June | 2008 | Coffee Helps

The Parents go online

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Hails

Ring-ring! Ring-ring!

Someone is calling me on Skype. It is my mother. This is something of a surprise to me, as it involves my parents having internet access, and my mother both using a computer and knowing what Skype is. Clearly the Sister is involved.

It has happened: my parents are online.

The Sister (and Kat the Cat) moved in with them when I left, and now there are laptops, wireless internet routers, and all manner of foreign things in the house where it once took 4 people approximately 48 hours to (unsuccessfully) install a new DVD player.

I like that they try, I really do. They are never daunted, even when perhaps they should be. The mobile phone thing was quite successful in the end – I almost never receive blank text messages any more, and Mum even uses txtspk! A product of receiving her mobular education from The Sister, no doubt.

Hello? I say dubiously, answering the call. A rowdy chorus responds, and I realise that it is not just my mother: it is my mother, my father, my sister, some wine, and the cat. The laptop, it transpires, is sitting on the living room floor while they all lounge on sofas around it. I can feel everyone’s gaze upon me. It’s a little disconcerting.

I try to introduce sensible topics of conversation, but it becomes evident that no one is listening to me. “What,” I ask eventually, “is going on?”. Apparenty Kat the Cat has become extremely distressed upon hearing my voice after all this time. She has been running around in circles as I’ve been speaking, searching in vain for her owner, and has eventually deduced that they are keeping me inside the laptop. She is just sitting beside it, staring sadly at it.

It is heartbreaking. The Family are in stitches.

I end the conversation some time later, when I hear a mew and ask Oh, was that Kat?! and Mum responds with a weary No, it’s just your father.

With Skype, it’s just like being at home…

[I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that they can now read everything I write about them, too. Still, I'm far enough away that I can't get into trouble. Heheh.]

Filed under: cat, conversations, family, laughter, normality, parents, skype | 2 Comments »

How did you get here?

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Hails

I’ve just spent a very entertaining half hour scrolling through a list of words and phrases that people have typed into search engines, resulting in them finding my blog. And the top search term ever?

Dingbats.

Eh? Why on earth are hundreds of people searching for ‘dingbats’ and ending up at Coffee Helps? This is clearly the reason that Dingbats and Dipsticks is my most read post of all time (kudos to The Housemate), but why are so many people searching for information on Dingbats on a daily basis? It’s a little confusing.

Do frogs feel pain? is another popular option, along with frogs blow straw and inflate frog. Pah. I seem to have inadvertently advertised the barbaric practice of frog inflation, to my dismay. Just say no, kids. The good old elastic band ball has also generated quite an impressive volume of site traffic, not to mention the Scrabulous tournament (you know, the one that never went anywhere after the first frantic and highly stressful round… perhaps the Stray one has been busy with more important people..) and, oddly, inspirational Beatles lyrics (an angry post which really makes little sense unless you’ve read the previous post).

Depressed cat is up there, too, with other cat-related terms such as My cat is crazy and Garfield Monday. It does not bode well for those seeking a change of career that CV excellent communication skills leads them to my blog rather than to a respectable CV advice site; however, I feel much sorrier for the person who searches for things like What is excellent communication skills? - good luck, buddy.

Less frequent and more obscure search terms take us to phrases like Ally McBeal dismount, Larry Paul glasses, Crocs Castlecourt, big mugs, Rod, Jane and Freddy scandal, my head is spinning, and Tallinn nudism. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that an alarming number of people seem to be coming to me for piercing advice, with search terms like how to insert a corkscrew nose ring, nose ring shape, my nose piercing looks red, and nose red outside, hurts. Erm. Hope I helped.

If I were the sort of person who knew a lot about SEO, I’d doubtless be writing about the Lisbon Treaty, Euro 2008, and your everyday porn stars/topless models in order to lure more unsuspecting readers to my blog (do you see what I did there, eh?). However, I know nothing about such things. And also, it’s not like I’m making money from it, so it doesn’t really matter if I have 200 visitors a day, or just 2.

