Did I really write that?

I had a lovely note from my university friend Vivian that while going through boxes of stuff after recent flood damage she’d found an essay I’d written in 1979. My missive was remarkably preserved.

Vivian kindly took a snap of it and sent it along. I braced myself waiting for it to arrive in my Inbox; what would it be like going back thirty-plus years to a biography of an 18-year-old student? I’d hardly lived at that point (though that doesn’t seem to stop celebrities from penning their life stories). I immediately thought of my friend Taron who had a recent, similar experience; she found one of her diaries “equal parts funny and painful to read.” I suspected that I’d be feeling the same.

Well, I wasn’t let down; the writing was stilted, a bit pompous, and generally not very good. And (gasp) I used “a lot” a few times—without the space between two words. There were thankfully no “um”s.

Besides the overall middling quality of the writing, there were a few other surprises. When did I like puppies? At 18 I don’t think I’d ever been exposed to any. I can’t recall any relatives or friends who had a dog that made any sort of impression on me; well, there was Chuckie, the next door neighbour with his dog Spot, but I wasn’t coveting the dog; the walks with Spot were about spending time with Chuckie when we were both around age 12 (ahem, puppy love of a different sort). I did have one friend in grammar school who had a Chihuahua called Dobbs, but I found him annoying –he had a persistent, piercing yap. 

Me and Sandy, NYU graduation day

At home we did keep a neighbourhood stray called Sandy fed, and in the winters we let her in the hallway to stay warm, but she was a full-grown dog. In fact she would follow me to the bus stop  each morning and wait with me until the Number 10 arrived. It was sweet, but oddly enough whenever a driver asked me if that was my dog, I’d always say “no” in an embarrassing tone.

Apparently I also had a dislike of buses, which I find quite amusing now that I enjoy a good ride on the 341, my double decker ride here in London. When Tim and I ride the bus together we almost always head to the top for those prime seats right in front, and we’ll quickly jump up to take them when vacated if we’re initially disappointed to find them occupied. (OK, if there are kids on the bus I don’t jump as quickly.)

Thinking back to my teens I suppose I can understand why I felt that way—as youngsters we had to take the bus to grammar school and it was a 15-minute walk to the bus stop. On freezing winter mornings it was dreadful; you couldn’t predict when the bus would come and sometimes we’d be standing there for what seemed like ages before one would show. Through high school I had to take the bus in at least one direction; there was a point where my mother did drive us to school, but we always had to find our way back.

I didn’t live quite close enough to the train station to get to NYU, so the drudgery of the bus continued another four years.  Make that eight years, actually; until I left home at the age of 25 the bus was the primary mode of transport to get to the train to get to the job in New York City. And there was no such technology as exists today in London—I am ever grateful for the bus countdown online tracker,  a fantastic innovation that has changed my life. I tap my stop on my phone and see the buses approaching for the next several minutes, leaving me to sip my coffee in the comfort of our kitchen until four minutes to the mark when I stroll out the door and to the stop just around the corner on Green Lanes. I can, if need be, make it in three.

I also apparently hated liver and lima beans. Well, to be honest, I still don’t like the former; it’s a texture issue rather than a taste problem. I recall once in my life enjoying a small piece of liver at a restaurant that my friend Barbara took me to somewhere near West Orange.  I used to try it every time Robyn would order it, but never found it to my liking. I have since stopped trying, probably because I’m not spending dinners with Robyn (sad face).

I wasn’t surprised to see that I mentioned my love of the New York Yankees—my high school photograph is captioned with “Mrs Bucky Dent”. I so enjoyed going to see the Yankees play:  hopping the D train to the Bronx, sitting in the cheap seats, and actually keeping score. I wonder if they still give out scorecards and little pencils; I suspect not. I had two friends whom I would regularly go to the stadium with, and we’d get there early and wait at the players’ entrance gate to get autographs. Poor Bucky must have thought I was stalking him, considering how many times I’d ask him to sign my notebook. But he always did.

