the Finnish threat is safely gone

Dear Gentle Reader,

At the time of the last posting we had a Finn arriving and anxieties were running high.  

Your Heroine, your Hero, and even your humble scribe were worried about precipitation here in Hong Kong and its resulting effects on our guest.  

Both wolfsbane and garlic were being stockpiled for fear of another Lordi incident just in case "the Finn" received insufficient visual stimulation due to rain and visibility levels.

Up until "the Finn" was on the express train to the airport, having already checked into his flight to return home to Singapore (wow, Hong Kong has the best airport ever), the weather held admirably.  

Now, of course, we have received an official strong monsoon warning, an amber rainstorm warning, a thunderstorm warning, and notice that the rainpersimmons will be trying to batter through the windows, again (see Update No. 7, when the rainpersimmons came armed, or Update No. 5 on the initial appearance of the rainpersimmons).

Your humble scribe thinks that the weather gods were just as worried about Finnish forms and norms (see the previous post, Prayers for no rain; the Finnish threat, and Lordi) (or the picture above) as everyone else in our home was.

Now, a couple of you doubted the seriousness of the Lordi threat.  

"Gentle scribe", you wrote me, "How dangerous can Finns be?  They are from Finnland!".  (Please note, gentle reader, that fish are from Finnland while Finns are from Finland.  I know.  It seems nonsensical to your humble scribe also. Once again the obscurities of English are laid bare for all to see.) 

"As long as you don't ask Finns to sing, try to take their beer, or deny them their sauna, they are mostly harmless, aren't they?" the innocent ones amongst you queried me.  

Ask the Russians is all I say.  

Look what happened the last time Finland thought the world wasn't paying enough attention to them and to Finland's corporate wunderkind, Nokia...  

Finland unleashed the monstrous brainpower of Matti Makkonen and he invented SMS technology (text messaging on cell phones/mobiles/handies/dagedas/choose-your-linguistic-preference). 

Now I cannot get through an hour without having my bum starting to buzz and sing as people send my cell phone text messages.  

Beware the Finns, is all I can say.

Our Finn had a swallow's nest ripped from a wall, boiled, and then strained so that we could all sample bird's nest soup.  

Quite nice, really, although it did raise an interesting moral question...

Is "Bird's Nest Soup" vegetarian or not?  

I mean, there is no meat involved...  

No bird is necessarily harmed in its preparation...

In fact, it is better if the bird is free to fly away to spit up on grass and make another new nest for another soup another day...

So, is "Bird's Nest Soup" vegetarian or not?

Anyways, all remained safe with the world, and most especially with your Heroine, your Hero, and your humble scribe.  

But, I must admit, we did take some precautionary measures.  

We fed "the Finn" a fair bit of vegetarian fare, thinking that if you are what you eat, "The Finn" would become docile like a lamb.  

No jokes about being a vegetable if you eat vegetables, since we do that a lot here in our home.

And with that, your humble scribe has to go lavish some attention on his Vegetable Queen, your Heroine, Regina, and upon your Hero, the ferociously napping Pommes, now that the Finnish threat is gone.

Tschuess,

Your humble scribe, your relaxed Heroine, and your sleeping Hero

Prayers for no rain; the Finnish threat and Lordi

Hello Gentle Reader,

So a guest is flying in today, braving the risks of transport in a motorized cigar tube with wings.  

Our guest is Finnish, and therefore it is most important that he be well looked after. 

If Finns are not cared for properly they have a tendency to develop badly, and bad things like this can happen... 

...and this particular Finn's parents tried to have reindeers finish him off while he was still in the créche... ...so he is especially vulnerable.

So, imagine my chagrin when I look out the window and note that weather conditions are worsening. Rain is falling, cloud levels are dropping, and there is a yet another typhoon hanging out near Hong Kong.

The other day we even went to a temple where incense was lit, as seen in the photo at the top, which I would have thought was good enough to guarantee sunshine and happiness.  Apparently not.

But if the rain does not abate, then there will be no views owing to the wonderful refractive qualities of water, and the sheer volumes of the lovely stuff that can fall here in Hong Kong.

Our Finn might have a view like this blue little fishy has,

which is to say next to no view at all.

Deprived of appropriate stimulation, our Finn might revert to familiar Finnish forms and norms...
 (?) 

(I still cannot believe that Lordi won 2006's  Eurovision song competition.) 

Aside: Finnish culture is amazing.  

You should try their mousesqueak cheese (aka Juustoleipa, which, I believe, is the last sound a mouse makes when it dies, according to Finnish folklore) and the Finns eat this with cloudberry jam (which we call bakeapple jam or confiture de chicoutai in Canada).  

