Melanie

11:31 am: Radio Free Melanie
Fa la la la laaaa la laa laa LA!

Turn to BBC Radio 2 (88.9 FM) tonight [Friday night] from 7:30-9:15pm to hear the John Barrowman (from the new Dr. Who and Torchwood tv series(es) and also Broadway and West End musical fame) Christmas concert (recorded live at the south bank's Queen Elizabeth Hall this Monday night) that features a fun mix of showtunes and Christmas carols -- and my choir (yes, I'm in a choir now... see www.cefc.org.uk ) sings in several of the numbers. It was loads of fun -- it's perfect background music for your Christmas party!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/fridaynight/

For anyone who misses it (or is in another country!), you will be able to play the show through Radio 2's website for about a week after the broadcast.

Merry Christmas,
Melanie

12:39 pm: Carmina Burana
So I joined this choir, right? The Crouch End Festival Chorus -- Crouch End being a neighborhood close to where I live, and it's an amateur choir of about 120 members. Why? Making music = happy Melanie.

My first performance with them was last night

singing Carmina Burana

with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

at the Royal Albert Hall!

and a packed out audience. It was very cool. At my audition a few weeks ago, the choir director switched me to soprano, so it's been strange learning to use the higher end of my vocal range. I'll get the volumne... one of these days.

But back to Carmina Burana...
folks in the audience assured me it sounded spectacular. But as I was in the back row of singers, my hearing vantage point was quite different. What I heard from the orchestra and the rest of the chorus was all reflections (and a bit delayed!) but it seemed to work out okay in the end. I love this piece! It's so dramatic!

For the first half of the performance, the RPO did Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. I'm a big Stravinsky fan, and their firebird was fantastic. And I had the choir's-eye view of them and could see what everyone was doing. It did make for a short first half. A 20 minute piece then race off to the bar! (except for us... we had to line up for our re-entry)

But it was exciting! (Unfortunately, it makes for a rather dull rest-of-the-week.)

On Friday (our rehearsal day) we'll start rehearsing for our next show. It's going to be in a beautiful old church (St. Michael's?) in Highgate (still don't know where that is... maybe should check mulitmap.co.uk) singing some a capella and organ-accompanied old church songs. The two I can remember off the top of my head are Monteverdi's Dixit Dominus and his Beatus Vir. That's for May 20.

01:29 pm: 2nd anniversary
Today is Jonathan's and my wedding anniversary! We're going out to dinner someplace nice to celebrate. I also baked 2 Mississippi Mud cakes: one for home, and one for work (my company's so big we bring our own cakes when we want to celebrate). As I'm at work (lunch) now, I'll set out the cake later and see how fast it disappears. Then this weekend, we're going to Cornwall. We're taking a train from Paddington to Bodmin, where we've rented a sweet room in a B&B mansion/country house called Tredethy (http://www.tredethyhouse.co.uk/index.htm). We'll spend a day at the Eden Project (http://www.edenproject.com) and a day at the Gardens of Heligan (http://www.heligan.com/home/home.html) and a day riding rented bicycles through the countryside trails and visiting local towns and pubs. We're really looking forward to getting away for a bit.

01:35 pm: NYC... 2 months ago
I feel like talking about New York City. New York City?!?! Get the Rope! (remember those Pace ads?)

Anyway, back in May I went to New York to rendezvous with my friend Sadie who I've known since we were 10. She lives in Dallas, hence the rendezvous. It was almost a week of tramping around Manhattan... seeing lots of shows, eating lots of amazing food, and doing some sightseeing... of course, and lots of catching up. Since I've moved to London I only get to see her 1-2x a year (and usually for about a day) so it was good.

We had a nice modern double-double room in this "boutique" (not a chain) hotel called The Time (as in, next to Times Square) which was conveniently located on Broadway and 49th or so (right across from "Chicago". The room was styled blue (the rooms are either yellow, red, or blue) and was nice enough. Very expensive, of course, since it's Manhattan, but worth it.

Getting to the hotel from the airport (Newark) was easier than I expected, and I ran into a cool Mom-type lady from Charleston who was on her way to a UN meeting. She was telling me all about her family and this trip to Paris with her daughters and daughter-in-law and stuff. She would have been a very cool mom to have, I think... or even a good friend. And that impression was just from bumping into her trying to buy a train ticket into the city and the 1/2 hr ride there.

Well, the night Sadie and I arrived (I got to the hotel first, it was booked under her name, so I had to wait a couple of hours for her to get there... due to a delayed flight) we just settled in, grabbed some food/drink from a local deli/market/grocery store and hung out. Long flights meant we just weren't up for going out on the town.

