The babies have grown up!

The baby pigeons, described and memorialized below, have fledged! In other words, they've left the nest. They are still very babyish in looks and behaviour: they look like pigeons, but very small, and with the big, wide-eyed expression of babies. Their beaks are also different to the adults'. They are not venturing more than 15 feet from the nest they just left, but they are gradually learning to be city pigeons. Their mom is still hanging around, giving them pigeon lessons. The cutest thing is that the 2 siblings *refuse* to leave each others' side, even for a moment. Can you blame them? Each other are all they know - they hatched and grew up in the nest together. Soon they'll start fighting and accusing each other of going into the other one's room without permission...

Anyway, can you believe these are the same as the baby pic a few posts below? They are! (well, in the baby pic you can only see one of the siblings):

Godspeed, young birds! Good luck!

"Pet" Peeve

This happens to me a lot and it really annoys me.

I have asthma. Here's a quick primer: Asthma attacks are caused by many things, including chest infection, irritants like dust, and allergens to which the asthmatic person is allergic. These things cause the bronchial tubes to dilate, restricting breathing.

In my case, I am severely allergic to cats. So, not only do I get the normal 'allergy' symptoms like watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, etc., I also suffer asthma symptoms when exposed to cats. I am so severely allergic to cats that if a cats nails touch my skin, I come up in itchy hives at the point of contact. If I go to someone's house who has a cat, and stay more than 20 minutes or so, I can suffer an asthma attack. These range from mild to severe, requiring a trip to the hospital if it gets so bad that my inhalers don't help.

Once, after being at my grandmother's cat-filled house for too long, I ended up in the emergency room, on with an oxygen and drug breathing thing strapped over my face. I've been been to hospital 3 times for severe asthma attacks.

So, if I am invited to someone's house where I've never been, I always have to ask if they have a cat. If so, I must decline, unless it's an outdoor party. Putting the cat outside doesn't help - it's in the air. Even if your house is pristinely clean, the dried particles from the cat are so small, you can't get rid of them (My dad has a cat. He and his wife are so clean that I would not be worried about infection if a heart bypass was performed on his kitchen table. He even bought air cleaners to help me to visit. It didn't help). By the way, it's not the fur that I am allergic to. It's the dried particles of saliva that dry up and enter the air after the cat grooms by licking itself, and their skin flakes.

However, none of the above are the thing that annoys me. People would have no way of knowing the above if they didn't have personal experience.

The thing that annoys me is that inevitably when I tell someone I am allergic to cats, or that I can't attend a party because a cat lives there, they will tell me about their friend or family member or uncle's neighbour's cousin who 'used to be' allergic to cats, until they got 3 of them, and now they are cured! So really, the implication is that I'm just being pathetic, or wimpy, or I just need to get over it and stop avoiding cats.

First of all, I don't know if these stories are true, and I don't care. I know how I feel when I've been exposed to cats, and it is horrible. It can also be terrifying, because not being able to breathe properly is scary. Then you panic, and it gets worse. I feel TERRIBLE when I've been exposed to cats

Second, you wouldn't tell a person who has diabetes, for example, that they just need to eat a lot of sugar, the thing that affects their condition, because a friend of a friend did it and then was cured. You wouldn't tell a person with a stomach ulcer that a friend used to have one, and as soon as they started eating a lot of jalepeno peppers that the ulcer was cured.

I do understand that 'exposure therapy' works for allergies, because I have had it for some substances to which I am allergic. It's called "immunotherapy" and the idea is that over a long period (ten years or so for me), you are exposed to tiny bits of the thing you are allergic to, suffer a tiny reaction, and your body builds up resistance to it (antibodies) and your symptoms lessen . As a child I was allergic to mold, trees, all kinds of weeds and pollen (one was called 'ragweed'), and just breathing in the world would cause an asthma attack. So I had to take asthma medication for years, as well as having an injection once a week that contained tiny portions of these allergens. It worked - In America I do not have hayfever, nor do I have asthma attacks from hayfever allergens. (Here in the UK, there is some damn plant I'm allergic to, and I'm having mild hayfever, but it's manageable).

