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.

The Days When Kid Is Sick

When I'm sick I stay at home, most of the time in bed and usually sleeping a lot. I might eat something yummy and watch whole seasons of Gilmore Girls and Absolutely Fabulous. I rest. I take it easy.

Most of the children are totally unable to rest for longer that 10 seconds. Even when they are sick. Yes, there's always exceptions, but my Kid definitely isn't one of them.

I have now two days behind me with Kid at home. About ten minutes ago my ex came, lifted Kid up to sit on the child seat of his bike and drove away. I came inside and poured immediately myself a glass of redwine.

So, when Kid is sick, daycare is of course out of question. Kid's having a flu and cough, so I'm not taking him outside to play. No playdates either, no one wants their own kids to get sick.

What's left, is computer games (in the morning when I'm only half alive), dvd's (we have no tv-connection) or playing together. Sure I'm ready to play some, but two days of car chasing gets boring. Once in a while I manage to trick Kid into drawing or playing with the play dough, but eventually it's always the bloodyfuckingihateyoudamn cars. Today I got Kid into making our own board game. That was fun. Kid invented the rules and I wrote them down. And then I asked him to get us a dice and pawns. "Which one do you want to be?" he asked and showed me the two ... cars! he had brought. And the name of the game? "The car chase."

Notice my blank face and utterly suicide-ready wrists.

The reason why the title isn't "Cars" is that no matter what Kid's obsession would be, his sick days would be wearing anyway. I don't have it in me to play all day. I need my own time. I'm also very self-sufficient when it comes to entertaining myself. So it's very hard for me to put me into Kids position when he complains about boredom. Why doesn't he do something about it?! Why is he bothering me all the time?! Flattering, yes. Nice, no.

I know "a good mother" plays with her kids. Every day. But how much? What is too little or enough? If your answer is "depends on the child", then whoa! Kid needs more than I can give. And that makes me feel very selfish.

The Lack Of Imagination

I'm talking about myself, of course.

If you've been wondering what the heck happened with this blog, the answer is simple. And not. Simple answer is that I really haven't hated anything lately and thus have had nothing to write about. Complex answer is that I have a depression and sometimes it makes me so introverted that I don't even answer the phone. Even if it's my bff or mother calling. (Yes, I send them later an sms that I'm alive.)

So maybe I should change the title to: "My Depression" but let's face it: not many would be interested to read how I'm rolling in my selfpity. So, let's hate the lack of imagination.

It is a by-product of depression, but it's a symptom I truly hate. I love to write and read. But they both require some imagination. Writing is self-explanatory but I think also reading needs it. Or can you imagine reading a book without single mental image of it's story? I can't. So when I can't "live in the book" I also have no interest to read it. Can you guess what I do when I'm depressed? I play mahjong and sleep. So. Fucking. Lame.

To talk about the imagination in general, one of my biggest disappointments in life was when I realized my limits in math. I love math. It was my favorite - among couple of other - subjects. And then came the day I realized I have got no imagination enough to apply familiar formulas in new situations. I can do the basic, but beyond that; no can do.

Only thing that has kept my somewhat sane this spring is knitting and crocheting. Sounds totally lame, huh? But it's fast and very satisfying to see how I can create something useful. Like Kid's mittens that had too short wrists. I cut ankle parts from the old Lightning McQueen socks and sew them on the mittens. Easy, and Kid loved them! Such a small thing but the way it lighted my whole week was awesome! Exactly what a depressed person needs; something delightful, useful and made by myself.

These feelings are so important because I feel like there's no hope. I'm shit. No matter what I do, I'll fail. I might as well fade away for I'm not good for anybody. Hopelessness -even according to scientists - is the most destructive feeling a person can have. And the battle against that feeling is the greatest battle you can ever have against yourself. Because it's not about reason or what you know. It's all about feelings, and they can lie so easily.

