Dispatches from the mountains, Part 3

Today's subtitle: And then....that happened....

Because...

Well...

I'll admit it, I was more than a little freaked out by our cabin in the woods on the first night. I already wrote about how I wanted to go home, how I was expecting hairy, sweaty madmen to appear at every window.

But by last night, I was feeling zen-like about the whole experience. I'd learned to love the dark wood surrounding me, the dangers of the slippery river rocks. I'd even embraced the wide-open windows and their mostly-unused, heavy drapes. By the time I went to bed last night, I was damn peaceful.

And then...this morning...at 5:30 in the stinkin' a.m....the phone rang.

NOT one of our cell phones. NOT a skype connection on our computers. But a land-line, a sole little phone plugged into one of these dark, wooden walls.

It rang for all its little life was worth. Ring. Ring. Ring.

We rolled over in the darkness, confused, muddled. "Wha..." Charles mumbled as my heart pounded with adrenaline from the sudden awakening.

I stumbled out of bed, scared.

Because...isn't this how most horror movies get started? Don't the peacefully sleeping heroes get awakened by a phone call in the middle of the night, only to find they're being stalked by the hairy, sweaty madmen who tells them he has the house surrounded? Don't they then dissolve into an evolution of terror only to wind up killed and hung on the walls to dry?

Isn't that what always happens?

I grabbed the phone, a cordless, and carried it wordlessly into the room and handed it, still ringing its death chime, to my half-asleep husband.

Who set it down on the nightstand and rolled back over into sleep.

Um...WHAT????

It stopped ringing after eight long, insistent bellows, and I noticed I was still alive. There was no hairy, sweaty madman leering in the window. So I got out of bed and checked on Zoe who was sleeping, zen-like, peacefully, on the couch.

So I lay back down next to Charles and tried to calm racing heart with soothing thoughts of sunshine and rainbows.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. Death chimes re-visited.

I wanted to cry.

This time, Charles answered sleepily. "It's just beeping at me..." and he got up to make some coffee. And me? I never quite dozed back off either.

But...I'm still alive. Still. So is Zoe. So is Charles (even after a close encounter with a (non)venomous snake while hiking today). So all is well. And I'll just have to remind myself once again that my overactive imagination is better left for my noveling efforts.

And....today, Zoe got a set of marbles. She calls them "marvels." I like it.

Dispatches from the mountains, Part 2

This post should seriously be subtitled "Zoe is a trooper."

I mean really. We're on day four of our five day vacation, and we've been going non-stop pretty much since we got here. I already told you about our first hike (a full mile for some very tiny legs, without any complaints)...but there's so much else!

Wow!

In the first place, the wedding Saturday night was excellent. The bride, our friend Ashley, was truly lovely, and even though the weather was TERRIBLE (they had to move the outside wedding inside at the very last minute), I never saw her break a sweat.

And Zoe? Holy cow, she danced the night away. Seriously, I've never seen anything like it. My typically shy little girl completely opens up as soon as there's music and a dance floor. Hopping, spinning, turning, leaping, she does it all. Even some ballet moves (and she's never even had one class). I mean, she DOES look a bit like Elaine from Seinfeld, so it's not like her skills are astonishing, but her energy and joy are boundless. We finally had to leave during the speeches because you could see the imminent crash by Zoe coming; she'd only had a 20 minute nap that day.

She slept until 7:30 the following morning, a record for her.

Our days since have included LOTS of driving, especially yesterday when the weather was pretty awful. She hasn't had a real nap since we left the house on Friday, and has instead caught 20- to 30-minute catnaps in the car. The few meltdowns we've had have been epic, but for the most part she's been cheerful, enthused and engaged.

Today we went to Tweetsie Railroad, a Wild West theme park, and it was like her holy land or something. She rode two separate trains, an airplane and a helicopter, and she even got to ride some go-carts with Charles. There was also a ton of junk food (argh, she's eaten SO MUCH JUNK FOOD) and silly tourist-trap souvenier souvenir stores where we picked out presents for friends, and a frog and a bag of rocks for Zoe. Plus, there was Rusty the Cowboy, on whom Zoe now has a huge crush. Whew.

Then we went on a huge hike to see a waterfall, and once again (once we got past the epic meltdown for the day) Zoe was great. She kept up with us, every step. Over hills, crossing streams, climbing up and down stairs. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Not a single complaint. Zoe is a trooper.

