:: The Wendy House ::

twenty-eight post in a post-patriarchal Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 28: below the feminiity bar

I do not conform to cultural norms of ‘girliness’,  feminine-ism.  It takes an exceptional male to recognise and appreciate the value of a female that does not display the culturally acceptable cues of girliness.  Such men are few and far between.  Sigh.

In this second post of a sporadic series on blog quality I hypothesize a classification of current blog visitors using some of the Google Analytics statistics for :: The Wendy House::  This is my first step in developing an intended user ‘Persona’,  Alan Cooper style, that will be used to improve your experience.  Hoorah! 

One of the many fancy displays provided by Google Analytics shows the average length of a ‘visit’ (a ’session’):

By default in Analytics, a session is defined as the period of time during which visitors are interacting with your site and there has been inactivity for less than 30 minutes. After 30 minutes of inactivity, any further page views will be treated as a new session. Users that leave your site and return within 30 minutes will be counted as part of the original session

I’m hypothesising that the data in the graph below from 24hrs in :: The Wendy House :: shows 4 types of visitor*.   I’ll call them:

1. Pat promptly leaves:  149 visits are less than 10 seconds.
2. Sam the speedy scanner:  18 visitors stayed between 10 seconds and one minute.
3. Charlie checks content: 24 people stayed between 1 and 10 minutes.  I suspect these people acutally read enough of the Blog to make a reasonably well informed estimation about the relevance of its content to them.
4. Robin the reader:  13 visitors stay at the Wendy house for half an hour (10) or more (3)

*one person can appear in these statistics more than once,  by re-visiting.  Approximately 10% of the total site visits are return visits.

Recommended for reflection on what it means to be in love, to be part of a modern family, to come of age in America.  It is a tragic love story:  love of country;  love of familiy; romantic love.  The film gets a bad deal from Rotten tomatoes.   The mood of the film reminded me of a cross between Wim Wenders film Paris Texas and The Badlands.  Laughter is light on the ground.  The film’s humour is mainly situational and very subtle.  Not recommended for people who want to have their films explicitly detail the key points or fast action,  this film ferments well with thought and gently touches on modern life indirectly.  For me this was a journey worth taking. :-)

ratings explained

The scenes capture how I see much of North America.  The suburbs,  Freeways,  colours, donuts, diners, telegraph poles, guns, power lines, paranoia, friendliness, loneliness, cynicism and optimism against an ever present sense of neglect, decay and madness. The sound track is provided by a single acoustic guitar and gentle male, or, female voice.  It’s slow,  like the pace of the film. The tune and singer fade in and out setting some peaceful, happy and sad moments.

Edward Norton’s character, Harlan,  has short, clear, answers to every question. His uncomplicated answers have a romantic dream-like quality,  you want to believe them,  you want to believe he believes them.  He’s straight-forward polite, respectful of others yet somehow niaive.  He’s easy to love.  He say’s he’s skilled in ranching.  Was Harlan ever a cowboy?  Is he pretending?  Does it matter?  He appears to be unemployable in any other skilled job.  Harlen’s way of thinking and dialog is a treat throughout.  One moment shot me.  During his first swim in the Pacific Ocean he looks out towards the horizon: 

that’s about as close to forever as I can imagine.

Sometimes its not clear if he lives in the real world or an idealistic fantasy, if he’s lost a grasp on reality,  if he ever really had one. 

Outstanding moments included:

• the conversation in the bath because of the innovative approach to filming, the dialog and set.  
• Harlan’s visit to his parent’s home.  No music.  No speaking. The silence heightened the impact on me.  
• Reflexism.  Using a film set of western ‘My Darling Clementine’ to playfully create a western story within this western story.  This provided temporary, subtle, light relief as the tension builds.   

An extremely well constructed film in every technical level, acting, camera-work, lighting, script, direction etc.  A classic, not popularist, film.  

Feeling stressed?  

Too many storms, power-cuts, cars on the road, crazy people that hassle you at work and rainy days? 

You could take pills,  you could arrange for a massage,  you could try all sorts of new fangled paid-for services.  Or take a walk though nature;  a stroll along pacific coast beach or through the mountains at Snoqualmie pass…

Be careful not to fall over, not to cut the skin on your knuckles while holding onto the sledge skidding and flying over bumpity bumps.  Whooooooosssshhhh.  If you get a few knuckle-cuts and bruises,  take a Rogue ale to numb the pain. 

Dr. Wendy* says this is how things work 

*I cannot accept responsibility for any injuries resulting from this advice because I am much too silly.

In the Teapot Vegetarian house, by accident, I ordered a pot of Orange Spice tea.

Server: it will be a small pot for one

My heart drooped.  Small?!  No, no, no, I need multiple cups. The server was so well mannered,  I didn’t want to ask for something they might not have,  he must know best.  I respected his knowledge and held my tongue.

