movies – Nokisuu

Hello again

21.1.2023 julkaissut Nokisuu

I just noticed it’s the end side of January and I haven’t written anything for a long time here. I’ve been having some kind of winter escape and haven’t been much on PC when I’m at home.

Nothing much has been going on. Christmas came and went as they do (as Neil Gaiman said in a bit different words) and we had nice time at home together.

Eldest son was here for the Christmas Eve and Day but then he went to live in his Godmother’s house as a cat-sitter because they have a little Spynhx (@rufusthesfinx in Instagram) and they left for two weeks in Thailand. Middlest son came home for dinner on Christmas Day with his girlfriend which was nice. Now he has last of his studies in Jyväskylä and she quit her job here and is looking for studies there too so they’d live together. I think that’s very nice for them.

During Christmas we got glasses for youngest son and now he’s very fond of them, they are his first and he’s got just a bit of astigmatism (like me and his dad). I told him that’s his Christmas gift from me. DH had the days between Christmas and New year off so one day we went to movies to see the new Puss in Boots which was very good. I’ve also been reading a lot and I wonder if I already read the best novel of this year Sea of Tranquility by Emily St.John Mandel in the beginning of January.

At work it’s been nice to see both old and new clients. Two years were pretty glum because of the plague so it’s good to see people again.

Only thing that bothers me is the renovations going on at the underground station closest to my workplace, it’s a lot like the Hell in Good Omens tv-series so I’ve been using the next stop and then walking or taking the tram from there, it’s about two minutes more to my commute but I’m happier.

I’m watching a lot of tv it seems. During Christmas and New year I watched all of Better call Saul, White lotus (I re-watched S1 too) and All creatures great and small and then some. I also knit a pair of mitts for myself and a scarf is halfway because I need to buy more yarn for it. I’m giving it for a friend in March when we have a theater date.

My pilates lessons begun again and I’ve been going to zumba classes since November and it’s been so great. I really like it but now the teacher just told us she’s going for maternity leave in May. The group is great, all of the other women are Russian except one young lady from India and one from Philippines and I’m the only Finnish-speaking there. They are all lovely and we have great fun.

So nothing much going on, just the normal everyday living. Here’s Måneskin’s newest video for you, I quite like them (and the drummer has Finnish step-family by his father).

Some March musings

27.3.2022 julkaissut Nokisuu

Today it’s the 6th anniversary of my Mom’s passing. Today it’s also the day Middlest one moved out of home to the NDA dormitory first and next week he’ll be getting a flat in Central Finland. So it’s not always the sad memories to go by.

Middlest son is going to move to a ’right of occupancy’-apartment. Since we haven’t been able to travel these past two years we’ll loan the needed money to him and then he’ll pay it back in some years. The apartment is about 49 square meters, has sauna and balcony and is located next to a lake on second floor. He’ll have about 1 km to the city centre via the bridge. I’m glad he got the place (since I found it) but we’ll need to buy everything starting from bed sheets. We’re planning to go see the place around April, before Easter weekend.

DH is getting better, he’s in not so much pain anymore but he still naps some hours per day which is good. I had to go to talk with a nurse at my work health care since I begun to feel so overwhelmed and it was good I did. I feel much lighter.

Youngest one had the enrollment to high school and he applied first on the Middlest one’s school. I hope he gets in as it would be a short biking or bus route to take and also Hubby works next door so he’d get a ride every now and then too. It’s one of the hardest ones to get in to, a sort of elite school, because it’s the University training school for teachers but it’s also top rate studying. The final results come in Mid-June.

Last week I went to movies with youngest one to see Moonfall. It was so much fun, no logic and totally unbelievable but very good for relaxing. We enjoyed it a lot.

I also went for a ride with my friend Mareetta, we drove to Tammisaari and then watched the sun down in Inkoo harbor and the moon rise at Kaivopuisto in Helsinki. We had lovely day in wonderful spring weather and great food.

A close shave

25.2.2022 julkaissut Nokisuu

Just a FYI for starters: I’m not going to comment on the Russian and Ukrainian war here since I’m trying to avoid it as much as possible.

