May 31, 2024
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intothisshadow

The Friday Five for 31 May 2024: Three Things

The Friday Five for 31 May 2024: Three Things

Today’s questions at thefridayfive@Dreamwidth

1. What are three things you refuse to live without?

1 – My medications. Because not taking my medications will lead to dire consequences where Crohn’s Disease is considered likely within a year or two. And if I don’t take my migraine medications, awful terrible pain as soon as 24 hours but no later than 2-3 days.

2 – Fan during hot days (heat wave in English). I didn’t used to own a fan, until I bought my current fan about 10-12 years ago, maybe? Honestly I don’t know how I survived the summers without a fan! Now I know that the moment my fan breaks down, I’ll be buying a new one! It really does help that much! I even sometimes need to use during winter.

3 – Books! Or at least stories. I can’t imagine life without books/stories to read.

2. What are your three favorite items of clothing?

1 – My 4 beach dresses that I bought just to use at home during hot days (heat wave days but it’s not much of a wave anymore like it used to be but constant stretch of helle or heat wave days). They made of soft, comfortable fabric and of colors and patterns I like very much. They’re knee-length and have string shoulder straps and I’d love to wear them everywhere but I don’t like showing my underwear (industrial strength bras) to random strangers.

2 – My bras. I need industrial strength bras and if I don’t wear a bra, my back starts to hurt within an hour or two as well as developing heat/sweat rash under by breasts. In addition, being without a bra is just simply horribly uncomfortable even if it’s not hurting. So bras are definitely a favorite item clothing even though it’s entirely out of necessity.

3 – I had trouble thinking of a 3rd one because I don’t get much attached to clothing and the beach dresses described above are the only exception that I can truly call favorites… but… a summer hat! Makes being in the sun a little more bearable by giving some shade to my face, eyes and neck.

3. What are your three favorite books?

I don’t have singular favorite books that stand above all the others no matter what genre they are. More like I have some favorites in a few genres and they tend to change sometimes depending on my mood and what new books I have read. But here’s some that have remain on the favorite lists for a long while:

Scifi favorites: The Expanse book series by James S. A. Corey and Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. These two revealed to me that I can love modern scifi in novel format very much! I’ve never enjoyed reading classic older scifi such as Asimov or Herbert or Le Guin and and didn’t care for the more modern ones either that I found either and for a long time it felt like that only what’s in my libraries so I stopped looking at some point and just watched all the scifi tv and movies I could get my hands on. Then I came across Seveneves, then started watching The Expanse tv series and read those books and then started to look at what the readers of those properties had also liked and found some newer hard scifi (in English) that I liked.

Scifi/paranormal/supernatural/speculative fiction: Whispers, Lightning and House of Thunder all by Dean R. Koontz. Koontz used to write really good books!

4. What are three things you’d grab if you had to evacuate your house quickly?

1 – my medications

2 – my phone & laptop (these are practically always by each other when I’m home so I’d try to grab them both at the same time)

3 – my important papers, although I might forget these or not have time or can’t get to them because of where they are located.

5. What are your three favorite songs or musical works?

I have so many songs and scores I love but I think I listen to these the most:

1 – Love Song by Ofra Haza. Just so beautiful!

2 – Shared by the score for the Star Trek TOS episode Amok Time and the score for the movie The Last of the Mohicans score, specifically the parts composed by Trevor Jones. Also a lot of the various covers made of those tracks, particularly cover by Shamrock Redheads

3 – Shared by The Leftovers score by Max Richter and The Piano movie score.



May 29, 2024
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intothisshadow

European Elections

European Elections

I voted in the European elections today while out getting my new glasses. There was a voting spot in the shopping centre. I figured I better vote now or I’ll probably forget, or can’t be bothered to make a separate trip to a voting spot later. There’s no voting spot in any of the places I go to every week, so if I didn’t do it now I’d need make a separate extra trip just to vote. So it was best to do it right away, on this first advance voting day.

I’m really fed up with elections being so close together – feels like I’ve been doing nothing but preparing to vote for 1,5 years now! First the parliamentary election last year, then the presidential election in January and now European elections. I was soo tempted to not vote in the European elections this time. There was also the fact that the person I usually vote, because she so knowledgeable, knows her facts and argues her side well, is running for MEP now, and I don’t want her to leave domestic politics the European parliament. She’s one of our best politicians because of the aforementioned qualities, acknowledged so even by her opponents. But I also thought she maybe wants a change of pace from domestic politics and I’m 100% certain she’d make an excellent MEP – but I don’t want her to leave the domestic politics! So the actual decision on who to vote for was both very easy and very hard at the same time. And a big part of me feels like the national elections are far more important and these Euro ones don’t matter, but that’s not true and what with predictions for the right wing joining far right wing forces in these elections and winning, I couldn’t not vote.

At least there’s now one vote that says NO to right wing and far right wing values and YES to left values.

But I’m so fed up with elections – there were 3 elections too close together. Just when one ended, you already had to start thinking about the next one! There’s been a lot of noise about combining some of the elections, and I think I agree.



May 29, 2024
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intothisshadow

Question of the Day – May 2024

Question of the Day – May 2024

By spiffikins  at https://spiffikins.dreamwidth.org/1251745.html … Hah! Not late this time!

