Thursday, February 08, 2007
From here on out, let 2007 be known as a year of firsts, whether they be big or small. I'm working on the big ones, but the small ones just keep on coming. Take last Saturday for example. Last Saturday I went with Anneli to see the Apassionata Horse Extravaganza. Now neither one of us is what you would call an equine lover. Sure I like horses, I've ridden a few and always seemed to have the same conversation with every horse I ever rode, "Bite me and I'll bite you." Don't know why I would have that kind of a conversation with a horse, but the weird thing is that I have had that same conversation with a few dogs as well. I guess I like to get things out in the open as soon as possible. Let them know where I stand and go on from there.
But anyway, Anneli had received a couple of free tickets and asked me to join her. Free tickets? Horse Show? Why the hell not? So we went to the Hartwall Arena, which was totally packed with young girls and other folks you would expect to see at a horse show. Many thousands of them. And then the show began! Horses! With people on them! In costumes! Doing tricks! To music! And then more horses, and people, in different costumes doing different tricks! Sometimes the horses would lay down, sometimes they would prance around in circles, sometimes they would run and drag their back legs as brakes looking all goofy-like.
So we left at intermission. After all the tickets were free. We were just getting a little taste. I didn't need to wait around for 30 minutes to get the second course. I bet it would taste a whole helluva lot like the first course. I admit that the animals were beautiful and training wonderfully well, and seemed generally happy with what was happening - although I wouldn't vouch for it or anything. And that was a first for me.
Next up is Tuesday night. An actor friend of mine from the film shoot over the summer was back in town - or at least I thought he was back (they live in LA when not working in Finland) - and his wife had a gig. And so I went. He had described her show as a good time and a sight to see. She plays the saw, like a violin and sings a lot of fun and rather soultry songs. Okay this story is nowhere near as fun or interesting to tell as the horse story. So in a nutshell, the show was fun, my friend was not there and I left after the performance.
Oh! But on the way back, I missed the last tram of the night by just enough so that I didn't know that I missed it. It was early. The last time on the schedule was for 11:14 and I arrived there at 11:12 and I thought I made it. And so I waited. At 11:20 I looked around and realized that this train had already come and gone and I was waiting for nothing. Waiting for nothing in the brutal cold. Seriously brutal cold. Like -10 Fahrenheit.
But I was relatively far from home and the last train left and the metro was closed and the buses were running on the night schedule so they were rare. And so I started to walk. I think I must have been shouting every step of the way. Shouting things like, "F-ck it's cold! Holy sh-t, it is so f-cking cold! Mother f-cker, I cannot believe how f-cking cold it is! Jesus F-cking Christ!" And so on. Finally I caught a bus and made my way home.
Which brings me to tonight and the most recent first thing. Tonight I saw a jackrabbit run across the frozen Baltic Sea. I was going for a walk, attempting to figure out that damn Chekhov reminder I gave myself the other day for whatever reason. I had picked a path that took me through the big park that borders the harbor. I walked through the park and out onto the harbor. In the wintertime, because there is no boat traffic near the land, there is a bridge to a nearby island (in the summertime there is a ferry). I started to walk across the bridge when all of a sudden this rabbit jumped out from nowhere and began to run across the snowy surface of the frozen sea. Just kept on running.
My first thought was, "I guess the sea is frozen then." Quickly followed by, "Never use a rabbit as the determining factor for a frozen sea, lest ye walk to your frozen death." No I did not think that lest ye part, but it's always fun to figure out a way to put lest ye into something. But the rabbit kept on running, and since it's white and fluffy and all it quickly disappeared. But it was another first.
More to come when they come.
But anyway, Anneli had received a couple of free tickets and asked me to join her. Free tickets? Horse Show? Why the hell not? So we went to the Hartwall Arena, which was totally packed with young girls and other folks you would expect to see at a horse show. Many thousands of them. And then the show began! Horses! With people on them! In costumes! Doing tricks! To music! And then more horses, and people, in different costumes doing different tricks! Sometimes the horses would lay down, sometimes they would prance around in circles, sometimes they would run and drag their back legs as brakes looking all goofy-like.
So we left at intermission. After all the tickets were free. We were just getting a little taste. I didn't need to wait around for 30 minutes to get the second course. I bet it would taste a whole helluva lot like the first course. I admit that the animals were beautiful and training wonderfully well, and seemed generally happy with what was happening - although I wouldn't vouch for it or anything. And that was a first for me.
Next up is Tuesday night. An actor friend of mine from the film shoot over the summer was back in town - or at least I thought he was back (they live in LA when not working in Finland) - and his wife had a gig. And so I went. He had described her show as a good time and a sight to see. She plays the saw, like a violin and sings a lot of fun and rather soultry songs. Okay this story is nowhere near as fun or interesting to tell as the horse story. So in a nutshell, the show was fun, my friend was not there and I left after the performance.
Oh! But on the way back, I missed the last tram of the night by just enough so that I didn't know that I missed it. It was early. The last time on the schedule was for 11:14 and I arrived there at 11:12 and I thought I made it. And so I waited. At 11:20 I looked around and realized that this train had already come and gone and I was waiting for nothing. Waiting for nothing in the brutal cold. Seriously brutal cold. Like -10 Fahrenheit.
But I was relatively far from home and the last train left and the metro was closed and the buses were running on the night schedule so they were rare. And so I started to walk. I think I must have been shouting every step of the way. Shouting things like, "F-ck it's cold! Holy sh-t, it is so f-cking cold! Mother f-cker, I cannot believe how f-cking cold it is! Jesus F-cking Christ!" And so on. Finally I caught a bus and made my way home.
Which brings me to tonight and the most recent first thing. Tonight I saw a jackrabbit run across the frozen Baltic Sea. I was going for a walk, attempting to figure out that damn Chekhov reminder I gave myself the other day for whatever reason. I had picked a path that took me through the big park that borders the harbor. I walked through the park and out onto the harbor. In the wintertime, because there is no boat traffic near the land, there is a bridge to a nearby island (in the summertime there is a ferry). I started to walk across the bridge when all of a sudden this rabbit jumped out from nowhere and began to run across the snowy surface of the frozen sea. Just kept on running.
My first thought was, "I guess the sea is frozen then." Quickly followed by, "Never use a rabbit as the determining factor for a frozen sea, lest ye walk to your frozen death." No I did not think that lest ye part, but it's always fun to figure out a way to put lest ye into something. But the rabbit kept on running, and since it's white and fluffy and all it quickly disappeared. But it was another first.
More to come when they come.
// posted by Howard @ 10:34 PM 
