Clueless in the UK

It’s been 8 days since my last post, therefore 8 days since I finished the fourth book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Since then I’ve turned 42 years old, been to Parliament, rented a piano, taken the long way to Wormwood Scrubs, got a chess set for my birthday, had sleepless nights, watched a teeny bopper movie, had two decent Indian meals (finally) and tried a new kind of Brandy. Despite all that, I am often thinking about the characters in the books I have been reading, wondering how they are doing, and then suddenly remembering they are not real.

Needless to say, I’ve been a lot of things in my life, many of them pretty embarrassing, plenty at least a little strange, and some quite pathetic in retrospect - but I have never had a series of books stay with me this long. If you decide to take a chance and read the first (and best) one, please do not under any circumstances read the back cover of the book first.

But first things first: Jason is getting older. You can tell because he is now starting to do this:

What is this? Well it’s Jason after he brushed his own hair. It’s true that (1) he is pretending the hair brush is a light saber and (2) that he brushed his hair into a mohawk configuration, but still, he can be seen standing in front of the mirror every morning bragging about how many splits he has on his head …

This next series of pictures is to illustrate just how happy Jason is. Yes, he is this happy:

The Neighborhood
The kids have a new game they are obsessed with. They can be found playing it with the other kids in the neighborhood. I think it might be kinda like marbles, but I’ve never played marbles before so I really don’t know what I am talking about. I think they are trying to knock each other’s Crazy Bones over, which is the name of the game in case you’re wondering.

Look at the camaraderie …

the concentration …

the technique …

As you can see, we’re still waiting for fall weather to arrive … apparently it rains here in London …

This post is high on pictures (all but the first two taken by Sue) and low on commentary. But I have a lot to say for the rest of it and no pictures. People keep saying, The pictures are great! Why do I put so much effort into the words then?

Oh yeah - this blog is for me/us to remember our trip.

The Importance of a Proper Diet
OK - so I am rambling right now because I am feeling quite upbeat. Earlier today I felt like death. I took the kids to school in the morning, came back and had some jook. Then Sue said, “Let’s clean up the garden today” and I said, “How about I go lie down for 2.5 hours instead?” And that’s what I did. I somehow managed to force myself out of bed around lunch time to see what was going on, and Sue had left to do some shopping. When she came back she said that she didn’t feel right and decided to go lie down. Oh oh - whatever it is, we both have it … Are we both sick? Did we both work out too hard at the gym yesterday? Meanwhile, I was worried that I was not going to be able to go out tonight to a jazz club with some new friends as planned.

And that’s when it hit me: I messed up the coffee yesterday! I switched the regular and decaf! I have no idea what triggered the realization in my brain, and of course, I couldn’t be sure until I sifted through yesterday’s garbage to find the proof, but I did, and so … well so now I am feeling muuuuch better. The world looks very different toddaaaaaaaay. So I marched right back upstairs and decided to finish the 8 day old blog entry, made 8 days old mostly because blogspot was not allowing me to upload photos.

Parliament
On my birthday Sue took me to Parliament. Unfortunately they were not in session and I was a little disappointed about that, but it turned out to be great anyway. We got an almost personalized tour. Sue had written our representative to secure the tour and we got hooked up with an older couple, the wife of which emigrated to the United States in 1959, raised her kids in Hawaii, and now lived in … I think near LA. Anyway, a very nice gentleman gave the four of us a tour of the Parliament building, which was an old castle/palace, of course. I am struggling to remember all the details but I will admit I was flabbergasted to discover that the Parliamentary process was alive and kicking in the UK over 800 years ago! I asked the guy in the context of Henry VIII because I was really of the impression that Henry did pretty much whatever he wanted, and that in fact was probably the case. Still the process existed back then and they did play a role in the government, and I think that the civil war in the mid-1600s (or was it 1700s) was largely a war between the King’s followers and the Parliamentary processor followers.

Who knows. Not I, apparently.

I over-exposed this one but still it captures the magnificence and beauty of the place.

