Oooooooh, we’re halfway theeere. Number 3.
» Attempt at humor: “University of Hockey”
» True Fiction: “My girl”
Countdown 2014: 3
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Category Archives: Flashbacks
Countdown 2014: 4
The countdown continues. Yes, there’s more: here’s number four.
» Attempt at humor: “A guide to understanding Finns”
» True Fiction: “Me, Superhero”
Countdown 2014: 5
Will there be a countdown of the best stories on ristopakarinen.com this year, you ask? The answer if yes. The same procedure as every year. Starting on Dec 27, I’ll publish the top stories of the year. This year’s categories are True Fiction and Attempts at Humor. (New entries will be published at 2:02 pm CET each day).
And without further ado, here are the stories that finished in the fifth place.
» Attempt at humor: “Tommy’s mistake”
» True Fiction: “Watch this“
Top 10 entries of 2013
The moment you’ve been waiting for: The Top 10 entries on 2013. Here they are, by category, but in no particular order. Enjoy, and see you in 2014. Happy New Year!
Smalltown, Finland
The gulls have taken over the market square. They’re everywhere, feasting on the remains of the day on the ground. There’s peas, strawberries, cloudberries, potatoes, Vietnamese food, pancakes. Donuts. Or parts of them, tiny parts of them.
The market square, the heart of the city, is now asleep. One of the cafés on the square has closed for the day, their red chairs stacked up outside their little house a sure sign of it, leaving nothing for interpretation. The other one is only half-full, when just two hours earlier they both had been packed and people had shuffled the chairs in new constellations as everybody wanted to fit under the shade.
Skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets
The screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways. Except that it’s not a screen door, and there’s no Mary around. Instead, it’s the door of our microwave oven. I put a Finnish meat pie in there and sit at our kitchen table with a comic book. It’s cold and dark outside because it’s winter in Joensuu, Finland, a provincial city in eastern Finland, just 102 kilometers from the border between Finland and the Soviet Union.
I could go to the outside skating rink just outside our house but it’s difficult to find the motivation once I’ve got home from school. The thermometer on the roof of the bank at the market square said it was minus-30 degrees today, just like yesterday. I had wrapped my scarf around my face but it only helped for a short while, until my breath made it wet so it froze. Every time I inhaled, my nostrils seemed to freeze up as well.
No, I’ll just eat my pie, read my comics, and then put on some Springsteen. Born To Run.
Escape to the Witch Mountain
I suppose that when you grow up in a country that has only two TV channels and no programming between midnight and 4 pm, films become a big thing and going to movies even bigger.
The first movie that made an impression on me was Escape to Witch Mountain. The 1975 version, not the 1995 version which I made Wife watch just as we had started dating, thinking it was the 1975 version, my version, the movie that explained my love for harmonica, and by extension, for Huey Lewis.
It was not. We did watch the entire movie, with me first complaining about how I didn’t seem to remember anything, and then about the poor quality of the re-make.
List of the year
So this is Xmas, and what have you done?
Last year, I published a Best of the Millennium list here, delighted to see that I had 40 entries on the list. This year, I only have nine, but that’s fine, considering I made it a Top 9 list.
I’ll post a link to an archived blog entry every day between today and Christmas Eve. (That’s why it’s a Top 9 list). Consider it your R-advent calendar. Hope you like it. Tell your friends.
And without further ado … Nummmbbeeerrrr niiiiiiiiiiine:
The coach
“Why don’t you put on your coach’s coat?”
– Son, on our way to his bandy practice.
It’s cold out there. It’s cold standing by the side of a huge bandy arena, with the winds blowing the full length of the ice, when the temperature is already in the double digits below zero. My new winter coat is a precious memento from the Vancouver Olympics that I covered for the IIHF, but that’s not the coach’s jacket that Son meant. That’s the 21st century version, but Son was talking about my other winter coat.
Freeze frame
It’s cold in Finland. It’s cold like in Russian hell, as the saying goes here. It’s especially cold for a guy who insists on not wearing socks, but as the Swedes say, “there’s no bad weather, just poor clothing.” So I’m not complaining, because only wimps complain, as my Dad says.
Besides, it’s not like I’ve never seen minus-25 degrees before. Listen up, kids. When I was a kid, I walked to school every day: ten kilometers, on barefoot, uphill both ways. After I had milked the cows but before I went to work in the mines.
