merry christmas to all

(photo courtesy of my very favourite photoblog rion.nu)

and happy birthday to me!

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hooray! I’m on holidays! the next week is about eating and drinking and being merry. i am a little disappointed that i’ve only received a very few xmas cards – one of my friends said it’s like her family has no sense of object permanence… out of sight is out of mind. considering the amount i invested in postage last year, i would have thought i’d get at least a little bit of a return. ah well.

and i received my mum’s annual birthday flowers today! every year that i’m not home for xmas, my mum sends me b-day flowers, which is lovely. the funny thing is that at some point during my teens, i must have griped about my birthday stuff being christmas themed. yet even though i am long since over that, it’s the one thing she remembers. so she always goes out of her way to make sure my birthday stuff is not christmassy, including one memorable birthday cake featuring a hula dancer, since “it was the most non-Christmassy thing they had.” Since my flower delivery came when no one was home, and the florist was actually only around the corner, i passed by when i got home from work. the woman asked for my address and was looking around through the bouquet address cards, until i pointed out that they were probably the only yellow and white arrangement sitting a sea of red and green… and indeed they were. thanks mum!

went to chris and ton’s for what has become our annual pre-christmas dinner last night. as usual, there was more than enough red wine to go around, but since tracey and i had to go to work today, we wisely volunteered to babysit when the party moved off to the local pub. as the guys were busy getting wasted, we sat around laughing over “tommy lee goes to college” and nick and jessica’s “newlyweds”, yet another candyfloss mtv show which goes down like liquid sugar, completely devoid of brain calories. for a fairly intelligent and informed person, it’s embarrassing that i am such a slave to music television. but put me in front of “pimp my ride” or “cribs” and my eyes glaze over like frosted doughnuts whilst a small stream of drool wends its way down my chin. it’s my secret vice and i try to tell myself that it’s a needed counterpoint to all the heavy political analysis and world news i read all day. but really, i’m just a pop culture junkie, and shows like “the fabulous life” are my heroin chic.

we were supposed to go to my work colleagues xmas drinks this evening, as she only lives down the street, and she’s a pretty cool chick. however, poor j has been sick as a dog all day so we’re going to snuggle up on the couch with some doritos and fajitas instead. (as a funny sidenote, we have taken to calling them faj-eye-tas, in mocking derision of the british mispronunciation of all things spanish [jall-a-pee-nyos anyone?] , but our deliberate mutilation of the word is disconcertingly reminiscent of the *correct* pronunciate of a woman’s body part, and my sis has asked me to stop saying it that way as it unnerves her… but c’mon, that’s half the fun!)

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faithful reader -

ugh. web server problems. so this is a test email, to see if the cronjob I set up will actually run and post this email. either way, my site may be fucked, so who knows if anyone will even get to see it.

Been very busy at work lately. And last night was my Christmas work drinks gig. Manage to polish off a whole bottle of wine for self, and *still* make it into work an hour before my boss (who looked a bit worse for the wear. she drank red, i drank white. you make the call.) the pressure to do work gatherings is such a big thing around here – it’s impossible to say no gracefully. and as much as i like the people i work with, there are only a few i’d elect to hang out with socially. and the drinking culture is so pervasive, there’s no way to escape it, really. most of the time i enjoy a
friendly after work do. but around christmas it’s just so draining.

anyway, sorry this isn’t more exciting, but hopefully things will be back on line soon, and i’ll update then.

ciao for now,
jen

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now *this* is snow:

photo courtesy of boston.com

yet somehow, boston continues to function, with logan airport only shutting down for two hours due to visibility.

in london, the city would be shut down for a month.

in other boston news, there has been a lot of criticism of boston’s efforts to promote inclusiveness, with a “holiday tree”, and of mayor menino personally, as the catholic mayor of a predominantly catholic city, who also happens to support gay marriage and abortion rights.

i’ve never been a huge fan of menino, though I will admit, the city seems to be doing well under him. but I have a newfound respect for someone who tells jerry falwell, the catholic action league, and the rest of the critics that his faith is his own business, and they need to fuck off.

…what moves me most about being a Christian is what Jesus taught us about being religious,” Menino said. ”He did not give priority to piety. He didn’t make holiness the big thing. And he did not tell us to go around talking up God, either… What Jesus said, and what he showed with his life, was that the way to follow him was to take care of people… How much clearer could the Lord have made it?

< *insert applause here*>

if only more politicians had the balls to follow his lead.

