Want to come play at my house?

OMGYOUGUYS. So much to do today. A's brother and wife are flying in this afternoon to stay with us for a couple of days. I should be doing my last-minute frantic clean right now (for the purposes of cooing, 'Oh, this old place? Sorry for the state of it, it's normally not this messy,' the sparkle of the countertops reflected in my blinding smile), which of course is all the inspiration to blog that I need. I don't even know when their flight lands - in typical fashion, I get vague 'middays' when I query A, which could mean anything from noon - EVERYBODY PANIC! WHERE'S THE HOOVER?! - to four this afternoon (ah, plenty of time for this old blog, then). I've got lemons in a bowl and fresh flowers in a vase, so I really don't know what more one could expect.

Wait! It's stopped raining! Hold on a sec.

Ahhh, there we go. House may be a mess but back garden's just been tidied. My favourite hobby right now is sweeping all the snails off the walls and dumping them into the garden waste bag before scattering salt over the top. I make it snow with happy little flicks of the wrist, humming away like a demented angel of death, watching with satisfaction as they shrivel and foam. I just don't know how it gets any better. I used to salt them where they perched but that just led to green slime everywhere that was hard to clean up. The new Mass Grave Method is making the job a joy. 

It's scorching out. London is trying to kill me with this rainforest climate. Working on the laptop at the garden table is terrific until you start dripping onto the keyboard. Also, I think the cherry tree is spraying sap or something because every so often droplets drift through the air and everything gets vaguely sticky. Is this a thing sap does or is the tree poisoning us like in some evil-horticulture thriller? Someone who knows how nature works tell me in case I need to be out here in a hazmat suit. 

I've got to leave in a few minutes - for an actual MEETING, with HUMANS! I really am not equipped for this job, with so much persons, so many opportunity for awkward - but before I go, look how sweet our little garden is! How many walls for snails to scale! 

Not pictured: Mass Grave

I hope your day is going well!

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss

I'm pretty sure I could be a Scottish history teacher now.

OMGYOUGUYS. Right now as I write I'm listening to the soulful grooves of the amazing singer-songwriter Xandra and it's putting me in such a chill place I don't even think I'll need a nap this morning. And that's pretty impressive given how dark it is outside, how the wind buffets this house on the hill so powerfully it sounds like thunder and the sheets of rain pound like they might just tear this place down.

(Another lovely day in Scotland.)

Yesterday I whimsically jaunted into Edinburgh like it's just next door (only an hour train away, so basically) and while I waited for Marie to join me, I decided to join one of those free walking tours. Why not, right? It's free, it's entertaining, and it would take me to a load of places I've never been and teach me some delightfully gruesome history at the same time.

And the weather was perfect for it. 

One of the first places our guide took us was St Giles Church where we learned the story of the riot-starting Jenny Geddes, who was apparently pretty pissed when the English king at the time gave them a new prayer book that was all worship-God-and-Also-Me and she was like 'Oh hellllll no with this Anglican BS, I'm a good PresbyTERian, dammit' and went on to prove it by throwing her stool at the minister. 

We've all been there, Jenny. We hear you.

We also learned about the Heart of Midlothian, which apparently has its origins from a heart that was carved into a prison door that stood here a kazillion years ago. This prison was where they held their executions and their most depraved criminals - 'the Alcatraz of Edinburgh,' I'm sure they called it - and people who walked past used to spit on the door's heart. Also they had to pay taxes there? So another reason to dislike the place? Don't quote me on this stuff. Anyway, the prison eventually came down but since they saw no reason to give up the beloved tradition of spitting on a heart, they put this one on the pavement and now you're expected to give it the ole treatment when you walk by. For good luck/for bad luck/for tradition/because Scottish. 

So it's hellattractive. 

About this point in the tour we're interrupted by a procession in honor of Remembrance Day so that just made everything better:

Scottish processions are never half-hearted affairs.

Then we went into a courtyard and talked about Famous Scottish Writers and Things.

Super interesting.

