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The Dictatorship of Lahtistania
Beware of Flying Similes
In English: Hello. This is a diary, or something like that. I use either English or Finnish depending on how I feel. I'm a pessimistic, sarcastic and cynical hermit with trust issues. There are no like-buttons or comment whoring, cookies, sponsors or subscribers. I won't try to sell you anything either. English isn't my first language so I'll most certainly make mistakes: pointing out an error in my text doesn't make me flip my lid. My contact info can be found on the main page. You can placate me by sending me more funny homophones, (barely) (in)comprehensible sentences and other silly mistakes, I collect those. I also collect my own mistakes.
About times and dates: I'm a Finn, so my time zone is GMT+3, we use the 24-hour system, so 1 PM is 13:00, and date is DD.MM.YYYY (02.01.2022 = January 2nd, 2022). Adjust your mindset accordingly, you foreign heathens.
Disclaimer: tämä on pessimistis-aggressiivisen naisihmisen verkkopäiväkirja, useimmiten nimeltään Lahtistanian diktaattorin kootut sadatukset. Sen lukemista ei voida
suositella edes pääosalle aikuisista ihmisistä. Sisältö ei sovellu lapsille. Sarkasmivaroitus! Täältä ei löydy evästeitä, mainoksia, tykkäyspyyntöjä tai kommenttihuorausta.
21.11.2024 (09:41) No anecdotes here
Antecdote is an anti-anecdote: you expect to hear humorous story about a person, and it turns out it's just droning on about something completely different and boring you out of your everloving mind.
Anticdote is an anecdote so old it's practically antique.
This has too many interesting explanations, but let's presume they meant to use a noun, and the slang for pants (because why not?). In which case there's parts of anatomy scattered all over the floor.
Yes, that dress is just too slutty.
Say hello and goodbye to your teeth.
Most statues are of serious men and sometimes women looking thoughtful (or constipated, as the case may be), but there's a new trend of sculptures presenting famous people being shocked. Sometimes with electricity.
Levädieetti, eli sushi siirtyy osaksi aamupalaa.
Nämä olivat omia virheitäni. Sikaraja on baarissa sellainen osio johon ei päästetä humalaisia seksiseuraa hakevia miehiä. Jatkosika on sellainen humalainen seksiseuraa hakeva mies jonka joku vähintään yhtä humalainen nainen erehtyy raahaamaan kotiinsa baari-illan jälkeen.
We were discussing meds with a couple of friends (because we're middle-aged and comparing medications is good practice for the future) and I mentioned I was taking small doses of Triptyl for Meralgia Paresthetica. In larger doses it's an antidepressant, but I use one, sometimes two pills a week, approximately. It helps to curb the worst pain but leaves me drowsy and thirsty as all hell, so I try to use as little as possible and sometimes can go up to two weeks without any. One friend asked why I didn't sound any less depressed, and that surprised me: I'm not depressed, I'm a misanthrope. I can quite cheerfully wish that all co-humans would go and drown in pig slurry. Oh, well, not cheerfully, because ebullient people are extremely unnerving (they must be up to something!), but I'm sure you get the point. Or not, which is just as likely: stupidity doesn't surprise me in the least. I take great personal satisfaction in wishing that certain people would one day be reincarnated as a sporran of an incontinent geriatric.
I found a lovely cocoa hair mask and chocolate conditioner. My head now smells like I'd soaked it in a barrel of cocoa, and I'm dangerously obsessed with chocolate and in danger of gnawing at my own hair.
Madam Sonja (my Galah, to those who don't know her yet) has, for some unknown reason, decided it's her duty and obsession to destroy the right side of every shirt and dress collar I wear. I can only wear denim, and preferably strong denim, or she'll bite through and tear whatever fabric she gets her beak on. And it's always the right side of the collar, so any dress or shirt I wear ends up with a collar frayed and worn front the right side. Wish I knew why! She doesn't care to destroy the left side or lapels or anything else: she climbs and wriggles her way to my arms and attacks that damn right-side collar every time.
I changed into a thin cotton shirt with no collar at all. She was absolutely furious.
Mikko poked fun at my “Three-C-program”, so I went from “chili, cheese, chocolate” to “chestnuts, cloudberries, cocoa”. The cloudberries were actually cloudberry jam and I prefer it with Finnish squeaky cheese (which we call “leipäjuusto”, or “bread-cheese”) and the cocoa… Well, I made cocoa, then melted chocolate in it (Fazer's Blue, obviously), topped with whipped cream, then sprinkled with grated chocolate, then thought for a second, added more whipped cream and more chocolate, and enjoyed it with bits of chocolate. It still counts as cocoa, doesn't it? Also baked a spice cake, first for this year. I enjoy the scent of spice cake more than the actual spice cake, but Mikko certainly doesn't mind.
