Silence Please

When was the last time you experienced real silence?

Silence is often thought of as the absence of speech. This type of silence can be found in weird places, like the forest, libraries, and Greenland. The absence of speech is often lovely, and after a day at work, where everyone wants you to do something, the absence of speech is what you want most of all. That, and a bottle of vodka.

But no matter how lovely the absence of speech can be, it is not to be confused with actual silence. When you go to the forest, a library, or, God forbid, Greenland, you might not hear nagging, but you will hear something else. In the forest there will be birds singing, deer walking around, cute little mice being eaten by foxes and just the simple sound of the wind in the trees. In a library you’ll hear people whispering, the sound of someone turning a page in a book, and probably the local winos hiding out in the textbook section. On Greenland, there will inevitably be the sound of snow falling, or snow melting, or snow just sitting there, and of course, the sound of Inuits running through the snow to escape the polar bears.

M is in Estonia, again, and I’m pretty used to the relative silence I get in our apartment when he’s gone. I don’t usually talk to myself, and if I turn off the music, the TV and stop typing, I have silence.

Or so I thought.

This morning, I woke up at 6 am by M’s UPS beeping like crazy. It kept beeping for a few minutes, then turned itself, and M’s server, off. And that’s when I noticed it. The silence. We were having a blackout and the back-up power supply to the server was the last thing to go. Even the compressor in the fridge was silent. There were no cars in the road, no electrical buzz that always seems to surround us. Nothing. Only silence.

And that’s when it hit me.

This is what it must be like inside M’s head.

Silence, unfortunately, will also be observed in Poland tomorrow, with two silent minutes, while millions mourn the loss of their leader. The tragic plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski this morning, also killed his wife, Poland's army chief, their central bank governor, and several members of parliament.

Naturally, this is a terrible loss for the Polish people, who lost the entire political elite in one horrific plane crash. With no President, and no army chief, Poland is in a state of shock. With every respect for the people who lost loved ones in today’s crash, I am just going to go ahead and pose the question everyone is asking themselves.

Does this mean Poland is up for auction? *

Silence Please

That Goose Is Gorgeous

Today I was going to write about US President Obama and Russian President Medvedev, signing the historic nuclear weapons treaty. I was also going to rename the blog “Everything You Ever Needed To Know About Russia”.

The treaty obligates the countries to reduce the number of warheads to only 1,550 each. That’s not even enough to annihilate the continent of Africa. I feel so much safer now. But that's all I'm going to write about Russia today. Because notice how I said I was going to write about the treaty? Yeah, that’s because this morning I woke up with a sore throat. I went to work, and came home 8 hours later with a sore throat, a sore body, a fever, a headache, and feeling like my clothes were made out of extra coarse sandpaper.

With that in mind, and head full of cotton, I went in search of something easier to write about. And it so happens that, a few days ago, the not-so-geeky-at-all Reforming Geek over at Confessions of a Reforming Geek, tagged everyone who were lucky enough to be reading her excellent blog with a little photo meme. The instructions said to pick the tenth photo in your first photo folder and post it.

My first photo folder happens to be named “Animals”.

Yes, I’m going to become that person who posts pictures of their pets on their blog. Don’t worry, though, I won’t make it a habit. I’ll be back to posting pictures of growing grass and collapsing bridges in no time. But while we’re waiting for my brain to grow back and the shivering to stop, let’s look at some pictures.

The tenth photo in my animal folder is this picture of Maja.




Maja is a wildcat that my sister and I saved from the evil claws of nature when she was just a little kitten. This is her in her natural element. You can’t really tell in the picture, but she’s about to attack me. Evil little thing.




The above picture, I took at my parents’ summer place during that sunny day in 2008. She likes water. She also likes to sit in the sink while the water is running. She’s weird like that. And while I was still living at home, Maja used to scare the crap out of me. She’d hide inside my closet and jump out when I opened the door. Freaking hilarious, Maja.

Now, you can’t have a girl cat without a boy cat to keep her company. Meet Alfons.




Alfons looks real ferocious, doesn’t he? Yeah, he’s not. He’s yawning. He’s the biggest coward ever. He can’t even catch his own birds, Maja does it for him. Lazy fucker.

