The Cricklewood Yankee Awakens

My apologies to anyone who thought they had been mercifully unsubscribed from these irregular updates; I’ve simply been letting the suspense build these last couple of years.  At long last, the accumulation of life’s trivial idiocies and political monstrosities has become too great to bear, and so, rising groggily from the dead comes the latest installment of the Cricklewood Yankee.  For those of you who have been added to this update, or simply don’t remember being on the list, the Cricklewood Yankee provides increasingly infrequent insights into our intoxicatingly interesting lives… and, in lieu of written letters, telephone calls, and Ashley Madison, a hopefully entertaining way to connect with friends and colleagues past and present.

Much has transpired since the early, heady days of our American repatriation.  Riley has developed from a bundle of sleepiness and joy into a fine, young, bundle of unchecked energy and maddeningly particular Teutonic righteousness. Susi and I have transitioned from the carefree days of urban rented dwellings into the endlessly rewarding world of suburban home ownership, and the global political pendulum has whipsawed in a manner that defies the laws of Newtonian physics.

Now, it has been inferred, on rare occasion, that I might be a living partner of a somewhat challenging sort.  Quite laughable, really, considering that I am a devout follower (and generous teacher) of Tiffany’s Rules of Dishwasher Loading and Refrigerator Organization.  Despite sparing countless roommates and houseguests the iniquity of spotted utensils, Karma decided that I was in need of some additional attitudinal correction, and so, she delivered Riley.

In the early days, things were reasonably tolerable.  With pained expression, I would indulge Riley’s need to reposition his toys and belongings in ways that violated every generally accepted guideline of chromatic and chronologic arrangement… which I would, of course, correct with alacrity as soon as he went to sleep.   I would even allow him to finish the preponderance of his spaghetti and meatballs before clearing away his dishes, lest they find themselves overwhelmed by either gravity or infantile misdirection.  Yet, as Riley matured and began to better understand the role that fate expected of him, my gracious allowances no longer sufficed.

The watershed moment occurred the morning Riley awoke from his slumber with the expectation that his matchbox car configuration from the prior evening would remain unchanged.  With the finality of an executioner swinging his expertly honed axe, Riley assessed the situation using words that have been indelibly tattooed onto my cerebral cortex like so many ill-advised, butterfly-laden [indelible adornments applied to one’s lower dorsal area, often acquired in a state of inebriation] – “Papa!  Thaaaat’s… Not… Riiiiight!!!!”.

No, I reckon it wasn’t “right”, as little else has been in the years that ensued.  Like a couple of lackeys kowtowing to a compulsively self-important Hollywood executive, Susi and I have developed an excruciatingly mental library of detailed notes delineating what is potentially “Right” and what is categorically “Not Right”.  I will spare you the Novocain-free root canal that would be a comprehensive account of the accommodations we’ve made in the name of harmonious balance.  Suffice to say, we have submitted to the realities of Riley’s iron will, abject genius (i.e. wanton irrationality), and attention to detail that will assuredly elate the legions of teachers, friends and colleagues that await his arrival.

After seven years of renting flats and houses in London, wherein (as you may recall from previous blogs) the most demanding DIY challenges involved changing lightbulbs, hanging pictures and degreasing the oven, we decided to purchase a home that wasn’t quite “move-in ready”.  The weeks leading up to our closing were filled with fanciful dreams of spending rainy Saturdays and Sundays employing nail hitters, wood cutters, and an abundance of power tools that make manly construction noises in the pursuit of the perfect home.  As it turns out, the only tools that I can operate on a consistently successful basis are my checkbook and credit cards, but this sad realization did not prevent me from accumulating enough building implements to stock a Home Depot warehouse.

Our single-owner house was built in the 1960’s by a couple who clearly loved their home and garden.  The weekend following our close, Susi and I puttered about the property, extricating and trimming a wealth of exceedingly mature plantings – forsythias, rhododendrons, azaleas, Japanese maples and many other leafy and floral things only Susi can name.  All required some measure of love and attention to get back to their peak splendor, and so we set to work restoring the majesty of the estate’s Nixon era.