About the scientists. Of course I have no memory where I read this, but... In this project two guys were skiing across huge lake. They had sensors and stuff connected to them. Hours and hours of skiing. Nothing but snow in sight. All went quite well until they started to feel hopelessness of ever seeing the opposite shore. Their body temperature dropped drastically and they barely survived. In other words: They were physically fine as long as they had hope.

My Cola Addiction

I drink 3 liters of Pepsi Max every day. That's 0.79 US gallons.
That contains 583 milligrams of caffeine. 0.021 ounces.
For pregnant women the recommendation is not more than 200 milligrams. 0.007 ounces.

Here's a link to wikipedia. It's a long story, but worthwhile to read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine

I'm not going to start about aspartame...

I know, it's crazy. And I don't care.

...Equality Fail

Some time ago I was taking kid to a doctor. It was late afternoon, so we had to go to a hospital emergency department instead of regular health center. It was nothing serious, it could've waited till the next day, except the next day was Saturday.

It was emergency department for children, so there was huge amount of toys, cartoons coming from two tellys and lots of other kids to play with. Three and half hour was almost too little for kid for he had such a good time. But yes, a lot of waiting.

We saw a nurse first and then a doctor. In between kid had to give two separate urine samples. (Now you know what we suspected was wrong.) But it took like seven minutes together to talk with these people and rest of it was just waiting. That is, pure boredom for me.

Luckily I had prepared us for a long waiting with little snacks. Without them there would've been few tantrums for sure. We shared them with this other kid who was playing with my kid. The other mom looked grateful that I supervised them while she took care of her sick baby. Well, my kid didn't feel sick so it was easy for me and I was glad to help.

When we were finally leaving, she made a comment about the length we both had been there, she was still staying, and also said that her husband would've gone insane after half an hour. My answer was: "Yes, women do what they must do."

On the way home I was so ashamed. Waiting room was almost equally full of dads with their children. Why the hell did I make such a stupid comment? Yes, I think men many times try to slack and leave these kind of things to the mother. But I also know women can be just as lazy. I would be if I could. And those dads in the waiting room seemed all very worried about their children. Not one looked like they were forced there. Actually I saw one couple were the mother seemed like pouting while the dad played with their kid.

I'm still ashamed. I'm very sorry guys.

...adulthood, part 1

Oh yes. I'm very certain there will be more.

This part 1 deals with raising up kids. In plural for I freely admit I'm a very serious case of kidultism. (Wow, just made a new word!) I love pink and cute. Took 30 years to admit it but I'm still partly in that princess phase almost every girl goes through. This picture is from our hallway.

Yes, I use those earmuffs.

I'd be quite happily the kidult I am, but darn! I had a kid of my own. There's just no other way to raise a kid but to grow up myself also. Really. I don't know if raising a kid is that difficult. Much more difficult is to act like an adult myself. To keep up limits, not to eat just desserts, to care about bedtimes etc. etc.

I DON'T WANNA !!!

*whiny voice* I wan't to eat candy whenever. I wan't drink red wine first thing in the morning. I wan't to go dancing in gaybars.

*back to adulthood* I care too much about my kid to be that stupid, but sometimes I just wish...

Super-Achievers.

I grew up believing I can do and be whatever I want to. Until one day I realized that the beauty pageant contestants of that particular year were younger than me. At least most of them. I have no idea why exactly that hit me so badly. I mean, I have never even wanted to participate, so why did that feel so bad?

Anyways, next thing I knew, I read some article about girls on 5th grade (that makes them about 11 yo) who wrote a book together and got it published. I'm such a bad wannabe-writer, been since I was about the same age than those grrr... girls, and at that moment I was 10 years behind!

From there on it was just a realization after another, how people younger than me had already done something big, like started their career when they were 4 yo and have since hired their whole village to make tamagotchis and thus saved their grandmothers and little sisters by paying their hospital bills. Blah blah blah.

When I finally got over it. That I'm a loser. I got my next shock from magazines. Every single one of them has articles about people whose spouses died in a freak accidents but they heroically take now care of their 6 children, a grandmother, 52 cows, 14 chicken and some horses. (No electricity, of course, all natural and organic.) They also home school the kids (who go around performing classical music), sell their farm products in their own store and are about to discover how to cure some major disease.