Food
Sue and I have been looking hard for the supposed plentiful excellent Indian food here in London. On a scale of 1 to 10, with Darbar a 10 (and I think we can all agree that Darbar is the best) the closest we have come until very recently was a 3. I wish I were kidding. Well recently we tried the place right in Hampstead right near the kids’ school and the butter chicken was approximately an 8 or so. The sauce was just right, the chicken was … ok. Their vindaloo was a 5, egg plant was a 6. Still it was exciting. On my birthday we went to another Indian place recommended by Jens and Neguine called Eriki. We ordered and then asked if they had butter chicken or vindaloo, and he said yes. So we got the butter chicken there and it was a 7. We’ll go back and try the vindaloo, although I am the only one that really likes that much pain during dinner. Still, when I said “I feel like Indian” and then Madeline said “Mmm, that sounds great!” instead of “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I HATE INDIAN”, I felt a warm happy feeling inside.

A feeling a lot like what I get when I drink my latest favorite: Calvodos. This is super smooth and tasty, at least the rather young one I bought. Last time I was in the store it was a young woman there, and I asked her if she developed her deep knowledge of wines and brandies through practice drinking them? When she said Yes, I said that I had a lot of catching up to do and that I would just have to try my best.

The Power of Blogs
A week or so ago I got a comment on one of my older blog entries along the lines of, “I think I know Talei Payne, your cousin who commented on this blog. Can you give her my email address so I can get in touch with her again?” I did and they are happily exchange email as far as I know, but when I asked this woman how she found my blog, she said that she was doing a story on blogs for the Sunday Times or something like that. So, who knows, my blog might be written up in the newspapers. I’ll have to delete this paragraph though …

Chess
I played one game of online chess with Adam and am in the middle of one with Josh. Adam said over and over how much he sucked, and I assured him that I did as well. But I had him on the run for a while there. When I failed to take his rook, however, the tide turned and when I started to realize that I was going to lose the game I mentioned to him that it was my birthday. He didn’t take the hint and continued to destroy me. And then he said, “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I really do suck at chess …”

But Sue got me a chess set for my birthday and while I was there I was reading “Chess for Dummies” and it really spoke to me, like it was written for me, like I was its sole intended audience. Um, so yeah, I learned something almost immediately and decided to buy it. But Adam made me promise not to read it until after our first game.

Meanwhile, Josh and I are lumbering along completely clueless and frankly I think he’s lost interest because he hasn’t made a move in days. Are ther any sucky chess players out there who would like to engage in a little friendly web-based, one or two moves a day, game of chess? If so, you know how to reach me.

I seem to be getting more comfortable admitting what I am reading. It’s a relief to finish the book and I wonder if I will get the next one in the series. I read until 12:30 am and then dream all night about the book. Last night was a little better because I only woke up every hour starting at 2 am instead of 1 am like the night before. Perhaps it’s because I decided not to have any brandy, cognac to be specific, last night. They say that makes apnea worse and I think I believe it. But maybe reading large books of this genre is the real problem.

If I had to choose between brandy and scotch I would pick brandy. Please don’t tell me brandy is a girlie drink, but I would not be surprise if that were so. Mmm, though. Super tasty and verra smooth. Does scotch get smoother with age? I bought a fairly cheap bottle but I’ve seen my friends back in CA go gagga over the occasional bottle of scotch and I wonder now if that’s to do with the age or just the brand, or perhaps both?

We had some new visitors: Adam and Loan. It was nice to see them. We went to their apartment near St. James Palace (right next to Green Park), drank some champagne and took this touristy picture with the guard. I didn’t want to do it and neither did Loan but we asked the guard if it was OK and he seemed fine with it. Henry Frackin VIII had this place built almost 500 years ago, and here it is just sitting at the end of a street we happened to be walking down. Pretty weird. Pretty cool.

We have been out and about in recent days. Madeline and Jason are playing football at Wormwood Scrubs. We take the tube from Hampstead to Tottenham Court Road and then to East Acton. We walk to the end of the street into the fields. It’s nice, with a cute little preschool on one side:

and a notorious prison on the other!

