Punter Highlights

Punter: noun. People, patrons; like people who go to pubs.
"Who is that guy at the bar?"
"Oh, he's just some punter."
I am not sure that that definition is entirely correct, but it is for the purpose of this post.

Thursday night C catered a dinner for 65 Spanish people in the pub. The Spaniards were in Cambridge to learn English in order to go back to Spain and teach other people English. Which was funny, because the whole night they would come up to the bar and order "a haLf of Foster" (they pronounced the L) rather than "a half of Fosters." C served a horrible (stereotypically English maybe?) dinner of over-steamed carrots and broccoli and fingerling potatoes and what should have been steak and mushroom pie but was really a ladle of stew-ish filling poured onto a plate already containing the veg and topped with a square of puff pastry. At leas the pudding was nice, rhubarb trifle that we (the staff) got to eat too. Nice but cold and rich for the excessive portions that we ate.
C was in full C-mode: she ranted at the woman who organized the dinner for not making the vegetarians easier to find (what was she going to do? sequester them at their own table? tag them with neon yellow spray-paint? C is nuts) and once the dinner was completely served she got drunk (level-headed drunk, not messy or obnoxious).
The diners, on the other hand, sang. First, some woman sang "Think of Me" from The Phantom of the Opera, all opera-style with hand-gestures and funny jerky movements. It was fucking hilarious, unfortunately no one else has my sense of humor and so I had to laugh on the inside, which was difficult. Then they ALL sang some Spanish songs. Followed by (of course) "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" ("Breeeeng back, breeng back, Oh breeng back my Bonnee to me to me") and various Beatles tunes (Yesterday, Yellow Submarine, that was good). Then they put their arms around each other and danced a nice cancan. I once walked into the loo to find two women rehearsing another duet (duly sung). C, by this time 7 or 8 gin and tonics under (she's a bit of a hardened drinker), put some Abba on the stereo and they pushed the tables to the sides of the room and turned it into a disco. It was fun. I dislike disco as a rule, but I admit that it has its place and time. It was also fun because Spanish people are "civilized" when it comes to drinking (KT and Will's word for it, meaning they drank lots of halves very slowly and were jolly rather than ill-behaved).
Meanwhile, the water polo team came in and stood around the bar uncomfortably. They were drawn, I imagine, to the fun that the Spaniards were having but were too uptight to join the party. Lewis (or L as I should call him) came in and looked horribly uncomfortable and out of his element and we laughed at him. Then C, S, and I (tv reference is unintentional) hung out and had a few drinks after the pub closed. Was nice.

Last night, Sunday night, there was no one in the pub except for the 20 members of a rugby club from one of the Cambridge University clubs. They drank something like 12 pitchers of lager (we ran out of both Kronenburg and Fosters) in addition to drinks that they purchased separately. My boss came down to walk his dog, looked at the group, looked at me (the only person behind the bar), said "Have fun" and went back upstairs.
Actually, it was ok. Usually I feel really vulnerable when interacting with packs of British males because they are more interested in their mates' opinion of them than in being decent people and will sacrifice your dignity without a second thought if they think it will get them a laugh. Instead, these kids were nice and mopped up their own spills (as in "hiya, do you have a mop we could use? We spilled a little beer and don't want anyone to slip") and said please and thank you and were polite. I also got a kick out of being chatted up by tipsy 19-year-olds.
Conversations like:
Punter Lad: What part of the states are you from?
Our Hero: California, near San Francisco
PL: Really? I've never been there, been to LA though. I am half American, my mum is from Georgia.
OH: Really? neat.
PL: So I've really only been to the East Coast and LA, they're like, different countries!
OH: It's true!
(The kid who played PL in this conversation [yes, this conversation actually happened, it's not a dramatization] proceeded to say "totally!" a lot the rest of the night, something that I don't hear British people say a lot, though I don't interact much with British youth in a social capacity, so how would I know).
I left before they did, and had to suppress an urge to pat them all on the head and tell them that they were good lads.

Side note: Every time I say that I am from California, the person I am talking to remarks, aghast: "And you came HERE? WHY?!?"

