Squinting

Dear all,

R is back in the spotlight again and it’s not a very flattering light.  He has taken his mock common entrance exams (his mock senior school entrance exams).  We had some differences of opinions while he prepared for these exams, namely WE thought he should have his nose in a book and HE thought he should walk around with a book, singing Led Zeppelin songs.  Finally, we agreed that we’d let him do it his way and see how it all worked out.  Or not.

The one thing you can say about R is this:  he is NOT your average student.  There is nothing average about him at all.  He is either above or below (in direct correlation to how much he likes his teacher), but he is certainly not average.

It was a little tricky congratulating him for his magnificent triumphs when he needed a kick in the pants for his, well, below average work. 

One night J and I lay awake wondering what to do with R.  I was feeling desperate and was running out of ideas to motivate R.  J reminded me that two years ago M was a huge worry.  It seems like ages ago, but yes, I worried day in and day out about M for years. Maybe it is R’s turn or maybe it is his age or maybe in time, kids will all turn out just fine no matter what…

When the kids were toddlers and even into grade school, I’d find that at night, when the room was dark, I could squint my eyes, stare at them sleeping in their beds and see them as babies.  I could remember their soft breath and how they felt in my arms.  There they were, these big kids, but with a little darkness and just a bit of squinting, those babies were right there.  I still stare at A as he sleeps. 

Those small, pudgy babies of mine disappeared and now I step over piles of muddy grown up shoes by the front door.  I feel robbed of precious moments.   

When the kids were small (and still with A), exhausted, we’d practically limp upstairs to put them to bed.  We read the same favorite books over and over until I thought my mind would turn to soup.  I figure somewhere around fourteen years of reading Cars! Cars! Cars! can do damage to your brain.

Time is smooth and seamless.  Each day spent with our young family was noisy and chaotic, however change came about silently:  babies became toddlers and toddlers became kids.   Preferences evolved.  How could I have known the significance as I placed The Runaway Bunny back onto the shelf that one particular night, that I would never be asked to read it again?  Well over a decade of reading this tattered book and I placed it along side the other books on the shelf without thought or notice, without ceremony. I wasn’t aware at the time, but this simple act of putting away a book was profound:  an end of an era.  In that small and seemingly insignificant motion, part of their childhood, and my mothering, was over.

I had an epiphany recently, just days after I worried so much about R.  M and S were in the kitchen talking, laughing and helping out.  I watched them in a way that I hadn’t before.  I stood back and really had a good look at them, like they were some sort of experiment and I was a scientist extracting data.  I noticed how they interacted.  I listened to their voices and to the intelligent and funny conversation they were sharing.  And then I did it:  I squinted.

In that moment I discovered something even MORE magical and MORE joyful than seeing babies in big kids.  Squinting in the full light of day, right there in our kitchen, I saw an amazing sight:  our twins were nearly adults.  It didn’t take much to see that they are almost there. 

As I processed this in my mind, it surprised me just how much, through watery eyes, I liked what I saw.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Somerfield

Dear all, 

When J and I flew to England to find a house and school, our relocation agent took us down Bath Road in Cheltenham.  He suggested that we try to find a home close to this shopping district, because we would be spending a lot of time there. It is THE place to shop for everyday essentials:  a chippy (fish and chip joint), 2 chemists, 2 butchers, 2 grocery shops, 3 Indian restaurants, the post office, a kitchen store, a green grocer, a deli, a bakery, an office/art supply shop, an old fashion shoe store and a repair shop like on Sesame Street except I’m pretty Luis wasn’t laundering money like these owners are.

The sidewalks were crowded with merchandise for sale, parked bikes, shoppers, window washers and postmen.  I couldn’t imagine myself there.  Essential shopping?  Really?  There was no Target, Old Navy or Barnes and Noble.  There wasn’t a single drive through or bagel shop. Not a Mattress Giant or Korean nail spa.  No Petsmart.  No Starbucks.  No TGI Fridays.  No seagulls hovering above an urban sea of blacktop and minivans.

We found a house just a couple blocks from this shopping Mecca.  I shop on the Bath Road nearly every day. 

My first venture to Somerfield, a grocery store, left me digging around my bag for hand sanitizer.  It was dirty.  The floors were grimy, the shelves crusty, the choice paltry.  The bucked toothed, greasy haired carnies that manned the tills didn’t look at all like the nice moms who worked at Target.  I suspected I wouldn’t last long in this country.

It didn’t take long, though, before I got used to the sticky floors and the awe-inspiring lack of service.  I kind of like that I can shop in a place five or six days a week, year after year and never be offered so much as a knowing glance.

Shopping there is like snooping through the grade school janitor’s closet:  Standing at the altar of organized filth, with its dirty contents neatly organized on shelves, is exhilarating.  Exchanging nervous glances with the tattooed bad ass in charge, electrifying. 

I feel a kinship to Somerfield’s patrons:  we are a slightly anti-social people and we are lazy.  We shop at Somerfield simply because it is a block closer than the other cleaner grocery store.   We’re a pretty pathetic lot. 

When an enormous hairy spider climbed out from behind some bananas, Somerfield emptied; its patrons fled, all screaming and arms flailing onto Bath Road.  They stopped traffic and the event made the front page of our local paper.  It made me delight in this grotty place all the more.  

I see a faint look of concern pass over our visitors’ faces when they enter our little shop.  I see their lips curl ever so slightly, a combination of wonder, disgust and pity.   They ask if Somerfield is a convenience store. ‘Nope. It’s Somerfield. It’s where I shop’, I say proudly, ‘And where YOUR next meal is coming from.’

And now it is closing. 

What a drag.  I will now have to shop at the Co-op, which is brighter and fresher and has a better selection. The cashiers at the Co-op are lovely people and they do not possess any of the freak show qualities I find charming.  For instance, the Co-op cashiers bathe and the women are clean-shaven with a low rate of tattoage.  Plus, they are downright pleasant which I find terribly grating, but in time, I’ll get used to that, too, I suppose.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road Part 2

Dear all,

In my second and final installment on driving, I would like to delve further into the joys and sorrows of driving on the wrong side of the road.  I have been living in England for so long now, that I get confused when I go home and drive in the US.  Pretty much, in either country, I just like to follow the car in front of me and hope it knows where it’s going.

In England, despite the strict testing and training of drivers, the rules of the road, are really more like guidelines.  One glaring example is that the Brits drive into oncoming traffic.  A lot.

The main reason for driving into oncoming traffic is to snag a parking place before anyone else takes it, which seems perfectly legitimate to me.  Parking is at a premium and no one is going to let a little thing like the threat of a serious accident, prevent them from getting a parking space.  Cars are parked in every which way, including on the sidewalk or perpendicular if it’s convenient.  Looking at the direction of parked cars on a road offers no indication as to the flow of traffic. 

The children’s orthodontist is on a congested road.  The preferred method of parking in that part of town is for one car to park on the sidewalk, another car parallel to it on the street.  If the car on the sidewalk needs to leave before the car on the street, the driver simply proceeds down the sidewalk until he reaches a lane from which he may emerge onto the street.  So what if cars are driving on sidewalks directly across from a grade school?   Those little kids just need to keep a heads up. 

The other legitimate reason for driving into oncoming traffic is if, say, you want to drop groceries off in front of your home (houses don’t come with garages conveniently attached), but you happen to be driving on the opposite side of the road.  Or you see a friend across the way with whom you’d like to chit-chat. There is no need to go around the block and pull up in front of the house or person.  You simply pull into oncoming traffic and park (as a courtesy to other drivers, but not to pedestrians, you pull onto the sidewalk, forcing moms with young children or the elderly to walk into the street to get around you). 

You can’t just fly down the street in the manner of a drunk driver.  There is a subtle art it.  In order to NOT to frighten oncoming traffic, you mustn’t jerk the car over quickly or swerve.  Instead, you must drive confidently into oncoming traffic for quite a distance before pulling slightly to the right and jumping the curb.  Driving half on the sidewalk and half on the road into oncoming traffic is the universal signal that says:  I-mean-you-no-harm-I-simply-want-to-catch-up-with-an-old-friend-or-drop-off-my-potted-plants-thank-you-very-much.  Often this snarls traffic, but no one minds or shouts obscenities. Very civilized.

Maybe the Brits are higher up Maslov’s hierarchy of needs than we are? 

We live on a fairly busy road.  There are pedestrians of all sorts:  elderly people with elderly dogs, university students, and children on their way to school.  Consider that there are bicyclists, double-decker busses, cars and that vicious old lady in her electric wheelchair all sharing the road, swerving around illegally parked cars and quinces that R tosses into the street.  No one cares that you are driving straight at ‘em.  Ever.  It is amazing.

Last October when I was back in the US, I was at an unfamiliar and unusual intersection.  I could go straight or turn left, soft right, or hard right.  I wanted to make a ‘soft’ right hand turn. I was the first car in my turn lane, so I couldn’t simply follow the car in front of me.  While waiting at the light, I took a moment to access the situation and verify exactly which lane I needed to turn into.  The light turned green and I drove, without hesitation, into a turning lane of oncoming traffic. 

If ever you are feeling like your life holds no thrills, I urge you to drive into oncoming traffic at a busy intersection in the US.  One moment I was tearing up to a John Denver song playing on satellite radio in the rental car and the next moment I was witnessing looks of horror on the faces of all the drivers I passed.  Their attempts to communicate my error were both animated and surprisingly easy to decipher. 

In one beat of my heart, I became very aware of every hair follicle on my head and neck and every sweat gland in my body.  I was alive!  I was awake! I was in need of fresh undergarments! 

