Kew Gardens

Interruption of Normal Service

Pas de Monday Laugh today, folks - as neither side of the pond is at work aujourd'hui, I'm hoping that you all are chuckling away at divertissements of your own making.

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Et moi?  I'm curled up in my flat with Jon, the rain pitter-pattering on the windows, exhausted after a day tramping around Kew Gardens.  Of course I brought my camera along; a picture-filled post will come soon!

Memorial Day Weekend Here and There

I've been a bit homesick for a week or so now, and I think I've figured out why: this weekend last year was a time of farewells.  If you remember, dearest long-time readers, I threw myself a goodbye party last Memorial Day weekend.  I didn't leave DC until a few weeks later, but this is the one-year anniversary of my big last hurrah as a Washingtonian, and it's made me a bit contemplative and, yes, homesick.

Lots of blogs - including my fave expat site Pond Parleys - have talked about the significance of Memorial Day weekend in the states.  It was established as a holiday of remembrance in honor of all those who have fought for the United States, but, amongst most Americans, is primarily heralded as the beginning of summer.

I don't know if it's because I'm not across the pond or if it's because I don't have any sort of summer holiday (last year I didn't work during June and most of July as I was preparing for and recovering from my move to London) but summer doesn't seem quite here yet.  The weather's gorgeous, it's a bank holiday weekend even in the UK, and all signs are pointing summer, but I just don't feel it yet.  Maybe it's because I'm a bit homesick, which is making me a little melancholy.  Who knows?

Tomorrow Jon and I are going to explore Kew Gardens - cross your fingers for us that it doesn't rain - and hopefully that'll put me more in a summer frame of mind.

Or it's possible that what I really need to do is plan and book a beach holiday for the coming weeks.  Ah, sea and sand and sun... that's definitely what the doctor ordered!

Frock Fridays - Michelle in London

Okay, I'll say it: I'm not crazy about what Michelle wore to meet Kate and Wills (that's the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to you and me).  I thought it was a little too... princess-y and precious, to be honest.

But Mrs. Obama was sartorially spot-on for the rest of her visit, I think; I especially loved the dress she wore to the white-tie dinner at Buckingham Palace.  Didn't you?

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Blognic: A Picnic for Bloggers

Are you going to the blognic in July?  I am!  Hope to see you there...

(RSVP here.)

TFL FTW

(Post title translation: Transportation for London for the win.)

Look, I love TFL.  Before you read this rantette, I want you to understand that I love TFL.  There are so few cities in the world where public transportation is as reliable and convenient as it is in London; I say this having lived in Washington, New York, and Paris - all of which have decent public transportation options.  (And I say this even though the union staffing the Underground occasionally likes to pretend that we're in France.)

However, I hate natives traveling on the Tube.  Tourists I generally dislike across the board, but they're not more obnoxious on public transportation than they are, say, when walking across the Millennium Bridge and stopping every [expletive] five seconds to take yet another photo of St. Paul's.  But Londoners on the tube are the worst.  They should know what makes a frustrating Tube traveler, but they're so [expletive] entitled that they don't [expletive] care.  (Sorry, this is a hot issue for me - hence all the cursing.)

So, without further ado, I give you my top three most anger-inducing Tube behaviors in no particular order:

- When people actively elbow you out of the way so that they can get on the carriage first - we'll all make it on, lady, you don't have to get competitive about it.

- When people don't move down the [expletive] carriage - if there are 20 people squished by the doors without space to even smell their neighbors' armpits while the three people standing in the middle of the car have enough room to read their copies of the Evening Standard, there's something wrong.

- When the people between you and the door don't move to let you off the carriage - I know it's inconvenient of me to need to get somewhere, sir, but please could you get the [expletive] out of the way?

Sigh.  Here endeth the rantette.

(Editor's note: clearly I had a rough rush hour ride home tonight!  Sorry about the venom...)

Indie Spade

Monday Laugh

You all know how much I love any excuse to dress up, and if I get to wear a fascinator as well as a pretty frock I'm in heaven - you know this.  Also, though you may know not be aware, I'm totally game for fancy dress.  ("Fancy dress" is what the Brits call an outfit appropriate for a themed costume party.)  However, I firmly believe that fancy dress outfits are meant for fancy dress occasions; a wedding, generally, is not a fancy dress occasion.

