For TMMW

TMMW inspired this piece of crap.

What was I going for? Nothing.  So, TMMW, take that damn Microsoft Paint POS and do something cool with it. Or not.

I don't know what you know, but maybe if it gets shared... something good can come of this.

Sources: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThvBJMzmSZI&feature=player_embedded#  and http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/fb2vl/the_most_amazing_video_on_the_internet_listen_to/

National Kazoo Day

source

source

I don't have a problem with kazoos or vuvuzelas or this

Accoutrements can be kinda sexy.

Wouldn't want to wake up to any of it.

Woke up to this, this morning:

Got another one! This is pretty cool. The Minute Man's Wife gave it to me and as with all blog awards there are conditions:
#1 Pimp out the giver. The Minute Man's Wife is a fairly new blogger but there's substance and it's nearly always funny if not insightful. She's doing the meditation shtick a la Chopra so that could explain why. She wore red shoes on her wedding day. She's a writer and I can't wait to see that book that she's got in her. Dunno if I should say more... I mean, she's got followers that want to sedate me. On second thought, I should say more so they don't find me...but that's not logic. Anyways, I enjoy her comments and her posts and there's always some food for thought. Knowing her is going to be a great thing. Giggle.

#2 Give it out to others. Number of new awardees is arbitrary...but all these women make me laugh, and Copyboy's funny too.
     Calling People Names- the otherworldyone - my original girl crush, no homo.
     TexaGermaNadian- partner in crime. I feel like we could put together a heckuva political ticket.
     Blogging Butter - young, funny, doesn't know I exist.
     Not About Cake - she makes cakes. but that's not what this is about.
     The Kitchen Bitch Ponders - sassy ScotBrit. my second girl crush, shhh! don't tell.
      Copyboy - snips, snails, puppy dogs tails, everything that's hilariously disgusting about boys

#3 Share seven things about you that people don't know

7: My retirement plan is to be a cartoon character voice actor. Think Robin Williams' character in 'Mrs Doubtfire'.

6. Captchas are way too funny to me. You know, word verification?  I always think, 'yup, I admit you're a word even though you are nonsensical.' On reddit, there's a subreddit totally dedicated to captchas and Inglip. I enjoy the cartoons.

5. I used to think I was a twin. Imagine my disappointment when, after careful scrutiny of my birth certificate, I  am a single birth after all. But, I immediately began positing several conspiracy theories why this might be so. Naturally, I've kept these all to myself.

4. Not an Oprah fan. Her name's misspelled. But I'm a fan of Paula Deen. Ooooh those cheeks! They're so fluffy!

3. I can get obsessive over something. Once I acquire it, I may have a few days of contentment, but eventually I find something else that I feel I can achieve true happiness with. Having said that, I don't shop all that much and right now, I'm in the hurricane eye. I have couch. I have running water. I have washing machine that works and a boiler that's minorly sporadic. I'm fine for the moment.

2. I don't really care about the plight of mass contained chicken. All I want is for it to be plucked, cleaned and fried. With some biscuits. And Bob Evans gravy. I just had a thought about PETA reminiscent of the punched in the face skit on SNL. I would totally do that to or even alter it by throwing a bucket of chicken innards on the people who spray paint fur coats worth hundreds of dollars. Bon Jovi's hot and resilient. And you'll like it because of zombies. too.

1. If I have to, I will use my teeth on my toenails.


Believe in your dreams, people.

Un jour grand dehors à la bibliothèque et d'autres endroits

Yeah. I read this book. Today. All of it.

And obviously, the book was good. I got to sit by a huge window, drink some coffee, and eat the tastyhardawesomeness of Bourbon Chocolate Sandwich cookies. All for £1.10. So I hung out at the local library then moved to The Coffee House, Gregg's, and back to The Coffee House. Picked up the kid and the man, went out for curry. I like chicken tikka shashlick. 

Why am I not surprised that 'shashlick' gets the red squiggly lines. It's the damn spelling from the menu!

Bus trip home. Now in a comfy t-shirt and the gray yoga pants the man stole from Autumn. THAT'S A FUN STORY! Save it for another time. [trollface]

Here's where I admit that getting out today was the first time I got out of the house (other than to the local Tesco) since last Friday. I am on a seriously extended three-day weekend, lull, vacay, holiday...whatever. When Natalie wasn't at St O's, I had more shape to the days because I made sure to get and and and and... well, provide her with opportunities and activities other than staring at a TV screen. And then we started to get on each other's nerves. Well, more me on hers than her on mine. 

