London Calling

First... some photos from our last day in Paris.

(the honey and macarons that I talked about in my last blog)

(Stella - the cheap beer in Paris @ our hotel's lounge. Me & a Kir Royal for our final dinner in Paris. Mike and his nasty Desperado... tequilla flavored beer. Who would want tequilla flavored beer?)

We did it again.

We fell asleep. For 12 hours yesterday. This time in London.

We win.

We got off the Eurostar at 8:30 AM in London after a 2.5 hour train ride, so I guess maybe we were pooped. We walked into a cafe at the station to let whatever bit of rush hour traffic might be left on the Underground over the holidays pass. The place was packed and there was a bit of a line which is always a good sign. We got a table and shoved our luggage into the corner and placed our order. As soon as the server left our table we heard this honking sound outside the cafe. The servers all stopped what they were doing and stepped outside to listen as a voice came over the intercom, we couldn't understand what was being said, but the servers came back in and sort of just watched for a moment. Outside, we could see that people were picking up their bags and leaving. Everything quieted down in the cafe and we could hear the announcement the next time it came over the intercom "This is an emergency evacuation - please calmly leave the building." The servers rolled their eyes but asked everyone to exit the building and if they still hadn't paid their tabs to come back and pay after the evacuation was over.

We gathered our things and headed out towards the exit where a crowd of people were waiting. We stood out there for about 3 minutes before everyone was let back in. Apparently it was a test that no one was really expecting (we've since heard them testing the system at other stations a number of times preceded by a "this is a test, ignore the next announcement") so we head back to the cafe and queued up next to the door so we could get our table back right away. The station is a ghost town with cups and plates on every table at every restaurant - and inside our cafe are two women wandering around looking lost.

Immediately we thought - holy crap, they were locked in!

The staff of the restaurant came back a bit later and told us that it would be about 20 more minutes till they could re-open. So we waited. The two women who were inside stepped outside near us and we asked them if they were locked in. They weren't. They were actually on a train that got in after ours. The train docked and they unloaded in the time that everyone else was evacuated, so they walked into a totally empty station with half eaten sandwiches, plates, hot coffee and unlocked doors everywhere. They looked lost because they thought that they had stepped into the twilight zone (maybe the rapture?)

They were a mother and daughter who lived in Northern England and had taken the train to spend the day in London. They had specifically planned to eat breakfast at this cafe and the daughter told us that she was thrilled to only have to wait 20 minutes to dine.

I don't remember the name of the cafe, but it was incredible. It seemd like it may have been some sort of UK chain that's similar to Panera (fresh breads, organic, free range, etc.) Had the best scone and cream I've ever had in my life. I haven't had too many scones, but that's mostly because the ones I've had in the past were so dry and icky. These were major yum. Fantastic quiche and delish tea. Mike had a ham and gruyere croissant which he scarfed, so I think that was good too.

We checked into our hotel (the K+K George - which is awesome and quite a bit bigger than our Paris hotel) and then off to the Tower of London for some gruesome fun. We had a tour with a Yeoman Guard (Beefeater) which was a great way to see the place. The constant drizzle was obnoxious, but I guess that's London.

(The view from our UK hotel room - I don't know what that is. An acorn from outerspace is my guess.
Our tour guide - hilarious.)

(That's a real person guarding the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London.
Me in front of the London Tower Bridge.)

Speaking of drizzle, let's discuss my hair.

My kick ass flat iron from home heats up to a steamy 480 degrees Fahrenheit. I need that kind of control. My hair is not naturally straight, it's not naturally curly, it's not naturally wavy. It's naturally weird. The bottom layers curl. The left side waves a bit. The top is just frizzy and there are a couple of areas on my head where I have genuinely straight hair. But those are mixed in with areas that have genuinely not-straight hair. Blow drying does a good job of poofing all the mixes of hair into a nice fro. Damp drizzle does a good job of turning that fro into a sloppy mess with curls near the top. So. Pretty.

Does sarcasm translate well here?

Moving on.

My awesome travel blow drier is dual voltage, so that was a win. My kick ass flat iron, is not - and it requires about as much power to work as a tv... or so I imagine.

Voltage converters and plug converters can't handle my flat iron because it's so awesome (Matt, we have to buy you a replacement voltage converter... I killed yours. Sorry.) There's only so much you can do to hide crazy hair and this morning I about lost it, so Michael went out in the morning and picked up a handy $30 Remington flat iron from the local Boots store. I am happy again. And so is my hair.

