Welcome to the Lodge!

The Terrace

posted by kelly @ 13.11.04 0 comments

The Bedroom

posted by kelly @ 13.11.04 0 comments

The Throne Room

posted by kelly @ 13.11.04 0 comments

All alone and half-eaten by Alsatians? Not today!

Date: 11 November 2004
Alcohol units: 6
Cigarette units: approx. 2 (all indirect of course, but enough when, combined with alcohol units above, to give husky voice)
Caffeine units: 57
Weight: best measured in 'stone' or 'kilos' as is much lighter sounding
Lusty thoughts about Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) swarming around naughtily in head: too many to count


Today officially have London "life"...had girls round for wine before dinner and attending pre-screen of Bridget Jones: On the Edge of Reason. Flat looked great and clean esp. with new couch and tastefully exotic cushions and candles in fireplace and a big box of Milk Tray in honour of our girl, Bridge. Sat and chatted about various boyfriends and ex-boyfriends and how if you're still shagging then you've not technically then cut off ties from the ex in order to have a proper break now, have you? Even started using the words "shag" and "snogg" naturally in a sentence.
Am sophisticated Londoner! Am worldly, international woman with Inner Poise!

Am also tipsy and headed to Bedfordshire...





please note the use of the letter "u" in the word hono(u)r above. see, i'm going with it, really i am!

posted by kelly @ 12.11.04 0 comments

Burning Effigies and Modern Art

Buggar.

I had just typed a boatload of wonderful, deep, meaningful blog only to have it washed away by trying to insert a fancy link to my new ikea couch. Blast. Now it works. Whatever!

[edited to add that the bloody link still doesn't work. gah.]

Well, I shall try to recreate the magic...

I know I've been blog remiss and most recent contact with y'all has been election related. Well, I shall not be speaking of that here except incidentally. No commentary, no editorializing, no rending of my broken heart...nope, what I am going to do here is describe my lovely weekend in London, chock full of cultural events and good company.

Because that's really what's been lacking over the past several weeks. With rare exception, it's been meetings and conferences and business drinks and dinners having the same bland small talk and shop talk converastions with new and different (but all essentially similar) bland people. It's been "business Kelly" pretty much non-stop, with brief lulls of "alone Kelly". And while I personally believe that I am one of the coolest people I know, even I get bored with myself after a while. There have been a few breaks - watching a movie with Alexis or a much needed and anticipated jaunt to Ikea - and these have helped to bring me a sense of normalcy, a bit of a break.

Thursday night, after traipsing around town for 4 separate meetings (tiring), I was just getting off the bus to change for a dinner with some friends of a friend (see, trying to expand my circle) when another old college friend Violetta called up and wanted to meet. Now, this was a bit disconcerting as she'd told me she'd be in London and I tried to find out when she was available so we could have more than an hour and a cup of coffee to catch up as I hadn't seen her in 2 years since she's been in Israel, but you take what you can get, and I had a nice, if rushed reunion with her before leaving to head up to Primrose Hill for the arranged dinner. Which was very nice - met up with Nomi and her husband John - Nomi had helped me out translating Boston housing to London housing, having lived in both places. Extremely useful and I owed her a heavy pint. They were both just charming people, which is not a word I use loosely, but from not knowing me from Eve aside from some long and pestery emails, we passed away four hours and two bottles of red over dinner. Very nice folks whom I hope to meet again...

While the two bottles of red (or my substantial portion thereof), followed by a half-assed cleaning session ahead of my arriving guest, did little to help me wake up at 6 am to head out to the airport, I was still pretty tightly wound. Which is why the lovely weekend that followed was such a refreshing one.

My dear friend alys flew in and we had a nice escape. Friday night, we went to the Tate Modern, which I had been looking forward to for some time. I much prefer 20th century art for some reason. The subject matters and their rendering...there's a certain quality - an opinion or mood being injected that speaks to me. Maybe because modern art feels more like art for art's sake - not just to record a portrait or a landscape - although they may be the subjects, but to evoke something, an aesthetic. They have an entire room just dedicated to Rothkos - that were intended to hang in a Four Seasons restaurant of all places. I like Rothko because it's all about the color - and just about the colors, to me. Very moody. A lot of modern art is pretty self-indulgent crap, if you ask me, but much is also very evocative...I don't know a lot about it, I'll confess. I'm no scholar or art historian. I just know what strikes a chord. I intend to head back soon as there was an exhibit that we did not get to see on Robert Frank, a photographer who focused, I believe, on Post-war London as well as other global locations. I do enjoy photography - Ben Shahn, Steiglitz, Walker Evans - especially urban photgraphy. Anyway, before I get too pretentious, I'll add that I loved that the museum is open until 10 pm on Friday and Saturday nights! We got out of the tube at St. Paul's Cathedral at about 6 pm and the bells were ringing and the streets were sparse and it was just so beautiful! We walked across the illuminated pedestrian Millenium Bridge, and the city looked beautiful over the Thames.

