Quick intro - Todd came to visit recently, and he just sent over his post. Here it is. . .

My visit to the McNeilorama headquarters was nothing short of spectacular. On my first night, I suggested we go to a play. Not just any play, but one that featured Neve Campbell and Matthew Modine and was written by Arthur Miller. Sounds promising, right? Since Tiffany had a marketing class, it was just me and Andy. The show was called “Resurrection Blues” and there were two things we didn’t realize going into it that might have been good to know: 1) It was the last play that Arthur Miller wrote, so it was probably written when he was senile and coasting on his reputation as a great American playwright. 2) It was only the third night of previews, which explains why someone in the crew was loudly feeding lines to one of the leads. Andy, thanks for being a good sport and indulging my giddy tourist inclinations.
One English staple that I highly recommend is tea and scones. Andy and Tiff made reservations at a fantastic little place called the Muffin Man. We met Mark, Caton and their adorable baby Anna there after strolling along the Portobello Market for a couple hours. I think the English are onto something. I’m going to start lobbying my office here in the States for a daily tea break. I’ll let you know how my crusade goes from the comfort of the unemployment line, where I’m sure one can have tea and scones whenever he bloody well pleases.
Another night of my trip saw a McNeilorama first: a foray into the London indie rock scene. I am a huge music fan and after reading about a concert in TimeOut London, we ventured out to a club called Metro. Soon after entering the tiny dark underground lair that is Metro, Tiff ran into one of her co-workers. She noted that her presence at the show would do wonders for her street cred among her office mates. During the first band’s set, Tiff asked me if I had heard of Morrissey. After telling her I had, she pointed out that he was about 10 feet behind us. No sooner had I turned around, then the man himself was walking right by us. I proceeded to enter fanboy mode and contemplate trying to get my picture taken with him. Fortunately, Tiff had the good sense to steer me away from this course of action and leave the poor guy alone. Nonetheless, it ranks up there as one of the coolest rock star encounters of my life. All in all, we had a great time and got to hear some brilliant bands (forgive the British expression, but it seems appropriate). I was pleased when Tiff said that they should go to more club shows, though next time they will go prepared….with ear plugs.
One last highlight that I will share before I shove off and hand you back to your rightful bloggers is of the chippy. First, I must explain that a “chippy” is what the British lovingly call an establishment that serves fish & chips. Not only did they take me to their favorite chippy, but it was a kosher chippy, which I would guess there aren’t many of in London. I was pleased to know that our food would all be fried in matzoh meal. Much to my delight, it didn’t disappoint and I have gained newfound respect for that most English of delicacies.
For the unititiated, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that Andy & Tiff’s air mattress is extremely comfortable and one of the million reasons to visit the McNeilorama braintrust. I can’t thank them enough for opening their home (and their blog) to me. Cheers!

In response to Brooke’s question, Doughnut Day – the day before Lent. It appears to be a German tradition having something to do with using up the fats and sugars by making – or in our case buying – doughnuts on Fat Tuesday. It’s fairly well-known in Pennsylvania courtesy of the Pennsylvania Dutch (who are of German descent, of course), who also brought Pennsylvania some EXCELLENT potato salad and “slippy,” which is like chicken pot pie but more slippery.

Quick hello to Patrick, of the McNeilorama comments Hall of Fame, who is bringing McNeilorama global (well, more global) courtesy of the US Army. Do us proud, Pat. That’s right, readers, keep on traveling – this blog is GOING places.

OK, off to bed, then off to Greece!

Alpha Beta Greece-a, and we are almost on our way. We have to get up at 2:15 or so in the morning. Hmm. . . . that was not stellar planning on our parts, I don’t think. Oddly enough, it was actually the best option. For some reason, flights like to leave London at the crack of dawn. I just don’t get it.

Hopefully I’ll be able to catch some z’s on the plane. We’ll see. As for planned activities, I suspect we will walk around, take loads of pictures, and eat. That’s my plan, anyway. We’ll see if all parties agree with this plan.

