Category: London

Humor, Husband, Life, London, Travel

Weather and Whining

“Henry, I’m tired.”
“Sleep then.”
– The Lion in Winter

I can’t talk about Saturday, kittens.  Let’s just say the travel gods are fickle and leave it at that.

J. and I spent yesterday, our anniversary, in and out of fogs.  Up late packing, up early to the airport left us in quite a state.  We both fell into unplanned naps throughout the afternoon, watched some movies, and I taught J. how to play Rummy and he trounced me at it.  Romantic?  Not particularly.  We’re delaying our celebration until we’re in London in a week.

Sidenote: a week!  Life needs to slow down, I’m tired!

Also, the weather gods seem to be in a mood. We need to throw a virgin into a volcano or something.
Humor, Husband, Linkstorm, London, Weekend

Friday Links XIX

“For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It’s quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn’t quite that simple. The fried egg isn’t properly a fried egg until it’s been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn’t do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It’s all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while.”
– Douglas Adams

Last week was no good, pumpkins, my hormones went all crazy and I ate copious amount of terribly bad for me food.  I’ve been trying to get back on track this week and it hasn’t been any fun.  Food/Exercise morality is hateful.

Salad?!

But then – then!  On Monday J. got a job offer in London!  And if you think I’m complaining about anything for weeks to come, you’re nuts.  Here are your links, kittens!  I’ll be spending the weekend celebrating my birthday (!), checking in on the Queen’s Jubilee, checking out a new exhibit at the Museum of Art (courtesy of the V&A, so you know I have to go), and being a bit lazy.  How about you?

I burst into hysterical giggles checking these out.

Too bizarre.

If you’re celebrating the Jubilee with a G&T and dread a watery cocktail bringing you down, or just want your lemonade to look extra fancy at the next neighborhood barbeque, I think these oversize ice cube trays are nifty!

Very scary and upsetting, not for the faint hearted.  (On a less somber and highly inappropriate note, I’m pretty sure this is how the zombie apocalypse starts…)

Marie’s style is preppy, Kiri’s is French country, Nora’s is pure mid-century American.  My decorating tastes (inherited directly and unadulterated from my mum) are hardwood floors in houses stuffed to the brim with antiques and treasures from world travels, interspersed with trendy art that can be altered to fit the times.  There is probably no place for this in my Someday House.  Which means I may have to undergo a complete style makeover to accommodate it.

I have seen these fabulous riffs on vintage floating around the internet for months and I had no idea a genius company was behind it.  I have presents for the girls covered for years off of this site!  I’m craving this one in particular – because I am pretty sure this phrase has crossed the lips of of myself and everyone I have every considered to be a true friend.

Tumblr of the week: for my fellow expats, travelers, gypsy souls, or generally lost friends.  And for those of you who just love to travel.

Old news, but new to me.  Technology is weird.

I suffer from pasta portion control.  Therefore, this thingy is fantastic.

More kitchen stuff!  I am not prepared to pay the money for these, but the tiny organizer in me thinks these would save a lot of space.

Scary!  Women: know your finances!  I’ll the the first to admit that J. does most of the financial research in our family (he’s an accountant after all), but without trying to sound like an idiot or helpless female, he takes time to explain financial concepts to me if I don’t understand them well.  I also try to educate myself about the economic state of the world, country, and my family.  He may be the financial wizard, but there isn’t a single financial decision made that we don’t talk about and come to an agreement on – from food budgets to student loans.  Lady minions – this is important!

Spring is nearly over, but I think we can all agree that these brings out the country gentry in all of us, right?

Recipe to try (and one of the cuter ex-pat blogs out there).

Here’s your weekly sheep, and good luck to you.

Humor, Husband, London

The J. Files V

“Gentlemen never wear brown in London.”
– Lord Curzon

I’m neglecting you, darlings, but it’s an unaccountably busy Thursday.  So here’s some pictures of the weather in London, which is also rather unaccountable in that it’s freezing cold, courtesy of J..  Remember, we are not jealous or sad, we are very proud of him.  Aren’t we, kittens?

The London House (I shall continue to refer to this shared student hovel as a grand town residence for the sheer snobbish fun of it).
A rather dashing gentleman at Piccadilly Circus.
Grad School, Humor, Husband, London, Sad

Absence Makes the C. Grow Nostalgic

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

Things I really miss about my husband (all of the time, but particularly this week):

1.  How buddy buddy we are in public and how sickeningly cute he is in private.  One of my best memories of him is from the first year of our marriage.  It was the middle of the night and he woke up for some reason and got out of bed which woke me as well.  But thinking I was still asleep, he leaned over and kissed me on the nose.  Just because.

2.  We had a really great household system: I do laundry he does dishes.  I hate dishes, loathe them with an intensity usually reserved for cockroaches and split pea soup.  With him gone, I am reduced to doing my own dishes, which is a hateful nightly event.

3.  How easy it was to talk to my best friend about my day and hear about his.  We schedule Skype dates and email and chat regularly throughout the day, but it’s not as satisfying as our conversations during car ride home after work..

4.  Cuddling.  We are shameless cuddlers.  We cuddle on the couch, going to sleep, watching movies, talking, you name it.  The most satisfying feeling in the world is his arms around me, and not having it for months at at time makes me excessively grouchy.

5.  Believe it or not, listening to or watching sports with him, it’s ridiculously funny to hear my normally calm, reserved guy randomly exploding with, “C’mon!”  “He was in!”  “Travel?  TRAVEL?!”

6.  His quiet steadiness.  Sometimes I feel like the family tornado, constantly doing something, running, planning, doing until I burn out and collapse on the sofa.  Which is usually when he steps in with a grin and  calmly handles whatever it was that seemed so overwhelming a mere five minutes ago.  No doubt this trait will feature more heavily when we finally decide to spawn.

