Tallinn cruise on Tallink Victoria

Nine years since my last cruise and train trip. Now we took a sudden departure, on Thursday we bought tickets for the cruise on Monday, August 18.

My back hurt already on the train and I was afraid of how it would react when we arrived. I took painkillers and luckily there were no problems after that.

 

 

My body has a "funny" feature where my teeth can start chattering as if it's cold even though it's not, just for mental reasons. Now that happened when we got off the train in Helsinki, and it was because of the number of people. I knew in advance that it would bother me. Luckily, it passed pretty quickly, but the next day my mouth was sore and I had bitten my cheek.

First we went to Ruohonjuuri because I wanted Urtekram's Rasul shampoo. Its availability is quite limited, it's not available in the online stores I usually order from.

I had never been on Tallink Victoria before. There weren't many people on the ship. It's only August and so few people? Well, of course it was a Monday departure.

The cabin was a deluxe plus. The "regular" deluxes are located at the bow of the ship on deck 8. These pluses are on the sides of the ship on deck 9, and are slightly larger.

 

  

 

Drinks from the Victoria minibar. In addition, the cabin price also includes a chocolate bar, and of course a special breakfast.

 

 

I have a haabit of being out on deck when the ship is leaving port. This time I couldn't do that because the only buffet dinner was at the same time. Luckily, we were able to sit in the restaurant at the bow, so there was a good view. The ship's white wine happens to be suitable for me at the moment, i.e. low-sugar enough. I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing...

I couldn't stand being outside for many seconds because it was a bit cold and windy.

 

In the nightclub, four bartenders were waiting idly. A Caipiroska cost a shocking 12 euros. I also learned about a new drink that suits me, called Skinny Bitch. It tasted a bit strange when I'm used to Caipiroska.

 

 

When the band went on a break, they started playing Tabitha's song... 💔

The special breakfast was wasted for me as I was feeling a bit unwell. The most important food for me, egg spread, was on the menu, but it tasted strange. At Victoria's special breakfast, it would be possible to order a warm food option as well, there were three different types of omelets on offer. You have to pay extra for brewed tea these days, boo.

In Tallinn, we only visited Rimi in the harbour shopping centre, Superalkos was skipped this time. It's a bit of a shame that I didn't bother to check out the shoe store's clearance sale.

 

 

I've been wanting Grey Goose vodka for a long time because of the Black Dagger Brotherhood vampire book series. Now it was on sale on the ship, "only" 50 euros. Well, you can't get it cheaper than that anywhere else, so I went with it.

 

 

While waiting for the train to leave, we visited UFF, and then hung out at Oodi. There, we found an interesting book, Kali's Song, which made it to my list.

Experience has shown that one book is not enough for a trip. This time, I had the paperback The Cat Who Caught a Killer with me, and even though I read it sparingly, I managed to finish it too early, even before the return trip.

Monday was still a warm summer day, but when I got home on Tuesday evening, it was 11 degrees in Kuopio and windy. My skirt felt a bit cold, so my teeth were chattering because of the real cold. We were the only ones on the bus.

The trip was tough for me, but surprisingly painless. When I got home, I was shocked by how swollen my stomach was. I didn't know if I should be worried.

 

 

Does Pycnogenol help with leg swelling?

I tried to do a human experiment on myself. My feet always swell and hurt when I travel by train. Now I took one Pycnogenol pill on Sunday evening, and two in the morning before the train. When I arrived, it was amazing to see that my feet were neither swollen nor sore.

Did Pycnogenol really help? I didn't take Pycnogenol on the way back, and yet my feet didn't swell or hurt. Did the Pycnogenol I had taken earlier still have an effect then, or did it really have no effect after all? I can't tell.

So the human experiment seems to have failed. I will continue to take Pycnogenol if I feel like my legs aren't getting enough blood flow.

 

Last week

Tuesday, August 12th was the dental hygienist. Miraculously, my gums are reportedly in good shape, meaning they had time to heal after the meat grinding. That same day, I finished my first novel and sent it to Books on Demand for approval. More on that later.

On the anniversary of Tabitha's death, August 13th, my 94-year-old grandmother died. A couple of days before, I had a dream that I wasn't sure if it was a dream or if it was my grandmother saying goodbye. I've never been able to accept that death is an inevitable part of life. 

 

 

 

On Thursday, we made a tough trip to Kontti, I didn't even know it was in Hermann now. I wanted to donate some clothes there. Of course, I couldn't find anything nice to buy there or at the flea market. I've started dreaming of a classic little black dress or a black sheath dress. The weather was too warm for that trip.

I went through my Ebay purchase history and I don't remember some of the clothes at all. Even the ones I bought in 2018 and 2019, I don't remember having them. Where are those clothes? Donated right away?

Then I messed up by doing laundry. I rarely wash so-called better clothes, and of course I put them all in the same machine. Well, the whites and light colors turned darker. What scared me the most was the fate of my light floral dress, it's one of my favorites and I wanted to wear it on the cruise.

 

 

 

Then it was time to go on a cruise. I was afraid I wouldn't make it home alive. The last cruise was 9 years ago, and then I had an arrhythmia that almost took my life and consciousness.

 

 

 

Bacon's revenge

How many ways can the decision to buy bacon and fry it in the oven bite a person in the ass?

For the second time in a while, I bought pork loin slices with the intention of making them in the oven because I can't bear to fry them in a pan in so many batches. The internet is full of instructions for making bacon in the oven, and each one has a different temperature and baking time. Well, they didn't come out cooked even though I probably cooked them for twice as long. My bacon should be crispy, or burnt.

It left a nice mess, the baking paper was rippled in grease and the baking sheet as well. I don't know how to clean it.

