England and Ireland: England. Part 7: The English Countryside.

Oh, my! I apologize for my very slow blogging. Life just keeps interfering!

If you are late to the party, or missed a post along the way, please see my previous blogs of this vacation:

Part 1: Liverpool
Part 2: Stratford-Upon-Avon
Addendum: More photos from Liverpool & Stratford
Part 3: London Olympics, Women’s Basketball
Part 4: London Olympics, Men’s Basketball
Part 5: London Olympics, Beach Volleyball and Women’s Diving
Part 6: London Olympics, Equestrian Jumping


Which brings us to today, The English Countryside.

After we left Greenwich Park and the equestrians, we sadly had to retrieve our luggage and catch a train out of London. I think we all feel that we’d like to go back and see the city for itself. There just was no time to enjoy the city this time.

For those of you Anglophiles (or more specifically, Londo-philes), I leave you with this as we leave London behind.

Sad as we were to be done with our Olympic experience, we were very happy to be on our way to visit Georgie, my college roomie and good friend. She is an expat who has been living in England more that half her life. She has a beautiful home in a small village west of London. We were so pleased that she invited us to her home!

The next day we headed out to the countryside. Georgie was our chauffeur, and we are so grateful to her for showing us around. Our first stop was the awesome (in the true sense of the word) Stonehenge. It was magical and mystical, of course. I thought I wouldn’t post too many pictures, as there are probably millions of good photos of Stonehenge in the world, but what the heck, I was there, and these are mine!

I always have the strange thought that throwing my head back at an odd angle will make a better picture. :-/

We also stopped at Old Wardour Castle and learned a little about medieval life and English History. Cool stuff.

We stopped for lunch in a pretty village where we found a sweet bookshop and tea room. We enjoyed tea and rarebits. It was fun that the waiter brought a timer to help us decide when our tea had been steeped properly.

Photo by Trish

Photo by Trish

Photo by Trish

Photo by Trish

Trish and Cyn had ancestors from the area, so we visited a few of their home places. One was the village of Yeovil, where there happened to be a “Retro Fair.”  I expected a street fair type deal, but it was the community center filled with booths selling Vintage clothing and jewelry, a craft room, music outside on the patio, and the ubiquitous pub.

Photo by Trish

The highlight of the stop to Yeovil to me was the burlesque show at the Retro Fair. These women had some cajones to get up there and strut their stuff!

We went on to Salisbury Cathedral, a beautiful ornate Anglican cathedral as only the English can build.

Later we returned home and watched the Olympics on TV for a bit before hitting the sack.

To come: Driving Adventures and Bath!

Dream:On!

Dreaming? There's an app for that.

As you know, Kevin and I, but mostly Kevin, are interested in lucid dreaming. Kevin really tried to develop the ability. He kept dream journals, took Vitamins, and worked on his dream awareness.

Mine just happen sometimes. I have had half-a-dozen or so in the last few years since Kevin has been interested. My very first one, when I was a wee tot, was semi-lucid when I halted my dream and yelled out, movie-director style, "Cut! This time we're going to have us chase the monsters instead!"

I've described a few of my lucid dreams here on this blog:
March, 2008
November, 2009
December, 2009


In Saturday's LA Times, there was a feature article about a new iPhone app, called Dream:ON.  I immediately told Kevin about it, and I downloaded it myself.

The idea is that the accelerometer in the phone will detect movement in the bed, which translates to different stages of sleep.  (OK, I know, this is pretty loose data that it collects. It pretty much missed me waking up and going potty at 2am). When it senses that you are in the deep REM sleep, it plays sounds of a pre-chosen scenario, supposedly to influence the dream by your integrating the sounds that you hear.

I've tried it twice. I thought being on an old-fashioned bag-o-water waterbed would especially give some good data!

The first morning, I woke up and found that I had dreamed about the app itself. In my dream I was telling someone about it. I thought that was a good start!

This morning, the second morning, I woke up after having a lucid dream! There was no setting of a peaceful garden, reflecting the sound scenario I had chosen, but I dreamed I was in England. They have lots of gardens there, right?

I dreamed that I was trying to call a cab in order to catch a plane, but I couldn't get my cell phone to work. I told someone that I was having trouble, and then it dawned on me that this is often my sign that I am dreaming: mechanical failure! I often have trouble with the phone in my dreams. So, when I realized I was probably dreaming, I pinched myself AND bit myself to make sure. In a previous dream a few years ago, I had pinched myself, but Denial being a pretty powerful thing, I didn't believe it and told myself that I did feel the pinch when I didn't.

Anyway this morning in my sleep, I realized I was having a lucid dream, and tried not to get too excited, because I've blown it before by getting all giddy about it and losing the lucidity or waking up. So, I played it cool, and the thing I decided to do was to make $1000 appear outside.

I declared to everyone in the dream room, "Hey, go outside, there is $1000 in hundred dollar bills outside!"

I opened the door, and sure enough, there were $100 bills suspended on strings. Some of them were fake, like Monopoly money. I guess the Dream World didn't want me to get too big for my britches??

So, although the Dream:ON app didn't directly influence my dream, at least not in the way it was intended, I think just being aware of it and being aware of dreaming helped me achieve lucidity.

The developers of the app have a quasi-scientific study going using user-derived data. I won't go that far, but maybe you'd like to download the app and participate!

Dreaming is kind of fun. I think I'll sleep with my phone again tonight!

What kind of shave?!

Our telephone number is one digit off from a local dog groomer, who happens to also have our name as part of their name. We often get calls for them.

