You Can't Go Home Again

"You shall never win against me, for I am the chess master." - Barley

If there is anything to be said about the last few months, it is that moving to a different country comes with a certain amount of triumph and a certain amount of heartbreak.

The heartbreak:

Cunard lost the bag that contained my wedding dress and my childhood stuffed toys, Wilbur and Kiwi, not to mention almost all of my Anthropologie dresses and a laptop. Cunard can officially be said to not give a f#%&, a s!&%, or a b!@£$%^. I'm devastated and more than a little pissed off.

We had to say goodbye to so many wonderful friends and family (though we all know it won't be permanent).

We had to find a new Crazy Cat Lady for Barley (she was this awesome lady who loved cats, who had the best indoor/outdoor cattery for holidays, and who always gave our normally matted cat back to us smooth and tangle-free).

We had to find a new Laura for Moose (impossible, but we are trying hard).

We cannot find watercress or rose water anywhere and had to bring our own supply of tea, mango chutney, and (in Matthew's case) Marmite ('things overheard in Waitrose', right?).

Also, Americans have a thing about driving huge, automatic transmission cars, which is both weird and upsetting from the point of view of dignity and environmental sensitivity.

The triumph:

We moved here to snowboard, and snowboard we have done. We had a day of 14 inches of light, lovely powder last Thursday and enjoyed ourselves to the point of near-hysteria.

I'm not going to say anything about British beer versus American beer, because both are wonderful, but I am going to say that keg-style beers do MUCH better in the bottle than bottle-conditioned beers, and the American culture of filling a growler (a take-home vessel) at a brewery and consuming it at home is just the best. There may not be pubs here but enjoying fresh beer from one's own sofa is a nice alternative.

Breakfast is much better in America (Huevos rancheros, anyone? Endless variations on eggs benedict? Pancakes that are more than a millimeter thick?).

We were able, in the end, to find a manual transmission car.

We may not be able to find watercress, but the availability of hot sauce is endless. And that makes this spice-loving lady very happy indeed.

Overdosed on The Times

One of the things that I miss the most about living in the UK is The (London) Times. I know, I know. First I complain about not being able to find rose water in the grocery store and then I get really middle-class on you all and admit to not being able to cope without my Saturday Times (the Weekend section and the Magazine most particularly). So I have it shipped (er, what was I saying earlier about environmental sensitivity?) to Bozeman every week. The papers arrive almost exactly two weeks late, so by then I already know the gist of the news stories, but honestly Giles Coren's bad attitude, Jane MacQuitty's wine advice, and the endless aspirational fitness/food/lifestyle/anxiety articles from the Weekend section really have no expiration date. It's ludicrous but I am hooked.

Given that Matthew and I have declined to subscribe to any television channels whatsoever (oh, we are so smug), have hooked ourselves up to a VPN so we can continue to watch British shows, and basically have restricted our news intake to two-week old copies of The Times and The Guardian online, it's almost as if we are living in Britain. Britain with a whole lot of snow and an infinitely wider selection of junk food options.

In other news, Matthew and I went away to Steamboat Springs, Colorado for a few days last week. It was an exciting diversion but started with something very scary: we had to leave Moose with someone new. Barley was left in the house and taken care of by our neighbours' thirteen year old daughter, but Moose needed to be properly looked after: fed, loved, walked, and generally kept away from his usual mayhem. We found a lovely local lady who was willing to take the Moose, and foisted him upon her and her two very young children for these four days. He set the tone by helping himself to one of the girls' snack within minutes of arriving at his temporary home, and then jumped up on the counter to see what other treats might avail themselves to him. Really well done, Moose. Apparently his visit was a success, however, and Moose was returned to us some days later, having (apparently) decided to spend each night sleeping on his host's feet.

While Moose was busy terrorising children and aggressively cuddling, Matthew and I had a ten-plus hour drive down to Steamboat, during which time we listened to Bill Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself." In his collection of columns, he describes his experience of moving back to America after a long time in Britain. I am somewhat heartened to find that his experience and mine so closely resemble each other. I have found, as he did, that there is an uncomfortable mix of delight (oh, thank Paul Revere for attached garages and utility rooms large enough for a washer AND a dryer) and horror (Donald Trump is really a serious presidential candidate? There is such a thing as a 64 oz. soda?) involved in the re-entry process. Sometimes it is wonderful to be here and sometimes it is not, but it never does (and I'm afraid never will again) feel like being home.

Thomas Wolfe tells us that you can't go home again, and he's right. Once I made the decision to leave the US for Britain (and then Britain for the US), I entered what will become a lifelong state of limbo, where I am not perfectly at home in my own country but will (despite becoming a citizen) never be genuinely British either. I'm afraid that Matthew will one day soon feel very much the same about America.

However alarming it might be to realise that I won't ever really be at home anywhere, I would not change it for anything. Not while I get to claim both pubs and growlers, the South Downs and the Tetons, McVities and cake batter ice cream. It's all a matter of perspective.

On the Road

A distinctly seasick family portrait

On the morning of October 29, we sailed into New York Harbor and docked at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. The ship arrived in the pre-dawn hours, so we had to get up very early to watch as the ship passed under the Verrazano Bridge (the QM2 only clears it by about four metres - it's thrilling to watch). Conflicted as we were/are about our big move to the US, there is something very moving about sailing into the harbor, especially as the ship docks just across the waterway from Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

We showed Moose and Barley the Statue of Liberty, but they didn't seem to care.

All of the pet owners (short one - Atlas' owner took his dog when the kennel master wasn't looking and disembarked early) paraded through the ship together (back through the restaurant, which Moose once again anointed with his nose), and bade each other farewell in the baggage hall.

But then we got delayed. There we stood, dog and cat in tow, Matthew's immigration formalities yet to be completed, with a pile of eight bags plus carry-ons. No...make that seven bags. One of my bags (the one containing both my wedding dress quilt and my beloved childhood teddy bears) was nowhere to be found. The staff in the baggage hall assured me that the bag was somewhere around, but about twenty minutes of looking revealed nothing concrete. What my search did reveal was an identical bag from our same disembarkation group, which had plainly been left behind. So...two weeks later, some poor pensioner likely still hasn't realised that he or she has a bag stuffed with a wedding dress quilt, my two best friends (Wilbur and Kiwi), a very old and worthless Samsung laptop (my work computer, annoyingly), and probably a bunch of my underwear. Sigh.

