Vacation Dreaming (Already!)

This is the last day of my first week of work and boy, has it been exhausting!  There's just so much to learn - it really is a job and a half.

Because of the exhaustion, even though it's only been a week at work, I'm dreaming about our next vacation.  We'll be heading to the shore with Jon's family for the weekend next Friday - hopefully the weather will be as gorgeous as the last time we were out there.  We'll do some sailing, some barbecuing (of course), and a whole lot of lazing around.  Sounds like heaven!  Obvi I put together my perfect "Sunday at the yacht club" outfit...

[ dress / suit / shoes / bag / nailpolish / chapstick / perfume ]

Every Cut Is The Deepest

In response to the continued recession, Britain's Tory government is slashing budgets all over the place.  The arts are feeling the cuts more keenly than most.  The Department of Culture, Media, and Sport had its budget reduced by £61 million in May, and more cuts are scheduled to be announced come autumn.  (The total of the cuts are threatened to be 25-40%.)  This reduction has been passed on to the Arts Council, which has seen its 2010/2011 budget reduced by £23 million.  It's really pretty brutal.

Of course, we Americans are used to minimal government subsidies for the arts, as David Cote blogged a few months ago.  However, arts funding in Britain has traditionally differed substantially from arts funding in the States.  Because the United States government, in all its wisdom, gives so little to arts organizations, a vibrant community of private philanthropy has flourished.  Conversely, because UK governments have traditionally been generous to arts organizations, the practice of individual giving has lagged; not only are people not used to giving to the arts, assuming that costs are covered by governmental subsidies, but also people aren't used to asking.  As the recession continues and more cuts are made, the UK will be forced to adopt a more American model of philanthropy in which individuals are relied upon increasingly.  (This may have been why I was offered my current job at the theatre...)  Unsurprisingly, not all philanthropists are happy about this.

There are some interesting articles around about this.  I refer you primarily to the theatre blog of the Guardian, but Google "UK arts cuts" and you'll find plenty of reading material.

Speaking of the Guardian, by the way, this opinion piece similar to the Bradwell article I blogged about made the rounds of my very indignant department a few days ago.  What do you think of what he says?  I'm sure you can guess what we said, though it isn't fit to print!

Cohabiting and Compromise, Part Two

Before moving to London I posted about what it might take to live with Jon - compromise, patience, and and love.  We've now been cohabiting for just over a month, and we've certainly needed all three!

We're learning - actually, we learned pretty quickly - that we have different styles of living.  We're not having rows over major issues, probably because we're both very committed to each other and to making our relationship work.  But we have discovered a whole host of little things, from grocery shopping to bedtime, that we do differently and that are causes for friction.  Usually we're able to work through our differences with patience and, in the end, to compromise.

Living with someone else certainly has its hidden tricks.  This past month has been quite a learning experience for both of us.  But - oh, man, it is so worth it!

First Day

I am gainfully employed!  I know, I've been gainfully employed, technically, for a couple of weeks now.  But today was my first day of work and that makes it real.

I actually don't want to talk about work too much here - I'm not sure it's appropriate to talk about work too much here - but I will tell you that I'm hitting the ground running!  Because I'm shadowing the woman I'm replacing for the next two weeks I do have somewhat of a safety net, but they're really having me dive right into the fundraising work I'll be doing.  I have some phone calls and lunches with prospects set up for this week already, and a big item on my to-do list is writing a letter to all of our donors introducing myself.  The development team seems really great; the work environment as a whole seems energized and everyone seems enthused about the work being done, which is ideal.  So yes!  I am very excited to have begun work - and I look forward to learning more about the theatre and the community of people who clearly care so much about it.

(By the way, you can make your checks out to... Just kidding!)

Mad about Mad Men

Delicious dribbles to prep us for tomorrow night...

From New York Magazine: the one-liners of Roger Sterling

From the New York Times: On Language

From Entertainment Weekly: review of the new season

Identities of Faith, Part Deux

Last Friday I posted some tidbits from the religious worlds.  Here's follow-up.

- on the Jewish conversion issue
- on the Catholic ban on female ordination

Interesting.

Cookbook Fun

Jon's not going to be happy to read this, but I have to be honest with you, dear readers: I had an illicit encounter this morning.  With a man.  A man who was not Jon.  Now, I know you'll all be crying foul.  But, really, nothing happened.  We had some coffee, we talked, we laughed - we even cried a little bit.  It was very fulfilling.

