Grateful this morning, at 4:30 a.m., for Colin’s choice of 52″ inch HD.
Eschewing Jon Stewart’s cynicism, for blogs on exotic millinery.
Sharing the Royal Love feels sweet, pure; held whole
A soft, cold, unpeeled orange.
I am a Londoner again, today, splayed spread eagle
In St. James Park at noontime–
Between meetings–
Hogging first slices of sunshine
After a long winter’s damp.
I’ll go back to work.
I’ll go back to arms’ lengths and
Cigarette laced multi-pint dinners and
Hiding myself inside the Metro
Inside the Circle Line.
But today I am
Lying still, veins hot,
American-open and streaming the beat
Of squawking tourists,
Greedy pelican, and diesel revvings.
Beyond the ice cream cart queue
Where I’m knocked flat by pageant and love
Buckingham winks and waves.
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Moral: Don’t Write Drunk.
Day 8, #reverb 10: The Beauty of Different (Thanks, Karen Walrond.)
I live on the East Coast, in the glowing gutters of the GOLD COAST.
I am not from here, however, and that makes me “different.”
That’s right. I’m not from these parts.
I’ve traveled and lived all over, but moving to “The Small State” was my biggest culture shock.
I came back to America after having lived in London for three years. DYING for a decent pizza and, finally, some warm-heartedness. Well, the pizza here just plain disappointed (no, I WON’T drive two hours just to eat) and the people, in general, were cold, cold, cold.
After all… I am from the Midwest. More specifically, from Iowa. This is home to the “State Fair” and Cloris Leachman: What could be more wholesome and sweet?
(I’ll pause here to let you Etch-a-Sketch me and Cloris in your mind, wearing overalls, chomping hayseed, milking the butter cow.)
Iowa: You Make Me Smile (with Wonder).
Iowa is fly-over country and I like that. I can tell you, because I’m surrounded by old friends who are amazingly talented Iowans, like her and her and him, they aren’t a bunch of hayseeds and ignoramuses. The perception of the Midwest by East Coast is perfected into a hardened candy of despicable disdain: a combination of political angst and pure assumption. But it is wrong. Oh well.
So people evade the obvious and just ask about my years in London. No one ever asks what Iowa is like.
(Caveat: When I started hanging out in the Slow Food movement, I got a cache with the Iowa thing. When it comes to heritage pork, it’s hip to be corn fed. Ironically.)
I’ve been pretty defensive about it, all along. I am proud to be an Iowan (and a CYCLONE!… no stinking Hawkeyes!). But that is difficult to explain to the set of people who are busy training for the regatta and arguing over which Ivy covered institution should receive its half a million dollars and generally uninteresting 18-year-old. (Yes, I too have an Etch-a-Sketch!)
I don’t turn my nose down at this life and the people on the East Coast. It’s got its joys, especially the established towns and the history. Also, I’ve learned in living all over — from Long Island to London to Kissimmee to Waterloo: every place has its idiots and its beauty.
So yeah, I miss the simple joy of lounging in the garage with my brother-in-law, drinking beers while the kids ride their bikes, well, wherever.
But I wouldn’t trade all the things I have learned and earned along our journey.
(Here’s Where It Gets Random)
Like, did you know, for reals, you should not tip in British pub?
And that “all y’all” is plural for “ya’ll”?
And that a “patch” is a completely different drink request from ”fresh ice?”
Because I am feeling generous, I’ll share with you a recipe for a popular drink drunk of the underaged, in England.
Snakebite
- Take one Imperial Pint Glass, mostly clean.
- Pour in 1-2 Tbs. of Black Currant syrup.
- Fill the glass to half with fermented Irish cider, such as Magners
- Top the pint with some kind of lager. Carling is fine, or Kroeneberg if you are feeling fancy.
- Serve by shoving across the table/bar and spilling/sloshing liberally. No bev nap should garnish (too de classe) .
– Slam entire pint immediately and leave without paying.