I sometimes answer the phone and get asked the question, "Is this The Small Dog House?"

I'm always tempted to answer, "Yes, this is the Smalls' Dogs' House. Would you like to talk to Cocoa or Kibble?"

Sometimes we get a message wanting to make an appointment. Yesterday, I was awakened by an early morning phone call that went to the answering machine.

"I was wondering if I could bring Lucy in for a bath and an anal shave."

Woooo! Good morning!

Photo by Alexandratx. Used by permission.

In My Little Town

I was so excited when my friend C. asked me to go to see Paul Simon in my little town, at our wonderful Santa Barbara Bowl. Yes, THE legendary Paul Simon.

What a terrific show!  The opener was The Secret Sisters, a sister duo from Somewhere-or-Other, Alabama. They played acoustic guitar and sang amazing harmonies on old-timey country songs, plus some of their own. They had very sweet voices. It was a pleasure to hear them!

Mr. Simon took the stage without delay with his 8-man back-up band.  What a fun, fun show!  He played songs from his entire repertoire, from "The Sound of Silence" and "The Only Living Boy in New York" to his '70s music, like "Kodachrome," "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and "Mother and Child Reunion," on to the Graceland era, "Graceland" and "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," through to songs from his newest album called So Beautiful or So What, along with covers, including songs by Junior Walker, Chet Atkins and the Beatles!  The arrangements were creative, and familiar songs were performed in new ways. I like his new stuff, too.  Here is the setlist.

I was amazed at the number of guitars that he used. Every number, a different guitar would be brought to him. His band was really talented. It was a lot of fun to watch each of them. 

The concert was energetic and lively. It was a wonderful show. They played for more than two hours!  Not bad for a 70-year-old geezer, huh?

Here are some photos from up in Section E:

Many, many thanks to my friend C!!!

I don't want to piss off the Copyright gods, so I'll be a good girl and not upload the video I took. Next time you see me, ask me to see it.  I will leave you with this, though.  He performed at Ground Zero on the 9/11 anniversary last month.

Foster the Weekend

Wow! Annette and I had a super weekend last weekend in Orange County!

It all started with Annette's desire to see one of her current favorite bands, Foster the People. They were selling out everywhere, but this venue was under the radar, a fundraiser for their "Do Good" tour, so we were able to get tickets easy!

Since the concert was on a Monday night, I thought we should try to see a baseball game on Sunday, and wouldn't you know that the the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim were scheduled to play the New York Yankees on Sunday afternoon!  Yippee!

And gee, since we're going to be there Sunday, and neither Annette nor I had to work on Saturday, why not go to Knott's Berry Farm?  Cool!


Knott's Berry Farm is a fun amusement park. It wasn't at all crowded until about 2pm. Hardly any lines till then!

And we got a good deal on admission.

"Tickets are $56 each," said the gate clerk.

"I saw a price of $47 on-line," said I.

"That's the internet price. But we have a special going: Park admission and an all-you-can eat lunch for $44."

"We'll take it."

We had just eaten lunch before arriving at the park, darn it, but we did end up going to the lunch buffet for a snack. You saw my boysenberry pie on Facebook!

Knott's has good rides, but my 40-something-year-old tummy didn't like some of them. Still, we both had fun!  I liked Montezooma's Revenge the best!

My camera was DOA--darn that I am terrible at watching the battery indicator--so all these photos are courtesy of Annette.  She didn't bring her camera into Knott's, though.

That night and the next we got to enjoy Disneyland's fireworks from our hotel window!

It was a heart!

Our hotel was within walking distance of Angel Stadium! I didn't even plan it! I had used Priceline.com so I didn't choose the hotel, only the general area. We enjoyed the short walk, and it was a beautiful day for baseball!  I chose seats that were AWESOME!  Great view of the first-base line, and we were in the shade!  Yay!

The game was a good one. Annette hadn't seen a baseball game in forever, and she wasn't sure she'd like it. But the game had a lot of action, including 3 homers (two of them Angel homers, complete with fireworks). The Yankees won 6-5.

Annette is now a baseball fan!  Whooo-hoooo!

It was the 10th anniversary of 9/11. They gave us flags. It was a great day to celebrate being American!

42,500+ fans enjoyed the game. There were suprisingly a lot of Yankees fans there!

And on Monday, the main attraction.  We didn't do much during the day that day, just a little mall shopping and lunch. We got to the Galaxy Theater at about 6:00.  We had a lot of waiting....in line till about 7:30 (doors opened late), then standing room only, through two stinker opening bands.

The first opener, Polaris at Noon, was awful. Unintelligible mud. The second band had lost their drum kit, so the drummer banged away on luggage. They never said their name. Too embarrassed, maybe?

We had to wait a loooong time in the pit. We were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the hot room with dozens of other sweaty people, who were amazingly patient, until nearly 10:30, when Foster the People finally took the stage. And then, our sore feet were just a memory....

What a fun performance!  They had a great stage show, and I enjoy their music.  I think they'll make it big.

Mark Foster

Cubby Fink

Mark Pontius

Here are a couple videos. The first one is Annette's favorite song of theirs.  The venue in the video is similar to the Galaxy. Imagine us 3-4 people back from the stage, and you are there with us!  (sorry for the lame commercials; I used the official video and they always try to make a buck)



This one is the song that has zoomed up the charts, hitting #1 on the alternative chart.  It was the #2 most-downloaded song the week before we saw them. Catchy, huh?  Enjoy!



I was happy to go. Now, after spanning nearly 35 years of music in concerts a couple weeks apart, I wonder why I don't go to concerts more often.  I think I will!