The 1st Breath of spring

I know it sounds odd. It isn’t even March yet but it is true. Make no mistake, it does not, not under any circumstances mean that spring is coming yet quite the contrary. It just like a movie previews Nothing else. This is how it will feel like. Sun, warm sun and a particular smell in the air. Not the dogpoo smell but a real spring kind of vibe, that’s all. Nothing else yet. No snow melting or anything like that of course not. And later this week or next week our socks will freeze off again in the -25 but we won’t mind anymore the same way we did before. We will be laughing; try all you might your time is up cranky winter! And we will be crying; where is the spring our bodies and minds are aching for?!

But it will come eventually. Spring. Thinking it curls my tongue up. Wonderful name. Like a love affair we will soon all be having a dizzy head of it. And in March when snow truly starts melting the smell of melting dogshit will help to get that dizzy head. Till then...
... when we can we sit outside catching a bit of sun kicking the snow. Great things are to come we hope. Tobi is sure. I hope. He flips between excited anticipation and panicked out anticipation. What on earth will he do with an infant dragon? It comes naturally I keep telling him but stopped recently when he nearly bit a couple of my toes off through my boots just after spitting a moderately sized fireball dangerously close to my head. It seems he had enough off hearing ‘it comes naturally’. He wishes for something else and when he let me know this it must have been one of his panicky anticipation moments. Fair enough.

I became an uncle recently and it is a very weird feeling. The happy parents are the aunt and uncle of Lili’s. Wicked dynamics. They are experienced Aunty and Uncle but know nothing of actually having one while we are fairly well experienced about having a kid yet know nothing of being an uncle. Tobi says I shouldn’t worry, it comes naturally.

I can’t bite through boots. And apart from special occasions when I am really really angry and put on a not Irish accent anymore just some really stupid sounding one I will produce plumes and some fire as well. True, I used to speak with an Irish accent when getting agitated. I lost with my Glaswegian. Something to make me sad but the joy of anticipation helps me let go.

Tobi was away last night he popped over to Vienna and Budapest to the Opera Balls. He hasn’t actually gone to the Balls but to the anti-balls. It is common that the new aristocracy has this wonderful events once a year when they come together to show off their pretty dresses and drink some nice cocktails. Something very similar to the president’s birthday party in Finland with the possible difference that in central Europe they at least have the face that it isn’t state sponsored.
The Anti-Ball event is organised by... guess whom! Of course, the anarchists! Those guys whom the police always treats most heavy handed. Why? Because they are enemies of the capitalist system and they really mean it!

In Budapest for example, at some point about 15 of them walked over to the Opera Building and on the stairs a couple of them pulled their trousers down to show off their bottoms expressing their opinion about the event and I guess the winners of Corporatist Capitalism to the true amusement of the photo journalists and TV crews. The police couldn’t tolerate it so about 40 of them in riot gear beat the crap out of them. The contrast, last summer on a Rainbow Parade the Fascist and Racist antiprotesters threw eggs at the parading cheerful crowd. Eggs that had a hole punched on them to fill them and filled up with acidy liquid before. The police on the spot and the courts later last year announced this was merely an expression of their opinion. As I said, Anti-Capitalist are the true enemies of the state these days. Still. So... Obama, Sarkozy, Brown? They are talk, talk and talk. Sorry pals to disappoint you who believed otherwise.

Anyway, Tobi enjoyed the events somewhat. I think, although he isn’t telling, he may have been responsible to hyping emotions a bit thus contributing to the ‘incident’ that gave the excuse to the police to overreact.

Executive (a thousand words)

A couple of days back I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to have a taste of a lifestyle that is so common to those who go by titles such as managing director. The facility maintenance company and the student housing company to whom we work for had a training and enhancing cooperation day for the lot of us from the 2 companies who work in and with the Linnanmaa and Synimaa areas. There were 15 people, one was the managing director of PSOAS, the student housing company of Northern Finland. I ended up chatting with him most of the time for my Finnish is lousy at best while he was the only one confident in English.
We were expected to work a shortened and therefore hard shift in the morning before shuttled out to this spot in the middle of nowhere, an executive hideout. I of course skipped my shift but forgot to mention it to my boss. I am not so much into 15 hours work days. Tobi came out with me so while I was very modest in the drinking, not wanting to get tipsy and start bashing on capitalism to the managing director Tobi could have my share of the cider. I didn’t say no to the aperitif before dinner which by the way was wild boar sauce on uniquely special only grown in the region potatoes. The aperitif was also very uniquely special particularly Finnish drink made of potatoes in process that exactly resembles how vodka is made. But it wasn’t vodka. Hm.
Lots of exciting activities and tasks making us all feel special and challenged, important and cared for by our companies and bosses. One these days can so easily see through it all yet I am sure it still had some of the desired effects. After the programme, before dinner, we had sauna with wood burning stows. Regular Sauna first, then smoke sauna, then a comfy dip in the hot water pool under the stars, back to the sauna and cool down standing outside in the minus ten. I loved it but modestly took my time reasonably short for not everyone engaged with the sauna activity and dinner was waiting and home with bed after that. Managing director and other big boss took their time. We were all waiting and waiting. Scuffed our food helping ourselves to a second serving thinking of taking a nap in the bus especially that the moment the last crumb of the dessert was finished by everyone the bus driver popped his head in wondering if we were ready to go. Ready but…
Managing Director and Area Manager had to sum up the wonderful day’s events and outcomes and trade a couple of inspirational speeches before we could go. The other 13faces spent that 25 minutes with trying to hide ‘Just shut the hell up!’ from their faces and praying that nobody would ask a question or throw a comment. It could have been a nice afternoon but the ending just threw it all out. Of course Managing Directors and Area Managers have their priorities right. No worries apparently of getting home to the kids and wife, getting up next day fresh relatively enough. It seems it is all about the company. Money. My money really, for who pays for this kind of stuff anyway?
The people who are the frontline of production are the ones who create what then is sold as service or product to the costumer. They are, we are the lowest paid. The money that we don’t get paid pays for office staff, fair I guess, someone has to organise work and supply. For management, sort of fair, every company needs a head but the wages there start running away. And the feeling of fairness is further eroded thinking that Managing Director and Area Manager will have more than one a year of these executive style work camps for their staff. There ought to be at least ten or so of such areas in Northern Finland like Synimaa and Linnanma and they all should get their enhancing cooperation days.
In the bus home with Tobi we discussed that probably the ordinary worker would find it far more motivational if some of the hard worked for money instead of being spent on such events, paying for cushioned life for such otherwise nice and friendly people would be given back to us. I would find it more motivational. In fact this whole day demotivated me further.
One more thing Tobi and I agree on here. Smoke sauna is not an easy matter. It is hard to make a good one. In the executive hideout it wasn’t good. Made my eyes not so nice. It felt smoky. The last one before that I took was far better. It was prepared by a friend who has never done it before and I remember she spent an hour or so on the phone to her granddad trying to avoid blowing it up, burning it down or accidentally killing us all with poisonous gas when we went inside. She managed and it will always be a defining experience for me of Finland.
Tobi told me with a wink he decided if he wins the lottery he won’t live on big foot and will give all the money to the poor. Thanks. Lili is slightly annoyed because she just spent the money she saved up in her piggy bank and now she will have to wait buying something else till it’s full again. She keeps asking me for more change. I taught my daughter to beg?
By the way, I am Uncle Gabor from now on
No, Tobi didn’t win. Neither did I. 21 Days left, or maybe less. They did say ‘at latest’. But spring but spring maybe later. In Budapest they are already counting days before it’s spring. We are still counting in weeks at best. Or maybe months.

