Category: irritated

It’s All So Wonky

I’ve now been twelve days in Britain. I’ve sorted out shuttle buses, trains, the grocery store, a local pub and even the post office.

Basically, I’m living here. I have a job, I have an income and I have friends. Hell, my hotel room is about the same size as my first apartment out of college.

What I’m saying is, I got this. I’m even getting better at recognizing and correctly using British money.

I’m walking with a bit more of a swagger. I’m a local. I’m confident enough that people have been asking me for directions and “is this the bus that goes to the technology park?”

A few days ago I did a quick Yelp search and found a little place that gets good reviews. It’s called Pret a Manager and it reminds me a bit of Panera. It’s tasty sandwiches and soups and really excellent coffee.

So took a walk and easily found it. Once there, I got some mushroom soup and a tuna melt and a decaf latte. Yay! It looked delicious.

Then I went to grab some sweetener to add to my latte. I was presented with these two choices:





The white one is sugar and the yellow one is Splenda. Right?

So I grabbed three Splenda (the packets looked small) and I dumped them into my coffee and stirred.

Only the Splenda felt gritty. Like large granules.

Look a little closer.




Whoops.

Why are the packets reversed in this country? Why isn’t the twenty pence coin larger than the ten pence? Why do all the exit signs look like someone running to a rectangle and WHY don’t toilets flush right?

The nice guy working behind the till at Pret a Manger said to me, “I can’t quite place your accent. Where are you from?”

“America,” I said, “Can’t you tell?”

He laughed and said “oh yes, you’re the people who put salt in your coffee.”

Yeah.

I kinda sorta don’t really got this. But I’m going to act like I do.

Fake it until you make it. It’s going to be my new life philosophy.



Photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the far right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.



What Does it Mean?

While wandering the streets and pathways in another country, I always keep my eyes out for street signs.

Sometimes simple graphic depictions say things words cannot.

But this one has me stumped.





No blue dots?

No blues?

No blue color a’tall?

No blue marbles?

No bluing in my laundry?

No blue skying (for those marketing types)?

What?! What do the Brits got against the color blue?

Gah!

I showed this to The Good Man who is seriously a lot smarter than me and he told me it means no stopping (this sign is near a roadway).

How in the utter hell am I supposed to get no stopping from a blue dot with a red slash through it?

Now that I know what it is supposed to mean, this damn sign torments me.

I have to see it every day. It’s located on the path that leads to the bus stop where I catch a public shuttle bus. Every morning and evening I commute with the locals on the bus.

It’s a popular route and most of the time I can’t get a seat, so I stand and hang on to a hand strap.

This isn’t much of a problem, the trip only takes about fifteen minutes.

However.

These traffic roundabouts that British civil engineers seem to liberally scatter about make standing on a bus pretty challenging.

I am a rather sturdy girl but even I am not immune to powerful centrifugal forces. The bus drivers hit the multitude of roundabouts at considerable speed.

On the plus side, I’m building muscles in my upper body as I cling to the hand strap for dear life. My feet keep leaving the ground like Gilligan in a hurricane.

Whoooooaaaa!

Thus ends today’s “things that are weird about England” lecture.

I hope we’ve all learned something.



Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license found in the right column of this page. Photo taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.



Can Of Corn*

Every once in a while, one falls in your lap.

This week’s Theme Thursday is: beds

For some, that may end up being a challenge.

For me, not so much.

Because all week, I’ve had this topic on my mind.

On Monday as I checked into my hotel in a small town in England (population 28,339) I was tired, jet lagged, and a little sweaty from tugging my heavy suitcase through the muggy British morning.

The clerk at my hotel said “oh let’s see, yet I don’t quite have the room you requested, but I’ll just upgrade you to this other room.”

Upgrade, she says. Um hmm.

Imagine my wondering eyes when I opened the door to my home for the next five days and saw this waiting for me:





Twin beds? I haven’t slept in a twin bed since college!

Who sleeps in twin beds these days? Other than kids, I suppose. And visitors to Britain.

I damn near fell out of bed every night.

I’ve moved to a different town because of work meetings, and this evening I check into a new hotel.

I’m rubbing my hands together and hoping….

