Minor setbacks

 Kaarna hasn’t slept all night.
- Ken!!!! I know what I want to do when I grow up! I want to create an ITE art place! A colorful house and a garden full of art that makes people smile. So, I need a house! I must have a house! A place to live and create! How the hell can I get a house?!???
- When I’m rich, I will buy you a house for that…
- We’ll never be rich!!! I hate having dreams, they make life so annoying and desperate.
- Can I sleep a little more now, please? It’s still raining.

 

The best thing to do now is to find some peace of mind in a national park. All the stimulating artistic and cultural sights have been a bit too overwhelming.

Kaarna spots something that always makes her feel peaceful: an abandoned house where she can take beautiful and calming photos.

 

On the next day Ken doesn’t feel too good. All his muscles hurt and he thinks he has fever. He needs to sit in the shade.
- Maybe I have the covid.
- Or maybe the manflu? Hahaaaha! But really… I think it was the sea wind. It’s pure evil. You are old and fragile, it has gotten you. I’ll be in the sun, call me if you’re starting to die.
- I’d rather call 112.

Another really cold morning. Kaarna walks to the beach. She can’t see the lake at all. There’s so much fog that it feels like standing on the edge of the world. Despite of the coldness this has been the best summer of Kaarna’s life. All the places she has seen, all the freedom, all the worryfree days. Herbert is a happy bubble where they live in, safe from the bad news, obligations and sorrow.

 

While Ken rests his fever away, Kaarna escapes to the hiking trails. The daytime on the parking and grilling spot of the national park is annoying with all the loud families with kids.

 

But today they are alone at the national park due to the start of the school year. Kaarna is pleased but Ken has really enjoyed meeting new people and chatting with other travellers. Kaarna says:
- You’re such a social butterfly! But for the rest of the trip the beaches will be calm and empty just the way I like them! And the weather is finally getting warm too! High five for that!
- Poor little school kids.

 

Ken is feeling a bit better and the sun doesn’t make the fever rise anymore. Kaarna shows him the photos she has taken:
- I found an another abandoned house. I couldn’t get inside, but I got some decent photos on the outside. The yard was really a jungle, wild raspberry bushes everywhere and high hay.

 

 - Ken!!!!!! Help!!!! Look at my bellybutton!!!! Is it….? Is it….?
- Gross! That’s a tick!
- Take it off!!!!! Take it off!!!!
- No!!!!! It’s in a tricky place. Its head will stay inside your navel and you’ll get a borreliosis. So gross!!! It’s so big, look how much it has sucked your blood!
- Ken!!!!! Help me!!!!!
- Let’s go to the nearest health center. You need professional help.

 

A nurse can see Kaarna in the afternoon. So they have time to do grocery shopping first.
- Pssst Ken… None of these people have any idea that I have smuggled a tick inside of my bellybutton.

 

 

The nurse is Asian. She doesn’t speak much Finnish but she’s really polite and good at her work. The tick comes off in one piece and gets murdered immediately. Kaarna feels like she just had a second chance in life!

 

 

Ken spots an arboretum and they decide to see what it’s like. 

 

Neither of them recognizes the many trees and bushes but they enjoy the atmosphere.

 

The arboretum is a lot bigger than they expected. Ken gets tired in the heat and sits down.

- We should have brought a picnic basket!
- Picnic in a private park?! Never again!

 

 

Kasvihuoneilmiö (The Greenhouse Effect) is the most peculiar shop in Finland. It’s a real greenhouse, but it’s also a cafeteria, book store, record store, furniture store, army stuff store, decoration store and a neverending Christmas.

 

It’s a place where things you can’t even imagine existing are sold. A place where you forget that you’re a resposible adult aged 48.   

After a while Kaarna gets annoyed. All this stuff. Sargophaguses, golden dog statues, real sized cows, bling this and bling that… so useless. Horrible kitch. Things that shouldn’t even exist. People are hopeless. They keep creating, selling and buying all the things nobody really needs. Kaarna wants to escape back to the forests.

 

  

+26 °C (79°F) and no wind, no clouds. Ken and Kaarna decide to spend the next days on beaches. Kaarna is fed up with sightseeing.
- Let’s just suck in the vitamin D!

- Real summer! Finally! Thank you, Universe!
But Ken says:
- I can’t take this heat… it’s too much for me. I have to be in the lake all the time or I’ll faint.
- Are you serious? You really have become old then. Old people keep passing out and passing away during a heatwave.
- True… I really am officially old. Oh dear lord that is depressing.

Kaarna tells Ken that she has agreed on seeing a couple of rental flats in Nyland. This makes Ken sad, as he had hoped that the desire to move back to her roots would have been just a stupid thought that goes away.

Ken sees a bunch of people having a picnic and says hello. And like always it’s a start of a nice chat.
Kaarna is embarrased:
- Here we go again. Small talk shit! He’s been like that all summer. Talking to everybody he sees. How does he do that? 

 

Suddenly a familiar girl approaches from the opposite direction. Venla. Kaarna waves a bit. 

Then Venla notices that Ken is already sitting with her friends on the blanket! What a funny coinincidence.

Ken is having the best of time with Venla and her sister Ronja and her friends Amir, Vanessa and Kia. It’s an instant connection. Their laughter annoys Kaarna though. And the fact that they speak English. 

Kaarna decides to move a little further.
- That’s it… Ken will never leave that picnic.

 

The next morning Kaarna takes Herbert and leaves Ken with his new friends. She has several rental apartments to see today.   

 

She is getting desperate as the hours go by. She drives from village to village and from town to town, but the apartments are all horrible or in a horrible place.

Meanwhile Ken is meeting Amir and Venla again. The weather is so terribly hot and humid that they spend the whole day just chilling and talking and of course laughing with tears in their eyes.

 

Venla has once again prepared an amazing picnic basket. 

And Amir is such a funny guy. Thanks to him Ken starts to think more positively about the French people!

The last house on Kaarna’s list almost makes her scream out loud of enthusiasm. A well made mural covers the whole wall of the building. The owner is waiting in the apartment so Kaarna crosses her fingers and rings the doorbell.

 

The building is old and shabby, but clearly loved. And the apartment in question belongs to an artist who is moving to an art residence in Paris. The owner of the building is a bubbly old woman who likes to rent her apartments to creative people. Kaarna can’t believe her luck…did she find her place?