Happy Not Really Your Birthday To You

There are many good things about being Queen. Big house, servants available to do your bidding any time of the day or night, cool horse drawn carriages to drive around in, the ability to banish your husband (after all, he is ONLY a duke) if he gets a little too lippy at the breakfast table. But I think I have accidentally stumbled across a not so good thing about being the queen -- you don't really get your own birthday. Queen Elizabeth was born in April some 80 or so years ago (c'mon let the gal have a little bit of mystery). But she also has an official birthday in June in which she is obligated to preside over quite a bit of hoopla, parades, troop reviews, air force flybys etc.

Now don't get me wrong, there could be some benefits to having 2 birthdays - double presents, more cake, 2 times for waiters to sing embarrassing birthday songs at Wagamamas. Although I suspect having 2 birthdays is not all it is cracked up to be. I bet people start saying things like "this one present covers both of your birthdays" or "I will bring your present at your NEXT birthday" or even worse, "it's not like it is your REAL birthday or anything". Also, the "official" birthday is either the first, second or third weekend in June depending - not sure depending on what. It is hard for a queen to make plans when you don't know when your official birthday will be.

One duty the Queen has on her official birthday is Trooping of the Colour. It is a parade of all the regiments of the British Army. The Queen inspects the troop, there are bands, and all of the Royal Family attends (Hey you tell the Queen you have better things to do). It is full of pomp and ceremony and, like quite a few traditions in England, has been done for hundreds of years. After happening upon a rehearsal a few weeks earlier when I was down in the Queen's 'hood, I decided I would go to the real deal on June 14. So after unsuccessfully trying to rally my teenagers to go (they both had last day of school parties sleep-ins planned), I took myself.

When I got to Green Park, the park outside of Buckingham Palace, you could feel the excitement buzz in the air. I could tell something was up by some of the preparations they made - like this trash can. They had "closed off" all of the trash cans in Park. I think initially this was done in the IRA era but it has lingered on in the Terrorist era as well. By the time I walked through the park, the crowds were in place, 4-6 deep in some areas. I decided not to go to where she was looking at the troops or down the mall area but thought my best chance to see something would be at Buckingham Palace itself. I wandered all the way over to the right of the side of the Victoria Memorial right in front of Buckingham Palace, not sure what I would be able to see. I found an area of the crowd that was only about 2 deep and I joined them. I started talking with a man and his two sons who had gone to every Trooping of the Colour for the past 15 years. He told me that it has become less and less British, meaning that few British people go, mostly tourists and "foreigners". He wasn't complaining, just stating fact. He clearly knew the schedule, "in 15 minutes the Queen will leave the parade grounds in her carriage with the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Phillip)" "her carriage will be preceeded by Princes Harry & William" There was great discussion about where Camilla would be, would she be in a carriage with some of the lesser royal, or by herself, or with William & Harry. No one seemed to know or remember where she sat last year.

I was not disappointed, I got a full view of quite a few things although it was difficult to take decent pictures in the crowd. When the parade gets to the end of the mall, they have to commit to make either a left or right turn. If a left turn is made, I don't see anything. If they make a right, I have a shot. We were really lucky, it seemed all the carriages turned right. I couldn't believe how close the carriages came. You be the judge, here are some of the photos. Don't you think the Queen and I are sharing "a moment" in the first photo??



That is Prince Phillip next to her wearing the huge hat. That thing has to weigh a ton, I think there had to be some small palace courtier hunched over in the carriage proping the hat or Prince Phillip up.







This is a photo of the younger Princes and Camilla. She and Prince William have their backs to the camera, she is wearing the white hat/headpiece thing and Harry is facing the camera sort of.

After the Royal Family goes in the Palace, they open up the round about area in front of Buckingham Palace for the crowds to go right up to the gates of the Palace. I was able to get really close and then you wait for the Royal Family to come to The Balcony. We have all seen the balcony on TV, the one where Charles & Diana kissed for the crowd. The queen comes out and is
soon followed by the rest of the family.











The crowd serenades the Queen with "Happy Birthday" but really it should have been "Happy-Official-Birthday-but-not-your-real-birthday
-because-it-is-in-April-to-you" but it is hard to stay together on that. Then the
Royal Air Force puts on a show, many, many fly bys. The Queen seemed to enjoy the fly bys quite a bit. I was able to get quite a few photos. There were two college girls in front of me, who absolutely lost it when the 2 Princes came out. They kept shouting "Zoom, Zoom" referring to their cameras. It was quite funny.

Afterwards, it all kind of breaks up and people wander off. I am glad I got to see it. I have to admit a bit of a chill went up my spine at seeing the Queen and the members of the Royal Family. Oh and for those of you wondering, yes Prince Charles was there and no, he did not try to kill me (as he has before, see here and here.) Not that he didn't think about it for sure - crowds too big - too many witnesses. He had better hurry!!

