Gone to the Swan
December 2, 2010
I spent almost all of my time in London, but there was one side trip. Dan thought it would be fun to combine an outing to the country with tracking down one of the honorees on a top pubs list by the Guardian. That was Swan on the Green in West Peckham, Kent.
We took the train from London to Wateringbury. The Wateringbury station house was a charming old building with lots of interesting shapes and angles.
From there we had an about four mile walk to West Peckham and the Swan.
The town of Wateringbury seemed pretty typical. I noticed a few of these World War II plaques on walls along the road. Other than Ground Zero in New York City, we don’t really have physical battlefields on the continental United States from recent times, so I thought they were pretty interesting. Most of my knowledge of the war comes from television programs like “Foyle’s War.” It was a little eerie in a way seeing these markers of people’s pride in their war effort, and definitely humbling to see firsthand evidence of something I only know through Hollywood representations.
We walked on. This was pretty typical of my view—Dan and Casper way ahead. I thought I was a fast walker, but Dan walks really fast. I didn’t always bother to holler that I was stopping to look at something and take pictures, like when, being the Midwestern girl that I am, I got a kick out of hey, they grow corn here, too!
Along the way, we thought we’d stop at Mereworth Castle and have a look around. As we approached the “castle,” which was really just a large manor, a woman came running out and inquired, rather suspiciously and in a thick Slavic accent, what we were doing there. We learned that it was a private residence not open to the public and beat a hasty retreat back to the main road. Instead, I settled for taking what turned out to be my favorite photo that I’ve taken so far on my iPhone 4 of roses in the yard of the church in the town of Mereworth. I love the colors and the blown-out exposure of the background.
Mereworth is also where we crossed a street named, appropriately enough, The Street. That tickled my funnybone.
We continued to walk without incident, except for Casper’s alarming tendency to occasionally drift out into the road, until we reached West Peckham. We triumphantly strode up to the Swan on the Green, ready for a tasty beverage to refresh us after our walk, only to find that they were closed until suppertime. Anticlimax.
Casper set up watch and we endeavored to kill over an hour, which included playing backgammon and exploring the neighboring church yard.
Casper talked us into a few ball sessions on the eponymous green across from the pub until, at last, it was once again open for business.
We were excited because we knew they made their own beer. I always enjoy sampling new and local brews when I go places. By that time we were also famished and enjoyed a nice meal.
It was soon time to go, though Dan determined that we were a little too late to catch the last train back to London from Wateringbury, so when we got back as far as Mereworth (approximately), we went to The Queen’s Head Pub (StreetView), whose sign we had seen on the main road, and called a cab to take us somewhere else—to Tonbridge, I think (correct me if I’m wrong)—to catch the train from there. We had just enough time for one more thirst quencher while we waited for our ride.
It was almost a disaster—the cab driver informed us that dogs were not allowed, but we didn’t have to work too hard to convince him otherwise. It seemed like the car ride to Tonbridge took as long as the whole train ride down had earlier in the day, but at last we were speeding toward home. We were all quite pleased when we arrived back at the house.
My career as a rock star
December 1, 2010
When I was an early teen, I wanted to be John Deacon—not the man, but the bass player in a rock band.
I don’t recall any career aspirations from small childhood. I was always drawing pictures, or writing little things, or playing with invisible Harlem Globetrotters in the giant box from our new washer. But none of that transmogrified into a life path. It wasn’t until I was about twelve or thirteen my inner bass player began to make herself known.
Now, I never took bass lessons, electric or otherwise. Every now and then I’d pick up my dad’s old Gibson archtop guitar and relearn the same three or four chords. But that was as far as any learning of a stringed instrument went. But still, I fantasized about being a rock and roll bass player. I remember that it manifested itself mainly at Saturday morning bowling when we’d play “New Kid in Town” (Eagles) and “Slow Ride” (Foghat) on the jukebox and I’d really get into the last chorus.
I started taking piano lessons when I was seven and that became the more practical skill in my rock musician efforts. When I was in high school, I was invited to play a monophonic synthesizer in my boyfriend’s friends’ basement band. We got together pretty regularly for a couple of years. I often didn’t have much to do, as it’s hard to contribute much monophonically in songs like “Cinnamon Girl” (Neil Young) or “Hold on Loosely” (38 Special).
At each practice, I bided my time until we got to the songs during which I could really make that synthesizer hum—“Too Much Time on My Hands” (Styx) and my pièce de résistance, “Never Been Any Reason” (Head East) with that kick-ass synth solo in the middle.
We only ever played in public twice—two summers in a row at the church camp where the mother of two of the band members was a counsellor. At the end of one performance, one little girl breathlessly asked me if I was Joan Jett. I let her down easy.
