Wish I were Finnish

Monty Python's "Finland"

Chorus: Finland, Finland, Finland.
The country where I want to
be,
Pony trekking or camping,
Or just watching TV.
Finland, Finland,
Finland,
It's the country for me.
Verse: You're so near to Russia,
So
far from Japan.
Quite a long way from Cairo,
Lots of miles from
Vietnam.
Chorus: Finland, Finland, Finland.
The country where I want to
be,
Eating breakfast or dinner,
Or snack lunch in the hall.
Finland,
Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.
Verse: You're so sadly
neglected,
And often ignored,
A poor second to Belgium,
When going
abroad.
Chorus: Finland, Finland, Finland.
The country where I quite want
to be,
Your mountains so lofty,
Your treetops so tall.
Finland,
Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.
Repeat: All together now! Finland, Finland,
Finland.
The country where I quite want to be,
Your mountains so
lofty,
Your treetops so tall.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
Finland has it
all.
Fade: Finland has it all...

My bladder turned against me yesterday morning and as a result, I was up at 8am. I went back to bed and lay there in denial that I would not be sleeping in. Just as i was about to doze off again, the phone rang. I gave a weary glance at the clock, then cursed. "WHO THE BLEEP WOULD BE BLEEPING CALLING AT BLEEPING 8 BLEEPING 45 IN THE BLEEPING MORNING?"

Next thing I know, my dad was knocking on my door. I grudgingly got up and answered the phone.

"Good morning Vivian!"

I was tempted to respond "Good morning Charlie!" but didn't as I really dont feel like an angel first thing in the morning.

As it turns out, it was my aunt-to-be, Lilian, calling me. She wanted me to get over to her house in MacEwan asap and drive her and her family and bridesmaids around town for the day.

Just to fill you in, Lilian is Vietnamese but grew up in Finland and she met my uncle on the net. She only turned 21 a few months ago and my uncle is 36. They are getting married in my backyard this Saturday and Lilian's family and friends are all over here from Finland for the wedding.

I made a mental forehead slap as our conversation from the last week drifted back to me. I could hear myself saying loudly, "Sure I have a car. Yeah, I'm not doing anything next week."

So an hour later, I was out at Macewan and ringing the doorbell to a beige, non-descript house and swatting the bleeping mosquitoes off my legs. I could see my uncle standing behind the door and I frantically called to him. He seemed lost in his own world so I shouted. Some hefty blonde woman answered the door and greeted me with a toothy grin. "Hi," I said, "I'm Vivian. Jason's niece! You are . . .?"

"I am ANYA!"

My meeting with Anya was followed by a meeting with Toooan, Hooorku and AnnaKIZA (to be said with emphasis on the KIZA) and a bunch of other people whose names would require I pull out my own tongue to pronounce them properly. I introduced myself as "Vivian" and they gave me this look like "OK. That is the weirdest name ever."

To be fair, my name is rather hard to pronounce. Even my own grandfather calls me William and WeeLee and FiFian to this day.

Lilian finally showed up. "You are driving around my mom, my Finnish mom and her friend around today!"

I looked around a spotted a Vietnamese lady behind me. "You must be Lilian's mom! hi! I'm going to be her . . . niece. I'm Vivian!"

She smiled and nodded. "No English!"

Then she proceeded to grab my arm and poke me like I was some scientific specimen which needed to be thoroughly examined. I looked around at Anya and the others and they all stood there like nothing special was happening. I endured the poking and shoved them all into my car. My Uncle Jason was driving the other 8 people and we were a party of almost 15 people.

As I was about to pull away in the car, my uncle Jason came running out after us and handed me a walkie-talkie. We were supposed to keep in contact with it if we got lost in the day. "Is this really necessary?"

He walked across the road and I tried out the walkietalkie.

"MAY DAY MAY DAY MAYDAY. This is Agent Lau. We have a mosquito in the car! Abort mission! I repeat! Abort mission! Over."

"Table 10! Your cheeseburgers are ready. Do you want fries with them?"

