Coming up with a registry is just one of the many troublesome things about arranging a wedding across an ocean, what with the currencies, the multiple addresses and the where to send things, and the very far away prospect of one day getting things shipped to the USA. That's a whole lot of price and hassle I'm not thinking about right now.
I was convinced that we couldn't have a 'normal' registry of actual physical gifts because of these factors, but Mark, and OBB showed me otherwise. Mark has had his heart set on good wedding china, and we'd already spent an afternoon walking around the King of Prussia mall eyeing up crockery and testing the weight of spoons in our hands, pretending to be the normal kind of couple who'd do this on a regular Sunday afternoon and not the kind of couple that only gets to spend Sunday afternoon together three times a year.
A couple of weekends ago I lounged on the sofa with the cat, my mum was cutting fabric for my dress (squee!) and listening to the football, while Mark and I surfed shopping websites together on Skype and picked our favourite china. It felt almost like a normal lazy afternoon, a long-distance tableau of domestic bliss!
So this month I had to do a lot of travelling to the Highlands for work - the kinds of places without phone reception or even ATMs. During a spell of signal on my phone I saw an email from Macy's in my gmail and guessed Mark had registered for the china. In the past week I got 4 or 5 more emails from Macy's, all vaguely spammy "Woohoo! Wedding Registry! Get Spendy! Look at this DEAL!" kinds of emails, which I tend to ignore but not delete for a while.
After I'd come back from business travel, and Mark had returned from his own business trip to Atlanta, we actually got a chance to chat on Skype and Mark told me that I had to 'activate' our registry (he got to have fun with the barcode bleeper all by his lonesome, not fair!). I found one of the emails from Macy's and loaded up the 'make a registry page' and after it tried to sell me Gold Reward Stars or something, AND a Macy's card, I finally set up a registry but it had nothing in it.
Mark realised then that I'd started a new registry, not activated HIS one, so I tried to delete it, and when it wouldn't let me, I changed all the details to fake details, including the wedding date, made it private, and changed the account to an old email address. Yeah, I'd opened the "selling you the Gold Reward Stars" email and not the "activate your account" email by accident. Boob. But then the real 'activation' wouldn't work; first Mark couldn't find our special code and had to rummage round his paperwork, and then the computer was all confused because now I had two registries, kind of.
Mark gave in and called Macy's to explain and asked them to delete the one I made by accident, but because I'd changed some of the details, they couldn't find it in the system. The Macy's lady asked what the name of the couple was. It was still in my name, but the 'husband' was different. While still on the phone to Macy's, Mark asked me over webcam what I changed it to, exactly.
Me: Umm, Bobby Billybog.
Mark: You're kidding me? Um, ma'am, it's uh, Bobby Billybog.
I burst into fits of giggles and Mark was staring at me over Skype as he was trying to be serious to the Macy's lady. She asked to clarify all the details of mine and Bobby Billybog's wedding, for security purposes I imagine.
Mark: What address did you put, Gill?
Me: I can't remember. The zip code was the same. I don't know. It was something silly, like Silly Nanny Street (Family Guy reference).
Mark: Oh god...
The Macy's lady actually asked if that's where he lived. I'm not sure she quite understood what was going on. Mark even tried to explain to the poor lady that I was cracking up over webcam at him having to say silly things over the phone to a stranger.
So that's how I broke our registry and laughed myself daft at my future husband (a serious upstanding bloke who graduated from Military School) saying his 'name' was Bobby Billybog to Macy's while he was not laughing at all.
It's also how I have earned myself a new nickname from my serious upstanding future husband... Gilly Billybog. I know I totally deserve it
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Life as we know it
When I started this blog I intended it to be about employment, and then politics. I never really intended it to be very personal.
This year, for me, has been punctuated by bus-rides and airport scenes (and Skype screens). Buses are never glamourous, even in movies, but buses are almost always interesting and variable (though sometimes for the wrong reason). Airport scenes are almost like the kind you see in the movies, but they are usually three hours longer and so far removed from any movie glamour with the sleeplessness, the screaming children, the queuing, and the crumpled plastic bags filled with old lipsticks and vaseline. Red-eye to London, layover in Paris, long haul to the USA, traipsing around terminals in Heathrow; I've been to five different UK, one European, and three USA airports since June.
There is a helpless frustration about being a lone traveller sitting in an airport lounge or trundling solely through security, or sitting trapped in a window seat above the clouds. For all the months I spend apart from my fiance at any one time, the moment I missed him most was on a delayed long-haul flight this year, exactly one hour away from landing. I sat boxed in by the porthole window and watched the little plane creeping towards its destination on the screen in front me, and sobbed for that whole final hour because I just didn't want to be sitting waiting any longer. One hour later I was in my partner's arms, but it felt like an age at the time.
