Warren

1. Bath-time with my girls.  Forget expensive toys, educational videos, and all that guff -- give them a little water, some soap suds, a couple of cups, and a hairbrush, and they are having a blast for ages!
2. Sisterly love.  When E1 knocked E2 down and made her cry, I said, "Say sorry!" and she did immediately and then gave her a kiss.  My heart melted.
3. That I am able to feed them well -- oatmeal with blueberries and mango for brunch, pasta with carrot, sweet potato, and tomato for dinner, and fruit and yoghurt for snacks.  On the days where I'm not the best mama in other ways, knowing they are eating well really eases my mind.

Warren

© DE João Batista do Lago

o xis que me leva ao tesouro
é o xis do tesouro:
mapa disléxico
que me segreda infinitamente
que me esconde do ser
para ser o ser
que se esconde na floresta do ser

o tesouro enclausurado
guardado a sete chaves
revela o degredo dos segredos do ser
que infinitamente se esconde de ser
fechado no cofre do eterno ser
prenhe de medo do ser
que se esconde para sempre o ser

meus segredos são meu ser - meu degredo! -
que na infinita memória da floresta do ser
torna-se o xis do mapa:
não há signos nem há também sons
que o descubra para ser o ser
que se esconde no infinito caminho
do ser que se esconde de ser

There are several all very similar recipes for this honey and milk bath all attibuted to Cleopatra. Some use powdered milk and some use regular milk - some whole and some skim. If you are going to have this sort of bath on any sort of regular basis then you may want to try different mixtures to find the one that you like the best. Once you have made the mixture, you will want to add different amounts to the bath - again - to see what you like the best. Nothing in any of the mixtures can be harmful.

Here's the first:

Ingredients
1/4 Cup Powdered Milk
1/4 Cup Liquid Honey
1 teaspoon Jojoba Oil
You can add essential oils to your preference:
4 drops Rose Essential Oil
5 drops Patchouli Essential Oil
5 drops Sandalwood Essential Oil

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients thoroughly and add to your warm bath water.

And the second:

3.5 ounces Bicarbonate Soda
8 ounces Salt
3 pounds of Honey (that's a heck of a lot of honey - I have not tried this volume of honey myself so...)
3 quarts Milk

How to Make Cleopatra's Milk Bath

Step1
Dissolve bicarbonate soda and salt in a quart of water.
Dissolve the honey in milk.

Step2
Pour the soda and salt solution in the bath.
Mix and stir in the milk and honey.

Step3
The milk and honey make the skin soft an supple while the salt helps remove dead skin.
Soak in bath for about 20-30 minutes, rinse off (if present) any sticky residue from the honey and follow with a milk moisturizing cream.

And the third:
(The first three ingredients are pretty much the same as the first example with powdered milk and different volumes.)
1/2 cup powdered milk
1/2 cup raw honey
2 tsp jojoba oil

And a forth:

2 cups Powdered Milk
1/2 cup Bi-carbonate soda
1/2 cup Epsom salts
1/2 cup Honey
handful of Rose Petals
This one has a different combination of essential oils:
1 ml Geranium essential oil
.5 ml Mandarin essential oil
.5 ml Ylang Ylang essential oil

1 ml essential oils = 20 drops

TO MAKE:

1. Mix together powdered milk, bi-carb soda, epsom salts.
2. Heat honey just a little bit and add essential oils and mix thoroughly.
3. Then combine dry ingredients with honey mixture.
4. Once the mixture is well combined, then add a handful of Rose Petals.

Again, you will want to try the amounts that you want to use in your bath.

Here is a simple rinse for wrinkled skin
1 oz raw honey
1 cup skim milk
2 tsp aloe vera gel

combine ingredients in a jar and shake well. Apply to your face morning and evening with a cotton ball. Store mixture in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

I am concerned. I've always considered myself to be a caring and attentive parent. I take great pride in motherhood. I live for PTA meetings and used to LOVE cheering Deb on in her tai-chi tournaments. I'll never forget the day I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl, whose tiny angelic face was the color of a garden-fresh beet (or radish).

