This summer marks four years since we moved from the Ozarks to London. We’ve survived a global pandemic, multiple heat waves, and the brilliant idea of adopting a puppy and a kitten at the same time. 

The pandemic did, eventually, catch up to us. Both the youngest child and I had positive tests in late June and early July. It was a miserable experience, and not one I want to repeat. I had a fever and sore joints for three days. Those eased up, but a sore throat, persistent cough, and general fatigue hung around for a few more days. Eventually, after about a week, I was down to a mild cough. In the time we’ve been in London, I’ve been wiped out a few other times by viruses that ran their course in a couple days. This was much worse and for much longer. I feel fortunate that covid didn’t impact me as much as it did some of my coworkers, and even more fortunate that I was able to get back to running after about three weeks. 

Speaking of running, I’m in the middle of a marathon training block for a race in October. Post-covid I tried to ease my way back to my prior mileage, but it was a bit too much for my knees to handle. I’ve had to lower my training targets, but that still means I’m running 30 miles a week and will be in the 40s when I hit the peak in late August and early September. 

I have not yet taken Aela out running, but her day is coming. Fetch is life, but hopefully, she’ll take well to running with me once I get through this marathon. We’ll practice a bit between now and then, too. She’s gotten past the worst of the chewing, but at the cost of four sets of headphones, countless boxes, and my 20-year-old Serengeti sunglasses. I did, finally, have to replace them. 

The weather in England has been sunny and hot this summer. This is a country where most homes don’t have air conditioning. Not only that but they’re built to retain heat. Historically, we spend much of the winter around freezing with highs in the (I’m switching to Fahrenheit for the Yanks) 40s. When you’re heating the house with hot water pumped to radiators in each room, you want the building to hold the heat. Summers are usually more like highs in the low 70s. This summer we recorded the nation’s highest-ever temperature of about 105. Add a drought to that, and this is a very crunchy, very brown island.  

Despite Aela’s best efforts, Fezzik is still alive and well. They fight like, well, cats and dogs. I understand the cliche now, okay. It would go easier for him if he didn’t try to steal her dog food at every opportunity. Or if he didn’t periodically race past her and swat her in the face. We joke in the house that Aela is smart, for a dog. Well, Fezzik is dumb, for a cat. It’s opposite ends of the pet intelligence bell curve in here. 

The kids are well. We–mostly the eldest child, to be fair–survived the nearly two months of GCSE (general certificate of secondary education) exams. Results are coming later this month. Imagine taking the SATs, but you have to take them every day for the better part of two months. The education system in this country feels practically foreign at times. The youngest child had school until mid-July, but she’s on break now, too. Both kids and the dog have been spending the last week taking the paddleboard out on the Thames. It’s very much tbd on which of the three of them like the paddleboard the best, and in this heat, it’s hard to blame them. 

Football is back. The England women’s team won the European Championship a couple weeks ago. The youngest child and I were able to get to the Germany vs Austria match at Brentford. We had a lovely time. Last weekend Carissa and I went out to Tottenham for Spurs’ Premier League opener. It was beautiful weather, the nicest stadium in the world, and the home team won. We had a great day out. 

The writing continues, albeit slowly. I’ve written a few short stories this summer and sent them out on submission. I’m stalled on two novels. One needs edits; the other needs me to finish the first draft. The combination of being busy with work, busy with running, and having Fezzik and Aela around has reduced my time and energy to a point that writing has had to take a back seat for a while. I’ll work more diligently on both novels again in a few months, once I get through the marathon and a few trips. 

Take care of yourselves, folks.

When we came back from our trip to Missouri, the younger child made a compelling case for us to adopt a kitten. “Dad, you miss Piper. I miss Piper. We should get another cat.” She was right. Her mother and I agreed that a cat would be acceptable, but we wanted to find one that would minimize dander for the sake of the elder child’s allergies.

So Carissa adopted a half Angora fluffball. 