Insomnia Post!

If I were a character in a Victorian novel, I would be the penniless companion. KT would be my sister who married money and status, and I would be the sister who lived with her and her family in their big manor because A) they couldn't afford to feed a spinster daughter at home and so that B) I could marry money as well.
I would order the servants around abominably but take care of the children. I would do chores because I knew that I was there on charity but I would make sure that everyone around me knew that I was doing them, so they knew that I was earning my keep and wouldn't throw me out.

Luckily, these are not Victorian times and I am not a character in a novel.

So I get a paycheck and days off, and am enjoying my stay rather than fretting about starving in hedgerows.

Tiny Tots and Little Lambs

I slept late this morning and was awoken by my sister pushing open my door. I looked over to snarl at her for waking me up and couldn't see her. I pushed myself up higher and saw my niece instead. She had toddled into the hall, away from her preoccupied parents, and pushed open my door. She chirped loudly and happily in an "I found Emily! Aren't I clever?" sort of fashion, teetered fully into my room and waited for me to get out of bed and pick her up.

Also, I had roast lamb for dinner. It was decent, but you can;t beat meat and potatoes and gravy and broccoli to fill you up satisfyingly. Work was really really boring otherwise. There were very few/no people there and there are only so many shelves that I can wipe down and glasses that I can put away.

Liar

I am a liar.
The guy who drinks IPA and who I thought was named Tom is actually named Lewis. Sorry to disappoint.
He brought his wife in today and she talks EXACTLY like he does. The same head movements as well. It's pretty funny.
She told me all about being a bedmaker at Downing College (a college at Cambridge University) and about barging into rooms with "do not disturb" signs and kicking the boys (it's an all-male college) bedmates out so that she could make the bed. And about calling their parents and letting them know that ther sons were still alive, and the stacks and stacks of Christmas letters that she receives from them still. I like her.
Still, I am afraid of becoming like her and her husband. Sitting in a pub talking about all the things that I used to do, instead of things that I want to do in the future or things I am doing currently.
At the same time, they clearly love sitting in the pub and telling barmaids (and anyone who will listen) about their wild youths and crazy capers and who am I to judge them for their enjoyments.
And, because I can't help but generalize, do certain people push themselves to do all the "crazy" stuff when they're young because they feel that they can "relax" when they're "too old" to do interesting things any more?
Reminds me of my parents talking about some of my more wild classmates from high school that they saw recently, how a few of them looked like they had prematurely aged, or like they were much older women trying to look like much younger women. As if they had pushed themselves too far in the 8 year span of high school and college without doing anything interesting (or what I consider interesting) and their enthusiasm for things had lost intensity.
Maybe I worry too much.

The End Of The World

Ok, so. I went and visited Nick (and Debbie, hi Debbie!) in London the other day. We went to Camden to eat half priced food that the stalls were trying to get rid of (a filling meal for only 3 pounds!) and people watch.
English girls and I are WORLDS apart. I keep watching them (I hope not creepily) and trying to figure them out. They all seem to wear fashion uniforms. They make Americans seem very dull and almost puritanical by comparison with their up to the minute style. Which does not mean that many girls have GOOD style. It's true they are trendier than American girls but the theory seems to be that the more trendy items you can wear/carry the better you look, whether or not said items fit you or are flattering. I am calling this the Topshop Phenomena. Most stores of similiar prices and client-base and quality (H&M, Wet Seal to some extent etc.) Topshop does not release a "line" every season. Instead, it pelts the customer with clothing that changes weekly. Some women go every lunch break because if something comes in one week, it can be sold out the next and never be seen again. This means that trends can be weekly. This week: leggings and Uggs. Next week: minis and stilettos. And because it's pretty cheap, it's possible to buy things weekly and discard them lightly.

Back to Camden. Nick, Nick's friends Gloria (and later Debbie) and Carlos and I went to a pub called The End of the World. It's supposed to be a big punk club but there was nary a good mohawk in site. Instead it was filled with Topshoppers wearing the latest "punk" gear and heels and lots and lots of makeup. I was getting ready to feel out of place and slightly uncomfortable amid these birds in their fine feathers (yes, that cliche has been done to death, but it was like being in a park filled with parading peacocks) when Nick pointed out that I was wearing my septum jewelery which was as much makeup as I needed.
I like Nick.

