The Hunt For White October

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.

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The Hunt For White October

Post-It Art

My sister came to me today at work and told me my blog echoes and made me promise I’d post something tonight. (I think she might have overreacted, though – everyone knows my blog doesn’t echo, it’s like a duck.) Nevertheless, I’m sitting here, posting something tonight. Except it’s been so long since I posted anything that I’m starting to feel the pressure. With every day spent procrastinating, the expectations grow higher and higher. The way I’ve been going I should be posting the great American novel today. Or at the very least some minor poetry. Sadly, my brain is too tired for anything slightly resembling classy writing, so I’ll just focus on me, my work, Muschu and karate.

See, I work at a hospital. I write invoices, transcribe the nonsense the doctors dictate, pay bills, keep track of the book keeping, and other miscellaneous duties mostly performed by a secretary. My mother works at the same hospital. She's the head of the long-term ward and scares the crap out of people has earned the respect of the 30-something people she's the boss of. One of those 30-something people is my sister. She works as a nurse at the same ward and is not afraid of mom. Patients love her and she loves them. She's not a nurse for real, though. She's a recently graduated designer. She paints and draws and sews and builds tables and a whole bunch of other stuff. The other day she came up to my office just to say hi. I love it when she does this because I can take a break from not working to talk to her, but at the same time it's very dangerous to have her visit. The last time she visited my office she drew pictures of germs on post-it notes and stuck them all around the room.

The other day was a good post-it day for Muschu, and she started by drawing "silence of the lambs".

Then she decided Hannibal Lecter was a little too morbid for her tastes, and channeled some good old Survivor with...

..."eye of the tiger". You guessed it.

Next, I told her I wanted a picture of a rabbit. Sadly, I think she misheard me.

I don't know if that’s roadkill or dinner, but it's still kind of pretty. Don’t worry, though, she actually is a very good artist. And probably adopted. This is what M and I have hanging on the wall in our bedroom. Muschu painted the gorgeous prima ballerina, while the wonderful still life was painted by my good friend Jenn. The naked lady I won in a contest. I love her.

Now as if I don't get enough good vibes with Muschu visiting me at work all the time, Linda gave me a blogging award! Thank you Linda, you’re the sweetest.

It's a karate/mastering different things kind of award, which is very ironic, because I've never mastered a thing in my life, karate being at the very top of the list of things I haven’t mastered. M and Muschu, however, have both mastered the art of kicking ass. M has a brown belt in karate and Muschu has a something-something belt in taekwondo. What do I do, you ask? I play the piano (badly, I might add) in the background while they’re working up a sweat, saving me from the bad guys. Wanna hear?



If you listen carefully you can hear M swear in the background when he stubs his toe doing some kick-flippy-doo-dah. I was going to perform Bach’s Air for you, but then I chose Celine Dion because I know how much you all love her, plus, I have a bunch of Canadians reading my blog who will just love me for reminding them of what they let loose on the world.

Oh yeah, the award. I’m supposed to list six things that I have mastered in my life. I asked M if the whole thing with bleeding five days a month without dying might count towards things mastered, but he didn’t think so.

1. I’ve mastered the original Super Mario Bros for my good old 8-bit Nintendo.
2. I’ve mastered the alphabet. (If I’m allowed to sing it.)
3. I’ve mastered the art of appearing deeply fascinated when I couldn’t give a crap.
4. I’ve mastered the art of avoiding all cameras at any event.
5. I’ve mastered the stick shift.
6. I’ve mastered the very fine art of procrastination. (But for the life of me, I cannot spell it correctly on the first try.)

So there you have it. A new post, some art, some music, some awards. Life is good. *

Post-It Art

Don't Be Silly, Everyone Knows Moose Are Vegetarian

I’ve been away. I know you missed me, and I’m very sorry. I’ve been away because I realized that if I just tried really hard I might actually get something done in school. This was a bit of an epiphany for me. I’ve always thought that studying was mostly about drinking, partying, staying up late and sleeping all day. It turns out I was wrong and studying is not so much about marinating your liver in fine wine, but mostly about the actual studying. As you can probably imagine, I felt a little cheated. Anyway, I made one last big effort for the spring and finished all my courses. As of yesterday the only thing I have left to do for my master’s degree is the actual master’s thesis. With a little luck, I’ll be graduating before I turn 30.

