Okay, so an ongoing enigma for me as a newcomer to these shores is tied up in the aubergines, or eggplants, of the city. I nearly have all the photographic evidence I need, too.
But that can wait.
There is so much here I don't understand, or I simply don't know. It is by turns invigorating, challenging, interesting, and a cause for despair.
I have learned that a 'twin' bed only holds one person, that a biscuit is a sort of soft bready scone, that there are commercials between the end of a programme and the credits, that Bart Simpson has been eaten by a middle-aged actress, that cake is cheaper than bread, and that medication manufacturers can advertise prescription drugs on TV and are forced, by law, to list all the possible side-effects while the actors on screen laugh and play happily in the sunshine, in complete contradiction to the lengthy list of chronic and socially-repulsive ailments that could crop up from popping any of their pills.
America is, after all, a different country.
Earlier, I walked to an office to register for a Social Security Number. It is a beautiful day in New York. There is a tiny amount of very thin and wispy high ice cloud, which really only serves to offset the brilliant blue of the open sky above the city and the clinically bright sunshine. It is, in short, the kind of Autumn day that there can never be enough of and which echoes deeply of all the other days in other years that had the same crispness of air and light.
And I wondered what this Autumn was like in Ventnor Botanical Gardens. My Dad and I used to go hunting for conkers there. There is a little kidney-shaped green tucked away in the middle of the parks with two enormous horse chesnut trees which produce a slippery carpet of five-pronged leaves on the path, and a healthy crop of green-shelled and spiky fruit. Dad and I used to spend a few hours throwing sticks up at the still-laden branches, hoping for the big ones to fall, before trooping home through drifts of wet leaves and threading shoelaces through the conkers and having fights on the garden path.
And I have that memory, and it is good and fine and made me smile, but the point is that I don't know how it is this year. I don't know what has changed about those old gardens. Whether they got around to opening the Tropical House, if there are still llamas in the fields out along the cliffs to St. Catherines, how things are changing throughout all of the places I have known.
It isn't homesickness as such, but an awareness that I have left one thread of life and picked up another one. I am learning about how things are done here in the US, and I'm sure that one day I will be nearly used to it all. I will be able to file tax returns, tell the difference between Monterey Jack Cheese and Vermont Cheddar, or know what kind of bird has just landed on the telephone line outside the window.
You see? I don't even know THAT stuff. All the background. Okay, so I can't tell the difference between the jokes told by Jay Leno and David Letterman (can anyone?), but what is the purpley-grey bird sitting out there on the wire? Is the little spider spinning a web on top of the air-conditioning unit a regular house-breed, or is it a vicious killer? I don't know. I've never SEEN one before.
Sorry. I was saying how one day I'll know, or be comfortable with, all of this. But then what will it be like going back to the UK? Will it be like watching an episode of a soap opera you used to follow? Will I be asking all the equivalent irritating questions?
Who's that?
Why is he kissing Deirdre Barlow?
Why does anyone kiss Deirdre Barlow?
Where are all the llamas?
What happened to Shanghai Lil's?
How are the residents of the new swanky seafront apartments coping with the fact that there's an enormous amusement arcade two doors down called 'The Gaiety'?
Hmm?
Dwelling on this as I was, another thought hit me. So I wouldn't be able to follow all the changes in the UK...soon I will lose that thread. But if it will be like trying to pick up what's happening in a soap opera, then maybe it will be like the UK's favourite Australian soap; Neighbours, where things are so obvious, so blatent, and so remeniscent of similar plots with near identical characters from way back when, that a gap of several years is no impediment to understand the intricacies of the plot after a few minutes' watching.
This made me smile, and I strolled up through the rising street numbers of Astoria, listening to The Streets in the sunshine.
That said, I'm off to take some photographs of aubergines.
Take care now.
It doesn't take too long at all. When you're installed in an office it'll happen pretty quickly. And honestly, New York can give you as much or as little of the motherland as you need (without flying over immediate family, of course). British (and in my case Irish) football, food, people, papers, humour, culture - it's all here.
