Ziva's Inferno

Sometimes A Pizza Is Just Not Enough

2012-02-12T22:53:00.000+02:00

Some days it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps in the morning. This was one of those days when you should have just stayed in bed, warm and comfortable, because waking up was the absolute highlight of the day.

Reason enough to talk to anyone.

See, Zelma and I were bored. Terribly bored. So bored that we in our desperation went to the library. Big mistake. While there, we came across a friend of ours. Frank. Frank was a rail thin, socialist vegan who refused to carry arms in the military. He believed in women’s rights, shared wealth and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which was frankly the only reason why I talked to him at all. He was a very nice fellow, though, despite his appalling habit of not eating things that had given their lives to be lunch. Frank also occupied rotten old buildings, entertaining some strange delusion of the buildings actually having some kind of historical or cultural value. When he wasn’t being arrested for free-thinking, he staged protests and demonstrations and workshops for lost souls in search of meaning in their existence. Or, as it would turn out, bored souls in search of adventure and pizza.

I bet you can guess what happened next. That’s right, Zelma and I were in fact in possession of two extremely bored souls, and in search of pizza, so when Frank, bless his long-haired emo-heart, asked us to participate in a workshop for women, we agreed to do so for the very reasonable price of a pizza. A workshop for women, he said. He didn’t have enough participants, and we were gullible and easily bribed.

Reason enough to do anything.

We entered the room, apprehensive and, frankly, still quite bored. In the middle of the room there was a table, and around the table a few women, couldn’t have been more than five. They all seemed a little lost. All, except for one. She exuded confidence and quirkiness, two things our teenage selves found off-putting and strange. But, thinking about that pizza, we sat down and decided to play along. A few silly get-to-know-each-other games later, our boredom level had spiked to never before seen heights and we were only getting started.

Filling with dread, we watched as the quirky hippie leader brought out magazines, scissors and glue. Lots of glue. No wonder she was so strange. She told us she wanted us to access our inner feminist. We were supposed to flip through the magazines and cut out pictures that represented the feminist inside of us, past experiences and future hopes. She wanted us to express in pictures why we decided to attend this feminist gathering and why it meant so much to us.

Silently I cursed Frank and tried to find a picture of a pizza. There was no pizza in any of the magazines. I cut out a picture of piano keys. Then a black shoe. Then a pretty white flower. And a picture of some liquorice. Zelma and I worked in silence with the other girls. They all seemed completely engrossed in the task and Zelma and I did everything we could not to accidentally look at each other. I knew if we did, we would burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Zelma and I are definitely not mood board people. We don’t cut out pictures from magazines and glue them to a piece of paper. In fact, we’re the kind of people who paint our nails purple and laugh at people who make mood boards, while drinking copious amounts of my own home made salmiakkikossu and listening to The Dark Side of the Moon.

Mood board, most definitely not made by me.

And then, our eyes locked. I pulled a muscle in my side trying to keep from laughing out loud, and I can only assume the other women thought Zelma had a weird habit of snorting every now and then, just because she could. I have no idea how we made it through that meeting. I made up some kind of bullshit story about liquorice representing female liberation, and tried to explain the fact that my mood board was mostly black whereas the other women had cut out pictures of sunflowers and bright hats. Zelma just pretended she had laryngitis and couldn’t say anything.

The pizza?

So not worth it.

Women, Can't Live With Them, I Recommend You Live Without Them

2012-01-27T01:19:00.000+02:00

M and I have lived in sin for about two years now, and I think the arrangement has generally been a great success. But today M did something that he’s never done before. He offered to vacuum without me nagging on him first. And as realization hit me, I was horrified. M is living with a woman, and it has broken him.

See, the thing is, I’ve lived with a woman. I know what it’s like. And I don’t recommend it. First, there’s the constant fighting over who cleans what. Women suffer from the ridiculous illusion that a house needs cleaning at least once a week, whether it’s dirty or not.

And when you’re living with a woman, slowly but surely every single surface in the house begins to fill with useless crap. In every damn corner there’s a plant in a cute teddy bear pot, and thousands of useless items meant solely for decoration, “I just had to buy this porcelain frog; it goes so well with the curtains.” And the curtains, carpets, bedding and towels all change once a week into a new and improved pastel color.

Kiss me!

The bathroom cabinets are so full with products it’s a miracle if you can find your toothbrush; there’s hairsprays, lotions, weird soaps you’re not allowed to wash your hands with, and every person needs their own towel to dry their hands with. And if by some miracle you can find your toothbrush, you sure as hell can’t find anything else, because nothing ever stays in the same place for longer than a week. You’re supposed to leave your keys in the tiny pink key cabinet, but of course you won’t be able to do that, because even Barbie couldn’t fit her keys in that cabinet, so you’re really keeping your keys in a smelly old tin (got it at the flea market) with a lid that’s impossible to open. And the tin is kept on a dresser in the hallway, but even the dresser won’t stay in the same place for very long. “Hmm, let’s try it over there in the corner... no it doesn’t go with the cat statue, how about over there? No, the feng shui isn’t quite right..”

Smelly old tins.

You can never watch hockey, because oh my god, Sex and the City is on! And on the tv there’s scented candles. Actually, there’s scented candles on every horizontal surface, but whatever you do, do not light them because then they won’t look pretty anymore.

You can never have friends over without first baking and cleaning so people won’t think your apartment is a mess. And when you have people over, you have to drink your coffee or tee from tiny little pretty cups and asking for more is rude, and so is saying no thank you when actually offered a refill. And the coffee isn’t kept in its original packaging, no. It’s in a separate jar, as is everything else. Sugar, flour, salt and rice, everything has its own little jar that is incredibly unpractical and “so pretty!” And those jars keep moving around in the kitchen until you’re just choosing a jar at random and hoping for the best. Even the content of the jars change once a week.

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan will be your new best friends, because every movie you’ll see is a romantic comedy, and because it’s completely impossible to watch a movie without doing your nails, washing your hair or writing a blog post at the same time, you’re continuously answering questions like “Who’s that?” “What’s he doing now and why can’t that guy in Seattle just take a sleeping pill?” And while you’re watching your romantic comedy you’ll hear all about what her friends did this weekend, and why their boyfriends didn’t like it.

In short, living with a woman sucks.

And now M’s living with a woman. Poor guy.

Perhaps Awesome Was A Bit Of A Stretch

2012-01-20T22:53:00.000+02:00

This NewYear M and I decided we needed to travel, and it so happens that my very goodinternet friend from exotic Indiawas in Germanyas an exchange student. We got together in a dark coffee shop at the corner ofthe internet and hashed out the plans. We’ve both always wanted to see Prague, and this was theperfect opportunity. However, M and I were in a bit of a hurry to get back towork, and Eesha would be leaving Germanyfor Indiajust a couple days after New Year’s Eve. This, of course, made things a littlebit complicated. But after hours of deep contemplation, 27 virtual lattes and 14not-so-virtual doughnuts, we had it all figured out.

Eesha, thelucky bitch, would arrive in Pragueon the 29^th. M and I would try to get off work early on Friday the30^th, hop on a plane to Stockholm,take another plane from Stockholm to Copenhagen and catch a connecting flight from Copenhagen to Prague,arriving late in the evening. Arranging this wasn’t easy, I’m telling you,especially since I needed a double seat on every flight on account of having 14doughnuts in one session.

Thursdaynight, Eesha checked in with us, letting us know the hotel was perfect, and thecity even better. I had all my bags packed, and on Friday I woke up at 6 am to goto work with a smile on my face. After work we left for the airport and set outto travel all across Europe on the death-machines called airplanes, before wecould finally arrive in Prague.

The flightfrom Copenhagen to Prague was perfect. It was on time, and sincethere were so few passengers everyone got to ride in first class. The flightattendants asked everyone what they wanted to eat and cooked different mealsfor everyone. Alcohol flowed and the captain made jokes over the intercom,including a very good imitation of Pablo Francisco. The weather was perfect,and because of a decent tailwind, the flight arrived an hour early. In themiddle of the flight, Elvis (I’ll have you know that the rumors of his deathare greatly exaggerated) stood up and treated everyone to a fantastic concertand signed everyone’s plane tickets. After the performance, all the passengersdecided to play the lottery, and miraculously won 72 million dollars. Each.

At leastthat’s what I assume happened. I wouldn’t really know, we never made that flight.Nope, we were stuck in Stockholm.Norwegian airlines apologized for the delay, gave us a hotel room, fed us and put us ona flight from Stockholm to Prague at a time when not even breakfast was awake yet. It was an extraordinarily ordinary flight; twominutes late, bland food and indifferent flight attendants. But it got us to Prague.

We arrivedin Prague 12hours later than we had planned, but luckily Eesha hadn’t run off and left uswith the hotel bill. We spent about 10 minutes making sure we didn’tspontaneously hate each other, and then set out to conquer Prague together. We saw everything we couldpossibly see in one day, and even if I tried I could never, ever pronounce, spell or remember any of the names of the things and places we saw. But we saw a nice square with a nice statue for the late Vaclav Havel, we saw extremely deep subways and ate very good local delicacies. We went in search of a castle on a hill, found it, and nearly died from the climb up the hill. We witnessed the spectacle that is the Astronomical Clock and climbed the tower. We saw the Powder Tower and the Charles Bridge, where we together with ten thousand other people also became the very mangled audience of the most spectacular fireworks ever while sipping a miniature bottle of absinthe. We also saw a lot of furry hats and museums of torture. The Czech clearly have a thing for furry torture.


A Finn, taking a picture of an Indian, taking a picture of a building.

Searching for the castle, finding only empty streets.

We found the castle! Too bad it's too big to fit in the picture.

Around the castle a great wall ran, and beyond, the city of Prague.

Next stop, Hell.

"Don't mind me, just holding up a building here."

View from the tower at the Astronomical Clock.

Have I mentioned I hate heights?

This charming little fellow rang the bell every hour at the Astronomical Clock.


New Year's Eve at Charles Bridge, where someone standing behind me either has a banana in his pocket, or just sexually assaulted me.

The nextday we woke up early and rode trains all day long. Unfortunately, so did a lotof other people, and the first hour or so was spent trying to ignore anextremely loud family of two mommies and two kids. When they weren’t screamingand crying (even the moms), they were playing loud videogames on littleportable devices from hell.

Luckily wesoon crossed into the country that boasts not only Oktoberfest, sauerkraut andbratwurst, but also 5 million skeletons in their closet. At the same time theCzech announcements on the train stopped and a very well-organized lady starteddoing the announcements in German instead. And that’s pretty much how the restof our trip was, extremely organised thanks to the Germans and their obsessionwith neat and orderly. We jumped onto another train in Dresden,and yet a new one in Leipzig.We arrived in Magdeburgin the evening, and didn’t have time do to much more than take a walk and havedinner. Oh, and share quarters with a dozen ghosts or so. We spent the night inan old University dormitory that was clearly haunted. It looked haunted, felthaunted and sounded haunted. The bathroom was at the end of the hallway, andI’ll bet you anything that the clanking sound in the pipes wasn’t made by rats.And it wasn’t Casperthe Friendly Ghost clanking either, no, this was The Shining, dubbed to German.Luckily we only had to stay there one night, and then it was off to Berlin.

Berlin was lovely, and just as well-organized as the rest of Germany. We had24 hours in Berlin,and we used the time well. We saw the Bundestag, Brandenburger Tor, theMemorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (quite the fetching name for amemorial, don’t you think?), what is left of the Berlin Wall, the hugelyphallic TV-tower and Checkpoint Charlie. We had some currywurst and wereridiculously happy when we didn’t have to pay extra for Wi-Fi at the hotel. Werode the subway and the trains and marvelled at the railway stations, builthigh above the city. And even I who have only taken basic German, ages ago,understood almost everything said. A lovely place, it was.

I looked up "haunted house" on Wikipedia, then hit "Deutsch", only to learn that there is no such listing in German. Germans are clearly too sensible for ghosts.

Not actual wall.

The square at Brandenburger Tor.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The onething that really truly stayed with me, though, was the very aptly named memorial. Huge slabs ofconcrete, lined up perfectly over an entire block. On the outside it lookedperfectly even, all blocks the same size. And then you started walking betweenthe blocks, and the ground sank into the earth, you found yourself walking downa slope, the concrete blocks on either side of you growing taller and taller.What started as innocent blocks at knee-level grew into 15-foot tall monsters,blocking out the light, towering over you in a perfect metaphor for the deepdark secrets of Berlin.I could have walked around in it all night, but alas, we had things to do,places to sightsee.

We left Berlin the next day, andI got that familiar angsty feeling when I heard Finnish spoken on the airport.After another death-defying flight home, the bus driver’s laconic welcome mademe feel perfectly at home again. We arrived in Turku at 10 at night, crawled into bed and gotup at 6 am the next day to go to work.

And just like that, the adventure was over.

The Post After This Post Will Be Awesome

2012-01-18T19:29:00.000+02:00

Yoda went completely ballistic when he noticed his parts were missing.

Yup, that’s right, I’ve hacked the balls off of yet another perfectly good cat. Don’t worry, though, I won’t go into the details, so my male readers can now uncup their balls and stop cringing. And I do, in fact, have better things to write about than cats, although, the internet never feels entirely complete without cat pictures.

See, M and I went out searching for adventure during the New Years. And adventure we found. It was pretty easy to find it, as a matter of fact, it was just lying there in the middle of the street. In Prague. And in Magdeburg. And in Berlin. Check in again at the end of the week and I’ll ~~brag shamelessly~~ tell you all about our trip.

Also, tune in for next week’s episode of the Cat Blog, where we’ll be discussing the age-old question posed by every castrated cat since the knife was invented. “Can cats adopt?”

It Only Takes Two Seconds, And Your Future Is Changed Forever

2011-12-13T20:47:00.000+02:00

“Do you remember that guy with the bottle up his behind?” one of the doctors said, to a chorus of laughter. “And the best part is always the explanation. They were cleaning, naked, and happened to back into something, or in the sauna and just happened to sit down on the bottle and it just slid right it.”

At this point we were all laughing, doctors and nurses talking all at once, sharing their stories about embarrassing patient visits.

“Once while I was still studying to be a doctor, I was working as a gynecologist and one woman came in with a perch up her vagina.”

“Maybe the fish tail felt just right against her lady parts.”

More laughter.

“Okay, enough with the vagina talk, lets start the meeting.”

It was a good meeting; the entire department was in a good mood. And then I saw my mother through the glass door, standing outside. She was waving to me, motioning for me to come.

My curiosity peaked, I left my mug of hot chocolate on the table and left the room.

“Your brother’s had an accident. Apparently his moped was hit by a car.”

It’s the kind of thing you sometimes worry about happening, but mostly you just quickly put it out of your mind, maybe knock on wood, or your own head if you happen to be out of wood. It’s the kind of moment when you forget everything else, and your only priority becomes making sure your little brother is okay.

The call mom received was by Anton’s friend. The only thing she said was that Anton was lying in the street, not moving and that the medical helicopter had arrived on scene. We jumped into my car and I drove to the scene of the accident. As we came closer we saw the lights. Brilliant blue lights, flashing in the distance. The lights that are supposed to tell you that you’re safe, help is here. But I just saw the flashing lights, chilling proof of the very thing I had hoped would never happen. First we saw the fire truck. Then the police car. Then the ambulance and the helicopter. And when we saw the people standing in clusters, whispering, we knew it was bad.

Anton was rushed to the emergency room, but mom and I had to drive there in my car. I still have no idea how I kept the car on the road, but we made it there not long after Anton had arrived.

A thorough examination revealed that the only thing badly hurt was his leg. It seemed almost impossible that he had been that lucky. And then the surgeries started. The first one happened that same night. His leg was crushed, and they didn’t know if they would be able to save it.

Fortunately, they were.

Several surgeries, several days in the intensive care and a couple of weeks in the surgical ward later, Anton is finally home again and the entire family can breathe again. His leg will never be what it was, and he has a long road to recovery ahead of him.

But he’s alive.

And today I value that fact a lot more than I did just a few weeks ago. You never know when will be the last time you tell someone goodbye.

Never leave a conversation angry.

Never leave without saying goodbye.

Never take someone for granted.

They’re all clichés, said too many times to really stay in your mind. But when the flashing blue lights appear in the distance, you realize how important they are.

Vegetable Friday FTW!

2011-11-22T22:35:00.001+02:00

I’ve been told you’re never supposed to apologize on the internet. Suffice it to say that after my last post I was so embarrassed by all the cat pictures that I fell into a deep depression, drank all the vodka I could find, moved on to the fine wine, then the not-so-fine wine, polished off the absinthe and the gin, moved on the fruitier liqueurs and finished my binge with a very nice pear cognac. Then I went to the liquor store and really got started.

I woke up three weeks later, disoriented and broke and with a strange sense of déjà vu. Gingerly, I set out to make things right again. I sold the Russian mail order bride, recycled all the empty bottles, threw out the very exotic collection of roadkill that had somehow appeared in my apartment and fed the cats with some old pizza I found under the couch.

Then I opened my laptop and realized I’d missed about a year’s worth of blog posts (how is that even possible when I wasn’t away for more than a couple of weeks?) I closed the laptop, baked a mudcake, ate it with some ice cream and a nice glass of wine, and opened the laptop again. Before the week is over, I will have read ~~all~~ some of the blog posts that I’ve missed. You have my very questionable word on it.

And now for something completely different. In God’s chosen land, the land of over-sized everything, of ridiculous lawsuits, turducken and Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the land where it’s perfectly legal to be Sarah Palin, pizza is now a vegetable. At least if we ask Congress.

This got me thinking about a conversation Mike and I had a couple of days ago. It went a little like this:

Mike: Finland was mentioned on the most recent episode of Parks & Recreation. One of the characters traded all of Finland's boring stuff for lions at a mock UN conference. Funny.

Ziva: Sounds great.

Mike: It's very funny. I think so, anyway. They'll probably cancel it next week. Not Finland. The show. I'm sure Finland won't get cancelled for a long time. But if I hear anything, I'll let you know so you have time to pack.

Ziva: I think they’ll cancel America way before they cancel Finland; God knows America jumped the shark about three Presidents ago.

Mike: No shit. Did you know America's never mentioned in the Book of Revelation? It doesn't even figure into The End of Days. And yet we think we're so important. Some of us do, anyway. Not me.

Mike, my other American readers, you better start packing cause any country that declares pizza a vegetable is about one bad plot twist away from being cancelled. On the plus side, I hear Canadians are really nice to foreigners.

Lions, way more interesting than all of Finland's boring stuff.

Something Important to Tell You, I Have

2011-10-21T01:10:00.000+03:00

Come everybody, come. Gather around.

Closer.

Closer.

Not that close.

Okay, good. Please say hello to the newest addition to our family. This is Yoda.

Now, take a good look at him.Look closer. Closer. Good. You won’t be seeing much more of him, because Yoda will have a normal childhood, and not be ruined by fame like Darth Vader was. He will not be teased by all the other cats, have them laughing at him, mocking him for having a blogging mom who keeps posting pictures of him with no clothes on. He will not have to rise above the teasing, only to become a snotty diva with a huge head, begging his poor blogger mommy to take more pictures of him. He will have a normal, low-key, only a few pictures a day kind of childhood. He will be a normal cat, dammit!

