Merry Christmas to all!

The Gift Of The Magi
by O Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pierglass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Going to a Catholic Mass

One day a Jewish couple decided to see what
a Catholic Mass was like.

Toward the middle of the service, the priest said,
"At this point of the service, if you are not a
Catholic, you will need to leave at this time."

No one left.

So, for clarity of his request, the priest continued,
"If you are a Protestant or a Jew, we would kindly
ask you to leave the sanctuary at this time."

All of a sudden the statues of Joseph,  and Mary with
Jesus in her arms came alive, and Mary said,

"Come on, Joseph, let's take the kid and go
home."

One of the loveliest people I've ever known and had the honour of calling my friend died yesterday. Her name was Dorothea Nissen Phillips; Dea to most of us who loved her. It happened while she was away on a cruise holiday to South America with her husband Fred; travel was one of her great passions.

Typical of the Internet age, I found out this morning when I woke up and saw a text message from my daughter on my iPhone: Aunt Dea died. I've heard people use the word shattered to describe how they felt and always thought it was an overly dramatic claim but the moment I looked at that short message, something inside me shattered.

I'd known Dea for over 40 years; since we were 19 years old. Our lives intertwined in myriad ways over those years. She loved and cared for my children as if they were her own and I in turn loved and cared for hers. We had an endless series of madcap adventures, shared secrets, and shared interests.

I've spent today remembering her, thinking about her daughters Tavie and Kirsten, thinking about Fred, and talking with my own children who are in shock at the loss, reminiscing about the good times we had.

Dea, I miss you so much already.

WTC

2000 -  viewed from Staten Island ferry

 2001 - 9/11  viewed from office

Asti at Everest Base Camp

Asti celebrates with Sword & Martini at Everest Base Camp

And so farewell Toshiba laptop. The migration to the new HP computer is complete. Nothing lost, everything moved over reasonably successfully and basically with little to no hassle. Even managed to remove most of the Bloatware/Crap HP insists on pre-loading computers with though I'm still working out how to uninstall a particularly unpleasant bit of crap called WizLink. But by and large the new computer is sheer delight.

The Toshiba laptop was gone from my desk when I woke up this morning. Alan took it to work with him having offered it to his company sys admin in a deal. The sys admin will take the laptop apart and retrieve the data stick stuck in it and then the laptop is his. I can then return the data stick to its owner and he can then reformat the laptop with Linux. He doesn't care about its laundry list of problems so it works out for us both.

Alan bought me a new computer this weekend. It took me most of Saturday & Sunday to move my files from the old laptop onto a usb drive. Tonight we finally set up the new computer, an HP desktop, and I'm now finishing up moving files. There's still a few hours work installing and migrating data, sorting out mail and passwords, etc but essentially I'm up and running on the new machine.

What a delight it is, my first brand new computer in over 6 years. It's been a nightmare reusing machines from Alan or work, etc and always having to deal with a myriad of things that just don't work right because someone set them up wrong and I inherited the problem.

Next month we'll add a 2nd hard drive as this machine has a spare slot ready for it. I'm hoping to get a 2T drive. I'll also get some more memory as that's deeply discounted at the moment. A new printer is probably going to be a must as HP seems to not be supporting 64bit drivers for the one we have.

West Middlesex University Hospital

I had surgery today at West Middlesex University Hospital in Isleworth, London, UK. This is an NHS hospital and for American readers, let me disclose that it is not a "University Hospital" in any sense we know of in the USA.
The hospital has fairly murky Victorian roots; it was opened in 1894 as the Brentford Workhouse Infirmary (shades of Charles Dickens!), but was partly refurbished/partly new rebuild about 10 years ago. While the current hospital now looks reasonably modern if hideously ugly at a glance, many departments and facilities remain shambolicly designed and run with a laundry list of serious issues. I remain convinced that the entire facility was designed by an airport architect specializing in making access between any 2 locations as distant and difficult to transit as possible; even the disabled parking was placed at a significant distance from the main entrance and at the bottom of a steep incline. Paid parking, of course.

Many of the "Consultants", "Registrars", and registered nurses are excellent, caring, dedicated physicians, surgeons, and speciality nurses. But they are a small drop in a large bucket. The Admin staff is almost unfailingly Kafkaesque in their arrogant, condescending, mean-spirited work practices, often startlingly ignorant and contemptuous of the professional staff, dismissive of patients.

I'll shortly add a post mortem review of serious issues observed at WMUH and a Lessons Learned guide which is probably applicable to any contact with a NHS hospital.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Just watched the final Harry Potter film tonight. Wow! A worthy end to the tale.
Very satisfying, very engrossing.
A good way to end.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other peoples' gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickles for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

by Jenny Joseph

Mothers Day - US style

Astrid and I went out for Mothers Day brunch last Sunday - observing the real ie US Mothers Day. Asti picked a real winner, the Village East on Bermondsey Street. Lovely Eggs Benedict, lovely pancakes with real maple syrup and gorgeous bacon...and the best Bloody Marys I've had in recent memory or possibly ever. 

If restaurants in London still allowed smoking, I could see that place becoming a family favourite/regular hangout and whiling away lazy Sundays there with newspapers and good conversation to round out the great food.

But, having to walk outside and smoke in the street is a real bummer. So my regular Sunday brunch venue will remain at home - especially if we get approved for the flat in Chiswick we're hoping for. The flat has a back garden as well as sufficient space indoors for genuine entertaining and civilized dining so with a bit of luck, BBQs and dinner parties will be in my future once again.

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Good riddance!