We found a table near a fire, which was nice because the pub was cold. Some guy in a striped shirt (I am going to call him Striped Shirt) came up to the fire too, and sat kind of at our table at the corner that was closest to the fire. We ignored him because he was obviously drunk and a little creepy. He put his elbows on his knees and leaned over them, towards the fire. Every so often a security guard would walk by and tap him on the head and tell him that he couldn't sleep there. He'd prove that he was awake and they'd walk off. I went up to get a round for my party and the bartender warned me that if I was also buying a drink for Striped Shirt that they would kick us out when they kicked him out. I assured her that I wouldn't and she let me have my drinks. Since they cut him off at the bar, he was trying to get other people to buy him drinks but no one would do it.
At about 12 a guy walked up to our table and asked us if Striped Shirt was our friend. We chorused "NO!" And he said that he and his friends had been watching us for a little while and talking about what jerks we were for ignoring our clearly drunk friend who was about to pass out into the fire. We set him straight finally.
Damn. This story is hilarious when told. I am too tired right now to write it differently. So, it will have to stand as is. Maybe when I am less sleepy I will attempt to write it in a funnier way. Or I will lose interest.

You Don't Have To Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here

The other night I threw out a rowdy group of drunk patrons. They were all weight-lifters over six fet tall and I threw them all out by the seats of their beefy pants. They were so impressed that they made me their queen and built me a house made of chocolate that had chocolate fondue fountains gently arcing out of toffee basins amid fields of strawberries.

I am a dirty, rotten liar.

I did throw some people out of the pub, but they were 12. And sober. And inches shorter than me. And scary as hell. My bosses T and C live above the pub with their son, 12 (13?) year-old O. T and C went out for the night when I was working leaving O alone with his friend Ol. At about 10:30 a group of 12 year-olds showed up and asked for O. I had no way of getting in touch with O, and they said that he wasn't expecting them. So I said there was nothing that I could do. They didn't look like they could be friends of O's, O has a mod haircut and is no toughie. He respects his parents and walks the dog and is very polite. When I say "how are you doing?" He always replies "Well, and how are you?" These kids were to into being cool.
They left, or so I thought. They came back and sat on the porch area and smoked. A) Kids under 18 aren't allowed in pubs if they are unaccopanied by a parent and B) if they smoke on the pub property they get us in trouble as well as themselves. There was only one guy in the pub besides me. An older man named L who is probably in his late 60's, early 70's. He might have been a tough guy back in his youth but no longer. I noticed them smoking and said that I didn't want to be the one to kick them out. L responded by jumping to his feet and saying that he would do it. I figured that I had to toughen up sometime so I said no, I would do it.
I went out there and said that they would have to leave, especially if they were going to smoke. The kid smoking tried to claim that he was 16 (the legal smoking age) but didn't have ID. So he stubbed out his cigarette and he and his mates got up to leave. As I was walking indoors one of them called out "just kidding! he's only 12!"
I turned around icily and said sarcastically "No kidding."
They didn't like that.
They moved the chairs around as they were leaving. I could hear it but not see it and decided that taking the bait would be worse than having to fix the chairs around the tables later.
They came back 5 mintues later and the Kid threw a passport onto the bar in front of me, It was a picture that could have been him and the dates were right for him to be 16. He said "don't you believe that I am 16?" and I started to say "I dunno" but L, clearly thinking that he would help out the nice barmaid in need, jumped up and barked "What are you doing here! get out!"
Which was the WORST thing that he could have done. These kids were looking for some victim to get into their faces. They WANTED someone to threaten them, to make them feel tough when they called the persons bluff.
They left but kept coming back and the one kid, the ringleader who had been smoking and who threw the passport in my face, would fling open the door and scream insults at L. They were hilarious insults because they were English insults and made noooooo sense to me:
"You, go back to hangover court!" (rehab for alcoholism?).
"Your dripping nose, dripping into the burgers at princess court, do you remember?" (what?).
Ultimately his mates decided that he had gone too far and persuaded him leave the pub alone. Only one of the kids had even hint of a mustache and 2 of them had those uber-gelled faux-hawks (clearly future popped collars and cubic zirconia ear studs).
I said previously that the insults themselves were funny, but L came off as a toothless old man, all bark and no bite. He likes to tell me and the other barmaids tough stories about his wild youth and revel in what he sees as our admiration of him being a retired bad-ass (not really, we all think that he's full of crap but we all put up with it because we don't really care). He had told me all about some guns that he had carried while in Nigeria in the 60's and the lion that he shot and bushwhacking around the Yukon while working for BP etc etc.
Bored adolescents with too much time on their hands and brittle pride who haven't yet discovered the opposite sex are scary people. If I had called the police they would have come back and done something worse (I dunno, egged the place, thrown rocks at me). There was no way that I could win that situation because they knew and I knew (and they knew that I knew) that they were willing to go farther than I was. The only way to at least tie with them is to affect an "I really don't care, but whatever, you're really not worth my time" attitude so that they don't feel like you've challenged them. And then freaking L gets in the way to protect the poor helpless barmaid who really has a much better handle on the sitaution than he does. Guh.

