Apologies for the title, there are only so many words that rhyme with 'bucket'.
With Michele and the kids back in the US for the summer, I am, with the exception of a few weeks in August when I will join them for the annual sunburning and sand eating event at the beach in New Jersey, knocking around London on my own.
This annual familial summer migration has in previous years afforded me the opportunity to do touristy things, to go hiking in Scotland and to spend time with various friends in various pubs. This summer, though, I intend to use the time to tackle a somewhat fluid list of chores, errands and pastimes which I've been either too busy or too lazy to undertake with the family around - the list of things whose undertaking I have, throughout the year, momentarily considered before concluding, "anh, fuckit." The list consists of mundane things like cleaning the black gunk out of the washer, learning to play tennis, writing a novel. That sort of stuff.
Today I spent most of the morning getting my iPhone to sync entirely with one computer, rather than partially with two and, as I would be in technology hell anyway, decided that today would be a good day to organize my applications on the phone into folders so I can find them a bit easier. I currently have to scroll through 8 or 9 pages of applications to find the one I want. Occasionally I discover an application that I'd forgotten I bought, neglected and gathering electronic dust in a remote corner of the phone.
Unfortunately, the mechanism Apple provides for moving icons around involves a great deal of dragging while the software helpfully arranges all the other icons around the one you're moving. Placing an icon in a particular spot relative to others is about as easy as arranging a school of live fish in size order.
After an hour of trying to drop icons into folders that skittered away like cockroaches as I approached them, I'd finally gotten everything organized the way I wanted it. And then the software crashed.
Anh, fuckit.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Loose Linguistics
I've written before about how English vocabulary is so specific in some regards and so vague in others, and reading a BBC account this morning of an attack on a young Lithuanian couple which lasted several hours in which the man was beaten and the woman was raped multiple times by the attackers, I was struck by both the vagueness and the incongruity of the reporter's choice of words in recounting the timeframe (I'm paraphrasing a bit since I can't find the article now, but the below is accurate on the salient points):
'Police believe that the attack began in the early morning and was concluded by tea-time.'
"By tea-time." Seriously. That's what it said.
I recently came across a blog post titled "Why is Language Vague?" which refers to an academic paper of the same title and which briefly explores the subject from an economic point of view. The writer posits that people generally choose to use vague language rather than being forced into indefinite vocabulary due to a lack of language to sufficiently describe the desired concept.
So I wonder why was it that the reporter covering the attack chose to use what seems to me a vague colloquialism ("tea-time") when other more specific phrases are available and would arguably have been better suited to the business of factual reporting. A few possibilities present themselves.
First, I am forced to admit the possibility that, as a native speaker of American rather than British English, I may lack the cultural context which would allow a native British speaker to interpret "tea-time" in the way the reporter intended, namely as a reasonably specific time of day. I am well aware of the folly of relying on Wikipedia as a primary source for research material, but I think it's useful in this specific instance to show whether there is broad agreement as to what "tea-time" means. From the guilt of cultural ignorance, the Tea (Meal) entry pretty well exonerates me. According to the wisdom of the mobs, "tea-time" can be anywhere from 2pm to 7pm. Or thereabouts. So even if the precise time of the conclusion of the attack wasn't known to the reporter, a slightly less vague phrase like "early afternoon" or "early evening" would have served to better frame the time.
A second possibility is that the reporter was simply lazy. I don't think the BBC is in the habit of employing inept journalists, although a number of BBC reporters staged a walkout yesterday so it is entirely possible that this reporter was, shall we say, not on the varsity squad. It's also possible that this particular reporter lacked experience in crime reporting. He may, for example, normally be assigned to the culture desk, where a phrase like "tea-time" might reasonably be applied without attracting much scrutiny.
A third and, I think somewhat more interesting possibility arises when we challenge the assumption that the reporter's interests are directly in line with the readers. Broadly, we assume that a reporter investigates and provides facts to consumers who accept them as such, but we frequently adjust this assumption depending on the perceived reliability of the publication. In other words, most of us would be less inclined to accept as factual a story about, say, an invasion by extraterrestrials if that story were reported in the Sun than if the same story were printed in the New York Times. The story in this case was reported by the BBC, generally considered to be a reliable news source, so we can assume that the writer wasn't fabricating his facts, but it is plausible that he chose the phrase "tea-time" deliberately to influence our interpretation of the story.
I know nothing about the political or personal motivations of this particular reporter, so let's consider this possibility of misaligned interests theoretically. What could a hypothetical reporter hope to convey by the use of an incongruous and vague phrase (such as "tea-time") in a factual article about a violent episode? It may be that the reporter wants to impart to the piece a certain levity if he wants us not to take the news too seriously. Perhaps he is a xenophobe (the victims were Eastern European immigrants, an oft-reviled category here), or he may be a misogynist. Maybe he doesn't quite believe the couple's story and wants to send the reader a wink and a tap of his nose. Or maybe he's having a go at the police who are investigating the report, intending to give us the sense that the officers on the case may not exactly present the finest examples of investigatory prowess.
There may be other possibilities, but I think the point is made. If someone uses vague language it may be a mismatch of context between the sender and receiver, or intellectual sloppiness on the part of the sender; but it may also be intentional and strategic, allowing the sender to transmit a specific message encapsulated in non-specific words. In this instance, though, I'm forced to conclude, as the author of "Why is Language Vague?" did in his abstract: "I don't know."
Now I'm going to go do something else.
'Police believe that the attack began in the early morning and was concluded by tea-time.'
"By tea-time." Seriously. That's what it said.
I recently came across a blog post titled "Why is Language Vague?" which refers to an academic paper of the same title and which briefly explores the subject from an economic point of view. The writer posits that people generally choose to use vague language rather than being forced into indefinite vocabulary due to a lack of language to sufficiently describe the desired concept.
So I wonder why was it that the reporter covering the attack chose to use what seems to me a vague colloquialism ("tea-time") when other more specific phrases are available and would arguably have been better suited to the business of factual reporting. A few possibilities present themselves.
First, I am forced to admit the possibility that, as a native speaker of American rather than British English, I may lack the cultural context which would allow a native British speaker to interpret "tea-time" in the way the reporter intended, namely as a reasonably specific time of day. I am well aware of the folly of relying on Wikipedia as a primary source for research material, but I think it's useful in this specific instance to show whether there is broad agreement as to what "tea-time" means. From the guilt of cultural ignorance, the Tea (Meal) entry pretty well exonerates me. According to the wisdom of the mobs, "tea-time" can be anywhere from 2pm to 7pm. Or thereabouts. So even if the precise time of the conclusion of the attack wasn't known to the reporter, a slightly less vague phrase like "early afternoon" or "early evening" would have served to better frame the time.
A second possibility is that the reporter was simply lazy. I don't think the BBC is in the habit of employing inept journalists, although a number of BBC reporters staged a walkout yesterday so it is entirely possible that this reporter was, shall we say, not on the varsity squad. It's also possible that this particular reporter lacked experience in crime reporting. He may, for example, normally be assigned to the culture desk, where a phrase like "tea-time" might reasonably be applied without attracting much scrutiny.
A third and, I think somewhat more interesting possibility arises when we challenge the assumption that the reporter's interests are directly in line with the readers. Broadly, we assume that a reporter investigates and provides facts to consumers who accept them as such, but we frequently adjust this assumption depending on the perceived reliability of the publication. In other words, most of us would be less inclined to accept as factual a story about, say, an invasion by extraterrestrials if that story were reported in the Sun than if the same story were printed in the New York Times. The story in this case was reported by the BBC, generally considered to be a reliable news source, so we can assume that the writer wasn't fabricating his facts, but it is plausible that he chose the phrase "tea-time" deliberately to influence our interpretation of the story.
I know nothing about the political or personal motivations of this particular reporter, so let's consider this possibility of misaligned interests theoretically. What could a hypothetical reporter hope to convey by the use of an incongruous and vague phrase (such as "tea-time") in a factual article about a violent episode? It may be that the reporter wants to impart to the piece a certain levity if he wants us not to take the news too seriously. Perhaps he is a xenophobe (the victims were Eastern European immigrants, an oft-reviled category here), or he may be a misogynist. Maybe he doesn't quite believe the couple's story and wants to send the reader a wink and a tap of his nose. Or maybe he's having a go at the police who are investigating the report, intending to give us the sense that the officers on the case may not exactly present the finest examples of investigatory prowess.
There may be other possibilities, but I think the point is made. If someone uses vague language it may be a mismatch of context between the sender and receiver, or intellectual sloppiness on the part of the sender; but it may also be intentional and strategic, allowing the sender to transmit a specific message encapsulated in non-specific words. In this instance, though, I'm forced to conclude, as the author of "Why is Language Vague?" did in his abstract: "I don't know."
Now I'm going to go do something else.
Monday, June 13, 2011
My Recount of the trip to The Tower of London
By Michael Conroy
I went to the Tower of London with my class. I got there by a boring and smelly coach. It smelled like gum. I got sick when we were getting off the coach. I got sick again. I got sick four times in the same sick bag. Mrs. Marsh helped me.