7.  Doing things with him.  We are really good about indulging one another’s interests and likes.  I bought him tickets to his favorite team for his birthday one year, even though I couldn’t care less about basketball.  He returned the favor by taking me to the opera.  I had Korean food for the first time with him, he went to England for the first time with me.  We’re far more adventurous together than apart.

8.  How helpful he is.  Since he’s been gone it seems like the flat has decided to show it’s age and start to go to pieces.  Cupboards have needed to be fixed, furnaces have needed tweaking, faucets refuse to shut off, oven handles have come undone…the list goes on.  Margot’s charming gentleman caller (Wrench) has been an absolute wunderkind and helped out whenever he visits, but keeping up with a house is a full time job.  Largely doing it by myself is rotten.

9.  Dates.  I have no problem going to movies or restaurants by myself, my alone time is valuable and relaxing to me, but there’s no question that dinner with him is ten times better than dinner without him.

10.  His scent.  His cologne, which I love, is not very powerful, but it lingers.  It still haunts his side of the closet, which packs a powerful punch of nostalgia whenever I open it.  I miss smelling it every day.

No doubt about it, minions, separation sucks.  On the plus side, he’s coming to stay for a few weeks sometime in March or April.  On the plusser side, less than six months and we’re done with school and on to the next adventure!

Family, Friends, Humor, Husband, Life, London, Weekend

Rest, Recovery, and Salt in the Wound

“Seriously.  I had to schedule a breakdown, and then I had to cut it short!”
– C.

Minions, I have neglected you.  But last Friday the world sort of stopped.  I was stressed, I was tired, I was anxious, I was overwhelmed, and I literally worried myself sick.  I went home early on Friday and spent some time in bed.

Of course, I had only a limited amount of time to recover from the vapors because I had stuff to do.  Saturday I had a wedding (in addition to Venice’s birthday) and errands to run, Sunday was dinner at my godparents’ house (a 4 hour event at least) after which I had to dash home and make appetizers for… Monday after work, Sadie and Pieter had a Honey Do couples shower.  Classic me, I made it all the way to GS’s house before I realized I’d forgotten the food in my fridge.

But health, good-humor, and cheerfulness have begun to return, and so, updates.  Margot landed a full time teaching job (no small prize in this economy), Marie’s husband also got a job back East, Hambone had her baby boy, my sister-in-law had a dry run for her future lung transplant and got an emergency plan in place (still scary, but less so now), Dad, Venice, and J. all got older, and J. is going to Les Miserables tonight, staring Alfie Boe.

You know, the one who managed to stand out among these guys:

Wait.  I’m sad again…

Humor, London, Marriage

Long Distance

“A box of gorgeous flowers just landed on my desk and made me cry at work.  I hope you’re happy.”
– C.

Confession: I knew it was going to be hard to have J. move to London.  Even if it was just for a few months, I knew I would hate it; I’d feel lonely, bored, occasionally bitter, and all of this would war against my very real excitement for and pride in him.  But looking at a roller coaster and riding one are two very different things, my doves, and I’ve felt a little miffed by the experience so far.  Granted, I’ve got this marvelous cocktail of female hormones flooding my system right now, so that can’t be helping.

I’m not an overly emotional person, but I’ve never felt so weepy in my life as this past month.  Talking to him on Skype for the first time – stuttering in my throat.  When suddenly his face popped up on my screen (I don’t have a camera for my computer yet although he does, but we hadn’t been using it) – eyes watering.  Today when a box of beautiful flowers showed up on my desk – full on tears.

I married him and he turned me into a girl.  The horror.

But, ladies, everything I know about love I learned from this guy, so take my advice on this.  If a man stays up until midnight just to Skype with you because he, “likes listening to you talk,” run away with him.  Immediately.  Sooner if he’s got flowers.  Even if they make you cry.

And even if he goes to Hampton Court Palace without you.
Humor, London, Travel

The London Chronicles: To the Theatre

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”
– Oscar Wilde

We did manage to cram in two shows on our hectic house hunt from Hades, and thank goodness otherwise I might have staged a minor revolt.  We saw “The Mousetrap,” because I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie and “War Horse.”

Indulge me minions, but I’m issuing you an order.  If ever, ever you get the opportunity to see “War Horse,” do it.  Drop whatever amount of money, take whatever roadtrip necessary, hitchhike to the theatre if you must, but see this play.  It is hands down the best production I have ever seen in my life.  It is one of those rare productions that the acting was excellent, the plot was good, but combined with the creative, it was stunning!

It tells the story of a English farm boy and his beloved horse who is sold to the cavalry just before WWI (when tanks and machine guns were about to break the world apart).  The problem the producers had to solve was how to make a play where the main character is a horse when having an actual horse in a play is simply not possible.  The solution they came up with is spectacular: they employed the Handspring Puppet Company from South Africa to develop puppets for the animal, and even some of the human characters.

Before you roll your eyes and picture a bunch of cheap marionettes, you need to see what HPC came up with.  Here’s a TED Talk about the development and creation of Joey the War Horse, watch it and you’ll see what a feat they pulled off.  Out of plastic, wood, and some easy mechanics, they created a living animal.

Pardon my enthusiasm, but it really is that incredible.  It’s currently playing in London and New York (watch the previews to get a sense of the feel and creative of the play), but next year it’s going to start a national tour of the US.  Apparently Spielberg has bought the rights and is making it into a movie, which I’m sure will be the new Black Beauty, or whatever, but I think that books, theatre, and movies are entirely different mediums and hit different chords in our psyche.  Enjoy the movie, by all means, but if you ever get the chance, see the play.

It’s magnificent.