One Year Later

Firstly, wow, it has been a very long time since the last post and so much has happened. Well, I guess not anything too exciting 'cause we'd have blogged it, right ... right?

The last post was about chickens ... they're gone now. No, we didn't slaughter them, they just got bigger and we couldn't keep them where we are so they went to a good home with a friend of Amy's. We have visited them a few times since, and one of them did make it to dinner - but the others are still going strong. The girls are laying eggs, and very nice indeed they are too.

So, other news? I started a new job last Monday. I'm still doing similar things, just at another place. It does involve commuting to London but after commuting costs I am earning fractionally more each month.

Amy applied for and received Indefinite Leave to Remain a few weeks ago (fast tracked as she's visiting the US this summer). Ashley is in the process of applying for her ILR (slow-track due to no going-away-urgency and as it is cheaper) and we're fully expecting that to be granted.

Oh, and Amy is pregnant (yes, it's mine, not the milkman's) and is due late December.

Pictures (because Kelley is good at those and I am really not, so I'll take advantage of her goodness now, kthxbai.)

Kelley is here, trying not to catch our sick-bug and snapping photos of the interesting things we are doing. She is much better at posting pictures than I am. Obviously. Just to pretend that I am not quite as bad as I actually am, I'll post a few here for you all. Not the interesting ones, of course, but only the ones of us, because there are fewer of them and all.

Day 1: B00's Birthday

Kelley arrives. B00 (not my Boo-bear, but a friend) has birthday dinner at pizza express. Then there is a pub involved. Don't worry - Amy drinks water.


Day 2: Deal Castle

We go and check out my new school, see my classroom, and meet the headteacher. Then on to Deal where we have just enough time to tour Deal castle before needing to head home so Amy can go to a dinner thing with the people she will be working with next year. It is at a casino - Amy is not impressed. And again, don't worry - Amy drinks water (though they really tried to get me to drink champagne and wine and cocktails.)



Day 3: Bodiam Castle

We all 4 brave the hour and a half trip to Bodiam castle, and have way too much fun in the stocks while we are there.

Kelley sad in the stocks.


Amy, well pleased, stealing Kelley's shoes.


Stephen in the stocks.


Amy getting herself in trouble again.

Amy finally gets put in the stocks herself.


Ashley not even pretending to be sad. She likes it, that one.



"Hey - let's put our heads in!" says Amy.

"Ash - I think we are stuck and its your fault!" "Wait a minute, this was YOUR idea!"

Again, Amy decides that she is the queen and Stephen is the king and that she could live happily in a castle. She also asks Stephen if they can build one. And again, he says no. On the way back, Kelley tries out her hands at driving on the wrong side of the road. Her thoughts? "It's absolutely nerve-wracking and not a little confusing." she says. (She did pretty well, if I may say so myself.)

Well, that's it thus far. Maybe more pics later.

Blech.

I am sick. It comes from Stephen being sick. He has been running a fever and has had a cough deep in his chest. Now I have the exact same thing. I feel absolutely terrible. No appetite, nausea, coughing so much I can't sleep. I am lucky, in that he has done a really nice job taking care of me. I almost feel coddled. Then I remember how cruddy I feel.

And then today, in the midst of thinking that perhaps I would feel a bit better if someone were to actually shoot me and put me out of my misery, my glasses broke in half. I took them off of my face to wipe them off, and the split apart in my hands. I have put off getting new glasses. These are the ones I think I got in 2005. I kept telling myself that, even though I was pretty sure that my prescription had changed, I could hold out just until I had finished paying off my tuition. Well, that is not happening. My old glasses are not repairable.

I have an appointment for an eye exam in the morning. This afternoon Kelley and Stephen went out and about, but I chose to stay home in bed for feeling so bad. While they were gone, Stephen took my old glasses into the place that I have the appointment, and secretly had them transfer my old lenses into a temporary frame. I have to give them back tomorrow, but it means that I have glasses to see with until then.

