That’s Outwell near Wisbech (pronounced “WIZ-beach”). I’m here in the tiny village in Cambridgeshire where Jan’s mum and dad live (population 3,000) celebrating the holiday season with my new in-laws. So far we’ve eaten way too much delicious food, slept more than I’m used to sleeping, and watched just enough TV – the ongoing BBC documentary on the early days of Broadway has been particularly interesting. And that’s all we’ve done.

The Best Presents I’ve Received While In Outwell:
1) Risk – the board game. I can’t actually tell you how excited I am about this one. I’m already planning marathon Game Days for the New Year.
2) Pajamas. I’ve never owned pajamas before. These are suave and soft and baby blue.
3) Gloves. Fingerless gloves with a mitten-fold-over option. I’m thinking of gluing googly eyes onto the mitten part for impromptu puppet shows.
4) Chocolate. ‘Nuff said.

We should get a chance to hang out and catch up with Sarah and Garry within the next couple of days, and then we’re off to Brighton for New Year’s. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Last night was our “office” Christmas party for IPA Productions (one of the educational theatre companies that I work for). If I had it my way, I wouldn’t have gone. Not because of any negative feelings I have towards the company or my co-workers – I love the job and really enjoy everyone that works there. You see, last night was also the Franz Ferdinand concert and Jan and I bought Juls tickets to the concert for her birthday about a month ago. But it turns out that Juls and I both work for IPA and the Christmas party was “obligatory”. I tried to sell my ticket but couldn’t find any takers so I had to eat it. Jan said the concert was excellent. It all turned out OK, though, since the party was really good fun, too.

We all went out to dinner at a restaurant just down the road from the IPA office. The food was very good, but the highlight of the evening’s activities would have to be the “Secret Santa” gift exchange and the subsequent drunken aftermath. We were only allowed to spend 1€ on the gifts. Foolish foolish Richard had me as his Secret Santa and, because of my “split personality between consummate professional and fun-loving rascal”, got me a pack of counterfeit euros and a water gun. I don’t know if the wine or apple Schnapps was to blame, but most of the table was soaked by the time the meal was over. Don’t look at me! It was the Schnapps!

Top 5 Pictures Missed Because I Forgot To Bring My Camera:
5. The “What a load of crap” face that most people made when they opened their Secret Santa gift.
4. The elephant underwear that Dermot received as his gift.
3. Ian laughing till he cried at Dermot’s antics.
2. Wet people.
1. Richard blowing a party noise-maker through the trunk of Dermot’s elephant underwear while wearing them on his face.

In unrelated news: after buying 50€ of Christmas lottery tickets, the numbers were chosen this morning and I didn’t win a bloody cent. Oh well.

I’m home right now, but I’m not supposed to be. It’s Tuesday night – that’s volleyball night. But I have a little cold and can’t afford to get sick right now so I’m staying home and taking care of myself. I have a busy week ahead.

That’s sort of a stupid saying because nobody I know can really ‘afford to get sick’. But it’s even more true when, in just one work week, you have to act in seven theatrical performances! My body has to stay strong so I don’t sniffle my way through the shows, but my delicate mind also has to remain ship-shape to keep up with the 14 characters (that’s right 14!) that I play in those shows. Don’t believe me?

Monday: The Lemon Thieves – Detective Frank Peel & Pablo the Police Artist
Tuesday: A Christmas Carol – Fred, Ghost of Jacob Marley, street urchin, Ghost of Christmas Present, & Mrs. Fezziwig
Tuesday: Phantom of the Opera (x2) – Ray
Wednesday: A Monkey’s Tale – Mr. Jones the Zoo Keeper, Mr. Parker the Park Warden, & zoo visitor
Thursday: (same as Monday)
Friday: A Christmas Carol – Bob Cratchit, Mr. Fezziwig, & Ghost of Christmas Future

Here’s hoping Mr. Jones doesn’t pass on any germs to Cappuccino the Orangutan tomorrow.

Last night was fun. Michael invited us over to his place where he and Val cooked an amazing veggie lasagna with a sickeningly sweet banoffee pie for dessert. Thank goodness I brought my camera – not because there were some photo ops and I just happened to catch them, but the bringing of my camera actually inspired a flurry of impromptu photo ops! After dinner, we started with the face shakes (as seen on Shakeskin.com).

me, Andy, Val, and Jan

Now that’s a good looking group of people! I was surprised at how eager everyone was to repeatedly shake their heads as violently as possible in front of the camera. As you can see, we really started to get the hang of it. I didn’t get a good picture of Desmond or David because they couldn’t relax their cheek muscles to the point where they looked horrible enough. And American Jan just flat out refused to even try.

After the IQ-lowering face shakes, I opened up the shutter and we took some magical long exposure shots. The bestest pics of the evening came from David moving a candle around his head while Val and Am Jan posed motionless at his side. We ended up with some really spooky (and blasphemous) pictures including a burning cross, a ‘666’ (that looked very much like ‘Bob’), Allah (in Arabic!), and God.