And as for me...well, traveling with a three-year-old is less relaxing than, say, my solo trip to London, but it's been mostly great. I've been enjoying some amazing views of some seriously breathtaking mountains, and I had tons of fun at Tweetsie, too. Plus, today there was a piece of the hike which was maybe a little too complex for Zoe, so she and I sat on a bench and waited for Charles to go check it out. When he got back, he said it was great, so he and Zoe started back for the car while I went to go see. I promised to catch up. The view to which I climbed was pretty amazing (waterfall, trees, valleys, mountains...wowsa!), but my favorite part was trying to "catch up." I decided to jog (even though I was hopelessly ill-equipped), and seriously, it's been years since I did any sort of running on hills. I'd forgotten how FUN it is!!! So that was a lovely moment in an equally lovely day for me.

Oh - and the hot tub? Gonna be great for some sore hiking muscles.

Love from the mountains!!

Dispatches from the mountains, Part 1

Charles, Zoe and I are in Boone, NC, to attend a friend's wedding (but to all you would-be criminals who want to rob our house knowing we're out of town, please know that our house is protected by a FIERCE and FEROCIOUS dog, as well as wonderful neighbors who are VERY attentive). A couple months ago, when we heard about the wedding, we decided to make a proper vacation of the trip and rented a small cabin on a river for a full five days.

So here we on in the mountains, where it is breathtakingly beautiful at all turns, where little tourist traps offering gem mining and fossil factories line the windy roads, and where Charles would love to live.

Really, it is gorgeous here. We got our first view of the mountains yesterday about four hours into our five-hour drive, and it was sooooo nice to be out of the lowcountry where we live. And then, our ears started popping. And then Zoe, who had been damn near angelic for most of the trip, had just about had it. And then, to get to our cabin, we turned down a gravel road that is lined on one side with one house's private art (junk) collection. And I've seen the movie "The Last House on the Left" far too recently, and I began to freak out. A little.

So we got our bearings in the cabin, then headed out to find some food. We wound up eating dinner at a Japanese steakhouse, Zoe's first hibachi experience. It was totally random, and not what we'd have typically picked while on vacation (we like fancy food, I'll admit it), but it was perfect. Zoe loved the "cook on the table" show, and we relaxed, me with two glasses of strong red wine.

So then, we came back to the cabin, and we tried to take a walk on the river. Which I cannot do when I've had two glasses of wine. At least not without sitting down hard on my bottom after slipping on some algae. Whoops. I felt even more insecure.

We let Zoe stay up late to try to look for fireflies (she'd never seen any) but it apparently gets dark super-late here, so suddenly it was 9:00, Zoe was falling apart and so was I, and still, no fireflies.

We learned last night that you cannot expect a child to sleep in an unfamiliar, dark, kind of creepy room on her first night in a little cabin. She finally fell asleep on the couch, but not after one of her most impressive meltdowns ever.

Oh well, lesson learned.

I'll be honest, I was ready to throw in the towel by then. I was exhausted, frazzled, and I swear I kept expecting to see a creepy face out every window I saw. I wanted my own bed in my bright, sunny house.

But we persevered, and things were much better this morning...except for a dizzy-spat I can only attribute to the much higher altitude here...my head was swimming for much of the morning.

But still, we persevered more. We headed out to explore the Blue Ride Parkway and it was AMAZING. We stopped at a "Craft House" (gift shop) and explored around this old mansion a bit, and even got to pet some horses. A few miles up the road, we stopped again to hike a "moderate to strenuous" trail that was so much fun I wish we could do it every day. Zoe kept up with us for a full mile (half mile out and back - we were afraid to push her much further than that) and was hilarious, hopping over and off of large roots and tree stumps. She only fell once, and hopped right back up to keep on hiking.

I'm glad we've found something we all love doing together, and I've already gotten much more comfortable in our cabin. Zoe's still having some sleep issues (translation: no nap) so tonight's wedding might get a little hairy for us, but still, it's going to be beautiful.

Oh, and the weather? When we left Charleston yesterday at 9 a.m., it was already pushing 90, with near 80% humidity. Here? Oh, it's been in the 70s. All day. I hiked in jeans and a hoodie. AMAZING. So we'll be staying the full five days.

Dispatches from London, the final chapter

I'm sitting at my gate in Gatwick Airport. It's Wednesday morning, I've barely slept, and I've already been on two trains and a shuttle-tram-thingie today. I think it's 8:00 a.m. local time...meaning it's 3:00 a.m. where I'm headed.

