24 April 2011: Indoors

The Bells, They Are A-Ringin’

I woke up to light showers this morning.  It was fantastic!  I threw open the bedroom window and breathed in all of that wonderful, fresh, moist air.  If it were possible, the scent of flowers was stronger than ever!  As it was Easter Sunday and everything in the village was closed for the day, I decided to stay in and just rest.  I was flopped on the bed in my pajamas, reading a book with the window still wide open and then the bells in the church started ringing at 9:00 a.m.  Oh. My. God.  Why, oh, why do we not ring bells in the U.S. like this?!  I was absolutely, utterly entranced.  They rang for quite a long time and I was saddened when they stopped.  Well, at least I’ll get to hear bells again this coming Friday in London after the wedding service is over with.  What a wonderful, wonderful thing to experience on my vacation though!

D.I.Y.

I’m not sure what I did or how it came to be, but the camcorder is now working again!  Also, after several failed attempts, I finally managed to upload my photos to run in slideshow mode.  I’m hoping to upload some video taken on the train, in Moreton-in-Marsh and in the cottage later today.  I say “hoping” because it turns out that I’m not as technically-savvy as I once thought myself to be.  Being in Iraq and working for a company that doesn’t keep up with the latest technology computer-wise has had the effect of putting me somewhat behind the curve.  I’m sure that when I move on after my time in Iraq is completed; I’ll likely have to take some classes just to catch up with everyone else.  The one thing I can promise you, though, is that I WILL NOT own a cell phone (i.e. “leash”).  No thanks!  I have a phone number for the house and an answering machine for messages.  That’s good enough for me!  I know that it drives the kids nuts that I’m so against them; but that’s only because theirs are surgically attached to them and they can’t imagine life without one whereas I can’t bear having one since it means that you are at everyone’s beck and call 24/7.  Bleh.  I’ll pass, thank you anyway.

Commercials and Programs

English commercials are quite amusing.  For one thing, Easter is a major shopping holiday on par with, say, Christmas in the U.S.  Every other commercial is some sort of sale for Easter.  For another, ham is not as prevalent as salmon when it comes to Easter dinner.  Kevin Spacey sells airline tickets.  Lionel Richie sells potato chips.  The television programs, well, I’m not sure.  The English ones are pretty good; I especially like the documentaries as well as the cooking shows (more on that later).  The American shows that they insist on presenting are, well, crap.  Sorry for the bad word, but it’s the truth!  It’s just downright embarrassing that my country puts out stuff like this and calls it entertainment.  Ick.  Anyway, so TV-watching has not been high on my list of things to do here but I have enjoyed some of what I’ve seen.

Yes, But Can She Cook?

No.  No, she can’t, sorry.  Seven years spent in Iraq means that she’s lost all her cooking abilities.  Ah, you think I jest.  I do not.  Remember my burnt chicken and ham pie for the birthday dinner?  Well, that was a success compared to what I tried to accomplish earlier today.  The great thing about my vacation is that I have not been obsessed with food: no bingeing, no squirreling, none of it!  I’m really eating just a light breakfast and then one other meal during the day and that’s it.  Well, today I didn’t feel like having breakfast and decided around 3:00 p.m. that it might be time to cook myself an Easter dinner.  Yesterday, I’d picked up a few things at the village shop and so I set about putting it all together.  Remember when I told you that the bacon over here is like ham at home?  Well, I had purchased a small packet of bacon, some strawberries and cheese for dinner.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Wrong!  I cut my finger twice while slicing up the strawberries and then the cheese.  And while I was tending to my injuries, I burnt the bacon (this is not entirely my fault; the burners on the stove are of a material I’ve never seen before and, well, okay, this part is my fault: I put it on the highest setting figuring hotter and faster was better).  I was feeling pretty bummed out at this point.  I mean, I used to make really nice multiple-dish dinners for Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving each year without putting a foot wrong and now I can’t even cook bacon or slice fruit!  There’s a show over here called “Come Dine with Me” and the premise is that five strangers are thrown together for a week of dining at each other’s homes.  After each meal, the guests score the host from 1-10 on how well the meal was, their hosting abilities, entertainment, etc.  At the end of the week, the winner walks away with 1000 GBP.  Some of the hosts struggle with getting the food right and I think that’s where I would fall were I to be on such a program.  Well, no matter.  I sat down to my sad-looking Easter dinner and was grateful for it nevertheless.  For dessert, I had a traditional hot-cross bun.  In the States, the white crosses would be done with icing but here they use different dough for the crosses.  So it is not sweet except for the candied fruit and the raisins.  All said and done, it wasn’t the best Easter dinner I’ve ever had (obviously) but it will be one of the most memorable.

Having My Say

I wrote to the parties involved in the newest family feud (and admittedly, it was directed to one rather more than the other for the most part) and threw out my thoughts in the matter and then made it clear that I’m not going to waste one more precious minute of this vacation feeling bad or guilty or distressed.  I have all the time in Iraq for that kind of thing (and really, even then, I’d rather not feel that way at all).  But this: this is MY time alone, MY time to leave all those awful feelings behind for a while and breathe again, MY time to rest and relax and have a little fun.  I’m tired to trying to make everything okay for everyone else!  At what point do people take responsibility for their own actions?  God knows I’ve had to and I’m weary of it.  So: tomorrow when I wake up, I’m leaving all that family-stress stuff behind.  If people don’t like it…too bad!  But I do feel better for having spoken my mind; I’ve never been very good at that and it is something that I need to get used to doing otherwise people will run me over me like the Roadrunner always did to Wile E. Coyote!!!

Foggy Dreams

As I prepare to finish up today’s entry to the blog, I’m a little nervous about going to sleep.  I had quite the strange dream last night.  I don’t remember too much of it except at the end: I was driving north of Vancouver, Washington and the headlights of the car were out.  I was trying to go north towards Seattle and there was a heavy grey fog on the freeway; so heavy you could not see very far in front of you at all.  Suddenly, the freeway split in two: one lane went hard to the left while the other road continued straight on.  Thinking that I was heading in the right direction, I kept going straight when all of a sudden, a sign loomed up out of the fog that said “Eugene”.  I yanked the steering wheel hard to the left and hit the gas (probably in an effort to get to the road that had just split to the left and now thinking that it would take me north).  Unfortunately, the freeway was no longer level with the earth but was high, high up in the air and so my car went flying off into the heavy fog where nothing could be seen and began to fall.  And in my dream, I just closed my eyes, waited to hit the earth and gave myself up to God.  I never did hit the ground; instead I awoke with my heart pounding like crazy and with the feeling that I’d just landed inside of myself.  Have you ever had a falling dream before?  If you have, then you know what I’m talking about; if you haven’t, congratulations.  Keep it that way if you can.  They can be very disorienting and can throw your whole day off-kilter.  I’m hoping that I don’t dream it again!  Anyway, it’s late and I’m tired.  Goodnight everyone! 

Tomorrow: These Nikes Were Made For Walkin’