The worst mourning period for mum is over. We're expecting some backlash for not arranging a funeral, but that wasn't our way, and it certainly wasn't her way either. Like with father, it'd feel perverse to celebrate her death, and social norms would force us to invite people who didn't care for her enough to visit in her last years when her health was ailing, people who borrowed her money and never returned it, or relatives who only want to take advantage for her death. To hell with it, I say! Let it be silent, as has become our family tradition.
15.11.2024 (16:17)
My mother passed away early this morning. I got the first warning call at 6:30, and Mikko was just waking up and getting ready when I got the final news. Apparently they'd just given her a shot of painkillers, so she went in her sleep, calmly. I'm pretty broken, though we'd been expecting the news for over a week, so we'd cried most of our tears in advance. Now I'm just numb and empty. There were three people in this world I loved, and now there’s just two left: I feel unmoored and lost at sea.
So, PSA: If you have my phone number, do not call me. Don't email me, don't PM me, and most especially don't come and visit because right now I need to regroup and get used to my world being that much smaller. Granted, she'd changed so much since my childhood, and she could be condescending, manipulative, bossy and outrageous especially when drunk, but she was still my mother and I remember her how she was decades ago.
There were four people at my father's funeral, and three will attend mum's. Private, as we've always been. She always wanted that, and to rest next to my father in a place hidden from the public. She always said she wanted to push out stinging nettles and willow bushes, And I'll make sure she gets that.
As for me, I'll work on myself with what I call "Three-C program": chili, cheese, chocolate.
Good night, mum.
12.11.2024 (16:08)
I don't have enough energy to post anything even remotely funny right now. We've visited mum every day since she was hospitalised. She's a sleeping skeleton now, lying helpless in a hospital bed, and we're waiting for the final message every hour of every day; both waiting and dreading it. Father's death was surprising and sudden, and easy compared to the torture of waiting, grieving and more waiting. A lot of it because she used to hate the thought of being like that, helpless and at the mercy of nurses and doctors. We've spent about 10 hours in a car in the last five days, and considering we're notorious homebodies that's pretty bad.
I’ll give a translation to all who don’t speak Finnish though: people constantly ask what’s my favourite grammatical mistake of all. I have several: the best English one has been the “ass well”, and my favourite Finnish mistake is the advertisement for the "fish soup of Lake Tuusula", this one:
Note: Tuusula is a municipality in Finland.
Translation: "In the parking lot of the Anti-aircraft Museum the Tuusula-society will set up their soup kitchen and will be sharing "Fish soup of Lake Tuusula", which contains fish from the lake of the region, Tuusula sports services' exercise wagon, Tuusula municipality's road grader, tractor and truck, companion dogs and presentation tents of Tuusula Society and Tuusula parish."
Tai ehkä jotain suomalaisille, oma ajatusvirheeni pari päivää sitten:
Tämä todistanee ainakin sen, ettei paha olo estä tekemästä virheitä. Eikä huomaamasta niitä.
10.11.2024 (10:04)
Nothing from my vast collection of grammatical mistakes today. Perhaps not in a while: My mother's dying. She's been transferred to palliative care. She suffered another cerebral stroke sometime on Thursday. Nobody caught it on time, because she tended to take naps during daytime and it sounded like she was just snoring, while she was paralyzed. My brother had realised it late at night and called an ambulance, but there's nothing to be done. She hasn't been conscious, she was in some pain reacting to it, and they're giving her strong painkillers (some kind of morphine, apparently). They're expecting she'll pass away within the next few days.
Although sometimes we're not sure how much of her is already gone. They said she’s just reacting to pain and that her brain is irreparably damaged, but Toni said mum squeezed his hand and when he opened her eye, she looked straight at him and calmed down, and when I asked her if she was in pain and asked her to tap her finger twice if she was in pain and needed more meds, she did so. A bit later when I spoke into her right ear she opened that eye on her own and blinked. Almost two decades ago she made a living will: with it she forbade any artificial means of lengthening her life, and that’s not something anyone can contest; she expressly said she hated the very thought of living as a vegetable in a machine or suffering for a long time.
When she does pass away, I'll probably be very quiet for a while. It's not just because I have to organise a lot of things, but not talking with anyone is my way of coping with the very worst pain.
Grand-Aunt Helvi said the worst is still to come, and I dread it. We’re all very, very tired. Soon there’ll be just me, Toni and Mikko left. I don’t regret never having children - I’d have scarred them for life anyway - but I’m afraid for Toni: he and mum were so close.
