One week later

A week after returning from London, I've come back to earth and fallen back into the old routines of family life.

The days I spent in London with my two youngest children were full of fun and adventure in the mildest, yet most pleasant sense. Suffice it to say that we saw most of the important sights and enjoyed many of the activities that London has to offer.

For me, the best parts were meeting up with my friends and relations and enjoying all the activities in good company. I am so grateful that so many wanted to take the time and effort to travel to London to see us - it's my old friends and family that I miss the most when I'm back in America. However, a week later, I'm comforted by the fact that I'm extremely fortunate to have some very good friends here too and that they, too, were pleased to see me on my return.

Obituary

Freddy the Fish, 1998-2009

At the age of eleven years, Freddy the Fish met his ultimate end at 5pm on Monday April 27th, 2009, following a short illness.

Freddy started life as a party favor, given to our daughter on her friend's 4th birthday on April 21st, 1998. He led a round and active life, uncomplainingly embracing the full sphere of his aqueous environment. His friend, the Little Mermaid, abandoned him when he was three, but a new friend, the little green turtle stayed with him until the end. He chose the little green turtle's back as his final resting place, where he lay on one side and breathed his last.

Freddy will be missed by all that knew him, fed him and changed his water.

RIP

Off we jolly well go!

I'm writing this now because I'm not quite sure when next I shall write. This time tomorrow I'll be on my merry way to spend several days in dear old Blighty. I'm so looking forward to it - not least because I'll be catching up with friends and relatives whilst sightseeing and taking our two youngest to experience the sights and sounds of London. The last time they were there, they were four and six years old respectively so this time, at ten and twelve, they should be better able to enjoy all the things we will do.

The preparations for such a trip take a disproportionate amount of time and effort but the hope is that everything will be plain sailing, no stone will be left unturned and that all and every cliche known to man shall be used in hastily blogging these words of farewell. Lest the marauding masses be on hand to study our every move I shall refrain from blogging our itinarary, but you can be sure that I will report back in detail at the end of the month.

Don't forget me while I'm gone!

Prom

Having our very own all-American prom queen in the house is interesting from the British mum's point of view. I've heard that proms are now becoming popular in the UK but they were something I'd only ever seen in American movies until I came here 16 years ago. The whole prom business is a new experience for both mother and daughter. I've never been been to one and neither has she.

My beautiful size 2 daughter is blessed with a figure and a popularity which I could not even have dreamed of at her age. She's a high school freshman and she's been invited to the Junior prom, so we were thrown into to this comparatively early by age, but rather late in the day for dress shopping. I never realised what a business it was. For a start, who'd have thought we'd be frequenting bridal shops to try on dresses? I, who have never purchased any single garment for more than $50 for myself, find myself watching my 15-year old try on $350 dresses and actually considering buying them! Behind all the practical thinking and my dismay at the costs involved, there is a starry-eyed me who sighs and says 'Wow! I can't believe my child is doing this'. It's all so glamorous and since my own day of glamour was confined to my wedding day, it's hard to realise that we might be doing this again next year.

We have looked at many many prom dresses and the one she's in love with was the first one she tried on. It's completely gorgeous, very impractical and far too much money. Unless she's going to stand around looking statuesque in a Nicole Kidman sort of way and dance elegant waltzes, the dress is going to suffer. Even if the dress survives the prom and the high heels remain painfully on the feet, what happens at the after-prom party? That's the part I really don't understand. It's being held at a local sports centre. There's nowhere to sit comfortably with a drink and certainly it isn't a place for a bedazzling sequinned gown - there are just indoor soccer fields. What are they going to do? Are they going to run around playing soccer in their finery? Apparently they're going to be there until 5am and I suspect she will have had enough before that.

