Relatively speaking

I symphatize with everyone who has in-laws to visit during the holiday season. I only have relatives by blood to visit and that's plenty. We actually drove over 500 kilometres yesterday with my brother to visit our uncle and his family in Lahti and our aunt and her family in Loppi. That means we sat in the car for about 6 hours and in between we ate a lot. And then some. It's not polite to turn down food when you're visiting - who came up with that rule anyway?

We did have a few interesting discussions during the drive, like pondering about an imaginary scuba diver diving at the exact center of an underwater earthquake. Couldn't really decide what would happen. As it were, one of my brother's good friends was in Thailand when the huge tsunami hit South East Asia yesterday. He'd been on a scuba diving course with his girlfriend for a week already and they were getting ready for an expedition out to some island scuba resort. They'd been driving towards the beach in the morning when they saw all the people running and police shouting something. They turned around and started driving the heck away from the beach. They survived, barely.

Such a horrible disaster. Can you even imagine a 10-meter wall of water coming straight at you at about 500 km/h? That's like being hit by a solid brick wall, for goodness' sake. Slim chances, if any. Awesome powers, our lady Earth has.

She also has the power over freezing temperatures, which proved to be quite an obstacle for me today. I had planned on hopping into my car and driving to Tytti's place to watch the rest of the Hornblower-series. I thought it'd be good for the car, too, since it's been idle for a few days already. Needs to be driven every once and a while, that igloo of mine. Well planned is not nearly accomplished, unfortunately. I couldn't get in. The doors were frozen. I got the other door unlocked, but it was so tightly frozen (metal on metal, I suppose) that even the kind man who stopped and tried to help wasn't able to budge the door.

I so love it when men think I don't have a clue and they do. This guy was one of those. Very kind to try and help, but I've got several winters' worth of experience with the darling vehicle. The problem with the doors isn't solved by heating up the key. It's just not. Take my word for it. The whole darned locking mechanism is frozen solid, so the matches aren't going to help that much... This time it was clear to me that the constant rain and humidity this past few weeks has caused the poor car to dampen all over. Then, add a bit of freeze and I have a completely secured vehicle standing in the parking space. Not going to go anywhere before it warms up again. Can't blame me for trying, though. It'd be nice to be able to get in the car you own, wouldn't you agree?

On the other hand, the car may just have heard what I promised to myself yesterday. I decided I'll have to lose some weight this spring. I thought I'd begin after New Year's but I suppose my car decided I should begin right away. "You walk, girl!" And so I did, in the wonderful pristine weather. A good start for my diet, except for the delicious yummy things Tytti had to offer. At least the walks evened it out a bit. I gained a kazillion calories and used up about 800. Whee...

Mom's at home. She was released yesterday and she was very happy to be home. I can well imagine that. Unfortunately the medication she's on is so strong that she'd been feeling quite ill today. She even sounded a bit weaker over the phone than she did yesterday when I last saw her. But I'm hoping the side effects won't be so bad that she'd have to go back to the hospital. It's so dreary there. So hopefully she'll be feeling better tomorrow.