Little big things

8.6.2014 MarilkaLeave a comment

It so happens, that life has thrown the dice again, and everything on top of each other has turned my past days and immediate future into a rather stressful time. Still, we make the best out what we have and so we have been prodding along, doing things at home and outside.

As it went, I had to take the oldest daughter to see the doctor on Friday, and the doctor looked and heard me too, and wrote the rest of the day off for me. I was at the end of my rope. Now I’m a bit better after a few days of rest. Tired, emotionally exhausted, but a bit better than Friday. Enough to go to work again tomorrow.

We made some nice plans for Friday afternoon. To get some dirt, eat some lunch, go buy some new bikinis for the girls and go down to this lake for the sunny late afternoon. Husband went for that dirt, but didn’t find any in the garden store closest to us. We got the bikinis, but as we were driving back home from the shopping center, the clouds rolled in. So much for the outing at the lake. Besides, dogs aren’t aloud on the beach.

The girls then watched Transformers from Netflix all evening long, while my husband and I went to get four big bags of dirt from a different store. We got some oregano too, and a few other things, and by the time we returned home, the rain had stopped. We spent the rest of the evening in our garden putting our tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis etc. in the ground and planting some oreagano and thyme.

Yesterday was stable day for oldest daughter. I took her to the stables in shorts and a string top, thinking that summer had come. Friday had been so warm again. I was cold. The wind was so cold. And while the kids and the horses were out riding, a thunderstorm passed. Not very close, not even close enough to rain on them, but enough for the horses to become a bit restless.

We had checked the weather forecast and planned our lake trip for Saturday after riding class, but had to cancel it again. The sky was heavy with rain clouds all around. A little later the skies started to clear a bit though, so finally we did pack our backpack and head to the Nuuksio national park for a little outing and sausage grilling.

We let the dog loose on the field, where she was having fun running around, hopping like a cangaroo in the long grass and playing with the oldest daughter while the rest of us were throwing a frisbee. Up until she felt the call of the sheep grazing in a near-by area, loosely fenced with something that definately holds sheep but not our little terrier. Through she went and had to be leashed again.

We did a little walk through the forest and returned to the camping area where some other family had already started a fire in the fire place. We joined in and grilled our sausages in the camp fire while they grilled their meat sqewers and some marshmallows. On our way home we stopped at Munkkiniemi beach for some ice creams as the sun was already hanging low.

It was a rather nice evening after all, even though the girls had put on such a fight over needing to move their butts and go out.

Today we got them moving a whole lot more easily, and after I had returned from my sister’s (we went through the rest of mom’s stuff, everything that she had left in my sister’s storage room upon moving back to Las Palmas) we made some lunch, packed some sandwitches and other snacks into a backpack and headed to this island dog park Rajasaari for a few hours.

It’s a very nice place! Practically the whole island for dogs, fenced with a sufficient high fence on the side that is reserved for some boats. Rocks, forest, sandy beaches, all for dogs and their owners. No worrying about dogs running away (when the sea is ice-free 😉 ). A whole lot of dogs swimming there, but not our wee Meggie. Meggie dislikes water seriously.

We spent at least a couple hours there, walking around, sitting on the rocks, eating our snacks, letting our furry friend roam free around us. Sometimes she just explored the surroundings by herself, sometimes with the youngest daughter, and sometimes engaging in some play with other dogs.

We came home with the sun still high. Youngest daughter went out to the field to try out our boomerang with step-dad, while the oldest one stayed home to read a book and I fiddled with my blog posts. Nothing seemed to work for me today. Or during the past days. The middle daughter is with her mom.

Weekend is almost over. It has been a quite good one, all in all and after all. Tomorrow it’s back to work again.

Crispy and well-done

29.5.2014 MarilkaLeave a comment

Why is it that I always have to forget the sun block?

So, I found the sun. Las Palmas has been cloudy and rainy all week long, so today, when my sister flew home already and all the necessary stuff was done, I decided to take a trip south in search of the sun. And there it was. Together with a clear sky. The cloud line is approximately 30km south of Las Palmas.

