Brightly Colored Veg: Learning to Live with Five a Day

When I was growing up, my mother made cucumber and carrot sticks, she broke off cauliflower and broccoli florets, and she cut stars into the tops of radishes before throwing the lot into old margarine tubs and covering with them with water. Mom would place these on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, allowing my sister and I to graze our ways through the day.

It isn't a terribly practical plan here. My butter containers would fit just about two carrots. Refrigerators are small, and unlike the US, freezers tend to be on the bottom. I've tried over the years to emulate my mother, but vegetables tended to get eaten before they made it to the tubs or forgotten all together. Here I share the the refrigerator with my housemate, and she'll be the first to tell you that I forget about the food I cannot see when first glancing below the counter and into the fridge. Food was rarely wasted, just eaten well into the floppy but edible stage.

I'm terrible about making complete meals for one. I plan them, buy the food stuffs, then eat the ingredients one by one. This usually results in a lot of uncooked pasta and rice. It isn't that I don't have the time, but that I generally eat when I reach the point of starving or when I'm trying to sit down to write. I generally cook when someone might thank me for doing so. The question is one of degree. While I am happier when I am fed, I am happier still when I have fed someone else.

Years ago I stopped getting hungry. Until the point at which my eyes rang the migraine alarm bells or I simply fell over, my body gave me no reminders to eat. I wouldn't have eaten at all at University had the other women in my hall not knocked on my door and asked me when I was going to dinner, to breakfast. Mostly, I forgot lunch until after the dining hall had closed because there was no one to remind me to put food into my stomach between classes and work. When I tried to explain, men and women alike envied me my stick figure.
I still rarely get hungry; though, I have lost the stick figure.

Friends will tell you that I am never so grateful as when someone feeds me a meal they have cooked. They'll say that I eat ravenously. They may even say that they have heard me utter the words: I'm hungry. My friends are reasonably smart people. They know what I mean is that I want to break bread in their company. They know that I have likely forgotten to stop for a moment for lunch. They know I have looked toward my own kitchen and figured I'd go and make something soon. Soon is rather like the rest of the future; it rarely arrives when we most expect it to.

The night before we buried my grandmother, my sister made a roast for my brother-in-law, my father, my stepmother, and I. We ate slowly, taking our time over the thick slices of pork.  We didn't talk about what the next morning would bring; though, my father slowly articulated our families life in that far off place we call a long time ago. For one short moment, we forgot the forks in our hands, the dishes to be done, the years in between that make the distances between us so necessary. There in the rental house, I sat with my father and one of my sisters, and we ate a home cooked meal as a family--something that hasn't happened in sixteen whispering years.

I am trying to learn to eat food cooked for one. It has become, rather suddenly, a necessity. After that dinner in Denver, we sent my sister and her husband on a date. My stepmother began to do the washing up, and Dad prepared for bed. I opened my laptop, typed my password, and discovered that the job that made up the bulk of my income no longer existed. Nor did the job of anyone else who was working from outside of the state in which the university's buildings sit.

And I am lucky. I have a second job with good people who are throwing as many hours as they can afford in my direction. I have friends who have been out of work for two years, who at thirty-three are living with their parents who themselves cannot afford to retire. I have friends who have been told to go back to university to retrain, despite their PhDs and decades worth of student loan debt. I have friends who dole out calories to their children, skimping on their own, in hopes that children who feel hungry are still well enough fed. But I also know how thin the line between underemployed and unemployed is. I know that the electric bill is going to be much higher than the amount the housemate and I toss into the savings account each month. I know that I may or may not have enough hours next month to make up the difference. I know that what I write as melancholy is really fear. So while I search for another job that may well be forthcoming, I'm buying what's left at the end of the day at the veg stall to avoid paying rent with the emergency plane ticket. And I am grateful that it is, for now, more than enough.

The Television Screen.

It's gorgeous outside. The sun has just dipped below the hills west of the house, so the fields below the are innumerable shades of green and the neighbors horses are gently grazing. I'm watching friends and thinking about everything that somehow must get done tomorrow. It isn't much really, but I'd like to finish the shawl I'm crocheting and that feels like a pleasure. As a child of protestant America, I'm not allowed to do the pleasurable until the work gets done. I'm likely to finish that shawl sometime next January--unless we're suddenly allowed crochet hooks on planes.

