to be able to make such decisions themselves.

There is talk about the American people being furious about this, and various republicans have, among other things, called the bill “a fiscal Frankenstein”, “a decisive step in the weakening of the United States” and “one of the most offensive pieces of social engineering legislation in the history of the United States.” And that is only naming a few.

Personally I can’t see this as a step back.

Because I think of my uninsured friend who ended up at the emergency room at no fault of her own, which resulted in a 1,000 USD bill (that is 7,200 SEK).

Because I think of my ex, who while in so much pain that he could hardly work upright, had to scramble to get together 2,000 USD to cover the deductible before his insurance kicked in. (Mostly we used rent money, grocery money and other cash we really couldn’t afford to lose, but it wasn’t like we had a choice.) And then, once it was all over he received a bill of a couple of thousand dollars anyway (although most of the 30,000 USD stay at the hospital was covered), because the insurance didn’t cover ANAESTHESIA during the surgery.

I think of having to pay a hundred dollars for ten days of medication.

I think of learning to give him is intra-muscular injections, because we couldn’t afford to have a nurse do it.

And with that in mind, this quote by a republican opposing this bill seems especially ironic:

“Are you so arrogant that you know what’s best for the American people?” Representative Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia, asked the Democrats. “Are you so ignorant to be oblivious to the wishes of the American people?”

(My answer to that would be: ARE YOU?)

And no, I don’t think this is the solution to every problem out there. But maybe it’s a start. And btw, all quotes from this post comes from the New York Times article I linked to at the beginning of this post. Here it is again.

One of the blogs I read recently did a post asking what exactly makes you Swedish. I believe the person in question was writing a piece on what exactly that makes a person a certain nationality. I chimed in with a few things I’ve found since I returned back here, and rather quickly got questioned (not by the poster, by another commenter), who thought my observations weren’t correct. (And I’m not linking, cos I couldn’t be less interested in an argument.)

I don’t believe that the things I gave as examples are the only truth and nothing but the truth, but to me they are. Of course your mileage may vary, depending on your feelings regarding your nationality, your experiences and what part of the world you’ve been visiting and thus have to compare your country of origin too. But I think there is one thing that is true for most of us, and that is that we don’t realise just how ______ we are until we travel abroad, for any length of time.

I’ve never felt particularly Swedish. Really. But once I lived outside my own little country I found myself say “In Sweden we…” rather a lot, and I was almost always introduced to people as “this is Kaia, she’s Swedish” (except, you know, that it wasn’t Kaia, because I didn’t start using that name until later). And it wasn’t until I returned to Sweden that I realised just how much I love my country, and I still couldn’t pin point why.

I love that this is so subjective, though. It all depends on what you’ve seen, where you’ve been, what you’re used to. I was reminded of this last week, when we (me, my sister, my Mum and one of my aunts) for some reason, unknown to all of us, started talking about fruit.

I said something about being amazed by how cheap fruit is here, and gave the example of being able to buy two twelve packs of Pepsi for five bucks, while in the U.S., and then have to pay half that for a single, usually not that nice bell pepper. My sister pulled a face and said “Not compared to Spain”, which is the country of her reference. And then she told us a story about her Iraqi friend who thinks the prices of dates and figs in Sweden are nothing short of ridiculous, because he’s used to the Middle East and all that.

Kind of interesting, don’t you think?

But when I say that things are so very clean here I think about walking down the street and seeing entire house’s worth of furniture tossed on the sidewalk until somebody could be bothered picking them up. Often less fortunate people snatched them up before the garbage truck came by; I was that person a few times. I think about overflowing trash cans and the smell when the sun baked them for hours and hours, and you could never be SURE when the next pick-up was, because it seemed to change from week to week.

When I say that alcohol is expensive I think about the hole-in-the-wall-bar that was nothing more than counter, a pool table and toilets one could not lock. We paid five dollars for a pitcher of beer (less than ONE beer costs here) and sat out back, drinking it. Mostly we opted to sit outside even when it was ridiculously cold because the white supremacists up front made us nervous; our group was made up by two Mexicans, one Middle Eastern guy, two gay men, one transgendered man and a few white kids.

When I say fika and elvakaffe I think about drinking coffee from dainty little cups and eating cookies by the pound, because God forbid that you say no to something, and compare it to grabbing a tall latte at Starbucks on my way to Memorial Park by St John’s River.

When I say that the standard of Swedish housing is superb I think about the kitchens here with their pull out cutting boards and the stainless steel counter and a stove where the burners aren’t spirals that are hopeless to clean underneath. And more than that? Windows with three sheets of glass in them, no drafty corners and radiators in every single room. I’ve never been colder than I was my first winter in Florida; it was as cold inside as it was outside, and I pulled a electric heater from room to room, and pretty much couldn’t get out of bed without freezing to death.

