Jamie Lynn Spears' baby's daddy is a pipe layer. I am not making that up.

Not too much going on. And so a couple snippets will have to suffice on this going-to-be-excruciatingly-long Friday.

I went to see a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at an outside venue near Tower Bridge this week. It was the first time I had been to an audience participation show, but it sure as heck won't be the last. Except next time I'll be dressing up; now I just have to decide whether to wear a gold sequined hat, a ratty maid outfit, or a corset with garter straps.

Yesterday I overheard someone at work saying they had made a "school boy error." I was left wondering if this meant they had blinded someone with a slingshot, pulled a girl's pigtails, or hid a frog in the teacher's desk.

Like I said, it's been slow going. In the meantime, here's a picture of G's desk to keep you entertained. (Please pay special attention to the "figurines" on his monitor stand.)

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T to G: “Those aren’t sausages. Those are abominations.”

Here’s a British media recommendation for you – The Catherine Tate Show. I assume that it is similar to the Tracy Ullman Show (I say assume because I’ve never actually seen TTUS). I watched two episodes of this hilarious comedy and immediately fell in love. Catherine Tate is the genius behind it and stars in each skit, which range from 15 seconds to 3 minutes or so, as a different, recurring character. I think my favorite character is Margaret who is startled by the smallest things and screams bloody murder (like when her husband bites into a piece of toast or when her cell phone rings, not to mention the screaming fit she throws when she pours milk on her Rice Krispies). So if your Netflix queue is running short, put this on your list. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

There is a SEVERE lack of iced coffee in London. Starbucks is the only place I can find that offers a plain iced coffee. But at $6, there ain’t no way I’m buying one of them.

I am normally a good multi-tasker. I can listen to my friends sob their problems to me on the phone while I set a new Minesweeper record. I can cook up a mean stir fry with one hand while disinfecting my kitchen with bleach with the other. But I can think of two cases where I am physically not able to do two things at once. One is singing/talking while playing the violin (and trust me, I tried really hard at accomplishing this) and the other I realized today as I was (gasp) washing my hands in the work bathroom. Hearing someone else do it made me realize I cannot pee and blow my nose at the same time. I just can’t do it. Don’t want to, either.

Sometimes when I admit these things to you, I have to think about who is on this distribution list. Will I be forever alienating myself from someone who I want to keep as a friend (or family member, for that matter)? Will everyone feel awkward when they see me again in Boston? But you know, I can’t worry about these things. If I did, I’d have nothing to write about. Plus, I know you all have your own strange, and perhaps just as unhygienic, habits of your own. Feel free to respond to me with them and I’ll add them to tomorrow’s email!

*music – one husband one wife, whaddya got, two people sentenced for life

Winky Face ;)

This weekend I was told I remind people of Sarah Silverman, Ellen Degeneres, and a penguin (not in the same sentence). I don’t mind the first two (although I’m not fucking Matt Damon), but a penguin?! Ted has been telling me that I look like a penguin since the 7th grade. Have I really not changed so much that after 24 years I still resemble the same arctic creature? And why, for the love of God, do people say penguin? Is it the combination of white/gray and black hair? The small stature? The propensity to waddle instead of walk? Or perhaps it’s my habit of laying eggs and then finding men to sit on them? Well in any case, I suppose it’s better than when my “friends” told me I looked like Filbert, the turtle from Rocko’s Modern Life.

Jews are not people to pass up a sale. This includes my mother who will call London from the Houston airport to ask me, nay TELL me, that I need a Swatch watch because they are 40% off.

I went to a barbecue/barbie/braai on Sunday (you know, to celebrate Jesus H.) and HOLY FUCK was it cold. This weekend was crazy for London weather – I saw lightning/thunderstorms, snow, hail, and sunshine all in the same day. But Sunday was mainly just cold. So I chose to warm up by standing near the grill. The only problem with this strategy (other than when some goofs drunkenly threw a phonebook on the coals) is that my peacoat now smells like burnt sausages. I forgot to wash it last night and so today I’m sure my co-workers and the people on the Tube are wondering what that disgusting, yet savory, smell is.

