Top Tips For the Ex-Pat Wife

'Tis the season to be jolly, and just like one of Santa's little helpers, I like to be useful.  So for anyone seriously thinking of emigrating to the US, here are some more of my personal top tips for surviving life as an ex-pat wife in Southern California.

(1) Alcohol.

Consume lots of it and suddenly things don’t  look too bad at all.  On the other hand too much and things look a lot worse than they really are.  The ideal is to reach the happy medium.   Another top tip regarding alcohol – don’t take a teenager on a wine tasting tour of the Napa Valley.  We learnt that valuable lesson early on.

(2) Overcome Self Pity.

Definitely not helped by over-indulging in Number 1. Cries of “you don’t understand!” and “it’s alright for you – you go to work, school etc”  to the rest of the family will go unheard and will not provoke the reaction you require.  This is not because they don’t sympathise, it’s simply because after a while they get fed up of hearing it. Knuckle down and get on with it – you signed up willingly for this so you only have yourself to blame. 

(3)  De-sensitise. 

Develop a rhinoceros-like thick skin and learn not to take things personally - you will get knocked back and rebuffed especially when it comes to finding your feet and  forging new friendships.  Toughen up. Even a trip to the local supermarket used to reduce me to tears because I couldn’t find what I wanted on the shelves and I convinced myself the store manager was refusing to stock items to spite me.  Now I accept that’s just the way it is – just like I accept the  check-out assistant doesn’t really want to be my new BFF.

(4) Grab the Opportunities.

Following on from Numbers 2 & 3 once you have developed an inner and outer strength you can cope with anything.  Look on the bright side and find all the positives about your new lifestyle and homeland - the chance to explore a new country, experience new things, eat new food, meet new people, create an entirely new personality...

(5) Don’t give up.

There will be times when it will be very tempting to pack a bag and head for home but resist.  Be patient.  Any textbook ever written about immigration will stress it takes at least 12 months for a new country to feel like home and this is so true.  Culture shock will wear off – you do eventually develop immunity. 

(6) Keep in touch.

Even though it is important to integrate yourself into your new surroundings, you do need to maintain relationships with the folks back home.  Not only will this help to keep you sane but one day you might want to go back and need a place to stay.

(7) Play up the good bits.

Ever wanted to be the envy of all your old friends? Now is the golden opportunity – there must be some parts of your new lifestyle you know will make them dead jealous so brag about it. Your friends will then remind you how lucky you are.  Eventually you will agree. 

(8) Keep motivated.

It’s very easy to give in to apathy.  Even if you aren’t legally entitled to work,  which will certainly help with the envy issues in Number 7, you will need to keep yourself occupied.  Although like much else in America voluntary work is wrapped in bureaucracy, persevere and you should be able to find something to suit.  Failing that, take up a new hobby or master a new skill -  becoming an expert at procrastination doesn't count.  

(9) Count your blessings.

Are you healthy? Good, because America is not the place to be sick. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is a financial necessity.  Exercise regularly - endorphins are good for you and they're free.

(10) Develop a sense of humour.

Even if you didn’t have one before you will need one now.  Keep hold of it at all costs.

And if all else fails?  Start a blog.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 

The Big Clear Up

Nature has bitten back with a vengeance. More than two weeks on from the big storm and Pasadena’s clear up effort continues.  More than 75,000 homes were without power for five days.  Ten days later there were still houses waiting to be re-connected and complaints about inefficient utility companies and lack lustre responses abound.

Pasadena’s Rose Bowl stadium has been designated as the tree recycling depot – there will certainly be no shortage of logs for those winter fires and the Southern Californian mulch mountain is growing daily. Re-cycling is not a particularly popular past-time in the US and there is a noticeable absence of homeowners loading up their own cars with tree debris – they prefer instead to sweep it out into the road where it remains in large mounds presumably awaiting collection by the city council or the posse of Mexican gardeners.

This doesn’t altogether surprise me – here in affluent Pasadena very few homeowners will ever cut their own grass, wash their own car or clean their own loo.  Hardly surprising then that there is a distinct lack of residents gathering up their own leaves.

It also appears to be perfectly acceptable here to leave your rubbish out on the street  and rely  on someone else to cart it way. I regularly see abandoned three piece suites, the odd chest of drawers or a box of old books or children’s toys out on the sidewalk – we’d call that fly tipping in the UK and would receive a hefty fine. Here you just dump your stuff and hope that someone else will walk off with it. Rather surprisingly it’s a system that does actually work – as long as you don’t mind your neighbourhood looking like a junk yard for a few days.

Driving has become even more of a hazard than usual. Palm tree fronds and fallen branches still litter many roads and new chicanes appear daily around the accumulating garden waste burial mounds.  Traffic signals and street lamps are still down.  Major road junctions are functioning as chaotic twelve way stops and many drivers appear to have lost that rather elusive American common sense gene altogether.  Rather than co-operating in an orderly fashion most of these junctions are complete free-for-alls with accidents occurring on a daily basis.  So even if you were lucky enough to avoid being hit by a falling tree, there is a every chance now you will be hit by another car.

All this chaos is just the result of one night of heavy wind.  I don’t know if it was simply a question of being taken unawares, a lack of co-ordination, or even  lack of co-operation but the clear up is not going well. Heaven help California when there really is a big disaster – like an earthquake.  Ever since we arrived here and experienced our first minor earth tremor public service adverts have regularly appeared on TV reminding us to be prepared for the BIG ONE and to make sure we have our emergency disaster kit to hand - bottled water, dried food, batteries, torch, urgent medical supplies. Maybe a rake, wheelbarrow and large dose of community spirit would be good things to have on standby too.

A Blustery Day

We don’t get a lot of weather here in Southern California.  It’s basically dry, calm and sunny 90% of the year.

 This does make meteorology a rather unremarkable and fairly predictable career,  so naturally the local weather guys have learned to play up their roles a little bit.  When there is a slight variation to the norm it becomes a major event; a slight breeze and  a wind advisory is issued; coastal fog mixes with city smog to become the “marine layer” and a rare day of rain is a major storm.  

