The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter

  • 92, neeh, me nuts!

    Going nuts seems the thing today. I discovered I am en route myself. That, ofcourse, assumes I am not totally crazy yet. One can’t go nuts if the maximum is already reached. Anyways. After strange furious weather that locked me in with way too many litres of beer and wine and not a help near 🙂

    I figured I need to entertain myself so I checked one old TV set in the corner. The batteries in the remote were all “boiling” with corrosion. Last I remember I watched this TV was some six years ago. I remember it well as I had a date that wanted to watch TV in the evening. So boring. Obviously it did not last. TV was just a minor reason for this abrupt ending. However. Stuck and bored myself now I wanted to see if this heap of crap still works. And, ladies and gentlemen, yes it works! It even has some ten or so channels on! So this damn thing together with too much wine made all chaos in my head which resulted in last post. I thought of deleting it at all but then figured I will keep it as a reminder. Less wine and no writing in haze 😉 because it made no sense at all. I read my last post twice and don’t get what the fuck was I writing about. So, my apologies for this odd yapping tirade, but I hope it’s at least funny. I don’t promise I will not do that again tho.

    My frying pan blew up today when I was searing salmon. Let me tell you, that now teached me one should NEVER wash the expensive pans in dishwasher. It says so on the paperwork even. But I, an arrogant white bitch, decided I know better. Yes, I used this pan carefully as it was expensive one. I used it for good four years if not more, I can’t really remember. I certainly had it before the mysterious pandemic hit. It was the expense I dragged long not to do. So once I gave in I chose the best I could. Whatever fancy non-stick coating, nice size, nice weight, everyting very pretty. The price was 70 Euros or so, for a fucking pan, you know. It could have been Fiskars, but maybe some italian fancy pan. I have a few that I use and one for sure is Fiskars. Anyways, I started to notice two of my pans are like rocking on the cooking range. For few days I thought it is due to too high heat which the same moment did not make sense because 7 out of 9 is common for any cooking. 9 is to get water boiling, 7 is perfect for meats, 6 is for eggs, so you know how this scale is…. So these two start to rock when I cook. I stare at them for few days, doing my dinners and thinking damn, these two are dead any day now. Dreading going shopping, I had gag reflex when thinking about yet another stupid cost that I can not avoid. I wish I could get skillet but they don’t sell them here. So I have to pick some Tefal or Fiskars or any fancy italian again. Fiskars now cost minimum 70Eur, with the lid it can easily be 100Eur. Dreading the unavoidable I today was searing fish, two pieces on this stupid rocking pan, me prepping my asparagus you know, splitting the wooden bit off them, when suddenly there was so loud bang by the stove I thought something blew up. I turn to see, and can’t get what was it. Nothing looked wrong, glass stovetop was ok, all four sections were ok. One tiny pot with lemonsauce, one with rice boiling, one just water waiting for asparagus to be put in. And fourth with salmon. I stare at the stovetop and then another BANG! right under my eyes the bottom half of the pan flew off!!!!!! I took my other rocking pan and fish rescue resumed. Got the fish into other pan, cleaned up the mess and threw the broken pan into the sink and poured over with hot water. Imagine if kids would have been doing some tacos or pancakes or other stuff on this freaking pan and that would have blown up into their faces. Damn. So there will be some shopping tomorrow. Which I do not like one bit. But…. Dinner turned out very nice, as always. Always have trout not salmon, if possible. And always have fish together with green veggies. This way your body gets the best of A, E and D vitamins. A and E are very difficult to get with food because they need eachother to “activate”. That means if you have just fish and say, potatoes, then you will most probably not get all possible E vitamins from fish. You surely get some, but the fish and green veggies work wonders together. I always prefer asparagus but it’s incredible price when not in season. Nothing less but 8Eur per bunch. So if that is not very popular financially then I take the turkish beans which are like butterbeans but green. If that gets boring I take simple brokkoli. I always toss them into boiling water and only for 5 minutes, this way they are crunchy not soggy. Then water out of the pot and in goes the best bit – butter. Keep it on heat and toss around til the butter has melted. With years of practice I have perfect timing on this dinner. Every bit is ready – lemon sauce, green veggie or rice, fish – right there and then and hot for plating. Rice is for younger generation. Instead of the veggies which for them equals death…. Which makes me wonder because in restaurants they eat everything 🙂 including veggies in any colour 😉

    So tomorrow I shall buy new pan. And no matter what anyone tells, I shall never put the pans into dishwasher again. Because I know how much my lazyness costs me. What an exciting post it is! 🙂

    Last bits of snow today. It’s 10C but the last bits of snow are still here. The hills of snow must have been very high as the leftovers are kneehigh now. Last week was odd with this weird snowstorm out of a blue. Luckily my tulips did not mind much and the garden looks splendid already with all the yellow, pink and red tulips. I hope narcissus will come out soon too. Trees are getting green, frogs and toads are awake. One of my in house toads came out just on Saturday. It was barely moving, body looked like it should have been dead but slowly moving skin on the back when it was breathing…. lungs (? they have lungs right?). The first one came out two weeks ago. They both sleep in my cottage, god knows where exactly but they are inside. Probably hibernating under my treasures as I do not disturb them at all in winter. I see them getting in in autumn so I stay away already then. So the second one looked very thin, it was very slow too, so no struggle to catch it. I put it by some greenery by the lake and after a while it was gone into the lake. Until we meet again in October or so. By my cottage door. I shall let them in.

    Stay hot and cool, everyone!

    Enjoy life and wash pans by hands only!

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  • 91 what did I just see in TV?

    So please everyone tell me I am going nutters and seeing things. Because it is too many coincidences to be just randomly piled up and thrown into my face now.