(Speaking of co-workers, G loved his hug this morning. He lingered a bit too long, but he’s helping me run reports today so I let him.)

After the craziness of the barbecue had died down, about 5 of us were left sitting on beanbags watching awesome YouTube music videos like Travis’ cover of Britney’s “…Baby One More Time,” Tegan and Sara’s “Umbrella” rendition, and Damien Rice doing his version of Radiohead’s “Creep.” But, and here is where you need to get ready to run to your computer, I was introduced to two videos that give “Oh My God Shoes” and “What What in the Butt” a run for their money. The first (search for ‘woman punch’) is a 9 second clip of a woman getting sucker-punched right in the face (oh MAN is it hilarious), and the second is a series of this crazy cartoon called Happy Tree Friends. A word of warning about these so-called Happy Tree Friends…even though it’s a cartoon, it was disturbing enough that I almost ralphed. I still recommend you check them out for yourself, though. Just maybe refrain from showing your children. (And yes, I’m going to hell.)

Sidenote – has anyone ever watched, I mean REALLY watched, old Betty Boop cartoons? I’m pretty confident in saying that the people who made those cartoons were on some serious drugs.

Snippet of a conversation between my mom and dad at dinner last night:
Mom: You know that woman in our condo building who loves you?
Dad: Which one?

P.S. JK about G.
P.P.S. It’s funny to type JK and mock the rest of the world. LOL.

Essex Sussex Wessex

G to T: “You’re just jealous that I have better legs than you.”
T to a co-worker: “You were drinking too much…you were wankered.”

Lunch at Old Doctor Butler’s Head was interesting mainly due to the fact that half the people ordered steak and kidneys and the other half ordered liver pot pie. (I was the odd man out who ordered the lasagna.) Sitting next to SR who ordered the kidney, I made the mistake of asking him what it tasted like and what the texture was, because when it arrived, he kept insisting that I try it. I almost had to use my self-defense techniques but he stopped pushing it after I made a somewhat-inappropriate face and said, “I’m not really that adventurous when it comes to trying new foods.”

But then all was well again when everyone started talking about how I would definitely fit into one of those moving crates at work. What is it with people wanting to fit me into small spaces like trashcans or file cabinets?

I still don’t understand the rules of cricket.

(Breaking news in this morning’s paper. A headline read: “Drugs May Be Very Dangerous.”)

I ate 6 eggs in 2 days

We are moving offices tomorrow. There’s something like 8 company offices all within the city of London and they’re consolidating three of them. This means that my day tomorrow will consist of watching frantic people trying to rid their desks of all unnecessary papers (which, truth be told, is every paper) but instead finding that Dorito chip they lost 8 months ago.

Either people will find any excuse to eat and drink here or they’re really sentimental about this building, because not only are we going out for drinks after work to celebrate our last day at Angel Court, but we’re also going to a pub for lunch. But get this – the name of the pub is Old Doctor Butler’s Head! One thing I learned very early on is that London is filled with fantastically-named pubs. (I like to think Old Doctor Butler’s Head refers to the bloodied head of a British doctor who accidentally decapitated himself while trying to perform brain surgery on a patient while intoxicated in 1893. Oh and the head? It haunts the pub.)

G has been quite active in the past two days in preparation for the move since his desk is exceedingly cluttered. What this means for me, the lucky person who gets to listen to him all day, is a handful of inane quotes (the context doesn’t matter…they still wouldn’t make sense):
“This is where the frisking happens.”
“Wonka wonka wonka!”

D said the word ‘movements’ today in the exact same way Austin Powers says ‘I’m gonna go watch a moooooooooovie.’ I have yet to figure out a way to snicker without having the people around me realize I’m snickering at them.

So that rocket building picture I sent awhile back? It’s nicknamed ‘The Gherkin.’

