Free Fallin'

My girl went off, leaving me to fend for myself. This *never* happened before (well since I became a mom)...a weekend, alone, unplanned.

So I'm learning to fly.....

We carpooled our way to the show. It was in Hartford, at their enormous outdoor amphitheatre. People were streaming in by the thousands, highschoolers, school age...did they get their artist straight? Maybe I wouldn't be able to buy a ticket at the door...and I forgot my book (the backup plan) *sigh* I thought, "I may have to lurk outside looking forlorn until half way through, someone takes pity..."

As soon as we integrated into the mass migration, the *happy* set in. God I enjoy concert-people watching! The current trend-the peasant skirt in its shortened form-was something that all body types were taking on, much to my pleasure. Surely many looked like sausages in their outfits, bursting out of their casings (probably hoping for help peeling off the wrappers later....) Then there were the bikini-tops (solid choice for an outdoor concert at night) and the ones that chose jeans that caused rolls to protrude, even if they weren't heavy.... The guys had less fashion and also less faux pas, but some still managed. For example there were those that chose to forsake shirt-wear and expose enough boxer to almost see ass-cheek from the bottom.

But I digress. Mmmm, concert. I *did* make it in without having to pander a doe-eyed, have pity-on-me style look or having anything confiscated at the gate. (How did all that skunk, that I smelled/viewed later, slip through?) So we identified our spot on the lawn and settled in. The new fashion of posting texts to a billboard kept us amused, slightly. Although, "the man" had definitely filtered out all the good stuff and distilled most messages down to "hi mom!" or "love you forever, bob" There was no swearing to be read or even a nice little sexual insinuation. We had to get by with little chuckles over the guy that proposed and the girl that responded, "No." Fortunately, our more immediate surroundings provided a slew of entertainment. SO much so, that S was caught uttering, "We have another crier", and "watch out!" as another boy took a roll down the hill. Drinking and grassy hills don't mix?! Mid second act, things got more serious though. The gentleman behind us stumbled over a young man (~10 yrs old?) *a couple times*. The mother reacted much as I would have: she got in the offenders face and uttered some choice words. The gentleman took the very-useful"It wasn't my fault" stance and with the aid of my friends S and J, things got to a boil. I tried my best to catch the gentleman's eye to give him my best, "I'm laughing *AT* you because you are a stupid, wasted drunk-ass frat boy...good luck standing"-look. The cloud passed and our lovely artists continued to rock out more of their best hits. In fact, only 3 songs fell outside of the best-of category, the one new one of note had the chorus "blah, blah,blah....crawl through the winda, I'm off to see Melinda..." Well, it was something like that. The point is that "window" and "Melinda" were being rhymed. *shakes head*

And that kicked off my Free Fallin' weekend....

NJ

NJ,
originally uploaded by beckybumblefuck.

A New Jersey bathroom provided all kinds of insight into how the

locals do relationships. I'm thinking they must be really great at it,

as they like to spell out *every detail* of how they would like things

to be done, even the most obvious of points. Whereas the rest of the

world makes the *assumption* that it's uncool to vandalize, New Jersey

folk don't leave that knowledge up to chance. They'll tell ya

straight up. I can imagine their romantic conversations, "Oh, baby,

kiss me on the neck, put your lips on my mouth, then grab my *****,

gently tease my ****, and don't stop until I've *********. Avoid

pinching or bruising, thank you."

geekin' out

DSCF0251.JPG,
originally uploaded by beckybumblefuck.

Sadly, I am resorting to the penultimate lazy post. Here you have a

lovely picture of a famous blackboard taken at a special exhibit at

Oxford's History of Science Museum, but a photo not even taken by my

own hand!!!! (Thank you, Lever dear.) If you look deeply into the

ethics of cloning, you can see Lever and BBFK....

Food detective

*serves up lentil stew over rice*
*eating commences*
*only BBFK is actually eating the full meal*

BBFK: "Comeon then! Eat up, please."
Noel: "I don't want poison."
BBFK: "It's not poison!"
Noel: "They're not carrots."

Apparently *cooking* carrots converts them to *not-carrot* form. A form similar to an evil superhero, able to kill, like poison.

[Mom note: I have surreptitiously induced Noel's admission that she *knows* there are carrots on her plate but that she just doesn't want them. Sweet.]

A solid reason to be sweet

A solid reason to be sweet,
originally uploaded by beckybumblefuck.

I think I may be swayed back from the dark side....

Salty me

Let's start nice.