We checked out Portobello Market today and got our London souvenir. A wooden shoe horn with a duck head. We named him George. Tonight we're getting some kind of fancy pizza at a place that Mike had talked about for a while and spending New Years in a local lounge with drunk Brits (we had no desire to brave the crowds at Trafalger Square - we wouldn't want to go to Times Square, or Vegas on NYE, so why would we do it now?)

Happy New Year from the future! See you all next year!

Macaron Mania

I’m writing this blog on a train crossing the Chunnel from Paris into London.

Yesterday was our last full day in Paris – we spent it wandering around the little streets and shops in the Left Bank and Latin Quarter areas surrounding our hotel. It might have been my favorite experience in Paris although it wasn’t without a couple of hitches here and there.

A while back I had sampled a few macarons from a Beverly Hills based macaron maker. My life was kind of changed and I would by lying if I said that part of my reason for wanting to visit Paris in the first place wasn’t about a macaron.

So, I had done my research and came across a blog all about macarons. Amazing. They reviewed every store from the big ones right down to the little ones and in the top spot was one of the biggest names in Parisian macarons, Lauduree. There just happened to be one in our area, so I planned ahead and knew I’d be buying a boatload of those precious little cookie-cake-jam-gooey-happiness things.

We get there and it’s very French. As in, everyone is speaking French. Apparently (and this is new to me) I don’t speak French. Ok, I knew that going in, but I was pretty sure I’d be fluent in French by day three in Paris – enough to order my macarons with no issues.

The little dude who helped me out spoke a bit of English, so that was cool but every time I’d say one, he’d say two. And every time I said two, he grabbed one. And when I said three, he’d pick two. And when I said five he’d grab three. So. I should have known that maybe there would be an issue here.

Meanwhile, the whole store (which is the size of my kitchen – very small) sounds like a henhouse. A French henhouse. People are coming up to the register and ringing things up, people are bustling around and I’m scared.

So the dude at the counter rings up my order. In French. I have no idea what he’s saying. I want my macarons. Let me sign the damn paper and let’s get out of here. The bill was steep. About $150 steep. Something seemed wrong, but I was already out of the store and macarons are expensive and I bought a couple gift sets. I felt a bit like crying, this was more than I had thought but whatever. I wanted my macarons.

We get back to the hotel and I look over the receipt and realize there’s a 2x in front of the most expensive gift set I picked up. I start to panic. I DON’T SPEAK FRENCH AND I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!

Mike suggests we go downstairs to see if the front desk can help us. They do. They call up the store and explain to the Lauduree folk (in French) what happened. We hightail it back to the store and get our refund, problem solved. Phew.

We shop around a bit more and pick up some specialty Parisian honey. Incredible. I guess French bees are kind of a big deal. I had no idea.

We get back to the hotel and I check the condition of my macarons – a few have cracked. I’m worried about their ability to survive the rest of the trip. I look over the silly little French pamphlets and read the lines that will forever haunt me:

Macarons should be consumed within 3 days of purchase.

Damnit. I bought them as gifts.

I’m thinking this is just some fancy thing that they talk about “best by date” which really isn’t something we should take seriously. Right? I’ll keep them chilled and they’ll be fine, right? Right?

So.

Hopefully they’ll survive. If not, I hope you understand.

The Great Mike Detective

About a week ago, Mike had asked me if I had seen a BevMo gift card he received on his birthday but had since lost.

I hadn't. I didn't even know he received a gift card or I would have told him to put it in his wallet right away. Losing a gift card is particularly frustrating for Mike because back when we bought our condo, the Realtor we used gave us a congratulatory gift basket complete with bathrobes, mugs and a $100 gift card to Zov's in Tustin. Mike misplaced the gift card somewhere and has been kicking himself over it for the last 3 years.

Mike, being a great detective, found the missing BevMo card a few days after asking me about it. Apparently it was sitting peacefully in the bed of our scanner. With the card "safely" in his possession, his mission was now to find the culprit behind the mysterious misplacement. After all, why would a BevMo gift card need to be scanned?

Primary suspect numero uno was me. Of course.

As we lay in bed getting ready for sleep, Mike filled me in on his exciting discovery and followed his story with an open (but obviously accusing) question. "Who would leave the gift card in the scanner?"

I laughed. I told him I definitely didn't do it and reminded him that I had never even seen the card and that I would have no reason to scan it.

He was smiling - but he wasn't laughing. He still suspected me.

He still suspected me!!!

I laughed again, incredulous. "You seriously think I did it!?"

He smiled, "Who else would put it into the scanner? That's too strange."

I laughed as I began my defense...

Mike's got this old scanner that is the most finicky, complicated thing to use. You have to be running some special program and operate everything from the program - it frustrates me to use it so I usually have Mike come and set everything up for me so I can actually scan stuff. I reminded him of this and also of the fact that I would have NO reason to scan his BevMo gift card.

