Losing your wallet is the WORST!

Hating to make phonecalls makes it extra awkward, of course, but eventually I called the card cancelling service, the regional lost and found (they didn't have it), and the social security agency for a replacement card. Then I registered my ID and SS card lost with the police's online form in case of identity theft.

That left:

• Grocery store membership card. This took me and waxjism BOTH over an hour last week attempting to figure out how to request a new one.



• Other bonus cards, infrequently used: you don't actually need them; you can just give your name at the register. Less plastic to carry around and hunt for in the wallet: sounds good to me.



• Replacement ID card: Unlike in the past, when you had to print or pick up the paper forms, fill them out, and bring them with exact change in cash and physical copies of approved ID photos to the police in person, you can do most of this online now. You fill out the forms electronically and pay with a direct bank transfer, and the photographer emails the photos directly to the police, but you still have to go to the photographer in person (to take the pictures) and the police in person (to give your signature), so I haven't actually got around to this yet. (I also am trying to get waxjism to replace her 20-year-old oversized driver's licence which doesn't fit in her wallet without stretching the zipper out of shape in the same trip but this requires dragging her around on her day off). On the plus side though, you can also make an electronic reservation for a timeslot at the police station to do your paperwork, so you don't have to go there and sit in the waiting room for several hours (it's happened before).


(Because of this dawdling, though, I had to take my passport to the post office to sign for a registered package the other day, haha.)


• The raw food handling certification: I don't have an immediate plan to apply for work in a kitchen so this isn't exactly URGENT, which is good because it requires me to cold-text a total stranger. I'm working up to it by putting it in my calendar with an alarm repeatedly, so that when the alarm sounds and I cancel it and re-set it for a later date ("I don't have the mental integrity for this today") I feel a little prick of guilt.

I also finally have permanent residency status in Finland!

The physical permit expires in 5 years, but the right to reside does not require new applications any longer.

I should have received this after four uninterrupted years' residence as a family member (I only acquired family member status after living here on a student visa 3 years, because that's what same-sex couples had to do - cohabit 3 years - in order to acquire the right to Finnish registered partnership and the common law partnership status. Gender-neutral marriage passed here recently, but to my knowledge the laws haven't been implemented, so this may still be the case.) So that meant 4(spouse)+3(student)=7 years after I moved here, but I hadn't adopted electronic calendars yet at the previous permit renewal, which was THREE YEARS before the final Permanent Resident Status would have kicked in... and my application was a month late, which meant I was no longer eligible, and got sent back for four more years of waiting (and another hefty processing fee). That penalty period ended last November, and I got a fancy new Resident Card yesterday!

The police have been downsized, though, and effective at the new year, foreign national permits are no longer processed in Turku. All of them for the southwest region of Finland have been concentrated in our suburb, Raisio, the one that's 20 minutes by car and where our Ikea is located (that means that a bunch of offices were closed besides the Turku one). Meanwhile, Raisio's permit-processing offices (they used to do IDs and many types of licences) have also been closed, and Raisio residents who are natural Finns have to come to Turku for their permit needs. That all happened over the new year, and I'd never been to downtown Raisio before. It took two bus rides and then wading through four parking lots in calf-high snow. I discovered they only have one service window open there, next to about six shuttered ones in their lobby (Alien Affairs in Turku usually had 2 or 3). Luckily the lines were not long yet, so I didn't have to wait long before making another two bus trips and a lot of frantic snow-wading to get back home with my toes numb (it was -15°).

In relation to the downsizing, I asked the desk worker, "So before the 5 years are up I have to come back?" and she laughed,

"Well, who knows what the permit will look like or who will be processing it in five years! We might not even have a police office!" Touché, desk worker, touché.

Book reading: Agatha Christie's Books That TV Adaptations Forgot (and the non-Poirples)

Even though Agatha Christie's Poirot is perhaps my favorite tv show (in terms of rewatches, screencaps, etc), I am not actually a tremendous Christie fan. I've read quite a few Marples and Poirots after having seen them: sometimes well worth it (Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient Express, Five Little Pigs, Hickory Dickory Death, The Clocks, The Body in the Library, A Caribbean Mystery, At Bertram's Hotel), sometimes a letdown (I can't remember which these were offhand because I got bored and quit). However, after hearing they were going to make a movie of And Then There Were None (original title and second title both horrifically racist), I went and read it, and since then I've read two other non-Marple-Poirot (Maroit? Poirple?) books.

First I tried The Man in the Brown Suit (1924), a Colonel Race novel set mainly in South Africa and dealing extensively with diamond trade, so I was cringing to a greater or lesser degree most of the way through. Aside from this aspect, it's a spy novel instead of a mystery, with a distinctly lighter-hearted air and a strong humorous note. The heroine is a pretty great character, aside from being tainted with some of Agatha Christie's patented Old and Also Just Plain Gross Gender Issues.

Then last week I stumbled on The Secret of Chimneys (1925), a Superintendent Battle novel, which starts in South Africa but takes place mainly in Britain, but manages to be offensively monarchist and racist against four or five ethnic groups I could name in spite of all the characters being white, and particularly offensive about the Balkans. A really special flavor of offensive, all in all, and manages to also have a delightful rollicking air, a couple of great characters and a stellar heroine who actually explicitly debunks some sexism from dudes WHILE ALSO reinforcing more of Christie's Awkward, Weird Gender Issues.

I suppose perhaps whenever there's a Christie whose title I HAVEN'T heard a lot of, it's probably for one of these embarrassing sorts of reasons.