What Do I Know?

A Dog's Life

"Plaited together, one extended consciousness, awareness overlapping."

Yesterday I mentioned that I received the book A Dog Abroad in the mail. Bruce Fogle, a Canadian vet living in London, wrote it as a sequel of sorts to Travels with Macy, about his journey through America with his golden retriever Macy, a la John Steinbeck.

Today I just read that Macy died, at age six. Although I haven't yet read A Dog Abroad, I got to know Macy quite well in the previous book. A cheeky, doughnut-loving, jackrabbit-chasing dog, Macy was in every way a typical golden retriever.

In The Independent Bruce writes about what it means to lose a pet. Read it, if you can. If you have a dog you'll understand this:

As so many dogs do, Macy bestowed unconditional devotion, an unquestioning reliability, a constancy and an immutability. Her intention was always to be there, to leaven anywhere with the familiarity of her presence. After the thrill of the chase, even when lost in the deepest woods, her purpose was always to return, to find me, to be rejoined once more. Of course, that's at the core of the most sentimental stories about dogs. Every culture has them: the dog awaiting his master's return, even from the dead. That's unmitigated sentiment but, I ask you, what's wrong with that? Can another human ever equal the unqualified, unconditional regard that a dog has for us?

Today my dog and I walked in the woods, a four-and-a-half mile hike through Burnham Beeches, ablaze with foliage this time of year. Time and again, she would run through the brush, chasing something that needed chasing. She always came back, searching for me in the line of hikers, until she found me, then she bounded off again.

Walking your dog is life-affirming, says Bruce Fogle. Truly, it is: I never feel so much a part of this world as when I'm with my dog, seeing it through her eyes. The sound of her four feet pounding down the path toward me as she rushes to reconnect, then bounds off again, brings a large smile to my face.

Plaited together, yes. For as long as we're on this earth.

Food, and More, Now In a Fresh New Location

So I wasn't completely lazy over the weekend. I started a new weblog, a sub-domain from this one. I've been meaning to split off my food posts for a while now, but I wasn't sure of the best way to go about it. But I had so much fun designing a banner for this site I wanted to do another, so here it is.

You can find my new weblog, titled Wednesday Food Blogging, via several URLs:

www.wednesdayfoodblogging.com

http://whatdoiknow.typepad.com/recipes

www.kathyflake.com/recipes

(By the way, you can find this site too by typing in kathyflake.com.)

First up is a post about my foodie adventures in Rome, or How I Managed To Avoid Eating Dormouse. Next I'll post the recipe I made last night, Butternut Squash Gnocchi.

Bookmark it, or do whatever it is you do to find your way back. Although, every Wednesday, I'm sure I'll remind you to pop on over.

PS You might have to refresh the page to get it to load properly; don't know what's going on with TypePad the last few days.

Sunday Salon: An Uncommon Reader Lands With a Thud

CottonTimer invited me to join a new group (also on Facebook) called Sunday Salon, where you spend your weekend reading and then write a post about it. Since I've been wanting to rant about the book I read on the plane to the States, I figured now would be a good time.

I picked up An Uncommon Reader at the airport bookshop, paying full price for it. It's a slim book, and I finished it in a couple of hours—I hardly got my money's worth. But I had a bigger complaint. The book was awkwardly written, with the author, Alan Bennet, several times switching tense. Past tense, present tense, whatever, just stick to one. I can handle POV shifts, jerking me out of someone's head, but don't jerk me out of my time zone. Not even when I'm on a plane, whizzing across lines of longitude as if they're threads in an Aubusson.

And surely Alan Bennett had time to smooth out some of the more overblown sentences. There is only so much time in one's life, after all, for disentangling clauses.

The book is about the Queen, yes, that Queen, who one day discovers the travelling library on the grounds of Buckingham Palace and begins reading. Fine; great premise, that's why I bought the book. But the book left me wanting more, and not just more pages.

I'd have liked to have seem more showing, less telling—the number one trick you learn at Novel Writers' School. I'd also have liked more character development, yet that might be asking too much from a 120-page novella. Mostly, I'd have liked more humor—while An Uncommon Reader was not without its gentle chuckles, the premise called out for some real ROFL moments. (Rolling on the Airplane Aisle Laughing? Or even Awakening My Seatmate with Unbridled Chuckling?)