Wendy: That’s fine

Small pot was no understatement.  It smelt delicious.  No milk.  I didn’t ask for milk. I decided to take the experience as delivered and this was obviously an oriental tea house where milk is probably inappropriate.  Curious about the lack of a tea strainer I lifted the lid on the pot to inspect the straining mechanism.  As I lifted the lid the spout spontaneously ejaculated a spurt of tea.  I smiled. 

Pleasant, sensor rubble, memories.   See the wet-patch?   No-one will be sleeping on that.

Even better,  the server refilled the pot with hot water as needed.  He did, indeed, know best.  No milk needed, no big pot needed.  I suspect I’m being weened off my working class English tea taking ways…

Google analytcis provides a web site statistics service that is free to websites that receive less than an obscenely large amount of clicks.  I set it up for the Wendy house and dropped by to look at the reports 24 hours later. 

It told me all sorts of things with graphs, pie-charts, percentages. maps and tables.More pretty data representations than you can shake a stick at.  The data can even be exported to Excel.  What does a peak at this data for Yesterday tell you?:

sixteenth in a series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea and milk in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #16 kitsch tea rooms

Promised Ostentatiousness:  A local guide lists a number of ‘top spots’ for taking tea in the NW USA.  It cites the ‘Queen Mary Tea room’ as a top spot.  Evidently it’s the ‘perfect place to hold your next baby or bridal shower’  Because, this being the US, you will need more than one bridal shower in your lifetime and you will be dropping dozens of sproggs, its your US patriotic duty to be a one-woman baby factory.  You’ll need plenty of tea to shower the brood with.  According to the website your guest of honour gets to be ‘Queen for a day’.  I can just feel the Britishness oozing out of their ostentatious advertizing material,  can’t you?   

Girl zone: On your behalf I ventured into this den of inequiTEA.  It was packed with women who looked older than me,  past baby-dropping age, probably on their third or forth wedding.  Probably ‘regulars’.  Their hair neatly bouffed,  their earrings matching ironed blouses.  Not a nose-stud or jaunty hat in sight (except mine).

Pricey:  The decorative style could be called ‘Victorian clutter’,  but more accurately described as American kitsch-cute-clutter.  The theme of bone china and teapots provided the main concession to a British angle.   I swallowed my bile and reached for the menu.  An impressive menu in tea selection and prices. There is a minimum charge of $10.00 per person.  A single pot of tea cost $4.99. I ordered the standard afternoon tea ($24.99 per person).  Silly me, I made the risky assumption that my tea would come with milk.  Eventually I caught the busy,  polite, server’s (female) eye to request milk. 

 Cold tea: Another server (female) explained the difference between brewing and stewing to the ladies on the table next to me.  I was impressed,  she managed the explanation without using any of these words:  stew, brew, steep or tannin.  No small achievement.  When the server (female) bought my pot of Tea she explained that I should wait between 3 and 5 minutes before removing the leaves from the pot.  Good advice,  difficult to follow because I have no watch and no timer was provided.  Luckily I know how to judge a brew based on smell and look.  Saved!  The filter for the tea-leaves was not designed for the pot shape.  The lid was jauntily placed, like my hat, on the filter.  I looked around and all the teapots in the place were like this.  The filter was packed with tea leaves.  I tried to jiggle the filter to facilitate water flowing over the tea.  There wasn’t enough room.  I tried picking up the pot and creating a circular movement to encourage a flow of tea around the pot.  People looked at me,  eye’s scorched pathways into my un-matching earrings and jumper.   Eventually the colour looked good and I removed the filter containing the leaves.  The pot was sufficiently ‘cool’ to hold in my hands.  I contemplated asking for a tea cosey.  Checking the other tables there were no tea cosey’s in sight.  Frankly,  call me pathetic,  I was too intimidated by the clientelle and overly busy servers (all female) to ask for a tea-cosey.  Sigh.  I drank my almost cold tea,  it tasted excellent,  would have tasted better at an appropriate temperature.  I don’t think they warmed the pot,  and I wasn’t bought, or offered the opportunity to have a pot of hot water to top-up.

Mixed food quality:  The food that came with the Tea was a mixed affair.  The sorbet’s were excellent.  The flatware provided to eat the sorbet was a tea-spoon.  Huh?  that’s highly inappropriate for a quality tea rooms.  It’s an example of the American ‘kitchness’ that oozed throughout this place.  Having quarterized crumpet.  What the?!  Very dry and totally missing the sumptuousness that is the crumpet.  I couldn’t even bring myself to eat this.  The scone was an American scone.  American scones are triangular rather than oval and more akin to British Rock cakes than English scones.  The fresh fruit was wonderful and the cake was pretty tasty.

Would I go again?  Yes!  to try the other teas and remind myself of the unique, strange, US girly,  atmosphere.  The atmosphere actually grew on me.  On return visit I’ll be more assertive and ask for the pot to be warmed, a tea cosey and a supplementary pot of hot water.  Wild eh?  I’d quite like to take a group of boys in there just for the hell of it what will boy-pheromones do to the atmosphere?  I’m that kind of rebel.  Hurrah!

