life in "OR"-LAND a.k.a. "ELLER"-VILLE....

and -no... i do not mean that lovely green sunny island of O( with 2 dots) -LAND- ...which SOUNDS like  "OR-LAND"!

...my dear friends have heard me complain about this again and again- but it smacks me in the face ALL the FRIGGIN' TIME! 

no,Sven Svensson!!!...

-NOT EVERY SENTENCE ENDS in "OR?..."- aka "ELLER?...." (in swedish....)

there is just something fundamentally wrong here....i am sorry.

what I am talking about is that demuring, soft-peddling manner in the way many swedes,it seems, tend to  speak- to reach -"compromise"-in ALL things,ABOVE all things, which , if they had their way- would be just about the way that everything should be handled!....

while nearly managing to have gained mastery of the EXCLUSION of "OR?" to end nearly every sentence with the husband when he and i speak-....(photo above taken of the "first official DISCUSSION" of our marriage! probably still involving the "OR?" word...) I am proud to say he is now virtually self-correcting on this issue!...)

SIDE SNICKER: "the world according to karen" does have it's power!!....

.......i apparently have no control over everyone else that says it....in shops,in meetings, where-ever...

case in point just the other afternoon- after the return home from yet another fattening FIKA , I came home to find Sixten had had lunch, and in that "charming " way of many 19 year old young men in societies ALL over the world- he had left the usual Items behind in the kitchen that say,"look, i've eaten lunch..."- that way not having to actually SAY ,"oh, and by the way while you were out, i had lunch...." It asks alot of any 19 year old anywhere, I realize that....

well.....amongst the telltale signs of this lunch , was a used up bottle of ketchup, laying on its' side on the counter, cap open, and decidedly with no more than 10 decent drips in it.....if that.

So, I asked....." don't you think that the ketchup is through? " (as my hand was well on its way to deposit it in the trash can-amazingly  not more than a meter away at best.....)

God bless Sixten- he is  ALWAYS rather POLITE: 

" Well, yes, actually it IS....( then it came...) OR?....."

....now, it is not my position to tell my husbands' son that ending every sentence in OR speaks just worlds the "lagom-ness" of the entire society in which he was raised....not to mention the self-doubt, lack of conviction, the lack of desire to go to war for a "perceived" good cause ( well, that's a good thing),etc... and why I find issues with most of that.....

oops!....did we need to have a conference on the ketchup?  Better yet, a power-point presentation on it?....a meeting to have a meeting about it- while it continued to gelify there on the kitchen counter for days, until a decision was reached?...

probably so.....

....I said nothing - threw the ketchup away -and grumbled-as i often do- under my breath...

WHY- oh WHY is EVERYTHING- so damn QUASI.....HALV-SI....and so DAMN UNDECIDED in this country!?!?

Poor Sixten! He knows not what "sins" he commits to this poor decisive New Yorker's ears- that just wants a STATEMENT and NOT an "OR?..." and POOR GUY, this is NOT a lone example - but in an effort to quell my verbosity- I will  leave it for now as the LONE example ....for today...( not to expect that this entire issue might not be re-visited many more times here...)

i realize it's a way of life- it's a way of "speaking"- i need to just accept it...

...like where I came from in the South, where, when asked if you wanted a glass of iced sweet tea- and you politely responded ," Only if it's not too much trouble," or "Please, don't go out of your way for just me.."

.... when it was 104 degrees out and your friend KNEW you had walked 20 minutes all the way over to her house just to look at the new curtains she'd put up......and, you DON"T get the cup of iced tea, and you stand there and die admiring the curtains, and your dear friend isn't out the steps to the kitchen....

My poor little Souls' Lesson for the Day: TRY to have patience with other cultures- especially the one that currently houses you!that gives you ("free"-if-not-questionable-medical -care - and very-expensive-mass-transportation-everywhere...all for 57% in taxes!!!)

Realize that it's THEIR form of a polite society and that's just the way they do it. Recognize it and be GRACIOUS and JUST MOVE ON!....

Swedish word for the DAY:ELLER- means "OR"- and is commonly used to complete any sentence where-in more than one idea is expressed...or there is the least little excuse to have an opportunity  to negotiate  a compromise.....

OR!?!.... ^_- ! -could this whole phenomenon point to the reason that they don't have the same lawyer-to-population density here as they do in the US!?........

...OR?....