Dear England, That’s Not Bacon

Upon moving to England, I discovered a nation that seemed as in love with bacon as I was. Every sandwich at Pret, every burger, ever salad came with bacon. I thought I had discovered my national identity soulmate, until I started buying some of this bacon-laden food, and discovered:

It’s not bacon.

That’s not bacon:

And neither is that:

This one came with butter…it’s like a little heart attack in a bun.

Nope, that isn’t bacon either:

This is cheese and bacon on a bagel. Yes, that cheese is shredded and unmelted. Trust me when I say this is not what you would get in New York.

Oh sure, maybe it’s Canadian bacon, but we all know that’s just a fancy word for ham. Nobody likes Canadian bacon. Nobody.

Bacon is meant to be narrow and strippy, burnt and crispy. It should be dark red/brown, with charcoal black bits. It is supposed to melt in salty ecstasy in your mouth.

It is not supposed to be chewy. It is not supposed to have gobs of fat that taste like, well, fat, and stick in your teeth. It should not be pink like a pig because I don’t want to think about what animal bacon comes from while I eat it.

So England, it’s time to shape up. I love your ravenous, bottomless appetite for fried food, but the point of frying is to create a yummy crunchy texture…why are you constantly soggify-ing your chips with vinegar (more disturbingly, why have I taken up this habit)? Why is your bacon flat and limp and as sad as a cut out tongue?

Let’s solve this crisis, England. This is my only qualm about our long-term relationship, and it’s as heavy and demoralizing as a wet blanket…which is what your bacon tastes like. I know we can do better. And just as soon as I move out of my vegetarian house, I will show you how.

You are almost there, England. Keep on trying.

This was almost bacon, it just needed a little more time to crisp. I ate this with fried pickles, and THEY were crunchy.

34×34 #27, The Pub Quiz: A Half P(o)int From Glory

A few months ago I sent a link to my blog to a friend who had expressed mild interest in reading it (don’t tell a writer you want to read their work. They will suck on like a superstrong vacuum hose (that’s Hoover to my many British fans) and refuse to let go). My friend followed through and actually skimmed around my blog, discovering my 34×34. Game and supportive, he suggested we try a pub quiz, item #27 on the list.

Nearly every pub in London has a quiz night, but I had never done one, and had no idea what to expect. Would it be mired in British history? Pregnant with current events? Soaked in obscure and arcane factoids that no one could possibly know? I didn’t do any sort of research to compare the quality or difficulty of different pub quizzes, so I can’t tell you if mine was a representative example. As usual, I dove in without looking, choosing a pub that I like very much in Crouch Hill/Finsbury Park area that has good food (three words: pumpkin amaretto cheesecake) and a sprawling, quaint interior. I believe The Old Dairy was once…well, a working dairy, but don’t quote me on that leap of assumptive logic. The building is ruggedly aged and has nifty relief sculptures on its outer walls, which you can see here.

Obviously, it’s a classy pub, and has thus named its quiz, “Not Just An Udder Quiz.”

Names are important to pub quizzes. I had no idea. I think people exert more effort on cleverly naming their team than on winning the quiz. I honestly can’t remember any of the names at our particular quiz, but I looked up a list of pub quiz team names, just to give you the flavor of what I’m talking about, and I think my favorite on the list was “Halal, Is it Meat You’re Looking for?”

I was not prepared for the crushing pressure to be creative on the spot, so I named us “Three Davids,” after my three best boy writers, which I guess was quirky since there were only two of us, and neither of us was named David. Hilarious, right? I know.

The quiz itself was divided into multiple sections, none of which was an essay, which is where I really excel, so I guess we were doomed before we started. The first part involved a handout to identify pictures of actors…mostly British and I didn’t recognize any of them. There was a section called “39 Steps” which involved questions with multiple part answers, the total of which were supposed to add up to 39. I knew all the states in New England, and the items that the Statue of Liberty holds, and the names of the women in Destiny’s Child. Wheeee! I’m smart.

Then came the part where the MC proffered questions orally, in a variety of categories, and this did not go so well. The questions were just very British, and I clearly haven’t penetrated the culture as much as I had hoped. Nor has my companion, an Irishman whose heart is still in Dublin. The only question I knew was a guess: there was a question about which English city had been named the next “City of Culture.” I have a friend who is from Hull and always talks about what a hole Hull is (say that out loud, please) so I ironically assumed Hull would be the answer…I was right, but we didn’t write that. My Irish buddy chose Newcastle instead. (No offense, Newcastle).