You're dying to know who this mystery man is, aren't you?  Well, I'll tell you.  It was Jamie Oliver.  That's right - I had an illicit encounter with the Naked Chef.  Oh baby, oh baby.

This is how it happened: I decided to have a dinner party, and I went to my shelf of cookbooks, and I pulled down my copy of the Naked Chef.  I may have been alone in the house, but coffee and conversation was definitely had.  (What?  You don't talk to cookbooks?  Don't lie, I know you do.)  Jamie's such a great listener - he was really very helpful.  Except then I cheated on him with Mark Bittman.  Sorry, Jamie.

So yes!  Thanks to Jamie and Mark - and to Martha Stewart, but we'll get to her later - I will be throwing a luncheon on Sunday for Jon and four friends.  The menu will be as follows:

assorted nibbles (to be determined, mostly by the contents of my fridge)
~
butterflied leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic
mini farfalle pasta with broad beans and feta
~
cheeses
~
berry cobbler

Nom, if I do say so myself!  Of course, I can't take credit for any of the recipes.  The lamb belongs to Jamie and Mark, the pasta salad is Martha's, and the cobbler was taught to me by my mother.  The cheeses - I picked them out all by myself.  I will take credit for them!  I had a glorious hour in Borough Market (yes, again) where I watched the butchers butterfly the leg of lamb (very cool) and I grabbed fistfuls of broad beans (did you know that broad beans are also called fava beans?) and I spent entirely too much time in Neal's Yard Dairy tasting cheeses.  Anyway, recipes!  That's why you're here, isn't it?  The pasta recipe can be found here.  (I'm omitting the mint, mostly because I forgot to buy it at the supermarket, and substituting broad beans for the peas.  Actually, I won't be using a shallot either.  I guess I'm making the recipe up as I go along and it will look nothing like Martha's.  But hers does look good!)  The lamb recipe is below, and is an adapted amalgamation of Jamie's recipe and Mark's:

1 leg of lamb, butterflied, about 4 pounds
2 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp minced garlic
olive oil
salt and pepper
extra bunches of fresh rosemary
2 lemons

Preheat the grill or broiler; the rack should be at least 4 inches away from the heat source.  (Delay this step until you're just about ready to cook if you choose to marinate the meat.)  Mix together the dried rosemary, garlic, and a pinch of salt with enough olive oil to make a nice paste.  Rub this mixture liberally into the lamb.  Top with extra bunches of rosemary, and sprinkle with the juice from a lemon.  (Honestly, I'm probably going to double the marinade - you can never have too much.)  Let the lamb sit for at least an hour if you can.  Grill or broil the meat until it is nicely browned on both sides, about 20-30 minutes a side.  Let rest for 5 minutes before slicing thinly.  Serve with lemon wedges.

I love cooking for people, I really do.  You should come over some time!

Happy weekend, all.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to my wonderful boyfriend Jon on his graduation from university!  Jon, you're brilliant in every way - I love you.

Dec Arts Are Hot

Yesterday I visited the Wallace Collection - it's a relatively small museum, but visually a bit overwhelming.  There's just so much in every room!  Paintings, sculptures, furniture - it makes me happy just thinking about it!  My favorite room was Lady Wallace's boudoir.  It's a very feminine space, filled with delicate writing desks and paintings of women and children.

I can't show you the space here, but, if I could you'd see four writing tables in this one room.  Obviously they weren't all hers, but they do give you an idea what was fashionable at the time.  I'd like to imagine that Lady Wallace set aside time every day to correspond with far-flung friends in that room on at least one of those dainty desks.  Ah, letter-writing!  I didn't bring any stationery with me to London, and so as soon as I find some that I love I will write letters to all of you - email me your addresses, please!

I unearthed the most beautiful writing desk on the Christie's website.  (Their "Furniture and Decorative Arts" category is totally drool-worthy.)  It's early 19th century - a little later than what would have been found in Lady Wallace's boudoir.  Look at those lines!  So simple, yet so elegant.  Certainly I would be motivated to write letters if I had this writing desk.

via

I would also be motivated to write letters if I had pretty stationery.  What's that, you say?  Where might I find pretty stationery?  Well, now that I'm in London I have a new (okay, not so new) and very expensive love: Smythson.  It's absolutely out of my reach.  Sigh.  Guess I'll have to stick with Paperchase for now for my stationery needs...  But still!  Send me your addresses!