By the grace of God there were no cars heading towards me and I was eventually able to swing into the proper lane.  Because there was so much traffic in the opposite direction, this took what seemed like miles.  I pulled over, parked the car and shook for about a half an hour.  And sometimes people wonder why coming home for visits can be stressful…

I’d just like to say that as frenetic as driving in England is, it suits me just fine.  Sure it is startling to see people reversing down a street at 30 mph, but they are only doing that as a courtesy to allow another driver to get through a blocked road.  You see, what inevitably happened is that Mrs. Smith was out clipping her roses when the vicar drove by and he stopped to congratulate Mrs. Smith on her daughter’s recent engagement.  As it does, a five-minute discussion ensued (date, dress, flowers, etc) and other drivers were forced to reverse or drive onto sidewalks to pass.  No road rage.  Everyone knows one day THEY’LL be the one who wants to talk with the vicar while he is passing down the street.  In this country you just need to leave plenty of time.  And if you don’t and you are late for an appointment, that’s fine, too.

Lastly, I’d like to point out the one thing the UK does take very seriously is speeding.  England has, last I counted, 5 trillion speed cameras.  They are everywhere, all knowing and without any sense of compassion.  Twice I have gotten a speeding ticket, once going a WHOPPING 4 mph over.  Between fines and points on your license, you pay dearly. Ask J.   J, is one ticket away from losing his license altogether because he has been caught by speed cameras so many times (please refer to my previous entry for further details on how I encourage him to slow down).

With love from England,

T-Ann

The Wrong Side of the Road, Part 1

Dear all,

The next few installments of T Time, will be dedicated to driving on the wrong side of the road, something I do frequently when I return to the US.

In the UK, you are able to get your license around your 18^th birthday.  As foreigners, we were allowed to legally drive on our US licenses for up to one year, so, of course, J and I drove for over TWO years before finally getting motivated to get our UK licenses.   All of our British friends offered encouragement and even J’s work friends joined in the fun.  He was offered ‘an incentive program’ whereby Human Resources took away the keys to his company car until he could produce a valid UK license.  We love the Human Resources Department.   They are always thinking up kooky things to keep us on our toes:  taking away car keys one week and forgetting to transfer J’s paycheck the next.  What jokesters. 

Like so many other worthwhile and wonderful things, procurement of a UK license takes time. A UK license is for life so they do not mess around when it comes to testing.  You are required to take the written Theory Test first, and then a couple months later, you take a driving test.  The written test is more difficult than you might imagine because, for one, speed limits are often not posted; you need to learn what the national speed limit is on every type of road.  Also, all the distances are in metric, which I have never bothered to learn.   But above all, the exam is tough because the employees at the Driving Standards Agency are just barking mad. 

Here are some sample questions:

1. You are checking your trailer tyres.  What is the legal minimum tread depth over the central three quarters of its breadth? 

2. Where may you overtake on a one-way street?

3. You are signaling to turn right in busy traffic.  How would you confirm your intention safely? 

4. Where would you see a contra-flow bus and cycle lane?

5. At puffin crossings, which light will not show to a driver?

6. How long will a Statutory Off Road Notification (SCORN) last for? (bad grammar, by the way)

7. There are no speed limit signs on the road.  How is a 30 mph limit indicated?

8. Powered vehicles, such as wheelchairs or scooters, used by disabled people have a maximum speed of?

9. Which three emergency services MIGHT have blue flashing beacons? 

10. You are waiting to emerge at a junction.  Your view is restricted by parked vehicles.  What can help you to see traffic on the road you are joining?

Just for the record, I got 100% on my Theory Test.  J did not, but you can bet I was very mature about the whole thing.  It isn’t about who got the better grade, it is just about being safe.    

You study for your written exam and while doing so you must get drivers training.  It isn’t enough that you have been driving for 25 or 30 years.  You will not pass without help.  You must hire a meek and mild man with thinning hair and loads of patience to re-teach you how to drive. 

The cornerstone of the UK driving test is reversing down a road and into a side street.  This is frowned upon in the US, but in the UK it is necessary to perform this maneuver nearly every time you get behind the wheel of a car, so it is a pretty important skill.  You will be tested on parallel parking.  If you so much as touch the curb, it is an automatic failure.  It’s considered loss of control. You will be taken down several different roads and you must know the speed limit of each.

It is worth noting that I passed the driving test on my first try.   For the sake of comparison ONLY, you may be interested to know that it took J THREE times.  I think it’s important you focus on J’s eventual success, not on his NUMEROUS failures.  As I said previously, it is all about safety, not about who is the better driver (me, obviously). 

I continue to be a resource for J whenever we travel together.  I’m like a walking, talking Theory Test Study Guide.  When I note that his driving isn’t at the 100% marker or I sense he is feeling too shy to ask for my driving advice (which I encourage), I like to help him by pointing out ways he could improve his driving skills.  Peppering him with facts from the theory books is very effective. 

If that doesn’t correct an unsafe situation, I engage a three-pronged approach wherein I first take the Lord’s name in vain, then use a strong and offensive swear word (depending on the extremity of the situation and how much time I have to get my point across, I might choose to combine these first two steps).  Lastly, I ask a very pointed, leading question in a cheerful, but firm voice.  It goes something like this, “Jesus H. Christ!  F**K!  Would you slow down?!” 

Often this technique works, though often enough we end up skidding off the road.  This method has the added benefit of greatly increasing our marital communication, thus killing two birds with one stone.  Lots of heartfelt and lively banter ensues.  Everyone wins. 

With love from England,

T-Ann 

P.S.  The answers to the questions above are:

1. 1.6 mm
2. Either on the right hand or the left hand
3. Arm signal (as if…)
4. On a one way street
5. Amber flashing (assuming you know the difference between a zebra, puffin, pelican and staggered crossing)
6. 12 months
7. Street lights
8. 8 mph (which I know for a fact is WRONG, because there is an old lady in our neighborhood who cruises in her wheelchair, doing about 40 mph in the rain while smoking, talking on her mobile phone and shouting vulgarities at anyone in her way)
9. Coast guard, bomb disposal, mountain rescue
10. Reflections of traffic in shop windows

 

  

You'll Wish You Were Me...

Dear all,

Why is it that some days life can be utter rubbish, others, a study in perfection?  Today is one of those splendid days when not only is it warm and sunny, but I am caught up with my laundry.  Perfection.

I was forced to do laundry around the clock this weekend because we were expecting a visit from our landlords who were invited by me to smell the bouquet of our latest home ‘glitch’.  We are suffering from the vexing problem of a basement that smells as if it is well past its Best Before date, not unlike the contents of a container of fish pie that has gone missing in the fridge for a few months.  I thought I’d extend an invitation to our landlords so they, too, could enjoy the pong (smell). 

The laundry was done simply to give the impression that I am not a lazy sloth.

I am well aware that others could look at my life in England and think, gosh, I wish WE could get a sweet deal like they did and leave these Frozen Red and Blue States for someplace a bit more civilized: a place with less snow, less SUVs…less Oprah.   Well, my friends, I am here to tell you life isn’t half bad on the other side of the pond when the sun shines and you have no laundry on the floor.  You should definitely come. 

I admit that part of the thrill at the moment, isn’t that the sun is shining, but has more to do with the fact that I have no laundry.  ‘What a loser,’ you are thinking to yourself.  Well, yes, of course, THAT is part of it, but mostly, I am just so happy I have an electrical dryer.  You know, the kind of dryer that you can’t fold up and tuck behind the door when company comes or the kind that isn’t hung in the back yard and doesn’t subject your neighbors to the sight of your ‘smalls’.  I mean a dryer with a plug.  The kind with a big drum that you put wet clothes into, press a button and they come out dry.   I mean the kind of dryer that dries your clothes even if you live in England and it rains 85% of the time.

My intention here is not to make you envious.  It is just that I simply cannot begin to tell you how this machine has revolutionized my life.  We no longer have laundry hanging all over the house on clotheshorses, in doorways and on the radiators.  Kitchen chairs are used for sitting, not drying laundry.  What it does to soften a towel cannot be described.  Brilliant!  

I had promised to keep my mouth closed about this luxury (which obviously I’m not) because more than one husband I know said he’d really catch it if his wife found out J had indulged me in such a luxury, but I can’t help it.  This dryer makes my heart sing.  I may have a fridge the size of a shoe rack, but, by God, I have an electric dryer.  I may start to write poetry…

We got the dryer months ago after discovering that there are dryers that do not need outside ventilation.  You just have to empty a water container, similar to a dehumidifier.  We got an electrician to pull power into one of our two closets and, bang, just like that, I had a dryer installed.  Like my washing machine, it can only handle 5 shirts at a time, but I don’t mind.  I treat it like a child:  filling it well beyond its capacity and pushing it far beyond its limits.  It likes that.

I’ve thought a lot about it and I’m pretty sure this dryer is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  If you don’t have one, you should really think about getting one.  Maybe for Christmas.  Certainly all the really cool people have them.  I hear that some people actually have a washer and a dryer IN THE SAME ROOM, but for sure, that’s an urban myth.

To celebrate this moment, the simultaneous event of both sun and no laundry, I think I’ll go shoe shopping.  Or read a book, if you are J and you are reading this.

With love from England,

T-Ann

 

 

 

 

Our Puritan Ideals

Dear all, 

When England threw out their religious zealots, these people set off with nothing but scratchy clothes on their backs, sensible shoes on their feet and lots of crazy assed ideas in their heads (dancing = bad, setting fire to people we don’t understand = good).  They headed towards a new land full of hope and promise, but, instead, landed in Plymouth, Mass.

A quick aside: did I ever tell you about the time we, along with my high school friend, Colleen, took the kids to the Living Pilgrim Museum in Plymouth?  It was the most hot and humid day in the history of mankind.  The museum has volunteers who dress up in woolen clothes like Pilgrims and bale hay and tend fires like Pilgrims did.  You must address these volunteers as Pilgrims NOT as tour guides.  For example, you can’t ask the guy baling hay why the Pilgrims baled hay.  You must ask, “Excuse me Farmer John, I noticed that you are baling hay with your ‘fiancé’ who happens to be about 40 years younger than you, you perv, and I was wondering…” Only then will they answer you. 

