The Wonder Of It All

This drizzly morning, flatmate Maria and I took a walk in the rain to catch a bus to a second-hand store to buy four sturdy wooden chairs that will replace the four super-flimsy metal folding chairs that we're currently using. By "using" I actually mean "avoiding-like-the-London-plague." Especially after seeing one fold up in an unintentional way with Wally in it. Delivery is scheduled for Friday.

After whipping the chair project into shape we journeyed across the road to the Wonder Cafe for breakfast. It's a local favorite, meaning locals within a stone's throw. And the service is fast. "Your food often arrives at the table before you do" according to a local's endorsement. 

The food photo below should convince our ChicaGourmets foodie friends, Jim and Don, to put the Wonder Cafe on their "must experience" list. 

The Wonder Cafe. I wonder where that name comes from.  

I wonder if anyone who sees this display actually says "Wow, that looks good! And it's normal!" 

(And don't forget... it's fast!)

I wonder why it's not very busy, being a local favorite and all. We got lucky, I guess.

A customer at the order counter. I wonder if he's normal.

I'm starting to realize this place has the perfect name. 

Branding genius! 

Save The Date: Birthday Party!

I'm at least part Scots-Irish, my birthday is St. Patrick's Day (March 17), and I've never been to Ireland.

Ergo, we're having a birthday party on March 17 at Murphy's Bar in Killarney, Ireland. 

Robin and I will be staying in a double room, upstairs over the bar, for four nights, from March 15 

through March 18, returning to London on the 19th.

Family and friends welcome. Strangers are welcome too, since it's a pub. If you can find Killarney, you'll probably find Murphy's. Go the center of town. Look for a yellow, green, red, and blue building. 

Details later. 

Murphys includes Murphys Bar, Squires Bar, Lord Kenmares Restaurant, and upstairs accommodations.

In Memory of Robin's 102 Year-Old Grandmother

Photo taken in December 2011

Pauline Elizabeth Williams. Died January 22, 2012, age 102

Pauline Elizabeth was born on January 5, 1910, in Greenfield, Indiana, to Chauncy and Lula Gardner. In 1921, when Pauline was 12 years old (and a tomboy), her mother and father, two younger sisters, Grandpa Catt, Aunt Cora and Uncle Charley, and three cousins piled into three Model T Fords and made their slow way to Bell, California, near Los Angeles. It took six weeks to cross the country because the cars kept breaking down and mechanics were not always available. Gas cost 17 cents a gallon. Pauline was the only person brave enough to drive with Grandpa Catt, who used the sides of the mountains to slow down his car (this is probably where Pauline got her lifelong habit of fast driving). Pauline learned much later that the reason for the move was that her father was half Cherokee and he needed to get away from constant discrimination.

At 15 years old, Pauline met Wilford Williams at the Bell Friends Church. They dated for two years, married in 1927, then moved to Bakersfield, later to Berkeley, then to 610 Spokane Avenue in Albany, California, where they bought a brand-new home for $1500 and worried about paying that mortgage. By the time Pauline was 22 years old, she had a two-year-old, a one-year-old, and twins, all boys. She was proud of saying that they were all in bed by 6 p.m. every night, although there are many stories of naked boys running down the sidewalk, playing traffic cop in the street, nearly getting run over by trains, and getting locked in the trunks of cars.

Pauline and Wilford formed a group of friends that met almost every week to play cards, have dinner, or just chat. Pauline was part of the mothers' Twin Club, a sewing club, and helped plan most church socials. She played the piano and organ at the Friends Church in Berkeley. She worked at Union Oil during WWII and retired from Cutter Laboratory in 1975, then volunteered at Alta Bates Hospital gift shop for 15 years, and at Tele-Care for another 18 years. She is proud to have traveled to 13 countries and 43 states. She lived in the house on Spokane Avenue for 71 years, and every year hosted a Christmas Eve feast for her ever-growing family. One might stop by the house and find her on the roof fixing a leaky patch at age 76 or mowing the lawn at age 83. 

Pauline's second hip fracture at age 97 forced her to stop driving, and she moved in with her son Lloyd in Pittsburg, California (and for the next several years she constantly insisted that she wanted her driver's license back). No one remembers Pauline ever driving at the speed limit or below. At the age of 101, she complained that she needed to find a new doctor because this one couldn't find the reason why she was often tired.  

