Author: dberger

Craving change, seeking the familiar

I ‘ve been seeing familiar faces around town on my morning runs. Fellow expats from Luxembourg, friends from Seattle, even a friend from California I haven’t seen in decades. None of these people live here, or have any reason to be in London.

Of course, I’m not actually seeing people I know – just people who bear a passing resemblance. My subconscious is seeking the familiar – and when it can’t find it, it creates it. Patterns in the noise.

While part of me is looking for the familiar, mostly we’re drowning in it. We mark time with mundane tasks: the weekly grocery shop – elided this week in favor of delivery to resupply on some things heavier than we wanted to carry home. The alternating biweekly visits from the cleaning service and saturday morning “hoovering” of the apartment. Weekend visits to our neighborhood cafe for breakfast.

I expect Tim Hartford is right – I won’t likely remember many details about what I did during the pandemic.

From that perspective, work has been a welcome distraction. Between the changes brought on by the pandemic, and my moving onto a project predominantly based in Seattle, my work days have shifted to a “makers schedule.” Very different from the last two-and-a-half years. I have something of a habit of fixing foundational things that other people ignore, or work around, and there’s been plenty of opportunity for that of late. It’s not flashy or sexy, but making dozens of my colleagues more efficient and productive is, from my perspective, heavily leveraged.

After successfully feeding ourselves twice a day for just shy of six month, we’ve started occasionally letting someone else cook. We’ve Deliveroo‘ed an occasional meal from local(ish) restaurants. Adding Chinese and Indian to our rotation has been a welcome change, but I quite miss the “out” part of dining out.

In other “non-news,” there’s been no response yet from the DVLA regarding my license application. Despite it feeling like forever in fact it’s only been two weeks since I shipped them off my BRP and paperwork. The messaging on their website respectfully requests I leave them the hell alone until at least three weeks have passed. I email’d them anyway – and got the automated response I expected – “we’ll get to you in due course, now cool your heels and wait your turn.”

I hate waiting.

Papers, please!

I always planned to get my UK driving license. Not because we wanted, or expected, to own a car – but to be able to hire one and reach places transit doesn’t.

On our previous visits to the UK we’ve driven the length and width of the island, but for practice we sorta planned on taking a few car trips in the first year. While we were both permitted to drive on our Seattle licenses. Like nearly everything else, COVID threw a spanner in those works.

So as it turns out, things are starting to re-open in the UK and we’re just past the first anniversary of our arrival and not permitted to drive on our US licenses. So it’s time to take the tests and get licensed.

The initial application for a provisional license was easy – I hand them some basic information, paid the application fee, and at the end was informed that I needed to submit additional information and that “something would arrive by post.”

Said something arrived late last week – a form to sign, and instructions to send them a suitably sized photograph of me and the original – no copies accepted – of either my US Passport or UK Biometric Residence Permit. They’d send it back 2nd class post. Eventually.

The DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) – like any self-respecting government bureaucracy – scoffs at the idea of service level agreements, even during normal times.

And these times are not what you’d call normal.

Without both of those documents I can’t exit and re-enter the UK. So I spent a few minutes figuring out which one was easier to replace if needed (conclusion: they’re pretty equally a pain in the arse) and this afternoon posted my completed form and BRP to Swansea, special next day delivery, with an included special delivery return envelope.

And now, I wait.

And hope the universe doesn’t choose to answer the rhetorical question: “what would be so important that I’d risk traveling back to the US in the next couple months?”

When an errand feels like an adventure, and other thoughts

Long ago, nearly in the before-time, I bought a merino wool base layer from Mountain Warehouse. Since I was ordering anyway, I added a few speculative items to the basket, as did Dawnise. On arrival most of the speculative items were earmarked for return. As the UK was busily shutting down, we put the the stuff in a closet.

(queue time passing)

I thought of that bag, sitting in the closet, on our way home from brunch this morning and decided to see if I could still arrange a return. It was months past purchase, long past their official returns policy. For a while their website had a message about extending return windows, but the message was now gone. So, expecting at least a bit of an argument, I tossed the goods in a backpack and walked a mile to the shop.

