Hellos and Good Buys

I am not as good a shopper as some. Better than others but this time, not so much. I needed to get my printer working so that I could actually have some money flow towards me. (Money flows toward me with no harmful impact on others.)(That is an affirmation apparently. And saying it once isn’t enough. I never could do this as a youngin’. I hope one day to have a better relationship with money. But most of my relationships only last 1 year and a bit…sigh). AIP. I decided I needed to get new ink cartridges without checking the internet first. Silly  Augustus, Tricks are for kids. And Cheetos are for cheetahs. Had I checked the internet first, I would have found the answer. But I didn’t. So I ordered a bunch of cartridges from Amazon. Amazon, in it’s greed, has upped the amount of one’s order from $25 for free shipping to $50. Glarp! Who wants to spend $50 dollars that one doesn’t have? No one. Well, not no one, but I am reluctant to spend a dime, much less 500 of them. But I chose to, to save the shipping costs.  Spend $50 to save $8? Is that a good trade? I can’t do the math. I just hate paying for shipping. And I hate paying for parking.

I must say that I had a totally scrumptious meal tonight. I mean, wow! I am still happy about it. Left over chicken breast, fresh garlic mashed potatoes (not too heavy on the garlic, though I was sorely tempted), steamed broccoli and a few more roasted brussels sprouts with garlic and parmesan. Oh. My. Goodness. Yum.

Where was I? Oh, yes, ordering too much from Amazon. The cartridges (in a pair tree) were $11 something. So I needed $39 more. I needed new bulbs and wanted to go LED since it is the wave of the future. I found a six pack for a chunk of change. (Yes, I can’t remember how much they were without looking them up.) Next, I decided I deserved a new to me game – I bought the newest Lara Croft, Tomb Raider game (glad I didn’t have to buy a new console to get the new game – I still want a new console (or two) someday, but those are low on my priority list. That being said, I would love to play Fallout 4. Really. I would. Just saying…) Still not enough. I needed $5 or so more. I had forgotten (EOAD?) that I could really use another powerstrip, so ended up getting an instant cooking thermometer. Yay? I need to remember that I can’t leave the thing in the cooking stuff, otherwise the thermometer will die in the oven.

Yay, lots of stuff! Let’s see how we did, shall we? The cartridges were not needed. Turns out that all that was needed was a paper towel (I have oodles of those) to be wiped across the intake nobbin in the printer. Which I have subsequently done, once again demonstrating my advanced DIY skills. The bulbs. Ick. They have a really icky blue color, not the warm yellow of incandescent or even CFL blubs (sic). I like the warm color. We shall see what I end up doing with them. Ick. Ick. Ick. Did I say ick? Ick. The thermometer hasn’t arrived yet, but I am not dying to receive it. I don’t cook that often, so it will only be of sporadic use. And I haven’t gotten the game yet – but am, secretly, looking forward to playing it! Hello and bad buys. Not totally bad, but still…

The featured image shows one of two baking dishes of the delicious thingies I made the other day. It is weird. Right now, I have too much food and not enough hunger to eat it all. I hate throwing food away. I hope I won’t have to.

Media Frenzy

Lately I have been on something of a media binge, an ingesting frenzy if you will. I have watched a whole lot of movies, TV shows, read books and even, gasp, listened to music! What is happening to me? Yes, I have seriously gone over the deep end. Why isn’t it into the deep end?

Right now I am watching Arrow. Not because I like it. I don’t. I don’t like the actors (at least the leads). I don’t like the characters (at least the leads). But it is comic book/science fiction/fantasy and that I like. (By the way, I miss playing Call of Duty…) I haven’t been reviewing things, which is lazy of me. I did like a movie I saw recently. It starred Keira Knightely and Mark Ruffalo. I don’t really like either of them as actors. Mark a bit more than Keira. Begin Again. I actually enjoyed it. And I re-saw Jurassic World which was still fun the second time. And I saw Now You See Me and Now You See Me 2. Both were fun. I missed Isla Fisher in the second one, but the new-to-the-franchise woman (are two movies a franchise?) was good.

Part of me wishes I had liberated one of the digital projectors from the Smith before I left. I would love to watch things even larger than my minuscule TV allows me to watch them. Ok, not minuscule but in the greater scheme of things, pretty teeny. Maybe one day money will be flowing in a positive direction again. AIP.

I am not done with media. I am still getting movies (about two a week) from Netflix DVD. And I have Netflix online. And I am reading books. Yes, actual books. I stumbled on a series called Ranger’s Apprentice. It is a Young Adult series (about my speed, generally) which I am enjoying so far (just started the second book). I started the first book yesterday and would have finished it if I hadn’t left it at the theatre last night. So I drove to Lyons, NY – 15 miles away or so – to pick the same book up from the library there (the featured image today). And finished what I hadn’t read in about 30 minutes. Now I have started the second one. I think there are a bunch of them. We shall see how far I get. And I saw somewhere that there might be a movie in production…

How about a crazy professor for a persona as a stand up comic? I am sure it has been done before, but I think I have all the right parts for it.

Had my first real meal in a few days. The other day I made a yummy bacon biscuit dish that I saw on FB: bacon, cheese and grands biscuits, in which I replaced spring onions with fried regular onions. It makes for good snacking and good brunch. I might make it again. And tonight I cooked chicken thighs, Brussels sprouts with parmesan and bread crumbs and some sweet potato. Yum city! Eating as if I were a real person!

It is odd – a few days ago I was thinking that I had no food in the house – nothing to nibble on or eat outright. And then I saw a brownie mix. And things in the freezer. And suddenly I have oodles of food. Perspective is an interesting thing.

Thank you for reading! You are appreciated!

What’s this about beggars and choice?

