Notes on my return

I’m back now. Had a fantastic time in Chicago and enjoyed visiting my sis and parents. The weather was good aside from a day or two of rain and the temperature varied from 72-89 degrees. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect. I got to see extended family members and many friends, including my two oldest friends from Hicksville, both of whom are pregnant and due within two weeks of each other. Isn’t that so precious that you want to puke? I know I did a little.

I ate all of the food on my Clogged Artery Checklist: Chicago pizza, a hotdog, sushi, American-style Chinese, steak, Mexican x2, vanilla bean cheesecake, fresh chips and salsa, 3 jars of Claussen mini dill pickles, peanut butter, Lucky Charms, Honey Ohs, Pop Tarts, Garden Herb Triscuits, E.L. Fudge cookies, a Cobb salad, a huge, juicy cheeseburger, french toast, hash browns, buffalo wings x2, margaritas and cosmopolitans galore, Sam Adams Summer Ale, Oberon Ale and Blue Moon. It was bliss but I gained back two of the four pounds I had lost before I left. The gym and I will become the bestest of friends next week, that’s for sure. It was worth it though.

I have to say a huge thank you to my sister for suggesting this trip and making it happen. She planted the idea in my head, helped me organise it, and spent time and money getting all the things we needed for a fun, successful trip. She was a fantastic hostess and a huge help with The Noble Child, getting up before the crack of dawn (literally) with me because TNC never quite adjusted to Chicago time, entertaining her while I had some down time and just vegged out with the laptop or a magazine and was a badass bartender, as usual. It was the best trip I’ve had in a long time. Thank you.

The return flight was much better than the outgoing. I got upgraded to Premium Economy so had extra room for stretching out legs and juggling my bags around as I pulled toys, food, magazines, water and medicine out at regular intervals. No baby haters made an appearance and instead, I hit the flying-with-baby jackpot and sat next to a kindly old grandmother who adored TNC and jumped right into helping with her as if she were one of her own. Luckily, TNC fell asleep an hour after takeoff and didn’t wake up again until a half hour before we landed, minus one disturbance for a nappy change and a feed. I was actually able to go to the bathroom by myself (you try peeing in a tiny airplane bathroom while holding a 13 month old — it’s not easy), eat two meals, read a magazine and watch a movie. The travel gods were smiling on me that day. It’s about time.

I returned yesterday to a typical May day in England — cold and rainy. Seriously, I had to put the heat on when we got home and put two sweaters on. How depressing. Especially since I’ve spent the past two weeks wearing sleeveless tops, sandals and skirts or capri pants. Also, I’m missing soft water and tumble dryers already. I’m pretty fed up with hard, crunchy towels AND hair. One of my first purchases in our new home (whenever we find one) will be a water softener. If you can recommend one, please let me know. And any tips for having non-crunchy line-dried towels would be much appreciated as well.

I woke up with a massive migraine this morning, one of only a handful I’ve had in my entire life. It was debilitating, truly. Within ten minutes of waking up, it had gone from a dull ache to a flat-on-the-floor-feeling-sick-and-seeing-stars kind of throbbing that makes one wish for a speedy death via strangulation or a gunshot to the temple. I shut the blinds, turned off the lights, somehow managed to feed and change TNC and then sat her in front of a Baby Einstein video while I lay on the couch and made frantic SOS phone calls to my best friend and mother-in-law. The latter got back to me first so she came over and helped with the sproglet while I went back to bed and slept off the worst of it. I don’t know what caused it but I hope to never piss off the Headache Gods ever again because when they send you a migraine, it means you have done something to piss them off royally.

I spent the rest of the day doing typical ‘just got back from vacation’ stuff like unpack, do lots of laundry, make phone calls and answer emails, clean, get some food in, and upload pictures from my camera. The majority of the pictures from Chicago were taken on Andrea’s camera so as soon as she gets them to me, I will link to them here and/or update my Flickr badge.