Here's a fun trollmom thing that I did to her...you recall a previous post where I vowed to call my farts 'the barking spider'? Well, at dinner two nights ago, kiddo lets it rip...and asks us if we heard that spider barking. The man is not amused and I'm like 

Yup. Paving the road to her therapist's office with troll intentions. Hopefully his or her office is across the street from a library.

Reddit is my time waster.

Remember xanga? So 2006.

I like to Google myself every once in a while, just to make sure that the blog is still invisible. Guess what I found?

My old xanga blog!  It had a couple of pictures that I'd forgotten. I was soooo cool.  And young! And skinny! Oh my.

Should I add the old posts from xanga? Nah, probably not. I was more terse in 2006. And some of the posts I can't remember what I'm referencing.

Hung out with Posh Ruth tonight. She invited me over to watch 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding'. That girl has a hollow leg. Anyway... MBFGW? Imagine a community like the Amish but with Pageant Mom sensibilities and Taliban taboos.

Just precious. Jaw dropping. Eye popping. Heartbreaking.

You wouldn't think that these people consciously set themselves apart, based on what the girls wear and how they dance... but apparently so. They've got some weird courtship rituals and according to Ruth's mom, via Ruth, oddball wedding ceremonial rites.

Take for instance the Puritan-like view of female chastity. Girls aren't allowed to go anywhere alone. Not even older ones. The courtship ritual of 'grabbing', I think, fits in with this. Boys will 'grab' a girl they like, take her off from the main group, and hold her until she consents to a kiss. Holding appears, to me, violent. So far, I've seen twisted arms, arms held up from behind, and punches. The pain stops when the girl consents to a kiss or is able to get away. Some girls let themselves be grabbed, others disdain the idea until they're ready for marriage...likely the following year.  They're getting married at 16, 17 years old.

I'm not saying that this is unheard of for me. I just find it somewhat appalling that these teenagers, while readied for their culture's rite of passage at that age, are not readied for life in global terms. Some, not all, but a good number quit school at the age of 11. Then five years later, they're married!?

It's a very 'in the present' lifestyle and culture. Could be due to the transient nature of their habits.

So it's on for a few more weeks. Comes on on Tuesday nights. I know I'm most likely to bring it up again. It's all TexaGermaNadian's fault.

Oddball stat: the wii just surpassed the Nintendo as the all time selling system. By far outstripping the Xbox. Nintendo's 2008 profit margin per employee: $1.28 million

Nintendo is a bigger company than Yahoo, Nike, Lowe's. Especially hard games to beat are called 'Nintendo-hard'. 

Relatively, Mario jumps 27 feet according to his stature.

I loved playing Nintendo with the stepsisters. Wasn't as good as the oldest, but equal to or better than the others.

Doubt I can beat my brother at DDR.  Really. That boy's got skill.

Burns Night...FREAKY!

Today is Jan 25th...Robert Burns' birthday...First, I want to take you on a internet trip...

For lunch today, I ate the can of Scotch broth that'd been lingering in the cupboard.   It wasn't bad. The lamb fat threw me off for a second, but otherwise it was a very tasty soup. I had crumpets too, but that's not important...or even remotely freaky.

Now, here's my freaky part:

I'm on reddit, browsing the new and controversial topics. I see a link: Woman has her Facebook account banned. I read that, then I click on the link in the sidebar: Kate Middleton resigned to life as a royal and quits her day job. I decide to check out her parents' business website  thinking that maybe there'll be something I might want to get for Nat's birthday... yes I know it's seven months away! But I have to start thinking about things ahead in advance so I know what it is that I want to execute as final product.

Anyways, they have a blog! And the blog asks me if I'm celebrating Burns Night. So of course I have to wikipedia Burns Night.

Today I learned I can't draw a straight line in screen capture mode.

Hurrah! I have pseudo-celebrated Burns Night without knowing it. But boy oh boy, did it freak me out! Here I am, iggerant lil Okie eatin' soup with literary association.

But I draw the line at haggis.

A Burns supper sounds like lots of fun. Anyone out there been to one?