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canada, spain, belgium, the netherlands, and massachusetts all do it.

south africa is in process

and as of 21st december, the u.k. will join them

it’s happening all around the world, whether the u.s. likes it or not – gay marriage. call it what you will, but partnerships which are recognised by the government as conferring the same priviledges and responsibilities as those between heterosexual couples, are spreading like wildfire. I’ve made my views clear here and here before, when my home state became the first in the union.

Vermont, Connecticut, California, Washington, NY and Hawaii are all banging down the door as well. It’s insidious.

So you can pass your “Defense of Marriage” act, and you can even try to change the constitution to say “one man and one woman”. You can try to legislate love and family all you want. But you cannot keep people from demanding their civil rights. Not forever. Not for much longer.

Not for anything in the world.

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gay marriage, u.k., civil partnerships

in keeping with the american tradition, here’s what i am thankful for this year:

– my husband, who puts up with my crap and makes me laugh every day
– my family – as insane as they all are (and they are!) they love me unconditionally
– my friends, who are really just family in disguise
– a roof over my head and food in my belly
– that, in the grand scheme of things, my problems are insignificant

an embarrassment of riches, really. gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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thanksgiving

tomorrow is thanksgiving in the u.s., but t-day doesn’t arrive here until saturday, when I am once again putting on a traditional dinner for my expat (and brit!) friends. i’m trying (in spite of my innate tendency to go over the top with everything) to keep it pretty simple, but I really do enjoy entertaining, and with 10 peeps, and plenty of alcohol, it’s bound to be fun.

i’ll miss the fams at home of course, but we had a bit of a “pre-Thanksgiving” whilst J and I were visiting, so I feel a bit better. for me, the worst is having no holiday off in the leadup to xmas, since it really kickstarts the whole season.

still and all, i have a lot to be grateful for. and that’s what matters.

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expat, thanksgiving

I’ve said it before – good ol’ terrorist tooting. good thing I read the vol abroad, who keeps me abreast of the crazies in the neighbourhood.

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terrorists

so i made the great leap and did a clean reinstall on my pc. apparently the fact that i’ve not yet done that in the 3 years i’ve had my laptop is some sort of big computing faux pas. eh, whaddo i know? < *shrug*>

so after backing everything up thrice, j talked me through the big wipe, and talked me down off the ledge when my registration wouldn’t go through initially. it seems almost a sin to put windoze back on it, but i’m prolly not quite savvy enough to deal with using only linux. i will, however, be using open source software wherever possible. i am also really keen to keep as much crap as possible off my hard drive. it’s like a new car – you don’t want to mess it up.

oh, and more than a gig of music is prolly too much for little ol’ me.

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So yesterday J and i took a little road trip up to Manchester to see Bob Dylan.

Now first of all, what I describe as a “little road trip”, 186 miles london to manchester, brits would describe as a toturous and insane odyssey. They just don’t get that you can actually drive more than 3 hours at a streth in one day. Whereas for americans, anything under 6 hours is a short jaunt. Over 6 hours only counts as an official journey if it takes you across the state lines. OTherwise, it’s strictly local.

So we took the day off of work, and headed up in the early afternoon for the 7:30 show, and while it was a bit tiresome, we arrived in good spirits, thanks to liberal doses of sugar laden snacks.

The arena holds 21,000 people, and I would venture to guess last night’s attendance was not too far off that mark. It was a capacity crowd, with hardly an empty space to be seen, even in the cheap seats. Our own seats were side-view seats, nearly horizontal with the stage, but ended up being a great view, given the fact that Bob was positioned sideways, and so faced us almost all evening.

In short, it was great. Bob continues to do his “man in black” outfit, which makes him look not unlike a cowboy crossed with a hasidic rabbi. Not a fan of the look. His whole set had a distinct rockabilly theme to it, so even the classics were given a bit of a different treatment. This is only a personal pet-peeve of mine because it means I can’t sing along, but that’s *my* problem, not Bob’s. In fact, he did do a decent number of classics, and not necessarily the standard ones at that. Not being as familiar with his more recent work, I can advise this: if you don’t already know the lyrics, don’t expect to figure them out live, cause with Bob’s typical indistinct mumbling (what I like to call the “cat in heat yawl”) you’re definitely out of luck. My only other disappointment was that he did not once pick up a guitar, but rather spent the whole evening behind the keyboard. Boo to that. But anyway.