But in the past month or so, Deb has undergone major changes, and it's really starting to worry me. This morning while I was cleaning her room, I stumbled across a notepad that she likes to doodle in while she should be doing her homework (kids nowadays!) On the first page I found a to-do list, dated three months back, and it read as follows:

Perfectly normal, right? A healthy teen, enjoying her youth.That's the Deb I know and love.
All she seems to care about now are boys and the mall and spending time with the "cool kids." I haven't seen Blue Robin in weeks, and the two of them used to be inseparable!

I know some people send their children to therapy when they're acting up, and until now, I never envisioned myself doing such a thing. It seems shameful somehow, an admission that you're an unfit parent, one whose child has problems that you are incapable of handling on your own! Who know what will come of all this... Deb keeps hounding me for goat meat and won't explain why. It's troublesome. I once ate jerk-goat in Negril. Then Mr. Webster and I made love on the beach. We were on our honeymoon. It was lovely.

previously: Featured Bio - Mrs. Webster

previously: Deb Webster's Creative Writing Homework: Flowetry

As you can probably tell from browsing our website, one of our main focuses here at Online Bathrooms is to offer some of the cheapest prices around on all of our products! Further to this we have got more reductions in our <a href="http://www.onlinebathrooms.com/cat--Special-Offers-over-16-from-only-£109--special.html" target="_top">Special Offers</a> category which can be located from our <a href="http://www.onlinebathrooms.com/" target="_top">homepage</a>. So be sure to check these out before browsing the website as you may just find the perfect product for your bathroom!

Warren

This radiators will not only help you to finish wrapped in a nice warm towel but also turn your normal looking bathroom into a luxury you'll never want to leave! If this isn't what you want then why not check out the rest of our radiators to find something that suits you better!

Warren

As we like to keep you up-to-date with all the latest styles here at Online Bathrooms, we thought we'd take the oppurtunity to inform you of a recent change to the Milo Tap range from Ultra. Ultra offer over 30 different styles of taps, so your sure to find something that suits your taste! The latest alteration to their catalogue of products comes in the Milo Range where they have change the products style from this :

Into this new further developed style :

Which i'm sure you'll agree has the latest in bathroom fashion written all over it! So, check out the rest of Milo range today for a fantastic bathroom look!

Warren

After much arm twisting  my Dad has agreed to let me come back home! Yay.  Its not that dad doesnt want me back its just that my room is now full of stuff. Yes some of it is mine and some of it is not. woo!  After I mentioned an amount of money per week in exchange for a roof over my head and  a BATH (OMG YES I AM SOOOOOOO GOING TO GET NAKID AND SIT IN MY OWN FILTH FOR LIKE TWO HOURS OMG. FUCK YEAH.) dad was quite happy to accept me back.  Here are a few good points to me moving back home.

• A bath! ohh yeah I have so missed my baths.
• I can convince my cats to love me again.
• A  wood fire! no more having to buy gas.
• I can go through all my shit and then sell it on trademe!
• I can go to family dinners! mm.. me loves home cooking especially when its free!
• I can resume my morning workout routine (I live in an area with lots of uphill walking-ness its great. Where I live at the moment is mainly straight with like a few MAJOR  steep bridgey things argh)
• I can save money! (to  buy new clothes, shoes, jewelery and other pretty things when i go to wellington!)
• I will live closer to one of my friends and her gorgeous children..oh and her husband too lol
• I will live in the same town as my awesome flatmate and we can take his dogs for walks! and he can come visit when his family is annoying me!

And now a few bad points about moving back home.

•  May run into the ex. Will act civil. Not sure what he'll do. Hopefully not burn me at the stake.
• Get un announced visits from my nana. I love her but honestly she goes on a wee bit.
• its a small town. Everything is closed by 8pm. there are no chemists  open on the weekend.
• The booze stores close at 6pm.  (not that i drink much but hey its an inconvienience)
• The town is smallllllll... Everyone knows someone and i swear some people from my highschool still live in the same town.