But the thought of someone finding me by typing rude old grannies into a search engine just fills me with unspeakable mirth. And so I will continue to find great enjoyment in my blog stats and their hidden entertainment. Keep searching…

Filed under: blogging, search engines, strange, weird | 5 Comments »

Toilet hell (sinki)

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Hails

It is Helsinki Day, and so naturally I am in Finland. There is music all round me, and everywhere I look I can see people in strange costumes doing remarkably odd things. Riho has taken off to explore a large, crazily over-priced bookshop, and I am wandering the slightly manic streets of Helsinki on my own, with the usual expression of awe on my little new-traveller face. Life is good.

All of this is overshadowed, of course, by the fact that I really, really need to pee.

I head for the nearest building, which may or may not be a bus station. Along the way, I am stopped by several survey-takers, attacked by a seagull, and almost killed at the even-scarier-than-Estonian-roads pedestrian crossing. By the time I find myself wandering dazedly through the maybe-bus station, I am understandably a little on edge.

And now I cannot find the toilets. At first, I determinedly followed a sign for the elevator (a mistake I also made in Tallinn. The picture of the little man and woman confused me until Riho gently pointed out that they were in a box representing the lift, with up and down arrows in case there was any doubt remaining). When I do actually find the WC sign after a lengthy trek around the entire building, I walk past the toilets several times, owing to the fact that they look like the entrance to some kind of lab for scientific research, although this would be a little out of place in a bus station, if that is in fact where I am. Huge steel doors with flashing lights and scary-looking signs. Tentatively, I go forward and try to open a door. It doesn’t open. Someone comes out of another one, and I run to catch the door before it closes, but it whizzes shut in exactly the way you might expect it to, if it was a high-security entrance to the afore-mentioned lab for top-secret scientific experiments. Perhaps on aliens or similar. Sadly, and with my bladder beginning to cause me considerable discomfort, I retreat to the other end of the corridor. I have no idea how to get into the toilets.

Lingering in a most suspicious manner, I watch as someone else approaches the Scary Doors. She does something to the door, and a digital countdown shows on the display. She pulls the handle, and the door opens as if by magic.

Money! It wants money! I fumble desperately for money. Joy and jubilation, there is a €1 coin in my pocket. Excitedly, I race to a door and insert the coin into the slot. It spits it back out and beeps at me in what I can only imagine is an angry tone. It does not want money after all. Somebody passes by and says something that I have no hope of understanding. I look blankly at him and he points at the lights above the door. They are very pretty. I nod in acknowledgement of this and then realise that the lights mean there’s someone in there. D’oh. I move to the next door and insert my trusty €1 into the slot. It spits it back out, and doesn’t even bother to beep at me.The toilets hate me.

Woe is me.

I begin to walk dejectedly away from the toilets, but a woman who looks like my mum has been observing me with an amused but sympathetic expression on her face. She says something, I shrug helplessly, she realises my plight (surrounded, as I am, by signs in Finnish) and gently beckons me to a machine on the wall. I cannot read the instructions. In a gentle, motherly way, she takes my coin and puts it into the machine, which does some whirring and spits out a little token. She gives it to me and points at the doors, with a smile. I want to hug her, but settle for a sheepish ‘thank you’ with an exaggerated in-case-you-don’t-understand nod instead.

Nervously, palms sweating, I put my token into the door slot. A digital countdown begins on the display, and the door makes a much friendlier noise. I think it is pleased with me. I try the handle and have to stop myself from doing a full-on celebratory happy dance when it opens.

I could quite easily write a Part Two: How I eventually got out of the toilet cubicle, but there are some things about my travel experiences that I’d really rather forget.

Filed under: confusion, Finland, Helsinki Day, mysteries, patience, rescue, toilet, Uncategorized, woe | 5 Comments »

Hot Couture

Posted on June 11, 2008 by Hails

You know how, in Northern Ireland, you’d maybe call round to a friend’s house, lie back on the sofa and have a coffee and a chat? It’s just What We Do. I’m sure I’ll discover that every culture has its own variation of this: social bonding, spending time with friends, relaxing and unwinding.

