Santa Claus and Dear Friends

Twas a couple of days before Christmas and all through the house, the children were gearing up to go see SANTA CLAUS!  Usually we go to Selfridge's for Santa, but this year they didn't have their grotto, so we decided to explore other options.  At the school fair, Santa proved to be skinny, 'didn't even say Ho Ho Ho!' and had to be prompted to ask the girls what they wanted for Christmas, so we were a little wary of what Santa at our local garden center would be like.  Evie is no fool and is quick to assess the authenticity of Santa.  Usually, Santa doesn't pass the test.

So, after having a pep talk about Santa and all of his Santa Helpers who saw children and gave messages back to the REAL Santa, we headed to the garden center.  Santa scored points by having coloring and the movie Polar Express playing in the waiting room. 

He also had several rooms dedicated to the North Pole and a friendly elf who was happy to sit through our family rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

 And, as we approached the door, we could hear him Ho Ho Ho'ing his heart out!  He was a jolly Santa with a good sense of humor and the girls loved him. He laughed at their jokes and conceded that he liked banana cookies (a recipe that was new to us, but suggested by Evie).  He also suggested doing jazz hands for some of the pictures, which Jim and I thought was amazing!

So did he pass the test?  After some thought, Evie concluded that he did not.  'His voice wasn't right and even though his belly was big, his beard had some strings hanging from it.'  Off the record, his costume was also kind of ridiculous. BUT, we all agreed that he's probably one of Santa's closest helpers and will definitely relay all the 'wants' (except the ipad ask that Millie sprung on us.  Yeah, right.)

But really, as Jim pointed out, how hard would it be to pay a little more for a chubby guy with a real beard?

After all that excitement, we had even more to look forward to on Christmas Eve. Our dear friends Rashmi and Siddarth are in town and, since we hadn't seen them for over five years, we were thrilled to be able play tourist with them this afternoon. First stop:  Covent Garden! 

Where we spent no less than £13 pounds on street performers....some of whom were more worth it than others!

Eventually, after wandering and a stop for pizza, we parted at Regents Street, where throngs of crowds were doing their last minute Christmas shopping. Nothing like leaving it until Christmas Eve! 

So, happy times with good friends, a decent Santa, and, to top it off, we stood outside in the freezing cold to see if we could see Santa off in space (we think we did!).  Tomorrow should be fun!  Merry Christmas Eve!

The Great

Recently, one of my friends sent me an article about appreciating the great in your life.  It was all about how we focus on good things (which, for the author, included cleaning her house. I can assure you that I never feel good about cleaning my house) but forget to focus on the great things. Despite whether I agree or not with her idea of what is good in life, it's a really important message.  So, now that the dust has settled, I'm trying to be more aware of and appreciate all the great things in my life: my family, my friends, the times like this when I'm finally focusing on the kind of writing that I enjoy, the dog that's snoring in my lap, the Christmas tree that we all picked out together a few weeks ago.

In London, everyone sells Christmas trees.  Most of our neighbors get their trees from a Tile store a few blocks away or from the off license corner store.  For a fancier and more expensive tree, people go to the garden center.  After paying more than I'll ever admit for a tree in Hampstead one year, we vowed never to buy a tree in London and every year, rain or shine, whether we feel like it or not, we drive out to Chesham and get our tree from a real, live tree farm.  Not only is it cheaper, but it's a lot more fun!

This year, because we have tall ceilings, we were able to really go crazy and get what we call an "American Style" tree.  After not much deliberation and in the pouring down rain, we picked our big, tall tree, put it on top of our car, and drove it back to London.  We had to trim the top down to make it fit in our living room and we're not sure how we're going to get it out again, but we love it (even if we have to keep it in our living room forever).

But before we drove back, we enjoyed a short country walk and a pub lunch in Amersham, with Aggy, our faithful and beloved, if slightly not house trained beagle. (At some point I'll blog about the trauma of having to rehome Sonny,  our puppy of the previous blog). 

 London at Christmas time is, in some ways, a lot quieter than usual (for instance, I'm thoroughly enjoying sitting in my living room without having to listen to the bass of our neighbors' TV booming through the floor or to the hysterical screaming of the teenaged girl next door, which just reminds me of what my life is going to be like in about six or seven years).  But in Central London, things are in full swing with lights and decorations hanging form the skies and each department store trying to out decorate the next. Selfridge is always a festive destination and this year they had their windows decked out in slightly creepy scenes from Grimms' fairy tales. 

