Marking # 32

In the grand tradition of my life, nothing is ever easy. I picked up DH from PHL yesterday afternoon - only I was about 45 minutes late getting to the airport because of a major accident on I95N yesterday afternoon that forced me to detour off the highway, and multiple major backups at the various tolls and whatnot. Nothing is ever easy, but I'm quite pleased that I have my DH home for my birthday.

Speaking of which, we're going to celebrate properly next weekend down in Palm Beach, however I did treat myself to one birthday gift:



I bought myself a pair of Wellies from DSW with a rewards and a birthday coupon I got in the mail. Sadly, they're going to come in very, very handy.

Moving movie

No, this is not an emotional moment or mesmorizingly cathartic experience, it's the two movies I made of the movers (and DH) getting our couch into our small rental house in the UK.

The first one is a little broken; I changed the orientation of the movie halfway through, so don't hurt your neck watching the first half:




And then finally:

In awe of Michael Phelps...

I am a rabid fan of these Olympics and in particular have been drawn most strongly by the men's gymnastics (my God - that pommel horse routine by that one American and the high bar routine by the other American - simply magnificent!) and, like everyone else in the US so it seems, the swimming.

I don't know whether it's the suits, the increased presence of technology to dissect and evaluate stroke technique, or what, but swimming, in my opinion, has never been more exciting. I swam competitively through most of high school, and I watch these guys and see things that 20 years ago we were told explicitly not to do (breathe only on one side, breathe every stroke, stay underwater too long, etc). Races are mostly exciting nailbiters, which makes me really happy, because that means that no one group has the absolute edge.

I didn't see the coverage of the 100M Fly live last night, but I did catch it on a YouTube link and now really regret missing it. I think that the main thing that I am so impressed about with Michael Phelps is that, from the outside, the guy looks to be one of the most well-adjusted superstars I've ever heard of. And you can tell exactly where it came from when you watch his mother's reaction to his racing in the stands. No win is taken for granted, no result is expected. Her holding her two fingers up last night, celebrating a second-place finish in the fly, made it seem that she would be just as happy with that result as the win. Given the media swarm about him and the whole Spitz 7 gold thing they seem to be pushing as their "hook" it's refreshing to see that the family doesn't seem to have bought into the hype. He's just her boy, racing his heart out and doing his best, and that's all she can ask for.

I know he hasn't had the perfect track record (the underage DUI incident in Salisbury MD comes to mind) but I think that made him even more grounded.

Between Phelp's and Shawn Johnson's lives as Olympians, and their demonstration that you can have a semi-normal life and still have success, it gives me great hope that systems like the Chinese and the former Eastern Bloc - where children who are potential Olympians are treated as commodities rather than people, will eventually fade away.

Go Phelps!


Edited to Add This is a most unfortunate photo of Phelps - very PG-13. Scroll down only if you dare:

Foiled! Darn you Chinese characters

So, as I've written before, I LOVE the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I always watch, not so much for the artistic stuff, but really for the Parade of Nations. It's the moment where I think if aliens had given up on the human race, seeing that clump of humanity in the middle of a stadium might just restore it.

Moreover, I love the Parade of Nations as a little personal geography challenge - try and anticipate which country comes next!! Well, the Chinese apparently don't have an alphabet in their script, so instead of coming in in alphabetical order, they came in according to the number of strokes in the Chinese characters that make their country's name in Chinese. Totally totally screwed up my game - especially when Australia and Zambia were the final two countries immediately preceding the host country, who always comes out last.

Without my fun geography challenge, I was left with only one other diversion. It's a little game I like to call "What are they wearing?" The Hungarian women (flower patterned dresses), the Polish women (bad bridesmaid dresses) and the Spanish women (highlighter yellow outfits) were total WTF moments, topped only by the Lithuanian men in their "manpris." Oh dear. That being said, I loved a lot of the African and Pacific Island outfits that really reflected their cultures, thought too many countries opted for the boring blazer and pants combo (including the yawn-inspiring Americans) and loved the green of the Iranian's outfits (I think it was them - maybe it was India, I didn't take notes).

Kitty travel crates - check!

The last couple of days I've been getting ready - well, readier - for our upcoming move to the UK. One of my tasks was buying crates to ship the kitties in. We have a small carrier for going back and forth to the vet, but the airline requires that cats have three inches of clearance above their ears when they're standing up.

Saturday I bought a 21 inch high crate - since it was the smallest reasonable size in stock at my local Petsmart. I got it home and stuck Henry and Eliza in it (separately). They had about 5 inches of ear clearance, and a whole lot of room otherwise.

So, thinking that perhaps I could go the next size down, I bought an 18 inch high crate last night. I stuck the cats in that, and immediately knew that it wasn't going to fly (no pun intended). There was only about 1.5 inches of ear clearance, and while it looked cozier, it just seemed too cozy.

