Fall Days

Well, it was blustery today with a mix of clouds and sun, but other than that we are having a sparkling, crisp autumn (sounds like a description of white wine). I am on a two-day headache, possibly thanks to the new vanilla candles in the living room...or the weather change, I haven't figured out which yet.

Speaking of wine, roomie and I finished a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon last night along with our dinner. No, we don't eat together every day. Maybe once a week at the most, but this was the first home cooked meal of the season: chicken breast tenderized in buttermilk for an hour, coated with flour and egg and topped with ground pistachio and cumin; farmer's market fresh French beans sauteed in butter and salt; finally, garlic couscous (the only thing I managed to do while I waited for the Advil to ease the headache).

And...this morning before going to work this afternoon, roomie made buttermilk pancakes.
All of which only highlight the fact that I need to get back into cooking!!! I did make a few nice salads to share in the summer, but that was really it. I haven't done anything notable in over a year since my mother started living with me, taking over the kitchen domain while I went to work. My landlord in St John's Wood used to call me a foodie. Ah, the days when I used to cook for myself - and shop at Waitrose ;)

But - there is all manner of wonderful fresh markets and gourmet shops in Brooklyn, so I have no excuse!

**********


Heritage Ships docked at Pier 17

**********

I know you're not seeing all the new US series over in the UK, but here is my favorite viewing list this year:

Faves from previous seasons:

Pushing Daisies - I enjoy the witty dialogue and the Amelie-style narrative, as well as the vivid fairytale settings and the general air of innocence that pervades the show. However, Chuck needs to stop wearing trousers and get back into those sweet dresses. And Ned is adorable.

Ugly Betty - I am now attached to the characters and their stories, but if I hadn't watched it from day one, I probably wouldn't get into it now. Have just surprised myself by admitting this, but it has indeed lost some of its sparkle.

House - performing forensic research on living medical mysteries always holds my attention. Hugh Laurie is so good that the grumpy Dr House has completely dissociated him from the bumbling Bertie Wooster I used to love.

Criminal Minds - performing psychological forensics on current criminal cases always holds my attention. I also enjoy watching the team's camaraderie and hearing the high-minded quotes before and after each show.

Grey's Anatomy - once again, I am attached to the characters, their stories, their relationships, and can honestly say that if I hadn't watched it from day one I probably would still get into it. I envy some of their camaraderie too.

Family Guy - Stewie and Brian make me laugh :)


Popular shows I am now getting into:

Desperate Housewives - excellent dialogue, though I haven't figured everyone's story out yet. Also, the houses and the street are sooooooooo pretty!

New Hits:

Fringe - oh my gosh! Since X-Files reruns now feel dated and I miss Mulder and Scully, I needed something to fill the X-Files-shaped void in my soul ;) Absolutely riveting, it keeps me on the edge of my seat, holding my breath. Agent Olivia Dunham (nice name) is so real and natural, she has none of the "I'm too sexy for my face" vibe that oozes painfully from the women on, say, CSI - Dunham's perplexity over the mystery she is constantly surrounded by balances well with how her abilities as an investigator continually shine through. (Sort of like writing a research paper on a topic you don't understand, and getting an A for it...) And we ALL want her to fall in love with Peter Bishop (and no, I did not watch Dawson's Creek so am not biased). Oh, and Dr Bishop's lines are PRICELESS. I love that poor old brainiac.

True Blood - enjoying the southern setting (two kids in Dallas once thought my chicken, Silky, was actually called Sookie). The characters are quickly appealling so I watch to see how they develop. Plus, Bill Compton is hot and brooding, and yes, the actor is yet another British import to American TV.

The Ex List - I don't like the protagonist because I don't like her face and to me she is still th e deplorable Rebecca who went bonkers in Grey's last month while pretending to carry Karev's child. But I am watching it to see the ex in each episode, what they were like before, what they are now, and how utterly hunky they are. This is set in the sun-drenched surfing city of San Diego, you see.