I think it’s a kinder and gentler prison nowadays but I admit I don’t know much about it. I am not sure how the grass is so green given the drought conditions of the last two years, but here it is again with Jason in the foreground:

Come to think of it, the grass looks less green over by the fields but perhaps that’s because the grass is more worn down by all the playing:

I came with Jason this time. Madeline plays first, early in the morning, and Jason’s starts at 11:30. Sue and I go in shifts. So by the time I got there Madeline was enjoying her second favorite sport:

Never have you seen so many Americans in one place but they’re all right - oops, I mean we’re all right. Just like back at home. There’s even an espresso van out on the field with a very cool machine I am just dying to try out.

The kids are doing well in school. Madeline seems to have a good number of friends, a couple of which have come over to our house to play in the neighborhood. It is a lot of fun and you can hear Madeline and her friends doing jump rope games as their voices echo around the court yard. One of her friends came to a Swiss Cottage Fair this weekend, benefitting a local school for handicapped children.

There were cars:

a crooked fun house:

very fun trampolines:

and we met the neighborhood bobby:

It was the day before the fair that we actually met him. He first told Sue that it was safe to walk down the main street at 9:30 at night by herself … and then gave her one of those personal alarm devices. Things that make me go Hmmm … It was his beat and he was darn proud of it.

We met another neighborhood bobby the day before as well, and I asked him about some of the crime that seems to occur. He says this is a well-off area and the bad boys that do crimes just like to come and rip off cell phones and jewlry from all the rich people who live around here. Niiice. I asked him, “So if I stand my ground and tell them to bugger off, will I regret it?” He told me not to do that. I said, “Just checking.”

We’ve started treating the kids to crêpes for dessert now. Originally we were getting the ham, cheese and egg crêpes … or should I say, butter crêpes with a bit of ham, cheese and egg on the side. But lately we’ve started going out after dinner to treat ourselves to the sweet variety, and they are mmm mmm good. This half French half Italian woman is happier than she looks in this picture:

The kids are as happy as they look - wait, they are actually happier than they look, too!

But it kinda sucks when 99% of the population already knows it anyway.

Anyway, I should have brought my camera to the National Gallary because the picture outside looking into Trafalgar Square was something to behold. Dramatic clouds, pigeons flying all over the place, the occasional tower or monument, lions, etc. Inside, no cameras were allowed, as usual. You could buy all the pictures you wanted at the store, which is a possible reason for the ban, although I suppose flashes are bad for paintings and too many people don’t know how to turn their flashes off.

Anyway, the immaculate conception: that was the birth of Mary? I always thought it was the birth of Jesus. But then where does Joseph come in? My education in sorely SORELY lacking. I am embarrassed about it and will be sure to address my shortcomings as soon as I am done with my romance novels.

Wait a minute - wikipedia says that the Virgin Birth was how Jesus was conceived. So I wasn’t entirely clueless, it was just the names I had wrong. I feel so much better.

Anyway, regarding the Aperitif Incident, it involved going into a fancy French restaurant and being in over my head, and of course, being clueless. Here’s the email I sent to one of our friends that I held personally responsible for the whole incident:

Sue and I just got back from our trip to London, 1 week without the kids. One night we went out to celebrate Valentine’s day and our undying love for each other. We ended up at a fancy French restaurant although I am not sure either one of us knew what we were getting ourselves into. The hostess greeted us at the door with a happy English accent but once we were inside it was nothing but crazy French accents. No sooner had we sat down then some nice man, who looked just like you only 10 years younger, asked us if we would like an aperitif. I should have said, “I don’t know - what is an aperitif?” but instead I had a blank look on my face, shrugged my shoulders, and looked really stupid for a minute or two there. (I think they took that opportunity to turn up the thermostat 5 degrees for no good reason.) I am not sure what happened next but Sue and I eventually decided that we were going to get the “Chef’s Choice, 7 course sampler meal for a mere £75 each” and that we wanted to drink champagne that night. I think it’s entirely because of (1) my initial embarrassment and (2) the gentleman’s likeness to you and (3) our overall extreme feelings of fondness for you, which led us to agree to - how shall I say? - “a wicked freakin’ expensive bottle of champagne”. It all made complete sense: the mushroom flavors of the 20 year old champagne would go well with the truffles, and blah blah blah would go with the blah blah blah of the meal as well. Of course, I have never smelled, tasted or otherwise recognized any flavors in a bottle of wine, champagne or otherwise, so why did I think it was worthwhile going with this bottle? Because YOU recommended it to us, or at least somebody who looked just like you.

