quick, quick, a new post

I've just been following the blog trails, and I ended up at a blog of a person whose mother just recently died of lung cancer, and my story doesn't seem funny anymore. So, moving along.

But not quite moving on from my mom just yet.

We spoke this morning. She's got the fever for doing word jumbles right now. She wakes up in the morning and does the jumble in the Seattle Times with my brother. She asked me, Do you do the jumble? Like it's 1995 or what have you and jumbles are this year's Macarena, and surely everyone's doing it.

Also, she told me about these memory books they used to have in Finland, which you'd have your friends sign. These are some of the things they'd say, translated from the Finnish:


When a flea bites you, remember me.
And when it bites hard, you'll become a Reverend.


Flowers growing here and there.
And you're sitting on them.


Happiness, happiness.
A red house and a field of potatoes.

Then she told me about a word she was having a hard time finding in the crossword puzzle she did after her jumble. And she told me the Finnish phrase for what it's like when your mind isn't quite working.

Your mind is like a potato in yogurt.

She went on to explain that it's not really just regular yogurt, it's like really thick yogurt. And exhorted me to imagine sticking a potato into thick yogurt, how the potato isn't going to go anywhere once you put it there, and that's how it is when your mind doesn't quite work.

I can see it.