:: The Wendy House ::

The travel company has provided a trip dossier that includes a very specific pre-holiday check-list on what to pack!  Useful and appealing to my listophilia:   

I’m a tad concerned about the lack of underwear and nightwear worn by my fellow passengers, self, and the skipper. Publically displayed jiggly-bits can put one off one’s beer or book.  The lack of ’dressing’ requirements for evenings in the Taverna, or Temple visiting, is also a tiny disappointment.  Luckily for the male guests there are no requirements to bring skirts or dresses. All the listed gear fits into this holdall with space to spare, for an unlisted skirt, underwear, binoculars and possibly a pretty dress.   I’m still waiting for my promised paper airline ticket to arrive…

Bros:  he was alright except for the lists

Wendy:  the lists?

Bros:  Yes,  the lists,  you remember how he would make lists all the time for even trivial things?

Wendy:  errr,  yes,  of course,  the lists

It appears that my brother has not yet noticed my pocket-size book of lists that has travelled all over the world (and Reading) with me. Nor has he recognised the intrinsic Wendy-appeal of someone that blazenly employs lists in public.

in less than one hour of excited pre-holiday preparation I called the:

• credit card company to check on how to deal with a lost or stolen card while out of England and gave them the dates and location of my travel to make sure they didn’t cancel my card when used in GREECE.
• medical insurance company to verify my coverage and what I should do when I fall over in GREECE.
• home insurance company to order a copy of my policy and check on what’s covered if taken out of the country (to GREECE) and find out if I need to replace my locks*.
• Water authority** to check some billing details.
• mumzie to let her know that I’m ok,  haven’t fallen over today,  yet and I will be safe when abroad.

* Apparantly, my contents are insufficiently valuable for them to require that I upgrade the Wendy House stable-door bolts.

** This has nothing to do with my HOLIDAY,  but I was on a roll with the phone-calling and wanted to keep the momentum going.

<Essay warning>

Not distributed within the mind, distributed across people and other things.  The work of Yvonne Rogers in the 1990’s introduced me to the idea of distributed cognition.  Here are some examples from my everyday life:

• placing my empty bottles by the front door to remind me to take them to the bottle-bank when I leave the house (memory distributed between bottles and Wendy’s absent mind)
• going upstairs to get my passport,  when I get upstairs I’ve forgotten why I went there,  going back downstairs and seeing the holiday (excitement level: Amber) details on Darling I remember why I went upstairs. (memory distributed between holiday details on Darling and Wendy’s absent mind)
• At the pub quiz,  trying to name a song title from hearing a snippit of the tune,  I can only hum the continuation of the tune,  another team member can sings the lyrics to my hummed tune,  a third team member can now name the band then the fourth team member can remember the song title (memory socially distributed between team members). 
• I can’t remember my password as letters and numbers,  I can’t remember the layout of a keyboard,   when infront of Darlings keyboard I can reliably produce my password (memory distributed between keyboard layout and Wendy’s absent mind).  The recent move from US to UK keyboards has been a bit password-disruptive.
• I can’t remember how to get from St Nicolas’s market to Clifton,  but when I am in Bristol I can walk the route directly with no trouble whatsoever,  very pleasant it is too  (Memory distributed between the city-scape and Wendy’s absent mind).  Note that the Schrocks recently experienced the way that St. Nicholas market can suprise you by turning out to be exactly where you are wandering.

People, sensibly, strategically delegate the effort involved in constructing some memories to post-it notes,  lists, calendars, address books,  mobile phones, bag-contents, places, blogs, photoalbums, family and friends. 

A die-hard cognitivist might say this is just context-cued recall.  Both paradigms provide the means to describe human behaviour,  but the approaches to psychological  theory building and research are radically different.  The cognitivist would attempt to identify the specific cues that work most effectively and assess them in a lab,  one specific unusual context, rather than analyse everyday activities in commonly meaningful contexts.  These different research techniques would yield different practical,  application, recommendations.

The cognitivists make the research language and approach to understanding human behaviour their domain as specialists,  ‘everyday’ approaches enable results to be readily recognisable, understandable and communicable to people outside of a specialist discourse.  They also afford more meaningful pragmatic applications. 

