Rob: Bob’s your uncle! Codswallup! Bangers and mash! BLAH BLAH BLAH HOGWARTS.

Me: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Speak American, please.

Rob: Ahem … Did you know that up until the 1950s or 60s, the U.K. had non-decimal money? So we’d have coins for seemingly random amounts.

Me: (open-handedly slapping Rob across the face) Don’t lie to me, boy.

I swear, it happened just like that. Except for the parts that didn’t. Anyway, the important part is that Rob claimed the U.K. had non-decimal currency. Meaning that the values of coins weren’t based on the pound being divided into 100 equal parts. Instead, he explained, the pound had been divided into 240 pence.

And honestly, I kind of dismissed it along with all the other crazy things Rob says about England.

I feel like I should apologize for this. I'm not going to, but I feel like I should.

“We drive on the other side of the road! Bell peppers are called capiscums! We have national healthcare, and the government hasn’t collapsed!”

Yeah, right.

So you can imagine my skepticism when I received this email from Rob…

I seemed to remember a little disbelief when I told you that the UK had non-decimal money up until the 1950s / ’60s.

I got clarification from my parents while they’re here:

The smallest unit – then as now – was a penny. (Though I’ll contradict this shortly.)

There were twelve pence in a shilling, and twenty shillings in a pound.

Therefore, a pound was 240 pence.

A shilling was often referred to as a ‘bob’, eg: people would refer to a ‘ten bob note’ (=10 shillings, half a pound, or 120 pence.)

We had a florin, which was two shillings, the coin looked like you American quarters (colloquially was called a two-bob-bit.)

We had a crown, which was a quarter of a pound, but what was much more popular was the half crown: this could be described as a an eighth of a pound, but was typically thought of as two shillings and sixpence.

We had a 6 pence coin (sixpence, though also called the tanner or half-shilling) and a 3 pence coin (threepence, but more often pronounced thrupence or threppeny-bit.)

The penny was also subdivided: we had a ha’penny coin (half a pence, we had this coin until 1984) and a farthing coin (quarter of a pence)

We also had the concept of a ‘guinea’ – which was 1 pound and one shilling (ie:21 shillings) it was used until relatively recently (still an important amount in horse racing), but we’ve not had a guinea coin for a while.

Finally, the nomenclature was to use the £ sign for pounds, s for shillings, and d for pence, so fifty bob, 3 and a half pence

would be written: £2.10s.3.1/2d

Here ends today’s lesson.

-
Naturally, upon reading this, I declared Rob full of crap and proceeded to slap a photo of him (as he was not nearby). But then I started doing a little research, and it would appear, as crazy as it sounds, that Rob might actually not be making this up. For years, the monetary system was outdated, and pounds were divided into 240 parts (before you start freaking out about how crazy that is, tell me how many feet are in a mile. Yeah, you have no idea, do you?) That changed on February 17, 1971, a.k.a. Decimal Day, when the monetary system switched from the old pence (worth 1/240th of a pound) to the new pence (worth 1/100th) of a pound. A few years prior, the first of the new coins made an appearance on the High Street, causing a lot of confusion, but fortunately very little rioting (The English are very polite. If this had happened in Texas, there would have been blood).

So, wow. Rob was right. He wasn’t just messing with us. I guess I can trust his postscript, too:

Did I mention that if you press the back of the 25p coin in the correct way, it plays a recorded message from the Queen of England?

Ah, the English. So like us humans, and yet, so different.

-

Have I mentioned how good I am?

I mean, technically good?

As in, I rarely ever, every break the law? In that respect, I’m an angel. By all other definitions, I’m basically on par with people who eat puppies and talk during movies (Quiz time: guess which of those activities I do regularly!). But that’s beside the point – as far as the state of Washington is concerned, I’m hardly evil at all.

At least, I was. Until tonight. Because tonight, in my very own home, a law was broken.

In front of my mom.

And my aunt and uncle, brother-in-law and husband. And my dear, adorable 15-year-old cousin, who I allowed to be corrupted.

Basically, the scene went something like this:

My brother-in-law was coming to dinner tonight, and since my aunt and cousin are visiting from Italy, I figured I’d invite them too, along with my uncle. I don’t know how my mom found out about it, since I left no forwarding address at my last place of residence, but whatever (also, I may have invited her, and she may have been a delightful dinner guest. I’m admitting nothing).