This week however, we had  genuine excitement in Pasadena because we actually had some real weather.  Santa Ana winds are a Southern Californian phenomenon that occur every Fall – usually hot dry winds famous for fanning the flames of those forest fires that regularly threaten celebrity homes up in the Hollywood Hills.

A wind advisory is usually issued for anything over five miles an hour which is hardly likely to  ruffle that immaculate Californian hair, so when this particular Santa Ana wind advisory was issued, nobody took much notice.  Batten down the hatches, said  Barbie the TV weather girl; tie your patio furniture down announced her team mate Ken.  Oh yeh?

Come about nine o-clock in the evening I noticed it had got a bit noisy outside; the palm trees were flapping recklessly about as the first of several sun loungers took off across the pool. Gusts of wind continued to rock the building all night. At seven o’clock the next morning Pasadena looked decidedly worse for wear. Local news reports told of blocked roads, broken power lines and numerous cars and houses all damaged by a positive plethora of falling trees.  Gusts of up to 90 miles an hour had been recorded in the night and a State of Emergency had been declared.  To the teenager’s delight  all schools were closed.

Fortunately there were no stories of human injuries or fatalities – remarkable really considering the number of trees that had actually come down.

So why so much destruction from a few gusts of high wind? Apparently a lot of it was to do with shallow root systems.  Rather unsurprisingly a lot of the trees growing up through Pasadena’s concrete sidewalks, and artistically planted on those nicely manicured suburban front lawns are not native to California.  The natural landscape in the foothills area is “chapparal”, Mediterranean style heathland dotted with low growing drought tolerant evergreens. 

As a non-native species myself I fully sympathise with these imported trees who find it so hard to put down roots in the inhospitable Southern Californian environment.  Planted to make the place look pretty and forced to survive on a supply of water derived almost entirely from domestic garden sprinklers, even in winter these deciduous trees have retained a fair amount of leaves  making them decidedly top heavy.  A stronger than normal puff of wind and over they go, taking half the sidewalk with them.

So whilst the city of Pasadena sweeps up; the insurance assessors and lawyers get to work, and the Mexican gardeners rub their hands together with glee, what  lessons can be learned from this catastrophe?

There’s no point re-filling those gaping holes in the street and on those manicured front lawns with yet another ornamental cherry tree.  It might sound too obvious, but my advice would be go native and plant a tumbleweed.

Black Friday

It’s not often I make a comment that America has got something right, but when it comes to shopping, having major retail sales before Christmas rather than after definitely makes sense.

The day after Thanksgiving Day is known as Black Friday.  This is the day when major retailers go into profit after 11 months in the red.  This is the day America hit the shops.

There was a bit of a fuss this year because some shops were actually planning to open their doors at 11.00 pm on Thanksgiving Day rather than waiting until one minute past midnight on Friday.  I don’t know what it is about opening a store in the small hours that makes everyone think they have got even more of a bargain than usual, but the psychology works.   If you want to grab a deal, you have to be there – it’s the early bird that gets the worm.

And some early birds certainly got more than they bargained for this year.  Along with news reports of police using stun guns on shoplifters during the opening frenzies, one woman was apparently arrested for pepper spraying her fellow bargain hunters to get them out of her way.  She was referred to by the newsreader as a “competitive” shopper. Disabling your rivals with a noxious substance competitive? Where I come from you'd call that cheating!!  

Americans do like to shop and they do like to think they are getting good value for money.  They lovingly collect hoards of “coupons” – discount vouchers which regularly appear in the mail box or come with the Sunday papers.  To me the word “coupon” conjures up connotations of war time ration books and a world of frugality – here it is exactly the opposite.  Coupons enable you to spend, spend, spend.  

The idea of being able to buy all our Christmas presents at discount prices was certainly very tempting and late on Friday afternoon we took a stroll to our nearest Macy’s store.  Elbows at the ready I was disappointed to discover the store itself was surprisingly deserted, although the shop floor did resemble the remnants of a rummage sale.  We did bag ourselves a couple of bargains but to be honest Macy’s is one of those stores that is always issuing “coupons” and having discount sales.  Canny shoppers can always get 10 or 20% off and it does make you wonder if anything is ever sold at full-price.  Again it’s all about the psychology.

After Black Friday comes Cyber Monday.  For anyone crushed in the stampede or too busy rubbing toxic dust out of their eyes to grab the Friday deals, Cyber Monday is the day to go on-line and double click on e-bargains galore.  Apparently it is the busiest day of the year for internet shopping, and the only hazard  would appear to be a mild case of RSI. 

Personally I think all this consumerism brings out the worse in all of us, and whilst I may be too late for this Christmas, I’ve told my family in the future we need downscale and economize.  Maybe just a small can of pepper spray will do the trick next year.

Grounded

Every now and then I just have to make a trip back home to the UK for a reality check.  I need to come back down to earth.

The trouble with living in LA is that after a while the surreal becomes the real.  I see a poodle in a pet stroller and rather than thinking that's so ridiculous I now tell myself that’s such a good idea, it is a bit of a long walk from the parking lot to the doggie boutique....

That’s not good.

So when the opportunity presents itself to check up on daughter No 1 and catch up with a few old friends I grab it. How refreshing it is to talk to people who sweep up their own leaves and wash their own cars.

I’m very lucky with my friends in the UK, they are happy to meet up at the drop of a hat as I breeze in and out of their lives every six months or so.   It’s a treat to go out for a meal and still be in the restaurant at 11 at night and a positive joy to be able to round up the bill to the nearest big number rather than have to worry that I’ve insulted the waiter by not leaving the correct tip.

Everyone always wants to know what I like best about living in America - well the most obvious and  easy answer is the Californian weather, and having the opportunity to travel of course.  The more difficult question is what don't I like about living in America, to which I normally respond how long have you got?  The traffic is a justifiable dislike, not just the gridlock and total congestion but the twelve lane freeways that are total deathtraps.  I can also have a good moan about the constant bombardment of commercialism and the crassness of American TV, where every programme appears to be aimed at an audience with a brain the size of a pea. 

What is more difficult is trying to explain my own personal incompatibility with all things American without sounding like an ungrateful misery, but as a logical and intelligent woman it is becoming increasingly hard to reconcile myself to living in a society that is so devoid of common sense.

