Happy Birthday Crawford!

I Enjoy Long Walks on the Beach

Summer in the City

The Best Things in Life Are Free

I can't really recall what we did today. Just hung around St. Andrews.



We hit the wee museum on North Street which was really nice.



With a mock chemist



and general store set up.



The building is an old fishing home from the 1600s (1500s?)



Anyway, it had a lovely back garden.









That evening Shahrina and I met Ryan out for a drink at The Vic. There was a hen and stag party there which was hilarious. The best part though was early in the evening when this lone guy got up on the dance floor and started rave dancing.

Dunfermline and Anstruther

Today I took Shahrina to Dunfermline to see the Castle and Abbey. It was her idea and a pretty good one actually.



Very beautiful.



We just missed the Historic Scotland lady to let us in to the castle grounds, she had gone on her lunch break.



So we hit the free Abbey instead.







The rest of the church was converted into a church of Scotland and has, much to my surprise, Robert the Bruce buried under the pulpit.





Shahrina reading the sign telling us that Charles I was born here.



Peacocks on the royal grounds, even though it is obviously not still occupied.



We decided that instead of paying to go into the ruins that we could see perfectly from above, we we just walk around the exterior.



And once the Historic Scotland lady come back to unlock the front gate, sneak into the unguarded section of the castle for a little peek before hightailing it out of there.





In a move that brings me to wonder about the brain cell count of the Church of Scotland elders, it was somehow decided that it would be a good move, and not at all sacrilegious, to write in huge fuck-off letters along the top of the church KING ROBERT THE BRUCE.





I love folk-lore.





The Dunfermline town hall. I was so excited to be in a town with shops that I insisted we walk around the mini mall for a bit where all I ended up buying was banana chips, dates and dried apricots.



Next stop was Anstruther on the way home where once again I took a visitor to get some fish and chips. It's the only time I ever allow myself to eat fried foods so I urge you all to pay me a visit...soon.

The Queen and Veggie Burgers

Today all of St. Andrews was buzzing with excitement.



Apparently something big was happening at one of the graduations.



I'm not really sure what, but that sure does look like Prince Charles. And who is the old lady with a cake on her head waving to the crowd?



The media were sure excited about it though.



Anyway, after all the thrills of the morning Shahrina and I decided to pop over to the St. Andrew's Museum for a little calm and to escape the sun.



But then we jumped right back into it by waiting to see the Queen leave the graduation. After 20 minutes burning to a crisp in the sun, and Jamie making fun of me, we threw in the towel and went to check email instead.



It was a lovely day so we took yet another stroll around the cathedral grounds.



Then headed back home for a barbecue on the beach.



Crawford lugged our iron barbecue down to the East Sands where we tried in vain to light it without firelighters. Carlos, Ryan, Mike and Michelle attempting to light twigs.



Finally we relented and Crawford ran back to the house to get the forgotten firelighters. I brought squash to cook. What? It was good. And of course we had Tesco Veggie burgers. The staple food for barbecuing vegetarians though now on I think it might be squash all the way for me.



Javier and Carlos eating meat.



Javier and Crawford.



The sunsets on the East Sands are amazing. And just in case you didn't realize, you can click on any of the pictures to get a much clearer and larger version of it.



Shahrina and I posing.



Then suddenly everyone wants to get in on the action. Javier pimping it with us.



Next up Carlos: "My friends at home won't believe this" Check Crawford out in the back. haha.



Shahrina somehow decided it would be funny to bury my feet in the sand. Then quietly everyone else started in as well. Though one soon tires of kicking sand.





Really I just wanted to capture the beautiful sky, but somehow I got this awesome picture of what looks like Javier about to deck Ryan for insulting his mama and Crawford just looking on as if he is expecting a fight.



Aww, nice one.

Jennifer Kellas: Professional Tour Bitch Guide

Today my friend Shahrina came to visit forever for a week and a half. Shahrina and I met on a dig in Denmark in 2002 and have kept in touch ever since.



Needless to say, I was her official tour guide of St. Andrews and most other places we went in Scotland. Here we are checking out the Cathedral ruins.



Shahrina doing a jig for the camera (or running towards it because she couldn't figure out the timer)



There we go. Cheers to the fellow American tourist lady for snapping this.



Me on the Castle Sands.



In the evening we took a walk down to the East Sands near my house. According to Richard and Judy there was suppose to be this amazing moon rising, something to do with an optical allusion that happens once every 90 years. Yeah, we didn't see it.



Sorry for all the pictures of the sun-setting on the beach. It was just amazing. It always is. Javier said the other day that 'They [the Scots] don't know what they have'. I can't recall seeing such beautiful sunsets anywhere else in the world.



I left a note on the table for Crawford saying 'A note una bella luna'. My Italian is crap, I know. But it worked, there he is coming towards us.





View of St. Rule's tower and the Cathedral ruins.



The Pier.