Rand opened up a bottle of wine, and he went around the table, filling stemmed glasses. All of them. Including one he had placed in front of my dear, uncorrupted, 15-year-old cousin.

“Babe,” I said, positively oozing sarcasm, “Are you trying to get Giovanni drunk?”

Rand shrugged. “Why not?” he said.

“Yeah,” Giovanni’s mom chimed in, “Why not?”

Of course, Giovanni didn’t get drunk. No where near it, actually. This is in part, I’m sure, due to the fact that he’s, like, a million feet tall. And also because, as a young man living in Italy, he’s been trained to drink a bottle of wine with dinner since the age of two. Instead, he was in the company of family, drinking a small portion of wine with dinner.

BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Crimes were broken. Laws were committed. CRAZINESS HAPPENED.

Here’s a basic rundown of what happened (I read somewhere that police like to have this sort of thing, because it makes conviction easier. I assume that since I’m helping the police, I’ll get full immunity.).

• My cousin leaves Italy, a hellish and unhinged place. The entire country has no official drinking age, resulting in moral depravity that is destined to tear the country apart. Italians, as a result, are deeply unhappy and unattractive people. Behold:
  -
  

  Ewww, right?

  -

• He comes to America, where SHIT IS AWESOME.
  -
  

  America: Replacing bread with donuts since 2008.

  -

• I invite Giovanni, his parents, and my mother over to dinner. Storm clouds gather on the horizon.
• My husband pours Giovanni a small glass of wine. My aunt and uncle, so entrenched in their own depravity, have no problem with this.
• GIOVANNI DRINKS THE WINE. Thunder rumbles and lightning cracks.
• He doesn’t get drunk, but rather exhibits a maturity that most people twice his age lack when in the presence of alcohol. BUT THAT DOESN’T MATTER. In failing to stop him from imbibing, we break the law and are all instantly damned to hell.
• I am going to have to devote my life to Jesus and Paula Deen in order to be forgiven.

And there you have it, folks. Instead of teaching my cousin about all the wondrous things that American has to offer (Capitalism! Cherpumple! The highest number of prison inmates per capita!), I allowed him to be corrupted by drinking wine. He should have waited until he was 21 and got blitzed while in a seedy bar, rather than learning to respect alcohol in social settings from a young age, surrounded by loved ones. That’s the way we do it here in America, WHERE GOD LIVES.

Fortunately, he’ll be going back to Italy soon, where that sort of thing is legal. Then we can put all this ugliness behind us, like we did Feminism and permed hair.

And I can go back to being my sweet, law-abiding self.

-

P.S. – I just remembered that I occasionally speed, attempt to cheat the system whenever possible, and am constantly violating copyright, despite being a copywriter. So I guess I lied before about not breaking any laws. But you believed me, so we’re both kind of at fault.

More than anything in the world, really (with one glaring exception). I am obsessed with it, in a way that few people will understand. Occasionally, I will rifle through old pictures, and find photos of cakes I made long ago. I remember them fondly, like old lovers.

I long for them in the middle of the night. When I daydream, my thoughts fall to them. And I must make a conscious decision, every time I am at the grocery store, to buy groceries and not an entire sheet cake or three.

Recently, a friend of mine got married, and I started dancing around in anticipation of the cake, and other numerous goodies that were on the dessert table. And after standing an excruciating few minutes in line (DEAR GOD THE HUMANITY) I was finally able to get to the front, where I might have piled an obscene number of sweets onto my plate.

Later, I sat amongst my friends, frosting smudged across my lips, drool dripping from my mouth, and slowly slipped into a mild diabetic coma. It was glorious.

“I want more cake,” I managed to wheeze. My lungs were being crushed by buttercream.

“Then get a second slice,” someone said.

“I already did.”

“Then try one of the little cakes,” they suggested.

“You mean a petite four? I already had one.” (I know cake terminology well.)

“Then get a cookie.”

This is where it started to get embarrassing.

“Um … I did.” I said.