Just this week US Congress announced that a slice of pizza can be officially classed as a vegetable because it contains more than two tablespoonfuls of tomato paste.  As such, of course, it can now safely remain on school dinner menus and presumably be considered as one of our five a day. Apart from the fact that I always thought a tomato was a fruit, if this isn’t a case of protecting the interests of the food production industry at the expense  the nation's health I don’t know what is.  And Americans wonder why the rest of the world thinks they're all stupid.

Of course the other issue which always intrigues my friends back in the UK is what exactly do I do all day and this is a question I constantly ask myself too.  How they envy my lazy luxurious lifestyle of relaxing by the pool, the coffee mornings, those long lunches and pottering around a rose garden once a week.  And yet how I envy them with their busy active lives, juggling jobs, running homes and organising their kids. Yes that too used to be me. 

Now I’m just this desperate housewife whose intellectual highlight of the week is penning a rather sarky blog. 

So to all my friends and family back home I’d just like to say thank you so much the welcome dose of humour, the regular supply of sanity pills, and for keeping my feet quite firmly on the ground.

Thank you too for reminding me how lucky am I to have the opportunity to experience life on another planet.  Beam me back up Scottie - I've got some of those new-fangled vegetable seeds to sow.  Does anyone know how long a pizza plant takes to grow?

A Good Read

Alongside the compulsory gifts of tea-bags, Cadbury’s dairy milk and packets of paracetamol, the one thing I always ask people to bring me when they visit from the UK is a generous supply of British magazines.  

 I’ve given up on glossy US mags.  If I have to spend $5 or $6 on a big read then I actually want something to read – rather than a catalogue of adverts.

I had a wry smile at the letters page in a recent copy of Sainsbury’s magazine which had fallen into my hands. A reader had complained that she disliked the layout of the magazine because there were too many advertising features.  Sainsbury’s Magazine is a monthly publication by a supermarket chain – of course it’s going to carry adverts – it’s sole aim is to promote its own products, but at least it doesn’t disguise itself as a journalistic enterprise.

This reader needs to try picking her way through a US magazine – it really is a case of spot the genuine article.

US mags fall into roughly the same categories as back in the UK; there’s the pure work of fiction – the gossip and chat mags (I can’t wait for the arrival of Kate Middleton’s twins); then there are the glossy fashion mags – the last one of these I bought had 36 pages of adverts before I’d even reached the Contents list; and then there are of course the magazines aimed at the more mature woman like me,  which are sadly little more than a promotional vehicle for that all American favourite of mine, the pharmaceutical industry.  

Do I have inexplicable aches and pains? Well yes occasionally something gives an uncomfortable twinge.   
Do I struggle to fall asleep at night?  Not usually - a couple of glasses of wine seems to do the trick. 
Am I suffering from depression? Not until I picked up the magazine….

And so it goes on - pages and pages of the stuff.  I've long suspected that the pharmaceutical industry actually runs America and flicking through one of these magazines just confirms my theory. It's no wonder a lot of Americans you meet are walking medical dictionaries - they are bombarded from dawn until dusk with subliminal messages reinforcing a perceived need for vitamin supplements, anti-aging and cosmetic procedures, as well as all manner of wonder drugs and cure-alls.  It's enough a make even the most fittest and healthiest amongst us to feel totally inadequate and decidedly peaky!

It’s not that American magazines don't carry genuine features and articles - they do, you just have to hunt them out. Cover stories and interviews never begin until at least half way through the magazine, and although there's always an eye catching headline and a glamorous photo shoot, when you turn the page to continue reading you discover the bulk of the story is actually 97 pages of  glossy ads away, right at the very back of the magazine.

Sadly US magazines have succumbed to the same format as US TV – a few lightweight snippets of information that interrupt a great deal of commercial activity.  Give me a nice cup of tea and a copy of Woman’s Own any day of the week. 

Pins and Needles

The best or worst part, depending upon how you look at it, about any road trip is having the opportunity to experience small town America.

For our final overnight stop on the way back from the Grand Canyon I had stuck a pin in the map and found Needles – a border town on the Colorado River.

According to my guidebook, just a few miles from Needles was Arizona’s second most popular tourist attraction after the Grand Canyon - London Bridge.   

Situated in Lake Havasu City, the bridge was bought at vast expense from the city of London and rebuilt, brick by brick, complete with a mock English Village in 1971. Despite popular belief that this bridge was purchased in mistake for Tower Bridge, the town’s publicity machine  is pretty quick to point out that the local entrepreneur who came up with the idea knew exactly what he was doing.   Whilst the bridge is impressive, complete with its gilded gates and tiny fountain, it says a lot for the rest of Arizona that this is it’s second most visited spot. The English Village appeared, like much else in Arizona, to have been abandoned, the pub had closed down and the door was hanging off the red telephone box.

After a brief stop, we continued on to Needles. It was easy enough to find our hotel – it was straight off the freeway exit – in fact it had a view of the freeway despite the words “….on the river…” appearing in its title.

“Let’s hope we’ve got a room around the back” – my husband said wistfully.  We did – twenty yards from the railroad track.

So, how could we spend our evening  in Needles? Did Reception have a map? This obviously wasn’t something they were regularly asked for.  The receptionist hunted around in a drawer and produced a photocopy that was practically illegible. We consulted the hotel room guide in the hope of finding a recommendation for a place to eat – yes, the diner next door, also surprisingly called something on the river, was number one on the list closely followed by Carls Jnr, McDonalds and a Burger King.

We’re used to sleeping next to the busy 210 freeway in Pasadena, so a night next to the comparative quiet of the Interstate 40 would have probably been bliss.  Instead we spent the night next to the main trans-America freight line; mile long trains stacked two containers high, clunking and trundling by all night. Not that it bothered my husband too much; he’s deaf in one ear and when he sleeps with his good ear to the pillow he hears nothing – it’s a trick he mastered when the kids were small.

Awoken bright and early by the 5.00 am cement train to Pheonix, I was desperate to find some redeeming feature about Needles; where was the river? Was there anything else to actually do here apart from eat fast food and attempt to get some sleep?  I wanted to stay and find out but I could sense a mutiny on my hands.  We left straight after breakfast.

