Busy past week!

Got my residence permit, giving me leave to remain through Mar 2007, when I can then apply for indefinite leave.

In the end, it was all okay. We had masses of documentation – We were prepared for any query or informational request. She took one look at out binder (organised in order of documentation most likely to least likely needed), asked for our passports, and our wedding certificate, made photocopies and told us to come back in an hour and a half for my passport and visa.

We were done by 10 am.

That was a huge relief. They can pretty much no longer touch me. For the next two years, I can change employment, set up a business, come and go as I please.

I also booked a flight home for a brief visit in May, to spend some time with Kate before her life turns upside down. Hopefully while there, i can sort out my driver’s license renewal.

The long easter weekend was quite good. We had drinks and dinner with k & t friday night. saturday we did a few errands (south african butchers) and chilled in the sun. Sunday we had an easter braai with the neighbours – way too much food (as I usually do), and watched bad vin diesel movies (that man, no matter how visually appealling [yes, it's cheesy as hell, but he's soooo very hot], should be limited to fewer than 10 lines of dialogue per movie). monday we went and picked up a lounge chair for the balcony, along with some seedlings. My sage and thyme and oregano are all growing back, so put in some cilantro and parsley, and dug up the mint, which was invading everything. planted some sweet william and sweet pea plants (hoping to climb them over the balcony wall), and am conducting an experiment with two tomato plants.

then, i sat in the sun with a book and a beer, amongst my happy little plants. and for a few moments, i could almost pretend it was peaceful.

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So the weekend wasn’t half bad. Though it is the weekend, and therefore, by default, 100 times better than a weekday anyway. But you already knew that.

Friday night was spent relaxing – had a few drinks at the pub, got some takeaway, watched some dvds. Not much new there.

What *was* new, was that Saturday morning, I awoke at the not-seen-in-many-a-Saturday hour of 7:30, because I was boiling in my own juices. The reason I was so hot was the *sun* streeaming through my window. Yes, you read correctly – sun. The appearance of the massive ball of fire that everyone else takes for granted in the sky has become a gigantic celebratory occassion over on this little island. I, the eternally frozen ice queen, wore a short-sleeved shirt and sandals. That should tell you something about how warm it was.

Anyway, met up with Kim for a bit of browsing and coffee over in Clapham Junction. I bought a cute orange bag and some bagels. Looked at tiny baby shoes, then decided it was a little early to be buying a fetus footwear. It probably doesn’t even have feet yet. Prolly flippers and a tail still.

Anyway, over coffee, we discussed my current state of dissatisfaction, and came to conclusion that it’s due to the fact that I want to be living about 5 different lives, all at the same time. And I’m impatient. THese are not exactly psychological breakthroughs (for me, or anyone who’s had even the briefest of interactions with me) but it felt good to talk about, all the same. To recap: Jen is supremely impatient, and Jen is more than a little bit schizzy. Don’t fall over from the shock.

Anyway, went home with my lovely new bag, and then J and I went out on a proper date, which we haven’t done in a little while. Drinks, dinner, *and* a movie. We saw “million dollar baby”. Which, I have to admit, I was more than a little disappointed in. Perhaps it was because I’d already accidentally heard about the surprise plot twist. But the movie felt manipulative, and incoherent, and the ending rushed and dissatisfying. That’s just my particular take on it, but i walked out feeling a bit emotionally cheated.

Sunday was the spring clean. I mean *the* spring clean. Scouring, scrubbing, hoovering, moving, and a massive shop. I then spent the next few hours sneezing my brains out. I swear I saw grey matter. I am, pedestrianly enough, allergic to dust. My eyes itch and water, my sinuses swell. And I sneeze – a lot. It’s not fun. And how this particular flat accumulates such thick layers of dust, I have no idea. I swear to god, it looks like the ashfall from Mt. st. helens in here. However, everything is now clean and tidy and calming. there are scented candles lit and gleaming surfaces. But golly, I am tired. It’s nice relaxing in a clean house.

At least until tomorrow.

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So, I got to name Kate’s baby (if it’s a girl) – my vote was for anya, which she and carl both love. funnily enough, it’s one of my favourite names because of my spanish teacher in high school, whose name was anyarita. but, turns out it has a lot of celtic ties (kate being nearly pure irish), and other interesting connections which make it the perfect name for a baby of kate’s. and it’s just uncommon enough that it’s a bit unique, but not so wacky that no one can pronounce it. it’s official – I am the best aunt in the world.

high drama at the office, with this very unstable colleague, so i was working from home today. (okay, I know I can be a bit off-kilter at times, but this guy has mental problems.) but it meant i got to lounge around, and drink coffee, and listen to music while i worked. sweet.

getting together documents for the big home office appointment on tuesday, so was going through old emails from the beginning of j’s and my relationship. looking back, i can’t believe how quickly my life turned upside-down. within 3 weeks of our first date we were spending nearly every night together, within a month had decided to move in, and within six weeks were engaged. insanity. but at the time (and still now) it seemed so completely natural. inevitable, even. like it never could have been otherwise. but jeez, some of those emails still make me blush.

ahem…change of topic: spring is here. even the hint of it in the air improves my mood considerably. and i’m starting to come out of hibernation mode – wanting to go out and do things, getting excited by the prospect of nice weather, and generally feeling less solemn and more light. even though glimpses of the sun are still few and far between, the warmth of the breeze tells you it’s there.

happy st. patrick’s day to all – had a pint of guinness at the pub, as you do. and tomorrow’s friday. it’s all gravy, baby.