He really is sweet.

And now for something a bit different...

As I have been tired, busy, and promising someone a chance to be a published blog author for almost a year now, I am very happy to finally offer the chance for a guest writer (as opposed to a GHOST writer, and I am glad for that, let me tell you, as I would never sleep well again after being so well-haunted...) to take over for a bit. Kelley and I have been friends since we were small, and my sister Kelli introduced us. She is here on a visit, and I am happy to put our family blog in her so-very capable hands. (Or so she says, though we haven't actually experienced that massage magic as of yet. hint hint.)

Hi there! Kelley here. Amy thought it might be nice for a small change, so you are to temporarily to be exposed to my version of a little thing we like to call "return to the motherland." Just teasing, I have never actually called it that before, but since this is my second visit to Amy and Ashley in England, and Amy promised a blog from us last time (she lied, naughty girl) I promised that I would write this time. (She just thinks it will be once. I intend to milk her for every word.)

After a long flight from Dallas/Fort Worth airport to London Heathrow (9 hours) and then a trip on the tube to the train station (1 hour) and then a train trip down to Canterbury (1.5 hours) I arrived here on Friday the 2nd. Note that if you should visit from America, these sleep Nazis will NOT allow you to escape your exhaustion and jet lag until what they consider an appropriate evening hour. It gets dark here at four. Tor-ture. (In the infamous words of Sir Stephen: no pain, no gain, so deal with it. Or something like that.)

On Saturday, the 3rd, we visited some friends of Amy and Stephen's for dinner. Here are Stephen and the Transplants (that's actually the name of their band):


By the way, he doesn't always smile like a serial killer in photos. Andy and b00 (the friends) made us a lovely meal, (involving eating anglerfish for the first time, and blood, gore, and medical-grade superglue, but not on any of us) and we played a few rounds of a new game called Bausack. It is a really challenging game where you make a tower of these odd-shaped wooden blocks. The catch is that other players choose your pieces for you. The last tower standing is the winner. The rookie (that's me) won the first round with this creation:


Ashley had a lovely 2nd place masterpiece with this one:


We stayed quite late past dinner, and walked home in the dark (very dark) and cold (really, really cold) and snuggled into beds with hot water bottles and many blankets.

Today, Amy and I went down to the High Street (yes I said down, then high), which is a short, quite scenic walk from their flat. (She says short and quite scenic NOW, but when we were actually walking it she sang quite a different song involving lots of 'Are we there yet'esque statements.) This is a school field nearby.


See the little black hills of dirt? Mole holes. Stephen says to call them mole hills, but I will let you decide. (Kelley and I both called them mole-holes until Stephen corrected us. I suppose I know that they should be called mole hills, and I don't know why my instinct is to call them mole-holes, but it is.) As you stroll down the path alongside the river, the Canterbury cathedral pops up in between the trees and over rooftops like a creepy stalking historical monument.


(Just look at those creepy stalker-building spires. You can't miss those, it's how you differentiate between a regular historic monument and a creepy-stalking one.) I kid. It is really quite stunning, but for some reason never fails to surprise me when I'm walking down the road surrounded by buildings and all of a sudden, Bam! No, it doesn't mow you down. It's more like, Boo! Here I am! Again! This is the creepy wooded path that Amy will not go down in the dark unaccompanied. Can't say I blame her:


(That picture may well be the favourite one that Kelley took today. I love the muted colours and it actually looks just like a creepy pathway should. Well done, Kel.) Here are a couple of buildings within town. This is a synagogue on one of the side streets (Story: This building used to be a synagogue, and it has since been bought out by The King's School, a swanky private institution that charges more in tuition for the boarding children than my tuition does. It is now a recital space used for music performances.):


This is an official Canterbury Historical Building (according to the sign)--there are quite a few of these in town. (In the midst of a variety of small shops, this house is actually residential. I almost feel sorry for the people who live there, as every tourist in the area has to stop and take a picture of this house. One time I actually saw someone taking a picture of the residents as they went in.)


