Holy crap

I thought that being ill plainly sucked. I thought that this week I might be back to work.... working and such. Indeed to get the work done.
On Saturday I had quite a bit of fever, same on Sunday. Monday morning I got up, stumbled to the bathroom as usual, stared in the mirror as usual and then almost laughed my ass off. I had the funniest rash ever. All my face and hands covered in red spots. I needed to go to the doc anyway and my vague theory about allergy to some meds was confirmed. Antibiotics. Again. Every time I get antibiotics, I get allergy, at least in the last ten years. I got a calcium shot, some other meds and went to the office. People grinned at me. When I went to buy something to eat, the cashier loooked at me as if I were to be buried on the plague cemetery. Soon and deep, preferably.
On Tuesday, second layer of the crap appeared and it started to itch. I went for another calcium shot, complained, got a prescription for something against the itching, dropped at the office, people grinned again but considerably less because I was all swollen and looked rather miserable.
Just now the crap is leaving my face and hands. The other allergy pills make me sleepy but itchless, at least. The worst part of the rash is on my feet - yes, you can have rash on the soles of your feet, too. I have swollen toes and problems squeezing my feet in the shoes. But... it's going away.
I could stand another week of fever, too. I had totally no appetite and lost some four kilos.

But, the spring started. I suppose that next weekend or so I could go out hiking or something.

Feeling blue

I have some work issues which I don't want to vent here. Actually I would be only too happy to vent them here but it would be impolite. And I wouldn't use too cultivated language, I guess. I came home on Saturday night, on Sunday I bid farewell to Laura (flatmate needed again) and went shopping.
I needed some veggies (namely green peas. When I'm in bad mood, I'm in no mood to anything that has to be peeled or something and I don't really like frozen carrots) and toilet tissue. I like blue toilet tissue regardless of other factors but now, it fitted in my general feelings.
They had sales in Tesco so I grabbed some tank tops and apples and mint and chocolate bars and only at home I realized that my groceries are totally colour-coordinated. The overall effect is ruined by the red Tesco logo on the pea bags and the red Findus logo on the basil box. Even the cyclamen fits in.
And, just for the heck of it, yours truly. The pic is bleak, though. Wish the spring came and decent light for photography with it.

Notes from the survivor

Christmas started strange. Mom was asking, What has happened to you? (Here the story would require adding someting like 'and poked me with her toes' but this is not a short story but a brief account of what happened) and I wondered. Who the hell is that You from the question, why cannot she shut up and ask someone competent and why there's the bathroom floor tiles sticking to my face. And, last but not least, why my ankle so fucking hurts.
When I regained even more consciousness, I discovered that I am indeed lying on the bathroom floor, I have a terrible headache* and I hit the edge of the step with my inner ankle and the cupboard with my head. I went to the bathroom because I was thirsty and for some reason, I fainted.
The rest of the morning I spent mostly lying on the bathroom floor because (a) the tiles felt so nice and cooling (b) I had an urgent feeling that I will puke and the end of the world will come. I don't remember feeling that awfully sick in my life.
Then we went shopping. Not that we'd buy anything special but I needed raisins for my baking and Mom needed whatever for whatever - I recall buying some anti-wrinkle crap set for my aunt and gianduiotti for me (it's the nougat from Torino. Drool).

It settled later and even the cold (it was an awful cold, folks) went away. Next time I'll hit my ankle, it apparently works. I spent the whole Saturday and Sunday lazying around, Mom told me to rest and not make any fast movements so I settled with Peter Englund's book and read. And made the Christmas pudding which is not a local tradition but we're a cosmopolitan family and since I didn't manage to bake the Finnish gingerbread thingies.....

I did the tree decorating. This year we didn't get any decorations, they don't stock the blown glass ones in Tesco anymore, bastards, and I'm afraid that all the glassworks will go bankrupt because all the idiots buy the Chinese crap which is ugly, plastic and cheap.

I got a gift voucher. My father buys gifts on the 24th.... so I got a book called something like The Basics of Macrophotography. Most of it was basics of photography and basics of photoshopping. Oddly enough, I've been earning my living with photography and photoshopping for years so that's a sucky gift - but apart from leaving everything to the last minute, my father has a peculiar sense of humour so he added a gift voucher for 'one pc. of macro lens redeemable after reading the book'. I should remind my gracious dad that I have a Pentax. Just in case, I know my people.


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*my sweet and gracious father would say Horrid are the mornings of the drunks but I didn't have hangover. I hadn't drank anything that would justify the state so the theory is that I was just plainly ill.

So.

I went to the police, they showed me a room full of things. Alas, the only thing mine was a chain with aquamarine pendant, no camera, no comp, no whatever. But, better than nothing.
I was totally surprised in what poor conditions the poor police guys have to work... antique computers, no LAN, I wondered how they can do anything at all.
And having not found my poor innocent camera, I cannot show you any pics of Hannu's sock or anything else I've been messing with. Some another day.

...whatever.

