After my parents went back home, we had a few weeks to ourselves before Stephan’s sister (Ronda) and brother-in-law (Bill) arrived in London.

[A Note: I unequivocally adore London. I've been there on eight or so separate occasions, mostly for work, and I can't get enough. And I don't even really do anything except walk around and look at things—it's not like I'm out hitting clubs and going to concerts and art galleries and the theatre. Apparently I just really like old buildings and reliable public transportation.

It's like my good friend Samuel Johnson used to say: "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life," which does not say much for Stephan's potential joie de vivre. (Incidentally, the eye-rolling transatlantic equivalent is John Updike's "The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.")]

So I was quite happy to spend three whole days in London during which I could things like sleep in and not spend 12 hours a day in a remote office building. Stephan and I drove down to a station at the end of a tube line and, for the first time, bought Oyster cards (top-upable electronic tickets that you can use on all of London’s public transportation systems, including river boats). They are infinitely cooler than having to carry around a paper ticket that’s only good for one day—you can’t be a Londoner without an Oyster card. Bonus: ours featured a special commemorative design left over from the Royal Wedding nay but 3.5 weeks previous.

We met Bill and Ronda at Trafalgar Square and managed to find some lunch before Bill wandered back to their hotel for a jetlag-induced nap. The rest of us took a walk along the Embankment; past Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, et al.; and through St James’s Park toward Buckingham Palace. And oh, Internets—the pollen. I don’t know what provoked every plane tree in the city to release all of its pollen into the air simultaneously, but it was horrible. And I say this as a heretofore completely allergy-free person. The sneezing! The choking! The crying! I can’t imagine having to go through that for weeks on end every spring.

We had a short reprieve upon reaching Buckingham Palace, as the public side is paved and completely barren of plant life. So there we were, minding our own business, when our path was blocked by a big silver van with tinted windows (you know, like the ones they used at the aforementioned Royal Wedding for the lesser royals):

Several seconds later, our route cleared and we were able to continue on to Bill and Ronda’s hotel, a mere two roads and one big park (Green Park) away. From their penthouse room (some people have all the randomly upgraded luck!), we could see right over the tops of all those stupid, stupid trees to Buckingham Palace, atop which now flew the Royal Standard:

This is the flag that is flown wherever the Queen is hanging out, and according to Bill it hadn’t been there very long. As this was the day before Barack Obama arrived from Ireland for his slumber party (pillow fights, truth or dare, prank calling David Cameron…), we concluded that since:

a)      the Queen probably needed to arrive the day before to tidy up the place a bit

and

b)      when the Queen is not on official business and/or otherwise doesn’t want people to know what she’s up to, she probably rides around in one of those big silver vans you can’t see into, just exactly like the one we had to wait for at Buckingham Palace,

Therefore,

YOU GUYS—THE QUEEN TOTALLY SAW US.

QED

We were watching a show on the teevee last night in which one of the presenter-type people described someone’s pulse as “going twenty to the dozen.” Apparently this is a British expression meaning really fast, as in twenty events occur in the time it usually takes for twelve such events to occur. The Internet tells me that some people replace the “twenty” with “nineteen,” “forty,” or even “ten,” the last for reasons known only to themselves. And then it tried to tell me that the American equivalent is “hitting it a lick,” an expression I don’t think I’ve ever heard before.

I vote instead for “going like gangbusters,” though I’m pretty sure I’ve only heard that one from my dad, and then usually reserved for when he’s talking about this one time when a high-school friend of mine was so frustrated with her mom that she abandoned our hiking group entirely and ran up Silver Star Mountain in flipflops.

I obviously ran with a very rebellious crowd.

Of course, he and Stephan have a hilarious joke amongst themselves regarding how, since they were born in the same hospital five days apart, chances are high that they were switched at birth. At this juncture, my third-grade self would like to point out that this idea is so funny that I forgot to laugh.

As far as brothers go, though, Matt’s pretty swell. He understands the necessity of singing at the top of one’s lungs with the windows down while driving around on back roads. He knows just about everything there is to know about pop culture and his sense of humor is, really, top drawer. He is the first person to care about what’s going on in your life and the first person to help you out when you really need it.

He also never tires of me telling him to “sell [his] car and buy one” in response to his showing any interest in something he doesn’t currently own (a suggestion originally attributed to our mutual father). And since it’s his birthday, I’m not even going to mention the Cisco’s Restaurant Incident of lo, these many years ago.

Happy birthday, Matt! I miss you!

Matt at 15 months with Mom, Grandpa, and Grandad—do you think any of them are related?

Matt rowing us out on a rafting adventure—who knows what that tether back to shore is for, PARENTS.

Matt and me with the the two cousins from Mom’s side nearest our age. See that shirt Matt’s wearing? I wore it for a few years in high school before passing it on to that pipsqueak on the far right there.

Fast forward! Me and sincerely super-excited Matt at Christmas 2 years ago.

