Hey Mambo, Mambo Rock

I didn't really have the time or energy to update while we were moving. I also didn't want to alert our neighbors. Call it paranoia, but the insurance company gave us a really nice rental... eventually. I didn't want the cretins to torch it.

I don't miss them.

I'm back in Portland now. We arrived in late August and I had an interview the next day. I got the job and now work for a place that deals in restoration and preservation of home products. It's a local company. For the most part, I really like it. The money is ok, the benefits are ok and it means I was out of work for almost an exact month. A month is my threshold.

We're living with Mom and Pat, her husband, in Hillsboro right now. I find it frustrating, though I'm grateful. She's pretty critical and it's a bit tiring to come from work where you're being scrutinized just to be scrutinized more at home. Still, it's a nice place to live and I begrudgingly enjoy living with Mom and Pat. As much as I'm having difficulty with the mothering. I'd like to go roller skating right now, but would get told off as my health insurance doesn't come through until November.

But things are finally rolling with the Mr's OHLA application so it isn't much longer. He has a social security number! One that was previously lost, according to the Beaverton office.

I've gone from sitting in the window sill, afraid to be outside in case the neighbors decided to come get involved, to sitting outside in Mom and Pat's little bar area looking at the fields and the barn. We have a little doggy to have fun with, a two year old Shih Tzu that likes to beg, play and gets really excited when anyone comes home. Our older dog, Suda, is going to be put down soon. He has cataracts, arthritis and is mostly deaf. He's also about 18 years old.

I'm going to miss him.

But, in other big animal news, Mom is getting a horse! He's a gorgeous Paint that looks more like a Quarterhorse. He's chestnut and stunning. Mom says he doesn't spook as well. Her last horse wasn't quite broken.

It's Fall in Portland. The leaves are turning, mainly yellow, but some trees are bright red and orange. I took Pip to a pumpkin patch in North Plains a few weeks ago. We wandered around the vines and chose based on size, shape and veiny-ness. We carved them and drank cider.

Life rolls on. I was hit by a pang the other day, I missed Manchester for some reason. Whether that was because I was listening to "Town Called Malice" or not I'm not sure. But I'm happy to be home. I'm happy here.

Very late weekend update

Friday we went off to watch some rugby with the inlaws.



Starting the match with fireworks might have been a bad plan.



And Max and Paddy were there....



Unlike the three failed attempts by Wigan, this was a try for St. Helens.



Wigan didn't play very well, but this little dude was flying the flag of hope all the way through.



This ref isn't welcome anywhere near Wigan.



There wasn't a whole lot of er, 'try' involved.



Dejected Wigan supporters leaving the stadium :(.


A combination of stupidity and business at the game meant I forgot to take photos. But it was really good! Keymer was a brilliant NPC, really got them riled up. There was yelling and side taking and forts full of blood and a history lesson about how Manchester means tit-fort.... I was so pleased.

Then Retro after with MattAllen, Sanderson and Pips. Pips drank a pint!

Ben very kindly let us crash at his since we're still car-less and we got up early with him. Dropped him at the Midland and then had a wander around Manchester. We headed into work to try and use the damned fax machine, to no avail. But managed to use the photocopier instead. And then we had the rest of the day just to do random stuff.

Things we learned:
1. Only the elderly and employed are awake and walking around Manchester at 9:00am.
2. Krispy Kreme are always delicious and they have good, normal, coffee
3. Subway breakfast subs are amazing.
4. Old men can be kicked off trams for antisocial behavior.

I went and bought a hoodie to help combat the cold and we went a wandering:








We wandered over to Albert Square and saw the carpet of flowers set up to look like textiles.





I finally remembered to take a photo of the portable toilets at Piccadilly gardens.





We went up in the ferris wheel and did a few circles. It was pretty cool. I could point and go 'I can see my work from here!'

We wandered up to St. Anne's square and had some German food at the markets. We missed the Lakeland stall though, which makes me a sad panda.