Ironically, a book about the joys of reading turned out to be a frustrating wallbanger. I couldn't toss the book against the wall, like I wanted to, since I was seated in an airplane and didn't want to risk having the authorities alerted and the plane diverted to Newfoundland. Instead I gave it to my mother-in-law.

Fortunately, the mailman just delivered two new books: A Dog Abroad, by Bruce Fogle and Return to Tuscany, by Ciancarlo and Katie Caldesi. Next weekend looks more promising already.

Here Comes the Sun

By 2 p.m., the shadows are beginning to lengthen.

The sun, thankfully, made a reappearance today. So I put away my razor blades and canceled plans to slit my wrists. I might actually get some work done, despite the change in time, from British Summer Time back to Greenwich Mean Time.

One day last spring I remember telling a friend she'd really hate the winters here, with their long dark nights. Oh no, she said, she looked forward to dark evenings. That's when she got busy quilting.

I was surprised, having never heard anyone express a preference for our dark evenings, which begin around 4 on the shortest days.

But then I told my mother-in-law, also a quilter, what my friend had said, and she agreed: she also likes long evenings and gray days, like the ones we've been having. She says she gets more done on gray days than on days like today, with hardly a cloud in the sky.

Not me. My favorite day of the year is June 21, Summer Solstice, as I've said before. But then I'm not a quilter.

What about you? Do you prefer sun, or cloud, and does that influence your choice of hobbies?

My New Look

If you're not seeing the same thing I am, you need to hit refresh.

Or else have a couple glasses of wine; whichever is easiest.

Friday Cow Blogging

It's been grey, or gray, depending on your inclinations, ever since I landed from the sunny skies above the clouds. I haven't been motivated to do much; in fact, could only be bothered to put on my shoes to photograph the cows that had gathered at the fence.

They seem to lack motivation as well. All day long they've just stood around, eating, resting, emitting the occasional moo. They don't seem the least bit interested in doing anything productive, which is not really surprising.

They are cows, after all.

In Which I Visit New-ish England, Smith College, and See Trees

Bikes outside Talbot House.

Flying into Connecticut's Hartford airport, I overcame my fear of heights to look down at the terrain below. Trees, of all shades of green, plus bright orange, red and yellow, surrounded white clapboard structures. Like a modern Pilgrim, arriving in the New World after a long plane voyage, I was enchanted. No wonder our forefathers immediately got to work stamping out witchcraft; colors like this seem supernatural.

The drive up to Northampton was even more spectacular, the trees showcased on the sides of the Berkshire hills. I could see why Smith College picked this weekend in October to hold its Family Weekend.

I had never been to the campus; indeed, I'd never been to New England. My daughter picked schools from the internet, and we had no opportunity to visit them. (My visits home last year were reserved for my mom, who was in failing health.) So I was eager to see the campus she'd been calling home these last few weeks.

It was every bit as lovely as its website. Those trees everywhere—my daughter said she'd never lived in a place with so many trees, but I told her it was that these trees just jump out and demand notice. Squirrels, tame from their easy life on a women's college campus, hopped between them, entertaining us visiting parents. (By the way, if you're a Smith parent, there's a very high likelihood, based on my small sample, that your first name is Kathy.) While Smith is not particularly old by Old England standards, its buildings are suitably atmospheric.

Saturday morning some of us Kathys and other parents were led on a walk along the Mill River. It was a tame hike, made more exciting by the four-month-old puppy we came across, and the views across—and in—the river and Paradise Pond.

It was a friendly place, too, not the snobby East Coast campus of some institutions. (Not even Smith's second-place ranking by Washington Monthly has gone to their heads.) In my first hour there I was asked more than once if I needed any help, as I studied my map and looked around for the best camera view. The students I met were all delightful—smart, articulate, funny girls, some of whose talents were on display at the Montage choral concert Saturday night.

The administration officials I met too were helpful, reassuring us first-year moms and dads that the changes we've seen in our daughters—that independence that seemed to spring up overnight—were perfectly normal. Just because they never call they haven't forgotten about us, we were assured. That must be true; that afternoon at Holyoke Mall we ran into several students spending quality time with their parents.