T Minus 5 Days

Season 4 of Mad Men premiers on Sunday!  Can't wait - though I'll have to watch it online, illegally, on Monday, since it's premiering in the States and not over here in the UK.  Do you guys watch it?  I know my mother has some trouble with the show because of its portrayal of women, which is understandable, but I think that in the last season or two the female characters have developed in really interesting ways.  Joan, especially - she's become my favorite, even though I love Elisabeth Moss from her stint on The West Wing.

The media, of course, is obliging us with yummy photos of and interviews with the show's stars.  The LA Times Magazine has an article about the stunning Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan, which includes some fab photos...

... and W magazine has a spread on Jon Hamm, who plays leading man Don Draper.

Yes, please!

Will you be watching on Sunday?

Prediction

My clairvoyance tells me that today will be a day of many posts.  Why?  Because my day's activities consist of a run to Tesco and a cleaning of the house.  That's it.  That's all I have to do with my day.  God, I can't wait to start work.

For this, the first post of the day, I will give you a laugh from xkcd, dedicated to my English Literature major boyfriend:

Trips Afield

What a weekend it has been!  Jon and I have been bouncing all over London and beyond.

Two of my friends from the states, the newly-married Justin and Lindsey, are in London on their honeymoon and yesterday the four of us had adventures!  We started at Borough Market - no trip to London is complete without a Saturday morning spent at Borough Market - where we indulged in lattes from Monmouth Coffee, an amazing coffee/espresso place that, on principal, only uses full-fat milk.  We picked up cheeses and meats, a baguette, and wine, and then headed across the Thames and down the bank of the river to Tower Pier, where we hopped a Thames Clipper to Greenwich.  In Greenwich we climbed the hill to the Royal Observatory and ate our picnic lunch with the city spread out below us, wandered around the Old Royal Naval College, had a pint in the Trafalgar Tavern, and then went to a delicious dinner at the Old Brewery.   (If you like beer, the Old Brewery is the place to go: not only it is a microbrewery in its own right, it pairs each item on the menu with a specific beer and most of the foods somehow involve beer!  Nom.)  The weather wasn't great - it was overcast, though warm - but it was a wonderful day.  Plus, Jon and Justin, who had never met before, got along beautifully.  Here's a photo of the budding bromance:

And, because I can't help it, here's an adorable (if I do say so myself) photo of me and Jon:

This morning I went out to Bromley (even having been there for four hours, I still don't know where Bromley is) to sing a service at a random church as a favor to a friend - they were singing Brahms' How Lovely Are Thy Dwellings Fair and they needed some more soprano oomph.  There was a parish-wide Pimms drink-up after the service, which was fun.  (Can someone explain to me why there isn't institutionalized drinking associated with churches in the States?  It's a shame!)  Then I met Jon out in Kent for a barbecue (not another barbecue!) at a friend's house.  The weather was perfect: warm and bright, with not a cloud in the sky.  Actually, it was so hot it was draining - we only lasted a few hours before we headed back home.

So, yes, an adventurous weekend!  I'm looking forward to a quiet night in - maybe some Top Gear, maybe some The IT Crowd, and maybe some Indian take-away.  (The IT Crowd, by the way is one of the funniest TV shows I've seen in a long time.  You've got to check it out!  Best line recently, from the very nerdy character Moss: "I've come here to drink milk and to kick ass... and I've just finished my milk.")

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend!

The Identities of Faith

A lot has been going on in the worlds of religion in the past week!  At least, a lot has been going on in the worlds of religion that I follow: Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Judiasm.  As a Jew who studied Christianity, those three are the only faiths I feel comfortable commenting on - luckily for me (and you, dear readers) there's a lot of commenting to do this week!

Alana Newhouse has an op-ed piece in the New York Times today about an bill in Israel, approved by parliamentary committee, that, if passed by the Knesset, would give ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbis almost total control over conversions to Judaism.  (Find the AP article about it here.)  Of this bill, the AP writes, "The Reform and Conservative movements, which are the largest Jewish denominations outside Israel but wield little clout inside the Jewish state, fear the new bill could increase the influence of Orthodox rabbis at their expense and undermine their own legitimacy and connection to Israel."  Honestly, I don't know enough about the current political/religious situation in Israel to comment coherently on this issue, and so I urge you to read the both the article and the op-ed.  I can say, though, that I don't like the idea of a tiny cohort of Jews (this sect of the ultra-Orthodox is a minority even in Israel) telling me that I'm not Jewish.

