cimorene

∴ Gmail hasn't been working very well, recently. Frequently the inbox doesn't load at all and I just give up and decide to come back later.

∴ We're supposed to cook 4kg of potatoes and a lot of inedibly over-sugary traditional Nordic candy, the latter without a recipe, in the next. Er. Very short while, prior to the X.Eve Dinner which is, for the Nordics, what we would technically call a "feast" or "revoltingly too-large amount of food". The aim is to cover the table with at least ten times the food that can actually be eaten, taking at least an hour to repackage all the leftovers afterward, presumably to battle the sting of starving to death in winter that still lingers in the racial memory from a time before international trade, preserved food, and global warming. Despite the general oversupply of food, Wax's mom yesterday decreed the candy element. The conversation went like this.

MAMMA: Everyone is totally free right now!
wax_jism: We have a lot of work to do.
MAMMA: WORK! What can you have of WORK?
cimness: Translation.
wax_jism: Surprisingly enough, people still want things translated over Christmas, and we could use the money and I've got free time.
[pause]
MAMMA: Wax, do you know what you're going to be doing tomorrow?
cimness: Translating and helping me to prepare a shitload of potatoes.
MAMMA [confused facial expression of a bossy mother]: You need to make a lot of Christmas candy.
wax_jism: But I don't know how, don't want to, don't have time, and don't have the ingredients.
MAMMA: You just buy the ingredients and make it! We NEED it! I didn't make any yet!
wax_jism: Do you have a recipe?
MAMMA: No.
wax_jism: Well, okay.

As you can see, Wax's skills at Saying No could use a little work. So right now everyone else is having traditional rice porridge, to be followed by standing outside in the cathedral square to hear the Archbishop of Finland give his traditional Peace Proclamation followed by the hymn-singing service, to be followed by them swinging by to pick us up, expecting the potatoes and candies to be ready. We're at the breakfast/reading flist (and in Wax's case, the reading bandom badfic) stage, the "Wake up at 7" plan having failed spectacularly 4 hours ago.

∴ I realised why I haven't been able to successfully send international SMS messages last night, in a moment of startling epiphany. So that should probably be cleared up now.

∴ I got Carmela art supplies but no paper for Christmas, but on reflection the paper should've been included. I was noticing while sketching the other day the huge difference made for coloured pencils between the rich texture of the sketchbook page, and the thin, glossy surface of the printer paper, which is... great for printing and in fact designed for it, but highly inferior for coloured pencils.

∴ Compared to previous years, this year's Christmas paper is highly inferior, I'm afraid. There are a few leftovers from last year (chartreuse and teal paisley floral), plus an unprepossessing forest green dotted with tiny gold stars and a smattering of sparkly solid silver and blue paper purchased for Channukah and pressed into service. Last year everything was bold and graphic in chartreuse/teal paisley and a matching print in black/white and a brilliant red with big iridescent silver stars. The year before it was red and green Christmas tartan and a funky red and white print of circles that looked essentially like potato prints.

∴

wax_jism says that not only my patterns of word choice (obviously) but also my diction is altered when I have been reading Wodehouse (or to a less marked extent, Austen or Heyer). I've never noticed that. That's amusing. "Then, when you try to insult me," she says (pardon! I never fail to insult), "you sound like you're imitating them." I'm sure, though this was not explicitly stated, she meant that it was an improvement.