After that it got real (read: gross and exciting) again when we got to Grassmarket, which was the most popular site for hangings back in the day because it was the biggest open space in which you could pack the most people. Since execution was QUITE the entertainment of the day - the X Factor for the brutality generation - you wanted to give everyone a good show. There's a pub in the pic below called The Last Drop where they used to take the condemned for their last drink (who doesn't love a good death pun) before they hung. Maggie Dickson's, another pub seen below, is named after a woman who was condemned to hang for the crime of concealing a pregnancy (wouldn't we all) except after they hung her and took her body off in a cart, she revived (no doubt giving the driver a heart attack) but the authorities - rather than leap to the obvious conclusion ('she's a witch!') - just brought her back to the gallows (if at first you don't succeed...!) to try again. It was there a lawyer in the audience pointed out she'd already served her sentence so they couldn't make her do it again. And so she was released! Way to go, Mags.

 Charming square, hey.

Okay, so sidebar-confession-time: I am a terrible person on an organised tour. I am easily distracted (look at that plastic bag in the tree!...Wonder when we'll get a break? Will it be long enough for a pint?...All I need to get the perfect angle for this photo is to stand in the middle of this road...) and sometimes I'll take so long trying to get a good shot (most if it spent waiting for the rest of the tourists to GET OUT I DON'T WANT YOUR NEON YELLOW JACKET AND CAMERA IN MY FRAME) that by the time I catch up with the group again, a story is half-told and I'm all, 'Covenanters wh-?', panting, hands on knees as the tour guide glowers at me.

So I missed a lot of the story about the origins of the Wicked Wicked Cruel Cold Death Prison (official name, entrance pictured below) ran by Bloody MacKenzie who was apparently a bit of a fan of torture. However, I *did* arrive in time to hear that in recent history they've had to lock the gates because MacKenzie's haunting caused visitors to get bite marks and scratches and black out and other such fun-for-the-whole-family adventures when they toured the vaults and tombs.

Right behind those gates in the corner. Go check it out!

Here's the photo I was taking that caused me to miss the Covenanters history:

Our guide was quick to point out this was NOT a zombie cage, but rather a dully-named mortsafe which your family hired out after you died to house your remains for a couple of weeks until you reached such a state of decomposition that the Resurrectionists (isn't that a sweet name for a grave robber?) wouldn't steal your body to sell to the anatomy college, who paid QUITE WELL for back-door body drops. In fact, it paid so well it inspired two entrepreneurs, Burke and Hare, to go on a serial killing rampage because that is SO MUCH EASIER than digging up graves. It was partly down to their brave efforts, along with that of the Resurrectionists, that Edinburgh Medical School is still one of the best to this day. Science for the win!

 I just liked this corner of the church. The pouring rain makes it look all smudgy and watercoloury. 

And now the moment we've all been waiting for: TOM RIDDELL'S GRAVE. Youguys, it turns out JK spent a lot of time in Greyfriars Cemetery - I mean, why not, you've seen how cosy it is - and this is where she got a few of the characters' names. Like Moody, and McGonagall, and Tom Riddell:

In previous times, everyone went to Greyfriars Cemetery to see Bobby the dog's memorial stone (don't ask) but now everyone wants to see Voldemort's grave so you can find it pretty easily because it's the part of the graveyard destroyed by footfall. The approach to the stone is basically a giant mud field. So the church is pretty thrilled about that. Probably Tom Riddell's family, too.

Here's Bobby the dog, beloved for loyalty and sitting by his dead master's grave for 13 years. Tough competition, Tom:

Fun fact: JK (we're close enough I can keep calling her that) actually wrote the first Harry Potter at a cafe called Spoon (though it's changed names since she was there) but since she worked on later books at Elephant House and they paid her for the honour, they are officially allowed to claim themselves as 'the birthplace of Harry Potter' in all the atrocious fonts they want:

Dot biz, yo. 