By then, my uncle was already back at his car and was shouting incoherent nonsense into the walkie talkie. After ten minutes of being parked in front of the house and shouting"What?! Can you repeat that?" into the walkie-talkie, I was like "SCrew this! I'm just getting out of the car and going to walk to his car and talk to him" At that point, he chose to drive away. The Fins in my car smiled at me like I was crazy and said something which sounded like "Orsch da borsch" and smiled again.

We ended up in chinatown and they walked around admiring everything. Once in a while, Lilian's mother would talk to me in Vietnamese which is pretty much as good as speaking Finnish to me. She'd say something, then point at her belly and then point at me and laugh. I was so confused and just sat there and smiled and laughed too, hoping like hell that was what she meant for me to do. She would laugh back and then she would grab my arm again and poke at me.

WTF?!

So we went to TD square which was highly impressive to them. I was assigned to take the guys, who all looked like rock stars with funky hair and rocker shirts, around while Lilian took all the girls, all of whom had gorgeous pale blonde hair and blue eyes, to shop around. I sighed and asked where the guys wanted to go.

"MUSIC STORE!" I laughed and took them to HMV. We wandered around in there for an HOUR and at the point when just as I was on the verge of memorizing thier entire pop/rock inventory up to the letter X, they signalled they were ready to go.

I asked them what they bought and htey looked at me like I was crazy. I pointed at their bag and asked again. They seemed to clue into what it was I was asking and pulled out their CDs. One of hte guys, who looked more like a rockstar, was like "Sweatshop union. They are ... local band. You heard of them?"

"I've heard of them but I don't remember what songs they sing"

"Oh, you heard of them?"

"YEah, but I don't remember . . .oh just forget it."

We smiled and he put his CD back into the bag.

The other guy was not much better as he didn't understand a word I was saying. I just smiled and decided it was time to go home.

We were getting back to the car and I was to drive the older ladies and one of the bigger rockstar looking guys home again. I thought I'd point out some nice Calgary landmarks to them. "This is the Palliser hotel. The queen stays there when she comes to town." They smile and nod like they don't realy understand.

"This is the Calgary tower, it has a rotating restaurant up top" I recieved a smile and non-commital nod again.

"This is 3rd ave. It's where the prostitutes hang out at night." And for some odd reason, that was the only thing they understood.

I sighed. The car ride home, I blared Our Lady Peace and tried to convince the young guy that they were the best band in Canada. He listened to my OLP CD and my mix CD politely and even sang along to the Cardigans. The older ladies sat in the back and smiled politely into my rearview mirror.

I dropped them off in MacEwan, hopped out of the car and walked them to their door. Lilian's mom turned to me, grabbed my arm and poked me again. Then the other older lady turned to me and did the same. I smiled awkwardly and stood there while they looked at me expectantly like I was supposed to grab their arms or something. I left the walkie-talkie with them, ran to my car and fled home.

I got home and relaxed with Karen for a bit. Lilian called again and said I need to pick up one of her other guy friends from teh airport on Friday morning. His name is "Saku" or something like that. She didn't have his flight number, what exact time he is arriving or which airline he is with. She told me to hold up a sign in the airport and that he is really tall so I can't miss him. I have no clue what sign I'm supposed to hold up so I'm going with "ARE YOU SAKU?" or I'm gonna paste a picture of Lilian on my sign and have it read "DO YOU KNOW THIS GIRL?"

Better than the people that Karen has to be pick up. She has to pick up a family where the mom is called "Mai", the daughter is called "Son" and the dad is called "Phuc."

She's been giggling all morning about it and said she's going to go to the airport with a sign that says "PHUC MAI SON?" or a sign that says "PHUC, YOU?"

Then she launched into the whole "Fook Yu" and "Fook Mi" thing from Austin Powers and then we'd all start convulsively giggling again. Good times. Good times.

OK. That is it on my end. I have to go grocery shopping to get stuff for the potluck tonight and I have a whack load of laundry to do.

Thank you to all who responded and are coming tonight! Remember to bring games and other interesting things as I only have Hugh's (Joanne's) PS2 with limited games at my house.

Till next time,

ORSCH DA BORSCH!!!!

*grabs arm and pokes at you*