You can spot the ones who've lived in the Midwest

The weather forecast predicts snow. I have to go to a supermarket. I have to stock up. Snow coming means you stock up.

I know the snow will be a feeble half inch which will have degenerated into slush by lunchtime. I live about a mile from three different supermarkets, along main roads. I live a 10-minute walk from a petrol station which has a pretty decent shop. But I can't help it. Snow coming means you stock up.

We're going away on Wednesday for 5 days. Between now and then, the children have lots of events on at school - which means they will be having their meals at school instead of dashing home for a quick food stop (one of the great boons of them being day pupils at a boarding school - wonderful flexibility on the dinner front). There is a bag load of sweet treats on the kitchen counter left over from a 'do' Husband organised last night. We are not short of food. But I can't help myself. Snow coming means you stock up.

So just as I found myself explaining to Mid-Westerners that no, I wasn't crazy, but if the sun comes out, you have to get the children out into the garden, even if it's winter and freezing cold, now in the same way, I find myself explaining to the check-out boy in Morrisons that I can't understand why the place isn't packed with people shopping before the snow comes. He looks at me as if I'm a little deranged, but I tell him: "Snow coming means you stock up".

Photo credit: Daily Telegraph

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Smoked haddock quiche

I have made a smoked haddock quiche tonight, which looks exactly like the picture in the recipe. That never happens, does it? Never. But it did tonight. I thought it an important fact, worthy of sharing with you. I'm not going to post a picture, because food is very hard to photograph, and it wouldn't look as nice as it looks in reality. Oh, alright then.

Those little flecks are yummy chives.

The quiche is for an indoor picnic we're going to tomorrow evening. We're on a jolly table of excellent bods, and our theme is "The Great Gatsby". Cue flapper dress, headband, feather, and shoes which were half price in Sainsbury's earlier this week and look very 1920s. I love those shoes so much I think I might have to adopt them and make them joint beneficiaries in my will with my existing three children.

Bit of a stressful evening, Bloggy Friends. Our realtor was going to closing (that's the terminology) on our house today at 10.00am Midwest time, ie 4.00pm BST. There were a couple of emails from her. One was asking where the garage openers were (clicker things, a bit like tv remotes, that you open your automatic garage door with - and just why is it, exactly, that Britain hasn't caught on to automatic garage doors? I suppose it's because we use our garages for storage and leave our cars outside them, so we're not opening the doors on a several times daily basis.) Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. Two emails from the realtor. Well, I knew where the garage openers were, so that was ok. Phew. In a kitchen drawer. The second email, however, was a little more problematic. And I quote:

"One thing that I just found out about: Last night there was some hail. They are getting a roofer to look at it. I don't believe it was large enough to cause damage but I will let you know. If there is damage we would need to possibly call your insurance. I will let you know."

Well now, if that doesn't warm the heart of anyone on the brink of selling their house, I don't know what does. Actually, I do know what does. It's another email saying that they've had a roofer out, and he has given the roof a clean bill of health. The roof, incidentally, was brand new last June, because there was a hail storm seven weeks before we were leaving the country that caused so much damage that we had to have the house completely re-roofed. No mean feat to get that little baby sorted in seven weeks, I tell you. Especially as we spent the first one or two in denial and didn't even get anyone round to assess the roof damage because we couldn't face having to deal with the consequences. Sometimes I think I should go on "The Apprentice" - piece of cake, what those young bloods have to achieve, compared to moving continents.

So who knows what is happening regarding our house sale, except the money has gone into our bank account, so I guess either (a) all is well and those fabulous buyers have themselves a new house with an undamaged roof on it, or (b) the sale has stalled, but the title company set up the bank transfer in advance of closing, and couldn't stop the money going through. (a) would be best, but I'll take (b), because who the heck needs confirmation of a house sale when they are able to cook a smoked haddock quiche which LOOKS JUST LIKE THE PICTURE IN THE RECIPE?

Amen

PS I haven't forgotten that I need to report back from last week-end's camping trip.

PPS Can you have a PS after an Amen?

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Unsettled

The weather is unsettled. Summer and winter in the same day, several times over. As I write, I look out of the window and it's hailing. Ten minutes ago it was bright sunshine, and the sky was blue.

I am unsettled. Two family funerals in the past two months. Two house sales in the next two months. We close on ours in May, and my mother completes hers in June.

We aren't going to be at our closing in person ("closing" is the term for the meeting, where the seller, the buyer, the two realtors, and the title company, get together, usually at the premises of the title company, to sign off on the deal). We have the necessary documents, which we are going to sign, next week, in the presence of a US notary at the US Consulate General in Edinburgh. I've made the appointment. I found the act of making that appointment disproportionately stressful, necessitating a phone call to the Consulate General and the careful reading of their website. Anyone who has been through the process of getting a US visa will understand why. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that as I dialled the number, my heart started pounding. It was the memory of previous trips to the US Embassy in London, huge stacks of paperwork, photos rejected for random reasons, dealing with lawyer-speak well beyond the understanding of mere mortals like myself, slightly humiliating medicals and endless vaccinations, all at great expense and all with so much at stake.

My mother is leaving the house she and my father moved into, on 1st April, 1963. I was born in her bedroom. We gathered the family over Easter, to celebrate our family having been in the house for exactly 50 years (Easter Monday was 1st April, if you remember), and we had a lovely time: 3 generations, 16 people, 1 dog. But now it really is the final countdown. Contracts are being exchanged today (unless the solicitors come up with still more items to research), and completion is on 7th June. This really is it. Furniture will go to the local auction house. Belongings will be packed into a removal van. Items will disappear into boxes, to emerge in another house, in another town. Furniture, belongings, items, which I've known all my life. My roots are being severed. I don't like it.

