Further woes of a returning Brit

Laundry. It's a common cause for angst amongst Americans living in Britain. As I said in my last post, I find I've crossed the line. I'm in the Big American Washing Machines and Dryers sisterhood now.

There's another divide I've traversed. It also reduces me to a quivering heap of rage from time to time. I'm sure you can guess what it is. Yup. Customer service. Tell me...

• Why do I need a pound for a supermarket trolley? Does the supermarket not want my business? Do they not want to make it easy for me to shop with them? Don't try that prevention-of-vandalism argument with me. If I was a vandal intent on a late night jaunt involving some drunken friends, a shopping trolley, a hill, and a disused quarry or murky canal (sounds quite fun, actually), I don't think the need for a pound coin would put me off. 
• Why do shop assistants expect me to stand and wait while they finish their personal conversations?
• Why do they think it makes it better to say "I'll be with you in a minute"? I am the customer. Be with me NOW.
• Why do shop assistants say "It's over there" and wave vaguely in the direction from which I've come? I wouldn't be asking them where it was, if I'd found it "over there".
• When they say "It's over there", why do they add "or it should be"? I'm not interested in where it should be. I'm interested in where it IS. 
• When I say "I couldn't find it over there", why do they ask "Do you want me to show you?" OF COURSE I want you to show me. If I didn't want you to show me, I wouldn't have asked. 
• Why do shop assistants content themselves (but not me) with saying "I don't know"? It is your job to know, or to find out.
• Why is the British public so happy to be told "It's up to you, really"? Yes, it's up to me - I'm the customer after all (perhaps I should just remind you of that) - but I am asking for your advice. That's why you are in this job.
• Why do waiters ignore me studiously when I want the bill? Do they not WANT my money?
• How on earth do the public loos in cafes and shops pass health and safety standards?

Oh dear, I can feel my blood pressure rising as I write this. Too many UPPER CASE WORDS are creeping in. I'll have to go to Belgium for a day. That'll make me feel better about British customer service.

.

What I would love about my blog if I were you

A cheeky little title, I know.

This is what I would love about reading Iota's blog, if I were one of you. When I started blogging, it was because I was struggling to make sense of living in a new culture. I was beginning to make 'real life' friends, but that seems to take forever in a new place, and I was lonely. Blogging was an addiction, which in itself isn't bad (hey, who'd be reading this if blogging wasn't a little addictive now and again?), but at that time, I think the addiction spoke of isolation and unhappiness.

Then I had cancer. Remember that? I guess my blog was hard to read at that time. You must have been holding your breath, wondering what the next thing was going to be. Hoping I was going to be ok. Feeling the fear in my situation, even though I was so darn upbeat and jolly about it all, and trying not to let those fears of mine hook into your own buried ones.

The past couple of years have seen a rebuilding of life. But I'm not just back where I started. That was something I really resented about cancer. I was wailing internally "I just want my life back", while at the same time knowing that it was never going to be the same again. But ooh, get me (as they say... well... as I say anyway). I like my life a lot a lot a lot now. I've got a green card. I've got a job (I mistyped that as "I've got a nob", which made me laugh). I love my job. I'm doing a Masters degree. I love my Masters degree. I love how you always see it written with a capital M. Why is that, I wonder? I don't see why it deserves a capital. I actually love living in America (I hear the gasps of surprise followed by the cheering). I am happy. I am content.

You've probably spotted that I don't blog as much. You've guessed that I'm just too busy at the moment. The recycling of a couple of old posts was a bit of a giveaway. Yes, I'm busy, and my blog is getting a little neglected. But don't you even love that about it?

So that's what I would love about my blog if I were you. It's the story of a chunk of a life's journey that was a down and an up, a valley and a journey out of it. I would find that hopeful and heartening. It's more than that, though. It's the story within the story that I like. I feel a difference in myself. I've grown as a person so much over the past 4.5 years (yup, that's how long I've been blogging). I like myself more than I used to. I wonder if you can tell. I wonder if you sniff it out, in the gaps between the words on the screen, in the spaces between one post and the next.

And of course that's what I love about your blogs I've followed over the years. The tales of your lives: the narratives, but more so, the stories of who you are, who you were, and who you're becoming, which somehow, through the magic of writing, leak through the typewritten word.

Degrees

Not of the Higher Education variety. Though I must tell you about the MA I'm doing some time, because that would be a good post (stop yawning at the back there).

No... this post is about degrees Celcius and degrees Fahrenheit, prompted by a list of things that still surprise Not From Around Here, an American blogger who's lived in England for six years. Though, just to clarify, she's not surprised by the use of Celcius; she's surprised at her own lack of adjustment, and that she still has difficulty with it.

I'm going to let you all in to the inner workings of Iota's mind. I feel a bit embarrassed about this, but I know we're all friends here. Just try not to laugh too audibly at me in the comments. Here goes...

For all the years I lived in Britain, I never really coped with Celcius. So when I heard the weather forecast, I would mentally convert to Fahrenheit. To do this, you divide by 5, multiply by 9, and add 32. Yes. I really did do that every time I heard or watched the weather. Every time. It became a habit. I liked to think that I was exercising my brain in an Alzheimer's-protective sort of a way, but truth be told, it was just one of those little weirdy quirky kooky things that YOU LOVE SO MUCH ABOUT ME (stop laughing at the back there). I have to confess (and this is where the Alzheimer's-protection theory falls down), that I couldn't remember the result from one day to the next. So if Michael Fish said "it'll be the same tomorrow as it's been today", I couldn't short-cut the calculation. I'd do it all over again.

There are a couple of sneaky tips. It's worth knowing (if you're stuck in the same loop as I was) that 16C is 61F, and 28C is 82F. Ha! Genius. Except you do have to remember that it's 16-61 and 28-82, and not 15-51 or 17-71 or 18-81 or whatever, otherwise you'll be into that divide by 5, times 9, and add 32 manoeuvre all over again, just to check you've got it right. Which I did have to do. Frequently. It's a pity that the Great Fire of London happened in 1666, not 1661, because that would have been an easy way of remembering. Though then I wouldn't ever have remembered the date of the Great Fire of London, because it wouldn't have ended in 66 like 1066. Perhaps William the Conqueror could have made his move 5 years earlier, in 1061, and then everything would have lined up nicely.