Then Pips recommended seeing a movie, so we headed off to the Printworks to book Wall-e.



We had about a half an hour to kill and decided to find some bookstores. And wandered down some alley ways.













Wall-e was adorable. I loved it. And I got a pink lilly from the flower thing at Albert square. It was a pretty awesome day out and a really good weekend:) What wasn't awesome was discovering fuck all trains run from Victoria on Sundays. Made it to Piccadilly though.

Urbane Female

In the mornings, weather and train timeliness permitting, I walk from Salford Central to St. Peter's Square. I like it, it gives me a chance to move my legs (something that doesn't happen nearly enough) and I breathe some non-germified train air (traded in for some delicious Manchester pollution.)

And I enjoy my walks very much, except for the slow walkers. And slow walkers are inevitably women. They're women dressed in heels of some kind, usually boots, in uncomfortable suits on their way to the office. I dodge them in all manner of creative ways, the overtake, the cigarette, the 'accidental' nudge. I can't stand getting stuck behind some trundling mortgage advisor because she chose the 'fashionable' option instead of the practical one. And my trusty Docs are the reason I move so much faster, but they're a clothing accessory that got me a severe looking over by one of our customers yesterday. But screw her, I learned a long time ago that there are things that simply do not go with heeled boots.

They are:
1. Running for trains/trams
2. Walking to the shop on cobblestones
3. Walking faster than an elderly snail

But for the sake of fashion, most of the women I see trundling up New Bailey cripple themselves in bunion causing designer knock offs. Men wear Doc boots, or dress shoes that no matter how they pinch, aren't as bad as the worst sky high Anna Sui heel. Men get the better deal.

Yesterday morning I walked through the door to my office and was greeted by a good up and down look by one of our delegates. By the resulting look on her face, I was not up to par. What was so atrocious? I was wearing a black wool overcoat, a black v-neck angora sweater, brown trousers and my same Doc Marten boots. Nothing about that screams fashionable, but at the same time, it's all comfortable and doesn't scream hobo either. Doing my job, I never know when I'll have to crawl around under a table to fix a cable, or carry a PC from classroom to office. I never know when I'll have to wrap myself around the back of our pissy little server rack to find a reset switch, or do some basic DIY. It's the nature of the beast. A button down shirt, most slacks, most women's shoes would result in all kinds of creative injuries. I'm not going to slip off a ladder and break my damned neck for the sake of fitting in with the Hello! crowd.

Plus, regardless of the tomboyish rigors of my job, I was still business casual. What does it matter if I wasn't wearing killer heels like her instructor, or a 2-piece Liz Claiborne suit with an overpriced Karen Millen top? What does it matter if the only make-up I wear in the morning is some Lush moisturizer? And most days my hair is tucked back in a low pony tail or messy bun? Who says I have to wear make-up? Frankly, our dress code is so loose that as long as I don't turn up in a boob tube and jeans Monday-Thursday I'm in the clear.

My employers seem to agree, I'm always ignored when the internal 'look more professional' e-mails go out. For the most part, what I wear is clean (if covered in blonde hair) pressed, not that worn and simple. But by the look this woman gave me, you'd think I was dressed in hotpants and thigh high hooker boots. I should mention, she was wearing what you'd expect from a woman going to work. She even had the typical Manchester hairstyle: paper straight. (There's a right way and a wrong way to use GHDs ladies.) What about women wearing simple clothes is so deeply unacceptable?

I think I have the winning ticket over Miss Dirty Look 2008. My shoes are comfortable, have good soles that won't shock the ankles or knees. My trousers were kind of stretchy and a little loose, good give for bending over and picking things up. My sweater was functional and warm without showing cleavage. Even my undergarments were practical, except my boy style underwear had little brown and yellow skulls on them. What she had on probably required a push up bra due to the poor cut of her jacket, stomach scrunching undies, thanks to the A-line, and Scholls party feet so she wasn't bleeding my the end of the day. Me:1 Her:0

I do groom a bit during the week, of course. There's nothing quite like the whispy feeling of wind going through the hair on my mole to get me to pluch. I find a pair of pliers and the back of my iPod works well for taking care of that. (Me:2 Her:0, I always have a way to pluck at work.) I shave my legs because I hate the itchy feeling I get if I don't. I shave my pits because, frankly, bacteria loves hairy dark places and I dislike smelling. One of my huge girly vices is perfume. I have tons of it, made by various people. At the moment I'm wearing something I bought from Victoria's Secret that smells like spring. I moisturize because I smoke and I'm already getting some creases around my mouth.