I leave you with one of his poems:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne* ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp !
and surely I’ll be mine !
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pu’d the gowans fine ;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae paidl’d i' the burn,
frae morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
and gie's a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

If Facebook has anything to say, auld acquaintance will never be forgot... even if we wanted to. Except for Kate Middleton.

If it's going to screw up, it's going to be on a Friday

Late Friday, the front loading washing machine made this godawful industrial blaring alarum sound that about squeezed my brain out of my nose and cause my ears to bleed. I even took video just so I could share it with you. There may be a reason why the audio didn't come through. Probably so I don't subjugate you to the same unholiness.

Had to ask ourselves

So we spent a lovely chunk of time on Saturday morning doing this:

Carefully removing offending and overlarge noise maker from under counter without messing up the balance. And you know I swept behind that damn machine without a Swiffer! Only had to kill one spider. Not bad.

First line of defense was stupid. But honestly, it was my first time so it's bound to be a little stupid.

Since bukkit was stolen, the mixing bowl was chosen. No, I'm kidding about the bukkit. 

And I love that man for doing the majority of the work. All I had to do was mop up the excess water that didn't make it into the pan and bowl.

Oh, it was so gross which, amazingly enough,  surprised me. There were weird little beige specks in the water.

The smell. Oh sweet Jeebus, it was offensively odoriferous. Stagnant, tepid, fungal... and pouring straight out of a machine designed to clean with that water. Didja know that front loaders can develop lovely moldy spots on the inner seal ring? I didn't until I moved here.

But it wasn't all bad. Apart from the smell and generally ickiness... it got fixed. It works like a champ. Rewashed the clothes that were in there and was able to wash the towels used in the line of duty.

 And the cause?

Me. My fault. Two hairpins and a paper clip.  They got into the filter and were jamming the draining functionality of the filter and valve. Moral of the story? Clean your pockets out each and every time.

It's sh** like this, England

All I wanted to do was clean the floors.

Ohboi! Flor kleen! Yai, Happee!

Getting to the big store is a two bus trip journey, so if I make the effort to get to the Tesco Extra, my expectation is that I should have no real problems with any of my purchases afterward. I needed a floor mop that would use my Tesco brand wet cloths for floors. Don't want them to go to waste.

I bought a brand new, Tesco-brand, Swiffer-style floor mop. It cost me £4.00. It replaced an equivalent bn,T-b, S-s fm that was here when we moved in but was in disrepair (read: broke-as-sh**).

In the beginning, I used that first floor mop like it was my own personal addiction prior to a 12-step. I didn't use it, it used me. And then, I decided to break the habit of using broke-as-sh** tools. I asked for help and received it in the form of a dry floor mop with fluffy blue tentacles that would snag up those dust bunnies and send them to the underbed in the sky. Trip to Tesco #1.

That particular purchase did not even attempt to uphold my standard of cleanliness. How can one be akin to a domestic goddess when one's floors aren't clean?  Sadly, banisher of fuzzy rodent-like grey matter warped in storage...bent all out of shape and thus, became another broke-as-sh** tool

And so commenceth the beginning of this week:
I acquire the bn, T-b, S-s floor mop. I go back to bus stop and get on bus. I get on wrong bus. Bus drives me all around the county and drops me off in a town I don't live in and have only been through once. I walk to another bus stop 60 yards around the corner and wait for a new bus. I get on new bus. It takes me to Tesco. Luckily, the bus is going back to my bus station, so I can stay on this bus. Trip #2, no problems, I get home. The off-brand swiffer goes next to it's new home, the cupboard under the stairs. I use it the next day to sweep and mop. It broke.

I <3 reddit

Okay. Hmm

I call Tesco. I find out I can return the broke-as-sh** floor mop provided I have my receipt. PERFECT!

And you know what? They took it back! Thanks Tesco! Trip #3 is awesome!!!!1!

And then I got on the wrong bus again.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK

TL;DR - I have broken cleaning supplies, I get new one that breaks, I take wrong buses trying to get home. I end up with no good cleaning supplies.

Bright side: floor's clean

Check this out: amazon sells Swiffer Wet Jet© Starter Kit for £71.  That's like, $100, easy.

Oh, and my washing machine's broken. 

Sunshine of the Eternal Optimism of a Poker Hand

Even though I haven't been met with much success in the job market, I'm still trying.

Just got done applying for a Geography Teacher position in SE Co. Durham.

