Christmas Dinner and a Romp in the Snow

Baked macaroni and cheese. Obviously, you can't have too much.

Broccoli slaw. It's healthy because there are, like, vegetables in it, right?

We may be tired of the snow, but these two are not. 

Try to ignore Jeff looking like an evil serial killer at the end there. I assure you he is full of holiday spirit.

Social Elitism and Christmas in Dorridge

After sitting around all day watching TV and generally enjoying the fact that we no longer have freezing cold concrete floors anymore (woohoo!), Jeff and I decided to take the dogs on a little Christmas Eve stroll. Since we have no lights or decorations of our own, I was hoping to get in the holiday spirit by checking out the lights around Dorridge. What's Christmas without lights, right? Anyone who has ever seen Peacock Lane in Portland knows what I'm talking about.

Obviously, I didn't expect anything close to this, but some icicle lights here and there would have been nice. Well THANKS FOR NOTHING Dorridge because there weren't any damn lights. How could that be?

According to Jeff's coworkers, Christmas lights are a very "chav" thing to do. Chav?? Helloooo Google.

In a word, I suppose "chav" basically means "trash", but in reality it goes much deeper than that. Chav is not a very nice way to describe white, working-class people. There are a staggering 323 entries for the word on urbandictionary.com so I'll just give you the highlights:

1. this term can be applied loosely to every culture with a nasty, thieving element
2. Chavs are completely amoral, having never been subjected to right and wrong by their inattentive, uncaring and often absent parent
3. Sub-species of human
4. Chavs are part Magpie, evidentially supported by their love of all things shiny, or as vaccuous, illiterate street-slang would say 'Bling'
5. Clearly recognisable by their distinctive tribal Burberry
6. Chav girls (or chavettes) commonly sport the Croydon Facelift (hair pulled back in a bun so tight that it pulls their faces tight) with at least 6 dangly faux-gold earings in each ear. Also often seen pushing a pram round shopping centers while chain-smoking and wearing fake burberry or nasty velour tracksuits
7. often to be found lurking in braying packs close to fast food outlets or late night stores

Visuals:

Yikes. In addition to their fondness for Burberry and Bacardi Breezers, chavs love a good show of Christmas lights. I guess it is the "bling" aspect of it all. The result (and evidence that class hierarchy is alive and well in the UK): no one else puts up lights. I guess that explains why the only Christmas lights in Dorridge are on a house with an RV parked in the front.


Oh yeah... the RV also has lights on it.

Locksmith or Burglar?

Sunday was not a good day. Remember how I waited for 3 hours for my bag? Well, darling Jeff was waiting for me that entire time on the other side of the baggage claim doors. I think he would want me to point out that he was MUCH closer to open doors to the outside where the temperature was hovering at about 25 degrees.

The drive home was took forever and proved to be rather treacherous because of all the snow. Rear wheel drive doesn't do shit, people who make cars! Take note. We finally made it up the driveway and into the house, where I proceeded to flop around and whine about being so hungry and tired. I love having a good excuse to do those things, and my journey to Dorridge was just about the most watertight excuse I have ever had. 

We bundled up and walked into town for some Indian food. It was terrible. We walked home. It was freezing. God, could this day get any worse? Let me answer that question with a definitive YES. 

The front door wouldn't open. The lock just wouldn't budge. Jeff doesn't even have the key to that door (Lee, the handyman, who is doing our floors, has it) so we come to the conclusion that we must have locked it with the wrong key. Don't even ask me how that is possible. Our keys are ridiculous charming so maybe that's why.

Anyway, the other door is locked from the inside with a kind of weird round key that isn't accessible from the outside. It is 8pm, still freezing obviously, and there is no way we can get in. We to decided to spend the night in the spare room in Jeff's dad's apartment (recently vacated by a fellow coworker who was crashing there until he found his own apartment). We were driving there when I realized, in horror, OMG THE SHEETS ARE GOING TO BE DIRTY. I probably should have kept that to myself. Other thoughts I did well to keep to myself included: OMG no face wash! no lotion! no clean underwear! no toothbrush! That is pretty much the definition of a bad night in my book. 

On Monday morning, Jeff and I met Lee the handyman at the house, confident that the actual key would open the door. Um yeah, it didn't. As Lee would say in his British accent "you're joooking" (say it out loud to get the full effect).  According to him, the brass mechanism of locks like ours sometimes seizes up when it gets really cold. Being a very handy handyman, Lee pulled out some sort of heat gun (the sort of thing you would use to emboss stamps... though I doubt he does) and we attempted to heat up the lock. No luck. 

We soon realized that our only hope would be to somehow get into the house and undo the lock on the other door. The glass in the windows and doors is very thick and according to Lee "a brick would bounce off it". We trust him in these matters. He then suggested that we kick in one of the lower door panels so I could shimmy in and unlock the door. Jeff and I stood back while Lee attempted to put a steel-toed boot through the door several times. The whole house shook, but the door didn't budge. I suggested that we use a saw to cut it out (to which Lee responded "clever girl" - I swear I felt like Hermione Granger for a second). To get the saw started we first had to drill a hole in the door. Grrreeaaat. So Lee drilled.... and drilled and drilled. Turns out our doors are thick! It would take all day to saw a hole big enough for me to fit through.

