HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Hi there! I am still around, believe it or not!
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Let's see if we'll see more of each other in 2018, perhaps?

Photo: Asko Rantanen / Asko Jonathan photography

MONDAY SOUP

When I don't "have anything at home" and need to cook dinner I tend to make this tomato-lentil-noodle soup. I still always have lentis, crushed tomatoes and coconut milk at home, and this one is ready in no-time. Double the batch of soup if you want this to be Tuesday-soup and Wednesday-stew aswell, it tastes just as good a couple of days later!

I think I've posted some version of this before but that was so many years ago so here you go again -

This soup takes:
1,5 dl red lentils
A handful of rice noodles (or noodles of your choice)
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1/2 - 1 can of coconut milk
Chopped garlic

(All measurements are approximate. I never measure. Not sure if it's even possible to fuck this up, you can have it more creamy or more tomaty if you like, everything works)

Cook everything together in the order above. Choose the amount of water yourself, depending on if you want your soup thicker or runnier.  Season the way you like - I always add garlic, preferrably a lot, and some chili powder or a bit of vegetable broth to the water. You could also add a little red curry paste or perhaps some grated ginger.

Serve with Sriracha sauce and garnish with fresh cilantro. Hemp seeds and/or salted peantuts on top makes this extra delicious.

BUNNIES OFF DUTY

The Helsinki Burlesque Xmas Xtravaganza event I performed at all weekend long was truly fantastic but really sucked the juice out of me as well. Here's a Lynchian moment from when the party was over last night, with some go-go bunnies off-duty chilling.

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: IRANIAN COOKIES AND ALL THE STARS

Things are not too busy over here. I know, but meanwhile in real life I am very busy picking cocktail bites from a silvery platter of burnout. I apparently can't seem to both plan posts and actually post them, just either way, but here's a little bit of almost right here right now -

Eddi came home after a long stay in Iran and now I am having these iranian cookies wiht my evening tea -  a taste of honey, pistachio and cardamom with rose and orange water, kind of like something very sweet and buttery would be drenched in perfume. But they are strangely good.

I am about to assemble yet another Råskog cart for our home. Best little cart ever. But in order for that to go smoothly I had to switch my tea to something a bit stronger.

Karen Dalton is the soundtrack for that.

And outside the November sky is infinite.

(I have been thinking of buying a telescope for some time now. That, and a theremin. And then I'd sit at home with my wine and stare out into the void and play some eerie music. Am all set!)

Ps. My son told me it's only 37 days until Christmas. Toodelido!

LUST

Late last summer we shot a series of editorial photos with Karl Vilhjálmsson for a feature article series for Hufvudstadsbladet.  The series is about lust and how it has been depicted and received in film, literature and society in Finland.

The articles talk about censorship of erotica and sex and Finnish film history related to that, how a famous daring film affected the actress, and also about the many faces of porn, the small domestic industry as well as research around the subject.

Modelling with me were Ruska Schönberg and Sampo Marjomaa. Some of the images we shot in our back yard, I guess the views are familiar to some of you already.

The images play with the mindscapes and clichés around the themes. We had a lot of fun shooting these!  (And some people were, of course, offended by the whole thing). 

Photos by Karl Vilhjálmsson.

HALLOWEEN FUN, TODAY!

What to do today?
Let me help you with that:

Come to Sture 21 for a set of Dr. Sketchy's and then in the evening join the best, most sparkling and craziest Halloweenn party in town, when we throw our RubiesKlubit: MÖRKÖKLUBI Halloween burlesque show.
Booooh!

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: SUNDAY

In a time when I kind of dream I would catch the flu so I could lay in bed and just watch Netflix  with a clean consciousness (that wouldn't be able to happen even if it did happen) a weekend off is a truly amazing thing.  Being in a rather constant mode of constantly needing to perform and produce things, even anticipated events in the free time start feeling like something that you have to accomplish rather than get to experience and thus becomes harder to look forward to. They turn into another task to manage yourself trough. This weekend however was totally off-duty-time and on Friday I got into a real relaxation-mode as I attended the first night of the Superwood-festival (more on that later). And then I got to spend the rest of the weekend at home! Eddi is off on a three-week work trip to Yazd, the stepsons away for the autumn holidays so it's just been me and Dag (and some to do's and work which I have exceptionally well been able to neglect) enjoying the late autumn sunshine.

 The first frosty nights have arrived and left traces that won't melt away until the afternoon.

 Picking rowanberries, the last ones available, to dry for a tea infusion.

Enjoying  a chocolate-lingonberry cake that we baked with Dag!

And working on a new dance partner of mine for our up-coming Halloween show. Ergonomically on the kitchen floor; I've used up all other workspaces and surfaces available in the house.