Otherwise, it was a pretty energetic show, and Bob can still rock out when he wants to. the set list was:

1. Maggie’s Farm
2. She Belongs To Me
3. Cry A While
4. Lay, Lady, Lay
5. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)
6. Million Miles
7. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
8. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
9. Man In The Long Black Coat
10. Down Along The Cove
11. Girl Of The North Country (acoustic)
12. Highway 61 Revisited
13. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
14. Summer Days

(encore)
15. Like A Rolling Stone
16. All Along The Watchtower

“Highway 61″ and “Girl of the North Country” were standouts – passionate, soulful songs, and “All Along the Watchtower” was a wonderful suprise ending. But “Rolling Stone” brought the house down, as I’m sure it always does. Remember that time in college when you heard that song and finally *got* it? When the loneliness and uncertaintly he was singing about really resonated, and you came to the sudden understanding that there was nothing but your own two feet to stand on, and it was the scariest and saddest feeling you’d ever known, and you thought no one could ever have put that into words, but somehow bob did? Remember that? well I’ll tell you that hearing it live is like hearing it for the first time all over again.

Moving.

here’s a little ode to bob:

MP3 playlist (M3U)

podcast feed

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bob dylan, mp3

another update from the other side of the pond…

visit is crazy – spending tons of time running around to try to see/appease everyone, and not being very successful at it. oh well. we had a pre-thanksgiving turkeyfest with siblings, significant others and various roaming chilluns’, which was delightful. dinners with both parents, and one genuine patriots game (which we sadly lost).

the big news of the day is that i *finally* (after another $140 [grand total: $600], and several phone calls from london) managed to renew my drivers license. freedom! after multiple visits to the ever-lovin’ dmv, the year-long saga is over. and vermont state police can bite me – i will not be darkening their doorstep again any time soon. but it’s sooo lovely to be able to drive again. j and i have done some leaf peeping drives and random mini road trips. also done a little bit of shopping for prescriptives concealer, “jack frost” scented yankee candles, snyders honey-mustard pretzles, and keen “newport” sandals for the trip (which I was really, really excited about! they’re cute, comfortable, and practical, and protect my toesies!) it’s the little things that make a girl happy.

other things: i miss access to maple-flavoured goodies, like the maple-flavoured latte i had today. maple stuff just doesn’t exist in the u.k. same with cranberries.

jonno is obsessed with the american yellow school bus. go figure.

fall leaves and proximity to trees and assorted patches of nature makes me so incredibly happy. i miss woods – almost everything in the u.k. is farmland or pastures. but there’s a state park down the street from my childhood house that’s just so peaceful. i grew up going for mountain hikes, canoeing, taking walks in the woods. the crisp smell of dry leaves on a cold morning is my favourite sensory memory. i desperately miss being in/near/around nature on a regular basis.

new england fall is good for my soul.

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heading home for a two week visit, to see my newest niece, and have a little pre-thanksgiving bonding with the family. i’ve been home quite a lot this year, but won’t be home at all next. it’s sad to think that the next time i see piper, she will be a year old already – so much changes in a year. more and more, it sucks to be missing out on the life which marches on whilst i am away.

anyway.

i’m sure i’ll pop in to rant and rave about life in the states, so no need to worry you’ll miss me… ha!

ciao ciao for now.

take two

well i have wasted a whole day’s holiday getting nowhere fast. my flight was cancelled because apparently the flight coming from boston had a hard landing, and broke the plane.

sooo, after spending 3 hours getting to and from heathrow, and 2 hours on queue to get another flight, i head out tomorrow – same flight, different day.

<*sigh*>

not an auspicious start, to say the least.

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Can I just say, we made *sushi* for dinner tonight, and it was fan-tastic (even if we need a little more practice to make it pretty!) Aside from the rolling bit, it’s not even that hard…

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whilst i’m “working from home”, i think it’s time for another peek at what tickles my funnybone these days…

in case you missed it, here’s jon stewart’s take on the avian flu threat. (I realise I have professed my love for jon stewart before here and here, but now that I can catch “the daily show”, well… daily, my crush has grown by leaps and bounds.) Some would say the bird flu is no laughing matter. But they would be wrong. the hype surrounding something which has killed 60 people in two years, is all just symptomatic of the dumbening of society – which makes it ripe for gut-busting humour.

Meanwhile, I admit I’m a late arrival to gofugyourself, but this has to be the funniest photo of britney spears i’ve ever seen in my life. and lord knows, the girl has had some *bad* photos. I’ve been laughing at the fuglyness all morning.