In Estonia, they choose to do this by taking all their clothes off and sitting together in a cupboard-like room in a pool of their own sweat, their skin burning, struggling to breathe in temperatures of over 80°C, occasionally going out to stand beneath a stream of icy-cold water before going back in to fry some more.

I can’t quite get my head around it, although, believe me, I am trying my best to understand. I have been informed that sitting in a sauna can do just as much good as actual physical exercise. This makes no sense to me. I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone would choose to suffocate in inhuman temperatures over, say, going for a nice walk in a sunshine-filled park. But that’s just my humble opinion. ‘Practical’ benefits aside, in this neck of the woods sitting in a sauna is a cultural experience in its own right. In Estonia, Finland and Russia, every house has its own sauna. It’s a social thing – an ancient custom, if you will.

I am now seriously well-versed in Sauna Etiquette, you know. I know, for example, that it is bad manners to keep coming in and out of the sauna, because the repeated opening and closing of the door spoils the temperature for other sauna users. I know that it is customary to pour water – or better yet, beer – on the coals, which produces a cloud of steam and raises the temperature to even more intolerable levels. I know that these people take their saunas very seriously. (Apparently, there’s even an old saying in Finnish: saunassa ollaan kuin kirkossa – ‘you should behave in the sauna as in a church’!)

The customs vary from country to country, but the Finns (the original sauna-meisters) are by far the wackiest. According to Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge), they are particularly fond of “the tradition of beating fellow sauna-goers with leafy, wet birch bunches (vihta)”. I am quite thankful not to have experienced this bonding experience, delightful as it sounds. However, the sentence that caused me most distress was this one: “During wintertime, Finns often run outdoors for either ice swimming or, in the absence of lake, just to roll around in the snow naked and then go back inside.” Good grief.

Yes, I was thinking to myself the other night as I emerged from the sauna, gasping for air, and plunged my burning, sweating, confused body into a cold shower, sending it into uncontrollable spasms of shock and pain – I was thinking You know what would make this even more fun? If it would just start snowing outside so that I could go and roll around naked in it for a while.

I may not understand, but I am firmly embracing these unfamiliar customs as I come across them. I fear the wrath of the Saunatonttu (a little gnome believed to live in the sauna, who punishes improper or disrespectful treatment of it) otherwise. And anyway, I like anything that can back up its health benefits claims with a statement like: “Jos ei viina, terva tai sauna auta, tauti on kuolemaksi.”

“If booze, tar, or the sauna won’t help, the illness is fatal.”

Filed under: culture, Estonia, pain, sauna, weird | 4 Comments »

I may be shooting myself in the foot, but…

Posted on June 10, 2008 by Hails

Several months ago I wrote a post expressing my appreciation of Australian newspaper Northern Territory News. To my horror and delight (it was an odd feeling), the staff of said newspaper descended upon Coffee Helps. Fortunately, they seemed to take the whole thing very well, and I received a funny and appreciative comment from one Jimmy D. Less happy was Celebrity Dragon, a former member of staff who left a comment some time later voicing his/her extreme displeasure at my existence.

I felt a little sad about this. I love the Northern Territory News. I really do. After a commenter informed me that they were giving away a free postcard of the infamous crocodile photograph, I made certain that my Australia-travelling friend would be getting his hands on one for me. I now have it in my possession; it is my pride and joy. I also have a few issues of the newspaper itself, which I have read carefully several times over and stored safely with my luggage. My post about the Northern Territory News was one of appreciation, not deprecation. Were I to be offered the opportunity to write for a publication like this, I would jump at the chance. I’m being completely serious. I love it.

