Music Monday: 7 reasons why (I love this song)...

When I was living in the UK this song was in an advert for The Sarah Silverman Show and it was one of my favorites...the show and the song. I can't get it on Spotify now, but it came up in my social media memories yesterday and I had to listen to it and smile. Also, the lyrics make me think of some of my couples...specifically Luke and Scarlet, whom y'all haven't met yet. Enjoy. {The lyrics are in the captions.}

Sjonni's Friends - Coming Home (Iceland) Live 2011 Eurovision Song Contest

We are off to the UK today, for the first time in almost ten years. If I had to sum up my two years there in music it would probably include a lot of Eurovision songs. Right after I arrived in 2009, I lost two of my three greyhounds in rapid succession and was just ridden with guilt and depression. Simon suggested to me that I watch Eurovision after my Jeany died because he thought it would cheer me up. It did so much more than that and I am a lifelong fan now. This one is from 2011, the last Eurovision I saw in real time before moving back to the US, but I think it speaks to the journey today: I'm coming home - wheels up in about 8 hours! Enjoy. (Captions are on the video.)

Music Monday: But where IS home?

I may have already featured this song on Music Mondays past, but it is such a favorite and a good writing inspiration that I'm going to do it again. I make no secret of my love for both Genesis and Phil Collins as a solo act, and this song was on my radar way back in 1995 when my family and I spent six weeks living abroad in the UK. I can't hear it now without cringing at how much I ignored all of the fantastic things I had to learn in favor of six weeks of homesickness and longing for friends far away. Spoiler alert: all those things were still there when I got back, but I won't ever live in that house with my parents and my sister again. So now I listen to this and I think of home as where you need to be at that moment in time, with those that you are meant to have around you...just as my main character will discover in the Nano project that starts in...JUST OVER A WEEK. WHAT?

Take Me Homeby: Phil Collins
Take that look of worry, I'm an ordinary manThey don't tell me nothing, so I find out all I canThere's a fire that's been burning right outside my doorI can't see but I feel it and it helps to keep me warm
So, I... I don't mindNo, I... I don't mind
Seems so long I've been waiting, still don't know what forThere's no point in escaping, I don't worry anymoreI can't come out to find you, I don't like to go outsideThey can turn off my feelings like they're turning off the light
But, I... I don't mindNo, I... I don't mindOh, I... I don't mindNo, I... I don't mind
So take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home, oh Lord
'Cause I've been a prisoner all my life, and I can say to you
Take that look of worry, mine's an ordinary lifeWorking when it's daylight, and sleeping when it's nightI've got no far horizons, I don't wish upon a starThey don't think that I listen, oh, but I know who they are
And, I... I don't mindNo, I... I don't mindOh, I... I don't mindNo, I... I don't mind
So take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home, oh Lord
Well, I've been a prisoner all my life, and I can say to youBut I don't remember
Take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home
'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home'Cause I don't remember, take, take me home
'Cause I don't remember...

A bit of sparkly, glittery homesickness - Tidy.

Waiting at Charles DeGaulle to fly back to London, May 2012.

This week has been a rough one at work - nothing at all to do with the students I work with, for a change, but more to do with personalities and issues that I thought had long since been put to rest. Ah well - that's the DayJob.

My #writerlife is going fairly well, actually - I'm still working on Rift and actively avoiding the editing that needs to be done on Ignite, so all in all, not too bad.

But today I've been thinking about who I was this time 10 years ago. I had bee living in the UK for eight months, and I was swinging madly between loving my new home and desperately missing people and places I'd left behind. It's funny, you know, how certain things can take you right back to where - and who - you were at a specific time in your life. For me, those things are the BBC series Gavin and Stacey, the Eurovision Song Contest, and the film Love Actually.

I'm going to tackle each as it happened in my life, starting with Love, Actually. I had been watching a lot of British films and telly for years, but after I fell in love with my Yorkshireman I asked him what he would recommend. Love, Actually, he says, of course. I remember sitting in my house in Montgomery, Alabama and watching that movie for the first time with my mouth hanging open. It was just so good! So since then, I have watched it a few thousand times and I love it more each watching. The scenes in the airport tear me up now because I remember being at either Manchester or ATL/GSP in those exact moments. You've been on a long flight, you're exhausted, and when you walk through the last set of doors and you see that face that you've only been able to see on the computer screen and EVERYTHING that was wrong is right - even the Norovirus that kept me from going to the UK for a few days at Christmas in 2007. I got there, I hugged the stuffing out of him, and he asked me to marry him.

We won't discuss my answer, except to say a lot of "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" turned into a yes, and it is still a yes today, 12 years later.