If you've seen me at ARA or Jilly's then you know I do actually have a decently feminine wardrobe. In Portland I bought a adorable Oscar de la Renta dress from Buffalo Exchange that I thought I was going to have to fight for to get out of the store. (I heard 'OhMyGodThat'sSoCute' about 6 times between the fitting room and the counter.) But all that ARA shit takes around 2 hours to put together. And while I love dressing up for games, or to go out, I don't want to waste my morning putting it all together to work on computers. For one thing, people might get the wrong idea about what I do and think I'm an Office Manager or Belle du Jour. For another, I'd rather be drinking my coffee, watching BBC breakfast and pulling on my shoes. There's more to life than grooming. With my morning shower I take about 30 minutes to get ready in the morning. I know for a fact some of these girls are getting up at 6:30am to do full face, hair and outfit selection. I'd miss CSI:Miami on Tuesdays if I did that and that's more important to me than fitting into some dated notion of what it means to be an office working female.

I was really encouraged to read something today where women echoed my sentiments. I think living in the Manchester area where women really push it out (even in fucking trackies these girls have enough make-up on to recreate 10 Mona Lisas) I forget that there are some places in the world where brown trousers and a black angora sweater won't get you a nasty once over, or a suggestion you're a lesbian. It also takes me half the time to walk up John Dalton, that's well worth it. And really, shouldn't it be that way all the time everywhere?

http://www.observer.com/2008/urbane-tomboys via Jezebel

Weekend Review: Singstar Studios in Manchester!

On Sunday I rounded up a few friends and headed to Manchester Singstar Studios. Oh my god, it was brilliant. I'm writing up the whole experience for Grrlgamer.com but I have to tell a little here.

- Mr. Me is actually a pretty good singer. He scored consistently higher than anyone else!

- Mr. Me and Lucien Doomdark did some great duets.

- Kim is pretty good as well, though goths shouldn't know the words to SClub 7 tunes.

Everyone was a bit fish out of water for the first 15 minutes, then everyone wanted a go.

We had such a good time, pink wigs and all. I was a little disappointed there was no vocal coach as advertised. I was extremely happy my penchant for humiliating myself in public is still there. We ended up at the Retro bar after for some ranting and nut eating.

What was less than awesome about the night was on our trip back from The Best Take-away Ever toward the House of Students, we passed the beginning of a crime scene.

Yesterday we found out it was because a boy was shot in the park, just as we were buying our kebabs.

Weekend Review: Friday night dance party!

By time I finally got home on Friday I had just enough time to take a shower, get changed, put on a lot of eyeliner, grab my (sorry, our) VIAO and head out to Sanctimonia. The latter is a smaller, mini-club night run by the same people that do ARA. It's less clubby, more about watching movies and dancing a bit upstairs.

Even though the Mr., myself and our band of merry gentlefolk head out to ARA pretty regularly, we had yet to make a Sanctimonia. But we had purpose this time, I was meant to learn how to use the DJ equipment.

In October at the Manchester Requiem Game, I created a CD for the venue. The idea was Halloween nightclub and I wanted to give the Cammies something to listen to. Just a little atmospheric music, like the Monster Mash and others of its ilk. It went over well, one of the organizers behind ARA seemed to enjoy it and asked off hand if I wanted to DJ. My response was a very enthusiastic yes.