Later that night we stayed up late drinking wine and talking on my new Ikea couch with my little candlesticks burning in the fireplace, and I felt like I had acheived a level of cozy home-i-ness. Still need some art for the walls (in a burst of creative impulse, I'm thinking I may make it myself), but with the desk and couch and boxes unpacked, it does feel like someone properly lives here now. Especially now making plans for journeys to come around the UK and Europe, I am accepting this a bit more now. And am have a glimpse of the that centeredness I was hoping to find.

Saturday, we slept in but I woke up with more energy than I've had in a long time. We made breakfast/brunch and headed out to Notting Hill for the Portobello Road market. I even bought my first Xmas present (for Dad)! A leisurely coffee and bus ride later, and we were bundling up for Guy Fawkes night bonfires and fireworks! We met up at Alexis' flat and walked over to Battersea Park where there were bonfires and kites and some sort of wierd dancing colored effigy floating about 30 feet into the air. Lots of people, and a damp kind of mist (that seems to be typical of London), but we lit our sparklers and conducted firey snowflake concertos until the fireworks started, which was soon. And I do love a good fireworks display! I'm pondering becoming a fireworks chaser - like tornado chaser, only I travel around the world to national holidays and enjoying their fireworks displays. 4th of July, Bastille Day, Guy Fawkes, Chinese New Year, New Year's Eve...send along any others you know of...

We then had a leisurely walk back and had dinner at the Ebury, a gastropub across from Alexis' place (n: Gastropub - a more upscale pub where the cook is credible and the food is edible), then back to her place for more wine and reminiscing about college hijinks.

Sunday, Alys made me brunch (now that's a friend) and then we walked over to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, which was hopping after Election day, as you might imagine. I'll not get into politics, as I've forsworn, but the interaction between people was sooooo fascinating! Yelling and preaching and mocking (there was one guy walking around holding a rubber chicken over protesters' heads without their knowing).

I do despair of what can we do - and as we tacitly kept our mouths more or less shut, I'm wondering what it means to be American now? The rest of the world - and W. - sees a mandate and we no longer have much of an excuse - hail to the thief, we didn't know what we were getting, etc. We knew, we saw, we did it anyway. And I say we even though I didn't vote for him, because when I open my mouth, people identify me as American, and that comes with a helluva lot of baggage these days. O.K. enough.

Then had a long tea at this really cool mod looking cafe that overlooks The Serpentine, and warmed up from the (wait for it...) damp and misty day. Then we strolled past Buck Palace and caught a cab to the Tate bookshop (which we did not have time for Friday night), and then headed into Covent Garden for some tasty Indian food at this place called the Punjab, which has a quite colorful menu...something about the dishes providing the menfolk with virility and not having the garlic naan if you want to get intimate later, etc... pretty good food though, and the restaurant has been around for more than 50 years so I figure it must be a notch above. We walked back via Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus and then headed home.

All in all, a relaxing, yet active weekend. My favorite kind! Also good is that I've been able to work from home yesterday and today and have but one meeting scheduled this week - for tomorrow afternoon. There's so much to catch up on and though I've been bopping around and busy as heck for the past three weeks, I don't really feel that I've gotten any work done. Now that I'm not handing in those little reports and stuff, the deadlines are a bit less concrete. It's just more juggling and figuring out. But two weeks from now, I'll be home, back in the states in one place or another, and I'm rather looking forward to it.

Anyway, I hope that I've managed to hold on to y'all here, or at least give you enough time to kill at work. Abby has pointed out that Jen has me beat on photos, which I have been intending to take and post - and now that the place is feeling more homey, I plan to do so in the next few days. Stay tuned...

posted by kelly @ 9.11.04 2 comments

Speaker's Corner Pictures

Speaker's Corner - Post Election Sunday

posted by kelly @ 8.11.04 0 comments

Speaker's Corner Pictures

Speaker's Corner - Post Election Sunday - Man With Chicken

posted by kelly @ 8.11.04 0 comments