….okay, just a few more pictures. But these are the last ones, I promise!

The Big One Goes In The Back

2011-10-03T20:35:00.000+03:00

Previously on Ziva’s Inferno:

Ziva found herself helplessly in love with the gorgeous Canadian blogger-come-leader-of-the-world, the one and only Nicky. Desperate for her affection, Ziva set out on a mission. A mission to woo Nicky. She managed to trick the beautiful Nicky to Skype with her, and after a rocky start, a little help from the awkward banana and a French-speaking child, Nicky and Ziva hit it off like no one ever thought a cheese-lover and an ex-assassin could. And then Ziva fell off the face of the earth, presumably lost in Tijuana.

In this week’s episode, Ziva magically resurfaces, broke and hung over, but seemingly no worse for wear, and she is on a mission. Again. This time, it is not to woo Nicky, (although Ziva would like to point out that she will win Nicky’s heart again, even if she has to eat cheese to do it,) but to tackle the greatest problem known to womenkind; men’s inability to do it right.

This is probably one of the most common conversations M and Ziva have:

Z: ”No, it doesn’t go there!”
M: “Where then?”
Z: “A little to the right. More. More. There!”
M: “What about this?”
Z: “No, that’s not right, put it in the back.”

We’re of course talking about the dishwasher. Men can’t seem to get it right. But, nice as Ziva is, she tries not to be a nagging bitch, so whenever M puts the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, she just secretly sneaks in after he’s left the kitchen and rearranges the dishes. Yes, she’s that pedantic.

And now that she wrote it down, she's realizing it's not even a very interesting topic to discuss. At all. Ziva is very sorry she wasted your time. It’s back to Tijuana for her.

Ziva would also like to apologize for talking about herself in the third-person singular throughout this thoroughly useless post.

This Title is Not Relevant to the Story

2011-08-19T17:05:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I was talking to MikeWJ and bitching about my lack of inspiration for blog posts.

MikeWJ: Write about something serious and personal.
Ziva: I hate serious and personal.
MikeWJ: Okay, so write about something not serious and not personal.
Ziva: Like what?
MikeWJ: Write about the time you fell in love.

And so, I did.

It was a beautiful spring day. It could also have been fall, or winter, or even summer, I can’t really remember, but it’s not important to the story anyway, so just go with it.

It was a beautiful spring/fall/winter/summer day. Of course, since I can’t even remember what time of year it was, I can’t really say for sure that it was a beautiful day. It could very well have been raining small popular mammals or snowing or even just been overcast and dull. Finnish weather isn’t very predictable and I can’t really be expected to remember what the weather was like that beautiful spring day. Let’s just get on with the story.

Small popular mammal.

It was a beautiful/rainy/overcast/gray/snowy spring/fall/winter/summer day. Come to think of it, it probably wasn’t even day, what with the time zones and all. It was probably in the middle of the night and I should have been in bed hours ago and I probably had to work the next day and I probably spent all day at work yawning like the proverbial sloth that ran the marathon. What was that? That’s not a common saying? Well it should be. Anyway, what I was saying is that I was probably very tired, and spent all of the next day yawning, and then I probably took a nap after work, which shifted my internal clock forward to make me more internet-adapted, but at the same time making me less work-adapted and less Finland-adapted, which eventually resulted in the permanent black circles I have under my eyes now as a result of living on four hours of sleep every night.

Back to the story.

It was a beautiful/rainy/overcast/gray/snowy spring/fall/winter/summer day/night/evening/morning. You know, it probably didn’t even happen in one day or night at all. Now that I think about it, it happened over time, slowly but surely, like the sun slowly growing and expanding until it eventually kills everything on this planet in a raging inferno of fire and brimstone, souls screaming in agony and babies crying for their mommy, but less gruesome and more sweet.

I think it’s best if we just start over completely, don’t you think?

The first time she commented on my blog, I thought she was a man. She spelled her name weirdly, like a man, and she grabbed her balls a lot, too. Or so I thought, but as it turned out, she didn’t have any balls so I guess she mostly just grabbed her man’s balls. Or maybe she didn’t grab any balls at all and that’s something I made up just now. I really don’t know, I’m writing this at work and I think my brain is still asleep because I stayed up too late reading her blog again.

Magic 8-ball, shown here with small popular mammal. Not relevant to the story.

I’m really not doing the story justice.

I have a crush on Nicky, okay??

And she wrote me a poem in her sleep, so I’m pretty sure she likes me, too.

Thirty Days of Photographs: The Rejects

2011-08-11T19:00:00.011+03:00

I bet you thought this would be over by now. If you did, you’d be 100 percent right. Yesterday was my first day as a free woman in a month, and boy did it feel good. This project has been a lot of fun for me, and it’s really helped me look at the world differently, from an artist’s point of view. I’ve taken some really good pictures, some really bad pictures, some really strange pictures, and a whole lot of really mediocre pictures. But it was also very challenging to try to keep up with the pace of one picture every day, and some days I cut it extremely close to the deadline.

Anyway, I'd like to thank you, Michael, for agreeing to share this project with me, and for kicking my ass every day with your fantastic photos, making me want to become a better photographer. Let me know when you feel like going for round two. And thank you, my dear readers, for not groaning out loud when you realized this thing would go on for thirty freaking days. Well, thirty-one, as it turns out. Because today I’m going to post some of the pictures that I took this past month and that didn’t make the cut the first time around.

These were the last ones, I promise.

Thirty Days of Photographs: God

2011-08-09T19:00:00.003+03:00

God. Allah. Yahweh. El Shaddai. Deus. Gandalf. God has about as many names as P. Diddy, and is known in one form or other by literally dozens of people. When I was little I was sure that God was an old man with a long white beard, living in the clouds. And even though I'd like to think I know better now, I can't help but wonder if this is where God takes his vacation. It looks like a pretty laid back cloud, after all.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Night

2011-08-08T19:00:00.001+03:00

I live within spitting distance of the polar circle. This means that our summer nights last for about 30 seconds and never really get dark. But the sun does set, and sometimes you’re lucky enough to catch a sunset that sets the sky on fire.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Weather

2011-08-07T19:00:00.001+03:00

I’ve spent the last couple of days hoping for some extreme weather for this shot, but we’ve had a suspicious lack of weather lately. 70 degrees and cloudy. Every day. Yesterday we were supposed to get some rain and thunder, but it was 70 degrees and overcast, and not even a pretty kind of overcast, just boring overcast.

This picture is from a few weeks ago when the weather gods actually delivered on their promises and gave us rain and thunder. Muschu and I were sitting on the beach, I was taking her picture when the wind suddenly picked up and we heard thunder. In the far distance we could see the rain, and I forgot all about taking Muschu’s picture and instead tried to capture the ominous-looking cloud on film.

Edited 7:15 pm: 15 minutes after posting this, it's now raining.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Two

2011-08-06T19:00:00.002+03:00

Thirty Days of Photographs: Chocolate

2011-08-05T19:00:00.002+03:00

If there’s one thing I like almost as much as I like Pepsi Max, it’s chocolate. Show me a person who doesn't like chocolate and I'll show you a person who's lying. I realize of course that someone will read this now and feel the need to be original and say that they don't like chocolate at all, just to contradict me and to stand out. But it's no use. I know you like chocolate, you big fat liar. You can't fool me. Chocolate is like cheese; everyone likes it.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Dinner

2011-08-04T19:00:00.003+03:00

Today M exhibited an extraordinary lack of judgement when he left for Helsinki for three days and left me in charge of the apartment, the cat, and most importantly, feeding myself. And with M gone, I did the only thing I could do. I enlisted the help of my two favorite men, Ben and Jerry. Dinner is served!

Thirty Days of Photographs: Wet

2011-08-03T19:00:00.002+03:00

When I hear the word “wet,” I automatically think about ~~sex~~ water. Water makes things wet, right? I like water, in every form. I love the steam in a good sauna, I enjoy to swim in it and skate on it. I think snow and frost is beautiful, and I even like to drink water straight from the tap. Yes, I’m really that hardcore. But my favorite form of water is, and always will be, rain.

This picture is of raindrops on the windshield in M’s car. We were on our way to see friends, it was raining, and I was smiling.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Summer

2011-08-02T19:00:00.001+03:00

Summer in Finland is like a short but intense love affair. We make everything we can of it, because we know another long and cold winter is waiting just around the corner. This summer has been hot. Very hot, by Finnish standards. We’ve gone to bed sweaty, woke up sweaty, gone to work sweaty. My skin has felt constantly sticky, my coloring deepened by the sun.

Summer in Finland is making the most of what’s given to us. Eating typical summer foods, swimming in the sea, lying in the sun, even when it’s too hot to really enjoy. It’s endless summer nights, spent watching the sunset, then the sunrise a couple hours later. It’s bare legs and mosquito bites. Picking wild strawberries and threading them onto a strand of wild grass, like a string of rubies. Eating them, one by one, savoring the taste. It’s blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, eaten with milk and sugar. Barbeques with friends, a sauna by the lake. Summer in Finland is all these things, and more.

It’s stupid socialist 5-week vacations, 20 hours of light a day. It’s thunderstorms, rain and hail. It’s camping and road trips and days on the beach. It’s ice cream and rowboats and sea gulls and hedgehogs. It’s silly romance novels and laundry drying in the sun outside. It’s drinks with ice, live music and dance. It’s love and romance and time with your family. And it's hardly any snow.

The last weeks in July, newspapers in Finland announced that we were experiencing the hottest summer in 23 years. But a couple of days ago, when July turned to August, autumn came knocking. As if someone had flicked a switch, the warm summer mornings that left you longing for a cold drink turned cool. Suddenly, I found myself wanting to go back in to get a sweater. The days are still warm, summery, even, but the nights are quietly telling you that fall will soon color the leaves red. Red like the wild strawberries on that blade of grass.

I’m looking forward to fall. To the beautiful colors and the crisp air. I love fall mornings when you can taste the cold on the air. I love fall nights when the wind is howling and the rain keeps everyone inside. I love leaving work to an already dark afternoon, and lighting candles at home.

We still have a little summer left, though, and in Finland, we enjoy every last moment of warmth and light. We drink it in, so that when the winter is at its coldest, we can already tell by the lightening skies that summer will soon be here again.

This picture is from the home M grew up in, where the gooseberries are ripe, and the sun still warms the grass under your feet. But you can tell it’ll soon be over.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Self-portrait

2011-08-01T19:00:00.004+03:00

For 22 days now, I have been dreading this day. Dreading this picture. There is nothing I hate more than photos of myself, videos of myself the only possible exception. If I can, I avoid being caught on film, and even when I can’t, I turn away. There are a disproportionate number of pictures out there featuring the back of my head.

This means that I’ve spent the past three weeks trying to figure out how to cheat on this picture, and I think I finally have an answer.

Behold, Ziva:

Thirty Days of Photographs: When I Was Young

2011-07-31T19:00:00.004+03:00

When I was young, my grandfather was still alive.

My grandfather was a beautiful man. I saw pictures of him as a young man when he had thick black hair, and a smile that could charm the pants off any woman. He always had a mischievous look in his eyes, always seemed ready to laugh. By the time I knew him his hair was turning gray, but the twinkle in his eyes was just as bright. He married the love of his life at a very young age, and did hard labor all his life. He was a hard worker, and a very strict parent to my mother and her brother.

He was not as strict with us, though. In fact, it seemed like he devoted his entire life to making his grandchildren happy. He was a heavy smoker for over 30 years, and to this day I associate the smell of cigarette smoke with a safe place, and with nights spent sleeping in a cot next to grandpa's bed. When I was little he used to do jigsaw puzzles with me, he taught me how to play cards, and made me believe that I really won all those times we played. He helped me cut out paper dolls and make dresses for them, and he showed me how to play Tetris on the Nintendo and beat the high score every single time. In the summers he took us to the house at the lake and watched over us as we learned how to swim. He took us out in the little boat, all the way across to the other shore, where he bought us doughnuts.

He showed me how to build a little boat out of bark and to put resin from the tree on the end of it to break the surface tension and propel the bark boat forward. He showed me how to build animals from pine cones by giving them stick legs, and how to loosen the bark from a branch of goat willow and make a whistle out of it. And every year he made a ginger bread house with us for Christmas. This tradition we kept going even after he got sick, with me and my sister making the ginger bread house while grandpa and Anton watched and offered smart-ass comments. On the wall by his bed he hung a huge picture of me as a 5-year old, dressed as a pirate, and when I was little and sleeping over he used to run his finger slowly over my nose, lulling me to sleep.

When he was diagnosed with cancer I spent all my spare time with him, either at the hospital, or at home if he was having a good week. I don't remember doing any studying that year at all. I barely remember the entire year, in fact. From the moment I got the call from mom, saying that he was sick, to a year later when I got the call from mom, saying he wouldn't live through the night, it's all just a big blur. But we did share many laughs, even during that difficult year. I stayed with him that night after mom called, and in the morning I held his hand as he passed away.

I think about him a lot, and I cherish the memories I have of him. For this picture I went out and got some pine cones and gave them stick legs. They're cows, I decided, but M thought they looked more like sheep, and he's right. So they're sheep. The one on the left is Rosa, that's Billy in the middle, and little Eugenia on the right.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Different

2011-07-30T19:00:00.002+03:00

“Colourscape is made up of one hundred colourful sphere-like chambers, linked together into a giant labyrinth.” When I read that very British sentence I knew this was something I had to experience. So on Tuesday afternoon, M and I found ourselves standing in line, waiting to be swallowed by the giant vagina-like entrance to the enormous blow-up labyrinth. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

Now you might be wondering why there was a giant labyrinth with a vagina entrance in a park near my house, and I assure you, it’s not something that happens all the time. Some people might even call it “different.” Personally, I call it freaky as hell. The reason for this is perfectly logical, though; Turku is the cultural capital of Europe this year, and as such, full of crazy art installations, floating saunas and exhibitions.

And so M and I decided to enjoy some culture. We entered the labyrinth and stepped into a world of color. I’ve never experienced anything like it. The spheres were all different colors, and the strange thing is, the different colors actually felt physically different. I felt drawn to the red spheres, but they were almost too intense to step into. The black sphere was like a big bubble of nothing, and the grey spheres a lovely calm neutral. Yellow made me feel mellow and happy, and green was just plain weird. In the very middle of the labyrinth, we found a band, playing very unique music that sounded throughout the labyrinth. The entire experience was sort of like swimming through light and color, very strange indeed.

These pictures don’t do the experience justice, but I’ll post them anyway. If you ever have the chance to visit Colourscape, you definitely should. Just don’t do drugs before you go in.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Black

2011-07-29T19:00:00.003+03:00

Black is the color of my hair when it’s wet. It’s the color of my car’s steering wheel, which gets intensely hot in the sun. Black is also the color of most of my clothes, and sometimes the color of the music I listen to. It’s the name of a girl who sings annoying songs about weekdays, and the color of the sky on cold winter nights. It’s the color of my computer, of the remote control and the TV. The cover of my copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is black, as is the cover of the dreadfully boring Environmental Law and Justice in Context that I should be reading instead of silly space adventures. Black absorbs all frequencies of light in the visible spectrum, and it’s the color of sorrow. That didn’t stop the Rolling Stones from painting it black, though, and it certainly didn’t stop the Man in Black from being awesome. Black is not the color of the rainbow, but sometimes it’s the color of my mood when I’m trying to figure out what to photograph for a certain theme, like Black, for example.

But most importantly, black is the color of my favorite kind of candy; ammonium chloride, the Finnish way. Salmiakki is black as the night, saltier than the Dead Sea and a candy only the most daring of connoisseurs would put in their mouth. I could live only on salmiakki, but I’m Finnish, it’s in my DNA. I’ve tried offering it to Americans, but they spit it out and thought I was joking when I told them it’s edible. If any of you feel like you’re up for the challenge of tasting it though, I’ll be happy to send you some.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Tears

2011-07-28T19:00:00.001+03:00

Today is the 18th day of this 30-day photography project, and when I first started the project, I thought today’s theme might prove very difficult. However, it was one of the easiest. A few days into the project I visited one of my best friends, Dani, and her young boys. This is Noah, a little tired, a little hungry, and so incredibly adorable.

Thirty Days of Photographs: A Moment

2011-07-27T19:00:00.005+03:00

Every photograph is in itself, by definition, a moment. When the shutter opens and closes, that moment in time is frozen forever, available for anyone to look at. I've experienced many moments that I wish I could have frozen and gone back to time and time again, relived, re -experienced and perhaps even made a little better. But somehow it seems the camera is never around for those precious moments, and when you don't have the camera in your hand, you often don't even notice the moments slipping by. But when you do have the camera handy, all you see are moments in time, just waiting for you to capture them. You regret that you weren't fast enough to catch the butterfly on the flower, or to get a picture of the child jumping straight into the puddle. You smile to yourself when you realize that you just got a one in a million shot, and you didn't even do it on purpose. And sometimes, like it was for me with this picture, you just look up, and you realize that you're experiencing a perfect, peaceful moment. You lift your camera and you make the moment last forever.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Old

2011-07-26T19:00:00.003+03:00

When I was eleven years old I had already spent many summers by the sea, and had learned all the important things like digging for worms and catching my own fish, and doing the puppy dog eyes at dad to make him clean it for me. And next, I wanted to learn how to drive a boat. My dad had a fast motorboat that I was dying to drive, but while I was pointing at the motorboat, my dad simply shook his head and pointed to this old, blue, rowboat, owned by my mother before me and her father before her. There was an old outboard motor attached to the appropriate end, but that was about it. I looked at it and shook my head. I wanted to learn how to drive the big boat. But dad wouldn’t give in, and eventually I just hopped into the rowboat. Aaand hopped out. The holes needed fixing first.

When the boat was sufficiently waterproof, I jumped in again and listened intently to everything dad told me about the outboard motor. Steer left, boat will go right, steer right, boat will go left. Simple enough. It took me about 72 tries to start the motor, though. But eventually I did learn to drive the thing, and I drove it everywhere, at staggering speeds capable of overtaking any wet cat out for a swim.

My mom and dad figured I was old enough to take care of my younger sister out at sea, and so our adventures begun. I’d drive, and she’d look out for underwater rocks, never shouting out in time. We drove from island to island, in to town for ice cream and back again. More often than not we’d run out of gas and have to row the boat several miles back. And if we didn’t run out of gas, someone had mysteriously taken our sparkplug, or forgotten to open the tank vent, or gotten rid of one of our oars. We were a menace out at sea, and if dad had known how and where I drove that boat, I’m not sure he would have let me do it.

I grew to really love that little old boat and the crappy motor. I promised myself I’d paint it some day, but now my brother has taken over ownership of the boat, and it’s still not painted. Dad did buy him a new motor, though, which you can see in the picture. The old held together only with love and duct tape and had to go when the propeller blades started to fall off.

