Category: Uncategorized

We have to preface this saying that Neil deGrasse Tyson is our favorite, favorite science geek. He’s the man we love to hate over what we euphemistically call “The Pluto Incident;” or, “it’s this dude’s fault that the little planets mnemonic we learned as kids is no longer viable.” (He’s very sorry about that. Really.) We’d also like to say that we don’t intend to conjecture on where our tax dollars, in whatever country, should be spent, only that we have noticed in ourselves that the world is changing, and becoming increasingly consumer-based. We cheer about what we’ve bought and much, much less so about what we’ve made. That focus is inward, an accumulation of things, but not knowledge, and things are not shared. Thus, our drive is to increase what we have individually, and community and society can go jump in a river.

We acknowledge that we’re unlike a lot of people (as a reader of this blog, you know that full well), and think differently. We want to share this little video with you, which inspired us. It is snippets of various interviews with Neil deGrasse Tyson, set against the backdrop of the undiscovered country of the universe. Enjoy.

We will always be “make” people. Others might not understand why we put the time in to turn the soil and seed it, or bake from scratch, or puzzle out notes from reams of scores, or scowl over yarn with a crochet or knitting needle, or create another universe, full tapestry, out of the threads of our own imagination — but we believe that the human animal was created to be creative, and it gives us a sense of well-being and fulfillment to have something in our hands and say, “I did it, me.” Even the best shopping day for us does not compare; “I bought” or “I have” will never have the ring that “I made” or “I dreamed” does.

May we keep hoping, thinking, dreaming.

“May you live all the days of your life ~ Jonathan Swift

Most restaurants in the UK don’t have “doggie” bag, as taking home restaurant food is seen as a bit gauche in many places outside of the U.S. It’s an American Puritan idea, eating everything on one’s plate, and not wasting even restaurant food which is somewhat of a luxury. It’s also a ridiculous euphemism, as most of us just eat the portion belonging to the alleged “doggie” for lunch the next day… Anyway, if you’re lucky enough to be at a restaurant that also does take-out, they’re perfectly willing – though admittedly confused – to box up your leftovers and let you take it with you.

On our weekly jaunt to the Big G, we take advantage of the cheap and excellent tapas at Cafe Andaluz or the specials at Sarti’s. This week we miscalculated hunger vs. time in which to eat, but were lucky enough to take one entree away with us. A lovely stuffed pepper gave us instant inspiration for supper the following night.

At home, we had leftover brown lentils, seasoned only lightly, and added chopped fresh green onions. We added the pepper stuffed with the very luxurious ratatouille made traditionally with tomatoes, garlic, onions, zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, marjoram, basil, and thyme. There seemed to be some sort of a creaminess to it that we couldn’t account for – maybe from a randomly added carrot? Maybe just tons of olive oil? Who knows – it was amazingly good. We added black pepper and a bit of grated sharp cheese – a dry Parmigiano would have been great, but we only had white cheddar – and tucked it into a leftover bit of pastry from the freezer. Thirty minutes later, we had a really tasty meal.

(ASIDE: Does anyone make their own ratatouille at home? We’re going to need to work on perfecting our own – this was a better one than we’d had in a restaurant in a long time. One reason possibly was because the pieces were cut into bite-size bits, yet nothing was overdone. The other may have been that it had clearly been drained after simmering, so it wasn’t watery, and was somehow both creamy and not oily. The Complete Robuchon advises each vegetable be sauteed separately for best results; we’ll have to experiment and see if we can recreate this…)

We, like so many other of our friends, are still using up stuff from the freezer from the holidays. The great January tradition of “first footing” (which starts officially at the New Year, but really just carries on throughout the holidays) means that drop-in visits from friends are fairly common. When you have people come over and tell you, “oh, we didn’t get around to having lunch,” and you get to put together a meal in just a few minutes, shortcuts like frozen dough and Tesco’s store-brand (surprisingly – far tastier and well and away less expensive than Quorn) frozen veggie chicken filets are really nice to have, and were happily on special. Because it is much more common in the UK to eat a meat main course with some kind of jam — mint with lamb, various cuts and cookings of beef with … er… various jammy things — around the holidays there were some great prices on preserves, too, including our favorite French and fruit-juice sweetened jams from St. Dalfour.

