in with both feet, London style
Yawn.
Excuse me! It’s the jetlag talking. Our lives involve a fair amount of speculation as to what method will prevent jetlag. Or reduce jetlag. How to manage jetlag. There’s no foolproof approach.
Now, flying the other way, west, that is, is fine. We feel like it’s later than it is when we get there, so getting to sleep straightaway is no problem. I wake up early for about three days, but that just puts me where normal people usually are, feeling great at 7 a.m.
Going east, on the other hand, poses a small set of insurmountable little obstacles, primary among them the fact that we don’t want to GO! We want to stay where we are. A second problem involves Avery and me being nightowls to begin with, so when the clock tells us it’s bedtime, we’re just beginning to think about dinner. We tend to give Avery a week or so for her body to figure out the situation, then school starts.
This fall, we adopted a rather more radical approach that I’m calling “Pretend It Isn’t Happening.” We hopped on a day flight on Wednesday, spent eight delightful hours in the company of a young, gorgeous British comedy screenwriter (I’m not making this up), arrived in our London home at nearly midnight, and got up at 6:30 for school.
Did it work?
We thought it did, Thursday and Friday. I spent the days at Lost Property, sorting through piles of noxious flotsam, and Avery spent them in Latin, History and Biology, sorting though her own intellectual jetsam.
No problem!
Today, however… I cannot seem to keep my eyes open! My latest strategy (I tried laundry, BBC News 24 and grocery shopping) is making pizza dough. Avery’s beloved friend Lille is over for dinner, and as such I’d better produce something. Cappellini alla carbonara and homemade garlic bread it is. But I’m still yawning.
My goodness, our flight companion was simply the best. Paul sat down, struggling with his carryon which was a backback tied up with shoelaces. “This is my new method of securing my belongings, since I don’t really believe in belongings, people who steal just don’t have enough themselves,” he assured us as he wove and unwove the shoestrings to remove a battered notebook covered in illegible but entertaining-looking graffiti.
“I’m just coming down from 89 days of couch-surfing,” Paul offered, and we fell for it.
“What’s couch-surfing?” I ask, ready to listen to just about anything this handsome, winsome and very young charmer had to tell us. Avery’s face was a picture. It was as if you’d given her a list of boxes to tick for “what makes a person fascinating” and there was her list, ticked off and only one mother’s airplane seat away. Slightly unshaven, flashing white smile (which flickered constantly), America-admiring, adventure-seeking English chap, hers for eight whole hours.
And couch-surfing! It’s dot.org, so you know it’s a good idea. My goodness, if I were 23 again I’d be all over the idea. You log in and go to the place you want to go, say New York, and find people who are willing to share their couches (and dinner tables, and sage advice, and probably a fair amount of alcohol) in exchange for the very vague, karma-friendly notion that someday they might need a couch in, say, Sydney.
So Paul and his three lovely friends — one brave girl among them! — who knew each other to varying degrees when the adventure began and, one imagines MUCH better by the time it ended — spent the whole summer touring the United States of America. On people’s couches.
And in hammocks! Their blog… well, it’s a heartwarming list, really, is here. Yes, if they couldn’t find a couch, they resorted to the hammocks they brought with them, and each other. “There had to be some spooning,” Paul reveals.
Can you imagine the adventure?! I can’t wait for Avery to be old enough — her father will say it’s a LONG WAY AWAY — to do something like this.
Our conversation ranged from Stupid Informercials We Have Known (Avery contributes “How often have you wished your blanket had ARMS?”) to food fads (Paul: “I have friends who are vegetarians but they eat fish. They are vegequarians.”), and everywhere in between. What fun.
John’s worst nightmare, to get on a plane and have to talk for eight hours. But it turns out that Avery is at least partly me.
England is just as wonderful as when we left. We are trying to remember our fluency in the language like “apart from” instead of “except for,” “cashpoint” instead of “ATM,” and said machine asking if you’d like an “advice slip” instead of a “receipt.” And last night Avery said, without missing a beat, that something at school was “Manda-tree,” instead of the prosaic American “Mandatory,” so I know we’re home.
The cats are ENORMOUSLY fat, both compared to how they were when we left (a summer of eating and not moving from their chairs except to eat) and compared to the tiny kittens we fostered. But the territorial fights with neighbor cat Charlie are as fierce as ever…
I’m ashamed to say I let this particular conflict last long enough for me to take a photograph, then I shooed Charlie away. After all, it counted as exercise and maybe Hermione peeled off a few ounces, out of sheer anxiety.
Partly what is making Avery and me so sleepy is our loneliness for our Third Musketeer. John has stayed behind in America, actually driving all the way up the Eastern Seaboard to spend some Him Time with old friends in Maine. He sends his love, and this view…
But real life is here at my dining room table, which soon must hold plates of creamy, garlicky pasta and wedges of crunchy, cheesy garlicky pizza dough, none of which will happen if I don’t run. Or walk.
Yawn.
Capellini Carbonara
(serves 4)
8 oz dry capellini
1 cup good English bacon, diced
4 coves garlic, minced
1/2 cup grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup creme fraiche
3 tbsps light cream
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
fresh ground pepper
About 15 minutes before you want to eat, boil pasta according to directions, about 10 minutes. Drain over a bowl so you can reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Set aside. In a large heavy skillet, fry the bacon and then add the garlic, stirring over the flame until the garlic is JUST cooked but not burned. Add the pasta, toss well and take off the heat.
In a large bowl, mix the cheese, creme fraiche, creme, salt and eggs. Then add the reserved pasta water and whisk well. Pour over the ham and spaghetti in the skillet and turn the heat up high for just long enough to toss the whole mixture together with tongs. Serve immediately with grated Parmesan.
“noxious flotsam”
I have cupboards full…I just never realized what to call it before now.
Useful phrase, isn’t it!
Welcome home and rest well! Too bad I can’t claim jetlag! I can smell the garlic in you pasta. Cooked but not browned — yum.
ann
Browned garlic is a pet peeve of mine!
Hi Kristen! I’m quite certain CT misses you, too. But I won’t tell you what the weather is like here in the Northeast today :)
That’s such a great story about your airplane-mate! Joe (my husband-to-be) and I have actually been couch-surfing hosts here in NYC for a while — it’s a trip and great fun. In fact we may have someone from SaoPaulo staying with us in a few days. Haven’t done it ourselves yet, but are thinking we may try a night or two when we take a loooooong South American honeymoon early next year!
x Sarah
My goodness, Sarah, he was so inspiring! I really want you to couch surf yourself… have you blogged about your guests? When is that honeymoon coming up?
Firstly, I’m going to ignore all the flattery in case I ever want to fit on to a plane again. Secondly, I’m enjoying your blog immensely, and feel it’s an appropriate time to mention my secondary occupation as a highly trained and efficient food disposal unit, should you ever experiment with anything you’re not sure is fit for human consumption. Thirdly, please tell Avery’s that her blog is an equally well-polished gem, though a combination of me being colour-blind and knowing nothing about make-up meant I got about as much from it as that flight attendant got from my accidental flirting. Fourthly… well I don’t really have a fourthly, I just don’t know when to shut up.
Peace and biscuits,
New Orleans. x
P.S. Nice pony-tail on YouTube.
I’m sure it is merely Big Head Renter, as you’re far too peripatetic to take on any permanent nomenclature… seriously, where are you? Hoping you have set off on yet another Endless Holiday… more blogging to result.
You should try a pony tail too, it would suit you.
Love and hedgehogs, London XO