Northampton is a small town; smaller than its namesake in Old England. It's typically "crunchy", with three vegetarian restaurants, including one vegan; two natural foods shops; plenty of earthy shoe stores; and a hemp clothing shop, all within easy walking distance from the campus.

I could live here, I thought, and envied my daughter, who does.

UPDATE: What are the odds that in my circle of blog friends is another Smith parent? She got a really great photo of the pond this weekend.

The Mutating Meme

What better way to jump back into blogging after a sojourn across the pond than to respond to a meme? Okay, I could actually write a decent post, but that would take brain cells that are currently sleep deprived, and if you read Science Times in the NYTimes yesterday, which I had plenty of time to read as I was in airports or airplanes for 24 hours straight, you'll know that adequate sleep is necessary for blogging.

Anyway, PSOTD meme'd me. It's a very complicated meme, involving numerous DNA strands; a mutating meme, as it were (not mutating gene; that's a topic for another post). Pharyngula started it, and how is it that biology professors have time to start memes anyway? Shouldn't they be teaching our children, at those prices we pay? (Just got back from Family Weekend, remember.)

It's very Sci-Fi centric, and I don't do Sci-Fi, but that's where the mutating bit comes in:

The Rules:

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”. Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

•You can leave them exactly as is.
•You can delete any one question.
•You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change “The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…” to “The best time travel novel in Westerns is…”, or “The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…”, or “The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…”.
•You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”.
•You must have at least one question in your set, or you’ve gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you’re not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

The Path:

My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Pharyngula.
My great-great-great-great-great-grandparent Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My great-great-great-great-grandparent is Flying Trilobite.
My great-great-great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock.
My great-great-grandparent is archy.
My great-grandparent is Why Now?
My grand-parent is Rook's Rants.
My parent is PSOTD.

The Questions:

The best alien invasion song in SF/Fantasy is: We'll Make Great Pets by Porno for Pyros.

The best “bad” movie in SF/Fantasy is: All of them! Umm, okay, let's change that one. The best "bad" movie in chick flicks is: Ever After.

The best non-pop song in pop is: The Emperor's New Clothes by Sinead O'Connor. (Well, at least the one I've heard most recently. Western Mass has a really great radio station, I discovered.)

The best flavor filling in PopTarts is: Chocolate Fudge by Kelloggs (Yes, that's the same answer as PSOTD. Meme evolutionary theory says that memes that are beloved by pregnant mothers don't mutate.)

The Victims:

As always, if your name is Kathy or any form thereof, you're tagged. But I don't want to leave out the guys, so I think I'll tag Chris in Oxford, who has an affinity for genes as well as music.

Rome: In the Footsteps of Ceasars and Senators

The sun sets on the Forum.

Strap on your sandals and join me for a walking tour of Rome...

Walk along a sidewalk in Rome. It doesn't have to be a particularly noteworthy sidewalk; just about any will do. See the fence next to you? Look over, and down, and chances are, you'll find ancient Roman litter. Rome, remember, was once inhabited by over a million people, and they left a lot of old stuff for us to look at. Time has covered most of it up, with over 20 feet of dust and detritus. But you will soon learn to look down, to the Roman level where ceasars and senators once strode, on the very same lanes you're strolling now.

Walk into the Pantheon, and marvel at the ingenuity of your ancestors. They built the monument to "all the gods" but their gods are suspiciously silent now, awed by what their worshipers wrought in their names. No deity can compete—and the deities didn't even have to worry about plumbing, which ancient Romans conquered along with half the known world. Just take a look at the still-standing aqueducts, which carried water over long distances (on the train to Frascati you can see a good portion of them) and the enormous bath palaces they built.

You may find there are just too many people walking around Rome today, all of them wearing the sensible shoes of tourists. If so, time your visits well: avoid the Forum in the middle of the day, when the main drag (Via Sacra) is jammed with human flesh, and go in the evening an hour before it closes.

