Mmmm, Donuts

Now that's desperate.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it. The sky here this morning looks just about like the sky in this picture from last week, so it's not very nice weather for egg hunting, but I suppose at least there's no snow on the ground.

Yesterday was a very pretty day. Sunny and warm. Spring really is coming, I think. Out in the yard, the tulips are coming up, and there are buds on the lilac, dogwood, and forsythia. Soon there will be flowers opening up all over. It's strange, because it feels like we never had any winter this year.

Major progress has been made on the bathroom front in this house -- last night, Marty took a bath in the downstairs bathroom. Yes, the faucet and drain are functioning and all hooked up. This is Very Big News. (The last time we could take a bath in that bathroom was about two years ago.) None of the other fixtures are in yet, so the bathroom's not fully functional, but it is so good to have a working bathtub again. Upstairs we have only a shower.

Our boxes arrived from England yesterday! They came pretty fast, and I was happy to get my things out and look at them again. Now I have tons of new books to read!

This church over on the right is St. Leonard's in Bridgnorth. It is a very beautiful old church built from local stone (I love the pink color of it). Everywhere we went in England last week, the daffodils were blooming.

Underground

Here's the Marble Arch underground station. While we were staying in London, this was our gateway to the entire city. Our hotel, the Edward Lear, is just around the block from here. About a one-minute walk away from the tube.

Of course, the underground is world-famous. The world's oldest city subway, it's a huge system with links out to the suburbs in every direction. Its map alone is one of the most recognizable images in the world.

And it's the most straightforward, simple-to-use subway system I've ever encountered. None of those problems you get in New York if you don't know the difference between uptown and downtown (have you ever gone down the wrong side of a station and had to come all the way back out, pay again, and go back down the other side?).

We rode the tube every day while we were in London. You can buy day passes, but it worked out better for us to buy the carnets -- ten tickets for 11.50 pounds. Very convenient.

A couple of interesting underground links:

• Disused Stations on London's Underground
  
• London Underground History
  
• Emmy's London Underground Page

Travel Tips, or What We Would Have Done Differently

Looking back on the trip to England, most of our plans worked out exceedingly well. Where we stayed, how we got around, the things we did -- almost everything went so smoothly. A good deal of this is thanks to Rick Steves' guidebook, London 2002 (thank you again for the recommendation, Lucy!).

There are only three things we probably would do differently if we had it all to do over again.

• We would have used ATMs instead of traveller's checks. Last time I was in England, in 1988, ATMs were not nearly as common as they are now, and I don't remember ever using one to get pounds from my American bank account. But that is extremely easy to do these days, and the exchange rate we got from ATMs was better than the one we got from the actual American Express offices when changing AE travellers checks into pounds sterling. Plus the ATMs are almost everywhere, while the American Express offices are few and far between.
  
  Of course you can change money anywhere, especially in London, but the rates can be very bad. Banks and change bureaus also tend to charge service charges, etc. If we'd known how convenient the ATMs were, we wouldn't have brought any traveller's checks at all.
  
  
• We would have bought another suitcase. In 1988 I sent several boxes home during the summer, full of things I had bought or things I wouldn't be needing anymore. (That summer started off with me in school, and ended with me backpacking in Europe, so I didn't need my dress-up clothes anymore at the end of the trip, and I sent them home.) I don't remember the postage being exorbitant, but it's been a long time and maybe I've just forgotten.
  
  On this trip, I brought a smaller, collapsible suitcase inside my big bag so we'd have something to carry our extra purchases in. But we ended up buying more than would fit in the bag (being addicted to books can do that to you). So we decided to ship some of our stuff home on the last day we were there, and it turned out to be pretty expensive. If we'd realized how much it would cost to mail, it would have made more sense to just buy another inexpensive suitcase and pay any overweight luggage charges at the airport. But by the time we realized it, we were already in the Post Office and we were leaving in a couple of hours... so we went ahead and mailed the stuff. Next time, a new suitcase. It would have been cheaper than what we paid to mail things home, and we could have used it on our next trip.
  