One night we went to the Metropolitan Opera and saw Tosca from the second row and very very far right. They do their subtitles on little digital readouts on the back of the seats in front of you (as opposed to the only other place I've been that does subtitles--in Dallas on the proscenium arch). Tosca is a tragedy about this chick (named Tosca, duh!) where lots of people fall in love and get screwed over by the local big-wig who wants the pretty girl for himself. Yep, everyone dies. But the music is pretty cool. And the opera house... wow! well the opera house by itself was nice enough but the whole complex... something-or-other-square... has the opera, a theatre, and a classical music hall around a big stone paved square with fountains and fairy lights and trees and things. Very posh. Oh yeah, each of the 3 buildings is in the same style with the same materials but they're variations on each other. It really made for a beautiful and cohesive place.

We also saw Steel Magnolias (with a crazy cast... must've recognized all but 1 of the actresses) and Hairspray, our token musical. We had booked tickets to Spamalot through one of those scalper websites that flog in-demand tickets for many times the box office price. But they screwed up my order at the last minute and we didn't end up getting to go. Spamalot would've been hilarious, but maybe next time. Hairspray was a day-of-show sort of choice but it was silly and entertaining. Very energetic dancing and singing! Quite funny. Steel Magnolias is a revival of the play that was the inspiration for the movie. The set was great, because it was the beauty shop. The beauty shop in spring, the beauty shop in winter, different years, different seasons. And the cast was limited to the main set of females. A good ol' Southern women makes-you-laugh makes-you-cry sort of play.

Food? Yes, alright, I admit we ate some damn fine food. (and spent a mint on it as well, but we were on VACATION!) One day we ate at the Tribeca Grill... just their ordinary set menu for lunch. But what a set menu! There were 2 options for each of the 3 courses, and Sadie and I chose opposite things so we could try it all. And it wasn't even all that expensive, considering. Basics like salmon, salads, soups, ravioli, chocolate mousse, etc. but done very well indeed. Afterwards we walked along the coastline (okay, the water's edge around battery park?) down to the ferry for Ellis & Liberty islands. The ferry and islands would've been much better had we enough time to see much, and had the statue been open for people... But it was cool anyway.

More food? Well, we went to this crazy French restaurant called Bouley and got their chef's selection of about 6 courses along with wine pairing. $$$$$$$$$! but the best food I've tasted in my entire life. It was mostly seafood, with a last main course of lamb before the dessert. I was equally amazed by the wine. I've never spent so much on wine and the tastes were incredible. I like having lots of little courses. It's a nice way to try lots of stuff without being stuffed.

And we also went to this deli one day, where the sandwiches each had a pound of meat in them. Seems a bit extreme to me. I could manage about half of my bigger-than-my-head rueben. Tasty... should have taken a picture.

Then there was shome some wandering around of MOMA and shopping around 5th, Madison, Soho, etc. Oh yeah, and a 5 mile journey that started out as a run through Central Park and walk back to the hotel before breakfast (okay, a very late breakfast). Nice park! Of course, we saw mostly the outside bit, where the joggers/bicyclists were. But we did pass the zoo and the little toy sailboat pond. And I got to see the outside of FLWright's Guggenheim (there was a huge queue to get in, plus we were all sweaty from running). The day that we left, Sadie's flight was quite a bit earlier than mine, so I headed off to the natural history museum (off Central park!) And I went to the brand new dinosaur exhibit that opened that weekend. Very cool! I learned some stuff I hadn't heard before. It was definitely the biggest dinosaur collection I've seen anywhere, and I've seen some pretty good ones. I recommend it.

The flight home was first class! (I had enough frequent flyer miles to bump up my return journey... my flight was free!) Well, business class, but the food's still much better than coach and there's much more room and lots of quality booze. I watched "Life Aquatic" and tried to sleep. Very cool movie. I like that so much of the cast is also in the royal tenenbaums and that other one about that high school freak.

So that was some of the highlights. It's such a big and tall and busy and expensive city. I was amazed at how much I recognized from tv and movies and such. And how many headquarters of major companies are all next door to each other. All the tourists did start to get on my nerves though. I'd like to experience the city from a resident's perspective. Maybe next time.

01:39 pm: London Bombings
Yesterday, London was attacked by a series of bombs directed at public trasport. It looks like at least one of the incidents was a suicide (homicide!) bomber.

