Ambassador of Ya'll

2008-01-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

So there is a loophole to Clause #789. Again, this was an e-mail that's going up - sorry!!

So I've found a minor loophole to the tights/stockings/panty hose issue here in London.

Hold ups!! Also known as thigh-highs in America, these delightful bits of actual elasticised nylon don't suffer the untold cruelties of sizing and seem to come in a more human array of colors (although darned if there aren't TONS of 'super-shiny' shades of 'American Tan'). The elastic/rubber strips at the top seem to work, if you run one leg (as I did this morning reaching for something) no worries! They come 2 to a pack so you have a better chance of getting through at LEAST two days for £5.50.

There is, however, a downside. Actually 3. The first is that rather than transforming into Giselle Bunchen when I slide these puppies on (ok yank and tug as I'm running late) one must be wary, ladies, that those of a slightly more 'athletic' bent of thigh might come out look like you've wrestled two Christmas hams into netting and sadly those blessed with more than 5% body fat might have the 'bulge factor' around the top. Just avoid looking in a mirror if this is the case. It's better to be a creature of mystery (to yourself at the least!) then see that you are not, in fact, ready to prance down the catwalk.

So that's number 1 and 1.5. Number 2 is that I now must live in mortal fear of risking some busted elastic or a drooping bit of rubber gripping (the poor dears are stretched to their limit) and be hustling down the street only to note that I now have a leg warmer of stocking. And because I stretched out the tops everyone on the street will know that my upper thigh is larger than Posh Spice's head. Twice over. Which brings me to number three. Rather than the naked chicken hopping dance (see previous post) one must now adopt the 'I'm trying to get down the street whilst pretending to hold a dime between my legs' stride. Think of a time when you had lots of shoppings bags and DESPERATELY needed a restroom. That thighs-pressed-together with a hint of sidle and swish. It's not so much a slinky stride of confidence as, well, you've busted the elastics in your pants.

So there it is. A loophole with which to hang yourself. I'll let yall know (or check Youtube) if disaster strikes whilst walking across the stage today at LSE!!!!

Cheerio from the Office Drone,

AoY

On a side note I have found that Yes, they stay up. However you might get some Indian rugburn style friction working between your skin and the elasticised tops. Using suspenders? The hooks bite into your bum/thigh if you sit for any amount of time in a chair. Do we honestly need further proof that no sane woman EVER invented these damn things!!!

2008-01-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

This got quite the reaction and many of my brilliant friends had their thoughts to add on the topic:

From DM:
OK...I HAD to comment! There are actually several sidebars here
1. they are called 'tights' in this country because stockings are what you wear with a garter belt...side, side bar...notice I said garter belt not...suspenders which is what the brits call them; so never never NEVER go into the mens department and ask for suspenders for your husband....they are still laughing.
2. If they sold DKNY or Haynes they would be £18 a pair...no I am NOT kidding... fine 'tights' are anywhere from £18 - £25! AoY is clearly being a good girl on her budget...I, however, am not!
3. When they have runs in them several of my British friends have pointed out the "cut the one leg off each pair with the run" back to AoY's note...they are so fricking tight...can you imagine wearing 2 pair simultaneously...no #@!*#@*ing way!

From REP:
Ha...... Oh my god! Right now I'm just really glad that I will never, EVER have a job which requires me to wear panty hose, tights, stockings, suspenders, or any other crazy name they can come up with for them! I hate the American version -- can't imagine they could guess much worse, but based on your experiences, I guess they do.....

From HRK:
Hye AoY-- just do what I do, get a little crazy and go without...stockings that is... or if you get really wild (mom, shut ur eyes) go commando! its what all the smu girls are doing-- you'll save a bundle! Hah! I'm totally joking-- why not make fun of us while I still can?!

From MEC:
Wait a minute, our crotches are not supposed to be down by our knees yet?Just kidding! My main concern from this whole story is the fact thatyou have a job that requires panty hose every single day!

From HJR:
And I want to know why your e-mail is numbered #789 and why I have not received the other 788! Had I received those, I am convinced I would not require massive doses of medication to get through law school.

I think we should collaborate on a book entitled "Why You Need a Sense of Humor to Be Female". I KNOW it would be a bestseller. Lets create a bestseller, get rich, and then sit around never having to wear pantyhose again or anything item that remotely constrains one's bodily parts ... wait! I am doing that already!

2008-01-09T06:33:00.000-08:00

To those who received this e-mail, sorry for the repeat but figured it desereved a place.

#789

In the past five days I've run £20 worth (That's 40 US dollars or 5 pairs) of panty hose and stockings. It's like they RUN (no pun intended) towards the nearest sharp object, including my finger nails. I've actually been reduced to wearing torn hose to the office. I've bought the drug store hose, the department store hose, and the £1.90 special support hose (I was running late and desperate) from the geriatric pharmacy up the road. And, as Dede and I have pointed out, the Brits seems to get their fun in devising panty hose that fit no normal woman. They either proffer a Size Small (thanks for playing that game kids) pointing that while you're far out of the weight range you are in fact quite short (thanks so much for that, again) so that when your doing the naked chicken hop around your flat at 6.45AM you realize that there is only enough cheap material to have the crotch hit your knees (maybe when I'm 90 this will be the case but I have a few more feet yet to go!) or that the waistband is now an ovary belt as it cannot contain that Christmas pudding you ate last week.

Then there is the kindly lady who steers you into the Large section, pointing out that whilst you might not fit perfectly in the weight category, you might (just might) have longer legs than your mere height suggests...Suddenly you have Jumpsuit Stockings. At least if I'm in a plane crash situation I could devise a parachute out of the extra fabric. Suddenly your crotch MUST be bagging to your knees as the double bow you've made in the waistband won't stay put. But is just as likely that, depending on the evil genius at the factory, a Large just might in fact fit like a small (see: naked chicken hop above)

I must further point out here that often there is no elastic in the actual tights and you just sort of roll them on and wiggle until your legs, now seven shades of mud or shiny plastic flesh (the Brits love them some shiny stockings) are somewhat covered. It is highly likely that your crotch is actually located on the back of your right thigh (maybe the Brits missed anatomy courses). And while the naked chicken hop entertains the neighbors you may also eventually expire from dehydration as you live in dread of needing a toilet and thus the prospect of hopping about the water closet and prompting security to assume someone MUST be up to hanky panky in the ladies room because of the banging and cursing and random flushing (that would be the automatic sensor or your head as you attempt to coax an extra inch from the ankle area). And men bitch about dress shoes?!?!

On the positive side I must point out that British stockings have the amazing fortitude to not develop gaping holes (unlike our American friends). Whether due to a lack of elastic, the sheer lack of any real structure resembling a leg, or their alternate purpose to net a fleeing wild animal, I can make it through the day with about three holes and no one really notices. I also LOVE the color descriptions. DKNY and Hanes (unavailable in most of the UK) have Tan, Beige Natural, Black, Taupe, Nude and Putty. In the UK you have the option of American Tan, Meditteranean Glow, Shiny Natural, Shiny American, Natural Tan, Ebony and Mahogany. Basically not skin tones seen in nature.

However, did I mention that the Mediums, which logically fall between the Small and Large size, can be one or the other, both or none? You might have the legs of a Small with the girdle of a XXL, or Rosanne Barr legs with a childlike bum (I almost said fanny but while this might be the one time both uses of the word could apply, I'd be censored in the newspapers). I have finally discovered why Boots (the pharmacy) sells stockings in a 2-For-1 package. One is the pair with with you attempt to survive the work day. The second is to string yourself up with or provide the looney bin with an extra set of restraints.

(On a side bar - it's a bit depressing that I've reached a place in my life where stockings are required every day...)
So that's the latest dispatch from Fulham...men clearly made stockings so that the glass ceiling would be all slippery as we break it :) Hope everyone is well and it made you smile!

2008-01-09T05:05:00.000-08:00

Home Sweet Home…
Dorm Sweet Dorm…
Hovel Shitty Shovel…

What is an abode for the urban professional? Is it a place to store our things now that the parents have moved beyond their empty-nest feelings and suddenly reclaim their lives (and attics/garages/basements) and return to the days of leisure time before they decided to bring new lives into the world? Or is it our first real stab at independence. Look Mom and Dad, I’ve MADE it! I’m an ADULT! (Until we need help or money that is).

But regardless of financial situation, first job status or a looming quarterlife crisis those first few shoeboxes represent our initial attempt to strike out into the new world.

My first apartment in Washington, DC came with my roommate from college, my mother’s guest bed, my grandmother’s furniture and my childhood stuffed animal. V and I painted walls, got lost on the Metro and slowly explored the urban jungle. That first ‘adult’ sleepover had resonance when it was no longer class that came with the morning light but work. I received Home Depot gift certificates, pots and pans from William-Sonoma, linens and wine from my parents in a bid to domesticate (and perhaps lure) my future unwitting spouse into a comfortable nest. Our cozy little home remained untouched for two years even when V moved to California and I stayed behind with Dave, an *ahem* Tarheel graduate who moved in and brought the better TV, finally setting up a working wireless signal, barstools and beer mugs. But the walls stayed blue and ‘home’ remained in Arlington.

Apartment Numero Due saw a momentous move 4.3 miles over to Courthouse and into my first living situation. I had only realized a few days prior that my new building also housed my first DC crush-an English captain who worked at the British Embassy. What can I say? It’s all about the accent (as I recently attempted at a drinks party to convince my guy friends in London that moving ANYWHERE in the States would be tantamount to importing catnip for the female, and perhaps male, masses). 1320 N. Veitch had the post-1995 sterility of fancy looking floors and doors but cheap walls covered in white paint with that pale muddied-cream floor-to-floor carpet. Benefits included a balcony, proximity to work and friends, my own stuff, gas stove and oven, tile floors instead of linoleum and my first walk-in closet in over a decade. The downside included the cheap walls, a gas log fireplace that would also set off the fire alarm, a fire alarm so sensitive that baking a potato meant that clearly the apartment was about to go up in flames, expensive garage parking, and a crowded pool area populated by the cast of Laguna Beach on the weekends. Far from being lonely I rarely spent a full week in residence (thanks law firm) and sadly waved goodbye to the copious storage and wall space. I also had managed to steal free Internet and cable channels thus lowering the burden of living alone.

Moving across an ocean to a foreign country means adjusting perspectives, attitudes and comfort zones. Living in Italy I adjusted to insufficient heat, little hot water, soaring ceilings and terra cotta, bougainvillea and Nino’s home cooking. Life in a German hotel meant smoking rooms, polyester sheets, questionable showers that contained a soap/shampoo/cleanser (and probably disinfectant), a skyline of more snow or surgically implanted buildings of glass and chrome with sharp edges and flat planes. Every now and again those crafty Germans would place colour laminated plastic or paint-coated metal at random intervals (correction-the Germans are never random. It was carefully planned and designed to appear whimsical whilst always fitting into the proper working hierarchy). Move beyond the city and you find the gingerbread cottages of the Brothers Grimm in the Black Forest and the surprisingly ornate (if dark) fairy-tale castle spearing up into the clouds.

But my point is this – don’t move to Europe expecting everything to be as it was in America. My old flatmate (yes one does refer to London apartments as flats) struggled over finding decent drip coffee. Londoners prefer to make an espresso and add water (many call it an Americano; I call it shitty British espresso with tap water). I fruitlessly searched for Pam cooking spray. We both struggled at times with the 3 storey walk-up and 1970s furniture that looks suspiciously like Laura Ashley briefly went into the home furnishings sector before rightfully returning her chintz to pinafores. Another note: London does not use central heating or air conditioning. Yes, it exists. Yes, some buildings MAY tell you something is air-conditioned. It is not, however, the same as good old GE (or Scana) powered hot and cold. Our water heater ran out after 5 minutes. I literally had an instruction for visitors on how to operate our shower to maximise the hot water. The windows didn’t have screens but needed to stay open to combat mustiness (consequently we sometimes received unwanted visitors) Our little space heaters ran up our electric bill and threatened to melt the curtains. The washing machine took 2 hours to wash and 1.5 hours to steam (ahemm, dry) a load of laundry. We hung everything on chairs and hooks and in general lived in relative comfort. From my window a private garden replete with lawn tennis and benches could be seen and the happy screams of children echoed in my ear every Saturday at 9AM. It was a good year and you just…adapt. But we also had a lovely private street out of a Hollywood-movie idea of gentrified London living, a private park to shelter us from traffic sounds and less than an hour’s walk to downtown, Hyde Park, Harrod’s and the river. It’s a reward/sacrifice system that applies to most of our lives.

I’m still 10 minutes late everywhere in London because I never quite see the bird that jumps on the tracks that then fouls of the District Line for 6 hours coming. After taking on a job at a London consulting firm it was time to strike out once again for that Carrie Bradshaw charming one bedroom for little money in a great location flat.

I will spare everyone the details of flat hunting as it is a global blight. There should be a website somewhere, somehow, that allows you to type in EXACTLY what you want, how much you want to pay, when you want to move and they handle the rest from the leasing agreements to the packing to the schlepping. Oh the schlepping involved in moving without a car. I nearly rented one for the week until Dede pointed out the insanity (stupidity? mindlessness?) of driving and parking in London.

For those looking in London, there is a phenomenon called The Bedsit. A bedsit is just that. It may be a Murphy bed, or a pull-out couch (see Match Point) or a real bed and it might even have a kitchenette but there is always a trade-off. Kitchen but no bathroom. Shower but no toilet. Washing machine but no window. Bathroom but no kitchen. I think of bedsits as the depressing pinnacle of those who live in an expensive city, work long hours for decent pay and still can’t afford a pot to pee in. Imagine my (well, imagined) good fortune at finding a relatively cheap space with all necessary items and furnishings in a great neighbourhood that I love!

Casa di Wandsworth is actually in Fulham, close to the dodgy end but also close to the celebs. It is on the ground floor and may have some security issues (such as a broken front door to the building, locks a five year could undo, a walkway straight into my living room via the trash area and a general lack of bars or fences to ward off burglars. But it is painted-again blue, and it has a washer and its own bathroom.

But like any old and shoddily-maintained room, it has its quirks. One could start with the smell. The previous tenant was a smoker and the whole has an eau-de-decaying rot that makes the place seem a bit odorous. Buyers’ remorse definitely set in as I stood by the world’s smallest loveseat that reeked of wet dog and inhaled lingering tar and carbon dioxide and had the thought that I might have come to reside in the Bates motel. But Southern women are made of sterner stuff. I simply tore up my petticoat for rags and…wait, I mean I went on the Web and researched the best methods to remove cigarette smoke and stains, and then went to five different stores to gather the right collection of candles, Febreeze, Oust, bleach, ammonia, mops, buckets, sponges, essential oils and wine. For those interested you remove cigarette smoke in the following manner.
1. Don’t Move In
2. Repaint the Walls if possible and re-seal the floors. Use Kilz to counteract the base coat and keep the stains from showing thorugh the new paint. Repaint the ceiling as well. Re-wallpaper but strip off old stuff first.
3. Replace subflooring and carpeting
4. Get a HEPA filter but remember that you are putting a deep dent in the ozone layer (these things emit ozone apparently)
5. Scrub every single surface available with ammonia and water; eco-friendlies swear by lemon juice alone.
6. Burn candles
7. Burn incense
8. Get a shaman in to say a few words and burn sage
9. Take away curtains and soft fabrics and replace
10. Drink heavily and leave windows open as much as possible.

I clearly only performed seven hours of Steps 5-7, 9 and 10. So MOST of the smell isn’t noticeable and Mr. Smoker has been forever banished. I sneak into the hall every few days with a bag of baking soda and a can of Oust and go to town. The other tenants either don’t notice or soon expect an anthrax announcement.

Smell defeated and I’m learning all sorts of gymnastic movements to accommodate the reduced size. Here’s where I should probably mention that I pay my electricity directly into a meter. Like a parking meter. Like something out of the Victorian era meter with a turn handle. Upside: It means no monthly bills and the Halil meat vendor down the road knows me by name and starts unwrapping rolls of pound coins on my approach. Downside: Did I mention that the meter is in the world’s most inconvenient spot? Above the kitchenette and it is quite the process.
Ensure that the stove eyes are off.
Swing myself onto the counter but remain crouched as to avoid the long storage shelf above.
Manoeuvre into position with coin in left hand and right hand grasping the edge of the counter (I used to hang onto a coat hook but that broke)
Stick left hand through specially cut-out hole to reach up and manually turn meter into coin-receiving position, feed meter blindly, turn handle and hope it’s enough for the week.
Dismount and convince the neighbours below that I’ve fallen out of bed (oh wait for it).

There are some advantages, however, to living in a small space. The first is that I can dry my hair, reach over into the bathroom and sang a toothbrush or some product, then reach up to my bed to grab my cell phone or book from last night, then into my closet to get my coat, into the kitchen to make and grab my coffee, to the vanity to put on my earrings, the drying line to get my shirt and back into the bathroom to return products and in general tidy up. Now can you do all of that in a normal house?! I should point out here that the shower is quite nice. It’s heated at the site by one of those boxes so no fussing with hot water heaters. On the downside the landlord does like to shut off the rest of the hot water in the flat once a week for 36 hours but so goes – can’t have everything. Plus I tried my hand at DIY and installed roller blinds. Only one tilts a bit and I failed to get the ones that filter out light but they’re up and by God they’re staying up!

And yes, I said UP to the bed. It’s lofted. A bit lower than those lofts of university days (I stil have a few vague memories and scars of just not quite making it there a few times). It is a double bed, not that uncomfortable as I hear firm mattresses are good for the back, and within easy reach of my storage area where I keep extra books and beauty supplies. The downside is that I am, again, living in a loft which I haven’t done in the past 7 years, there is a distinct lack of a bedside table and changing the linens is, in short, a bitch. And do mind the step. I miscounted one morning and reached for the floor on the 2nd step instead of the 3rd. Instant split at 6.30AM. Ouch.

For all of this splendour I pay a nominal sum of £155 a week which includes council tax (see prior postings) and bills except electric. Work that out in UK housing to £750 a month, which puts me in the lower bracket of renters in London and average in NYC. Bet of all, the river is 5 minutes away, it’s a fast jaunt to airports, okay not FAST but faster, and multiple parks and a shopping centre with a Borders! Life is pretty good and I even have a roommate. But that’s for later.

Welcome to the Real World! May you find growth, prosperity and happiness in your new home :)

-AoY

2008-01-09T04:13:00.000-08:00

Ahem.

I shall creep into this post slowly after a long long loooong hiatus from blogging, partly due to fear of having personal things leak out onto the web, partly due to nothing super-exciting happening that's postable where I won't A) Offend something B) Call someone out C) Not potentially get in trouble at work and partly because, well, what if it's terrible.

But new year, new (sort of) blog and new determination. This, along with healthy living, not getting fired and having a successful first date are my New Year's Resolution. What're Ya'lls? Oh, and I'm going to attempt to only shop at charity shops, sidewalk markets and discounts - this may result in my not shopping for the next year.

Rather than go through the long and laborious list of 'Things That Have Happened' I'm honoring the tradition of the list (have ya'll noticed a fondness for lists in previous posts?). I also apologise not the next several posts potentially being out of date order. Either something is interesting or not and it might not necessarily have occurred yesterday. So, to channel some late night host that is currently on strike along with every other overpaid writer who whines but is in truth not a lifeblood of our economy (well, they are but might this be a question of society's values rather than a need to have good TV over say, good health care?-I refuse to answer this).
10. Graduated from LSE with Merit (sounds fancy eh) with a MSc in Criminology
9. Took a job at D*~*#** Consulting in London as a UK employee, so it's the ex-pat life for me for a bit
8. Had a few disastrous first dates and encounters that went nowhere
7. Discovered that I in fact have a larger volume of books than clothes
6. Refused to pay my TV license and as such, have no TV (or Internet but that's a monetary issue)
5. Moved to Fulham, near Chelsea, down by the river, in a studio
4. Discovered that my studio is quite small and comes with previous tenants
3. Gained 5 weeks of vacation, free health care (plus dental) and a new laptop for work
2. Have barely traveled (again ££££ issue but this changes) but did have a hair-raising ride through the Highlands with Mama, almost considered buying a bicycle and plan to rent a manual car (which I can't drive) very soon
1. Discovered that as A) an American B) Not enough of a Southerner C) A bit too pudgy for the hot clubs and D) one who took a job from some Brit am not so liked in the UK and beyond. Way to go USA - we're now pariahs/lepers/lichen/fungi/laughingstocks of much of the world. But am determined to change such opinions, but might avoid Pakistan on this year's travel list.

