Inane Chatter

In case you were wondering, The Runaways?  Not a good movie.  It had no point.  And The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was just strange.  But Brad Pitt is NICE to look at (when he’s his own age, of course).

Last thing: the color of Cate Blanchett’s hair in that movie is what I was aiming for (and missed by so so much) when I dyed mine three summers ago.  If I were to ever try again, I’d go for that.  Maybe a tiny bit darker.

I’m back home, where spring has sprung, but it’s not warm enough for me.  Not after a week of mid-70s in New Orleans.  Not after only needing a jacket late at night on my way home a jazz club.  And speaking of weather and jazz and awesomeness, if I hadn’t made notes during the week, I wouldn’t know where to begin.  Since I did, I’ll begin at the beginning.

I got to New Orleans Saturday afternoon and made it to my hotel.  Pretty straightforward.  Finding my room after that was not so simple.  I was in Building 2 (or was it Building B?), which is up an escalator, up another escalator, across the breezeway, forward and then around to the left, past the gift shop that wasn’t open even ONCE the whole week, up an elevator, down a hall, and around another corner.  The gym (which I faithfully visited every morning except for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days), was back the way I’d come in and then another half-mile in the opposite direction from the front desk and up four floors.  It was a workout just to get there.

Everyone else (Mom, Dad, Mindy, Corey, Candy, and Gaby – we were only missing John and Mark) got there a few hours later, and after dinner, Mindy, Corey, Candy, and I headed to Bourbon Street.  That was…something.  I may not have been in the right mood.  Crowded, loud, dirty.  We wound our way through throngs of girls in short prom dresses, frat boys, and vomit.  We did find a Dixieland band playing in a bar, though (Fritzel’s European Jazz Pub – beware the link if your speakers are on: music starts playing as soon as you land on the page).  That was cool.  Something I learned (although not that night): many musicians would rather you didn’t call it Dixieland.  Traditional New Orleans Jazz is the preferred term.

The next morning (Sunday – it was a beautiful morning), we had brunch at Brennan’s.  I could do that every week.  You’d have to roll me home every week, but WOW.  Loved the place, loved the strawberries and cream, LOVED the bananas foster and crepes fitzgerald.  My entree was meh, but everyone else’s was reallyreally good, and I tried them all.  From there, we hopped the streetcar to the Garden District (after changing into our UK gear – Go CATS!).  Those houses are amazing.

Detour to talk about the weather.  It was so warm.  SO warm.  And breezy, and wonderful, and WARM.  All the windows (big windows) on the streetcar were open and it felt so nice.  /detour

A little after 4pm (game time!), we hopped off the streetcar and Corey and Candy asked a nice stranger where we might be able to find a sports bar.  You can’t run around during March Madness with your UK gear on and NOT watch the game.  He sent us to one a couple of blocks away, practically empty, except for three people together at the bar and maybe another guy.  Just after halftime, one of the three at the bar walked by our table on her way back to her seat.  She was wearing a UK shirt, too, and Corey high-fived her.  Mindy and I looked at each other.  She looked really familiar to both of us, but it’s a little ridiculous of us to assume we know everyone in the world wearing a UK shirt, right?  Well, right, except not in this case.  I went over to ask her.  “Are you from [town redacted]?”  “Yes.”  “Did you go to [high school redacted]?”  “Zannah?”  So, yeah, we went to high school together, had friends in common (loyal commenter IBCRandy, among others), remembered each other vaguely, but enough.  Totally weird.  She lives in the neighborhood we were in.  What are the odds?  The stars aligned for me this whole trip, but more on that in another post (or three).  So that was cool.  And UK won, which was also cool.  Too bad they couldn’t keep that up.

Dad, Corey, Candy, and Gaby all left on Monday (after breakfast at the Cafe du Monde, where we watched Gaby wallow in powdered sugar), and I went to work for a few hours.  I came back to find Mom and Mindy waiting in my room (it was kind of sad to come back after work the next day and have no one to meet me).  Mindy made an inspired dinner decision (I think it was her choice), and we went to the Grapevine Wine Bar.  No live music, but the wine made up for that.  We killed three bottles and ate appetizers (scallops, beef medallions, cheese and crackers, baked brie, and something else…mussels!) and skipped dessert.  Partly because who needs dessert after three bottles of wine, and partly because fudge cheese didn’t sound particularly appetizing.  I’m not making that up.

On our tipsy way back to the hotel after dinner, we met a three-man a capella group on the corner somewhere along Decatur and sang with them.  Met some people on the way back home (all new friends), and then Mom and Mindy left the next morning (Tuesday).  Tuesday night is when my solo adventures started, and I’ll get into them tomorrow.  I’m typed out.

Why so many title pages?  This book has THREE.

First

Second

Third

They’re all in a row, one after the other, and that’s not even counting the page before the FIRST title page that basically works like the back of the dust jacket, with the title and author AGAIN (and a short bio).  I don’t understand.  Why so many?  Does Random House think I’m going to forget what book I just picked up? Every one and a half seconds?

I don’t get it.  But I do think Random House is a cool name for a company.  Maybe I’ll call my bookstore Random Books.  Or Random Reads.  Random Readers.  Random Shop.  Maybe just Random.  Maybe not.

Wanna see the worst haircut I’ve ever gotten?  I hated it.  It was the summer after my freshman year in college.  I was going for a pixie cut, something really short, something I’d never done before (and have never tried since), but that Mom and Mindy do really well.  If they can do it, I can, right?  Maybe I wasn’t clear enough with the stylist.  She gave me something that looked kinda like Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell in Hook.  With a mullet.

With a mullet. And not so many layers, I think. I don't remember. I've blocked it out.

It was awful.  I got home, cried, and went somewhere else the next day to try to get it fixed.  Which wasn’t really possible.  So I hated my hair that whole summer.  I recently came across a picture of me from later that summer, and while I still don’t think it’s a good haircut, I don’t think it was quite as bad as it seemed at the time.

It’s not something I’d do again, though.