I think thats it. OMG I'm totally watching the Cashmere Mafia at the moment. I cant believe they only made on season I love this show! Sure its not on the same par as Desperate housewives but its a good filler and I like their dress sense better.

I'm going to go drink more wine.. mmm... wine...

Oh yeah.. I got  the FeedDemon because I read lots of blogs and spend like half an hour going around seeing if anyone has new stuff With this thingee its sposed to make it easier except it made me think all my blogging peoples had all done new stuff.  Stupid thing.

Right im off now. Hooray for drinking and blogging. 

Love n hugs

me.

I only found two on my head, but I scrubbed my head with Levi's Tea Tree Shampoo tonight, just in case there were anymore. Levi always tells me "Where there's one, there's more. Where there's two, there's four!" :)

Puffy Buffy didn't mind getting a bath. She floats just like a duck. :D Dove, on the other hand, gave me a fit. What was really bad for her was on the last dunking, she decided to dip her head under. That just really freaked her out.. LOL. After that she was just downright mad at me.
So from now on, I will either put them both in with the little guineas, or the duck pen.

I have been practicing my psaltery just about every day, and I'm getting pretty good at it! I haven't been using my notebook at all, but just playing completely without the notes. It is so much easier than trying to read the notes and bow at the same time. :) I've memorized more of the up and down movements than the actual notes.

Levi took a trip through the woods to a field today, that used to have horses in it. They now have a cornfield in their place. He took the camera so he could take the pictures, since I wasn't going along with him.

The first is of one of the fields, full of corn. The second is of one of the vine infested places. Doesn't it look awesome? I bet there's a lot of snakes in there though.

The first here is of a turtle he found, and the second is a hawk. I lightened him up in the picture, so perhaps you can see him a bit better. :-)

I didn't go along with him because I just didn't want to handle all the attack flies, and not to mention the ticks that like to attach themselves to me. I have been seed-tickless so far this year, and I would not like to get them right now. Them little seed ticks are tough to get rid of, and on top of that, I usually get them every year. So I'm doing everything I can this year to avoid the little creatures!

1:5:10:201 EcoTip: Shower filters with KDF (kinetic degradation fluxation) are good for chlorine removal since they work better with hot water. Activated carbon works better for cold water.

***********************************

 Additional Information:

Suggested Review: :190, :191, :192, :195,

KDF is a zinc and copper alloy that reacts with chlorine transforming it into a chloride salt. The zinc and copper alloy metal helps control bacteria growth and can remove some heavy metals. Since KDF works well at higher temperatures, it outperforms other purification measures for shower and bath water, but the range of contaminants removed is somewhat limited.

Would you like to receive an email alert for each new 1:5:10:365 EcoTip? Sign up for a Google Alert.

Phew.

I called the marriage license people today, pretty sure they were going to tell me we were going to have to come down to the courthouse and get married again... but they didn't. They actually said it was no big deal just to send it in immediately (which the RR has already done), so Hubby and I ARE married. YAY! It felt weird not being sure about this. I've just started getting used to this whole "Burget" thing and referring to Hubby as, "my husband." (Wait until you say that for the first time -- doesn't really roll right off the tongue because it's almost unbelievable.. in a good way, of course!)

Happy weekend. I'm playing housewifey tonight.. catching up on my DVR'ed "stories," as BLF calls them, while Hubby drinks himself into oblivion with the boys at the beer fest in the Park Blocks. Glass of wine and hot, hot bath, here comes mama!

Good work, RR. Not only was our wedding ceremony wonderful and perfect in every way, but it all worked out in the end. La vie est bon, non?

Warren

Warren

I've heard of folks drinking in the shower to heighten the intensity of a buzz, but a beer bath is an antic few fratties have thought of.

Judging by this man's pastime and beard, he clearly knows what's up.

Source: Photographs of Old America

The Apex Bathroom Suite

This Stylish Modern Bathroom suite is designed with maximising space in mind with its corner basin and close coupled corner toilet it can expand the space in almost any bathroom comparatively to most other bathroom suite styles. The Apex Suite Includes: Apex Close Coupled Pan, Apex Close Coupled Corner Cistern, Apex Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Apex Single Tap Hole Corner Basin, Apex Full Pedestal.