When the scores were tallied, Three Davids came in third to last. Oh, sure, that’s embarrassing, right? Actually it is infuriating, because the team who came in SECOND to last won a GBP30 bar tab. We were a half point off being second to last. A half point! All that un-knowledge for nothing.

Still, the pub quiz gives a purpose to your drinking, which you’re going to do anyway, so why not contextualize it with trivia? Indeed it was a pleasant way to spend an evening, especially with a friend who cared enough about my goals to push me out of my apathy and get something done. A silly, fun, and totally worthwhile thing. To that Irish buddy I say: thank you. It means the world to have a friend who will remind you that you yourself are worth the effort of following through on even the tiniest of dreams.

I look forward to more alcohol drenched quizzes in my future. I just have to come up with a better team name.

And in case you wanted to salivate over that pumpkin amaretto cheesecake…

MMmMmmmm

34×34 #21: Host a Dinner Party – Expat Thanksgiving Edition

You would think by now I would stop writing the repetitively themed blog, “I had this perfect vision…but reality did not live up to my expectations. (But then it was perfect anyway).”

It’s like, so basic and self-evident, and yet I must learn my lesson over and over and over.

Sisyphus and me, the universe’s bitches.

This past November was the third Thanksgiving in a row I was missing at home, and I didn’t like it. Year one was spent on the boat, eating crummy buffet food, albeit with forty of my nearest and dearest entertainment department family. Last year Thanksgiving was in Manchester, where a deceptive online grocery store misdelivered several crucial elements at the last minute, giving my fellow expat friend and I a unique, if somewhat frustrating, meal. With that friend re-expatriated to France, I didn’t know what I was going to do for Turkey Day this year.

I wanted to host Thanksgiving for the few other Americans I know in London, but I live in a vegetarian flat. As in, I am not allowed to bring meat into the house. Not deli meat, not on takeaway, nothing. But none of my friends has a space to accommodate a group of six or more.

I do. I have an enormous kitchen. And then I found an American grocery store called Partridge’s near Sloane Square. They had French’s Fried Onions and I knew I had to do this.

American foodses in London

I don’t know if it’s the delicious food or the concept of family and gratitude, but Thanksgiving is a big deal to me, and while none of my fellow Americans seemed overly concerned about the day, I was determined. I negotiated my stubborn landlord/flatmate into allowing me to have people over, as long as the turkey was cooked elsewhere, and none of his kitchenware touched it.

One American friend took charge of the turkey, gravy, and stuffing, another decided to make mashed potatoes, and our Australian friend promised cranberry sauce. That left me to make pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, green bean casserole, and butternut squash lasagna.

In my 34×34 vision of hosting a dinner party, I cooked the full multi-course meal – an appetizer, a meat-centered main course, a dessert. Part of the point of this self-challenge was to face my strange distaste – almost fear – of touching raw meat. The reason I can live in a vegetarian house despite not being a vegetarian is that I don’t ever cook meat: I don’t like to touch it, and I don’t really know how to prepare it properly.

So was I cheating by delegating this pivotal portion of the meal to someone else? I mean, quite frankly, it’s the quintessential element – people could live without the butternut squash lasagna, but nobody wanted to do a turkey-less Thanksgiving. Also, because of the kitchenware stipulation, I had to buy paper plates and plastic cutlery to serve the meal. This did not fit into my elegant vision of hosting a dinner party either.

You know what? I’m counting it. Judge me as you must. And just for full disclosure, I cut up some cheese and dumped some crackers on a platter for my appetizer. Sue me.

At the last minute, one of my friends realized she couldn’t make the mashed potatoes because her refrigerator was broken and she had to work all day preceding dinner. Potatoes are as necessary as turkey, so I added them to my schedule. One of my goals with attempting this dinner was to learn how chefs/cooks/my sainted mother time their preparations to set all the food out piping hot at the same moment. There is a real art to cooking a whole meal, and I’ve never mastered it. Things get cold or burn, but nothing is ever ready simultaneously.

Getting down and dirty

My day started at 9am, baking bread, two loaves of pumpkin made separately because I wasn’t sure if I could just double the ingredients and then halve the mixture into two pans – and it was 4am in New Jersey, too early to call my mother.

Pumpkin bread!

My mother played a prominent role in my day – I called/skyped her at least once an hour, freaking out about what order I should do things in, what ingredients I might be forgetting as I went to the supermarket one last time, how to bake the squash and mash the potatoes and what was the recipe for chocolate chip cookie pie? Really, I know nothing about cooking. My mother must be disappointed in her three children, none of whom took up her great culinary skill and enjoyment. She LIKES spending all day in the kitchen preparing a groaning table’s worth of food for her family.