Until then, I leave you with two pictures that prove, unequivocably, that my child bears a strong resemblance to Rod Stewart in the hair department

Lost: It rocks my socks

Watched the season 3 finale of Lost last night, over at a friend’s house with a few other women. We guzzled wine and ate pizza, squealing at every plot twist, crying at the sad parts and cheering for our favorite characters. I know Lost is not everyone’s cup of tea but I fucking love this show. Love it. I think it’s genius. It’s got me hooked, that’s for sure. The writers must’ve been professional drug dealers in a previous life, they are so good at keeping people addicted.

For any UK readers who haven’t seen the finale yet because tv shows always run behind the American seasons, learn how to use technology already and download it. You can even watch it on abc.com.

Read this site and this one if you want to learn about all the possible theories, character devolvement and plot predictions. It boggles the mind that the majority of these people have jobs and lives that do not include getting paid to think about Lost. Bless ‘em for their obsession though, it saves me the trouble.

And she’s off

It’s official. The Noble Child is walking. She’ll be smoking and getting acne before I know it.

When Pigs Fly

The Noble Child and I arrived in Chicago on Monday evening. When I finally staggered through the doors where the crowds of eager greeters stood waving and grinning like maniacs, I had mascara under my eyes, disheveled hair and only one shoe on. I pushed a cart with a wonky wheel, making turns nearly impossible, loaded high with 4 bags and the shoe not being worn. Around my neck was a nylon document holder with five passports for me and a 1 year-old (don’t ask) and a note from my husband confirming that I was not kidnapping our daughter, transporting her back to my homeland with the devious intent to get her hooked on Baby Gap and Happy Meals and take her away from her birthright of steak-and-kidney pies and warm beer.

For once, I hadn’t been questioned by an Immigration Official on why I moved to England in the first place and grilled on whether I had any plans to move back to the USA. Not wanting to arouse any suspicion, I made sure to say “Well golly gee, am I glad to be back on the soil of the greatest country in God’s blessed green earth,” and bitched about the price of gas for my Suburban Assault Vehicle. I sailed through with no hassle.

TNC was in a sling on my hip, bouncing up and down as the differential in heights between my shoeless foot and my shod one caused my gait to resemble a drunk on stilts. It was quarter past one in London and I’d had not a wink of sleep on the plane. I was so dehydrated that my lips were flaking and my tongue felt like a sand dune. A soldier who’d stormed the beach at Normandy would’ve gotten little sympathy from me at that moment.

The flight had gone worse than expected, with Amelia either bouncing off the walls wanting to get down and explore everything, or wanting to sleep but not being able to get comfortable enough to do so. After five hours, many tears (from both of us), one hissy fit (mine) and a big dose of sleepy-time medicine later, she finally fell asleep in my arms. I immediately pressed the call button for the flight attendant and asked, in a monotone voice and with eyes glazed over, almost in a catatonic state, for a bottle of red wine and a headset. She brought both and placed the earphones on my head for me but left the wine unopened, a plastic cup dangling upside down on the neck. I tossed the cup aside and got to work unscrewing the top with my teeth (I only had use of one arm, the other acting as a baby hammock), spit it out on the floor at my feet and began guzzling my medicine. Thank god for Calpol and cabernet.

I had already seen three out of the five movies on offer so watched the craptastic film Freedom Writers. If you have more than three brain cells and have seen Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer, there is no need to be sucked into this cinematic black hole. The stories are practically identical — color-blind, whitebread teacher with a heart of gold and string of pearls gets a job at an inner city school to make herself feel better about living in a McMansion and having a husband who performs boob jobs for a living. The kids are all gangstas and crack whores who have been hardened to life in the hood but also have hearts of gold underneath their tattooes and tube tops. They refuse to sit still and read Shakespeare but after one of them dies in a hail of gunfire or gets shipped off to juvie, they decide that The Taming Of The Shrew is actually a’ight and that Willsy was a happenin’ dude. Happy scenes of the kids studying and dancing to rap music ensue. Something then threatens the teacher’s position at the school and the students get mad. They all cry and/or get mad and fight for her. The teacher almost loses her job and her personal life goes into disarray, her whitebread relatives encouraging her to leave these hooligans behind and go back to teaching advanced calculus at the Catholic school. Just when you think it’s all over, the mean principal relents and everything goes back to normal, minus the kid who died or the girl who got knocked up and dropped out. They all go on to become Ph.Ds and the teacher is awarded a medal for bravery in the ghetto. My catatonic state, which, when the film startedwas in the early stages, reached Stage-IV, you’re-not-coming-out-of-this-alive proportions. The only thing keeping my brain ticking was contemplating stuffing my blanket over the head of the asshole across the aisle from me, suffocating him and his smugness.

