Winter debris

I've been feeling particularly delirious lately, it's like I have a giant Christmas hangover that won't really let go. I'm struggling to turn my sleeping pattern from sitting-up-all-night-munching-candy-and-watching-old-films to get-up-while-it-is-still-light-and-get-stuff-done. I'm a weak person. It's so difficult, despite that I've moved from tea to coffee to up the caffeine intake. The combination of lack of sleep and excessive amounts of caffeine is fun though, it's like being on some wacky drug that turns my thoughts into a hyperactive flower. Does that make sense? It makes sense to me, which should tell all there is to know about my state of mind.

But the real reason I'm writing this is to have another little maniac rant about how lovely winter is. Proper winter that is, with snow and temperatures below the freezing point. This is my first winter in Helsinki when the place hasn't been a dark soggy hell hole, and I'm loving it. I get to wear my amazing knitwear without sweating, there are lots of fun stuff to do and everything is PRETTY. All things dull and ugly are hidden under a pristine white carpet.

Also, we got a camera for Christmas,  so I can now lurk around the neighbourhood taking pictures of everything I see.
What I've particularly noticed lately is all the debris and lost stuff that seems so visible in the snow. Particularly lost knitwear. The fact that a lost mitten on the street will be carefully picked up by a stranger and placed somewhere nearby where it is easy to see and won't get lost in snow makes me believe that there is something essentially good in humankind. We are not only selfish, we also care about strangers we will never meet.

All this glory must, as everything , have a soundtrack. Winter just seems even more wintery when I'm listening to "Winter" by Tori Amos,  Cocteau Twins' version of "Winter Wonderland" and  for some reason I don't quite understand: Enya's "Anywhere is". I'm frankly amazed that I'm not tired of it yet.


Was there a proper red thread in this post? Not really. Just some ramblings about how great winter is. But there is a red woollen cap. That'll do.

"Reccomended for you"

I have a YouTube account. Or rather I have a gmail account that can also be used for logging in to YouTube. Anyway, I thought that it was a good idea to make use of the account. Partly because I have a tendency to watch videos I really like over and over and over again.

And again.

And then some more.

Just like an annoying 5 year old actually.

Thus it is practical to be able to "favourite" my favourites, saving myself the 10 extra seconds it would take to search for them. I'm very busy wasting time on the internet, I have to do it effectively.

The other reason for having a personal YouTube is the "reccomended for you" function. I have great experience with this kind of thing from amazon (I made this link to my wishlist, just in case anyone who reads this would ever want to buy me a present) which makes me spend quite a lot of cents ordering library books, and Last.fm, which makes me spend a fortune on hard-to-get music.

Why waste time looking for things I like when there is companies out there who are just too happy to do it for me (while probably making a profile on me in order to sell me stuff more efficiently or for whatever sinister reasons they might have)?

I live in the 21st century, I'm lazy and I want to be entertained.

So, since the "reccomended for you" section in YouTube for some unfathomable reason think I want to see hip-hop videos and "hot girls" I decided to tick the little sqare that says "stay logged in". If I stay logged in, all the YouTube videos I watch will be taken into account and thus my reccomended videos would be perfectly suited to my taste and personality. Maybe, in our culture where what you consume define who you are, it can even give a subtle hint of what kind of person I am.

The resulting reccomended video is this:

squashed cat

I haven't seen it, and I don't want to know what kind of profile I have in Google Inc's archives.

Short summary of valentine's day

I had a nightmare about teddybears.

The colour pink now make me a bit nauseous.

I still despise fluffy hearts in all forms.

It makes me cry.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7834242.stm

I just do not understand. What is going on inside the heads of people like Joseph Kony?

Oh, and so much for Christians who says that atrocities in the name of their God only happened in the middle ages. Obviously Christianity is not less violent than any other religion or belief.

I guess the only positive thing today is that it has finally reached Norwegian front pages : http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/01/17/nyheter/lords_resistance_army_lra/sikkerhetsradet/uganda/den_sentralafrikanske_republikk/4409741/ it has taken long time.

Why isn't Africa interesting to people here up north?

EU -you can get in, but not out? And even if you are not in, you have to do as they say...

