“Accessories (i.e. new/vintage and affordable changeable bags, scarves, belts, jewelry, shoes, hosiery) can make or break a piece and change it up seasonally. It’s very, very hard to have any style without paying serious attention to accessories; too easy to focus on the major pieces then wonder why you look dull.”
– Caitlin Kelly again for the win! Find her day to day writing at the Broadside blog, or her book out just this year (linked to it here).
“Know first, who you are, then adorn yourself accordingly.”
– Epictetus
Traveling posts return. After you’ve gone through your closet and gotten rid of at least a third of it (stop hyperventilating, it’s going to be fine. Fine, here’s a paper bag), you may become aware of a few glaring holes in your wardrobe. And you should correct them – see, I told you there would be shopping. Do you – or your husband who will be living there for 5 months without you – have a winter coat or rain gear? Do you have a plethora of heels but no nice, casual shoes for day to day? The clued up traveler recognizes when an item is necessary, but is also smart about obtaining it. Here are your rules for shopping:
“It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn’t hear the barbarians coming.”
– Garrison Keillor
It is a truth Americanly acknowledged that lack of air conditioning makes all other problems, including those of moving to a new country when said country has enacted new visa laws, pale in comparison. Whiny? Yes. Wimpy? Undoubtedly. But the fact remains, kittens, that C.’s and 100 degree weather simply do not mix, and the effects on J.’s isn’t too much better.
The air went out sometime Thursday night and the repair guy has been over several times to. The first time he inspected the cupboard where all the machinery is located and said, “The problem is that your unit is 30 years old, and that some of the wiring’s loose.” So he tightened up the wiring, the air became cooler, and he left.
Thirty minutes later the heat was back and so was the repairman. This time he climbed up to the roof and checked a couple of other flats’ units. “The problem,” he declared, “is that your unit’s 30 years old, the coolant is about 2 gallons beneath what it’s supposed to be, and the wood holding up the roof unit is has rotted out from under it. And the fan just exploded when I looked at it.” Oh. Goody.
Apparently he came back a third time to check out some other flats again and the real underlying issue is, “The unit – all the units – are about 30 years old.” No one saw that one coming. In any event, the cold (ha!) truth is that the only permanent solution is upgrading everything. He’s going to fix our fan, hopefully soon, so that we can at least get some air moving through the flat, but it’s only a band-aid solution over the bullet hole.
We tried to hold out, we honestly did, but Saturday afternoon when the thermostat was at the end of it’s ability and incapable of reading any higher, we called my in-laws and begged to be allowed to sleep in their basement that night. And like the wonderful people they are, they said yes. Last night the blessed clouds rolled in so we went home and opened every window in the flat, regardless of rain and managed quite well, but if we don’t get this fixed soon there will be dark, dark consequences. Or I may just throw in the towel, park myself on the bed with a glass of iced tea and a fan, and start speaking in an exaggerated Southern drawl. You know. Whatever comes first.
“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows you are slightly cracked.”
– Bernard Meltzer
Talking out my frustrations with Hennessy yesterday, she asked an interesting question. “If you both knew that you’d have to go separately, would you have chosen a different school?” And I responded without even thinking, “I don’t know if J. would have chosen differently, but I’d have still encouraged him to go to London. It’s too good an opportunity.”
And remembering that, all was well again. I’m thrilled for him, I’m thrilled that I get to go with him eventually, and I’m lucky I get to keep working for a while. We’ll start payments on student loans that much earlier, I’ve got a place to live, I’ve got friends here, he’s got friends there, and we’ll both be busy. Not too bad, huh?
“What had she been thinking of? She just wasn’t the kind of person who lost it. Other people did, and good luck to them. But not Lisa- like it or not she was a survivor. Not that she didn’t feel raw and lonely and wretched, she did. But nervous breakdowns were like colored contacts-fine for other people, but they weren’t really her.“
– Marian Keyes, Sushi for Beginners
And…whomp!
Coming as unexpectedly and I expected, as unpredictably as I predicted, a sudden, intense burst of anger and disappointment. A vivid desire that I was not so self-contained so that I could throw myself on the floor and wail. A distinct and palpable sense of cosmic betrayal.
I was supposed to move to London in two months, and now I’m probably not moving there until February, and J. is going to be on his own, we’ll have to meet up halfway in Virginia for Christmas, six months without my best friend, etc. etc. etc. Angst, angst, angst.
If J. and I together had decided from the beginning that I would stay behind and catch up later using a visitor’s visa, or even just extended trips, that would have been one thing, but for the past several months we’ve been operating under the scheme of going to London together. It’s one thing to make travel plans, and entirely another to have travel plans “thrust upon ’em.” I’ve also been planning on leaving me job in mid-September and have been preparing accordingly… which is just too darn bad because I most likely won’t be going until February instead.
Which is not to say that there isn’t a plan. Of course there is (don’t you know me at all?). It’s just that I had this other plan and it’s be been throw completely off course and Small Dogs do not deal well with such things. I’m ferociously disappointed about not getting to go to London as planned, and I’m less than thrilled at the thought of being stuck here for an additional 6 months while J. is stuck equally alone across the ocean.
The separation will hardly be fun, but it’s entirely doable. The real underlying frustration for me was the sense that going to London for grad school was the Next Great Step in Life…and now I’ve stagnated again. I’ve felt thus ever since graduating and waiting for J. to finish his undergraduate as well. I was ready to move forward onto the next phase…and now I feel that I’m going to be (even if just temporarily) left behind. And it makes almost unbearably sad.
