The Move, Underwater Modeling and the New Apartment
It’s hard to imagine that we’ve been living in this new apartment for over two weeks. The time has been quite hectic, for many reasons, and there really hasn’t been time to slow down properly.
The Move
Finding a new place ended up being surprisingly easy. Well, when Susi and I put our minds to things, we can be quite efficient. We checked out a couple of places and then settled for a 62 square meter two roomer less than kilometer away from the old apartment. The settling part was giving up the idea of a separate work room, but then again, I don’t work that much from home anymore. Ironically enough the apartment we found was downstairs from a pal couples’ previous apartment, where I visited when larping almost eight years ago. The layout of the apartment is the same, but I didn’t make the association consciously, just found myself thinking about the game when walking from the apartment to the metro (no, the metro doors didn’t slam on me this time).
The move itself went more or less without problems – the main trouble being the egos of some people who live in Kruununhaka-district. Parking in that area is a bitch, so we called the area maintenance company and asked for a couple of beams with which we could reserve two parking spaces in front of the door for the parking truck. You know, these official stripy beams which makes a normal person think: “Hmm, that parking space / road / bridge must be closed for a reason”. But not for the mid-level bosses of Kruununhaka. Their reactions is to go “well hey, jolly good, some noble member of the lower classes has reserved a spot just for meeeee!”
I found one of the spots taken in the morning, but when I was checking the license plate the guy actually showed up and drove away, claiming that the beam hadn’t been there last night (yeah, right – it had just kind of drifted a couple of meters away…). I went upstairs for a half an hour, and lo and behold, there was another car in the same spot. I dug up the name of the guy with the help of the license plate and the local version of DMV and got his number, but he didn’t answer. The moving truck had arrived and our money was running. When I finally got the guy on the horn, the truck had already gone around the block and backed up near our door, effectively blocking the whole one way street.
The guy in the other end of the line started asking me where he should park and going on about how there was no announcement about the move (since when do you announce a move to the whole street?). I was starting to get really pissed off and informed him that because of his lack of basic manners the whole street is blocked. He then very magnanimously told me that he could come down and move the car. I stayed up in the apartment while he did that, since I didn’t want to start the move by slugging a guy who can hire more expensive lawyers than I do.
Well, apart from that the move went pretty well. We had a moving company to do the bulk of the work, this time Veljekset Koppanen, recommended by our friends. I can extend the recommendation: the guys were on time, a nice bunch and didn’t waste time screwing around or for cigarette breaks. In five hours, including the driving time, we were done.
Underwater Modeling
Some time earlier a pal had contacted us about her photography project, where she needed some people who could pose underwater. Susi and I promised to take part in the project, but originally we would have had to be at the nearby public swimming pool in the morning of the move at 7:30 or so. We obviously moved it ahead by a day. During the move the promise felt like a mistake, because we were frankly dog tired, but it was surprisingly easy getting up in the morning and lugging our ass outside with the regulators and air tanks.
Strike a pose.
Basically we went to the local public swimming pool equipped with the basic scuba gear and some clothes that weren’t too period specific. Then we jumped into the pool, all dressed in the costumes, breathed in some air and posed for the camera as long as our lungs held out. It was pretty easy for me, since I had done a lot of snorkeling as a kid and going without mask didn’t bother me, but Susi had to take a bit of time to get used to that. I was waiting for her on the bottom of the pool and actually managed to doze off for a couple of seconds. Fully clothed, sleep deprived and weightless in the water, it was very comfortable, although just perhaps not the safest thing to do.
The photographer herself.
Just lying on the bottom of the pool was surprisingly comfortable. Luckily I fell asleep for just a couple of seconds, max.
When the pool opened to the public at nine we headed out. Getting to sit in a morning sauna was pure bliss after the physically quite demanding a week.
The New Apartment
So, about the new apartment. In theory it’s further away from the downtown geographically, but practically we’ve moved far closer to civilization once again. Kruununhaka is a bit of a rich people’s sleeping suburb right next to the downtown. There isn’t much stuff in there and getting anywhere takes several blocks of walking (oh, the horror). On the other hand the current apartment is next to one of the main arteries of the city, a street with a ton of good restaurants, our friends’ favourite drinking hole literally around the corner, the Kauppahalli indoor market practically next door and all the trams and busses so handy that they pretty much come to knock on your bedroom door in the morning and brew you some coffee.
Right from the start I liked the apartment far more than the previous one. This one is more airy, the kitchen is roomy and handy and generally this just feels much more like home. The only downside are the paper thin walls, which give us the pleasure to enjoy the antics of the unruly dog and the cursing of his owners upstairs, and right after the move a teen drinking party next door. I could hear every word and could have taken part in the conversation if I would have wanted to. Generally things tend to be quiet, though. A noisy party now and then is not a problem and we are intent on having those too. If you want absolute silence, move to the countryside.