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can i just bitch about how difficult it has been to renew my driver’s license?

went to renew online, only to have the transaction refused. called to find out why, and no one seemed to understand that I was called from outside the country. they said I had outstanding excise tax from 2001 (bullshit, but of course, i don’t have the cancelled cheque to prove it), so rang a different number to find out – $120. *and* an outstanding parking ticket from the MDC. Which of course is not a state agency, but a federal agency, as it is the parks department, which means they could not provide the phone #. at least it *used* to be the MDC. now it has combined and become some other department, so i tracked down an enquiries email, who provided the phone #. Called them – $60. So I sent chques to these bloodsuckers (on my us acct.). and 12 weeks later, i *still* can’t renew my license. i have a sneak suspicion they make people get clearance letters and go down to the RMV in person. which of course, i can’t do.

bloody hell.

anyway, some interesting tuesday links:
ca is the next ma
david hasselhoff does “hooked on a feeling” – video
new ridiculous sport – ski-jumping pairs. two people, one set of skis, or as the site describes it, “an event of fantasy which deserves to be called torture”

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right. here goes blog try # 2. in a more abbreviated and angry format.

weekend was good. did big fat nothing on fri. sat, lots of friends came to congratulate us on the wedding – k & t, andy, simi and adam, sharkey & candace, tonia, ludo, gerard, louise all came out, and were responsible for ensuring we got thoroughly soused. tequila starters are never a good idea, no matter who tries to convince you otherwise.

you’ll be unsurprised to discover that sunday was spent in recuperation. watched “the terminal” (better than I expected) and “hero” (which i fell asleep during – less a reflection of the movie, than my pavlovian response to couches and dvds)

monday i spent all day in a project mgt. training. in true council fashion, they have decided that 15 months into my project mgt. post is a good time to train me. however you have to love a training held in a pub – no freezing your ass off on ciggie breaks.

got a new-to-me computer on friday, which I didn’t get to even look at til today. only to find that a) all my archived emails were gone and b) all my work has now been lovingly interspersed with the accounting and budget info left on it from the previous owner. let’s just say computer hand-me-downs come rough and ready.

was informed today that they’d like to upgrade my post (to reflect the work i’m *really* doing – there’s a novel concept!) which I would be much more excited about if a) the associated pay rise translated to more tha £500 per annum, post tax and b) they didn’t have to wait until i got off this silly work permit to implement it. in the meantime, i’ll try not to spend my whole hypothetical windfall in one place, or before it hatches. or whatever.

essentially landlocked for the next 7 months while j applies for his brit passport. god forbid something should happen where i needed to go hom, he couldn’t even come with. why does the thought of remaining in the uk until october make me so incredibly claustrophic?

for fun and profit:
dave barry does england
*this* should help smooth u.s. diplomatic relations – not.
love or hate him, he helped define an era – the new yorker on hunter s. thompson
hope i didn’t inspire anyone to purchase one of these
i couldn’t make this shit up: someone actually researched homosexual necrophiliac ducks

i’ll end on that note – but believe me when i tell you the first draft was waaaay better.

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Another Monday rolls around. For those of you following the countdown, only 3 and a half weeks before we leave for our wedding trip to South Africa. The weekend itself was pretty quiet – trying to give the wallets a rest until our trip. We did, however, go out for drinks and Yahtzee with Kerryn, Tracey and Chris (ever try to throw dice in an ashtray?), a decidedly more sophisticated twist on just drinking to fall over. Saturday and Sunday were very quiet, just doing some shopping and cleaning.

Anyway, there are many things I love about London, but seeing as how this is Monday, and I just had to brave the moving sardine can which is the tube, I’ve got a few gripes to rant about. None of these are new peeves, and I’ve probably already written about them here before, but if you can be a self-indulgent whinging loser in a blog, where can you be?

In no particular order:

1. Mixer taps – where hot and cold *come out of the same tap*, providing a delightfully endless variety of shades of warm. They exist in all the bathtubs, why not sinks? This is not a newfangled technology, folks. Since I have very cold-sensitive teeth, and the alternative would send my nerves into painful overdrive, I get to start every morning running my toothbrush under hot water. Perhaps sterilising one’s toothbrush prior to use is a good thing, but it’s about as appealing as drinking a cup of cocoa in the middle of a desert.

