Jenni's blog

Footcandy

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:49:32 -0700

Ok, so, apart from that knee being ~~axed~~ fixed, I still have some issues with running. Mainly, it kills the bones in my feet. Mr. Textile Athlete thought it might be because of my sneakers, so off to the shops we went for a last, desperate stab at fitness:

"May I help you?"

"Um, yeah. I have these 8-9 year old sneakers and..."

"o_O"

"...probably like 6-7 year-old sneakers that make my feet hurt while jogging"

And from there on I got a lecture about how not to kill your feet and change your jogging shoes at least every second year and madam should most certainly take care of her feet and it's a bloody wonder you still have bones left in your body and why do you damage yourself like this woman!

And then I glanced meaningly over at the prices of those damn sneakers and pointed out that it needen't make my coffee which probably is what these things do at that price. And he sold me a nice pair of sneakers at an okay price and I stopped bitching. After this, Sami made me get myself a pair of specially made Foot Balance soles for my sneakers. SO! If the bitch ain't running it most certainly is not because of inappropriate footwear!

I have one concern though. All the sneakers where a bit gay, you know? With the silver and the almost-but-not-quite-neon and the breathing glittery material and all that. Seems like Nike, Adidas and Asics had a specific type of customer in mind for this season.

The flaming homosexual.

And now I'm the not so proud but very comfortable owner of a pair of silvery (yeah, you read it right), poison green (still right), net-material (I kid you not) sneakers with Foot Balance soles.

Now I only have to get used to running in the dark.

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Merry Friskmas, Bridezilla!

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:00:58 -0700

Or how to sort out the details of a wedding without making a complete ass of yourself.

Seeing as we are both in it his for the very first time, we have been caught redhanded and completely ignorant in many, many ways by many, many people. We've gotten The Look, you know, that one your wife gives you when you get caught pants down in the barn with the maid, many many times. We've caused numerous sighs and a few "aw, hell you didn't"s. So here's a little heads up! to the rest of y'all who may or may not know these things from before. If you still decide to be as big a schmucks as we have been, you'll pleasantly find out that the people in this business have nerves of steel. And a hefty dosage on their Prozac.

There will be papers

There will be forms to fill out, orders to make and things to decide, and "We're both kind of new at this. This is our first time" doesn't apply. Y'all need to apply the states permission to get married as soon as possible. Which would be max 4 months in advance since the Registrar's Office only gets to apply The Legal Form That States We Aren't Already Married To Other People for this long. You wanna do this first because it minimizes the amount of meetings you have with priests. Which is kind on the priests nerves. You don't wanna bend God's peeps out of shape.

Set your dates

Dates for things that you had no idea existed will have to be set. By You. We embarrassed ourselves today by thinking the date when the church announces Weddings A-hoy! in a few weeks is set by the church. But no. It's set by you, and if you didn't know this you're probably a bit of a retard. Since you are also (naturally) expected to attend the announcement because it is, after all, your wedding that is announced as something that will be held by the church in the near future, it's kind of a big no-no not to come. And to explain to a catholic priest that The Marketing Department at The Organization in which The Groom works gives jack shit about relationships, graduations, funerals, and life outside the company is pretty hard. Right about here you might wanna return to the previous point about not pissing of the good shepherds.

Carry a tune

Y'all need to learn some notes. Because the church music is one more thing that is up to you. And "that one song by Mendehlson" isn't enough. Holy Diver is not a wedding march, and neither is the theme from Star Wars. I swear to God, once we get this thing settled we are going to make a few extra loops around the church on our way in and out just to enjoy the handpicked music.

Le rip-off

Everything connected to a wedding costs. A lot. No-one except bridal shops sell white bridal shoes, and no-one except lingerie-shops sell all the bits and pieces you need to gather all of your business inside that dress. And even if the shoes aren't that special, just plain white satin heels, get ready to add a zero to the price you thought they were. Nobody else sells this shit except for specialists, and so they cost like mad. I suspect Vera Wang has the other retailers by the wang.

Get ready to hit second base

Shopping for bridal stuff is like going t the gynecologist. That lady at the dress-shop? She's coming in with you! As a responsible adult capable of deciding whether or not you'd like to spend the rest of your days with this dude, you still can't be trusted to put on a dress by yourself. So she's gonna see you in your undies and touch your boobs. And so is that lady at Le Rip-Off Lingerie. She might be carrying measuring instruments but she's still gonna use them on your rack. And you need her because there's no way in winter olympics-hell you'd figure out by yourself how to dress all these thingamajigs on your body. The easy way with the underwear? Duct tape. But after all that groping I felt like I needed to pay the woman for something.

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I Thought It Was Just Two Words

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:55:10 -0700

The closer we get, the more people there are to meet. Who would've thought that getting married required this much paperwork and meetings? What's it all about?