First, I walked past a bakery that was called “Fish and Chips.” Next, I went into the Tower of London. Then I saw the Crown Jewels. The crown looked shiny. Then I saw some short movies in the Tower of London. Only one was about Queen Elizabeth. The next movie was about soldiers in red suits and black hats with one black gun in their hand. After that I went into one of the rooms. The room had Henry VIII’s knight clothes in it. They were golden. Then I ate lunch. Well I tried to do it in a building but we got caught so we had to go out of the room and sit next to a tree. I kept on sliding off of the bench. After lunch I went to the loo. It smelt like wee. Then I went to a workshop called “Fire, Fire, Fire.” It was about the Tower of London. Samuel Pepys looked out the window and saw the fire. He went back to sleep and gave no orders to the people. Then somebody woke him up and then she told him that nine buildings burnt down. Six people died in the fire of London. I saved a snack from lunch then ate it up whilst I was doing the “Fire, Fire, Fire” workshop. Finally, I went home. Whilst I was on the coach I ate an apple and I had a sick bag. When I ate the apple I didn’t get sick. Then I got off the coach. Then I waited for a little while next to the gate. I saw a ladybird in the green net. I tried to get it out but its head fell off. Then I waited for a little longer. Then I saw my mom. Then I walked home.
My favourite part was when I did the workshop because people did some acting and it was funny.
I went to the Tower of London with my class. I got there by a boring and smelly coach. It smelled like gum. I got sick when we were getting off the coach. I got sick again. I got sick four times in the same sick bag. Mrs. Marsh helped me.
First, I walked past a bakery that was called “Fish and Chips.” Next, I went into the Tower of London. Then I saw the Crown Jewels. The crown looked shiny. Then I saw some short movies in the Tower of London. Only one was about Queen Elizabeth. The next movie was about soldiers in red suits and black hats with one black gun in their hand. After that I went into one of the rooms. The room had Henry VIII’s knight clothes in it. They were golden. Then I ate lunch. Well I tried to do it in a building but we got caught so we had to go out of the room and sit next to a tree. I kept on sliding off of the bench. After lunch I went to the loo. It smelt like wee. Then I went to a workshop called “Fire, Fire, Fire.” It was about the Tower of London. Samuel Pepys looked out the window and saw the fire. He went back to sleep and gave no orders to the people. Then somebody woke him up and then she told him that nine buildings burnt down. Six people died in the fire of London. I saved a snack from lunch then ate it up whilst I was doing the “Fire, Fire, Fire” workshop. Finally, I went home. Whilst I was on the coach I ate an apple and I had a sick bag. When I ate the apple I didn’t get sick. Then I got off the coach. Then I waited for a little while next to the gate. I saw a ladybird in the green net. I tried to get it out but its head fell off. Then I waited for a little longer. Then I saw my mom. Then I walked home.
My favourite part was when I did the workshop because people did some acting and it was funny.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The End of the World as we know it, and I feel fine. Well, sort of.
So the world didn't end yesterday, in case you failed to notice.
Very glad of this, I am - I didn't even get to clean out the fridge; and I'm also not terribly surprised that we're all still here. Part of me, though, couldn't help thinking that there was a calculable probability that the guy might have been right. Not because I think some old codger in America with a bible and a calculator has any sort of inside access to the End of the World project plan, but because the possibility always exists, no matter how small, that some sort of catastrophic event will befall the planet. 6pm on 21st May 2011 is as good a time as any for that to happen. Just ask the dinosaurs.
Of course, there's also a calculable probability that while reading this, you will dissolve and rematerialize on the other side of the room. Just because the probability of a thing happening is non-zero doesn't actually make it probable.
Equally, though, a non-zero probability is, well, a non-zero probability, and so the mind wanders off to consider the possibility. I had lunch with my friend Phil the other day. Talking with Phil is like improvisational acting - the only rule is that we must follow the discussion down whatever rathole it may happen to go. I took advantage of a lull in the conversation caused by Phil having taken a rather large mouthful of bacon, and posed the question of whether he felt that we had the skills to survive in the event of a total societal breakdown.
By 'skills' I was referring to the hard skills required to procure food - spear fishing and bear wrestling, that sort of thing - but Phil took the question in another direction and talked about his friend, 'Bob' (I don't actually remember the friend's name, so we'll call him Bob). Bob head-butted a guy at a family party because the guy took a swing at him, and then calmly returned to his beer while the guy bled through the nose outside. Bob would survive in the post-asteroid-impact world, not because he knows how to trap and strangle a wild turkey, but because he doesn't hesitate to consider the possible consequences of his actions, nor does he dwell on their outcome afterward. To put this in moral terms, Bob lacks a conscience.
Now, Bob may well feel badly about hitting the guy, may have thought later about the possibility that the guy had more friends at the party than Bob, may even have realized that he might have diffused the situation by applying a bit of diplomacy, but in the moment, when it really counted, Bob didn't think, he acted. When society breaks down, those who act decisively and unhesitatingly will win out. After the asteroid, or whatever, my money's on Bob.
Or rather, it would be, except I'll be dead, because I'm a thinker. I can't help it - I was raised that way. I am well-socialized. I usually think about what could happen if I take a particular action. I've often come to regret those occasions when I have taken action either in ignorance of, or in willful disregard for the consequences. You might think that as a result, I'd have learned not to act without due consideration, but 'due consideration' is a moving goalpost. How much analysis and consideration is enough? Would one more piece of data make the decision completely different? At some point you have to act, or you get stuck in the analysis phase forever.
So how do we teach our children to behave responsibly and considerately toward others without becoming victims of those who have not learned similar consideration?
Michael was crying at the playground the other day. A little kid had punched him. This was not the first time Michael had been injured by someone else's child's behavior. I sat Michael down on a bench and talked to him about it. I told Michael that if someone hits him, he could hit them back, or at least give the other kid a good hard shove. Michael shook his head tearfully. "I don't want to." "Why not?" I asked. "Because god doesn't want us to fight."
This is, and has always been, my problem with religious rhetoric. Not defending yourself because 'god doesn't want you to fight' is obviously an impractical position, but it's difficult to dispute because it's dogmatic - either you believe that fighting is wrong and you don't fight at all, or you are forced to accept that fighting is always right, which clearly isn't the case either. Dogma is simple. It's black or white, never grey. Life is complicated. It's almost never black or white, almost always grey. Dogma and life are, therefore, incompatible. Perhaps I don't understand morality well enough, but it seems to me that a rigid moralism might be useful as a behavioral framework, but not terribly so in practice. I think one should learn morality first, but then learn to adapt it to the situation.
I guess the next challenge is to teach Michael how to adapt his anti-fighting stance to fit the circumstances. Hopefully I'll get around to this before the next time the world ends.
Very glad of this, I am - I didn't even get to clean out the fridge; and I'm also not terribly surprised that we're all still here. Part of me, though, couldn't help thinking that there was a calculable probability that the guy might have been right. Not because I think some old codger in America with a bible and a calculator has any sort of inside access to the End of the World project plan, but because the possibility always exists, no matter how small, that some sort of catastrophic event will befall the planet. 6pm on 21st May 2011 is as good a time as any for that to happen. Just ask the dinosaurs.
Of course, there's also a calculable probability that while reading this, you will dissolve and rematerialize on the other side of the room. Just because the probability of a thing happening is non-zero doesn't actually make it probable.
Equally, though, a non-zero probability is, well, a non-zero probability, and so the mind wanders off to consider the possibility. I had lunch with my friend Phil the other day. Talking with Phil is like improvisational acting - the only rule is that we must follow the discussion down whatever rathole it may happen to go. I took advantage of a lull in the conversation caused by Phil having taken a rather large mouthful of bacon, and posed the question of whether he felt that we had the skills to survive in the event of a total societal breakdown.
By 'skills' I was referring to the hard skills required to procure food - spear fishing and bear wrestling, that sort of thing - but Phil took the question in another direction and talked about his friend, 'Bob' (I don't actually remember the friend's name, so we'll call him Bob). Bob head-butted a guy at a family party because the guy took a swing at him, and then calmly returned to his beer while the guy bled through the nose outside. Bob would survive in the post-asteroid-impact world, not because he knows how to trap and strangle a wild turkey, but because he doesn't hesitate to consider the possible consequences of his actions, nor does he dwell on their outcome afterward. To put this in moral terms, Bob lacks a conscience.
Now, Bob may well feel badly about hitting the guy, may have thought later about the possibility that the guy had more friends at the party than Bob, may even have realized that he might have diffused the situation by applying a bit of diplomacy, but in the moment, when it really counted, Bob didn't think, he acted. When society breaks down, those who act decisively and unhesitatingly will win out. After the asteroid, or whatever, my money's on Bob.
Or rather, it would be, except I'll be dead, because I'm a thinker. I can't help it - I was raised that way. I am well-socialized. I usually think about what could happen if I take a particular action. I've often come to regret those occasions when I have taken action either in ignorance of, or in willful disregard for the consequences. You might think that as a result, I'd have learned not to act without due consideration, but 'due consideration' is a moving goalpost. How much analysis and consideration is enough? Would one more piece of data make the decision completely different? At some point you have to act, or you get stuck in the analysis phase forever.
So how do we teach our children to behave responsibly and considerately toward others without becoming victims of those who have not learned similar consideration?
Michael was crying at the playground the other day. A little kid had punched him. This was not the first time Michael had been injured by someone else's child's behavior. I sat Michael down on a bench and talked to him about it. I told Michael that if someone hits him, he could hit them back, or at least give the other kid a good hard shove. Michael shook his head tearfully. "I don't want to." "Why not?" I asked. "Because god doesn't want us to fight."
This is, and has always been, my problem with religious rhetoric. Not defending yourself because 'god doesn't want you to fight' is obviously an impractical position, but it's difficult to dispute because it's dogmatic - either you believe that fighting is wrong and you don't fight at all, or you are forced to accept that fighting is always right, which clearly isn't the case either. Dogma is simple. It's black or white, never grey. Life is complicated. It's almost never black or white, almost always grey. Dogma and life are, therefore, incompatible. Perhaps I don't understand morality well enough, but it seems to me that a rigid moralism might be useful as a behavioral framework, but not terribly so in practice. I think one should learn morality first, but then learn to adapt it to the situation.