Around 9 am (you can look at the news for the specific times) this stuff happened:

1: bomb on underground. Circle line between Aldgate and Liverpool Street stations.
I work in this area, by the way.

2: bomb on underground. Piccadilly line between King's Cross and Russel Square.
My overground train that normally runs to Moorgate (same area as above) was diverted to King's Cross. Gee, thanks for that! No idea what's going on at that point.

3: bomb on underground. Circle line between Edgeware and Paddington.
This is the one site I didn't go to on my walking tour / scenic route to work.

4: bomb on bus. in Tavistock square, which is near King's Cross and Russel Square.


But this is how I experienced the day:

First my overground train was diverted to King’s Cross (where one of the bombs went off) and they wouldn't let us into the underground part of the station. I figured it was a normal problem, like delays or a power fault or something, so I walked to the nearby Euston train station. They wouldn't let us in, and the buses were too crowded from all the people getting off the underground. Of course, they didn’t tell us what was going on. I had no idea bad things were happening all over the city. So I decided to find my way to work. I didn't know what direction to go in, since I didn't have my trusty AtoZ book of maps on me, and it was cloudy, so there's no way of telling north, so I picked a street that wasn't blocked off by the police and medical emergency people. I ended up passing near Tavistock square (where the bus went up), and venturing to the west end (Tottenham court road / Centre Point) before finding the right direction to go to work. I got there (work) by 12:30! And the Evening Standard (noon printing) already had a cover page on the bombs! Anyway, it was a very long walk. And of course, my work is right by Liverpool St station, where another tube bomb went off). The police had taped off one of the streets my building is on the corner of.

Hardly anyone was there, and no one was working. I printed off some maps so I could get home if the buses/trains didn't resume and I had to walk. I sent a few e-mails off to people I know would worry. Then I went to a coworker-friend’s house who lives a 20min walk away from work, watched tv and saw the press conference. Jonathan wanted me home after all this kerfuffle (good thing he was working from home yesterday), so after a bit I walked another 30min to find a working bus station. At least I didn't have to walk home (which would have taken my 2-3 hours... and I was wearing unsuitable walking shoes... ) Rode the bus to Manor house, and walked straight to the pub.

I'm taking today off.

~Melanie

10:21 am: family and jobs
It's been a pretty exciting week. My parents are in town. I picked them up at the airport last Friday, and we did some fun stuff for the weekend.

Saturday
bus to Camden town
walk around looking for canal boats to Regent's park
find one that left about 2 minutes before
walk along canal (a very nicely different view of London)
London Zoo. I liked the little monkeys and the bats and the otters.
Open Air Theatre - the musical "Camelot". I grew up listening to the soundtrack, so it was nice hearing those songs again. And I've seen "Midsummer Night's Dream" and "King Henry IV, part 1" there before, so I recognized quite a few of the actors. It's such a nice venue, and you can buy food and bottles of wine and drink in your seats... which are cushioned and very close to the stage. I love that little theatre!
ugh! getting home was more difficult than it should have been. 2 hours! walking, trains, buses, walking, waiting...

Sunday
Hampton Court palace. I really liked the kitchens. They had a whole series of food prep rooms set up as if for a feast. Lots of bread and animals on spits and fires and pies and spices and grains and things. Oh, and they have the oldest grape vine in the world. It's still producing grapes, and they sell them to eat. The big stump part of the vine is as big as a nice big knarled tree trunk. I think it's been around since the 1700s or something crazy like that. Of course the gardens are nice and big. They have trees sculpted into gumdrops. Rows and rows of them. Henry VIII lived there for a while and there were others.

Monday-Thursday, work as usual. We won the big hospital contract last week. £265,000,000 worth of hospital refurb and new build! So they're hiring new people for the job. And they offered me a permanent position! From what I've heard, my salary is quite nice. That is, I keep making roughly what I was making on contract, but now I get benefits and exciting stuff like that. And 4 weeks holiday! And a 37.5 hour standard workweek. I've been working there since the end of April, so this is the longest I've ever been in a job. Hooray!

I've taken today off, so I could spend it with my parents. It was raining earlier, but the sun's just come out, so maybe we can go to Kew Gardens after all.