The other thing thing that I did in high school that I suppose could have been a career path was work at a couple of local radio stations, though I don’t remember ever thinking of it that way while I was doing it.
My high school had an in-house, closed circuit student radio station. I got involved, and that led to the opportunity of filling in at the university radio station one Christmas break. I started out reading the news but soon had a weekly, three-hour shift. One of the highlights off my time there was meeting the members of Head East, who were in town for a show and who swung by for an interview. I didn’t conduct it, but I was present and snapped lots of photos (see below). I must have told them that I used to rock their song.
From the campus radio station, I then had a job at the AM (medium wave) country station in town. My main task was to play various prerecorded programs on Sunday mornings, but in the summer when there was longer daylight, I also got the last couple of hours of the day before it got dark and the station ceased broadcasting for the day. This is where I acquired my surprising-to-some-people knowledge of country music.
Such was the extent of my music-related activities. When I graduated with my commercial art degree, my parents gave me a digital piano. I took that over to a friend’s house a few times where I joined him and his friend. They played acoustic guitar and Dobro. The one song that we tried to work up was “You Really Got a Hold on Me.”
Maybe all of this is why I love to sing karaoke so much.
Photo of John Deacon, top, taken at the “New of the World” concert that I attended.
Good old country comfort
November 5, 2010
I’ve never thought of myself as someone who takes comfort in things. I’m not the one who runs out to shop when I’m in a mood (what mood is one in when one comfort shops? I don’t even know), or who binges on donuts and potato chips when I’m upset. Buying a new pair of shoes does not make me feel better.
Nevertheless, I cannot deny how much I enjoy food and drink, and how I use both as comfort and reward. I know donuts and potato chips are technically food, but they’re junk foods so I discount them—empty calories of processed flour, sugar, potatoes. I feel slightly superior that my comfort food takes the form of pizza (dairy and vegetables with a little flour in the thin, flat crust that I prefer) and beer and wine (I experience a chemical imbalance from it).
I engage in a favorite comfort combo is when I’m feeling lonely. Not because I’m always alone because I’ve freely chosen and embraced the singleton lifestyle which I’m generally fine with, but due to those periodic occasions when I actually wish I had another person around. Nothing soothes me like a big old broiled steak, a giant salad with lots of veggies and vinegar and oil dressing, a movie such as “Bridget Jones’s Diary” or “Under the Tuscan Sun” or a James Bond (wha?) and a bottle of red wine, preferably one of my favorites like Pepperwood Grove Old Vine Zinfandel (a steal at about $7 or $8 per bottle). I’ll be hopelessly weeping by the end of the movie but the next day I’ll feel very satisfied and emotionally refreshed.
I guess beer’s just a general reward for having made to that point the next day. There aren’t many days that go by right now that don’t include a beer or three. I suppose I use it to compensate and comfort myself for the things that I have to deal with in daily life that I’d rather not have to, like working for a living. Not the best reason, but there it is.
Pizza always brings pleasantness to my life—sometimes more than others, as I have forgotten how to stop eating after a sensible amount. I LOVE PIZZA om nom nom nom nom …
When I am getting lunch during a work day, one of my favorites is the lunch special at D’Amico and Sons. I get the Caprese Panini and Tuscan Chicken Soup. That’s a fancy way of saying tomato soup and grilled cheese. Who doesn’t love and wouldn’t be comforted by that? Delicious tomato-based soup with a cheesy overtone and gooey mozzarella sandwiched (pardon the expression) between perfectly toasted and crinkled slices of Italian bread.
I’m sure I could come up with a few other go-to comfort foods (can you say Chipotle chicken burrito, black beans, easy on the rice, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, and green salsa, or The Brothers Deli totally awesome clam chowder on Fridays?) but I won‘t try. You get the idea.
And as for comfort of the flesh and blood kind, how about your cat lounging on you, or giving you a kneady back rub before she flops herself down against you for the night. What’s that? You say you have a human partner? Kids? Pshaw.
Last tango for my eyesight
October 16, 2010
Maybe I’m extremely nearsighted because when I was nine years old, I spent too much time looking at the photo included with Time Magazine’s review of “Last Tango in Paris.” That’s not actually the truth, because I’ve worn glasses since I was six-and-a-half or seven. But I remember spending a lot of time looking at that photo.
I don’t remember what incidence of somebody realizing that I couldn’t quite make it out led to my first visit to the eye doctor. I just remember that it was part of the way through first grade or in the beginning of second grade when I got my first pair of glasses. And being the early 1970s, the frames were plastic and dark. And because at that time, my fashion sense was determined by my mother (who also was still sewing us matching outfits), my early frames always had multiple straight sides. My mom loved hexagons and octagons.
