The Valleyfair Scare

Off to Valleyfair yesterday, the Minnesotan answer to Alton Towers - the major difference being it is not found at the end of a country road, slap-bang in the middle of a tranquil, country village. Lots of similarities; The Corkscrew, Nemesis and rubbish food (although Staffordshire has probably never seen giant turkey legs and Dill-Pickle-On-A-Stick). There's also a very tiny water-park, with a few slides and a jump around in the waves pool. T was extremely disappointed that she was an inch too short for a lot of the rides. Me, I'm concerned that next year I will be dragged around on them.

All the creatures have successfully come out of hibernation and are now creating havoc in the garden. The raccoons like to sit in the tomato plants, for instance, as testamented by their little muddy footprints around the edges. One raccoon, who seems quite young and little compared to some which come around, eats his cheese and Branston like a six year-old. He held up the sandwich (he was there in broad daylight), opened it carefully, putting the top piece on the floor. He then commenced licking the pickle off, then gently peeled off the cheese and nibbled that, followed by the two pieces of bread. His nose goes up and down as he eats, making his whiskers tremble like a particularly agitated RAF Flight Sergeant.

The temperature, thanks to El Nino, zipped up to a toasty 34 degrees yesterday. Today it's a bit colder, but hopefully all the rain will be tonight and we will have a clear day for boating on the lake tomorrow.

School holidays start in 2 weeks' time. This year we will be playing tennis, doing outside swimming lessons, making forts, jam-tarts and a bit of a mess, then making up and a spot of TV. That's the first day sorted, then.

Miami mia

We did that thing the other day which teachers hate, and took T out of school for a week to take advantage of cheap(ish) flights to Florida. For the first time, we went to Miami. It was super - and it amazes me how each state can be; in effect, a different country. Everyone spoke Spanish (including me, I was very proud! Yes - I ordered a coffee), and it just didn't seem like the US at all. Miami South Beach was amazing- all the art deco houses were super-looking.

Our hotel, The Viceroy, had a 100 m pool. I started swimming and thought blimey, it's a bit far. The end dropped away onto a vista of the harbour, and each morning at 7 I had the whole thing to myself.

We were able to go fosicking and found clam fossils on the foreshore of the hotel which itself was very grand. Each time I used the toilet I felt a need to fold the end of the toilet paper into a point. It has apartments as well as hotel rooms, although not that many of the apartments have been let. The food was great there, although the service was a tad Mediterranean. Most restaurants we went to made an effort to get T served first, which is always appreciated (via tips).

It never felt dangerous there and in fact the ambiance wherever we went felt great. We stayed in Miami for 3 nights, taking in the Everglades. Even though we saw lots of alligators on the air-boat tour we did (like on the James Bond movie), we even saw them when we stopped the car at the side of the rod....one came up begging like a duck in Sands End.

We then had another three days down in Key West ("Drive 157 miles and arrive at destination"). The drive down is quite long on single carriage-way roads, so we had a few stops to feed the tarpons (enormous greedy fish) at Robbie's Pier, and a couple of gardens.

Key West wasn't at all what I expected. It was streets of touristy two-level stores, lots of partying, but a nice atmosphere. The snorkeling was great. We took a small tour boat out (just us and three crew) to a reef about 7 n miles away (about an hour's trip). Luckily the sea was completely calm. T adored the snorkeling and was out for about an hour, spotting turtles and lobster plus loads of fish. She pootled off back the boat and sat on the dive ledge, feet dangling over the side, whilst I swam around the reef and saw (and this gets closer and bigger in the re-telling) two reef sharks swim passed. As I have no real idea about fish I thought "Cool!" and then saw T's feet flapping in the water. How exactly does one sacrifice oneself? Pretty amazing though.

Came back to cold weather when people complained there was a chance of snow, yet today it is a muggy 90. I have planted marigolds and remain optimistic that deer are allergic to them as it makes them sneeze.

No tengo dinero

The stagiaire got a bit sick the other night. It was two hours after I made mussels for the first time, but she, very "perfect house-guest"-y said it was a migraine. I had taken her to our book-club, and I think it was a little over-whelming, ie the way they all speak at once very, very LOUDLY and sometimes even use rude words. She said it was like Sex in The City without the shoes.

I've had a look at a couple of houses, but so far have been disappointed either by size or location. I'm not keen on the sitting-room in the basement idea, nor about having two bedrooms right next to the kitchen. I saw one today which was on the 11th tee of the golf-course. It was close enough to be a sort of two-stroke hazard, and only lacked one of those windmills going round over the entrance to the garage doors.

My Spanish is still enjoyable (in that I still go and don't yet make excuses for coffee instead). The other lady on the course said she likes it as it makes her live very much in the present, which is a good feeling, except at some stage I suppose we will also have to study the future, subjunctive and the past-imperfect.

Dunkirk spirit

Last Thursday the headmistress got a rather panicky call from a headmaster in Paris saying that they had a group of 43 school-children stuck in Minneapolis on their way back to Paris from Chicago, and could something be done? Luckily, Minnesotans are pretty decent (especially if there is any free publicity), and the Hyatt were able to offer them rooms and meals, and even the zoo coming up trumps with some free tickets. The local district is providing lunches for them (even picnics for when they go out). These kids are only about 10 years old, and were meant to be away for a week - how must their parents be feeling?

The local news came round today (for which I did not prepare, so was not able to be yummy, more slummy, when I went in to help in the canteen, so had to hide behind the tinned peaches), and CNN may pop round tomorrow. I may have my hair done.