An acquaintance expressed his sympathy for how hard it must be for me to be apart from the person that I'm going to marry; I was floored.
The reason I was floored is because earlier this year his girlfriend was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Recently he ran a half marathon, and then he and a truly amazing group of people ran 10k and raised almost £10k for Cancer Research in her honour. It was truly a awe-inspiring moment in what I can only imagine is an extremely challenging period.
My mum got her annual memo at work about their office secret santa last week. This year, because sometimes people get secret santas that they don't know very well, everyone has been asked to put up their likes and suggested presents on this sheet of paper on a noticeboard. Being a sarcastic British lady, my mum was going to put "£5 note" as a suggested present. Instead she wrote the URL to donate to my friends' fantastic efforts in the 10k. You can donate here too if you like.
Earlier this year, in a lovely twist of fate, my gran got married, was given the all-clear from cancer and is now thinking about getting a tattoo to celebrate. Some of my friends have even said they'll happily get tattoos at the same time as my gran!
And on the other side of the world, while my gran decides what design she'd like, my fiance is cultivating a 'manly' moustache and raising money for the likes of Prostate Cancer and other mens' health charities, as part of the fantastically chappy Movember campaign. He's doing this partly for reasons close to his heart, and partly because I'm jealous I can't grow such great facial hair for such a great cause. Whether you live in the US, or the UK, you can also donate to my man's efforts to emulate Teddy Roosevelt and see a silly picture of me with a moustache (his hasn't grown in yet).
Important things are happening in the world, and my partner has just started his own blog to document some of them. But equally important things are also happening in life, as we know it, right now.
Monday, 15 February 2010
see-saw for thought
Many people use the new year as a time for reflection and taking mental stock. I use long bus journeys.
This bus journey in particular was heading towards a job interview, unexpected, but very welcome, as a result of the phone call the other week.
It is almost exactly a year since I finished (what will hopefully be) my last stint in a temp job, called up a friend and met for burgers and pints; a joint celebration/commiseration while waiting for the future to begin. Since the job market was shoddy and it looked unlikely I'd find another temp job soon, and I was already almost over-stretching in trying to balance my work/uni/life commitments, the rest of the year looked open and empty ahead of me. I had been worried about how Uni was going, about how I would find more work, worried about money and paying the rent and the council tax and the bills, worried about where I would be headed afterwards and how I was going to get a career started, I was worried about my social life and the effect that working so hard had had on my relationships with people. I was still kind of getting over a bout of flu that I'd suffered from a couple of weeks before, feeling exhausted because my body hadn't quite recovered and because the weather was dark and sharp in the cold, lingering grip of Scottish winter.
The future began the next day when I met some of my Uni friends for nachos and I met the person who was to change the course of the year and the course of my life. In the past year I have gained my degree, had language classes, gone backpacking, had an absolute blast working in the deli, gone abroad and gotten engaged. It is far beyond what I could have comprehended a simple year ago.
My partner and I often tell each other that we balance each other out. We are individuals, unique and different and sometimes polar opposites. But we are also a team, working together and pulling the best out of each other, giving each other a kick up when one of us is down. We are each other's harshest critics and each other's biggest champions. We are stronger together.
This is a new experience for me, something I have had to learn over the past year. I am still getting used to constantly thinking of someone else in everything that I consider, in every action I take. I'm still getting used to compromising and discussing and deciding as two people, not just one.
As I stepped off the bus and headed towards the office, I barely gave a thought to pepping myself up for the interview. If it didn't work out, it didn't matter. If that's one thing the past year has taught me, it's that I can pick myself up and start again.
With that in mind I talked myself through the 90 minute interview (mostly) confidently, answered (almost) every question eloquently and drew competency examples from my whole career. Afterwards, I bid good-day to my interviewers and got a bus to work, and that's when I started to panic about my performance.
Until a few hours passed, and I received the phone call, and I received the job offer.
Needless to say, my partner is also ecstatic for me. It's a win for the team, after all!
Unfortunately my partner did not receive the same kind of news from a job application he'd been waiting on, and that news absolutely broke my heart. I would rather that he had had the good news, over and above myself. I wanted to make it right, to balance the see-saw, even push it to his favour.
So it's been a bittersweet week for our team, a strange combination of jubilation, heartbreak, and determination.
But we're riding it together, and when you balance it out, we're doing alright.
This bus journey in particular was heading towards a job interview, unexpected, but very welcome, as a result of the phone call the other week.
It is almost exactly a year since I finished (what will hopefully be) my last stint in a temp job, called up a friend and met for burgers and pints; a joint celebration/commiseration while waiting for the future to begin. Since the job market was shoddy and it looked unlikely I'd find another temp job soon, and I was already almost over-stretching in trying to balance my work/uni/life commitments, the rest of the year looked open and empty ahead of me. I had been worried about how Uni was going, about how I would find more work, worried about money and paying the rent and the council tax and the bills, worried about where I would be headed afterwards and how I was going to get a career started, I was worried about my social life and the effect that working so hard had had on my relationships with people. I was still kind of getting over a bout of flu that I'd suffered from a couple of weeks before, feeling exhausted because my body hadn't quite recovered and because the weather was dark and sharp in the cold, lingering grip of Scottish winter.