However, immunotherapy is a medical treatment, by a real doctor. (Not some jackass who calls himself an 'alternative healer'). And they don't throw a bucket of ragweed over you and tell you to get over it (the ragweed cure equivalent of the cat allergy advice I always get) . It is a very gradual and medically supervised treatment. Therefore, just getting a cat is not likely to work. So don't tell me it will. Unless you went to medical school and have done some real research on it, not possess some secondhand anecdote about some acquaintance.

(You might ask why I didn't have the immunotherapy for cats, and the reason is that it was not covered by my insurance. You can't get away from ragweed etc., if you intend to go outside, but you can avoid houses with cats. It's elective. )

Posh Sandwiches at Home

Reason 39456291 that it is good not to have a job:

I have the time, energy and inclinations to make nice lunches for myself and my husband who usually works at home. As you may know, my husband runs Sandwich Selector, and I am a frequent contributor. As such, we are fans of good sandwiches. Lately, I've been making them at home. They have been so enjoyable I need to blog about them and share the recipes. Not that you need a recipe to do these, but I always need ideas of what to put together - I'm not naturally creative when it comes to sandwiches. If you are like me in that way, here are some yummy sandwich recipes.

Barbeque Chicken Sandwich with Gouda Cheese

* Heat good ciabattas in the oven; turn on grill.
* When they are done, cut open and fill with roast chicken pieces, barbeque or barbeque jerk sauce (I favour Reggae Reggae Sauce; my husband likes Las' Lick)
* Cover with a slice of gouda or mature cheddar cheese
* Put sandwiches under the grill till cheese is nice and bubbly
* Add nice salad leaves and serve.
This also works very well with mature cheddar instead of gouda.

Smoked Tuna and Tomato Sandwich

* Heat good ciabattas or sourdough bread in oven.
* Cut open and fill with smoked tuna (John West does a good one), slices of ripe tomato, ground pepper, and salad leaves.
* Drizzle with balsamic vinegar
* Yum

My mouth is watering just typing these up.

Between two places

Quote of the Day

"No, you see, " she said, "you can get in a, what would you call it, a mind-set about these things. You can start to believe that your life is defined by your foreignness. You think everything would be different if only you belonged. 'If only I were back home,' you say, and you forget that you wouldn't belong there either, after all these years. It wouldn't be home at all anymore.'"

-Digging to America, Anne Tyler

...And that's how I feel about being here and going back to America. I've been here 12 years, and still, the minute I open my mouth to do the most pedestrian, quotidian thing, like ordering a coffee or paying for my shopping, I am immediately identified as American. They KNOW, immediately, that I'm North American. I don't try to hide it, of course, but my point is, that no matter what I say, immediately there is that little moment of my accent being recognised.

On the other hand, when I go 'home' to America, I feel lost. I feel home because my mom is there, and my family and friends and memories are there, but stupid things like using the money and making phone calls with the different dialling* procedures- it's like being in a foreign country where nothing is familiar. So here in England, I'm immediately identified as American even after 12 years; in America, things seem weird to me because they are not British like I am used to. AND! Every time I am in Philadelphia, at least once a day someone will ask where I am from because of my odd accent. British people think this is hilarious - to them I sound as American as mom and apple pie. But to Americans, I sound weird, and I swear to god it is not deliberate. It is simply habit that results from being the only 'other' among one's circle of family and friends. Of *course* I am going to talk like them accidentally after 12 years. What is happening to me here, as my accent changes, is the same thing that made me develop my American accent as I grew up - from listening to the people around me in America for the first 24 years of my life.

So I am excited yet scared to move back to America. It will be like moving to a foreign country. I sound American, but I know how everything works over here. I don't know how things work in America - mainly because I was a child, teenager, and university student when I lived there. Now I'm a mid-30s woman who has lived all her proper 'adult' life in England. So does that make me American or British? When I hear American accents they make me bristle. They sound so harsh and strange! But that's how I sound to the British!

I want to move to America with my loved ones, Martin and Humphrey. I miss my mom. I miss my grandmother. I miss REAL cheap shopping (Primark has NOTHING on Target!). But it will be just as jarring, strange and stressful as moving to England in 1995 was.

