currently watching wimbledon: murray vs. roddick. not that i entirely understand what's going on but i think it's a very close game (match? set?). the crowd is going wild. it will probably be over by the time i finish this post...
so, let's see. i don't know why i always want to review the weather but britain has experienced an unprecedented heatwave this past week and it's been, well, HOT. today it's finally cooling off and i have to say, it's rather pleasant. i think showers are expected tomorrow. go figure.
wednesday was a london day. cyn-d and i took the train in around lunchtime. our first stop was to 10 downing street which isn't super exciting in and of itself (the street is gated off and guarded; you can't actually see 10 downing street and i'm not all that interested in gordon brown) BUT it's just one of those little britain tributes. i love the sebastian sketches with the prime minister. so i took a couple photos:
and since we were right there in westminster, i did glance over at a couple other sights:
and of course, i had to "make a phone call":
then we headed over to harrods, enjoyed some overpriced gelato, did a little shopping (okay, i didn't actually buy anything) and then did a little more shopping at the V&A giftshop.
finally we wrapped up the evening at picadilly circus for dinner and a show with sarah!! we had a lovely, lovely time.
well, the match is over and it's about time to grab some dinner. (i won't tell you who won so as not to spoil it.)
i've got tons of oxford photos so i'll save those for another post...
we've got one more day in england (tomorrow we're leaving oxford to spend our last day in windsor) and then sunday we head to venice.
we've left charming, quaint woodstock and are now in oxford proper. downtown, right off cowley road. it's quite a change of pace--we both got totally used to the quiet village life. cowley road is about as urban as oxford gets. we've exchanged a quiet cottage for a tiny flat above a cafe. lots of traffic, lots of sirens, lots of pubs, lots of eateries featuring cuisines from jamaica to poland to lebanon to...wherever. feels like home.
the owner at the woodstock flat claimed we brought the good weather with us. and yes, we had amazingly beautiful, warm, sunny weather during most of the past week. unfortunately, good weather must have had other commitments today because now we've got thunderstorms tagging along. it is POURING outside. but in a nice way. it's REAL rain. heavy, fat drops bouncing off the ground kind of rain. none of this half-hearted drizzly, foggy "rain".
that's enough chitchat about the weather. weather is what you talk about when you don't have anything nice to say. but i've got lots of nice things to say. so let's move on, shall we?
as hoped, i spent a fair amount of time exploring the blenheim palace grounds this last week during my daily runs. i am going to miss those terribly.
it's so much easier to run when you've got such breathtaking scenery surrounding you. also sheep!! i love running amongst the baa-baaing sheep.
but i found the nearest public access path to christchurch meadow today so i do have a new running site for this week. all is well.
not that i'm a big runner. i'm not. i like running. except when i hate it. it's something i like to do when i have time. and here i have time. and it also gives me an excuse to get off the high street and explore more natural settings.
wimbledon. that's happening right now. we're watching lots of wimbledon. all british eyes are on andy murray.
also glastonbury is happening right now. bbc covers wimbledon in the day and glastonbury at night. which means we've always got something to watch. we just watched spinal tap perform and they were pretty great. for fake rockers who haven't faked it in a long time, they're...really good.
yesterday we went to bath. did a little jane austening and a lot of shopping. ooh! and we ate lunch at jamie oliver's italian restaurant! that was fun. and quite tasty. we've got it on the list to try one of gordon ramsay's restaurants as well. (we've been watching a lot of ramsay's kitchen nightmares-it's on a lot late at night.)
so okay, that's really all i've got for now. i guess blog is gonna be travelogue for the next month. so apologies/you're welcome--please accept whichever applies to you.
ps: here's your hint: "swotty" was used in describing hermione granger.
cyn-d and i arrived saturday afternoon, greeted by a drizzly rain. ("ahh, we're really in england!") got to woodstock around 5:30 pm, settled in a bit at the flat and then walked around the village and got dinner at the local pub. sweet potato soup...mmmmm.
we took an overnight flight over and only half dozed in spurts on the plane. we were in a more spacious row but i ended up with a large old indian woman on the other side of me who spilled over into half of my seat space and mistook me for her personal flight attendant. she spent most of the flight staring at me and asking me question after question. at no time did she recognize the futility of her inquiries as i do not speak nor do i understand hindi. apparently these facts were irrelevant. she'd stare intently and ask her questions and i'd reply with, "i'm sorry but i still don't understand you and i feel like you should have figured this out by now. fork? (slightly exasperated, holding up fork) toilet? (pointing to sign) light? (turning on light) water?" (handing her my water bottle), etc, etc. she also developed habits of setting food on my tray, handing me her trash to throw away or packets of condiments to open, and motioning me to get her son who was a couple rows back and cleverly feigning sleep most of the ride. i also tried feigning sleep but she'd just poke me or belch in my ear or stare until i opened my eyes and acknowledged her.
i was ready to get off the plane when we finally landed.