It's been a fun Christmas so far, full of really special and much needed time all together, a lot of food, great friends and smiling, if exhausting little girls. We're lucky to have wonderful friends to share our holidays with, when we're so far away from our own family.  We have also discovered the wonder that is the Winter Pimm's Cup, which adds to the Christmas merry making.  I am of the opinion that traditional (in England) mulled wine tastes like cheap red wine mixed with potpourri, but Winter Pimm's is dangerously delicious.  Here's the recipe:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/889647/winter-pimms-punch

And here I am with Jim, a little happy from drinking a couple of glasses of Winter Pimm's before our annual Christmas get together with some of our dear London friends.

 The girls did not partake in the punch, but were still in the festive spirit!

 Eight little girls enjoyed hot dogs and Christmas crackers in our kitchen.

 While, in the living room the adults (and a leopard) ate Louisiana gumbo, homemade bread, delicious salad, spicy Mauritian red beans, and meringue.

After a feast like that, it was necessary to spend the next day out and about in the fresh air.  Alexandra Palace is the site of the BBC's first public television station.  These days it's got an ice rink, a really depressing pub, and hosts things like 'the world dart championships' or 'Bierfest' or 'The International Tattoo and Body Art Festival.'  It has been taken over by a charity, though, and with Big Lottery Funding they are slowly improving things at the 'people's palace.'

Some of us are very fashionable (not Jim or me, sadly) and it was with our stylish children that we headed to the Ally Pally Farmer's market, which is full of  olives, Mediterranean food,  locally sourced sausages and meat, art and, my favorite, Bokit'la, home of delicious West Indian food and run by three very handsome and friendly men from Guadaloupe. YUM. (I'm talking about the food, obviously).

 Aggy, who came to us from the country, is in her element when there are wide open spaces to run in.

 Evie and Millie are in their element when there is hot chocolate to drink (even if it is from the depressing pub). So Ally Pally is a great place for us! 

Another great: ending a long day with a family movie night, watching the Muppet's family Christmas and snuggled up with a warm and sort of smelly dog.  I love Christmas.

So we got a dog

If you were a reader of this blog in its early days, you might remember the famous (in our circle of friends, at least) Buster Brown.  He was our bow legged, ragged eared, snaggle toothed, food obsessed, questionably behaved adopted beagle.  In the beginning, nothing about Buster was fun or easy.  On the way home from his foster home (where they let him drink their leftover coffee), he expressed his anal glands in my lap.  That was how it all began.

As the weeks went by, Buster destroyed our Venetian blinds in an attempt to launch himself out of the windows every time we left the house without him.  He scratched jagged holes in the doors of our house, trying to escape.  He moved furniture around our living room in (successful) attempts to get to food.  He once ate an entire sheet cake and then vomited it back onto our couch. He bit us. He bit our friends.  He was Houdini-esque in his ability to get out of the back yard and was even known to scale fences and then free-fall to the ground just so he could go sniff under the house.  I have a clear memory of sitting in the dark, on the ground, in the yard,  trying to get him to stop eating the cat poop he had already rolled in and getting bitten for my efforts.  

It gets better!  Recall was a foreign concept to him and I nearly broke my ankle chasing him through the fields on my parents' farm after a lapse in judgement involving letting him walk off the leash.  I have never--before or since--seen a dog head for the hills at such top speeds.  Upon my return from a two week work trip, he ate an entire bottle of ibuprofen that he stole from my purse and then had to spend the next week at the vet having his stomach pumped and being observed.  His kennel had a big sign posted on it that said, 'Cage Jumper'.  He was a great explorer of our trashcan and consumed some things during his time with us that had detrimental effects on his health and well being...and on our bank account.   We spent a lot of money on vet bills. He loathed being dressed up as a hot dog at Halloween.