Mom's friends were here at about ten this morning to take my sister to the airport. When they heard I was heading to the bus station with the intention of traveling down south, they told me to get in the car too, and then dropped me off at the bus stop on the highway, next to the airport. Three minutes and my bus came. Perect timing for I had just had time to study the bus schedules there enough to know which bus to take.

So I hopped on the bus to Faro de Maspalomas. When mom lived down there in the south of Gran Canaria, we drove around those areas a whole lot, but sort of avoided Playa del Ingles mostly, and never visited the Maspalomas lighthouse, oasis and dunes. I had wanted to go there for some time already and had planned it for my next visit which was supposed to be in July, mom being still alive, but ~~life~~death happened. So I went there today, alone.

It felt funny, decending to the tourist area of the island. It's been so long since I last was there. I don't feel like a tourist on this island anymore, even though obviously not a resident either. I don't know what I am. A visitor in my mother's home, on my mother's island, that she loved so much. If I lived here, I'd live here in the northern not-so-touristy areas too, despite the poorer weather.

When we reached the target, I hopped out of the bus with a dozen or so noisy tourists, and set my pace towards the lighthouse. Taking pictures of some flowers and blooming trees on my way, I admired the lighthouse towering ahead. I sat down in the lighthouse coffee shop and ordered some water and a Frappelatte with whipped cream and cinnamon. I figured that'd hold my energies for a while 😉

I sat there facing the sea my mom loved so much. Red skinned happy tourists were walking past, and a probably honeymooning couple stopped to make out right in front of me in a way that made want to shout “get a room”. Then again, probably they had one. “So use it!”

Without warning I burst in tears. A couple who walked into the café gave me some concerned looks, but didn't say anything. I tried to wipe my cheeks and my sunglass-hidden eyes, asked for bill and left.

Walking down the beach, toes wet with the waves caressing them, I cried some more. I drew a heart for mom in the sand, took a picture of it and continued down the beach with my bolero and sandals hanging from my purse, shirt inside of it – I had been optimistic enough to wear a bikini-top underneath of my top. Not that anyone would've minded if I'd gone nude, as I learned soon enough, but I'm just not quite that liberal.

I quit the beach and headed past the oasis and onto the dunes. It wasn't even noon yet, so I braved the sand bare foot until it became simply too hot to walk on. All around the dunes there were guys going commando, and I felt a bit intimidated there so far from the crowds. So I strayed away from the dunes and back to the beach when I noticed I was thirsty. I got a “nestea al melocotón” from the booth on the beach and continued walking the shoreline around the dunes towards Ingles.

When I saw this real high dune right there by the beach, I just had to climb it. I got to the top of it, sat down straddling the dune, and burst into tears again and felt like screaming into the wind. Suddenly I noticed an intruder on my private moment; some older man had appeared behind me like out of nowhere and was looking at me with question in his eyes.

I decided to ignore him and continued to let my feelings flow. After all, I had been there first! This man was not about to leave, though, without making sure I was ok, so finally he simply sat down next to me and stated: “You are not ok today.” And his kind smile and eyes popped the cork from my bottle of words and we started talking. After I had spilled my guts, I asked him where he was from and he told me Switzerland, where he'd (allegedly) been part of the couching team for Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko.

What a coinsidence 🙂 I was a huge fan back when. We went on about that for a while, and when the guy was sure I was ok, he left. I left the dune too, slid and hopped back to the beach. Another nestea from another booth, this time al mango, and I prodded along.The waves became higher and wind stronger as I worked my way aroung the bend. Yellow beach flag turned into a red one. Too dangerous to swim. Not that I was interested.

I almost walked all the way to Ingles, but half a kilometer or so away decided against it and turned my steps instead back towards the lighthouse, accross the dunes. Standing in the middle of the sandy hills, something I had never experienced before – Yyteri can't compare… – I called my husband to share the moment. I was feeling lonely and home sick, even with the sun and the ocean and the wind.