2. Reality shows – the endless fascination with these is unbelievable. Where reality tv had it’s heyday in the States about 3 years ago, the trend continues unchecked here, like a demented runaway train. Big brother, couples competing to renovate flats, celebrities trapped in a jungle, celebrities competing to become chefs, celebrities competing to see who can take best (or worst)care of a fake infant, celebrities swapping wives. The only thing bigger than reality tv is reality tv featuring celebrities (and I use that term very loosely indeed). There seems to be no end to the list of contrived reality shows they are willing to foist upon the viewing public.

3. The tube – what passes for transportation here, is in fact, the most poorly run public service I have had the misfortune to ever encounter. Half of the ire is due to the service, or lack thereof. Trains constantly delayed, reduced, or missing altogether when drivers fail to show up for work. In the face of ever increasing fares, we are constantly apologised to for signal faults, staffing shortages, and weather delays. I pay £3 every day, with a) no guarantee that the train will be running at all, and b) that it will get me anywhere on time. It’s like the lottery – you buy your ticket and you take your chances.

The other half of my ire is directed at the massive failure of the Brits to grasp even the basics of crowd etiquette. The tube, surprisingly enough, is shaped like a tube. Which means the trains are very narrow, yet curved at the outside. The people who get on first, get seats. Fair enough. The people who get on after the seats are taken, all congregate by the doors. This is because they are afraid when the train gets more crowded, they will be uable to get off, if they are in the middle. Which means that the people who get on subsequently, are also required to bunch up at the doors. After a few stops, the people sitting, or brave enough to stand in the middle of the carriage, have all the space in the world. Whilst the ever-increasing pressurised logjam at the doors, means that people are literally fighting to cram themselves on, as otherers are fighting desperately to get off. This creates further panic, meaning people are even more reluctant to move towards the middle – it’s a frightening catch 22 which gets worse every day. And due to the curved outward shape, it is possible to squeeze on a number of people who were never meant to be able to get on – as long as you are willing to hunch yourself into a doubled-over face-to-ass position, you can squeeze into a space no human was meant to stand in. By the time we get to my stop (not even yet approching the centre of the city), there are people on the platforms who sit and watch train after train go by, fully rammed to the gills. Which creates crowded platforms – a dangerous situation that london underground staff remedy by creating holding areas at the turnstiles. When these get too full, they creating waiting areas outside the tube station.

You can show up, wait to get inside the station, wait to get through the turnstiles, wait to get on a train, smoosh for a 30+ minute journey, and still arrive at work late. All this for the affordable equivalent of $6 US, per day.

Okay, that’s enough for today. Here’s hoping your week is off to a better start than mine.

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more dorky photos of the race:

(and yes, I stole them off the website!)

anywhoo, not too much to brag about this weekend, unless being a sloth counts for anything. rugby, beer, pool, dinner with friends, falling asleep during “shaun of the dead”. shopping for a big american thanksgiving day dinner this weekend, going waaaay overboard on food. but that’s just “how I do”.

it’s monday, so that’s all you get from me today. oh yeah, i updated the music. still haven’t figured dout how to make it *less* annoying, but at least it’s *differently* annoying now.

squishes and kisses, toodles!

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Our wkend was fairly uneventful. Friday we went for a
drink at the pub, watched Seinfeld episodes, had Chinese
takeaway. Sat we went shopping for portable heaters
(the nights are getting pretty chilly
now, and it’s expensive to heat the whole big flat
every night). , watched
eddie murphy’s “delirious” (haven’t seen it in ages -
sooo funny!) started to go to the movies in wimbledon,
realised we were going to miss the movie, so went to
the pub, and watched a dvd. (Warning – big whinging
rant ahead!) Then, at 2:00, our flatmate Arlene brought home a
party from the pub,about 10 drunk-ass people, which I
wouldn’t have cared about except they had the music
ridiculously loud, were shouting outside our bedroom
door (kept trying to come in, but I had wedged it
shut), and saturday night or no, were just too frikken
obnoxious. J, of course slept through the whole
thing. I ended up going and asking them to turn the
music down, and then Arlene was in the whole “i’m
sorry, do you want us to leave?” mode, and ended up
taking the party elsewhere.

the thing that annoyed me most? the fact that she
never cleans, and it’s only *right after* we’ve
scrubbed, that she decides to have people over, or do
her cooking for the next two weeks, or take apart the
beanbag chair all over the lounge. must be nice to
have two live-in maids, so you can entertain whenever
you get the urge.

after her party, she washed only the glasses they
used, and vaccuumed the crushed crisps. didn’t touch
a single bloody other thing. god forbid she should
accidentally wash or put away a stray fork *she*
didn’t use! grrrrr. meanwhile, who the hell cleans up
the stove everytime she makes spaghetti bog? or mops
the tequila she spilt on the floor? or cleans her
hair dye off the bathroom wall? you guessed it. J & J
Cleaning Co.