Visit Palatine Hill just above the Forum instead, where for a price (11€), you can see even more extensive ruins than the Forum. Palatine Hill was the high rent district of ancient Rome, where wealthy Romans lived. It's also where Iron Age huts were found, similar to the ones where Remus and Romulus were born. Plus, it's remarkably free of tourists, something you'll come to appreciate the longer you stay in Rome.

Fortunately, your ticket to Palatine Hill gets you into the Colosseum as well, allowing you to avoid the long line for tickets. Of course, if you were an ancient Roman you wouldn't call it the Colosseum; you'd call it the Amphiteatrum Flavium. The term Colosseum only came about in the Middle Ages.

Cross the street, avoiding modern Roman traffic, and visit Trajan's Markets and the Imperial Forum, still undergoing excavation. While you're there, gaze up at Trajan's Column. It's amazing how much Trajan looks like Pope Sixtus V, isn't it?

There are other bits and pieces of ancient Rome, too many to see in one day, or even three. But perhaps you're ready to fast forward through time to the Middle Ages, to the time of the Renaissance. A different god was worshiped, in fact, many of the Roman temples were simply renamed for saints. Christianity made its mark here, its art no less impressive than the monuments the ceasars built. You can also visit the  Christian catacombs under some of the churches, an especially good place to visit if it's raining.

Join the throng of tourists queuing for the Vatican City museums and the Sistene Chapel. Michaelangelo spent 4 years painting the ceiling; the least you can do is spend a few minutes craning your neck to see it. (Prepare to be underwhelmed however, if it's a cloudy day and the chapel is dim—there's very little artificial light except for some ugly florescents around the floor. And try to ignore the loudspeaker telling you to be quiet, and the tourists ignoring the commands not to take photos.) On your way out, take a photo of the Swiss Guards; they stand there posing for hours.

Hungry? Head over to Campo de Fiori open air market. There you can buy your dried (and fresh, this time of year) porcinis, fruit, nuts, fresh capers, olives, squash blossoms, and other seasonal goodies. If you get there after the marquees fold up (around 1:30) some of the shops near the market sell food items too, but remember, you'll have to lug that can of olive oil around with you the next few hours unless you're staying nearby.

Save some time to wander up Via Veneto and experience la dolce vita. If you haven't seen the movie by Fellini, don't fret; there are several inviting pastry shops where the sweet life is available in carbohydrate form.

You'll inevitably tramp up and down the Spanish Steps at least once, dodging teenagers on holiday. Want to climb more steps, in a more awe inspiring location? Find the Victor Emmanuel Monument —it's easy to find, in fact, you couldn't possibly hide such a monument—and climb the steps, after first paying your respects to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. 

Reserve a day to go to Ostia Antica, the ancient Roman port town. Ostia once held over 100,000 residents, and much of the town is visible today. It's preserved much better than many of Rome's ancient sites, and has fewer visitors than Pompeii. Scuffling over pine straw covered streets, you'll have no trouble imagining ordinary Romans walking around, bathing, selling food in the taverns, swimming in the pool, renting out flats and catching a play at the theatre...just don't try to use the ancient toilets. (Use the modern ones instead.)

Now pull up a chair. You deserve a rest. Pour a glass of wine and revisit the places you've been...

Continue reading for some practical advice:

On the Road Again

I'm leaving for the States in the morning. It's Family Weekend at Smith; it'll be my first visit to the campus, and my first visit to New England.

Wonder how it compares to Old England?

Later I'll post my photos and wrap-up of my Rome trip, so check back. I was going to write another post about the food of Rome—it deserves its own post—but that will have to wait until I get back next week.

Now I have to go check that I have everything. Ciao.

Wednesday Food Blogging: Wild Mushroom Lasagna with Tomato Confit

From the jaws of disaster, a victory is snatched.

A funny thing happened on the way to a lasagna.

I managed to bring back a couple of porcini mushrooms from Rome. September and October are porcini season, so the markets had crates of huge porcinis. A couple are all you need for a dish, but one didn't quite make the trip intact, and when faced with a sauté pan, the other shrank into more normal mushroom size.

Dried porcinis raced to the rescue, after a quick soak in hot water. Hurdle number one seemed to be solved, at least if I could content myself with only one layer of mushrooms.