The museum also had a volunteer who was an honest to God Wampanoag (or something like that) Indian who was dressed, in all his chiseled glory, in nothing but a loin cloth, walking around, bending over.  He told sad stories of how much it sucked to be persecuted by the pilgrims to a small gathering of children around his feet, all the while his leg was resting on a log about two feet off the ground. 

For some reason, mostly because we were already giddy from asking lots of Pilgrims questions, this struck Colleen and me as very funny.  Not the stories, of course, but whole scene in general. We started with stifled laughter and a bit of poking, but it wasn’t long before we needed to excuse ourselves altogether.  As we pushed each other to get away, to rid our minds of this searing image, I took one last look back and the Indian turned to me. I could see his face…a close up…and one single tear running down his cheek. Or maybe I am confusing my Native American memories.. 

Anyway, what was my point?

So these pilgrims brought their ideas to a new land and with time and starvation, they evolved into a harsher people: the Puritans, which in Latin means:  if it feels good, you’re going to Hell.   Sometimes we forget that our great country is based on many Puritan, ideals such as:  controlling urges: good, clean houses: good, idle hands: bad, too many vacation days: VERY bad. 

England, on the other hand, is not based on these ideals.  They threw out the religious lunatics, but kept the fun people like Shakespeare, Benny Hill and the members of the Rolling Stones.  Their country is based on the time-honored ideals of sex and alcohol (but usually not in that order).

We moved to England and didn’t think this shift in values would affect us, but the longer we are here, the more adjusting we have to do.   Our parenting has to incorporate the norms of the British culture but still must fit in with our Midwestern values.  It hasn’t been easy. 

Everyone knows raising teenagers is difficult. Maybe you’ve raised teenagers or maybe you simply recall those complicated teenage years; years spent trying to ‘find’ yourself (you were probably towards the back of a dimly lit Denny’s parking lot) and longing for ‘truth’ (‘truth’ being so elusive at that age because your every move required an intricate web of lies so your parents didn’t know you were spending hours at a time towards the back of a dimly lit Denny’s parking lot).  

The legal age for drinking in the UK is 18 (about the time you get a drivers license) and alcohol is served to kids much younger than that in homes and in restaurants if the parents are present.  It isn’t irresponsible, it’s just is the way it is.  European.  And further to that, sex just isn’t the taboo it is in the US. 

For example, when M and S were 13, they were invited to a party of a girl who was still 12.  The parents were serving alcohol and the kids were invited to spend the night for a co-ed sleep over (a completely benign weekend activity here for every teenager…except ours). When I called the mother who was by all accounts lucid, (and bright, they just sent their oldest daughter off to Oxford), she was completely confused as to my concern.  Her response?  ‘Would you prefer if we serve LIGHT beer and wine, only?’ 

So when M and S were preparing to visit a friend in France for the week, I realized we had to have another serious dialog regarding alcohol and sex.  Additionally, I pulled M aside for a REAL heart to heart.  It went like this:

Me:  M, I don’t want you to have sex with Shawn while you’re in France.

M:  JEEZ, Mom, why do you think I’d do that?

Me:  Because she is a prettier version of Kirsten Dunst only with bigger boobs.  You’re 15.  Things happen.

M:  (Big grin comes over his face) Oh.  Yeah.

Me:  I mean it M.  I worry.

M:  God, Mom, will you PLEASE stop talking? 

And with that request, we let M and S travel to France completely on their own.   They had a wonderful time and there were no instances of any improprieties. 

At least that is what they are telling us.  We may find differently in a few years. 

With love from England, 

T-Ann

Wafer Thin Mint?

Dear all,

Monday, I spent the day with A in Cheltenham General Hospital.   You know me, always up for the sight of row and rows of beds and cracking/peeling paint in a hospital.  Although we have private health insurance, in an emergency you must go to NHS hospitals.  So, with A suffering acute pain, we headed to the hospital.  He had pneumonia.  

A had been sick on and off for the better part of a month.  He has lost weight and is looking even paler than his normal pasty self.  Poor guy, but when it came time to collect M and S from the airport after a trip to France, he was healthy enough to come along.

We waited at a Costa Coffee for their flight to arrive.  The Nicer of the Two Parents indulged A in a massive hot chocolate.  A gulped it down along with whipped cream AND marshmallows.  We were thrilled to have M and S back with us and we went out to dinner to celebrate their safe return and hear about their adventures in France.

Before dinner, The Nicer of the Two Parents ordered Aidan a fizzy fruit drink.  A slurped it down.  When dinnertime rolled around, A, who was seated next to aforementioned, Nicer of the Two Parents (and who wouldn’t want to be?), ordered himself a lemonade (7-Up). 

His sick tummy revolted. Three sips into that 7-Up and Aidan exploded like a scene out of Monty Python.

I’ll spare you the details, because, to be honest, words cannot do justice to this grand display of hot chocolate, purple juice, 7-Up and curly fries.  All the same, I will say that the restaurant became a temporary war zone with us grabbing chairs to use as shields as we ran for cover.

When Round One ended and A paused momentarily to reload, we got him out from behind the table and told him to run for the bathroom.  Desperate, he took off.  We were nearly there, actually just OUTSIDE THE BATHROOM, when an old lady cut us off, walking very slowly (freaking, Mr. Bean nightmare).  She turned and gave us a smug look, quite satisfied that she had prevented an impolite boy from running through a restaurant.  Imagine my pleasure, my pure joy and deep gladness something akin to a religious experience, when A blew for a SECOND time…this time right down the old cow’s backside.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Snow Days

Dear all,

Of all the many things I will miss when we eventually move back to the USA, there is no doubt I will miss the English winters.  The temps are relatively mild; I continue to walk everywhere.  The absence of forced air heat means my skin is not dried and itchy all season, my fingers don’t crack, and because there is moisture in the air, my hair remains compliant with the laws of gravity. 

Having said that, I understand that our winter weather has made the news back home.  The snow here has been laughable and, honestly, a little exhausting.  The United Kingdom cannot cope.  Here are a few examples of what life has been like this past week:

Last Tuesday, London came to a stand still, all buses and the Underground stopped.  They had about eight inches.  In Cheltenham, though, we got about two or three inches and most people did not show up for school or work.  It melted the following day.

Thursday and Friday, when we got four inches of snow, Jim could not go to work.  The motorway was impassable both Thursday and Friday.  More than half the children did not show up for school.  Our lucky kids walked to school.

Our postman could not deliver mail (his bike couldn’t make it in the snow).  The grocery store shelves were bare.  Friday, Jim and I took advantage of the additional day off and trudged to our favorite café.  The vegetables couldn’t be delivered.  Neither could the wine (it’s February…the detox is over).  

Saturday morning (the children go to school on Saturdays), I kept the children home until the mid morning thaw because it was too dangerous to walk on the sidewalks.  Drivers, unable to control their cars, were sliding up onto the sidewalks.  Don’t forget, this is FOUR inches of snow!

Everyone it seems, even those rascals who would normally be committing knife crimes (very popular in the UK), was out playing in the snow.  I have never seen so many snowmen.  There were a few memorable ones, but my favorite was at a nearby pub.  There was a snowman, quite lifelike, sitting on a chair, arm resting on a café table, with his hand around a full Guinness.  At the senior school, there was a fabulous polar bear made of snow. 

Sadly, irreverent prep school miscreants (their mothers should be ashamed) had to ruin the festive nature of the snow by building an enormous replica of, umm…Wedding Tackle.  Meat and Two Veg.  You know…male bits.  They were smart enough to erect (so to speak) this towering Man Garden away from the school buildings, further down the cricket and rugby pitches (supervising children is not one of the British prep school’s strong points).  The Willy went without notice for a satisfying amount of time (a day!), in full view of passing cars, until the administration from Cheltenham General Hospital, which is directly across the street, called Cheltenham College’s administration to notify them of the misconduct.   Also to tell them that the hospital’s patients were beginning to complain.  

As you can imagine, there was a surge of school pride.  The prank will live in boarding school infamy.

Sunday, a classmate of A’s went sledding (or sledging, as they say here) with her father.  They collided with another sled (sledge) and the father broke his back in TWO places.

To say that the British cannot handle snow is an understatement.

A week later, the snowmen look like ET’s Mini-Me, the snowdrops are blooming once again and the daffodils are pushing up.  People have already begun planting pansies in window boxes and there is daylight at 6:00 pm.  We may not get a warm summer, but in February when the flowers are promising to bloom, I never seem to mind.

With love from England, 

T-Ann

It's Official

Dear all, 

We are here until the summer of 2012. 

Overall, we have handled this news well, especially those of us (M and A) who never wanted to leave.   The rest of us, who are severely lacking in sun exposure, are trying to warm to the idea. 

In this economic climate, we are grateful for J’s job and are well aware that we live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world.  We live in a Kingdom, for God’s sake!  It’s the stuff of fairy tales.  Sort of.  Except the bit about the rain, the damp cold, the lack of summers, the drafty house, the cost of living, the lack of family and old friends, having to remember that the word ‘pants’ means ‘underpants’ and the fact that the British eat faggots and spotted dick (although not at the same time-spotted dick is for pudding). 

Additionally, it is a country that has offensive names for towns such as Penistone and Crapstone.  Or worse yet, roads called Butt Hole Road (honestly), Crotch Crescent (my favorite) and Slutshole Lane (?).  On the London Underground, I smile a sophomoric grin when the recorded voice announces ‘NOW APPROACHING SHEPHERD’S BUSH’.  ‘Yuck,’ I always think to myself, ‘is THAT what I smell?’

Right.  Scratch that.  Those are actually examples of why I LOVE this quirky country.    

I must admit that M’s recent mumble about returning to the US for college made my heart swing.  Two additional years in England, I worry, will make the twins more settled (they will finish their secondary education here) and want to go to university here. University leads to jobs or marriages (or both) in England.  That means we are possibly left with only R and A in the USA to care for us in our old age.  R is unlikely to be a decent carer (unless we make it extremely easy and very lucrative) and A, by his own admission, wishes he had a different mom, one who didn’t say ‘no’ all the time, so, as a companion in our old age, he isn’t looking too promising, either. 