The sun was hot above, the sand below. I tied my shirt on my head to play the role of a scarf. Still, I could not cross the dunes all the way, but returned to the shoreline again when I thought my feet would burn otherwise. Little did I notice in the wind how the sun was roasting me all over, since, as said, I had not even thought about any sun screen. I had an ok base tan already, but should've rememebered that a Finnish tan is seldom enough for the sun down here.

When I reached the oasis again, I went searching for a place to eat. I was starving after all that traipsing in the sand! I had an excellent meal of Canarian cheese and a crisp grilled fish – kinda like my arms too 😛 – and a Bailey's on the house for dessert. Too bad for the bartender that he read me so wrong – I had no intention to stay, or return later either, for multiple drinks even if the first one was on the house.

Back to the bus stop and bus ride to Las Palmas. I am quite beat now. And sun-burned all over. The aloe vera lotion I bought from one of the beach markets cools the skin down a little bit, for a little while. I hope I manage to sleep well anyaway!

My Helsinki

28.4.2014 MarilkaLeave a comment

Except for a short time of seven years or so, I have lived my life in Helsinki. I was born here, I went to school here, I had my daughters here, I studied in the university here, I have always worked here. Even though I dream of living in a warmer climate place, I love Helsinki. It is the city of my heart. And out of Helsinki, my very favorite place will probably always be Munkkiniemi where I grew up.

When I was born, we lived in Pasila, an ugly 70's concrete jungle. I grew up in Munkkiniemi, practically a village of it's own by the sea. My first own home with my ex was in Kontula, a drug area in the eastern parts of Helsinki, with cheap housing. Had my kids while we lived in Puotila, a nicer area in the east, near Itäkeskus and the sea. Moved to Klaukkala for a few years and then to Pakkala after the divorce. Now we live in a nice house in an area close to Paloheinä with my new husband, and we love it 🙂

Helsinki is so many things. It is the biggest city in Finland, albeit only a mid-size town in global scale, the capital city. It has a nice downtown area with green parks and long shore-lines – Helsinki is all around the sea, built on a lot of islands and peninsulas – and sort of ok night-life on three nights of the week, mostly dead the other four. It is at it's best in the summer time, when th city bathes in the sun.

A river flows through Helsinki, the Vantaa River, but it is not as big of a deal as, say, Thames in London, for the river flows through suburbs, fields and these rental garden patches. There's a nice central park – quite different from the one in New York, for our central park is all forest and those garden patches. The central park area stretched all the way to the forests of Paloheinä, where there are the best skiing grounds and sledding hills of the city.

There are some manors and farms with vast fields even within the city limits, like the Tuomarinkylä manor and it's grounds and the biggest horse stables in the city, and Haltiala. Haltiala is vast fields and cows, pigs, sheep, chicken and roosters, and an ice cream stand that can have a line longer than half an hour in the summer time when families flock to Haltiala to see the animals and spend the day out.

Like I said, we live close to Paloheinä, which is also close to Haltiala, and regularily go for walks through the Haltiala fields and the forests by the Vantaa river flowing right next to it. We sometimes walk all the way to Pitkäkoski, where there is one of the many excercise points of the criss-crossing forest paths, a dog park for dogs to roam free inside a fenced area, and a funky twisted tree – the love affair of a birch and a fir tree.

The downtown area evolves around the Central Railway Station and the square next to it (our office is just around the corner from there!), the Stockman (department store) area, and spanning towards Kamppi in the other direction, and the Kauppatori main market square in the other direction. The National Theater is by the railway station, and in the winter time there is an ice skating rink on the square. Not that I'd ever skated there; I'm not much for these winter sports (though I do know how to skate and ski, of course!).

Starting behind Stockman, by the Swedish Theater, the city's main boulevard Eplanadi, or “Espa” reaches out to the Kauppatori. It is lovely in the summer time, with busy people scurrying through, and idle people relaxing on the grassy areas. Tourists taking their photos everywhere you look. I love walking down Espa, with a cappucino in my hand, maybe stopping to sit on a bench to look at the passers-by for a while.

