Monday, April 9, 2012

H ~ hoppa = hop


God morgon, klass!
Welcome back! I trust you enjoyed your day off with friends and family and that you're refreshed and ready to dig in again. Today's word is a very important word. It's hoppa. Pronounced: h + O as in Oprah + po(w). Or another way is like cuppa, as in I'd like a cup of ... only you're southern and you're Dolly Parton and your explaining the cuppa cake to Olympia Dukakis. Cuppa -c + h. You still with me? You did see Steel Magnolias, right? If you didn't, you'll have to go with the Oprah thing.

Hoppa means to hop. As in on one foot, or onto a train, over a puddle, or a over a fence and into a closed pool to go skinny dipping. (Not that your teacher would know anything about that...but I do have a search function, waaay down at the bottom of my blog. In case you're interested in stories of that nature.) Where was I? Oh yeah, then when you need to explain to the officer what you're doing, you'll have one word, hoppa, to help you. Good luck.

Seriously now, of all the h words available, I chose this one because it's attached to a special memory with my sister. When we visited Farmor and Farfar during the summer, they always gave us their double bed, and slept on a pull-out bed in the den. Their bed was a bit hard to sleep in for us, because of course we didn't just go to sleep. We told stories and giggled and moved around, and pretty soon the bed was in complete disarray.

It had a strange kind of arrangement where on top of a VERY firm mattress there were two-inch thick pads. You made your bed on and around those pads. Swedes don't have fitted, elastic sheets for the bottom. They only have flat sheets. So as you can imagine, if you're goofing around at all, these flat pads slide everywhere. So we invented this method of kinda putting things back in order by grabbing onto the pad, and then doing a sort of froggy-hop thing. Hop, during split second in air, pull pad closer to desired position. Land. You do this over and over again, with lots of giggles.


This picture is from 1975, so it's not one from one of our teenage solo visits.This picture is from the trip the first summer after our move to the US, so I'm 10 and she's 7. It's also an example of that thing I was telling you about: Farmor always buying us the same clothes.  That's her in the picture with us, and those dolls are the ones that lived at her house.  She made sure that we had everything we might ever need so that we would visit often.  Of course we did.  I just couldn't find pictures of us from that time. But I figured out why. My mom is the paparazzi, and she wasn't with us. Farfar took good pictures, but they're all slides.  

Sorry I got longwinded today.  Guess I had a lot to say since there was no post yesterday!  Do you have a special sibling memory you'd like to share?  Did you get tortured, um, blessed with matching clothes?  Have you ever froggy hopped?  I'm dying to know  ;-)

27 comments:

Sally said...

That sounds a delicious word to use hoppa.
Perhaps you were dressed in the same clothes to save arguments?

Laurita said...

That's a great story, and a fun memory.

And what was it with slides back then? My parents have all our old family photos on them too. It took us forever to scan them so that we could actually look at them.

Cheryl said...

Never blessed with matching clothes but I did wear my sister's hand-me-downs so teachers often recognized them. Does that count? Who didn't froggy hop? It was the fasted way to get around, right?

Heather Murphy said...

That's a fun word to say :) My sister and I were 6 1/2 years apart so she refused to wear my hand-me-downs because they were 70s style and were not in fashion by the time she came along.

Matthew MacNish said...

Day off? Who got a day off? Oh you mean from the challenge. LOL.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Not sure about the froggy hop. Promise I've never skipped before though.

Murees Dupè said...

This is a really great story. I can just imagine you and your sister laughing and doing the froggy hop. By the way, I loved Steel Magnolias and the whole cuppa-cuppa thing.

Hart Johnson said...

YAY for skinny dipping!

Erm. Yes, I get that isn't the main point... I also love the image of the granddaughters jumping on the bed so it is nearly unsleepable. I think it's great you got to go visit them in Sweden relatively regularly.

Brian Miller said...

ha what a cool memory to go with the word today...making bed was a bane growing up honestly so i could have used a trick...smiles..

K.D. Storm said...

I was lucky. My youngest brothers were twins so I just got to watch them be tortured while I laughed my butt off. I still pick on one of them to this day.

Dani said...

I love your explainations how to pronounce each word. Perfect!

Unknown said...

Hej!
Vilket roligt och intressant resonemang om att hoppa, bädda sängen och bada naken!

Jag avundas dig i ett avseende: du har en syster, en lillasyster. Jag älskar min bror, Nils, men han vägrade leka med dockor med mig! Du och din syster måste ha haft roligt tillsammans.

Det är nu när jag har fått en dotter att det känns som om jag äntligen fått en lillasyster. Problemet är bara att hon också vill ha en lillasyster, men det går inte. (Tyvärr. Suck.)
(Det börjar likna din docka som ville ha, nej, skulle absolut ha, en egen docka!

Vilka härliga minnen!