It all makes me feel jittery. My hands and feet are permanently cold. I confess to spending more time than usual in a hot bath at the moment.

Where do I belong? I very nearly drove off on the right hand side of the road yesterday. It gave me a jolt. Don't I know which country I'm in by now? I couldn't find the spices in Tesco the other day. I looked up and down the "Homebaking" aisle where I knew they'd be, but I couldn't see them anywhere. I found the herbs, so I knew I was close. Then I saw them, and I realised why it had taken me so long. I had the wrong search criteria in my brain. I hadn't been scanning the shelves for spices in glass jars. I'd been scanning for spices in little red tins. Little red Kroger tins. Do I still think I'm in Dillons, not Tesco?

I suppose I'm like the spring. She has one foot in winter and one foot in summer. I have one foot in the past and one foot in the future. Blue sky and hail. That's me.

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Fifty Shades of Grey

Everyone's talking about it. Some find it rather shocking. Do we all really have to be subjected to this kind of stuff? Others shrug their shoulders. "This is modern life", they say. "It's just how it is these days." Personally, I have to say I've found it very disappointing. It's low in entertainment value, and I can't see how anyone could describe it as arousing. But certainly, it's a popular topic of conversation. The weather.

The last two summers have spoilt us. We've arrived from the US, and been greeted by cheery sunshine. Long June days of sunny, but still crisp, early summer weather, which have quietly given way to the heavier, more languid heat of July and August. The occasional morning or afternoon of showers, just to freshen the landscape, but the sun never far behind. Lazy days, with the children playing on the lawn, or walking the dog on dust-dry footpaths. But now summer 2012. Fifty Shades of Grey.

I'm not complaining, though. I prefer the British alternative to what we've left behind. This is the current 7-day forecast for where we used to live.

For those of you who work in Celsius, it looks like this.

I prefer it here. What about you? Would you prefer Fifty Shades of Grey, or One Shade of Yellow?

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Finest parenting moments

The other day, at dinner, 11-yo stood up, in order better to access his trouser pocket, and grinning, fished a many-times-folded piece of paper out. He handed it to me, and it took a while to unpeel the layers. When I did so, I recognised the homework I'd helped him type out the night before. 


Fifth Grade had been set the task of writing a poem, titled Springtime. He'd done that, and then a couple of evenings later, they'd been given back their texts, and asked to type them out - for display purposes. When he sat down at the computer, it was late, he was tired, and I thought the point of the assignment was creative writing rather than typing practice, so I said I'd type it for him. It took me no time at all (I'm a touch typer).


Ladies and Gentleman, for your delectation and delight, here is the poem that he submitted to his teacher, (which describes his memories of his grandmother's garden).

Springtime

By 11-yo

When I look outside my window, I see lush green grass and tall trees. I see purple flowers with yellow and red. There are pink blossoms in the trees and thorns on the branches. There is a vine of colourful flowers climbing down the brick wall of the house.

Sometimes there are rabbits, birds, squirrels, and deer. I can see the farm next door, and hear the cows mooing. There are young sparrows chirping in the tall trees.

The sky is blue and speckled with puffy shit clouds, and birds flying high in the air. The sun is shining with puffs of wind swaying the tree branches.

One word had been circled by the teacher, with the comment "oops" written above. Have you spotted it? Luckily, she has a good sense of humour, and thought it was very funny. She made it into a joke between herself and 11-yo, not to be shared with the rest of the class, and she and he had a good laugh privately about it (you have to remember that Americans are much more offended by this kind of bad language than Brits, so this is a much bigger deal here). When she and I emailed about it, she said that actually, what had amused her most was that when she first pointed it out to 11-yo, he told her I'd "helped him" type it, rather than saying I'd typed it. Which only goes to show that as an exercise in choosing words carefully, the poetry homework had served its purpose.

And here's a little secret addendum to the story, between you, and me, and 11-yo, which I didn't confess to his teacher. I originally typed it as puffy shite clouds, noticed, had a laugh with 11-yo, and then corrected it. But I wasn't paying attention, and my subconscious obviously spotted an opportunity for a bit of a joke at the expense of my conscious. Damn you, Subconscious, though I like your style.

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Tornado

If ever there was a bloggable moment, this is it. It's amazing that we have power. A tornado has just come through the city, and power lines must be down all over. I'm glad we do, though. I like to connect with you all, in the stillness that has become my night.

Now I really wish I'd written that blog post I've always meant to write, about what we do when there are tornadoes predicted. Then you'd have some background against which to understand what has just been happening. Too late now.

The storms have been moving across the Midwest all day. We've been following them. Nothing too close, nothing to worry about. Then at about 9.00pm (I only know because 8-yo was in bed asleep, 11-yo wasn't), we started to pay more attention to the local tv channel, now devoted entirely to storm-watching. It still had that slightly exciting feeling to it. And then it didn't. They started talking about a tornado headed straight for our city. Not a likelihood of a tornado. Not a storm that has all the signs favorable for a tornado. A tornado on the ground. Half a mile wide. And the weather man is telling everyone to make last minute preparations. Then he tells us to go to our shelter area.

We are in the basement. We have wondered about sitting under Husband's work bench, but (not in front of the kids), discuss whether the benefits of being under something solid are outweighed by the dangers of being in the workshop. Most tornado injuries for people inside their house are from flying objects. The workshop is full of objects you wouldn't want to fly at you at high velocity. I don't even crack a joke about how tidy it is (what with the house being on the market). I don't even joke. It must be serious.

So we huddle together in the little space that is a storage area between two rooms. We usually have a wine rack there, and a conglomeration of boxes and junk, but of course everywhere is so minimalist at the moment. Did I mention that our house is very tidy because it's on the market? We huddle together, and I'm thinking "This can't be happening. We've only got 2 more months here. This can't be happening. That's lousy timing." 11-yo says it'll be something to tell the grandchildren. I think about the war. Families huddled together night after night.