And to bribe you into saying nice things about this old picture of me (or at least non-commital not-mean things), here’s Mr. Toad.

Day 4 in Wales was Sunday, I think, January 2nd.  Since we’d already had some issues with things being closed due to the holiday, we assumed Sunday wouldn’t be any different and switched our castle plans (we always have castle plans) for outdoorsy-type activities.  Like hiking along Offa’s Dyke.  Of course, our travel guides didn’t say how to get to Offa’s Dyke (which is a very long trail along the English-Welsh border that passes near our village somewhere), so we asked Carl (the go-to guy while our landlords were away). Got his directions (which were quite vague: “Follow the lane out to the road, then go straight.”  It sounds straightforward, but there wasn’t really an option that was clearly “straight” when we got to the road.  And he left out the “veer right when you get to the fork” that would have been helpful later on), set off, and finally found the path (marked with acorn signs) about a mile from the cottage. (Once we found the path, we were set.) So we started hiking. And hiking. And climbing. Up and up and up. Spectacular views, better and better the higher we got. We’d warm up from the exertion, then stop to take pictures and start shivering again. We climbed all the way to the top of a mountain, and I stopped some people coming back down to ask them the name of it. I’d like to know what mountains I climb. I’ll add it to my list. My growing list of all of two mountains now. He struggled a bit, but came up with Penrhyddion (I’m guessing at the spelling, but I’m pretty sure I’m right – pronounce the two d’s in the middle like th), which I haven’t been able to find listed as a mountain on Google. I’ll keep looking. After taking lots of pictures from the top (we were so high there was a light dusting of snow!), we headed back down. All in all, we hiked about four hours. Came back to the cottage, the bottoms of our boots caked in mud, had some tea and biscuits, cleaned up, and went looking for dinner. Every pub that says they serve food on the sign outside is a liar. We went into one that clearly said they serve food, but when I asked, no, they don’t. We had a pint anyway and met some very friendly people (a guy who lived in Houston when he was a teenager who came away from the experience with a dislike of Texas and another guy, drunk, who called himself the local idiot) with lots of advice on how to spend our next few days.

Oh, we saw sheep, too.  Lots of sheep.  Honestly, the castles we did end up seeing were totally cool, but I think this was my favorite day.

View from our cottage of where we were headed

The path was clearly marked, once we found it. John wants to know why the acorn is upside down.

These narrow lanes are not much fun in the dark.

I'd like a door like this in my yard someday. Leading to my secret garden. Maybe the gate should be wrought iron.

John climbing over an honest-to-goodness stile

Check this out - a gate for the dogs who can't get over the stile!

In case you weren't sure what it was for.

View from level one, back towards the village and our cottage

Any idea which way to go now?

Sheep!

Bracken!

I think one of the small hill gods lives here.

Sheep for Jess

View from a bit higher up (but not the top, not yet)

Mountains we didn't climb. At least not that day.

Damn, we took a lot of pictures on this hike.  I’m skipping to the end.  When John posts all of our pictures in his gallery, I’ll point you there.

The top! See that white stuff on the ground? Mm-hm. Snow.

I think that town is Denbigh. Hard to say, though.

I may or may not have been dancing in circles while singing songs from The Sound of Music. You'll never know for sure.

Let’s see…if Day 2 (in Chester) was New Year’s Eve, that makes Day 3 New Year’s Day.  We’d stayed up until midnight the night before but not doing anything crazy, so what few plans we’d made for the day started with a run.  Of course, when the alarm went off at 7 and it was still pitch black outside, we decided to put it off. Looked again at 7:30 – still very dark. (No streetlights, no houselights = very dark.) We finally got up at 8 (skipped the run), showered (Have I mentioned the shower?  Stand-up shower, pretty small (barely enough room to turn around in), but it had great water pressure and a wide showerhead so you were pretty much under the spray no matter where you stood.  Quite nice.), and headed north and west to look for breakfast.  Yeah, nothing’s open on New Year’s Day. At least, not in the morning. We stopped at a Sainsbury’s (supermarket) and noticed a small crowd of people waiting outside.  NOT OPEN.  It was a couple of minutes before ten, so we joined the waiters on the assumption that the store would open at ten.  They opened a few minutes after ten, but close enough, so we picked up some croissants and a couple of bottles of water and ate a flaky breakfast in the car.  Kept driving west.  We didn’t have any solid plans.  We just kept driving to see what we could see.  We saw a high stone wall that looked like it surrounded a park, so  we pulled off the main road and headed down one side looking for a way in.  Didn’t find it, but we did see a sign and some steps climbing the hill into the woods.

Can’t you just see them beckoning?  There was a golf club just down the road, so we pulled into their parking lot, reached for hats and gloves and cameras, and then it started pouring down rain.  (It had only been misting before.)  Our Welsh weather gods were nice to us, though.  We waited a couple of minutes and the rain settled back into a light mist again.  We started climbing.  There were a lot more stairs then we expected, so we kept climbing.  Eventually, we got to the top of that hillside and came out on a wide track – practically a road.  Left or right?  Left went uphill, so we did, too.  First clearing:

This is where we came from

That's where we could have gone

And this is where we did go. Road less traveled, right? We're adventurers!

But before I move on up the trail, here’s the view (part of it) from the first clearing.

A little gray, a little misty

Back to the trail.  Not long after we left the clearing, our road narrowed down to a path wide enough for only one person with not much between the edge and a probably very painful tumble down the mountainside.

Guess where that path led?

More steps! Substantially more slippery than the first set.

So up we went.  Path path path, trail trail trail, and voila!  The top!

Not as impressive as we were hoping for.

It was a clearing with two mound-type little hills (Druid burial grounds, right?).  Whatever, it was the top.  There was a path across from the one we used to come in, but it looked like it was just heading to an overlook with the same view we’d already taken pictures of, so we didn’t go.

Haunted, I think.