The Alexis Bathroom Suite

The Alexis suite is a Stylish suite with a simplistic design but with the push button cistern which just gives it that bit more modern feel, suitable for almost any setting, The Alexis Suite includes: Alexis Close Coupled Pan, Alexis Close Coupled Cistern, Alexis Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Single Tap Hole Basin, Full Pedestal.

The Sector Bathroom Suite

The Sector Bathroom suite is most certainly contemporary in design, the curved design offers a sleek and smooth feel to the bathroom suite, the concealed cistern that needs to be incorporated into the suite further enhances the sleek and smooth feel, The sector Bathroom Suite includes:Sector Back To Close Wall Pan, Dedicated Toilet Seat ,Sector Single Tap Hole Basin, Sector Full Pedestal.

The Freedom Bathroom Suite

The Freedom Bathroom Suite is of a very simplistic modern design this is most evident by the thin cistern that is a very modern in design, Also the freedom suite comes with a soft close toilet seat which is a great addition so as to stop the toilet seat from slamming down when you let go, The Freedom Bathroom Suite includes: Freedom Close Coupled Pan, Freedom Close Coupled Cistern, Freedom Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Freedom Single Tap Hole Basin, Freedom Full Pedestal.

The Silke Bathroom Suite

The Silke Bathroom Suite is a very minimalistic design with simplicity in mind while still keeping a very stylish appeal to it. The Silke Bathroom Suite Includes: Silke Close Coupled Pan, Silke Close Coupled Cistern, Silke Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Silke Single Tap Hole Basin, Silke Full Pedestal.

The Georgia II Bathroom Suite

The Georgia II Bathroom Suite is a stylish modern designed suite with a simplistic design that still looks and feels luxurious, The Georgia II Bathroom Suite includes: Georgia II Close Coupled Pan, Georgia II Close Coupled Cistern, Georgia II Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Georgia II Single Tap Hole Basin, Georgia II Full Pedestal.

The Buxton Bathroom Suite

The Buxton Bathroom Suite is traditional in design and style with an emphasis on hard lines and edges throughout the suite in stark contrast to the more modern smooth lines. The Buxton Bathroom Suite Includes: Buxton close coupled pan, Buxton close coupled cistern, Buxton cistern fittings, Chrome and ceramic cistern lever, White toilet seat, Buxton 2 tap hole basin, Buxton full pedestal, Chrome basin waste.

The Molino Bathroom Suite

The Molino Bathroom Suite is a sleek stylish modern designed bathroom suite, the whole suite gives a very rounded smooth effect with both the pan and pedestal being very deeply rounded. The Molino suite includes: Molino Close Coupled Pan, Molino Close Coupled Cistern, Molino Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Molino Single Tap Hole Basin, Molino Semi Pedestal.

The Sorea Bathroom Suite

The Sorea Bathroom Suite is a very contemporary feel to it with the pedestal and basin having very definitive and sharp lines and edges giving it a sharp modern feel to the suite as a whole. The Sorea Bathroom Suite includes: Sorea Close Coupled Pan, Sorea Close Coupled Cistern, Sorea Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Sorea Single Tap Hole Basin, Sorea Full Pedestal.

The Veneto Bathroom Suite

The Veneto Bathroom Suite has a very robust elegance feel to it with its stylish shapes but still large shaped objects throughout the suite it offers a very different mix to a modern styled bathroom. The Veneto Bathroom Suite Includes: Veneto Close Coupled Pan, Veneto Close Coupled Cistern, Veneto Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Veneto Single Tap Hole Basin, Veneto Full Pedestal.

The Jessica Bathroom Suite

The Jessica Bathroom Suite is a stylish modern suite with a very cylindrical design to it with even the cistern not being the conventional square shape but instead having a rounded face. The Jessica Bathroom Suite Includes: Jessica Close Coupled Pan, Jessica Close Coupled Cistern, Jessica Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Jessica Single Tap Hole Basin, Jessica Full Pedestal.