Sherry at Wherever She Goes  in Alaska has given up her family's home internet and television. They've not done it for the same reasons that so many essayists and editorialists seem inclined to mention. It isn't about saving her daughter from the red monster, nor is it about rejecting a modern way of life.  Rather Sherry and her husband would like to buy a house one day. Getting rid of the telly and the intermonster have done all of those other things for them, but it is also allowing another $100 a month to go towards that one-day home.

My current big purchase dreams are a sewing machine, a bed of my own, and dishes. It's difficult for me to remember that the Great British need to buy a home isn't part of my own experience or make-up. Culture here demands that one of a young person's goals should be to own a home. There are some good reasons for that that I may get to another day when I'm feeling brave. But it wasn't until I moved here that I ever thought that owning a home was important. I certainly didn't see renting as a problem, particularly since I didn't have children.

While I could now, given the right job in the right income bracket, afford a mortgage in the States, I carry a lot of student loan debt. Even at the height of the economic-ruination bonanza, I wouldn't have been able to get a mortgage for exactly that reason. So what money I do have to save goes in the sewing machine/new bed/dishes category. I'd happily give up the television for a sewing machine, but we don't pay for television. I can't give up the internet--I use it to do my job. And for me, there are many other negotiations involved.

When I moved into the flat, I only expected to be here for eighteen months. A year before moving in here, I'd given away or taken most of what I owned to the transfer station, left a few boxes with friends, and simply left some of it behind in the cabin. Giving those things up wasn't difficult; the reality of living out of two suitcases was. I no longer owned a bed or a chair, so I tried not think about who else had slept in the beds in my rentals. I tried to remember not to balance my coffee cups on a the couch cushions, and I was very careful not to obtain things I might want to keep. I did bring a skillet, a soup pot, cutlery, and bedding with me.

Back then, it made sense to move into a partially furnished house with a housemate who had enough kit to fill out most of it. Over time, my own belongings have begun to bulge from my room, off my bookshelf, and out of my cupboard. More than that though, I'm longing to make a home of my own. I don't want to need to apologize when I break a glass. I want to be able to put my headboard against any wall in the house rather than having to think about our shared wall, I want bowls that aren't blue. It all comes down to another desire--I want my life and decisions to stop being made on the basis of transience.

When I first moved into the flat, we didn't have a landline or internet. I did most of my work at the local or uni library, and I felt like I was allowed to watch telly when I got home. I did a three-year master's degree in the States. Inevitably, I had class on a Thursday night. For the following year and a half, I taught on a Thursday night. Those first six months of evenings in this flat were spent getting caught up on Friends two episodes at a time. I got into the habit (or back into the habit) of keeping the television on for the sake of noise and company.

It is looking increasingly like I am not going to find a job that pays enough to keep me in the country under the points based system. Still I need a job in addition to the teaching I do online to live out my UK visa days. As I said, the television isn't mine. I don't own it, and it sits in communal space. I'd like to see it gone because my own will-power isn't enough to keep me from turning it on and ignoring the things I need to be doing on the internet.

I'm Learning to Run: I'm Learning Not to Think

Evolving Revolver did a very brave thing a few years ago. She sold up, moved to France, became fluent in French, had some ups and downs, met a man, made peace with the idea of returning to the States, got the man a visa and moved back to the US.

I've been thinking about her a lot recently. In part because if I don't find a job that pays enough to meet the points-based system requirements before September 8, I'll only have a year left in England. I've been thinking a lot about what that will mean for me, and I've been trying to figure out how to go about thinking about returning to the States. I've been thinking about what other options there might be, and I've been trying to envision how that move, more than year away at least, might look for me.

And I've also been reading over at Happy Homemaker UK. She's reasonably early in her UK experience, but she reminds me regularly why I'm fighting to remain here. I don't know whether or not the UK is a long term plan for her, but I do know the things she's enjoying are the reasons I want to remain here.

It's turning out to be a rather introspective spring around here. I don't think that is bad thing, but I have at least five job applications to finish before Friday.