cyn-d and i managed to stay up until about 10pm saturday night (which was really something since neither of us slept much on the plane and i had slept maybe 5 hours total the previous 2 nights). so we both got a good night's sleep saturday night and i slept in sunday until about 10:30. it was wonderful.
but now...
jetlag.
for one thing, it doesn't get dark here until about 10:30pm. is this normal? i've never been in england in june. but it's like land of the midnight sun here. and by 4am it's light again outside. so sunday night (last night) we went to bed about 11:30 and by 12:30, were both wide-awake and back downstairs flipping through channels on the tv. we watched stephen fry in america, stephen fry on QI, and stephen fry on kingdom. at 2am we got totally invested in episode 1 of personal affairs. and then course by 4am it started getting light out again, which meant it was time for toast (obviously) and some imdbing of favorite british tv stars. ("ooh, what's alan davies up to these days?") it is now about 6am and cyn-d has gone to bed. i'm still downstairs, now blogging, hoping the effort of trying to amuse you dear readers will make me sleepy. of course i had set the alarm for 7:20 to get me up in time to go for a run through the grounds of blenheim before heading into oxford for breakfast. but at this rate, my morning run will more likely become my evening run.
no matter. because it is wonderful to be here. woodstock is quaint, charming, lovely and so very british, as you can see here:
this is where we're staying this week. i lovelovelove it. why don't i live here?
just the other day someone asked me if i was ever in girl scouts. and i was-sort of. i was in brownies in 3rd grade. remember brownies? that precursor to "real" girl scouts? with the ugly brown jumper, brown cap (akin to a mickey mouse hat but without the ears), orange necktie and orange sock tassles? no? well, here, let me remind you:
sorry for the graininess of the photo. but you get the idea.
this morning the receptionist buzzed my office and said, "um, amy, a package just arrived for you. it's too big for your box so if you want to come get it..."
"really? a package for me? but leslie and i only bought those shoes online yesterday. they couldn't possibly have arrived by today. why would a client send me something too big for my box?"
down the stairs i went to pick up my package. to my delight, i saw a new york, new york return address on it. "aha! alisa!...what has she sent me...???"
i opened the package and found fresh lotus eye gel (which i've been wanting and wanting) and fresh glowy face cream surrounded by:
2 samples of shampoo 2 samples of conditioner 3 samples of shower gel plus 1 sample of shower gel for men (advertising, "the AXE Effect may result in, but is not limited to, unrelenting female attention and/or late nights...unleash the power of extra sexual perception") 1 t-shirt packaged like a huge hockey puck 1 package of skittles 2 samples of body butter/lotion 3 samples of lip moisturizer 2 samples of face cleanser 1 double set of earrings 1 sample of lotion 1 box of iced tea mix 1 pkg of parma rosa sauce mix
this is why it pays to be friends with alisa. who else uses samples as packing peanuts?1 2
1i realize that this may put alisa on the spot to now have to send all her california friends packages. 2but i think alisa will be so glad to have a post dedicated to her that she won't care.
i'm taking a trip to europe next month and will be spending part of the time in england. i'm really looking forward to it-i haven't been to england in years even though it's maybe my favorite place in the world. it was the first place i ever visited outside the us and it was the first place away from home that felt like home. whenever i think about relocating abroad, the uk is always at the top of my list.
anyway, that's really neither here nor there except while i was thinking about what to blog about (feelings of guilt have been eating away at my conscience with time passing and no blogging happening...), i was thinking about what i've been up to lately. to be honest, what i've been up to lately is watching hours and hours of little britain. have you seen this show, dear readers? it's the funniest thing i have ever seen in my life. (this might be aided by the fact that i've developed a slight crush on david walliams) thanks to the wonderful world of netflix online, i have whittled away hours of time that could be spent in a number of productive ways, (re-)watching episode after episode of this show.
see for yourselves:
i can't explain it. i just love it.
*******
last week i spent 4 days up in shasta county doing rare plant surveys along the pit river. dear readers, days spent doing such work reminds me why i became a biologist, which is something i find myself needing more and more reminding of.
who can complain when days are spent hiking along this:
one day my coworker and i came across a rattlesnake. it wasn't my first encounter with a rattler, but it was my first time actually hearing one rattle. we were just about to head to our next survey location when it crossed in front of the car. aaron tried to agitate it while i jumped out of the car to get a closer look and hear it rattle.
it rattled like a motor then slithered into the grass and disappeared right where i had just been walking around minutes before. and even though we went on to another location, i stepped a bit more cautiously the rest of the afternoon.
