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Showing posts from June, 2011

A Towerful Tuesday

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By Tuesday we figured we'd be out of jet lag enough that we could see the Tower of London, so we marched down there first thing in the morning. It was cool and overcast and we were grateful. We walked right up to the jewel house first and saw the crown jewels first off. They were pretty spectacular. There were lots of Disneyland-style lines with ropes and movies playing, but they weren't necessary because we walked right up to the good stuff. The choicest pieces (the crowns) are set up now with moving walkways on both sides of them to keep people from crowding those and never moving. Rob thinks it's precisely what you need at church buffets -- grab that iceberg salad and that roll as you slide by or it's gone! We went down the backs of the crowns, then we stood up higher to walk at our own pace, and then slid by the fronts one last time, oohing and aahing at some of the world's largest diamonds. Aside from the crowns the family favorite was a punch bowl the size of

A London Monday

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end On Monday we began by having breakfast in the hostel with the students. It's a swank place and everyone got filled up. Sunday and Monday were those rare days in London with a clear sky and lots of sun. Everyone donned their holiday wear and were out celebrating. I was treated to my honey's "A Rant On The Maxidress" because of it, but I just love peoplewatching and wardrobewatching in big cities. Some people have got such great style, and some others are walking fashion catastrophes (like the woman my age and my size in an ill-fitting strapless sundress that shows off the "Woo" tattoo on her arm -- how drunk does one have to be before that seems like a good idea? I think I'd pass out first!). First off we were headed to the Imperial War Museum. We had to get our bearings at Elephant and Castle and found that neither of our maps were big enough. Luckily there was a playground for the kids while we figured our stuff out. Luckily too, I had brought the i

Amazing Thing, Amazing Thing, Amazing Thing, Amazing Thing

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I can't believe our good luck, but we're here! Flights were good, food was bad, Detroit airport gets five stars from the McFarlands (fountain, express trains, charging stations, shopping -- Joss was ready to move in), and one poor, poor little girl on our flight screamed herself hoarse. I think she may be the Worst Child On A Flight in my experience. Our kids were so good. They played Bookworm and Bejeweled and watched Dawn Treader and Yogi Bear and Charlie Brown and Elmo and barely needed us. Only downside was that with their own personal screens for eight hours, they didn't sleep either . . . . . . so that when we walked off in Heathrow everyone was trashed. Joss couldn't walk and kept flopping on the floor. The kids treated each other like human Socker Boppers. We took three hours from landing to our apartment that were excruciating and made us all question this layover, the study abroad, or the feasibility of travel at all. When we arrived, our apartment was being

I Was Sigfried! I Was Roy! I Was Sigfried! I Was Roy!

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In the first year Rob and I were married, we attended two poetry slams in San Francisco. If you're not familiar with a slam, it's competitive performance of your own work: 1-2 dozen poets each performing a work of 3 minutes or less (sometimes there is a tiebreaking round -- Sudden Death by Haiku). We were young and unwrinkled and life was easy and we had no idea it wouldn't always be that way. We couldn't have forseen that we'd remember several of the poems 13 years later. One of those was called "What I've Done Since High School Graduation" by Phil West. It was a poem-as-answer to that dread question at reunions, and he responded with a whimsical fantasy of the places he'd been and the things he'd done, but also the people and objects that he had been (501 jeans, flannel shirt, antibiotic, narcotic, prophylactic . . . ). The refrain was "I was Sigfried! I was Roy! I was Sigfried! I was Roy!" It has become a part of our family lexico