21 August, 2006 | 1 Comment

My mom and I took a drive up to our old ‘hood this afternoon. A few years ago my parents sold the house I spent my teen years in and moved to a townhouse not too far away. I grew up at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains and I had a stunning view of them from my bedroom window. Once I moved away, it was very hard to get used to flat land. [Though from my college dorm room in New York I had a nice view of the GE building.] Today I took a few photos of the mountains from the old neighborhood so you can see what I spent a lot of my time staring at as a young lass.

20 August, 2006 | 5 Comments

Big Daddy bought Anglofille a video iPod! He may be a right-winger, but he’s still my daddy.

[While we were at the shop, he tried to buy me a huge set of French language CD-Roms, in the hopes that I'd decide to learn French that way, rather than by studying in Paris. Uh, nice try.]

19 August, 2006 | Comments

Heading back to you-know-where…

[gv data="http://www.youtube.com/v/tDR8p0KLTWQ" width="425" height="350"][/gv]

It looks like there’s a UFO in the sky, but it’s just a reflection from the car window…or is it?

19 August, 2006 | Comments

While in Las Vegas, we stayed at The Venetian Hotel. Highly recommended!!! It was really an amazing place.
Watch my lame video taken in the lobby.

[notice the canal and gondola!]

18 August, 2006 | Comments

[giant flowerpot at the bellagio hotel]

[frozen lemonade break at caesar's palace]

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17 August, 2006 | Comments

Just a short video from our walkabout this morning. As always, YouTube cuts off the end of my video…the answer to my question will remain a mystery!

[gv data="http://www.youtube.com/v/fQV7FIFdxmU" width="425" height="350"][/gv]

16 August, 2006 | Comments

My mom and I arrived in Vegas early this afternoon. (Confession: I had deep-fried ahi sushi for lunch! The whole thing wasn’t deep-fried, just the outer crust. Still, it was fried enough to negate any possible health benefits from the fish.) Here are a few snaps I took from the car this morning…

Between The Place That Cannot Be Named and Nevada you must pass through a small sliver of Arizona. This is the Virgin River Gorge area:

And here is a random highway shot that I took not too far across the Nevada border – not my ideal type of scenery, but perhaps I’ll remember it fondly when I get to Paris (!):

Since we arrived, we’ve been sequestered in the hotel, which is bigger than a small town. Tomorrow I’ll take some photos of the Strip. We’ve gambled a little – and lost!

15 August, 2006 | 4 Comments

I’ve been sleeping with my laptop. (Shhhh.) My parents have wireless, so I just drag it into bed with me and work and e-mail and stuff until I pass out. It hums and purrs next to me all night long, how cute. But now it appears that my Dell laptop could burst into flames at any moment because of a potentially faulty battery. On the plus side, I get a new battery! But now I’m not sure if I should sleep with Dell anymore. Not sure if the little bastard can be trusted.

15 August, 2006 | 7 Comments

People have been teasing me about the fact that I will not name the place where I’m staying right now. It may seem like I’m doing this as a joke. It’s become a joke by this point, but I’m not naming this place for other, more personal reasons. I lived in The Place That Cannot Be Named from the age of 8 until 20 (before that, I lived in California). My parents and grandmother still live here, as well as a few other relatives I’m not close with. My family does not have strong ties to this place and my parents hope to move away in the not-too-distant future. My extended family and ancestors come from all different parts of the country (and most of my relatives are complete strangers to me, because of this and other reasons); as such, I do not identify with any one part of America – there is no part of this country I think of as mine, as home. That’s why I hate when people ask me where I’m from – beyond the United States, I can’t answer that question. I’m from wherever I happen to be living at the time.

There are many complicated reasons why I don’t like The Place That Cannot Be Named. The most important reasons are cultural, religious and political, but I will not discuss these things because I don’t want to and because it would be impossible to do in this format anyway. I choose not to name this place because I do not wish to be associated with it. It was not my choice to live here or to be a part of this culture and refusing to name it is one small act of defiance. If you’ve read this blog for a while, then it’s pretty obvious where I am anyway. I am only here now to visit my parents and grandmother. I see no one else while I’m here and don’t venture out much. I hang out with my parents, visit my grandmother, go to restaurants, do a little shopping, etc. All very low key. Once my parents move away, I have no plans to return.

Putting aside the very complex reasons I just alluded to but do not want to discuss, one thing I really can’t stand about this place is the overwhelmingly bland suburban landscape. I’m in a big suburb right now and this kind of environment always depresses me. I find big American suburbs to be frightening, soulless places.

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14 August, 2006 | 1 Comment

For people bored with Sudoku or crossword puzzles, here’s a fun new game: Time Zone Math!

While in London I got pretty good at doing Time Zone Math in my head. It was fairly simple:

- 5 hours (u.s. friends/work)

- 7 hours (parents)

In Paris it will be:

- 1 hour (london)

- 6 hours (u.s. friends/work)

- 8 hours (parents)

The extra hour in Paris will make it a bit more difficult to talk to my parents – it’s already tough at 7 hours – but I’ll have to make do.