I’ve had this week off work as it’s the local Winter holiday and school’s are on holiday. I thought I’d need this week off and boy was I right.

Last Friday DH went to the hospital with the expectation that he’d stay for the night as the tube was taken out and the kidney stones removed. In the end he was there four nights as the kidney had a massive vessel bleeding and he was being monitored every second. On Tuesday he finally came home.

He said that the reason he had had constant pain ever since Boxing Day when the doctors put the tube in was that it had started bleeding then. Two surgeons had told him that there had been some tests lacking and also a screening and he should make a malpractice notice. It was a very close shave that he came home at all (as I had gathered already since I’ve watched my fair share of ER and other hospital series).

So I’m just glad he’s home and everything is getting better. I’ve been mostly sleeping, reading, watching tv and doing a jigsaw puzzle (been years since my last one).

I was going to go to movies but haven’t had the energy and so I’ve been watching the Marvel movies with youngest one on the timeline order instead of the release order. I’ve also got us HBO now and so far I’ve watched Station eleven and White lotus. I was a bit worried they’d ruin Station Eleven as the book is one of my fave dystopian novels but it’s surprisingly good which I’m glad of.

I guess this was the news from my corner for now. I’m going back to the couch now with Sirius.

Yesterday we got some rain and now the yard looks like this

This morning we got some sleet. I’m so done.

What a week

25.12.2021 julkaissut Nokisuu

It’s been the kind of week you just hope it’ll end safely.

On Monday at work we were wondering why there is a smell of smoke. We checked every place but this time it wasn’t our building. It was the largest coffee roastery in Helsinki which is situated a block away over the football field. The smoke was pretty heavy and as I went to lunch the air was grey with smoke even some blocks further from the fire. Funnily our nearest work lunch place is on the Main fire station next to my work, there were many people from my work having lunch and sitting a bit longer in a smokefree place. I did a short walk a bit further to get some clean air, since we didin’t have clients anymore it was okay to stay a bit longer. The fire continued to Wednesday when the fire department finally got it out. Here you can see a video footage of the fire.

I felt like a smoked ham after work but I met a friend after work in the city centre. We changed gifts and it was nice to have a chat and nice cup of coffee after all day inhaling smoke at work.

On Tuesday the smoke didn’t get indoors anymore but as it was last day before my days off I didn’t much care. I left early as I went to dinner with my friend Mareetta. She had some trouble coming to pick me up from my work as the fire was on one of the main entryways to the city centre. (In twitter someone compalined the fire trucks being on the bicycle lane…) We drove to the seaside to take some pics of the sundown and then went to eat to a shopping centre.

On Wednesday I had my first day off and as youngest son had a short day at school we went to movies after his school to see the new Spiderman : No way home which was very good, we really enjoyed it. The new Dr Strange movie looks good too.

Eldest son was coming to spend the Christmas with us so hubby went to get him and they did some last grocery shopping. In the evening DH started to say his tummy ached a lot and then he threw up from the pain twice and finally around 10pm he was in so much pain he was just crying with pain on the sofa and I said I’ll call the Emergency Services and he said yes. So I did and they send an ambulance to assess the situation, at this point eldest son was already sleeping as he had an early morning next day. The ambulance crew took hubby to the hospital for a check-up and I was left with my old traumas (from when my dad died) to spend the night badly. Luckily eldest one slept through all of this but middlest and youngest one were still awake when hubby left so they were a bit tired too.

On Thursday around 10 am DH got out of the hospital and middlest one went to get him. It was kidney stones and the doctors had decided not to operate as it’d be a too big an emergency operation. Instead he got great painkillers and they’ll call him in for an operation soon, then they’ll blast the kidney stones so they come out more easily. Hubby still has pains as now the stones have moved downward but he’s able to do things at some level. Boys were great help, they carried the Christmas tree indoors and did all the things DH usually does.

This has put a bit of dampening on our Christmas but not much. Yesterday after dinner both elder boys fell asleep as they were so stuffed and we gave gifts later. I had bought the new Abba LP as a gift for DH and me, it was awesome. Even Sirius came to listen to it 🙂

I watched Die hard with middlest son and went to bed around 1am. Today I napped an hour on the sofa and then read a book. Now I’m planning to watch Die hard 2 or Jumanji 2 or Jungle cruise which I have yet to see.

