No Whining Day

I'm such a whiner -- whining is like breathing to me. My husband is so nice about it and says it's just an essential part of my personality, and he likes me anyway. But I declared a No Whine Day for me on Facebook yesterday. If anyone asked me how something was, I said GREAT! OK, maybe my smile when I said it was a bit brittle....

One thing that helps me whine less at this time of year is listening to American Christmas music from my childhood that I can't hear over here in England. I discovered Accuradio holiday music on the Internet. My husband can't stand this Bing Crosby sort of stuff but he's a good sport because it's only for a few weeks a year.

Here's the link:

http://www.accuradio.com/app/radioframe?&channel=Channel8&sub=SubClassical&brand=accuradio&mtype=iewm9

Bad memory

I'm disappointed with the fiction I've been reading lately. Especially when I'm seduced by great reviews.

I knew I was in trouble with this book early on when the author put her characters in the early 1960s, yet everything that happened to them or their actions were completely contemporary. For example, her character gives birth without general anesthesia even though that's how they did it back then (so we can go through the birth with her and she can play a part in the birthing scene herself rather than just being knocked out) -- and also, she decides to breastfeed. Even though the author offers a little disclaimer that it was quite unusual to do that back then, but her character just happens to be one of the few who does this totally modern thing, I just lost the motivation to read the book after that. I'm supposed to 'suspend my disbelief' when I read but it was just too hard.

I have skimmed the rest of the book because I have to read it for my Book Club.

I wish my Book Club would read more non-fiction but they don't seem to go for that. When I made them read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, one of my favorite books, they didn't really like it.

Genial old gits

In England, it appears that you can have success in one area, like having a gardening show or being in a hit comedy, then when you get older and seem more genial, TV companies hire you to front other programs and pontificate on anything you fancy, like art and classical music. And because you appear in front of a camera spouting off opinions (written by others), you begin to think you actually know something yourself! That's when you get really annoying and grate on every nerve of your hapless viewers/listeners.

One guy had a gardening show and now he's everywhere, hosting classical music programs, writing stoopid novels, etc. Why do they do this to us? I even read an impassioned letter to the editor in a Sunday paper last week -- 'please,' they begged, 'remove this man from our television screens immediately!'

I think it's because these guys have the common touch (that is, they don't know anything) and when they get older, they have that avuncular look. But really the two guys I have in mind, Tony Robinson and Alan Titchmarsh, are way past avuncular now. They are in the Old Git stage. Please let them retire....

Gluwhein Heaven

Went to a Christmas market in Germany over the weekend, and my favourite part was the Gluwhein tents where you stop off for a warming glass of mulled wine when you need a break from shopping. I think we need Gluwhein tents in more countries, and especially in my office and in my house!

Here's the recipe:

GLUHWEIN (mulled wine)

1 bottle of red wine

2 cinnamon sticks

1/2 orange peel

1 apple, quartered

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

Heat this up.

Over the river and through the woods

Spending Thanksgiving overseas after not living in America for almost 20 years is a strange experience. In my mind, Thanksgiving is as it was when I was much younger.

For instance, I still think Michael Landon hosts the Macy's Day Parade on TV. In my mind,I see my mother and grandmother cooking dinner in my childhood home because I haven't been around enough in the US on Thanksgiving to update my memories.

I wish my kids knew more about the Pilgrims and our Thanksgiving traditions but they have been brought up in England so Guy Fawkes and Fireworks night is what they associate with November holidays now.

The Queen's Fervent Belief in God

I was watching the service for the Queen's wedding anniversary yesterday at the gym while I was on the treadmill. You just have to laugh at the solemnity and the hats and at how seriously they all take themselves.

At the end, as the Queen was leaving, the posh announcer informed us that, no matter what, the Queen had kept her fervent belief in God -- like the rest of us should take note and shape up.

I really had to laugh then. I was thinking: 'If I'd been born into all that wealth and privilege, I'd believe in God too!'

Outside my kitchen window

It's Bleak Midwinter here in England already, with dim days where the sun goes down at 3:30/4:00. I find it a gruelling time of year, and try to cheer myself up by planting winter jasmine outside my kitchen window (above) and putting bird seed out for my little feathered friends.

Thoreau says:

'Those undescribed, ambrosial mornings when a thousand birds were gently twittering and ushering in the light, like the argument to a new canto of an epic and heroic poem. The serenity, the infinite promise of such a morning...'

The only trouble is, in England, the light and promise of the morning goes so quickly! Thank god for digital cameras so I can see the view outside my kitchen window no matter how dark the day is.

Rats!

I've been waiting for David Michaelis' bio of Charles Schulz to arrive from the US. I thought it was fascinating that he'd played detective and discovered how autobiographical the Peanuts comic strip was.

I've been reading the book in long sittings and realized after I'd put the book down the other day that I suddenly wanted to kill myself. Then I realized it was this book's fault -- it's one of those loooonnnng books that tells you everything in hideous wretched detail.

He's a great writer, of course, and the book is interesting -- it's just that everything is so morose, so bleak!

I need to get back to the history of World War I that I was reading last weekend -- it seemed a lot less depressing....

Deduct 500 calories, not add 200!

My weight rises slowly each year. I exercise more and fret more about what I eat. (Does fretting use up any calories?)

Today I did a calorie calculation on the Prevention magazine website. It advised that I needed to deduct 500 calories a day from my diet to get to the weight I wanted to be. That's 300 from additional exercise the article advised (sounding like a stern nurse in my mind) and the other 200 comes from eating less food.

I thought about my week's intake as I scanned the article. I had allowed myself a little bag of crisps with my sandwich at work this week because I was having a bad week.

So I realized that instead of deducting 500 calories a day, I've actually introduced an additional 200!

That's progress....

Bad mother

When I survey my life and cringe at the memory of all the mistakes I've made, and will no doubt make in the future, I think, well, at least my kids are treasures, and I've been a good parent. One laurel I can rest on.....

Then I go to the Tate Modern and gaze at Louise Bourgeois' 30-foot spider sculpture (I took a pic on my phone (above) -- that's St Paul's in the background). She called it Maman because her mother was like a monstrous spider. I shudder and hope my kids never leave a legacy about my parenting skills like that! Maybe I've been over-confident about my abilities???

There is delight in singing

There is delight in singing, though none hear but the singer.
Robert Browning

I've been so nervous all week about an audition I had coming up with the Philharmonia chorus in London tomorrow night, but now I've had to cancel because I'm sick. All that anxiety for nothing!

I'd been hyperventilating at the thought of the sight-reading test and singing a classical piece in front of a panel of professional singers.

I hope they let me re-schedule it but for now it's back to me at my own piano, singing the few songs I can actually play on the piano over and over, hiding from the rest of the family because I'm shy about them hearing me sing.

What you see is all in your mind

England is a crowded country. I live in the middle of an urban area that is not very soothing for the soul. When I look out of my bedroom window in the morning, I see a telecomms factory with its ugly aerials breaking into the skyline, and a bunch of retirement apartments. The road is always crowded with cars and people. I think that I should somehow be able to overcome these limitations so when I look out the window, I imagine I see the view I had in Italy on my summer vacation (above).

It does help to think this way; otherwise I would be dispirited from wallowing in the reality of what lies outside my window.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Italians seem quite relaxed about the juxtaposition of religion and modern commerce. (I took this picture in Florence last summer.) In America we would think it was sacrilegious to have the baby Jesus so close to a bunch of sale signs for a clothing store. But I thought it summed up the importance of both aspects of our world, living side by side.