*******
today i spent some time enjoying another fabulous view while friends walked down the isle:
johanan and joe picked a lovely day to tie the knot. the wedding was a swanky affair. i expected no less from them.
so that's a bit of what i've been up to lately. it hasn't all been about lounging around watching crass british comedy.
i want to share with you, dear readers, why i love tom waits:
pure genius.
i just found out i'm giving a talk on sunday ("amy sandwich sunday") and on the way home tonight was trying to figure out a way to work a tom waits reference into my talk. but now that i'm posting a tw video on my blog, a reference on sunday won't be so novel and brilliant. it'll just be like, "oh yeah, yawn. saw that coming..." at least to the 3 members of the congregation who also follow this blog. (bless you.)
my topic is general conference. the tom waits reference thought led to a follow-up brilliant thought of speaking on my topic quoting only non-conference speaking, non-mormon folks. i am going to pursue this thought for now and see where it takes me.
i still need to do my taxes. i thought about doing them tonight. and then i forgot. now it's late and all i really want to do is go read i, claudius.
now for the matter at hand:
if i were to contribute a whine to white whine, it would be this:
ugh, why does my ipod have to be synced to itunes to keep track of play counts??
recently, i started paying attention to play counts in itunes and then became sort of obsessed with them and then decided i wanted to run some simple stats on which songs i've listened to the most, which artists i listen to most, what i used to listen to more vs. what i now listen to more, which songs and artists remain constantly in play over time, etc, etc. i just thought it'd be kind of an interesting way to describe my history of the past few years. and i thought since apple products are supposed to be so savvy, i could easily find these answers when i hooked up my ipod to my computer. but not so. the problem is that i never used to sync my ipod to itunes. instead i used to add music manually. apparently, if you add music manually, itunes doesn't update your library with play counts and dates from your ipod. is this really true? if so, it is ridiculous and inexcusable.
it seems like the simplest thing in the world for an ipod to keep track of what is listened to when and for itunes to display that information when that ipod is connected. but it doesn't and i feel sort of robbed by snooty, snotty, pretentious apple. i feel like i'm asking for some very basic information. and it probably does exist on my ipod-i just can't access it. it's so irritating.
now i'm syncing my ipod in itunes. but my play count data is all skewed because it doesn't show any history. i don't listen to much music in itunes itself. also, i haven't been listening to many of my old standards on my ipod lately so it looks like i never listen to albums i've actually listened to hundreds of times. conversely, there are a few songs that i clung to during a sappy stretch last year that have pretty high counts since i was also at that time more frequently listening to music on the computer.
i know this is the whitest of white whines but right now i just can't let it go. these days we can review our histories in so many ways beyond keeping handwritten journals--emails, texts, blogs, twitter (as much as i hate to acknowledge its existence), facebook, photos, art, clothes, financial statements, calendars, planners, even netflix keeps your rental history--a music tracker would be a cool digital age tool to add to that list. just think how much could be revealed about someone if you could see what s/he was listening to during a given month.
i want to say more on this subject but due to the late hour, i'm running out of steam. instead i'll just close with this picture from disneyland taken a couple weekends ago (courtesy of cmack):
i just found out tomorrow is daylight savings. i kind of wish i still didn't know. being an hour late to everything is forgivable on daylight savings day. i can still be an hour late everywhere tomorrow but now i'll feel guilty because i'll know i'm late. where's the fun in that?
every so often i try to give up my car on weekends-at least as much as i can-and walk/bike/take mass transit to get wherever i need to go. today i chose mass transit because 1) i like taking the bus when i don't have to be somewhere by a certain time, 2) it's the laziest of my non-car options since the stop is right across the street and today was a lazy kind of day, and 3) i was in the mood for that communal atmosphere that you find on mass transit. i wasn't necessarily in the mood for having random conversations with strangers but i did enjoy taking in random conversations between others. particularly between this woman and man who were talking about cooking live lobsters. you know, like in annie hall:
the woman talked about how she couldn't take the screaming sounds coming from the lobster and in the end, couldn't eat it. the man told her screaming is just the sound of air coming out. as in from its stomach through its mouthparts-not from vibrating vocal chords. obviously. because lobsters don't have vocal chords.
anyway. that is neither here nor there. and that conversation wasn't nearly as amusing as it seemed at the time. not worth sharing in a blog post, really. oh, but it does provide context for sharing an annie hall clip. so,
worth it.
i took the bus to downtown berkeley and walked around. did a little shopping, chatted with a greenpeace guy who desperately tried to get me to become a member for various $$/month for the rest of my life. i tried to explain to him my commitment-phobia of payment plans and gyms and relationships and how in spite of that, i am still an environmentalist.
in the end, he just asked me to help him meet his quota for the day. i apologized with a sympathetic smile. he gave me a sticker. i went into amoeba.
i spent money on music and not the environment.
not that purchasing music isn't a worthy cause in its own right. it's important to support the local independent music stores. it's nice to buy actual cds now and then. it's good to take the cover art out of the jewel case, flip through the booklet, pop out the cd and recognize that someone(s) put their heart into creating that package of music. even if a new cd costs you $14. (ouch.) andrew bird, you better be worth it...
the weather was lovely today so i walked home from the store. on my way, i stopped by berkeley bowl because going to berkeley bowl on a saturday without a car is heaven. let everyone else fight for parking spots, i say.
sometimes i just want to go to berkeley bowl for the free cheese sample.
argh. curse daylight savings! i can't let it go. ooh-rice krispies treats. (that was me thinking of something pleasant to counter the argh of daylight savings.) mmm...that will ease the pain of losing an hour of sleep.