Best picture ever—at the Enchanted Forest for Matt’s birthday 4 years ago.

Classic Olan Mills (that I can’t be bothered to Photoshop the destruction out of at the moment). Yes, we were always this nice to each other growing up. I believe the word you’re looking for is “cherubic.”

No, this is not what she actually said.

National Portrait Gallery which, among other things, houses all of those portraits of Henry VIII’s wives that you see in books and never actually realized were real, also this one that I inexplicably love.

Imperial War Museum was disturbing on several levels, even with skipping the Holocaust and crimes against humanity exhibits, but I do love the old posters:

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Tower Bridge, which featured a thrilling and historical video reenactment of a committee discussion and very helpful and informative guides who told us that the bridge is painted every 5 years, and is scraped back to the metal every (insert larger number here) years, though they are making an off-schedule exception to spruce things up for 2012 (London Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee).

Saw Young Victoria in a theater just up the street from Kensington Palace and experienced the concessionary joy that is pick ‘n’ mix.

National History Museum, aka strong contender for most beautiful building ever, for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit:

Science Museum, Stephan’s new love and one that I was wholly anticipating not liking all that much, but then I hung out in the history of mathematics exhibit (I know, right?) and learned how to use a slide rule and about how Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine (i.e., first computer) didn’t perform its first error-free calculation until some other smart people modified it to do so in honor of his 200th birthday (1991).

Monument to the Great Fire of London, world’s tallest freestanding stone column (202 feet), built to commemorate the Great Fire and, sneakily, to double as a scientific observatory—for example, each of the 311 steps was built exactly 6 inches tall for sneaky barometric pressure studying purposes.

Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park, home to the slightly ridiculous Animals in War Memorial, which, yeah, I get it: “They Had No Choice,” but seriously—while I like animals (especially the cute kind) as much as the next person, I can’t help but think of several much better ways to spend £1.4 million, maybe even to help animals that are currently alive (note: I have no such issues with memorializing, you know, actual people).

The most innocuous Starbucks of all time, on our long-way-round walk to Westminster Bridge:

Chirk Castle, site of my first real-life “ha-ha,” a landscaping feature that is basically a ditch sloping down to the bottom of a fence whose top is level with the ground on the other side—the garden side can’t see the fence, but the sheep (or whatever) on the other side can’t get over it without a concerted effort and/or running leap (note: not likely).

Snowdon Horseshoe, Wales’ highest mountain and the ridge walk/scramble on either side of it (well, kind of—we somehow missed the turnoff to the first half of the ridge, so we ended up taking the trail beneath it):

Scafell Pike, England’s highest point and whose ascent inspired my new hiking goal of Making It To The Top Before The Smoker I’ve Been Pacing:

Glencoe, site of the Glencoe Massacre (of MacDonalds, by Campbells) during the Jacobite Risings. Also the site of where I bought a real cute coin purse in the gift shop (green flavor):

Rare Breed Croft, featuring all sorts of tiny baby sheep and a Highland cow named Katie.

Eilean Donan Castle, which we didn’t actually visit, but we stayed in a hotel across the street (and a field, and car park, and some water) from it—it’s not quite as isolated as the assorted movies that feature it would like you to believe, though it does take some doing to get to that part of Scotland:

Armadale Castle + Museum of the Isles on the Isle of Skye, which I have a feeling will be seeing a lot more of us (the isle, that is).

Witnessed a car accident that involved the car in question swerving into our lane, overcorrecting, launching off a boulder on its own side of the road, flipping over in the air, and landing on its back/trunk before finally coming to a stop facing the road right side up–like something out of a movie, only in the movies you never see the results because these sorts of things only happen to whomever is chasing the good guy, so I half expected the car to be unmanned. It wasn’t. The driver is presumably in hospital somewhere.

Edinburgh Castle, featuring a mural on the way to view the Honours of Scotland that includes, near the bottom, a tiny gnome peeing on the leg of a stool.

Alnwick Castle + Gardens, home of the Duke of Northumberland and family, whose wealth, according to the New York Times includes “120,000 acres of land, 171 tenant farms and 700 houses and cottages, along with Alnwick Castle, with its collections of Meissen china, Louis XIV furniture and paintings by Titian, Caneletto and Van Dyke. According to The Sunday Times of London, the duke is the 270th richest person in Britain, with a fortune estimated at £300 million.” Which is why I personally am not a big fan of being asked for an additional £1 pound donation to the garden charity, whatever that does, in addition to the £17.50 I’m already paying for the privilege of visiting. Seriously.

Chesters Roman Fort + Hadrian’s Wall, featuring an early example of radiated floor heating:

That’s all so far! We’re off for walkies and our first Shugborough visit of the season.

“Please,” we’d say,  “can’t we just go to bed? It’s been 14 hours.”

“YOU WILL PLAY,” they’d say. “You will play and you will like it. And stop adoring our children.”