We're wearing bike helmets. Mine still has the instruction booklet attached to it, which keeps banging against my neck. Husband doesn't have one. He and I don't discuss who should have the adult one. He just handed it to me and I put it on. Why would that be? We're padded with sofa cushions, and snuggled under duvets and blankets. When the tornado comes by, we're going to lift the duvets over our heads. We tell the children that it will sound like a freight train going over us. There might be a silence, but that will be because we're in the middle of it, and it will start again.

I tell everyone to take deep breaths, "into your bellies" I say, "not just into your lungs". I am strangely calm. I think of you all, and I want my mind to come up with some clever quip about blog fodder, but it doesn't.

We have a laptop with us, and we're watching the weather man track the tornado. The weather man tells his non-essential colleagues at the weather centre to head down to their basement. He tells viewers that he will follow them at the last moment. The tornado is on the outer edges of the city. I can picture exactly where. "That's where we were this morning", says Husband (who took 11-yo to his soccer match there). They put up a projected path of the tornado. The neighborhood adjoining ours is mentioned by name. The tornado is expected there at 10.38. I look at Husband and I say "this is it. This really is it." He looks at me.

I tell the kids - again - that we are going to be ok. If you're in a basement, you're (usually) unhurt. I say that we are going to be ok, but that the house might be damaged. We have already prayed several quick prayers, but we pray again. For ourselves, for the city, for those without basements, for anyone outside, for those who are scared. 14-yo says that it's the exact time the Titanic went down. 11-yo has hidden his face under the blanket. 8-yo's eyes are wide and bloodshot.

We wait for the freight train. It's less than 5 minutes away. We're all hot, under the duvets and cushions. I am ridiculously proud of my children.

The tornado changes course. Instead of heading north, it veers east. There is no freight train. We think of the people in the suburbs to the east. They were hit by a dreadful tornado in 1991. The neighbourhood next to ours isn't mentioned any more. The tornado is north east of the city now. It feels more confusing than anything else. I should be relieved, surely, but I'm just confused. It didn't come. The freight train didn't come.

The power goes out. I text my brother in Paris, so that he can tell the family we're ok, when they wake and see pictures on the news.

And then it gets surreal. The power comes on again. The kids find some digestive biscuits in the basement (I thought you'd like that bit!) which I bought yesterday at a new British supplies shop which I visited just out of interest. I'm long past the need for British goods, but I was just curious, and it was one of those situations where I couldn't really leave without buying something, so I bought digestives for myself, fruit pastilles, refreshers and love hearts for the children. We eat digestive biscuits, and drink water. We go outside and look into the darkness. It's not raining, but it must have been - the side of the road is a raging torrent. I comment that we won't have to water the new turf we've had put down (because our house... oh, I think I've told you that). I get emergency text messages from the school, telling me that if my child was at the prom, they were safe and sound in the basement shelter of the country club. Wow - that would be a prom to remember.

I feel very wobbly, but very calm. The two can co-exist. 11-yo asks if he can play his clarinet, because that will make him feel better. I can't think of a good reason to say no, so I say yes. 8-yo then decides that playing the piano will make her feel better too. She's had a total of 3 lessons so far, and has one tune. Old MacDonald. So she plays Old MacDonald, and 11-yo joins in on his clarinet, but in a different key. They don't seem to mind. I told you it got surreal. 11-yo then says he wants to play something soothing and calming, so Old MacDonald stops, and he plays a haunting, wandering melody. I reflect that I had no idea he was so good at the clarinet.

I suggest that we put the kids to bed on the floor of the spare bedroom in the basement, and take it in turns to go to bed in the room with them. We need to keep watch through the night. There are more storms coming up from the south (damn you, Texas), and I don't think we would hear the tornado sirens from the basement. So this is my watch, Bloggy Friends. It makes sense to do it this way round. I'm a night owl, Husband is a morning lark.

There's a moth at the window in front of the desk, attracted by the light. It's very determined, fluttering and fluttering against the glass pane, trying to get in. How do you suppose a moth survives a storm which produces hail the size of golf balls, and winds that can rip a roof off a house?

I'm going to go now. Those storms might be approaching, and I need to be on top of what is happening. Thank you for keeping watch with me, dear Bloggy Friends.

Posts

I'm sitting blogging because I'm in denial about how much needs to be done in the house to get it ready for putting it on the market. There's a blog post in that.

It was lovely getting together with our realtor, reminiscing about when she helped us buy a house five years ago. There's a blog post in that.

The system of buying and selling houses is so much better organised here than in either England or Scotland. Our realtor (and I) can hardly believe how such a major life decision and financial investment can be so poorly taken care of in comparison (though perhaps we are out of date - perhaps new legislation has tightened everything up). There's a blog post in that.

I'm looking out of the window at lightning and heavy rain. I will really miss thunderstorms. I love the drama of them. There's a blog post in that.

A couple of friends who I've just been drinking wine and eating chocolate with, are coming round on Monday morning to take me and my house in hand, and help me dress it for selling. I can't even begin to explain what that would mean without writing a whole blog post.

What's that movie called? The one with Renee Zellwegger as a chic business woman from Miami, who goes to Minnesota to an ailing factory with a mandate to close it down, and eventually suspends her corporate superciliousness, to fall in love with the warmth of the community (as well as a good-looking - supposedly, though he didn't do it for me - widower). That would give you an insight into what kind of decor will help sell our house. I understand American films so much better, now I've lived here. Another blog post there.

I watched 14-yo play tennis yesterday. Ah, I remember those hours of hitting a ball to and fro with a preschooler in the back garden. Now my role is more relaxing. I sit and watch, and chat to friends sideways. Several blog posts in that.