To avoid clutter in the inboxes, inevitable disappointment, and perhaps to remain below the radar, I promise to only send out a link every few months. As much as I'd love to post all day and spend hours combing the Internet for pictures and clips and witty banterings, I sadly still much work and this site is restricted from 8.15-18.30 (so just went there with the 24 hour time).

I further apologise to any men who read this. I'm trying to shoot for an impartial eye of the city but let's be honest, I'm not indulging in group steams or showers at the cricket club and ya'll aren't wearing panty hose to work (ahh, at least I hope not because you're screwed in Britain). Thus take heart that some posts might delight you and merely skip the ones with a booster shot of estrogen.

To add to the list of addendum, apologies and disclaimers, I hereby apologise for a distinct lack of salacious gossip mongering, explicit language (where avoidable) and situations (please don't make me spell this out). My parents and their friends likely read this and while yes, I know, you've seen and done it all (definitely learned that over Xmas break) if you want the full story, give me a shout. Let's let them preserve SOME illusions about kids these days :)

And lastly, spelling/grammatical errors. Look, I went to university. I majored in English. I am a Word Nazi (ask my former flatmate). I also speak British English now. I speak another language. I also work 10 hours a day plus 2 hours of commute in total, gym it up another 2 hours, sleep for 7, thus leaving 3 hours left out of 24. I tried to make every post pristine and lovely and look how many I posted in the past 1.5 years! Henceforth, shout at me when you spot then but other than that, just let it go already! When nominated for a Pulitzer I promise to do more than Spellcheck! Oh, and if you hate (parenthetical inserts), -dashes, (!), (...), (etc.) etc. bite me. Jane Austen has not called for her manuscript back :)

Have I now appropriately made this as un-fun and boring and anti-blog as possible? Good. Let's begin.

Happy 2008 Ya'll from London and beyond!!

2007-02-27T14:45:00.000-08:00

So today has been a little bit weird.

First, several people have noted, mentioned or tried (and they shall remain nameless) the "Master Cleanse" aka "Maple Sugar" Diet that Beyonce used to lose 20-22 lbs. in two weeks for Dreamgirls. Curious as to the ingredients and process I searched my beloved Google and found the following account which pretty much summed up everyone else's experiences. Gentlemen, I would not recommend looking at this site unless you have a secret yearning to 'cleanse'. Ladies, this should truly show you how stupid fad diets can be, not to mention what you have to give up to shed some water weight. I love her blog title "Yes, they're fake". He he.

http://yestheyrefake.net/lemonade_diet_cleanse_journal.htm

Onto to bigger and better things. Slept in a tad this morning and braved some drizzle to return a broken heel to Manolo Blahnik. It mysteriously snapped after going out to a club...no clue. So after a brisk 30 minute hike through Fulham towards Sloane Square, down Old Chuch Street where a very cute rare books store awaits my return(!), then down Church Street some more, past tons of huge fancy houses or flats, cross Kings Road in the fabric district until FINALLY the incredibly discreet Manolo Blahnik sign made no effort to entice customers. I rang the bell and attempt to shake off the wet as I was ushered into a tiny one room shoe case with quiet possibly the worst disply of shoes in the history of man. And then I meet her-the Bitch of the SouthWest. Mid-twenties a tad frumpy for her job title, I quickly explained that I needed a bit of help with a broken heel.
Her: (Interrupting) We don't repair shoes here but we can give you a name.
Me: Umm, okay, but I thought you could send them back to the factory if they broke. I bought these in the US.
Her: You'll have to send them to the US and they can help (WTF?)
Me: Umm, okay. Do you happen to have the number? The heel is totally snapped.
Her: (Gazing upon my pitiful broken 'sole') Well, they appear to be Manolos. (Ahem, WTF?)
Me: Yes, they are.
Her: (Interrupting) Did you put this sole on the bottom (yeah, I cobble in my spare time)? That's why the heel broke. Never do this (the guy at Harrods said the same thing).
Me: Ha, yeah-I worked at a law firm and was constantly running around. The leather sole kept wearing down (pardon me for not sipping tea in the back of my Bentley all day and having to work).
Her: Hmmmm. Well, here's the card. Goodbye.
Me: Thanks. (Laughing softly). You know your store is a bit hard to find for a first timer. I didn't realize Old Church Street ran quite so far (biotch).
Her: Hmmm (nose up in air, throat clearing) Well, we've been here for over 30 years so clearly someone people can find us.

Oh it was so on after that. Discretion being the better part of valor I scampered out the tail after noting that their spring collection was hideous (and not at all like those on the US web pages).

Called the NY Manolo store as indicated. Since I had bought them at Neiman's in ATL, was told to call them then hung up on. I'm starting to become less and less of a fan of overpriced fragile little flowers that fall apart. Neiman's put me right through to the manager, she called me right back and ym shoes shall soon be boarding a plane for Atlanta. God Bless the South!!!

Hmmm, what else happened? Took the psychometric tests for Deloitte. Yess, well we shan't mention them again. Went to the gym. And, drumroll please......

T and I get home from the gym and I sit down to check e-mail (it had been two hours, you never know if the Pope's written) only to hear "Oh, yes oh yes ohbabyohbabyyesyesyesYES OH OH GOD YESSSSSSS!" That's right, my randy wall neighbors were at it again. Firmly resolved to convince T of the monkey sex that happens AROUND THE FRIGGING CLOCK I whispered her in. Now, out of rspect for those in love or at least getting lucky, I'll usually put on some music (loudly at times to remind them of THIN WALLS). I wasn't prepared for T to stay guffawing and speaking normally! So now they know that we know. Stranger thing though-we don't ever seem to hear the guy. I hear him talking but maybe he's quiet at other times...okay that's a subject thread not decent for psoting to the general public. T and I are now betting on who it is that we've seen coming out of the building (no pun intended).

Samma arrives tomorrow for a week, Rach comes in less than two weeks and had the most fun with B's visit over the weekend! I think I'm on an endorphine high from running!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-02-27T04:12:00.000-08:00

No more uninteresting stories about hospital drama!

Who cares? No one is dying (well we all are TECHINCALLY dying but still…) Onto the fun stuff.

Here are some cool nights out and fun places to go:

December 2006:
Club Movida: T and I meet Michelle, her friend Andressa (another Brazilian model), her boyfriend of the week-cute UBS Swiss banker-his equally cute friends and others at Club Movida near Oxford circus. This was the infamous place for Jay-Z and Beyonce’s party back in the fall that we almost made it into…regardless, it was Andressa’s birthday so we went for dinner and then dancing. Hot Banker Boyfriend has hot French and Luxemborg friends but they quickly ditched us for more faux amies and we never saw them again. Ah, C’est La Vie! Now Club Movida gets written up as being quite posh but here’s the situation: balding middle-aged Middle Eastern or Russian businessmen flash around some cash and bottle sparkler-lit bottles of Champagne to entice the cheap skanky 20 something girls over to their table. We were invited but left after 1.2 minutes when it became clear that the other girls at the table had never even heard of a library or panties. I got a tad overserved and actually spent 18 pounds for a single glass of wine (I darn well had better been a bit tipsy to pay that much) Thankfully, I’ve learned that when the cash runs out, go home! Danced off some more wine then hopped in a cab home. But shock and Awe! T had skipped out earlier and I was pretty much left to my own devices. Now NORMALLY this would lead to a melt down and sheer panic at the thought of standing at a bar or dancing alone in a crowd, but Monsieur Chardonnay and I became close friends and suddenly everyone became much friendlier….I give it 2.5 stars, it was not Pasha but a fun crowd that we went with!

Cute Hotel In SoHo: T’s brother works for a movie company, Matchstick Productions, and they produced extreme skiing and other sport films. They had teamed up with Helly Hansen and had a movie premiere of their latest production in London! T’s brother got us on the list and we were to speak with “Raoul” at the door (I couldn’t remember his exact name but it was Raoul or Pavel or something tough and bouncerey). Imagine our surprise when we show up to a classy joint and “Raoul” the Bouncer is a 5’7 130 lb. bouncy little Englishman in a bright red sweater. It was like expecting the Hulk and meeting Tiny Tim. But he had a list and we proceeded to watch a really, REALLY cool skiing movie whilst splitting some Jack Daniels and Coke (it had been a long week). A little reception followed where SOME people had that extra glass of wine and got super-friendly with the locals (this was NOT me by the way and there were several people in our party but I’ll leave it at that!) but it was pretty low-key. Thanks James for the invite! I must pause to add that I speak with James quite frequently. Whenever we go out someplace cool T must share the love and therefore everyone now knows James. He is apparently due for a visit in April. Interesting….

Bar Not to Be Named: We went to an after-party at some pretty heinous places like club SoHo or Bar SoHo and a few others that were totally MTV tourist traps. Sketchy persons abounded.

The Elk: Fulham Broadway – Crowded, tends to play the exact same bad 80s music every single weekend. BUT it’s near home and the occasional fun people go there. Wait, this is EXACTLY how one could describe the DC prep bar scene….hmmmm maybe I didn’t move at all…..

Ice Skating!!!!!!! One of G’s friends got a house and had a housewarming. Only having met these people while in fancy dress (that would be Halloween costumes) I had some initial trouble reconnecting with former ghouls and vampires but everyone managed. After a light supper we headed out to South Kensington to go ice skating! I love to skate. Really, any sport out doors will do but ice skating is fun. Katarina Witt doesn’t want her moves back but I rarely fall unless pushed. G was not so lucky; an 85 lb. woman took him down with remarkable ease. To his credit she had initially almost hit a kid and he trying to be a gentleman. Southern manners will sometimes bite you in the ass! Now I hate to Stereotype-ok I really love it but it can so limit one’s grasp of the world-but Europeans just have their own method of exercising. It’s a parade of fashion, fashion mistakes, or the plain odd. Black socks with Pumas at the gym. Fashion outfits and denim skirts for ice skating. Because this was a night-time event, teens were on dates, lovers held hands and strands of girls refused to de-link at the expense of other skaters. I heard loads of Americans, easily identified by their North Face and baseball caps, but the euros have OUTFITS. One poor girl had opted to continue the cuffed short trend of the summer and added tights to the ensemble to presumably keep from freezing. Had these not been khaki summer shorts I might not have sniggered but paired with hose, a sweater, mittens and scarf-you asked for it dear. I can’t describe it. Come to Europe-there’s a different vibe. I will pause a brief second and mention the skates. Ouch Ouch Ouch. They clamped on like ski boots and were about as sharp as Bush’s retorts (and that’s from a sort of right tilter, depending…) But oh to be outdoors and not walking or running but moving about! Ahhhhhhhh

January 2007:
Aragon: Parson’s Green – For Michelle’s birthday we met her and friends at another friend’s engagement party (no clue who they were) at this awesome little bar/lounge. It’s like the stereotypical upscale-comfy place. Sort of like how Modern Perk is totally believable and everyone hangs out there for hours on end and no one ever sits on the orange couch. I digress. Wine was fairly cheap by the glass and pretty damn good. They have a food menu that sounds really tasty and much like their neighbor across the park, The White Horse, they have barbeques on Sunday afternoons in the summer. There were super-comfy couches and little cluster of tables, French bistro style-but there was no ‘list’ or reservations needed. Downstairs was a bit more of a ‘beir garten’ feel with more cigarette smoke, long sodden tables and benches and more beers on draft but still fun. We met and hung out with a bunch of Aussies, including one who had both eyes on T and was a doctor, we think. We went from there to Vin Rouge to the Elk and finally home! 8-10 pound mini cabs.
Hummus Brothers – I must pause and mention this little restaurant in SoHo. It’s a hummus bar but they have the best Greek salad ever (mostly cukes and tomatoes with some zesty dressing) but there are six different styles of hummus with white or really yummy brown bread (not exactly pitas or flat bread-in between?). Ed and I went in the pouring rain for dinner one night and we sat there so long we eventually received a complimentary dessert (some kind middle eastern flan-ish thing with a tiny drizzle of date syrup) and limitless hot water over mint leaves. Okay, so Ed maybe wasn’t quite as into the not water thing I soaked it up. They guys were really nice and it was definitely worth visitng. Plus they have ALOE VERA juice!!!!!! Oh it was soooo good-and the entire meal for two with salads and 2 mains with two juices was like 16 pounds on a Saturday night. Who can beat that??? I’m thinking there is a world of vegetarian I’m missing-must explore….

Now the Queen is in town. And by that I mean D’s emissary in the form of G’s mama. Catch all that? Miz Mary has come to town and brought my mail (and a pair of old sweats that I left) with her. Between her and Dede I was having quite the good week (despite obvious evidence mothers feel compelled to feed you actual food not from Pret or Tesco). She came for a week to see G’s flat and tour around London before Dr. Scott flew in to join her for a few days. It always makes me miss my parents to see other people’s parents but these four (with Cap’n Miles) are pretty good substitutes.

Joe’s: Great little lunch café Dede has taken me to before in South Kens right across the street from Joseph (hence the name-very clever). I love that area because there are just loads of cute shops and one can always wander up to Harrods.

Beach Blanket Babylon: Now I had heard about this place from G before and had wanted to venture over to Notting Hill and see if it was cool so when the invite was issued for dinner I hopped right on over. The inside of this place is like a treasure trove. It’s almost so random it’s too odd but somehow it works. It’s tucked on a spiffy little street off of Notting Hill Gate and while the exterior makes you think charming café the initial bar is more sleek Euro chic. A 9 pound glass of pinot later and I was the only person at the bar. Now, for all those restaurant designers out there I must say this: Having the bar right at the entrance is fine and dandy but when there are only five tables for 1.5 people and when the only side on which to stand makes you face backwards to the street, being the only person at the bar can feel a bit awkward. For AoY, make that 10,000% uncomfortable and antsy. Social anxiety strikes again! Luckily G & Co. (Skye also came-she’s a friend from Halloween/Ice Skating and super-nice) and we literally went into the bowels of the restaurant. I tried to sleuth and walk and from what I could see, there are little separate nooks and crannies for the VIP (or previously book large parties) next to Dada style fire places. Curio cabinets are stuffed with vintage jewelry, masks, and there are tons of harlequin colors and even a Byzantine-style mural with glass and filigree. Again, this sounds over the top but the restaurant is actually quite dark so it isn’t too much. We walked over a ‘plank’ with chain handles (seriously, it was two pieces of varnished wood between us and the next level and then down again. Villa Troncos? Anyone ever been there? The meal was beyond fantastic, if a bit slowly served by those not speaking much English, but it was a neat evening with lively conversation.

Jumeirah: Really chic hotel where Dede and I met for drinks. I bring up this evening only because it was the last night of the playoffs that decided whether or not the Colts would be in at the SuperBowl. Now, being so far from NFL action and not having Sky or a burning design to inhale cigarettes for four hours every Monday I’ve kind of missed the loop on pro sports this year. T and I were surprised when we saw the World Series being televised (okay, well that sucked so bad example). My point is that I had just BRIEFLY skimmed an article that morning about the history being made of 2 black coaches going to the Super Bowl. My thought: Who are the Bears and I really don’t like the Colts (Peyton Manning went to UT; they wear orange and some of my family went to Vanderbilt and I’m from SC; convoluted enough said). But I just figured it was old news and went to class. I’m not exactly sure why but the Miles’ had taped the game and knew absolutely nothing about it and had deliberately remained ignorant until they could watch it (Mr. Bill is quite the Colts fan-Peyton married a cute girl from his hometown-it’s just a Southern thing yall; deal). So we met for drinks until dinner, which ended up being takeaway at the local pub on Sloane and then I watched my first US football in FAR TOO LONG at their flat. I do feel a bit sorry for Mr. Miles because I’m sure all he wanted was some testosterone or a muzzle as Dede and I felt compelled to make the necessary comments from time to time (even if they weren’t about football). But the hotel was beautiful seemed like a great place to meet and greet sultans.

The George and Beyond! Lord was this a big night out. It’s worthy of it’s own entry but my parents might start wondering when exactly I go to class or work if everything is divulged :)
The George Bar: There is a private club in London, very swishy, called Anabel’s and the same guy owns another private club called The George in Mayfair. As it was more of a business dinner than social I met up with assorted surrogate parents, G, another friend from St. Andrews Ali and some of his friends. All had girlfriends and the few girls that did pass through the George that evening (at the risk of sounding like as ass, what 22 or 23 year old just GOES to the George-I wait until someone else appropriately takes me-yup, sounding like an ass) were absolutely stick-thin tres chic. SOME people had failed to mention this was a party dress event but thank God black pants never go out of style I guess, even if they are horribly boring…Anyway, I discover that Dr. Scott, when not saving lives and being brilliant, is even more brilliant and reads the same books D&D and Spence and I all pass back and forth amongst each other. If I didn’t already love the guy, bibliophilia does it! But lord, I can barely find time to read when I work and he’s a surgeon! Can’t imagine. So our slightly loud group partied on until they made the GRAVE mistake of shutting down the bar at the ridiculously early hour of eleven or so. The parents went home, me and one other girl journeyed on to the beginning of a long fun evening…

Kitt’s: Sloane Square – Thankfully one of our party was on the list so we didn’t have to queue for this very small underground club in Sloane Square. I’m sure it’s lovely but it did seem to be a bit packed with (and since the Brit word I REALLY want to use might offend tender ears) posers, albeit probably posers with money, it was smash in and fight to the bar. Keep in mind that everyone else was probably 5,6,7 drinks ahead of me (I had to finish a job app and didn’t arrive until 10ish) so I quickly tried to catch up, tried being the operative word. After some inventive wiggling and a few nudges I maneuvered up to the bar and waited. And Waited. And waited some more. I had owed G a drink but whilst waiting started chatting up a very attractive Scotsman from Edinburgh named Jason. While his rugged good looks might have appealed he was standing next to the biggest bunch of (I really hate that I’m keeping this pseudo PG-13) ‘loud obnoxious drunkards’ which ruined a bit of the appeal. I’m sure G coming up and giving me a friendly hug did not spur our tender romance although he seemed quite impressed with my ability to order three drinks at once (it’s a skill). Leaving Jason to the bar we soon left and went on to door Number 2.

Mamalanji: A favorite of the rich/upwardly mobile/chavvy or just interested, I went to this club back in the fall (with the two involved men who spent all night convincing us that their girlfriends wouldn’t mind) and really liked it. The bar is good, music good and the people actually danced. We didn’t have to wait long but things got a TAD spoiled when a few of the guys (we were split into 2 groups) got a little pissed over actually paying cover (I confess 3 drinks and I suddenly don’t mind covers but scream like hell if I’m sober) and then one made a bit of an unfortunate remark to the clearly homosexual money taker. This netted everyone the boot although I did get my money back. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been bounced by association. Moving right along…

151: Down the street is a dive bar popular with those native and posh to London. When I walked in I got hit with a very, very strange sense of déjà vu. It’s cavernous and filled with booths and dark corners and a bar and then it hit me…2005 London trip with Melissa, Pete and Dmitry and Pete (or Ben’s) friend. We got absolutely smashed on absinthe and came here before stumbling back to the friend’s place. Again, it’s not like these are on sequential evenings people!!!!!!!! Well, the clientele gets a bitch sketchy at 151 and it certainly helped to have five or so strapping lads ready to defend your honor from bar lizards. We stayed till closing before making a few quick stops that needn’t be mentioned and ending up back at D’s (friend of Ali’s) place. Since he is thankfully neither a serial killer nor homeless, Kate (the other lone girl) and I kicked D’s houseguest from the sofa bed and called it a night after making the boys an omelet. It was around 5 AM I believe. I found that the beauty of starting very late that night was that I just didn’t drink that much and remembered everything.

Oh, it turns out that D lives right behind Holy Trinity Brompton in South Kensington so it was thankfully a blessedly short tube ride home! Fun times were had but I can honestly say that the lifestyle of a jet setter would kill me.

General insanity ensues and the exploration of British life continues. Cheers!