I guess the next challenge is to teach Michael how to adapt his anti-fighting stance to fit the circumstances. Hopefully I'll get around to this before the next time the world ends.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Futurechurch
This one isn't likely to make me many friends. Let me start by saying that I have no specific disdain for religion or religiosity. Life's hard, and I think people should be free to take their comfort from whatever source they can find it. That said, I do not personally subscribe to any particular religious belief or practice. I'm not an atheist, but I'm not a theist either. This post isn't about religion per se, though I'm sure that some who read it will make it so.
My grandmother's recently embarked on a crusade to save her church. The dioscese wants to close several small churches in the area and build a new one centrally. Ostensibly, the rationale is that a) it's an old building and will cost more and more to maintain as it ages while at the same time, b) the population is dwindling, providing less and less revenue to maintain it, and c) the number of priests available to run is is shrinking. I also suspect (because I'm a jaded, cynical person) that they've had an offer from some greasy developer to buy the land to build a strip mall or a bank or something else equally unnecessary that shall soon become another vacant blight on the Poconos, but of course I have no proof of this.
The arguments makes economic sense to me, and despite my fond memories of the place - when I was small I would pretend that a friendly shark named Mr. Onkers lived in the stream that ran down the hill next to the church; I'd sit on a cool rock in the shade in the sticky summer morning and have long chats with him while my grandmother said the Rosary - I find the logic for closure difficult to refute.
In any case, Grandmama's asked me to do some research on old churches in London, her thinking being to refute at least the 'because it's old' part of the argument. Fortunately, you can't swing a dead cat in this town without hitting several venerable old piles, so the effort hasn't exactly taxed me. With the kids in school and Michele out for the morning, I've had a bit of time to think about the question of the the future of churches - not of religion itself, but the physical plant used to deliver it.
Now, I haven't been to church in years, and my experience is limited to the Roman Catholic rituals, so I may not be in the best position to talk about this, but I will anyway. It seems to me that in this increasingly disconnected world of ours, any delivery method for anything which requires people to actually BE somewhere at a specific time to do something that they aren't absolutely compelled to do is destined for obsolescence. I might still have to go to the DMV on their ridiculous bureaucratic schedule to get my license photo taken, but I can buy my groceries and do my banking on my own schedule.
As a parallel, I work from home a bit. I could work from home a lot more because my company encourages it. WFH has actually allowed my firm to shed some expensive real estate, plus most people who work from home will work during the time they would normally spent commuting, so the company not only saves money on space, but gets more of my time for free. I'm also more productive, at least with some of the more cerebral activities which don't require me to interact presonally with others, because there are fewer distractions than at the office. I don't work from home more mainly because I don't have a comfortable chair, but also because I like to get out of the house and see people.
It strikes me that maybe the same might be true of worship. It seems to me that, in the same way that my job can be delivered to my house, there are now better ways to support people's need for spirituality than to require them to turn up, showered and shaved and wearing uncomfortable clothes on a Sunday morning to spend an hour daydreaming about golf or tennis or the poolboy and then rush out and try to run each other over in the car park in their haste to get away. Why not deliver worship online? Why not allow people to worship at their convenience, from the comfort of their home? Why not make people with religious expertise and teaching available from a central location over the phone or via the Internet?
I guess one argument (apart from the obvious heretical nature of this idea) would be that going to a physical church at a certain time provides an opportunity for people to interact with each other and to support each other's faith; an agrument which, I must admit, has a certain resonance - the same disconnectedness that allows me to skip the two hour scrum on the tube and be done with work in time to eat dinner with the kids cuts the other way too. Staying inside alienates me from my neighbors, makes me socially reticent and robs me of the opportunity for broadening my experience.
But couldn't churches - the buildings - then, address this issue by providing a much-needed forum for human interaction, rather than necessarily a place for worship? In this model, churches wouldn't need as many physical buildings, and those needn't be designed as impractically as they are now - with their enormous open spaces that are costly to build, costly to heat and cool and costly to maintain. Churches could be multipurpose spaces, or even shared spaces in existing community centers or offices. They would be more intimate venues, allow people to interact and support each other rather than merely being mass recipients of a one-way message.
For my grandmother, this model wouldn't work. She has her way of worshiping, and that's fine, and I'll help her in whatever way I can. But I wonder how the model will change to suit the times. I wonder if churches will evolve?
My grandmother's recently embarked on a crusade to save her church. The dioscese wants to close several small churches in the area and build a new one centrally. Ostensibly, the rationale is that a) it's an old building and will cost more and more to maintain as it ages while at the same time, b) the population is dwindling, providing less and less revenue to maintain it, and c) the number of priests available to run is is shrinking. I also suspect (because I'm a jaded, cynical person) that they've had an offer from some greasy developer to buy the land to build a strip mall or a bank or something else equally unnecessary that shall soon become another vacant blight on the Poconos, but of course I have no proof of this.
The arguments makes economic sense to me, and despite my fond memories of the place - when I was small I would pretend that a friendly shark named Mr. Onkers lived in the stream that ran down the hill next to the church; I'd sit on a cool rock in the shade in the sticky summer morning and have long chats with him while my grandmother said the Rosary - I find the logic for closure difficult to refute.
In any case, Grandmama's asked me to do some research on old churches in London, her thinking being to refute at least the 'because it's old' part of the argument. Fortunately, you can't swing a dead cat in this town without hitting several venerable old piles, so the effort hasn't exactly taxed me. With the kids in school and Michele out for the morning, I've had a bit of time to think about the question of the the future of churches - not of religion itself, but the physical plant used to deliver it.
Now, I haven't been to church in years, and my experience is limited to the Roman Catholic rituals, so I may not be in the best position to talk about this, but I will anyway. It seems to me that in this increasingly disconnected world of ours, any delivery method for anything which requires people to actually BE somewhere at a specific time to do something that they aren't absolutely compelled to do is destined for obsolescence. I might still have to go to the DMV on their ridiculous bureaucratic schedule to get my license photo taken, but I can buy my groceries and do my banking on my own schedule.
As a parallel, I work from home a bit. I could work from home a lot more because my company encourages it. WFH has actually allowed my firm to shed some expensive real estate, plus most people who work from home will work during the time they would normally spent commuting, so the company not only saves money on space, but gets more of my time for free. I'm also more productive, at least with some of the more cerebral activities which don't require me to interact presonally with others, because there are fewer distractions than at the office. I don't work from home more mainly because I don't have a comfortable chair, but also because I like to get out of the house and see people.
It strikes me that maybe the same might be true of worship. It seems to me that, in the same way that my job can be delivered to my house, there are now better ways to support people's need for spirituality than to require them to turn up, showered and shaved and wearing uncomfortable clothes on a Sunday morning to spend an hour daydreaming about golf or tennis or the poolboy and then rush out and try to run each other over in the car park in their haste to get away. Why not deliver worship online? Why not allow people to worship at their convenience, from the comfort of their home? Why not make people with religious expertise and teaching available from a central location over the phone or via the Internet?
I guess one argument (apart from the obvious heretical nature of this idea) would be that going to a physical church at a certain time provides an opportunity for people to interact with each other and to support each other's faith; an agrument which, I must admit, has a certain resonance - the same disconnectedness that allows me to skip the two hour scrum on the tube and be done with work in time to eat dinner with the kids cuts the other way too. Staying inside alienates me from my neighbors, makes me socially reticent and robs me of the opportunity for broadening my experience.
But couldn't churches - the buildings - then, address this issue by providing a much-needed forum for human interaction, rather than necessarily a place for worship? In this model, churches wouldn't need as many physical buildings, and those needn't be designed as impractically as they are now - with their enormous open spaces that are costly to build, costly to heat and cool and costly to maintain. Churches could be multipurpose spaces, or even shared spaces in existing community centers or offices. They would be more intimate venues, allow people to interact and support each other rather than merely being mass recipients of a one-way message.
For my grandmother, this model wouldn't work. She has her way of worshiping, and that's fine, and I'll help her in whatever way I can. But I wonder how the model will change to suit the times. I wonder if churches will evolve?
Sunday, April 24, 2011
I Can't Believe it's Butter!
As a kid, I wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder. Not that I wanted to be a girl, necessarily, but I was captivated by the idea of living in a log cabin in the Great North Woods. On my way to the bus stop in the dead of winter, I fancied that I was crunching my way to the milking barn through the new-fallen snow, the blue-black sky pricked with an incomprehensible number of tiny white stars, the cold air turning to ice in my nostrils and the winter sun just beginning to exhale a faint pink dawn onto the eastern horizon. So when my mate Clive sent me a recipe for making homemade butter, I was overcome with that same pioneering spirit and couldn't resist the temptation to try my hand at churning my own.
I've always been a huge fan of butter. Conversely, I find the idea of butter substitutes - margarine, for example - abhorrent. Clive sent me this link because he's been both shocked and repulsed by the quantity of butter I put on my toast at breakfast. This is why I will very likely die an early but mercifully quick death.