The General Synod of the Anglican Church just voted in favor of legislation to allow women to become  bishops.  (The Episcopal Church consecrated its first female bishop in 1989.)  The traditionalists are up in arms, of course, but I think this is very exciting.  There are further steps to be taken before women can be ordained as bishops, but the ball is rolling down the hill and is certainly gaining momentum.  The question is, of course, what kind of schism this might lead to within the Church - 450 clergymembers left the Church in 1994 when women began being ordained as priests.  (Find the BBC News article and analysis here.)

Contrarily, as the Catholic Church is wont to be, the Vatican has declared the ordination of women priests a "grave offence."  (The Catholic Church has also declared sex abuse to be a "grave offence," but claims it is not equating the two.  Yeah, whatever.)  I actually did a lot of research while completing my MA on the ordination of women in the medieval Catholic Church - the paper turned into a study on the teaching of women by men, and as a result I don't remember much of what I discovered, but suffice it to say that this is not a new issue; it's just disappointing that the Catholic Church has to annunciate its views in such a harsh way.

Interestingly, each of these issues have something to do with the leadership and identity of faith.  But why does it seem as though as soon as someone takes a step forward, steps must be taken back elsewhere?

Here's To The Ladies Who Lunch

I'm currently sitting in a cafe on Baker Street, indulging in a coffee and a scone with jam and clotted cream - what a healthy lunch, I know - and I'm bored out of my mind.  I tried to glam up for the day; I have some errands to run in Mayfair, so I've got on a cute skirt and sky-high wedges, and am even wearing a little lipstick.  (Can you believe it, Nana?  Lipstick!)  But it's no use.  As much as I try to think of myself as this...

via

... this is what I have stuck in my head.

Boh.

Le Quatorze Juillet

I had the most British of Bastille Days yesterday: I went for a pub lunch with some polo-playing English friends and ate a steak and ale pie while it rained.  Classic.

Last night I continued my introduction to theatre by seeing La Bête.  It's a West End show - that's London's version of Broadway, essentially - and so will be coming to the States soon.  Go see it, wherever you are!  It was fantastic.  It's a Molièresque comedy of words and wit written by American-born David Hirson set seventeenth century France about two rival playwrights, one an artiste (played by David Hyde Pierce) and the other a buffoon (played by Mark Rylance).  It's fast-paced - even the 35-minute monologue ten minutes into the play moves with spritely ease - and bitingly clever, and leaves you asking at the end of the play whom the real beast is, the auteur or the clown.

So I suppose my Bastille Day was not entirely English; it did also have a smattering of American and French in it.  How global of me!  But I will indulge in daydreams about trying every single flavor of Ladurée macaron...

via

Lady of Leisure

Yes, that's right; I am a lady of leisure.  Work doesn't start until the 26th, and so, in theory, for the next two weeks I'll be visiting museums, strolling around London's parks, and lunching with all my other not-otherwise-occupied friends.  I have to admit with shame, though, that I did none of these things today.  I was too lazy to leave the house except to go grocery shopping.  I was productive, domestically, but my leisurely time is not beginning well - I am bored, bored, bored.  I want to start work!  I want to wake up in the morning with Things To Do and I want to get up and do them.

Ah, well, soon enough, I guess.

Some of my day has been spent getting ready for tonight's dinner party.  We're having a few friends over for a low-key gathering - I've been shopping and cleaning the house in preparation.  The menu: Ina's Vegetable Tian and a simple roast chicken.  (Whole chickens scared the hell out of me, by the way, until I discovered how easy they are to make.  Now I find every excuse possible to cook them!)  Dessert will be cheese and fruit.  (Interesting note: Americans have cheese before dinner, generally, and Europeans have it after.  I'm adapting.)

Some of my day has also been spent, obviously, drooling over dinnerwear online.  My mother and sister (hello, family!) and I have a thing for Royal Copenhagen china.  I usually go for blue and white and floraly, but I think Jon's more modern sensibilities are wearing off on me - the pattern I kept coming back to this afternoon in my online wanderings was Wedgwood's Amherst.  Love the subtlety of the art deco design.  Plus, it's minimalist enough that you don't have to worry about the food clashing with the pattern!  (Wait, am I the only one who worries about that?)