    Jim Burtons new film, due in autumn, features a nasty figure played by Kate Winslet. And the trailer features one of my favourite songs from my favourite artist of all times, Harry Belafonte. Day-O, Banana song. Are you trying to tell me that’s a coincidence? Why was I not a cast of this movie? I am fluent in 5 languages and that includes Russian…. I don’t know if that is in the movie but why, why, why I was not summoned…. How now, can this song, be something used in a film? The song nobody knew. The song I sang years and years, day to day just like every other Belafontes song that I know by heart and was in my life since I was homeless. You know, Scarlet ribbons, hava nagila (the banned one now due to them squatters-jews running genocide in a country, oh, occupied by themselves?!?), Jamaica farewell…. That same song was idle for 40 if not 50 years. Now it’s again important? After I stated it in my blog here? After I wrote here about the few artists that kept me alive when I was homeless? Am I losing it or is somebody following my blog and taking bits from it into films? Tell me I am losing it. Hell, I needed that job. And I sure need the next job! I need to be that Russian speaking evil. Or slow one, blonde and a tad dumb, speaking Finnish. Or arrogant Estonian, the small and feisty. Anything!!! I can speak, in fact also Greek, Polish, French, Italian, if needed! Just give me a week!! Just last week I was searching for job in France and reading the ads, IN PLAIN FRENCH!!! And I understood everything. Yes, my pronounciation is probably nothing the real French would understand but I can learn fast. And my Russian is clean and very much without accent. Shame I was not cast for this. Shame. So I can still get to the next movie by Burton or Depp himself? Where to come for casting?

    Am I delulu or is the next film going to feature something from Rammstein? Or another run of Belafonte? Pardon me, but I sure feel a tad off now after seeing the trailer of Burtons new movie. 

    Hey, Johnny, the book draft I sent you, the things happening there are happening IN DEEP SOVIET OCCUPIED country, not Italy, not France. We still have the perfect apartments for the scenes, with all furniture and stuff intact for the last 40 years. I mean, they are kept like that for exactly all sorts of serials and films that require the backround to be from 1970s or 1980s. Just tell me I am going nuts and the new set is not what you were looking for in Italy?

    That’s too bad to be true if you using my draft for film without me being part of it. I truly hope I am getting nuts in this case.

    Really delulu here. Tell me I am off my rocker and the above is not the case. Because my story certainly needs me in it. 

    Sorry for the short crazy yapping.

    Stay warm and cool. 

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  • 90 damn Fridays!

    Yes, Friday was workday. Obviously. As for any commoner. Dreadful workday in fact. One that pissed me off big time. I went in as usual for 9 o’clock. Ok, not usual. Usual is 8. This time they said they will have the stuff released 8 in the morning so it takes about 45 minutes drive to get to the destination. I left home at about 7.45 or so…. I don’t really know but my plan was to sleep in the car until the job started. I have been doing it many times. Not always because of work or exhaustion. I get hit by strangest thing on earth every now and then. I drive, I am ok, and then suddenly I have no control over my eyes and will. Eyes just close, I barely make it to some random parking lot and I just fall asleep. It always a close call!! I barely make it and I am scared as hell when it’s going on but I can’t help it. Few times in the past I fell asleep on the highway. Luckily we have sort of a highway that has no barriers everywhere so one can stop where are no barriers. I count not quite make it once and I was sleeping 4 hours on the roadside under the high voltage line. I could not go any further, not even 100 metres, not 500 metres. I don’t know what it is. I am just suddenly extremely exhausted and I can’t keep my eyes open. All I know is that I have to stop immediately and next moment I already wake up 4 or 6 or even 8 hours later. I slept in my car in random parking lots, on highway roadside, in hypermarket parking lots, in forest, by sea, by school, at work too. It’s strange thing I thought it would  be some sort of insomnia but I have not diagnosed it yet. It happens maybe once a month so I can not really catch it and report it to my doctor. 

    But that dream of sleeping for another hour or so was not one to come true. Aswell as did not come true the initial plan of working 2 hours and then heading home or heading to other location for other work. The “fun” part was they decided in the morning that they will need me for whole day. Well, I don’t really mind that, I have been flexible and ready for such hiccups my whole life. What pissed me off was they knew already on Wednesday that they will have to complete everything on Friday and they still did not tell me. So that resulted me having no lunch with me. And I restrain from drinking because there are no toilets. Or, the toilets are far away from my location. So I felt how I was drying up the longer I was there. And to put a cherry on top – it started snowing. Which means the temperatures dropped into minus. So, hungry, not well slept, freezing my arse off in this fucking end of the world. I was not happy. Not even close. When we completed the work I was sitting in my car for good 10 minutes to get some warmth into my frozen arse. It takes me one hour to get home from this location. I was so pissed off on the whole world, drove home, took off boots and went straight to bathroom to run bath. Took two shots of Jägermeister and sat into hot water with some salts and oils. From my condition I knew if I don’t do this “procedure” I would fall ill rather badly. Only after the bath I was able to face the world again. Which meant prepping late dinner and being pissed on the world once more for a different reason. The reason is I don’t do dinners after 18 in the evening. In summer the latest time when I have some food is maybe 21. But again, it’s not summer yet. And now I have been facing the reality of world working against me with the dinners. I can tell you one can not peel potatoes or sear some meat when hands are barely moving. So I had to sit in the bath to become functional again. Oh, I hated that Friday. I hate when my genious plan of never eating after 18 fails. And last week it failed every fucking day. I probably have to switch to summer schedule now earlier because of the stupid client. My only happiness comes from the fact that this client pays by hour. Including driving time. That makes this client the most profitable for me. So I smile and make some stupid jokes about “who needs to rest anyway” or “who in the right mind would fly out for a long weekend on Friday noon” etc. The bit that is now yet pissing me off is that I have to go to the same place on Monday morning too, because apparently, if I don’t go the factory will stop working because they run out of materials by Monday morning. Just in time delivery, yes, and I have to go in again. Luckily they will be fast on Monday because they don’t want to be guilty for the factory shutting down because of them!

    So snow. Yes, snow. In spring. Whole worlds weather is fucked up. Floods in Emirates, in fucking desert, camels drowning. In desert, people! Earthquakes in places earth is never quaking, floods in deserts, volcanoes spitting shite out, snow, oh well, snow we always had but cmon! enough already!! They predict the northern part of Europe will have weather that currently is in Turkey. Well, I can tell you what’s the weather like in Turkey – it’s a vacation forever weather. That means you are not quite able to work in this kind of heat.