The future began the next day when I met some of my Uni friends for nachos and I met the person who was to change the course of the year and the course of my life. In the past year I have gained my degree, had language classes, gone backpacking, had an absolute blast working in the deli, gone abroad and gotten engaged. It is far beyond what I could have comprehended a simple year ago.
My partner and I often tell each other that we balance each other out. We are individuals, unique and different and sometimes polar opposites. But we are also a team, working together and pulling the best out of each other, giving each other a kick up when one of us is down. We are each other's harshest critics and each other's biggest champions. We are stronger together.
This is a new experience for me, something I have had to learn over the past year. I am still getting used to constantly thinking of someone else in everything that I consider, in every action I take. I'm still getting used to compromising and discussing and deciding as two people, not just one.
As I stepped off the bus and headed towards the office, I barely gave a thought to pepping myself up for the interview. If it didn't work out, it didn't matter. If that's one thing the past year has taught me, it's that I can pick myself up and start again.
With that in mind I talked myself through the 90 minute interview (mostly) confidently, answered (almost) every question eloquently and drew competency examples from my whole career. Afterwards, I bid good-day to my interviewers and got a bus to work, and that's when I started to panic about my performance.
Until a few hours passed, and I received the phone call, and I received the job offer.
Needless to say, my partner is also ecstatic for me. It's a win for the team, after all!
Unfortunately my partner did not receive the same kind of news from a job application he'd been waiting on, and that news absolutely broke my heart. I would rather that he had had the good news, over and above myself. I wanted to make it right, to balance the see-saw, even push it to his favour.
So it's been a bittersweet week for our team, a strange combination of jubilation, heartbreak, and determination.
But we're riding it together, and when you balance it out, we're doing alright.
Monday, 11 January 2010
Post Script
I neglected to mention something didn't I? I know what you all really want to know...
What happened to the tree, right?
Did we ever get the Christmas tree lit?
Story short: yes, we did. Thanks to giving in and buying overpriced lights from a local hardware store (I am convinced they bought out all the Walmart lights and charged double, y'know, in the spirit of American entrepreneurialism and according to laws of supply and demand) and Sister-in-Law-to-be's partner's gift of a few strings, Christmas was saved and the day was light. Everyone loved their gifts.
No?
Of course I said yes.
This changes everything. I felt a bit awkward about outlining such a personal story, but it would be anticlimactic to say "I got engaged, so now my career plans have changed." It would also be incorrect. But along with falling head over heels, the rest of my life has also been turned upside down, so the most romantic moment of my life must be post-scripted by notions of a more pragmatic nature. Boo.
Coming back after Christmas has been hard, so much harder than when we parted in September after the end of our studies. The overly seasonable weather hasn't helped, and I found myself snowed in, with an extra few days off work, and much to consider. For the first time in a while I found myself frustrated with my situation, which sounds rather ungrateful for a girl who just got engaged!
We have the kinds of obstacles that are not present in some other relationships. We have jobs to find, visas to apply for, and money to raise. For those who have no experience of this, the spouse visa process is a stranger and more bewildering realm than I could have imagined. It seems to be a slow-moving bureaucratic cruise through oceans of paperwork... Visa Journey is not a tourist site or a travel brochure.
So the wedding will not take place for a while. As for 2010, my short-term plans remain the same, although I now have more to consider as I pursue my goals. We. We have more to consider as we pursue our goals!
As soon as the snow melts I will start driving. I will then start applying for internships and jobs. However, as I now have weddings and visas and travel costs to think about, money is going to become a greater concern... for both of us. We are both from families of modest means. Doing long stints of unpaid interning in an expensive city (be it Brussels, London, DC...), even after my time living rent-free with my parents and working and saving, may not be as feasible an option while I save for other items. But we will wait and see.
This new decade has begun with 2010 as a huge turning point in my life script. I feel that from hereon in, nothing is going to be quite the same again. It's going to be interesting, and probably exciting, but also potentially a mundane struggle. January feels like a limbo month, where I have all the information I need to take the next steps, but I have to sit and wait for further instruction on where to go and how to get there.
For now I'm working a seven day week, making up for my time abroad and allowing my manager to take some much-needed time off before it all gets busy again, and saving my wee pennies for future plans and pipe dreams.
Yet there is something else I haven't mentioned. Fiance(!) and I are waiting for news that could potentially change everything yet again. But that is another story for another day...
What happened to the tree, right?
Did we ever get the Christmas tree lit?