Fezzik is undeniably cute. He’s also perfectly willing to sleep in a doll carriage and be carried around the house by anyone who scoops him up. He’ll attack your toes if he sees them wiggling under a blanket, and he’ll claw your hand if you make the painful mistake of messing with him when he’s got the zoomies, but he’s a good boy the rest of the time.

Well, mostly.

See, he also has a sister.

When man and dog decided that they were going to be best friends, I am 100% certain that the dog in question was an adult dog, not a puppy. If a puppy had tried to befriend a grown man, said puppy would have been fed to the nearest sabertooth tiger after it chewed up the man’s favorite club. And shoes. And tools. Said puppy would have been packed into a neat box and express-mailed straight to Abu Dhabi. 

Puppies are hell. I say this because we have one. Again. The eldest child, who has always loved dogs more than everyone except Nonna (her mother may argue, but I am under no illusions about where I, personally, rank), made a compelling case for us to adopt a dog. “You left Ollie in America, and now we’re probably not going back. You should let me get a dog.” A father with a harder heart might have refused, but by acquiescing I hope to have climbed above Mom and possibly Nonna on the favorite person list. 

So we have a puppy. She’s a border collie. Her name is Aela, as in the character in Skyrim. (Skyrim ranks somewhere below Nonna, possibly above Dad, and definitely above her sister. Ranked. Past tense. I’ve climbed the list.) In the first week Aela lived in our house she learned to sit, lay down, and rollover. She did not learn where to potty.

In the second week that Aela lived in our house, she learned to shake hands. She did not learn where to potty.

In the third week that Aela lived in our house, she learned where to potty.

No, really. She goes to the door, she whines, and if she’s let out, she uses the back garden (yard). If she is not let out, well, the chips fall where they may. 

Back to the kitten. You know that line in “Ghostbusters” about cats and dogs living together, where it’s compared to human sacrifice and mass hysteria? I believe it, now. 

I spend much of my days working from my desk in a corner of the kitchen. Aela spends most of her days hanging out with me and forcing me to distract her from eating the entire house. Fezzik waits outside the kitchen door. As soon as it opens, he darts inside. If Aela sees him, a chase immediately ensues. Fezzik, a perfectly capable climber, could escape, but he has no brains. None. Zero. Nada. He tries to brawl, as if all four pounds of him (we tossed him in a mixing bowl and put him on the kitchen scale to check his weight) can take 25 pounds of border collie. Reader, it cannot. The boy is a chewtoy. We have to separate them lest he be loved to death. It’s not as if Aela is trying to hurt him, but he’s approximately the size of her head. 

The best (worst) part is when Aela doesn’t see him. He. Starts. Shit. He will bite her tail. He will bite her ears. He will leap three feet into the air and engage in vertical combat. 

Fezzik is a complete and utter moron whose only redeeming qualities are that preposterous cuteness and a willingness to purr for anyone. 

Aela is a guard derp who will probably know how to read by the end of summer.  If we can avoid any murders (by parents or by pets), we’ll have two great pets in another year. We just have to make it until then. 

If you spot any sabertooth tigers, let me know.

When we landed in Springfield, we went to pick up the rental car I had reserved. The nice lady at the counter checked my information and offered to upgrade me from the mid-size sedan I had booked to a brand new Toyota 4Runner that she had on the lot. I gladly accepted, rightfully thinking that the 4Runner would more easily hold all our bags than a Corolla would. All was good.

We drove the 4Runner for over two weeks, including trips to Arkansas and to Kansas City. It was a beast. Huge, for sure, with a great view of the road, but only a moderately comfortable ride. The interior–after driving an Acura and a Lexus before moving to London–was a bit basic. Not bad, but not as nice, either. The real issue, though, was the gas mileage. We were getting under 18 miles per gallon throughout the trip. I was appalled the first time I had to fill the gas tank. I used to get 24 mpg in my ’03 Acura TL (with my heavy foot driving it) and 21 mpg in Carissa’s RX350. A mere 18 was horrific, especially in a newer vehicle. 