Queen Mary Tea house is a good place to occasionally take, or eye-up, elderly US girlies (if that’s what you like)

twenty-seventh post in a computer analgesic Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 27: not parallel processing potential partners

Recent discussions with local boys and gals and last year’s indepth insomniacal analysis of an internet dating service suggests that the predominant local approach to securing mutually enjoyable naughtiness involves parallel processing.  I don’t think that I am either sufficiently inspired or skilled to use this approach.

I do tire of male colleagues attributing any praise or criticism of my work to a non-existent sexual relationship rather than first looking for plausible professional reasons.  

A story from 1990’s working in the UK for English male, married, managers within all male teams.  The dialogue is recreated from memory, quotationally innacurate,  accurate in the general gist.  This story happens about 3 months after I had changed departments.  My new manager and old manager sociailised together.  One day having lunch with my ex-manager:

ex-manager:  are you sleeping with your new manager?

This question appeared to come out of the blue.  I liked that my ex-manager felt able to ask me such a question.  But I couldn’t work out what would make him think that:

Wendy:  What makes you think that?

Ex-Manager: well,  over dinner last night he was talking about how outstanding your work is and he went on and on and on…  …more praise than I’d expect

Wendy:  The praise is justified,  my work on his team is outstanding, they’re all really laid back,  just writting an email looks like good work to them.  They’ve never worked with a psychologist before so even basic things like experimental design are totally new concepts to them. I’m not sleeping with him or planning to.

Later

new team colleague:  don’t work so hard,  you’re showing us up

the new team are so laid back they seem to spend most of their time drinking tea and chatting rather than actually using all the wonderful resources we’ve got to discover stuff,  it’s frustrating but I’m part of a team so I’ve got to fit in and move things at an appropriate pace to suit everyone.

new team colleague:  did you sleep with your ex-manager?

Can you see the pattern emerging here?  Again,  I’m pleased that he actually asked this question because it means that I can actually address the gossip directly. 

Wendy:  “what makes you think that?”

new team colleague:  “well,  you’re work is really good which wasn’t the impression he gave before you joined the team,  so we thought that maybe you had an affair with him and it ended badly so he was just sour about it and it showed in his assessment of the quality of your work”

Wendy:  We never had an affair,  there’s no bitterness between the two of us. My ex-manager has very precise experimental research standard’s from his Cambridge PhD days which are not so relevant to our work and he’s a real pain when it comes to getting things done on time,  you guys are much more laid back.  I’m just not used to it yet. 

I like quashing these kind of off-track analyses.  I’ve had no equivalent conversations in my American workplace.  The rumours may happen,  I never get the opportunity to quash them.  A girl could get paranoid…

When trying-out a new Tea venue I normally take a quick look at the place name and memorize it’s location as a road junction then swing on out there in LooSea. This strategy has served me well,  until today.  Two tea places in the same building,  is Seattle.  Hardly what a girl is expecting.  I’d arranged to meet Jenn at one of them.  Remedy teas.

I went into the wrong one. The Teapot.  After two pots of excellent Orange Spice tea, without milk or company,  I left.  I stopped to take a photograph of the building on the way out. That’s when I noticed my mistake,  can you see it?  Teapot on the left,  Remedy Tea on the right.  I meekly wandered over to “Remedy teas”. 

Jenn in black and the torture victim were sitting outside.  In January, outside, a week after snow-fall, without coats.   Washington State locals are really rufty-tufty.  Jenn’s ‘Loser’ handbag was definitely pointing at me under the table.  How did she know in advance? They were very forgiving about my missing the place first time and let me join them for another pot of Tea and a waitress interview. 

After three pots of tea I only used the ‘restrooms’ once,  my bladder is under tight control.  The restrooms also helped me with a poster describing the six-stages of ’how to wash your hands’ with pictures.  Now I know.  Good job I’ve got that little skill sorted now. It should prevent all sorts of unplanned nastiness.

Bay 1 is popular!  Why?

1. children arriving and leaving with their skateboards for the nearby park.
2. there are 377 car parking spaces across the road by the only other bay,  Bay 2. 
3. frequent, cheap, fast, buses to downtown Seattle.
4. buses have bicycle carriers (Redmond is rumoured to be the Bicycle capital of the NW USA).
5. Redmond Library,  Police Station, Courts and shopping facilities are within 3 blocks.
6. the outrageously innovative, wild, humerous naming strategy used for this Park and Ride.  I fell off my chair laughing.  I’m going to write a poem about it.  Really.  I am.  I AM. 

Bay 1 doesn’t have a fancy ‘Robobus’.  It does have an open-fronted  wind-rain shelter painted brightly with pictures that look like a cross-between graffiti and children’s pictures that might be posted on a Fridge.   The quick, cheap, warm, friendly ride on the 545x to downtown Seattle is simply adorable.  It costs less than downtown parking!  The bus drivers are cheerful helpful people.  Wonderful service.