<Essay warning over>

My next essay will probably be on Reading’s buses…

I did my upmost to light family festive barneys by:

• eating a whole jar of pickled beetroot at one meal.
• Using the wrong remote-control (choice of 6) to change TV channels. 
• asking for porridge.
• Securing the largest portion of Triffle.
• mentioning that ‘run cmd’ provides access to a DOS window in XP

Off to the shops.  The shopping tortutre.  Ick.  Luckily I was armed with a set of seasonal shopping lists from those short-people* that must be obeyed because of their lung, pout, and innovative-torturing-technique, capacity. 

Toddling home armed with short-people pacifiers and a book.  A book that lists Reading street names,  almost but not quite, alphabetically as it outlines the significance of the names. 

Here’s an excerpt from my current Reading, reading, material (my emphasis):

The Reading Paving Act of 1827 – a splendid document written in legalese that never uses one word where three, or better still nine, will do – talks only of ‘streets, Lanes, public passages and Places’. (It also says that occupiers have to sweep the pavement outside their houses, and specifies when they should remove Night Soil or filth from the Necessaries or Boghouses.)

Mini Wendy’s are herded by their parents into providing their Maiden Aunts with helpful lists lest they get the normal bizarre undesirable obscurities she normally offloads their way in the name of goodwill.

Lets take a moment for a thematic analysis of these lists.  The 13yr-old has covered her back against seemingly being disapointed by adding the item ’surprises’ to her clearly titled pink,  heart-bulleted, picture illustrated, word-document list.  Outstanding job,  not least the request for a hair straightner,  dropping the clearly superflous e was a stroke of pure genious.

By age 15yrs the Mini Wendy has grasped the usefulness of hyperlinks and chosen them over pictorial representations.  The top-shop and over the kee socks references are clearly fashion references that perhaps I could learn from.  Hmmm…   And the lassie has clearly dealt with my impending myopia,  excellent forward thinking there.

Good to see the mini Wendy’s are developing the Wendy trait for list construction.  Clearly the girls are growing into fully rounded capable young Wendys

Illustrated list of some basic steps to follow when looking for somewhere to rent in Reading

1.)  Use the internet and free classified listings to find property to let in and around Reading getting a feel for prices,  collect letting agent phone numbers,  call the offices,  talk to the agents about your needs and arrange a time to visit them.

2.) wander down to a letting agent with an impressive, alphabetically arranged collection of family names.  For example, “Vanderpump & Wellbelove & Wellesley - Smith & Co (Est. 1929)“.  This is just one of the dozens of letting agents I’ve visited in Reading.  

3.) watch while the pink-tied-male letting agents tap-tap-click-click on their computers,  chew their pens, adjust their hairgel and generally bicker amongst themselves about

- what the property is called.

- how many sets of keys they have.

- how long it takes to get from one property to the next, and

- what is the best route. 

Its actually a fabulously entertaining show.  A show well worth taking a vacation to see.  Which I did.  Hooray!

4.) go to look at property.  Ensure you have a convenient shop nearby.  My US person training together with my general level of un-adult-hood left me giggling at the name of this corner-shop.

5.) check-out the local parking possibilities,  one-way systems, speed bumps, then see if you can find a few nieghobrs to talk to.

6.) ensure there is an excellent pub within walking distance.  To complete this step you have to go into the pub,  order a pint,  drink the pint and interview the bar staff while observing the other clientelle.

7.) take a look at the district details on:  http://www.upmystreet.com/

Estate agent:  Are you sure you’re from the US?

Wendy:  lived there for the best part of the last 8 years

Estate Agent: you don’t sound American

Wendy: I’m not

Reading rhymes with

• bedding,
• sledding (if there’s snow), or
• wedding (if their is a significant other, which there isn’t).
• heading (an essential skill for a footballing forward)

I’ll be covering the unique and much maligned experience that is ‘Reading’ in many upcoming blog posts.  A Brighton-based blog post exemplifies common themes of passionate disappointment in Reading:

the epicentre of new Labour, corporate, consumerist blandness…   …despite its affluence and its growing population it can’t rise above the terminal blandness and ‘middle Englandness’ it seems to have always had…    …It is bored and dissatisfied young people planning their escape, it’s a football club who plays in a shed resembling an out of town B&Q and whose torrid home games with their dire atmosphere are (ahem) bound to take the Premiership by storm this season…  …Reading is a rip off, Reading is unfriendly, Reading is in a rush to purchase and then to get home.

Oh deary me!