In case the idea of making a roast chicken scares you, too, let me share with you how I'll be doing it tonight so you can see how easy it is:

Roast Chicken

(serves, hopefully, six)

1 2kg chicken

salt

pepper

butter

1 large bunch of thyme

1 lemon, halved

1 yellow onion, quartered

1 head of garlic, minced (forgot to buy pre-minced garlic, which means my garlic will be more chopped than minced, but what can you do?)

Preheat the oven to 425*f/220*c.  Rinse the chicken inside and out and pat dry.  Rub liberally with butter.  Squeeze some butter between the skin and the meat of the chicken.  There is no such thing as too much butter!  Also, if you're feeling daring, slide some sprigs of thyme between the skin and the meat of the chicken.  Salt and pepper the chicken, inside and out.  Stuff the chicken with the thyme and the garlic and the lemon.  Place each piece of onion in a corner of the roasting pan.  Place the chicken in the pan breast down, which allows all the juices to gather in the breast as it cooks.  Roast the chicken for an hour and a half, or until the juices run clear.  Cover with aluminum foil and let sit for ten minutes, then carve, serve, and enjoy!

(Note #284756: Tesco carries so many different options for whole chickens it's scary.  They've got three different labels called Value, Finest, and Organic, and then within each label are at least two different kinds of whole chickens.  Value alone has small, medium, and large chickens, as well as a specific roasting chicken.  It's dizzying!)

Times Traitor

 In switching countries I've switched allegiances - to hometown newspapers.  Scandalous, I know.

My new favorite weekend read is the London Times.  I'm literally counting down the days until we move into our new place because Jon has promised me that as soon as we have officially changed addresses we can subscribe to the Sunday Times.  Love, love, love the Sunday Times.  (FYI, you can't get the Times online for free anymore; you have to pay.)

A bonus to being at Jon's parents' house is that they subscribe to the Times (and the Telegraph, but I'm less interested in that).  We've spent a good part of the weekend pouring over the papers, and there are a few nuggets I want to share with you:

1. Alain Ducasse, celebrity chef extraordinaire, had a recipe included in Saturday's Times magazine for a summer cookpot of tomatoes, aubergines, and courgettes.  Essentially, it's the same as Ina's Vegetable Tian that I made back in May (and will be making again for a dinner party this coming week).  I'm overcome with smugness brought on by the idea that I discovered a recipe before Alain Ducasse made it famous.  Take that, celebrity chef extraordinaire!

2.  In the Sunday Times culture supplement, Mike Bradwell, the former Artistic Director of Bush Theatre in London, writes that "the new breed of arts bureaucrats" is not only unnecessary but counterproductive to the running of a theatre.  "In the past twenty-five years," he complains, "the biggest single area of growth in theatre, and indeed most other walks of life, has been the relentless expansion of the administrative and entrepreneurial classes... all of whom believed their worth in the marketplace was greater than that of the artists whose endeavours their jobs were created to support.  It is now common practice for individuals to be paid more to advertise a play than to write one.  This has got to stop."  I wonder if this thinking is why he's the former and not still the current artistic director of the theatre?  (I will, I promise you, post more on this in the coming week.  Be warned.)

3.  Saturday's property section of the Telegraph has a cute article on the rise of London villages, which includes a blurb about our new neighborhood!  We will indeed be living "between the commons" - which is, apparently, much swisher than I realized.  Based on the rent we're paying I didn't think that we were in the nicest of nice areas, but I guess we're at the bottom of the rent chain for where we are.  Upon reflection, I think I'd live in a slightly crappier house/flat in a really nice area than a really nice house/flat in a slightly crappier area.

(Clearly I don't read the paper on the weekends for actual news...)

Seeing and Viewing and Sighting

Two big things happened today: I viewed my new flat and I saw a new friend!  Woohoo!