Everyone has choice, even when it seems like they don’t. That doesn’t mean that I can choose to have chocolate ice cream if the store only serves vanilla. Well, I can choose to have chocolate ice cream, but I would have to leave that store and go someplace that does have chocolate ice cream. I think that is one of the ideas that is difficult for people to understand when I tell them that “Life is Choice.” If I have cancer, I can “choose” to not have cancer – but I don’t know that that will be an efficacious choice unless one has some amazing insights into how to control one’s own cells that others generally don’t have. The same with any disease. Alcoholism for instance. People who are alcoholics can choose whether or not to succumb to their addiction. Some people can’t make that choice. Some people can.

Which brings me to the thought behind the title of this post: apparently “Beggars can’t be choosers.” I understand the sentiment. If I come begging for food at a kitchen, if they offer me roast sea slug and say that’s all they are willing to give me, if I really, really need to or want to eat and don’t want to go anywhere else or try any other options, then yes, I have “no choice” but to accept their tasty sea slug.

I am currently a little in begging mode. Not as in actual, on the street begging – but certainly looking for every opportunity to save a little hard cash, since that seems to be in short supply in Chez Schoen-Rene at the moment. Not being in a position where money is coming into my life on a regular basis will do that.

The other day, I did a Chinese food run for the play I was working on. I didn’t mind. Really, for a costume designer, unless the piece is costume centric (like a period piece, or a piece with lots of energetic movement, etc.) there isn’t much to do during the run of a play. One can make a note here or a note there, but scenes can last for a long time. Off I went to pick up some Chinese food for dinner.

I enjoy eating Chinese food. I don’t know where my taste for it came from. I was a much pickier eater when I was considerably shorter. Now, I will try most things once. And I like to have Chinese food at least once every two weeks – even stooping so low as to try and cook it myself! Gasp! The director made the food choices on a menu and I relayed those to the restaurant and then brought the food back and set it out – complete with drinks and chopsticks etc.

The kids in the play didn’t seem to be very experienced with Chinese food. Some didn’t know how to use chopsticks or used them badly. The director had chosen a variety of dishes; most of them were not too extreme in taste. Kung Pao Chicken was about the most exotic.He later said that he had picked things he knew he liked. After everyone had eaten, there was a decent amount of food left. I condensed where it made sense and put it away in a refrigerator. The director had said that anyone who wanted the food could take it. Two days later, someone had taken one of the containers but three containers (and some rice) were still there. I asked if I could take it (hence the begging) and he said I could.

When I ate some of the Chinese food for dinner that night, I noticed that almost all the meat (beef, chicken and shrimp) had been eaten out of the three containers. Having put the food away, I knew that there had been a considerable amount of those there when I had stored it. Oh well. That just meant that I got to eat a lot of Chinese vegetables for the past few days. Yippee. And being a beggar, I didn’t turn my nose up at those vegetable meals. Not too much, in any case. Sriracha covers a multitude of sins.

The featured image is a plate of pierogis that I wanted to love and just couldn’t. Sigh.

Making Water

I think celery water is just a bit more palatable to my, er, palate than carrot water. Ever since I learned to put my celery and carrots into a container filled with water in the refrigerator to keep them crisp, my life has been improved immeasurably. When I have eaten all of the veggies, I have a container of cold water that I could just dump out. Instead, I pour it into one of my filtration pitchers and enjoy flavored water for a day or two. Yum! Last night, I added carrot water to the pitcher. Good, but I think celery water wins by a whisker (or whatever those threads in celery are called).

Do plants scream when they are cut or harvested? Or when they are cooked? Or eaten raw? I don’t think I want to know the answer to that question.

Alice gave me a pep talk last night and then was confused when I thanked her for it. One of our little miscommunications. I thank her for the pep talk and she thinks I am being sarcastic as “people” don’t thank people in the manner that I do – effusively. I have tried to convince her that I am sincere when I say things like that, but so far, after a little more than a year, to no avail. AIP though.

My olfactory sense is not the strongest of my senses. When I first arrived home (October 10), there was the usual and expected mustiness from a house that had been closed up for a few weeks. But there was also an unusual skunk type smell coming from somewhere. I did a teeny bit of research and had no luck pinpointing the source. Someplace kitchenward, which was not a surprise. That was on Monday. The previous Monday, when I returned from visiting Alice. Yes, I did keep smelling the smell. Though I was becoming used to it. Perhaps something had died under an appliance or something. Who knew? Then, today, I was getting something out of the large freezer (rice, for you nosy people – and aren’t rice cookers the best invention ever? Better than sliced bread for a lot of people I would think) I smelled the smell. As an aside, I remember when I made pizza the other day, I looked for a particular glass bowl and couldn’t figure out where it was. Well, this afternoon, I found it. Though it was hard to see it through the disgusting black ooze that was barely contained by the taut plastic film wrap. Ick city! Ew even. I opened the back door and released the kraken, i.e. the demonic contents of that bowl. I have left the bowl outside for the time being because, shudder…

Back before I left for England, I chose to look through the fridge for anything that might have the tendency to deliquesce during my absence. My eyes lit upon a bowl full of steamed cabbage from when Karl and Family were visiting (when was that?). I had been meaning to eat some of it, but couldn’t figure out palatable ways to do so. Lots of soy sauce maybe. Anyway, I decided I would take it out of the refrigerator and toss it out back for the critters to enjoy. For some reason, I was reluctant to do so during the daylight, so I put the bowl down on a shelf near the back door and promised myself that I would see the bowl and empty it before I left for England. Oops.

Life is that way sometimes. Yippee! At least I found the bowl!

The featured image is of me trying to figure out how to use a baby sling. No babies were hurt during the experimentation…

I think I am back

It took a while, but I think I am finally back in the USA. Mentally and physically at least. It’s only been a week! Yippee! It takes me less time to acclimate to a foreign country. All I wanted to do after I got home was to sit still and do nothing. At all. Cooking was a challenge. Even getting up to go to the bathroom. Not at all depressed – just not interested in moving much. But of course I did.