I am easing myself back into English life from which I had started to detach.  I have stopped looking at the pictures of our new house back home on a daily (hourly) basis.  I, like everyone else in Cheltenham, am simply biding my time doing laundry and talking about the weather until Champagne Season begins (even now I glance at my watch, wondering how much longer I have to wait).   

In the mean time, I might indulge myself by putting on some Bob Seger (Roll Me Away is one of the all time best lets–get-the-Hell-out-of-here songs) and daydreaming about my homeland.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Cue The Clash

Dear all, 

The last few months have been a bit tumultuous.  We sold our house in the fall.  Walking out the door for the last time was emotional despite the fact we’ve been away for nearly three years.  Then, two days before Christmas, we closed on a house in Lake Forest, IL.  It is closer to J’s work and is within walking distance to the train, shops and cafes, which was important to us after living in town for this long.  We hope to rent the house until our return.

I love change and so with the purchase of our new home, I was able to throw myself into our move back.  I was googling park district programs for A and collecting the phone numbers of handymen (bad 70’s shelving in the new family room has to go).  I started to think about things I wanted to bring back from England.  I fantasized about A celebrating the 4^th of July and seeing proper, over the top Christmas lights and decorations.  And snow.

Alas, I may have to wait.  J’s boss came to the UK.  He is a lovely man and while we stood together talking, it became obvious (by way of Dave bellowing and choking, ‘Who said you were going home in a year?’) that J is still needed here, which we knew, but chose to ignore.  Yes, we can go home, but will that be the best for J or our family?  We moved here because J was spending too much time away from home, would we want to move home only to have J flying to England for weeks at a time?  (Although maintaining a flat in London certainly sounds appealing…) 

But then there are the children to consider.  R wants the American lifestyle back immediately.  He is desperate to return so he can, by all accounts, loiter outside 7/11’s with his homies, lay in the sunshine and avoid growing up.  S has been seduced by Hollywood and now thinks high school is like High School Musical.  She wants to return so as to experience the American high school ‘dream’. M wants to stay in England and complete senior school here (And who can blame him?  He is doing so well after years of struggling with his learning disabilities). And A says he is happy to move home, but that he will NOT be going to school upon our return (not really worryin’ about HIS hang ups, though). 

And me?  I am happy here, but I do get homesick.  I miss my parents (My dad had major surgery last October.  My, mom, bless her, had to put to sleep our cat they inherited when we left.).  I miss family and my friends.  Some days I just wish I was sitting at my Aunt Marilyn’s kitchen table instead of negotiating sidewalks decorated with delicate starbursts of vomit (I seriously contemplate why Britain’s youth, almost without exception, eat carrots before binge drinking).  And, for all our faults, Americans volunteer and give of ourselves freely.  I miss our openness and lack of reserve and dedication to community.  

And so I say to you, ‘Cue the Clash!’

The Clash’s punk rock song “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” is clanging in my head, although, in this instance, I think a more soulful, slightly mournful remake might prove to be very effective (think Judy Collins’ version of “Both Sides Now”).  In your mind, add some rather self-indulgent shots of me, face heavy in contemplation, wearing a jaunty coat, perky hat and shiny black wellies walking my small British dog in the rain past stunning Regency architecture, answering emails in my very Jane Austen dining room with the sun, pouring through my two hundred year old, nine foot windows or of me dashing out to collect the children from their elitist schools.  Such doleful images.

We will do whatever is best for the family and staying here until 2012 would get M and S through senior school and give R a chance to go to high school back home for two years.  We are choosing between two blessed situations, we know that. 

I do, however, feel for R in particular, who carries all the baggage that middle children often do.  But, in the words of my father, a master of sensitivity, who understands R well (they share a birthday and birth order in families of similar make up:  three boys and one girl), ‘Too, damn bad, he’ll be fine.’ 

I’ll keep you posted.

With love from England,

T-Ann 

Hope Won

Dear all, This was the prayer which was said at the invocation of Bishop Gene Robinson.  It was forwarded to me by our very hip Rev. Kate back home and was said yesterday at the senior school's morning chapel by the rocker Rev. Reynaud (S came home gushing about it).   It is beautiful and and not at all offensive to my Republican friends and family, which I like because I am all about inclusion.  And warm, understanding embraces.   Also, it is worth noting that I cut and pasted this All. By. Myself.  No help from my eye rolling children who repeatedly claim I am not worthy of a sleek laptop.  It is the dawning of a new year...   With love from England,  T-Ann ------------   O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…   Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.   Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.   Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.   Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.   Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.   Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and  warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.   Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.     And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.   Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.   Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.   Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.   Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.   Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.   Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.   And please, God, keep him safe.  We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one.  We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe.  Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.   AMEN.

Detox is the New Black

Dear all,

 It is the time of year in England when we all, like lemmings, run to health food stores in order to buy tinctures, drops and supplements all in the hopes of detoxing. 

 This year, in order to rid my body of unwanted toxins, I have given up wheat and dairy (except for butter, obviously).  I will not even have the occasional glass of wine until February.  Unless it seems appropriate. Or it might appear rude if I refuse.

 In return for a little discomfort (i.e.:  not eating sleeves of Hob Nob cookies with my tea everyday), I will have a healthy body that will provide me energy and vitality in the coming year.  I will possess clarity of thought.  I will be more motivated.  I will be thin and muscular.  I will become at least 5’7’’, my graying hair will give way to a cascade of golden curls and wrinkles will fade.  The best part?  J will start to look like Daniel Craig. 

To be fair, I am certain detoxing is useless, but it does seem to help the Brits prepare for Champagne Season, which opens in a few short months, generally around the third week of March.   Detoxing is a step up from self-flagellation and seems to give a bit of purpose to the otherwise dull month of January.

I approached detoxing as I approach everything in life:  I went slinking off to the health food store to ask what was the EASIEST way to get through it.  I was sent away with a milk thistle tincture (which tastes almost as bad as the syrup, lemon juice and chili pepper concoction I drank last detox) and a package of detox patches. 

These patches are like magic, so for sure they are a scam, but I don't care.  At nighttime, you slap a patch on the bottom of each foot and go to bed.  In the morning you peel them off.  How do I describe something so vile?  I know we’ve all dealt with some nasty things over the years, that many of you are parents or medically trained or that when you were younger you poked road kill with sticks, but trust me; you’ve never seen something so awful. 

When you peel off these giant band-aid patches, you are left with a pad full of black tarry toxins that are now, by the grace of God, conveniently located OUTSIDE your body and are safely on their way to a bulging landfill where they clearly belong.  Thankfully, they are no longer INSIDE your body making you short, a bit thick in the middle, tired, cranky and unable to devote quality time to anything but a Mamma Mia DVD. 

Hope your new year is off to a warm and sunny start.  Since that only applies to the three of you who live in Florida, I’ll rephrase.  I hope your new year is one filled with love and peace and the courage to endure the American winter.

With love from England,

T-Ann

In the words of that poet, Neil Diamond, 'Hello Again, Hello'

Dear all,

 I am back from my extended break from writing.

Because I don’t particularly write about anything, I generally do not have a problem generating content for my blog entries. For weeks, however, I was cursed with my own freakish style of writer’s block.  It came in the way of a tune that was stuck in my head.

Just as I was beginning to accept that writing as a profession might require a modicum of self-discipline (let’s face it, not one of my strong suits) the theme song from that 60’s show, Love American Style, got stuck in my head, nearly derailing a career that I have yet to start.   It was paralyzing.  Really. 

Now think back.  Surely, some of you must remember that song?  If not, I urge you to google.  It is seriously catchy. I couldn’t stop singing it, humming it and groovin’ to 60’s inspired dance moves in front of my computer (and down the street, if I’m honest).  There was no way I could write.

Nothing would release me from this Hell.  I even tried singing other theme songs like the one from The Mary Tyler Moore Show or another personal favorite, the theme to One Day At a Time which starred Valerie Bertinelli and Bonnie Franklin and some other girl who ended up ravaged by drugs due to bad genes and the success of this show (hardly worth it), if I remember correctly.

So anyway, our second half of November banged on with the usual turn of events:  M not waking up in good time and not walking the dog, S stressing in a rather irritating, controlled and hormonal sort of way about exams, zits and impending braces, R not taking out the garbage and talking too much in school and A snapping, ‘NO!’ far more than any five year old should. 

So that is our November sorted.

By the time December rolled around, time had healed my Love American Style dilemma, but then R accidentally super glued my laptop shut, which obviously made writing difficult.  It might be best not to go into too much detail about that.

Early in the month, A snapped his collarbone on the playground at school.  The moment I saw the antiquated playgrounds in this country (blacktop is such an effective way to break a fall), I knew there was going to be a broken bone.  A’s accident gave me the push I needed to sit down with the new headmaster and give him an earful.

I felt my background in English and Early Childhood gave me the credibility I needed to bully the new headmaster.  I demanded to know which theory or educational style or even which article in Oprah magazine the school was basing their really not-so-fun early childhood program upon. 

At age five, Aidan is by far the last kid to read in his class.  He goes to school from 8:15 until 3:30 and has spelling (words like chicken, tracksuit, shampoo and pavement) and reading homework each night.  I have resisted homework for three years, but now he is beginning to think there is something wrong with him because he cannot read as well as his peers.

So, with the headmaster stammering, I go in for the kill.  ‘Right,’ I quip.  ‘You have no foundation for this type of education, do you? ‘   He admits that well, no indeed, they teach this way (with no teacher smiling or hugging the kids, no music in the room) because it is simply the way they have always done it. 

We spent a well over an hour discussing the lame playground and the lame British early educational system.  When I felt sufficiently smug, I ended the meeting.