I'm a single mom, no money, no job and I've had this stupid depression now for several years. I am not inspired.

...Ads, Part 1.

(Part 1, because I sense a prolific source here.)

This weekend I bought Kid a big package of play-dough. On the cover there's cute pictures of play-dough houses, cars, dolls and whatnot. Package includes little machine that helps to do all kinds of strings and flowers and butterflies and stuff like that. Well, here's a picture of it:

Kid loved it. I had quite fun too. But after an hour we didn't quite have the artful masterpieces that the package promised in our hands. What we had looked more like something brownish and chunky. What went wrong? Can I have my money back?

...being sick.

I'm sick. No blog today. Go away.

People Who Are Blocking The Street

I'm walking there among all the other people walking to somewhere, minding my own business, when suddenly some idiot stops right there because they just must find that paperclip! Right here! Right now! The more they're blocking the street the better.

You just couldn't wait till you're back at your office/home/padded cell? Of course not. Even the thought of going next to the wall, so other people could get your past, is inconceivable. What other people? Your paperclip rules the universe!

Fridays

My Facebook news stream is every Friday full of comments how people are over-joyed about that day. Most of the people have regular job from Monday to Friday. At least here in Finland that means that those not in the customer service can leave earlier from work if they have required hours in. Even some public agencies close earlier.

And what do people do? They drive to some supermarket, then home, they eat something and then most of them open a bottle of alcohol and probably go to sauna. Finnish way of drinking is infamous. At the moment there's even this YouTube thingy going on. But anyway, that's The Finnish Way To Relax. And when the Sunday comes, everybody's still suffering from a hangover, they're eating pizza, watching telly and cursing coming Monday.

Health-conscious people skip the alcohol, but they most certainly still go to sauna, which is a Finnish Must. Well, I love sauna too. Don't get me wrong. But these exercise-freaks swim in a freezing water - they hack a big hole into the ice so they can get into the lake - and then afterward they sit together in public sauna (ladies and gents separately) and boast how they haven't had any flu or other sickness for four years, ever since they started the winter swimming! Yes, even germs are afraid of you...

My Friday as a single parent is little bit different. I go and get my kid from day care at three o'clock. We go to grocery store on our way home. Kid plays, I make dinner for us and after that kid gets to eat a lot of candy. Friday is his candy-day. Rest of the evening he's jumping on the walls with the sugar high and then it's time for supper. All that extra energy guaranties that he won't fall asleep for some time but otherwise it's just a regular evening for me. And kid will get up around six-ish next morning, so I won't stay up late either.

THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT FRIDAYS!!!

GET OVER IT!!!

February

I don't like cold but I still like winter. Snow makes everything look so beautiful. Even snow storms are great if I can stay inside. After long and dark autumn - which I like also - suddenly comes this totally white magical looking scenery. Xmas gets nearer, people are smiling and everybody loves to sit on sofa, wrapped in blanket, drinking hot cocoa and maybe read some good book.

New Year is full of new energy and the whole January is the time to start all over again. People fill gym classes, kids are ice skating, new season this, new school term that, etc. It's cold outside, but people just joke about it. Days are getting longer quite fast and that raises moods significantly.

And then comes the February. The shortest month of the year. Absolutely nothing happens. It looks like days aren't getting that much longer after all. At least here in Helsinki thermometer usually hits the lowest numbers of the year, and it's time to realize how you couldn't keep those New Year's resolutions after all. Again.

So f*cking depressing that mentally February feels like the longest month of the year. First day of March is a promise of spring, but that day seems to be unreachable. February just slowly drags it's heels. Sun is too tired to get really up and instead just shines straight to our eyes so no one can see anything. Thanks a lot. Sure I wanted to ruin my vision, so I can't see even a flower when they finally grow up in few months.

From now on, I refuse to have anything to do with February. Next year I'll just skip it! There! I showed you!