Stockholm Syndrome

The 29-Day Blogging Challenge: Ö is for Östermalm (A special blog contribution from my semi-Swedish wife)

Östermalm takes up an area of 2.56 km² in the eastern end of Stockholm. It is one of the most populous districts in the city, and one of the richest.  It historically has the highest housing prices within the city of Stockholm, and maybe even in all of Sweden.

The area has really moved up in the world.  It was first known as Ladugårdslandet, which is translated to cow-house land, since king Erik of Pomerania started keeping his cows there in the 15^th century.  Apparently a village called Vädla had been on the site before this, but there is no mention in the historical record of the fate of the poor people of this village who were displaced for the benefit of the royal bovines.

In the 17^th century, the king generously allowed the proletariat to keep their cows on this land as well, but as you can probably imagine, the sound and stench of these animals drew many complaints from the neighbours.  Eventually the area was converted to a military exercise field, which may be in fact the origin of the name of the shopping centre located at Karlaplan, Fältöversten, which is translated to the Field Colonel.

The rich folks moved in starting around 1880, when a new town plan resulted in shady tree-lined streets, boulevards, fountains and fancy 4-6 storey apartment buildings.  Today it’s still a pretty high-brow area with a lots of chi-chi boutiques and cafés.  It’s definitely not the area of town I thought I’d be living in when I moved here.  In fact, one of my professors at McMaster who had lived in Stockholm many years back joked with me once about how I’d never find an affordable apartment in Östermalm, so I shouldn’t even bother looking.

The story of how we came to live here is pretty funny.  As many of you probably know, finding an apartment in Stockholm can be difficult to say the least.  My biggest problem after I accepted my job at the Karolinska Institute was that I still lived in Canada.  Trust me, trying to rent out a second hand apartment while you’re overseas and don’t speak any Swedish is not the recommended way to go about it! But in any case, I persisted and kept sending emails to people who had advertised their flats on Böstad Direkt. Eventually I got a reply from a guy renting out his apartment at Hornstull for the first two months of my sojourn in Stockholm.  In a strange twist of fate, he happened to be the cousin of my supervisor’s wife, so I was given the apartment without even meeting the guy.  It seemed meant to be that I live in Stockholm.

However, that left me to find alternate accommodations for the remaining 22 months of my contract.  In another strange twist of fate, I met upon my arrival a researcher in the group who was about to move to New York city for a job.  We became friends, and since she needed someone to live in her apartment whilst she was abroad and I was soon to be homeless, it was a perfect situation for us both.  So here we are in Östermalm, close to Karlaplan, in a lovely second-floor apartment with marble floors, painted ceilings and an awesome treasure room. We’re happy living here amongst the fur coat-clad ladies and diplomats until my friend moves back from NYC, whereupon we will begin the search for a home afresh.  Next stop Strandvägen, perhaps?

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The 29-Day Blogging Challenge: Ä is for Ärr (A special blog contribution from my semi-Swedish wife)

Ärr is Swedish for scar.  Everyone has a couple of scars that have an interesting tale to go along with them.  Personally, my two favourite scars are the small one on my right palm where I skewered my hand with my Aunt Pam’s knitting needle, and one on my lower lip which I acquired by crashing into wall whilst chasing my babysitter’s cat.  But these were both obtained in my accident-prone youth.

Scars acquired in adulthood are often more traumatic and usually involve a serious medical problem or an accident.  Darryn, my dear husband for whom I am writing this blog entry, has two very interesting scars from medical procedures in the last few years.  One is on his belly, from hip bone to hip bone, which he refers to as his “Braveheart scar”.  It’s pretty impressive and one of a pair that have resulted from a series of issues with his guts over the years.  But the scar I’d really like to write about is his newest one on the back of his left shoulder.

In any case, Darryn has a new scar to show off to his friends, which kind of looks like a scar left behind from a bullet wound.  Maybe he’ll start calling it his “50 Cent scar”.

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The 29-Day Blogging Challenge: Å is for Åsikt (A special blog contribution from my semi-Swedish wife)

The Swedish word for opinion is åsikt.  I thought it was an appropriate word to start with for this short series of guest blog entries, since opinions are what blogs are all about.

Coming from a North American background, I find the art of giving one’s opinion without also giving offense to be a delicate undertaking in Sweden.  In Canada, we generally say what we think and how we feel, although typically delivered with a dash of Canadian politeness.  In my experience at least it seems a bit different in the U.S., where opinions are generally voiced with no thought to how they are received.  Free speech and all.  I think the recent controversy surrounding the visit of Ann Coulter, an outspoken right-wing pundit from America who was spurned in Ottawa but welcomed in Calgary, says a lot about the political climate in the U.S. versus Canada, and also highlights the differences in political opinion in various regions within Canada.

