What, no books?
The Major and I took a trip last weekend, to St Louis. We went by train.
I like train journeys. I like that you don't have to concentrate on the road, that you can stand up and walk around, and visit the friendly people in the dining carriage for a hot chocolate and a burger (calories don't count on trains). I like that you can look out of the window and daydream.
But most of all I like the opportunity to read.
I love reading, in fact it is possibly my favourite thing in the whole world. If I was told I couldn't read any more I think I would actually die. So for me, a five and a half hour train journey is the perfect opportunity. I couldn't do any of the niggly, nitpicking jobs that take up reading time normally (like cleaning or washing up) and I didn't have my computer, so I couldn't blog.
I had taken books with me, of course, but another of my favourite things to do on trains is to catch up - and I mean really catch up - on some news and comment. So I will buy a selection: a newspaper, The Spectator, Private Eye - maybe a copy of Vogue for some light relief - and read them from cover to cover. It's my train treat.
We arrived in St Louis in plenty of time - almost an hour early. The perfect opportunity to buy some reading material - maybe even a new book. But although we searched high and low, there was not one place to buy such a thing.
We were in Kansas City, a sizeable city, with an enormous and impressive station, a hangover from the golden age of train travel. Lots of trains come in and out of Kansas City - it's right in the middle, after all. But although we could have, should we have chosen, purchased a fancy bodum cafetiere, a variety of African artefacts and every sort of food type under the sun, from sushi to bagels, we couldn't buy a book. Or a magazine. or a newspaper that wasn't the Kansas City Star and wasn't several days old.
The bookstore, we were told, had closed down a few weeks ago.
It is beyond me how anyone about to embark on a potentially long train journey (and they are mostly long in these parts, they don't have high speed rail yet) would not want to furnish themself with some reading matter.
Perhaps the travellers in America are all very organised and buy in advance. But surely half the joy of a journey is agonising over which magazine to buy, and coming out of Smiths or wherever with a fat carrier bag under your arm? I just don't get it.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
A call from someone at the gym:
Gym man: "I'm just calling to confirm your appointment at 7pm tonight"
Me: "Yes that's fine. Is there any chance I could come a little earlier?"
Him (seriously thrown by this): "Errr, I'm not sure, I don't believe so."
Me: "So you can't see the schedule?"
Him: "Yes that's right."
Me: "You mean you can't see it?"
Him: "Yes that's right"
Me: "Can you see the schedule, or can you not see the schedule?"
Him: "Oh no. I can not see the schedule. I'm just the guy who calls people."
Sigh......
Am in the process of filling in two forms that will shortly be winging their way to the American government.
Form number one: one page.
Form number two: four pages.
Total number of pages of instructions to fill in the two forms: 18.
And they have the gall to pompously announce a"Paperwork Reduction Act' on the last page of the instructions....
Monday, 8 February 2010
Sunday, 7 February 2010
There is one thing here which really gets my goat, and that is tax.
Ok, so tax, or taxman are pretty dirty words whatever country you live in, but here the problem is more than just the yearly return to the Inland Revenue. Specifically, tax here is the VAT imposed on every single thing that you buy - except, unlike in the UK, it is not built into the price. Instead, each state, and each area within each state has its own rate or tax, which is then added to the total of whatever you buy.
This morning, the Major and I went off to the gym to sign up, thinking it would be a good idea to try and burn off some of the excess calories from the enormous portions - and besides, we had heard that this particular gym did very good deals for military folk. The total for the remaining ten months of this year would be something like $457 for the two of us. Bargain, we thought. Only, we had forgotten about the tax - so the actual total was something over $500.
It's like this everywhere. You think that something is an incredible bargain at $2 or whatever, but forget about the tax. It's made more complicated by the different rates in different places, so you can't just do a simple sum in your head so as not to get such an enormous shock at the check out (although admittedly, I'm not very good at simple sums, and even less so when the figure is something like 1.756%). It's pretty disappointing, particularly when you're already having to do mental arithmetic to work out how much something is in pounds (although I'm sure that will fade eventually).
What I have yet to discern is whether Dollar General (the US equivalent of the pound store) figures tax into its prices, or whether everything is actually more than a dollar. I'll keep you posted.
Ok, so tax, or taxman are pretty dirty words whatever country you live in, but here the problem is more than just the yearly return to the Inland Revenue. Specifically, tax here is the VAT imposed on every single thing that you buy - except, unlike in the UK, it is not built into the price. Instead, each state, and each area within each state has its own rate or tax, which is then added to the total of whatever you buy.
