Message from Her Majesty the Queen

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth  II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide.  You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as "colour", "favour", "labour" and "neighbour." Likewise, you will learn to spell "doughnut" without skipping half the letters,  and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'.  Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels.  (look up "vocabulary").

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let M*crosoft know on your behalf. The M*crosoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter "u" and the elimination of  -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse.  If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler.  Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect.  At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.

Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all.  Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of  known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager.  South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.  American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys.  Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer.  Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).  Don't try rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America.  Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.  You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

PS: Go ahead and share this with your friends in the USA (those with a good sense of humour and NOT humor.)

- forwarded from Ms. Debbie George (my former editor at ORU)

Currently Reading The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford World's Classics) By Oscar Wilde see related

Intentions are nothing without thoughtful action. (Or, Poppy CROCK.)

Poor kee-kah is singing a sad song. (She thinks there is a giant vacuum cleaner outside.)

Pomfret Street is getting paved today.

Getting paved. Oh get paved already!

Today's favorite word combination: poppy crop.

Do we really know for certain that drug lords are funding terrorism? Aren't drug lords greedy extravagant thugs who only want to contribute to their own tacky, hedonistic lives? I'm just not convinced this is truly an American issue. I mean, it could be - as in, drug lords and their ilk can be pesky when we are idealistically endeavoring to pave totally unAmerican ways with semi-American democracy. (Excuse me, por favor - can we please stop using my tax money for this?) Anyway, I just read that we're spending $500 million (maybe even more now) to counteract the maybe-terrorism-related poppy business. (Isn't heroin sooo like [a good] twenty years ago?) I think my brain actually had a mini-stroke when I read that the UN is looking into subsidizing poppy crops to make up the price difference between the opiate and merely decorative varieties--so Afghans won't be tempted to grow the evil kind to make nicer lives for themselves. (Maybe Wegmans will start selling fair-trade poppies in Floral...dear Lord help us...)

I cannot fathom why our brilliant educated leaders keep thinking that we [they] can counteract terrorism with funded programs [our money]. (Maybe we should just send Nancy Reagan to Afghanistan. She could hitch a ride with Barry-O.)

Or maybe Afghanistan needs a Dream Center. (Wouldn't that be hysterical? - yet so effective!)

This reminds me of an unpopular and discarded idea I pitched once when I was writing recruitment copy for ORU. It was a photo of a 19 year old Afghan boy who had just exploded himself and a bus full of people, the caption reading: "He should have applied to ORU."

He could have! Can you imagine? Maybe we don't need more troops - maybe we just need some really brave and adventurous college recruiters. And some really brave and adventurous [freedom loving] private investors.

Evil is something that can be overtaken by good. Good is always more powerful. I suggest we counter terrorism by crowding it and ultimately blotting it out - with better, more attractive ideas and options (i.e. would you like to learn more about yourself and the world and become the person you've always wanted to be? -or would you rather train to be a hateful, violent, soul-less goon? - or, why only dream of 400 virgins when you can greet them poolside at [enter American spa/resort name] as a native guide or cabana boy?).

The Middle East does have some lovely beaches...

Not being silly in the slightest, (okay, maybe a little, but just a little...)

Happy Tuesday.

Smiling on the Colonies...

I'm back. And I'm glad.

There are too many people in London now. There have always been loads of people there, but now there are just too many loads. (I suppose the Wimbledon guests did add to the infestation.)

I totally experienced something again that I wrote about in my 1997 poem entitled "The Tube." I was on the Central line and then I was englobulated (that word is not in the poem) "into a paste" that squoze me out onto the platform. I don't even remember my feet moving.

I still prefer the underground to PA traffic. Any day. Even on the Central line during rush hour. Okay, well maybe not then. (I just don't sweat as much as some people...hee)

What shall I share? (I shall leave out most of the bits pertaining to my arrival flight, the room, and the European ambassadors' teenage children...which leaves?)

Oh yes: Greenwich. Which was lovely. It's the Queen's big glorious backyard. And where time is measured at the prime meridian. And where I found delicious Turkish food, while N feasted on roast-hog. So not kosher. Stop everything and love that one can also buy pistachio baklava in the Greenwich streets.

Most of my mornings [sans N] were spent visiting places I love like the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and Regents Park and Fortnum and Mason's. I think my favorite moment, though, was one day when we just walked and walked and walked away from the end of the day rush. We crossed the Westminster bridge to the other side of the Thames (where there was almost no one) and rested along the side rail with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben facing us. (See profile photo.) It was soooo London.

We attended worship services at John Wesley's church. During the tour post service, I learned that John Wesley was also into interior design. Stop everything and love reformers. There was a giant choir there from Idaho. (I think.) They were so good I almost cried.

Oh, and William Blake is buried across the street. Next to Daniel Defoe and John Bunyan and John Wesley's mother. It was the only day I wore flip-flops. I love cemeteries in the morning rain.

I do not love that no one knows where the Pavonia is. Leighton's Pavonia was in the Tate gallery for years, which is where I first saw her in '97 and ordered the print immediately upon my return. Now it's GONE! And all the online sources say that she is now part of a private collection. Unbelievable. I wanted N to see the real one. Now she is somewhere in some mysterious private collection.

