Christmas this year was spent with… Skype. Skype is a computer-to-computer service that acts as a phone or videophone, and allows people who upload the service to get in touch for free, or call from a computer to a phone line for a minimal fee. It’s what enables our family to chat weekly without breaking our bank accounts.
During the traditional Christmas family brunch (our family never bothers with a big dinner, which seems to be the tradition in the UK — but then, in the UK, no one has Thanksgiving Dinner, which is our big thing), our sister brought her computer downstairs and turned on the little camera she’d purchased, and we were treated to the sight of those dear to us eating (waving food in front of the camera and saying, “These cinnamon rolls are so good — too bad you’re not here!”), opening gifts (Isn’t it funny how everyone cheers during a baby’s first Christmas, when he tears the paper to open his gifts? “Yay!” everyone says as he rips the wrapping paper. A month from now, this little turkey is going to rip up some bills. No one will cheer then, and he will be so confused!), and the kids zooming around the room, hopped up on carbohydrates and wrapping paper. Each family member took a moment to sit in front of the camera and chat for a bit before an elderly parent or a young child — or another cinnamon roll — called them.
(Speaking of elderly parents, we were also treated to our grandmother bewilderedly peering into the screen, saying, “Are they on TV?” That was amusing.) (Also amusing was 6 month old nephew’s profound preference for the boxes his gifts came in, and not the gifts themselves. WHY do people bother getting tiny children anything but empty boxes?)
The whole three hours of celebratory brunch was like a low-budget public access cable show that would have been broadcast during the hours of two and three a.m. when no one but insomniacs were watching. It was weird to just observe the members of our family. Hearing the banter and watching them was almost like being there, except that they kept forgetting that we were there. Every once in awhile, someone would look up at the camera and the computer screen and twitch as they saw our faces peering back. “Oh! You’re still there!”
Yep. Still there. Just taking it in. You don’t realize how much you miss just the everyday, mundane things your family does. There’s a strange kind of comfort in them being at ease enough to go on about their business, paying you little mind. It’s almost like being there.
“What if God was watching us like that?” someone mused, which brought down the house.
It was a good, if weird, way to be home.
Yesterday’s jaunt to Edinburgh was reported incompletely, as T. forgot to mention… the toilets.
Okay. “Two p. to pee” is a helpful, if not particularly couth saying which we heard even before we arrived in the UK. Somehow, though, it still hasn’t connected. T. will constantly go into a coffee shop to meet D., drop her bags, purse, coat, scarf, hat, etc. next to him, and race to the loo to wash up… and stop. Turn around. Return for her purse. Two pence is required for the turnstile to move.
These aren’t the on-the-street pay toilets that one can find in San Francisco and other major cities. These are toilets in stores. Mostly they’re in coffee shops located in malls or major bookstores. The bus station at Buchanan Street also has one of these little turnstiles (not only was it not even particularly clean, the turnstile didn’t move quickly, and people generally smacked into it on the way out), as do the airports. The University has toilet porters like we found in Germany — a woman sitting, knitting in an anteroom but no pay turnstiles. I know the concern is for safe, clean toilets. Which brings us to the mall in Edinburgh, where a safe clean toilet wasn’t ‘two p.,’ but twenty pence.
The toilets were at the opposite end of the giant mall from the coffee shop. Not only did T. have to walk back — twice — with the exact change — the turnstile was broken. The sweating little man letting lines of irate women in and out of the toilet was the icing on the cake. Eventually this will teach T. to carry her bulky and overly warm possessions with her, and brave the “Ick!!!” factor of having a coat and purse and bags and things in proximity to a germ-ridden public fixture — maybe. Carrying change in one’s pockets might be a better idea.
Twenty pence to use the bathroom, ($.40 U.S.) is still confusing to a West Coast person used to swanning into every Taco Bell and gas station off the highway to take care of business, often without even making a purchase. I think it’s all in what one considers a right versus what is apparently here considered a privilege.
– D & T
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We have used Skype around this time with good effect. Except that the kids tend to ham it up . Ah, kids. And I like the “are they on TV?” question.
CBC just had a show on public toilets just the other day. In large Canadian cities, apparently it is becoming increasingly difficult to find such a beast because idiots keep damaging them. You would think that even assholes would have to go sometimes and would like to have facilities available.
As one starring in the strange late night cable television movie (even though our grandmother was confused as usual) I can say it was equally nice to have you at our Christmas brunch.
I've lived in Glasgow for years and, apart from when in bus and train stations,have never had to pay to go to the toilet in any shop! Where on earth do you shop?