See, I love music. From my first record,Elvis Sings for Children and Grownups Too!, to indications my music taste grew away from NKOTB with Vital Idol and into Violator, music has been an, er, instrumental, part of my life. And anyone who's ridden in the car with us knows how much I like inflicting new stuff on everyone around me. DJ'ing seems the natural progression.

On Friday I learned a few things, like how to fade in and out, how to adjust the master volume, how to cue a song... and most importantly that it's a lot harder than it looks. I have a whole new respect for club DJs as well, who get stuck playing old classics like The Temple of Love instead of anything new. Thankfully I have a very patient teacher.

My lessons did eventually give way to hanging out in the church belfry listening to very old Depeche Mode with Kolyn and a bottle of Fairtrade Pinot Grigio. I have to say, I can't think of many better ways of spending a Friday night.

But then sometimes it turns out ok

I was late to work this morning. More common occurence then I'd like. I have yet another cold, which I blame on the appalling summer weather and our car decided today was a good time to have its water pipe break. As a result our little Rover is gushing all over the place. I missed my normal morning commuter train, kind of a blessing because the later one usually has seats and wasn't up to doing my morning walk.

I rode the tram to Victoria and then out again. At St. Peter's square I heard a conversation between a Spanish guy and a woman about getting to Old Trafford. Together they observed the map and tried to get him in the right direction. Both apparently missing that all trams, besides the Eccles line, now stop at Cornbrook. To get any further they have to take a bus from St. Peter's Square to all stops on the Altrincham line.

I sat, reading my paper, just about to do the Soduku and I heard a little voice in the back of my head. 'You should help him.' Angry, frustrated with humanity, I tried to push it away. 'No, Tiffany, you should help him. Remember what the public transport system was like for you when you came to England?' I sighed, resigned. Flashes of tears at Piccadilly station while I tried to make my way back to Wigan popped into my head. Flashes of broken languages in other foreign countries with understanding natives popped in my head. I had to help.

'Excuse me? She was wrong. You actually need to go back to St. Peter's Square.' I said, with trepidation in my voice. We disembarked at Deansgate, a place where I could smoke. I pointed the way he could go and where he count use the stairs. It turned out he was going to Old Trafford, the football ground, not cricket. 'Oh. Ok, come with me then. I'll take you to Exchange Quay. It isn't a far walk from there.' He was lovely, his name is Said from Alicante. He's studying economics at the University of Manchester in the Fall. Between my broken high school Spanish and his English, we managed to get things sorted.

Then it was the fare inspectors. More decisions, more little voices in the back of my head. He didn't have a ticket. I got off the tram with him. A burly inspector wandered over to us. 'Do you two have tickets?' 'I do, he doesn't. I don't think he understands the system very well.' In rapid English the inspector leaned forward and told him off. Said looked at me and spoke in Spanish 'can you translate? I don't understand.' I shook my head, my Spanish instructors were good, but not that good.

In a spark of kindness the Metrolink inspector did something I've never seen. He let me take him to buy a ticket at the machine and get on the next tram. Said told me I was beautiful, something I don't hear without a lot of make-up on and I took him to Exchange Quay. I pointed to the football ground and told him how to walk there and told him to avoid Ordsall. I would have taken him but was already an hour late to work. He seemed to understand and told me in quick Spanish I was a good person.

I'm not sure why I did it. It was the right thing to do and this week is slow. For me it was 30 minutes out of my day to help a lost tourist. For him it was less frustration and probably a way to farmilliarize himself with Manchester. He didn't try to take advantage and even invited me to the match tonight. (I can't go, deadline tomorrow for Samurai Warriors 2: Empires.) Overwhelmingly it's a reminder that just because DIY Steve steals your paving stones, and though it might be a struggle, becoming a jerk just isn't an option.

Walking around in.... Manchester.

Over the last few months I've been thinking it might be more efficient to use some leg power to change stations during my commute. My three-legged monstrosity, proof that transport planners in Manchester used cockroaches with paint on their legs and a big map of another city to sort the Metrolink/train connections out, contains many opportunities for mishap. I thought perhaps if I cut one of those connections out and used my own you know, body, to get around, then I might be on time for work and home more.

