:: The Wendy House ::

“37 ways to leave your Yak“* is the title of a poem by AF Harrold who might have been called “Reading’s answer to John Hegley“.  You may have considered Paul Simon’s “50 ways to leave your lover” an ingenious comment on the breakdown of contemporary potential-parent units.  It was.  This poem may well be more significant than the design, implementation and distribution of prefrabricated concrete coal bunkers.  Enough hedging, here are two unprefabicated concrete points:

1. Unlike Paul Simon’s song AF Harrold accurately counts the cited departure routes and takes the concept of the ‘leaving’ to the jagged edge where only fluffy lemmings dare to run. 
2. AF Harrold has not yet been called “Reading’s answer to fluffy lemmings“.  Though the original question posed by the lemmings is,  as yet, unknown. 

* explanatory notes for people unfamiliar with contemporary (2000) Britishness:

• Lord’s = Cricket ground in London generally considered by the British to be the ‘home’ of cricket.
• Wicket =bowling cricketer aims the ball at the wicket.
• Rent-o-Kill = UK based pest control company.
• mod = Life-style “based around fashion and music that developed in London, England in the late 1950s and reached its peak in the early to mid 1960s. People who followed this lifestyle were known as Mods, and were mainly found in Southern England”
• press-ganged = getting forcibly taken into military service,  a ‘gang’ of ‘press’ men would kidnap people on behalf of the military.  This was a favoured recruitment method of the British Navy, before successful advertsing campaings, who have a large base in Portsmouth.
• Crufts = British national Dog show.
• Sarnie = slang for ‘Sandwich’

sixth in a not-to-be-sniffed-at,  profoundly serious, Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“. 

Reason # 6:  tiny trichomes (short hair)

A 6 year visual survey of women in the US shows a noticably higher proportion have ‘long’ hair than those in the UK.  When asked,  US boys unanimously prefer long, to short, hair.  When I sported a stylish ‘buzz cut’ people actually made passes at me.  Women people.  Obviously women with taste.  It appears that short hair in females is taken as an indicator of homosexuality in the USA.  A substantial proportion of UK men find short haircuts on females attractive. 

Previously established reasons:

1. hat fetishist 
2. capable cookie
3. petite pool
4. indolence
5. talks bollocks

Mining:  turn of the century miners needed powerful water-pressure to blast the grime out of all known and unknown orifices. knock-you-over, spray-everything in the room, water-jets produce a numbing, heavenly, massage that pummels dead surface skin from your body and down the plug-hole.  It’s the kind of shower you take when you’re actually clean for the sheer pleasure of it.  These showers covered three states:

• Idaho (Silver) 
• Montana (copper, silver, gold, zinc, lead, manganese, cadmium, bismuth, selenium) 
• Black hills of South Dakota (Silver, Gold,  Gems)

In blast-you-away soul cleansing priority order these were our top shower experiences:

• Ryan Hotel, Wallace in Idaho’s Silver Valley.  The town grew and prospered around Silver mining.     
• Econo-lodgings in Wall, South Dakota,  behind the infamous drug store.
• Hoosiers motel in Cooke City, Montana. 

Cowboy: As we moved into the flatlands of the high plains showers lost their skin-stripping power becoming merely powerful.  Shower spray lost some breadth.  Still superior to the average city shower they surely worked to strip the dust and pollen from a cowboy’s thighs.  This thought alone inspired a sufficiently pleasant experience to keep me lingering in the shower beyond mere physical cleanliness.

• motel in Hulbert, Wyoming
• Cosey Rest Motel, Iowa
• Edge motel, Illinois
• Kirtsy’s motel, Pennsylvania

Trucking:  these showers are located in low-cost motels placed by the Interstate in areas that are not set-up to blast miners clean or strip the dust from cowboys.  Sweat removing showers.  They are pleasant.  A good shower in a city normally meets trucking shower quality.

• Super8 motel,  Wisconsin

Tourist: got some mucky children?  Then just chuck them in this nice little shower with a pretend-bath at the bottom and use our pretty motel supplied soap to foam-up and splish-splash away the dirt.  A basic satisficing experience.  All the sensual pleasure replaced by eye-candy accessories.