Anyway, we finally decided that the bag was no longer in the baggage hall and tearfully proceeded to immigration, where Matthew had to wait to get formally accepted into the country. That was a fairly quick process, though it did involve tying up some poor porter's time as he watched over our remaining stuff and Barley. Matthew and I were then thrust into the bright sunlight of a gorgeous autumn day, where we waited for our ride.

Now, the whole point of travelling on the QM2 was to avoid flying the pets. Barley would be fine on a plane but Moose is a bit of a nervous mess, so we didn't want to do that to him. It would therefore make no sense at all to fly them from New York to Bozeman, so we hired a car. However, we realised while on the ship that the car company we had chosen (I'm not even going to say the name) definitely does NOT allow pets in their cars. So we had to ask our driver to park at a petrol station around the corner from the car hire place, while I picked up the car.

And when I say car, of course I mean tank. This is America, after all, and we had eight...no, seven...large bags and two pets. So we obviously had to hire the largest passenger vehicle ever made: the Ford Expedition. Yes, all 18.5 feet of her. To be driven through Newark, NJ and Chicago, IL. Sweet.

Right, so bags loaded, dog and cat smuggled in, panic setting in, we set off on our five-day road trip to the Wild West.

There are some things that really must be noted before I proceed. The first is that Barley has never spent much time in a car but certainly always protests loudly while in a crate. The second is that Moose gets terribly carsick. He is, thankfully, over the projectile vomiting stage of his chronic carsickness (his first year with us was an explosive one, if you know what I mean), but he still is visibly miserable while in the car. So moving him to Montana in a car wasn't really the obvious choice.

We had some unexpected extra space in the back of the tank, so we made Moose a little nest and let him curl up in a furry little ball of self-pity for the duration of the journey. We eventually had to let Barley out of his crate because he was driving us mad, and he eventually decided to spend all five days in Matthew's lap:

This lap comes with cup-holders. How utterly civilised. 

We spent our first night at a Best Western in the booming metropolis of DuBois (pronounced doo-boyz), Pennsylvania. Actually, the hotel was kind of awesome in that they had allowed me to ship pet food to them weeks in advance, since we were not allowed to bring it into the country. The hotel room had two double beds, which apparently made Moose and Barley feel as if they had finally arrived in the promised land. After a week of slumming it in the ship's kennels, both pets leapt gratefully onto one of the beds, curled up, and went to sleep. Plainly, these animals are used to travelling first-class, not steerage.

Moose - once again, completely contrary to expectations - won the Pet of the Day award on four* of our five road-trip days. He didn't bark (much) in the hotel rooms, he didn't demand breakfast at stupid o'clock (we spent most of the last year feeding him at 4.30 A.M. because he's a pain in the a**), and he only tried to eat one tollbooth attendant. Barley, on the other hand, lost the Pet of the Day award every single day of the trip, for making our morning routine especially difficult. That...little...furry...bastard found every little cranny in EVERY hotel room and proceeded to deposit himself inside one each morning approximately fifteen minutes before our scheduled departure. I'm telling you, we actually disassembled one hotel bed in an effort to extract him from his hiding place.

*I don't even want to tell you this but Moose lost Pet of the Day during our evening in Rapid City, South Dakota. While Matthew was searching for a lost Barley (see above), I took Moose for a walk, during which time he proceeded to spot a bunny, slip his lead, and chase said bunny down an embankment, across some railway tracks, and into a culvert pipe. Had I not otherwise been convinced of his imminent death, I might have actually killed him myself.

I wonder if I can hide in this contraption...

Oh, look at how sweet and innocent I am...So sweet. So innocent. 

After five days on the road (I had forgotten how utterly boring South Dakota is), we arrived in Bozeman, but not before picking our brand new Subaru Crosstrek up from a dealership in Billings. Because I was the only driver listed on the hire car, Matthew 'got' to drive the new car to Bozeman. His very first US driving experience consisted of driving our brand new car over a mountain pass...in the dark...in a snowstorm. Awesome!

Anyway, we are here and we promise not to subject the pets to a long trip again. Until Christmas, when we will drive to San Diego, California. Ahem.

Go West, Young Moose

Easily one of the saddest things I had to do this year was informing our beloved dog-walker, Laura, that Moose was going to be moving from the UK to Montana. Laura and her husband, Matt, became Moose's best friends and constantly bailed us out when we needed Moose to be looked after. They even hosted Moose for Christmas last year while we were in France (and I can only imagine how fun that must have been - Moose within two metres of a turkey = chaos). 

In repayment for many years of looking after the little troublemaker, I made a promise to Laura: that I would resurrect the MooseBlog and do it right. 

So here we go. 

There are two things that one does when moving internationally with a dog and a cat. First, one books a passage on the Queen Mary 2 and brings the furballs along for the ride. Then, one obviously decides to road-trip from New York to Montana with the pets in tow. Because there is nothing a cat loves more than a road-trip. 

On October 22, after a wonderful walk and goodbye pub lunch, we boarded the QM2 with our distinctly unimpressed cat and our quite freaked-out Moose. We were met at check-in by Robert, the kennel master, who led us up to the kennels. There are 12 kennels on the QM2 (though they are adding 12 more this spring), and Moose and Barley together took up four of them.

 

The kennels are way up on deck 12, which meant that while embarking and disembarking, Moose and Barley were marched through the grand entrance, through the main restaurant (I really hope they changed the tablecloths afterward because Moose got some really thorough sniffs), and up the lifts to the top deck. Any impression they may have had about life in the lap of luxury was quashed when they saw their new digs. The kennels, though clean, comfortable, and secure, were probably the least luxurious accommodation our spoilt pets have ever seen. More on this in my next blog post. 

Moose and Barley were joined by two English Bulldogs (Ralph and Roscoe), a tiny Yorkshire Terrier (Sooty), an enormous who-knows-what (Atlas), a 12 year old dog (Toby), and a genuinely terrified cat called Smokey (who promptly went on hunger strike and was -much to Cunard's credit - moved into his owners' cabin when it became clear that he was never going to eat or drink while in the kennels). I'm not going to make comment on the fellow owners except to say that most were awesome and fun to talk to and some were...not. Ahem. 