Smokey day, I was on my way to lunch (next to the church).

The fire is where you can see the blue lights

I hope this year will end soon and nothing extreme happens next week. I’m quite done already.

Highlights

19.12.2021 julkaissut Nokisuu

from this past month.

Just a couple of days after my previous update we had our team meeting. For my surprise I got flowers and a gift from the City since I’ve now worked 30 years in the different libraries for the City. The gift was five days of paid vacation, I got to choose from actual money (of which they would’ve taken taxes) or two night stay in a spa hotel or this. I think this is the best gift for me, I get to choose when I’ll keep the days or if I want to take one day off at a time so prefect!

In the evening I went to movies with youngest one and hubby to see Ghostbusters: Afterlife which I greatly enjoyed. Paul Rudd was very good and all the old ’Busters’ were there too. It was so much fun! And of course the little marshmallow men really stole the game 🙂

We had very cold weather for a week, around -15C degrees. Sirius wanted to go out but came back in right away. Silly girl.

In the beginning of December I had my dentists appointment. First I was supposed to go on a Tuesday morning and just as I was waiting for the tube to arrive their office lady called and said that we need to reschedule (again) as my dentist had called his car tire had blown on the way to his practice so we moved it in Thursday. I had to make the hours in as it was in the middle of the workday but finally I got four new crowns (and it cost way more than I had thought but now its done). Luckily I have a savings account…

I’ve been working long days but on Tuesday I decided to go to movies to see The House of Gucci. I went alone as none of my friends were able to come but I didn’t mind. As a teen I used to mostly go to movies by myself (at least the company was good) so it’s no biggie for me. I enjoyed the movie. I’m not a great fan of Lady Gaga’s but she was really good as Patrizia Reggiani and Adam Driver was so hot… Jared was great as Paolo and I really liked Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci. The scene with the two latter ones at the airport was so good, both sad and funny. The soundtrack was awesome too. ( I flove this pic of them.)

On Wednesday as I was walking towards my workplace I stood to watch that there was indeed a firetruck outside our building door. Gladly it was such early that there were no clients and all classes are finished already but still. So I go to the inner courtyard and ask one of the office ladies who always comes in early what’s the problem and she said one of the doormen had forgot to turn off the stove after he had cooked porridge, luckily there was nothing on top of the stove so when we got in finally there was just a god awful reek in the lower floors. We are also lucky to have the fire department right on our backyard (we go there for lunch). That one doorman has a drinking problem and we are a bit concerned of him, his bosses have had a talk with him already but it remains to be seen if he can continue working for us.

I’ve also been preparing for Christmas by baking gingerbread cookies and I’ve bought all presents too already. we’ve done grocery shopping and hubby got the tree from the Uni forest students near his workplace. Youngest one wants us to bake more gingerbread cookies and try to built a huge house and I kind of said yes.. I’ll take pics if it turns out okay.

We had our library teams Christmas coffee at the nice cafe next to our workplace on Thursday, it was nice. There’s just three of us so it was pretty low key.

So this is news from my corner for now. Here’s a song for you!

Forest therapy

26.9.2021 julkaissut Nokisuu

Today I managed to get to the forest again. I find it essential for my mental well-being to see the trees up close and breathe the free unpolluted air. Last weekend we were at my other godson’s confirmation party and it was nice too but since it was a rainy weekend I didn’t mind not getting into the forest.

I was lucky to find a lot of yellowfeet, in short time I had a decent amount of them which was great since I had a minor headache that blew up into a migraine. I had hoped it’d gone away in the forest but it didn’t. I think it’s partly due to the yin-yoga where we did some exercises to stretch the area between shoulder blades and I also had my osteopathy treatment on Friday morning.

I finished watching the Good doctor S3 yesterday evening. I must say that even thou I liked the series it got too syrupy and the characters begun to annoy me a bit. Now I’m continuing with Lucifer and then I probably continue with Bloodline which was also annoying, it started so slow I almost left it.

