I’ll Hold This End Down For You

Sleeping the Sleep of the Just

In Her Fortress of Solitude

What IKEA bags are made for

Is It Spring Yet?

Nil Nisi Bonum

I was thinking of George Robinson yesterday. And then I thought, with Tom dead and Dea dead, who do I have left who also remembers George? Who is left who still remembers adventures with George, dining out with George, Traveling with George, and watching ice hockey on TV with George? Well, there is Fred who first introduced us to George back in 1969. But Fred? No, he's too wrapped up in exposing the injustices of life in excruciating detail. I can't endure his multi hour rants dissecting friends and foe. There might be Mimi. She may have known George or met him, or just heard the tales second hand. I like Mimi. She's sane, intelligent, has a sense of humor but I don't think we've been in touch for over 30 years. I have no idea if she wants to be in touch. She was Dea's friend originally and then we all drifted apart at one point. There was Ken Dupuy but he's been gone for many years now and his wife Kateri never approved of any of us. (And I wonder what happened with Ken as I remember us all celebrating his receiving his PhD from The New School but in the last listings I see of him at Fordham University, it lists him as just a MA. There's a story there.

But back to memories of George. There might be Ira Donewitz; Ira's been around since way back when but I don't recall him as one of George's little circle. Ira's too nice to have been one of George's friends. There's Mark Blackman but I absolutely know for sure that Mark and George didn't know each other. They may have met at one of Fred and Dea's parties but I can't imagine them even wanting to stand near the other. And you had to appreciate a certain warped sense of humor to appreciate George. George's old fellow travelers who attended Bronx Catholic schools with him are all long gone.

This is going to happen again with increasing  frequency as we all start to age out.

Nil Nisi Bonum

Film Review: A Wrinkle in Time

(Sotto voce in the voice of George Robinson)   The Horror! The Horror!

What have they done to that charming, award winning, childhood fantasy favorite by Madeleine L'Engle? I and my classmates in 1962 read this book, A Wrinkle in Time, at the urging of our math teacher. (This and a story titled, And He Built a Crooked House by Robert Heinlein launched us onto paths of maths and science fiction.)

When I heard Disney was bringing this favorite old children's book to the screen I was hopeful. Then details starting leaking out - they were rewriting the story to make it more relevant, Oprah Winfrey was sponsoring it and starring, they were changing it into a mixed race inspirational tale, they were cutting out complicated bits, they were deleting characters and scenes - critical ones, staging ones.

And so, too they have ruined A Wrinkle In Time.  OMG it's terrible, horrible. What did Madeleine L'Engle ever do to deserve this?

Ruined.
More than a waste, its a crime.

Day 3 - The Great 2018 London Snowpocalypse*

*With thanks to Astrid for supplying the perfect word to describe the situation.

The snow continued early this morning from about 3am to 7 am. Stopped by daylight so the good burghers of London could sit back and mightily whinge about the delicate layer of white covering the streets.
Warnings on the radio cautioned of 3 hours backups on motorways, train services cancelled, flights delayed, and ased people to be wary because this was officially, "danger to life" weather. Drivers were told to avoid roads (what alternatives they should use were not mentioned) but they were told that Snow Chaos Gripped the UK,  communities will get cut off by treacherous snow, and the worst is yet to come - oh, worse did you say? Like what? Dragons and ogres and trolls?

Such amazing hysteria over a little wisk of snow. It's long over now and nothing except a very minor earthquake out in the west country somewhere to wind people up about until the next dose of snow arrives sometime late tomorrow.

Enjoy the Snowpocalypse everyone.

Snowfall in the UK

All week the news and weather services have been predicting a severe frigid mass of air from Siberia would hit us this week and bring snow - Blizzards! Deadly snowfall as much as 6" or possibly 8" in rural areas. The really terrifying prospect was that London seemed to be target central for this.
So on Monday when the outer edges first reached London, there were the brief snow showers leaving only a sprinkle that quickly evaporated. People sneared at the weather services and mocked the storm and posted sarcastic photos and comments of the light scattering of white.

