Off on a hunt for canned pumpkin and french fried onions. Eeek! Should said hunt end in my favor, I will be cooking up a Thanksgivin’ dinner for myself and hubs this weekend.

ETA: Done and done! On my kitchen counter as we speak is this:

and this:

Well, ‘cept the punkin’ isn’t Libby’s, it’s Paula’s, but pumpkin’s pumpkin, I s’pose. And French’s French Fried Onions do not exist here, but I knew this, and therefore spent absolutely all day long looking for Onion Salad Crispies. Aww. They appear to be the exact same thing, so green bean casserole we shall have.

I am way excited about this. I fear I am a little out of my depth attempting to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I might pull it off, even though I have never cooked a single thing that I am about to cook. I’m even baking a pie, which is just silly. On a side note, because I spent so much time there today, I want to give thanks to the seething mess that is Canary Wharf. I am glad we live near Canary Wharf. There is a Waitrose there, where we can absolutely not afford to shop, but they had a tiny endcap dedicated to Thanksgiving, which I very much appreciated. I do live in England, and I generally don’t complain too much about the American things I can’t get here, but I will never integrate to the point that I don’t appreciate the recognition of Thanksgiving. ALSO, two “Mexican” restaurants have just opened up there, neither of which we have tried yet. One is Wahaca, which looks a little fussy, but good. It looks very good! And the other, which either opened yesterday or today, is Tortilla, which is eeeexactly like Chipotle. Oh my God, thank you thank you thank you. Incidentally, Chipotle is opening up here in April. I’m missing certain things most right now, I think, because it’s the holidays which means traditions galore and it is strange, as much as I love it here, to be around people who have no idea what I’m talking about when I say French’s French Fried Onions.

Joe’s good friend from work took us out last night as a wedding present. First she took us here:




We didn’t actually sit in the cellar part because it was full. You’d have to get there at about 3 in the afternoon to get a table back there. So whoever comes to visit better be prepared for a day of drinking in a cellar! Amen.

We walked over Millenium Bridge, which I’d somehow never done. Walked around Tower Bridge/Borough, which I’d also never done, and had dinner. Vurry nice. Really good night.

My Facebook account is unavailable due to maintenance. I’m obsessed with Cafe World, so this is a disaster. My parents have been addicted to Farm Town for months now and it’s been terrifying to watch them. But wow am I addicted to Cafe World. It’s so depressing. If I wasn’t already unemployed, I would be losing whatever job I had.

We are broke, so I really do need to get a job immediately. Also, staying at home is starting to get old. I would love it if I could get out, but we are broke - I mean broke like I can’t afford public transportation. I go to Somerfield sometimes, but that’s more depressing than anything. I walk up to Tesco Metro. The library. I watch a lot of Gilmore Girls. My worldly possessions were delivered last week and Joe’s sister dropped them off at the apartment for me, since they were delivered to his mom’s house. It’s nice having all my stuff here, even though we have no room left to put any of it. And I really did go through some of the boxes thinking “why in the HELL did I pack this?” So that’s been entertaining. I spent one whole day reading my old journals, which was not entertaining.

We are currently babysitting Joe’s little brother’s kitten, Alan. He’s a cat named Alan so I immediately like him a little bit. I saw him just a couple days after they got him, and he was tiny and adorable, of course. But he’s a couple months old now and he has spent the last 3 days terrorizing me. I’ve never had a cat, so I’m not used to having a furry creature in the house that dive bombs my head and tries to eat my toes off. Joe was playing with him in bed the other morning and he pounced on me and sliced my mole halfway off! I’ve never had a cat. I am not a ‘cat person.’ I don’t want a pet that can climb on my kitchen counters. He can be very sweet, like any tiny animal. Last night he curled up around my neck, slept for an hour, woke up and licked my earlobe (without biting it!) and then went back to sleep. But this morning he is up to his old tricks.

In other news, we do not have a landline. BT is a son of a bitch. I’m still completely confused by how they messed this up, but we have admitted defeat and are going to call talktalk, the provider we want anyway. Supposedly they set up a new line for you. We’ll see. But I have never been through anything so ridiculous as trying to get this phone line set up. BT is a phone company. British Telecom. Setting up a phone line should be the most basic service they provide. But somehow this has gone completely over their heads. Joe called on Sunday to ask why we had no line, after a month and 20 some calls, and he was transfered 8 times. All 8 people told him something different. Ack.

We have been in our new place for two weeks now and are all settled in cozy-like. We have a dishwasher! A self-cleaning oven! A back porch! We do have a damp smell in the bedroom and the occasional slug trail in the morning, but we are dealing with those now and are thoroughly loving it here. We keep getting overwhelmed by the fact that a year ago we were living very far away from eachother, desperate to be doing exactly what we’re doing right now. It was all more than worth it. We are more broke than either one of us has ever been, but also much happier. We are cozy as hell. It is Autumn in Engerland.