Earlier in the flight (in fact, before he’d even sat down in his seat), this prick had come down the aisle with his frizzy-haired, fatass wife, taken one look at Amelia, who was standing happily on my lap, looking around and not making a sound, and said loudly “Oh, god. I’m allergic to kids.” He tried to find other seats and reported back to his fat wife that they were stuck next to the kid. Woe are fucking they. I told him I hoped he’d brought his epi pen, in case his allergy flared up. He adjusted his non-prescription ‘aren’t I intelligent and cool’ square glasses and pulled out a science fiction novel. He put on a huge pair of headphones and settled down to read the entire flight (Bastard. I wish I could read on planes; that’s a thing of the past). I named him Pig Man and wished testicular maladies on him and that his obviously childless self would end up in a state-run nursing home where a hunhbacked orderly with a penchant for defenseless and incontient old men preyed on those without any offspring to visit and watch over them.

At my worst moment, the breaking point when the child in my arms cried in tiredness and I in frustration, digging through my bags with one hand in the dark with the fully reclined seat in front of me inches from my face, I lost it a bit and tugged on my unzipped bag rather hard, sending toys flying. I was so pleased when a couple inadvertently hit Pig Man in the arm, waking him from his peacful, headphone-induced slumber. He handed them back to me as if doing me a great favor. I snatched them from his hand and growled a ‘thanks’ at him. I’m sure he was expecting an apology but he didn’t get one. He muttered something to Fat Wife and they rolled their eyes, happy that they weren’t pathetic enough to be caregivers to something dependent on them for survival. Then they looked at their picture of Fluffikins and used the Sky Phone to check with the in-house catsitter whether he’d gotten off to sleep okay and remind her of how much filet mignon to cook for the golden goblet atop the silk pillow bed Fluffikins slumbers upon. The fact that the irony is lost on them is astounding and almost comical.

After all of this flight fiasco, my decision to never fly alone with the sproglet again is confirmed. Never again, my friends, never again.

And I do my little turn on the catwalk

I spent yesterday afternoon posing for a professional photographer. Commands to show teeth, laugh, be serious, sit up straight, stick my boobs out, lean on my elbow or swivel sideways were foreign to me, and uproarious. Every pose and every instruction made embarrassed tittering escape my lips. Jen, who was with me for this strange session, shared in the moments of hilarity. We fake posed with the best of them. I was just waiting for the Danish-born photographer to start shouting “Give me pouty! Sexy! You are an animal. Let me hear you rrrrrroar. Now laugh, damnit!” At one point, grins plastered on our faces and exchanging sarcastic remarks out of the corner of our motionless mouths, Jen quipped “I feel like we should be walking down a beach discussing that ‘not so fresh’ feeling.” After that, the beseeching was no longer necessary, the laughter was genuine.

All of this took place at an American diner in Soho, replete with shiny red barstools, chrome countertop, mini jukeboxes, black and white checkerboard floors and employees flipping burgers wearing those white, pointy, paper hats. I half expected the Fonz to walk through the door. I even got to sip on a real strawberry milkshake, fountain Coke and eat a Big Bubba burger and onion rings. Obviously, the whole ‘eating healthily’ thing was out the window for this occasion.