The Palermo Bathroom Suite

The Palermo Bathroom Suite this elegant and stylish modern design bathroom suite is perfect for most bathroom settings. The Palermo Bathroom Suite includes: Palermo Close Coupled Pan, Palermo Close Coupled Cistern, Palermo Push Button Cistern Fittings, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Palermo Single Tap Hole Basin, Palermo Full Pedestal.

The Palermo Wall Hung Bathroom Suite

The Palermo Wall Hung Bathroom Suite is mostly similar in design to the palermo bathroom suite the obvious difference being that it is wall hung this adds certainly a different feel and versatility to the bathroom suite that the more conventional style. The palermo wall hung bathroom suite includes: Palermo Wall Hung Pan, Dedicated Toilet Seat, Palermo Single Tap Hole Basin, Palermo Semi Pedestal.

I had seen her around from time to time before I knew fully what she meant. She's quite pretty and plain. She is happy to a naked eye.

Late one night, walking on the cabin boarding that had soaked up the humidity of the day, I felt at ease and strong in my body. I felt like I knew what I wanted and I could get into my home to reach it. I wanted a bath, alone, with steaming water and sweet scented soapy bubbles. I wanted my hair up, but I wanted small strands to reach down to the water and get slightly wet. I wanted to tease the idea of having the whole mess fall down into that soapy water.

Walking. Walking.

Still walking, I slow my steps at the end where I turn to the stairs. I notice a small plastic cell phone. Pink. It's a clamshell version, lying facing up and open, with buttons that sparkle and glow in the faded darkness. The toy is in front of a door, an apartment like my own, but vacant with papers weathered and curled hanging from the doorknob. No one lives here, no one appreciates the long views and lightning bugs in the forest at night.

A baby cries. I can always hear babies crying all around me in my home, especially howling in the bathroom through the pipes. It's not unknown to me, in a complex with couples as fertile as the green manicured grass all around us. This baby is different--she is crying with the intimacy of a grown woman. Babies cry as a response to something they are usually unaware of that causes them discomfort, not knowing how to fix it. This baby is different--she is aware of what's wrong, she's aware there's nothing to fix it. It seeps into my flesh and feeds my veins the type of adrenaline I'd need to reach to that golden tarnished doorknob.

The door creaks as I open it, matching the baby's high pitched cries and throaty expressions.
The apartment is muggy and warm, confirming my suspicions that the place is vacant, untouched, virginal ground...waiting for another fertile couple to occupy its walls with loving embraces and fights, and babies that cry differently and more perfectly than the one I hear all around me.
I walk slowly into the living room, seeing in the still darkness other strange children's toys thrown around in odd positions.
A Barbie is vivid to me even through the darkness, bent and contorted into a strange backward crescent shape, with hair wild, red and stringy over the beige and plain carpet.
The home smells of that sweet smelling soap, of lotion and sparkles a little girl might have...infiltrating my nostrils and reminding me of the somber evening I'd planned.
The adrenaline reminded me that I knew this would happen eventually, and it's all following a course.

I found her in the far bedroom, the one as large as three bedrooms with an odd shape and contour. She sat near the window, catching a bit of fickle moon light, smiling and crying at the same time. I had seen her around from time to time, more put together than this, although this was always visible on her arms and legs in long paths of bruises, on her face in the narrow curve of her eyes and confusion in her mouth's expression. She was making noises a mother makes to calm and entertain her child, but they were in a higher octave than many would consider normal and seemed to be influenced by the adrenaline in my own veins. She was practicing baby speak on growth hormones, her face distorted and tensioned due to the overwhelming nature of the sounds her mind implored her to create.

Another version of her with chubby arms and legs thrown about the floor, twisted into a backward crescent and howling into the night, cut on the bottoms of her feet and complete with a thick and dampened diaper. Another version of her, unable to benefit from the highs coursing through her blood, suffering from the strain put on her understanding, and completely knowledgeable about happiness and unhappiness at the age of 18 months. Another version of her with a dirty slate, the slate that comes from understanding what it is to be an expense to your creator.

You'll never undo the burdens you create in this life.