Now that I know what an aperitif is, I still don’t know what is a good one to order. So I am still screwed. The rest of the meal, by the way, was excellent. No regrets.

But the moral of the story is, We are just one of life’s experience away from having a clue about something we didn’t previously have any clue about. And for some of us that is a very good thing.

Regarding the National Gallaery, we unfortunately picked a period where some of the works we wanted to see are being moved to another part of the gallery and we were unable to see them today. Monet, Rembrant, van Goph, etc. However, looking at them in the store made me realize I am not sure they are going to do it for me. A whole class of painters and I might just not really care for. I seem to like cheap red wine as well. It’s just my lot in life. Bummer.

Lately I have chosen escape in the form of Diana Gabaldon historical romance adventure novels with a time travel twist over a book about Super String Theory. All I can say is, “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” they’re good!

We had our first visitors yesterday, and we’d like to publically thank them for their gifts:

Michele and Eric: thanks for the ziploc bags and ranch dressing.

In return for gifts it was our job to show them around, but what do we know about London at this point? I suppose we could have gone to the zoo or the London Eye. OK, my point is, we haven’t done a lot of things in London yet because we’ve been too busy getting our place ready, or being some place else (like New Jersey).

So we visited Westminster Abbey, and here’s a photo to prove it:

Since we were with friends we decided not to do the audio tour or a real tour, since it’s not so easy to talk to each other then. But that can be a mistake because there is so much history in a building like that. Man! I saw names and dates which coincide with the historical fiction I am reading, having to do with the Jacobite rebellion, etc., and it was occasionally jarring to see names that were mentioned in the book. The reason it’s so jarring is that, while it appears that I am walking around in the current century and interacting with people in the here and now, my mind is in fact 260 years in the past, struggling with such issues as antibiotics, knife wounds, time travel, etc., and the deep personal feelings of exactly two fake people.

The books are told from the Scottish perspective, so I found myself getting angry about 250-300 year old events. However on the “Visit Scotland” website I discovered that there were almost equal numbers of Scots fighting on both sides in 1745. So it’s time to let go… except I have about 3000 more pages to read, literally.

The Abbey is so impressive, like so many of the old buildings in Europe, and I found myself wondering what kinds of quality control issues they had, were contractors hell back then as well, and why were people willing to wait 500 years for completion? But I digress. Sadly we couldn’t take a any pictures inside the Abbey for some reason. That pisses me off. I wanted to say, “In France they have no problem with picturing taking in the Notre Dame, which FYI, is bigger than your Abbey.” We overheard one tour guide talking about Anne and Mary Boleyn, saying that Mary was the older sister. Sue and I were quite confident that Mary was the younger sister, because we read some other historical fiction, The Other Boleyn Girl, which incidentally is going to be made into a movie with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. Can you imagine a movie with both those babes in it at once? The thought of that is almost enough to get my mind out of the mid 18th century. Let’s hope they don’t butcher it.

This shot was taken in an outside portion of the Abbey:

Since we were close by we stopped off at Big Ben …

… walked over a bridge to the London Aquarium and London Eye, but decided not to wait in line, and then crossed another bridge …

… and headed for Trafalgar Square to find something to eat.

From there we walked to Picadilly Circus and went into a toy store since Jason has a B-day party this coming weekend. And from there to the Green Park station, which is across from … Green Park I think??

The Green Park station was where Sue and I went to the most expensive dinner in our lives when we were visiting in February to decide whether to do this crazy move. It was the scene of the great Aperitif incident, which proved so embarrasing that I decided to make up for it with a $300 bottle of champagne. But I digress.

Our kids continue to do pretty well in school. Sometimes I think they are both doing very well, and then a few minutes after Madeline gets home she starts to unravel as she tells us about some of the injustices that befell her that day. We’re trying to learn to take these with a grain of salt, because for one everything is new and you can’t expect it to just be a completely smooth transition, and for another, if she’s hungry her entire world is falling apart no matter what. Today she was hungry because she transformed from the biggest pain in the ass to the sweetest child you’ve ever know as soon as her dinner began registering in her stomach.