Aside from my morning run it’s was the furthest I’ve ventured on foot in months, and in a different direction. A few blocks after setting out I felt like an intrepid explorer. Surely no one has been here for months! I thought. Only to turn a corner and find a few people sitting on benches in park. Hrm. Ok. Clearly someone has. By the time I reached my destination it all seemed almost familiar, and normal. I donned my mask, had a quick chat with the shop attendant who was more than happy to accommodate the return. I took a different route home, arriving just before a sudden cloudburst would have soaked me through.

And now I can tell Dawnise tales of far off lands she hasn’t seen in half a year.

So that was that.

In more serious news, it seems the federal occupation of Portland is extending to more cities, including Seattle. I keep wondering if, one morning, I’m going to wake up to learn our townhouse in the city is under siege. Or is no more.

These are not questions I expect to have to ask about a self-proclaimed first world democracy.

Memories of things to come

We ate dinner at a restaurant tonight. With friends.

It’s hard to describe exactly how unusual that was. And simultaneously how perfectly ordinary.

A good friend of ours has a problem that seems related to acid in her diet. She’s been adhering to a strictly neutral/alkaline diet for a few months, waiting for non-essential medical services to resume so she can get properly tested and diagnosed. Her doctor called with an opening on Monday, and to gather data she needed to eat something close to “regular meals.”

She wanted a steak & a glass of wine, and asked if we’d be up for finding a restaurant and eating with them. To my surprise Dawnise decided she was up for it.

A bit of searching this afternoon revealed that the Flat Iron and the Hawksmoor near us are still closed, and a bit more searching by our friend secured us a booking at Blacklock.

We got dressed. Dawnise did her hair and put on makeup and heels. I wore a proper shirt. And shoes. And a watch.

And we walked to meet them.

The restaurant took a bunch of seemingly reasonable steps – the doors at both ends of the large room were left open to the outside. Every other table was left empty. Our server asked about how close we were comfortable with her getting, and there were hand sanitizer stations strategically placed around the room.

The food was fine, but more important was we were out.

And there were moments, talking to good friends, eating food we neither cooked nor collected, that felt so… normal.

P.S. When we got home, the cats collected around Dawnise on the sofa, seemingly having forgotten that in the “before-time” the humans were not here as often as they were.

Something to say when you’ve nothing to say…

Another month of Blendsdays (thanks for that, Mike, it’s now cemented in my vocabulary) have passed. Our status is largely unchanged.

I got a much needed haircut when the hair dressers were allowed to re-open a few weeks back. Our favorite neighborhood cafe reopened at the same time, and we’ve been going for breakfast on the weekends. Their shakshuka is delicious, and we want them to survive this insanity.

Our regular trips to Monmouth in Borough Market have been replaced with regular delivery. Dawnise had exchanged WhatsApp messages with our “coffee sommelier”* before the lock-down, so we’ve been able to solicit her advice on newly available beans to try. (*our tongue-in-cheek description of a staff member we got to know, and who got to know our taste in coffee, across our regular visits to the shop.)

To our ongoing amazement Dawnise and I have managed to feed ourselves every day, multiple times a day – and aside from perhaps a half dozen take away orders, we’ve cooked it all. Lunches got a bit of variety when Trade re-opened for take-away a couple weeks ago. Damn good pastrami.

Looking for ways to support organizations we value, and in the hope we’ll eventually be able to use some of the benefits, we established memberships with Art Fund, The National Trust, English Heritage, and Historic Houses. We donated to Acting for Others, and bought Theatre Tokens.

Amazon has extended its official work from home policy, for roles that can, through early next year. I started working in a different part of the company about a month ago – so I’ve spent the last couple weeks acquiring the hardware I need and getting ramped up on the new people the new problems.

So I guess you could say we’re having a ‘comfortable pandemic’ – for which we both feel immeasurably fortunate. We hope that’s true of you and yours, too.

Less comfortably, it’s impossible to find words to describe how distressing it’s been and continues to be watching events in the US from a distance. The pandemic and arguments about response and the path forward, the protests against police brutality and the events that catalyzed them, the ham fisted and ineffective federal response to… everything.