At this point, everyone started to giggle. I would have, too, but my abdominal muscles had turned to sponge cake. I have suppressed any shame over my sweet-tooth. I simply eat my weight in vegetables and do copious amounts of yoga in a struggle to counteract it. And still, despite my efforts … This baby? She got back.

Moments after finishing my plate of goodies, Rand appeared.

“I brought you a slice of cake,” he said. This is why he is the love of my life. However wonderful cake is, it will never be able to bring me another slice of itself.

“I couldn’t possibly,” I said, and everyone laughed. Then, slowly, their grins faded. Why? Because I ate the third piece.

Like I said: I love cake.

——————

A few months ago, another friend of ours – Rob – got married, and we were unable to make the wedding, as it was in England. When Rob got back to the states, he told us he had a surprise: he had brought us a slice of his wedding cake.

I nearly died. Cake. FOREIGN CAKE. So overjoyed was I by this news, that I didn’t bother to ask any of the relevant questions that may have already popped into your mind: Mainly, how the hell can cake survive a trip back from the U.K in one piece? And how old was this particular piece, anyway?

After all, Rob got hitched in early July …

But no, these things did not bother me. THROW CAUTION TO THE WIND, my heart screamed. THIS IS CAKE!  NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR SHELF LIFE NOR SPECIOUS QUALITY WILL DETER ME. Ahem. Besides, as Rob explained, English wedding cakes are generally fruitcakes, which means they’re loaded with alcohol, which preserves them. Longtime readers know how I feel about alcohol and dessert (Blah, blah, blah margarita cupcake!).

And they last forever. No, really. FOREVER:

They weren’t like our “sponge cakes” as Rob described them (which is an accurate term for what we consider cake here, and yet, we never specify that. We generally assume all cakes are sponge cakes, don’t we?). They have a limited shelf life. But what Rob had brought? It might outlive us.

Rand distrusts the cake. But wouldn't you, if you met your greatest competition for your wife's affection?

-

Rand was wary. I was not. After all, it’s cake. My first love. My truest friend. So when Rob handed me a plastic container containing a dark slice, I might have done a happy dance.

But I tried to reserve my excitement. This was a different animal, I reminded myself.

But ... it's still cake, right?

-

I scooped up a small bit with my fork, and brought the dark, dense confection to my lips. The verdict? It tastes of rum and spices, dried fruit and sugar. It reminded me of the holidays. There was a layer of marzipan and icing on top, which for some reason brought to mind a licorice all-sort: chewy and fragrant and very, very sweet.

Rand and I both had the same reaction: It was pretty good. Clearly, it was an excellent articulation of an English wedding cake … but it wasn’t what I had hoped it would would be. I won’t crave it in the middle of the night. I won’t think about it when my husband is out-of-town and I’m feeling lonely.

Pictures of me eating sponge cake are unavailable, as I can moving into my face at speeds my camera can’t keep up with. This is not the case with fruitcake:

Things that make you go, "It's pretty alright."

Was it cake? By definition, perhaps. But in my heart, it wasn’t. The proof? I didn’t devour the whole thing.

Well, not yet anyway.

*Note: there were cuter photos of me eating cake, but Rand decided to make them cleavage shots, so they’re not included in this post.

Instead, this post has everything to do with me. Or, more specifically, my mom.

See, she’s just discovered Facebook.

Since joining, she immediately friended one of my ex-boyfriends, posted half a dozen links about the existence of extra-terrestrial life, and called me every five minutes for days on end, asking me if I had seen her recent status updates and what I thought of her new profile picture.

The result is awkward, yet somehow endearing. To my mom, the internet is a new and strange place. She’s been an immigrant before, and now she’s a digital immigrant, to boot. She’s traveling in a strange new world, and only vaguely understands internet etiquette. She says things on Facebook that I wouldn’t in a million years consider posting.

And yet, there’s nothing wrong with that. Because when you explore new lands, there’s no right or wrong. It’s kind of like travel (HOLY CRAP, I AM MANAGING TO TIE THIS POST TO TRAVEL). You may not know all the customs. You may do things that other people find strange, or weird. But as long as you’re open-minded, willing to make friends, and your heart is in the right place?

Things will be just fine.

So, without further ado, some crazy/delightful ways my mom has used Facebook, and a few faux pas she’s committed.

