Super Trouper: What it Takes to be a Best Friend and a Scandinavian Soul Sister

I wish I remembered the exact moment I met her. We both have our stories or versions about how it probably went down and faded memories from those earliest of our chapters. What we both know for sure is that we met at Rolling Hills Elementary. When it came to looks we were as opposite as could be. The Danish Blondie with freckles and the girl with the Mayan brown skin and dark brown poofy hair (quite a few bad haircuts back in the day). We had little jokes about being the cinnamon-sugar sisters but we had more in common than meets the eye and really bonded from the start.

Although both sets of parents were immigrants from different countries they had similar styles and whenever I visited the Nielsen household I felt very comfortable, they played Julio Iglesias records at their house too! I loved the collection of troll dolls that decorated the house and the beautiful Scandinavian furniture. I really felt so at home and relaxed, a second family. To this day that feeling hasn’t changed. Whenever I have the wonderful opportunity to find myself in her family’s company it's like a visit catching up with your super fun extended family. Always an abundance of love, laughs, and memories shared as well as some bubbles to be poured.

 Susanne and I eventually ended up at different schools but our parents did a good job helping us keep our friendship alive with frequent visits and sleepovers. Even the rides back and forth sometimes made for exciting adventures. There was once a wild goose chase in Betsy the Bus, our big, brown Dodge Ram Van. A combination of both our parents being English language learners and having us distracted daughters as their communication team, plus the fact that whenever Susanne and I reunited we could pretty much bet we’d find ourselves in what felt like starring roles as Lucy and Ethel in an I Love Lucy episode, all made it hard work to coordinate the pickups and drop offs on many occasions. Susanne and I hung ourselves upside from the sleeper sofa in the back of the van and couldn’t see her mom who was outside looking for us as we goofed off and laughed hysterically. The same van where Susanne had to witness my brother and I in what looked like a re-enactment of a WWF showdown. Susanne watched in horror and amusement all at the same time. Susanne didn’t have a little brother, she had no idea what it was like being the older sibling to a kid that was the cutest and sweetest buddy one minute, only to turn into your exhausting responsibility the next. He had to get our attention and trouble always ensued if we were too busy having fun to give it to him. Susanne had something else, something I had always wanted, a big sister. 

Naturally, a cool big sister was an exciting aspect of this friendship. Pia was busy with her teenage social plans and outings but we loved watching her get ready, wondering what she and her friends were up to, and listening to her albums. I vividly remember Susanne playing an ABBA album and explaining as we listened to ‘The Winner Takes it All’, that this is the song you listen to when you break up with your boyfriend and you have a broken heart. I think that was the song that made me actually want to get my heart broken. Susanne, at seven months older, was way more knowledgeable in this whole boy department. It was she who educated me on the actual physical explanation of exactly what happens in the act someone else explains as “the birds and the bees”. I remember being stunned and announcing that was never going to happen to me because, ‘Ewww gross!’. She laughed at me and we both cracked up as we continued to pump our legs to go higher on the swing set. I always thought I grew up in a home that was far from prudish, very open in fact but Danish culture was next level free. One time, during one of our High Country West community pool outings, which I loved so much because we would spend hours playing synchronized swimming and Who-Can-Hold-Their-Breath-The-Longest? games, we’d pack the best lunches that always included our own can of Hansen’s drink. I remember swimming up to Susanne and telling her that the most humiliating thing ever had just happened to me. My top had unsnapped, revealing my barely-there boob to a man swimming with his children. Susanne immediately replied with the cringiest response possible for a girl in my situation to hear at that moment. Apparently, she babysat for the man who witnessed my moment of epic embarrassment and he happened to have a collection of Playboy magazines at home so I better beware. Boobs were no biggie in the Nielsen household though, I mean they are Scandinavian for crying out loud. Sunbathing at their new house a few years later meant this brown-skinned girl would get the worst sunburn ever. How is that possible you ask? Let’s just say my upper region had never seen the sun and, ouch! Our friendship carried us through the days of innocent little girls packing Hansens and singing about future mystery heartbreak. Singing along to ABBA and choreographing dance after dance, to days of talking about the birds and the bees, and embarrassing middle school moments like getting trapped in the closet with Dana’s little brother for a game of Seven Minutes of Heaven. As we got older we added more musical acts to our routines and stories, especially Olivia Newton-John, Wham, Madonna, and Duran Duran. Later she went more towards the rocker chic direction with Big Hair and Heavy Metal bands while I leaned more towards Hip Hop and R&B acts. I definitely loved bands in all of the genres and was right there with her for Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Warrant, and more. However, I was still convinced I was going to marry George Michael and she had moved on from believing she would snag his bestie, Andrew Ridgeley. Sadly, our dreams of celebrating a double wedding with George and Andrew were squashed because she had traded Andrew in for Sebastian Bach, lead singer of Skid Row. I guess I could let Susanne bring Sebastian as her plus one to my future nuptials to my true love, George. I guess we would always have the memory of her pretending our middle school classmates, Jeremy and Doug were George and Andrew as they chased our bus as we drove away from their stop.