Time Zone Math has been quite tricky since I’ve been back home. I started in Pacific Time, now I’m in Mountain Time and pretty soon I’ll be in Eastern Time. I have professional commitments in both the US and London, which means I’ve been spending quite a bit of time adding and subtracting (not to mention having to switch the time on my watch, computer, blog, etc.). All of this has been headache-inducing. For example:

It’s 10:00 a.m. in Mountain Time. You have a web conference at 4:00 pm London time and you have to call your boss at 11:00 am New York time. There are two major problems with this timeline. Think fast!*

I recently discovered a cool extension in Firefox that makes things a little easier. Now at the bottom of my browser all the world cities that are important to me are listed with their current time.

I don’t like being in Mountain Time. There are only 5 time zones behind me, but 20 + ahead. So when I wake up in the morning, more than half the world has already finished their day. From a work standpoint, I’m always playing catch up. I much prefer being a few time zones ahead. For my U.S. based job, when I’m in London I get 5 extra hours to meet deadlines (in Paris 6!). But really, the whole concept of time seems silly when you’re bouncing between time zones like this.

*At 10:00 a.m. Mountain Time, the London and New York meetings began an hour previous. In addition, the London and New York meetings were scheduled at the same exact time. You’re fired!

14 August, 2006 | 2 Comments

Macaroni and cheese with cut-up hot dogs!

Of course, I had to make it Anglofille-friendly, which meant vegan mac and cheese from Road’s End Organics and chicken hot dogs instead of beef. But it was quite tasty, especially with ketchup added. (I swear, it was.)

13 August, 2006 | 3 Comments

Wonders never cease. David Beckham and Real Madrid visited The Place That Cannot Be Named* yesterday to play an exhibition game against the local team, called Real [Blank].  Madrid won, not surprisingly, and Tom Cruise and his brainwashed girlfriend [sans baby] were in attendance.  Before the game, Beckham visited the suburb of Big City where my parents live to break ground on a new soccer stadium.  He said he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of coming back here to play professionally.  Yes, I can just imagine Posh and Becks slumming it at Applebee’s with the locals.

Is The Place That Cannot Be Named Albuquerque, New Mexico?  No, it is not.

13 August, 2006 | Comments

My mom and I are taking a trip to Las Vegas later this week. Yippee! We will probably drive down, unless some cheap airline tickets become available. Big City (the capital of The Place That Cannot Be Named*) is about a 6 hour drive/50 minute flight from Sin City. Despite the relative proximity of these two cities (especially by Western US standards), it would be cheaper to fly across the country to New York or DC or Boston. Yes, this makes perfect sense. The way the airlines in America operate is a mystery to me. Perhaps this kind of idiotic behaviour is why they’re always on the verge of bankruptcy.

My mom would rather fly because she dreads taking me on road trips. As a kid, we went on marathon road trips, sometimes driving more than 12 hours in a day. [What would happen if you drove across England for 12 hours? You’d end up in the ocean, I guess.] But I’ve spent most of my adult life in the Northeast, where cities are much closer together and there are other transportation options besides driving, like trains and buses that are used by normal people, not sketchy serial killer types. I’m not good on road trips anymore, I admit it. I have to pee – a lot. I say things like “Are we there yet?” and “I’m bored” even though I’m over 30. And driving around the Western states creeps me out because you look out the car window and there is nothing for as far as the eye can see. It’s like having the opposite of claustrophobia.

The Place That Cannot Be Named* is considered the “crossroads of the West” and there are lots of drug traffickers on the highways round these parts, travelling between Mexico, L.A. and Denver, etc. Funny story: When I was living in Boston, a co-worker of mine came to me for help because his college student nephew had been driving through The Place That Cannot Be Named* en route from Denver and was arrested during a routine traffic stop on the interstate after drugs were found in his car. My dad helped find this dimwit a lawyer, but he still ended up in jail for two weeks.

So anyway, the point of this post (if I can remember it by now) is…Vegas, baby! I was there last summer and I’m excited to be going back for a few days of kitsch and watered-down free casino drinks. Hurrah!

*Is The Place That Cannot Be Named Sedona, Arizona? No, it is not.

12 August, 2006 | 2 Comments

The Place That Cannot Be Named* rarely experiences tornadoes, but last week a funnel cloud caused over a million dollars in damage (although it didn’t touch the ground). Today we saw the freakiest black cloud that had all the markings of a possible tornado. It looked like a giant spaceship hovering in the sky. I took a photo from my parents’ driveway. Soon after a blinding hail storm erupted, producing the worst hail and rain seen round these parts in years. It rarely rains here in the summer — the wet season is in the winter, which means it snows a heckuva lot.

Is The Place That Cannot Be Named Boise, Idaho? No, it is not.

12 August, 2006 | 5 Comments

My mom — who hails from North Carolina — made me grits for breakfast this morning (real grits, not instant!). A year is too long for any girl to go without eating grits. They are just too heavenly.

11 August, 2006 | 3 Comments

I knew if I wrote about my grandmother’s baby obsession, she wouldn’t ask me about it for once. And she didn’t! No, thanks to the plague that is cable news, she is now a “nervous wreck” about me flying back to England and is begging me to stay in the U.S. Last night, my dad was plotting his revenge against French terrorists who might kill me. It’s a bit disconcerting that my whole family seems to be predicting my demise at the hands of al Qaeda.