My commute usually goes: Wigan via Atherton/Salford Crescent/Deansgate/Eccles. It's the shortest time between the three using rail and Metrolink. Supposedly it's fairly efficient and virtually foolproof. But then the Manchester Airport train shows up with only two carriages or the trams are delayed by 25 minutes. Sadly, I can't cut out the Metrolink or Wigan via Atherton portion of my journey. Both are non-negotiable. The bus system into Manchester and out to Salford Quays is probably about 20x worse than the trains and trams. And that's due to having to deal with Manchester traffic. But there is one leg I can cut out and that's the connection from Salford Crescent to Deansgate, or from Victoria to the Eccles line.

I gave it a shot this morning and managed to make the 9:14 tram to Eccles. That's a damned rarity when attempting to use the Manchester Airport connection or trams from Victoria. By my estimate I managed to get to St. Peter's Square from Salford Central at around 9:04, roughly 10 minutes from when my train arrived. I was curious though, what's actually the nearest Metrolink station on foot?

I consulted Google Maps as a first point of call and discovered all directions are for driving folks. Not very helpful, except for seeing where things are on a map. I did some searches, hoping for some estimated walking times. No go. I then consulted the ladies of the loos and received loads of answers.

The first was a guide to London, Birmingham and Edinburgh called Walk It. The point of this being people need to move more and due to the functional nature of London's tube map, no one actually knows where anything is. If you provide pedestrian maps, people will use the tube less, get more exercise and see a little bit more of London and other cities. No doubt they'll have a Manchester up there soon.

The second was multimap's walking option. Which sounded like exactly what I needed. Except it's quite poorly implemented.



The walking directions are supposedly there on the right. Except you can't see a significant portion of them, they're covered by er, words. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to get rid of that text box.

The next one, discovered and recommended simultaneously via the loos and a post on the bradlands blog was the Gmap pedometer. Using this I can plot out the distance between two points and how many calories I've burned by walking it. According to Fun Trivia it takes around 17 minutes to walk a mile at a leisurely pace. So, .69 miles comes to about 11 minutes. If I'd stayed on the train the GMPTE journey planner tells me it takes about 20 minutes by train and tram.

This sorts out another issue I've been contemplating. I don't have a whole lot of time to get to the gym. And girly magazines always suggest getting off the bus or whatever one stop earlier. Not really a possibility for me since my nearest tram stop is across the canal. But with 20 minutes more exercise every day, especially first thing in the morning, I might just get off my lazy behind yet.

How to take photos in Manchester

Manchester Victoria dome 1
Originally uploaded by vulgarcriminal.

Technically I shouldn't really have a photo of this. The bar staff at Manchester Victoria shouted 'no photography!' at Mr. Me when he whipped out his real camera. I managed a few shots, mine is point and click.

We wandered down to the reception area and asked how we would go about getting photography passes. It turns out it's different for train stations than almost anywhere else.

Here's a run down of what to be prepared for if you want to take photos of tourist attractions in Manchester (or possibly anywhere else.)

Manchester Town Hall

- You must sign a release denying any commercial copyright.

Manchester Victoria

- Permission is available from Bridgewater House on Bridgewater Street. It may take a day or so to actually get the release form. When you do, you have to notify the train station duty manager. Information is available off Platform 3. (Just let the ticket fascists know you're not travelling!)

Manchester Art Gallery
- Oddly, unlike many US galleries, you can actually take photos here. They require a similar release form to the Manchester Town Hall saying the photos will not be sold.

I'm guessing that other places, like Manchester Piccadilly train station and the Manchester Museum are probably similar.

Technorati Tags: Manchester, photos, tips, tourist

Sanctuary

On the 4th Friday of every month I paint myself up as a goth and go out to ARA. I've long stopped my regular clubbing outings in Manchester as my awareness of or the amount of violence on weekend evenings has risen. I'd rather have a nice night in watching Big Brother than face the hordes of drunken ruffians out for a night of brawling. But ARA and what it offers me is different in a way that makes going out worthwhile and up until recently, safe.

