This, my friends, is so full of crap

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23609361-details/Top+Anglicans+agree+formula+to+end+women+bishops+conflict/article.do

Just because

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

A few days late.

We got everyone a goat couple from Oxfam. They poo fertilizer, and the female gives milk, and they do the do and make baby goats which can be sold or kept. Basically, my friends, they are the perfect gift.

I hope everyone had a great day!

School Photo

Christmas idea for Moira

Her Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix just split in half. A hardback version (UK or American) would be cool. She says this request is now at the top of her list. She also has abused paperback versions of the other books EXCEPT Deathly Hallows, so any of those would also be much appreciated gifts.

Pawned this off of someone on Facebook

I (unfortunately) understood the CBeebies reference at the end, but I had to look up Lemsip. I'm getting there.

Ben is filling out PhD apps. This is such an agonizing process, especially since none of us want to leave Oxford. Ben could easily stay on for the PhD, but if we can't pay for it, we've gotta look elsewhere. He's putting in for the Clarendon Fund, but that's more like a lottery than anything else, and he'll try for the scholarship thing that brings the fees down to what a UK resident would pay. We shall see. I feel like we just got here and it's already time to leave. I realize we wouldn't actually go until August or so, but still--unhappy. The girls REALLY don't want to go, and who could blame them? If we move, that will be three different schools in three years for Moira.

Meanwhile, the people at Duke are practically peeing themselves over Ben's interest in their program. Will that turn into an offer and a full ride? Dunno. North Carolina is so unappealing though. Princeton is the other choice for a program in Syriac.

We're praying that miracles are showered down from above and Ben gets the Clarendon.

Anybody have any rich uncles that like to fund starving students with adorable families?

Evie is home sick from school today. Or should I say ill? I'm always saying 'sick' and people think my kids are constantly puking their guts out. Gotta work on that.

More DVD suggestions for Moira and Evie

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Beauty and the Beast (Evie)
Muppets from Space

Waaaaait for it

That Christmas List business

This year's list for the girls is going to be pretty weak. I'm not keen on increasing our possessions considering the fact that when we flew here we were at the maximum allowed for baggage already, and I have no idea if we'll be heading back to the States next year or not.

Sooooooo,

I'm thinking for this year--small is beautiful.

DVDs are small, and I'm trying to gather a list of which ones they want. A very short list would be:
(Things in red are taken)
James and the Giant Peach
Enchanted
Spy Kids 1
Spy Kids 2
The Addams Family Vol. 2 (seriously)
Home Alone
Hmmm, I'll keep working on that.

Ridiculous amounts of candy would be a very good move because a) it would be much appreciated and b) it would disappear. Skittles, Starbursts, M & Ms, suckers sans chewy insides, etc. But Moira and Evie both think candy bars of any kind are gross.

Art supplies of the sort that would be used up within 6 months would also be good. We're definitely short on colored paper and stickers.

Sorry this isn't more thorough. If you have any suggestions, feel free to run them past us.

I don't know if I'll cover everything in this post

Probably not.

Ben is very nicely taking the girls to school today so I can sit in my pajamas and do nothing. Actually, we wanted to sleep in, and if I skipped getting ready myself, that saved us enough time to do so. But today turned out to be rainy, cold and miserable, and I'm sure that Ben is cursing me and those lousy 45 extra minutes of sleep.

I don't head back to work until the middle of next week. Sadly, Rani's mother died on Saturday and they're all in India for the funeral. That was an insane couple of days. I happened to walk in on her getting the news, and I stupidly stood there nibbling on a bagel until I saw that she was getting emotional about something and decided to leave the room. Then there was the chaos of trying to get them ready to leave--packing, notifying tenants, finding tickets, trying to get Visas squared away. Add to that a weird middle of the night trip to the hospital for Maya (she's fine--and not surprisingly the docs have no idea what was wrong. The best they could come up with was a possible reaction to penicillin . . .?) and the fact that Jay, in addition to his cold and his eczema acting up because of it, has come down with chicken pox. Apparently, they don't use the vaccine here. Which makes me think--Why? Is it toxic or something? Or do the English just take a stiff upper lip attitude to children's suffering?

Anyhoo, I returned to work on Monday after our weekend with Sam and Susie and was treated to several hysterical screaming fights between Priya and Rani, another hysterical phone fight with Ranjit, and the general chaos of packing, etc. Fun day. I was not yelled at, however, because I am perfect. And I know how to avoid conflict like nobody's business. "Hey, Jay, let's hide! It'll be fun!"

