Scenes from England

The Birthday Boy. The button says, "I Survived Damn Near Everything."

My Nanna. Next June will be their 70th wedding anniversary.

I got to know some of my relatives a little better:
Seems as though I've known them all my life, after all. The dogs are definitely part of the family.

The evil flat coated retriever of Torrington Commons.
aka Mack.

People who think English food is bad or boring have obviously never eaten in the right places. And many pubs still allow dogs, which is just cool.

In a recent post (caused by me), Barry over at Staring at Empty Pages indicated that a never-ending loop will start due to Newton's Third Law of Pub-Motion - “For every beer treat, there is an equal and opposite beer re-treat.” Definitely true. There wasn't a sober evening while my cousins were around. I actually got up and sang karaoke in a pub one night, which I'm sure embarrassed my brother. The same song I always sing if I'm drunk enough and there's a karaoke machine nearby. The Shoop Shoop Song. My cousin Sarah's daughter Lauren (does that make Lauren my second cousin?) found it on the list after I cery varefully staggered over and couldn't find it. So of course, I had to sing it.

Going back: I flew Virgin Atlantic and took this picture of the seat in front of me just before we got to Greenland

Tagged!

I was tagged by The Darwin Report. Luckily it didn't hurt very much. Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random (or arbitrary) things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. I just flew in from England, and boy are my arms....[shift forward in time 14 hours] actually my brain was too tired to think of 6 random things last night. Hopefully it's better this morning.

2. I have a concert tonight to which I'm driving the truck, although I'm a little out of practice with both the bassoon and driving on the right side.

This is one we do at a local retirement community on Veteran's Day every year, and makes me cry every time. For the first few years, they had WWII veterans in uniform carrying the flags (very slowly) down the aisle. Last year, I think they were replaced by Korean War veterans. I get all choked up when we play the Armed Forces Salute and veterans of each branch stand as we play their respective songs. Seeing the music through tears and playing with a lump in your throat isn't easy, I can tell you.

3. While in England, apart from attending my Grandad's 100th birthday party and getting to know some of my many relatives a little better, we went to the Dartmoor Zoological Park. I highly recommend going if you're in the neighbourhood. And even if you're not.

4. I didn't know until recently that Alcoholics Anonymous is a load of religious crap.

5. My son appears to be becoming a gay rights activist. He's really pissed off about how the passing of Proposition 8 could affect David and Pete (his Dad and Step-dad). I have more than one reason to be proud of him! Oh, all right. Lots, actually.

6. After 33 years in this country, I got my U.S. Citizenship eight years ago because I was tired of not being able to vote. Finally it's going the way I voted...

Hmm. Six people I can tag? I had a hard enough time coming up with 6 arbitrary things about me...

1. Kia at A Blog About Everything, who is definitely still alive.
2. Mr Farty at Better Oot Than In
3. Barry at Staring at Empty Pages
4. Andrew at Artificial Habitat, even though he hasn't posted anything for months, and may, in fact, be dead.
5. David at Musings by the Hairslave. Welcome to the blogging world!
6. The King of Ferrets at Ferret's Cage

You're it!

I'm off to Devon!

I'm leaving for England on Wednesday. My grandfather is turning 100 and there's a big party. With their six children, 19(?) grandchildren, various spouses and great-grandchildren, its going to be a fairly big party. Since my grandparents are pretty much housebound, we're all going to squeeze into their tiny house. We know it can be done. We did it for Grandad's 99th birthday last year.

I put a question mark next to the number of grandchildren, because I can never remember how many cousins I actually have. I'm the eldest, my brother is the second eldest, and I can remember the names of the first 7 or 8 after that, but I'm a bit fuzzy on most of the ones around my son's age and younger. It didn't help that we moved to the U.S. before they were born, so the most I've ever met any of them is 3 or 4 times. I come from a huge family, but feel as though I come from a tiny one with just my parents and my brother.

My cousin's children? Might as well forget it. I'll never remember their names. Except Poppy. She came to our wedding, and then "long-distance-dated" my son's best friend for a while.

The two cousins I feel I know best are the two daughters of my mother's youngest brother, because they've actually come over and visited for a while. Nicky (15 years younger than I am) came to stay while I was doing my thesis, so I put her to work. She got to slog through cow fields and slosh around in streams for her vacation. Gwen (3 years younger than my son - 27 years younger than me) and my Aunt Jayne fared a little better on their recent visit.

My mother mentioned the name of one of my cousins and said she was Grandad's favourite, and I almost burst into tears. I never had the chance of being Grandad's favourite (although I probably was at one point because for almost three years I was the only one).

I actually feel much closer to my aunts and uncles, although I suppose I really don't know them any better. Most of them have come to visit over the years, and my mother's youngest sister is only nine years older than I am.

My parents live ~2000 miles away and my brother lives ~2700 miles away, and it seems as though the only time we all get together nowadays is 5371 miles away. I'll be back in a couple of weeks!