Option #2: Approximate the location of the inside lock, drill a hole in the outside until we reach the lock, tap the key out, and use a screwdriver to turn the lock back. Lee, you crazayyy!! But do go ahead. More drilling while Jeff and I cringe. There is NO WAY this is going to work. By this point, I'm sure the nosy elderly neighbors are peering over the fence wondering what the hell we are doing.

Ok Lee, I never should have doubted you. It worked! 

Lee: Maybe I should add 'locksmith' to my resume

Jeff:  More like 'burglar'

Dogs Officially Abroad (and sleepy)

The dogs are here! We got a call at 3.30 this afternoon that they had cleared customs and would be with us in 2.5 hours. Jeff and I were on pins and needles staring out the window looking for a big truck/van (we knew it had to be big because those crates are HUGE). When the truck finally pulled into the driveway, the driver opened the back doors and handed me... a garbage bag containing Sascha's vomit covered crate pad. Lovely. I signed some papers while Jeff had his requested "alone time" with the dogs. Someone (not Plato, surprisingly) seemed to be suffering from a little uh traveler's sickness so we walked to the mini mart to pick up the standard cure: rice, chicken broth, and cottage cheese. Tasty.

After conducting a thorough sniff inspection of the house, the dogs settled in and went straight to sleep.

More like logs than dogs, actually. That's how we like 'em.

Snow in Dorridge

I have been woefully remiss in posting pictures of Life In England. Sorry people. This ought to make up for it. You know how hard it is for me to take pictures of things other than Plato and Sascha.

That's the view from our bedroom window.

Major icicles. 

Going nowhere for now. 

It just isn't the same without crazy snow-loving dogs, ya know?

Rewind - Beaudoin Family Pets

Just wanted to share some pictures from my trip down to Portland about a week before I left.

Sascha, Mr. Knightley, and Plato (hovering awkwardly in the background because he is scared of the gate)

The one and only Miles.

Punki!

Margann's adorable fur-baby Polo.

Mr. Knightley. 

Hell is an airport waiting area

I'm going to try to condense the saga of my trip to the UK as much as possible. From my perspective, it was a long, boring, stressful, and miserable experience and I would hate for you to feel similarly while reading this post.

Things went relatively smoothly until I was in the air about ten minutes out from Dublin. The captain announced that due to snow the Birmingham airport had closed. Aer Lingus would not be able to fly us out that day so we were instructed to collect our bags from baggage claim and go to the customer service desk to get a refund. A refund??? That doesn't help me get to Birmingham. It didn't help that one of my bags was missing and of course it was the one that contained everything I did not want to lose: my purse (not my wallet, but still! I like that purse...), Jeff's Christmas present, my vitamins, my phone charger, and my computer charger.

I waited in line for an hour at the Aer Lingus desk and managed to get rebooked on a flight going out the next day at 10.50am. Then, I waited an hour at the Ryanair desk and spent an ungodly amount on a ticket leaving later that day, in 8.5 hours. That was enough time for me to explore every corner of the Dublin airport and come to the conclusion that they do not have a single comfortable chair and that the modern convenience of what we call "heat" has not yet reached them. I guess I should also mention that my warmest coat, gloves, and hat were also in that bag. I took to wearing my neck pillow like a scarf. Not a pretty sight. I was on the verge of using a pair of dirty socks as gloves when, after waiting for 7 hours, my flight was canceled. Dude!! Not cool.

Waited. In. Line. For. Another. Hour. A disgusting drunk (oh that's how they expect people to fend off frostbite) in front of me asked if I wanted to share a hotel room with him, no strings attached. Thanks for that buddy... just what I needed. Anyway, I managed to get a refund for the Ryanair flight. I began to realize that I was going to have to spend the night somewhere, that I had no guarantee of flying out the next day even, and that my cell phone battery was slowly dwindling. After calling about every hotel near the airport and finding them full, I finally found a room at the Hilton Dublin Airport. It wasn't cheap but the upside of all this stress was that, by dinner time, the knot in my stomach was so huge I didn't have any room for a crappy $30 room service pizza.

I slept for about 1.5 hours before I started to have nightmares about being stranded in Dublin with a dead phone and a dead computer and no way to contact the outside world. Watching the news did not help. All the major UK airports were closed and it was uncertain when they would reopen. Heathrow airport, the fourth biggest airport in the world and the one that handles more international passengers than any airport in the world, was operating with only one runway open. By 5am I was compelled to do something (anything!) so I got dressed, walked to the nearest 24 hour superstore, and bought a phone charger.  I was absolutely giddy, in part because of lack of food and sleep, but also because iPhones are awesome.