I do! I fucking do! And he does too!

Apart from all the papers I have advanced to shooting rubber bands at Sami in the mornings. I'm quite a good shot. And it's mainly for shits and giggles because I had to surrender my sneakers (along with a gazillion other things, like a snorkel, flippers, a spatula, long johns, shorts and a first-aid kit according to a list that was mailed to me. I ain't carrying that bag, bitches.) to the Party Posse assembled by my maid of honor for further use.

Tomorrow we still have to meet the priest at the church we belong to here and get him to surrender our papers to the priest who will marry us in Turku, 200km away, meet with the person who plays music at the church and go for another fitting at the bridal shop. I got ripped off by a lingerie-shop last week and let me tell you: it takes so many bits and pieces to keep everything neatly tucked away under that wedding dress that one of us is going to have to get a degree in engingeering by the wedding or I'm never getting out of those support systems.

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Morning Glory

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:46:09 -0700

In this house, we have 2 ways of waking up during holiday/sick-leave.

Since one of us is a morning-person, and I am not, the first scenario is where he wakes up considerably earlier than me and goes about doing whatever it is people who like mornings do. I am dragged kicking and screaming into consciousness by nature about 3 pm. Waking up still sucks, but a little less.

The other scenario, which is the one we usually go by here, is where he wakes up ~~at 8 am~~ in the middle of the night and wants to go for a morning walk with me. He puts on his protective suit and helmet and gently, gently tries to wake me up. I reach for my shotgun and try to shoot him in the butt, but he is getting awfully good with that kevlar shield of his.

Walk it is then. I usually open my eyes after 30 minutes or so. I hate doing stuff in the morning, and he knows it so he sometimes makes an effort to spice up these walks by showing me some cool caves. I love my ~~golden nuclear warheads~~ caves, so this does the trick more often than not.

At breakfast he eats about everything we have, with yogurt, and I try not to gag too loudly. If I eat (I know, I know), I have toast. I only eat bread that looks like it survived a nuclear blast, so it was very traumatic for me when our toaster broke down last week. I only survived by the power of orange juice and vodka.

I kid, I kid. We don't have orange juice.

How do you survive your mornings?

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Florence Nightingale He Isn't.

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 05:12:55 -0700

I had the stitches removed 4 days back. By a certified nurse, at the closest health-center.

Yesterday, when I removed the Steri-Strips that I was supposed to cover the wound with for an additonal 3-4 days, I had a surprise waiting for me. 2 suspicios shadows inside my knee. So I picked the healed skin apart with a needle and took out 2 ADDITONAL LOOPS OF STRING! Goddamn!

Yes, I am that crazy of a bitch, and soon I'll be a crazy bitch with an amputated knee because of the nice little infection I probably gave myself while poking around.

But come the fuck on. I know it might be hard to tell bright blue surgical string apart from my black blood, but that was just ridiculous. How do you miss 2 complete loops of blue stitching? Huh? Found that nursing degree in our box of cereal this morning, did we?

Apart from this little "Honey, you might wanna come over here and check this the hell out"-incident, it's been peachy. It always takes a while when he comes back from these long trips abroad, and I suppose it hasn't been easy on him either. All the ex-pats in the organization where he works have it pretty well when they are abroad. Chef and all. So when I promised to make lunch for both him and Tapsa during their first day back, and took them to the supermarket, they were standing in the meat-section as bewildered as 2 bunnies on the highway. Sami was the first to recover in the produce-section.

"We need stuff from here too?"

"Well, yeah."

"Okay. Run free, woman. Do your thing"

So for me it's been lots of fun. The most fun part was watching him mop the floors. After which we finally saw the first Narnia-movie. I can hear y'all going wooooot? but remember I'm not big on fantasy and still haven't seen the last 2 LOTR-movies sober. It was okay, I suppose, but I have to say this much: the 2 boys, Edmund and Peter, you know? I completely get why they were so far back in the closet.

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Back Home...

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:47:26 -0700

Backyard

...and I have been rubbing his chin so much that he can't grow a beard for a year.

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Return Of The Bridezilla!

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:09:23 -0700

I totally forgot to tell you guys what a complete idiot I was at the bridal shop a few days ago!

So, my dress came, right? And we went to try it on, right? And the other color in this story is the lady at the bridal shop, right?

"So where are your shoes?"

"um... at home... 160km away..."

"Why didn't you bring them with you?"

"I didn't know I was supposed to" (yeah, I know, I know, but somehow I imagined the dress is one size and that's it. Either it's the proper length or then its tough shit for the bride. Apparently not)

"Do you think you'd be able to recognize the shoes you bought?"

"yeah. Those, over there"

"Good. Did you bring your lingerie with you?"