Actually,  I go there to hang-out at Bay 1. 

I like riding on buses

BBC reports

• Wales:  30,000 people are without power in Wales (Jan 18th). 
• Scotland: Blizzard conditions.  That’s worse that snowfall, that’s when the snow travels fast and sideways rather than floating down. (Jan 18th).
• Britain:  Storms lead to the death of 9 people (Jan 18th).  

Listen to a BBC reporter and local Brit’s talk about the experience,  see huge waves, see planes fighting to take off, trees blocking roads and workers in orange tops trying to sort-out the mess:  Embedded windows Media player on BBC site.

The CIA estimates the population of Britain to be 60,609,153 (minus 9),  that’s about 12 times the estimated population of Washington state.  More pople to be impacted by a Storm on an island.  Woodland’s junior school puts density of people point succinctly:

Britain is a relatively densely populated country: it is more than twice as densely populated as France (106 people per sq.km), nine times as densely populated as the USA (27 people per sq.km) and 100 times as densely populated as Australia (2 people per sq.km).

I’ll be checking in with my family this weekend,  no-one’s called which is always a good sign with my family :-) 

Apparantly,  after a ‘bitter’ break-up a girl will drive the boy to a replacement-girl.  This must be because boys are challenged when it comes to driving decisions,  for example:

• what direction to steer the car
• when to use the brakes
• whether they can cope with being single
• who might be a good match for them

I’m extremely impressed by the way ex-girlfriends considerately help decisionally challenged ex-boyfriends.  Good show!

fifthteenth in a series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea and milk in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #15 Tea in Panama

Panama: The Panama canal was a significant engineering achievement sponsored by the Americans and French prior to WW1.  The Panama Hotel dates back to the 1920’s and is based in what has become Seattle’s ‘International’ district.  The Hotel’s Tea rooms provide a pleasant mix between oriental and English tea customs.  The tea was well made, not stewed, plentiful and upon request an appropriate jug of milk was supplied.

Goodnesses:  I had advertised that I would be loitering in this Tea house on a Sunday afternoon at 3pm to 12 or so favourite people.  To my enthusiastic suprize 8 people* turned up to join in.  We were able to arrange to sit around one ‘coffee’ table and share conversation.  This made the afternoon really enjoyable.   The tea prices were reasonable at  $6.00 for a pot of at least 6 cups of tea and some classic (Darjeeling) and interesting (lavendar flavoured) choices.  Yummy,  naturally I finnished off one pot of Darjeeling all on my own and managed to scrounge cups from friends’ pots!  The Tea house provides free wireless access,  there were groups of people with Tea and Laptops opened on long tables.  The rest rooms were very stylish,  though difficult to spot from the outside,  not labelled.  I accidentally walked into the broom cupboard,  perversely this was actually a highlight for me,  giggling in the broom-cupboard bought back lots of fun memories.  The clientelle looked mainly,  but not solely, Asian and of varied age maybe 20 through to my 43yrs.  Girls and ….boys….  and sometimes it was difficult to guess….

Discomforts:  these were miner,  I feel a bit churlish even mentioning them. The shiney wood floors and some of the hardwood seats gave the place aslightly cold, uncomfortable edge.  I kept my coat on to stay warm and was lucky enough to find a seat on a soft sofa.

Panama Hotel Tea rooms are a good place for a reasonably priced and brewed hot tea in a relaxing environment conducive to good conversation irrespective of age and gender

* People included:  LaCroix, Raymond, NitwitOddment, Mark, The CultFigurine, the DevilsGulch.  No-one was a post-menopausal woman (not even me!) consequently several people risked taking milk in our tea,  Hoorah!  I even put milk in my Darjeeling….  just a comforting ‘dash’…

twenty-sixth post in a metaphorical Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 26: like owning a dog

Talor Mali produced a wonderful poem that draws a recognizable analogy between being in love and owning a dog.   Oh yes,  dating me is like owning a dog.  Not everone is ready for the responisibility…

With one notable exception I have managed to avoid shops that sell unnecessary things at bargain prices that help you save money, by spending money, during the January sales.  This is the story of my notable exception.

While exploring the small Olympic Penisula town of Sequim,  pronounced ’squwim’, I found a clothes shop with more than 4 interesting hats in the window.  Drawn in for the fun of trying on hats.  Strewn all around the shop were more, more, MORE hats.  Hand-made,  innovative hats.  I asked one of the 3 shop assistants if they had a card of the milliner.  No.  Do they know if the milliner has a website?  no. 

Sigh.  I may never find hats by this Milliner again.  After an hour or so experimenting with 30 plus hats while the 3 shop assistants left me to my game,  I realised that I would be uable to leave the without making a purchase.  I selected 3 hats that filled niche’s in my current collection and carried them over to the counter where the assistants were merrily chatting and solicted their expert advice. 