Chocolate chip pie and pumpkin pie. Amazeballs.

Anyway, I got through it. Breads were followed by pies, which cooled all day on the counter, teasing me. I prebaked the squash and mashed it, then boiled the potatoes and mashed them – all by hand, because we don’t have a mixer or blender or anything fancy in my house (we only barely have a microwave, after much whining on my part). Everything was going well until one friend apologetically texted that she and her boyfriend would be an hour late – totally throwing off my calculations for getting everything ready simultaneously.

At that point I started drinking wine and eating cheese cubes.

Classy spread

But that’s as dramatic as it gets; everyone eventually arrived, loaded with food and alcohol, all of which was delicious. Everything I made came out perfectly and reasonably hot. No one even touched the chocolate chip cookie pie, so stuffed were they from the meal.

I am my mother’s daughter, wanting to be absolutely sure everyone was gastrointestinally protesting too much food.

Eight of us ate and drank together: 3 Americans, an Aussie, a Lithuanian, a Frenchman, a Brit, and an Italian. Just like the Pilgrims would have wanted.

Mmmm. Food.

My contribution

After my funny little hodgepodge family left and the dishes were washed, I Skyped with my other family in New Jersey. I realized I had done all that work mainly for myself – no one else was nearly as fussed about it, no one was desperate for pumpkin bread and green bean casserole the way I was. But that’s okay. It was worth it for the leftovers alone.

I’m so grateful to my mother for all her help, even from thousands of miles away. We stood in kitchens on opposite sides of the Atlantic, cooking together, and if my meal came out even a fraction as well as hers, I have reason to be proud.

So I accomplished my goal: I brought people together, we broke bread, we laughed, we were thankful. So fuck the turkey. Maybe next year I’ll tackle “cooking meat.”

Fat now.

2013: Reframing a Failure

Since I began keeping track of what I was reading in 2010, the number of books I completed each year has steadily increased. My goal for 2012 was 50, and I handily surpassed it with 59. I didn’t think it would be too much of a challenge to pledge to read 75 in 2013.

For ten months of last year I was ahead of schedule according to Goodreads, who calculate my reading stats. At one point I was 8 books ahead, and I thought: I got this. No problem. In the terminology of your typical sports flick, “I couldn’t lose.”

Ah, the hubris. Pride go-eth before the fall, right?

At the beginning of December, I realized I had only read 66 books. I knew I couldn’t read 9 books in December – December! a month when I had 20,000 words due for my Masters, a weekend trip to France and a 2 ½ week trip home for Christmas and all the holiday madness therein – and I knew I was going to fail to achieve my goal. I finished the year with 69 books read.

My immediate react to this was, of course, searing disappointment. How had I squandered that enormous excess of books? It shows what kind of nerd I am that I was humiliated to have come so close and fallen short.

Yes friends, my life is replete with the first-iest of first world problems.

Still, I am just competitive enough (with myself, apparently) to be super annoyed that I failed. And that’s what it felt like: failure. Once again, I had set a goal, and I had failed to check it off my list.

After a dark night of the soul (look, my favorite activity is reading. I don’t have a lot of drama in my life as I sit around with sheafs of paper, so allow me some hyperbole for the sake of the narrative), I had to reframe my failure.

I failed because I was busy. My life started to turn around in October and November. I got a job. I started hanging out with some new friends and good friends more frequently. I started seeking out the strange and wonderful bits and bobs that London has to offer, going to more events, playing in more of the city. Going home to New Jersey for the first time in a year meant there were many people to see, catch up with, laugh with, enjoy. There wasn’t time to read as I soaked up my parents, trying to figure out how I can be more like them.

I was reading less because I was living more. See, now when you look at it that way, it’s not so bad, is it? (You probably didn’t think it was that bad to begin with.)

There is another vital life lesson tied in here. I fell short on this goal because I picked up three books in a row that I didn’t enjoy, but rather than giving up and moving on to something I would like, I hung around in my own version of purgatory, not reading these dull tomes, but not reading anything else either. I think this is important. I think learning to let go is something I’m still figuring out, and the metaphorical resonances in the bigger picture of my life abound. I have to get better at walking away from situations that are unhealthy or make me unhappy. My fear of quitting (which equates to failing in my mind) is definitely something to work on this year.

A friend of mine wrote an excellent blog on managing expectations recently. Her life and mine are different – I aspire to be where she is in my own writing career, and I admire her perseverance in pursuing writing in a way I still don’t, to my further embarrassment – but I understand the sentiment of expecting a great deal from yourself and feeling like you miss the mark even when you give your best. But looking back at 2013, I have to recognize that while nothing major was achieved, I took a lot of small, significant steps forward.

