Hobbits In Rivendell

There is beauty in sleet.

Really. Mostly it’s beautiful if you’re indoors, not being blown to a dead stop by the harsh pellets of ice rattling against your back, but there is a beauty in the symmetry of white shards shurtling past your window. There is beauty in rain, snow, sleet, dark of night… We’re not going to go so far as to say there’s beauty in floods, but… well, it’s been raining so much that we’re trying to find something nice to say.

Our friend Van (YES, Mr. Blinkey. Van AGAIN. You’d think T. had known him since she was nine or something.) has been warned to wear wool socks and thermals, but only a week ago a city resident scoffingly said it wasn’t yet cold. Now that the wind has been clocked between 36 – 60 mph, and the temp’s been rocketing between thirty-one and thirty-six degrees, inquiring minds want to know: is it cold yet? Seriously: people have a point of pride in bragging that they’ve seen worse. As newbies (or N00bs, as our friend Sarah says) we’re honestly wondering if this is as bad as it gets. (If it’s not… Mom, maybe you’ll want to send a few more thermals?)

It’s cold, wet and raw, it’s still dark and the wind howls and rattles the building at night, and we have tons to do. However, in the spirit of enjoying life (and to send up a flare to let you know that we still are), we’re taking a page from our friend Erin’s book, to give you the Thursday list of This Week’s Things that made us smile:

• The realization that we don’t have to drive in this weather. That alone is worth a cackle of glee. We might be wind-battered at the bus stop or trying to stay upright on the cycle, but it’s unimaginable to think of driving in this driving snow/sleet/rain. It’s a small comfort when we’re trudging toward the flat with our faces frozen.

• The Charwomen in our Building: When T. was weetinysmall, she remembers often seeing the credits of a show her mother used to watch… a cartoon woman with a mop and a bucket, looking cranky as the names rolled by. We now know it was the end of The Carol Burnett Show, and honestly, the women who clean this building could be the image from which the cartoon comes. They chatter like a flock of starlings, leaning on their mops and saying, “That’s all right, luv,” if we happen to need the elevator (and their mop bucket is in there). Every week — through the closed doors of the flat — we can hear them coming, gabbing away. They sound like they’ve found a way to make drudgery more fun.

• Our First Invitation: Five months into our sojourn, we have been invited to the home of a Glaswegian. As we have found, it’s not that Glaswegians or Scots are unfriendly, rather it’s just not the way things are done, to socialize in homes so easily — which is fine with us, since D’s stacks of reading and T’s stacks of revision keeps us both busy. But because of the joke about a “foreigner” having lived in the country for “fifty years, so he doesn’t have friends yet,” we feel quite privileged to have made a good enough impression to get an invitation only five months in!

• Glaswegian Obscenities: Oh, we know this one isn’t… nice. We were well brought up children, we know it’s not appropriate or necessarily refined to speak this way. But good grief, do Glaswegians somehow make swearing an art form. Two cabbies and our property manager in the last week, and we’ve had to avoid eye contact with each other for fear of shrieking with laughter. When we first moved here we were shocked by the collective vulgarities. Now, it’s just… wrongly, horribly funny. And the worse the weather / traffic /road work delay gets, the more multisyllabic, descriptive, cathartic, euphemistic and, er, colorful the vocabulary becomes. Don’t worry Mom: we’re not picking it up. We, um, swear.

• Scots speaking Hebrew: Oh, aye, you knew we were in for some good fun when the Choral Society decided to do a piece in Hebrew. T. heard a tenor explain to a fellow singer, “See, in Hebrew there’s a wee dot under the ‘h.’ That sounds just like the Scots ” — ” and proceeded to make some completely unmanageable guttural ch-sound. T. about fell off her chair. Oddly, the Latin we’re learning for the John Rutter piece is mystifying more Scots than the Hebrew seems to be!

• Teaching a Glaswegian Taboo: Oh, my. There is really nothing like playing a game when you have two wildly different vocabularies. Taboo is a game where you try and have your teammate guess a word by describing it, but there are certain words you cannot use. Much of the time we just sat laughing helplessly as our friend M., born and bred in this fine city, gave guesses that were greeted from his American teammate with “What?!” We learned that the words ‘boardwalk’ and ‘touchdown’ are virtually unknown, while ‘calamine lotion’ is apparently universal.