2007-02-26T13:37:00.001-08:00

So here’s the update on the Knee situation:

1. Went to NHS (Ya’ll know).
2. Got X-rayed at Hospital that very day (again, nothing new).
3. Waited 14 days before hearing my results, during which time I graciously did not call between days 8 and 12 after hearing that Ms. London’s chest X-rays were perfectly normal. The result was that the report didn’t say much and my bones appear to not have any deformities. I immediately booked his next appointment as thanks, I actually was aware that my shin bone was not sticking out of my knee. Wait Time: One week.
4. Thursday Rolls Around: I plead a blonde moment and did not in fact write down the appointment time and just sort of showed up when I thought the woman had said. I was a couple of hours early but as I only live twelve minutes walking distance, I used it as an excuse to take a morning stroll, get the paper and stretch my legs. Returned at actual appointment time to find out that they were suddenly backed up. I was actually rebuked by the same nurse who had shunned me earlier for not answering my phone when they called to tell me to return immediately (Actually, had it turned off for class). After venting her frustrations as a second-class citizen (ouch, that was harsh but she was a real bitch and totally defers to the good doctor even when he is an ass) I said I had no problem waiting and settled down with my schoolwork. That’s the beauty of being a student. Endless amounts of enforced inactivity with no one to talk to provide useful study periods.
5. An hour after that and right at the clinic’s “lunch hour” (which is 4 hours long) I finally saw Dr. Ali. Now this man saw me once, spoke with me three times on the phone and-again this might sound a bit harsh-I’m one of two women not wearing headscarves and holding babies and am damn sure I’m about the only American. My point is that in some way I should stand out in his memory. Oh no, I was his ‘new patient’ who had been running late. Okayyyy, I’ll let that slide. When he asks me the problem I explain it’s a follow-up on my knee. He immediately begins write an Rx for an X-ray. I explain the “been there, done that’ phenomenon and he pulls up my chart for my left knee (it’s the right, but I guess he could be confused). After confirming the report, again, he just sort of sits there. I sit there. We stare. I bounce the ball back into his court by explains all of the symptoms, what MIGHT be causing it, where it hurts, show him. He nods, then takes a mobile phone call about the Mercedes he test drove yesterday and how interested he might be in buying the car for his wife. OKAY, WTF? I can feel a Southern-fried temper starting to build as his nurse breezes in, stands listening and throws some paperwork. After five more minutes, he looks back and says, ‘Ok, so your left knee? It still hurts? What happened?”
6. It is here that I discover a magic that females can employ at will, although this was a spontaneous reaction. Tears. Maybe it was the constant throbbing, lack of sleep, reaction to inflammatory meds (longer story), and the fact that I was slowly resembling a pudgy creature from The Night of the Living Dead but here was a DOCTOR who is wearing a $700 suit and tie and will barely poke and prod a non-female specific, non-sexual body part. Tears are magical. Suddenly he thought I should see a specialist who might be able to order an MRI (I actually told him that I thought it might be an interior MCL tear requiring an MRI to diagnose or arthroscopy to treat; he agreed). He then asked me if it was still hurting. Temper reared its ugly head. Maybe when I get pissed it comes out in liquid form with the ability to burn through sheet metal. Supremely frustrated but unwilling to use such an obvious ploy of crying I settled for the “Bravely Battle Back the Waterworks with a Quivery Smile and Sniffle.” Again, involuntary but it works every time. He wrote up orders for the nurse to send a letter to the hospital so it could go to the doctor and I could get an appointment. He then asked if he should mark it “Urgent” or if I was feeling better. I kid you not. I couldn’t make this up. I’m actually getting pretty steamed writing about it two weeks later! I managed a strangled ‘Yes’ and refused controlled substances for pain and hobbled along my merry way.
7. While waiting, and because “Dr.” Ali (I’m starting to doubt his qualifications a bit) was so concerned that I hadn’t done blood work for the NHS (I just had it done in July for the tonsillectomy and I’m pretty damn healthy) I toddled off to the hospital for their blood clinic. At least it’s a nice place and within walking distance. Nothing like the county hospitals of ER that I feared; more like Seattle Grace. For blood stuff you have to fast 12 hours beforehand. I was, of course, running behind schedule and didn’t even get there until 12 (water bottle exploded in my school bag prompting a race back to the flat for a hairdryer). The sign read 55-65 minute wait. I had pretty much figured and brought my school books again (I was getting a lot done this week) but after 45 minutes I found out that the wait time was more like 3 hours. Not great but what else did I have to do? I did start getting a bit hungry every time the snack trolley was rolled through the clinic doors. *This should make my odd Brit List but it’s just a Europe thing. Little men push around hand carts filled with various goodies and drinks including coffee and tea (usually liquor but none here) for purchase. By Hour 3 I was considering tackling Mr. Trolley and making a break for freedom. But I got a lot done. As I COULD drink water I downed a few liters and was just starting to squirm a bit when my number, 17, was called (told you they love their queues). It helped that seriously pissed people had stormed out and lost their place in line ahead of me. Blood letting is never fun but usually just closing one’s eyes and thinking of England helps. My phlebotomist was nice, if a bit too interested-I’ve never been hit on while being deprived of blood; it’s weird and makes you wonder why someone hits on patients while causing them pain…(ewwwww). Seven tubes later (what in the hell did Dr. Ali order? I’m gimpy, not dying!) I booked it for the nearest PowerBar.
8. I received a letter inviting me to call for an appointment with a specialist. Having just read an article on the Labour party’s freeze on non-emergency surgical procedures for three years, I panicked and have started making phone calls back to the US on the difficulty of being treated overseas or in DC (I have to go for a wedding). But my letter arrived and gave me a nifty password I must always use in booking appointments. You ready? It’s “Fang Panel”. I laugh every time I see it. How random!
9. Called the Hospital for an appointment. The next available one is July 6, 2007. Glad to know “Urgent” has such meaning to socialized medicine. I’ve been promised an earlier time due to Urgent status and am to date waiting on a call back. JULY??? Definitely heading to the US in this case.

So that’s the saga of living in a country with socialized medicine. I’ve always sort of thought it was in theory a nice idea and hey, I’ve seen a doc twice, had an X-ray and gotten four prescriptions (okay, one I was oddly reactive towards but we didn’t know that!) without paying a dime except for the scripts. I’ve come to believe that if you have LOADS of spare time, a wealth of patience, and a whopping dose of ability to self-diagnose and self-heal then you’re fine. I guess it’s good I won’t be using their pregnancy services ever over here. “Oh Mrs. So and So! We can get your in for that first pre-natal visit in 7 months or so! Until then just rest and enjoy!” I don’t think people with an expiration date should use public healthcare. Go private.

For now I’m totally milking this as an excuse to power walk instead of run and go to the gym three times a week instead of four or five. Blah blah blah, I still walk every freaking where in the city and hike up and down the stair wells, dodging away through throngs of confused people….

2007-02-26T12:52:00.000-08:00

And once again…we’re back!

This is not truly seven posts written in one day; I’ve just been a complete git and not posted for a few weeks and had some hard copy stuff I’m just transcribing. Pics will follow eventually.

Now before relating the last and odd series of events to occur, I must pause to continue adding to my list of ‘odd things about England’.

25(?) People are oddly confused about which side of the stairs and/or escalator to walk up/down/stand on. As I ventured off to Harrods to see a man about some shoes (to be expounded upon later in this story), I noticed that mass confusion ensues unless there are clearly delineated signs saying “Stand on Right, Walk on Left”. Now is this a function of so many tourists using mass transit, walking down city streets, going up and down the spiraling staircase of death at LSE, meandering along to the loo at bars and pubs? Could it be that no one who was actually RAISED on the ‘drive on the left side of the road’ system inhabits our fair city? Maybe, like the 98 pound Chinese girl who sits in the middle of a one butt staircase in the St. Philip’s Building every Thursday as we race to the 4th Floor for class, they have movement inertia. Regardless, I’ve developed a very good duck and weave strategy. I’ve found it SOMETIMES helps to plant your hand very firmly on the rail, perhaps lean a bit, and start trudging. Running while holding onto the rail and saying, “Oh my God, stop the Train!” might has good results although I’ve yet to seriously pursue this. Even the New York Stare (that glaring evil-eye that threatens a future stabbing in the next alley) isn’t enough at times. While I’d say 60% of confusion IS in fact a tourist problem or people like me who know better in theory but continue to use the right side of the stairs to ascend, just like driving, I remain firmly convinced that the Brits aren’t really happen living life in the left lane and that confusion/unhappiness asserts itself in their sort of deer-in-headlights snakey head-bobbing they do whilst they try to figure out whether to go left or right. For the 98 lb. Chinese girls of the world who just have no decency of giving way, I’m not hitting you in the head every week with my Longchamp because I enjoy it (okay, I do just a little)-move your ass to the chair sitting five feet away-it seriously is, she sits on the landing in the center. My larger friends have issues. I just sling a coat in her face. Go to the mattresses.
26 The Brits love numbering systems. All their world is a queue and god has given you all a number in it. There’s a numerical system at the Post Office, the bank, the blood clinic (later kids, will explain later), the doc’s office, the Career Services Center and I’m sure at the DMV. I support tickets and number systems. It keeps the world on a string, but I am still awaiting to be given a ticket to await the appropriate time to board my morning Tube.
27. Psychometric Tests – Again, more to this less but the Brits don’t ever take your resume or interview at face value. Instead you must apply, wait to be given the opportunity to take 40 minutes worth of verbal and math tests before ever seeing an interview. Or it’s two phone interviews followed up by 1 or 2 DAYS at a testing facility at an undisclosed location. That’s quite scary. At least interview me and hire me based on personality and looks-if I suck at my job, you only have your narcissist and elitist tendencies to blame!
28. Limescale-Yall still can’t solve. Me and my battered skin thank you. I live to see chalky white particles floating up in my water or hot water that remains milky or “fur” in the tea kettle, perma-scrum in the shower and the most aggressive mold growth known to man. Stop bickering over Scotland. You have bigger problems.
29. Last one (if I ever repeat an oddity, call me on it; I can find more). You must buy your ‘seats’ for the movies. Not just tickets, but you must actually book where in the theater you wish to sit and someone will either show you the way or you must find it yourself and God help you if you screw up. There are Premium seats that cost extra. I noticed this when G* and I went to see “Blood Diamond” the other night. Awesome, AWESOME movie-Leo, you are forgiven for Titanic, finally. Sorry, have a pleasant interlude where Leo expresses his gratitude for forgiveness…anyway, rather than locate our seats up in the rafters we sort of snuck in and to the side (I was 4 minutes late, as usual). We both noticed our knees being chewed upon by the seats in front but ignored it until the movie began. I think G had either run a marathon or was avoiding becoming a eunuch but I had no issues executing a straddle and jump to the “Premium” row behind us. A scuffle broke out during the previews because one group was in another group’s chairs. OH NO YOU DIDN’T! It’s a movie, folks. Relax, enjoy, eat the shitty popcorn (old gum, best described as old reheated gum collected from the chairs after the last movie).
30. Pay bills at bank. I actually love this. I paid my Council Tax (the tax to live in a flat and pay rent) by handing a slip of paper to a teller. No muss, no fuss, no stamp required.

Hmm this list went on longer than expected. Okay next entry has updates!

2007-02-13T15:06:00.000-08:00

So I am attempting to join the 21st century and upload a media file with video and sound to this blog. Hmmm, since more than 3 pictures in a post han't been working so well this might take a bit but hang tight, tech genius at work here.

In other technical news, the AoY has bought a printer. A printer with the fancy Ethernet card thing for wireless printing. Gumtree.com is a marvelous Kiwi (erm, New Zealand) invention to counter craigslist.org (my first love of online apartment hunting). So I trekked all the way to ACTON TOWN (That's Zone three which is like driving to McLean, Rock Hill or Irmo depending on who is reading this. If you are from Texas I just don't know!) and met Tom, the rather cute Aussie who works in hotels. He assured me it worked, even threw in some nice cords and found a shopping bag to haul it all another 30 minutes on the tube. All this for 35 quid?!?

I must think of a name for my new love. This is the end to running downtown to LSE or being lowered to hit on the creepy Italian/French/Albanian/Armenian guy at the Princess Hotel across the street. I must, in an ongoing effort to prove that the UK is not quite up to US standards at time, that Kinko's is neither 7 days a week nor 24 hours a day. Nothing 24 hours is actually 24 hours but that's another issue...back to printer!

So, the Epson EPL-6200L is SUPPOSED to be reliable. Rave reviews on the Internet, easy to assemble, a bit boxy (as I ended up carrying it in my arms the whole way 'boxy' is an understatement). I waddled home, and not due to a liter a water sloshing about my insides, and put on my super-smart-IT-I-can-do-it-sans-man hat. Ladies, this is the hat that inevitably involves tears, a phone call to your ex or daddy and more money spent on repairs than the original estimate. Said hat is often donned by men refusing to read directions or hire a professional but women will sometimes fall under the illusion that they can do it all (and we can, just not rodent disposal). So without a man, a manual, or a muse in sight it was time to figure out how to set up a UK printer through a wireless BT hub to a US computer. Here is how:

1. Go to the manufacturer's website and download the specs and instructions for that printer.
2. Print a test page from your new printer and determine if it can go wireless.
3. Pour the first glass of wine.
4. Connect the pretty cables and sort of close one eye and hope that your laptop sort of automatically recognizes a new printer in the room.
5. Refer to your properly downloaded manual which they suggest you print out for clarity-hmmmm.
6. Try the old Plug and Play via Windows to see if Bill Gates has made connecting wirless devices idiot-proof.
7. Order Thai food as an excuse to have two bottles of wine sent to your door in less than 30 minutes-ha! That didn't require a man or a printer.
8. Muck around in the printer settings, maybe unplug and re-plug the cords. I find a little love tap to be helpful right about now. Just a little nudge to prompt good behaviour from Stewie (how's that for a printer?)
9. See if the delivery boy knows anything about printers and overtip him in case he's bluffing.
10. Just start googling 'how to set up wireless printer'
11. Determine that you need the printer's URL or IP address (I actually knew that but I couldn't find it). Now might be when you start thinking of all those trusty man friends and IT gurus that you should have dated back in college and how liberal arts degrees are worth nothing and how you are doomed to serve fries forever...
12. See that your downloaded manual requests that you refer to the original manual. Grrrrr...
13. Repeat Plug and Play, love tapping, glass refilling.
14. Find some tiny little unlabeled button near the Ethernet card installed at the back and see your printer spit out the much-desired URL, IP and other pertinent information. Basically, luck and happenstance have trumped logic, rational and skill (and this is why women shall rule the earth!)
15. Celebrate with a nice glass of wine after successfully installing your new printer-you have triumphed. The empty bottles were clearly consumed by some depserate person without a clue of how to operate electronics.

Now that Stewie is up and running, he decides, in typical evil-machine form, to only print a single page at a time. Just like a man, he can't multi-task, he jams himself up after a single accomplishment and then just gets all bent out of shape over multiple commands. This is an issue to be resolved at a later date...
****************************************

On the NHS front, four weeks after an initial consult and two weeks of waiting on X-ray results, my shine bone is officialy NOT sticking out of my skin and I won't die. Thanks, thanks for that. I am now going back again to the same doctor who can't remember why I went in the first place to try for an MRI. Free health care is slowly working its way up my shit-list. Oh, the doc did tell me upon one of my many calls for results that Ms. Hannah London (me, apparently)'s chest x-rays were perfectly clear and everything looked normal. Now, enourmous issues of malpractice and privacy violations aside, because I quickly tried to tell him I wasn't NOT in fact this mystery woman, I was chastised for being impatient. True that may be but I was told to call back in 3-4 days, then 7-10. So I shall call starting at Day 7 until they get it all together. :)

2007-01-29T15:46:00.000-08:00

NHS is My Homeboy!

Sunday remained calm-just the usual sleep a bit late, read and study, talk to the parentals, etc. with a little twist. Good old G* proposed a movie so we took in the 8:00PM James Bond. Maybe it's his eyes, maybe it's his ability to correctly perform life-saving apparatus and then resume poker play but Daniel Craig is H-O-T. I never 100% got into Bond (particularly some of the last ones) but I think there might be a Bond marathon in the future...

Today was D-Day. Doctor's appointment (to see a real doctor!) followed by haircut (traumatic event for everyone). Now, one MIGHT think that if one is going to the doctor for knee pain and general misery, it MIGHT not be advisable to RUN to the clinic despite being a bit tardy. Sigh...I'll learn eventually, I suppose. I paid for a five minute jog with 20 hours of agony and throbbing. Way to be, way to be. Thirty seconds with the dorctor netted instruction and a perscription to go to the local hospital for an X-ray. Hmm, good results and still no cost at this moment. But my last trip to the emergency room (Sudafed plus glass of wine=speedball) for an emergency took 6.5 hours so God knows how long this could take...

Off to the salon to see Jaye. Two hours, an undisclosed sum and brown dye later it's off to the hospital for the wait. Wait, schwait-I was in and out in under 15 minutes. No insurance, no appointment, just stroll in, head to the X-ray lab, hand over Rx and Bob's your uncle (actually Bob is one of my uncles but I digress). While no one came screaming out of the exam room after viewing the films they did cluster five people around them at one point. Not good, not good. I did ask them to ask if I had some large tumor I should be worried about and thank God it wasn't that (unless they're lying...) So now it's the waiting game until Friday. I think I've figured out NHS. If you have LOADS of time and no committments and are EXTREMELY flexible(ahemmm....) then it's fine and dandy. Otherwise, it could be a nightmare.

Nothing else too new to report, Nite Ya'll!

2007-01-28T05:44:00.000-08:00

Return to the Ministry of Sound

So...Number 10 happened at the doctor but I couldn't find a kneecapper willing to work for free. Thus a return on Monday to the clinic will be necessary to 'maybe' see a real doctor. I must return again to the British concept of 'Open 24 Hours' as this clinic claims to be. Now if you call to become a new NHS patient you must be there between 3-4PM with attendant paperwork. No problem. What they don't tell you is after walking 15 minutes to get there (or bum knee no less) you will find the clinic closed for lunch between the hours of noon and 4PM. Hmmmm, call the office-goes straight to voicemail. Ring the buzzer, no answer. Well, shit. Now why would a nurse insist upon an arrival between 3 and 4 if they don't intend to be there? Maybe this is the way Britain avoids having new healthcare patients. The hours on the door read: 'Medical Centre-Open 24 Hours. Surgery Hours (that's doc's hours to ya'll): Monday-Friday: 9-12, Closed for Lunch 12-4, 4-6PM except Wednesday when the office closes for the day at noon.' I must ask, CAN I PLEASE HAVE A JOB THAT TAKES A FOUR HOUR LUNCH BREAK EVERYDAY!!!! Not to mention I can bill myself as open 24/7 when in fact I'm not (see an earlier post about Tesco).
A limp and a hobble back through the gay district (didn't know Earls' Court has one) where piercings, coffee poets, erotic art for il uomo (man) and two gay clubs surround the corner I returned a bit before 4 and just leaned on the buzzer. The woman who let me in didn't respond to my slightly sarcaastic observation about making appointments between 3 and 4 (I was hungry, pissed, cold and in pain-manners were slipping a tad). Filling out paperwork in Britain is actually quite easy. To become a registered member in the NHS all I needed was name, address, number, a self-survey on famil problems and any old NHS doctors I visited. I was glad to have brought Sudoku and a book as post-Mickey Mouse paperwork it was time to wait for an hour and 15 minutes.
Now, social liberalism aside I had heard jokes and rumours about who exactly uses NHS and what kinds of doctors practice for national healthcare. A quick check on docotrs in my area confirmed that Indian, Muslim and other Asian nationalities tend to dominate the field. One friend said he always had Polish doctors but that must be for the East End. The two receptionists/nurses/paperwork ladies were headscarved and I appeared to be the only Caucasian waiting. It's like the DC Hospital at midnight I guess! The ebst moment came one Nurse A apparently didn't do something when she was supposed to and the two of them went at it. I'm all for relaxing of barriers whilst working but these two were bitching and sniping loudly for a good ten minutes, an event made even funnier by the partition which only allowed two bobbing headscarves weaving back and forth like pecking hens to be seen by the patients.
I finally was taken down scary dark stairs (it puts th lotion in the basket) which my knee found every so entertaining so a nurse could ask five questions and lead me up the stairs again. I found that she did in fact have a sense of humour when the weigh and measure portion of the program came around and I asked if I could remove my shoes, coat, sweater, earrings, underlayer, possibly cut some hair, my watch...I did find it odd that in no way would she touch me, even to take my blood pressure. I had to measure my own height and slip the cuff on. Fine and dandy but it's hard to get the height level thing straight without doing some major contortions! She did seem to find it unbelievable that I didn't smoke. In Britain I suppose this is cause for celebration but trust me, after 6 months of second-hand poisoning, you'll never want one, ever.
Her final diagnosis-Come around on Mponday morning to see the doctor and I have to get blood work done on Friday. Wait, back up a minute. Beg pardon and all that but NO. I had enough blood drawn for my tonsillectomy. Apparently, e normale to become a new patient. This free healthcare had better be worth it!

