Month: July 2007

Guess who will coincidentally be in Seattle this weekend? Hmm?? KTS!!! I may pass out from lack of oxygen cause I’ll be laughing so much.

Jeffrey joined the opera; how awesome is that? If you are in the NW you can see him sing chorus in the Flying Dutchman this August.

Today I was telling Byron about an exasperating social situation and he rolled his eyes and asked What does Gordon think?

I answered Gordon is pro-chaos! 

He replied Great. I agree with Gordon. In fact, how about you assume I agree with whatever he says, and skip telling me! 

I furrowed my brow. Do you really think it advisable to appoint a San Francisco cheesemonger my sole confidante? 

His answer was instant: Yes! 

That might be interesting, though I really doubt that Gordon wishes to hear all of the random stuff burbling around in my brain. Though recently he said If you ever get rich and famous enough to hire an entourage, I call dibs on the position of your personal social interpreter. 

I replied I definitely need an interpreter. But how would you signal things? Winks, sign language, cue cards? 

He replied Microphone implants in our skulls. 

My answer: Trepanation! One of my favorite things EVER!

I forgot to mention the fete to Jean, assuming he would not want to attend, but then sent a brief message just as the festivities started. Imagine my surprise when he showed up minutes later!

We made a circuit of the various booths, including Toss a Teddy and Throw a Sponge at My Face. Then we abandoned my child with the industrious and appropriate parent who actually wanted to run his stall (Throw Tennis Balls at Plastic Cups) and dragged chairs into the shade.

It has been quite wet here lately so the legs of the chairs sank slowly into the muddy field as we caught up; we haven’t spoken since mid-March so there was a lot to cover!

Jean is endlessly entertaining, and his conversation is littered with words like plangent. This is fun for me, though sometimes annoying to other people, who make him stop and explain. I can provide the dictionary definition, but he alway reports the Latin (or other language) root of whichever piece of vocabulary troubles the audience, then we laugh and laugh.

For the most part I just listened to the concerns and quandaries of this ever so debonair and cosmopolitan young man, but eventually he paused and said And what of you? 

I would have shrugged, but remembered that I am officially Sharing and Relating these days, so I gave him a four sentence summary of my recent and potential adventures. He blinked and remarked That is complicated – my life is by comparison quite conventional!

Not exactly true, but interesting perspective nonetheless. Eventually we were joined by a couple of unexpected people (they are fans of fetes, not connected to the school), then my elder child showed up, and the younger one wandered over holding a toy car made out of raw onion.

Someone walked up with a charity bucket and explained that their friend was attempting to break a world record and raise money by Crawling for Cancer. We looked the way she was pointing, and sure enough, a middle-aged academic was slowly and painfully crawling past.

Jean said Tell your friend that is simply appalling! We do not approve! Though since we both have cancer, we’ll contribute. 

The person holding the bucket was quite unnerved but then gleeful when we emptied our pockets.

Near the time to leave one of the people who lives on Drunk Bench decided to join our group, first chatting with my son about his Onion Car.

My kid does not talk to, um, almost anyone, let alone strangers swigging from bottles of rum, so that one didn’t go very well.

The fellow started to dance around, growling at children and shouting Rascals! Rascals! I’m known all over England! I’m the ruler of England! 

The afternoon was in fact a very good representation of life in Cambridge.

The other day I was reading a detective novel and knew who the villain would be within the first twenty pages. Not because it was obvious – the book was cleverly constructed. I predicted the resolution of the plot because someone I know once attempted to execute the same crime.

Presumably he borrowed the idea from this book.

He was not an especially clever criminal, and that is why he is serving a life sentence for murdering his wife.

I grew up in a place – and family – where murder was common. This fact is not explored in Lessons in Taxidermy because my editor felt that the bloodshed was excessive: two whole chapters of mayhem were chopped off the manuscript as it went to press.

My agent doesn’t know or she would probably try to convince me to write a murder memoir.

This would not be advisable, since certain people of my acquaintance would take offense and they are not the sort to limit their response to a frosty letter.

My life is so, well, improbable.

In other completely trivial news, I figured I probably went sliding down the riverbank because I’ve walked the tread right off my shoes. And then straight through the rubber base – I’ve been wandering around mostly on insoles for awhile now and ignoring the fact that my feet get wet.