St. Dalfour has some imaginatively weird flavors for their spreads – kumquat, royal fig, cranberry/blueberry, raspberry/pomegranate, and pineapple/mango. Clearly, not every one of their blends is a hit (cran/blue tastes to us like cough syrup), but D. rather likes their marmalade, so when T. saw marmalade with ginger, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

It ….er, wasn’t. Not on toast, anyway. Nor did the orange and ginger match well with peanut butter in a sandwich (although, inexplicably, ginger and peanuts go perfectly well in Thai food). It went slightly better with cream cheese – the bite of the ginger somewhat ameliorated, allowing the flavor of citrus peel to come through – but it was not winning a lot of friends at our house. Somewhat miffed at this, it languished in the fridge, until T. determined to use it in a savory application. The first jar found new life on a crock-pot baked gluten roast, which was baked atop apples and onions — very tasty.

The second jar graced us last night for an impromptu dessert. T. took some old and not-very-sweet blueberries — far too early to have any flavor, but bought on a desperate I-need-summer impulse — combined them with leftover container of half-fat créme fraiche, added the harshly flavored jam, and tucked it into the other half of the pastry crust, and — voila, and wow. The ginger shards softened under the influence of the blueberries; the créme fraiche set up as a light custard, and the berries – tasteless and drying out from having sat in the fridge – plumped, taking on the ginger and citrus flavor, and somehow becoming creamy and toothsome, and, dare we say, “moreish?” (We had to say that – our friend Jac says it all the time, and it always makes us smile. All food has certain elements of “more-ish-ness,” but desserts… well, they’re more moreish. That’s just how it is.)

All of us create the most mundane alchemy in our kitchens on a daily basis, combining and recombining basic ingredients into surprising magic. Though we’ve been marginal food bloggers for years – granted, since the move to Scotland and the whole PhD thing, it’s been much less food, and much more “Oh, my goodness, Scotland,” — it’s funny how it often doesn’t occur to us to really blog about the “normal” things we make. Eh, crock pot roasted gluten? Meh, that was just Tuesday dinner. Roasted broccoli with pumpkin seeds and toasted sesame? Our usual side on Fridays. A great sandwich with shredded carrots and Moroccan mint hummus and slivers of apple and cranberry studded cream cheese? Red pepper pesto stuffed celery? Well… that was just lunch on a regular weekday. We only just remembered to take a picture of these “rustic” (READ: Slapdash) pies because we’re once more trying to pay careful attention to the food that we eat, and make it memorable in flavor and appearance and be sure it’s worth the calories expended. Part of living “all the days of your life” is taking the time to actually look at what’s before you. So, we hope to remember now and then to look more closely, and to share what we’re looking at with you.

This rustic pieces baked beautifully. Next time we’ll let the savory one brown up a bit more – but we were quite proud of it, as it looked a bit like something one could get in a restaurant with a bit of radicchio and curly endive on the side. The peppers, eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes just merged so harmoniously with the lentils– and had unusual flavors and textures as well. It was, in a word, yummy.

We ate all the lentil pie in one go, but prudently divided the smaller blueberry dish into four pieces, so we’ll have another piece tonight while T. has her writing group, and D. sits and finishes the last of his dissertation corrections – three more days on that. T. is actually planning to seek out those less popular St. Dalfour jams, and see what else she can do with them. Really – kumquats. What don’t they go with??

Until next time we dig through the leftovers…

Admittedly, Google is usually viewed as an Evil Overlord by techies. Their multiple and egregious stances on privacy policy — they’re against much, and tend to sell user information to marketers — their attempts at shoving everyone into using Google+ — because we’re logged on to the Search Engine so much, we’ve gotten used to them — their role in quietly and thoroughly suppressing Blogger-based blogs in various countries — in accordance with those country’s laws, yes, but it’s amazing how they are very lawful about China, whereas Japan and Germany don’t want their neighborhoods photographed for the maps, and yet …they’re photographed. Hmmm. — their buying up of every small tech company in sight — these and legion other issues cause most of the tech-savvy to cock a wary eye in Google’s direction, as we do. HOWEVER, periodically, Google does something awesome. No, not just the Google Doodles which are so unnecessarily wonderful. No! This is something even better! They’ve given University alumni The Cloisters, and the rest of the University of Glasgow — forever.