It's going to be a long day.

Anyway, I mention the day/time as there's no wi-fi here at the gate, and I know I won't post tihs until either late tonight or tomorrow morning. Right now, I'm writing in NotePad as my little pink laptop doesn't have Word.

So, you know, I'm having fun, as always.

This will be my final dispatch from London, as I am heading HOME today, so I thought I'd provide some last reflections.

First, although I've been ending with Charles and Zoe throughout my prior dispatches, I will start with them today. Yesterday afternoon/evening, I Skyped with them for one last time. They'd been to work/school, and Zoe had not napped and was exhaustedly immersed in Sesame Street and Elmo's World. So, she didn't want to talk. And,in fact, she told me that I shouldn't come home for another four days! I know you can't let things a two-year-old says and does hurt your feelings, but I have to say, that made me a little sad. Just four days ago, she wanted me home RIGHT THEN, and now she's ok with another four days? I'm going to hope she didn't really know what she was saying.

On the other hand, Charles, while still tired, looked so amazing and cozy that I wanted to fly through my computer screen, sit in his lap, and fall asleep with my head on his shoulder. Guess I'll have to wait until tonight, huh? What a bummer.

Anyway...London...that's what I've been writing about, right?

London.

What a city! What a trip! It's been so overwhelming in some ways, it's hard to even think about.

Like...in the first place...I grew up an hour outside New York City, so I spent a lot of time there as a kid. I'm no stranger to cities, even though I've been living in the semi-rural suburbs (come on, my parents keep horses 5 minutes from my house - it's semi-rural!!) in South Carolina for eight years. But still. London felt bigger. Fuller. More crowded even than Times Square at Christmastime. It both impressed and intimidated me, and I quickly found that native Londoners would as soon knock you down as look at you. I kid you not! I am typically able to make people smile, particularly children, but in London? Not so much. Not that I tried hard - I mostly just tried to keep to myself. But the only time I've made any connections with unnamed strangers here has been with a Swedish woman on the way to the airport this morning. We were both a little overwhelmed by travel, and even in that five-minute, semi-language-blocked time span, it was nice to have a friend with whom to find a damn elevator.

Also...so yesterday, Daniel and I spent a couple hours walking through the Bethnal Green neighborhood, which I loved. It's heavily Indian and Middle Eastern, and there were sari stores in whose windows I could gaze longingly (I think saris are about the most beautiful form of clothing on Earth), the smell of curries and tagines drifted from restaurants and street food vendors, and I felt almost like I was back in New York, in the Village. It just had that laid back, eclectic feel. I felt comfortable.

And then, moments after thinking that, I saw a small handful of women walking down the street in full-length black birkas. I'll admit...I was taken aback by it, as it's something I'd honestly never seen before. Only on TV, and typically only on the news. And, upon reflection a bit later, I realized that while I fully support the freedom to express oneself and one's religious beliefs, I just find birkas over the top. They seem more to me a symbol of repression than of religion. I found myself wondering about the houses in which these women lived. Birkas do not have to be worn to be safe on British streets, so the fact that these women wore them made me question why. Did they really feel it appropriate streetware, based on their religions? Or did they have husbands/brothers/fathers at home who insisted they wear them, sometimes in the name of religion, but possibly in the name of ownership and repression.

I don't know. It just made me think.

Incidentally, Daniel had downloaded a documentary called Women, Weddings, War and Me earlier in the day, and we watched it yesterday evening. It follows a girl named Nel whose parents fled Afghanistan's wars back in the 80s, moved to London when Nel was just 6 years old, and raised here there. She grew up having every opportunity afforded to London kids, but as she reached her early twenties, she began to question her identity. Not really British, not really Afghani...so she took a trip back to Afghanistan to see if sometimes you can go home.

She couldn't. Between birkas and arranged marriages, war and women burning themselves to escape abusive husbands, she was overwhelmed by the realities of her homeland.

It was an amazing documentary, and I hope I can find a link to it to post here - yesteray I only found the BBC version/listing, which you can't watch from the States, and I really think anyone interested in the politics of the Middle East should watch it.

Sigh. I must be tired. I'm contemplative.

Anyway, then...yesterday's more normal recap!