I noticed, too, that there were a lot of big vehicles on the road. Why does America have so many four-door trucks? Wouldn’t a light pickup be better for trips to Sam’s Club and a sedan be better for hauling kids to soccer practice? I can maybe wrap my head around someone in construction needing to move building supplies and a crew of workers in a single vehicle, but not the average person for everyday driving. Such a massive, inefficient truck seems like a waste, not just of greenhouse gases, but of purchase price and ongoing fuel expenses. It makes me think buying a vehicle that size is about something else… Missouri, if you’re considering buying a four-door truck, maybe you should go see your urologist instead. A Viagra prescription will surely be less expensive than your weekly fill-up, and it will do far more to help you compensate for whatever is lacking in your life. 

Many people asked what had changed while we’ve been away. Springfield, the city, was much as we remembered, give or take a few stores and restaurants. We, on the other hand, felt that we had changed considerably. The kids have grown, of course, but even Carissa and I have noticed that our view of America and the world has shifted. When you’re swimming in a pot that’s slowly boiling, you don’t notice the change as much. Looking in from the outside, we can see the bubbles forming. There’s an attitude of selfishness in Springfield, the Ozarks, and America, in general, that is much more apparent to us now than when we lived there. It’s both political and cultural, and I think Trump and Covid have laid it bare. I don’t remember when science denial became a key plank of American conservatism. I don’t remember when utter disregard for the safety of your friends and neighbors became widely accepted. I surely don’t remember when the pandemic skipped over the Ozarks like a tornado over a sheltered valley. Aside from talking to a handful of people, it was like being in an alternate universe compared to Europe. I guess your hospitals aren’t so full of covid patients that other appointments are being rescheduled? How Americans can look at the rest of the world and be like, “nah, it’ll never happen here” blows my mind. (And don’t get me started on voting rights!)

If you’re thinking “yeah, whatever, dude,” I present you this gem to neatly encapsulate whatever the heck is going on back home:

In other news, it felt like we ate our way through Springfield. In 17 days, I think I had barbeque on 7 of them. We also ate a preposterous amount of Mexican food, frozen custard, and chicken sandwiches. Add Nonna’s cooking on top, and it was a calorie-rich environment. 

I know you’re expecting a punch line. There isn’t one. We ate a lot of comfort food, and it was good.

We went to Kansas City for New Year’s Eve to see the Diullos and play board games. This was an all-day affair, and it included a round of Battlestar Galactica. If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s a secret identity game where the humans are trying to save their spaceship and get to a safe planet while the hidden Cylons are trying to sabotage them and destroy humanity. We had 8 players, which is more than the game supports, but we decided to play, anyway. This included giving the youngest child a human loyalty card so she would have an easier time learning the game. Naturally, she picked a character card that made her President of humanity. I was actually a hidden Cylon, and I had the admiral card that allowed me to do significant damage to the humans. I knew we had at least one other Cylon, but possibly two more. The youngest child started accusing everyone, but especially the guys at the table. She was in peak, shouty, tween form, but it was all good fun. Then the humans won a skill check that allowed them to see my loyalty card. I thought I was sunk. Revealed. Busted. Off to the brig where I couldn’t do nearly as much damage. The eldest child was the current player, so she took my card. She looked at it, passed it back, and announced… “he’s human.” The youngest child demanded that she look her in the eye and repeat that I was human. Eldest child was a stone-cold killing machine and stared her sister down with a curt declaration that “he’s human.” Reader, I was such a toaster (Cylon) that I should have had Black+Decker written on my forehad. (Non-Americans, Black+Decker is a common brand for household electronics.)

Everyone bought it. I was in shock. I mean, I was bursting with pride, but I could barely look at her and keep a straight face. At that point, the humans were done, but we took another half hour to really turn the screws on them, including brigging the two most dangerous humans before I finally revealed my true allegiance and the penny dropped that the eldest child was also a traitor. The non-reveal when I thought I was sunk was one of the best board game moments I’ve ever had. Thank you, Diullos, for being such good sports about it!