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Here’s a brief version of the story of how I met Tim and Peter… I’m thinking about them today.
I was working at the Warrington Hotel in London, which isn’t a hotel, but an epic pub in Maida Vale. Now owned by Gordon Ramsay.
It was autumn of 2004, and we’d only just arrived in London. I was still an ignoramus of British culture. I had no idea I shouldn’t be friendly to the people I was slinging drinks to. American cretin I was. I hadn’t read Kate Fox’s ultimately useful anthropolgy “Watching the English” from where I learned, eventually, that my job was to take money, pour beer without head exactly to the top of the glass, and agree/complain about the weather. Full stop.
So, I was discombobulated while working at the pub.
Smiling was NOT working, and neither was small talk.
Being American (during the Bush second term, natch) was full on FAIL.
Additionally, I had an extremely efficient yet apparently-annoying habit of making two or three customers’ drinks at the same time… a standard practice in American bars, but a practice that was the highest level of rudeness to the British highly-developed sense of queuing. To the untrained eye, it APPEARED to be a mob of people swarming around the 30 foot bar, all staring at me with 10 pound notes in their fingers. But every sweating man with loosened tie there knew which one of them arrived first, second, third, and so on. Harrumphing commenced if I accidentally turned my back while making a Pimms and soda and served someone out of order.
Sigh… The first few months meant a rough bartender’s adjustment.
So, me and my acid-yellow bar shirt were having a rollicking evening one Friday when a handsome, smiling face ordered two pints of lager.
Smiling? Hmmm.. Ahhh,yes. The accent. Decidedly NOT British. His partner hovered behind him. Handsome too. Too handsome to be British too. Gay and not cranky Brits! OK!
In Which I Make My Move
During the “pick up the glasses and empty ashtrays” portion of the evening, I found the boys again at their table. Fearlessly, I plonked myself down, undoubtedly savagely regarding the weather as “just fine and why is everybody complaining?” ha HAH! Even though blinded by the glare of my shirt, Tim and Peter were undoubtedly rendered helpless by my wit!
And that was the beginning of my — and soon, Colin’s – love affair with Tim and Peter. We adored dinner and drinking time with them, visited them in their country “estate” when they moved out of Maida Vale. We hottubbed and shared Indian food (not at the same time… eww-yyuck); grocery shopped (Peter elevates to an art form) and once watched in gleeful horror as an over-served man tumbled head over keester while leaning on a table that wasn’t there.
We shared our Thanks-mas-Hanukkah-Kwanz-Giving dinners with them and other friends.
I even accidentally flashed them at their wedding, certainly sealing their gay marital bonds even more securely.
Well, now Tim and Peter live FAR away in Singapore, and even with technology like Facebook and Skype, there are some distance and circumstances that can’t compensate for the snuggle-lovely warmth of close-friendship maintained over beer-soaked marble.
Miss you boys.
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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 when I visited Lisa Taylor this morning and she mentioned tea cakes. Mmmm don’t “tea cakes” sound just delightful? Well, they aren’t. They are just an amalgamation of flour and baking powder and sugar backed in a tiny formed pan and having the consistency of sea sponge.
British food, almost without exception, is awful. It’s mushy when it should be fresh or extra deep fat fried when it should be soft and flakey. Or it contains “bacon” which is actually ham. It is hard and stiff-upper-lipped when it should be warm and comforting.
Historically, this has resulted in binge drinking at delightfully lovely pubs in the evening– to blot out the horror of the day’s eating and also to avoid having to eat supper. Don’t worry– the protein in the salted peanuts will get you by.
More recently, with the advent of aeroplanes and Chinese shipping containers, it has resulted in the import of “real food” from other places, such as the great frontiers of America (made in Taiwan). Nothing hits the spot after a late night round like a stop at HRH’s KFC.
Thanks Lisa, for reminding me how much I am missing. And thanks Colin, for the pancakes.