~Melanie

01:54 pm: lunch at Broadgate Square
I work very close to "the city"... in EC2, though it's technically in the borough of Islington. During my lunch hour, I usually go out with some friend/co-worker people to a few food-related places nearby. Liverpool St. Station is close, so there are lots of little shops and a few cafes and pubs there. There's also a nice little park (Finsbury Square) where they set out those canvas deck chairs for people to sit on at lunch time. Good for taking your Mark&Sparks sandwiches or whatever. But my favorite place is Broadgate Square. It's a circle, actually, for people... It's all in stone, and is surrounded by big banking buildings. There are built-in takeaway food stands and some shops like bookstores and a postoffice. The upper floors have pubs and expensive cafes. But basically, it's a bit of round floorspace with wide stairs on several sides, leading up and down... and the good part is all the people and things that go on down there.

______
.......]
pub..]
------
food.]
stall.]
-----------,
--------------, steps to sit on
-----------------,
--------------------, circle floor for exhibitions
------------------------------------------------------,
---------------------------------------------------------, steps
------------------------------------------------------------, to
---------------------------------------------------------------, shops

kind of like the above diagram.

When there's nothing going on, they set out tables and chairs in the middle of the circle. But there's often weird stuff set up there. It's like a mini exhibition space.

Things I've seen in the circle:
fashion show
car show
handball tournament
music show
horse show (complete with dirt floor!)

But mostly you sit on the steps, eating your sandwich, chatting to people or reading a book. When it's sunny, there's tons of people out sunning themselves. It can get damn hot in that square (circle!)

Today's threatening rain, and it's cooler than when I left for work this morning, so I'm sitting here at work, eating chorizo & chickpea soup from EAT. Very exciting.

07:13 pm: marriage and cows
A couple of days ago was my first wedding anniversary. Jonathan and I have survived our first year! Actually, we've been pretty damn happy. It's so nice to just be together, whenever we want to be. Instead of being an ocean apart.

We went to Prague to celebrate. Actually, we were trying to get to Poland to stay at a friend's house in the country. But couldn't get ahold of him. So instead of taking a bus to the border and getting a lift to this country house, we toured a wonderful Baroque city. And searched for cows! http://prague.cowparade.com/

Favorite cows:
Mirror ball cow
bumble bee cow
hollow yellow perforated cow
parachute cow (stuck in a tree!)
I'm Lovin' It cow (McDonald's latest tagline) where there was a human leg hanging out of the cow's mouth!!!

There were 205 cows around the center of the city, although several were taken away for repairs due to vandalism. People suck.

08:48 pm: major life-changing event
So my British boy came to visit me in March, a couple of weeks ago. It was a great long weekend. We went to Six Flags and it was empty, and therefore much more fun. We rode bicycles through my neighborhood. We arranged some flagstone on my patio project. We went shopping and bought him practically an entire wardrobe on sale (out of season here is still in season there--think sweaters and such). We went to this cool movie place where they have a cafe and bar and trendy shops. And had lots of fun, goofing off, waiting to have our "long talk" to the end. No need to spoil a perfectly good holiday with relationship talk!

the last night, we decided... (drumroll, please)


To Get Married.


whoa! never have I seen two people so nervous and excited and joyous and scared,
All at once.

So now what?
Lots of details that I'd rather not mess with, but it must be done.

Settlement visa, so I can get into (and live in) England.
Wedding plans (when, where, how, Aaahhh!!!)
yeah, that's about it.


June, we're hoping. At a church, my FIANCE!!! insists. And guess what. I just bought the coolest, fluffy white dress! It even has a petticoat for extra foof! now that was a truly bizarre experience. but that's another story altogether.

Reception? I declare that it must be FUN! I'm thinking about a barbeque with lots of beer and margaritas. Maybe at the same time as the unveiling of my new project (still under construction). My first built structure!

Back to the visa thing.
We have to get together tons of paperwork (birth certificates, passports, basic settlement forms, marriage forms, and maybe a "this is why I was denied entry" form, photos and stuff proving we've been together for a while... )
And the quickest way to do this is to go to LA. Yes, the British Consulate in Los Angeles. For an in person thing, complete with interview. And the possibility of getting the visa... The Same Day!

Honeymoon in LA? ugh.

and everyone seems to think that two months to pull off a wedding is too short. right. I could elope in one day. I just don't want to. So I can do a wedding in a few weeks, dammit!


I'm getting married
to a man I love
Who lives across the pond
and so will I.

08:39 pm: Guinness Punch recipe
This is for anyone and everyone who loves sweet, creamy, alcoholic delights. The world would be a sad place without Jamaica. Oh yeah, this recipe is from Jonathan's parter Julian's two sisters, who are half Jamaican and swear by this familiar recipe.