I should know when I get smug, the paybacks are rich:

A went to school the very next day and, with his one working, non-dominant arm, he chopped into his own hair and cut the hair of another boy.  They wanted to look like James Bond.  

As my luck would have it, the mother of the A’s ‘client’ is one of the fussiest in school (she wakes up in the morning and decides if she should drive the Porsche SUV, the Bentley or the Ferrari and wouldn’t DREAM having a hair out of place or of cutting her boy’s golden curls).  

So, this was a little ugly.

And A didn’t look so cute for the family portraits that followed two days later.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Our Middle Son

Dear all,

With the end of October, we became the parents of another teenager.  So vividly I remember the days of wishing the kids could walk and tie their shoes on their own, bring us cold drinks and help find the remote.  Now we worry about decisions teenagers can make which have more dire outcomes than waiting too long to go to the loo.  

R’s twelfth year was a bit ugly.  He managed, in an unfailing yet somewhat admirable way, to consistently do the wrong thing.  If there was a shoe to be lost, he lost it.  If there was a fight to pick with an unsuspecting sibling, he did.  If there was homework to do, he didn’t.  If he thought his mother was imperfect, he chose all the wrong times to point it out (trust me).   

I am happy to report that R has had a great couple of months.  First of all, he performed Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth at a professional theater in Birmingham.  What a fabulous night.  Four schools each performed a shortened version of a Shakespeare play for an All Schools Shakespeare Festival.  I was humbled thinking about the blessing of watching R perform Shakespeare in England. 

Although R had a small part, it made us beam to hear his two lines projected into the theater with his still strong American accent.  The performance was the usual over the top Cheltenham College Junior School production complete with costumes and choreography.  If only the drama teacher could captivate her English class in the same manner.

Days later, R went on a class trip to Iceland.  Yes, Iceland.  Aside from serious issues with its banks, Iceland is more beautiful than one might expect.  There is a stark beauty, but there are stunning blue glacier fed lagoons and rivers.  The kids swam in the blue lagoon while it was freezing outside, smearing themselves with mud that is bottled and sold for a high price for its anti-aging properties (it gave R a rash on his face).  They went whale watching (lots of barfing kids out on the sea) and visited a bunch of geysers. 

A highlight was climbing around and behind waterfalls in dangerously icy conditions. Thankfully, one mission was called off due to life threatening conditions (one kid next to R slipped on ice near the edge of one huge waterfall).  It snowed while they were there which was real treat for many of the kids who rarely see snow.  It was a brilliant time, the lucky dog.   Just seems that in return he could take out the garbage with a smile and walk the dog every once in awhile…

This magical geography trip was sold to parents as a trip highlighting geothermal heat and the environment, yet surprisingly, we have heard very little details of the environment.  Apparently, field reports and the Icelandic topography did not hold the children’s attention as much as the opposite sex.  I would never embarrass R, however, I am just going to say that he is now the IT boy in class and all the “fit” (read: hot) girls are totally diggin’ on him.

So he has that going for him.

R also announced recently that he wants to be a doctor, something a science teacher two years ago predicted. The teacher actually said, 'R is the kind of kid who is so clearly capable in science that it scares me.  I fear one day I will lay in surgery and look up to see R's face standing over me.'  

R thinks the medical profession is a pretty good gig if you are planning on owning Ferraris and flashy watches (I'm pretty sure R was either a magpie or pimp in a former life.  I have never seen anyone outside the rap industry who is drawn to bling in quite the way he is... We continue to explore the concept of 'understated' with him.).  Additionally, he is pretty sure he could have his choice of girls if he becomes a doctor.  As an afterthought, he thinks he could help people. 

Tonight, he is in anger management mode because his biology teacher gave him a 'B' on his recent exam despite having enough correct answers to have earned an 'A'.  His work was too sloppy she said.  Ya gotta love that:  a teacher with principles. 

R has a scrapped up face and a black eye from two nasty rugby hits (one collision with a knee, the other from someone stepping on his face with their cleats).  We took him last weekend to be fitted for a tux (dinner suit) for his first ball to be held the second week of December.  Daniel Craig should be very afraid of his competition.

All in all, we have decided to keep him.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Left of Barney

Dear all,

Our spectacular autumn ended abruptly.  We are officially into the grey and wet days of an English winter. Heating costs in this country are criminal and this beautiful, old, drafty stone house loses its charm in the winter.  Last year, our heating bills were close to mortgage payments.  Still, I have an optimism that warms my heart.

This is the secret of my warm heart:  the gift of an Obama win.  I am skipping through the cold rain with joy in every step. 

Last week, I sat with A on my lap and tearfully watched the Obamas vote. The next morning, we gathered as a family at 4:00 to watch the election results. It was history in the making and we were grateful to share the moment with the kids.

I cannot tell you how many people here stayed up all night or woke early to watch results of our election. I’d never lose sleep over election results France.  The American election matters to so many people around the world.  I had no idea just how seriously the world views it.  This time, the United States did not let them down. 

Most of you know that I am a bit liberal.  Much more liberal than J (Who, although a staunch democrat, seems to inch closer to The Right when I am not looking.  At one point last spring, I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of J moon walking like Michael Jackson, to The Right.  He crept back and our marriage absorbed his indiscretion.).   J reminds me that even Barney the Big Purple Dinosaur, who shares EVERYTHING, has to look left to see me. (For that reason, J opposed the children watching Barney-‘Too much sharing isn’t natural,’ he would quip.). 

Obama’s victory touched me deeply.

No matter what your party affiliation, there is no denying that Obama’s win has sparked an energy around the world.  I do hope that our great nation comes together to tackle all that troubles it.  Living abroad does not allow for the luxury of taking your country for granted.  By not being there, I am reminded every day of just how wonderful the United States of America is.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Jeremy

Dear all, 

Living with feet planted securely in two countries is nothing if not life affirming.  We have good friends in both countries and we do not take this blessing for granted.

Last summer J and I left the kids with a sitter and escaped to the seaside.  We joined three other couples in Woolacombe, North Devon, to celebrate the birthday of a friend.  It was a spectacular few days filled with sand and sun British style. 

During WW2, Woolacombe was the English army’s base during the training for D-Day.  The cliffs surrounding the beach look amazingly like those in Normandy, France.  We had a post card perfect beach hut, white with a brightly painted door, where we gathered during the day and laughed until our faces hurt and we were properly sunburned.

In the evenings, against a glorious backdrop of the setting sun over the sparkling sea, we got together to celebrate not only the birthday, but also the warm weather.   One night, at 2:00 a.m. after quite possibly too much fun, J and I dragged ourselves up the impossibly steep hill, legs burning, to our Bed and Breakfast only to discover we were locked out.

There we stood, making lots of noise, ringing the doorbell, wondering what to do.  Like a couple of dim-witted criminals, we planned a break in. 

We were not dressed appropriately for criminal activity.

I hiked up my dress for serious range of motion. While balancing in the manner of Dr. Seuss atop two stacked outdoor stools, on the edge of a deep hill, J tried hoisting me into the air towards our open window.  Well, that was the plan, anyway.  As you might imagine, this wasn’t easy and, what with the alcohol, laughter and more than a few lewd comments from J, my cat-like reflexes were not as sharp as usual. 

It took a few tries for me to grab the windowsill with my hands.  I then swung my legs up and secured my toes.  J was a rock of encouragement during this critical phase of the break in.  He gently reminded me of what a nimble athlete I am and poked me in a generally cheering way every chance he could.  I hung there momentarily with all the grace and dignity of an underage Chinese gymnast until at last I pulled my knee onto the sill.  I then heaved up the remaining, unaccountably heavy pieces of myself.  All this smoothness of movement achieved with my dress somewhere around my neck.  Finally, after I was successfully squatting on the sill taking a well-deserved deep breath, there came one last unexpected push on my rear end.  I fell into the room with an embarrassingly loud thump (note to self:  definitely lose weight). 

The eight of us had such a great a time; we planned to go back for our summer holiday ’09.

The phone call came two weeks ago, while I was visiting in the US.  I stood in shock. I couldn’t breathe.

Jeremy and another man, two friends with whom we shared such lively times in Woolacombe last summer, were motorcycling through France when Jeremy was hit by a car and killed instantly, leaving behind the most beautiful wife and three lovely teenage children.

Jeremy was a mischievous, larger than life man who possessed an infectious love of life. He adored his family and enjoyed his friends.  He was always up for a laugh and as J can attest, as they are in the same business, humor was always present even in business emails.

Jeremy is the second friend in England we have lost in as many years.  Both deaths occurred while we were visiting in the US.  I felt helpless in the US and yet when tragedy strikes back home, which it has, I feel equally as powerless in England.

The day we were asked to move to England, I could not have guessed that we would have made such good friends here.   I don’t think I imagined it would gut me to miss weddings, Christenings and funerals in England just as I have missed them back home over the past two and a half years, but it will.

I am, however, grateful for whatever time I have on this earth.  Time to experience both the sorrow and joys, pain and happiness along side the good friends and family that we have on both sides of The Pond.  

It is just that some days, I wish England wasn't quite so far from home. 

With love from England,

T-Ann  

Air Space

Dear all,

Here I am at 3800 feet.  I’ve entered US airspace, which thrills me.

I am looking forward to US immigration.  After the immigration officer reviews your passport suspiciously and grills you as to why you would like to enter the US, he hands you your passport, looks you in the eye and says, “Welcome home.”  

Every expat here agrees it is the sweetest of moments.  Makes me well up every time. 

Then you pass through the gates and into the land of freedom, liberty and medium rare burgers.  Some days I wonder how we could ever have left.  It is just such so good to be home.

With love from England,

T-Ann   

Flash

Dear all,

Seems hard to believe that my friend Elizabeth, or The Queen as we like to think of her, is back at home after a ten-day visit.  It was a very quick ten days.  We hit every boutique and tearoom I could find.  Little to no time was devoted to educational excursions, but that is why one is always welcome to read a history book.  We weren’t about to waste our time in educational pursuits when there were scones to be devoured and winding roads to explore.

