The Museum Nazi

D & I went to the Soane Museum today. Sir John Soane was a famous British architect who designed among other things The Bank of England Building. I am not a huge fan of architecture but D is and it was fairly interesting. We went to lunch afterward and I am a fan of lunch.

Sir John's museum is in his old house, actually three houses. As his collection grew, he bought the neighboring homes joining them and making one huge building, albeit a little disjointed. Although there are some interesting art pieces, the more interesting pieces were the bits and pieces of old buildings he "acquired". He "acquired" pieces from the Roman Forum, the Coliseum, ancient buildings in Greece that were in disrepair. He admits choosing the colors of the walls of his drawing rooms from a piece of a fresco that he chipped off one of the ruins in Pompeii. It seems to me that if more people "acquired" things in this same manner, there would hardly be anything left of these landmarks for the rest of the world to admire. To be fair, a good portion of his collection he purchased and he was a shrewd businessman. He obtained the ancient Egyptian sarcophagus of Seti I when the British Museum refused to pay £2000 for it. This sarcophagus was a remarkable example of the kind of workmanship done at the time, 1250 BC, although it has suffered because of its uncontrolled exposure to the British climate.

There was also a model of the mausoleum he designed and built for his family.This building later inspired another designer, who designed something I see every day in London - the red telephone boxes that have become so iconic.

However, the most fascinating part of the day for me came before we even entered the museum. To be truthful, I had never heard of Sir John before D mentioned she would like to check out this museum but I guess among architect buffs, especially in Europe, he is well known. They often get very large crowds and they have set up a strange little procedure for managing the crowds. When we arrived, there was no line and we walked up toward the door through an iron fence. I noticed a sign on the fence that said something to the effect, 'don't go up the door, wait outside of the fence to be acknowledged'. We looked around and we weren't sure if this was a sign meant for the weekends, and we stood there for a minute puzzled. We were still kind of looking around, when the door opened and a man gestured for us to come in the doorway. We went inside and he told us (1) we had to turn off our cell phones, and he had to watch us do it to make sure they were off (2) no photos, which was not unusual (3) we had to sign a ledger with our name and address and (4) we could bring our purses in but we could not let them hang freely from our shoulders to the side, we needed to hold them in front of our bodies the entire time so they would not brush against any items. He demonstrated the correct purse-holding position and then made us show him that we understood by repeating the procedure.

While our museum visiting training session was going on, another pair of visitors tried to walk up to the door without waiting at the designated spot by the iron fence. Our museum rules dictator rushed to the front door, stopped them by putting up his hand and told them to go back to the sidewalk. The confused couple didn't quite understand what he wanted so they went down the front steps but didn't go any further. He waved them back, they still didn't understand so he went out to the front walk, took them by the arm and escorted them to the anointed area. He came back inside to complete our orientation. After we finished, we started to walk inside and I thought I would take off my coat and carry it. "No!" the museum commandant whispered loudly. I couldn't carry my coat because I might accidentally hit something with the coat. If I wanted to take it off, I needed to decide now and put it on the one of the hooks at the entryway. Yikes, this guy was wound way too tight but I did as I was told. Frankly, I was too afraid not to.

I have been to many, many, many museums. Most of them have the same kind of rules, don't touch, no cell phones, no photos, etc. This went above and beyond. It reminded me very much of the Seinfeld episode "The Soup Nazi", where the proprietor of a soup restaurant would not serve you if you didn't follow a very precise ordering and paying routine. This was the same thing. I felt at any minute our museum nazi was going to kick us out on our ears (or other body parts) and yell "No, No Museum for You!". But he didn't. Apparently he hadn't heard of our near disaster at Kensington Palace. Whew!!

Apparently They Don't Let Just Anyone In

This week the British Home Office, the UK folks in charge of entry clearances, visas and such, denied entry clearance to the rapper Snoop Dog. Last year he & his posse (sorry Kiki) got into a brouhaha at Heathrow when British Airways wouldn't let his entire group into the first class lounge. Of the 30+ in his entourage, only 3 had first class tickets. What is a rapper to do? Well, you throw things and generally bust up the first class lounge. Seven police officers suffered injuries,British Airways banned him for life and the UK said don't come back anytime soon. So what does he do? He schedules the opening leg of his new tour with P Diddy (aka Sean Combs, Puffy, etc) to start this week in the UK and kind of double dog (snoop dog) dares the British government. I am glad to see the British government doesn't back down.