First, the flat.  I love it.  Love it.  Like I said before, the building has zero personality on the outside, but I may have been to harsh.  It isn't ugly, it's just pass-over-able when you walk by it on the street.  Inside, though, it's great.  The reception room (living/dining room) is sizable, though I'm itching to move the furniture around to open up the space more.  The kitchen has tons of cupboard space and includes a gas stove (hate electric stoves) and - wonder of wonders - looks out onto the communal garden in the back.  Our bedroom is huge, with a lovely sleigh headboard and two (two!) built-in wardrobes.  The whole place gets a lot of light, which is what sold it to me in the pictures online, but what the photos didn't show was - drumroll please - the patio.  The patio!  It can fit probably a small grill and a table with two chairs and there's a trellis mounted on the wall.  I'm going to go crazy about this patio and its possibilities re: entertaining and gardening.  (And, as always, Tiny-Ass Apartment and Apartment Therapy will be right beside me.)  Can't wait to move on on 4 August!

The new friend: I took the plunge last week and cold-emailed a fellow expat blogger, AT, to see if she wanted to hang out.  She did!  We had a lovely lunch today in Chelsea, and I very much look forward to exploring London more with her.  Yay for new friends!

Tonight Jon and I are hieing ourselves to his family's house in Suffolk.  It will be a weekend of barbeques, sailing, and sun.  I'll take lots of photos!  Happy Friday, everyone.

(Last night I saw Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, on Oxford Street at midnight!  How exciting - my first London celebrity sighting!)

Falling Into Place

Things really are coming together!  Job, flat, friends... I am truly making a life for myself here.

I went into the theatre yesterday to see the production of Salome that they - we - are currently hosting, and I also met with the Development Director and the General Manager to talk details.  There are some serious differences between having a job in the UK as opposed to the US!  First of all, there aren't many employee benefits at UK organizations because the NHS takes care of everyone.  Second, I will get a whopping 25 days of paid leave a year - how crazy is that?  Amazing crazy, I say.  Also, the DD impressed upon me the urgent need for me to familiarize myself intimately with the London theatre scene - I'll probably be going to see shows at least twice a week, many of which will be subsidized in one way or another for me.  There are worse demands one's job can impose!  I will start on 26 July, which will give me a very useful overlap of two weeks with the woman I'm replacing (who is leaving to go to theatre school).

In flat news, I have a viewing scheduled for tomorrow to see our new place.  We move in three weeks from now, and even though it's a done deal I want to know what we're getting ourselves in to.  I've been instructed to bring a measuring tape - someone who shall remain unnamed is taking this whole moving thing even more seriously than I am, if that's possible!

Tonight: a meetup of friends at a new speak-easy-type place in Marylebone.  Should be lots of fun!

Almost the weekend - tomorrow we head down to Suffolk for a few days.  Ah, country air.

Employed!

You, ladies and gentlemen, are reading a blog written by... someone with a job!  Yes, that's right, I am no longer funemployed.  I have a job.

I.  Have.  A.  Job.

A very good job, at that!

Yesterday I was offered the position of Development Manager (Individual Giving) at a theatre in London, and, of course, I accepted.  How thrilling is that!?  Let me tell you a little bit about the theatre and the job.

The theatre focuses on new writing and on fostering new talent in the theatre community.  It is, certainly, a local theatre for its area, but it is also a vibrant beacon of boundary-pushing productions in London.  What an exciting place to work!

I'll be focusing primarily on raising money for the theatre from individuals.  Government subsidies for the arts in the UK are shrinking, and so it is ever more important to encourage private philanthropy here.  (America, with its lack of government funding for the arts, has always had a strong tradition of individual giving.)  It's a challenging field in which to work, but I enjoy challenges, so it and I are a good match.

So... yes!  I have a job at a wonderful organization.  I'm over the moon.  I'll be going in today to sign things and to talk details regarding my start date - right now it's still sort of a dream, but when I walk into the theatre I'm sure it will feel very real!

Of course, as soon as I hung up the phone with the Development Director I started thinking about work outfits.  (This is me, remember?)  I won't go wild on Oxford Street or anything, but I will daydream on Polyvore:

[ top / skirt / blazer / bag / earrings / necklace / shoes ]

Independence Day!

I will post properly tonight, post-party, but for now, start off your 4th of July with this stirring rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever, brought to you by the Muppets!

Whether Weather

It has been absolutely gorgeous ever since I arrived here - the weather has been sublime.  It's rained a few nights and been a little cloudy a few days, but for the most part it's been sunny and in the 80s.  (They're predicting that this might be the driest year England's seen since the beginning of record-keeping in 1910.  I don't mind!)