• Teaching a Spaniard Taboo: Much the same as teaching a Glaswegian, except when our Spanish friend B. plays, she gets excited and her clues come out — in Spanish. Also, she learned English …in Glasgow, so the variations in vocabulary apply. Our favorite word from last week’s game will always be “a partin.'” The word was “part,” and of course the words to describe it could not include hair, or Moses, or the Red Sea, or any number of other random words. B. got it, but in Glasgow, the phrase isn’t that you have a “part” in your hair. No, one has a “parting” in one’s hair. Add a thick Spanish/Glaswegian accent to the word “partin'” and you’ll understand why this word effectively ended the game.

At the moment it sounds as if someone is flinging handfuls of pebbles at the window. As the hail continues to sleet against the panes, we’re bundling up to venture out to Choral Society and an evening of tongue-twisting Hebrew. It seems like a good night to spring for a cab!

Hang on, friends. Spring is coming. Downtown there is a row of misguided trees in bloom in front of a bank. Hold on… the sun will come out… tomorrow. (and apologies for those of you who will now have that vicious earworm of a song stuck in your head for the rest of the day).

yours in dogged cheerfulness,

– D & T

Aye, it’s BURNS DAY!

Today begins celebrations all over Scotland honoring the birth of the 18th century Scottish poet, Robert Burns (or as they call him here, “Rabbie.”). Much of Burns’ poetry is rather long and sentimental, with a militantly enforced rhyme, as was all the verse of his time. Many of his verses refer to specific people and things that few people who aren’t Scottish historians of a certain period understand anymore. He writes a lot of elegiac verses to Nature, Love, various “Lasses” and a lot of prayers and religious verse, though he just as frequently writes scandalous lines on how much he hates church and prefers and honest drink (though he really was rightfully disdainful of the organized religion of the day). He wrote scathingly funny epitaphs, numerous songs, (of which the traditional Auld Lang Syne is only one), the enormously famous verse to to a mouse, the one about “luve” being like a “red, red rose,” which is responsible for so much Valentine’s Day dreck, the wonderful social commentary of To a Louse (On seeing one in a lady’s bonnet at church), and lines to a haggis — that, yes, people declaim tonight – on Burns’ Night. And in honor of his birthday, we present this little glimpse from his collected works, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.

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Epitaph On A Lap-Dog Named Echo (1793)

In wood and wild, ye warbling throng,

Your heavy loss deplore;

Now, half extinct your powers of song,

Sweet Echo is no more.

Ye jarring, screeching things around,

Scream your discordant joys;

Now, half your din of tuneless sound

With Echo silent lies.

Paraphrase Of The First Psalm (1781)

The man, in life wherever plac’d,

Hath happiness in store,

Who walks not in the wicked’s way,

Nor learns their guilty lore!

Nor from the seat of scornful pride

Casts forth his eyes abroad,

But with humility and awe

Still walks before his God.

That man shall flourish like the trees,

Which by the streamlets grow;

The fruitful top is spread on high,

And firm the root below.

But he whose blossom buds in guilt

Shall to the ground be cast,

And, like the rootless stubble, tost

Before the sweeping blast.

For why? that God the good adore,

Hath giv’n them peace and rest,

But hath decreed that wicked men

Shall ne’er be truly blest.

We especially chuckled at the second one — Glaswegians, should take note! The “ways” here are still just horrible and potholed, but it really doesn’t stop raining long enough to get them fixed…

ANYWAY! It’s apparent from just this small sampling that Burns had a wide range. At times flippant and insulting, at times sentimental or religious, these poems and more give us a priceless vision of the everyday life and vociferous opinions of an 18th century Scotsman, and give us something to recite as we celebrate Burns Night this weekend with our friends. And though we’ve found a recipe for vegetarian haggis, we’ll probably definitely have one when Van’s here( — have to give him the full Scots experience, after all!).

Though we will likely never be as wild about Burns as our fellow Scots, we are gaining an appreciation for his wit and his clever-tongued countrymen. Happy Burns Day! Cheers!

– D & T

Burn Engraving courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica.

For those of you into classical choral music – Last semester’s choral excursions were so much fun we thought we’d do it again. One of our choir mates mentioned we would be singing a song this semester in Yiddish, and we were looking forward to the challenge. This semester we’re doing both Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and John Rutter’s Requiem, both of which are relatively short, and will make a good concert, only a little over an hour long. Neither of these is in Yiddish, but the Bernstein is, in fact, in Hebrew. (I guess our friend thought Yiddish was close enough.)

We also have an opportunity to also join a professional group, the Dundin Consort to perform Handel’s Israel in Egypt but we probably won’t have time, as some of the rehearsals – and the performance – are two hours away in Edinburgh. (Boo!)

Still, the university’s rich musical offerings are keeping us busy and happy, and we are having a blast with it.

