Your New Year's Resolution Should Be To Come And Visit Us

Sorry for the infrequent posting. For the last week and a half, I’ve been basking in the bliss of having a job but not having to go to it. One of the side affects of bliss is laziness when it comes to posting. But I have to start work in less than a week, so I better get back on track.

Here are the blogs that we should have written this week, from newest to old.

New Year’s:

We spent a delightfully low-key evening catching up with the Potunkeys, who arrived from back from America the day before. Dave’s sister Rachel joined us. She lives in Hawaii. Lucky.

The view from their flat is spectacular and I urged them to never move after we watched the most exciting fireworks show that I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a few in my day.

The London Eye is a huge Ferris wheel that apparently has a great view of the city at the top. Sort of like going to the top of the Sears Tower, I’m guessing. Anyway, it’s a part of the London skyline and they shot really amazing fireworks out of it at midnight for like 10 minutes.

Apparently Big Ben chimed at midnight but we couldn’t hear it because we were blasting that Moulin Rouge song. You know, as you do.

Where Is Small? And While We’re At It, Where is My Wedding Ring?

Brigitte Small, linked to the left, is Marty’s friend from college who is native to London rarely stays in one country for long. We found her in our neighborhood during her brief stay in England after backpacking across South America for several months. She’s studying in Singapore for a few months and invited us to visit her there in February. We accepted. We had a long night out and she tested and approved our air mattress reserved for guests. So there you have it: Come and visit us/London in 2007.

Notice the lack of ring on my finger.

During a bathroom break that night, I washed my hands. As I shook my hands dry my wedding ring flew off my finger and apparently landed in some kind of invisible black hole which managed to exist in that tiny bathroom.

A woman who had been married three days before us walked into the bathroom to find me furiously taking apart the first stall and sticking my fingers around the back of the toilet. Gross. She was drunk, I was not. Her eyes welled up, mine did not. She wanted to keep searching 30 minutes after I had gone through the trash bins next to each toilet, I most certainly did not. I can assure you that the trash bins were left as the LAST OPTION. But I couldn’t very well be the one who was like, “Welp, I’m outta here.” Especially since, by that time, she had guilted about eight other women into joining the hunt.

We told the management, who started making jokes about how I was single again. As I smiled and nodded to those jokes, I thought, “Oh how tacky. If I wanted to be single I wouldn’t have gotten married. Hardy Har Har, what an original sense of humor. God.”

It wasn’t 20 minutes later that I was making the same jokes and thinking I was hilarious.

Post- Christmas

We spent Christmas with a Surrogate English Family, thanks to Lomo y Queso. It was really great, but more on that later, since I promised to go newest to oldest.

The Surrogate English Family had the flu while we were there, and I came down with symptoms as soon as we got home. I puked furiously just one time, and spent the next few days in bed feeling achey.

So it wasn’t that bad, but it reminded me of the last time I puked. It was in public. The Perfect Table came to visit in Chicago last summer, and I was feeling ill. I tried to make the one-block walk to Walgreens for some kind of medicine, and some guys started the normal jeering and cat-calling. I passed them and promptly wretched on the sidewalk. It was the best response to cat-calling that I’ve ever given. Wouldn’t it be great if I could puke on command just for that purpose?

Christmas

We loved Christmas at the Seeleys’. My college friend and Marty’s former roommate, Angela, her British husband Oli, and their baby Lily invited us to their family’s home for the holidays. It was great to see our friends from Chi-town and meet a few new ones. Lily and her cousin Hannah were the stars of the holiday. We missed our own families very much, but luckily we had two extra-cute one-year-old babies, lots of great English food, countryside, and new friends to distract us. We also learned how much work babies are at that age. Wow. Good thing they’re cute. We didn’t take any pictures of them because we were too busy chasing them up and down the stairs. Perhaps Lomo y Queso will have some when they have time.

I was glad to see Marty spend some quality time with his first love, video games. He doesn’t have many guy friends here to play with (although we hear Dave might be up for it if either of them had a video game console) and I’m a poor partner for those things. Luckily Oli was very willing.

Speaking of Holiday, a town near where the Seeleys' live is the setting for the movie “The Holiday.” On Boxing Day we met some friends at a pub that was across the road from this building which is featured for like, a second, in the movie. The house that she lives in was apparently fake.

It was a convenience store in the movie, not a tile shop.

Back in London, a few days later, because we are dorks, we went to see the movie and pointed at the screen when we saw places that we had been to.

Christmas Eve

We opened the presents sent to us by Marty’s parents. A kite, a backpack, a sweat suit, among others.

I got Marty a book, the second season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, a toaster, and some forks because this place only came with two sets of silverware. A few days ago, we got a very thoughtful gift from his sister, Kacie and her boyfriend. They framed a picture of us at our wedding.