In other news, I got a nice new haircut! And it was cheap cheap cheap because I got it from a haircutting school. Looks nice, though it took 2 hours and made me late for work. T forgave me anyways and made fun of me for staring at my new hair in the mirror and preening.
He's also decided that he's director of my social life and has attached me and S onto some sort of pub crawl that the waterpolo club is doing (clubs get free french fries and sandwiches if they come to the pub at the same appointed time each week, and the waterpolo club comes every tuesday). Could be fun, could be awkward. We'll see.

Can't Help It.

Rosemary Rhubarb Cake, take 2:
Soooo... this is a potential recipe based on a very good version of this cake that I made today. It's based on the Joy of Cooking applesauce cake recipe. I dunno though... it was good cake but the flavors weren't as potent as I'd like. Anyways:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. (or 190 degrees C)

8-10 Stalks of rhubarb (I think, it should cook down to about 1.5 - 2 cups of goo) cut into 3/4 inch chunks
1/3 cup sugar

Put the sugar and the rhubarb into a saucepan. Leave it alone for 10 minutes so that the sugar can pull some of the juice out of the rhubarb, then cook on low low heat until most of the rhubarb breaks down but there are still chunks. Taste and adjust sugar. It should still be a bit tart because the batter has sugar in it too.

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp backing soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.

3/4 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, softened

Cream together. My sister doesn't have an electric mixer so I let the butter get really really soft and cream it with a fork.
Then beat in:

1 egg
2 tsp (or 1 tbsp, I dunno, this is where I am differeing from what I previously did) fresh rosemary chopped SUPER fine, almost a powder.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter and fold in with a spatula. Then add 1/2 of the rhubarb, followed by another 1/3 of the flour mixture, and then the rest of the rhubabrb mixture and finally the last of the flour.

Scoop into buttered bread pans and cook for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
It's nice with heavy cream that has been agitated (I made that up, it means cream that has been beaten a little with a fork so it has larger, loose bubbles but doesn't hold it's shape so that it's lighter than straight cream but not whipped. There's probably a real name, but I don't care).

Otherwise uninteresting day. S invited me to a party but they are holding it at the P. and I am not sure I want to go back to work for the second time today.