We then spent about a half an hour trying to take a picture in which everyone had two heads – one good and one evil. This didn’t quite work as we had expected. And after this, it all went downhill. I distinctly remember someone thinking it’d be ‘cool’ if we took a 15 second exposure of people slowly passing a white cardboard sheet back and forth while trying to remain perfectly still. I blame the Cabernet Sauvignon.

I’d like to sincerely thank everyone for their concern over the past few days. It really does make me feel good to know there are people out there who care. In all honesty, I’ve been absolutely fine. It’s all very distant and detached and doesn’t even seem real. The only person in my family that I’ve spoken with is my sister Amanda. She’s the one who called me and told me that my grandmother had died. Apparently, my dad asked her to email me but she thought better of it. Thanks, Amanda.

<family rant>
This is something that’s really pissed me off: no one bothers to tell Josh anything. I know that my family was never very close to begin with, but I always thought that “times like these” brought a family together. Nope. Three weeks ago, when my grandmother had a stroke and it looked like it was all over for her, no one bothered to tell me – I had to read about it in my sister’s blog! I tried to call everyone in my family to find out what exactly had happened and ended up leaving half a dozen answering machine messages. I spent three days trying to find out. Nobody called me. Is that selfish of me? Wanting to be in the loop? I tried to call my dad last week and found out that he had gone to New York to be with his mother. After hearing from Amanda the other day, I tried to call my dad’s cell phone to see how he was. I left a message on his voice mail. I hope he’s alright. Again, thanks to Rebecca’s blog, I found out that there was a wake and funeral in New York and that they were “very nice”. I’d like to hear from either my mom or dad, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen and I’m tired of leaving voice mail messages. This is a difficult thing to have to go through, and the only thing worse is having to do it alone. Whatever. I’m fine and will survive.
</family rant>

Update: I just stumbled upon this great comic today without even looking for it. Smart and sweet. Funny how little coincidences like this happen.

Grandma Helen had big white curly hair. I’ve never known just how much of it was really hers, but the further back I remember, the more often that corona of white hair was surrounding a cheeky smile. It was fun making her smile. Later on, that smile was replaced by a look of confusion – one of those wide eyed and mouth slightly agape looks that seemed to accompany any monologue/rant that my dad was reciting at the moment. More recently, Grandma seemed to be angry most of the time. I can’t blame her. Grandma had some thick walls built up around her that kept people out in an attempt to keep her safe. The older she got, the more she believed that people were “out to get her”. I can’t claim to know her all that well – even when we both lived in New York it seemed like I saw my other grandmother more often, and she lived in Florida! All I can do is describe my personal experiences with her. Grandma always was a tough cookie.

To me, Grandma was always Christmas. She was cucumber salad and mushroom sauce. Grandma was green jelly candies in a glass jar, drab yellow sofas, thick carpeting, dark mysterious attics and basements, and squirrels. Grandma was also Easter. She was inflatable pink easter bunnies, celery and carrot sticks, BLTs, and egg cracking competitions. Grandma was my connection to a side of my family that, compared with my mom’s side, I never knew very well.

top row: Mom, cousin Robert, Grandma Helen, cousin Susan
bottom row: Amanda, cousin Kristin, Babcia, me, aunt Sandy, Rebecca

Grandma spoke of the old country. She received letters from distant cousins in Poland – people whom I could never imagine, living in lands that might as well have been make-believe. My first experience with learning a foreign language was when my sisters and I had to learn how to say “Thank you, grandma” when we received our Christmas presents. “Dziękują, Babcia.” I wish I knew more about our roots. I wish I knew more about my Grandma Helen. I hope she went to a better place this morning and is happier now that she is with her husband again, the love of her life, after being apart for so many years.

I just said goodbye to Julian Dykmans (yes, the coolest guy I know) and his new girlfriend, Lou. They came over for dinner tonight in an attempt to continue the beautiful tradition of having a small dinner party at our house once a week. Last week was Ed and Basia. This week was tequila shots and fish ragu.

Lou is Swiss. Julian told me that she speaks “pretty good English” so there shouldn’t be any problems with dinner conversation. I was a little concerned. I imagined some shy little French-speaking chick smiling politely from her quiet little chair across the table. He didn’t tell me that she had lived in New York for the past five years and that she sounds more like an American than a European. Lou rocks. We talked about snowboarding, Greenwich Village, TV shows, Mexico City, and teeny-bopper fan-girls.

The Chinese cherry flavored green tea made a guest appearance at about 12pm and we called it a night. I’m meeting Julian tomorrow to either skate a new mini ramp in town or buy me a new snowboard. Jan and I are hoping to go skiing in the French Alps when we get back from England after New Year’s. Anybody wanna come?