    Part of me likes changes a lot. On the contrary to the common view and opposition that pushes people out of their comfor zone. I love to test myself, to adjust to new. I am probably a tad more adventurous compared to average person. But most of all I like changes in business, work, things like that. l love progress. That is why I could not stay on the island either. The island where I am from is stagnating place. Nothing changes. And this stagnation was suffocating me from the early stages of my life. Especially painful once I turned into teenage years. I despised the teachers that did everything the way soviet  era told them to. Disgusting spineless hags. Some of them actually praised on the fucking Lenin and telling nonsense about how great out “fatherland of Soviet union” was. They could not stand the change. For instance when we became free from this horror union one of the chemistry teachers started drinking so heavily I vaguely remember her sleeping on the stairs in front of the school. Probably drank til death. Which was pretty common these times anyway. Because not everyone could adjust to new life of freedom, of starting business, of having real estate, of owning a real big farms and way more than 2 cows. Being able to buy car!!! And  now you did not need permission from Moscow to buy a car!!! And above all: you could buy a car that was not Zaporozets, Zhiguli or Moschwitch!!! Good grief! You had freedom to leave the island for the first time in life without permission, without registering your travels, within our own country!, at the militia station!!! Imagine that!!! All those changes for sure were hard on many. Most of them got used to the generous life they had. After university they were sent by the orcs to some destination over the “great fatherland of soviet union”, given job and given accomodation. Usually by kicking out local owner of the house. Ofcourse the orcs liked it. Everything was free. The locals who were kicked out went to live by relatives or such. So we had those bastards in our country aswell, who then, ofcourse, demanded we speak Russian. This was to kill our language. In some occupied countries they even burned all schoolbooks that were in local language. And brought in books in Russian. With modified history :). As far as I know that book burning happened in Ukraine and in Lithuania. Maybe we were partly saved because we are one of the smallest countries that was occupied by orcs, hence we were not that much of a threat for the “great soviet union”. So some traitors who were praising the great occupying forces obviously hilghly disliked that we became free from occupation. All the same year, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine got rid of the bastards. However, them bastards did not leave. Many of them were obviously settled here like fucking jews (and wannabe jews without ANY jewish blood miles ahead) in Palestine. Just like in Palestine. Given or just took our homes and settled as fucking cockroaches. The name for the orcs who settled here taking our homes was, yes, you guessed it right, cockroaches! The milder version was “onion” or “cebula” or “luk” in many languages we used this to talk about occupiers. They only now found out we were using these names because, hold on, they never learned our respective languages!!! So we could speak about them right in front of them, talk shit about them, and they would smile, them cockroaches! Hilarious! And they tell even today they had no reason to learn because all the occupied (note> they call us “rescued people”) people spoke in Russian. Today some old bastards who have visas to live in Latvia are being sent out of the country because even after living here for more than 40 years!!!! they are not able to speak more than 2 sentences in Latvian. Yes, they scream on the border that they have given whole life for Latvia, lived, paid taxes, made home, and we smile, we all smile and congratulate Latvia for having balls. Finally. At least one of us has balls. I hope our country also finds some. Soon.

    I sure can yap hours about orcs, stupidity, arrogance. I need, yet again, learn something new. I must learn to ignore these. Ignore in order to save my own nerves. As me yapping does not change anything except takes away my energy. I despise stupidity, and I despise lies, thiefs and arrogance. Those 4 cover the main characteristics of our government. I have to ignore this shit and leave. It’s embarassing how blind we are, or, how we just turn the other cheek in silence. French would be on streets years ago. Polish would have flooded the ministries and government with shite long ago. We do what exactly? Let me tell you. The legend of us ever being rebel. There was a man whose wife died, cow died and the german lord told to the guy he owes him 50 more barrels of wheat…. The guy agreed not, was infact mistreated, went behind sauna, hit the wall with his fist and said out loud: FUCK! And went on to scrape and borrow the 50 barrels of wheat for the lord.

    I wish we would not go behind sauna.

    Love and all,

    Stay cool and warm!

    XOXOX

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  • 89 waiting

    Suffering artist creates something. 

    I am not suffering so nothing comes out 🙂

    Let me tell you. Saturday and Sunday we had heavy rains, strong winds and cold weather. And you can guess what was today, on Monday, when commoners go back to their surviving modes called work…. Yes, you guessed right, bright sunny day! 

    So today is Thursday, for some 40 more minutes and then it’s Friday early mo. I took on a task and diluded one bottle of prosecco with my saliva and I must admit it worked. Hence I am here writing. Today we had snow. On 18th of April. Not only here but also in Austria, Latvia, maybe some more countries. The fun part is that part of our carowners have already changed the tyres from winter tyres to summertyres as the wintertyres are not allowed after …. I guess after 31st of March. Well, forbidden are the ones with pikes, not the ones just plain rubber. I don’t use the piked ones so I have no worry. Last year I never changed my tyres to summer ones and that in the end is just expensive and a tad dangerous on high speeds. Because the tyre rubber mixture is different for hot and cold season. Winter tyres are wider and softer to keep you smooth on the snow and ice. So by the end of August my wintertyres that I kept on were like the slick ones used for speedracing on superbikes 🙂 without ANY pattern! Luckily no police stopped me ad I am, in fact, perfect driver, so I feel my car well in any conditions. So we have to change the tyres back to winter ones by the end of October I guess. Whatever the date and time is I carried with my totally smooth slick old tyres to the last minute and changed to winter ones. Those winter tyres I now have on and that is why I was not much worried today when the fucking SNOW started it’s routines out of the blue. Yet, you know, you have to watch out for all of the other drivers who might be having the summertyres already. Because those cars have the tendency to ignore the driver 🙂 and go about the day the way they want. So within the day there were quite many accidents on the road. I myself saw on truck and trailer went through the barriers and was diagonally over the road. Luckily still standing and nothing but some hot lashes for the driver. Spring is also rather difficult time for any driver here as the animals are on heat and just last week one of my acquaintance caught deer on the way to home. Sort of lucky and sort of not much lucky for the deer tho. Deer bull died of the impact, but the car was not a passanger car but huge truck. So truck had just the minor things with the front. Not even radiator broke, only some plastic things. Sorry for the horny deer tho. After such accidents you still have to call out police so the insurance will pay for repairs. It is also recommended by all to keep slow. Yes, we know you are literally mr Schumacher in disguise, but all proper drivers keep a lot slower at night than allowed. Exactly for the reason of horny bulls jumping onto the highways. At night especially. But that is probably more valid for countries where is alot of forests and such. Yet we have encountered deer and moose in our true city centre, the centre of capital! We have part of our capital that has wild boar living in, that is one peninsula, some poor 2 kilometres from my place actually!! It’s also a peninsula where seabirds are under protection, some Natura or whatnot program. Nature preserv, nature park or how you call it in English…. So as no bird can be hunted or even scared off in spring as the nest there, also the wildboar quantity grew without nobody noticing until…. and yes, you guessed right!!! Until harsh winter came and they ended up having no food on this peninsula. And imagine that horror experience of the one and only business ran on this peninsula, the nightwatch of the watercleaning station. Imagine you just go to your nightshift, start at about 20.00 in the eve, all the way to 8 in the mo. Your duties is to check the perimetre of the “cleaning factory” which consists of some 10 huge barrels that are standing up and some more buildings and all around those buildings you have some 2 metres high fence. Your duties include staring at the screens on your desk and to make some walking rounds ALL AROUND the premises following the fence. You know, strolling along and trying to notice anything weird. So the 62 years old guard put on his jacket, did not bother with hat, nor taking his mobile phone and went along for the stroll as he had been going for the last 13 years or so. He figured he will be fast. It was not that cold, just – 9C. He figured he will give a quick stroll, come back, have a tea and stare at the screens for another 3 hours. 3 hours was the time after which he had to take another stroll. 