We slept in!! We were exhausted! We didn't leave the flat until after noon, when we wandered down to the V&A Museum of Childhood, which was really cool, if a lot crowded. They had tons of exhibits of toys throughout the ages, including ancient Victorian dollhouses that were so intricate that no child today would be allowed to touch them for fear of choking, and an array of scary, creepy, crazy dolls and clowns. We had fun poking around for a while, but then needed to flee the massive amounts of screaming children.

After that was when we walked around Bethnal Green, Brick Street (I think??) and down to Liverpool Street. We passed cool music and bookstores, cafes...really, it was my kind of town.

Exhausted, we headed back to the flat after only a couple of hours...all our walking for the prior three days had worn our legs completely out. We relaxed, watched nature documentaries, and then went to a pub for dinner, where I finally had some fish and chips. Delicious.

I'll say that I ate enough cookies and fried food yesterday to make up for any of the weight I'm sure I lost with all the constant walking earlier in the trip, but that's ok. Every bite was totally worth it.

And with that, we should begin boarding soon. I hope. It was a great trip and I had an awesome time with Daniel and Zeke, but I'm ready to get home to Charles and Zoe. Aw, love...

Dispatches from London, Part 3

Hmm...so it's the middle of the night again, but this is less about insomnia and more about a Really Scary Dream in which thugs broke into a house in which I was staying with some friends, and I had to try to protect Zoe, who was sleeping upstairs.

I'm sure that's an easy analysis for anyone with a background in Freshman Psych courses, but whatever. It was scary enough while I was in the dream that my heart is still pounding...THUMP THUMP THUMP...not fun.

And now I am awake, trying to shake of the freaked-out-ness of a nightmare, so I thought it was the perfect time to contemplate Day 3 of my Big Trip.

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So...I was in London only once before this trip, back when I was 19 years old. It was May and I only had about four days (sound familiar??), and back then, the big highlight of the trip was the day that the sun came out and it hit 80 degrees F, and I spent the day walking through Hyde Park.

Today, it was maybe about 40 degrees F, and the sun tried real hard to come out for about 10 minutes, and Daniel and I spent a bit of the day walking through Hyde Park...and it was again (still?) a highlight of the trip for me.

We got on the road early today, hopping on the underground to get up to the Victoria & Albert museum, which I LOVED. Lots of old artifacts, a cool design room, and this gallery filled with plaster renditions of huge world monuments that people created hundreds of years ago by making plaster casts and dragging them back to London so that even the poor people could see the amazing sights of the world. It was really impressive. While there, we had tea in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the museum cafe. Mmm...jasmine green tea and a scone with clotted cream and jam? Reasonably Proper British Tea? Check!

After the museum, we headed to Hyde Park, which we were just supposed to briefly touch on our walk towards Buckingham Palace, which I had never seen. But then we got the idea to look for the Peter Pan statue, as Zoe is currently obsessed with Peter Pan and I wanted to get a picture for her. A couple miles and LOTS of bird photos later, we found him and turned around to retrace our steps.

And a word about the birds...seriously, London parks have the most impressive collection of semi-domesticated waterfowl that I have ever seen. Many flavors of ducks, swans, geese and gulls literally FILL their lakes, and where in the States, feeding birds in parks frequently feels discouraged, here there are designated areas to feed the birds (tuppence a bag....wait, I'm singing in my head again!! Mary Poppins!!! ). Some of them are so tame that they walk right up to people, literally begging for food like a dog. And I even saw a squirrel who was so used to being fed by humans that it was taking food from an old woman's hand! It was really fun to watch, all of it, even for me, the girl with the bird phobia.

We walked for miles and miles, it seemed, and skirted some big tourist/important sites like the Palace (from which we kept our distance, due to the huge groups of people surrounding it), Trafalgar's Square, and Picadilly Circus. We made it to SoHo for some shopping, even going to Hamley's Toy Store (London's FAO Schwartz) which was SO PACKED that it was UTTERLY TERRIFYING. We left quickly.

Some of the smaller shops were much more fun, and we kept on walking and walking until we needed to have a drink in a proper British pub. Yum! I even had a beer, which is a rarity for me (I love my red wine, but you probably already knew that). It was a nice break, but then we had to walk some more to find the underground station that would take us to a restaurant for dinner.

