The Best Shopping Experience Ever

Nathan hates shopping. I generally dislike it. I really hate shopping for him together because he is usually a big baby about being too hot, clothes costing too much money, and trying things on. That's why we bring the big guns, a.k.a. our dear friend Mary Lou, when we need professional shopping help. Mary Lou knows menswear like nobody's business, and she keeps Nathan on his best behavior.

Three and a half years ago, we went to Jos. A. Bank, a men's clothing store, with some hefty gift cards to spend from very generous church members in Atlanta. I think they were sick of seeing their youth pastor in cargo shorts. The economy was going down the tubes and everything was on crazy-sale, so it seemed like a great time to buy some big boy clothes. While there we were entertained/helped by Philip. He was very Southern and stinking hilarious.

He asked Nathan what he did for a living while taking his measurements.

"I'm a pastor."

"Put your arms down."

"I can't. That's just the way they are."

"You must be Pentecostal if you can't keep your arms down. You see, I'm Baptist. I like to eat... Your waist is a 36."

"I don't want to be a 36! I want to be a 34. I can squeeze into a 34."

"Um hm. One church social and you'll be out of them pants."

Fast forward a few years and a few beers later, and we were back at Jos. A. Bank to spend the remainder of our gift card with Mary Lou. Philip was still there, and when I saw him I couldn't wait to start the mental filming for this post.

Philip took Nathan's measurements again, but Nathan was busy cracking jokes about his recent increase in size and how he was going to lose weight.

"Can you just hold still a minute?! A 36 waist is going to be too tight. You need a 38."

"What?! I swear, I'm going on a diet!"

"We've had this conversation before."

Mary Lou, Philip, and I kept throwing clothes into the dressing room for him to try on: trousers, polos, a sport coat, dress shirts, etc." I'm not the hugest fan of pleats, so I tossed Nathan some flat front khakis to try on. He came out looking like he was trying hard to fit into them.

Philip was aghast. "You can't put that butt in plain front pants! He needs pleats! And what size are those? If he refuses to try on the 38s I'm getting him the 36s with the expandable waist. The man's got to breathe!"

Meanwhile, Mary Lou went to the belt section because Nathan needed a black one. The 38-inch belt looked silly-snug. She took it back over. Philip walked by her and said, "If you get him a 40-inch belt he'll whip YOU with it."

Nathan was in major distress. "I will starve myself before I have to buy 38-inch pants, and I'm sure as heck NOT buying a 40-inch belt."

Philip's response? "Well, you can fast for the Lord, but anorexia ain't in the Bible."

Basically, gems like these were bantered back and forth for over an hour of shopping. We ended up buying some great stuff on Labor Day sale for Nathan and managed to laugh the entire time.

We highly recommend shopping with Philip at Jos. A. Bank at the Dawsonville outlets. It's worth the drive for the discounts and the amazing service. The man knows what he's talking about, and he is highly entertaining. Tell him Nathan, Nicole, and Mary Lou sent you! :)

I Embarrassed Myself

In Tesco today Nathan went to get a shopping cart/trolley/buggy, and I squatted down to get my grocery list out of my bag. I thought the display behind me was a little more sturdy than it actually was, because when I put the slightest bit of weight against it, I promptly fell over and was sprawled out in the middle of the crowded central aisle. No, no one helped my top heavy pregnant self up or asked if I was okay. I actually like that British people just pretend they don't see you making a fool of yourself and let you get it together on your own.

I was so grateful that the display tower full of... um... family planning items... didn't fall over on me. I would have died trying to put them all back. When Nathan found me I was bright red and fanning myself because I was so embarrassed. He seized the opportunity to take a photo next to the said display. 

Lately

While Nathan was lying on the bed, I tapped him on the head with my socks to say, "Ready to go?" Apparently I went straight for the eyeball and he was instantly - if only momentarily - blinded. He insisted that he needed an eye patch, so I made him one out of this free Delta sleep mask and we went on our way. Sometimes it's easier to just comply with the madness than to convince him he's nuts. Cute in the old man hat, but nuts.

Need further evidence? We were in John Lewis (the department store), and he really wanted to try on these onion goggles.

I took this picture for my dad. He's a great cook, and my sister and I call him Joseph or Joey or Joe for some reason. I don't know. My sister started it.