Stir this stuff into a punch bowl (or any other big clean container):

2 cans or bottles of Guinness
1 small can of sweetened condensed milk
splash or 2 of dark rum
vanilla extract (1 tsp?)
nutmeg

Serve over ice. Enjoy!

04:24 pm: shh... I got a job!
So this is totally illegal.
I'm working without a work permit.
Don't tell anyone.

Two weeks ago I got in touch with a familyfriend who happens to be an architectural surveyor. He's been turning down work, since he has too much to do. So I'm doing contract work for him--doing CAD drawings and such.

Poplar House:
Addition to semi-detached house in north London. I'm redesigning the upper floor, at the moment.

Westbury Church:
Conversion of car showroom into church. Overlooks scenic petrol station in east London. The church currently occupies the ground floor parking garage... that was turned into some offices and a large meeting room. In the expansion/conversion, there is an upper floor of offices that overlooks the showroom. I measured the place 2 fridays ago. I'm doing the drawings in metric units.

Gaumont Palace:
1920s art deco cinema. Recently a bingo parlor. More recently, a night club. Now I get to restore and modify the Grade II* listed building into a church and design the streetfront elevation. It's just down the road from me. Haven't seen the inside yet--maybe this week!

I got a paycheck last week, but I can't really do anything (legal) with it so far. We'll see.

* * *

And Jonathan's having me design the desks for a computer suite he's putting in an elementary school. Just started. !!!

04:31 pm: place for fire
Once upon a time there was a lovely Victorian marble
fireplace in a townhouse near a river in north London.

Times changed, and so did fashion, so the lovely
Victorian marble fireplace was brutally ripped from the
brick and plaster walls and thrown out, in favor of a
boarded up blank wall covered in textured wallpaper.

Years later, a fair-haired girl was born to the
household of the ex-marble fireplace.

In time, she grew old enough to decide to do something
about the once-Victorian-marble-fireplace-containing
room, which had become musty and gloomy and smelled
closely of old dog.

She--along with her brother's Yankee (though not really
a Yankee, being from the South) girlfriend--knocked a
fireplace-shaped hole in the offending wall, preparing
to restore the poor old room to a cozy friendly place,
though but a shadow of its former Victorian marble splendor.

Weeks passed, and the dusty loose-bricked fireplace hole
gave the impression of being one of those chronic DIY projects
that just don't die... or get finished.

Until one day, the parents left on holiday, leaving the
kids at home to destroy the place with rampant partying
and cancerous piles of dishes.

The fair-haired girl, seeing her opportunity to finish
something she started (for once), shelled out some cash
on red paint, new light fixtures, and a red couch, while
the American girl dreamed and schemed up a new fireplace
mantelpiece to be made out of stock pine and the odd bit
of mo(u)lding.

After much painting, sawing, nailing, swearing, tiling,
sweeping, airing, and gnashing of teeth, the room began
to feel young again, brought into the new millennium
with it's modern trimmings and bold colo(u)rs.

Everyone in the household had a part in this lovely
regenerated room, so it became the perfect anniversary
present--presented to the freshly returned and vacationed
parents--lit with the cheery glow of dozens of candles
(the room, not the parents).

Thus the room became a gathering place once again, and the
fireplace happily regained at least some of its dignity.


THE END

12:22 pm: day 1: have done list
I've been in London for 7 weeks now.
Am I still here on "vacation"?
When will I *really* start job-hunting?
What have I done? What will I do?


Places I've visited:
-------------------

London:
-The Design Museum
-The British Museum
-Body Worlds (Korperwelten) Exhibit
-Cactus pub w/jazz band. Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride & Joy" dedicated to me
-Picnic in the Park--Kenwood House in Regent's Park. James Bond night
-Our Lady Peace--concert at London University Union

Devon: (4-day weekend)
-Teignmouth--seaside town. old pier with arcade
-Dawlish--nearby, clotted cream fudge



Projects and other forms of job-hunt-procrastination:
-----------------------------------------------------

bed--2x4 pallet for double mattress that has yet to arrive

shelves

coffee table--modify normal table... chop legs

apple crumble--made with apples from garden

fireplace--knocked hole in wall (boarded up fireplace). now I need to design and build a mantelpiece. (and one for another room, as well)

3D model of my section of the house in AutoCAD

Venetian lamp--hung and wired on dimmer. (Jonathan had the broken top half re-blown!)

frozen margaritas--I learn how to make them from scratch...
limes, liquor, sugar, and ice



Now I need to clean up this repository of squalor I call my room!
and make plans for my trip to California :)

And find something to wear for the Diana Krall concert tomorrow night!