So our illegal squatter's going away party was last night in Central London. I met Ed out for sushi prior to this and we had a rousing evening of 'choose you fish from the revolving tray' and job seekers advice. I usually enjoy Yo Sushi but to the tune of 10 pounds I wasn't even remotely full. Ed ate three times that (but he is the definition of a human garbage can). From there it was to the Walkabout for some Snakebite and celebration before...a return to the Ministry of Sound.

For those keeping track T and I visited the Ministry of Sound back when we first showed up. I was a bit overserved at the time so details are hay but I remember paying 25 pounds to get in (50 bucks), standing in a group of Brazilian models (friends of T's) and felling oh so out of place, and waiting ages at a bus stop. Now the AoY doesn't normally do the trancey crazy clubs but promised free VIP entry who could refuse? We took a tube this time, walked around sketchy Elephant & Castle for a bit before figuring out where to go, went through the metal detectors and bag check (this is where not being sober helped last time-I probably would have left if I had realized this was involved) and entered bedlam. The problem with being sober is that you realize how crazy the place is. I stood around, and not being able economically or calorically afford another drink I ordered good old club soda and got tonic. Hmmm, another culture exchange netted me 2 pounds worth of old soda water from the pour (it's the US of A this stuff is free!!). A few songs, a lot of people watching as this is one of the trashier clubs in London and Ed, a few people and myself decided to call it a night. No one wanted to splurge on a cab so we waited Outside for 40 minutes for a night bus to take us to another night bus. And there we met quite possibly the dumbest girl from Australia and perhaps the World.
Girl: Oh, are you and American? (to ed)
Ed: No, I'm Irish
Girl: Are you sure you're not 1/2 American?
Ed: No, but I was born in South America.
Girl: Oh....., where?
Ed: In Brazil, San Paolo
Girl: Is that the capital?
Before Ed can answer...Girl: Oh no, Peru is the capital!
Her Friend: Idiot, Peru isn't the capital of Brazil
Girl: That's right, it's Chile right? No, it's defintely Peru I know this!
Ed and I exchange pained looks...Ed: No, Peru and Chile are countries, the capital of Brazil is Rio de Janiero
Girl: No it's so Peru right?
Ed: No.
Girl: But what's the captial of South America?
Ed and again exchange the look: Umm, South America is a continent.
Girl: I know, but so's Australian and we have a capital do you not know you're own capital?
Ed: Yes, S.A. has lots of countries that have their own capitals, there is no ONE capital for the entire continent.
Girl: It's Peru, or is Brazil the capital?
Sigh.......
This girl later went on to not know what college was (only had heard of university), never heard of DC, couldn't grasp that since I was was the EAST Coast that did not include, Los Angeles, California, San Francisco or Mexico. I swear this happened. Had never heard of Washington, DC (which IS the bloody capital), or Florida, thought New York was in California and the list continued...Ed and I couldn't decide if we were more appalled or amused by this chick.

Bus ride of nearly two hours was fine. I did meet an elderly French/Arab man named Aran on my trusty N97 bus who invited me to come to the Gloucester Road underground to a casino with his brother-in-law and some friends. As he was 75 if a day I wasn't TOO concerned but I'm not too stupid either. He gave me his number in Paris (he's a businessman there) and invited to show me and my friends around the city when we came to visit. Hmm, I think I'll stick to the Lonely Planet. Part of me is willing to do a bit of Google stalking to see if his cover as te owner of an interior design house is true, but I explained that my boyfriend was sick in bed at home and we had church the next morning (I would have whipped out a nun's habit had it proved useful) etc etc etc. Chelsea (our third roommate for the moment) came home at 5 and lights out as usual...

2007-01-25T19:50:00.000-08:00

Oh we're off to see the Wizard/Doctor/9-Year Old posing as a professional....

The knee, attached to the infamous ankle, has gone on the DL list. Three weeks preceded by four years of persistent, nagging pain have driven me into the waters of NHS. I've tried the following: Every OTC pain pill, Percocet, heat, ice, stretching, mumbled incantations, water therapy, massage, light exercise, no exercise, chanting to my chakras, yoga, religion, liquor (internally and topically), sun, compression, wall sits, and finally...praying for the odd umbrella to knock the darn thing out from under me.

I've come to associate knee pain in three ways:

1. The constant nagging ache that makes one feel aged and keeps you awake or restless at night and shimmies a bit from the left to the right.

2. The sharp acute pain caused by: high heels, mis-stepping, sudden knee bends, doing hydraulic-like maneuvers on the dance floor (three vodka sodas and suddenly you can DANCE), and jogging/running. This is more of a sickening nauseous pain that may be accompanied with a series of pops and hitches within the joint. It's possible to have said bastard joint fold up underneath you at the worst possible moment (like climbing a Mayan ruin in a jungle). Such acuteness will confine itself to the patella or pick a side. Popping and clicking comes from within.

3. The hot tearing pain accompanied with exercising-you recognize that you are probably doing some kind of damage but you needed to crouch down and get the mail, you just didn't realize that you might not want to get back up. An Advil dousing will generally numb this to a faint cry to 'STOP' and is easily ignored in the pursuit of showing all that being in your mid-twenties does NOT mean it's time to slow down! Pain will generally radiate down the side or back.

Now, the NHS has been good to me so far. I have a few great fears for the morrow.
1. I will be turned away despite my supporting documentation and assurances by the clinic nurse that the ONE HOSPITAL in my district will take on new patients (if you wish to explore the NHS system, go to their website-it's red).

2. The doctor I see will refer me to a specialist who will see me an do and MRI in eight months.

3. The doctor will proclaim that ice and the Euro equivalent to Advil is all they can offer and I'm screwed.

4. He suggests a diet-I might literally go for his throat (wait for upcoming posts with that one)-or he suggests more exercise to work through the problem.

5. He doesn't speak English.

6. He/She (sorry, don't want to be sexist) agrees something is wrong but thinks that America will be the best place for diagnosis (an I'll pay for a ticket how....).

7. They want to operate right away and lead me to the bearest butcher shop (okay that's a bit gross but if you ever saw Saw or Hostel you would understand).

8. He/She refers me to a PT who will have a slot open in 5 months.

9. I have to pay.

10. I don't see a doc at all but a student nurse.

If #10 happens I'm asking the first brute stranger to kneecap me so I can just go to Emergency or MediVac to Charlotte.

Needless to say, AoY has NOT been in the best of moods. The weather has been lovely (a bit brisk and we even had snow once!), people are bustling about and it's the perfect day for a run through Hyde Park but NOOOOOOOOOO, I have to power walk like a Floridian retiree replete with fanny pack (which my Brit friend informed me was NOT a good thing to say here-I forgot due to pain).

Odd happenings in London today:

1-The Tube seems to have a lot of fires and people caught under the tracks. In DC this made headlines but Londoners seem just impervious to the thought of a dea body by Upingham.

2-T and I saw a cross-dressed man with either the biggest drag queen bra ever or four canteloupes up under a bright blue Naughty Nurse Uniform waiting for the train at Westminister. A very GQ banker literally turned around to stair at the spectacle behind him.

3-My 'D' key is very sticky and difficult to type with. There are millions of words requiring the letter 'd' and there are no computer stores to be found in London, just Surrey.

4-I saw Little Red Riding Hood. Seriously, she had on black tights, red patent leather pumps ala Dorothy, a bright red dress and her cloak (trust, it was no coat) was navy with a crimson interior complete with red-lined hood. I almost applauded.

5-British people will in fact pay more attention to Hilary's running announcement and Bush's visit to DuPont and will demonstrate and pontificate on these issues much more than their own F*d up problems. Maybe it's all misdirection...

6-When you finally get it together and go to a damn doctor your problem area will suddenly 'heal' itself and you magically gain five pounds right before you step on the scale, damnit.

Fact of the Day: The Royal Bank of Scotland, which issues it's own Sterling notes, is the only UK bank to issue 1 pound notes. Okay Americans, we're a bit odd with our $1-which, I hate to tell you, is slated to be slowly phased out beginning soon.

2007-01-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

Sea Island (the above is a picture of the Cloister, not anyone's house!)

Again, paradise, plain and simple. It's amazing how many people have never heard of Sea Island. Mention that the G-8 Summit was held there and Davis Love III is the golf pro will NOT help the situation. I will confess that I had never been until college and HOLY COW is it fancy. Dinner on Saturday night requires tuxedo, Bingo is a coat-and-tie affair and designers abound. BUT, in true Southern style, you can always run into the most chic of men and women bumming around in flip-flops, boat shoes and ratty beach clothes when not dressing to impress.

The saddest part of the trip...I missed Bingo! For those not in the know, Bingo is the most fabulous of traditions. Spencer and Hope introduced me to this and it's a family affair. Daddy continues to protest MIGHTILY (I'm too old for this; it's a kids thing; it's too late; I have a tee-time, blah blah blah). I just tell him he's practicing for taking the grandkids to which he replies-"I'll never have grandkids-I have a three pound dog and that's it for grandkids." Sheesh-let me finish graduate school first :) Besides, Bingo rocks. Alcohol is VERY MUCH a part of the evening and grown-ups may be seen knocking them back as their kids compete for decent cash rewards. I once won a bottle of champagne at the Forest Lake Club bingo game but I was 9 so they passed it along-sigh...

Sorry, Sea Island Bingo! It's run by 'Billy Bingo' who is an institution himself. It's probably a sad reflection on the length of time my stepsibs have spent down there but Spence honestly knows EVERY SINGLE PHRASE to be uttered. 'Couple of Ducks' (22), 'Thirty-two skadoo' or something, 'my old football jersey number' 'a couple of good looking legs' (11), and the list continues. Yes, this should be annoying but it's just charming and good family fun. Apparently Barb almost won the jackpot (SO CLOSE!!!!) the best part is the milk and cookies set up for afterwards. Not to obsess on food but it brings back fond Ilahee days....

Having missed Bingo fun I settled for Debi Boot Camp. Now D is a fitness marvel. that woman is *roughly* twice my age (I must be 15) and could kick my ass all over the gym and back. Every morning (thanks jet lag), I woke up just in time for coffee and workout. Luckily my knee popped out and prevented any more strenous workouts after Day 1-such a shame. Actually it totally sucks but what can you do? On the flip side of Debi Boot camp was Camp Gilbert. Barb and RC acted like kids at sleep away camp. There was tennis, golf lessons, shooting lessons, coffee at the veranda, nature walks, sauna, property drives-they had a little intinerary and entertained themselves!

The best part of Sea Island-first time to see Bard and RC, the rents, H&S, AT&T (brother and wife), E-beth (Spence's girlfriend) and myself all in the same location since my brother's wedding. We are nothing if not a loud group and mutal great fun was enjoyed over copious amounts of champagne and nippy boat rides (Dad's little gift to himself). I hated only being there for a few days but it was worth it for family time and to celebrate Dad's B-I-G 6-0! He he he. I might be out of the will now.

As with all Southern things, God forbid we did not stock enough food in the pantry to feed Patton's entire army plus the enemy. Dad must have some latent and hidden love for red velvet cake because not one but TWO appeared over the weekend. For the unknowing, Red Velvet cake is a grand old tradition with the following ingredients: shortening or butter, eggs, cocoa (or not), LOTS o' sugar, red food dye, milk and some vanilla. It's a double-layered cake with a cream-cheese icing. WARNING: If you are diabetic or have thought of becoming one, don't even be in the same room. It will kill you. Steel Magnolias had a fabulous Red Velvet Cake in wedding scene. The groom's aunt made the groom's cake in the shape of a gray armadillo with the red interior-yick!
The cutest thing about my dad, other than his penchant for 'pearls of wisdom' and self-eprecating humor (we're nothing alike, I swear) is his embarrasment at being the center of attention (see, clearly not my dad). We went to Ocean Forrest for his birthday dinner and I think he was honestly a bit steamed when we all sang to him. He HATES opening gifts in front of a crowd and likes watching other people have fun around him. Hmmmmm, apple, tree...one of the best things about my family is their ability to totally ignore his wants and wishes and make as big of a damn fuss as they wish.
Another great thing about Dad is he puts up with hyper-active, aimlessly wondering daughters. I can't golf for shit and am in fact banned from the course unless I get better so Dad and I find other ways to bond. We both love the water but with 8 houseguests and a new boat, it was like the SS Minnow everytime we left the dock. We sort of developed a 'coffee-talk' over the holidays because jet lag had me hopping at 7:30 and Daddy has tee times. It's funny the things that always stick with you because parties, dinner and presents can kind of fall away after a while I can always remember things like sitting by the deck and chatting, or walking around 'Dad's Domain' as I refer to his backyard (he has continual ideas on how to fix lawn problems-they mostly work) and talking, or watching the golf, bouncing along the roads at Milaree. Sometimes it's a bit of awkward silence as if we both have to remember what the other person is actually interested in talking about (!) but there it is. This trip was an hour by the pool in the sun.

Although the visit was WAY too short and I didn't visit the Crystal Burger near I-95 (probably the reason I'm still here), it was a fabulous 48 hours of catching up, long beach walks, great conversations and a return to the good life. I found myself DESPERATELY hanging onto that as I boarded the plane back to England. To recap:
1) At check-in, LaShonda, in her 300 pound glory, sheparded me over to the domestic flight self check-in. In an attempt to follow the rules, I pointed out that I was 'international'. actually, first I said, "I'm flying to London." this brought, "London, KY? This way." "No, England, I'm flying internationally, out of the country, not in the US of A." She took this to mean i was confused about my destination and tried to 'help' me through the process. I had wanted to shoot for an upgrade but LaShonda was not having me miss out on the learning fun of using self check-in. Now, I generally try to avoid being a snotty twenty-something and point out that I have YEARS of solo travel under my belt to odd destinations and can, in fact, operate a check-in machine. This was not to be one of those times. First I insert my credit card, bring up my flights, which she referred to as: "Oh, is THAT where you are going? You should have been in that line (which she had yanked me from)." No shit Sherlock. Sorry Mama, but I was leaving a fabulous weekend and boring a wicked long flight back to a cold country only to return in three weeks on another long flight. I was NOT in the mood to suffer fools.
2) After nearly canceling my reservation, she starts picking out my seats. In the middle. Is she crazy? NO ONE wants the middle seat, let alone on an 8-hour flight. Before I could change back, my original seat was gone and I had to settle in what I later found to be a partially reclining adventure directly in front of the toilet area, both of them. One of which broke halfway though the flight but people continued to use (I found this out from a flight attendant later).
3) I hate connecting. It's irritating and avoidable at all costs. Rushing through Charlotte, I climbed into my booster/smelly seat and prayed for at least an empty row. This hasn't happened yet and why whould today be an exception? My seat companion for the evening was a gentleman who rivaled George Foreman in size and Muhammed Ali in speaking ability. He hailed from an African country but I couldn't sneak a look at his passport long enough to determine exactly which (I'm getting good at 'Guess the Country'). Without so much as a 'Hello, I'll be squashing you all night' he set arms akimbo. Okay, Arms Akimbo in a small area equals he managed to deflate a breast and shove me up against the window, where I remained contorted and highly torqued for 7.6 hours. The loo situation didn't help and I must say that I was in quite the piss-ripper of a mood somewhere over Iceland. His left leg invaded my leg room so I was accordioned up around his limbs like a highly pissed Slinky. Plus he snored. Plus he never got up so I could get up. My knee started seizing somewhere past Iceland and I was cramped, in pain, twitching and damn near ready to go vigilant on his ass.
4) The man in front of me, one of a reasonable height, had no seat partner! He did look back at my predicament as he lazed across 24A AND B and sort of gamely grinned as he levered the seat in front of me into a full tilt before lowering his eyeshades and snoozing happily into the Land of Nod. I almost let me inner four-year-old yank on his seat back and slap my tray table. With my range of movement now totally restricted I sat back and 'enjoyed' the flight. Somewhere over the beginnings of England I finally jammed an arm into my seat companion in a bid to sit up. He looked shocked but I persevered and reclaimed two inches of space. VICTORY IS MINE!
5) I got off the plane smelling like broken toilet and unwashed strange man rather than Dove and Lolita Lempicka. I was waiting for SAS to pick me up but for their sake Customs was a breeze. A hop, skip and a train to a cab ride home later I 100% crashed.

Sea Island-AWESOME; flight back-not so good. I'm still reinflating my right side and the knee has taken on it's own genre of pain but who can be blue with a great house and famly to go home to!

2007-01-24T13:26:00.000-08:00

So there are the standard 'You Know You're from NOVA When...' lists (or insert suburb, city, state) that indicate a high level of familiarity with the level of strangeness in your associated area. South Carolina, in all its blessed meglomania, has lists for the Upstate, the Midlands/Sandhills, and the LowCountry/Charleston-we're just that big and important (and shock and awe, we like breaking apart form the mainstream!) But at the state level things seem to disentegrate into the lamest and low common denominator of what it means to be from SC. Phrases such as 'You know someone who works at Hooters/You vacation at Myrtle Beach' (oh GOD, how tacky). Therefore, in the spirit of state improvement, the following is a list of when, perhaps, certain people know they are from South Cackalacky. I tried to do Charlotte, NC but could only get as far as 'You Know You Are A Lifelong Visitor of the QC When...'

1. Weddings, funerals and vacations are planned around football season (I say GAME, you say COCKS). God help you if this is forgotten.

2. You 'have/will abandon' or 'have been/will be abandoned by' your significant other in their time of need (labor, sickness, moving) because it was the first day of dove/deer/turkey/duck season.

3. Gone to the Carolina Cup? Please. You know what year it was by the outfit, the hat, your parking spot and just how intoxicated your parents or parent's friends became at their parking spot. You might have even been placed in the 'jail' (rope corral) or fallen in a Port-a-Potty.

4. You've been to Fort Sumter for a school trip and know the purpose for the big stone blocks littering the streets of Charleston.

5. Your first fake ID either came from the Underground in Atlanta or older sibling.

6. You shop in Charlotte unless it's a trip to Hotlanta, but Charlotte's better.

7. You understand the intricacies of selecting the best Waffle House.

8. You understand that driving into Georgia with SC tags is like flashing 'Open Season' to all troopers. Crying will not work in Georgia.

9. You seen the Grey Man and know about Alice's ring.

10. Pawley's Island hammocks make life worth living.

11. You attend First Week

12. Your first liquor drink at a bar came in a minibottle

13. At one point in time your job/life/in-laws hung on whether you supported USC or Clemson.

14. You met Strom.

15. You've been to at least three weddings of your peers before turning 22, or sent a gift if it was a football weekend.

16. You understand that flying anywhere means a connection through Charlotte or Atlanta.

17. You know people that never really leave the state, except for away games.

18. Church league basketball is a raison d'etre.

19. You went to one of the following: Camp Greenville, Tonawandah, Illahee, Camp Rockmont, Greystone, Sea Gull, Seafarer, Falling Creek, High Rocks, Kanuga, Merri-mac, Hollymount.

20. You went to a camp dance and perhaps had a camp boyfriend/girlfriend.

21. You've done Habitat for Humanity in the LowCountry.

22. There are four cities - Greenville, Columbia, Camden, Charleston.

23. You've made your debut, been a stag, or know someone who has.

24. 88% of your friends went Greek.

25. You know someone with one or more of the following names: Beau (Beauregard), Rhett, Savannah, Pinkney, Simms, Legare (that's Le-gree), Russell, Jackson, Heath, Carter, a double name (and they use both of them), a first name used as a last name.

26. You have done a geneology project an discovered where the bodies are buried (woohoo-Edgefield); there might even be a family graveyard.

27. Swamp Fox means so much to you.

28. You know damn well to get your liquor before 12AM on Sunday morning if you want to have brunch after church.

29. Church is more of a social event than anything else.

30. Sweet tea really does suit all occasions.

31. You got a driver's license at 15 without that pesky driver's education. You now have the insurance premiums to prove it.

32. You do know someone who was killed in a drunk-driving accident or has DWI'd. It probably scared you straight.

33. People are still 'not from around here' even if they've lived here for 30 years. Case in point-"Mabel Johnston Owens, 98, died in Summerville on Sunday. Mrs. Owens, of Albany, New York, moved to Sumerville in 1927..." Oh, and we WILL bring food for an army to your house after a death, birth, illness or move-in, whether you like it or not.