We think the QM2 kennel program is fabulous and when we move back to the UK, we will certainly be making use of it again. Robert, the kennel master, was a sweetheart who plainly loves the animals and takes care of them well. Any messes (the dogs have a small exercise area on the deck) were cleaned up promptly, and the dogs really responded to Robert's friendly and playful demeanour. 

We made the decision NOT to visit Moose and Barley as often as we were allowed (8-10, 11-12, 3-6, 8-8.30), as we realised that Moose became frantic with excitement whenever we were around but settled down and played with Robert and the other dogs when we were not), so we only visited first thing in the morning and then for an hour before dinner. We thought that worked well. 

Barley coped well on the ship. All of the animals were a bit skittish for the first 24 hours but Barley especially settled into the rhythm of life on the ship and didn't seem to mind. We let him wander around the indoor exercise area, where soon enough he found a high shelf to sit on and watch smugly as the dogs played below.

Moose - pay attention to this, as this will surprise you - behaved beautifully. He got along with the other dogs. He didn't try to bite anyone (even the many passengers who came up to view the dogs). He didn't make a fool of himself or us upon embarkation or disembarkation. In short, he behaved himself. And has ever since. We gave Robert a Moose and were given back a reformed Moose. Man, we might have to do this QM2 thing more often. 

We did have one tremendously silly day at sea. Cunard likes to get all of the animal owners and their pets together for a photo shoot during the voyage. The idea is to get a shot of the owners with their pets, with the stack and Queen Mary 2 sign in the background. Well, apparently they schedule these shoots well in advance, and ours happened to fall on the roughest day we had at sea. We're talking about a day of 20-foot swells and gusts of up to 110 mph. In other words, a perfect day to go up to the top deck and smile for the camera. It was too windy to take photos outside, so we did it in the fluorescent-lit kennels instead. When our stuff finally gets to Bozeman, I will scan a copy of the photo they got of us...we're looking distinctly green. 

Matthew spent the rest of the day in bed while I went to the pub (obviously) and enjoyed fish and chips, a couple of pints, and watching the waves inundate the windows. The animals, oddly, didn't seem bothered by the weather at all, even though deck 12 was swaying like an undergrad at a frat party.

All in all, it was a wonderful voyage. We would do it again with the pets, for sure (though I wouldn't recommend taking pets just for fun - it was much better than flying but no one is going to pretend that a week on a ship isn't stressful for animals). 

You can't really see it, but the Statue of Liberty is just above Moose's head

For the record, we had fun on the ship as well. Matthew and I were seated next to two very entertaining couples at dinner (Jacky and Malcolm - a British couple who were doing the round-trip, Southampton-NYC-Southampton - were especially awesome company and kept us laughing every evening). Matthew and I also became known from day one as 'the crazy couple' because we enjoyed hanging out in the outdoor hot tub in high winds. We also became regulars at the nightly pub quiz and all of the lectures (of which there many). I'm not sure that we are new converts to cruise holidays, but we are definitely big fans of the transatlantic voyage as a means of transport. 

I'll wrap this one up here and then write another post about the road-trip shenanigans and our arrival in Bozeman. It definitely deserves its own post. 

I'm Blogging Because I am Trapped by a Spider

I was thinking earlier this evening that I would really, really, REALLY love to be a more regular blogger. I have this sense of myself that I am a good and entertaining writer but these days I don't write very much at all. I don't write on this blog. I don't write on my own business' blog. All I really write these days is grocery lists, emails, and the occasional abusive Skype message to a fellow employee at work who gets on my nerves (I said I'm a good writer, not a good person, so get off my back, OK?).

So why, more than a year after my last blog post (which was written more than a year after the post before that) am I suddenly resurrecting the MooseBlog? 

Spiders. 

One spider, really. Which might actually be dead. Maybe. I haven't had the balls to get close enough to check. 

This is a significant moment for me. You see, I spent the better part of my afternoon talking my older sister's ear off about how I can't handle the toy industry's insistence on drowning little girls' ambitions with an endless parade of pink and purple princess tat. I hate the fact that it gives girls the message that they are somehow inferior when even the doctor's sets, the veterinarian's sets, or the special girly Legos that they find in the girls' toy aisles are colored an insipid pink or purple. It drives me insane to think that while back in the 80s I was playing with a fairly wide range of toys made just for kids and not girls OR boys (hey, Playskool really only used to come in bright primaries and murky creams), today's girls are being overwhelmed with the constant message that even though the world is at their fingertips their real goal in life should be to become a pretty (perhaps even sexy) princess. 

Princesses, as we all know, are traditionally around mostly to pine over princes and wait to get rescued.  

And yet here I am, ladies and gentlemen. Barricaded in my bedroom. Looking out of the window and absolutely willing my husband to return from the other side of the world (he's in Singapore until Friday and it's just Wednesday night right now) to rescue me from the (ooooh, I don't even want to say the word) spider that is lurking, dragon-like, on the stairs. 

You get the irony, right? I would actually let down my long, long hair and use it to climb out of my window were it not for the fact that another spider has set up camp on the window frame outside. 

I posted about my dilemma on Facebook a few minutes ago and have been offered plenty of lovely and useful advice about how to dispatch the diminutive beast, but in reality I have an obsession with not killing spiders, even though they scare the hell out of me. It's some kind of sentimental hippie thing that I have about the spider's right to be alive even though I don't really want it in my house. 

Aaaaaagh, which is why I need my husband to scoop it up in his hand (it's a superhuman feat, I tell you) and escort it outside, preferably somewhere further than just a few feet away from the front door. 

Not for the first time in my life, spiders have left me feeling a bit useless (if you want to know about the other time, ask my older sister, who basically de-spidered my house in Oxford while I lay curled up and crying in the middle of my bed), but at least I have a blog and my trusty ol' sarcasm to get me through it. 

And these two, who I think you will agree are not giving this dire situation the attention it deserves:

It has been more than a year since I last posted on this blog. More than a year. I have meant to be more regular. You know this because I have sworn it many of my previous posts. And yet, here we are.

A few nights ago, I watched a film about a writer with writer's block. Everyone kept asking him, "Are you writing?" and he wasn't. And neither am I.

But I am going to try.