But it wasn't all bad.  Buster, despite his naughty behavior, lack of training, terrible breath, and codependency, was a great companion and brought us a lot of joy through the years we had him.  He was happiest when we were home and greeted us and the walks that followed our returns from work with great enthusiasm. With a deep and beautiful howl, he would alert us and all of the neighborhood of the presence of a squirrel (usually long gone).  He slept, snoring, next to us in his smelly bed with his smelly, squeaky "Froggy."  When Jim left for London and I stayed in Texas by myself, Buster slept with me on an air mattress on the floor for a couple of weeks.  He howled when my parents drove off with his companions, our two cats, who started their new life on the farm a few weeks before him.  He was a constant source of amusement and a constant presence. I missed him the most when we got to London and I was spending long days in our temporary flat by myself.  I knew he was happy on the farm with my parents, being spoiled beyond belief, but there was a hole in our lives without him.

So here we are again, almost eight years later.  Buster Brown has gone to the proverbial Rainbow Bridge after living his twilight years in his version of heaven on earth and we're starting over with a new, questionably behaved rescue dog: Sonny.  A week into his life with us, he reminds me far too much of his predecessor for me to be able to relax.  Venetian blinds destroyed?  Check.  Desperate attempts to escape accompanied by unrelenting howling?  Check!  Inappropriate growling?  Check.  Already, I'm spending anxious nights wondering what I was thinking getting a puppy (because, let's be honest here.  It was ME who wanted to get another dog.).  And Sonny isn't just any puppy.  He's a rescue puppy from Romania. 

Yes, I adopted a six month old Romanian street puppy who had never seen cars before, had never been around children before, had never lived away from his mom and brothers before, and was, generally, a basket case when we got him.  A week and a bit later, he's fatter, bolder, an amazing sleeper, a ferocious barker and can't be left unsupervised around small children.  He almost will play.  He almost seems to enjoy going for walks.

As a family, we're investing time and energy in this dog, trying to fix the problems that happened before he got to us. We drag him out on his leash for walks when there is traffic, even though he is desperate not to go.  We move slowly and quietly around him so that he doesn't get startled and growl.  The girls help to feed him and walk him.  We shower him with an abundance of praise when he does well and use what we refer to as our 'Buster Brown bad dog voices' when he doesn't. We are careful to only pet him in places that aren't seen as 'dominating' (not on top of his head, not on his back).  There are lots of discussions along the lines of 'the puppy doesn't want you to carry him up to your room' or 'hugs and kisses are nice for people, but not for dogs!'  We are introducing him to friends and neighbors slowly and calmly.  

There is so much psychology involved in having a dog. I sometimes wonder if I should be putting this much effort into my own HUMAN relationships. If I praise my husband lavishly whenever he does things well, might it enhance our marriage and improve our relationship?

Even though I'm feeling haggard and worn out and can't believe how many rolls of paper towels we have used in the past week, Sonny is a lot of fun and to hear my older daughter, who until recently was terrified of dogs, say how much she loves him makes all the trouble worth it.  I hope that as he grows up and comes into his own, he will inspire me like Buster Brown did. Here's to rescue dogs, far and wide!

The good, the bad and the ugly: Muswell Hill

It's been almost two weeks since we moved and we have internet again.  I'm too tired to get up and look for my camera so I can't test whether or not it's 10 times faster than our previous internet...but, really, fast or slow it's nice to have it back!

Our first week here was idyllic.  The garden is in bloom and we weeded and mowed the lawn, bought new plants and enjoyed the sunshine.  The neighbors are friendly and international and we are surrounded by children, who run from garden to garden and play for hours together. Our girls immediately joined the fray and as soon as we open our backdoor in the afternoon their new friends call them out to play.  We have access to beautiful woods and parks.  At night we sleep with the windows open and, except for the occasional car horn or motorcycles off in the distance, it's quiet.

But then...school started again.  This week has been a brutal battle to get out the door, into the car or up the road to the bus with lunch boxes, ballet bags, swimming kit, scooters, sobbing, exhausted children.  On our first school run to Hampstead, we sat in traffic for thirty minutes before I abandoned the car and walked us the rest of the way.  Our second day was spent winding through back roads with the London A-Z in hand, frequently heading in the wrong direction or stopped in our tracks by dead ends or one way roads.  Car sickness forced us, on our third day, to huff up the hill, dragging children on scooters and shoulders to join the private school crew on the 603 bus.  Alas, the 603 bus only runs twice a morning and twice an afternoon and this evening, after ballet, it was up yet another hill to yet another bus, where we spent the next hour and a half in stop and go traffic, three of us crammed into two seats and staring forlornly out of the windows with our lunchboxes, ballet bags, scooter helmets and everything else we could possibly have brought along.  We ran out of snacks.  There was almost an emergency stomach ache situation. Two buses later, when we finally made it home, I actually staggered into the door and nearly just collapsed, face in the now cat pee stained carpet.