  
• We would have avoided the hair-dryer trauma. This one is mostly mine. I got a new hairstyle a few weeks before our trip, which requires me to dry my hair with a diffuser. So I made sure I had a converter and a hair dryer that was graded for use with the converter before we left (I had to buy a new hair dryer for this because the wattage on my regular one was too high). I brought the dryer, the diffuser, and the converter. But in London, the electrical outlets in our hotel room were configured so that the converter wouldn't plug into them. (The outlets were right at floor level, and the converter had to plug in and hang down from there, so of course there was no room for it to fit.) Huh.
  
  So on our first day in London we went off down Oxford Street and bought an extension cord (after much looking, time that could have been spent on something else). Then I could plug the dryer in and use it, hooray. Well, it worked the next day, and then it never worked again. When we got home we found that the dryer had blown out somehow -- it wouldn't work here either -- but at the time we didn't know what was causing the problem.
  
  The upshot was I went the entire week with my hair looking like a mess. I got used to it pretty fast, and just let it go. But this problem has two fixes. First of all, I could have just bought a dryer when I got to England. It wasn't worth it for me to do this after my dryer from home blew out, because I'd already spent so much on the converter, the dryer to go with the converter, and the extension cord. But if I hadn't already spent all that time and money on it, just buying a dryer would have made sense. I could have just left it with my friends at the end of the trip, or brought it home to save for my next trip to England. (In 1988, I bought a curling iron when I arrived, and used it all summer. It worked out great.)
  
  The other solution, of course, would have been to not get this high-maintenance hairstyle. Ah well. Live and learn.

I figure, if those are the only things we'd do differently out of nine days of travel in a foreign country, we did pretty damn good. The rest of it all went swimmingly, thanks to our planning and the extreme thoughtfulness of our hosts. And probably a little bit of luck, as well.

Pretty Good Day

It was a sunny day today. Amanda and I had planned to go to Stonington for some fun at the "Fun Company" (a really neat store), but unfortunately she has had some bad luck with health this week. She was in the hospital! But she is home now, and you can read about it on her page. We will reschedule our day of fun for later this month, I am sure.

So I drove up to Manchester to visit a store I used to go to all the time, Harvest Beads and Silver. When I lived in Manchester this was one of my favorite places. I was doing a lot of bead work back then, making jewelry, and I used to get most of my beads there. I also love their silver, and I have a bunch of jewelry from there. (It's a head shop, so they also have a lot of "smoking accessories," if you know what I mean, and I think you do.)

Anyway, they were busy today. I hadn't been in at least two years, but the same people were still working there -- the husband and wife owners, and the guy and girl who always worked behind the counter when I used to go. And they were playing Born to Run, which I have heard there many times before. Funny how some places don't change much. I got some great prices on silver chains.

Then I headed over to the "good" HomeGoods (also in Manchester) to check out their comforters. I recently realized that the comforter on our bed is the one I had in high school. And yes, I did graduate from high school 16 years ago. Needless to say, the thing is about 1/4 inch thick these days, and I am getting antsy to replace it. I didn't see anything I wanted...

Tonight we watched The Full Monty. In London last week we saw the new musical version of it onstage. It was great fun! The entire theatre was in stitches with laughter. So we thought we'd watch the movie again and compare. I always liked the movie, but I think I love the musical even better.

The picture above is of the village church in Barnham, Norfolk, the first town where my family lived in England (back in 1974 - 1976). The village is full of the quaintest thatched cottages and tiny little roads. It's also the home of the school where I started first grade and learned to read. Dixie was born two months before we moved from there to Germany.

It was good to be back there for an afternoon last Tuesday.

A Very Good Friday

Marty and I are off work today for Good Friday. We are not religious, so we don't celebrate Easter, but I'm not going to turn down a holiday. Although, as Maria and I were discussing yesterday, I'd much prefer that we were scheduled to work on religious holidays and had more vacation days to take whenever we wanted. That approach would be more equitable for everyone, I think.

Still, any Friday off work is a Good Friday.

Weekend plans include picking paint colors for the downstairs bathroom and maybe even buying the paint, lunch with Clarissa tomorrow, unpacking the rest of my suitcase, laundry, etc. The good thing is we have an extra day to do it all in.