Not sure if this sign is old, but it was on a historical building and I just liked it.


And this lovely old building houses...the Gap.


Here is a shot of the high street (also called the Parade) (Or at least 1/3rd is. There is St. Peters, The Parade, and then the High street all as names on this one straight, 1/2 mile stretch of pedestrianised road.):


And just around the corner, this sign wishes you a Happy Christmas. (On January 4):


And here is the cathedral again. I think it's following me.


Before we left town to head home, we made a couple of stops, one of them at Tesco, which is one of the groceries.


Now, the grocery stores amuse me, because one of the first things my mother said to me when I told her I was visiting England was "Yuck. You'll hate the food." (She doesn't yet hate the food, because no one here eats English food. We all eat Thai and Indian and American food, and French and Chinese and Spanish food. England is all about World food, anymore.) And it's not that it's just different, but they have odd names for things. For a complete mental perv like me, it is a joyous place.

For instance, there is an entire aisle dedicated to biscuits. Don't care that they are covered in chocolate or cinnamon flavored, they call them biscuits. Check out my picture of the cookie aisle. (I love biscuits. And cakes. Darn them. And this picture looks as bright and colourful and makes me want to bring them all to a much better home: namely mine.)


And this is the pickled portion of the store. Never seen so many pickled things in my life. And guess what wasn't in this section. Pickles. (Though there are pickled eggs, and onions and beets and garlic and sauerkraut, and lemons and shallots. English people like their pickled foods.)


And here is mince. Supposed to be ground lamb or beef or pork or whichever, but tell me truly. Doesn't this look like the bits in 'Kibbles n Bits'?


(If you don't think that looks like kibble, go HERE and look. I have thought that it does ever since I saw it for the first time, and I was so glad when Kelley said she thought so too.) For those of you curious about the edible porn, there are cans of things like this:


The can says things like "Everyone loves a pair of bangers!" and "Size isn't everything!" and "Hide the sausage!" These will henceforth be referred to as "Porn and Beans." And this:


Now, I saw the movie "The Full Monty", and I think that its funny that this is a can of sausage and beans. I'll let you run with that one. For those of you that haven't seen the film, and this joke is doing a complete flyby at the moment, go HERE. You'll see what I mean. (The Full Monty, in this case,refers to the full English breakfast, which the English have held onto tooth and nail despite being a culture of world foods. The full English breakfast consists of as many of the following items as possible: Eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, toast, mushrooms, black pudding, hashbrowns, fried bread, and tomatoes. The Full Monty=coronary heart disease. In a can.)

And after the Tesco, we stopped by the candy shoppe, called the The Sugar Boy, where you can see these:


Ahhh...Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. They keep you all aglow. You say immature, I say nevertheless amusing. Our last stop was to get kebabs, which are lovely pitas stuffed with meat shaved off these huge roasters, like this lamb one:


They are really yummy, I totally recommend them (mom's advice be darned). Afterwards we headed home and had dinner, including a yummy custard desert, which is like pudding, but a bit thinner, and served hot. We are now all huddled in Amy and Stephen's bed as Amy reads aloud, and I will shortly have to haul myself from the warmth to my own bed and hot water bottle (Best. Invention. Ever.) Thanks for letting me hijack your favorite blog, and I hope you will let me share again. Cheers.

No, Kelley, thank YOU. We all hope that you will hijack this blog again in the near future. Even Stephen is happy. Ill and delirious with fever (no Dearest, I am not a reindeer and I don't need to eat another carrot...) but happy nonetheless.

Christmas Morning

8 AM Christmas morning found our door creaking open and Ashley crawling into bed with us for morning time cuddles. She had been waiting so patiently. She woke up at 3 AM, then again at 4, and finally at 7. She confessed to having snuck in to look at the tree and presents before coming in, but she swore she didn't touch anything. It amazes me that a 16 year old girl is still so excited about Santa and Christmas that she can't sleep. Possibly this stems from the fact that the last 2 years we have boycotted Santa and an elaborate Christmas.