7-yo turned eight, and we hosted a birthday sleepover. Lots of blog posts there.

7-yo asked "Will we sell the house for A THOUSAND dollars?" Certainly another blog post.

11-yo is going on a field trip to a Health Museum tomorrow. I have no idea what the place is all about, but it sounds good. I should probably google it. Then I could write a blog post about it.

We're leaving here. I can hardly believe it. I hardly want to believe it. I am me here. I don't know how to be me anywhere else. I will learn, I will discover. I'm both excited for the future, and sad for the loss of the present. It makes me pensive. Blog posts there, thick and fast.

So many blog posts, so little time.

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Autumn

I absolutely love autumn. And I absolutely love autumn here. The colours are amazing, and the days can still be warm. Even if the weather isn't warm, it's usually sunny and bright, and the light has a particular quality to it. I love it.

Three years ago, (that long?), I did a couple of blog posts about autumn, with pictures of trees and leaves, and I'm going to re-run them here. It's interesting to see how then I was busy comparing autumn here with autumn in the UK. It's a sign of how long I've lived here, that I no longer do that. I just enjoy autumn for what it is, and I enjoy the familiarity of it. I know what to expect.

Three years ago, I wrote this:

Trees in Britain have to get their shows done so quickly, and in the damp. A few days, and they need to get from green foliage to bare twigs. They manage a little colour, but have to speed on through to dead brown leaves pretty fast. The trees here have the luxury of week after week of slowly fading temperatures, and still have the energy to choreograph their colour changes with finesse. What impresses me most, is the way one tree can exhibit different colours at the same time. We had two trees in our garden that were, for days on end, red at the top, yellow in the middle, and still green at the bottom. Traffic lights. I couldn’t get far enough away from them to photograph them, more’s the pity, but here are some other examples I found.

Look how this tree shades itself from orange to green, left to right.



This one decided to do it from top to bottom.



These ones do it from the inside out. See how they’re red at the ends of their branches, but still green at the core, as if holding on to summer in their hearts while bravely waving their hands at the oncoming autumn.



Impressed? Just wait till you see this. Group choreography. These five babies have got together for a chorus line performance.



Great show, gals. (That isn't a floating roof, by the way. It's just that someone painted their store the exact same shade of blue as the autumn sky.)

Some trees are just too bursting with their own creativity to bother with that shading effect, and they mix up the colours in a great effusion. This one gives us a beautiful two-tone green and yellow.



I left in that stunning little red bush for you to see. What an effort it made – the least I could do was not to crop it out of the picture.

This one couldn’t wait to decide which colours to go for, so threw them all in together and mingled them up. The photo doesn’t do it justice. Click on it to enlarge it - go on, you know you want to.



To finish, here is a glorious display of autumnal splendour.



Look at the rich red, the startling yellow, the mellow ochre, the luscious green. Even that little shrub in the front is shimmering in maroon and silver.


Which one? Well, it's a bit small, I admit. You probably can't appreciate it properly.



I'll enlarge it for you - I'm sure it's well worth a closer look.




Those lovely autumn tones...




Hang on...









It’s a fire hydrant. I’m getting carried away here.

This post was trees. The next is going to be leaves.

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Thoughts on our return to the US

Just to clear up a bit of confusion...

Yes, 14-yo's video does make it look as if we live somewhere beautiful. No, actually, we don't. Some of the pictures he used were taken on our holidays in Colorado and Arkansas. Just felt I had to put the record straight, as I have in the past whinged on about how there's no beautiful scenery near us. Thank you for all your comments, by the way. He loved them.

Anyway, here we are, back again, new school year beginning. Here are three lists. I used to be a civil servant, and I still find lists a good way of organising thoughts. Or of writing a blog post when you can't quite string it together in any other way.

1 Nice things about returning to America

a) People. Friends. A group of three families who organised a 'welcome back' barbecue for us, hiring the party room at the local pool, and whenever I said "what can I bring?" insisted "we've got it covered". Americans do hospitality and welcome in a fabulous way.

b) Each time we come back, it feels very different. Like a child starting a new school year isn't actually any taller than on the first day of term than they were on the last day of the holidays, but somehow they seem it. A step away and a step back brings a new perspective.

c) The weather seems sensitive to our arrival. For the second year running, a hot and humid spell has broken the day after we get back. It's very nice of the weather to be so accommodating. It must know I don't cope very well with the heat. This year, I am especially grateful, as it's been record-breakingly hot. It was over 100 degrees (38 celcius) for over 40 consecutive days, and one day it reached 113 (45). I have a little shared laugh with people here about how in England we all pluck our t-shirts away from our bodies and woggle them about, trying to create a tiny breeze, saying "wow it's hot today" when it gets to 80 degrees. Sorry, British people. I have a joke at your expense. (When I was an au pair in France, the little boy I looked after thought a t-shirt was called a p'tit shirt - isn't that sweet?)