We took advantage of the weather today by heading down to Clapham, our new neighborhood, and having lunch in a beer garden and strolling through the common.  The common was full of life - groups of boys playing football/soccer, families picnicking, girls laying out to get tan... it was a great people-watching walk.  It's great that you can find these totally open green spaces in the middle of London!  And, come August, we'll be living between two commons, Clapham and Wandsworth, so we'll be spoiled for choice.

We also took the opportunity to walk down our future street.  It's lovely and quiet - very residential, but has enough of a presence to have a bus run down it, which will prove very handy.  I saw our building, too: it has zero curb appeal.  It's not bad - it looks like a standard low apartment building - but I wouldn't look at it and think, "Yes, I want to live there."  Jon promises me that the inside more than makes up for the outside, though, and in the end that matters more.  I can't wait to see it!  We move in one month from today.  Woop!

I have to say, though, that getting to Clapham and back was a bit of a pain.  You see, weekends are when TFL does all of its track maintenance.  It's with a sense of irony that you hear the announcers recount the litany of line closures and maintenance, and then close with "There is a good service on all other London underground lines."  I know it's good that they're fixing things and making the system safeer, but ARGH!  Jon and I have a joke: we say in the announcer's voice, "There is no underground service," as they're making their announcements.  You have to laugh - there's nothing else to do about it!

Tonight: dancing at the Blues Bar.  Tomorrow: 4th of July party.  Happy weekend, everyone!

Cautiously Optimistic

Everyone I meet keeps telling me how impressed they are that I've gotten "stuck in" London life so quickly.  Honestly, it never occurred to me to become a Londoner any other way!  I don't really see the point in dipping my toes into the water - I'd much rather jump into the deep end.  You're going to end up over your head anyway, so why not start there, you know?

In that vein, I have had a busy Friday already.  I went back to the place where I had that second-round interview on Wednesday for an intimate breakfast this morning wherein the artistic director announced the program for the next season to a carefully selected audience.  I don't know how many candidates for the position made it to the second round of interviews, but I'm almost positive that I was the only one invited to this breakfast, so I'm taking that as a good sign.  As I said to someone the other day, I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch but I'm definitely thankful to even have eggs in my basket!

Later today I have a voice consultation with a teacher who was recommended to me by a singer friend.  (A consultation is like a lesson except that it's free and it's mostly so that you can see if you and the teacher will work well together.)  I hope it works out - I want to start auditioning for directors as soon as possible so that I can start singing around town as soon as possible!  Hopefully, singing around town will mean making money around town, and though you don't make a fortune from singing on Sundays you do make enough to fund an evening out.

Tonight - jazz in a church crypt with some friends.  Can't wait!  Sounds like an interesting evening.

Tomorrow - wandering around Clapham and our new neighborhood with Jon.  Might not be able to post but will try to!

I leave you with this hilarious website.  You know I love design and I have my favorite interior decorating websites, but you have to know that I taken them all with a grain of salt.  This site takes the salt to a whole new level!

Lady of Leisure

When I was 7 or 8 I went to a summer camp where, as part of the daily activities, each camper wrote in a journal.    (In case you're wondering, it was a colonially-themed summer camp.  Obviously.)  I must have just learned about chronological language, because every entry went like this: "First I... Then I... Next I.... Finally I..."  I don't know what happened when I did more than four things a day, because that's all I entered.  First/then/next/finally.

I don't want this blog to become like that journal.  It isn't a daily diary.  That being said, I know that a lot of you do read this blog to see what I'm up to, and reporting my activities is a way for those of you back in the States to keep tabs on me.  Also, I notice a lot of interesting things about London and the UK within my mundane days.  So forgive me if some of the entries bore you - I'll try to keep finding interesting things to write about while telling you all what I'm up to!

Today I certainly was a lady of leisure.  A friend is in town for a few weeks, and we spent the afternoon at Tate Modern.  We weren't intrigued enough by any of the special exhibitions to pay for entry, so we just wandered around the permanent  collections; my favorites of those are "Material and Gestures," which includes painting and sculpture 1940-1960, and "Poetry and Dream," which deals with Surrealism.  I have to admit, modern art isn't generally my thing and so I whizzed through these shows, but some of the works, like Gerhard Richter's paintings, really caught me.

I was playing around on Polyvore this morning, and crafted a perfect wandering outfit for the gorgeous weather we've been having here in London.  Voilà!

 [ dress / belt / sunglasses / earrings / bracelet / shoes ]