Face Meets Pavement

Sooooo.. I am a cripple. Or, as my brother-in-law and his wife like to point out when I am beating them at cards, a gimp (as in "whatever, gimppedy mc-gimp-gimp!"). The above picture is the result of a nasty bike accident. My co-worker (now friend, you can't do what she did for me and not come out of it my friend) and I hung out monday night. Her boyfriend was out of town and so to keep herself from feeling too lonely she invited me over and cooked me dinner. We had a great time and then went to a pub called "the flying pig" or something like that. Good pub with good beer, but that makes me feel manly because women in England do not drink beer, but I am not a wine person and I refuse to drink shandys (eew) and so I drink beer and feel defensive (on the other side, I like telling macho men that soccer in the USA is predominantly a girl's sport, it makes me snicker). Biking back from the pub we stopped at a red light. Actually, S. (my co-worker) stopped and I hit the recently re-tuned hair-trigger front wheel brake instead of the back wheel brake, had a brief physics lesson (Newtons first and third laws, and transference of momentum) and a cultural experience (in England front brakes are on the right side of the handlebars, unlike the USA where the right side has the back brake) thought "shit! wrong brake!" and hit the pavement.
It's true, all of that, and I would tell you if I was embellishing for the sake of my story.
S. helped me up and the woman in the car at the light ahead of us stopped and was very kind and asked if I was ok. I immediately told her that I was fine and that she was kind for asking and no, I didn't need any help. I am pretty sure that if I had been bleeding to death with all kinds of bones sticking out of my arms I would have still told her not to worry about lil' ol' me. I am sometimes too polite (ie: the time I ate an entire bowl of Crisco mixed with frozen blueberries and sugar, sugar and blueberries do NOT dissolve in Crisco by the way, because my nice Athabaskan hosts had made my group "Eskimo ice cream" and I didn't want them to think that I wasn't appreciative of their dish). S. looked at my chin and said "you're going to need some stitches." We walked the last 2 blocks back to her place and she loaded me into her car and took me to the A&E ("Accidents and Emergencies" = the Emergency Room). A&Es are EXACTLY like ERs. Same linoleum floor, same low ceiling, same flourescent lighting, same wait to see an actual doctor. We got there at 11:30 and it was 3 am before I saw a doctor. We were sitting across from an array of pamphlets called things like "Cervical Cancer" and "Testicular Cancer" and "Keep Warm, Keep Well" (which sounds like it would be funny, DUH you should keep warm! but it's for elderly pensioners who can't afford to heat their houses. Decidedly not funny). The manly cancer pamphlet was decorated with soccer balls and the woman-cancer pamphlet had pictures of flowers. Because, clearly, cancer is fun! Like playing soccer among the daisies.
I had an x-ray (which my doctor let me look at, it was really really clear and I could see my fracture once she had pointed it out) which showed said fracture of my radius at the elbow joint. They wrapped it in gauze ang gave me a sling. Then the nurse glued the cut on my chin closed and sent me home. I don't have a cast or a splint because the fracture will heal on its own and elbows, apparently, need to be constantly moved otherwise they stiffen and become useless.
Besides the fracture and the chin I have some nice roadburn on one hand and 6 bruises more than an inch in width and looking like I decided to color myself in with purple sharpie.
Did I mention that S. not only took me to the hospital, stayed with me until they let me out at 4 am, drove me home, and but she brought me back my bike the next day? If I could write poetry or music or something, I would dedicate an ode to S. As I can do neither of those things, I bought her cakes and invited her to dinner. She is my most favoritest person in the entire goddamn world right now (KT agrees with me wholeheartedly. Especially since she offered to babysit Hannah).
I got to tell my story to all the regulars at work (who all told me their falling-off-the-bike stories), and someone noticed my chin and my new way of gingerly pulling pints and asked me, knowingly, if I had fallen off of my bike recently.
There was also a new guy at work, C. C's been a barman for 3 years and is not very good at it. He makes drinks well and can do the banter with customers but never picked up any plates. He's not very interesting or easy to talk to, I am pretty sure that we are not going to be friends. Too bad.

Dreaming of a white... Easter?

If April showers bring May flowers, what do March blizzards bring?
Man, I am so clever.
It snowed for Easter, and here are the pictures:


Pheasant tracks.

400 year old canal.

Sad daffodils


Approaching the city centre (British city centre, British spelling).

Vandalized bike, in the snow!

Little St. Mary's graveyard.

Trinity College

More Trinity

Punts on the River Cam, in the snow!


There were also hundreds of professional photographers out taking pictures with their huge, fancy cameras to sell to people to use in brochures and postcards and calendars.

Teaser:
Find out next time how a millisecond physics lesson made Emily unable to type with both hands!