While I was home in NJ, I turned on my American cell phone and noticed the last text I had sent a friend before I left to return to London last December. I told her I had been crying all day, that London was a mistake, that I didn’t want to go back.

I can honestly say right now I don’t even remember feeling that. In the past 12 months I have come to love this city so hard that no matter what else might be making me bluesy, I have learned to maintain my perspective: I am so lucky to be here, and when all else fails, I am so happy to be here. I feel like I belong here, a feeling I have never had before (as frequent readers of this blog know, my search for a sense of home has long haunted me). I am lucky to have made some good friends this year. I’m lucky to have done some nice travelling this year. I am lucky to be pursuing writing, no matter how much work there is still to do on that front – I’m lucky to be writing the book I’m writing, on a topic that I truly love and find fascinating. I’m lucky that after 12 months of not seeing them, I can still go to my family and bask in their unconditional love and support. I’m lucky that I wanted to cry as I left them again, because how many people have that much love in their lives?

2014 makes me anxious for a lot of reasons: I have to finish this book, I have to figure out what my actual career is going to look like. I only have a year left on my visa and I don’t want to leave England. I still would like to feel a little more entrenched in London, less like an outsider. Every time I open my mouth I reveal my foreignness, my unintentionally loud, friendly, brash Americanness.

Still, I am so lucky that this is my set of problems. I am learning to reframe my anxiety as excitement. I want the world, and of course that’s bound to cause disappointment, because who can have the world? But I know I’d rather set a high goal and standard and dream big and fall short than sell myself short and accept too little and be discontent. As Beckett wrote, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Here’s to failing better in 2014. I have no expectations for this year, only hope.

Well, I have one expectation.

I’m going to read 75 books this year.

Happy reading and happy living. Here’s to a dream and love and laughter filled year for us all.

A small sampling of the books in my future. There are many, many more not pictured.

34×34: #11 – Try 10 British Beers

I suppose it is fitting, being me, and living where I do, that the first goal I accomplish off the 34×34 is drinking a lot of beer.

I don’t really like beer. I’m a Bud Light kind of girl – weak, watery, but it gets the job done.

I’ve been amazed by the range of beers on tap here in England, though. Most bars in New York have your standard selection of American beers, with some German and whatnot thrown in for good measure. You basically always know what you’re going to get. Or maybe I just wasn’t going to the right bars.

But pubs in London offer a huge selection of small English brewery beers, never the same at two pubs. It’s always an adventure, you never know what will be available.

I tend to drink a lot of cider – which is the best part of English pub life, that cider is always on tap (you’ll be lucky to find it in a bottle at home). It’s sweeter, which suits me.

I’ve been wondering what the differences are between ales, stouts, lagers, bitters…it’s not just beer here. It’s a whole subculture I don’t understand at all. I’ve been looking to take some kind of course that explains it all, but nothing has come across my radar that is satisfactory, and finally a friend explained it to me thus (he drinks a LOT, so I trust him, but jump in if you have a further explanation of the nuances):

Most beer is lager: light yellow, fizzy, cold, and dispensed through taps. Ale is darker, not fizzy/thus flat, and kept at room temperature. It is stronger tasting, savory even, and dispensed through a hand pump (I had no idea there was a difference between taps and hand pumps. I am learning things, kids). Stout is black, and also dispensed through a hand pump. Wheat beer is cloudy yellow, flat, and cold.

All of which is really interesting, except I still can’t differentiate much in terms of flavor. It all tastes like, well…beer. I wanted to have really intelligent notes for each of the ten I tried, but mostly they tasted the same to me, unless they tasted really gross. That is about as sophisticated as my palate gets: “I can tolerate this,” or “ewwwwwww.”

There was no methodology to my drinking. I just tried to order new things whenever I went out, branching out beyond my cider fixation. Frequently I picked things based on having cool names, but sadly that rarely translated into a cool flavor. Anyway, here are the ten I tried, with any accompanying notes I managed to write down:

1. Buxton Spa Pale Ale: This one was so righteously bitter that I couldn’t even finish it. Probably my least favorite of the ten.

2. Meantime London Lager: No notes. It tasted like beer. Bitter and heavy but not unyieldingly so.

3. Adnams Ghost Ship Pale Ale: Chosen for its awesome name. It was nice. Medium dark/copper in color, bitter but drinkable.

4. Seafarers Ale: I drank this at a couple different pubs when there wasn’t anything new to try, so clearly I was okay with it. Not great but all right.