2 Things that have changed in Britain

a) Oreos. I spotted some in a supermarket. That's a shame. They're not a patch on hobnobs, digestives, kitkats, or a million other nice British biscuits. And they leave a horrible black ring round your child's mouth. Don't buy oreos.

b) Jaffa cakes. Don't like them. Never have. Never will. (They haven't changed, so I don't know why they're on this list. Wrong list, Jaffa Cakes.)

c) Moving on to non-biscuit-related topics. Sharpies. Yay, wa-hoo wa-hey. Sharpies have arrived in Britain. I cannot imagine how we have lived without them in a satisfactory manner till now. Go out this minute and buy yourself a Sharpie. (Except you, Josephine, you've already got one.)

d) Speed cameras. They are everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Have they been breeding?

e) Top Gear presenters. They are everywhere. Not only is Top Gear on television whenever you turn it on, but they are presenting pretty much every other television programme there is as well. Including that rather addictive one that's made in Argentina because Health and Safety in Britain wouldn't allow it. What's it called...?

f) More Americanisms in British everyday speech. I don't feel very strongly about this. I think language evolves and grows, and you shouldn't try and put it in a cage and keep it. It needs to rove free, like the buffalo over the plains (though it didn't end terribly well for them in recent history). Rove... or should that be roam...? See, a case in point. We should all be free to grab whatever word we want, to suit the mood and the moment, and if that means that some become more popular and some die out (like the buffalo nearly have done), then so be it (though I do feel sad for the buffalo, so this is an imperfect simile). But I have noticed that there is an increasing number of words that have crossed the Atlantic. 'Mad' meaning 'angry'. 'Smart' meaning 'clever' (I blame smart phones, smart technology, etc for this one). 'Call' instead of 'ring' when talking about phoning someone.

3 Things that are still just too counter-cultural for me to love

a) Over-competitive sports for children. I've said it before, and I'll say it again (in fact I have a ranty blog post just waiting to spout out and rove all over my blog any day now on this very subject).

b) A phone message from a very chirpy student on our answerphone:

"Hi, Dr Husband, this is Francine from X University. I'm just calling on behalf of the university as the new academic year begins, to say how much we appreciate the faculty members. We just want you to know that the university values you so much, and we're so glad you're part of it."

Does this really work for most Professors? Really? Or do they, like Husband, stand glowering at the answerphone, making retorts about how a pay rise would do more to make him feel valued than employing a student on the minimum wage to go down the faculty phone list making vacuous calls.

Three white things

First white thing

I made a startling and potentially life-changing discovery while in Scotland, and being a generous soul, I thought I'd share it with you. Those square white plates that they have in restaurants and in catalogues... get yourself some.

We were staying in a friend's house, and the first night, I rustled up a delicious little something for the children: fish fingers, pasta and broccoli. (Oh come on, I was on holiday, I wasn't going to be slaving over a hot stove every night.) But here's the amazing thing. If you serve fish fingers, pasta and broccoli on square white plates, it looks like some gourmet speciality. It really does.

If I was a half-decent blogger, I'd have comparison photos for you. Fish fingers on my usual circular pattern-round-the-edge plate, followed by fish fingers on clean-lines square white plate. Then you could see for yourselves. Sorry. You'll just have to shut your eyes and imagine them... See...? The first looks suspiciously like fish fingers, pasta and broccoli. The second, ah yes, the second has become North Atlantic cod coated in our own special-recipe golden breadcrumbs, oven-baked to soft perfection, accompanied by delicious wholemeal pasta and locally sourced garden-fresh broccoli tips, served with a smooth coulis of 'ketchup de tomates organiques'.

They had rectangular white plates too, which were even more sophisticated. I mean, rectangular, for heaven's sake.

Second white thing

It is very hot here. As we made our descent, the pilot informed us that the temperature on the ground was 108 degrees (that's 42 for you celsius types). It was windy too, and walking out of the plane onto the stairs felt like walking into a giant hairdryer.

Still, we are quite jammy really. It's been over 100, unrelentingly, for two or three weeks, and now the forecast says it's going to drop down to the low 90s - maybe even a cool 89 tomorrow. So we timed our absence and homecoming pretty well.

I am mentally better adjusted to living in this kind of temperature than I used to be. I used to find it frustrating, because, being English, I'm so hard-wired to looking at sunshine and thinking "ooh, lovely". This just led to frequent disappointment. I've had to relearn my reflexes. It's as if Pavlov took his salivating dogs and said "and now, just to complicate things, I'm going to ring the bell, and then serve you food that tastes disgusting and makes you sick... let's see if we can recondition you...". It's one of those complicated ex-pat things. You have to reconfigure some of your good/bad assumptions. I remember being confused when our realtor was showing us round a house in January, and said "this yard has trees, so it'll be nice and shady". It required a mental u-turn from the usual expectation of "south-facing, sheltered, sunny".

So yes, I'm pretty well adjusted these days. I don't look out of the window and think "ooh, lovely". A lot of the windows have the blinds down anyway. I look at Weatherbug on the computer, and think "ooh, hot". I will confess, though, to a residual English excitement at the thought of how quickly the washing will dry (though actually, it's not as speedy as you might think, because of the humidity). I think it will be some years before I lose that.

Third white thing

I've got my green card. It was waiting for us in the mail on our return. It's white. Forgive me for being simplistic, but I was expecting it to be green. This means that I can get a job, and get paid. It's actually rather intimidating (pathetic of me, I know).

So that'll be me, flipping burgers then.

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Seasonal offerings (though getting a bit unseasonal)

OK, OK, so it’s getting a bit late now for autumnal posts, especially since it’s minus 13 degrees centigrade today, but we’ll just have a quick look at leaves, and then I’ll get into gear for Christmas. I promise.

Look at this lovely carpet of leaves in my back yard, just over a month ago. (It's worth clicking to enlarge).


You can almost hear them whispering “don’t sweep us up, don’t sweep us up” can’t you?

You will probably remember that what impresses me so much about the trees here is their ability to multi-colour (ooh, a new verb is born). Well, the leaves do it too.

These leaves have decided that those of them on one branch will be yellow, those on another will be green. How do they do that? A fine example of peaceful democracy.



Here, they’re all mixed up together.



I wonder if that creates more friction between them, or if they still happily co-exist, green and yellow, at such close quarters. Does the tree engineer the design and control when each leaf may change from green to yellow, or does each leaf have free will?