I enjoyed every minute of her trip.  I think she did, too, although it was almost friendship over at a car boot sale.  Elizabeth and I have scoured flea markets and thrift stores together for years with the steadfast rule that whoever first spies the bargain has ‘dibs’.  Still, when I beat her to an ancient and exquisitely patched kilim rug  (Fabulous by the way-got it for a song), I thought she might hurt me in a very dramatic and Shakespearian way. 

In the end, she thanked me for allowing her to spend time in our movie like life and I thanked her for walking our dog.

She returned safely to the controlled or not so controlled chaos that is family life.  An award and big kiss goes to her husband, Flash (his actual summer camp nick name), who, along with the reluctant assistance of one scowling teenager, managed to clean both the garage and the basement in her absence.   

He also kept two barfing-on-the-carpet younger boys and an acutely old dog alive in her absence.  All this with only one panicked call to England.

Really, his only fault was sleeping through the boys’ Religious Ed. classes, which is a real shame because Sister Surly at Our Lady of Hopeless Progression has now doomed them to Hell.  

Who needs a vacation now, Flash?

With love from England,

T-Ann

The Patience of Job

Dear all,

My ray of sunshine has arrived. 

My dear friend, Elizabeth, has arrived in England and not a moment too soon.  Literally. 

I got the guest room ready and I organized day trips.  Finally, after months of planning J took the day off to drive to Heathrow (two hours away) and collect her.  He called with status reports: her plane landed, baggage claim assigned.  Then nothing.  No more updates.  Finally, I called him assuming they’d be on the way home, but still no Elizabeth.  A little worry set in.

More time, more pages over the airport intercom.  No Elizabeth.  Now near panic.  She must have been pulled in immigration, I thought. What could she, the mother of five and a soon to be grandmother have smuggled into England?  I chuckled (I swear, only a little and very quietly) at the thought of her being roughed up while jet lagged and quite possibly without lipstick, by some scary immigration officer.  J, bless him, was searching endlessly to get information.

Well, wouldn’t you just know?  I put the wrong date down on the calendar.  Sometimes I do the darndest things.

This brings me to admit a fact that I have been denying to my friends and family on a regular basis for over 17 years:  J is a saint. I now admit it:  J is for Job.  

It is a bad week for me when I have to apologize twice in one week, but it has happened.  One fit of PMS insanity and the other, sending him on a wild goose chase at Heathrow.  I hate when I do that.

Glad he is the forgiving type. 

And so happy to have Elizabeth by my side.

With love from England,

T-Ann

The Promise of Another Year

Dear all,

The kids are now entrenched in school.  M and S continue at the senior school (college) while R enjoys his final year at the Junior along with A who is now big enough to have weekly spelling tests, the bane of my life. 

R is Big Man On Campus but it comes with a price:  studying for his Common Entrance Exam in June in order to be accepted into college.  R has never taken much pride in the academic side of his education.  He does, however, possess Nobel Prize winning social skills, which he continues to hone every time the teacher’s back is turned.

M is for once, off to a great start.  This is the first year in his entire school career where I have not had to attend an emergency first week parent/teacher meeting.  I am missing those conferences just a bit.  It was always exciting to see teachers’ eyes bulge and their hair stand on end when they described M’s legendary lack of organization, as if I mightn’t have been aware.  When they managed to pull themselves together, they would insist, without exception, they’d have M sorted by the end of the year; I’d nod my head solemnly in gratitude and solidarity, hiding my amusement and doubt.  M organized by the end of the year?  Good. Luck.

So M has turned over a new leaf.   He mostly shows up to class on time.  Often he turns in homework. Relatively few illegible assignments are returned.  Kudos!  Yet for all those successes, he admits that he rarely brings the right books and folders to class but let’s face it, it’s good to have goals.

S, on the other hand, is one of those people who love the promise of a new school year: the scents of new books and autumn in the air.  Her academic load gives me a stomachache:  Math, History, Religious Ed, Physical Ed, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, English, French, Spanish, Latin and Greek.  And my only goal week after week is the same:  keep up with the laundry.  Also, for fun, she takes Mandarin two days a week at lunchtime, but she thinks this might prove be too much.  Ya think?

With love from England,

T-Ann   

The Wall

Dear all,

This summer was, as I have mentioned before, a bit long though we were blessed with a visit from our 13-year-old Prairie Crossing neighbor.  Each and every one of us was thrilled to have him with us.  He is like a part of our family and, in fact, when we moved to England, I felt deeply that I had left a child behind I missed him so much 

We took him to very important places in England such as Cadbury World and Weston-Super-Mare, a seaside town with a proper grand pier.  Sadly, two days later, The Grand Pier burned to the ground in a matter of minutes. 

J and the boys dragged him around London.  What a trooper N was, throwing up on the lawn outside Westminster Abbey and nearly passing out at the Hard Rock Café while fighting a forty-eight hour flu.    You can always count on a good time when you visit us.

The homesickness was palpable in our house for weeks after N returned to the USA.   Then we endured the Olympics, which came on at 3:00 a.m. and annoyed R to no end because they only interviewed British athletes and the coverage did not include US teams. So those were a wash.

While touring a castle in Scotland, I walked into TWO rooms with the same William Morris Willow wallpaper we have in our house back home.  The sight of the wallpaper made my insides hurt.  I missed my house.

Ex-Pats often experience a little known phenomenon we refer to as Hitting The One Year Wall.  It’s when the charm of living abroad has evaporated.  When you miss people who understand that when you say ‘windbreaker’ you mean ‘jacket’ and not beach paraphernalia.  Or when you say something gives you the ‘willies’, you are not faced with looks of horror and mothers making mental notes to never let their child play with the little American boy.  Ditto the phrase ‘Just blow it off’. 

The Wall means you are tired of paying $12 a gallon for gas and $5 for a can of refried beans. Tired of the weather, tired of the five guys at the butcher’s shop staring at your boobs while you order up pork and leek sausages, tired of calling their sorry excuse for band-aids ‘plasters’, tired of hearing Michael Jackson on the radio, tired of the metric system and Celsius. But mostly, I’m tired of trying to figure out WTF is so intriguing about Posh and Becks.

I think, although I am a bit overdue, I may have hit The Wall.   And God knows, there better be dark chocolate, Merlot and really good music on the other side….

With love from England,

T-Ann

The Royal and Ancient

 Dear all,

Our reason for visiting Scotland was simple:  J desperately wanted to tick off one of the boxes on his To Do This Life list:  Play St. Andrews Old Course.  We scheduled the trip with our friends in order to watch the Jacques Leglise Tournament-a tournament of Europe’s next golf stars-and scam free meals. Our friend, The Really Good Golfer, was the captain of the Great Britain and Ireland team as they took on continental Europe.  Not only did J play the Old Course, another fine links course and a 1920’s hickory shaft course, but we were wined and dined by The Royal and Ancient, golf’s first ruling club and Britain’s version of the United States Professional Golf Association.

The Really Good Golfer is a humble gentleman.  He is arguably the finest British amateur golfer.  He has played with some of golf’s legends and has played in the US Masters three times.  He has received four crystal highball glasses for each hole in one he has made at the Masters.  If you are thirsty at their house, you’re as likely to be handed an old Ikea glass as one of his Master’s glasses, although only three remain as one was dropped years ago by one of the kids at dinner. The guy is seriously humble. 

So not only did we get to hang out with Europe’s talented new golfers we were treated to receptions filled with some of the world’s oldest money.  This is the crowd where the Du Ponts run as does the Cartier family and the Lacostes.  And now the Pierces? 

The Royal and Ancient Club is the stone building they highlight when you watch the British Open being played at St. Andrews.  Most people who work for the Royal and Ancient and certainly the course keepers at the Old Course have never been inside the prestigious club, but there we were, inside the club drinking wine in beautiful glasses etched with the R and A logo.  Such a shame my bag was too small to nick any. 

The reception was held in a room only recently opened up to women.  Portraits of royal and/or long deceased R and A members hung on the walls.  The ceiling looked like a Wedgwood ashtray, for lack of a better description, painted in Wedgwood blue with fine moldings defined in white.  We were invited into the secretary of the R and A’s office and out onto his infamous balcony for drinks while people down on the Old Course and walking around St. Andrews stared up at us wondering if we were royalty.  Or maybe thinking that we were a bunch of stuffy old gits.   Same thing.

There were a few speeches, which allowed me time to check out the women’s dresses.  It was a bit disappointing as the women were overall an amazingly frumpy lot.  One, however, from my vantage point behind, was quite elegant.  She was in her mid to late seventies.  Her silver hair was cut in a bob and she wore a hot pink very tight dress.  No underwear.   Bless her, I thought.  But, oh my, when she turned around!  She obviously burned her bra a lifetime ago and never looked back.  Wow.  The sight left me speechless, but The Wife lost no time voicing her concern that those aging, sagging, bra-less boobs might have put all the young, handsome golfers off sex. 

The best part, aside from The Wife and I holing ourselves up in the ladies room while she filled me in on Royal and Ancient gossip (literally-did you know Prince Andrew is gay?) was being escorted into the Members Only room by The Really Good Golfer.  

As a member, he was free to go in and bring J, a male guest. But The Really Good Golfer, as I said before, is quite a gentleman and he also possesses a great sense of humor.   He opened the door for his wife and me so that we entered the room first and there we stood, however briefly, alone in a men’s only room. 

The room was everything you’d want it to be:  the carpets were plaid as were the curtains framing the leaded windows.  Walnut paneling.  There were worn leather chairs occupied by equally worn, impossibly snobby looking men. There was a moment of surprise on each of the men’s faces as they looked up to see two women with great big smiles on their faces.  Then, all in turn, there was a stiffening of the backs.  Jaws dropped on cue, each man unable to form words.  Then came red faces and clenched hands on leather club chairs.  I suggested to The Really Good Golfer that it might be time to leave, but not before the giggles had set in.  How obnoxious these men were!  How obnoxious The Wife and I were hooting all the way out of the room.  I just wanted to shout, “I HAVE MY PERIOD!” or maybe lick something on my way out just to ensure that the Haz Mat team had to be called out.  

