SUNDAY 2024 05 12

MY TWO MOST RECENT PROMENADE COMPANIONS

Anyone who becomes homebound like me considers himself lucky if he/she (Swedish word for that is "hen" can count on having friends or other people who can accompany the homebound while hen takes a promenade.

During the week just past I took two of the longest walks I have managed so far and write to thank my promenade companions.

The first one, a new person came on Friday, a beautiful day on which I was promenade-eager. The second was my best friend Ann - see further down.

He was a young man, one of the group of promenade companions provided me by Göteborg hemtjänst (Home Services) each of whom can walk with me for 30 minutes. He was the newest in what is now a group of 5 or 6. I do not name any in this group nor  do I show any photos, but I do begin by noting the languages they speak, first and foremost their mother tongue and then others.

I asked him, and he first named Swedish and English with Swedish being the essential language given that ethnic Swedes have long life expectancies, greatest for women. I am not an ethnic Swede meaning that I was neither born here nor grew up here. I am a "line-of-descent Swede on both my paternal and maternal sides, and my Big Y genome shows that I share a line of descent with a group of 7 or 8 men all born in Sweden.

The third language my new promenade person named was Dari, the language spoken in Afghanistan that is related to Persian or Farsi.

Once I learn those things we have a good basis for conversation. But interestingly, he began by asking me what I had been in my adult life and  I replied Geology Professor and explained a bit because not everyone knows what geology is.

Then I tell my aide about my familiarity with people with background similar to his/her/hens. Familiarity thanks to almost 30 years as a Red Cross Volunteer at Red Cross Language Cafes in Linköping and Göteborg. I ask when my aide came to Sweden but do not ask any questions touching on politics here or in the home country.

As I have reported earlier, every such walk and every new walker brightens my life.

On Saturday, my best friend Ann turned up as usual, bearing food, even a gift, and ready to help with the usual chores, then take a walk, and then engage in always interesting conversations.

The gift was a surprise for this reason: I had said I had more or less lost interest in drinking wine but I had not given up and just wanted to associate it with special moments. That moment turns up below.

Then I said that I was sure on Saturday that I could manage very well walking to the stables at the edge of the forest, the stables that were Ann's home away from home when she was growing up at the Frodi home not far from the stables. We started walking, turned onto the main dirt road that leads up to the lakes, and came to the stables where in one of the electric-wire enclosures were two women caretakers going in to provide feed for two horses.

Ann established her credentials as an accomplished horsewoman with a long history of work at these stables, and she was allowed in and was even allowed, I believe, to give one horse an apple, otherwise not to be done.

This made her extra happy and we could then go to one of my favored destinations, part of the horizontal forest where many 100-year old or older beech trees lie on the forest floor. I was happy also, so we could walk back here to 3B.

Then with the sun now shining down on my balcony from its position on the southern horizon we could have fika - Coffee plus - and pick up again a conversation about one of my closest Swedish friends at the Red Cross in Linköping who could discuss American novels and novelists with me. a soecial interest of hers. She like her female age mates and close friends of mine at the Red Cross are no longer living but still rememembered fondly by me.

Written Sunday morning at 3B with a brilliant blue sky above my balcony. And yes, I sipped the wine Ann had given me, slowly while looking toward my forest. Perhaps I will manage to insert a selfie of that moment latet.

 Annika returns as Guardian Angel 4

My post pointing to Annika's unique role as one of my Guardian Angels was deleted when problems arose for both my blog and Gmail. Microsoft has informed me that both are working again so here are the first words about Annika's role.

Annika has commitments that in total are beyond doing, so her usual style as concerns helping me was to be a pinch-hitter (American baseball phrase) who could handle an odd request when I needed food or medicine that suddenly was no longer in a cabinet here at 3B.

Tuesday, 14:35 23 April: I edit this post with reference to the next sentence in an earlier draft: "If she was close by..."