Anyway – Sunday we went to visit my Aunt Muriel in Oxford for
lunch (my grandfather’s cousin, and I’ve
only ever met her once before, but she invited us
round so we went to visit at her house).
She’s in her late 60s/early 70s, but she’s quite
energetic, and travels a lot. She loves to chat, chat, chat, and
told us all sorts of stories about my grandfather’s
family, etc., which took 5 hours to sit through all her
stories and photos and Sunday dinner. Coming back,
our 1.5 hour drive became a 3 hour odyssey (why is the
traffic only so bad when *I’m* driving??) and finally
got home, relaxed watching a movie, and then Arlene
stumbled in drunk, left her bag in the downstairs
toilet, plugged in her phone, and left her keys on the
floor, then had Michelle, J and I all seaching high
and low while she claimed she’d been ripped off by the
dodgy cab driver… then asked us to wake her up at
6:30 for her new job, b/c she’d “lost” the
aforementioned phone. Grrrr.

Anyway – J’s Mum and 2 sisters and nieces and nephews
are all coming for a visit on 4th November. Don’t
know where we are going to put them all, but I’m
excited! It’s all been confirmed and such, so will
take a day’s leave to spend some time with them.

That’s about all the excitement for the time being.

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so, yet further changes to the wedding plans.

we were all set to go to south africa on 14th december, get married on 21st december on the beautiful beaches of cape town with family, friends and penguins in attendance, spend a few days in a tree house and play with the amazing elephants, head back to johannesburg for xmas with the in-laws, and fly home for new years in good old london.

need i remind you what they say about the best laid plans?

our tickets were arranged through j’s sister, who works for south african airways, and got us round trip tix for the bargain price of £200 a piece. however, s.a.a., in their infinite wisdom, decided to invalidate family courtesy tickets through the holiday season. meaning, that to stick to our original plan would now cost nearly £1400 for the tickets alone.

there’s a lot you can do with £1000 in china, malaysia, or peru.

so, as much as it saddens me, we’re postponing until january. hopefully getting married 15th january.

and, as a consolation prize, we will go somewhere else for my christmas birthday bash. i’m voting heavily for greece. xmas on the aegean is not a bad runner-up. or at least, that’s what i am trying to convince myself.

anyway, it gives me more time to find a dress!

in an effort to distract myself, er… you, from the tragic news above:

get buried in a pod/capsule/bubble

george bush sings “sunday, bloody sunday”. yes, the u2 song.

the saddest product ever sold

dogs. not always a paralytic’s best friend.

the world is a sick and twisted place. deal with it.

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know how every once in a while, you embark on a task which seems simple enough, but before you know it, has spiralled out of control and become an all-consuming soul-sucking time-warping behemoth project? That was what happened to our bedroom this weekend.

It started out all so innocently – the room needed a tidy, and more storage space so we could eliminate the need to fold our clothes in piles on the floor. So we headed to the much dreaded Ikea with a small shopping list: a dresser, some shelving, and a tall, narrow bin for the recyclables in the kitchen. Like heat seeking missiles, we whizzed through the labrynth maze of showrooms and displays. Along the way, we also decided we needed a mattress topper, a bedside light and some pillowcases.

And what did we emerge with? Three hours later we wrestled out a large 63 kilo dresser in two gargantuan flat-packs (with a clever scheme to consolidate *every piece of clothing we owned or possibly could ever own in the future* in one place), mountains of unassembled storage boxes (in lieu of shelving – J has an almost pathological phobia of *shelves*, it seems. god forbid we should actually put things up on the wall, instead of wedged under the bed), a flour sieve (for my moments of baking inspiration), and bags of yummy, yet smelly gelee moss – Swedish gummy rats (what can i say, we went shopping hungry).

Heaved the entire thing through sheer brute force up three flights of stairs without breaking any bones, or popping any lungs, tore open the boxes, and I began to assemble like a woman possessed, while J mucked about with the internet connection and transferring ripped dvd movies from the neighbours pc (heavily weighted towards adolescent slapstick – “dodgeball” anyone?) only to discover after an hour crawling on all fours with little wooden dowels that the flaming dresser was missing about 6 long support lengths.

you know, to hold the thing together.

swearing bloody blue murder, i stuffed all 3,704 individual dowels, drawer rails, washers, and other assorted miscellaneous parts *back* into the two torn boxes, and the next morning we resignedly lugged the monstrosity all the way *back* to ikea.

when I told the woman at returns that there were parts missing, she said snottily, “I can tell you why there are pieces missing. the numbers don’t match.”

to which I replied, “the numbers do too match! see? 400.347.299.116.000.013 *here*, and 400.347.299.116.000.013 *here* on this box! see, see?”

she sighed and rolled her eyes, and in a tone as if she was trying to conduct a conversation on nuclear physics with a fetus, said, “no *here*, this teeny tiny microscopic *Batch number*, you pea-brain!!” (okay, so she didn’t actually say, pea-brain. but it was heavily implied.)