This was all really one big giant disclaimer, because I’m now about to write about the Northern Territory News and its latest Top Story. I can’t resist it, and so I just wanted it to be clear, for the benefit of those who hate me (and apparently my clothes), that I’m a fan, not a critic. Sometimes, it seems, the lines get blurred, and for that I apologise.

Anyway. Toad survives 40 minutes in dog’s stomach says today’s headline. Which is mildly amusing on its own, but nothing compared with the story itself. Again, and at the risk of unjustly being called patronising or condescending, I can only urge you to read this article for yourself, because I simply cannot do it justice. Basically, dog is eating leftover pies. Dog accidentally eats cane toad, thinking it is pie. Owner panics and takes dog to vet. Vet makes dog sick. Dog eventually vomits up toad. Toad is adopted by animal hospital, and christened Spew.

You see? I can’t make it entertaining. NT News can, and do. By the time I finished the article and spotted the slightly disgusting photograph of the ‘super toad’, I was helpless with laughter. “NOT A PIE:” says the caption, “the regurgitated toad, which appears to have suffered no ill effects.”

Thank you, NT News, for making the world a funnier place.

Filed under: Australia, crocodiles, decisions, dogs, genuine appreciation of the Northern Territory News, humour, journalism, laughter, worry, writing | 2 Comments »

I am she and she is me and we are all together

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Hails

I can’t decide how I feel about zoos.

The hippy-dippy, animal-loving, fairness-and-justice-for-all part of me wants to hate them for locking wild creatures up in confined spaces for people to gawk at. The less respectable part of me likes them for doing precisely that, because, well, I like to gawk at the animals. I’m conflicted.

So anyway, went to Tallinn Zoo yesterday.

In no particular order, the things that had a lasting impact were:

1 – This sign in theTropical Room, where they keep the crocodiles and suchlike, and which gets very steamy:

2 – A squabble that broke out amongst the seals, caused by an unexpected seagull invasion. I have become increasingly distrustful of seagulls, following the Giant Seagull Incident of a few weeks ago, where I sat quite close to one was almost killed by one. They follow me around now. Watching. Waiting. Making terrifying squawking noises and dive-bombing me in the street. I feel partly responsible for the seal fight, as it is clearly my presence that draws the seagulls in.

3 – The friendliness of the camel, as a species. Or The Amazing Camel, as the sign outside the camel enclosure proudly proclaimed. One actually stuck its head through the fence as I was mid-conversation with it (I found it more difficult to communicate with the animals in Tallinn Zoo than in Belfast Zoo, as my Estonian conversation skills are still sadly rather poor. But I tried. And they weren’t overly critical of my limited vocabulary), and puckered its lips to give me a kiss. Riho was a little less enthusiastic about this, as he was quite startled to discover one eating his hair as he concentrated on taking a picture of the other one kissing me.

4 – A real, living Crazy Cat Lady. It was like meeting myself 50 years later, as this is almost certainly how I am going to turn out. She appeared by my side as I was waiting patiently to get a shot of some sort of jungle cat, and said something in an urgent, fast-paced whisper. I shrugged apologetically. “Ma ei räägi eesti keelt.” This did not deter her: clearly, she sensed a Crazy Cat Lady bond that no language barrier could break. She babbled something else, and then beckoned me closer as she turned her attention to the afore-mentioned large cat. “Tsst-tsst-tsst!” she hissed in quite an alarming manner, followed by a lot of scary-sounding mumbling. “Tsst-tsst-tsst!” I was greatly impressed to see the cat pause, turn, and then walk slowly towards her. She said something to me, and I understood that I was to take my photographs now. “Thanks,” I said, quite amused, as I left her crooning to the cat, which now appeared to be swaying slightly.

I was more than a little disturbed when, having completed my tour of the Big Cat enclosures, I returned to take a picture of Crazy Cat Lady, and found her chanting what could easily have been some kind of spell under her breath as she gazed at a tiger. It was decidedly unsettling to see the sleeping tiger open its eyes, raise its head as if in a trance, and slowly get up and pad with the softness of an elderly tabby cat towards the mad, whispering woman without breaking eye contact. Not knowing whether to feel more awed or frightened, I backed away.