Mmmm. Juustoleipa is very interesting and quite nice once you acquire a taste for the texture and the sound it makes when chewed (hence its name, mousesqueak cheese...).

But the weather continues to darken, and your scribe worries about what form the Finn will change into... Time to return to the first image and hope for sun again.

Tschuess,

Your humble scribe, your worried heroine, and your terrified hero

Another typhoon, a whiff of grapeshot & magic

Dear Gentle Reader,

Hello.

Sorry for the long period of e-silence. Your humble scribe has not been well and has been unable to post.

Further, while your humble scribe has been unable to post, apparently neither your Hero nor your Heroine were interested in getting their paws/hands into the mud or around a stylus to carve out cuneiform "letters". Not even e-cuneiform letters.  No lines at all. *sigh*

So, sorry for the e-silence.

Your scribe has been sick and heavily medicated for a bit of time... ...and then another typhoon hit last night...

...and this time the rainpersimmons (see the first update on Rainpersimmons...) broke into the house.  They changed tactics this time; they came armed.

The rainpersimmons armed themselves with grapeshot. (!)  

(An aside: 

Talking of successful rackets

Modesty deserves a mention.

Exclamation marks in brackets

Never fail to draw attention.

The poem is entitled "An Ode to Modesty" and is by the Great Dane Piet Hein from his first collection of Grooks

This use of exclamation marks is not an ode to modesty, but I think that it still proves Dr. Hein's point.  OK, back to the rainpersimmons armed with grapeshot.)

Your scribe is now able to state that nothing compares to being woken in the middle of the night by a whistling spray of glass and water thrown by rainpersimmons moving in excess of 100km/hour as they ride the typhoon winds.

No worries, gentle reader, your scribe hears your sudden intake of breath and the question which you dare not ask. 

Your Heroine is safe in India this week. 

You can exhale now.

Your Hero, Pommes, was unable to get a visa for India, so he remained with your humble scribe here in Hong Kong.  

Pommes was actually curled up beside your humble scribe, ostensibly worried by the whistling of the wind. 

I should also note, and quickly reassure you, gentle reader, that Pommes is fine too, although he was startled by the spray of glass and water. 

However, your Hero, Pommes, was so startled by the rainpersimmons' univited entry with their whiff of grapeshot that Pommes decided to perform a magic trick.  

Pommes transformed from being a cat curled up beside your scribe to being a cat curled up inside your scribe.  

At least, Pommes' claws curled up inside your scribe.  

One of the now-removed claws is pictured at the top of this post.

This magic trick certainly increased the drama of your humble scribe's already interesting and glittering night.  

I note that your humble scribe was undamaged by the rain and mostly undamaged by the glass.  He stays silent as to any damage inflicted upon him by your hero. And where.  He definitely stays silent as to where this damage may have occurred.

So, with that little tale of woe, your humble scribe is off to continue recuperating, cleaning the apartment, and organizing a new window.

Hopefully something noteworthy comes up by the scribe-imposed deadline of next Monday for the next post. In the meantime, your scribe hopes to curl up with a lovely eighteen year old or a twenty-one year old tonight seeing as how Regina is still in India.  

It will be Lagavulin if it is the twenty-one year old or Highland Park or Talisker if it is one of the eighteen year olds.

Be well, stay well, and I promise to see that your humble scribe sends a proper update this coming Monday.  

Tschuess,

Chris, Regina, and Pommes

Postscript regarding the apology at the top of the post:  It is unlikely that this great lag between updates will happen again because your scribe understands that blog posts must become temporally consistent, or people will not come back to check on the blog. He intends to post updates once per week, at a minimum. Make his day. Check once or twice.

Rainpersimmons & imposing order in the apartment

Hello Gentle Reader,

DISCLAIMER 

Possibly another long(ish) post. If busy, wait.  

If not, enjoy. 

If irritated, blow away.  

I get a serious case of the trepidations every time I write one of these (who will read it?  Why?) 

No one has complained yet, except for Steven sending me the etymology for brevity, but he doesn't count. 

Volume-cadence Rick is only irate that I haven't mentioned him, viz. his manly chest hair, his mastery of the guitar, and his consummate skill at indigenous peoples law. 

Nonetheless, I am still unsure if people actually mind receiving notes about this or if I drive people frantic with exasperation, but I may become inured to the trepidation soon as a couple of you have indicated that these should "keep on coming", so beware, you may get what you wish for... 

