A 1 way ticket to Helsinki is about $1000 a person.

An apartment in my old neighborhood is somewhere in the $1500 to $2000 a month range. Food and monthly expenses might be a bit higher, but I think I would be able to manage.

Wouldn’t need a car. Looking at street view, my old grocery store, bakery, liquor store, and all that are within walking distance of where we’d live.

There are 2 really good parks in the neighborhood, so I’d have somewhere to walk the dogs.

The Young Prince needs to learn a second language, so that would be a plus. Also, tall, half-Finnish grandchildren someday.

3 hours from Estonia by boat, 4 hours to Sweden. Norway, Poland, and Germany are a very brief flight away.

I’m not seeing a downside here.

Now to discuss it with Irish Woman. I think I’m old enough to run away from home, but I’d like for her to tag along.

Plus for her – White nights between May and August. Pleasant summers, beautiful falls.
Minus for her – Dark days between November and February. Winters that get brass monkey cold starting in October.

I wonder if she likes salmon soup and reindeer steak?

• Question – What’s the difference between a Chinese bio-researcher saying “I wonder if we can…” and an American redneck yelling out “Hey, y’all! Watch this!”?
  • Answer – NHS funding
• Had a couple of flights yesterday. On my first leg, there were two mothers with toddlers
  • One was sharing her double-caff, extra syrup, no foam mocha thingamajig with her two-year-old, then gave him her iPad.
  • The other already had the tyke in his pajamas, was giving him a high-carb snack just before boarding, and read The Cat in the Hat to him as we taxied.
  • Guess which child made me stare longingly at the emergency exits for a couple of hours and which fell asleep right after we took off.
• I was worried about Iran and Pakistan exchanging missile strikes until someone mentioned that they were helping each other scratch fleas.
  • Hey, you got high explosives on my terrorists! Just for that, I’ll get high explosives on your terrorists!
• It’s probably a coincidence that the protests have tapered off since winter finally made its appearance. I wonder what the mob will be outraged about come springtime?