Lastly, Nathan and I went into Waitrose, which is a really posh grocery store. We wanted to see how the other half shopped. This steak was about the size of my palm. It was so ridiculously expensive, I had to take a picture. And then we scurried out.

That's it for now. What's new with you?

Off the Wagon

Last night it went down like this...


I was about 20 minutes away from finishing dinner when Nathan said, "I'm going to Tesco to get some eggs."


"Okay. Can you get a few things for me, too?"


"Yeah, sure."


"You want to write this down?" I motioned to a pencil and scrap of a receipt with my wooden spoon.


"Pshht! I've got a great memory."


*a look* 


His memory is quite selective. He remembers long quotes and passages from books, but he has a hard time remembering pretty basic things sometimes (e.g. asking me no less than seven times who is coming for dinner or what we're doing this weekend or the name of someone we know quite well). He claims it's a listening problem rather than early onset Alzheimer's disease, which is what I thought it was when we first got married. The good thing is he knows he's not the best at remembering things, and he tries really hard to concentrate when I tell him something is important. 


"No, seriously. Try me! With my special memory trick I bet I can remember everything... up to five things."


"Okay... bananas, coconut milk in a carton - not a can..."


"Wait... where would that be?"


"On the milk aisle. Next to the regular milk. It's by the almond milk and soy milk and all that."


"Okay. Bananas, coconut milk in a carton. What else?"


"Cilantro. Shampoo. I think that's it."


I saw him muttering to himself for a little while, creating a crazy story using the items on the grocery list as a cast of characters. Then he said, "Where would the coconut milk be?"


I know he doesn't repeat questions to annoy me on purpose, so I usually repeat my answers just the way I did the first time, with the same inflection and tone and everything.


"On the milk aisle. Next to the regular milk. It's by the almond milk and soy milk and all that."


"You just said that, didn't you?"


"Mmhm..."


"Sorry. Okay. I'll be back in a sec." He walked out the door muttering, muttering, muttering the story.


The dinner was nearly done when he was back with everything I asked him to get, plus some sausage and grapes that were on clearance.


But no eggs, the single item he was going to Tesco for in the first place.


We laughed, which was good. We needed a good laugh. The weekend was a hard one. One where I was particularly difficult to live with. Monday wasn't any better. The weight of grief that came with Mother's Day surprised me. The grief wasn't surprising. The weight of it was. I suppose it was understandable. Next month will mark three years of waiting for a little one. Forty two cycles of hope and disappointment. I've been keeping track.


My first Mother's Day this year (the UK celebrates in March) I did okay. I teared up at church, but no spill-over tears. This one was different. I was angry, irritable, weepy, hypersensitive, pessimistic, perpetually annoyed. But then Nathan forgot the eggs, and I caught a glimpse of sunshine after four days under a dark cloud.


After dinner, I said, "I'll tell you what. Let's go back to Tesco with a fiver. You can buy the eggs and get a treat with the change. We'll make it a date."


We went. We picked out eggs. He contemplated buying - and I'm not kidding - Posh Birds brand duck eggs, but we stuck with the cheapest pack of 15 caged chicken eggs, as usual. Nathan's like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. He eats a lot of eggs.


He took me by the hand and walked me over to the flowers, saying he wanted to spend the change on me, but the ones in our price range were dying and/or ugly. So went went toward the beer. So much for love! However, just before the beer is the ice cream. On an end cap was a glass case full of Magnum bars, which were half off. We had enough for a 3-pack of Magnum bars and a Heineken. 


I hemmed and hawed and danced around saying I couldn't break my Whole30 diet, I just couldn't. And that he wouldn't be leading well as the head of our family if he brought those quality creamy chocolatey dreams into the house.


Back in the kitchen, he poured his beer into a glass, we tore open the plastic packaging, "cheers"ed the Magnum bars, held them aloft, and toasted to freedom in Christ before the first delectable bite.

Credit

Regret did settle in fairly quickly. I was on Day 22 out of 30 without a single cheat for crying out loud. But I didn't die of a sugar overdose... or happiness for that matter. I think it was worth it just so I could tell you this story. 


Back on the wagon today...

I Should Win Wife of the Year

So, I got some free tickets through school to a Christmas craft fair put on by Living North, which is kind of like a Martha Stewart's Living kind of magazine. I was pumped about the huge white tent full of Christmas-y crafts and gourmet foods, but I was really pumped when I read that it was being held at a race track and that people could buy driving time on it.