The fact that the old clock by my bed stopped functioning on Wednesday and will need a professional repair isn't helping with sleep loss, either. When you've spent decades sleeping with a loud clock by your bedside, it's hard to get used to living without one. At first I kept waking up every 30 minutes, but it’s getting easier. Still, my sleep deprivation is now growing at an alarming rate. I don’t know how sleep deprivations age, but I’m guessing that at this rate my sleep deprivation will be a teenager by the end of next week and a pensioner by December if this goes on.
06.11.2024 (15:44)
Zombie ballet: the dancers flounce across the stage leaving behind some body parts.
There's something disconcerting about football fans, but I take some comfort in imagining a pub full of drunk Brits singing "we are the champignons".
Washing the floors always makes me cry my eyes out.
Sounds... sharp?
Fuck friends, but if colleges die, that spells trouble.
Sytytin kersan tuleen ja siitä se palo levisi nurmikkoon.
Apparently there's a celebration for "the greyest day of the year", dedicated to the most grey, dreary day of the year (although in my opinion all Finnish days from September till June are grey and dreary and most between June and August as well). It already sounds Finnish enough, but it was started by a brand that sells mild alcoholic drinks, and the local pubs use it to market strong booze and drinks. I fear it tells more about Finland and being Finnish than anyone would ever need to know.
My hatred for sports provoked one friend into sending me links to freestyle wrestling and cage fighting. Sorry folks, but I see no attraction in watching Buttocks-Bob and Cheeks-Chuck sweating and pussyfooting in spandex, especially since both undoubtedly have the intelligence best equaled by a retarded leghorn chicken and who’d probably face overwhelming mental challenges in acquiring a post as a village idiot.
(For those social people who want to interact: you’ll have to use my email. If you don’t have my Whatsapp, there’s a good chance you don’t know me well enough to get it [I’d say ‘sorry’, but I’m really not]. I refuse to use any other social media, I’m simply not social enough for social media. Although I like writing real letters - you know, with pen and paper.)
Want to do something productive? Go and listen to 'Aratta' and 'Exodus' from Two Steps From Hell. Both. I know that the beginning of 'Exodus' sounds a bit like someone trying to start a bike in vain, it gets better - I promise. Go, shoo, and quit loitering here. Haven't you people got anything more sensible to do?
04.11.2024 (16:37) Parakeets make shitty floors
This depends. Did he overcharge his credit card or try to carry the drinks on a postcard?
That's rough.
If the cow doesn't go where you want it to go, try towing it.
Can a fetus be feral?
Don't go near nervous people. When they get a bout of nerves, they'll run straight through you.
Ei sinänsä kirjoitusvirhettä, mutta tästä voitaisiin ehkä vetää tiettyjä johtopäätöksiä?
And while we're at it, let's allow Bing to translate:
Parakeet floors don't just squeak: they also bite your feet and get dirty all by themselves.
I enjoy listening to music recommendations from friends. While I mostly enjoy classical, opera and soundtrack music, I can usually find something enjoyable in almost every genre. But, of course, there are some people who seem to listen to something that sounds like a below-mediocre mongolian punk band joined by a primitive trepanner and three cats in spring fever while some bloke with laryngitis gets his toes bashed in with a hammer, and you’re not sure which one is most out of tune.
03.11.2024 (21:16) Pull Bach!
I bet the cough would've felt nice compared to the piece of furniture you have up there. Hmmm, don't people usually tell you to 'shove it up your arse'?
An aeroplane is about to crash, the co-pilot keeps screaming "Pull Bach!" and the pilot quickly composes a tune.
The writer was talking about male dangly bits. Apparently they're 'swamped'.
I've heard of Australian humidity, but since when have Aussies been humble?
"Nice hair, but her tits dangle close to her knees and her legs reached her armpits"
Chauvinist bra.
Kiitos tarjouksesta, mutta taidan jättää väliin.
There was a news article about the dangers of burning candles indoors, especially the scented ones. I didn’t check, but I’m pretty sure the comment section has at least two ladies whinging that, “I’ve burned candles for at least 30 years and they’ve never hurt me!”. Not to mention that someone will conclude that the article is yet another demonstration of woke, environmentalism and conspiracy and that their (fragile) masculinity immediately demands scented candles by the dozens because it’s practically a tradition since the stone age to burn scented candles.