Maybe the reason that the creative juices haven't been flowing is that we are second-class citizens where Meese are concerned. We long ago accepted (maybe when the vicar who married us announced in his sermon that there are three people in our marriage) that Moose has a couple of well-trained humans, not the other way around. He has his own sofa. He kicks us off the bed. He wakes us up in the middle of the night.

Moose has also acquired a new sidekick. A partner in evil. Yes, I am talking about none other than our neighbour-annoying, bird-murdering, foot-attacking new addition, Barley.

Yep, that's the little bugger there.

He looks innocent and sweet, but apparently he is a devil. To us, he is all cuddly and cute. But to the neighbours he is a menace! A misfit! An abomination!

For no sooner did we rescue sweet Barley from the shelter than the neighbours built a flimsy, bamboo fence to block Barley from going into their garden. He's a crafty one, though, Barley. He figured out how to get around their fence. And the four-inch tall flower pot that they placed for much the same aim. AND the laundry detergent bottle that they thought would really get in his way.

Apparently Barley is the Houdini of the cat world. Or, perhaps less excitingly, he is just a regular cat and isn't impressed by barriers or human interference of any kind.

Anyway, as you can see, I have had my hands full this year, what with having to claw my spot on the bed back in the middle of the night and trying to coerce the neighbours to be a tad more relaxed about our cat (Mr. Neighbour: Tear down this wall). So perhaps you can forgive me for being so lax on the blogging front.

In truth, it has been a busy year. And I will try to blog more. But it may be that the Mooseblog has reached its natural end and must be replaced with something new (like, ahem, a blog about the brewery that we are starting, which also may contain a moose in its title). We shall see. I would like to continue to put my sarcastic pen to this page.

Till next time...

The Dangers of Having a Teenager

Matthew and I are good dog parents. Actually, you know what? We are excellent dog parents. Seriously. We feed Moose premium, healthy dog food (it smells like pot roast). We take Moose for daily walks in the country (correction - we moved to the country for Moose). We let Moose sleep on the bed Moose lets us sleep on the bed with him!

Possibly the best thing we do for Moose (or is it the best thing we do for the cranky, overly-sensitive neighbours?) is we leave the TV on for him when we go away. There are many highly rational reasons for this. 1. The TV keeps Moose company when we are out! 2. The TV makes more noise than Moose does! 3. The TV makes it look like someone is home (as if someone would break in when there is a snarling Moose hurling himself at the front window at every tiny sound)!

But most importantly, leaving the TV on gives us the opportunity to educate Moose fully. You know - make him a fully rounded Moose. An educated Moose. A cultured Moose. Which is why we usually leave Moose with the National Geographic Channel, Eden, or History. Not Animal Planet, of course. Too much barking and God knows what smut he'd learn from that Cesar Millan. 

Now, it might not have escaped your attention, but Moose recently turned two. Those of you who are math geeks know what this means. I am not a math geek, so I used a calculator and discovered that 2 (human years) x 7 (dog years) = 14 = DISASTER! Moose is a teenager! A stinky, sleepy teenager whose purpose it is to embarrass and rebel against his loving parents! It occurred to me: while we are away (such trusting parents), TeenMoose must be getting into trouble! Raiding the goodie jar! Peeing on our bed! And, worst of all, watching trash on TV!

That last point is a fact. OK, actually all three points are facts, but this blog post is about point number three. The important one. The poisoning of Moose's fecund mind!

We haven't actually caught him in the act of watching forbidden, smut television. He's not currently showing signs of wanting to be America's Next Top Model or anything. Dawson's Creek is long off the air, so we aren't worried about him getting inappropriately involved with his teacher. Nothing like that. But what we are seeing is far more disturbing. 

We think he's been watching cartoons. 

We leave him with something like The World of Antarctic Birds or Churchill's Finest Millisecond and then the moment we leave the house, he changes the channel to the Disney Channel or (worse!) the Cartoon Network. And he has picked up some dangerous ideas. 

1. Who, if not the TV, taught Moose that his purpose in life is to harrass, harrangue, and possibly maul the postman? Why, when the postman brings lovely letters and politely puts them through the door without so much as ringing the bell, has Moose decided that the best course of action, upon sighting the postman's high-visibility vest, is to do his damnedest to eat the postman's head through the window-glass?

2. Must it have been cartoons that taught Moose that a cat is a better snack than it is a companion? Because that is the only explanation I have for his apparent obsession with chasing cats!

Thank you, teenage Moose. Thank you, Cartoon Network and all of your bad-attitude cartoon dogs. Thanks to you, my chiropractor wonders why my elbows are always out of place. Thanks to you, my shoes are showing worrying signs of skid-wear. 

My walks, you see, are not the peaceful country walks that you might imagine I am having. 

My walks, you see, now look like this:

Moose v. Cat. Lera v. Moose
Cartoon Credit: Diane Nichols (thanks, Mommy!)

I'm like the parachute that comes out of the ass end of drag-race cars. The little flag that flaps around behind go-carts. I'm the smiley ping-pong ball that people inexplicably skewer on their car antennas. 

Worst of all, I am the bizarre neighbour who swears loudly while being dragged, against her will, through flower beds, front gardens, and hedgerows in pursuit of a smirking yet mortally endangered neighbourhood mog. 

Ah, well. At least he hasn't started partying late at night, eating dangerous amounts of chocolate. Just wait till he turns three...

Why Being a Moose Rocks the Hiz

We all have ambitions. Matthew wants to win the lottery so we can finally buy a 'shag pad' (his words, not mine) in Budapest. My parents apparently want all three of their daughters, both sons in law, the grandkid, and the associated five dogs all to move permanently into their one-bedroom house. Most of the world's news agencies would like to see Pippa Middleton marrying Prince Harry while wearing a mini skirt and thigh-high stiletto boots. And that could be Pippa or Harry in the skirt, by the way.

My ambitions are simpler than that. My goal: be reincarnated as Moose. 

A Moose. Plus another one. At my parents' house.

Not A moose. Not two moose (see plural moose, pictured right). Not the kind of moose that wanders into my parents' back yard, eats their aspen trees, makes itself comfortable on the back porch, and stares menacingly at the dog. No, I want to be our Moose. The dog Moose. The Moose that gets to track mud all over our white carpet and not get evicted from the house. The Moose that eats much better than we do and then is allowed to wipe his face all over our newly-covered sofas. The Moose that takes great pleasure jumping on the bed at four in the morning  and nudging us out of our warm sleeping spaces so he can have a bit of a snuggle.