Speaking of haunted, this next clearing-type place in the woods with lots of leaves (is it a clearing if it’s still got trees?  They’re widely spaced, but still…) looks like it was used in every movie ever made.  Blair Witch, Holy Grail, Stardust, other movies with scenes in woods…

We stopped at the same place on the way back down to get a few more pictures since the mist had cleared a little.

We were on the north shore of Wales - that's the bay.

Waves crashing on Wales

Back down the steps…

A bit more treacherous going down than up

and back to the car.  We went back to the main road and were following the stone wall when all of a sudden I heard John: “Holy shit!”  “Oh my god, what?”  I nearly drove off the road.  Yeah, he got a glimpse of this over that stone wall:

I followed that stone wall as far around as I could, but we couldn’t find a way in.  We saw one entryway, but it was marked private.  It’s not possible that that’s a private castle, right?  We must have been missing something obvious.  I pulled over so we could take pictures.  Of course.  (Click on them – they get bigger.)

We think we might have been able to hike there, if we’d gone right instead of left at the beginning and hiked for another three hours.  After we took our pictures of Totally Awesome Castle #1, we got back in the car, still heading west, and looked for lunch.  We stopped in a likely-looking town, parked the car on the main street, found a couple of cafes (all closed) and went into the first pub we saw.  Open, yes, but not serving food.  I asked the guy if anyone was serving food today.  He listed two places, both nearby.  We went into the first place (a pub called Prince Madog, I think).  Open, not serving food.  The barman said they’d have a great Sunday roast (tomorrow), and the only place he knew of that was open was this other pub around the corner.  We went there.  Open, serving food.  Finally.  We were hungry.  This place was HUGE.  Three or four levels, definitely a pub with pub food, but a layout more like a restaurant with the highest level of tables on a gallery overlooking the next level.  Food was okay.  We saw another pub owned by the same company a couple of days later; we think they’re the equivalent of TGI Friday’s.  Anyway, they were open and that’s all that mattered.  We had a pint and some lunch and gave up on finding anything else open on New Year’s Day.  Almost gave up.  On our way back we stumbled on Bodelwyddan Castle (which looks AWESOME).  The sign at the entrance said it was closed, but the gate was open, so we drove in anyway.  There’s a hotel attached to the castle, but when I went in and asked if the castle would be open for tours soon, they said it’s only open on Sundays and Saturdays and not at all that weekend.  So yeah.  Not open.  No castles for us.  We drove back to Denbigh (the town closest to our village).  It was getting dark, so we wandered around a bit, found that the takeaways all opened at five (it was about 4:30), and hiked up the road to the castle to pass the time. (Denbigh has a castle.)  COOL castle. Was it open?  Of course not.  Closed for excavation or something, so it didn’t even open up later in the week.  I took some terrible pictures of it in the dark that night, and then we picked up some Indian takeaway, watched the second Daniel Craig Bond movie (bought the DVD at Sainsbury’s that morning), and I took a long bath in our GIANT bathtub with the vanilla-scented bath bomb Emily bought me for Christmas.  It fizzed as it dissolved and turned the bathwater yellow-ish green.  Very exciting.

I don’t know why I’m having a hard time with this.  I want to tell you all about our trip,  but I keep putting off writing it.  I don’t want to be boring.  We did this, then we did that, then we took more pictures.  Would you like to see my slideshow?

Okay, I’m over it.  Come see my slideshow.

I like the E at the end of cafe there. Is it purposefully whimsical or just a happy accident?

First, the title of this post is not accurate, since Chester is not in Wales.  I know, I know.  We went to Wales only leave it again after one night.  We’re terrible people, I’m sure.  Shut up.  After fourteen hours of sleep, we were well rested and ready to see something.  Since it was the morning of New Year’s Eve, we decided the nearest city might be a good place to ring in the new year, so we headed to Chester, less than 45 minutes from our cottage.  I wouldn’t call it the most exciting of days, but we had a nice quiet time.  Saw the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, right outside the old city walls,

and then went looking for lunch.  We spent a lot of this trip hunting for our next meal.  We wandered into the shopping district,

had lunch at Dutton’s (I had a really good panini – roast beef, horseradish, brie, and onions),

Hello from Dutton's

bought a toothbrush, and spent some time exploring Chester Cathedral.  Someone was practicing on the organ.  A cathedral tour isn’t complete without organ music as a soundtrack.

We didn’t know quite what to do with ourselves after that, since it was only five, but all the shops had closed and it was a bit early for dinner.  We were coming to the realization that we weren’t going to make it to midnight, at least not in Chester.  We wandered around town a little bit and found ourselves back at the old city walls.  We’d seen several signs saying that Chester has the most complete city walls in Great Britain, so we decided to see for ourselves.  We walked the entire circuit on top of the walls, starting at the amphitheatre.  (It was only two miles.)  It was dark by then, so I didn’t get a single good picture.  They’re all too dark, too blurry, too grainy, or all of the above.  Except of the ferris wheel.  Is it a requirement in the UK that every city of a certain size have one?

When we finished our sentry walk, it was still not quite 6:30 – I’m boring myself here.  Short version – we didn’t do anything exciting.  Had dinner at an Italian place (whether we were going to be allowed to eat there without a reservation was not entirely clear for the first few minutes, but eventually we were shown to a table – very good dinner),

and then we headed back to the cottage.  We weren’t sure we were going to bother staying up until midnight to usher in the new year for a while.  On the one hand, why not?  It was New Year’s Eve, we were on vacation, we could walk on the wild side and stay up late.  On the other hand, why bother?  We were by ourselves in a cottage very near the middle of nowhere with no champagne (we had a bottle of wine and some beer, though) and no TV.  What would we do, watch the clock turn to midnight?

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.  We did, in fact, watch the clocks turn to midnight.  Happy New Year!