Santa apparently did not appreciate the fact that we had not set up the tree or done anything nice with the living room, because when we walked into the living room, it was all done for us. All the presents were laid under the lighted Christmas ficus.

Ashley's Santa gifts were nicely laid also, and she must have been VERY good this year because there were two of them. Stephen and I must have been very bad, because we didn't get any from Santa at all. We have decided to write a letter of complaint.

Stephen must have been right when he said he had an in with Santa, and that he wanted Pringles and beer this year, because all that was left was crumbs. At least he put the bottle on a coaster.

This is a screen shot of the Santa-tracking site we used this year. It was how we knew when we had to get to bed, and we must confess that, while Ashley was in bed and asleep in plenty of time, Stephen and I waited until Santa was in North Africa before we slipped into bed. Maybe that's why we didn't get presents from him.

Ashley opening her presents. This one was a book from Santa. She ended up with quite a few books, some DVD's and a new screen for her iPod, plus a chamomile/lavender scented heatable fuzzy duck (amongst many other things.) She has expressed her happiness and is currently begging Stephen to install the new screen while her nose is stuck in one of those new books and the duck is stuck to her chest.

Stephen had the fewest presents (2) but they were dense. And it might have been a good thing, because he really is delightful when he opens presents. It takes at least 10 minutes, and involves examination and observation of detail, coming to a hypothesis and testing it before he actually opens the gift. He walked away with 5 new games and a new case for his Nintendo DS. He is now happily ignoring Ashley's pleas for her repaired iPod by burying his nose in the new games.

After having opened an incredibly beautiful and massively heavy granite mortar and pestle, Ashley couldn't bear the excitement about this gift for me any longer. Being birthed from the wrapping is a giraffe. I was informed that his name is Jonah and he is a hot water bottle cover. He is lovely and intends to torment Girard and Jo-Jo with the fact that he gets more of my cuddles than they do. He doesn't have much of a giraffe neck, though, so I suspect that the balance is maintained.

Jonah and I wishing you a happy Christmas!

Handsome Stephen looking forward to breakfast.

Ashley and her duck, whom she has named Droopey (for now at least.)

Breakfast was French toast made with seeded multi-grain bread and syrup. Dinner is on the stove and the turkey is roasting in the crock-pot. I'll post pictures and the further story later today. Right now the extended version of Lord of the Rings calls to me with its irresistible siren song.

In Review, kind of a bad few weeks.

Benny, my very old Grandma's husband, and therefore my step-grandfather, went into the hospital on 6th of November. He had cancer, and the tumour had spread to his liver and he was bleeding internally. They did an endoscopic surgery in the 7th to stop the bleeding, and he died on the 8th of November.

Kelli called to tell me on the 9th of November that my mother had overdosed, either accidentally or purposefully, on prescription painkillers.

On the 10th of November the hospital said that it wasn't an overdose. On the 11th they said it was congestive heart failure. On the 13th she had an angiogram which,while showing normal blockage which was taken care of, was not enough to explain her symptoms. On the 14th she told me that they wouldn't come right out and say it, but that it was a stroke.

On the 16th Stephen's mum called to tell us that his abuela was back in the hospital. Daily updates left us still not sure what was going on, besides age. On the 20th Stephen received a 5 am text message from his mum saying that his abuela had died. He left last night to fly to Spain for an unknown period of time to spend time with his mum and go to the funeral.

I am sad for all the sadness in our families. While I am so glad, I am also just a tad jealous that Stephen is able to go and be with his family during this time. I didn't get to. I am a bit mopey because I do not do as well when he is gone. I don't sleep as well, I remember my disturbing dreams more, and I have a lot more nightmares. And I can't help but wonder if the old adage about death coming in threes will be true this time also. All this is added to by the fact that Stephen and I have no way of keeping in touch besides the telephone (he usually takes his laptop and we chat often, but there is no internet where he is) and we don't know when he will be home. I know he will come home, though.