On our way back to London, we had to check bags at the Springfield airport. The first bag up weighed in at 55 pounds. This was 5 pounds over the limit, and it was going to incur an excess weight fee. Initially, we were thinking we should just pay the fee, but then I remembered the last-minute trip to Walmart and the extra supplies (sweets) we bought. Specifically, I remembered the double-pack of Jif peanut butter that weighed exactly 5 pounds. I dug out the peanut butter and a hardback book, and we were back in business at 49 pounds. The book and the peanut butter went into other bags, and we were good to go, but we were about 30 seconds away from a $110 jar of peanut butter. Oops. 

All joking aside, we had a good time seeing our friends and our family. I know we didn’t get to see everyone, but we tried to fit as many people as we could without running ourselves completely ragged. Two and a half years away was a long time, and we hope to be back to visit sooner next time. I can’t possibly give enough thanks to everyone who hosted us, visited us, and generally put up with our stories about Life Over Here, but thank you all the same.

I grew up in the Ozarks. For my first ten years, I was in the heart of the Ozarks, in Harrison, Arkansas. There weren’t any black kids at school. There weren’t any black people at church. There weren’t any black people in Boone County. I think it was probably a trip to Springfield, Missouri when I saw my first black person somewhere other than the television, but it could have easily been my first trip outside the Ozarks when I was eight or nine. The Ozarks weren’t exactly the most-diverse place at the time. They still aren’t.

As a kid, I never really thought about why that might be.

Back in 2015 I read a Kameron Hurley blog post that introduced me to the Tulsa Race Riot and Black Wall Street. Tulsa wasn’t far away, but I had no idea about any of it. Like, I knew that black people had a hard time post-1865, but high school history lessons touched on the Civil War and slavery, glossed over Reconstruction, talked a bit about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr, and ended on a note of “but things are great now!”

In case you missed it, the folks who burned down 35 blocks worth of homes in Tulsa were white, and the people they burned out, the 300 people who were killed, the 10,000 people left homeless – were all black. It was not until 1996 that the state even bothered to commission a proper history of the event that would be available to everyone, instead of relying on a spoken oral history maintained by survivors who were now dying.

When I heard about police cars blocking off roads and journalist access in Ferguson, Missouri last year, Tulsa immediately came to my mind, and I thought, “If you think the shit you’re seeing on Twitter is bad right now, can you imagine what they’d be doing to people right now if there wasn’t any Twitter?”

Kameron Hurley – Welcome to the Hurleyverse

Reading about Tulsa led me to Springfield’s history. You gotta go back fifteen years before Tulsa to 1906. In 1906 the fine people of Springfield lynched two black men in front of three thousand people. You can read about it here. Or here. Or here. The short version is that a mob of white people broke into the jail in Springfield, abducted two innocent black men, and lynched them on the square. That wasn’t enough blood, so they went back for another black man and lynched him, too. No one was convicted.

Following the lynchings and mob violence, a grand jury was called to indict anyone who had participated in the mob. By April 19, four white men had been arrested and 25 warrants were issued. Only one white man was tried, however, and no one was ever convicted.

Equal Justice Initiative

There’s a plaque on the square in Springfield that talks about it. That plaque was installed in 2019, after I moved to London.

Today, in December 2021, I learned why there were no black people in Boone County, Arkansas. It was not an accident. It turns out that we have to backup before the 1906 lynchings in Springfield.

Harrison, in the early 1900s, had about 1500 people, of which about 115 were black. I’m not saying Harrison was diverse, but it was more diverse than the literally zero people of color it had in the 1980s. In 1905 the railroad in the county went bankrupt. People were hurting. The white people of Harrison did what, apparently, white people in the early 1900s did. They formed a mob, stormed the jail, and hauled some black men out for punishment. In this case, they whipped two men, told them to leave town, and then went back to town to finish their business.

The mob then went on a rampage through Harrison’s black community. Numbering about thirty, they burned down homes, shot out windows, and ordered all African Americans to vacate the town that night.