And, finally, I was apparently delighted with my life, aged 18 11/12, and was “studying to be a magazine journalist.” True, I did take a few courses on magazine writing that I really enjoyed, and fancied myself someone who could write for a living. My favourite professor,  Margo Jefferson, had previously been at Newsweek and later became a theatre critic for the New York Times. She is a brilliant teacher and I admired her for her accomplishments as well as her instruction and feedback. I Googled her and found that she still teaches, now at Columbia, and that she won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1995. How fortunate I was to have access to that calibre of learning.

In the end I didn’t actively pursue that avenue. After graduation I had two job offers: one at a publishing company to be an editorial assistant and one at CBS to be a secretary, that latter I declined (perhaps in short-sightedness) for the mere thousand dollars more that the publishing company was offering. Then again, it’s been a fantastic career and I have no regrets.

I owe Vivian a big thank you for sending me a blast from my past. I suppose in another 30 years when I look back on this one I will find at least one turn of phrase that will absolutely make me cringe!

Scrum-tious

What does an ex-pat sports fan do on Valentine’s Day? She asks her husband to book a table at the local pub to watch rugby.

And of course Tim obliged; the match of the day was England versus Italy. The venue du jour for us was one of our “local” favourites, the Pier View in Cowes, which was recently voted one of the best yachting bars in the world. (It tied for first place with a bar in Wales.)

There’s nothing all that special about the interior of the Pier View. There are two bars to order food and drink from, and three rooms, each with a big screen TV and one that has a small fireplace, which is inviting when it’s cold. (It happened to be the room we wound up in as well, which was lovely for a chilly Sunday afternoon.) When the weather permits the crowd spills outside where metal chairs and tables front the high street, though many patrons are apt to just stand, drink in hand. On very busy days you need to walk in the street to get past the pub, though that’s safer than it sounds as the only traffic would be cars going to and from the ferry to pick up or drop off passengers every half hour. The publican, Sue, is a lovely woman who always greets us with a smile, and the staff at the Pier View is young, friendly, and best of all efficient—I don’t like looking at my empty plate for too long and glasses are swept up quickly enough. The food is good—particularly the burgers—and the menu has all that you’d expect from a pub, including a Sunday roast that I’m certain Tim has sampled. 

Best of all, they’ll take a reservation for a table so you can secure a seat near the TV when you don’t want to watch a sporting event on your computer (because you don’t have a television).

So why was it voted #1? You’d probably have to ask a sailor that, though I see its charms as a landlubber too; one is its superb location on the high street, a short trip from the house (for me) or from the ferry (for sailors looking for near-immediate refreshment). But you can’t walk far before bumping into another pub, so there’s got to be a bit more to the Pier View’s reputation as a favourite. In the summer when Cowes is heaving so is the Pier View, primarily with crews who make it the first stop after a race, shunning the Island Sailing Club if they’ve come from that pontoon or the Vectis, just across the road from the PV. Even the Anchor, closer to Shepards Wharf Marina, doesn’t seem to get the same traffic. To hear the conversation about the race and get in the middle of it all is certainly alluring, both to crews who may have just crossed the finish line as well as those of us who just enjoy hearing the stories about the wind (or lack thereof), the mishaps (of spinnakers that didn’t quite go up or come down elegantly), and the protests that did or should have happened.

It would be unusual to enter the Pier  View and not see someone you know—not just during the high season, but even when Cowes is quieter, like this weekend when we invited two sailors to join us. And when those occasions happen where there is not a familiar face, chances are you’ll be chatting with the sailors / rugby fans / drinkers / diners sitting nearby; likely in part a Cowes phenomenon than a PV one, but it helps that the tables are close and the tables for six or eight are often shared by more than on reservation. Case in point: during the Rugby World Cup I acquired a blow-up hand, decorated with the British flag, from the table next to ours when I showed my admiration for it by taking a photo of it.

And when you’re all not rooting for the same team, it doesn’t matter—it’s a friendly crowd that will smile at the opponent’s try and certainly not heckle a less-than-stellar performance.

That attitude is in no way limited to the patrons of the Pier View, having spent a few rugby matches in other pubs . . . so maybe it’s more about the fans—sailors, rugby watchers, whatever the sport—than the venue. 

Or maybe the beer’s cheaper.

