How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

The phone rang. It was M., the t.v. producer, calling from the street.

"Hallo," he said in the cartoon voice he always uses when he calls me on the phone. It's you, I said. I asked him if he was close, if he'd like to come up.

"Sure," he said.

Three minutes later, the bell rang.

We sprawled out on the sofas in the living room, me on one and him on the other. I yammered away about my job and soon the husband was calling from his meeting, giving M. instructions over the phone to order chicken butter massala from Indira, (the McDonald's of Farmer Street, or at least that's how I think of it, only the food is much better) and he would pick it up on his way home, to open a bottle of wine to let it breathe, to set the table.

"Uh-huh," M. said. "Uh-huh, uh-huh."

He got off the phone.

"So this is what it's like, huh, " he said, laughing. "Does he talk to you like that all the time? You guys sound so, so married. He makes me laugh. He sounds so much like, like a husband."

Well, yes. He is a husband. My husband.

The chicken butter massala was delicious.

The Swedish phrase for the day is smaklig måltid. Waiters always say it when they serve your food - it means something like enjoy your meal.

- by Francis S.