There's this adorable little store down the street from where I work. It sells cool, off-the-wall foods at amazingly good prices. They have friendly people that work for them and reliably offer samples of their foods while you're browsing their store. The store is set up in a grid pattern so it's easy to negotiate and you're greeted with an abundance of flowers at the door. SO just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Noel and I got ourselves arranged in a carriage and got to it: starting with bananas. Which is when it happened. This granola-looking boy pulled out a bag of long balloons and asked us what we desired. Noel quickly replied "A dog!" and the reply was "oh, that's easy." And then, he quickly fashioned a pink dog for Noel (and meanwhile I did some balloon research: apparently the *pig* is the hard one to make, BTW.) We went about our business then, with our newly acquired pink balloon-dog. Of course, the 3-yr-old HAD to mess with it. Ya know: hug it, squeeze it, make it jump...all the things a balloon is not meant for. Before long the dog had unfolded and lost his rear and tail. Luckily all-purpose-Mom-skill-2,014 happens to be "Repair unfolded balloon-dogs" and I fixed it. Although we had since moved to the frozen-foods section, granola-boy appeared again to complement me on my skillz. By the time we were to the pizza sauce section, the dog had again come undone *sigh to 3-yr-old* and granola-boy once again was there to the rescue, asking if he could refold that for us...

And there ya have it. Props to the local food mart for finding new ways to please...

SO how *could* I be salty after that, aye?

Here's why.
1.) >90 degree weather, no air conditioner, and no screens in the windows. We live in a sweatbox.
2.) Broken glass outside my house due to severe delinquency of the owner of the house. Painting in the fall caused the storm glass to be removed...it was never replaced despite notes and many, many calls (and bad winter heating bills for me).
3.) Ants.
4.) A broken washer.
5.) The house owner that does not answer her phone or have an answering machine so that I can leave a message.
6.) Crap email from judgemental people.

Maybe I need to shop.....

Roundabout

Roundabout,
originally uploaded by beckybumblefuck.

Thank god I was *walking* when I saw this.
;)
I think this photo is the perfect visual for how I feel about driving in the UK.

P.S. Click on it for a larger view, if ya can't see what I mean...

Top 10 reasons why living in the UK seems like a good idea

1.) Ladies wear sensible shoes in the UK. Visit NYC and you'll witness girls draggin' their asses around in the most stylish, ridiculous, black (because that's really the only color you wear in the city, come ON-you MUST know that *wink*) pumps.

2.) Ladies don't wear bras (well many don't, at least). I can really appreciate this. I've been through several phases where I'd forsake 'em (and even when I do wear them, I want it to feel like I'm not. The person who invented underwire can kiss my ass.) Confusingly, some American boys *want* you to wear a bra, but are psyched as hell just to hear the word "commando." Whatever. I don't pretend to understand.

3.) People don't get expensive, silly cosmetic procedures (from what I've observed) and thusly, don't look plastic (like Americans can.) K. I think this all amounts to the British are more practical and relish *comfort* over *preening and strutting.* Cheers to that.

4.) The British appreciate the use of "understatement" as a form of humor.

5.) People are considerate and extraordinarily polite in the UK.

6.) The accent makes me drool.

7.) Fish and chips.

8.) A beautiful view while highway driving...lots of green, little litter.

9.) The British *know* how to make chocolate. Now that I've had British chocolate, I just can't go back. I've started pondering tracking down an internet ordering site for when my quickly dwindling chocolate stockpile that I imported is gone (Oh, and sorry to all those friends that I meant to give chocolate gifts to..I had the best of intentions... *wink*)

10.) Access to the boy who rocks my world.

And just to verify this, I retook this test that I took back in March, and STILL got the same outcome....

You Belong in the UK

Blimey! A little proper, a little saucy. You're so witty and charming... No one notices your curry breath

What English Speaking Country Do You Belong In?

Blowing steam

Admittedly, I'm a bit hyper today. I've got this song on permanent rotation in my head (Here's a sample: "What is this madness....That makes my motor run...And my legs too weak to stand....I go from sadness...To exhilaration..Like a robot at your command)
SO, I decided to go and try to work off the pent-up energy by a little stroll and banana snack. My skin's a little pinker now and there's a slight sheen of sweat on my skin. That would be because the sun is on FULL blast and it's hot as a mofo out there (and that's officially what the weatherman SAID, thank you.) So WHY did I run into a woman with a fur slung over her shoulder? WTF is she trying to prove? Dead animal is cool anytime? Goddamn this area. *blows air over skin to encourage cool down*

Follies revealed

Follies revealed,
originally uploaded by beckybumblefuck.

AH, the classic photo of me. No wonder I was blind in London-I forgot

to open my eyes!