What was all of this for, you may be wondering? The photo is to go alongside an article Prima magazine are doing on female bloggers. They are profiling three women. For some reason, one of them happens to be me. I did a telephone interview back in early April and can hardly remember what I said. That, along with the cheesy photo that is sure to accompany it, has me sweating a bit. Will I sound like an idiot and look like one too? Has anyone in God’s green earth ever rambled on for so long as to make her interviewer desire nothing more than to stab herself in the eye repeatedly with a corn-on-the-cob holder thingy and then get to work on her ears with an olive fork? If so, I think I’d give them a run for their money.

The article comes out in a couple months. Keep your fingers crossed that yours truly isn’t featured on the pages of a national mag looking and/or sounding like a character from Deliverance.

A little more to life, somewhere else

Pardon my absenteeism. A week is a long time in the blogosphere, I’ve probably been all but forgotten and written off for dead. But I assure you, I haven’t run off with the circus or been abducted by the toothless guy from the bus. Nothing as dramatic as that. Though the week has brought a fair bit of excitement.

We left early Saturday morning for Paul’s aunt and uncle’s abode in the West Country. Somerset to be a bit more exact. They live in a nice, big house (well, big by our shoebox/sardine can standards) in a lovely little village, next door to a 13th century church and graveyard. It doesn’t get much more English than that. All around are sprawling green pastures and rolling hills, and burial mounds thousands of years old. There are fence posts there older than the US. That can be kind of mind blowing.

I’m not usually one to get all wrapped up in things deemed to be ‘quaint’ (in fact, I usually puke at the mere mention of the word as its overuse by American tourists in the UK has nauseated me more than once — people, Big Ben and double decker buses are not quaint. Gift shops that sell scones and tea for US$20 are not quaint. So shut up already) but when we went there two years ago for Christmas and I looked out the guest bedroom window to see snowflakes falling gently over the gravestones as I sipped mulled wine before attending the candlelit midnight mass at the 800 year-old church and then tromped through the snow with the entire family, arms linked and cheeks aglow with yuletide cheer, to the nearly-as-equally-old pub with a roaring fire, red-faced publican and requisite dog with a bone at his feet, a pint of cask conditioned English ale resting before me on a table in a cozy alcove — well, let’s just say that the word quaint MAY have entered my head once or twice. Maybe.

Needless to say, I was ready for more quaintness to wash over me as we approached. I’d never been there in the warmer months so it was nice to see the landscape with the more vivid, vibrant hues than I had experienced on my last visit. Bluebells and those oh-so-English hedges lined the motorway, making for a very pleasant drive. On either side were rolling, green pastures, grazing sheep and horses, and tiny villages reminiscent of the Shire from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, set deep within hills that practically groan with age and history. Oh, the stories they could tell. Where I’m from, a six hour drive in any direction will be the same as where you started — corn, cows, flat fields, barbed wire and the odd tacky housing development. Oh, and broken down cars and tossed McDonald’s bags, of course. Needless to say, I enjoyed this drive much, much more.

We had a great time with N&J, they were very hospitable and generous. They drove us to the seaside the day we arrived and we got to hold The Noble Child’s hands as she walked along the beach. Trouser legs rolled up, she got her feet wet in the ocean and watched the waves in fascination. She also had her first ice cream cone. Chocolate, of course. The following day we went to visit Wells Cathedral, which was a nice way to spend a somewhat chilly, drizzly day. The medieval clock was especially cool to see. We arrived back home on Monday afternoon and did the usual unpacking/food shopping/catching up with friends that is necessary after a weekend spent with older relatives.

