Tag: personal

Fun questions this time!

1. Are you prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse (essentially any disaster, natural or otherwise)?

Apocalyptic disaster… I won’t survive anything which requires things like running, a lot of walking or other sustained physical activity because I’m in bad shape, in pain and exhausted all the time. Once my glasses get too weak or if they’re broken, I’ll be practically blind because I can’t see even my fingers clearly without my glasses. Crohn’s Disease and chronic diarrhea makes it so my diet is on restricted side, sometimes more sometimes less, and the chronic diarrhea would weaken me even more once the diarrhea meds run out because all the food would just go right through me. Not to mention chronic migraine and pretty much weekly migraine attacks which often even now make me feel like being chomped on by a zombie would be the better option. I don’t see myself surviving for long in an apocalyptic disaster similar to such as… I don’t know, The Last of Us or The Walking Dead or anything of that ilk. I’d probably be one of the ones who stay behind/get left behind/sacrifice themselves in a dire situation so that the other people have a chance to escape and frankly I’m okay with that.

Non-apocalyptic disaster… I can’t think of what this could be. My country is very stable as far geology goes so no volcanos, earthcakes, hurricanes, tornadoes or things of that sort. I think it would have to be something like another pandemic, or some measure of food insecurity due to foreign wars (probably instigated by Russia) in countries that produce majority of like wheat and other grains and crops so that importing food is affected and Finland having its own bad crops year/years. In these cases, the state and government has infastructure of assistance in place that I trust we as a nation would manage, and that I could manage too. We had that happen with COVID-19 and I think we managed quite well, but not perfectly. Of course, I’m not sure how much of that was because we had a centre-left, left leaning government in place at the time. I certainly don’t trust the current right-wing destroy the poor and kick the workers government to do as well if the pandemic were to escalate again.

2. What’s in your bug-in (stay safe at home) kit?

Everything I got at here at home!

I could survive maybe a week or two if the shops weren’t open as long as the water worked (we have drinkable tap water everywhere). But I don’t have a lot of food stores – there’s nowhere to store a lot of foodstuffs in modern apartment buildings and small apartments. That week or two would mean literally eating everything from the fridge and the freezer, and from the cupboards.

If it’s winter, heating would be a problem after a while if district heating is damaged and can’t be fixed in like 24 hours. I don’t have a heater. If it’s a hot summer and no electricity, people over-heating would be a problem.

I don’t remember the last time there was a power outage that actually affected me in my city. Once or twice there’s been like a blink type of thing where the power cuts for a second and the only way I know about it is because my tv or my laptop shuts down suddenly or fridge/freezer makes the sound it makes bling sound when it automatically turns back on. The last real power outage for me was probably at least 20 years ago and lasted for 10 minutes or thereabouts. I live in the 4th biggest city in the country and the power grid is very stable here, but occasionally I hear about power outages usually caused by a storm that’s felled trees on the power lines. I have the image that these affect more those living outside cities than in cities.

3. What’s in your bug-out bag?

Don’t have one! Mentally, I have on the list all of my all various medications and phone/phone charger. Those would be the first things I grab.

4. What’s on your ‘to get’ list?

I’ve been thinking since the pandemic that I should buy bottled water enough to last 3 days as recommended. But where to store them? And because we don’t need/use bottled water, I’m not sure how I should make sure it doesn’t get old because I never use it. And really, buying it feels like waste of money and storing it a waste of effort because we don’t need bottled water because all tap water here is drinkable (except in some summer cottages where municipal infastructure hasn’t been build because of there’s no around-the-year-allowed-living-summer-cottages).

Also been thinking I should make sure I have small store of canned foods like fruit that doesn’t need cooking/heating instead of usually just eating them pretty much as I buy them.

5. Do you keep gear in your vehicle, if so, what?

I don’t have a car, but when I did I didn’t have any survival gear in it. Only the typical car gear – tools for changing a tire, one extra tire, a paper towel roll, work gloves, oil for greasing the locks, and a tarp protect the car from snow and ice in the winter while parked. I almost never drove long distances (longest was about three hours and that only 2-3 times) and where I live is densely enough populated that breaking down on the road, it’d never be very far to the next gas station or house. If I’d driven longer distances, I’d of course would have prepared more.

My answers to last Friday’s question @thefridayfive

1. Do you want to get married?

Nope. I’m not even in a relationship and am not looking for one, so marriage is so far down my list of Possible Happenings that I can’t even see it.

My Mom’s best friend has never been married so I grew up with that as a normal thing. And my Mom never re-married after my Dad died although she and her SO have been living together for about 30 years now, as well as many closest people never marrying or marrying late (close to 40 years of age), so I’ve never been in environment where not being married was seen as weird, or where there was pressure to find a boyfriend/girlfriend and marry. Just some of us are single and some of us aren’t and it’s all normal. All in all I think I’m generation where people living together without marrying started to become more common along with being single.

I’m not sure I could even learn to live with another person, having lived alone for 32 years now (since I was 17). And honestly… the thought of tying myself to another person legally is mildly horrifying.

2. Where would you like to get married?

If the impossible happens and I find myself wanting to get married, I think I’d want to do it in a civil ceremony in the Court’s Office, with only witnesses present. I hate being the center of attention and big parties/crowds. So I think I’d prefer to just tie the knot quietly and privately and then let people know after the fact in a casual way. I think most likely my spouse and I would’ve been living together for a long time already (years) and this was just making it official, in no small part due to it being easier legally and practically in some ways to be married in the eyes of the law.