Our Welsh home sweet home

The cottage was super cute. It’s basically just two rooms, one on either floor. Downstairs, you walk in the door into the kitchen, which is all along the wall to your left. To your right is the rest of the room, with a table and chairs, and then the sitting area. Two leather loveseats, a sheepskin rug, a coffee table, the woodburning stove, and a mostly useless TV.  (It’s got cable, but the cable wasn’t working.  You could see what was supposed to be on each channel (banner at the bottom of the screen), but there was no picture or sound.)  I say only mostly useless because there was a DVD player.  We just didn’t have any DVDs.  To get upstairs, you climb this wooden spiral staircase, and then you’re in the bedroom.  Nice bedroom.  GIANT bed, a big armoire, and a bathroom with a HUGE bathtub and a walk-in shower.  It’s a nice place.  John took pictures of the rooms, but for some reason I can’t get to them right now.  I’ll post them later.  Our landlady said they were going out of town on New Year’s Day and wouldn’t be back before we left, so if we needed anything, we were supposed to go knock on Carl’s door (the end unit of the stables they turned into apartments).   If it was anything big, we could text her and she’d take care of it from her vacation spot in the Canary Islands.   I need to look up where those are.  So really, after the first day, we didn’t see her or her husband again.

We found out pretty early on that we had a very very very weak internet connection.  John  able to connect, but usually not for more than five minutes a day.  I wasn’t able to connect at all.  Anyway, it was our first day there, we made it in one piece, met our landlady, and went back out for some supplies.  Basic supplies.  Like something for dinner (we couldn’t quite face a meal out).  Over the course of the first couple of days, we slowly discovered that we needed a few other things that weren’t supplied in the cottage, like a washcloth, dish soap, a dish towel, and matches (for our wood-burning stove).  Our first errand was to head off to Morrison’s for the food stuff.  We didn’t know we needed that other list until the next day.  We did the best we could to stay up as late as we could, thoroughly determined to beat jet lag into submission.  I think we succeeded, but that first evening was rough.  I would have given up around 6, but John set a goal of 8pm, and we managed to get there.  We didn’t have a lot of help, though.  No internet, reading was putting us to sleep, no cards, no games, and a TV whose cable connection (or whatever) doesn’t seem to be working.  No DVDs.  7:30 rolled around and I started getting ready for bed.  Which is when I found out I’d forgotten my toothbrush.  Wish I’d noticed that before our trip to Morrison’s.  Luckily, I had toothpaste, mouthwash, and floss, so I managed.  That got me through ten minutes.  I really was counting minute by minute at that point.  The second the clock hit 8pm, I turned off the light and passed out.  We woke up fourteen and a half hours later feeling SO much better.  But that’s Day 2, and I think that’ll have to wait.  Just talking about how tired we were that day is making me sleepy.

View from our bedroom window



Alternate titles: The Journey That Wouldn’t End, Why Did We Think It Would Be Fun To Drive Four-ish Hours From London While Exhausted When We Could Have Flown Into Manchester, Which Is Only A Little Over An Hour Away?, or Luckily, We’re Good With Maps

I’ve spent most of the last three days in a comfy chair in front of a roaring fire with the dogs curled up on their dog beds at my feet.  I’ve finished two books and started another.  In fact, over the last twelve days, I’ve read six books and a little of a seventh.  And all of that reading has been done in Wales, in transit to and from Wales, and in front of this fire at home.  HEAVEN.  Totally awesome vacation.  A vacation about which and to you I plan to tell.  Starting now.  And starting with the airport.

There were a lot of lines and a lot of people in them.  I know the airport is traditionally busy during the holidays, and we were flying four days after Christmas and two days before New Year’s, but I’ve flown on and near holidays before, and this was truly the busiest I’ve ever seen Dulles. We waited in a long long line before we could go stand in the longer line to check in for the flight.  The ante-line, I guess.  The guy moving people from one line to the next was a jerk.  He kept yelling at people who walked in between the two lines (who were using the only path available to them to get where they were going), but he’d yell like this was the third time they’d done it and they just. weren’t. listening. I’d kind of understand that if it was the same people over and over again, but it WASN’T.  And then, of course, we waited in line at security.  We went through the new x-ray machines with no issues or possibly inappropriate pat-downs.  The guy behind me in line didn’t fully understand the x-ray machine process.  He was standing in the middle of it, like you’re supposed to, and one of the TSA agents asked him if he had anything in his pockets.  If he’d done ANY traveling in the last two decades, and he seemed like he probably had, you’d think the answer would have been no.  Of course, it wasn’t.  “Just my ticket,” he said.  The TSA agent said he should put everything in his pockets in the little bowl they provided.  He handed over his ticket. They started to scan again.  “Sir, do you have anything else in your pockets?”  “Just some change and my keys.”  “Sir, you can’t have ANYthing in your pockets.”  He put his change and keys in the little bowl.  Started the scan again.  “Sir, do you have something ELSE in your pockets?”  “Just some kleenex.”  Really exasperated now.  “SIR.  You can’t have ANYthing in your pockets.”  “Not even kleenex?”  “Nothing, sir.”  “Oh.  News to me.”  I was dying.

This may be surprising to some of you, but even after waiting in all those lines, I was not worried about making our flight. Not anxious. Our flight was supposed to leave at 5:46 and we got to the airport and started waiting in lines at 3:35. But that reminds me – I think our cab driver must have been new. He was a little early to pick us up (not the issue), and we were a little late getting out the door (also not the issue), but then he had no idea how to get to the airport. I might not expect him to be able to get out of our neighborhood without help (although he got to our house without us AND he has a GPS), but seriously – once you get to the main north-south road, there’s really no excuse for not knowing you a) have to get on it to get there and 2) it’s SOUTH. On top of that, on the access road leading to the departures drop-off section, he didn’t seem to know he needed to be in the outer lanes for departures and not the inner lanes (for arrivals), despite the signs, until the last minute when he went veering across a couple of lanes filled with cars. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this guy. But whatever, he got us there with plenty of time to spare. And that was the end of my worrying.

