oh, felicia. where the fuck are we.

some day, i will tell you all about the time it took four hours between leaving the pub in london and being home in my own room. but this is not that day.

right now, to bed.

oh, felicia. where the fuck are we (the expanded version).

so, london yesterday with servalan and cannons_at_dawn. we were intending to go price second-hand instruments for what we insist will be a really excellent cover band; when the pricing turned out to be Yeah, Way Too High in every single instance, we settled for wandering around and being happy to be in london. (and we caught the Reduced Shakespeare Company as well. yay! have finally seen their shakespeare show live; it was the only one i hadn't seen.)

we left for the train station at 9:30 or so and got the 10:05 to paddington, which was running late because of line congestion. (rar, privatisation. rar.) train was packed -- football match in reading? or somewhere -- and we stood most of the way there. but no matter. we rolled in and hopped on the tube and fetched up in Embankment around 11:00. had some lunch, wandered about for a bit, got our RSC tix, discussed some future plan to come down for Mamma Mia and/or We Will Rock You, wandered around some more. lunch, coffee, extremely expensive guitars, wandering. show. got out of the show at 7:00.

which is when the fun began.

let us go for drinks at this really excellent pub, cannons_at_dawn says. great! so we walk from the theatre district to fleet street, which takes about half an hour; no problem, only it's also getting to where i, at least, have used up my lunch and must eat before becoming the angry low-blood-sugar monster who's no fun at all to be around. we reach the pub, and are directed to the room in which they claim to serve food from noon to 10pm. the girl behind the bar is surprised to see us, and i hear her on the phone with some manager-type person. this is a direct quote: "Are we still serving food in the Cellar Bar, now that it's open? Just drinks, okay. Thanks!"

guy in the front said that was where there was food to be served. sign said 12 noon to 10pm. girl confirms that because that part of the pub is now open, they are no longer serving food.

the logic utterly escapes me.

anyway, so we wander off to see if we can't find somewhere that will feed us. initial plan is to take a tube back to westminster, but because of engineering work, there is no service on most of the district line or any of the circle line. we wander for another while, finding no tube stops where we can get on a bloody train and no cafes, sandwich shops, or anything at all open (saturday evening in a business district -- i get it, but still), but finally find a pub where they're serving food at blackfriars. thank god. food, drink, we all feel better, and we leave the pub around 10:00.

and try to find a tube stop. again.

we finally do find a tube stop served by the central line, which is mercifully actually running, and we get back to paddington at about 10:45, where we discover that the last direct train to oxford left at 10:00 and the 11:03 will take us as far as didcot parkway (which we've at least heard of), where we can transfer to a bus that will take us the rest of the way home.

grr.

so we get on the train, which is (shock of shocks) packed, manage to find seats (across from a very nice couple from new zealand, on the way to visit his sister in sacramento for thanksgiving -- really, he was drunk enough that we learned a great deal about these people in the short time we spent together; she found the whole thing v. amusing), and stopped at every station along the way -- stopped for about half an hour, in fact, where there was no station, because for a stretch there was just one track, and we had to wait for two trains to pass us in the other direction. half an hour apart.

rar.

finally rolled into didcot about 12:30, i'd say, maybe a little later. got on the bus, which apparently took the LONG WAY from didcot to oxford -- the woman across the aisle from me was shocked at how long it took to get home. got off the bus in oxford and walked home through the drunkenness of a saturday night, including a block or so where we wondered who'd been bleeding on the pavement, and then saw the answer to our question (guy whose friends were trying to get him to tell them what happened; the police were there as well). urgh. servalan and cannons_at_dawn walked me home and then went back to their building, and i came inside and tried to understand where my headache had come from, before i remembered: it came from london.

i do love london. don't get me wrong. like new york, somehow i feel happier just from being there. but, honestly, i'd forgotten what the place does to my sinuses. maybe if i lived there i'd get used to it, and it eventually wouldn't bother me as much, but at the moment? as much as i love it, dudes. (seriously: spend a day in london. then blow your nose.) anyway, ibuprofen, water, and sleep. and i slept and slept and will shortly be off to choir practice.

la_rainette is cool

i'll tell you, la_rainette is a sweetheart. look at her talking about the everyday existence of a family with two small children -- it's often funny as hell, and without deliberately going for the laughs; just from la_rainette's skill at observation. added to which, the fact of raising small children is praise-worthy; and doing so in a country far from your own (once upon a time there was a frog who crossed an ocean ...) is brave and impressive.

there are a significant number of ways in which i wish i could be more like la_rainette. she is, as i was taught to say in middle-school french, très gentile et vachement chouette!

i'm very much not good at this.

my sister-in-law asked me the other day what i wanted for christmas, and i realized It Has Begun. so. none of you is my sister-in-law, but some of you have been known to ask me similar questions, which is why i now bring you tartanshell's Wish List Meme.

Step One

- Make a post (public, friendslocked, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ, or link to this post (it'll be public) so that the holiday joy will spread.

Step Two

- Surf around your friendslist (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:

- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.

You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.

There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

( so let me see if i can think of ten things to put on a list. )