Moving On

In my youth, I moved around a fair deal being the eldest child of a career Air Force man. Not as much as some people, but more than others. When I was little, I don't remember having much to do with the physical move myself. I think my main job was not antagonizing or provoking my mom. A task I am not sure I accomplished. When I became an "adult", I was in charge of moving myself - although that mostly entailed roping friends with larger cars or better yet a truck or two to help me with my few boxes of meager belongings. When I got older and had a little bit more money in the bank, we could afford to hire professional movers. I like that quite a bit more but it is a bit nerve racking watching people take your possessions off in a truck and hope they end up in the same place as you.

Moving internationally is definitely a matter that requires much faith. It starts out pretty much the same as much as the other moves, someone comes to your house - gives your belongings a once over and then guesstimates how long it will take to pack and load your stuff. In my case 1 1/2 days to pack and another 1/2 day to load. Our movers showed up bright and early (about 1/2 hour early) to pack our stuff and found that our street has parking restrictions. Only stickered cars unless you make prior (about 21 days prior) arrangements. Which apparently, the estimater did not do. So how many tickets does one moving truck get in 2 days? Answer at the end of the blog. In an international move, no food, or liquid, no open containers of anything, moisturizer, soap, anything like that gets packed. Everything else is boxed or crated and then put in the shipping container. They bring the container right to your house. Which I was amazed at! Somehow I thought they would truck the stuff to the container and then load it up. Not here. Loaded and sealed here.

Our moving crew consists of 2 guys about 50 years old, Bill & Tom, and a 19 year old girl, Lauren. Bill, the crew manager, keeps calling her Laura and she keeps correcting him "LaurEN". About 20 times an hour. I am fearful Tom is going to have a heart attack on my shift, he huffs and puffs up the stairs, turns bright red and goes "Whoo" alot. I am not sure why. Tom strips down to his undershirt, one of the sleeveless varieties called a "wife beater" in some circles, which LaurEN finds very upsetting. I think I am with her, how come the guys who always strip down to tank tops (or wear speedos) are the very guys who probably shouldn't? My friend who is also moving, tells me her movers are 20 year old boys who spend more time flexing around her 16 year old daughter than actually moving. So I guess the grass isn't always greener. My 2 50 year olds and 1 19 year old are dismantling my 3 bedroom flat in about 15 hours. Her crew of 3 20-somethings have been there 4 days and she is hoping they will finish today. LaurEN is definitely the junior member of the crew in age but in stature as well. You can tell that because she gets all the "bad" mover assignments, like the kitchen. Professional movers hate the kitchen because there is just so much stuff, and lots of pieces, cutlery, glasses, plates, coffee mugs, etc. LaurEN also got the attic assignment, which requires climbing a ladder and working in a pretty hot area. She listens to her MP3 playing phone all day long with headphones and periodically sings along, out loud. So far I can tell she likes Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Spice Girls, and some other stuff. She and I have chatted a bit. She told me about her last holiday 3 years ago, with her parents, her brothers to an island off Spain. She enjoyed it quite a bit and they were supposed to go back but her mother "fell pregnant". "Fell"? I think that is an interesting way to classify it. So that brother is now 2 and they were planning something for this summer but guess what happened? More falling. What's a girl to do? I would kind of like to meet LaurEN's mum. We know she has one 19 year old, a 2 year old and one on the way at least. And we know there are others in between because she said before the two year old was born was her last holiday with her brothers. Yikes.

Our crew works pretty hard and nothing seems to faze them. Since the estimator forgot to get the parking clearances, Bill isn't sure what is going to happen with the container when it arrives. If there is no parking, and the container will require about 3 spaces, they are going to park it in a church parking lot about 6 blocks away and ferry all the stuff to the container. How will they save their truck parking spot when they are up at the container? LaurEN will stand in the parking space. No lie. The moving gods are with us and about 5 minutes before the container is due to arrive and does arrive, 2 space open up right behind the crew's truck. LaurEN is dispatched to stand in the spaces while the container comes up the street. She does and seems resigned to her fate, all in a day's work.

Everything is all done now. It is kind of sad. I have always loved this flat and even all empty, I can see why we liked it to begin with - it is bright and airy and cheerful. We had a good 2 years here and have lots of good memories. I hope the next people, an American couple with two small children, enjoy it as much as we did.









***By the way, the moving truck received 5 tickets in the 2 days of the move and the container received 3. Now you know how Westminster council makes its money.

Here I Am! There I Go!!

Okay it has been a busy few weeks for reasons which I will detail later. I like to write chronologically but so much has been happening lately that things are running into each other. I don't have time to write and its piling up. So for right now I have to switch to a level of importance criteria until things straighten themselves out.