The picture above is from the trip, of course. Local wildlife in Bridgnorth. Maybe this weekend I'll have a chance to get back through the rest of my pictures. Stay tuned!

Boggle!

At work this morning, I had this conversation.

Her: So, where did you go on vacation?

Me: England!

Her: Oh, England! Did you have a good time?

Me: Yes, a great time. We spent four days in London and then we traveled around for four more days visiting friends. We had so much fun!

Her: You know people there?

Me: Yes, I lived in England for several years when I was a child.

Her: So... what language do they speak over there?

Me: !!!!! [speechless]

Her: Do they speak French?

Me: Um, no, they speak, you know, English.

Her: Really?

Me: Uh, yes.

And I'm thinking, what does she think we speak? And how is it not possible to know that people in England speak English?

It gave me a good laugh when I got back to my office, though.

Hay-on-Wye

The Hay-on-Wye Antique Market is where I bought my Sheffield knives last Friday. But knives are not what Hay-on-Wye is known for. In fact, it's known for books.

Hay-on-Wye is a tiny town (1400 residents) on the border between England and Wales that has made a name for itself as the used book capital of Britain, if not the world. It is home to over 30 bookshops that sell everything from rare first editions to used paperbacks on any topic you can imagine. It is quite astounding.

There are even some unstaffed outdoor bookstores such as the "honesty bookshop" pictured here on the castle grounds. You can walk in and browse around, and if you find something you want, you just drop your money in a slot and go on your way (paperbacks 30p, hardbacks 50p).

As well as my knives, of course I also got some books in Hay. A set of Enid Blyton school stories I've never read, some English cookbooks, and a book with some beautiful designs for china painting. Most of my books are still on the way home (we shipped a box the day we left) and I am eagerly anticipating their arrival.

Click on the pictures below for some shots of Hay-on-Wye.

What to Drink in England

In a word, tea. Tea is most decidedly the national drink of England. In the US, people seem to think of this as a cliche, but the truth is that you will never enter a friend's home in England without an immediate offer of tea. You may depend upon it.

On the other hand, Londoners seem to have sold their souls to Starbucks. What Dunkin' Donuts is to New England, so is Starbucks to London; in other words, you can hardly throw a stone without hitting one (at least in the more upscale areas). Along a 1-mile stretch of Oxford Street, we must have seen at least six separate stores, all doing big business in mid-afternoon. Interestingly enough, people don't seem to be up in arms about Starbucks the way they are about McDonald's. Yet.

As for soft drinks ("fizzy drinks"), the old standards are still being served (sans ice) all over the country -- Coke, Fanta Orange, and so forth. One drink I like very much is Lilt, which is something like a British version of Fresca (although it's not a diet drink). I did notice something new since my last trip -- soft drinks being sold in "American-style torpedo bottles" (as described by the sign in the shop), rather than just in cans. Trust Americans to have something as belligerent-sounding as "torpedo bottles," yeah?

But of course, that's not all there is to drink in England. This trip was the first time I made a point of frequenting pubs and trying different beers. (Last time I was there, in 1988, was just before I learned to like beer. I left England that summer for Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands, and went home an educated beer drinker.) This time, we visited a pub almost every day of the trip, and tried a new beer almost every day as well. The first beer we had (on day one in London) was a Greene King Abbot Ale. I don't remember all of the different ones I tried, although I was bold enough to try the "Speckled Hen" at the Three Horseshoes pub in Gravely, and I also remember drinking a draught Guinness on St. Patrick's day (although of course that wasn't my first Guinness). A few other names that spring to mind are Boddington's, John Courage, and Strong's. In Bridgnorth I drank my first draught Kingfisher (okay, my first two), and finished the trip off with a half pint of cider.

The pub is, I think, specific to England. American bars are not the same, even ones that serve food and lots of different beers. I don't think I can put my finger on what makes the pub unique, but I am sure much has been written by others on this topic. Luckily, our London guide book gave very explicit instructions for how a pub works (I think this may have been the only section of the book that Marty read), and so from our very first one we knew what we were doing. Walk in, order at the bar (drinks and food, if you are eating), pay there, then sit. We had a lot of very tasty and inexpensive meals in pubs. You can eat surprisingly cheaply in England if you know what to look for. Cheaply and well, I should say.