Encyclopedia of Arkansas

Not all the black residents in Harrison left. No, it took another riot in 1909 for that to happen.

Now, maybe you’re reading this and thinking that my ignorance is on me. I’d like to think I’m a well-read person. Someone who is knowledgeable about history. Clearly, I have some gaps, but I try. But you know what? That’s wrong. Here’s why:

As Harrison’s white residents tried to erase the black community in their town, they apparently also tried to erase the historical record of the events in question. The files of the local newspaper, the Harrison Daily Times, contain gaps coinciding with the dates of the riots, and though records exist, including transcripts of testimony, for most of the other cases heard by Judge Rogers’s 1905 grand jury, only one handwritten note with the dates of the investigation’s beginning and end remains extant.

Encyclopedia of Arkansas

The white people of Harrison, Arkansas willfully and intentionally tried to erase the embarrassing parts of their past. Read that quote again. The files of the local newspaper contain gaps coinciding with the dates of the riots.

Was it my parents that lynched those men in Springfield? No. Was it my grandparents that ran the black community out of Harrison? No. Did my parents or grandparents teach me the history of our cities? They most assuredly did not. Is that their fault? Shoot, they probably didn’t know about it, either.

I talk to folks back home. I read the news. Today folks are upset about critical race theory. Last year it was election fraud. Before that it was migrant caravans. It was super-predators. It was hippies. It was civil rights. It was slavery.

America will chew you up and spit you out. It will use you and discard you. Maybe you’re reading about labor unions at Kellogg or Activision Blizzard. When you read about them, do you think about why we don’t have child labor? Why we have a minimum wage? Why we have a 40 hour work week? Do you think about Blair Mountain? Have you even heard of Blair Mountain?

There’s a lot we don’t teach in school. A lot we should.

So as you’re sitting there watching your Fox News, listening to your Rush Limbaugh and grumbling about those damn Democrats and their critical race theory, take a pause. Think about your history. Think about your lack of history.

It’s a lot easier to blame someone else than it is to put yourself in their shoes. It’s a lot easier to grump and moan than it is to look in the mirror and think about your past. Our past.

I know you’re not racist. I’m not racist. None of us are racist. We don’t see black and white. We just see people.

But if that’s true, why wasn’t there a single black kid in my elementary school class in Harrison in the early 90s? Why were there only two black kids in my high school class in Missouri in the early 2000s? Why did it take until 2019 for Springfield to put up that plaque?

Makes you think, don’t it.

Autumn has been (mostly) good to us. Since the last update we’ve had Carissa’s parents come to visit, and we managed to get out of the house and enjoy London and the surrounding area.

We took Nonna and Papa over to New Malden and had Korean BBQ for the first time. It was amazing. I had heard good things, and I was eager to try it, but I didn’t appreciate the variety or quality of ingredients and sauces. Apparently, New Malden has the largest concentration of people from North Korea outside of actual North Korea. I don’t know which side of the 38th parallel the people who run the restaurant were from, but either way, their food was amazing. 

We also took a day trip to Portsmouth and toured the historic dockyard and HMS Victory. It was a great trip, and I managed to find a good bargain on a jumper (American translation: sweater).

I didn’t realize it until I was listening to the tour, but HMS Victory is actually older than the United States. The ship was built in 1765! She was an effective warship for 40 years, fighting her most famous battle at Trafalgar in 1805 where she was so heavily damaged (and so old) that the Royal Navy didn’t want to restore her to fighting shape. As someone who is about the same age, I found that part of the ship’s history to be entirely relatable. 

While the in-laws were here, I took my father-in-law to see Spurs, Harlequins, and England rugby. Was him visiting an excuse for me to get out of the house and attend some in-person sporting events I hadn’t been able to see since covid upended all our lives a year and a half ago? Of course not! We were walking through Twickenham, and I noticed that about half the men going to rugby were also wearing blue quarter-zip sweaters. I’m not going native; I just like to be comfy, okay. 