This morning I woke to read about armed, camouflage-wearing shock troopers prowling Portland in unmarked vans abducting protesters.

With all due respect, what the actual fuck, America?

That was never five minutes just now…

It’s difficult to believe that a year ago today Dawnise and I landed at Heathrow, bags in tow, cats in pursuit, to take up residence in the UK. Clearly neither of us could have possibly imagined the year ahead.

A year ago we were busy getting ourselves and our bags to our temporary accommodation, picking up our residence permits, looking for pet supplies, meeting up with friends, and generally starting to get to know our new neighborhood and city.

Today we spent the day – as we’ve spent the vast majority of the past three months – in our apartment. We made and ate breakfast and played a game.

This afternoon, in a break from the normal, we were joined by friends for a visit on our deck, and shared Afternoon Tea with them, delivered by the Firmdale Hotel.

This evening, as I type, we’re sitting on the sofa – watching St. Paul’s out the window and a live stream of the Stonehenge solstice sunset, compliments of English Heritage.

As England relaxes it’s COVID alert level and continues to relax restrictions, I’m looking forward to eventually being able to get a haircut. I have more hair than I’ve had since the 80’s, despite Dawnise’s timely suggestion that I get a haircut on what turned out to be the day before hair dressers closed.

Beyond that, one day I even hope to be able to meet friends in a pub, and Dawnise is eyeing an eventual return to the west end.

The centre cannot hold

[Warning: Politics Ahead.]

I just finished reading Drutman’s Breaking the Two Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.

If you’re frustrated, or despondent, at the state of politics in America you should read it.

If you’re not frustrated at the state of American politics – because you’ve stopped paying attention – you should read it, too.

Drutman’s core argument is roughly that despite being two-party in name for the decades when American government was seen as being the most effective it was, practically speaking, a four party system. Factions of conservative-leaning Democrats and liberal-leaning Republicans enabled compromise.

Drutman presents a compelling argument that the breakdown of this “effectively four party” system into two well sorted parties leads directly to our current “lesser-of-two evils” state, and is the root cause of much of the fundamental dysfunction in American politics and government.

What makes his analysis different, and recommended reading, is that he proposes a plausible solution that doesn’t require a constitutional amendment and doesn’t immediately fail the sniff test.

Not to spoil the ending, but Drutman proposes abandoning winner-take-all elections and adopting single winner ranked choice voting for Senate seats and multi-winner ranked choice voting for House seats, while enlarging the house and expanding two-parties into between four and six.*

He supports this proposal with evidence from other countries that have done similar things, and with examples from America’s past where seemingly impossible electoral and political reform happened.

My read of his proposal is that it isn’t particularly partisan – it doesn’t help one party at the cost of the other. It fundamentally changes the election game and makes room for collaboration and compromise in a system that’s lost that ability by choice, accident, and design. He persuasively argues and presents evidence that this has worked in other countries, and that it can work in America.

I found the book well researched, considered and methodical in its approach, and focused on a concrete problem and a potential solution. I don’t know if what Drutman proposes will work, or can work, but I can’t find fault with his fundamental thesis: that American democracy is on a course to tear itself apart.

It’s up to America, and Americans, to find a way to fix it.

Next on the reading list: How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future.

* I’ve been supporting FairVote for several years, but honestly never saw it as part of a larger potential fix for American politics.

[24-May]

** For more thoughts on the subject of how the two party sorting contributes to the problem, consider Rethinking Polarization, by Rauch [nationalaffairs.com].

All the news that’s fit … or something

I’ve been a bit remiss of late in publishing updates. Mea culpa. Things have been simultaneously tumultuous and incredibly mundane.

I started working from home the first week of March. I stood at the stair rail for a week or so – my computer propped on a desk made of a box and a book.

By the time we saw City of Angels on the 10th, it was clear the city – and especially the west end – were running on borrowed time.

We encouraged a friend of ours, whose sabbatical year in Europe was rapidly unraveling, to accelerate her planned transit from Spain by a week and offered up our guest room while she figured out her next move. She arrived on the 16th, the day the theaters closed, and we condensed her planned “London experience” into a meal at The Wilmington, nearly-deserted on the night of her arrival and shut down the following day, and breakfast at our favorite local cafe the next morning.