The awe is certainly there. The fear, however, comes from a strong suspicion that this is what lies ahead of me. Cat whispering. This encounter was just a glimpse into the future of my eternal spinsterhood. Crazy Cat Lady knew it. She sensed the connection, the bond. She knew. I am doomed.

Filed under: animal cruelty, cat, contemplation, conversations, Estonia, Fear, weird, worry, zoo | 7 Comments »

Don’t wrap me up in cotton wool

Posted on June 6, 2008 by Hails

Browsing through blog posts on Google Reader as I had breakfast the other day, I noticed that several bloggers on my list appeared to be writing about the same topic: dentists. K-Byrd is smug about his shiny gnashers; Waiter has had the less happy experience of having a tooth pulled. It reminded me of my own most recent encounter with the dentist (and by ‘most recent’ I mean ‘about two years ago’), a traumatic experience worsened by my lifelong – and admittedly quite bizarre – phobia of cotton wool.

When I had my wisdom teeth removed, I spent a week beforehand worrying about them putting that horrific substance in my mouth to stem the bleeding. I actually had to talk to the dentist about it before I’d let him anywhere near me. He observed my pale complexion and tear-filled eyes, and asked gently if I wanted him to explain what he was going to do. Perhaps expecting me to confess to being utterly terrified of needles, squeamish about blood or worried about excessive pain, like a normal person, he was understandably a little surprised when I blurted out “Are you going to put cotton wool in my mouth?”. He did a very good job of keeping a straight face, not making eye contact with the amused nurse etc, and showed me the offending material, explained its make-up and so on. He tried to offer me a piece to hold, and I shrunk back into the chair with such horror that he looked decidedly disturbed.

It was, as he gently explained, “not really cotton wool“, but a gauze-like material. With, as I hastened to point out, cotton wool sandwiched between the two sneakily deceptive layers of gauze. We looked at each other for a long moment in a sort of stand-off, and he made the unfortunate decision to pretend that the conversation hadn’t actually happened.

So it was, then, that after he had wrenched my teeth from their home in an excessively violent manner, he approached my semi-conscious form with a large wad of cotton wool and said “Open your mouth for me”. I shook my head and mumbled “I think it’s OK,” making a valiant effort to ignore the fact that I wanted to spit out the disturbing volume of blood that was swirling around my mouth even as I spoke. He looked at me in the way that a school teacher might observe a bratty child, and to my dismay used a piece of the Horrific Substance to wipe away a significant amount of blood that was trickling down my chin. “Open your mouth,” he repeated, somewhat unsympathetically.

I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and let him put my worst nightmare into effect.

I may have cried, but I’m sure I blamed it on being slightly weakened by the tooth-wrenching trauma I had just undergone. I lay there for a while desperately blocking out reality, but the only thought in my head was, of course, “I have cotton wool IN MY MOUTH“. I had to get the nurse to remove it for me when the time came.

I dread to think what might happen if I fall victim to toothache while living in a country where I don’t speak the language. Not only will I be incapable of explaining my No Cotton Wool request, I will be incapable of arguing angrily with the dentist when he flat-out ignores my wishes anyway.

Filed under: conversations, cotton wool, dentist, Fear, freak-out, stress, torture instruments, worry | 5 Comments »

Swings and Roundabouts

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Hails

I am tired.

I’ve been staring at this computer screen for several days, in an attempt to find work of some description online. I’ve also been climbing towers, exploring old buildings, walking the streets, going out for weird and wonderful meals, visiting torture chambers and attending the opening ceremony of the Vanalinna Päevad. It’s all very well, this travelling thing, but I seem to be crashing and burning. Energy levels are at an all-time low, and it’s really warm, to top it all off.

