Beware: there are clay huts even in your own neighbourhood!

We were eating egusi soup yesterday (to make my point here clear: it's eaten by hand, with garri) and something popped to my head.

We were waiting for a bus home on the day when Mr. Wonderful came home and there came a woman with her little daughter in a pram; the little girl had icecream.
At some point the girl started to eat that icecream with her hands (well, as far as I know kids like to do that) and the mom started to nag to the girl about it, my favourite part (I may be sarcastic) of it being: "Why are you doing that?! We don't live in a clay hut. People in *clay huts* eat like that, but in *here* we use *tools*!"

I actually found it depressingly funny at that point, thinking myself that in that case those, oh so intimidating, clay huts are far closer than she thinks. And that occasion came into my mind yesterday as we were eating dinner.

The clays huts are in fact in their neighbourhood: they got off the same stop as we did...

Writer's Block: Raining cats or dogs?

My regular readers know it already, but I would say that I am 99,9% cat person and 0,01% dog person.

I have met some nice (and non-smelly) dogs during my life, I was especially fond of ex-husband's sister's dog: he was kind, he did not smell like so many dogs do (sorry dog people, but they do) and he was a dog-sized dog (not too small, not too big).

Dan and I watched after The Dog at one point for a week and I really enjoyed it. Though, it was rather I who watched after The Dog, took him to his walks and everything. At that point I was doing night shifts and even I was extremely annoyed with Dan not waking up in the morning (it was 9 am when I got home and he was sound asleep... even when I tried to wake him up to take The Dog out and let me sleep (note that he was not working (actually he hasn't actually worked a day in his life even now, as far as I know))) and taking The Dog out I enjoyed immensely those long morning walks with it.

But, still I am a cat person, which probably explains why I had four of them not-so-long-ago.
Why? Cats are usually very neat, relaxed and don't demand long walks three times a day even if there is the worst snow storm out there. They are also annoyingly sweet with their bouts of jumping on walls and wanting to be petted at that very moment when you have something important to do.
Cats are loyal thinkers, who don't demand too much of you (usually - and Her Highness was Siamese so she does not count) and love you in their own personal, yet devoted ways.

Life is never boring with cats in the house.

I am not a roommate type anyway so I wouldn't consider someone who doesn't like cats as a roommate. Basically my fondness of being on my own if I am not in a relationship has kept me from that problem.

When it comes to partner... Well, I admit that cats moved away when Mr. Wonderful moved here even I had swore to myself that no man comes between me and my cats... Well, basically He didn't, boys still seems to like me:

(
This was taken when I was tending the boys when my mom was at her cabin in the end of February - admittedly it was bit difficult to tend the cats properly with sprained ankle)

I wouldn't say that He doesn't like cats, He is just not used to have animals living in the house. This is, I would say, the biggest cultural difference, to this date, we have actually confronted.

1999: Exotism?

There is certain form of prejudice, which makes me annoyed quite... well, too often.

For some reason (too) many people seem to think that someone who seems to date exclusively out of their own ethnicity/ culture is purposely looking for someone "exotic" and disregard the possibility that one can be interested about everything else but person's ethnicity or culture of origin. (Like, even it is a shocking idea, their personality and core values.)

And why aren't they assuming such things (purposely looking for....) when someone is dating exclusively their own ethnicity/ culture?

As an example: when I dated exclusively Finns, no one ever asked why I do it or assumed anything based on it. It was obviously supposed that I would, being a Finn myself, date men of Finnish origin. And coming to think of it, it is a disturbing thought. (Though I find many things disturbing - and my regular readers know that people assuming things is one of my thousands of pet peeves.)
Whereas when dating men of non-Finnish origin I have encountered certain assumption of exotism.

Though, the assumption of exotism is yet another proof that people are basically eerily similar in their ways to think: coming from all ethnicities, genders, cultures etc. it could be considered as a refreshing experience - as long as you keep the whole issue out of your personal life.

I mostly encountered following during the single period between 2006 - 2008, mainly because that was the longest period I have ever been without relationship in my adult life: many men seemed to have this urge to know had a woman they found attractive ever been with a man of enquirer's ethnicity - and I found it extremely annoying. Why it would matter had I or had I not? There is no way to know about how it would be with person X if you have dated person Y even if they were of same ethnicity and/or culture so why would it matter? Or is this just all about I-want-to-be-the-first-man-of-X-in-your-life syndrome? (One of the many reasons why I love Mr. Wonderful was that He never asked such a thing - but He is a practical man: he doesn't care about who I have been with before Him, He just wants to be the last man in my life (yet another thing we have in common). )

Interestingly enough this was mostly a phenomenon of dating sites, regardless, or because of it, my profiles always stating that I was open for contact regardless person's ethnicity.
Admittedly during that time I had a profile at one site which was more or less focused on people who were looking for interracial relationship... maybe it fooled some to assume things about my preferences even though my only reason to register there, or any other dating site, was to expand my search as I was very aware that it's more likely for me to find a life partner, my future Husband, from somewhere else than Finland.
This was as much statistical as it was (and is) a cultural issue - being brought up outside my "native" culture made me a dating outcast in this homogenous society.