As a Brit living in the US (CA) for over two years and married to an American for nearly six, you are noticing so many of the same things that I did. The twin bed thing, the HUGE cost of bread (and in inability to find a nice loaf), the sales tax thing so when you see some postcards for a dollar you think "great what a bargin!", only to have to dig around for the pennies, the drug adverts, which still make me laugh. There are other things I miss so much, including hot cross buns at Easter from tesco (or a current bun at any time of the year), the announcers between shows on the BBC and the way they introduce the next program, and so on and so on. There are so many more. I was trying to explain conkers to colleagues at work the other day and had some very bemused looks.
The spider thing happened to me. I closed the backdoor only to feel a large spide brush my hand. At home you'd be able to ignore it and say hello daddy long legs. Here you have to freak out. I had similar feelings when we were taking a walk and realised there could be rattle snakes. Or when a colleague was fired from work and everyone was suddenly ushered into a side room as he might go postal with a gun. I suddenly realised I wasn't in Blighty anymore.
But while I find these feelings and differences in the culture will never diminish, and I'll always miss home, they make me feel more fondly of home and forget the bad stuff. And it's important to remember the grey days and rain from England.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I want through the same thing as you - it gets easier and changes with the seasons (no boxing day!?) you won't ever get 100% used to it. Also, we have the bbc website.
Ah, twin beds. A living reminder of all the movies made under the Hays Code, and a practical solution to how to show a married couple in the bedroom without showing them in the same bed.
While the width of a twin is a bit of a problem (there are worse things than enforced snuggling), the real issue is LENGTH, especially for anyone over five foot ten.
There was a young man named Carruther,
Whose body, sheets could not cover.
On his bed he'd extend,
With his head at one end,
And his feet sticking out at the other.
On another poetic note, with apologies to L.C.:
Beware the full-size bed, my son!
The narrow width, the shorter length!
The queen-size bed - ah, that's the one;
More room will give you health and strength!
For a great bread experience, try Sullivan Street Bakery in SoHo, just below Spring Street. Not cheap, but everything baked fresh on the premises.
P.S. Congratulations on the wedding and honeymoon (Great photos!), and a thousand thanks to K. for bringing you to these shores. We're lucky to have you.
What in god's name is a "conker?"
A conker? Its one of these.
The soap opera thing. I watched Neighbours for the first time in years the other day. I didn't recognise any of the characters bar Harold. Susan Kennedy has changed so much that I couldn't believe it was the same actress - and it is. Libby is still a minger though. I struggled with the storylines too, for all of ten minutes.
I had many a bruise from conker fights with my brothers growing up... man those could hurt the knuckles!!
Are aubergines eggplants then?
Yes, aubergine is the english word for eggplant.
ha ha menderz.. it sounds like your brother's didn't teach you conkers properly!! that sounds more like slaps.. or raps..
I had a conker tree in my garden as a kid (or rather a 'Horse Chestnut' Tree) everyday throughout September and October when I got home from school, our front Garden would be full of kids looking for conkers or trying to knock more out of the tree.. I had quite a huge collection of champion conkers (conkers that had won loads of battles).. all sorts of sizes too.. I would try and pick which one to battle with depending on my opponents conker. In fact, each player used to have 'sets' we played with.
People tried different things each year to improve the strength and durability of their conkers.. do you remember soaking them in vinegar for instance? that was quite popular! I had some conkers that lasted years as well.. winning each year.. I used to have little boxes to keep them in until the next year.
I kept my champion conkers well after childhood, until unfortunately mould got in and spread throughout the collection..
there are loads and loads of little rules you can play in conkers, but essentially the game is all about taking it in turns to hit your opponents conker with yours until one of them loses (falls apart).. both of your conkers are mounted on the end of a bit of string (hole drilled through the centre). The player having their conker hit holds their string still and lets their conker dangle.. the player hitting usually swings their conker downwards to strike their opponent's..