Hard work and Caetano Veloso

As advertised, we took the trip back. It's always a bore. You sit scrunched between 176 other people and there is a law that says that you always end up either right next to the smelly john at the back of the plane or right in front of a corpulent lady who is making the last leg of trip from Australia, who of course hasn't washed her feet in the meantime, and who feels an incontrollable urge to remove her shoes, whereupon she places her feet on the arm rest about 8 inches from your nose. Attempts to nudge her foot (o-o-o-h-h-h-) with your elbow is like punching a stone.

Anyway, you get there. You don't bend down and kiss the tarmac after getting off the plane, but it sure feels good. Everytime.

Minneapolis

Back here to help move Flora from her apartment to assisted living (= euphemism). Lots of hard work. Like what to do in three days time with a large oak porcelain cabinet worth gobs of money and which no one wants. Finally a charity took it for placement in immigrant homes. Much better than selling it to some old busybody in the apartment complex for a pittance.

For some strange reason, food doesn't taste quite as good this time around. Yoghurt is creamier and of course there are English muffins, not to speak of Rocky Road, Oreos, Grape Nuts, creamed squash, pecan pie. I take it back. No, not as far as the coffee is concerned. How a vibrant society can imbibe such dishwater, I'll never be able to figure out.

Sis was here too. She's a lawyer from down south now. I tell her it's amusing having a redneck in the family and she's not amused.

New York

First night here we met Gabe and his girlfriend, Carmen, and went to a fantastic concert with Caetano Veloso, whom I am ashamed to say I had never heard of (Sorry, all of you 50 million Brazilians out there). What presence, what talent, what stamina. We soon got three records by him and I now have them tucked away in my MP3-player.

Rest of the time was spent visiting, eating out. Damn, New York is expensive! Went to the Metropolitan Museum one day and saw some mummies.

We stayed in the International House - which is where Gabe and Carmen stay while they're studying film directing and photography. Cool place, not at all like you would find in Sweden where everything has to be modern, antiseptic and square. This building was built in the twenties (?) and is enormous, run down and cosy. Complete with a gym, study rooms, dining hall, lecture halls, apartments and divers cockroaches. No problem. The I-House has an official exterminator. Memories go back to my own younger years and the kind of cute sound they used to make when you shook the box of cornflakes. I never had an exterminator to call.