Story short: yes, we did. Thanks to giving in and buying overpriced lights from a local hardware store (I am convinced they bought out all the Walmart lights and charged double, y'know, in the spirit of American entrepreneurialism and according to laws of supply and demand) and Sister-in-Law-to-be's partner's gift of a few strings, Christmas was saved and the day was light. Everyone loved their gifts.
No?
Of course I said yes.
This changes everything. I felt a bit awkward about outlining such a personal story, but it would be anticlimactic to say "I got engaged, so now my career plans have changed." It would also be incorrect. But along with falling head over heels, the rest of my life has also been turned upside down, so the most romantic moment of my life must be post-scripted by notions of a more pragmatic nature. Boo.
Coming back after Christmas has been hard, so much harder than when we parted in September after the end of our studies. The overly seasonable weather hasn't helped, and I found myself snowed in, with an extra few days off work, and much to consider. For the first time in a while I found myself frustrated with my situation, which sounds rather ungrateful for a girl who just got engaged!
We have the kinds of obstacles that are not present in some other relationships. We have jobs to find, visas to apply for, and money to raise. For those who have no experience of this, the spouse visa process is a stranger and more bewildering realm than I could have imagined. It seems to be a slow-moving bureaucratic cruise through oceans of paperwork... Visa Journey is not a tourist site or a travel brochure.
So the wedding will not take place for a while. As for 2010, my short-term plans remain the same, although I now have more to consider as I pursue my goals. We. We have more to consider as we pursue our goals!
As soon as the snow melts I will start driving. I will then start applying for internships and jobs. However, as I now have weddings and visas and travel costs to think about, money is going to become a greater concern... for both of us. We are both from families of modest means. Doing long stints of unpaid interning in an expensive city (be it Brussels, London, DC...), even after my time living rent-free with my parents and working and saving, may not be as feasible an option while I save for other items. But we will wait and see.
This new decade has begun with 2010 as a huge turning point in my life script. I feel that from hereon in, nothing is going to be quite the same again. It's going to be interesting, and probably exciting, but also potentially a mundane struggle. January feels like a limbo month, where I have all the information I need to take the next steps, but I have to sit and wait for further instruction on where to go and how to get there.
For now I'm working a seven day week, making up for my time abroad and allowing my manager to take some much-needed time off before it all gets busy again, and saving my wee pennies for future plans and pipe dreams.
Yet there is something else I haven't mentioned. Fiance(!) and I are waiting for news that could potentially change everything yet again. But that is another story for another day...
Monday, 4 January 2010
Without a Hitch
T'was the week before Christmas, I was wearing a dress,
I had been told earlier to put on my best...
Incidentally, the bulldog loved me. He would wait for me to emerge from my bedroom each morning and barked defensively whenever Boyfriend came near me. He would joke "your boyfriend's getting jealous" and I'd appease the dog with some good ol' backscratching. Approval from the family dog must count for something, right?
I was told to wear formal dinner clothes, but with shoes I could walk in. As I brushed bulldog hairs from my overcoat, before we left, my boyfriend reminded me about the favour of picking out a locket for his sister in the next couple of days. He was really anxious about making sure the jeweler had it in time for Christmas, and the weather report was looking treacherous for Christmas week, which could only impede things. "Thank you for helping him out" his Mom/Mum added, "we want something really heirloom quality for his sister, and it's been a hassle to get this all sorted in time."
Boyfriend and I had only met in February, when some small freak snow had littered our University city in the UK, and on our but second date we strolled through the local botanic garden, him trying to impress me and me sliding on the ice like a kid. I was now being taken to a botanic garden (in the USA!) and for a formal dinner as a pre-Christmas treat. Wrong time of year to see a garden maybe? Yes, all of the trees were bare. The flower beds were empty. But the weather was clear (luckily) and the garden trees were lit (beautifully) with festive lights that slowly illuminated as we walked around the park as the cold sun fell. We entertained for a moment a plan to strip some of the trees of lights for our still as yet naked tree back at the house. Sadly, wearing a dress is not conducive to climbing trees. Or walking in the cold.
We spent ages in the network of conservatories, indoor and warm, travelling from subsaharan Africa to ferny jungle. Each room had its own themed Christmas wreath, made of palm trees, ferns, succulents, or roses. As evening wore on the gardens filled with more people.
We queued for dinner in the conservatory restaurant, and Boyfriend's heart sank as a denim-attired group with long hair and baseball caps were given a table in the restaurant. It claimed to be a fine dining restaurant, but it seemed that we were both ridiculously and hilariously overdressed. I could only laugh. We were given a quiet corner table though, and dinner was delicious, the service was great and our tip was complimentary.