Many people have told me that I should go to Wimbledon in June, that it’s an amazing experience. I don’t doubt this and so today I inquired with a company ticket vendor to see if they had anything available. This was their reply:

Dear Lisa,
Thank you for your request.
Please note that unfortunately we are only able to source premium priced tickets for sporting events. See below for details:
Ladies Semi Final Priced at $2100 per ticket
Men’s Semi Final Priced at $4100 per ticket
Ladies Final Priced at $2400 per ticket
Men’s Final Priced at $6200 per ticket
All prices and availability are subject to change at any time. Please advise if we can be of any further assistance.

Here was my (fake) reply:

Dear Crazy Wimbledon Ticket Selling People,
$6200 for a single ticket? Are you nuts? Are those for the nosebleed seats too? I can understand paying this much for a Red Sox/Yankees playoff game; at least there I’m paying for the chance to see something as awesome as Pedro Martinez giving an ass whooping to Don Zimmer. And are the men really $3800 better than the women? I’m not a die-hard feminist or anything, but that seems a little silly to me. Please let me know if the prices drop down to $200 or below and I’ll be interested in a front-row seat.
Thanks a heap!

In completely unrelated news, Shaq is completely gone from South Beach leaving my Dad in utter despair. Today on the phone he told me, “I miss him already.”

All played out

I think maybe I’ve been seeing too many plays. I was ready to go five minutes into tonight’s one-man play about a psychiatrist. It was even more boring than it sounds. I suppose ‘discretion’ should be the word of the day.

To prove my point about those deadly swans, I read the following quote about said birds in a London magazine today:
“Every British man seems to have a story about those graceful but homicidal birds, usually ending with the warning, ‘They can break your neck with one swing of the wing.’”

Today, for a brief moment, I thought the world was ending. I was sitting at my desk editing some silly word document when all of a sudden I heard this earth-shattering explosion and the table started to shake. My heart practically leapt out of my chest and my pulse started racing as though I were about to give a speech to thousands of people about the differences between swaps and futures. It was then that I realized the world was not in fact ending. Rather, G had just sneezed a sneeze that could have killed 17 horses or 25 small ponies.

*Blog update* I decided that I will start to post the occasional entry written by someone else. There are just too many good articles and stories out there that need to be shared. For example, today’s extra entry was about conformity and a delicious Subway sandwich. All non-Lisa entries posted to my blog will have ** added to their title as well as being tagged ‘plagiarism.’ Read them, don’t read them, it’s up to you. But I will try to only include entries that are qualified as truly awesome. Also, I’m not sure why it took me this long, but I figured out how to add pictures. Now you don’t have to settle for the poor quality email pictures.

(http://lisashoshana.blogspot.com/)

There's a popular graffiti artist named Banksy who is all the rage these days. Every market I've been to has sold prints of his work and I'm guessing I'll buy one before I leave. Here are a couple of his works:

Getting good at taking the bus

Last Friday I was listening to the news as I was getting ready for work. A segment that you’d only find in Britain was showing - the garden bird survey. The newscaster, binoculars slung about his neck, was reporting on which birds have had a good year this year. They then cut to a camera called the Bird Cam that was perpetually focused on a birdfeeder. However, this being live television, no birds were actually on it. Keep in mind this is a prime tv time slot when millions of people are tuning in. Well, at least everyone will be in the know, aviarily speaking. (I just made that word up.)

Ta = thank you

So there I am sitting at my desk eating carrots, the regular kind not baby carrots, and I take this one bite that sounds as if I was standing at the Grand Canyon with a microphone at my mouth; the sound was so loud and echoed for so long that it felt like everyone stopped what they were doing to look around and wonder who the idiot was who was responsible for the disruption.

I have been getting lost every day. I don’t plan for this; it’s not like I’m deliberately seeking out strange neighborhoods and going up and down back alleys. For example, I went to find the other library branch at lunch on Friday and was lost for 30 minutes. I’m telling you, it REALLY doesn’t help matters when one street suddenly turns into another street just because there’s a traffic light.

G (on the phone): “Hey Mum, it’s me. Are we dancing tonight?”

What country is it again that produces really tall women who also wear hideous red shoes and carry hideous red purses in the shape of lips? Denmark? Sweden?