We drove to our final stop-off at the Joshua Tree National Park along parts of the original Route 66.  Since the building of the interstate freeway, whole communities along the route have closed down – every few miles there are abandoned motels, diners and broken down homes.  Along one 40 mile stretch of road we only encountered five other cars.  The route isn’t scenic; it’s depressing.

It was with a great sense of relief that we made it safely back to Pasadena.  We’ve promised the teenager she’ll never have to take another road trip with us again and the maps, and the pins, have been firmly locked away out of my reach.

Not Another Dam Road Trip

Despite promising myself not to turn this into a travel-blog, sometimes when we go somewhere, I think oh I’ve just got to share this…..

The teenager had a Monday off school which meant we had an extra long weekend.  What better way to spend it than a road trip.  I got out my map; did a route planner, and worked out that if we left Pasadena straight from school on the Friday afternoon, stopped over night to visit the Hoover Dam, then drove on again the next day we would be at the Grand Canyon for Saturday sunset.

We could then meander back at our leisure and even find time to drive back through the Joshua Tree National Park.  This would then cross off all our remaining  “must-see’s” in one go. 

Our trip started well. We hit the Friday afternoon traffic  but once beyond the LA commuter belt – which stretches for about 30-40 miles east – the road cleared.  Spoilt by the luxury of 5 star Marriot Rewards the teenager was slightly horrified to learn that we would be spending our first night at the comparatively small 1930’s Boulder Dam Hotel in Boulder City.  Built to cater for visiting government officials and dignitaries during the construction of the Dam, the hotel had been lovingly preserved with its original 1930’s name, furniture and at first glance, what looked like the original 1930's staff  until we realised  a few creepy period dressed mannequins had just been strategically placed around the corridors.  

We rose at the crack of dawn and set off for the Dam.  Impressive? Just a tad.  We purchased our tickets for the whole Dam Tour and yes, in an hour’s walkabout you’d been amazed at how many times the guide, and all the visitors, could fit the word dam into a sentence. It was dam good fun.

After following our dam guide up and down the tunnels that run inside the dam and taking a tour of the power plant (which was actually a lot more interesting than it sounds) we then made our way up to the heady heights of the new Colorado River Bridge which gave spectacular views of the whole Dam landscape (it’s actually very hard not to use the word dam when you think about it).

Then we set off for the Grand Canyon.

It’s 240 miles from the Hoover Dam to the Grand Canyon National Park and that’s basically 240 miles of straight road with little sign of civilization. We drove through desserts, over plains and across plateaus.  We drove through Indian reservation country - shanty towns of trailer homes on barren, isolated pockets of land with just a few cactus for company.

As for the Grand Canyon itself, well of course that lived up to all its expectations. The most obvious word to describe it would be “awesome” but awesome is a word that get’s a bit  of over mis-use out here.  I tell someone we’re British, that’s awesome, we regularly visit restaurants where the staff describe  the house special as totally awesome - in fact the hostess at one eatery we visited recently in Pasadena told us her onion rings were so awesome they were going to change our life! (Tasty yes, life changing no!)

A red rock canyon millions of years old, 10 miles wide, one mile deep and 270 miles long, as spectacular as an onion ring?  Probably just slightly more so.  Absolutely  breathtaking.  And ticked off the list too.

Trick or Treat

It’s that time of the year again.  My morning walk no longer consists of a pleasant stroll around suburban streets but has become a hasty path through ghoulish graveyards and pet cemeteries.  Giant cobwebs adorn houses; corpses hang from lemon trees and skeletons sit on the front porch with welcoming toothy grins.

What is it about Halloween that fascinates America? I just don’t get it.  Back in the UK when I was small Halloween was a pretty low key affair; you dressed up in one or your mum’s old black skirts with a homemade witches hat and tried your luck at apple bobbing. Life was very simple way back then.

Several years came to pass and trick or treating reared its ugly head. When my own children were little they would head out into the street with their friends wearing whatever spooky makeshift costume came to hand, clutching an empty carrier bag in the hope of bringing home the odd kitkat or two.

We would decorate our own house with a simple Jack o’lantern – a sign that we would welcome other trick or treaters if they came to call. Most kids knew better than to knock at a door that didn’t have some sort of Halloween artifact on display.

Over here – every house has some sort of artifact on display. It’s a great way to lure children into your home.  As for trick or treating, it's totally out of all proportion. Mom and pop cruise the streets in their black SUV to ensure there is none of that tiresome "walking" around the neighbourhood, the stores are loaded with shelves and shelves of multi-bagged sweets - the American Dental Association must be rubbing their hands with glee.  And of course there are cards too - Happy Halloween - who an earth would you send one of those to?

Then of course there are the "pumpkin patches" that pop-up over night on a bit of waste ground, where you can buy yourself a pumpkin, loose your kids on the bouncy castle and admire the animals in the “petting zoo”.  I’m completely baffled by the concept of the petting zoo - a miserable collection of caged goats, rabbits and hens which travels around showgrounds and farmer’s markets purely for the pleasure of the paying public who can let their toddlers loose in the animal pen. It’s one of those bizarre archaic American traditions that really should have been banned by animal welfare activists many years ago.

Having been to the Pumpkin Patch, collected your pumpkin and let your pre-schooler manhandle a couple of newly hatched chicks, it’s then time to head to Party City to choose your outfit.  Party City, a shop the size of a small warehouse, is now dedicated almost entirely to Halloween paraphernalia.  Adorning an entire wall  are pictures of every costume imaginable and available for you to buy. Don’t forget to bring your pet dog so that they can choose one too.

Unfortunately we had to pay a visit to Party City because the teenager insisted she needed a new costume for the Halloween shinanigans she had been invited to. She couldn’t possibly wear an outfit from a previous year and nearly had kittens at the suggestion that we should perhaps make something instead.  Mermaid? Playboy Bunny? Nurse? What was it to be?  Most of the outfits looked as if they would be more at home in one of those top shelf  “Adults Only” catelogues.  In the end we purchased a relatively tasteful set of Natalie Portman style Black Swan feathered wings and a tutu. 