Pauline lived through the deaths of her husband Wilford, her sons Gerald, Merwyn, and Floyd, daughters-in-law Lyla and Jean, three sisters (Vivian, Frances, and Juanita), and her oldest grandchild, Jeffrey. She is survived by her son Lloyd and daughters-in-law Pat, Rita, and Janice, 15 grandchildren, 31 great-grandchildren, and 4 great-great-grandchildren. Pauline wanted to be remembered as a very active person who helped others. She was in excellent health and mind until her very last days and passed away peacefully. 

May we all be so blessed.

Comments Are Now Turned On

If you'd like to leave a comment, I've activated that feature.

A friend or two thought it would be fun, and I agree.

Meanwhile, thanks for any comments that you add. 

John

Winston The Bloodhound thanks you also. I'll pass along any bloodhound comments to him.

Morning in Marlow With Winston

Oxford friends Lynn, Neal, and Winston The Bloodhound picked us up this morning for a drive to Marlow, a beautiful small town on the Thames River (56.75 miles to London, as the Thames flows).

When I asked how far back Marlow goes, Neal said "All the way." That's a long way back.

Winston The Bloodhound. Five years old. He was raised as a hunting dog, part of a pack of 21 bloodhounds. Winston would disappear on hunts, failing to return with the other 20 dogs. The trainers would eventually find him at neighboring farms, having tea with the residents. So he had to be adopted or put down. Neal and Lynn rescued him and he's now living the life of a retired scholar in Oxford. 

This church in Marlow, next to the Thames, dates back to the 12th century. Amazing what you can do if you use stone and stone masons, instead of the mud & straw adobe brick technique that was popular in the Santa Fe area at the same time. Stone seems so much more... what's the word... permanent.

Robin, Lynn, and Neal read a T.S. Eliot quote carved in stone.

Time past and time 

future

What might have been

and what has been

Point to one end which is always

present

Green and gold cemetery colors.

Neal and Winston experience the sights and smells of Marlow.

The bike/river trail through town winds through narrow passageways.

A bench along the river, in memory of Olive and Twig Branch. There's something sappy about this, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

The river has locks for boats that want to navigate up or downstream where water levels differ. The wheel opens the lock gates.

One of the locks on the river.

People who live on the river can hop in their boat and go all the way to London. Just like they have for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. In 2010 the foundations of a large timber structure were found on the shores of the Thames in London (south of Vauxhall Bridge), dated to 4500 BC.

Winston does the bloodhound thing in the church cemetery.

Lynn and Neal drove us back to Uxbridge and let Winston out of the car before heading back home to Oxford. When they tried to coax him back into the car he resisted, then rolled over on his back for a tummy rub. What a Sweetie Pie. No wonder he didn't want to kill foxes or whatever he was supposed to hunt. He's a lover, not a killer.

Love This Guy

When I was in Robin's class, one of the students had a Shakespeare studies book with them. On the cover was a photo of Mark Rylance in a play on the Globe Theatre stage. 

Not many guys can wear something this green and still look cool. Respect, bro.

If you missed the earlier blog about Mark, check out the January 14 "Jerusalem" article, archived on the  right side of this page.

Wally & Maria just got back from a day in London, which included a trip to Harrod's and a couple of bottles of Harrod's wine. Which means a wine tasting event is imminent. A slow Saturday ends with a flourish! 

Compliments of Wally & Maria.

A Sunday Visit

Tomorrow morning our friends from Oxford, Lynn and Neal, are picking us up for a Sunday visit. I don't know what's on the agenda, but they're lots of fun, so I'm sure there'll be something blog-worthy and more exciting than today's agenda, which was pretty boring, consisting mostly of Internet researching, tea-making, and crumpet-toasting. A short while ago I switched to wine-sipping and Internet browsing. Things are looking up.

While Robin fought off the beginnings of a sore throat, I took a late afternoon walk into Uxbridge to ask the Mid-Eastern guy at the phone jail-breaking booth in the mall for advice on jail-breaking my new iPhone. Then I went to the Orange store (a phone carrier here) to ask about buying a micro sim card with a pay-as-you-go plan. It's all too boring and complicated to explain, but if I decide to attempt to jailbreak and unlock my phone, I'll update the results. Hopefully the worst that can happen is I jailbreak it but can't unlock it, then have to "restore" it to factory settings. Sounds fun.

Walking back to the flat after dark, I grab a shot of a man walking his dog. Our neighborhood of flats is just around the corner to the left, on the other side of the train overpass.