All this AND work.

Before I moved across the world, I was a soft, soft person.  London, far away from my family, land of inconvenience and traffic jams and body odor on public transportation and relentless energy and movement, has hardened me.  This is hard.  But I'm tough and I'm going to figure it out.

Lasts

A few minutes ago, as I prepared to take a shower, I did a little jig in the shower room (There is no tub. There is no toilet. There is a shower (and a sink)! Hence: shower room).  'This is the LAST TIME I have to take a shower in this shower room!' I said to myself.  It's not like the shower is completely horrible or even horrible at all. Our landlords renovated it while we were living here so it's high quality and has good water pressure, but, for people of our proportions, it's small.  When I shower, I have to make sure that I don't make any sudden movements or I'll crash into the wall with my elbows.  And forget two people being in there at once.  Over the past five and a half years, Jim and I have gotten into the annoying habit of racing each other into the bathroom. Whoever doesn't get there first stands cursing outside of the door.

Anyway, the small joy I felt at not having to shower in our tiny shower anymore led me to think of other lasts that I'm either looking forward to or not.  Here they are:

This is the last night  we'll sleep under our crazy neighbor. She is loud, she stomps, she is volatile, she has made enemies of everyone in the building (except us. The only reason is because we live under her) and we sometimes have to turn our TV up so that we can hear it over her radio upstairs.  She also has been very nice to our children.  So that redeems her, slightly.  I will still be happy to be the ones doing the stomping in our new house!

The last bath. The girls have lived here their whole lives. I have bathed them since birth in their little (cursed and too small for normal sized human beings) tub. It has been the site of much terror (when they were babies), crazy soap hair styles, bubble blowing, hysterical laughter, tsunami-like splashing and, now, independence.  Evie prefers to give herself a bath these days, but tonight she agreed that I could wash her hair one last time before we move.

The last bedtime. We have a bedtime routine that we've been following for years and tonight was no exception.  After bath and teeth and bathroom, each girl picks a book, we snuggle up in Millie's bed and we read.  Then we kiss and hug and butterfly kiss and squishy kiss and I lie in Millie's bed with her for a few minutes before they go to sleep. It's a nice way for us all to end the day and tonight was the last time we'll have that time in this flat.

This is the last time we'll ever have white tiles and white counter tops (if I have anything to do with it)!  We are four not so compulsive types (and a cat) living in a house with white tiles. They are frequently splattered with food, footprints, cat prints, dirt from the garden and other things that wouldn't show up quite so much if we didn't have white tiles.  Therefore, I rejoice at the thought of the ugly linoleum tiles in our new kitchen.  They might be ugly, but at least you can't see just how filthy they are!

Yesterday was the last time it will be easy for either of us to get to work (in our current jobs).  I am so not looking forward to our new commute that I can't even write about it.

Oh, but despite the small shower and the crazy neighbor and the white tiles, this has been a happy home for us and we're really going to miss it and Hampstead. Tomorrow we'll start fresh in our new house and when we have internet again in a week I'll be able to compare neighbors, showers, bedtimes and bath times.  Stay tuned...

In Boxes..In Pieces

Seven and a half years ago, we moved to London facing many unknowns.  We had left our families,our friends and our pets behind, not knowing if Jim's job would last more than just a few months (a detail he neglected to tell me until AFTER we moved to London).  We were grateful that we were moving to an English speaking country, but despite speaking the same language, we struggled in the beginning to grasp British culture.  We couldn't even figure out how to use the washing machine...and then we couldn't believe that we were expected to dry our clothes on a clothes rack in the damp bathroom upstairs instead of a tumble dryer.  We couldn't understand why they didn't have 'regular' Cheerios and when I made the trek to Asda (the UK's version of Wal-Mart), it took me about fifteen minutes to figure out that I had to put a coin into the shopping cart to get it to detach from the rest of them. THEN I could hardly contain my disappointment that Asda was so NOT like Wal-Mart (seemingly forgetting that I was never a big fan of Wal-Mart in the first place).  We were flummoxed when, on Thanksgiving Day, we couldn't find a turkey OR Crisco (to make biscuits). We missed our families in a painful way and the loss of all of the conveniences and familiarity of the USA--our cars, our one stop shopping, our drive throughs, our giant washers and dryers--seemed almost unbearable.

