Al put together a book of pictures of Ross and all of us in a notebook for us to sign so he can take away with him to New York and remember us always.

This is one of the pictures of me.

Nicole said: btw. That picture of me- I wish you had photo shopped it slightly. . . my tits look terrible. . .
Alistair said: which one?
Nicole said: Which one? There’s more than one where my tits look terrible? The one with the red scarf.
Alistair said: well I just stuck all the photos we had in. there are some terrible ones of all of us.
Nicole said: It’s different when tits are involved.

He didn’t reply.

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Stuart: Why do you think I’m a bad person?

Nicole: I don’t think you’re a bad person.

Stuart: You think that I’m just out to antagonize you. . . And that’s not strictly true. . .

Nicole laughs, looks for her note book and scribbles something down.

Stuart: Why are you laughing? No. . . don’t write that down! I hate when you– why is that funny? You’re going to blog this aren’t you?

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STUART: What are you doing for dinner?

NICOLE: Might run to the store. I fancy lamb. You?

STUART: Going to make my salad. Would you like some?

NICOLE: Um. I don’t know. What is your salad?

STUART: Beetroot, hard-boiled eggs, grated cheese. Mild cheddar. Cheaper the better, salad cream and crisps. Using frazzles tonight. . . Why are you looking at me like that?

NICOLE: How did you learn to make this meal? Was it passed down in your family for generations or is it something you came up on your own?

STUART: My salad is nice. Don’t knock it. What are you doing?

NICOLE: Texting Al your ‘salad’ recipe and that I think it is a good cause to divorce you.

STUART: Giving away my salad secrets!

NICOLE: Yes Stuart. I am. In fact Gordon Ramsey may very well steal it and put it on the menu at Claridges.

STUART: Where?

NICOLE: Never mind.

STUART: You know I can cook. I know you say I can’t but I can. I got an A in Home Economics I’ll have you know. I know how to make fish fingers and chips. . .What are you doing? You’re writing this down???

NICOLE: What else can you make Stuart?

STUART: I’m not going to tell you. You’ll just go around telling everybody.

NICOLE: What else can you make?

STUART: My casserole is really nice.

PAUSE

STUART: You take a dish and you cook some chicken.

NICOLE: You can cook chicken?

STUART: Yes, I can cook chicken!

NICOLE: How do you cook the chicken?

STUART: I don’t know! So you put the chicken in the bottom of the dish, add a bit of gravy, layer some chunky chips on top, squirt brown sauce all over the whole thing then mix it up with a wooden spoon.

NICOLE: Do you bake it all?

STUART: No. It’s already hot.

NICOLE: What else can you make?

STUART: Spaghetti.

NICOLE: And how do you—

STUART: Basically you just microwave it. What???

NICOLE: I’m intrigued. What else is in your repertoire?

STUART: Glazed chicken.

NICOLE: How did you glaze the chicken?

STUART: I. . . I glazed it with a sauce that I like.

NICOLE: Brown sauce.

STUART: I burned brown sauce on it, yes!

NICOLE: Burned?

STUART: That’s what glazed chicken is isn’t it? Listen, this is food that I like. I know it isn’t what you would do. You should try my potatoes with breadcrumbs.

NICOLE: Potatoes with—

STUART: You take potatoes and—

NICOLE: –cover them in breadcrumbs. Yeah. I got it.

STUART: You can cover chicken or fish in breadcrumbs. Why not potatoes?

NICOLE: You should go on masterchief.

STUART: My favorite thing I ever made was a candle burger.

NICOLE: I’m sorry. A. . . what?

STUART: Candle burger.

NICOLE: I don’t get it.

STUART: You make a burger. Then take a candle and put it in the bun.

PAUSE

NICOLE: Like a birthday cake?

STUART: No, not like a birthday cake! It’s a hamburger.

NICOLE: Sorry. How silly of me.

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“Stuart? What time do we get back Sunday?”

We are going to Rome this weekend. I’d planned on staying in London for the long four-day Easter weekend, but a few weeks ago I came home to find that Stuart had done a drunken Expedia purchase.

“Five.”

“So I won’t have time to make Easter dinner then. Okay. Maybe I’ll do it Monday.”

“Easter dinner?”

“Easter dinner.”

“What do you mean Easter dinner?”

“You know. A meal. On Easter. Where Christians and those that are no longer Christian but still carry on the trappings of Christian celebration get together and eat some form of roast beast.”

“What do you have?”

“I usually make lamb.”

“I’ve never heard of this.”

“You’re kidding. You must be.”

“No.”