The plane ride was pretty easy, if cramped (economy sucks and we didn’t pay the extra $90 each for 5 extra inches – we did on the way home).  I got an hour or two of sleep, I think, but John didn’t get any.  We were in the middle section of three on the plane, near the back, with John on the aisle and me in the middle, and a totally ungrateful guy on my other side, a fact I discovered when they fed us.  (I knew he was there, of course – I like to think I’m pretty observant – but I didn’t know he was rude until then.)  The flight attendants were out of pasta dishes by the time they got to him, and I guess he doesn’t eat meat (beef was the other option), so he said he wouldn’t have anything. I’d already gotten the pasta, but hadn’t touched it yet, so I offered it to him. Did I get a “Thanks, that’s really nice of you” or “No, thanks, I’m not really all that hungry, but I appreciate the offer”? No. I got a shrug and “okay.” Whatever, dude.  Then he put his blanket over his head and we didn’t see him again.

Landed, customs, picked up rental car (silver Peugeot – there’s a word I still can’t pronounce), blah blah, nothing particularly exciting.  It was sometime between 6 and 8am in London, but I don’t know for sure ’cause we stopped looking at clocks.  It didn’t matter anymore, and the actual time was somewhat meaningless just then.  We had a four-ish hour drive to get to our cottage in North Wales, a big map, a road atlas, and two drivers who thought it was the middle of the night.  John drove first while I navigated.  Driving on the left, thankfully, was not as hard as we thought it would be, and we made it just past Birmingham (about halfway) before John was too tired to drive anymore.  Adrenaline had kicked in for me, so I was ready to go.  It worked out nicely.  He was able to take a nap as long as we stayed on the highway (I’m sorry, the motorway), so he could navigate for me once we got into Wales and onto winding, narrow, two-lane roads with no shoulders and either tall hedges or stone walls on both sides.  Of the very narrow roads.  But more about those later.  That morning, we were just trying to get to the cottage.  Which we managed, sometime before 1pm.  I can’t tell you exactly what time it was since none of our clocks seemed to be accurate.  Our phones didn’t update because they didn’t have a network to connect to (we knew that), the clock in the car didn’t match the clock at the coffee place we stopped at on the way, and the clock on the oven in the cottage didn’t match the clock in the car.

Damn, I can be long-winded sometimes.  Here are some pictures from the drive (when John was driving – I snapped some pictures from inside the moving car, so none of them are actually good).  I’ll continue tomorrow.

It was a grey and misty morning.

Breakfast in Oxford

This was not easy after being up more than 24 hours in a row.

More story and  better pictures tomorrow.  Promise.

We were born in the wrong country.  We’re home.  We’re resting.  We want to go back right now.  We had a great time.  Wish we had two more weeks.

I promise to provide details and such over the next few days.  We didn’t have internet (no more than five minutes a day of a really slow connection counts as none at all), but I did take notes, so I have something to work from.  And SO many pictures.  John and I have to go through them, and he’ll probably post all of them (I’ll point you to them when he does), but I’ll leave you with this one for now:

Attack of the Molting Chickens

Our host has 7 chickens and 2 guinea fowl.  She kept apologizing for their appearance, since the chickens were molting, but I don’t think I’d have noticed if she hadn’t pointed it out.  They ran around the yard like – yeah, like that.  I managed to get them all in one picture only once.

Speedy chickens

They were surprisingly quiet in the mornings.  It was the guinea fowl that woke us up the first morning.  Fourteen hours after we went to bed.  Thirty-three hours after we got out of bed Wednesday morning.

Anyway, it’s dinner time and then movie time and I’ll tell you all about wonderful, magical Wales (and Chester and Liverpool and the four to five hours of countryside between where we were and London) soon.

We bought firewood over the weekend.  Scads of firewood.  More than a trunkload.  To be precise, we bought a cubic yard of firewood.  We didn’t think it was that much.  Less than half a cord, however much that is.  But then the nursery guys brought over a bobcat-load of wood. This kind of bobcat:

Not this kind:

But can you imagine a trunkload of baby bobcats?  Just this one makes my heart hurt.  I want to take one home.

I still don’t know how much a cubic yard of firewood is because I don’t think those nursery guys were really measuring.  They brought giant shovels full of firewood over to the car and started loading.  And kept loading.  And loading.  We had to put half the backseat down to hold all of it.  I think we’re set for the winter, even if we have two more giant snowstorms.

We got all the wood home and stacked on the deck.  It looks like even MORE than was in the car.  Maybe it multiplied.  Firewood = rabbits.  Baby firewood = kindling.

It's almost up to my shoulder.

I had to go downtown today to teach a training class for the first time in five months (unexpectedly – I’m the LAST backup for that, which means that the other six people were all either sick or still out of town for the holiday, so I found out at 6:15 this morning), and I’m comPLETEly worn out.  I’d forgotten how much that takes out of me.  I love to talk, I’ll never deny that, but talking for eight hours straight while standing up and fielding questions is exhausting. And then I came home and worked, since I didn’t get any of MY work done today.

So.  Short.  Almost done and going to bed (hoping that the guy I was subbing for today feels better when he wakes up in the morning).

I bought a hat!

And then I got a haircut, but I’m not ready to show it yet.  I need to remember how to use a hair dryer first.

This is the Cadillac of baby carriages.  I was totally jealous of the baby boy who was riding in it.  I could have taken a better picture (one that included the adorable little boy), but the nanny (I think she was the nanny.  She gave off more of a nanny vibe than a mommy vibe.) wasn’t too keen on that.  Understandably.  After all, I am a total stranger who walked up and asked to take a picture of her stroller.  Sans baby.

Let’s go in a completely different direction: tarp surfing.

Thanks, Ms. Nall (we’re pretty formal in these parts), for the video and for pointing me here.  I haven’t read The Onion in a couple of years.  I forgot about it.  And now I’m a little sad.

President Obama's house in the fall

John and I took a rare field trip into DC this Saturday for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.  With one of John’s best friends from high school and his girlfriend, we drove into town (after running from the metro – ridiculously long lines), found parking easily, and walked down to the National Mall.  We joined the crowds heading in the direction of the stage and walked until we could walk no more.  Seriously, there was no room to move forward.  We were packed in like sardines, four blocks away from the stage, unable to see or hear much.  Except for the signs.  So that’s what I took pictures of.