I sat to speak with her and wiped away a mascara tear before it dropped onto her color coordinated, expensive and still somehow incomplete outfit.

She talked to me about depression. She talked to me about medication. She talked to me about mind-warping pills and falling down repeatedly. She talked to me about being trapped in her own body, aware of her actions and unable to prevent and control them. She talked to me about being a good Christian, about her trials and errors, and about how she tries and fails so often but continues to try. She wanders from friend to friend, but people only stare at her blankly in avoidance. She tries to interact, but there's no one to interact with but her own second self. She seeks out people, but no one could ever understand her... no one would ever even try to, it's far too dangerous. She wishes she knew what it was that made people treat her differently than she sees people being treated on the bright lights of her TV at home.

She was strangely knowledgeable on the facts of birth control, living organisms in the womb, how to prevent them, and how to ignore the reality of abortions and care for them if you cannot prevent them. Her words slurred only slightly, her tears came and went, and her eyes told me she was present even through the strange body actions and quivers.

The crying of her second version ceased and began often, and it never fully stopped. It came in surges that were completely unpredictable, in waves that I began to recognize as something her first lives with and fails to react to. In a way, they are both completely numbed. The first fails to recognize the second as she wails and screams, the second wails and screams about the first...but the stimulus is never consistent or necessary. It is completely unpredictable and therefore comes and goes without reason or cause, as a result of a numbed feeling of constant rejection.

I sat cross-legged as I did as a child.

I bit my inner lip and hoped neither would see.
I bit back a tear or two myself, and longed for that steamy, sweet and soapy bath I had planned on instead. I felt dirty, from the intentions this world has for all of its creatures, and all of the things I could be but am not. I wandered out, but not before stretching at the door... my legs had fallen asleep and my arms were really hurting me. I stretched into a backward crescent shape, and continued on the cabin steps to my door.

I was there just over a month, and I developed a love/hate relationship with it. Did I like it there? Yes. Would I go back? Absolutely. Would I want to stay forever? Probably not. Before I got to Bath, some guy suggested to me that Bath is possibly a Saratoga-esque city writ large. In many ways that's true- it's a city famed for its spas and healing waters, there are plenty of overpriced bars and restaurants, and tourists are always wandering with maps and sneakers and backpacks- but Bath's size alone makes it more. I know I didn't explore much of the city, but the area I'm familiar with gave me impression enough. There's nothing to overwhelm, and its an easily walkable place. Its safe.

The people I encountered likewise inspired either love or hate. When I got out of class on one of the last few days, a couple of us were standing on the sidewalk, bumping elbows huddled under umbrellas, chatting before going our separate ways. Sidewalks here are not large like in some cities. There's just enough room for two people to pass comfortably by without getting too close; three people is a squeeze. A woman with a rolling suitcase approached, and before she was even close to us, began telling us to give way and let her pass by. As we shifted out of her way, she pressed on through, giving me a good whack in the face with the side of her umbrella. Excuse me? Pedestrian etiquette here is strange, but this woman was just hostile. I saw others have this same experience, in which their conversation was disrupted because someone didn't want to walk around them, so they pressed straight through. Its the kind of experience which, if recurrent, makes you want to live someplace else.

The young people I met in Bath, though, were all great people- chatty, inquisitive, and great listeners. People tell you a lot these days that nobody likes Americans, but in England, everyone I encountered loves American culture but hates American politics. More men admitted a love of Sex in the City than I would have imagined possible, and one guy I met (Blair, what a charming name) said his favorite movie was Harold and Maude. They all scoffed at Foster's and Stella, beer which puts most American brews to shame, but is nothing special there. Everyone wants to see New York, but nobody really gets New York State. They're charmed by our accents and think "awesome" is hilarious. They showed us a good time but couldn't really relate to the broke American college student money problem. Taxis queue at the train station, businessmen queue at the ATM, and the guy at the grocery store thought I was from Pennsylvania (maybe Sarah passed through Sainsbury's earlier that day...). I want to go back to all that.

