The Special People Club

Two days late, but I have my reasons. They're called exams. 1. I Lost It - Lucinda Williams 2. Denise - Fountains of Wayne 3. Johnsburg, Illinois - Tom Waits 4. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young 5. Up In the Sky - Oasis 6. The Girl In the Corner - Lyle Lovett 7. Bop Gun (Endangered Species) - Parliament 8. It's Hard to Kill a Bad Thing - Isobel Campbel & Mark Lanegan 9. Brown to Blue - Elvis Costello and the Attractions 10. I Ain't Living Long Like This - Emmylou Harris

So today, in the middle of my revising, I took time out to go to Magistrate Court. As I mentioned yesterday, last Friday night I received a notice from a bailiff who wanted a crapload of money for a speeding ticket I didn't know I had or he was going to turn the warrant in and I would go to jail. Not the best place to finish studying for exams. I had a panic. I had a cry. I had another panic. Then I got some perspective. My friends Nadine and Pratap talked me down, my friend Kieren's wife, Corrie, suggested I check to see if it was even real, and my friend Justin reminded me that I had to immediately talk to the court because they simply can't do this if I didn't know. Armed with all this advice and support, I called the magistrate court that issued the warrant. Turns out they had a speed camera photo of my car speeding, and had put a slew of fines on it since I'd never gotten in touch. I explained that I would have, if they'd TOLD me they wanted to talk to me...

I'm allowing 15 minutes for an update on the things that have happened while I'm revising. Exams begin on Thursday, so it's likely no major posting will happen between now and Sunday, except, of course, for the Friday 10 and maybe an anxiety post mid-exams. In no particular order: 1) Still have a cough. 2) Have a lodger named Pratap, who is also in exam trauma. We drink Bailey's and discuss our day's studying at midnight each night. 3) Had a snafu on a previous assignment that caused me a bit of a freakout, but am calm now and all is fine. 4) Had a bailiff show up at my house on Friday demanding payment for a speeding ticket I didn't know I had. Bailiffs are like vampires...don't invite them in, or all hell breaks loose. They can jump garden fences and climb in windows and do pretty much anything to collect. They are scary. But Dog the Bounty Hunter gave me until Monday to sort this out, and since I legitimately don't know anything about the ticket it l...

1. Half Acre - Hem 2. Twilight - Shawn Colvin 3. Hang on St. Christopher - Tom Waits 4. Spread - Outkast 5. I'm a Man - Bo Diddley 6. Ice Cream - Sarah McLachlan 7. Cinnamon Girl - Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs 8. Pretty and High - The Roches 9. Jack-Ass - Beck 10. One Monkey - Gillian Welch

Leslee Unruh is chairman of Vote Yes For Life, a group that unsuccessfully lobbied for a referendum banning nearly all abortions in South Dakota. (MPR Photo)

On 1 November 2004, I boarded a plane at 6:30 PM in MSP and flew to the UK as the start of my secondment here, landing at 7:30 AM on the US's election day. I am quite the politically opinionated liberal and I'd voted a few days before I flew by absentee ballot, but I wore my "I Voted!" sticker on the plane and was a jamble of nerves the whole day. I hadn't had a good night's sleep in at least two weeks prior to my departure, so I spent my first day in the UK wondering what the hell I'd done and trying to figure out my shower and falling asleep sitting up, so I had things to keep me occupied while I waited. My body clock was a stinking mess, and I couldn't help it...I committed the cardinal sin of taking an actual nap midday, so my sleep that night was fitful at best. I turned the TV on to keep me company, and from midnight on there was wall-to-wall coverage on both BBC1 and ITV of the US elections. I drifted off to sleep about 3:30 AM with the comfo...

Back in early October, beth hosted the "Little Miss Sunshine Pageant," wherein many in my blog community submitted a childhood photo of themselves. Since I live far away from any pictures of me in my younger years, I was dependent upon my family to email me one and for various reasons they had other things to worry about and I didn't get my photo in time. My brother, however, has been scanning pictures lately and has now posted a series from my fifth birthday. I can now, therefore, reveal my five-year-old self in all my splendor. Too bad you can't see the culottes I'm wearing. They were short short ones with a navy/white/fuschia hawaiian floral pattern. I made some bold fashion choices from an early age. (FYI, I'm the girl. The surly one with me is my brother, Bob. He still makes that face.)