Stora kramar,
Anna
Anna's Adornments
http://annas-adornments.blogspot.com/

Ro @ Eat Live Move said...

Life IS good! Great post!

I hope you are enjoying the challenge!

Eat Live Move: Intuitive Eating from A to Z

Julie Jordan Scott said...

What a grand post. I especially love the photo. What joy I see on each and every face. I wonder if the sheets have changed in Sweden or if they are still only unfitted?

Julie Jordan Scott
Fellow A to Z Challenge Participant: Go Team Tina!
H is for Hilda/HD
On a Mission to Spread Word-Love Throughout the World

Anonymous said...

Hopping around the A - Z Challenge blog circuit today and glad I hopped by to read your story:) Oh, so many sibling stories to tell...or not...ones of me and my siblings, my kids - great siblings, those 3 are; you've brought back a flood of memories, and I'm grateful. Family is such a gift...warm fuzzies filling my heart:)

carol said...

I like "hoppa," and it sounds like you had a lot of fun there.

carol at Carol's Notebook

Lynn Proctor said...

i didn't think you were long-winded at all--i certainly enjoyed my break!

Jaimee Hunter said...

First, STEEL MAGNOLIAS--favorite movie of all time and i quote it all the time..."Nothing like a good piece of A$$!"

Second, I have so many beloved memories of blanket forts, dressing baby trees, fishing and the like but not Hoppa.

We were dressed exactly alike until sister started school. MyMama says it's because she wanted to treat us equally and didn't know any other way.

Great post!

Erin M. Hartshorn said...

That method of arranging the pads sounds like lots of fun!

Erin

Sonia Lal said...

It's a cool word. Learning a couple new words through this challenge.

Sonia Lal, A to Z challenge

Debra Harris-Johnson said...

Another great word. Love it!
dreamweaver

DayDreamer said...

Froggy hopping to fix the bed - yep I get that as my younger daughter needs to do that on her double bed as she's a big fidget, didn't need her older sister to mess it up.
Your Farmor and Farfar sound lovely.

ediFanoB said...

On Wednesday I will have my weekly webconference with my colleagues in Europe. Most of the time I'm the only one who enters the conference with a nick name. This week I will use HOPPA. Thank you for this lovely word.

My youngest sister is nine years younger.
I remember the time when she was a baby.
I hold her in my arms above our fish tank. Then she scared me with a sudden unmotivated move and I dropped her into the tank.

I could grab her within seconds. She survived, the fishes survived and my mother has been angry with me.
I will never forget that.

Anonymous said...

I was going to post this last time you mentioned it, but I forgot. My mormor in Taiwan used to dress all the cousins in the same clothes, and when my sister and I visited in the summer, we would be subject to the same treatment. There were eight of us, three boys and five girls, ten years apart, and we would pretty much all be wearing the same thing. Didn't help that two of the boys were twins!

klahanie said...

Hey Tina,
And once again, life is good and it just got gooder. For yep, your wait is over. I am visiting you from my shy, humble and oh so unassuming blog that ironically, despite my alternative to this um 'alphabet challenge', has brought further awareness to you and a lot of other gosh darn neato folks doing this here thing.
Interesting and seems ideal for a 'BloggaHoppa' situation. Cause I know how much y'all like such things.
And have you ever actually seen someone 'hop' onto a bus or a plane or a train?
Anyway, a very interesting post which I skimmed through, sorry, read thoroughly. I'm very sorry that I haven't visited your blog on everyday of the alphabet. I have spent several hours, with little attention, which, of course, doesn't matter, leaving comments on sites and not doing many postings myself, because of it. Gosh, I'm such a nice guy!
Have fun with the challenge and as you get even more popular, please don't forget about us insignificant bloggers :)
With respect and "I" wonder what's next, Gary

Laura Barnes said...

Excellent word. Thanks for teaching. I like Gary's idea that this is a BloggaHoppa. LOL.

Laura B Writer

Unknown said...

Hi,
To answer Julie Jordan Scott's question whether or not there are fitted sheets in Sweden now, I can tell you all that fitted sheets are available in regular store selling housewares. I got so tied of 'froggy-hopping' as Tina so aptly describes above that I went out and bought eight fitted sheets for the whole family plus extras to be washed!

Best wishes & hugs,
Anna

P.S.
I have been writing in Swedish here in Tina's comment-box, to encourage her to not forget her Swedish. One day she may have good use for it.

Today I am writing in English for everyone else, so that there will be no misunderstanding here. Sweden has progressed; We do indeed have fitted sheets now.

Please stop by and visit me sometime. My blog is written in English, even though I am thinking of reviving my parallell Swedish-language blog for those who prefer that language.

Anna's Adornments
http://annas-adornments.blogspot.com/

I was number 785 on the list, but I keep moving all the time.