Someone forgot to tell Princess Beatrice...

at Peter Phillips' wedding in 2008

Yes, she's wearing a flock of butterflies on her head.  Discuss amongst yourselves.

Refuge

Dear readers, I have made a shocking discovery:  being sick is no fun.

Seriously.  I think I have a bruised rib from all the coughing I've been doing - I definitely have strained muscles in my neck and possibly the blood vessels in my eyes are threatening to burst.  (Sorry to gross you out, but you know how it is.)  My landlord family is probably about to call the 19th century to report a case of consumption.

But anyways, what with taking a day off work plus spending the evenings quietly housebound - you gotta do what you gotta do to recover - I've been spending a lot of time chez moi this week and I have to say that, actually, this new place is pretty kickin'.  Apartment Therapy's smallcool contest gave me lots of ideas for how to continue to make this place my own, but even as is it's definitely home.  And that means that, even on hour sixteen in bed - Wednesday's sick day, I'm looking at you - I'm glad to be here.

That being said, I can't wait to move into a flat/house that has room for these beauties:

Katie Maennle

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Numbers

The number on rule in blogging, I'm told, is this: don't get obsessed with numbers.  Everything I read about blogging - yes, I read blogs about blogging; don't judge me - says that focusing on your blog stats is counterproductive because it makes you lose sight of what your blog is truly about.  If you overthink the number of comment/hits you get per post/day, the metanarrative of your blog will flounder.

(True confession: I'm not sure I have a metanarrative.  I'm not even sure I know what a metanarrative is.)

When I started blogging a year ago, Google Analytics wasn't a feature on Blogger - and, honestly, even if it had been I don't think I would have realized what it could do.  Count the number of hits per day?  Tell me where traffic comes from?  Rank my posts in order of popularity?  Surely only God can do those things.

And then that little "stats" tab appeared on my dashboard, like manna falling from the sky in the wilderness.  (Or something.)  I was hooked.  I checked my stats every [expletive] day - sometimes several times a day.  And, yes, my blogging suffered for it; I was paralyzed by the thought that my writing wouldn't reach the number of people I thought it deserved to be read by.  Ignorance is bliss, eh?

I did eventually get over that phase, mostly helped by the wonderful people who follow Betsy Transatlantically.  I realized that I've got 45 devoted followers and that 150 hits a day is 150 more than I would get if I didn't blog and that, actually, I blog for me at the end of the day.  So I stopped stressing... for a while.

Then I had my giveaway, and I took a trip to crazytown again.  (Warning: most self-absorbed sentence ever blogged is about to be typed.)  I was devastated to only have seven entries.  Maybe I didn't do the giveaway right, it wasn't a tempting enough prize, maybe I didn't leave enough time or link in enough places - maybe all my readers were vacationing on some gloriously sun-drenched and beach that, because it was so secluded, didn't have internet available.  Who knows?  The point is that I literally had trouble sleeping because I was so concerned that - wait for it - nobody loved me.  (Yes, I really did just write that, and yes, I realize how pathetic it is.)

But you know how I snapped out of it?  It's ironic - that's how I roll - but I turned to my stats counter.  Google tells me that people from all over the world are reading this blog.

Check out all that green!  In fact, Google itself is directing searches from at least seven countries' Google search engines.  How [expletive] cool is that?  Okay, so maybe only one person in each of those countries reads this blog, but still!  Someone in Israel is reading my blog!  Someone in Italy is reading my blog!  (To each of you, I say shalom and ciao.)  I have reached at least two people - due, as they say in Italian - whom I would absolutely not have had access to if I hadn't started blogging.

And with that, I learned to stop worrying and love the numbers.

(I'd also like to admit that I'm obsessed with the fact that over a dozen people have found this blog because they Googled "elbow elbow wrist wrist."  I am now not only an authority on how to get by in London financially - though, really, I feel I owe you an apology if you got here because you searched for "cost of living in London 2011" - but also on the Queen Wave.  Score.)

Monday Laugh

Last spring, my sister gave me one of the funniest - and most inappropriate - books I've ever read: Chelsea Handler's autobiography.  Are You There, Vodka?  It's Me, Chelsea had me snorting with laughter.

I had to give the book back to Sarah when I moved to England, alas, but happily it's being turned into an NBC show this fall!  Check out the trailer - I dare you not to guffaw embarrassingly.