Pumps, Motors, and Camera Envy

It is an open secret around here that I really hate our washing machine. It is a good machine, and it has been going round and round for at least seven years. The drum is large enough for a decent sized load of laundry, which is almost unheard of in this country. I can do smaller loads without heaps of guilt on the eco+small load cycle; though, I don't do that often. Most importantly, it is not digital. This means fewer computer breakdowns, and I suspect longer life.

But the machine and I got involved late in our lives. We both had baggage. Mine comes in the form of allergic (and exercise induced) asthma. The machine's comes in years of not bathing well enough, regularly enough. I have to admit that I didn't help matters during the first two years of our relationship. And now, I, we, have a weekly fight in which I scrub it and concede that it can keep some of its grime. Look, I can't help wanting a newer, younger model. Even though I know they have commitment issues, they're also clean. The vinegar, hotwash, powdered detergent regimen works well on them. I know they break more often. I know using an older machine uses less energy than just the manufacture of a new one. I know. I know. I know.

And still when the old machine started whirring in a non-jet plane manner, I couldn't bear to mention my desire for a new machine. I thought I might jinx the possibility. I thought if this one was really truly dead, I wouldn't mind so much. Even though I knew it would be at least a week before I could rewash the mess of sopping laundry sitting alternately in the bath tub and the bathroom (no toilet) sink, I was totally willing to suffer the loss of a few pieces of clothing to the mold gods.

I rent, so the cost wasn't actually an issue for me. If we didn't rent, I would have been all about replacing parts rather than the entire machine. I am suffering from serious camera envy. If I had an extra 200 pounds going, I'd hand wash my clothing in order to satiate the camera envy. Did I mention washing machines are expensive? Fortunately, I don't have to replace the machine and the camera envy should pass.

When I described the problem as "the sound a blender makes when its motor burns out and two inches of water on the bottom of the drum," I was completely right. The pump motor had gone. A new one was fitted in a matter of minutes. We don't get a new machine. I'm pretty peaceful about that, but only because the repair man also performed the miracle of making the airplane takeoff sound much quieter.

Now we have this problem. A problem which I am sure would look prettier with a new camera. This is the old pump. There is a shed load of copper in there. Does anyone have suggests as to how one sends something like this for recycling?

Bleh

Last Spring

We are still gray sky and blah. Here in Bath, we had short periods of sunshine yesterday. None of them lasted long enough for me to get my trainers (tennis shoes) on and go soak up some vitamin D. I am not really certain why this winter seems to have lasted so long. I've lived through longer, colder, and darker ones--often all in the same year. I hated those too.

I am reminded that by the calendar spring isn't quite here. The vernal equinox isn't due for another seventeen days, and our average temperatures are not that much lower than in a typical year.  And all of the signs of spring are showing their glorious faces. The snowdrops and across the road the forsythia are in full bloom. From the bus in Box, I saw my first lambs of spring. Those last were by all accounts a bit early. Usually the Corsham lambs are the first to catch my eye, but soon the countryside behind my house will be feeding hundreds of them.
 
When I'm done with winter, but winter is hanging on to me, I am given to fits of impulse. In college, I'd fill my car with petrol (gas) and drive until my tank was half empty. I don't miss being a driver, but I do miss driving seventy on my way to wherever I end up.  Sometimes when the gauge hit half-empty, I'd decide to just keep going anyway. It's how I saw a lot of Tenessee, most of Ohio, and more than a bit of Kentucky. It's how I memorized all of the songs on John Mellencamp's American Fool. Petrol was cheap in those days.

When I first started writing here, I didn't tell anyone I knew about the blog. I saw it as a place where I could be whatever version of me I wanted to be. I saw it as a place where I could complain about my family and be uncouth in my wording. Then I started writing things that I wanted seen by the people who have known me for most life, and some of those people started dying. It was then too that something extraordinarily nice began to happen, people I didn't know started reading. I supposed that it was a combination of those two things--the loss of old friends and the meeting of new ones--that made me think that I'd like the comments here to be more of a conversation. But the new Disqus system was most definitely a product of a spring fever induced impulse. I don't know how I feel about it yet. It's entirely possible that I'll change my mind about it this evening. In theory, it should tell you when someone replies to your comments. We'll see.