5. Fuller’s Honeydew Organic Beer: I was hoping this one would taste like honeydew, but alas. It didn’t even taste like honey, which is apparently one of the main organic ingredients. I switched to something else after having a pint, so clearly not that great to me.

6. Sambrook’s Wandle Ale: Again I just liked the name. I wrote down that it was “darker,” but I don’t know darker than what. And probably I just thought it tasted like beer.

7. Cornish Coaster: I have this minor obsession with the idea of Cornwall, so would like to say I enjoy beer that comes from there. But I don’t think I was able to finish this one, although that might have just been because I had had five or six pints already that night.

8. Moor Top Pale Ale: I have no notes. Clearly not a leader among the pack. Just something to try. I believe I switched back to cider immediately after.

9. Redwell: Well, I thought I took a picture of this and I have the vague idea it was indeed reddish, but I have no idea. I remember thinking it was crisp and lighter than most beers, and drinkable.

10. Young’s Hummingbird Pale Ale: This one was probably my favorite, I drank four pints in rapid succession. Even though it didn’t really taste like passion fruit like the tap claimed, I still thought it was light and tasty.

So there you have it. It’s not much of an experiment, but it is that ever important kick in the pants to try new things and broaden your horizons. I’m embracing the culture I live in and trying to understand what’s important to them.

So go forth, and quest, friends. Try something that you know you’ll think is gross. You’ll be a better person for it. And keep trying, because you never know when you’ll stumble onto something not half bad (the British are also teaching me to be litotic. It’s okay).

For now I’ll probably go back to drinking New Zealand sauvignon blanc. And maybe this really good Scottish cider called Thistly Cross. That was a new experience too, and a high alcohol content one to boot. Or Pimms, this beer and lemonade thing that comes with fruit: delicious and nutritious!

There are always options. It’s a beautiful drunken world.

Adventures with Vouchers: Flapper Brunch

Summer in London: it happened, folks. It’s just now starting to think about autumn here, but for about a month or so it’s been hot in London. Gross hot. Sticky hot. Don’t touch me hot.
I love it.

And this is exactly why we have seasons, people. I have never been so giddy or grateful for suffocating and sunny weather as I am having gone through the doldrums of this past abysmally grey (look, I’m turning English! Stockholm Syndrome is setting in) winter.

However, sweat-your-balls-off weather is probably not the ideal time to play dress up.

Also, I don’t even LIKE dress up (that’s fancy dress to all my thousands of British readers. While I love the word “fancy,” and give the Brits props for usage, it is still not an appealing activity to me.)

So why on earth would I book a dress-up flapper brunch, a period in fashion history not particularly kind to a curvy lady like myself?

I do not know. I am addicted to vouchers. And absurdity.

And brunch.

But back to the heat. By the time my friend K and I traversed the city and the environs of Hammersmith to the Betty Blythe Vintage Tea Room, our clothes were damp and molded so thoroughly to our bodies we were not too enthusiastic about clothes in general. When we discovered our reservation had not gone through, and the downstairs brunch room was closed because of an electrical outage, we didn’t much care. The sweet pinky French lady at the counter offered to let us dress up and sit in the window on the ground floor, but we politely declined.

I was kinda disappointed – the dressing up was the whole point of this surreal experience – but honestly, there was barely a fan blowing on us. I was too hot to care about anything except shoving food in my mouth hole after the long journey west.

Which is what happened: a pot of English breakfast, a pink lemonade, pain au chocolat, granola and yogurt, and more toast than you can shake a stick at. All for GBP7! Impressive and delicious.

After a good long chat and bellies now full, the French girl let us go downstairs to play with the available stock of flapper clothing for a few minutes. It was mostly just accessories, and we spent ten giggly minutes trying on hats and headbands and gloves…not a huge selection, but it was actually good fun and we got some nice photos. And none of it would have made the actual eating feel any different – can you even eat while wearing a hat? I think those two activities are mutually exclusive. And clearly trying to eat in elbow length gloves would have ended messily and with much embarrassment – so I’m totally fine with how it all worked out.

We totally won this one: Vouchers: 1, Me – 2

I’m not ready for fall. Come on London gods, let’s keep up the atrocious, debilitating heat just a little longer…at least until September.

A selection of silly, be-hatted photos:

Back to Basics: Unveiling the 34×34

As some of you may remember, this blog began as part of my 30×30, a list of 30 goals to achieve before I turned 30 (trademark Mr. Rob Roan). I only finished maybe a third of that list, but had more fun doing it than I’d had concentrated in any year prior. Two years ago when I wrote up my 31×31 I got derailed by a little incident where I decided to go spend 6 months living on a boat with no access to land and land-based activities many days a week. Then I got home and started thinking about moving to London, so I didn’t even make a list last year.