Secondly, there is Gavin and Stacey. It's a silly little Britcom that deals with Gavin, a lad from Essex, marrying Stacey who is from Barry in Wales. I've been rewatching the series on Hulu lately and now everything is in a Welsh accent in my head. Lush. Anyway, the two of them meet and decide to get married, and then have to deal with the distance between families and "home" as well as some cultural differences. It's the story of the start of my own marriage, but with the genius of Ruth Jones and James Corbin narrating. There are so many moments that take me back to living in Keighley.

Finally, the Eurovision Song Contest is not just a memory of living in the UK, but it reminds me of how young and sweet we were. I moved three greyhounds to the UK in April of 2009, and by the end of May, I had one, just Daisy. I can't imagine how awful I was to Simon. He did everything he could do to cheer me up and finally, he suggested that I should try watching Eurovision. The best suggestion he's made since getting down on one knee in the Arrivals hall at Manchester Airport. All that sparkle and pomp and circumstance will do a world of good for anyone.

So, just in cases, I'm going to watch Gavin and Stacey and then listen to my Eurovision playlist. Tidy.

New Year, New You? Nope.

So how many of you (admittedly, 5-6) Lettuce Readers have already given up on the New Year's Resolutions that you made a few weeks ago? Yeah, me too. The difference is that my resolutions were actually achievable this time - set out your clothes for work the night before, make sure that the coffee pot is ready to go before you come stumbling in for some liquid courage at 6:55am (wow, that might have been a little more disclosure than I meant to have this early in a blog post), make time to write every day and the time in between lunch and class doesn't count.

I'm writing this having just polished off two lovely vegetarian sliders with Palmetto Cheese on top, and I've come to work in a long sleeve t-shirt and jeans if that tells you anything.

Before the end of 2018, I started listening to a podcast by my sister-of-choice, Elizabeth Dunne. It's called #FLAW3D and it is brilliant, insightful, and funny, just like she is in person. I swear. But as with everything that occurred after 12 April of 2018, I was going through the motions with her podcasts and other content under the #FLAW3D brand. In fact - I will admit this if you swear not to tell her I said so - I am embarrassed to say that while listening to her podcasts on the bus on the way to work, I fell asleep. Every time. That has more to do with my level of exhaustion and nothing to do with her content, I swear. My life for most of last year could be represented by the photo above - a long hard slog down a cobbled road devoid of all color.

I also listened to them out of order, because I had started doing that with another podcast I am addicted to listening to called And That's Why We Drink, a Paranormal and True Crime Podcast. The personal information that MUST BE LISTENED TO IN THE ORDER IT WAS RELEASED SO THAT YOU CAN CREEP ON THE LIVES OF THE PODCASTERS is not the point of the podcast there. But with Elizabeth's podcast, it is.

I mean not the creeping part. I would never. I'm having too much trouble remembering to call her Elizabeth rather than 'liz, as I have known her since uni, so there's no way I've got an ulterior motive here. Plus, she is the mother of my eldest niece, so I am versed in the real Elizabeth.

And y'all, if you will just listen to #FLAW3D you will hear the real Elizabeth. She is unabashedly open about everything that she chooses to share - and what she doesn't.

Anyway! So I listened to the first episode of #FLAW3D today - the topic was becoming a digital nomad and working with your spouse - and it was terribly relevant to me not because Hubs is going to quit his job and we are going to open up THE NEXT BEST BIG THING anytime soon. It was terribly relevant because it was just the dose of, "You want to do that? Well, why not?" that I needed. Yesterday was a hard day in the universe of my day job - so bad, in fact, that I couldn't even bring myself to escape to Orana like I normally do when the waters get rocky. I did manage to finish a chapter in the next Clobberpaws, but that was it. One chapter.

Did I mention that I started said chapter LAST NOVEMBER? Yeah. Not my best day as a writer.

But this morning's listen left me with feelings. All the feelings. Why not give up my cushy 37.5 hr/week job where I know what I'm doing and how to do it...if others would just stay out of my lane and let me do it. Why not just keep writing as a hobby and sort-of side gig...even though seeing that three of my books sold all in one day makes me so happy that I literally cried for a few minutes. Why not do what I love, rather than working at a place that I don't love as much as I used to do so that I can afford to do what I love? Things to ponder.

The best bit was probably when her guests, Erin Booth and Tannia Suarez (co-founders of efftheoffice.com) talked to Elizabeth about how for couples that both work jobs outside the home, they have only a few precious hours in the evening to spend time together. Then on weekends they are planning to spend time together but are either too exhausted or want to pursue things that make their individual souls happy - cue the entrance of guilt and resentment.

Hubs and I do that very thing. We get home late. We struggle over what to eat for our tea. We struggle over when to eat or to actually eat at all. We collapse on the sofas and watch an hour or two of television and then go to bed. That is not a life well lived.