(So much for condensing this story. I'm totally bored of it right now but I'll power through.)

I made it to the airport. My flight took off on time. We landed in Birmingham (not Dublin! Hooray!). And then we sat on the plane for 30 minutes waiting for stairs to arrive. I didn't mind. I was so close! After finally getting off the plane, everyone got in a shuttle bus which would take us to the terminal. We arrived at the terminal and stopped directly across from the door. For some reason, the driver could not let us off the bus until instructed to do so by security so we all waited, standing on the bus and staring at the door. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. We watched an old lady being wheeled through the door. Hey! She was on our flight! I believe it was at that point that the mild mannered British folk on the bus turned into a bunch of hooligans. People began to yell and swear, demanding that the driver open the doors. The man next to me started pounding the window with his fist. People pushed emergency buttons, only to find they didn't actually do anything. The driver finally consented to open the doors, as long as we didn't leave the bus. The doors opened...surprise! We left the bus. Security shouted at us, but I'm pretty sure it would have taken riot police to keep us from going through those doors. As we walked down the hallway, walkie talkies buzzed. "The Dublin flight has forced their way from the bus". They didn't even check our passports. We made it to the baggage claim area. It was there the airport staff had their revenge.

We waited 3 HOURS for our bags. Every flight that came in after us got their bags before us. Tensions were running high and there was talk of going to retrieve the bags ourselves. At this point, I would not have been surprised. We could actually see our bags if we looked behind those rubber flaps where the conveyor belt enters the baggage claim area. When the belt finally started and the first person from our flight picked up their bag, a cheer went up. High fives and hugs all round. When the last bag was picked up, I noticed this little note making its way along the belt to the staff in the back.

Yep. That pretty much sums it up.

Piece No. 327 but not a hoarder.

I know, right. It is amazing how much STUFF you can fit in 1200 square feet. Okayyyyy I admit it, this picture may be slightly misleading seeing how my handy dandy little roll of box number stickers started at 291, but box number 37 sure as hell felt like number 327. Seeing that little 327 makes me feel extremely accomplished and helps me justify having pizza for lunch and dinner. 

The downside of 3-digits in relation to box numbers, however, is that it smacks of hoarding and I am anything but a hoarder. Even the word is gross. In fact, I'm going to take this opportunity to advise thesaurus.com to revisit their synonyms for "hoard". "Treasure-trove", really? Don't make me laugh. Also, in the running for understatement of the year: "to put aside for a rainy day". If this what putting things aside for a rainy day looks like then 1. I need to get a move on and 2. they know something we don't.

Oh yeah. That's Gordon and Gaye's BEDROOM before "Hoarders" came and ruined their life's work. 

The after shot still makes me cringe.  (I don't think those boxes even have numbers on them!!) I can see Gaye being like "Damnit Gordon. I totally thought we had a Queen size bed under there - I'd better unpack some of these boxes".

I haven't even gotten to the worst part yet. And no it isn't that Gordon and Gaye live in Washington state, have two children and seven cats, and are content to use large buckets instead of a toilet.  

Oh no. I'm talking about the antonyms for hoard. Squander? Throw away? Waste? I'm really quite offended to be painted in such a negative light. If thesaurus.com had its way, the next time I'm about to empty the vacuum canister into the trash I would hesitate and think "I really should not squander this pile of dirt and dog hair. I should save this and each subsequent bountiful floor harvest for a rainy day and use it to make a pillow." Ew. 

I'm proud of my powers of de-cluttering, but there is nothing like packing up your entire life to remind you that it is best not to accumulate the clutter in the first place. Even the best of us can end up with a deceptively large closet that hasn't been opened in months filled to the brim with random (clearly unnecessary!) crap. Box number 328, here I come. 

Crate Practice

Today I decided to check in on how Plato and Sascha are feeling about the crates that have been sitting around the house collecting dust for the last 2 months. I kept telling myself I would start crate training them tomorrow, but now it is December 4th and they are going to be in a crate on a plane for 9 hours in 13 days. Dang. Turns out I have a crate failure and a crate prodigy. 

The last time Plato was in a crate was the summer of 2006 when he was about 10 weeks old. It didn't go so well. He cried literally ALL NIGHT. Let's be honest, he wasn't the only one. I tried to tough it out, but do you realize how hard it is to be tough on a little bundle of mopey cuteness such as this??

Wait... let's look at another one just for fun.

At some point someone must have told him the sad, dejected puppy face suited him. Hey, it got him out of crate - and into the bed.

Let's just say that the arrival of the crates this time around was a rude awakening. Anyway, I figured the best way to entice Plato to actually enter the crate would be to throw a tennis ball in it, his absolute favorite thing in the entire world. 

Pathetic! Especially after you see this.




Have you ever seen such ease and grace? I think not. Poetry in motion. The crate prodigy. You probably need to watch it again to catch the subtle nuances of her performance.

Plato, we have a long way to go in 2 weeks.