With love from England,

T-Ann

Even Prisoners get Paroled

Dear all,

Our dreary English summer is turning into a grey and dreary autumn.  While we have had some wonderful moments this summer, some that I will share with you later, I mostly have been holed up with four bored children the whole wet summer.  That is, until J and I escaped for five days to St. Andrews, Scotland.

I love Scotland.  I mean it.  I am completely in love with Scotland.  The craggy shoreline, the sea, the mist, the sunshine, the rain, the people.  I have had some sort of conversion, a bit like the first time I ever roamed through Vermont.  An instant homesickness for place I’ve never been before. We have traveled so much, but I rarely drive through foreign towns and villages and think to myself, ‘Wow.  Lucky you.  You get to live here,’ but that is exactly how I felt about every Scottish person we passed.

J and I drove up from Cheltenham.  We headed north and put Birmingham and Manchester behind us before 9:00 a.m. By the time we entered Cumbria, England, or The Lake District as it is called, we were ready for a break.  Cumbria is Beatrix Potter country.  We exited the motorway following signs for a rest stop and drove through a heavily wooded, winding road which lead to glass and stone walled lodge nestled in between mountains with a deep pond running right up to the glass wall.  Honestly, it was as if any number of Beatrix Potter’s characters would come padding over to us.  So spectacular was the setting, we hated to leave. And this was just a rest stop!

We drove further north and entered Scotland.  I was a bit disappointed.  It just looked so much like England.  Then the landscape began to turn.   The tidy green grasses slowly grew more stark and yellow.  Then we wound around a bend in the road and there it was:  the heather.  Mounds and mounds of purple hills and mountains fading into the mist.  Why does anyone leave Scotland I wondered and that was before we even got to the sea.

We made our way through Glasgow and around Edinburgh and drove up the east coast through tiny but proud villages of weathered grey stone buildings and cottages with bright blue front doors (Scotland’s flag is blue and white).  Grandmas walked with grandchildren in record numbers.  Scotland is like Ireland with a more grand past-not quite as humble and with better roads, but it is not as painfully cute as our part of England.  Rugged and refined.  I like that.

Our first sighting of the sea coincided with the first golf course we spotted.  The smell of the sea along with freshly cut grass was intoxicating.  The air was thick.  We rolled down the windows and breathed deeply.  The air in Scotland is so pure and clean; it almost feels sharp in your lungs.   London leaves your boogers black and in Cheltenham, I do not dust so much as wipe black grime off stuff.   It felt so good just to breath in Scotland.

By the time we arrived in St. Andrews, the golf Mecca, I was smitten. 

More to follow,

With love from England,

T-Ann

Pig

Dear all,

I haven’t told you about my Mothers Day gift, Pig.  Pig is a Jack Russell Terrier with the looks and markings of a beagle so he is a cuter than most.  He has a good temperament for a Jack Russell, which isn’t saying much since they are a notoriously difficult breed.  Pig is an English hunting dog through and through, which I hope sends images of red coats and horses into your head, however briefly. Jack Russells are working dogs, though, bred to hunt rats, not foxes. During our Summer of the Rat, Pig remains blissfully unaware.  Perhaps he is working on his upward social mobility (so difficult in England), aspiring to become a setter or maybe a retriever.  Once R had to throw a dog treat next to a rat so that Pig would take notice of it (then, true to roots, the dog went crazy). 

Pig came to live with us in March (England’s ‘Mothering Day’ weekend).  He settled in well at first, however, the more comfortable he became, the more he began to act up by way of marking everything in our house.  I had my initial pang of buyer’s remorse when he peed the FIRST time on top of our kitchen table.  No matter how hard I tried, I no longer could see the value in this dog.  And while I am the first to admit I’ve had a bit of buyer’s remorse with every dog (and child for that matter-still do, occasionally), the heinousness of this particular incident disturbed me deeply.  The situation did not improve no matter how much I roared at J (The dog was HIS idea, see how that works?).  And so it went until we had him fixed (the dog, not J) which is not a standard procedure in this country.  ‘Let this be a lesson to you boys,’ I wagged my finger, ‘Do you see how I deal with young males who cross me?  I’d keep your room clean, if I were you.  And do some homework, while you’re at it.’

We introduced the cage after Pig jumped up on the dining room table while I was gone and ate/ground three chocolate bars (wrapped and in a grocery bag) into the carpet. I am aware how dangerous chocolate is to dogs.  I was not concerned.  I was PRAYING for a slow doggy death by chocolate. 

Now that he has stopped peeing all over the house and is no longer jumping on tables, I have fallen in love with him again. Pig is now nearly perfect except for the bit about wanting to attack every animal he sees.  Still working on that.

Pig is far from the big, fluffy dogs we usually go for but we are discovering that smart dogs are just as challenging as dumb dogs.  No one would deny that Barley, as loveable as she was, was the world’s dumbest dog.  With a smile and grateful heart, she happily lived at the bottom of our pack.  Pig needs constant daily reminders of his place.  Still, I see the advantages of small and shorthaired Pig: he is portable, doesn’t slobber, doesn’t barf in the back seat and is nearly bullet proof. 

We failed to enquire about life expectancy when we adopted Pig.  A mistake.  Jack Russells can live for more than TWENTY YEARS, which SO would have been a deal breaker. J will be pushing 70, kids long gone and we will still have this dog to walk.  J couldn’t be more thrilled.  A dog is for life, you know, not just for Christmas 

With love from England,

T-Ann 

The Strike

Dear all,

It is all just unfortunate timing, really.  Who could have guessed that the rubbish collectors’ strike (second time since we’ve been here) would coincide with the local drains being replaced?  I’ll share with you a thing or two I’ve come to know about English rats.  First of all, I think a rabbit sized rat is impressive by anyone’s standards, especially when it is dangling from a vine, inches from your window.  This makes you feel, well, rather uncomfortable.  Second, the sight of rats in England, even the smaller, cuddly, cute ones, the ones that my two younger sons fancy we should keep as pets, recalls images of the London in high school history books or at the very least, scenes from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.  I just can’t get ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ out of my head...

Sure, rat watching is fun for now, a jolly good diversion from our over cast and chilly summer, but I can’t help thinking this new sport of ours may grow old in time.  It's doubtful that the situation will improve anytime soon and I just don’t think the NHS is equipped to handle The Black Plague.  Send supplies.

With love from England,

T-Ann

A's House

 Dear all,

Today is one of those days when I contemplate, not without the occasional watery eye, the two chapters of our lives:  Before England and In England, the two very different childhoods the big kids and A will have had. R is off at cricket camp, S off with a friend swinging from the treetops in at an outdoor park in Cirencester.  M chose to spend the day walking the dog and cleaning up the kitchen (poorly) in order to avoid possibly having to exert energy and speak in complete sentences.  ‘Forget about it,’ I said to A as we jumped into the car, ‘you and I will have fun without him.’

We spent the day at Sudeley Castle (sudeleycastle.co.uk), which is in the ancient Saxon town of Winchcombe.  We spent the day wandering the gardens, looking into ponds for koi and avoiding goose poop.  There is a brand new, magnificent wooden climbing castle for the kids, which makes you long for the days before our country was litigation happy.  It has a big ‘ole metal slide that would have been outlawed in The States a generation ago.  As luck would have it a friend of A’s was there with her family, so A was quite happy to stay for hours.

I have this little boy who only ever swims in pools.  He has never placed one little toe into Forest Lake (the lake we lived on for more than ten years).  He was too young in Prairie Crossing to remember the magical world of the organic farm, prairie grass or bugs (I’m going to digress: M once saved an egg sack of praying mantis.  He put it into the green velvet hatbox, which houses all our family’s most precious treasures, tissue wrapped treasures, like dead butterflies, a raccoon skull, cicada shells, leaves too perfect to leave behind and the like.  Months later, I removed the lid of the hatbox to add the most perfect pebble someone had collected, when out exploded- I am NOT kidding- hundreds if not THOUSANDS of baby preying mantis all over me- yes, in my hair- like a Stephen King movie.  Go on.  Take a moment to imagine THAT scene.  M was safe at school, lucky him. The hatbox lived outside for quite some time after that.). 

A will never know a childhood with herds of children thundering in and out of neighborhood homes.  Or the security of knowing that someone, anyone will take care of you in a tight knit neighborhood if you are hurt or hungry or thirsty.  He’ll not have eaten corn dogs or pickles on sticks at the state fair. He will not own a pair of beaded moccasins purchased in the Wisconsin Dells, which is more disappointing to me than you might guess.

But this is what he WILL know:  travel and adventure, how to act in an airport and a cathedral.  He will have eaten squid, snails, rabbit, horse, octopus and black sausage. He will have spent long summer days at castles pretending he was a knight and the Tewkesbury Park Hotel, swimming.  He will have worn winter jammies all year long.  He will remember walking into town for almost every need we have and he'll remember handing the lady in the Post Office 10p for a sweet after school. 

While I was on the phone with my cousin, Claudia, the other day, A was doodling on a notepad nearby.  Later, I picked up the notepad to see his drawing and without even realizing why, my eyes filled with tears and my throat was grabbed in a way that was both sad and happy.  It was a drawing of a boy next to his house.  The boy’s head was balloon like from which unsteady arms and legs protruded. Next to the boy was a house.  This house wasn’t the inverted ‘v’ with two walls like American children draw.  It was a very tall, narrow house, with lots of windows and an impressive front door- a massive doorknob in the middle- and curly cues for the iron balcony.  It is a drawing of the only kind of house A really knows:  An English Regency townhouse.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Broadway

Dear everyone,

The beginning of our summer holiday was very wet.  Thursday it rained all day without a break, which is unusual in England.  Normally, a rain cloud will empty and then move on.  Often it will softly rain when the sky is blue and sunny.  I have learned to look to the West.  If I see a dark cloud, I wait five minutes to leave the house.  Once it has passed it is safe to go outside.  I can say that the rain rarely catches me.  If it does rain, you simply pop into a shop or stop for a cup of tea and wait till it passes.  