Ya know, *i* could look that bad. Hell, I _do_ look that bad. And I don’t have the benefit of several hundred million dollars and personal slaves. With all that money, you’d think she could hire someone to stop her from walking out the door looking like garbagewater.

and from wikipedia, a list of made up words from “the simpsons”, of which my current faves are:

jerkass: A combination of the words “jerk” and “jackass,” used by Homer, in the episode “The Joy of Sect.” This term is also used to describe Homer’s behavior during some recent seasons, primarily during seasons 10-12, and rising up briefly in season 16.

Sacrilicious: Homer’s description of his act of eating a waffle that Bart threw on the ceiling, which he was praying to as if it were God. A portmanteau of sacrilegious and delicious.

with so many craptacular words to choose from, I have decided to make it my personal mission to incorporate as many as possible into my everyday vocabulary. note the title of this post, by way of example.

now wasn’t that just groin-grabbingly transcendent?

p.s. – just noticed that my use of blockquotes seems to make my blogs slide off the left of the bottom of the blog page when viewed in i.e. How very peculiar. There’s just no way to win… grrrr.

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yucky. last night was chris’s birthday, and we all had drinks at their local. I had, perhaps 5 glasses of wine over the course of the evening. however upon waking this morning it quickly became evident that significant portions of my memory were missing. for instance, i have no recollection of anything which happened after we left the pub, including the 2 hours we went back to c & t’s afterward, the beer and other drinks i consumed there, the 20 minute walk home, or trying to get into bed with my boots on. this is all a bit concerning not only because i drink perhaps three times a month, tops, don’t think i was all that sloshed in the first place, and my tolerance seems to be declining at a worrisome rate, *but also* (in fact, mostly) because i have to rely on jonno’s say so that i didn’t, in fact, commit any drunken sins which might have transgressed my moral boundaries, or minimum dignity and self-esteem thresholds. i love and trust him but a) he was drinking too and b) he may very well be holding information in reserve for future use. he’s having just a little too much fun calling me his “little drunkard”.

goodness. anyway, feeling pretty crap today. this little tidbit has also done nothing to enhance my mood.

After a Wal-Mart employee turned in a high school student’s anti-Bush poster to the police, the Secret Service came calling.

what the fuck kind of police state *is* the u.s. these days??! i shudder to think.

watched sin city which was really good. very original, and a brilliant way to adapt a graphic novel – you really get a “comic strip” feel, without it detracting or distracting from the storyline. recommended, even if the motion did make my already fragile stomach rather queasy.

hope your weekend was less nauseous than mine!

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more tube travails today. this is certainly not the my first tube rant, and unlikely to be my last. the northern line was entirely shut down due to a strike, and is likely to stay closed through the weekend. which means that i had to walk an hour to work in the rain (something I *won’t* be able to do after we move office this weekend). the fun just never stops sometimes. (I hear what you’re thinking already – why didn’t i catch a bus? well, i would have… if even *one* stinking bus had come past in the hour long slog up the high street! if i’d waited for a bus, lemme tell ya, i’d still be waitin’)

i’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again: the tube is the most poorly run public service i’ve ever had the misfortune to use. it’s a lottery – you buy your ticket, and you take your chances. what kind of way is that for a city to operate, i ask? “Hmmm, I just spent £2.60… do I feel lucky today?” And don’t get me started on the cost, since they’re raising the fare yet again in the new year.

only 23 more weeks – this little countdown has become my daily mantra. i have been trying to convince myself that it will pass really really quickly. only 2 weeks until we go to visit my family in the states. once we come back, it’ll be the runup to the holiday season and christmas break. after new years it’s only a short while until easter. and after easter, it’ll be all downhill from there! these are the little games I play to get myself out of bed some mornings.

i wish i could think of something positive or witty to say about all this chaos, but i’m wet and my feet hurt. maybe tomorrow on my walk into work, i’ll have time to ponder it.

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Because I can’t leave well enough alone! I know when it comes to layout, cleaner is better. But at the same time, I don’t want my site to look like everyone else’s. Plus, the cross-browser discrepancy is really annoying me. So I am cheating (behind the scenes). You might see some of it over the weekend.

but, no one cares about that!

my office is moving at the end of the week, and I am rather sad about it. the building we are currently in is condemnable (really!) but it’s also located in a fun, hip part of the city, with lots of great shopping, restaurants for lovely lunches, funky pubs, along with a lot of conveniences like a good supermarket and post office. we are moving to a fab building in vauxhall, which is all shiny and flash (brad pitt has just bought a penthouse suite!) but has absolutely nothing in the way of amenities. It’s also a longer journey in the mornings. no more popping out to pick up a birthday gift at lunchtime, or buying some vegetables for dinner on the way home, or going to the pub for after-work drinks. it’s not far from home for me, but it’s different not being able to be there daily.