By the way, London's east end reminded me so much of Queens. It's manageable - and there's curry on every corner, but I would never live there. I'm afraid I'd have to live around Regents Park - like somewhere in Cromwell Terrace near the Baker St. stop. (Where was Alistair Deacon when I needed him?)

R - Regents looked the same to me - of course it was all fenced in (which made me think of the night the ninja chased me from Europa Foods and I had to scale the giant gate to get back into the campus.) Anyway, I think there used to be more landscape details leading up to the fountain by the poplars. I love the "long walk" - it transports me to my time there as a student, and then into Virginia Woolf's brain. I adore Regents park. Even when it teems with 800 uniformed school children who have just been released from the latest Indiana Jones movie...

Anyway, London is still great, but I don't believe I have to live there to be happy. Today I was ecstatic, just sailing over 641. The corn is getting high. The sun is all spread out in the wide smogless sky. And sundresses can be worn daily for the next few whiles...

One thing I've been thinking about during my travels: Do we value our goals and meeting our expectations more than we value life itself?

What do you think?

(Photos to follow.)

e

Happy Birthday Dad (and Princess Diana).

I'm halfway watching Ship of Fools. I like the jewelry salesman and the dwarf. Everyone else is obnoxious.

I just learned something amazing: how to open seemingly unopenable pistachios. I haven't felt this powerful since...nevermind.

So all you do is take a shell that did open, insert it into the tiny sliver of an impossible one, and twist it. I can't believe it works. I am mad with power. (I've been saving impossible ones in a giant jar. I didn't want to just throw them out. I knew there had to be some way!)

(Moon, instead of opening five impossible ones every time you visit, you can save all your finger power for trying on more shoes.)

It's official. I hate this movie. I'm turning it off. Oh heavens there's a suspicious man on the loose in Carlisle. He drives a white car - in the nude! (This is EXACTLY why I don't watch the local news.)

I think it's funny (annoyingly so) that Obama thinks evangelicals are impressed by his offer to continue funding Bush's faith-based initiative program - when most evangelicals are conservatives who would rather cut the program (along with a ba-jillion others) so we might better resource our own "faith-based" initiatives (i.e. reach out to more people in our own spheres of influence.)

Does McCain remind anyone else of Dr. Evil? I thought so. If only he would borrow one of Benny Hinn's grey collarless suits...

Speaking of fashion: I've come up with some new looks for my trip to London (leaving in 2 days!!!): muslim chic, gamine tube spy, Wimbledon princess and 50's art ballet. While modeling these looks, I was thinking about how easy it would be to create a collection for each. (Christina, sewing lessons, when?)

My mother has a friend who could teach me. In Missouri. I need someone who will hold my hand and supervise machine and bobbin threading over and over until I can do it in my sleep. Actually, I think I could sew if I could just thread the beloved machine. And get the needle set right. Nothing like a needle breaking, flying and just missing one's eye to spur a healthy respect for proper technique.

What was I saying? Oh yes, trying to fit my new London looks into a quite dainty wheely rectangle. Hmmmm...I'm pretty sure it's impossible. But then, just a few minutes ago, so was a pistachio...

Stop everything and love my life. God is good indeed.

P.S. Spell check suggested I change "Obama" to "opium", "McCain" to "machine" and had no suggestions for "faith-based initiatives". Stop everything and love spell check [at times].

My mother is coming to visit...

This morning I was sitting in church, a place which tends to brim with adorable children. And I'm wearing an umpire waisted dress - a style that might easily conceal months and months of pregnancy. And I envisioned balancing a tiny, alert human on my knees, engaging its giant bright eyes. And I thought: I can't imagine anything else in the world that I would rather do than cultivate that little human, contributing life and beauty and talent, multiplying myself, thus improving the world exponentially.

I come from a long line of mothers. Good mothers: women who fully embraced the nonstop daily job of mothering. I'm convinced that this is what makes great people. Of course character comes with overcoming adversity - but knowing how to overcome adversity with wisdom and style comes from parenting.

There are certainly other things I want to do. And do now. And will do. But nothing else rises up and demands of my soul and spirit that I make a career of it. I like some writing here and there, fashion, some teaching now and then. I like making art and singing and dancing and taking pictures. I like cooking and decorating, cleaning and organizing. I like having authority and solving problems and making big decisions. I adore connecting great minds and ideas.

And a bunch of other stuff too.

(I don't want to make toys. I want to be a dentist.) Actually, (and now for something completely controversial): I don't want to be a modern woman. Being a woman is enough. Sometimes too much for certain people. To be modern is to compromise the soul of woman. It is far too binding for our voluptuous cognitive abilities. We are genetically programmed to be CEO's of independent universes. Why invest our talents in some other person's ideas? Why dethrone ourselves and forsake our kingdoms to empower another empire?

I realize there really are some women who want a career in one thing. I doubt they want that same thing for the rest of their lives, but I will grant it to them for a season. I am truly grateful for the success of the women's movement. It is one movement in history that has, I believe, fully accomplished its goals. And, perhaps even, to a fault. (I'm not in the mood to discuss economics. Perhaps later.)

Anyway, there is my scandal: I don't want a career. I want my life.

(To C: I hope I've, at least, scratched the surface here.)