The System

I can't believe I haven't posted about this before, but in Sweden alcoholic drinks (with an alcohol content greater than 3.5%) are sold to the public only in state-run stores called the Systembolaget. Of course you can also buy drinks in pubs, cafes and restaurants (because who doesn't want to pay $10 for a beer and $15 for a cosmo?), but if you want to drink something at home you've got to go to the "System" (pronounced approximately "sis-tame"). Aside from the limited opening times (closed around 2pm on Saturday and closed on Sunday), and the prices, which are probably more a result of tax than anything to do with the System itself, the whole thing seems to work pretty well. The stores are bright, modern, well-stocked, conveniently located (for us anyway), and apparently they'll order any bottle of anything for you from all over the world. Just get ready to hand over the SEK.

What is most fascinating to me about the System monopoly is what is represents about the Swedish relationship to alcohol. I don't pretend to understand this relationship fully, but it seems to me as a casual observer that Swedes have a love/hate relationship with alcohol that strikes me as not too dissimilar to the American relationship with the bottle. It's that same puritanical thing about booze being evil because it makes you lose control while at the same time loving to have a drink (or two or fifteen). Friends tell me that it's still considered a bit unseemly to drink wine during the week, but that the attitude has relaxed a lot in the last 10 years.

This "ad" (I don't know what else you'd call it) by the Systembolaget was recently in the paper: The title, on either side of the bifurcated viking dude, says "We Swedes came up with the smartest way of selling alcohol (maybe because we needed it more than others)." I love this. It's so Swedish to think the Swedish way is best and to be so self-reflective at the same time. The "ad" goes on to say that before the monopoly was formed in 1955 people drank 4 times as much as today and the problem was "enormous." It claims that studies show if alcohol were sold in grocery stores, consumption would go up by 30%, which would lead to about 1600 more deaths and 16 million more sick days every year.

I have no doubt the stats are true. Maybe after we get a public option for health care Obama should try to form a national alcohol monopoly? Or else he could just shoot himself in the foot and hand the presidency to the Republicans for the next century.

November is horrible

For the past few weeks my life has consisted of:

• Dressing and undressing children in rain and/or snow gear
• Schlepping children through the rain to and from school, the grocery store and the library
• Procrastinating doing anything useful
  
• Trying to pretend the sun might come out
• Trying to not check email 100 times a day out of boredom

Yes, the expat life is like one big vacation.

Swedes and other longer-term Scandinavian expats assure me that November is the worst month. Last year I must have still been riding the wave of expat adrenalin because it didn't seem so bad, but this year I feel like someone dropped a bag of bricks on my head and I can't squirm out from underneath. The result of this is a Mom with a less than sunny outlook on life (at least it's consistent with the weather), in which all things positive are now hideous and inconvenient:

Our great apartment? Horrible! If I have to haul 2 kids and 5 bags of groceries up this mini elevator one more time I'll die! The terrific public transportation? Heinous! What is wrong with these crazy people stepping on my children and not apologizing?! My favorite cafe near the kids' school? The tables always tip over and the chairs are broken! Etc.

So you see, I am doing a very poor job of dealing with November this year. Only 10 more days until Advent. Here's hoping the Christmas lights and glögg improve my mood (for the whole family's sake). Bah humbug.