I’m amazed that boat still floats, and something tells me it’ll still be floating long after I’m dead.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Love

2011-07-25T19:00:00.002+03:00

For this theme, I tried to think of things that I love. People that I love, places that I love. Surprisingly, I really struggled with coming up with something to take a photo of that would properly convey that feeling of utter love for someone else, be it love for your significant other, for your children, for your friends or family.
So I Googled love. I know, I'm pathetic. Wikipedia told me that love is "an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment." But that didn't exactly help me with the picture, now did it? So I read some more. I learned that the Greek have about as many words for love as the Inuit have for snow. I also learned that in a philosophical context, "love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection". Big words, huh? Not much to take a picture of, though.

Wikipedia listed all sorts of different kinds of love, and even went as far as to say that some people argue that what we understand as love is just "an evolved state of the survival instinct, primarily used to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species through reproduction." Yikes. Try to take a picture of that one.

When Wikipedia couldn't tell me any more, I Google love again and found something called a Love Calculator. I entered M's name and my own, and found out that our relationship has a 68% chance of success. Then I entered my own name and the name of my secret lover, and found out we only have a 17% chance of success. I knew the race thing would come back to bite us in the ass, what with him being a monkey and all. Then I entered in the name of the Ex, and learned that our chances of success were 93%. Since my relationship with the Ex ended so well, I decided that the calculator was probably defect.

Then I ran an anti-virus program to help with the sudden pop-up problem I had after visiting that site.

Next, I came across some love quotes.

Aristotle went all sappy on me and said, "love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." Aww. Aphra Behn countered with, "each moment of a happy lover's hour is worth an age of dull and common life." So profound. Next, Ralph Waldo Emerson did a little soul searching and came up with: Thou art to me a delicious torment." Short, to the point. I like it. And Jeremy Taylor said, "love is friendship set on fire." Ouch. And someone who preferred to remain anonymous finished the sappy party with the words, "to be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed."

After reading the quotes I felt a little teary-eyed, so I kicked a dog and immediately felt better. And I promised myself I was done researching love.

And the picture?

Just some flowers on my balcony. Sometimes the simplest things say the most.

Thirty Days of Photographs: A Winter Picture

2011-07-24T19:00:00.001+03:00

Winter for me means snow. Lots and lots of snow. I mean, snow like you wouldn’t believe it. So for this picture I went out and looked for snow. I looked everywhere; under the bushes in the yard, behind the dumpster, on the roof, under the bed, behind the TV. The closest I came to finding snow was in the freezer, but when I took it out, it melted.

Realizing that snow wouldn’t work, I tried Christmas next. But when I asked M to go out and get me a Christmas tree, he thought I’d gone crazy and tried to have me committed. So yeah, that didn’t work either.

Every idea I had seemed to melt away in the heat and I started to long for the cold of winter. And it hit me; I’ve been looking forward to winter for a long time already. Not because I like the snow or the cold, but because for the first time in ages I’m actually prepared for it. I haven’t had a decent pair of winter boots in years and the only thing keeping my frostbitten toes attached to my feet has been sheer determination. That, and a very good seamstress. This year will be different, though. Just as the weather turned warmer last winter, I finally took the bull by the horns and forked up an insane amount of money for these, the most awesome of winter boots. They’re not only pretty to look at, but they’re also guaranteed to keep my feet warm in -30 degree weather. And for the first time since I was a child, I’m excited about winter.

Bring it on!

Please don’t remind me of this post when I’m whining about winter and the cold in a couple of months.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Pain

2011-07-23T19:00:00.001+03:00

There is so much pain in the world. Countless civilians suffer and die for the wars fought by politicians. Terrorists use violence to cause pain and suffering in the name of their conviction, and students go on killing sprees through their schools. Yesterday it was Norway’s turn to suffer when one of their own turned against his people and killed almost 100 men, women and children in two separate, unprovoked attacks.

I’ve never understood what makes someone want to cause that much pain and suffering to other living beings. Someone once said that human compassion is what separates us from animals. Someone else said it is the fact that we’re capable of evil that distinguishes us from animals.

In my studies of human rights, I’ve read about genocide, torture, the death penalty and crimes against humanity. I know for a fact how evil man can be, and how much pain a single man with a crazy idea can cause. And there’s always a man with a crazy idea.

Today my candle burns for the victims of the attack in Norway. Tomorrow it will burn for someone else. There will always be someone else.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Light

2011-07-22T19:00:00.001+03:00

Last weekend M and I went to a concert/one-day music festival. It was held inside a big open limestone quarry, 350 feet below sea level. I’ve been down in the quarry before, but the ride down the steep sides of the mine never ceases to amaze me. Down in the quarry everything is white, and the sun so bright it hurts your eyes.

The main artist of the night was Roxette, the Swedish wonder duo behind It Must Have Been Love, Listen to Your Heart, Joyride, The Look and several other annoying song that have plagued mankind since the early 90’s. Luckily Roxette wasn’t the only band there, and I got to see my good friend Zelma’s band play, a very good local cover band do their versions of famous 80’s songs, and the band Suurlähettiläät. You won’t know who or what Suurlähettiläät are, but they sing in this long since extinct language called Finnish and are really quite big in the small forgotten European country of Finland.

The bands were great. And then came Roxette. After realizing that M sang along to every single song they played and actually knew the lyrics by heart, I briefly considered breaking up with him, but I guess you can’t break up with someone just because they have a lousy taste in music. And he does love Kent, which has to be a redeeming quality. Luckily, I survived both the sappy performance and M’s singing, and I was able to take these pictures for you.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Monday

2011-07-21T19:00:00.018+03:00

How come 6 a.m. always feels so damn early when it's Monday morning?

Thirty Days of Photographs: Desire

2011-07-20T19:00:00.002+03:00

Apple.

Not the computer, the forbidden fruit.

A symbol of ecstasy, fertility, abundance. Of love. And of desire.

Ever since that fateful moment in the Garden of Eden, the apple has served as a symbol for everything from evil to love. Professional dream analysts (of course it’s a real job, why do you ask?) will tell you that dreaming about an apple tree symbolizes knowledge, wisdom and great prosperity. I've never dreamt of an apple tree, but I bet that hardly surprises anyone. I have dreamed about eating an apple, though, something that apparently represents harmony and pleasure. In a biblical sense, it would be a representation of sexual appetite, lustful desires and sexual awareness à la Garden of Eden. Luckily, I’m not very biblical either, so it’s perfectly safe to keep reading, mom.

In Greek mythology, when Gaia married Zeus, she gave Hera (one of Zeus’ 64 other wives and mistresses -- monogamy is for lazy people who don’t have the stamina of a god) apples symbolizing long love and union. And Dionysus, the god of wine, offered Aphrodite apples to try to win her love. Personally, I think he’d have been better off going with diamonds, but I guess when you’re the goddess of love, all you really want is an apple or two.

In China the apple symbolizes peace, and the apple blossoms adoration, whereas the Celtic interpretation is all about sex and fertility, randy little Celts.

In this case, I’ll let the apple symbolize desire. There are many things I desire in this world. Chocolate cake, for example. A ready-made master’s thesis just for me. The early arrival of the weekend. Chocolate cake. A better zoom lens for my camera. The opportunity to travel wherever I want, whenever I want. The perfect body. Chocolate cake. I think the great French Renaissance writer François Rabelais said it best.

“We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us.”

Ain’t that the truth. Now gimme some chocolate cake.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Death

2011-07-19T19:00:00.007+03:00

Some of my sources tell me that today is National Raspberry Cake Day, other sources say it won't be until July 31. Either way, I can't really risk ruining National Raspberry Cake Day by thinking about death, which is why you're not getting a long philosophical post about our precious mortality or about loved ones lost. In the interest of this project, though, I did drive by the cemetery on my way home from work today and took a picture for you.

Happy National Raspberry Cake Day!

Thirty Days of Photographs: Music

2011-07-18T19:00:00.005+03:00

Today’s theme is music, and if I write one more post about how much I love music and love to play the piano, I might barf all over the keyboard. So instead I thought, since yesterday was all about my sister, why not make today all about my brother. My brother is a handsome young man of 15 years. He’s a foot taller than I am, smells faintly of motor oil, and has calluses on his fingers from playing the bass so much.

My brother is more gifted musically than I’ve ever been. He started by playing the piano, did it just long enough to become a better pianist than me, then decided it was too boring and switched to playing the bass, then the guitar and lately, the mandolin. He’s a natural, can play anything by ear and continues to awe his bass teacher and anyone willing to listen to him play.

I’m extremely proud of my brother, and I know that he’ll make it big one day. I took this picture at our lake house in the archipelago last weekend. There was a storm heading our way, you could feel it in the air, the water was choppy and the wind blowing hard. Anton sat in a rocking chair on the porch with an old beat-up guitar in his lap, and played beautiful music, accompanied by the thunder in the distance.

I love you, little brother. Oh, and I forgot to ask earlier, do you and Wiki want to come see the new Harry Potter movie with me and M?

Thirty Days of Photographs: Happiness

2011-07-17T19:00:00.002+03:00

This picture combines two things that make me very happy. My sister, and the sea. My sister has recently moved to Helsinki, a small village located two days from here by horse. It’s nearly impossible for us to meet nowadays, and talking to her by telegram is just not the same thing. My sister and I are very much alike, but at the same time we’re about as different as two people can be. She’s light, I’m dark. She’s pretty, little children run screaming from me. She turns gay men straight, and I, well you know what happened to my first boyfriend. When we were young we fought horribly, and thought of ever more creative ways to try to kill each other, including but not limited to very sudden and impressive stair dismounts, death by dog, using the blades of ice skates to sever fingers, biting, clawing, pulling the brain out via the hair and blaming everything that ever went wrong on the other sister, hoping for the mythical death by mother to happen.

It didn’t. We both survived, and we became best friends. We talk about everything, and laugh about even more. We’ve spent so much time talking to each other that we understand each other even without words. She’s a fantastically artistic person and a very talented seamstress. She’s my best friend and whenever she’s around, my heart swell with happiness.

I love you, little sister.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Green

2011-07-16T19:00:00.006+03:00

If everything works out according to plan, I will be busy ~~suffering through~~ enjoying the dynamic pop duo Roxette in concert as this post goes up. When trying to think of something for this theme, I tried to think of the word green. Environmental issues and recycling came to mind. Fruits and vegetables. Envy. How an artist will create the color green by mixing blue and yellow until he gets the exact shade he wants.

I didn’t end up working with any of those ideas, though. While trying to take a picture for another theme later in the list, I looked up and I saw this couple. They were sitting all alone in a sea of green, looking out over Aura River in the late evening sun. And I knew this was my Green picture.

Thirty Days of Photographs: Evil

2011-07-15T19:00:00.012+03:00

It's a miracle I have a photo for you today since the subject of this photo also happened to be M's dinner last night. I had roughly 6.9 seconds to shoot this, and as it turns out, 6.9 seconds is just about the time it takes to take one picture. Which I did. I then stepped back to look at the picture and realized that I wanted the entire burger to be sharp, not all blurred at the edges. So I adjusted my f-stop for increased depth of field, adjusted my shutter speed to compensate for the smaller aperture, and tried to take a new picture. But during the few seconds I'd been fiddling with the settings, M had inhaled the food. Annihilated it. It was no more. You're just going to have to make do with this photo today, I'm afraid. That said, McDonalds is evil. And I will prove it to you by backing up my statement with hard facts.

Fact #1: Junk food is almost as bad for you as Pepsi Max is.

Fact #2: Low wages make workers spit in your food.

Fact #3: Before the meat ends up as your hamburger, it spends all day eating grass and farting, producing staggering amounts of methane gas, and thus being the main cause of global warming.

Fact #4: Several gallons of rainforest is cut down every day to make the packaging for their products.

Fact #5: And with all that packaging, McDonalds is single-handedly responsible for The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, (awesome movie, by the way.)

Fact #6: Their representative is a clown.

Today marks the 5th day of this photography project. Thirty photographs in thirty days is proving to be a bit of a challenge, but luckily for you, my dear readers, whenever I serve you up with a picture of a hamburger, you can hop on over to MikeWJ and see if he'll have the fries to go with the evil. Click here to read the introduction to this project and for the list of themes.

Thirty Days of Photographs: My Hobby

2011-07-14T19:00:00.002+03:00

Growing up I had a lot of hobbies. I rode horses and I was a Girl Scout. At one point I tried my hand (foot?) at soccer, and another time I gave making pottery a chance. Does reading count as a hobby? If it does, I did that too. I also wrote stories about magic carpets, about unicorns and about two little girls having a very serious talk in a sandbox.

But the only thing that really stuck with me was the piano. I started playing the piano when I was 7 years old, and took lessons until I was 18. When I moved away from home I didn't have the opportunity to continue with the hobby, and forgot all about how to play. I didn’t have a piano, and didn’t have an apartment big enough for a piano even if I had one. I resigned myself to never playing again.

And then came M. I moved in with him almost two years ago now, and one of the very first things I did in the bigger apartment was to buy a piano (read as: convince M to buy one for me.) There was a space in the apartment that was perfect for the piano, and when it finally arrived, I was over the moon. Since then I’ve slowly been getting back to playing. I still am nowhere near as good as I used to be, but I'm getting there. For this picture I drove to my parents' house and took a picture of the vey piano I learned to play on. After I took the picture I sat down to play. The keys were dusty, and the piano out of tune, but I know this piano by heart, all its quirks and kinks. I sat there and played for a long while. I forgot the time and was transported back to when I was good enough to play intricate pieces by Bach, Beethoven and Kabalevsky, and young enough not to appreciate the gift.

Today I do appreciate the gift. And I’ll try my very best to never let go of it again.

Thirty Days of Photographs: My Addiction

2011-07-13T19:00:00.005+03:00

I would like to think I'm one of those self-righteous people who are not addicted to anything and are perfect in every way. but sadly, I’m not one of them. I bet you didn’t know that my cat actually has three names. The first is a fancy regal name given to him by the breeder, a name which I’ve told myself is so ridiculous I would never say it out loud. The second is a beautiful name that M and I have given to him with love, to describe both his temperament and his handsome looks, a name that we lovingly use for him when he’s being especially cute: Darth Vader. And the third name is the one we use every day, all day: Pepsi.

Why Pepsi, you might ask. Well, I’ll tell you why. Pepsi Max is the drink of the Gods. Twice the caffeine compared to Coca-Cola, it’s guaranteed to wake you up when you’re falling asleep at your desk. Which I never do. Especially not earlier today. There’s just something about the caffeine and the little bubbles and the taste of brain-rottingly sweet chemicals that just gets me going. And it’s perfect for someone who loves caffeine but hates the taste of coffee. Keep your Coke, my drug of choice is Pepsi Max.

No money exchanged hands for this endorsement, but if anyone from PepsiCo happens to be reading this, I do accept PayPal.

Thirty Days of Photographs: A Favorite Object

2011-07-12T19:00:00.004+03:00

For this theme it would have been easy to choose my camera, my phone, my piano, my computer, a good book, any number of things, really. But I decided to go with something --someone-- else. Someone that has been with me for 26 years. Snoopy was once bright white, had a nose and his head didn’t come off every time you pulled on it. 26 years later he's a little worse for wear, but few stuffed animals have been loved as dearly as my Snoopy.

When I was little my mother had to wash him while I was sleeping so I wouldn’t wake up without him, and as a teenager I secretly hid him in the suitcase when I traveled to England all on my own. Nowadays Snoopy sits on my bed all day long, waiting patiently for me to come play with him.

Maybe one day I will.

Thirty Days of Photographs: A Member of My Family

2011-07-11T19:00:00.005+03:00

I'm currently living with two men in a sort of weird, furry, ménage à trois. First, there's M, the furriest of the three of us, who flat-out refused to have his picture taken for the blog. And then there's Darth Vader, who gave me this look when I asked him about the picture.

"Perfect!" I said, and thanked him.

Please don't hang me, this will be the only cat picture in this project. I hope.

Thirty Days of Photographs

2011-07-10T19:00:00.003+03:00

I feel like this blog has been a little too quiet lately. It’s not my fault, it’s this damned summer with all its sunshine and warmth and happy people. People have committed suicide for less, you know. But this will all change now. With only this as my weapon:

I will take one picture a day for 30 days. I will post the pictures here for your viewing pleasure, and you will be happy about it. And so as to not make things too easy, I’m using this list of themes for the pictures:

Day 1: A member of my family
Day 2: A favorite object
Day 3: My addiction
Day 4: My hobby
Day 5: Evil
Day 6: Green
Day 7: Happiness
Day 8: Music
Day 9: Death
Day 10: Desire
Day 11: Monday
Day 12: Light
Day 13: Pain
Day 14: A winter picture
Day 15: Love
Day 16: Old
Day 17: A moment
Day 18: Tears
Day 19: Black
Day 20: Different
Day 21: When I was young
Day 22: Self portrait
Day 23: A summer picture
Day 24: Wet
Day 25: Dinner
Day 26: Chocolate
Day 27: Two, a pair
Day 28: Weather
Day 29: Night
Day 30: God

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Things are going to get artsy.

...or Richard Simmons eating a sausage.

2011-07-03T12:12:00.000+03:00

Life has a way of surprising you when you least expect it, which isn’t much of a surprise really, since “when you least expect it” is the very definition of the word “surprise.” But life is very good at it, and that’s how I found out about my superpower while having a perfectly normal conversation with my sister. I don’t know what the proper protocol for finding out about your superpower is, but I’m sure having your sister inform you about it is way down the list of preferable ways, somewhere between accidentally turning your aunt into a toad and freezing an entire city with your icy stare.

I bet you’re wondering what this new superpower of mine is. I’m extremely happy to tell you that it’s no ordinary superpower like flying or shooting laser beams out of my eyes. It’s not even the boring art of mindreading or the ability to remember everyone’s birthday. No, it’s far better than that.

See, I was talking to my sister on the phone, and she mentioned that she ran in to my very first boyfriend. He was looking well, she said. And he had introduced her to his new boyfriend.

Yep, you heard me, I can turn men gay! How awesome is that?? Is your husband acting like a chauvinist pig? No problem. Send him to me. One kiss from me and he’ll be gayer than George Michael riding a rainbow.

Look out men of the world, here I come.

And so will you.

Right out of the closet.

This is what came up when I googled George Michael. Personally, I've always liked the noses-for-eyes look some gay men are sporting.

Ziva - Solving the World's Financial Crises Since 2011

2011-07-01T09:17:00.000+03:00

Greece is pretty much bankrupt. Normally I wouldn’t care about a silly little thing as the cradle of modern civilization going broke, but Greece happens to be part of a political and economic union I like to call the “EU.” You might have heard about this, you might not have. Suffice to say that the “EU” is not the same as “Europe,” which in turn is not one big country, but a whole bunch of little countries. Instead, the EU is made up of a select number of said little countries (remember: Europe ≠ one big country; Europe = a bunch of small countries,) namely the ones that are economically and politically stable enough to shoulder the responsibility of an adult sovereign state. Somehow Greece, in all its adolescent ignorance, managed to con its way into the EU, and now it’s broke and asking the rest of EU to pay for its upkeep. Lazy bastard.