• Days Inn motel, Pennsylvania

Toy:  now these showers in a gas-station restroom baffled the socks off me.  They were only good for washing feet,  or maybe they are b-day’s?  Waste of space unless you’ve got smelly feet or a squitty bum.

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and scuttle of coal for the days session.
3. Make your pens carefully, you may whittle nibs to the individual taste of each pupil.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, teachers may use the remaining time reading the bible or other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of their earnings for his benefit during declining years so he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teachers who smokes,  uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth,  intention, integrity and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labour faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of 25 cents per week in his pay providing the board of education approves.

From a set of rules published on the wall of Granny Joe’s, Vermilion, Ohio:

World Traveller took a fancy to reviving her Japan developed Karaoke skills in some small town with no chance of repercussions during our road trip.  Friday,  Saturday night on the road came and went without a nearby Karaoke event.  Then.  Sunday.  The motel was attached to a restaurant-bar advertising karaoke on Sunday. Tonight. While carrying our stuff to our room a permanent guest briefly told us her life story and introduced us to Zack*, the bar chef who ran the Karaoke, as clients for his evening’s entertainment.  While we ate our meal a puppy-like Zack kept popping into the restaurant to check if we were ready.  He couldn’t wait.  He started singing several songs.  We heard the singing,  ordered another pint of the local brew Yuengling, and wandered into the bar.

World traveller helped me choose a relatively easy song.  “Crazy little thing called love” by Queen.  After 3 pints (one more than my usual) I levered the microphone off Zack (not an easy task) and sang.  The Bar manager commented on how my accent disappeared when I sang.  ”He’s English too” I weakly protested.

World traveller picked “Me and Bobby Magee” by Janis Joplin.  Zack was on a roll,  getting the microphone from him was no mean feat.  Finally she managed it and produced a fine rendering though not to her own high standard.  Having given-up smoking constrained her ability to really scream the lyrics to her satisfaction.  The bar seemed impressed,  a school teacher,  a single mother, a tractor designer and assorted others, mainly staff at the motel-bar-restaurant,  like Zack.

As a compromise to ease removing the microphone from Zack World Traveller sang a duet with him,  “Don’t go breaking my heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee.  He explained the lyric colour-coding to World traveller once,  twice, three times.  As they started singing he said “this is you” then “this is all me“.  Clearly the whole event was all about Zack.  I learned that the Karaoke machine only cost $30.  The school teacher asked me to make requests for songs she wanted to sing “He’ll do it if you ask,  he’ll ignore us” she explained.  Single mom helped me sing “don’t speak” by No Doubt and commented that I had a talent for picking songs with difficult timing.  School teacher went home to pick-up her child (another single mom) then came back to finish the evening with us.

Other songs covered:  New York New York (Franky),  Saturday night’s alright for fighting,  Candle in the wind (Elton John),  Yellow (Coldplay),  Let me sleep on it (Meatloaf) and some American classics I barely recall in the ilk of Hotel California.  At midnight the bar manager threw us all out.  For $2 a beer World Traveller and I had a spanking good time only totalling $12.  Bargain! As we ambled back to our Motel room and hugged goodbye’s one of the people at the bar,  that neither of us recall having spoken to, gave us his email address commenting that he would be hunting Bear in Montana soon,  out our way. 

*names have been changed to protect the singers

being overtaken by a house on I90 in Pennsylvania.  We were the snails pace with most of the home in back of the pick-up truck.  But this truck had the house,  the whole house and nothing but the house.  You can see the house creeping up behind us in the wing-mirror.

Deference due

In South Dakota we saw REAL COWBOYS.  Not people merely masquerading in cowboy boots, hats, jeans and western-cut shirts.  These boys had just unloaded their horse-carrying trailer and were mounting-up ready to round-up some nearby cattle. 

In the ferocity of female-pheromone-fast-production and general dribbling I completely forgot about the camera as World Traveller excitedly announced

“real cowboys,  there,  look,  I’ll slow up” (she was driving)

Every other pick-up truck from Montana to Wyoming hauls a horse-trailer.  Modern cowboys haul their horses cross-country before using them to “off road”  HA!  horses,  the orgininal “off roaders“  who needs a 4×4 when you’ve got a 6-pack of horses in your trailer!