<*sigh*>

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so, after an infinite number of hours spent trying to make this look good in both ie and forefox, this is as good as it gets for the moment.  I’m not a web designer – i just play one on t.v.  in the meantime, if anyone knows how to make things better (particularly how to make my java links menu show up), i’m all ears. if I can get that to show up, I’ll make firefox the default, but for now, if you want to see what it’s really supposed to look like, you’ll either have to view it in explorer, or use your imagination.  and i still haven’t migrated the other pages over yet.  for now they’ll stay as is.

however, i have decided to go ahead and make the leap to wordpress.  if you haven’t guessed already, this is it.  i am hoping that for most of you this looks pretty much the same – but if it’s all too wonky, please let me know.  it’s a big leap of faith to stop updating via blogger – which is what i’ve been doing almost since my site’s inception.  it’s like leaving my safety net behind.  eek.

i’m still very much a newbie to php and mysql stuff, so if there are growing pains, please try to excuse them. 

ciao ciao

jen 

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so some family have enquired about where I live and what my flat is like, and I’ve decided to accomodate them by mentioning a little bit here.

i current live in tooting (tooting broadway to be exact) which is south west london. it’s a fairly multi-culti area, though heavily asian (which, here, means indian/pakistani/bangladeshi) and middle-eastern. the upside is there are a lot of curry houses, ethnic foods, and mosques. the downside is that we had a few suspected terrorists up the street from my house. all in all, i like it – it’s a lot less white-bread than other places.

here are a few photos of my flat (taken directly after cleaning; don’t be fooled into thinking it usually looks anything like this)

as you can see it is a) fairly spacious and b) not the least bit decorated by me (with the exception of the poster and duvet in the bedroom). basically, this is what passes for j’s bachelor sense of style, his main criteria being all furniture should be large enough for him to nap on comfortably, and purchasable from a catalogue. in other words, this is not my home – this is where I happen to live.

once upon a time, i used to have nice things. and a yard. and a dryer. and a bbq. i had a home that i enjoyed inviting people over to, and cleaning and decorating. seems like ages ago now. i have prints that I want to frame and put up, but since this is only a temporary stopover, it hardly makes sense. i have photos and art, currently sitting in a box in my sisters basement. someday i’ll live somewhere worth my while to invest my time and attention in again. for now, this’ll do.

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Ha! Well, Kim says I’m kind of schizophrenic when it comes to my cooking. THings either go really well, and I’m well chuffed. Or they go horribly awry and I just bitch and moan.

so this morning I decided to try my hand at eggs benedict. despite the fact that I’ve never poached an egg before in my life…

they came out scrummy!!! crumpets are not as ideal as english muffins, but worked okay. the eggs poached fine (if a little wonky looking) the bacon was easy. and the hollandaise, which is sooo tetchy (whiskwhiskwhiskwhisk like your life depends on it!), came out lovely, if maybe a tiny bit too thick.

I’d love to try them with smoked salmon instead of the bacon… but definitely a “treat” weekend food, since I think i’ve inhaled my cholesterol allowance for the next 4 months…

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Maria Full of Grace – about a young woman from Colombia who ends up becoming a drug mule. Good, sad with a slightly predictable ending, but overall I’d say 7/10. Plus, an opportunity to brush upon my spanish.

The Woodsman – Can I just say, whatever horrendous movies Kevin Bacon has been in, he redeems himself here. An incredibly brave performance as a paedophile – he actually makes you empathise, not with the child molestation aspect, but as someone who wants to be able to control/understand his urges, but is tormented by the fact that he can’t. Not for the faint of heart. I’d say 8/10.

Spanglish – Adam Sandler in another semi-serious/quirky role. A Mexican woman becomes a maid for an upscale family, and despite not being able to speak English, finds a soulmate in the husband (Sandler). This was a wierd one. I felt like some of the dialogue was really very good, and the acting was pretty decent. I wanted to like it more than I did. I think Tea Leoni (the wife) throws the film off a bit. It’s by James L. Brooks who did “As Good as it Gets” and “Jerry Maguire” Overall… 6/10.

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