Revolution Number Nine

...or twenty, as the case may be. Either way, the (currently) mystical nine-mile mark has eluded me on my last two attempts.

In case it isn't patently obvious, I'm a Type A, probably with a good old-fashioned case of OCD. When I want something to happen, I generally make it happen. This can have either good or disastrous results, as those who hung out with me on Australia tour may recall.

I've been seriously trying to run for the last month. The 10K was over a week ago, my feet have healed significantly, and my arches no longer require five layers of padding in my new shoes. These are good things. The bad thing is that I saw how quickly the 10K training went, then looked ahead to the half-marathon in February and thought, "Hmm...I can add a mile a week."

Ha.

Eight was tough, but possible; I did it the day after Vulcan and limped my merry way home. Nine, as mentioned above, has presented something of a challenge.

My usual routine is to run the mile (mostly downhill) to the lake, then run laps as needed while dodging seniors, dogs, cars, angry geese, and the aforementioned geese's poo. The lake being 0.4 miles around, it's 2.5 laps to the mile, or twenty laps to eight miles, the bit I needed to tack on to make the weekly goal.

My first attempt on Sunday afternoon failed miserably. I managed about two miles before my sides began cramping, a bad experience but one that taught me a valuable lesson: never eat a bowl of chili and cornbread, no matter how good it is, and try to go for a long run. Determined not to let a little thing like chili stop me, I set my alarm for 5:30 AM and forced myself out of my nice, warm bed this morning for the second attempt.

The temperature was pleasantly crisp and the sun not yet up when I left the house, but sunrise over the lake dawned with lots of pink, fluffy clouds, and I started to settle in on my standard ten-minute pace as the geese waddled off for breakfast on the golf course. I pushed through six miles with no problem, trying to psych myself up for another 7.5 laps, and started ticking them off backwards: "7 to go...6.5...6 at the stop sign..."

After lap sixteen, with only four to go, the end in sight...well, there's no other way to put it: I crapped out. Exhausted and thirsty, sweatshirt around my waist, t-shirt soaked, I walked the remainder of the lap, hoping for a sudden burst of energy. As the seventeenth ended, I felt better, so I geared up and took off again.

I doubt it's a good thing when one feels weightless while running. Lap eighteen was the final straw, and I called it a morning before I did something silly, like collapse and be pecked to death by disgruntled European geese. I trudged the mile home wearing the wet sweatshirt for warmth, and briefly considered trying again Tuesday morning.

Then I thought better of it. The thing I have to remind myself sometimes is that I don't have to stick unbendingly to the plan if it means I'll kill myself in the process. This is the sort of thinking that leads to eating a pack of sugar-free gum a day and counting the calories, and believe me, that's not a happy place in which to find oneself.

I'm hoping to hit nine after I return from Yale this weekend - not ten, as I had planned, but perhaps nine. After a three-leg plane trip, I'll probably want the run. Then again, I'll actually bring water with me, for once...

Fun with sopranos

Thanks to Greg, who told me about this kid...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8738136903695419006

All I can say is that he's going to be very sad when his voice drops, and even sadder ten years from now.

Duck problems

Today was a bit on the long, draining side, as I had my five Southern Progress intern interviews to get through. Most were quite pleasant, though one required a surprise edit test. Ah, the joys of editorial...

On my run this morning, I noticed something odd on the sidewalk around the lake, and so I stopped for a closer look after the next lap. Turns out that a pair of rather silly ducks have decided to build a nest, half-dozen eggs and all, in the middle of the sidewalk. This doesn't seem to be the most sensible choice; ducks tend to build in the saw grass (or whatever those prickly bushes are), where nothing can get to them, but this nest is exposed to every jogger and dog who passes by. Considering that I found a duck with its head chewed off only last week, I doubt these eggs are going to see hatching day.

Tonight, Sarah Louise hosted an impromptu House party, delicious cheese dip and all. This was followed by The Office, which I had yet to watch until tonight. Not bad at all.

Monday

Ugh.

Today was fairly non-thrilling - the most exciting thing I did all day was exchange the contents of my dresser for those of the cedar chest - and I was really looking forward to choir. Unfortunately, we switched into concert seating tonight, meaning our chairs were close and our seats were assigned.

As one of our leaders reminded us, when we're sitting next to new people, we feel this instinctive urge to prove that we can sing, and so we blast, thereby sending all nuances of tempo (and rhythm, and diction, and pitch) out the window. Sitting around new people, getting warmer by the minute, and still trying to sightread chunks of Messiah wasn't doing much for me, and apparently our sound was terribly off tonight. At one point, we were having issues with tempo, and several of us in the alto section, myself included, did the habitual thing - we tapped along, trying to keep a rhythm. The director then chewed us out for tapping (or, okay, stomping in places), and started freaking out because Messiah wasn't happening. We had all calmed down somewhat by the end of rehearsal, but this week's wasn't nearly as satisfying as last week's rehearsal. At least now I have the list of what movements we're singing, so I can sit at the piano and bang out notes until I have this sucker cold.

I can't help being one of the few people in the choir who's never sung Messiah. The Sing-In sight reading bonanza doesn't count.

Tomorrow, it's up bright and early for a good old-fashioned 6:30 AM run, then off to Southern Progress for my five internship interviews. Fingers crossed...

Long weekend

I'm not sure where this weekend went, but I know I spent a good deal of it running around or waiting to run around, and now I have sore feet. Lately, though, that's nothing new.

The exciting bit of news for me today was finding the results from Vulcan, as both their site and the BTC's have been down over the weekend. I knew I wasn't in the top 200 women, seeing as my name wasn't in the paper this morning, but I was 321st (of 897) in the women's category, and 30th (of 91) in the women 20-24 group. The good news is that I beat the 70-year-old woman's time. The less good, however, is that my 9:14 split isn't going to win prizes any time soon. That's okay - this race was about finishing, and I ran the 10K in 57:20, definitely a personal best for me. 1,074th of 1,989 isn't too bad for a beginner. Besides, the insanely fast Kenyans had this thing licked before we ever began.

To celebrate, Mom bought me a Vulcan windbreaker yesterday, which I assume is going to get quite a bit of mileage in the next few months, since it fits me better and draws fewer stares than does my Yale Archery jacket. The next big race is the Mercedes half-marathon in February, which is slightly more than double a 10K, and I've got less than 14 weeks to train.

I ran eight miles today. There was no commemorative jacket, but hey, Mercedes promises a finisher's medal that's shaped like a heavy version of the hood ornament. What more could a girl ask for? (Besides more blister pads, I mean...)

Halloween

This Halloween was quite different from last year's "Tuxedos and Blood" party, but hey, it was warm. I wore a coat over jeans and was actually warm outside. This hasn't happened for the last five years, and all things considered, it was a pleasant change of affairs.

Halloween actually began around 4 AM, when I got up to go run the course for Saturday with Rosanna's running group. Unlike most of the runners, I was able to go home afterwards, shower, and crash. Around 10:30, I got up and went to Homewood to pick up my runner's packet, and some random guy actually wished me luck. Aww...

The evening began with my friend Roy at Birmingham-Southern's Halloween party. Neither of us quite realized that the party was really only for kids, but that was alright; if we had been their age, it would have been awesome. As it was, we had fun watching the frat brothers get pied and the kids digging for bones, and then Chinese food sounded really good...

An hour and entirely too much dinner later, we drove over to Sarah Louise's apartment for "Non-scary Scary Movie Night", featuring Scream and The Craft. Besides two cheesy-wonderful movies, the seven of us gathered were also treated to Sarah Louise's amazing spread of goodies, including caramel apples, cider, homemade crayfish dip, and two kinds of popcorn with decorative rubber snakes inside the boxes. Not that I could eat much after dinner, but I tried...hey, "snake fighting" takes it out of you, right?

Prepping for Vulcan

With less than four days to go before the 10K, I'm going to run the course for the first time tomorrow morning.

At 5:30 AM.

At least Rosanna will be there to keep me going, and possibly keep me conscious.

In the meanwhile, I'm watching It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown for the umpteenth time and babying my feet, which are a little angry with me at the moment. I got a new pair of tennis shoes last Sunday. While it's possibly not the best idea to try to break in shoes before a race, the shoes have arch supports, which do wonders for my knees. Said arch supports also produce new blisters, however, so I've invested in several products and I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Weekend happiness

Much goodness has happened in the last few days...

1) Sloss Fright Furnaces is fun, if slightly overpriced at $15 (plus $3 for parking, sheesh!). My friend Roy and I checked it out, and he led our group of us and four idiot girls from the sticks ("Oh my God, y'all, I'm seriously about to pee myself...") through the former blast furnace, where we used to have our May Festival back during grade school. Take away the games and the hot dogs, and Sloss is a decently freaky, possibly haunted, place. What was great was getting separated and cornered by the guy with the chainsaw, and after a few minutes of half-heartedly screaming in an effort to make him let me by, the following exchange occurred:

Him (growling): Are you lost?
Me: Uh, yes.
Him: [points with chainsaw] That way.
Me: Thanks.
Him: I'm going to kill you and poop in your mouth.
Me: You have a good one...

2) I saw Phantom of the Opera with another Phantom fan, Dennis, last night. As in 2000, when it last came through, Phantom was excellent; the set dressing was perfect, and the Phantom, who played Raoul last time, was spot-on. The only downer to the show was Christine - her voice is lovely, but her vowels were far too American.

3) I just discovered that BBC America, channel 100 on my parents' cable, has reruns of Bargain Hunt, Cash in the Attic, How Clean is Your House, and You Are What You Eat. I'm stoked.