I thought this week or so would be pretty miserable with loneliness induced depression, but so far I've managed to keep way too busy putting our house back together. It's been rather neglected for over a week. Did you know laundry does not do itself? And I will be forced into two social situations very shortly--a play date with Evie's friend, Connie, and then Evie's friend Rowan has a birthday party on Sunday. Oh, and Sunday night Ben's supervisor, Allison, is having a dinner party that we're going to. I'm looking forward to meeting Allison, and Connie's mom seems pretty nice, but that birthday party sounds like a trip to the seventh level of hell. On the card it says, "Hope you can come and meet 'The Animal Man.'"

The Animal Man? That could either be this--

or something more like this--
Either way, I don't want to be there.

Soooooo, Thanksgiving! It was fantastic! Sam and Susie are such wonderful company, and it was a lot of fun just to hang out and eat fake meat together. Actually, Sam copped out and brought some chicken, but he did eat some of the Linda McCartney chicken roast too--so kudos to him. I think he may have even had seconds. The rest of the menu consisted of--kick-ass cranberry relish, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, Sam's awesome Joy of Cooking stuffing, mashed parsnips with cumin (they were supposed to have apples mashed in with them, but too late we realized we'd used those for Moira's lunch), green beans with toasted almonds and garlic, Louisiana brandied sweet potatoes that somehow became mashed sweet potatoes in the process of cooking, bread, and finally, pies from M & S that no one had room for. Overall, a pretty yum meal, and a very enjoyable evening. One of my favorite Thanksgivings to date. I also have to give Moira a shout out for ironing the tablecloths all by herself.

I should have photos of this considering it was our first Thanksgiving in the UK, Susie's first Thanksgiving EVER, and the first Thanksgiving I have hosted and cooked more than just a sidedish. But--I was an idiot and it didn't occur to me until afterwards. If you want, I can draw you a picture.

Then that weekend Sam and Susie generously, and somewhat dementedly, invited us to spend some time with them in their cottage they'd rented in Stratford. Sadly, Ben had too much work, but the girls and I decided to blow off homework and join the fun. Especially since Susie offered to drive us, and we didn't have to try to brave the train system alone. I have a feeling, even if the train thing was a very simple process, I would have managed to screw it up, and the girls and I would have ended up in Germany or something.

The weekend was great, Sam and Susie were lovely of course and superb hosts despite their puzzle addiction issues and their inability to let guests help with ANYTHING. You'd think brushing crumbs off a tablecloth was a crime or something.

Highlights:
We were able to finally eat those pies.

I brought a french press so Sam didn't have to filter coffee with a paper towel.

Sam got to see how sadly and manically proficient the kids have become at the video game he lent them.

Sam, Susie and Moira all tried valiantly to start a fire. In the end, it just wasn't meant to be.

Both Sam and Susie were probably awakened a dozen times or so during the night to the sound of the flushing toilet. But at least the kids managed to get up and down those narrow crazy stairs allright. It would have been worse to be awakened by thuds and the subsequent screaming.

We all went to see Anne Hathaway's cottage. (The dead Anne Hathaway--not the one in the Devil Wears Prada.) Turns out that Susie snuck out in the dead of night wearing a ninja outfit just so she could purchase the tickets ahead of time, robbing me of the opportunity to help with the cost.

I was able to take all sorts of forbidden photos inside the cottage. Apparently, there is an invisible sign somewhere that tells you not to do this. Normally, I would have just assumed that my bold print blindness missed the sign, but Susie didn't see it either. I was only caught at the very end, though, and the guy was nice about it. (Unlike that time in highschool when I was at the Chicago Art Museum and was escorted by a very rude security guard to the lockers where I was forced to deposit my video camera. Pictures were okay, but moving pictures were not. Whatever.)

I was fascinated by the thistles on the seats of the chairs in the cottage. (see flickr) I spent a lot of time working out why people in Tudor times would have done this. I settled on the idea that it was an admonition against laziness. But everyone else in our group had correctly realized that this was just some Englishy way of telling people on the tour not to park their butts on the old furniture. Who knew?

Moira got so excited that she knew something Sam didn't know that she started jumping up and down and then fell on the muddy walkway. That was sad . . . and yet sorta funny.

Later in the day we drove out to the Stratford-upon-Avon city centre and walked around. We were able to see everything important (including the historical Subway and Pizza Huts) except the church where Shakespeare was buried. But I have some nice photos of the church in which we assumed he was buried.


All those photos are on Flickr, so I'm too lazy to put them on this post.

Wow, I think I covered almost everything . . . maybe.

Creepiest thing ever?

Very likely.