There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

I've been home now for about 3 weeks, and so far, the waters have been mostly calm. Most of that, I feel, is due to Scottie being here, causing everyone to act on their best behaviour and, more importantly, keeping me away from dealing with that thing known as Grandma.

I had to take care of my granny for 3 months before she and my family moved to Boonies Nowheresville (pop. rumoured to be just under 2,000- I went to high school with more people!) and life was almost hell. Seriously, I don't think I drank more in Scotland or University than I did in those 3 short months.

Anyway, Scottie is sadly leaving me on the 31st to get back in time to work while i have to bide my time here waiting for my Visa (hopefully) to arrive. And I have a feeling that once he's gone, Granny is going to get pawned off on me. Again.

Things she has done so far:
Granny's dentures no longer fit her shrunken head, and she has a penchant to talk whilst chewing her food, causing projectile missiles of half-masticated dinner and lord knows what kind of gunk that has been sitting for months or years in the crevices of her fake chompers to spray in the listeners' general direction. For the record, those bits can fly distances!

She is by far the snoopiest, nosey-est, curious busybody that ever existed! "What are doing?" "Where are you going?" "Why did you come back at 3 instead of 4?" "Why are you watching this programme?" I have been crocheting the same shawl for 3 weeks now, and every night i pick up my hook, I get the same "What are you working on now?"

Granny is shafted down to the bedroom at the very end of the house, which is nice for the rest of the family because she is annexed out where no one has to deal with her. She has her own large screen HD TV, Satellite, Radio, newspaper, cat, and glass door out to the garden so she can watch her birds. But she still insists on exercise, so every now and then she'll thump her way down the long hallway to the living room, cane knocking against the walls as she waddles along. I've noticed that she tends to do this along when we are all watching TV together, or if she wants a snack. If we're all watching TV, then she interrogates us about what we're watching and how it reminds her a book or an article she once read on the same subject, and if we hold on, she'll go get it, except that she read it a while ag0, and can't remember if she still has the book or article, or if she gave it away.......and on it goes until we get irritated enough and shoo heR away.

When she comes in for a snack, though, she is as quiet as can be, trying to ninja in and out without being seen. This is because granny has some bad habits. First of all, she wants to nibble everything, so there will always be half a slice of bread in the bread bag, half a cookie laying around, half a bit of cheese, half a bagel, bits of halves all over the place. Secondly, she has this thing with margarine. I noticed it a lot when I lived with her-she doesn't really use knives to get the margarine out of the tub, instead she dips her pointer, middle, and ring finger into the soft buttery spread and then uses her fingers to smear the margarine on her half piece of bread. You can tell by the three parallel ditches left in the tub as evidence.

The last thing I'll reveal before boring everyone is her strange bathroom habits. The other reason granny is annexed down to the end of the hall is because directly across from her room is a bathroom. Technically it's meant for her room and my room to share, but ever since granny moved in, it's been firmly hers. This is because granny has incredibly bad IBS and has the runs a lot. A LOT a lot. But sometimes I'll pop in there to use the mirror or brush my hair. And that's when I notice that there always seems to be quite a bit of dirty water in the toilet, but never any toilet paper. Then I realised that for the past few months, every since finding out that this half of CA is in drought, granny has been going potty, wiping her bum, and...throwing the dirty paper in the trash can instead of the toilet. Now, I remember back when we were having a drought and the rhyme "If it's yellow it's mellow, if it's brown, flush it down", but NOTHING about disposing your IBS soiled paper in the trash can for weeks before having it emptied...no wonder there are always so many flies buzzing around that end of granny's room!

I am officially documented! Yesterday Scottie and I went down to the good ol' passport support office in West Sacramento and they took all my fingerprints. I ahve to say, I was quite impressed with my bad ass skills at driving sans map and with Scottie as my co-pilot.

Not that I am dissing his navigational skillz, but the poor kid just can't really give directions. Thank Jebus I gave myself an hour to find the place! We started out early because Scottie wanted to find a Borders, thanks to having read all of his reading material at the ranch for lack of anything else to do here. The mystical shopping place was located somewhere just before Sacramento city, and I managed to get there, even with the signs being written in minescule lettering. After a brief lunch of Subway (where I told the dude Southwest Sauce and he gave me Sweet Onion...wha?) we were on our way.

"Okay, now do a U-Turn."
'No need, the U-turn was to get us onto Turxel, but they had a light there, so I did a left turn...don't worry, we're on Turxel now"
'Are you sure? No! You passed it, Truxel is down that way!"
"No, the signs correlate to direction...so if you see a road sign running parallel to the road you are on, then you are on that road...the signs that cross the road are for the streets that run perpendicular to the road you are on.'
"That makes no sense, American has crazy streets"
"No, dear, it works the same in the UK"
"No it doens't."

And it got worse from there.

"Okay, now turn onto Reed Ave."
"Already did that"
"What? When?"
"At that stop light. I turned left, quick, what are the next directions"
"Um, oh, you should have turned back there."
"What?!?! you're sure? Okay, let me find a place to U-Turn."

After pulling into where I was directed, we searched in vain for the passport building. 795, 800, 820, 830, 840- but no 825.
By now I was kinda freaking out because I really don't like being late for legal things, especially ones concerning my passport and visa. But we had a half hour. After searching in and searching, I finally asked to see the directions.

'Honey, the directions say to say on Reed, and that Reed veers to the left and becomes Riverside"
"Yeah, and you said you turned left. "
"Yes, but that was step 3. Step 4 is Reed veers to the left and becomes Riverside. We're not on Riverside. We need to go back onto Reed and stay on it until it turned into Riverside."
'Oh."

Internal head smacking and deep breathing ensued.

But in the end, it all worked out and I was literally in and out in 3 minutes- and that includes the bathroom break!

The next step was to find Old Town Sacramento. I had been there once when I was 10 on a school fieldtrip to the capitol, and I figured it would be a fun mini-trip to take Scottie to now that we were in the area. Trouble was, the directions were fracked. Google maps failed me, and after instrucing me to take Jefferson Blvd, it said to go straight. But Jefferson ended in a stoplight for left or right. I picked the left since there were loads of holiday flags on that side, and just wandered about. I figured that Sacramento couldn't be bigger than Santa Rosa, if even that size, and lo and behold, I ended up taking a ramp that led me right to Old Town parking. We wandered the wee shops along Old Town and had some Frozen youghurt before loading up on Jelly Bellys and Salt Water Taffy and heading back home. With no idea how to get home, we had to rely on my kick ass directions skills, and after only one wee mis-turn that had us heading towards Reno on 80, we managed to get back to the 5 and homewards. Whoot!!!

Moral of story: women drive and do better when they give themselves directions.

Man, being back home has made me lazy. Because my day either revolves around driving crazy granny around to places she thinks she recognises, or sitting on the couch crocheting, I have had nothing really to write about. So today, I'll go with eyes.

I have a friend who is only 2 years older than me and wrote a "I shoulda, coulda, woulda' list. This list (I'm sure to be ongoing), was of all the regrets she had when she was younger, and while there weren't too many (she's only 26), one of them was "I should have started using eye cream earlier". What? At 26? But then, who am I to ignore the "Man, I wish I...when I was younger" advice. But eye cream? Most of those are targeted at people like my mom-

So then here's the crux- do I cave in, listening to the advice of my older friend, and end up spending hundreds a year (seriously, those eye creams are like $30 and last like a month!), or do I laugh it off as a genetic flaw that my friend has and refuse to give a cent of my hard saved money to the booming cosmetic conglomerates until I'm at least 30.

Preemptive assault, or waste of money?

So I got to searching. I read somewhere that Evening of Primrose oil is nature's pure and natural way to save your eyes and make you 1,000 years younger, so I went out and did what I could- I found a bottle of evening of primrose capsules for ingestion and tried poking them with a safety pin, then spreading the viscous oil inside. First thing I noticed was the smell. So did Scottie. And while I only used it a few nights and thus have no idea how well it will/did/can work, I think it might be one that I used only when I have a cold.