Saw this at www.nytimes.com. G.O.P. Glum as It Struggles to Hold Congress Silly GOP. Diebold will make it look close, but they're on your side. You're going to be fine.

Oh my. This is gonna be a scorcher. 1. Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry 2. U - Arrested Development 3. That's Just What You Are - Aimee Mann 4. Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris 5. Leave Me Here - Hem 6. Hello Like Before - Bill Withers 7. Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall 8. Fish Below the Ice - Shriekback 9. Dodge Veg-O-Matic - Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers 10. Bitchin' Camaro - The Dead Milkmen

I love comments. I love YOUR comments. I love it when people respond to what I write. And I love what you write. I check all of your sites at least once a day if I'm able to find the time. You make me laugh. You've become a hobby. But the thing is, I'm not a commenter myself. I'm a bit shy sometimes, even though I appear not to be. And as much as I wish it did, commenting just doesn't come naturally to me in blogland. You're not going to know that I've been to your site unless a) something immediately strikes me as a potential comment, and b) I have enough time to actually type the comment in. (Compulsive site-meter readers excepted.) Think of me as the quiet one who's laughing at the jokes, flitting about to make sure everyone has a drink. There's also the issue that sometimes I don't have commenting time when I'm reading you all...many days I only have 15 minutes of blog time allowed, so I need to get to as many sites as I can and I don...

While I enjoy my delicious bowl of soup (without scalded skin) I thought I'd share the recipe so you can make yourself some and be as happy as I am. Or, as CP does, listen to my 40@40, read my blog, and eat my soup...it will almost be like having dinner with me. You need: A head of cauliflower A carrot A potato 3 cloves of garlic 2 leeks (or onions) some salt 5 cups of water Peel/chop all of the veg above into relatively cookable dice. Bung it in a pot with the water and the salt (or replace some of the water with stock), bring it to a boil and then simmer until it's squooshy. Use the hand blender to pulverize. Stir in a dollop of creme fraiche/sour cream/yogurt (lowfat varieties acceptable.) Dump in a tablespoon of lowfat herb cream cheese just because. Now add about one and half to two cups of finely shredded cheese...I use swiss, but cheddar works, too, the sharper the better. Now put in a splash more water for consistency (in case it's too thick), about a teaspoon of ...

I had everything I needed to make delicious cauliflower cheese soup tonight except my hand blender is broken and I need it to puree. I have a regular blender, but frankly, hot liquid, conventional blenders and Mindy do not mix. I know the part about leaving air and venting the lid so the steam doesn't cause the hot soup to fly everywhere, scalding anyone in its path and making a serious mess. Just ask Mark and Tim about the cranberry sauce incident and the effect it had on their tile grout. I needed that hand blender to make the soup. So, even though I am seriously pressured by a looming deadline for school and have been running from end to end with work lately and hate Tesco pretty much more than anything, even under the best of circumstances, I decided to stop at Tesco on the way home for a £4.98 hand blender replacement so I could have some comfort food tonight. The parking lot wasn't too bad, always a good sign at the big Tesco. I swear, I think the only thing people do ...

We had a Director's Meeting at a nice little hotel in Chipping Camden called Cotswold House. This (number 17...go up a few floors) was my room. I took a long, leisurely bath in my giant tub, with a lovely fake digital fire blazing in the bathroom wall on a plasma screen. Then I went and sat on the leather kidney-shaped chaise, called my folks and read my book whilst cozied up to a nice warm fire. Slept in the plush down comfort of my giant bed. Woke to a knock on the door bearing a warm pot of coffee and porridge (steel-cut oat kind) served with scotch whisky, maple sugar and double cream and a side of delicious local organic sausages. Ate that at my little table whilst I watched the sheep on a morning herd-run in the fields above the neighbouring stone cottages and read the FT. Oh. And we had a lovely dinner on Sunday and a business meeting on Monday, too.

CP is from Brooklyn. I, however, need to be on the other side of the bridge. My results tell me.... You Belong in Soho Although you may not be a professional artist, you do dabble in one form of art or another. And you indie culture of all kinds - from little botiques to art house films. Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?