Four laps on the 2.17 mile track. In a Porsche. My husband's dream.

When we got in the car to go home from work last week, I said, "I've got the best surprise for you!"

"What is it?" he asked. 

"Guess!" I giggled.

"Is it driving a Lamborghini around a racetrack?"

My face fell. "Is a Porsche okay?"

"Huh?"

"How did you guess it?!"

"I GUESSED IT?!"

"Yeah. I got tickets to a craft fair at a race track and you can drive a Porsche around the track and I want to buy driving time for you."

"What? Really?"

"It's a Porsche though. Is that okay?"

"It'll do."

He was never so excited to go to a craft fair. We were one of the first few eager beavers there last Friday, and we headed straight to the driving circuit. 

Enjoy the pictures and video of my handsome husband in the fancy car. 

After the driving experience, he said, "The only thing that would have made it better would be that I could keep the car."

Nathan Makes It Rain... Men

I can't stop chuckling, even as I type this. Nathan unintentionally did one of the funniest things I have ever known him to do.

First, a few facts.

1) Nathan is cheap. You probably already knew that. 

2) Nathan loses things a lot. Since we've moved to England, it's been Nalgene bottles and umbrellas.

3) Nathan hates cats. He's really allergic to them and thinks they're of the devil.

4) Nathan is completely ignorant when it comes to pop culture. I'm sure many of you have heard the classic story, "Who's this Bianca [Beyonce] person I keep hearing about?"

So, Nathan went to Yorkshire Trading Company, the same place we got wellies and his grandpa hat, and he bought himself an umpteenth cheap umbrella in his usual classic black. He didn't open it until a few days later when it was raining fairly steadily. It was only then that he realized that it wasn't just solid black...

This is his attempt to look gangster (?!?!?!), but when he showed me the umbrella for the first time, I couldn't even catch my breath. I was laughing so hard on multiple levels. What was even funnier was that he didn't know that It's Raining Men was actually a song and, what's more, sort of a gay anthem. Later that night, we watched a little bit of the music video on YouTube (Creepy! I will not be posting it here - lots of men in speedos. View at your own risk.), and he said he had never heard the song in his life.

I'm not sure what he's going to do when it rains again, but it's bound to happen quite soon, and when it does, I'll be laughing wherever I am, thinking of him opening that umbrella and walking around town with it, which he insists he will do. 

He's too cheap to buy another umbrella... until he "loses" this one. :)

How We Didn't Get to Ireland Today

This is how we didn't get to Ireland today.


Yesterday Amy, Sam, and I went to the public library to do some travel business. Unlike last week, this time I "made a booking" in the digital media suite (read: group of computers). 


Wait! I didn't tell you that story?! Last time I was there, the nasty librarian called security on me because I didn't "make a booking" and my feathers were quite ruffled. She made a nasty face and rolled her eyes and breathed a long breath like Napoleon Dynamite, but she let me print my confirmation number for our flight to Prague because I would "be quick about it." It didn't help in the end. That's another sad travel story.


Anyway, this time I made a proper booking and settled down with the girls to take care of our travel business. Surprisingly,  nothing went wrong with the booking, boarding passes, the parking reservation, or printing all of them. We had to pay 10p per page for 12 pages, but I did steal one page because Mean Librarian Girl was behind the counter and I was feeling especially rebellious. 


This morning, we decided to not leave on "Nicole time," (read: ridiculously early) but rather a bit later. I tried my very hardest to be go with the flow, but I was worried anyway. I'm always worried before traveling because something always goes wrong, especially in England. 


We had a leisurely breakfast of scones from Crook Hall and drove to the off-site airport parking place. Unfortunately, I had the GPS in my backpack, which was in the boot (translation: trunk) so we pulled over to get it out. Even with the GPS's help, we got a little lost because of inadequate signage and false advertising. The name of company on the brick and mortar place did not match the online reservation name. However, we eventually found it and transferred our stuff to the airport shuttle.


Our "five minute ride to the airport" turned out to be about 15 because of road construction. Nathan made happy conversation with our driver while my feet tapped nervously in the back. He asked the driver, "What should we do in Ireland?" 


"Drink." 


"What if we're only moderate drinkers?" 


"Guinness."


