On Wednesday I thought, I don’t feel like posting right after 9/11, I’ll write something Thursday. On Thursday, I went out for drinks with co-workers, and after a few beers, whatever little desire for blogging I might have had was encompassed by the strong desire for bed… On Friday, I…
Today is the first anniversary of the September 11th tragedy on which I have my own personal podium. I would like to use it to say something poignant or momentous in commemoration of the day that changed so many of us. Alas, nothing comes to mind. Whatever little eloquence I…
On our first weekend back together, we couldn’t just stay home, could we? Suppressed for the last couple of months, the urge to resume our explorations dominated our thoughts and ultimately led to a couple of excursions. If you’ve been following our adventures for the last year or so, you…
My last entry has reminded me of a topic that I wanted to dedicate a separate post to, along the lines of Things You Tend To Not Spend Time Thinking Seriously About When In The Process Of Relocating Abroad. The previous article in this series discussed finer points of relocating…
Ah! Bliss! The family is back home. The shirts are ironed, the fridge is full, the dinner is delectable, the TV is constantly turned on to Hanna Montana and Zoey 101… It’s on to resuming morning school runs starting tomorrow. While the girls came back and almost immediately started the…
A cousin of mine plays clarinet with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. And what do you know – they were coming to play Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday and Sunday. Just like that, I was going to my second classical music performance in less than a week.…
I frequently rant about things that we do not like in England (the last obvious example of that was the driving license treatise), and even wrote a post once about things that we took for granted in the States. But occasionally, we come across a concept that makes us think,…
There is nothing quite like a classical music concert to take your mind off mundane happenstance, even if the first piece of the program is somewhat disturbing Also sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss (which has been immortalized by Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey, but is more likely to be associated with…
I felt quite pathetic that I stayed indoors for such a lovely day on Sunday, so I decided to do a bit better on Monday. This was the last pre-Christmas day off (with an oh-so-imaginative name of Summer Bank Holiday), and it was very tempting – sunny, fresh, not too…
My lonely life has got so boring that I actually spent an hour vacuum-cleaning the house today. Hopefully, Natasha does not get any ideas… The entire week was rainy and cold. It appeared as if the autumn came early, and that after a protracted non-summer. I’ve heard people say that…
One of my free rides has finally caught up with me. To the tune of £830. I explained in that post how my gas and electricity service with EDF Energy was switched to British Gas without my active participation. And how I never saw a gas bill afterwards, although an…
Saturday Got a haircut, then spent all day in front of the PC, working through the list of computer-enabled errands. Stock market has been beyond depressing. Watched a previously recorded movie – crap. At least, the football season started, caught some games on the late-night re-cap. Sunday Woke up at…
It is still quiet on our street, and I have not ventured out of the house to check what may be going on at the nearby intersection. There is a price to pay, of course. Pizza delivery man took almost an extra 30 minutes to get to the house, and…
Tuesday morning it was some water leak in front of my driveway. Today it was the full-blown watermain burst at the busy intersection between our rented house and the train station. The intersection is made up of the street that we live on and the major dual-lane thoroughfare (known simply…
On our trip to the States, we had to take care of renewing two sets of important documents. One was our New Jersey driving licenses, which, as luck would have it, expired on July 31st. Having had determined with my accountant – thanks, Mom! – that possession of a valid…
I was woken up this morning by the wonderful sound of jackhammer right under my window. Two nice blokes informed me that there was some water leak that they would be repairing for the next hour… Looking at the bright side, I might have overslept work if not for them……
Of late, I have been using the word home in several different connotations. First of all, without a doubt, my home is the country that I love, the country where I spent my entire adult life, the country where an immigrant with no money but a reasonably high IQ has…
My British colleagues are happily exclaiming that the summer is finally here. From my perspective, the weather is a lot more like spring than summer, but with no rain, and it certainly makes it feel considerably more cheerful. Too bad we won’t be around for a while. Let’s feel the…
On our excursions with cousins to the central London over the weekend, we have been talking about the advantages of living in a big city. Now, it should be noted that they live in a small town well north of Los Angeles, while we spent the last seven years before…
In my posts, I occasionally touch upon subjects that could be collectively described as Things You Tend To Not Spend Time Thinking Seriously About When Making Decision To Relocate. Since I’ve gathered a few of those after all these months, I figure I can devote an occasional post to such…