Saturday I went to the Portobello Market in Notting Hill (this is the market that Hugh walks through in the movie). It was, hands down, the best market I’ve ever been to. The stalls sold everything from old antiques (as opposed to new antiques) to fruits and vegetables to handmade bags to vintage clothing and pretty much everything in between. I never realized that I am obsessed with bags, but walking through that market made me realize that I’ll be coming home with at least three more bags than I came with. The market also secured my decision to stay in Notting Hill for the duration of my stay in London. It’s a wonderful little neighborhood with a friendly, cottage-y atmosphere. I’m definitely not doing it justice…the feeling you get when you walk down the narrow streets with a garden on one side and cozy flats on the other all flanked by coffee shops, bakeries, florists and bookshops is something you have to experience to fully understand what I mean by the trite description of “cottage-y.”

I ordered a falafel from a vegetarian stand at the market and, as the first meal I’ve bought in London, it was absolutely delicious. Just like the Falafel King in Downtown Crossing, the man gave me a falafel ball to eat while I waited. Heavenly…

So I’m walking to the Tube station in my neighborhood Friday night and I hear this siren going off. Given that I’m new here and I can’t really tell the difference between a police siren and a car alarm, I ignore it and keep walking. But then I see a group of about 10 teenage boys run out from McDonalds, most wearing some kind of scarf or handkerchief on their face. Everyone on the street, including me, is just staring at this asking themselves, “Is this really happening?” I’ve never witnessed a robbery before and I guess I liked to think that if there were something I could do to help stop it, I would; I wanted to be different than all those people in Chicago who just stood around and stared while I shouted for someone to help stop the guy that robbed ME. But in the end I decided that it would be quite stupid of me to take on a group of 10 in order to help McDonalds get back the $300 or so that they lost. I’m a bad person.

When I went to Sydney I was sad to learn that their culture isn’t really a “bagel culture.” Being Jewish, this took me a long time to get used to. I am happy to report that bagels are plentiful in London.

I learned the hard way that when you want a bus to stop and pick you up, you have to signal for it or else it’ll keep on driving right past you even though you’ve been waiting out in the cold for 15 minutes and it’ll be another 15 minutes before another one comes along.

In my mind, everything stops around 3 pm in London. No matter what you’re doing - walking the dog, eating green beans, creating a pivot table - when 3 o’clock rolls around, you drop everything to drink a cup of tea. Not only do you do this mid-afternoon, but you also start your day off with a cup and finish your dinner with another one. Of course, also in my mind unicorns gallop, I’m 5’6”, and I actually went to the Massachusetts All-State trumpet audition in 10th grade instead of feigning illness. But alas, much like these things, it’s just not true. It is just as much a coffee culture here as it is in America. Sure, there aren’t Starbucks literally right across the street from other Starbucks, but I’m thinking that’s just because they don’t yet realize that you can do that.

I passed by a pub called ‘Old English Gentlemen’ and there were, in fact, two old English gentlemen sitting at a table drinking beer. It was 1:15 pm. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

The crutches people use here are the ones with the gray arm cuffs. I guess they just have a deeper respect for their armpits than we do. Personally, I’d be bummed about having to use those crutches; one of the perks of breaking your leg (okay, maybe the ONLY perk) is getting to use the fun wooden crutches that let you rest your body weight on them when you’re tired of hobbling.

Continuing on my museum kick, I went to the Tate Modern last week. I like art. I do. And while I can appreciate that there’s a deeper meaning behind a painting that is simply a canvas painted all black, I certainly don’t feel the need to spend more than 3 seconds looking at it. A rainbow isn’t suddenly going to appear out of the black nor am I going to have a life epiphany just because I’m staring at it. And because of that, I was only in the 5 storied-museum for about an hour and a half (25 minutes of which was spent figuring out which floor the stairs led to and which floor the escalator led to, and no, the answer is not the same). This is not to say it’s not a great modern art museum; to the contrary, it’s filled with pieces by Picasso, Miro, Rothko, Pollock, Bracques, and Hockney, to name a few. I guess I’ll just never be able to go to a modern art museum without the thought “I could do that” crossing my mind.

