"...Hello lamppost, whatcha knowin'?...." -- Paul Simon

 The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) was on the Simon & Garfunkel "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" album and clearly a Paul Simon number but the hit was the cover by Harper's Bizarre out of Santa Cruz CA. An eclectic group with tight harmony, I had their "Anything Goes" album (1967) that also covered songs by Doug Kershaw and the title tune by Cole Porter, a Glenn Miller tune plus others. Kinda odd for the day.

What brought this to mind was my expedition yesterday to find some isopropyl alcohol to make a cleaning solution. But it's one of those items that is simply Not Available in the UK or the EU, though it's $1 a pint anywhere in the US. I am unsure why this is the case (also unsure why the hydrogen peroxide here is 9% to 12% while it's 3% in the US) but them's the facts. The point is I had another adventure in a new neighborhood and that's what I love the most about what we're doing.

There is good street art here, unlike the trash graffiti in Vienna.

 It's days like yesterday and today's grocery excursion when I miss my boys, because they'd just absolutely be in their element here. Particularly my oldest. My dad was one of those guys who could sell ice to the Inuit or shit to a cow. While I am a lousy salesman, I thrive on meeting new people and simply talking to them. I went into the local liquor store the other day and bought some bourbon and it was....

Clerk: Do you need a bag?

Me: No I'm good thanks.

Clerk: Oh! You're the American I've heard about!

Dunno what she's heard, but the reception wasn't hostile. My sons would love the daily integration with the locals and inside of a month we'd know everything. We'd have beers and share stories and it'd be great. We are those who literally make friends with that lamppost. Or at least try. I have a local butcher and a local produce place and conversations in both places are wonderfully educational for both sides. I mentioned to the Produce Lady that I was making a meatloaf and she pulled me aside.

Produce Lady: I heard "meatloaf" on Young Sheldon last night. What exactly is it?

Me: (explains my recipe) But there are lots of others

Produce Lady: Is Young Sheldon an accurate portrayal of Texas?

Me: His parents are comic stereotypes. But his grandmother is dead-on.

I need to bring her some meatloaf.

This isn't to exclude my daughter, but she'd love it in a different way. I was sitting in a pub last week with a cask ale and thinking about how much she'd enjoy it. Just a difference in approaches. 

As mentioned in other posts, we're not in a tourist area. Those are farther south in the City Center by the ferry terminal and the Cavern Club and the old Cunard headquarters. We're in basically a working-class neighborhood of 100-year-old buildings where an American accent isn't daily. While everything in the building works okay, the plumbing is old-school and the heat is radiator. Paying our own utilities is running about $120/month for gas and roughly half that (or less) for electric.

I've pretty much got the bus routes down, after a few gaffes headed in the wrong direction. Gah! Next stop! Good thing the stops aren't too far apart so I can walk to make corrections.

Denise had a tight observation tonight, that she misses Vienna as a city but will miss Liverpool's people. I concur completely. We met our neighbor David last night. He is a kind of addiction counselor and spent some time as a roadie for Ringo Starr a decade or so ago. He gave us a Liverpool 800-year anniversary coin and a piece of brick from inside the original Cavern Club. A nice gesture.  

Got an email from Air France the other day. In late March, we are scheduled to fly from Martinique to Paris, going from Fort de France to nearby Guadeloupe for a five-hour layover before the non-stop to Paris. But the plane from FDF to Guadeloupe has apparently been cancelled and there is no reschedule. So we will have to negotiate this island-to-island move in some other way. This is part of the adventure. Brings to mind Jimmy Buffett's "No Plane On Sunday" -- a song all of us should hear periodically.

We're headed to Scotland again tomorrow, this time to Edinburgh. We're trolling these days for holiday gifts as the Christmas decorations begin to go up around here. Without a Thanksgiving, things start earlier -- if you can imagine. I won't be sending big gifts -- just small trinkets of Being Someplace. I sent a postcard to my granddaughter in Florida the other day. I'll keep doing that if it's okay. I haven't seen her since the day she was born. I have yet to meet my newest grandson. Being Out Here has its prices more than just monetary. I feel like a shitheel for missing my daughter's wedding but, well, we were committed.

Speaking of such, I am a bit heartened by the election results in the US but not convinced it marks much of a change. While voting and reproductive rights have been hugely supported, the GOP's war against them will continue. This colors all we do Out Here. We'll see.

"...slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last...."