The EU told Greece that in order to get a loan they will have to clean up their act, stop touching the marble and try to save some money. The Greekians (not actual term) didn’t like this. At all. Protests, riots, blah, blah. At least they had the common sense to wait until we came home from our vacation.

But while the vacation was nice, and I should just forget all about Greece now, I can’t. As many of you know, I live in a country called Finland. Finland happens to be one of the adult sovereign states the EU is made up of, and as such, it will have to pay lots of prime Finnish euros to keep Greece from taking everyone down with them. And that’s where I come in. I happen to have come over a list of benefits that the Greek government grants its employees, and based on these benefits I have made some suggestions as to how they could save some money.

Keep in mind that this list is entirely true, I did not make it up.

1. Employees of the Greek railway company, OSE, specifically the locomotive engineers, receive a monthly 420-euro bonus for washing their hands. Washing. Their. Hands.
My suggestion: don’t give them money for washing their hands, cut their hands off if they don’t wash them.

2. Couriers working at the ministries receive a monthly 290-euro bonus for carrying documents.
My suggestion: Wrap the documents around a slab of marble; make them work for their money.

3. Many Greek agencies give workers compensation for knowing how to use a computer or a printer.
My suggestion: Anyone who’s working at an official agency and doesn’t know how to use a computer or printer should be fired. Not via email, though.

4. The state-owned bus company’s drivers get a bonus of 320 euros if they arrive at work on time.
My suggestion: Actually, I’ve seen the streets the buses drive on and if I were a bus driver in Greece, I wouldn’t want to come to work either, let them keep their bonus.

5. State civil servants receive a bonus for arriving at work in reasonable time.
My suggestion: Let’s all move to Greece and start working for the government. Applicants are required to have a high tolerance for tear gas.

Please Do Not Touch the Marble

2011-06-24T00:19:00.003+03:00

Dear readers,

I’ve been away for so long I can’t remember how to do this blogging thing anymore.

I’m fairly sure you’re not supposed to do it in the form of a letter, though. Let’s start over.

I’m so sorry I’ve been MIA.

No wait, you should never start a post by apologizing, it gives the readers the upper hand. Let’s start over.

I’ve been terribly busy. There was Athens, then were was the mountain of laundry after Athens, then there was work, then there were all these movies I had to see, and then I had to sort my matches according to length.

Excuses, excuses. Blah. Let’s start over.

Perhaps you’re wondering where I’ve been, why I haven’t posted in a month.

Maybe I’m wondering, too.

Look, I don’t have a good explanation for you. Sometimes writers—writers like me, anyway—get distracted. I’ve been busy, and I’ve been lazy. Mostly, I’ve been dreaming, and then dreaming some more.

But I did take some time to write this poem.

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Mike wants a pony.
And I want one, too.

No, that didn’t quite feel right either. Let’s try again.

Look, pictures from Athens!

Well that worked out nicely, don't you think?

Keep moving...

2011-05-30T21:01:00.000+03:00

...nothing to see here

If you need me, I'll be in Greece.

Open Letter to Iceland

2011-05-25T20:44:00.002+03:00

Dear Iceland,

Your horses are lovely, and your hot springs are pure magic. Or so I’ve heard. But your timing sucks. See, a couple of weeks ago M and I decided we’d had enough of the chilly Finnish spring, and bought two plane tickets to Greece. Are you listening? Greece! We’re leaving next Tuesday and will be spending one long, glorious week in Athens where it’s warm, summery and sunny. I know these concepts are foreign to you, but think of summer as that time in the year when the ice is less cold, and then you multiply it by a hundred and add a singing monkey or two. See, in Athens there’s the Acropolis, and the, well, the Acropolis, and… it’s like the birthplace of modern civilization or something. Fine, I’m gonna do some research, okay? But it’s like totally great, and we’re going there.

At least that was the plan. Enter you, Iceland. It seems like you always have some unplugged hole, spewing crap at the world. First it was Björk, then it was Eyjafjallajökull, and now it’s Grimsvötn.

Björk, dressed in her favorite pet.

Iceland, if you’re reading this, I always get a terrible headache flying through volcanic ash, so I would be very happy if you could hold off any further eruptions until after we get back.

Thank you.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

2011-05-16T18:24:00.000+03:00

Today my gorgeous little kitten is feeling less Darth Vader and more Darth Mauled. After today's surgery he is two testicles less of a man, and has had a micro chip implanted into his neck for easy programming. He's sleeping it off right now and I have to say, I'm very proud of my Darth Vader. The veterinarian said the fur is strong with this one, and I agree with her. But I do feel a little guilty, and I find it very sad that my little Darth Vader will never have the chance to say, "insert generic cat name here, I am your father."

Before I took Darth Vader to the clinic, I wanted to make sure he knew what was coming, but I don't speak cat and Darth Vader didn’t seem to understand French. Then I heard a voice. It said, "Use the force, Ziva." And I did. Steeling myself for the most important game of charades I've ever played, I used my Jedi mime tricks to tell Darth Vader about his impending castration.

Arms flailing, hair flying and legs kicking, I told Darth Vader what to expect; that his man bits might not be quite as sizeable after the little operation, and he looked at me with despair in his little kitty eyes. But I said, "Size matters not, ... Look at me. Judge me by size, do you?" And he said, "You're huge." And I said, "Yeah, I keep forgetting you’re a cat and you’re tiny compared to me."

Then we had a bit of an awkward pause.

But I soon gathered my thoughts again, and said, "Look, Darth No-Balls, errr, Darth Vader, just because you have the snip snip.." But he interrupted me, quite rudely, and said, "Snip snip?! This is no snip snip! This is more like cut cut snip snip dig around rip it out and sew it shut again. And all the other cats will go 'Lost his balls Darth Vader has. How embarrassing…' "

And the only words of comfort I could offer him were, "Don't worry; you’ll still have your lightsaber."

Author's note: I apologize deeply to anyone who hasn't seen the Star Wars movies, and urge you to do so before you declare me mentally insane.

Author's note, vol. 2: I also apologize deeply for creating my first LOL cat picture. You may declare me mentally insane.

Finland!!!!111OneOne

2011-05-16T02:05:00.000+03:00

Today I am proud to be a Finn.

Why?

Why?!

Because Finland won the Ice Hockey World Championships in an epic game against our arch nemesis, Sweden. And we didn’t just win, oh no. We crushed them. Killed them. Sucked every last ounce of life out of those sad little boys playing with their sticks and their pucks. We slaughtered them with all the subtlety of a train wreck. When we were done with Sweden, they were lying on the ice, sucking their thumbs and crying for their mama.

I realize of course that most of my readers here don’t even know that the Ice Hockey World Championships were being held, much less that they were being held in Slovakia. In fact, I’m sure many of you don’t even know, or care, where Slovakia is. And if it weren’t for the fact that Finland just delivered a Chuck Norris-like roundhouse kick to Sweden’s over-sized head in Bratislava, I wouldn’t care about Slovakia either. But because Finland burned Sweden to the ground, collected the ashes and burned them again, I have developed a new-found fondness for Bratislava, this most beautiful of all European cities.

Aaaaand, that’s really all I have to say today. I love Finland. I love Slovakia. And in case you forgot already, Sweden sucks monster moose cocks. Don’t ever forget it.

Bet You Didn't See This Coming

2011-05-09T23:40:00.000+03:00

Last weekend I showed my pussy to hundreds of people.

I know what you’re thinking; no way is her pussy pretty enough to be showed to that many people.

But you would be wrong. He definitely is. And the judge agreed.

When Darth Vader heard he was going to a cat show, this is how he looked:

Then he bent down and licked his penis. I tired to explain to him that it wasn’t my choice, that I’d simply promised the breeder I would take him to a show to see how he’d do, and that he’d better just look really crabby and he’d probably never had to do it again.

This is him looking crabby. In his litter box.

And this is him being manhandled by the judge.

As it turns out, people who take their cats to cat shows are very interesting. I saw one woman pushing her two cats in a stroller. I saw a man walking around carrying his huge Maine Coon as if it were a baby. And I saw a woman cry with joy when her ugly naked rat won something.

M and I spent most of the day feeling sorry for Darth Vader in his little cage, and generally not grooming him enough, if the other contestants were to believe. I don’t even brush my hair as much as these people brushed their cats’ coats. Actually, I don’t really brush my hair at all, but that’s beside the point. These people were brushing, spraying, rubbing, powdering, clipping, plucking and wiping their cats. Not necessarily in that order. I actually did bring a brush, but Darth Vader just wanted to play with it.

But M and I did do one thing to prepare the poor kitty for his show. We washed him. Heh heh.

Tell me that isn’t the funniest thing ever. He looks like one of those long-haired rats people are so fond of, what are they called? I can never remember. Oh! Chihuahuas! He looks like a Chihuahua. Try to spell that five times fast.

And this is what we won. I'm going to pin it to the wall so that it's the first thing people see when they come through the front door.

Because more pictures of cats is exactly what the internet needs.

Greensleeves

2011-05-04T23:25:00.001+03:00

Ever since I first heard it, I’ve loved the song Greensleeves. I love the simple and beautiful melody, and the lyrics of unanswered love. It’s widely believed that this English folksong was composed by Henry VIII for the one girl who simply wouldn’t be his mistress, Anne Boleyn. That is, before he became obsessed with divorcing his queen consort, marrying Anne and subsequently having her head chopped off, of course. However, it seems unlikely that he had the time to compose songs and write lyrics, what with all the wiving, seducing and beheading he was doing. In fact, it’s more likely that it was written after his death. Some say Lady Green Sleeves was a prostitute, others say she was immortal. Whoever she was, she clearly had a thing for green dresses, and inspired someone to write a beautiful piece of music.

In more recent times the song has been covered by many talented artists, and some of you might even know it as a Christmas carol. However, the most notable version is perhaps Leonard Cohen’s Leaving Green Sleeves. His lyrics are harsher, colder, and just as lovely. If you have the time, it’s worth a listen.

Now, you won’t hear me sing the song, but I will play it for you.

My Weekend in Pictures

2011-05-02T22:24:00.000+03:00

This weekend we celebrated vappu. Read all about this strange Finnish custom here.

Lots of people, and just as many silly white hats.

99 Luftballons, auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont.

You know it’s vappu when Hello Kitty makes an appearance and people think it’s okay.

Soap bubbles!

Now that I think about it, vappu is just like a huge birthday party for a kid.

The next day was picnic day, also known as start-your-own-forest-fire day.

Even Hello Kitty defied the hangover and made another appearance.

First-aid station, vappu-style. In need of a balloon? They have it. Forgot your corkscrew? They have it.

Yep, I did it. I published a picture of myself. My feet look like I felt.

Even the stick got a little tired of partying.

My Love for You is n - ε

2011-04-12T22:31:00.000+03:00

M: You’re the cutest girlfriend ever.

Z: No I’m not.

M: Yes you are.

Z: But Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson are also somebody’s girlfriends, and they are definitely cuter than I am.

M: Hmm.

Z: I love you.

M: I love you more.

Z: I love you most.

M: No, I love you most.

Z: But I heart you.

M: Well I heart you too.

Z: I less than three you.

M: I less than three you more.

Z: I less than three you most.

M: But I less than three you even more.

Z: You can’t do that; I already said I love you most.

M: Well in that case I love you almost, but not quite as much as you do. I love you the same amount, minus epsilon*.

Z: So basically, if my love for you were n, your love for me would be n - ε.

M: Exactly!

Z: You’re so romantic.

*In mathematics (particularly calculus), an arbitrarily small positive quantity is commonly denoted ε.

PB&J

2011-04-01T23:50:00.000+03:00

Light or dark.

Toasted or not toasted.

Chunky or smooth.

These were just a few of the incredibly difficult questions running though my mind as I prepared to try something I had only ever heard of. This particular delicacy was something every American in every book, movie or TV-show spoke of with reverence. The staple of any American upbringing.

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

For the longest time I had wanted to try the infamous PB&J sandwich, because in my country a good breakfast doesn’t involve jelly or worthless white bread, it involves porridge, rye bread or a boiled egg. But finally, after years of surviving on nothing but rye bread, I finally realized I was a grown person and I could indeed put jelly on my sandwich if I felt like it. The mere thought made me feel wonderfully rebellious.

At the America shelf in the grocery store I found the peanut butter. Creamy and chunky were my only two choices, but to a peanut butter virgin that seemed like one too many. Finally I settled on the creamy, with the thought that it was probably better for my peanut allergy. Turns out it wasn’t. Who would have thought.

I then picked up some jam, because honestly, only Americans eat "jelly". It sounds like a children’s dessert. Speaking of which, I once tried making Jell-O in an attempt to identify with Americans and see what all the fuss was about, but I found it utterly disappointing. It was pink. And that’s just about the only good thing I have to say about it. It had a consistency that couldn’t be chewed and just sort of disappeared in your mouth when you tried to catch it with your tongue. It didn’t taste of anything at all, except maybe some preservatives. It was a dull and tasteless dessert.

Next, I grabbed some worthless white bread and went home to educate myself about the American way. And for your viewing pleasure, I documented every single step of the way.

First, the bread:

Two slices, because apparently Americans don’t do open-faced sandwiches. Which makes sense, why eat only one slice when you could get twice as many carbs in one sitting?

I popped the bread in the toaster. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to do this or not, but I find non-toasted white bread gross.

Perfect toast. And probably the most boring picture I’ve ever taken.

Next came the peanut butter.

I spread a liberal amount on one of the pieces, because that’s what Wikipedia told me to do.

Then I grabbed the jam. So interesting!

I spread some on the other slice. Again, Wikipedia told me to do it and if you can’t trust Wikipedia you can’t trust anyone.

I put the two pieces together and cut the thing diagonally in half like Americans are so fond of doing. Weirdos.

And then, I finally took a bite out of it.

I didn’t exactly hear the Hallelujah chorus, or die of pleasure, but I took another bite to make sure.

Nope, it was still just plain boring. The peanut butter had a weird dry taste to it, and the jam made it taste like dessert instead of breakfast. Wikipedia says that the average American will have eaten 1,500 PB&J sandwiches before graduating from high school. I have a feeling I’d make a pretty lousy American.

But at least spring is finally here, so I can end this post on a good note. And I even have proof of spring’s arrival.

See the snow depth? It’s less than 45 cm! When there’s only one and a half feet of snow left on the ground you know summer is just around the corner.

And last, a couple of pictures of the cat. For Mike, because he just can’t get enough of the little furball.

For Darth Vader, Who Loves Classical Music

2011-03-13T15:27:00.003+02:00

The other day MikeWJ and I were talking and something I said made him think of this phrase from a well-known song:

Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

I can’t remember what I said, but it must have been pretty profound. I’m deep like that. After Mike went to bed and left me to guard the world, I realized that I have a piano, 15 fingers and the internet, and that by combining these 17 things, I could probably make Mike a little gift. I stole the chords from the internet, sat down at the piano, and recorded about 27 different copies of the song until I finally had a copy that was somewhat presentable.

Because sometimes a broken Hallelujah is all you get. And it's often more interesting than a whole one anyway.

The Empire Strikes Back

2011-03-11T22:33:00.000+02:00

Remember when I told you that M and I are going to become pet owners? I said that we were going to have a fish tank filled with pretty black fish. Sadly, that’s not going to happen. M and I simply couldn’t agree on what to put in it. I wanted a shark, he wanted goldfish. I can only assume he feels some sort of kinship with the little buggers. Why, I don’t know. I’ve been told a goldfish can only remember the last three seconds of its life at any given time, and I’m pretty sure M’s memory is marginally better. Then again, on Mythbusters they were able to train goldfish to swim through colored hoops in order to find food, and I’m positive M couldn’t be trained to do that. Oh well, it doesn’t really matter since we’re not going to do the whole fish tank thing after all. If we did, it would be strictly to grow our own cat food.

Yep, we are now the proud owners of a cat. Or rather, I’m proud. M’s mostly terrified. It seems he thinks they are all innately evil. M’s such a weirdo, how could this cute little thing possibly be evil? Say hello to Darth Vader:

Do you like the name? It was a toss up between Darth Vader and Bubbles. Darth Vader is a Ragdoll, he’s 12 weeks old and likes long walks on the beach and classical music.

The Goldfish Chronicles

2011-02-26T22:51:00.000+02:00

Someone once asked me why I named my blog Ziva’s Inferno. I told them it was because The Goldfish Chronicles was already taken. Truth be told, I spent years and years thinking about what to name my blog. Years.

I thought about naming my blog Steve, but someone pointed out to me that my car is already called Steve, as well as my external hard drive… And so are various other miscellaneous objects in my home, except for my stuffed Snoopy which is called Snoopy and my huge stuffed tiger which is called Tiger. I won’t go into how it all started, but needless to say, naming everything Steve can make for very confusing conversations.

On the phone with guy from the car shop:

Guy: Dave’s Car Repair.
Z: Oh I’m so glad you answered; I’m having problems with Steve.
Guy: Umm.. Okay?
Z: He’s making these funny noises.
Guy: Ummm….
Z: When I step on it he makes this high pitched squealing noise and it’s driving me insane.
Guy: Ummmmm…
Z: You think you could fix it? My dad said it’s probably the pipes, but I’m not sure. Every time I take him for a ride it’s getting worse.
Guy: Umm.. Look lady, are you sure you called the right number?

And that’s why this blog isn’t called Steve. And I now realize that this isn’t at all the story of why I named my blog Ziva’s Inferno, but rather the story of why I didn’t name my blog Steve. But I guess that’s as good a story as any.

So, why isn’t your blog called Steve?

Soybeans And Pyramids For Everyone!

2011-02-21T21:54:00.000+02:00

Our house guests endured several brutal days of late nights, early mornings, big meals and intense partying. And I guess they did a few hours of karate, too. Gunther and Sarah turned out to be wonderful people. Completely insane to travel all the way to Finland to get their asses kicked in karate, but otherwise extremely agreeable. Nice, even.

Now, as a bit of a homage to Gunther who lives in England, and Sarah who’s dating someone who lives in England, I’m going to share with you the story of my language course to England.

The year was 2000 and I was 15 years old. It was a time when Iceland was nice and quiet, planes flew in and out of Europe all the time, and my friend Minna and I, realizing that this wasn’t going to be the case forever, decide we wanted to take advantage of the situation while it lasted. That’s when we decided to go on a language course to England. Our parents were of course going to pay for the party and we were going to have the best summer ever. Our parents, who were still happily unaware of this, surprisingly didn’t jump for joy when we told them about our plans. I thought I was pretty grown up at the age of 15, but apparently my parents didn’t agree. After much pleading and begging and even some nagging, both my parents and Minna’s parents finally agreed to fork up the money.

We had decided on a language course and riding camp combined, because back then I could actually ride a horse without having a heart attack and falling off. We chose Isle of Wight, a beautiful little island south of England proper as our destination. My 15th birthday came, and a beautiful summer morning in June, Minna and I stepped on a plane with 12 other young Finns who were ready for adventure.

