I had pancakes for breakfast yesterday and I took it totally for granted. God, how quickly we forget the hard times. Back in the day, (when I was living on nothing but beer and chicken-flavored potato chips), finding any kind of American baked good was like a treasure hunt. I was reminded of this...
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I took this photo in May of 2007, which of course seems like about two weeks ago. We’ve been in this small state for almost two and half years and I see how time gets compressed–I’ve erased the afternoons and the mornings and the evenings and all that remains is the back and forth...
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Or, The Continuing Saga of the Toast Rack In a new series I am offering, English Things I Miss, I recently I opined about the great mystery of the toast rack. A mainstay of the British Bed and Breakfast, I found this piece of kitchenware a great and strange object. It is one of...
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Our Farm Table, by David Ellison of Lorimer Antiques We recently had our “new” dining room table delivered to us. It was the last piece of the renovation puzzle in our “green” family room. It really is green… the walls are not only painted green, but were painted with low VOC paint (low harmful...
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Here’s a new, non-regular segment for you that perhaps will help me cope with the grieving process of no longer living in London: English Things I Miss, subtitle, Though Not Necessarily So Much That I Would Move Back to the God-Forsaken Land of Clouds and Complaining. First English Thing I Miss: The Toast Rack...
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We’ve got the fatties back in our yard, and I am responsible. Squirrels get happy around Halloween here– they love to snack on our jack-o-lanterns, 5 times their size. I encourage it, really, sort of hoping that they will end up just too slow to move, and find themselves trying to dodge the car...
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Dear Danny, I just wanted to send you a note to tell you that I was thinking about you. I’ve got the kettle on and it happens that way. Whenever I go to make my second cup of tea (especially on a cloudy day), I think of your “another cup of tea and biscuits”...
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In my dream last night I was following Dr. Who (David Tennant) and some friends to an alternate universe. Since it was a dream, it was alot like a Dr. Who episode, with strange creatures and great gaping caverns. We transported through reams of paper and The Doctor was his effervescent self. My favorite...
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John Brandon, the great governor of the Warrington Hotel, was the first English person to truly confuse me with a question. “You alright?” he’d ask, his voice rising up lightly. He was from East London, proper Cockney. His “you alright” was was one of the few things I could actually understand him saying. Except...
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I was juicing an orange this morning when a memory blast of Galway hit me. I didn’t juice any oranges, that I remember, in Galway, or any part of Ireland. I wonder what part of my brain shot me through with a violently lovely blip of those two days a year ago in Ireland....
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Maybe I wouldn’t have been so inspired to write this if I hadn’t been rebuffed by UBS, my husband’s workplace, two years in a row now. UBS, that beloved multinational banking behemoth, which hit Working Mother’s Top 10 again this year for super companies to work for, hosts mammoth holiday parties every year for...
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Or… The Day Renée Montagne Used Valuable Airtime to Tell Me About a Computer Symbol’s Birthday Back when I was “dating” Wilbur, I swore I would never, ever wake up to morning radio. Will had his radio set to 98.9 and Johnny Dare’s morning show in Kansas City. You don’t need to actually listen...
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… and Other Truths about A Poor and Sodden Nation There are many good reasons that ignorant Americans give to never leave America. Amuuuurrr-ick-cuh’s the best cunt-tree in the whole wide world. Why should I go anywhere’s else? Well, really that boils it down doesn’t it? The truth is, after living three years in...
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Having landed safely and been released through Homeland Security, it all begs the first burning question: What is the first thing you buy in the Land of Capitalism after living in Europe for three years? That’s right. A car. Tainted by the foolish, small-car-ways of European car makers (they invented something called a “SmartCar”...
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Aimee came to visit me and, so, I did what I do when people come to visit… I made plans. Came across a listing in Time Out London magazine (the website is useful, but nothing beats the actual publication… it is original, poignant and catches the exact tone of London’s edge. Not just a...
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