Lately, I have been focused on getting the actors dressed for the play I am working on at Keuka College  – Time Stands Still – directed by Mark Wunderlich. It ought to have been a breeze, but we did encounter a few snags. They have been ironed out for the most part. The latest one was getting a non-wedding wedding dress for the lead actress. We couldn’t find anything that was appropriate. Until recently. I think we found the dress. Yay! I keep forgetting that the actors are supposed to be playing older than they are – in their 40s and 50s for the most part. I am not sure that my costume choices have been made with that in mind. But Mark is keeping me on track.

After I finish up the play – which will be this week, I will get back to focussing on the Geneva Community Sings project. I have gotten a few rejections, which always pains me a little bit. But I have two groups signed up. Yay! Only 8 more to go. I do need to get the location nailed down soon. I could really do with a helper. As I have said so many times before, I am really good with ideas – and with motivating people to do stuff – but am pretty bad at doing stuff myself. Procrastination is one of the key problems. And I really want to get back to learning Javascript. I just want to keep moving forward on my projects. Do you think I ought to try a gofundme for my trip across the country to write about beer, pool and mini golf? I think $100k would get me in a decent electro-fitted RV and and not have me worry where my next meal is coming from while I toodle around. I’ll keep thinking about it and see what the Universe provides…

Planes, trains and automobiles (and buses)

The road home was a long one. It started early in the morning, getting up and getting my act together to take it on the road. I had done most of my packing the night before – and had missed a pair of shoes. Sigh. That meant taking everything out and repacking everything. Luckily, (or is it luck?) I tend to pack lightly. Packing accomplished, hugs and kisses shared with Alice, I leapt into the Smart Mobile and turned the car on! After only a couple of days, the car almost felt comfortable. Not totally, but I could see becoming used to driving on the “other” side of the road in  not too long a time. And with an automatic transmission it would be even easier! Fie, though, on automatic transmissions! As long as I am driving the car (and a computer is not in total control) I will opt to drive a standard shift car as frequently as possible.

The Sat-Nav/GPS had been programmed the night before, so I knew that the trip was supposed to take about an hour. When I have a navigation system, I do tend to follow it somewhat slavishly. And I am usually wise to have done so. If I know an area really well, I might try something different now and again. I do wish that GPSs kept track of trips so that one could do comparisons about routes for themselves. Too bad I am too lazy to do that work for myself.

Have I mentioned the roads in Britain? Very few fly overs on the highways that I traveled. And so many traffic circles! I really don’t like traffic circles. Not as bad as the one around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but every one frustrates me just a little. And narrow! Driving down a road on the wrong side in some cases is the only way to traverse a road! Scary stuff!

Another thing about the car – it had some cool features – I wonder if we had a spiffy version. Besides the GPS built in (Tom Tom with which I was under impressed), it had built in seat warmers. And a moon roof. It took me a while to figure out the environmental controls, but I did it. At one point, I saw an A with an arrow/circle around it in the speedometer area. I finally figured out what that was. After the car had warmed up, if I put the car in neutral and took my food off the clutch, the engine went into pause mode. As soon as I stepped on the clutch, the motor revved up. I wonder if that actually saves gas. And I will admit that I was only a 66% on the eco meter – whatever the heck that means.

There were a lot of other drivers on the road going hither and yon. After a while, signs for Gatwick Airport started to make an appearance. Good, going the right way. My penultimate destination before the airport was a Crown Plaza Hotel. I missed the first turn off for the hotel and let the GPS recalculate a route, which I followed – only to end up behind what I took to be the hotel. Few things in and around London remind me of America. And this hotel certainly didn’t. I expected there to be more signage – and maybe there was on the route that I was supposed to have taken. Instead I just drove by instinct to where I thought the hotel was supposed to be. And lo and behold, I found it. And the Easirents drop off place. And before time as well! Yay!

There was a shuttle bus from the hotel to the airport that cost £3 per person, but because I was an Easirents customer, I rode for free. I had forgotten to make note of which Terminal my flight was leaving from. So when we got to the South Terminal, I wasn’t sure if I was to alight. I asked the driver, but he had no knowledge of which planes flew out of which Terminal. I quickly whipped out my computer and checked – Stop the Bus – it was the South Terminal. With plenty of time to make my flight, I headed into the Terminal, only to discover that I was in the wrong one after all. Sigh. I got to ride a shuttle train to the North Terminal. Which I didn’t recognize at all.

Air Canada had one section of the airport and when I got there, there weren’t many people waiting to get their boarding passes. No electronic helper machines in sight, everyone had to line up to get to an agent. I got to one pretty quickly. Unfortunately, in what is an unusual circumstance for me, there was a problem with my check-in. Turns out that Lufthansa hadn’t let go of my reservation after I had been unsuccessful in checking in on their website the night before. It took my agent almost half an hour to get it sorted out. It was almost funny – he had gotten a phone to call Canada and they apparently couldn’t hear him and hung up on him. Twice. After ten minute waits each time. I could have laughed till I cried. Ok, not really. I wasn’t laughing. The poor people behind me only shot me a few venomous looks (none of which pierced my unassailable bonhommie).

They look angry, don’t they?!

Finally, boarding pass in hand, I headed for security. (I am at the laundromat and my washing machine didn’t do its due diligence where spinning was concerned so I have to put it through again in hopes that it will spin dry a bit – eventually.) Since I had had my pocket tool taken (and mailed home) on the trip out, and because I had left my box cutters that they had not found and confiscated at Alice’s (I hope she finds them useful), I had no fears that I would be stopped for contraband. Each security line seems to have different practices – similar but not the same. I did manage to set off the alarm with my belt buckle. Sigh.