I went to movies to see the new Dune and it was amazing. I really liked it but I liked the old one too (I still have the soundtrack on LP). The cast and music were good but the photography was beautiful, it reminded me a lot of Tale of Tales. It was weird to be in the movie theater with restrictions minimized to one free chair between groups and they will be lifted in the beginning of October totally.

On Friday the post services finally delivered my RA auctions last item, thank you Jane. Since one of the coasters was already picked by a friend you’ll only get to see two of them here 🙂

Next Friday I’m having a day off and if the weather is nice I’ll be going with my friend Mareetta to pick mushrooms in Nuuksio forest. Now I’m going to watch tv and knit and pet Sirius.

Maritime museum and movies

25.7.2021 julkaissut Nokisuu

This week we were expecting a bit cooler weather so we decided to take youngest son to the Maritime centre Vellamo in Kotka on Monday and it was fun.

Kotka is a city near Helsinki, about 90 minute drive from our house and I’ve never been there in all my life. My mom’s grandmother had a workmen’s dinery there in the early 20th century which is my closest connection to the said city. Kotka used to have a lot of paper and pulp mills and also an important sea port which is still one of it’s biggest employers. BTW Kotka means eagle in English.

We had first thought to visit Vellamo and then walk in the city which is now famous of the renewed parks, it’s said people drive annually to Kotka just to visit their parks but since it took us five hours to go through the Maritime centre we decided to save the parks for a later date.

The Maritime centre Vellamo was huge and very interesting. There was a nice exhibition of the great battle in Svensksund in the Russo-Swedish war in the late 18th century. We also got to visit an old ice breaker Tarmo and the Finnish maritime history including old cruise boats like Finnjet. My brother Kimmo was an ordinary seaman on a large Finncarriers carrier before he changed career due to raising a family so it was interesting from that point of view also.

In the museum there was a lot of all kinds of ships and such and of course there was also a part of Estonia shipwreck. Youngest son asked about it and I noticed it still makes me cry to remember so hubby got to explain the disaster to him. You can watch videos in YT if you want to know more, just put ’Estonia 1994 news’ on the search bar.

On Tuesday I had a meeting with my osteopath and it was awesome. Later I walked to the city centre to meet Heidi and we went to movies to see Mads in Drunk. It’s a story of four teachers who decide to do an empirical test based on a study about a human functioning best in 0.5 ‰ drunk. I think you can guess how well that goes down.

I’ll embed the last scene of the movie underneath just because Mads was a dancer before his acting career and the scene reminds me of the old fandom phrase ’You can take a man out of dance but you can’t take the dance out of a man’.

Then on Friday I took youngest son to the movies to see Black widow and it was much better than I had thought. Of course one of the highlights was to hear one of the Widows speak Finnish too. It was fun I must admit.

Middlest son got a call from his Captain and he now has place in the ND Uni and will eventually become a fighter pilot! Yay! So he’ll be living here with us next winter and then he’ll go where they tell him to. I’m glad he’ll be able to do what he always wanted to as work, it helps.

Tomorrow me and eldest and youngest are leaving for summer cottage for the next ten days. Hubby has to go back to work and middlest son maybe comes for a couple of days, I don’t know and neither does he. This time we are leaving Sirius the Cat home since I fear some fox or supikoira (European raccoon) will eat her. Also she doesn’t like car trips and we all know that (eww).

Here’s a pic of Helsinki from Tuesday when I walked from Kallio to city centre. The big red brick house on the far right side is the University’s Education theory building, for the teachers-to-be. The left side bank is called Säästöpankinranta (Savings bank shore) because in the late 19th century there used to be a very popular bar and the reason for the name was that poor students could drink there for credit. Hence the name 🙂

Artsy Friday

11.7.202111.7.2021 julkaissut Nokisuu

We are having a heatwave at the moment and in order to have something else to do than sit at home eating ice cream and sweating I planned a movie night with my friends Heidi and Kristiina.

Since I was going to meet them at a cafe before the movie I thought to go city centre a bit earlier and see the Repin art exhibition in our National gallery before meeting them. I had to queue for about 15 minutes bc I didn’t want to buy the ticket beforehand as we have a thing called The Museum card here (you pay an annual fee and get to see as many museums as you like, to cover the annual fee you must visit about four exhibitions). I only took couple of photos of my fave paintings and walked through the exhibition in 30 minutes.