Now that I'm home I miss it, of course, and want to see all of the ASEers either before shipping out to Copenhagen or after I get home in December. Hummus here is just not the same, and I know my reading habits will all be shot to hell in the next few days. I'll probably never read Oscar Wilde aloud with my professor in a pub at 3:30 in the afternoon or go to karaoke (at least not without a tear coming to my eye). As these reminisces grow long, I'll try to keep the rest short...

[caption id="attachment_12" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Oxford"][/caption]

Oxford: great, great city. Before we got to Oxford for our Oscar Wilde seminar trip, I didn't realize that its just an enormous college town. Oxford University consists of somewhere between 32 and 39 smaller colleges, if my memory serves me correctly, which make up the larger Oxford University system. The six of us, along with Professor Black and our sort of tour guide Adrian, wandered through the different colleges in utter disbelief. I can't imagine going to a school that was not only around in Chaucer's time but also home to C.S. Lewis and various other big name authors and scholars. At Worcester College, the school Adrian is a tutor at, we got to see the passageway that inspired The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe- the dark cramped space that opened into a snowy field lit by a lonely street lamp.

Adrian, being a faculty member, was able to use his ID to get us into a lot of places not open to the public, which was phenomenal. We saw incredible stained glass, chapels, and pianists, a bizarre shaded hill in the middle of a pristine and pruned lawn where we had lunch, the Christ Church hall now famous in Harry Potter movies, a classy garden wedding reception with fancy hats, the BBC Antiques Roadshow, ancient libraries, bars, and trees, and the hall where Wilde would have given lip to his examiners when he was at Magdalen College. The day closed with punting on the river and no casualties, with the single exception of Scott's claims to manliness and dignity.

[caption id="attachment_13" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="London, Pt.II of II"][/caption]

I took two trips to London while in England- the first to tour Oscar Wilde's haunts, the second to see Corin Redgrave do a dramatic reading of De Profundis, Wilde's letter written in prison to his ex-lover Bosie (Lord Alfred Douglas). I've seen the tourist stuff in London before with my dad and brother, so it was nice to just wander for a bit. The first trip was uneventful, though Gile and I did explore some of the seedy, basement life of London and came out unscathed... kind of. We ate delicious Thai food for just about nothing, got rained on, and saw the UK equivalent of the Minister of Defense.

The second trip to London was a quick one. We were there for a few hours to see the  Redgrave reading, eat dinner, and head home in time to go out to the pub. Redgrave's performance was beyond impressive. Brits have an appreciation for the theater that Americans completely lack, and tickets are cheap, too. De Profundis is a furious letter Wilde wrote from jail, blaming Bosie, Bosie's father, and himself for the situation he was in. I expected that a single man sitting in a chair on a platform on an empty stage would be horrifically boring, but I was floored. Redgrave didn't deliver the letter the way I would have expected- there seemed to be too much irony and humor and not enough anger and bitterness- but it was still wonderful. The whole show was about an hour from curtain raise to Redgrave's assisted shuffle to stage right, and he held my attention throughout. It was impressive as the dinner Professor Black got us was delicious. I love that woman.

Much of th London I saw could be compared to New York's upper east side. There are lots of pretty buildings, pretty trees, pretty people with stupid little dogs. I liked the energy compared to Bath because its bigger, louder, and more egotistical. That's not to say I would rather have been there than in Bath, but London was a nice change for a few hours.
-
So, there you have it. My five week trip in as many hurried paragraphs. I'm home now and happy to be close, or at least closer, to everyone I've missed. Last night I went with my mom and Fred to see Anthony da Costa and Abbie Gardiner play at The Living Room, and I'm headed back for a Gillen & Turk show tomorrow. This household is turning me into a hippie, folk music, vegetable loving socialist. Dad is pleased with his new boat and Andy is just back from a sci-fi (Campbell/SFRA) conference in Lawrence, Kansas. The guy is a goddamn nerd, but there's no doubt that he's good at being that way.

I miss Bath and know I'm irritating as hell always talking about it, but I'm not ready for those weeks to be done. The whole experience has been valuable, and I think its the people- in Bath, back home, not near enough- that made it good for me. Thanks, I guess.

See you at the pub.