Because we want them to love us, when we got home we bought our own Wii and Guitar Hero. Normally I do nothing all day except sit around and play it, but I was granted a reprieve a few days ago when Stephan loaned it to someone at work. Phew!

I have this problem, though, where if the elbow that is connected to my string-playing hand via forearm isn’t supported in some way, I end up gripping the guitar neck so hard that some horrible affliction on the carpal tunnel spectrum sets in and I can’t play for more than 7 hours at a stretch. You will no doubt be relieved to hear, Internets, that I generally remedy this by sitting on the couch, in a posture not wholly unlike that of the gentleman here pictured:

My rock and roll image is of course only enhanced by the fact that our house is usually colder than I want it to be, so more often than not I soon find myself rocking out to the Sex Pistols and Jimi Hendrix whilst wrapped in a quilt.

Moms are also useful for giving you excuses to pop into some pottery factory shops in Stoke-on-Trent, all of which sell seconds at prices that you may actually be able to justify. And then you can buy things with bunnies on them so you can then leave them out on the kitchen counter where you can ogle them for weeks on end.

(Note: not exactly proportionate. Also, my canister second didn’t come with that cute lid.)

We blame on one or both of the following items:

1. The queen has discovered that I owe her $17.95 Canadian from Best Road Trip Ever 2007.
2. Stephan just made the whole thing up because he really enjoys being unemployed, carless, and homeless if it means that he can move his wife back in with his parents rent free. (My money is on this one; you would understand if you got to eat here.)

We’ve been out of our apartment almost a month now, but we have had some good times. We went to the coast for a few days: best weather I’ve ever seen on the Oregon coast, February or not. We also visited Stephan’s sister and family in Coeur d’Alene, where there was a moose and three wild turkeys. And also two nieces who like us, one of whom told us that she wants a video camera for her third birthday (“all she wanted for Christmas was brown buttons!”) and who referred to Stephan as “that guy” before she decided that Uncle Stephan showed promise in the competitive field of block-tower building.

So: still here. Wish we weren’t. But glad we were.

Right now, I’m stuck on Johnny Cash. I suppose it could be worse.

This program, of course, is diametrically opposed to the listening-to-music stylings of my brother, Matt. Stories are still told about the 8-hour roundtrip that he and Tony took to Walla Walla to visit me 7 years ago when Matt skipped through songs so frequently that, legend has it, not a single song was listened to in its entirety.

To sum up my absence:

Super Stupendous Camping 2007! Our annual camping trip with Eric, Cenaida, and Tony. Sometimes we let other people come too. This year, we went to Lower Falls Campground on the Lewis River, and I would venture to say it was our best location yet (others: Cape Lookout, Fort Stevens, Wallowa Lake, Memaloose, Silver Falls, Cape Disappointment). The campground is in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, way out of cell phone range. We drove around to the north side of Mount St. Helens and up to Windy Ridge. We went walking along the Lewis River, and Eric disobeyed some sternly worded signs and dove into the (completely undangerous) pool of glacierlike water at the top of some dangerous falls. No pictures from me, but Stephan just got a new camera, and here is what it does.

Temporary and Accidental Dissolution of Library Boycott This one was completely out of my control. Way back on Labor Day weekend, we went to Walla Walla for my grandpa’s birthday, and while we were there we visited some friends and had a great time geocaching and playing games. When we were leaving their house, the conversation turned to a book that I should borrow and read, a retelling of The Phantom of the Opera by Susan Kay. Only I’d never read the original book, seen any of the movies, or attended a performance of the highest-grossing entertainment event of all time. So after I finished the borrowed, retold book, I had to borrow the original from the library. Clearly, this whole ordeal is all Ethan’s fault for loaning me the book in the first place. But then he (and/or his wife, who, truth be told, did most of the work) brought an adorable child named Oliver into the world less than a week ago, so I guess we’ll let this one slide.

Obscure Film Festival We’ve already done the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (extended) festivals, so this time we decided to pick a theme and make other people than me bring food when it’s their turn to bring the movie. So far, so awesome: Keeping Mum (Matt’s) and Clue (mine).

Geocaching and General Frivolity We had my mom, dad, and brother over for an excellent lunch that my mom made a few weeks ago. We’ve also taken my dad geocaching a couple times–we’ve ended up in some cool places that we otherwise would not have ever thought to go, but somehow this is always preceded by stomping around in a random gully in Marquam Nature Park or Forest Park in a futile search for cache that is somewhere completely different because we entered some numbers incorrectly. It is then that we really appreciate my dad’s presence because he will boldly go where we just don’t want to.

Not Cooking Dinner This has also been the month for eating out. Not only did we make a new rule that I don’t have to cook if I work more than 9 hours in a day, but in this last month, Stephan’s employer sold most of his business, Stephan’s MBA class met for dinner with some professors, and my boss relocated to Boise. So there have been plenty of excuses to go out and celebrate (business sale, MBA) or not (boss relocation).

Other, Secret News No, we are not pregnant.