A (fictional) letter from “chase me ladies I’m in the cavalry” to a Reading East MP (Member for Parliament) had me wetting my pants,  or is it my trousers,  I can’t be sure,  but they are definitely damp. 

There is good news about Reading provided by a blog called Reading Roars. Not ’Reading belches’ ,  ‘Reading pukes’, ’Reading falls asleep in front of the TV’.  Wendy appetite wetting references includes a Sushi restaurant.  yes, one!  Wireless enabled bus service called the “Thames Valley Park” (TVP) that has been described as a ’farce‘.  I love a good farce.  I do like buses too.  Two goodies in one!  I can hardly wait to try blogging from a bus.  Just imagine what a vibrating bus will do to my spelling, ability to fall-over, and general happiness…  There’s a Farmers market.  I do like farmers and I might find one or two ruddy faced farmers there. With my UK regional accent I might even be mistaken for a farmer,  it has happened before! 

Result!     

Stay tuned to find out how my Reading investigations evolve,  or even send me tips on highlights…

My readers are perhaps just a bit geeky, um, like me, because they are coming from universities,  financial institutions and the software computing industry. 

Google analytics tells me the Network locations of computers that have reqested page-loads from the wendyhome servers.  Often these network locations are clearly consumer internet service providers,  sometimes they are not.  Here are some of the Network locations that do not look like consumer internet services grouped by primary business type.

Software/Computing

• Microsoft Corp
• APPLE COMPUTER
• Intel Corporation
• IBM
• Macafee Security
• Research Machines plc
• Hewlett-Packard Company
• Cisco Systems inc
• Opera Software asa
• Honeywell
• Eastman Kodak Company

Financial

• Credit Suisse group canada
• Fidelity Investments
• Bloomberg Financial Market
• Bank of America
• Barclays Capital (UK)
• Nat West Bank group (UK)
• First Rand Bank

Universities

• Cornell University
• Purdue university
• Leeds University (UK)
• North Carolina State university
• University of Brighton (UK)
• University of Cambridge (UK)
• University of Washington
• Charles University

Local government

• Wolverhampton city council (UK)
• East Sussex local education authority (UK)
• State of Arkansas
• State of Minesota
• State of Tennessee
• Government of South Africa

Aerospace

• the boeing company
• lockheed martin corporation
• Patrick Air Force Base

At 11yrs old my school teacher wrote in my annual report that I:

• need to work on my spelling. 
• work hard without any pressure. 
• create interesting items.
• have an above average grasp of maths.
• work well on my own or as leader of a group.

  It’s darn right spooky how little I’ve changed.  Luckily we have spell-checkers now (though not in Wordpress),  my job requires maths skills and creating ’interesting items’.  Um… and I still let team members and leaders know when I don’t understand their contributions…. 

(Warning:  anyone with aversions to bulleted lists should avert their eyes after the next sentence) 

The July 4th parade in the City formerly known as Bug is by far the most engaging, relaxed and inclusive I have ever experienced.  Inclusiveness includes:

• Buses to Baseball teams,
• Karate clubs to cheerleaders,
• Hairdressers to hospice staff, 
• Logs to dogs,
• Milk to mariachi bands,
• Moped formation riders to mexican restaurant football team,
• elected officials to racing cars,
• submarines to saxophones, and of course
• Tractors,  Tractors and more Tractors.

Some people even drive their tractors to the parade for a good view.  Everyone cheers and waves at everyone else. 

An all around love fest of everyday life. 

A list is an extremely powerful medical tool for counter-acting the symptoms of scattyism before they lead to the rare and dangerous unscrewed-on-head problem where the sufferer is accused of:

 ‘forgetting your head if it wasn’t screwed on‘

This post perverts the law requiring bloggers to list 2, 5, 10, 43, 56 or 100 things that define some example of goodness or badness to a ‘things to pack for my fortnight in England and Cornwall’ list.  Cumulatively, the listed things should conform to my packing goal of  “I can carry it up a staircase without injuring my back“.   This is an officially boring post, you should stop reading NOW. 