The recipe and the process for making butter are both surprisingly simple - a quantity of crème fraiche whipped in the mixer, followed by a relatively straightforward rinse to remove the buttermilk. The recipe suggests that three minutes or so should be sufficient to produce butter. Three minutes being roughly the length of my children's attention span, along with the limited number of ingredients (one), suggested to me that this would be an interesting kitchen project for the children to be involved in. They are forever crowding around me while I'm cooking, trying to help and causing me no end of irritation. Here was the perfect opportunity to show them something fascinating - turning a sour liquid into a sweet solid - while indulging their desire to help. When I told them about the idea, they were falling over themselves to get stuck in.
As it turns out, the estimate of three minutes was somewhat optimistic. After about twelve minutes of watching the whip go round and round with little productive activity in the bowl, the children drift away to find something more interesting to look at, like lint. Even my enthusiasm for homemade butter is flagging when the mixture, which had taken on a whipped cream consistency early on and pretty much stayed that way, began to thicken more. I leaned in to get a closer look when, without warning, the contents separate and the thin buttermilk spatters out of the bowl. By 'spatter', I mean that it hurled itself around the kitchen in a violent monsoon of watery, sour milk. The liquid came out of the bowl so hard that it stung my face, like fine saltwater spray off the bow of a speedboat.
Next follows the rinsing process. This involves mashing ice water into the butter to wash away the remaining buttermilk, which is sour and makes the butter taste a lot like lemon cream frosting. Now, I happen to like lemon cream frosting, but I don't imagine it will taste very good on my steak, which is where I intend to put my homemade butter later this afternoon. Mmm. Butter on steak. Eat your heart out, Homer Simpson.
The rinse must be performed five of six times to get rid of all the buttermilk, and, as you might expect, the butter becomes harder with each successive dip in the icy water. By the time the water comes out clear indicating that the buttermilk is gone, my hand and forearm feel as if I've raked all the leaves in Central Park, but it's butter! Actual, real, honest to goodness butter, just like Laura Ingalls Wilder would have made. Well, except that I used a Kitchenaid instead of a butter churn and bought my crème fraiche at the Tesco gas station down the street, but other than that, it's absolutely the same thing.
The children are unimpressed. That's the trouble with kids these days. No pioneering spirit.
I've always been a huge fan of butter. Conversely, I find the idea of butter substitutes - margarine, for example - abhorrent. Clive sent me this link because he's been both shocked and repulsed by the quantity of butter I put on my toast at breakfast. This is why I will very likely die an early but mercifully quick death.
The recipe and the process for making butter are both surprisingly simple - a quantity of crème fraiche whipped in the mixer, followed by a relatively straightforward rinse to remove the buttermilk. The recipe suggests that three minutes or so should be sufficient to produce butter. Three minutes being roughly the length of my children's attention span, along with the limited number of ingredients (one), suggested to me that this would be an interesting kitchen project for the children to be involved in. They are forever crowding around me while I'm cooking, trying to help and causing me no end of irritation. Here was the perfect opportunity to show them something fascinating - turning a sour liquid into a sweet solid - while indulging their desire to help. When I told them about the idea, they were falling over themselves to get stuck in.
As it turns out, the estimate of three minutes was somewhat optimistic. After about twelve minutes of watching the whip go round and round with little productive activity in the bowl, the children drift away to find something more interesting to look at, like lint. Even my enthusiasm for homemade butter is flagging when the mixture, which had taken on a whipped cream consistency early on and pretty much stayed that way, began to thicken more. I leaned in to get a closer look when, without warning, the contents separate and the thin buttermilk spatters out of the bowl. By 'spatter', I mean that it hurled itself around the kitchen in a violent monsoon of watery, sour milk. The liquid came out of the bowl so hard that it stung my face, like fine saltwater spray off the bow of a speedboat.
Next follows the rinsing process. This involves mashing ice water into the butter to wash away the remaining buttermilk, which is sour and makes the butter taste a lot like lemon cream frosting. Now, I happen to like lemon cream frosting, but I don't imagine it will taste very good on my steak, which is where I intend to put my homemade butter later this afternoon. Mmm. Butter on steak. Eat your heart out, Homer Simpson.
The rinse must be performed five of six times to get rid of all the buttermilk, and, as you might expect, the butter becomes harder with each successive dip in the icy water. By the time the water comes out clear indicating that the buttermilk is gone, my hand and forearm feel as if I've raked all the leaves in Central Park, but it's butter! Actual, real, honest to goodness butter, just like Laura Ingalls Wilder would have made. Well, except that I used a Kitchenaid instead of a butter churn and bought my crème fraiche at the Tesco gas station down the street, but other than that, it's absolutely the same thing.
The children are unimpressed. That's the trouble with kids these days. No pioneering spirit.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Things I will not miss about the UK
1. Rude drivers - although drivers here tend to be somewhat more courteous towards each other than they do in the US, they are anything but friendly towards pedestrians. Despite much governmental huffing and puffing about increasing the number of walkers and cyclists, the fact remains that crossing any road here requires a combination of savvy, speed and stupidity. Even halfway across the road I've had drivers turn directly in front of me like I'm not there.
2. Myopic street crossing design - in the US, a traffic light changes from green to amber to warn drivers that the light is about to turn red. In the US, this warning generally means 'go like hell'. In the UK, the light changes from red to flashing red and amber to inform drivers that the light is about to change. It generally also means 'go like hell'. The unfortunate thing is that at many intersections, the green crossing sign is lit until exactly the moment that the lights change to flashing red and amber. I can't tell you the number of times I've nearly been run down because when the red/amber combo started flashing I still had one foot on the sidewalk, making me fair game.
3. Foxes and their excrement - the foxes themselves aren't so bad, though they do chew up anything that we leave in the garden. It's their poo - slimy, smelly, everywhere - that really gets me.
4. Chavs - I've heard that 'chav' stands for 'council housed and violent'. I don't know whether this is the origin of the term, but it's accurate enough. There's a certain look about this type of person - something about the condition of their skin and hair, their clothes maybe, that makes these types stand out. Oh, yeah, maybe it's the pit bull that seems to accompany them everywhere. What is it about these people that compels them to buy dogs that look like Mike Tyson after a heavy night?
5. Ageing thugs - one of the oddest things I had to get used to here was the elderly thug. Men in their sixties back home don't generally instill any sort of fear, but here that same quality of skin and hair clings to the chav through his whole life well into old age. Frightening.
6. Pebbledash - a mixture of gravel and concrete, this awful treatment is applied to the exterior of many otherwise lovely homes. It's cheap and hides, as my grandfather used to say, a multitude of sins. It also looks, in color and texture, exactly like vomit.
7. Clouds - it doesn't actually rain that much here, it just usually looks like it's about to. It IS cloudy here. A LOT. That gets old pretty quickly.
8. Short winter days - on the winter solstice, the sun rises after 8am and sets before 4pm. This makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning.
9. Rubbish - there's always trash blowing around in the streets and on the sidewalks.
10. Vomit - we have a lot of bars and nightclubs in town, so I often have to maneuver the kids around a fresh pile of pebbledash on the sidewalk on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Yuck.
11. Driving on the other side - still haven't quite gotten used to this.
12. Brutalist architecture - nothing says 'post-War cheap and nasty' like sootstained poured concrete.
13. Health and safety - EU health and safety laws are among the strictest on the planet. If I had a dime for the number of times I heard that 'we used to be able to do that, but can't any more because of health and safety'...
14. VAT - like sales tax, only much, much higher.
15. Smelly commuters - I realize that sometimes people just can't help smelling. But first thing on a February morning? It's not like they've been sweating on the train for an hour yet.
16. Pushy commuters - The daily bump and grind to get on and off the trains got old quickly. I'm a big guy, I'm not really sure what makes people think they're going to be able to shove me out of the way.
17. The cycling menace - I'm sure that most people who cycle are mindful of traffic laws, pedestrians, etc., but I've had more than one near miss with a Spandex-clad cyclist wearing one of those idiotic aerodynamic helmets. Generally he's run a red light so that he can ride the wrong way down a one way street or he is riding on the sidewalk. I've considered carrying a heavy stick to shove into the spokes of his back wheel.
2. Myopic street crossing design - in the US, a traffic light changes from green to amber to warn drivers that the light is about to turn red. In the US, this warning generally means 'go like hell'. In the UK, the light changes from red to flashing red and amber to inform drivers that the light is about to change. It generally also means 'go like hell'. The unfortunate thing is that at many intersections, the green crossing sign is lit until exactly the moment that the lights change to flashing red and amber. I can't tell you the number of times I've nearly been run down because when the red/amber combo started flashing I still had one foot on the sidewalk, making me fair game.
3. Foxes and their excrement - the foxes themselves aren't so bad, though they do chew up anything that we leave in the garden. It's their poo - slimy, smelly, everywhere - that really gets me.
4. Chavs - I've heard that 'chav' stands for 'council housed and violent'. I don't know whether this is the origin of the term, but it's accurate enough. There's a certain look about this type of person - something about the condition of their skin and hair, their clothes maybe, that makes these types stand out. Oh, yeah, maybe it's the pit bull that seems to accompany them everywhere. What is it about these people that compels them to buy dogs that look like Mike Tyson after a heavy night?
5. Ageing thugs - one of the oddest things I had to get used to here was the elderly thug. Men in their sixties back home don't generally instill any sort of fear, but here that same quality of skin and hair clings to the chav through his whole life well into old age. Frightening.
6. Pebbledash - a mixture of gravel and concrete, this awful treatment is applied to the exterior of many otherwise lovely homes. It's cheap and hides, as my grandfather used to say, a multitude of sins. It also looks, in color and texture, exactly like vomit.
7. Clouds - it doesn't actually rain that much here, it just usually looks like it's about to. It IS cloudy here. A LOT. That gets old pretty quickly.