Here are some early school pictures of myself wearing glasses. I think we have ages seven, eight, and nine. I’m sure the right-hand photo is age nine, because I’m wearing a retainer (also, please note the Winnie-the-Pooh turtleneck). That was a result of the dentist/orthodontist determining that I had small jaws and would need braces, and that all my adult teeth wouldn’t fit. Therefore, four of my permanent molars were pulled, I had black thread stitches in my gums, and I got a lot of mileage out of grossing out other kids with those very stitches.
Age nine was also about the time I would have been going cross-eyed from that “Last Tango in Paris” still in Time, which I usually checked out in the bathroom. Well, that’s where “reading material” ended up. As a girl, however, the previous sentence doesn’t have quite the same connotation as if I had been a boy. Also, my mother was squarely into hexagonal frames by that time.
The photo was of a woman on the left and a man on the right sitting, facing each other, with their knees up and legs intertwined. As I child, I was all atwitter because I perceived that there were breasts exposed.
My eyesight continued to worsen for thirty years. Then the distance vision leveled off but I hit forty, so now I have bifocals. That totally sucks. I’m on my second bifocal prescription and can quite tell that it needs to be updated again. Health insurance only pays for one pair of glasses per year. I have four months to go.
So tonight, because I’m once again way behind on my Comcast bill (cable tv and inernet) and am once again pretending that I’m about to stick it to the man and cancel it all and just watch what I can using city wireless internet (two year city wireless only about $40 dollars more than two months Comcast cable tv and internet) and what’s free on the internet or with a couple of relatively inexpensive subscriptions, I brought home some sushi and a really tasty Argentinean Malbeca, and tuned in to Hulu for a movie and a Comcastless test drive of a movie on the internet.
“Last Tango in Paris” was the first title that came up that wasn’t zombie, slutty, or sci-fi slutty. I remembered that Time Magazine write-up and settled in, thirty-eight years later, to watch the movie that left an impression nine-year-old me.
It was alright (except for the part where free Hulu didn’t show me the last twenty minutes as it asked if I’d like to buy the DVD, erm, no), but nothing earthshattering, other than I got to practice listening to some French.
I know a lot of men just love “The Godfather,” but to be perfectly honest, I don’t see what all the fuss is about Marlon Brando. He has a funny voice, he’s a little bit pudgy, and a lot of it in this movie is done with camera work. However, I will give the ’70s a lot of credit for being less uptight about sex, sexuality, and nudity. What changed?
And, although there was plenty of nudity in the movie elsewhere, what I remember from that photo in Time ended up being one or two feminine curves with nothing much really showing, and four strategically placed knees.
What a letdown!
(Compared to the well-defined actual breasts shown in the movie, the ambiguously smoothed curves in the photo at top are just as my nine-year-old-self remembers them.)
A rose by any other name ???
October 14, 2010
… would, in my case, not be the same. If you ever happen to become my suitor, take note. Roses will not impress me. They smell good, sure, but I love carnations and marigolds best. Of course, marigolds don’t get cut for bouquets, but carnations do. Bring me mini-carnations.
I suppose my love of marigolds goes back to childhood. My mom always planted petunias in the planter around our streetlight at the front of the yard. And I got to sow marigold seeds in the planter between the front porch and yard. That planter is also where we buried our first rabbit, Rabbit C (whose security question answer name I still won’t reveal). I remember my excitement when the first sprouts would appear. They were completely my responsibility. The marigolds and mowing the grass.
Carnations I came to love later. Though I haven’t done for a few years, I went through a phase of grabbing a bouquet of flowers during my visit to the grocery store. I learned that the mini-carnations were among the longest lasting, and then I realized that I just plain liked them. I like the big ones, too.
As far as fragrance goes, I think it would be hard to argue against lilacs. Before I moved into my current place, my old bike commute took me past a half block of old, giant lilac bushes. It was such a delight to pass by them in the spring. Refreshing in the morning, and stress-releasing in the evening. Then, when I bought my condo, I inherited a Japanese lilac bush right outside my front window. It is just unbelievably wonderful to have the scent of lilac wafting into your home. Lilacs, why do you not bloom forever?
But I also like the milky, mild smell of carnations. And call me odd (here’s another reason) but I also truly like the pungent odor of marigolds.
