I'm better than OK. I'm RESILIENT.

So, I bet you're wondering why I'm not crankin' out the blog posts.
OK, maybe not. But I'm going to write as if you were. Let's suspend disbelief together, shall we?

Verse 1: My life sucks

Our life since jumping onto this carnival-ride of international mobility has been a non-stop exercise in adjusting to change and coping with frustration.
We've lived at three different addresses within the last year.
Our bank account has been mind-bogglingly large (briefly) and empty as a guppy's mind (occasionally).
We have enjoyed 'customer service' from a large array of service providers. Sometimes the journey ended on the glittering mountaintop of customer satisfaction, but getting there always involved a trip through the valley of despair. You don't need customer service if things are working properly. We've needed a lot of customer service.

We can't get access to our usual laugh-out-loud resources without extra effort. We can't get Colbert at all. (Feel. My. Pain.) When the internet is down (which is often) we are thrown back upon our own resources. We engage in bitter gallows humor and drink a lot. Sometimes we laugh about what whiners we are. Then we sink into sullen silence and pour ourselves another stiff one. This does not apply to the boys, of course. They stick to the sullen silence alternated with books about zombies or time travel or both. To each his own.

Chorus: It's not that bad.

Our lives haven't been dropped in a blender. We aren't lone survivors of a full-on asteroid impact or unattractive bubonic-like plague. We get it.
(Those of you who know me can sing along with the refrain. You know that my favorite coping mechanism it to compare my situation to someone whose life sucks WAY worse than mine, thereby making my concerns trivial. Boot-straps, baby - GET SOME.)

Verse 2:

So far we've experienced one flat tire, one shattered side-mirror, one crunched tail-light and one wheel-clamping due to a tax-payment SNAFU. We've fixed two out of those four problems.

Our movement through this life so far is not a sashay down a primrose-lined path in elegant evening-wear. Instead, it's more like the spastic dance of a foul-mouthed, alcoholic Lithuanian forest-fire-fighter. We stomp out problems like mad, cursing a blue streak (in our heads), then plop down at a table, get a stiff drink, and start complaining.
-- Why Lithuanian, you ask? Because I think that they are the best at looking dour, complaining, swearing and drinking. If you like, you can substitute another nationality.
Regardless of the nationality of the fire-stomper, one thing he can be sure of: there'll be more fires and more stomping in his future.

Our life here is like one of those page-a-day calendars. Every day one of us gets up, tears a sheet off the calendar, and chirps, "Good morning, dear. What do you think today's random headache will be?" The other one lays in bed, jams a pillow over his/her head, and mumbles, "Shuddup."

It's been a long time coming, and it won't be particularly profound.
With that apology, to those of you who (against all reason and probability)
check back here and see what I have to say -

Well, there's a lot of romance to moving overseas.
Perhaps especially to moving to England.
Did you know Jane Austen was from England? (*pause for sit-com laugh*)
Or the Bronte sisters - all three of them? (I'm an English major - I know that there were three. On a good day I can name them all.)

England is an advanced, post-industrial country.
Jane never saw it coming: the pavement crusted with chewing-gum; the pub with alcoholics outside, smoking; the constant problems with crime, petty and not-so-; the weariness.

There's a trajectory. The Romans exemplified it. You can only be on top for so long. From there it's all decline.
Maybe England will rise again. I love its heritage enough to wish it to be so. And it's got vestigial recources. But they are tangled in forms, red tape, tradition, and a thousand strands of silver, strong cables that the past has spun.

There are other empires rising. India comes to mind. England has a lot to answer for there, and a lot to celebrate. But England is an aging parent. She wasn't a perfect mother, and she's now in the stage of looking back, wondering what's ahead for her in her attenuated existence.

Do nations hope for heaven?
I hope that this one goes there. She's given the world a lot, and for all her sins, I hope there's a reward for beauty. She's shared a lot of beauty. I thank her for that.