Which of these 3 hats should I buy?

The youngest assistant,  possibly in her late teens liked they way I looked in the powder-blue closh.  I liked the softness of the wool, orginality of the 1920’s style inspired design.  The middle-aged assistant liked the aubergine (US = eggplant) velvet floppy affair.  The colour is that of my PhD university gown.  The elderly assistant liked the black-white-grey fluffy pillbox.  As the three ladies argued amongst themselves about the relative benefits of each hat I listended intently.  I asked myself

• will this hat blow-off in a high wind?  No, all fitted well.
• can I washing this hat?   Yes, all were washable.
• Do I have a hat like this one? No powder-blue hats. No aubergine hats. My grey fluffy hat has a fabulously large brim.  

In a rare moment of wreckless purchasing I whipped out my credit card and bought all three for under $60.00 (approximately thirty quid).  The assistants were all happy that I had valued each of their advice and favoured none.

Later I discovered that Parkhurst (Blue closh Milliner) hat’s are sold online.  Dangerous knowledge for a Wendy to have…..

Highly recommended for raunchiness, innovative characters, plot, attention to visual detail that conveys the period as dark, lavishly dressed, wigged and ill-washed.  The biograhpy of this poetic raunchy athiest provides the plot with twists, turns and endings more fabulous than stories concocted to please a mass audience.  The scope and detail of the script is worthy of its topic.  The language is used to good effect.  Every sentence is worthy of inclusion in the film, no redundancy.  I laughed,  I cried,  I winced, I disliked characters, I wanted to befriend characters,  I admired characters,  I was reviled by characters.  This film was a fulfilling experience for me.  The production credits the audience with intelligence :-) :-)  

ratings explained

The film opens with a young adult John Wilmott (Jonny Depp),  Second Earl of Rochester, making a self descriptive prologue directly to us, the viewers, in a classical stage play style.  He sneers as he knowing describes himself, his knowledge of how we will experience him. Willmot is wonderfully objectionable, spiteful even, with the engaging cleverness worthy of a witty poet and playwrite.  He is spikely cynical throughout:

“the moral of the incident is that any experiment of interest in life will be carried out at your own expense,  mark it well“

“all men would be cowards if the only had the courage“

The film is birightly bawdy.  It sprays a wealthy variety of recognisable,  yet obscure words, that mechanistically describe sexual acts.  The context and delivery of obscure phrase’s makes meaning clear,  for example a phrase delivered by a prostitute/actress describing copulation with a wife:

“shooting good chisum up the lawful“

Sad cynicism pervades the film, life is conveyed as tough and yet the lyrical words thrown in pain are beautiful,  bring poignancy to the struggles of the players.  Sepia tones,  mud, smoke, puss, music played on period instruments, dark lighting rich language and costumes sink us deeply in the period.  The tone and pace of the dialogue moves like a symphony. 

Examples of bawdy cycnicism expressed by the female characters:

“I believe that men are hurdles that must be negotiated…   …you could buy my slit for a pound a night sir…” (Elizabeth Barry played by Samantha Morton)

“when a gent sees the spirit and not the eyes and the tits,  then the gent is in trouble… …don’t make me care for you, I’d rather you came your fetch over my face than leave me with that lump of caring” (Prostitute/Actress)

The temporary relief from cynicism and life is through plays, acting, Drama.  Dreams.  The relationship between John Wilmott and his prodigy actress, Elizabeth Barry, hints at a deeper more profound, mutually beneficial relationship.  The relationship between John and King Charles II (John Malkovich) is similarly more profound.  No single quote captures the subtlety and power of these threads of hope and optimism, each peaking at a different point in the film,  beautifully balanced.  John Malkovich’s is exceedingly well cast, delivering few and powerful lines with quiet gravitas. 

The film ends with an epilogue that invites the audience to take a slightly new slant on all that they’ve seen.  It asks a question,  I wonder what your answer will be.  My answer was  ‘no more or no less’

Excellent production.

Someone once told me the seventh wave to hit the beach is bigger that the six preceeding waves. 

I picked a big wave and counted the waves that rolled behind it.  Maybe 100 or so waves later,  time lost behind the clouds, I reluctantly admitted that I couldn’t find a seventh wave as noticably bigger.  I walked the beach watching the waves.  No longer counting.  Counting felt like a modern construction layered on to the ancient being of waves.  Each wave unique,  each wave with predictable components of foam,  direction and a hypnotic rhythm.  Seven days in a week,  a predictable daily journey to work yet each day is unique.  Waves unseen continue, are none-the-less beautiful,  noisey,  cold and enticing.