Next came the store-bought creams. But a lot of them where zonks expensive and contained Parabens- and thanks to a Channel 4 programme on how toxic we're making ourselves (plus the archaeological insider knowledge I have that bodies these days are decomposing slower than they were 100 years ago due to all the preservitives we are eating/absorbing) I am trying my bestest to avoid parabens as much as humanly possible.

Having failed at the pure oil and at store bought creams, I started looking at the posh ones. Clinique, Origins, Estee Lauder....
But then I saw the the list of ingredients filled not one, not two, but 3 sides of the packaging! What?!? Now while I'm not exactly an all natural, all organic health freak, I am wary of putting something with 2,943 ingredients on my face next to my eye. So that was a negative.

I have a feeling that this will be something that I am going to obsess over for probably the next 2 decades, by which time I will probably have stressed myself out so much that my face will look like I should have been using eye cream way back in my twenties.

I really hope that they invent teleporters really soon because I frickken hate looooooooong boring plane rides.

My honey and I left his aunt's house at 7 am for the airport, curtsy of a magic ticket Scottie's dad gave us for the taxi there (read: 30 quid). We checked in, popped up to Pret for a cold breakfast baguette, and then made our way to the gate. Naturally stopping by to get my dad a duty free bottle of Whiskey. Yay one x-mas pressie done!

The atlantic flight across was HEAVEN! I am SO the luckiest girl in the world. Because we were traveling standby, we managed to gleen our way into 1st class. That meant I could stretch out, wrap myself up in a nice cozy blanket, watch 30 different films on my own private viedo screen, and douse myself in free Bloody Marys, Gin and Tonics, Champagne, Amarettos, etc. Heaven. I totally felt like the cat who got the cream, but 10 hours have never flown by so quickly.

Not as lucky for part two of the journey. American Air only flies into Sacramento from Dallas, and this time around we were lucky enough to get the last two seats in the plan- at the far back jobbie hole. Honey's window looked out on the turbine, so there was no point in even having the screen open. 4 hours. And no food. I made that free drink laaaaaaaaast.

Finally, after 21 hours of solid travel, honey and I fell into Sac airport, my dad showed up a half hour later, and we were off home. An hour after that we finally were home.

Now I am nothing but fat. My mom went all out and we had Pizza, crisps, bowls of left over halloween chocolate (like who the hell could come trick or treating waaaaaaay out in the boonies?), coke, seven up, cookies (two kinds!)...ah welcome back to junk food nation.

First thing I did was get car insurance and phone set up. Done and done. But only two days into our stay here....is it wrong that grandma is already making me mental?

Stay tuned, as I am sure that crazy grandma antics will follow...that or I loose it and kill her.

I LOVE Christmas in Edinburgh! Edinburgh manages to perfectly balance festive taste with fantasy wonder without tripping into the tacky quagmire of giant blow up santas in Styrofoam snow globes. I also think that the Christmas spirit looks amazing on some of the old Georgian architecture that dominated the New Town. This is of the Bank, a very posh cocktail bar that used to be...a bank! There's just something about fairy lights that somehow reminds me of late 18th and early to mid19th century ambiance. Even though they totally didn't exist back then.

The one thing that the UK lacks that the US totally dominated on is the gross decking out of private homes in Christmas lights. I remember how my family used to bundle into the station wagon to go driving around town to see what the locals had done to their lawns. Santa Rosa has a section called Snowman Lane, named because every year, the residents deck out the whole place in awash of Christmas cheer.
However, now that my parents have moved to the absolute boonies of hell, there are no lights, only cows.

I've been lucky enough to split Christmases between the UK and the US for the past 4 years, but this year will be something new. Since my parents moved house in August, the new place they moved into has been theirs. This will be the first winter I've spent there, and the first Christmas that our family has spent Christmas together there (last year was technically the first, but due to my mom's donkey committing suicide, my flight across was deemed less important, so magically my plane ticket turned into mom's new donkey...wankers).

Can ya tell I'm bitter? Anyway, trying not to dwell on Benedict Arnold parents, I am so looking forward to going home again. I am drooling over the idea of Outlet Malls (gross, I know, but I only own one pair of jeans and Levis over here are equivilent to like $140!), SUSHI BUFFET!, and my car...or at least the idea of what my car represents- the ability to go somewhere without needing to walk 10 minuts, take a train, a bus, another bus, and another 20 minutes walk to get anywhere new. God, and my friends! I miss them SO much. I know I have the most amazing friends in the UK, but there are a core group of very special people back in the States who I talk to every couple months, but I fail miserably at talking and am much more of a sensing/physical person.

Anyway, me and the Scot head out tomorrow at 2 for the Big Smoke, then take off Wednesday morning for operation enter the US. Cannae wait!

Attention McEwan Hall: Will the ass face who STOLE my jacket at the graduation ceremony please be decent and return it? It's -2 outside, if you hadn't noticed. Thanks.

Yes, that's right. Today I proudly graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in Britain with a Masters degree, during which some douche face ass stole my jacket. I arrived early to check in and get my Harry Potter-esque robes and receive my seating card. Row 40, seat 2. Awesome. Then, since you couldn't wear a jacket or anything with the robe, I followed the advice of the robing crew and left my jacket on the back of my chair. Someone else had also left their kit on my chair. A red hand bag and a matching red pea coat. 'Hmmm', I thought, 'Obviously they are mistaken since this is my seat, but I will put my jacket down next to the person who so trustingly left their handbag and it will be fiiiiiine.' Ha. I no sooner set my coat down then my friend called me to meet her by the enterance. So I did. I was gone for literally 7 minutes. When I returned, my jacket was GONE. I ran around the entire hall asking everyone with a red coat and matching red handbag if they had accidentally picked up a black jacket by mistake, but to no avail. It was gone. I told the ushers to keep and eye out for it. I returned 3 times between 10 and 5 to ask if it had be turned in. Nothing.

Either a graduate or their parent STOLE my coat. Wankers.

Luckily, my wonderful Scottie filled me up with first a Bloody Mary followed by a wonderful St. Francis bottle of merlot from Santa Rosa, my old home town. And wonderful Scottie only had one glass, meaning I consumed the rest of the bottle.

I am so knackered/drunk now.

Fuck people to steal your shit! Thank god for this wine blanket which kept me warmish on the walk home THROUGH THE ICE.

Okay, so maybe I pinched this photo from somewhere else, but holy McFrackFace it is COOOOOOOLD!

Worst idea ever: Wearing high heeled boots (bloody work attire) during a frost storm. I had to literally walk on my tip toes on icy pavements of death while trying desperately not to slip and fall into either oncoming traffic or on my arse. Tomorrow is a solid sole boot day, and damn work attire!

Everything is white. The cars, the sidewalks, the railings. And yesterday it dipped into -5C...which is 23F for those in the US. Everyone has been saying that it's too cold to snow. In my head, cold is not worth existing unless it can be paired with snow.

In other more exciting news, I GRADUATE from my post-grad degree in 1 day!! This means a 4 days work week.. and oh yeah, one day is already done. Booyah!

The unfair part: Guys get to wear their kilts, but girls have to wear either black trousers or skirts with a long sleeved collared shirt. I say discrimination! You can get away with a hideous yellow or florescent pink tartan if you're a guy, but girls are stuck with boring black and white. The rebellious part of me almost wants to wear my pink and purple mini-kilt in defiance.

I had to put this in because who doesn't love gay penguins? Take that, crazy fundamentalists who say that homosexuality is 'unnatural.' Unfortunately, while love might conquer all, when you're in a zoo, you're subject to the rule of Prop 8 -esque discrimination. Booo.

A couple of gay penguins are attempting to steal eggs from straight birds in an effort to become "fathers", it has been reported.

The two penguins have started placing stones at the feet of parents before waddling away with their eggs, in a bid to hide their theft.

But the deception has been noticed by other penguins at the zoo, who have ostracised the gay couple from their group. Now keepers have decided to segregate the pair of three-year-old male birds to avoid disrupting the rest of the community during the hatching season.

Gay penguins

Travelling always leaves me shattered. I think I mentally think about how travel tires me out, and voila, I bring it on myself.

