Had my friend Marty visiting me at night. He came to my home, spent a day, congratulated me on my completed books and suggested to have them immediately published. He was really nice, just as I remembered him. Haven’t met him some 25 years. Last meeting was really his wedding. The one 25 years back. I only saw and heard of him in internet, Facebook and news. He was active community member on the island where I am from. Then I woke up. 

Now I made myself coffee and I am sitting here, hands shaking. Metallica Enter Sandman playing. I mean what the actual fuck…. In our language the sandman is the Grim Reaper. Off to never never land, take my hand. I mean the timing can not be better. I feel sick, world is rotating. I have some sort of double vision going on. Damn. He died just a month before last Christmas. Was shoveling snow in front of his home and then the next moment he wasn’t. Fell on the ground and died. Heartattack. He was just 56 years old. All his life very healthy, no smoking, some occasional drink perhaps. All I gather from this is smoke, drink as much as you can hold, party all possible way and under no fucking circumstances do sports or any other physical activity. For sure no snow shoveling! Let it be there! It will, sooner or later, melt away in April or May. 

If you can’t stand the snow, say you need driveway free then just buy the magic machine that looks like lawn mower but has like a chimney on top. It’s scraping snow and blows it up and away from said driveway. You only need to walk certain side and direction. Just like lawnmowers bursting out the cut grass to the side. I shovel no snow no more. Or if I do, I just take my miniature shovel that I have in the car, that one does not get much heavy and I only do a tiny trail for walking passage. No whole square for cars, no no no. That’s why I only drive 4×4. I am lazy and those trucks are high and cut through the snow just like I need. The downside of my cars is ofcourse that I am the only one in my block to be able to go to work after two days of heavy snow. No other people leaving. Them bastards blame it on the city not cleaning the roads but it’s actually the houseowners task to keep the parking and driveway clean. We have private lands here. I just love my work and love to drive in the snow, so I get out with my car no matter the weather. And I also can bet the other people in my block hate their jobs because they are paid staff not business owners like me. So they don’t have much motivation. Who can blame!? And above all we have free medical aid and due to covid pandemic that has been over for some time the doctors made adjustments so that nobody has to go to doctor anymore. We have all consultation and sick leaves administrated online or by phone. You only need to go give blood, do X-ray or some other tests if you need and even then your doc doesn’t necessarily want to see you. If you have high temperature and coughing your lungs ot they certainly do not want to see you. They open the sick leave in e-site, you announce to your boss that you are out and that’s it. Even better if you have small kids, less than 12 years old. If such kid gets ill you get to stay home and nurse the kid AND!!! you get fully paid sick leave. Fully paid means you get your original salary up to 14 days at once. If your kid does not get better within 14 days you might have to go and show your kid to doc to find out what the fuck is wrong with him or her. If kid is truly ill still the sick leave will be continued up until 4 months without any concequences. As a company owner I know it is dreadful situation – I have to pay the person but she or he is not working. As a worker I used to like it a lot because I could stay home in peace until everyone was up and running again. 

We also have no restrictions on leaving kids home alone. Every kid gets keys, phone, full instructions on how to cook or reheat the food at least when he or she is 6 years old. That’s because when kids turn 7 they have to get going to school alone. To school and back. Full instructions on public transport, addressess, how to call, how to read streetnames, what to do when you accidentally take wrong bus etc. There is no mercy. Until it’s – 24C then they get to stay home but still have to do homework…. And they all go. On foot, keeping shape, spend outside minimum 2-3 hours a day, again with any weather. That is ofcourse one reason we have very expensive life here – imagine that you can’t really get proper winterboots for 50 Eur, at least in this country in the end of the world. I buy some of my staff online from Canada, Finland or Norway as we have the same weather with them. One more reason to keep in shape 🙂 because this stuff is expensive. My gear for winter is in thousands and I drive almost everywhere. Kids gear has to be much better than mine because they walk. 

Anyways. Now it’s again night. Wanted to sort my friends visit out and the whole day was fuzzy and weirdly dragging me down. Maybe a sign to slow down. Luckily the snow is almost gone now and just the heaps of it still standing on the streetsides to where the tractors pushed it. But streets are clean, grass is green, some people already sourcing the maple juice. Yummy. Next one will be birch juice. 

Signs of spring! Birds that were silent, sun that is peeking more and more and not just mere 3 hours a day. No, 3 hours a week! Because still most of the days the sun is not visible. There was sunny day yesterday and last week Tuesday. I know because it’s a day to remember when you see sun. Kid you not! What all this means in human lingo is that I have sowed already my babies – tomatoes, lettuce, rocket, basil, chives. And soon there will be various pumpkins, and some pretty flowers too. I tried last year to grow one particular hanging plant which did come up at home indoors but when I took them out they died. Probably caught cold if I remember correctly. We had minus degrees in the middle of the May and I can not act so fast as to drive to my cottage at night to rescue my plants. There is no point either as I have no heating there to hide the flowers. So anyways, these died but I had the same seeds yet in my stash. So I actually put the seeds out into the same pots the originals died. By july they were coming up again, just much smaller. Still pretty tho. So this year I start to grow them indoors later and only get them out in June, when the chances of frost are much lower than in May. Fingers crossed! My tomatoes are already 3 cm tall! 😉 

Good nite now

It’s Monday already…. torture of work starts again!

XOXOX