Bonus pic: Marty in Thetford, holding up the wall of the Anchor Hotel.

Cambridge



In 1988 I spent the summer studying in Cambridge through a program with the University of New Hampshire. Along with about 40 other American college students, I lived and worked at Gonville and Caius (pronounced keys) College. Its Gate of Honour (above) is one of the most famous gates in Cambridge.

I was 19. It was a magical summer. My bedroom window looked out over King's Parade and the Senate House. We took our meals in the college hall, had coffee at 11 and tea at 4 in the common rooms, and drank in the buttery at night. We punted on the Cam and walked along the Backs.

But even that summer was a homecoming of sorts. I had lived near Cambridge for several years as a child, and could still remember having lunch with my mother at The Copper Kettle (directly across from King's College), and visiting Trinity and Queen's with her and my great aunt Mamie.

Marty and I visited Cambridge last Thursday and walked around the town for a little while. Other than the arrival of Starbucks, Borders, and Chili's (!!!), things look pretty much the same. The market behind St. Mary's church is still hopping. The streets are still full of people speaking every language under the sun. And Nadia's, where we bought our lunch most days back in 1988, is still going strong -- with the same menu. So, of course, we picked up our lunch there on Thursday and ate it on a bench in All Saints' Park. Right next door to the music shop where my parents bought me a guitar when I was seven years old.

The Real Oscar



This is Oscar. He's ready for his dinner!

So, does anyone think Moulin Rouge is going to win Best Picture tonight? No, I don't think so either. It's a shame Baz Luhrmann wasn't nominated for Best Director, or Ewan McGregor for Best Actor. On the other hand, I'm not surprised that Nicole Kidman was nominated for Best Actress -- she really did a good job in this movie.

I'm cooking dinner from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites cookbook tonight. Bean and Bean Gumbo. Mmmmm.

Friday night Marty and I went out for curry with friends in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. The Eurasia Restaurant is pure class -- excellent food and service, and they even have their own special china (see above). They also had Kingfisher on draft (or should I say draught?).

Today we're getting caught up on laundry and grocery shopping and the like. Thank goodness this will be a short week -- we're off next Friday for "spring holiday" (aka Good Friday). Judging by how tired I am today, I think it'll be a good thing we have a four-day week.

Here's a printable Oscar ballot so you can test your predictions tonight.

The Travelers Return

Marty and I are back from an excellent trip to England. London was great fun, and we had a wonderful time visiting friends in Cambridgeshire and Shropshire. The flights were easy and everything went very smoothly. We had the best time! Of course the only problem was that the trip was too short, but I expect we'll always feel that way no matter where we go.

At the same time, it is good to be home. We walked into our house last night around midnight and were asleep in our own bed just thirty minutes later. Today Ziggy comes home from the cattery and then the family will be intact again.

We have a lot of great memories of the trip and I know we'll be talking about it for a long time. Just a few of the highlights:

• London weather: everything you can imagine, all in 24 hours.
  
• Hamlet performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican.
  
• Poppadoms!
  
• Countless pubs and regional beers. Mmmm, beer!
  
• Dancing to Bob Marley after midnight in a Brampton living room.
  
• All those wonderful cats: Libby and Wicker, Ajax and Inca, Oscar and Polly.
  
• Outdoor markets in Cambridge, Thetford, and Bridgnorth.
  
• Hay-on-Wye, a book lover's Mecca (and for me, a source of Sheffield knives).
  
• Treacle sponge pudding with custard at the Stock Pot.
  
• The Bridgnorth funicular railway!
  
• Tea at any hour of the day or night.
  
• Tate Britain! Tate Modern!

The trip was a great combination of old places and new, old friends and new. We're so glad we went!

More pictures and writing to follow, no doubt, but for now here are a few (click for larger versions that would be suitable for desktops, if you like).

London Bound

The vacation starts today. We are just about all packed up and ready to go. Marty and I both need to run a few errands this morning but we should be away by around noon.

