Tales of a Trainee American

Today, we paid a visit to the Wildlife Conservation Society Aquarium in Brooklyn (we wanted to do something indoors, and free/cheap - well, it was free thanks to our year's membership of the WCS).

Okay, so it's not 100% outside - the basic layout is a lengthy courtyard surrounded by indoors exhibits, with open pools along one side housing walruses, seals, otters, and penguins.

Nevertheless, Aliza had a grand time, particularly in the coastal/reefs exhibit, where she ran from tank to tank, pointing and shouting "Fish, fish, fish!".

Then we had a tour of Brooklyn on the way home, and we located (but didn't stop at) the ChipShop.

Last week was supposed to be (relatively, no pun intended, really) stress-free... visit my folks and do stuff with Aliza, then play some bridge at the weekend.

It was mostly thus.

The drive down on Sunday was uneventful, though I did notice that my car, which had been behaving erratically (I felt it might have been mis-firing...), was using far more petrol than normal. As in around 20mpg rather than the usual 30 or so when doing mostly motorway driving. Still.

Monday we headed to the Rare Breeds Farm at Totnes, which Aliza gradually warmed to, and where we met a pair of particularly aggressive lambs who jumped up and grabbed both mine and Alexis's cups of Generic Animal Feed (tm) from our hands. They also have a range of different owls with a rather predictable naming theme. And yes they have a snowy owl. And yes, it is called what you think it's called.

Tuesday was the long day out, down to Cornwall and the Eden Project, which was excellent and well-designed with babies in pushchairs in mind! Plenty of other families around, Aliza ran around making friends and mooching Pringles off of total strangers. She has that effect. Backing into the drive back at my parents' place, my Dad commented that my engine sounded pretty awful (and driving up and down hills in Cornwall really didn't feel right at all, especially in low gear and low-mid revs). He suggested it was the exhaust that was at fault, and that I take it to Kwik Fit the next day.

On Wednesday we took my Nan out to Torcross for fish & chips, then down to Hope Cove (via the "other" Galmpton) where Aliza was given her first ice cream cone (Salcombe Dairy Strawberry, for the record). She needed no education in what to do with it: all that was left at the end was the tip of the cone and the ruff around the top. There is of course photographic evidence, presumably appearing on a Flickr account in the near future, if it isn't already there (ask arosoff). Nan also mentioned that one of my second cousins works at Kwik Fit; just as well because otherwise I'd have wondered just how he knew who I was when I walked into reception. He listened to the engine and diagnosed (as I had!) that I had a mis-fire, and that I really ought to get it looked at otherwise I'd do something unmentionable to the cat. He referred me to a garage just round the corner, who did some delving and determined I needed a new set of HT leads (the old ones literally fell apart in the mechanic's hands!) for the bargain price of 40 notes, and they were able to slot me in the next day.

Thursday, being carless, meant getting a lift with my mother (and transferring the car seat into her car) to have lunch with a relative of some variety (xth cousin once removed, almost certainly... she's my Dad's generation, not sure if she's his first or second cousin, can't be bothered to work it out) who was visiting from Canada. A pretty ropey carvery, but for £3.50 who's complaining? Checked in on my car on the way back, it was ready, price had gone up to 45 quid, still no bother (better than £300+ for a new catalytic converter!), however due to logistics my dad ended up driving it back a bit later. Had a quick spin round the block, all seemed very well.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were mainly bridge days. I headed into Torquay to meet my bridge partner, Dave, and after some to-ing and fro-ing (my 'phone ran out of credit, I couldn't top it up, and can you believe that payphones have a minimum call charge of 40p - including 20p connection charge - these days?!) met him in one of the arcades near the harbour. We got lunch, then played bridge, winning 3 and drawing 1 out of 7 matches and came 26th out of 51 teams, with exactly 70/140 points. How average can you get? The pairs event on Saturday and Sunday started very poorly, with a heavy loss, picked up tremendously with 6 straight wins, then got very disappointing on Sunday with only one win out of five. We just about scraped above 50%, and half-way in the field, which I guess we'd have accepted at the start, but given where we'd got to - and the chances we didn't put away on Sunday - it was something of a let-down.