Around 20 cm of snow, by my guess-timate. Some of it melted and then froze over again, and it’s been snowing all day and evening, so there’s a lovely mixture of fresh light snow, heavy slushy snow and ice. The snowplough appears to be malfunctioning again, and sometimes it’s just faster to use manual tools. I could tell you what I honestly think about snow and Finnish winters, but I think there's a limit to just how many foul words I should insert here in one day. Check the entire Finnish vocabulary for the foulest curses and then you might have some idea.
01.11.2024 (15:54) A bit loud here today, isn't it?
The people who use the table keep their mouths shut, but the table itself is the loudest table in the house.
Teeth everywhere littering the floors.
The sofa just blew a whistle. It has a name too.
You know how they say a garishly-coloured dress is loud? Well...
He would've preferred being "eternal", but you take what you get?
Ruokavalio uusiksi.
Young people tend to see things in black and white. There's good people and bad people. Takes us time to understand that there's just one type: arseholes.
I was typing down names and titles of DVD's into our database. Got very confused by the title of "The Case of the Discontinued Soldier" and was left wondering just how the soldier was discontinued. Was he laid off? Discharged dishonourably? Did they make him and his platoon in a factory but the production was halted?
Of course only then I realised it was, in fact, "The Case of the Discontented Soldier".
Mikko has allowed his beard and moustache to grow wild. I'm unsure if I should tell him he looks a) like he's impersonating a walrus, b) as if he'd taken a good bite out of a bilberry bush, or c) both. I’m being serious here! I wanted a kiss and had to request him to pucker out his lower lip because I couldn’t locate his upper lip from under that pile of hay moustache.
Also: snow. Argh.
30.10.2024 (13:26) Reveal thyself, person! and other forms of exhibitionism
Flashing as a group hobby.
The case of very confusing identities. Gender and otherwise.
I thought that masocists'd usually choose some other place for whipping, but hey, what do I know?
Very worn eyes.
Using self-pity instead of wooing.
I believe the author meant to speak about a bridge, but now we have a wooden wife-to-be.
Suomen kannibalistinen presidentti.
Sometimes it feels like these writers don't bother to think before they publish. Another cheesy wannabe-writer, and this wonderful pearl of wisdom: "--their lips meeting for the first time. They were never to be parted again." What the heck did those characters do, use superglue on their lips? That eternal smooch might sound romantic, but with your luck the other person gets halitosis and within a year you'll both have rotting teeth. And that's ignoring some serious issues with starvation and dehydration long before that!
And why does every other fiction author choose to use either "rhythm as old as time" or "dance as old as time" as simile for sex. Time isn't as old as that bloody annoying simile!
Then again, perhaps my imagination is defective. I was reading a regency novella, the author wanted to emulate Austen as much as possible. So the focal character talks about their children, but when the character says "-- they are still too young for their first balls", I completely lost it. By the time I'd stopped spraying tea all over my desktop, there was a sentence "I have two others but they are too young for balls", and off I go again. And just when I thought I was done, there's the sentence "I hate balls, they are so boring--" which just took the cake. And if you didn't understand why I was laughing, it's probably because your imagination is healthier than mine and you don't start to wonder if they're talking about a dancing event or male dangly bits.
To answer a question about the Helsinki Book Fair of 2024: I have several favourite finds. The best one was the
Ankh-Morport Passport for our Terry Pratchett-collection, with a ton of hilarious details. Another one was another volume of Wodehouse's Jeeves-stories, and the third is a fantastic volume of historical maps of Helsinki. Weighs a ton and took up space like mad, but it's gorgeous and so interesting.
Another conversation with a friend about concentration. She tried giving me good advice, but teaching me to concentrate on one thing at a time is like teaching a pig to sing opera: the closest result you get is if you kick it and even then it's just a short and loud squeal and the pig either runs off or attempts to disembowel you. When working with me, usually at some point most people realise it’s pointless and just give me a book, a pen, a paper and a laptop and then approach the subject, and just hope I happen to find their things remotely interesting, because then I get lots of ideas. Then you can go on to hope it's a good and successful idea instead of an idea of how to cause hilarious mayhem and/or a major shitastrophy.
28.10.2024 (13:56) The sound of potatoes
The aftermath of a mathematics lesson.
Music made with potatoes. Because obviously people haven't invented instruments stupid enough.
Egyptologists got quite a surprise when they found out the favourite band of the early middle kingdom.
Neigh. (ahem)
Hungary, the country you first think of when someone mentions starvation.
Don't get fat from this feast.
Kuinkahan moni mummo soitti heti sosiaaliviranomaista apuun?
