catching up on mail

to: egg online banking
from: enid
re: regarding your current account access

dear egg, you couldn't verify enid's current information, because she doesn't bank with you, but with the admirable hbsc. you can limit her online access all you like, and she'll not even notice. (by the way, what is the world's "largest pure online bank?" do you mean there's no smutty stuff in the double-entry book keeping?)


to: jaemie krawczyk
from: enid
re: some swing picks?

hi jaemie,
you're fibbing again, aren't you? you don't have anything fresh for enid today, do you? in fact, it's safe to say that most days you make her the same offer, many, many times over. oh, and enid doesn't "very well know that the market can be forecasted and controlled". she must have misunderstood something in her economics lessons at school.


to: tgjiyoio@barak-online.net
from enid:
re: hey dude some gd news 4 u

hey dude, enid has 2 bits of gd news 4 u. first is, this isn't a mobile phone, so you can write complete sentences. second is that she's never embarrassed in the bedroom and she has all the natural hardness and boosted drive she wants - but thanks very much for offering to help.


to: munguia roberto
from: enid
re: live life to the fullest

thanks, munguia, but enid prefers to buy her pharmaceuticals from someone she can hand cash to, even if you do offer the "be$t prices". (usually boots the chemist, if you're reading this, mum.) thanks for your good wishes, though, and enid hopes you're keeping well yourself.


to: geraldo
from: enid
re: do you wnat a {}*prosperus future?

geraldo, enid's quite hurt that you didn't remember that she has a degree already, and has no need to "Fetch a_Bachelors, Masetrs., MBA, and Doctorate (PhD) diploma" even if "Hoenstly are no set tests, classes, books, or interviews!"


to: pete smith
from: enid
re: the four emails you sent enid today

pete, for starters, enid doesn't think you've got the name thing down yet. it's more usual to pick a latino name, or simply jam some consonants into unusual proximity, as mr. krawczyk did. if you're stuck for inspiration, just sit on the keyboard.

secondly, it's usual to pick an email title that is of passing relevance to the message within that email. for example, if enid's emailing you about a lunch date (unlikely, pete, don't get your hopes up), then she'd probably title her mail, "lunch date." not rocket science, is it?

now, pete, the text in your email reads:

"Do you ejaculate before the act or within a few minutes?
Then you must order Extra-Time Now!...
Extra-Time is the only male sexual performance formula that, not only stops premature ejaculation, but actually "cures" it.
You'll last 5 to 10 minutes longer, the very first night..... GUARANTEED!"

call enid a fussy old grump-muffin, but your subject, "I desert a quagmire," doesn't seem to be at all related to premature ejaculation. your other three emails on the same subject today, variously titled "but cat as byronic," "to vacuum or ready," and "was threadbare go cutworm" aren't really an improvement.

have a great weekend!
love, enid

could it be "usaphile?"

enid: "what would you change about your past, if you were allowed hindsight?"

the man: "i'd have travelled in asia rather than the states after university. i suppose i was too much of a... a... there's no word for it."

enid: "you liked america?"

the man: "yeah."

enid: "no, there isn't. not like francophile."

the man: "yankophile?"

enid: "i think there's a good reason there's no word for it."

music before music stops

beccy posted the last three songs she'd listen to before all the ipods, radios and banjos* in the world stopped working, and then tagged enid to do the same. while enid is very chuffed and grateful to be tagged for only the second time ever, she's very nervous. you see, in her house, the man is the one who does music. enid's tastes are not fashionable or exciting. she likes to call rap "crap with a silent 'c'", which the man, who thinks of himself as john peel reincarnated, doesn't find funny. (not even the first time.)

(*probably banjos would actually still work after the cataclysmic event that stopped music. and so would bagpipes.)

once, when enid and the man had been going out for just a few weeks, two of the man's friends came to stay. late in the evening, after quite a lot of alcohol had been imbibed, the man opened a cupboard, where enid had hidden her albums, and showed them to his friends.

"sting!" they laughed, clutching their sides.