I've read today in Dagbladet, one of the major newspapers in Norway, that a survey done by the European movement shows that if the EEA agreement goes belly-up when/if Iceland joins the European Union, more voters will vote "yes" than "no" in a new referendum.
I can not help but think that getting rid of the EEA and negotiate a new agreement with EU would be the best option for Norway anyway. Being able to go to the continent to live and work without too much hassle is all well and good, but seriously: Being forced to accept bad new laws and regulation, as for example like the one that reduces consumers rights I read about today in Aftenposten, is, well obvioulsy: BAD

From an environmental point of view, it seems to me that the European Union is on the wrong track, speeding rapidly towards hell and damnation.
Consumerism, a.k.a. buying lots of shit you don't really need, and transporting goods and products over far distances instead of promoting locally made products is quite central to what the European Union is about (For example did I recently read in The Helsingin Sanomat about how EU membership makes it illegal to use national symbols like the flag to market domestic foodstuff, thus making it more difficult for consumers to rapidly recognise domestic food in whichever country they may happen to be at the time).
I hardly think I need to point out why this is not good for the environment.

Another major objection I have to the EU is that it is way too little direct democracy in it's structure. As modern technology makes it easier, cheaper and more efficient to have referendums, the number of referendums over political decisions ought to increase rapidly. This would be a tremendously good thing as political power should be mostly in the hands of the people it concerns, rather than a few individuals who make a career out of governing others.
Alas, I have seen few signs of the European Union embracing these ideals in practice. The diversity part in "united in diversity" seems sadly neglected.

While there is undoubtedly many beneficial traits in the European Union, like making it easier for people to move about, I generally feel that the negative aspects still outweighs the good.
And I find it annoying that the referendums about EU membership is not respected by Norwegian politicians. In Norway there has been two referendums, one in the seventies and one in the nineties. Both ended with the majority being against membership. That should be taken as a guideline, instead of worked against, if one is to justify being a representative of the people. I think DPP had the right idea about how a politician should behave.

The state exists for the sake of the people, not the other way around.

Christmas. Flesberg vs Helsinki

Nothing makes me as concious of traditions as Christmas. I don't think it can be said that I'm a very traditional person in general, but Christmas is different. It is THE tradition. The sun turns, and the days get brighter. If you've ever lived in northern countries you know why this is so important. It has been celebrated in one way or another since time immemorial, and are still celebrated even though peoples, religion and culture have changed. The forms might vary, but we are still celebrating the same thing.

As usual, I spent December in my family's farm in Eastern Norway; but Christmas itself I celebrated in Helsinki and with my husbands family.
In Flesberg, getting into the Christmas feeling was easy.
First of all, everything looked pretty much like a Christmas card. Glittering snow covered trees and mountains, smoke trailed lazily from the chimney, and rabid little birds was in a feeding frenzy over the fat-covered nuts and sunflower seeds my mum hangs in the trees in the garden. And I was skiing through this jolly glory accompanied by one of my parents' dogs: Topsy. Pure winter enjoyment.

Inside I busied myself with christmas preparations. I usually finnish the presents before 1st of December so that I do not have to stress about it, but this year I had decided to make several of the presents by hand, so it took a bit more time. For example: I knitted a pair of mittens for my nephew modeled after an old child mitten I found. That took ages, since there was no pattern. The mitten was patched in places so I could not see what the original pattern had been but had to guess, and anyway I have never knited anything with a pattern before. Usually I knit stripes, period. Needless to say, I made lots of mistakes and had to do everything over again several times. And in a year or two, the darn things won't fit him anymore.

Another important Christmas preparation is to make cookies and candy. And it is the thing I like the most. Both the annual donut making day with my friend Ida, and fiddling around in the kitchen on my own. The smells and taste is just marvelous, and this year Loreena McKennit had released a new christmas album: A midwinter night's dream. Perfect listening when making your own gløgg a late december evening. I've tried several gløgg recepies, but this is my favourite:

• 1 bottle of white wine
• 1 decilitre of demera sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cardamom kernels
• a bit of chopped fresh ginger
• 10 cloves
• about 3/4 decilitre calvados

Heat wine, sugar and spices (Make sure it does not boil!). Turn the oven off and let it be for a couple of hours. Sieve it to remove the spices, they have done their job now. Heat gently and add the calvados, chopped almonds and sultana raisins.