    As he figured he was about to do his fastest round. 

    He went out, followed the fence to the left wher is nothing important. But the had to check it. I mean, who on the right mind on earth would ever consider trespassing water cleaning station?? The shite cleaning station?? Because that is what it is! It’s all of our capitals shite running into the huge barrels and then being processed into clean water, piles of shite, some dirty water and what not. But it certainly has no value for common thief!!! Well, the procedures demand a stroll. So he went. He was able to get 150 metres away from the office when suddenly out of nowhere whole cattle of wildboar gathered literally around him. He is no dumb. He was well aware of the harsh weather this winter and guessed immediately that those 30-40 wildboar were hungry as fuck. Because they NEVER come close to human. Yet there they were. The cleaning stations specifics were somewhat strange featuring viewing platforms with  25 metres of height. Luckily one in each corner of the plant. So one was just some 10 metres away and that’s where he needed to go. He backed off towards the platform. Climbed the ladder-like stairs and …. yes, was stuck up there for the next 9 hours wihtout phone, wihtout hat, without gloves, without hope. 

    The wildboars never left. They waited. They had nowhere else to go or to be. The cuddled up waithing for their dinner. Or breakfast. He had no phone, no nothing. AND there is NOBODY checking on this plant at night. Because why would they as there in NEVER anything going on. The next shift is coming for 8 in the morning. So he had to survive roughly 9 hours. He had no exact clue what time it was but he could have guessed pretty accurate. 

    He was found in the moring on the viewing platform, sleeping. Or dying. He was barely alive. Taken to hospidal immediately he survived to tell the story. Initially nobody believed him because yes, everyone knew there were wild boar on that peninsula, but nobody had faintest idea how many. Last they knew were 7 adults that they counted. Imagine the surprise when they realised the adults were in fact mostly females and the one lucky bastard became a father for 50+ times over few years. City council had to get hunters in and eliminate majority of the cattle. They declared 41 wild boars caught. I mean killed. 

    This peninsula was and still is one of the two city beaches we have 🙂 and it’s used to max every “beachable” day in the summer. Again, the boar are safe and they do not attack people in general, especially in summer when there is plenty of food. So we go to beach every chance we get. I have seen the boars “home” in there once when I went around the peninsula on bike. First I did not see it per se, but boy I sure smelled it!!! That stink is beyond explanation. Come around and I shall show you!

    Tuuduluu for now, stay warm and safe.

    Off to sleep now as tomorrow is one last workday this week.

    Love and all

    XOXOX

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  • 88 random thoughts that are not that random

    Just saw some old video in Youtube, some cut of Pirates movie, and it hit me. Hit me how sad it is that we look for happily ever after and most of the people never find it. It is just some sort of facade, a circus, a trial in different lengths. Either a year, two, a decade perhaps. Then the last drop makes the hurricane and what initially might have felt like happily ever after turns into a shitshow. A turd on the bed. There is a study carried out, or actually, we all know it by heart: you can tell if the person you meet for the first time if the person is bad or good. Instincts don’t lie. We just choose to believe a person is good. Or close one eye in hopes the faults are just minor peanuts. But the nuts are big! A whole nutcase! Now when you think back, I am sure you have felt immediately if person fits you or there is something wrong. Apparently kids recognise the “shite” and the smaller kids actually say it out loud if they feel something fishy. We just ignore them and hope for the best. Which is also sort of a fair thing to do because people can change. But, on the core level, never change. The main characteristics remain forever. For instance I know I can never work for someone, take orders, because I know myself. Any stupid thing I would be told to fulfill I would send them to hell. Or, imagine, someone 20 years younger happens to be your “boss”. Ridiculous. Or even 20 years older but dumb as a brick!!! No, that’s not for me, thank you.

    I can’t take orders from someone since I have seen life way more than average person. I survived horrible amount of abuse, beaten up until bleeding, left for dead, rotting alive. Only thing missing was the worms eating away my flesh. All that when I was 3 years old. That lasted for 1.5 years. And that was not my home, not the home on the island, no…. My real home on island was what would be called “normal”, hardworking parents, siblings, heavy duty farmlife, but also heavy duty alcoholic as my father. Left home in order to survive when I was 13. Lived on the streets in northern European harsh winters, slept on the stairs of abandoned houses. Dreamed of being homeless in Italy as at least it’s warm! Imagine that. Teenager dreaming of being homeless. Worked three places, lied of my age to get to work in a bar. That time it was possible because we did not have computers yet, all documents were on paper and I was pretty good in creating fake documents. That time documents had stamps on, you know, the usually roundy blueish violetish ink thing to provide proof that the document is real. Well, you need boiled egg to copy that stamp. Here you could work with alcohol when you are 18 years old. So I changed the year of my birth on my documents, painted my eyelids green and stated I have been working in bars for two years already. Which was true actually as I started to work in bars when I was 13 :). So work I got. I had to find the place to live too. I spent some nights under the kitchentable in the bar where I worked. Then broke into attick of theatre, nice find! It had mattress there but I had competition for this place as one homeless guy also knew the place and he worked in this theatre so he had advantage. Washed my bits in the bars kitchensink. Or the toilet in cinema. Cold water. Nobody had heard of warm water in public restrooms! 