Yep, I am back from a WONDERFUL mini-holiday. On Wednesday, I took the train south of 4.5 hours and arrived in the bustling city of London where I met up with a pal from my post-grad course. After a delicious (and big and $14) banana and nutella crepe and a cup of tea, I headed even farther south to the beach side towns of Brighton and Hove (mainly Hove) where my super wonderful friend Kiki (as she is nicknamed) and her husband live for a fabulous Thanksgiving long weekend.

I've had Thanksgivings in the UK before, but nothing has been as delicious or authentic as what we had. 4 years ago, when I was in Edinburgh studying for the year, the abroad office put on a little shindig Scottish style, complete with turkey (the stuffing was ham and stuffed inside the slice of turkey breast like an embedded medallion of meat), kilted sausages (tiny sausages wrapped in bacon), and brussle sprouts.

Then, of course, there was the ceilidh and everyone ended up getting even more pissed at the pub down the street.

Also that year, my fellow American flatmate decieded to share Thanksgiving with the Brits of our flat. Unfortunatley, unable to find the turkey, Virginia (so I label people from where they're from...so what) bought a ham that ended up being too big for our small University issued oven and ended up being a half cooked half burnt to death lump of pig flesh. Also, the sweet potatoes and marshmallows were too bizzare for the Brits to comprehend and remained mostly uneaten, as did the collared greens. But she got an A for effort!

This Thanksgiving was great. We had turkey, corn bread (made with Polenta meal as it is known here), green beans, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and mince pies for pudding. And delicious Scrumpy, a cloudy apple cider that is apparently pretty prevelant in the south of England. Also, good banter, good music, and good company...it couldn't get better. I think the British guests found it to be nothing more than a large version of a Sunday Roast, but I for one, in the Thanksgiving tradition, was extreamely thankful for my friend for hosting such a great meal and for putting me up for 4 days and 3 nights.

It's the holidays and traditions away from home that remind you the most that you're not home, and being able to share Thanksgiving with another ex-pat helped to re-create that bit of home that was missing from those past Novembers, no matter how fun, strange, or memorable they were.

Righty- have been a bit AWOL due to my narcoleptic tendencies brought on by work. But now I am back. And drunk. And free (ish).

Tuesday is when SAfriend comes round to dinner because she has an art class at 6:30. This evenings menu- Vietnamese Prawn Salad. I am so into this whole Vietnamese cooking thing. I think maybe bio-dad is really from Vietnam instead of Thailand, as he claims, because I have been doing a butt load ot Vietnamese cooking lately. And kick ass at it!

Anyway, SAfriend was over and she brought CAVA!! SAfriend finally got a job from the temp agency, so to celebrate, we popped open the CAVA- which then had to be finished in less than an hour because of her class. Done and done. Then Scottie got home and for some reason wanted to celebrate my 3 day weekend (oh yeah, I decieded it's my right or whatever as as American to celebrate Thanksgiving by taking the next 3 days off of work to go down to Hove to see my other amazing American friend and think about religious fanatics and cultural genocide). So then I got wine. And more wine.

And did some online plane bookings.

Life hate #3
Companies that charge you up the ass and then screw you while you're down. So far, this has happened twice to me in the span of two months. The first came from theuksource.co.uk, aka the worst online electornics company EVER. My poor moblie came with a broken charger and rather than pay for a new one, I went online to find a cheaper one. The Uk source has one for like £2. Hot. And after some research that stated that my particular mobile has a fail for a battery, I decieded to get a £3 battery. £5 or so in total. Then the wankers decieded to charge me £6 (£3 per item!) for shipping. WHAT?!?! To make matters worse, I didn't recieve anything for a month. A MONTH!! I sent the 3 e-mails. The first one said 'WHERE IS MY ORDER?!?!' The second one echoed that, and the third said 'CANCEL OR I WILL CONTACT MY CREDIT CARD AND DECLARE FRAUD.' I finally got an e-mail saying it was in the post. Kinda. A few days later I get a note from Royal Mail saying that someone skimped on the postage and that I owend £1.20 to get my parcel delivered. Fine. Whatever, just give it to me already. THEN when it arrives, it is only the charger- no battery in sight. And no word at all from the dodgy website that took my money but none of my e-mails (and they don't have a phone, so no one can call...at all..not even to order a pizza).

Rant!

Well now it sorta happened again, this time in the lovely orange guise of EasyJet. EasyJet, in order to make money, charges for your soul. I am flying from Edinburgh to London, then connecting to the US. So one would assume that I might have some luggage. Not with EasyJet! You get to pay £6 to STOW something up to 20kg. You can buy extra weight at a discount online, with an extra 6kg costing £18!!!! So I am only going to the US with extra underwear and maybe a sock. THEN they sneak in £5 insurance that you have to untick in a clever way or else it sneaks its way into your overall charges. THEN they also charge £6 to use your Visa card.

All this, and my original plan was to take the train for £25, no limit on luggage weight...but Scottie wanted to get into London at a reasonable time so this relatives could pick us up....oh the things we do for love and decency.

More wine please.

Now, I know I just did a post about strange food and how hard core I am when it comes to eating strange shit, but I do have my limits. Ladies and gents, enter Natural Harvest. Yes indeed, a cooking book devoted to using seaman as an ingredient.

Never, no way, no how!

As the book states:

Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food. This book hopes to change that. Once you overcome any initial hesitation, you will be surprised to learn how wonderful semen is in the kitchen. Semen is an exciting ingredient that can give every dish you make an interesting twist. If you are a passionate cook and are not afraid to experiment with new ingredients - you will love this cook book!

Now, I like to think of myself as a very UN-hater...a lover, an optimist, and a good karmaist. But that being said, there are some things in life that I just HATE and can do nothing about. Two of them happened today.

1) Being trapped on the other side of the street when your bus arrives and not being able to run across to catch it because of cars of death that won't stop to let you make it. *&%"&£%&*$^ how I hate that! Since J-Walking isn't illegal in the UK (at least as far as I know), everyone just waits to dash across the road. At the hospital, the bus stop is conveniently directly across the road...across the very busy road...and while there is a crosswalk, it's about 25 yards up the road, meaning I would just be backtracking, and no one wants to do that.

2) Mixed car messages. This happened to me in the parking lot. It was a double lane and there were two cars coming my way. One of them looked like it was going to stop and let me go, the other was reving it's engine. When Car 1 rolled to a stop, I made like I was about to cross the street, but then Car 2 started reving it's engine, so I thought I would just let them pass instead, but then Car 1 was waving his hand for me to go, so I did, causing Car 2 to rev some more and then gun the engine when I was just a hairsbreadth out of his lane so he could jump in front of nice Car 1. And this was in a parking lot. Of a hospital. Where sick kids and people in wheelchairs and crutches walk/roll/hobble. Grrrrrrrrrrr...

Watch this space, I am sure that there will be plenty more life hates coming your way.

So once upon a time I had this friend in High School. He was funny, super cool to hang out with, and we got along really really well in that God-I-Love-Hanging-Out-With-You-But-Not-In-That-Boyfriend/Girlfriend-Kind-Of-Way. This guy was the type you never felt embarrassed asking to Turnabout or Prom (and possibly Homecoming) when you had no one ask you and were surrounded by all your happy couple friends.

Anyway, I have not spoken to this guy in 4 years, save that one time 3 years ago when I ran into him and his mom on my way to get a sandwich on my lunch break and we talked for 3 minutes. Nada. He's not even on facebook or anything like that, so as far as I know, he could be dead, married, missing a limb, and I would have no idea. Right. So then today, I wake up from my slumber at 5:55am, hit the power button on my laptop, and go about my waking up routine while it warms it ancient self up. Once dressed and in the process of munching on cereal, I open my mailbox and low and behold.

Subject: How's life
So there's been this peculiar smell brewing near the copy machine at my work. It's affecting people's ability to work and no one can locate the source. In the adjacent room is a fish tank and Jim, our company fish, has apparently gone missing. It instantly became obvious that my boss threw Jim into the copy machine and stuffed his tiny body in the gears to conceal his ill doings.
He's been known to kill small animals and it's rumored he has bodies in his basement. No one will ever know what became of Jim, but under the copy machine were two dead rotting rats, holding hands, and crawling with maggots.
I love my job.