34. You know someone in Iraq.

35. You hope that Mississippi gets the 50th spot in education this year.

36. You can locate Capers an Dewees without a map, have chicken-necked or just necked there and nearly been swept out to sea on the tide.

37. You've gone on a field trip to the following: Peachtree Rock, a cotton field, the state fair, a working farm, the State Museum and the State House.

38. You wish that you'd bought more SCANA shares when Xmas time rolls around and you drive through Lugoff/Chapin/Rock Hill/Elgin/Harleyville and see the 500,000 christmas light natvity with bobbing reindeer, waving Santa, rocking Baby Jesus, and blinking Santa sleigh.

39. Ma'am and Sir are not an option. At least one of your parent's friends has grounded you or kicked your ass for doing something stupid. You have 20 sets of surrogate/adopted parents who don't mind if you show up for supper.

40. You speak a little Gullah. You actually know what Gullah is.

41. Rush's, Groucho's, the Kickin' Chiken, Lizard's Thicket, Maurice's BBQ-just to name a few.

42. You never buy tomatoes in the summer when everyone gives them away.

43. You are pretty sure you've gotten malaria or West Nile Virus at some point from all of the mosquito bites sustained over the years.

44. Hurricane = Part-tay. Snow = OH MY GOD! GO TO THE PIGGLY WIGGLY

45. Snow = There will be no generators, toilet paper, booze, candles, canned goods, water, coolers, or matches left in the State. Plus everyone with four-wheel drive will take the opportunity to test out their skidding powers.

46. I-20, I-77, I-26, Hwy. 326, U.S. 17 - Only roads necessary.

47. You've been to a farm party.

48. Tailgating is a marathon, not a sprint. You've taken shots of Fighting Cock and lived to tell about it.

49. The Piggly Wiggly is a real place- 'I'm Big on the The Pig'

50. Everything you own is eithe monogrammed or has the Palmetto flag/symbol on it and you get HIGHLY insulted if someone remarks or questions 'the bush/tree/shrub' on your person.

And.............the War of Northern Agression is NOT over. We're just takin a little rest.

South Carolina is clearly better than North Carolina. See all of the above.

Wow! So that list could have jsut gone on and on and on and on and on. There are so many truly unique things (okay, secessionist and strange) about this state, let me know if I've overlooked something vitally crucial!

2007-01-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

So I'm leaping forward a bit only because life sped way the heck up over the past month and today is the beginning of many slow days. Here are a few weird things I've noted today:

1. In the LSE library we have two elevator cars. Two cars for 12,00 people to share. Here's the weird thing-as the doors close a voice announces "Door Closing" and the voice is a dead wringer for (I believe) Cartman's voice from South Park. That flattened 'doozth cloeszthing' in a weird nasally pitch-dead on.
2. Your computer will ALWAYS have a physical memory dump (and this is not some odd toilet humour) an then run a system check to inform you that your FAT32 (I assume this is the amount of centimeters my ass is growing by the day from sitting in front of a monitor) was a bit broken. These events will ALWAYS ALWAYS occur when you have a deadline, particularly the closer that little second hand ticks towards 4:30 (sorry, 16.30).
3. The instructions to submit your exam will always include: 'must upload by 18.30 BST. Now, I ask ya'll, what the hell is BST? British standard Time? Baltic Summer? Britains Suck at Time? (I later found out it means British Summer Time but by that definition it should only apply in summtertime what what time is that in January?) I figured 16.30 would cover all bases in case of weird lunar/maritime/greenwhich/el nino calendars.
4. If you write your friend in Belize telling her that the weather has been mild and that she shouldn't worry too much about freezing to death, there will be a severe cold snap with 80 mph wind gusts to follow within 48 hours. Sorry Sam!!!!
5. If it's not the hot water heater, it'll be the vaccuum. Stay tuned for photos of me and T hauling a Hoover on the Tube.

2007-01-09T17:25:00.000-08:00

The morning-after detritus aside, I slogged to Gatwick for the lovely 8 hour flight to Charlotte to wait in the airport for 4.5 hours before getting on another flight to Jacksonville to get in a car for another hour to drive to Sea Island. I left T sleeping off the holiday cheer and a promise of doing the dishes while I was in the US (still waiting on some of them to get done....)

Flying into America on a holiday is strange. Thanksgiving, while a big deal in some families, is just another day to work for others. After clearing customs I immediately went to my friendly cantina for a much-needed tequila boost and some honest-to-god salsa. Spence prefers the Chili's To Go, being the extensive traveler for his job, but the line was too long.

Fact: Strange people hang out in airport bars
The hardest part about hanging out at the Charlotte airport is the realization that if my house and car were only 20 minutes away and I could drive to Sea Island in the amount of time it would take to wait, take the flight and then take the car ride.
My overfriendly waiter kept dishing up ritas on the rocks and after 4 I realized that slowing down MIGHT be a good idea. Apparently I looked that sad (not to mention decidedly scummy after flying all day).

Fact: Being single and alone on major holidays bites.
With four hours and much alcohol to kill, eavesdropping is a time-honored form of entertainment. Several of my fellow drinkers were simply traveling for work or just getting from Point A to Point B with no turkey (ugh-don't mention the word) waiting with open wings at their destination. Okay, no I had a VALID reason to drink for three hours (boredom and jetlag) but some people just sat there on a major holiday! I compensated for this by phoning every single person in my US cell phone and sending about 40 texts to T back in London, whose thigh apparently turned all shades of black and blue.

Fact: If you fly to Jacksonville on any given evening, you will be with the biggest rednecks on earth who feel the need to broadcast their 'culture' at every possible moment.
They HECKLED the stewardess. Granted, I THINK she had two working brain cells altogether but seriously. You know it's a skeleton crew that was forced to work the holiday when she couldn't operate the intercom and had to read every single safety instruction form the manual and couldn't even get the seat belt fastened out figure out the oxygen mask. The Hooters drop-out girls sitting across from me began to taunt every sentence about flotation cushions that will fall from the panel about you (these girls already have built-in flotation cushions, they were set). After praying that flight crew wasn't quite as inept, we rolled down the tarmac. Desperately wanting sleep and putting up the big "I am not in the mood to talk to my seat partner so back off and go far far away-pretend the Grand Canyon exists between us" I left my earbuds in as a sign. Does this stop a determined Daisy May off to see her cheating boyfriend? Absolutely not. This very nice, albeit slightly slow girl, was from Norfolk, VA. Had I ever heard of it? Yes :) Did she go to Old Dominion? Nope, she couldn't get in but she did go for awhile to another school in Norfolk (anyone know what that is?). I heard all about her family which read like a bad southern ballad. Somebody's uncle is in prison so the baby of the grandmother and her went to the aunt's brother's house but then HE got arrested but the mom, who is an alcoholic, drove up as well and they all went to IHOP for breakfast. The last bit I made up but there was definitely a felon, an out-of-wedlock occurrence and somebody's dad as an uncle as well. Feeling the effects of muchos tequila and not enough sleep, I felt a bit queasy (flight attendant couldn't turn the AC on in the plane; yum, sweaty rednecks, even better when the purse dog in the seat in front of me got a case of the runs.) and did lots of nodding and hmmming. Spotting Sudoku turned into a 5 minute conversation on what it is, how did those Chinese do it (she was close, bless her heart). Out of desperation and gag reflex I mentioned the boyfriend. The 28 year old (she's 20) got out of jail and joined some reserve unit and is in JAX but isn't in the unit anymore and has his own truck and cheats but is the best guy ever and she made him cookies. Did y'all follow all that? Thank God we descended before I threw up or gave the obvious life advice (they should really engage in safe sex-no need to further that particular gene pool to my way of thinking; a tad bitchy but I challenge you to withhold a comment in the face of this conversation)

I love Sea Island because they do everything to the ultimate of luxury. A very spiffy Town Car waited for me to haul my luggage (grrr) to the curb but the driver was a great conversationalist. Scared that I might fall asleep and never wake up we kept up a steady stream of political, social and moral debates. I got the skinny on the life of a Sea Island employee, who famous had been there (other than the G-8 boys), did he like the new hotel, etc. etc. The most interesting debate came in the form of immigration. His parents had legally immigrated from Mexico and he had VERY strong opinions about closing off the border and giving citizenship to illegals (Yes to the 1st, a big NO to the 2nd). A great deal of his argument came from the fact that his parents went through all of the red tape needed, the illegals were not building up communities as Americans and assimilating and incorporating their own culture but rather sticking to themselves and not giving back to the greater community at large. He was very articulate and passionate about this but proclaimed his mother felt even more strongly. These, among other arguments, are similar to ones I've heard from legal immigrants and those who are 2nd generation and lead community activism.

We turned into the gates of Paradise only to realize that neither one of us knew the exact location of D&D's new house. At this point it was 11:30PM EST and I'd been traveling over 20 hours. Content sleep by the side of the road I dredged up mental memories of our plot and we somehow, thank you Lord, found what i perceived to be the right house. Now, our beach house is technically a "duplex" with a common wall dividing the 4 bedroom units with their own backyards, pool, and garages (the only duplexes I know are ramshackle at best). No one had their phone on or couldn't get a signal-the best part of the island-so I walked into a garage and started hammering away at the door. No lights, no unlocked doors, no welcoming embrace out of the cold Georgia night. Me and my suitcase sat in the garage and just waited. FINALLY I get ahold of Spence and we figured out that I was at the wrong house! Whoops. Crisis and tears averted Spence rescued me and we went into the new Casa di Amore!

More on that later...
AoY

2007-01-09T14:57:00.000-08:00

Redneck Thanksgiving Y'all!!

I suppose there comes a time in every woman's life where she meets the man of her life, they fall in love, have the grand wedding and honeymoon into matrimonial bliss. But before the kids and after the split level condo with vaulted catherdral ceilings the inevitable must come. PREPARE THANKGSGIVING FOR THE IN-LAWS AND FAMILY. I, on the other hand, managed to cut out all of that romantic fun happiness and agree to host Thanksgiving for 22 people in our flat on a shoestring budget.

To be fair, cooking is fun. It's relaxing, exciting and nothing brings people together like alcohol and free food. Upon our arrival in London T and I agreed that it would be so cute to host a Turkey Dinner for our new British friends since we wouldn't be home for the holidays. So naive, so wrong.

As a masters student one becomes accomstomed to a certain amount of research. I put that and my pechant for procrastinating to work and began looking up turkey preparations and good old southern dishes around October. As the the day drew slowly near, panic set in and I turned to the people who are honor-bound to help you out. Mamas.

Mama1 and Mama2 received many desperate requests via e-mail for family recipes and ideas on how to host an entire dinner using an oven the size of a shoebox, 4 tiny electric burners and a dearth of cooking utensils. Thankfully the women stepped up and had a grand time doling out advice, suggesting themes and reminding me of etiquette. I took most of it, ditched some and prayed to a small baby Jesus that I didn't poison guests.

Shopping in London is always an adventure and looking for Lillywhite Flour, Grandma's Molasses, cornbread mix, ground sausage, Butterball turkeys, Bisquick, pre-made pie crust, pecans, attractive plastic and paper plates for 30, good wine, and basically all cornerstones of a southern meal proved a bit daunting. Mama shipped over South Carolina in a box including loads of recipes, 6 tubs of lard (I have no idea why!) and other goodies to help. Panic slowly set in as flat mate and I debated menu. SOME people eat BBQ and cole slaw on Turkey day and baked beans and pecan pie. Not to name names...Also, having 10 extra guests and a flat mate who admits that she "hasn't really ever cooked a meal before" did not help stress levels.

As doomesdays often do, the draw drew closer and troops assembled. The invitation went out: http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?event=GTXTZXYWOBVQSSRSYYOK&showArchive=true (if it's not viewable, imagine deer's ass as doorbell to be the main art). My Candian Thanksgiving host had mentioned that she spent over 30 punds on her turkey (which was delicious). I found one at Tesco and for 19 ponds of self-basting (no clue what THAT means still) turkey of unknown caged origin it only cost 12 pounds! Should I have been worried?? Carting it home in a backpack across six lanes of traffic was a great preview of parenthood (the turkey leaked a little bit, was very slippery and caused back aches). I'll pass for now, thanks!

Scouting out ex-pat grocery stores proved to be GREAT fun as I found beloved Tostitos and salsa, American cereals, and INSTANT OATMEAL. Various unnamed people had requested grits as part of the traditional Thanksgiving meal but I demurred stating protocol of breakfast foods. One day, they will discover the magic. T was in charge of desserts but a serious lack of pre-made crusts (we were expected to MAKE them-what's wrong with people! Eveything in this damn country is a pie of some nature and description!) and no pre-made Mrs. Smith's called for investigative skills. I found the Baker & Spice in South Kensington and talked them into hadning over pre-baked pie shells AND the tins. It's quite sad when that makes me feel accomplished. Dinner was on Wednesday as I left for America the next day and others had plans so the three days leading up to the main event saw the two of us up until 3 or 4 AM every night making stuffing, peeling veggies, checking out Mr. Tom's thawing process. I must point out that every newlywed must at some point buy a frozen bird the day of Thanksgiving or Xmas and then cry we it isn't done by 3PM. HELLOOOOOO! Every woman I met ove the age of 40 told me a similar story which makes me thinnk that many husbands drink a lot on family holidays. We later found out that our banging about in the kitchen pissed off our upstairs neighbor whose bedroom is right over the stove, fridge and cupboards. Whoops!

The big day arrives. I toddled off to class all blurry-eyed and prayed to God that people showed up, no one went to the hospital and taht dinner was finished before 10 PM. After 4 DAYS in the fridge Old tom was still a bit frosty, prompting near hystericl phone calls to T's mother (my moms were on the road or on an island). I removed the giblets (another newlywed disaster apparently-cooking the bird with the plastic pouch still inside), washed it thoroughly in the sink (against many website's wishes), and proceed to stuff the small pouch full of fresh veggies and herbs before buttering the hell out of it. This was no low-cal, let's worry about the amount of sugar and fat meal (sorry those who came, healthy didn't factor).
*I must pause to point out the frustrations of fowl preparation. Every damn website had a different method on how to cook an unstuffed bird (FYI-Stuffed turkey cooking is a Yankee thing). Some say wash it, others decry contamination, one site says no butter or the inside. Bringing, which temperature, inject juice under the skin, tie shut, no wait, SEW it shut, put the foil on first to prevent drying out, but wait, put the foil on at the END to slow down cooking of the breast, flip the bird upside down and then flip again, only cook it upside down ,cook and flip cook and flip. thanks to William Sonoma, Mama1 and 2, Dad, T's mom, clemson University, Paula Dean, Martha Stewart, Joy of Cooking and the Washington Post, I am now thoroughly confused and running out of time.-

Moving along, I blindly used family directions (with some Herbs de Provence references from W-S) and propped my laptop up and ran Martha Stewart's "I Will always Make a Better Thanksgiving Than You but Here are Some Tips You Mis-Guided Peasants" streaming video on loop. Rather impressed with my slather and stuff technique I prepared to seat my bird upon his throne of winter vegetables cut into a lattice (small over equals no roasting rack-thanks Mama for the tip). With the interior frostiness I had not been able to thoroughly violate my birds insides but had figured that we were a go for the oven. As I began to tie him up I noticed something was a bit off. What the hell was BREAST SIDE UP? These things should really come with signs stamped on the skin. Long frantic transatlantic phone call story short, I had the bird upside down. My careful buttering would never be known. Flipping 19 pounds of poultry over I realized that the little hole near the top end was larger and in fact, the bird cavity. Great, I had spent a careful 15 minutes washing out and stuffing Tom's ass. Wondeful, and I still had to remove the neck and other assorted meat parts. Close call but a newly stuffed and retied bird went into the oven. It was at this point that T came home from school, noted the butcher string looped around my neck and the frantic look of a strssed woman and immediately poured wine and jumped into her pies.

Four hours and three glasses of white later (maybe it was four-sleep deprivation lowers my math skills) it was time to shower/sober up a tad. Mama mentioned that a smart cook cuts her wine with soda water to prevent drunkedness before dinner and possible ruination of 175 dollars worth of food. We then discovered the limits of our hot water heater so the cold shower provided rejuvinating. T's old roommate was in town and soon became our Errand Bitch, picking up cole slaw from Nando's (I gave on that but happily invited T to figure out brisket if she was hell bent on it). Now, in the land of the South, PEOPLE DO NOT SHOW UP ON TIME LET ALONE EARLY. I barely had my make-up on when the first guests came bounding up our three flights of stairs. With every available burner, pot and surface taken over in the kitchen, I sent them out for beer and more wine. they left, more guests arrive right on schedule and damned if we didn't suddenly have 12 people in our four-butt kitchen chatting away. Feeling a bit like General Patton (the f*ing Normandy invasion took less planning I swear) everyone was banished to our living room where lw lighting and tea lights hopefully helped conceal all of the junk we had shoved in corners.

The bird came out and looked pretty damn tasty if one (ahemm) is to brag. The kicker came upon carving. Dede and Bill had loaned, albeit unwittingly, their Henkel carving set but there wasa little problem. In our house, and indeed in many houses everywhere, one is required to have Y chromosomes to touch meat (I just realized how homoerotic that last statement might be perceived). Shooting, grilling, hacking away and carving all falls under the ageis of being male along with rodent disposal and garabage detail. Stone-dead sober and faced with this enourmous beast of a bird tears threatened. What if I screw it up, make shredded turkey instead of slices. I had watched Martha create her "Bird of Paradise" presentation and felt like a total failure as a woman. I might pause to point out that I may have a slight penchant for drama. Thank God for boyfriends as Christian, who apparently attended Turkey Carving School, stepped in to do the honors. It must be said that NO OTHER MAN STEPPED UP TO THE PLATE!

Yes Mama, I served dinner on paper plates and with plastic cutlery but we have no dishwasher! About this time we all start to notice that our our other hostess might have overserved herself. this was noted with a tumble down the three steps leading up to the kitchen. It caused quite an impressive bruise but God bless her, T didn't barely felt it (two botles of wine will do this). The guest was as follows: 3 from SC and 2 from NC (more or less), 2 Brazilian, one BrazIrish (Irish but raised in Brazil before returning to Ireland), 2 Californians, a Canuck and her Swedish man, Aussies and Kiwis alike. I THINK that was all but we had quite the gaggle. Desserts rocked, wine flowed and we shoved the last guest out the door around 2AM. Ashley, thank God, had done most of the dishes with my drying (I didn't even notice untill we had been in there for an hour-many hands make light work etc.). Our still slightly inebriated hostess managed to lose her camera and say hi to our French neighbors (only friendly when all parties are drunk) before hitting the lights.

One quick packing for Sea Island and it was late to bed, early to rise and time for a plane ride to the old US of A!

2007-01-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

Muchos Apologies!!!!!!

Abject, sincere, total and unending apologies. Who knew people actually read this darn thing?? In all fairness I must point out that Spence's link from his hysterical blog http://hugsandpounds.blogspot.com probably generated the most glimpses. But here's what ya'll have to look forward to-
1. Redneck Thanksgiving
2. Sea Island Thanksgiving
3. Xmas nights
4. Italy!
5. Belize!! AKA Central American Wedding

No worries, photos to entertain in case writing wanes...ciao!