"simon and garfunkel!" they hooted, tears streaming from their eyes.

"al stewart!" they guffawed, rolling around on the floor.

so you can probably understand that, although enid does have some 21st century tastes, she's still nervous about sharing hr music with anyone except her psychiatrist. ah well, here goes.

she'll start with a blast from the past - patterns by simon and garfunkel, because when she was 18 and even more terminally untrendy than she is today, this song summed up enid's fears about life. she often chooses songs for their lyrics - probably why the man and his friends mock her choice of ear food.

From the moment of my birth
To the instant of my death,
There are patterns I must follow
Just as I must breathe each breath.
Like a rat in a maze
The path before me lies,
And the pattern never alters
Until the rat dies.

enid's spent a lot of her life living abroad, not having children, avoiding any hint of a life with patterns in it. was it the right decision? would she have been happier with someone she met at 20 and two children? and in the end, is not doing that more of a pattern than going for all the everyday anti-patterns (chaos) that children bring?

enid can't find this on youtube, so here's another favourite of hers, original video from the sixties too...



here's something a bit more recent - the jeweller by this mortal coil.

The jeweler has a shop
On the corner of the boulevard
In the night, in small spectacles
He polishes old coins
He uses spit and cloth and ashes
He makes them shine with ashes
He knows the use of ashes
He worships God with ashes.

enid loves the idea of an old man doing his best work even though no-one really notices or cares. a bit like those stone carvers in cathedrals that did as good a job on the bits no-one could see, because god could. (enid doesn't believe in god, nor he in her. it's a metaphor.) she also loves the minor key of this song, really haunting, she thinks.

(she's not found a very good version of the song on youtube - it only starts a fair way in, and then it's not as good as the one she has in itunes. but it will give you the idea.)



and finally, because english speakers tend to think that french music is crap (with a capital 'c' rather than a silent one), here's enid's favourite french song, from a couple of years ago. it's "elle m'a dit," by cali. it makes her want to cry because she misses france.

Je crois que je ne t'aime plus.
Elle m'a dit ça hier,
ça a claqué dans l'air
comme un coup de revolver.

Je crois que je ne t'aime plus.
Elle a jeté ça hier,
entre le fromage et le dessert
comme mon cadavre à la mer.



edit: enid totally forgot to tag anyone. she tags sally and juvation. (juvation's a pop star, so he'll put her to shame. sally probably has good taste (as opposed to enid, not juvation. although...)

on the difficulties of conversing while wearing a padded hood

the man: "and then I defended myself from some mice"

enid: "what?"

the man: "i said, I up-ended myself on some ice."

where enid blogs

enid loves the view from where she sits at her computer. that's why there are more pictures of that than the crap desk and chair borrowed from the man's work. (all their own furniture has been locked in storage in paris for a year and a half.)

other people are writing about their blog environments today - go and have a look at a dingo's got my barby. (is that an australian blog, do you think? nah.)

of mice and men; a weekend that wasn't as planned

what enid had planned:

1. some nice long lie ins with jet lag. (enid loves west-east jet lag, because she's a morning person usually. it gives her a taste of what it's like to stay up all night with pots of energy, and then sleep in like a drugged thing, despite black russian terriers with early morning walk-wishes.)

2. meeting little miss moi on saturday night for a nice cup of tea and polite conversation. (aka getting pissed and dissing molvania a bit. oh, and handing over some vegemite.)

3. long walks with the dogs on the island

what actually happened:

1. the man woke up early every morning (see 3).

2. enid got flu and spent the weekend in the flat feeling crap.

3. it was very cold, and enid had flu (see 2).

3. the man, whose software is shipping this weekend, had a very, very bad time with his boss, hoohah. (whom they don't like anyway, because he doesn't trust them enough to co-sign their mortgage for a couple of months.) it brought it home to the man that he's not been happy for a while, thinks the company is pretty broken in many ways, and (hush! don't tell!) is considering not going to california after all. this has meant lots of lots of deciding how he feels (never easy) and they, as a couple, feel. (even harder.)

the choices are:

1. the man takes job in california, they take on a big mortgage which needs both their incomes to pay it off. if tm wants to change jobs, it's much harder than it would be in europe because he's an alien with an L-1 visa from hoohah's company. on the plus side, they have good friends there, the house is fab, the weather is like the south of france and people speak a kind of english. the percentage of shares they have in the start-up continue to grow (at the moment something like 33% have vested.)

