Thursday, April 26, 2007

last thing I remember I was running for the door

Fell through a trap-door in the universe and find myself working in a hotel again.

If that's what it is. It's a place where the janitor is the boss, the building is a former refugee camp and half the receptionists don't speak decent Finnish. Mysterious Russians are the brains behind it all. It has the run-down look of an old gangster movie about it. And a huge bird, a magpie, has built a nest just outside the reception window. I've only seen one magpie in it yet though there should be two. "One for sorrow, two for joy..."

Friday, April 20, 2007

in the company of the warrior princess

Visited the Island. Xena the Warrior Princess lives there nowadays. At least I think it's her, although she is blonde and wearing wellies instead of sandals.

When I arrive after the long drive through forest and across the shockingly tall bridge, spring has painted the sea in glorious colours. The Warrior Princess is changing the tyres on her car and tells me about her upcoming wedding, the wedding she doesn't have the time to plan because she is (more or less single-handedly) restoring the old cottage where she lives.

"The safe feeling of being loved by someone... that is all I really need." The adventurer who tells me this once travelled alone through the darkest parts of Africa and will let nothing stand between her and her dreams. Against everybody's advice, she has almost torn the cottage apart to restore it to its original, beautiful shape. It's still complete chaos, but this girl can make even chaos look welcoming. There are three beautiful cats in the middle of it. One of them is sitting on the laptop.

The car is left standing with only two tyres attached because Xena has spotted something in the attic of the old barn that she absolutely has to investigate right away. So we climb around the ancient attic where the floor threatens to fall apart beneath our feet at any moment. The interesting object turns out to be half an old table and we haul it downstairs at the peril of our own lives.

An elderly man, a genuine soft-spoken Islander and expert on hand-crafted doors, arrives to look at an old door that Xena has found and wants put into the cottage. These old Islanders must be quite shaken up by this blonde tornado that has swept into their little old-fashioned community. Despite this, I have a feeling they can't help but love her. At least they have something to talk about. She has already engaged dozens of them in helping her repair her boat, give advice on the restoration work and tell her all about the history of the Island.

We snack on sandwiches and cheese crisps among the sawdust in the cottage before Xena gets back to sandpapering the walls and trying to persuade me to buy the cottage next door. The idea is too much for me to contemplate.

Driving back across the bridge to the mainland, I'm exhausted as if I had lived a lifetime in one evening.

Monday, April 16, 2007

a little pale and weary


The little Pleasantville (but in pastel colours) where I am temporarily residing is surrounded by a much more authentic village, old little wooden cottages (most of them beautifully restored and now containing all modern conveniances) interspersed among wide fields.

A chilly wind is still blowing across this brownish-grey landscape but the still-weak April sun is persistent and the colour green will soon be taking over. I try to forget my worries and enjoy the sun on the patio, comforting coffee mug in my hand. One of the cats, tiny Mjau, is chasing the first butterflies around my feet.

I am pale, weary. Not sure if I dare believe in a happy summer. Not convinced life has a meaning. But definitely certain that I will take this bleak day and make the best of it - nothing great, probably nothing much worth remembering, but the best I can do. It is enough.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

alien in Pleasantville

To the two sleek, grey cats I was a complete stranger who just walked into their house and took out a tin of cat food. They didn't seem to think anything was amiss, just told me loudly how hungry they were.

To the nice, middle-class neighbours in this nice, middle-class residential area, who all have pastel-coloured houses and 2.4 children playing in cute little gardens, I was definitely a complete stranger. I breezed in with a dodgy car, urban sunglasses and a foreign-looking man in tow for a two-week house-sitting. Instead of bringing two toddlers to the park and having a gossip with other mothers in mud-stained clothes, I stay inside typing on a laptop with manicured nails or take the car into town for a latte.

Staying in someone else's house, someone with a stereotypical family life, and my own, quite boring lifestyle suddenly seems eccentric.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

not just a pretty face


After a hard day's work of attacking everything that moved and a few things that didn't, exhaustion finally slowed Demolition Dog down enough for an almost decent portrait.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

a terrorist in my home

I have a guest staying over the Easter weekend. He is very charming, extremely sociable and somewhat demanding. This morning, he woke me up at 7 am because he needed to go to the bathroom and didn't want to go alone. He won't let me go alone either.

Attempts to catch him on camera failed miserably as he is extremely fast. He always seems to be "exiting stage left". Or right. Or viciously attacking the camera.

As the pictures show, he is something furry and black who likes to demolish newspapers, towels, human toes and anything else that happens to cross his path.

Some would call him a puppy, but personally, I'm convinced he is a cross between a crocodile and the Terminator.









Tuesday, April 03, 2007

the essence of March

It's not a brain.
It's not vomit.
It's not Cookies'n'Cream icecream.
It's a picture of the dreadful month of March at 63 degrees North.

Melting, filthy snow. Thank God that month is over.

Actually, there might be some vomit mixed in there too.