With all my classes over, I’ll have a lot more time for silly stuff like getting addicted to Lost, popping popcorn and most importantly, blogging. However, seeing as I’m a little rusty in the blogging department at the moment, I’ll start out slowly by telling you about how awesome I am. I received another award! I was awarded the Bald Faced Liar Creative Writer Award by both Linda and the very funny and gullible 00dozo. (She honestly thinks I’m an evil penguin.) I have to say, I really like this award. Sure, it comes with a bunch of responsibilities, but I can ignore those and focus on the lying creative writing, because boy do I like lying creative writing.

Actual picture of me.

When Linda received this award she said, "In my book, there are two good reasons for lying; one reason is kindness, and the other reason is self preservation. Period."

I wish I were that smart... In my book, lying is not only useful when you want to be kind or when you’re practicing self-preservation, but it’s also very useful when you’re bored and want to have some fun. There’s nothing like seeing those kids running around looking for candy that I didn’t hide.

For this award the recipient has to post either six outrageous lies about themselves and one outrageous truth, or vice-versa. I won’t tell you if I chose to tell six truths and one lie or six lies and one truth, but I have a feeling you’ll soon figure it out for yourselves. Not that I’m not a good liar, I am. I just wanted to make it easy for you. Lying is actually what I do best. My mom is very proud of me. See what I did there? I lied and you didn’t even notice. Like she would be proud of me, ha!

Okay, here goes. The person who can identify the truth/truths wins absolutely nothing. Or maybe a fancy award.

1. In the 80’s my parents were millionaires, having invested in Nokia many years ago, but lost most of their fortune in a bad game of poker. Daddy played and lost and mom had to spend the night with an Arabian Sheik. 9 months later I was born.

2. Then mom and dad gave me away and I was actually raised by a pack of wolves. They taught me excellent surviving skills. Ask me anything about how to kill a hare.

3. I’m pregnant! Hehehe.

4. Chuck Norris comes to me for hair care advice, that’s how awesome my hair is. I’ll tell you what I always tell him; lather, rinse, repeat and occasionally stick a fork into the toaster for extra volume.

5. Due to my time in the wolf pack, I have a very close relationship with all animals. Sometimes I even feed moose and deer straight from the barbecue. They love my teriyaki-marinated steak.

6. I’m extremely intelligent. I once participated in a game show on TV and got to answer very interesting questions about flounders and Norse Gods. I won the entire thing, winning a book with 1001 jokes and a gift card to an electric shop. With the gift card I bought a lamp in the shape of a desk.

7. Ever since M and I started dating, I have told him I need Sundays to myself for my goat sacrifice and naked moonlight dancing. He doesn’t know this, but I just tell him that because I am horribly embarrassed about telling him the truth. Actually, I spend Sundays knitting and crocheting with my Grandma. I’m so embarrassed.

Regarding passing this on and such, if you’re reading this and feel like lying is something you might be interested in doing, I challenge you to accept the award courtesy of me and go lie your heart out. If you feel like you’re not into lying, your mom probably did a better job with you than mine did with me. *

Don't Be Silly, Everyone Knows Moose Are Vegetarian

So Much Bling It's Hurting My Eyes

Today is a wonderful day. I don’t often say this, because I’m a bit of a dark person so if it is a great day, I usually try to ignore it, but today really is an amazing day. There are just so many things to celebrate that I feel compelled to number them in a geeky, yet efficient, way:

1. The weather is amazing and has been that way all weekend. It hasn’t been this warm since August last year and if this keeps up, I’ll soon have to stop being such a dark person.
2. I passed my exam!
3. After having spent the past week in isolation, working on my essay 24/7, I have finally turned it in to my professor. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I feel like laughing evilly every time I think of the poor professor who now has to read all that crap.
4. We bought a new TV! I can see the puck when Finland loses against Denmark in hockey!
5. Awards!
6. Threesomes!