Right about then the tour ended (to much applause and flinging of cash at the tips-only tour guide) and that is when my new friend Rachael (probably the best part of the tour, excellent at the witty sidebar) and I wiggled around the city on our way to meet Marie at Bon Vivant.

We naturally had to detour by way of the Castle, just in case we weren't wet and cold enough, where I made Rachael jump in the air to recreate this scene with Aya from years past. So be warned if you ever go up to the castle with me. This may happen to you:

I would like to point out a few things here: she did get airborne in this shot, but I wasn't quick enough on the draw and there's got to be a limit to how many times you can ask a friend you've only had for three hours to jump 'one more time!' Before we attempted this shot, Rachael asked me to show her what the jump should look like and - another confession - no matter how hard I tried - and I was jumping as high as I could - I couldn't even get my feet to leave the ground. Like, at ALL. The only possible explanation is that gravity was, like, really strong yesterday. Either that Aya is made out of clouds, because if you check out that link above, she is basically flying. 

We also passed this place called The Witchery, and while we have no idea what it's about (remind me to take The Dark Side tour next time I'm in town, I'll bet they cover it) I think it's safe to say it's about witches. Probably dead ones. So that's something to look forward to:

I feel like I made Tartan Lady happen with the power of my mind. Maybe I'M a witch. 

Oh! Before I go, our tour guide told us another good story, about the Stone of Destiny. You're welcome to quit reading here if you already know this - but BASically, the Stone of Destiny is Real Important to the Scots, because it's the Coronation stone where all the monarchs are crowned, and it also has a prophecy attached about how Scotland will be ruled wherever the stone is. And apparently ages and ages ago, like the 1200s - the Scots' king at the time, a less-than-productive Alexander Something, died without an heir (or at least one that would survive long enough to count) and they asked the English king, Edward the Dick, to help them decide who the new king should be and - to be fair, they should have known better, he had JUST finished grabbing Wales like a kid in a candy store - he was all, 'ME. Your choices are rubbish. Unbiased arbitration DONE, YOU'RE WELCOME' and then, just to put the nail in the what-an-arsehole coffin, he took their Stone of Destiny down to England and stuck it under his throne so he could sit on it. I like to imagine him perched on top, feet not quite touching the floor, swinging his legs, bouncing his heels against it, perhaps enjoying a lollypop, humming 'neener neener neener.' And there it sat until NINETEEN FIFTY. NINETEEN FIFTY YOUGUYS. That's when this law student Ian Hamilton was all, 'eff that' and he went down to Westminster and broke in and took it. As you would if you were a true patriot and tired of waiting for people to talk it over for centuries. What a ledge. That's way more than I accomplished in college. Anyway, adventures happened and adventures happened and he finally got it into Scotland and the authorities were like, 'We're obviously not going to prosecute you because you're a national hero but we've got to take it back for centuries more paperwork' and so they did. It wasn't until the 90s when the English government was like, 'The Scots are getting restless, let's throw them a stone' that it was officially returned. Isn't that fun? WHAT CRAZY SHENANIGANS THAT STONE HAS HAD.

After all this excitement, it was time to meet Marie (and defrost our wet, frozen selves) so we headed straight for the cosiest joint in town: Bon Vivant.

Don't you just want to stay here forever?

King and Country, babies.

The day ended with a glorious ride back to Glasgow courtesy of Knight Robert, Marie's husband, where the weather blustered on. See those mountain-looking shadows on the bottom? THOSE ARE CLOUDS. The sky was like a cloud sandwich and we were driving straight into the middle of it.

Like so many Scottish hellmouths.

Okay, so I've officially broken my word count for the day - I generally aim for about six - so I'll leave you here so I can eat pizza for lunch and pack for our return to London. It's been real, Scotland! See you again at Christmas!

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

Buckets and buckets and buckets of wet

OMGYOUGUYS. I'm in Scotland right now. Glasgow, specifically. West George Street, if we want to continue zooming in. And it is GORGEOUS.

