Category: Blog

Today’s questions at f.riday5.com!

1. What’s the strangest food you’ve eaten out of a can?

I don’t eat strange foods! And I don’t eat a lot of canned foods – just some fruits (mainly peaches or pineapple) and meatballs-in-a-brown-sauce a few times a year.

2. What food most recently made you ill?

I can’t remember – thankfully! It’s been a while now that my Crohn’s Disease is under much better control.

But one time I’ll always remember was sometime in the summer of 2008 when I had gallstones. There was this one day when I ate fresh strawberries with kuohukerma (I think that’s double cream in English). The cream caused a really bad gallstone attack late that night, so bad that if I hadn’t known I’d likely been having gallstones attacks that summer I would thought I was having a heart attack. (I was waiting for the gall bladder ultrasound but that’s what my doctor thought was happening to me). After that, I didn’t eat anything with fatty cream and avoided fatty foods in general until after the removal of my gall bladder!

3. What movie makes you really want to eat?

No movie makes me want to eat, but any novel that describes a cheese sandwich does! It always sounds so delicious! But then when I make one myself, it’s never so good.

4. What haven’t you eaten in a really, really long time?

There are so many things! I’m rather picky, have a rather set selection of foods I usually buy. I don’t eat many common things just simply because I’m neutral/not interested in them when I’m buying food and cooking for myself. They are not bad or anything, just meh. But the one thing I sort of miss is cucumber even though it’s never been a staple of mine – the prices went ridiculous and right out of my budget a year or two ago when the inflation set in. Same with tomatoes but I don’t miss those as much.

5. What did you most recently eat in a moving vehicle?

I don’t have even the foggiest of when the last time might’ve been, it’s been so long. I don’t have the need because I’m never away from home, restaurant or my Mom’s long enough, or have so little time between thingies, that I have to eat on the move. I drink water on the move for thirst, and sometimes have to take my meds on the move, but no need to eat.

I usually eat home, or at Mom’s if I’m visiting. But mainly at home. The last time I ate in an unusual place (a hospital cafe) was a couple of years ago, when I had blood work done early in the morning and and had to fast for that for 12 hours, and then had a meeting with someone an hour after the labs in the same hospital and knew that meeting might take more than an hour, and then I had to do grocery shopping still so it would take too long to get breakfast if I waited until I got back home. So I had breakfast in the hospital cafe while waiting for the meeting.

Answers to this week’s questions at thefridayfive@DW

1. Have you ever been the president of anything?

Nope.

2. What do you think is the most important leadership trait?

Well, the current far-right goverment is giving us a master class example of what politics look like when “there is no place for empathy in politics”. So, I’m saying empathy.

3. What time period did you find the most interesting to learn about in history class?

I can’t choose. I loved learning about Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Mayans, Incas, the Aztecs… really, about the only thing I didn’t love learning history about was anything after the year 1900. Some of after-1900 I also found interesting but didn’t love it. I hated school but history was probably my most least hated subject at school and I loved learning pretty much all that we were taught.

4. What’s something you think about doing, but you haven’t gotten back into in several years?

Biking. I keep thinking how quickly I could bike to places like the grocery or my Mom’s. Also it’d be easier to carry heavy shopping bags and so could take the bike instead of the bus. The bags are usually too heavy to carry and the walk home just too long with them. I’d probably have re-learn how to bike though because I haven’t even tried biking in 20+ years and don’t own one.

5. If you could add one more random holiday to February, what would it be?

To be honest: I wouldn’t. There’s already Runebergin päivä (Runeberg’s day, not a holiday from work/school but special day and special cakes in shops), laskiainen (um, Shrovetide? also not a holiday from work/school, but a special day with laskiaispulla (sweet bun with traditionally raspberry jam or almond paste filling and whipped cream filling) possibly with hot chocolate and sledding if enough snow on the ground) and then at the end of the month, the winter holiday from schools. So February is already busy enough with specialness!

Answers to today’s questions at thefridayfive@DW.

1. At what age did you discover you had a favorite color?

No idea. I remember loving pale blue and silver as a kid as far back as I can remember. I still love silver but only like pale blue, and have since childhood added certain pinks and lilacs/violets to my favorite colors row.

2. What type (genre) of film do you prefer to see in a theater versus one you’d watch at home?

I prefer the same both in a theater and home. Scifi with horror, thriller, drama and/or action/adventure elements. Think something like Alien/Aliens or The Terminator. I do enjoy seeing visually impressive films in a theater because they look so handsome on the big screen, but I also love watching them at home on a small screen.

3. What’s your oldest object or item since childhood?

I don’t have things like dolls or teddy bears or whatever like that people usually mean when they ask this question. Those things never had much of a meaning to me after I grew out of them.

On the other hand, I have lots of old things because we divided our house hold items between us when Mom moved in with her SO and I moved on my own. So any number of plates and some drinking glasses, a kitchen table and chairs and some other funiture are from my childhood… the kitchen table and chairs are newer than the plates, because we originally had benches instead of chairs in the kitchen. The plates are at least so old that I don’t remember eating from any other plates as a kid at home. Whether they’re older than me… it’s a real possibility!

I sometimes think about recycling the drinking glasses and the plates and buying new ones, but the truth is, the old design is really functional! Much better to hold etc. than what’s been available in the shops for the past 20 years or so. Same with the forks and knives. I’ve only bought new serrated and cutting knives myself. I got some forks and knives for free with some purchase or other maybe 20 years ago, and those too are much more clumsy and unattractive than my old, old forks and knives that we already had when I was a kid.

The plates and drinking glasses are by Arabia which has been a Finnish staple for kitchen stuff for over 100 years, and thanked for being both functional and aesthetic in design. The ones I have are not the expensive, collectable/special occasion ones but the ones for laverage income families and meant for everyday use. So I guess it isn’t a wonder that they just work.

4. In what book would you insert yourself as a side character or friend to the protagonist?

I never insert myself. Instead I imagine myself to be an existing character, usually my favorite character, so someone particularly interesting.

5. What’s your favorite shape or type of cloud?

Any that covers the sun. I don’t pay attention to clouds otherwise.