Today she was close by having driven here to come in and tell Ann (already here) and me that she, Annika, had an offer too good to refuse. The offer was to drive us up to Lyckan, the coffee shop-restaurant at the top of our mountain from which one can look down on one of the two big lakes.

In the photo below taken by Annika you see the name and the place. Lyckan is well known for at least two reasons: 1) It has the best banana bread of any of the three places Annika visited when I was more mobile, and 2) Lyckan offers a perfect waffle with blueberry jam or sauce and whipped cream on top. Delicious, and it was lunch time. This was the first time I have been able to walk in my forest, and it felt wonderful to be surrounded by my trees.

Ann is helping Annika at her apartment now but later she will send a photo or photos of Annika and me hugging a very big and very healthy pine tree. That photo will appear below.

    Ann took this picture as we were leaving Lyckan. Looks like I have gotten shorter. I guess we can estimate the circumference or diameter of that tree which must be in the 150 year-old category. Thanks Ann.

Annika took a little fast walk along the beginning of the trail that goes around the two lakes, a 10 km trail that she often has run on when she drops in here at 3B. I used to run the first part of that trail and can see it clearly in my mind as if I were running on it. When I ran there alone I would come to some pretty steep stairs where I would turn around since going down steep stairs was no longer something I wanted to do.

Now I will begin the first essay in a series I am going to write after being inspired by reading historian Sven-Eric Liedeman's essays published under the title I NOVEMBER (In November) in which he reflects on being older, for him being in his early 80s.

My essay will be about the trees and forests I love, a subject he does not write about.

Annika may not write about trees but she too knows and loves them, and her photographs of them let the trees speak for themselves.

She often comes by here to switch into her running clothes and then take off to run the 10 km route.

Just now she cannot do that since she recently dislocated a shoulder. After that happened she came here to sleep a couple of nights where it is usually so peaceful one can really get a long satisfying sleep. She got two nights of good sleep and then another whole afternoon while I too was restoring myself with a long nap.

Heavenly.

More photos to come! Who knows, maybe a nap too. I did not get the nap because a new promenade guide came by so I leaped out of bed and opened the door. I will write about her in my posts about the hemtjänst people that come here. She heard me speak and right away said "It's raining." I looked and saw that it really was coming down. So I said Jag ser fram emot ett besök av dig en annan dag. 

A SUNDAY MIRACLE HAS HAPPENED, WE WILL CALL IT FRAN WARREN'S HIT SUNDAY KIND OF LOVE

I have worked all day to try to restore my gmail and my blog and always saw the swedish word pausa next to the big L- Then I worked at my Microsoft account and also created a second Gmail. And to get this I had to click on something new to me vy skriva .Swedish for go to the window Write Now I can see font selections. This will be the high point of my day

I reveal my long ago familiarity with Big Bands and Big Band singers by citing Fran Warren. As I remember that, many stations banned her song. I will google and enjoy my coffee break reading about that after googling. The New York Times told an an amazing story about Fran Warren, told by Jazz writer John Wilson in 1979. Three cops arrested her and put her in jail because they said her husband was a crook. He was. She got out of jail and someone who was in the music business filed a suit against New York City. Fran Warren got $500,000. She was so well off that she no longer had to work if she did not want to. Her husband got out of jail and went straight, got a legitimate job. I hope my brother Ron reads this and can find Fran Warren singing that song. He can sing along.

I publish and look to see if there is a comment line. There is no comment line showing after I opened this. I leave it now, I want my coffee. 15:25 at 3B. Ron you can leave a heart see smiley above.

The quote below is taken from a New Yorker Magazine article about Guru type (or Con man-my choice) Peter Attia who will take your money and in return will tell you what he thinks you must do to enjoy becoming older.

The author of the New Yorker article presents this one line rejoinder that I firmly support and to which I add my own single sentence. 

"The Harvard Study of Adult Development has found, in eight decades, that human connections may be the single most critical determinant of long-term happiness and health."

As any reader of my most recent posts at this blog know, I am writing about all the people with whom I maintain human connections and thus add to my happiness and health.