It's almost 10 years since the terrorist attack on the US that was ordered by Bin Laden.
I stood at my office windows and watched that day as the WTC towers burned, saw the 2nd plane crash into them, watched the fiery holocaust consume the towers and, finally and in a state of shock and disbelief watched their collapse.
It's been almost 10 years that I've lived with those images in my mind. Still fresh, and clear, and shocking.
I remember it all. All the details of desperately trying to reach my son Andrew on his cell phone. Getting calls and emails from colleagues all over the globe asking me to try to get through to their family and friends to confirm they were safely out of the towers.
I remember scavenging my office for face masks and de-con suits and gloves and flashlights to send down to Ground Zero with the emergency engineer team AboveNet sent.

We had colleagues there, knew network engineers working in the towers' data rooms and PA project managers.

I remember calling Alan and telling him a plane crashed into the WTC just as I arrived at work. And him checking CNN on his computer because at that point there was nothing on the BBC news yet.

I remember standing at our huge office window wall with Allen our Security Director and staring at the flames and boiling black clouds of smoke.
And time - minutes and hours - passing but feeling like it was standing still, frozen.

And I remember the incredible feeling of relief, and release, when I answered my cell phone and heard my son Andrew say "Mom, I'm ok, I'm safe."
But it's been almost 10 years remembering those who never got to make their "Mom, I'm ok, I'm safe" phone call. Remembering that ordinary, decent, innocent people were slaughtered in cold blood by merciless terrorists on orders from Osama Bin Laden.

So now finally Osama Bin Laden is dead. A small measure of Justice for us all.

Next Friday we'll be joining with our neighbours and holding an all day street party to celebrate the Royal Wedding. Doing a BBQ and everyone will bring food. Should be interesting as we are a very mixed ethnic/national group. I'll take photos for our housing association newsletter.

After reading an interesting article in the NY Times about sugar research and a bit of digging about in the associated studies, I decided to give up sugar. Not entirely, that would be too tiresome and fanatic. But in line with what I understood from those studies, to simply stop adding sugar to my coffee which I calculate is the major source of sugar for me. Thank goodness Asti secured a supply of Zucrinet for me. With enough of that my morning coffee is still quite acceptably sweet and tasty.
Since we don't eat much processed or packaged food I think we have very little hidden sugar in our diet. The shift away from processed food was a response to my dislike of the UK formulations - everything was too sweet or too vinegary or had a weird texture.

Coincidently, last week I had some extensive blood tests done so in a month I shall ask my doctor to repeat them and we'll see if there's any change. Again, according to the studies, the response to removing fructose from the diet is surprisingly rapid.

A harmless experiment and an interesting one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

A good day at Oxford ACCU AGM.  Lovely drive there and back; sunshine and light traffic felt as if we were in some other country. ;)

The meeting was classic. Just goes to show what happens when you piss off old politicians. I, of course, always enjoy theatre and this was a very worthy production, long in the making. Among other excitement, Alan was elected secretary, taking the position over from a retiring colleague who had taken over from Alan over 10 years ago.

He who controls the minutes, controls the world.
This will be an interesting year.

My only regret was that we decided to go directly home to avoid what looked like horrendous traffic heading farther into Oxford. I'd originally wanted to detour through Oxford centre to stop in at the ONLY decent noodle house in the UK and buy some chow fun - several orders of it in fact - to put in the freezer. This is soul food for NY Jews.

Up at Oxford today for the ACCU 2011 conference - specifically for the annual meeting/bloodbath where presumably they will be choosing a new Conference chair and committee members. This should prove interesting as the old boys are finally putting their collective foot down with the conference committee and imposing some sorely needed democracy and transparency as well as fiscal responsibility into the process.
We shall see. One lives in hope.

Three curses of increasing severity

May you live in interesting times
May you come to the attention of those in authority (May the government be aware of you).
May you find what you are looking for. (May your wishes be granted).

Have you seen Sfogliatelle in London??

For reasons unknown it is impossible to find this Italian pastry, called Sfogliatelle, in London.


WHY?????


I've searched all over Greater London, talked with shop-owners, people I meet, restaurants, farmers markets. searched the web, everything. Nada.
How can London not have these sublime pastries?


I've seen some vaguely similar pastries here but they are filled with greasy sugar "creme". The real pastries are baked with a ricotta cheese and candied citron filling.
The photo above is of a classic sfogliatelle served at Ferrara's in New York City. A San Francisco restaurant owner was recently quoted as saying...
"The sfogliatelle from Ferrara's in New York City. They are a textural party in my mouth. Crispy, creamy, moist, powdery joy and not too sweet. All I need is one of them and a double espresso."

Loved the teacher's comments on this.

Sadly the site I found this on now seems to be dead or down.

A Jew was studying Hebrew in Old Soviet Union
and a guard came to him and said: 'Stop wasting
your time. We're not allowing you to go to Israel.
Why would you study Hebrew?'

The Jew answered: 'If I go to Heaven, I'd like to
speak G~d's language and be understood.'

The guard replied: 'Well, what if you go to Hell?'

The Jew finally said: 'Don't worry, I know Russian
rather well.'

Happy New Year 2011

It was a pretty decent Christmas and New Years Eve. We even managed to fit in a visit to Asti over on the other side of London. We had dinner at Ron & Hillary's along with Pete & Laurie on New Years Eve and all watched the midnight fireworks. Amazingly, TPTB in London finally got the fireworks right; this year's display was fabulous, impressive, and beautiful. I made profiteroles for our dessert - the recipe is on my recipe blog Tales from the Kitchen Table.
It was actually a well needed rest for Alan and me.