2006-11-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

Banking Problems Continue

They don’t just continue, they multiply! I recovered from Pasha sometime on Monday only to discover that my Visa had gone missing sometime on Saturday. Now, I can absolutely say that I didn’t buy any drinks (which I will be repaying in free dinners for the next six months) and I didn’t charge a cab home and I had it prior to going into Pasha, so my best guess is it is lying in a gutter somewhere in East London. Good for it-bon voyage. One phone call to Visa netted ten minutes on hold, an Indian chick trying to sell me on mortgages and a new card promised within 10 days.
Lest ya’ll had forgotten about the whole British banking debacle, inroads were laid. I finally, FINALLY got the application approved and my shiny Solo card appeared in the mail (the name says “Miss Aoy”-thanks, now EVERYONE knows I’m single; really, necessary?) with its attendant chip. After much research and debate (and freezing on the balcony) the inevitable phone call to BT phone was made to receive broadband. My experience to date with British government agencies has been slightly poor, to say the least. I was thankfully surprised when “Jamie” (he seemed like a Jamie, perhaps an Ollie) jovially talked me through my options and agreed to have Internet installed in FIVE BUSINESS DAYS!!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t believe it-something in under three weeks-happy day! Of course, the reason for the delay-and I kid ya’ll not-is that when you reconnect a landline or order Internet, there must be a COOLING OFF PERIOD of 32-48 hours before the order can go through. I seriously expect a handgun to arrive with a router. But here’s where the British banks intervene. This was all too easy, silly me. You may get the card, you might even have an account and branch sort code (little info-you can ONLY do business at the branch that holds your account; it’s the banking system of yore in the 21st C.) but you have to ACTIVATE the debit account. In the US one can call the little number on the front of the card, decide on a clever PIN the will involve the birthday of a family member in someway, and then Bob’s Your Uncle! Oh no no no, in London you can either-mail a form in via snail mail and wait for them to receive, process and send a form back out or go to ‘your’ branch. I opted for B and was scolded by the cashier for not going to the 2nd cashier that handles new accounts (pardon, no signage, makes it hard) but grudgingly took the form. But wait, where was my original letter or acceptance with the full account number on it (as opposed to the 7 numbers already on the form in front of her)? Leaving your form at home gets you a “Tsk tsk” and five more minutes of standing in front of the window. Finally, she looks up at me and says, “Ok, you’re activated. You should receive your PIN in the mail in up to business days and THEN you can use your account.” Does this paragraph seem long, winding and pointless??? Because it sure as hell seems that way to me! It’s taken 7 weeks to set up a student checking account! I only shudder to think of investments or IRAs. Perhaps money launderers and the Swiss have it right-fight the power!

Brit banks and US banks settled, I conveniently forgot about my US insurance. I have applied for NHS but I had better pray to God I don’t get sick over here as I understand it. You apply, wait for them to contact you, then go to an office to wait, then wait for a letter, then wait to die waiting for an NHS number. Those Brits are sneaky Commies! But my US insurance, which I always billed to my Visa (lost somewhere in London) needed to be changed. This is where I had MANY MANY MANY “Northern moments”. BlueCrossBlueShield of NC is DAMN lucky that I am an ocean away. First, I simply thought to pay via Internet as the automatic debit would not have gone through. Ha! That would imply that their website worked, ever. After 4 fruitless days and e-mails to the Tech department, I loaded up my mobile and dialed the U.S. Three more days of being disconnected and told, “The Web Difficulties Help Line is currently experiencing difficulties, please try back later” for FOUR DAYS I was 14 quid poorer and a lot more ramped up. Plus, they have the worse automated response systems ever-‘So your policy is WWPX 134567; no, it’s really YPPW126802; you seem to be having trouble with our system; try back later; CLICK” Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. When I finally got a hold of of Columbus (that would be a human being in NC) in the billing department, I learn that A) His computer might be down; B) I can’t pay over the phone-they don’t take payments over the phone, ever; C) He is going to process my cancellation paperwork because I’m no a resident of NC as I’m in London for more than 60 days; D) I am supposed to mail a check to NC by Friday or Monday (this was Wednesday and that is an impossible feat unless I flew it there in person). I should feel worse about the fact that I 100% lost it on the phone with him but that was it. I had had it up to THERE and back and was trapped on the treadmill of the worst business management model possible. When “Columbus”, in a desperate bid to get me off his phone line so he could go cry in the women’s room” transferred me to the Web Support line, I was suddenly back at the main menu being asked in Spanish to enter my BCBSNC # or to visit their website.

I hung up, turned the walls of the bedroom blue, and called Mama. When in doubt, Southern girls call the mamas. It’s like a homing device, just like we run to our daddies when we need something (sorry, it’s true-we know it) or have a bad boyfriend to be taken out to the woodshed. She agreed to post a check in the mail and magically had no problems understanding my ID# for the check. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG deep breaths were necessary. I eagerly await the results of this week.

2006-11-04T09:06:00.000-08:00

Halloween

There is a song we learn in kindergarten about how to spell this wonderful word and to this day I always hum it while typing the letters: “H-A-double L-O-W-double E-N spells Halloween!” played on a scratchy turntable. Ahh, memories.

Speaking of memories, home sickness of an insidious nature has hit AoY hard. Maybe it’s the suddenly frigid temps, the totally backwards school system (Brits will agree with this) or the loneliness that surprisingly easy to experience in a city of 7 million people but it’s happened. It never happened in Italy (I could live and die there) or Germany (I just didn’t want to be there!) but I find myself missing things like gardenias, mac and cheese, venison, fall foliage (stealing magnolia leaves from the church for table decorations), the marshes and Intercostal, even the small town feeling of Columbia. It’s not that I actually NEED to be there, it’s just like a constant drumbeat in the back of my head. Combine that with the banking troubles of late and the absolute lack of ideas about future employment and hearth and home suddenly look damn appealing.

But enough of that! On to the spookiest night of the year! Quick note about British Halloween (still hum the song)-1) People dress up as scary and spooky things here like the undead, vamps, witches or Margaret Thatcher naked and 2) Trick or treating is not so big in the city (I can’t comment on the suburbs) and 3) costume parties are known as “Fancy Dress”. I love the last part-it’s so darn British. Flat mate and I sought out a costume store and after going into a sex store by mistake (we were looking for stockings, we didn’t need props) we found a Swashbuckling Wench outfit and a red 1920s red Flapper from Charleston (told you I was homesick). I even bought fake eyelashes and we both invested in fishnets.

The Event: McC’s Housewarming and Halloween party near Marble Arch. Transportation: The original idea was Tube after a run to Tesco for daiquiri mixers. We learned that Tesco no longer sells any mixers-just booze. I find this disturbing on so many levels. T’s fishnet hose ripped a tad in the package so the garter-belted wench poked out more holes. A quick check with McC confirmed the details for the part but we both wore LONG black trench coats just in case Bridget Jones’ Fancy Dress party reincarnated itself where we walk into a house full of bankers in suits while we look like street walkers. Thankfully this didn’t happen. We hadn’t gone 10 feet before being offered a ride ‘anywhere we were going, for free’. Hmmmm, thanks but no thanks. We ended up cabbing it to Marylebone (apparently pronounced MER-IL-BONE-EY). The party was amazingly fun. There was a mix of Aussies, Brits, Yanks, and a Paki dressed as Britney. Liquor flowed like oxygen, yummy finger foods abounded and an iPod constantly rotated back to Cyndi Lauper. Their fault is AMAZING-I just felt badly that it got trashed so soon after they moved in! I love meeting new people and it was such an amalgamation of groups that everyone got along, so well that I have the distinct memory of being slapped on the ass several times by various people-red; whodathunkit?

Only 2 major disasters of the evening occurred-1) No single people at the party save McC and he’s practically family and 2) AoY came down with a migraine. The lights-flashing, don’t touch me or make a sound or I might throw up on you variety migraine. This is NOT a good thing to get whilst in the middle of a rager. T was feeling frisky and didn’t want to leave for hours despite my whimpering and flat out bitching at one point. We FINALLY left around 2AM (I had stopped drinking at 11:30 when auras appeared) when I pretty much begged to leave. Now, Marble Arch might be cute and fun during the day but it gets a tad shady in the evening. Plus, there were ZERO cabs. I was so desperate to leave that we didn’t call one to the house (BIG mistake) so we tried street hailing; I then called every cab number in London and got an hours wait time for those even taking reservations. We got an unlicensed minicab driver, which is a big NO-NO for women in London (there are over 10 sexual assaults a month by unlicensed minicabs on London), offer a ride right as some asshole in an apartment pelted eggs onto the street. I now had a screamingly painful headache, sore feet and egg running down my stockings (we hid in a phone booth until the ambush ended). Interesting-we had a rickshaw driver offer to drive us after watching our flailing for 20 minutes (T had physically tried to manhandle a departing customer but lost the cab). A rickshaw! We laughed but he seriously offered to pedal back to Earls’ Court: 2 full grown girls (one healthier than most), a ride that takes 10-15 minutes in a cab w/o traffic, and multiple hills. His only asked 60 pounds (which could drive you almost to the coast!). We finally saw a cab across the road and flagged it down. Problem: A gate in the middle of the road to prevent jaywalking. T dashed down the street skirt the barrier but I saw two couples bearing down on our diesel savior and jumped it. In the middle of a major roadway I flashed everyone to Christmas and back and vaulted the damn thing in heels, migraine or no I was GOING HOME!!!!! I think the cabbie was so impressed (or horrified) that I would go to such lengths that he fended off the vultures until I got across four more lanes of traffic.

Now the question is, is such behavior commendable by Southern standards or have I jeopardized my entrance into the Junior League? I mean, straddling a fence in a dress and heels might be considered unladylike but I think the sheer resourcefulness of scaling something and subverting the system deserves kudos from the Cackalackins. Either way, we made it home in one piece, although I felt like pieces of my brain were slowly leaking out, but then T wanted to wait and see if some cute guys walking down our road were interesting. I fled the scene and crawled into bed with drugs. She apparently scored big and we met our French neighbors downstairs. One apparently was going to drag me out of bed to sit up and chat but I truly think I would have physically maimed him if T hadn’t talk him out of it.

All in all, a really fun experience of costume hunting, dressing up, and playing war games in the streets of London. Happy Halloween (dum di dum-still singing it)!!!!!!!!

We never did go pumpkin picking-a weekend out of the city is needed and SOON; this much smog cannot be healthy!

New terminology:
Netball: An entirely bizarre game that is a bit like basketball; there is a hoop with no backboard high up in the air and one receives the ball whilst standing in a circle. A girl can then pivot on one foot but can move at all. The goal is to shoot a basket. WHAT KIND OF LAME ASS SPORT IS THAT??? At least in badminton you have to lunge for the shuttlecock occasionally.

2006-11-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

Night out with the Posh People!

Interesting times continue in London as I learned the art of VIP clubbing. A few Saturdays ago (sorry for the delinquency!) I began my evening with a fun dinner at a local pub with extended US family the notion of ‘going out big’ enters the conversation. Hmm, as AoY is always up for a big night with the right prodding I discovered the location: Pasha. When: 11:15 Where: Table reserved by a friend’s Black Amex Why: Show good friend of McC’s the fun times of London.

A quick rush home to change into appropriate gear (thank god the Armani fits again and I ditched the jeans) I hopped in a cab and prepared to fork over my life savings to get to Victoria. My cabbie, a nice East Ender who commiserated with flatmate’s laptop theft, told me that Pasha was a very well-know and ‘respectable’ club, unlike the ‘shit new places that fold in a month’. As we pulled up to a queue that literally was FIVE across by TOW BLOCKS long, I had doubts about my ever seeing the inside. Thankfully McC sent me to the ‘other’ side, reserved for those with, well, a reservation. With McC leading his harem of women (seriously, it was one man to about 7 women from around the world) to the door, I found myself at a cultural crossroads. First I was wanded by security, then patted down like I was in the Frankfurt airport by a woman, then my bag was subjected to the same. Now, in DC, if a club has this kind of security, YOU DON’T GO IN!!!! These are the clubs located in NE or SE and let’s just say that I would stick out like a French woman in a Venus shaver commercial. But tight security is apparently de rigger among the hip and trendy night spots of London.

Assured that I hadn’t brought an Uzi to the table we trooped upstairs to the tents of Morocco. Now, usually ‘getting a table’ means that one shells out 500 quid in drinks and then has the right to put their jackets down at a table in the corner. You literally pay through your ass to sit on it. Tables usually run around the edges of the dance floor and inevitably one club rat attempts to just ‘perch’ for a bit. No way this was happening upstairs at Pasha. We had a bottle service (something I had only heard of until now), fresh fruit, champagne and strawberries, and a tent with cushions in colors to make a sultan sigh. Trying not to sound provincial or worse, American, I just cracked a bottle, nibbled on melon and kiwi and watched the hoi polloi below me writhe to house music. It was either the continuous flow of bubbly or Grey Goose but by the end of the night I had sufficiently loosened up to hang over the rail and gyrate to surprisingly good club music. The best were these girls dressed up like Drew Barrymore from the Batman movie or Playboy bunny rejects. They wore all white lingerie and walked around the floor holding up signs. I suppose that it is a classier alternative to the tequila shooter girls of my usual haunts and hang outs. Two people braved the ground floor for some sweaty gyrations but I played the elitist whose feet were paining them. Really I just enjoyed lounging on velvet and talking in a reasonable tone of voice to other tenters. The only downside? No cute eligible men ANYWHERE on the VIP level (yes, it turns out we were VIP not just tableside). There were some 40-year-old gay men with their 20-year-old Eastern European hookers (which I totally didn’t understand-these men were gay!) and one or two sketchy older men but that’s it! I guess the rich and fabulous were at Nobu or Chinawhite that evening.
I was having so much fun hanging out (and drinking) that I barely noticed the time until suddenly it was 4:45 in the morning!!! I mentally kissed my morning run plans goodbye and made for a taxi. Yup, another solo ride (it was in a legit black cab, no worries!) and I suddenly became more aware of my state of inebriation out of the smoke and music. Thankfully the ride was uneventful and I crawled into bed just in time for the sun to rise!

The morning after was not fun. Morning, hell. I didn’t roll over until 2:15pm and that was only because my headache woke me up. A bottle of water and some Tylenol MIGHT have gone a long way towards easing my pain except I forgot the cardinal rule of overindulging-if you wake up and fell bad, get food into system before ingesting more liquids! Whoops-that ended badly, twice. So after repeating the cycle again (I can be a bit dim) I hit upon the idea of delivery. Of course-cosmopolitan London SURELY has delivery on a Sunday afternoon! My first thought was Cook-Out or Cosmic Cantina but I settled for locating Pizza Hut and saying Damn the Calories! I rung my pizza boy only to discover a horrible truth about Pizza Huts in the UK-THEY DON’T DELIVER. AT ALL. The nice young man mentioned that it was only a 15 minute walk to Kensington Church street and I could pick up my order. Thanks buddy, it might as well be 15 miles-I can’t even walk across the apartment! After my initial horror: “Seriously, you don’t deliver? Is this Pizza Hut? Yes? You don’t deliver? At all? But I’m hung over!!!!” My outburst cost me greatly in the headache department but I gamely dialed Domino’s (ewwwwwwwwwwwww, but desperate times…). A very nice boy agreed to delivery in under 20 minutes. One liter of Real Coke (no Coke Zero, Coca-Cola Lite, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Max) and a slice of cheese pizza later my body forgave me and I lived. It was only 8 PM at this point. Time for bed.

All in all Pasha was fantastic but I am hopelessly spoiled now and will never stand in a queue 300 people long just to stand in a hot smoky club and rub against Albanians and the unbathed. I suppose this means that I won’t be clubbing again in London! But it was worth it, if only for the tales and photos :)

2006-10-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

Canadian Thanksgiving

Yup, it’s a turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing, veggies and more! Unbeknownst to AoY Canada celebrates Turkey Day with the best of them. It’s just a month early. But I say it’s never the wrong time for turkey so I grabbed flatmate and we trucked over to Tower Hill to spread goodwill and deliver pie. Our hosts were both Canadian, one of which is in my program, and the invitees were like a couples advertisement for the holidays. There was a Norwegian, a South American Irish, a few Brits, another Irish guy, and a couple of Americans to complete our little U.N. of feasting. One of the more interesting dishes was parsnips done up like sweet potato fries. They were very tasty and I finally had a comparison to offer non-Southerners to yams! One girl was allergic to dairy (my greatest nightmare) so the Gospel Bird had to be rubbed with oil instead; it made the inside a tad drier but no ill effects were suffered. An enormous complement of vegetable dishes including turnips, potatoes, carrots, and others accompanied stuffing from a box (just add water!) which surprisingly tasted like stuffing rather than cardboard.

A few events leading up to dinner precipitated my bringing a store-bought dessert rather than making something from scratch. First, T’s laptop was stolen from her library. I would say I was shocked that such theft occurs at academic institutions but people at my pseudo-Ivy stole everything that wasn’t bolted down and even that wasn’t always a deterrent. I hadn’t planned on putting criminology studies to use so quickly but I was more than ready to tackle any suspicious characters on my way into the library. The security guys were slightly less helpful than doorknobs. They had security videos, yes, but they weren’t focused on the study carrels. Fine, okay, but what about the hallway? As the gentleman explained that the thief could possibly have brought a bag and placed the pilfered goods inside, T and I both thought there might be a chance that the guy (or girl, can’t be sexist here) could have cased the joint, swooped in and walked down the hall a bit before placing his new property inside. Our suggestion that on the off chance there might be video footage of such an event met with stern resistance. “We can’t just go through people’s bags and accuse them because it might be your laptop!” Great, now the anal retentive side of the Brits come out. Another thought that maybe search the cameras a bit before and after the estimated time of the robbery t see if someone was lurking around the area met with similar rebukes. Sherlock Holmes would be humiliated by his countrymen.

After leaving T to fill out a “Loser Report” which made us both smile a bit, it was off to Tesco to buy a ready-to-bake pie crust and filling for cherry pie with ice cream and sauce. The first monkey wrench was the ongoing problem of no Internet, hence no recipe. Okay, no big deal-how hard can it be to throw pre-made filling into a pie shell after baking it and bake it some more? I felt confident enough in my culinary prowess to survive without “Charleston Receipts” but find another slight hiccup in the discovery that BRITS REALLY SUCK IN THE GROCERY ARENA OF LIFE. No pre-made Pet Ritz crusts that are ready to pop into the oven at 325 for 15 minutes but rather some pastry dough that you have to mumble incantations over for 12 hours and cut with butter and roll out and stretch and refrigerate overnight. There were some stale shortbread options but at this point I had three hours and a limited amount of patience. My desperation and dismay must have transmitted to a woman nearby because it’s like my mother popped over from SC and started advising me on my different options in the face of adversity. I had a tin of ‘custard mix-just add water’ and pie filling as one option, a refrigerated backed good as another, fresh fruit to curry, frozen pies-the lady just took it into her mind to navigate me through the waters of British cuisine as it were. I thanked her but as my basket started getting weighed down further and further by things minced and pre-packaged I felt myself getting panicked at the thought of putting something (like flaky banloffi pie with clotted double cream) back on the shelf in the hopes of saving everyone arteries. One apple tart and lemon meringue pie later I hustled back to grab flatmate and run for the tube.

Dinner was great fun and the conversation was diverse a there were about four social groups colliding over poultry and pastry. A few of the non-single men had attended LSE the year before and had good tips on how to navigate the British education system (I’ve decided that guns blazing and wide open is the best method of action), job hunting ideas and ways to get around bureaucracy (really, they mean socialism but I’ll let that slide). Differing ideas of what constitutes Thanksgiving provided endless amusement for the Europeans and T and my’s “Night ya’ll” as we headed home elicited a quick chuckle from the entire party.

The only bad part of the evening, aside from T’s laptop, was a case of either food poisoning or tea poisoning for yours truly. In a bid to stave off holiday lbs and boost energy I headed to the local health store on High Street Kens and purchased “Slimatee-For an energy and metabolism boost as part of a healthy regime” along with more vitamins (I now mentally pronounce them as “VITT-A-MINNS”-ewwww) and Nettle tea to detoxify. If it was the fat-free yogurt from Sainsbury’s that caused such illness I have 2 words for Europe: REFRIGERATE your food or PASTEURIZE it! If it was the tea, I can think of 200 hundred better ways to detoxify and slim down. NOT worth it!

I had gone out the evening previously with G and some friends from his MBA program to a posh bar in Picadilly. Originally I was to meet them at the Groucho Grille but after the near body-cavity search and background check required to see the hostess and ask about their party, I found my way to them at Cocoon, a very cool bar/restaurant where the girls were either stylish or hookers and the men seemed to be successful or foreign. The sushi looked tasty but a bit out of my price range. We all congregated around a table (thankfully, not one where you have to pay 300 quid) that was great except for the fact that we were perched on footstools. I felt like a leprechaun or frog that just alighted on a lily pad. One of G’s friends bore an uncanny resemblance to Tiger Woods, truly eerie in low light and all were friendly and entertaining.

