Pyhäinpäivä and Varpajaiset

« A panoramic photo of candles lighting up pyhäinpäivä in Hietaniemi Cemetery. Click on the photo for a larger version. »

There are few things quite so moving as an entire cemetery glowing in a sea of candles, each placed on the graves by someone who cared enough to visit and remember the departed. Jarkko dutifully carried the tripod as we wandered through the cemetery for 2 hours after lighting a candle for HB. I took the Leica as well as a Russian pano camera I've had for a while but hadn't tried using yet. The pano camera has only 6 shutter speeds and, at 1/4 of a second, sounds like a dying alarm clock buzzer. When I was killing off the end of the rolls of film this afternoon so that I could develop them this evening, I noticed that the Leica wasn't spooling so I took it into the darkroom and opened it up and, sure enough, it hadn't been feeding the film. The M7 is a bit tricky since the film chamber is tighter than the M6 and you have to be diligent in shoving the film canister all the way down and get the film into the prongs properly. I was in a hurry on pyhäinpäivä and didn't check it before heading out. I know this happens to the pros on occasion so I don't feel too much like a tard, but I'm disappointed at the loss of some nice photos from the evening amidst the glow.

Congratulations to Ulla and Richard on their new, yet unnamed, baby boy who was born on Friday morning. :) There are so many new cultural tidbits you find out when friends have babies. Apparently Finland requires, by law, that the child be given a Finnish name so they're going to select a name that is easy for the British side of the family to pronounce, which rules out any names with r, ä, ö, double letters and vowels that look the same but don't sound the same as in English. I can't wait to find out what name meets the linguistic hurdles when the baby is named in a week or so. We helped Richard get drunk last night and barely made it through this evening for his varpajaiset. Varpajaiset is where the new father and his male friends, if they're sober enough, count the babies toes to make sure there are 10 of them, then proceed to smoke cigars and get drunk. The word, varpajaiset, literally translates to 'toeings' and we were speculating over beers and giggles that the counting was either for how many shots of kossu the father would have to drink or, because of the small gene pool in Finland, that it was just to check that you didn't accidentally marry your first cousin by mistake. Do they get to drink an extra shot if there are 11 toes? I'd love to know where this tradition came from since the doctors are usually the ones who are responsible for making sure the baby doesn't have 2 heads and 15 toes before and after they've left the womb and they're usually sober. :)

n.b. - I stand corrected on the name being Finnish requirement. I tried to trust parents on these things so...Jarkko read the text of the law and, while vague leaving possible room for such interpretaion, doesn't require a Finnish name. The Finnish Population Registry shows that while Finnish names remain the most popular, there are definitely some kids with names that will get them viciously taunted for the rest of their lives proving that parents are cruel everywhere. :)

• Yoda - 2
• Leia - 24
• Anakin - 4
• Lancelot - 8
• Gawain - 1
• Elvis - 112
• Frodo - 4
• Aragorn - 1
• Gandalf - 5, 1 of whom is female. Sadly, no Saurons.
• Arwen - 10
• Galadriel - 7
• Bilbo - 1
• Eowyn - 1
• Engelbert - 709
• Quentin - 10
• Egon - 140
• Donald - 205, low considering the Aku Ankka craze.
• Neo - 27
• Trinity - 2
• Moon - 7
• Foo - 2, way back before 1979. Curious.
• Tintin - 4, all women
• Atari - 1
• Linux - 1, poor kid. He's probably a luddite.
• Perl - 1, around 1900.
• Ruby - 42
• Buster - 12

Hours of free entertainment to be had digging in the archives for cruel and unusual names. :)