People see the Google Maps cars going by, and know that their particular stretch of territory is being photographed to join the massive world map that Google has created — but previously, they only mapped places by car. Now, they’ve taken to hauling out the cameras and heading for walkways and ducking into public corridors. Thus, a labeled map, with details of University buildings and contact information is now available, as is an eye-level view of the West Quad, which houses the University Chapel, where many a lovely musical evening has been spent, as well as The Cloisters, our very favorite spot on the whole of the campus, other than the bell tower (and we defy a Google camera person to go up all hundred and forty plus narrow stairs toting camera equipment — it looks like they do the photography on a bike. Periodically you see a glimpse of a helmet in the bottom of the picture. And then it vanishes. Spooky!). You can see just about everywhere we’ve walked around, where D’s taken classes, and the whole, beautiful, historical campus. It’s a lovely, sunny — rare, rare, rare — day when they photographed it as well.

Google is still the Evil Overlord – seriously. We’ll never take that for granted. But they take pretty pictures.

I know it not, O Soul;
Nor dost thou—all is a blank before us;
All waits, undream’d of, in that region—that inaccessible land.
– Toward The Unknown Region, from Whispers of Heavenly Death, by Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman had the loveliest sense of adventure about death, and so it is with that sense that we – for real this time – break the metaphorical champagne bottle on the ship that takes our grandmother off on her next adventure. We believe that the first leg of the journey is sleep, a deep and restful recompense for all of the years of work and toil and worry…for The Depression. For The Wars. For the peace that she rarely had. And then, when we can all be together, the voyage will continue to …somewhere, where, as Jane Kenyon says, God is, as advertised, mercy clothed in light.

That’s a good thought on which to set sail.

Though it opened in the south of Glasgow in November, it was kind of inevitable that we should go eventually. Despite the distance, we had a perfectly good excuse — we have friends who live that direction in Glasgow, and so we had the perfect excuse to pop in for a cuppa after a grueling trek through packed aisles, doing our marathon shopping session. Or something like that.

Ah, Whole Paycheck. We mock you with this name, and we’d all but stopped shopping with you in the U.S. (you do have some shoddy labor issues in the U.S. inexcusable ones, we thought at the time), but it was a treat to see you again. The eternal sameness of each and every WF in the world really closed the distance between Home & Abroad for us. To walk in was amusing, because somehow, it even smelled the same.

There was the same complete and utter disregard for traffic flow, which put all the cool produce against one wall – creating the selfsame traffic jam in the produce section that happens in every WF in the world, it seems — there were the same fun and creative chalk-on-slate aisle marker illustrations (T. briefly met the guy who does them, who is our friend AB’s neighbor, the lucky, lucky man), product samples that you didn’t need (Hi Wee Fudge folks! We love you!) but take anyway, incomprehensibly expensive items like £12.99 sorbet, and £8 for two ounces of pine nuts, bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles of beverages to take the place of wine, beer, soda or even “normal” juices — elderflower and white grape cordial, anyone?? No? Perhaps ginger and apple?? White peach and hibiscus?? — and even the same smell – a slight metallic blood tang from the fish/meat counter, blended with hot cornmeal from the bottom of the breads in the bakery. It blends to make a smell uniquely Whole Foods.

If you go in on a rainy January day, there’s the added smell of wet wool, the squeak of wet carts, and the buzz of shoppers interacting in the bin section — “Wet one, isn’t it?” “Cor, listen to the wind!” “Oh, excuse me! Sorry! Are those lentils on special today?” — and the wailing of hipster music in the background – light jazz, something trendy; no sugar-synth pop or orchestral Beatles elevator Muzak to trouble you. Unlike other grocery stores, the loud voices calling so-and-so to the front are rare, as rare as people plugged in to iPhones and other devices. For some reason – maybe because it’s still new and easy to lose your way or your mind – “Those are Jerusalem artichokes? What do you do with them?” — people aren’t so tuned out.

We were a little disappointed not to see the 365 Everyday WF store brand items – but one of the strengths of Whole Foods, before it started going crazy in the U.S., was that it sourced a lot of its inexpensive items locally. It was good to see a lot of familiar stuff, organic brands and UK vegetarian staples we appreciate from our jaunts to Grassroots in Glasgow (oh, how we miss living right down the block and across the street). A store with not only rice cakes but puffed wheat cakes, millet cakes and quinoa cakes plus popcorn cakes – well, see? You can have all of your tasteless diet-y wafers in all flavor(less)s. Or, something like that.

