We just wrapped up a week with guests from Sweden in our house. I wanted to put the word "wonderful" in there before "week," but in classic Megan style I ended up catching some sort of cold/stomach bug by Day 3 and was out of commission for most of the visit.
Ugh. It all had started so strong. We set off on a 2-hour drive to pick them up at a lake cabin in a remote part of northeast Washington Monday night.
"It's time to go get our Swedes," I announced to the girls cheerfully.
"Are we going to put them in the ground and watch them grow?" Bo asked.
"Swedes, honey. Not seeds."
When Bruno and Iris greeted us with warm hugs, I knew in an instant it would be a good week.
On Tuesday morning, I made quiche and pumpkin muffins and set out an array of teas and coffee for breakfast. That night, J and I cooked up a feast for 10 that included this butternut squash pasta, this bleu cheese dip and this apple cake for dessert, as well as some rosemary chicken, fennel sausage and other yum. We have failed miserably at dinner parties before, but we seriously hit it out of the park with that one.
The food was meant to be Northwest and autumnish, but the company was truly international: 2 Swedes, 1 Dutch woman, 1 Canadian and 5 gringos. It was a mix of neighbors and friends, and they hit it off beautifully.
But by Wednesday afternoon, my head was in the toilet. And, no, it wasn't food poisoning (thank goodness).
Our kind guests were completely understanding and they thankfully felt comfortable enough to help themselves to what they needed. But I couldn't help but think that they must have worried that they'd walked into Swine Flu Central. (Despite the fact that eastern Washington is ground zero for swine flu right now, I don't have it. Again, thank goodness.)
But during the times I was coherent this week, I witnessed moments of intercultural, intergenerational beauty.
We'd never met Bruno and Iris before. They were part of a "Friendship Exchange" through one of the local Rotary Clubs, which J volunteers for. They probably assumed they'd be staying with a retired couple like themselves, perhaps not with two 35 year olds and their young, er, energetic daughters.
But it didn't take long to see that Bruno and Iris love children--they have six grandchildren of their own--and my heart swelled when Iris put Bo on the kitchen counter on night 2 and sang a Swedish nursery rhyme to her. (Something about a mouse looking for a house. The mouse creeps up the child's leg and finally finds its house in her tummy. Giggles galore.)
We talked with them about history and war and the environment and immigration and health care and taxes and about the unbelievable polarization that's happening in this country right now. (Seriously. A day doesn't go by when my jaw doesn't drop open as I read the paper. And I'm a journalist, for Pete's sake! Nothing should surprise me by now, right?)
So, yeah, it was a bummer that I got sick. But besides going to a foreign country and staying with a family there, I don't think there's a better way to expose ourselves to another culture than inviting people into our home. It's important to me that the girls grow up knowing that their way of life isn't the only way of life.
We jokingly referred to Bruno and Iris as "our" Swedes all week. But, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, in some ways that's true. We now have a small connection to a country we've never visited, except vicariously while wandering the aisles of Ikea.
I've been thinking of making a table runner I would applique over the years with small symbols of our voyages and of folks who visit us (like a Swedish flag and a reindeer for Bruno and Iris). I mentioned this to my friend Klay and she suggested starting a signature tablecloth, like this one. I plan to get some hybrid of those ideas going soon.
We're back to normal life now, and here's a little activity I did with Bo this afternoon to
help her recognize words and,
more importantly, to remind her where to put her clothes away.
I cut out letters as she ran back and forth to her room to come up with things we needed to label, like her sock drawer, her pajama drawer, her zebra and her duck. Of course.
Then she glued them to the background paper.
As you can see I probably should have coached her a bit more on the order of the letters, but she'll figure it out one day.
And finally, a visual report from our garden. This was tonight's bounty. The white tomato is courtesy of our youngest and most eager gardener, Magpie.