    So when someone tells he or she has hard time as daddy does not pay for the university I do always have a huge bellylaugh, sometimes for several days. And apparently I will have no further contact with this person. 

    I have been busy prepping my garden for the season. It was grand plan as always until it started to rain. It has been raining two days now. You know, Saturday and Sunday, the days off. The only days off common people have. To make sure you do not get your garden work done. On these occasions I sometimes find myself thinking there must be some greater being fucking up our plans. I have learned throughout my life not to be stupid and make plans. I still tried today to get some gardening done but only managed to get some tulips into pots and that was it. I also heard some big animal splashing into water in the garden. I have sort of a lake there and there is stream going out of the lake. So my terrace is by the stream and as it was raining cats and dogs I went to do the tulips in the terrace under the roof. I heard huge splash and saw big waves but even standing still for several minutes did not get the animal fooled. So I can bet it’s the otter that I have seen before. This bugger ate all my fish and crawfish that I brought to the lake. And he, or she or it?, is huge! I wonder now if I take some herring for him, would he eat it? Fish is a fish, tho herring is saltwater fish and he lives in freshwater…. I sure hope it was not beaver now again. I shall see around the trees next time when it’s not raining like that. Beavers already built dam behind my sauna, them buggers. Thankfully they did not like my buildingactivities much and most of them left upstream. I know that because my neighbour complained they have built dam upstream next to his farming lands so it sort of resulted in some destroyed crops. Fuck this farmer, he uses chemicals that come all the way down to my lake. So he can just fight the beavers. 

    I briefly looked into casting agencies but could not figure out who might be looking for blonde european or russian evil chick for next blockbuster film. Or german. I can easily play tortured artist in some 7 languages, or menacing evil russian bandit, or slowmoving finnish wild woman skinnidipping in one of the thousands lakes. Without accent. I guess. That’s what the original speakers tell. I hope they are telling truth and not just being kind :). As I plan to move closer to my dream country from the days I was homeless I have been looking at Italian and French dictionaries aswell. I mean that is how I learned English, my 5th language. When I was some 17 years old I worked in building materials store, in wallcovering section. The bosses there had one expensive book, the Oxford dictionary. I “borrowed” it for several weeks, in the evenings. Read all the words from A to Z once. Then wrote out the words I wanted to use and in two months time I graduated the school with honours, after completing national exams including Physics, Chemistry, German, Russian and English with A or A+. So if I could pull off English within 2 months, I think I can pull off Italian and French just as that, and later Spanish too. I actually hear italian or spanish language and I understand some of them, because the roots of the words are similar in German and English. Same with Swedish and Dutch, for my ears that is…. Some years back I was frequently in Amsterdam on working trips and one day, with a little help from Heineken, I started to talk in Dutch with my colleagues :). Not some heart to heart chat, but purely business talk. I was as chocked as they were 🙂

    I should manifest the language skills finally bringing in some bacon! So, anyone, please let me know where they are looking for me!

    Now it’s about midnight now. Gotta hit the sack as Monday is inevitably coming 🙂

    Can’t wait to get to Nice and Cannes!!!

    Stay warm and cool!

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  • 87 prepping for summer!

    I am in trouble. Big time. I must say I am dissapointed in myself. I made a promise to myself to write at least once every week. It’s certainly not that now! And I know why! It’s the spring. Spring, when everyting else is more important. Literally everything. I mean garden, sunshine, vitamins, dreaming. Every day in garden takes a day. Once I get home I have to prep dinner and then without myself noticing it’s again 23.00 and time for bed. Especially when it’s workweek. I mean I do not work every day but even so I try to use the “active hours of humans” to get my stuff done aswell. It still does not work always, but for instance I got my lawnmower serviced and that was a big thing. Last year I lost 2 weeks on this as there was some spare part that needed to be changed and while waiting for this spare from Italy all the grass in the field this particular lawnmower works grew up to 30 centimetres high. Which, of course, is too high for the lawnmower. It’s the robots as we call them. Not the machine you pull or push or handle in any way. Those are the ones running independently. I have one from Italy and it’s Ferrari red and sometimes annoying italian attitude. Imagine with the accompanying handgestures robot yelling: it iiiz a too higha of a grasssssaaa for miiiiahh! Somehow I hear it saying “puta”! in the end. That’s not in italian. Maybe my lawn mowing robot speaks Spanish too. Like I swear in Russian most of the time. Not in my mothertongue, nor English. Russian is best for swearing. Juisy. The only good thing they ever brought to us or to the world. Swearing.

    So the robot got its bits serviced, all shiny and happy. Now I took it back to the cottage and let it run for a while and then noticed it got stuck by the lake. Apparently the waterlevel is so high that it covers the robots tracks. Unfuckingbelivable. So I took it off its tracks for some time now because after the high waters go away there is like half a metre space not being mowed by robot. That’s how high the water is now, roughly 15 centimetres higher than in the summer. I wish I fixed the bit where my tiny  waterfall is because then I would maintain the high waterlevel all summer long. To some extent at least. But now it’s running wrom the side of the dam. Water made its way from the side. And EVERY fucking year I think I have to fill the part that water has taken away. Yet it’s still and again not done. Now the gap is so big it looks like the high water will take my bridge away soon.

    But I worry not. I had 3 days in cottage while I was cleaning and cleaning. Stupid things just laying around, like metal bits that came out of the grounds when I was doing the flowerbeds. Some strange bits made by the blacksmith some 200 years ago. Or later. I can only say those odd bits are handmade, not bulk manufactured. So I have some of these metal bits still that I don’t really want to throw away. As it’s history. I think I will put them on the wall in some place together with the tens and hundreds of horseshoes that came out from when I was digging the floor out inside the cottage. I saved some 50 of them because one point it was too ridiculous to save them. There were hundreds and hundreds of them! Apparently the blacksmith threw the ones he did not like right into the ground next to his working station. I mean there was literally no solid ground, just horseshoes! I hope there was enough of horseshoes he liked!!! Because I sure would be pissed off if everything I made in a day or in a month ended up scrap!!!