We had a good chuckle out of seeing tons of Amy’s Kitchen products, including Amy’s Burritos, which are sold in the frozen foods aisle, and in our Santa Rosa WF was a run-in-get-one-run-out items for many of the lunch crowd, who then used the store’s microwave to heat through their meal, and consumed it on the hoof. Um, yeah. Burritos. And south of Glasgow… not really that great of a combination. AB tells us that there was a full case of burritos in the freezer department when the store opened in November… and now there are two small boxes of individually wrapped tortillas-and-beans – one with cheese and one without. And that is all. Clearly, it’s a matter of figuring out what’s going to sell, and what will sit and stare at them.

Another surprise was the amount of Jewish nosh about the place. Mind, we cannot source Fleischmann’s Yeast to save our lives around these parts, but oy, the boxes of the matzah flour, crackers, the gefilte fish, the kasha, the pickles, the Kosher this and that. It was explained to us that the south of Glasgow has a large and venerable Jewish population, and a very old reform synagogue in the area, too, thus much of the Jewish population is in the area – and is able to shop at WF… which is a Jewish-owned store to begin with. A shtik naches, it now all makes sense. (A great joy, yes?) We are now excited that we can go ahead and use up our last, hoarded (and probably not very good anymore) matzah ball mix from our last trip home!!! Because we can indeed take two trains from two different stations and find more.

(Oh, yes, did we fail to mention that? Train – from Stirling station – is forty minutes, give or take. We missed the fastest train, and took the next fastest, which left ten minutes later – into Queen Street Station, where we had to walk five city blocks to Central Station, found a train – which we missed by two minutes, thank you, we waited another twenty minutes, and took a thirty minute shuttle to Giffnock. Please add thirty-eight degree rain and gusting fifty mile per hour wind to this, and you’ll wonder why we don’t go every weekend.)

If you shop Whole Foods before mid-February, maybe you’ll run into another friend of ours, unless Junior makes an early appearance. A fellow American from chorus, our friend is working weird hours, mightily pregnant, but equally Zen and Whole Foodsish, so she’s in the right place. She can be cajoled into pointing out bargains, as she manages to do all of her shopping at WF, and still come away with some paycheck. That’s a mad Mom-to-Be Skill, so we paid attention. She can point out the line of Burt’s Bees baby products and some really cute olive wood baby utensils, too. Just in case you’re into that kind of thing.

In some ways, it’s like every other WF we’ve ever been to… and in other ways, it was still totally field-trip worthy, a fun little slice of home.

December

by Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels singing overhead? Hark.

Our friend JoNelle, who lives in upstate New York, told us she was scraping ice of the windows of her car by the fifteenth of September. It only made sense that we had our first frost last week in this little burg. It didn’t require scraping from anything, and it rained the following night, but it was a little kick in the backside that said “the year is ending! Hurry! Hurry!” Suddenly all the things we’ve been thinking we’ll get to “eventually” have a flavor and feeling of urgency.

It’s almost November – and we had so many things we thought we’d be done with by now! For one thing, on paper, D. is supposed to march at the University’s December commencement, but of course that isn’t happening. We are instead tying up loose ends – settling with the Council after receiving our paperwork from the University, “officially” submitting the dissertation/thesis after receiving paperwork from the University; filling out the last of our paperwork for the visa extensions after we’ve gotten an appointment with the University… (sensing a theme here?) The Home Office faithfully promises that we’ll get our passports and new visas back in a month, but we’ll believe all claims when we see them. Meanwhile, no holiday plans in place yet, but we’ll let those of us who are interested know something as soon as we do.

Meanwhile, we continue to learn new things!

And now it’s time for Drew’s Phrase Du Jour:

(You laugh, but occasionally Drew actually writes these up on the whiteboard at D’s work. He’s here to edify, people.)

The phrase D. heard was: I’m going to grass you up as the clype.
Translation: I’m going to rat you out as the snitch.
Clype: To inform on. A person who informs on others. A grass. A yopper. (Of course you know what a yopper is. It’s a clype or a grass. Didna I just tell ya?)