So how will I spend my Halloween? Well, it'll just be another typical Monday night for me - I'll be out on my broomstick somewhere....

The Land of Excess

After two years of living the American "dream" lifestyle I still find some of my old UK habits die quite hard. Especially when it comes to waste management.  I'm a little bastion of climate control and re-cycling; I just can't help myself; the frugality ingrained after a lifetime back in resource conscious Europe cannot be randomly dismissed even here in the land of plenty - or rather, the land of excess.

This truly is the land of wastefulness - over-sized food  portions in restaurants which must regularly result in plate loads of food being thrown away; over-zealous irrigation as garden sprinklers merrily water the pavement; over-cold air conditioning units which make you want to put your coat on to go into a building and take it off when you come out, and  giant sized household appliances that wantonly consume vast amounts of energy.

Despite living in a compact city center apartment I have a stove large enough to roast a complete medieval banquet.  Often I only switch it on to heat up a loaf of garlic bread. Whilst it does toast up the whole apartment quite nicely, I then have to put the air-con on to prevent the family expiring from heat exhaustion. I also have an industrial sized washing machine which spins with such gratuitous violence  it regularly destroys my clothes - it's so big that an entire week's worth of laundry only constitutes a half load. The same can be said for my tumble dryer, and of course, here in California  it rarely rains so it's ideal outdoor drying weather but there's not a clothes line in sight. It's all so unnecessary.  And what is so wrong with "small"?  It's almost a dirty word.

The vast majority of US politicians will have you believe that diminishing world resources and nasty rumours about global warming are pure mythology.  There's certainly no need for us to worry our pretty little heads about it.   There’s enough fuel left in the world to keep those gas guzzling SUV’s going for a good few years yet and enough by-products being created to enable check-out assistants at Ralphs to continue to pack one item of groceries per plastic bag guilt free.

Economise? Conservation? Don't even think about.  Just indulge.

This is a totally have-it-all and then throw it away, disposable society, and yet I still like to think I’m doing my bit to preserve the environment - regardless of unlimited resources. I don’t send all my trash down the convenient waste disposal chute at the end of my corridor.  Instead I separate my rubbish into what’s recyclable and what’s not, although this does mean I have to manually take half my trash down into the bowels of the parking garage to the one recycling bin that caters for all 230 apartments.

At my local Ralphs there is actually a "re-cycling" centre where I could take all my glass and plastic bottles and receive a 5 cent return for each, proving perhaps that Americans are willing to re-cycle given a financial incentive. However, there is a whole industry here for the poor of Pasadena, who regularly scavenge the bins.  I know if I put my bottles into the trash they will wend their way over to the recycling centre whatever, and some old tramp, far needier than me, will be a few dollars better off because of it.

The trouble with living here is that if you want to be "green" you have to go out of your way to do it.  I have to drive to an organic grocery store; it is an "inconvenience" to recycle my rubbish, and knowing how Americans love that word "convenient" it's hardly the encouragement they need to join in.  Time is precious over here and everyone is always in such a hurry - although I've yet to work out quite what for. The American lifestyle is not conducive to a social conscience.

I know I can't save the planet single-handedly, but at least I like to think I'm doing my best not to join the rush to totally ruin it.

A Good Indicator

Despite my chameleon like attempts to go unnoticed amongst LA society there are certain characteristics which will always mark me out as an alien species.

 Driving is one of them. 

Why? Because I know how to use my indicators.  It is very apparent cruising around the city streets that despite the vast sums of money the average American likes to spend on purchasing a flashy new car, they don’t spend an awful lot of time reading their owner handbooks.  If they did, they’d find out how to put their indicators on.

Considering they’ve all learned how to juggle the steering wheel whilst texting, balancing an i-pad and drinking a Starbucks you think sussing out how to let your fellow drivers know what direction you’re about to take would be pretty easy in comparison. 

Unfortunately co-operation is not part of the American psyche.  This is a culture where it’s very much ALL ABOUT ME.

A regular reader – and yes I do have some – very kindly sent me an article from the motoring press following a post I wrote about our trip to the East Coast where we re-discovered the joys of roundabouts.  American motorists are apparently very resistant to the idea of roundabouts because basically it means they all have to work together for the greater good in order to improve traffic flow.  Heaven forbid, they may even have to yield to another car.  This is an unfamiliar concept in American society.

It's very noticeable here that road users have very little regard for each other and are positively unco-operative.  You are never waved on ahead out of a car park or a side street into the main traffic flow even if the traffic is already at a complete standstill.  Nobody is ever going to give up their place in that line at the lights for you and why an earth should they? Remember - it's every man for themselves out here.

I'll admit I'm not a perfect driver - as the teenager is very quick to remind me now that she has passed her permit test and is the font of knowledge regarding the Californian Highway Code.  Although I personally think most Americans believe the right to drive at any speed, in any lane of the freeway is part of the American Constitution, I know for a fact that slower traffic is supposed to keep to the right and its pure urban myth that other cars can undertake, drive on the hard shoulder and even jump over the top of each other to get ahead.  I also know that a red traffic light means stop and a flashing white pedestrian sign means, unfortunately,  you do have to let them cross.

I also know that you are supposed to indicate before making a manoeuver which actually makes perfect sense. It's not just a question of good manners there is also the safety aspect. 

This is where I come unstuck with American mentality.  Here is a nation of people who take great pride in being gratuitously polite, yet give them a car and Dr Jekyll takes the back seat as Mr Hyde grabs the steering wheel.

The Hit List

There is an air of despondency in this quarter of the bubble household because daughter No 1 has now returned to England, leaving her dear old mum, if no-one else, feeling quite bereft.

The teenager seems happy enough at her sister’s departure, 12 weeks in close sibling confinement was probably stretching things a bit but they were still talking (just) when we forced the elder one protesting back onto the plane.  Unfortunately daughter No 1 had to go, not only because she has to complete her university education back in the UK, but also because she had a better suntan than me.  I can’t have that.

Of course I am sad. I’d got used to having a bit of company around during the day, but now I will just have to return to my rather mundane routine and continue to immerse myself in ex-pat wife life. 