As for other flowers, some of you will remember that just twenty-four hours ago, I was coveting Lacey Schwimmer’s (what I called) pink peony dress. I love Dancing with the Stars and I think that dress is in at least my top five favorites (I’ve been watching since the beginning, ten seasons ago). I happen to have pink peonies in my little condo garden, though two have never quite recovered from being transplanted and not enough sun hits any of the three of them, so they’re not very big.
Musically, who doesn’t love Tschaikovky’s Nutcracker Suite? Well, I do. So I’ll leave you with the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.”
Buy the Nutcracker Suite here.
Laser cat
September 29, 2010
Have you ever done something you wished you hadn’t? I thought so. There are a number of things in my past that make me cringe when I think about them. Lasing someone with my eyes is not one of them. My (perceived) laser wit sometimes is.
Some things I must chalk up to youth. MC, I so wanted to jump in in support and say me, too, when you were railing against that one guy who got us all riled up a few times. But even now, and maybe because I’m a generation older, I can’t even say more than that. On the other hand, you make decisions that are appropriate for you at the time. I don’t regret that.
More simply, I am the one who, in a noisy room, inevitably, is the one trying to get a point across about someone else present when it suddenly goes quiet and I’m left shouting the inappropriate comment.
Also, due to how I was raised, which was by the philosophy “it doesn’t hurt to ask,” I have sometimes gotten burned. But if you don’t put yourself out there, you’ll gain nothing. About half the time, you’ll feel foolish. But at least you tried.
Sometimes, you’re simply using humor as a foil. Whether you’re playing the straight man or attempting a joke which falls flatter than a pancake, you attempt to save face by saying, “What? That’s what I meant.”
Sure it is. Just like you meant to slice that thing in half with your laser eyes.
Original photo by sarastarrr. Calleigh sounds a little like Kelly. Adapted by me.
The three Bs: bowling, beer, and broke
September 19, 2010
It’s not too much of a mystery what makes up a large part of why I live paycheck to paycheck. Every now and then I “like” to actually add it up and make a fuss that I’m going to pretend to be more thrifty—with the drinking, not the bowling. Bowling is what passes for my social life.
I bowl in two leagues per week and usually drink steadily during the evening (certainly by now you’ve gotten the impression that I like my beer). Most of the time I also eat supper at the bowling alley.
Fall leagues go for thirty or so weeks, roughly coinciding with the school year. I myself also bowl for thirteen weeks in the summer. I’ll base these calculations on thirty weeks. You’ll get the idea. And I’ll still be horrified by the actual numbers, just like I am with my age when I think about the actual number.
$750 = $25 x 30 Monday league fee
$810 = $27 x 30 Thursday league fee
$405 – $540 = $13.50–$18.00 x 30 Monday Summit EPA
$373.50–$498 = $12.45–$16.60 x 30 Thursday Surly Furious
$210 = $7 x 30 Monday Buffalo Chicken Wrap
$150 = $5 x 30 Thursday mini pizza with two toppings (in my top three favorite pizzas in the Twin Cities metro)
Ugh. Are you good at math in your head? Did you add it up already?
$2698.50–$2958.00 for 30 weeks in two leagues.
And that doesn’t include tips or the drink or two or three at karaoke afterwards on Thursdays.
That’s a chunk of change. How are you “frivolous” with your money in these tough times?
Me, right now
September 18, 2010
Take a photo of yourself right now! Even though I looked pretty rough, I regret that I censored (and deleted) my very first “right now” this morning. But I was embarrassed by the result of too much beer and too little sleep last night.
Instead you get my second, third, and fourth right nows. I came back to the camera after I had had my shower this morning and was feeling clean, if not a little fresher than half an hour earlier. I tried to get my cat CJ to join me but she was too busy buttering me up for her breakfast to pose nicely.
During the day, some people posted followup photos to their first ones, and in the seventh inning of the Minnesota Twins baseball game at Target Field tonight, I decided that would be the perfect scene for another shot. You can see that I and 40,000 of my closest friends are enjoying ourselves, despite the Twins’ subsequent loss to the Oakland A’s.
The weather was iffy today, and if there’s a chance it will rain, I park my bike at a nearby building under its overhang for shelter. (My office and Target Field are within a few blocks of each other so I just leave my bike where it is when I go to a game.) I guess because it’s a utility company they have good security, including a camera that monitors the front where the bike rack is. And something in its software motion detects and draws a red box around the mover. That’s me! I find it a little creepy that it can do that, but at the same time, sometimes I dance around a little just to see how the square changes size. I had snapped this picture to share my thoughts about it elsewhere, then couldn’t resist also sharing it with the other right nowers.
And now to bed so that I won’t have to be embarrassed two mornings in a row.