8. Short winter days - on the winter solstice, the sun rises after 8am and sets before 4pm. This makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning.
9. Rubbish - there's always trash blowing around in the streets and on the sidewalks.
10. Vomit - we have a lot of bars and nightclubs in town, so I often have to maneuver the kids around a fresh pile of pebbledash on the sidewalk on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Yuck.
11. Driving on the other side - still haven't quite gotten used to this.
12. Brutalist architecture - nothing says 'post-War cheap and nasty' like sootstained poured concrete.
13. Health and safety - EU health and safety laws are among the strictest on the planet. If I had a dime for the number of times I heard that 'we used to be able to do that, but can't any more because of health and safety'...
14. VAT - like sales tax, only much, much higher.
15. Smelly commuters - I realize that sometimes people just can't help smelling. But first thing on a February morning? It's not like they've been sweating on the train for an hour yet.
16. Pushy commuters - The daily bump and grind to get on and off the trains got old quickly. I'm a big guy, I'm not really sure what makes people think they're going to be able to shove me out of the way.
17. The cycling menace - I'm sure that most people who cycle are mindful of traffic laws, pedestrians, etc., but I've had more than one near miss with a Spandex-clad cyclist wearing one of those idiotic aerodynamic helmets. Generally he's run a red light so that he can ride the wrong way down a one way street or he is riding on the sidewalk. I've considered carrying a heavy stick to shove into the spokes of his back wheel.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Things I Miss About America
You've probably noticed that my enthusiasm for moving back to the US is not entirely unbridled. There are many, many things that I will miss about this place, and I'll share these. But there are also things that I miss about the US. To start my series of posts about the joys and pains of moving back, here is a list of the Things I Miss About America.
1. People I love - I won't list them all, you know who you are.
2. Space - although it has its tradeoffs for convenience, America has a lot more open space than London. Of course, whether you have access to it depends entirely on where you live.
3. A good steak - beef here tends to be stringy and fatty. I may have given up too soon and simply not found a good outlet, but I do miss the feel of a nice solid sirloin between my teeth.
4. Sandy beaches - the Jersey shore (the real place, not the show), is absolutely one of the gems of the Northeast, despite being inundated with marauding seagulls and tourist tat, and in spite of actually being located in New Jersey, the Essex of America. (Credit to Stephen Fry for that apt comparison).
5. Oscar Meyer bacon - we used to be able to get this here, but I think we were the only ones buying it so the economics didn't work for Morrison's. I've grown accustomed to the local equivalent - streaky bacon - but it's hardly the same thing, is it?
6. Dryers - you'd think that in a climate a cool and damp as this, necessity would have mothered an advance or two in the technology of clothes drying, but you'd be wrong. A clothes rack placed near a radiator is still the best - indeed the only - way to get your clothes dry, winter OR summer.
7. 24 hour drug stores - I once tried to find something for Michael's fever on a Sunday morning. It's a good thing it wasn't a serious illness.
8. Air conditioning that works - maybe it's because we really only need A/C about one week per year here, but buildings that are air conditioned might as well not be during that week. It's also worth pointing out that air conditioned public transport, while slowly making inroads here has been perfected in New York, where a couple of cow carcasses on the 1 and 9 train could have been the setting for Rocky's meat locker punch-up scene in .
9. A long drive in the country - America has something like 150,000 miles of roads. Many of these are shady and pleasant and green and are a beautiful way to spend an afternoon, the tarmac ribbon unfolding over gently rolling hills and winding below the ancient arching boughs. There's a reason America is so in love with the automobile: she's lovable.
10. Roadside diners - chrome and cigarette-scarred Formica, ancient Germanic waitresses, greasy food, milkshakes, bikers on crank. What's not to love?
11. Good French fries - thin, crispy, a little greasy. The market here sells frozen 'American Style Chips'. Like the streaky bacon, they're just not the same thing.
12. Decent pizza - Don Pepe's in Penn Station in New York is, hands down, the best pizza on the planet. There is no Don Pepe's here. Pizza here is almost without exception flaccid, doughy and light on sauce and cheese.
13. Window screens - Seriously, guys, it's not that complicated. A roll of wire mesh, a wooden frame, a few tacks. I could show you.
14. Ice - I'm not sure why the concept of using frozen water to make things cold is so alien to people here, but you'd think it was an exotic notion. It may be a small thing, but it's a useful one.
15. July 4th - I generally don't go in much for patriotism, but I do love a good flag-waving parade and a marching band. The 'Star Spangled Banner' makes my eyes wet - even as I write this, the screen is getting blurry. Silly, really. Sniff.
16. Autumn - this past Fall here was probably the best yet, but it doesn't hold a candle to the fine weather, the honeyed sunshine and the brilliant foliage we enjoyed back in the US.
17. TiVo - we have DVRs here, yes, but they're just pants.
18. A decent postal service - every time I mail a letter I wonder whether it will arrive at its destination, and when. In February 2011, the kids received a pair of Halloween cards from Michele's parents. From 2009. I sometimes get past due notices from the utility company several weeks before I get the bills themselves. The Victorians apparently had such high quality mail service in London that the socialite set relied on it rather than messengers to deliver communications between themselves in a timely fashion. I'm not sure what's happened since then, but it's not pretty.
19. Customer service - with the exception of every shop I've been to in the King of Prussia mall, a riduculous temple of vulgar comsumerism and poor taste, most people who sell things in America have at least some concept of customer service. Not so here. Napoleon called this a nation of shopkeepers, but he apparently never actually went to a shop here.
20. High quality dentistry - the joke about British dentists isn't a joke, they're shockingly bad. We actually pay to use the dentist back in the US because they're so awful here. Michele tried, with my insurance, to make a cleaning appointment for the kids, a semiannual routine in America, but was told that they're too young.
21. Non-roaming data - I've learned that my beloved iPhone is of only slightly more use than a rock when it's without data. I've also learned that roaming data is obscenely expensive. I cannot comprehend why, when the mobile carrier in Malaga has the same name as the one I bought the phone from in London, do I pay £8/megabyte for data. Yes, Spain's another country, but it's about as far from London as Chicago is from Philadelphia and Verizon seems to manage just fine in both American cities.
There may well be other things that I miss and will be glad to get back to - this list started out considerably shorter, and I've been adding to it through the weekend - but these are the biggest ones that come to mind. Up next, I think, a list of Things I Won't Miss About the UK.
1. People I love - I won't list them all, you know who you are.
2. Space - although it has its tradeoffs for convenience, America has a lot more open space than London. Of course, whether you have access to it depends entirely on where you live.
3. A good steak - beef here tends to be stringy and fatty. I may have given up too soon and simply not found a good outlet, but I do miss the feel of a nice solid sirloin between my teeth.
4. Sandy beaches - the Jersey shore (the real place, not the show), is absolutely one of the gems of the Northeast, despite being inundated with marauding seagulls and tourist tat, and in spite of actually being located in New Jersey, the Essex of America. (Credit to Stephen Fry for that apt comparison).
5. Oscar Meyer bacon - we used to be able to get this here, but I think we were the only ones buying it so the economics didn't work for Morrison's. I've grown accustomed to the local equivalent - streaky bacon - but it's hardly the same thing, is it?
6. Dryers - you'd think that in a climate a cool and damp as this, necessity would have mothered an advance or two in the technology of clothes drying, but you'd be wrong. A clothes rack placed near a radiator is still the best - indeed the only - way to get your clothes dry, winter OR summer.
7. 24 hour drug stores - I once tried to find something for Michael's fever on a Sunday morning. It's a good thing it wasn't a serious illness.
8. Air conditioning that works - maybe it's because we really only need A/C about one week per year here, but buildings that are air conditioned might as well not be during that week. It's also worth pointing out that air conditioned public transport, while slowly making inroads here has been perfected in New York, where a couple of cow carcasses on the 1 and 9 train could have been the setting for Rocky's meat locker punch-up scene in .
9. A long drive in the country - America has something like 150,000 miles of roads. Many of these are shady and pleasant and green and are a beautiful way to spend an afternoon, the tarmac ribbon unfolding over gently rolling hills and winding below the ancient arching boughs. There's a reason America is so in love with the automobile: she's lovable.
10. Roadside diners - chrome and cigarette-scarred Formica, ancient Germanic waitresses, greasy food, milkshakes, bikers on crank. What's not to love?
11. Good French fries - thin, crispy, a little greasy. The market here sells frozen 'American Style Chips'. Like the streaky bacon, they're just not the same thing.
12. Decent pizza - Don Pepe's in Penn Station in New York is, hands down, the best pizza on the planet. There is no Don Pepe's here. Pizza here is almost without exception flaccid, doughy and light on sauce and cheese.
13. Window screens - Seriously, guys, it's not that complicated. A roll of wire mesh, a wooden frame, a few tacks. I could show you.
14. Ice - I'm not sure why the concept of using frozen water to make things cold is so alien to people here, but you'd think it was an exotic notion. It may be a small thing, but it's a useful one.
15. July 4th - I generally don't go in much for patriotism, but I do love a good flag-waving parade and a marching band. The 'Star Spangled Banner' makes my eyes wet - even as I write this, the screen is getting blurry. Silly, really. Sniff.
16. Autumn - this past Fall here was probably the best yet, but it doesn't hold a candle to the fine weather, the honeyed sunshine and the brilliant foliage we enjoyed back in the US.
