Facebook is having an effect on me

It's funny. Ever since I started playing on Facebook I've noticed that I keep thinking of myself in terms of that status update thingy in the corner. I'll be walking down the street and think, "Reckenroll is hungry and would like a cookie" or "ReckenRoll is annoyed there is a 7 minute wait for her tube" or even "ReckenRoll is thinking you must be joking."

Today's status update: "ReckenRoll is sad"

So I know I am supposed to be blogging about the things I love and loathe in London but for today thinking about London that much is just too much. As of tomorrow, I will only have about a week left full time living in London. I thought I was ready. I really thought I was...but I find if I really think about leaving and not ever coming back I get this panicky feeling that I don't really know what to do with. I can't possibly start wrapping my brain around what I love and loathe right now.

ReckenRoll is employing denial.

I've been planning leaving dos and planning for my arrival in Seattle and packing up my flat full time for what feels like forever. Thinking about London is all I do lately and putting words to the page on that topic just now is just too overwhelming. As all my stuff comes off the walls and books get sorted and my dvd collection dwindles from selling off the UK format dvds, it feels less and less like I live here and more and more like a place I am going to leave and that sucks.

ReckenRoll is sighing.

The movers come tomorrow at 9.30 am and tonight I am going home to force myself to keep sorting so that when they show up they can do their job. I am not the type to hand over control to someone else but right now it sounds like a great idea. As I told brother Reckenroll yesterday, I keep having moments of thinking, "I just want my mom to come do it all for me." How lame is that?

ReckenRoll is wallowing in it kids.

What I Learned This Weekend

• The Scissor Sisters put on an AMAZING show. We SO felt like dancing...and we did, knee injury and all.
• Suz has a much higher threshold for pain than previously understood.
• The A&E (Accident & Emergency or ER to the Yanks) is seriously a LAST resort. Do not go if you don't have to.
• Apparently in the UK, it's completely acceptable to ask a patient to wait for 4 hours just to SEE the doctor...even when there is only a few other people waiting.
• Meaning of Loaf will always return your calls, even if you didn't mean to make them (whoops!)
• It always takes longer to sort and clean for packing than you think it will and I own way more crap than I thought I did. Seriously, where does it all come from?
• There is more dust in London than anywhere else in the world and most of it is/was residing in my flat.
• Secretary is a weird twisted dark and brilliant movie. James Spader...wow. What a interesting career.
• Garden State is probably in my Top 5 movies of all time.

Friday's Top Five: A list within a list? London Loves

“London audiences seem to be more stand back with your arms folded”

– Barry Fratelli

Following my very enjoyable (and dry!) Gershwin evening in Regent's Park last night, #2 on the list of London Loves should shock no one: The West End theatre scene or "Theatreland" as the tourists like to call it. I LOVE the shows. I love the drama, the comedy, the music, the dancing. I love seeing famous actors doing what they do best and having young unknowns surprise me. I love the magic of it. I love a night out being pushed to think about the world in a way I haven't before.

Within the few square miles around where I work in Covent Garden there are over 40 commercial theatres and several more non-commercial theatres including the Old Vic, Trafalgar Studios and the National Theatre. Any night of the week (except Sunday) you can see Mary Poppins, Les Miserables, Wicked, or Billy Elliott. You can see Orlando Bloom in "In Celebration" (not recommended), Patrick Swayze in "Guys & Dolls" (recommended), or the Royal Ballet performing Swan Lake. I know all the discount websites. I'm on the mailing lists. Suz and I divide and conquer. Sitting next to her at work helps:

"What are you doing Thursday night?"
"Dunno. Nothing I think."
"Ok, then I am booking tickets."
"Sounds good...wait, to what?"
"Do you really care?"
"No."


With a little bit of planning and a bit of spontaneity, you can take in several shows a month...or in Suz and my case, several shows a week. We don't pay each other back for tickets. We just take turns booking them. As a result, in the three years I've been here, I've seen over 50 theatre productions and more music than I can count. On average, I'm out at a performance every other week (but actually probably more when you consider how much I am out of town).

This will be, by far, the most directly felt impact on my social life in Seattle. The Seattle theatre scene, well, I don't even think that's an actual phrase..."Seattle theatre scene"


Sadcakes.


So, as a fond look back at my time warming the seats in the West End. My Top Five (of the last 3 years) London Shows:

1. Wicked with Idina Menzel at the Victoria Apollo Theatre
2. Sweeney Todd at the Trafalgar Studios
3. Guys & Dolls with Ewan McGregor at Piccadilly Theatre
4. The Man of Mode at the National Theatre
5. The Producers with Nathan Lane at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

And lest you think I should slack off in my few remaining days, tomorrow I am off to the O2 again to catch the Scissor Sisters do their thang. I will think of Cherry during Filthy Gorgeous. I mean really, how could I not?

London Whine #1: The Weather

"It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London."

- Thomas De Quincey

I have tickets to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park tonight (a London love) to see Gershwin's "Lady Be Good." This will be our second outing to Regent's Park following "A Midsummer Night's Dream" back in June. On that occasion of 13 June, Suz and I huddled under the umbrella and wished we had a blanket. JUNE!

I remember thinking then that we would be better off next time. The next show was late July/early August, and we could hope for dry but it nothing else, we would have WARM weather. Who needs a blanket when it's almost August?

Wrong again.