Signs I Enjoyed (for any number of reasons) While Standing for Four Hours (Until My Face Got Sunburnt and My Legs and Feet Started to Hurt) Wedged In Among Wonderfully Nice and Sane People at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

This is the kind of Republican I can get behind. (Get it? I crack myself up.)

That pink sign I didn't take a very good picture of says "I was told there would be cherry blossoms," which is only funny if you know that the Cherry Blossom Festival this year wasn't timed quite right. It got warm a little too soon, so the trees blossomed a little too early, and then there was a big wind and rainstorm, so that by the weekend of the festival there was not a blossom in sight. But anything that takes that much explanation isn't really funny. Except to me.

Makes me want to dance.

I think "Everything will probably be OK" should be on the $5 bill.

Peoples is peoples.

Why can't people hold still when I'm taking a picture? "I can promote my opinion without misrepresenting people who disagree with me." Also, there's a scary Sarah Palin mask.

Possibly my favorite sign, considering the size of the crowd.

Two more good ones, but my favorites are the handmade ones.

Small detour - I couldn't help but stare at the mini-Snookie in front of me.

Maybe my actual favorite sign

Did I mention that we couldn't see anything? These guys had a solution.

Crazy Brave Guy had the best seat in the house.

Yay for funny signs!

A little Les Miz, anyone?  Someone handed Crazy Brave Guy a banner.

Okay, time for crowd shots.  The estimates for attendance are between 215,000 and 250,000, and I think those are low numbers.

Looking down 7th Street towards the mall

Dr. Horrible (he has a PhD in Horribleness) wouldn't hold still for me.

Can you see the stage or even a screen? I can't.

Don't look now - there's someone behind me.

I’m pictured out.

A big orange one.  Who hangs out in their backyard.  Which backs up to our backyard.  Which I discovered when I ran outside this afternoon to find out what all the commotion was about.

The cat was right up against the fence, all puffed up, growling and hissing, and the dogs were barking their fool heads off.

That is one angry cat.

Eventually, he retreated and glared at us from the slide.

Angry Cat moved off to a safe distance.

The dogs quieted down after that, although Roxy kept an eye out for Angry Cat’s return.

And now, a short romp in the yard.  (My video debut!)  Points to anyone who can figure out what I said at the end.

(2 hours later.) Hm.  Well, if Vimeo ever finishes converting that video, I’ll upload it.  Maybe in the morning?

Morning: Here we go.

Short Romp from Susannah Brewer on Vimeo.

(oh) What a beautiful day.  This morning was perfect, in every way, and when I went for a run, I was so happy to be out doing just what I was doing and seeing just what I was seeing that I nearly cried.  The sky was this perfect September blue, the trees were still green, the morning light was clear and the air was fresh, and even though I’m sore and tired now, that feeling this morning makes it okay.  Better than okay.

That paragraph makes me sound ecstatically happy.  I’m too tired to be ecstatically happy.  I’m worn out happy.  With a dehydration (I think) headache.  John and I went to Waterford this afternoon for the Waterford Fair.  Happens every year, but we keep forgetting about it, so this is the first year we’ve gone.  They’ve got tours of historic homes, LOTS of exhibits and vendors selling all kinds of crafts, live music, and lots of food.  A couple of residents are selling their homes, so they took advantage of the crowds to hold open houses.  NICE houses.  And they’ve come down in price; both of the houses John and I looked at were only $695,000.

Tangent:

John Scalzi is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, both for his novels and his blog.  Check out his latest post.  The idea came from the two previous posts.

Back to the fair.  But really only for pictures (all taken by John, used with permission ).

John and I decided this was a re-enactment of that time a squad of soldiers got lost and wandered down Main Street in Waterford during the Civil War.

Look! Baby lambs! According to the sign on the pen, they're only two days old. The white one is a boy and the black one is a girl. Super cute.

Anyway, the fair was fun, but Waterford has some major hills (okay, one major hill), and we got a little too much sun, and we’re both very tired.  Tomorrow will probably be more restful.

I can’t have a cat.  Riley would spend every minute bouncing off the ceiling.  Every minute he’s not trying to eat the poor thing.  He’s high-strung as it is.  I got further proof of that this morning when I brought a cat inside.  Briefly.  After I threw him and Roxy out on the deck.

Let me back up.

I went out this morning for a jog, as usual.  (Kind of as usual.  You know, every other day usual.  The way I left the house was as usual for when I go for a jog.  Oh, hell.  Leave me alone.)  About a half mile from the house, on the opposite side of a busy-for-my-town street from my neighborhood, I saw a cat narrowly avoid being hit by a car.  It was okay, hanging out on the sidewalk when I got there, not even a little bit afraid of me.  He’s a pretty little cat, not a kitten, not full-grown.  I guessed 6-7 months old (the vet said maybe 8 months, but not more).  No collar, no tags, not neutered, but he’s clean (and definitely a he) and seems well-fed.  Almost definitely not a stray.  Like 98% not a stray.  He was right behind a house in this other neighborhood, so I walked to their front door to see if he belonged to them.  He followed me.  Right by my ankles.  I knocked (it wasn’t even 7 yet – a little early for a doorbell), but no one answered.  I saw people at a house on the next block, so I headed that way.  He followed me.  They didn’t recognize him.  I tried another house.  Same thing.  I went back to the first house, closest to where I found him, and since there was a light on now, I rang the doorbell.  A guy and his little girl answered the door.  Not their cat.

Three houses with no luck, and the cat’s still following me, so I picked him up and headed home.  Easier said than done.  He let me carry him for a couple of minutes and then he struggled a little.  I calmed him enough to get by another house or so, and then he twisted again.  I put him down, thinking maybe he’d keep following me.  Nope.  He headed for a house like maybe he lived there, so I rang the doorbell.  No answer.  And then he went to another house like he lived there.  So, yeah, this little kitty doesn’t know where home is.  Scooped him up and continued home.  Repeat twice more, without the doorbell-ringing.