4) Ran 7 miles for the first time yesterday, with a mile-long walk home. Then I took the dog for a mile walk, which made a nice afternoon touch. This morning, I tried the Lakeshore trail for the first time, and the five-mile round-trip run is quite nice. One week until Vulcan...

5) Tonight - pumpkin carving!

Mindless Fun

Thanks to MSN, I stumbled upon an amazing little site today. If you haven't seen it yet, go to The Institute of Official Cheer and take a look around. Then scroll halfway down the page to the "Gallery of Regrettable Food" and look for some of these gems:

For the aforementioned Jello-O entree, look at the left-hand side of this next picture...

Yes, that's meat in that gelatin, and man, if that isn't appetizing, I don't know what is. And what's more, the site's author has a book of these pictures, with commentary! Seriously, visit the site. It's awesome.

It's Sunday already?

This weekend has been a tad on the hectic side.

Thursday was my long day, but culminated in a private reception for the Pompeii exhibit at the Museum of Art. If you're in the Birmingham area between now and February, I highly recommend it - they even brought some of the original plaster casts of the body cavities.

On Friday, I had a meeting downtown at 8:30, then dashed home to go to Atlanta with my parents for the NATAS Silver Circle award dinner that night. Though we were in good time, most of our table (and the other guests) were delayed by the typical Atlanta Friday traffic, which sadly included a wreck that killed the driver and her two-year-old. On a much more pleasant note, Mom had her induction, the three-minute video went off without a hitch, and there was much dabbing at the eyes. Mom's was the only video to include congratulations from a governor, but the one that had the most laughs was for Bill Chapman of Turner, whose art department tweaked the old Batman cartoon intro to include his former blond mullet, then had "interview" clips with Harvey Birdman. Then again, almost everyone being inducted had a few laughs, as some of the wardrobe and hair decisions made in the '70s and '80s were scary at best. Think Anchorman, people.

Yesterday was the drive home, and then I went to Jen's birthday party at Sarah Louise's apartment last night, where it turned out that a second person was celebrating a birthday as well. Sarah Louise is the consummate hostess, and those of us chatting in the kitchen wondered how she got so many matching dishes and forks. The birthday cake had a spiderweb and spider on top, and party favors were served in "Boo Y'all!" cups. Adorable. Afterwards, we headed downtown for karaoke, which was fun but for the fact that Birmingham still permits smoking in bars. My shirt and purse are airing outside today, as I would really rather not take the shirt to the dry cleaners, and I had to shower when I came in at 1 AM, since I refuse to go to bed smelling like an ashtray.

Sunday school began the day today, and then I strapped on my new knee brace and went for another 10K jog around the lake. After the walk home, when I realized I was dehydrated and probably overheating, I downed a liter of water and a cup of shrimp and grits (don't knock it until you've tried it), then showered again to get the dried salt off and crashed for an hour and a half. I'm now going to attempt to write a piece on plum in women's fashion this fall. My family continues to mock me.

Insanity continues

Today, for the very first time, I ran 6.2 miles, mostly around the lake. Then I limped the mile uphill home for good measure. I'm now convinced that Tylenol and moleskin are two of mankind's greatest inventions, and that the 80 or so people who run the Badwater Ultramarathon are both incredibly tough and incredibly crazy. (Check it out.)

The afternoon was spent going to and from a brief meeting with the president of the local PRSA chapter, which is only a precursor to tomorrow's schedule:

10:00 Meeting at Gus Mayer for freelance piece
13:00 Lunch and potential job discussion
14:30 Meeting at O2 Ideas
18:00 Pompeii exhibit with a friend

And then Friday...

08:30 Meeting at Cox Radio
10:00 Leave for Atlanta and Mom's Silver Circle Award dinner

Somewhere between now and Monday, I'm hoping to write a piece and get in a few more runs. We shall see what, if anything, happens.

Possibly insane

It's official. I, the fat kid of the 40-minute mile, am registered for my very first 10K.

I really had no plans to do this, but after running with Rosanna and seeing what pacing is all about, I think this just might be possible. I've been slowing down this week (no mean feat with the dog on my arm), and I did 4.4 miles this morning without feeling like I wanted to collapse in the street. Fortunately for my training purposes, Star Lake's one mile away and nearly flat, so the worst bit of the run is that last mile home, which is mostly uphill. I love this neighborhood.

A 10K is 6.2 miles, so I have a little ways to go, but the race isn't until November 3, a whopping 17 days away. Still, Rosanna, who has been training properly, did her first 6-mile run this morning. Time to play catch-up...

Vicksburg

This weekend, I had the pleasure of heading out to Vicksburg with Rosanna, Sarah Louise, Sarah, and Jen. Rosanna's parents were kind enough to host me, and between them and Sarah Louise's parents, let's just say that the five of us ate very well. Thankfully, Rosanna's in training for the Vulcan 10K, and after a four-mile run, I felt slightly less guilty about potato casserole and lemon tart.

Vicksburg is a former port city known for being besieged by the Union, and its many antebellum homes are testament to its 19th-century prominence. As the Pilgrimage is currently ongoing, we were able to tour some of these homes. First up was Anchuca, now a B&B and restaurant, where we had a lovely luncheon (including a piece of "bonzo" cake split five ways) and walked around the grounds.

After lunch, we headed to Cedar Grove, a former plantation home that's now also a B&B and restaurant. For $6 each, we were given a print-out of the self tour, which was so poorly written that Jen, who works on the copy desk, threatened to pull out her red pen and send them the revised draft. Cedar Grove is actually quite nice, and still has a cannonball embedded in one wall from the siege.

We also had time to take in downtown Vicksburg's Homewood-esque row of shops, where Rosanna and Sarah Louise were accosted by nearly all the sales staff and forced to explain that they were only home for the weekend. Our shopping turned into the puppy tour of Vicksburg, however, as many of the stores we visited had at least one resident dog. A ceramics studio, for instance, had both a tiny dog that wanted no part of us and an overly friendly Husky who just wanted affection. One store did make me laugh - Crown to Heels is a boutique-cum-gown rental-cum-tanning salon owned by a longtime pageant contestant, and the store is decorated with her crowns, trophies, banners, and portraits. World peace, indeed.

Rosanna's parents have their own shuffleboard court, so we discovered the joys of cruise ship athletics and pushed the pucks around on Saturday night as we learned about the Gages' local problem wildlife - deer, raccoons, beavers, and an alligator, who, as her father later suggested, might be keeping the beaver population under control. After dinner, the girls graciously agreed to watch Hot Fuzz instead of Mansfield Park, which may have been a poor choice as all four of them fell asleep at one point during the movie and woke to the prolonged shootout and an understandable bit of confusion.

After an extravagant Sunday lunch, we headed back to Birmingham, and Rosanna came across a book on tape that she had yet to finish. With four hours ahead of us, we settled back with Lipstick Jungle, a steamy romp by the author of Sex and The City that made me laugh. One Amazon reviewer wished there were a rating below one star for this particular stinker, but still, the time passed quickly enough as we listened. Sadly, we were never able to finish it, though Rosanna did offer me the CDs...

No. I'm not that desperate to find out how Nico's tryst with the male model ended.

Movie night

Man, I miss college.

Birmingham-Southern offered a free movie night tonight for those students wishing to see The Kingdom, so thanks to my intrepid friend Roy, we got in on BSC's nickel. Aside from the kids chatting in the back row during the climax of the film, the evening was quite nice. The movie's great, much better than I'd thought it would be, as I tend to catch a glimpse of helicopters and run toward another selection. There's just enough violence without being gratuitous, and the ending is appropriate without being overly patriotic or sentimental. Certainly worth the money we paid for it, if not more...

It's always fun to rehash high school, now that we're safely past it, and Roy's stories are so much better than mine. At least we could agree that physics was a subject of some concern and that Mr. Fleming's just about the coolest guy ever.

Tomorrow begins Girls' Weekend in Vicksburg, and I am so psyched for a road trip. It's also Northwestern's homecoming weekend, and not only does Jen get to ride on a float, she gets to ride on a float in a parade led by Clinton Kelly of What Not to Wear fame. I wonder if the stuffed eagle ever arrived...

Job search, continued

No employment yet, but I've begun to make a few contacts. Southern Progress is even allowing me to apply for a January-start internship past the deadline, so there may be hope for me yet!

In the meanwhile, my official job title is Go-fer. At least I'm able to run errands and be somewhat productive. Today, I had an impromptu trip downtown to pick up a pair of my mother's shoes, since the person who dropped them off is running mad with a trunk show. Seeing as I still can't parallel park, going downtown is always an adventure.

And now, Gordon Ramsay is teaching this poor slob how to box and run a restaurant. I'm loving Kitchen Nightmares.

Columbus Day

Since I haven't had this holiday off since grade school, I completely forgot about Columbus Day until my dad told me we didn't have to play car shuffle last night. Of course, it's not exactly a holiday for me, seeing as I don't actually work, but but it's still nice to have someone else around the house besides the dog.

Speaking of whom, Callie is currently resting under the recliner, having realized that I've thrown her three new squeaky balls as much as I'm going to for the next few hours and that my laptop is inedible. She's quite content - she's had a morning walk, a three-mile promenade, a nap, a delicious snack of cardboard paper towel roll, part of my plum, bits of Raisin Nut Bran, and rice pudding. Amazing.

The thing you forget when you're not constantly around them is that dogs are the easiest creatures on the planet to please. The world may be going to hell, and all she wants is for me to toss a plastic ball down the backyard a few dozen times. At least something is simple.