Not one, not two, but three people have given me this wonderful Sunshine Award. The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspires others in the blog world. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like one of those moldy bananas I lied to M about throwing out and hid under the paper so I wouldn’t have to touch them.



The beautiful, talented and certifiably cheesy Nicky from We Work For Cheese gave me the award in a grand gesture of Canadian goodness. Her reason? "Ziva, my love, because she wants to change the world one time zone at a time." I actually cried a little, it was so beautiful. Nicky conveniently left out the part where I want to change the world to suit my own blogging better. Thanks Nicky!

The intelligent, grumpy and very talented Frank, who doesn’t give a damn, crawled out of his cave and gave a damn long enough to give me this award, saying "because Ziva inspires me to imagine a beautiful Mossad agent with great hair getting the hots for another woman." I feel so proud. You’re the best, Frank.

Lastly, I received this glorious award from the equally glorious, funny, kind and beautiful Linda of The Good, The Bad, The Worse. Linda gave the award to me, "who I would give a butt transplant to, if she needed one! (But we all know that gorgeous green Fin has a perfect ass already.)" I think I’m all set with the ass thing, but I wouldn’t mind some new boobs... Books! I meant new books!

Oddly enough, the Sunshine Award doesn’t come with only sunshine. It also comes with three kids, a goldfish and a ton of responsibility. When you’ve received this award, you’re suddenly obligated to:

1. Post the award on your blog. I can do this. As long as I don’t have to change anyone’s diaper or remember to feed the fish.
2. Pass the award on to twelve bloggers. Twelve?? I can’t even count that far.
3. Link to the nominees in your post. Well, that I can do. As long as M does it for me.
4. Let the other bloggers know they’ve received this award, along with the three kids and dirty diapers, by commenting on their blogs. I might be able to do this, as long as the fish doesn’t need flushing while I’m at it, in which case I will probably forget about the commenting.
5. Link to the person you received this award from. Check, check, check.

Now comes the task of passing this award on to other bloggers who are award-worthy. Firstly, I’d like to give the Sunshine Award back to the three lovely people who gave it to me, Nicky, Linda and Frank, because these people truly inspire me. And I’m pretty sure they don’t actually have to do it all over again just because they get the award a second time, so don’t worry, guys. But if someone finds the manual and it says that you do actually have to do it all over again, please don’t give it back to me. Here’s my list:

1. Nicky, because I have a crush on her, and she has an amazing son and fabulous shoes. But she’s going to have to share the award with Mike and Jepeto, her very funny co-bloggers who definitely deserve awards as well. On second thought, I’m just going to send three awards your way, so you each can have one and won’t have to battle it out over the sunshine.
2. Frank, because he’s frank. (I crack myself up.)
3. Linda, because her pets are adorable and so is she.
4. MikeWJ of Too Many Mornings, because he truly inspires me. Also, his comments are often the single reason people read this blog. He's swamped with school work and work work right now, so he could really use some sunshine.
5. ReformingGeek of Confession of a Reforming Geek, because Evil Twin is hilarious and Cat has the eyes of Satan. What’s not to love?
6. Mrs. Blogalot, because she is thoughtful, interesting, and very funny.
7. Lauren of Think Spin, because we are all mutts, and as far as mutts go, she is fantastic.
8. 00dozo of When I Reach, who I haven’t been reading very long at all, but who actually believes me when I say evil penguins could eat her pavement.
9. Candice of Life According to Candice, because she cracks me up.
10. Jen of Redhead Ranting, because she has amazing hair, just like me, and she is a very funny and an incredibly talented woman.

Now, Linda took the award thing a bit further, and not only gave me the wonderful Sunshine Award, she gave me an entire threesome! I haven’t had one of those since college!

The Honest Scrap Award was the second award in the threesome and didn’t come with any other directions than to post 10 honest things about myself that no one knew about me.