I finally got back to the house, but John was out running and I needed to get in the door without getting my face and arms clawed off when the cat tried to escape from the dogs.  I got the teenager across the street to hold him while I shoved the dogs into the backyard (more difficult than usual – Riley’s nose was glued to my cat-hair-covered shirt).  Then I locked the adorable little kitty whose patience was wearing thin in the hall bathroom.  He immediately starting yowling.  I don’t blame him.  I called a couple of the local vets.  All I was looking for was a place to leave this cat for a day or two while I post flyers (fliers?  Looks like fleers.) and look for the owner, and the shelter is kinda far in the wrong direction (wrong if I’m trying to get to work close to on time).  The first vet I called won’t hold a pet unless they know who the owner is.  Not helpful.  The second one was sympathetic, though, totally understood what I need, and was willing to take the cutie-pie, at least for a day or so.  In the meantime, Riley tried to throw himself through the sliding glass door to get at the CAT!  THERE’S A CAT IN THERE!  LET ME AT IT!

John came home about then, so I explained why awful screaming noises were occasionally coming from the hall bathroom (not hurt noises, just hilarious lonely noises) and why Riley (who was no longer trying to hulk his way into the house) was stomping his foot (he really does that) and whining urgently.  John got his camera, and I opened the door to find Stan (he looks like an Oliver, but we know a cat named Oliver, so he’s Stan and no, we’re not keeping him) on the bathroom sink.  John took some pictures (see below) for the flyers I’ll make later today, and I threw him (Stan, not John) in the car for the drive to the nice vet.

He was fine in the car (we no longer have a pet carrier of any kind, and we never had one small enough for a cat), and he was happy to go with the vet tech.  I have their number, they have my number, and when they can’t keep him any longer, I’ll move him on to the shelter.  If I haven’t found the owner by then.  After work, I’ll stop at FedEx Office (I think that’s what they call themselves now, not FedEx Kinko’s anymore), make a bunch of flyers, and shove them in mailboxes in my neighborhood and the neighborhood across that street.  I’ve already posted in the community forums, so hopefully I’ll get some response.

I got a phone call from John a little bit ago.  On his way out of the neighborhood this morning, when he left for work, he got stuck behind a car going REALLY SLOWLY down the street.  He was super annoyed at the time, but it occurred to him, as he sat in traffic, that it might have been the cat’s owners driving slowly by.  That’s probably how I’d go looking for my missing cat.  We’ll keep an eye out for that car, too.

Anyway, if I don’t hear from the owner in a couple of days, there’ll be a cute cat on the market.  Free to a good home.  Want one?

It’s a happy coincidence that I’m rescuing a cat on Wombat’s Random Act Wednesday, but there you have it.  Also, Spokeit‘s post from yesterday ran through my mind all morning.  Gotta love our online community.

I ran into a window today.  Smacked my forehead HARD.  Seriously, I have a bruise.  I had lunch at a restaurant with my supervisor today, and we left through the revolving door.  I put my sunglasses on while revolving (“while in the middle of the revolution” sounds more militant that what was happening) and tried to exit the door before I reached the opening.  The glass wasn’t THAT clean.  I’m just THAT stupid.

The knock on my head apparently killed some brain cells, too, ’cause words, thoughts, ideas…I don’t have them tonight.  I’m stealing an idea from MommyByDay and just posting a picture.  Or two.

These were the greatest jeans ever.  Unfortunately, this picture is eight years old, so even if I could remember the brand and style, I’m sure they don’t make them anymore.  Too bad.

Here’s Mom playing Marine:

I wouldn’t say no to this view from my window.

Or this one.

Well, that’s enough.  Gotta give Roxy her medicine and go to bed.  Off to the busy life I lead…

Roxy is fine.  Thought I’d start with that, since that’s pretty much how John started a phone call to me late at night on the first Monday I was in Rhode Island.  That’s two weeks ago now.  John got home from work that night and everything was fine.  He went out to rehearsal at Will’s place just before seven and got back right around ten.  He said both dogs met him at the door, as usual, wagging their tails and looking stupidly happy, as usual.  But Roxy was soaking wet all around her neck.  And then he saw this:

And this:

\

And lots more.  Those two pictures are of opposite corners of the first floor of our house.  There was blood EVERYwhere.  It was on the dishwasher, the blinds, the walls, all over the floor, the couch, and, of course, the dog.  Who was fine (and not really bleeding anymore).  John spent a couple of hours cleaning up, and then he brought Roxy upstairs to sleep and left Riley downstairs.  Roxy spent all of Tuesday at the vet, who didn’t have much to say.  She had a shallow gash along her shoulder, which apparently bleeds like a scalp wound would on a person.  As far as we can tell, Roxy had a seizure while John was a rehearsal and Riley did his crazy holding her down thing and in all the thrashing around, managed to scrape her shoulder.  Blood flew during the seizure, I’d imagine, and then Roxy did her recovery thing, which consists of her wandering aimlessly around the first floor, rubbing on everything and bumping into every hard surface.  This time, she tracked (and rubbed) blood all over everything within reach.

She really is fine.  John said she wasn’t bleeding anymore by the time he got her into the bathtub.  The vet didn’t even have to shave her.  We realized we can’t leave the two of them loose in the house when we’re not home after this, and so we can’t use the pet-sitting service anymore.  We can crate them while we’re at work or when we go out, but if we’re out of town, we can’t crate them all day and all night except for the three hours a day the pet-sitter is visiting.  Maybe if we had a house-sitter…  Luckily, the kennel had an opening (two – they have to be boarded in separate runs now, too) for the RI trip, so John left them there Wednesday morning and came to see me Wednesday night.

While I’m documenting seizures, she had that one Monday night two weeks ago (6/14), another short one the following Tuesday night (6/15), and she had one yesterday around noon (6/27).  Short, we were home, no big deal.  Every person who answers the phone at our vet’s office knows who we are.  I called this morning to update her file with yesterday’s seizure, and all I had to do was say just that: “This is Susannah, and I’m calling to update Roxy’s chart.”  They used to have to ask for my last name, my phone number, all that stuff, but not anymore.  On a positive note, two weeks ago she only had two seizures in a row, 24 hours apart instead of 12.  This time, she had one yesterday around noon and hadn’t had another one by the time I left for work this morning.  She seems to have broken the three-in-a-row-12-hours-apart pattern.  Yay!