Actually I had no idea the entry requirements were so stringent. There are many incidents in our past that might not have passed muster had the Home Office taken a closer look. Some of the more serious allegations include: pushing shopping carts off college dorm buildings, 2 tickets for running the exact same stop sign within 10 days of each other, setting fire to a palapa in Mexico, running over a stop sign in our home down, hitting a Japanese employee of the Korean embassy with an errant golf ball. The list could or could not go on, allegedly.

Most of our more colorful incidents involve Chizz. That should be no surprise to anyone. He is a playa. Fo' shizzle. Puffy call him!

All Hail King Snake

Right now Snake is the only child in the household. This situation has its pluses and minuses. Plus - extra dessert at dinner ; Minus -only one left to unload the dishwasher. Plus - can use sister's share of hot water; Minus - you are the only one parents drag on "educational" tours of England.

This weekend, we decided to go out to the battlefield of the Battle of Hastings. Actually, the battlefield is in Battle, (with a name like that there was only one thing that could happen!). Hastings is several miles away. The Battle of Hastings is important for several reasons, one being it is the last time that England is successfully invaded. It all started when the King of England, Edward the Confessor, died. Don't you love names like that? He actually got his name because apparently he was so pious. When I was looking at a poster of all the rulers of England, quite a few have names like that. My favorite, Edward the Unready. You are just branding a kid when you name him that. Did he get that name because he was always late to dinners, battles, royal things? How did his parents ever expect him to live down that rep when it was built right into his name?

Anywho, Edward the Confessor died leaving no heirs. His brother-in-law, Harold claimed Edward named him successor on his deathbed. (Wait, did anyone else hear that? Right before he died? He said "Harold you be king", Anyone, Anyone at all?) Before anyone could object, Harold had himself crowned. News gets to William of Normandy (France) and he is angry. Evidently, Edward the Confessor promised him the throne in gratitude for Normandy always helping England out when they were in trouble. Apparently, Edward gave away the throne at the drop of a hat, "Thank you for bringing my mead so quickly, you shall be my successor to the Throne", "Wow, that sure is a clean stable - you will be my successor", "C'mon baby, no one will know and then you can be successor to my throne".

So William gets angry, he whines a bit to the pope and the Pope says "stop your whining and do something about it" so he does. He takes some troops, sails to England, conquers England. Hence the name, William the Conqueror. Not very original, these English. All in all, a very educational day. They have a nice visitor center and you can walk around the ruins of the Abbey there, still remarkably well preserved, considering Henry VII had all the churches demolished when he was angry at the Catholic Church. There are still some structures standing and you can see how impressive it all was.

While we were on the train, Snake was fiddling around with his Ipod and we got to talking about how much he liked it, how he could watch movies on it, how long the battery power lasted etc. This woman came up and said she had over heard us talking about the Ipod. She was having a problem with hers and she was wondering if Snake could get it to work again. Apparently it froze and she couldn't get it to turn off. The last time it happened, she said, she just had to wait until it ran out of battery and then she was able to recharge it and it worked fine. She wasn't looking forward to a long train ride without her Ipod. Snake knew exactly what to do, apparently you hold the menu and power button (or something like that) at the same time and it causes the Ipod to reboot. He showed her how to do it and she was very grateful. She lavished some more praise and went to sit down. About 5 seconds later, we hear a very jubilant "yay!".

Now if Snake had fixed Edward the Confessor's Ipod, we would be sitting in Buckingham palace now. Surely that would have earned him the right of succession. He could be known as Snake, the Ipod Wrangler. At least it would have fit.

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

Well, not really the hills but a bus, a plane, and a small island. Kiki left yesterday on her school's music tour. 150 kids from the high school's choir, band, orchestra to tour Malta and perform 5 or 6 times over the next five days.