Oh. that.

deciding to get a smaller, more manageable piece of furniture, we went back into the evil warehouse, and emerged only one hour later with an only-marginally-lighter dresser unit, wicker baskets (for socks), a lamp, and a little jewelery-accessories-perfume-dressertop-organiser-thingie with no fewer than 6 little drawers to individually build.

loading up the car, went to “homegoods”, still in search of the increasing elusive recycling bin, and mattress topper. no luck, but did manage to add a new mop to our laundry list. went to “argos” (which is a subject unto itself, however, suffice it to say, it’s catalogue shopping for boys) where we finally found a matress topper and a mop. still no recycling bin.

tossing in the towel and conceding defeat, we headed home and began cleaning the room from top to bottom – organising, discarding, dusting, clearing, stowing, and hoovering, finishing just in time for bed.

our room is so pretty now – except for the large flatpack in the middle of the floor that I keep smashing my toe on. i’m too afraid to open it.

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as always, the weekend flew by, all the more so because there was a last
gasp of summer, and the weather was beautiful.

a balmy friday evening found us having a pint at the local bar, enjoying the
warmth and watching the world go by, then off to the cinema to see “hellboy”, which was entertaining and appropriately kitschy for an an adaptation of a comic book. however, my enjoyment of the movie was dampened and chilled (literally) by the unfortunate dumping of a supersize tub of coke directly onto my crotch just after the opening credits rolled.

what does one do? go home and waste the £25 quid just spent on tickets and
refreshments? or suffer in silence? needless to say, i spent the next two
hours trying to forget that i was wearing jeans and underwear completely
drenched in icy syrup. (call me cheap, call me stubborn – i prefer
“stoic”.) was the movie worth it? probably not, but i like to think i
passed some sort of test of fortitude which will serve me well at some
point.

saturday we were awakened by a dazzling flood of sunlight, and mustered
ourselves for an early morning run. after showering, we headed down to
the south bank toward the tate. en route, we had sandwiches (my roast beef
was thoroughly inedible) and turkish food (i ditched the sandwich in favour
of some stuffed grape leaves from the festival on the river). arrived at the
tate, anticipating seeing the edward hopper exhibit I have been dying to
catch, only to find the next available showing wasn’t until that evening and
unfortunately we already had plans. resolving to try to catch it the next
day, we headed home and chilled out. Saturday evening we went to a “drinks
thing” at kim and andy’s place in balham, in honour of the arrival of kim’s
sister (who just managed to escape florida before the second hurricane
hit). good company, good food, good conversation meant we rolled home around
2:30 am, more than just a wee bit tipsy.

wham! sunday morning hit me like a brick – i’m suspecting it was the revenge
of the tequila (for which i blame andy’s aunt lesley, who manhandled me into
doing slammers, and thought tequila, vodka, and soda was a perfectly reasonable cocktail mix). J, of course, was as bright and cheerful as the
sunny day, and kindly went foraging for bagels to make me my never-fail hangover cure: a greasy egg and bacon bagel sandwich. Perhaps it’s the difference in the bagels here, but it failed to do the trick, and i spent most of the day trying to maintain a static status with minimum motion. Regardless, even in my pitiful state, the day was simply too gorgeous to waste, so we packed some sandwiches and beer (hair of the dog, you know) and headed down to the park by the river, to play scrabble and bask in the warmth. i managed to rally for a very short game of catch (okay, so i wasn’t all that enthusiastic, in my queasy state), and heading home, we
decided to have a little bbq on the terrace and listen to the red sox game (they won!). A mellow end to a relaxing (if somewhat inert) sunday…

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The London weather this summer has been bollocks – dreary, grey and cool almost every weekend, so when the sun made an unexpected celebrity appearance this weekend, our mission was clear: to spend every possible second drinking in some well-missed warmth and vitamin D.

Our assignment began in earnest Friday evening, as we headed over to Abbey Mills in Colliers Wood to enjoy some open-air music and relax with friends and a few drinks. The evening air was balmy, and the blues cover band was good, so we drank and danced on the picnic blankets for a few hours. When the music died down, we headed over to see our friends at a pub in Tooting Bec, having some celebratory birthday drinks. As the pub closed, no one was quite ready to head home, so we walked over to their house, and continued the merriment with improvised cocktails, snacks and general silliness (the breadsticks would later be used as a means of map measurement, and it is two breadsticks from johannesburg to london, but only one breadstick from j’burg to Sydney), until we rolled home at 2:30.

Since J has quit smoking the past few days, he has been waking up ridiculously early, which ensured that we made it to the Balham Tup early Saturday morning for the kickoff of Tri-nations rugby, s.a. vs australia. In typical bostonian fashion, I was supporting the underdog, and ultimate losers, the rsa springboks for my initiation into the rugby world. Despite an early lead, the boks let it slip through their grasp, but everyone agreed that it was a good match overall.

After the rugby, we got some picnic food, and headed out for a drive to the “beaches” of eastbourne – or what passes for beach in most of this country. Pebble shores and cold murky water, but the sun was nice and we chilled and strolled and pretended we were at a proper beach. Heading home, we counted the number of roundabouts en route back to London, and totalled up a staggering 39!! The Uk is roundabout crazy – wherever a four-way stop or a merge would do, they plonk down a roundabout. Dizzy by the time we got home, we relaxed with some japanese takeaway and a movie for the remainder of the evening.