I really love our new kitchen. Even with all the counters full of moving stuff, there was still room to cook.
Three Weeks of Hell
The last three weeks after the move have been pure hell schedulewise. I had a nice, relaxed timetable mapped of this year last December. The sickness during the Christmastime dented it somewhat and having to manage a week of working-while-moving didn’t really help. With the dayjob I managed to stick to the essentials of the tasks and hammer the hours in, but some of the freelance work I had to postpone. So, for the last two weeks I’ve worked triple speed on the dayjob, because we’re going to spend the next week in a diving holiday in Egypt and the TV show much come out nevertheless. At the same time I had to do the backlog of the freelance work plus the non-essentials of the dayjob which I pushed forward. In the weekend before the last one I simply had to stop doing anything for a couple of days to stay functional, but it wasn’t really enough to get properly relaxed. It had much to do with the knowledge that there was a fuckton of work waiting for me.
There was also a big time gala-evening during the week, a black suit + tie thing for the local games industry and media. It’s held yearly and for me it was a work trip, since we had to take a camera there and do some interviews. I also had some awards to present in front of the audience. When I was a teenager, having to step on a stage in front of a few hundred people dressed to the nines would have scared the shit out of me, but nowadays I pretty much enjoy it. Working, mingling, socializing, drinking up a comfortable buzz and getting home at four in the morning didn’t really help getting up at nine to go through the work backlog. At least the evening was pretty enjoyable.
But organization, willpower, stomach acid and the superpowers of a type A personality – the work is pretty much done. I had to cancel a diving practice in a pool last Thursday, plus our ice diving course this weekend. The latter because in addition to me being in a godawful hurry, Susi was feverish – and going ice diving feverish and tired, after a long diving pause is one of those ideas that may end up as statistics. Turns out that I got the bug too, or alternatively some nasty side effects from the shots we took, which messed the the schedule of last week.
So, right now there’s only one day of work left before the holiday. Shit, I don’t remember the last time I was in this big a need of one. I’m afraid that I won’t probably be able to find a working net connection in Egypt and my cellphone battery will develope some weird problems. Yeah, I think that is very very probable.
World View: Confirmed
In my Christmas update I wrote as follows:
I seem to feel that there has to be some kind of equilibrium with things – wild streaks of lucky breaks leave me feeling suspicious of what kind of nasty stuff will counterbalance them. I find these superstitious feelings amusing, but can’t really help them.
So, what has happened after that day? First the explosive stomach flu and high fever that ate up most of my Christmas holidays, leaving me starting the work year feeling blue and tired. Then having to pretty much handle the job of three people because of some staff changes and holidays, plus a ton of freelance work which the sickness and recuperation pushed forward. I drifted through January to the last weekend, feeling considerably less than 100% rested.
On Monday I woke up in early afternoon – the problem being that I was supposed to be at work at nine. Some retarded fan of the TV program has been texting and prank calling me so I had set the phone on silent mode for the night. I overslept the alarm clock, since it turned out I was running a fever. Cue a few angry text messages from the boss and a frantic work day done from home, running on flu medicine, tea and coffee, while letting go of the hope for going to a diving trip this week.
In the evening we got an e-mail from our landlady, where she told that she’s terminating our rent contract, since her daughter decided to move back to Finland. So we have half a year to find a new apartment. There was nothing in our contract about a minimum duration, but we kind of had the understanding that we would be interested in a long time contract, for five years or so. Well, we get half a year to look for a new apartment, so it’s not that bad – although there’s no hope in hell getting an apartment this size, this cheap and in this good a location.
Then comes yesterday evening and a ringing doorbell. A handyman came to tell us that the downstairs neighbours are a tad bit worried about a wet spot on their ceiling, with a diameter of about two meters. There’s water also on the apartment below them, but no sign of a leak in our flat. This morning a guy from water damage repairs company came to check out the situation, poking around with a cattle prod -like moisture detector and peeking at the walls with an IR camera.
So, what did he find? Well, right now a big chunk of our living room wall is missing. There’s an overpowering stench of mildew and dirt in the air and the estimate is that the repairs will take from five weeks to two months and involve ripping open an unknown amount of wall and floor. During this time the apartment is uninhabitable. The reason? The same goddamn inept handyman who had apparently molested the apartment earlier seems to have tried his hand on plumbing too, which resulted in an open pipe to the sewers being left inside the walls. So, probably a couple of tubfuls of bath-, shower- and washing machine water has leaked into the walls just during the last month or so.
I’d really like to know who is responsible for the past renovations of the flat, since the condition of the apartment was one of the reasons why we got it so cheaply. The laths on the bottom of the walls are loose, the paint is peeling, the kitchen is badly thought out and the ceramic tiles are falling off, the plastering of the kitchen wall is less than perfect… The only saving graces of the apartment are the location and the price.