Bad Blogger (Not Me This Time!)

Blogger's been on the blink for the past few days - very frustrating - and so while I've been happily trolling the interwebs for pretty things I haven't been able to post since Tuesday.  Yargh, I say.  However, the haitus has given me time to unearth some treasures in a whole rainbow of wonderful colors...

Smythson

Kate Spade

Made

Van Cleef

jcrew

Kurt Geiger

Breaking News - Part Deux

A picture is worth a thousand words, don't you think?

10 May 2011

That's right, dear readers: Jon and I are officially a couple again and are stronger than ever.  Since I didn't go into the details of our breakup on this blog, I can't talk too much about how or why we got back together - but I will say that our three month separation was a very necessary learning experience, and that we are much wiser in our recommitment to each other than we were pre-breakup.

(Also, I will say that I got butterflies in my stomach when I met up with him this evening.  I love that feeling!)

Everything's Coming Up Roses

I have big news to share with you all - but I'm going to be a tease and make you wait until tomorrow to hear it!  Oh, okay, I'll give you a hint or two.  (Intrepid readers might decide to go back into the annals of this blog to decipher my hints...)

I've recently reconnected with a very best friend - we'd been on the outs for a while, but over the past few weeks have cautiously been making an effort to patch things up.

Tonight I will be celebrating the birthday of this loved one along with dear family on Northcote Road, one of my favorite streets near my old flat - we will eat and drink and be merry just like, I hope, old times, though of course with a touch more wisdom under our belts.

All will reveal itself tomorrow!

Monday Laugh

(emailed to me by my sister)

Happy Mother's Day!

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Happiest of Mother's Days to you, Mom.  I wish I were there to bring you flowers and make you breakfast and to convince you that really we should take a bonding trip to Loehmann's (you know I would be successful), but we'll have to make do with this post and a phone call.

The point is, Mü, that I love you very much.  You inspire me every day - you sail through uncomfortable situations with grace, you rise above difficult circumstances with dignity, and, above all, you love your family and friends with unconditional generosity.  I can only hope that I will mature into the kind of woman that does the same; that I will become the kind of person that makes you as proud to be my mother as I am to be your daughter.  If I am lucky enough to do so, it will be because I have had such a wonderful example in you.  I love you, Mom.  Thank you for everything.

me and Mom in Paris, April 2011

Monday Laugh

(emailed to me by my mother)

What A Day For A Daydream

By last Sunday evening, I was ready for the bank holiday weekend to be over.  I had friends to see and adventures to embark upon, but I was acutely aware that it was Easter and I didn't have a family to celebrate with.  Add to that the fact that my new boss started work on Tuesday, and you get a girl who is raring to start the week and get back to her routine.  I think, though, that I'd be okay with this weekend lasting just a bit longer - it's been fabulous.  Oh, hey, we've got another bank holiday tomorrow!  Thanks, England, for your pagan observance of May Day.  (Side note: look, roses!  Spring is turning into summer, and all that organic time-is-moving-on stuff!  Happy May, dear readers.)

Anyway, we've been lucky enough to have another weekend of gorgeous weather; it hasn't been as warm as it was last weekend, but I've still been out in sundresses, toting my supersweet shades around everywhere.  And, happily, I was outside all day today.

I'm just gonna put this out there: day dates are way underrated.  Lunch is platonic and coffee smacks of interview, but brunch... you can't go wrong.  Brunch strikes just the right note of intimacy without being presumptuous, you can have fun and be spontaneous in the sunlight in a way that's really only alcohol-induced at night, and there isn't the question of what-happens-at-the-end-of-the-evening that plagues every dinner outing.

My date and I went to Southbank for the day - bonus points to him for suggesting one of my favorite OMG-I-live-in-London spots.  After a lovely brunch at Canteen we wandered along the Thames all the way from Waterloo to the Millennium Bridge.  The Southbank Centre is hosting the Festival of Britain through the summer and they went a little crazy with the bunting and streamers.  (My date was very understanding of my snap-happy tourist impulses; thanks, you.)

We walked over the Millennium Bridge and meandered around St. Paul's Cathedral, the gardens of which were packed with picnickers, before heading back to the tube and calling the afternoon.

Such a lovely day - and date - full of sun and laughter and London and generally happy things.  Really, day dates are the best.  You should try one soon!