So this weekend, while I do have a bit of work to do for school, Ashley and I are going to hang out. I stocked up on junk food yesterday, an almost unheard of treat coming from me. We ate pizza and cookies and talked. Tonight I am taking her out for dinner, and tomorrow, as sad as it makes me, I am taking her to get her hair cut. I hope that we get the whole house clean this weekend, a task that I haven't even touched in weeks since things have been so hectic with school and I have hardly been home. I'll feel better when it is all done, and we will benefit from having some intense time together.

These last few weeks I have really wanted to go home. Not to stay, but to visit. To mourn. To spend more time with my Grandma. To see my mother and Kelli and the girls and my daddy. To hold onto Tristan so tight and make him remember how much I love him. To make him feel it. And maybe so I can feel it too.

Blog, Beards, and Barak...

Blog

It used to be that my blog posts were interesting. I spoke of politics, and thoughtful insights, and other such things. I sounded young and vibrant and intelligent. I don't know if time has mellowed me or if I am just being too careful about not being offensive. But now, I think I might be boring to read.

Granted, this blog is not really the place for me to go all soap-boxy. However, if I had wanted to play it ultra-safe I wouldn't have made this blog public.

I am not really sure what I'm saying. Perhaps I think about being more risqué, but I worry about what family will think if I am too risqué. I think about stating my position and going all activist, but I can imagine how many people might get annoyed. Possibly this is not yet something that I have thought through enough to decide what I want to do.

Beards

The cold weather is upon us, and the dark of winter is here. (Even though technically it is not yet winter.) I can now say that there is a pattern: Stephen likes a beard when it gets cold. It is not yet as long as it was when he shaved it last year, but I am delighting in it.

I was pondering why it is that I like his beard so much. I know it is a little unusual: I haven't even met anyone that I can think of that enjoys the idea of their partner having facial hair. I know that partly it is a feeling safe thing. My daddy had a beard, and part of it is the feeling of being little and loving daddy. Part of it goes hand in hand with my idea of what an intelligent man looks like.

Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci.

Last but not least, a huge part of it goes hand in hand with my love of hippie culture. All hippie men, at least in my mind's eye, have beards, and I just find it extremely attractive. Yes, I suppose that means I have a 'thing' for hippie men. No, Stephen is not one. But he floats my boat when he rubs my cheek with his beard.

John Lennon, Jerry Garcia, Jim Morrison.

Part of me doesn't like to admit that I have such levels of fascination and identification with hippie culture. It feels somewhat silly, in today's modern age. But I look at my life thus far and it seems pretty obvious that it has always been that way. My mother told me, when I was a teenager and borrowing my daddy's shirts because I liked them far better than I did girl clothes, that I was her polar opposite. She spent the 60's and early 70's resisting and fighting against everything that being a hippie stood for, while I spent the 80's and 90's trying desperately to be one.

(One of my absolute favourite shirts is one I stole from my daddy way back when. It is blue, long sleeves, with mother of pearl snaps at the wrists and a pocket on the chest. I call it my "70's National Geographic photographer" shirt. It looks just like you imagine. Google Image it, too. Someone is wearing one.)

Since being an adult I have struggled to try to find the commune of my dreams. Reading about The Farm in Tennessee made me desperately want to go and live there. I always had a house full of people, and living with Dar and George was pretty much a happy commune situation. Sometimes I miss so many people around.

Barak

This election has been quite an interesting one for me. I thought it best explained when I responded to a friend's blog.

Hear, hear, and Huzzah!

I find it particularly interesting that so many people that I personally know feel profoundly affected by not only the physical act of voting, but also the results of said election. I have no previous memories of people crying for sheer exhilaration and joy, but that is what I see and hear happening. And, truth be told, I am feeling it too. I don't think it is Obama per say, at least for me it is not, but more the possibility of coming out of what has been seen as a very dark time. The glimmer of light in the tunnel ahead effect, I suppose.