C’moooon double bed!



*Can of Corn = a baseball colloquialism meaning an easy-to-catch ball hit to the outfield.

Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.



The Wheel of Questionable Spelling

Had a laugh this morning as I thought about today’s Theme Thursday, which is: full circle.

I was looking for a sign from the universe, a whisper from The Muse, an idea to bonk me on the head that fits with the theme.

The laugh came when I realized that all I had to do was look at my coffee cup.

Here’s where the circle begins:

________________________

Originally published November 7, 2008.


Alternate spelling, alternate universe

You may recall from a post a while back that I use my secret agent 007 stealth first name when I order coffee and they ask for a name to write on the cup.

My secret agent name is Lucy. I use that name because it’s:

1) easy to pronounce

2) easy to spell

3) heard clearly over the whooosh whooosh sounds of an espresso machine


I borrowed this name from a friend (who has my same real first name) because of the ease of use.

Until this past week at the Honolulu airport.

They asked my name. I said Lucy. They nodded and wrote the name. I got my beverage and it wasn’t until I was on the plane that I noticed.


You can’t make this stuff up.

________________________


And here’s where the story comes full circle:

Truth must be stranger than fiction, even on the mainland, because this morning I went to my local coffee slinger and used that same nom de bebida.

And this is what I got:





Questionable spelling skills, a feature of at least two of our fifty states.
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Side note: look how much the quality of iPhone photos has improved in four years. Amazing.



You Scream, I Do Something Else Entirely — For Ice Cream

It’s a blisteringly hot summer day in Albuquerque and mom has hauled her three monkey children to the swimming pool at the Coronado Club (inside of Kirtland Air Force Base) to cool off and work off some energy.

I’ve swam and swam until all my digits are little prunes and then I swim a little bit more for good measure. Exhausted, I finally drag myself out of the pool to lay on the scalding hot concrete and let the sun dry chlorinated water from my arms and legs.

Mom is out in the grassy area surrounding the pool reading a book or chatting with friends. She always finds a lot of folks she knows at the Coronado Club. She’s been coming here since she was just eighteen.

I find my mom and plop into a lawn chair with my beach towel. Starving, I gulp down a sandwich or some cold fried chicken or whatever fun stuff mom has packed into the ice chest.

As the late afternoon sun begins to cast slanted shadows on the ground, if I’m lucky and have been a good kid, I’ll ask my mom for some money and she’ll agree. Cash in hand, I’ll dash to the food stand and procure a soft serve vanilla or chocolate ice cream in a cone.

I’ll bear the thing proudly, like Lady Liberty and her torch, then I’ll savor every last drippy bite.

Ah, summer and ice cream were made for each other.

However, lately, something dark and insidious rumbles inside of me, irrevocably breaking the summer fun and ice cream connection.

Seems I’ve developed a little ol’ thing called lactose intolerance.




It ain’t right. It’s some cosmic comedy, it has to be. Dairy and I are friends from way back. Ok, I can’t stand fluid milk, but sour cream, all manner of cheese, ice cream and half and half in my coffee are what make walking in this mean old world seem tolerable.

The Good Man marvels still at the vast array of dairy products I have in my fridge. I have a whole drawer devoted to cheese! Well, I used to…

Me? Lactose intolerant? It just isn’t even funny. Not one little bit.

I took my concerns to my doctor who nodded thoughtfully and said, “Well, you know, that happens pretty frequently to people over the age of forty. It’s common as we age.”

Great. That makes me feel ever so much better.

I use Lactaid and it helps some. It is, at best, an imperfect solution.

The only real cure is to stop eating dairy entirely.

Well that ain’t gonna happen.

That said, I have cut waaaaay back. And because the universe has a really excellent sense of humor, I also get rumbly tummy from soy milk, the most common substitute.

So far hemp milk and almond milk are my frontrunners for adding to coffee and having an ice cream-like treat.

They are fine, but just…not the same.

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for almond milk iced dessert” just doesn’t have the same ring.

Because we don’t all scream for that.

*sigh*




Image is, of course, The Scream by Edvard Munch, and is used under Fair Use as the image is considered Public Domain in the United States.

This week’s Theme Thursday is: ice cream