Isle of Wight

Our first stop was Paris. The one in France. We shopped, went to Disneyland, climbed the Eiffel Tower, visited Notre Dame and rode the metro. I think the logic behind taking us to Paris first was to make us as tired as humanly possible so we wouldn’t get into trouble during the language course part of the trip. It was a good plan, but they completely underestimated the energy of teenagers. After a rather embarrassing incident with a little too much singing in a metro, our trip continued by bus from Paris to Calais – a journey that took about a million hours if I remember correctly. In Calais we found ourselves on the first ferry to Dover, and after a surprisingly short ride, the white cliffs of Dover came into view in the mist of the dawning day. From Dover it was a long ride to Portsmouth, from where yet another ferry took us to the Isle of Wight.

Isle of Wight is warmer than the rest of England, and there were even some palm trees lining the streets. I don’t know what it’s like now, but ten years ago it was a peaceful island with a few small towns. In one of the bigger towns, Ryde, our host mommy came to collect us. Rowena was a 40-something American woman who had lived on Isle of Wight for 10 years. She had two daughters, no husband and a cute middle unit in a rowhouse.

Rowena was also crazy, but more about the crazy later. Back to when we got to England. Rowena came to pick up me and Minna in her tiny European car. Minna got into the backseat and I got into the passenger seat. Except there was a steering wheel on the passenger side, so I got out again and got into the other passenger seat. Who would have thought getting into a car could be so difficult?

If you look closely, you'll notice something that's horribly wrong with this picture.

In fact, Minna and I soon realized that nothing was easy in England. Whenever I crossed a street, I tried to remember that instead of looking left-right-left like normal people do, I’d have to look right-left-right, like insane British people do. By the end of our one-month stay, I’d had several close calls when I thought I looked right, but had in fact looked to my other right. I think that one month in England might have been the cause for all my left-right confusion in later years. And at one point a lady who almost ran me over stopped her car, got out, called me a stupid cow and drove off again. British people are polite like that.

Now, about the crazy I was talking about earlier. Rowena was completely certifiably batshit crazy. She seemed normal at first, aside from the driving on the wrong side of the road thing, of course. But then she opened her mouth to talk and all that came out was gibberish about how evil meat is and how the soybean is the food of the gods and how the healing power of the pyramid helps her save money on razorblade costs.

Yes, she was a vegetarian freak who believed in the power of the pyramid. If you, dear reader, happen to be a vegetarian freak and believe in the power of the pyramid, I am horribly sorry but you should probably stop reading now. Also, you’re an idiot. My entire 15-year old life I had only eaten things that had once had a name. Often I even mixed my protein to make sure several animals had died for my dinner. For that entire summer I had to live on nothing but soybean sausage, soybean pizza, soybean hamburger and soybean everything else you could possibly think of. I have never hated food as much as I did that summer. A year later Muschu got to go on a language course to Bournemouth and her host family cooked only French fries and meat the entire time. Life can be so unfair.

When I wasn’t gagging from the smell of soybean, I was busy avoiding the pyramids. Big and small pyramids adorned the entire house. They were made in copper piping and had magical healing powers. Food would stay fresh forever if kept inside a pyramid. Used razorblades would magically become sharp again if kept in a pyramid. All fresh bread was kept in a pyramid. All fresh fruit was kept in a pyramid. Razors in another pyramid and dirty underwear in yet another one. Rowena even took us into her bedroom where her bed stood inside a giant copper pyramid. She had given birth to her kids inside that pyramid. Then she made us hold a mobile phone to our stomach and proved that it was sucking the life out of us. At that point Minna and I excused ourselves and went to get our crucifixes.

The pyramids looked a lot like this, only more menacing.

What no one had told us was that a language course, even during the summer holiday, will contain school work. While English turned out to be a pretty useful language to know, I can’t say I enjoyed the 4 hours we spent in school every day. What I did enjoy was the hours spent riding horses afterwards. I jumped fences, trotted round and round in circles, and galloped across fields that went on for miles. I’ve never experienced freedom quite like that, the wind in my face, the horse working furiously to run faster and faster. I’ve been on plenty of airplanes, but that’s the closest I’ve ever come to flying. It was magical.

During our stay we also did some underage drinking, took a tour of the island and danced all night long. Sadly, all good things have to come to an end. After a short detour in London for some shopping and a visit at Madame Tussaud’s, we were back in Finland and the entire trip seemed more like a dream than a memory. But one day I’ll go back to the Isle of Wight, and this time I’m eating meat.

I'm Guessing Twigs and Bark Won't Do

2011-02-10T21:50:00.000+02:00

About a month ago M came home from a super secret meeting with his karate friends and announced that he’s promised to let a couple of karate masters from Europe stay with us during a karate camp thingy here in Turku this weekend. Obviously I had nothing cooler planned than playing hostess for a couple karate masters, so I was nothing but happy. Therefore, as of tomorrow a female karate master and a male karate master will be sleeping in our living room. I really hope they're not overly friendly with each other; if anyone is to be walking in on anyone else making out, it should be them walking in on M and I.

Apparently the guy is Austrian and called Gunther and the girl is Belgian and called Sarah. I have no clue if those are their real names or not. Back to Gunther. Holy shit, even without the umlaut that's a manly name. When M told me I immediately had a vision of Arnold Schwarzenegger doing katas in my living room dressed in nothing but the pants part of his Gi, with sweat beading on his bare tanned chest, moving with the liquid grace of a large feline. M, most likely noticing the look of pure unadulterated bliss on my face, of course had to burst my bubble.

M: He doesn’t look like Arnold at all. He has dark hair and wears funny t-shirts.

Z: Really? I thought it was illegal for Austrians to be un-Aryan. But he’s still built as a tank and speaks English with a German accent, right?

M: Uhh, no. He studied at Oxford and speaks English with an Oxford accent. And I wouldn’t say he’s built like the Terminator either. But he wears funny t-shirts.

Z: Is he at least the horribly unqualified Governor of an American state?

M: No. But don’t forget the funny t-shirts!

Z: *muttering* They're gonna have to be pretty damn funny if he doesn't even sound like the Terminator.

M: He has one that says "Slavery. Gets shit done." with a picture of the pyramids on it.

Z: Okay, he can stay.

So now that we've established that the karate masters are staying over the weekend, does anyone know what Austrian and Belgian people eat? I'm going to have to make them at least breakfast and lunch, and I have no clue where to start. Subjective opinions and wild guesses will do fine.

This is actually more like $ .75

2011-02-07T21:05:00.000+02:00

Super Bowl, huh? I know every other blog will soon be full of Super Bowl commentary, so in order to keep my readership at a steady 3 readers, I’ll put in my two cents too. Yeah, Super Bowl... Interesting stuff. I heard the Green Bay Packers won. That’s great. They’ve always been my favorite baseball team. No? Basketball? Oh well, I definitely know they played the Chicago Blackhawks. And they have those funny goose hats.

...and that’s really all I have to say about that.

And You Know What's Funny? I Hate Disqus.

2011-02-04T08:51:00.000+02:00

Last night at about 9:45 pm, M and I looked at each other in surprise, and I asked M, ”is that thunder I hear?”

Normally thunder wouldn’t be such a foreign concept so that I would look and sound surprised to hear thunder, but last night, like the past 60 or so nights, winter had us in her cold grasp. And as it so happens, thunder and winter don’t match. So when I heard what I thought was thunder, I was indeed very surprised.

M didn’t have time to answer my question, because suddenly we heard what can only be described as an explosion, and our entire 7-story apartment building shook and vibrated for a second.

“We’re going to die!” I thought.

“Huh.” Thought M.

“The building is going to collapse and I’ll never get to have kids and fish and a huge wedding that sucks all the life and money out of us!” I thought.

“That was weird.” Thought M.

“Holy shit, oh my god, oh my god!!” I thought.

“Very weird indeed.” Thought M.

“What the fuck was that??” I asked M.

“I have no idea.” Answered M.

“It sounded like an explosion!” I said.

“Or as if someone dropped something heavy.” Offered M.

“And created thunder and shook the entire building??” I countered.

“Perhaps it was very heavy?” Pondered M.

“Idiot.” I lovingly exclaimed.

Then, not three hours later, at 12:30 am, we once again heard a great big bang and felt the entire building shake and vibrate.

“We’re going to die!” I thought.

“Huh.” Thought M.

“The building is going to collapse and I’ll never get to have kids and fish and a huge wedding that sucks all the life and money out of us!” I thought.

“That was weird.” Thought M.

“Holy shit, oh my god, oh my god!!” I thought.

“Very weird indeed.” Thought M.

“What the fuck was that??” I asked M, “AGAIN!!”

“I have no idea.” Answered M.

“That’s not normal.” I wisely deducted.

“No.” Agreed M.

“I’m calling the cops.” I stated.

“That might be wise.” Surmised M.

And so I did. Two fine policemen came over and found our story very strange indeed. Almost puzzling, you could say. However, seeing no evidence of any sorts of explosions, they left again, but promised to be on the lookout for any and all unauthorized explosions in and around our apartment building.

Back in the apartment I tried to tell myself that apartment buildings don’t come crashing down just because they’ve shook around a little. I failed miserably. Why, oh why, do I have to have such solid arguments? I tried telling myself that there wasn’t a crazy person roaming around, trying to take down the building. Instead, I tried telling myself that there had been an earthquake. In the most seismically uneventful region of the world. I did a fairly good job of convincing myself it had been an earthquake, right up until the moment I checked all seismic watch sites I could possibly find, only to see that there hadn’t been an earthquake in Turku in 700 years.

At 2 am M finally decided nothing more was going to happen and went to bed. I also went to bed. And got up again an hour later to check that the rest of the neighborhood was still in one piece. It was. But I simply couldn’t sleep. By 5 am my heart rate had finally come down to triple digits again, and I entertained the notion of a couple hours of sleep, but at that precise moment a third explosion occurred. It wasn’t as big, but I could definitely feel it. I would definitely not be getting any sleep, since I clearly was the only thing holding this building together.

And that, my dear friends, is the story of how Disqus has suddenly appeared as the new commenting tool on this here blog. It’s incredible the things you have time to do when you don’t sleep.

When the Dangly Bits Stop Dangling, You Know You're In Trouble

2011-01-28T18:01:00.000+02:00

I received an email yesterday. It was from MikeWJ, asking me if I’m dead. The question took me by surprise as I hadn’t even entertained the notion of actually being alive. I took stock of myself, and it turns out I’m not dead at all. How do I know this? M told me so. Personally, I’m still not sure.

The other day all the dangly little bits at the back of my mouth suddenly realized that they were subject to the laws of physics, and as such they were pulled downwards by a little thing called gravity while at the same time being affected by a little thing I like to call the common cold. The common cold is a nasty little bug that gets you when you least expect it. It turned all the dangly little bits into huge dangly bits, that immediately lost all their dangly properties and instead adopted a nasty habit of just resting quite uncomfortably on the back of my tongue, getting in the way of everything I try to eat or drink and making me talk like I’m a great fan of storing a whole hot potato in my mouth for later use. Which I’m not. I support immediate use of whole hot potatoes. At the same time, the nasty little bug called the common cold planted a mucus factory in my sinuses, and went to work producing impressive amounts of snot, most of which I expel through my nose into what I can only assume is a small rainforest worth of tissues.

At the moment my brain is tired of working, so in lieu of intelligent text, I’ll serve you up some pictures, like a good blogger should.

My beautiful Kindle, which has kept me company while the nasty little bug has been trying to turn my body into mush (it’s a technical term.)

We call this a “tree.”

These are “roses” that M gave me.

This is me trying to be artsy. Apparently a fancy camera doesn’t come with free skills.

This is Tiger, he keeps me company when I’m too tired to read. He’s way better at it than M.

No Friendliness Allowed

2011-01-16T22:15:00.000+02:00

Yesterday marked the official start of Turku’s year as European Capital of Culture. This means that for the entire year people from all over the world will flock to my city in search of some grade A Finnish culture. They will be expecting art, music, theatre, beauty and friendly locals. Allow me to roll around on the floor in a very undignified manner and laugh my ass off. I’ve filed this little conversation under “Shit M Says.” It’s an IM conversation between M and myself. M was on his way to San Francisco at the time and was at the airport in Helsinki, apparently spying on Americans.

M says (12:51):
Freaky americans. They’re here at the gate, talking to complete strangers… ;P

Ziva says (12:51):
Yeah, they do that.

M says (12:51):
Shouldn’t it be prohibited somehow?

Ziva says (12:52):
Like with a sign that says "no friendliness allowed?”

M says (12:52):
That might work. They should at least have some sort of control over it when people are flying to Finland.

M says (12:53):
They could be standing at check-in and ask all sorts of tricky questions and make sure that people know that it’s strictly forbidden to talk to strangers while you’re in Finland.

Ziva says (12:53):
Well we definitely need it. It’s not like we could let a bunch of people into Finland that actually have some social skills. Everything our society is built upon would be ruined.

M says (12:53):
Exactly.

That said, if you don’t mind unfriendly locals, 2011 is definitely the time to come visit me here in Turku. Yesterday’s opening ceremony was very artsy, and I’m sure we’ll be able to conjure up some perfectly decent culture for you if you come. Take my brother, for example, he’s 14 and for Christmas he got his first guitar. In three weeks, he’s not only managed to teach himself how to play the thing, now he’s also composing original songs.

How’s that for culture.

Still not convinced Turku is the place to be in 2011? No problem. Just wait until 2012 and attend my wedding instead, I hear it’s going to be quite the party.

1.1 -11

2011-01-10T21:30:00.000+02:00

Yep, that’s right. M and I are getting married. Not today or tomorrow, and maybe not even next week, but it’s not entirely unlikely that it might possibly maybe happen next year. Or the year after that. We spent New Year’s Eve at a seaside Spa Hotel, enjoying the pool and sauna and each other’s company. As the fireworks signalled midnight, M went down on one knee and I started the new year by promising to love him forever. Not a bad start to 2011, if I do say so myself. And then as we watched and listened to the fireworks, M showed his romantic side and succumbed to an occupational hazard.

M: The picture and the audio are out of sync.
Z: Must be a faulty wire somewhere.

Enough with the romance, this post is clearly lacking some hate. Luckily, I can muster up some hate almost anywhere, anytime. Today I hate snow. We have tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of it. It’s everywhere, and it’s especially there if there’s where you had planned to drive your car through. And I hate all the adjectives people use when describing snow. White. Pristine. Fluffy. Soft. Delicate.

Definitely not fluffy or soft, but I made it myself so you better have something nice to say about it.

Let me tell you, there is nothing white about snow unless you live in the country and travel by horse drawn sled, in which case the snow will still probably be more yellow than white. Anywhere else it’s brown or grey and looks a little like huge piles of you-know-what. And there is nothing fluffy and soft about snow. Try driving your car through snow that has melted once and frozen again. It’s like driving your car through rocks, shaped like fluffy snow. And let me tell you, it’s never fun to drive through rocks shaped like fluffy snow, because while they might look all nice and fluffy, they still have most of the original undesirable attributes of the rocks that look like actual rocks, like, for instance, the ability to scratch away paint from the surface of your car with little or no effort. And it just won’t stop coming down. Wherever I look there’s another cloud ready to puke its fluffy white guts out on Turku.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the general idea of snow, in theory. But I can’t help but notice that it seems like the execution generally leaves a bit to be desired. Snow really shouldn’t reside in the streets, for example. Likewise, rooftops are bad places for snow, because it will inevitably fall down and kill someone.

That’s right, snow kills. Think of that next time you whine about wanting a white Christmas.

True Commitment

2011-01-06T16:52:00.000+02:00

Today I have a very important announcement to make, but first a little side note for those of you who are interested in what kind of camera M and I bought. We parted with a whole bunch of money and received a Canon EOS 500D (called EOS Rebel T1i in North America) in return. We also got an 18-135 mm lens and a 50 mm f/1.8 II lens.

Onward.

Ever since that undetermined date in December of 2008 when M and I became a couple, I have longed to hear those four magic words. With bated breath I have awaited the most important question of all, and longed for M to get down on one knee, take my hand into his, look deep into my eyes and pose the million dollar question:

“Do you want fish?”

Yes, that is correct, M and I are thinking about being pet owners. We’re (probably) going to take my grandma’s old fish tank and are currently fighting over what kind of fish to put in it. I want only black fish, but M seems to think the orange and blue ones are pretty too. I’ll get my black fish, though, I know M secretly has a little Emo tucked away inside him.

In all fairness, this massive commitment didn’t just happen over night. Our road to pet ownership started ages ago. I knew M wasn’t a pet person, so I knew it would take a lot to get him to agree to anything at all. I started big. I told M I wanted a Leonberger.

After much nagging from my part, we eventually agreed that I could get one of these if and when we move to a bigger home. Then I told M I wanted a cat while I waited for the Leonberger to happen.

After much nagging from my part, M eventually said that he might be okay with a cat, as long as it wasn’t evil. Total deal breaker for me, of course. Then my grandma offered us her old fish tank, and after much nagging from my part, M finally agreed to give it a try. Now we just have to agree on what to put in it. The way we’re headed I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up with a frog, or a turtle, or a kangaroo, instead of fish.

Oh, I almost forgot; we also got engaged.

We Chose One With Lots of Pretty Buttons and Dials

2010-12-31T01:50:00.002+02:00

Christmas was hectic, but lovely. M's family got to enjoy our company until Christmas Day, when we got in the car and drove down to visit my family. I received the most Christmas presents of anyone, but still felt I needed one more.

M and I bought a camera, not more sheet music. Although, sheet music would be great too.

Yep, I took a picture of a flashlight. That's how excited I was about the new camera.

This huge crane lives right next door to us. Whoever works up there has a very pretty Christmas tree.

Turku by night.

View from our window.

This old brick building also lives next door to us. They have ice.

Conversation held over this very dessert:

Z: I think I might have a brain tumor. I constantly use the wrong words when I mean something completely different. I even do it when I think.

M: You're probably just stupid.

Remember how I let my sister borrow my car? Remember what happened to it? This is probably the stupid in me at work, but I also let her borrow my bicycle. Want to take a guess as to which one is mine?

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T13:55:00.000+02:00

Today we celebrate Christmas in Finland. I have a huge pile of Christmas presents waiting for me that my mom sent with me to Kristinestad, and in just a few more hours I'll get to open them all and marvel at how incredibly nice I've been this year.

I wish you all a very merry whatever-it-is-you-celebrate and hope that your day is filled with love and above all, presents. But before I leave you to go celebrate with M's family, a word of warning. Please take a moment to remember the people who train Father Christmases, and the important work they do, and please, remember these safety instructions when dealing with your Father Christmas.

Chinese Water Torture Could Definitely Benefit From This Mattress

2010-12-23T17:56:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year on the northern hemisphere. I happen to live in the northern hemisphere and that means that yesterday we had 5 hours of sunlight. Today it’ll start to get lighter again, and I have to say, I really enjoyed the 5 hours and 1 minute of sunlight we got today.