So Sunday we went to our sweet church, St. Phillip and St. James (Pip and Jim’s) and afterwards pounced on the sunny day.  J took the boys golfing while S, A and I went out for a drive in the country.  We headed to Broadway, a picturesque Cotswold village.  I mean this town is cute. It is a postcard village with honey colored Cotswold stone houses with worn steps and many with impossibly small front doors.  Each house looks so content, joyfully sitting in the same place for hundreds of years, maybe leaning just a bit with age. Every house is covered in wisteria and heavily scented roses in such a way that I wonder if one could exist without the other.  Gardens explode with color-always shades of pink and purple and white.  You’ve never seen more plump and satisfied bees.  Every so often, just for punctuation, there will stand a storybook thatched roof cottage with a cheerfully painted front door, window boxes bursting and dripping and timbered walls alive with ambling roses.  The houses often have names, not number for addresses, names like Tittlemouse House and The Old Bakery. Tipsy Cottage and Snowdrop House.  Or The Rabbit Box.  I am SO naming our house when we go home…

On High Street, girls serve ice cream from old fashioned white carts wearing white Capri pants, pink shirts and straw boater hats, pink ribbons fluttering in every breeze 

Because S and I were not overpowered by testosterone, we decided to take the long way home.  Understand that to get from Cheltenham to Broadway you take a scenic two-lane road.  Such was the beauty of the day, even a two-lane road seemed too fast paced for us. With lavender fields in my rear view mirror, we found a one-lane road that took us up hills and down into valleys, through miles of crazy quilt farmland separated by stone fences.  We passed hundreds of fluffy sheep, but not a house for miles.  We drove downward through dense forest, which had the feel of burrowing and when the occasional beam of sunlight broke through, the damp air and dust made the light swirl like a dream. It was a fairy tale.  Indeed, I told A that he should keep an eye out for fairies; as everyone knows these are the sorts of places fairies prefer to gather. S empathically agreed.  ‘The fairies are all dead,’ was A’s response from the back seat after a minute or two of looking. S is now concerned about his mental health.

When we reemerged onto a two-lane road, we followed another crooked wooden sign in the shape of an arrow.  We drove down a wonderfully winding and wooded road, a deep ravine on the passenger’s side.  We curled our way through one more chocolate box village, avoiding walkers and horses in the roadway.  In town, people are less willing to smile, but in the country everyone smiles, waves and nods.  There is an agreeable sense of unity when you share sunshine and unhurried space with bikers, walkers and riders.

Memories like these will make my heart ache when we return to the US.

With love from England,

T-Ann

The End of the Year

 Dear all,

The end-of-the-year parties are over. Thank God.  I won’t bore you with details and honestly, I am not sure I can come up with any more descriptions of refined English school parties. It is all the same:  blah, blah, blah, BEAUTIFUL FROCKS, blah, blah, blah, CHAMPAGNE.  I hope I never have to peer into another picnic basket as long as I live.

M and S’s day houses hosted a BBQ Friday, the 4^th of July, complete with American flag bunting, a band and fireworks.  Afterwards, I was spent.  I just didn’t think I could get through another day of picnics.  Long before tea was served in the marquee the following afternoon at the Junior’s Parents Day, I slipped into the car and fell asleep.  I was like the Little Engine Who Couldn’t: I simply could not go on chatting one more minute.  We were home by mid afternoon, in jammies and watching what I consider to be one of the finest low budget movies ever made:  Employee of the Month.  This film is remarkable, not in the least because its writer did such an astonishing job of capturing the essence of twelve-year-old boy humor.  Pure genius. So many writers try to sustain this kind of humor, but fail to deliver for a full hour and a half. And with Costco as a set, how can you lose? Brilliant.

I came home Saturday afternoon and I didn’t leave the house for two days.  It was glorious, but now I am beginning to think our plans for staying home this summer were a bit short sighted.  The instigator, R, is driving me crazy already.   R walks around the house starting arguments with everyone.  Even if you do not hear his footsteps or voice, you can locate R by the argument that develops.  It’s R’s own take on GPS. We received his grades early in the week.  We were, how do I say it, less than impressed. R apparently gave himself permission to take off the last term of school.  That is the thanks you get when you raise independent thinkers.  If only he was graded on immature antics, poor penmanship and talking during class.  He’d be headed to Harvard.

On Thursday morning, M strolled into the kitchen after 11:30.  I tried not to notice. I tried to be upbeat.  I tried to remind myself that it was only the first week of summer vacation and that it was raining.  I tried to remind myself that he was growing and he needed his sleep.  In the end, it just didn’t matter. I exploded about his lack plans for the summer (except receiving serious Latin tutoring, which should be a whole lot of fun. All kidding aside, even M had to agree this was a MUCH better scenario than the Latin Camp I was threatening-even I thought Latin Camp was harsh.).  He came to visit me later that day at work.  He, A and Pig were all soaking wet from a long walk in the rain, but very upbeat:  M, with his little brother and dog in tow, secured a paper route for the summer.  He is now like his twin sister who has taken over my hours at Blue: gainfully employed.  So, once he delivers the papers each morning and studies his Latin, he is free to sleep and eat all day long.

With love from England,

T-Ann

Road Works

Good morning,

In the U.S. you are all, no doubt, sharing in the glory that is Construction Season.  In England we too have our share, however, you would NEVER believe ‘road works’ in this country.  First of all, if you can imagine, the streets are completely closed.  No access to businesses.  No flaggers or temporary lights to allow traffic through, albeit slowly.  They will close a two-mile stretch of road for a week or two even though they will only work one block at a time. If you are the unfortunate owner of a small business at the far end of the planned construction, the road in front of your business is likely to be completely closed to all traffic for a full week to 10 days before the construction crews reach your section of road. 

The construction companies start later in the morning than back home, they break for lunch and tea and wrap up their days about 4:30.  There are no detour signs.  No one works at night.   The thing that I find impossible to understand is that business owners don’t complain!  The Brits still carry the attitude of  ‘make do and mend’.  People ask me, when I enquire about business, what construction is like in Chicago.  Ha!  Political elections (and in all likelihood lives) would be lost if construction was handled in this manner.  Here, the mild mannered English shrug and say, ‘But what can we do?’

The construction has put even more bikes on the road.  Bikes and motorcycles are such a danger here.  They do not follow motoring rules of the road.  Motorcyclists are able to be both vehicle and pedestrian simultaneously and I cannot tell you how dangerous this makes the narrow roads. 

On our block alone this week, there have been three bicyclists hit by cars (One cyclist hit and thrown off his bike just two feet in front of M and me one morning-thankfully he was shaken and sore, but okay.  He had dropped off his five-year-old daughter who had been riding on the back of the bike, just minutes before at school.).  Judging by the squealing of bike brakes and abusive language, a fourth one was narrowly avoided this morning. 

We are blessed to live in town where my car is hardly driven (I have the privilege of WALKING through street construction.  With all the construction workers, this is, either degrading or ego boosting, I haven’t figured out which.).  Because my car is small and rarely used, I fill up my tank only every couple of months; so infrequently, in fact, it is the warning light on the dashboard that reminds me-a trait J finds much more than frustrating-but have I EVER run out of gas?  No.  I’m in no hurry to fill up. Petrol is about $10 a gallon, with prices expected to rise over the summer.

With love from England,

T-Ann 

A Teenage Boy

Dear all,

M has grown up so quickly.  When did it happen?  Wasn’t it just yesterday I was telling him how to pee into the toilet?  Oh, that’s right.  I DID just have to talk to him yesterday about this.  Wasn’t it just yesterday I was encouraging him to string more and more words together to form sentences?  Right.  Same thing.  Just yesterday I had to beg him to stop grunting.  Wasn’t it just yesterday he’d take two naps a day and shove food into his face with glee?  Ditto.  It WAS yesterday.  So being a teenage boy isn’t that different from being a toddler, from what I can tell, except he isn’t nearly as cute as he used to be.  I had unflinching patience when he was chubby and cuddly.  My patience is now directly related to the amount of words in M’s limited vocabulary.

M has a vocab of about five words, but these are sounds, really and do not qualify as words per se.  Mostly he communicates with one word, ‘Wa’.  I think this means, ‘What’, but it is hard to tell because he uses this sound as a response to each question or statement directed at him.  ‘Huh’ is another popular response for either question or statement. ‘Nnn’ is ‘no’ and ‘yy’ means ‘yes’.  ‘Mmm’ is a bit trickier because it has at least three or four meanings. It is as likely to mean ‘what’ as it is to mean ‘yes’.    It could also mean he likes the dinner he is shoveling into his mouth.  (Don’t mistake this for a compliment, however. It is only a primal response to the filling of his stomach, which is always empty.) There is also an outside chance that he is using this particular grunt to communicate that he agrees with you, but this is unlikely.

About four months ago, his room took on an odor that can only be described as stench. While he was away recently, S and I dragged his mattress into the yard to air every day for four days.  I thoroughly cleaned the room.  Aired out his shoes.  Got rid of old clothes that may have been retaining odor. By the end of the week, the room smelled just fine.  M returned and within days it again smelled like the inside of a gym bag/mouth/decaying bowel system.  HE doesn’t smell, so is it the chemistry of a teenage boy that makes the room so pungent:  a caustic combination of otherwise subtle odors that just blows your mind? Does it fade in time? Will he ever move out? 

The most foreboding aspect of all of this is that R cannot smell anything in M’s room.  Please don’t tell me that in a couple of years, BOTH their rooms will smell like this!

With love from England,

T-Ann