Well, not the weather. But one doesn't come to Glasgow for the weather, now do they. They come for things like Celtic games, wherein rowdy Norwegians flock to town and cause such a disturbance with all their carousing and singing and general milling about that the police bring out the big guns. (If by 'big' we mean 'peaceful' and 'guns' we mean ' attentive horses.')

Then of course there's the Gallery of Modern Art, which I must confess I did NOT go into. But I like to think pausing to admire their neon counts as appreciation, so I can say with full confidence it's worth checking out.

And then there are the churches and the architecture. This one below Lyndsey helpfully supplied the name of as '...   ....   .... St. Mary's?'

Obviously St. Mary's.

Now I'm off to dinner at Meat because my 400g of steak last night was obviously not enough animal and a girl has got to keep warm throughout the winter somehow.

Next up: tomorrow's tour of the West End! Lyndsey is my guide again so I'm in pretty good hands.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

April and Paris and Some Other Stuff

"I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.” - John Kennedy Toole

OMGYOUGUYS. It's time for my monthly blog post. I'm really killing it this year. I figure one a month and then MyBloWriMo in November again, and I've got a real thing going here.

So let's talk about April!

Son of a gun. I just took a sip of my coffee and realised that I forgot to boil the water in the kettle before pouring it in. WHAT FOUL BEAST IS THIS CUP!

Ah, well. Too lazy to get up and fix it. *slurp*

Okay. It turns out I have very little to say about April. Or possibly too much, and can't be bothered with the effort of applying all those words to paper screen. Also I worry about putting too many words here, because isn't that a thing that causes people to lose interest in things these days?

So on that note: Hey! Pictures!

We went to Paris the weekend before Easter and it was lovely. I forgot how lovely it was. I don't know why I don't go more often, it's so ridiculously close. That's actually probably why: when a weekend can be spared for a city break, there's a sense of 'I can go to Paris anytime! It's right there! But Berlin, on the other hand, is totally new to me...!'

This time, though, an exception was made because the Eurostar vouchers in our grubby little paws required us to go. And I'm glad they did. Just LOOK at the place:

They've got buildings and stuff.

This visit was particularly exciting because I recently acquired a new lens - an absolute stunner of a telephoto (thank you, Uncle John! I love it too much!!) - and I couldn't wait to give it a go. It meant I could photograph all the people I wanted from a masterful, unobserved distance. A dream come true! Usually I'd have to get right up in people's faces to get a good shot, which made me tons of friends. 

Do you know what I think my favourite thing in France is? The flea markets. The combination of charm and junk is just bar-none. You can really find some spectacular trinkets, and the flea market at Place d'Aligre was no exception. It was chock-FULL of stuff I didn't need but desperately wanted. It also had produce, but as a tourist staying in a hotel, there was little point to perusing those gems, other than to note the proliferation (and consequent affordability) of white asparagus, with a half-second thought spared to whether they'd fare well in a suitcase. 

Speaking of: I took some photos of all that gorgeous veg but they look like every other farmer's market photo in the history of farmer's market photos. Is there any way to shoot a food market that's remotely unique or interesting?  I mean, really, how many pictures of piles of citrus, layers of sausages, mounds of cheese, and stacks of vintage crates does the world need? I for one am all full up. 

But them people: 

I like to imagine that the guys in the top right photo are comparing their purchases: 'You paid HOW much for that gilded mirror?? That's it, I'm returning mine. I got robbed.'

 Paris has got food, too!:

We had gorgeous smoked meat at The Beast, a pizza picnic on the canal with Pink Flamingo, oysters at Paris Peche, carnitas at L'Adelita, and a stunning brunch at Claus. Also, bistros and stuff. Maybe all we did was eat, now that I think of it. 

When the sun comes out, the canal turns into a giant picnic:

Paris, London, Buenos Aires: all filled with unbearably hip cats.

Oooh, hey! We went to a museum! See! We ARE class.

 Look at this clock. Just LOOK at it. My new lens is insane. I think we also saw art, like paintings and sculptures and stuff.