Another easy-to-calculate temperature is -40 degrees, which is the same in C and F. Ta-da! Sadly, not very useful to know that one, when dealing with UK weather forecasts.

The other point I should confess to, is that it never made any difference anyway (stop that snickering, or join Husband, who always found this amusing). Having dutifully converted to Fahrenheit, I really didn't have much idea of how the figure correlated to the experience. I mean, I knew 32F is freezing, and that if it's in the 90s you're probably on holiday somewhere Mediterranean, but as for the gradation in between, well, I was always a bit in the dark (or out in the cold, if it was, and this being Britain, it often was). Husband gave me a rule of thumb (being a decent bloke), that if it's 60F you can just about get away with no jacket over a long-sleeved shirt. I know, I know. You have to remember, (a) he is a bloke, and (b) we were living in Fife among the hardy Scots. Over time, I've recalibrated that to 64/65.

Being in America has been a real education for me in what temperatures feel like. I now can read the weather forecast and know whether to wear jeans or shorts, whether to take a cardy or not, whether my feet will be cold in flip-flops. I tell you, it's a whole new thing. It's partly because the range is so huge, compared to the UK, that I've been more interested. It's partly because the forecasting is so good and reliable, that it's worth paying attention. It's partly because I see the temperature much more frequently than I used to - the dashboard of the car, the computer, winking digital signs outside shopping malls, churches, gas stations, restaurants, etc. I feel rather proud of myself. I've cracked this Fahrenheit thing. I'm hot stuff at Fahrenheit.

And I much prefer being 98.4 than 37 point whatever it is. Or 36. Can't remember. There's more room for manoeuvre. We all know that 100 means 'ooh, getting a bit high here'. Three digits is a helpful clue. Nice and easy. In Celcius, it's a matter of a decimal point or two between life and death. Much too scary. I need a bigger range of temperature when it comes to health. And yes, since you ask, I do have two thermometers. I don't trust either of them, actually. I do also have a conversion chart in the medicine cabinet, which I printed out before I'd got round to buying a Fahrenheit thermometer.

There you are. All you wanted to know, and more, about temperature conversion in daily expat life. Well, my daily life anyway. I'm guessing my approach might not be entirely typical. I'm going to stop now.

America arrives in Britain

Sharpies are in WHSmith. I love, love, love Sharpies. I can't imagine life without Sharpies. I am a Sharpie bore. Now you can get them in Smiths. Maybe I can move back to England.

I spotted Burt's Bees products in Waitrose. Burt's Bees have buzzed into this country. Yes, it probably would be ok to move back now. I'm not sure I could live without Burt's Bees products, but if Waitrose stocks them...

But here's an American import I don't like. The classification of milk.

Once upon a time, there was Gold Top and Silver Top, in glass pint bottles delivered to your door. The top of the Gold Top was what you had on your cereal, if it was your turn. The Silver Top was the ordinary stuff. Then they expanded our horizons by adding a Red Top. But life was still fairly simple. We weren't too far gone from Tess of the D'Urbeville days. Not any more. These days, buying milk is hugely complicated. Supermarkets should offer the public a short training course, and not let us loose near the milk section until we have our certificates. Organic, not organic, Jersey, Cravendale, skimmed, skammed, skummed, semi-skilled, semi-literate, semi-detached, and all those different sizes, from pint-sized to who-has-a-fridge-door-big-enough-for-this-for-heaven's-sake?-sized.

When we moved to America, it took a while to get used to milk by numbers. Whole is still whole, but semi-skimmed is marketed as "2%" and skimmed as "1%". Not too difficult, really, but I have to say, I always preferred the British terminology and enjoyed reverting to it when visiting back here. But now, it seems that the use of percentages has infiltrated Britain too. They couldn't keep it simple though, and stick to 2% and 1% (which is cope-able with, once you've got used to it). Oh no. It's got to be 1.7% and 0.1%, hasn't it? What kind of complex mathematical formulae were used to work out those?

Sharpies, yes. Burt's Bees stuff, yes. Milk by percentages, no no no no no.

.

Changing gear

Things that happen when you've been driving a left-hand drive automatic for too long:

• you keep going to the wrong side of the car to get in.


• in a public car park, you put your foot on the accelerator and press down hard, because you think it's the brake (and you have to have your foot on the brake in an automatic to put it into 'drive'), and then you wonder why the car is roaring. Other people are looking at you at this point.


• you drive more miles than is good on the M25 at 70mph in third gear, before the CD ends and you hear the engine tone. (Sometimes don't you just wish your husband didn't read your blog?)


• you come off the M25, head down the slip road to the traffic lights at the bottom, and judder to a halt, stalling, because being on a motorway has lulled you into forgetting about the need to change gear.

And parking spaces, for heaven's sake. They're so SMALL in England. You expect me to get a CAR in there?

.

Iota's got it bad

I am in England and I am weary.

I am weary because the journey is long and the time difference a pain. It takes a few days to adjust.

I am weary because I landed at Gatwick, raced around the south of England delivering tired but excited children to stalwart members of the family who looked after them while I sped off to join Husband at a job interview. He was glad I was there, but it didn't make any difference. He didn't get the job.

I am weary when I read blogs written by expats. For the first time ever, I can't really be bothered to summon up an opinion on posts which I used to find fascinating, on language, culture, everyday life. Does any of it matter?

I am weary of being an expat. I am tired of people assuming I'd like to back in Britain. They're right, and they base their assumptions on what I've told them. They haven't taken liberties. But I'm annoyed at what they assume, because it somehow devalues my current life in America. I have always tried to live in the moment, not in the future. I have called our house in America "home", and called Britain "Britain". I did that deliberately, but there is also truth in it, truth that took a while to become true, but is now true. At least I think so. I don't even know any more. I feel like other people think my life is in an aeroplane in the stack above London, circling and circling, waiting patiently to land and begin the next chapter. But it's not. My life is in the Midwest, full of friends and fun and family adventure. And yet, of course, they're right, deep down I probably am circling in that stack, and that's why I'm annoyed. I'm not really annoyed with them. I'm annoyed with myself. Because I'm not as free-floating as I pretend.