And I don’t think I’ll ever get used to (even though I grew up with it!) being able to walk straight out into the forest and pick blueberries as I please. It’s heaven.

I promised a few people to write a little something about Swedish holiday things. We’ve got a lot of them, really, but as it is December (tomorrow) I will concentrate on this time of the year, and if people like it I may do a second post later on about our Easter, Midsummer and day-after-Halloween. For now, this will have to do.

I remember my first Christmas in the U.S., and how surprised I was at how EARLY they did everything. Tree went up shortly after Thanksgiving, lights and stuff in the gardens at the same time. Also, a warm Christmas was very, very alien to me. But this isn’t about that! This is about how we do it.

	Most people put these kind of electric candles in their windows around December 1st, but the tree has to wait until the 20th or even later. Usually these lights are in the shape of a upside down V, with five or seven candles total. Traditionally these are red, white or just simply varnished wood, so when I found black ones – which are not as common – I immediately bought two of them for my living room. I have a red one in the kitchen and a silver one in my bedroom. Sometimes there are stars instead, but I like these better. At the moment I live in a neighbourhood that is rather high in immigrant population, and it always amuses me to see who has these up and who doesn’t. The ones that do are without a fail Swedes. Some go all out and have special Christmas curtains and stuff too, but I’m lazy. I put these up and called it a day. Although I actually tidied a bit too. Only one room to go! We are big on the idea of advent, which is funny, as most Swedes aren’t actively religious or anything. At least not my generation. Sure, there are those who go to church and such, but it’s very rarely a weekly thing, as it is in the U.S, and people that do are in minority, much as people who don’t are elsewhere. So, these lights go up around the first of advent, but we also have the very particular advent candle thingy that I don’t know how to translate.
	A lot of the time these candle holders are white, red, brass or just plain wood. Most people use white moss to stuff it with, although I saw a picture of somebody filling her candle holder with walnuts. I found this one when I moved; I think I bought it when I was about twenty and totally anti Christmas because it didn’t go with my emo image. That’s why it’s blue and green, and not any more traditional colour scheme. I went with green candles rather than the traditional red or white because it went better with the rest of it, and decorative stones from the plant section of the grocery store. Each Sunday in December, that is, the four Sundays before the 24th, we light a candle. On the first of advent it’s just one, on the second it’s the first (already burned) and the second. And so on. And yes, I said the 24th, because we actually don’t do Christmas Day. Except in the hangover and cleaning up tons of wrapping paper and laying on the couch eating chocolate we don’t really want sort of way.
	But before I get to Christmas Eve we have to speak about Saint Lucia’s Day, which is a bit hard to explain but makes total sense. Really. Saint Lucia’s Day is on December 13th, and you can read about it in further detail at Wikipedia. Lucia was an Italian saint, so I’m not sure why we are so hellbent on celebrating her day. Basically you dress up in a white gown, tie a red sash around your waist and wear candles in a wreath on your head. This is, of course, just Lucia herself, a role which is usually awarded the prettiest or most popular girl in school (although the grown-ups will insist this has nothing to do with it). There are “maidens” and/or “star boys” as well. The “maidens” are dressed the same way, but don’t get to wear the candles. They hold them solmenly in their hands instead. When the boys are conned into playing along they get to opt out of the sash they instead of the tinsel or plain wreaths that the “maidens” (sorry, can’t say that word without giggling) wear, they get to wear these fashionable cone hats. It starts early – even in daycare they have the kids dress up this way. Of course, at that age it’s all electric candles and EVERYONE that wants to get to be a lucia. Except for the boys. Sheesh. Can’t have crossdressing that early in the morning, can we? Generally, at that age, all the girls end up being lucias, because at that age there isn’t any voting, and everyone wants the shiny candles! (Which are electric, when you’re under 12-ish, btw.) When I was in daycare the only “maiden” was my sister – and she only was one because they wouldn’t let a girl wear the funny cone shaped hat!

Another thing about December is the julbords. Excuse the lack of a pic here, but this is too long to fit up there with the rest of them!

But basically our julbords are Christmas themed smörgåsbords, which is a Swedish term from the beginning. The worst thing about these is that there is meat in everything, and when there’s not it’s half-arsed meat substitutes that makes me cringe. I hate soy meatballs and soy sausage, so possibly that is just me. But okay. Traditionally there are ridiculous amounts of herring (in tomato sauce, mustard sauce, cream sauce, garlic sauce, with dill, with onion, pickled, etc, etc), several types of salmon, a million types of cold cuts, from ham by way of turkey to REINDEER (okay, we don’t have that, but I’m told some do). Even the potato gratin has anchoevies in it. There are usually some vegetable dishes too, but none I like; beet salad, cabbage, boiled potatoes, and so on.