But here I am, about to enter my Jesus year (33!) and thinking about all that man metaphorically accomplished in his creatively nonfictioned life. I have little interest in being crucified, and think there is little hope I will be resurrected thus ensuring the salvation of humanity, but I thought, hey! Why not try some cool stuff this year anyway? I’m always looking for my own salvation, so if trying belly dancing or hosting a dinner party can achieve that, I’m all in.

I am quite smitten with England and would like to stay here forever and ever, but at the moment there is an expiration date on my visa, so I figure I might as well make the most of being here while I can. Thus the list this year is full of British/European goals, mixed in with the usual things that scare the pants off me, things to focus on my career, and generally inane fun things that I just want to do but never have. My birthday isn’t until mid August, but I figured I’d give myself a running start on this one, just to make sure I get through it.

So please join me as I scare, humiliate, elevate, improve, sultrify, and sillify myself. If you happen to live or be in England, you are always more than welcome to accompany me for an adventure or two.

Please keep reading! Each activity will be parsed and analyzed and laughed over on this very page.

Here it is, in no particular order:

1. Take a photography class
2. Go to 5 European countries/cities I have never visited
3. Run the London Marathon
4. Go to Wimbledon
5. Dye a blue streak in my hair
6. Do a pin-up photo shoot
7. Go surfing in Cornwall
8. Write and submit two essays/articles a month
9. Go kayaking
10. Walk 100 miles of British paths
11. Try 10 British beers
12. Go to Edinburgh Fringe Festival
13. Take a belly dancing class
14. Skydive
15. Try all the British foods on this list: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ailbhemalone/18-weird-and-wonderful-british-foods-you-need-to-try
16. Visit all of London’s major parks
17. Take a cooking class
18. Learn the banjo
19. Meditate every day for a month
20. Go skeet shooting
21. Host a dinner party
22. Write one fictional short story a month
23. Take tennis lessons
24. Drive on the wrong side of the road (ie, drive in England)
25. See the Northern Lights
26. Do all the walking tours in my London walks books
27. Join/create a pub quiz team
28. Pitch a story for radio
29. Submit to “Just Back” until I am selected
30. Volunteer
31. Go to a literary festival
32. Write a haiku every day for 100 days
33. Learn to tap dance
34. Go to 5 nice, unfamiliar restaurants alone

My Favorite Place in London

No, it’s not a museum or a pub or a restaurant.

It’s my nail salon.

Getting my nails painted is one of my life’s great guilty pleasures: it is a bit of a wasteful way to spend money. It makes me feel pretty in a way that indicates perhaps my self-esteem is not as deeply-rooted as it should be.

Mani/pedis are the one thing you can get cheap in NYC. I liked to go sit in the great big massage chairs getting rolled and kneaded while an Asian lady worked away at my feet. There is something uncomfortable about it, but that’s where the guilt comes into the pleasure, right? New York nail salons work with anonymous, military precision. My nails always looked perfect: trimmed short and round, shiny with evenly-coated polish. I could sit under the hand dryers as long as I liked, and I rarely left with a smudge or a chip (sometimes I did. I’m a klutz.) The Asian ladies asked me to pay before my hands were painted, decreasing the chance of digital imperfection (see what I did there?).

None of that is my experience in London.

The salon I go to costs about as much for a manicure as the combo cost in New York – and it’s the cheapest place I have found. There are no massage chairs. The women never file my nails as short as I’d like (I ask them to go shorter three times and then have to give up and accept I’m going to have a lady nail). The polish is a little uneven and doesn’t extend all the way to the edge of my nails. And without fail they tell me the polish is dry and I’m smudged by the time I take out my wallet to pay.

Still, I love it.

First, the salon is called “Your Beautiful.” It’s on the sign that hangs outside, it’s embroidered on the girls’ aprons. As a deep lover of the English language and champion of its proper use, this should probably irritate me, but I find it endearing. The people who work there are from non-English speaking parts of Europe: Italy, Hungary, Poland. They speak two languages and I don’t, and if they don’t quite have their contractions down yet, I forgive them.

I sit in a plastic chair shaped like a hand: my butt is cupped in the palm, my back rests against the fingers – the nails of which are, of course, painted.

I could sit through my sessions in NYC and not be expected to make small talk, but here I am trying to embrace asking questions. These girls want to practice their English, and I need to practice talking to strangers without feeling terror. It’s a win-win. The Italian girl has painted my nails a few times. She told me she is from a small town where everyone is shocked that she moved to London. No one there can imagine a life more idyllic than that of the Italian countryside, but she wants to see the world.