This morning, the Major and I went off to the gym to sign up, thinking it would be a good idea to try and burn off some of the excess calories from the enormous portions - and besides, we had heard that this particular gym did very good deals for military folk. The total for the remaining ten months of this year would be something like $457 for the two of us. Bargain, we thought. Only, we had forgotten about the tax - so the actual total was something over $500.
It's like this everywhere. You think that something is an incredible bargain at $2 or whatever, but forget about the tax. It's made more complicated by the different rates in different places, so you can't just do a simple sum in your head so as not to get such an enormous shock at the check out (although admittedly, I'm not very good at simple sums, and even less so when the figure is something like 1.756%). It's pretty disappointing, particularly when you're already having to do mental arithmetic to work out how much something is in pounds (although I'm sure that will fade eventually).
What I have yet to discern is whether Dollar General (the US equivalent of the pound store) figures tax into its prices, or whether everything is actually more than a dollar. I'll keep you posted.
Friday, 5 February 2010
If you'd told me, six months ago, that I was going to take up quilting and become really rather excited at the prospect of sewing, I wouldn't have believed you.
Nevertheless, it has come to pass. Quilting is pretty big stuff round here, and in an effort to produce some material for this blog, I decided to go along to a free class. What I hadn't expected was to b quite so seduced.
After an hour or so of learning about the different terms and what works in terms of colour, we all (there are about five of us in the class) sped off to a little quilting shop in Eudora (one horse town, feels like you're in a wild west movie). A sign in the window proclaimed that Jesus is Lord, and the background music was primarily worship music, of the syrupy variety. Nevertheless, there was a ot of lovely fabric. I had intended to stay 40 minutes at most. Two hours later I walked out, dazed, parted of cold hard cash and clutching a pile of material. I vowed to complete the quilt and tick it off the list.
Yesterday, I found myself outside a fabric emporium in another town. I am now in posession of two sets of different material. That's two quilts. Perhaps I have a new career ahead of me.
Nevertheless, it has come to pass. Quilting is pretty big stuff round here, and in an effort to produce some material for this blog, I decided to go along to a free class. What I hadn't expected was to b quite so seduced.
After an hour or so of learning about the different terms and what works in terms of colour, we all (there are about five of us in the class) sped off to a little quilting shop in Eudora (one horse town, feels like you're in a wild west movie). A sign in the window proclaimed that Jesus is Lord, and the background music was primarily worship music, of the syrupy variety. Nevertheless, there was a ot of lovely fabric. I had intended to stay 40 minutes at most. Two hours later I walked out, dazed, parted of cold hard cash and clutching a pile of material. I vowed to complete the quilt and tick it off the list.
Yesterday, I found myself outside a fabric emporium in another town. I am now in posession of two sets of different material. That's two quilts. Perhaps I have a new career ahead of me.
I forgot to write about something really rather fabulous that the Major and I did last weekend.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have joined a choir since arriving over here. Indirectly through this, we ended up spending last Saturday singing with prisoners and raising money in the process.
It's all through a brilliant charity called Arts in Prisons, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. They decided to have a singalong fundraiser, where anyone who could read music could come along for the afternoon, rehearse for a couple of hours and then warble joyfully under the expert guidance of Weston Noble, one of America's top conductors (in his 80s, but he's still got it). So we did. And it was wonderful. The men's choir - the East Hill Singers - were particularly wonderful, and really moving. A note in the programme quoted one of the inmates, who pointed out that when you're in prison and used to being told that basically you're a shit, to get applauded at a concert is completely life affirming. So we applauded them, loudly, and they applauded us. It was all rather jolly.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have joined a choir since arriving over here. Indirectly through this, we ended up spending last Saturday singing with prisoners and raising money in the process.
It's all through a brilliant charity called Arts in Prisons, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. They decided to have a singalong fundraiser, where anyone who could read music could come along for the afternoon, rehearse for a couple of hours and then warble joyfully under the expert guidance of Weston Noble, one of America's top conductors (in his 80s, but he's still got it). So we did. And it was wonderful. The men's choir - the East Hill Singers - were particularly wonderful, and really moving. A note in the programme quoted one of the inmates, who pointed out that when you're in prison and used to being told that basically you're a shit, to get applauded at a concert is completely life affirming. So we applauded them, loudly, and they applauded us. It was all rather jolly.
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