2. the man resigns, presumably enid is sacked from his company too (she used to work there, and has shares and a retainer to consult a few days a month), and they spend the summer touring europe. enid carries on contracting for the uk company at least two weeks a month, and the rest of the time she and the man work on their next venture. (and enid already has someone who wants to co-operate with that. why is he now in new york? oh, yes, a bit because she was going to california and it was nearer than kenya. sigh.) this probably makes more sense than putting all their eggs in one basket. if they want, after six months wandering, they can re-import the hounds from hell to the uk, because they'll have been out of the country long enough.

one vote each, what do you think?

no news

enid's sorry but she doesn't feel funny today. well, only funny peculiar. she thinks she's getting the flu like just about every molvanian she knows including half the man's office. welcome home indeed.

there's no news on the house except bad news - now spike is saying they need a us resident to co-sign the forms. the man asked his boss, hoohah, who refused in case the man was the tiniest bit late with a mortgage payment and gave hoohah a bad credit record! hoohah didn't seem so concerned when the boot was on the other foot last year: before the company got finance, enid and the man's salary was two months or more late on several occasions.

luckily they have a real friend, an englishman living in the bay area, who is a star and said yes.

more tomorrow, if enid does not have to take to her bed.

taking credit where none is due

and now the hard part.

months ago, enid and the man gave up on getting a mortgage from hbsc for reasons that will be very apparent if you read this and this. you'll find this hard to believe, but hbsc america are less responsive than hbsc jersey. enid and the man mentioned their predicament to the man's boss, hoohah, who recommended a californian broker called spike. the man phoned spike to get mortgage pre-approval. "hey, no big deal," spike said. "a friend of hoohah's is a friend of mine. that's fine."

this sounded suspiciously easy to enid. before they booked their recent house-hunting trip to the states, she insisted spike sent a proper pre-approval letter. spike obliged, though he didn't take up credit references, he didn't enquire about previous mortgages nor did he ask about savings or salaries. well, thought enid, hoohah must have told him what we earn and how super-honest we are. and if margaret's got the letter, then we've got a mortgage. that's what pre-approval means, right?

wrong.

as you may know, enid and the man found the house of their dreams. margaret contacted spike as they was drawing up the offer. "how long will it take you to get this mortgage arranged?" she asked.

"twenty-four hours should do it," spike replied.

"i'll put three days on this form," said margaret. (she is from new england.)

the offer was accepted and spike called the man. "we need credit references, salary details, a list of your assets, liabilities, incomings and outgoings, a blood sample and a written letter from your mother excusing you from games." (ok, he didn't really ask for all of these.)

enid was jolly cross. did spike really think he could do all this across time zones in three days, let alone one? especially when she and the man were out of contact for two of them, flying back to molvania.

and so the headless chicken stuff began. spike wanted salary information - he interviewed their hr departments. he wanted three lines of credit - he called the uk and spoke to barclaycard and a company which had given them a loan when they were renovating their previous house. both reports were good. spike called portlend, enid and the man's previous mortgage lender. portlend refused to discuss payment history on the phone, and said this can only be done in writing. but the man has written to them and faxed them before, when they were trying to get the mortgage with hbsc, and had no reply. with the kind of blind hope shown by the six hundred at sevastopol, they faxed portlend again pleading with them for a response this time.

there was no response.

