CORDUROY

 Twenty two years and one month ago, pretty exactly, I started seventh grade wearing this same vest.
And a black body (that was actually not a body but my mom's black gymnastics leotard) and a pair of batik-patterned loose trousers. I remember being very proud of that outfit.
(I stepped in to a trendier shop the other day and suddenly felt very old saw my early teenage years hang on the racks with pants just like that. And those ribbed tops with bold stripes and strings that crosses/ties in the front. Aaaaaaa!)

But yes, the vest I am still wearing ! It is actually my mother's old from the 1970's.
Although if I've eaten I am having a hard time closing it.

Or then I just really need to suck in my pilates powerhouse. Good practice.
The suspender skirt is self made and the bag vintage.

SHOWPONY SCHEDULES

Ah, Mondays, Tuesdays, beginning of the week. Mondays used to be may day off to adapt from the weekend rhythm to the weekly one, but this year Dag goes to his play-club on Monday mornings too, which means Mondays has become as shitty as everyone else’s, waking-up wise at least.

When you are away performing it’s often odd to adapt your weekend work schedule to your week-schedule. Although I am used to an irregular routine  - the last four years of my harbour work, when I was working as the supervisor, we did five days of evening shift from 15hrs to 1 am, then three days off and then seven days of morning shift from 05:30 to 14:30 (and then we had six days off). I remember reading that mixing shifts like that is not good for your sleep (or for you) as you never really adapt to any regular rhythm, but I can’t really state that my routines would have improved that much nowadays either...

Performing life when away often looks something like this, only the small details vary.

DAY 1

06:00am Leave to airport far too early, especially taking into consideration evening teaching (in this example, you can fill in : performing sometimes too) the night before and late night packing (as always, no matter how well you think you’ve prepared it this time).

Consume crazily expensive coffee and smoothies at airport. 

10:00am Arrive to destination, drag your just-a-few-grammes-below-maximum-weight-suitcase(s) along in public transportation to where you are staying.

(Here we are arriving in St.Pauli in Hamburg the other week. The rest of the details and pics will come from that trip. -)

Wait for about an hour for the man with the keys to show up. Enjoy some coffee and a random baguette (the rest of the trip will be healthier!) while you wait.

12:00pm Then sleep. Sleep sleep sleep

18:00 Get up, do some stretching and go grab something as healthy as possible around the corner. Buy some almonds for backstage snacks.


(a little good-late-afternoon-morning peek-a-boo from the next window)

20:00 Put make up on

21:00 Head over to the venue.

23:00-02:00 Perform. Sip on that one; just one, backstage GT during the evening.

03:00 snack on some almonds, project:wash-your-face-and-roll-your-hair-for-the-next-day and then to bed.

DAY 2

13:00 get up. Do pilates. Colleague does yoga. Have some lemon water, almonds and bio yoghurt. Whoop whoop!

14:00 out for a walk, some fruits and soy latte.

(We saw somebody who'd just gotten married.)

16:00 Soup and summer rolls, yum!

17:00 Back home to do some office work - and have a liiiittle bit of prosecco while at it.
(Here working on the Ruby Knuckles Sextet website, by @ruskarieban)

19:00 Late afternoon/early evening power nap

20:00 make up time!

21:30  Heading over to the venue. No GT today, this evening will be healthier

(Backstage. The usual.)

23:00 -02:00 showtime ok maybe that one backstage GT after all

03:00 SHOTS! (oops) 

04:00 MORE SHOTS (oh shit)

05:00 apparently more shots, or something.

DAY 3

12:00 Lemon water. almonds. Damn it, why don’t we have any chips!

13:00 painful movement from place A to B. About a litre of mint tea and a grilled sandwich that could have had so much more cheese on it.

02:30 realising you are way too tired, even though you just had half a litre of cola, to spent time in one of the most awesome places there is (well nerd-wise at least; MiWuLa) and that you are just going to have to come back here the next time SANS shots the night before instead.