Our friendship took us on many wild adventures including trips to Mexico, ski trips, nightclubs, raves, and concerts. Our Xanadu skate parties had been upgraded to Mission Beach rollerblading days and Pacific Beach apartments for each of us. As we continued to grow up together Halloween always played an important role, a favorite for both of us, one year in particular we got to go as a pair. My cousins, Gary and Gina, used to host the most epic Halloween parties at their home. They had decided to do a few years with a theme. I believe the first year’s instruction was to come as a movie character and the next year was a Musician/band. Susanne and I instantly knew we would get to revisit our childhood heroes, ABBA. The Cinnamon-Sugar duo would live the dream of becoming or at least impersonating the Swedish Pop Royalty, Anni-Frid (Frida) and Agnetha. Of course, we love Bjorn and Benny too but we were ready to pay homage to the girl power half of the wonderful band. We had the best time hunting down two matching white velvet dresses and all the art supplies and silky fabric to embellish them and turn them into something special. We really outdid ourselves with our recreation of the famous dog and cat dresses. I remember being so proud. I have seen so many ABBA cover bands wear their own version of these iconic dresses and never have they even come close to how amazing ours were. I consider myself pretty crafty but I was seriously impressed with our work. It was like our real love for the band mixed with the fun we were having as we listened to the ABBA music and cut, glittered, bedazzled, jeweled, glued, and danced the night away helped make it turn into a magical creation. I announced we would have to choreograph a dance to my very favorite ABBA song, “Super Trouper”. We had a blast and we were so excited to perform for the crowd at the party but we had so much fun throughout the night that we waited too long and by the time we decided to put on our show where the beams were going to blind us as we searched to find our favorite fan somewhere in the crowd (see what I did there?)….let’s just say it was too late to get anyone excited to come to watch. We may have gotten three suckers to come inside for our big show but it didn’t slow us down or dampen our spirits. The show must go on and it did! We spun and sparkled to a dark and mostly empty family room adjacent to a rowdy patio bar party. Bravo, hooray, hugs and curtsies all around or at least from and for each other. That’s all we needed, my Scandinavian soul sister and me, Skål! Unfortunately for Susanne, I can’t tell this story without sharing the part that she must feel for certain is where she cursed herself in committing this most egregious act, for I will never, I repeat I will never let her live this down. After the Halloween party was over and the dresses were hung up, the feet recovered from hours of dancing in go-go boots and the afterglow of disco fever was all but a blur of smeared glitter, Susanne decided to take her blue dog ABBA dress to a thrift store and leave in the donation bin. Can you even believe it? Left to live the rest of its life separated from its soulmate. It was an innocent lapse of judgment but I guess for me as a mother of two daughters at the time, who were both in attendance at Aunt Susanne’s house when we crafted the works of art and who are also huge ABBA fans, I imagined them inheriting the dresses. In her defense, I never actually spoke about this out loud but I assumed it was a give-in. Maybe I should start a social media campaign to track down the blue dog dress. If we make the story go viral do we have a chance of finding the missing blue dog? It would probably be easier to just start over and re-make it. If I did that how could I continue to torture my Agnetha? See? We are both Super Troupers in this friendship through patience, forgiveness, and teasing.

Susanne and I have been through the journey of innocence, young girlish dreams and imagination to adolescence, discovery, change, growth, heartache and loss, and all the love and support that comes with a promise of a forever friend. As adults, it isn’t always easy to schedule the reunions or phone calls but whenever we get them in we never skip a beat or have to fake it until we make it back. Muriel’s Wedding to Mamma Mia movie nights and ABBA Tribute bands, we always have a Chiquitita in the other. A shoulder to cry on, a best friend to rely on. We have talked about taking a big friendship anniversary trip and I think it might just have to be an adventure to the ABBA Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.

*Post publication edit/update:

Upon spending time with Susanne and my parents this past weekend my dad told a story of Susanne’s mom arriving at our house to pick her up from a play date. My mom was at work and he was in charge. We weren’t in the house and he had no idea where we had gone. He began his search in all the local neighborhood hot spots i.e., the cul-de-sac on Paymogo, the friend’s house on Nawa, the hilltop on Amazon, the park at Rolling Hills etc. Finally, they spotted us walking towards the house holding hands and singing songs out loud together. Not much has changed.