The Special People Club

I broke down and got Sky. I have a satellite dish AND DVR technology. I love it. Not only do I get a bunch more weird British TV, but I get my favourite US stuff, too. OH! And I can pause live TV and tape things, basically making my TV do my bidding. Hallmark happens to be starting The Gilmore Girls right where I left off last season, and the final series of Six Feet Under just started on E4! Jon Stewart does a World Edition of The Daily Show and it airs on CNN. It is basically highlights from the week in the US, plus commentary added to help an international audience understand. This week he covered the whole Pat Robertson as hit man thing. Man, have I missed Jon. I must say that this little touch of contact with my homeland has made me quite happy. I feel like I'm a little more connected to the pulse of the US. Oh. And I get to see that dreamy Anderson Cooper on CNN once in awhile, as well. Why do they make him cover all the hurricanes?

I bought a 3 foot tall artificial Christmas tree and a silk pillow cover for £3.

Due to my busy schedule, this is actually more accurately titled "What I did 24 August." Sorry for the delay. My company has a new product. We're affiliated with Ticketmaster, and we sell a high-satisfaction/relatively low cost enhancement to a corporate benefit package, wherein your company pays for a membership to the Ticketmaster Priority Club. You join, you get discounts and they help you find things you might want to attend, etc. It's actually pretty great and, being a loyal employee, of course I joined when they sent the email to us. When I signed on I was cruising through the genres that I usually like...theatre, jazz, opera, alternative music...and I saw that Beulah was playing at Bush Hall in London on the 24th. Well, you know that I love my Beulah, and tickets were only £12.50, so I convinced my friends Katrina and Anna to join me for a night out in London to see one of my favourite bands. Note to self...next time, before you buy tickets, check to be sure i...

The Brits are readers. They all read, every last one of them. Okay, maybe there are a couple of 20 year old YOBs that don't crack books, but the rest of them...they like their books. This is great. Bookstores have interesting suggestions and authors who come to speak and are crowded with people. People quote favourite authors and they talk about things they've read in the past few weeks and they often make reading recommendations as part of casual small talk. They like non-fiction, they like mysteries, they like a good novel know and again. It's part of their culture, and they laugh at people who don't read. Mind you, some of them read crap...Barbara Cartland is a Brit, and we've been invaded by Dan Brown mania just like everyone else. But I like living in a nation of readers. Readers rule! (Except, of course, for the US president...he doesn't have to read. Dick Cheney does that for him.)

I love the internet. It's filled a hole in my life. I have my Playgroup back. When I lived in Seattle, it took me a long time to find my people. Don't get me wrong...I had Soni, and Ben, and Bethany and we spent many a night lounging on the leopard pillows, drinking Henry Weinhard's (or Hank, as we called it,) and walking to QFC dressed as the Gorton's Fisherman at 2 AM to buy fishsticks. But B, B, and S were people I knew before I got there, so they are different. In order to really feel at home somewhere, to really be comfortable living there, you have to make friends unique to that place. I'd been there almost two years before I found the people I'd retain from the PNW. I met them when my housemate, Gavin, moved out and we had to get a new housemate. We advertised on coffee shop walls and in weekly papers, and we found Knox. Knox is funny and smart. He is a poet. He is adventurous and interesting and a collector of people...some really good, some not exactly...

Sorry for the long absence. I've been quite busy in the past few weeks, hence the lack of posting. Tonight I'm getting caught up on things like paperwork and bills and bank statement balancing and email and all the things I can't do if I don't sit still. I've unloaded my camera, as well, and put a few pictures in from my visit with Tim in May and my weekends with friends in the past two weeks. There are captions for now, and I'll be back through the week with all sorts of updates.

Car boot sale on Sunday - this goes on for rows and rows...there were probably 300 vendors.

Patricia, Siri, and Anne in front of Fifteen, Jamie Oliver's restaurant

View from Patricia's front window

Ties on the wall at a pub in Oxford 

Marzipan army of frogs and bears

Woman making marzipan scholar in Oxford. Marzipan is like edible clay. It is unbelievable what people can do with this. We found a store in the Covered Market and watched this woman making figures. Very cool.

Tim and I are crap with chopsticks. 

Flowers at Woburn Abbey

I live a little over an hour from this. 

A marketing connection we've missed out on in the US. 

Unnecessary caption - Don't lean on the doors when you're in a glass pod 30 stories above London. Necessary Caption - Don't lean your greasy head on the window.

I've got a total crush on this guy . I've signed up to be a citizen. Mostly that means you get access to the chat rooms. And while I'm not an active poster in any chat room, it's good to know there are lots of smartypants weirdos out there. Makes one feel a bit less lonely, you know? It's too bad you don't live here. This is a very funny thing.

I watched an hour of debate on whether it was undemocratic/tyrannical for George Bush to appoint John Bolton in the congressional recess. Mind you, no panelists could actually say, "NO! It's perfectly fair, normal, and even-handed." They just said, "Well, technically, it's legal." They also said it's an abuse of the spirit of the law, and the world should question America's commitment to improving international relations because they let this bozo become their Ambassador to the UN. I guess I'm lucky...at least I got to watch someone debate this on ethical issues and not partisan politics. But I realized a dark, evil secret about myself. Five years of Bush/Cheney leadership have corroded my heart. There was a time when I would have fought this on principle. I would have thrown my heart and soul into objecting to this, and would have vehemently stood up for what I believe in. Now I see it strategically. I'm thinking, "This is GREAT! We ob...

There are two sorts of trousers taking UK men by storm. Neither is a particularly good decision. 1) Men's Cropped Pants - If you're out hiking for the day, MAYBE I'll give you a break and say they are a good compromise between full trousers and shorts. But if you're just out doing the shopping or you're picking someone up at the airport or you are going to lunch at a nice pub, these are STUPID looking on men. They make your calves look fat. Especially with trainers. 2) French tab waistbands - Although they were made famous in menswear by the fine folks at Sansabelt , the French Tab waistband should be limited to women, polyester coaches' shorts, and men who've retired. You will ALWAYS look like you take fashion advice from Paulie Walnuts , regardless of how much you paid your tailor, Plus, frankly, only skinny guys can pull it off without looking like they have child-bearing hips. Add some belt loops, mate. 3) I know I said I had TWO things, but I thoug...