So while I'm still processing episode one and moving on to episode two, let me again recommend that you go to FLAW3D.com and check out the podcast and Elizabeth. You won't be sorry. Now if you will excuse me, I need to completely rethink my entire life. New Year, New Me? Nope. Just New Me - a work in forever ongoing progress.

FTH Oopsie Daisy, 14 August 2004 - 2 December 2016

She truly was transcontinental.

You know, I'm sitting here staring at the blank screen and can't even bring myself to type the words that she's gone...and she's been gone for two months now.  I still expect to come home and hear her whistling from the bedroom, demanding that I hurry up and let her out. But the whistle has fallen silent.

I listen for her toenails on the hardwood floors and remember how, when we lived in the UK, she made no sound at all on the carpet and could sneak up on me, suddenly jamming that needle nose into my ear and exhaling. There's nothing in my ear now, no cold nose or loud exhalation of warm doggie breath. It's just silent.

I call the other two dogs by her name and they look at me, with a mixture (I think) of confusion and sadness, wondering simultaneously who I am talking to and where Daisy is. I wonder that too.  Is she with the Fab Five Plus Clowny? Are they now the Magnificent Seven? I don't get answers, though. As always, my Bridge Pack is silent.

We see things that she would have loved, go to places that made her happy, and the memories are sometimes so strong that I can smell her Frito Feet and feel her nose pressed up against my neck, as she would do to make sure of me. I think for a moment that I can hear her Snappy Jaw that should have struck fear, but didn't, not in me...but there is no snappy jaw, not anymore. Everything is silent.

She was a larger sized female for her breed, but she was Bryn's Little Big sister.  She was a good foot taller than Willow, and lorded that size over her Little Little Sister. They still run and play and I can hear their tags jangling as they bound up and down the stairs. But Daisy's tags, still on her purple dragonfly collar, remain silent.

I want a do-over.  I want more time. I want for her to not have suffered through the heart murmur and the heart disease and the Lasix. I want to take her to Ireland and to Canada. I want her to have the jacket with all the little patches from everywhere she was able to visit. All these things I want...and all she wanted was to be able to rest.  Rest well, my world traveler, my Psycho Puppy Girl, my Angel...my Mei Mei.  You earned it.  I just wish it wasn't so silent around here.

Quickie...Cross your fingers, please?

Proud Racer: An American Greyhound
in Yorkshire, by Nancy E. Dunne

Just wanted to give you guys a little heads up that Daisy's second book, An American Greyhound in Yorkshire, has been entered in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest for 2013.  I don't expect that it will go anywhere but...you never know.  Three cheers for Daisy Mei Mei, international dog of mystery...and for her mommy for finally sprouting a pair and going for a contest.  Fingers and paws crossed!

One more...a sort of a flashback post...

Daisy's Eyes, a photo by Nancy Dunne on Flickr.

See that look there?  That one is how my Daisy says, "Seriously?" as in "Mommy, seriously, take the camera out of my face and give me the whateveritis that you're holding over my head to make me look at you, already."

That is how I felt when I posted this back in August of 2011:

Okay, for the last time... 

I was still fairly newly repatriated and I was still fairly raw about the entire experience, mostly due to the fact that the three most important souls in my universe (Hubs, Daisy, and Mills) were four thousand miles away from me.

I'm reminded of that post because now, a year and change later, Simon is here and I've been back from my expat adventure almost two years...and I still have moments where I'm not sure where I am or, even better, where I belong.  I still have moments where I struggle to make myself understood and have the urge to go all Tanzanian Chimp (see?  There is a Big Bang Theory reference for EVERYTHING) on someone that giggles if I say wheelie bin instead of trash can.

We have a new captionist on staff here who loves all things British and I have to say I'm probably rambling on and on to her more than I should, bless her, but she gets it and that's cool.  Andrea, if you're reading this, ta very much. I still say lift sometimes, I still say mobile, and I still ring people up if I absolutely have to do so, and I don't imagine that will change much.

But last night there was a new experience to add to my list of "only other US/UK expats will get this" weirdness:  Last night we saw the Black Watch and Band of the Scots Guards at the BiLo Center and as any good British programme does, it included Jerusalem, the hymn that is the unofficial national anthem of England.

Y'all, I got teary listening to it.  I almost let out a choked sob.  The feeling of belonging but not belonging, of home and homesickness all happening at the same time was just overwhelming.  Hubs got a bit of a giggle out of it, not of my distress but of how surprised I was at said distress, I think.  These were "my people" due to my Scottish ancestry, but they were also "my people" because they were British and I feel like I was getting close to that, for a time anyway.

I said on Facebook: "Well, it happened. I teared up at 'Jerusalem.'"  The only people who have liked the comment are expats or have them in their lives.

And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

I would like to say when, but for the time being I will say if...IF we make it back to live in the UK, they will have to burn me out to make me leave a second time.  It is my second home...and I can't wait to go back for a visit, at least.