“This is a fairly common thing Stuart. A lot of people go home to spend time being tortured by their families.”

“Yeah. No. Never heard of it. Is Al going home?”

“Trying to get out of it. He’s debating between telling them he stepped on a land mine and blew off his leg or food poisoning. I pointed out that the land mine route might not be the best as it would require cutting off his leg at least by Christmas, but he said it was worth it. . . How can you have never heard of Easter dinner? Did you never go home for it?”

“Well, yeah. But just to get my Easter candy.”

* Kinder Surprise is like Cracker Jack. Except different.

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Please note the following is an amalgam of IM, spoken conversation and my imagination.

Nicole: For the Day 2 class I had three Spaniards and three Germans.
Al: That sounds like the start of a joke.
Nicole: It was all really good. Laughed a lot. They were all really funny.
Al: Even the Germans??
Nicole: Especially the Germans.
Al: DON’T MENTION THE WAR
Nicole: I didn’t notice this, but the last woman who did her presentation did. She speaks English with a North American accent because of one her parents. All the people from Spain used PowerPoint and did fun topics like ‘How to make Sangria’. All the Germans used the flip paper and did really dry work topics.
Al: Ah.
Nicole: But the really funny part was when I invited them to give me feedback about the two days, one of the German women said—
AL: ZHIS IS NOT VERY EFFICIENT!
Nicole: Well, actually. Yes.
AL: You’re kidding.
Nicole: No, I had ended the first day at 2 and she thought it would have been a better use of her time if I gone on until 5.
Al: It’s just too easy.
Nicole: The Spaniards weren’t fussed.

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Nicole: You realize that our friendship is based on whinging and beer?
Al: That’s not quite fair.
Nicole: You’re right.
Al: Thank you.
Nicole: There is also chocolate.
Al: XXXXX the slag from XXX is here.
Nicole: How come?
Al: Dunno. Maybe she’s looking to have some more extra marital sex.
Nicole: Timely that the health e-mail about getting tested for Syphilis was just sent out then.
Al: She went to her hotel at lunch and changed clothes.
Nicole: Maybe she’s going out tonight.
Al: She dressed down.
Nicole: Or she spilled soup or sperm on her skirt.
Al: Mark is asking why I’m laughing.
Nicole: I dare you to tell him.
Al: I’m going to let it pass.

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Stuart is in China for work. Got the following text this morning:

These guys don’t mess about. Finally found a place to eat, or so I thought. Ordered chicken soup. It turned out to be a huge bowl with a dead baby chicken complete with head. 2pm here and I’m starving.

Poor thing. . .I gave him a call.

“I was in a Wal-Mart, and some crabs escaped and people were just walking around them. They’re nuts here. “

“Crabs, like little pet crabs?”

“No crabs like big fuck off eat them with cocktail sauce. They have a huge fish section. You’d love it here. Other than being in the Wal-Mart.”

(I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart because of their poor labor practices.)

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Umm. Not really.”

“I was worried about this. Maybe ask at the hotel to send you to a place that will help you pick something.”

“Yeah. Did you read my text about the chicken?”

“Yeah. Did you eat any of the soup?

“I tried, but the baby chicken was bobbing under the surface and it kept looking at me. Slightly put me off.”

“Maybe you should have eaten it.”

“Yeah. That will teach it to watch me while I’m eating dinner.”

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Stuart and I went to breakfast this morning before I went to work.

“My blog about voting for Mel’s charity? Lille misread what I wrote at first, think I misspelled it and she thought the charity was for coitus instead of colitis.”

“That’s funny.”

“I said that as a married woman I think we should start a charity for coitus and I wonder what our logo should be.”

“That’s funny.”

We crossed the street.

Stuart turned to me. “What would the logo be?”

“Do you not know what coitus means???”

“Of course I know what coitus means Thomas!”

“What does coitus mean Stuart?”

Pause.

“It’s. . . No, I don’t know what coitus is.”

“I find that incredibly ironic.”

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Overheard Conversation:

“I think you’re an alcoholic.”

“I’m not an alcoholic. I just drink because I’m lonely and depressed.” 

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Sitting across from Stuart on the tube. Central line from St. Paul’s toward Holborn. He takes out his camera and points it at me. I try to arrange my face so that my eyes are not closed and my chin is angled in such a way that I only have one.

Stuart examined the photo. “You’re very photogenic in the dark.”

I blinked.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant you’re very photogenic in dim light.”

I blinked.

“That’s not what I meant! Don’t look at me like that. I meant on the tube and the light is bad but you look good in it. . .”

I blinked.

“Okay. I’ll shut up now.”

3 Comments »