Check out this page: A Photographer's Guide to London. The photos are really nice.

I'll be back soon!

Cheese Lovers Unite

Do you love cheese? Here's a funny site I ran across recently: The Other Other Side of the Moon. Love the cheese warnings:

Raclette - cheese warning!
This cheese is not to be eaten alone. It has that terminally unvanquished aroma of armpit. I am told it’s great melted into a sauce for those heady Alsatian dishes, which I have no trouble believing. Do not attempt to eat this cheese at room temperature, however, or you'll be sorry. You have been warned.

Also check out the Online Cheese Comparator. Hee!

It's Only Weather

Why am I not surprised that the forecast for London is full of rainy weather for the next week or so? Not that it's a problem. I'm taking my all-weather London Fog jacket (ha!) and an umbrella.

Plans are shaping up. There's still lots to add into our schedule but this is what it looks like right now:

Friday - Tower of London, Millennium Bridge, Tate Modern (stays open late)
Saturday - National Gallery (with friends), The Full Monty
Sunday - Tate Gallery (lunch reservation at Tate Restaurant)
Monday - Greenwich

Of course there's much more -- the British Museum, Harrods Food Hall, Liberty, Westminster Abbey, the V&A, Soho, and tons of other things I'm not remembering at this moment, and I'm sure there will be things we'd like to do that we won't get to. Heavy on the museums, I know, but hey -- the museums are my favorite thing of all. Anyway, by the time we get there I will have had time to shape the plans up a little better.

Whee!

Become You

I can't stop smiling. I had a chance to play the new Indigo Girls album on the way home, and I loved it.

Loved it.

So happy, I can't even say how much. But I can't stop smiling.

And Still More on A Beautiful Mind

Thank you, JBB, for pointing out a very interesting LA Times article on Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the screenplay for A Beautiful Mind: A Beautiful Journey to Professional Nirvana. This article addresses why the film ignored so much of Nash's biography and created the interior life we see in the film.

From the article:

He says his script was written with "blatant disregard for fact--I threw biography out the window." He did that in order to uncover what was the more essential truth of Nash's illness, and of his life, he says. He took his script to the Nashes, "and they said they loved it." They told him "it was true to the spirit of our journey." Goldsman pauses. "I think it is true. It is not their journey, but it is true to the spirit of it."

Anyway, check it out.

Technical Difficulties

Does anyone know where Shelley went? Her page has been down for several days, maybe even a week, and nobody I read has even mentioned it. She keeps one of my favorite journals. I do hope this is just a temporary interruption. I will miss her terribly if she's finished.

The Tate Gallery web site has been down for two days, too. This is very inconvenient, since we'll be going there later this week and I am planning for us to have lunch in their incredible restaurant there... I was hoping to get the number for the reservations before we left. But I can look it up in London, no problem. Still, how can a site for a top museum be down for two days?

Ever since we were switched over to Comcast digital cable (with the demise of @Home) I haven't been able to access certain random web sites. There's really no rhyme or reason to it. I just get an error message when I try to go certain places, and Comcast hasn't been able to help me with it. Yet.

I guess I'm just lucky my own domain wasn't one of those inaccessible sites!

Finally, Blogger is acting a little weird. Amanda, Jul, and Rachel have all been having problems with it, and this morning it deleted one of my posts on another weblog without any warning or reason. Hmmmm.

I wonder what's going on?

I Wondered...

When I bought the Moulin Rouge soundtrack last summer, I was surprised at some of the songs that were excluded from it -- like the campy "Like a Virgin," and the rollicking "Spectacular Spectacular." I wondered whether they'd come out with a second soundtrack at some point. And, well, it looks like they have.

So tomorrow when I go to pick up the new Indigo Girls CD (yay!) I will have to look for this too, I guess.

On Edge

I am feeling jittery and on edge today. Jumpy. I'm sure it's because the trip is almost upon us and I'm stressing about finishing up a project at work, and also about getting packed and ready to go. We've really done a lot to get ready, but I feel like we still have plenty to do before we leave.