The current in the Thames must be about 80 miles per hour. Seriously. If you fell in, you’re pretty much a goner. That is one river I wouldn’t want to row on.

Seeing as how I’m so much closer to Europe than I was a week ago, I’ve decided that I’m going to travel as much as I can while I’m here. I mentioned to SR that I would love to go to Barcelona for a weekend. He was very excited for me and told me what a wonderful city it is to visit. But in telling me about his past travels there, he happened to mention that somebody in his party got robbed each time they went. I don’t think he realized until after he said this and I gaped back at him in disbelief that he had made me a little more than…concerned. Looks like I’ll just have to bring my gun with me when I go.

I dare anyone to shop for a plate on a London street and find one that DOESN’T have a picture of either Princess Diana or Prince William on it.

I asked S if the Tube went to the city airports, not just Heathrow, since I didn’t want to have to take a taxi. Having only known me for a week and thus not knowing my propensity to go to the extreme just to save a buck, she immediately interpreted this as an aversion and insult to taxi drivers. All of a sudden she got on the defensive, appeared hurt and asked, “What do you have against taking a taxi? My husband’s a taxi driver.” That’s when the backpeddling started and I had to explain how I’m one of the cheapest people she’ll ever meet (I said it in a less self-debasing way). But she’s absolutely right; taxi drivers here aren’t like taxi drivers in say, New York. (Here’s where I stereotype to make a point.)
Taxi drivers in New York: smell of body odor, don’t speak English, talk on Blue Tooth (so you think they’re talking to you but really they’re talking to someone else who happens to be awake at 2:30 in the morning), are sleazily dressed
Taxi drivers in London: polite, British, well-dressed, congenial, look like “a dad”

On the bus to another museum, I passed by this wall surrounding what looked to be yet another garden. Mounted on top of the wall were video cameras, barbed wire, and huge spikes. Putting two and two together, I realized this probably wasn’t just another park in England. (Since I’m ridiculously smart and my common sense skills are off the chart, this was actually the case – it was Buckingham Palace, or Buckinghuge Palace as Glenn likes to say.) But the funny part about this wall is that there were signs on it that read something about how it was a federal offense to trespass on the property citing the “Serious Organized Crime and Police Act of 2005,” which is very different than the “Not-So-Serious Organized Crime and Police Act of 2005” which hasn’t been enforced all that strongly.

Noodle Noodle sounded like a much better restaurant when I thought the sign said Noodle Doodle.

Happy belated Australia Day!

I’d like to have my own personal Jamie Oliver

A conversation between S, my co-worker, and me taking place this afternoon in the office bathroom:
Lisa: “Hi S. What’s goin’ on?”
S: (Clearly not understanding the question and therefore replying with every possible answer except the appropriate one) “Awright. Yeah. Fine.”

No one has their own trash can at work. There are communal trash cans and recycling bins. This makes it quite stinky when I get lazy after eating my banana and wait a good 20 minutes before building up the effort to walk to one of the bins. I’m not sure how minimal trash receptacles is a good idea, but again, they’re British; I won’t question it, I’ll just mock it.

The vending machine at work is replenished every day. I think someone came about once a week in Boston to refill ours. I guess people just really like their junk food here.

Whenever G talks I immediately think of Ricky Gervais. And when that woman was sitting next to me today talking on the phone, I immediately thought of Elizabeth Hurley. I’m not sure what it says about me that the two stereotypical Brits I picture when I hear the English accent are David Brent and Vanessa Kensington, but oh well. At least I’m amused.

I was invited out for my first drinks at a pub today after work. (The National Portrait Gallery will just have to wait until next Thursday.) You will never guess what we all talked about at the bar…G's bacon! Except I learned that it’s not bacon, it’s frankfurters. I guess it’s just common knowledge that at 9:30 every morning, G heats up some frankfurters and stinks up the kitchen. I was so overjoyed that I wasn’t the only one privy to his morning snack. I’ll try to keep the talk about G's meat to a minimum now. I think I’ve gone well beyond the appropriate limit for this topic.