Right.


We bounded out of the van and checked the departure board just inside the airport doors. We didn't see our flight. Since we didn't have any bags to check, we went straight to security and got our passports and boarding passes inspected. It was only then that I noticed that the gate closed at 10:40 and the flight departed at 11:10, not 11:55 like we thought. It was 11:05.


Calm on the outside. Panicked on the inside.


We went through security with no problems. I ran to our gate on the other side while Nathan and the girls ran behind me with belts, shoes, sweatshirts, etc. flagging behind. The departures board on the other side of security said "LAST CALL," so we ran with all of our might. 


The flight was already gone.


Dejected but not defeated, we huffed and puffed while Nathan said, "It's okay! We'll just re-book for a later one." We checked at the counter, but there were no more flights to Dublin today. The agent said we could change our reservation for tomorrow for100 pounds each but encouraged us to get a cheaper flight by booking online ourselves.


We called the parking service to come get us again, got the car and drove to the Metrocentre, the largest mall in Europe, which happened to be a few minutes away. In the parking deck Nathan and Amy got on the phone with the hotel and rental car companies, and we learned that we couldn't cancel tonight and get any money back, which was disappointing. However, in the mall we got something cool and refreshing (Diet Coke from McDonald's), walked around a bit but didn't go into any stores, and tried to re-book our flights through two separate travel agencies, neither of which worked with Ryanair. 


We drove home discouraged, but set out to play travel agent ourselves and and try to buy four one-way tickets from NCL to DUB online, but it just. didn't. work. We tried over 20 times. We used five calls to Ryanair customer service (in India) at 10 p per minute, four different credit cards, three search engines, two computers with cleaned out cookies, and partridge in a pear tree. 


While on the phone with Ryanair India, we got responses to our problem like, "There's no problem with the website." "You should call your bank." "You didn't delete the cookies correctly." "Hundreds of other people are booking reservations online right now." "The people who told you you could re-book for 100 pounds were wrong." "I can do it over the phone for a million pound surcharge." They were generally rude and unhelpful, even though I was supremely nice. 


Then Nathan tried but was rebuffed. He even said crazy things like, "My brother dropped dead this morning. Now that we've grieved and moved on, we're ready to re-book our flight for tomorrow. My confirmation number is B as in baked beans, G as in gorilla, 1, J as in jalopy, Y as in Old Yeller, and N as in NEVER GOING TO GET TO IRELAND AT THIS RATE."


It's funnier now than it was an hour ago.


After our futile attempts to get help on the phone from Ryanair, we decided to try to call the airport itself and just have them re-book our flights like they offered to this morning. They just directed us to India. Then, a stroke of genius. I called lost baggage, a local number, and got passed from desk to desk all the way to a Ryanair agent at the airport. FINALLY! 


She told me that I could not re-book for 100 pounds each because it was too late for that, but I COULD drive back to the airport and book there, but there would be surcharges for printing boarding passes. Our "rough estimate" total was 479 pounds. 


*choking sound*


At this point we decided to try to get Amy and Sam's money back for the hotel, rental car, and airport parking and if we were mildly successful, scrap the whole trip. In all, we were 66% successful with the hotel, 100% successful with the rental car, and 0% successful with the airport parking. Total losses, including the flights we never took, added up to: $590 and NO TRIP TO IRELAND.


After more phone calls across the Irish Sea and a few more here in the UK, we drove over to a nice village pub in Woolsingham called The Black Bull and drowned our sorrows in Guinness (Nathan) and chocolate sundaes (the girls).


For now Ireland remains a land of ire. Lots of it. So far, no tears have been shed, but we still have two hours left in the day.


Two morals to this story: 1) Don't fly with RyanAir and 2) pay for your printing at the library.


Here are some more Ryanair horror stories I found just looking for a picture with their airline with the "no" sign over it.


Here's one.

Here's a very detailed one by The Telegraph, an English newspaper.


Here's another, with the following snippet I just had to cut and paste:


I did an online search for 'Ryanair horror stories', and found a virtual treasure trove of material. My favourite? A crew member accidentally played a recorded message over the PA system, in French, alerting passengers that their plane was crash landing into the ocean. The English-speakers sat content, happy as Larry (as the aircraft was sailing smoothly, no crash on the horizon), whilst the Frenchies freaked out!

