My Swedish Sister

During my senior year of High School, back in the early 1970’s, my family agreed to open our home to a girl my age from Sweden, as part of an exchange program.  We shared a very crowded room together, climbing over beds to get to closets, and we developed a friendship and a bond that has lasted more than 35 years.  She married a Scot, and lives in London with her four boys, mostly grown now.  My Swedish Sister has opened her home to us in London, many times, and my only regret is that we can’t see each other more often than we do.

Annika flew to NYC this weekend, for a business seminar, and called me last week to let me know she was coming and would there be any way my husband and I could join her Sunday for lunch.  I cleared my calendar, and jumped at the chance.  We met her in the lobby of her hotel on Park Ave., along with a couple of other old friends of hers that also live in the Metropolitan area, and we all squeezed into a car and headed south to the Meatpacking district of Manhattan.  This upscale area, filled with designer showrooms, and contemporary eating establishments was full of gorgeous old architecture and cobblestone streets.  The cold dreary rain didn’t deter us from finding a lovely quiet restaurant called Revel, with an enclosed glass roofed garden, well lit, so despite the gloom outside, it was cheery and conducive to good conversation between old friends.  On the way home from Manhattan, we dropped Annika and her colleague off at Newark Airport.

By the time I returned home, I was convince I was coming down with something nasty.  I had the run over by a truck feeling, and that scratchy throat, and the all over feeling of malaise.  Damn…  I pushed myself too hard, and my body is finally putting on the brakes.  Fortunately I had nothing critical on the calendar today, except work on my SS&D article, and so I went to bed last night at 8pm, slept fitfully, woke early to get my daughter off to school, went back to bed, and finally got up, stayed in my pj’s all day, and just worked on my article and the vest.

Other than the fact that the vest has a full box of pins in it, I finished it.  Now I just have a few hours of handwork to do.  So I’ll curl up and watch a few missed TV programs and do some handsewing, and try to get to bed early again tonight.  I actually started to feel better towards the afternoon, I’m not out of the woods yet, but my immune system usually can fight things off after a day of feeling crappy.  Lets hope it can handle this as well.