In sickness and...

Yes, thanks the Medical Establishment - T's been sick since she had her last (yippee) MMR vaccine last week. A measle-type rash all over her, headache, stiff neck. Hmm, perhaps the nay-sayers have a point after all? So, with varying amounts of grace, on both sides, we have made towns out of card-board, then cities, then, hell, why not an entire world? Painted nails, made a fairy garden, repotted all my planted herbs (we've been given notice to move house by the land-lord and I'll be buggered if he gets to keep my parsley) and watch, yes, an awful lot of TV. Cheetos have been high on the menu, and strangely not too much broccoli, but it seems she is pulling through.

Suddenly everywhere is beginning to get really green. When we did an Ester-Egg hunt last week in the garden, we managed to get several plastic eggs full of very cheap candy (which, and I just don't know how seemed to disappear each time T averted her gaze) along with a tic each. Luckily they are the large ones (and hence not Lyme's disease-y) but it is still a surprise when you flick one off your scalp. Lots of mosquitoes around too - the price you pay for an early spring. At least I've managed to get daffodils this year (is it churlish to also dig those up?).

Under the counter

I think the butcher fancies me. Every now and then he slips me the not-so-nice looking steaks or tail-end of the salmon in with my order, saying they don't look good enough to sell. Obviously this will put me in good stead should the Second World War break out again.

T, after spening the last 18 months tip-toeing across the ice, has passed her first grade ice-skating. She is the same level as I am, and is everso strict when it comes to her giving me a leson each time we go out. By forcing her to enjoy sport (sometimes physically, sometimes through crisps) I am hoping she will never have to experience the full unmitigated horror of being chosen last for the netball team.

The ice-skating has now finished for the summer, and I have replaced it by attending a personal trainer at the gym, courtesy of one of bridgjo's friends who can no longer use the lessons he paid for. The Swiss friend and I have started running around the lake again. The weather is beautiful and sparkley....though now and then a Minnesotan will sigh and murmur "It's not over yet, y'know".

A bloke said "Howdy!" to me today. I giggled.

Retail Therapy, A Case For

I have a bit of a problem at the moment, well, since I got here, in that I cannot use my American Visa card to purchase items on the Internet.

Each time I go to a web-site and have entered all the selections I want - colour, size, mailing address, billing address, card number, expiry date, those three little numbers on the back, orientation, religious preference - I sometimes get a box saying “This site is verified by Visa”, which then presents me with another set of boxes whereby I have to enter all sorts of extra data, as a further layer of security, which includes my Social Security Number.

Unfortunately, this means that the security is now so high that even I, as a lazy ex-pat spouse who does not have a SSN, cannot use my credit card over the Internet.

This screen has both the Wells Fargo (my bank) and the Visa symbols on there, indicating that it is with some sort of mutual agreement with those two institutions.

However, I have now spent:

1) 1 hr on the phone to Wells Fargo, who eventually said they couldn’t help me as I could neither recite the last 397 transactions verbatim, nor did I know my maternal great-grand-father’s favourite pig’s name.

2) 1 hr in Wells Fargo (with extra ID) who said “It’s to do with the people who are selling you stuff on the Internet, nothing to do with us”.

3) 30 mins talking to a nice lady called Eileen in the hamper shop in the UK, that she’d never heard that before love, and what time is it there, then?

4) 10 mins talking to Wells Fargo, who put me through to their Visa department….

5) Who put me back through to Wells Fargo….

6) Who put me through to Rita, the cleaning-lady, I think…

7) Who put me back to someone else at Wells Fargo who said “Really, I don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s definitely nothing to do with Wells Fargo, but I’ll put you through to the Visa department”;

8) 1 hr talking to the Visa department who got a bit huffy “You keep interrupting me Madam”, when I tried to explain to them that the credit card was not fit for purpose. She said that there was nothing I could do about it and her solution was that I could always phone up the company I was ordering from, but obviously not after 1pm if it’s in the UK due to the time difference, and I’m not sure whether I could actually be that bothered doing stuff over the phone when there are, allegedly, easier ways of purchasing an item.

Even if she made a note, she said, nobody would get back to me (because by this time she hated me).

She then put me through to Visa, who, after a rather jaunty Irish jig, cut me off.

9) I then sent a snippy e-mail to Visa, whose contact details (rather understandably) are extremely difficult to find on their web-site, who responded thus:

“When activating VbV or using a password to shop online, the cardholder is always interacting directly with his issuer, not Visa.

As many Visa card issuers have a Verified by Visa area on their website, you may wish to search for it. If you are not able to locate a Verified by Visa area on the website, please contact a Supervisor or Manager at the Verified by Visa Customer Service (a.k.a. EBusiness) Area at your Visa card issuer to request alternative options to the Social Security Number requirement. Your Visa card issuer contact information can be found on the back of your Visa card, on your Visa card statement or via their website. The local branch office will not be able to assist with this.”

Meaning that Wells Fargo, if they could just bring that careering carriage under control for just one instant, might be able to say “Hey, we are an international company. Any chance of an NI number instead?”

At which point I’d probably think “Bugger”.

I never met Hercules while he was shovelling out those stables, but know that I would have been hanging over the fence with a cup of tea saying “Oooh, I know, but listen to what happened to me….”.

And talking about visas, I didn't have to go to Canada after all to get T's visa transferred from her old passport to her new one. I just had to go to the Illegal Import of Vegetation and Small Mammals section at Humphrey terminal and a nice chap did it for me.