That's the kind of Moose I want to be. 

This is a well thought out ambition, I will have you know. I mean, it isn't as if I am not satisfied with my own life. Let's just take the past two months. I went to Wyoming for six weeks, during which time I worked both my real job and my dream job simultaneously (mindblowing multitasking!) and got to hang out with the parents at said one-bedroom house. I also had knee surgery (shall we call this epic multitasking?) and attended a staff meeting. And recertified my EMT card (how does she DO all this multitasking?). And then I picked up and went to Croatia, where I wandered around in the sun, ate incredible seafood, and drank insane amounts of red wine from a plastic bottle (slow down, multitasker!).  So as I was saying, it's not half bad. 

But let's take stock of the things a Moose has that a Lera does not. 

1. A tail. An oft neglected dog feature (especially in the States where some dogs' tails are docked) that shows emotion, looks adorable, can thwap people in the face, and can purposefully knock all manner of items off a table while making it look like an accident. Moose even dipped his tail into a glass of champagne the other day, just for fun. 

2. The ability to bite people and make it look like emotional distress. Well, OK. I will admit that if I ran up to someone and bit them it might look a lot like emotional distress and/or a strong dose of hallucinogenic drugs. Whereas when Moose, for example, ran up and bit a visiting priest last week, he only earned a mild scowl and a swift trip inside. 

3. Predictably bad breath. No, I am serious about this one. You know when you wake up in the morning and you kiss your husband/wife/partner/one-night-stand and you worry that your breath just stinks? Moose doesn't care. 

4. His very own blog. I couldn't possibly have a blog that is dedicated to myself. No, I am far too mild mannered and humble for that sort of thing. But Moose, you see, has his very own blog to detail his adventures. I am just his publicist, if you think about it. I want a publicist! 

So there you have it. Four very good reasons why I want to be Moose in my next life. The only problem with my design is this: what makes a Moose life so grand is the fact that his publicist, chef, massage therapist, life coach, and sleeping buddy happens to be me. So in order for me to die and reincarnate as a Moose I would also have to not die and not have to reincarnate as anybody. So...multitasking? Translife, multi-dimension multitasking. I despair. 

A Rat Called Basil

Reader, I want you to look carefully at the photo above. Do you see the devilish glint in his eye? The sheepish look on his furry face? The aura of self-satisfaction? Yes, that is one pleased looking little rat.

I will tell you why he is so damn pleased with himself. Matthew and I, as new homeowners, seem to have entered into the Saturday home improvement club. Our Saturdays are dedicated to cleaning, fixing, planting, mowing, weeding, installing, perfecting, and taking endless trips to Homebase (today's trip will be in the endeavour to obtain a loft ladder and various other exciting pieces of hardware).

So this morning, while Matthew was down at the bottom of the garden picking what has turned into an enormous crop of blackcurrants (courtesy of the previous owners and a good two years of neglect), I was on the deck planting a pot of basil. OK, before you accuse me of actually giving two hoots about gardening (I don't), I should clarify by admitting that the basil came as a patty (looking an awful lot like a chocolate chip cookie) and was incongruously included in a pack of Lurpak butter. I don't know what basil seeds and butter are doing together in the aisles of our supermarkets, but it's really none of my business, so I won't pry.

Anyway, since Matthew and I managed to kill our parsley (actually, Moose killed our parsley by knocking over the pot repeatedly), we had an empty, comfortable home for our patty of basil/butter seeds, so I got out my green thumb and did some minor gardening.

Erm, actually, I should come clean and admit that the patty really only had to be placed on top of the soil and watered, and then broken up an hour or so afterward and left to do its thing. Look, I already said that I am not a gardener, OK? Leave me alone.

But I tell you, friends, that the basil had not been nestled on top of the soil of a plant we had previously killed for more than three minutes before our ratty little Moose gobbled up the basily, seedy, buttery goodness! He ate the ersatz chocolate chip cookie in one remorseless bite!

Life with a Moose is tough business, I tell you. Dog eat dog. Dog eat basil. Dog eat tube after tube of Lera's almond chapstick.

It's only a matter of time, dear friends, before he is tossed out onto the street.

Oh, but look at how sweet he looks! And how innocent, with his sweet puppy eyes.

How quick we are to forgive. Alas.

Mooserable?

Oh, does the bad blogger of the year award go to me? I am speechless. I'd like to thank so many people for this hard-earned award. Thank you to Matthew, for marrying me and whisking me off on our great Romanian road trip honeymoon.

Thanks to work for firing me (and everyone else) and then employing me as a freelance editor anyway. Thanks to Christmas being held in two countries at once. Thanks to my grandmother, aunt, and uncle for cheering on the Oklahoma Thunder with Matthew and me (that was awesome). Thanks to the shower at 53 Princes Road for flooding every day, leading Matthew and me to throw in the rented towel (literally and metaphorically) and buy our own place. Thanks (oh, especially thanks) to the annoyingly slow vendor and the even more annoyingly pedantic solicitor for taking their damn sweet time completing the sale/purchase of our new house. Thanks (genuine, heart-felt thanks) to my in-laws for letting me stay at their house for a whopping six weeks, sans Matthew, while said annoying vendor and solicitor farted around with the house sale/purchase. Thanks to Lovells for being such shite builders that installing our washing machine and dishwasher became a DIY engineering miracle. And thanks to my meniscus for tearing after I tripped over a root while walking Moose. Yeah, thanks a lot for that one. Really makes things special.

OK, actually life has been absolutely amazing since I last put a sarcastic and figurative pen to this blog. But because it is my calling as sarcastic blogger to write with cynical slant, you will forgive the jaded introduction. I haven't blogged since August, people. I've got a lot of wit to pen. Or type. Whatever.

