This is why I never say I can't do something

I just called Rani to tell her that I was going back to sleep but I would come to work at 12:30. This turned into her demanding that I take the full day off AND go to lunch with Ben at Branca's on her. I said this was ridiculous but she said if I didn't do it, she would "be very cross." My sleepy brain really can't process such kindness right now, so I'm off to bed. I may wake up to find that it's all a dream. Then I'll be totally screwed.

'night.

Skipping out on work today

or at least half of it. I was up all night listening to Evie cough. I switched places with Moira so she could get some sleep, and Evie slept through all the noise she was subjecting others to. So everybody's rested except me. Now I have an even keener knowledge of my husband's greatness. He exists on this much sleep all the time and still wakes up and helps me and is . . . nice. HOW is this possible?!?

I don't have enough energy to post yet about Jessica's visit. Just know that it was AWESOME. She's off in Israel and now I get another foreign country hit on my blog. Yay! I successfully scared away my stalker from Norway, so I needed to make up that loss.

For now you can enjoy this clip that is eerily similar to how Rani and I react to the computer freaking out--which at her house happens way too frequently. My favorite part is 'calling the man'. I HATE it when she makes me call the man.

Has anybody told you lately that you're a bad person?

This is what Ben says to me and it's TOTALLY unfair! I can't help it that when I read the headline "British yachtsman beaten to death by Thai pirates" my mind immediately created a scene where Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's Island gets stomped by little Asian pirates with eye patches and funny hats. That's just laugh out loud funny and I refuse to feel guilty about it.

This Found Fund thing is out of control

Ben happened to notice that this particular drain spout on St. Mary's tower was full of Found Fund change.
Then the fun began. I was convinced he was going to get his arm stuck and emergency services would need to be called. They wouldn't want to damage the church, of course, so they would probably just amputate. All this for a total of 10p.

The Alison Fan Club and MORE

Oxford is coming into bloom, the sun is out and my mood is vastly improved. Plus our neighbors to the left (not the piano players) have moved and I realized this morning that I could blast music without offending anyone. Well, I might offend the other neighbors a little, but the speakers aren't against their wall and they owe us so bad for that piano anyway.

Jessica is coming in only a few days!!!!! We've been forced (by train issues) to do London instead of Oxford during her layover, but I think it will still be wonderful. We'll let Ben figure out the Tube, so it'll be fiiiiiiine. Sam and Susie have been kind enough to let us crash at their place the night before Jessica comes, and it will be great to see them too. We may just implode from so much social interaction.

Favorite Jay quotes of late:

"I like money."
"Thank you for loving me."
"You're Ben's mommy." (No, I'm not Ben's mommy.) "You're Ben's Dadda?"
(while stirring his mash) "Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble." (I immediately thought CBeebies was featuring Mr. Tumble Does Macbeth or some other insane version of Shakespeare for kids, but I found out later this was a quote from a Mr. Man book.)

Wolfson has fixed up their punts after winter's abuse, and they're suddenly looking so dapper and seaworthy. We might just work up the courage to take one out soon. Here's Jay checking them out. That outfit makes him look like he's ready to go duck hunting. The cap is hiding his mother-with-new-clippers inflicted haircut. We've all decided he now looks like a two year old bouncer. If you know of any clubs that are hiring, let me know.

I just spoke with the most lovely little Irishman at the Sainsbury's customer service centre.

After the events of yesterday, I am seriously considering a fan club for Ben's supervisor. She's just the nicest, most helpful person ever. Ben had some issues with another professor recently that, honestly, freaked the hell out of both of us. It's the whole dual-expectations thing. They tell you they want one thing, you produce it, and then they beat you up over it because you should have done the opposite. After our history with our old church and then the same issue with Ben's advisor at OSU that resulted in him not receiving his Masters on time, we both have pretty severe reactions to dual-expectations. But Alison happened to relate a story in which the professor in question behaved the exact same bizarre way towards her. Ben then felt free to gush out his experience and all his fears were put to rest. That professor treats everyone that way, and her behavior doesn't put Ben's future at Oxford on the line in any way. (By the way, we find out about that future at Oxford in just a few days. Yikes!) Alison has a way of being so reasonable and understanding while also being constructive and honest--the best kind of supervisor. She has been a HUGE help.


More random pics of Oxford in the (gasp!) sunshine. This is the church just down the street from Wolfson. The kids are terrified of it. I mean, really irrationally creeped out. I think the building is gorgeous. Moira's been inside on a trip with school and says there's a huge statue of Jesus getting stabbed by Roman soldiers or something. Yeah, that might put me off too. I don't know what Evie's issue with the place is.


Just a house on our street. They probably thought I was casing the joint, but it was just the pretty blossoms I was photographing.

I'm so happy it's spring. Soooooooooooo happy.

Book Week Character Parade

As part of Book Week at Phil and Jim (which was surprisingly cool due to the inordinate number of author/illustrator parents) there is a Character Parade for the kids to dress as a character from a book. I bet you gathered that from the title of the parade.

