AAAAHHHH
Topic: Stephen Says
Aaaaaahhhhhhh! It's too damn hot & humid here!
Oh, and aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! We've got an opportunity to go to a Spanish resort next month but can't swing the time off.
Oh to live in a country addicted to A/C...

Windsor Races
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
This morning at work I was asked if I wanted to go to the Royal Windsor races tonight--and since I was just planning to go to bed early, I though...why not? The company seems to have many corporate entertaining events where people drop out of at the last minute.

So it took us 2 hours to drive less than 20 miles through the greater London rush-hour traffic, and we made in time for the 3rd or 6 races.

I bet 2.50 on the name I liked the best: Zaafran and came away with 30.00! I was smart and didn't bet any more. Of my own money that is... and at the end of the evening, I was allowed to walk away with a Pimm's pitcher.

My first English horse racing event was very fun. Will have to go back again sometime with Stephen & a picnic.

Stephen did a 9am-9:30 pm shift today, and is not quite as slap-happy as I am. In fact, he's listening to late-night BBC radio 4 and doodling on our bank statement.

Tomorrow at least, he's finally got a day off.

'gnight

Blah
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Stephen Says
Today was pretty crap. One of the service users died and I spent all day telling people that their friend was gone. The going away party for the old manager will inevitably be a somber though not sober affair in Guildford tonight.

In less personal news, Juan Cole's blog is pretty much required reading right now in light of what's going on in the Middle East.

Ain't life grand?

EDIT:
It was neither somber not sober... Too much disco dancing and now E's got to go get her hair cut & it's raher early still. Ugh. And there's banking to do.

Getting ready to go out. But not really, I'm blogging instead.
Now Playing: The trains, a lawnmower, a couple in the parking lot having an argument
Topic: Stephen Says
What he said.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this meal tonight. I think that a trip to L'Aroma to savour their Sicillian red wine and taste their delicious deep fried Camembert should be done at least every fortnight. The goal for the night: To share a starter so that we don't have to force our main courses down our necks because we're too full and them hmm & haw about whether or not we can fit a desert in and then order desert anyway, even though we can't fit any more in.

To think that E is passing up a rounders match with her collegues tonight for this. They were even unable to tempt her with the promise of free alcohol.
Now how's that for grit?

And in the weirdly ironic department of today's shenanigans; the building of the new Woking arts centre, ironically named (I assume) The Light Box, blacked out most of central Woking today making my various jobs in town all come to nothing.

Then, in the mall while riding up the escalator to get a going away card for my old boss, everything suddenly ground to a halt and every store alarm went of simultaneously and, amongst the cacophony, every security door for all the jewlery stores slammed shut and the voice of God suddenly spoke saying, not that the seventh seal had been broken, but that the Peacocks Centre was on fire and could we all please leave.

Anyway, there's no pillar of smoke hovering over the town so I assume that God sorted everything out in the end. Woking needs its mall, after all.

In conclusion, This is the show we saw last night. I highly recommend it, not just for the fact that Nick Cave wrote all the music and lyrics or for the bungee jumping, rope climbing, underwater choreography, freaky pretentious euro-trashy artful goodness of it, but because it was pretty cool as well.

More Pictures!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

Let's see if Angelfire will co-operate and allow the rest of the pictures to be posted.

Also-happy 25th birthday to me today!

_____

Golf carts provided essential transportation between key photo-ops:

My brother Stephen (The Groom)

My brother Mark & bridesmaid

My brother Tim & bridesmaid

The beautiful couple: Stephen & Laura

Cut that cake!

And now we go to South Carolina to Edisto Beach...the view from the 2nd floor:

And chilling out in the A/C:

That's the best of our photos...we didn't capture too much on camera because we were having such a good time.
____

Tonight it's to L'Aroma for some yummy Italian.

Ciao

Pictures
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

Here's some pix from the trip:

This is the rehearsal dinner held at the bride's parents house...a tent was hired for the occassion.

In that tent are some familiar faces, mostly Elisabeth's cousins, siblings (in-law or otherwise) and who's that with the cool hat from Target?

And now there is an error with Angelfire so I can't upload any more photos.... please be patient...

Back to life...back to reality
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: The radio going bla bla bla...
Topic: Stephen Says
Wow, it took me all of 2 hours before I was back in work mode, sorting through piled up paperwork, dealing with blah and filing away blah blah. And then I wasn't allowed to leave on time today because I was forced to have a supervision (i.e., management complaining to each other) followed by the ever joyous 'managerial discussion' (i.e., Okay, we've bitched enough, so what are we going to do about it.

Naturally, this part of the day was filled with much more silence than the first part. My suggestion to chalk it all up to existential angst was stricken from the record and then promptly re-instated. Go figure.)

Over at the homestead, we're eating good food and E is driving me up the wall because, instead of letting me plan something for he birthday so it's a surprise, she's declared that she's going to see This Play. Or This Other Play. But she's also going to This Book Discussion by herself. Only This Lecture is also going on on that day so she's going to that too.

Or at least that's what it feels like.

(And chances are, when she reads this, she'll get mad at me and say "That's not what I'm doing!")

(Only it is.)