"um... no."

*sigh*

"Okay. What kind of lingerie do you have?"

"um... none. I thought I'd go out and buy them sometime after this dress came."

"Allright. But be sure to buy them and bring them with you to the next fitting."

"There's one more?!"

"Yeah! We have to take it in, right?"

"Oh. I thought this was it."

"And then there's a final fitting after that."

"Are you kidding me?"

That woman had the patience of a saint and I should totally send her flowers. And vodka.

But how am I supposed to know these things? I thought I try the dress on and go buy bras after that, and I honestly thought they were a standard length and stuff. I swear to God, if anyone of my friends ever gets married I'm making them a rulebook about these things. And I only get how embarrassing I am after I blurt things out in the air.

And a while ago Sami called. Since my stitches should be removed the day after they come home, and there's no way I'm traveling to Turku on the day he arrives home, we talked about if Tapsa could do it because he has received the proper medical training. Sami told me we wouldn't have to get the scalpel you normally use for these things because scissors would work equally well. After I painted him a vivid scenario of what would happen if anyone tried to come at me with kitchen utencils and a pitchfork, he sighed "I knew I shouldn't have told you in advance."

...because I probably couldn't tell the difference between pliers and a scalpel anyway.

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QotD: What Can Blogging Do for You?

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:55:10 -0700

What does blogging do for you?
Submitted by Madeleine Rose.

I never held a journal when I was a kid, and at first blogging was my way of keeping in touch with the people I love when I moved. I suck at writing letters.

In a way, blogging is still a way to keep in touch, because I know I have more readers than little overa year ago when I started.

I don't know why, but this has kind of become a habit. I like blogging. I like writing about myself, my friends, my relationship with Sami and things that get to me for one reason or the other.

My friends still read this. So does Sami, at least when he's abroad working.

I read this.

This might be social porn, but I like doing it, and I choose what I air here and what I don't write about. And I like reading other peoples blogs, they're very addictive.

So, for me, blogging does a lot of things.

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Master of Science (econ.)

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:31:39 -0700

Yes, bitches!

I'm done, through, finito!

The language advisors dropped the key to the door that leads out of the halls of academia, and now I'm off like a prom-dress!

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Back Home

nobody@vox.com(Jenni) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:26:15 -0700

Which is nice. Even if there is no food like the one Made By Mom, there's also no place like home. But I did enjoy the food. And the wine. And the dessert.

Multiple times.

And on saturday I was invited to Nina's place to open up the summer season! Technically it's been summer for a while now, but it has still been raining a lot, so I guess it's anyone's game from here.

I was a bit tired beforehand, but I ended up having a real good time. Nina and Miriam even gave me a gift, and I totally embarrased myself. Once again.

Nina opened up with "Since one of our friends recently graduated to be an M.Sc., we'd like to mark the occasion with a little sumthn' sumthn'..."

And because my thesis is still with the language advisors, and I noticed both of the girls looking my way, so I gazed to my sides to see this miracle of a person who had gotten her thesis through.

Duh.

Apparently, they were confident enough in my swedish to wanna celebrate it right now, and even if I wasn't, and still aren't, and am going to be incredibly embarrassed when it crashes and burns, I was always up for celebrations! And from there on it was good times for everyone! Mainly for the Hostess with the Mostest, since all the guests used the drinking game we played to get her liquored up. We did very, very well.

The gift, you ask?

*insert evil plan laughter here*

Because as all my friends know, I wouldn't die alone in the woods in anything pink, they got me this:

Ugly As Duck

These might be the ugliest socks I've ever seen, but alarmingly, they are also, hands down, the most comfortable thing that has ever hugged my feet.

I am seriously thinking about going pink just because of these amazing socks.

And that feathery thing? That would be a pen they got me. For work. Which I promised to use until my boss do us part.

They also gave me a comic book, called "kiroileva siili", or "the cursing hedgehog" for those less talented in the elfish language of this country. It's a little pissed off hedgehog, and even though it sounds completely bonkers, the book immediately topped the top ten-lists of every book store in Finland when it came out. Sadly, I couldn't find any strips in english, and it might be that excessive amounts of explicit words is something that only finns relate to. Anyhow, I've loved this comic back when it was underground, and I bought an early copy of it years ago directly from the author who was printing them out and punching them together herself at the time. I gave it to Joni as a birthday-present and he loved it. And I love mine.

Apart from being showered with gifts, I spent a lot of time chatting with Miriam. We've been study-buddies for a year or so, but we've never really talked that much, so it was a fun to really get to know her a bit better. We share a few areas in our life too, so it's always nice to have someone to relate to.

Of course there were other people at the party too, but I thought I'd post a pic of the 3 prettiest ladies there. Neighborhood only because I don't (yet) have their permission to post this.

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