Irene Idänvalo

OMFG.

A Facebook 'content creator' from Finland has made herself at home on my Fb page.  Her name is Irene, and she's the heading of today's post. 

Irene

It seems very much as though she's posting from Finland, though she's completely at home with English idioms, her slight accent notwithstanding.  She has a side buddy, her sister, who is often featured in Irene's video posts (they're always video clips; in fact their main content home is Instagram, I believe), and the sister's name is something like Snuikki.  [Added later: it's Snuikku.  If think Snuikki sounds a little more convincing.  But I don't know Finnish, unfortunately.]

Many of Irene's (which is pronounced 'I-re-neh')'s videos start with

"LISsen!!" screeched out at the top of her voice, after which she will go into the main subject, which is often The Finnish Word of the Day, which is quite often something multi-syllabic and intimidating, such as (yelled out) "Kurkku kipu!"

"Say it with me: kurkku kipu!  But what does kurkku kipu MEAN?"  So she would break it down, and say: kurkku means cucumber, and kipu means pain, so naturally kurkku kipu means a sore throat!  (Finnish etymology often takes an unexpected turn.)  She has a sidekick, namely her sister, a redhead, who seems marginally more sane than Irene herself, and an all-round softer person.  But this Snooky girl has her own posts—some of which also involve Irene—in which Snooky comes across as a lot more assertive and confident than she does in her sister's videos, when she's playing second fiddle.  They are fascinating people, and their choice of subjects are exactly calculated to suck me in!!

These videos—probably qualify as podcasts—are generally hilarious.  People all over the world tune into them, apparently, and they have a huge following.  I've only watched them for two days (Fb algorithm is sending me their video clips multiple times the last two days), so I'll have to report in more detail once I see more of them. 

Kay

P.S. She puts on a really convincing Southern / Texas accent!  They're (the two sisters) are very serious about their posts—I guess Instagram posts—but sometimes they're a little casual about the actual content.

One time, Irene badmouthed tortillas.  I was quite disconcerted.  This has to stop. 

Kay

Food

Does anyone else have a passion for feeding people or animals?  I Just loove to feed my friend's critters!!!  I simply go nuts, and she has to stop me.

Well, thank you for your attention to this matter. 

Kay

Added later (May 28, 2026):  Gosh, this little cat has cornered me again.  I'm in my friend's house in downtown Williamsport.  She's on my lap, purring like fury, asking for pets!  She keeps butting my hand (while I'm trying to get this post written), which means Pet me now, please!  Loud purring!  I Just got here; I didn't do anything.  I have no idea what I do to get her into this frame of mind. 

A dog this friendly would try to follow me home.  But this cat sees me getting ready to leave, and miaows once or twice, conveying something like: come back soon!!  So this is her territory.  I'm just her principal Petter, that's all. 

Again, Caitlin Clark

I do not watch basketball.  I do like to see Cailin Clark in action, and also the Fever, generally.  Other teams may be as fun and entertaining, but not as fun to watch as the Fever for me, because I happen to be familiar with them.  Because Facebook (or Meta, or whoever) knows I like to watch clips of them, I get shown a lot of those clips, just because, you know, the algorithm!

But you know, those women seem to me, sweeter and gentler than most of us; they aren't vicious, they are quick to smile, they're articulate (that is, they find the right words to explain what they're thinking effortlessly), and generous spirited and tactful.  How did this happen?

I think it is because they're well-paid, well appreciated, and respected.  There's little or no prejudice or racism (that I can see, anyway) when they're playing; they pass to the best one they can spot, while playing, who can do the job at the moment.  They get angry, they get mad, they're briefly mean to their opponents, but I don't see it getting dragged out too long.  (Of course, we're not courtside, so we don't see everything that's to be seen.)

Has Caitlin Clark (and Stephanie White, and everybody) made basketball great again—MBGA?

Well, I'm leaving it there. 

Let's look at MAGA.  Without giving Trump too much credit, I have to admit that that slogan: Make America Great Again, is really very clever.  There's absolutely no guarantee that everyone in the movement—the GOP, the Tea Party—are thinking of the same aspects of former greatness at all!  Some of them are thinking: when there were fewer Mexicans around.  Some are thinking: when we had more disposable income.  Some are thinking: when people were nicer to each other.  (Some are obviously thinking: when it was easier to find innocent little girls to play with, too.)  And some are definitely thinking: before Obama showed them that a black president was a good idea.  (Obama really broke Trump.  Unfortunately, not enough, and not for good.)

Let's face it: halfway decent people are nice and kind, and tactful, and generous and forgiving, if they're well paid.  Now that big business has taken most of our money away, obviously we're all squabbling for what's left, and not in the mood to be nice.  So Bernie Sanders has got something.  It's not just Communism; it's a more equitable distribution of wealth. 

'Something's Wrong with Maddie'

Oh my dear god.  That title—the title of this post, as it happens—is the title of a book I bought, at a time last week when I wasn't really paying very careful attention.  I Just started actually reading it this morning. 

Piper, the main protagonist, is in a really bad place.  She's dragging herself through a very painful life as a complaints person for an internet provider.  She's lost her girlfriend recently; she's dead.  That's Maddie.

It turns out that she and Maddie were so close that Piper is all at sea in a very scary way.  She can barely hold herself together; doesn't eat, can't sleep, can't focus on anything.  Then she finds a book that tells her how to get Maddie back from the dead, as a zombie.