And then my mouth hurt because I chewed that meat for three days. My mouth has never been so sore. Just in time for a visit to the dental hygienist and my gums shouldn't be swollen. Eating was difficult, and so was living. My face and lymph nodes hurt too. One day I wanted to cry when the electric shock-like pains in my ear and face terrified me. I can't stand this shitty body anymore, where something is always wrong.

 

 

Yet somehow, gritting my teeth (literally), I managed to edit my first novel. I can't believe what mistakes I still found in it: for example, an unfinished sentence, and a great continuity error where first they are in a hotel and the next second they are at home. D'oh! What the hell was I thinking? Answer: nothing. I would have thought I had noticed that years or decades ago.

So the sandals broke and I started using new ones, almost identical ones. Too bad they cause pain and blisters on my feet and if I wore them for longer, the skin would probably break. I can't understand. The previous ones were so good. If I bought new sandals, there was no way I could know if I could walk longer distances in them. It's hard to find good and cheap shoes. I really need wide fit shoes.

An interesting phenomenon. I come home from a run sweaty, but my hands are so frozen that they can't work. Of course, 20 degrees Celsius, windy and cloudy weather is a reason for the hands to react like that.

A year without Tabitha

"Where's Tabitha when you need her?"

Like when changing the sheets.

I recently had a dream about cats. Kali had a swollen belly, like before she died. But then Tabitha came along, demanding attention and nudged me.

 

 

When Tabitha stopped eating, it was thought that it was because of her chronic runny nose. I just couldn't accept that the cat would die because of a stuffy nose, it would have been too unfair. But then it turned out that Tabitha had a tumor near her lungs. So in hindsight, it was clear that Tabitha was already feeling so bad that she didn't want to eat anymore.

 

 

The strangest thing is that Tabitha started eating again after the animal hospital. There was no reason for her to do that. Of course it feels bad that Tabitha had to go through that intensive care, but without it we humans would have had too much to deal with. When it comes to cats' final days, the uncertainty is the worst.

 

 

And the unnecessary trip to the dentist a month before Tabitha's death still hurts. It didn't even solve Tabitha's eating problem. But we didn't know that death was near.

 

 

Tabitha was my firstborn, and that's why she's so dear to me.

I want to play some cat game again in "honor" of this day. Or have someone else play for me. The choice is probably Little Kitty, Big City. I don't know if there is any (console) game where you play as a black and white cat.

 

 

 

Big mistake

I was getting upset about the constant heat and the fact that it was preventing me from going to the library. I reserved a few books. Big mistake.

Then I started feeling nauseous, and my heart was beating too fast. Next came the endometriosis pains.

 

 

And again one of the shoes broke, sandals. They lasted well from Siilinjärvi and Lidl all the way home and finally broke in the stairwell. The soles of both shoes cracked, and pieces of the soles fell into the hallway.

When it was time to go to the library I woke up with a sore throat and despite the heat I was cold. Only one of the three books I had reserved had arrived. But I still had to go because I knew I would be even worse in the coming days. When I returned home from the library I had received notifications that the other two books had arrived. I was  a bit upset. I reserved more books. I also almost reserved the same book again...

A new attempt in a couple of days, only in the evening when it's colder, almost 32 degrees Celsius... I thought a bird had shit on me when something cold kept dripping down my neck so that I was startled, but no, just my own sweat.

I can't do anything, I'm tired. The decision to quit my studies as useless and unprofitable has begun to mature. I just can't continue this torture, even in the summer my income is 0 euros. It was absurd to even start.

 

Writing

I don't think I'll ever finish my second novel, not even if I live 50 more years. The word count only increased by 4,000 in a month, so it's now 31,000. And that story doesn't even interest me, I'm completely bored. I used to think that was my best story, but I don't agree anymore.

I still need to get my first novel ready for publication, as I already booked an ISBN number when I started the book project on Books on Demand, and there's a three-month deadline. I wanted to cry with happiness when BoD's cover tool EasyCover finally accepted my cover. I did everything the same way as before, and this time it worked. It's hard to know what is wrong, especially when the error messages are in German.

It feels so bad to send your child out into the world, after decades. The thought of never being able to make a single change to the text again... And of course, every sentence I've ever written makes me ashamed.

 

 

 

A year without Olivia

It's been a year since my youngest cat, Olivia, died. I can say that there is no life after cats. I will never get over my guilt. For not realizing that Olivia was about to die.

That moment when the vet called and told me that Olivia has to be put down, and I couldn't continue talking on the phone because I was crying.

 

 

Yesterday I noticed that the shorts I wore while washing the cat toilets are not where my other shorts are. They were still where I kept them when I was still cleaning toilets. The last time was the week of Olivia's death. That's when I cried for Tabitha, I remember how the tears mixed with the wash water. I didn't know it would be Olivia who would die first.

And I can't get over the fact that both Olivia and Tabitha died on the name days of the characters of my first novel (who both die in the story). Luckily, Kali didn't do that. 

 

 

 

My fear of death has subsided because I don't want to live without cats, because life without them is pointless and because I think they're waiting for me out there somewhere. Of course, I don't really believe that, but still.

Last night I cried so much for Olivia that I had got arrhythmia. Would it be appropriate to die on the same day?

I would like to finish writing some of my stories before I die, though. I'd be damned if I died before then.

I had already decided that I would play through the game Stray again on the anniversary of Olivia's death, but then the game Cat and Ghostly Road was on sale. In it, you play as a white cat.

 

 

 

I still open the door for Olivia after the shower. Luckily, I still remember Olivia's unique meow.

 

 

I still open the window in the evenings
even though I know you won't come and shout anymore...