Two lazy fuckers.

Obviously, you can’t have two lazy ass cats and no dog. This is Mimmi and I. Mimmi is the St. Bernard, I’m the girl. I was younger then.

Mimmi, Muschu and I. One month later.

Mimmi went to doggy heaven some years ago. She was very loved and missed dearly. Before she passed away, she had time to eat a house, give Muschu a concussion and scare the crap out of old ladies. Or was it scare the crap out of Muschu, get a concussion from a house and eat old ladies. I can’t remember.

The last picture of the bunch is another photograph I took at our summer place. Every year we’ll have a couple of these ducks swim up to our sauna and come say hello. Usually they’re friendly. As long as you don’t go too close, of course. Or look at them, in which case they will attack and poke your eyes out.

Three seconds later, the flamingo realized I was looking at it. Last time I ever used that camera.

*

That Goose Is Gorgeous

We Might Be Illiterate, But At Least We're Stupid

Today is a very special day. I’m going to tell you a little story about Finland, about Russia, and most of all, about sisu.

Many years ago, when man first realized that we don’t actually have to stay in the trees all the time and are free to roam the earth, a group of people made the long trek from the mountains in Russia, although I think it was called the Soviet Union back then, to Europe. Around today’s Estonia, the group encountered a road sign. One arrow pointed south, saying “Over here you’ll find fertile soil, warm summers and mild winters. You will be able to grow anything you want, and you won’t ever have to hack a hole into the ice to take a swim.” Another arrow pointed north. This one said “Here you will find land that is uninhabitable during winter and inhospitable in the summer. You will have to work hard to grow even a single potato. Only idiots go here.”

Now, you’d think that the group took their collective asses south and went on to live happily ever after. But the problem was, like any decent African country, a small part of the group didn’t know how to read. They were stubborn and foolish, and decided to go north. They swam across the Gulf of Finland, some turned around, others drowned. Only a handful of people made it to the other side. What these people found, was Finland.

They immediately invented the sauna. Some would say this is the only contribution Finns have made to human life as we know it. Others might say Nokia is pretty nice as well. However, Finns soon realized that sauna wasn’t enough, and they had to come up with an advanced form of self-deceit, sisu, often mistaken for a property of character.

Sisu does not translate into any other language. It’s not just a form of courage. It’s the ability to persevere in the face of adversity. To keep going even after 2012. It’s the ability to live next door to Russia and say “Yum! This Chernobyl Chicken is delicious!”

Sisu is the ability to keep going against all odds. (Maybe Phil Collins was actually Finnish?) Sisu is to keep going even after you failed. Sisu is the sole reason why Finland is called Finland and not Russia. During the Winter War the Soviet forces had three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks. The Finnish army resisted the Soviet invasion far longer then anyone expected. Long enough to retain their sovereignty. Which is awesome, because I don’t know a word of Russian and it would suck to live in country when you can’t even say “get me outta here!”

Sisu, in all its glory, is also completely made up. It’s the only way we can deal with living so close to Russia. I wake up every morning with a scream and a sense of doom. Then I tell myself I’m a Finn. I have sisu. I can make it.

I’m off to bed. Perhaps I’ll wake up with a smile on my face tomorrow.

I doubt it.

Oh well, it could be worse. We could live next to Sweden. *

We Might Be Illiterate, But At Least We're Stupid

15!

This is it, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. I am back! I had a lovely Easter with M and his family. I ate the equivalent of a small horse, and read the paper a lot.

Before I left for Kristinestad, I left you with a little Easter game to pass the time. “Find the differences” was a great success, if I say so myself. No one found all the differences, but honestly, if someone had, it would have been too easy anyway, right? There were 15 differences, and since I am too lazy to write them all down, I have used my mad Paint skills and circled the differences with red. Without further ado, I give you the Key:

I bet you didn't find the egg that changed color.

On a completely unrelated note, spring has arrived! The past week, we’ve had temps of between 40 and 50 Fahrenheit and the snow is quickly melting away. The ice has drifted out to sea and rain is coming down as rain instead of snow. I am really going to enjoy our two weeks of summer this year. It’s been a long, cold winter and we could really use the warmth. It’s important to not become greedy, though. We can’t expect too much summer around here. Honestly, when the permafrost starts to thaw, it’s time for winter again.