Besides the terrorist frenzy, my grandmother kept staring at me the whole time, exclaiming that I look completely different than I did last summer. She kept saying it over and over again. She said I look so different that she didn’t recognize me. My hair is lighter and I have lost a bit of weight over the past year (no jokes about English food!), but I’m not quite sure what she’s talking about. She and my mom tried to figure out which members of the family I look like but couldn’t think of anyone. [Am I adopted and no one told me? That might explain why I’m surrounded by Republicans.]

Then I got to meet one of my grandmother’s nurses, who used to be in the Special Forces. As soon as he met me, he asked me how old I was. I told him and he said “You don’t look that old, I guessed you were in your mid-twenties.” Gee, thanks. Don’t you just love those sorts of compliments? Then I got to hear about his recent visit to Prague and all the prostitutes and porn there. You know, I think I preferred listening to my grandmother talk about the residents who died this week.

As you can tell, it was a lovely afternoon and I get to go back again next week. Yippee!

P.S. My grandmother said England still owes the U.S. money from WWII. Someone should look into this.

11 August, 2006 | Comments

Today I have to visit my grandmother at her nursing home. I don’t see her often. In recent years, whenever I visit, she has taken to asking me when she will become a great-grandmother. She’s obsessed with this and I know she’ll ask me about it today. I’ve come up with two good options for handling her:

a) tell her that if she wants to become a great-grandmother, she better plan on living a lot longer.

b) borrow someone’s baby and present her with her illegitimate-yet-cute-as-a-button great-grandbaby whose father lives in England, beyond the reach of the American family courts. Hello welfare!

I should probably go with option a, but option b sounds like more fun.

You know, when you’re female and you’re over 30, your family begins to see a giant ticking clock above your head. And when you lead a rather unsettled life, this makes them even more nervous. Yesterday “someone” suggested I could adopt a baby from a third-world country! Apparently, I couldn’t possibly meet a man (marriage optional, heterosexuality preferred) and have a child. No, I’m already being pushed into Angelina Jolie territory.

Hmmm, perhaps I’ll tell them that I’ll be in Paris for a year, just enough time to have myself a wee French baby. A French grandchild, did you all hear that? [My dad probably just went into cardiac arrest.]

**UPDATE** Big Daddy says he’ll take any grandchild he can get.

10 August, 2006 | 9 Comments

My parents have the air conditioning turned up so high I’m wearing a jacket right now.

Me and Big Daddy [five minutes ago]:

Me: Do you believe in global warming?

Big Daddy: Not really.

My mom is out to dinner with friends. Big Daddy is eating a burrito. We’re watching Munich. It’s only a matter of time before we get into a heated debate. Or two. Or three. Ooh, another delicious quote from Big Daddy, who is quite riled up over today’s foiled terrorist plot:

Big Daddy: Are you working on your blog?

Me: Yes.

Big Daddy: Write this down. If a terrorist ever hurts you or kills you, I will hunt them down and kill them. And their whole family. And their dog. The only way the terrorists will learn their lesson is to send them to God. Such heartless murderers will have to answer to God and if anyone hurts you I’ll make it my life’s work to send them to that meeting.

Me: Yikes, you make it seem like I’m about to be blown up.

Big Daddy: You’re moving to France. All of Europe is headed for a disastrous future because of its homegrown terrorists. You’re only partially safe in America. I just want you to be careful over there.

Just another relaxing night at home!

10 August, 2006 | 2 Comments

Thanks to everyone who commented and e-mailed regarding my keyboard dilemma. It’s all fixed now! If I hadn’t been able to fix it, my next step would have been to drop my laptop out of a second-story window. Luckily it didn’t come to that.

I decided to switch the layout of my keyboard to US English International so that I can make nifty accented letters like so: é. This will be quite handy in France. And I also switched my spellchecker back to US English, so all of you who accused me of acting like Madge Ritchie for spelling words like colour and neighbour can shut up now. I tried to tell you that spellcheck changed those words without me even realizing it but you wouldn’t believe me.

10 August, 2006 | 5 Comments

I guess there’s a chance I may be staying in the U.S. because I don’t know if you’ll get me back on a trans-Atlantic flight to London after the news that broke today. I feel terrible for all those people stuck at Heathrow right now – leaving from there was a bit of a nightmare even on a normal day.

I’m trying not to lose sight of the fact that they stopped these terrorist attacks from happening, which is beyond good news. It’s amazingly good news. But I dread what the immediate future holds. We all thought we were safe flying because they confiscated our fingernail clippers, opened our laptops and frisked 90-year-old grandmothers at the airport. Now hair gel and lotion will be the new enemy and a whole new cycle of fear and hysteria has begun.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being afraid.

Given that I have to fly back to London in a few weeks and then take the Eurostar to Paris (also a target, apparently) I have decided not to watch the news. I’ll follow it online (within reason), but that’s it. I imagine that the American cable news networks are currently revelling in an orgy of panic and doom. I’m not going to be terrorized by them.