1. What Words or Phrases Do You Think Are Overused?

“hyvä hallitusohjelma” and “kansan mandaatti” and “meidän on pakko”. The current far right government ministers repeats one of those everytime any of them opens their mouth, and they’re all lies.

2. What Family Traditions Do You Want to Carry On When You Get Older?

I’m not sure that any.

3. Have Your Ever Taken Part in a Protest?

Yes.

4. Are You a Nerd or a Geek?

I’m a nerd. With a good measure of geek thrown in!

Continue reading



May 29, 2024
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intothisshadow

New Glasses!

New Glasses!

Got my new glasses today! My very first varifocal ones! ✨ I was very nervous about them because I’ve heard that some people have troubles getting used to them, although my Mom, who has been wearing varifocals for like a couple of decades if not longer, said she had no problems at all. Just a few days of getting used to just because they’re different, but no real problems at all. 

So far so good! I put the new glasses on right away in the shop, and been wearing them for about 3,5 hours now, in the big shopping centre, in my local grocery store and here at home so pretty much doing my most usual stuff. No problems so far, just have noticed some minor differences to the old ones that mean I have a turn my head a little bit more than before just turning my eyes was enough. And that when I walk and look downwards close to in front of me, the tiles/ground is a little blurry because that’s the reading area but it not a problem – I don’t think it’ll affect things like going up or down the stairs or something like that. Didn’t need to do that today so I have no experience about that yet though!

Reading my smart phones screen is much for comfortable now though! I am actually a little surprised about that! I knew it used to be better before and that now I only could do it for a short while such as checking bus schedules and WhatsApp/text messages while out and about to see if there’s changes to where/when to we’ll meet, but I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable it in reality was. I just knew I couldn’t read longer stuff like news or fiction because my right eye would start to water after a while of that and my sight would go blurry. But now it feels like normal, I guess! 

I haven’t read a book yet, or written using pen and paper and I can’t wait to find out about those things! Being unable to read for a long time was the reason why I got these – my far sight was almost unchanged but reading/near sight had become so much poorer that I was practically forced to get new glasses because of that.

I hope my eye sight stays unchanged now for years and years and years. These are I think the 5th new glasses in the last 9 years? My eye sight remained unchanged for about 18 years, but suddenly it started to go worse quickly. A couple of times the new glasses were only good for a year before I couldn’t see again, and a couple of times they’re good for about 3 years. The optician said that it’s normal to start to have that happen when turning 40. And also my illnesses and meds can have an effect on my eyes and eyesight, although there are no current outward signs of that. Whatever the case, I’m fed up having to buy glasses every few years!

I had arranged to meet up with my Mom in the shopping centre while fetching my new glasses; she was also getting fitted for new glasses but in an another shop (there are at least 2 optician/eye glasses shops in that shopping centre). My Mom isn’t allowed to have her glasses prescribed by an optician and she always needs to see an eye doctor. She did that last week, and because she always gets eye drops put in her eyes that blur her vision for many hours, she can never see the eye doctor and select new glasses on the same trip. So she came out today to select new ones. My new glasses cost 509 euros and included prescription sun-glasses for free, but my Mom’s even more expensive – hers cost just over 1000 euros and she also got prescription sun-glasses for free. She always curses that she can’t get glasses cheaply or for a moderate price – even when she was specifically told by the eye doctor to buy cheap classes because she might not be able to use them for even a year before the cataract became so bad it needed to operated on, the cheapest glasses she was able to get still cost 400 euros. While it seems like everyone around us buy glasses and they only cost 200 euros at most in the same shops. It sucks to had such a bad eye sight! Mine’s not as bad hers, but apparently still worse than a lot of other peoples. My cheapest glasses as an adult cost 300 euros and I purposely left out one of the comfort modifications – that would have hiked the price by another 100. And now that I need varifocals it’s always going to be even more expensive from now on. Next time I’m lucky if I can’t get new varifocals even for 509 euros, considering prices going up all the time.

Mom and I talked about prices of glasses and we’re convinced that there must be a lot air in the regular prices when the shops are able to sell a 1000 euros for glasses + another pair of the same price for free when the real price would be 2000 for both. Why not sell with sensible/moderate prices??

But in any case – very excited to have my first varifocals! 💖 And very excited and curious to see how reading  a book goes as well as writing with a pen and paper! ✨



May 28, 2024
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intothisshadow

Heat Wave!

Heat Wave!

Well, we’re into the 12th day of this year’s first heat wave and have broken one earlier May record, and could break another too – exciting times! Not. Didn’t really notice the first 8-9 days or so, helped by the fact that I was at the AKSE course at the hotel/spa for the first week of the hot weather and the room we usually used there was very well air conditioned indeed. So I only felt it during commuting back and forth every day and mornings were still more on the chilly side then. But NOW I’m feeling it…

I’m done with heat now, weather gods, please – bye bye hot weather, be gone now! 🙏

(forecast says heat wave will continue until at least Saturday, possibly longer)

(summer has officially begun now that I’ve complained about too hot weather for the first time in 2024!)