Through security, I looked for my gate and found that my flight said “Boarding” already. It never ceases to amaze me how far Terminals have been removed from airplanes now. I remember when the ticket counter was maybe 100 yards from the plane’s gangway. Those were the days. I walked for a long, long way, only to find that there was a lounge into which we were being herded before getting on the plane. There, I had a nice chat with Travis, managing editor of a magazine in Columbus Ohio. He too had been visiting his girlfriend in England. Weird world.

On the plane, I found my aisle seat (I prefer aisle seats at this point in my life) and sat down with my two seat mates. The plane (the equipment) was a Boeing 767 – teeny and antiquated compared to the airbus 360 I had flown over on. They had no TVs at the seats. The humanity! They did have a local WIFI network set up with some older movies on it – of which I watched two – X-Men First Class – which I had seen once but had mostly forgotten – and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. Neither was great but they were both entertaining enough that time passed fairly quickly.

I did interact with my direct seat mate and the two people in the seats across the aisle. Christopher was on his way to Jamaica for his grandmother’s funeral. Jim was coming home after a 5 week trip through Europe and Great Britain and was something of a train enthusiast. And Aaron, a performer with Cirque du Soleil, was heading home for a 3 week break. (He gave me his email address – I still dream of working on a touring Cirque Show.) Our stewardesses (Stewardii?) were pleasant and fed me and kept me well watered (I think I had a whole liter bottle of water altogether during the flight.) I took a little nap, but mostly just stayed awake with some light meditation here and there.

One of my early London Tesco purchases came in handy throughout the trip. Both aboard the plane (breakfast/lunch) and then on the road back to Geneva. I didn’t declare them at customs! Eeeeek!

Safely landed, it took about 45 minutes to get up and off the plane, through customs and such and get out into the cool Toronto afternoon. I called the car parking place and they sent a shuttle to pick me and a few others up and drive us back to the parking lot. Funnily, one of the groups in the shuttle had parked in almost the same place I had!

The drive home went pretty quickly. I got a little confused at the border when the guard barked “Purpose” at me! I said, “going home.” “I don’t care why you are coming back to the US, I want to know why you went to London!” Oh. “Oh, to visit my girlfriend.” Grunt. “Have a nice day.” Zoom! Zip! Zap and before you can say Bob’s Your Uncle 10,000,000 times, I was home again. To my lovely, musty old, cold yet welcoming house. Ok, I did stop and get some sherry and some Wendy’s food for dinner, but…I was home again. Jiggety jig.

More about the car in the featured image in a future blog post.

All’s Well that Ends Well (London Days 15-17)

I like a bit of routine. And when I have it and lose it, I get befuddled. My routine while at Alice’s in London, seemed to be: get up whenever, go out and do errands, eat lunch, find myself back at CH and spend a couple of hours putting my post together before Alice and I enjoyed our evening’s activities. When routine is fractured, chaos (and no posts) ensue! Run for the hills!

Friday after CH, our plan was to go to a movie. Alice got busy at work, which meant that we ended up meeting at the entrance to the Collier’s Wood Tube station Entrance about half an hour before the showtime that we had selected. Turns out we were both peckish and Alice took us to her favorite schwarma place. And what a delicious schwarma she ordered for us! Mixed schwarma (lamb and chicken) with lots of add-ins. Yum city!

Off to the Odeon at Wimbledon. Gosh, movies are really, really expensive! I am so surprised that anyone can afford to go. The theatre had a self service ticket machine that even picked the exact seats for us – two or three rows from the front, but still plenty far back enough to see the whole screen without too much scrolling. We went to see The Girl on the Train starring Emily Blunt. Ok, not great. I enjoyed the movie, glad I went, but it was definitely one that I could have waited to see when it came out on Netflix.

After the movie we headed home and proceeded to play more Gin, watch more Fringe and go to sleep so that we could get up earlyish and head off on our weekend of adventure.

Best laid plans, yada yada yada. We didn’t make it out as early as we had hoped. I think the original plan was to be on the road (figuratively) by about 10 so we could get the car by 11 and get to Oxford by noon, eat lunch and then get to Stratford-upon-Avon around 2:30 or 3. Hahahahahahahaha.

We did eventually make it out of bed and into clothes – and managed to put a few things into a valise and head out into the world. At around 12. Close to our original schedule (sort of). We got to the car place and I was surprised that they were on the second floor of a building that did not look to house a parking garage. Did they rent imaginary cars? Or inflatable ones? Or did they 3d print cars on demand? I was dying to know!

Turns out that Chris and Stefan sat in a little office and that the cars resided in parking garages not too terribly distant. As things sometimes do (especially when with Alice), our tardy arrival worked to our great advantage. The office had been inundated all morning and had just quieted down when we turned up. This meant that the teeny cheap plastic car that we had rented was not available. So we got a shiny new red Smart Car, complete with Sat-Nav (as GPS is called over there). Woo hoo! Neither Alice nor I were too excited about the prospect of having to figure out how to get where we wanted to get without the use of modern technology! Maps are awesome, but…

A fuzzy Sam with out little car

Before we could get the car, though, we had to sign away our lives ($1500 deposit) and then walk to the garage. At the garage we were met by Sam, the garage attendant/romance guru from some country that neither Alice nor I could discern. His accent was bizarre. Alice thought South America perhaps, I thought but didn’t say, that he came from some sort of Fairy or Troll kingdom. In any case, he was a hoot and full of great advice (and questions) for us and our relationship. Thank you Sam!

Sat-Nav programmed, we headed out of the garage and I faced my first driving challenge – going up a very steep ramp. Driving in England, where the driver’s seat is on the right side (not the correct side, IMHO) and the gear shift is on the left, was a bit of a challenge for me. Are there way more left handed people in England than in the US? I managed to get us up and out to the street and immediately Alice reminded me to stay to the left! The GPS kicked in and we were off! The hour and 19 minute trip to Oxford was started at around 1:30. Sadly, due to traffic getting out of London, we didn’t arrive in Oxford until around 3:30.

