PART-EY

This year I left out on all of the Valborg- and First of May celebrations and partying. For the first time in my life actually; I have been out in the park on this day since my first ever Vappu as a little baby with a big balloon in a pram! (A couple of years ago it was Dag's turn to be that First-of-May-baby).

It is the biggest carnival day of the year over here (I will leave out any wikipedia and other wonderweb links this time, but they are out there en masse), so it feels a bit odd to just stay at home and do
nothing. Not a drop of mead or bubbly, no crumb of funnel cake or sugar donut, (which is what is usually had on this day. Although that was mostly since I did not make it to the store in time.) To be fair to myself htough; I have not been doing nothing-nothign -last night I held a pilates practice class I have a show to do tonight. It is also pretty cold out there today too, which have not stopped me past years but today I did not feel like putting 'freezing my derriere off' on the agenda. (And every time I think about things like this it feels so strange that I worked outdoors by the sea for twelve years. Shiver. How did I really manahe that.)
However, tomorrow I'll drop the calm vibes and head out to throw and host and perform at our very own recurring club in Café Mascot! This time: Leopardiklubi; leopard themed in honour of the International Leopard Day (which is really just a day for wearing leopard print, although you could of course take a moment and think about and perhaps donate and help endagered felines too).

So if you've been out there for two days, HANG IN THERE until tomorrow and see you at Mascot!

Photo by me.

IT'S ALMOST MID-MARCH ALREADY

...which means summer will soon be over. Because that's the way it goes you know. Fast.

Oh well hello there! Yes I am still very much alive, although it may seem a little too quiet over here. With all the work, hanging out with Dag, puzzling babysitting around for my work as Eddi is abroad because of his work all the time and when at home out on the farm because the older boys go to school there now and I'm kind of living part-time in my car due to all the going back-and-forth between homes and jobs and gigs and rehearsals plus the pilates training I am studying I have a pile of posts stacked up that will soon be too old to post anyway.

Well that was a long sentence. But it pretty much describes how things are for the moment, in the way it was structured. A highly energetic mess. But, here are some thing's I've been up to the past week as my phone and Instagram saw it:

We have started our own recurring club at Mascot -

The first of Rubies Klubit was last Friday under the theme 'Abstinence'. It was a really good night!

(The last shot is from the curtain call at the end of the night that I took from our golden gogo-boy's Instagram, orginally taken by JBM.)

Go ahead and like our page to find out the dates for the following ones as we set them!

Then I head over to Turku to perform at a Women's Day celebration event. Here's a shot from out small backstage as well as one of dragqueen Miss Divet performing before us and our huge mirror in our hotel room.



Then I came back home and by yesterday spring had arrived for real! I'm tempted to say the classic "finally" but to be honest it's pretty early and apart from that magical Christmas week winter was not that long or cold or white but seemed to pass rather quickly this time. We took a walk outside and it was warm. I feel all my shoes starting to wake up from their winter sleep and making small sounds in the closet already.

Also yes, that is how my son keeps putting his glasses on, constantly.

Later then showed up to the dinner table dressed as a sailor.

SPECTAC-O-RAMA in 3-2-1...

I've been fixing costumes and making arrangements the whole week and tonight it is time for the first set of our vaudeville-rockabilly burlesque spectacle Spectac-O-Rama!

The night is sold out so no use to get out in the cold and try your luck at the door! But if you missed out get your tickets for the next night which will be November 29!

DESPERADOS AND OTHER CRAZYNESS IN TURKU

Packing my bags to head off west for Turku Burlesque Weekend!

Among a lot of fabulous tongue-in-cheek but also totally flipped out funny things we'll do there I'm also bringing my updated Desperado-act. So there's been a lot of sewing and glueing lately to get it done. To the point that I suddenly realised my old western movie bad guy is turning into something more like the Three Amigos...

Here's me in 2010 when I last did it.

And Turku hey! I will also throw my Vintage Hair 101-workshop, a "showgirl edition", on Saturday before the show! There are a couple of places left, more info behind this link.

For more info on Turku Burlesque Weekend, click the pic.

#EASTERNFINLAND14

This summer all our further-away gigs were concentrated to the east of the country.

Late in May we drove out to perform our cabaret show at a private motorcycle event held at mansion.

With a rather fancy atmosphere at our backstage.


And some yellow widow to go along.

We also managed to 'throw our winter furs away' -as one says in Finnish, referring to the first swim of the season- at that trip.

In July we performed at a motorcycle festival at an island in the Imatra river. No swimming this time though, as the current there is deadly.

As you may recall from my post about the trip, we got to stay at the art nouveau hotel downtown, that I remember admiring in my childhood.

And we got to take that swim on our way home instead, when stopping by my grandmother's cabin.

