Answers to today’s questions over at thefridayfive

1. What’s the happiest thing to ever happen to you?

I… don’t know. I can’t think of anything that would fit the “happiest”. Lately I’ve been noticing I’m having problems thinking and feeling positive things, and can’t usully name when I’ve felt an extreme emotion. I was happy to study to be a librarian/library clerk, and I was very happy every time I got a temp job (Because more money! Work I like a lot!) And my Mom’s dog, Caro the Beagle, made me very happy indeed whenever I saw her!

But I can’t name the happiest thing that ever happened to me, and am not sure if that’s because it hasn’t happened to me, or because I think feel/think of one because I’ve been a little depressed for years due all the chronic illnesses and money troubles. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever been one to feel extreme emotions but just always been a pretty steady line emotionally. So I’m not sure… I think, if someone put a gun to my head, I’d say Caro the Beagle. I think she’s probably the closest to the happiest thing that ever happened to me!

2. What’s the saddest thing to ever happen to you?

Either that my Dad died of brain cancer just before my 15th birthday.

Or the narrowness of the life I am able to lead, as result of the chronic illnesses themselves, but also the way they have made me unable to work for 16 years, and the social and financial loss that brings and the bureautic troubles, and that I can’t see no real change to this state of being in foreseeable future. All that is also intertwined with the way this circumstance has resulted in permanent poverty without ease for the last 16 years, with also no change to that in the foreseeable future. The way the chronic illnesses and poverty rules my life and makes my possibilities so narrow makes me feel awfully sad every time I really think about it.

I can’t say which I feel is the saddest thing. I dealt with my Dad’s death decades ago, but I’m grappling every day with the other and so far I haven’t found a way to completely accept that this is my life.

3. What’s the thing that got you the most angry in your life?

Finland’s current far right government and its “destroy the unemployed, the poor and the working man” policies are making me hate them, each minister and party member each and everyone one, both individually and as a group. I’ve never been this angry this long about anything before, but they are making me actually really truly hate them – I’ve never truly hated anyone before, and I don’t like the experience.

4. What’s the most frightening thing to ever happen to you?

This current far right government.

5. What’s the most unbelievable thing to happen to you in your life?

I think it’s kind of unbelievable that somehow I have so many serious chronic illnesses and health problems. I guess I won the “manifest really bad genetics” lottery!

Answers to today’s questions @thefridayfive

1) Is summer a break for you, or is it busier?

Back when I was healthy and working – it could be either depending on the year. Sometimes I’d be unemployed and didn’t have anything to do, and sometimes I was hired either specifically as a summer temp (for about two months), or working through the summer was expressly part of longer job deal (4 months up to a year). For those longer deals, I could get the vacation compasated with money if I wasn’t able to take vacation days (or just didn’t want to and would rather have it as money), or I could take my vacation time either at the end of the job, or a few days at a time all the way through except for the two months the permanent workers had their summer vacations. For the short temps, vacation time was always paid out as money.

Since becoming ill, summers are pretty much the same as any other time of the year for me. Once or twice I’ve had some unemployment agency mandated activity or a rehabilitation course during summer. But mostly it’s the same as any time of the year and not busy at all.

2) What’s next for your travel plans?

I have no travel plans.

3) What have you spontaneously done lately?

I moved my sites to a new host pretty spontaneously last month. I had fleetingly thought about it a few times in the previous few months, due to wanting a possibly lower price and because the sites had started to get kinda slow on then-host, but hadn’t really seriously entertained the idea and hadn’t thought about which host terribly much. But then one afternoon, I made the decision to move suddenly in about 10 minutes after reading good reviews from fellow fansite owners about Asura Hosting.

4) What’s your favorite way to unwind after a long day?

Watching a good tv show and/or reading.

5) What’s in your pockets?

I don’t wear clothes with pockets when I’m home, only when I leave the house to run errands. And then only have pockets if I have a coat on (none of my shirts or trousers have pockets at all!). I always have the following things in my pockets:

Left pocket: paper handkerchiefs, keys, small bottle of spray hand sanitizer
Right pocket: my smart phone, lip balm, clip-on sunglasses unless I’m wearing them, bus travel card (for the local public transport). Oh and my ID card, library card and KELA card are in the tiny slit pockets of the phone wallet case so I guess I carry those too in my pocket just because the phone is in my pocket!

Additionally, any sharp(ish) items I need to carry temporarily always go into the left pocket to avoid scratching/breaking the phone even though it’s in a wallet case – I feel like I still need to be careful with the phone ’cause they cost so much!

Answers to today’s questions at https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/125933.html

1) What are your five favorite birds?

I don’t care much about birds, to be honest. The birds local to Finland all have such boring colors (drab brown and gray and maybe kinda barely there yellow) that I can’t muster interest. I do like watching documentaries and photos of colorful tropical birds such as listed at https://justbirding.com/most-colorful-birds/

2) What are your five favorite pet-type animals?

Just one really: Dogs! I like dogs a lot, and I LOVE beagles! The only pet I’d like to have is a dog or two, and maybe a cat. I don’t care for other types.

3) What are your five favorite wild animals that live in your locale?

I don’t have favorites as such (I don’t care enough) but lynx are pretty cool! And foxes.

4) What are your five favorite zoo animals that you always want to visit?

The giraffes and the big cats are always a highlight for me! And birds, but only if there’s a lot of colorful pretty exotic birds. And zeepras are cool too! And crocodiles – they’re so scary but fascinating and I like seeing them safely from the other side.

I also really like aquariums – the ones I’ve visited have made me feel like I’m under the sea, and a few times when we’ve been there soon after opening in the morning, it’s been wonderfully quiet and peaceful because the crowds haven’t arrived yet and there’s only been like a dozen of other visitors around at the most.

5) What are your five favorite cryptids that may or may not be extinct, may or may not exist in this world?

I don’t think I have five but… Loch Ness Monster. Mothman. Sea snakes.

My answers to Friday’s questions at http://f.riday5.com/2024/04/12/friday-5-for-april-12-ladies-and-gentlemen-take-my-advice/

1. What is your favorite shape for ice in a beverage?

Don’t have one. I practically never put ice in, and when I do, it’s just your standard cube. I don’t have other shapes and I don’t care.

2. When did you last apply ice (or something functioning similarly) to your body?

I regularly and often use one of those ice gel packs that are stored in the fridge or the freezer on my forehead or temples when I’m having a migraine attack, or just an otherwise worse-than-normal bad head day. I’m not sure when the last time was – it was this month but whether it was this week or last week, I can’t say for sure it’s so common but not every day occurrence…

I dream of trying on one of those migraine gel pack hats which cover the whole head and eyes and which are stored in the fridge/freezer between uses so it’s cold when you have a migraine attack, but I haven’t found anywhere in Finland I can buy them from and getting one from from abroad is expensive and I don’t trust that the sizing works and so am wary of getting one that is too small/too big… It’s been on my list of things to get for years now for when I have “extra” money to spend but it’s very far down indeed because I can make do with the single gel packs and other more important/useful/fun things come first.

3. What was the occasion for your most recently toting something with ice in a cooler?

Probably when my family did camping in the 1980s when I was a kid.

4. What is the iciest movie you’ve seen?

Not movie but the tv show Fortitude jumped to mind – it’s has pretty icy conditions! As for movies, maybe The Thing from 1982…?

5. What are some good songs with “ice” in the title or lyrics?

Fire And Ice by Pat Benatar is the first one that came to my mind. It’s been one of my favorite songs since I was a kid!

I can’t think of other good ones right now.