Shiny things

I confess, I have a weakness for shiny things. It all began at the tender age of six, when, while vacationing at the Grand Canyon, my eye was taken by a ring that consisted of a steel band and a blue rock with wiggly eyes upon it. That thing was beautiful, no matter what my parents thought, and I wore it with pride for some time.

I like to think my tastes have matured somewhat since then, but like a moth to a bug zapper, I continue to find myself inevitably drawn toward jewelry counters wherever I go. Consequently, I've amassed a collection of accessories of varying quality from choir tour stops across the globe, from a gold and garnet necklace from Prague, to a particularly fetching pair of turquoise earrings with dangling gold feathers from the Little America Motel in Flagstaff, Arizona, to a dolphin-shaped bone pendant bought on the plane between Brisbane and Fiji (just so I'd have a souvenir). With quite a bit of assistance from my parents, I've also managed to pick up strands of black and white pearls, three opal necklaces, diamonds, emeralds, and one of my latest finds, a necklace and earrings in apatite, a blue-green stone usually reserved for industrial purposes.

What? It was fair trade...

While shoe shopping today, I wandered over to the jewelry counter at Gus Mayer - always a dangerous idea - and began idly examining the offerings displayed before me. A few seemed gaudy, and the Star of David necklace didn't seem appropriate, but then my eye lit on a pretty druzy with tourmaline beading, and I continued browsing. That's when I saw it: The Druzy.

For those who've devoted their brain cells to things that actually matter, take a geode, crack it open, and a druzy is the rough crystal-covered bit inside. They can form in any number of minerals, but The Druzy was a thin sliver in the middle of a turquoise-colored boulder opal, which was set with tiny diamonds all around it. In a word, gorgeous.

My mother, being the understanding sort, dutifully came over to look at my find, and the sales lady brought it out for our inspection. As it turns out, the sapphire-studded chain it was on was sold separately, but this was probably for the best, as The Druzy sold for a cool $7,500. It was the most expensive item in the case, she informed us (blame the diamonds), and while the price wasn't going down any time soon (I asked), she was still impressed that I'd known what a druzy was.

Still, damn.

As I've said, my mother is the understanding sort, and so we turned back to the case next to The Druzy, where the other two drusies were being displayed. Long story short, I walked out with the lovely first necklace I'd seen, while Mom got a nice orange druzy of her own. No, my new necklace isn't a $7,500 diamond-circled pendant, but it should look lovely for Mom's award ceremony in two weeks. That's why we were shoe shopping, after all.

Wireless

Finally, my parents decided to get wireless, thereby allowing me to use my computer as more than a typewriter-cum-Gameboy and my mother to work without feeling guilty about monopolizing the house's single Internet connection. The Bellsouth/AT&T/whatever-they're-calling-themselves-this-month man arrived this morning to install it, and Mom went off to teach, leaving me to learn the system.

Two minutes after I leave him with the computer and the sealed box containing the new router, he calls me back into the room and asks if we have DSL. "I don't know," I tell him, "I've been basically out of the house for the last five years. Why?"

He had discovered that our computer had Internet access, and wondered what the problem was. I then explained that we had a new component inside Box Number One, and he happily went about setting up our connection.

Ten minutes later, it was time to test a laptop.

Ever since I returned from Edinburgh, my computer had been giving me fits with connectivity issues. Essentially, it would find a network (usually our neighbors'), but would refuse to connect to the network, citing DNS errors or other such nonsense. I tried everything - typing odd strings at the command prompt (always fun), fixing proxy settings, removing firewalls - but still it refused to play nice. I even took the damn thing to the Geek Squad down at Best Buy, but it worked for them and I went home, several shades of red.

After the turncoat Vaio made me look like an idiot, I assumed our neighbors had changed their settings, effectively keeping me off, and waited until the new system went in to worry about my computer. Well, Bellsouth Man and I discovered that the Vaio still had no intention of connecting to the network today. He, too, tried a few things, but made no more headway than I had. Eventually, he gave up, so I said I would keep turning things off until it worked, and sat down to try the oh-so-reliable "monkeys with typewriters" method of computer repair.

A few minutes later, I went back to Best Buy with my tail between my legs.

"Hi," I told Jason the Geek Squad agent, "my computer hates me." I then explained that it refused to find the network, that I'd just returned from the world's most restrictive ResNet system, and that the Bellsouth man hadn't been able to figure it out.

"Sometimes I think they pay them too much at Bellsouth," he muttered, then magically removed my proxy settings - the thing I'd been trying to do for weeks - and gave me his number in case the computer still didn't work.

It does. I'm writing this at my kitchen table while Callie gives me the evil eye for not Throwing the Ball. Best of all, the Geek Squad didn't charge me a thing, again. I love those guys.

Alabama moment

As I was walking out of the mall today, a pickup truck pulled up to the curb and the woman in the passenger seat hailed me. She asked the location of a salon I'd not heard of around the mall, but since I've been gone for the last year, I told her I didn't know and pointed her toward the main doors and the directory.

Then I took a good look at the truck and heard the theme song from The Beverly Hillbillies blaring in my head.

Her husband was driving. Between them was a small girl, perhaps five or six years old, and while no child that young should be in the front seat of a vehicle, especially not without chest restraints, the most surprising passenger was the obese woman riding in the bed of the truck. Sitting in a lawn chair, facing backwards, this woman had been given the seat usually reserved for dogs of dubious lineage, as Lord knows she'd never have fit in up front.

The woman asked me if they could park in the deck, and I nodded, then watched as they drove off, the bed sitter seemingly quite comfortable to be riding backwards in an old Ford.

Someone call Jeff Foxworthy. I feel a redneck moment coming on.

Weekend update

I know it's been a few days since I've updated this thing. I'm not lazy, I'm in a house with a single Internet-connected computer that has been turned into a mobile command center (don't ask) for the next week, meaning that my time online's a bit limited. Here, somewhat briefly, is the rundown of last weekend:

On Friday afternoon, I had a "networking" meeting with an old friend of my mother's, which went well until he stepped out of the office to find a book for me and the top button of my jacket decided to pop off. A black button on a predominantly blue Oriental rug is a difficult thing to spot, especially when one can't just get up and start crawling around for it, and by the time he escorted me from his office, I had given the thing up for lost. When the subject of Edinburgh came up, however, we returned to the office so I could give him a few notes (he's visiting in November), and when he turned to his computer, I noticed the button and snatched it off the rug, hopefully without attracting his notice.

Friday night combined several excellent things: Greek food, independent film, and a bunch of lovely ladies out on the town. Rosanna, whose social circle far surpasses mine at the moment, has graciously introduced me to several of her friends, and a few of us met on the southside at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral for the 35th annual Greek Food Festival. There was music and dancing, hundreds of people, and delicious Greek doughnuts, plus the rice pilaf I used to crave all year (until Zoe's Kitchen went in, that is). Afterwards, we carpooled downtown to the Alabama Theater for the opening film of the Sidewalk Moving Pictures Festival, The Ten, which was by turns hilarious, demeaning, and just plain stupid. Mocking trailers has never been quite so much fun.

On Saturday, I had dinner with an old friend, Roy, who can actually cook. Edgar's Bakery kindly supplied the dessert, as I cannot cook, but Edgar's has yet to fail me. We then went to the Alys for the ASO's "Music From the Danube" concert, two hours of Haydn, Beethoven, and a concerto featuring an amazing 26-year-old pianist and one very somber triangle player. Liszt's so-called "triangle concerto" does have an unusually prominent triangle part, and I have to say that the guy on triangle had the best job up there. Someday, I want to wear concert black and play the most mocked instrument known to man, save the cowbell...

Sunday, we sang both the 8 and 10:30 AM services, which isn't easy if one is accustomed to getting out of bed at 8 AM. We're also using a strange service format during the next month best described as the "Baptist Variety Hour", but there's no help for that. Sunday afternoon was devoted to napping to make up for the early service (it's the day of rest, after all), and then it was back to church for choir practice, then home for my dad's delicious homemade lasagna.

After a 2.5-mile run/walk this morning (you can't wear out a border collie), today was a day of errands for me while Mom holed up with the computer, a laptop editor, and the unenviable task of time coding tapes. I drove all around town for a few hours, then came home to find that my new choir dress had arrived. For a choir dress, it's not bad, but that's not saying much. It's also far too large, which, while better than the alternative, means I'll need to have some reconstructive work performed on it before December. (I also have to buy concert shoes tomorrow...note to self.) Tonight was BCC rehearsal, always a good two hours of singing, and as I was coming home this evening, I remembered why I missed my car so much while in Edinburgh: it's the only place I can sing along with "Con Te Partiro" without having blunt objects aimed at my head.

There's always a catch

Thanks to one of the PhD students for whom I proofread, I've received a couple of job requests since I've been back in the States, and have actually been able to complete one. The difficult part was figuring out how to work the payment. In the past, this was a simple matter of meeting up at the library, pocketing the cash, and having take-away without having to visit the Tesco cash machine. Seeing as we're now on different continents, however, I figured the hand-off wasn't going to work.

My next thought was the simple envelope method, having my client drop a £20 note in an envelope and mail it to me, but that had two minor complications: postage and currency conversion. The only place around that will exchange currency is a bank in downtown Birmingham, and I didn't want to drive all the way in for 20 quid.

After a quick chat with my bank manager, we decided to try the wire transfer method, which was guaranteed to work unless the British bank chose to do what they do best and give my international student a hard time. Everything worked, miraculously enough, and when I checked my account today, the cash was there, as was a $15 wire transfer fee.