1. Here are three posts from her in a row. Tell me if you see a pattern.

Did you find the pattern? That's right: each post starts with a consonant.

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2. Quizzes are apparently as worthwhile and legitimate as sworn testimony. My mother found out which 18th century philosopher she was, posted the results, and then proceeded to do a ton of research on said philosopher. Upon discovering that there was something she disagreed with, she immediately deleted the results of the quiz, freaked out that her friends will now think she’s bonkers, and posted roughly half-a-dozen status updates about how she really doesn’t believe in a categorical imperative. Somewhere therein? I received a frantic phone call about the incident.

No one is going to take the results that seriously if they involve Jessica Rabbit.

-

3. She and my Auntie P. bicker on Facebook. I’m not gonna lie: This is pure awesome, and I occasionally have been known to egg them on.

They insisted walking me home, otherwise I'd "get murdered."

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4. She takes things far too literally. So if you ask, “What’s on your mind?” as Facebook prompts people to in status updates …

-

5. She doesn’t realize when a phone call is better. When my brother’s cat died (he had left it with my mom a few years ago because his then-girlfriend-now-wife was allergic), my mom announced it on Facebook before telling anyone. Actually, she didn’t so much announce it as vaguely reference it (which she felt would be easier on everyone), leaving us to make our own conclusions …

-

6. Movie quotes? Yeah, she ain’t gonna catch those. Still, it’s pretty cute how encouraging she is, given that out-of-context, my brother sounds nuts..

If you can immediately guess the movie, then you are a bigger dork than I.

-

7. Sometimes, she makes sense. These are the scariest moments of all.

You wish your mom was this awesome.

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8. She makes up emoticons. I have no idea what this means:

I think this is a chicken being urinated on.

-

9. She … Well, this is just awkward:

But still, I kind of love her for stuff like this.

-

10. She takes a stand against the most random things. Don Quixote has his windmills. My mom has sidewalks.

Don't get her started on the douchey crosswalk.

Crazy, right? And yet, so damn delightful. A lot like my mom, actually. After all, I might complain or tease or poke fun, but honestly, if she used Facebook like everyone else did? I’d be miserably bored. Remember that next time you’re traveling, and are fairly sure the Italians (or the French, or the Germans, or whoever … but mostly the Italians) are nuts. If we were all the same, it would be so damn dull.

Plus, I’m sure if I looked hard enough, I might find something inappropriate that I had said on Facebook …

Okay, fine. I didn't have to look hard at all.

Wow. I’m kind of an asshole.

No, I wasn’t drunk. Nor had I ingested any sort of chemical that would cause me to wax poetic over my own cultural identity. But when you’re surrounded by folks who’s grandparents or parents or great-grandparents hail from vastly different places, it’s a strange and interesting thing to think that we all fit under the same big star-spangled umbrella. It’s a warm and happy thought, actually (provided you don’t think about the plight of Native Americans. Then, the warm and happy feeling dissipates pretty quickly and wonder if heading to the casino will assuage your guilt. It won’t).

My thoughts were made more complex when I asked my husband why he considered me “Italian.” For the record, I don’t, nor have I ever, described myself this way. I generally say, “My family’s Italian” (when I’m not saying, simply, “My family’s nuts.”) But I describe myself as an American. I was born here. I grew up here. And yet Rand will, on ocassion, say, “My wife is Italian.”

I asked him why he did this. And to him, with his Jewish-American parents and grandparents, my upbringing was foreign. We spoke mostly Italian (though my mother and brother and I didn’t speak it generally amongst ourselves, when any other family members were around, it was almost exclusively Italian). On weekends and during the summer we ate a big meal with my grandparents at around 2pm. It was pasta. Nearly every single day without question, pasta.

My parents on their wedding day, along with my mom's family, in Rome. Notice my nonno never took off his shades.

Nevertheless, I don’t think it was an Italian upbringing. Nor do I think it was Italian-American (that is a different animal all together, and one more foreign to me than most things I’ve encountered). I think, instead, it was an immigrant upbringing. Rand’s logic in calling me Italian isn’t entirely accurate, but it does reflect a key element of his thinking: that my upbringing was not a stereotypically American one.