The weather page on BBC today actually says only one small phrase, "More Rain" and the Met Office confirmed today that our early summer has been the wettest since records began more than 240 years ago. TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY YEARS PEOPLE!!! Lucky me. No actually, lucky people of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire who have experienced some of the worst flooding the areas have seen.

This is in stark contrast to last summer when it was record breaking hot day after record breaking hot day. When London is hot, it's miserably hot. It's not "nice go lay in the park hot", it's muggy, grimy, wishing you were anywhere but here hot. I have to say, there is nothing quite as dreary as London on a grey cold rainy day, and nothing quite as tiresome as London on a hot one.

Bring on the Pacific Northwest with it's mountains, perfectly temperate sunny days and cold winter snow. I don't even care that snow shuts Seattle down. I prefer to work from home, wrapped in a blanket, drinking my coffee and snow means skiing and skiing means happy and that is preferable to walking to the Tube in the rain day after day after day.

So farewell you miserable London weather.

I won't miss you a drop.

London Favourite #1: Borough Market and the Southbank

I know I have covered off on this London favourite of mine before, but when I first started thinking of the list and the things I would miss, #1 with a bullet was wasting a Saturday at Borough Market and then wandering up the Southbank (as in the south bank of the Thames). Here's a perfect London day, ready made for locals and tourists.

You start out by taking the tube to London Bridge station and pop out right at the end of London Bridge. Wander up on to the Bridge, which is nothing much to look at, but the view of the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and the Monument is worth taking in. Wander back down and then under the bridge to find the hustle and bustle of the wonderous Borough Market.

Borough Market is London’s oldest food market. It was established on the south bank of the Thames when the Romans built the first London Bridge. It has occupied its present site for 250 years...today you can think of it as a farmer's market with a European and gourmet spin. If you're with me, I'll drag you to all my favourite vendors to fill out my shopping list: artisan bread from local bakers, mushroom pate (gotta get this first - before the sell out), English cheese (taste a few to find your favourite), almond stuffed green olives and iberico ham (serrano). Taste along the way. I especially recommend the brownies.

Your trip MUST INCLUDE drip coffee from Monmouth Coffee (heaven) and plan on eating lunch from one of the many vendors. I prefer the free range chicken wrap stuffed with greens and herb mayonnaise. It's the juiciest most mouth-watering chicken I've ever tasted. I know several folks who prefer the venison burgers, or the roasted potatoes with raclette cheese, or the lamb gyros. There's also fresh shucked oysters for those who swing that way and in the winter there is always mulled wine. Selections made, make your way over to the courtyard of the Southwark cathedral and sit with the many other happy market eaters to enjoy your choices.

God. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

When you've had your fill and you arms are laden with packages for later, begin wandering up Southbank towards Waterloo. Along the way you'll pass a model of the Golden Hind, the Globe Theater, the Millennium bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, the Tate Modern, Oxo Tower and eventually make your way to the National Theater and the BFI Southbank. You'll pass the used book sales stands, street performers, kids in the skate park, (legal) graffiti artists working, and on a sunny day, people sitting out along the Thames having a beer (join them!). I once caught a string quartet in one of the oversized foot traffic tunnels. The acoustics were amazing. If you can deal with the crowds around the London Eye, you can get a magnificent view of Big Ben and Parliament across the river.


Cut in to Waterloo station, hop on the Tube and make your way home. When Erin was living with me we would head to Borough in the late morning, have our coffee and lunch and load up with supplies. Dinner that night would be a carpet picnic from Borough, wine, and cheesy movies. That was pretty much the best thing ever.

I'm a cheap date.

So now, that I am loved up and glowing thinking about the things I love most I don't know that I can bring myself to whinge on about the things I don't like in London. I can't leave this on a sour note. I'll complain tomorrow instead...

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner

“It is difficult to speak adequately, or justly, of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent.”

- Henry James

There is so much to love in London, so much to drive you crazy.

It breaks my heart to know I am leaving this terribly magnificent place.

So starting tomorrow on ReckenRoll we begin to say our good-byes the only way we know how, with a Top 5 List. However, there is too much in London to capture in just 5 so we're going to do 10. Ten things that will always hold a place in my heart and 10 things that make me wish daily for an easier life. We'll do one of each, each day for balance and to help me put a wrapper on the last 3 years. That will take us just up to the almost end...

Sunday night/Monday morning 12.41 am GMT

I have finished Harry Potter.

We now return to my regularly scheduled life, already in progress...

Fridays Top Five: The Roots Inspired Playlist

Saw The Roots play at Somerset House last night and in one word, they were AMAZING. Such talent and positive energy. I didn't know a single song but I sang along anyway and so did the rest of the crowd...I was so inspired that we followed ?uestLove to the Jazz Cafe in Camden Town to boogie to his dj set until the wee hours of morning. I am tired today, but it was SO WORTH IT. Cause let's face it, "I went home early and got a full nights rest" is a boring story.

So inspired by my not of Hip Hop I give you Friday's Top Five Playlist.

1. The Next Movement - The Roots
2. Can I Kick It? - Tribe Called Quest
3. Rebirth of Slick - Digable Planets
4. Break You Off - The Roots
5. They Want Efx - Das Efx

Download and enjoy. Can I get a hellya?

The Great British Summer

I don't think any of you clicked on the 3rd link provided to you yesterday. No one left a comment...and that was some quality stuff.

Today, we saw the sun for the first time in about a year. Below, a true representation (in the form of a Boots ad) of what it's like in London today. We are all RUNNING to the pub to celebrate with a quick one before it starts clouding over again. I GOTTA GET GOING!!