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The insurance company is sending somebody to my house tomorrow to draw blood. This is not good. The last time I had a needle, I was a teenager receiving a vaccination. Perhaps the insurance company would accept blood drawn by other means. For example, I could hire somebody to sneak up on me at an undisclosed time and location and whack me in the scalp. At least I wouldn’t be expecting it. Or I could hire the dentist to draw blood from my mouth. There’s nothing wrong with a needle I can’t see. Alternately, I could get the cat all fired up and solicit a deep scratch. Clearly, there are many alternatives to a foot-long needle in the arm.

Caution: Boring post for those who do not share my strange fascination with all things Arctic.
I took the following photo as our flight passed over the southern portion of Greenland, enroute London to Chicago (please excuse the glare from the window). Even though Greenland is well north of the great circle route for these cities, the winds must favor it when flying west. I’ve seen this flight clip Greenland several times before, but it has usually been obscured by clouds. Today’s flight flew even further north, passing over the plateau, and the weather and lighting cooperated. As it turns out, the plateau is extremely large, flat, and snow-covered. Not much happening up there.

* I may or may not have seen the Northern Lights last night. For three or four seconds, there appeared a red and green band stretching from the horizon to about 40 deg. I’m just going to assume it was some genuine Aurora. I take what I can get.

* During my summer trip here seveal years ago, I noticed people cross-country skiing with long inline skates. Naturally, I assumed that the wintertime would bring snow and real skis. Wrong. It has rained continuously and has not yet dropped below zero during my stay. Even Lapland is snow-free, I am told. I should get back to the States, where Global Warming is just a liberal fantasy. (In fairness, I’ve heard that Global Warming could actually make Europe colder if it slows down the Gulf Stream. So maybe it’s just a warm winter here).

* Dry British humour report: BBC aired a show about dogs detecting prostate cancer and other diseases through smell. At one point the narrator, a woman with an upper-class British accent, noted that “Dogs seem to posess a natural aptitude for this line of work,” followed by an image of a dog sniffing Tony Blair’s crotch.

* My baggage was delayed for two days (good times). The American Airlines Baggage Handlers Union recently determined that my 2006 Baggage Recovery Rate was unacceptably high, resulting in Mandatory Rerouting for this trip. They selected Paris for maximum delay, and the challenge was met. For two days, the Parisian baggage handlers presumably smoked, striked, and upheld various other French stereotypes while my bag sat on the tarmac and longed to dispense its supply of clean underwear and socks. I finally broke down and bought some stylish (black) new clothes at a shop called “Dressmann”, about two hours before my bag arrived at my hotel looking exhausted and violated (I will bring a different bag if I ever travel to Paris).

* Tomorrow I plan to seize the precious few hours of daylight and tour Helsinki during Finland’s Independence Day. According to finland.fi, “Independence day is the most noticeable of the national holidays in Finland”.