And yet, and yet, and yet. When I think about all my friends – my undisputedly born-and-raised-in-the-United-States friends, I realize that many of them had upbringings similar to mine. Though they weren’t Italian, they were the children of immigrants, nevertheless. They spoke Korean or Spanish or Norwegian in their homes. Their parents didn’t have American accents (and some spoke little to no English at home). They had Vegemite or kimchee or other “strange” food items in their homes that needed to be purchased at specialty shops. The only difference for me was that pasta and tomatoes are sold at the regular grocery store.

Our relatives were all from somewhere, and it wasn’t here. We were bonded together by our diversity, our shared sense of being “the other.”

When I went to Italy, this realization hit me stronger than ever. I sat with my cousin’s friends, watching shooting stars on an August night over their village. A few of them chatted, casually mentioning their parents or other relatives whom everyone else knew. For many of them, their parents had been friends. Their grandparents had known each other. Their families had been in the same village for hundreds of years.

And I realized: they were all Italian. Every single one of them. I mean, it’s obvious, I’m sure – but imagine hanging out with a group of your friends, and having them all be the same ethnicity. It’s such a rare thing to come by in the United States, that the thought of it just sounds bizarre. But more than that, it was so strange that were Italian and lived in Italy. There was no sense of being an immigrant or foreign or different. Not sense of moving some place.

It was so weird.

Every American I know is American and something else. That’s what it means to be American, really. And so, getting back to my family …

My mom is Italian. Despite her American citizenship and American children and having lived here for 30 years, there’s never been any doubt of this in my mind. She’s loud and neurotic and can’t wait in line to save her life. People note her unidentifiable accent and ask her where she’s from, to which she proudly replies, “Rome.”

Many words come to mind when I think of my mom. "American" is not one of them.

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A few years ago, my mother and I spent two weeks in Italy. It was the first time in years that mom and I had traveled together alone, and the first time she’d been back to Italy in ages. We were at her brother’s home, and my little cousin graciously brought my mom a cappuccino in a large Starbucks mug decorated with the Seattle skyline.

“Zia,” he said, “Because you’re American, you get the cup from America.”

My mother sat, speechless for a few moments. Finally, she spoke.

“After years of Americans calling me Italian, an Italian just called me American.”

And all I could think was, “Well, of course.”

"Now you know how to greet people in Icelandic!" Um, no. No, I don't.

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Sorry, Flickr. But I actually don’t even know what half of those characters are. So saying I now know how to greet people in Icelandic is far-fetched, to say the least. Plus, based on my experiences as of late, I’ve found that if someone thinks you know even one or two expressions in a language, they assume you are fluent. I am guilty of this as well (see: the time I started prattling on to a girl who told me her family was from Napoli, and who, to our mutual embarrassment, later explained that she didn’t actually speak a word of Italian). So I can imagine myself typing this Icelandic expression at the beginning of an email, only to get a reply which I not only don’t understand, but which includes characters unsupported by my computer.

So how about we tweak this to say, “Now you theorectically know what it looks like when someone is trying to greet you in Icelandic via email.”

Not as catchy, but hey – it’s honest.

-

During our trip to Scotland, we were made aware (by some proud Scots) of the fact that the country prints its own currency. In fact, three major banks in Scotland all print bills: The Clydesdale Bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and the Bank of Scotland (un-Royal). For all intents and purposes, the Scottish bills should have the same value (and exchange rate) as the English pound-notes that are also accepted throughout Scotland.

I say should, because in practice things tend to be a bit different.

One of our Scottish hosts proudly displayed some bills to us (the source of the pride being that the bills were Scottish), explaining that on more than one occasion proprietors in England had attempted to refuse the currency.

Don’t let world spread about this, because there is no way that the red states would accept a Californey quarter if they thought they had a choice.

But let’s get down to what the heck is going on with Scotland and the U.K., shall we? I found the whole thing incredibly confusing, and when you find that Wikipedia is the best source on the subject, it’s time to curl up in a ball and admit that the whole thing is effed up.

Here’s my understanding of it. If anyone knows any more about the issue, please feel free to jump in. Let’s start with legal tender.

To quote Rand, “legal tender is not what you think it is.” Personally, I had thought that legal tender was, well, legal money. As long as you didn’t print it in your basement, and ol’ George doesn’t have the gout, I figured it was legal tender. Apparently, this isn’t the case.