I Miss Middle Schoolers

Here are two reasons why...


First, I had this short Facebook chat conversation with one of my former students the other night, and I just kept chuckling at his sense of humor. I asked his permission to post this, and he said it was cool. You've gotta love a middle school kid who likes Alice Cooper and poking fun at communists. 

Today

'ello Misses Parke'r, 'ow's England?

Today

fine love. and yourself?

excellent, spring break for Whitefield

fantastic! any big plans?

Arizona

oooh.

nice!

going to Alice Cooper's restaurant

of course you are.

i wouldn't expect anything different.

any other reason you're going to AZ?

he drops by from time to time so maybe he'll be there

i expect the picture of the two of you to be your new profile picture within the week

most definately

and were going to see the grand canyon

i subbed for the first time today since leaving whitefield, and it made me miss you guys

and see a red bulls game

red bulls?

NY red bulls, my favorite soccer team

right on.

or "football" as the brits say

soccer is big in england, but you already knew that

as is cricket, which i don't get

go Birmingham!

really?!

in soccer

not cricket

you are so globally minded

i love that about you

hooray for the intl. news

also go Gloucester rugby!

lol

pronounced gloster

yeah, I know

great spelling by the way

of course you know

i should have known

they were in the first rugby match i ever watched

live?

so they're my favorite

tell me why col. sanders is your profile pic

to answer your first question, i did not see them live, on television and to answer your second question its not col. sanders

what?!

who is it?

look closer at the pic

is it you?

no it says:

i'm getting closer to 30 and i can't see well

KGB, when you're Russian for food, there's no time for Stalin

lol!!!!

And Stalin is meant to look like Col. Sanders

you're hilarious

always more than meets the eye

i like making fun of the communists

lol!

i miss you and your political cartoons

i dont think they were that good,my cartoons, i mean i didnt even come up with this one

oh, come on! the snail one about life insurance that you did in 6th grade is my fav

albeit that's not too political

anyway... it's after midnight here

nathan is already sleeping

i'm probably missing out on some good sleeptalk

oh, whyare you up?

i should get to bed

i was skyping with my family

they're in cali

8 hours behind me

oh, ok

it's hard to connect with them with the time change

so i just stayed up

catch ya later skater

so good to chat with you

see ya

Second, today I subbed for the third time at a Catholic school. I'm not sure what Catholic schools are supposed to be like, but I thought they were a lot more strict, like they are in the movies. This one isn't. It's wild. The students normally wear uniforms (jacket and ties included), but today was a free dress day and it was sleeting and blustery and miserable outside - two tell tale signs that it was going to be a rough day. And it was.
The classroom I was in was hot (someone stole the knobs off of the radiators so they were permanently on high all the time), small, and dirty, and during one period, there were 32 big high school aged kids packed in there. 
There was a fight outside my classroom window when I arrived last Friday, and there was another fight outside my classroom door today between 4th and 5th period. The kid who got hit (16) didn't speak to me or tell me what happened or who hit him. He just teared up, wet his pants, and pulled out his cell phone to call his mom and tell her to come get him. It was weird.
I felt really powerless because I knew no names and there were no other teachers around. I finally found someone, but she was kind of old and looked bewildered that a fight could have happened at all. Then it was like herding cats to get the students to focus for the next two class periods. 
On the whole, they're mostly very apathetic as students, rarely making any effort to do the work laid out before them. They're perpetually tardy. They do not listen while I'm talking. They cheat off of one another during tests while I'm standing right in front of them. In the computer lab, if they can't google the exact answer to a question, they quit working. They have no problems swearing in the classroom (not at me... today) using lots of choice words, most of them starting with the letter "f." 
They chew gum, and when I ask them to spit it out, they look at me blankly and then lie to my face about having any, even though I saw their jaws chomping on it with my own two eyes. Then, if the gum makes it into the trashcan (sometimes they bite it in half and only throw one half in... or claim to swallow it but keep it under their tongues, etc.), they go back to their desks and pop in another piece. 
One kid today kept alternating between passing gas and then spraying Axe under the table, making the classroom reek.
There are far worse jobs than subbing at a rough school in the northeast of England, but today I was hard pressed to think of any.
On my bus ride home, I texted Nathan, "No wonder so many teachers are alcoholics."
I miss my middle schoolers and I miss Whitefield.