Ice Cream

It's a certain sign of spring when new ice cream flavors hit the stores. It's my holy duty to sacrifice myself in spite of being slightly lactose intolerant and to test taste them.

Today I ate an ice cream with cacti flavored topping on pear ice cream and salty fudge suprise inside.

The topping was awful. Salty fudge was on the border of being bad tasting.

Who invented this? Where did you pick up your test audien from? Mexican chili restaurant? Please, dear who-ever-you-are, it's time to do somethig to your peyote addiction.

Procrastination

Long time no see,  eh?

In February this year I had to choose into which school Kid would apply. Preschool's almost over and it's a real thing next autumn. In the end I chose the school where almost the whole preschool group goes. There is a school nearer us which caused the dilemma. I thought familiar people may help in creating the feeling of belonging. Which helps the kids to avoid all kind of troubles in later years.

All this isn't the point here. After all the pondering I realised that Kid turns seven this year! And that made me realise I've been unemployd _also_ seven years. Well,  there was that three months at the bookstore few years back but... Anyways. It's time to do something. If not working then why not back to school!

I spent many hours at the internet searching different professions and what they really are like. I wrote down what I have liked about my jobs. I mean when you go down to it. Being a librarian wasn't just about the books. I love books but I also like servicing customers. Same as in the bookstore.  Also organising and doing very precise work gives me satisfaction.

And I found it. Dental nurse. Also,  very important thing,  it's an industry where there's a lack of employees. No sense to graduate after few years of hard studying and go back to being unemployd.

I was very smug about my decision. I could already imagine myself at school and the image seemed so awesome. And the weeks went by.

In the end I did apply for the school. Only I did it so late that there's no chance to start it next autumn as I had hoped. Nope. They'll invite people to be interviewed next October and the school starts next spring. If I get in. And I can blame only myself.

Pakkanen*

I bet you have heard about the legend that eskimos have more words for snow than there's snowflakes in the world. We Finns have few words for wintertime fun also.

*'Pakkanen' is a Finnish word for ass freezing cold weather. (Scientifically that means degrees when water freezes to ice.)

'Pikku pakkanen' refers to minor ass freezing.

'Kuura' was the name of my late budgie. It's also white frost on stuff in the morning when the air is crisp and you curse the reason you had to get up so early.

'Halla' is the plant killer. Comes at night when you have decided to protect your outside plants in couple of days.

'Pakkasen purevuus' is a Finnish way of doing math. -5 isn't necessarily -5. Add some wind and it might be even -15. People in Lapland has the privilege to live with the winds that come all the way from North Sea. Suddenly -5/-15 is -32/-48.

'Pääkallokeli' is literally skull-weather. First you get your magical winter wonderland full of beautiful snow. Then it's back to zero Celsius and world is full of sleet and slush. Then you go to sleep and wake up in the morning to realize it's been ass freezing cold - pakkanen - during the night. Finns brake a lot of bones every winter.

At this point I'm just gonna go back to bed.

The Coming Winter

I don't remember if I complained about the summer heat, I think I did, but now it's time to bitch about the coldness.

I live in a house that's built 1962. So it could be much worse. I could be living in a house that's ridiculous shape and covered with bathroom tiles from the outside:

But my house isn't perfect either. When autumn comes, cold gets in.

Also, I'm diabetic, been since 1987. In that time my blood circulation has gone worse and worse, so I'm not very vampire-friendly snack, and my hands and feet feel cold very easily.

From the September till May I'm cold. All through the winter and some more. I truly hate it. No amount of clothing can prevent it. And I refuse do gymnastics 10 hours per day.

Did I mention I can't wear wool? FML...

Dust

I don't think there's anyone who would like dust but I don't hate it from the cleaning point of view. I hate it because it makes me sneeze.

Last few years I've noticed myself getting more and more allergic to it. And it's probably my own fault. I hate cleaning so our apartment is always dusty. And if I do some cleaning, you can only imagine the huge torrents of dust going on for few days after that. There's been unusually big whirlwinds in Finland this summer...

When you add this to my hay fever which I have almost every summer you understand how much I'm sneezing these days. And even in my late teenage years this one guy always called me Sneezy, and that was over 15 years ago.

If we go to the bottom of this all the true reason why I hate dust so much is that can't have a nose piercing. I've tried twice.

Thin Walls

I live in a third floor apartment and quite contrary to the custom I have befriended or at least made acquaintance many of my neighbors.

On my right is a family with three kids. We go back and forth to kids birthday parties and play together on the sandbox. On the left lives a very good friend of mine. I use to call her The Catlady, but unfortunately her cat was very old and is no more. On this floor there's also an old maid who sometimes gives little gifts to my Kid. And then there's the mysterious bachelor. I don't even know his name but we always say hi.

Downstairs lives a single mom of two whose ex lives in this same block. Convenient for the kids, I must say. Also there's a young couple that's been married since last fall and they are getting their first baby very soon. On the bottom floor lives a young woman who sings and plays piano. And she's good. No Für Elise for the nth time wrong. She also has a small dog.

Upstairs we do have that mandatory black man. In case this would be a soap opera. You know, just to prove that the program isn't racist. We do lack the queer with feather boas and glitter, but this whole part of town is known to be popular with queers and artists, so maybe we can be forgiven. And we do have two thai massage parlors on the ground floor.

I almost forgot! The Party Guy above me. We say hi, but he looks embarrassed. It might be my fault. At least four times he's been so drunk he has tried to open my door with his keys. Two of those times I got bored listening the noise from the door, so I opened it and told him to go one floor up. And then I teased him about it afterwards. *mwahahaa*

I absolutely love to live here. I love my neighbors, I love this neighborhood. But sometimes the noise gets on my nerves.

Three kids next door are the most obvious. Though the youngest ones have finally stopped their midnight arias. Downstairs kids are quite good at developing their lungs too. Very pro-communication are the girls from the thai massage parlors. I wish I'd understood them when they're yelling at their pimps. The Party Guy watches football. Do I need to say more?

I refuse to complain. (Except here.) This is life.

Summer

Here in Finland, where Santa Claus lives and polar bears roam, summers are too hot for me. Really.

Seriously, Finland is about 1100km long (~684 miles) and Santa Claus lives up in the north and Helsinki is down in the south. Also I'm not sure if there's anymore polar bears in the zoo at all. Reason why we don't have a Siberia kind of climate is the gulf stream. (Yes, we are very much waiting for the gulf stream to turn around because of the climate change.)

Right now it's 11 pm and it's still +22 C outside. (~72 F) Now I would love to go outside! But oh crap, Kid is already sleeping. Daytime, when children are traditionally outside playing, it's up to +27 C (~80 F) and it starts to get hard for me to breath. Some day I expect myself to add in the statistics of the people dead by heat. Like my shrink once said, it's good to have something to look forward in the far future.