Afterwards I was led to a hall where we were treated to a wonderful gospel choir concert. I have loved gospel since I saw Sister Act II at the cinema as a kid, always wanted to experience it live, and I have a secret desire to be reincarnated as a gospel star. It was a gorgeous Christmas experience to hear their jubilant hymns, and I should let you know that it even beats the Coca Cola ad for bringing out the festive spirit in folks.
As the evening drew to a close, the stresses of the holiday season were behind me. After dinner had finished and my anxious pre-emptive speculations about the evening had been proven false (come on, jewelry store? locket? posh dinner?), I melted into the thought that this could be one of many lovely dinner evenings to come. How deliciously pleasant.
That was until we were walking to the car, and we meandered to the museum house to have a quick saunter round. It was a typical colonial American building, full of artifacts about the estate that Boyfriend could only feign interest in. He started to walk faster and more agitatedly through the display rooms before proclaiming brusquely "I need to get outside, there are too many people in here and I don't feel well."
I rolled my eyes, and followed him out and round to a dark corner of the outside porch. The fountain light show was going on just behind some tall evergreen trees. I slumped down next to him on a bench.
It was cold. The fountain light show played its classical Christmas music in the background. He apologised, and he spoke to me for a bit.
And he asked if I would marry him.
And it was a ring, not a locket, of course.
And yes, he had been anxious all week: he wanted Christmas to go without a hitch, but with the promise of getting hitched.
I had been told earlier to put on my best...
Incidentally, the bulldog loved me. He would wait for me to emerge from my bedroom each morning and barked defensively whenever Boyfriend came near me. He would joke "your boyfriend's getting jealous" and I'd appease the dog with some good ol' backscratching. Approval from the family dog must count for something, right?
I was told to wear formal dinner clothes, but with shoes I could walk in. As I brushed bulldog hairs from my overcoat, before we left, my boyfriend reminded me about the favour of picking out a locket for his sister in the next couple of days. He was really anxious about making sure the jeweler had it in time for Christmas, and the weather report was looking treacherous for Christmas week, which could only impede things. "Thank you for helping him out" his Mom/Mum added, "we want something really heirloom quality for his sister, and it's been a hassle to get this all sorted in time."
Boyfriend and I had only met in February, when some small freak snow had littered our University city in the UK, and on our but second date we strolled through the local botanic garden, him trying to impress me and me sliding on the ice like a kid. I was now being taken to a botanic garden (in the USA!) and for a formal dinner as a pre-Christmas treat. Wrong time of year to see a garden maybe? Yes, all of the trees were bare. The flower beds were empty. But the weather was clear (luckily) and the garden trees were lit (beautifully) with festive lights that slowly illuminated as we walked around the park as the cold sun fell. We entertained for a moment a plan to strip some of the trees of lights for our still as yet naked tree back at the house. Sadly, wearing a dress is not conducive to climbing trees. Or walking in the cold.
We spent ages in the network of conservatories, indoor and warm, travelling from subsaharan Africa to ferny jungle. Each room had its own themed Christmas wreath, made of palm trees, ferns, succulents, or roses. As evening wore on the gardens filled with more people.
We queued for dinner in the conservatory restaurant, and Boyfriend's heart sank as a denim-attired group with long hair and baseball caps were given a table in the restaurant. It claimed to be a fine dining restaurant, but it seemed that we were both ridiculously and hilariously overdressed. I could only laugh. We were given a quiet corner table though, and dinner was delicious, the service was great and our tip was complimentary.
Afterwards I was led to a hall where we were treated to a wonderful gospel choir concert. I have loved gospel since I saw Sister Act II at the cinema as a kid, always wanted to experience it live, and I have a secret desire to be reincarnated as a gospel star. It was a gorgeous Christmas experience to hear their jubilant hymns, and I should let you know that it even beats the Coca Cola ad for bringing out the festive spirit in folks.
As the evening drew to a close, the stresses of the holiday season were behind me. After dinner had finished and my anxious pre-emptive speculations about the evening had been proven false (come on, jewelry store? locket? posh dinner?), I melted into the thought that this could be one of many lovely dinner evenings to come. How deliciously pleasant.
That was until we were walking to the car, and we meandered to the museum house to have a quick saunter round. It was a typical colonial American building, full of artifacts about the estate that Boyfriend could only feign interest in. He started to walk faster and more agitatedly through the display rooms before proclaiming brusquely "I need to get outside, there are too many people in here and I don't feel well."
I rolled my eyes, and followed him out and round to a dark corner of the outside porch. The fountain light show was going on just behind some tall evergreen trees. I slumped down next to him on a bench.
It was cold. The fountain light show played its classical Christmas music in the background. He apologised, and he spoke to me for a bit.
And he asked if I would marry him.
And it was a ring, not a locket, of course.
And yes, he had been anxious all week: he wanted Christmas to go without a hitch, but with the promise of getting hitched.