I considered a layer of spinach, but no spinach presented itself in my veggie bin, nor in my freezer. (Note to self: a block of frozen spinach is a good thing to keep on hand.)

So this would be a height challenged lasagna. Politically correct and all that.

But then my lasagna noodles were stuck together in the middle when I poured off the cooking water. One big mass of pasta, with floppy sides. (Lasagna noodles are wider and shorter here, about 4 by 6 inches, and not ruffled on the edges.) Now, I don't normally cook my lasagna sheets; I just add more water to the tomato sauce. But this was to be a white sauce lasagna, so I thought it best to cook the lasagna first.

In trying to pull the sheets apart, I ended up with pieces of lasagna. I layered the bigger pieces on the bottom, then pieced together more bits until I had covered the whole thing more or less.

The only thing that worked properly was the bechamel. All hail bechamel!

Surprisingly, for such a problem-prone dish, the result was pretty good. I'd definitely make it again, next time with cremini or portobello mushrooms if porcini aren't in season. Although, the porcini really were good in this. Try to find them if you can. (They're also known as ceps in France.)

If you try this at home, your mileage may vary. Which may be a good thing.

The Podcast Interview

This morning I was interviewed by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei of Eye on DNA about my experiences with Huntington's Disease and my decision to undergo genetic testing. There's also a bit about spinach.

She's posted the podcast here. Don't laugh at my pseudo-Canadian accent. I don't actually sound like that in real life. I'm pretty sure anyway.

Hsien did a great job, though, keeping me on track. I could have spent the whole time talking about spinach.

And Scott Joplin—an excellent choice of intro music. (Remind me one day to tell you about my great-aunt, who played Maple Leaf Rag well into her nineties.)

Michelle Obama: Just Folks

Michelle Obama reaches out to London.

Last night I met Michelle Obama in London. She was very impressive. Not in a smarty pants, I-know-more-about-policy-than-you-do way, but in a down home, I'm-a-mom-and-I-struggle-too way. I kept thinking I could easily see her fitting into my circle of friends, not a feeling I've ever had with any other candidate's spouse.

She's from South-side Chicago, and she doesn't try to hide her roots. Her accent sounds just like my neighbors in Madison, who were also from South Chicago. I remember bonding with them right away, because they talked like my kind of folks, solidly down-home people, who don't hang out very often in fancy hotels, who don't temper their speech with $100 words and meaningless platitudes.  Despite the fact she has degrees from Princeton and Harvard, and is on Vanity Fair's Best Dressed List (she looked stunning, yet casual, in black skirt and tight-fitting top) she really is Just Folks.

She's the Bill Clinton of political spouses. In other words, she has the ability to reach out and engage personally with everyone in an audience. She feels your pain. I was convinced someone had prepped her in advance with my life story: she spoke about finding money to send your kids to college, how hard it is to find good childcare and good schools, rushing her girls to their after-school activities, having a father who was handicapped (he had MS and was in a wheelchair before he died).

She totally gets it. A professional woman, who wants to be home with her family every night, she bemoaned her crazy travel schedule. But she also has a dream that her husband will one day take the oath of office and close the gap between "the world that is" and "the world that can be."

She had a lot to say about women's issues, about the struggles of working full time and raising children. When she's First Lady she wants to focus on family issues, she says, after joking when asked about the perceived role of First Ladies: "I'm gonna tear that up!"

I spoke to her after her talk, saying I too had two daughters, the last one recently off for college. She seemed a bit envious, telling me I had it made now. (I should have reminded her about that happiness survey, and how she's due to be a lot happier in a couple of years herself.)

Michelle Obama, the Bill Clinton of political spouses.

One other thing: Michelle (I feel we're on a first name basis now) is very tall. I don't often meet women taller than me, but in her high heeled boots, she towered over me, and just about everyone else at the event. She'll look great at those inaugural balls, a 21st century Jackie Kennedy, yet much more approachable than any Kennedy.

While Michelle Obama talked a lot about the hope her husband represents, I couldn't help but be filled with hope watching her, a black woman from South Chicago, talking about the possibility of living in the White House one day and utterly changing the status quo. We've come such a long way from the days when a judge ordered my elementary school to be integrated in the 70s. I had no idea then I'd one day be voting for a black man of my age, in a race to determine the president of the United States.

