Happy Birthday Kari!

You Say It's Your Birthday?!?



Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nah-na-na
(yes that's me with the short, bright red hair! Circa 1992)



Well it's my birthday too!!!!
(That's us in Bergen, Norway, having a picnic on the dock next to a large fishing boat, where we enjoyed freshly caught shrimp - boiled on board, with bread we got from a nearby bakery - June 1994)


(This is us dressed as a 2-headed ghost for Halloween in Madison)

Meet Kari - my roommate and best friend from college. Kari Louise Weider Brende is from Norway and today is her birthday. No doubt she's celebrated in some perfectly European way - with tea and cake and maybe some wine or champagne. She has probably spent the day with her husband Bjarne and son Nickolai. Maybe even with her brother Brede (who, back in the day, I had a HUGE crush on), her cousin Silje (who looks exactly like Jennifer what's-her-name - the wife of Ben Afleck) and her family, along with her Mom and Dad - Brit & Halvor.

They may have even eaten Moose Tenderloin for dinner tonight. I had moose tenderloin with them one night for dinner while visiting - a long time ago. With all the talk about Moose hunting in the headlines these days, I had to laugh - because Kari's Dad hunts moose (one per year, maybe), and they butcher it up and serve it in many different ways. In addition to Moose Tenderloin, I've also had moose pizza, and moose burgers if I remember correctly.

Kari and I met during my sophomore year at UW-Madison. We were living in a private dorm called the Regent. We both ended up being placed with roommates we didn't know, who also happened to be the most undesireable people in the entire building, and that building was HUGE. It housed probably 1000 students or more.

Kari and I would seek refuge from our respective bizarre and horrid roommates in the public TV room located on the first floor of the Regent. We would sit in the dark, smoke cigarettes, and watch Star Trek just about every night, the same place where I met the majority of my closest friends in college - including Mark and Felix from Singapore, Tom from Wausau (by way of Kenya) and Amar from who-knows-where (he was entertaining, but a perpetual liar) - by way of Pakistan. Quickly we learned that we had a lot in common, and we were very compatible as friends. We started hanging out regularly - mostly at a bar just down from the Regent called the Regent Street Retreat (where I would drink *shudder* glass after glass of White Zinfandel whilst the rest of the bar was slogging down pitchers of beer). We ended up as roommates the next year, living on Johnson Street until graduation.

We had the BEST apartment - great location, one of the only apartment complexes on (near) campus with a swimming pool which I went swimming in exactly ONCE, despite being on the ground floor and literally steps away from it. The furnishings in our apartment included a stolen sofa and a card table we used for a dining table.

We went out - A LOT. We drank - A LOT. Somehow we managed to get to class AND make decent grades and graduate. Kari was the first person I knew to have a laptop. Every so often we would go out for a really nice dinner at a great restaurant - something we both enjoyed immensely - and something that, at the time, most college kids didn't do.

I learned some VERY BASIC Norwegian just from hearing her talk on the phone. I remembered our phone number in Norwegian, not English, and I had a little repertoire of Norwegian pick up lines, and I could order coffee (with cream and sugar) and a light beer with the best of 'em.

Of all the roommates I've had over the years, Kari was absolutely the BEST roommate EVER. We got along so great - and we did so much stuff together. We were both so far from home, so it was nice to have someone looking out for you, and someone to look out for in return.

While we were at UW, Kari's brother was going to school at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis - about 6 hours away, and her cousin Silje was at the University of Colorado - Boulder - about 3 hours away by plane. Both of them came to see us a couple of times, and I got to spend time with them in Norway when I visited there. They are both lovely, fun people and I always felt like they (including Kari, of course) were like family.

There are so many stories to tell from college that include Kari, I could go on for HOURS about all sorts of craziness and fun we had. But I'll spare the details. Suffice to say that without her friendship I seriously doubt I would have stayed at UW-Madison all 4 years and graduated from there. I can't say enough about how much of an impact Kari has had on my life. Together we left home about the same time, travelling so far on our own. We couldn't "go home for the weekend" like most college kids do - niether could the vast majority of our friends. Even though I was from the States, it was still like I was a foreighn student, just like everyone else in our circle of friends. Our own little netowrk of GDI's.

About 4 years ago we met up in DC for a long weekend, but before that I hadn't seen her since her wedding in Oslo. We spent the day at the hairdresser, sipping Champagne before the wedding. The reception was held at a sort of grand lodge kind of place on the side of a mountain. We were transported via motorcoach after the wedding at her family church. The costume she's wearing in the picture above is her traditional Norwegian dress (and jewelry), representative of her region in Norway. Most of the women of Norway have one, but they vary in design depending on where you're from. A lot of the women who attended her wedding wore theirs, and a few men (including Kari's brother in the picture here, with me and Thorstein - Silje's [now] husband) wore the traditional male version of this - which is reminiscent of German leider-husen.




For the wedding Kari wore a beautiful white gown with a fur lined cape, and I believe she may have also had a muff to keep her hands warm. The wedding was in October, and there were light snow fluries that evening. I, for one, had a wonderful time at the wedding - singing and dancing to traditional Norwegian music and enjoying the company of her family and friends, ALL of whom spoke fluent English.


Kari & Bjarne were married in October of 2000. This is their boy, Nickolai - is he not the cutest, most perfect little Scandanavian?!? I've never met him - but I'm sure he's as adorable and precious as his mor and far.

One of the most fond memories I have about Kari is we'd say good-night before bed, every night. I don't know exactly why that made such an impression on me. Maybe we were such good friends because we were so polite to each other - a quality she DEFINITLY taught me, rather than the other way around. But I am so grateful to have had the chance to enjoy a smidgen of European lifestyle - even if it was in the most unlikely locale - the Mid-West of the US. And I'm so grateful to have had the chance to travel to Norway twice, one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Happy Birthday to my dear Kari-Pusse!