I am weary when I think of Cyber Mummy. Can I be bothered to go? There's a waiting list, I believe, so I could get my money back. I'm thinking there are better things to spend that cash on. Can't I just meet up for a drink the night before with the bloggy friends I really want to see? That's the bit I honestly want to do.

I am weary when I think of blogging, because I can't keep up, and don't want to keep up. I don't facebook, I don't twitter, and I know this means that I'm on the edge of blogging, that I don't have a future. It's just a matter of time. I've always been of the opinion that there's space for everyone in the blogosphere, but I guess it's not a nice feeling to know that you're just drifting slowly to the edges, making way for the next new generation of bloggers, and the next one, and the next one.

I am weary, because there's lots I'd love to write about, and I can't, because I gave up my lovely anonymity. Writing an anonymous blog is very freeing. You can say what you like. Should I ditch The Iota Quota and start another one secretly, where I can share of myself like I used to? (Ha! Perhaps I already have and I'm bluffing you!)

I am too weary even to polish this into a reasonable piece of writing. I am just going to press "publish post" and see what you all say.

.

“You must come round for coffee”: Part ll

I’ve just watched the film Made in Dagenham, and – perhaps I’ve been away from England too long – I was struck by just how often the people offer each other a cup of tea (except the Secretary of State for Employment, who offers sherry – I expect the film-makers were trying to make a point, though I can’t think what it is). Great film, by the way. Well worth going to see.

Here is Part ll of my attempt to make sense of this phenomenon for Americans.

When we Brits make conversation, there are some subtle differences to the way you Americans do it. You pick these up as signs of us being reserved, or unfriendly, but I don’t believe they are. Not usually, and almost certainly not, if someone has invited you into their home. You make so much more eye contact than we do when you talk. In my early days in the US, I felt mildly uncomfortable all the time in conversation, because people were holding my eyes far too much. I probably came across to them as very shifty – always moving my eyes to left or right, or dropping them. Often I still find conversation with a new person a bit intense. It feels to me not so much like a chat, as an interrogation. We British women need to let our eyes wander, and you see, if we have a cup of tea in our hands, it makes it easier. We can lose eye contact regularly, when we take a sip. Even if we’re not sipping, the cup we’re holding provides us with an easy place to divert our gaze. It just makes it more comfortable for us. Saves us having to wander our eyes round the room.

What about those embarrassing silences? We need a distraction for those. When there’s a silence, we take a sip, or we give the drink a stir, or we warm our hands round the mug, maybe clinking our wedding ring against it. It turns the awkwardness of the silence into a companionable moment.

Another reason we need a prop is this. It’s because we don’t know what to do with our hands, if they’re not holding a cup (and thank you to Michelloui for pointing this one out to me). Knowing what to do with idle hands is something you do well. We don’t. If I’m sitting talking without something to hold, I invariably fidget with my hair, or my clothes, or the chair. In a formal situation like an interview, I have to make a conscious effort to keep my hands still in my lap. You don’t seem to have this problem. I’ve observed this in your children. They are comfortable standing with their hands by their sides when they’re on stage singing, reciting, or just watching and listening. That was always something that felt so awkward to me as a child. I always wanted to clasp my hands in front of me, or behind, or put them in pockets. I’ve observed it in your teenagers too. They don’t fold their arms in that classic defensive posture that ours adopt. How do you manage to feel so at ease with your manual appendages? Have mercy on us, when we need a simple mug to occupy our awkward hands.

American ladies, I hope I’ve helped you understand the whole complicated deal behind the hot drink compulsion. It’s our equivalent of the toddler’s comfort blanket. We just feel lost without it. No doubt you could wean us off it, with a sticker chart on the fridge door, or by telling our friends and neighbours in front of us what big girls we are now. But it would be kinder just to let us continue. There are worse habits. Think of it this way: at least if a hot drink is on offer, there’ll usually be a biscuit for you too.

For more on this subject, please go to Michelloui's blog, The American Resident, where she has posted an answer to my reflections. And then for a pithy one-liner which will make you laugh, try this link here.

.

“You must come round for coffee”: Part l

I recently enjoyed this post by Michelloui, who blogs at The American Resident. She says “when I came to Britain where hot drinks are so common they’ve invented a quick source for boiling water (the electric kettle, woo hoo!), I gradually came to understand that when people offered you a cup of tea they would be uncomfortable if you didn’t accept”.

It has spurred me on to write a post that I’ve been meaning to write for ages. Since I read quite a few blogs written by Americans in Britain, I know that the practice of being offered a hot drink when you arrive at someone’s house seems an oddity, so I thought I’d try and explain.

If you meet another mother at a toddler or school event in America, and you want to get to know her (let’s just suppose you’ve moved to the area from another continent and you don’t know a soul and you’re going absolutely bonkers in your isolation… for example…), the key phrase is “let’s get the kids together”. In Britain, the same invitation would be “you must come round for coffee some time”. If you take the British woman up on her offer, you will find that you are offered coffee or tea, but no-one says “you must come round for tea some time”. I’m guessing this is because tea is both a drink, and a meal. It’s too confusing to invite someone for tea, because they won’t know whether you mean them to arrive at 10.30 in the morning, for an hour and a half of chat while the children play, or to pitch up in the evening with an empty stomach. (To further complicate it, the Brits can’t even agree on what the meal ‘tea’ is. To some, it’s a post-school snack; to others it’s a full evening meal.) So to avoid confusion, we just stick to “come round for coffee”. Either way, the clue is in the phrase. The event will involve a hot drink.

A word of warning. If when you get there, you say you’d like coffee, this will most likely be what you call Nescafe. Don’t expect anything with a taste that you recognise as real coffee. At this point, I’d like to apologise, on behalf of the British nation, for instant coffee. It is, I now see, an abomination, and should have been outlawed by the Geneva Convention. So, assuming you want to avoid the coffee, you’ll go for tea. This will be what you know as ‘black tea’ (we don’t really do green tea in Britain), and unless you ask otherwise, it will be served with a small amount of milk in it.