A fine Ayrshire phrase D. learned recently was “Gadsa boak.”
Gadsa: a portmanteau which means “gives us a”
Boak: a Scots vernacular word meaning dry heaves or vomiting.
Thus, gadsa boak means “you make me sick.” (In Glasgow parlance, gadsa might be replaced with “giesa.”) This phrase is often shortened to “gads.”
You are now duly edified.

What are we going to do when we no longer have these Vernacular Translation moments? Although, the fact is, anywhere we go outside of our home state, there are words and phrases which briefly bemuse us, and there are tons of people cheerfully mangling and rehashing English and its compatriot languages all around the world. It will probably never end.

Meanwhile, the wheel of life continues to turn. Congratulations to Thor & Helga who have had brought forth their firstborn, and to our friend Jules, who looks to be three minutes away from an event such as this. Autumn babies are great, because they give you a perfect excuse to stay home and bundle up and have quiet visits from friends. Doesn’t that sound great? – good food, friends dropping by, music, a warm house? We love autumn, and we’ll take any excuse for bundling up that we can get.

D. walks home of an evening, and smells the peat fires burning. It is cold and damp these days, but we are, so far, in good spirits. Lots of books and early bedtimes, and far too early of rising, for T., anyway, as she tries to get in an hour of exercise before the day begins, but our endorphins are happy, are moods are pretty good, we’ve got our sunlight lamps on, and we’re doing all right.

We’ll leave you with some of the beauty surrounding us these days:

YES. That is snow on the Campsie Fells (Or the Ochil Hills. Not sure).

Pax.

And now it’s time for another episode of Separated By A Common Language, with our favorite Fifer, D’s coworker, Drew…

Drew helpfully supplied the two of us with a surprise this last week – Halloween “Lucky” Bags we could take with us to sing carols. Since we didn’t go, we didn’t frighten the good people of Glasgow with orange jack-o-lantern pops between our teeth whilst we hummed God Rest Ye, Merry, but we are nonetheless amused and touched that Drew’s trying to get us in the mood for the, er, season. Such as it is. As goes with any packaged food we eat, there’s a lot of squinting at the ingredients for animal bits, things T’s allergic to, and for general information, as in, “What the heck is this?”

Drew’s been delightfully helpful in this respect. When we noted that sherbet was listed on the items in the grab bag, we gave each other a puzzled glance, and poked through the hyper-colored lot. We didn’t see sherbet.

“So, what’s the stuff in the skull?” D. asked. “Well, that’s the sherbet, right there!”

“Not where I’m from,” D. explained. “Sherbet’s a frozen dessert, served in a cone or a bowl. You know, like a fruity ice cream.”

“Naw, that’s sorbet (and hear the pronunciation — SOR-bay). This here’s sherbet. You can snort it, you know.”

“Whoo, though — stings a fair bit, it does.”

o_0

Well, that explains a lot about our Drew.

(Okay, kidding. He’s actually a lovely person – and a big kid, but single, girls, single!)

(Sadly, we are not kidding about that exchange. We’re hopeful he has put sherbet snorting in his past. His distant past…)

So, now we all know! The equivalent of Pixie Stix – in whatever container – is known as sherbet here. And, T. would like to remind those who wish to snort this substance that there are leagues of white-coated professionals who can help with that sort of thing. (Actually, T’s students used to snort Pixie Stix and powdered Kool-Aid, too. And she took it from them, and gave them Holy Heck about it in rather pithy sentences. Sugar and food coloring, directly to the brain? This is a good idea, how???)

Speaking of frozen desserts, we live in a neighborhood with so many weans that the ice cream van comes around regularly – twice a week like clockwork. Unlike when we lived in Glasgow, we believe that there’s actual ice cream involved – and possibly frozen meat! Yes, there are mobile butchers who drive around in vans with music, too, apparently. This leads us to wonder whether this is what was being sold in Maryhill, when our friend Jess’s housemate went running out for an ice cream and the driver told her he didn’t have any. Bovril and a side of beef, please, thanks…

As always, the topic of “where are we going next?” is on our minds. We love it here, and have enjoyed our time, but it’s a bit ridiculous if just the idea of winter makes one need a long vacation! Meanwhile, the visa extension applications are almost away — this is indeed our very last winter here — huzzah. If anyone would like to provides us with the perfect job on a beach in San Diego, we’d be good with that…

