all systems go

I need to report that all household technical difficulties mentioned in earlier logs are FIXED!

Mark just read back through entries past and demanded I report that he fixed to working order:

• the digital TV
• the stereo (with its many components)
• land-line phone service

And we now have 24/7 internet wireless connectivity. Thank the lord. I was too much of a regular at the internet cafes in town.

So Mark's capabilities/pride are restored. And we have an additional 5 channels of nothing to watch.

Dapper in the stripy suit. 

Night out in London. 

Will probably be mad that I'm posting his photo. Gray Saturday, walking the streets.  

A tribute to so many good Marys and my alma mater.  

The many colleges in Cambridge. 

out of order

I am probably braking with convention to post pics from my farewell soiree a month after I've been gone, but just realised (realized -- still can't do the English spelling w/o letting people know it is odd for me) that I never posted the rest of the pictures and people were asking after them.

the underbates. the batewoods 

my favourite quinns 

somehow this captures you sassy duo 

mary mary quite contrary 

The railroad tracks, which I live on the other side of.  

Saris for sale on Mill Road. 

I keep thinking this says 'Shoplifting' everytime I pass it. (which is everyday) 

Not everyday is gray here...  

They have the BIGGEST spiders I have ever seen here. Charlotte here was in our garden. (Note the long grass, we have to find out who cuts it for us...) 

The "wheelie bin" we had to buy for the rubbish collection. (I put the stickers on it... so it doesn't get pinched.) 

wrong side of the tracks

I have just realised (realized) that there really is a wrong side of the tracks. And we live on it.

The girls all look cheesed off and are smoking. And have children with them that I pray are their siblings. A lot of eyeliner. And they tell you to piss off sooner than the time on their watch.

I like it.

It is oddly freeing. I feel like the proverbial fly, and am invisible and able to just watch and take it all in. Because it isn't really about me. I still feel like I am on an anthropological trip to infiltrate with the locals and study behaviour and note social mores.

And no one looks like me. I am a brown hair/ brown girl in a sea of pale. I (still) feel healthy and vibrant. The student population around me seem like they need showers and clothes that tuck in properly. And some sunshine.

On the other side of the tracks, which I am just starting to explore, people look hearty but kind. I can't walk 2 blocks without an adorable cafe beckoning. Gardens flourish and the greens are green.

I am going to like walking in silence between the 2 worlds. Feeling at ease in both. But not quite at home.

Night clouds

First night in the house by myself last night, as M was away in Munich for work. After 100 years of apartment living, I am a big sissy. I am so used to having only ONE way into the house, and a 24-hour front door (albeit a lame, sleeping one) person to keep harm away.

Now I am in a real town house with and up and a down and a front door and a back door and first floor windows. (Yes, I too mental inventory of ways people could get in.)

Every creak was danger. Every noise clearly an intruder. But, big surprise, I awoke alive and well. That'll learn me.

Still waiting for our BT land line and our internet service. And for some reason the stereo (with the multi-components) will not work. Or the digital TV service. And I live with an engineer. It has been a silent but happy home. We are making weekly pilgrimages to England's answer to Home Depot. Let me say, I miss Target. They have Home Base and B&Q and Focus, but none of them really hold a candle to Target or a good old Lowes.

People are DIY (do it yerself) CRAZY here. And they call it D-I-Y. Which is kinda queer. We get 5 TV channels and at any given time 3 of them will have house -related shows on. Decorating, gardens, selling, cleaning, swapping, holiday homes, nightmares, dream homes, AUGH!

I want the digital TV to work.

Speaking of work, I must get me somma that. Especially with such fine examples of grammar I just displayed. Seriously, I could easily just make soup and eat small candybars and empty the dishwasher and make sure we have clean towels for a few more weeks, but I think one might think I was being lazy.

I lost my resume. In the transition to my new computer, I copied? Deleted? Lost? the soft copy of the CV and I feel it to be especially symbolic. Starting over with no background. Anyhoo- if any of you readers (and you know who you are) have a soft copy from within the last 3 years, can you sent to me? I feel naked and soft without it. And, frankly, un-employable.

Bill O'Reilley sex scandal?
Fingers crossed for Kerry.
Wisconsin people- can you rally? I was amazed to see we are still on the fence leaning 'that' way.