Look here, though, how within a single leaf, the multi-colour effect is achieved. These do that clever thing that the trees do, holding on to one colour in the middle while letting a new colour creep in at the edges.



This one is a work of art. Deep red veins traced against that subtle orange background, on an even deeper red stem. Perfect.



A couple of final glorious pictures, just because I can’t resist, and it’s going to be at least 9 months till autumn comes round again.






And don’t you just love this song?



To me, it captures the whole essence of the way our lives are marked by change. The seasons are a part of that. The music somehow manages to be both melancholy and cheery at the same time, which is masterly, for change is, surely, both our enemy and our friend, a stealer and a giver.

Thank you for your indulgence. I know blogging this late about autumn is very bad form. There now, I’m ready for Christmas. I’ll catch up with the rest of you.

Seasonal offerings

I knew you’d all be fed up with the festive season by now, so I thought I’d give you a break from tinsel decorations and snow scenes, and reminisce with you about autumn. What? You think I took photos of autumn leaves a month ago, didn’t get round to writing the blog post, but am still determined to use them? You cynics.

I love autumn. It’s my favourite season, always has been. And I never knew how much I was missing out. The British autumn, I’m sorry to say, is really a bit thin, compared to the richness of the season here. You know how at the beginning of October, you get a few days where it is warm again and the sky is a deep blue, and everyone says how much they are appreciating this Indian summer? Well, this year, we had that kind of weather for about eight weeks, mid September to mid November. No rain, no wind, just day after day of perfect skies and exquisite warmth. The leaves that fell stayed dry, and raking them up was like building piles of cornflakes, rather than that sludgy mess that comes with raking wet British leaves. Altogether a different experience.

Nature seemed to appreciate the perfection of the weather too, and put on some beautiful displays. Trees in Britain have to get their shows done so quickly, and in the damp. A few days, and they need to get from green foliage to bare twigs. They manage a little colour, but have to speed on through to dead brown leaves pretty fast. The trees here have the luxury of week after week of slowly fading temperatures, and still have the energy to choreograph their colour changes with finesse. What impresses me most, is the way one tree can exhibit different colours at the same time. We had two trees in our garden that were, for days on end, red at the top, yellow in the middle, and still green at the bottom. Traffic lights. I couldn’t get far enough away from them to photograph them, more’s the pity, but here are some other examples I found.

Look how this tree shades itself from orange to green, left to right.



This one decided to do it from top to bottom.



These ones do it from the inside out. See how they’re red at the ends of their branches, but still green at the core, as if holding on to summer in their hearts while bravely waving their hands at the oncoming autumn.



Impressed? Just wait till you see this. Group choreography. These five babies have got together for a chorus line performance.



Great show, gals. (That isn't a floating roof, by the way. It's just that someone painted their store the exact same shade of blue as the autumn sky.)

Some trees are just too bursting with their own creativity to bother with that shading effect, and they mix up the colours in a great effusion. This one gives us a beautiful two-tone green and yellow.



I left in that stunning little red bush for you to see. What an effort it made – the least I could do was not to crop it out of the picture.

This one couldn’t wait to decide which colours to go for, so threw them all in together and mingled them up. The photo doesn’t do it justice. Click on it to enlarge it - go on, you know you want to.



I’m glad trees are rooted to one spot. If those British trees came over in the autumn, I’d hate to witness their feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment. It would be like meeting your best friends in Milan or Paris, and walking down the most fashionable shopping streets with them in their old cords and Fair Isle sweaters. We could console the trees with talk of differences in climate, and how they do their best against the odds, but I’m sure their branches would hang low and their leaves would droop. I’d hate to see that. Of course they wouldn’t really need worry, because the trees here, being American, would be supremely impressed by the sheer size of their towering British cousins, and their history. All those years laid down in concentric circles, from the time of their sapling youth when masked highwaymen hid in their shadows, and men in tights hurtled between them in pursuit of wild boar (my historical knowledge is poetic rather than factual...). Trees here are neither large nor old. Too many ferocious winds to which they must bow low, and too many ice storms to contend with, when their branches are broken off by the weight of the days-long accumulated ice.

To finish, here is a glorious display of autumnal splendour.



Look at the rich red, the startling yellow, the mellow ochre, the luscious green. Even that little shrub in the front is shimmering in maroon and silver.


Which one? Well, it's a bit small, I admit. You probably can't appreciate it properly.



I'll enlarge it for you - I'm sure it's well worth a closer look.




Those lovely autumn tones...




Hang on...









It’s a fire hydrant. I’m getting carried away here. But don’t think I’ll be moving on to Santa and polar bears yet. Oh no. This post was trees. The next is going to be leaves. Sorry.

Tea

Good news, People!

Wal-Mart sells PG tips. Not cheap, I grant you: $6.77 for 80, but a significant step in the progress of the teaification of the area.

When we first came here, you could get PG tips and other brands of tea at a marvellous store called World Market, but I never saw them anywhere else. Then, our local Dillons created a small section of foods from overseas countries, and the British aisle contains PG tips, Tetleys, and a choice of ordinary or decaf. (There are probably people here who assume I'm talking about Dillons when I talk about the British Aisles. They should know better, though. There's only one aisle, and I would never wantonly misuse a plural like that.) And now Wal-Mart has PG Tips in the regular, everyday, common or garden tea and coffee section. They'll be delivering them with the mail next.

I wonder if I could plot a map, something like those moving radar maps they have on the weather forecast. We would probably still be in an area of light brown low density tea availability, but the dark brown area of high tea availability could be shown moving slowly in from the east. I could explain that this followed the high pressure consumer interest which has been mounting slowly. I would put symbols on the map to clarify: little cups on saucers, with drips falling into them - a bit like inverted clouds.

In this election season, I like to see the teaification of the area as a sign of hope for America.