Sent them a filled out form, a CV, a map I drew (see below) and my teaching philosophy statement. Just got an email back from them (I like this because, well, it feels like they're on the ball) and it says:

"Many thanks for your application for Teacher of Geography, which we read with interest. We will be back in touch with you once the deadline has passed and we have had a chance to consider the field."

Even if they don't choose me, just to know that I will hear back a 'yea' or a 'nay' is good enough at this point.

Each time I do this... I have hope. I keep doing it because if I stop, then what's the point of even trying to begin with? If I'm not meant to have a job while I'm here, then fine. That's the hand I'm dealt and I'll play it with verve.

Yeah, I dunno what happened to all of it. 

In the meantime, I will do my utmost to enjoy this lull. It is an opportunity that scares me since I don't know what to do with it. 

Is that too Hamlet of me? Navel gazing is not fun.

Blue Monday

Thanks to Rob's Adventures in Paris I have this great post title!





So this is supposedly the worst day of the year

But not for me!  I got a SWIFFER! My floors will now be clean again!

Image Source Page: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-57179152/stock-vector-woman-mopping-floor-retro-clip-art.html

It's going to be sooooo awesome!

Here's a joke for you:

Tried to catch some fog today.



Wait for it....












Mist.

Happy Belated Birthday to this old convict who so wonderfully helped to change my country when it needed it most...

Image Source Page: via reddit:http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lf5mfyGMjf1qz6f9yo1_500.jpg 

Watch Martin Luther King "I Have a Dream" in Educational  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Dr King, I would've marched with you.

It's pretty dadaist here.

Dadaism- reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality...sometimes with intent to offend. 

That's so me. But in the nicest possible sense.

While walking on my way to the library so I could print off my CV, I was interrupted by this:

Fifteen minutes later, on my way to fill out an application, I was treated to this:

Yeah. These young women pretending to be old women dancing with walkers were promoting 'The Producers'. Music and song. It was pretty cute.

I really am living in a most surreal environment if that was any yardstick. Also, VAT is increasing or has increased, but there are signs in Yates' windows that say 'no VAT increase'...supposedly so you'll be more inclined to go there? Can they legally do that?

The Blacks shop is closing down, but a new Pandora shop recently opened. Seriously? Blacks is more useful than Pandora...its an outdoorsy store. Pandora is for jewelry. Expensive, at that.

On a Sunday, while waiting for the bus to arrive, I observed anywhere from 7 to 12 people coming in and out of the pub on the corner in my little village...it's a first for me. Mainly, because it was 1pm.  because Newcastle was playing Sunderland.

The upcoming royal wedding has a bank holiday (April 29th) but I saw an online article with a headline that pooh-poohs 'The King's Speech', asking readers to decide if the movie doesn't glorify the royals. I think that the bank holiday is somewhat along the lines of Chamberlain's appeasement policy. We all know how well that works. Especially since there's the Good Friday and Easter Monday bank holidays just prior to the BH on the 29th. How are teachers and students supposed to get through the required curriculum when days are taken out of the schedule after the schedule has been determined?

Another revelation of how surreal it is here to me, and about how I'm having to have a paradigm shift is the theory of why I am not getting a job here:

#1. The US does not place much/any weight to individual's high school education. A diploma from high school does not have the prestige it used to. You either graduate or you don't. You get a diploma of some sort if you do and if not, then you figure something out or you get the GED taken care of. The US places heavier emphasis on college entrance exams, performance while in college, and where one goes to college. Employers do not use application forms that ask for how well you did on you EOIs in high school 

#2. The UK does place a great deal of importance on the high school education. A levels and A+ levels. Employers ask what qualifications and leaving certificates you got. It seems as if there's an assumption that students who take A levels will go on to higher education. It doesn't appear to matter where other than Oxbridge (= Cambridge and Oxford). 

#3. If I'm ignoring that part of the application form where they ask for my high school credentials and all I enter is "diploma", then no wonder. 

I am of course, happy to be wrong and to be told I'm wrong by any of my UK readers.

My material needs are met.

I do love Josh's new album!!   Ba-DOW!!!




Bought a new 'old' couch from the British Heart Foundation.  Lovely thing too. Three seater, high-backed, fluffy. Movable cushions, zippered cushions...this is living!

And only £160! Such a deal! Such a mensch! I'm over the moon, because now, we can all sit together as a family. Now, if someone falls asleep, the other two aren't SOL.