We decorated the Christmas tree today. While it was still light outside.

I’m still at M’s parents’ place. When we’re here, M and I sleep in a bed that’s more suitable as a torture device than as a place made for resting. Whenever I’ve spent a night or two in this bed I come home with a herniated disc and a headache. The mattress is so soft that you’ll discover muscles you didn’t think you had just trying to get out of it. When one person moves, the movement reverberates through the mattress and will cause the other person to jump three feet into the air and upon landing find themselves deep in the belly of the mattress. Last night I lay awake for hours and hours, feeling my discs slipping from the complete lack of support. Through the mattress I could feel each tiny, and probably painful, movement M made in his sleep. The only thing that was missing was water slowly dripping on my forehead.

But apparently I did fall asleep at some point, because we woke up to another cold and beautiful day. It was even colder today than it was yesterday, and that made me realize that I desperately need these:

Boots that won’t mind if it’s cold. Or wet. Or cold AND wet.

I haven’t been able to find a single online shop that carries these in the right size and is willing to ship to Finland without adding $150 worth of VAT and shipping fees. So, as desperation sets in, is there anyone in America or Canada who would be willing to buy me these in a size 6 and send them to me? Or better yet, find out what it would cost first. Not that I’m cheap, or anything, I’m just broke. I will repay you, of course. (Make sure you make me send you the money before you send me the boots, though, otherwise you’ll never know if you'll actually get the money or not.)

My Career as a Weather God Was Surprisingly Short

2010-12-22T21:43:00.001+02:00

Remember how I told you I would turn winter into summer, much like Jesus turned water into wine, simply by affecting my own body temperature using a sauna? I thought it was a foolproof plan for sure. Apparently it wasn’t.

-17.5 °F

You should probably stop calling me Zeus now.

At the moment M and I have packed all our Christmas presents and made our way to M’s parents’ house in Kristinestad. Unfortunately we had to turn back after an hour of driving when we realized that we probably needed something more than just the Christmas presents with us. Like a change of clothes and some deodorant. Definitely some deodorant.

When we arrived, the entire family was deeply engrossed in the paper. They read it like they’ve never read it before, and so, M and I decided we needed to get out of the house before we’d even spent 24 hours there. So after breakfast this morning, we dragged our asses to the car and went for a little road trip.

The most exciting thing all day turned out to be when M actually got to turn the wheel. This part of the country is famous for its very long stretches of completely straight roads.

6.5 miles of straight road. It was fascinating.

Then we almost ended up in the ditch when the road suddenly made a sharp right hand turn without signaling first.

It was light out when we left, but at 2:30 pm the sun slowly started sinking lower and lower in the sky.

And by 3 pm there was no more light. Actually, this picture was probably taken at 4 pm, but officially the day ended at 3 pm, so that’s the story I’m sticking with.

Now, if you’re reading this, you’ve come to the end of this post. If you’re still reading, that means you’re probably a little bored, because who the hell would continue reading after the end of a post anyway, and if that’s the case, which I assume it is since you’re still reading, you should head over to Mike’s place and be bored there instead. Mike is celebrating his 51st birthday today and is throwing a party. Whatever you do, though, do not forget to bring a gift!

Go.

Seriously, go.

There is no more post.

Stop reading!

Call me Zeus

2010-12-17T00:22:00.000+02:00

I can affect the weather. You might think that’s a pretty grand statement, but I’m merely telling you the truth. The weather is clearly just as prone to mood swings as I am. This is what the thermometer in M’s car said last night:

-7 °F

And this is what the thermometer said 18 hours later:

32 °F

Oddly enough, 39 °F is exactly the degree of my own mood swings from day to day. The weather gods must truly love me. I even made these delicious carrot-flecked dinner rolls to celebrate my climatic gift.

Then I arranged them in a big pyramid to emulate the snow lantern I haven’t yet been able to make.

In order to make the weather a little warmer, I decided to change my own body temperature a little, and warmed up the sauna.

160 °F

Winter should be over by tomorrow, just wait.

Volkswagen Vento or Snowball - You Decide

2010-12-06T17:33:00.000+02:00

Today is our independence day. The year was 1917 when Finland, tired of always belonging to other countries, declared its independence from the Russian empire, defeated the Death Star and showed the world who’s their daddy. I’m celebrating by watching The Unknown Soldier, a 7-hour black and white movie about the war. It’s shown every year and it only gets longer. Every Finn is supposed to have seen it, but I don’t know - I think many of us simply fall asleep when we try to watch the whole thing. And after The Unknown Soldier is over, I’ll watch the Presidential Ball, to which I wasn’t invited this year either. One day I’ll be there, dancing with the stars. Or in prison, no one knows.

In other news, I lent my car to Muschu. This is what happened.

She only had it one day! How is this even possible? We didn’t get that much snow that night. We won’t get it out of there without a shovel, and I don’t own a shovel. Our plan B is to wait for spring. It shouldn’t be too many years.

Ask Ziva - Language Edition

2010-12-04T18:05:00.000+02:00

The temperature has risen. We went from -18.5C at the coldest to -5C now. That’s 23 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you who prefer odd units. And with the balmy weather came the snow. There’s a million snow outside. Any unit. It just keeps coming down. But while I love talking about the weather, we have something more important to tend to. Today is "Ask Ziva"-Day. And the beautiful Rena has posed today’s question:

“Ziva, what are you exactly?”

That’s a very good question, beautiful Rena. Mike seems to think I’m a three-armed Swede living in Finland, eating bark bread and bathing in vodka. Sadly that’s not entirely true. I am Finnish. I was born and raised in Finland and will never ever identify with a Swede, the vegetable OR the nationality. However, I was born into a minority. Much like the French-speaking population of Canada, about 5% of all Finns speak Swedish as their mother tongue. This is probably due to the fact that for 600 years Finland was a part of Sweden and a few Finns inevitably learned Swedish during that period of time. For the rest of the population, 600 years wasn’t enough time to master the difficult language, and that’s why the rest of Finland still speaks Finnish and sound like idiots when they try to speak any other language. The Swedish-speaking part of the population is also prettier.

Finnish-speaking Finns in a sauna.

Swedish-speaking Finns in a sauna.

Now, because there are both Swedish-speaking Finns (like little old me) and Finnish-speaking Finns, there are two official languages in Finland. This means that while I’ve gone to school in my mother tongue, Swedish, I’ve studied Finnish ever since third grade. And since Finns have acknowledged the importance of understanding at least a little English, we learn English is school as well. Then, after 7th grade, we can start learning other languages too. In short this means that I’m bilingual when it comes to Swedish and Finnish, fluent in English in both writing and speech, have studied French for eight years without ever understanding a word, and taken two years of Spanish and one year of German with better results than I got from the eight years of French. Damn those French and their silly little language.

So to answer your question, beautiful Rena, I’m a three-armed Swedish-speaking Finn who eats bark bread and bathes in vodka. Just don’t call me Swedish, that will make me mad.

Too Cold For Correct Grammar

2010-11-29T17:54:00.000+02:00

Too cold to blog. Didn’t think it would be this cold until January or February. Fuck me, cold now.

-17 C = 1.4 F

At least the Fahrenheit scale didn’t go negative.

Drove a popsicle to work. Dark when I got to work. Dark when I left work. The only sunshine I get is through a window. But don’t go too close, your tongue will get stuck.

Hair needs defrosting and ran out of spare toes, too.

Glögg.

Beware, content is hot.

Glögg - Try To Say That Five Times Fast

2010-11-26T00:26:00.001+02:00

It’s been snowing all week. Big flakes, small flakes, storm flakes, corn flakes and friendly flakes. If we get another ten or twelve feet we’ll be completely snowed in. And it’s freezing. 15 degrees Fahrenheit, -10 degrees real temperature. I wouldn’t mind the cold, but tomorrow it’ll be even colder and I’ll first have to wear a little black dress to a play, and then I’ll have to wear this:

…and go to a student thing were we stay up until 3 am and walk around outside in the snow and drink glögg strong enough to pickle an elephant of moderate size and weight. It sounds weird, but it’s actually very fun. Drinking glögg in the street, not pickling elephants of moderate size and weight. If I survive the night I’ll tell you all about it after the weekend.

And some of you might remember that the last time you heard from me, I was on my way to the set of Dancing with the Stars. The show was much better on this side of the camera. I particularly liked the crazy camera men running around, and the slightly unprofessional behavior everyone was exhibiting during the commercials. And of course the dresses Muschu had made were amazing. And as if it wasn’t enough that my sister gets to sew fantastic dresses for Dancing with the Stars, she was interviewed for the 10 o’clock news today and the entire country saw her pretty face on TV. I’m pretty sure your level of success is measured in the air time you get on the national news, which means Muschu is right up there with our Minister of Foreign Affairs. If she wasn’t my sister I might be jealous. But because she is my sister, I’ll just pretend to be happy about it and smile and nod.

The red means I’m a political sciences major, and the badges were sewn onto the jumpsuit by little Chinese kids who didn’t get enough pay. I have a bunch of them stowed away in the closet for just such occasions.

Keeping up appearances.

Most important accessory of them all.

Happy Birthday Muschu!

2010-11-21T13:18:00.000+02:00

I’m getting really tired of starting every other blog post with ”M is away,” but he is. Again. This time it’s karate camp. And I’m alone on a beautiful snowy Sunday. Technically I was alone yesterday too, and it was a beautiful snowy Saturday, and I was alone on Friday, which was a beautiful snowy Friday, but you guys are not interested in that. Luckily, being alone means that I’ve had time to think of potential blogging material. Sometime in the near future I’m going to treat you to the story of my language course in England, complete with crazy soybean-loving American; and the story of my week in a French monastery, complete with bus trip through Europe and monks everywhere. My stories are not as adventurous as Linda’s, but I bet she doesn’t have a story about soybean madness. She probably has one about monks, though.

Sadly, those little stories will have to wait a little longer, because I’m off. I am going to the live set of Dancing with the Stars for tonight’s show, to celebrate my gorgeous sister's birthday. I’ll probably go crazy trying to run away from the cameras and avoid being seen by a million people on live TV, but a little more crazy won’t hurt. You probably won’t even notice it.

Keep the Banana Out of the Doggy Bag

2010-11-14T23:27:00.000+02:00

I wonder if every baby comes with an extra set of hands for the parents, compliments of the stork. Because yesterday we had a couple we know over for dinner, and they have a 2.5-year old and a 6-month old, and they made it look easy. Well, as easy as holding a baby in one hand, feeding a toddler with the other, while you’re eating with a third and making sure you’re properly hydrated with the fourth, can look.

Having company over was fun. We had a wonderful 9-year old red wine from Spain, and some sort of mystery meat dish that I probably should know a little bit more about seeing as I was the one who made it. I also made chocolate cake, and these:

I had every intention of serving coffee with the cake and cookies, but when I tried to make it I found the coffeemaker broken and unusable. Everything turned out great, though, because I fixed it with a fork and a sauce pan. Which reminds me, I should really send that picture to “There, I Fixed It”...

Today is Father’s Day. I know it’s confusing, but Father’s Day is not celebrated on the same date all around the world. Just go with it. M and I went with it and invited ourselves to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made something that didn’t quite know if it was dinner or dessert, but M liked it. It was full of meat, cayenne pepper and bananas, of all things. Fruit should never ever be warm. Dinner should not be sweet, unless it consists of nothing but chocolate, which is okay, of course. But dinner with warm banana, pineapple, red apple, green apple, any fruit really, shouldn’t be allowed to exist. I should be struck down by lightning, in fact, just for suggesting it. I ate the meat and the sauce and threw the banana pieces on the floor for the dog to eat. Then I remembered our dog died 10 years ago. Then I remembered that even if she’d still been alive, banana was the only thing she refused to eat, even counting things such as small children and rusty nails. Smart dog.

Green Toilets and Japanese Perverts

2010-11-09T20:55:00.002+02:00

Snow. It’s really coming down now. The first snow came down on Sunday while M and I were driving to Kirkkonummi to visit my grandfather who turned 90 years old. It came down, first as hail, then as big wet flakes that melted on the ground, and last as tiny little flakes that didn’t even melt when the sun came out yesterday. This means that the roads are nothing but ice, but at least there’s snow on the ground. And there will be more, because the first snow storm of the winter has just arrived. And I was really enjoying it, too, but then I had to drive my car to Zumba and decided I’m not going to like this winter any more than the rest of them. I need a snowmobile.

My grandfather, 90 years old but fit enough to fight off the Russians if need be. (Just ignore the wheelchair.)

Apart from visiting my very old grandfather, M and I also visited our good friends Dani and Jonas and their little boy Adam this past weekend. The food was great, the company awesome, and I got to be creative and play with Lego. I made all sorts of fantastic creations, and Adam really helped me find my inner artist by helping me with the finishing touch on every creation. Inspiringly enough, the finishing touch was a green plastic toilet every single time. I predict great things for Adam in his future.

First snowball of the winter. I hit a complete stranger right in the head with it, too.

Now, in keeping with my new series, “Shit M Says”, here’s a conversation M and I had while having dinner today. This is simply to show that it’s not just black people M has it in for. We were sitting at the dinner table, discussing camera noises, like any normal couple would, and we got a little sidetracked.

M: I know that Japan is very strict with that. If you take a picture the camera has to make a sound. It’s to keep Japanese perverts from reaching under girls’ skirts in the subway and taking pictures.

Z: I guess that Japan is the only place where the subway is so crowded someone can reach in under your skirt and you wouldn’t notice it.

M: Have you seen the pictures of those subway workers whose only job is to push people into the subway cars because they’re so crowded the door won’t close otherwise?

Z: How the hell do you survive with a baby there?

M: Don’t you know that in Japan babies are this small *shows with his hands* and can fit into your pocket for easy transport?

Z: I wonder how many baby girls are “accidentally” lost on the subway in Japan. “Oops, lost the baby, better make a new one. Let’s hope it’s a boy this time.”

M: I have no idea how they even have time to make babies. They work insane hours and have to fit all that perversity into their schedule as well. You know you can buy used panties in Japan, kinda like you can buy sodas from a vending machine here.

Z: You’re not serious. That’s just gross. Where do they get all the dirty panties?

M: I don’t know, college? And I once saw a geometric calculation from Japan about sitting opposite to a girl dressed in a skirt and how far from her you’d have to sit in order to see under her skirt, taking into account skirt length and eye height.

Z: The entire country of Japan should be put behind glass and the rest of the world could buy tickets and come watch the Japanese show from a safe distance. That’s entertainment right there.

Don't Take Your Cutlery For Granted

2010-11-04T21:43:00.001+02:00

I am extremely pleased with myself today. Well, I was even more pleased with myself last night, but I’m still hanging on to this strange and tingly feeling. In my last post I told you about the “new” dishwasher M and I bought. We got it used on the internet, picked it up ourselves from someone’s dark garage, cash only, put it into M’s tiny little car and carried it up to our apartment, where it stood in the living room for days. We didn’t want to have to call anyone for help, so we stared at the thing for a while and finally figured out what we’d need to make it work. So, after a trip to the store to get a hose clamp and a nozzle adapter, another trip to the store to get a new nozzle adapter because M lost the gasket to the first, a third trip to the store to get detergent and rinse aid, and a an hour of scrubbing off the dirt, last night we had finally installed our very own dishwasher.

Fearlessly, I pressed “ON” and jumped behind the kitchen table to wait for the explosion. The explosion never came, and the dishwasher happily dishwashed for what seemed like two hours, but was probably closer to an hour and a half. Success!

Now we just have to work up the courage to run the dishwasher with actual dishes in it.

Although, I do feel a little bad for being so spoiled. Dishwasher, washing machine... Did you know that every fourth person in the third world doesn’t even own a separate salad fork and dessert fork? A real eye-opener isn’t it? Oh well, at least my salad fork will be clean as a whistle.

My tin whistles. They’re not very clean.

Introducing: "Shit M Says"

2010-10-31T21:59:00.001+02:00

(Warning: May be offensive to most readers.)

The babysitting of my 14-year old brother was nothing but one big adventure. I almost burned dinner, (but didn’t); little brother almost missed his curfew, (but didn’t); little brother was almost drunk off his ass, (but mostly he was sober); M changed the tires on his car, which could have gone horribly wrong, (but didn’t); and I raked leaves and fucked up my thumb in the process. It was crazy, I tell you.

But one thing that did happen was that the doorbell rang and a bunch of kids dressed as witches and ghosts yelled, "Trick or treat!" in Swedish, obliterating my faith in my native Finland. We DON’T celebrate Halloween by trick or treating like people do in America. I have no idea why on earth these kids’ parents thought it would be a good idea to send their kids out begging for candy when no one in the entire country has ever done it before. Of course we didn’t have any candy, because hello, we don’t celebrate Halloween, so I sent the kids off without any treats. And their follow through was lousy, because they totally didn’t pull a prank on us either.

I tried offering the kids a tomato, but they just stared at me. I would, too.

I don’t understand why people think we should be exactly as the USA. Next we’ll probably start celebrating Thanksgiving and Fourth of July, start paying for health care, hold questionable elections, paint the Finnish flag on everything and become insanely patriotic. I can’t wait.

While waiting, though, I did something I’ve wanted to do forever. I bought a dishwasher on the internet without having seen it first. It’s ugly, but it was very cheap and hopefully I will never have to do the dishes again. This is the conversation we had while I was complaining about how the dishwasher looked:

Z: I dunno, it’s sort of ugly. If you think it looks bad in our living room, it’ll look hideous in the kitchen.

M: I really don’t care how it looks, as long as it does the dishes for us. I mean, as long as it gets done, it could just as well be a little nigger sitting in the cupboard doing the dishes for all that I care.

Z: Honey, that’s not right.

M: Oh, I’m sorry. Black person.

(In M's defense I have to say that the N-word doesn't have a very negative connotation in Swedish at all. It’s closer to the word Negro than to anything else.)

This is what came up when I Googled “nigger in a cupboard.”

The Fashion Blog

2010-10-29T19:45:00.001+03:00

You’ll be happy to know that M made it home in one piece, and helped me cure my boredom. But then he went to work and I got bored again. I tried eating one of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups he brought me from America, but it didn’t help. I tried eating another one to see if it was just a matter of quantity, but I was still pretty bored. After a third Peanut Butter Cup I was still bored, and also a little nauseous, so I figured peanut butter probably wasn’t the solution.

I did a load of laundry but was still bored. Then I did the dishes, and suddenly got even more bored. Eventually I had to bring out the big guns, my nail polish. Out of pure self-preservation I occupied myself with painting my nails the perfect shade of green. I say perfect because my mom hates it and I love it.

Even a man could pull off this shade of green.

Then I washed my hair and very quickly realized I should have started with the hair and then moved on to the nail polish. Lesson learned. And from now on this blog will focus exclusively on hair care products, nail polish and “Today’s Outfit.”

Clean hair.

Luckily M and I have promised to babysit my 14-year old brother all weekend while my parents are away. I’m looking forward to a weekend full of broken curfews, fast food, underage drinking, smoking and maybe even a break-up or two. Everything is highly dramatic when you’re 14. Come Monday I’ll be happy to be bored again.