While I have always been proud to be an American, the last year of living in a foreign country and seeing what the world thinks of us has been quite an eye opener. We made a huge difference this election. It might even make it so Americans don't have to hide their heads when leaving the country.

What I am saying is that I'm right there with you, my friend.

While I chose not to use the blog as a place to push my own personal politics, I am going to say that I am really quite happy with who won the election. Stephen stayed up late the night of. He let me sleep until it got exciting, then woke me up. We cuddled in bed and watched until the BBC called the election for Obama.

The next day, Tristan asked me while I was on the phone with him who I voted for. When I told him, he told me that it was a good thing I voted the way I did, because if I hadn't he would have been angry with me. Silly boy.

Back into the Olden days.

So Stephen did something wonderful yesterday. I know: strange, that Stephen could do something other than pin me to the floor with a one minded fierce determination to tickle my feet no matter how loud I could scream, how hard I could hit, or how much I tried to wiggle my way free, right? No, this Saturday was different, this Saturday Stephen took me on an adventure. Poor Mom was busy studying away (and apparently getting kicked out) of the library, working on whatever it is the she needs to work on for University. Meanwhile, at nine-in-the-drizzling-morning, I was making my way to the train station with my backpack filled with card games, bottles of water, gummies for snacking on, a camera, and tons of batteries.

Have you figured out where I'm going with this? Stephen took me to be tourist-y. He took me to Leeds Castle. If you have never been or heard of Leeds Castle, then I feel very, very sorry for you! It was wonderful!! The grounds were huge with tons of trees and green grass, lots of lakes and streams: this castle had everything! It had a Maze, an Aviary, a kid's park, and a kid's maze. It had land trains to get you from place to place, and most importantly, It Had Ducks! I'm not talking like a dozen ducks. Oh no, I'm talking TONS of ducks! Ducks with black swans, white swans, geese, moorhens, and coots; and it was just Ashley Heaven!

Here's the hitch, it was raining.

Not nice drizzling rain like it was doing in Canterbury, no-sir-ee-bob! It was POURING! Throughout the whole day I had to suffer and fight because my camera lens kept getting wet; so I have lots of blurry wet spots in my photos. It was amazing how wet it truly was. It just drenched us from head to toe. Especially toe. My shoes happen to be coming apart (they need to be re-glued) so any time I happened to walk into a puddle my feet got the full blast of the cold wet-ness. But it was such a lovely day! The castle was brilliant; we had to enter from the cellar and work our way up. We got to see bedrooms and dining rooms and the library. For anybody who doesn't know, Leeds Castle is built on two little islands in the middle of a lake, so to get from one part of the castle to the other you have to cross a bridge. Of course this bridge is covered so it wasn't draughty or anything, but the people who built it had a hard time dealing with straight lines. The windows were all perfectly straight, but the floor kept getting lower and lower. It was very curious, first you'd have the window come up to your elbow, then your shoulder, then your nose, then the window was too high up for you to even see out of (even on tip-toes!), it was highly amusing.

The maze was terrific fun as well. Since it was raining the pathways were basically gigantic puddles. In certain areas you pretty much had to wade through (that's an exaggeration, but you get my point.) So for me there was a lot of frozen toes and sloshing around. Stephen and I ended up splitting up early on, trying to find the middle. Well, it seems I found every single dead end possible. Stephen and another guy kept running into each other in this maze, so they would tell each other which ways weren't the way to the middle and by elimination, they ended up finding the middle and directing the rest of us through the maze.

In order to get out of the maze (without having to go back through it) you had to go under it, where there was a nifty little grotto. The grotto was made to be spooky and ominous with flashing lights and menacing laughter. The walls and floors were made with seashells and rocks in very interesting and pretty designs. Add flashing color onto them and you've got pretty interesting works of art! It was very nice. And dry....