A-yup. That plugged piece of pipe was left open and it leads directly to our bathroom sewer pipes. It's the airpipe that prevents the sewers from bubbling, but still - it should be connected to SOMETHING.
The bottom line is that we’ll have to evacuate for a couple of months – after which we should move in any case. During that we should do some work from home, arrange a trip to the Egypt and I should do my daily work.
But, in the end, what can I say but World View: Confirmed.
Oh, well, we’ll probably get a replacement apartment from the insurance company for the duration of the repairs and I have agreed on a couple of showings of a new apartment. Who knows, maybe one of those will bite right away, so we’ll do a flash move next week or the week after that. Maybe we can even skip the temporary apartment hassle completely and end up in a better apartment than this.
Who knows. Maybe this balances the world for some other stroke of luck
25 Things About Me You May Not Know, or Even Want To
This silly meme did rounds in the Facebook and I wasted valuable time dodging work and doing it. So, why not paste it here too, when I’m at it.
***
Instructions: Write 25 things about yourself that others might not know, then tag 25 people on your friends list and ask them to do the same. But I won’t pester anyone with this, join the party if you like.
1. After the high school and before my university studies I did half a term of car mechanic and metalworking school, the basic course of a restaurant chef school and worked in a psychogeriatric ward as a patient assistant.
2. I have mild synaesthesia. Numbers, letters and weekdays have pretty consistent colours, pure and clear sounds have colours and shapes and I sort of feel them on my tongue. This makes playing theremin interesting.
3. I play theremin in two bands, Älymystö & Radiokatve.
4. I love animals, although I’m allergic to most furry things. I steadfastly ignore it and play with the cats and the dogs and what have you until my eyes bleed. I’ve had fish, a lizard, a snake and plenty of rats as pets.
5. I feel weird and a little bit lost if I go to sleep without reading a few pages of a good novel while lying on the bed.
6. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t do an exchange student year and I’ve never actually lived abroad.
7. I’m a hobbyholic – I get interested in new things all the time and I just have to try them. Lately I’ve tried to limit it and concentrate on a few things at a time.
8. My initial reaction is to like everybody and I think people should almost always be given the benefit of the doubt. I live by the creed “one should never assume as malice anything that can be explained by ignorance, thoughtlessness or incompetence”.
9. I went straight from being slightly underweight to being slightly overweight around the year 2000.
10. I was unemployed for a couple of years when I was living in Tampere, right after graduating from high school.
11. I used to do a lot of martial arts when I was younger. During the time I was unemployed I had at times nine training sessions per week. This has left me with a plenty of busted joints and a memory of being in a really good shape once upon a time.
12. I like cooking and baking and find them extremely relaxing.
13. I have a .22 pistol and I do some target practice now and then. My plan is to start doing practical some day in the future.
14. I love turning over rocks, finding interesting bugs and critters in ditches and streams, chasing lizards and so on. When I cease to be fascinated by things like that, I’ll jump into a grave voluntarily. Cause – game over man, game over!
15. I dream of making my living by writing fiction. Maybe some day.
16. The summer cabin is my fortress of solitude. I like skiing, fishing, ice-fishing & doing yardwork with minimalist equipment (ie. handsaws, axes, scythes etc. instead of chainsaws or other power tools).
17. I have a BA on computational linguistics, but apart from a two-year stint as an university researcher I haven’t really worked in the field.
18. I used to have positively legendary hangovers, which turned out to be a variety of migraine.
19. I’ve studied Japanese and Hungarian for a couple of years in the university, but because of the lack of use both of them are well below conversation level currently. I’ve also studied the basics of a ten or so other languages (French, German, Latin, Hebrew, Polish, Sanskrit, Gaelic, Spanish, Russian etc.), but don’t really have any skill in them.
20. I get irritated easily, but it fades fast. Making me genuinely angry takes real effort and after that I can be bitter and petty for a long time.
21. I haven’t been jealous of anybody since my teens. Jealousy is just lack of self confidence, it has nothing to do with love and caring.
22. I used to do a lot of amateur astronomy when I was younger. I still check for halos pretty much automatically when I step out.
23. I learned to read at the age of four, apparently very suddenly – I just sat down at a table and started reading something out aloud.
24. If I was given a choice to either do a bungee jump / parachute jump or shoot myself in the foot, I’d probably blow my toes off.
25. I’m not easily disgusted by blood, guts, dirt, rotten stuff or other such things, but I can’t stand squashing insects, maggots etc. The bigger they are, the worse the ick-reaction. I’ve tried to get rid of the previous by eating and cooking meals made out of insects, namely crickets and mealworms. Both of which are actually quite tasty.
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