Malta is a small little island off Italy, more specifically a little south of Sicily. If you imagine the Italy "boot" kicking a dirt clod (Sicily), Malta would be one of the little pieces of dirt that breaks off - specifically toward Libya or Tunisia. I know I have mentioned it before, but I think this is one of the best perks about our adventure. Kiki is learning how to be an independent traveller (as independent as you can be within a group of 150). On this trip they are doing quite a bit of sightseeing during the day, so she will really get a feel for Malta. They do most of their performances at night. The trip culminates with a performance at a big festival honoring the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty, which recognized Malta as a part of Europe. Apparently quite the big deal for Malta.

Can you imagine being a businessman having to travel to Malta on one of these flights? You would be torn - sitting next to crying baby for next four hours or in midst of teenage section for next four hours. I hope they have good bar carts, I am sure some people on that plane are going need it. I just pray it is not the pilot!

The Weather Guess

We have been enjoying a great spot of weather here in London lately. Oh I know that you people in California (imagine me saying those four word "you people in California" with utter disdain) have been enjoying weather in the 80s and 90s this week but here a nice day would be somewhere around 55 degrees. This past week we have seen temperatures ranging from 12C (53F) - 16C (60F). There has been very little rain, which is the best part - not having to carry an umbrella everywhere. Because of all the "nice" weather, we have been out enjoying it. Last weekend we went out to Hampton Court Palace (and I will blog about that later) and just enjoying the good weather. We have seen all the daffodils blooming, the crocus are out. We are starting to see that perhaps spring is around the corner. Yay!

I am going to offend all of my UK meteorologists friends (Hey! I could have meteorologist friends in the UK - you don't know!) when I say that "they" are notoriously wrong about the weather here. I am of the opinion that worldwide there is no real scientific basis for a 5 day weather forecast. Those kinds of forecasts are usually pretty wrong, if you live in an area that actually has weather. You could do a 35 day forecast in Southern California in June or July, that is why they started talking about air quality to give those weather people something to do during the newscasts. They can look at the Doppler or whatever and figure out what the weather will possibly be tomorrow or maybe the next day but any days after that is really not a weather forecast but a weather guess. I have just as good a chance as a weatherperson to guess the weather five days from now. But here in the UK, they very often don't get the next day's weather right. I can't tell you the number of weekends that we thought one day was going to be better than the other and tailored our plans around it, only to be totally caught in a torrential rainstorm or watch the kids do their homework in the house when it has been beautiful outside.

Want to know what the weather guess is for Monday in London? Snow. We will see, we will see. Stay tuned.

I've Won, I've Won, I've Won

"The UK National Lottery Online thunderball Programme", that is and I have the email to prove it. I received an email informing me of my windfall, UK250,000. I am psyched. Funny, I don't remember buying tickets or entering the lottery online but never mind. Louis Vuitton here I come. And I am going to let Kiki get those 7 jeans she has been wanting, the UK200 per pair ones. Snake can get a 250 pound Itunes gift card. Chizz can look at Mazerattis (look only, we still can't afford to buy but at least with 250,000 pounds in the bank they might let us into the showroom instead of him pressing his nose up against the window).

Now, I know what you are thinking, that this is some kind of scam and Wendy is being suckered. No, No, No. There are several reasons why I am certain this is a legitimate email. First, while it does request some personal information, like my name, birthdate, address, phone number etc. - it doesn't request any of my bank account information or my social security number. And they give me the name of their "fudiciary" agent that I can contact. Chizz asked if it was their "Elmer Fudiciary"? I don't know what he was getting at. . . .

Second, they provide an email address contact and it sounds legitimate -uklotteryfudiciaryagentonline@yahoo.co.uk. I have heard of Yahoo before and surely they couldn't use the Yahoo name if it wasn't a legitimate organization. Of course, not too many businesses use Yahoo for their company email address but perhaps they are just trying to make it easier for us common folks to make contact.

Lastly, the email is signed by Sir Tang Leeon. This is proof positive that this email is legitimate. Because I know the Queen would never give a knighthood to a crook.