In the interest of writing a blog that covers more than the last nine months, I think I am going to write about my new neighbors. Neighbours. Look, can we just all make peace with the fact that some of my readers are Yanks and some of them are Limeys, and that my spelling is inevitably going to boomerang between the two? Yeah, thanks. Anyway, the people who live next door. They're nice, probably, but they seem not to have taken to the Moose. To the degree that we have been here just two months and they have already complained about what, to them, seems to be incessant barking. Yes, to those particular neighbors, our furry darling is a pest, a nuisance, a menace. Er...actually, that would be a pretty good description in anyone's book. But to them, he is nothing but a barking machine! We were worried about this, of course, on the occasion of said complaint. However, upon further investigation (ie. too many drinks with the neighbors who live on the other side of us), it became clear that the offending barking was, in fact, two incidents of no more than a minute each. In other words, Moose might actually have done nothing wrong. At all.

Unlikely, right? And yet...probable. Could it be that Moose is not, in fact, a black ball of pure evil? I will leave you with photo evidence, and you can decide for yourselves.

Happy Mooseday!

Er...remember how I said about two months ago that I was going to be more regular about updating the MooseBlog? Right, sorry about that. What I meant, apparently, was that I was going to drop off the face of the planet, stop updating, ignore emails, and generally fail to exist as any kind of normal correspondent or friend. But look, people, I'm planning a wedding. I'm working full time. I herniated a disc in my back. My sister came to visit. I...

Oh, forget it. I'm a bad blogger.

But look what I was doing instead of blogging! I was busy baking Moosecakes! Yes, that's right. The darling puppy had his first birthday on August 17. I cannot believe that our fuzzy ball of evil is a year old already. And is every bit, I should add, as mischievous as he was the day we brought him home. Nonetheless, I decided to celebrate his birthday with a special doggy birthday cake.

OK, I want it to be known that, despite my general skill in the kitchen, the doggy birthday cake did require a recipe. Which I was going to follow, of course (ahem). But Waitrose (er, so what if I bought the ingredients from an upscale store like Waitrose?) didn't have plain chicken baby food. Chicken with parsnips and apples, yes. Chicken with butternut squash, yep. Of course, they had chicken with rosemary (what baby would eat chicken without rosemary, is my question). But no plain chicken. So I bought ground beef. I forgot to put shredded carrots in. I refused to top it with bacon.

Yeah, so I didn't follow the recipe exactly. Or at all. But it turned out fine! Well, it turned out OK. Well, it turned out like a rubbery, beefy frisbee. With yogurt as icing. And a carrot stick candle. Perhaps not my single best effort.

Needless to say, Moose loved it. He dived right in, got yogurt all over himself, and assumed a down to business, legs-sprawled-out, face buried right in the cake, eating position, the envy of competitive eaters world-wide.

A happy birthday indeed.

In tribute to Moose and his year on this planet, I would like to say a few words. Our house never smells right. We have some things that could have gone forever without having been peed on (but haven't). One day we would like to be able to leave things on the counter without them getting stolen. We could be £12 richer a day, if the dog walker didn't charge so much. We would have a more active social life if we didn't have to come home to rescue you. But you are sweet (SO sweet). You are silly (you make us laugh all the time). You are soft, cuddly, and warm. You eat the carrots that come in our veg box every week, but that we never manage to eat. You take us for regular walks. You make us very, very happy. So thanks for giving us the first year of your life! We're sure it's going to get better and better. And we don't regret a moment.

Happy Mooseday!

The Center of the Universe

As I sit writing this long overdue blog post, I am watching Moose eat (yes, actually rip into pieces and consume) a wooden door stop. I should stop him, really. But how do you stop a force like a Moose? He is, after all, the center of the universe.

Or so he believes.

I'm not really sure that I blame him for this belief, no matter how inconvenient it is for us. You see, he may not actually be the center of the universe, but he certainly is (for not entirely good reasons) the center of our lives.

Who is our weekend alarm clock? Moose, of course.

Why does our house have to be thoroughly cleaned every weekend? Well, because Moose makes it dirty.

What dictates our activities on weekends? Moose (he needs a long walk every day).

Why do we have to pour bleach on our patio every couple of days? Er...well, I'm not going to get into that one.

This morning, Moose spilled a cup of bright pink, raspberry tea all over the counter in my future mother-in-law's formerly clean kitchen. The fruity liquid flooded into a drawer, which allowed the tea to form a pool and then drip into the cabinet below. Awesome. He learned how to open the lid to the rubbish bin (you can imagine the trouble that caused). He stole a pile of clean laundry and trailed it all over the kitchen. He harassed the chickens in the garden. He ate a sponge. He ate two pairs of my underwear. He stole a gardening glove. He shredded four plastic bags. He figured out how to open the back door. (He already knows how to open the fridge and exercises that knowledge regularly).

...and now he is eating that door stop.

He is, you will understand, the center of our universe.

Unfortunately for Moose, being the center of the universe comes with certain consequences. He has to be kept clean, so he is treated to at least one bath a week. He must be able to see (so that he can lord over his loyal subjects, Lera and Matthew), so he has to be groomed on occasion. And his lovely, soft coat needs to be protected from the constant English rain, so we help him out with things like this:

Heh. Being a dog is so hard, isn't it, Moose?

So very hard.

Moose on the Loose!

Go Westward, young Moose...

There comes a time in every young Moose's life when adulthood calls, independence beckons, and the need to fly the coop simply cannot be contained. The parents aren't cool anymore. The dog walker is just lame. And the walls of the park are nothing but extension of The Man, suppressing the free thoughts of the Moose.

Today was Moose's day. The day to break free. Today, the Moose was loose.

And scared his parents half to death, I might add.

Today was my first day back at work after more than two weeks stuck in bed with bronchitis. I had only been at work for three hours when I received the call that every dog mommy dreads: the call from the dog walker. Now, as every dog mommy knows, the dog walker is not like your kid's teacher. He doesn't call just to check in. He doesn't call to give you a doggy report card. He calls for one reason and one reason only: your dog is missing.

I knew this when I picked up the phone, and yet I still expected other news. In fact, I expected him to be calling to ask whether or not I would be at home, as during my illness I scared him out of his wits on more than one occasion, since he never expected me to be sitting on the sofa when he came in to pick up Moose. Poor guy.

Unfortunately, this really was the dreaded call. He told me, rather calmly if you ask me, that he had been putting Moose in his car after a long walk in Richmond Park when suddenly Moose bolted. Apparently Moose just decided to do something a little different today and ran as fast as his furry little legs could carry him, which is damn fast if you ask me. The dog walker quickly lost track of him and called in reinforcements to help find the escapee. He also called me, which of course caused me to call Matthew, and within minutes the two of us were speeding toward Waterloo Station and then on to Richmond to join the search for our fuzzy little renegade.