But I digress.

Those who have read my blog are aware of the issues I have had with my father regarding his obvious assumption of my exotistic character and/or his obvious issues with people of any other ethnicity/ culture than his... nothing more to say about him, though I am not eagerly waiting for his comments about Mr. Wonderful's ethnicity/ culture/ etc. and tons of more assumptions of me being with Mr. Wonderful because [add bazillion stereotypes here], not because I actually love and respect my Man as a person.

Interestingly enough many, if not all of them, men I have been in a relationship with since I broke up with Dan (now isn't that a civilized way to say after our separation and divorce? *g*) have considered me "exotic" because of my fair skin, blue eyes and ethnicity.
And surprisingly it has never bothered me to be the the subject of exotism, as long as it has been positive - but I also know that my looks, exotic or not, hasn't been the main factor of intrest in me, just an added bonus.

Slightly Off-Topic

This all actually reminds me of an interesting visit to hairdresser earlier this month: I was having having my hair cut and chatting with the hairdresser when Mr. Wonderful called me. We happily chatted for a while on the phone and after the call hairdresser's first comment was "Oh, is he ENGLISH?!" with such a tone that you could imagine that she had been about ten years younger and had just been asked out by Brad Pitt or whoever is hot at the moment. A school example of real exotism.
Her tone soon changed after she asked could she see His picture, which I showed because I have His picture as my cell wallpaper and even we had been talking about me and Him before that the topic somehow changed after that... Basically I can't understand why. Maybe she was so awed because of my Wonderful's gorgeousness (I know I would have been, but I guess I am kind of biased).

(If I was mean I would assume it was his ethnicity that made her silent. (For those of you who wonder about the whole ethnicity of an Englishman thing, He is black Brit, whereas people often seem to assume (in these latitudes) that English people are all fair to the level of paleness and no true Englishman/ Finn/ you-name-it can be any darker than piece of A4, regardless the history of the world and people's tendency to immigrate.))

But still, in general I am not saying that there weren't many, many people who simply don't give rat's a** about who someone is involved with and many, many people who don't give that same part of a rodent about someone's origins.

Clips of interest :)

"Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story"

And all the enthusiasts can relate to this...

I have a cunning plan

I will finish my fourth model today, then I will stitch Spring and after that, if I have time and inspiration I will see about the fifth model. If I don't have the inspiration it can as well wait for July launch - taking that it won't end up being a catastrophe (model, not the launch).

There's no reason to boil my brains and get sick just because I worry too much. It does nasty things to one's creativity and I can't afford to lose that.

To-Be-Read/ Books

I have found one of my long gone bad habits again: reading in bed. (When I was married I kind of had other things to occupy myself with and it made me forget joys of reading in bed...)
When I was younger I used to read in bed before falling asleep, though sometimes it caused me insomnia because book in question captivated my attention and forced me to just keep on reading (I read Stephen King's The Green Mile in one night because I couldn't put it down (or rather put them down, as it consists from six parts)).

And thanks to this newly found bad habit of mine I have finally been able to draw few strikes to my To-Be-Read list. (Two books in two days just by reading in bed... fact is that I am fast reader, still.) (Admittedly both of those books are only from two to three hundred pages, but we have to acknowledge that everyone is not Stephen King.)
(Currently my bed time story is Muistelmia kuolleesta talosta by F. Dostojevski (I prefer to use more or less direct transliteration) which is number 10 in my TBR list).

When it comes to reading no one won't find reading in bed unusual, but I do remember those odd looks I got during my earlier years if I happened to mention that in my home we were allowed to read at dining table while eating.
And I found it odd that people found that odd as for me it was completely natural... You know, it would have been so terribly boring and unimaginative just to feed one's body so we preferred to feed one's mind too.

It is just quite odd that I was in my teens before I actually understood that my family is odd if you compare to an average Finnish family (but then, I was seven or eight before I realised that joulu (Yule/ Christmas) is actually religious holiday to some people... I have always been tad slow). I was over twenty when I realised that it actually may be the reason why I have so many communication problems with Finns: we just don't share same culture and it causes clashes when other part doesn't understand that you can actually do things differently without being bad person. (I know, I digress... I think I should try to sleep a bit. If cats let me.)