I've had to flip the room, but that's not a big deal really. A non issue.

I hope you enjoyed my animation/video in the previous post.  It is a really easy, user-friendly site. Try it out and let me know what you come up with. Basically it's this: you type in text, it renders it for you. You pick sets, camera angles, actors and their movements...sounds, background, interstitial..yadda yadda yadda. www.xtranormal.com

I thought I'd have more for this. I don't. It's weird that this has been such a big deal in my head; having a comfortable place to sit is something many many people take for granted, myself included. And I thought I'd have more to share about this trauma.

I guess it's a good thing that I don't. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I'm off to make a fort.

Here's a Preview of Things to Come

I will be posting tomorrow. Here's a taster for you. Yes. I'm up extremely late, thanks to Blogging is for Dorks

I love this! And if you don't, that's fine. It makes me laugh. Which is the point.

One last thing... read Carrie Fisher's 'Wishful Drinking' today while at a cafe in the city centre. Laughed out loud several times.

Popped my strawberry.

Yes Martha, I did make it according to your specifications. Whaddya mean the sugar's not supposed to be detectable?

So, that's the first one. My first award. I'm a little flattered to be chosen by Jax as a recipient of the TISB award. The catch is that I've got to complete two tasks: Name five guilty pleasures and nominate three other blogs to receive the award.

This'll be really fun.

In no particular order, the current ones are:

Guilty Pleasure #5 = considering not participating in this.
   To explain: I wasn't sure how to do this and since I've chosen to no longer get in my own way, I found the means to figure it out.  Wasn't hard at ALL turns out!

Guilty Pleasure #4 = eating my husband's Snickers® bars.
    This is really a self-destructive thing... so much so, that... I'm not going to explain. Use your brilliant imaginations to create a teleplay in the TV that is your mind's eye.

Guilty Pleasure #3 = telling my kid that my farts are really spiders barking.
     One day, as I was doing Guilty Pleasure #1 (don't skip ahead just yet), I came across a thread on reddit.com about the BEST TROLL DAD STORY EVAH (not 'evah' really, redditors are cooler than that.) Anyway, amidst my tears of mirth and happy happy joy joy, I came across one redditor's story that listed among several other things the fact that his dad's farts were spiders barking. I decided that I needed to be trollmom. And later that day, could've been the next day, I called my dad. I couldn't remember anything my dad did to troll me and had a slight hope he would remember. As expected, because...though I love my dad, he can't remember much of his life...or mine either for that matter. So no luck with stories from him. And also, surprisingly to me, no trollGrandpa stories. His dad didn't really do that to him either. So, on my dad's side, either we have no inclination to torment youngsters or that said youngsters are born with a highly developed bullshit detector and thus the older generation declined to bother triggering said detector. Now, my mom... for the longest time, she had me going about how I, as a baby, would stick to walls after being thrown from across the room.

And Santa... well, I had historical evidence to back me up, so I believed until I was 14. And then I think mom got tired of trying to keep things magical when I'd wake her up 30 minutes after she went to bed... It'd be 3, 4 am and I'd wake up everybody to go open the damn stockings and presents. My poor mom. I love you mom! But it was just to get back at you for the throwing lie!


Guilty Pleasure #2 = popping zits.
    Haters gonna hate. Poppers gonna pop. Another self destructive thing rooted in my control issues. I laugh as I write this because it is so.

Guilty Pleasure #1 = forgoing constructive activities around the house in order to read or watch movies all day long.
     Oh, the rug needs vacuumed, there's laundry that needs to be put up, washed, hung up to dry and put up when dry. There's a sink and counter with dishes and sundry items to be washed. Dinner to be made, daughter to play with, husband to attend. A floor to sweep, a yard to weed. Recycling to stow, dusting to flow.

Hmm....best to stop now. I feel a bit Shel Silversteinish.
    

And now, the nominees....

Pearl Tigress
She has my same name and I've enjoyed what she writes, when she writes.
Babbling Brooke
I'm impressed by this woman and her work with the Haitians.
G.R.I.P
I like his message. Music has always been a big part of my life... not creating it, just listening. I can't remember a morning growing up where there wasn't some good piece of tralalalala in the house while we're getting ready to leave the house. Anyways, I think this young man has a lot of light and music in him.

