Are you superstitious? I'm not terribly superstitious, but I do have a few little quirks that amount to superstition. Like with the rip-off-a-page calendar sitting on the desk next to the computer I am writing this on, for which I feel it is tempting fate to rip off a page before I've actually completed the day, as if it could contribute somehow to an untimely death. My untimely death, mainly. I suppose I should be more worried about being killed from all the cholesterol in the food I ate yesterday - we celebrated our Thanksgiving yesterday, cooking all day to feed 16 people with the whole nine yards, turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and cranberries and pumpkin pie and pecan pie and 72 homemade rolls. I'm still full.

The Swedish word for the day is vidskeplig. It means superstitious.

- by Francis S.

Isn't it great that despite the fact that individual states are passing nasty anti-gay marriage referendums left and right, and the Catholic church is reiterating the usual garbage about homosexuals having a disorder, gay people are creating a hodge-podge of families in sometimes rather creative ways in the US? It's a regular gay baby boom. I know that my own nieces and nephews in both Chicago and Minneapolis refer quite casually to hanging out at the homes of friends who have two moms.

You can even feel it here in little Sweden, where our goddaughter goes to daycare with at least one kid who has two mommies, and one of her sometime playmates not only has two mommies, but two daddies (a classic case of a creative family group).

According to a fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine, the 2000 US census showed that some 22 percent of gay men are raising a child under 18 at home, and for lesbians it's 34 percent. That's pretty amazing.

What I wonder is how much people realize that all these children are hurt at least as much as their parents are by anti-gay marriage laws, and far worse, by laws that forbid any recognition of gay relationships.

I wonder how many kids it's going to take to tip the balance?

The Swedish word for the day is elak. It means mean or cruel.

- by Francis S.

How is it possible that a city that lies at a latitude of 59° 17' N could be unprepared for snow? Sure, we'd had a long summer that drifted into a mild autumn, and the leaves were still mostly green and few had fallen. But still, it was the first of November, and the meteorologists had been predicting snow since the weekend, so I failed to understand how so many buses could have crashed, the roads could have been at a standstill, the trains could have been shut down and the subway could have been all gummed up. I didn't really care, though, looking down at the traffic in Odenplan from our warm-as-toast apartment, playing Bach fugues on the piano in perfect accompaniment to the wildly blowing snow.

Winter is here, and it's only November 2nd.

The Swedish word for the day is krock. It means crash.

- by Francis S.