May I Introduce______?

It’s funny how our Xanga network operates. I have my set of friends. You have yours, and sometimes the two shall meet. I’d like for them to meet! To which one of your Xanga friends would you like to introduce me?  I’ve got my subscription list to the left so you can make sure I don’t already “know” the person. 

It’s always fun to meet new people, even if it is only via the internet.

And, since it’s the weekend you can go on a tour of the Tower Bridge with me!

The bridge was built in eight years and finished in 1894. The City of London commissioned it due to all the traffic, especially carriages.  The bridge is a drawbridge (the lower part across which is hidden behind my children’s heads) and lifts up two times a day taking only about 3 minutes to go the whole way up.

If you pay for the tour, you can go up to the second level, which is an observation deck and look out at the city and the Thames.

*@&?*!

We had a teenage British friend over this evening to watch Mel Gibson’s The Patriot. (Yes, ironic.)  While watching the movie, twice I said a word which in the United States means absolutely nothing. But, I’ve heard it used/read it England before.

“Hey, is ****** a bad word in England?” I asked our guest.

Without a second’s hesitation, he said, “Oh, yes.” 

Great. I wonder how many times I’ve said this word and am now thought of as a sewer mouth.  How many other ways have I unwittingly been an offense?  Arrgghh!

(The word, just in case you want to know so you can swear at your friends in British, starts with “B” and rhymes with “hugger.” I am loathe to even write it now that I know it’s foul. Probably all of you knew it was inappropriate and are laughing at me. Poor, dumb American.)

Two Million Happy Birthdays

Today the birthday of the woman who wrote “Happy Birthday to You,” Patty Smith Hill, an elementary teacher who was born in Anchorage, Kentucky, in 1868.  We’d play her song for her, but she’s dead.

This song earns about two MILLION dollars a year in royalties which are split amongst AOL Time Warner, The Hill Foundation (a charity), and Patty’s nephew.  (If you want the whole story, go HERE.)

And since we are on the subject, happy birthday tomorrow to Bethany and Saturday to Ghosty!

While we are on the subject of dead people, it was Robert Frost’s birthday on the 26th. I always picture Frost as a happy sort of poet with all his Birches and Apple Picking and Snowy Woods. But, all those nice rhymes hid a lot of suffering (or perhaps the suffering shaped the rhymes?).  The Writer’s Almanac yesterday gave this report on Frost:

His first son died from cholera at age three; Frost blamed himself for not calling a doctor earlier and believed that God was punishing him for it. His health declined, and his wife became depressed. In 1907, they had a daughter who died three days after birth, and a few years later Elinor had a miscarriage. Within a couple years, his sister Jeanie died in a mental hospital, and his daughter Marjorie, of whom he was extremely fond, was hospitalized with tuberculosis. Marjorie died a slow death after getting married and giving birth, and a few years later, Frost’s wife died from heart failure. His adult son, Carol, had become increasingly distraught, and Frost went to visit him and to talk him out of suicide. Thinking the crisis had passed, he returned home, and shortly afterward his son shot himself. He also had to commit his daughter Irma to a mental hospital.

Yikes! Makes getting stuck in traffic with a dead cell phone battery and missing an appointment not seem so miserable, eh?

Grocery Shopping in England

When I shop for groceries “back home,” I take my huge list, hop in my minivan, head to WalMart/Giant, grab a big cart, pile it full of a week or more of groceries, head home, and make my kids unload the van.

Here, things are different.  First of all, refrigerators are about half the size, and freezers are also tiny. So, one can’t buy as much on a trip. Second, we usually have to bring all of our groceries home by hand since we ride the bus. That means a walk from the store to the bus stop, and then a ten minute walk home with the milk and juice and bread and flour causing the bag to dig painfully into the hand.  (I really appreciate having five children for these grocery carries home.)

However, the coolest way to shop for groceries is to order online. Most grocery stores allow you to place an order online, pay for it by credit card, and then deliver it to your house for a fee (usually under 5 pounds).  How amazingly convenient! It’s especially handy as I use my order as a running shopping list.
When I run out of something, I go to the computer and add it to my
basket.

We use Tesco’s for our shopping. You just go to their site, type in what you want, choose from the list of options, and add it to your cart.  Then, the delivery person shows up at your selected time (two hour window) with big, green flats of happiness–all your groceries!  They bring the flats right in to the kitchen (if you want) and wait while you put everything away. Then, they take the plastic containers back and leave you happily in your house without thirty plastic bags to put away, no gas used in the van, and no time at all except what you spent on the computer. 

It’s just like Christmas every time the Tesco guy comes to the house. And, he comes tonight. Ice cream for all!

An Update Just for Andrew P.

I’m homesick today.  But, I shan’t let that keep me from chatting.  Thanks for all your kind comments about my haircut and for playing the Shakespeare quote game. (I’ll give you the answers at the end of this post.)

Easter was a blessing. Any day with a three-hour nap and lots of candy (er, sweets) is great, and to combine that with a celebration of the resurrection just makes the day phenomenal.  We also woke up to two to three inches of fluffy snow and more flakes coming down.  This is the first snow we’ve had in Cambridge. They aren’t really prepared for snow here (no snow plows, for one), so things were at a bit of a stand still. Our bus did come, but many people stayed off the roads and left church mostly deserted.