 

From Wyoming to Pennsylvania the prowess of the tractor permeated every scene

statuesquely poised on the brow of a hill, marking, surveying territory

flexing firm, well defined, tire treads in breeding grounds

or orphaned at the roadside

the US tractor

loved

Fifth in a shockingly lengthy Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“. 

Reason # 5:  Wendy talks bollocks

The evidence is in the blog, literally talking bollocks and metaphorically talking bollocks….  often in lengthy, disjointed, monologues. 

Previously established reasons:

1. hat fetishist 
2. capable cookie
3. petite pool
4. indolence

duct tape can stop a wing mirror from squeaking you into an insane frenzy of pie consuming road rage

 

two pieces of cherry pie in Grandma Joe’s cafe Ohio.  Is this cost in dollars or something more sinister: 

The town is one large tourist shop “Wall Drug” with an entertaining marketing campaign (signposts) that leave the actual experience as an anti-climax. I do vaguely remember climax’s so I can recognize anti-climax’s.  It does have a fire-station,  a grain store and wireless internet at an economy motel. 

OK, I admit it. I’ve taken lots of naughty scenic photographs that have been upstaged by multiple profesional photographers before me.  Darn.  But no-one. Yeah!  No-one has caught me in my hat with flat Eric as well as my co-pilot (world traveller) did with this outstanding picture.  Don’t you just wish you were with us?…

Hellllloooooo!

Truck stops have the BEST internet connections! This is Lonnie’s seat poking out from under the bonnet of the Truck.  I recommend Lonnie when you’re in a tight spot on a hard shoulder.  Don’t let those loose pants fool you.  This man can spark a plug,  de-clog a filter and replace a fuel system on a truck whose parts went out of production 20 years ago.  I stand amazed.  Actually I kind of wobble-amazed while drinking “Wollersheim Winery” ‘Prairie red’ in a truck-stop with great internet access…

forth in a recklessly obvious Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 4:  indolence

No single dude has inspired me to connive ongoing mutally-naughty things. 

Previously established reasons:

1. hat fetishist 
2. capable cookie
3. petite pool

Jennifer reminded me of this popular UK ’uneven road’ sign.  Bumpy,  bouncy, my Favourite!  Uneven roads, accompanied by uneven posting, start today with the road trip

Look after yourselves while I’m gone,  wrap up warm, drink lots of tea, take care, phone home, miss you already,

wandering-wendy

Seventh post prompted by the provocative  ‘England and the English: from an American point of view“  book by Price Collier. 

“Though England may be fighting somewhere in her vast dominions all the time, she is also playing somewhere all the time.  Unless the war is a very important one, there is more itnerest taken in the playing than the fighting” p231

For his chapter on sport Price’s basic theme appears to be that the English spend a lot of money and time watching and playing sport.  They have dedicated papers to sports and columns in newspapers.  This interest helps to keep the English sufficiently fit to be good fighters.   As in previous chapters,  Price’s position is liberally littered with plausible, but unsubstantiated insults.  This chapter easily rated two pots of calming breakfast tea.  For example

“Sport as a profession, I quite agree, breeds more bullies, boasters and tricksters than anything else I can name.” p244

I’m beginning to tire of Prices persistent ‘analysis’ and may relegate this book to my oversized pile of ’started but not finished’ books while I get dressed in a low-budget,  bad-taste, outfit to swear at some people playing a sport in this fabulous, large, US stadium:

  Other posts prompted by Price’s analysis of the English: 

1. Heavy
2. fashion-failed females
3. provincially bumptious
4. the finest of all German tribes
5. mens club
6. Steady, illiterate, profane

email conversation today,  what can you take onto a plane with you?:

colleague 1:  aren’t you even permitted to take on magazines, newspapers, books/ small books,  pocket books,  folded newspapers or magazines in pockets?  

colleague 2:  what I heard is that you can take stuff on board with you, you’re just not allowed to take any liquid in your carrion….

Must stop giggling and do some work….

This BBC news article descibes the outcome of a UK security exercise that foiled a naughty plot to hijack some planes, and goodness knows what other naughtiness.  Planes that were scheduled to go to the US (pre-hijacking). 