In answering the question for ourselves what we’ve loved most about living abroad, we’ve discovered that for both of us, it has been the pace of life. We might complain (mightily) about how long it takes for things to get done (Yes, internet providers, we’re talking about YOU), but even with D’s school deadlines, and T’s constant workload, we’ve appreciated the lack of frantic days. People work their allotted 7.5 hours, and go home. Things close at 5 — because everyone has the right to go home and cuddle with their families or their stool in the pub (!). With no access to a personal vehicle, the number of spur-of-the-moment trips drops to virtually nil, and things are planned out in advance — not that this doesn’t leave room for impulse, but it’s of a different sort now. There are certainly inconveniences in a slower pace of living, but there are ways around them in case of absolute necessity. We’ve just enjoyed living without that necessity.

The question is whether or not we can find that pace elsewhere, in the U.S. or Canada,… or is the pace merely an artifact of how we our personalities have shifted while here? We’re trying to find out…

The wheel continues to turn – last week another of T’s girlfriends buried a spouse (it’s painful and strange to have friends in our age group with that loss), while another became engaged. Just yesterday, one of T’s classmates from grade school wrote to exclaim over the expectation of an additional – surprise! – family member in May. Life goes on, and Autumn draws on as well. No sign of a frost yet – thank God – but the days flow between the low forties and the mid fifties, and it’s consistently breezy – we’ve got scarves out, and gloves for walking in the nippy evenings. The sun rises sluggishly, and light is slow to find us. 0730 is beginning to look like 0DarkEarly, but we’re hanging in so far. And we truly hope that you are as well.

Yep, we did redo the blog. We’re still fiddling with it, so this might not be its last incarnation. Pardon our dust.

Into each life, a little rain must fall… or something. It’s not always rain…

As T’s friend Syl is wont to say in times of stress, in a very Pooh Bear reminiscent fashion, “Oh, dear.”

It’s not rare that we Hobbits find things here with which we disagree — the way the Council makes us sort the recycling, for instance, or the way our Tesco carries such flimsy bags. There are many things to kvetch over in the world, and on a particularly bad day, we do go on. Lately, we’ve wondered at the things our acquaintances take for granted, and wonder if we are not responding to things in a specifically American manner.

It is perhaps a cultural peculiarity of Americans that we like knowing who is in charge. If there’s an issue, we are, inevitably, the first people asking to see someone’s manager or supervisor, expecting that the higher one goes up the ladder, the more information — and hopefully intelligence — there will be. We like definite boundaries, knowing what we can and cannot do, and why… we’re big on the why.

We’ve been privileged to sing with choruses before which were backed by a chorus board, a music committee, and/or “choir captains” and section leaders. These people ably took responsibility for the smooth running of their section, the public’s perception of the chorus, and things like fundraising. Lest it seem like we’ve never experienced anything like choral organizations before, we have, which is what makes the following a bit strange.

Since we joined our chorus, we’ve had a question about two of our fellow members. We’ve been told individually that, “Oh, so-and-so is on the board.” We weren’t surprised to have a board – we have a chorus of over two hundred members, and there is money flowing in and out, and decisions to be made. We did wonder when we would see statements (as we as members pay dues, and thus some accounting of our income and expenses is expected), or some kind of minutes from the Board as to their movements, unless the board meetings are closed. We never have received any information on the board, nor have we been asked to put anything to a vote, so we didn’t think that the board actually did anything.

And then this past week, in the culmination of a truly nasty imbroglio of hearsay, hurt feelings, excruciating confrontation, and racist remarks*, one of our members was escorted out of the building – by these two fellow board-attending-members-who-haven’t-been-defined-as-anything-but-board-members – and asked not to return.

Um. We’d like to see their supervisors, please.

Perhaps it is another American cultural peculiarity to demand a specific accounting of what position and powers leadership holds over individuals. Nowhere in our chorus paperwork, which we were given upon joining, with all of The Rules clearly posted therein, were the names of these choral members written out — not as board members, not as henchpersons, not as anything. And yet. It seems that very lack of definition allows for maximum exploitation of their non-position. They seem to move and act and speak as though they can do… anything.