17. TiVo - we have DVRs here, yes, but they're just pants.
18. A decent postal service - every time I mail a letter I wonder whether it will arrive at its destination, and when. In February 2011, the kids received a pair of Halloween cards from Michele's parents. From 2009. I sometimes get past due notices from the utility company several weeks before I get the bills themselves. The Victorians apparently had such high quality mail service in London that the socialite set relied on it rather than messengers to deliver communications between themselves in a timely fashion. I'm not sure what's happened since then, but it's not pretty.
19. Customer service - with the exception of every shop I've been to in the King of Prussia mall, a riduculous temple of vulgar comsumerism and poor taste, most people who sell things in America have at least some concept of customer service. Not so here. Napoleon called this a nation of shopkeepers, but he apparently never actually went to a shop here.
20. High quality dentistry - the joke about British dentists isn't a joke, they're shockingly bad. We actually pay to use the dentist back in the US because they're so awful here. Michele tried, with my insurance, to make a cleaning appointment for the kids, a semiannual routine in America, but was told that they're too young.
21. Non-roaming data - I've learned that my beloved iPhone is of only slightly more use than a rock when it's without data. I've also learned that roaming data is obscenely expensive. I cannot comprehend why, when the mobile carrier in Malaga has the same name as the one I bought the phone from in London, do I pay £8/megabyte for data. Yes, Spain's another country, but it's about as far from London as Chicago is from Philadelphia and Verizon seems to manage just fine in both American cities.
There may well be other things that I miss and will be glad to get back to - this list started out considerably shorter, and I've been adding to it through the weekend - but these are the biggest ones that come to mind. Up next, I think, a list of Things I Won't Miss About the UK.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Moving Again - With Children
It's been a while, yes.
For those of you who check this page regularly, I'm sorry that I haven't been more disciplined about posting. And for those of you who are easily disappointed, I'm even sorrier for what you're about to read. But let's face it - you're an adult and it's not my job to keep you from being disappointed. So I'll say here, now, it's official, insofar as anything in the banking industry is ever official - we're moving back to the US.
This may change, and our children (whom, I would add, it IS my job to try to protect from a certain amount of avoidable disappointment, or at least from life's endless buffet of pain and prosternation) are unaware of this impending move. So please don't talk about it in front of them. I will also add now that I am not entirely pleased about this move. Our secret, yes?
By way of explanation, and just because I feel like it, let us consider some widely held misconceptions about my adoptive country, this place that I love:
1. "Taxes are higher". This may be true. In the UK, we have a very simple tax system. There are 9 deductions (mostly applicable to those are either blind or who were born before 1935) and 4 tax rates (source). While these rates may be slightly higher than thay are in the US, the taxes here are fair and do not lend themselves to cheating. The government does not offer a direct incentive to own a home or to bear large numbers of offspring who may later take up the cause of consumerist consumption. I filed my UK taxes in less time than it took the kids to pick up their Legos. I owed 50p. Compare this to the £600 I pay annually to have my US taxes compiled neatly into a stack of 30 or so A4 sheets to be sent to the local embassy.
2. "Nationalized healthcare is shambolic". This may also be true. To avoid using the UK National Health System, I pay £1888.80 per year for private health insurance. Even taken as a direct comparison this compares favorably with the $8000 or so that I paid annually for health coverage in the US; but to this, I must add that my coverage in the US was, in a word, shite. Even with Blue Cross I not only forked over a $30 copay for every office visit, but I also footed 20% of every medical bill. Here, I pay, um, NOTHING. I had £250 worth of bloodwork recently. I paid NOTHING. I had an MRI done of my head and spine, the bill for which came to £1600. If you are the sort of dullard who learns only through repetition - perhaps you are a hockey fan - I shall reiterate: I paid NOTHING. Had these tests been carried out in the US I'd have been out about $350 (assuming an oversimplified unit to unit currency conversion). OK, so you might say that this is not a valid comparison - private health insurance does not adequately represent the general experience in a nationalized system. And to you, dear detractor, I say in the nicest way, 'Bollocks, You Ignorant Tosser'. Several years ago, Michael had not one, but two injuries requiring professional medical attention, and we took him to the local NHS hospital. On both occasions, he was treated quickly and efficiently and with a degree of kindness and compassion that I've not seen in any US medical facility. I'll reiterate - we paid NOTHING. I'll be the first to admit that two data points may not be representative of an entire system, but, and I'll be perfectly forthright with you here, I don't really give a shit, let alone two of them, about whether my experience represents the entire system. I only present my personal experience of it.
3. "It rains a lot". This is a completely unfounded assertion. Philadelphia received, over the course of more than 100 years, 70% more annual rainfall than London (source). I rarely carry an umbrella in London, and although I can't say that I don't ever get wet, I get less wet here walking the 20 minutes or so to and from the train than I ever did while hatlessly navigating interminable suburban American carparks. It's also worth adding here that while London does have a somewhat lower average temperature - 50 degrees F versus Philadelphia's comparatively balmy 54 degrees - the temperature here falls within a 24 degree band while Philadelphia's fluctuates by 44 degrees on average. Put differently, the summers here may be cool, but the winters are warm. Yes, I enjoy the change of seasons, but while I don't even own a heavy coat, there's a good chance that you're wearing yours now if you live in the Northeast US.
4. "The transport system breaks down." Yeah, that one's probably true. On the other hand, London transport does actually GO to most of the places I need to get to. Even now, after several drinks, I can think of no fewer than eight ways to get to work from where I live. Some are more useful than others, but they all get me where I need to go, and the diversity of routes means that I have a fair few alternates when one is broken. By way of comparison, let's say that I wanted to get from Downingtown (where we lived before moving here) to West Conshohocken (where I worked before moving here) using only public transport. The website of SEPTA, the regional Transport Authority, offers the following helpful instructions: "Dear customer, nearby to the given address stations could not be found. Perhaps timetable data of local transport associations is missing. We hope for your understanding." OK, so public transport's out, let's drive. If I were driving between the same points in the US, there were at most four different routes, one involving a dirt road skirting a Chester County cow pasture, and even that one was prone to backups. I can find my way anywhere in London given a postcode. It might take me a bit longer and I might be jostled on a crowded platform or sweat through my clean shirt, but goddammit, I'll probably get there and if I don't, I can always pour myself into a cab. Oh, and by the way I pay £123 a month for this service. Again, this compares favorably to the monthly cost of a car - payment, interest, maintenance and fuel.
5. "There are no good restaurants". Again, patently false. Tonight, we ate at a Korean BBQ that opened around the corner from us. A Google search for "London and Restaurant" yields 701,000 results. A similar search for "Philadelphia and Restaurant" returns a comparatively lean 115,000 hits, despite Philadelphia's recent eatery renaissance. One need but scratch the vacuous surface of Philadelphia's restaurant listings to find a Stephen Starr establishment at one's corner, occupying a previously vacant lot or a former Bolshevik diner. Of course one can't compare these results directly, but the sheer magnitude of the difference in the numbers tells its own story.
London is not without its faults. The frequent altercations, both large and small, that I manage to get myself into at bus stops, tube stations and on the pavement outside my office are certainly examples of why this is not Utopia. Sometimes the restuarants are not fabulous, the lights are not terribly bright, the schools not all that good. But on balance, this city is where I live, it's where I feel comfortable, it's where I belong. Though my life here may be short of middling, I love it anyway.
And now, it's time to leave this, all beauty and conflict, behind. The Buddhists say that the path to happiness lies in letting go - of people, of places, of things. I may only aspire to such greatness, or even to littleness. I can't even let go of my morning commute without a struggle.
For those of you who check this page regularly, I'm sorry that I haven't been more disciplined about posting. And for those of you who are easily disappointed, I'm even sorrier for what you're about to read. But let's face it - you're an adult and it's not my job to keep you from being disappointed. So I'll say here, now, it's official, insofar as anything in the banking industry is ever official - we're moving back to the US.
This may change, and our children (whom, I would add, it IS my job to try to protect from a certain amount of avoidable disappointment, or at least from life's endless buffet of pain and prosternation) are unaware of this impending move. So please don't talk about it in front of them. I will also add now that I am not entirely pleased about this move. Our secret, yes?
By way of explanation, and just because I feel like it, let us consider some widely held misconceptions about my adoptive country, this place that I love:
1. "Taxes are higher". This may be true. In the UK, we have a very simple tax system. There are 9 deductions (mostly applicable to those are either blind or who were born before 1935) and 4 tax rates (source). While these rates may be slightly higher than thay are in the US, the taxes here are fair and do not lend themselves to cheating. The government does not offer a direct incentive to own a home or to bear large numbers of offspring who may later take up the cause of consumerist consumption. I filed my UK taxes in less time than it took the kids to pick up their Legos. I owed 50p. Compare this to the £600 I pay annually to have my US taxes compiled neatly into a stack of 30 or so A4 sheets to be sent to the local embassy.
2. "Nationalized healthcare is shambolic". This may also be true. To avoid using the UK National Health System, I pay £1888.80 per year for private health insurance. Even taken as a direct comparison this compares favorably with the $8000 or so that I paid annually for health coverage in the US; but to this, I must add that my coverage in the US was, in a word, shite. Even with Blue Cross I not only forked over a $30 copay for every office visit, but I also footed 20% of every medical bill. Here, I pay, um, NOTHING. I had £250 worth of bloodwork recently. I paid NOTHING. I had an MRI done of my head and spine, the bill for which came to £1600. If you are the sort of dullard who learns only through repetition - perhaps you are a hockey fan - I shall reiterate: I paid NOTHING. Had these tests been carried out in the US I'd have been out about $350 (assuming an oversimplified unit to unit currency conversion). OK, so you might say that this is not a valid comparison - private health insurance does not adequately represent the general experience in a nationalized system. And to you, dear detractor, I say in the nicest way, 'Bollocks, You Ignorant Tosser'. Several years ago, Michael had not one, but two injuries requiring professional medical attention, and we took him to the local NHS hospital. On both occasions, he was treated quickly and efficiently and with a degree of kindness and compassion that I've not seen in any US medical facility. I'll reiterate - we paid NOTHING. I'll be the first to admit that two data points may not be representative of an entire system, but, and I'll be perfectly forthright with you here, I don't really give a shit, let alone two of them, about whether my experience represents the entire system. I only present my personal experience of it.
