1 – June is Audiobook Month: Do you use audiobooks? If yes, do you use them exclusively, or do you also read ebooks or physical books? If you don’t use audiobooks, why not?

I use them if I can’t get it as a physical book or an ebook. I prefer physical books first, then ebooks. I don’t like audiobooks because I don’t like noise (migraine thing), and also I can’t get swept up in an audiobook like I can with reading text.

2 – Donut Day: Do you like donuts? Have you ever made your own? If/when you buy donuts, what it your go-to place — is it a major chain (Dunkin’ Donuts, Tim Hortons, Krispy Kreme, etc.), or do you have a favourite independent bakery?

They’re okay. Never made my own, only bought from grocery stores sometimes. We don’t have donut chains, some of the few big (country-wide) bakeries we have – that make most everything and sell to all the shops huge and tiny – do make some donuts too but they aren’t good and always taste kind of cheap crap IMO. Probably not what donuts are in the US. Or at least I expect donuts to be approx. million times better and tastier in the US – nothing else explains why they’re so popular there. I don’t think any independent bakeries (the ones that sell from their own little cafes and not in the grocery stores) make donuts except maybe occasionally as part of a theme. A few years ago it was a fad to bake oven donuts! You do see some recipes for donuts around baking groups, but other bakes are a lot more common and many of those have dozens of different recipes. Donuts just aren’t much of a thing here.

3 – World Bicycle Day: Do you regularly ride a bike? If yes, is it mostly for fun, or do is it your main mode of tranportation? Does your town/city have good bike infrasctructure, e.g. dedicated, safe bike paths, etc.?

I don’t bike, I don’t own one. Biking is encouraged here, and it’s a common form of transportation. I used to bike when I was a kid and young adult but when I hit 20 I stopped. I now regret it.

4 – Cheese Day: There are people who do not like cheese or cannot eat it for health reasons, while other people think it is one of the best foods, or ingredients for food recipes that was ever invented! Which category best describes you?

I love cheese! I tend to shove it into anything I think it would go well with! And it makes an ugly looking dish pretty when used as topping in an oven dish.

One of my worst nightmares is being unable to eat cheese anymore – at one point it looked like I might have to ditch dairy products, and giving cheese up was the one thing I feared most. I can’t imagine not being able to have cheese. And I don’t care about vegan cheese – it doesn’t taste like cheese! Not even close!

5 – Thank God it’s Monday Day: everyone is probably familiar with TGIF – Thank god it’s Friday. Did you know there’s actually a TGIM Day? Thank God It’s Monday Day is all about seeing Monday as a positive day, rather than a negative day. What sort of positive things could you do to make sure your week gets off to a good start?

I didn’t know! I’ve always hated Monday mornings because of school or work or because it’s a reminder that I don’t have a job and need to look for one.

These days Mondays are neutral because I’m just at home while technically unemployed but in reality unfit for work due to health problems, but if I should ever get back to work or studying, I’ll hate Monday mornings again.

I’m always good once it gets on Monday mid-day but yeah, the morning sucks.

It doesn’t matter – Monday mornings are gonna suck if there’s work/school to get to no matter what. It’s a Law of the Universe. The only measure of some mild exception might be the very first day of a new job falling on a Monday that I get paid for after a long unemployment – it’d still suck but that’d be overwritten by having a job and source of income and meeting new people and being hopefully useful and learning new things.

6 – Drive-In Movie Day: Drive-in movies have seen a bit of a renaissance recently — largely thanks to the Covid pandemic. Have you ever been to a drive-in movie, or any other type of open air movie viewing event?

I haven’t. Drive-in movies aren’t thing here in Finland as a general rule.

I think there’s been some open air movie viewing events – I remember at least one taking place some years ago, before COVID-19 I think. It was a part of some festival or other, and the pics I saw of the open air theatre looked like there was room only for like 30 people on the benches but it might have been the angle of the photos and the real number could be higher. As I recall this happened in the winter or fall so it was cold out but don’t quote me on that. I also think there’s some kino outfit that arranges open air movies and drive-in movies privately by paying customers.