We still haven't found the right dress and unfortunately most of the remaining size 2 dresses are not to her taste. The Dream Dress has already been purchased by a girl at the same high school and the store will only sell two identical dresses to girls from one school - the idea being one for each prom (Junior and Senior). Unfortunately they could not tell us which prom the other girl was going to, so either they or we take a chance on showing up and finding a twin, or we look for something else. Personally it wouldn't bother me at all to find myself wearing the same outfit as someone else - I would find it amusing and would probably go and make a joke aobut it with the other woman. But I think that's just the British way, because apparently here it's considered something of a social faux pas. So we continue shopping.

I'm proud and excited to have a gorgeous all-American daughter going to her first prom with her boyfriend. I want to run around making a fuss and taking photos but actually I probably won't say very much at all because that's also the British way. It's glamorous and exotic though.... like having a real American mailbox on a stick.

Post Script
After another afternoon of dress hunting, we returned to the first shop and even after trying a couple more styles, we ended up buying the Dream Dress and sharing the cost between us because we learned that the other girl is a senior and is therefore (probably) going to the senior prom. The dress is every bit as exotic as we remembered and we have one very happy daughter. :)

Disregard everything I ever wrote

One of the least (and most) endearing parts about keeping a journal is that the past remains in the present. The words I (or you) wrote last week when you (or I) felt depressed or happy are still there in the present and re-reading them can bring back the moment and wonder at what made me (or you) feel that way. Such are the tricks the mind plays.

Two thoughts come to mind this morning.
1. In order to live fully in the present one must leave the past where it is.
2. Reading about what you (or I) did last week/month/year is stopping me (or you) from doing something interesting today!

I'm off to work now. I shall observe and interact with my tiny world and make the most of every minute of this sunny, windy day.

One thing leads to another

The reason people "never have enough" is partly due to clever marketing but mostly because one thing inevitably leads to another. Sometimes I think I must be an advertiser's dream customer because I subscribe to several email "notifications" from online retailers and frequently I click on the links to "shop now" or "save money now". I would save a lot more by not clicking in the first place, but click I do, and the click becomes a browse which leads to an "add-to-cart" which sometimes (but not always) leads to checkout and payment. I'm a spur of the moment shopper and actually my most successful shopping has been done that way.

So last week I clicked, browsed, added-to-cart and purchased (with a coupon code for discount and free shipping) a delightful spring jacket in periwinkle blue, the cross-country progress of which I dutifully tracked. (Inexplicably it spent a full 36 hours less than five miles from my home while it was transferred from FedEx to the USPS so it could be delivered as slowly as possible and thereby justify the free shipping.) Anyway it eventually arrived with the mail. I opened the package, hoping it would be what I hoped it would be. It was, and I loved it. Of course, online shopping does have its drawbacks and one of them is that the colour turned out to be rather more leaning towards purple than blue with an intensity that wasn't obvious in the photograph. No matter, it was a lovely colour and I put it on. Beautiful!

Of course that isn't the end of the story. As I looked in the mirror an inkling of doubt began to grow. That gorgeous colour.... will it go with the much admired new handbag I'd nabbed recently at a bargain price? The bag itself was an impulse buy occasioned by the loss of another bag which I left in a restaurant in New York. It is of a style and colour I wouldn't normally have considered buying but it was only $6 and would serve the purpose. I've grown to be rather proud of it though because everywhere I go, women stop me and say how much they like it! Really, they do! In the course of three days it was admired at the high school, the hairdressers and the mall. So I've grown to love it and want to make use of it until it goes out of fashion.

So back to the jacket. And the bag. They do not look good together. The jacket does not look good with my new royal blue top nor the rest of the clothes in my closet either. The only thing it looks good with are jeans and black or navy bottoms and white, black or navy tops. The bag is a non-starter unless you're one of those who thinks that bold clashing colours look good together, but while I've adopted and accepted many of the clashing colour combinations which were unthinkable twenty years ago, turquoise (with strong yellow tendencies) and periwinkle (with strong red tendencies) are not a happy couple.