3. "It rains a lot". This is a completely unfounded assertion. Philadelphia received, over the course of more than 100 years, 70% more annual rainfall than London (source). I rarely carry an umbrella in London, and although I can't say that I don't ever get wet, I get less wet here walking the 20 minutes or so to and from the train than I ever did while hatlessly navigating interminable suburban American carparks. It's also worth adding here that while London does have a somewhat lower average temperature - 50 degrees F versus Philadelphia's comparatively balmy 54 degrees - the temperature here falls within a 24 degree band while Philadelphia's fluctuates by 44 degrees on average. Put differently, the summers here may be cool, but the winters are warm. Yes, I enjoy the change of seasons, but while I don't even own a heavy coat, there's a good chance that you're wearing yours now if you live in the Northeast US.
4. "The transport system breaks down." Yeah, that one's probably true. On the other hand, London transport does actually GO to most of the places I need to get to. Even now, after several drinks, I can think of no fewer than eight ways to get to work from where I live. Some are more useful than others, but they all get me where I need to go, and the diversity of routes means that I have a fair few alternates when one is broken. By way of comparison, let's say that I wanted to get from Downingtown (where we lived before moving here) to West Conshohocken (where I worked before moving here) using only public transport. The website of SEPTA, the regional Transport Authority, offers the following helpful instructions: "Dear customer, nearby to the given address stations could not be found. Perhaps timetable data of local transport associations is missing. We hope for your understanding." OK, so public transport's out, let's drive. If I were driving between the same points in the US, there were at most four different routes, one involving a dirt road skirting a Chester County cow pasture, and even that one was prone to backups. I can find my way anywhere in London given a postcode. It might take me a bit longer and I might be jostled on a crowded platform or sweat through my clean shirt, but goddammit, I'll probably get there and if I don't, I can always pour myself into a cab. Oh, and by the way I pay £123 a month for this service. Again, this compares favorably to the monthly cost of a car - payment, interest, maintenance and fuel.
5. "There are no good restaurants". Again, patently false. Tonight, we ate at a Korean BBQ that opened around the corner from us. A Google search for "London and Restaurant" yields 701,000 results. A similar search for "Philadelphia and Restaurant" returns a comparatively lean 115,000 hits, despite Philadelphia's recent eatery renaissance. One need but scratch the vacuous surface of Philadelphia's restaurant listings to find a Stephen Starr establishment at one's corner, occupying a previously vacant lot or a former Bolshevik diner. Of course one can't compare these results directly, but the sheer magnitude of the difference in the numbers tells its own story.
London is not without its faults. The frequent altercations, both large and small, that I manage to get myself into at bus stops, tube stations and on the pavement outside my office are certainly examples of why this is not Utopia. Sometimes the restuarants are not fabulous, the lights are not terribly bright, the schools not all that good. But on balance, this city is where I live, it's where I feel comfortable, it's where I belong. Though my life here may be short of middling, I love it anyway.
And now, it's time to leave this, all beauty and conflict, behind. The Buddhists say that the path to happiness lies in letting go - of people, of places, of things. I may only aspire to such greatness, or even to littleness. I can't even let go of my morning commute without a struggle.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Wanderlust
I don't think I've travelled nearly enough. I say this because of an advertisement I saw on the tube today on the way to work. The ad was for STA TRAVEL (or STAT RAVEL, I couldn't really be sure as I broke my glasses some time ago and have either been too lazy or vain to have them fixed). I don't really remember much about the ad, but the tagline was "Before you turn 35". As a 40 year old, I found this frightening and disturbing and vaguely offensive.
I can just imagine the meeting of the STA Travel marketing department where they came up with that one - a couple of pimply twenty-somethings in baggy pants and baseball caps guzzling Coke and kicking ideas around.
"Yo, Tyler, how about 'Go before you're dead.'"
"Shu'up, Taylor, thas sum sick shit. Or, or, or 'Before you turn 35'"
"LOL. Yo mama's 35, beeyatch!"
Seriously, what's that supposed to mean? I'm pretty well travelled for an American, but there are still plenty of places I haven't been to, even in America. I pointed out to Caroline the other day that in her Brownies group there is a girl named Savannah and another named Georgia. She stared at me blankly until I explained that Savannah is a city in Georgia. She asked me what it's like but I have no idea. I've never been to Savannah, though I have been to Hilton Head just a few miles north, and I remember the stench of the Savannah paper mills like the devil's own flatulence wafting up the coastline. I hear it's lovely if the wind is right, though, so I'll put Savannah on the list, right along with all the others.
I don't like to brag (OK, yes I do) but I've got 144 cities in 11 countries tagged on my Facebook 'Tripadvisor Cities I've Visited' app. Fact is, though, that's not enough. I wonder if it will EVER be enough. I'm not sure what drives this need to travel, to see new places and experience new things. It's been a few months since I've been away and I'm getting itchy again. I have a friend who's got three or four hundred cities tagged and he's still travelling. It never gets old.
So the idea that you have to get your travelling in before you're 35? Well, as a forty year old with a need to GO, I can say with some certainty that that's just bollocks.
I can just imagine the meeting of the STA Travel marketing department where they came up with that one - a couple of pimply twenty-somethings in baggy pants and baseball caps guzzling Coke and kicking ideas around.
"Yo, Tyler, how about 'Go before you're dead.'"
"Shu'up, Taylor, thas sum sick shit. Or, or, or 'Before you turn 35'"
"LOL. Yo mama's 35, beeyatch!"
Seriously, what's that supposed to mean? I'm pretty well travelled for an American, but there are still plenty of places I haven't been to, even in America. I pointed out to Caroline the other day that in her Brownies group there is a girl named Savannah and another named Georgia. She stared at me blankly until I explained that Savannah is a city in Georgia. She asked me what it's like but I have no idea. I've never been to Savannah, though I have been to Hilton Head just a few miles north, and I remember the stench of the Savannah paper mills like the devil's own flatulence wafting up the coastline. I hear it's lovely if the wind is right, though, so I'll put Savannah on the list, right along with all the others.
I don't like to brag (OK, yes I do) but I've got 144 cities in 11 countries tagged on my Facebook 'Tripadvisor Cities I've Visited' app. Fact is, though, that's not enough. I wonder if it will EVER be enough. I'm not sure what drives this need to travel, to see new places and experience new things. It's been a few months since I've been away and I'm getting itchy again. I have a friend who's got three or four hundred cities tagged and he's still travelling. It never gets old.
So the idea that you have to get your travelling in before you're 35? Well, as a forty year old with a need to GO, I can say with some certainty that that's just bollocks.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Conversational French
We recently hosted some friends who are French. The youngest child, Romeo, an adorable three year old with floppy brown hair and big eyes, speaks no English.
After a few drinks, I, like most people, come to believe that I am smarter, funnier and better looking than I actually am. Ahh, the magic of alcohol. Too bad it doesn't make my French any better. The conversation between Romeo and I is recounted below, translated into English for those of you who either don't speak French or who aren't drunk right now.
"Sir," Romeo asks, his hair flopping down over his left eye. "May I play with this yellow car?" He calls me 'monsieur'. He calls Michael 'boy' and Caroline is 'girl'. I think it's very cute.
"Yes, of course," I reply in flawless French. I am now his best friend, having both given him permission to play with the yellow car and demonstrated that I speak his language. He is, poor child, completely unaware that I have exhausted the entire linguistic reserve of two years of high school French. I speak French in the way that a parrot speaks English - I repeat it, it sounds about right, and the words are sometimes marginally appropriate to the situation, but as often as not, I have no idea what I'm saying.
Some time later I am in the kitchen preparing dinner for the children, believing that I am a better cook than I actually am, when Romeo toddles down the hallway with both the yellow and the red cars in hand. The red and yellow cars require that you shake them vigorously and let them loose on the floor. While ridiculous to watch, if performed properly, this shaking will produce revving engine and screeching tire noises that are most satisfactory, especially to a small child.
"Monsieur, how does this car go?" His question is a bit of a challenge for me, but after a half a beat, I parse out the words for 'car' and 'go' and deduce his meaning.
"Relieve-her you," I reply. The French words for relief and shake are similar enough to confuse me. He stares at me blankly, but I hardly notice; I'm too busy trying to recall more French. "You relieve her and then put him under the stairs."
His bewilderment deepens. "I don't understand," he replies. It must be so difficult to be so young.
"Listen me," I command. I shake the yellow car and place it on the carpet. It races away, its engine roaring, and he shrieks with unbridled delight. He fetches the car and brings it back to me, holding it aloft so that I may shake it again. "No, you," I tell him. "Relieve!" I instruct emphatically, demonstrating with my hand. I have to get back to my boiling pasta, now frothing over, the starchy water hissing and popping evilly on the hot burner.
He shakes the car a few times and lets it go, but it only moves a few inches. He is crestfallen. "Monsieur, encore, s'il vous plaît?" he requests, a quiver in his voice. I shake the car and send it tearing down the hall, and he is happy once more.