My family always try to make me vegetarian dishes at Christmas dinner, but I don’t much care for cold meals, especially not if they include beans or lentils, which they always do when omnivores try to cook vegetarian. My Mum always offers to cover a TURNIP in whole-seed mustard and cook it like they do the ham, but I always decline, because come on – just because it vaguely has the shape of a ham… doesn’t make it a ham! I think with longing about the tofurkey I ate while in the U.S. It was amazing.

When I was younger I lived off cheese sandwiches for all of December while people ate this over and over and over. Because, yes, when you make like twenty different dishes and serve them all at once you get insane amounts of leftovers. Come January most people are so sick of this food that they swear never to eat it again. It lasts until Easter time, when you usually get the same damn food all over again, but with more egg dishes (which I don’t eat either…) This year I actually feel the urge to help with the cooking, which is the first time in a million years. I think I want to make American stuffing (sans turkey, but possibly with eggplant instead…), pumpkin pie if I can get ahold of pumpkin before Christmas, southern style baked beans (not British, please and thank you) and something with tofu. Then of course there are Christmas treats, like knäck (a type of sweets made out of pretty much just sugar, syrup and almonds), ice chocolate (which is just melted baking chocolate and cocoa butter) and these toffees my grandmother makes that tastes vaguely like knäck but more chocolatey. And depending on the results on my endoscopy I might need to make gluten free ginger snaps too…

(Okay, so, to me the sweets and oranges and nuts is what Christmas is all about. The food I’m meh about, but oh dear God, the sweets!)

So, we eat all this food, wait an hour or so and then it’s time for the most Swedish of all Swedish Christmas dishes – the lutfisk. It can literally be translated to “lye fish” and I’m not kidding. It’s really prepared with lye, and is, I think, a leftover from back when you had to actually use dried fish for this since going fishing in the winter is a very precarious business.

From Wikipedia:

The first treatment is to soak the stockfish in cold water for five to six days (with the water changed daily). The saturated stockfish is then soaked in an unchanged solution of cold water and lye for an additional two days. The fish swells during this soaking and its protein content decreases by more than 50 percent, producing its famous jelly-like consistency. When this treatment is finished, the fish (saturated with lye) has a pH value of 11–12, and is therefore caustic. To make the fish edible, a final treatment of yet another four to six days of soaking in cold water (also changed daily) is needed. Eventually, the lutefisk is ready to be cooked.

I have never eaten lutfisk in my life, because it smells so bad and I don’t even like NORMAL fish, but it’s pretty much all people talk about around Christmas. It’s crazy.

Of course, I haven’t said a word about regular Christmas traditions, just about the food. Sorry about that. Christmas IS food to us. But okay. Here goes:

My family opens a single present on the morning of the 24th. We used to have lunch with our cousins and their parents while our grandparents went to visit a great aunt, but ever since she passed away and our cousins became with husbands and boyfriends and children we’ve instead cut this short and spend lunchtime with just the family.

If we’re lucky my brother actually wakes up before lunchtime these days.

Later on we go to visit the grandparents, where, up until the youngest of us turned sixteen one of the grown-ups dressed up as santa and came and knocked on the door. We don’t do stockings in Sweden, or rather, those who do are mostly influenced by American TV – it’s not a tradition to us. So, our santa does not come through any chimneys, but rather pays a quick visit during which every child in the house and the grown-ups too, usually over playing to an embarrassing degree, have to go greet him personally, shaking his hand and saying something polite.

(Swedes are all about the hand shaking!)

And then we get to open all our presents and then we eat all over again.

I only once celebrated American Christmas, which was a emotionally difficult time, as my past relationship disrupted right around this time of the year. I still went to this “friend” of ours with my partner at the time, and watched them laugh and had people asking me why I was so quiet. The reason for this? Should be fucking obvious, if you knew the whole story. So, I don’t know American Christmas all that well, but love to hear stories from other cultures, so feel free to add something in the comments. If you want.

In all, Australian Christmas sounds more fun, because I’m told they don’t do this insane guilt ridden food thing, because it’s too hot to do that. Because you know, they have SUMMER when we have December.

Swedes take few things as seriously as their tvättstuga, that is, the laundry room. There is one in every apartment complex, using various ways to book a time slot. Older ones, like the one I used to live in, has a calendar outside the laundry room where you write your name on the time you want to use. Newer ones use fancy computerised systems. One thing they have in common, though?

They’re free. And there’s several washers and driers and (which I was absolutely gleeful finding out) sometimes a whole ROOM to hang your clothes in, with a fan thingy to dry them.