Around Kauppatori things get busy. At the very end of Espa, there's the fountain-statue Havis Amanda, with seals on the edges of the pool – probably every Helsinki-kid has had their photo taken riding one of them at some point of their life. On Vappu, May Day, Havis Amanda the statue girl gets a full wash and a high-school graduation hat at six pm on May Day's eve.

From Kauppatori, there's the Suomenlinna ferry leaving every 20 minutes (in summer time) – Suomenlinna being this fort or citadel built to protect against attacks from the sea, but these days a home for many and a popular outing place for Helsinkians.

The Presidential Palace is right next to Kauppatori. And then there's Katajanokka, like a thumb in the sea, the home of our famous ice breakers, Viking Line cruise ships and the beautiful orthodox Uspenski Cathedral. There's a new big ferris wheel (oh well, scale it: London:Helsinki – London ferris wheel:Helsinki ferris wheel 😉 ) at the edge of Katajanokka this summer. Ships and boats dock all along the shorelines of Helsinki.

There's Senaatintori square on one side, surrounded by university and government buildings, an artisans' market and coffee shops, and the main cathedral of Helsinki, with about a hundred steps leading to it. Senaatintori is a place for all sorts of celebrations, like New Year's for example, and the starting place for parades and such. The church steps are a favorite haunt for university students in between classes, since they are right in the Helsinki University campus.

To the other side of Kauppatori there is the Olympic terminal (built for the Helsinki Olympics in 1952) where the Tallink-Silja Stockholm-going ships dock. From there starts the Kaivopuisto(Kaivari)-Ullanlinna-Tähtitorninmäki area, with rolling grassy hills and rocky slopes on the inland side, with the long shoreline promenade on the sea side. Between there is the narrow road where people ride to show off their fancy coupés and motorcycles. And then there is, of course the legendary Café Ursula.

On the hills of Kaivari people go for picnics and play some ball and spend the day with friends. Especially Vappu, May Day, sees crowds of picnicing people with their white high-school graduation hats, serpentine and bottles of bubbly. I've tried it once, and though it was fun, it's not really my scene – too many people everywhere!

I do love the area on a regular day, though. And my dad lives right there in Ullanlinna nowadays with his wife. Still, I especially much like the Kruunuhaka area behind the cathedral. Funny that I don't have any photos of that area,, except for the part facing the bay between Kruunuhaka and Hakaniemi, but probably that is because I used to roam the streets of “Krunikka” when I was still studying, which was way before the time of cell phone cameras.

Right there in Eira, same area, sort of, there is the nicest fire station of Helsinki, one of the oldest ones too. They have a boat too, that is docked there in Kaivari when not out on an assignment. The Helsinki fire department – the Stadin Brankkarit – is something of an icon of Helsinki, and every year on Helsinki's birthday, the Helsinki Day, the fire stations are open for public. I've been there with the kids a few times too when they were smaller.

A little bit out of the innermost circle, there a fabulous places like the Arabianranta with parks and green areas; the place where the Vantaa river meets the sea. And Mustikkamaa, leading to the Korkeasaari Zoo, which is on an island. Close to where I grew up is Seurasaari, an island and outdoors museum, that used to have a huge colony of mostly tame squirrels. There's still some, but people stopped feeding them because of the rabies risk at some point, and so they're not so friendly anymore.

The number one landmark of Helsinki, if you ask any kid anyway 😉 is of course Linnanmäki, or Lintsi, the amusement park. My grandpa used to be on it's board and so we had more free tickets on our disposal than we could use and so we went there many times each summer when I was a kid. Later on I worked there for a summer. Our girls get to go usually once every summer, or maybe a second shorter visit sometimes with my dad.

