Since this is a blog about my life abroad, it has been interesting to view the whole thing from afar. There has been intense interest in the outcome of this years election. It makes you realize how much power and influence the US has and how important things like this are to a lot of people who have no choice in the outcome. It’s also a little weird being able to vote for positions in government 5000 miles away while I can’t even choose the mayor of the city I live in.

Anyhoo, just wanted to post a quick message to tell all 4 people who read this to take the time today and vote. If you have to, write in Mickey Mouse if you think the US should be run by an animated mouse. I’m planning on drinking a shitload of coffee today and trying to stay up through as much of the election returns as possible (keep in mind the first polls close at midnight in my neck of the woods). And if ever there were a reason to vote, it’s because your neighbours are probably lunatics and your lunatic vote will cancel them out. See here:

Update: From the UK, the BBC is giving a generally good overview. It’s fun to watch where the Electoral College needs to be explained. But, holy shit, they have John Fucking Bolton for their commentary. It’s soooo soooo painful. He is a complete asshole. I know it’s 315am here and I’m probably tired, but this man is a disgrace to all Americans. Anyway, things look good for partisan Democrats and Liberals in the US. Keep your fingers crossed.

We bought Chewy a cat tree a couple of weeks ago. He’d started gaining weight when Anna wasn’t eating (I guess he decided all the food was for him since she wasn’t interested). We figured this might give him some new perspectives on the flat and make him excercise a little more. So far, with a special diet of food as well, it seems to be working. He likes to hop up and lounge on it.

OMG!!! He’s got frickin’ laser beams in his eyes! That’s just a nice full on view of his cat tree.

Coming up, I have tons of trips to fill you in on. Ludlow, the Lake District, Dublin, Cambridge and a parental visit!

Alas, one of the big drawbacks of England is Sunday evenings. Basically, many things shut down on Sundays and it gets even worse after about 3pm. In particular, along the south bank of the Thames, it almost seems like nothing is open that isn’t a crap chain. Add to the fact that it was raining and the Scoop is outdoors and our plans were kind of shot, since we didn’t want to watch fine theatre in a downpour. This left us a little crabby and feeling out of sorts. We decided to turn up onto Tower Bridge and make our way back north to just get some sort of food. Well, what did we see as we stepped up to make our way across the Thames:

(click on the image to see a much larger image. Or this much much larger one)

The rainbow was literally from one side of the river to the other. There we are standing in London on one of the icons of the city and there’s a rainbow. Needless to say, we just sat in awe, and all our irritability just melted away. Take another look:

By the way, that’s two complete rainbows, not one (it’s not a reflection).

We almost didn’t get it on film. Carolyn had her camera, but when she hit the power button, nothing happened, no batteries. Luckily for us, every mobile phone nowadays has a camera too. These were taken with my crackberry. Not too shabby!

Anyway, two fun things I’ve found. First, at least for now, if you search for “Apollo Jalapeno” on google, one of my pages is the top choice! Second, I figured that my bike, not being the finest in all the land, was probably not that popular. However, two weekends ago, we were down in Brighton for the weekend (more on that later), and we stumbled upon its doppelganger:

If you look closely, you’ll notice the back tire (or tyre, if you will) is totally flat and the chain is rusted up, so mine is sooo much cooler. But it was funny to just walk into one sitting on the street. I also saw someone up north selling a smaller, childs version of it on eBay. So clearly, I have a pretty hip bike! Long live bright yellow!

Why am I bringing this up? Well, aside from my more environmentally conscious friends, I hadn’t noticed a whole lot of increased use of these bags in the US. In the UK, there’s definitely a nation-wide trend towards cloth bags. The government is sabre-rattling about getting stores to charge for people using plastic bags. I’ve got a cloth bag I try to bring with me all the time so I can use it for shopping. If I don’t always have it, I never seem to have it when I need to go shopping.

Today, I had an interesting experience. I went to a bakery to get something tasty baked goods (there are seemingly tons of them around me) and, instead of just handing me my roll and baguette, the woman behind the counter put them in a free cloth bag. I looked on the bag and the local borough council seems to be sponsoring this giveaway.  That’s a really nice idea. And all the major grocery stores either sell reusable bags or give them away.
On a related note, back in 2002 (yes, 6 years ago) Ireland imposed a €0.15 (later increased to €0.22) tax on any plastic bags which decreased its usage by 90%. That’s impressive. Seems like a smart idea. People aren’t necessarily going to do this on their own initiative and if you leave it to the grocery stores, people bitch to them and they give in. Countries like China and Taiwan and Singapore are apparently putting bans on them outright.
So, my question to my US friends and family: Is this something that is becoming more of an issue in the US? Or is it confined to the damn dirty hippies in the cities and university towns?

(and the garden below her flat in the darkness)

Now, let’s get a little mundane. We have two things at work here. First, I have a TV now. One thing you learn about having a TV in the UK is the licensing scheme. Like all things in life, the BBC is not free. It gets paid for by a yearly fee you pay. If you own a TV, you pay about £11 a month. This alone is no big deal. Why they just don’t deduct it out of a payroll tax is beyond me. But, regardless of that, it goes to a worthy cause as the BBC has come out with some great shit and most of the quality programming in the UK that isn’t Simpsons syndication comes from the BBC. My issue is the collection method. The BBC has paid a bunch of companies to act as Big Brother, checking address databases with who has paid the fee and who hasn’t and allegedly roaming the streets and looking for signals from places that haven’t paid. Earlier this fall, they had adverts up with things like “We’re watching you so pay up” all over the city. It’s creepy and overkill. On top of that, there is a presumption that everyone has a TV and if you haven’t paid, they assume you’re hiding something and harass you and threaten so show up and inspect your home. I have no idea what authority they have, but my colleague, who really doesn’t have a TV has had to call repeatedly to get to stop sending threatening notes about their obvious guilt because everyone has a TV.

Anyway, the point is, I have a TV and I wanna get a real signal, so I’m paid up on my license and I’m looking at the two big TV providers Sky and Virgin. As I started trying to sign up for Sky, they asked about installing a dish which confused me because i thought they were terrestrial cable. So I asked Dina who mentioned it and I realized I had some sort of dish outside my window so I asked what hers looked like so she sent me a photo. I’m obviously ignorant because Sky is satellite TV. Very exciting, no?

Here ends a daily mundane post. Was it boring as shit?

In the meantime, the first Super Bowl in ages that was actually a game (well, I guess lately they haven’t been total jokes) and it starts a little before midnight my time. Not only that, but the Giants freaking ruined the Patriots perfect season. How cool is that?!?!

Anyway, I need to figure out what to do with this blog when there isn’t tons of exciting things to be written about/photographed. In the meantime, I’ll jump in with whatever random I can come up with.

1. Looks like calling Cook County Hospital (where ER takes place) Stroger Hospital is no longer so creepy. The man they named it after, former Cook Country Board President John Stroger, died yesterday. He suffered a stroke a few days before a hotly contested primary almost 2 years ago in which his family used some shameful tactics to have his son put in his place.
2. After many years of political bullshit, the Illinois legislature has actually passed a funding bill that’ll stop the CTA (local public transit) from whinging every year or two about not having enough money. I bitched about this late last year when they yet again dodged a doomsday situation.