First Week of Advent

ADVENT PREPARATIONS
As 3 of the children are living on their own I got them each an advent present. For Irene and Audun an Advent candle holder with candles. For Tormod a star (with an electric light in it) to hang in his window. Ingvild, who is still living at home, got a ticket to see the hip hop version of the Nutcracker Suite.
I met Tormod at a bar called Sistre Indre on Sunday. Felt we hadn't really talked in a long time. We had a long talk over 2 cups of cocoa, and he filled me in on his trip to London (a birthday present from a friend) and life in general.
Did the same with Audun on Wednesday. We went to the bakery where Irene works, since Audun hadn't been there before. There we had coffee and sampled cakes she had made. She was so surprised and pleased to see us there, and I had a good talk with Audun as well.


NUTCRACKER SUITE
The month of December was initiated with heavy snows. The radio warned that december 1st was a good day to stay home and curl up with a good book. Of course that was the day we had tickets to take Ingvild to the Nutcracker Suite in Oslo. Here, along the lake a wet snow was falling, but in Oslo it was pouring rain. Before the show we went to the Italian Cafe "Dolce Vita", that I always go to when I'm in Oslo, where we had ice cream cake and coffee. Ingvild almost lost her ticket. It fell out of her pocket on the way to the theater. She retraced her steps and found it soaking wet but intact on the pavement. The show was great, with some pretty impressive dancing. Some people had brought very small children who were frightened by the monsters and had to leave... Why bring small children to a hip hop show anyway!?

SLICK ROADS
After the rain, which eventually hit Hedmark as well, the roads were of course transformed to scating rinks. On Tuesday a bus slid off the road on one of our country roads, the tractor which came to pull it out ended up in the ditch as well.
Thursday, I thought I wouldn't get to work at all: when I got up in the morning, a car which had slid off the road was partially blocking the driveway. Luckily Tor managed to ease my car out past it.
Meantime I'd replaced the back right hand light on the car, which I'd smashed when I backed into Tor's car at Thanksgiving. This turned out to be an expensive part: about $150, which Tor replaced for me himself. Friday evening I came out from Irenes house where I was picking up Ingvild, to where I had left the car on the curb, and it was not there. It had rolled (or slid) backwards across the street and stopped in a pile of snow, missing a tree by inches. Had it hit the tree, the same back light would have been smashed again! But I was lucky that time.

HEART ATTACK
The children's father had a heart attack this weekend. This came as both a shock and a surprise, as heart disease does not run in his family to my knowledge. It came on as it often does with chest pain after shoveling snow. However he was sent to a Hospital in Oslo for cardiac catheterization where they unblocked and stented 3 arteries. Obviously the children have been worried and upset.

SHORTHANDED IN THE ER
The ER has been busy this week, and several people are out sick. On Sunday they called at 6:45 am to ask if I could work the day shift. I had thawed lots of currants to juice for gløgg, so had to say no. Don't you know, they called back at 2:30 pm (by now I was kneading the dough for the advent cake) to ask if I could come in for the afternoon shift. I did end up working Monday - Friday this week though. The hospital is as usual struggling to stay within the budget, and the latest effort by the ER is to not replace the first person to call in on an evening shift on weekdays, thus leaving us potentially shorthanded. Wednesday evening went okay, but Friday evening was hell!

SAINT NICOLAS
Saint Nicolas Day was on Thursday. Wednesday after work I drove Saint Nicholas around Hamar along absolutely icy roads to deliver packages to Irene and Tormod. It was simply too icy for his horse so I had offered to chauffeur him around. He must have made it to Stange on his own, because in the morning there were packages in each or our shoes at Fjellhaug as well. Irene messaged me when she found the package in her shoe by her front door, when she went to work at 5:30 am. She couldn't figure out how St Nicolas had managed it.