Sunday was originally designated for climbing, but after J awoke at 7:30! And we witnessed a glorious day outside the bedroom window, we couldn’t bear to be indoors on the wall. So J made me sweet (not savoury!) french toast, and we jumped back in bruce and made a beeline for Bournemouth.

English seaside towns are really an odd little curiosity. They’re kitschy and corny and each is a pale imitation of the next, but the brits love them, and flock to them like heat seeking missiles at the first hint of sun. Bournemouth is actually a reasonable size town, and fairly modern, with a real sand beach, but there’s still something a bit sad about the desperation to pretend it’s more exciting or better than it actually is. In any case, there was real sand, so we had some lunch and lounged in the sun for a bit, basking like seals. J made the brave plunge into the cold water, while I got lots of sand in my underwear. After a while we decided to head back, and I decided to practice driving again. Which would not have been so bad except for the massive traffic. I actually drove the whole way into Central London, quite pleased with myself that all the sideview mirrors made it home intact through the narrow parked-up little streets. Chilled at home the rest of the evening in front of the telly like sunburnt slugs.

I’ll add some pics to this post a little later.

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so the blogging has fallen off a bit because we’re having internet problems at home, and i’m actually too busy at work to catch up. hopefully should be sorted very soon, so hang in there.

let’s seeeeee…. in the past few weeks I have:

started learning guitar (ow!)

become obsessed with making *the* perfect saffa melktert (milk tart), to the tune of five tries so far

gone climbing and completed two 6A routes (yay for me!)

got a powerball and gone completely mad trying to beat my own personal record (9,600 rpm)

booked a weekend in rome

daydreamed about my holiday to the states coming up

watched too many dvds

seen the sun set over the thames in richmond

been out drinking too often

and ummm, that’s about it!

didja miss me?

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so aside from the good, yet tough to watch “Fahrenheit 9/11″, this weekend was pretty decent, if not overly exciting.

friday night we went of for a few drinks locally. not much to relate there – the same tarted up girls trying to pull, the same shallow and dentally challenged boys, trying to pick the best-looking of the bunch on display (no easy feat, mind you). you just look at them and know they wake up tomorrow morning with a sore head, smeared makeup, and have to do the walk of shame home in the same slutty outfit they wore the evening before, only in the harsh glare of daylight.

saturday morning started out bright enough, and inspired us to go explore the “little venice” section of london. but by the time we were ready to leave, it was already pissing rain (again) and chilly, so we headed to the museum of natural history, where I drove j to distraction with my flea-like attention span and refusal to view anything in an orderly fashion. the dinosaur exhibit was pretty cool. as were the gemstones and meteorites, though i think j was just being a good sport, pretending to humour my excitement at yet another collection of rocks. the blue whale was huge, as was the giant sequoia display. and sadly, i was unable to keep my little computerised runner alive in the human biology exhibit, as I kept forgetting to make him breathe…
afterwards, we had some japanese for dinner, and went to see the movie in wandsworth (see previous blog entry).

sunday was still dreary. we watched movies and played some squash (i lost, 11-5, but mostly because i still can’t serve properly) and i made eggplant (pardon, *aubergine*) with lamb al forno for dinner. then j gave me my first guitar lesson (that f chord is a bitch) and i struggled over the basic finger formations, but am determined to learn.

and that, in a tidy nutshell, is how I frittered away the weekend. aren’t you glad you asked?

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ugh. london tube was on strike today. I was lucky enough to be able to walk to work, but some people faced commutes of 2+ hours. lots of people didn’t even bother. the tube carries about 3 million passengers a day. now there’s talk of a retaliatory boycott. given the number of people i saw walking and cycling today, a series of rolling tube strikes might be a good way to get londoners in shape. forced fitness: the new central government initiative. I can see it already.

my walk to work, however, was considerably slowed by the fact that i made the misguided decision to play squash again last night. i don’t know how long it will take me to figure out a) the ball doesn’t bounce and b) the walls are stationary. accidentally slamming the racquet into a wall is frustrating and not good for the health of the racquet. deliberately slamming the racquet into the wall out of sheer frustration is not good either. not to mention the prevailing law of physics of squash: when the ball doesn’t bounce (as it doesn’t) and the legs will not move (as they wouldn’t) the ball will, as a rule, thump leadenly and roll to the farthest corner of the court (as it does). it then becomes not so much a game of squash, as a game of “let’s see how frequently jen can accidentally kick the ball away from her in her clumsy attempts to fetch it”, which is definitely not as much fun.

happy birthday to nick! who is sporting a kick-ass tan from her recent holiday in greece (which I was meant to go on). i have decided, in honour of her birthday, to suspend my determined anger with her, over the fact that she is leaving me to return home to new zealand in just 15 short weeks. don’t say i never gave you nuthin’.

elsewhere on this crazy little dust mote we call earth:

truckers as government spies (do i even need to point out how simultaneously ridiculous and scary this is?)

the plight of the black superhero (i’ve had many a conversation about this, surprisingly)

that’s enough for the mo’. talk atcha later…

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Hmmm. Well the weekend was a bit of a mixed bag.