I called Continental to see whether it was possible to get a crate that was too big, and they assured me that unless I was shipping a Chihuahua in a Great Dane's cage, that bigger was better to be sure the cats had enough ventilation. So tonight I went and exchanged the smaller crate for another larger one, and I've put the cats' beds, blanket, and gobs of catnip in them to tempt the kitties to check them out and be comfortable with them.

Eliza goes in and out no problem. Henry is terrified.

My week+ in England at a glance - part 2

Thursday! Pushed into a corner, I realized that I had to let DH have his expensive toy. I gave him permission to buy whatever TV he wanted. This set off a flurry of research on his part to find out which was the best, yada yada yada. After revisiting the base exchange, several electronics stores, etc, he finally settled on a 37 inch LG flatscreen that cost as much as my plane ticket home. We got it home, realized that we didn't have the cable to connect it to the signal booster, which meant that he made a mad dash out to the Asda to get the cable so we could enjoy the TV that night. Here, I have to admit, it's a pretty awesome TV. The picture is incredible - I'm mightily impressed. We did some walking around town, bought two bottles of inexpensive but great wine at Morrisons, and enjoyed the TV that night.

Friday - this was our general home improvement day. None of the bathrooms had mirrors or shelves or towel racks, and DH had been planning just to borrow a drill so that he could install the bathroom mirror he bought, door handles on the wardrobe, etc. Anyway, we kept buying the wrong lightbulbs for the lamps we bought at Ikea, so we went to the DIY store to get the right ones (it took us four tries!). While there, we went ahead and bought a drill that was on sale, so back to the house we went with our new purchase so that we could drill holes all over the place. We installed a clothesline retractor thing in the backyard, the wardrobe handles, the bathroom mirror, the master bath towel rack, and I am sure a couple of other things I'm not remembering. Finally, by the end of the day, I started to feel like we had gotten the house into a basic living condition. There are still lots of little things I'd like to do: hang different curtains, have some plants in the back garden, install hand towel racks in the other two bathrooms, etc. But all in due time.

Saturday we strolled into town and had lunch in the Valley Gardens. We tried to enjoy what we expected to be our last day together, as I was hoping to fly home on Sunday. We had some decent sandwiches and some ice cream, people-watched a lot, and just enjoyed the nice weather.

Sunday - well, not too much great to say about Sunday. We spent the entire morning at the airport, hoping that I would get onto the flight home. Needless to say I didn't, so we headed back to Harrogate, hit an internet cafe and bought me a one-way ticket home (flying standby was not going to work), and just tried to get over the fact that we were both tired and cranky from waking up too early, and after 7 weeks separation, had spent a week together 24/7 and were getting a little edgy.

Monday DH went back to work and I enjoyed a quiet day on my own, walking around town and such. Not too much exciting happened, except we did hit our second pub quiz night together (we had gone the previous Monday as well).

Tuesday I woke up too damn early and flew home.

My week+ in England at a glance - part 1

So what the heck did I actually do while I was in the UK. Here's a quick day by day summary.

Arrive Saturday on an overnight flight from Philly to Manchester. DH was waiting for me at the airport and by 10am we were on our way to Harrogate in a rental Vauxhall Astra. My navigational expertise combined with my lack of experience on English roads took us on some slow, plodding, small road through Bradford rather than sticking to the highway. A mistake that was not repeated again. We stopped at our new English home before heading off to the B&B DH has booked us in for two nights until our stuff arrived. We walked into town for my introduction to Harrogate, had Thai food, and retreated back to the hotel early for some much needed R&R.

Sunday, after enjoying an interesting breakfast at our B&B, we took a drive into the countryside. We also spent some time at the house mapping out what furniture was going to be moved into which rooms in preparation for the movers' arrival the next morning.

Monday was moving day, and the movers were there bright and early Monday morning! That took the vast majority of the day - the two small moving dudes that were there had to deal with three floors of living space, and my constant inability to remember that in the UK, the first floor is called the ground floor, the second floor is the first floor, etc. The queen size box spring we sent didn't fit up the stairs, and neither did our Pottery Barn couch. The movers hoisted the couch through a second floor window that had a french door (I took a movie of this process, which was impressive!), but unfortunately after they left, DH and I worked together and disassembled the box spring so that it could be shoved up the stairs. Good thing we did too, since the bed frame I sent, which I thought was a full/queen frame, was in fact a twin/full frame, and so the bed is currently resting on the floor. I unpacked all our dishes and miscellaneous items while DH went out for Chinese take-out. It was a long, long day.