Today the real snow started to arrive - real in UK terms, still a joke to most Americans - and when 2 inches had fallen in London there was the start of widespread panic. Airports cancelled flights and prepared to shut down, trains cancelled whole routes, cities paniced and closed schools and social services. People ran in circles crying out it was the apocalypse! Gritters were taken out of standby and put on 12 hour shifts scattering gravel over all the major roadsin London.

Here at chez Lenton I actually nodded off waiting for the snow, having stayed up too late last night binge watching Ugly Betty. Startled awake by Alan, who announced that it had just started to snow; I got out my new iphone that Asti  just sent me and tried out the camera.

It ain't no blizzard but that there is some real gen-u-ine snowfall, folx.

House closing in VA for Andrew

At long last, Andrew and Joanna closed on their condo in VA today. OMG this has been a huge nightmare to get here. No problem on Andrew & Joanna's part but at the final step the Sellers went full-on mad and absolute insanity reigned at the "you wouldn't believe it if you weren't living through it" level. We all despaired of a happy ending after a while and had visions of mad, bad, and brutally expensive court hearings. But at the last moment it all pulled together and voila, the keys were in Andrew's hand.
I'll get the the full story as soon as Andrew has a chance to slow down and stop the world spinning. But meanwhile we are all kvelling like crazy for them.

Why you need lots of shelves.

Happy New Year 2018

A quiet new years eve; Alan went to bed early and I stayed up and made candied orange peel. Our cat stayed up and harassed me for endless pieces of "kitty crack" which is some sort of freeze dried chicken breast cubes. She has an amazing range of vocalizations from little sweet peeps to low moans and loud barks commanding attention to urgent issues such as a kitty needing an immediate treat. 

Asti visited us for a week before Christmas which was a delight as always  and I chatted with both Andrew and Adam. Hopefully we will have visits from the boys in the coming year.

We're settled in to our new apt and the cat has claimed the garden as her fief.

Christmas/New Year recap and new good news

We had a generally subdued Christmas holiday - filled with frustration because our finances had reached bottom and we cut spending to the bone but in the background Stan's house had sold and we were waiting for the paperwork to complete so Alan would finally get his share of the inheritance. The house sold in November 2016 but due to the way they do property sales/transfers here and assorted other mishegas the final completion date ended up being in the end of January 2017.

There were a couple bright moments in the holidays tho. We went out to dinner with our friends Ron & Hilary just before Christmas Eve at an old favorite Cypriot restaurant. This was the first time I'd gone out to dinner in almost 2 years! The past year I'd only been able to get out for occasional hospital based Consultant visits. Then we had a really gorgeous Chateaubriand roast with all the trimmings for Christmas dinner thanks to my accumulated Tesco clubcard points.  Asti flew over from Germany for a couple days between Christmas and New Year; it was so great to see her again and I really enjoyed her company and conversation. And the highlight of the holidays was a huge festive roast goose dinner with both Asti and Fi joining us at table. Fabulous dinner all homemade from scratch and Fi brought an amazing dessert of chocolate trifle which was in the "death by chocolate" class. So ultimately we wrapped up the old year with companionable feasting and looked forward to a much improved new year.

And to our delight, last week as we waited for Alan's inheritance to hit our bank account, we received a call to inform us that after years of waiting, there was a ground floor apt available for us that met all of our requirements. OMG! What perfect timing! Our move-in date is 20 February. Omg! Omg! I'm obviously going nuts until we sign the lease and get the keys. We're both wild to get in there and start measuring and ordering and moving our things over. OMG! This is such an amazingly wonderful start to the year.

Note that the apt has a private walled garden and Alan is already picking out a BBQ and garden furniture.

More news on the move as soon as we sign the lease.

I went to West Middlesex University Hospital yesterday for one of my routine IV Iron top-offs, Usual pre-proceedure routine of assorted blood tests, and other standard measurements like BP and weight.
Nurse turns to me smiling and says, "you've lost over 10 KG since last time you were here."

Yay!!  Diet is working! I weighed 12.3 kg less than the last time I was treated at West Mid. Not bad for about 4 months and absolutely no feelings of deprivation. It's slow but as long as we stick to the changes we've made since February it will keep adding up. I'm really pleased. Of course, when I arrived home and announced the good news to Alan he said, oh yes, his GP mentioned to him last visit to the surgery, that he'd lost a couple of stones.