    So I have one major thing done for the cottage for the summer. I also have the plants growing. Put some veggies and flowers into pots in February already! Nuts, I know. A tad early, I know. But let me tell you – I rather be a tad early then a tad too late! Last year I put my potatoes into ground only on 1st of JULY! Not even Middsummers, JULY! And I have the most generous dirt in my cottage and it gives the tastiest crops ever! Today re-potted the tomatoes. Some of them. As I did not trust all of the seeds would be successful and growing I ended up having tad too many plants. Now I will do some more potting tomorrow and all the excess plants I will give to neighbours or friends with some garden. I shall be friendly 🙂 and generous! Which I am always. Just figured I can brag too once in a decade :). I usually am modest tho. Just once before in my life I have said: “I told you!!!” and I was pretty sad because the reason I said it was not nice. It was a sad occasion of my sis realising her marriage was stupid mistake. Now I know love is blind. Tho it’s not love. It’s mostly lust. We just don’t know how to explain it so we call it love. I am 100% sure it’s not love. It’s nothing but hormones. Let me tell you! At 15 years old I decided I have found the love of my life. Or, he found me actually and I decided that it will be for the rest of my life. He was blissfully unaware of anything I was thinking about because we were busy “sexing” and no words were said during sex. So most of the time we were not talking for obvious reasons. And when we were talking we were slightly drunk and partying. It was time just about when first mobile phones were 3 kilos each and looked like bricks wiht some wires and handle. That means we were not talking on the phone either because I was barely at home and I am sure he did not call his lovers ever. That time. His lovers were calling on his mobile phone, yes. He had one of the first mobile phones on the island. As he was police chief, criminal police officer. Not the mundane stuff like patroling the streets, oh no. He was the guy investigating murders and stuff. Which happened on the island too every now and then. Mainly it happened when some drunkards decided to split the heads with axes or so. Over the drunk loose lady that seemed to be fit for marriage. In their eyes, that is. She was just a working lady. Without taking money as that were the poor times in ex soviet country and she just wanted some vodka and a chat. It’s the men who figured that would be a good thing to have a woman running the household. You know, the strange drunken dream. That sort of sitting and drinking once, at least, ended up the two guys actually killing the woman. The stupid drunkards did not even realise she died. Put her to bed to rest. Only realised two days later she has not moved. I mean…. may they all rest in peace. 

    On the island we have at least one, one, clearly and visibly inbred guy. He is my age and he was in school with all the “normal” kids as we don’t have any special facilities on island and probably nothing on mainland either (today that is, soviet era we had the nursing homes with metal beds for the elderly where they put those strange kids with mental challenges too). But he remained on island. So the story goes brother and sister had a go and then he was born. Sister was a tad QQ in the head too and had no clue of what was going on. I assume brother was same way. So they had son and he is still strolling around. His particular features are open mouth and constant walking. He never stops. I never heard him speak either. Today he is still walking, walking, walking. Our own Whitaker family (see Youtube) tho we don’t know who his mother or father are. Probably, well, the council or teachers know but let’s be honest: nobody else needs to know as sure as hell nobody can do nothing about this situation. 

    So I have been planning in some more detail the escape from this country I was born in. It sits right next to Russia and I have no will to sit and wait for them orcs to kill me, my family or my friends. Dreadful thing is – a lot of our people have left already. A lot. Never before was it so public. Now it’s allower the social media, news, Facebook, Insta, TikTok even. Even TV show called “Our new life in Spain” or something. Few of my friends, not the closest ones obviously, have sold their homes and left. Admitting they have done so in fear of war. I am afraid of war too. Even with NATO, which is the institution to cool down the believers. The fact is, if Russia attacks us we would be over and done with within 12 minutes. That’s the time it takes for bombardiers (what’s the word for planes with bombs?) to cover the distance from the border to our capital and to bomb the city into ruins. And we have nothing to fight it with. And by the time we wake up (if we wake up) we would have no planes, no ships, no cars to escape with even. Today closest NATO airforce is some 1000 km away. And in the end…. we are so tiny country and nation nobody would even notice we are all gone. 

    Today I was on Zuccheros concert. He sure can sing!! Just like 30 years ago. Nothing has time done to his vocals. Damn, he is good! First row as always, seat 16 this time. Next week is another concert. Tanita Tikaram. Yes, I am oldie :).

    Another thing I would like to get done is Bruce Springsteen concert and AC/DC concert. They are touring Europe. And I am poor. I just tell myself that some dreams are not meant to become true. Again. Even tho I suppose the singer for AC/DC is Axl Rose I would really love to go. Axl Rose can take more octaves than Mariah Carey. Just so you know. He has the widest vocal range on earth probably. At least in sort of pop and rock and roll music.

    But above all I am determined to get the hell out of here withing one year or so. So this May I will be cruising Cannes and Nice for inspiration. Luckily I am not that poor this very moment so I get the plane tix to Nice and hope for the best. Maybe will get to northern bit of Italy too but I am focused on Nice. For whatever reason. It is set in my head that this is my future. I speak 7 languages but not French. Imagine how pissed I am. Knowing all the languages but the one you need. Just realised that. I only got use of my language skills once in my life. When I applied to one German company and the hired me right next day for knowing German and Russian, one being their “homelanguage” and the other being their target country for business. Other than that I also, let’s be honest, got pay increase for each language that I could take exam to a sufficient level. So I ended up being best paid worker in this company. Let me tell you – even tho the cash is nice it is not nice place to be when your colleagues, especially the senior ones, find out your salary is higher than theirs!!!

    So off I go for today. 

    Johnny, see you in Cannes?

    Let me know, write me an email here!

    XOXOX

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  • 86 another try for spring

    I was pretty dissappointed in myself last time when I realised I have not done blog writing as promised, at least once in a week. I do have things to say and write but I tend to forget them. You know the things that happen that are either very funny or strange or some other way relevant, once you calm down you have thousand other things to do but write.