03:00 drag yourself up the stairs

SLEEP

06:00 force yourself out again to eat and at this point anything goes

(But we were lucky that this was really good though. Vegan comfort food at Saints & Sinners. Have to go back the next time and eat up the rest of the menu.)

20:00 A quick yoga nidra to try to even up the lack of sleep from last night

20:30 On with the face again

21:30 stack up on chips on the way to the venue. Arrive. No GT’s

(Arrived. Face glued on. Ready. I can do this!)

22:00 ok one GT.

23:00-02:00 Showtime!

03:00 chips. packing

04:00 SLEEP

DAY 4

(peanut butter and vegan cheeseeeemmmm)

09: wake up, grab soy latte, drag 20-something kilos of costumes and make up to the airport, unpack (well MAYBE, if you’re good to yourself). Go to sleep and then wake up and it’s MONDAY, DAMN!

DR. SKETCHYS GOES SWINGING SIXTIES

Groov-ey! Dr.Sketchy's Finland in Helsinki (me and Tinx, that is) is hosting the next event on September 10 at our studio.  Jackie will model and there will - as usual - be good music and red wine.

If you want to get in the mood earlier already and are in for some serious shake-a-delic action join in on our GoGo-dance mini-course where we'll recreate a choreo from a 1966 music video. September 3 & 10!

VEGAN SANDWICH BLISS

From the list of small things (or maybe not even that small in the end) that make me happy:
Going to the big super market after work at 10pm because
1) nowadays it is open that late because of free opening hours.
(It's so god damn great I tell you, for anyone that does not do the normal 9-5. Smaller stores have had longer hours for years but now any store can choose their hours themselves and all Prisma's are open until 11 pm for example. And if you live out in the middle of a god damn field like I 99% of the time do nowadays, you are thankful)
2) and in that store, although not in the centre of Helsinki, you can easily pick and choose out of several vegan options available next to any non vegan-or vegatarian one. You don't even need to find that one sad hippie-shelf in the back corner for your almond milk anymore, it's all centrally located and full with lots of different options! 2010's, yey!
3) I can thus have a classic sandwich with cheese and even maddafakin baloney on it, with chocolate milk on the side and it's vegan all the way.

I am not a self-declared vegan, but do I most of the days follow a vegan diet. Sometimes by planning my meals, sometimes more "by accident" as I am so accustomed to it by now. I was on a full-time-vegan diet for a couple of years over a decade ago, and the selection was so much different back then! There is so much more to choose from than Tartex nowadays!

I've never been too fond of vegan cheeses, often found them a bit yucky, but the VioLife one is as good as it's reputation - no funky side taste here. They even have parmesan which I want to try! And the pizza cheese. (And for anyone over here eager to try it: do so from the S-labeled stores, as the K-ones sell these to about double the price as the S-ones!!). The latest sandwhich filling I tried out was vegan baloney with green pepper (soy based). Something I haven't had on my bread for years and years! Also, on a side note: the vegetable breads by Fazer are great! This time I tried out the newest version which is Finnish dark rye bread with zucchini and parsnip. The veggie percent is over 30.

Here are my own favourite vegan bread-spreads, that also work as side dishes to any bbq or salad/meze buffet. And definitely worth trying and serving even if you or your guests aren't vegans or vegatarians -

Green Lentil Tapenade

A delicious picante mash of cooked green lentils, garlic and vinegar and some more stuff. A little (just a little) more detailed how-to with ingredients can be found if you click the link behind the name.

Vegan Liver Patée

I just love this one, and many sworn carnivores dig happily in to this without thinking of it's veeeeegan label. It makes a great ingredient in the best pasta sauce/lasagna filling evvah! Click the name for the recipe.

Ok, now I am hungry again.

(As usual, none of these were sponsored mentions, it's just me digging stuff. But it'd be awesome if they would be though, awesome for me at least. But alas, they are not.)