We’ve been involved with internecine politics in a chorus situation before — and in the end, we withdrew from that chorus, and make serious promises to ourselves to never, ever again be so involved with that type of musical group. The current undercurrent of ugliness within the chorus is making us uneasy, and the razor-blade politics are certainly one thing we won’t miss when we go. It’s a bit sad that the bloom is off the rose, and we are troubled that the choral experience that we had put on a pedestal as “most excellent” has fallen. Boo.

(Ironically, we also know it’s an American gene that prompts us to DO SOMETHING about everything. We know it’s a cultural disconnect and something we don’t quite get, which allows this group to go on as is (or else major group dysfunction, like group hysteria) but we’re working hard to learn to leave well-enough alone… it’s not our business, this time.)

It’s just been a tough week – the discovery of the sudden death of a friend at the age of 38 coupled with people fussing and fighting and generally craptastic weather has taken its toll. On a happier note, the music we are doing is beautiful. We are learning Mendelssohn’s Elijah for June in the lovely Wellington Church, and are enjoying it immensely. One of D’s coworkers, the redoubtable ‘Drew, has given us Halloween bags, complete with masks and candy (and T. thrilled to the discovery of a candy bracelet like she had when she was wee) so we are in the proper spirit for the October caroling at Dobbie’s. Frankly, we think we should have candy canes, peppermint pigs and Indian corn… just to be sure and really confuse the season. (And the shoppers.)

Fortunately, our next concert is November 6th, and then our next caroling gig isn’t until the second or third week of November… since the UK has no Thanksgiving, the Christmas season well and truly starts after St. Andrews’s Day, which is November 30, so even the 19th is a bit early, but we’re calling it a warm-up, and we’ll be in an Edinburgh garden center, perhaps standing near Christmas trees, to give us that air of believability. (That would be amusing.) Then it’s on with our two Christmas shows — two performances of the Broadway Musicals show on the 11th, and a single performance at the Royal Concert Hall of our Christmas Cracker the following weekend, and then we’ll start working on our March and June performance pieces in earnest. We’ve already started trying to learn the Polish for the Szymanowski Stabat Mater — and it’s no picnic, as there are multiple consonant blends which make a sound utterly unlike what they appear they ought to be. At least the Berlioz Te Deum is in plain old Latin.

The weather is not quite so frightful as it was this time last year; it’s a bit dull and dreich, but the cold remains mild thus far — and we’re thankful for that! Though the Collective Conventional Wisdom of the Cab Driver seems to lean toward snow in late November “just like last year,” they mostly posit that the weather is much windier and more unsettled than it was last year, and that “it’s going to be terrible.”

However, the weather is never as bad as it was when they were children. Ever.

Our cab drivers make us smile; their grumpy melancholy makes our temperaments seem downright cheery.

And on that note…!

NB: The racist remarks in question were not made by the leadership of the chorus, but by other members who mentioned that someone had been “rather Spanish” in the confrontation. Ironically (or rather, typically, because racists tend to be vastly uninformed as well as just irritatingly ignorant), the chorister in question is Italian.

When Morning Guilds the Skies…

Trekking along to work the other morning, D. stopped and took this picture. It’s been an odd couple of days; we had a… heat wave, which resulted in 75°F temps (23°C) on Wednesday, dropping only by a few degrees for Thursday and Friday. It’s slightly hazy with intermittent clouds, but the warmth is appreciated, even if there’s not much sun.

We’ve had the last ripe corn from the nearby farms, and enjoyed it — it put D. in the mind of San Diego, so you know it was tasty. The big wind storm a few weeks ago during the last East Coast hurricane destroyed a lot of still-green apples and soft fruit so there are no more “plooms,” but bramble berries are ripening apace, and there are raspberries and a few strawberries left. In these oddly humid and dry days, the big combines have come in to slash down and roll up gigantic bales of hay from the fields, and the blackbirds and rabbits are gleaning the leavings. The leaves are yellowed and coming down in drifts, and with exasperation we glower at the birch tree in the back and realize we’re going to have to either buy or rent a leaf vac, or all the neighbors will soon hate us. The chaffinches and the bluetits are noisy and busy, rapaciously gorging themselves on all the ripened seeds. We are actually having a moment of autumn – it’s warmish, with only slightly cool nights and mornings, and even when it rains, it remains in the high sixties. After being cheated out of much of summer, it’s a nice change.