You guys want to play caption contest? Because these works are begging for it: 

My dollhouses! Ruined! 

Has anyone seen my monocle?

Museums. What a comedy.

In other news, London has really been pulling out the stops lately. You can see the sky (it's blue!) and there's a sun, and it even seems like the weather is inching up, degree by degree, though I'm terrified of saying so, lest it all slip immediately underfoot and we're plunged back into winter. 

Want to see a picture of a beautiful girl? This is Katie. She is good and kind and funny and a librarian and a writer, so right away we have almost nothing in common. We recently went to a quilting workshop (we retired nearly immediately) and last weekend we hit Tate Modern (where the below was snapped) and soon we will be checking out the Liverpool Street Station archaeology project (they're excavating a burial ground! Called Bedlam!* With 20,000 bodies, they think!).

So yeah, I think it's safe to say we know how to have a good time. 

I would like everyone to leave a comment about how porcelain her skin is. She would be super embarrassed and possibly never speak to me again. SO WORTH IT.

I'll leave you now with one last photo taken from the top of the Montparnasse (have I mentioned my new lens?):

I hope your April is going well!

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

*This has got to be the equivalent of all those 'ancient Indian burial ground' ghost stories we tell as children in Oklahoma. Except ten times worse.  I'm of half a mind to get out of London now. 

On crafts, the winter sky, and fairy wings

Is my paranoia getting completely out of hand, or are you mongoloids really talking about me? - John Kennedy Toole

OMGYOUGUYS. So remember how I had the World's Most Anemic Christmas Decorations to put up? Well, GUESS WHAT CAME IN THE MAIL YESTERDAY. This Christmas banner, handmade by the Indomitable Little Wing:

This is exactly the sort of thing I'd look up how to make on Pinterest, eff up within seconds, and end up buying on Etsy.

Sidebar: I was just double-checking this photo for anything embarrassing prior to posting and I have just realised I have the handiwork of another design genius on display: That Wonderful Bowl. You can't tell, but it's WOODEN and steam-bent and then held together by WOVEN CORD. Of course it was made by the brilliant Aya:

I think we're all reaching the same conclusions from this. 

On a semi-related note: Look at the light quality of the above photo, whose brightness was actually amped up with a filter. This was taken mid-morning in an east-facing room. I intentionally didn't photograph the banner last night because I wanted to show it in natural light, forgetting that we're officially approaching the Shortest Day and that is no longer a thing. This is as bright as my brightest room gets; I have the lights on all day now.

The winter sky in London looks like this: it's not gray, it's a wonderful, flat brown, and if it's not raining, the air is just delightfully WET. A tangible, visible mist, impossible to combat with umbrella, hood, or sword:

 And people wonder why I don't leave the house.

So that's today's cheer for you!

Okay, I really should be going. I just saw a quiz on fb asking What Kind of Wings I Have* and while some might say that's just LUDICROUS and GOING A BIT TOO FAR, I think it's safe to say that FINALLY there's a quiz that tells us something valuable and meaningful about ourselves, and now I can finally prove I'm more dragon than fairy. Because #science.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Essss

*Totally not kidding.  High-five for #angels and #dreams and #unicornsparkles!

Plastic kills, Mom.

Youguys, This Is The Day. The day I prove what proofreading stuff I'm made of. The day I am going to read for twelve straight hours and YEAH, I JUST GOT PRESCRIBED GLASSES, WHAT'S YOUR POINT.

I am going to leave you with Happy Tidbits today in lieu of a proper post. I hope this is cool. If not, GET YOUR OWN BLOG.

Tidbit One, a snippet of a greater story: my sister has blogged about the differences in my nieces, and while the post in its entirety is great, those differences can really be summed up with this single interaction:
The Younger One: [trying to eat a candy cane without taking off the wrapper]
The Older One, alerting my sister: Plastic kills, Mom.

Tidbit Two: Hedgehogs Muffins:

From 19 Things Hedgehogs are Not. PLEASE CLICK THROUGH THERE'S A FAULT IN OUR STARS ONE.

