Dame Judi

In the British portrait gallery: In Madame de Sade:

The theatre poster:

Five Plays in Five Days

I’ve been to London twice, and both times I’ve been there I’ve gone to a play every night. It’s absolutely wonderful. The only hard part is choosing which plays to see. Here are the ones I saw this trip:

1. Three Days of Rain, with James McAvoy
2. Wicked
3. Madame de Sade, with Judi Dench
4. The Lion King
5. Enjoy

When we were standing in line to get tickets for Madame de Sade, the people in front of us couldn’t decide whether or not to purchase the tickets. They hemmed and hawed, consulted each other, and finally asked the seller, “What’s the play about?”

She replied (with a smile), “What does it matter? Judi Dench is in it!” I almost laughed out loud because, when I heard them ask that, I had answered in my head with the exact same words. I didn’t really know anything about the play, but as soon as I found out that she was performing, I knew I was gonna be there.

The only problem with seeing all those plays is, now I’m in withdrawal!

Lesson Learned

I’m no health freak, but I do try to eat a healthy diet, so when my son was booking our flights and asked if I wanted to make any requests regarding my meal selections, I thought it would be a good idea to select the “Low Fat/Low Cholesterol” option.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Very Bad Decision.

My meals were AWFUL. I mean, they were so bad I couldn’t eat them. We’d had a nice meal at the airport before we left on the flight over, and I had a granola bar in my backpack, so I made it through the first flight okay.

But on the nine-hour flight back, I literally starved. I should have been prepared, but I wasn’t. And they didn’t seat us together on this flight, so I couldn’t even beg leftovers from his tray. By the time we landed in Minneapolis, my stomach thought my throat had been cut and I had an awful headache.

But it’d be okay, I thought. We had a long enough layover to have a meal. By this time, I’m so hungry I’m picturing a couple of courses in a nice restaurant with candles and cloth napkins . . .

Wrong again.

I didn’t factor in Customs—two overseas flights arrived at the same time and they were using only one metal detector. Aaaarrrgggghhh. By the time we made it through, I had to settle for the unthinkable--McDonalds french fries stuffed in my mouth while trotting down the conveyor to our next flight.

Moral of the story? When you fly, just let go and eat the full-fat version.

Uh-oh!

When we got to our hotel to check in, the first thing they asked for, of course, was a credit card. I reached into my billfold to get mine, only to realize that the man I’d purchased the electrical adapter from at the airport had never given it back to me.

Panic.

Now, I don’t know if he did it on purpose (he’d given me my receipt folded to the size of the credit card and I’d placed it in the usual pocket) or if I was just in too big a hurry to get to our train and ran off before he noticed he hadn’t returned it, but either way, I didn’t have it.

Cha-ching. Cha-ching. I could hear charges being made to my account all over the world. I tried the 800 number for my credit card company, but it wouldn’t go through from England. I looked online, but on their whole huge website I could find no place to report a lost or stolen card. I tried calling the phone number on the receipt from the airport to see if maybe they were holding my card and could send it to the hotel, but it went to a central office’s answering machine.

I finally had to swallow my pride, call my husband, confess, and ask for his help. I was really embarrassed to admit what I’d done. It seemed so stupid, and so easily preventable. But he was great. He called and reported it, and we suffered nothing more than the inconvenience of being without our cards for a week until new ones could be reissued.

Whew. It could have been much worse.

Haitus

Last Friday, I got to do two really great things today. For one, I finally got to start a novel just for pleasure. The other? I flew to London.

I know. I know. Who takes a vacation right in the middle of dissertation writing? But my oldest son found a great last-minute deal, next week’s his Spring Break, and he asked me to come along. The offer was just too good to refuse!

Besides, British Literature is my area, so it really is work-related. It is. I’ve convinced myself of it.

Furthermore, a week off might actually do me good. My brain is so tired that sometimes it is incredibly hard to make myself sit down and work. And, although I am disciplined and do write—all day, five days a week—it seems as if my thinking processes have slowed, and I’m finishing fewer pages than I’d like by the end of each day.

I’m hoping that I go to England, have a great time, never think of my dissertation while I’m there, and then become a writing fool when I get back home.

Yep. That’s the plan.