Finally, spring is here!

*

15!

Dammit, I Lost Count Again

Today I’m blogging live from Kristinestad. Wikipedia has this to say about this quaint, little town: “Kristinestad is known for its old town with low wooden houses and narrow alleys. It's also plagued by poor management, resulting in constant cutbacks to schools and other services. The locals are starting to have had enough.” Wikipedia is clearly the place to go for honesty.

The locals are starting to have had enough.

100 kilometers from the nearest city, life is simple here. A little too simple. M’s parents are sweet and friendly, and are slowly trying to feed me to death. I think it’s a sign of affection. I can hear them reading the paper downstairs. When they’re done, they’ll start over, because that’s what you do around here.

Since I have nothing interesting to tell you about my Easter so far, I’m going to tell you about India instead. (Smooth change of subject, wasn’t it? I know, I’m a literary genius, you don’t have to tell me.)

India, also known as Customer Service, is counting its inhabitants. They are going to identify, count, enumerate, photograph, fingerprint and eventually issue an identity card for 1.2 billion people. I’m not sure why they’re bothering with the photograph, though. They could just take a picture of any Indian, use it for everyone and no one would know the difference.

I know what you’re thinking – how could they possibly take the picture and fingerprint of 1.2 billion Indians and be done before the Apocalypse, right? The thing is, they’re not sending out one or two census-takers. This is India we’re talking about. 2.5 million census-takers have been sent out in what can only be described as insanity the world’s largest administrative exercise.

To put things into perspective; Finland, where I live, has a population of 5 million. The United States Army is made up of about 1 million men and women. The census-takers could not only take census; they could take the US Army and then come back for Finland.

What this means, is that not only are there a billion of them, they’re organized as well! Tell me that doesn’t scare you? I always thought Russia was the great threat, but holy hell, if India made up their mind about wanting something… It could get ugly. Imagine, if you will, World War III, but instead of nuclear bombs and burning cities, we’d have millions upon millions of Indians, running around, taking our picture and issuing us an identity number. Come to think of it, so did the Germans back in the 40’s. That one was branded onto the skin, though. Anyway, peace negotiations would just be ridiculous with that Indian accent.

I believe India will be the next superpower, covering three continents and the lower right quadrant of the moon. Just imagine what that would mean. Everything you own would say “Made in India.”

No, wait…

It’s already happened! *

Dammit, I Lost Count Again

Yes, We Eat A Ridiculous Amount Of Kinder Eggs

The theme of the week, and the month, is yellow.



I like yellow. Yellow is friendly and reminds me of sunshine and warmth. Two things we don’t actually have here in Finland. Along with a good hockey team and cheap clothes. Yellow also reminds me of Easter.

Lately, I’ve been on a quest. A quest to grow the prettiest, greenest Easter grass this side of Hell. We’ve followed my grass from when it was just a tray of dirt in diapers, through its rebellious teenage days when I just wanted to give up being a mommy and throw it away, to this proud day when my grass is finally all grown up.

We’re going to be spending Easter with M’s parents, and we’re leaving today. Which, I’m sad to say, means that my grass will most likely be dead when I come home. Easter grass doesn’t have a very high life expectancy.

Don’t cry, we knew this was going to happen.

Instead of being sad, we’re going to celebrate this moment with one last game. Nope, we’re not spotting the foreign object today. We’re playing… Find the difference! The game is easy. First we have my grass, with a few added toys and whatnot. Then, we have my grass, with the same toys and whatnot, but in this picture I’ve changed a few things up a bit. How many differences can you find? If a strand of grass has moved, this does not count as a difference. If a toy has moved, on the other hand, it counts as one difference. If you find it hard to play, I recommend you click on the pictures to enlarge them. Or get new glasses.

Sadly, I don’t have a fancy award to give out, so this is not going to be a contest, just something fun to do over Easter. I’ll post the answer on Sunday or Monday, whenever we get back from the in-laws.

That said, let’s play!

Find the differences!

Good luck! Now go to Theme Thursday to see what other people have written about yellow. *

Yes, We Eat A Ridiculous Amount Of Kinder Eggs