So I cautiously ventured to the shoe store (yes, there is in fact only one… at least in terms of anything I can wear) to grimly poke through the available options.

Wonder of wonders, there was a sale on! This means I saved a whole twenty quid when purchasing The Most Ugly Shoes in the Universe. Hurray!

How much did said ugly shoes cost? Eighty pounds, which seemed a bargain. Until I let my internal calculator point out that is one hundred and sixty dollars. I don’t even spend that much on airfare!

The only consolation is that I maintained my stubborn resistance to sandals. Never! I wrote to tell Mark about my excellent purchase and he replied I’m going to have to wear really fancy shoes today, to restore the pretty that your shoes are sucking out of the universe!

One of the most brilliant parts of socialized medicine is the fact that they cut off your supply of medication if you skip the routine check-ups. Otherwise, I would never go!

For those of you who have never lived here, the NHS is kind of like a vast HMO, except dirtier. In theory you have a GP in your neighborhood (and they make house calls, apparently, not that I would ever think to call for one even if I needed it) and that person tends to all standard medical complaints, and many you would expect to see a specialist for.

If you have something the GP can’t treat, you can sometimes get a referral – but that generally entails long waiting periods. If the wait is too long and you have private insurance you can ask to skip the queue and go to outside hospitals.

These are slightly cleaner though entirely carpeted, and you can order alcohol in your room. Other than that, the quality of care is the same, as the facilities are staffed by NHS doctors.

Medical care is by no means efficient, but it is extremely brisk. The three (yes, only three) times I’ve begrudgingly gone to see my GP the visits have followed the same pattern – walk in, sit down, state problem, get referral or prescription, leave. It never takes more than 5 minutes to accomplish this, because the doctors simply do not ask any questions.

Particularly since I arrive with an agenda and know more than they do about my disease, we have less interaction than I do with the clerk at the grocery store.

This morning I was forced by necessity to go to an appointment – I need enough medication to last while away all summer, and I’m about two years overdue on the blood tests they take the persnickety perspective should be performed every three months.

I’ve been taking the same dose of the stuff since 1983, it hardly seems necessary to undergo the scrutiny!

I went in with three requests. When I rattled off the list the doctor was bemused, then picked up a pen. Wait a minute, repeat that again?

She asked if I’ve had some standard genetic tests and I replied No, only the rare ones! 

Then I was, horror of horrors, subjected to a hands-on exam. Thump!

But even with that and two conspicuous hand-washing rituals, the whole appointment was over within approximately twelve minutes.

Since I’m one of the only people in the whole country who takes a certain drug there was a risk the chemist wouldn’t have enough in stock, but lucky me, they did!

In the states the appointments, tests and procedures ordered on my behalf today would cost something like seven thousand dollars. Here? Absolutely free.

I’m not even allowed to pay for meds! Apparently socialized medicine brings out my sincere love of the exclamation point!

Today I was cycling down Trinity Street when I heard some music and noticed a crowd had gathered to stare up at a crenelated, gargoyle-bedecked roof at St. John’s.

I stopped to listen as an invisible orchestra of horns played out The Star Spangled Banner. A dozen of us, strangers to each other but obviously North American, started to sing along.

Some English children next to me exclaimed Why are they singing, Mummy??and I felt an absurd longing to be back in some random stateside street or field with incendiary devices flaming all around.

When the music stopped a tourist fell into conversation with me and a man I’d never met, who revealed himself to be a Midwestern chemistry professor here on sabbatical. Of course – who else would stand around conversing at great length about abattoirs, NASA, and the nature of scientific inquiry with anonymous strangers?

I have more to say on the subject of Independence Day but I just cleverly managed to slide down a muddy riverbank on my knees, narrowly avoiding ending up in the river. At least nobody was there to witness this folly!

I haven’t been following the news closely since, hmm, reviewing mental files – oh yes! Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the Oklahoma City bombing.

This means that when I decided not to fly to Berlin last night I didn’t know about the second London car bomb (and yeah, I spent a large part of the day in Piccadilly ignoring swarms of police).

Or that there had been a terror attack on Glasgow airport.

Let alone that Scotland’s Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill described those behind the airport attack as “not born and bred here” (quoted in both NYT and BBC).

Hmm. Seems like a premature comment, unless all the participants have been apprehended. Commitment to particular ideologies would appear to be the source of the attacks, and that isn’t something that is predicated on passports.