You can browse the other art works in the exhibition here: https://ateneum.fi/en/exhibitions/repin/

At the cafe we shared our latest news like that I got through my exams with flying colours (I was quite certain I had failed) and then we went to see Cruella. It was very good. I had expected something else so it was a very nice surprise. Of course great actors, i. e. Mark Strong 😎, and both female lead Emmas’ among others and the costumes, music and charming doggies. All in all a very good movie! Go see it it you can. We had great time and enjoyed greatly our first movie after November.

That was my artsy Friday. I had good time 🙂

Today we’ve had hottest day this summer, +31c degrees in shadow. Hubby has been driving me to swim in the sea and so far the blue-green algae is not yet bothering us. It’s been wonderful. As the beach doesn’t have boxes to lock one’s things into while swimming Hubby has been watching my stuff as he doesn’t like to swim in the ocean here 🙂

Nose stuff

24.11.202025.11.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

Youngest son’s nose is fixed. In the morning we went to the hospital and after waiting in the kids room for two hours he got in and the deed was done in 45 minutes.

The cartilage next to the bone was a bit crushed by the blow and the surgeon lifted it. Now he has a tampon inside his nose and an outside support, hopefully it’ll be okay now.

Hubby came to pick us up and they drove via my workplace so I managed to do some hours.

On this morning our city mayor said in the Covid19 newsflash that all libraries, sports places, secondary schools and adult hobby places will close in near future which means my workplace will probably close too next week.

After I came home we watched Galaxy Quest with youngest one. I really love that movie.

Time flies

8.11.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

November is already rollin’ ahead and I’ve been lazy with updating.

Eldest son turned 22 and I wonder where the time went since I’m about that age myself. Well, it took some time until he arrived, we even went to a clinic bc my hormones didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to do so I was pretty happy to finally have my baby boy in my arms. He continues to be a joy as does his brothers.

Today we Finns have Father’s day but since both mine and hubby’s fathers have long gone we only celebrate by having our own family on dinner. We are also celebrating eldest son today.

During this week I’ve been to movies to watch Tove-movie which was very good. Usually the films about Finnish artists show the person on a pedestal (i.e. Helene) like they weren’t a living and breathing person at all but lived from the spirit of art. Tove didn’t suffer of this and it made the film much better. The movie concentrates on Tove Jansson’s life between the WWII and 1960’s when she became a ’household name’ with the Moomins. It also tells the story of her finding her sexuality and in the very end we see a real clip of her (the actual Tove) dancing on the island of Haru where she and Tuulikki had their summer place.

I read in a magazine that Tove hated doing beds in the morning so in the summer cottage they always slept in sleeping bags in a tent in order not to need to make the beds. I find it a very nice thought. (Of course I seldom make beds myself..)

Sirius watching tv with me — A nice sunny day at my work

What else? Work went by as it does, everyday chores. Yesterday I went to another National park nearby us called Sipoonkorpi. It only takes about ten minutes to drive there so hubby drove me there and then when I had enough mushrooms and felt refreshed enough I called him and he came to pick me up again.

Then at home I baked a mud cake for today and a mushroom pie of the yellowfeet I had picked. It was so good.

I’ve also listened to and read some novels so that I already had to change my reading goal in Goodreads from 80 to 90 books this year. Lastly I’ve listened to Robert Galbraith’s (aka J.K.Rowling) Lethal white and Troubled blood of which the latter was very good. On the first one I knew the culprit pretty early on. I also read Quantum thief-scifi novel by Hannu Rajaniemi, a Finnish guy writing in English and I must say the story was good but I’d have needed a dictionary for all the new words he had invented which kind of took the joy of reading his story away. I also read one very light Finnish chick-lit and I don’t quite know why I read them since I always feel like I had been robbed after finishing them.

I’ve also been thinking about changing this blog’s theme. My instagram pics don’t show on the sidebar and it doesn’t help to refresh or redo the link, I don’t know why that is.

Now I’m going to have some coffee and mudcake. I hope you’ve had a nice Sunday too.