Now, before I get too caught up in the ridiculousness of the situation, I just want to pause and say that I have never been so worried. My poor puppy was lost in (I thought) the wilds of Richmond Park and I was terrified that he might chase after some runners (one of his favorite activities), get dognapped, or (worst!) get hit by a car. Moose can be a real pain sometimes, but I would be absolutely devastated if something happened to him.

In any case, as Matthew works closer to Waterloo Station, he was able to get a train before I got to the station. He was about ten minutes ahead of me but promised to get home, pick up the car (ahem, our new BMW), and retrieve me from the station so we could look for the Moose together. Bless him, he is so cool under pressure.

And then I got a totally unexpected phone call. From Matthew. Who had run home from Richmond Station, gone into our house through the back door, gathered keys and kennels and leashes, and then gone out the front door to get the car.

...and who should be sitting right by our front door but Moose? Yes, that's right. Moose LEFT a walled and gated park. Navigated several busy roads (and possibly a roundabout). Chose one of about four different, winding, possible routes. And made it home, cool as a cucumber, without getting hit by a car.

He was so pleased with himself.

Matthew and I both have been entertaining ourselves thinking about Moose's little adventure today. Did he go straight home, do you suppose? Did he walk out of Richmond Park (surely through Richmond Gate, at the top of the hill) and follow the sidewalk right, down Queen's Road, until he reached Park Road? Did he then cross the street (at the pedestrian crosswalk, do you think?), walk up Park Road, cross another street, and then turn right again down King's Road until he reached our street? Or did he leave the park and go across the busy roundabout? Did he walk down the promenade that overlooks the Thames? Did he, perhaps, stop for a pint at the Roebuck, as Matthew and I did just last Thursday? Or did he meet some doggie friends, have a wrestle, and sneak a cheeky cigarette before meeting Matthew at home?

Only Moose will know the details of his journey. What I do know is that this morning I was the proud mommy of a Moose. Tonight I go to bed the (extremely thankful) mommy of a man. Well, a Moose-man. A manly Moose? A...well, you get the point.

For a map of Richmond: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=richmond+london&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Richmond,+Surrey&gl=uk&ei=8_DES7v2CJTw0gTHhpTRDg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ8gEwAA

The Best Days Apparently Come at a Cost

Some of you might know I recently had the best day ever. Really, I mean it. I woke up earlier than I would have liked but then had the most impressively awesome, hyperproductive day ever. I took the tube from Richmond to Hammersmith to St Pancras and met a good friend for lunch at the British Library. Fun.

I took the tube from St Pancras to Tooting Bec (OK, I will admit, not so nice) for my awesome National Insurance interview. Here I should note that I have some choice words about the fact that I had to have an interview out in East Jesus, London, for the honor of paying into National Insurance, but I am talking about my best day ever here, so I am going to shelve that rant for the moment. And actually, though I waited for forty-five minutes to have my interview, the actual interview took about two minutes and I didn't have to plead my case, show evidence, or stress about it at all, so we can consider that a win.

I then took the tube from Tooting Bec to Stockwell to Victoria to Chiswick Park, where I had arranged an appointment to try on my first ever wedding dress. Uh...everyone who reads my blog knows I got engaged, right? Well, I got engaged. And I scoured the internet for the perfect dress because while I desire to look fabulous in my wedding dress, I have no intention of wandering with my entourage to every bridal shop in London and sipping cheap champagne while trying on every poofy, sparkly gown under the sun. No. I want straps. I don't want sparkles. I don't want to look like a fairy princess. I don't even want to look like a regular princess. I want to look pretty, but like a pretty adult who is taking the wedding seriously. Don't even show me a tiara. Er...right, so I went to Chiswick to try on my one wedding dress, loved it, decided my search was over, and moved right along. Wedding dress: done aaaaaand done!

As I was leaving the bridal shop, I decided to check for missed calls on my phone. You see, I had been invited for a second interview for an editorial assistant position at an educational publishing company and had been told that I would receive a phone call about the position on Friday (my best day ever). Well, the day wore on and on and I had convinced myself that the longer it took, the less likely I was to get the job. But...I got the job! Yay for me! I'm going to be an editorial assistant!!! Whee!

Uh, so then I went and got a Starbucks latte. I mean, wedding or no wedding, I deserve a sugar-filled dessert-disguised-as-life-blood latte after landing a job, right? Right.

THEN I took the tube from Chiswick Park to Stamford Brook (er, I missed the Turnham Green station, like the shining idol of awesomeness that I am) to Richmond and went home in time to meet Matthew...who had just picked up Moose...who had just had the worst day ever.

The vet's post-care letter home to us read (in case we didn't know, having booked the appointment): "Your dog has been castrated."

...

...

...those bastards castrated my dog? They said they were going to neuter my dog! They called it The Big Snip! But...castration? Good Lord, people. Where is the decency? Who does that to an animal? What if he misses his buddies?

OK, just kidding. It was That Time. He's old enough, was marking all over the place, and he was definitely paying the lady dogs a little more attention than before. Sniff. My little baby is growing up.

Anyway, it is fair to say that while I was busy having the best day ever, Moose was busy having the worst. Sorry Moose. But my day was awesome!

So I put Moose to bed. I gave him tons of lovely things to chew on (to distract him from looking for certain items long gone). And then I took the tube from Richmond to Monument to London Bridge to have celebratory drinks (Happy Birthday, Caroline) with friends.

Thanks for the great day, Moose. I'm sure karma will soon work its equalizing ways for us both, buddy.

Back On the Wagon!

OK. I admit it. I haven't posted on the MoooseBlog since late November. I have held a Christmas party. I have been to the States. I have made four different batches of split pea soup. I have seen snow fall...and melt...in London (and have laughed at the complete inability of southern England to cope with the snow). I have made cheese fondue. I have applied for lots of jobs. And have been rejected for a fellowship. I even beat Matthew at Scrabble. Twice. But have I posted on the MooseBlog? Erm...no, I have not.