Reasons to be cheerful: Part II

Motts Pots
They don’t call them that, which is a shame. It would be such a good name for what is such a good idea. They are little tubs of apple sauce (stewed apple or apple puree if you'd rather), which are just excellent as an alternative to a yogurt or fromage frais. Handy at home, perfect for packed lunches, top picks for picnics. Of course this all depends on your kids being the kind who like apple sauce, but for those of you who have the other kind of kid, well, you can just eat a Motts Pot yourself from time to time. You don’t even have to keep them in the fridge. They do a few variations too: apple and strawberry, cinnamon apple… in fact, here’s the whole range.

Please, if you know someone connected to the company, would you pass on to them a couple of ideas. The first is the name. They’ve got as far as Motts for Tots (ie smaller tubs for toddlers), but no-one has made the really very obvious step to Motts Pots. This would, I’m sure, put them ahead of the competition (Kroger, a rhymingly challenged company). The other idea is that they should launch into the UK market. Apple puree, formerly available only for babies, now here for children and adults. One of your five daily portions in a convenient tub. It’s really delicious stuff. Motts Pots for Brits. Don’t tell me that wouldn’t succeed.

Garage openers
These are absolutely standard here, so you have to try not to look too wide-eyed and excited as you point and click from the comfort of your car seat. Makes you feel like a bit of a celeb though. I mean, fancy me having an automatic garage opener. It was some weeks before I could do the point and click without saying “open sesame” and laughing out loud – until I caught sight of my children’s faces in the mirror. I think they’d heard the joke once too often. Most people programme the clicker into some clever gadget or other just above the driving mirror, so they don’t even have to fumble around in a door pocket, but can just reach up in one elegant movement. When we were test-driving our car, this feature was pointed out to us. I asked “why are there three buttons?” The reply came “some people have three garages” (duh….). Almost all houses other than the very old ones (you know, those dating back to the 20s and 30s…) have integral garages, meaning you can walk straight from the garage into the house. So if you have a garage opener, you don’t have to worry about rain, cold, wind, sun – you can be straight out of your climate controlled house, into your climate controlled car. Your legs need hardly be activated at all.

Of course in Britain garage openers would be next to useless, as they are designed for people who put their car in their garage. It's a strange concept, but it seems to work once you've got the hang of it.

Long summers
I know I’ve complained about the heat here in high summer. I know. The nice other side of that coin, though, is that for much of the year (at least May to early October) it is warm enough to be in flip-flops, a t-shirt and capris (not shorts, please, at my age). I can hear the envious intakes of breath from here, as I tell you that it is only last week that I have had to think of taking a cardigan when I go out. That is nice. I have become very wedded to flip-flops (except in banks).

Goo Gone
I was intrigued to find out about Goo Gone, after one occasion when I heard American women in Scotland discussing how much they missed it. So when the official at Immigration stamped our passports and said “welcome to America. Do you have any questions?”, I replied without hesitating “Can you tell me where the nearest Goo Gone retailer is?” I do see exactly why you would miss this product so much. You know how often there is an irritating problem relating to a price tag on a birthday present, or the remains of a sticker on the furniture or the window? Well, Goo Gone is the thing. One little squirt and a quick wipe, and the unsightly mess is gone. On a bad day, I have been tempted to see if it worked on the kids themselves. It’s another product ripe for the UK import market. I’ve even thought of an advertising slogan: Blair gone? Goo Gone would have got rid of him quicker.

Kitchen roll in half size strips
You know how a piece of kitchen roll is often too big for the job? The Americans have got this sussed. Here, you can buy kitchen roll in half size strips. Nifty AND environmentally sensitive (although I expect that is just a lucky side effect). “But hang on a minute” I hear you say. “What about if the spillage is too big for a half size strip? What if I need that full size square? I’d end up having to have two different rolls on the kitchen counter, and that would take up precious space.” Well, here’s the clever clever thing. When you have a roll in half size strips, if you need a big old-fashioned square, you can miss out one line of perforations and just tear off two half size pieces together! It works just the same! Brilliant. They've thought of everything.

Reasons to be cheerful: Part I

Now, in the interests of redressing the balance following my miserable gloom of last week-end, I’m going to tell you about something that I really like about here. Thunderstorms. We’ve had a couple of humdingers this week. The good thing is, it won’t be long before the next one. Not that they’re really frequent, but frequent is a relative thing. Think about it if you’re reading this in Britain. When was the last time you had a good thunderstorm? And the time before that? See. Hardly ever. And how long did they last? A measly 20 minutes? Here they rumble around for hours.

Thunderstorms here are magnificent. The thunder rolls and booms and cracks. The lightning flashes just like in movies, or when children fiddle with the light switch. Light, dark, light, dark, light, dark. We get that proper forked lightning too. Lots of it. Like the finger of a divine being: “You, yes, you, Iota Manhattan, this one is for YOU”. And zap! You can see it crackling its way down to the intended spot. Actually, I shouldn’t joke, as lightning strikes do account for deaths and injuries here, and it is treated with respect. I’m told you shouldn’t be on the phone or use the computer during a lightning storm, (although there are those of us who will risk personal safety for the sake of our blog readers). People feel uneasy about being outside. Outdoor pools are closed if there is a threat of lightning, and this morning’s preschool trip to the pumpkin patch was cancelled. The words ‘rain’ and ‘mud’ were mentioned, but lightning was given as the reason.