As I tend to do every now and then I have written myself a mental list of things to do in order to keep myself occupied – there’s the usual POSTIVE THINKING, which regularly tops all of my lists, followed by  INSPIRED COOKING – which is a new one – YOGA  which also regularly appears together with WRITE NOVEL, another frequent visitor.  

It is highly unlikely that any of these activities will actually get completed – I’ll get the Wii Fit out and do a few yoga poses every day for the next couple of weeks, and I’ll scribble away at what I hope will be the next bestseller until I remember I’ve got ironing to do.  Inspired Cooking sounds wonderful, I’ve a shelf full of cookery books and I need to start using them; I’ve pledged to try a new recipe from each at least once a week.  Last Christmas my husband bought me Jamie’s America  - Jamie Oliver’s “easy twists on great American classics, and more”.  We have yet to try a single recipe – funnily enough I have been unable to tempt my family with the thought of Cowboy Scrapple, Cajun Alligator or Glazed Quail and Turnip Smash but now it’s officially on my list I’ll be off to Ralphs on a regular basis to hunt down the ingredients.

Of course another big item on my to do list is a not to do  – DON’T DRINK TOO MUCH.  This is another regular feature on any mental list that I prepare. On the other hand I recently read a magazine article that stated that medical research has now found that a glass or two, or even three, of wine a day has a very positive effect on the health of middle-aged women.  I need to cut this article out and frame it.

So I’ve plenty to do to keep myself occupied; my days will be full.  I’ve a list by my PC of all the things I need to research on the internet; I’ve a list on the fridge of things we’ve run out of that we need to buy and there’s a list by my bed of all the inspirational story lines or ideas for my blog that come to me in the middle of the night.  I am a woman of lists.

But the trouble with having too many lists is I end up having too much going on in my head. I have too many things to think about and when I’m balancing one legged in The Tree pose, instead of cleansing my soul by concentrating on gentle calming breaths, I’ll really be thinking I hope everyone’s going to appreciate that nice piece of crocodile we've got for dinner tonight..…

The Birthday Bubble

Life in the LA Bubble is now officially one year old.  That’s a whole year’s worth of psycho-therapy I’ve managed to avoid and a considerable fortune I’ve saved my husband in his co-pay contribution towards  our medical bills.  Personally I think he should be very grateful that I’ve found something to keep me occupied but his main comment whenever I attempt to discuss my blogging hobby is “who are you taking a knock at this week?”

However, those witty sarcasms no longer spring so readily from my keyboard. I worry I am developing immunity to the very things that first compelled me to write; I’m concerned my blog will just degenerate into another boring travelogue.

I have become more than acclimatized, I’m a pseudo American.  I no longer take daily treks to the supermarket, I now go to the store.  I don’t re-fill my car with petrol, I stock up with gas. It’s not a dollar note, it’s now a dollar bill. There is even a string of pumpkin fairy lights adorning my balcony and it’s several weeks off Halloween.

After a week in Canada and Alaska where we had access to that way too serious heavyweight BBC World News, it was such a relief to return to LA and watch the local evening news leading with a story about a Beverly Hills beauty salon which is revolutionizing hair removal with a new sugaring technique. It’s vitally important we get to know about these things – forget bankruptcy in Greece and unrest in the Middle East, if I can save five seconds every morning by not having to shave my armpits, I need to know about it. Definitely.

I’m not alarmed that the American media treats me like a complete bimbo.  I’ve got used to it – I’ve dumbed myself down.  I can no longer handle a crossword puzzle or a Suduko.  A word search is quite taxing enough for me. 

This week we were glued to the TV to the start of Fox’s new mega-series Terra Nova.  My husband was very excited and said we couldn’t miss it. Fox had been advertising it for weeks and apparently it cost millions of dollars to make.  The teenager who had been sat supposedly  homeworking but  probably facebooking in her room emerged half way through the evening and asked what we an earth we were watching. “It’s a new series”, my husband explained, “a sort of cross between Jurassic Park and……..” he faltered to find the right words.   “Absolute rubbish” I suggested helpfully.

But did we turn it off? No, of course not; we sat there positively embracing the drivel and watched it to the very end, commercial breaks and all. And talking of commercial breaks, such a welcome respite – you really don’t want to be bombarded with too much of the story in one go.  Five minutes snippets are perfectly adequate.

The fact that the teenager preferred to sit with her older sister watching a recording of the British drama series Inspector Lewis says it all. Inspector Lewis – where’s the fun in that? That’s way too intelligent and requires a high level of concentration skill that quite frankly I've learned to live without. Where’s the excitement? Where’s the action? Does the paying public really want those complicated plots and poker faced (albeit rather sexy) Sergeant Hathaway when they could be watching futuristic colonists with rippling muscles blasting off a dinosaur's head with a mega gun?

Speaking of dinosaurs, Ashton Kutcher has now replaced Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men.  When I first started Life in the LA Bubble I asked myself would I ever find this show funny; would that to be the ultimate test of my conversion to Americanism?

Well I may well have succumbed to an awful lot of America’s charms, but thankfully, there are still some parts of its culture I can resist.   I may have dumbed down, but I'm not totally stupid. There’s life in my bubble yet.

All At Sea Part II

Edging our way through the ice to the Hubbard Glacier was due to be one of the highlight’s of our trip but personally I was more interested in spotting the local Alaskan wildlife.

On our first morning dolphins had been jumping the waves beneath our cabin - but dolphins are now old hat.  What I'd really come for was the whales and the bears, and at our first port of call we signed up for a bear hunt.  A 10 mile drive in a rickety Alaskan school bus took us to a wildlife lookout where we were told by our bear guide that four grizzlies had just been spotted in the distance.  Good job we'd brought binoculars because sure enough, there were the bears meandering through a field a mile or so away.

After the bears we headed back to the ship and set off through some rather rocky seas towards the Hubbard Glacier.  The Hubbard is the largest coastal glacier in North America and at the point where it reaches the sea, 76 miles from its source, it’s an amazing six miles wide. "It's great that you're here on a grey wet day", the on-board naturalist informed us over the loudspeaker, "it's only on days like this you can appreciate all the magnificent colours in the ice". Well it does take a lot to impress me but yes, despite the pouring rain, I was enthralled, especially as great big chunks of blue ice crashed into the sea before our very eyes. 