This is where I stopped reading.  I went back to the blurbs, finding it hard to believe that I actually paid, like, $2.99 for this book.  Then I read a few reviews of people who had bought and read the book.  The reviews were almost all highly favorable.  Apparently, once Maddie comes alive—don't ask, because I didn't read that far—she has to eat human flesh.  I think it's completely out of line for a dead person to demand human flesh, but apparently Maddie is insatiable. 

So why am I writing about this story?  It appears that these two were really super in love.  (That much I got from my reading; the author conveys Piper's devastation at Maddie's death very convincingly.)  And from the blurbs/ reviews I think I picked up that the more Maddie ate, the more human she became. 

What can I say.  I should've waited until I'd read the whole thing before I wrote about it.  Maybe one of you might be brave enough to just pick up the book and read it, and tell us how it goes!

Kay

A Helen episode I had forgotten about!

Here is the link, and I'll explain below:

Chopsticks

This is a 'page' on the Blog.  It is set at the time Helen had had her most recent, and most invasive, brain surgery, and had returned home with Maryssa, to the Primrose house (Maryssa's family home, from where they would move to the new, rented home near where Lalitha's family, and the instrument factory were situated).

I was just reading this page this morning, and I was startled at how well I had been writing at that time.  Many of the characters are illuminated beautifully by this episode, but I'm a little nervous about splicing it into one of the other stories, for fear of having to do some lengthy inspections, to avoid duplication, etc.  The painfully slow steps Helen took to become a functional adult again have been glossed over in Concerto.  This episode also highlights how Erin struggled with Helen's nemory loss.

People Who Hate 'Spelling Nazis' Need Not Read

I'm just in the middle of a short story, and the author had confused 'their' and 'they're'.  I was puzzling over the sentence for a full minute, until I guessed what was going on. 

Now, I do not believe the entire e-story industry should revolve around my desire to avoid being confused for even 1 minute.  But I'm now becoming afraid of whether it is even possible to demand orthographic accuracy from my fellow-citizens.  I can imagine everybody thinking: Jeeze, the whole world is going to hell, and you want accurate spelling???

OK, well no.  Spell your words however you want; I would not deign to jump in the middle of these bleeding Iranian schoolchildren, and these gilded high-security ballrooms and these multi-billion-dollar thefts of public funds, and these shameless lawsuits to prevent citizens from voting, just to insist on good spelling; no sir, not I.  But listen, there are obviously a few leftover Boomers to spellcheck official government documents, so that uneducated goons like hegseth and whatsisname—the secretary of state—can dash off screeds to be later cleaned up by spelling flunkies.  But think long-term.  Ten years from now, who's going to do this unrewarding editing?  Just so that, in my old age, I will be saved minor peaks of blood pressure while reading fiction?  (Or governmental vitriol?)

I know; while impeaching the prez (affectionately called "the former president" by furious people, who don't even want to give him the recognition of being the elected head of state) the last thing we ought to be doing is worrying about spelling.  But this is how I keep sane.  The agitators advise: don't let this corruption become normalized!!  If this is going to be the way government will be run in the future, every group that doesn't like the policies of whoever is in power will adopt these MAGA-type tactics to render the Federal government ineffective.  This is the long-range objective of the Steve Bannons, the permanently angry podcasters out there. 

But no matter in what stage the destruction of the government is in, I have to remain sane.  So while I briefly allow my blood to run cold at the insane actions of Trump and his non-aligned ducks, I quickly come back to the sane world of women's fiction!  And, of course, rail against the wrong use of words.

I have to concede: it's not exactly about spelling as such; it's about the correct use of various words that sound alike. 

Kay

What do diverse college kids study?

I'm trying not to insult anyone, especially now that college-educated middle-aged liberals find political allies among farmers and union workers, and former government workers. 

When I was in university (I attended a university for both undergrad and grad school), I noticed some trends in what sorts of majors young people from various backgrounds signed up for. 

Asian kids: Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Korean, etc, normally studied science.  As a result, there are a lot of Asian people working in industry, Tech, computer, and technical fields within media companies, and so on.  Meanwhile, most kids from the US tended to study Business.  Law schools had lots of US kids, but also kids from Jewish backgrounds, as well as from families where one or both parents were already lawyers.  The kids of teachers often went into teaching, though how rewarding that was, from a professional point of view, depended on how motivated their students were.  (Truly gifted teachers could work with even moderately willing students, but I personally found it difficult.)

What sports did kids get into?  Business majors were often into Golf, and Football.

These choices are seen in the makeup of the various professions:  I see lots of white Americans in Business; lots of Indians and Asians in News media.  It isn't as clear as I expected, but there do seem to be trends. 

In quite unrelated news, I'm reading that the prez seems to be spiraling, feeling that he's losing control of all the shenanigans he's been juggling, including the war, and foreign policy generally.  That last: foreign policy, is not something that can be improvised under pressure.  You have to have two things ready: a clear philosophical basis for all your actions; some people would call that a moral foundation; and a strong team behind you, and armed forces that believe in your leadership.  Trump had 0 for 2.  If he's reading this (or if his assigned reading assistant is reading this, because I don't think Trump can read efficiently) they would declare that I'm biased, and disregard the whole post.  At least, they would have, if Trump was all right.  But everything points to Trump being senile.  Trump certainly majored in business and golf.

Kay