Anyway. Thankfully, Tallinn is a friendly, helpful sort of place, filled with lots of useful little things that are designed to make life easier and a generally more pleasant experience. Like in the supermarket, for example. Don’t you just hate it when the cashier fires everything through at lightning speed, and is ready to move on to the next customer while you’re still frantically trying to pack everything? It makes me nervous, and I end up throwing everything into bags in no particular order, flustered, as both cashier and next customer watch me silently and impatiently. Not so in the local Rimi supermarket! Here, they have a diagonal divider sort of thing, which is simply pushed across to split the conveyor belt in half, allowing you to pack at your own speed as the cashier moves on to the next customer. Their groceries come out at the right, yours remain separate on the left. When you’ve finished, the cashier will simply slide the divider across and repeat the process to keep the line moving. So simple! And yet so impressive.

What was I saying before I became irrationally enthusiastic about Estonian supermarket conveyor belts? Yes, I’m tired. In fact, after clambering up and down the spiral stone staircases in the towers of the Old Town the other day, aided only by a rope, I was near the point of collapse. How lovely is it, then, that Tallinn sees fit to have little relaxing park areas with not only benches and summer seats, but actual built-in sun loungers?! Perfect. I recuperated in the sunshine for a while, and then wandered over to take a look at an odd playground game I’d seen some small children playing. It was nothing more than some large wheels mounted at just below knee-height. The idea seems to be that you balance on them and run across them as they move under your feet. Ha. I climbed on to one in the name of experimentation. I am not exactly renowned for my balancing skills; obviously my decision was accompanied by a lot of shrieking, wobbling and flailing of arms.

I was a little embarrassed to realise that not only was I being observed by a group of local studenty-types, but that one of them was taking photographs of my undignified performance with a very professional-looking camera. I paused, distracted, to point this out to Riho. “Maybe he’s collecting material for his blog,” suggested Riho wryly. I realised that I couldn’t really complain, and was about to return to my determined balancing efforts when one of the guys took a flying leap on to my wheel and babbled something unintelligible at me. I looked blankly at him before falling off quite suddenly. He made a gesture, and I understood that I was to get back on to the Wheel Of Death. “Plizz,” he added, nodding seriously. I looked nervously at Riho. “He’s playing the game with you,” explained Riho, who seemed to be finding the whole thing quite amusing. “You both run around on the wheel and try to make the other one lose their balance.”

Bravely, I got back on to the wheel. The guy looked confidently at me. I fell off.

It’s not really my type of game, anyway.

Filed under: boys, Estonia, Fear, games, how embarrassing, shopping, simplicity, sun, tiredness, wheel | 3 Comments »

Fresh Art

Posted on June 4, 2008 by Hails

Upon closer inspection, it appears that the Drainpipe Art I mentioned the other day is actually more bizarre than any of us could have expected.

“Hang on,” I said as we walked past it again. Crossing the street to have a closer look at this architectural wonder, I peered closely at the ‘cups’. A feeling of utter bewilderment crept in over my mild bemusement. In silence, I crouched down to examine the display of pipes on the base of the ‘Art’.

Unable to do anything other than gape, I glanced up at Riho, who was no doubt anxiously awaiting my verdict. “These are… air fresheners,” I said slowly and carefully. I returned my gaze to the pipes in order to verify this. I nodded. “They are, in fact, air fresheners” I confirmed, unable to tear myself away from the ‘Art’.

Not only is it a model made of drainpipes, and not only is it bizarrely decorated with cups of some description, but it is also an exhibit of air fresheners. I do not know what to make of this, and there is no descriptive literature to be found. In a moment of desperation, I almost asked a girl standing nearby, until I realised that she was just an interested observer like myself and had nothing to do with the ‘Art’. I cannot cope with the Not Knowing; there is a deep, inexplicable need in me to find meaning. Other people may be able to walk past and say “Oh look, dear, a large object made of drainpipes and decorated with cups and two types of air freshener, how lovely!”, but I simply can’t do that. I had to leave eventually, as the fumes were giving me a headache and the lavender scent was making me sneeze, but I haven’t let it go.