Season’s greetings

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I’m sorry, but there will be no Top 10 New Year’s countdown this year because Mr. Pakarinen says he’s been too busy to write up a list, let alone go through the archives. Frankly, I think the reason there’s no Top 10 list is that he just couldn’t find ten good stories.

Sure, there was this. And this was OK, but you know what I mean?

So, rather than have you go through some old crap, he’s going to hide under the covers and say he’s been “busy”. With what, you ask, and I don’t have an answer.

Anyway. He’s also told all us interns that we can take a long break over the holidays, which tells me there won’t be major updates here, if any. There’d better not be if he first tells us that we can take some time off. Like, suppose he, against all odds, should get a half-baked idea for a story, am I then expected to come in and type the story and post it for him? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Unless there’s a bonus in it for me. I mean, I do things for money. Don’t you?

Merry Christmas to you all.

– Webmaster

Skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets

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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.

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Age against the machine

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My parents were in their early twenties when I was born, even if I didn’t know it then, and to be honest, I didn’t much think about it even as I grew up to understand it. In fact, when my best friend asked the seven-year-old me how old my parents were, I said I didn’t know.

“My mother’s 35,” he announced.

“Huh. I think mine’s 35, too,” I said, and then we continued our football match.

My mother was 28 at the time.

Higher, and higher.

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Names and numbers

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Last week, I was back at the Joensuu rink that was my home rink for four years in my teens. It’s been 25 years since I moved from that town to go to college in Helsinki, and most of my old friends have moved somewhere else, too, but if there’s one place I can see familiar faces, it’s at the rink.

Also, the rink pulls me back. I’ve walked around it hundreds of times, I’ve run around it as many times. I’ve jumped up the stairs, I may have eaten hundreds of sausages and chocolate bars there, and I’ve spent countless hours in the cafeteria – that is no longer a cafeteria.

I walked around the rink and climbed up to Dad’s old seats, way up in the stands, at the red line. I sat there for a while, watching the game, and noticed some familiar names on the backs of the sweaters, the names of my former teammates, now on the backs of their sons’ sweaters.

Then I looked for number 17, because I always do that.

17.

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Ten little stories about a ten-year-old boy

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1. When he was just three apples high, like the Smurfs, one of Son’s favorite places to go to was the local park, because there were animals. Some sheep, some horses, some rabbits, some chicken. And a big rooster. Sometimes we took sandwiches with us, other times we bought some cookies or hotdogs there.
This was one of the other times.
Son got a hotdog in his hand, and he stood there on the park bench, quietly enjoying his hot dog, looking around. At one point, when he was looking around, the rooster snuck up on him, and snatched the hot dog out of his tiny hand.
Early lesson to parents. Son can hold a grudge. We don’t like roosters much anymore.

10.

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What are you doing, face?

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I’ve known you all my life, and I’ve always been very fond of you. Well, mostly always. I’m not very happy with you now and that’s why it’s time we have a little chat. Quite frankly, I’ve been putting this off long enough, and I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me in the past, so don’t think I’m going to enjoy this.

Ahem. You need to shape up. You’re a little too loose these days. I liked you better when you were wound up tighter. It’s like you used to care but now you just let it all hang out in the wind. I think you’re not even trying anymore.

I’m looking at you, face.

Just another pretty face.

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The Bicycle Grief

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Somebody stole my bike. My trusty sidekick, my ride, my wheels, my friend. Gone. It was so sudden, and so unexpected. I had ridden it to the mall, just a kilometer from our house, and left it at the almost-usual-spot. I usually parked my bike next to the hotel bikes, but since there were only a few bikes closer to the main door, I decided to leave it there.

I went, got changed, walked around the gym, and walked out 35 minutes later.

And just twenty minutes later, I had gone through all five stages of grief.

Me on a bike that never did get stolen.

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Behind the mask

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“They get paid for that? It’s their job? I want that job!” – Daughter, having heard that you have to buy a ticket to a hockey game so that the clubs can pay the players’ salaries.

I can understand that she didn’t know the players were pros but it had never occurred to me that Daughter wouldn’t know you had to pay to go to a game. Then again, kids think different.

Me.

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