In the meantime, a friend has kindly offered me a ticket to a reading tonight. I'm off to try to get out of the bleh.

Toilet Doors without Peeping Holes

I don't know whether to post this under Fabulous Things about England or Things That Annoy the Poo(p) out of Me (first installment coming soon). Or maybe I need a series of posts on things my British friends have noted about the United States.

Not so long ago my friend S. mentioned that, while visiting the US, she'd felt awfully exposed in the public loos because of the gap between the loo doors and their walls. I rather suddenly realized why early in my stay I had felt so completely claustrophobic in English public toilets.

You'll have to forgive the poor photography below. Both my friend in the US and I found that it is virtually impossible to get a whole toilet door in a photograph.

US public restroom door #1

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It looks like just a sliver from this angle, but my American friend was kind enough to provide us with a close up as well.

Now imagine you're in the queue with a small child who asks questions.

The Brits have a rather obvious solution to peek-a-boo in the loo.

It's all about hinges.

I think I can add stall doors to the list of ways in which British engineering is better than American engineering.

Fabulous Things About England #17: Washing Machines and How to get the Mold Out

This is my washing machine.

Like most English washing machines it lives in my kitchen.

I hear that many Americans are moving toward front loading machines. As usual the newfangled in America has long been the old school in Europe. If it's space saving, you can practically guarantee it has been used for eons on this side of the pond. See also dorm fridges, drawer freezers, and most of your flat-pack furniture. Ditto for energy saving. But that is tomorrow's post on dryers.

Back in my days at Indiana University, the powers of the universe replaced all of the top loading machines with front loaders. We were annoyed. At first, this was because the machines also came with higher prices. And with much grumbling and insisting the things were energy saving (really should have been more on board with that but this was before the tech crash of 2000), the powers that be agreed that once the new machines were paid for the extra money would go to some student service or another. I wonder if that actually happened.

My later complaint was that I couldn't open the machines and pull out garments I didn't want to go through the spin cycle or garments that I hadn't meant to put in on a hot wash. When I made those very frequent mistakes, I also couldn't change the temperature of the water by flipping a switch. I shrunk almost all of my jumpers (sweaters) that year. I still think the trustees owe me several woolens.I'm fairly certain the one I suggested that to would be gleeful to know that I now have one of those front loaders in my kitchen.

The problem with front loaders is of course mold. And the problem with front loaders in the land of hard water is limescale. And the problem with front loaders in the land of limescale and mold is the movement toward highly concentrated liquid soap use on thirty degree cycles (86 F, a cool wash). Add an American without a clue to that, and you get some pretty nasty stuff.

How to Avoid Giant Mold Growing Appliance (Or I am not an expert. Call your machine's maker for advice)

• If you wash your clothing using a liquid detergent at any temperature, you really need to use a water softening tablet as well. And you guessed it, that just ups the miles your detergent travels and the weight of that detergent. Powder and powder tablets already have the the water softener added. Lack of softener in most of England will lead to limescale buildup which will eventually lead to your machine dying. It is more ecologically sound to use an old energy guzzling machine than to buy a new one. And like all machines, machines without buildup are much more energy efficient.

• Detergents build up. If you don't believe me, run your machine on empty  without adding detergent (on a hot wash because that's the solution to the problem anyway) and watch all of those soap suds in your handy window. See the above problems with limescale, and add to that new detergent not getting through to your clothes and old detergent molding. The solution is to do at least one hot wash a week. Sheets, pants (underwear) and towels should be done on a hot wash anyway. So you don't have to add an extra load every week. And pour a kettle of hot water down the drain pipe now and then. This last isn't a bad idea for all of your drain pipes.

• Your detergent drawer is made to come out of the machine and be thoroughly scrubbed on a regular basis. I do ours once a month, and it's not enough. It's a good idea to place your detergent directly into the tub rather than into your drawer as this avoids the problem all together. Read your washing detergent instructions and your machine instructions as all of these things are variable. I know you'll do this anyway because as I mentioned at the top, I'm not an expert.

• When you open the door to your machine, you'll note the rubber seal has many puckers. After each wash, dry the entirety of that seal with a towel. You'll be amazed at how much water gets trapped in there. It will grow mold, impossible to remove mold, if left to its own devices.