The night is run by a pair of couples who are extremely friendly and extraordinarily kind. When we get to the door, there isn't the scowl and demand for tickets or bag searches. We receive friendly chat about what's happening in everyone's lives, who we've brought with us or just comments that on a particular night I look a bit Rockabilly. I look forward to going in and I look forward to going out. It's such a remarkable experience to find that kind of openness in a place referred to as a club and one I find brightens the whole month.

On a normal outing, we go in and find a pew to set our stuff on and sit for a bit looking around or watching a movie. See, there aren't the sticky tables and broken chairs of your regular club. The night is held at Sacred Trinity Church in Salford, with the blessing of the Reverend. People that come are aware of the grounds, the beauty of the building and respect it as such. You won't find many being slammed into the wall, or lazily spilling their drinks. That respect stretches to the behavior of the club goers as well. We have yet to see people on the floor with telltale plastic baggies, just bottles of wine they've bought at the local market and perhaps a pack of cigarettes for outside conversation.

Just near the doors, on gravestones, is where the conversation happens. We stand around with our glasses and laugh, sometimes fleeing back indoors when we hear a particular bump of a song we like. During the summer it's hard to move through the corridors for the traffic running back and forth. Subsequently we've made some friends and remain open to all who come running.

I'm constantly encouraging people to go. I keep thrusting them in the direction of ARA, expounding on the evening's possibilities. My husband and I have been attending almost since they started and always find ourselves pleased. Friends that have gone keep returning for more, even if they don't particularly like the genre or the subculture. It's just one big friendly party that's held in an amazingly lovely church and we've always been grateful for it.

And it is that open vibe that makes the events of last night so distressing for me.

Around the corner from the church is a real pub that seems to attract some elements unlike ours and more typical of what you'd expect. I saw them last night, grouped around the place with pints of something. I remember thinking that I wouldn't like to walk past them because of their shaved heads and an aura of violence. Two months ago, in what we suspect is connected to that pub, one of the other regulars was mugged. We thought that it was a one off, what are the odds of something like that happening again so far outside of the city centre at a local church? But yesterday was different and so much worse.

I didn't witness any of the worst parts, thankfully. The first I knew of something happening was when my husband grabbed me mid dance to What do I get? to let me know something had happened and to get my phone. Later stories told of how four kids had been kicked out of the bar around the corner and decided to randomly take their aggression out on the people outside, before trying to venture in to get some more action. They swung at my husband, who made a lucky dodge and grazed one of the guys in our group. They managed to get someone else on the ground, though he was fighting them the best he could. They punched one of the women who runs it and then proceeded to stomp one person we didn't realize had been left outside after the doors had been barricaded.

It took 7 minutes and 21 seconds for me to get police and an ambulance despatched. I probably made the whole process more difficult, since my head was still stuck in the moment I watched one of my friends being used as a rope in a tug of war. A police officer did eventually arrive after about 10-15 minutes, too late to catch the thugs and too inneffectual to get everyone's statements. By then we'd discovered that when the doors were shut, one of the other organizers had been left outside and was badly hurt. An ambulance did eventually turn up after another 10 minutes or so and treated the one on the ground, who left a small circle of blood behind. The others were told nothing, or to go to Accident and Emergency.

I'm still horrified about it all. The randomness and brutality of the attack has left one in the hospital. Perhaps strangely, what's most angering is the lack of respect these people showed to the church grounds. ARA is sanctuary, that's what the organizers want and that's what we get. Troublemakers and those who disrespect the rules are typically not tolerated. Do what the sign says, or leave. It's supposed to be, like the church, a haven from all the idiocy, violence and aggression of everywhere else there is to go out. Yet somehow something so basic as to respect that universal symbol of peace hasn't been taught to these perpetrators. I can't even begin to comprehend what that means.

Technorati Tags: ara, manchester, social