The UK police are no doubt using the recently introduced,  controversial, ‘terrorist’ laws that may infringe on the basic human rights of suspects.  After foiling yesterday’s attack Britian has been put on high critical terror alert status.  After,  not before.   I don’t understand.  Was the first,  foiled attack actually meant to distract people from the main event, a second attack, that the security people don’t know enough about to foil without raising the terror alert level?   Before you have time to say ‘yay plot foiled” you have to say “watch out for those pesky terrorists“.  I wonder how the terror alert levels are assessed and levels switched…..  

here’s a wendy-centric set of alert levels:

• Miffed (example = gunpowder plot referred to in V for Vendetta. Suspected do-badders)
• Peeved (example = unfair tax’s, 1767,  1990 Poll tax. Too expensive)
• A bit cross (example the 1940 WW2 Blitz when tea supplies ran out - No tea)
• A bloody nuisance (example = great fire of London 1666 - No homes)

Sixth post prompted by the utterly outrageous ‘England and the English: from an American point of view“  book by Price Collier.  This chapter required 2 tea-pots full for me to maintain composure (that’s a lot).

Price asks are the English dull?  He concludes that the English are dull because they are stable, steady in their resolve, quoting the contemporary (circa 1900) British soundbite “England expects every man to do his duty” p178.  He follows this by briefly mentioning that the English have a highly developed sense of humour quickly counters by unfavourably comparing their use of the English language to that of Americans.  He find’s the English use of their language lacking because of overuse of profanities (the bugger!), poor sentence structure and lack of mass education.  Am I taking this all too personally?  Of course I am!  Yet he doesn’t mention spelling atrocities because most English people can’t even write.  He cites this convincing statistic as evidence of lack of ability to write:

“Ten years after the beginning of the reign of queen Victoria, not only the children of England, but practically one half of the adults, could neither read nor write… ..only sixty-seven men in one hundred, and fifty-one women in an hundred, could even sign their names.” p183

This statistic is based on people that could sign thier names on a marriage register,  it is likely that some could sign their names and nothing else,  hence it is an over-estimation of actual literacy.  On profanity Price writes:

“A charming English lady returning from the golf links on a wet day remarks that she is ‘in a nasty mess!’.  The English man of a certain class uses ‘bloody’, ‘beastly’, ‘rotten’, ‘bloomin’, and ‘go, on you brute’. p186

SHOCKING!  They didn’t say “bollocks’ or “bugger’ as frequently as I do ;-)  I find it extremely hard to believe that these profanities are worse than those used by his American contemporaries.  Can you feel the tension rising,  I’m on tea-pot number 2 already!

Price suggests that this lack of formal education is counterbalanced by the English having a focus on commerce:

“‘Lud’ was the God of commerce, who was worshipped in England in Pagan times.  Ludgate Hill is a remainder, or reminder, or Lud.  The Welsh still call London ‘Caer Ludd’, or Lud’s town.  Thus it is seen how deep are the roots of their commercial supremecy.” p195

In summary, the English are illiterate, swear a lot, but in their favour they stay focussed on achieving a goal if they think it will make them money.  It is difficult to believe that Price likes the English,  his affection does not shine through.  He does say in his defence that he “numbers many Englishmen among his friends” p14  Pah!  Do they count him amongst their friends? Probably only if he gives them a cut of the royalties from his book…..

Can you guess what the next chapter is about?  Sport!  Will he rail on fox hunting,  what does he think of Football and Rugby?  He’s already made copious references to golf.  I use the golf references as time to make my next pot of tea….  ….I’m not sure if I will be able to finish this book because it’s a tad insulting and its not going to make me any money…..

Other posts prompted by Price’s analysis of the English:

1. heavy
2. fashion-failed females
3. provincially bumptious
4. the finest of all German tribes
5. mens club

Third in a growing series of Wednesday posts on “why wendy’s single“. 

Reason # 3:  Petite pool

How many men local American men over 35 are married?  Call me an old fashioned hetero-gal,  but, married men are not part of the potential dating pool.  In an article that details male, rahter than relationship oriented, perspectives the New York Times calls out that the number of unmarried men has increased:

In 1980, only 6 percent of men in their early 40’s at all levels of education and 5 percent of women in their early 40’s had never married. By 2004, this portion had increased to 16.5 percent of men and about 12.5 percent of women.