She gets some words confused: “outside” and “upstairs” are hard for her to remember correctly, and sometimes she inverts them: “upside” and “outstairs.” She told me she was planning a barbeque for her day off; until she moved in, all her flatmates ate their meals alone in their individual rooms. Now she has created a friendly group dynamic where they share time together. I believe she has the power to do it. She is incredibly sweet and smiley. She always remembers me and says hello when I come in, even if she isn’t doing my nails.

There is another girl (I think she’s from Poland but I’m not sure) who does a lot of specialty nail work – the women who come in wanting two inch fang-like fingernails (when did this become popular? It’s totally creepster to me). She can freehand tiny intricate paintings on each individual nail, and call me sentimental, but I think she’s an artist. Anytime a person has a talent and can create beauty – even of the miniscule and ephemeral variety – I envy their joy at their own creativity. We should all be lucky enough to have the confidence to embrace our gifts.

It’s just a friendly, relaxed place, and I genuinely enjoy the time I spend there. It’s nothing fancy, but there is good energy, and I always leave smiling, smudged nails or not.

I wonder that this sweet Italian girl traveled so far from her home – in a country I personally love and can’t imagine wanting to leave – to do this rather menial job so graciously. Everybody wants to be somewhere else. I’m here as an immigrant too, right? I guess we all go to great lengths to make our dreams come true.

I am a Domestic Goddess

In my coursework studying creative nonfiction, my classmates and I often discuss what is “truth” and how frequently “truth” gets wiggled in order to create a good narrative arc, or pretty prose. It’s kind of a fascinating question. I have recently been disappointed to learn that some of my favorite writers have blatantly made things up in order to create a good story. It seems like everyone does it – creative nonfiction is NOT journalism, so whether it is allowed in this genre is a great, debatable issue.

Ultimately, it’s all about the narrative. And narrative is a malleable beast.

And that’s how I get to be a domestic goddess.

Last week this happened:

I was home alone but it was Saturday night. I did not have a single soul in this blessed city who wanted to hang out with me all weekend.

I was feeling blue. I couldn’t shake the heart crunch of a break up. It wasn’t a particularly serious relationship, but I was wallowing.

I was swamped with work but my blueness was making my mind run in circles rather than towards productivity. I was procrastinating.

My baking, usually something I’m reasonably good at, did not go smoothly. First, I didn’t read the recipe carefully and mixed the flour and sugar. I was not supposed to do that. If you have ever tried to separate out grains of sugar and flour once they have been mixed – well, you’re a better man than I. I just dumped it in the trash, wasting over 3 cups of good product. I didn’t have *quite* enough butter – damn you, metric system, I was about 20 grams off. I tried to realign things to use margarine instead but I didn’t have quite enough of that either. I decided it would be fine.

It was not fine.

I then tried to soften the butter in the oven (I live in a house without a microwave, and don’t get me started on it). The butter melted way faster than I expected, making is liquid-y instead of soft.

All this added up to create some cookies of mass destruction. You could bruise people with those cookies if you had a good throwing arm or a slingshot.

I unscrewed (yes, unscrewed) a bottle of wine and proceeded to drink the entire thing. Drunk and alone on a Saturday night.

I listened to the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” musical soundtrack and sang along to every word. This is possibly the reason I’m single.

I called a friend and whinged at her about my sadface problems.

***

So that’s the “truth” of what happened.

But with a little bit of editing:

I was home alone, a rare blessing in my house of three where someone is always around and using the communal space.

I poured myself a glass of red wine and blasted my iPod, another rare treat when you share living space. I belted along at the top of my lungs while I turned on the oven and warmed up the kitchen. I baked sugar cookies, perfect for dunking in a cup of milky tea.

While home for Christmas, I only got see see my childhood best friend briefly, so I called her up – it’s so cheap to add international minutes to my mobile phone. We caught up in an edifying, deeply satisfying way. I love knowing no matter how long we go without talking, we can always pick up the phone and talk like we still converse daily. She will always be a part of my life.

***

In that version, I overcame an obstacle and succeeded in having an excellent night, embracing my domesticity and some me-time. If my life were a chick flick, I’d probably add the baking mishaps back in for a bit of endearing, slapstick humor.

And the cookies did genuinely taste good, they were just very, very hard.

Both versions are true. But the tone of each is pretty different. It’s all about shaping the narrative. Which is another way of saying it is all a matter of perspective.

Which is another way of saying fake it till you make it.

I am a domestic goddess. Come, drink wine and eat cookies with me.