So anyway, I've booked expensive theatre tickets that I can't return for tomorrow night so I guess she'll have to deal with it and she still has her birthday on Thursday to plan something and do it alone.

...and, oh God, she's just come home...

World Cup 2006
Topic: Stephen Says
Want to know what Matterazzi(sp?) said to Zidane(sp?) to make him flip out like that? "Your wife's a lesbian! A lesbian!"
(Let's hear it for obscure comedic references from the movie Slap Shot.)

Anyway, France deserved to win until Zidane turned into a big ol' jerk and now I'm glad they lost.

The Italians are partying it up in Woking and all I can hear from the flat is cheering & cars honking their horns but the pub was weirdly quiet. World Cup is definitely better in Canada compared to Woking unless you're a chav cheering on Ing-er-lund during the preliminaries.

Ah well, there's always the Euro Cup in two years...

10 days in America
Now Playing: Fatz Cafe's theme song
Topic: Stephen Says
Things I learned on my trip to America:

1) When you’re flying from Cleveland to Charlotte, don’t make fun of goofy Southern accents because the well-dressed businessman next to you will have an even goofier accent than anything that you can muster. (Though, ironically, no one seems to mind that you’re talking in a fake southern accent. Let’s hear it for assimilation!)

2) Don’t mess with the Department of Homeland Security or U.S. customs in general. Not only will they do a really thorough and uncompromising job in order to make you feel safe, keep their country secure and keep that niggling fear of terrorism alive in the back of your mind, they also don’t mind if you give their camera a big goofy grin after they’ve finished fingerprinting you and are taking your mug shot. Though they’ll cut the locks off your bag, search it they will leave a ‘compliments of…’ chitty inside your suitcase.

3) You can say hello to and make small chat with anyone. In fact, it’s expected. Unlike in England where you’ll be regarded as a crazy. In fact, after dining at the Cracker Barrel, I had a word-for-word identical conversation with a lady that the U.S. guide book that Elisabeth got for me said I would.

4) As a whole, the United States is a very hot country. I mean really, really hot. Hotter than I can handle.

5) On top of being hot, it’s so humid that it’s too humid. Did I mention how hot it was?

6) Going to a great-big (By my standards) southern evangelical church makes me feel like an alien. Or at least newly immigrated Muslim from Pakistan who is made to attend a church service. Except that I speak the language fluently and am technically the same faith.

7) In fact, the sheer bombardment of religion in the South is so overwhelming that it’s easy to assume that you’re opinion of how much religion is out there is correct. Only it only actually accounts for about 5% of the total religion that is very politely and sincerely fed to everyone in the South every day of their life. The local Charlotte ‘news’paper had a section devoted to extreme Christian views as a matter of course.

8) Newspapers in America contain no actual news. And if they do, contain what appears to be a news story then it’ll be cleverly written so as to only contain one side of the story so that people mistake ‘opinion’ as news.

9) It really sucks to be a vegetarian if you don’t live in a city. It must really suck to be any kind of gourmet in the south as well. There must be more to life than fried food and salads are not a suitable vegetarian alternative.

10) Never ever, under any circumstances, eat at Fatz Cafe.

Actually, that should be point number 1. And I can’t really think of any more snark so I’ll stop there. The trip was, in fact, very nice, fun and chilled out and it was a real pity that we had to leave when we did. Even though I’d reached the limits of spending family time with people, it was still very sad to leave.

Back in Woking, we’re taking advantage of the Italian market that’s rolled into town and our bodies are thanking us generously for starting them back on that healthy organic diet. I have gained something akin to a million-billion pounds thanks to the bottomless pit of beer and was carted around with us all trip. So there’s going to be a massive anti-alcohol detox going on for us as well.

(I.e., we only got one bottle of wine for tonight to accompany our delicious Italian market meal. But you need red wine to go with Italian food so it’s not like it’s a failure on our part to control our alcohol intake, we’re just doing what needs to be done. It would be rude not to.)

It’s really nice to be back in England, actually. It’s nice to be in a multi-cultural society again . It’s nice to be able to get a paper and go to the Italian cafe for a coffee to relax. It’s nice to see that there has been progress with the construction near the town centre where the workmen have replaced the safety fence with a different safety fence.

It’s nice to read the paper and learn how the U.S. is helping to commit acts of voter fraud in not just its own country but others as well and that fundamentalism, regardless of what religion is involved is a deviation from the true nature of religion.

It’s nice to be positive once in a while and not snark about how

11) Americans don’t know how to travel. Gatwick has its own wing devoted to clueless travelers how must have come to England in the first place, but have obviously forgotten how that happened because they’ll wander round getting angrier and angrier because they won’t stop and ask for help or, if they do, blame the person who is helping them’s accent for their confusion except that they’ve obviously spoken to English people while they’ve been here so one would think that they’ve learned to understand the language. You’ll also encounter petty air rage on the flight back to the U.K. that’s so petty it’s not worth even going into detail about.

Back
Topic: Stephen Says
It took us 17 hours of travel time from Charlotte but we're home at last and the plants aren't dead. The jet lag doesn't seem so bad this time though we managed a 4 hour power nap as soon as we got through the door. It's nice to be home.