Friday, 1 January 2010
Miss-Stress
The holiday season is a stressful time by default. I already mentioned some of my fears about spending Christmas with the boyfriend and about meeting his parents and potentially being dismissed for my dubious gift of Twiglets. Also, the fears about careers and jobs and money didn't go away at this time, as far as I tried to put them to the back of my mind.
I wasn't the only one with seasonal jitters. I could see that my boyfriend wanted to make sure that the all-American Christmas that he had envisioned for me went off without a hitch. He tried his hardest to make sure that everything was perfect, from the brand of mincemeat (so I could bring a taste of British Christmas tradition: drinking mulled wine and eating Jus'Roll Pastry mince pies with a Dr Who special on the telly) to the order of seasonal DVDs chosen to background the family festivities in the run up to Christmas day.
The day after I arrived we took a family trip to the Christmas tree farm to pick our sprucy ornament, all 12 feet of it. I appreciate that choosing the perfect Christmas tree is imperative to set the mood for the year's celebrations. However, my boyfriend takes tree shopping to another level. He traipses around the rows of trees and gives a full 360 degree analysis of the specimens on offer, making assessments on height, vertical infallibility (no leaning allowed), corpulence and needle retention. In no other situation is the sight of grown men wandering around shaking trees by the trunk considered acceptable and normal behaviour.
"It's just not the same anymore," He lamented. "We looked up and down the state for the right farm for you to visit. All the good trees are usually tagged before they get to the height they should be. These trees will be excellent in a few years' time, but only if they are given a chance to grow."
As it happened, we did get a beautiful pre-cut tree from upstate, but he remained sorely disappointed that I wasn't going to get the experience of chopping one down for myself. I think for the sake of my fingers that this was a good thing. At least I still have ten of them.
But you heard it kids: give trees a chance to grow. Just $2 a month will help these poor undernourished trees achieve...
Anyway, another cue for stress came when the men performed the ritual of bringing the Christmas decorations down from the attic for a dust-off, with the ceremonial untangling and pre-tree trial of the lights. As per Santa's Law, only one set of lights was working. We travelled to all the supermarkets in the land but there were but no white lights left. The three wise men definitely didn't have this problem.
"Do you have any white lights?" Boyfriend enquired at each establishment.
"Alas, not anymore, dear sire" they didn't reply.
"Will you get anymore?" Boyfriend asked. He was greeted with perverse looks and shakes of heads, and derisory comments that next year he should try Christmas shopping more than a week in advance. This set him into an electric rage, while I had certain pumpkin-themed flashbacks and convinced him to calm down.
The weather didn't help. Snow storms and weather warnings and mayor-proclaimed weather emergencies meant that plans had to be canceled or rearranged. Buying gifts for all, with the snow and the money concerns, was another stress. And I had my own secret worries that the gifts I was giving to the boyfriend's family weren't going to be good enough. Girl wants to make a good impression on her first yankee Christmas (and don't worry, I knew that a hold-baggage battered box of Twiglets wasn't going to cut it).
Until the phone rang. And Boyfriend picked it up. And left the room.
He came back and look flustered.
The phone rang again. He left the room again.
He came back and looked even redder.
"I'm having an argument with a jeweler's," he eventually explained.
My blood ran cold and my eyes widened.
"We're getting an heirloom locket for my sister, and it's been no end of trouble. We'll need to go out to the mall across the state on Saturday I'm afraid. I need a female eye to make sure it's going to be acceptable." I agreed, shoulders relaxing.
Anything to be part of a perfect family Christmas. This could only win me family favour, I reasoned. With the weather, lights, and tree providing enough havoc over the season I was only too glad to help. And as I said, he was desperate for Christmas to go without a hitch.
I wasn't the only one with seasonal jitters. I could see that my boyfriend wanted to make sure that the all-American Christmas that he had envisioned for me went off without a hitch. He tried his hardest to make sure that everything was perfect, from the brand of mincemeat (so I could bring a taste of British Christmas tradition: drinking mulled wine and eating Jus'Roll Pastry mince pies with a Dr Who special on the telly) to the order of seasonal DVDs chosen to background the family festivities in the run up to Christmas day.
The day after I arrived we took a family trip to the Christmas tree farm to pick our sprucy ornament, all 12 feet of it. I appreciate that choosing the perfect Christmas tree is imperative to set the mood for the year's celebrations. However, my boyfriend takes tree shopping to another level. He traipses around the rows of trees and gives a full 360 degree analysis of the specimens on offer, making assessments on height, vertical infallibility (no leaning allowed), corpulence and needle retention. In no other situation is the sight of grown men wandering around shaking trees by the trunk considered acceptable and normal behaviour.
"It's just not the same anymore," He lamented. "We looked up and down the state for the right farm for you to visit. All the good trees are usually tagged before they get to the height they should be. These trees will be excellent in a few years' time, but only if they are given a chance to grow."