I Still Have Nightmares About Cookies

2010-10-27T00:51:00.000+03:00

I’m bored. I’m so bored I can’t even write a blog post. I’m sitting here, watching TV and experimenting with different ways of eating a mandarin (they taste best if you peel them first). Where is M, you ask? M is away again. He’s somewhere in a faraway land, sharing a hotel room with a weird Italian guy. Google invited him to beautiful Sunnyvale to discuss world dominance and I wasn’t invited. And you won’t believe how great a girlfriend I am. I got up at 3 am on Friday and drove him to the bus. Yes, the bus, you didn’t really think I’d drive him all the way to the airport, did you? I’m his girlfriend, not Mother Teresa.

While he’s been away, I’ve been busy visiting people. On Friday I took the train to our nation’s capital and visited my famous sister who spent the entire evening sewing a dress for the hostess of the Finnish Dancing with the Stars and stressing out because apparently famous people do that a lot. Muschu and I rented The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and drooled over the pretty men and then I slept in a sleeping bag for the first time since my Girl Scout days. I remember now why I’m not a Girl Scout anymore.

This dress.

I’ve also had dinner with my parents, coffee with my grandmother and a large bowl of popcorn all alone. I’ve read two books about murder and mayhem and subsequently slept about 5 hours in the past two nights. And today I realized that the ceiling light in the living room is going to explode any day now and set fire to the couch I’m always sitting on. I had to turn off the light and light some candles instead. I did this because clearly candles won’t burn down my apartment, but a light bulb definitely will. M being gone is so not good for my mental health.

Perfectly safe.

Firebomb.

The Hunt For White October

2010-10-14T21:27:00.000+03:00

All over Finland the first snow has fallen. Everywhere except where I live. I’m not sure if I’m happy about this or not, but when I heard about the snow I actually had to drag my ass outside to see if we’re really that close to winter already and if I could find any white stuff. I found the air cold and crisp, and the world looking like this:

Mostly red, and a little yellow. No white.

Mostly yellow, with splotches of red. No white.

Mostly brownish yellow. No white. And clearly no one who rakes up the leaves.

Red and green. Looks more like summer than winter.

White!! But it looks suspiciously nothing like snow.

I drew the very scientific conclusion that it wasn't very wintery, but not exactly summery either. My guess? We’re not getting any snow until November. Damn gulf stream making the coast all warm and toasty.

But apart from no snow at all, another amazing thing has happened. I have finally won something I’ve been trying to win for the better part of a year. I’ve won the coveted captioning contest hosted by the fabulous Dufus who shall not be named. This week, I be hangin' with nonamedufus. You may worship me now.

Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt, It's a Whole Freaking Country in Asia

2010-10-09T16:33:00.001+03:00

Exactly a year ago I wrote a post about the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and Barack Obama, its recipient. And apparently it’s becoming a tradition, because this year I’m once again going to address the peace prize. This year the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is trying to save face after last year’s controversial choice of Obama (“for peaceful actions not yet performed.”) They awarded the peace prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who at the moment is serving an 11-year prison sentence for disagreeing with the Chinese government. In Finland a life sentence for murdering a whole family of midgets isn’t that long. But then again, the Chinese government has a pretty unique way of seeing things.

Please don't kill us.

China actually warned the Norwegian government before the prize was awarded, and said that they wouldn’t see lightly on the matter if Liu Xiaobo received the peace prize. What China clearly doesn’t understand is that the Committee is independent. For my Chinese reader out there, that means that there is no interference by the state. Crazy, I know. Nevertheless, the Chinese government holds the entire country of Norway responsible and there will most likely be both political and economic repercussions.

Liu Xiaobo, who still doesn’t know he has actually won, was awarded the prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." I can see why the Chinese government would oppose that. It sounds both democratic and humane. China has gone as far as saying that many Chinese nationalists will see this as an example of the West trying to demonize China. Oh yes, the demonic human rights will soon provide everyone with the right to vote and the right to choose how many babies they have. The horror would be unimaginable.

Oh the horror!

So unimaginable in fact, that the Chinese government has exercised their self-appointed right of censorship. Very few people in China even know that Liu Xiaobo has won the peace prize. Come to think of it, very few people in China even know that there exists such a concept as fundamental human rights. TV’s went black all over China when the peace prize recipient was to be announced, searches for Liu Xiaobo on Chinese search engines won’t turn up any results. Even text messages with the Chinese characters for his name won’t find their destination.

At this very moment leaders around the world are calling for Liu Xiaobo's immediate release. China’s answer: “Liu who?”

Happy 8th 6.825.600 seconds, babe!

2010-10-06T23:03:00.000+03:00

Sometime in December or January M and I will have been together for 2 years. I don’t know when exactly it will be, because I have no idea when we decided we weren’t casually dating and actually became a couple. Last year we didn’t really celebrate any anniversary, but I’m sure once we get married we’ll probably become like every other couple and celebrate our relationship once every 365 or 366 days.

I don’t like the inconsistency of time in general. One minute is 60 seconds, 60 minutes is one hour, 24 hours is one day, 7 days is one week, and 30 days is one month. Or 31 days if it’s a particularly generous month. Or 28 days if it’s February, because we all know February is a little special. Or 29 days if February is feeling particularly giving. And to get an entire year you need a very unscientific number of months, weeks and days. Crazy, I tell you. It’s like the powers to be sat down, chose a bunch of random numbers and called it time. Kind of like Americans did with length and distance.

Time, it confuses me.

So why is that one year is the appropriate time to celebrate? I think M and I are going to be a little original and celebrate every 100 days. Or maybe every 6.825.600 seconds. Yeah, that would be good. I would get diamonds much more often.

Note to self: must start doing my Kegel exercises

2010-10-04T20:10:00.000+03:00

I never get sick. I shared this fact with M a week ago when he was coughing and blowing his nose. One kiss later I was down for the count. In the last week I’ve produced mucus by the bucket-load, slept only during the day and made a very decent attempt at coughing my intestines out. My throat is hurting, my ears are hurting, my abs are hurting even worse than after those workouts I pretend to do all the time and my brain has seen better days.

I’ll be back with more inspired writing once I can breathe again.

Things I Learned Today: Midgets make funny noises when they have sex

2010-09-28T23:59:00.000+03:00

I’m not nearly as addicted to the internet and to my computer as I would like to be. If I were properly addicted I would get stuff done. I would respond to emails on time, I would update my blog, I would read other people’s blogs and I would never ignore the internet for days on end resulting in the situation we have here: blog neglect. It’s a fairly common problem amongst non-addicted people. In some cases it may manifest itself as a general lack of new posts. In other cases it may result in posting the very same blog post day after day, with minimal or no alterations.

I’m going to blame my latest period of absence on my lack of addiction, because I can’t really blame it on boredom. On Saturday M and I went to a wedding, danced very badly, drank too little wine and talked to almost no one. It was a beautiful wedding and the pouring rain didn’t really bother anyone. Neither did the freezing temperatures of 32 degrees once the rain stopped. It sure didn’t bother me, even though I was standing outside in a short skirt and nylons, because my legs are extremely weather resistant. Well, at least they are now after the amputation due to frost bite, and subsequent prosthetics.

As if the wedding wasn’t fun enough to last us an entire month, M and I went to see Pablo Francisco tonight. It was a fun show, even though he was clearly traumatized to be in Finland where it apparently is “so cold he can’t get an erection.” I dunno about that; Finnish men do just fine. But Pablo taught me many things tonight. Like for instance, cock blocking is not cool. Especially not if you’re doing it to yourself by buying a Smart Car. Also? It’s totally fine to say “nigger”. You heard it from me first.

Golf Is A Four-Letter Word

2010-09-22T00:49:00.000+03:00

Today is the International Day of Peace, and I figured that as a human rights advocate I should say something profound and enlightened and decidedly beauty queen inspired about world peace and everyone living together in harmony. Alas, there is something much, much more important that requires my attention. You all know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Today is Miniature Golf Day! How awesome is that?

Miniature golf is just about the best sport in the world, right after cockroach racing. It’s like golf, but for people who are in a little better shape and don’t mind walking from green to green. It’s affordable, easy to learn and contrary to popular belief, doesn’t require your own set of balls.

One thing that bothers me a little, though, is the date. Who the hell had the bright idea to make September 21st Miniature Golf Day? I bet they had never actually played miniature golf, because usually it’s done outside. I don’t know what September is like where you live, but over here it’s 50 degrees outside and it’s been raining for a week. I wouldn’t mind playing miniature golf in this weather, but I’m pretty sure the ball might float away. And I think that’s cheating. Or just good luck.

I’m a great miniature golfer. I’m short; that’s got to count for something. And I once played miniature golf in America and won. But I learned that it’s not called miniature golf over there. They’ve given it the very manly name of Putt-Putt. I actually don’t think Americans take miniature golf very seriously at all. Just take a look at this American miniature golf course:

There are all sorts of castles and shrubs and water and stuff that’s fun and nice to look at, distracting you from the game at hand.

Meanwhile, the Swedes know exactly what miniature golf is all about:

No nonsense, serious business. I’m inclined to agree with the Swedes; a sport that’s important enough to warrant an entire day dedicated to it must be taken seriously.

Happy Miniature Golf Day!

Oh, and happy International Day of Peace too.

And After All the Sweat, Blood and Tears, It Still Says "Made In China" on the Back

2010-09-21T00:28:00.000+03:00

I was hardly surprised at all when I woke up this morning and the week had once again decided to start with Monday. I don’t like Monday. Monday is full of expectations, intentions and need-to-dos, but extremely low on energy, motivation and want-to-dos. Usually my motivation rears its ugly head around Friday, but by then it’s too late to actually do anything so I just ignore it. Friday is good like that.

One person who hasn’t been low on motivation lately is M. He’s been practicing his karate day and night, spending days and weeks and many more days and weeks away from me to reach enlightenment. And finally, after another weekend away from his sweetheart, M finally came home with the holiest of dark textiles.

M + karate = black belt

I’m living with a karate master. Suddenly Monday doesn’t seem so bad after all. I’ll just have M kick its ass. All the way to Friday…

334 Words About Something You're Tired of Hearing About

2010-09-17T14:38:00.000+03:00

Recently there has been a bit of a battle going on. A battle about a mosque. When I told my American friend I was going to write about it, he said “ohh lord, not that thing again, it’s all we’ve heard about this past month.” Sadly, his reaction is the same as many others’. We tire of hearing about mosques, Koran-burning, floods, and whatever else is wrong in the world at any given point. And for that reason I will make my own take on the Ground Zero Mosque very brief.

Opponents argue that the building of a mosque near Ground Zero would be insensitive. I’m having problems figuring out who exactly it would offend. Who is so offended by the building of a mosque at Ground Zero that the Muslim community’s freedom of religion and freedom of assembly should be violated? I can only assume that people are comparing Muslims to Al-Qaida and feel that building a mosque at Ground Zero would be a kick in the face to all of America.

But I still can’t quite grasp why a mosque where Muslims worship would reflect the actions of one extremist Islamist group. Muslims are simply people who adhere to the religion of Islam. Islamists are people who add a political agenda to their practice of Islam and are by no means even comparable to Muslims. Should the entire Muslim community be held accountable for something a few extremists did? And if that’s the case, does it mean that it’s bad taste to build a Catholic Church next to a kindergarten? Because the Pope knows the Catholic Church hasn’t got the best of reputations when it comes to young boys. I’m just saying.

Everything isn’t always black and white. In fact, it never is, we threw out the black and white TV’s ages ago. In today’s world we should be able to see all the nuances, and frankly, if we can’t, we need a new set of attitudes. And probably a new TV.

The Curious Case of the Little Evil White Mushroom Penises

2010-09-15T23:05:00.000+03:00

I’m so happy we already established I can say penis on this blog, because boy do I need to say it now. See the thing is, my lovely sister Muschu is a bit of a celebrity. Well, not exactly a celebrity, but she works with celebrities and that’s practically the same thing, no? She’s a designer and is working on the Finnish version of the TV-show Dancing with the Stars, making the outfits. Dancing with the Stars, or Tanssii Tähtien Kanssa, as it is called in Finnish, is shot in Helsinki. Muschu lives in Turku. This means that she’s had to move to Helsinki temporarily and has left her apartment in my very capable hands.

For the past month I’ve been in charge of watering the plants, sorting the mountains of mail she gets and making sure that the apartment doesn’t burn down. And this is where the penises come into the picture. I thought I was doing a good job; I sorted the mail alphabetically, never left any matches out and watered the plants, about a gallon per plant. That should be enough, I figured. And it was. It was plenty. I’m almost starting to think it was too much, because tonight when M and I went to water the plants we found that one of the plants had been invaded by a whole pack of evil white mushroom penises about an inch tall. I have no idea where they came from, I just know that they’re here now.

Let this be a cautionary tale; don’t ever make me take care of your things unless you really like little evil white mushroom penises.

I’m sorry Muschu.

Feeling Lonely? Don't Worry, Berta Is Here For You

2010-09-13T21:16:00.002+03:00

After my little departure into politics and human rights the other day, I’m going to jump straight to the porn I promised you. Where should I start? Should I start with the stripteases? The crazy costumes? The nudity? The blow jobs? The S&M dungeon? The huge number of toys (some of which should not be used on unexplained calf pains)? The live shows? No, I think I’m going to start with Berta.

She’s a loooove ewe. She’s soft and cute and anatomically correct. If by anatomically correct you mean that she has a rear opening for a sound box that makes her go “baaaah” when you press up against her behind, and another rear opening that’s big enough to fit something more or less penis-shaped. Can I say penis on this blog? I’m not sure. I didn’t hear that annoying biiping sound they use on TV, so it’s probably okay. But if you’re below the legal limit of being allowed to handle a penis you probably shouldn’t read this. Or below the legal limit of letting others handle your penis, if you fall into that category. Anyway, Berta sort of followed me home. She now sleeps between M and I in bed, which is awesome because now I can divert M’s nightly advances and let Berta deal with him.*

For those of you who are now wondering why Ziva’s Inferno suddenly seems more like Ziva’s House of Love, I can explain it all. M and I attended Turkkusex (not safe for work, unless you work in a sex shop, in which case it’s perfect for work), an erotic exhibition that takes place in Turku every fall. We attended the exhibition last year as well, and decided that it was just the right thing to keep our delicate sensibilities from rusting completely.

We saw a number of more or less famous porn starts and performers, including Tera Patrick, Scandinavian Hunks and Bobbi Eden. A male group called the Candymen were hilarious and made me relieved I wasn’t the poor girl who had been dragged up on stage to "assist" them. I didn’t take any pictures because apparently that’s a big no-no when it comes to people performing sexual acts on stage. Imagine that. But if you click on the link up there you'll probably be able to navigate the site and find the official photos. While I was busy not taking pictures, M and I perused the wide selection of toys, blow-up dolls, leather and lace clothing and various torture devices. Speaking of which, in the Dungeon of Secrets you could get tied up and receive a good spanking for the ridiculously low price of 2 euros. What a bargain!

I didn’t get particularly dolled up for the exhibition, just a pair of stilettos, a dog collar and my trusty panda costume, but other people certainly got dressed up. We saw naughty nurses, firemen, police officers, librarians and women wearing only shoes. They were great shoes, though.

We had a great time, but I’m still happy it’s a once a year sort of thing and not more often. That panda costume is hot.

Hot.

Now I'm off to hide the porn magazine we won under M's side of the bed for M's mom to find when she comes to visit us.

*N.B. this was a joke. M doesn’t do sheep.

The War on Human Rights

2010-09-12T02:42:00.000+03:00

I’m not an American citizen. I have never lived in the USA and I probably never will. I wasn’t going to write anything about 9/11 because I wasn’t there, it didn’t affect me personally. When it happened I was in my teens, I had just gotten home from my piano lesson and was sitting in my room, ignoring my homework and watching tv. Almost every tv channel was airing something about the World Trade Center. I watched in silence as the second plane hit. I watched as the towers fell. All around the world, the catastrophe was being aired live. I was young and couldn’t quite grasp the enormity of the situation, but regardless I knew that from that day on the world would be a different place.

And it was.

The Bush administration launched a war on terror. The target wasn’t the one group of truly evil people who had done this, but instead an entire country, full of civilians and innocents. Security was upgraded until the mere thought of people’s right to privacy was a joke. Suddenly everyone with Middle Eastern looks was a terrorist and treated as one. Airports installed full body scanners that produce an image of your naked body, and if you weren’t comfortable with someone looking at your naked form, you were forced to agree to a strip search. By a UN Resolution the entire world was cast into a permanent state of emergency where human rights could be derogated from, and was so in an arbitrary and wrongful way.

A horrendous event that should have united people, instead worked exactly as Al-Qaida wanted. Americans united, and while many wanted to leave it at that, many many more turned their united rage towards anyone who was male, young and had a beard. Terrorist suspects lost every right to be treated as human beings. While every person in the entire world has had their right to privacy violated in some way or other due to the security upgrades since 9/11, terrorist suspects have had their right to fair trial and right to life violated. They have been tortured and thrown into prison to rot without trial, with their right to representation completely ignored.

I’m not defending terrorists. They should be punished for their acts. I’m speaking for those people who are suspected of being a terrorist. That could be you or me. Anyone could be a terrorist suspect without actually having done anything. Just because a man is Muslim, young, of Middle Eastern descent and has a beard doesn’t make him any more terrorist than you or I. But he will without doubt be treated as one.

In the UK a “stop and search” technique was implemented after 9/11 where police officers stopped random people on the street if they seemed suspect, and searched them. Asian people were 3.6 times more likely to be stopped than white people. Black people where 4.3 times more likely to be stopped. In 2003 the 8.120 stops of pedestrians led to only 5 arrests. Incidentally, all of those arrested were white.

Terrorist suspects are being tortured right now. When the general public is asked for their opinion, a majority will think this is okay. What went wrong when it became okay to torture people? No matter how I look at it is torture morally or legally sane. Imagine a ticking bomb scenario. A person has admitted to having placed a time bomb somewhere. It is armed and ticking. Someone you love might be in danger. But the suspect won’t tell the authorities where the bomb is. Should the authorities use torture to make the suspect tell them where the bomb is?

If you said yes you probably referred to one of these arguments:
-the life of one person is less important than the lives of several people who might be in danger
-it’s the only way the suspect will tell authorities where the bomb is
-it’s okay as long as the authorities are doing it

However, there is no perfect knowledge. There is no way of knowing if there really is a bomb somewhere. Who should be allowed to asses the losses and benefits? How many lives justify a broken bone? How many lives for a torn out nail? How many women and children should be saved before the axe makes an appearance? In very rare occasions does torture produce truthful information, and if the person is innocent they will most likely start making up information just to get a break. Torture breaches the human dignity of the victim, as well as the torturer and everyone involved. Torture not only erodes professional ethics, it weighs on the minds of anyone who is forced to do it. And finally, torture is always prohibited; in national law, in human rights law and in humanitarian law.