I remember back in 1995 when my building's heating failed. It was freezing. No problem, I thought - I'll just go buy a space heater. I went to the shopping center, and it was closed. It was about 6 o'clock on a Sunday night. I burst into tears in frustration. Everything was just so damn difficult. Will it be the same when I go back to America?

Despite feeling at home here, I am still thoroughly American in some ways. I cannot STAND it when British people pay a lot of money for a meal and get ripped off by not getting what they ordered, or getting shit, or getting ignored, and just sit there and say nothing. British people visibly squirm when I complain, and I do NOT complain like an asshole. Being here has made complain with total deference, though. I'll say, "I'm really sorry, so sorry to trouble you, but there seems to be a cockroach on my sandwich," while my British dinner companions think, "oh god, she's being so American....they always complain" and turn bright red. It's a business! You are PAYING for your meal! If you get shat on, don't just accept it!! It's not the same as having dinner at a friend's house! As long as you don't treat the staff like shit, you have the right to say things aren't right!

So, it remains to be seen how I'll adjust to being back in the US.

*god dammit, I spell British, and American things like blogger correct my spelling!
--------------------------------
Baby pigeon update: They no longer look like little yellow fluffsters. They are not almost totally feathered out in pigeon grey, but are still totally babyish and haven't left the nest. A reliable source tells me they fledge (leave the nest) at 5-6 weeks. I will keep you posted.

Urban Youth (Human and Pigeon)

Why don't you ever see baby pigeons? It's one of those questions like, "Why don't penguins' feet freeze to the ice?" and "Why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?" that you get on those kind of lists.

But I am here to tell you: you DO see baby pigeons! You just have to look. The best place to look, I've found, is in train stations. Look up, on metal beams - you're bound to see nests.

Last week I saw a nest at New Cross Station that had a mother pigeon in it. (I assumed she was a mother pigeon on eggs, because she was a full grown pigeon, snugged up in a nest). When we went to the same station the other day - the eggs had hatched! And now the nest was full of fuzzy, peeping baby pigeons. I don't care how you feel about pigeons - these were cute. And what a privilege to see! It's just something you don't see every day. They are no more than a week old.

So, yesterday I dragged Martin down to the station again to see them, this time with binoculars and a camera. It was amazing. Three babies, with yellow fuzzy heads, and the start of wing feathers (pin feathers, they are called, because it looks like a bunch of pins sticking out of the baby bird). We really wanted to get some pics of them, but they were just too high up.

At one point I yelled to Martin, "HEADS!!" to alerrt him to the fact thqat the babies' heads had popped up, and some teenage rudeboy looking kid said, "tails". He had on the London rudeboy uniform -saggy track bottoms, baseball cap, tattoo on his neck, gold jewellry. I explained to him what we were doing and he jumped up, genuinely excited. "I love baby birds! I took pictures of some baby ducks the other day!" Then he said, "I'm going to take a picture" and like a shot he had scaled this beam, like only a teenager can, and was hanging by one hand, head in the nest. "Oh my days!!" he exclaimed (a saying I hadn't heard since I stopped teaching London teenagers). He even offered to take a pic for us while he was up there. His girlfriend, chewing gum, looking bored but used to this kind of oddness from him, said, "He's mental. He takes pictures of ducks."

He came down aqnd wanted to show us his duck pics on his phone, but his train had arrived. "I may look like a thug, but I love ducks" was his goodbye. It was a most genuinely sweet moment. And he got the most excellent pic of one of the babies for us. 20 years ago, when I was fearless of danger, I would have climbed up there. Now, as a 30 something, it was out of the question. So I'm really grateful to this kid for giving us a view we wouldn't have had without him, and I mean that in both the metaphorical sense and literally because of this excellent pic he took:

Fuck Call the police

Recently I got a letter saying that the violent incident that I witnessed would not be requiring my assistance at court, because the perpetrator pleaded guilty. This is most likely because: there was cctv evidence showing him doing it, and there was an independent witness - me. Pretty much open and shut.