And more follies revealed, as per request.

There were a couple things that I could *possibly* be blamed for on

the whirlwind UK tour (if I could call 3 cities in 5 days, that...)

1.) The car was towed.

OK, outwardly, I had nothing to do with it. I didn't park it, suggest

where to park it, moon any tow-dudes, or leave any "please tow me"

notes on the windshield. But then again my tow history totals one in

Champaign, one in NYC, and one in Boston (2 of which happened in the

last 9 months). Lever's had none, until, now. Someone has "please

tow me" listed in their karmic profile and I *may* have to point a

finger at me for this one. It was a hard situation, because the

doe-eyed reception desk workers almost made me go American-style,

self-important, crass, "fix-this-now"! on them. I was mostly

restrained. In the end I decided it was more fruitful to just make

out with Lever until he'd almost forgotten his woes.



2.) I flooded the bathroom.

The water was scalding and the controls were refusing to bend to my

will. Um, for a solid 10 minutes (god, I sound incompetant.

Hmmmm...) So, there was a bit of water that dripped out of the tub.

Well, OK, maybe enough to fill up the floor and be considered

hazardous...maybe enough to drip to the room below us. Maybe. That's

not verified, but there was speculation towards that conclusion. But

I think the fact that we weren't kicked out of the hotel, is evidence in my favor, aye?

*convincing eye flutter*



3.) I got my head wet.

But it's my head, dammit, I can do what I want. Solid defense, aye?

Except that I didn't actually *want* it to get wet. I just intended

to turn on the water in the tub, ever-so-briefly, and then walk away.

Oh, well. Wet clothes, gotta remove 'em.

Damn, it's fun making people nervous...

Apparently I do that naturally. I really made no conscious effort towards that end today, but just my tottering down the sidewalk on short heels while performing a piggyback ride for Noel was enough to induce an SUV-driving man to sweat. It bothered him enough to fill up his lungs and to shout from the other side of the street that I needed to buy sneakers. He must have thought that I was a bit slow (I mean I was wobbling down the sidewalk in heels for god's sake) that it caused him to shout it 2 more times, enunciating his words more and more with each attempt. He must have thought I was a disaster in the making or something. *wink* And *why* would anyone *ever* think that about BBFK? On that note, I've gotta give the lowdown on more London adventures, as per request.

I left my contact and my heart in England

I left my contact and my heart in England,
originally uploaded by beckybumblefuck.

Yes, can you believe it? In the UK a mere 24 hours and I flushed it,

leaving me half-blind. I had them long enough to clearly view the

well-dressed black woman squatting at the rear bumper of his car (30

minutes in the country) and the hail that came down another 5 hours

later, but from there it was a blur. It caused some funny situations.

On day 2 I was hit on in a pub, by being asked "Are you OK?" by a

little cluster of British boys. After taking a second to assure them

that I was, I immediately walked myself into a mirror. From there I

was left to grope the wall in search of a way to open the girl's room

door that had been engineered to be inconspicuous, and lay flush with

the wall. I heard a ripple of laughter behind me as I fumbled around.

This was not the only instance of toilet mishap. I walked up close to

many bathrooms, squinting, trying to discern the writing, throughout

the entire journey through London, Oxford and Bath. Following a lunch

of fish and chips at Oxford's self-proclaimed best-pub, I headed off

in the direction of the bathroom, to find that it was the boy's room.

Furthermore, the girl's had been located directly across from my

seat, less than 10 feet away. The older gentleman watching the

situation, remarked that I may not want to go into the gent's although

it may pleasantly surprise someone�.



He was a complete sweetheart about the situation. He drove on the

wrong side of the road (in my estimation *wink*), navigating to new

places by himself, all the while saying, "look how quickly we found

our [insert destination here]!" He'd always explain our routes and

finish off with a "Does that sound good?" , to which I'd nod my blind

head and play along with the game; the game being that I was

contributing anything at all to the travel process, to deserve any bit

of consideration while decrypting our routes or any fraction of the

praise for successful arrival. What I *did* deserve was blame for the

bathroom that I so clumsily flooded and for forgetting my raincoat,

leading my sweet to become drenched on several occasions while I wore

his parka (What a git aye? Neglecting to pack the raincoat on her

trip to *England*, for god's sake.). He would gently tease me about it

all, ask me if I was doing OK, and then lead me to the next

destination that my heart desired. We traveled that way through

England for 5 days, hand-in-hand and oblivious to the world.



And now I've returned to America, to my girl, to my medical writing,

left to ache and pine and lust for more wanderings through a place

3000 miles away with the boy who's claimed my heart.