I don’t know if it’s a sign of me finally growing up, finding the existance of a tvättstuga so exciting, or if I just need to, you know, get laid or something, but oh man. The American laundromat has nothing on the Swedish tvättstuga. Let me paint a picture for you to illustrate the difference.

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Exhibit A, an American laundromat:

First, there’s a room (obviously), filled with washer and dryers. More often than not it’s so hot that you’re unable to breathe, yet the only form of relief is a ceiling fan, moving so slowly that it barely stirs the air at all. There are layers of dust on top of the washers, the ceiling fan and every horizontal surface in the room. And some of the vertical. If you’re lucky it’s an attended laundromat, which means that you can exchange money for rolls of quarters with a (usually) cranky old man, who will shoo anyone out that lights up a smoke while folding their laundry. Yes. I’m not kidding. It happens. All the time.

Of course, most laundromats are unmanned, meaning that somebody comes there to unlock it in the morning and take the quarters put in the various machines during the day. Most of them have a high ratio of working vs. useless washers and dryers. Sometimes you can tell, because somebody has taken the time to carve DON’T USE or SUCKS ASS or NO HEAT into the door of said machine, using a key or a knife. A lot of the time you can’t, until you return, find your laundry still dirty (if it’s a washer) or wet (if it’s a dryer), and realise you’re out four to six quarters and about 45 minutes.

There are a few mostly clean tables to fold your clothes on, and usually there’s a gas station next door, which means that you have somewhere to buy a drink. People go sit in their cars with the AC cranked up while their machines work, because it’s too hot to exist anywhere else. This means, of course, that the air is thick with car fumes, the whole time you’re there.

I didn’t realise until I returned to Sweden that you’re actually not supposed to dry all your clothes in the dryer. There, you don’t have an option. If you want them dry, you toss them in the dryer. End of story.

Some laundromats have people with various mental impairments hanging around near them, because it’s the only way they get to talk to people. I still remember the one guy who spoke to me for three hours straight, his speech so garbled that I didn’t realise until the end of those three hours that he had been repeatedly asking me if I had a pretty cunt.

(I’ve always had a hard time understanding people with heavy accents, strange speech patterns or odd sort of turns of phrases. Even in Swedish.)

A lot of the time it’s just women coming to these laundromats, yelling at their numerous children through the (always open) door the entire time. Once, though, I saw a thug help his mama fold the clothes of his entire extended family, or so it seemed, judging from the amounts of clothes. The only part I liked about laundromats was that – you always saw little glimpses out of people’s lives, the smallest little snippet, and it made me want to make up stories about them, hoping that they were at least somewhat accurate.

I never found out if they were, of course.

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Exhibit B, the Swedish tvättstuga:

As Swedish people love their rules the inside of the door is usually plastered with rules, warnings, and in some cases passive aggressive notes about the tenant who dared not to clean the lint out of the dryer after they used it. Because oh my God, if you don’t clean after yourself you will bring down the wrath of everyone in the house.

In my current building these notes are in Swedish, English and a tricky alphabet type language, I am guessing Arabic. Persian, possibly. Because I live in a suburb with a lot of immigrants. It made me oddly happy to see that. I don’t even know why.

But. You do get the laundry room to yourself, provided that you have remembered to book a time slot and don’t accidentally go there on the wrong day. (It has happened, let’s just say that much.) There are no damn quarters to feed the washer and dryers and if one of them stops working it’s more or less required by the landlord to replace or repair it.

Some places have this rule that if you don’t start doing laundry within 30 minutes of your time slot’s beginning, anyone else can snap it up. And don’t you dare using even ten minutes of the next person’s time. That will not be appreciated.

So, it doesn’t cost money, there are no broken machines, you have to follow the rules or so help you God. There’s no buying drinks, no hanging around for hours because you can’t trust somebody to not steal your laundry while you turn your back and there’s most definitely no smoking indoors. But… it’s kind of boring. Really boring. Nice, efficient, ordered. Very, very Swedish.

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And I kind of love that I know that it’s not like that everywhere. I can appreciate the calm and the un-broken machines, the lack of cigarette smoke and dust and loud children, yet somehow wish that my clothes-folding would be soundtracked by music or a storyline I never would’ve thought about, had I not seen this person or that come into the laundromat while I was sitting there. Because Swedish tvättstugor (yep, plural looks like that) are always quiet, void of people and you get shit done, but it’s not exactly entertaining while you do it.

Two very different worlds. And I love you, dearest tvättstuga, I really do. I just find it really hilarious that Swedes have to be so strictly ruled at all times. Sometimes in three or more languages.

All credit to PostSecret, of course.