So, the big one. We are leaving London. Chizz was transferred at the beginning of the year back home to the US of A. The kids and I have stayed behind to finish up the school year. Sort of a reverse of what we did when we moved over. I haven't talked about it at all on the blog for several reasons. First, we loved living here. Absolutely. It is hard being away from family and friends and not being part of their every day lives but this experience has had a wonderful impact on our family. So I am not quite ready to give it up. A little denial if you will. But it is what it is, and as I have told the kids in a way we are lucky. We are going back home, somewhere we love. We are a part of a very transient community here, so we know quite a few people that are leaving this year. It could be worse, we could be going somewhere totally new, or a place we know that we don't like. We have some friends that are being transferred to a place they lived a few years back and HATED. Guess what? They are going back there. I think that would be awful.

Another reason I didn't mention our impending move is that I didn't want to focus on it here. Probably part of that denial thing again but I didn't want to write about leaving over and over and have that be the underlying theme of my writing for the past few months. So I left it out.

Lastly, I wasn't sure what was going to happen with WTF when I get back. The original purpose of the blog was to keep family and friends up to date with what we were doing here etc. Not that West Coast USA doesn't have some interesting things in store for us but I was not quite sure I could keep up the level of interest writing about my trip to the Safeway to pick up some avocados (which I miss terribly). But what I decided is that this blog has morphed into something else for me. Sort of a creative outlet if you will. I get a lot from it so I will continue. So readers, feel free to check in every now and then. I will still write about things that interest me, they just might not be about going to Berlin or Egypt. And don't worry, I won't be writing about Safeway avocados unless it is really cool (or I think it is!).

Now I am in my kitchen waiting for the movers to finish up with final boxes in our flat. Chizz is flying back to go on a last trip with me & the kids. Ironically he won't be coming back to the States with us because he is teaching a course here for two weeks! I think I have a few more blogs in me before I hit US soil but it is really dependent on our internet access. I may or may not have it we will have to see.

In reflecting on the blog and our stay here, I thought about the name of the blog and how I came to call it that (which I wrote about here). Actually it still applies. The trick is taking the good stuff we liked here, the trips, hanging out with the family, doing stuff, and applying it back home. It won't be completely the same of course, but I think we can make it interesting with some effort. We are going to try and do more trips at home as well. Seeing parts of the States we haven't seen before, going to events we have always thought about but never managed to do. I think one reason we were always so busy here is that we knew this wasn't going to last forever so we had to just do stuff or risk leaving and not getting the chance. I am well aware that Kiki will be going to college next year (yikes) and two years after Snake will be off as well. We don't have much time left. We need to do it now or risk not getting the chance. I think that is going to be our new theme, just do it (wait where have I heard that before?) So in a way it is another stage of our adventure. So now it is look out USA , here we come (in a few weeks) and Wind the Frog!!!

Snake: Chef, Teen, Terrorist or All Three - You Decide

So I must admit a chuckle or two over the Rachel Ray-Dunkin Donuts controversy. (Controversy is one of my favorite English words. Here they pronounce it "con TRAUV ersy" - It is hard to do it phonetically and have the same effect, if you see me - ask me and I will do my best imitation.) Anyhoo, I read that some group has complained about this Rachael Ray Dunkin Donuts ad because the scarf she is wearing, clearly indicates a sympathy toward and support of extremist Muslin radical terrorist organizations. Huh?? I thought it was just an ugly scarf and truly not that flattering on her. Some people just have too much time on their hands. And of course, Dunkin Donuts issued an apology and pulled the ad. Come on Dunkin Donuts - grow a pair!! I doubt too many people would have even noticed this scarf until the complaining party pointed it out. So you have to wonder about their motivation. Perhaps this is just reverse psychology.

Terrorist #1: "Hey that kind of looks like the head wear of our supporters."

Terrorist #2 "Really, you think so? I am thinking it just looks like paisley."

Terrorist #1 "No, it does. You just have to squint your eyes and tilt your head to the left, close one eye and BAM! our scarf".

Terrorist #2: (Rather unconfidently) "Oh yeah . . . . I see it now. So what?"

Terrorist #1: What if we caused a real ruckus and said that this scarf shows Rachel Ray is a really a terrorist, and obviously she is behind 9/11 or at least supports those who are or at least sympathizes with those that do and that all of her "chefing" is really some kind of extremist Muslim ploy to get Americans to eat more Middle Eastern food and slowly but surely will indoctrinate them into our ways?


Terrorist #2: Because she wore this scarf?

Terrorist #1: Yes.

Terrorist #2: Okay but can we do this all next Tuesday because my week is just swamped.

Terrorist #1: Sure.

Terrorist #2: Yum-A!


I think that is what happened. But then I remembered this picture of Snake. It's the "terrorist making" scarf. And then I remembered, he likes to dabble in the kitchen. And then I remembered, he likes donuts. And then I remembered he is a teenager, which is sort of like being a terrorist. The signs are all there, I am surprised I didn't see it before.