In August we headed further away, seven hours up all the way to Nurmes in Northern Carelia, performing our burlesque & rock n'roll combo with Sweet Jeena & Her Sweethearts at a rockabilly & car show. Here the guitarist Risto is happily posing with our patch in his jacket.




We stayed in one of these traditional Carelian timber lodges.

(On a side note I can add that during the trip I stuffed myself with local treats like pirogs and barley bread and so called "home ale" which made me look like I was four months pregnant in the end.)

Northeast in our country. Huge woods and big lakes.

Lake Pielinen is beautiful!

Getting ready in our room.

Backstage at the venue, House Bomba, a huge traditional timber lodge.

Jeena's pre-show preparations.

Leaving back home for another gig we had in Helsinki the next day. One of my "Skoda -ads" again... It really is amazing how much we manage to fit in this car.

The next week it was time to make another seven hours drive, this time to Iisalmi, performing with the same set up at yet another motorcycle event. (The theme for this summer - motorcycles and going east!)

Most of the road is the same as to Nurmes and this time we had more time on our hands so we managed to stop at this big statue park/shop in the middle of nowhere that we wanted to see.

Something about that huge Elvis is calling out to me; I can picture him in the middle of the field by the road among our lambs. But for now he will remain with the huge chickens, cherubs and what-nots in Juva.

Our stage was at a truck. And this time our 'backstage' was a little different...

Well, we did have an indoors one as well. In -of course- a timber lodge.

And then it was, once again, showtime!

SPECTAC-O-RAMA!

People in and around or coming to Helsinki! Book your calendars for November 8  & 29 as our spectacular spectacle of glitter and dance and burlesque and live rock n'roll will take place then at Allotria Saturday night club:

We're doing another collaboration show with cabaret loving rockabilly band Sweet Jeena & Her Sweethearts this fall, a two-hour revue of crazy and fabulous; Spectac-O-Rama. On stage also queerly fab Mia Li Moon and our highly popular performing student troupe The Shangri-La Showgiris!
You can check the Facebook event for more info, we'll update it all fall: Spectacorama on Facebook.

The poster is made by me, inspired by and old Vegas travel ad.

And as we are on it with the BurlyQ, it's time to end and announce the Paljettipommi-zine giveaway:
Total randomness landed on commenter no9, Talvikettu, who'll receive an email from me soon!

SUMMER BLACK

I suppose when it comes to what we wear we don't always make the most rational choices, you know; if you have our mind set in on something you want to wear you might do so even if conditions change and then again sometimes you change what you have on the minute you walk out the door.
For being a person complaining about the fact that I never get to wear my dresses enough you'd think that when going to a summer party I'd slip into one of them.
But then I got something else into my head and went for tight and black instead. And pants!


Altough I have to say wearing black velvet pants on a warm summer night gets pretty hot and made me melt on the dance floor.... But then again a sweaty dance floor usually means a good party.

The pants are leggings from sock dreams, belt vintage, the top H&M and the peep toes half  decade old by now.

SUVI VINTAGE; THE SUMMER VINTAGE FAIR

 Last weekend we took a daytripp with the smaller version of our family (which would be the version sans Dag's half-brothers) and headed up to Tampere to attend the Suvi Vintage fair.
This year the theme was the 1930's and holidays.

I've made the poster for the event  three years in a row but never managed to check out the whole thing before now!


Dag saw the carousel the minute we arrived and that was it for him.


Det var kört så att säga, as one would say in Swedish.
And you know how it is with toddlers, it does not matter if they get to do something they want once or twice or five times, they cry just as much when it's over anyway. Well, as the vendor said, his best customers leave screaming!


So I left Eeeeengi! (that's what Dag shouts when he hears me calling for Eddi) with some coins at the carousel and went to check out the rest of the fair.

 And I immediately ran into this bunch!

 Lassi organises the whole thing.

 Pepper and her curls. She made Lassi's hat btw!

 Olivia and Those Nails!

Atelieri O.Haapala were there shooting their ever so popular cabinet portraits too. Here is the other half of the duo; Saara aka Onyxei Haapala.

 

The venue, Tallipiha, is a very pretty place!

 This little fella walking his grandma (or more likely mom, but grandma makes it sweeter!) was so cute!


And so were these very young dancers.

I actually did not buy anything! I'm not really good at shopping when there is a lot to choose from and when I don't really need anything. Which makes me rather smart in the end.
Well, I did get something lovely for both my sisters' future babies though!

Some days it's easy to go anywhere with kids -they are fine to just go along looking at things- and other days it is not. This could be described as the later. Here Dag is trying to make his most cute faces in order to get yet another round of the carousel.

 So we let him look at some real horses instead.

 And he got to ride a pony!

And then it was time to head home! But first some pancakes.