Sunday evening Alexis and I finally got to ditch Aliza with my parents and we went out to dinner, a better carvery this time, at the Churston Court. Not as good as it used to be - from what I can gather the new owners ditched it in favour of a far-too-expensive à la carte menu, before bringing it back due to popular demand. What there was was good, but the choices were severly limited.

A very uneventful drive back this evening.

Then... the bad news, coming, as do buses, in twos:
1. Still no letter from the US Embassy telling me when the interview date for my visa application is. We posted the last set of forms off four weeks ago now. They usually get the date set within 2-3 weeks. There was a card saying a recorded delivery letter needed to be picked up, but it was too late to go get it by the time we got back - so Alexis has to pick it up tomorrow. Really, really, need it to be from the Embassy... because:
2. Landlord has, "due to circumstances beyond his control", decided not to renew our lease when it runs out on September 14th. So really really really want to get moved by then. Otherwise I have no idea what we're going to do. I'm wondering what is going on because previously talking to him he's said he's been happy to keep us on as tenants past that date, and even ditch the estate agents (to avoid him paying fees to them). That would've suited us as he did say he'd be okay going on a month-by-month basis. Bah. I'm vaguely hoping that he's actually bs'ed the estate agents to drop them and will get in touch with me to say so, and that we can stay on. However I have a feeling that this will not be so.

Aliza is now asleep on the floor. Yes, the floor. It's a habit she picked up at my parents' - except they have carpets, and we have the original bare floorboards, with sticky out bits and gaps and all. Still, she's quiet and finally run out of steam, which is usually a good sign.

Time for bed said Zebedee....

At sometime between 5.15pm and 5.30pm today (going by the boiler clock, the only electric-powered non-digital clock in the house, and by those electric-powered digital clocks that had been running about half an hour by the time we finally got back in) we lost power. The first inkling I had was an announcement on the train that West Finchley station was closed. Then A. called up to say there was no power. So off we headed to TGI's for dinner, which ate up a couple of hours, then did a recce back along the street - still no power. So next we went to Tesco for candles and a big torch (but not candlesticks - Tesco do not sell regular everyday candlesticks, or at least the one at Colney Hatch doesn't appear to), and by the time we got back, so was the electricity.

And that is about the most exciting thing that's happened in a while. Except my clever little daughter who is now not only crawling all over the place, but is pulling herself up to standing against various bits of furniture. Soon she will learn to move whilst holding on. And then, walking. Such a clever girl.

Yesterday afternoon we headed down into the wilds of Sarf Lundun to warm clarisinda and papaspoof's new home. By the time we got there, both the sun and the barbecue were already doing a good job of it. Many people were there, Aliza was finally proved to exist, and apart from some brief fussing she had a great time and was photographed a lot. She even managed to smile in a couple of shots.

This morning, I've been far more productive than is normal for a Sunday:
- Completed my 2006/07 self assessment form for work.
- I've finished up my Child Tax Credit application.
- I've submitted my 2006-07 Tax Return (which required the exact same bits of paper as the above...).
- I've paid off the Virgin credit card bill.
- I've re-organised a few online accounts.

In about an hour, we'll be headed into town again to meet up with my sister and her SO for noodles.

Next: write my review of The Prefect (which I know matgb may be interested in).

My little girl is 6 months old today. I find it hard to believe it's been that long.

luv Aliza

I suppose I could eulogise about my beautiful baby daughter, and how adorable she is when she starts to try to burble. She does a great line in big toothless (for now) grins. She knows when she wants attention, too... and appears to know how to get it. This is easily observed behaviour. If she's fine just sat in her bouncer next to me whilst I'm at my computer, she'll just, well, sit there and quietly do whatever it is babies do. Maybe have a stretch, a bit of a wriggle, but she'll do it quietly. If she's after attention, though, she'll make it plain. So it's necessary to talk to her, tickle her, pick her up for a cuddle. Just as long as I don't turn around again as soon as she goes quiet. I think we have a clever one on our hands.