Wit took lots of great snow shots. I realize for most of my USA friends, seeing snow has long-since ceased to be a novelty. But, this is ENGLISH snow. Very different.

We didn’t have any Easter baskets this year. The kids had “Easter Plates” for their treats.  What candy did they get? All sorts of English sweets?  Nope! The Easter Peep send over a suitcase full of American goodies when Ghosty et al came to visit.

Quiz Answers

   

Forgetfulness
by Billy Collins

The name of
the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Finally!

After whining around  for a few months about wanting to get my hair cut, today was the day.  LibbyK and I went to the salon and looked through hair style books for about a half an hour. If you’ve ever had that pleasure, you know how useless 90% of the pictures are. Yeah, like I want a bowl cut which totally covers my eyes to the nose. 9% are for people with straight hair, and .75% are for long, curly hair.  So, it just came down (as it always seems) to telling the stylist what I wanted.  And, it worked! I really like my new style.

The Globe

Nope. It’s not a geography lesson today. It’s a visit to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater! This theater was dreamed up by an American actor, Sam Wannamaker (who claimed his fame through this project and not by his stage presence, apparently). He came to London in 1949 to look for some of Shakespeare. He was sorely disappointed to discover that the only memorial to the once-great Globe Theater was a bronze plaque. 

Unlike most of the rest of us, Sam decided to do something about this grave literary injustice and founded The Shakespeare Globe Trust in 1970. They tried to get the actual land where The Globe was, but it didn’t work out. So they got land fairly close to the original site and began construction in 1987 using all the same techniques they would have used in the 1600s.  (Well, except for the heavy equipment and bulldozers.)

The Globe has been performing plays since 1997 and attracts 750,000 people a year. Sadly, Sam never saw a play performed here as he died in 1993.  My kids didn’t either as they only do performances in warm weather.

One way to get to the theater is to take the Underground to St. Paul’s and walk across the Millennium Bridge. That is what we did. (Remember the Day of Stupid Questions? That was the day we went to The Globe. Yup, there is Gockle, thinking about jumping off the bridge while I am not looking…through the camera lens.)

For the price of admission, you get a free tour and the chance to wander around. Our tour guide was pretty lame. We looked enviously at the other groups whose guides were telling them history and stories and ours said, “This is the stage of the theater. Any questions?”  (We were going to go again on another tour, but we decided that we had other things to check off our list that day, so we didn’t.)

The girls and I are standing where the cheap ticket holders would stand. I they said they could fit 500 people there? Wild!

Yes, you wise and perceptive people. The theater is round, and it has no roof. The seats and stage are covered, but if you are in the cheap seats, wear a raincoat. In Shakespeare’s day, this open roof was to let in light. Today it is to show that in Shakespeare’s day, they let in light. (And, yes. That is a thatched roof, too, you eagle eye!)

In the non-stage area, they had a number of displays of this and that.  Most notably in the large entrance room was a fake tree. It proved convenient for the workers as in, “When you hear the bell ring, go to the tree for your tour.”  And, yes, I was asked by someone if s/he could climb it.

One of the other displays explained the techniques used to make the theater using wooden pegs and not nails. Aw, don’t the kiddos look all friendly and glad to be touring?

And, no tour is complete without a visit to the loo.  This one had a couch and a floor-to-ceiling mirror.  We  had fun taking pictures of ourselves in the mirror. (See the camera camouflaged by my black jacket? Sneaky, huh?)

An Irreverent Tour of the British Museum

There are lots of wonderful places which spring to mind when one thinks of London: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London. The British Museum should be on that list.  I’ve been to the British Museum four times now, and I think–but I’m not totally sure–that I’ve finally visited all the rooms.

One place I did not get to visit was the temporary display of the Terra Cotta Soldiers. I do so want to see it, but online tickets are sold out, and one must be there about 8:45 a.m. to get in queue for the 500 a day they sell first-come, first-serve.  I can’t get to London until 10:30 at the earliest due to purchasing the inexpensive train tickets. But, I did get to see some of the nifty things like fan dancers who were there. 

The museum is home to an impressive array of sculpture.

There is a suprisingly large section of Assyrian art. Think Sennacherib. Think Tiglath-Pileser. Think Little Miss.

                I took loads of pictures of sculptures. One of these is Oliver Cromwell. Can you guess which one?

I’m Back!  Did You Miss Me?

What? You didn’t even notice I’ve been non-Xanga for a week? Alas!

I’ve certainly been keeping myself busy to the point that on Tuesday I was so exhausted I spent almost the whole day in bed. I wasn’t sick, just worn out. Can anyone say, “OLD woman?”  Despite my infirm age (and desire for shoes that don’t have my feet aching by the end of the day), we’ve had a wonderful time with our guests, two of whom left this morning. We went to The Tower of London, on a cruise down the Thames River, Kensington Gardens, British Museum, Victoria and Albert, and more! It’s been wonderful having friends come to visit. 

I have about a gazillion pictures I could post, but I’ll refrain from too many and hit share just seven–