the cracked lookingglass of a servant

My days since Spain have been filled with trying to get over a sickness I picked up over the nights there of no sleep and too much drink.

I love a good sick day in bed, I won't lie, but it's all a different game when you're sick for seven days in bed, and when you're in a foreign country and so your mommy's not there to make you tea, orange juice, pick up the remote off the floor when you drop it, and generally pander to every wish. Hauling myself to the ER (or A&E here, "Accident & Emergency") with a fever, clogged ear, and a sore throat with difficulty swallowing, after just an hour and a half wait, the NHS was kind enough to have a doctor examine me and give me a pack of penicillin, all for freeeeeeeee!!!! Brilliant.

Anyway, thanks to penicillin, 36 hours later I was feeling tip-top. I had a great week of seminars on Ezra Pound & Hitchcock, and lovely socializing with mates from my program.

Thursday evening, Rebecca had a bunch of us over for a Thanksgiving feast, which was an improvised riff on a traditional T-day. There was roast chicken, sliced potatoes, apple&sage boxed stuffing, green beans, yorkshire pudding with jelly bears inside of them, and for dessert, RAINBOW CHIP FROSTING, brought all the way from America that very day by Rebecca's saintly friend.


Saturday was yoga & a trek out to Wimbledon to have a thanksgiving feast with Meg & Ben. We made mashed potatoes FROM SCRATCH, and the rest we sort of...heated up. More delicious boxed stuffing, a lot of Whole Foods pre-made tofu & quiches & whatnot (they don't get their Tofurkey until Christmastime here, phooey), brioche rolls, gravy, mm, gravy.

Delicious English yuletide log thing of mint ice cream...the name escapes me now, starts with a "V." Verdict: DELICIOUS. X-Factor in the background. O, Simon Cowell & Sharon Osborne, I love you!

Lovely twilit Wimbledon:
All in all, I'm feeling healthy again, and two Thanskgiving dinners in one week: not bad, not bad at all.

Today's lazy Sunday will be filled with listening to NPR online, which makes me feel happy & closer to home, more Ulysses, which is holding a strange charm over me, yoga, and tonight: the EAGERLY-anticipated (by me, anyway) new Wes Anderson film, Darjeeling Limited. Yessssss.