Mikko suggested that rugby might be the most ultimately violent team sport and thus most entertaining because it seems almost any violence except weapons is acceptable. I told him that's exactly how to improve rugby: arm the players and the judges. And possibly the spectators as well. Football spectators have already advanced to that level: ask them for advice. Meanwhile, while the next boxing match could be much more entertaining if you give them each, let's say, a pair of sharp scissors each, shouldn't we strive for more? I say all boxers should be forbidden to compete without contracting a severe stomach flu or the Norovirus, while competitors in martial arts should be forced to drink at least 1 litre of water 30 minutes before the match and then forbidden any relief until the match is over. Watch those morons bounce and flounce while simultaneously trying desperately to control their bladders.
(Sivumennen sanottuna hiihtäjät, nuo spandexissa kekkaloivat pakara-anterot, sopisi lähettää hiihtämään kaikki ladulle samaan aikaan. Tapelkoot ladusta keskenään sen sijaan että kiljuvat toisilleen ladulla niin että lepikko raikaa tai kiukuttelevat SoMessa hitaista tai väärän tyylin hiihtäjistä, koiranulkoiluttajista ja latukoneiden puutteesta. Onhan teillä saatana ne sauvat, ja sillä piikillä on muutakin käyttöä kuin jäällä: pistäkää niillä sitä edessä hiihtävää kankkuun niin menee pois alta.)
Talking to a person who is reading should be declared a hostile act. Repeatedly talking to a person who is reading is an act of war.
So, if Mikko sounds a little off and tired for the next, say, three or four days, that'll be because for the next three or four nights I will march across the house once every hour with loud marching music blaring and banging two kettle lids together.
Continuously disturbing my reading? Let the hostilities begin. No surrender, no retreat!
Besides, Mikko knows I can be petty. When he decides to wake me up after less than four hours of sleep it just might be possible that "someone" snagged his phone and turned his alarm clock, calendar and various other apps to alert him every 30 minutes for a full day. And when he was in a bad mood and snapped at me, ordering (not asking, but ordering!) me to prepare him some soy sauce for his sushi, it might be possible that he was served a thinned-out dark syrup instead of soy sauce.
25.10.2024 (18:27)
Death in the capital city of Latvia doesn’t cause rigor mortis.
The people here were talking about kissing a newborn baby, but I think the baby would’ve preferred being bald.
Instead of a beeline you make an alternative queue.
Crooked nose sounds positively tame compared to the alternatives.
At least the tea wasn’t dosed with something, I guess.
Safiirit ovat turhan kesyjä.
Out of all the boring and useless sports in the world, I would like to suggest cricket as the dullest sport ever invented. I detest all sports but what I find especially frustrating is that there's such a possibility for development left unutilized. You have a team. You have an opponent. You have a bunch of sturdy bats. You could just as easily run to the nearest opponent and start clubbing them with your bat while howling creative insults about their outward appearance, their origin, their smell, their profession and their various relatives and their speculated occupations and origins (if you were to use apologies, it’d be Brockian Ultra-Cricket, which isn’t really a spectator sport due to the high walls around the teams as well as less insulting, so this is better). The winning team is the one with at least one player upright and partially conscious. The rest of the players are then traditionally woken up by dipping them into the nearest body of water, repeatedly if necessary (yes).
And don't bother thinking I'd watch it if they did that. I don't watch wrestling or boxing either, do I? For some reason it'd be a nice thought to know that all around the globe teams of grown people voluntarily run and start bashing the everliving shite out of one another while insulting their co-humans. The trend could then expand to sports such as baseball, hockey and figure skating. Won't someone try to start a trend?*
(And yes, I fully expect some cricketers to judge me for my moral turpitude. Mwah! Kisses! Luv ya too!)
We spent almost seven hours at the Helsinki Book Fair yesterday. Not listening to the performances or attending signings, oh no - that’s seven hours of highly effective shopping. I started with high heels, of course, but experience has long ago taught me to take sneakers as backup. Wisely so! We bought so many books we had to go and empty our large wheeled bag and the carrier bags into the car and go back for seconds when we ran out of room, and if time hadn’t run out, we’d have gone back for thirds too. At one point Mikko left behind three magazines from 1930’s because he thought he’d bought too much and there was so much more to buy, but about an four hours after that he popped into the washrooms and I dashed fully across the massive expo hall back to the other side, managed to buy the magazines and then rush back again so he found me where he’d left me, none the wiser. It probably looked ridiculous because I had to run while dragging the heavy wheeled bag behind me, and I’m so lucky I was wearing sneakers because if I’d done that run in heels, it wouldn’t have ended well. Poor Mikko didn’t notice a thing, though he should have been suspicious that I hadn’t moved that much from the Gaudeamus book stands while he was away. The magazines will be a surprise gift.