So much for the beverage details. Now on to the more important issues. It will help you if you know you are not really being offered a drink. When your hostess asks if you’d prefer tea or coffee, please don’t say you won’t have either. You have to understand that she’s not worried about your hydration levels. She’s not offering you an opportunity to quench your thirst; she’s offering you her hospitality. Making you a cup of tea is code for making you welcome. She’s not really saying “would you like a drink?” She’s saying “this is my home, and I’ve invited you into it, and I want to make you feel comfortable here”. So just say yes. Then she’ll be in a familiar pattern of what to do next. If you say no, the ritual goes awry. What to do? It doesn’t feel quite right to go and make herself a drink if you’re not having one, but it feels even worse to sit down and converse without a drink. More about that in my next post.

I’ve been trying to think what a comparable situation would be for an American woman. It’s not a direct equivalent, but the best I can come up with is this. When you are invited round to someone’s house for dinner, you always take a dish with you. If it’s a potluck dinner, you do. If it’s not a potluck dinner, you still do. Imagine a scenario in which you turn up to dinner with your side dish, and take it into the kitchen, and your hostess says “oh, we don’t need an extra side. I’ve made a bunch of food for everyone. You can just leave it here on the counter top, and take it home with you when you go” (and yes, oh British readers, an American hostess might well talk about “a bunch of food”). See what I mean? There’s no logic to these things. You didn’t really think that you and the other guests would go hungry if you didn’t take a side dish with you. It’s just what you do. It’s a cultural norm. Just as you would feel that it was odd of your hostess not to accept your food, so we feel it’s peculiar for a guest not to accept a hot drink. Does that help explain?

Running deep

Bloggy Peeps, I wish you'd been here this evening. You would have enjoyed the moment.

I was at my book club, and the member hosting the evening was offering us all drinks. She offered water, and said

"I have water or sparkling water. In fact, let me offer it to you as they do in England. Would you like stale or sparkling? I tell you, that was quite a shock, the first time I heard that. We were in London at a theatre, and in the intermission we went to the bar, and the bar tender asked us if we'd like stale or sparkling water. Didn't sound very nice: stale water! We ordered sparkling."

We were all chuckling merrily about the eccentricities of the English, which I don't mind at all, because it's a hundred per cent kindly meant, and actually, I quite like being called upon to represent an eccentric nation. "Ha ha ha, no, doesn't sound very nice at all, does it? Stale water, ha ha ha". But then gradually I became aware of a sensation in my head that felt like a memory knocking at the door, asking to be let out, and the cogs of my brain started turning slowly... slowly... until... Ping! I had it.

"STILL!" I declared. "Still water. Not stale water. Still water!"

I am a little worried that it took me a minute to access this information, and that it wasn't automatic. I am crossing rather too many lines. But the delay allowed for some nice comic timing, and there was much ensuing hilarity.

Just wish you'd all been there, Bloggy Friends.

Carrying... and a book recommendation

Well, you were right. It was guns, not babies.


You see this sign everywhere, round here. On the front door of schools, preschools, health centres, shops, restaurants, offices, libraries. Everywhere. An American friend of mine once pointed to it and said to me "I bet you don't miss that when you're back in Britain", and she's right. I don't. I hate seeing it. Perhaps this is one thing I will never get used to here.

I don't really get this sign, though. I think it must be some kind of legal disclaimer, because surely it has no practical value. Think about it. If I was in the queue at the library, and the guy in front of me pulled a gun out and aimed it at the librarian, I wouldn't tap him on the shoulder, and as he turned round, point to the sign, and say,

"Excuse me, but guns aren't allowed in this library".

I really wouldn't. I'd be far more likely to say,

"I know just how you feel. Those fines are ridiculous. A dollar a day on a dvd? Puh-lease. It's cheaper at Blockbuster."

Or I might whizz to the children's section, and get one of my all-time favourite children's books. This one:


Inspired by Monsieur Saguette's brave example, I might poke my baguette into the man's back, making him think I also have a gun, and saving the day till the police arrive. Of course this would only work if I happened to be carrying a baguette, which is unlikely, but nonetheless, I highly recommend this book. It's full of all kinds of nifty ideas as to what a monsieur can do with his baguette, and you won't be able to avoid putting on a fake French accent as you read it aloud to your children, which is olwez vairy vairy gud fuuhn.

Another shorthand phrase

Here's another of those shorthand phrases I was talking about in a recent post.

Would you have any idea what a friend meant if they said someone was 'carrying'? Although actually, they'd be more likely to say "I didn't know if he was carrying or not". That's because most often the person in question would be 'carrying concealed'. Only today, I saw a sign advertising instruction in how to 'carry concealed'.

I think I'm only going to let non-Americans guess this one, so if you're an American, or resident in America, and you want to leave a comment, you can just say "I know, I know". I'm guessing the rest of you have worked it out by now.

Shorthand phrases

There are a few shorthand phrases that people round here use. I don't know if they're universal in the US, or local usages. I'd be interested to find out - if anyone wants to enlighten me. When you're new and haven't learnt the local lingo, they sound very bizarre.

1) You hear about people 'holding' children. This is short-hand for 'holding back from starting school in the academic year in which they would be entitled to do so'. If you feel your summer-birthday child isn't ready for Kindergarten, you can start them a year later. How many British parents would love that flexibility! Until you understand the short-hand, and unless the context helps you, this does make for some puzzling conversations. You might hear a mother say "We decided to hold Esmerelda because that seemed right for her. We didn't hold Grizelda though. She was a different case. No way would we have held her." It sounds very cruel and cold-blooded doesn't it? Those poor children, denied their parents' physical affection...

2) People talk about 'walking'. This took me a while to figure out. A friend was talking about a teacher at school, and said "she must be about the same age as my sister, because I remember they walked together". I assumed this was an exercise regime. But then I had a conversation a few weeks' later with a student who was telling me "I'm hoping to walk in the summer, but if I can't fit it all in, then I'll have to walk at Christmas". To walk means to graduate - from the graduation ceremony, I assume.

3) The YMCA here is almost always referred to as 'the Y'. You're probably wondering why on earth it comes up in my conversations at all. Well, the Y operates for most people very much as a council leisure or sports centre does in the UK. Everyone uses it for swimming, gym facilities, exercise classes, sports, and children's activities (gymnastics, dance, swimming, team sports). So it is very much a part of daily life, and it's always called 'the Y'. I heard on the radio this summer that the national organisation has decided to change its name officially from the YMCA to The Y. They can't do that! What about the song?