Tell me a story


That's it. After over 4 years of not talking, not exchaning an e-mail, and IM, anything. But it totally sums up my relationship with this guy and the kind of person he is. Ridiculous, hilarious, and making me laugh and be happy I know him.

Tell me a story.

How do you top that? I don't. I can't. So instead I also bleather about work.

Re: How's Life?
About a week ago, what I assumed was a female approached me at the reception desk of the hospital where I worked and asked me to phone Tanya for her to get her work schedule. She was a new nurse about to start work, so I phoned through and didn't think anything of it until she actually started working. Yesterday was her first day on the job, and as one of the other nurses brought her around to meet me, she introduced herself as Gordon. 'Hmm,' I thought, 'Well, in this day and age...I suppose some women prefer the name Gordon.....After all, Lexy changed her name to Alex.' But I couldn't help but wonder....what gender did it belong to and what was its original sex? Feminine voice, feminine facial features.....butch manly crew cut...could definitely get away with wearing flannel it flannel lumber jack shirts existed in the UK....something that could either pass off as super tiny titties or just normal sized moobs for a person that size....

I wanted to make it my secret investigation- discover its gender. All day on the way to work today I obsessed over what questions I could ask it without sounding too obvious. Would a butch lesbo answer differently than a gay man? Than a straight man? Than a straight woman? Sports? Cooking? Fashion? Cars? How do you lead a person into revealing what gender they identify with without sounding like prying douche?

Alas, before I could set my machinations in to action, Gordon approached me this morning, apparently to reintroduce himself as I was entering patient data into the computer.

'Hi, I'm Gordon.'
'Yes, I remember, how are you?'
'Good. I'm a trans-male. I'm not quite there yet, but hopefully in a few months you'll start seeing some real changes.'
'Ah. Well, if I'm around that long, I'm only a temp.'

And off went Gordon and there went a whole days worth of plans to spy, pry, and gleen.



So...tell me a story

I'm trying to bide my time, do some alpaca knitting, and because I'm a car nerd, get in some Top Gear on bbc iplayer. They play this song a lot and I am totes digging it at the mo.



Enjoy before youtube pulls it!
xx

I would consider myself something of a food explorer. Back at Uni in San Diego, my friend M and I used to do the best we could to scout out new restaurants and cuisines just for the fun of sticking something new and exciting in our tummies. Ethiopian, Brazilian, raw beef, horse meat, things we didn't know how to pronounce or dishes that we had no idea what they contained were all ordered with excitement. It was like discovering a new, uncharted culinary world.

Then I came to Scotland.

For a while, I eagerly did my best to eat as many things that I had never heard or, or if I had, had always wanted to try; haggis, toad in the hole, spotted dick, clootie pudding, fried mars bars, christmas pudding, cullen skink...

But something you have to realise with the British is that when it comes to trying new and utterly different, they dip their toes in the waters and then wade in cautiously rather than cannonball in. 4 years ago, there was one Japanese restaurant in Edinburgh, and of that restaurant, most of the dishes were Chinese with only a handful of ridiculously expensive sushi-esque ones. Then suddenly there was a Japanese explosion and 3 Japanese restaurants popped up in the space of a few months which slowly gained popularity as more and more Scots slowly treaded the waters of what was being see in places like London as the new posh food.

But diversity does exist, albeit in very small holes in the wall that cater to their own kind. Like last night.

Scottie and go to this Chinese place which primarily serves Hot Pot. I've had it once before and to be honest, didn't like it one bit. But this time around, Scottie mentioned trying it, and even though I knew he would hate it, and even though I didn't like it, I wanted to get it just to expose him to something so foreign. Now this place is ALWAYS filled with Chinese, and you really to feel like the sore thumb standing out in a place like that. We ordered the Hop Pot, and sat back as it all began to arrive. Now for those unfamiliar with Hop Pot, think of it like the Chinese version of fondue, but not delicious. You get a boiling pot of soup- ours was divided in two and I naturally had to ask for the 'medium spicy' which arrived with about 58 red chilli peppers happily eroding away the side of the pot with their deadly heat. Then came the plates of raw food- fish sticks, fish balls, tofu, noodles, mushrooms, kelp, lamb, beef, spam, and.. the fish dish. Out of the 3 marine creatures, I could identify two; the squid and prawn. The next one was something that came in a tube, looked like a very long worm, and...was still alive.
'Did you see that?'
'What?'
'It just moved?'
'What, no, you're seeing things'
'No, look!'

I did, and sure enough, the wormy tip of the worm-like mollusk was wiggling around in a futile search for escape.

'Uhmmm, well, at least we know it's fresh!'

So naturally, I had to prove that I was a fearless eater and bung it in my side of the pot. A good 5 minutes later, and it had slipped out of its shell and had transformed into a cooked wormy thing with a lot of little dangly wormy bits hanging off. I made it past two bites before I had to hide it under Scottie's politely refused wormy thing.

Now, the wormy thing wasn't the worst that has seen the inside of my tummy. That same night, when I bunged my squid in the soup, I forgot to remove its eyes and then forgot about them until I was munching away. I also pretended not to see the strange grey matter that was inside the cavity of the squids body. However, in my defence, I have to say that on a scale of deliciousness, last nights dinner rated about a 3. What I am ashamed to admit was what I used to eat and enjoy when I was younger and didn't know better.

My family was pretty poor when I was growing up, so my mom always bought the cheapest mean on offer- that always being cow tongue. And to this day, I freaking LOVE cow tongue. But at the time, my mom, to make it sound more appealing, knowing that no 6 year old will gladly chomp away on tongue, passed it off as beaver tail. Which I was more than happy to eat.

But the thing that takes the cake is partially formed chicken foetus. I don't think that nowadays I would have the stomach and resolve to nom away on it like I did back in the day, but before I really knew was it was, Chicky-in-the-egg was my favourite! We had chickens and an incubator, and apparently partially formed chicken is a delicacy in Thailand/Vietnam/Laos/Philippines, one my Thai dad was eager to introduce me to at the tender age of 4. Yes, I used to beg my mom for Chicky-in-the-egg after kindergarten on a weekly basis. I can't remember how I ate it, but I remember it tasting just like an egg, only slightly meatier and chewier. And I remember liking that cheweyness.

I'm sure that it's still delicious, but now that I am a bit older and wiser, I don't think that I can literally stomach it or the thought.

I hope that I'm not the only one who gets lost for words around certain people in certain situations- like the one I am guaranteed to face at least once a day (if not more).

For instance- how do you tell an old man in a wheelchair to please take a seat? At the hospital, after I check the patients in, I ask them to have a seat until the nurse arrives to collect them. But it sounds so strange to say it to someone who is already in a seat. They obviously can't take one because they are affixed to one! So what do you say?

A lot of the time, they are also deaf, drooling, or in a state of suspended animation.

Then there are the ones who come in from lord knows where all wrapped up on a hospital bed. I personally can't think of anything more embarrassing. I mean, let's say you're old and need to get a camera shoved up your butt..for fun. There isn't anything I would rather do than enter the Day Bed Suite on a gurney, being pulled along like lost luggage by the ambulance officers, all the while having everyone else in the reception room stare at the drool puddling from the corner of my mouth because my arms are strapped to my side for safety. I mean, there is a back entrance that would save the poor guy the trouble of being thrown about in front of everyone else.

But no, the ambulance dudes just drop him off with me...and now what the hell do I do with him? Tell him to take a seat? Wheel him into a corner and try to hide him behind the plant? Leave him in the middle of the room to be gawked at like an artefact in the museum?

I can't help but think that the UK is a little more PC crazy than the US...so what do you do?

If you're me, hide and hope a nurse will fix things with her magic wand.