At least we were wearing good walking shoes.

John and I were out the door at 6:30 Saturday morning ’cause the night before (after we got mildly sunburned from walking around all day), I had a brilliant idea.  I wanted to do the whole cliff walk and then walk back along Bellevue (about 3.5 miles each way), but neither of us wanted to do it in the sun or the heat, so why not get up before the sunshine gets so intense?  Smart, right?  Sure.  It was early, but we managed.  The first part was great: gentle sunlight, not many people out, temperature in the 60s, paved path.

The start of the Cliff Walk

There was a bird doing a Batman impression right at the beginning.  Looked kind of freaky.  Was he warning us of something?  Maybe the trail was out.  Or a storm was coming!  Or maybe we should have been on the lookout for an angry mob of birds who think they’re Batman.  Hard to say.  Maybe he was just drying his wings after his dawn swim.

Maybe we stumbled on the super secret "Welcoming the Day" ritual of this particular type of bird.

We continued on to the Forty Steps and took a few pictures of the rocky coastline…

Forty Steps from a distance. Makes you wonder why they were put there. It's cool and everything, but did they ever serve a purpose? They used to be a gathering place for the servants and workers from the mansions, but that doesn't explain why there are steps there in the first place.

Close-up. Duh.

Shortly after that, the freaky bird came back with more warnings.

If the bird really wanted to warn us, it should have learned English. Would that have been so hard? We certainly didn't get the message.

Then the paved path went away.  Still not bad, packed dirt and the occasional line of large flat rocks.  Then there were the parts where there was no path.  Just rocks.  And not flat ones, either.

Inside the fence was private property. We had to become part mountain goat to finish the cliff walk, and I don't even think we were halfway at this point.

I didn’t take any more pictures after that; I needed both hands.  John took a whole series of the place we think is Hammersmith Farm (where Jackie O grew up), but we don’t have any more of the walk itself.

Probably (possibly, anyway) Hammersmith Farm

Not too long after that (and after a scramble across more rocks that turned out not be necessary – we missed the path), we found ourselves back on level ground, where Ocean Drive starts and Bellevue ends.  We were 3.5 miles from where we started with no alternative but to walk back.  At least it was shady.  And we could see the front side of some of the mansions.  I didn’t take any mansion pictures, but I can’t resist topiary.

Camels on a desert safari across a perfectly maintained, beautifully green lawn.

Our early morning adventure ended after more than three hours and over seven miles with quick showers and then breakfast at The Franklin Spa on Spring Street.  (By the time we cleaned up, we had missed breakfast at the inn.)  The Franklin Spa does breakfast really well.  I recommend it if you’re ever in Newport.  In fact, I recommend every restaurant we went to and every park, walk, or other activity we did.

On Friday, when we were in between appointments to see retail space, we joined the crowd on Ocean Drive to see the start of the Newport Bermuda Race.  John took some great pictures and I took some so-so ones.

Looking all professional. (Don't burst my bubble if that's not what professional photographers look like.)

One of mine. Hazy, not that interesting. But still - sailboats! Racing! And a helicopter!

I really like the color in this one of John's. And the dog is cute.

John plays with depth of field and proves that I was actually there (blurry, but there).

Don't know who these people are, but I love this picture. How does he do it?

More sailboats, courtesy of John.

And that’s enough.

I’m in the cafe (I’ve typed “face” instead of “cafe” three times now) of a Borders at Providence Place Mall.  (Really nice mall, by the wall.)  John’s flight left almost an hour ago, and mine (for Duluth) doesn’t leave for another three hours, so rather than return the rental car and sit around in the airport, I figured I’d find a place with free wi-fi (not free at the airport) and hang out for a while.  Doing this.

Now I’m hungry and I need to call Dad (Happy Father’s Day, Dad!), so I’m gonna pack up my laptop.  It’ll be midnight or later before I make it to my hotel in Duluth, so this’ll be it for today.  Actually, I’ll be in Chicago for a couple or three hours, so if they have free wi-fi, I may be online again.  I’m sure you’ll manage either way. 

No, that doesn’t have the same ring to it.  Besides, it’d be more accurate to say I drove around Duke and went to the Sarah P. Duke Gardens.  Which were gorgeous.  And huge.  I think I’d need three full days, with nothing else going on, to get through the whole place.  And a map.  I got lost in one section and still didn’t manage to see that whole part.  Some of it is landscaped and manicured and tidily beautiful.  Some of it (the part I got lost in) looks more like wilderness, like you’re out hiking on a trail far from anywhere, and not mere yards away from a main road crossing Duke’s campus.  Everything is labeled, and there are areas with signs that talk about endangered plant life.  Very educational.  I’d come back here (to Durham) just to explore the gardens a little more.  I guess I could have done that this evening, but I’m leaving ridiculously early tomorrow morning, and I feel better knowing I’m mostly packed already.  I need to leave the hotel around 4:30 tomorrow morning, maybe a little earlier, so I think staying in tonight was a good call to make.

Pictures?  Okay.

While I was lost (but before I knew I was lost), I went over that bridge, down some stone steps, and then nearly ran into a tree. But I got a nice picture out of it.

These steps. I didn't take a picture of the tree I almost ran into.

How awesome is that? There were benches everywhere, in all sorts of wonderful nooks and crannies, and if I lived anywhere near here, I'd spend lots of lazy afternoons reading in the shade.

I half-expected to see swans glide across this pond.

This little cottage (not accurate, but sounds nicer than shelter) overlooks the pond.

Seriously?  I want this place in my backyard.  Then there was the manicured part. With paths…

…and families.

Bridges…

…and a bride.

And flowers…

Lots of flowers.  And I didn’t even see a third of the place.