Hi Everyone,

Time for another update from the U.K.

Last time I think I told everyone about the house and getting 
moved in.

So far we still like the house. (semi-detached house...sorry)

Noreen went out and got a cat. 
The cat is female and is about 1-2 years old. There is 
very definately some Siamese in this cat as she has 
a very Siamese 'meow' and facial features.  Also very
brightly colored blue-green eyes.

But the coat and the attitude are definately NOT Siamese.
She just loves attention and will complain bitterly if
all the people in the room are not located so that she 
can easily go from one to the other for pets. 
She loves to have her tummy rubbed...very unusual in cats
to begin with and I have never seen a cat trust you enough
to do that within 2 days of moving to a new place. 
She doesn't like sudden or loud noises though and will hide
when that happens.

Now here is the funny part. Noreen was trying to come up with
a name. I was wrestling with the idea, trying to be clever, 
and then Noreen said, "She needs a regal name. Let's call 
her Cleopatra."  
To which I replied, "you mean CLEO for short?"

Noreen thought that was OK, oblivious to the fact that, of
her own free will, she had named her cat after a high energy
physics experiment. The irony was just almost more than I 
could stand...I readily agreed to this choice of name, of course.

Noreen didn't even get suspicious when I agreed so quickly
to her choice of name.  Now the name has been in use for
about a month, so I think it will stick. So if one of you 
lets it slip that CLEO is a physics experiment when you
e-mail Noreen that's OK...she's not going to change it now.

Noreen went into London for her job. I am still employed so
her efforts with the 'Save Brittish Science' Foundation must
be a success. She was in Covent Garden...which she thought was
a pretty neat place. I think we're going to be taking my
parents there when they come this Christmas.

We had a Thanksgiving dinner for the ATLAS grad students and
post-docs. Turkey is no problem. This has apparently become
a Christmas staple over here and Thanksgiving is close enough
to Christmas that the stores are carrying it. 
The rest of the stuff is not impossible to find, but you have
to hunt.

Sweet potatoes do exist, but they are white...not orange...and 
they are not as sweet. Marshmellows are hard to find...at least
plain white ones are. Noreen had to use multi-colored marshmellows
for the sweet potatoes. It turned out fine...just looked a little 
weird. 

Pumpkins have only just arrived. And pumpkin pie is un-heard of.
But Noreen actually found canned pumpkin and made some very
nice pumpkin pies. This was a really big hit. No one had even
heard of this. They all really liked it. The two Germans in the
group recognized this as some sort of traditional squash pie that
their grandparents would make and really thought it was great. 

Cranberries are here, but not the sauce. Noreen made it from
scratch. She defined it as excellent. (this often happens when
she puts more work into something than it is worth...when
she is done the item in question is often defined to be
worthy of great praise...it is usually best to oblige)
In this case it actually was.

We also made the green bean casserole dish....you know the
one with cream of mushroom soup and french fried onions 
sprinkled on the top? That was also never tried by any of
them and was a hit.

Noreen was not impressed with her attempt at corn bread. But it
was great. I ate it all before anyone arrived. 

I found Rolling Rock beer (from LaTrobe, Penn.) and Labatts. 
They drank all the Rolling Rock, I still have one can of Labatts.

After that we taught them to play darts (the dart game 'cricket'
to be precise...ask Joe or Randy). Then we watched the Spice girls
on TV and made fun of Ginger Spice's accent.

I think we're going to end up doing this again next year.
Maybe I can convince the UK to make it a holiday..what do you
think?

We got cable! The one show that I like which is not on
the History or the Sci-fi or the Discovery channel is 
on a channel called 'live-TV' and is called "Topless Darts".
Rather ample women compete in darts with no tops on. 
I don't think they even bother to keep score, but I'm not
really sure on that point.  Noreen will let me watch it 
if there is no re-run of Star Trek showing.

Well, I've got to go now. I'll let you know how Christmas
goes when it's done. 

Todd