Our next stop was Juneau - Alaska's capital city and my idea of hell on earth.  It’s totally unreachable from anywhere else in the world by road and is only accessible by air or sea.  There was a distinct aura of gloom in Juneau. We were on the second to last cruise of the season – in two week’s time half the shops would close  and the townsfolk would batten down the hatches for the winter. Swathed in low grey cloud, the prominence of the soup kitchen and welfare centre in the main high street spoke volumes.

After Juneau we were in luck and the sun came out as we headed for our next port of call - Ketchikan.  This is a town that normally gets 13" of rain in September - by the 9th of the month they'd already had 12.  Feeling pretty privileged to have seen the place in the dry we headed off on a speed boat excursion to try and spot some more of those bears, and we were in luck again.  After an hour or so hugging the coast we spotted a black bear fishing in a salmon stream, on the way we’d passed several seals, and on the way back a whale the size of a bus performed one of those impressive tail swishing things just yards from our tiny boat.

We’d had a good day.  Not only had we seen Ketchikan in the sun, we’d spotted all the wildlife we had hoped for, including an abundance of bald eagles which  had actually impressed me the most.  These birds were absolutely amazing with their graceful seven foot wingspans and humongous claws.  I couldn’t resist capturing one to bring home.  Having been warned by seasoned cruisers to avoid the multitude of jewelry shops that littered every port we’d so far steered clear of any gift shopping at all, but I finally succumbed to the $5 cuddly soft toy eagle in a dockside warehouse specializing in Alaskan tat. A lasting momento of fantastic trip.

Our final day at sea and the sun shone again.  We cruised back towards Vancouver and decided to take a turn in the jacuzzi, where to my husband’s delight he discovered our young female fellow hot tubber was a Canadian oil refinery processing engineer.  They happily exchanged pipeline small talk for an hour or so amongst the bubbles whilst I was just relieved we'd met her on the last day of our cruise and not the first.

All At Sea Part I

As soon as the idea of taking a cruise had been suggested I’d headed straight to the travel agent.  You need a Celebrity cruise, the 30 year old travel agent insisted, they cater for the younger generation of cruisers like us! Well flattery gets you everywhere because I booked on the spot.

Slightly worried that an American cruise ship might well be full of Americans, it was a pleasant surprise to discover once we had settled on board that most of our fellow passengers were either Canadian, British or Australian.

I knew there were Americans on the ship though – I’ve lived amongst them long enough now to be able to sniff them out.  I knew that the gentleman listening to the presentation on "How To Take Better Photographs of the Hubbard Glacier", on a cruise entitled "Cruise To the Hubbard Glacier", who actually put his hand up and asked “Are we going to see a glacier on this cruise?” was American.  As was the woman who whilst being transferred ashore by lifeboat tender at our first port of call asked the officer on board “do the crew have lifeboat training too?”

The Americans were also rather conspicuous in their absence every evening in the formal dining room, which knowing how fond they are of their food did rather puzzle me until I realised the self-service restuarant upstairs offered an alternative all you could eat buffet.  The portions in the main dining room were definitely nouveau cuisine.

However, this gave us ample opportunity to mix and mingle with the other colonials on board and catch up with a welcome bit of news from back home.  We’d chosen the casual dining option in the main restaurant so that we could eat at a different time and table each day. It was a bit like speed dating – you sat with a different couple each night, exchanged life stories and moved on.  The service was a bit like speed dining too – the minute we sat down the menu was presented, less than a second later the waiter was back to take the order, and before we’d even opened up the wine list the starter was there.

No matter how much they dress a cruise up, you're still basically trapped in an upmarket holiday camp and no matter how much money you've already spent, every effort will be made to elicit more.  Would we like to spend $200 for a week's pass to the spa? Did we wish to purchase an all you can drink beverage package? Tempting, but no!   Sea days definitely take a bit of getting used to - I regularly do very little all day but even I was chomping at the bit; sailing up the icy waters off the Alaskan coast it’s hardly the weather to be sat up on deck with a good book or lazing around the pool.

The “Celebrity Life” daily bulletin listed all manner of exciting activities intended to keep us occupied.  We enjoyed a tour of the ship's galley, attended a couple of lectures on the local wildlife and tried our hand one or two trivia quizzes, but even I draw the line at  napkin folding and bath towel origami (although our room steward obviously did not!)

It was definitely a touch of romantic self indulgence to sit and watch the sunset over the sea, sipping a glass of 'Celebrity Vintage"  champagne.  It was only when the Captain started to mention the icebergs that I started to feel slightly nervous, and then the band started to play......

Oh Canada

It's not often that my husband makes a spontaneous romantic gesture so when he asked if I fancied a week on an Alaskan cruise - just the two of us - I jumped at the chance! Apparently his work colleagues had assured him this was the one trip in the US we shouldn't miss, so we kissed the kids goodbye and set off for Vancouver in Canada where we were due to join our cruise ship for the week.

I'd been to Vancouver before way back in the early 1980's but I could remember very little about my visit to the city, apart from knowing that I'd liked it.  Well it wasn't surprising to discover that nothing seemed familiar because Vancouver has been transformed twice since then - first in the late 80's for the World Expo, and again in 2010 for the winter Olympics.

Vancouver is a modern, high tech attractive city with a fantastic, walkable, waterfront.  Whilst it may well be full of high rise apartment blocks and glass fronted offices, new buildings are erected around spacious plaza's, complete with carefully designed courtyards full of plants and water features.  The city has retained its open spaces; its clean, the air is fresh, and there is a youthful vibrancy about the place.

Vancouver has the third largest China Town in North America, but a lot of the Chinese immigrants have been there since the Gold Rush in the late 1800's.  Gas Town - the original downtown - has been recently re-vamped; there are cobbled streets, boutiques and smart restaurants.

We took a Sunday morning stroll around Stanley Park - the jewel in Vancouver's crown, 1000 acres of inner city park space, surrounded by water with a cycle path and sea wall full of dog walkers and early morning joggers.