In other news, I am giving a presentation in class tomorrow - it’s an easy one, but I have to try to keep it short and sweet, which is not my forte. Long and chatty is my forte, as you may have guessed. OK, I have to go to bed, because tomorrow night I only get about 3 and a bit hours of sleep, so I need to stock up! I probably won’t get to post until we get back, so more next week, and happy Doughnut Day!

I want to go to bed now, but first I want to blog! Oh yeah.

Kermit ate about a third of a croissant the other day. Through the baggie. I don’t think she knows that she’s supposed to be a cat.

Andy went to Amsterdam for a few days for work, and now he’s in Berlin for a few days for sorta work (”teambuilding”). So he came home last night and said that he went shopping in Amsterdam. I thought, “Hmmm. . . did he buy some glassware for the kitchen? A pretty article of clothing or piece of jewelry for his wifey?” Then he said, “Guess where I went shopping?” I’m thinking, “Where did we go when I was in Amsterdam? Why would I know where he went shopping?” Well, silly me. He went shopping at the grocery store, and he bought cookies. I really should have known, because the man sure loves his unusual cookies and biscuits. Don’t worry, we have loads of them. Syrupwafflen, to be specific. If you’re curious, I think you can buy them in Starbucks - they’re called Dutch waffle cookies or something like that. We didn’t notice them there until after we had them in Amsterdam, but anyway - they’re delicious.

Also of note is that I made beef Wellington for the first time last night. I had NO IDEA how easy it is!! I’m making it again and SOOn. It was delicious.

OK, bed time.

Valentines Day – 21 February 2006

OK OK I know. I really wish I blogged more, too. We’ll probably lose readership at this rate, but we’ll just have to build up our vast following again when we have more time. Basically I started taking those classes I told you about, and I have also been working a bit much lately – they decided to put the weekly, monthly, quarterly, 5-year strategy, and brand planning deadlines all in the same week. Well weekly deadlines are every week, but you know. It should slow down over the next few weeks, so that will help with my prolificacy.

On to the title topic. . . As Andy and I had a very busy day planned on Valentine’s Day itself, we decided to go out to dinner on Saturday night. We went to a Greek restaurant in our village (one of a very few “places we have to try” left on our list), and it was just lovely. We think we learned something, though. We think that when one enters a restaurant in London, rather than saying, “Hi, 2 please,” as one would in the States, it’s probably more effective to say, “Hi, do you have a table for two available?” The reason we think that is because every time we go into a restaurant and say, “Hi, 2 please,” the host says, “Have you booked?” Well, no sir we have not – your restaurant is EMPTY. Here, it doesn’t matter. Here, the options seem to be 1) make a reservation, and 2) ask politely if perhaps maybe they might be able to find room for you. I think. I’ll test it and let you know how it goes.

When Tuesday (the real Valentine’s Day) came, Andy got up early to make me a yummy breakfast, which turned out to be raspberry coffee cake. Look out, future guests – it was WONderful. What began as a romantic idea gradually turned into a ludicrous fiasco, and it happened as follows. The raspberry in the raspberry coffee cake decided to leak its way onto the bottom of the oven and smoke the place out. Andy opened the window while I was in the shower wondering why my yummy breakfast was smelling alarmingly like burnt breakfast.

When he checked on the cake, it set the smoke detector off. He took the cake out ten minutes early, because the smoke was getting a bit intense, and when he did, we were prepared. Our smoke detector is on the ceiling, so I violently waved a dishtowel at it for the few minutes it took Andy to check on the cake and decide to take it out after all. So there I was in my smoky flat on Valentine’s Day franticly waving a dishtowel over my head in the general vicinity of the smoke detector. When we finally sorted the cake out, Andy started the coffee and got in the shower while I continued to get ready for work. I came out of the bedroom to the homey aroma of freshly brewed coffee, burnt raspberry filling, and delicious coffee cake, and then I realized that the coffee smell was particularly strong. Because the coffee was everywhere.

Our coffee maker has a tricky mechanism that, on the whole, makes it much cleaner and keeps the coffee hotter than other coffee makers, but it also means that if the carafe is slightly off the mark, the coffee could potentially go everywhere. We won’t do that again. So I spent a good five minutes mopping up coffee with our recycled paper towels which, though eco-friendly, are complete garbage in the soaking up coffee department.