It needs charging:

1. Laptop;  Power-cable; GPS extension; 
2. Car-to-US-power converter; UK to US socket power converter
3. Cell-phone;  socket and car charger;
4. MP3 player;  headphones; rechargeable batteries;  battery-charger
5. Camera;  docking-station;  charge-cable; USB PC connection cable

Legal:

1. UK passport
2. USA Employers Authorisation Card 
3. H1B + documentation detailing approval.
4. 3 ‘Advanced Parole’ documents
5. US Driving Licence;  UK Driving Licence

Stylin’ :

1. 4 5 hats:  purple baseball cap; blue Parkhurst cloche; pink velvet cap;  black wool cap; Blue denim cap
2. 4 prescription glasses:  Mui Mui; Ray Ban; Oakley; ProDesignDenmark;
3. 1 adorably textured purple scarf
4. make-up:  1 black mascara; 1 black kohl pencil; 1 gold cream eyelid shader; 
5. sparklies:  2 sets of earings;  2 neclaces; 4 hair-clips

Entertainment:

1. CD’s (Mountian Goats; Nick Cave; Jonny Cash; Sandy Shaw; Morrissey…  etc), 
2. 3 Novels (Ian McEwan; Frank McCourt; Chaucer) 
3. cash & credit card
4. sketchpad and pencils

Unseen:

1. underwear:  Bra’s; knickers; socks; 
2. Grooming: toothpaste/brush, deoderant, shampoo, moisturizer; nail-file; comb; lady-pants
3. Ooops:  antisceptic cream; plasters; ibuprofen; swiss army knife

Clothes:

1. 3 pairs of hipsters:  DKNY skinny jeans; Diesel skinny jeans;  Black suede bell-bottoms
2. 5 Jackets:  Waterproof ; 2 Velvet;  2 Woolly zip-front jumpers
3. Multiple fine knit woollen tops
4. 3 pairs of footwear:  comfortable all terrain black shoes; purple pickers; girlyness-conforming healed cutesy-shoes
5. 3 pairs  1 pair of black fingerless gloves (2 black, 1 blue leatherette)

Oddments:

1. a photograph of my parents with fellow passangers on a coach tour of Washington DC
2. a copy of my last Will and Testament
3. 2 handbags:  1 for daily laptop carrying;  1 for when things wont fit in my pockets
4. amazing 1970’s dress for Mumzie to donate to a fashion Museum
5. Flat Eric

(updated 3/5/06 to reflect an important decision to replace 2 pairs of gloves with a 5th hat)

twenty-first post in a Thursday series of snoops into experiences of taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #21: secret garden (conkers)

recommended venue for an atmospheric, private, conversation with special friends or family over a good cup of tea and to stock up some sizable conkers.

1890’s Historically registered building.  For the US West coast that is REALLY OLD!  There are several huge old conker trees in the garden.  The ground is littered with conkers.  I rarely see conker trees in the puget sound region.  A habit left over from childhood, I placed a few big, heavy, symmetrical conkers in my pocket, just incase…  

Inside,  high quality retro décor, not kitsch or overdone.  White table-clothes and napkins.  Antique furniture that is not ‘distressed’.  The establishment blends beautifully American and English tea taking ceremonies with excellent food in a tasteful, timeless ambiance.  Let me say ‘excellent food’ once again.  Prices are neither cheap nor  exorbitant.  I had a large bowl of Coconut Chicken Lemon grass soup with a scone and a small pot of Darjeeling that came to about $10 including tax.

English

• clientele included men as well as women
• a jug of milk was offered before it was requested
• sugar-cubes in a bowl with tongs
• matching china crockery and pseudo-silver flatware
• soup served with an actual soup spoon

American

• The en-suite shop that sells quaint things, pink things and sparkly jewellery things
• A glass of iced water, regularly topped-up
• The scones (more like English rock cakes)
• wide choice of sugar substitutes in sachets on the table
• over 70 types of tea on a laminated plastic menu
• staff attentive and clearly amenable to customer requests not currently on the menu.  I overhead a customer asking for, and receiving,  iced tea.  In January. 

Those tiny imperfections that even an excellent establishment can have…they are trivial….