Eleventh Hour - Rufus Sewell makes good on this side of the Atlantic, I hope. His character is so brainy and absent minded, and his voice is very calming. I saw the British original with Patrick Stewart (who, if not in Shakespeare belongs only on the bridge of the USS Enterprise). His police companion (Christine from Ugly Betty) has no protective skills whatsoever - until she introduced herself as such, I thought she was just some blonde woman who hung around behind him screaming every time someone threatened her! On the other hand, Sewell's FBI bodyguard goes over the top waving her gun around - yet, this show's characters are more clearly developed/defined.

Life on Mars (US) - I did see the UK version and it was well done. The US version is even better. I love the 70s music, and Tyler's frustration with the "old ways" is palpable. Every time he throws up his hands or rolls his eyes, I want to giggle. Plus, he's pretty fit. I like how Annie is not just the token female auxiliary officer who believes his story but here she holds a Psych degree from Fordham and today would have made an excellent partner for Tyler. I like that he tries to highlight how relevant her education is to their cases, to the disdain of the chauvinistic guidos in Homicide.

**********

Even though I sound like a TV Guide review, I do still watch programming on Discovery, TLC, Science Channel, etc. For instance, on Sunday I watched a good one listing the Top Ten Warplanes. What do you think was on the list? Guess which was number one?

Happy Easter

Happy Easter...
Joyeux Paques...
Christos Anesti...

...and all that...am not really observing it this year, unfortunately.

Have you noticed how freezing it is in the UK this weekend? We pretty much had a sleet blizzard on and off all day. Brrrrrrr. It's the kind of damp and pervasive English cold that attacks any part of you that's not under the hot shower and gives you cold shoulders, nose and toes in the house.

Good thing Monday is a holiday (as was Friday).

**********

What you see below is my light ball being reflected on the underside of the one-piece lamp. Occasionally I like to gawk at the light ball for a few minutes before falling asleep. This particular effect, though, captivated me the other night as soon as I switched the lamp off.

It kind of looks like pop art doesn't it? Who knew, me doing pop art? I know! Oof...

Wild Child

Thursday, though he didn't get off work as early as he'd hoped, American Boy did still take me to dinner in Chinatown. He did not like sending me home past midnight in the bus, and always pays the taxi fare.

So there I was yesterday thinking we'd meet at around 7 for dinner on Friday. However, mid afternoon he called to ask if I'd be ok getting off work at 5 or 5.30. I was fine with that. At 4.30 I got a text saying to meet him now! So, at 4.35, I walked out of the office - that was clever, giving me a double fare yesterday in anticipation of today. He was already at the restaurant - Tuttons, where we had been last week at the opera. When I asked how he had managed to get out of the office so early, he said he'd "just up and left". We sat at the bar with drinks and olives until our 5.30 table reservation came up with a nice view over the square. He doesn't really like olives and fed them to me, so when I said he should have mentioned that when the barman gave me a choice of munchies, he said it was alright because if I'm happy he's happy. How cute is that?

When we got our table, he ordered wine and a plat de charcuterie; I guess his German side rules there. W & his wife O were nearly an hour late, so I was already nicely mellow by then. R said they were lovely, and they were; very sweet, slightly shy, with an air of innocence (though R says W has a raunchy sense of humour - well, don't all military boys when they are together?); a nice couple. I had ricotta and sweet potato tortellini, R had rare tuna steak, O had grilled sea bass, and W had pork loin. They enjoyed the food and O filled out a comments card. When it came to dessert, only we girls ordered, which is the wrong way round, isn't it? I had a brownie with ice cream and she had a sticky toffee pudding and licked the plate clean, whereas I, having had a head start on the eating with the charcuterie plate, halted halfway through and remained full for hours afterwards.

Covent Garden was unusually dead for a Friday night, and that was definitely not because a few thousand people had gone off to Glastonbury...and surely not because there was a bit of rain. Where were the tourists? We were at a loss as to what to do - W was sure he would fall asleep if he sat down at a show or the cinema, so we stopped in a very pretty pub with high ceilings and amazing plaster friezes along the ceilings. O and I sat on a very high, slippery banquette and the only thing keeping us on it was the fact that we were leaning on the table. At first when we sat, a group of 3 guys oohed and aahed at us until W and R came back with their beers.