Public transportation is one of those wonderful inventions that can provide equal amounts of entertainment and agony. I personally love all forms of public transportation (minus that 11 hour bus ride from York to Heathrow that I paid with my soul in order to save £12) because of how unique it is in the States. Oh sure, you have places like Chicago and New York that have functional subways and trams, but for the most part, the US was designed with cars in mind, and the only people who take public transportation are the old, the cracked out crazy, the homeless, or all of the above- which really makes the whole 'look at me, I'm being green AND saving money AND being an all around better person than you, Mr Hummer2 yuppy!' pretentiousness aura not seem worthy. I've even had a friend who had a harrowing experience on a public bus which may have involved a gun. And the buses in the US (at least San Francisco) smell like urine and bad BO.

But Edinburgh has fantastic public transportation- they even (and I am sure this is the case all over the UK) give out FREE newspapers every morning to make your morning commute a little more interesting. And everyone loves free things! The buses don't smell, they come ever 5-10 minutes, and call me a Yank, but I can't get enough of sitting upstairs in a double decker.

That said, you still gets your moments of entertainment. My co-worker was telling me a bus story the other day. It was just after work and crowded to capacity, which means that trying to negotiate your way off and on to the bus is like an intricate dance of trying to make yourself 40lbs skinnier, not being rude and shoving, but also trying to make the doors before they snap shut. As my co-worker was making her way to the exit, her work satchel much have rubbed against a young man, because he turned to his partner and in a loud voice announced to the front of the bus that 'that lady just touched my nob!'. My co-worker, who has just spent a long 10 hour day dealing with idiots at the hospital said that she was over come with a moment of rage so fierce that she whipped around, and in a louder voice stated 'In your dreams, little man!' before realising what she had just done and fleeing the bus to the sound of uproarious laughter.

Today I had the opposite. A sparsely filled bus and the 'I can't shut the hell up' dude. This guy ( or gal) is generally 'one of those types' that is so involved with themselves and their own world that they are oblivious to those around them who are silently sending them telepathic death wishes. This guy could not stop talking on his mobile. In a VERY LOUD VOICE that made sure that all of us were privy to his conversation. First he had a long chat to his friend about needing to borrow money, and then how he was going to buy a lot of computer software (with borrowed money I suppose). Immediately after his friend hung up (and probably went off to stop his bleeding ears), he phoned up another person to demand why that person didn't answer their phone at 12, and then again at 5! The nerve! He then went on to whine about how the dance teachers are intimidated of him since he writes formal complaints against them (he was like 30something with a dark brown beard and waist length long bleached blonde hair who was doing dance at a community college apparently)...JEBUS, get OVER yourself.

But sadly, I have to leave the conversation to catch my next bus home.

Does anyone feel the urge to learn as much personal information about people when they're yapping away on their phones?

As much as I want to look like that nice, friendly, always willing to help receptionist/office worker (god how I want a real job some day!), 80% of it is all a fake act, especially when it comes to the old. Now I know that I am exposing myself as a horrible person with only the devil sitting on her shoulder, but come on!

How many times have you been trying to walk down the street, only to be foiled by the old who have suddenly come to a stand still to adjust their cane? This happens a lot with the big and the stupid too. It's the equivalent to slamming on the brakes on the freeway for no reason other than you thought you saw a butterfly, and by god, if I wasn't such a skilled and vigilant walker, you would so have a my purse/ face ramming into your back (hmm, sounds kinda pervey).

Apart from the old's way of suddenly stopping to think about where it was they were going is the incredibly slow time it takes for them to get there. When I had to take care of my granny for 3 months, it killed me how a simple task like going to the grocery store took 3 hours longer than it needed to- if only she would have sucumbed to the wheel chair, I could have whipped her in, out, and home in all of 15 minutes, and that's with letting her squeeze every loaf of bread. Wheel chairs are like free rides! Come on granny, live a little!

But apart from my annoyance with all things that old people do, you have to laugh at them and their silly old people antics. Like today. Because I work in the poo and pee section of the hospital, we get a lot of 50+ in for biopseys, colonoscopies, endoscopies, and cystoscopies. And some of these guys a SUPER old. Like I was born in 1919! So today, I check in this one guy who's like 78. After I take his name, he proudly pulls out a vital of his urine, sets it on the desk, and exclaims, "I did that this morning!" "Very good, sir, why don't you just hang on to that, okay, and give it to the nurse when she calls your name. Now have a seat."

Or the old lady who got a letter, but is both blind and deaf, so had to have her neighbour read it really loudly to her...they would be so cute if not for the fact they they're old and so exasperating!

So I gotta love their rare moments when they are just so precious and cute and vulnerable that they're almost like puppies, but then hate the fact that they smell, see nothing wrong with being so truthful that they lack basic tact and civility, and feel as though the world should deliver their every whim on a silver platter.

And there is that little sliver within me that can't wait to be old! Sonny, go wash me teeth, and don't forget to give my bunions a good scrubbing!

Ranting mood...can you tell? Politics just bring out the very worst of me. As do stupid people.

So, for the past week I've been working at a hospital. A big one. And I thank Jebus and all my lucky stars for my good health every day I'm at work, because holy hell do I NEVER want to be incarcerated in a British hospital.

First of all, there's the smoking. Yes, they SMOKE AT THE HOSPITAL! And not like 50 yards away from the entrance or anything, which is law in CA, but RIGHT FUCKING NEXT TO IT! AND, they have SMOKING BAYS INSIDE THE HOSPITAL DOORS so that people can smoke and not get wet when it's raining, but only in a manner that means that all incoming patients, workers, and visitors have to walk through their smokey haze first. Awww, bless.

Next are the wards. Now the concept of a ward is something that I've only seen in period movies between about 1950 and1850. A big, long room filled with sick and dying patients and nurses in little white hats, white dresses, and aprons. Then I came to the UK. Sadly, Scottie's grandpa has a mild heart attack a few months ago and we visited him in the ward...a small room filled with 8 other patients shitting themselves, drooling, coughing, sneezing, and looking and sounding like all over hell. This was a big culture shock for me. When my grandpa was in hospital, first for cancer and then for the amputation, he had a room he shared with one other person, a window, and a privacy curtain. Scottie's grandpa was telling us that he had to get up at 5am to use the one and only toilet every morning before the other patients turned it into a festering fecal pit. And how is it people are supposed to get better this way?

Then of course are the sanitary conditions. England is a bit worse than Scotland, and every year there are out breaks of MRSA- aka the Hospital Superbug that apparently flys around killing patients. MRSA is caught when wounds are improperly cleaned, where fecal matter is present, and, where people in general don't wash their hands and then go play surgeon. And many people die. For fucks sake, it's a HOSPITAL! Use fucking rubbing alcohol! And stearlise things!

Hence, the past week I have been a little OCD about washing hands.

Moral of story- you're damned in discriminating CA and you're going to die in the UK. Canada, here I come!

SO furious. So upset. So...lost without anyone able to sympathise. While the rest of the US (and the world) is cheering the victory of Obama last night, those of us Californians who don't have shit for brains were quietly holding out breath and praying for another victory in the march towards true equality- the fail of Prop.8.

Ya know, nothing really kills your happy Obama buzz than having to also somehow comprehend that 52% of your fellow Californians are in favour of discrimination. The terrorists have won. The terrorits against the Constitution.

It's rather ironic (in a sick, perverted way) that a state where the majority voted a black man in to office in a strong show of dispelling racial discrimination would then turn around and focus all that discriminaton in another direction.

I am so on the verge of a long long rant over why prop 8 is so ridiculous and stupid and should never exist in a country that has any faith what so ever in the true meaning of freedom and equality, but that would take hours, bore everyone, and probably result in me beating my old lappy to death in anger and fustration. Then I would have no compter and be screwed because it is my only connection back to the US.

So instead, I will go sulk.

All this hope and change that Obama is espousing seems a bit of a lost cause when you can see that even liberal states vote to legally discriminate. Sure Obama is president now, but how long will we have to wait until we have a gay president? If we won't even let them love, then America still has a very very very very very long way to go.

California, I am ashamed to associate myself with you.

Och aye the noo!

I had a horrible revelation the other night- one that was so horrible it threw me and Scottie into a full on laugh attack because it was either laugh or cry.