After I made more coffee, we had a wonderful breakfast, and the cake turned out to be amazing. We then decided that, rather than eat the entire cake, I should take it into work to share. I carted it to work on the tube (after setting my travel mug down on it – oops), and when I arrived, I said, “Andy made a coffee cake.” “Why the h*ll would you ever make a coffee cake?”

Turns out they don’t really have coffee cake here! They thought I meant a cake that tastes like coffee, rather than a cake to eat with coffee. They tried to get me to explain what it would be like: “Is it like a crumble? Is it like a muffin?” Well no, and sort of. Anyway, the ended up loving the coffee cake, but most of all, they were VASTly impressed that Andy and I managed to have so many adventures before the day even began. So, the moral of the story is that waking up early leads to all sorts of new life opportunities, or – at the very least – can on occasion supply some good blog material.

Notes: Getting cat hair out of the keyboard is a challenge I never thought I would have to think about.

Todd was here this past weekend – we had a wonderful time – more on that later.

We’re going to Greece next week and I can NOT wait.

Melinda is coming back in May – this time with the wonderful Kate. We’ll miss Brooke, but we like Kate too, and besides, maybe Kate can just wear her glasses or something.

I recently started taking a couple of marketing classes. Marketing Research & Information, and Marketing Communications. The Research & Information one is pretty easy, because that’s what I’ve been doing for five years, but the other one is interesting. Anyway, I found that I was significantly lacking in appropriate supplies for the classes, which MEANS that I got to go school supply shopping. YAY!! I love school supplies. Now, in these modern, crazy times, the teachers post PowerPoint presentations to a website, which I then print out with space for notes and bring to class, which means that I need binders.

In England, the paper is taller, but the binders only have two rings. Explain this to me. This makes ZERO sense. Zero. Oh sorry, naught. Naught sense. Anyway, I got two purple two-ringed stupid binders, some paper, and a hole puncher. After I bought the school supplies, I walked down toward the book store (via the Gap, of course) to meet Andy, but on the way, I acquired a free sample of deLICIOUS hot chocolate. We’re talking nearly City Bakery quality. All I can say is that they did the right thing by handing out free samples, because now I know they have wonderful chocolate, and I might just pick some up should the occasion arise (take note future visitors).

Now I get to punch holes in all of the notes I have so far and put my binders together while watching the Olympics. Perhaps it says something about me that I’m really looking forward to that. Not sure.

First things first, here are some belated pictures of the New Year’s Eve party we went to in PA.

Moving on . . . We just got back from visiting Barry & Claire in Wyndmonham, which is pronounced Wind’m. (I could go on all day about leaving letters out of words here. Southwark is pronounced Suthurk. Worchestershire - as in the sauce - is wuster) It’s very close to Norwich (you guessed it - Norich) and way the heck out in the country, where there are trees, woods, furry creatures, and even flowers. It was wonderful, and I genuinely feel like I can breathe better today than I could two days ago - fresh air is so exhilarating.

We arrived on Saturday morning, had a yummy lunch of ham, soup, and salad, and set off on a walking tour of Norwich. We went to the beautiful cathedral in the town, within which was an exhibition of the Quaker tapestry. Back in 1981, Quakers all over the world began to make a tapestry explaining the history and core beliefs of their faith. Today it is 77 panels strong and quite impressive to see. Also impressive were the cathedral’s bosses. Bosses are the baubles on the joints of the arches in the ceiling. There are over 1100 of them in the cathedral, each of which is unique and tells one of the stories of the Bible.

When we returned to the cottage, Violet and Basil came to dinner. Violet is Andy’s grandfather’s cousin. Oh by the way, Claire is Andy’s mom’s cousin. Anyway, Violet has an extensive family tree (which even I am on) and Claire has a book (published in 1904) that details the family history back hundreds of years. Apparently one of Andy’s ancestors commanded forces in the Civil War. We spent hours looking at photos and through the book; we saw an amazing picture of Andy’s grandfather as a young man, leaning on an airplane. I found it fascinating to look for family resemblances in people I never knew.