Truth? I’m going through the most sensible freak out of my life right now, which is hardly as satisfying as a good old fashioned tantrum…but I must face it. I’m one of life’s Make It Work types. As gratifying as it would be to take to my bed and demand my smelling salts, I’m just not that girl. So I’m pressing on with the moving advice, tips, posts, and general attitude. After all, it’s only been delayed.
However, in all fairness, it’s been rainy and muggy all day so my attitude may be entirely a byproduct of the weather.
More likely I’m just having a bad day.
“Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.”
– Jean-Luc Godard
I may have a stress twitch going strong in my left eye, I may not have been able to take my lunch break until 3pm, and I may have spent said lunch break researching immigration laws and rules exhaustively…but then it got all better when I saw this:
Minions, the phrase, “The pearls are absolutely non-negotiable,” will now be added to your daily repertoire per management’s instructions.
Note: I’m ambivalent on Maggie Thatcher herself, but good grief, is there anyone Meryl Streep can’t play?
Note the second: Also, speaking of upcoming films, what exactly happened to Neville Longbottom? Discuss.
“Something cool,
I’d like to order something cool…”
– Julie London
Bad things come in threes, minions. As if problems and delays in moving to only the only city I have ever loved wasn’t crippling enough (and can you tell that I’m trying hard to maintain this facade of adult-like maturity when I really want to throw a monster temper tantrum?), a very rude patron decided to complain that I was the one being rude to him! In spite of a wide smile and attempts to help him as quickly and efficiently as possible. And then our air conditioning went out and we woke up to a 90 degree flat yesterday morning, an event which was unfortunately repeated this morning as our landlords haven’t been able to fix it yet.
False accusations + heat + crushing disappointments = severe snark. Although I fully admit Sav is having a much worse time.
Perk me up, kittens. What’s going on in your corners of the world?
“I’ll just have to rise to the occasion and do something spectacular again. Spectaculars always take so much out of me.”
– The Slipper and the Rose
And now, piglets, we come to the most dangerous and destructive incidents in preparing for a move: when things go wrong, or at least ridiculously awry. Because they will, and you need to be able to turn on a dime. Airlines, families, governments, private crises, and various other instances and entities can and will throw your plans off rail and the savvy traveler knows how to land on his or her feet.
For example, Parliament enacted a policy yesterday that changes how and when dependent spouses of students can accompany them to the UK. And, surprise surprise, we’re affected. So was our holiday as it was spent forming a new stratagem to get back into a country that the US was currently celebrating it’s freedom from (the irony was not lost on us).
It’s not too tragic, my loves, never fear, but enough for us to largely scrap our plans and start over again in things like housing, travel, and other arrangements. You may imagine how much this thrills a control freak like me. My actual response was something along the lines of “Expletive expletive expletivey expletiving expletive!” but after a few minutes of intense angst and a couple hours agonizing to a lesser degree and research, J. and I solved it. We’ve worked out several plans contingent upon these changes and are feeling, if not chipper about them, rather proud of turning about so quickly with panache.
Sidenote: world leaders, dictators, movers, shakers, celebrities and Very Important Persons, do any of you need a personal assistant? One who can face nuclear disasters, ambassadors vanishing into the ether, botched public appearances, wardrobe malfunctions, catastrophic paperwork misfilings, and seemingly crushing misfortunes with a quick comeback and immediate, impressive action? Call me. I’m your girl.
In any event, my point is thus. When planning a move, vacation, road trip, military expedition, weekend in Paris, or minor invasion, expect that something, somewhere will go wrong. It’s the rule, the gods of travel have decreed it thus. And more importantly, don’t panic.
If your plane is delayed, rerouted, or vanishes into the Bermuda Triangle, you can reschedule, sightsee, and make a good impression on the Higher Beings from the New Dimension as you settle into your new life. If you are struck down by broken bones or falling crockery, you can get yourself patched up. And if the British government changes their visa policies, you regroup, thank your lucky stars you didn’t book that weekend in Edinburgh already, and decide to go to the country as a visitor instead. It’s a separate immigration headache, but it’s highly doable.
As Mum reminded me (in the sensible, crisp tone that she uses to pull me back from the ledge of entirely unwarranted freak outs) there is very little that constitutes a crisis. J. not getting into grad school last minute, me losing my job, our passports getting stolen, our car breaking down irrevocably, and one of us coming down with a disease previous unknown to science is a crisis. Having to fly back and forth to the US every handful of months is merely very, very inconvenient.
Perspective, kittens. When things go wrong it often takes little more than the ability to 1) not whine and 2) get to work setting up a Plan B to set things right. Because you are all do-ers, aren’t you? That’s right!
“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.”
~Paul Sweeney
The Fourth of July prep is done. After staying late at work and taking short lunches (if any), either crawling into bed idiotically late or horrifyingly later, and consuming my body weight in Jamba Juices (due to utter failure at getting up early enough to pack any food at all), I’m done. Finished. Dusting my hands in a self-congratulatory manner. Calling it.
I am taking today off. It’s my two year anniversary and J. is taking me to my first breakfast in longer than I care to think about. We’re going to hang out outside in natural sunlight, I’m going to call my Mum and Venice (who are owed marathon phone calls), and flirt with my husband shamelessly in public. And I am not going to have anything to do with fireworks until Monday when I’m flat on my back in a park staring up at ’em.
C., checking out, kittens!
Be sure to have an outfit for the major occasions of life: 1) a wedding, 2) a funeral, 3) a job interview, 4) a public appearance/event. They come up rarely but not necessarily when you have the time, funds, inclination or access to a great store to find something fab and fast.
– Caitlin Kelly, the broad behind the excellent blog Broadside, journalist, and author of the recently published Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail
Small Dog Syndrome 