– D & T

Phew!

Friday night, at the end of another long week.

Daily living is one of those things it’s at times hard to blog about. We get up, work out, we do a little quiet reading after breakfast. We launch into the cold/rain/slush, we gratefully come back in to read and study and eat, and all the while we talk and knit and read and sometimes watch the occasional bit of TV or a movie, and then we read and fall asleep, and do it all over again the next day.

Winter is like that. There is either a monotony or a comforting sameness, depending on one’s mood. Right now, it’s a comforting sameness. The color of the sky rarely varies. Water falls, or tiny snowflakes spiral upward. Wind howls. Clouds scud. Winter: it is what it is.

Looking forward to Van’s visiting us next month has sent us to various websites, looking for things to do in a Scots winter. There’s plenty unsurprisingly, and a lot of things that are a fair bit cheaper than they are in drier weather. As well as getting around to more of the wonderful FREE museums, we’re looking forward to hiking around looking for snowdrops, taking tea at the historic Willow Tea Room, hopping the train to Edinburgh and maybe take in the Isle of Skye, if it’s not altogether too blowy out.

Van has very kindly offered to bring us any and everything from the U.S., but we’ve surprised ourselves by, for the most part, turning down his offer of being our mule service. We don’t really miss anything specific that he can bring. Unless he can lasso the sun, the temperate Bay Area climate, its wonderful people and technology or our entire church and family and our townhouse, really, we don’t need much.

Except, of course PINTO BEANS.

We have guests coming in April, and they already know to leave room in their luggage for that!

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Hell, it has been said, is other people. T. would like to now go on record as amending that to “other people in the Gartnavel Hospital Eye Casualty on a Monday.” The hour and a half wait with three clinics running, and the waiting rooms stuffed with very bored people was not the best way to spend a day. The taxi driver told her she’d gotten off easily, two and a half hours later… “Oh, I’ve dropped people off at half-eight, and picked them up again at half-six,” he said quite seriously. “Never let them give you an appointment on Monday or Wednesday.”

People have asked us repeatedly about the medical care in Scotland, and in its staunch defense we will say there are very kind, overworked and haggard doctors and pharmacy techs, who do their best to be professional and helpful. The technology in Scotland is at least fifteen years behind what we have in California (especially in ophthalmology – that was a little frightening), but they believe in taking care of their people, even if they scare them half-to-death to do so. (You should have heard the ad for meningitis prevention and treatment we heard on the radio the other night. Yikes.) We haven’t had an emergency to test out our view of the Scottish medical system, but we can only assume that the hour-and-a-half wait doesn’t exist in a real emergency. Here’s hoping we only have to whine about the wait to see the (FREE! Say it with me now F-R-E-E) ophthalmologist. (And by 2011 they’re phasing out having prescriptions cost anything at all. In April, prescription prices drop a pound eight-five and already they only cost about $60 for three months worth of any drug.) Coming from the world of “hospitals charge what the market will bear,” we find that amazing.

Just the other day we were thinking there hadn’t been any fireworks or parades or late night singing and dancing from the neighbors for two weeks now. Never fear, we were told. Burns Night is coming January 25. We have received our invitations to several Burns suppers and a even to a céilidh after one of them, and we are considering going to Spain instead. No, just kidding, but Burns night ’tis the season for the haggis… and we’ve already been told that “Oh, you’ve just got to try it!” Um, no. But thanks all the same…

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The new semester’s schedule is much better than last semester, as D. is home all day on Monday, and most of the day on Wednesday and Friday. Tuesdays and Thursdays are much shorter now that he’s given up on the Philosophy Dept. after-hours class discussions at the pub. When the day both begins and ends in darkness, it’s just outright annoying to have to spend more time away from home than necessary. Despite a couple of the professors last semester making noises about the pub thing being almost compulsory, D. has gotten a bit less pliable this time around, now he’s gotten his feet wet and knows a few pertinent facts about the department. He’s already looking toward next year’s program.

T. hasn’t been exactly idle, as she’s been taking advantage of the urge to go absolutely nowhere, and getting down to work. Her first novel will hit bookshelves this June, but just this week she sold her second one, and is pretty cheerful, if not a bit nervous. Negotiating for things like audio rights and discussing release dates (June 2009! Very quick, in the book-world) and planning summer PR travel have occupied her for a bit. Since she isn’t that fond of air travel, it’s going to be… interesting to figure it all out, but it will be a treat to be back in the United States no matter how we get there or have to get around.

The wind is howling, the potato leek soup is on the “hob.”

Phew. Friday night, at the end of another long week. Thank God, indeed.