D'oh.

I have another job coming up, and much as I hate doing it, I'm tacking a little extra onto my rate to cover the wire costs. Silly financial institutions.

My other forehead-smack-inducing moment of the day came from a little side project I'm doing, helping my mother time-stamp about two-dozen tapes. Having never done this before, and uncertain of what exactly she would want in a good clip, I fell back upon transcribing the tapes verbatim and making notations of when interviews begin and end.

Well, a five-minute interview window is nice, but doesn't help much in locating a single sound bite. I spent a good bit of the time I'd hoped to continue with the next tape fixing the previous two transcriptions, but at least there's a bright side to this - unlike the other transcriptions I've done, I can understand all the accents on these tapes. Hallelujah.

On happier notes, I signed my first contract for publication rights to a short story today (for V, the creative writing program's new anthology), I saw an old friend for a movie tonight, I've got a "networking" meeting tomorrow afternoon, and tomorrow night will be both the Greek Food Fest and the Sidewalk Film Fest. Opa, baby.

Just like British television

Having been forced to abandon Kitchen Criminals two weeks into the program, I was thrilled to discover a show with Gordon Ramsay on Fox: Kitchen Nightmares, an Americanized version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, which somehow I never saw.

In a nutshell, the notorious f-bombing Chef Ramsay visits restaurants and whips them into shape over the course of a week. Tonight's was amazing - Dillion's, now Purnima, had three managers, about four menus, chefs who stored food on the floor, rotten meat, moldy vegetables, and a major roach infestation. Before we even got to the cringe-inducing basement, we were treated to seeing the general manager reclining on a booth, having his head rubbed by an attractive waitress. In a moment that oddly reminded me of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Ramsay found a meat fritter in his supposedly vegetarian appetizer platter, then discovered his beef was actually lamb. The chefs didn't speak any English, and the operations manager, who seemed to be the only member of the staff who was truly embarrassed, was having to make all the American dishes, as the Indian chefs had no clue what to do with them. Best of all was the general manager, who happened to be British; he and Ramsey sniped at each other all week, and eventually he quit in a huff, once his cell phone was taken away (he later sued Ramsay, trying to keep the episode off the air, and they've since gone into arbitration). Meanwhile, every third word out of Ramsay's mouth is being not only bleeped, but fuzzed over.

Man, I love British exports.

In other good news, World Market sells chocolate-covered digestives. Happy day!

Reality hits

In less than a week, I've lost two potential jobs. The first was simply rescinded, while the second - the job for which I've been applying since early August, the job for which I wrote a piece on chintz china, of all things - was offered to someone "slightly" more experienced. I only found this out by writing the contact person, who was out of the office all of last week, but at least I now know, and only two weeks after the final piece of my interview was turned in.

Essentially, I'm now back at Square 1.

Anyone in the YGC may remember Jeff going on about how singing will improve your mood, and how you should thus come to practice even when you're stressed and all six of your midterms are scheduled for the next day. He's right, with one caveat: before you go to practice, you should drive for a few miles with your stereo blasting, 'singing' Eminem standards at the top of your lungs, since you can't very well tell the person who told you Yale was "a strange choice" of university to go jump off a cliff. I swear, Eminem helps. (Speaking of which: when even your dental hygienist tells you that she'd be pissed if someone told her her university was a strange choice, you know you're justified in thinking unladylike thoughts.) Then you should go to practice, laugh with sane, employed, people, and sing Messiah, and you'll feel better.

I'm still riding the Concert Chorale high right about now, and my dad left an encouraging note on the fridge before retiring, but not too far under the surface, I'm a seething mixture of pissed and relieved. Hell yes, I'm pissed - I did everything I could for this job, and if I'd turned them down before they turned me down, I might have had a $30,000/year job with benefits right now. On the other hand, I don't have to make up crap about ugly china any more. At least now Cindy, the lovely lady who does my nails and understands my low tolerance for estrogen over-exposure, won't have to worry about my sanity in the face of so many ruffles and flowers. Seriously, I was ready to whore myself, to the point that I was willing to wax poetic about chintz, and that's just sad.

Listen to me, people. If anyone ever tries to convince you chintz is the most gorgeous thing to happen to pottery since glaze was invented, send her my way and I'll whack her a good one.

In the meanwhile, back to the drawing board.

Saturday

The weekend got off to a rollicking good start, once Mom and I finished cleaning the umpteen new windows my parents had installed on Thursday and Friday. Fortunately, the new windows are double-paned (filled with argon so they don't fog) and all the sashes are in the gap, so it was a simple matter of spraying, wiping, and thinking unkind thoughts about the stubborn streaks of glue. We also discovered that nothing bonds quite as well to glass as long-hold hairspray.

Last night, I went to Rosanna's for dinner and margaritas (thanks to her brother-in-law's recipe), which was most enjoyable. It's always fun meeting new people, though none of us knows any eligible single men.

Still, I'm not desperate enough for GoodGenes.com. Some dating services are just elitist.

Fun with food

This one is for Ian, who can't be bothered to stay up until 4 AM to read my posts in a timely fashion. Tsk. :)

My culinary ability isn't quite high enough for Master Chef, but at least my parents no longer think I'm a good candidate for Kitchen Criminals.

I have made dinner.

By myself.

Yes, it all came from boxes, but I managed to pull off fajitas, Mexican corn, and sesame rice (it was either that or couscous) without starting a grease fire or giving my father heart palpitations, and that has to count for something.

Happily, my friend Rosanna has invited me over for dinner on Saturday night, and as Rosanna really can cook, I'm very much looking forward to the event.

On the topic of food, my dog has some of the strangest eating habits I've ever seen. Unlike every other dog I've known, Callie seldom begs at the table, but will happily shred a cardboard paper towel roll for you while you eat. All bets are off when it comes to ice cream, however - she circles the table, whoring herself with love and soulful eyes to whomever will lower a half-eaten stick in her direction. She also ate all my carrots two nights ago, and ever since I gave her a taste of a plum, she waits at my feet for a bite or six every time I get one out.

Library work

My plan for the day was to find cheap plastic storage bins and repack all my books, which were mouldering in cardboard boxes in the garage. It seemed, however, that everyone was out to thwart me.

I began by calling Target and Wal-Mart to see whose bins were cheaper. My first call was to Target, and after ten minutes of holding, I got to talk to Idiot Woman.

"Hi," I said, beginning to weary of repeating myself to various Target personnel. "I'm looking for clear plastic storage bins in the 10 to 15 gallon range. How much are yours?"
"10 to 15 gallon?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Umm...how many quarts is that?"

The folks at Wal-Mart were slightly more knowledgeable, and as their product was cheaper, I bought myself half a dozen 56-quart bins (that's 14 gallons, Idiot Woman) and headed home, looking forward to an afternoon of killing my lower lumbar region.

Then I noticed the yellow indicator on my dashboard. The one telling me to check my engine.

Suffice it to say that I didn't start packing books until close to 5 PM, as I spent the afternoon sitting in the lounge at the Volkswagen dealership while the mechanics replaced a corroded valve. The nice guy who ran my diagnostics threw in some new hoses, gratis, while he was at it, so the afternoon wasn't a complete waste.

After dinner, I got through the first few cartons and the contents of my bedside chest, then realized I had been hopelessly optimistic with my six-bin estimate and returned to Wal-Mart for another six. The garage is now stacked with nine new plastic bins, most full of my books from high school, college, and grad school, while two are holding my sister's old course packets and French novels (which are mercifully small - thanks, Larouse) and the last is now the repository for my mother's old promo tapes, audition tapes, and other material in casette formats I've never seen before. Only a few will play on a standard VCR. As for the rest, I've no real idea what's on them, but since they date from the early eighties, my guess would be big hair and shoulder pads.

(Love you, Mom. Just not the polka-dot dress.)

Adventures in Middle America

Last Saturday, the family piled into the car at 6 AM to drive my sister back to Evanston for her senior year at Northwestern. Approximately 13 hours later, after braving Chicago's lovely Dan Ryan Expressway and a mess of Chicagoans who apparently learned to drive by watching monster truck rallies, we drove through Skokie - probably home to more bagel shops than anywhere else outside of New York - and into scenic Evanston, which is much less ghetto than either New Haven or the south side of Edinburgh. That said, the drive into Evanston is pretty miserable, as Illinois, like Indiana, is basically one large cornfield. I swear, if I never see a mile-long field of brown corn stalks again, it'll be too soon.

Illinois is the self-proclaimed "Land of Lincoln", and the guy's everywhere, along with the names of Chicago's versions of New Haven's Harkness family - Jen recognized several names at the Field Museum from buildings around campus. There seemed to be only one name being tossed about this weekend, however, and that belonged to O. J. Simpson. The Juice is back for another round of celebrity justice. I can hardly wait, but just so I don't get too excited and have a heart attack in the interim, Fox News has been filling me in on his every move since this little story broke. If O. J. visits the bathroom, Fox will probably run an update on the ticker. This is news, people.

After we managed to tear ourselves away from the updates coming out of Las Vegas, the move-in was largely uneventful, aside from the necessary schlepping of bags, purchasing of bins and cleaning supplies, and cleaning of the results of the summer's sloppiness, like the dried food down the front of the dishwasher. Evanston even cooperated on the weather front, and we were blessed with sunny, relatively cool days. The poor frosh moving in today, by contrast, were greeted with temperatures in the mid-eighties. Have fun, kids.