I add this statement, based only on my personal experience during the past 10 years or so:

I read and write every single day, and the act of writing, saving, and printing always leaves me feeling more alive, aware, and happy than I would have been if I had not read and written. Doing that both by writing by hand or depressing a set of keys tells me I am quite okay. 

How about you? What do reading and writing do for you?

 Swedish National Hemtjänst - Swedish National Home Service

   In my post yesterday, April 16, I provided a prevue of today's post in the form of a photograph. There I was, a neighbor on one side, and my Home-Service person of the day, whom I designated as I. I am waiting for him to appear today since this is one of my "Let's take a walk days."

   I do not know exactly when he will appear but I do know that there are 4 of us on this street waiting for him to turn up. The other three are women, ages unknown. I am the only male and I am pretty sure I am also the oldest.

   Now I am going to tell you, my American family about the different kinds of help I get here and wonder whether there is a counterpart in your part of the USA.

   I will continue to use a single letter for each person, if there is an individual who is helping.

Mathem - Mathem is an On-Line supermarket that shows me on-line a bright image of every object that can be ordered with price and weight, volume, or number as is appropriate for tomatoes as a familiar example.

   Home Services has registered me with an account that is set up so that I do not pay anything for delivery. One of the HS staff appears on Monday every week, ready to take my order. This week it was S who would place my order. She is a young woman who is a Kurd born in the Kurdish part of Iran bordering a Kurdish part of Iraq. She wears the traditional Muslim Chador and has just ended Ramadan with traditional celebration here in Sweden.

   She sits down, takes out her phone, registers me at my account, and is ready for me to tell her one item at a time what I want to order. I name it and she with lightning fast thumbs finds a picture and shows me - a container of milk for example. Tell her which kind and how large - Light milk, 1.5 liters. That becomes number one on the list.We move through my choices, and I am told the total cost at any point. I choose to end when the total is 450 Swedish crowns.

   She sends the order, tells me delivery will be on Thursday morning between 9:30 and 11:00 and that I must be here to take the delivery which will be in large cardboard boxes. All the frozen foods must be put into the freezer directly.

   I used to have to take a trolley to either a small local store, Tempo, or to a very large supermarket, ICA Focus. I would have a back pack and weighted down take the return trolley and walk a few  100 meters to my door. Always too heavy, often too difficult. Not any more.

   S asks if there is anything she can do for me as she leaves and yes, she can. She can take a brown paper bag with food waste to be put in a container across the street. That food waste will become fuel to be fed into a giant incinerator where water is heated to high temperature. Hot water from that incinerator arrives at every apartment or business in this area, hot water that heats my home and also heats water for my kitchen and my bathroom.

  I will add others to this post after each has done something for me. Noontime, Wednesday, signing off.

International Day With Ann and 

my Ethiopian promenade guide at 3B

Ann was my first Guardian Angel to be presented here in my blog. She has been here twice a w eek since that first day, that day treated about 5 posts down.

Today, Tuesday, April 16, was very satisfying and especially importtant because it illustrates the importance of being able to take promenades with a support perso aad the importance of wide-ranging conversation in keeping home-bound people of sound mind and body.

Settling In --When Ann arrives she has to first settle in so we can take our time to talk and have  coffee and, for me, the fancy cookies she bought at the very fine bakery at Frölunda Torg.

   We did that and we have gotten quite good at having conversations about matters within our wide range of subjects in common.

   Then time for my first walk of the day when Ann will carry a big box of stuff to the recycling cente located across the street in back of the white truck. The building is where my Frisk Rehab physical therapist is located.

   We took my longest walk to date, down along Allén where all of the trees are not at all well,  won't survive very long. Then we came back and really settled down to talk about my getting low-cost taxi service and then, about something very different, the country where one of my walker assistants I was born, Ethiopia. He was scheduled to come today and I was sure that would set the stage for an interesting conversation. Why? 