Alone on the cold December pacific coast beach was both the antithesis of being in the middle of hectic, heated, work activity and the hypnotic security of predictability.  I have walked in the Northern Sea’s warmed by the winter sunshine and the monstrous beauty of the Teeside nuclear power plant.  I have watched the sun set over the Basque Atlantic ocean warming my heart and the evening with fresh Beaujolais, garlic cheese, baguettes, and pale skinned dark haired, blue-eyed, motorcycling English boys. 

At twenty-four taking a long summer lunch break from work in the company of a beautiful Irish boy.  Sat on a canal bank.  Our feet dangling in the cooling water.  He asked “what do you want from life?” I didnt answer with “jet-fighter pilot” of age 12 or the  Architect of age 15… …impulsively I blurted “I want to live by the Sea“.  He laughed.  On an Island like Britain it is easy to live by the Sea.  We were sat in the heart of England, we couldn’t be further from the sea.  Later, he took me to the nearest sea, to The Wash.  A mystical place.  A place of love and death,  of madness and Serenity.   Nearly 20 years later I know that fate has favoured me.  Never having lived more than 2 hours drive from the sea. 

My wealth is counting the waves on the coast, at work and in my dreams.  Daily.

It’s that time again.  The time when my capacity for quick, sharp, detailed, unrequested, passionate problem space descriptions reaches it’s zenith.  I wonder whether this power can be harnessed for the greater benefit of society?  Perhaps menstrual women could be used in an international arbitration pre-peace negotiations team:

Having an international conflict?   

Call in The Menstrual pre-mediators. 

Menstrual pre-mediators will quickly detail and disect your problem space.  They can deliver analysis without expensive, time consuming, ambiguous social nicities.  No nastiness ignored.  They can completely ignore conversational etiquette and stamp on social taboos.  Thier passionately delivered stream of consciousness will get to the nub of your problem. In the wake of their departure your mediating team can step into the relief to build acceptable solutions.

Call now*, ask nicely and offer chocolate 

*Booking requires at least one month’s notice. 

My voicemail recieved a pre-recorded message from the people that empty my bins: (US = ‘waste disposal service’). 

thier tape recorder phones my tape recorder

The impending ‘weather event’ might interrupt my service.  Not to worry!  They’ll come next week and take twice the rubbish away.  Hooray!  Wonderfully polite and thoughtful. 

‘weather event’?!  Seattle services’ way of saying “snow“, “high winds“, ’something not nice’,  ‘some nastiness’ without causing customers to panic.  Or, maybe they’re expecting a heat-wave and the bin service people to call in ’sick’ as they dash to ‘reccuperate’ on the local beaches with their surf boards.  ‘Weather event‘ certainly covers a broad range of possibilities. 

Near me the weather event turned out to be a couple of hours of snow, producing ’slush’ on the roads, local Seattle drivers aqua-planning or deserting their cars on the roadside.  Some parts of the Seattle region collected over half a foot of snow.  Meanwhile, LooSea didn’t even skid in our local 3 inches.  Here are LooSea’s tracks mixed with evidence of people, cars and bicyles outside the Wendy House… …in the evening slush..

forteenth in decision challenging Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #14 got heart?

The BBC reports the shocking news that semi-skimmed milk (US = 10%) in Tea can prevent the postive effect that drinking Tea can have on your heart.  Evidently the researchers can make this assertion based on a ‘very complex’ study of 16 people (post menopausal women) and some rat-tissue.  Hmmmmm…   I think that June Davison, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, is using the understatement to full effect:

“It is difficult to say from this small study the impact of adding a drop of milk to your tea can make.”

Drink tea without milk AND enjoy it?  Oh my,  horrid, horrid thought.  I am not alone in my preference for a dash of milk in my tea according to this BBC report:

“It is estimated as many as 98% of UK tea-drinkers prefer milk in their favourite cuppa“

I need to keep my calcium intake high to avoid post menopausal osteoporosis.

twenty-fifth post in a confusing Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 25: discombobulating

My use of the English English language,  sentence construction,  grammar and idiosyncratic spelling can prove just too discombobulating for many local boys.  Should I start conversing in standard conversational American?

As I walked up to the car park (US = parking garage) entrance to my place of work a man stepped out of the shadows and entered the building behind me.  He was carrying a laptop in one hand and a cake-box in the other.

Wendy: do you have an identity entrance card-key

Man: I left it behind.

Wendy: you should check-in at reception and pick-up a temporary pass

As we entered the main building he headed off into the building

Wendy: reception is that way

Man: don’t you trust me

Wendy: I’ve never seen you before.

Man: I just left my ID-card key in my office.

Wendy: reception is there,  check-in with them, they can verify your ID, I can’t

He muttered under his breath as I watched him walk up to reception and start talking to the receptionist before heading for the Kitchen and a nice cup of tea.

He was a legitimate employee.  That is not the point.  The point is that people with nefarious intentions effectively mimic legitimate employees and leverage the good nature and expectations of colleagues.  This employee used a classic infiltration technique.  Card security systems are only as effective as the susceptibility of employees to classic social manipulation.  I was disappointed by the mans truculent attitude towards spending a couple of minutes atoning,  at the reception desk, for having forgotten his card.  Everyone occassionally has to do this, its normal, its honest and safe.