Tuesday was Ikea Day! We got to the Ikea in Leeds around 10am, searching for a small kitchen table and chairs, a wardrobe (there were NO proper closets in the house), and a desk, among other things. We made one pass through the store, and we had measured the backseat to ensure we could fit our purchases in the car. We had no problem with the desk and kitchen table, but realized that the wardrobe we wanted posed a serious challenge, and the chairs we wanted weren't in stock. After buying one set of things and remeasuring the car with a little different seat configuration, we went back into the Ikea, enjoyed a Swedish meatball lunch (soooo yummy) and bought the wardrobe, some other chairs, and an ironing board from the clearance section (yeah!). To make a long story short, we somehow managed to fit it all in the car (although DH noted that it was seriously unbalanced) and get home in one piece. We spent the remainder of the day assembling the wardrobe and kitchen table and chairs, and then collapsed again into bed.

Wednesday was electronics day! We visited the base commissary and base exchange for our initial purchases - including a hair dryer, which I had been without for 3 days! we bought some groceries, a toaster oven, iron, and the hair dryer, but not a vacuum or TV. We took all our first purchases home, where I discovered that I'd bought an American hair dryer! POOOP! That was going to have to go back. We then went out and visited the UK equivalent of Best Buy - Currys - to look at TVs, hairdryers, and vacuums. I found a hair dryer (yeah!) and a vacuum I liked, but unfortunately they were out of stock. More importantly (certainly from DH's point of view) I accepted that he was right and there were no TVs available that were not extremely expensive 26+ inch flatscreens. (there were little 13 inch TVs, but they were still flatscreen and ridiculously expensive as well). We stopped by Sainsbury's on the suggestion of the B&B owner and, lo and behold, found my vacuum! Hooray. We went back to the house and I vacuumed the loving heck out of our couch, which was covered in enough cat hair to build another cat! We built the desk from Ikea, and collapsed into bed.

TBC

England round-up

You know, I'm sure that while I was in Harrogate, I had a million little observations and stories that I intended to document on my blog. For example, I observed that the vast majority of people in Harrogate under the age of 60 either have no fashion sense whatsoever, or think that they are being stylish by wearing the latest cheap knock off of the latest fashion 3 sizes too small. I've never seen so many cellulite ravaged-thighs, muffin tops, unsupported oversized breasts (the underwire has clearly made no inroads and people are wearing bras with overstretched and paperthin cups - not a pretty sight), plumbers' cracks/coin slots, and poochy tummys jutting out from under belly tops in my life - and I have been to grad school in the recent past here in the states! Don't get me wrong, I'm no Italian fashion plate, but yikes. Wild.

As another example, when the Romans left Britain, they clearly took all their plumbing technology with them and permanently set the Britons 100 years back in terms of distributing hot and cold water through homes. I mean, separate water taps? I know they're cute and quaint in reproduction Victorian B&Bs, but in a house built since 2002? You've got to be kidding me. Moreover, "mixer" taps don't actually mix hot and cold water - they merely provide the two through separate openings on the underside of the tap very close to each other (as opposed to being on opposite sides of the sink) so that if you move your hands back and forth rapidly, you can intermediately treat the scald burn on your hands. WTF?

Finally, Harrogate has got to be one of the whitest towns I've ever been in (granted, I've never been to Salt Lake City). I saw exactly 3 people of color on the street. Three. That I could count them so exactly is depressing. It explains the dismal state of the food available. The two predominant flavors are either saccharine sweet or British bland. We had Thai - dominant flavor sweet; Chinese - dominant flavor sweet; pasta sauce from the Coop - sickeningly sweet; Italian food - bland; Spanish tapas - mostly bland; Indian food - not bland, but not especially flavorful and certainly not spicy. I blame it on the utter lack of people of color bringing their flavors into the city. All the waiters were Polish, and I desperately wanted to ask one of them where they got Polish food (mmmmm, pierogies) but I realized that more likely than not they lived in Leeds, and left all the yummy food there.

But luckily that represents the extent of the complaints I have right now. I can't even complain much about the weather - YET! - because it was generally very nice while I was there. Of course, the general consensus of those who had been there longer than 10 days was that the weather I experienced was in fact the exception for the summer thus far, but really, Harrogate is a nice little town. The neighborhood we're in is Goldilocks just right. Residential enough to be quiet and separated from city noise, but close enough that the downtown district and lots of shops are a quick, pleasant walk away. The gardens around town are pretty and peaceful. The town is clearly amazingly rich - BMWs, Mercedes, Jags, and Porsches replace Hondas, Toyotas, Fords, and Chevys. I can't figure out what all those people do, though, since there is no industry - heavy of otherwise - that I spied.

I don't get to move there full time until late October because of the cats, and by then the sun will start setting by 4pm and the weather will be decidedly worse. I'm pretty optimistic though that it will be an enjoyable three years.