Did I say that there was my thesis in the comp? Which I didn't back up, because I didn't need to carry it from place to place or something, having my comp in my home. So.... I'm afraid that I won't graduate in winter. Meaning that there might be problems with getting to the Ph. D. programme. I cannot work without the comp and the camera. So there's less possibilities for income. It just all sucks.
And people will get socks for Christmas. The yarn stayed in place and it's already paid for.

Fuck'em all

I planned to write several nice entries about the places I've seen. With some nice pics.
Yesterday I came home and found a knocked flowerpot, soil all over, cats hysterical. I cursed them for the mess, then went to my room, the bag with Christmas gifts was not on the bookshelf but on the floor and things scattered around so I cursed the cats again.. yeah, there was a ball of yarn all over, too, and then i straightened my back after picking something and noticed that my comp is gone. I even skipped several minutes of cursing and called the police.
TO sum it up, comp gone, camera gone, the shift lens which ruined my savings gone (blah... jsut some stupid 1500 euros), PDA gone (not that it was a thing i needed urgently but still), Christmas gifts gone, for whatever the reason half of my used makeup stuff gone. And my old bag, big pot, still dirty from dyeing yarn (I hope that the dye is at least mildly poisonous), my ancient discman I've had from 1997 and to which I was deeply emotionally attached. And some cash, luckily, being broke, I didn't have much of it, although those 60euros in coins whichI just gathered in a can.. well, that would make a nice big exhibition catalog from an interesting exhibition. ANd the aquamarine pendant I got for some birthday or what and which I quite liked although the chain always got tangled in my hair.
what stayed: USB cable for the camera - the robbers were probably very smart, the camera was cabled to the comp... fish-eye lens (500 euros) which was in its nice neat case with Pentax written on it and which lay on the floor in the middle of the room. Silver tableware stayed in place. Cats hysterical but alive..... could've been carried away with the pot, as Barka remarked with insight.
I'm tired.
Compassion and material help welcome.

I hope someone up there is adding all that for me.

Yesterday evening I came home after showing the foreign students around the Museum of Applied Arts (there was the usual chaos, the meeting point was at the faculty, the museum is literally next door so some clever guys were waiting at the National Museum which is a different institution somewhere else) and wanted to feed the tabby as usual. He looked quite normal, regarding the illness. He refused to drink and then he died. I was pissed off. I spent a week nursing, cleaning after him and he just died. To calm my nerves I grabbed the rubbish and the earthly remains of he poor kitten to throw it all away and then had a useless and boring walk in Tesco where I bought some more food. I'm always buying food and my kitchen is crammed with whatever - I realized that there's already quite a lot of frozen vegetables in the freezer....
Today I cleaned up most of the traces in the kitchen, disinfected the kitty carrier where he used to spend most of his time and now I should go back to normal work, thesis and stuff. I dyed some yarn instead.

Kitchen adventures and a sucky week

This week sucked.
On Wendesday I was totally wasted. After Father left, I just lay down and slept. I felt totally tired and useless and even more useless. I woke at eight, then made some pasta (thinking Gee, I feel hungry, that meant that I'm ok). Well, the reason was that I had some almost composted zucchini in the fridge and didn't want them to rot. The other next to compost thing was mangos so i made a jar of nice mango marmalade and wasn't brave enough to taste it. I'll give it to some unsuspecting victim, probably Petr, who is a kitchen maniac himself, and I'm angry with him because he always sends me years old hoaxes with comments like Oh, that's awful.... He'll surely appreciate that. He appreciates everything homemade because he believes that homemade things are always better than industrial products. (Yes, his homemade cakes offer original choice of basic cooking mistakes. That's what you never get from the bakery, flaws:-))
Thursday sucked too. First of all, the cancelled Swedish lesson. I like my Swedish lessons. I'm the stupidest there but anyway. I feel like learning something useful which cannot be said about the 20th century art seminar which is incomprehensible to normal human beings most of the time. (reminds me that I haven't started my semestral paper yet and deadline is the 12th....) I missed the seminar. Thursday was the deadline for my internship application so I was doing the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy sucks, especially when I come to the office, there's five people, four are chatting and the fifth is (a) making coffee, (b) chatting on the phone with someone else (c) reading internet. I wouldn't mind it if they had more than eight office hours a week and were able to provide functioning services... well, bureaucrats. Shoot them all.
After some time I managed to get the pile of papers ready, mailed it.. and went home because I was deadly tired again.. and felt the strange sort of headache and emptiness. I was afraid that the depression is back so I left a notice at the department's mailing list that I'm looking for a decent shrink and went home. On the way (I felt like falling on the sidewalk and never getting up again) I recalled that St. John's wort is used as an antidepressive too. So on the way I dropped in the nearest pharmacy and got a pack. Hitherto (Saturday noon) it seems to be working. Maybe it's just a suggestion but a working one. Depressions suck, too.
Yes, Thursday means a dance class, too. I love my dance classes. I have the biggest ass of them all, I'm twice that heavy as the teacher (well, and 20centimeters taller, which could excuse me a bit). No entrechats today. Just assemblés - basically, you jump from one feet and land on two, I have too weak legs to jump on one so it looks always awkward in my rendition.... I should really go on diet, as soon as I finish the lunch:-)