Nebulous Mooch

Yesterday was my stepson’s 16th birthday (sweet 16) so we went into London to celebrate. After getting him loaded on tequila and buying him a hooker, we took him to London Eye. When it was built in 1999, it was the world’s tallest Ferris wheel. Since then the Chinese and Singaporeans have built Ferris wheels that are larger. (Hey, leave it to me to keep informed in Ferris wheel trivia.) It’s not the largest anymore, but I’m sure it’s the most expensive. It cost £17.50 per person.

Even though the London Eye is only the third largest Ferris wheel in the world and undoubtedly the most expensive the masses of camera toting, backpack wearing tourists flock to it even in the middle of the day on a Thursday. Don’t these people have jobs.
We stood in that line for more than 45 minutes. The ride–I should say flight because that’s how they refer to it in the brochure–on the Ferris wheel lasted maybe 20 minutes. My stepson was happy with the ride flight though. That’s what was important. Here are some pictures he took.

He doesn’t look very happy in this picture, but I swear he was.

My stepson grew up in Florida, but has managed to maintain an English accent his entire life–until now. Recently, something quite strange has occurred. Now that he lives in England and has very limited contact with Americans his accent is rapidly becoming more American.

He’s gone in the direction of the ultra patriot. Singing the national anthem and self-consciously pronouncing his r’s and changing double t’s in the middle of words to d’s.

He spent the summer in Florida with his mother. When we picked him up at the airport his American accent was full on.

“Why are you talking like that?” my husband asked.

“Like what?” my stepson replied.

“With that fake accent.”

“I’ve been back home so long that my accent just changed.” (He always refers to the States as back home.) He’d been “back home” for a whole 6 weeks.

My husband furrowed his brow. “Accents don’t change that much that quickly. ”

The American accent ebbs at times, but still remains–comically so. The other day my stepson was talking to one of our Florida friends on Skype and the friend said, “Why’s your accent sound even more American now that you don’t live here?”

Anyway, here’s a picture of my truly American stepson, who is proud to be an American because at least he knows he’s free.

There was a time when gas prices were very important to me. I mean very, very important.  I used to obsess over them. So much so that I went so far as putting a widget in one of my posts that shows the price of crude oil in real time. I used to drive out of my way to get cheap gas, but now I couldn’t even guess how much gas costs. That’s what happens when you don’t drive.

I mention this because I heard that my town is known for its low gas prices. I don’t know how true that is, but it is an interesting fact. Okay, I admit maybe I’m reaching a bit. Maybe it’s not that interesting. Maybe it’s just interesting to me because I still have a passing interest in the price of gas. Since I will start driving one day, it comforts me to know that I won’t have to drive too far to get cheap gas.

I love jeans. I wear them almost everyday–boot cut, flare, straight leg. I own them all and they look great on me or at least that’s what I think. We don’t have any full length mirrors in the house so I guess I don’t really know, but I feel like I look good.

There’s one thing I don’t really understand about fashion these days.   I just can’t seem to wrap my head around skinny jeans. Why would you would make your body look like that? I was on a website the other day and I decided to look at the jeans they carry. This is what I saw.

or this one:

Should anyone really be wearing these pants? If they can’t make the picture to sell them look good, how do you expect them to look good on you? I see this horrible silhouette all over town and I wonder what they were thinking. If you own a pair of these jeans, I’m not talking about you. I’m sure you look great in your skinny jeans. Maybe like me, you should consider buying a full length mirror for your house though.

It’s starting to get cold out. Every time I step outside I’m reminded of how much I don’t like the cold. I’m wrapped up in my winter coat and there are still people going out in t-shirts. I’m a weather wimp. I openly admit it.

The cold mornings have made me less fond of the chilly fruit and yogurt that I eat to replace cereal for breakfast. I’ve been trying to find some alternatives. I tried eating eggs and though I like eggs, I just don’t like them for breakfast. So I’ve started eating oatmeal. My oats are carefully prepared by soaking them overnight in water with lemon juice to break down the antinutrients in them, but you don’t really want to hear all about my grain soaking obsession here.

The oatmeal is great. It cooks up fast. I add a banana and some raisins for sweetness. This is my new favorite breakfast. Who would’ve thought that me, the girl who always refused to eat oatmeal would say such a thing. Just this morning I said, “I love oatmeal.”