As we had a free day on Monday, we took the El into Chicago, a process made more arduous than necessary because of the improvements being made to the red line, and took in the Field Museum and Sue, the most complete T. Rex skeleton found to date. Let's just say she had a killer smile. The Field was lovely, and afterwards, we hopped back on the train for a trip to the other end of Michigan Avenue, where they keep all the shops. Unexpectedly, we made it out of Neiman Marcus without dropping a dime, which pleased my father to no end - I'm sorry, but $450 corduroy pants are beyond ridiculous - and having seen our fill, we descended to the red line once again.

This was when the fun started.

The train, for unknown reasons, came only after a 25-minute wait, and when it arrived, we were packed in and grateful for deodorant. One by one, we managed to find seats, and gradually the car cleared enough for us to really notice the other passengers, like the loud wino. One guy, who sported a baseball cap with a large '$', had burned fingers and kept rubbing his nose as he talked and gesticulated to his companion a few seats up, and my father quickly pegged him as a crackhead. He called for his friend to join him, and, trying to ignore this guy, I gave his friend only a passing glance.

On second look, I realized she was male. His biceps, prominent under his green knit shrug, gave him away.

The crackhead and the cross-dresser began a loud, profanity-laced conversation that made my mother cringe, and after discussing their various acquaintances, like a guy named Rat and some other guy who was still in prison, the crackhead mentioned a Kim.

"Oh, I know all the Kims around," the cross-dresser informed him. "My boyfriend's wife's name is Kim. He has her name tattooed all over his body."

It was at this point that I, as well as half the car, nearly lost it. As we approached a stop, however, they stood to leave, and the crackhead announced to the people in front of him, "I'm getting off! Are you all getting off? I need to get off!" When the train stopped, they pushed their way through, shouting unnecessarily, and the rest of the car cracked up. We told the doctor who sat down in front of us about the spectacle we thought he had missed, and he nodded; this was nothing new to him.

"We're from out of town," we explained, "and this doesn't usually happen."
"You from Iowa?" he asked.
"Alabama.
He snorted. "Welcome to the real world."

Nothing quite topped Kim, the boyfriend's wife, but the fun only increased that evening, as our hotel, which hadn't been sure what was going on all weekend, had to move my parents and me into a new room for our final night. Unfortunately, this room only had a single king bed, and as the hotel has no cots - contrary to what one desk clerk told us - we were forced to share. The last time I shared a bed with my parents, I was about seven and we three all fit on a standard full-sized mattress. Three adults on a king is something else entirely - my mother likened us to the Three Stooges - but as we rose at 4 AM to leave Chicago, at least the night was short.

Back on the Dan Ryan by 5:30, I realized why my parents had insisted on leaving at an ungodly hour: Chicago traffic never stops, and the rush was already beginning as we heading around the city. Once past the worst of it, my mother and I slept, waking in time for breakfast at a McDonald's somewhere in corn country, and from then on I could only sleep sporadically on the 12-hour trip home. During periods of consciousness, I was treated to some of I-57 and I-24's great roadside attractions: the largest cross in the country, the Quilting Museum, a restaurant that still advertised a "hicken sandwich" three days after we saw it for the first time, a Shell station-cum-Christmas shop, and a little place called Joe Bob's Flower Farm. I got to hear Paul Harvey not once, but twice today; of special note were the man who robbed a bank but left his resume behind, and the married couple who were talking to each other under pseudonyms online and only realized the other was cheating when they arranged to meet (they're now seeking a divorce). Still, nothing today was quite as funny as the sign we passed as we entered Kentucky, which informed us that Kentucky is the "Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln".

A bit of snarkiness, perhaps, but take that, Illinois.

Heading north

After finally making it to Tuscaloosa in a context other than the state French convention (always a blast...yeah, nothing says 'fun' like watching unsubtitled French movies at Alabama's student center at 11 PM), I'm off to Chicago today with the family to move my sister back into her Evanston apartment. She's going to be a senior. This is slightly frightening, as I distinctly remember being a senior...

Excuse my moment of nostalgia.

Still, there's 12 hours of Interstate fun ahead, which is why I'm writing a blog post at 5:20 AM. I've been up since 4:30, and for those who may never have attempted to put on eye makup at that hour, let's just say it ain't pretty.

Perhaps, by the time I return on Tuesday, I'll have another job offer. In any case, the puppy will be less traumatized than she was when we picked her up from her stay at the vet's, as she's spending the weekend with our neighbors, who are among her favorite people, and their giant ottoman-sized golden retriever.

Employable after all

Out of the blue, I had a job offer today.

I'm still waiting to hear from the folks I've been working with for the last month, but now I have an offer on the table.

My degrees may be worth something after all. Huzzah!

I also attended my first practice with the Birmingham Concert Chorale last night, and I must say that it feels wonderful to be back in a large choir again. Sitting next to a music major, sight-reading Brahms' Requiem, faking the German, trying to keep up on the runs in Messiah...man, I've missed this. One of the altos saw the Glee Club when they performed at ISS last winter and said they gave a great concert, which also made my evening.

Little of this, little of that

The past few days have been a mishmash of getting reacclimated, getting reacquainted, and attempting to get employed.

Last night was a lot of fun - my sister and our friends Anna and Sarah went out to Surin West, easily the best Thai restaurant in Birmingham, then on to ArtWalk. After cruising the Morris Avenue area for twenty minutes in an attempt to find two parking spaces, which was further complicated by the fact that I still can't parallel park, we finally found a lot and managed to stumble into the event. I'd never been down before, but ArtWalk's a neat sort of street party; stores in the new "loft district" open and allow artists to display their wares (and munchies), while musicians play on the sidewalk. We had a good time and ran into several people we knew, then headed to O'Henry's for some late-night coffee. The highlight of the evening was finding a new store, What's on Second, that sold orange shag carpeting, old campaign buttons, and a fetal pig. Go figure.

While out with the girls, I ran the question past them that I've run past people on three continents this week: does the following sound bizarre?

During an interview with X Corporation, my interviewer was examining my resume, then looked up at me and said - I'm not kidding - "Yale...that's a strange choice."

Huh? How do you answer that one?

Long story short, the consensus has been that said interviewer asks some fairly strange questions.

In other news, I spent the morning writing a sample piece on china I would never, ever buy. Ever. Hell, I'm now convinced, is patterned in chintz.

Home again

I returned from Gulf Shores yesterday afternoon with a baggie of sand dollars and other shells, a work wardrobe, and a mild sunburn. I was anticipating the last to be much worse than it is, but a little itchiness is much better than the full-on white-girl-goes-to-Caribbean-and-broils look I sported two summers ago. Still, it amazes me that I was able to get pink cheeks even with SPF-enhanced moisturizer, SPF 60 sport sunblock, sunglasses, and a large, floppy hat.

6 AM is definitely the best time to go to the beach during the late summer. We saw a school of stingrays along the shore every morning, and the temperature was humane, besides. Plus, the jellyfish tended to stay out until lunchtime.

Now back in Birmingham, I have a list of tasks to complete: call my eye surgeon, call the dentist, renew my gym membership, finish sorting the detritus of a year in Edinburgh that's scattered about my room...

In other news, this blog was a year old yesterday. I have never kept a journal of any sort for this long.

Life with puppy

Callie (my dog, Ian) is now just over a year old, and is turning out to be a ball-crazy border collie. I've discovered that, to Callie at least, I have one purpose in life: to Throw The Ball.

We have a yellow spiky football that we adore. The sole purpose of consciousness is to retrieve the ball or to tug on it. Either works, really.

I was trying to check my e-mail today when I felt a head insert itself under my arm, slipping into prime petting position. Fair enough, I thought, giving the dog a rub, then felt her slip away. A moment later, something fell into my lap, and I looked down to find the yellow football waiting for me. Callie stood at the ready, looking at me as if she had just given me the greatest gift the universe has ever known, and stepped back, waiting for the toss. I threw it, she retrieved it, and the cycle continued for several minutes. Eventually, I told her I didn't want to play any more, then turned from her sorrowful eyes to the MSN homepage.

A moment later, a piece of wet fleece landed in my lap, and I turned to see Callie's hopeful eyes and the other end of the fleece, which she was holding in her mouth.

The dog doesn't sleep. This might be a problem...

Home again

I was slightly too warm in bed this morning, so my first thought was to open the window and let in a little breeze.

Then I saw the condensation on the window, quickly remembered where I was, and nixed the idea.

I'd forgotten what a hothouse Birmingham is this time of year. It's been a rough summer over here, too, though in exactly the opposite way to what's been plaguing Britain. We've had little rain - the grass isn't happy, and the country club has posted big signs saying they water with well water, as residents are now only allowed to water two days a week - and the temperature was into triple digits for a few days before I arrived. Now that the rain has begun to return, stepping outside feels like walking into the tropical plants building at your local botanical gardens, all of about 95 degrees with 90 percent humidity.

At least you never have to steam your clothes.

It's currently 7:30 AM. My body's still wondering which time zone it's supposed to be in, and why the sun is rising so late and setting so early. I'm also hurting in muscles I'd forgotten about in my arms and back, as I've spent the last two days either hauling luggage or unpacking it. My troubles began at the airport, when the nice man behind the Continental counter informed me that my bag was overweight.

I asked if I could just pay the overweight charge.

No, he informed me, my bag was 32 kg, which was legally too heavy for them to carry.

Thanks to a bit of adjustment, I left my two 70-lb bags with the airliner and carried my 40-lb backpack onto the plane. The clerk, being a nice guy and accepting my "I just got out of Uni" excuse, didn't charge me extra.

