Oddly enough, I think the most contentious post I've ever written was on how to pronounce sauna.
Because I say SOWna, and Nick says SAWna and he makes fun of me every time we talk about a sauna, which is more often than one might think, although I have no idea why, since I haven't been in one in a few years, though I love them. (Also, incidentally, my pronunciation is totally right.)
Nick prefers a steam bath, but I think they're kind of icky. You could just bring some eucalyptus and sit naked at a DC bus stop in July and get the similar effect. I like the dry heat. Of a SOWna.
Anyway.
The trigger for this is that on Tuesday I went to IKEA with India to buy her a crib. A Sniglar, to be precise. Nick put it together at 5 am on Wednesday while I nursed and we spoke Snigglish.
You know. The Sniglar isn't so biglar. Except craplar, now it's stuck in the doorglar.
Ohh, sleep deprivation makes everything hilarglar.
Also, saunas are originally Finnish and IKEA is Swedish and my ancestors are Norwegian. Not the same, but Nordic countries, all. Glar.
So the Sniglar.
Jordan has not taken to the Big Boy Bed. You know how he snuck off to eat pie and watch Rachel Maddow in the middle of the night. And then he absolutely destroyed his room a couple times.
He really likes the bed in small doses, but then he wants the safety of his crib. He's struggling with the sibling thing anyway, so I don't really want to take it away from him.
And India has been in this travel crib bassinet, but as she sleeps she scoots herself sideways and winds up with her head all mashed against the side. So I looked at options on the IKEA site and figured for $70 it was worth it.
We determined that it would fit in Nick's car, and at 43 pounds I could lift it, and since I wanted it nownownow I went by myself.
I felt proud once I'd accomplished it, because one, I found the outing rather daunting. The beltway - even though it turns out to only be one road - stresses me the hell out. And I'm like a kid driving Nick's Nick-sized car, peering up over the dashboard. Aaaaand, dauntingest of all, I had to shop for something large with a baby in tow.
I wore her in a Bjorn, and a very nice man helped me get the large, unwieldy package of Sniglar down from the upper shelf of Row 20, Bin 15 and onto my gigantor cart thingy.
Now, it turns out that 43 pounds of large crib box is very different from 43 pounds of dumbbell. Who knew? By the time I got the thing in the car India was screaming and I was sweating profusely and the only way I could calm us both down was to blast both the air conditioning and 80s music.
Which is how I discovered that India has my taste in music: Corey Hart quieted her right down.
'Cause no one can take away your right to fight and to never surrendglar.
This post made me laugh. I adore you! Sorry to disappoint, I say SAWna, chalk it up to Texan.
ReplyDeleteI'm so relieved India digs 80's music, she's incredibly cool at such a young age. Sorry about the sweating in a parking lot situation, nicely done procuring the Sniglar.
This native New Jerseyian also says saw-na. But I try to say it as un-nasally as possible, if that helps.
ReplyDeleteIndia may calm down when listening to that song, but it kind of sounds as though Jordan is taking its message to heart - he will fightglar for his cribglar and nevglar surrendglar.
So nice that they have common ground so soon!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnother native New Jerseglarian, so it's SAWna for me. But I knew a German lady (she spoke "Hoch Deutsch") and she said SOWna, so there, poTAYto-poTAHto, right?
ReplyDeleteI was invited to dinner on my birthday once, many years ago. "Dinner and a sauna" was the invitation. It turned out the sauna was one of those cabinet types from the 30's or 40's, you sit on a bench in the cabinet, and only your head sticks out the top of this cabinet. I'd only seen one once before, on an old show called Little Rascals. Anyhoodles, it was placed at the head of the table, and the people on either side of me took turns cutting bites and feeding me, all the way through dinner and cake. They held the cake close enough for me to blow out the candles. After dinner I got a massage in the back yard. I know. It was weird but wonderful.
Any way, I wanted to thank you for yet another hilariglar post!
I deleted my post only to add (didn't know it leaves a place-holder; next time I'll just do another post) that I always know when my partner will really get off on one of your posts, and this was one of them. And now, it's kind of like an earworm - we're speaking glar! Oyglar!
I used to say SAWna, but then I went to Finland and got schooled, so now I say SOWna. Yowza!
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has a Finnish ex boyfriend who is obsessed with saunas (in fact, it seems that many residential buildings, at least in Helsinki, have communal saunas installed inside!) I can say it is definitely pronounced SAW-na. :-)
ReplyDelete