However, I am looking forward to the trip very much. I can't remember the last time we went on such a big adventure. Maybe our honeymoon, back in 1993? Except in some ways this feels like an even bigger deal than that.

In other news, I am giggling uncontrollably at the news that Alicia will be in the pit for the *NSYNC show in Anaheim tonight. She and her friend camped out all day for the tickets and I'd say it paid off big. I am so psyched for her... and so jealous...

More "Beautiful Mind"

Rachel of Unicycle pointed out this article today: Shaky facts may hurt "true" Oscar films.

There are some interesting remarks about "A Beautiful Mind" -- the movie and the book -- in the comments on my previous post (below). I'll be watching to see how the movie fares at the Oscars.

But you know, I still want to see "Crossroads"...

Lazy Saturday

I had a lazy day -- I'd stayed up pretty late last night so I slept in, then worked on my craft room for awhile. It's not done yet, but it's definitely getting better. Tomorrow there will be lots to get done for the trip. I have a long list of things that I still need to do.

This evening was fun. We went to see "A Beautiful Mind" with friends. The movie was good; seems like it would be an interesting book to read. Maybe we'll pick up a copy to take on the trip -- Marty wants to read it too. I didn't know much about the movie before I went, and I wasn't expecting to see Ed Harris or Christopher Plummer in it. They were pleasant surprises. Although I can't see Christopher Plummer without thinking, "A captain with seven children, what's so fearsome about that?" Even now. Even after all these years.

At the movie, we ate Red Vines and Circus Peanuts. Hee!

After the movie, we went out for Indian food at Tandoor in New Haven. Yum. It was as wonderful as it always is. I love that place. It was funny when we sat down and ordered our drinks -- I ordered a Kingfisher beer, which comes in a twelve-ounce bottle. The waiter called it a "baby beer." The Taj Mahal, on the other hand, comes in a 22-ounce bottle. Now that's a man's beer!

And here's one for Maria...

William Shatner's weblog.

Busy Friday

Busy, busy day at work today. I am late getting away, thanks to a couple of unexpected projects. But I'm headed out now to the gym.

For dinner tonight I think I will try making a quick and easy soup recipe shared by a friend of mine. Let you know later how it turns out, maybe.

Happy Friday night, everyone! Yay!

Random Thoughts

Yesterday in the mail I received a book I'd ordered, Pre-Raphaelites in Love by Gay Daly. It's a biography of several of the leading figures of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, which focuses on their relationships with their models (some of whom they married). I am excited that the book arrived in time for me to start reading it now, before we leave for London and all the wonderful Victorian art to be viewed there.

When I ordered this book from QPB, I didn't realize it was out of print, or that it was originally published in 1989. Looking for something to link to for this entry, I found that it's not really widely available. Interesting that QPB is bringing something like this back into print for its catalog. I wonder if they do this a lot? And whether it's because of an increased interest in the Pre-Raphaelites, or for some other reason?

My mind is full of random thoughts today. I can't seem to help it.

Maria has updated Kiss the Rain today with a very thoughtful entry. I know what she means about having to think about what you write on your page, especially when the people closest to you read it. I find especially when I am feeling bad about things, it can be difficult for me to know what to say here. And that's why sometimes I just go away and neglect the weblog and journal for awhile.

I am very glad that all the people who know me and visit Raspberry World do so, but I do find that my awareness of who may be reading means I'm less likely to let loose on my page here when I'm feeling vile. Now maybe that's a good thing, because in the end I might not like it if RW became nothing more than a chronicle of problems and difficulties. But on the other hand, if I'm feeling vile and not expressing it here, I'm probably dumping it somewhere else. (And let me say thank you to the ones who listen to me rant when I get like that -- you all know who you are.)

I don't know what the right answer is for me. I don't really want to worry people or run the risk of someone taking something I said the wrong way, but I suppose in the end it is my page and I am going to write about what I want to write about.

I like what I am wearing today. I have on my berry-colored Dr. Marten mary janes, which match this corduroy jacket thing. I think both items came from a Value City trip with Katynka a couple of years ago. And these blue pants I got recently on clearance at Filene's, like chinos but so much softer. And a turtleneck with the same colors in it, berry with little blue and burgundy flowers on it. Plus my valentine's day earrings and a silver necklace that I love.

