Saturday night, September 15, 2007


I do need people. That’s what everybody told me when I expressed my need to be alone. OK. I believe you. Tonight, on the eve of my nameday, I invited my friends Tuija & Pasi over for dinner. I had gone to town on a rainy Saturday to buy food and read my email; I still can’t get to it from the apartment. I spent an hour at the food store again. It’s easy to do because it’s so much fun to look at the food available now – so different from the seventies when Robert and I lived here. I went to the fancy foodstore, Mestarinherkku or Delicacies of a Master – as the name translates to. It used to be the place Robert got the soft avocados for pennies – no-one knew they were perfect when soft. Well – people have wised up. All the avocados were hard as rock, and I gave up my idea of guacamole and chips as an appetizer. My friend, Tuija is both lactose and wheat intolerant, so I had to be considerate of her diet. It’s easy to find lactose free anything since so many people have the particular allergy. I also found a small loaf of rye bread without any wheat flour. I looked at the gorgeous fish and decided to make bouillabasse and a green salad with beets and olives. The dessert would be a combination of marangue, lactose free ice cream, a Finnish cheese called quark, and blueberries and strawberries – light but delicious. I picked up some freshly baked dried tomato and a loaf of olive and sun-dried tomato bread for Pasi and me, and added smoked reindeer for an appetizer. I also bought herbs, lettuce and pears. It would be a great meal!

I finished my living room décor by covering one chair with the sarong Rafu, our 15-year-old, had brought me from Sr i Lanka, and buying hydrangea, a reminder of the ones I pick up free from our neighbors over the fence, in California. I arrange them in the exactly same Alvar Aalto vase I have at home. After I steal a small tablecloth from the balcony table and place it on top of the small coffee table, the living room is indeed starting to look more like me than the landlady.


It’s already Sunday and almost 1 AM, so I’m going to go to bed. Today is definitely better than yesterday. I just hope grandpa is OK – and that my family would maybe call me.