Yesterday X and I went to my sister's place. She's lived there for 3,5 years and I haven't visited her, so now it was most definitely overdue and more at that!

X and I packed up and went on the train for Tumba, then went by bus to where my sister's packed deep down in child-friendly suburbia where she lives in a house with her boyfriend Magnus, her lovely young daughters Emelie and Amanda, her two big hounds called Bessie and Astor, her three cats, her tortoise, her fish, her... The list is endless.

They live in a three-storey house where they tempted us with coffee and sweets. We sat down and talked a lot, while the two dogs stampeded everywhere; Bessie is 7 years old while Astor is merely 7 months old - the difference is immense. Bessie is calm and Astor doesn't know his body is a lot bigger than his mind, so he sits everywhere - preferably on people's feet - and generally behaves like a bull in a China shop.

As you can see, some of us found love instantly while at Katharina's place. While I'm not too keen on dogs as with cats, X's an absolute dog fanatic; she takes to dogs like...rabies-smitten dogs to water! Yeah, I'm Master Of Similes...

We had a great time, at least until I had fun with two of the smaller girls present who had me give them aerial somersaults like this: I held a girl's hands and she took a couple of steps up my legs and chest to kick and flip over. That was all fun until one of them kung fu'd me in the groin with both feet on the way up. Oh, kids, aren't they the greatest? I felt like Eddie Murphy in "Raw", describing the small kids/men relationship:

That's why men don't like to handle babies. Them little babies with them high-top white shoes with the real hard bottoms. When they about 3 years you pick them up and their leg muscles be and they stomp you in the nuts with both feet. And both of y'all be dribbling. You be like: "AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAW!" And their mother think you talking baby talk.

"Oh, that's so cute, the way they talking." "Yeah, go to your mother, please." "What's the matter, he stink?" "No, I'm about to throw this motherfucker someplace. "Get a little older, I'm gonna kick you in your nuts, see how you like it."

Time with my sister and her family was calm fun. The kids were running around, throwing themselves into the plastic pool in the front yard, splashing water everywhere while I safe-guarded myself against that and the dogs while X sat next to me, loving them as much as possible as they made me fear they'd crush her with their weight if they'd jump on her from sheer excitement. Astor licked me right across my face and mouth with his gigantic tongue. Arrgh! I'm allergic to dogs, but I used my favourite little blue pill again and darn it if I don't think I made it through this time as well! Brilliant. X petted the dogs incessantly, and I feared that my allergy would kick in and rip me to shreds, but hell no! Too bad the cats didn't make their way out as they're slightly anti-social. They're understandably not very keen on meeting a 7-month-old, 40-kilo puppy that seems to think it's still 7 weeks old.

I'm not taking 3,5 years to go meet my sis the next time around, that's for sure! And I'm quite sure I'll succeed in dragging X along with me...

Here's a video of the two dogs, and it's easy to see why people love them; that's hard coming from me, who didn't care much for dogs a year back!