Not recommended for people who grew-up with the English TV series.  Most of the core themes that gave the TV series cross-generational appeal have been squished.  For example,  Dougal’s sarcasm and addiction to a white ’sugar-like’ substance,  Dylan’s narcolepsy, Brian’s ‘Speed’, Ermintrude’s ‘flights’ etc.  Standard good children’s story for people not familiar with the TV series, only the graphics and vocal cast are above par

ratings explained

Renamed from the original name “The Magic Roundabout”.  Perhaps the US distributers think that the US English speaking audience have difficulty appreicating film titles with more than one word?  Why not call it ‘The Magic Carousel”?  Are the people responsible for translating UK to US English underestimating the intelligence and imagination of the US audience.  Using the title Doogal,  rather than the orginal character name Dougal is another example of a translation with dubious value.  The IMDB provides a lively discussion on the renaming and recasting of this film. 

Highlights:

• Visual treat: the detailed graphics in the varied spectacular scenes with creative ‘camera’ angles are a real visual treat, very high quality.
• Super-powered ‘bling-bling‘:  the idea is outstanding,  I want some!
• Lord of the Rings references:  in visuals,  scene structure and explicitly in dialog.
• flatulent moose. A new character with fairly obvious accessible appeal to all ages.
• child-friendly goody-bady story:  The classic goody-baddy storyline is fairly easy to follow…. 

Lowlights:

• Characters ‘dumbed-down’:  For those familiar with the TV series these characteristis were dumbed-down or simply REMOVED!  Brian doesn’t zoom, not once!!!!  The ‘Speed’ connection is lost.  Dylan isn’t narcoleptic,  he’s merely ’sleepy’.  His Narcolepsy could have been used to great comic effect.  Dougal isn’t sarcastic,  worse still he’s gained a sickeningly soppy overt affection for Florence.  Dougal does like ‘Candy’,  not specific to the Cocaine-like ’sugar’. Ermintrude doesn’t fly or have a flower in her mouth.  Ermintrude does like singing, badly. Mr. MacHenry is not there dealing the drugs. Zebedee is referred to as a ‘Wizard’.  Generally they’ve filtered out many of the extreme characterisations that made the characters outrageously fun for adults. 
• No blue cat. Dougal’s historical and natural (cat) nemisis did not feature in the storyline.  Why create a totally new baddy rather than leverage and develop the pre-existing characterisation?
• Negative modifications of the female roles:  Florence is not portrayed as the voice of sensible authority.  Florence has a minor role in a frighteningly typical ‘woman as damsel in distress’ format. She’s a victim with not real sense of character beyond loving her dog.  Erminturde is similarly recast as a ‘love object’ that aspires to success in the celebrity world.  If I am to believe the magazines,  aspirations towards celebrity are acceptible for a female. The program producers could easily have built a witty different, legitimate aspirational model for Ermintrude.  They didn’t.  All the action confrontation scenes involve the male characters.  Ermintrude’s contribution to the groups success is through using her voice and dexterity.  Acceptable girly qualities.  Both qualities are the source of humour, ridiculed.
• Voice recasting:    Unfortunately for me the US version has many voices re-cast.  No Tom Baker (Dr. Who), Robbie Williams (pop star), Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous), Ray Winston (Sexy Beast), Lee Evans, or Jim Broadbent.  While these voices are not American most are known to the American audience they are all highly professional recognisable performers.  It’s a sad choice to replace them.  

Note:  This review was written without having seen the original UK version. 

P.S. Thankyou to all the wonderful people who turned up at the Panama Hotel tea room yesterday,  such a pleasant suprise,  your company was thoroughly enjoyed and I didn’t have a single Cinderella moment!

Do not try this at home

Loosea’s boot (US trunk) has a magnetic quality for the SUV’s that follow her.  To reduce the effect I normally regularly pull into parking places allowing the aggressive SUVs to progress to sniffing the boot of the car in front of Loosea.  Pulling into a parking place is not always a realistic option on windy mountain roads.  While sight-seeing on the Olympic peninsula I serendipitously discovered a way to abrogate this SUV courting activity.  A simple and cunning manoeuvre that I have christened flaccid drifting.   

Steps to perform a flaccid drift:

1. drive so that the passenger-side of the car slowly crosses onto the hard shoulder.
2. slowly correct your alignment.
3. if there is plenty of oncoming traffic repeat steps 1 through 2 above.
4. if there is no oncoming traffic, no opportunity for the car behind to overtake and no passing place within sight take steps 5 and 6.
5. drive so that the driver-side of the car crosses the centre of the road.
6. slowly correct your alignment.

Note:  in many US wide lanes, with a small car, it is possible to perform the flaccid drift without ever leaving the lane.  This is a preferable, safer, operation.