Managing the Seven-year Itch

Having arrived in London, two large suitcases and a one-year work contract in tow, I had not expected that I’d still be here seven years later. In fact, it’s a smidge over seven years now. So what am I itchy about?

You’re thinking the Marilyn Monroe movie. Yeah, it’s the one where she’s standing above the subway grate and her lovely white dress billows up. A seven-year itch is also a psychological term that suggests that happiness in a relationship declines after around year seven.

So how’s my relationship with London doing?

I am honestly amazed that so many years have passed; it has gone so quickly that I have paused to think about events that have happened and think it can’t possibly be . . . has Julian Assange really been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy for over three years? (Recently in the news here.) Were the Summer Olympics in Stratford, London, really in 2012? I can recall turning the key to my little Cowes house for the first time—and that was a few months shy of five years ago.

London, and life here, is still interesting and exciting and wonderful, and I’m looking forward to the next seven. There’s so much more to see and do—and not just in The Big Smoke—and I feel so fortunate to be living in London, not on the perimeter, to be able to experience all it has to offer so easily from where we live. This morning I took a walk and on my way back to the house I took in a view of our road and thought, you lucky so-and-so.

Though, to be honest, there are these small itches after seven years; less about London and more about, perhaps, seven years passing through my fingers, and thinking about doing things differently. Nothing serious.

First itch: you may have noticed I stopped writing my blog regularly. I started writing as a way of sharing my experiences with family in friends abroad. It’s not that I don’t still experience things; I just haven’t been inspired to sit in front of a laptop on my free time, and I’ve found that I use Facebook to share more immediately (though I realise not everyone is on FB). Occasionally I’m on the bus heading home and I think of something that would be worth a post . . . and then I lose the enthusiasm (and sometimes even what I was thinking, LOL) by the time I get home. 

Lack of discipline?  Certainly. This one is most certainly a “watch this space” development; I haven’t quite sorted how to scratch this one.

Second itch: I picked up a subscription for the New York Times crossword puzzle, having given up on trying to understand anyone but Wil Shortz. I can play the puzzle on my iPhone on the way home, perfect for winding down and doing something I enjoy. (Maybe that’s stifling my thinking about blog posts; I’m not spending so much time staring out of the window of the double-decker 341.) Since living in London I have always read the New York Times on line; for one thing, the London papers will dip a toe into US politics, but not every day and not nearly enough (well, for me). I quite enjoy keeping up with what’s happening in my other sphere where so many friends and family still reside.

This itch is sufficiently scratched for a small annual fee.

Third itch: I cut my hair, back to near-2008 length. Having received comments both complimentary and, well, less so (nothing insulting, you understand . . . just not complimentary), in the end I was just ready for something different after all these years. My hairdresser Mark was pleased to see me—I was getting micro-trims sporadically but hadn’t seen him at all in 2015. And I didn’t even take notice of the inches of hair, once near my waist, falling around the chair. It did remind me of the last time I made the same change—the woman in the chair next to mine actually cried out, “Oh my God he’s cutting off all your hair!” Also on that occasion my sister Robyn walked by me while I was sitting at the bar at Angelo’s in Lyndhurst, NJ, have been just shorn and styled a la Garay in New York City.

This time it took Tim two days to notice. To be fair to him, we barely saw each other in the light of day until Saturday morning.

Last itch: I’m not seeing the Super Bowl L. I mean 50. (Apparently they’ve suspended using Roman numerals this year.) I did, however, fill my weekend with Six Nations Rugby. It’s great, but I have to admit I do occasionally itch for American sports. And haven’t they all made it so accessible, with football games at Wembley and a few basketball matches to boot played here in London. Still, it’s not as easy as turning on the TV to watch at a reasonable time. In seven years I likely can’t name the best players (though “old timers” like Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant are still in the game) and know which teams are on top. Lazy? Yes. Of course I can look it up, stay on top of it. I have friends in America who follow the Premier League, after all.

I suppose this one comes down to too much effort to scratch the itch.

A toast to the next seven years, then, and a quote from the movie, which, I must say, is definitely worth trying:

“Hey, did you ever try dunking a potato chip in champagne? It's real crazy!”