1. I’m pregnant.
2. I’m kidding! I’m not pregnant. I just wanted to start out with a bang. But I could be. Now you’ll never know. Unless I pop out a mini-Ziva or mini-M in a few months, I guess. Then you’ll know. Or not.
3. I’m allergic to chocolate, but eat it all the time. I’m brave like that.
4. As a kid I jumped down on a wooden board, and conveniently forgot to check for rusty nails sticking up, effectively nailing my foot onto the board.
5. Thanks to my years flipping burgers at Hesburger, my fingers are blackened pieces of charcoal not very sensitive to heat. M is always telling me to stop it when I use my fingers to flip things over in the pan.
6. Thanks to my years flipping burgers at Hesburger, I’m also very nit-picky about cleanliness in the kitchen, and would never use my bare hands to touch stuff in the pan.
7. I have a picture of a naked woman on the wall above my bed.
8. I named my car Steve, my external hard drive Steve, my next external hard drive Steve II and my big stuffed white tiger Tiger. I have a great imagination.
9. Ziva is not my real name. *cue the X-files theme song*
10. I’ve never done drugs. Which is really good, because it might mess with my drinking habit.

The last award Linda gave me was the Versatile Blogger Award.



The award says ‘poems’, ‘stories’, ‘essays’ and ‘messages’. I’ve never posted a poem on this blog, and I doubt if I ever will. I might have posted a message to someone, though. I can’t remember, did I ask M to buy some milk that one time? Also, I might have posted a story if the tale about my pink bike counts. I guess I could post one of my essays I’ve written for school… Which one would you like to read, “Challenges to the Right to a Fair Trial in the Fight Against Terrorism” or “Unaccompanied Refugee Minors’ Right to Family Reunification According to the Principle about the Best Interest of the Child”? (That last one was written in Swedish, but I would totally translate all 26 pages of it for you. Well, not me, but Google Translate.) Anyway, it is a lovely award, and I am truly honored that Linda would think of me.

And to celebrate all these awards, I did what Nicky would have done. I made cheesecake. With a mudcake base. Then I did what her co-blogger Mike would have done. I ate it. A piece if heaven, it was.

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So Much Bling It's Hurting My Eyes

I Have Cookies - Honestly, I Do

I haven’t forgotten about you, I’ve just been busy. At the moment I’m getting up at 5:15 every morning, working 8 hours at the hospital, then spending my evenings working on a 20-page essay and studying for a ridiculously big exam while feeling guilty about not working on my master’s thesis. I’ve neglected both my own blog and other people’s blogs, and I’m ashamed. I’m also turning into a zombie. I can feel the necrosis setting in already.

I wasn’t going to post today, mostly because I think I might even be asleep right now. Pardon me if I snore. But there has been some talk about my cookies. Or rather, the lack of them. It seems I’ve made false promises about cookies. The way I see it, I haven’t as much offered cookies and simply stated a fact. I have cookies. And to prove that, here is what I had for dinner today:

Freshly baked, warm chocolate chip cookies with a glass of cold milk. Yum.

I lied. This wasn’t dinner. M made a lovely green salad with a nice piece of smoked salmon for dinner. But this was dessert, and everyone knows dessert is the most important meal of the day. And you know what the best thing is? There is enough for everyone!

I have cookies.

The cookies were especially important today, because I want to make everyone feel at home here in my inferno. Don’t mind the heat, the air conditioning is broken. The reason that I need cookies today is that the fabulous Reffie of Confessions of a Reforming Geek has awarded me with some gorgeous blog bling. She awarded me this “Feels Like Home” award, which is just about the sweetest thing anyone has every done to me.

If I knew you were coming over I would have hidden the dead mice better.

This is a pass-it-on kind of award, and I have chosen to pass it on to a couple bloggers who always make me feel at home:

Mike over at Too Many Mornings – A fantastic writer, wonderful commenter and great person in general. You will definitely feel at home over there. And he almost never bites.

Nicky, and the two penises she shares writing space with, over at We Work For Cheese - I’m fairly new to this blog, but I have a crush on Nicky, and the writing is awesome. If you like cheese, this is the place to be. Or if you don’t like cheese, just pretend. That’s what I do.

Now that I’ve proven that I’m still alive and that I have cookies, I’m off to bed. But be prepared, I’ll be doing my blog rounds tomorrow. *

I Have Cookies - Honestly, I Do