Oxford is a nice town from what we got to see of it.

I love this!

Alice needed to add a bundle to her phone so that we could have some data while traveling. This took much longer than either of us had anticipated. But it was necessary. And she got it handled. I liked that the O2 office had couches and chairs, unlike Apple stores. Grrr.

We were both feeling a bit on the “hangry” side of life, so we stopped at “The Art Cafe” for yummy panninis! I had something called The Mexican and Alice had The Sexy Brazilian. Tasty! Yes, we did climb to the attic to eat – I thought they might have an outdoor rooftop eating space, but they didn’t.

 

Finally on the road again, Nikki and Nick, our airbnb hosts had mentioned that they were heading out around 7 for dinner plans. We arrived around 6:30 and all of us are glad we did. What an awesome find on Alice’s part! Wow, even. Two very nice hosts who lived in an amazing house with a great garden and a feisty and fun dog named Pegity. The spaces that were for our use were comfortable. Our own sitting area complete with two sofas and an out of tune piano (that will be tuned in November apparently). A large bathroom with a garden style tub and a separate shower! And a large airy bedroom overlooking the garden (no garden gnomes, which is sad…) Nick and Nikki were journalists who have retooled a bit – one todo  layout for a local paper and one to nannying. Good for them! Flexibility is key in one’s work life it seems to me in this day and age. Unless one is a doctor or a lawyer, but even then, the playing field is ever changing. Anyway, we got there just before they left and they were very gracious. Told us about a cool micro pub to try and explained which were the best regular, non-touristy pubs in the area.

Alice I headed out again and found the micro pub – a pub that only stocked local microbrewery casks. Since Alice likes beer less than I do, I did most of the drinking. She finished one but didn’t really care for any of the other three. Nice people there – thought I might be an actor in for the RSC. Sadly, no.

After our stop at the Stratford Ale Pub, we wandered across town to a pub known variously as The Dirty Duck or The Black Swan. (There is another pub and hotel in town called the White Swan.) Alice didn’t like it there as much as I did, but we managed to sit and have a heavenly repast of pork scratchings! (The kitchen was closed.) Alice was surprised at how inexpensive the delectable salty treats were in comparison to London. I liked all of the Shakespeare quotes and things around the place.

Next stop, “home,” after the closest we came to an accident with me misreading the GPS, trying to find a place to turn around and being in the wrong lane for a little too long. Luckily, no harm done to anyone or anything. Phew!

Sunday dawned bright and cool! After more breakfast than either of us normally eat (complete with a pain au chocolat – yum), we decided to take the scenic walk along the Avon into town. N&N offered us Wellies (Wellington Boots) which Alice took and I did not.

The walk was very nice – the first part took us through a lot of people’s back yards. Some people were in them – some acknowledged us, others ignored us. The river was much smaller than I had thought it would be. For some reason I thought it would be Thames size. Nope. I could probably throw a rock across it in some places. It had a couple of locks on it. Some geese, some swans. Some jumping fish. Very idyllic really.

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We got to town and had the choice of cutting through a church or walking through a park. Alice and I decided that the park was the better option as neither of us wanted to see if we would burst into flame while walking on hallowed ground. We found a really cool little chain ferry that finally took us back across the river. A nice little arts and crafts sort of market was all set up for us to wander through. The last booth contained live owls! Lots of them (if three is lots). Alice was much braver around them than I was and petted them! (Ok, birds scare me a little…) Next we headed to Shakespeare’s birthplace, because it would have been really silly to come to Stratford and not at least do something Shakespeare related. Sadly, the place has been over commercialized, costing £12 pounds or something like that to go in and look around. So I got a picture of the outside. Yay.

We were both feeling a bit hungry, so we went to the other local pub that N&N had suggested to us – The Old Thatch. My goodness it was teeny! Like a hobbit hole. And no room at the dinner table for us (at least when we went in). We opted to have a drink in the “garden” (also teeny) and relax a bit. As we headed out, a Thai place was recommended to us for food.

What a good food choice! Alice wasn’t as hungry as I was, so I proceeded to order food that looked good to me – a deep fried soft shelled crab was the starter, and a sweet and peanut flavored beef curry over noodles was the main. Needless to say, I didn’t eat all of it.

By this time, it was getting towards our late check out, so we took an expensive taxi back to the house, packed up and got to say farewell to our hosts.

The drive back was pretty straightforward, despite some traffic from others returning to the London area after their weekends away. And Alice didn’t have to remind me to stay left too frequently! (In fact she kept urging me into the right (“fast”) lane!)

We got home and I backed the little car into Alice’s parking space behind her apartment. Neither of us really wanted to be home, because that meant that we would have to say goodbye soon. So we stayed up a little late, eating leftovers, unpacking and packing, playing some more Gin and just letting things wind down.

And there we have it, the whole trip. The whole shebang. My travel day home will be in the next blog. And then onwards into infinity and beyond!

 

London day 14-15

A metro helper came out to find me at a bus stop she had misdirected me to.

I apologize for anyone who read this and saw just the one sentence. I was starting the post at a bus stop mostly to remind myself of the event. I don’t use the app version of WordPress very often, so I must have clicked when I ought to have clacked. Sigh. Life is that way – with or without technology.

So yes, that happened. I was heading to lunch in a new to me part of London and I asked a metro worker where to get the P5 bus. She told me. I looked at the stop when I got there and was figuring out that she had been incorrect and that I needed to be on the other side as she ran up to me to tell me the same thing. Above and beyond! That’s what I like to see! I went above and beyond and it worked out ok. Ok, not really. But I might try it again…one day.