DISCLAIMER END

Dear Gentle Reader (again), 

Apart from the trepidation of mailing or posting this stuff, the actual writing business is quite fun when there is no client or judge to worry about, besides of course for the judgement rendered by you, dear Reader.  

So, where does this e-pistle (e-epistle just doesn't look right) find our favourite heroine and hero, Regina and Pommes, and their trusty scribe Chris?  

Well, on Kowloon, still.  But what a battle they had to stay there...

A typhoon recently ravaged their outcropping of land, leaving them adrift in a sea of raindrops the size of persimmons (see picture above for size and shape)... rainpersimmons... which make a heck of a racket against windows.

On one side of the apartment the rainpersimmons came straight down, and then, with unerring aim and a queasy animosity last seen in kamikaze fighter pilots in The Great War, Part Two (The Sequel), they (the rainpersimmons) picked themselves off their trajectory for the earth, about faced, rotated 90 degrees and flew straight at your faithful scribe.  

Only the fine double glazed windows kept your scribe safe from potential drowning, nine storeys above the sodden earth.  

This is also how your scribe knows that said rainpersimmons (droplets really is too soft and mild a word) made such a racket as they dashed themselves against the windows.

But, there was a unique Hong Kong character to these rainpersimmons...

Presumably these rainpersimmons had started out somewhere in the celestial heavens, wherever it is that rainpersimmons are born and fitted with their angry, scribe-hunting consciousness (your scribe thinks the following facts deny charges of egocentricity, even if this e-pistle does not...). 

The rainpersimmons were aimed at your scribe, let fly, appeared to collide with the earth, then snaked their way around the building in a rapid flanking manoeuvre, only to hurl themselves up and away from the earth to attempt to attack your scribe from the rear.

I kid you not, gentle Reader, these rainpersimmons, on the opposite side of the building, came hurtling UP from the earth and then they picked themselves off their trajectory FROM the earth, about faced, rotated 90 degrees and flew straight at your faithful scribe.

If I'm lying, I'm dying and I'm still typing now. It must be true. 

That is what typhoons are like in Hong Kong.

Anyway, your scribe survived the Typhoon (Great Wind in Chinese) and the rainpersimmons. 

Your heroine survived also, as did your hero, Pommes. Pommes slept through the typhoon dreaming dreams of baked persimmons stuffed with Cantonese BBQ pork.

Next came organising the house as a natural follow-on from the unpacking of the great cardboard obelisk garden referred to in the Fine Plan/Fire Plan incident. 

Some of you have expressed sympathy with our plight in the unpacking department. We appreciate it. 

Don't send sympathy, however, send heavy lifting capacity helicopters and a team of sherpas.  

Some of you asked when I will send pictures of the interior of the apartment; that will be a long time away, baby.

Now, when organizing a vast multitude of things in a not so vast space certain tricks are required.  Having no sonic screwdriver a la Dr. Who, your scribe made do with a fine method of three dimensional stacking.  

Admittedly, the Tower of Hanoi principle would have to be used with any subsequent repacking, but your trusty scribe saw no grand problems. Your fine heroine, Queen Regina, did, and pointed them out repeatedly.  

Let me provide you with a sample of the witty reparteé doled out by your fine Heroine.  

"What?  What are you thinking of putting your field hockey stick and ball on top of the kayak on top of the armoires in that delicate balancing act?  It is going to drop on someone and then you'll be sorry..."  

Admittedly, not really that witty from an English-language strictly definitional perspective, but your heroine is German...  and German humour is considered by most scholars to be a bit of a lost cause, like Belgian resistance (as opposed to political infighting which is a finely honed craft in Belgium these days).  

But then, two days later, Fate dropped an unpleasant package on your scribe's proverbial lap... 

...a field hockey stick and ball weighing a cumulative 2 kilos(ish), dropping from a 2.6 metre height, and landing, en pointe, on your scribe's second toe of his left foot.

After the blue air cleared from the room, your trusty scribe, between brain jarring hops on his remaining footus intactus, thanked the heavens that he was not Christy Brown (the left foot now being damaged), because then how would he write out the fact that Queen Regina was right? 

The positive side was that your scribe could forgo five nights on the dreaded stairmaster in the gym downstairs (broken toe!).

After a jarring break like that, another is allowed, but I see I am hitting my two page limit. So, more in the next missive.

Not so much Hong Kong news this time except for the mighty typhoon, the rainpersimmons with visions of being a whiff of grapeshot, and the joy of organising. Maybe more local colour in the next update.

Tschuess,

Chris, Regina, and Pommes