This year I also made marzipan myself for the first time. It's surprisingly easy, although quite a lot of work.
Munching marzipan is rather important in Norwegian Christmas traditions, and the grand prize for finding the almond in the Christmas porridge is the marzipan piggy (marzipan shaped as a jolly pig, for those who might wonder). When celebrating Christmas with my husband for the first time I was rather surprised to learn he doesn't really fancy marzipan. He even won the piggy, but he only had a small taste and declared it "too sweet". Later on I've noticed the shocking lack of decent marzipan in Finnish shops. No marzipan sweets at all, just a few sad and tiny packs of garishly coloured icky stuff in the cake decoration department if one is lucky. Finns are strange, thank the gods that the ingredients are available so that I can make it myself when I'm here in Helsinki.
Overall, I think the selection of sweet Christmas treats are rather better in Norway. A subjective view of course, but there is no doubt that there is a lot more of them than in Finland.

I'm afraid me and Finnish Christmas have come off on a wrong footing. It all started when I went off the plane and saw snowflakes twirling in the air. I immediately stared humming "let it snow", and if I hadn't had such a heavy bag i would have taken a few dancing steps. Unfortunately, the snow must have come with the aeroplane, because when I went out of the airport all I could see was darkness and wet little pools of water. Oh well, the darker the outside the brighter the candles and light inside. But then I made the very bad decision of going to Stockman the twenty-second of December. Stockman is a absolutely horrid place at the best of times, a crowded and confusing shopping mall of the worst kind (crowded and confusing can be nice if it also has a big dose of charm and friendliness. Stockman have a distinct lack of both those traits). Right before Christmas it is best described as one of Dante's circles of hell. I would never have dared venture into it if I hadn't been looking for some Christmas dinner ingredients that you can't find in ordinary grocery stores here. Well, I didn't find them in Stockman either, so my suffering was in vain. Only after some calming hours in a cosy pub with a good friend did I feel ok again, but I still felt the deprivation of my serene mountain valley.

Eventually Christmas eve arrived, and we went to my parents in law for dinner. Which is delicious. It feels a bit odd to eat ham on Christmas eve, since I connect it more with ordinary Sunday dinners, but it was very well done. And there is several interesting stews, my favourite is the carrot one. During the whole evening there was also opening of presents (I especially enjoyed the stuff my sister in law brought home from Japan), munching of chocolate and drinking of beer. An added bonus was the tv showing the disney show that was one of the highlights of my childhoods Christmas.
And finally I found the feeling of Christmas peace. Half sleeping in the couch with Tommi's arms around me, warm and full of food, I felt the sun had turned in a proper and right manner this year too. We go toward brighter days.

Stardust with little children

My boyfriend sometimes says that I'm childish, and I guess that is true. For example do I enjoy a lot of stuff that is really meant for children (or meant for people that like stuff that is perceived as children's stuff by other people). Some of those things I like that might, or might not, be meant for children are films in the genre fantasy, and today I went to see "Stardust".
I felt a bit queasy before going to see this one, because it's based on my favourite book and I was afraid I'd be disappointed. I wasn't, it's a great film and I heartily recommend it.

But not surprisingly, the cinema was full of children. That means the sound of popcorn being crunched between itty bitty milk teeth was quite loud, the general squealing was deafening, and oh boy, those huge buckets of popcorn with butter on really smell like a whole bunch of people have farted on their well-worn sweaty socks and then started waving their feet around. When I think about it, that might very well be what had been happening, and the popcorn producers may be innocent.
After living in Finland for a year I've grown used to blessed silence and good hygiene from the human beings around me, so going to the cinema here back home is a bit shocking. Going to a "children's movie" is plain surreal.

The little tyke sitting next to me was clearly not old enough to understand English nor read subtitles. Maybe, just maybe, this is a sign that the film was not really intended for children his age? Perhaps, if it was, someone would have thought of dubbing it?
Anyway, little tyke had his father along to do the dubbing that the film distributors didn't provide. Which is fine with me really, I don't really care if little tyke pee in his bed tonight, and I would have loved my mum to pieces if she had taken me to films like that when I was a little brat (however, my mum had, and still has, plenty of those protective maternal instincts and guess which little girl in my class didn't get to see Star Wars when it finally was sent on television). However, in the beginning of the film I seriously considered asking daddy if he hadn't heard of the difference between the voice we use inside and the voice we use outside. After all, a cinema is a public place, with other people who also have paid an expensive ticket to enjoy the film, not his family's private home.

But pretty soon this scene came along to save the day: 9 months after a male character had kissed a (fairy)girl and followed her into her travelling wagon a basket with a little baby is delivered at his door. Little tyke asks daddy: "Why did he get that one?". Then I finally got a bit eager to listen to daddy's explanations for this strange phenomena, but suddenly it seemed that daddy had finally found his "inside voice" after all...