A quarter-century ago, when fewer women went to college, there was a plentiful supply of potential mates for men who had only a high school diploma. Even men who dropped out of high school could get blue-collar jobs paying decent wages and could expect to find, and support, a wife.

Apparantly female education and financial independence has undermined the male’s ability to find a wife.  A possible implicit assumption for most, not all, of the article is that it is the mans job to find a wife and that Naughty independent, intelligent women make this task more difficult.  Shocking!  This introduces another significant wendy-dating-pool-size-constrainer,  whether men consider women as people or servants.  Twisty bought my attention to this rather disturbing book, reviewed in the Independent.  If America has a surfice of men like that book’s author this will reduce my potential dating pool.  Being treated like a person is one of my minumum date-requirements,  I do so hate it when I get mistaken for a programmable fleshy robot,  don’t you?

Previously established reasons:

1. hat fetishist 
2. capable cookie

Fifth post prompted by the cheeky little book ‘England and the English: from an American point of view“  by Price Collier. 

The construct Price uses to (uncritically) analyse differences between English and American home’s is….. ……male influence.  You didn’t see that comking did you!  Here are the main points of his position in his own words:

“In England, the establishment is carried on with the prime view to the comfort of the man, and this applies to rich and poor alike and to all the conditions of society. In America the establishment is carried on with a prime view to the comfort and the exigencies of the woman” p133  “An English man is continually going home, an American is continually going to business” p134 “It is a matter of course in the English Parliament that Mr. Balfour should object strenuously to a plan for a Saturday’s sitting which debars Englishmen from Saturday and Sunday at their own firesides” p135 “a bitter attack in the American Congress on the topic of the dinner hour would scarcely be listened to, and would certainly delegate its champion to the realms of crankdom and ridicule” p136 “In England men have more avocations, more amusements, more interests outside of the daily round of pressing business than us” p147

Apparantly this means that English homes are more comfortable than American homes because they are controlled by men who demand more for their money.  Those darn well dressed American women making American homes uncomfortable and the govenrment for not taking their lunch hour seriously!  English men have more engagements in leisure activities.  England is just one big men’s club!   It normally takes about 4 cups of calming Tea and half a dozen cries of “How did he get that through an editing review process?!” before finishing a chapter.  That said, many of his descirptive observations have a strong face validity.  Here’s an example of a description of and Englishman that I recognised as topical and personally relevant, if you ignore the gender role:

“An Englishman’s holiday is looked forward to, planned for, and provided for with some care; while all too often in America a Holdiay to a busy man over thirty-five is a white elephant, which he ends by turning over to his wife and daughters as a mount” p148

His next chapter asks ‘Are the English Dull?” Do you think Price finds the English dull?  How many cups of tea will I have to drink to quell chapter-based spontaneous outrage?

Other posts prompted by Price’s study of the English:

1. Heavy
2. fashion-failed females
3. provincially bumptious
4. the finest of all German tribes

Today the Wendy House received 80 non-sensical spamacious comments within 2 hrs; well above the ‘normal’ average of one per month.  Wordpress supplies 42 (my age and the meaning of the life, the universe, and everything) anti-spam ‘plug-in’s.  They appear to be based on either

• ‘verify it’s really a fabulous person’, or 
• ‘exculde these comment characteristics’  (e.g. words, IP source). 

Option 42.  We chose each other in a flurry of mutual recognition, respect and thigh rubbing.

Let me know what you think of my shiny new fabulous-person-verification system….

Fourth post prompted by ‘England and the English: from an American point of view“  a more than cheeky little book by Price Collier. 

Price cites the Italian Tacitus on English characteristics that play a significant role in government:

“They are the finest of all the German tribes, and strive more than the rest to found their greatness on equity… …A passionless, firm and quiet people, they lead a solitary life, and do not stir up wars or harass the country by plunder and theft… …and yet they are always ready to a man to take up arms and even to form an army if the case demands it” p45

According to Price the English (actually Germans) are well behaved, focussed on being productive, with a strong sense of fairness based on common sense.  English government had its origins in Witenagemot, a ‘gathering of wise men’. 