Adventures with Vouchers: You will be the falcon and I will be…

Birds!

I don’t have any great affinity for birds. When the voucher popped up for a Birds of Prey Experience at the English School of Falconry, I basically thought: why not? The English School of Falconry sounds like one of the most English things you can possibly do. Bonus: it was in a town called Biggleswade, and oh wow did I want an excuse to say the word “Biggleswade” as many times as possible. I had visions of Harry Potter and Hogwarts and Hedwig. I want a self-sacrificing owl, you know? Plus, I always loved that tagline from the silly SNL sketch starring a falcon named Donald.

Barn owl

Now that I think about it, I don’t think we even hung out with any falcons.

Eagle

My friend from Manchester drove down with her husband and met me at the Biggleswade train station (the town is so small and off the beaten track it is only open in the morning, shut and locked by 3pm). Driving through Biggleswade was sadly unimpressive. Arriving at the GPS-directed address, we drove through a strange world of hangars and muddy fields before arriving at a none-too-well marked lawn parking area and a further muddy walk to the school’s office. My friend’s husband just wanted to observe, having come as chauffeur and photographer for the day, but they made him pay GBP15 for the privilege. He’s a good sport, so he ponied up the cash and we raced to meet our group, having arrived a squinch late.

No, I’m not scared. (Yes, I am.)

So then we held some birds. They were big and heavy and pretty. They were species of eagles, I believe, but I wasn’t paying that much attention. They were just big and heavy and pretty. Then we went to a little fenced in area where we got to catch some kites (maybe?) and owls, little ones. By catch I mean we held out our gloved arm, and one of the trainers called the birds (each bird has a name, like Trevor) and they came and landed on us, knowing they would get some food for obeying. Some birds were less obedient than others, and at one point I had two little owls on my arm. Which was pretty cool.

Two for the price of one

We moved to a bigger field for some hawk catching. At this point I got a close-up look at what they were feeding the bigger birds: torn up pieces of tiny, fluffy chicks, their yellow down smeared with blood. I didn’t want to think about that too much.

We watched a flying show, in which our tour guide, a cheerful and well-versed young Englishman who seriously looked like he was 12 years old, gave a running commentary on the different types of birds he showed off – egrets and pelicans as well as more owls and eagles. Maybe a falcon.

We went into a caged in area where we go to hold, bare-handed, little five week old owls. Four of them perched sleepily on a diagonal wooden rod, and it was awfully rude of us to disturb them. But they were very cute, sitting on my friend’s shoulder and nibbling her hair and ear, burrowing into the furry hood of her sweatshirt (as usual in this glorious land, it was late April but cold, cloudy, and windy.)

It tickle-hurts.

We were then free to wander about looking at the caged birds, most of whom were lazing about for their midday siesta. Birds are tremendously pretty. Who knew?

I actually had a lot of fun – it was great to see my friends for a couple of hours, and I fought off my terror at allowing birds to fly at my body (I have walked through New York City on more than one occasion and felt an imminent pigeon attack strategizing around me.)

Blue eagles are awesome

I got some fun photos, which is, unfortunately the point of the experience. Despite our well-educated guide, who could spit out facts at the rate of four a minute, I didn’t get a sense of why the English School of Falconry exists. Why do they train birds? What purpose do the birds serve? A glance at their website listed “conservation” as one of their goals, but conservation from what? I imagine if I had read the little placards near each bird station I would have a better understanding of which birds are endangered, and how the centre helps breed and repopulate them.

But do they ever free them back into the wild? Could they even survive? These birds are so dependent on humans for treats, why would they even want to leave? I know I wouldn’t. Is that good, or bad? Ecotourism in a paradox. I’m just not sure if I agree with it. Near the beginning of the day, as we waited to hold some of the bigger eagles, we watched a bunch of enormous birds nestling in their feathers. Occasionally one of them would start to flap its wings and launch itself off the perch where it rested. Inevitably, they landed two feet away, their feet tied with rope to that same perch. There was something sad about watching birds try to take flight and failing. It was a terrible living metaphor.

Still, I had a good day. Does that make me a bad person? I pushed the metaphors out of my mind and just enjoyed the beauty of the birdies. I am uneasy with myself for this unthinking submission to a photo op. The twenty or so cheery English who were part of our group didn’t seem to be overthinking the moment, oohing and aaahing as the birds sailed around us. It’s just hard to know if the centre does more good than harm.

Baby!

But how else was I going to pretend I was Harry Potter for a few hours?

What do you think? Is this kind of “interactive” nature experience good or bad for, you know, actual nature?

Scorecard: Vouchers – 1 Me – 1