Sunday 30 November 2008


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

Saturday 29 November 2008

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.




Tuesday 25 November 2008

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.

Saturday 22 November 2008

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!

Or, if you just like the milking men for their spunk. Delish!

K, I just vomed a little.

First men-bras, now seamen cook books. Is there anything you can't buy nowadays?

Thursday 20 November 2008

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.

Tuesday 18 November 2008

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

Monday 17 November 2008

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

Sunday 16 November 2008

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.

Wednesday 12 November 2008


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.

Tuesday 11 November 2008


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?

Monday 10 November 2008

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!

Wednesday 5 November 2008


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!

Tuesday 4 November 2008


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... :(

Sunday 2 November 2008

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.

;;

Template by:
Free Blog Templates