• small  (3 cups) stoneware (not china) pot with external tea leaf strainer, no extra pot of hot water provided.  I was offered a top-up for the existing pot with stewed leaves.  Yuck.
• multiple paintings of roses (all shades of red-pink) and FAKE flowers on tables
• 30 mins or more drive from Downtown Seattle into small-towns-ville. 
• it’s popular,  you should book in advance

The authorities do not ‘Grit’ or salt the roads in Seattle.  No local government provided roadside grit bins.  I’m told they do provide sand but as far as I can tell it’s not stored at known troublespots.   Apparantly, drivers have to rely on other means to reduce the impact of slippiness.   Here’s a list of strategies I’ve observed in the last 24 hours:

1. heavy metal: 4 wheel drive SUVs with chains and/or studded tyres.  I watched a lady smoking a fag in a  Mall car-park yesterday while a ‘cashiers clerk’ (packs shoppers bags for them) put the chains on her stonking-big SUV. 
2. cat litter:  several people I know carry bags of cat-litter in their car boot,  just incase they need some traction in an emergency. 
3. abandon ship: abandon your car here, anywhere,  well perhaps aim at the side of ther oad. Pressumably these people get a lift from somone with an SUV.
4. Mall camp:  drive to the nearest strip-mall with a 24hr store.  There are lots of them.  Park,  then wait for the weather to thaw.
5. hermit:  stay indoors (popular choice).
6. truant:  claim being stranded then go skiing (another popular choice).
7. speed: put your foot on the accelerator to get up that slippy hill (I kid you not,  I saw several people trying this on slopes).
8. wiggle:  wiggle the steering-wheel around to try and regain control when in a skid (seriously,  I saw this happen to more than one driver)
9. attack: get out of your car and kick the tyres (uhu,  you guessed it,  I saw somone do this after having wiggled his steering wheel and spun his tyres)

 Now excuse me for a while, I’ve got some serious falling over to be getting on with,  outside into the pretty slippy world… …oooOOOOooooo….

Inspired by Piehole’s undeniable nerdy achievement.  My claims to secondary school nerdiness at an English comprehensive co-educational, formerly Grammar all boys, school with approximately 1,400 pupils. 

One item is a complete fiction from start to finish.  Five items have inaccurate titles and warped truths in the detail.  One item is accurate in title and detailed description.  Which one is all accurate?

1).  6th form Prefect.

Headmaster nominated me one of 7 chosen in 1980-82 (17-18yrs).   This actually meant that during my ’study periods’ I could hang-out in the corridors of the main school and frighten the short people by making faces at them, chasing them up and down the corridors shouting “don’t run“, ”don’t shout“,  “your mother smells of elderberries,  “beam us up scotty” or miss-quoting a poem or two.

2).  House cross-country team captain.

Elected captain 1978 (15yrs).  Because of my unique talent for living near the school and making a stonking cuppa.  Whenever the cross-country team had practice we would run out of the school ground.  When out of sight we would start strolling, light-up fags, and gossip.  We’d walk to my home and spend 2 hrs practice time drinking tea, listening to music and gossiping.  Leaving my home we’d walk in pairs back to sight of school then run the onto the school grounds.  My House team always did fairly well on cross-country times in practice.  Less well in competition.  A happy well socially bonded team.  It all got a bit messy when, in 1980, we decided to have a re-union ’cross country practice run’ during a Maths class.  Somebody dobbed us in.  The Maths teacher.  She had been a tad upset when no students turned up.  She made us promise to invite her next time.  We did,  she didn’t come.  Touche!

3).   Poetry recital competition winner.

1975 (12yrs).  Stand up infront of several hundred older, bigger, uglier children at my school while reading a soppy poem out loud?  No Way!  Mumzie made me do it.  Darn clever people those mumzies.  The skill came in handy for scaring the short people with during prefect duties.    

4).   School representative on British Youth Council.

1979-1981 (16-18yrs).  Government (school) funded weekends away in fabulous management training course facilities with other ‘youth leaders’ (14 thru 21yrs) from all over the country where we’d discuss things like ‘preparing for the leisure age’ then all get drunk on scrumpy and snog each other while the responsible adults were also doing things they shouldn’t be doing, which we snooped on, of course!  Shocking. 

5).   Simultaneously Drum Major in 3 marching bands.

1976-1980 (13-17yrs).   These bands were all part of a National Christian Youth Organization who’s motto was ‘fight the good fight’.  Rehearsals once a week for each band and Sunday mayhem as they all fought over who’s band I was going to lead for the Sunday service.  Lots of going to trendy C of E churches and the occassional away match at a Catholic high-church to show good will to those hip incense swingers.  It also gave me the opportunity to torture the brass section.  If they got too cheeky for their own good I’d just call them in to play frequently until their lips were sore.  I accepted beer to secure my favour and the soft lips of the buglers.  Fond memories.

6).  Only girl in sixth form Advanced Level Maths and Physics classes.