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Thanks to my husband, I got the chance to listen to the ultimate rant on America… from my favorite Brit, Stephen Fry. He has a fantastic podcast called Stephen Fry’s Podgrams. Some are scripted, others are extemporaneous. That is major.
Fry came to America for his BBC series Stephen Fry’s America, now available on DVD. No big surprise, he found out (and told) that Americans aren’t all mad gun toting religious freaks who eat lard three meals a day.
Instead, he called out the exact quality in Brits that I noted while I lived there: that in the face of Americans, Brits love to feel superior.
This is, of course, because of a deep-seated inferiority complex.
Meanwhile, Americans love Brits… and tend to fall back on their open and friendly nature when in their company. We, after all, believe you ARE superior, at least in your knowledge of literature, world sports, and tea.
Fry was completely misguided on one fact: the Brits superior knowledge of coffee. He assumed that coffee in America equaled Starbucks. However, he clearly is setting his standard to EUROPEAN coffee levels (his trek in Brugges may account for this) and not British levels, where staple-coffee is dried granules like Nescafe.
The best coffees are always to be had, Stephen, in locally owned coffeehouses–the sort that compete with the nearby Starbucks. Sorry you missed that.
We’ll be delighted to French press some fantastic coffee for you, Stephen, at our dinner party.
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I did the dishes. But I left the Presto Power Crisp full of bacon fat on the counter.
It’s not that I’m not interested in cleaning it– I scrubbed WAY more disgusting pans at The Passage in the London, where burning oatmeal in the bottom of a pot the size of the Queen’s bathtub seemed to be as much tradition as high tea.
No. It’s not that. It’s just that finishing things has never been my strong suit.
I don’t know why… I wonder myself what makes me want to leave that last bit of bagel on the plate or carry around the hundreds of novel pages in my laptop from here to there.
“Good thing I read your blog,” Colin said as he looked over my shoulder as I typed, “otherwise I wouldn’t have known.”
About the bacon fat that is… Colin is painfully aware, I am sure, of my penchant for unfinished business. (Meanwhile he goes to clean the fat pan).
One of the things I liked about Colin was his follow through. Man that guy would get focused and never let go. But since we have at least 4 unfinished projects around the house, I am afraid I might be wearing off on him.
Meanwhile, we beat back the tide of junk that continues to spillover onto every empty-flat space, despite my regular purging of unnecessaries into the trash.Maybe we are just too busy holding back the tsunami of mundanity to be expected to complete the task of amazing simplicity.
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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 motion of time, tightly sequenced and carefully structured so as to take care of our little passengers who are moving through it — at the moment –thoughtlessly.
I am the ponderous oaf, the deep resounding bell that drops in slow motion —-DONNNNNG then releases for a sweet moment, only to fall again, repeating the sound with whatever momentum is left, because I have to —-DONNG! The sound forms on dusty bell curves, dust that flies up manically for a moment and which then also forgets itself soon enough, and settles down again after the vibrations silence themselves past dusk.
Inside the bell tower, there is no drudgery and there is no satisfaction. The rain falls and we are damp– rather we are blindly scorched by the summer’s rays. Unhappy hasn’t found its way up the winding staircases or inside the ringers’ sleeves yet.
It’s only that we are just not sure where to land on the issue, inside the bell tower, as we pass another hour for the time to complain again.
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]]>By this time of year in London, I’d be stir crazy and ready for the end of winter’s short grey days.
One big difference between Connecticut and London, in winter most especially, is LATITUDE.
Stratford is on the 41 degree parallel and London is at 51 degrees. In terms of quantity of sunlight, that makes Stratford about even with Rome and Barcelona, while London is on par with Calgary.
So, by now, even though most of the rest of the week it won’t get up over 38 degrees (which is slightly below normal), the evenings are really starting to stretch their legs out and the days — which have been exceeding sunny of late– are very bright. Bright enough to fool me into believing spring is coming.