For the past three nights I have been having a bowl of my home made (and freaking delicious!) Thai butternut squash soup for dinner. Pretty much just that. I would try to have a big breakfast of either an egg and toast or beans on toast (holy crap, how I've gone native), then a sandwich and small soup or yoghurt for lunch, and then soup for tea. Eat like a king, a prince, a pauper, right?

Now normally I don't care that much about weight and am definitely not one of those girls who starves themselves on diets- eat healthy and be happy is my motto. But that being said, the UK has caused me to expand. Most of it (any by most I mean all) I blame on my 3 months of dissertation writing- a period of me never leaving the house, save to occasionally venture to the library, and of constantly sitting on my ass, literally ALL DAY, writing, reading, and pretending that I was being a serious scholar while facebook lurked seductively in the back. While the effort ended up paying off scholastically (I got a DISTINCTION!!), my bum, tum and thighs paid a dear price. Now I'm trying to get things back to they way they were, but with me coming home exhausted and ready for bed by 6pm, my only form of exercise is the 10 minute walk to the bus stop and back each day. So altering eating habits it is. How does this relate to my horrifying revelation?

Picture this. The sad sight of a woman laying in bed, resting her head on her 5 extra chins, her feet completely out of sight somewhere below the slowly laboured rise and fall of an stomach slightly smaller than Jupiter's second moon. 'Brahgh...feed me!' it roars, and soon, a lithe, elegant, skinny figure appears by her side with a plate of sausage rolls. But the gelatinous mess of skin folds on the bed lacks even the strength to convey the greasy rolls off the plate and into the wide, gaping cavern, already wet and dribbling with excess saliva. So the thin man does all the work and gently feeds the beast like a caring zoo keeper nursing a hippo back to health.

And that is essentially what happened last night. I had my bowl of soup at 5 and by 9 was in bed and ready to sleep...except that I had been in bed reading for about an hour and felt slightly peckish. Scottie, who is 6'1 and weights LESS than me, was chomping down on TESCO mini sausage rolls. But it was sooo cold last night, and I was so warm and tired in bed, I asked if he could just give me one (they're only two bites big anyway). So he came through and fed me like a daddy bird to a chick (minus the pre-mastication/regurgitation) and I had a flash of me as Jabba the Hut being fed to death.

Not pretty. If only I could find me a tennis partner again... :(

Ugh- I just heard Hilary Duff's song 'Reach Out (And Touch Me)' which is nothing more than a gross perversion of Depeche Mode's 'Reach Out'... I'm sorry, isn't there like a plagiarism or copyright on stuff like that? I mean, I know that Madonna ripped off Abba's tune for her 'Every little thing that you say' song ...but Miss Duff's version is a blatant blatant rip...

And then a part of my soul died a little.





v.s this:

So halloween came and went, and I figured that it was about time I gave a glimpse of what goes on in Edinburgh during this festival. Now, when I first arrived in the UK for my year abroad, I was a bit surprised that the British don't really 'do' halloween. Maybe this is biased because I worked in a costume shop for the last 7 years and halloweeen was out big money maker. But here, people will just put on cat ears or a devil tail and voila- done. Of course, there are also parties and such, but the enthusiam and crazyiness is certainly not as strong. A few people will carve pumpkins and put of decorations, but no where near the crazy haunted lawns and homes people did back home. For the past two years, we've been carving pumpkins and hanging a wee ghoul in our window, and have never yet gotten trick or treaters. This year, Scottie and I made this little pumpkin guy..if you can see it, it's of a vampire about to chomp down on the sexy neck of a lady. Prrrrow!

Alas, no trick or treaters, and now this little guy is decomposing away on a plate on the chair. Amazing how mouldy these things go so quickly!


Anyway, so I thought that Halloween in the UK was a bit bland compared to the insanity that it becomes in the US...until I learned about Samhuinn. You see, Edinburgh has a HUGE pagan society named after their biggest festival, Beltane. The Beltane Fire Society puts on these massive pagan festivals during the year, complete with ceremony, ritual, procession- the works. Samhuinn took place Halloween. The Samhuinn festival, in a nut shell, marks the end of summer and the ushering in of the winter months. Since the trees are bare and the land barren of the earlier vegetation, nature seems to be dying, and thus, Samhuinn is believed to be the night of the dead. Also taking advantage of this closeness between the land of the living and the dead were the mischievous and malevolent spirits of the underworld, and measures had to be taken to protect against their pranks. Thus evolved the tradition of modern Hallowe'en to wear masks - originally to disguise oneself against the unwanted attentions of spirits and faeries.

The main of Samhuinn is the battle between light and dark, summer and winter. The two characters fight to the death, winter overcoming summer as inevitably as the seasons, but the medicine-man steps in to revive the summer figure, thus ensuring the return of spring and light.



Here, you have the May Queen's woman warriors seen old and dying. May and her fellow summer compatriots have aged over the year, and it is time to make way for winter.



The procession ends in Parliment square. Here, you can see St. Giles Cathedral in the back, and the fire performance of Samhuinn.

This is part of the procession. The blue people are in charge of leading the procession and letting the representatives of Winter, Summer, etc do what they need to do...kinda like bouncers. And they will whack idle standbyers in the way with their whips of willow.



Here are the thrones of the Winter king and the Green Man. They watch performances and drink and are merry...and then something happens, they fight, and Winter kills the Green Man, taking up his crown and declaring himself in charge. But don't despair, The creepy person in the back all cloked in the Mother Earth Healer figure that nurses the Green Man back from the dead to ensure that there will be a Summer after the Winter king has had his reign.
So loads of awesome-ness. There were just SO many elaborate costumes, and so much nakedness despite the 2 degree and raining temperature.

Seriously, check out the rest of the Samhuinn and Beltane festivals here. Also, see all the incredible photos of this enormous event here.

Holy McFrozen monkey nuts, it is COLD! 0 degrees Celsius, aka I need to buy more sweaters. In OCTOBER! Not November, December, or January...OCTOBER!

Unfortunately, out main heater is being a bastard and not working at the moment, so Scottie and I had to buy a tiny floor heater...and being cheap, we got one that manages to cough out something resembling a warm tropical breeze. It isn't the greatest at combating low temperatures, but at least it's better than nothing and takes the bite out of the air.

Luckily I got a job (yay!), but unfort I have to be at work for 7:30 (death!). But now working =money=can buy sweaters to not freeze to death.

I was doing some autumn cleaning on the ol' lappy the other day and found an old bookmarked site for a blog I had waaaaaaaay back in the day. Okay, it wasn't that long ago, but it started in 2004- my online travel/reflection on living and studying abroad. I had completely forgotten that I had it, and it took me ages to remember the password. That's a lie, I never did think of the password, but some how it got linked to this account. Computer magic I guess. Anyway, reading back through my old entries is totally making me cringe...the things I wrote down (which I am too embarassed to allow public now) are so opposite from what I belive in now.

For instance, I really did enter Scotland with the same outlandish, tourist-fed, steryotypical ideals that Barbie currently has, and which currently piss me off to no end. I even mentioned in one post how I would become a Nationalist if I could...I think I seriously must have been on crack that year.

But it is a nice reminder of the person I used to be and how much I have grown since then. I don't know if I'll still stick to the same views that I embrace now, but I suppose that blog #2 here will be a future reminder of the person I am now.

One thing that hit me was how awesome a cook I was back in SD. Apparently I continued my blog until second quarter of my last year at uni (how did I completely forget this?) and a lot of it is delicious sounding. Like my homemade artichoke, ranch, basil, tomato pizza...if only ranch and artichokes existed in Scotland...

Here is one this I will share..the MQ's top ten lists!
Top Ten Inappropriate Political Campaign Promises
10. Putting the White back in the White House
9.Deport homosexuals back to their homeland
8.Get US population down to a cool million, one way or another
7.No Child of Economic Privilege Left Behind
6.Replace State of the Union Address with 45 minutes of president wrestling a quadruple amputee
5.More all-campus dances
4.Vertical Manifest Destiny
3.Appoint new Secretary of Strangling Hobos
2.Getting abortions out of the clinics and back into the alleys where they belong
1.A gajillion new jobs

Top Ten Ways to Get Play at UCSD
10.Stalk your TA for some T&A
9.Join the Five-Year-Olds Club
8.Attent annual "Whores at the Shores" event
7.Overly suggestive phallic, scented candles
6.Overly suggestive phallic-scented candles
5.High skirts, low standards
4.O-chem answer key
3.With the new Blockbuster Freedom Pass!
2.Major in foot reflexology
1.Leave

Okay, I suppose it's getting down to the wire back in the good ol' US of A for political candidates, measures, and propositions, and since it seems everyone has to comment in some way about the US political situation at the moment, I might as well follow. Bahhhh.