As for fun for the bit older, these days we get a whole lot of concerts and music festivals in the city throughout the summer. When I was young, there were none – most artists came as close as Stockholm but didn't cross the bay. Not the case anymore. And then there is the philharmonic orchestra with their Finlandiatalo by Töölönlahti, next to the Opera and the newest addition, the Music hall.

I am not, nor have ever been, a really active concert goer, but I've seen Muse and Linkin Park in Kaisaniemi park right next to the Central Railway Station, Madonna in Jätkäsaari (which now has apartment buildings right there where Madonna once entertained the biggest concert audience in Helsinki history with her Sticky and Sweet), Green Day in Kyläsaari and e.g. Bon Jovi, U2 and Genesis on the Olympic Stadium.

For the culturally hungry there's Ateneum the art museum, Kiasma the modern art museum, the Gallen-Kallela art museum (a bit further away from the center, in Tarvo) and the National Museum, City Museum, Natural History Museum and lots more. I've visited some, but I've still got places to se for the first time too 😉

In the summer time, the city is live, people are out and about, walking, having picnics, hanging out. I like to walk the streets and the parks, sit for a cider or long drink on a sunny terrace, duck into a coffee shop for a cappucino, shop a little, have lunch and cherries at Kauppatori. But in the winter time it is cold and dreary and I have made it down to an art to stay down in the connecting tunnels underneath of the city as much as possible.

[Some pictures of Helsinki in my Flickr album Helsinki – the city I love]

Search engine terms top 5

12.4.2014 MarilkaLeave a comment

Used to do this in my old blog approximately yearly. I check out the search terms for my blog more frequently than that, but I used to write a blog post every now and then. Haven’t done it even once while having my blog here on our own server – simply because for some unknown reason I haven’t had the statistics for a long time. WP-admin has only shown me unknown search terms so far. But now, after all this server struggle, it started working. Just like that. So, time for a little review 🙂

All time top five serach terms for posts on this server – 118 posts, 16 of them in English, since Jan 2013:

1) Sulfaatiton (sulfate-free – oh, don’t ask me why I’m writing this in English even though most search terms & results are in Finnish…), eri kombinaatioissaan, search result hit being “Sulfaatiton sopii kaikille“, which currently is also the Top 1 post in the Top posts list

2) OBH Nordica blender +/- a word or two. Referred post would be the R.I.P. OBH Nordica blender, story (in Finnish) of the blender that died

3) Akustikusneurinooma (acoustic neuroma) and variations. Obviously, searches of this can end up on multiple different pages or Home of my blog site, The Healing Diary being more than just a post; it is my full neuroma story.

4) Maanantaiaamu (Moday morning). Seems I am not the only one with Monday morning troubles 😛 This search can lead you to any of these three posts.

5) Actually, the rest of them are a tie. A bunch of funky search terms, like kello bhut, polaki pajupillissä or libexec.backboardd (don’t ask, I don’t know). And then some that actually make sense, like vartiosaaren huvilat, stephen kingin kuuluisimmat teokset and andalusianrottaterrieri luonne. And then a couple that were supposed to end up in my husband’s blog “terminal prompt”, running on this same server, except that it’s not running right now (how to update terminal prompt openbsd).

As for the old System Failure for the Masses, it is sill up and running and served as a temporary posting platform while we were having server probs, and is my vast blog archive, of course! It still gets quite a lot of traffic, living its own life in the Interwebs. For the past year, the top five has been:

1) tulistuva lapsi (child with a flaring temper) / impulssikontrollihäiriö (impulse control disorder), which basically lead to the same theme of posts.

2) kolibri (humming bird, referring to my tattoo)

3) pun intended

4) lumierä (has to do with snow, but really means losing without scoring in e.g. table tennis)

5) Jaha, can’t pick out any winners out of the rest of the stuff again, so a few examples on the funniest search terms here: tamagotchien yhdistäminen, talvella tansseihin toppahousuissa, hondan autoradio arpoo kanavaa jatkuvasti, robinin nimmari ja pelleasut. Oh, the list is long, but I’ll leave it at this this time!