But back to Sweden.  Swedes tend to always want to get along and agree with each other.  There are even a number of words in Swedish to reflect this, such as helhetsomdöme (overall opinion) and folkmening (public opinion). We had a very interesting discussion in my Swedish class this week about how to state your opinion without hurting anyone’s feelings.  According to Kerstin, the teacher for the class, disagreeing with someone in Sweden is tantamount to personally attacking them.  I haven’t really seen this myself, but many of the Swedes I interact with regularly have lived abroad, so maybe they’ve grown a thicker skin.  But several students in the class had stories that agreed with this premise, in which a reasonable professional disagreement resulted in days or weeks of getting the cold shoulder at work.  The whole concept of lagom is one of the many things I love about Sweden, and I’m also a firm proponent of consensus-based decision making.  But really, just because someone has a difference of opinion with you, that doesn’t justify rude behaviour in a professional setting.  In my opinion, criticism is a part of any job, especially in science.  We exist to be criticized.  As long as the criticism is constructive and not an attack on the person, learning to accept and incorporate critical opinions is an important skill to learn, regardless of where you live.

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Apparently, May is Zombie Awareness Month. Amongst the other auspicious holidays and observances – such as Fungal Awareness Month, International Audit Month, and Heal The Children Month (is it wrong to hope that April is Smack-The-Little-Brats-Around Month?) – May is dedicated to spreading awareness, preparedness, and shit-a-brickedness about all things ‘zombie’.

Zombies have certainly taken firm root in our sociocultural zeitgeist over the past decade. Sure, there are many references to zombies prior to Y2K – MJ’s Thriller, the classic Night of the Living Dead, Abe Vigoda, even all those stubborn buggers in the bible who just refused to stay dead; but the past 10 years has seen the hordes of reanimated corpses trudge slowly but steadily into the forefront of our collective consciousness, a reverse-gentrification of society that survived the millennial apocalypse only to face-off against brain-starved automatons in tattered clothes and questionable hygiene. To wit: Amazon.com lists 5,493 books about zombies, but only 4,956 about Obama and, shamefully, only 3,305 about Winnie the Pooh. Similarly, Google tracks 35.2 million pages about zombies, but only 18.9 million about Gandhi. Most terrifyingly, however, it brings up 84.1 million pages about Lady Gaga. Personally I’d rather face a metric ass-load of zombies than that toxic train wreck. But I digress…

The point is, zombies – be it the cultural myth, the passing fascination, or the impending apocalyptic pandemic – are here and one needs to be prepared. So it’s fitting that May, long considered the month of renewal, is Zombie Awareness Month… and Fungal Awareness Month, but there’s probably a cream for that, so I wouldn’t worry too much. But there is no cream for zombies, no doctor-prescribed pill that can make the scourge of undead ne’er-do-wells go away. They’re relentless, persistent, invasive, wholly unpleasant, difficult to avoid, nasty to see, horrible to hear, and quite possible offensive to smell…

Hmmm… Are we certain Lady Gaga isn’t a zombie?

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I walked home yesterday afternoon in a daze, unable to look strangers in the face, red eyes hidden by sunglasses. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was alone, but shouldn’t have been.

I had spent the day at the vet’s office. Our hedgehog, Baxter, had not been eating properly for about a week, and although his demeanor hadn’t really changed – he was still playful, cuddly, responsive – he obviously had something wrong. He hadn’t had any food or water for two days, so I packed him up in his travel cage, put his blankets over him, and headed for one of Stockholm’s veterinary offices yesterday morning. Both Jill and I assumed, based on his symptoms, that whatever was going on, whatever was bothering the littlest member of our family, could be fixed. We were wrong.

People often ridicule me for how attached I become to animals, be them ours or otherwise. They can’t understand how upset I get when an animal is sick, or has to be put down. They can’t understand why I can’t just stick them in a cage, drop in some food and water periodically, and carry on with life. They can’t understand that for me, for us, Baxter was a member of the family, someone we cared for, missed, thought about, bragged about, worried about. We spent time with him every day, playing on the couch, running around in the park out back of the apartment, sometimes just a morning and evening ‘hello’ and a scratch on his forehead. He was a fixture in our lives, but despite our best efforts, and those of his doctor, he’s gone.

We were wrong about the severity of his symptoms. The doctor ran tests, x-rays, contrast stains, everything she could do to find something treatable, but the answer always came back the same. It wasn’t treatable, and although he wasn’t yet in any pain or discomfort, he would be if left alone. There was nothing more to do than make sure he didn’t suffer, didn’t hurt, didn’t deteriorate. He left this world with me there, my voice surrounding him, knowing that we tried everything to make him better. Even one of the vet techs was crying.

Baxter was the funniest, sweetest, weirdest, peculiarest, scamperiest, playfulest, bestest hedgehog. He made us laugh constantly with his antics. He amazed us with his energy, personality (hedgehogality?), and capacity for tenderness crammed into such a little body. He would run around and play with and climb over us at times, with a look in his eyes of pure happiness; and at times he would just cuddle, curled up or laid out flat, fast asleep, his little paws twitching when he was dreaming. He would lay there and stare into our eyes, stroking us with his paw, when we were sick or injured as if he knew we needed to be taken care of. He knew I was doing the same yesterday, and in his own way seemed thankful. It was like he felt safer when I was in the room, or when he heard my voice, like he knew that we wouldn’t let him hurt.

I know this is a part of life, and an aspect one has to assume with pets. But still, I hated walking into this apartment yesterday afternoon. I hated waking up this morning. I hate sitting here, knowing that I won’t hear him trotting around at odd hours, getting up for an afternoon snack, stealing my sock, running on his wheel, or just sitting there, surveying his domain and his humans, with a look of pure contentment on his face. I already miss those things.

Goodnight, Baxter. We love you.

Baxter the hedgehog

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