In fact, legal tender actually has a very narrow definition that pertains to the settlement of debts. It is an offered payment that cannot be legally refused in the settlement of a debt. It really has very little do with whether or not a form of payment is against the law or not (for example, debit cards, credit cards, and personal checks are widely accepted everywhere, but according to this definition, they are not legal tender).

Scottish notes are also not considered legal tender anywhere in the U.K. Not even in Scotland. So they can’t be used to repay debts, apparently, but instead function more as a promissory note (i.e., I am giving you this bill, which has the value of 5 pounds sterling, or whatever). In fact, no banknotes (not even those from the Bank of England) are accepted as legal tender in Scotland. Which I imagine would make it very hard to repay a debt.

But just because the Scottish bills aren’t legal tender doesn’t mean they aren’t legal. The banks in Scotland that print their own notes  have the right to do so as dictated by Parliament. The money is legal – and while technically people can refuse it in payment of a debt, most don’t.

Here’s where it gets tricky: if you are buying something in the U.K., the store must accept Scottish bills as payment. But if you have already received services from an establishment (as in, they served you a meal or gave you a cab ride) and you are in debt to them, they can then refuse Scottish bills, as they are not legal tender.

Sounds ridiculous, right? But according to one of our Scottish hosts, this has happened to him, and he basically told the waitstaff that it was either Scottish money or they weren’t getting paid at all, and they eventually caved and took the bill. He said that he had encountered the same thing with cabbies.

When we got to London, Rand asked a cab driver if he would accept Scottish currency. He said that generally he would, but some drivers wouldn’t on the grounds that their other passengers wouldn’t accept it back in the form of change. So while they recognized it’s value, it still created problems.

Sigh. The worst part, though, was that we found that internationally some currency exchange places will give you a different (worse) rate for Scottish bills than for English ones.  The matter has understandably upset a lot of Scottish tourists overseas.

Bottom line? Scotland’s money has the same value as British money. It just isn’t always easy to convince people of it.

Hold on ... this seems like a good time to hit on the groom.

I’ve loads to tell you. I have a few more posts about Scotland I need to get out of my system, a couple on San Diego, and at least a half dozen on New Orleans (which might be one of my new favorite cities). Right now the trips are racking up faster than I can blog about them – and I’m well aware I shouldn’t complain. Blah, blah, blah, boo-hoo for me because my life is awesome.

But keep one thing in mind: I am a neurotic spazz. Several weeks ago, I had the sort of exchange with one of Rand’s colleagues that make you want to crawl into a cave, and never, ever come back. It was entirely unintentional, but without meaning to, I inadvertantly might have said that I presumed the guy didn’t wear the same size underwear as Rand, because he was clearly bigger than him.

I could explain more about the circumstances and the context, but really, I doubt it would make things better. I’m basing this on the fact that when I tried explaining myself in the moment, after having seen Rand et al’s faces, things only got worse.

“No, no, I just meant to say that you are longer than him … I MEAN TALLER! TALLER THAN HIM. Not longer. NO. Noooo … I don’t know how long you are.”

When I replay the scene in my head, it’s not unlike watching “Meet the Parents” – it would almost be funny if it weren’t quite so excruciating. The sort of thing that makes you cringe and squeeze your eyes shut. Where you just want to scream, “No, no, no!” in order to get yourself to stop talking.

That sort of thing happens to me all the time. 

Most recently, it happened on the night of my friends’ wedding in New Orleans. By the end of the night, I desperately wanted a cave in which to hide. Don’t get me wrong, the wedding was lovely, the food was exquisite, the bride and groom glowing, the company delightful (and consisting of many of our friends). The groom’s nearly-90 grandfather was there, and a few of us went to say hello to him.

He was a delightful old flirt, and hugged and planted kisses on the many girls, and the one he gave to me happened to land on my neck.

I was telling the groom about it later, while we were all having drinks in the hotel bar after the wedding.

“Your grandfather was adorable,” I said, tilting my head, and patting my neck. “Kissed me on my neck.”

At this the groom look mortified, which I thought was funny, because the old man was adorable and hadn’t offended me at all.

“Uh, isn’t that something your husband should do?” he asked.