One thing led to another and within the hour I was wearing both the jacket and the bag (if one wears a bag) and set forth to find a couple of T shirts to go with the jacket and a replacement bargain bag for use with the jacket. I managed to visit five different shops in the space of an hour and a half and found hundreds of bold and brash bags in every colour and price but nothing I liked as much as the one I had. I couldn't find any tops either. Then I went to BJs and to my surprise I found two very nice shirts for $6 each: one white and one periwinkle which was a paler version of the colour of my jacket! What luck I thought. Until I got them home and tried them on and found I could only button them if I pulled and breathed in. Not a pretty sight.

So the quest continues, but until I have some success I shall wear my clashing jacket and bag, because I need them with me to compare colours in the shops.

Me and technology

I am in love with technology. I'm not interested in how things work, building my own computer or pulling things apart but I do love sleek design. The affair began when I was a college student in 1975 and encountered my first futuristic Bang & Olufsen record player. It was love at first sight. I was told (because back then I had to be told what I should and shouldn't like) that really you were paying for the B&O name and it was all about appearance rather than sound. It's a bit like Apple/Mac today - people say that it's all about name and design rather than performance. But it isn't.

If any object is going to have pride of place in my life, it's got to have visual appeal as well as effectively fulfill its function. My favourite techno-thing, without which I could not do, is my iPod. What a genius piece of gadgetry it is. It's sleek, shiny, smooth, minimalist and a joy to hold and behold. My hands are as dry as paper because I stopped using handcream so as not to make finger marks on the screen.

Fond as I am of sleek and minimalist design, I'm not exactly a sleek and minimalist person. I crave cosy, warm and comfortable too, so the stainless steel, rubber-floored industrial look is not for me. I like the warmth of wood, the drapery of curtains, the softness of leather and the plushness of carpets. I want my walls to be a 'complication' of art and bric-a-brac so I paint the walls in a neutral background colour. (Why not use complication as a collective noun? It's a fitting word to describe my kitchen wall.)

But technology is a different thing. I got my first record player, made by Fidelity, in the early 1970's - it was given or sold to me by a friend who had got a stereo. It looked exactly like this:



In 1975 I got a white Fidelity stereo record player which cost £50 and was an 18th birthday present from my grandparents. You can see one here. I kept it for several years, until I saved up enough money and replaced it with a Philips stacking system. Now I was really getting somewhere. It played records and had a dual cassette player so I could now (illegally) record my records on tape and make tape to tape copies too. It even came with a chipboard wood-effect veneered cabinet with a glass door. Oh yes, I was at the very pinnacle of cutting edge technology - at least, that which I could afford. However, I was told that the very best stereo system was manufactured by Pioneer, so several years later, I upgraded once again to a Pioneer stacking system in a black cabinet. I am not a purist so I wasn't going to bother building my own system with seperate components. Besides, it wouldn't look good!

About the time I got that system I became aware of the existence of compact discs. At that time, in the early 1980s, shiny cardboard holographic versions of them were hanging tantalizingly from ceilings in a particular record shop in Germany. I wanted those shiny things more than anything. But they were soooo expensive and besides, I had nothing to play them on. So let's fast-forward (a technophrase that we all use now) to 1991 when I finally got the Holy Grail of stereos - a black and gold Pioneer stereo midi system with record deck, tuner, graphic equalizer, double cassette deck and six-disc CD player! I was in music-lover's paradise. Slick, classy and now that cabinets were 'out' I was definitely 'in' with this new display of electronics.

However, I've now had it for 18 years and it sits looking old, dated and big in our living room and I rarely use it. Hubby uses it for the radio and we do occasionally still use the record deck to play old LPs, but annoyingly you can't plug an iPod into it and the speakers are the size of small tables and have trailing wires. The once proudly owned CD collection hardly gets used either - I just bung the CDs on the iPod and then they sit there gathering dust.

For me the next pinnacle of listening lust is the iPod touch (which I have) and a Bose speaker and radio system on which to play it. I bought a cheaper Altec Lansing InMotion speaker/radio system which I like well enough, but Bose is still beckoning. Or maybe perhaps Bang & Olufsen are making one...