Friday night I met up with J for a work drinks thing (supposedly something of a belated leaving so for J as well, since he changed buildings at his job). I was all prepared to be chatty and social and cute. Except that for the entire two hours we were there, almost all his old colleagues failed to even acknowledge our presence! It started out kind of strange, and got progressively wierder the longer we were there. They all stood around drinking, looking like they were enjoying a root canal, talking about work, whilst studiously avoiding glancing at anything other than the depths of the drink in front of them. After two agonizingly long pints, J decided he’d made enough of an effort and we went home and had a lovely sushi dinner. Mmmm. You gotta love edamame – like nature’s little bubble wrap. Satisfyingly poppy and entirely addictive. And eel, ugly as sin, but tasty as hell.

Saturday morning was downright dreary, putting the kibosh on my plans for a run down to the river, so instead I decided to intoduce J to the uniquely american delights of mixing the sweet and savoury on the breakfast plate, in the form of cinnamon french toast with maple syrup and bacon. Why this seems so stomach churning to the uninitiated, I’ll never understand, but after skeptically sampling a bit, J seemed to come around. To work it all off, J decided to introduce me to the game of squash. He warned me as we were heading to the courts that I would be tired and sore, but I dismissed his cautions as exaggerated. Spent the next hour and a half running absolutely ragged, chasing maniacally (and very ungracefully) after a little hard non-bouncy ball, slamming into walls, and sweating like a pig. I used ass muscles I didn’t even know I had. Came home and spent the evening chilling (well, immobile, more accurately) with a movie and dinner.

Sunday morning, we got up and got ready for rock climbing, gathered our gear, headed out to Bruce (the car)… only to find the window had been smashed and the radio stolen. Argh. Spent the better part of the morning calling in a police report, checking insurance policies, calling autoglass repair places. Bah humbug. Since our morning plans were trashed, J decided to make french toast *his way*. With garlic and ketchup. Definitely savoury – it’s good, but a little disconcerting, as my brain kept expecting a different taste than what my mouth experienced. It’s good, but it takes a little getting used to. Went to Sydenham and got some perspex put into the window (the glass won’t be in for a day or so), went and had a pint down the street (vandalism does tend to dampen one’s spirit a bit, but we enjoyed thinking of cruel and unusual ways to exact our revenge), and J made a lamb roast for sunday dinner.

may you die a long, slow, painful death, you stoopid thieves…

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so then –

wish i had more exciting news to relate about this weekend, but all in all it mostly consisted of drinking, hobbling, and baking.

friday night, ja nd i met up w/ andy to exchange musical memorabilia. andy brought me back a jealous sound t-shirt and a signed cd, as he got to rub noses with the band whilst out in cali. nice to know they haven’t been tainted by stardom. perhaps I’ll even get a chance to see them when i am home for holiday in august (did i mention that? j and i are headed to nyc/boston to visit the folk and peeps. it’ll be his first visit, so should be fun to show him the old ‘hoods). here’s a pic of a and blair shehan:

the pixies fairy brought him a t-shirt and a downloaded copy of the gig he missed.

spent much of the evening discoursing on the sad state of the american government, world politics, and how to make a bomb out of matchstick heads and a needle. aided, of course, by plenty of liquid refreshment.

saturday morning, i was feeling quite brave and suggestes j and i go for a run down to the river and back (nearly 8 miles). this went rather well – plenty of sweat and fresh air and sunshine. until my knee gave out – again. rather than take the prudent course of action and baby my recurrent injury, i (being rather chilly) decided to try and keep running. bad idea, capital b, capital i. upon reaching home, it was quickly ascertained that i could no longer ascend even the most measly starcase, as anything requiring bending my knee whilst putting my weight on it, brought on a severe case of the “owies”. (need i point out that my flat is two flights up, and two floors?). managed to limp heavily to go see “harry potter” that night, but moaning with every step is not the most joyous of sounds.

sunday, rock climbing was out of the question, so spent the day baking loads of carbohydrate confections instead, and watched a bunch of dvds in the evening.

not all that exciting, but there you have it.

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Weekend was lovely. Friday night we just chilled and watched a dvd. Saturday, slept in til 11:30! (I used to sleep until noon or one in NYC, but I was also 26!)

However, I have now come to an important realisation in my realtionship with J. Namely, that if I want to spend a whole day doing *nothing*, I’ll have to do it without him.

The boy is incapable of doing nothing. He woke up at 8:00 to run and put the parking permit on the car. I had to practically drag him back to bed. When we woke up again, he had to run out and return the tent we had borrowed. Came back and had to do the washing up while I was making banana bread muffins for breakfast. He was itching to wash the car, but I forbade it. Then got him to sit and play a video game for about an hour while I was tinkering on the computer. But then he had to jump up and go return the dvd. Got back and he was anxious about when we were going to the bbq our flatmate was having at her boyfriends. Finally, I capitulated.

The *only* thing we had to do was return the dvd, everything else was completely optional. And he just could not sit still. Ah well. We went to the bbq (a huge spit braai, with two whole lambs on spits in the garden)and stuffed ourselves silly and had a few too many beers. Got home and I had a bad headache so I went to bed, but he went next door where the neighbours were having some drinks with our climbing friends.