In other news, I think she's already got a boyfriend. He's an older lad (9-10 days, apparaently!), and I'm not sure I wholly approve. I might have to go round and sort him out. I've seen photos, and I'm not sure his intentions are quite honest! [To explain - at Alexis's last NCT get-together, Aliza was in a lot of photos next to the hosts' son, and they look as if they're cuddled up together. I'm not going to post a link to the photos as there are pictures of other peoples' kids there and I don't want to link to them without permission.]

Well there you go - life in a nutshell. If it weren't for my daughter, I'd be bored. Work is dull, and we've just heard that a major contract we were supposed to be ramping up on has been put back at least 6 months because the client's client haven't got approval to start operating.

There was something else but it can't be important because I've totally forgotten it.

Okay, I've caught up on LJ (okay, I've skimmed about 100 posts and ignored most of them), so I guess I should let everyone know what I've been up to this past week and a half. Or rather, the last 5 days, since the 7 before that were rather dull and depressing due to the lack of cat :-(

Okay, Wednesday, we drove down to Devon so Aliza could visit her grandparents, and her great-Nan. Nan in particular was very happy to see Aliza, as it's her first great-grandchild. She's had plenty of recent practice with babies though, what with her neighbour's grandchildren, and her niece's grand-daughter being regular visitors. Aliza also met her sort-of-cousins (my sister's nieces), who seem to have grown very fond of the beach. Other than our beach visit, we had a generally quiet time (except when Miss Griselda Fusspot decided she didn't want to go to sleep until 5.30am...). A. and I even got to go out to dinner together, whilst my parents watched Aliza. And I got very damp and cold and wasted 15 quid watching Torquay lose 1-0 to Hartlepool.

Zoe (the cat) is poorly, she appears to have a blood clot in her leg. She's staying overnight at the vet. She was limping round all day yesterday, then got really lethargic and totally uninterested in food or water. So this morning we got an emergency appointment. We miss her :-(

Blah is a lack of sleep, and a day at work that didn't involve any breaks of any kind and people talking at cross purposes and having to lump $3400 for new software on my own fucking credit card (and then raising an expenses claim) rather than the company actually having a credit card handy for such payments?! Hell it's lucky I happen to have a card with that kind of spare capacity. Then there's the whole palaver of setting up a PC in the demo room for a demo to clients tomorrow, we spent all bloody afternoon getting the demo working (or: a selection of random kludges that hopefully will do the trick for now, fingers crossed that the permissions error doens't pop up, it might be an idea to warn someone it might happen), then I looked at the diary and the room's booked all day tomorrow anyway, no time to set up the PC, even first thing because who wants a sodding monitor and PC sitting around taking up space and blocking views? Luckily there's a spare laptop, to go with the regular demo room laptop, but even that's narfed because I don't have admin rights to make all the changes I need to it. Tech support had better bloody get their arses in gear and get it sorted first thing. We still need to test the sodding demo. Oh and this client we're demo-ing to? Someone sent them a rather, er, fiery, letter this morning. (I can mention this because it's public knowledge. I should also point out that we'll be having nothing to do with that particular aspect of their business.)

At least Aliza's being adorable and well behaved. She's a month old today... doesn't time fly, and so on?

Flat sale, blah, solicitors, blah, estate agents, blah, managing agents, blah, just sell the damned thing already and give me my money! Of course I still need to completely empty the place, but it's not as simple as "pick it up, dump it" because not everything's to be dumped. I need to be more precise. "Pick up that and that and that and dump it, then take that and that down to Devon, oh and pop by my new place to pick up this old bed too which needs to go to Devon." Or maybe it'll be simpler to say "just take it all to Devon, and I'll get it dumped from down there". And maybe that should get organised for the day we drive down anyway, but that's just over a week away, a bit short notice, wouldn't you say? Aaargh! Me head explodee bang go aaaargh!

Can I get some sleep now?

Our precious little girl refused to go to sleep, in a most noisy fashion, for nearly 6 hours last night. As a result, I look like a leftover cast member from Dawn Of The Dead. Deity-of-Your-Choice knows what the neighbours think.