We've already made some Canadian friends back in LA so we knew what to expect from the locals -  folks north of the border certainly seem a lot more genuine and down to earth than their American cousins.  Those joggers in Stanley Park were there because they wanted to be healthy, not because they wanted to be in the movies or look like Ken and Barbie. 

Our bus driver on the city tour talked about his home city with love and pride, he went out of his way to throw in an extra couple of stops and even apologised for the fact that we might see a "few street people" wandering around.  Two years of living in LA and not one local has ever apologised to me for the amount of street people camping out in town - we all just walk on by pretending we can't see.  LA drives me nuts but here in Vancouver I thought yes, I could live here and retain my sanity.

The cruise terminal was a mere five minute walk from our hotel; again modern and purpose built.  Floatplanes landed and took off across the water; snow capped mountains framed the view in the distance and as we sailed out of the harbour I knew my parting thought about Vancouver would again be that I liked it. Canada was definitely my kind of place.  Good, said my husband, because the Canadian economy is currently booming and it's all down the black stuff that puts the food on our table.  Oil exploration companies can’t recruit people quickly enough.

They always say be careful what you wish for.  Unfortunately the oil isn't in Vancouver, it's trapped under a layer of ice several hundred miles further north. Maybe I'm quite not quite ready to give up the comforts of my LA Bubble for Life in the Freezer just yet.

Back To School

The time has come and the teenager has bravely returned to school, which means of course I have become school run mom again.

It's the usual bun fight every morning  to see who can drop their kid off closest to the school gate.  Heaven forbid some kid might have to walk 25 yards more than another.  The teenager's school is on a main road - there's a three lane highway outside the school and every morning at least two of these lanes are blocked - the inside with parked cars belonging to students - the second with parents dropping off.  The school does have a drive-in drop-off zone but most parents seem to feel this is beneath them and prefer to throw their kids out on the highway instead.

Picking up at the end of the day is even worse - being British and knowing what my teenager has legs for, I go and wait a couple of hundred yards away from school in  a nearby supermarket car park so that the teenager can dawdle across the road to meet me.  A significant number of parents just block the highway and double park whilst they wait the 10-15 minutes or so for their kids to emerge.  Why the Pasadena police haven't cottoned onto this blatant disregard for the law I have no idea considering all the other minor misdemeanors they are so keen to write a ticket for.   They'd make enough money in one afternoon's worth of traffic fines to fund their entire Christmas Ball.

Apart from anything else of course this hardly teaches learner drivers good habits and most of these high school kids will already have passed, or will be about to take their driving tests. As it seems to be the done thing here to buy your kid a brand new SUV for their 16th birthday, it would certainly be a good idea for parents to set an example of how to drive it - or not to drive it as the case may be.

Either way the new school year means another attempt at integrating myself into the school community with parent association meetings, cookie bakes and voluntary service hours.  Last year I just managed to scrape enough “hours” together with a final donation of a couple of bottles of wine for some after school event to avoid being "fined" for lack of commitment. 

I have to say I find the whole parental involvement thing in American schools slightly weird.  I'm just not the super-school-mom I ought to be.  There's definitely no sweet sixteen SUV on the horizon in this family, nor was I impressed by the start of term school photograph order form – did I wish my teenager to be digitally enhanced to “eliminate any spots and blemishes”?  Well I love my teenager warts and all (not that she has any warts I hasten to add) but of course she was very keen to be airbrushed.  My argument that it was a school photo not a glamour shoot sadly fell on deaf ears. What kind of LA mom  am I?

Is there something so very wrong these days with being seen as who you really are? Or has the humble school photo  become another misrepresentation of perfection in a society that has an awful lot spots and blemishes of its own it would like to hide?

A Good Evening

Since arriving in California  two  years ago we have been living a comparatively quiet life.  Not that we were out partying every weekend when we lived in the UK but with family and friends close by, our social life could well be described as "active" - ie at least we had one.  Most weekends we would be out and about somewhere, if not I was happy to invent an excuse and entertain at home.

Here it has been decidedly different.  Despite Americans having this reputation for being highly sociable, and yes I do only have to hand over my driving licence for ID and I’m on first name terms with the sales assistant, this is not the start of a beautiful friendship.

My husband has tried to arrange entertaining team building events with his multi-cultural work colleagues, but by the time he has taken into account the religious restrictions, those who wont eat carbs after six and those who need to be in bed before nine, he’s left with very few willing bodies.

The mainstay of our social life here revolves around a small group of fellow ex-pat Brits – not because we are xenophobic, but quite simply because these are the only people who have ever shown a genuine interest in meeting up or going out.

Building new friendships take time, but when you do meet people in the same ex-pat situation you tend to bond very quickly, especially with no other commitments or distractions.

Leasehold apartment living is not particularly conducive to entertaining at home - stand four people on my balcony and it's decidedly crowded, plus I've neither the crockery, cooking utensils or desire to cater for anything other than a plateful of nibbles.
 

When we want to meet up we tend to go out - but the trouble with dining out over here is that the majority of the waiting staff seem to be on some sort of speed-serving competition.  Trying to make a meal last more than hour is extremely difficult - a recent night out with a couple of girlfriends involved planning a meal at a restaurant at least a twenty minute walk away so that we'd be out of the house long enough for the kids to watch a complete DVD in our absence.  As it was the main course was delivered whilst we were still tucking into our bruschetta and the bottle of rose we'd ordered to last the entire meal was  poured into three large glasses and the empty bottle and ice bucket whisked away before we even had a chance to say please could we have another!

Americans might like to be in and out of a restaurant in record time but us Europeans we do like to linger.  Despite assurances of "in your own time" or "whenever you're ready" as soon as that bill is presented I feel the staff are willing us to go - often without  the option of dessert or coffee even being offered.

Where's the rush? Do they think we have somewhere better to go? Obviously yes because when you leave any American restaurant the staff will always wish you to  "have a good evening" as you head out  the door.  Back home a meal in a restaurant would have been the entire evening's entertainment and we’d have been wished a “good night” as we left.  Here I always end up thinking That was my evening and its only 8 o’clock…….