- I’ve gotten my bike out. Got to get training for the Bloomin’ Metric.
- I’ve hung one load of laundry on the line and keep eyeballing the temps for another good day to do it again. The smell of wind-dried sheets is bed-heaven.
- I’m started my plans to refurb the rock garden this spring, and am plotting the death of the poison ivy that attacked my sister Mary last summer.
- The crappy driveway — which is now scattered merely with pebbles– is in our sights for the summer’s big project. A four-square competition will hopefully commence by end of season.
- There will be Me vs. the greenbrier , Part 2 – in which I use leftover syringes from IVF to inject Roundup into pervasive vines. Talk about 180.
- We’re waiting, nursing, watering of the seeds which have arrived from Seeds of Change. It’s Veggie Garden, Year 2. (Place your orders now for Moustache Twistin’- Hot or You Call This Medium? Organic Salsas).
Yeah spring is coming, but it is nothing like the tulip-drenched springs springs of eternally-green London. In London, the days are already warm, the skies greyer and the swing to spring less noticeable. But I am itching for it just the same. Ready and rarin’ to go.
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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 the first things I want to chat with Gordon Ramsay about, at my Great Dinner Party, to which I believe he may be invited.
But that is another story. THIS story is about Bryan and Stacy, my humble and wonderful friends in KC, who also lived in England for a year. Before Colin and I moved to London, Bryan and Stacy were very useful. Bryan regaled me with many stories on the hilarious missteps of our common language (ask him about fanny packs!) and Stacy warned me of the dire consequences of not flagging a bus down when you wanted one. They both made sure I knew not TALK SO LOUD, especially on the Tube, where virtually no one talks at all, except the driver, to tell you of delays because of someone flinging themselves on the track at Euston.
Well, it’s the season of delight and wonder, and to keep with that theme, I found a package on my doorstep a day or so ago, with return address “Stacy Kearney.” Inside, wrapped carefully so as not to get damaged in the delivery, was a delightful addition to my kitchenware collection: My own personal TOAST rack (see photo above)!
I am sure I have done Bryan and Stacy a favor by taking this ridiculous souvenir artifact (and problem of storage– you can stack these things!) off their hands, but I am sure they did ME the bigger favor by bequeathing me this tool of British toast love.
Look at it! Not only will it hold my morning toast and cool it to crunchy-cold perfection, but it will constantly remind me (if turned correctly) what I am eating!
I can’t even tell you how long and hard Colin and I laughed over receiving this. Stacy’s Christmas card note reassured us it wasn’t an heirloom either — they’d gotten at the “Everything’s a Pound” store. Its worth lies in sentimental value then, as I doubt it is dishwasher-safe.
In return, Bryan and Stacy (and everyone else who can’t get enough of toast racks), I have this little delightful wonder for you! Enjoy while I go make myself some more toast!
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]]>I love flying out of small airports… There is nothing better than the 15 foot walk from entryway to checkin. Don’t get me wrong — I still reminisce about the Heathrow days, when long security lines snaked around the coffee shops and purse boutiques, and that was even before you the entered security rope maze.
This morning I departed from Westchester County airport which I suppose used to be a bit of a secret and a posh place for the wealthy to depart after rolling out of bed and their limos.
Now however, they’ve accepted the blood money of Jetblue and the little airport in the woods with the 20×20 check in area and one gate is exploding with passengers.
The plus side of this however is they are small. They have a limited team in their security area and they are well oiled. It was a wonderful gauntlet with a tall security officer at the one metal detector booming: “hold up your boarding passeds where I can see them!” while an über efficient woman shoved our coats, shoes and bags through the x-ray with lightening speed. Just my style. “folks you are coming through a metal detector! That means take any metal out of your pockets! Yes your cell phone and keys are made of metal!”
They were fast but not fast enough for the mad woman wandering the airport (it isn’t THAT big) looking for some way to get on the “Charlotte” flight.
Thank god she didn’t have to navigate Heathrow.
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