Cheeeeeese!

10/1/09 12:08 AM

Today was a long day of nothing followed by a long night of something. I had been to all the employment agencies I could find in Salisbury, so there wasn't much point in going into town. I ended up lazing around the house, doing my laundry and reading. Mother Ann went out to a service around 1:30 today, so I was left alone with Joshua and Jamie. Boy, did they get excited! Joshua has a favorite toy, a squeaky newspaper. He chews it and carries it around and wants you to play with him, but if you try to take it, he'll grab it and dart out of the way. Well, if you ignore him, he starts to bark. And he barks and barks and barks.

Dachshunds, by the way, have surprisingly loud barks for their little bodies. They have very deep chests, and I can tell you, being barked at from the foot of your chair by a dachshund is not very fun for your ears. It certainly didn't help that Jamie had a sudden fascination with the underside of Joshua's stomach, so every time Joshua got excited, Jamie would come running and hop around him, trying to get his nose under Joshua's belly to lick (I'm not sure if it was stomach or other bits of anatomy interesting Jamie, and I didn't want to know).

After about fifteen minutes of this, I lured Joshua into his cage in Mother Ann's bedroom and locked him in, telling him I'd get him in fifteen minutes if he was quiet.

Fifteen minutes later, he had settled down, so I let him out.

Three minutes later, he was barking again.

I put him back in his cage, only without his newspaper this time, and left him for another ten minutes. When I let him out, he was quiet for the time it took him to find his newspaper (I put it on a couch, where he couldn't easily see it), and then started up his barking again. Frustrated, I bundled up and clipped on their leads, then took both dogs out for a walk. It was a nice day, even if it had snowed just enough to be visible (rare for England these days, I was told). It didn't REALLY snow. It kinda misted snow. Very fine stuff. I had to study it for a long time before I decided that it really was snow and not just a weird rain.

Anyway, I took the dogs out and let them wander over to the churchyard--Mother Ann's home is a vicarage, so she literally lives right next to a church, and it's an old church, 1600s or so, so it has a graveyard around it that's just full of fascinating old grave stones. I let the dogs run around in the yard, grateful that they only peed. I had no idea what I was supposed to do if they left a dump on some poor chap's grave. We returned to the house just as Mother Ann was pulling up, so that set them off again, but after we were all inside (and Joshua had his newspaper back), they quieted down and curled up in my lap, nice and sleepy, just like I had planned.

This past summer, Mother Ann had taken a pilgrimage to Turkey, and tonight she had planned a get-together for all of those pilgrims--all twenty or so of them. Helen, her housekeeper, and Mother Ann had cooked all morning, and as the evening started, I helped them set up for the party. Helen and Mother Ann were both looking rather nice, so I changed out of my jeans and slippers and into some nice pants and clean flats. During the party, I helped Helen a lot. It's easier to be in a room of strangers when you have something to do, and I knew how to carry food and wash dishes. Mother Ann introduced me to the group as her young American friend, Aimin, and every conversation I had started in exactly the same way:
"So, what part of the United States are you from?"
"I'm from Michigan, near Chicago." (always name a big city when meeting people from other countries. America is simply too big for them to be able to identify all the states)
"Mitchagan, huh?" (that's how they'd pronounce it, Mitchagan) "I once..." and here they'd say how they were connected to Michigan. Some had visited (Detroit), some had family living in various places (Osh-Kosh?), some drove through it in a wagon, and one gentleman said that his great great great uncle or something like that used to live in Adrian, Michigan. A couple reluctantly admitted that they had never been to Michigan. Still, it was a very good ice-breaker.

After the location question, they'd then ask "How long are you staying here?" or "What are you planning on doing in the UK?" or both. Every single person, bless their hearts, who heard I was job hunting would then proceed to ask me what I was looking for and promise to let Mother Ann know if they heard of any promising openings. One elderly man named Joe said that Mother Ann had asked him if he could use his contacts, and now that he'd met me, he was thinking of emailing this one friend he had at the British Museum, in charge of the travelling exhibitions, and another friend at the National Archives, to see if they needed any help. I think I did more for my job hunt by smiling and being friendly last night then I did wandering around Salisbury clutching a CV.

I helped Helen quite a lot, and we had a lot of fun chatting as we washed up the dishes afterwards. Her son came to pick her up (he just got his license, so he's excited about driving). His name is Tim, and he's 17, 6'2", and quite skinny. He had more hair than the other boy I know who fits that description pretty closely.

There was cheese at the party, and apple pie. I loved the cheese, and perched myself near it. Helen couldn't understand why I was ignoring the sweet desserts in favor of the cheese, but really, if you're a cheese afficianado and given the chance to indulge yourself in cheese (and I picked up an appreciation for Stilton cheese... mmmmmmm!), why on earth would you skip it in favor of something mundane like apple pie!?

It looked fairly similar to American apple pie, but it was much larger and didn't have the right sort of edge crust. Oh well. They tried.

Oh, yes, one more thing. I tried Bovril this morning on my bagel. Bovril is a beef extract spread thingy that apparently Brits will kill for to get if they live outside the country, and Marmite is its vegitarian sibling. It's quite salty and strong, so I was told to spread it thinly, but I gave it a try.

Interestingly enough, salty beef on my buttered bagel was surprisingly tasty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril
Check it out!