This manoeuvre increases the distance between Loosea’s boot and the following SUV by approximately 8 fold.  Repeating the 6 steps is not necessary.  Once the extra distance between Loosea’s boot and the SUV is established,  it is reasonably well maintained. Excellent result. 

Dr. Wendy does not recommend using this highly dangerous manoeuvre.

Recommended for an informal friendly bed and breakfast in Dungeness :-)

ratings explained

Glenda Clark (ne Chambers) explains that the farm is the oldest family run farm in Washington state.  She is thinking about trying to get it ‘registered’,  the UK equivalent of ‘listed’. It is no coincidence that Clark Chambers farm is the first building on ‘Clark road’.  Bob Clark is a never ending source of stories about farm life and the social history of the Dungeness region of the Olympic peninsular.  A chirpy cheerful couple,  they remind me of cockneys,  with a different accent.

All American accessories included a white picket fence, a porch that surrounded the whole house and warm friendly owners.  Spectacular accessories included a view of the Olympic mountains to the south and a huge bath en-suite.

The bedrooms are named after their original occupants,  mom and dad’s room,  Bob’s room, the guest room.  I stayed in mom and dad’s room with a big en-suite bath.  I miss the decent sized British baths made for lounging in.  Being a person of aquadexterous talents I could adjust the waterfolw with my tootsies.  I sloshed in the outstanding luxury of two baths per day. 

Yummy

For the week starting Monday December:

• 4th: joint honours to the cultfigurine for pointing out that a team of professional experts would be freakin’ at the challenge of transforming a woman into a magazine approved good-looker and HardwareJunkie for recognising the intrinsic evilness that is a concrete column.
• 11th: Tim for introducing “sure thing short bus” into my vocabularly.
• 18th: Mark for questioning how Cosmopolitan’s current marketing aligns with Helen Gurley Brown’s perspective.
• 25th: Betty Cracker for promoting fashion industry subversion.

With your dedicated help I may eventually be effectively socialised into the wacky culture that is NW US…

thirteenth in a confusingly colourful series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black, white, green, red) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #13 confusing colour tea taxonomy

• Red tea:  According to Wikipedia red tea is actually black tea,  with the exception of the South African Rooibos which isn’t actually a tea, just as herbal and plant infusions are not actually teas.  
• Green tea:  According to Wikipedia black tea is a type of Green tea.  I think that makes Darjeeling a green tea that is a black tea and also a red tea.  But I can’t be certain because I’m ever-so-slightly CONFUSED.
• White tea: According to Wikipedia white tea is often a subset of juvenile green teas  before they’ve matured into green. It looks like Ceylon tea can be black, red and white all at the same time. 
• Black tea: according to wikipedia black tea is the true tea and different from green tea.  It’s not clear if Black and Green teas are mutually exclusive categories.  The phrase black tea is used to refer to tea that doen’t have milk mixed with it.  This could include Green teas.  Before I came to the US the phrase black tea meant ‘without milk’  now I know better.  Now I know enought to know that I’m CONFUSED.

I have to say that the colour based categorisation isn’t really working for me.  Excel has kindly offered to work on producing a chart that makes the whole colourful tea experience more Wendy-friendly. 

Hurrah!

twenty-forth post in a self-entertainingly Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 24: self entertaining system

It seems that I’m fairly adept at entertaining myself.  This includes the fabulous skills of talking to myself and blogging for you,  oh yes,  it’s all about you,  really it is,  absolutely.  Some boys apparently prefer their partners to demonstrate a ‘need’ for them otherwise they feel redundant…   …Hmmmmm…… …should I develop a disability? 

Innocently wandering through a Dungeness, not Dungeness, graveyard.  As one is wont to do.

Minding my own business. Reading the odd,  very odd, gravestone.  When,

SUDDENLY 

As if from nowhere,  a cryptic cat launched itself at my torso.  It cunningly used pin-prick claws to latch onto my skinny left thigh.  While chewing my zipper and partially succeeding in mesmerizing me with talking eyes the killer kitty eye’d my nose as a potential source of protien:

Scared, me?  Oh yes. 

Lot’s of ‘nice kitty’s were administered to secure my thigh’s freedom. 

Finally I discovered that offering my fingers as a sacrifice helped lure the kitty’s claws from my leg as it performed the twistiest of jumps in a digit devouring frenzy.  My fingers and legs bare punctuation scars…

I’ve not heard an American use the phrase ‘graveyard’ nor seen sign’s with the phrase.  Roads are called ‘cemetary road’ and sign’s indicate cemetaries.  Modern cemetaries are often labelled ’memorial garden’.  The mutliple, relevant, related meanings that come with using the word ’grave‘ appeal to me:

1. dig; excavate.
2. carve or shape with a chisel: sculpture; carve or cut (as letters or figures) into a hard surface: engrave.
3. to impress or fix (as a thought) deeply.