He smiled at me. A smile that was a mix of accusation ("you know you're guilty, right?") and pity ("poor wife, you probably are going senile and forgot you did that! How sad.")

I repeated my arguments. No awareness of gift card + no knowledge of scanner set up + no motive = wife not guilty.

Ok. He sat in silence for a moment as he gave it some thought.

He began to think aloud and told me that I was still suspect number one. He had to figure out another suspect in the lineup. Obviously this would be...

My brother.

My brother?

My brother had come over a couple times in the last few weeks to help me update my computer with new software. He was there for hours at a time installing my new OS and reinstalling my old programs.

Mike had deduced that whoever was scanning probably used the BevMo card to run a test on the scanner.

My brother was working on my computer and the scanner is connected to Mike's computer. Why he would run a color test on the scanner for Mike's computer while working on my computer is unknown - and in the case of the great BevMo Gift Card Heist - is also apparently irrelevant.

As Mike mulls over the two prime suspects, he begins to realize there may be room in his lineup for a third suspect. The least likely candidate of the shady bunch, himself.

Mike has been sitting in silence for a few moments.

Still baffled as to why I have remained suspect number one, I begin to list my alibis over again. I had never seen the card, I can hardly use the scanner, and even if I was using the scanner for some test, I would have probably picked a picture I could use once it was scanned. I then told him he was more likely to be the culprit - thinking that maybe he was making copies of other card-sized documents and absentmindedly threw the BevMo card onto the scanner and forgot it.

The wheels in Mike's head were turning. He spoke as he thought (and I'm paraphrasing here...)

"Ok, you may not be the suspect anymore... you probably would have remembered when I asked you about it last week. So, here's what probably happened. Your brother came over to work on the computers...and we were connecting your computer to our network... and I was trying to link your computer to the printer/scanner so you could print over the network... and..."

...and...

And it turns out Michael had put his own BevMo gift card onto the scanner bed to use as a test for scanning over the network.

Mystery solved!

Mike then proceeded to pat himself on the back for his superior sleuthing skills. He had figured out the great BevMo gift card mystery of 2009. He asked me if I was impressed by his deducing skills.

Seriously, he did.

He cracks me up.

Strike That, Reverse It.

Today, this happened. British Airways: Union Announces Strike

In 11 days, Mike and I are scheduled to be on a flight to Paris... on British Airways.

We bought our tickets well before November 2... there wasn't a union cloud in the sky then...

We're currently in limbo. Not officially canceled yet, so we can't rebook. Not officially cleared for flight, so we're not sure what to plan for.

In general, I support unions - I think they offer an ability to provide a safety-in-numbers net to protect the weakest members of the workforce when real abuse of labor is an issue driven by a insatiable drive for profit. In most situations in recent history and the strikes that have affected my day-to-day life, I've found it pretty easy to side with the folks doing the walk-out.

Unfortunately, in this situation I'm finding it difficult to back the employees in this decision when industry standards across the board indicate that these changes are not a threat to their health and safety and do not constitute an unfair work environment. The decisions that BA has made also do not appear to be driven by much else than to stay afloat under the current circumstances. I don't get the feeling - even in reading through the union's releases - that BA is doing something underhanded.

In my industry, layoffs have forced me to take on 3 times as much work with no additional compensation, no promises of bonuses and no pay raise in the coming year. We're fighting to stay afloat. I want us to stay afloat. It's not fun, but it's also not inhumane.

If airline industry standards are too low to constitute a healthy work environment or if industry standards were so low that all unionized airline attendants agreed they needed better, I likely would have supported a strike in which every unionized airline attendant would have participated, but they don't have that backing.

I get it. It sucks that you have one less person on a long flight where people are total douche bags who sneeze on you, don't say please or thank you and now everyone has to do a bit more work to cover for that. And I get that it sucks to not get your regularly expected pay raise or bonus. We all get it, because we're all dealing with it right now. Your biggest punch in the gut was to your customer - particularly me (the easiest person to get to hop on board with your labor dispute or any other hippie emotional cause.) I get it... but how about you don't pick the holidays to protest, and you wait for the trial date to get the law behind you (if they agree with you then the public will support you!) I'm finding it very hard to imagine how anyone at all wins here.

A Visual Guide

Sig shared this chart on FB... for those of you who don't understand the beauty of procrastination, it may help. Click for the full sized image.



Apparently these charts are plentiful on the web and work perfectly within the Procrastination Loop. Here's another one with a bit more detail. Click for the full sized image.

Just in case you needed a little direction for your daily dose of procrastination.