Inertia, part 3
September 16, 2010
Well, it’s been a little over ten months since I berated myself and bemoaned my apparent lack of motivation to accomplish my life’s big goal, moving to London, England. The Shubert Theater managed to get off its ass and begin restoration. Let’s take a look at how I’m doing.
As a result of making new friends in the Tweak Today community, some of whom live in London, I resolved during the winter that after I got my (U.S.) income tax refund in February or March, one of the things I’d do with the cash was book a trip across the pond.
Although I have previously lamented that in this down market, my mortgage traps me unless I want to take quite a hit in selling price, one positive is that the mortgage interest credit on my tax return provides for a sizable refund. Once a year, I clear up all my outstanding financial obligations (including paying my friend who floats me for Minnesota Twins baseball season tickets for the previous summer) and take my three pets in for checkups.
This year, I took care of myself first. I spent a lovely nine days in London the end of June beginning of July and hung out with my new friends. It was a good trip.They both live “in town” and I got a lot of time walking around on my own during the work day and going about the business of locals in the evenings. It gave me a good opportunity for a better-informed evaluation of how I might actually like living there. I was not dissuaded from my desires.
I figure it would still be at least a couple of years before I could make anything happen. The notion that I’ve had in my head since London won the 2012 Summer Olympics is that if I planned my arrival for soon thereafter, there might be ample more-reasonably priced living accommodations. On the other hand, if I somehow got myself there, you know, soon, maybe it would be easier for me to find a graphic design job or otherwise in the run-up.
It’s me. It will be later rather than sooner. And so far this entry is idle chat about my vacation, not a change in behavior.
What I have started doing is going through stuff around the house with an eye to downsizing before a cross-ocean move. Or because I simply have too much crap and I had houseguests. The casual observer would be hard-pressed to notice any difference, but I know the progress I made. A couple of my neighbors have much less stuff than I and have brought out the potential in their units. I want mine to be like that when I sell.
I did pass my 15-year anniversary at work and have no doubt that I’ll make it to 16 and beyond. Changing jobs wasn’t really the point of any of this, at least not until I’m looking for a job in London.
For a while I had been watching less television and doing more writing, reading, anything, but that bloom mostly faded. I still haven’t finished The Stuff of Thought, but I did manage to breeze through a romance novel in less than 24 hours this past weekend.
I don’t think there are obvious outward signs that my state of being is any different. About the best I can say is that I am quite certain that I’ll book another jaunt to London this winter when airfare is at its cheapest and I could accomplish the trip from a couple of paychecks rather than shooting my wad on high-season summer prices. I don’t need warm weather to have a good time.
On the indisputably positive side, a year and a half later I am still working out at Curves regularly. And, after the aforementioned ten months, still writing this blog.
The links, except the one about the Shubert, are all to previous blog entries which are related to one degree or another.
Opposites attract ??? going for baroque
September 15, 2010
We all like lots of things. If you thought about your musical tastes, I’m sure it wouldn’t take too long to think of two entities that were quite diverse but which you loved equally. One such pair for me is Antonio Vivaldi and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
If you are just a casual fan of classical music or not at all a fan of classical music, maybe you’re thinking, but they’re both classical composers, they aren’t that different. But those of us who have more than a passing interest know that they are quite different. Vivaldi is Baroque and precise. Rachmaninoff is (late) Romantic and organic.
My overall favorite genre of classical music is Baroque, and Vivaldi is my favorite classical composer of any ilk. You’re probably most familiar with his Four Seasons, and that’s an amazing piece of music. My fondest memory of it was watching ice dancers Maya Usova and Aleksandr Zhulin skate to it in the 1992 Winter Olympics, especially the moves at about 4:30. It still sends chills up my spine!
Sure, there’s the flasher Johann Sebastian Bach. As a kid taking piano lessons, I really enjoyed learning piano adaptations of some two- and three-part inventions. Over the years, the book has lost its cover and been nibbled on by my various rabbits. I haven’t played my piano for years. I like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart just fine as well, but his music always seems a little more clinical in its ultra-precision. (I guess he’s technically considered to be of the Classical era, though there is overlap with Baroque and the stylistic influence is present.)
I would probably say that Georg Friedrich Handel is my second favorite Baroque composer. Every December, I listen to my complete recording of The Messiah, and Watermusik is just charming.
Two-thirds of the way to the other end of the spectrum is Rachmaninoff and his lush romanticism. I’m a big fan of the four piano concerti, especially No. 2 in C Minor, Op.18 (buy). The opening of the first movement is just so … Russian. And in the second movement, astute listeners will hear one of the motifs on which Eric Carmen based his hit song “All by Myself.”
What musical opposites do you like?
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 