cabbages of unusual size

When I lived in Helsinki, my dear friend Gina and I would visit this crazy lady named Sister Tikkanen every other week. She lived in a little apartment and had collected so many things and so much stuff that her living room had the feeling of a storage closet at a museum. She was afraid to leave her apartment and was desperate for visitors, however, she was always angry with us for one reason or another. It seemed as though we could never win with Sister Tikkanen. I was always anxious on such visits as I was walking on eggshells while fighting off a claustrophobia.

On one such visit to Sister Tikkanen excitedly told us about the new cabbages that she had acquired. Confused at first we listened on as she jabbered away. Her English was quite good and our of fear of creating more confusion by our limited Finnish, so our visits were in English. We soon realized that she meant cabinets, not cabbages, but instead of correcting her we stifled out laughs and let her continue on about how much storage they provided. After admiring her cabbages we were on our way and I can't remember if we made it all the way our of her building without busting up.

I don't think that this picture really captures the shear enormity of these cabbages. They are so big that it is hard to think of a comparison - the only thing that comes to mind is a beach ball. Yet a beach ball seems a poor comparison because it fails to convey the mass - I can't even guess how much these suckers weigh. It seems that everything is simply bigger here in Alaska. And to think of all the storage potential.