My heart goes out to the victims of the events on 9/11 and their families. I hope that everyone responsible is brought to justice and punished. And I hope that everyone’s human rights are respected in the process.

Ziva Does Zumba

2010-09-08T21:28:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I finally decided that I had watched my ass grow big enough and I needed to do something drastic about the state of my behind. Naturally, I first looked into liposuction, but it turns out it’s very expensive. And since I don’t have thousands of moneys just lying around in piles, liposuction clearly wasn’t the way to go. I then looked into those little fish that eat your flesh when you sit a bath tub full of them. Apparently they only eat dead skin and my ass is very much alive. In fact, I think it has a life of its own and is growing without my prior consent. Anyway, the little flesh-eating fish wasn’t a very good idea to begin with; I really don’t like sharing my bath tub with representatives of other species.

I looked into a few alternative ways of losing ass weight, but eating less just seemed boring, and the pills didn’t seem very reliable, and the whole octopus thing just looked scary, not to mention complicated. Eventually I just had to take the bull by the horns. I resigned myself to at least one hour a week of ruthless exercise. I chose Zumba as my means of torture, mostly because it starts with a z and matches my name. How cool is that? Plus? I sort of figured that dancing for an hour couldn’t possibly be that hard.

Of course I wanted to have someone with me, so I asked Zelma, but apparently exercise is “poisonous”, “bad for the soul” and “a ridiculous way for the upper class to get off their fat ass and look good while the rest of the world has to work for our money and don’t have time to exercise in any other way than to do manual labor, therefore making exercise evil incarnate”, whatever that means. In short, she wasn’t coming.

I arrived at the Zumba class sweaty and exhausted from pedalling my bike downhill, and looked around to see if anyone noticed I was dying of a heart attack before the class even started. And that’s when I saw Therese, a very dear childhood friend whom I haven’t talked to in years. It was great seeing a familiar face, and even more great when I realized we had much the same attitude towards exercise. Albeit, Therese could probably pedal her bike downhill without going into cardiac arrest.

Let’s Zumba! N.B. not Ziva in the picture.

Together we sought out a place in the very back of the class, made sure we knew where our exits were and hoped that 60 minutes would go by fast and that we’d be able to fit into a size much smaller pants by the end of class. A beautiful Latino girl walked into the room and we knew we were doomed. “Let’s start with a light warm-up” she said. 15 minutes later I was as close to death as I’ve ever been. Even counting that time when I accidentally drove right in front of a big rig and made it swerve to miss me.

If I had known that “light warm-up” is actually synonymous with “sweating your intestines out through your skin” I’m not sure I would have signed up for the class. But I did, and surprisingly I liked it. It was all “jump, hop, turn, step, jump, jump, turn again, turn the other way, no the other other you silly pig, jump, step, step, hop, turn” for 60 minutes. Therese and I were more often facing the wrong way than the right way and we probably looked like a couple of monkeys with a itchy rash, but at the end of the class we agreed to think about meeting again next week for the class.

I’ll definitely think about it.

And finally, a little bit of a heads up; this weekend M and I are going to an erotic exhibition. Lots of live porn, fancy toys and on-stage stripteases. Stay tuned for that little gem.

The Crayfish Party

2010-09-06T17:29:00.000+03:00

A few weeks ago my friend Zelma and I set out on a quest. A quest to find the holiest of all things culinary – the crayfish. Normally, a crayfish can be found in a river or a lake, and since there are 187,888 lakes in Finland, it shouldn’t be too difficult to hunt one down. However, Zelma and I don’t kill animals for food. If we’re to actually take a living being and put it into boiling water, it will at least have to be for a good reason, like fun, or a good practical joke. Therefore, we went to the supermarket and got the ready-dead frozen kind. They needed a good defrosting, so we left them in the sink and went out for some pre-dinner adventure. We went to the farmers’ fair.

We petted a pig. We looked at a cow. We ran like Satan himself was after us when the heavens opened and an epic thunderstorm hit the fair. Zelma and I ran for our lives. We were too scared to use our umbrellas because we’ve been told never to hold a metal stick in a thunderstorm. We’re smart like that. We were running and screaming and soaked through by the rain and suddenly realized that we were in desperate need of coffee. And it so happens that the coffee shop was way closer than Zelma’s car – what a coincidence!

We ran inside just as lightning struck something not entirely in our imminent vicinity, and pretended that the coffee shop was our destination the entire time. We looked like a couple of drowned, very humanoid, cats. Zelma had a cup of coffee, I had a cup of hot chocolate, and by the time we were done the thunderstorm had passed and we were safe to walk all the way to our car without having to hold metal sticks. I held one anyway, just to show that I wasn’t scared of a little lightning.

We got back to our crayfish just in time to verify that they were still dead, which they were. There’s nothing as annoying as zombie crayfish. We grabbed a crayfish in one hand, a knife in the other and let the games begin. This is how you eat a crayfish, crawfish, crawdad or any other identical crustacean with an identity crisis: First, off with the claws, and suck the juices out of them. Then the claws need to be bent open to get to the tiny piece of meat inside them. Next, the shell, head and inner organs have to be separated from the body. A little suck of the grey ribs is often just the right thing before you move on to the tail. The shell needs to come off the tail, the poop chute needs to be removed, and then you’re sitting there with the only real piece of meat on the entire creature. A tiny little piece of tail that tastes salty and fishy. Yum! And totally worth the effort of dissecting an entire crayfish just to get to a piece of meat the size of something way too small to be dinner.

Not dinner.

Zelma and I had about 10 crayfish each, after which we were too exhausted and hungry to keep eating. We went to a barn dance instead. My inner redneck rejoiced.

I Don't Like The Name Earl, I'm Going To Call You Enoch Ezekiel Emmanuel Ed

2010-09-03T20:56:00.000+03:00

Today I am happy to announce to you that Hurricane Earl missed Finland by several thousand miles! It was a close call, but with a bit of luck and many, many people using fans, blow dryers and their own lungs to blow the storm in the other direction, we made it.

Hurricane Earl. Finland is slightly east-northeast of here. 4500 miles, to be exact.

I lied. We didn’t have to do anything. See, we don’t get hurricanes over here. Sometimes we get a few bad thunderstorms, and sometimes it rains a lot, and sometimes a smallish tornado will throw a horse and dog across a field and it will make headlines all over the country, but no hurricanes. Not even small ones. And if one would get lost on its way to somewhere else, it would die before it reached Finland.

We simply don’t have what it takes to create a hurricane, or a tropical storm, as they are also called by people who know what they’re talking about. We don’t have enough tropics. We don’t have enough water. And even if we did, the water is not warm enough. And we definitely don’t have enough badly built houses below sea level behind questionable levees.

I can’t tell you I’m not happy about it. I don’t like windy weather. It makes it hard to pedal my bike up the hill to my apartment and my hair gets all messed up, and I just brushed it a week ago! I like my windows intact and my trees rooted to the ground. But maybe I would be better off we had Hurricane Season.

I’m a big wuss when it comes to all sorts of extreme weather. I already told you that we don’t have hurricanes, but we don’t have volcanoes, earthquakes or droughts either. Hell, we barely have sunshine! Sometimes we get a little flooding, but we’re no Pakistan. Or even the Czech Republic. We’re the Switzerland of weather, and it has made me a big chicken. I will never be able to move anywhere because holy fuck, what if there’s an earthquake? This has led me to realize that being born in Finland has severely limited my life. I’ll be stuck here forever, enjoying my safe and boring weather. So thanks Mom and Dad for keeping me sheltered from every single scary thing I could have possibly experienced. Really. Thanks a lot.

Mmm, roasted high jumper, my favorite!

2010-08-31T20:29:00.000+03:00

I was recently watching the Sweden Battle. It’s an annual athletics international between Sweden and Finland, and I’d like to say that the athletics fight it out until there’s only one person left standing, but sadly they just give out points and the country with the most points wins. Boring!

Here’s what I’m suggesting; let’s make things a little more interesting. To start with, the 100 meter run is just ridiculous. It only lasts for 10 seconds and especially men will be ridiculously proud of themselves after finishing the run. It’s a lot like sex, actually. I’m suggesting that we make those 10 seconds count. Let loose a few lions on the track to chase the runners, the one who wins is spared, while the other ones become cat food. That way it would make sense to have an event as short as the 100 meter run – because by then the lions will surely have caught up with you.

The javelin throw could also be made more interesting. How about little animals, children and senior citizens running around in the field, and if you hit one you get extra points. Also, if you hit a kid or an animal in just the right spot, it will probably run in the other directions before it falls down dead, carrying your javelin that much further. Score! Avoid hitting the senior citizens, though, they are slow and will most likely just fall onto their back.

The steeplechase really needs a few alligators in the water jump, and the long jump could definitely benefit from a pit of hot coals instead of boring sand. Or why not a great empty abyss that you will fall into if you can’t jump far enough.

The pole vault is pretty manly as it is – I sure wouldn’t do it – but I know we could make it a little more interesting if we tried. Tall sharp spikes instead of a mattress perhaps? Maybe the spikes could come up at regular intervals and if you didn’t time your jump to perfection you would get impaled. And how about a little fire on the high jump bar?

Tell me you wouldn’t want to see that?

Like this, but more painful.

Please Ignore The Doomsday Music In The Background

2010-08-29T19:17:00.000+03:00

Fall is officially here. I can feel it in my bones. The temperatures have dropped from around 75 degrees to between 50 and 60 in just a week. Therefore, on Saturday night we celebrated the end of summer. We do this every year with a big party, trying desperately to tell ourselves that the 10 months of winter we have ahead of us will be the best time of our life, that we don’t really miss the toes we lose every winter and that the earth looks so much better when you can’t see it for all the snow. Yes, we celebrate the end of summer with fireworks and music, dancing and drinking, and we ignore the heavy sense of doom and despair that builds when hundreds of people gather to say goodbye to those few precious days of warmth.

Luckily, the music this year was nothing short of spectacular. I give you Zelma's band:

John Ryan's Polka

John Ryan’s Polka

It was an outdoors concert, and Zelma is the girl with the fiddle. The one in the middle. (The one on the right, or left, depending on your point of view, is Zeidi whom I’ve mentioned before, but ages ago.) M and I met up with the band before the concert at a local pub where they were drinking whiskey from a jar to calm the nerves. I think they only succeeded in getting a little drunk, but a little case of drunk can only make a concert better.

The Wild Rover had everyone clapping along:

Wild Rover

The Wild Rover

And Flogging Molly’s Drunken Lullabies had everyone singing along and dancing rather drunkenly:

Drunken Lullabies

That’s all for today, tomorrow I have no more work and will have to start studying so I have a feeling I’ll have lots of time for blogging. I’ll leave you with Zelma’s greeting to you.

“A blind weasel is better than a crossed-eyed fox.”

No one knows why they let Zelma out among people.

Youth = Ignorance

2010-08-25T21:02:00.001+03:00

Why is it that youth automatically equals ignorance? I don’t mean this in the sense that they’re synonyms – you definitely won’t find the word young when you look up ignorance in a thesaurus. I mean it in the way the older generation view young people. If asked for their opinion, most people would say that young people are ignorant, lazy and impassionate. They have no respect for their elders, they have no respect for authority and they definitely have no understanding of good music. They are not spiritual, and if they are they’re simply adhering to the State religion without critical thought. They have no mind of their own, quote everyone but themselves and have no true understanding of the concept of original and critical thought.

I’m 25 years old and I’m well on my way towards a master’s degree in public international law. I passionately advocate human rights and strongly believe that every human being deserves respect and honor and to be treated equally. I treat everyone I meet with respect, and expect them to do the same to me. And I definitely don’t think the age of great music is over yet. In fact, it will never be over.

As a young person, I’ve lived my entire life hearing about how things were better “back then,” and especially so in the 60’s with the great social revolution. The youth of the 60's didn't start the revolution, it had been a long time coming, but it is argued that they were more aware, more involved, more everything than today's youth. Today’s youth knows nothing and behaves horribly. Truth be told, I feel that the prejudice many members of the older generation harbors towards young people is not only painfully obvious, but often also lacking any solid ground at all. In my life the occasions when someone older than myself has behaved disrespectfully or condescending towards me far outnumber the occasions when I’ve behaved badly towards someone older than myself. I realize of course, that I’m generalizing – the very thing I’m telling you not to do – and not all people think this way, but even the most open-minded people can sometimes find themselves regarding the young generation as a mindless whole.

Frank wrote a terrific post recently that I urge you to read. His post wasn’t as much about the young generation being ignorant, as it was about the universal search for enlightenment that took place in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, only to slowly give way to more mundane goals. It was extremely well written and he put forth some great points. But while he didn’t write about the apparent inadequacy of young people today, it was brought up in the comment field. This is what inspired this post today, the way in which a young person will automatically be put in the category “young and ignorant, knows nothing of the real world.”

Sure, there are always a few rotten eggs among the youth, but there were just as many rotten eggs in the 60’s and 70’s. Yes, I’m talking about you, dear reader. I’m sure that many things that you did back then would easily land you in jail today. I doubt 20-year olds 40 years ago had a greater understanding of the world. They might have had easier access to drugs, but they weren’t any less lazy or ignorant than we are today. The only thing that has changed in 40 years is technology. While the youth of the 60’s were out in the streets, fighting to be heard, the youth of today use the venues they have at their disposal, e.g. the internet. And even in the 60’s and 70’s when young people rallied for peace, love and understanding, most young people just followed the leaders. They listened to anyone with decent rhetorical skills and took to the ideas presented to them – just like they do today. They didn’t have grand and original ideas worthy of anyone’s attention; they simply joined the crowd – which is exactly what today’s youth is accused of doing.

What made the social revolution of the 60’s so special? How was it different from the thousands of young people fighting for peace and understanding and a common goal in today’s world? It’s said that young people today don’t have the same deep understanding of life as the youth had in the 60’s. I say that this is simply not true. With the vast amount of information being forced upon us every day, we have no choice but to be aware of the world. I’ve grown up with video games and computers, but I’ve also ran around outside, played in the rain and built tree houses in the forest. I’ve read the great philosophers and studied religions and beliefs outside my own. The search for the great universal truth isn’t over, even though everyone knows the answer is 42. The search has just taken a new face, because today’s youth has different starting point than the generations before us.

And who made the world what it is today? It sure wasn’t the 20-year olds. I was never around in the 60’s, hell – my mom was hardly even around in the 60’s. I never heard the speeches, never lived the spiritual revolution, never searched for the great universal truth that would free us all while protesting in the streets and smoking marijuana. I never saw the world go from a spiritual awakening to falling asleep again, losing focus on the great goal of uniting all people in harmony. The very same people who preached love and peace eventually quit the drugs when it got too expensive, put their bra back on because who like their boobs hanging in the wind anyway, and little by little let go of the silly notion of peace and love. The young generation was born with their bras back on, they were taught that drugs are bad and that while peace and love are admirable goals, those damned foreigners just can’t agree to give it a try. The world was like this when I was born. This is the only world I’ve ever known. And I’m making the best of it, even though I’m a lazy, ignorant, no-good young person with lousy taste in music.

Of course I only know what I see. I’m describing what I see in Finland and Europe, I can’t write about what’s happening in other places, e.g. the USA. However, I would like to believe that what I’ve said today pertains to young people all over the world. So perhaps we should just consider that it might not be the young generation that is lazy and ignorant – perhaps it’s the older generation that once was proactive and involved that has now become passive and simply can’t see the young generation for what it truly is.

If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to congratulate you and ask you to please check out what my fellow bloggers have written for this week’s Theme Thursday.

Edit: I just realized that today it's been exactly one year since I started this blog. Time flies when you're having fun. And fruit flies like a banana. Just ask Nonamedufus.

Of course I missed you honey. Now give me that book!

2010-08-22T18:54:00.000+03:00

M will come home tonight from his trip abroad. Let’s hope a week of Brits has made him realize what a great sense of humor I have. During the week he’s been gone I have had lots and lots of spare time on my hands. I’ve had dinner with my parents, coffee with friends, been on a road trip to Helsinki, read a couple books, had a sauna party for all my blogging friends (but no one showed up), had my hair cut and dyed, realized I don’t look good with green hair, had another go at dying my hair, and then had a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon to celebrate that I was once again a brunette. Then, inspired by this, I tried one of those pore strips and almost ripped my entire face off. It was extremely rewarding. I’ve also jammed with a band in the middle of the night in the middle of the forest while it was dark as a donkey’s ass. The band played ukulele, mandolin, guitar and violin. I played the tin whistle out of tune. They sounded great; I should have just thrown the tin whistle into the fire. But it was a lot of fun, and they fed me a hamburger.

But while I’ve kept busy and had lots of fun this week, I’ve still missed M. I can’t wait for him to finally get home. And this has nothing to do with the fact that he bought me a new book while he was there. A book that isn’t supposed to be released until next Tuesday – don’t ask me how he did it. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the fudge I’m hoping he bought for me. And last time he went to England he also bought me a new perfume that I couldn’t find in Finland... Man, I’m starting to miss him a lot now. M, if you’re sitting at some airport in Denmark or Estonia or wherever you’re catching your connecting flight and reading this, please come home soon.

And whatever you do, don’t forget the fudge.

Oi maamme Suomi

2010-08-18T23:26:00.000+03:00

Finally, it’s official. I’ve been saying it for years – I’ve preached to the ignorant, walked around with big cardboard signs, trying to convey my message, I’ve done everything to get the point across, but no one believed me. Well you can’t ignore me now, fools!

The best place to live in the entire world is… you guessed it – Finland!!

According to an extensive Newsweek study, Finland is (and always will be) the best place to live. In fact, the Nordic countries all made it into the top 10. Even Canada did well and came in 7th place. Canada obviously can’t compete with almighty Finland, but that’s okay, few places can. What about the USA, you ask? They finished so far down the list that my computer broke when I tried to scroll down to them.

The study took into consideration a number of factors such as health, economic dynamism (the openness of a country's economy and the breadth of its corporate sector), education, political environment, and quality of life. Good thing they didn’t use weather as a factor or Finland would have been right at the bottom of the list with Nigeria.

You want to live here, right? Right?

You'd think the weather would have a negative effect on the quality of life, but I guess they didn't take that into consideration either. Education on the other hand, I totally get because I’ve spent about 18 years of my life in some school or other. 18 years seems like an awfully long time to be studying, don’t you think? Gosh, I sure hope I’m smart now. Well, at least I'm smart enough to live in Finland. Are you?

B.Y.O.B.

2010-08-16T18:13:00.000+03:00

On Saturday morning M left for an utterly insignificant harmless little island in the middle of the Atlantic. The people inhabiting this strange little island speak in a funny manner, adore their queen and have a strangely close relationship with umbrellas. They call this island “Great Britain”. Rather silly name, if you ask me, seeing as the island isn’t very “great” at all, but rather small actually. Then again the people of Great Britain are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. Luckily M has a digital watch so he’ll fit right in. He’ll be there until next Sunday, getting his ass handed to him by karate masters.

You all know what this means, don’t you?

That’s right, party at my place!