31 before 32

So I don't forget, the following is courtesy of the three year old, this morning while making breakfast.

Me: Try this. {hands kiwi slice to kid}


Nat: {licks once, twice}


Me: It's kiwi. It's a fruit.


Nat: Uh-uh momma. It's not fruit, it's dirt.




To the followers: I apologize if your dashboard is inundated with my posts. I've discovered  how to put my old blog posts on to blogger. I dunno if "new" "old" posts are showing up in your feed. If they are, mea culpa.

Letting you know that I think the funk I've been in has lifted. It was feeling like I was becoming so embittered by this move. It wasn't until yesterday when MIL helped to identify the what and why we're/I'm experiencing... Grief. I grieve for my car. I grieve for my refrigerator. Everyone grieves for that refrigerator.

I wrote on May 27 that my forseeable future is a Saturday. Was this the shock and denial stage? Sure, why not? But I think I'd rather be mentally there on that meadow at sunset than where I  was. At some point, don't know when, my life became late Sunday afternoon, the long dark tea-time of the soul. But now, it's time to get on with it. Right.

No one died and it was great to realize that I was being a spoiled brat. Is so nice to know that I can still pull it off at my age. But, like I said, time to move forward and be done with whining about what I no longer get to enjoy.

So what did it? Dunno, doesn't matter anyways. Maybe it's the list. 31 before 32. Come up with the appropriate number (your current age) of things you want to get done before your next birthday. So, 31 things before I turn 32. That, to me, seems to be a better round for KO'ing my boredom.

Excursion with the Sensible Ladies or My Grand New Year's Night Out

On Christmas Day, Ruth and I conspired to go out on Thursday and NOT New Year's Eve. Because we're Sensible Ladies. Sensible Ladies wear coats when it's cold. Sensible Ladies wear proper shoes to ward off the awful offal of old snow. Sensible Ladies are sensible.

And this Sensible Lady turned out to be a Party Pooper.

It was a great plan. Get out of Durham. Go to Low Fell. Meet up with four other Sensible Ladies. Eat food, Indian preferably. Make fun of Insensible Chicks. Then drinky afterward. Possibly more making fun of Insensible Chicks because, really, their attire is most inappropriate for the weather we're having.

In my perspective, and also based on what I was told, Low Fell is a suburb of Gateshead which is a satellite of Newcastle upon Tyne. It was hilly. It has three or four stoplights. Compared to my little village's one stoplight, Low Fell is cosmopolitan; it has a Boots (akin to Walgreen's) and a Greggs (chain bakery).

Pre-game: We arrive in Low Fell early, so we stop in at the local for a glass of red for Ruth. I stuck with a half-pint, just to be sociable. I don't think I'm ever going to get used to the cultural difference between Americans and the British when it comes to paying... Ruth bought my half pint of John Smith's before I knew it. Even so, it's nice but dangerous...what if I don't buy a drink for Ruth later on (which I didn't)? I just know I'm going to get labeled 'cheapskate'.

Ruth tells me a little about the women who'll be joining us at the restaurant next door: Ruth, her friend from high school I've met already, is a geneticist working for the NHS. Kath has two children and a chef/husband. Angie's got kids too, works for Barclay's, and is quite loud.

This is what I'm told in addition to several other details, but this is the gist of it.

Objective: Eat Indian food.

Mission was accomplished. I met the friends from back in Ruth's day (high school). They were a really nice bunch of gals. But they could put wine away like it was on sale and on fire. I'm no longer the young, vibrant, stupid kid I used to be. And that's okay. Took me that night to finally figure it out. They kept buying bottles and I'm thinking, "Great, I'm going to be paying for a whole bottle of wine." I had two glasses the whole night spent at the restaurant... This isn't really interesting...it's only what I remember...we're talking about near four hours of conversation in a dialect that I sometimes have difficulty hearing properly. Here's the beginning of Party Pooper: I ordered a glass of water. And then another. Don't worry. It gets funnier in that sad way if you know how I roll.

So I'm eating Aloo Chop, Pathia Lamb and naan bread. The Aloo Chop were like latkes but in pod form. Pathia is sort of smooth, no real vegetable chunks but appears tomato based with a hint of coconut. I got a lot of weird looks (read: raised eyebrows) for not ordering  Pillau Rice with my meal. Eh... I know what I like and how I like to eat it. I don't need the big shiny plate that replaces my starter plate. Just give me the metal bowl with the Pathia and I'm good. But since rice was ordered, the others used their plates...forcing me to do likewise. Of course I have to use table manners! This isn't the takeaway.