One interesting fact I did not know about LSE before that evening-apparently, all LSE students have wild massive orgies and tons of sex all of the time. If the popular opinion (of five people) is to be believed, people must be getting it on in class and the center of the library at high noon and twice on Thursdays. Huh, well, maybe in the International Relations department or those wacky Econometrics students because I haven’t noticed any of that to date. Have they seen the majority of people at LSE? I highly doubt they are getting busy all over the campus (which at 12,000 people over two square blocks and seven building would give you a mean standard deviation of….damn stats!). I found this personally hilarious and upon relaying our apparent friskiness to other members of my program that too asked where in the hell this was happening. Ahh yes, it must be those Pakistani policemen-they truly seem the type to go wild-okay, bad mental images. Suffice it to say-THAT IT A TOTAL MYTH TO MY AND SEVERAL PEOPLE’S KNOWLEDGE! It must be that famous European belief that all American girls are sluts-seriously, ask a lot of random (not the world traveled upper-class I went to Cambridge) guys and they seem to think that Americans have all starred in “Girls Gone Wild” at some point. I almost feel bad in pointing out our country’s Puritan foundations. Fun weekend though!

2006-10-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

The AoY is a bit under the weather. I have also learned that, much like a third world country, you either need to heal under your own powers or die slowly because there isn’t that much around to help you. I now feel that the British clearly do not have the same meth problems that plague America simply because they do not sell Sudafed. You can choose one of the following options to relieve cold symptoms: something nasal that supposedly cures the common cold which is interesting because scientists still have yet to identify the virus strain for the common cold; chesty cough syrup-I tried this once in an effort to make things grow larger (it did not work but tasted like shit); all manner of lozenges ranging from traditional Halls to honey; enough Vitamin C to kill elephants, or tea. They do sell Paracetamol, which is the local equivalent to Tylenol, but no Percocet or Nyquil or have any prescription meds available to you without a six month waiting period.

I must bring up the issue of tea again. Oh “VH1’s Fabulous Life in London” (we get 35 channels, I take what I can get) it is estimated that Brits drink 1101 cups of tea per person per year. You can even buy one that is diamond studded and contains diamonds in the bag for about seven thousand pounds. More money than sense, more money than sense! But I digress. As mentioned before, one of the nostrums available to cure anything short of the plague is tea. I went into a health food store and low and behold, they have tea for EVERYTHING! Looking for oolong I quickly picked up some detoxifying nettle and SlimDown tea (I think it might be more worth while to skip the afternoon biscuit ritual but that’s for a later date). British tea is like our cereal, I believe. We have every conceivable way to purge, sugar up, prevent, lower, slim, trim, boost and cleanse via grains and milk. The cereal aisle in Tesco looks like the Handy Pantry off of Highway 17 near Georgetown-you have Wheatie-Os, Cheerios, Wheetabix (if you have colon/fiber issues, this is for you), Smackie-Os, the fiber assortment and Special K. That’s it, in a giant supermarket. But the tea section, it’s like a smorgasbord of hot beverage options. I can barely get around the rows of loose, instant, pre-bagged, ball-bagged (insert giggle), hand-packed, and disc style. This subject could prove much more interesting to research at a later date but the Benadryl that I smuggled into the country is beginning to kick into effect.

Aside from the mind-boggling selection I must the flatmate’s quest for a coffee pot. While AoY loves a good double espresso or grande skinny sugar-free vanilla latte which I also feel quite smug ordering at Starbucks, coffee is on the list of banned foods. The unfortunate discovery came at a client site in Atlanta where a medium sized Dunkin Donuts coffee resulting in jittery nerves, extremely shortened patience and expanded temper-I was banned for the next three months from the store by my co-workers.

But to return, T apparently suffers no dire consequences from java and loves flavored coffee. We found a French press at Marks & Spencer’s but she really looks for the 21 cup industrial strength, ulcer-guaranteeing American coffee pot. Every store we go into that just might sell coffee pots gets examined thoroughly. I can safely report that there are precisely three coffee pots for sale in London that meet American standards. Tea kettles however, remind me of the array of nails available to manly men at the Home Depot. There are so many ways to boil water that I sometimes think the Brits are secretly conducting nuclear tests in their tea kettles. Upon our arrival our landlord assured us of two things: he had given us a new toaster and the automatic tea kettle was brand new from Argos. I personally hate the tea kettles because they make the water too hot. Microwave a cup of water for 1:33; hot enough to brew but you needn’t wait a half hour before sipping without risking your tongue lining. The electric kettles can reach lava-like temps in less than two minutes. At another client site I would constantly forget tea mugs everywhere after I had stashed them in two feet of snow in an attempt at refrigeration.

But the tea kettle. You can buy them separately, together on sale wit ha toaster, as part of a kitchen package that includes: toaster, tea kettle and spatula which apparently constitute the entire repertoire necessary for a British chef. Want a desk fan for those toasty summer months in a city without central air conditioning? Have a piping hot cup of tea to go with it from your very own kettle! Buying a new car? We’ve built the steamer right into the dash! Pay bills, win a kettle! The list continues but suffice it to say, flatmate continues to hunt for the elusive Krups 12-cup design with automatic drip and timer.

Despite feeling a bit lurghee (I’m not sure of the spelling but I am told by a Brit that it comes from the Bogeyman and is a phrase coined for those feeling groggy, stuffy and scratchy) I tried for the FOURTH time to open a UK bank account. I was highly tempted to just fly to Switzerland as they must be faster about such matter than the stalwart British. This time, fortunately, the line was down to a manageable hour-long wait and I thankfully had the right paperwork, family connections to the British mob, DNA results, and IQ to open a student account for one year. While waiting the quintessential Jappy girl from Manhattan yapped into her cell phone for twenty minutes to her daddy about setting up the account, the details, blah blah blah. It would have been tolerable but she did this while the bank rep was attempting to actually open her account. When I saw Miss New York hold up her finger to shush the woman for the second time so she could make sure that her Gold Card wouldn’t be canceled, I almost left. I was truly afraid that this lovely Brit would see my US passport and refuse to help thanks to my predecessor. Way to go Team America.

Great items of the day spotted on High Street Kensington…
-Hotel du Chocolat – If you have estrogen get to this store! Beats Godiva, Lindt or any place else in terms of whimsy, fun and price. In particular they have great gift set including a 27 piece box of chocolates that are all wrapped with individual messages of why chocolate is better than sex. One of my favorites: “Why is chocolate better than sex? Because even a small piece of chocolate will satisfy.” Genius! Another one: “Why is chocolate better than sex? It can wait until you are in the mood.” They also sold plush chocolate lab stuffed animals that made me miss Holly terribly.
-Orsino Vintage – A true vintage store that carried a great deal of Puccini from the 60s and 70s, some great Spanish shawls and Chanel bags from the 30s. Prices do reflect it but the store owner has a dog that is very cute and friendly. Looks like I will have to buy my Halloween costume elsewhere, however.
-McDonald’s – First time in three years I’ve been to McD’s for lunch and it was worth every single mile I will have to run tomorrow. ¼ pounder with cheese and a Diet Coke-doesn’t get much better than that.

2006-10-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

Long Hiatus:

Sorry sorry sorry! I officially cannot blog for the following reasons: A) Internet, as noted previously, is sketchy at best. B) I have a desire to NOT embarrass other people so editing of events is required unless I want my parents and their friends to know exactly what students do on Friday nights (it’s nothing bad I promise! We play Scrabble) C) I have no idea if this is boring or not.

Life in London continues as before and I have yet another list of things that are really quite insane about this Communist country (that’s right, I said it-you’re all Communist!)

TV License-So you buy a used TV; you buy a FreeView box, which is a one time 40 quid purchase that gives access to 40 channels of British and American shows. THEN a bill for 130 quid (that almost $260 USD) shows up in the mail. You must pay this is you plan to use a telly (seriously, they use that word) to receive cable satellite or to use any DVD, video or stereo equipment. If you do not comply they have special license police that come to your home and issue a big fine. WTF?! It’s like a car tax. When T and I mentioned this to our dozen or so Brit friends and asked why the hell they hadn’t mentioned it in the “Moving to London” guidebooks they all acted shocked: “What, I thought that was common everywhere?” Only if you believe in Stalin, people.
Bank Accounts-Yes, still without terra firma UK bank account. I have all of the paper work, the correct number of photocopies, cash, blood sample, family lineage chart and proof of existence. Now it’s just standing in line for two hours. Apparently the ONLY bank that will allow students to set up an account in less than 8 weeks is NatWest and only ONE branch will set up the accounts. The “branch” consists of four people in a basement and a queue that continually goes beyond the door, down the hall and up the stairs. Maybe I can write my dissertation in line
Weather-Whoever once said that “foggy London town” has a pervasive steady drizzle is full of bularky. Picture patchy skies followed by torrential downpour. There is no drizzle-the drizzle doesn’t exist. This is good old fashioned roll-up-the-jeans and splash around rain complete with thunderstorms (ahh, home…). I don’t mind it, just don’t lie to me.
Weather reporters-T and I were watching our soon to be confiscated freeview when the weather report came on the telly. Now all of Ireland except of Belfast is not reported upon and Wales and England get the start treatment. But the kicker was when Perky Sue came on and reported the following: “well we’ve had a run of good luck but the forecast for this weekend is just terrible; Sunday will be just horrible with Saturday in not much better shape; horrible, just horrible rain and wet weather ahead for all of the UK.” She apparently missed the section of the weather girl handbook that suggested that weather plays a large part in the nation’s suicide rate so DON’T ENTICE PEOPLE TO JUMP!!!!!
Open 24 hours/unlimited-Simply put, this does not exist. There is an enormous sign over Tesco (supermarket) stating “Open 24 hours.” In reality, that is “Open 6-11PM Monday through Saturday and 8-5PM on Sunday.” Maybe that is 24 hors for the whole week. And please educate the Commies on ‘unlimited supply’. I can’t get an annual gym pass because they have given out the allotment for the year. Pinkos! And there are no more annual Tube/Bus passes available for students-What, is everyone wearing RED now????

On the lighter side, AoY has interesting news. I must find a way to help the people of Britain and advance my knowledge of criminology whilst (yes, it’s always whilst here, or rather, heretofore). I almost took a job conducting surveys at Brixton prison. To give those not in the loop (including myself) Brixton is a largely poor area of South London with a huge amount of black Caribbean, Mediterranean, North African, Jamaican and other mostly black and Latino refuges, illegal immigrants or lower-class persons. Fine, okay. There were a series of riots in the 80s and 90s and racial tensions apparently still run very high around the area. Fine, not a problem. I went to school in Durham and lived in DC-nothing new there. My job would be to interview inmates at HMP Brixton and try to get a sense of their needs upon release. The goal would be to unite or reunite families and build a program that would encourage family and community involvement in repatriating/reacquainting (for lack of a better word) the newly released inmate. There are several similar programs in the US with varying degrees of success. Great, good, go community action!
Then it hit me-I’m supposed to relate to these people, find out their needs, counsel the families and devise a strategy on how to make them better citizens. Ummmm, PROBLEM.
1. I’m a white girl. The Brixton prison population (and yes, there is always a significantly higher percentage of minorities in prisons around the world but that’s another topic) is almost completely African or Caribbean. I’ve interviewed with white murderers before and that was creepy enough but they were Catholic church-going, Little League playing murderers (which should tell you something…). I would have to walk over a mile through Brixton to get to the jail unless I want to take the Prison Express (bus that specially runs from the Tube to the Prison)
2. I’m a white drawling Southern girl. Apparently there is no plate glass between interviewer and interviewee to promote a better relationship; give me that distance, please! Also, I’m sure we’ll have loads to talk about. Me: So you’re an illegal immigrant from Jamaica who has never held a steady job, received any education, you have an illegitimate child, a drug addiction, an invalid work visa and anger management issues. Aside from the anger management I’m not so sure of what to tell this guy. Don’t do drugs? Stealing is a no-no and results in a Time Out in federal prison? Go back to the warm sunny beaches of Madagascar?

So prison didn’t work out. So now I think I will be working with person who have mental disorders and present with antisocial tendencies in a hope to identify factors to watch for in therapy sessions that suggests they will commit violent offenses in the future. The idea is that most people who commit violent crime that are diagnosed with a mental disorder almost always have been in counseling or sought treatment prior to their crimes. Our job is to develop tools to spot these potentially violent offenders by establishing a pattern. How cool is my job? It’s billed as unpaid but “the projects are very interesting and the environment stimulating.” Great, I don’t need money; I can live on your pristine city air alone! J

Friends have been made! Well, one “friend” wanted to get a whole lot friendlier but a simple “never going to happen” worked as dissuasion. Back to friends, AoY has discovered that people from different countries will befriend you even if the Brits will not! Our group of MSc students makes up quite the odd bunch: 1 Italian, 1 Russian, 1 Canadian, 1 Irish, 2 Brits (they aren't from London), 1 Pakistani, and a partridge in a pear tree! We went out for “drinks and curry”. AoY was unaware that this meant literally meant DRINK A LOT AND HAVE SOME CURRY. We started off in Tower Hill at a very posh upwardly mobile bar before heading to the famed Brick Lane. I am informed that Jack the Ripper killed people somewhere along the way (we ended up in Whitechapel) but first we had to buy our own beer to bring to the curry restaurant. Now that suited the laid back AoY just fine. 5 quid for four Hoegaardens instead 5 quid each? Now we’re talking! We ended up at some restaurant without a name and ordered something I couldn’t pronounce and drank our beer straight out of a can! Just give me a dock and I’m back home! We then wandered through the Goth crowd in Whitechapel before heading into a reggae club of sorts. Seriously, we were the ONLY ones without dreads. Two Americans had tagged along for the evening, being dorm mates of Irish. I shall call them New Jersey and San Fran because they never offered a name and it took immense teeth-pulling to get that much information about their home towns. I spent the entire night apologizing on behalf of all Americans (I figured that we voted them off the island so they moved to another one). Back to Tower Hill for some late night vodka and I ended up sleeping in Tower Hill. Great times, good people, look forward to Round 2!

A few parting oddities and words of the day I have learned over the past few weeks:

Chav/chavvy-A person of low or working class order that buys excessive amounts of Burberry (with the plaid visible) or Gucci or LV in an attempt to seem high brow and elitist. In America, we would call them posers or tools. (Oh, and often they wear head to tow Burberry to seem extra cool-literally, hat, shirt, boxer, pant, sock, jacket, fanny pack)
Anti-climb paint-Now I have touched this stuff and cannot figure out for the life of me what goes into anti-climb paint. It has a rough texture underneath the black but I have yet to succumb to a fatal malady, turn a funny color or become unable to mount stairs. I guess it’s slippery and there are usually spikes at the top of the railing but I’m mystified.Black cabs-Not all black-you just have to go by the shape. They can be green or pink or zebra striped. I guess it’s like Yellow cab in the States.
Discounts-they price things by the milligram or gram or mL or what have you. This would be fine except when I see “65p for OJ” it never occurs to me that it is 65p for one third of that OJ container. Do I have the option of removing 1/3 and just purchasing that? Why not just tell me that I’ll be paying 1.95 for the damn thing? I understand unit pricing but it’s literally like Want a liter of milk? Well, at 35p (which is a steal Tesco I will have you know, it’s usually 38p) for 200mL you might want to put down that fifth of a package of crisps you were considering and save up!
LiLo=Lindsay Lohan; ahh, Linds, LoLo and Lindsay were too easy
WOBs=Wives and Birds of the Ryder Cup players. Feminists are so proud right now.
WAGs=Wives and girlfriends of the Manchester United football team; and Posh is no longer a member she tells you!
CrissCross=they’ll still make you jump, even at a posh club in 2006. I've heard it ever time I go out. Just throw in some Croakies, keg beer and a dark commons room and it's back to uni days!

Shout out to the brother as it’s his birthday today. I stayed up until 3AM to call him at 5PM on technically the day before his birthday but it WAS his birthday in my country-Sisterly love :)

2006-09-22T02:36:00.000-07:00

First Day of School Jitters
It’s not really even the first day of school-just Registration, the first of three that I must attend. I always have nightmares about what can go wrong. Not to scare the general public but these are the top few recurring calamities I envision (not just for school but a new job, first date, new apartment, new bar, first metro trip of the day…):
-Oversleep
-The first day was yesterday
-Going to the wrong building
-Going to the wrong classroom and not recognizing it until lecture/presentation has started
-Pushing instead of pulling, thus looking like a kid from the short bus
-Tripping, falling, stumbling, lumbering (I often feel that I lumber), skidding, sliding, or any other active verb that describes a motion not synonymous with WALKING CALMLY TO YOUR SEAT
-Have wardrobe malfunction a la Janet Jackson or Earl the Plumber.
-Spillage (books, latte, emergency stash of girl items) that will of course roll all the way down to the front of the hall
-Having to stand up and announce name and place of residence and major
-Having voice misfire and end up too high, low, throaty, airy or just plain odd (or pull a Ross Geller and affect a Brit accent that I will have to use for the next eleven months)
-Sit next to cute guy and not say anything therefore looking like a bump on a log
-Sit next to weird guy who assumes that you are dating for the rest of term

It’s really quite amazing that people like this achieve anything. So the outfit is all laid out, heels are in the bag and all that I’m missing is a bag lunch packed by Mama, but Pret a Manger will fill in nicely. The first outfit says a lot-you don’t want to stand out too much but it’s important to project an air of “You really REALLY want me in your study group and not just because I’ll know all of the answers.” Why go to such trouble? Because we judge. Judging someone by the appearance is instinctive, particularly when no one is a native Londoner and fashion must become the instant equalizer. I might be screwed here.

Crisis #1: I have just found out that I must take not one but TWO statistics courses in addition to my other classes. TWO MATH COURSES THAT I CANNOT PASS. Math, what’s math? I majored in English with my biggest math dilemma being word count, iambic pentameter and what the thickness of the parchment or sheepskin said about an author’s sexual proclivities at the time. MATH! I took Calculus II to AVOID statistics-are these people crazy? The above note about study groups? I’m going to do anything necessary to get in the one with the Stats major-I don’t care if I have to go to his Youth Rock Out for Moral Fiber concert and sing karaoke to Jars of Clay or something-I need help!

Crisis #2: I have enrolled in a program that might attract serial killers. Having just watched Hannibal in the dark and vowing for the third time to never do so again, I have canceled all immediate plans for a study date in anyone’s apartment. People are crazy! Why do you think there is an advanced degree in spotting the crazy people??? And we’re back to why if I see someone with the keys to a gold VW Bug, I’m running screaming for the exit.

Crisis #3: I can’t exactly understand British English. Sounds stupid, right? Fine, tell me what in the bloody hell a bunger has to do with European football and corruption. What’s a bunger? It’s not just the words but the inflection; please God don’t let my Stats prof be Chinese or Russian or Flemish or German (nightmares). Apparently Americans sound Australian at times as well, which the Brits frown upon as being lower-class or something. Or Americans all love Bush-shit, I’m totally screwed.

Crisis #4: I have stupidly signed up to attend a university where I know no one. The Southern Good Old Boys Network might work for flats, dates and social outings but I have to go alone. What if I have to eat lunch alone in a corner? It’s like middle school all over again! There’s always that moment. You stand frozen in place, your lunch bag or tray quivering like a nervous animal in the crosshairs of the predators already seated along the windows and near the exit. Nervously you dart your gaze about, desperate for friends, family, even that geeky guy who was your lab partner to sit with and appear as though you too belong in the lunch area. As the prospect of salvation dims your lunch trembles violently as though already imaging the inevitable trip and plunge into the ground. Ahh, an empty seat! The eclectic mix of seemingly normal strangers beckon until your approach frightens them away like woodland animals. Suddenly it happens-you are alone, sitting in full view of the world, naked to their speculation on your solo journey. You strive to look nonchalant and unhurried, perhaps leafing through a novel or playlist, writing a list of duties or a letter to Mom and Dad while swallowing entire entrees without chewing in an attempt to end the awkward meal. Perhaps some other lost dove flies in for a landing but you are too far gone into your façade of uncaring that conversation is stilted and you lose a future lunch buddy due to perceived snobbery. As the meal ends and you escape back into the hall for class, you then realize that your nightmare has just begun-you must now choose a seat in the auditorium.

This is why people become criminals! The stress of finding a lab buddy, a study buddy, a running buddy, a lunch buddy, a partner in crime (no pun intended) in new environments is simply too overwhelming for the human soul. Noah should have shackled those damn animals together from the start and to hell with inbreeding! At least they’d have each other and their four-eyed webbed footed children.

I will report more on how the events go but for now it’s time to turn in and dream about being thrown out of the university for being from the South. You see, the train of logic is as follows: I’m from southeastern America, a.k.a Texas, a.k.a W’s hometown a.k.a. I really love his politics and want him to stay in office forever and I kill innocent civilians in Iraq with my own bare hands (you laugh but I’ve gotten this statement at bars). I swear to God, if I made similar leaps in logic about the British and their colonization policies dating from well before the Revolution…oh this could actually be quite fun sometime.