But I am, once again, getting ahead of myself. Before I can get to today, I need to get through the rest of last evening and night.

Sitting in the CH after I had posted my blog, I was basically chilling and waiting for Alice. And feeling a little peckish. I perused the menu and saw that French Onion Soup was on the offer. So I took a bowl of that. There sure were a lot of onions! And it was tasty – but not what I expected – I expected cheese, a lot of cheese, melted on the top of some bread. Oh well. It was good in any case. And there were a lot of onions. But not one of them said anything in French that I could tell…

Alice was attending a business mixer for her new job and had said she would see me at 8:00 pm. In fact, she was ten minutes early, but didn’t see me as I was sitting in the comfy chairs around the corner from the entrance. Hiding in plain sight, sort of. We sat and chatted for a while before raiding Tesco (like a 7-11) and heading back to the flat.

Our evening plan – rest and relax – play some Gin, watch some Fringe and go to bed. And that is exactly what we did. Though Alice did somehow manage to misplace an entire deck of cards! I did some neatening today and didn’t come across them. Hopefully, the artful finder Alice will once again come through and make them magically appear!

After Alice’s departure this morning, I decided to look something up – pizza places. And for some reason, found myself on Facebook. I started doing what I normally do with Facebook – set it to most recent and start scrolling through. I hadn’t realized what a bandwidth hog it was! It ate up almost 100 mb of my roaming allotment in less than 10 minutes. Sigh. Now I have like 5 mgs to last me until I get back to America. Super sized sigh. That just means I have to be extra diligent in looking for wifi spots. Which is a bit of pain, but I will somehow survive this first world tragedy!

Since we will be away from the house for a long while, Alice has arranged someone to come check on the cats. And since relative strangers (not stranger relatives) are coming, someone had to do some house cleaning. I was nominated. I love to clean. Lots. (Those two sentences were dripping with sarcasm in case you hadn’t noticed…) So it was with great excitement and light step that I danced through the tiny place cleaning up this, restacking that, etc. The place is now a joy and a wonder to behold! Alice, of course, will let me know what else needs to be done to make the place presentable. I think I did a decent job. Only time will tell if my thought is accurate.

After tidying up, I headed out – only to get to CH and find it closed! Closed I tell you! Ack and eeek! What ever was a boy to do? Sit outside and use the wifi and look for someplace else to go. My desire for pizza had not been sated yesterday, so I opted for more pizza today. I had found this local London chain and went to the original store in Brixton. Why does “Brixton” stand out in my mind? Hmm. Anyway, I got there with the above mentioned almost wrong bussing-ness, found the restaurant and had a seat. Pizza in London is not like pizza in Geneva or other places in the US. It is more like flatbread pizza – and pepperoni is a challenge to find. Franca Manca was having a meat pizza special, so I availed myself of one of those and a no name Pale Ale (apparently brewed for Franca Manca). The pizza came with some raw vegetable on top (kale?). I moved it to the side and one of the servers managed to get me a plate to put it on just before it ended up in a water glass. The table had oil and what I thought might be vinegar. But it wasn’t. It was hot, spicy oil! Eeeep.

Interesting Pizza origin story

What’s with the green stuff?

No Logo!

Specials

The place had seating on both sides of the mall

After lunch, I decided to go for a walk. What I envisioned as a 15 minute digestive stroll, turned into an hour long walkathon! I did see some interesting sights and had an overall pleasant time, but it was a bit excessive. My food was well and thoroughly digested! I eventually asked directions, chose not to follow them and hopped on a bus that took me back to a Tube (or Underground) station with the name of which I was familiar (Oval). Tube to CH where I sit and type.

Shhhh, the butler didn’t do it! (London Day 13-14)

We saw The Mousetrap, the world’s longest running play (or something like that). Yay. More on that a bit later.

My time is drawing to an end here in Lovely London town with my sweetie Alice. Really only one more day as we are heading off on a road trip this weekend. It is too bad that we didn’t do this trip last weekend as I had originally suggested, but it just didn’t work out. Oh well. C’est fromage. The time has not flown, as it has been pretty well filled out with activities and time spent together. Huzzuh!

One of the together activities that we did was go to a play. Alice is pleased that I “also” like theatre. She asked me a good question – when did I know that I liked theatre? Wow, I can’t remember a time I didn’t like theatre. My first play? No idea. I do know that mom started taking us to theatre at an early age. I would ask her but…I bet she took us to plays when we were in England back in 1968. And I know that she took us to plays in NYC whenever we went there. I also did theatre at camp (remember the Psyche Bone post) and summer theatre for a couple of years when HWS had a good summer theatre program. I wonder why that went away. Money probably. Money sucks the life out of things. Why does everything have to “make a profit?” Where is all the money that exists in the world? Oh, right, in the hands of about 100,000 people. Sigh. Anyway, I do love the theatre, which is why working at the Smith was almost a dream job. And running the place would have been only a couple of steps away from one of my actual dreams – creating and running Sirius Theatre. For those of you who don’t know about Sirius, there must be a blog post about it somewhere. And if not, let me know, and I can send you the draft business plan. I still have it, though I need to rebuild the associated spreadsheets to show its fiscal viability. Grrrr. How many plays have I seen? How many have I been in? Directed? Etc? I have no earthly clue. But I do love theatre. Alice does too! So she was very thoughtful and got us tickets to a play – The Mousetrap.

The stage play apparently was created from a 30 minute radio play commissioned from Agatha Christie by the Queen. The production we saw was quaint. If you have an extra $20 or more and are really bored and want to see a play that has been showing over and over for years and years, please, rush out and buy a ticket. Was it a great production? Not really. Was it exciting? Scary? Moving? Well acted? Um, not especially. And the “twist” ending – well, we aren’t supposed to reveal that. All I can tell you for certain is that the Butler didn’t do it. I am happy that Alice and I got to see the show. And the theatre was really cool – so steep that even us in the back row could actually see actors’ faces without binoculars. Almost.