now spike decided he must have an equifax report. he wasn't able to order this himself - god knows why not - so the man set it up online. before making it active, though, equifax needed a fax of a credit card statement. of course, enid and the man didn't have one with them in the states. in fact, they don't even have one in molvania - their statements are sent to tm's mother's house in lancashire. so tease (tm's sister) drove over, collected one, and faxed it. the account went live on tuesday afternoon, as enid and the man checked into their heathrow hotel. you'll be glad to know that all this effort was worth it - their credit rating was excellent. (whew!) spike had said he needed three lines of credit or the equifax report, and now he had the report and two lines of credit. twenty-four hours to go, and they were home and dry.

weren't they?

no. spike now decided he needed the equifax report and three lines of credit. enid suggested their landlord. the man faxed portlend again.

yesterday (wednesday) enid and the man got back to their flat in molvania. the electricity was cut off, and they had no internet, hot water or heating. it was -17C outside... and inside. what a welcome. but when at last the power returned, their email brought good news and bad news. the good news - the vendors have given them another two days to get a mortgage. the bad news - spike now thought that they didn't have enough cash in the bank to put down the required deposit.

"couldn't he have said that before we flew to america and made an offer on a house?" enid asked, opening a bottle of anti-depressant (red wine).

luckily, spike was mistaken. the man had given him a rough figure for their savings, erring on the side of caution. enid updated the numbers and told spike the true figure. at midnight last night, he called them back saying he'd found them a mortgage.

but this morning, there were no emails from spike, and none from margaret. there was one from the man's mother to say that a letter from portlend had arrived in the morning post. has spike found a mortgage? even without the third line of credit? are the vendors still happy? what does the portlend letter say? will everything work out before the deadline expires?

all these, and many other questions may be answered tomorrow. oh, and if you need an american mortgage, enid has a broker she can recommend... for evisceration.

spuds

enid and the man are getting dressed for dinner. their posher clothes are checked through to kiev, so enid's having to wear her jeans again. she hitches them up by jumping in the air and hoisting them. (hey, it works for her, don't knock it.)

the man clearly thinks this is ridiculous. pulling his best satire face, he copies her. in mid air, he screams, "fucking hell!", then jumps around the room frog-wise, clutching his genitals.

"what's up?"

in a forty-a-day voice, the man gasps, "i crushed one of me spuds!"

enid does not show the sympathy that is expected, unless the sympathy that is expected is to hoot with mocking laughter - which after almost ten years of marriage, it probably is.

the diner game

players:
one or more, aged six to sixty.

equipment needed:
one american diner, one american wait person

how to play:
the game begins when the waitress says," hi, i'm candice and i'll be your server today. what can i get you guys?" the oldest female takes her turn first. she must order her meal so comprehensively that candice doesn't ask any supplemental questions. each supplemental question that is asked scores against her.

example:
she orders "a milkshake." this is very poor strategy. candice is likely to ask, "what flavor? extra large or monumental? full-fat or semi-skimmed? ice?" - costing the player a massive four out of order points (oops).

here's an example from a more experienced player: "i'll take a monumental strawberry milkshake with full-fat milk, a scoop of chocolate ice-cream, a little ice, and oreos* crumbled on top."

now let enid set the scene. she and the man are sitting in a typical 50s diner in san francisco - formica tables, car number plates on the walls, elvis on the jukebox (not quite literally). candice approaches.

candice: " hi, i'm candice and i'll be your server today. what can i get you guys?"

enid: "i'll have a house green salad, with caesar dressing, parmesan and sourdough bread, please."

candice: "do you want that dressing on the side?"

enid: shit. i mean, yes, thanks.

the man: "one oops for you there, enid. candice, i'll take a double greedy bastard cheese burger with crispy bacon please. wholemeal buns, lightly toasted. swiss cheese, bacon very, very crispy, and burgers medium rare. go easy on the lettuce, plenty of gherkins. i see you supply ketchup and mustard - i shall not be requesting any additional sauces."

enid (hushed tones): respect.

candice: "thank y-"

the man: "yes!"

candice: "-ou sir. and how would you like to pay - cash or credit card?"

the man: "bugger!"

enid: "oops!"

candice: ""

*enid has no idea what oreos are. they may be small blackbirds, in which case crumbling them on milkshake seems a little cruel.