She managed to see a few sights as the city shut down around her, and by the end of the week on the advice of her University, and a little help from the same, had abandoned her booked accommodation and secured a flight back to the US.

Our cleaning service came the day she departed, right on schedule. It turned out that would be the last visit for a while.

All the local restaurants in our bit of London quickly closed – not having sufficient traffic to support themselves without the daily crowd commuting into The City.

After our guest had departed, Dawnise pointed out that the guest room wasn’t likely to see any guests for a while and encouraged me to make it my office. After dragging my feet for a few days I disassembled the guest bed and took her advice. I bought a “podium-cum-standing-desk” from Amazon and dragged the Poäng in from the master bedroom. I’ve strongly resisted buying anything I can’t easily stash once we can welcome visitors again.

The next few weeks were punctuated with emails informing of us canceled theater bookings and concerts, news about new transport closures, and reminders from Transport for London not to take the tube except for essential journeys.

We live around the corner from the Barbican Waitrose – I’d typically stop on my way home to pickup whatever bits and bobs we needed for dinner that evening. Like everywhere else there was an initial run on stock – with some staples (like flour) only now returning to pre-panic levels. We’ve shifted our shopping to a weekly larger shop, Dawnise typically does the shopping and I meet her there to help mule it home.

In the long long ago I worked from home full time for a few years, and once I had a home office, it didn’t take us long to remember old habits that worked. Punctuating the start and stop of the work day, being conscious to eat an actual lunch on a regular schedule and not just wandering into the kitchen to snack.

I largely spend weekends reading – either short form, often COVID-related, or long form, continuing to alternate between fiction and non-fiction. Along the way I’ve written a couple blog posts I didn’t think worth sending to the mailing list. At some point I found an offer for three free months of Fender Play and pulled the guitar out of the closet. I hadn’t touched it in years, and forgotten most everything. I guess the good news is I forgot all the bad habits, too.

Dawnise has been reading, cultivating sourdough and baking with it, killing unsuspecting alternate-history Brits in We Happy Few, and of late amusing Facebook friends with the photographic adventures of QWar and Tina – if you Facebook, you can search for “#QWarandTina”

The weather has been, on average, frustratingly nice, which hasn’t helped compliance with the “Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives” directive. We feel very fortunate to have a deck and easy access to the out-of-doors. We bought a stand for an umbrella left by the last tenants, and I have a better tan than I’ve had since our last trip to Hawaii.

Boris Johnson addressed the nation last night to lay out a roadmap for reopening. It was hardly the Saint Crispin’s Day speech, but it was mostly coherent (aside from maybe the “we have a 1-5 scale, and we’re between 3 and 4” bit) and I’m pretty sure he actually understood the words he used.

We both struggle occasionally to keep perspective. We’re both healthy, safe, and mostly as sane as we were when this all hit the fan. That it’s completely fubar’d our travel plans for the year puts us in good company. We try with varying success to not focus on the work it took to get here.

So here we are. Living in London. Aside from when I’m out for a morning run the city outside our windows could be a matte painting.

I can’t throw a rock far enough to tell.

A Moment of Serenity

I (re)started running last month. I picked a route – from our flat to St. Paul’s Cathedral and back – that was about the 2 miles I had been running on the treadmill.

One morning I deviated from my planned course – mostly-but-not-entirely on-purpose. When I got home it turned out I’d run 5k at a reasonable pace, so I decided to make that “the new normal” and started sticking to that route. (Except for one morning when I took a different turn sorta on purpose, ended up turned around and basically lost, but that’s a different story.)

The route approached Saint Paul’s from the back, continued past, and returned to our flat via most of a mile straight down a major road. One morning on a whim I decided to reverse the route. Run the boring bit first, jog through a few turns (there are few rectilinear intersections in London) and run toward Saint Paul’s.

That simple change made a dramatic difference.

This morning I ran up to Saint Paul’s as the hourly bells started to chime.

I took off my headphones and stood – silent and still, not another soul in sight – and got lost in the sound of the bells.