Last night was bad though. I woke up with a massive leg cramp on my thigh, jumped to my feet because that's basically the best way to relieve a cramp like that, and then nearly passed out because I went from luxuriously asleep and horizontal to obnoxiously awake and vertical in three seconds flat. Fortunately I know myself well enough to know when I'm about to pass out and usually manage to get down, but I hatehatehate the feeling of cold sweat, buzzing in my ears, sounds fading into distance and the overall misery that arrived with it. No sense in getting bruised as you fall down. I’m limping today, but at least I limp effectively up and down the stairs.
I will leave you with one of the most useless thoughts imaginable: the tallest and most impressive mountain is just a miserable upside-down sinkhole.
*Need suggestions? I have so many! How about ski jumping where you launch several jumpers at once and it's perfectly permissible to wrestle down your opponent mid-flight? Competitive speed swimming where the swimmers can attack another swimmer across the lanes and the competitions frequently become aquatic brawls?
23.10.2024 (16:52) Greetings from a wheelbarrow
Being indebted sounds pretty mild, doesn't it just?
This was my own mistake. I was searching for "butterfly". But now the butterfly is a complete nutter, just like me.
After the destruction of Mordor, the orcs found a new habitat and evolved [that's an orca in the photo, in case you didn't catch it]
Forget the bloody antidote, let's tell amusing stories about people who died in funny ways instead.
Suddenly an upset stomach ruins the foreplay.
Aito kuusi kestää ehkä joulun yli, muovikuusi vuodesta toiseen, mutta lasikuusi hajoaa jo ensikohtaamisella perheen lemmikin kanssa.
Helsinki Book Fair is coming and I'm beyond excited. I've nothing but the greatest respect for people who can attend and only come home with one or two books (but you get no respect at all if you don't buy books!), but we've no such control over our collecting habits. I really ought to bring a wheelbarrow: I can sit in it with my heels up in the air, Mikko pushes it and piles the purchased books all over me. I'll give the marching orders from my wheelbarrow: "To the left here, slave! Push faster before some bastard buys all the best books!" or "Second booth to the right and then straight on till the antiquarian section!" or whatever Barrie said.
I've always found the phrase "eat the cake and keep it too" both primitive and incorrect. The correct form is "eat the cake and buy another one".
Being married to Mikko is a bit like being married to an offspring of a thesaurus and a dictionary. The only difference is that I can place a dictionary on a shelf and it won’t follow me around spouting unwanted facts.
Also, I was just opening a book parcel. It’s decorated with phrases about books. One was: “When you read a book for the first time, you make a new friend. When you read it for the second time, you meet an old friend.” Probably true. I’ve also read books that are like those friends who drop in unannounced and are either drunk or stoned, stay for longer than they should, peek in your closets, make unpleasant remarks, eat all your favourite chocolates and leave a mess when you can finally get rid of them.
20.10.2024 (17:46) Beware of Airborne Sledgehammers
Apparently a bell is a necessary part to any ball.
Cinderella got home with her shoes but left her arse cheeks on the stairs.
Coma patients would probably prefer to be in a period or possibly a question mark.
Diseased estate sounds like something one should avoid at all costs. Or perhaps a hospital?
Don't make old ladies carry too much stuff. They can die.
When even your trash is paralyzed.
At least they sent a real masseuse who didn't try to offer "a happy end".
The hostess existed only briefly.
Eeppinen pahoinvointikohtaus.
Hoitajapula koskee nyt myös ensihoitoa. Onneksi kolarin toinen uhri tuli apuun?
Joskus koira voi haukkua liikaa.
Also FYI, I found a writer who confuses the words "hostess" with "hostage", and their otherwise serious and casual restaurant scene is now quite strange. I didn't take a screencap because I'd have needed to take long piece of text, and you can just as easily imagine the result.
I have a new theory. It's called "the candle-lantern theory". My hypothesis is that when a woman passes a certain age (I suspect between 38-40 years), others start to give the said woman lanterns. The average amount of lanterns you receive per year varies, but I know that three years ago I had one lanterns, and now I have too many of those bloody things (I counted ten, and I suspect I've forgotten some).
I wondered if I should apply to a grant to research it, but 1) I'd have a hard time explaining why in everloving f-ck would a [former] history major research bloody lanterns, 2) I couldn't be arsed to do the work of listening to people talking about their bloody lanterns, and 3) who'd even care about lanterns anyway?
Disappointment = when you realize that a book titled "Under the Priest's Robes" is not, in fact, a porn about Catholic priest-kink.