What we do have is kesäteatteri or summer theatre! These are plays (both aimed at kids, and others for adults and it’s all family safe) that are performed in outdoor theatres during the summer. There are a lot of physical summer theatres with benches and sometimes canopys most everywhere in Finland. We used to go to these every summer until I became a teenager. At the time I hated kesäteateri most of the time because it was either too hot and too sunny bright and I was miserable, or it rained and everyone was miserable! The local theatre back then didn’t have canopy above the benches so rain clothes were the word of the day those times. They’re idyllic memories now, but I don’t still don’t want to go to kesäteatteri for the afore mentioned reasons. You can never escape the sun and heat well enough.

7 – Global Running Day: Are you, or have you ever been, a runner/jogger? If yes, do you/did you run mostly indoors (treadmill) or outdoors, or both, depending on the weather? What are the biggest differences between running outdoors vs indoors? If you’re not a runner, what is your preferred form of exercise (if you have one)?

I’m not a runner; I don’t like it (even to catch a bus or something short like that) and never have. Originally I didn’t like it because sweaty and out of breath and then I grew huge boobs and it just became awkward, uncomfortable and kinda painful. I’m short and have short legs and running has always felt like a lot of spent energy and effort for no reward.

8 – Best Friends Day: Do you have a best friend(s)? Are they someone you’ve know since forever, or someone you met as an adult? Did you meet online first and if yes, have you since met in person?

Kinda but not anymore, not really.

9 – Movie Night: The second Friday in June is national movie night. If you are/were going to watch a movie tonight to celebrate national movie night, what movie would you watch? Would you watch it at home, or at the cinema?

Home! Hopefully a good, new, original, character driven scifi movie. One can wish!

Or maybe one of my loves such as The Last Of The Mohicans or The Piano. It’s been a while since I’ve watched either of those.

10 – Worldwide Knit in Public Day: It’s time to take knitting out of the shadows and show everyone that knitting is for all ages and that it’s a fun and enjoyable activity, and something that you can proud of. Do you knit? Do you knit in public? Do you ever get questions or comments from strangers when you do knit in public?

Knitting is possibly the most boring handicraft to ever exist.

The only time I knitted was in school when it was mandatory learning – we were tought knitting, sewing etc. We were supposed to knit a scarf, a pair of socks and a pair of gloves. I only ever knit the scarf – it took me the same amount of time to finish the scarf as the other girls to do all three items. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t doing the work – I knitted in the school when we had the class (two hours at a time), and 2-4 hours most days at home as long as I didn’t need to read for a test or something like that. I didn’t even hate it or anything – I listened to my music while knitting and it was okay, just boring. I didn’t even make more mistakes than the others – I was just slow as molasses! I worked hours and hours but my scarf hardly got any longer. Eventually it became a matter of pride for me to finish a complete bloody scarf LOL The teacher physically saw how slow I was in class though I knitted religiously – finally she decided that I should just finish the scarf and not try for the socks or the gloves LOL

The knitting was really weird – I was just as good and speedy in sewing as everyone else. But knitting…. to this day I wonder if I did it wrong somehow, but wouldn’t the teacher and my Mom have corrected me if I did…?

11 – Corn on the Cob Day: Do you like corn on the cob? How do you usually cook it — just boiled, on the BBQ, etc.? What’s your favourite seasoning?

This doesn’t exist here.

12 – Red Rose Day: Are roses — red or otherwise -highly overrated?

Yes, they are and especially dark red roses and also pale pink roses as gifts! I like those multi-color roses. We’ve drifted to buying mostly other flowers these days – not so much by plan as by just by feeling that other flowers feel fresher. But still, a pretty rose is really, really pretty.

13 – Kitchen Klutzes Day: Even if you’re not a klutz in the kitchen, we’ve all had a significant kitchen mishap at some point. What was the klutziest thing to ever happen to you in the kitchen?