My hair is doing strange things, but I can live with it.

And now lunch is over, and it's time to get back to work.

Two Questions

Who would want these?

And why?

And now for something completely different...

Odin's Kingdom is updated with two new chronicles and (of course) the March Odin of the Month.

I was honored to learn that the "Odin Twist" chronicle was written in honor of my upcoming trip to merrie olde England. I'm sure Odin would be outraged, though, if he knew what this trip meant -- Ziggy is off to the vet's to stay for over a week. Poor kitty. I wish we had a local Trina to come and take care of him.

A Trip to Waterbury

Today after work I drove up to Waterbury to pick up something I'd been hunting for a long time. I had called a store up there and they had it, so I got them to hold it for me and I went today at 5:00.

Driving up there on Route 8 was interesting. There are parts of that road that really remind me of sections of I-80 in Pennsylvania. There's one part where the road is cut into the rock, with steep walls on each side -- that part in particular makes me think of 80. It made me kind of homesick.

I didn't get lost in Waterbury -- this may be a first. I even knew where I was almost the entire time I was there. I saw Brass City Records but didn't stop. Maybe Laura and I will go back over there sometime soon.

I didn't even cuss once. (Which is pretty good, for me in Waterbury.)

The Pepys Project

From Stephanie I discovered The Pepys Project and decided to register my site on the Connecticut page. There are some cool sites listed there already.

You may know that Samuel Pepys was a famous English diarist in the 17th century. You may not know that I once lived in the town where he lived (Brampton, Huntingdonshire), and attended school at Hinchingbrooke, where he worked. In fact, our school houses at Hinchingbrooke were Pepys, Montagu, Vesey and Cromwell. I was in Pepys. (Pronounced "peeps.")

I used to have a hard time explaining to my American friends what the houses of the school were, exactly, but in these days of Harry Potter it's so much easier. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw have made the concept much more accessible.

And the other thing is... two weeks from tomorrow I'll be seeing my old school again. That is the day we leave London for Brampton, where we'll be staying with old friends (our next door neighbor and his wife -- and he happens to be a retired Hinchingbrooke teacher).

Yes indeed. Funny how things all come together like this sometime. I'm starting to feel a little like James Burke.

Recipe Update

The recipe page is updated. I have some more recipes that I hope to add soon, but these are the ones from this weekend that I have pictures for. Yum.

If you were wondering what happened to the rest of the Meyer lemons, they made a delicious pitcher of lemonade, which we had with dinner last night.

Don and I had a nice visit this weekend. Yesterday we drove up to Westfarms Mall in West Hartford because I needed a couple of things for the trip to England. Filene's was having a great shoe sale, so I picked up a new pair of shoes to replace my old falling-apart ones.

After dinner last night we watched Moulin Rouge. Don had never seen it, and expressed an interest in it, so of course I was more than happy to oblige. I still love it just as much as I did the first time. Although I have to say, every time I watch the DVD, I miss seeing it on the big screen. There is so much to see in that movie, and some of the little details get lost on the TV screen. Especially since it's shown in letterbox format.

I have been thinking lately that I want to watch Trainspotting again. I can't believe I'm saying this...

Kid Rock Update

From my e-mail this morning:

Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2002
From: Kid Rock
Subject: Party

Susie,

Marty called to tell me that you forgot to invite me
to the big shindig. Man was he pissed!

Listen, you can always reach me on my cell at
555-1212. I would have brought Pamela with me.

Call next time.

Kid

Man, is my face red... and when I asked Marty how he knew Kid Rock this morning, he said, "Well, we both get around... I guess we just run in the same circles."

Morning Headache

I woke up disoriented, with a headache. That happens sometimes if I am stressed or having strange dreams. In those cases I tend to clench my jaw and when I wake up my head, neck, and shoulders are very sore.

Last night I dreamed that Marty and I were making all these social arrangements and trying to get plans set up for the weekends to come. He was busy working, so I was having to make a bunch of phone calls to people, some of whom I knew, some of whom I didn't. (I don't like calling strangers on the phone -- that is true in real life -- so I think this is part of the stress.)

