Guests of the World

The #1 rule of blogging (so I've read) is: keep it short. Of course, my philosophy is that if it's short, it's probably not worth mentioning all by itself. I don't like to write unless I have something to say. Unless I don't. You understand. So I build up a lot of things until it's time to write. Except that I don't like to write about things out of order. So I've been putting off writing.

Until today!

We are guest-free until probably April or May after 6 weeks of guests in September and October (three different sets). As I've already written about the other two, it leaves me to mention the final set, Ariel's Aunt Anita and Uncle Jim. We were only a stopover in the midst of their whirlwind adventure across Europe and the Atlantic. They began on the mainland visiting four countries, then us for four days, then London, then they posted themselves to the colonies on the RMS Queen Mary II. (RMS stands for "Royal Mail Ship," and it actually carries mail back and forth between our two countries.) Their trip wasn't over then as after they arrived in NYC, they continued to play tourist in the Big Apple before finally getting back to Chicago.

You might remember that this summer I posted a tribute to my Aunt Missy. You might also recall that I referred to her as "The Best Aunt Ever." In the four days that J&A were here, Anita dropped this into the conversation no less than 3 times which left me to wonder if she coveted this title for herself. Let me take this opportunity to say that, yes, Anita, you are the Best Aunt Ever (Ariel never doubted it). This has led me to think that competition is a good thing, especially as Ariel and I have 9 aunts between us. So, yes, the title can be bought.

In a brilliant bit of planning, we took J&A to see the sights only on days when the weather was miserable. We stayed home on the beautiful days and played cards while complaining that the sun was too bright streaming through the windows. The first miserable day, we stormed Warwick castle. The weatherman claimed that the rain would clear by mid-morning. By noon it was clear -- clear that it was never going to stop raining. The day I took them to Oxford, the fog was so bad that I feared we would get to the top of St. Mary's and not be able to see any of the dreaming spires. Fortunately, the fog did clear significantly, and it made the climb worth it. Looking back on my pictures from the various visitors we've had, I noticed that we seemed to take everyone to the top of St. Mary's.



Hopefully I'll write more stuff soon. Enjoy!


Comments
EvilGM said,
16 November 2007
Chairman Mao was a pain in the butt to get up those stairs. I think he kept referring to the symbol of Western Dogma, but I’m a little rusty on my Mandarin.