The day before... and after

It’s done. Thanks to our tremendous contributions, our sacrifices and our courage at long last the Sun has stopped being such a wimp and whatever it takes it from now on will spend more time in the sky than under it. And then he will become more and moer courageous till she will become the domionant creature of the sky. By the way, he or she? Tradition tells the sun is a masculine thing, the moon is a feminine thing etc etc... But did anyone know that he is a cross dresser? And that it has been going on for so long that nobody actually knows if he is a she or she is a he. I guess it wouldn’t matter to me but the English language is such that to refer to another person as ‘it’ is a sin against polite manners.
We fond an excellent recipe yesterday:
http://www.deliaonline.com/cookery-school/how-to/how-to-make-shortcrust-pastry,21,AR.html
I recommend reading it and then giving yourself an exercise: see if you can write it shorter

I am on my own for a bit of change. The gang is outside playing in the fresh, crisp snow. Finally I could convince them to gimme a break and leave me alone, besides the library is a quiet place and in these festive times it is hard to be quiet. Ask Lili if you don’t believe me. Another, big plus to being outside is the bright, more or less blue sky. It is amazing how bright it can get, even if the sun is hiding behind, under the trees when there are no clouds. I have almost, honesty first, I have forgotten this in the last 2 months.
The Gang nowadays is Tobi, Elena, Blabla and occasionally Zigy. Blabla is back in the gang thank to his pizza cooking and stashing talents for which it seems he should be thankful because this is what made Tobi remember eventually that he has non dragon friends. The little girl, I forgotten her name has never shoved. I speculate that she missed her train from Helsinki and have decided not to bother with coming altogether. Lili has forgotten about her the same as I have forgotten her name. So it is fine. I wonder if you can guess where to find Moses.
We are a great anticipation these days. I like to get presents and I know of someone who gets excited about them far, far more than I do. She is four and a half and about 110cms tall. Oh, and someone else! Another one to be left for the dear reader to guess. Jen said that luckily imaginary people need only imaginary presents. I started debating about that. That they are imaginary. But Lili put me into my place.
She is a bit amusing on that. You can play anything as long as you keep in mind it is only a game. It’s her attitude. Although she has gotten a bit carried away with recent festivities, yet to come but I blame the education system for that entirely. And I am damn right!
Yesterday we had a small celebration to welcome the sun after the longest night. We celebrated with breakfast so everyone starved their eyes out by 10:28 when she finally got up. Not an early bird.
And the word bird reminds me to the guys I have been writing about. The berry birds who picked Scotland’s berry trees bare and shit it all into the North Sea they were so fast. They are still here. They taking their time. It might be that they have separated into smaller groups this year who have different sections of Europe to raid therefore making those raids a heck of a lot longer. I don’t mind. I like listening to their quiet yet melodic chatter. They are a contrast to crows in many ways as well.
Yesterday sitting outside our office enjoying the bright blinding daylight – because it has started yesterday – I watched these birds having lunch on a tree nearby and noticed 2 crows having lunch, actually brunch, they looked liked they just got up recently then. The crows had a different strategy. Certainly not stinking berries that make your stomach all runny and stuff oh no! One of them sat outside the bin house to keep watch while the other went in to pick through the open bins, and checking around the compost if there is any misplaced compostable waste. They were fairly successful. I couldn’t see what exactly the menu was but looked like a multiple course branch.
And finally, for I have to stop, I am getting glances from the librarian to handle the creatures knocking on the window behind me... They must be getting cold.
So finally, for these festive days here is a phrase I have seen recently:
‘The World is Ours’
What do you think of this phrase? Please let me know. And I am serious. You can comment to this blog, email me, send a message via Skype, facebook, email, or regular postal services. You can call me or try telepathy of you really have a lot of time.
Happy, Peace- and restful festivities!