• Leave the door open whenever you're not using the machine. It'll dry it out and keep down the mold and damp (mildew) in the machine. If you have a tendency to close things without noticing, you'll want to place a tea towel (kitchen towel) in between the door and the seal. It'll stop the door from actually shutting.

• Your machine also has a filter. Clean it once a week. Make sure you have a towel handy when you pull it out of the machine. It's meant to keep your drains from blocking, but it has to be cleaned for that to work. If it hasn't been cleaned you will end up with a bunch of mold inside it.

Once the mold is in, it is a complete nightmare to get out. Because of how the machines are made and the amount of plastic and rubber in them, straight bleach is NOT an option. Read your machine instructions for helpful hints. I'm not going to tell you how to handle the situation because most of the solutions on offer can also lead to the death of your machine. I will tell you that I spent two days one sunny day in May with a tooth brush and two litters of vinegar. My housemate being English knew none of this. So, it falls to me to make these things happen because she doesn't really believe me. Next week is going to involve another toothbrush a ton of elbow grease. It's tempting to start doing the whole household's laundry.

Tomorrow, I'll introduce you to my dryer. Right now I have an appointment with my kettle.

Brolly Damp: The Secret Life of Mold Revisited

This is my brolly.

You'll notice it is open in the house. I'm trying to dry it properly.

Because

Failure to dry one's brolly properly leads to small white deposits known in England as damp. Damp is mildew. Damp stinks. Damp sets off my asthma. Damp, if left to its own devices, will disintegrate brolly fabric. And a tattered brolly does very little good. I know this because I am very good at forgetting the wet brollies I've left in my handbag. A toothbrush, a bit of vinegar, and good drying out will fix this one. I hope. 

Unexpected Rules # 1

It is considered bad luck and rude for women to wear black to a wedding. This completely ruins my ability to keep one dress for all occasions.

Whinging Next to the Tourists

It has been a rough week on the international front. Today, I went to drop off an application for summer work at Starbucks. Yes, I know I'm way over qualified. I need something right now that doesn't break any of the rules of my current visa. I need work that is guaranteed from week to week, and I need to be able to keep that work from interfering with the latest batch of revisions on the book. But I have to wonder whether or not I can really keep my mouth shut during the height of tourist season.

Today, I listened to an American woman telling her teenage son that he couldn't have 'whatever that @#%* is that they pass off as yogurt.' I found myself turning to the woman next to me and saying, 'We're not all like that.' My housemate reports that she watched an American man tell a waitress that he tipped in reverse. When the waitress asked if he'd like to order, he told her she was down to 10%. He'd tell her when he wanted to order. Never mind that tipping isn't compulsory in this country. And another friend reports that she was present when an American man turned to an entire bus queue and demanded to know why everyone was standing around doing nothing. He was further angered by the fact that those people were standing near the cash-point. Welcome to Europe where space is at a premium. Learn to cover your pin with you hand Buck-O. We all get to witness such events throughout the coming months. And the Americans who have come to interact with a different culture, the ones who please and thank you their ways through Bath, will go largely unnoticed.

I have the added disadvantage of sounding like a tourist. I find myself clarifying that I live here. No, really, I don't want a cheap airmail stamp. No, really, I want an all-day bus pass. No, really, I want chips not crisps. And as frustrating as I find it, I'm grateful that people are trying to keep me from being disappointed or discovering that I've paid too much.

The English (and I do mean the English not the Scots, the Welsh, or the Irish) are known as the great rude people throughout Europe. Often they're disappointed that no other country speaks English. They're frustrated when they've managed to book into a hotel that doesn't serve chips. They yell their words as though this alone will provide a translation for the locals. They complain of summer heat in Egypt, beggars in India, and stringent rules in the United Arab Emirates. And then there are those who don't, but theirs aren't the voices that I hear. There are days when I think I've not changed countries. Rather I hear the same things in a new accent.

And then I'm reminded of the things for which I am grateful. The health service, public transport, a working social security system (for which I do not qualify but which has supported for short periods many of my friends here), freely available custard, a slower pace of life, a willingness to make do and mend, recycling, maternity leave, and a sense of gratefulness. And I think that I am whinging a step to far.