And come evening, I might allow myself some non-guyilty Netflix time as well!

UNDER THE MISTLE TEASE

I made a poster today.
And I am making an event in two months:

This will be the fifth edition of Under the Mistle Tease already! Crazy how time flies.
More info on the event page, tickets from our Studio Shangri-La webshop.

But before that it's time for our other event; the Halloween edition of Rubies Klubit: MÖRKÖKLUBI! October 28th at Sture 21.
Be there or, umm, be taken by some ghouls or so.

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: AUTUMN DELAYS

What's the opposite of preparations? Delays?

1. The damn tomatoes.

I am not even going to tell you, although I clearly am; but Eddi and I dug out this whole new are of the yard last spring and put up growing boxes and scraped part of the rock bare I had all these grand plans of growing  this and that and what not. I grew another round of tomato-slice plants in my little table-sized greenhouse on the porch and when the half-metre high plants were still in there in August, trying to cling onto life in their tiny pots I realised they will never make it out during this year anymore. (Nothing beats tomorrow when it comes to doing things!) I mean fukitol the whole vegetable-garden-thing will just have to happen next year instead - we have to clean out the whole area again anyways as it was filled with grass and weeds pretty quickly again.

So now we have metre-high tomato plants in the kitchen.

2.  The rest of the plants

On my to-do list for the past month was also "take in the plants from the cold porch" and here obviously my sixth sense met my green thumbs a couple of nights ago as I dragged them all in late at night when I came home from work. Good thing I did, as the temperature dropped to zero for the first time that night! As the rest of the house is still boxes and renovations and Lego bricks we now have an unpractical but handsome jungle in our bathroom.

Bonus points for cat derriere and leg-flash.

3. The apple jam that was not

We did not get many apples this year. Only one tree brough some which I gathered some time ago and had waiting in the kitchen to become jam.
(Nothing beats tomorrow when it comes to doing things, really, try it! Then lift your feet up on the table, scroll a little Facebook, whistle and hate yourself a little. Okay no don't.)

Ok so when some of them got a little ugly my dear husband put the whole lot, of which most were still fine, out by the front door where I walked past them a couple of times and thought they will be jam soon but are better out in the cold.

And then we had biblical rain for like ten days straight so mmmokay we don't need apple jam every year anyways.

4. The tree

After looking sad a couple of weeks hanging there with no sunlight to collect to shine at night, it was time to finally strip my beautiful tree of it's decorations and take in the solar lights for winter. 

(They are in a pile on the porch and just needs to be cleaned but I will do that tomorrow. *whistles*)

In summer the tree was full of kids.


And it was real handsome during summer nights.

Now it's stripped bare and the hammock chair is just full of leaves.

36 YEARS AND A DECADE OUT OF THAT.

Last week's Wednesday I turned 36 and this week's Wednesday this blog became a decade old.
The later is a lot and the first neither a lot nor a little; age is a weird concept as it means so much to you at one point (Dag is counting the days, rather literally, until he turns six and dreams about being a magic ten years old) while you at some point just forget about the numbers. (Well, you do have all the physical factors to -painfully- remind you at some point though.)  Right now I don't feel old and I don't feel young and I feel both old and young and, me being something of a constant thinker and non-sleeper am even more so now; having thought a lot about life and my life the past year; what was, and was done, and what is and what will, should and can be. Call it something of an existential crisis, or perhaps existential possibilities. Either way, in general it feels like life does get better all the time, so far at least. And it seems to go by very very fast as well.

So yes indeed, it is late 2017, and I have been blogging here for then years!
In internet time, that is a whole lot. It's fun scrolling back every now and then to what both is and feels like such a long time ago. Obviously, it was a very different life ten years ago, but a lot can also change, or develop, in five.

And obviously, my name is so-not-up-to-date - are there even "fashion blogs" anymore? You know, originally the name was meant to be an sarcastic nod towards outfit blogs, as I when doing freelance work usually just sat around in leggings or underwear working, and then headed over to the harbour to work some more in overalls. And not the nice jumpsuit-y kind, but blue and neon yellow workwear. (well, in that kind of sense I am pretty close to the old days; I seldom get to wear my nice wardrobe because now I am mostly moving around at the studio, moving in the car, or moving on stage in something totally different. That, and also I don't fit most of my old clothes anymore. Ha ha. Sniff.)
So I planned to just do outfit posts on different wool socks, black t-shirts and blackunderwear. But as we all know it never turned out that way and also at this point one can't really change the name now can one?

But ok, lets look back! Because I totally did nothing at all last year when I turned 35, which, as we tend to count in fives and tens, was something more of a thing, I'll go back six years to when I turned thirty. (That's the year I actually celebrated my birthday; we had the True Blood party!)