It's great, at low tide you can walk to the end of the pier all on sand. I gauged our time out there a bit poorly though and we had to wade a bit to get back inland.






'ok, hold still...'

Fright Night

Last night was pretty hellish. I don't think I like living in a house anymore. At least not one where there isn't a person to kill things for me.

I decided to do a bit of laundry last night and finally wash that manky blanket from last weekend's barbecue. A little after ten the cycle finally finished and I went outside to hang up everything on the clothes rack. It was pretty noisy out there, tons of little black birds screeching over head...wait, no, no those aren't birds, those are bats. Ok no problem, they're pretty high. Huh, not so high actually. I freaked when two of them decided to have a wrestling match on the overhang above the kitchen door, threw the rest of the clothes on the rack and ran back in the house, locking it behind me (and no I don't think bats can open doors but better safe then sorry).

Ok, bat caught in the hair crisis averted.

Later that evening I am getting ready for bed and doing a little jig to Jamiroquai singing his new single on Jools Holland when I spot something on the floor. Holy Mary Mother of God, it's a spider the size of my FIST. Never have I seen a spider so big outside of the zoo. I flip on the light and it scurries under the tv stand. Shit. How the hell do I kill this thing? Could I call somebody? I even considered battering it with this:



Instead I went, cursing Crawford's name for leaving this weekend, and got the vacuum thinking that this is the only way to get it without me actually going that near it.



So I snuck up to the tv, removed it and shook the stand. No scurrying monster spider (think Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets sized). Took off the lid, not in there. Ok, maybe it went in the hole in the wall, so I duct taped that closed. I nearly went to bed at this point but I decided to flip the stand over and oila! Shelob herself. After a bit of a struggle I managed to suck it up. I kept the vacuum going for a wee bit just to make sure it got in the bag, then I stepped on the tube to double make sure it was dead and tossed the vacuum back in the pantry, shut the door and got the fuck out of there.

I still have chills.



(oh, and that's my kitchen)

Can You Imagine

spending your entire childhood dreaming about marrying an actor then one day actually doing it? It's strange enough that Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are getting married but then finding out that she slept with a poster of him above her bed, christ. I don't know whether that is really strange or really great for her...but I'm leaning towards strange.

My friends and I used to talk about that sort of thing with exclamations like, 'God! What if you really did marry Robbie Williams?! Can you imagine?!' Seeing as he didn't show for my make-believe wedding date, I can't see that happening anytime soon. Not that he was my childhood crush that was Jonathan Brandis...but he's dead. I think my Tom Cruise might actually have to be, oh god, Jerry O'Connell whom you might recognize from such movies as Kangaroo Jack and Joe's Apartment. Do you think when we're engaged he'll freak when he finds out I loved Sliders so much that I made up a character for me to play on the show, you know, just in case?

And thanks to Sea for the TomKat update.

Summer Home

Front



View from the stoop towards St. Rule's Tower.



Back of the house with Rob reading at the table, surrounded in orange.



My bed, I still don't make it.



And thanks Kiril for reminding me, I don't know how I could have forgotten. My famous Barbie light switch.

'My Desk Was a Mess, I Think I'm Still Sore'

I’m addicted to tying up loose ends. Anything from finishing a paper to returning something borrowed. It’s that feeling of ticking off an imaginary box on an imaginary list that I love. I think also I love the freedom that comes with cutting the strings on something that you’ve been thinking and worrying about. I don't think I'll ever be able to tie up all the loose ends. I'm not sure what that means. I started thinking about this when I remembered that I returned my friend Mike's sweatshirt finally the other week and how completely satisfying it was to do so, then I thought how that feeling will be even greater when I am on my way to Venice after finishing my dissertation...don't judge, this is the sort of thing I think about.

I'm 3,000 words into my dissertation, of which approximately 300 aren't total shite. I'm not really sure what it is on right now but I am hoping that if I just keep writing it will sort itself out sooner or later. But hopefully by July 31st, my self dictated due date.

Officially, I have the messiest desk in my office. It is a scattering of open books, papers, cds, cups of old tea and chapstick. I think one's desk must be a reflection of one's mind.

A Rent movie update. I saw the trailer and I am so fucking excited. Thank goodness I am alone today because I squeaked in anticipation. Cheers Deb for the heads up. Possibly one of my favourite things to do is watch movie trailers. Maybe even more then the movies themselves. Apple.com, despite my love hate relationship with this company, is the best place to view them. Other highly anticipated movies are Serenity, the cult tv show from Joss Whedon turned film starring the HOT Nathan Fillion, and, of course, The Goblet of Fire. I always end up getting all psyched up for movies from watching all these trailers but end up seeing maybe 10% of them. shhhh, that's why I heart bittorrent.

'A Porcelain Tub With Boiling Water'

I've had a mini afternoon of madness listening to Newsies at full volume through my headphones in the office. Cleaner scared the crap out of me when she came in to hoover. And by the way, she now calls me Miss Tiel because I left bread crumbs all around my desk like her cockatiel. Question though, when did Luke Edwards get so fucking hot? Damn.