Our sporting experience included sitting behind the goal in Tottenham where Cristiano Ronaldo scored in a match that led to Spurs sacking their manager two days later. I, too, would like to be so good at my job that someone is willing to pay me millions of dollars a year to do it, but just bad enough at my job that they are willing to pay me even more millions of dollars to simply go away and not do it. 

If you saw my post about Piper, you know that our autumn was not all sunshine and roses. We’re still devastated to have lost him. At least once a week I come around a corner and see something orange, and for a split second, I think it’s him. We’ve lost pets over the years, and I know it’s part of life, but losing Piper hit especially hard. He was such a sweet, people-friendly cat. Carissa and I have talked about getting another cat in a few months. We are not, apparently, the kind of people who are capable of optimal function without feline supervision. 

After the in-laws went back home, we had another friend in town visiting. Carissa and our eldest were able to go in and meet her for high tea at Kensington Palace. High tea is a total tourist trap, but I’m told it is worth doing once just to experience the pageantry. Carissa brought me leftover biscuits, so I can’t really complain.

And now, storytime. This is the story of “the little French girl,” aka “why it’s important to be punctual.”

After the in-laws left, I made a trip to Lisbon for work. I was out there for a week and had dinner with various people from my work and some of the other companies that work with us. For one of those dinners, a coworker and I went into central Lisbon to meet some Portuguese colleagues and a couple of our coworkers from Madrid. 

The dinner was at a shopping mall, and Matt and I arrived early. We stopped for a beer–as you do–then went to meet the rest of the group. We weren’t entirely sure where the restaurant was, but we figured it was probably a reasonably nice place (this was a work outing, after all), and the mall wasn’t that big. We searched. We searched some more. Finally, we called someone who spoke English, and they told us to look behind the McDonalds. Not exactly what we were expecting, but sure enough, our place was a little sports bar tucked in behind Micky D’s. 

We find the place and take our seats at the end of the table. Most of the group had already ordered, so Matt and I requested some drinks and checked the menu. The menu was in Portuguese, but between my poor high school Spanish and my willingness to try anything once, I figured I’d be okay. I ordered something that sounded like a hamburger with pulled pork and an egg, which sounded a bit fancy for a burger, but I was willing to roll with it. We chatted about work a while, ate a few appetizers, and the entrees started arriving. 

My “burger” turns out to be a mass of pork, glued together somehow, with an egg on top. Not a bun in sight. Nor any beef, for that matter. Unbeknownst to me, the Portuguese contingent at the other end of the table has all ordered some traditional Portuguese sandwich, and they had convinced one of my Spanish coworkers to try it, too. The server brings out four plates of something perfectly square and covered in some kind of gelatinous orange sauce. The Spanish coworker takes a few bites and starts pushing his food around. Matt, ever a fellow to take the piss out of his mate (American translation: pull a prank on a friend), asks why our colleague hasn’t finished his food, to which the colleague claims that it’s an awful lot of bread, and he had eaten earlier. At this point, I’m feeling like maybe my own gelatinous pork dish was the better option, but then the Portuguese guy beside me explains that this is a very famous dish from Porto. It’s called the “francesinha,” which translates to “little French girl,” and it’s basically the Portuguese take on a croque monsieur, which is–as far as I’m concerned–the food of the gods. 

This news left me in quite a bind. Had I known this dish was so popular, I would have had to try it, but alas I was late for dinner. So the next time I’m in Portugal my options are to order a “little French girl” and immediately be sent to jail as a nonce (American translation: pedophile), or never try this dish. 

So, anyway, that’s why I’m spending Christmas in prison.

The writing continues apace. I’m editing a novel and trying to keep some momentum. I already want to move on to the next thing, so it’s hard to stay focused. Alas, no new sales or publications to report. I put together a post with my stories eligible for 2021 awards. They’re good stories, though I’ll be surprised if they garner much attention. Someday.

We’re planning some travel over the holidays, so perhaps I’ll see you soon. Take care, everyone. Get your vaccinations!