Rather than bleather about Obama vs John or Joe vs. Sarah, I'm gonna make a wee mention about something a bit closer to home. No, not Prop 8, the elimination of gay marriage, but the splash of cold water in the face that is Prop. 2.

Huh?

Yeah, I had no idea about ANY of the proposition until my ballot arrived two weeks ago...being removed from the country and from all the non-stop political propaganda ads meant that I could vote with a truely unbiased approach. So aided with nothing more than my sample ballot and my ol' trusty lappy interweb, I started filling it out. And then I came to Prop 2.

'Standards for Confining Farm Animals. Requires that certain farm animals be allowed, for the majority of every day, to fully extend their limbs or wings, lie down, stand up and turn around.'

Wait, Californians are voting on that? And that's when I knew I had been away for waaaay too long. You see, the UK has gone ape shit for free range. EVERYWHERE you go, all you see are free range chicken, free range beef, free range eggs, etc, etc, etc. They've had copious shows on the BBC hosted by big name Michelin chefs like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay trying to educate the public about animal farming methods. It's now to the point that big supermarkets like Sainsburys has their own brand of chickens reared to RSPCA standards, and heck, its getting to the point that finding a non-free range butter is hard.

So having been immersed in a culture that now makes you feel like a shameful, bad person for not buying free range, it's become second nature to assume that all meats/dairy products are free range. Why wouldn't they be? Which is why Prop. 2 stuck me. We're voting to allow animals to stand up, turn around, and stretch their wings? Um, shouldn't they be doing that already? Oh wait- it's the US.

And then I remembered the Cow Fields. If anyone has the pleasure of driving for 12 hours from San Diego along the 5 interstate to San Francisco, they will inevitable pass the Cow Fields. Somewhere along hour 5 or 6, maybe an hour or so past the Grapevine, you enter a stretch that passes where our beef (or dairy, or something cow related) comes from. Miles of cows packed together on brown dirt under the blistering 108 heat with no shade and very little water just milling about and waiting. They say in the adverts that happy cows come from California, but these cows certainly don't look happy. I also remember the chickens, as seen in Fast Food Nation, and how many of them go crazy being tucked into shoe box sized cages until they die.

To me, having been in the UK for a while now and having seen free range practically take over the grocery stores, it seems like a given. But being away makes you realise that it's not. If you need to judge a country ( or state) on something, look at what gets put up to the vote, and how it does ( or does not) pass. I personally would much rather live in a state that not only brought the subject of free range up, but voted for it, than a state that continued to be ignorant to the welfare of the animals they eat.

However, we'll just have to wait and see if animals will legally be allowed to 'stand up and turn around.'

Okay, it getting bad now. As if caving in to the evils of High School Musical wasn't bad enough. I have now taken on the ultimate in homemaking- knitting.

Now, back when I was 6, I prided myself on my champion finger knitting skills- to make one long ass knitted chain that could only function as maybe an escape rope for a 60 lbs Rapunzel. But that was as far as I went with yarn.

But ever since my obsession with Alpaca (and I just found a new favourite- GUANACO!!!) knitwear, I've been on a mission to acquire as much as possible...except that I am dirt dirty poor. So what better way to save money and keep myself occupied while waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to call and offer me employment? The answer seemed obvious. Plus, I have always been insanely jealous of everyone who is talented enough to whip out these amazing knitted creations of mittens, hats, and jumpers.

So I popped around to the nearest awesome store (our local one is called Ali's Cave- it has EVERYTHING you need, from light shades, to thread, to birthday cards, to fireworks, to dish soap, to makeup, to party favours...EVERYTHING!) to see what they had in the knitting department. They had your wide variety of cheap yarns and needles, and not knowing what I was doing, I bought the cheapest of both. Then back home to let the interweb show me the way to knitting heaven!

I found a LOT of how-to sites, many of which included loads of videos, which were a great help. My problem was I went and got the cheap yarn- the kind that is really thin and separates into 3 strings really easily, so that I kept splitting the thread while stitching. I spent ALL NIGHT trying to just get past 3 rows without a mistake. I was failing!

But something strange was also happening- my WHOLE arms, especially around my armpits were SUPER sore. WTF? I mean, my fingers and hands are sore, but that's expeceted since I am using my fingers in ways I've never used them before (insert perverted snigger here). But my armpits? Okay...

Today I was determined to get some bigger needles. I went to two different shop, but this being Scotland, they were closed on Sunday. So I went all the way here to get my goods and almost fainted. I needed larger needles, so I was resolute to get them, but they were £6.10!!!! AND, were MADE IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA...and not only are they expensive knitting needles from NorCal, their phone number is a 707 area code...THAT'S MY OLD AREA CODE!!!! I came all the blinking way to Scotland to end up buying knitting needles that are made back at home.

Screw you universe.

BUT, the sliver lining in all of this is that the knitting shop also sold...BABY ALPACA YARN!!!! So now I feel obligated to get this knitting thing going...I need me my alpaca!!! So I caved in and bought some yarn (which was cheaper than the needles....bloody wooden imported NorCal needles), so even if I fail at the knitting, I can just wrap the yarn around myself.

I am going mental. Nucking Futs, as the button I had in 9th grade said.

Yesterday, with no bread to bake or things to do, I stayed in all day and got more depressed. I contemplated going out to buy an apron, but I have no money to frivolously spend like that. And it was cold, windy, and rainy.

So I stayed inside and ...it really hurts to say it...watched High School Musical 1 & 2....ugh. I know. I hate myself a lot more for it. And I think I lost 100 more IQ points.

Today was only slightly better. I was determined to make a pumpkin pie.

Sounds easy- go to shop, buy ingredients, mix, bake, voila. Oh wait, I forgot that this was Scotland.

So I walk the mile to the large shop that is the closest thing I can get to a Safeway or Ralphs to look for ingredients. I find the spice, the pie crust, the cream, eggs, everything...but pumpkin puree. No where. So I go to another shop. And another. By the time I get to the 6th shop, I am annoyed, tired, and by this time, wet, because it started raining again. So I suck it up and resign myself to follow in the footsteps of our foremothers of yore...buy a pumpkin to make puree from scratch. Now I can't remember how much a can of pumpkin puree costs in the States, but I doubt it costs more than $2. My fu*&ing pumpking cost $5. PLUS I have to take it home, cut it, clean it, and boil it for 2 hours to soften it up before scraping off the skin and running it all through a blender. HASSLE.

And good bloody homemker that I am, I even bake the pumpkin seeds to snack on.

Then I bake the pie. It cooks, smells good...BUT TASTES LIKE EGG. No pumpkiny taste at all. Apparently there are pumpins and there are cooking pumpkins, and it being close to Halloween, all the store are selling CARVING PUMPKINS...which have no flavour. Awesome.

Next time, I am using a butternut squash.

Sadness. I got up at 9 today, switched on the ol' lappy, and seriously didn't finish getting dressed until 5:00. Seriously.

My normal routine is to let the old machine warm up while I wander through to the bathroom. Then I'll click on my internet and e-mail and go make a cup of tea and breakfast while it takes its sweet time to load. I like to check my e-mail in the morning because of the whole time difference thing, and most e-mails from back home are sent while I'm deep asleep. Then I normally get dressed and go about my day. Normally, if I have a day to go about in.

Today held no motivation to even get dressed. The temp agency e-mail me yesterday (at 9:00) to tell me that I was first on their list if anything came up, but that the market was slow. Fine. So I know I'm not getting a call anytime soon. So instead, all I did ALL FREAKING DAY was sit in my PJs and look for jobs. I applied to 4, one of them very out of my depth, but I figured I'd give it a go. Then I figured I might get a move on...the clock was ticking towards 4 and I still had not left my computer, my PJs, or my flat.

