alexist

Woke up at 10:30, no synagogue for me again. It almost tempts one to become Reform, they start at 11.

Then I went back to sleep at 11:30 and just got up.

The plumber has just been here (again). He's coming back in the morning. (A plumber on Sunday, wow!) I'm not sure exactly what he's done/doing as Neil spoke to him. Neil also gets to wait tomorrow, muwahahaha, as I'm off to the Good Food Show at Earl's Court.

One will note that the plumber came at 16:00. They SAID morning. They told Neil they only said they'd ring in the morning. I told him they lied. At any rate this means we did not get the Christmas shopping done.

I went to see Garden State. Cute film, except it made me miss home even more. I've been really homesick lately. It didn't help that I talked to my mother and grandmother yesterday--every time I do I realize how much I miss the whole crazy lot of them.

I'm not even going to go into the litany of the things I think are "better" at home. One it would be too long; two, it would just be expat whinging. "Better" often equates to "what you're used to". However, I defy Londoners to defend the Tube over the New York subway. Tonight, I got to Leicester Square. Board says 5 minutes Edgware, 14 minutes Mill Hill East, no High Barnet. Screw that I think, I'll change at Kings Cross. There's usually more High Barnet trains via Bank anyway. So I do that, and of course the indicator's broken, but a train does show up a few minutes later. Get to Kings Cross, trains shown for Edgware and Finchley Central, there's an announcement that all High Barnet customers should take the Edgware train and change at Camden. I do that, wondering where the hell the train's coming from since there didn't seem to be any High Barnet trains via Charing Cross either, and the indicator board says Archway, Finchley Central, and terminating!! Luckily a train then showed up with 'High Barnet' on the front.

Now, the New York subway may be complicated and not have nice platform indicators, but the trains show up, they've gotten through a lot of the maintenance backlog so the system's working pretty well now, it runs 24/7, the signals don't fail daily and a monthly subway/bus pass is $70, no zones. And no one would dream of privatizing it or bringing in PPP. Admittedly, trying to expand the system (Second Avenue Subway, please!) seems to be a bit of a pipe dream, but with Republicans in power, New York will get screwed for federal money.

I am Scrooge McJew. I hate Christmas more with each passing year. I want to burn all newspapers complaining about companies stopping Xmas parties, etc. I will admit to going into Paperchase and thinking "oooh shiny!" and very slightly wanting to have an excuse to buy crap. But mostly I hate it. I hate the enforced consumerist orgy, which we have because people can't be honest and just have a Capitalist Exploitation Festival.

I've got no beef with people celebrating the birth of Jesus, seeing family and friends, or giving presents to loved ones. But that's approximately 5% of what Christmas is about. 95% is about drinking, getting into credit card debt, enduring office nights out, and making obligatory family visits (let's face it, the British are not renowned for their familial ties, I'm continually amazed by how little people here seem to see their families. Including my own husband. My family can't either. When we were over at Thanksgiving, they were amazed Neil hadn't seen his parents since the wedding. After all, they're only 200 miles away, that's practically a day trip!) And since Christmas-New Year is the only real holiday period here (poor country, doesn't even have a decent national day) it all gets packed in.

I'm sick of crowded shops, Christmas music, annoying adverts, TV specials, Christmas crap in the supermarkets, and basically everything to do with it. It's been building up since September and there's no way to avoid it.

Christmas spirit? FEH!