Hey, I thought it was a logical expectation. But then again they wouldn't have printed and published it in the early 1900's. Meh. (Don't worry, I didn't buy that particular book. It was in a box lot that included certain other interesting books, including a study on young American socialites in the early 19th century.)
We were discussing a modern version of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and I suggested a version of television mixed with a telephone: Palantirivision. Mikko laughed out loud when he thought of the rage when a discussion between Saruman and Sauron gets interrupted by commercial break because they couldn't be arsed to pay the exorbitant fees for the commercial-free service of Valarnet ("Buy the new and improved Elven Water, always sparkling and fresh from Rivendell bottling & brewery! Mmmm, love that fresh taste! Try our new and freshly wrapped Lembas, a new flavour every year!")
Wikipedia would be Valarpedia, naturally, and Rohirrim are known for their bikes. High elves grow hemp, and Shire has boosted their independence and freedom from humans with liberal use of landmines supplied by the industry of Orthanc inc (specialising in military supplies and explosives). The wood elves prefer carbon fibre crossbows, and traditional dwarf battle axes are a registered trademark (though most who carry one can't actually use it in battle, since fighting in public is illegal).
Valinor is an elite holiday paradise (accessible by convenient commercial flights only), and Lorien is a wildlife reserve. Visits to Umbar are not encouraged as the whole area has been embroiled in a long and bloody civil war. Mordor's archaeological excavation gives interesting results. Khazad-dûm is rich but largely free of visitors; mainly because of the stench of the massive manufacturing industry and the rigorous security processing and inspection upon entry and arrival, including mandatory body cavity search.
Wanted for questioning, a Dr. G. White, also known by various other names, for destroying the last known specimen of an endangered species called "Balrogs".
(Why do so many of Tolkien's names sound like someone with a major cough is drunkenly trying to gargle their throat with a shot of Scotch?)
Downstairs gallery hallway. Because wallpaper is too damn boring.
Wall 1,
wall 2,
corner 1,
corner 2. The room has two layers of these, this is the lower one - the upper one is WIP.
I may or may not have broken my finger. The incident involved a small sledgehammer. My finger is blackish-blue and bleeding and the fingernail is partially lodged inwards. The sledgehammer is undamaged, although it may or may not have made a quick aerial detour to a nearby bush. I don't want to go see a doctor, so I'll pretend it isn't broken, yes?
The sledgehammer probably learned no lessons, though.
17.10.2024 (17:16)
At least the dead crowd had absolutely no problems with impatience.
Some people aren't just a series: they're the kind of series that seriously should have stopped after season one.
Someone puked up a whole woman. How wretched.
Throwing up a slug might not feel quite as bad after a woman...
...but after throwing up an entire car you're bound to be pretty damn miserable.
Naiset haukkuvat hirveä paljon mielikuvituksekkaammin kuin miehet.
Suuret aikakaudet katsottuna vessasta. Tai mahdollisesti peritty puucee.
Over 24 years of marriage and Mikko still hasn't learned that if you're asking me anything before I'm allowed to drink the minimum of two cups of tea, even a sensible and simple question such as "what's our schedule for today?" sounds like "pillow hovercraft stick paperweight envelope moon" to me.
I'll never understand Christians: "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." How is that something positive!? That sounds like your meal is likely to be poisoned and your life will be cut short, your hair will need a wash or three to get rid of that grease, and the drinks are apparently served from a bloody thimble anyway.
I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but Mikko owns several books about DIY and renovation. I was looking over his shoulder while he was browsing one, and I'm now convinced that all renovations must be done wearing pressed trousers and a collared shirt, and you'd better make sure your cufflinks are crisp and ironed sharp even if you're spreading cement or operating a circular saw. I ought to remember that the next time I climb into our swimming pool with tiles and cement and want to wear the old and comfortable denim smock with paint stains, a large mended tear in a very embarrassing place and specs of various chemicals in places where there ought to be none.
We also found out I’m allergic to the epoxy joint filler we’ve been using in the swimming pool. It doesn’t stink like epoxy usually does, so I was basically using rubber gloves and forgot the fact that when I work, I work hard and fast and speckle myself liberally with whatever I’m handing, and that when I had to scrub myself every evening with a strong brush to get rid of the specks, the allergic reaction that followed was less than pleasant. I got put on corticosteroids and allergy meds and it took us over a week to realise I wasn’t allergic to anything in the food, in my clothes or even the rubber gloves that I wore. I was simply wearing one of the smocks, but I was going barefoot, and the specks of epoxy covered my arms, legs and feet.