Tidbit Three, from my favourite tumblr. Captions theirs:

WHEN THE PERSON YOU'RE IN BED WITH IS KICKING IN THEIR SLEEP.

WHEN I'M LEFT ALONE WITH SOMEONE I JUST MET.

The internet wins again! Now if you'll excuse me, I've got brain cells to fry.

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss 

If Water is the Essence of Moisture, then Will is the Essence of Time

I mean, time for me, I can make it go slow or fast, however I please, and that’s how I know it doesn’t exist. - Willow Smith

Willow has totally got a point, youguys. Like right now, I'm going to post photos from an adventure that happened TWO WEEKS AGO, but I'm going to act like it was THIS week for the sake of relevancy, and that's how I know time doesn't exist. 

So, recently* a girlfriend and I were trying to make plans to catch up because we hadn't seen each other since her birthday many moons ago and a reunion was long overdue. We were debating the merits of visiting a haunted pub when she had the idea for bingo. BINGOYOUGUYS. BINGO. Obviously, I was immediately on board. Then she sent me the following information. JUST WHEN I THOUGHT IT COULDN'T GET BETTER:

"[It's] at the oh so multi-cultural and slightly edgy Elephant & Castle shopping centre. It will be full of African women sucking their teeth, Polish people eating cabbage and Colombians tapping their feet to salsa tunes. I went for a recce the other day and it is a fantastically parallel universe of London. Do you like the sound of it?"

'YES' WORDS FAIL ME HERE.

This is outside the shopping centre:

World's Most Literal Design Interpretation of Elephant & Castle. The artist they commissioned just nailed it.

This is where we ate the promised Polish food:

I know, right! You totally thought it was going to be full of plastic tables and florescent lighting. Instead it's full of HIPSTERS. It has been discovered. In the grimmest shopping centre that London has to offer, after-hours when everything is shuttered down and you think surely if you stick around, they'll find your body in one of those urns in the morning, there's this place, a beacon of light and hope and good smells. It was so so tasty. Sidebar: Polish food has got to be the most unphotogenic food ever. I tried taking a photo of the pancakes covered with gravy and I don't even want to talk about how it looked. Also, all the food is the colour of nothing, the colour of soviet-tenement-beige. And it doesn't even MATTER because HOLY PIEROGIES, BATMAN. GET IN ME. 

This is us before we went in to play, holding our new member forms so they would let us in. We are now** official members of the Palace Games Club! 

Don't be jealous of our coolness. I know it's intimidating.

Now to get down to the meat of things: THE BINGO. First off, can I tell you how difficult it was to take any pictures? They do NOT want that, people. Anytime I'd even REMOTELY hold my phone up, I'd instantly get tackled by a host of staff members: 'what was that?' 'what'd you do?' 'did you take a photo?' 'let me see the photo you took,' 'delete the photo you took,' 'oh, you didn't take a photo? okay.' Absolute denial (even while clearly holding a camera) generally satisfied them, at which point they'd smooth down each other's ruffled feathers and get back to wandering listlessly around. 

This was so worth the battle.

EVERYwhere you'd see these little slips crammed into the machines. TO SAVE THEM. 

I pulled one out (right before getting tackled again) and IT'S A REAL SAVE SLIP. It's not a bunch of old ladies cramming wads of tissue in there. 

Needless to say, I got no photos of the actual bingo room (the vultures!) but I DID manage to sneak a recording of the guy doing the number call. Can you believe that VOICE? So hypnotic. So very, very unbelievably hypnotic.***

I want to go to bed every night listening to this guy read numbers.

Needless to say, we'll totally be returning. Especially now that we're *cough* members. It's only a matter of time until we win big now that we've got all these slips.

I leave you with this original Bingo Haiku, created with real British Bingo Lingo:

Lucky musty hive
And Grandma's getting fisty
Oh Dirty Gertie

The first person to tell me in the comments the numbers I've just called is totally getting a prize.****

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss

*A month ago, three weeks ago, yesterday - who can say? So is the nature of time.