What happened was, I was on the bus, minding my own business, as they say, around noon, and suddenly some guy was choking the shit out of another guy, yelling, "If you ever come near my house again I'll fucking kill you! Do you understand?! Do you?!" The guy was choking so badly he only managed to croak out, "yes" in a small, strangled voice, which is natural as he was being strangled, turning bright red and looking like he was about to be killed. Then the guy head butted him for good measure (breaking his nose, I later found out), and the victim was bleeding all down his shirt. I may sound a bit casual describing it now, but at the time I was really shaken up and worried. I was shaking and in tears.

As is typical with the British, no one did a got-dam thing. A big guy with an African accent yelled, "Leave him alone, you'll kill him!" and I immediately started dialling 999 on my mobile, because I really thought I might be witnessing a murder. By the time I got through to the police, the assailant had gotten off the bus, so I went over to the victim and asked him if he needed help. He said yes, and said, blood dripping everywhere, "tell the police to come to...." so I just handed my phone to him. He had reached his stop, so I got off the bus with him so he could continue talking to the police. I then gave him my phone number in case he wanted a witness. Turns out he did, and I got a call from police the next day. I made my statement as above.

The story turns out that the 2 guys were 20something brothers with a long history of not getting along, to put it mildly. The guy who was the victim of the assault was wearing a shirt and tie, because he was on his way home from court for damaging the assailant brother's car. Oy vey. Nevertheless it was such a savage beating that the savage should NOT have gotten away with it. Which he didn't. I was told I might have to go to court - thanks, just what I get for trying to help someone. But luckily he plead guilty so I didn't have to, as interesting as it might have been.

This has gotten me thinking of the many times I've called the police while I've been in England. Martin jokes that I am an insane police caller. Here are the situtations I remember calling the police in England:

- A young boy, about 8 years old, on the pavement on a main road, was tied to a chair, his mouth taped, with a sign on him saying, "my punishment for being naughty" - (btw, the police dispatcher asked if I was sure it wasn't a shop dummy...)

- I heard some shouting one night and looking out the window, and a guy was getting the shit beat out of him in the middle of the street.

- Some nasty little ratboy with bolt cutters cut the lock of someone's bike and stole it, right in the middle of the day, with hundreds of people around!

- the aforementioned bus incident

Do you think this is excessive? I'm starting to become British after 12 years for even asking...

Now, the thing about this is, in the bus incident and the bike stealing incident, I didn't see anyone else call the police - only me. It's my immediate reaction. This absolutely must have something to do with my upbringing: I am the daughter of a police officer. In fact, my dad became a police officer when I was in utero. (His graduation from the police academy is documented in photos and film - my dad looking like the 26 year old baby he was, and my mom, glamorous, gorgeous, with long blonde platinum hair, wearing a mini skirt, 8 months pregnant with me)

I remember being a little girl and being scared of the dark. Not of monsters or anything like that: I was scared of burglars. It was all cool and fine when my dad was home, being a big strong policeman in the house, but when he worked the overnight shift I was paralytic with fear. This also could have something to do with the massive doses of speed I was taking at the time.

Yes, I was a total speed-head at age 7. Whatever the medicine was called, it was for my severe asthma, which I've since mainly outgrown. The result of this drug was that I couldn't sleep and was thin as a rake. I just laid in bed all night, looking at the shadows, and worried about burglars. When I actually tried speed when I was in college, I thought, "holy shit, this is exactly what I felt like as a child, ALL THE DAMN TIME!" And that was the end of that.

I'll conclude this police entry by debunking a myth I hear all the time: that all Americans have guns. Not true. I have never met anyone who has a gun in America, except for my dad, and that was his police gun. My whole childhood it was kept on top of the (big tall American) refrigerator. I never touched it - I wouldn't have DREAMED of it. I don't know if it was loaded or not.

This whole blog is not to say I harbor only lovely, sweet feelings about the police - I have run into my share of asshole police. I used to live down the street from one. I met one when I was at university in New York - my friends and I were drinking beers outside and a passing cop in a car broadcast a message to me over his in-car microphone: "POUR THE BEER IN THE TRASH CAN! NOW!" This was particularly ridiculous because there were drug dealers all over the streets nearby selling crack, heroin and god knows what else. Nothing like hitting an easy target like some Ivy League university students drinking beer.