Thunderstorms can hog the stage and perform on their own, without it raining, which I find very exciting. Of course they do bring rain too. Proper rain. Torrents of the stuff, lasting for ages. You get veritable rivers running down the sides of the roads, and the drainpipes flow like taps. Proper rain. Not that drizzle that passes for precipitation in the UK. Over there on the eastern side of the Atlantic, you’re really quite pansy-ass when it comes to a good storm. Bigger and wetter, that’s the style here. Something else I like about rain here is that it doesn’t have to be cold. We’re not talking tropical conditions like the monsoons or anything, but certainly, you can have a warm day that doesn’t turn cold just because the rain has come. I like that. Why should rain always equal cold? Huh? Here, you can be out in the rain in your flip-flops (remember this detail, it becomes significant later on).

So thunderstorms are good. And today it turned out that lollies in banks are good too. Lollies in banks. Usually I hate lollies in banks. Does my child really need a sugar fix just because I’ve paid in a cheque? “Don’t waste your money” I always want to say. “Lollies are not necessary. What else are you frittering away my cash on? Stop the lollies and lower your overdraft charges.” But today, nothing to do with the very satisfying thunderstorm, at least I don’t think so, although you never know how these things tie up in some cosmic realm, I even found a purpose for lollies in banks.

I was going to the bank after school pick-up (why?), so I had three children with me. One, the smallest, was running about in a wild fashion that in Britain would have made me feel rather self-conscious, but here, doesn’t make me feel quite so bad, as they seem a bit more relaxed about noisy children (oh look, did you spot that? Another nice thing about America has sneaked in. I could run a Spot the Nice American Thing competition at this rate. By the way, did you notice the word ‘pansy-ass’ a few paragraphs ago. That’s another. I didn’t know that word a year ago.) Anyway, she was running up and down, with the Burt’s Bees lip salve (oh, there’s another one) she’d stolen out of my handbag, saying “guess where I’ve put lipstick, I’ve put it all over everywhere” and giggling hysterically. This might have embarrassed me, but I knew that (a) she was talking about her own body, as evidenced by the hoiking up of her t-shirt to display her belly button which I could imagine is a pretty tempting target for a lip salve when you are 3 years old, (b) she was laughing so raucously that I knew no-one else would be able to understand a word she was saying and (c) lip salve is clear so that if there had been some collateral damage on the furniture and fittings that I hadn’t witnessed, we’d be long gone by the time it was discovered.

It happened. She tripped over her flip-flops (hah! remember?), her pink bejeweled flip-flops, measured her length and landed on her front, the fall accompanied by a dull 'bop' sound as her little forehead hit the bank floor, since her hands were too busy clutching the lip salve and its lid to be any use in saving her. There was much yelling and sobbing, which continued for a while. Then a while longer. Then, after a pause which only the most heartless of mothers would interpret as resulting from a quick assessment of the size and interest-level of the audience (both satisfactory), a while longer. At this point, the helpful bank lady started talking about ice packs and cold water (more yelling, louder yelling), and I could feel the situation was getting out of hand. So I put aside my pride, and there on my knees in that Bank of America, I uttered some words which I never thought I would utter in a bank. I asked “Do you have any lollies here?”

I suppose I should be honest, and tell you that actually I was rather inarticulate at this point. Kneeling on the floor, arms round yelling child, hands fumbling with lip salve and lid, I was struggling for the right word. I was hesitating to say “Do you have any suckers here?” which is what kids call lollies. It didn’t seem a very appropriate turn of phrase for use in a high street bank. So I started with ‘popsicles’, which I knew was wrong as soon as I’d said it (they’re the frozen ones), and quickly diverted to ‘lollies’ (not right either), which I tried to segue into ‘lollipops’, but I fear I produced some burbling sound somewhere between the three attempts. The nice bank lady understood me though, and of course the end of the story is that they did indeed have lollies there. They had a particularly nice pink and purple stripy one (you see why I wonder about cosmic realms), and all was well. The boys managed to sneak one each too.

Thunderstorms. Lollies in banks. Reasons to be cheerful: Part I.

Heat (2)

Aha! Further enlightenment on attitudes to weather (see below: Heat ).

The newsletter from our neighborhood pool informs me that "inclement weather may necessitate early closure or delayed opening of the facility". Fair enough. Wonder what counts as inclement weather. Read on. "Such conditions may include heavy or persistent rain, air temperatures below 70 degrees, lightning and severe storm warnings." Wait a moment. What was that temperature? 70 degrees?

In my experience, 70 degrees is often the high point of a British seaside holiday. But to the Midwesterner, 69 degrees is too cold for your children to swim outdoors, and is on a par with lightning and severe storm warnings. I really should have been kinder to Midwesterners in Scotland, especially during the summer months. They were living on the edge.

Heat

It was with some horror that I read the policies of the YMCA, where my sons, 6-yo and 9-yo (although by then he will be 10-yo) are doing summer camps. Camps, I have discovered, don't have to be residential, or indeed have anything to do with camping or the outdoors. You can do soccer camp, science camp, even chess camp. A camp can last all day, or just a couple of hours. I have redefined my understanding of the word.

The YMCA camps involve team games, swimming, jollity and general fun. As far as I can tell. The policy that horrified me was the following:

"Physical activity is limited when the heat index reaches 100 degrees fahrenheit. Children will remain indoors when the temperature is 102 degrees or above, with the exception of pool activities."

What? You mean you will be taking my children outside to play dodge-ball or flush-tag or soccer when the temperature is 99 degrees? You will let them go swimming in an outdoor pool when it is over 102 degrees? I am horrified.

My thoughts turn to the community of American families where we lived in Scotland. Were they equally horrified when we wrapped our little ones up in fleeces and raincoats and wellies and sent them out to play in the grey windy drizzle of a Scottish winter? Did they whisper to each other "I'm not letting MY child go out in this" and find some excuse to stay in? Or did they, as I will do, take what precautions they could, trust in the resilience of children, and hold fast to the logic that if thousands of local children are alright in these conditions year after year, then mine will surely be alright too?