This didn’t happen in kitchen but at the door of my Mom’s home and is kitchen related. I had been visiting for my Mom’s birthday, and I was carrying my glass cake saucer upon a plastic cheese plate with a portion of the layer cake with whipped cream I had made for her and baked goods she had made (she always gives me some to take home with me, and I do the same) on the glass saucer. The cheese plate’s lid was on top and the two side clips engaged to the bottom but the cheese place bottom and lid weren’t taped together (this will become important!). I had a car back then, and the trip between our homes only takes about 7 minutes.

So I was about to step out the door carrying the loaded cheese plate when I somehow managed to crash it against the door frame in just exactly the right way to open one of the two clips holding the cheese plate bottom and lid together… and the glass saucer with the baked goods slid down the opened side of the cheese plate and crashed down to the floor! The baked goods spread all over the floor. I was left incredulously holding the cheese plate bottom and lid. I stood there for several longs seconds, then my first, petulant reaction was to hurl the stupid cheese plate and lid also to the floor (Mom stopped me).

We’d had a really good day so this didn’t ruin it or anything, and a few days later (and now) we laugh about it whenever we remember it… and tape the cheese plate bottom and lid together within an inch of its life (and everything else!). But just goes to show that being lazy doesn’t pay – I’d thought about taping the bottom and lid together pretty much every time I used the cheese plate to transfer a cake from my place to Moms which happened several times a year back then, but I thought the trip being so short and quick that nothing would happen.

Klutzy in actual kitchen – I’m not sure if this counts, but I’ve often put empty milk or butter cartons back into the fridge while not paying attention and then been weirded out the next time I take them out because I don’t always remember emptying them and have a moment of freak out that somebody’s broken in until I realize.

Another time was when I was studying to be librarian and was living in student housing three hours away from home. My Mom was coming to visit me one Saturday and I decided to bake a cake in the morning before she arrived. It was a family recipe, one I had made like a hundred times before. But I’m not a morning person. At all. And the cake ended up with 4 teaspoons of salt. The recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon, but there’s a hole at that spot so you see only a little bit of the 1/ and a full 4 and apparently I automatically just read only the number 4 with my sleep-addled brain. Even so, I was an experienced baker and even my not-entirely-awake brain should have realized that you don’t put 4 teaspoons of salt in *anything* – much less a cake! Also a product of my not-entirely-awake brain was that I didn’t even taste the batter (I love batter, so it’s really rare not to taste it!). So I only found out what had happened when we tried to eat it. That cake was thrown away, there was no saving it – it tasted of nothing but salt LOL

Also, not klutzy I think but still scary in the kitchen… when my health problems were at their worst and I had brain bad fog, there were several times, maybe 5 or 6, when I forgot to put the water in the kettle (pan?) when I was about to boil eggs or potatos and turned on the stove with the empty kettle on it, or left the stove on after removing the kettle when the food was done. I always noticed it because kitchen started to feel weird and I’d investigate and notice. Nothing happened but it was pure luck that I didn’t happen to leave home after using the stove, or go to take a nap, and leave the stove on. It happened enough times over a few months that it really scared me! So I adopted the habit of checking the stove and the oven every time I finish doing something with it as well as before going out or to bed. I usually check it several times actually after finishing cooking/baking.

14 – International Bath Day: Do you take baths regularly, or are you strictly a shower aficionado?

I love baths but I haven’t had a bathtub since we sold my childhood home and I moved into my own. My Mom hasn’t had a bathtub since then either, so no baths for me, only showers!

15 – Nature Photography Day: Have you ever enjoyed a photo of a flower? Or a close up of a bee landing on the entrance to its hive? Have you taken any photos of nature that you’re particularly proud of? Care to share it with us?

I often admired such photos!

I haven’t taken good (nature) photos myself – I’m more of a point and shoot type of “photographer”. I’ve never owned a real camera as an adult, only phone cameras and even those take learning to utilize well. I keep meaning to learn but I’m too lazy.