1980-1982 (17-18yrs). I had to hide from my English teacher because he had purchased the required Beer dosage to secure Wendy-loyalty and I’d subsequently betrayed him by choosing Nerdy boy-maths instead.  The math teacher wore his Black univeristy gown to teach.  Think Harry Potter style teacher gowns.  I’m now so Nerdy I too have a full Ede and Ravenscroft gown.  My distraught English teacher swore he’d never speak to me again which made everything, except my spelling and grammar, a bit easier.  He emigrated to New Zealand soon afterwards.

7).   27th place in the annual 10 Tors race.

1977 (14yrs).  Absolute nightmare.  Training by running around at night carrying brick-laden rucksacks.  Attempting to sleep in soggy clothes and ill-secured tents in the middle of Dartmoor during rainstorms while helicopters tried to find the less well-prepared missing teams. NEVER again.

Which really means:

8 reasons why Wendy didn’t read a blog

together, these reasons have prevented me reading blogs that may have outstanding content… …but I’ll never know:

1. poor publicity:  I don’t know that the blog exists,  its contents never show up in any of my internet searches,  there are no links to it in other stuff that I read, none of my friends told me about it.
2. foriegn language:  I know it exists but I can’t read it because the language is too foriegn. For example,  German,  Instant Message or phone-text message style abbreviations like “u shud cuz u r kewl“. 
3. personally irrelevant: I know it exists, I can read the language, but the blog content does not provide anything clearly relevant to my life. For example,  a blog on standard poodles.
4. offensive message:   I know it exists, I can read the language, the content is relevant to my life but the message is fundamentally offensive. 
5. squinting required:  either the text is so small that I have to squint to read, there is a low contrast between the text and the background,  the spacing between the text lines is so small it’s difficult to visually follow one line.  I can’t read it without changing my preferred browser text-size that works for most other web pages.
6. witless: If a blog lacks wit, I stop reading it. I like to learn something or laugh,  ideally both at the same time.  Double whammy!
7. lacking illustrative pictures:  Too much text can make my head spin,  then I fall over. Breaking the stream of text, regularly, with pictures that illustrate the message helps prevent me falling over.  It’s not essential,  but it helps.
8. scrolling required*:  I’m too attentionally challenged to regularly read blog posts that are long enough to require scrolling the window,  especially if they don’t include pictures.  Again,  not essential,  but it helps keep my reading regular..

Apart from including an illustrative picture, what have I missed that is important to you?

* I write scrollable blog posts. My excuse is that I’m endearingly waffly rather than perfectly precise.   

The spiral:

• losing things is distressing.
• distress induces scattiness.
• scattiness promotes losing things.
• losing things….(ad infinitum)

The onset of Wendy-(ex)-centric scattiness is predicable.  Keys will use my scattiness to make a bid for freedom.  I can normally track them down after 15 minutes of focused crime scene recreation.  Some items,  things rarely used are more cunning.  Today was a day when a cunning item successfully escaped.

After 8hrs of searching every (list warning):

• pocket (suitcase, bag and coat),
• book (removed from shelf and shaken),
• CD rack (all CDs removed, dusted then replaced),
• drawer (empied, contents shaken, stirred and neatly replaced)
• furniture (under the bead, the sofa crevice, behind shelves)

I’ve decided to let scattiness win.  This time.  Costing me some ‘replacement’ dollars and worse than that the time to complete at least four official forms and report the loss to at least 3 government agencies.  Poooeeey,  must kick this cycle soon.  Given alcohol’s known impact on memory beer could give my keys a good opportunity to make a run for it,  not a good idea….

After 1 beer lists are the height of my organisation prowess.  After 2 beers I can reach the heady heights of a miss-typed stream of consciousness.  Tee hee, Jack Kerouac eat your heart out.  See if you can guess where, in this stream of consciousness, I finnish my second beer…..

10 things to contemplate doing around Spokane ((structure of this post was inspired by Jen’s ‘10 things’ series.))