**Or not now. Again, time. Also, the guy who took our cards said his 'machine was down' - I'm sure he meant computer and wasn't making this up at all - therefore he couldn't process our membership forms at that moment, but he would TOTALLY get to it. I'm sure my card will arrive in the mail any day now.

***This is the sound of time disappearing.

****I'm not saying it's a good prize. 

And we're going back for seconds!

I have always been of the opinion that consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. - Oscar Wilde

If we take Oscar Wilde's quote to heart, then OMGYOUGUYS those jazz musicians last night must be the most imaginative people on the PLANET. The opening duo played what I like to call 'Cacophony Jazz.' Cacophony Jazz is best defined by its tones of 'Screaming Cat' and 'Dying Chicken,' accompanied by 'Wailing Kangaroo.' By the end of their half hour of screeching, our group was green around the gills. I struggled with my own fight-or-flight-response to curl up under the table and fall asleep.*

Before I go any farther, I should describe our foursome in attendance: we had Alan, who - when he thinks he is going to hear jazz - makes this sound that I WOULD call scatting, except it's nothing but high hat. Then there's Peter - who I met when I worked for Abi - a guy who terrifically wears his scarf as though it is the last scarf on earth and decorates with wild abandon, and his partner, the Brazilian Roberto, who would seem to be the most-equipped for this scene if it weren't for the fact that he's so gentle he makes lambs look like violent predators. We've all become friends because they also have a place in France, relatively near ours, and the four of us can get together and fling our scarves around and throw our noses into the air while discussing the apPALling state of the French antiques market**. They are also the ones who introduced us to our Kiwi builder and his French wife***. So we love them. But, needless to say, we are not the audience for this concert. We are Philistines.

We've only just recovered from the opening set when the main act takes the stage. The venue is now full, standing-room only. Here comes my drummer. I'm feeling good. IT'S HIM IT'S HIM. We're digging in. *rubbing hands together, shifting weight in hard wooden chair, leaning forward* Then a homeless guy comes out and sits at the piano. Followed by a janitor who grabs the cello. The three of them are fantastically indifferent to their own performance - in fact, they may not have even noticed there was an audience: the homeless guy clearly rolled out of bed and shrugged, 'smells clean enough' before rubbing his beard into disarray and stumbling out into the harsh light of day, the janitor looked for all the world like someone you'd spill your guts to over a pint of cask ale in the city, and Our Drummer is wearing a stripey shirt with all sorts of white and blue and red like the world's sweetest patriot. They are totally unlike the Cacophony Duo, who were both dressed head-to-toe in black and played in the dark.

Now youguys, I'm not gonna lie: I wouldn't buy this recording. I wouldn't even seek it out on Spotify. It was madcap chaos - part Cacophony Jazz, part WHOAOAOAOAOAO Jazz. But I will say this: these guys were INSANE PLAYERS. The homeless guy - we found out later out he's Italian, which made all the sense in the world - was so into his piano that he literally CLIMBED INTO his piano. He played the strings as much as the keys. The cellist - middle-aged, wearing a rooster tee shirt - looked like he was trying to kill his instrument. He played the top, the bottom, the underside of the strings; he made it scream with his bow before hammering it with his fists. I have never seen hands move as fast as his did, and I've been pickpocketed in Madrid. And then of course Tatsu (I feel we're close enough I can call him that) played the drums, in the sense that he took a whole bunch of stuff and threw it, rubbed it, and scraped it across them, producing sounds that were wonderfully, wildly unnatural.

It was awesome. To watch. It will take days for my brain to quit bleeding.

In other news: we've got another show tonight! This one is the Mike Fletcher Trio at the Barbican. I hope - at least for Alan's sake - there's some high hat action.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Essss

*My body likes to deal with extreme stress by passing out, which makes me wicked vicious in a fight.