In return, here's an English usage which must sound very odd to American ears, until they get used to it. I've had to stop myself, whenever I've been going to say it. How bizarre it would sound to local people here if I asked them "what date does school break up?" It would be even more bizarre if I asked (as would be perfectly normal in the UK) "when are your kids breaking up?" It conjures a disturbing visual image. Perhaps it's the children who weren't held who break up.

Associations

Today I went to a baseball match. Actually, I don’t think they call them ‘matches’. A baseball game. I enjoyed it. Definitely a whole blog post in there – another day.

It made me think about sensory associations. It was the loud, twangy thwack of the baseball on the (five syllable) aluminium bat that got me started. I bet that to Americans, that particular sound says ‘summer’. I bet they’d recognize it instantly, even if they’d been away from America for decades. I bet they’d close their eyes, and see in their mind’s eye a baseball pitch from their childhood or college days, feel the heat of the sun on their backs, smell the hot dogs at the concession stand, and hear the song from the seventh innings stretch.

As an expat, you're constantly developing a new set of associations. I suppose that's true of everyone, but it's exaggerated by a move to another country. The equivalent of the baseball thwack for me would be the repetitive thump of tennis ball on racquet strings, or the thud of leather on willow. Those are the sounds of summer. Accompanied by the smell of newly cut grass, of course. When you move abroad, you start building up a new library of associations: sound, smell, taste, feel. They don’t replace the old library. I guess you just overlay one on top of the other.

I had a moment, a couple of years ago now, when an association stopped me short. I was outside a store, and I heard a clang, clang, clanging which I couldn’t place. It confused me, and then suddenly I knew it. It was the sound I used to love when we lived by the sea in Scotland, of boats in the harbour on a windy day, the ropes slapping against the metal masts. I looked around, and saw a tall flagpole. Ah, that was it. Same sound, different context. A cross-reference in my library of associations.

Sensory associations run deep, and the expat has to undergo a little retraining. The comforting sound of coming home is no longer the click and turn of the key in the front door lock, but the whirring of the automatic garage door as it opens. I have to trust that a bathroom is disinfected, even though it doesn’t smell of Dettol. I’m guessing that for Americans, the smell of Lysol or Clorox carries that same hygiene-assured feeling. The labels say they kill germs, but it’s been a leap of faith for me. They just don’t have that trusted Dettol smell...

I wash up after dinner to Jazz Café instead of The Archers. That didn’t feel right at first. How could I fill a sink with water and bubbles without that familiar music? And on the subject of music, does anyone else still miss the ba-ba-ba-ba of the Pearl and Dean adverts when they go to the cinema? That’s an age-related association as well as an expat-related one. The passing years pose no threat to old associations, though. When she visited, my mother said that the tornado siren, tested on Mondays at noon, was the wrong way round. The warning tone should be the all clear, and the all clear should be the warning. Strong associations from 70 years ago.

Once you start thinking about these smells, or sounds, or tastes, you realize what a huge number we all carry around with us, and of course we carry far more than we are consciously aware of. I love associations. Why don’t you tell me some of yours?

.

The Great Outdoors

Do you ever start writing a comment on a blog, and before you know it, you've rambled on so much that you've pretty much written a blog post on the subject?

I've just done that on Nappy Valley Girl's blog. I'm enjoying reading her blog, because she's just moved from Clapham Common to Long Island, and it's full of her early impressions of American life. I can hardly read a post without exclaiming in her comments box "oh yes, I remember that feeling so well!". It also makes me realise how far I've dug in, in three years. Things that strike her as unusual are just part of life for me now, and it takes someone else to point them out for me to notice. She surprised local American friends recently by offering them milk in their tea. I remember doing that. Now I don't, and what's more, I don't even think about it. These things become second nature.

Anyhoo, Nappy Valley Girl was cogitating today on why Americans don't seem to go outside when it's snowy, or even cold. When you're bringing up small children, it seems an essential part of a day to take them out into the fresh air, come hell, high water, or bad weather. But only if you're British.

I was commenting along my usual lines of "oh, I've wondered the same thing!" and found I'd written so much on the subject that, if I just added a tiny bit more, I could repeat it all on my own blog and call it a post. Which is what I've done.

I started off by saying I thought it was just a cultural thing. We Brits have a deep-seated feeling that fresh air is good for children, and that going outside at some point in the day is essential. The Americans don't. Simple as that.

But then I decided that actually, there's more to it than that. I think it's a reflection of a deep cultural difference between the adults. We Brits love our outdoors. We are a nation of gardeners. We like a sunny day because then we can be "out". If we go on holiday, we like to see the scenery of where we are. Our own countryside is sacrosanct.

It's just not the same here. I once tried to explain to a woman who asked me what I missed about the UK, that I missed walking down a street, walking the kids to school, going out and about at the week-ends... that it made me feel disconnected from the "real" world. I said "For example, you could easily live a life here where you literally NEVER went outside some kind of built environment. You leave the house by car from your integral garage. You can run your errands at drive-thrus. Everywhere here has convenient parking lots, so you don’t have to walk to get anywhere. Indeed you physically can’t do that. You could live without ever seeing the outdoors except for the parking lots you walk across."

She looked at me as if I was on another planet, and said "What's wrong with that?"

My guess is that this is one reason why the fear of climate change tugs at the emotions of Brits more than a lot of Americans. We would really mind if our countryside changed. For most people round here, it's a rather remote problem. If the planet warms up a little, your air-conditioning bill will be a bit higher, but it won’t significantly affect your life. No big deal.

I don’t want to get pious here, but I can’t help feeling that it’s important for us humans to be conscious that we belong to the natural world, and not the other way round. There’s a big wide world out there, and we are very small in it. How do your kids learn that, how do they come to feel that, if you don’t take them outside?

You know you're in America when...

... your child gets a letter which is a personalized invitation to join in the National American Miss competition. Yay! My child has been selected for a Beauty Pageant!

I’m rather thrilled about this, as I feel I wouldn’t really have had the whole Living-in-America experience without it. It would be like going to New York and not eating a bagel, or London and not seeing Big Ben, or moving to the suburbs and not being invited to a Tupperware party. So I feel I’ve arrived. Yay!

The letter opens:

I understand that you may enjoy modeling, acting and learning stage techniques that will help empower and enable you to accomplish your future goals.