A Glimpse of Rome

I've been sorting through the 351 photos I took in Rome and writing up an article, but today I'm off to Oxford for a tour I helped put together. Then tonight I'm seeing Michelle Obama in London. So I'm not sure when I'll get around to posting more photos.

But I wanted to tease you with a glimpse of a Roman street. See that archway in the distance, covered with ivy and wisteria? It's next to the French Embassy, not far from Campo de Fiori, the open air market. (You know me; I go out of my way to find wisteria, even out of season.)

Meet Michelle Obama in London

UPDATE: Here's my wrap-up of the event, if that's what you're looking for.

America's image.

I got back from Rome late last night, and among the many emails awaiting my attention were reminders about the Michelle Obama visit to London on Monday.

What does that have to do with Rome, you ask? Well, if you've walked past an American Embassy in the last few years, you know that they are very well guarded. Maybe they always were, but these days the barricades take on a special meaning. There are a lot of people in the world who hate America, and they don't distinguish between our government and our people. Our embassies represent America, and have become, by necessity, very unwelcoming places.

The American embassy in Palazzo Margherita is beautiful, built in the nineteenth century and later housing Queen Margherita. It's located on a lovely avenue, Via Veneto, where everyone lives la dolce vita. It's surrounded not only by an iron fence but by metal barricades, the legs jutting into the sidewalk, a hazard for pedestrians. Italian police are poised at the entrances. Despite its tropical exterior, overlooked by tall palm trees, it's not a place anyone wants to linger.

In contrast, the French embassy, also housed in a former palace (the Palazzo Farnesse), is hardly distinguishable from the other buildings in Rome.

I want our next president to have as a priority the improvement of America's image worldwide. It's easy to say that, but much more difficult to achieve. America's security is inextricably tied up with America's image, and it turns out unprovoked invasions do not improve our image.

I want our next president to represent what's good about America—particularly the warm welcome we've always given to foreigners (unlike some European countries I could name, where anti-immigrant racist attitudes lurk just below the surface).

Traveling as an American overseas opens your eyes, to not only our image but also our strengths. We need a president who's done that, not in a protected bubble of security but as a private citizen. We need a president who represents what's great about America, not what's powerful about our defense contractors and their lobbyists.

If you live in London or thereabouts and would like to hear Michelle Obama talk about her husband's vision for America, go here to register for the event. She's speaking at 8 p.m. Monday night. The cost is only $100 ($50 for students)—dollars, not pounds, which counts as a contribution to the campaign. (Only American citizens can contribute to the campaign.)

I'll see you there. Ciao.

Wednesday Food Blogging: College Food

(Note: I'm away in Rome right now, probably eating something fabulous or else wondering where I'm going to eat next.)

They call it mellow yellow...college food.

My daughter sent me a photo of a meal she cooked with her friend during her Fall Break weekend, which she spent in New Hampshire. Her friend is also vegetarian, and they found some bargains at the local grocery store.

Morningstar Farms fake steak, corn-on-the-cob (a delicacy here in England), pasta and some frozen potatoes. (She didn't send a recipe. I think you just read the instructions on the back and follow, more or less.) (Update: Okay, there was a recipe: "we added the herbs to the potatoes and chipotle sauce to the steak while we were cooking it. it is the tabasco kind.")

Bring back memories anyone?

She really is fortunate, though, having vegan and vegetarian meals available three times a day in the house dining hall (Smith has houses, not dorms). When I was in college I had to settle for french fries and orange juice from the grill in the student union.

I also had to walk 10 miles in the snow* to get to class every day, but that's another story.

*(This is a lie. It rarely snowed in Louisiana, and when it did, we took the cafeteria trays and used them as sleds. That's on account of we were too poor to have real sleds.)

A Roman Holiday

I am leaving for Rome today , yesterday where I hope to eat here and here. They can keep their gelatto, but I definitely want to walk away with some porcinis and some fresh olive oil. I may have room in my suitcase for some prosecco too.

Arrivederci.