(by the way, it was kind of fun going to the police station and giving my statement about the bus incident. Being the American daughter of an American cop makes one really interesting to British police. The downside of being the daughter of a police officer is that I never got chosen for jury duty when I was in America. I got CALLED IN for jury duty, but immediately dismissed when they found out my father's occupation. Most people would think that's a good thing, but I think it would be really interesting


To end: here's me (age 8), my brother (age 4) and my dad (age 34!!!) in his police car on Easter, 1979

The wonder of the internet

I know this is not a particularly original thought, but I have often thought of the internet as magic - like an oracle of knowledge that you can consult in your own living room! And get the answer to almost any answerable question, instantly. You don't even have to trudge up a mountain! Well, I still feel that way. It truly amazes me still that I have access to this magical resource.

I was reminded of it today when I read that wife of former President Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, had died. My first thought was 'why the hell was a grown woman called 'Lady Bird'? Without thinking, I went to Wikipedia, and got the answer. Then I realized what I had just done, and started thinking about how often during the day I do it. It must be at least 20 times a day on average that I will think of something, hear something, or read something, and in seconds, a question forms in my mind, and suddenly my 70 words per minute typing fingers go immediately to Google or Wikipedia to get the answer or more information, which leads on to more information, etc., etc. ad infinitum.

The other thing I was thinking about is how much more I would know had I had this resource as a child. If 20 times a day I want more information on something now, as a child it must have happened at least 200 hundred times a day. And back then, what could I do to get my answer? Ask an nearby adult, who might not know, for example, why a tumbler is called a tumbler when it is referring to a glass (something I remember wondering about when I was about 9. I also remember asking my teacher, around the same age, how language started. She didn't really give me a good answer). Or I could wait for my weekly trip to the library, which wasn't feasible, because by then I'd have either forgotten the question or have had a list of 1400 other more pressing questions.

And if I had the internet when I was at university! How amazing that would have been! I graduated in 1994, and I realize that the internet existed then, but it was not as developed or as ubiquitous as it is now. In my last year of university, I had a very vague idea about something called email. By 1995, I couldn't live without it. If they internet was available to me at university, any of the topics I needed to study for exams would have been so much easier to find! I could have learned so much more. Of course, there is something enchanting about trudging through the stacks at Columbia's Butler Library, which is a truly amazing library, but it's really a hell of a lot of effort at 2 in the morning when it's 10 below zero. The internet could not have replaced the experience of looking up the number of your book, then taking the elevator to the right floor, then following the map through the narrow, tightly packed labyrinthine stacks to find the right book. I can still remember the smell of that place if I close my eyes. (some floors and corridors were so quiet and the subject matter so obscure, there were rumors of students having sex in the stacks, including Erica Jong in the 1960s)

I remember, back in about 1992, I wanted to find out about Bat Conservation International, which I knew was in Austin, Texas, because I had seen a program on television that mentioned it. At the time I was really into bats (and still am). Now, if that had happened, I would instantly have their web page, and tons of bat info immediately. This is how I did it then: I searched the house for the yellow pages (I lived in Pennsylvania, so it wouldn't have Texas listings), and found the page for area codes. Once I found the area code for Austin, Texas, I called their directory inquiries (time elapsed - about 20 minutes). I asked if they had a listing for Bat Conservation International. They did. But it was after 6 o'clock, well after business hours, so I had to wait till the next day to call. When I did, they sent me some information, which took about 4 days to get there. Then I had to fill out my membership application on paper, send it back.....blah blah blah. I do believe that expending the effort to do something like that is a worthwhile endeavor.

Of course it could be argued that the bat info was info that I really wanted, and I expended the effort to do it because it was important to me, and much of the stuff I want to know about now is just not important (eg. Lady Bird's nickname derivation). But I could have learned so much more had I had the internet. I wonder how many times I said to myself about something or other, "I wonder what that means?" and the thought slipped away, never to be researched. What might that information done for for me had I pursued it?

I realize this whole thread of thoughts might be rather hackneyed. No matter - I really think the internet is magical.