Soon after, we began addressing the rather lengthy list of repairs indicated by our home inspector – the first of which being some minor improvements to the septic system.  (note to lifelong denizens of the city – a septic system is what we do here in most of rural and suburban America – we build our very own sewage treatment facilities right under the back garden.)  Just following the onset of work, we were overjoyed to hear that our situation required an entirely new system, including pipes, tank and “leeching fields” (i.e. underground draining fields)… and since the current system was based on drywells, we were even further overjoyed to hear that we would be significantly expanding the size of our back garden.  What luck!  In lieu of the aforementioned cornucopia of floral goodness, we were left with an exceedingly exhilarating-to-mow field of dreams.

Subsequent repairs have included the full replacement of virtually every piece of mechanical equipment in our house (including the well), enabling us to be completely self-sufficient in the event Trump tweets us all the way into Armageddon.  Despite this added measure of personal security, I sometimes long for a dwelling where one’s potable water and heating fuel are transported in from some magical factory, and where one’s effluent gets carried away to some other magical factory.

Happily settled in and enjoying country life, we’ve established a robust side-business offering suburban weekend retreats to our friends and associates languishing in the city.  Thanks to our clear cutting a soybean plantation’s worth of land to make way for leeching fields deemed legally robust enough to support the collective 300 pounds that is our family of 3, we were left with a lumberyard of felled tree parts, mountains of woodchips, and a football field worth of ready-to-use arable land.  These amazing facilities inspired us to create several exciting B&B packages with mandatory activities such as: stack-that-wood, spread-that-mulch-right-now, and move-those-rocks-over-there (a fan favorite).

Once one’s inner Charles Ingalls has been satiated, guests are invited to partake in our many suburban mentoring sessions, including: It’s OK to say Hi to your Neighbor, Who's Your Mailman, and When to Keep the Front Door Unlocked – Always Silly!  Riley even offers a Saturday-evening babysitting package – perfect for those empty-nesters!   To top it off, every guest receives either Lyme’s Disease or an epidermal affliction from a succulent irritant of their choice, along with as much pachysandra as they can grab with one hand.  As Tripadvisor’s Number 1 (of 1) things to do in Suburban Connecticut, you can be assured of a truly memorable experience.

Now that our little habitat for insanity has come together, we’ve been able to turn our attention to some rather profound political events.  As a British citizen, I was terribly dismayed at the UK’s decision to exit the European Union.  This was my primary defense against Susi’s (admittedly quite justifiable) threats to remove Riley from my destructive influences and hide him safely away in Germany.  Considering that post-Roman European history can be summed up as an endless series of “[Object Country or Fiefdom] takes over [Subject Country or Fiefdom] in the name of [Faction of Abrahamic Religion or Megalomaniacal Ideology], the collaboration and cooperation seen these past 70 years can neither be understated nor underappreciated.  One can only hope that this represents a necessary correction rather than an enduring trend.

More recently, America made the slight minority of its voices heard, and those voices called for the seemingly impossible task of restoring the US to its hegemonic glory days of the 50’s and 60’s.  The challenge, of course, is that instead of a world filled with war-torn countries and recently released realms of the British Empire, the US does not stand so remarkably alone in its economic and military might.  And so, The Donald’s stated approach of hard-nosed deal-making appears to deemphasize longer term diplomacy in favor of shorter term gains.  That said, one could equally question previous administrations’ far longer game of magnanimous deconstruction: destabilizing unsatisfactory regimes with a vision of democratic nation (re)building.  If nothing else, perhaps Trump’s polarizing personality will pave the way for a more productive application of America’s checks and balances system.  I look forward to keenly observing and occasionally commenting from my conveniently irreproachable armchair of political ambiguity.

Our best wishes to everyone!!

Rich, (and with the usual “this blog in no bloody way represents the views of…” disclaimer, Susi & Riley)