So what is new on the MooseBlog? Well, Moose has grown. A lot. He is now somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds, though still as skinny as a rail. Moose is now functionally house trained, although he still loves to pee on the new bath mat that my mother gave me for Christmas.

Back at our house in Richmond, Matthew, Moose, and I are frankly warm. I say this with regret and a little bit of shock, as I returned from my Christmas visit to sunny San Diego and was met almost immediately with snow! (Well, actually, I was immediately met by a very carsick Moose, but after the carsickness passed, the snow set in). Now, for those of you who don't live in the UK, and especially for those of you who are from snowy places, you must understand one important thing about snow in southern England (I say southern England because I have been told, rather emphatically (by a northerner), that it is just in the south that this is true): every day it snows is a snow day.

No, seriously. This place shuts down when it snows. Not just shuts down. Screeches to a halt. We got an inch of snow and the rail lines literally stopped. Practically no one (except Matthew, the one with the best work ethic in the world) went to work.

Interestingly, while no one else (except Matthew) went to work, I did go to work. Yes, I was called in to work at my chiropractor's office because the regular receptionist, who lives ten miles away, couldn't get in. Good thing that I live across the street, really.

Now, while I barely tolerated an annoying week of everyone telling me that we cope with the snow better in Wyoming because we salt (we don't), grit (we don't, really), and have better cars (well, not cars so much as tires and nerves of steel), I did take heart in the fact that all of the workers skiving off from their jobs were living it up in a way that we from snowy locations really don't. They were all (and I mean all--all of London) in Richmond Park, sledding, making snowmen, and having snowball fights. I haven't done any of those things in years. Decades, even.

Matthew and I did brave the snow to head down to Mells, for Matthew's father's birthday. Since I have yet to get a UK driver's license, I was unable to help with the winter driving, but Matthew is a natural in the snow. We made it to Somerset (against the odds, apparently) without incident and were able to enjoy a wonderful birthday party. Moose (oh yeah, this blog is about Moose, isn't it?) had a blast playing in the snow and was none too thrilled when we dragged his carsick self back to London. But perhaps the best part about Somerset in the snow (aside from the curvaceous snow-woman that Matthew's brother, Paul, and Paul's wife, Vicci built) was the sight of Stonehenge in the snow.

Considering that the one and only time I have ever been to Stonehenge (yes, this photo was taken from outside the chain-link fence, in what even my hearty Wyoming self has to classify as the bitter cold) I was eleven, wind-bitten, and thoroughly rained on, snowy Stonehenge was a revelation. I even made Matthew (thanks, Matthew!) turn around and drive through genuine snow drifts so I could get a picture.

Ah, it appears that my blogging fingers are out of shape from the month away. But I will be back next week with some real sarcasm and an actual Moose update. Moose, in case you are wondering, is asleep at our feet while Matthew and I watch the BBC and contemplate turning off the heat now that the weather has warmed up.

Apparently it is supposed to snow on Wednesday. Snow day!

Visiting the Fatherland. Arrrr!

Last weekend, Matthew and I took a major risk. Matthew had the very rare Sunday off and we had been wanting to get away for the weekend (especially as we wanted to celebrate, like the lame romantics we are, the closing of our first year together). But of course, we have a sweet little puppy (read: destructive monster) who wanted to accompany us. My mom thought it was a great idea. My chiropractor told me she wouldn't dream of taking a puppy on a trip. We decided to take the chance.

We had a lot of places in mind. I wanted to go to the Isle of Wight until I heard someone describe it as the Pile of Shite. We tossed around ideas of Cornwall, Devon, and even Somerset. Ideally, we wanted a beach so we could introduce our Portuguese Water Dog to a proper body of water (instead of the glorified mud puddles in Richmond park). Ultimately, we landed on the beautiful medieval city of Rye, the land of my ancestors.

Yes, the Nichols family, in all its glory, is (allegedly) descended from Rye "pirates." I have told this to many people and am learning that, should this story be true, my ancestors were very unlikely to have been pirates but were probably smugglers instead. Rye was known for its smugglers, and I have been told that many of the houses in Rye actually have connected attics, which would make escape easier for smugglers, should they be found out by the authorities. It is for this reason that for the whole of our time in Rye, I was imagining my ancestors...er, heroically crawling through tiny attic spaces in a panicked attempt to flee the police. Perhaps more than one of those righteous men from whom I descended met their end at the gallows...which is why I didn't bother looking for Nichols headstones in the cemetery. My ancestors were probably not allowed churchyard burial.

Awesome.

Our time in Rye was wet but fantastic. We stayed at a dog-friendly hotel called the Flackley-Ash (incidentally not in Rye but the neighboring village of Peasmarsh). The staff seemed to like our Moose, and didn't seem to mind when we left him in the room (in his travel kennel, of course) while we went to breakfast (a heart-friendly affair consisting of butter-soaked fried mushrooms, fried tomatoes, fried potatoes, fried eggs, beans, and various fried meats and sausages), to float around in the pool, or to sweat out our vices in the steam room.

You might be surprised to find out that Moose was an absolute star on our trip. That's right. He didn't pee in the room, bark at the other guests, or destroy the furniture. His tendency toward carsickness may not have made any move toward improvement, but otherwise he was on his best behavior. I suspect this may have had something to do with the fact that we took him on very long walks every day. We dragged him through Rye, let him run free on Camber Sands (where he became thoroughly wet and sandy), and gave him the historical tour of the battlefield of the Battle of Hastings. We even took him to the museum.

Matthew and I had a nice time as well. For us, life in London can get a little monotonous. Sure, I get to wander off into Richmond Park for an hour every day and Matthew surely has a blast commuting into the city to research stuff. But it was such a nice change of pace for us to escape to the seaside for a weekend. In fact, I have basically decided that we are going to move to Rye. As soon as we have a million pounds or so with which to purchase a house. So any day now, really.

Unfortunately, all good weekends have to come to an end, and ours ended promptly as we walked through our front door and watched as our little weekend angel ran straight for his special corner and peed on Matthew's piano. Three times. Yeah, we are still working on the house training thing but I swear we are making progress. We're hoping for full potty training by the time he is six...years old. I mean six months.

Heh, I'll bet Matthew's family is soooo excited to be hosting little Moose for Christmas, right? And I? Well, I don't feel even a little bit guilty for ditching my two loves to go home for the holidays. Good luck, suckers!