– D & T

Yes! We’re still here!

After the all-night party our upstairs neighbors had for Hogmanay, we had a sudden urge to sit quietly as much as possible and gave in to the last minute deep-resting that beckoned before semester began again. It seems odd to be tired when we haven’t been doing much, but it was a busy semester with few breaks and the sharp, cold, abruptly shortened days just invite sleep. D, at least, needed the respite of plenty of naps.

The last night before school began, we accompanied our friends M&B to what they promised was a … Mexican restaurant.

Now, okay: Mexican restaurants vary even within Mexico, probably, and certainly along the West Coast of the United States. There’s a vast difference between, say, El Torrito’s and La Cantina on 4th in Santa Rosa, or between a Chevy’s in the South Bay and
Pancho Villa Taqueria in the Mission District in the city. Thus, we were prepared Sunday night to be flexible. The restaurant was staffed and run by people from Spain. It would be different, we knew, but everyone in the U.S. has a different interpretation of Mexican food, and it would be no different in the UK, right?

Well. Yes and no. Everyone has a different interpretation of Mexican food. And then, there’s the European interpretation of a Mexican cuisine “with a modern twist”… When we walked in, it looked right. There was plenty of exposed wood, stuccoed walls in warm terra cotta colors, and rustic, brightly colored artwork. It smelled right, as periodically someone would order fajitas, and hot cast iron and onions have a very reassuring smell in this context. The only thing that wasn’t working for us was the “modern twist.” The quesadillas were tasty – goat cheese, mango and red onion with salsa — but not terribly Mexican. B’s enchilada was filled with lentils and mushrooms, D’s with spinach, and T’s black bean burrito — which she figured would be fairly basic — was filled not only with black beans and chunks of garlic, but with portobello mushrooms, goat cheese and spinach… I don’t know what it says to you, but the discovery of a potato in one’s enchilada should alert one to the fact that it is not the traditional cuisine of Mexico one is eating.

Just before Christmas, we found a small bag of dried pinto beans. We have plans for those beans!

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We’re so grateful to everyone who has sent us a package — even tiny ones allow us to drop everything and open them up! As the backup of Christmas mail has finally unplugged, we’re receiving daily cards and packages now. The one from home was filled with notes from the Littles, baby pictures and three months worth of catalogs (Coldwater Creek is just so much fun to page through, even though my clothes never coordinate that well!), magazines, and two down jackets.

We’re excited to say that both down jackets are far too large! No, really — we’re excited. At the rate the cookies were disappearing around here for the last month, we expected to have to buy two seats the next time we flew home. Now that we’ve seriously reined ourselves in we’re feeling better about the state of the world, and can safely pass along the largest of the two ginormous coats to the Salvation Army around the block.

It’s weird to realize when one opts out of car culture how much else one chooses to set aside. T. – though not a fan of high heels anyway – is taking a serious rummage through her shoes and deciding what she’s really never going to wear. Nothing that can’t be comfy during a fifteen minute, mile-long walk to the West End is going to survive the cut. That means a lot of shoes — thin-soled, velvet or shoes without enough arch support, as well as the lone pair of heels – are going to go away with the coats. (It would be a bit of a mournful process except that T. has plans for that closet space. Bwa-hahahah!) According to T’s totally nonscientific observation, women’s coats here in Glasgow have much more varied styles than coats elsewhere… probably because one has to wear one for more than half the year, and one has to make it interesting! Thus, after weeding out a few more unsuitable garments for the closet, there should be a lot more room for other things…

We’re remembering there’s life beyond winter, and not a moment too soon. Our first houseguest is arriving at the end of February. T. and Van have been friends since he was eleven and she was nine, and so a mere five thousand miles distance doesn’t deter him from dropping by for a visit. Despite the fact that the weather won’t quite have it pulled together by the time he arrives, we are now pretty motivated to actually find some touristy things to do, and we’ll be in good mental and physical shape to drag him all over the country. Details to follow, of course.

Another of our expected houseguests have had to bow out, as they’re expecting an addition to their extended family. It’s catching — three more of our friends are also expecting. We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: STOP THAT. Don’t you people realize you’re supposed to stay exactly the same while we’re away? No aging, no multiplying, no nothing. *Sigh.* Fine. You’d all just better send pictures.

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Snow is visiting the city, making the hills around the smog-stained old buildings glow with a serene purity belied by its noisy, busy streets. In our little valley we’re still too low for it to stick, but it’s only a matter, now, of time. Hope that your forays into the bleak midwinter are reminding you that snowdrops and crocuses are just around the corner.

– D & T