But the really stressful part was just before I woke up. Marty wanted me to call up his old friend Kid Rock (!!!) and make sure he was going to be able to come to a party we were having. I said I would do it, knowing that it would be really hard for me to, because I didn't know Kid Rock, and I knew it would be hard enough to get him on the phone even without that. So I kept looking at the MTV news to see where he was, what he was doing, who he was with... trying to figure out just the right time to contact him. But I ended up procrastinating so much that when the party came around, I had never even called Kid Rock, and of course he wasn't there. And Marty was upset. And I woke up stressed.

I know it was only a dream, but I think he should have made his own phone calls.

She Wore Lemon...

Lemon update: last night I made lemon pecan chicken (recipe to follow later) and lemon pudding cake. Not my usual recipe for lemon pudding cake, but this one. Also, we had a nice salad and some rice. It was a great dinner!

A friend from college is here visiting for the weekend. Don and I have known each other since 1988 or so, when we began living next door to each other in the dorm. Now she lives in LA, but she travels out this way for work sometimes, and stops in to see us when she can. She and I cooked dinner together last night, and it was such fun! Marty does not enjoy cooking, much, and I forget how much I like cooking with someone else sometimes.

The chicken up above was a Christmas present from my mom. It's an egg cooker! You can cook hard boiled, soft boiled, or poached eggs in it. Last night we used it for the first time when we boiled some eggs to go on our salad. The funniest thing about the chicken is that it "chirps" when the eggs are done. Anyway the eggs were perfect, although the concept of an egg-cooking chicken seems kind of cannibalistic to me.

Here's a picture of the dinner from last night. I'll put up the recipes when I have a chance.

Mollie Says...

I just discovered Mollie Katzen On-line. Oh, man, am I in heaven.

Back in 1990 - 1991, during my first year of grad school at Penn State, I discovered the original Moosewood cookbooks -- Moosewood and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. These were the cookbooks Mollie Katzen wrote before she left the Moosewood Collective, back in the 1970s.

My friend Georgy introduced me to these books. She had just moved from LA and knew a thing or two about vegetarian cooking. I had never owned a vegetarian cookbook before, so these seemed very exotic to me. And the books were beautiful -- hand-lettered and illustrated, and full of information about unusual vegetables and other ingredients. They even had directions for how to make things like egg rolls (which I did, once). Anyway, we read them cover to cover. And I can't tell you how many times during that year one or the other of us started a sentence with, "Well, Mollie says..."

Now I own lots of vegetarian cookbooks, and I know that the recipes in these two are not particularly representative of the way most vegetarians eat today. Lots and lots of cheese and cream... of course, lots of veggies too, but way higher fat dishes than you find in most of the new vegetarian cookbooks. There are updated versions of both these cookbooks, but I have the old ones.

So I was excited to find Mollie Katzen On-line. She has a recipe archive there and a bunch of other stuff, too.

I have eaten at the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York, twice. And I also have some of the other Moosewood cookbooks that were written by the collective after Mollie Katzen left. I use those more than the original cookbooks, now, but still those first two are old favorites.

Lemons on the Brain

All I can think about today are the Meyer lemons sitting at home in a bowl on my dining room table. Thank you Alicia for the box o' lemon love!

You can read about Meyer lemons here, although I do not think that picture is a picture of actual Meyer lemons.

So while I am working today (it has been a busy week, and today is no exception) I keep thinking in the back of my mind, What am I going to do with those lemons? I ate one of them right out of the box last night, but I still have enough to make something yummy with the others. But should it be something fancy, like a lemon cheesecake? Or something simple like lemon curd? I even found one recipe that was specifically written for Meyer lemons.

I have lots of my own lemon recipes that I like, including the lemon pudding cake that is on my recipe page. One of the first pies I ever made was a lemon meringue pie, so maybe I should go back to my roots. I just don't know. I feel like Bobbie with his nickel.

Of course, it doesn't have to be a dessert. Lemon chicken is also very yummy...

What's your favorite lemon dish?