Ah, thank goodness for that. I thought these pageants were just for aspiring beauty queens. It continues:

National American Miss is a pageant experience designed for you, today’s girl; that’s why we do not have a swimsuit competition, we have a no make-up rule for participants age 12 and under, and you are not required to have a talent.

Phew. We wouldn’t want to rule out anyone just because they are entirely untalented. (And I do understand that it’s a talent, not just talent, before anyone points this out to me; I just thought it was funny when I read it.)

So what does my little darling, talented or untalented, have to do in order to have a chance of winning $25,000, modeling contracts, college scholarships, or a 2009 Ford Mustang convertible? Well, the letter gives details of where we can go for an Open Call session, where

you will have the opportunity to make new friends with girls from across your home state who have interests similar to yours, and also to gain self-confidence and valuable communication skills.

It gives details of the age groups, including the “Princess” category for age 4 – 6, and the “Junior Pre-Teen” for age 7 – 9, (which means that your kid can be “Junior Pre-Teen” pretty much as they leave Kindergarten. Mm, nice.)

The final paragraph helpfully provides a few tips:

First, dress for success! Come dressed as you would for a job interview.

Um, my child hasn’t been to many job interviews yet…

Before you hurry to advise me on what attire would be suitable for a child in this situation, whether they aspire to be in modeling, acting, or simply to attain a new level of self-confidence, I have to say that we won’t be pursuing this fabulous opportunity. Why not? Well, just one small glitch. The letter is addressed to 8-yo, my youngest son.

And what is it with blogging, by the way? I write a post about boys and self-confidence, and then this National American Miss letter arrives for 8-yo the very next morning. Am I in some cyber version of The Truman Show? This isn’t the first time this kind of coincidence has happened. Does it happen to the rest of you? Is it that we are more attuned to events in our lives that we have just written about, and that makes us spot connections more readily? Or is there some spooky blogger puppeteer out there pulling the strings in my little blogger life? (If there is, I don’t want to know about it.)

It all comes out in the wash

As you know, I’ve been thinking recently about feminism, and whether it’s aliver and weller in Britain or America. Of course trying to answer that question is rather a hopeless cause. How could I possibly assess what life is like for 300 million people this side of the Pond, or for 60 million the other? This is something you get used to, as an expat. People ask you questions beginning “Do Americans…?” or “Do the English…?” and you find yourself trying to make an assessment of an entire culture, its history, philosophy and traditions, from your own very small amount of personal experience and knowledge.

I read blogs written by Brits in America, and by Americans in Britain. One thing I love is that whatever opinion you read in one, you will find it contradicted in the other. I know that whenever I write a reflection on life in America, someone in Britain will read it and think “No, no, no! That’s exactly what it’s like HERE.” It’s all part of the fun.

Take a big issue like feminism. There are American bloggers who feel strongly that Britain is so backward. There are British bloggers who think that America is way behind.

What about social habits? I read recently that British people don’t wash their hands after using the loo/restroom. Which is odd, because I have never ever once in 40 years in Britain seen anyone leave a public convenience without washing their hands, but in the 2 years I’ve been here, I’ve seen it 3 times (including one of my own friends). I have been congratulated by a stranger in a restroom for teaching my daughter to wash her hands. Yikes. I’d assumed every mom did.

Right down in the smallest detail of life, I’ve found exactly opposite opinions. An American friend was telling me the other day how her daughter’s name had an R added on by locals when they lived in Scotland. Gemma became Gemmrr. Funny that, because I’d already noticed that my daughter’s name, which also ends in an A, underwent the same process when we came here.

Then there is the great washing machine debate. Goodness me. I tell you, if the “special relationship” between our two nations, that special relationship which Gordon Brown yesterday described as "unbreakable", if it depended on blogging expat women’s opinions on the subject of washing machines, it would have no chance at all. "Special" would not be the word.

Who knew there was so much to love or hate about a washing machine? You can love or hate its size, how many programmes it has, the length of the programmes, whether you can open the lid once the machine has started in order to throw in a stray sock, whether you have to bend down to load it up, the method of putting the detergent in. This will be familiar territory to many of you. If you want my personal take on it, I will go all not wrong, just different on you, and say that I do have a preference, but that it’s just a personal inclination. It's based on a slight divergence between how the two types of machine operate, but really, it's a minor difference. British front-loaders get laundry clean; American top-loaders don’t. See? Minor stuff, as I said. Nothing to get too excited about. I just have to confess that I find it useful when a washing machine removes dirt and stains from the clothes you put in there, and keeps white things white.

Here we are, come full circle, right back where we started. Feminism. Surely feminism is nothing if not the right to define your individuality and womanhood by your preference in washing machines. It’s true that front-loading machines have recently come onto the market over here, but they’re fearsomely expensive, beyond the reach of your average oppressed housewife. Yes, it’s all about choice, but until that choice is available to all women, feminism remains a word, a theory. Sisters, our work is not done.

Women of Britain, rejoice in your washing machines! Join hands in a line of solidarity, a washing line of solidarity, and do not cease to fight for the day when all women, no matter their race, religion, age or nationality, have access to a decent front-loading washing machine. And until that day, don’t burn your bras. Just keep them nice and white, even on a delicate cycle.

Moments

There are moments here that I love. They are the moments when I pause and think

"That would never have happened if we'd stayed in Britain".

At preschool, 4-yo has been learning about the desert. On my kitchen wall I have a cut-out and coloured-in armadillo, coyote, lizard and rattlesnake. Also an unidentified bird with a newspaper tail, and some kind of warthog cut out of sandpaper. When I picked her up the other morning, I asked her what she'd had for her snack. She replied,

"Prickly pear jelly on crackers."

That was definitely one of those moments. And because I know you're going to ask, yes, she did like it. She said it was delicious.

Different things

Over the past few days, I have been collecting a list of things that will be different about life when we’re in Britain. They are pretty random, so I will just spew them out, although I have made at least a little attempt at organizing them. They are in three categories. Three categories – come on, that’s pretty good. I mean, it’s not the kind of intelligent analysis that would get me to be where someone like Matt Frei is, but three categories is three categories. Don’t knock it.

