Weekend

Still without a car. They thought they had it fixed, but when the garage folks took it for a test drive, the problem came back. So not sure when we get it back. Hoping it's before Thursday when Skip's cousins Joerg and Annalie come to visit. I need to pick them up at the airport.

Sunday, we train-ed it to church. It was remembrance Sunday. Here that means remembering all veterans, specifically but especially the ones who dies in World War 1. Tuesday is Remembrance Day. It's the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day. The story is that on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour, the guns fell silent after four years of warfare. Apparently on Tuesday at the that time everyone in GB observes two minutes of silence while everything stops. I will be in the middle of a hair appointment, so it should be interesting to see if the stylists pause mid-rinse.

Everyone is wearing these little red poppies on there lapels in honor of Remembrance Day. Poppies only grow after the soil they are in has been tilled or uprooted. They can lie dormant for years. There is a field in Flanders, Belgium where a great deal of fighting occurred and there was much devastation. But all the traffic churned up the poppies and in the middle of devastation, the poppies begin to bloom. A poet named John McRae wrote about what he saw in a poem called, "In Flanders Field" and since then the poppy has become a symbol for soldiers who died in battle.

On Sunday afternoon, I took Maddie to see High School Musical 3. A fairly short bus ride takes us to the movie theater and into a much more urban area than our little neighborhood. As I was pulling Maddie along the crowded urban street to get to the movies, I saw all these other families weaving their way through the crowded sidewalks and I had to wonder what it must be like to be a kid who only knows this. A kid who has never lived in Little Rock or Kaiserswerth. I don't know that I know anybody who grew up in a city like London or New York. I have some friends who are raising their kids right now in big cities. The opportunities are great. We see kids studying art in the National Museum or going to see theater in the West End or seeing classical music played in churches all over the city for free. They have friends from different countries and cultures. All that to balance out the crowds and the pollution and yucky weather and the sky-high prices. Every place has its pluses and minuses.

It's has been raining all day long. I kept waiting for a break, but I don't think it's going to come. I called Skip to see if the dry cleaning he needs can wait another day and he said it could. So I settled in to do some cooking and laundry, which is the smart think to do here on a cold, rainy day since it keeps the kitchen and den area nice and cosy warm. When you're dryer is in the kitchen, you toss some clothes in it, some soup on the stove and some cookies in the oven, you create a nice warm place to do a little writing.