I met two K's at the bar tonight, one male, one female. Male K is going to send me a website link where I can find tickets to shows for 2 pounds. I am very excited about this. Female K is going to invite me out to drinks on Friday nights with her mates. I’m less excited about this.

For the first time in pretty much ever, when I ordered a diet coke and followed it up with an “I’m not a big drinker,” I was not met with hostility and rebuttals! It was fantastic! A bunch of different people offered to get me a drink and each one accepted the fact that I was okay sippin’ on my soda. I think I might live to see the end of 6 months!!! Now…where did I put that bottle of Jack?

Card carrying member

Damn that library was hard to find! It’s like they don’t want you to actually go to the library. I had my little printed-out map with me and it should have been right there off Beech Street. And yet, I somehow managed to walk around in circles for 10 minutes before I found the hidden entrance. But all is well because I now know where it is. And what’s more, they gave me a map that shows me where I had passed by another library branch that was about 20 minutes closer to work than the one I had just trekked to. I guess people don’t use libraries all that much in London; fine by me, more books for me to read (right, because I would ever run out). And while I would also take out dvd’s and cd’s, well, you have to pay to rent those and I’m saving up for heaps of sticky toffee pudding. (Plus, I think I’m going to sign up for London’s version of Netflix as soon as I figure out where I’m permanently staying in the city.)

Anyway, so yeah, the library. It was a decent size and had a great selection of books. The skinny, stereotypical man-librarian (or aide perhaps) was quite overeager to help me sign up for a library card (despite this, I couldn’t help but stare at his rotting-around-the-edges teeth). As I was surfing the net and jotting down all the Tube stops for my upcoming museum adventures, the man next to me kept humming/grunting. I let the first one go by because maybe he didn’t mean for it to be so loud. But when the second one happened and it was clearly just “something he does,” I gave him a little-more-than-subtle glance as if to say, “Really? You’re gonna just go to a public place and make that noise and not expect someone to look at you and make the face I’m making?” Needless to say, his face had no response to my face.

I’m at work no more than 5 minutes today and G saunters back to his desk with a plate full of bacon. THE MAN MADE BACON AT WORK! I don’t know whether to shake his hand or kick the greasy meat strips right out of his mouth. (I did neither.) I cannot wait to see what he brings tomorrow.

Oh, and another funny story about G is that I was talking to GB (boss/friend from Sydney) over instant messenger at one point today and I said, “G is getting up to go to the kitchen to get more water.” GB replies with, “Yeah, and he’ll come back with a packet of crisps.” I told GB that if he was right, I’d eat my shirt. 15 seconds later I send him a message saying “I’M EATING MY SHIRT!”

I don’t know whose idea it was, but every Tuesday at 9:30 am, the company building has a fire alarm test. You don’t actually have to leave and go outside; they just sound the (very loud) alarm to check to make sure it still works. What?! Every week? Good lord, why?!

When you get off the elevators at Angel Court, my building, you have to swipe your ID card and go through a set of doors to get to the work area. The handles on both sides of the door are identical. They look more like the pull ones than the push ones [ ]. I am not kidding you when I tell you that every time I have gone to open those doors, I have pushed or pulled the wrong way. I don’t know why I can’t just remember which way they go. And I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who has this problem because I sit right next to them and I never see anyone else struggle with it. It’s quite pathetic.