Feeling amused

12.4.2014 MarilkaLeave a comment

The gilrs left to their other parents yesterday. Time to take the dj and disco ball out of the closet and start another week of childfree party time 😉 No, seriously, I went out for a long chilly walk with the dog while my husband took care of some grocery shopping.

We had a rather simple yet good dinner of kebab meat, tzatziki and tomato-cucumber-green pepper-red onion salad, and washed it down with some white wine. After dinner we took our wild party to the sofa, playing some music from Youtube, the dog napping at our feet.

At some point, we were out of wine (it was only a bottle anyway) and started to discuss which direction we should steer our evening. Bedforshire (somehow, that got stuck in my head from Bridget Jones) or maybe getting a couple drinks at the local. The dog had taken herself upstairs to bed already, and we decided to leave her sleeping and head to the pub.

I had never been to the neighborhood pub before. I pretty much avoid such places. Especially since they usually have karaoke. I cannot stand karaoke. I have to be seriously drunk to tolerate it. Last time I visited a local pub, I got to witness an actual catfight, when the other women in our company decided to attack this one woman flirting with one of the husbands. They all got thrown out.

Last night, I told my husband that I wasn't staying if they had karaoke. This place has none. It could actually be a nice little pub, if we had the British kind of pub culture here. As it is, we are in Finland, and even thought he pub is ran by Indian guys, the pub was mostly empty, with one long center table's worth of already happily drunk patrons passing the Friday evening away.

We got our drinks and found a table on the center of what would be a stage for a live band, if there ever was a live band there. Radio Nostalgia was playing some Helmut Lotti versions of Elvis and rock classics, and some other old stuff. Not bad, mostly, but kinda mellow. I detected a “Digital Jukebox” in the corner and went to inspect.

It's not like I had any coins on me, so I was kinda hoping that the “digital” meant alternative paying methods like by SMS or something – not that I could've done that either with my own phone, what with it being a company phone and at that point dead too, but I could've persuaded my husband to SMS some better music. No such luck.

So we sat there at our table, talking and observing other people. My personality J(udgemental) sometimes gets the best of my P(erceptive) and I couldn't help feeling rather amused, as I watched the patrons hustle around. The blond obviously desperate lady French kissing every guy. The guys having their eyes on me, causing my husband to get all alpha-male about it. I thought it quite funny, and shook my flaming red hair free from it's bun, just to tease a bit, and got the response from my husband: “You wanna get me into a fight?”

One of the already quite drunk patrons padded to the jukebox, and started clumsily scanning throught the music. I snuck up to him, asked what he was looking for and after getting a confused shrug for an answer, asked: “May I?” “Sure, use it all up.” He'd added coins worth of four songs. So I picked out some CCR, some ACDC, some Bon Jovi and, geez! can't remember the fourth one. Hunh.

Anyway, someone else picked up from where I left off, and we had a few more good songs playing. A woman in tight jeans and a leather jacket made me regret that I didn't have my heels and leather jacket, but had left home in (high heel) sneekers and a sporty jacket instead. But I still had everything on that other woman in orange sole shoes and gray sweats.

Yeah, I get into this female game thing sometimes 😉 I wanted my man to be regarded the luckiest guy in the room. At the same time, I was feeling rather amused by my own acts too 😀

We danced a little when there was a cool old rock'n roll song playing, old school, from the fifties. I have always wanted to know that good ol' rock'n roll, I mean to dance it, but since I don't and neither does my husband, we were just plain dancing. “I'm not very good with these moves”, he told me when I took the initiative to do a swirl. “Don't worry, I am, for both of us.”

The fire place clock (oh yes, it has a nice fire place too, but no nice flare in it, not even a fake one ) said 21:15, which obviously was wrong by several hours, when we left. We walked home and got in bed, the poor doglet all puzzled by our late night abcense. Stepped in dog pee (she always does it when left alone…) in the dark of the bedroom, and climbed to bed, falling asleep immediately.