“The present House of Lords itself is the direct result of the Saxon’s unwillingness to bother with government, and his willingness to leave such matters to those of most leisure and most wealth” p47

The Witenagemot chooses a ruler (monarch) from appropriate families,  the role does not automatically go to the next in an hereditary line.  Price provides several examples of English government choosing a preferred monarch over the direct hereditary line.  Price  is keen to illustrate that handing down of power in non elected institutions is not a strictly hereditary affair.  He provides some interesting examples to illustrate that the House of Lords has a high turn-over of family-line peers,  then asserts

“The present House of Lords is conspicuously and predominantly a democratic body, chosen from the successful of the land” p56

Price trusts in competency being moderated by social processes and effectiveness:

“God and nature turn out the incompetents” p60

Interesting perspective.  The house of Lords could represent a form of natural democracy when considered as a situated social process across Centuries rather than decades.  He appears to approve of the British governmental processes.  Can you guess what perspective Price will take in his chapter on English ‘home life’?  I’m riveted…..

Other posts prompted by earlier book chapters:

1. Heavy
2. fashion-failed females
3. provincially bumptious

Third post prompted by ‘England and the English: from an American point of view“  a book by Price Collier.  The quotes below use Price’s words to illustrate his first impressions of the English.  He uses such a wonderfully rich and concise turns of phrase that I couldn’t bear to summarise in my own words.  Excerpts:

On faces & food

“here the features of the women, even the features of the beautiful women, are moulded; while the features of our beautiful American women are chiselled.” p.12

“To those who have given some attention to gastronomics either for the stomach’s or the pocket’s sake, the food provided here is… …a thrice daily bugbear.” p.12

On climate & criticism:

“is a climate where the warmly dressed, agreeably exercising, comfortably housed male flourishes like a green bay tree” p14

“these pages are not written in criticism but as a study” p14

On Harlotry and bumptiuosness:

“Only here in London does one see, or rather it is held under your nose, the most shameless parading of Harlotry… …so too may one drink - men women, and even children - at almost every corner.” p.27

“an attitude of provincial bumptiousness and imprudence unequalled in the world” p30

Can you guess Price’s perspective on Royalty, The House of Lords, the Aristocracy?  Hold on to your seats because there’s a post on this very topic being brewed….

Other posts prompted by Price’s study of the English:

1. Heavy
2. fashion-failed females

Second post prompted by ‘England and the English: from an American point of view“  a book by Price Collier. (Post #1 - Heavy)

Price doesn’t much care for the fashion sense of his contemporary English women.  He blames English men for not adequately adorning their females.  Excerpt (my bold emphasis):

“But the women!  What hats,  what clothes, what shoes, what colors, what amorphous figures! Who permits that nice-looking girl to wear a white flannel skirt, a purple jacket, and a fur hat with a bunch of small feathers sticking out at right angles?…   …The gortesque costumes of the women would make one stop and stare, were it not that they are so common one ceases at last to notice them“

No mistaking Price’s attitude!  A fur hat with small feathers sticking out at right angles sounds absolutely gorgeous to a Hat fettishist such as myself.  I wonder if Price was wearing the 1909 equivalent of khaki cargo pants?  Would that I could “cease at last to notice them“.  I do enjoy Price’s turn of phrase and emotive expression.   He later explains at some length that the bad dress sense of the women is the fault of selfish men who don’t give their women enough money to construct fashionable and versataile wardrobes. 

Stay riveted to the edge of your seats… ….what will offend Price next?

The Doomsday book, a survey of England completed in 1086, is one of those historical artifacts that every English schoolchild learns about, part of a sense of cultural identity,  like the date 1066 when the french fellow “William the Conqueror’ successfully invaded and commissioned it to work out what he could TAX.  As of today the Doomsday book is available online.   For the English the term “doomsday” has become synonymous with a thorough and detailed ‘Directory”,  as illustrated by the online Dalek Doomsday book.