Things that will be different

• There will be reassuring white lines at road junctions, so that I will know where I am meant to stop the car
• Stop lights will not swing about on their wires in the wind in that alarming way
• The meat aisle in the supermarket will be mostly chicken with a small section of beef, rather than mostly beef with a small section of chicken
• Children won’t call each other “dude” (or perhaps they will; we’ve been away 18 months and this could be a new fashion for all I know)
• Everything will seem very small, especially cars and houses. A friend of mine laughed when I told her we have an air hockey table in our basement playroom: “you have a playroom large enough for an air hockey table?”. I didn’t tell her we could fit 3 or 4 in that room, and that we have a choice of other rooms where it could go. And that our house is not abnormally large for a family of five
• Children in a park won’t ask their parents for an underdog (which is surprising, given we’re meant to be a nation that always likes the underdog)
• A grill will be something you put meat under, not on top of

Things I will miss

• A big fridge
• The lack of traffic
• Not having to spend time planning the hunt for a parking space
• Thunderstorms
• Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in a box (which, annoyingly and humiliatingly, is much, much more delicious than homemade)
• Mixer taps that actually mix the hot and cold water
• Seeing exotic food in my local supermarket (cactus leaves, buffalo meat) – or will Cadbury’s chocolate fingers and Wall’s chipolatas seem exotic now?
• Knowing it will be warm enough every day to wear flip flops (I find the relentless heat hard to cope with, but I do like flip flops)
• People asking me where I’m from and saying they love my accent

Things I definitely will not miss

• Obscenely large portions in restaurants
• Drinks served 75% ice 25% liquid (am I the only one who likes a drink to be something you can drink? am I the only one with teeth sensitive to cold?)
• When I order milk from a children’s menu, the waiter asking “white or chocolate?”
(Of course these first three are entirely hypothetical, since we won’t be eating out at all. Given the cost of living in the UK, we will be existing on bread and water – oh, but at least it’ll be delicious bread, not the compacted cotton wool that is marketed as bread over here.)
• Commercials on tv – their number, frequency, length, quality and medical content (I think that covers the gist of it)
• The word “ornery”, because I just can’t quite get the nuance of what it means – one of those words which has a dictionary definition, but whose usage depends on undefinable knowledge
• The word “flakey”, for the same reason (and is it “flakey” or “flaky” – I can’t even spell it)
• Chiggers
• Four-way stops (don’t get me started)
• Children saying “can I get…” instead of “please may I have…”
• People asking me where I’m from and saying they love my accent (and yes, that’s meant to be in both lists - I’m a bit complicated on this one. Sometimes it’s nice to be different and have an immediate talking point, sometimes it would be nice to blend in a little more.)

Happy Birthday

So, 3-yo turns 4. She was the first of us to have a birthday here in the US. Now her second birthday-in-America has come round, it feels like we are here well and truly here, not just here finding out what it’s like here.

Her third birthday was, for me, one of the saddest days of this whole moving-to-America lark. I didn’t dwell on it, not wanting to cast a gloom over her special day, but the day brought for me both a focus on what we had left behind in Scotland, and a meeting head-on with the very worst of the culture we were seeking to embrace.

Before you have children, you imagine that the world of mums and babies is a shiny smiling place, in which groups of women happily congregate to share experiences, and where deep friendships are formed. Then you have a baby, go to a few babies and toddlers groups and activities, and find that it can be quite different. Why would there be so many Mommy blogs if the myth were reality? I had done my fair share of all this with the two boys, and had found a bit of reality and quite a lot of myth. With my third, I struck lucky. Two women who were already friends happened to have daughters at the same time as I had mine. We lived within walking distance of each other. They each had 3 older children, and sons in the same classes as mine. I was even in the maternity hospital at the same time as one of them. Our due dates were a month apart, and throughout the pregnancies, we’d joked that she’d have to give birth two weeks early and I’d have to be two weeks late. And it happened. I woke up the morning after laboring and delivering, to a cheery familiar face and a “fancy a cup of tea then?”

The little girls, even at the ages of 1 and 2, liked each other’s company, and, perhaps for having 8 older siblings between them, seemed able to play together beyond their years. They sat up in high chairs in the local coffee shop, at that lovely stage where a teaspoon to bang on the table is all that’s needed to occupy a baby for half an hour. Luxury. Then they staggered round the coffee shop, giggling at each other, plopping down on their padded bottoms, while we tried (and by now, failed) to have a conversation. They reached the stage where crayons and paper might work for 5 minutes, but a decent conversation is beyond possiblity. We met at the local toddler group, where it just so happened there was a whole bunch of other fun mothers. Women who week by week would ask how my plans for America were coming along, who would listen to the tedious details, whom I bullied into buying the furniture and gadgets we didn’t want to ship (“who’d like a paper shredder? or a desk that’s a bit broken?”), who I knew would feel a space on a Thursday morning where 2-yo and I had been.

By the time of her third birthday, we’d been in America for just over 3 months. We were beginning to find our feet. There was no-one, though, to invite to a party. I couldn’t help thinking what pleasure a party would have given her, her small friends, and me, if we were still in Scotland. We’d have had it at home. Little girls in pink frocks. Old-fashioned games: the farmer’s in his den, pass the parcel, musical bumps and musical statues (all with a bit of parental help and varying degrees of chaos). Older siblings hovering around the edges. Little nibbly snacks and a cake. Singing happy birthday. Balloons and decorations. I know that children's parties strike fear into the hearts of many a braver mother than I, but I've loved the parties I've hosted. It's not hard to give half a dozen preschoolers a good time.

Worse still, 2-yo had tagged along when I had taken her brother to a party, and already had a firm idea of what constituted an all-American birthday experience. She was fixed on having her birthday celebration at Chuck E Cheese’s. Oh dear. Chuck E Cheese’s. Even the locals say things like “the kids love it”, as if to absolve themselves of any guilt attached to the decision to take their children there. With my freshly-arrived British sensibilities, I can only say that the words “culture shock” came nowhere near describing the experience. Chuck E Cheese’s is a games arcade designed for the 3 – 8 age range. You buy coin-like tokens, which your beloved darling then feeds into various game machines. If they win, the machine spews out tickets, and when your child has finished for the day, you take your tickets to a counter where they can exchange them for a prize. The prizes on display on the wall behind the counter are Nintendo DSs, or huge Hot Wheels playsets, or diamond-studded Barbies. These have price tags on them of thousands of tickets. Your child has probably collected 50 tickets. They will be directed to the glass display cabinet where they can choose between an array of small plastic items. They could get two yo-yos and a plastic ring, or three 4” fake snakes. Those too young to understand that a number with 0s after it is a big number are sorely disappointed. Those old enough to grasp the concept can take their tickets home to save up, and try their luck at persuading their parents to bring them again. I speak from experience. 7-yo has a bag of about 80 tickets in his bedroom, against the day when he might get another 8,000 or so for the electric guitar. This makes for happy parent-child conversations, as I’m sure you can imagine.