When I got to Newark, I had to reclaim my bags and go through Customs. This was a pain for several reasons, most notably because Jersey charges $3 to rent a cart, and there was no way I was parting with cash for one of those. I ran over and into people, but I made it through Customs and on to Nashville, and my luggage, magically enough, made it. Wonders never cease.

I also had a Chick-fil-A nugget stop at glorious Exit 351 (Athens) at 9:30 PM on the way home, because my mother is awesome like that.

My interview was at 9 AM the next day, but surprisingly, I had no problem rising at 6 to prepare. The interview itself seemed to go well - I was with the interviewer for an hour and a half, and I'm being brought back next week to meet more people - and then it was off to the DMV to become legally licensed once again. I ran into my grandmother, of all people, in the line, and had to yell her name to get her attention; she was too busy telling the woman behind her about her granddaughter, who was home from Scotland, to notice me. She then told me that her dog had to have fluid taken out of its neck. Good times.

Following this, it was off to Brio for lunch, but first I met my mother and sister at their usual Brookwood hangout, the shoe department at Gus Mayer. My former bosses there are awesome, and since Mom realized I'd been in my three-inch heels all day and was not the happiest camper about that, she insisted we buy a pair of flats for me before lunch. Breaking my new shoes in, I followed them across the street, then indulged in lobster bisque and a Bellini (heaven) before heading home to begin the unpacking process. I managed to get the contents of my two suitcases onto my bed before it was time to get coat hangers and drive to Mountain Brook for my pedicure.

We're going to the beach tomorrow, my mother explained. I need a pedicure.

I wasn't going to say no.

Due to a little confusion, my pedicure turned into a mani/pedi, and my nails are now this burgundy shade better known as "Frostbite". I told Cyndy that they would match my skin tone well after my first day at the Gulf. We shall see.

Dinner was barbeque - one of my mom's coworkers has an enormous smoker and makes briskets for people. He's amazing - and then I began to put the mess into my closet and unpack the other two suitcases in my room. Around 10:30, back and knees aching, I'd had enough and crawled into bed.

It's off now to take the dog for a walk, finish filling out my application form, and go to a choir audition this afternoon. In the meanwhile, thank God for air conditioning.

I have to pack my computer now

The last things to go into a suitcase: deodorant, toothbrush, laptop...

Drinking before bed gives me strange, vivid dreams, but at least it makes me sleep, which I usually don't have the night before a trip. As it was, I woke at 6:15, only one hour before my alarm was scheduled to go off, which isn't too shabby. Thank you, Feijoa Sour, Honey Monster, and Diet Pepsi, for guaranteeing that consciousness will last at least long enough to get me on the plane. After that, I don't really care what happens, so long as I wake up in Newark with my luggage.

I gave in and had one last meal of Tesco lemon and coriander couscous and peas last night, as I didn't want Chinese two dinners in a row and had already thrown away my soy sauce. I go now to finish cleaning out my kitchen cabinets, make myself a bowl of oatmeal, and catch a few minutes of GMTV. First, though, I have to pack this computer, which means these are my final minutes on ResNet. Hallelujah.

Guys, y'all have been great, and it's been a pleasure meeting you. All the best with the packing, moving, TAing, and job hunting, and please do keep in touch! That, as I've been reminded, is what Facebook's for.

Goodbye for now, Edinburgh. I'll try to haste myself back.

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane (Reprise)

It's official: in less than 24 hours, I'll be on a plane back to Birmingham.

Well, let me amend that statement. In less than 24 hours, I'll be on a plane to Newark, which will then lead to a plane ride to Nashville, which will end with a three-hour drive home to Birmingham. By the time I get reacquainted with my dog and my bed, it will probably be pushing 11 PM, which will feel like 5 AM.

I have a job interview at 9 AM CDT the next morning. That's 3 PM BST, but suffice it to say I'll be knocking back the Coke, tea, coffee, and anything else caffeinated that I find around the kitchen. I have a vague idea where I'm going for said interview, but I'll be driving again for the first time since the New Year, and on the correct side of the road.

This should be interesting.

I have a voice audition the next day, plus a theoretical pedicure (depending on my scheduling), and then we're off to the beach for a long weekend. It's been too long since I've been to Gulf Shores. The last time I was down, Jen and I made the drive to escape Birmingham's lousy New Year's celebrations, and the sand felt like cold cement. Since the daytime highs over there have been in the nineties or above for the last few weeks, I expect things will be quite a bit warmer. (It's always interesting to look at the MSN forecasts and realize that Edinburgh's daytime high is ten degrees cooler than Birmingham's nighttime low.) Of course, seeing as I got a sunburn last week from sitting outside at lunchtime on our one seventy-degree day, Gulf Shores could be a bit on the painful side. Maybe the hotel sells SPF 60...

As you can see from the photographs, my room currently looks much as it did on move-in day. I've packed as much as I can, spent as many 1p and 2p coins as my conscience will allow at Tesco's self-checkout, and now it's time to play the waiting game until we go out tonight. The Fringe is almost over (some good, some awful, some avant-garde, like last night's Macbeth: Who is That Bloodied Man?), I've done my final tour of the Royal Mile, and I'll head to the park for the last time when I finish writing this. I've managed to go an entire year without eating haggis, though I've had a few wee drams and my share of shortbread.
I'm bringing home two packs of McVittie's Milk Chocolate Digestives, as I have no idea whether World Market sells them. I've closed my bank account, booked my airport shuttle, and said my farewells to my Oxford professor gym buddy. I've probably heard my last renditions of "Scotland the Brave" and "Highland Cathedral", and spent my last quid at TopShop. My mobile won't be topped up again, or at least not for a long time. I've had my last Favorit nachos (perhaps forever, if they don't re-open), my last lunch at the Mosque Kitchen, my one and only deep-fried Mars bar. I've seen my last episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show, though I'll catch Kitchen Criminals tonight at dinner. I've laughed through my last episode of Big Brother on the Couch. I've had my last dinner of instant couscous and Tesco peas, eaten my last Tesco Value Prawn, and drunk my last pint of Strongbow or pear cider. I've received my last student discount (my card expires in September). I'll put away the pans tomorrow morning, but that will be the last time I tidy up the fourth floor's kitchen. I've heard the rumbling of the stupid Lidl produce delivery truck for the last time.

I've already said quite a few goodbyes.

Looking over my blog entries from September, I'm a little amazed by all the things I didn't know and somehow managed to pick up along the way. This gives me hope for this September, but the situation I'm heading into is, if possible, even more nebulously defined than was grad school. I griped that Edinburgh Uni wasn't sending me pertinent information last summer, but at least there was someone in charge, theoretically holding a master plan that would be revealed to us in good time. For the first time in 19 years, I won't be going back-to-school shopping. I will need to purchase a work wardrobe, but it's not the same. The lack of a timetable, of firm deadlines, is what unnerves me, I suppose. This is it, gap year's over, and now it's time to learn to be a Real Adult.

Whatever the heck that entails.

Am I ready to leave? No. I wasn't ready to leave Yale, either (though I was infinitely more attached to that university). I don't just leave things well. I'm settled, I have some idea of what's around me, and I know some great people in this city. Of course, most of them are leaving, too, but I'm going to miss this place. Maybe not the sketchier bits of the south side, but I'll miss Holyrood Park, I'll miss the tartan-swathed expanse of the Royal Mile, and I'll miss streets with names the average American can't pronounce on the first try. For its lousy weather, Edinburgh's a great city, and I'm grateful for this year.

I'm returning to a city I know fairly intimately but have assuredly forgotten, this time as an adult. People move on, places change, friends marry off and scatter. It's a bit jarring to me now every time I hear a random American accent on the street, so how much stranger will it be to be immersed in the land of the drawl once again, never hearing anyone talk about his mates, giving an 'Aye' for the affirmative, or thanking me with 'Cheers'? Football will once again be a game played with an oblong ball and shoulder pads, college will be that place you go after high school, and color will not be spelled with a u. People will pronounce this city's name with a '-burg' and not a '-burra' (or a '-bra', as the Londoners do). It will no longer be posh to be from down south. I'm going to have a heck of a time finding decent scones.

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing my family again and to embarking upon this next phase in my life. I just realize that I'm about to enter another period of testing the waters, trying to remember how the rhythms go and how I fit in, but this time carrying all the baggage of a fifth year away with me, including an unexplainable affinity for bagpipes and the idea that a 10 PM summer sunset is early. I'm excited, and I'm ready for the waiting to be over.

I just hate goodbyes.

Odds and ends

Sunday morning was bittersweet. I read in church for the third time (and didn't shake, for once, thank God), and then Ian called me back up for a little presentation and Q&A...

"So, easy first question: tell us where you're from."
"Birmingham, Alabama." [Silence] "The States..."
"Ah, that explains it."
"Yes, the other Birmingham."

He then handed me a sweet card from the choir and a lovely pewter quaich, and there was much post-service hugging and admonitions to come back soon. Roy even let me escape with one of the old hymnals, so now I actually have a record of the songs I've sight-read this year. On the way out, I was given one more card, this one by Norma's mother, who hugs me every Sunday morning.

One of the readings this morning was Acts 20:17-35, in which Paul stands on the shore and bids farewell to the Ephesians, telling them he'll never see them again. Ian said it was oddly appropriate, all things considered, but we both hope to leave off the last bit. I'm really going to miss Kirk o'Field. It's tiny, but the people are as nice as they come. I also have a standing invitation to pop back into the choir any time I'm in town, which I do hope to take advantage of in the near future.