I've always had body in my hair. It's been wavy. Just enough to give me hair that will do pretty much what I want it to. But not curly hair. Wavy hair. Then I moved to England. There must be perm solution in the damn water. That, or little beauty elves are putting my hair in curlers every night. Since I came here, my hair has gotten progressively curlier. We're talking curl-from-the-root, corkscrewy ringlets. It's weird, what since I'm 40 and, other than some grey creeping in (or in my case stampeding like vikings on the pillage). Worse yet, it's made my hair progressively unruly. I haven't had to manage this sort of thing before, so I don't know how. It frizzes. It goes batty askew. When you cut it, be very cautious about the layering or they will give you a giant curl helmet. Which is what I have now. My hair was too long and needed some shape. Went to a stylist recommended by a friend. And she layered it a little too much. I look ridiculous. If I di...

I inherited a vacuum with the house I rent. Amy, the american who lived here before me, bought some appliances and had to leave them behind when she moved since they won't plug in back home, so she gave them to me as a welcome present. I've always known I loved the tumble dry, but hadn't really thought about the vacuum. But yesterday in my cleaning frenzy I gave it a workout. And boy, do I love that dyson. I've used it before...I've lived here for almost two years now, so I've vacuumed a few times. (Stop that snickering. So I'm not a cleaner. Sue me.) But I'd never been able to figure out how to empty the chamber, so the efficacy of the vacuum was lost on me. It worked, but no better than any other vacuum. WELL. Yesterday I decided I was not going to use it until that chamber was emptied. Took me about 20 minutes to figure it out, but I did. And what a difference that made! This vacuum could suck the hair off a dog. And the visible whirlwind chamber let...

It's been a slow couple of days. The miserable cold I caught a month ago is still lingering on, so I took Friday off to go to the doctor. Nothing they can do to help me...I just need to pump Vitamin C and rest. I tried to explain that that isn't possible until November...I have a full time job and finals looming only three weeks from now. Sleep is like chocolate to an anorexic to me. The nice nurse understood, but explained that if I didn't rest I would continue to cough and lose sleep and run at 75%. So I took her advice. Took some effervescent C drink (like alka seltzer, except made with something that tastes like those chewable C tablets.) Drank some innocent drinks supersmoothie with power C. Took a four-hour power nap. Watched some Tivoed versions of the Sopranos and Grey's Anatomy. Slept another 12 hours. On Saturday, I already was beginning to feel much better. So much so, I was sitting in my living room (or lounge, as people of my station call it here in En...

There is a white duck living in my pond now. I've never actually seen a white duck before. In cartoons and things, and in that Ping book about the chinese duck, but never live and in person. I got a little worried that it was a swan mistakenly raised by ducks, and soon it would have a freakish neck and start stalking me, but I looked it up. That doesn't really happen. (The part about ducks mistakenly raising swans, I mean.)

1. You Should Be Dancing - The BeeGees 2. Dancing Queen - Abba 3. Na Na Na Na Naa - Kaiser Chiefs 4. Whistling in the Dark - They Might Be Giants 5. The Fact Is (I Need You) - Jill Scott 6. White Trash - SCOTS 7. Happy (Reprise) - Jenny Lewis 8. The Lodgers - The Style Council 9. Her Dress so Green in the Moonlight - Pete Krebs & The Gossamer Wings 10. Respect - Aretha Franklin

Group tag from dale. Five things you (or most of you) don't know about me. 1. When I was about eight I got suckered into licking metal on a cold winter's day while I was playing outside of our church waiting for my mom and dad. Sheesh. I hate that I'm gullible. 2. I have on truly abiding hatred for a woman who insulted my eyeliner when I was in college. (It was perhaps a bit thicker than was popular at that time, but I was edgy. It was supposed to be.) That sounds dumb, I know, but she was one of those women who thought she was a notch above everyone. And we had a mutual male friend who she thought liked a weirdo like me a bit too much, so she decided the fault was mine...I was a LOSER. And once she decided someone was a loser, she would say snarky things to their face with a cheshire cat smile to make her friends laugh. Hence the eyeliner remark, phrased as a compliment that made the three crows she was with snicker like a pack of Heathers. Her name was Liz. Many of m...