There follows here a lengthy passage in his three-year-old French that is far better than mine and which I cannot possibly comprehend. It sounds like a question and it ends with please, so I assume he wants me to do the car thing again. I shake the car and let it go but his eyes well with tiny Gallic tears. Apparently I have misinterpreted his intentions. "No, no don't rain!" I implore, but he is howling and crying for his mère. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" his mother asks him, shepherding him into the front room as I return to my cooking.
A few minutes later, he's back, holding aloft two of Michael's small toy dinosaurs. "Monsieur, are these elephants?" I of course have no idea what he's asking so I smile and nod politely, the way you do when you've had a bit to drink and your dinner's beginning to weld itself to the stove top. "They don't look like elephants," he continues. "Elephants are grey and they have looong trunks. They are not elephants, I think. Have you ever seen an elephant?"
I am completely out of my depth. I think he's asking what kind of dinosaurs they are, but of course I don't know, and I admit as much. He seems puzzled that I am uncertain as to whether I've ever seen an elephant, but he lets it pass. "What are you cooking?"
"Stegosaurus, maybe?" I think he's still asking about the dinosaurs. He looks horrified and runs away.
He eats very little at dinner. When his mother presses him to finish his pasta, he protests violently in French and runs away. He does this a lot, it seems. I ask if everything is all right, but his mother shakes her head. "He has the, ah, the ideas crazy," she replies carefully in English. "He say the pasta is a dinosaur."
I can't imagine where he got that idea.
After a few drinks, I, like most people, come to believe that I am smarter, funnier and better looking than I actually am. Ahh, the magic of alcohol. Too bad it doesn't make my French any better. The conversation between Romeo and I is recounted below, translated into English for those of you who either don't speak French or who aren't drunk right now.
"Sir," Romeo asks, his hair flopping down over his left eye. "May I play with this yellow car?" He calls me 'monsieur'. He calls Michael 'boy' and Caroline is 'girl'. I think it's very cute.
"Yes, of course," I reply in flawless French. I am now his best friend, having both given him permission to play with the yellow car and demonstrated that I speak his language. He is, poor child, completely unaware that I have exhausted the entire linguistic reserve of two years of high school French. I speak French in the way that a parrot speaks English - I repeat it, it sounds about right, and the words are sometimes marginally appropriate to the situation, but as often as not, I have no idea what I'm saying.
Some time later I am in the kitchen preparing dinner for the children, believing that I am a better cook than I actually am, when Romeo toddles down the hallway with both the yellow and the red cars in hand. The red and yellow cars require that you shake them vigorously and let them loose on the floor. While ridiculous to watch, if performed properly, this shaking will produce revving engine and screeching tire noises that are most satisfactory, especially to a small child.
"Monsieur, how does this car go?" His question is a bit of a challenge for me, but after a half a beat, I parse out the words for 'car' and 'go' and deduce his meaning.
"Relieve-her you," I reply. The French words for relief and shake are similar enough to confuse me. He stares at me blankly, but I hardly notice; I'm too busy trying to recall more French. "You relieve her and then put him under the stairs."
His bewilderment deepens. "I don't understand," he replies. It must be so difficult to be so young.
"Listen me," I command. I shake the yellow car and place it on the carpet. It races away, its engine roaring, and he shrieks with unbridled delight. He fetches the car and brings it back to me, holding it aloft so that I may shake it again. "No, you," I tell him. "Relieve!" I instruct emphatically, demonstrating with my hand. I have to get back to my boiling pasta, now frothing over, the starchy water hissing and popping evilly on the hot burner.
He shakes the car a few times and lets it go, but it only moves a few inches. He is crestfallen. "Monsieur, encore, s'il vous plaît?" he requests, a quiver in his voice. I shake the car and send it tearing down the hall, and he is happy once more.
There follows here a lengthy passage in his three-year-old French that is far better than mine and which I cannot possibly comprehend. It sounds like a question and it ends with please, so I assume he wants me to do the car thing again. I shake the car and let it go but his eyes well with tiny Gallic tears. Apparently I have misinterpreted his intentions. "No, no don't rain!" I implore, but he is howling and crying for his mère. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" his mother asks him, shepherding him into the front room as I return to my cooking.
A few minutes later, he's back, holding aloft two of Michael's small toy dinosaurs. "Monsieur, are these elephants?" I of course have no idea what he's asking so I smile and nod politely, the way you do when you've had a bit to drink and your dinner's beginning to weld itself to the stove top. "They don't look like elephants," he continues. "Elephants are grey and they have looong trunks. They are not elephants, I think. Have you ever seen an elephant?"
I am completely out of my depth. I think he's asking what kind of dinosaurs they are, but of course I don't know, and I admit as much. He seems puzzled that I am uncertain as to whether I've ever seen an elephant, but he lets it pass. "What are you cooking?"
"Stegosaurus, maybe?" I think he's still asking about the dinosaurs. He looks horrified and runs away.
He eats very little at dinner. When his mother presses him to finish his pasta, he protests violently in French and runs away. He does this a lot, it seems. I ask if everything is all right, but his mother shakes her head. "He has the, ah, the ideas crazy," she replies carefully in English. "He say the pasta is a dinosaur."
I can't imagine where he got that idea.
Friday, January 7, 2011
The Last Time
I have to admit, I'm a little intrigued by the dead birds. And the dead fish. And all the other animals that seem to have decided to pack it in this week. They, the people who name such things, have dubbed it the aflockalypse. Is this really the beginning of the end of the world? Hmm. Probably not. I really believe that the Mayans ended the calendar on 12-12-2012 because it had to end _sometime_ and they got tired of chiseling the dates into the stones.
But it does make you wonder.
There's actually a pretty thin line separating me from the naked guy with the crazy hair wearing a sandwich board proclaiming 'The End Is Nigh'. I exist in a permanent state of impermanence. I expect that whatever is there now soon will be un-there'd. Yes, it's a somewhat taxing and depressing way to live, but the good news is that I'm rarely surprised when things DO end. But that's just the big stuff. What about the little things?
I was at a friend's house recently when he announced that he had to give his little girl a bath. Bathing the kids was a routine that I both loved and despised. Some days it was just a mundane chore; others, it was a welcome respite from the cares and worries of the adult world - you know, the one where you can't splash around.
I invented a tub game called squirty telephone when we first moved to London. The children, having left families and friends and cherished toys back in the US, were miserable. On the first or second night, while giving them a bath in the Savoy's commodious tub, to distract them from the misery brought on by having moved a quarter of the way across the world to a rainy, grey city where everyone seemed to be in a terrible hurry and the food was lousy, I hit on the idea of pretending that the hand shower was a telephone. Making a ringing noise, I put it to my ear and turned on the water, and squirty telephone was born. For the next two years I had to soak my head every time I gave them a bath. We finally moved into a house that has no hand shower and they soon gave up baths.
I honestly can't remember the last time I gave them a bath. It just stopped without warning. I suppose I thought I would be bathing them indefinitely. As much as it was a pain in the ass sometimes, I miss it.
The children have stopped waving to me from the front window. I don't know when, or why, they just have. I don't remember the last time they did, precisely because I didn't KNOW it was the last time. If I had, I'd have made a special effort to remember it.
A facile philosophy would suggest that you should live your life as if every day is your last. That's just not possible, I think. Life does, in fact, get mundane. Routine. Even boring at times. You take things for granted. You assume that your children will always be children. That your friends will always be around. That the things and the people that you love will always be in your life.
And then, swiftly and without any warning at all, they are gone.
When was the last time you gave your kid a bath?
But it does make you wonder.
There's actually a pretty thin line separating me from the naked guy with the crazy hair wearing a sandwich board proclaiming 'The End Is Nigh'. I exist in a permanent state of impermanence. I expect that whatever is there now soon will be un-there'd. Yes, it's a somewhat taxing and depressing way to live, but the good news is that I'm rarely surprised when things DO end. But that's just the big stuff. What about the little things?
I was at a friend's house recently when he announced that he had to give his little girl a bath. Bathing the kids was a routine that I both loved and despised. Some days it was just a mundane chore; others, it was a welcome respite from the cares and worries of the adult world - you know, the one where you can't splash around.
I invented a tub game called squirty telephone when we first moved to London. The children, having left families and friends and cherished toys back in the US, were miserable. On the first or second night, while giving them a bath in the Savoy's commodious tub, to distract them from the misery brought on by having moved a quarter of the way across the world to a rainy, grey city where everyone seemed to be in a terrible hurry and the food was lousy, I hit on the idea of pretending that the hand shower was a telephone. Making a ringing noise, I put it to my ear and turned on the water, and squirty telephone was born. For the next two years I had to soak my head every time I gave them a bath. We finally moved into a house that has no hand shower and they soon gave up baths.
I honestly can't remember the last time I gave them a bath. It just stopped without warning. I suppose I thought I would be bathing them indefinitely. As much as it was a pain in the ass sometimes, I miss it.
The children have stopped waving to me from the front window. I don't know when, or why, they just have. I don't remember the last time they did, precisely because I didn't KNOW it was the last time. If I had, I'd have made a special effort to remember it.
A facile philosophy would suggest that you should live your life as if every day is your last. That's just not possible, I think. Life does, in fact, get mundane. Routine. Even boring at times. You take things for granted. You assume that your children will always be children. That your friends will always be around. That the things and the people that you love will always be in your life.
And then, swiftly and without any warning at all, they are gone.
When was the last time you gave your kid a bath?
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