Other than that, I've spent the day packing, proofreading, and collecting payment for all three outstanding dissertations, which was a relief. Tonight will be Macbeth: Who is That Bloodied Man?, and we'll be having a little Bar Kohl outing tomorrow night.

Just as long as I don't have to fly with a hangover...I've got a job interview 14 hours after I hit the ground, and a choir audition the next day!

A wee bit of insanity

My weekend, from last night through Sunday, is scheduled as follows:

Friday afternoon: proofread a dissertation.

Friday night: go to the Peartree for celebratory drinks, see an amazing Fringe show involving little more than two Australian men in a state of rather flagrant dishabille, and return to the Peartree to tell the class (the girls, at least) all about it.

Saturday morning: proofread another dissertation.

Saturday afternoon: attend/give a reading at Blackwell's, then collect Ruth and her friend Linda and join a bunch of primarily PhD students at the Oxford Bar for free drinks, then go to the Book Festival and catch Nick inside the VIP tent, where we sip champagne and munch hors d'oeuvres involving shrimp, pâté, smoked salmon, and caviar before seeing the awards presentation for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Saturday night: finish proofreading the dissertation and go to the Forest Cafe for promised strobe light goodness.

Sunday morning: read in church.

Sunday afternoon: proofread the third dissertation, then collect payment for the first (and the second, if I'm lucky!)

Sunday evening: potential drinks with the dwindling fourth floor crowd. We shall see...

And this just in (thanks, Ryan!): if you go to Amazon.co.uk and search for my name, you'll find this:

I'm on Amazon! And not just as a character in a bad romance novel!

Even more Fringe-ing

Today marked my third serious Fringe show, and by "serious", I mean a performance that a) I had to pay to see, and b) involved neither Star Wars nor Scientology.

Being the ballet lover, Leigh suggested seeing Nijinsky's Last Dance, which turned out to be an excellent idea. I know virtually nothing about ballet, and knew nothing about Nijinsky until I skimmed the Wikipedia article, but this one-man show rightly deserves the stellar reviews it received; the actor is quite talented, and even if the hour-long tale of an insane Russian dancer fails to excite, the actor himself does an amazing job of it. Bless him, he spends a few minutes talking about posing for Rodin, and since this little job was originally done in the buff, the actor stays true to character by stripping. Between the flattering lighting, the light glow of sweat, and his beautifully sculpted body (we're talking Greek statue, here), our Nijinsky more than made up for the warm theater and the rude British people behind us.

Following this, I met Ella for a pre-hand-in celebratory dinner, but alas, our plans for Favorit nachos fell through, as Favorit, for unspecified reasons, is closed until further notice.

Bastards.

We decided to give Frankenstein's a try, and were pleasantly surprised with good nachos, fajitas, and two appearances of the monster. I had yet to see him before tonight, and I'll admit that it's something of a letdown. To be honest, the monsoon at Rainforest Cafe is more exciting than was the monster. Still, I can now leave Edinburgh in peace, having had my full Frankenstein's experience.

After dinner, I finally made it to the Counting House to see Chris McCausland's show, Planes, Trains & Shameful Ordeals. He's the UK's only blind comedian, and he's an absolute riot. Over the course of the hour, he described many of his misadventures, including a drunken night when he forgot his lighter at the bar, then tried to light his cigarette on a George Foreman and ended up with griddle marks on his face. He then tried to light it by standing on a stool and holding it to a 60-watt bulb, but was savagely attacked by a moth and would have fallen had he not grabbed the pull cord. Unfortunately, this cord was attached to a fan he hadn't realized he owned, and so he was beaten about the head by fan blades until he fell off, cigarette still cold. Smoking's bad for you, he cautions, but you're not going to see anyone mention those risks on the pack.

Not worth the £7.50

Several years ago, my friend Max and I, who really had little involvement in Yale theater outside talking to the theater people in the Glee Club, decided we would put on a musical. Not just any musical, no - we would be the very first people to stage the so-called "cursed" musical based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, A Shoggoth on the Roof.

It's cursed because no one has ever been able to do it. No, Great Cthulu doesn't make a guest appearance and kill the cast with his tentacles the night before the show, though that might make for a better story. The truth is that the nice folks who retain the rights to Fiddler on the Roof won't let anyone perform Shoggoth because the music is exactly the same, albeit with Lovecraftian lyrics.

We assumed we could get around this without a legal team - how much harm could a couple of college students do, anyway? - but while I wrote to the Fiddler people to ask permission (Yale has this thing about intellectual property), my amazing Fellow, Eytan, actually paid for a copy of the book and the CD. He read it first, then told me, in so many words, that it's crap. Since Eytan knows quite a bit about scripts, I took his word for it, and the firm refusal from the Fiddler legal team sealed our doom. No Shoggoth for us, which, considering my directorial debut with A Child's Christmas in Wales and the Let's-strip-in-front-of-Dean-Salovey scene, was probably a good thing. The Shoggoth kit is now languishing in the back of my closet, just in case.

Eytan, I didn't think it was possible, but I've found something worse. Enter Xenu is Loose! Cower Puny Humans as the Dark Prince of the Galactic Federation Rains Atomic Death Once More Upon Your Pitiful Planet - The Musical!

I had such high hopes for this production, but it fell flat on its purple face. Xenu was great, campily evil with wrist blasters and platform boots, but the rest of the cast seemed plucked from a high school stage. They kept mumbling their dialogue, sent up blasts of feedback from their microphones, and seemed about as wooden as a log. Much of the music was provided by two guys in plainclothes who stood like bookends on either side of the stage, calmly playing their electric guitars while Xenu and crew shot at each other with laser blasters. One of the few good moments was a surprise visit from Tom Cruise, but Xenu dispatched him all too quickly. In all, this was a major disappointment, and made me reconsider our decision to scrap Shoggoth.

Max? Doing anything important?

Weekend redux

It's been a few days, but it's been a mostly uneventful few days. I sang our duet in church for the second and final time, proofread three dissertations, and saw two shows. The first, Is He Funny?, isn't bad, but at least it's free. The other one I saw with Leigh and Ruth tonight, The Ballerina Who Loves B-Boyz. It's pretty entertaining, a fusion of breakdancing, ballet, and amazing Korean hairstyles. I've never seen so many Asians with dreadlocks, nor a guy with spiky bleached hair who could have stepped from Dragonball-Z. One guy had the most amazing abs I've ever seen short of a muscle magazine. The ballerinas cheated a bit, according to Leigh, but the truly popular female dancers of the show were the ho trio, three hot girls in skimpy clothing who shook things at the audience, garnering the unending support of the guy behind us. Afterwards, we went for drinks at the Living Room, where Ruth told me about the show I'm going to try to see tomorrow.

You know, I could see one of several versions of Macbeth or any number of legitimate plays, but this one is called Xenu is Loose! Cower Puny Human as the Dark Prince of the Galactic Federation Rains Atomic Death Once More Upon Your Pitiful Planet - The Musical! With a name like that, you know you have a winner, and at least one Cruise/Travolta joke.

It's got to have a better book than A Shoggoth on the Roof, at any rate.

300th post

Huzzah! A new blog milestone.

And a first...

As I was walking home this evening, I happened to pass Blackwell's and noticed a peculiar window display, which I stopped and squealed over for a moment with a most indulgent Ella. Then I returned under cover of darkness and took these photographs:

Now, look at the poster close-up...

Yes! After five years of working on English-related degrees, I finally see my name in a bookstore window! And the names of a bunch of really cool people! On a book! (And there's a CD included, too, with the work of other really cool people on it! All for £10.99! I'd plug it, but Ryan seems to be doing a pretty good job of that.)

Wonders never cease.

Yet another use for Edinburgh churches

I've never seen so many unused churches as I have this year in Scotland. My own, tiny as it is, is actually the conglomeration of several congregations; I have no idea what became of the others, but something tells me their buildings, if they still stand, are being used as museums, theaters, cafes, or possibly nightclubs.

Yes, Faith, I'm glaring at you. Frankenstein's, as much as I love it, is bad enough, but calling a nightclub "Faith"? A stink was raised back home when one church wanted to sell its building to a Muslim community; I can only imagine what the protesters would say about this.

Anyway, possibly the strangest ex-church I've seen to date is the upstairs portion of the Forest, which I had heard existed but had not actually seen until last night. It looks like a cross between an abandoned building and Mardi Gras. Yes, the paint is peeling, the carpet is worn, and the windows are either boarded up or covered in tinfoil, but there are Christmas lights draped over the pulpit and a bar softly glowing in blue at the back of the room. One of the clocks in the balcony is still functional, and once you get on the stage, you realize the pipe organ is still up there. I've never tried to blend cabaret seating and church, nor would Billy Liar's punk set have flown were the building still being used for its intended purpose, but as performance spaces go, this one's unique.

With my final Golden Hour yesterday, it all really hit me that this is the beginning of the end. Our first floormate to leave departed in the afternoon. We have a last hurrah planned after the dissertations are handed in next Friday, and I'll be doing a final batch of proofreading for folks in the week leading up to it. My room is half-packed.

Twelve days left, and where did this year go?

New venue

Seriously, everyone should visit Jekyll & Hyde on Hanover Street. If you think Frankenstein's is the way to go for interior decoration, this one'll be right up your alley, down to the bird skeletons in the cabinets. The bathroom's also less sketchy, always a draw at a fine drinking establishment.