On the way to the play, Alice and I both were a little hungry. We were in a very busy part of London (The West End?). Alice chose a place called “King of Falafel” and had a delicious mixed schwarma with halumi wrap. I had arguably the worst slice of pizza that has ever been created and forced down my throat in the entire history of pizza. Bad is an understatement. But it was fodder, which is exactly what was needed. God it was bad. I still shudder thinking about it. Blech.

Oddly, there was a bag check at the theatre. They were checking for alcohol. What? I know alcohol is pricey in theaters, but bringing in a fifth or more of alcohol to a play that lasts an hour and a half? Weird indeed.

Thank goodness for my almost obsessive picture taking – which has been made easier by getting the battery in my phone replaced. I had put out of my mind our “pool” experience. I hope that pool has another resurgence or two in my lifetime. It is sad that it is at such a low ebb just now. It is really difficult to find a pool table in London, much less a good pool table – and even harder, an American Style pool table. The tables here are like teeny snooker tables (small balls, rounded pockets, two colors of balls plus an 8 ball). I like Snooker. I don’t like playing pool on a snooker table. (Oh, if I had the money, I would a) fix up the garage so that I could set my pool table up (a beautiful 1970’s Brunswick limited table with leather rails – sigh – “full size” (4.5’x 9′))(though the garage might be too small – and if it is) b) buy a 20×20 shed type building and put it on the St. Clair property. I miss my pool table.) Alice was wonderful and tried to book us a table at a sports bar called Riley’s. My goodness, not the best place on the planet. Three bad pool tables with barely one unbent pool cue out of six. Good thing we were the first ones there. And pink chalk even though the felt was green. And snooker style pool cues (which in this case was good since the balls were snooker size). We played a few games (Two? Three?) and had a drink. There was also a PS4 FIFA tournament of some kind happening in the space. Weird, weird place. But overall, anything billiards related is better than nothing billiards related.

An aside – I am at CH and I am number 6 today. 😦

After pool, play and public transport, we returned home to Alice’s flat. The kids (cats) were eager to get outside and hungry, so we felt it was safe to let them out. And it was. Until they had eaten. At which point one of Alice’s cats decided to head “home.” Alice intrepidly went in search of him and returned with the cat in the (hand)bag. Yay cat drama! Poor Alice might be contending with the cat’s desire to return “home” for a long time – unless she can get a place back in that part of Collier’s Woods. Or move 1000 miles away – in which case the cat might just get lost trying to find its way home. She has found a few techniques on the internet to try to get the cat to be reprogrammed to accept where he is as his new home. I hope it works out!

A little more Fringe and it was time for a snooze fest (with the cats joining us off and on through out the night).

It is time to clarify a comment I made in yesterday’s post: that love and sex aren’t that important to me. What I meant by that was that right now I have both in my life, so I am not focused on talking or thinking or writing about them. They are not lacking, so they don’t seem to loom as large in my pea brain. Love and sex are both important – to me and to the world. Love makes the world go around and without sex there would be a lot fewer babies in the world. Maybe I am just digging the hole deeper…Onward.

This morning dawned grey and dreary but tuned out to be quite pleasant weather wise. Usually when Alice leaves, I dive back under the covers for a few more hours of shut-eye. Hey, it takes a lot of energy to keep up with a woman a few years my junior. This morning, though, I stuck it out and stayed up! I prognosticate an early snooze this evening! Though my prognostications are frequently incorrect. Such is life. After my ablutions, I mosied out towards my midday assignation with Alice, secure-ish in my knowledge of where Wedge Issue lay in the Greater London Scheme of things. Oops. Not so much. I tried to be clever and ended up being a smidge late. Luckily, Alice was later! Phew and woohoo!

We shared a delicious all meat pizza! Ok, it wasn’t all meat – it was pizza with a few different meats on it. Would an all meat pizza be nummy? Prolly not. I like a little dough. I could have done with a smidgen more sauce. I had a really delicious Irish Porter- wish I had one now, in fact – making due with Guinness. Alice’s time was circumscribed by her job, so we ate and left relatively quickly – her back to the grind, me to the Science Museum.

I am not a huge museum fan. Usually I am good for an hour – at most – before I am ready to move on to a different activity. Of museums, my favorite type is Science. I will admit to also liking some museum like places – Planetariums, aquariums (I think I am happy knowing that the fish are suffering (ok, not really, I don’t want any living creature to suffer…) and (please don’t castigate or condemn me) zoos. I do like zoos that are more safari like – more preserves than straight up show places of animals (though, I think I could live in a zoo – depending on the habitat that I was given – and on whether or not if anything happened to my keepers, there was a way for me to get out. I would hate to be trapped in a zoo and have my keepers incapacitated and die of starvation or thirst or something…ok, weird thoughts…) I like art museums for about 30 minutes – my brain gets full. I love odd museums – again for about 30 minutes to half an hour (tee hee). But all of the odd museums around London seem really expensive, so I haven’t gone to any.

I did, though, go to the Science Museum. Free – with a donation suggested. I gave them a pound instead of the £5 that they recommended. I wandered there for about, you guessed it, an hour. I played at one of the exhibits, drooled over a hands on flying exhibit – but I didn’t want to spend the money (£12 to fly unfettered and free…)(I do have a teeny, provisional bucket list – upon which is learning to fly – preferably a helicopter – why a ‘copter rather than a regular plane I do not know…) – wandered hither and yon and overall had a very pleasant experience.

On the way there and on the way back, I passed two disparate and interesting street musicians: a Celtic harpist and a person playing a fire breathing B Flat Euphonium (I am pretty sure it was an Euphonium and thinking it might have been a B flat Euphonium…).

