There's a very, very good reason for making sure that a package is actually addressed to you before opening it. Otherwise, you might find out a wee bit too much about your neighbors.
Believe me when I tell you that these are quite possibly the last people on the planet I want to imagine having sex at ALL, let along HBO-After-Dark-style video-assisted sex. I'm thanking all the gods that we have a front desk in our building, because there is no way I'd be able to return this to them in person.
But that aside, I'm very pleased to be home. Even though London is still one of my favorite cities and I'd move there in a heartbeat if the right opportunity presented itself (like an indecent proposal from Martin Freeman, for example.) It's more than the cracking art/music/theater/film/fashion scene, the architecture and the history, the flea markets and charity shops. No, it's just one of those places that's always felt like home - I can't describe it any more specifically than that. Though on this trip, I was a bit surprised to find that, unlike New York, there are no yarn stores to be found. And when I say none, I mean ZERO. People, what's up with that? The only yarn I saw was in a freakin' department store, in the Haberdashery department which confused me even more because I always thought that referred to hats. It was probably just as well, since the dollar is worth so little now that Rowan was only a little cheaper than it is here. I did pick up the new R2, which had some interesting things in it - like so (excuse the crappy pix, I had to turn off the flash to get anything at all):
But the whole reason for the trip was WORK, which wasn't all that bad. We were there to shoot an interview for an upcoming exhibit on dinosaurs; the scientist is a terrific guy who was a joy to work with. He studies large land animals to determine principles of biomechanics involved in their running speeds; he's also designed software that applies those same principles to extinct animals. So he's come up with a maximum running speed for T rex that's much, much slower (and more plausible) than the Jurassic Park estimate (around 15mph rather than 75mph.) Hence our getting upclose and personal with elephants, ostriches, and a very sweet Icelandic Pony. Unfortunately, all the pix are on my computer at work, so you'll have to wait until Monday to see that ostriches really DO have eyelashes like our own Queen Mother.
At yesterday's Drafty Table session, it was noted that Jessica's lovely knitted flower was much, MUCH larger in person than originally suspected. True, it's a hefty blossom but that's one of the things I love about it. No shrinking violet, nor delicate bloom am I, neither.