The sad thing is that I was initally motivated to go out and buy an apron so that I could make more bread without getting flour all over me. How sad is that? I couldn't be bothered to get dressed or even leave the house for anything, save maybe getting an apron so I ccould be uber Betty Crocker. But then I looked outside at the HOWLING winds of 5893mph and decieded to do laundry.

Finally, as the clock began to hit 5, I figured I should at least put some real clothes on before Scottie came home from work and mocked me. But not before I sewed up a hole in my jumper and did some washing up.

Finally, up and dressed, I made bread.

And the really really sad part of all this- now that I made the bread and washed the clothes and sewed up the sweater...I have NOTHING to do tomorrow.

Maybe I'll print out 100 CVs (resumes) and walk around to EVERY shop and shove it down their throats. I never wanted to go back to retail again, but I'll do it if I must.

A gal can't live for making bread each day.

I know that I'm jobless, dirt poor, and trying my best to avoid all things consumerist, but every now and then, I get a notion in my head and obsess over it for days...weeks...even months.

Now, I really don't want to think of myself as another damn American consumer, and I've tried so so much to really think about how much I need things before buying them...but sometimes, I get obsessive. My obsession at the moment: Knitwear. Specifically alpaca knitwear. Weird, I know.

When I was up in John o Groats, they had that amazing knit wear shop, and I was in love with the idea that for once, I would be able to find a quality jumper, not cheaply made in a factory with poor quality wool, and since it was hand made, it would be unique, special, and hopefully last me until I was old and crippled, and I could look back and say 'oh, this sweater has done me good.' And then the chick was on holiday and that plan was foiled.

But somehow, I got to thinking about my hobby/passion- South American Archaeology. I had a fabulous professor who taught Pre-Incan archaeology and you can't learn about Peru without learning about llamas, alpacas, and vicunas. So some wires crossed in my head and suddenly I was searching the webernet for alpaca knitwear.

I found some great sites that bought handmade alpaca knitwear directly from Peruvian farmers and artisans, giving them a significant amount of the proceeds in the process. Yay! And alpaca wool is supposed to be softer and warmer than cashmere.

So first I bought some gloves. They were $8, handmade, and were those 'glitten' things that are fingerless gloves with a flap to transform them into mittens. And hot damn do I love them.

Now that the weather is getting colder there is a part of me that wants more. Envious, want want want. It's a horrible feeling- but if I can't get a sweater knitted by a little old tea drinking lady up in the highlands, then by golly, I am gonna get something from Peru/Bolivia.....when I get a job.

Damn you alpaca clothing!!! I know, kinda hippy-ish, but jesus is it soft! And warm! And...helps little old South American grannies who are sitting by their fires at night knitting away! Oh well...

One day, alpaca, you will be MINE! Muh ha ha ha ha....

Back from holiday!! Yes, on Monday, Scottie and I departed his parents house in Fife for the wild, stormy North. Which now means that I have to spill all my travels on here.

We started out heading up along the coast road, stopping at Arbroath for lunch. Then we continued up towards Aberdeen because I just had to stop at Dunnotar Castle. This castle is AWESOME! It's surrounded by the bay, overlooks the North Sea, and kept me entertained running around it's massive grounds, searching rooms, and wandering up staircases.
It was magic.

The next stop was at our B&B. But first we had to get through Aberdeen. Now, Scottie passed his license a year ago, but never drove after passing it. So a week before he went on a lot of practice runs with his brother and dad, so he was a bit more confident at the wheel...and absolutely fine driving on the country roads...but we had to go and follow the advice of his brother's satellite navigation thing, and the bastard took us RIGHT THROUGH CENTRAL ABERDEEN DURING RUSH HOUR!!! Now I've done my fair share of driving though cities- San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego- but even though I have 8 years of driving under my belt, I still do my best to avoid driving through the city centres when I can....and even though I wasn't driving, going through Aberdeen with Scottie almost set me off in an anxiety attack. There were invisible bus lanes, pedestrians running out on suicide missions, taxi drivers of death, and impatient tailgaters who liked to ignore roundabout courtesy and just gun it. Somehow, Scottie kept his cool and we made it out alive, in one piece, and with no additional dents, dings, or scrapes. Whoo!

We got to our B&B and crashed on the bed. Then we headed back into town for dinner- in a town no bigger than a thumbnail, but which contained a disproportionate amount of NEDs, all driving around in circles in their souped up rice rockets, seeing who could have the loudest exhaust. Ugh. The next day we headed out early again for the next leg of our journey. This part followed the coast route before breaking off through Fyvie, then back up along to coast to meet Inverness. We stopped at Fyvie castle en route for a look at the amazing interior. Fyvie started out as a royal hunting lodge in the 13th century, then was bought and sold 5 different times. In the 18th century, it was remodelled more along the line of a stately home, and much of the crystal, paintings, furniture, and decorations are from that period. Then it was bought in the turn of the 20th century by a Scotsman who married a Louisiana shipping heiress, and he fitted it out with electricity, indoor water, and Tiffany lamps. Then after our tour of the castle, we were off to B&B number two.

Our B&B was a great place out near the Culloden battle field. Again, we set out in the early morning to make our way up to John O'Groats. Along the way we went through the little town of Cullen, known for its Cullen Skink, a.k.a. delicious fish chowder. And lovely California-esque beaches. This part of the drive was super lovely, and we had the good fortune of having sunny skies all the way through. John O'G is suuuper remote. But it is the northern most town in mainland Britain, which is why we went. One exciting thing they had was a large crafts centre of different shops that sold candles, pottery, and knitwear. Now my mom has been whining for me to buy her 'real Scottish sweaters from the Highlands' for ages, and I always just go to the charity shop and get a second hand jumper from Marks and Spencers...I think she is catching on. So I was excited to see a shop devoted to woolly hats, fair isle jumpers, and scarves, all made by little old Scottish women around the peat fire in the literal middle of nowhere. Except that it was closed for a week-including the day we were there. Pants. So it looks like mom is getting another £3 thing from Cancer Research.

Since the only thing to do in JoG is go to the crafts centre and Stacks, we made sure to do both. The Stacks of Duncansby are large rock formations that jet out of the North Sea about 2 miles from JoG. And trust me, there are pictures of them EVERYWHERE. Our B&B had 8 different picts of them framed up all around the room, on place mats, on coasters, and as post cards. So naturally, we had to head to see them too. So at 9 in the morning, we trekked out to visit the Stacks, while 30mph gusts of constant wind threaten to blows us away to oblivion. Then we headed to Dunnet Head, the farthest point North in Britain you can reach. And then we were off again, this time along the top of Scotland to the small town of Tongue for lunch. Then off again through the mountains back to Inverness. We left Inverness bright and early to head to Kingussie, our last stop before home. We got there with plenty of time for hiking, and went on a very picturesque trek up a hill that over looked the town. Let me say, the 250m ascent reminded me of how out of shape I am, and fatty over here needed to take copious breaks to pant. But at least it gave some lovely views. We also stopped over to see the remains of Ruthven Barraks, a fort taken by the Jacobites just after Culloden. Then after a restful night in the wonderful little B&B, it was time to head for home, but not after a stop to Doune Castle. Doune Castle is famous, not for being one of the most intact 13th century castles, but because of it's star role in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yes, it is the castle that Arthur gets taunted from by the French who farts in his general direction and then launches a cow off the castle roof at poor Arthur and his comrade. But aside from Monty Python stardom, it's an all around awesome castle. You actually can climb up the twisting, tiny stairs to the roof, check out the rooms, the various halls, the bedrooms, it was just all around awesome.
Thus ended our fun and fantastic trip up and around Scotland. You would think that after seeing so much of this small country, I would done with it, but being able to drive around it only made me want to see even more. There were countless other castles that we didn't see, stately homes, new mountains to climb, the entire West coast to explore, and more... it's hard to believe that such a small country can still have so much more to offer!