Handed in my unconditional acceptance to my offer to come do a Ph.D. next year. Three years of blood, sweat, tears, pints, laughter, and intrigue. Bring it on.

Flog the Blog

Friend, dance partner, fellow subwarden and the other half of the Music Slut djs Jamie and I have a new music blog. Check it out, leave a comment, insult us, praise our good taste and link us...I know you want to.

Happy Birthday Kiril!

I Said Hey!

Check me out

All day I have been listening to the Beethoven Experience on BBC Radio 3 and have been trying to cope with wiping my top songs listened to on itunes after reloading my library. At least I no longer have to see that I listened to the "Workers Song" from Les Miserable 9 times (I was trying to put the album in order I swear!)

And being on the other side of the Atlantic, where we are far more concerned with Big Brother than real celebrity gossip, I seem to have missed that Tom Cruise is actually dating Katie Holmes. I think right now I am just going to pretend I didn't know that.

'Come on Now Toots'

Saturday night we had a few people over to Casa del'Roberto for drinks and tapas. It was all very yummy, if I do say so myself, and afterwards we decided to head to the 'local' pub for a drink.



The 'local' is a hole in the wall on a small strip mall in the middle of the neighborhood called The Stables. The outside is sketch central but once we got in there it really wasn't that bad. Kinda cozy actually. We soon figured out though that this is where drunken mothers come to play on a Saturday night.



Like young Shazzey here who set about accosting all my male friends. Poor Javier even got it right on the mouth. I don't think the boy will ever be the same again.

It's Settled

I am now completely moved from the confines of the Black Melville to a lovely house on the opposite side of town that was recently purchased by Rob. My room is all purple and somewhere deep inside my 16 year old self is very pleased with that. Everything is lovely and new and I feel very refreshed living in an actual house again. Hopefully it’ll continue that way after I implement my shoe Nazi rules on everyone.

It’s communal living over here with Crawford and Rob. We all buy various things then we all eat them. I think that’s definitely the way to go otherwise I would just have to steal food from them and who wants to see that.

The walk into town is closer and not so irritatingly uphill with my laptop. It’s nice to have a change of scenary as well, that same walk into town from Melville was killing my soul just a wee bit everyday (not the days I had a very nice male companion, but all others definitely…soul killing)

Let us pause for a comment on my research: I think I might actually be enjoying it.

Since the cool thing on blogs, erm about a month ago, is to comment of the latest Star Wars film I thought I might as well throw my 2 pence in there. I really liked it. And that having seen the crappy stolen copy off the internet. It was just so completely dark and evil. In what other film that you’ve seen were they killing children, well besides Downfall. Anakin screaming ‘NO!!’ after he gets all Vadarised was a definite killer at the end of a great sequence of events, and the beginning was a bit hard to get into but overall it made me really want to go out and see the first three films which I think was the whole point. And despite having to play a moronic housewife, I even thought Natalie wasn’t that bad. This along with me completely loving Closer might mean I’ll have to change my opinion about her acting skills. My opinion of the strangeness of her earlobes however remains the same.

Fur Elise

All of our favourite songs hold a story, they have to in order to be special. My favourite song is Fur Elise by Beethoven. And please disregard any feelings you might be having that I am being pretentious, for if you must know my second favourite song is "All for Love" by Sting, Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart because I used to (alright I still do) love the movie The Three Musketeers.

When I was little, about 4 or 5, my mom brought my sister and I to the Levittown Public Library for one of their story hours. That week's story was part story, part play and part musical. A woman sat on a small stage, decorated like a little girl's bedroom, reading made-up stories that were meant to be the tales that classical songs told. The one I remember the most was the tale of Fur Elise. It was about a spoiled little girl whom her family and servants despised for being so mean. One day the girl fell down her stairs and was unable to walk. Her family came to her rescue, lifting her up and taking her to her bed. From that moment on she learned that despite her unkindness people still loved her and she changed forever. I don't know why I still remember that, but ever since it has been my favourite song. I still have a wind-up toy in my room my mom bought me that plays the tune and every once in awhile I remember that it is there, wind it up and sit on my bed listening.

Other Song and Moments:

"I Will Cross the Ocean" by Monica, the first song I slow danced to.
"Silent Night", hearing my dad sing this one Christmas Eve outside my room after I had gone to bed.
"American Pie", sitting in Celebrity dinner with my friends senior year singing along.
"Take it Easy" by the Eagles, reminds me of my time in London and that you can never re-capture the past, just look on it fondly and hope you appreciated it while you were there.

Songs from this year so far: Singing with Kiril to "You Shook me all Night" by AC/DC at one of his parties and dancing with Jamie to "Jenny was a Friend of Mine" by The Killers at the Melville Ball.