We all stayed up later than planned, and poor Violet and Basil went home sleepy as could be, while Andy and I stumbled up to bed and barely made it there before falling deeply to sleep.

Today, we had a lazy breakfast, a walk around the garden and a tour of the rest of the property, including Barry’s studio. Barry is an artist and has loads of extraordinary paintings all over the house AND, not surprisingly, in his studio. Then we had a lazy lunch and even managed to cram in a giant cookie before our next adventure - working in the woods.

Barry manages an ancient woodland behind their property. The entire park spans about 100 acres, and a portion of it is managed by a process called coppicing. Essentially, when the naval ships were lost fighting the Spanish Armada, Queen Elizabeth saw the need for a constantly refreshing supply of wood - in order to build more ships. The property is divided into sections, and in a 20-year rotation, the growth is cut down to about 6 inches high. Every year, Barry, Claire and cohorts (which today included Andy and me) chop down the growth in one section of the woodland, so that they constantly have 20 completely different habitats for wildlife and whatnot. They leave 10 big trees per acre, but the rest is cut back to leave room for wildflowers, butterflies, and birds. Our job was to chop up some pieces that had already been cut down and drag them into piles according to size. It was so nice to go outside and work hard - we don’t get too much opportunity to do that sort of thing in central London.

Now we’re back, we’re watching Moulin Rouge and waiting patiently for the Superbowl to start. I’m pleasantly surprised and excited that it will be on television, and my goal is to make it through the half-time show, which I figure will be over at about 1am. We’ll see.

I mentioned that we were going to bring the cats back with us after Christmas, and we most certainly did. Acquiring them at the airport proved quite the adventure. Our flight arrived at 6:45 am, and we left the “Animal Reception Centre” at 12:00. 5 hours and 15 minutes of very sleepy McNeils, sitting in the lobby of the animal reception centre. It wasn’t so bad, though - they had plenty of magazines to read, and they had a guy with one of those little carts outside selling sausage sandwiches, which were DELICIOUS, by the way.

When the cats finally turned up in the lobby, we had to carry them to the bus stop, which was probably about half a mile across and down a four-lane highway with no crosswalk. Fortunately, we had the intellectual wherewithal to leave our bags at the airport bag-holder place during this process, and it was well worth the money.

I was nervous about bringing them here, because – as some of you may already know – Toby is a neurotic anxiety disorder of an animal, and I thought he might die of a heart attack on the airplane, or at the very least tinkle all over our worldly possessions when he arrived. Kermy, on the other hand, likes to run around a lot, and I thought she would be depressed about moving from a nice big house to a teansy little flat. The good news is that everyone seems to be settling in just fine.

Kermy is completely torturing Toby – she bats at his face when he’s trying to use the litter box and growls at him when he jumps on the bed at night – but he is holding his own. Sometimes he stakes her out – waits for her around a corner and then attacks her when she walks by. It’s hysterical.

The most important kitty news is that, since we have immediate access to the outdoors now, we thought it best to get them collars. We have never tried a collar on Toby before, but we used to try to get Kermy to wear one, and she kept tearing them to shreds and ripping them off her head. We went for some fancier ones this time – black with LOTS of diamond studs on them, and well – I guess they like the bling. They practically strut around in their new collars. Here are some pictures:



And while I’m at it, here are some more pictures of Brooke & Melinda’s Visit:



In other news, I wanted to quickly follow up on some comments from Dad McNeil, who tried to encourage a show of e-hands so that we would know who reads the blog. Don’t worry folks, I love all of my friends and family – blog readers or no – and I actually know that loads of you read it, because some of the more shy readers send me emails or ask me questions on the phone, and that’s wonderful, too. I just like to joke about how there aren’t very many readers, because let’s face it – I don’t think Eucerin is REALLY going to pay me for my recommendation. Although, it REALLY worked. My so-called eczema is almost gone. Wait they really should pay me.

Finally, this is officially our 100th post to McNeilorama. Time to turn on the Celebration Light, I suppose. Incidentally, we found out that the Celebration Light is – unbelievably - worth £490. It was designed by Verner Panton in 1969 and originally manufactured by Louis Poulsen. Check it out (it’s available in red, orange, purple, blue or turquoise).