I stared at him for a moment, surprised at his reaction. I figured he’d had found the whole thing funny.

“Well,” I said, “He does … Wait, what?”

“Shouldn’t your husband be doing that, and not me?”

“Wait … DID YOU THINK I WAS TELLING YOU TO KISS ME ON THE NECK?”

“Uh, yeah. Isn’t that what you said?”

“NO! I was saying your grandfather was adorable…. kissed me on the neck.” I said, trying to use the same cadence I did the first time, in an attempt to understand what where the confusion started.

“Yeah – you just said it again. It sounds like you said, ‘Kiss me on the neck.’”

“NO! I said your grandfather was adorable … kissed me on the neck!”

“There. You just said it again.”

“AAAAUGGGGHHHHHHH!”

I’m not sure what was more mortifying: that the groom thought I was asking him to kiss me on my neck moments after I had seen him get married (with my husband at my side), and that everyone around said that’s what it had sounded like – or that no one thought, “Well, that couldn’t have been what she said.”

Maybe I don’t enunciate enough. Maybe my Pacific Northwest accent doesn’t translate well. In either case, it’s mortifying and cringe worthy.

Sigh. Clearly I’m not ready to mingle with mainstream society, much less travel the world without risking international incident. If you need me, I’ll be in my cave.

And I promise I’ll make only one catty comment about the Saints. Maybe two.

Some of Rand’s colleagues were over from the U.K. and joined us, along with a handful of our friends, to watch the Superbowl. And over the course of the game, we discovered a couple of things …

• If you aren’t an American, football may be boring to you. Or confusing. Or pointless. Or really, really violent. Thankfully, after decades of it being part of our culture, we have become blissfully desensitized to this.
• Understanding the object of the game only gets you so far. It’s one thing to know that the team needs to move the ball in certain direction. it’s another altogether to understand the rules, the logic behind downs (is there any?), and what, exactly, some of the penalties mean.
• Don’t try and explain the scoring convention. People will just look at you like you are nuts. (”Wait … what’s the reasoning behind the ‘extra point’ again?” Here’s the thing: no one knows).
• Cricket is even more complicated and longer than football. If your guests get a bit ornery, just remind them of that (in all fairness, our guests did not get ornery, nor did they fall asleep, despite being  jet-lagged. The only person who ended up crashing was actually a local and a football fan. Go figure).
• The Superbowl actually airs in the U.K., stretching into the wee small hours of the morning (due to the timechange). Also, it airs without commercials, which kind of defeats a lot of the purpose for many people.

Anywho, I felt fortunate that I had the chance to introduce our U.K. cohorts to something quintessentially American. It was actually a lot of fun, despite the fact  that the entire country decided to become Saints fans for approximately 2 hours, before sinking back into the woodwork and forgetting Drew Brees’ name. My logic was this: I don’t hate the Saints, but how the hell can you root for another team when you’ve loved Peyton Manning for years? You can’t. Consequently, I defend my choice (and possible ensuing temper tantrum) as morally justifiable, and even noble.

But back to our very American Superbowl party … It was CRAZY.

Babies drank beer:

Though in all fairness, this behavior would simply describe any Tuesday in Bavaria.--

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Grown men took naps:

Poor little guy. He had a long day.

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And, like any good party in the U.S. of A, we had food on sticks. In this case, it was pizza:

Mmm ... on a stick.

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I think if it fits on a stick, it has fewer calories ... right?

God, I love the Superbowl. Even when the Saints win.

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And the very same time, this happened (Turn the volume down because I scream. A lot):

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I suppose  I should explain, right? Ah, but it’s such a long story. And most of you have probably heard it before. The crazy guy who was trying to propose on a commercial on the Superbowl. It fell through, so he proposed on local TV. The abbreviated version is this: I was watching TV with friends. A commercial came on. The rest is (my and Rand’s) history.

If you want to know more, there’s an article about it here. People always ask if I really didn’t suspect a thing, and I usually say, “Of course I didn’t. You really think I’d have left my hair like that if I had suspected someone was filming me?”

Consequently, I am now one of those people who won’t be seen without make-up. But that’s another story.

Rand’s commercial made a tiny little blip on the cultural radar, and we got tons of emails from friends and relatives who had seen us on the news, or Access Hollywood, or (gulp) being interviewed by Oprah.