As it happened, we did get a beautiful pre-cut tree from upstate, but he remained sorely disappointed that I wasn't going to get the experience of chopping one down for myself. I think for the sake of my fingers that this was a good thing. At least I still have ten of them.
But you heard it kids: give trees a chance to grow. Just $2 a month will help these poor undernourished trees achieve...
Anyway, another cue for stress came when the men performed the ritual of bringing the Christmas decorations down from the attic for a dust-off, with the ceremonial untangling and pre-tree trial of the lights. As per Santa's Law, only one set of lights was working. We travelled to all the supermarkets in the land but there were but no white lights left. The three wise men definitely didn't have this problem.
"Do you have any white lights?" Boyfriend enquired at each establishment.
"Alas, not anymore, dear sire" they didn't reply.
"Will you get anymore?" Boyfriend asked. He was greeted with perverse looks and shakes of heads, and derisory comments that next year he should try Christmas shopping more than a week in advance. This set him into an electric rage, while I had certain pumpkin-themed flashbacks and convinced him to calm down.
The weather didn't help. Snow storms and weather warnings and mayor-proclaimed weather emergencies meant that plans had to be canceled or rearranged. Buying gifts for all, with the snow and the money concerns, was another stress. And I had my own secret worries that the gifts I was giving to the boyfriend's family weren't going to be good enough. Girl wants to make a good impression on her first yankee Christmas (and don't worry, I knew that a hold-baggage battered box of Twiglets wasn't going to cut it).
Until the phone rang. And Boyfriend picked it up. And left the room.
He came back and look flustered.
The phone rang again. He left the room again.
He came back and looked even redder.
"I'm having an argument with a jeweler's," he eventually explained.
My blood ran cold and my eyes widened.
"We're getting an heirloom locket for my sister, and it's been no end of trouble. We'll need to go out to the mall across the state on Saturday I'm afraid. I need a female eye to make sure it's going to be acceptable." I agreed, shoulders relaxing.
Anything to be part of a perfect family Christmas. This could only win me family favour, I reasoned. With the weather, lights, and tree providing enough havoc over the season I was only too glad to help. And as I said, he was desperate for Christmas to go without a hitch.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Post Grad
I am now in the land where Santa rides a fire truck giving candy to kids and dog biscuits to, erm, dogs; where banks are drive-thru, marshmallow comes in a jar and peanut butter comes on a cheesy biscuit; where the houses are sparkling with their Christmas lights and festive wreaths; where you can win $1000 for eating 105lb of meat, viagra is advertised on daytime TV and VAT is added onto consumer goods after you take it to the till.
Really, it's very beautiful here, and I am having a great time. Americans certainly know how to do Christmas.
On the flight over, I spent about 4 hours playing Bejeweled on the touch screen computer (a game that takes me back to the guilt-filled moments of procrastinating when I should have been writing my Master's thesis). I also watched some of the comedy shows on offer, and flicked through the 40 or so movies available on-flight, stopping at one called Post Grad.
Post Grad? Hmm, that phrase sounds familiar.
It's about a girl who graduates from university and finds herself unemployed and living with her parents. Oh yes, it certainly sounds familiar. Funny how I hadn't heard of the movie, but already knew the plot.
It's a truly terrible piece of cinema, with an ambling unfocused plot, neglected character development, and a love story completely lacking in chemistry. But there are some familiar moments - the misplaced confidence of graduation, the disillusionment when the degree parchment finally arrives in the post, the upturning of a life plan/the lack of life plan.
For some reason, I watched this movie not just to kill some hours while cruising over the Atlantic Ocean and floating above North-East Canada, but also with the hope that it would offer some answers to my own Post Grad questions. Why I thought that a piece of in-flight Hollywood fluff would be able to do that, I don't know. The main character gets the job of her dreams when her arch-nemesis is inexplicably sacked, and seeing as I don't hate anyone enough to have an arch-nemesis, I doubt that's going to happen to me. Back to the drawing board I guess!
A far more realistic depiction of post-graduation lounging and floundering is captured by 90s UK sitcom Spaced, which, despite its off-beat surrealism, is far too real to me for me to find it amusing any more. The Dole episode is too familiar to be truly funny.
After the movie I watched an episode of Hannah Montana. It was much more comforting and the acting was even relatively convincing, or at least entertaining.
I'm now getting my kicks out of trying to explain the uses of HP sauce to Americans (chilli-cheese dogs, fries and brown sauce is almost a complete cross-cultural experience!), visiting a Christmas tree farm, and out of sharing my Christmas traditions with another family, and long evening drives around the sprawling neighbourhoods to enjoy the Christmas decorations while listening to big band music and the Sufjan Stevens festive album. Even the bulldog ain't so bad.
Really, it's very beautiful here, and I am having a great time. Americans certainly know how to do Christmas.