The Throw Up Parent

Last night Snake got sick. Violently sick,if you get my drift. Three times. Evenly spaced two hour intervals staring at 11:00 p.m. It seemed just as I was slipping off into sleep again, he was up again. I felt bad for him. But I felt bad for me too. Because I am "the throw up parent" in our family. Every family has one. The person that usually gets up and cleans up. It doesn't have to be every time but it is most times. And it is usually 100 percent if the "event" happens after 10:00 p.m. Chizz has the ability to "sleep" through it all. Actually he can pretend longer than me. When the kids were little and one would cry in the middle of the night, we would both lie there perfectly still, pretending to be asleep until one of us cracked. Then we decided that sleep wasn't more important than having Children's Protective Services show up at our door so we came up with a system to determine who's turn it was to get up in the middle of the night. We haven't developed a throw up system yet. I guess it happens too rarely to develop a system. Curse that mothering gene! I can hear them get up and just by listening I can determine that it is not a usual trip in the middle of the night. Something in the urgency of the door opening or the quickness of their steps. I know in an instant something is wrong. And I listen, and (gross) I hear. Chizz is asleep. He "sleeps" through me asking if everything is okay. He "sleeps" through the very weak 'no'. He "sleeps" through me finding more towels, cleaning up and then getting into bed, three times. It is okay. I really don't mind. In our old house Chizz was the "get rid of something that died or was killed in our backyard" person. And not every family has one of those!!

Doing the Mom & Dad Thing

Kiki & Snake were both chosen to represent the school at the league championship swim meet this week. It is the largest meet of the year and because of space issues, each team can only bring a select number of athletes. They felt very honored to be chosen and you get to miss 2 days of school - another bonus!

The meet is held at another American school in the suburbs of London. It is not really easy to get to but Chizz took the day off and we took the train out there. Taking the train means taking the underground to the regular train station and taking another train from their to the station near the school. The train trip itself isn't that long (about 1/2 hour) but the process is longer - about 1 1/2 hours. Once we got to the train station, we took a cab to the school.

Twelve schools are involved and they came from all over. There were the American Schools in London, Paris, Hague, the American schools in the London Suburbs, International schools from Munich, Brussels and Zurich, British Schools from Brussels and the Netherlands and then an American School from Egypt. The Cairo school is holding the championship meet next year and Snake and Kiki are hoping to be able to go to that. The pool is indoors and the noise volume seems higher. In many ways it is a lot like the swim meets we went to in California -there are team cheers, timers and stroke and turn officials, the kids have parkas, flannel shorts (all turned down at the waist to just the correct point on your hip), clerk of the course, overpriced commemorative t-shirts (always sold out of the size you need!) the last minute panic when your cap rips or your goggles break. Some of the differences were the English announcer, the fairly comfy theatre like seating in the stands, and the flags they had posted to represent the different countries represented by these schools both by nationality and location.

Kiki & Snake did well in the meet. Kiki made finals and placed in all of her events. Snake had time improvements and some great races. When we were in California and had to work the meets, Chizz always used to say that the parent work/kid swim ratio was way out of balance. You saw your kids swim for maybe 1 1/2 minutes total and you had to work 4-5 hours. Here we didn't have to work the meets but all total our travel time was probably somewhere over 3 hours and we watched our kids swim for about 3 minutes. I am not sure which is harder. Oh well, it did dawn on me while I was on the train at one point - we don't have many of these swim meets left. I am going to enjoy them while I can, even if it takes me two hours to get there.

International Incident #1

Today I went to Kensington Palace with my friend D. This was the palace that Prince Charles & Diana moved into shortly after they married. Diana continued to live there after their divorce until she died in 1997. It was also the home of Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's sister and continues to be the home of other minor royals today.

There is so much history in these palaces. This palace was the birthplace of Queen Victoria, home to many monarchs including William & Mary in the 1600s. It was redesigned (which I think is a fancier word for remodel) by the famous architect Christopher Wren. You can't walk a block in London without tripping over a church designed by Christopher Wren. He is said to have designed over 50 churches in London, including St. Paul's. Many more buildings also claim Wren connections, very similar to the "George Washington slept here" signs in the eastern United States. Like the George Washington proclamations, you can't really be too sure of the accuracy of all of these "Wren built this" claims.

Kensington is beautiful and like most of the palaces I have seen so far it is chock full of art and beautiful furnishings. They have some of the rooms set up as they would have been at the time of the various monarchs, with the original tapestries, linens, tables, chairs etc. I like that kind of thing and it was fascinating to see the bedroom of Queen Mary as it would have been at the time of her death from smallpox in 1684. It is also supposed to have the most beautiful rose garden there but it is too early for that now. I will have to go back and check it out later. There was also an Orangerie which is, duh, a greenhouse built specifically to grow citrus usually in tubs or large planters. Apparently Orangeries were all the rage in palaces all over Europe in the 1700s and everyone, but everyone, had to have one. The original building still exists but now it is a cute little cafe where you can have breakfast, light lunch or tea.