Needless to say, no climbing Sunday. No one was really motivated being a) hungover and b) not wanting to be indoors. So we had a nice fruit salad and bloody mary breakfast in the sun, then went down to Tooting Bec where our friends were playing frisbee, and went back to their house for a bbq lunch. Got home in time to see France kick Englands ass in the footie match. (J hates the English team, and I have to agree that the Brits have been pretty insufferable about the whole thing…)

From the quasi-real world:

The Brits complain they don’t get enough holiday time and they’re sorely overworked. Meanwhile, the Japanese just put up and shut up.

dunno how much I believe in the future of nanotechnology, but here’s a cool article about it

hmmm, parallels between kerry and bush srs. foreign policy?

just for shits and giggles – pussy scott stapp (of suck-ass neo-christian group “creed”) wants strip clubs to stop playing his songs. but of course.

that’s all for now, folks.

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very busy weekend ’twas!

friday night was jonno’s birthday drinks, which involved mass quantities of beer, far-too-animated bullshit debate, and the inevitable stumble home which ensued.

saturday, the weather was glorious, so we headed to the park, where kerryn taught me to throw a curve pitch (he said i had a “natural action”, and having been groomed for the minor leagues, he should know). admire my mechanics below:

there was a whole lot of ball huntin’ in the grass (*i* didn’t lose it!), running around after escapee wild throws (i take credit for only a few), and some very dirty feet. then we played a knucklebiting game of scrabble, ate strawberries, and toasted ourselves to a light sunburn.

then saturday night, we went to see legend bad religion play at the astoria. they fuckin’ rocked. blew the house away (not to mention the satisfactorily righteous thrashing of the current political shenanigans or bush & co., which warmed the cockles of my heart). there were, of course, the obligatory torturous opening bands they like to subject you to once you are trapped and cannot leave, but luckily, it was more than worth the wait. jonno and kerryn moshed till they could mosh no more (i just jumped around a whole lot), and left the altar or their heros simultaneously awestruck and thoroughly gratified.

sunday morning and afternoon were spent rock climbing. i invested in a proper pair of climbing shoes, and climbed till my hands and arms were jellied. i want to buy a nice harness next, but at least now, i no longer have to worry about getting a fungal infection from the hired shoes (climbing shoes are generally worn sans sox, and being made of leather and gummy soles, cannot be laundered. you can only imagine how manky they get…)

sunday evening we went grocery shopping (woo hoo! there is only so much pasta one person can eat in a week) and then popped in to the barbeque next door, before retiring to watch “25th hour”.

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busy weekend.

friday night, impromptu drinks with the saffas at a local tooting pub, where there was too much vodka and not enough food to be had.

saturday, were meant to be painting my room at my old flat, but by the time we roused ourselves, went to the gym (the best cure for a hangover), went shopping for paint, went shopping for carrot cake ingredients, and got back to the flat, next doors braai (bbq) was in full swing so we spent the evening gorging ourselves on mountains of meat, drinking tons of beer, and listening to heavy metal.

sunday was a tiring day. got up and went to the old flat, and spent 9 hours trying to paint white over pink. three bits of hard won knowledge to impart:

1. you get what you pay for when buying paint
2. no matter what the label says, white covers *nothing* in one coat, except perhaps white
3. never paint anything you don’t own outright

after a long hard day of manual labour, came home and cooked dinner, and shredded my knuckles making a carrot cake for…

monday, jonno’s 27th bday (yup, you read that number right…)

champagne and cake for breakfast, followed by a lovely trip to greenwich for some sun and lunch, and a movie and more cake in the evening. all in all, not a bad way to spend your birthday…

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ahhh, the end of a three day weekend.

friday night was blah. jonno had a work gig, and everyone else was gone for the weekend, so i went to the gym, then vegged at home and just lay like broccoli.

saturday was chilled – breakfast in bed, did a few errands (took the ring in to be re-sized) wandered around the south bank, walked across to embankment, bought some saffa goodies and a wallet for j, headed up to covent garden and had a few beers, bought donnie darko dvd, and came home and watched movies.

sunday was a gloriously sunny day, so kerryn came over and cooked breakfast (two days in a row i had men making me breakfast! a girl could get used to that!) and then we picked up tonya and chris and headed to kent for some outdoor rock climbing. took ages to find the place (we took a brief detour through the local production of robin hood!), but we finally stumbled into it, had a picnic lunch and after much dithering about, and setting up, re-setting up…we finally climbed some frikken rocks! amazing rush, particularly outdoors, where if you fall or slamm into the wall, the stakes are just a teensy bit higher. i left some skin on the rocks, and the rocks left some imprints on my skin. after a nice long day in the sun, we headed home, and watched another dvd.

monday was pissing rain. went to the gym, went to my old flat and cleared out some more stuff. went shopping and bought some cake ingredients, came home and baked a big ole chocolate cake. mmmm.

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