On the flight over, I spent about 4 hours playing Bejeweled on the touch screen computer (a game that takes me back to the guilt-filled moments of procrastinating when I should have been writing my Master's thesis). I also watched some of the comedy shows on offer, and flicked through the 40 or so movies available on-flight, stopping at one called Post Grad.
Post Grad? Hmm, that phrase sounds familiar.
It's about a girl who graduates from university and finds herself unemployed and living with her parents. Oh yes, it certainly sounds familiar. Funny how I hadn't heard of the movie, but already knew the plot.
It's a truly terrible piece of cinema, with an ambling unfocused plot, neglected character development, and a love story completely lacking in chemistry. But there are some familiar moments - the misplaced confidence of graduation, the disillusionment when the degree parchment finally arrives in the post, the upturning of a life plan/the lack of life plan.
For some reason, I watched this movie not just to kill some hours while cruising over the Atlantic Ocean and floating above North-East Canada, but also with the hope that it would offer some answers to my own Post Grad questions. Why I thought that a piece of in-flight Hollywood fluff would be able to do that, I don't know. The main character gets the job of her dreams when her arch-nemesis is inexplicably sacked, and seeing as I don't hate anyone enough to have an arch-nemesis, I doubt that's going to happen to me. Back to the drawing board I guess!
A far more realistic depiction of post-graduation lounging and floundering is captured by 90s UK sitcom Spaced, which, despite its off-beat surrealism, is far too real to me for me to find it amusing any more. The Dole episode is too familiar to be truly funny.
After the movie I watched an episode of Hannah Montana. It was much more comforting and the acting was even relatively convincing, or at least entertaining.
I'm now getting my kicks out of trying to explain the uses of HP sauce to Americans (chilli-cheese dogs, fries and brown sauce is almost a complete cross-cultural experience!), visiting a Christmas tree farm, and out of sharing my Christmas traditions with another family, and long evening drives around the sprawling neighbourhoods to enjoy the Christmas decorations while listening to big band music and the Sufjan Stevens festive album. Even the bulldog ain't so bad.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Us of A
There's something I didn't tell you.
I'm sorry. I wanted to be open and honest on this blog. I didn't think it was that important, and I didn't mention it.
But now I realise that I should have told you earlier. I hope it's not too late.
I'm spending Christmas in America.
And I leave tomorrow.
I've been so busy at work (and tired afterwards) that I haven't scheduled any posts while away, so I'll try to keep up.
I have to say though, if I had been told a year ago that I would be spending Christmas 2009 in the States I wouldn't have believed it. Since finishing Uni, my boyfriend and I have both been living with our respective parents and trying to figure out how to take the next steps of our careers. We have been with each other through daily job applications, job rejections, interview nerves, interview analyses, website trawling, decision-making, and work rants. But it just so happens that we are half a world apart.
It's certainly been a strange year, and possibly about to get stranger yet... I am meeting THE parents for the first time.
Things I am afraid of:
Accidentally and inappropriately swearing like a true Scot.
My British sense of irony and sarcasm being misunderstood.
The boyfriend's pet bulldog.
Putting on weight over an American Christmas season.
That the Marmite I am taking won't be well received.
Or the Twiglets.
Or the Bird's trifle.
Or the Tetley's tea.
Or the HP sauce.
Or my quirky aunt's homemade brandy-drenched Christmas pudding.
My family's copy of the Radio Times is currently sitting on the dining room table, sadly untouched by me, because I do not need it this year.
I'm sorry. I wanted to be open and honest on this blog. I didn't think it was that important, and I didn't mention it.
But now I realise that I should have told you earlier. I hope it's not too late.
I'm spending Christmas in America.
And I leave tomorrow.
I've been so busy at work (and tired afterwards) that I haven't scheduled any posts while away, so I'll try to keep up.
I have to say though, if I had been told a year ago that I would be spending Christmas 2009 in the States I wouldn't have believed it. Since finishing Uni, my boyfriend and I have both been living with our respective parents and trying to figure out how to take the next steps of our careers. We have been with each other through daily job applications, job rejections, interview nerves, interview analyses, website trawling, decision-making, and work rants. But it just so happens that we are half a world apart.
It's certainly been a strange year, and possibly about to get stranger yet... I am meeting THE parents for the first time.
Things I am afraid of:
Accidentally and inappropriately swearing like a true Scot.
My British sense of irony and sarcasm being misunderstood.
The boyfriend's pet bulldog.
Putting on weight over an American Christmas season.
That the Marmite I am taking won't be well received.
Or the Twiglets.
Or the Bird's trifle.
Or the Tetley's tea.
Or the HP sauce.
Or my quirky aunt's homemade brandy-drenched Christmas pudding.
My family's copy of the Radio Times is currently sitting on the dining room table, sadly untouched by me, because I do not need it this year.
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