1. Visit the site of the former World fair,  riverfront park.  Waterfalls,  gardens, funfair rides,  and a ‘falls sky ride’  oooOOOoooooo….   …I hope Flat Eric doesn’t suffer from vertigo!
2. Try-out some wines from the local wineries.  Can I taste the mining, or nuclear, pollution?  Does this give the wines a zesty ‘kill your taste-buds’ tang?  It’s got to be done!
3. Take a look at the outside of the Kaiser Aluminum plant,  one of those places where workers were exposed to Asbestos. It’s a business that is expanding in Spokane and supplies materials to build aeroplanes. 
4. Look at the architecture downtown.  The Davenport Hotel looks like it could be a fabulous turn of the century building that I can wander into without parting with cash.
5. Visit the Northwest museum of arts and culture,  that has a special exhibition on ‘cars and costume’,  an intriguing juxtaposition.
6. Visit the ‘Crosby’ center on the Gonzaga campus,  named after the local boy ‘Bing Crosby’.  Maybe take a photograph of Flat Eric in front of the statue of Bing.
7. find out about the subduing of the indigneous Spokane, Palouse, Coeur D’Alene tribes (visit the Steptoe battlefield),  check out some ancient petroglyphs.
8. walk, roller-blade or bike along the Spokane Centenai trail.
9. visit a couple of local ‘prairies’ and look for ‘little houses’ on them.  ‘Orchard prairie’ is by a town called ‘Country Homes’ with names like these they are just calling out for a visit….  They don’t have ‘prairies’ in Britain.  For me their novelty value hasn’t worn off and I grew-up watching the Ingle’s girls….
10. Visit Manito park.  Mainly to be in a pretty place designed to make people relax and be happy,  but also to get some local information on the Olmstead Brothers influence.  I’m an Olmstead brothers groupie.  Only since they are dead there’s no sex on the cards when being a groupie.  Sigh.  I’ve admired them since I was 20 when I first studied environmental psychology as an undergraduate.  The wikipedia entry on their achievements doesn’t adequately praise their work in the light of the predominant contemporary attitudes towards nature,  especially European attitudes.  You might get treated to a bit of my gushing over these guys in a later blog entry.  IF you are lucky.  You could get lucky.  I used to get paid,  yes PAID,  to discuss their work with people.  People?  well undegraduates,  I’m not sure if they count,  they’re so busy being hip and pre-mature and having sex and stuff even though they can say some insightful things in odd moments of lucidity during seminars,  mainly they’re just cute in a grungy kind of way,  or at least they were when I taught….  

If I do only two things in that list I’ll be a happy bouncy bunny.  Did you spot where the stream of consciousness krept in?  I bet you did,  you’re clever like that 

Over-prepared-two-beer-tiddly-Wendy

Surreal?

• Investigating eating Danish Blue cheese, while
• Reading about the WhitePrince’s Kitty’s orange-reddy TV watching habits, and
• Listening to his 2005 club mix, after having 
• Removed Kitty fur from keyboard spacebar

Laptop as food-tray, music system, communications device and kitty-fur magnets  …so versataile…

If life is surreal what’s the (space)bar for normality?

20 brilliant things.  A self-referential indulgence  

Any one of these things can make my day sparkle:

1. Bakelite
2. Boyfriends
3. Bunnies
4. Cheese
5. David Byrne
6. Dreams
7. Glasses (optical accessories)
8. Gravity operated catfood dispensers
9. Hats
10. Lists
11. Mums
12. Other people’s clothes
13. Paper
14. Poetry
15. Pressies
16. Pretty dresses
17. Real Ale (NOT US Microbrews)
18. Wendy’s Frendys
19. Wendy’s Wardrobe
20. Yellow roses

What is really brilliant is that this list could go on and on and on and on….  …there are soooooooo many brilliant thangs…   …your brilliant list of things is probably different.  May include furry bedding or something.  What-ever,   lots of goodies for the holidays.

W wonderful-thanging

Wikipedia provides a good summary including the lyrics from the song of that name.

Basically,  Christians celebrate for 12 days after Christ is born,  not before.  The 12th day after Christmas (6th Jan) is called ’Epiphany’.  It is likely that this period was chosen by the Christian church to usurp pre-christian solstice celebrations.  Evidently Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’ refers to the 12 days of Christmas.

it was a crime to BE a Catholic in England 1558 thru 1829. 

The song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was possibly a Mnemonic used in England to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith.  This carefully avoided written material that could lead to imprisonment or executed in very nasty ways.  Though these tenets do not appear different from those of the Anglican church. 

Codes used in the song include

True love = God

Me = Baptised person

Partridge in a pear tree = Jesus on the cross

2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying = the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed

W must-finish-reading-Gods-secretaries…