I felt so refreshed after being out in the country, just being out of London. It did me a world of good. It was so good, in fact, that when my sister mentioned that she’d seen a cheap fare for London to Chicago, departing a week later, the 14th (as in this coming Monday!), I jumped at the opportunity. My parents have kindly offered to help pay for the sproglet’s ticket and my sister will be putting us up for the duration. After a flurry of activity and phone calls and fare searching, I booked tickets yesterday. I’m leaving in less than four days now. I’ve never planned a trip so spontaneously before (at least an overseas one). It feels great to do something rash, impulsive, carefree. My days are usually regimented by naps, meal times and nappy changes. No more, my friends, no more. For the next two weeks we will rise and retire at odd hours, nap as the whim takes us, and wherever suits, and meals might not be hot and homemade. But I’ll get to see my family and a couple friends and that’s what matters. That my parents get to see Amelia at such a fantastic, beautiful, precious time in her young life means so much.

A little R&R. Just what the doctor ordered. No house hunting, no play dates, no housework, no deadlines. Just me, my girl, and a much deserved break.

Photos from the trip in my Flickr badge, top left corner

Catfights And Crazies

Me, on Saturday to a friend: “I never run into weirdos or have altercations with people in public anymore. Remember how often I used to do both?”

Friend: “Yes, you did have a knack for that.”

Me: “I guess I’m more ‘normal’ now. How boring!”

Sunday afternoon, out shopping: I go to an ice cream van to get a can of Dr Pepper so I can join Paul and the babe for an impromptu picnic after buying some much-needed jeans from Gap. There is one person in front of me. While that person is paying, three teenage girls who look like they walked straight off the set of The OC come up beside me and start barking orders at the ice cream man, practically pushing me out of the way. I loudly say “Excuse me, I was here first” and elbow past the one who elbowed me and put my arms up on the counter, blocking them from approaching the van further. The little bitches glance at me, snort, and continue ordering over my head. Furious, I look up at the vendor for recognition of my position as first in line but he starts making their cones, completely ignoring me too. I wave my hands in his face and try to draw myself up to my full height, all 5′4 of me, and say “I was here first,” but the man has the gall to say “Well, you should have spoken up.”

This, my friends, is customer service in Britain. Screw the customer, just do whatever is easiest and causes the least amount of trouble, even if it’s wrong.

I slapped my pound down on the counter and glared at him with a look that would melt the Terminator’s motherboard beyond any capabilities of resurrection and a sequel, and left the change on the counter, suggesting that he insert the coins somewhere in his nether regions or use them for lessons in manners. As I turned to leave, I shoved two of the OC wannabes out of my way, causing one of them to teeter on her first pair of wedges, her bubblegum pink toenails clenching to the edge for dear life. As I marched away with my can of The Doctor, I felt so old. I am officially That Crotchety Woman Who Younger Girls Laugh At. But I like her, I haven’t seen her for awhile. It was nice to see her rear her head.

To complete the eerie return of both altercations and run-ins with weirdos, I had the great fortune to come upon this freak on the bus:

Him, smiling at Amelia (with four front teeth missing, mind you): “Aww, isn’t she beuatiful?”

Me, smiling back: “Aw, thanks. She loves riding the bus. So many people to see.”

Toothless Guy: “It’s hard to believe we were all that innocent once.”

Me: “Yep.”

Toothless Guy: “You know, if you love France you’re called a Francophile. If you love England you’re called an Anglophile. I love kids. Does that make me a pedophile?”

*silence, mouth open, averting eyes, watching woman sitting beside him clutch her bag and look at me in terror*

Me: “Umm, I certainly hope not.”

At this point I turn away and hold Amelia a lot closer to me and glance up at Paul, who is trying to be nonchalant about the comment and act like it wasn’t hanging there in the air like a curry fart.

Toothless Guy: “Well, you know what I mean. There’s different kinds of love and the words get mixed up. For instance, I sleep in bed with my father but we’re not sleeping together in that sense, you see. Err, umm, *cough*”

Could that hole he was digging get any bigger? I almost felt sorry for him — the man had just announced on a public bus, after admiring my child’s beauty and innocence, that he was a pedophile. I should have been disgusted, terrified, ready to put him in touch with the vigilante parent groups that constitute the Pervert Police. But inwardly all I was thinking is “The weirdos are back. Oh yeah!”

I’ve still got it.