Well, there was one little incident at the Palace and I am hoping it won't cause me any problems at the border or going to other palaces. While we were in one of the rooms, I noticed this china piece by the fireplace. Actually there were 2 pieces, china pagoda type looking things flanking the fireplace. The pagoda had several levels and on each level in the corner there were holes that looked like holders for something. I thought maybe candles. You put a candle in each holder and it would look kind of like a mult-level candelabra. D & I were looking at it pretty close, kind of leaning over near it and I gestured very widely toward one of the pagodas to point out something. No! It is not what you are thinking, I didn't knock it over!!! Ha! But, I guess I got a little close because I set off a very loud piercing alarm. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
Guards came running from several different directions and I noticed the other tourists quickly distanced themselves from D & me. Security rapidly ascertained that we hadn't pocketed any royal knick-knacks and explained that all of these things were protected by sensors and invisible security. I must have crossed a light sensor or something. As we chatted up the guards, we found out that the chinese pagoda wasn't a candle holder - it was actually something called a tulipere. William & Mary were Dutch and had a fondness for tulips. You put a tulip stem in each one of the holes and it created sort of a flower arrangement. I really can't imagine it and personally I think I would have used it as a candle holder. I think it might have been prettier.

So hopefully my picture is not being faxed to other palaces over the country advising them of a slightly strange, almost clumsy, semi-local American who comes very close to knocking over priceless ugly relics. Please defend me!

Because "ENGLISH" Would Be Redundant!

It's a What????

14 years ago today Snake was born. Quite a momentous day in our family. I had a planned C-section because my doctor had determined this baby was going to be a bit bigger than Kiki and she was right. But what they hadn't counted on was that Snake wasn't quite ready to be born, not quite hatched. So when he was born he had a bit of a breathing problem. So he had to go to ICU and he was pretty sick for a few days. At the time, I didn't realize how sick he was and I think that was because of the calming nature of the doctors there, they assured me he would be fine and he was. Later they estimated that he was about 3 weeks premature. That means Snake probably would have been one of those 42 week pregancies that all mothers dread and I most likely would have been induced anyway.

It was quite confusing in the delivery room. Because they needed to get him in an incubator and start regulating his breathing, I wasn't allowed to hold him and they whisked him away. My sisters had been calling every 5 minutes. The nurses wouldn't give any info out over the phone. Snake was the second grandchild on my side of the family. Finally Chizz was able to call everyone and let them know. It was a boy. A boy?? One of my sisters said "You had a what? A boy?". She had to repeat it. As I am the oldest of 5 girls, one granddaughter so far, we weren't quite sure what to do with a boy.

When I finally got to see Snake, it was very emotional. He was breathing so hard, almost panting, and I could see his little chest moving up and down very rapidly. He had tubes running through him. And he was HUGE. He was 8 pounds and barely fit in the incubator. An 8 pound preemie. If he had been allowed to be born at his own pace, he probably would have grown to 10 pounds and would have killed me. There were other babies in the ICU at the time. I remember a little girl right next to Snake. She was about 3 pounds, she was so fragile, you could almost see through her skin. When the other mothers came in ICU, they would look at this big, huge Baby Huey and raise their eyebrows a bit. I always felt fairly defensive - "he is very sick, too". But we were lucky, he was able to come home after about a week.

Now Snake tries to kill me in other ways, usually just by trying to drive me crazy enough to jump off London Bridge. He is funny, stubborn, marches to the beat of a different drummer. He has allegiances to strange sports teams, CAL, the Yankees, the Eagles. He knows a lot about some things, less about others but it is all the same to him. He is a good friend, good company, good talker, good cousin. He likes pop tarts, pop rocks, popcorn and juicy fruit gum. He likes to annoy his sister, to sleep late, to take incredibly long showers until the hot water or his father's patience runs out - either one. He is pretty cool and I have enjoyed being on the ride so far. Mostly.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SNAKE!!