Dinner was fun. My super-cool mother-in-law had requested that we go out to dinner "on her" one night, so tonight's dinner was sponsored by the lovely Nana. We went to a Brazilian restaurant which featured meat, meat and more meat. DELICIOUS!!! That plus a shared bottle of wine and my cheeks were PINK by the time we left.

We stumbled home (less from drink than from the utter exhaustion from walking for 10 hours), and both of us crashed within an hour. Not a bad way to spend a day, no?

I have no new observations about Londoners, other than to say that I can't keep straight from which direction cars are flying down the road at all times. Luckily, being a tourist town, the London infrastructure at some point added "look left" and "look right" signs on street crosswalks for confused travelers like me. Of course, being me, even this confuses me (I am notoriously bad at knowing my right from my left), so they've kindly added arrows as well. Thank you, British Government! You saved my life at least once today.

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch...Zoe's behavior was apparently less than stellar today, but still, they are surviving without me. We had a nice, long chat this evening, which I totally needed after being cut off from them all day. I miss having a working cell phone...

They will go back to work and school tomorrow, and I imagine the return to routine will help give them each a breather. So that's good.

But ugh, I miss them so much. Skype/Google Video Chat have been lifesavers - I can't imagine how I'd feel if I hadn't been able to physically see them every day!!!! On one hand, I'm still having an amazing time, but on the other hand, I can't wait to be with them again. But you know me - I always feel conflicted about something, right?

Dispatches from London, Part 2

Ah, insomnia, you are not my friend.

I always have a hard time sleeping when I'm away from home, but my first night here I was so wiped out that with a little help from some melatonin, I was down for the count all night. I slept until almost 10:00 local time, which *would* be a record for me, until you consider that it was really only almost 5:00 in my normal, home time...

Now, it's about 4:30 local time and I have been up for a while. And since the rest of the house is asleep (although I think my brother-in-law will be up shortly as he has to travel for work today), it seems a good chance to reflect on my trip thus far.

More random observations include the fact that Cadbury chocolate from the UK is FAR superior to Cadbury chocolate from the US. That said, I still am a devoted fan of all things Cadbury, particularly Cadbury Mini-Eggs around Easter. Also, I've noticed that every family with small children here places a clear plastic tent over babies' strollers, forming little bubbles that protect said babies from rain, wind and the rest of the environment. I've never seen such a thing in Charleston, but then, it doesn't rain quite this much in Charleston, and when it does, most people stay home. There doesn't appear to be a choice here, though, about the weather. You go out, even in the cold, damp drizzle, which is what we did yesterday.

OK, enough random observations. More about what we *did* instead.

We hopped on the underground again (good thing I bought a week-long, all-encompassing Underground pass, innit?) to head to South Bank, which is where you can find things like Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey. (Yes, I had my all-American, Chevy Chase moment, and did say, at least twice, "Big Ben...Parliament...Big Ben...Parliament...") The Abbey is actually closed on Sundays to tourists, so we walked around the Cloisters, which were amazing. It's incredible to stand on stones that were laid hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and to look at the intricate brickwork and try to fathom how it was all built. Crazy to contemplate.

We walked down the banks of the River Thames, and although the weather left a LOT to be desired (chasing us into a Starbucks at one point for sandwiches and hot drinks just to thaw out a little), it was still really beautiful at times. At other times...all I can say is TOURISTS!! I was surrounded by tourist-traps, but we mostly just skirted those areas.

There's a cute little used-book place where I looked for old British printings of Kurt Vonneguts, but found none. Rats. I would have loved to have found something cool for Charles there. I did, however, find an old British printing of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, and I grabbed that for my own collection.

We toured the rebuilt Globe Theater(re), which was pretty lovely. They have some nice exhibits, and it was cool to be in the theater itself and pretend to be from Elizabethan London. Of course, that suspension of disbelief would be easier if the floors weren't concrete, but what can you do, right?

We took a quick walk through the Tate Modern, where we saw an exhibit of millions of tiny, porcelain sunflower seeds, which was kind of bizarre and kind of cool. I could have spent a million dollars in that gift shop on books and cool t-shirts for Zoe, but I restrained myself; most of the books could be gotten cheaper online, I'm sure, and what kid wants a cool t-shirt in exchange for losing their mother for five days? No, she's going to get cool toys when we go to the toy museum later today.

By the end of an exhibit or two at the Tate, we were all exhausted, so we headed back to the flat, made some dinner, watched a documentary about Madagascar, and I've been tossing and turning ever since. So tonight, I'll pull out the big guns...Benadryl, here I come!!