The most important thing to the kids, however, continues to be getting to play in the neighborhood after school and/or after dinner. It boggles the mind that we have kept them from this lifestyle their entire short little lives. What will we do when we decide to move back? Things that make me go Hmmm …

I want to learn how to cook. Last week I accidentally cooked two of the most delicious steaks of my life in the frying pan. Would somebody please tell me how to cook chicken breast so that it’s moist yet fully cooked? Please, anybody, what is the secret? I’ve seen my sister do it but I can’t recreate it anymore.

I’ve recently taken to buying pre-made sauces, such as Thai or Indian curries, and cooking chicken and veggies and throwing it all together. And the result would be fine if I could get the chicken part to work. God I hate chicken! ;-)

You know, the foam bed is really growing on me. But I think it’s too small. And regardless, when it’s really warm outside it’s just a miserable time sleeping. So I haven’t been doing much of that. But when you’ve not achieved a deep sleep it’s actually not that hard to get up in the morning, and today was the first day of school so up we got! Oh, so foam bed may move into the guest bedroom and Sue and I will go out and try again with another bed for our room.

None of this is interesting so I will get straight to the pictures of the kids on their first day of school. I assume their days went well but in fact only Jason is home with me. Sue stayed at school to pick up Madeline and I assume they will be home shortly.

I continue to ramble and I think it’s because I had to wake up from a deep sleep just to go pick the kids up this afternoon. I am not sure how I made it up the hill. Luckily I just had to follow Sue up the hill … STOP TALKING and get to the pictures!

A little apprehension on Jason’s face but otherwise not a big deal. He didn’t cry at all during drop off, in fact was quite fine. This was the best first day of school for him from that perspective. He’s definitely growing up.

This one is over-exposed for some reason. Bummer. Madeline came home in a skirt and boy does it make her seem grown up to me. She did have a good day (she just arrived).

Madeline was freaking out this morning, very VERY upset about everything and in particular did not like it when I undid her tie and tried to fix it for her. Finally I just sat her down on the couch and asked her if she was nervous, and she said that she was. I told her I was too but I am sure she would do fine. That seemed to help and she re-tied her tie again really well this time (after I butchered my attempt) and all was well.

Here are my photos from other first days of schools:

Madeline’s first ever first day of school (2002):

Next year, same location, different flowers, slightly different dress (2003):

Same place, now Jason’s first ever first day of school (2004):

Both of them the next year (2005):

It’s kinda interesting to see them change. Here’s a similar project taken to the extreme. This woman took a picture of herself every day for a few years. I thought it was cool but now I see they are a dime a dozen on youtube. Still, it’s kinda cool.

Before we moved her we shipped ourselves 9 boxes. Most of the arrived while we were on the east coast last month and one of them was missing. We sent two boxes via the book shipping method. You get a reduction in price if your box is just books. I couldn’t figure out why they took my brand new box (from U-haul) and put it inside a book bag before they shipped it. Now that the missing box has shown up I know why:

I guess my point was a little confusing, because actually, the box of books that was not lost also came in the same condition, held together only by the bag it was in. Somehow the books were in almost perfect condition anyway.

Check out my printer, cable modem and wireless router table. So clean, so neat, off in the corner of the office. It’s wireless, which is cool, but - duh - the wireless router is sitting right next to it, so clearly it was not necessary to do it that way.

Here’s Sue at her desk looking out the back window.

This is my desk. I accidentally bought an analog monitor, which I have never had a problem with in the past, but this one seems to have blue (or sometimes red) tinting around some of the letters on the screen. Not sure whether I am going to keep this monitor or not yet.

Oh, and that’s the map of Europe we bought. It’s good because now I know where … um … Germany is … as well as all the other countries. We’ll mark it up with the countries we’ve visited. At the end we’ll make a list so I can prepare all the name dropping I plan to do in the future (”Oh, the South of France is splendid this time of year!”).

Wow, I just had a flashback to an uncomfortable experience I had with a VC lady at Marimba in 1996, when she asked me if I had been to Cannes with Paul Allen … I shook my head politely and made a note to myself to figure out what the hell Cannes was and why would Paul Allen go there?