I've said before that Indian restaurants are the Mexican restaurants of England. Here's the proof: pappadoms. They come with chutneys and other sauces. They're rather large and crispy, so you break off pieces and dip them in the chutney. How is this not similar to tortilla chips, queso, and salsa? Cauliflower is to Indian cuisine as corn is to Mexican cuisine. How's that for AP training?

I get full fairly quickly. So do the others. There's discussion about how sitting up straight allows one to eat more, gravity helping matters. We all sit a bit straighter and keep eating because we now have more room! YES!

I didn't do a lot of talking at dinner. Mainly I listened. Wherever there was a point I could contribute, I did... but for the most part, what can a person say in a conversation that is mainly reminiscing about an 18th birthday celebration in which one of the people at the table went on-stage at the bar and lifted her skirts to show off her navel piercing? Or about how in high school who was the baddest because they would skip their class to go sit in another class and wait for that teacher to notice? {this was mildly irritating}

I don't mind being the listener in a conversation that I have no real connection to. I do mind topic choice, however. If I'd had my druthers, things could have been more cerebral. Having said that, I did get a little bit more of a grasp of British adolescent girl behavior as of fifteen years ago. And I did get to be present at a gathering of friends, who graciously explained the more obscure references to their past.

And the headache began slowly, steadily spreading from my inner right eye, moving above my eyebrows and into my ears. The pulsing Christmas lights hurt my eyes even while not looking at them. I couldn't drink enough water and both times I asked for a refill, I only irritated our sullen waiter further.

It was time to pay the bill. I get out my card, the others all get out cash and decide to each pay £25. Now, I'm irritated because I feel like I've got to do the same. My portion was only £21 and it is mean to not contribute that extra £4 but that service sucked. You don't have to tip here the way you do at home. You tip if you think they did a good job. My experience with all Indian restaurants here is that the waiters really don't want to wait on you, that it is something so beneath them, they only deign to work there. And so, with eight eyes watching me try to do arithmetic on two glasses of wine (yup, total lightweight) and a snooty waiter who isn't at all helpful, I cave and have him put £25 on my card. What else could I have done? Every one else put cash on the table.

I kept the equilibrium from upsetting. And I've got 'when in Rome...' cycling in my thoughts. I'm not upset that this is how things are done, I'm ticked off at myself for caring about and yes, for letting myself feel pressured to do what everyone else did. I think two naans never made it to the table, but we still got charged for it. That ticks me off too.

None of that helped my headache. Getting out of the restaurant and into the cold, crisp air didn't help. The short walk from the restaurant to the Beaconfield, aka the Beak, didn't help.

I upped to the bar. I ordered a Diet Coke, felt like a caffeine headache.  I sat down to a table with glasses and two bottles of wine, one snuck out from the restaurant, the other purchased new at the Beak. Somehow, at the end of the night, I ended up with the bottle from the restaurant tucked in my bag. It's in my fridge now. It's a French white. I remember saying I didn't want it as Kath was shoving it into my bag.

The bartender rang the 'last call' twice and after the second ringing, we left the Beak. Ruth's husband Brian picked us up and after dropping Angie and Kath off near their houses, we got on the A1 and headed home. The next 20 minutes, I have no memory of, mainly because I fell asleep. I wake up as Brian is pulling up alongside the curb in front of my house.

Hugged Ruth goodbye...she and her friends are huggers. They each hugged me when they said goodbye. It took me a humongous amount of time to hug my friends back home and that was after I knew them a good while. Some of them I haven't hugged yet. I may never. And here I am hugging women I didn't know five hours earlier? Good times with the Sensible Ladies. This Sensible Lady turned Party Pooper staggered into the house, threw on pajamas and demanded cosseting. Oh yes, definitely good times.


***


Happy New Year to you. I hope you had a great time, if you care for that sort of thing. I found out that I don't care for such things, like staying awake and partying until the New Year shows up. I'd rather eat watermelon and sit in a folding chair, watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. Maybe I'll come up with a festive activity for New Year's that doesn't involve having to be oriented around a clock but I still get to interact with people in some meaningful and entertaining manner.

I hope you have a great year and other sentimental claptrap.