Anyway, in a generally depressing landscape of illness and aging anf other associated crap of the human condition, this was a bit of delightful news.

Now Alan just needs to find a new job.

This is my stringy. There are many like it but this one is mine. My stringy is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my stringy is useless. Without my stringy I am useless.

Rosie - February 2016 - London

Finally, day 1 diet. Completed. I had planned and hoped to start earlier but life doesn't always work as you want it to. I think for me it was just to actually get it started. And to keep it going through the day even when I screwed up or strayed off plan a bit. It's done. I did it. Tomorrow I will do it again. I guess it's like AA in some ways - I take it 1 day at a time and just focus on getting through the day.

So hooray! Day 1 belongs to me!

I've been smoke-free over 4 months now so tomorrow morning I'll finally start a real diet. Basically I'll follow the 16/8 plan. Take it a day at a time and see how things go.

Marmalade Day

Alan spotted fresh Seville Oranges at Sainsbury's and brought home a bag of them - good move because those oranges have an ultra-short season and go out of stock in a flash. We're fans of homemade marmalade which is nothing like the commercial stuff. So I was delighted to fuss about in the kitchen and fill the first batch of kilner jars with tart golden deliciousness. I'll start batch 2 shortly.

Sunday Brunch - Homemade Eggs Benedict! Yes, that's right, homemade. Specifically the hollandaise sauce! And OMG! was it good - lemony, buttery, silky. Breakfast perfection; the egg yolks hot and liquid, the whites firm but tender, crisp medallion of bacon, toasted muffin and the hollandaise sauce spooned generously over it all. Yum!

I'm so pleased I've finally cracked the hollandaise conundrum. There's no alternative for it. It must be homemade from scratch or crossed off the home kitchen choices list because this sauce cannot be reheated from a jarred source. You can buy jars of the sauce in supermarkets but it tastes disgusting and not to be considered. So I've been trying on and off for years to make it but never produced an acceptable quality. At last, my time has come.

Yay!!

Turnabout is Fair Play.

It's bad enough that I'm subject to profound pain that comes and goes without warning to make it worse, I have no way to anticipate or predict the level of pain ahead of time. So regardless of what I plan, that can change without warning or reason at any time. I accept that this happens and just stay patient; my GP accepts that this happens and makes sure I have breakthrough doses of my meds; Alan is convinced that this is deliberate on my part, and caused by bad planning, laziness, and inconsideration. As far as he is concerned, if I casually mention that I would like to make fish pie for dinner tomorrow, then come hell or high water I should damn well be up and in the kitchen making that fish pie at the appointed time.

So, this afternoon, I suddenly was in very bad pain and really bad shape. Nothing helped and I knew I'd have to excuse myself from preparing our meal and the usual miserable scene would play out - and it did. Absolutely no explanation was accepted and my only choice was to drag myself into the kitchen and start to prepare dinner shaking and stumbling thru the pain or accept Alan's offer to wash and massage the painful foot area because it's a sort of voodoo he believes in - his quick little one off massage heals whatever it is at the moment. I accepted the massage and it actually helped surprisingly well this time - we think a bit of cat litter or pebble might have gotten lodged in my sole.

Anyway, I went into the kitchen and made the fish pie mix from scratch -gorgeous stuff made from scratch, even the white wine fish stock cream sauce. Pie mix complete, I filled a deep dish pie plate and set it aside to cool. Later Alan would make the mash, top off the pie plate and finish it in the oven.

Time passed and the dinner hour approached and I noticed that Alan hadn't done anything of his part of the dinner prep. Twice I reminded him with only a grunt in response. At 6:30pm I pointed out to Alan that it was getting very late  for him to get all his share of the prep work done and even if he started right now the fish pie would be way overdue. I didn't really care one way or the other but since he'd made such a huge fuss that he had been promised fish pie and it was fish pie that he wanted for supper tonight and nothing else would do, then he damn well should get up and get to work. So he headed off for the kitchen grumbling and muttering all the way.

Turnabout is fair play. (And it was a delicious pie no question.)

By the way, the attitude is not unique to Alan by any means. It really feels like it's ubiquitous and universal. Utterly infuriating and frustrating and nothing to be done about it.

Apple crumble tomorrow if you're in the mood for it, folx.