    Today again, to our pleasure, sun came out at about noon. I thought this will last just some minutes. But no! All the way up until five afternoon. Could not even do any chore I had in list, I was just enjoying the sun. Soon, very soon, we all will sort of melt out of comatosis state and start moving faster and more and very soon we start to notice bad weather which becomes rare. Like rain. You know when people are always not satisfied. So this will continue. If we have one week bright sun we start to worry about crops and watering plants. Which is, again, work and cost 🙂 Never satisfied! 

    Enjoing silence. This topic came out with group of people I chat online. Turned out most people miss silence in big cities. And most people enjoy silence when they can get somewhere silent. I mean the expression was that they enjoy the sounds of nature while sitting on terrace or strolling in forest. I realised how blessed I am because I have all the silence ever possible. I hear some activities only mere hour or so every day. Most of the time it’s silence. Or, sounds of nature. I don’t count the screaming seagulls as bad sound or noise even though they are right by my window and boy, they are a loud bunch. Seagulls are part of the silence we talked about. Good kind of sound. Because they are not here every day. They usually come when it’s turning into storm on the sea, so they literally hide from heavy winds here on the coastline. The bad bit is when some idiot feeds them with white bread. Those twats! Either they are illiterate and stupid or doing it with excellent knowledge that some of the birds are destined to die after consuming “manmade” food. Either way I tell those twats off if I see them and catch them on this act. It still amazes me how people that dumb managed to live to be 60, 70 or even 80 years old!

    I also found out people who work in some office or some noisy place for long days tend to come home and sit in the car for ten minutes to half an hour just to acclimatize. I really thought it’s just my genious though to sit in the car in silence!! I also drive in silence after long day of all sorts of loud sounds and shouting and things like that. I feel it is the same pleasing and quiet and comfortable in heaven. I know it is because I have been to heaven of sorts once. It was very pretty, soft and warm and all surroundings were like soft warm fog. No tunnels. Or maybe there was tunnel but I did not get to go that far as I was brougt back to life. So whoever worries what’s it like in “there”, don’t worry. It’s nice. And quiet. I liked it there. I was really peaceful and living in a bliss for long time after this. And I still am calm when these thoughts come to mind. I am no more anxcious or worried. But I still want to better my life, especially the physical part. So soon I go to browse in life some of the possible new destinations for living. It’s in Europe, but in a warmer neighbourhood. 

    I realised people from small countries are many times multilingual. Be it two or three languages, or even more. Not so the US people. Maybe I am wrong, but seems for instance that in my country after the gymnasium kids can manage at least three languages. I myself can manage in seven languages and thinking of taking closer look at Spanish, Italian and French because these are the countries I shall go and investigate in person. I have some basic communication study books already, just lazy to actually sit down and go through it. 

    Got my car oils changed today, it’s now purring like kitten should! Or maybe I am delulu, but sure sounds and moves a lot better. Now soon we can change tyres here, I think in April or so when snow still can come but we are pretty much professional rally drivers here so driving with summertyres in snow is day of great fun and excitement! I actually wish for snow to come when I have summertyres on 🙂 so I can have some fun driving around. The people who don’t risk driving in these cases stay home so the crazy ones have all the space in the city to drive around with front tyres going one direction and arse floating from left to right as it pleases. I unfortunately have 4WD, but I still have some tricks to get the side of the car going first. Just realised this year I did’nt get to go on ice to draw some donuts with my car, what a bummer. What was I doing all winter? 

    Will prep dinner now. Today I am early here writing because I slept until ten in the morning, barely got out of bed to take my car to oilchange. Took car to garage and came back to sleep!! These bursts of sleeping in comatosis state like being are the sign of spring. It is a way of collecting power to be up and kicking for for 18 hours straight throughout the summer 🙂 I just love to be lazy. They say lazy people are usually genius. Just saying.

    Your dad is rich and your momma is pretty…. What song is this, anyone?

    Stay warm and cool, everyone!

    XOXOX

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  • 85 Spring? Where?

    Sorry for the long break in writing. Did not have much to say, really. Fighting for the everyday survival and waiting for the damn sun to come out and ease the pains both physical and mental. So in other words I was busy bee working, drinking and surviving. That’s pretty common excercise in this part of the world. Especially in winter, of course, when the temperatures drop and the snowing looks neverending and the piles of snow are as high as man. We hibernate our way through winter. We look like alive people, but we are half-dead. Truly so. The best thing happened now in about week ago. We had sunshine for some three hours!!! AND ALL OF IT IN ONE DAY!!! That chaos! People could not work their boring stupid jobs staring out of the windows, shopping centres were empty, people were in the middle of the street just staring at sun and not moving. I kid you not. I was like that myself!!! Immediately went half-naked outside because it felt like it must be heatwave and, as in every spring, it was not. So caught cold immediately and now have running nose. Running nose is the proof of spring. The undebatable proof. Every year! And I never learn to put on proper wintergear still. Fuck it. Just mere reason of running nose gives me pleasure beyond imagination. After the sun went down at about what, 16ish, in the evening I went back in and immediately took out my stash of seeds. Beware, the hunters and gatherers are loose and waking up!!!I have put some effort to this years crops early this time. In the end of February I had four types of tomatoes, some basil and some flowers peeking out of the pots already. And today, 17th of March it happened. I knew it would. It’s snowstorm, shiny slippery roads, snow and ice blasting onto windows, cars again covered with snow. Oh, I planned to start with gardening works this weekend. Well. At least I tried. I went to feed the feral cats at my cottage and was prepared to do some digging in the garden. As you know, sometimes the weather can be totally different mere 100 kilometres further. But it was not the case this time. Was freezing cold just like here in the big city. I made TikTok live feeding cats and then we had a chat with some followers. Chat means that I was talking 🙂 and they were listening. That’s like meditation out loud, like monologue. And the best part is: nobody complaining or saying stupid things. Only me saying stupid things 🙂 