Here was me then with a new lens. I think I look pretty much the same, but lets be honest here - my skin was indeed six years younger and also two thirds of my clothes from that time don't fit me anymore.  Those physical factors that come with time...

When I turned 25 we (J, my boyfriend at the time) took our friends on a cruise to celebrate. We knew the crew so here we are on a visit to the bridge. (I AM SO YOUNG what is this!)

J is a super fella who still works at sea and has a young boy and a second kid coming up.

And when I turned 20 I looked like this. (Yooooouuuung)My boyfriend at the time was also one whose name began with J. There's a lot of Finnish male names starting on J. I remember this one as well, we had Nepalese food with my family and I wore a long black-and white 1970's maxi skirt.
This J nowadays has a huge Dali-inspired moustache and works as an artist.

Because pretty much everything before I was 25 was shot on film there's not too many pics of my younger years (the two ones above are scanned from an album), especially not if you compare to the constant flow of pics everywhere today. I don't have any  from my 15th birthday here at home but here's one from the autumn when I had turned fourteen. I remember those pants but I have a hard time remembering life and my patterns of thinking back then. We called each other and talked for hours on the phone at home, you could make group calls and we secretly called dating chat lines, used pay phones when out on town and dreamt of being 18. But this I do remember: one day when out walking I told myself to always remember that when you are fourteen you have thought about everything so much already, that you do get things.

And then there's a gap so here I turn one!

If anyone of you have been here with me for the decade-long ride all along I say thanks and send you smiles in ones and zeros! As to anyone who jumped on later as well.

SUMMER VIBES FROM WHEN IT WAS (ALMOST) WARM

October! The month changes and the sun says 'K bye!' and we get Halloween-ish storms in an instant. Not that I am complaining per se; I have big shawls and red wine and berets and turbans to cover my hair with.

But here's a throwback to an planned-but-unposted  (applies to 99%of the photos on my memory card since 2016...) day and it's outfit  from summer when I wore a turban in much more sunnier weather:

This summer I have been filming a thing that, for the first time in a long time allowed me to have a purpose to wear lots of nice clothing again! Meanwhile, something very strange had happened during the past as I suddenly find a lot of garments in my closet can no longer fit. Or not comfortably at least.

But happy to notice this old Trashy Diva-gem of mine still does!

The cardigan I've customed myself with iron-on patches, the turban is from Rubylea and the sunglasses broken by now.

And you know what? It's not even that long until it's summer again!

PIN-UPS FOR 2018!

The Pin-Up Finland calendar for 2018, featuring the finalists of the competition, is out now! And the very intense yearly "pageant"-weekend is also over. I slept until 12 today and had a big milkshake for lunch and am now at our studio with the intention to actually attend one of our guest-teacher classes myself. Mondays are my Sundays you know!

Anyway, here are the calendar pictures!

The cover picture depictsde a usual day at the Shangri-La Rubies office.

January: Lily Wanderlust
February: Mondy Delight & Marie Luscious

March: Lady Winkheart
April: Shanona Dreem 

May: Miss Kris

June: Arctic Cherry 

July: Stormin A. Teacup & Betty von Black

August: Miss Alice Angel 

September: Nancy Gold & Miss Cherry Bow

October: Sin D.Skye 

November: Miss Rosie Revolution

December: Lilia Regina & Sanita de Champagne

What is your favourite month?

The jury selected Sin D.Skye as this year's Pin-Up Finland! 1st runner up was Stormin A.Teacup and 2nd Miss Kris! But as usual the most important is really not winning but the experience, networking and the expoure the competition gives.

Styling, concept & direction: TurrrboCherry & Tinker Bell

Photography: Micky's Pictures / Mikael Häggblom

Muah: Eve Komi, Taija Riihimäki, Miss Kris

Production: Autot ja Viihde/Pin-Up Finland / Kirsi Ojaniemi
-Feel free to share if properly credited!-

XÀBIA

In the beginning of summer we went on holiday to Spain. We had a great Air Bn'B in Xàbia / Jávea; spent a week swimming and sweating and drinking sangria. Or well, juice; kids and children and so on - we were a big lot with the whole family, but the teenagers (my oldest stepson and his girlfriend) were being super teenagy and kept to themselves so no photographical evidence of them.

After almost a decade of blogging I have now let go of my constant 'thinking-my-life-trough-blog-posts' and 'must-take-photos-all-the-time' so I took less pictures than normally. Which afterwards when browsing trough is a bit sad but then again sure feels more relaxed on spot.

Spot the monkey.

 

My own little monkey in the ninja-suit I made him.

Dag turned five during the trip and I broke a couple of sunglasses and now it's almost October and we'll have to wait for true sunshine for months but I can still remember the hot salty sand between my toes.