===

Okay, for some reason this didn't post automatically yesterday.

Just as well, cause I had something more to add. When I was sitting in the airport reading the Times, I read about how several restaurant owners in Rome were busted for serving dormouse, a Roman delicacy.

Yikes! I am being extra careful when I order. "I'd like the dormouse-free menu, please."

Anyway, Rome--Oh. My. God. It's bloody awesome.

And the food--we'll dish later, I promise.

Chenies: Host to Kings, Queens, and Now, Me

The front of Chenies' current structure, built in the mid-fifteenth century.

I've hiked past Chenies Manor house four times, peering through the garden walls, yet never returned for a visit during the hours they were open. So, one afternoon last week, I decided it was high time I did.

Now, I've been to dozens of stately homes, National Trust properties, castles, palaces, and proper British cottages, but I have to admit I was not too jaded to enjoy Chenies. First of all, it's very old. There's been a residence here since the Domesday Book, 1086, and before that, in Saxon times. Second, quite a few people who even I recognize have stayed here: Edward I, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth I—who visited both as an infant and again as monarch. You can trod upon the old oak floors in the very room where she worked, and with very little effort, imagine yourself a member of her court.

Chenies also has the distinction of being one of the houses where Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife, engaged in the adultery that eventually got her killed. In fact, it's said to be haunted, perhaps by Henry VIII himself.

This home, unlike many others in Stately Britain, is still lived in, and has an air of pragmatic stateliness. It's been used as a location for many films, including an upcoming BBC special on Jane Austen. (A couple of the rooms had been repainted blue for the programme.) It's a great place to see antiques and tapestries in situ, including several pieces from the 16th century. The billiard table is large enough to field a cricket team—fortunately, the floor was reinforced or I'd never have dared to go back downstairs.

You can count the 22 cut brick chimneys—built by the same man who built the chimneys at Hampton Court Palace. There's a tunnel, in case the family need to escape quickly, and a little room to hide a priest, should the need ever arise.

The gardens, even in the early days of October, were stunning. A pink garden, a topiary garden, a maze, a physic garden (don't touch!) were all blooming along as if summer were still at full strength. The kitchen garden was awash in chard, shallots, and other fall veggies.

The manor house is open two afternoons a week until the end of October, and is located a short bus ride away from the Chorleywood tube station. It's worth a visit, something I wish I'd known the first time I walked past and wondered what was behind those walls.

The back of the house and the formal lawn—possibly where Edward I invented Easter eggs.

Click below for more photos.

Happiness Is Just Around the Corner

Having suffered through a plague of mild to severe unhappiness these last few weeks, I was glad to see my mood may be changing. According to this study, happiness and well-being are U-shaped over a person's lifetime, and "happiness among American men and women reaches its estimated minimum at approximately ages 49 and 45 respectively." So any minute now things should pick up.

Of course, for European men and women, the ages are lower—44 and 43. I'm not sure if it's something in the air, in which case I'm overdue for euphoria, or if actual nationality plays a role. Maybe you have to be eligible for pension benefits in order to suffer an earlier onset of happiness in Europe.

One of the reasons suggested for such a U-shaped happiness scale is that "individuals learn to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses, and in mid-life quell the unfeasible aspirations of their youth." All you youngsters, beware your unfeasible aspirations. They will kick you in the teeth every time. Then you have bad teeth.

On a related note, I hope that when I'm 59 I'm not only deliriously happy but also that I look as good as Stevie Nicks. Wow. Where can I get some of this cocaine stuff she mentions?

Friday Calf Blogging

Freckles the calf, on World Farm Animal Day, or thereabouts.

I'm not sure if World Farm Animal Day was October 1, October 2, or October 4, but anyway I missed it.

Darn. The cows and I were going to celebrate. Although I'm not sure there's much to celebrate about being a farm animal.

My dog thinks it's much nicer being a pet. If I could have one of the calves as a pet, I'd like to have Freckles. I could train him to do a few tricks, like stand and look adorable while I hold a camera in front of him.

I came across this slideshow last night, entitled "How to Photo a Cow." Very informative.

As always, you can check out other Friday animals at The Modulator's Friday Ark.