My trip home was more straightforward than my trip out! I am currently safely ensconced at CH awaiting the arrival of Alice after she finishes with her “recent starters” mixer event. I guess I will just drink Guinness until she arrives…

Love (Lane) and Sex(tuplets) (London Day 12-13)

Who really knows what day it is? I mean, isn’t time just something that mankind has arbitrarily created?

I am going to jinx myself here: so far the weather during my trip has been mostly pleasant! Yay!

So, Alice tells me if I want more people to read my blog, I need to write about Love and Sex. Hence the title. Yesterday, I saw a street sign that said Love Lane. And the only thing I could think of that had “sex” in it – besides true sex related things – was Sextuplets. (I have subsequently thought of a few others…) Not that I know any Sextuplets personally. So, there we have it. I have mentioned Love and Sex. Yay! Readers come hither. Actually, it feels like potboiling (is that thing?) to me. I would like people to read my blog because they want to read my blog, because they find me fascinating (or at least worth reading over a cup of something – on their commute perhaps. Or in their downtime between appointments). And if not fascinating, at least a little bit interesting. Or for the tidbits of wisdom and the occasional thought provoking observations or quips that appear now and again. Not for Love and Sex. Which, while interesting, are not my focus, generally. Phew – got that off my chest. Now, on to the more mundane.

After CH, I was peckish, so opted to eat a little something before heading further into the world. Now, please don’t tell Alice, but I ate at BFC. I couldn’t help myself. Ever since I saw the place, I was tempted to try them out. An obvious attempt to capitalize on KFC, a teeny hole-in-the-wall food place in Collier’s Wood, I have perused the menu several times and yesterday actually ventured inside. Indeed a weird little place. As I was examining the menu more closely, I saw what I thought was a misspelling – doner. I asked the (co-owner?) what doner meant and she pointed to what looked like Gyro to me – Chicken and Lamb on two coniferous standing roasting spits. I chose a one piece chicken meal and had a pleasant nosh on the Tube. Not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. And cost effective!

In town, I decided to get off at the “Bank” station. I really had no idea why. Turns out Bank was so named because of all the banks in the area – not because it is on the bank of the Thames. Now I know. In full wander mode, I strode off into the unknown. As I walked, I found places I had heard of and not seen and places I had seen but hadn’t placed in the larger context of London.

I found this little park tucked next to a bunch of bank buildings. Further along, I saw the book bindery and thought of my friend Nysa who binds books (or did – I think she likes to fly more than she binds now). I also thought that the name of the Sofa Store was appropriate. And for those of you who don’t know, when I was younger, I studied all sorts of magic, include stage magic, so this shop struck a chord.

Speaking of chords, I think of my mom at all sorts of random times. Today, as I as walking back streets to get to Alice’s flat, I started to laugh and it came out mom-like. I hope she is ok and that Karl and Juliet are checking in with the nursing home occasionally. Hope springs eternal.

My plan/thought had been to have a beer before getting to Alice’s work place. Right near the magic shop was a sign that said “Pizza and Beer.” Good beer selection, but sadly no slices – which is probably good for the pizza (as it is all made fresh) but bad for me as I wasn’t all that hungry, but would have gladly eaten a slice. Maybe I will make it there before my visit to London is over and try their pizza. It did sound (menu descriptions) and look yummy. The place was run by neighbors from the North (Canadians).

A quick walk to meet up with Alice before we headed off to our evening’s festivities. When I decided to come back to London to visit Alice, it never occurred to me that I would be going to a place called Cat Village to hang out with a bunch of cats. But that was what our plan was. It wasn’t that long a walk and we only briefly traversed territory that I had traipsed through not long before.

Cool and weird place. Home to 15 non-stray cats, this is a good place for people who love cats. Alice loves cats. I like cats. Still, it wasn’t a bad time. Can you believe that there are two places like this in London? Right near each other. Anyway, here’s the deal: pay an entry fee and buy something from their menu and in return one get’s an hour of time watching, petting, playing with and perhaps feeding cats. Woo hoo?

Cats accomplished, we headed in search of one of the beer places that Alice had looked up, as she is always looking for things to do that I will enjoy. We went to a place called Old Fountain – which it turns out (totally unsurprisingly) Alice had been to before. I had a yummy black IPA and Alice had wine. And before we knew it, Alice had started chatting with our table mates – Patrick and his sons Henry and Thomas (Tom). Turns out they were all British Liberal Democrats. A little left of Labor if I have it right. And they were mostly Bernie fans. Populist with a bit of libertarian thrown in. Not a lot, but some. Patrick’s wife even stood for Parliament (but did not win).

It was a short walk to the Tube Station and a fairly quick return to the house where we watched episode 2 of Fringe before falling into bed, once again fairly exhausted after a fun evening in London town.

Today is another lovely day – though it is a tad on the chilly side. I decided that since I had forgotten my beard trimmer, that I would get my face professionally trimmed. I knew I had seen a lot of Male Hairdressers around, but wasn’t sure exactly where any of them were. Turns out, one was right across from where one’s comes to the High Street when leaving Alice’s. The proprietors were Polish – so I dazzled them with at least 14 words of Polish. I went for a bit of a hair trim in addition to the beard trim. Here are the before and after pictures:

Next up, Kebab! I swear, as I have been walking London and environs, every other hole-in-the-wall restaurant has been offering kebabs. Why then, did I have to walk to South Wimbledon (not that far – maybe half a mile) before actually finding one?! I chose a medium “Chicken Shish” meal. Tasty! Though my shrunken stomach was only able to eat about 9/16th of the food.

And here I am, back at CH, winding down on the blogging and gearing up for the ensuing evening’s activities – going to the theatre tonight!

I hope that all your days are play days!