We couldn't have imagined that, seven and a half years on, we would be so settled and happy in London, with two beautiful little girls and so many supportive and wonderful friends.  We didn't anticipate that we would embrace the culture and love our lives here so much.  We also didn't know how hard it would be to stay here, so far away from our families, with very little help with our busy and energetic children and with demanding jobs.  We didn't know until a year ago that we really wanted to stay here and some days still, when things are particularly inconvenient, we have mini-tantrums about how much easier it would be just to move back home.  And we mean it. And it would be.

After nearly six years in Hampstead, we are moving...but only to a new neighborhood in London.  While our new neighborhood is only a few miles away, transport links are not convenient and we'll likely move the girls to a new school.  Packing up this flat that is so full of memories, where we have lived as a little family for so long, is an emotional process for all of us.  Last night, on our way back from a frustrating visit to Ikea, Millie asked if we were going to our new house and Evie replied, "No Millie..we're going to our home."  This little flat in Hampstead IS our home...the only home that the girls have ever known.

Every time we go to Houston, we drive past our blue house on Peden--the first home that Jim and I shared together in the early years of our marriage.  We usually drive by slowly or stop, hanging out the windows and probably making the house's current residents nervous.  We tell the girls funny stories about our dog Buster and our crazy neighbor from across the street.  We talk about the lady with all the cats and the time Aunt Kate and Marco came for New Years.  We laugh at the things we did and things we saw.  We feel a little wistful about that previous life.

As excited as we are to be moving on to a new chapter in our lives, this house on Thurlow Road in Hampstead will always be a very special place for us and a place that also is full of stories and fun and love.  I'm sure, as time passes, we'll come back and stand on the sidewalk outside, re-living all the happy memories we have of being here.  When the girls are older, we'll remind them that this was their first home and the site of a lot of firsts for us too.

London: Brick Lane and American Mother's Day

 The past few weeks have been marked by a nasty bug, which has made the rounds (sometimes twice) in our house.  Last week I spent the entire week ministering to one child or the other and then to Jim, considering myself lucky to have dodged the bullet myself.  Alas, this morning I too woke up with the family sickness: sore throat, fever, achy back and neck, and drowsiness.

While I lay in bed this morning, the girls pattered back and forth, getting dressed and checking on me.  Evie came in and felt my forehead and, after kissing it (like I do when she is sick) she clucked and said, 'You feel very hot, Mama.'  Then she brought me a piece of bread and supervised while I drank some water.  Millie was less concerned, but no less sweet, snuggling up to me and showing me her outfit for the day.  When they left for school, I went back to sleep and woke up thinking they were standing next to me, looking concerned (They weren't. I just had hallucinatory fever.)

And so, from the sickbed: Mother's Day in London.  Not UK Mother's Day, which happened in March, but the US Mother's Day that I'm always angling for (I strongly believe that I should get TWO Mother's Days. Jim thinks this is Mother's Day overkill).  This year, with so much going on in our lives, I decided that I didn't have the energy for our annual American Mother's Day argument. 

It's been a few years since we've been down to Brick Lane and the Sunday Upmarket and we are both in the market for a bike.  Having heard that cheap bikes could be had in the Brick Lane Market, we wanted to check it out (Side note: said bikes are clearly stolen bikes so, despite their enticing prices we were too moral to actually buy any). 

Shoreditch in East London is vibrant and artsy and trendy, full of hipsters and artists and funky people much younger and out there than we are.  There are lots of galleries, and vintage stores, in addition to the fun markets that happen on Sundays. 

After wandering past an amazing looking (and cheap) fruit and veg market, we stumbled on some live music a la Adele.  They were just warming up, but the girls settled right in and ate the complimentary dried pineapple snacks that were on the chairs.

