Yesterday I was called "old" by the landlady of the previous (yucky) flat and then I see this...good news is I will still be able to hop curbs, feed the birds and go fishing.

The Shoes!

Lucky for me, this lady's pants got caught up in her shoe.  I  followed her, as she was trying to find her way through the streets of Richmond.  She was in her early seventies, with a mop of dyed Joan Holloway-colored hair and an impish and petite face. By the way, these shoes added a considerable height to her so that she stood a full 5 feet with them on.  

I changed the name...

london = the old smoke

 

When not just any water will do when you iron your clothes.

Interior decorating

I went to Ikea today courtesy of a very generous cousin who has taken pity on me and all of my free time.

It felt odd.

You see, we have everything we need.  We are done decorating and collecting.  In fact, we have spent the last several months and countless Craigslist ads shedding furniture and lots of stuff. There were chairs at Ikea that looked exactly like one of the ones I just sold.

Except for a couple dozen boxes of things I  weeded out for export, all of our things are in storage.

Our new place is fully furnished, stocked and decorated. No Pee Wee Herman toys, collections of swizzle sticks,  or furniture from 3 sets of grandparents. Just hotel-style neutral decor with some grown-up affectations: an enormous vase with naked intertwined twigs, a wine refrigerator, a fancy outdoor barbecue. 

I snuck in some things from home that I will find comforting in such a showroom-like setting.  Framed family photos,  good knives, a favorite pot I have used since college, and yes, a beloved tchotchke or two are all waiting to be unearthed next week when we finally get to unpack for good.

And those little gifts I packed will make all the difference in the world to me. I can't wait.

Museum of London

I went to a wonderful museum today...but I didn't have a clue that hundreds of kids and their parents on "half-term" holiday would also be there with me.

Here, laid out before us was the history of this city from prehistoric until the present day and beyond. (Special exhibit on how global warming would affect London, even.)

It was crazy. Even though I am not a big fan of crowds, in this case most of the crowd was shorter than me (can't say that very often) and amazingly engaged in the history of their town. It was a delight.

Compared to my visits to the La Brea Tar Pits as a kid, where you would basically stand behind a chain-link fence and look at a pool of tar and a life size model of a drowning saber-tooth cat...this really brought a city's history to life.

Of course, I will have to go back to the museum another time, because there was no room to squeeze into the Black Death video (damn!) and kids were literally climbing on the interactive displays so even though I was indeed taller than most of them, I still couldn't experience huge chunks of history.

The best part? The admission to get in...zero.  Most museums in this town are free. Of course they encourage donations, but there is no financial barrier to prevent anyone from stepping inside.

Coming from the SF Bay Area where museums are over-the-top pricey ($29.95 adult admission to the California Academy of Sciences,  $18.00 adult admission to MOMA SF, etc.) this just feels right.

Welcome to my Gushy Goshy

What the hell does it mean, you ask? Let me explain.

When I was a little kid, and my mom would cook meals for special occasions I would watch her throw all sorts of peelings, eggshells and other rejected foodstuffs into the kitchen sink. Before the garbage disposal flip was switched, I got to create and play with my...gushy goshy. Basically I added water from the tap, and usually stirred up my concoction of imagined gourmet cooking with a wooden spoon. But to anyone checking out the mess, it was just a bunch of garbage in the sink.

So there you have it, that is what this is all about. My little masterpieces of gushy goshy.