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Charles and Zoe are still having a great time. The weather has still been wonderful for them, and I'm happy about that.

But when we skyped this morning, the first thing Zoe said to me was, "I was crying this morning because I wanted you." Nothing like an accidental two-year-old guilt trip. Then, this afternoon, the internet connection here was spotty, and I could see and hear Zoe, Charles and my mom, but while they could see me, they couldn't hear me, which freaked Zoe out. So that was a less-than-satisfying conversation.

So I'm definitely getting homesick and am missing my cozy little family a ton. I'm glad they are getting on so well without me, but I'm starting to daydream about getting back to them.

Dispatches from London, Part 1

I like the title of my post today - it makes me feel like a reporter, like Ernest Hemingway.

Anyway, I am in London! Holy cow, that still feels weird to say/write. I haven't been here for twelve years!

The trip here was relatively uneventful. I did cry just a little when my plane took off from Charleston towards Atlanta for the very first leg of travel. Luckily, the man sitting next to me was dozing at the time, so no one saw me sniffle. The overnight flight from Atlanta to Heathrow wasn't bad either. It wasn't a full flight so I had a little two-seater to myself.

Of course, I didn't go right to sleep on the plane. The novelty of watching a movie while miles up in the sky has never worn off for me, so I searched through the list to find something I could watch guilt-free (i.e. Charles would NEVER want to watch it with me). I settled on Eat, Pray, Love, as I am a closet Julia Robert fan (come on, you know you love the Pretty Woman, too!), and it wasn't horrible, at least not thematically. You know, travel the world, find yourself, fall in love - I can understand it, I think. Plus, I got to see Bali, so now I am determined to go there some day. Charles, add it to my list of places to go.

Anyway, I finally landed in London, just a bit on the late side, and wandered down to Customs, where I fumbled through the Q and A session with the customs agent.

Her: What are you here for?

Me: I'm visiting my brother.

Her: Is he a permanent resident?

Me: Ummm...I don't know? Wait, yes, I *think* he is.

Her: How so? On what basis?

Me: Umm...I don't know? Oh, wait, I think his partner is a citizen, and they're all legally married.

I'm surprised they let me in.

But they did, and I met up with Daniel and we took the longest, most ass-backwards journey to find his flat. Apparently, the London Underground system has been shutting down pieces of itself every weekend, wreaking havoc on those of us taking cross-city journeys. It took us over two hours to get to East London, but we finally made it, and then we ate lots of curry. YUM!

We stayed pretty low-key for the rest of the day as I was pretty much wrecked from all the travel. Daniel and I went to the grocery - one thing I've noticed already in London is that they have LOTS more canned foods. Like, canned macaroni and cheese, canned Shepherd's pie, etc. It sort of grosses me out, but I imagine it goes back to what one guy told me last night - that "the war" is still a really important piece of the British psyche, and so it makes sense that they would have almost everything canned so they can stock up in the event of an emergency.

Still, though...hot dogs in a jar? *Shudder*

I am really enjoying being in a city again. I like the whole "take a subway for a while, then walk 30 minutes to reach your destination" thing, even though it's cold and rainy. I also like the diversity. It's almost rare to hear people speaking English here. I've heard what I assume is Russian, Polish, Spanish, French, Italian...you name it, I've possibly heard it already.

I am also enjoying watching the fashion choices of today's young Londoners. It's pretty funny. So far I've seen a chick rocking some purple jeans and pink LA Gear high-tops (the kind I'd have KILLED for when I was eight years old), and lots of cut-off denim shorts (jorts, anyone??) with tights. The skirts here are definitely shorter, and the shoes are definitely taller. Seriously, I'd break my ankle wearing some of the high heels I've seen girls wearing while booking down the street.

Oh, and punk-ish London boys really crack me up with their mowhawks and their boots and (argh! really!) their tapered, gathered, skinny jeans. It's hysterical!

Anyway, that's about it so far. I slept for about 10 hours last night (thank you, Melatonin!!), and am feeling ready to face the cold, rainy London day to do some sightseeing!

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Meanwhile, back at my ranch...Charles and Zoe have not yet imploded, which is FABULOUS! We skyped last night, and Zoe put on a dance-party-show for me, and I loved every second of seeing her bounce around. So all is well in Charleston, so far as I know, even though I'm not there to see it. I miss my babies.