Cheerio! AoY

2006-09-20T06:16:00.000-07:00

Find the Brits!
As mentioned previously, last week was for bar hopping and making new friends.
Saturday found just such an occasion. After a failed outing to the Churchill Arms, flatmates threw themselves into a taxi and ask to be taken to a fun bar opened past eleven somewhere in Kensington. Ended up at Art Bar and Bardo, where the crowd was eclectic Euro, the drinks were EXPENSIVE but free poured and the music finally good and techno. PLUS, we actually were allowed to cut in line and just enter Bardo on the basis of being cute girls needed to break up the sausage fest inside. At the last bar we randomly run into, well let’s just call them Greg and Matthew. Two Brits recently arrived from a wedding at St. Paul’s, they were happily content with their girlfriends and just looking for some fun conversation. It was actually really fun. I found out that you never call a girl ‘spunky’ as this implies that she is actually full of…well let’s just say she gets around quite a bit shall we? Greg was very nice, not college graduated, but loving his job on a loading dock and being back in England. Matthew was very impressed with his Eton education, his family’s name and money (which in the sake of being a rebel he fled to Australia for 6 years to find himself), which is among the oldest in London, has his own business in Canary Wharf, and likes to sail, ride, shoot etc. Can we say ‘TRYING TO IMPRESS!!!!’ But they were great fun and ended up taking T and I to a club in Chelsea called Malanji. Now two things happened here-A) We walked to Chelsea from Kensington, which is quite a hike. B) Matthew’s girlfriend suddenly appeared to drop off the map the further into his cups he got. After haggling to get us in free, it soon became very cler that one of us was to leave with Matthew and thank him profusely in ways that are most likely still illegal in Alabama. Girlfriend? Was she Swedish or Scottish? It kept changing.

T and I ignored the increasingly familiar hands and just danced the early morning away. When “Sweet Home Alabama” came on, you can guess the predicted results from AoY. Since flatmates were the only bar in the club who probably new every single word, nuance and inflection, we felt pretty cool. More great music and dancing, one failed attempt to pull AoY out the door into a waiting cab by Matthew, and we sent them on their merry way. Nice boys but unavailable. A quick twenty dollar cab ride home, a bowl of cereal and fun London night is over!

2006-09-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

The exploration into the English world continues. Although a bit foiled by an inability to establish the Internet legally before Halloween due to an apparent backlog in requests, T and I have made do with hanging out of a second-story window and attempting an Advanced Lotus position to receive stolen signals. It also took a few days to get our TV set up so until then it was a bent wire hanger stuck in the receiver. If duct tape and tin foil had been available they would have been used as well. The AoY felt right at home in such surroundings. It was almost like driving down back country roads and seeing someone with a $35,000 trailer putting up $5000 worth of Christmas lights, complete with Santa drinking a Jax and reindeer copulating on the front lawn. I can’t wait to see what we jury-rig next in our attempts to be more civilized.

Thus far the British going out scene has been I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T-I-N-G. With no school no job, no Internet, no cable TV, no bank account and very little knowledge of the social scene, we’ve been all over London scouting out the best beer joints in town. Wednesday it was the local pub (mostly visited due to the free Wi-Fi) where we chatted up seamy locals from Kensington. Thursday was Tower Hill/Borough Street with a friend of T’s who later accused her of trying to set him up with all of her friends. This was not the case but little boys must have their dreams….fun night standing in the middle of the street drinking SoCo and Diet Coke (by the way, don’t order SoCo-they have no idea of the abbreviation; and careful when asking for Jack-use full names to avoid confusion and a 48 oz. glass of CocaCola, known as a ‘jack’ in some bars). Maybe AoY has been single too long but there seem to be loads of cute guys in pinstripe suits well over six feet out for the evenings. But I digress.

Friday found flatmates out again with good buddy G from the States in WAY East London to celebrate his birthday. Much to my delight he had brought provisions in the names of a friend from Charleston, friends from London and co-worker from Charlotte who happened to know a great many of the same people as myself. Small worlds colliding all over the place. Tried to go late night to Bujouis (or something like there) where apparently the Prince likes to hang with ugly girls and be hassled by bouncers. Trying to stand and look cute and adorable at 1:30AM while the blond bouncer who looks like a Dawson’s Creek reject quickly summarizes that you are not in fact important in the slightest is quite lowering. After a few too many minutes of trying to convince the guy it was a night bus for home. The AoY has a fairly simple policy when it comes to covers, long lines and bouncer with a head-stuffed-up-ass problem: don’t bother me with it. I have yet to run across a club worth standing 45 minutes inline, being scrutinized by a 20 year old brick-stupid Neanderthal who examines who as one would a horse or potential prostitute (cellulite is a no no, as is cotton, J.Crew or natural hair color) and then paying between 15-45 dollars for the pleasure of standing around (tables are an extra $500-1500 plus bottle service) in what will basically be a regular looking bar or club. That being said, been there, done it, can be fun but always make sure you are with a VIP.

2006-09-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

Last Day Before Takeoff!

Ahhh, the joys of packing! Or in my case, the joys of it being 11PM and I have not packed the first thing. To be fair, jewelry, make-up and passport, rent check and plane ticket are all packed, just nothing else. A girl has her priorities. It's been a hectic few days the AoY. Down to South Carolina to watch the Shamecocks lose to UGA (complete with WAYYY too much BBQ, pimento sandwiches, mini pigs in a blanket, egg salad, cheese ring, more pimento cheese, venison, Charleston BBQ, SC BBQ, more venison, Chik-Fil-A, something else with cheese, cookies, and S's (in)famous "chicken juice" whose main ingredient appears to be alcohol). If you cannot identify any of the above items, well that's a shame. We polished off an afternoon of socializing, shagging (US version!), and stuffing with a rooster's crow followed by a shot of Fighting Cock.

Ahhh, Fighting Cock-A cross between the rotgut sailors used to drink, moonshine, paint thinner and nitroglycerin, FC is guaranteed to warm you on a winter day, cut through any surface including concrete, and render you fighting mad and itching to beat up on Clemson fans. Its amber color lulls the unsuspecting into thinking they are partaking of whiskey or sweet tea only to emerge from their glass with watery eyes and curly hair. It has been known to make grown men gag and shudder and the ladies are inevitably the only ones who take their dose without complaint. After this parting 'shot' (no pun intended) it was back to Mama's for more unpacking, shrimp Creole and French Silk Pie (yet more food, apparently Southerners fear the next siege at any moment). One walk with Holly later and it was time for the post-loss nap.

It has been a lot of good byes in a very short amount of time. As I mentioned to my old roommate this evening, everything happening lately has been good but that doesn't make it any less hard. If ever I felt a gap between my friends at home this weekend uncomfortably shined a spotlight on the fact that I will never slide seamlessly into the Saturday tailgate extravaganza much less Columbia life. Would I want to? Probably not but it's one more good bye I wasn't planning on. Saying goodbye to Holly, my puppy dog of 10 years, was definitely one of the hardest because I couldn't explain why I was leaving. She always knows when I'm getting ready to go again because she will not leave my side (this gets awkward when the shower curtain is nosed aside while your back is turned), will steal things from my suitcase, and in general lets her ears droop down to the vicinity of her jowls, which are still bulging with my mascara or hair band. Then she tries to really behave, as this will stop me. Finally, as I lug my bags to the door she stands there and just leans into me as I hug her without jumping, crotch-sniffing or using her windshield-wiper-sized tongue to clean my face off (her ways of expressing love I guess). But this time she just stands there and lets me hold on and the very lack of annoying habits makes it even harder to let go. My biggest fear is that she'll do something stupid like run in front of a bus or get sick before I make it home the next time (do all pet owners feel this way?).

The weekend before in DC meant more hugs and toasts (some I'd like to forget I think) but every since I've been gone new buildings have gone up, businesses have shut down and roads have developed new craters near the Memorial Bridge (just for fun). Tonight in Charlotte was a quiet dinner at home and I of course compensated for the mix of sadness/panic by acting a tad bitchy and snarky (sue me, I'm a little blue-mea culpa).

Ok! Maudlin sad time over! Let the weird shit begin! On the Top Five for the past few days:
1. Found out what "mews" are-small neighborhood type areas. Am seeking confirmation.
2. Was asked out on a date by CMPD. How? One word: FedEx. I went to pick up my visa/passport from transit hell and was vainly trying to remember my 12 digit tracking number and simultaneously explain to the FedEx agent, who bore a VERY striking resemblance to James Gumm from Silence of the Lambs, that I really REALLY needed my passport to leave the country when a voice behind says: "Well there goes my plan to ask you out for Tuesday." Thinking he was joking (it was too much like something out of a mediocre chick flick novel) I turned and spotted the pretty cute guy I had eyeballed upon his arrival a few minutes previous. As I called home for the third time to confirm my tracking number I heard him relay that he was picking up the package for his mother (how CUTE!), correction (mother-in-law, what?!?!) because his sister-in-law (ahhh, okay-his brother's wife's mother, CUTE again!) was at work. For ID he showed his CMPD badge (face it ladies, if a man must be in good physical shape as part of his job requirement, he gets bonus points off the bat). As the two of us finally confirmed that while FedEx might say "Pick up package from FedEx office" what they really mean is: "You weren't there, will deliver again the next day, don't bother coming to the office as your package will be back on the truck for you to not be home, AGAIN, and we can do this for three more days" we did the "well, if you're ever back in Charlotte"/"too bad I'm leaving" awkward goodbye between two strangers who have just survived a traumatic event together (eg-package retrieval-no THAT kind, gutter brains!) he walked out (yes I looked, he clearly runs, a lot). Ahh, unrequited post office love. Onward!
3. As a sidebar, I must mention that the reason for the pseudo-date solicitation was probably due in a large part to the postage stamp sized skirt I had worn that day (I was one of THOSE people, the ones that clearly do not own a 3-way mirror allowing them to see every bulge of cellulite that would then convince them that no, thank you very much, your miniskirt days are O-V-E-R). This became much more funny when I went to the doctor's office and at some point (probably between one of the 3 waiting chairs I sat in to get a tetanus shot) one edge of my skirt tucked itself up into my unmentionables (in simple language-I partially mooned 3 nurses). Do I notice a draft? Of course not. A nurse walked up and handed me a note that read: "It appears that a piece of your skirt has gotten tucked into your underwear. Thought you might want to know." While I appreciated the discretion my face quickly approached searing temperatures as I attpempted to slyly re-adjust without falling off the slippery vinyl. I really, REALLY wanted to run from the building and not show my face in public for a week but at the mature age of 24 decided that while yes, I will be THAT GIRL for the next year or two, hopefully no one will remember me by name or face (please God. I'll let ya'll know in 9/2007).
4. As if #3 weren't odd enough, I had to get a tetanus shot. Now my friend W. got one for her trip to India and swore that it didn't hurt as badly and I didn't remember my last tetanus shot hurting at all. I think I've figured out the mystery. Body Fat Index. I have more body fat and God is punishing me. 3 days post-injection and I still have a walnut/hot spot at the injection site. It was super-fun hauling around furniture and clothing when I couldn't raise my arm over my head. Add to that Mama pounded me on my right arm no less than 3 times in one evening, making me think that she had been waiting for that shot for years as a small payback for chipping her tooth as a toddler (it's brought up every time she applies lipstick in a mirror near me; ask her about saddle shoes, she'll replay the story).
5. It's now midnight-I leave in about 20 hours and I STILL haven't started packing. But I do have my address cards ready to go, my CDs organized by genre and my lists of things to do all in order. Oh, I have #5 1/2-I'm flying on September 11. My friends have literally all decided that I am insane and this is further proof that I should be chased down with a butterfly net and tranquilized before I harm myself. I LAND on September 12 people!
Night ya'll-tomorrow I'm London-bound, waiting to bestow good cheer and Southernisms upon the hapless residents of Philbeach Gardens (new home)!!!!!!!

2006-09-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

SCREEECH Change of Plans!

Obviously, my initial ramblings are totally without merit as I am moving to London in one week. One week! 7 days, 168 hours, ummm 10,080 minutes-point being, so much to do, so little time!!! My major problems at the moment (I have been told I'm prone to drama and exaggeration but these are REAL!):
1. My passport and visa have not arrived. Apparently "Send all correspondence to Charlotte, NC" really means in British "Send hapless passport to old VA address and thereby cause unnecessary alarm." I think that they are just bitter about the War. Yeah, that one.
2. No place to live. Okay, so my roommate is working on that one. Thus far we're thinking Earl's Court which is apparently a cross between an ethnic developing neighborhood, a gay zone, a posh trendy area, a convention center, a bar scene, and a Muslim/Polish/Italian/Kiwi area. Oh yeah-2 girls from SC, we'll blend right in.
3. No suitcases. I was in the airport this weekend and noticed that the trend of "Oh, I'll just tie a red ribbon on my black rolling suitcase and that way NO ONE will mistake my bag for theirs" has morphed into either "I'll just buy a beige suitcase" or "ha! I'll use GREEN ribbon". Nametags people-USE NAMETAGS! Trust me, some random stranger already has your passport and the tube of deadly lip-gloss you were forced to leave at your old residence anyway. Give in gracefully.
4. No cell phone-Tricky but soon resolved with a little help from Vodaphone. Now if only I could keep straight when then bloody 0 (which is in parentheses) needs to be dialed. Gulp.
5. Not packed-Have you met me? I've never packed early a day in my life! Why, as soon as everything is rolled neatly and bundled away in it's own little safety storage bag you'll need it. I also always get freaked out when TSA leaves one of those "We've searched your bag" cards (I'm up to a collection of 9 or so at this point). Did they just peek? Nose around? Sort out my whites for laundry? I'm sure that's not the worst job ever but I swear that the agent at DCA-Reagan is slowly amassing a collection of my gym socks, nail clippers, rubber bands and oddly, my spare change that rolls around annoyingly.
6. Ha-Must go back to school. I went into Office Depot last week for some computer paper and strolled down the old school supply aisle. When did a 2nd grader start needing a PDA, laptop, cell phone, Filoflex, and 7 subject notebook? 2 words: Trapper Keeper. Apparently they are retro. Me, I just stole my supplies from work. Okay, it was more of a Lend-Lease situation that I have no intention of rectifying. Sort of like Oil for Food. Okay, not really but I felt like I was supposed to insert the obvious satirical and bitter joke about Bush, the Republican party, the demise of our status as a leading power of the world or something. Political alliances? Can't say as I have any which means I can call out stupid mistakes whenever I feel like it!
7. I don't speak the language. Silly girl, you think, the Brits speak English! Umm, WRONG! I mean, yes, I'll probably be able to muddle along but here is a partial list of words I'm bound to misuse, not use, or not know what in the hell they mean (I can add to this as I get going).
-Shag: US-This is the South Carolina state dance that I have known since birth and will probably go to my grave doing the pretzel and dreaming of Buzz from Shag: The Movie. UK-What every boy wants to do; it's a noun, verb, adverb, and adjective.
-Mews: What the hell is this? Does it involve Cats (will Andrew Lloyd Webber be there?)?
-Kiwi: US-Fruit good for you and full of antioxidants. UK-New Zealander (I'm not 100% sure, but I think you do not refer to an Aussie or a South African as a kiwi-I'll let you know)
-I just ran across a website that I NOT endorsing for anyone who is not a 22 year-old frat boy but it's londonslang.com. Seriously vulgar and I don't even comprehend some of the terminology.
-Fanny: US-A rather old-fashioned or polite (if not odd) term for a backside. UK-According to my American source, don't say this while buying a Christmas in cold weather ('I'm freezing my fanny off in this cold!') This apparently refers to something else entirely and is an EXTREMELY crude way of putting it. Location hint:Head due East of the U.S. Fanny. Or West.
-Pants: US-Trousers, slacks, seersucker. UK-Panties (I'm not sure if it's only for women though)
-Public school is a private school in England (Hmmm)

Seriously I could be in real trouble here at lecture!

Had a fun weekend visiting the old stomping grounds up in DC. People were like "Oh, you left?" Celebrated yet another summer birthday and general chaos and shenanigans ensued at Adams Mill and the Angry Inch. People watching at it's finest although apparently (in what is becoming a really horrible habit) I popped into the men's room at one point because no one was waiting and the girl's line was out the door. I made sure not to touch ANYTHING (ewww) but as I left a waiting guy (fine, so a dude had to wait 10 seconds! 10! You try putting on pantyhose just once!) was like, "Hey, Is this the men's room?" I just sort of let him think that the bathrooms went co-ed after midnight (worked in college). So after a LONG shower involving Clorox and germ killers it was back to Charlotte via Detroit. The man next to me "borrowed" my pen for 1 hour and ten minutes of a 1 hour and twenty minute flight (thus depriving me of Sudoku-yes I have an entire book). I tried reading Cosmo but I was stuck between a woman who looked just a bit too much like my mother and this gentleman. I couldn't bring myself to read up on "101 Sex Tips you MUST Try Before You Die (or die trying)" and risk one of them learning about what you can do with ice, a feather and some Saran Wrap-I'm still working that one out in my head.

But back to the guy: So he releases my hostage pen and then proceeds with the following conversational opening gambit: "I'm both a liberal and a conservative and I say that the way to knock out the terrorists is racial profiling. Just profile them. I can tell you aren't one of them and the grandmother across the aisle isn't but some people-you just know." As we were sitting in the middle of the plane I tried the "I swear, this guy is SO not with me" glance of desperation at the Indian, Iranian, Korean and African-American people sitting within ten feet of this guy and politely hummed a response. Score One for political correctness I guess. Maybe I will write my dissertation on it. Come to think of it-I've been pulled a bunch for special screening. According to Mr. UN I'm either A) A terrorist and they should be extra-cautious that my monogrammed Vera Bradley and Longchamps does not hold dangerous articles. B) The Atlanta and Frankfurt TSA agents thought I was cute or C)I don't look like the type to run screaming to the ACLU. Ahh, screw 'em. Although there are new machines at the airports so be prepared; they are extra slow and send puffs of air all over you. It takes about 10-15 seconds to complete the scan so allow for the frightened toddler that runs screaming through the area and will most certianly be on your plane, the granny who has to hobble since her dangerous cane is on the X-ray belt or the snarky business man who needlessly bitches out agents and incredulously inquires if he honestly looks like a killer. I love people-we're so kind and forgiving of the problems of the world ;)

I'm sure something else disastrous will go on this week but for now it's lights out :)
-AoY

2006-06-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

So, to blog or not blog blog? Why? Well, there are several reasons-all the cool kids are doing it, you can have creepy randoms commenting on your personal life, it's exhibitionism/voyeurism in one free package, and oh yeah, it's a place to record events, feelings, anything your therapist might have been shocked over. Whatever. Why not? Well, POTENTIALLY you could embarrass the hell out of yourself, friends, co-workers, exes, family members, family pets....Or you could end up being really boring where the most exciting part of an entry is how you perfected rubber-band shooting (I work in an office) or how long it took you to choose Earl Grey over Constant comment tea before settling in for another grueling Sudoku (which if you have not yet hear of, well-a rock, you, living beneath it)

So why, might one ask, would I create such a burdensome endeavor involving the masking of people's names and/or escapades (yes, I promise to never reveal identities-I may live in DC but this is no washingtonienne) after years of scribbling in bound volumes? The main reason is: the Trip. Hopefully a several month cross-country journey to enlightenment, inner peace, award-winning chick lit to be made into a major-motion picture (ahem, TDWP, E'town-see I use initials!). Actually, I detest writer's cramp and my fingers are so used to tapping away at a keyboard for 8, 1-, 12, 18 hours a day that it seems natural. plus, online photo uploads might be more interesting than my encounter with the 20th dead armadillo somewhere in Texas. Although, with the Mickey Mouse spellcheck here that does not recognize "blog" (spelled 'irony'?) or voyeur as words I might have been better off with a pen and paper. Although may I please issue a blanket statement for any misspellings - FOR AN ENGLISH MAJOR I CANNOT SPELL EVERYTHING ALWAYS AND I OFTEN USE THE "BIBLE" METHOD OF TYPING (seek and ye shall find). Unless you publish books and articles, typos will creep into posts.

This is clearly a rambling stream-of-conscious entry (first timer) without being that amusing, structured or entertaining. I'll consider this a free write and promise to improve.