Ode to Bill Gates … from My Wife; Friend in Need

Hi Bill,
Sorry to bother you.

I’m sitting here writing a letter to you because my wife doesn’t stop nagging – and between you and me – isn’t willing to go to bed before I thank you. You can only guess how hard it is to thank a man whose computer operating system constantly requires updates, and I must wait for them to be completed. Sometimes even the deadline for the translation text has been exceeded. After getting free from the fucking that haunted me in the early years, I started to draw pictures to make the waiting time go faster. When the Windows system was engaged in a contradictory internal dialogue, my old drawing skills from my youth returned. And in the long run, I have become an outstanding painter. Yes, during the 20 years you have time to get Windows better and I have to creativeness.

A year ago, encouraged by my wife, I held a visual art exhibition on Helsinki Boulevard in the famous photo gallery. The miracle that I got there. My show was a success, and my painting sold out at the incredible starting prices my wife charged them. She, a prominent, comforted me before the show: prices can always drop but hardly ever raise under the buyer’s beak. I agreed, considering myself a modern wise man who can guide his wife without her even realizes this. Who would buy my painting at astronomical sums? Wrong again.

What bothers me most, however, is that while we have been able to get our household on a more solid footing thanks to the income from painting sales, I have not received praise from my wife, but I have to thank you. She says that I couldn’t eat chewing gum and walk simultaneously before I got acquainted with Windows and adds that now I remember all the assignments and carry out the translation work in time even though I had heard it the night before.

This is how I will thank you and send the most valuable painting of my exhibition to you. Even before the show, my wife had decided to leave the picture with the highest offered price for you. Can you imagine hugs from my wife to you and painting from me?

With respect
Matti Ivarsson
Translator

PS My wife is shouting from the living room that dear greetings to you from her. Her name is Hulda, and she is already planning the next art show. And she adds:”  Don’t use foul language or criticize the Windows operating system. You owe to Billie”.

© Yelling Rosa
22/4 –21

PS This story, ”Ode to Bill Gates … from My Wife”, is fiction.

Please enlarge this 15 meters long salmon by clicking on it. After the flood, it is totally out of the water. This fish is one of my home town’s stainless steel sculptures. Tornio Stainless Steel is known worldwide.

The salmon sculpture, named Kajamo, is designed by Pekka ja Teija Isorättyä. Visit their Home site in English.

Friend in Need

I have heard the urban, or should I say rural, legend about a Finnish farmer. He either his wife didn’t know how to make babies. When a doctor found this out, he explained the process to the young couple.

Next summer Dr. Virta went again to the farm, but no children were born. He asked displeased: “Haven’t I explained the procedure” but soon realized that he must show how it happens. So he gave the flashlight to a man because the bedroom was a bit dark and asked a man to light up the right place while he is doing the act so that the farmer can do it on his own.

After the lapse of five years, the doctor, who worked in the village only as a summer substitute while his permanent work was in the city, thought that he must see whether the young couple has offspring. When our doctor arrived at the destination, he saw young children running outside the house. A young man seemed to be very proud of his achievements. The doctor smiled and said to him that the first step is always the hardest.

Yes, admitted the farmer, but ever since I have known how to light up the right place, there haven’t been any problems, and our neighbor has been a friend in need.

The Finnish Rural Legend
in English dramatized,
translated and revised by
©Yelling Rosa
25/9 -14

Explanation:

Virta, a Finnish surname, can be translated as Stream. If you say in Finland that “jollakulla on virtaa”. It means that he/she has a lot of energy (drive).

PS You find all my stories in one place at: http://www.yellingrosa.com/stories01.html