As we walked up the road with the boys holding the umbrellas, I backchatted R, and we got into a scuffle in which he lifted me up and I whacked him with my jacket. O and W, walking behind, threatened to report domestic violence. :)

Then we parted ways and R took me to a casino, the wicked boy. A nice one with no tourists, and a jazz singer. It was the first time I've ever used my Texas drivers license as ID in this country. What would I have used otherwise???

Anyway, we ordered G&Ts and found a blackjack table for about an hour and won a bit. When W called to say that Glastonbury was live on TV, R actually made me answer the phone which discombobulated both W and me for a couple of seconds! I rarely answer other people's phones. I was somewhat out of it for about an hour or so also, because I really had eaten too much and was unpleasantly stuffed and slightly queasy.

After blackjack we moved to poker. I have played blackjack before in the past at a spring formal but with no money: we were given an allotted number of free chips and I won an imaginary $40,000. By the time we got to the poker table, I was coming back to myself, but have never been able to grasp the concept of poker. So R tried to teach me with utmost patience because although I began to get it after a while, sort of, I think I am a hopeless case. He was impressed that I kept us going for a couple of hours though. It's nice winning on someone else's money. He cashed in the chips and gave me a cut, and forced me to admit that I found it "vaguely interesting" because he noticed the point at which I got this look of concentration on my face...

Good lord have mercy, the boy is just a bundle of mischief and really keeps me on my rusty old toes. And he wants to know why he gets so many dark looks shot his way?!

So anyway, I have won £50. What should I do with it???

P.S. I have a headache.

Not neglecting you

Very odd. Someone in France Googled these two words: gilgamesh olivia. I doubt that those two words have been placed together before.

Do you ever wonder sometimes...?
Who is out there looking for what, and did they mean to find you? And if not, then what?

**********

Oh, and the Queen's state visit to America. Interesting that the last time she visited, G H W Bush was president, and now she has chosen to visit his son. Not the next president next year or the year after, but this one.

**********

At work I helped run an event on Tuesday at the Royal National Theatre hosted by an artist having a conversation with a government minister's secretary about art and climate change. Hope I don't get googled for this one. Then today it was an international project board, but my attention wandered throughout, even though I had to take notes. I found myself looking at the features and accents and matching them with the names on the list that I hadn't caught at the beginning. People from the offices oop north were very different from we southerners - and everyone in the room was British, and 90% were white.

So by today I am tired. It was interested to see that of all the sandwiches made to feed 55 people at the Theatre event, not one slice of white bread was to be found. All brown. The sandwiches at the meeting today were only white flour because they were soft Italian buns.

The rest of this week ought to be quiet, but fortunately we got the two events out of the way as the rest of this week will rain. It started when I was on my way back to the national office from the meeting today at the London office. It's a good space, but something annoyed me. Every entry and exit door could only be opened by pressing a big metal plate in the wall. Disability accessibility. This org is very PC and have taken it to the max in this building, which is in a very nice modernised warehouse, so you get brick arches set at random in walls. The office I am in, the same doors just open automatically.

There was a puzzling feature in the meeting room we used. Under a skylight, painted on the white wall in big colourful letters were the words:

Women:
search all over the building
dressed as

Then followed the names of 5 notables, one of whom was Salvador Dali. I have forgotten the rest, though only one was unfamiliar.
And below each name hung a costume on a hanger, looking much like what each might have been found wearing.
Dali's was a purple silk jacket over an embroidered floral waistcoat. I could very easily see him and his little moustachio in it. I am pretty sure another was Ernest Hemingway because I remember a woollen cable fisherman's jumper under an oiled canvas coat.

**********


Oh, what I did on Saturday, the only decent day out of the whole 3-day weekend: Went to Woodland Wonders, the country fair at Kew Gardens.

Katja blogged about it here.

Maybe I will tell you about it tomorrow...but here is a teaser:

Walk Emperor March

Hey, remember what I said yesterday about walking in the springtime?

Vanessa sent me a link to an article: Bored? Lonely? Take a Walk, by Garrison Keillor, he of Lake Wobegon Days fame on America's National Public Radio. Even if you are British, you will know his gently rumbling voice from the Honda ads, yes indeed!

**********

She also sent me this hilariously wicked French Canal+ TV ad: