Kat Dancing

I encountered a little bit of America yesterday when I went shopping. My cold (I brought the damn cold home from Britain- now Mom thinks she's getting it) had deteriorated to a nasty, racking cough, and I was looking for something that would help without bringing tears to my eyes or tasting of medicine. Mom had found some cough syrup in the back of the cabinet- cherry flavoured. You remember cherry flavoured? The stuff that tastes nothing like cherries? I hadn't forgotten how it tasted, as it turned out, and Mom *still* says 'Oh, what a face!'

Anyway, I hit on the idea of eating peppermint candies, and picked up a bag of Lifesavers because I vaguely remembed that they were neither too strong nor too sweet. And they worked pretty well. The true horror only came when I opened the bag.

Each Lifesaver was *individually wrapped.*

I don't get it. I mean, I really, *really* don't understand what marketing gimmick, packaging craze, or simple dose of common sense could have come up with the idea that I wanted to work my way through a layer of cellophane (which is not easy to open, by the way) to get to every. Single. Bloody. Lifesaver. Not to mention the sheer *waste* involved- all this plastic. It's an appalling amount of packaging in a country that's in serious landfill trouble, and for what? So I can wrestle with tiny packages around my Lifesavers? For this we're ruining the environment?

Individually wrapped Lifesavers. I must be home.

I'm still going through a pretty weird stage. Last time wasn't so bad, because we were very busy then, and so I kinda got chucked into the deep end with a shovel and had to work my way out. (I am, I would have you recall, a farmer. When I visualize a 'deep end' I'm *not* thinking of the local swimming pool). I didn't have time to think, and by the time I did, I was re-adjusted anyway. There's a lot to be said for this state of affairs.

Now, however, we're not near so busy, and I *do* have time to think, and it's all kind of... depressing is the wrong word. Overwhelming, perhaps. I seem to have grown up when I wasn't looking. I don't like fireworks or zoos or fairs half so much as I used to. I have my own car, my own credit card; I have had my own job; my long-delayed final semester of school is coming up; I'm seriously thinking about what kind of job I'm going to end up in, not because I have to, but because I'm actually looking forward to the idea of settling down a bit. A solid income would be pretty cool, too. It's, I don't know, *weird*.

I wish I had more work and could stop thinking about this sort of thing.

Er- this won't do; my posting window is poststamp-sized. Must try this on another browser.

To make a long story short, I'm home. It's raining. Since the farm has been in a four-year record-breaking drought, this is a very, very good thing. Oh, and I got to set off fireworks yesterday.

A bit depressed, really, overall. There's so little to *do* in this town. But I'm going to try and get back in the swing of posting, and post more later. This is just sort of the 'breaking ice, not really going to summarize the past three days' post to get me started again.

Erg. I think my Ozzie friend gave me his cold. Ah well- it could easily be just the stress. Got woken up late on Saturday night- actually it was more like early Sunday morning- by some drunk guy coming in and pissing in the wastebasket. He then crawled into bed above me, which would have been just fine, except it wasn't his bed and there was already somebody else in it.

'Okay,' said the guy above me, 'this is seriously not cool. You're gonna have to leave, man. This isn't your bed.'

'Wha?'

'This isn't your bed.'

'Is my bed. I sleep here.'

'No, man, it's not your bed. I've been sleeping here all night. You're in the wrong room.'

'I sleep.'

'No, don't go to sleep, you've got to leave. This is my bed.'

'Fight you for it.'

'What?'

Indistinct, sleepy, drunk muttering. After about five minutes of this, the rightful bed owner said, 'okay, guys (everyone was thoroughly awake) help me out here. What do I do?'

'Go to reception and get the night guard,' I said. 'This isn't your problem. Make them deal with it.'

He did, and the large, tattooed, Irish guy manning the night desk came up. 'Okay, you, this isn't your bed; get up.'

More sleepy muttering, but the night guard wasn't having any of that; he slapped the drunk awake. 'What room are you supposed to be in?'

'Denmark.'

'I don't give a shit where you're from! What room are you supposed to be in?' The drunk tried to go back to sleep, and got slapped again, and this kept up until he was finally persuaded to get up and leave. He attempted to apologize to us, which, by that point, was pretty much a waste of time, and finally *left*.

'Why *me*?' said the bed's rightful owner to me the next morning.

'Just be glad it wasn't me,' I said. 'If some drunk guy had crawled into my bed the entire hostel'd have been awake.'

In spite of all this, I did manage to get myself and my luggage out of the hostel and to the ferry terminal more-or-less on time in the morning, with the help of my Ozzie friend. Mind you, I was the last one on the ferry and too late to check my luggage, but I did make it. The ferry was huge. I've never seen anything like it- it wasn't like being on a ferry at all, more like being in a hotel or something. Quite incredible. Then on to the train nightmare- it is just not worth *trying* to travel on a Sunday in this country; they always screw up. The journey took about an hour and a half longer than it was supposed to and we had to do the last leg via bus because of late trains. It was okay, though. I met a very nice Canadian lady both at the train station off the ferry and again on the bus and had fun talking to her. She's been in Britain for the last eleven years, working for the college in Oxford. We had some great conversations and she directed me to the Oxford youth hostel, the best bookstore in town (which now has entirely too much of my money- but it was four floors! Four floors of *books*! How could I resist?), and a pub called the Eagle and Child which Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and others used to drink in. I was too tired to hit the pub last night, and my plan to get lunch there has been rather cramped by the fact that I feel a bit ill today, but I did walk by it. It looked cool.

Hard to believe I'm leaving tomorrow morning. There's so much I didn't get around to doing... so much I'll miss here. Pubs, for example. And pedestrian districts. And these lovely cool old buildings. I've barely skimmed the surface of Oxford, which looks cool. I'll have to get used to my money all being the same color again, and not having one- and two- pound/dollar/Euro coins. I'll have to get used to hearing the American accent everywhere, and people not talking to each other on public transport, and not having public transport. I'll see my family again....

My bro has seriously screwed up- twelve-hour layover in LA, and then missed his plane, still wasn't home when I talked to Mom yesterday. It's making her paranoid. Under the circumstances, telling her about the hitchhiking incident back in Killarney probably wasn't bright. But I'll make it home fine, Mom, I promise. Very soon. How *strange*.

And, incidentally, it's Canada Day. Isn't that something?