BTW, here's a warning for those of you with access to Finnish sweets and delicacies: we bought a bag of Fazer's "salty fudge cookies" to taste. I'm sure I'll consider them a great delicacy one day, but that day is somewhere in the future when a mediaeval famine hits Finland, and to be more precise somewhere between learning to bake 'bark bread' and trying to catch and cook our neighbour's cat. Mikko says he needs to taste one too. The trouble is in "tasting", because those bloody things have no flavour to consider. He keeps arguing that even cardboard tastes like something, but I'm pretty sure these cookies were made by some twat who tried to cross-breed a sheet of paper with cardboard.
Mikko wanted me to make a raspberry trifle. So cake slices and raspberry-flavoured whipped cream, raspberry jam, crumbled frozen raspberry pieces, raspberry mousse and some whole raspberries on top. It looked as if Dolores Umbridge had shat in a crystal bowl, but it was edible. (He claims it was delicious, but we have different standards: namely, his are pretty low and thus wrong).
15.10.2024 (21:01)
Forget the maned wolf - the best wolves are manned.
A celebration for monks who make the vow of celibacy.
The moment you discover your sore thumb is actually necrotic.
Winnie the Pooh has gone to crapper.
I was hungry enough to eat my own arm but got sick right after.
You know you're in trouble when you talk to your clotted cream.
You might have wanted to curse some animal, but beavers are the most damnable animals alive.
Don't buy a new bandana. Fruit can be so much more fashionable.
Jos ruoka-annoksesi ei allergisoi riittävästi.
Olisiko pitänyt syödä vastasyntynyt oman käden sijasta.
Err... hello? It's been a while, I guess. Nothing to worry about: just my usual thing, my attention was on other things and thus less time spent writing. Oh, fine, I admit it: a local antiquarian book store closed down. They sold everything for dirt cheap, and Mikko and I spent several weekends browsing and buying books, and now I've been stuck reading. I can't put a book down, and piles and piles of books means sleepless nights and then hours of sleeping when my energy runs off, only to pick up my book with a cup of tea and rinse and repeat.
I wasn't thinking about writing, actually, but Niina is visiting and I was telling her about the yodelling battery-operated rodent. I later remembered me that I hadn’t told the story in many years and probably to very few people, so I guess I should repeat the legendary saga of the yodelling rodent.
It was years ago, when I still collected toys. I ordered some from either Germany or Austria, and the seller included some non-collectable ones. Those, unfortunately, included a marmot dressed in gaudy lederhosen. The thing was also battery-operated: it yodelled. The postal worker who dropped it off seemed relieved, and it was obvious why: the blasted thing could be heard through the layers of cardboard and packaging material, and the postal carrier fled as if he’d been threatened with a gun, possibly fearing that we’d want to return it to sender, or that he’d taken it to the wrong house and he’d have to endure the yodelling longer.
The battery-rodent yodelled when we opened the parcel. We tried looking for an off-switch, but the thing was covered in fur and wailed like its life depended on it, and looking for the batteries proved equally challenging. The smallest touch would send the blasted thing into another loud yodel loud enough to be heard on the closest mountain, and considering the country is bloody flat and the closest mountains are in Norway and Russia, that’s bloody far. The only reasonable way to tolerate the thing was to leave it alone and untouched in another room and never look at it, because simply touching the box would send it yodelling again.
Finally we could take no more and I placed an advertisement to give it to someone. Nobody wanted it: apparently yodelling battery-operated lederhosen-marmots are not in high demand. Finally I advertised it as a great tool to threaten loud and whiny kids during a long car drive, and someone paid the shipping for it. A massive box and several layers of bubble wrap were unable to silence the yodels. The parcel wailed when I carried it to our car, it yodelled every time the car hit a curve or a bump in the road, and it yodelled when we carried it to the postal office, disturbing the other customers, who immediately evacuated the building. It yodelled when the postal worker picked it up and carried it off, and the last thing I saw was the sour expression on the postal worker’s face when the parcel yodelled in the storage. Finland isn’t a big country, but I expect the blasted thing yodelled all the way to its new home and traumatised a whole bunch of postal workers, some of who probably broke speed limits to get rid of the parcel and some others decided a change of careers was in order. If the Finnish postal services could’ve forbidden the shipping of battery-operated lederhosen-marmots they would have, but I simply cannot imagine how they’d have phrased that rule.
I have no idea what happened to the lederhosen-marmot in the end. It’s possibly used to terrorise people somewhere in Finland, but it’s also plausible that someone in the military purchased it and if the country is threatened, it’ll be launched by a cannon into the invading state, yodelling during the aerial attack as it goes. Fare thee well, yodelling battery-marmot, thou shalt not be missed.
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