**We know nothing about the state of the French antiques market.

***Natalie and I can only communicate in pantomimes and charades, but she has got a face so expressive that she could tell the story of the Odyssey and not leave a detail out. We have no problems conversing.

CARROTS, right?

"It smells like a wet snowsuit. It's that kind of weird musty . . . then it's like, 'Let me make that a part of me.'" - Leslie Goshko, on eating celery

Okay, so for some reason blogger won't embed this video (I had this problem with a Funny or Die clip last week - does anybody know what I could be doing wrong?) but youguys have to watch this hilarious 'Americans Try Vegetables for the First Time' video. It will make you race straight over to Whole Foods.

Also, if it's wrong to be falling asleep at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night, then I don't want to be right. I've got a book and a phone full of funny funny tumblrs, which are my two favourite ways to unwind in an evening. Between this and my tylenol p.m., I just don't know if it gets better.

I love youguys, I hope your weekend is going well!

Lots of hugs,
Essss

Because Monday Deserves a Showcase

One must still have chaos within oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. - Nietzsche

Real World Confession: I am currently listening to the Pitch Perfect soundtrack on Spotify. Because I LIKE it. I like to think this is an upgrade from youtubing the riff-off, but I think we all know better.

Today let's talk about Things of Late That Have Given Me Joy (TOLTHGMJ, for short):

1. My sister has started her first blog! I am directing you to her first post because it's all about how awesome I am, so that's my favourite.

2. My friend Marie is assisting at a fashion shoot this week involving DOUGLAS BOOTH. Also quite possibly SAM CLAFLIN - you know, that shirtless guy from the Hunger Games? Finnick? THAT GUY. Needless to say, she's obviously going to be wearing her adult diapers. As am I, because I will be paying her the big bucks to take some illicit cell phone snaps when no one's looking.

3. Remember My Favourite College Roommate of All Time? She's officially NPR-endorsed AND performing at the Kennedy Center next month! Tom HANKS will be there, youguys. He is like the Douglas Booth of Amerka. Her career just continues to climb which means that it is ONLY a matter of time until I'm working on her Late Late Show.

4. Speaking of My Favourite College Roommate of All Time: remember her husband Kyle, the poet extraordinaire? He has recently shared this wonder of a Wordsworth. It will make your day.

5. And last but not least, this gift of gifts from The Annie:

And that concludes the day's list of brilliancy! It doesn't get better than this. 

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss

You owe it to all of us to get on with what you're good at. - W.H. Auden

Let's talk appliances.* Mostly because I blog from my kitchen table and that is what I have to look at. I just got a new food processor! It arrived yesterday to replace the one I broke. I don't know HOW I broke it, but I do know that in the midst of shredding potatoes to make the BEST LATKE WAFFLES EVER, it gave up the ghost. It whirred and whirred, but nothing doing. It was an old beast, to be fair, and one of those cheap miniature ones intended for the thrifty urban kitchen, so it had a good run. But can I tell you the thrill in my heart when I realised I get to buy a new kitchen appliance? Be still! Be still!

This is a thrill I don't get very often. I have to be sensible, you see, when it comes to buying things that belong in the kitchen. Because it is a tiny one.

 This is where I get all my best coffee-drinking blogging done.

My counter space is at capacity. So I can only get a NEW appliance if it is to replace an OLD one. This almost never happens. I have a blender that must be a century old and I suspect it will live forever just to spite me. So when my food processor started clanking and smelling of smoke, my first thought was, 'That looks like enough potato for two waffles,' followed by 'AMAZONAMAZONAMAZON.'

And my friends, I UPgraded. I didn't go nuts, mind, I still have a small kitchen - but this is a beautiful thing. I have gone from THREE blades to SIX. According to the picture on the box and the instruction manual I'll never read, this thing can make DOUGH. It can whip MERINGUE. It can grind COFFEE. It has a BLENDER jug. It is like the holy grail of appliances.

I may never sleep again.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to proofread for a couple of hours before it's time to purée my lunch.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

*We're at an all-new low.