If kids are not going to a party, but have come along simply to enjoy a pleasurable Saturday morning, they will have queued for a long while to share the privilege. If they have come to a party, they will by-pass the queue, feed tokens into machines for a period of time, and then sit at long tables, eating oily pizza, until a large mouse with an over-sized plastic head emerges with a cake. This is Chuck E Cheese himself.

I think it is at Chuck E Cheese’s that the consistent Iota “not wrong, just different” philosophy of life in a different culture is stretched to the ultimate limit of its elasticity. Surely, surely, this is not a good way of entertaining young children. The place is small, crowded, smelly, greasy, loud, and thoroughly unpleasant. The food (pizza or burgers) makes a McDonalds happy meal look nutritious; the music is brainless. The adults sit in booths looking bored or anxious or both, and avoiding each other’s eyes. If this was a police state, I would say that everyone was trying not to see who else was there. It’s the kind of place you could report your neighbours for visiting. The annoying thing is that, as the locals say, the kids do love it. I can’t help feeling, though, that they have all been so thoroughly brainwashed by so many TV advertisements telling them that they are going to have a gratingly fantastic time, and then subjected to the peer pressure that the adverts engender, that they arrive without much choice.

I hate Chuck E Cheese’s so much, I’m not even going to provide a weblink. If you want to visit him, you can google him yourselves. I don’t want to be responsible for a single extra visitor to his site. The only redeeming feature about Chuck E Cheese’s, is that, along with the shiver of hatred that makes me clench my molars together and suck in my breath every time I hear his name, there is a little glimmer of amusement provided by my English ears. You see, the way they pronounce it here, it sounds for all the world like Chuck E Jesus. If I was feeling very irreverent, I might even say it sounds like Chucky Jesus. I’ve even tried saying “Chucky Jesus” to people in the right context, and they don’t notice anything wrong: “you went to Chucky Jesus on Saturday? How fun!”

So my daughter had her third birthday at Chuck E Cheese’s. She had no friends to invite, and I had no friends to share it with. She enjoyed every moment with her two big brothers, though, which was all that mattered. And if I could have seen ahead to her fourth birthday, I would have felt a lot happier about being here. More about that next time.

Enthusiasm: Part II

Where was I? Ah yes. Lost and alone on a sea of unembarrassed enthusiasm, without the raft of irony to cling onto... Doesn't sound good - I'd better not leave me there too long.

When one is shipwrecked, one has to make use of the scarce resources to hand, and thus it was that I began to investigate enthusiasm, to see if I could put it to any useful purpose. I noticed that my children came home from school with teachers’ comments reading “woo-hoo, 10-yo, this is AWESOME work!”, or “6-yo, I am so PROUD of how hard you tried on this - way to go!”, and seeing their faces light up with pride. I began to wonder how they would cope with a return to the “good effort” or “nice work” crumbs that they would be thrown by British teachers.

Then I noticed that even adults dealing with adults feel able to say things about themselves and each other that are affirming and positive and, well, rather, um, uncomfortable and embarrassing and, let’s face it, jolly unBritish. Then after a while, since you can get used to pretty much anything, I began to feel that this is actually quite nice (in a reserved kind of repressed way). The zenith came when I got together with 3 other women to form a book club. We had a great evening, partly discussing the book, mostly discussing life, and the next morning, there was a little flurry of emailing. It was effusive. There were superlatives. I was told I was “adorable”. Email, of course, is very forgiving, and in the privacy of my own home, I was able to shuffle about in my chair, look at the ceiling, breathe deeply and recite the words of God save the Queen to restore my equilibrium. I wrote a reply, matching their effusive excitement: “Thanks so much for your emails. It wasn’t a bad evening at all, was it?”

Maybe I’ve just been here too long, but you know, I can’t help feeling that the Americans might have got hold of something. I wonder what it is like in the other direction. How on earth does it feel to an American moving to England? Dour, cynical, repressed, gloomy? To them I say, you should try living in Scotland. No, no, I'm only joking.

You see, here in Home on the Range, there's a line that goes 'seldom is heard a discouraging word'. You get to Britain, and it's the brutal opposite. The newspapers are discouraging, the discussion in the office is discouraging, the chat at the school gate is discouraging. We don’t see it like that. We see it as self-consciously amusing, wittily detached. We think Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Ross, Private Eye. We look on the Americans as a nation of adults who’ve never quite grown out of childhood, but I’m beginning to wonder if the British are a nation of adults who haven’t entirely left their teenage years behind. We’re so keen (in a totally uninterested way, of course) to be cool, to be unimpressed. Perhaps it’s not as clever as we think.

I find myself in the uncomfortable position of sitting on the fence with a foot in each camp. Fundamentally I am a Brit. My Brit foot is a size 6, and it’s a laconic foot in a painfully elegant cashmere sock, draped languidly over the fence in a self-deprecating gesture, an ironic reference to post-modernist foothood.

But my Yank foot, a size 8½, is learning to wiggle its toes in an unembarrassed manner. I dread to look, as I think it might be clad in one of those socks with individual toes, in bright stripes or spots. It might even be in team colours. It's enjoying itself, and it isn't going to apologise for that. It's pursuing happiness, and that's its right. Nothing to be ashamed of there. I’ve just thought of something else. Oh no. It probably understands the offside rule, and if not held in check, will soon start offering to explain it to other feet.

Hm. Time to do the patent Iota litmus test of enthusiasm. Close my eyes, picture an old friend of mine who used to render a roomful of the rest of us helpless with laughter by his description of an 'enthyoosiast'. Re-run in my memory that perfectly honed timing and pronounciation. Yup. Still has me rolling around in my imaginary seat. Phew. Still on the right side of the fence then. That’s a relief. Though nothing to get too excited about, of course.