    Ann lived in Ethiopia, I was a manuscript reviewer and English language expert for a team of maternal care researchers at Karolinska who had a major project in Ethiopia, and I am learning all the time from "I" ( choose not to use the names of the many people who come here to help me)

   He did appear, I introduced him to Ann and her to him, and they were quickly into a fascinating conversation since she knows the area where he came from and where she lived.

   Then he and I left to take my second walk for the day. Ann went out onto the scaffolding and took the picture of us, stopping to talk with a neighbor of mine who helps to keep the lawn spic and span and also arranges get togethers.

I am in the maroon jacket in the center, my neighbor in black to my  left, and I on my right.

   We walked and talked about my other helpers, all of whom I knows, and he said he will be back tomorrow for another visit and walk.

   This became a wonderful day and I use this story as the lead in to a future post about my helpers.

    Comments welcome, just click on comment below this text.

 Guardian Angel III

 

I present Guardian Angel III, my son Gary Lundgren who did an almost impossible task, finding 3 days when he could put himself in this position where he who towers over me could find a seat with room over his head. He is officially retired and had recently made one Trans-Atlantic trip that took him and his wife to a ship traveling up the Norwegian coast so close to Sweden but not free to drop in here at 3B.

He took on the Guardian Angel role to come here to see what he could do to help me and to get up to date on my new life, home alone at 3B supported by the Swedish Home Services system staff members and my very own family angels.

Another Frodi Sister - Here is Gary with Ann Frodi's younger sister, Majt at the entrance to 3B. You will learn more about Majt as Guardian Angel V or VI perhaps but here we stick with what Gary had to offer his home-bound father.

Gary and his wife had already booked a vacation in Jamaica but he was able to squeez in a 3 or 4 day trip to Göteborg, move in at 3B and get to work in my apartment  while I told him all about my new life where I never can leave my home alone.

Immediately, here on Swedish time 6 hours different from State of Maine time, he went to work in my kitchen. He restored it to like new condition listening to me and telling me about his life as a grandfather with three grandkids, all three of whom are my Great Grandchildren.

Here I am reading a card from Daphne Lundgren who gets to spend quite a bit of time with her Grandpa. Photo of Daphne coming, I hope.

I first met Daphne when she was only a few months old, and that was fun. I will not be making any more trips to the USA so I rely on the grandchild trio to make cards just as I did about 87 years ago, cards I  still have.

Gary and Majt really hit if off together talking non-stop a mile a miuute while Ann and I sat on the couch that opened up was Gary's too small bed. Majt and Ann left and Gary got his first chance to hear about my local support team, a man from Ethiopia, a woman from Somalia, another woman, a Kurd from Turkey whose parents had fled from Turkey to Borås where my helper was born - do not know her name yet. There is also a woman from Bosnia who cleans my apartment, and last but not least, a Swedish woman who grew up here and knows a lot about support offered in a building across the street from me where girls with troubled lives get help to restore those lives to a life that is at least better in one or more ways.

Signed off here at kl. 17.01 on the 9th, and sent the link to this blog to Madeleine our Red Cross leader at Kåken, the restored prison that houses a library and the Language Cafe where we Red Cross volunteers get to know visitors who come from just about everywhere. I miss being there since my 25 years as volunteer gave me one of the very best things I have experienced in Sweden.

Today, April 10, I want to note that Gary also has become a very fine writer and shares with me an interest in many different aspects of life here and in America where many troubling things are happening. He has become my number one best correspondent and writes replies to all of my Emails by placing paragraphs in colored text between mine. 

In other words, there on the printed page is a conversation that took place as if we were talking with each other but are not. We read here in Sweden that school kids no longer know how to write by hand and that leads them to being unable to express themselves by writing in their phones. When one writes by hand, one's mind functions differently and more slowly, often with good results.

I hope to add photos. The next Guardian Angel will most likely be Annika Frodi-Lundgren, Circus Annika. After Annika, I will close Part One of these blog posts by telling you about the people who help me here and also about my Red Cross colleagues who I miss so badly.

Wednesday, April 10, kl. 16:15 sun shining down on 3B.