Anyway.

Having just moved to a new country and whittled our creative odd n' ends down to the bare minimum, I was a little taken aback at the idea of school dress-up time. But thankfully, my kids are cool and understand that mom has little patience for such things, even less creativity, and absolutely no desire to spend money on one time events. And I don't bake cookies. They'll have so much to dish out in therapy. But until then, they came up with some do-able costumes.

Evie chose Jessica from the book series Witch in Training. The hat was a donation from a friend.

Moira chose Lavender Brown, an obscure Harry Potter character that allowed her maximum opportunity to . . . not really dress up at all. We braided her hair and put on the shawl (she never wants pigtail braids anymore, as they are far too childish and she never wears that shawl out for some reason) to make it clear she wasn't herself . . . kind of. The rest of the costume is all about the details--if anyone cares to look closely enough, she is carrying a wand and a bunch of Harry Potter textbook-ish stuff--Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Tales of Beedle the Bard and The Wandmaker's Guide.

Okay, now I'm late to work. Later!

A question

I have 4 whole minutes before I have to wake up the kids and the circus begins, so I thought I'd fill them with something . . . anything.

Doesn't it seem strange that the presidential seal is on the carpet of the Oval Office? Why is it there? So everyone can walk all over it? Doesn't this seem like Disrespect 101.

Deep thoughts finished and the rush begins. It's the end of book week and it's costume day. More on that later.

And for your information

St. Brendan is the patron saint of whales. Looking at the extinction rates, I'm not thinking he's done them much good. Perhaps punishment for not having dashboards to stick him on.

Just a bad sprain, folks

Uh-oh. I hear Ben coming down the stairs to dominate the computer again. Must - Type - Quickly!!!

Um . . . freezing up!

Moira's wrist isn't broken. Spent a few hours in the emergency room (or the A & E as the General Practitioner kept saying without telling me what it meant. I had to ask her where that was and she finally told me the name of the hospital I needed to take Moira to. I wanted to scream, "I'M AMERICAN and I DON'T FREQUENT the local HOSPITALS so just TELL ME WHAT the HELL you're TALKING ABOUT!" But I didn't.) and were told after some x-rays, bottles of Sprite and Coke (we swear the Coke is sweeter here) and a lot of crackers and apples packed from home, that it was just a sprain and that she should take some Paracetamol, which we found out is just Tylenol. If the pain continues for a week, we should take her back because wrist fractures are relatively easy to miss. Hmmmm . . .

We could have skipped the emergency room but we missed the radiology window because I had to wait for Ben to come back from class because . . . this is getting boring.

At the hospital they have a red phone with one button and it only calls taxis. How cool is that?

Yep.

All taxi drivers liberally use that new car smell spray. I guess that's better than all the other smells you could possibly encounter in a public vehicle.

Ben is scaring me. I'm gonna go now.

Taking a break from cleaning the hob

I don't know what is up with our stove top, but, if in all the universe there is a substance that is the exact opposite of Teflon, that is what ours is made of. Stuff splashes on that sucker and it don't come off never. Nuh-uh. At our old apartment, I could wash off the stove top with a sponge and water. Here, I need a blowtorch. Actually, right now I'm using hob cleanser which I'm sure is toxic and has definitely changed the texture of my skin. Feelin' kinda powdery dry now. But the store had no rubber gloves so . . .

I'm waiting for the window washers to knock on the door at any moment. Apparently they need access to all the apartments. Are they planning on washing the inside of the windows as well? Dunno. I wish some stovetop cleaners needed access to the apartment. And some floor moppers.

Caught a few minutes of Heroes yesterday and was wondering if that show could possibly suck more. Then I caught a few minutes of Medium and realized the answer was yes. But Medium at least a) sucks so bad it's down right hilarious b) showcases Patricia Arquette's teeth--always a good thing. I tried to find the clip of where she gets possessed by a ghost in the parking lot. Classic.

Still plowing through episodes of The West Wing.

Moira's home from school today. She may have fractured her wrist yesterday at school when she tripped over a ball that was kicked into her path while she was running. We have a doctor's appointment later today. Until then, she's holed up upstairs watching Season 2 of the Muppets, one of the Christmas gifts from my parents that only just arrived. We had to have region 1 dvds, so they were ordered from amazon.com not .co.uk. The first shipment took over a month to ship out here then got lost and had to be resent. So it's Christmas all over again--which is pretty cool.

Definitely regretting not waiting until I had some rubber gloves.

St. David's Day

Jaime--(looking at the Google logo) "St. David's Day? What the heck is that green thing? A leek?"

Ben--"Who the hell is St. David?"

Jaime--(quickly googling St. David's Day) "St. David is the patron saint of Wales."

(a pause)

Ben--(glancing up from his textbook with a sudden look of comprehension) "Hehe, Wales, not whales."



And now that you know that St. David's Day is the 1st of March, the leek is his symbol, and he is NOT the patron saint of whales, you can go . . . do something worthwhile.