But the weirdest part of all of this is that, for whatever reason, we’ve made it big in Japan.

Okay, fine. Maybe not “big”. But thus far, we’ve been approached by four Japanese TV shows who wanted to profile our story. One already aired last year. The show was called something like, “World’s Most Astonishing Videos.”

One of the producers of that show (who was actually in San Francisco, but worked for a company out of Japan), asked us a series of questions (the sort we had come to expect: “How did you come up with the idea?”, “Did you suspect he was going to propose?”, “What did your friends and family think?”).

Then they sent a television crew to our house, and they filmed us opening the door and greeting them.

They filmed us talking about our story, showing them around our apartment, and doing the dishes. At some point, they asked us to pretend we were cooking a meal together, so I think Rand started chopping a carrot or something. The filming and interviews took the better part of an afternoon. They also let us know that they would be hiring actors to re-enact parts of our story.

Yeah. That’s right: Japanese actors playing us. We kind of freaked. I had a pictorial image of what they would look like.

Photo courtesy of dolly_mixtures, via Flickr.com

The producer then called us again with another set of questions, which were far stranger than the run-of-the-mill things they had asked us to cover the first time around. I suspect that our reaction can largely be explained by cultural relativism: what’s strange to an American can be perfectly reasonable to someone else, and vice-versa. But nevertheless, it made us a little uncomfortable:

“Are your parents still married? No? In what year did they divorce? Are they remarried? In what year did they remarry?”

“What are your siblings’ names? And what work do they do? Are they married?”

They proceeded to ask our parents’ and grandparents’ birth dates, the year they were married, which college and high school they had attended (along with their areas of study and favorite subjects), places of birth, ethnic backgrounds, employment histories, and asked for a detailed story of how each couple met. They asked the same about our siblings. The wanted to know details about my brother’s wife’s job. For one brief moment, both Rand and I thought it was an elaborate hoax to steal our identities (”And what’s your mother’s maiden name?”). At some point, Rand noted that this chain of questioning was quite unusual to him and making him somewhat uncomfortable (note: when a guy who proposes on TV thinks something is too intrusive … ).

“Yes,” the producer replied. “We often get that response from Americans we talk to, but these are the sort of things our viewers are interested in.”

Zuh? Really? For however flattering it is that someone would be interested in the minutia of your life, it’s also really, really strange.

Still, the producer was incredibly nice, and she seemed genuinely interested in our story(and to this day, I haven’t seen any evidence that she took out a credit card in my name).

We drew some lines: I didn’t end up sending them video footage of the wedding, or our official wedding photos, even though they requested both. I just wasn’t comfortable with that. The producer was incredibly polite and understanding about it (though she did seem a bit disappointed).

And though we asked for a finished DVD of the episode, we never saw it. But several months ago, Philip sent me this:

I've always wanted to be blonde and skinny.

It’s from the “World’s Most Astonishing Videos” website. You can see the two actors that portrayed us (as you can imagine, we were profoundly disappointed they weren’t Japanese).

And though the proposal was years ago, I think about it every time the Superbowl rolls around. And on the Tuesday after the Superbowl. Sometimes I re-watch the commercial, even though I’ve seen it a few dozen times by now. It makes me smile.  I suppose it always will. It was one of the best days of my life, and will always be – irrespective of whether or not it made us pseudo-famous in Japan.

But it has: we’ve recently been contacted by three more Japanese TV shows in the last two weeks (we’re not sure why).

And, yes, as usual, the questions started again. Some of them seemingly relevant, and others strange and tangential.

We’re politely answering their questions. We just have one request: they absolutely have to send us a copy of the DVD.

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P.S. - A lot of these shows have offered to pay us in order to cover our story. My husband, hell bent on saving the world, always accepts their offer and donates the money to charity. Because he is awesome. We usually pick Seattle Children’s Hospital, but this time, he spoke to the Japanese producers and just told them to donate the cash to charity, prompting this exchange:

Me: Did you specify which one?

Rand: No – I told them to pick one.

Me: What if they pick something we don’t like, like “Neo-Nazis Against Gay Rights”?

Rand: That’s … that’s not a thing. That’s not a charity.

Me: You don’t know that.