Planning possible distractions for our drive across the USA

likely:

• Idaho: “A cosmic journey through time, space… and Idaho“ to the Center of the Universe,  a manhole cover in Wallace.  If we can find the restaurant at the center of the Universe we’ll stop for some heavy food.
• South Dakota:  A night in the National Historical Landmark that is Deadwood, signposts to and a wander though Wall Drug (map), the Black Hills,  Mount Rushmore,  Custer state park and a night in the Badlands (Map).
• Wisconsin: The House on the Rock (Map);  The Unitarian Meeting House, by Frank Llloyd Wright while listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge over troubled waters”.
• Illinois:  Chicago stuff (possibly: City Hall, Water Tower, Haymarket Square, Jane Addams Hull House, the Tiffany ceiling in Macy’s on State street, Lake Shore Drive). 
• New York:  the Guggenheim Museum, another Frank Lloyd Wright.

unlikely: 

• Idaho:  Yellowstone park (map). 

As well as the Patsy Cline and Johny Cash Albums and a purple hat I have purchased a copy of Microsoft “Streets and Trips” with a GPS locator (The GPS service is free with the software!).  On the journey my laptop will plug into the lighter-socket on the truck and tell us (voice!) how to get to the places we want to go!  You can find Indian Restaurants,  Information centers,  Museums,  Gas Stations and all sorts of useful things.   Why pay for an expensive incar GPS navigation system when for less than $150.00 you can use your own laptop both in and OUT of your car.  oh, oh OH!  I’ll calm down later.  Reports of heat on the East coast are severe.  This trip is going to be HOT.

We’re open to recommendations for places to visit… …what would you try and see or avoid on this route?

LaCroix lured me out of the Wendy House for a fabulous American brunch (with coffee) at the Five spot and an afternoon browsing in “Twice sold Tales“.  LUXURY!  In amongst the cats I found this little treasure of a book:

‘England and the English: from an American point of view“  a book by Price Collier first published by Charles Scribners and sons in 1909.  The book is poetically written in the first person.  During the first chapter Price describes his boat Journey to Britain. 

Excerpt:

“What will you have for breakfast, if, alas, you will have any breakfast the first morning out?  Something very light perhaps.  These islanders, you soon find, have little regard for lightness. A light dish of eggs in some form, a light roll, fresh butter, coffee and hot milk? Yes, of a sort, but none of them light. You soon forswear coffee for tea, and ere long the passive bulwark of resistance wearies you into eggs and bacon, and cold meat, and jams, for your first meal of the day. Little things are typical. What you want is not refused you, but what they have and like is gradually forced upon you. Thus they govern their colonies. No raising of voices, no useless and prolonged discussion, no heat generated, no ridicule of your habits, or eulogy of their own, none of these, but just slow moving, unchanging, confident bulk“

Who would have guessed that at the turn of the century the English were slow moving, not light, with their passive bulwark of bulkiness!  Price’s passage implies a humerous irony for me.  Me, (almost) wearied by the confident bulk of Americans into trying sugar laden waffles for breakfast with Coffee instread of Tea…  

Stay riveted to the edge of your seats… ….what will Price write next?

Second in a potentially lengthy Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“. 

Reason #

1. hat fetishist 
2. capable cookie

Capable Cookie evidence:  Wendy can do all of these things without the aid of a boyfriend, safety net, ice-cream or drugs

• climb a ladder (e.g. paint, rescue kitties from trees)
• basic motor maintenance (e.g. change tyres,  oil, spark-plugs)
• geeky computery things (e.g. change a laptop hard drive, set-up a home network)
• avoid extensive personal grooming (e.g. can live without a comb,  iron,  make-up, nail file)
• endlessly entertain myself (e.g. see blog content for main topics)
• maintain a career (e.g. do and say stuff that makes me look and sound like an adult)
• balance my budget. (e.g. only financial debt is my mortgage)
• naughty stuff (e.g. unpublishable)

I suspect this is both a potential blocker and, for the right lad, a necessary pre-requisite to successful dating ;-)  

What do you think?

The lift (US: elevator) arrived, doors opened, the lighted arrow pointed upward.  Like servers we wanted to go down.  We waited.  After about 30 second the doors closed then to our suprise promptly opened again.  As the doors opened the lighted arrow shifted from pointing up to down.  I giggled as we walked into the lift.  The arrow and lift couldn’t change direction until the doors had opened and closed?  That is funny.

Here’s a sweetly apologetic printed note on a malfunctioning car-park lift in the UK,  with useful information hand-written afterwards:

W easily-amused.