I love the double-decker buses. I rode them a lot this past weekend so that I could get a feel for the city a bit more. I always make sure to ride up top because a) it’s more fun b) it makes me feel taller and c) it’s a better view. I think it’s so cool that the buses aren’t double-deckers just to please tourists; they’re the actual city transportation buses. Obviously they’re there because the city is ridiculously crowded and instead of having two separate buses clogging up the streets, why not just put one on top of another? I think it’s definitely a strategy Boston should adopt. I’ll pitch it to Menino when I get home.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I watched the Patriots game at Cheers in Piccadilly Circus. Yes, THAT Cheers. At one point I overheard the hoochie next to me say “Why is this bar named Cheers? Isn’t that in Boston?” Anyway, it was the only bar I could find that was showing the game and not a soccer match. To my horror, there were almost as many Charger fans present as Patriots fans…although I counted at least three Brady jerseys. My feet started to get tired during the third quarter since it was standing room only, and I had to leave when Brady threw the interception in the endzone. I figured I needed to go to sleep anyway (you know, what with my first day of work the next morning) and when I woke up they would have either won or lost and my being there wouldn’t have changed anything. Of course, after we won it would have been nice to see the look on that tool’s face at the bar who kept clapping obnoxiously every time the Chargers did something good.

Forecast: Clear and cool with a slight chance of a world recession.

That’s SIR Fatty McGee to you

I sit across from a fat British man at work. Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m sure that G is a very nice person. But for some reason, he’s a very nice person who has body-sound-A.D.D. The man is always making some sort of noise. He wheezes, he hums, he eats, he slurps, he sighs, he talks to himself, and most of all, he talks to his computer. The man is always moving, too. Today he organized his desk about 4 times. He went to the kitchen for about 7 cups of coffee (or tea perhaps…actually it probably was tea since I’m in the official Land of Tea and Crumpets). He made a deliciously aromatic cinnamon thing around 11 in the morning. And around 4 o’clock he told a co-worker that he had already had ¾ of a gallon of water today and does beer count for that last ¼ he’s supposed to drink to put him at his 1 gallon goal for the day since beer is mostly water anyway? But what makes him ALMOST endearing instead of bordering on homicidally annoying is that he does it all with the most proper of accents. How can I possibly fling my stapler at his bald head when he says, “Yessuh, but isn’t beeruh mostly wahter anyway, isn’t that riught?” (That was possibly the worst alliteration of a British accent ever, but it was the best I could do.)

I also happen to sit next to T. Just so you can picture him, he kind of looks like Ralph Fiennes only with inconsistent facial stubble. T is one of two people who I met today who I thought had a great personality in addition to being Britishly nice and polite. Seeing as how he sits next to me and my only other option was to talk to G about what kind of pie he brought for lunch, I chatted it up with T for most of the day. About four hours after we started talking (not continuously), he mentions something about being from Australia. At this point I mentally punch myself in the face for having JUST spent three months in that country and not being able to recognize the accent once I step foot in another land. Seriously. What is WRONG with me?!?! I can tell if someone is from Philadelphia within 4 seconds of talking to them, but trying to tell an accent from one side of the world from another is like rocket science.

Anyway, T was talking about going to Sydney earlier this decade for the Olympics and he said “…it was fairly special.” How did the word ‘fairly’ become one of those lost in translation words even though it’s the same language? Clearly he meant it was a VERY special thing, but I could have, and given my level of intelligence in the past 3 days alone I’m surprised I didn’t, mistaken him for thinking it was just a ho-hum affair. I’m fairly short. I’m fairly paranoid about alphabetizing my cd collection. I’m fairly in love with Pierce Brosnan.

Okay here’s something that is completely unacceptable. The computer keyboards in this country are f-ed up. They had to go and mess up everything by putting a British Pound sign where the # sign is. That means the keyboard creators had to improvise with where they put that instead. And so you know what they did? They cut the Enter key in half. In HALF I tell you!! Not to mention they cut the Shift key in half to make room for a backslash key. My pinkie fingers will be so strong by the end of my stint here from reaching half an inch further than they normally do. This might seem like I’m being nitpicky, but it’s ruining my world. Oh!! And get this! They put the quotation marks where the @ key is! I have to SHIFT AND USE MY RING FINGER! I’ll bet whosever idea it was to drive on the other side of the road came up with these ideas. (Obviously he was very old when he came up with the keyboard ideas. But old people can have ideas too, albeit terrible ideas right up there with drinking prune juice and then trotting around in Depends.)

Weather report: Rained today. Cloudy tomorrow.