 Post musical interlude, we finally made our way to Brick Lane Market, which sprawls through several parking lots/car parks.  In addition to the stolen bikes there were all kinds of toiletries, some slightly musty looking clothing, wires of all sort, various computers, cameras, chintzy jewelry and other 'bric a brac.' The girls tried to convince us to buy them each a junky ceramic animal figurine, but the 1 pound price for each was just too steep.  Our feeling about the Brick Lane Market, despite it being amusing and fun to visit, was that it is pretty seedy and also that it should be the first place you look for any of your stolen goods!

 Further on, we encountered a second hand clothing shop that was having a 'super rad' sale.  They were playing fun music and had an LSU baseball shirt hanging in their window, so we knew it was a quality place.  Or at least a good place to play dress up for a few minutes:

 And if you ever desire some colorful, Indian shoes, Brick Lane is the place to go!  I love them.

 Next stop, obviously, was lunch!  Since the last time we were at the Sunday Upmarket, the food options have expanded, with three or four food halls filled with all kinds of international street food.  We got there on the early side of the lunch rush, but our chosen food hall was still bustling with hungry people trying to decide between so many tempting culinary options. Usually there isn't anywhere to sit, but we managed to squeeze ourselves into the end of a picnic table, which we shared with a French family. I was beyond happy with my delicious vegetarian Ethiopian Food:

 Jim got something Mediterranean, after deciding not to chance Mexican food (wise, I think) and the girls enjoyed South African hot dogs followed by homemade caramel ice cream.  Delicious and always the highlight of their day!

Post lunch, our next stop was Jim's choice: Rough Trade Records, which has the biggest selection of music in London (or something like that).  Rough Trade Records with two small children is probably not the record shop experience Jim was hoping for.  I think, in an ideal world, he would have liked to have wandered through for hours, exploring the new artists, finding vintage Cure vinyls that he wouldn't be able to play because we don't have a record player, listening to music on really awesome and outrageously expensive headphones...

 But, instead, he got a brief jaunt through the store, chasing after one girl while I chased after the other, followed by a very exciting trip to the Rough Trade Records Bathroom!  Where, to Millie's glee, she could write on the walls with abandon! (unfortunately, she seems to think, since having this exciting experience, that she also can write on OUR walls with abandon. We're working on that).

  (I know, Mom, "Fools names and fools faces, etc. etc.")

We spent about half an hour in the bathroom so that everyone could get their fill of writing on the walls, then we headed to the Upmarket (outside of which was the self-proclaimed 'Home of Meat Porn.'  Whatever that means.  We call it Brisket and Burgers where I come from.)

 Recently, I have been taking advantage of my children by having them give me foot massages.  They get really excited about it because they get to use my usually forbidden cream and they can pretend to be the spa ladies. This is not child labor because then I give them foot massages too (but Millie is too ticklish so she kind of gets the short end of the stick).  Evie LOVES to have a massage, so as soon as she saw the chair massages at the Upmarket there was no stopping her.  She and I each enjoyed a 7 minute chair massage that actually was very nice and relaxing.  Jim and Millie looked at us like we were crazy and wandered off for the duration of the 7 minutes.

 Other highlights of the Sunday Upmarket included:  Sunglasses

 Dancing

 And a guy playing a wooden tenor sax.

 Back at home, I changed into my pajamas at about 3:30, expecting a long afternoon of relaxing, but my beloved children and husband had other ideas.  It was time for the Mother's Day Restaurant to open and the dress was 'cocktail.'  So I donned my finest little black dress (which I was pleasantly surprised to fit into. When so many months--err years--go by without an opportunity to dress up, you just never know!)

 My waitress took my order (Wine, main course, and an apple for dessert)

 The table was neatly set with beautiful flowers from Jim's garden:

The chef was slaving away in the kitchen, but he took a break to come and dance with us at our New Orleans jazz themed dance party.

 And then I found my Sudoku book, which is always all consuming (and a good way to kill time when waiting for your main course to arrive).

 Rose attempted to join us for  my Mother's Day meal too.

 The waitress served up the delicious main course: buckwheat pasta with vegetables and shrimp and salmon and an Asian inspired sauce.

And this is a rare shot of Millie actually eating her dinner (although I think she only ate about three bites):

 It was a good American Mother's Day and I'm a lucky mama to love and be so loved by these beautiful little girls and their sweet daddy.  Looking forward to all the Mother's Days to come!  And now, back to bed...