And in the village, we’re hearing and learning new words. This week it was “Umne” and “Er.” These are words used for argument. The second is a phrase “a big girl’s blouse.” These fine words and phrases can be used all together. Like this:

“I’m not panicking, I’m just asking where we are!”

“Er!”

Do you feel enlightened? Well, neither do we. Umne and Er are, of course the enormously mature, “Am not,” and “Are.” But we’re just not sure why a big girl’s blouse (is it a big girls’ blouse, as in, a blouse intended for all big girls? Or, just a particular big girl’s blouse? And, why are we asking you?!) comes into it… it’s an insult, and it means a man’s not quite being manly, but… blouse? (Would a small girls’ blouse have worked? Is the mockery centered on the size of the girl, or her clothing?) “We aren’t lost, you big girl’s blouse,” would have also worked in this particular exchange. This is apparently the equivalent of calling someone a pantywaist (America, 1943), a milquetoast (America, 1935) or big old baby (Mythbusters, any time in the last ten seasons). All of these things mean to insult a guy.

So, a girl who’s not displaying normative girly-ness gets called a belt loop? A big boy’s undershirt? No? We still find it so very interesting that a bad idea is called “pants,” as in, “What? You want to dance in torn sheets in the rain? Well, that’s pants!” — and remember, that means underwear…And, when the “hens” in T’s circle in chorus want to insult someone (usually a certain bass), one of them has been known to remark, “Ah, he’s all mouth and trousers.”

We’re going to have to ponder that one for awhile.

The end of another busy week. Last weekend’s Policeman’s Memorial Service was a lot like attending a funeral, something we hadn’t counted on. We were glad to know the hymns, since the audience of family members and friends could not sing, and were gratified by how well the chorus performed — we really did John Rutter’s Gaelic Blessing and Eric Whitaker’s Sleep almost perfectly. The service was moving — but at times dreadfully so. Despite the presence of such honored guests as politicians and princes, there was a palpable sense of grief in the crowd. After family members lit candles, the chorus was on hand to do their a cappella piece — and found themselves barely able to sing. The two of us felt like we were attending the funeral service we had missed of another policeman back home… which, in a way, was a kind of difficult and unexpected closure.

While we did indeed catch a glimpse of the Duke of Rothesay, Prince Charles (and noted his absence in the first twenty silent minutes the auditorium of over two thousand people waited for him to deign to come inside – punctuality is apparently not the provenance of princes), we were more amused that the Lord Provost of the city (essentially the mayor) wore a gold chain of office — a really huge gold chain, with massive gold medallion, like an Olympic medal stuck on rapper jewelry. (Yes, we freely admit this amused one of us, and one of us has the sense of humor of a ten-year-old. Moving on.) While not exactly stylish with a suit from Seville Row, the chain of office is left over from Tudor times, and probably looked quite the thing with ruffs, doublets, hose, codpieces and such.

We duly noted that Duke and Prince is a lot shorter in person than he appears to be on television — isn’t that always the case? On the up side, his ears, which have appeared so exaggerated in satirical cartoons, are also positively ordinary. Anyway, we’re finished with concerts and royalty for awhile, and won’t have to don the chorus garb again until nearly Christmas. Since with company or concerts and such, we have been up before eight every weekend for the past three, we’re looking forward to a good wallow of sleep this weekend, too.

Last night began the celebration of Rosh HoShanna for many of our friends, and if you celebrate, L’Shanah Tovah, and may you have sweetness follow you into the new year. The Hobbits welcome any chance to start over at any time, so we’re dipping our apples in honey and trying to catch up with many a neglected project… We’re looking forward to paging through a new cookbook by a gent with the improbable name of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. We’ve been gifted with his Veg! book, just in time for the Vegan Month of Food, in which we strive to participate at least a little each year. We’ll also be joining in with the Bread Baking Babes as Bread Buddies this weekend, and making the tasty looking soft pretzels — and experimenting with roasting flaxseed (linseed) for their tops, as well as trying out nigella and possibly some sweet toppings, too. We’re making a seitan roast with caramelized apples, and carrot cake muffins with coconut frosting. And, we’ll probably find time to clean the house, organize the garage, do a photo hike, and find some more rabbits in there somewhere, too.

And sleep. Did we mention that?

Hope you have the anticipation of something utterly lovely to occupy your time this weekend, too.