    So I managed to put down some tulips today. It is not common to do this in spring tho. I only ended up with this because I just didn’t manage to do it on time in autumn. I had two baskets full of bulbs that I had no place to put to and then the land froze over and it was too late as I would break either my tools or my hands with this fight. I had nothing else to do but to put the baskets indoors and cover them with blanckets. As there is no heating in the house the life cycle of the bulbs just kept on going. I mean they were almost like in the dirt, frozen and all. The temperature drops to minus 30C, which is minus 22F. I did not expect them to survive but most of them did! Just lost handful of the bulbs that caught some mould on them or were sort of starting to rot as they were soft. Proper bulb is perky and hard like…. erm, fill in the gap yourself 🙂 

    I put on the gloves but still all freezy and nasty. I only got one basket of bulbs into the huge garden vases that guard the driveway, the other basketful are still not planted as I don’t have any idea yet where to put them. It’s hard to keep motivation through half year of shitty skiing weather. So now I am sort of stuck on constant planning of what to do when the sun comes out next time. And yes, I have long list of things already in there. This year I want to have a field of potatoes again. I had few years own potatoes and let me tell you – that were the best potatoes I have ever had! I had no proper seed potatoes, just had 12! potatoes that I bought from grocerystore and they started to grow the tiny white nibs on them. I could peel them and eat them but was a tad too late for this as they were looking kinda ancient already, all wrinkled up and also soft. So I took them to my cottage, dug up some few metres of land and put the potatoes in. Thought, even if they do not come up they sure will be eaten either by the rats or turn into fertiliser. In no time I saw all 12 plants turned up. Saw them flowering and took out some of the weeds that came to bother them. I am not sure when I took them up but I remember how lovely huge potatoes there were. All 12 plants had nice big nests full of fresh homegrown 100% ecologically clean potatoes. Not much but I got some 20 kilos from these 12 potatoes that I considered to throw away. Win!

    So this year I already bought actual seed potatoes from proper farm/ garden/ flower shop. Took 5 kilos bag because I think it’s going to be some 70-100 kilos in return. I need to prepare the field for them, I already know where I will plant them. I have special tiny plot in a sunny place in my garden. Potatoes are pretty decorative plants, you know, all the way up to autumn. So they will be in one end of my peony garden 🙂 Will see if some visitors of the cafeteria that I run in the summer will notice.

    Anyways, leave you with some nice thoughts and hopes. Keep it warm and cool 🙂

    XOXOX

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  • 84 another sighting after life

    My mom died 18 years ago today. On 2nd March. 

    Yesterday she came to my dream, took the lead, sat into the drivers seat and drove us all away from here. Away from threatening war. Before that she helped to sort all the endless heaps of books, selling most of them for pretty substantial heap of cash. Then sorted all clothes, sold most of them. Then cleared out all the wardrobes, changed beds and dusted away. Clean line. Marie Kondo would faint! We were left one suitcase each and drove into sunshine, drove into south. Italy I bet. Because the story goes we are originally from northern bit of Africa where today is Tunisia, and very southern bit of Europe, somewhere there and it drags us physically towards Italy and France. Malta. Sometimes Greece. So my mom sat to the wheel and announced basta! here we go! The dream was so vivid, no sorrow, just laughter and excitement. Sunshine and summerbreeze. I did not recognise the place really because in the dream the location changed in an instant. The next moment we were somewhere with mountains, yellowish mountains. And the street ended in a T cross where we had options to turn either left or right. Mom yelled “yeeeehuuuu, we are almost home!” and turned left. Turned left into sunset and that was our destination. We were exhausted but pleased, gazing into setting reddish and orange sun. Peaceful.

    We turned and there was finca like house, not quite villa, but a southern countryhouse with a nice view down to the sea. No neighbours. That is what we like. Secluded, but not too far from sea. There is no life without sea. I can give up everything but sea. I guess. Because I have given up, or lost, everything but can not breathe without being close to sea. 

    The fact that mom came to my dream is a sign. She has been in my dreams last time 15 years ago when she congratulated me. Now she showed it’s a must to leave, to have a new start far away from home. Or, actually, return to our roots. I will do that saliva test one day when I am rich, me23.com or whatnot, to see if the story of our roots adds up. I am pretty sure it does because my mom does not look “caucasian”, she had pitchblack hair and deep tan, ridiculously bright green eyes. My grandpa had afro 🙂 which is hilarious because we only now realise it. I liked to play with his hair when I was small kid. It was the weirdest thing I had seen, nobody else had such hair! No comb could get through and he did not like me messing with it because it probably was painful 🙂 but he put up with it.

    Myself I have boring features, potato-coloured hair, just like 99% of peasants in these parts of the world. Blue eyes. Pale skin for 10 months of the year. G cup, which translates into nude sunbathing as there is not always such bikini available :). 

    I realised big brother is following us constantly. For quite some time I get ads in Youtube and Facebook and Tiktok in all the languages I know. All BUT my mothertongue. I have fooled the big brother to the exctent that it doesn’t understand who I am 🙂  I realised it just now watching some meds ad in Russian and right after that some travel thing in Polish. Amazing amounts of info that the modern machines can follow and analyse. How does Tiktok know I watch Polish videos in Facebook. How does Facebook know it can suggest italian, ukrainian or finnish content to me. Obviously we will be taken over by robots in no time. Well, scary. I was the last person within my family and friends to get so called smartphone. I had Nokia until the very last chance I could get away with it. Then I realised I need smartphone for taking photos for my workmatters. Big part of my work is taking pictures for proof. And memory because I have none. With broken heart I sent my last Nokia to retirement. All work got faster, all info moves now literally live if needed. Just like genocide in Palestine is shown online. Yet nobody does nothing because of those “poor poor jews”! Big brother is everywhere. Eyes are everywhere. In London on some random street crossing they counted 58 cameras. Big brother is watching you. That is why I miss my Nokia. 

    Back to roots. I have selected some coastal towns now for some closer inspection. Will go down to Frejus, Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Cap Ferrat, Eze, Monte Carlo, Menton, and maybe all the way to Portofino. Well, that’s not much Italy there 😉 but that’s a start. Will have a long work/ vacation there searching for a house or anything that makes my heart beat faster. Maybe a flat looking over bay. Maybe house in the hills. Anything really. I bought my house here just because of the feeling I had when I turned to the back of the house and felt the master of the house from 200 years ago being present. He is still here. That’s another few hours of stories.

    Stay warm and cool

    XOXOX

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  • 83 afterlife sightings

    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

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