3. If you were getting married in a week, who would be in your wedding party?

No wedding party. Just the witnesses.

4. What would your wedding colours be?

None.

5. Does marriage mean to you ’til death do us part?’

Nope. If you’re really lucky, you may get that. But mostly I think that people change and grow, and it’s just as likely that they change and grow in ways that their wansts and goals aren’t compatible anymore. Then it’s better to divorce than to try and force it.

Answers to today’s questions @ f.riday5.com

1. What is your favorite thing to learn about?

History. So many interesting periods and places to learn about!

2. What is your favorite thing to do with your friends?

Just hang together and talk, enjoy good food.

3. What is your favorite place you’ve ever been?

London.

4. What is your favorite way to relax?

It’s a tie between the answer to #2 and just being alone, reading a great book!

5. What is your favorite thing to cook?

I don’t like cooking (it’s just a necessary evil) but I love baking. Really love baking and it’s hard to choose favorite one, but I think it’s either a whipped cream layer cake with filling of whipped cream, fresh or frozen strawberries and banana slices, *or* a suklaatryffelikakku (chocolate truffle cake?) which is made of whipped cream and melted chocolate and not much else and freezed.

Answers to last Fridays thefridayfive questions from https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/119060.html

1. When did you recently have the feeling, “Life is good.”

It’s been more than a decade. I don’t remember ever feeling/thinking that since I got ill.

2. Which do you need more, routine or spontaneity?

I’d say both. I need more routine when it comes to house hold stuff such as vacuuming. But I should also try to be more spontaneous. It’s just that most of the unplanned things in my adult life have been negative, not positive, so I don’t trust unplanned things.

3. Do you have a difficult or annoying neighbor?

Not right now. There used to be a sometimes-annoying neighbor who’d blast music and talk by shouting literally until 4am (sometimes until 7am) occasionally; no one slept those nights in my building. But that hasn’t happened in a year or so now *knock on wood* Maybe they’ve moved away?

4. What do you want to change about yourself?

The things I actually want to change about myself I can’t because they’re the effects of my illnesses… such as being exhausted all the time, and doing things being difficult because of it. I want doing things to be less energy sucking and easier.

5. What do you like best about where you live?

That it’s safe (both as in I don’t need to fear other people for the most part, and we don’t have natural disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes), and my town has a good public transport system.

This week’s questions over at thefridayfive@DW is about dreams.

1. What was the last dream that you had about?

I’ve been seeing a lot of dreams again the last week or two. Usually 6-7 different dreas per night, but the only one from last night I remember is one about quicksand. The setting was a farm or a small community or a village in, like, the middle ages, and one day we suddenly realized that the quicksand nearby by the had dried up. While we were circling the quicksand area, trying to figure out why it had happened, people and animals drowned in the quicksand started to emerge from the sand, right as rain. One of the first was a pig which run away. At that point I woke up.

2. Does it hold any significant meaning to you?

I don’t think so. I’ve never seen it before (I have several repeating dreams). It’s also not a sequel or a prequel to any other dream.

3. Do you dream in color or black and white?

Color.

4. What is the most frightening dream you ever had?

I’ve never been scared by my dreams. They’re like the action/adventure/scifi tv shows and movies I love to watch and I never get scared by them. Some dreams are weird and don’t even have that dream logic, but none have frightened me.

5. Is there one dream that stays clear in your mind despite the fact it was more than a few years ago?

I have 4 or 5 such dreams, but the oldest of them is the elevator dream. I dreamed it many times in my teens… so 30+ years ago. In it, I enter the apartment building I lived the majority of my child/teenhood until early adulthood, step into the elevator and press the button for our level which is 3. But the elevator doesn’t stop at 3 and I think, oh okay, somebody’s called it to the top floor (5) – I’ll just get off there and walk two stairsways down to get to our level. But the elevator doesn’t stop at level 5 either – instead it goes through the roof of the building and shoots into the sky and keeps rising and rising and I can’t do anything. I wake up at this point.

I’ve always figured that dream meant I felt out of control in some way of my life. Later it occurred to me that it might have been to do with that my father was ill (brain cancer), and for about a year before he died, we knew it wouldn’t get better and he would die, that it was just a matter of time. It’s just that I can’t remember exactly when I started having this dream – was it before or after my Dad’s death? Because I can’t think of anything else in my life at that age that would make me feel out of control of my life.

The other dream that sticks particularly clearly with me I dreamed repeatedly in my early 20s and is a sort-of-but-not-really superhero dream. In it, I’m in my grades 3-6 school with other the other kids, when suddenly the teachers hurry everyone inside from the rocky play area, and lock all the doors and windows of the school. Teachers don’t know why, just that a general threat alert has been given and that everyone should go inside. A long time is spent waiting for what happens next, and guessing what is going on. Then a red poisonous mist descends outside, and the teachers tell us that the X-Men are fighting an enemy – it’s never clear whether it’s aliens or other mutants or what – and that only mutants can survive in the red mist. I wake up around this point of the dream. I kept seeing this dream maybe a dozen times throughout my 20s. The X-Men are obviously inspired by my reading the X-Men comics a lot in the 1980s/90s, and the red mist by the original tv series V and V: The Final Battle.