My husband who was reading something really important on the NFL site said, “That’s good.” But I could tell by the way he said it that he wasn’t really listening. He didn’t really understand how much I love oatmeal, but I couldn’t be bothered to push the subject just then. I had a delicious bowl of oatmeal to eat.

My relationship with oatmeal isn’t all good. I don’t much care for this strange skin it leaves all over the pan.

My husband: When I was a kid we used to have ice cream cake every Saturday.

I haven’t eaten cake for a very long time, but my husband is well aware of my previous love for cake, especially ice cream cake.

Me: What kind of fantasy world did you grow up in? We only had ice cream cake on someone’s birthday and even then it wasn’t guaranteed. When we did have it one of my parents would always mention how expensive it was while we were eating it.

My husband: We had ice cream every night after dinner too.

Me: Every night, weren’t you living the good life? Don’t ever tell me your family didn’t have much money when you grew up again.

My husband: I owned the same two shirts for three year running. Those were the only shirts I had. They had buttons missing.

Me: Who cares? What kid cares about new shirts. Kids want ice cream.

When I was a kid if someone gave me the choice between a new shirt and ice cream, I’d have wanted the ice especially if it were vanilla, unless it was in cake form, then it didn’t matter what flavor it was. (I think that was a run-on sentence, but I don’t want to correct it.)

I’ve decided to let my hair grow out. I’ve always wanted long hair. When I was a little girl I’d put a bath towel over my head and pretend it was my long hair. I’d flip it this was and that and say things like, “Don’t you love my beautiful long hair?”

I normally keep my hair cut to just about jaw length, but once every couple of years I decide to grow it long.  That’s how long it takes me to forget what happened the last time I tried to grow my hair long. It gets bigger not longer.

In this badly taken picture (I’m yet to master the art of photographing myself) my hair doesn’t look much longer than it was when I first moved to the UK. But if I stretch my hair out….

…it’s well past my shoulders. See. See. I told you it’s grown.

If I continue to let it grow, it’ll just get bigger and bigger until I become the woman no one wants to sit behind in the movie theater.  The idea of that used to make me feel really self-conscious, but now I don’t care. I’m ready to be that woman. I don’t like it when people sit behind me in the movie theater anyway. They always kick the back of my seat.

My stepson likes countries. He can tell you the name of the leader of just about any country and the type of government they run. He has lots of very strong opinions about these leaders and governments.

Lately, he’s taken to naming a country and then asking if I’d like to go there. I think he would base his decision on whether or not he approves of their government. That’s probably a good way to make that decision, but as with most things, I found myself making that decision with my stomach.

“How about Thailand?” he’d ask.

“Yeah, I’d go there. I really like their curry.”

“India?”

“Of course, I’ll go any place with curry.”

“How about Iran?”

“No, I don’t think so.” I’d watched part of a show on the BBC the previous day called Taste of Iran. I’d only watched the first 20 minutes, but the food just didn’t seem appealing. It was so unappealing that I had to just turn the show off.

Most people travel to see the sites. They want to have their pictures taken next to famous landmarks. I want to travel the world with my taste buds. I’d rather eat something I’ve never eaten before than see something in real life that I’ve seen in pictures a million times before.

I got this in my vegetable box today. The only reason I know what it is because its name was on the receipt. The question is can you identify this vegetable? If you can, can you tell me how to cook it because I have no idea.

We have these hideous green curtains in our living room. They came with the flat and despite having renewed the lease yet again, I like pretending I’m not going to be staying in this flat for long so I never changed them. Anyway, when you pull them back there’s a piece of fabric to hook around them. I guess it’s just decorative because the curtains don’t really need any help staying pulled back. Honestly, the fabric that “holds them back” is too ugly to be decorative.

I’m telling you all of this because my husband opened the curtains the other day and this is his attempt at dealing with the dingy decorative piece of  fabric that holds the curtains back.

I have to give him credit for trying. He could’ve just left it hanging to the side of the curtain like I often do, but he neatly pulled it across the curtain and rested it on the window sill. I was watching when he did this. When I started laughing and taking pictures he accused me of being mean.