I popped by tonight for two shows, "Free Pick of the Fringe" and "Rob Deb: Heroquest". The first was amazing - the emcee was a guy named Richard Coughlan, who's doing a show entitled "Honky-Hating Heterophobic Manwhore". He's white and straight. Go figure. Anyway, he started the show by asking where everyone was from, at which time I revealed that I am, in fact, American. He seemed delighted at this - he did a little dance - and told us that on the circuit, "easy target" is code for "American". He then asked which state I come from, and when I told him it was Alabama, he looked to the ceiling and yelled, "Thank you!"

Nice to be loved.

The four comedians in the set were great, but there's one guy, Chris McCausland, who's actually playing at the Counting House, so I'll try to pop by and see him. He's very funny, and he's also blind, but manages to do a show that doesn't revolve around putting himself down, which was pretty refreshing. There was also a fellow in the mix, whose name, unfortunately, escapes me, who did a great set on centaurs. I think you had to have been there...

The show that followed was also amusing, but in a geeky sort of way. He actually gauged his audience and left out a few bits that would have gone over nearly everyone's head, but I was proud of myself for getting the Granny Weatherwax joke. Thank you, Terry Pratchett, Margaret Hazel, and sophomore year.

Skip this show

I took in "Hello Kittens" this afternoon at the Counting House.

AWKWARD.

I'm sure the fellow has talent, but when the climax of one's show is removing one's shoes and doing a seal impression, something's not quite right...

It smarts

In my unending quest to Get Something for Nothing (what can I say, I've been in higher education for too long), I went back to the Counting House tonight for another free show and wandered into "Cowboys and Indians (Dot, not Feather)". All I can say is that I know that guy. Not the comedian, but the guy he was impersonating.

The premise of the show is that the comedian is a Texan recruiting folks for the Border Patrol, rather like Jeff Foxworthy, but with the IQ of your average redneck. He played on every bad American stereotype - the confusion of the Indians ("feather and dot", as he put it), the intolerance, the gun lust, the ignorance of world history and politics (his favorite ally is the country of NATO, for instance) - all with a deep Texas drawl.

I was a bit skeptical when I realized what this show was about, but I stuck around because it's important to be able to laugh at oneself, and because the show was free. It hurt because it's true. Seriously, I've met people like this stereotype. There was a guy in my sister's Sunday School class who believed that black people had a special weakness around their knees, and that they should be kicked there in a fight. Seriously. My postal clerk didn't know where Scotland was when I tried to express mail my forms last summer. I'm not saying I agree with his entire routine - for one, I do believe in border controls - but there was enough in his show to remind me of why the rest of the world seems to hate my country. Look, folks, just as all British aren't royalty/supervillains/Spice Girls, we're not all ignorant rednecks.

And another thing: there are just as many rednecks in New England as in the South. They just talk funny. Really, y'all, that's it.

Free Fringe

While I stood outside the Half Price Hut, considering which show I wanted to see today, I was handed a flier for the Free Fringe.

This made my job substantially easier.

One of the venues is the Counting House, just next door to the Peartree, and they're running a show called "Want to Play Einstein and Gandhi?" at 2:30 every day. It's great for several reasons:

1) It's free.
2) It's funny.
3) It's close to my building.
4) The guy hands out free candy midway through the performance.

While I'd like to see the show that gives you a shot of absinthe as you walk in, you really can't beat a free show and complimentary marshmallows, can you?

Being quasi-productive

Today, I decided last night, would be the day. After having received my advisor's blessing, I was primed to print my dissertation, get it bound, hand it in, and generally get this monkey off my back.

Of course, this being Edinburgh, it decided to rain this morning, meaning that I had to think long and hard about going to EBS for higher-grade laser paper. Seeing as I was already damp from running to the laundry room, I sucked it up and returned with a 500 pack, then began the process of coaxing my Lexmark to spit out a copy of my dissertation.

Did I mention that said dissertation is 117 pages long? Since formatting guidelines stipulate double spacing and single-sided pages, my project is nearly an inch thick on high-grade paper.

Anyway, having printed the first copy without running out of ink, I sat down with a red pen for the final round of corrections. I ended up reprinting some 25 pages, then printed the entire thing again during dinner.

Dissertationed-out, I braved the Fringe crowds and trekked to Princes Street to get a ticket for One-Man Star Wars Trilogy, which is really excellent. If you like the movies at all, the show's a riot. Best lines:

Luke: Why didn't you tell me?!?
Ben: I forgot...

The fact that his Jabba impression is using his forearms as massive lips is amazing. The fact that he also does a one-man Lord of the Rings, which he's currently not allowed to tour, rocks my world. Please, someone, give this man the necessary permissions. I want to see him do the Fellowship!

Anyway, I'll think about getting my project bound on Monday, or whenever Alan sends around the final guidelines for the title page. If anyone needs roughly 200 sheets of high-grade paper, let me know...

Solo again

I said goodbye to my parents (and half my closet) at the airport this morning after a whirlwind two weeks of braving the Royal Mile and the freaky thespians trying to induce me to take their fliers. Strange to be walking back, passing the Radisson, and realizing I had no reason to darken their doorway again, unless I wanted tapas at Itchykoo (which is, incidentally, very good). With my parents gone, I've lost access to an oversized bed with a great mattress, which was perfect for lounging upon when watching their room television, which actually had channels. They complained about the programming, but when you've spent the year with 4.5 channels, Sky and full Channel Five are heaven. I actually watched House and Law & Order for the first time in months. House has a dog? Wilson's divorced? I've missed so much...

Also, GMTV, your new Friday segment with Elvis sing-alongs and Star Trek fan movies is abysmal. Please fire the producer, posthaste.

As I, too, will be on a westbound plane in 18 days, the time has come for me to do everything I've liked/forgotten/put off once more before I head home. Topping the list is printing the dissertation, which will be an almighty pain, but I'm also planning to hit up some Fringe shows and buy teaspoons. My mother wants cute British teaspoons, as they actually sit nicely on a saucer. Since there was no way in hell another thing was going to fit in their four suitcases (two of which were my fault), I'm to carry home the goods at the end of the month. It's off to John Lewis this afternoon, but only after I hit up Tesco. After two weeks of eating out, my larder is a tad on the empty side.

Monday and Tuesday

Winding up our whirlwind tour of Scottish tourist attractions, my folks and I headed for Stirling yesterday, where we saw the seventh castle/palace of the last two weeks.

Seven? Why, yes: Edinburgh, Holyrood, Glamis, Inverness (rebuilt), Urquhart (ruins), St. Andrews (also ruins), and Stirling, which is much like Edinburgh in miniature with an enormous great hall tacked on and painted yellow. It's great.

While it rained for much of the morning in Stirling and my parents, for some odd reason, saw no need to climb the Wallace Monument (could have been an after-effect of my making them climb Arthur's Seat and walk to Duddingston twice), we still had a nice time touring the castle and the Church of the Holy Rude ("Holy Cross", to those who didn't take Old English), and survived two trips with an insane bus driver who bore a strong resemblance to Chris Farley.

Today, we hit Rosslyn Chapel, which is well worth a look - it's only half an hour away on the 15 bus, and student admission's only £6. Anurag had warned me that the chapel's exterior is covered by a new roof, but this seeming detraction is actually a mixed blessing, as the walkway around the inside gives visitors an up-close look at the carvings on the spires. People, this place is gorgeous, tiny by church standards but covered with enough carvings to keep you happy for at least a good two hours. Between dodging DaVinci Code fans and trying to spot Jesus by the baptistery, we passed a pleasant morning, then returned to Edinburgh in time for Miss Julie, a Fringe play put on by a small cast from Birmingham Southern. I'm not just saying this because they're from BSC, but they did an excellent job, and they're only here through Saturday, so if you'd like to see Strindberg Southern-style, hop down to C Soco on Chambers Street at 5:15 some afternoon and take a look.

And the rain returns

I knew it. It was too good to be true.

After a week of nearly perfect weather, the rain returned in full today, making my parents and me quite grateful that we tackled Arthur's Seat yesterday. Regrettably, today was our day in St. Andrews, and with the rain and the ladies' golf, after three hours, my parents had seen all they wanted to see, so we caught a train back to town. Coming and going by taxi from Leuchars, I had to laugh; Mom and Dad's comprehension of the brogue is a bit on the shaky side, and our first driver, who didn't realize that they could barely understand him, tried to do an American accent and pulled out the worst I've heard to date. I love linguistic follies.

Back in Edinburgh, Mom and I did a little shopping. Guys, I'm now the proud owner of a sword. A rapier, to be exact.

It's not a combat weapon - those cost about four times as much as mine did - but it's lovely and will look great on the wall of my future apartment. The clerk told me I should do a Google search and find someone near me to teach me proper sword technique, though if I actually were to spar, I'd need a more substantial blade. Still, it's being shipped home, it's sharp and shiny, and I have a feeling I'm going to be the only single woman in the greater Birmingham area with a Scottish weapon on her wall.

Tattoo!

Click to Play

Last night was the preview show for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Excellent performance all around, even with the press scurrying around the esplanade, trying to stay out of the way of the goose-stepping Russians.

Yes, Russians. With a dancing guy in a bear suit.

We were treated to a multicultural extravaganza. First came the requisite pipe band, followed by Taiwanese majorettes, a fife and drum band from Massachusetts in full Revolutionary War-era getup, the aforementioned dancing Russian band, the world's only military steel drum band - from Trinidad and Tobago - and amazing limbo dancers, highland dancers, the mounted dragoon band, and a cover group on "Amarillo". The final songs of the evening included an audience sing-along to "Auld Lang Syne", hand holding and all, and "God Save the Queen", which was particularly interesting with a certain oversized flag in the middle of the parade grounds...