Mike Blog #1

Mike here.

Even though Eli thought I was older than John, I am, in fact, the youngest member of the family. (It's okay Eli, honest mistake. Nobody can deny that I am more mature than John. Clearly it has nothing to do with the receeding hairline.)

I have been directed, by the blog administrators, to write only about one event. Otherwise I would go on and on and everyone would get bored and stop reading. The topic of the blog is John's birthday BBQ.

So. . .we have now been here for a full week. The reason for the delayed blog is simple - Jamie and John didn't like having us in their home. They give us a cursory tour of the apartment (which is loverly) and then they made us sit outside the whole time. . .away from the photo albums and the cats and the computer. In retrospect, the decision to contain us in the back porch area was a wise one. We are large people, clumsy by nature. And mostly we are self-centered and unaware of our surroundings. Had we been inside, we may have dislodged the photo of Jesus from the bookshelf, or God forbid, we may have tramped on Jovi's tail. No hard feelings, guys, you have to protect what's yours. The thing that bothered me was, they appointed their next door neighbor, a scottish dude named Andy, the guardian of the doorway. If any of us went near the door, he would scream "HAGGIS!" and then kick a soccer ball directly at our arse. It was humiliating.

More about the BBQ. . .John sucks at cooking turkey burgers, but he makes a mean polish sausage. In all honesty it was a fantastic occasion and John got to celebrate his birthday, albeit belated, with his immediate family. Jamie arranged a gorgeous a dessert tray and placed a candle in the middle of a delicious fruit-tart. We sang happy birthday and John blew out the candle in one large breath. He's a big boy now.

For those of you who had the pleasure of visiting J&J in NYC, you have no idea how much larger the London apartment is. It makes the old apartment seem almost comical. No longer do they live in a home fit for Lilliputians. No, now they have a bonafide crib. To put it in perspective, their entire NY apartment could fit in their screened porch, or "solarium".

Back to the food. The Ramsburgs can eat. And eat. And eat. We have decided to weigh ourselves like the British, in stone. There are 14 pounds to a stone. If you suck at math, that means if you weigh 14lbs, you are one 1 stone. You can see the advantage in weighing yourself in stone. If you can guess how many stone I am, I will give you 5 pounds(english currency). Pounds/Dollars is a conversion that is not so advantageous as the stone/lb conversion. Basically you double whatever you pay in pounds and the sum is what you are paying in American dollars. Caitie tipped a cabi five punds and then realized she wasted $10 on a taxi driver. I digress. . . the food at the BBQ was good, and there was lots of it. Burgers, dogs, sausages, chips, potato salad, fruit tart, lemon tart, crisps, beer, wine, pepsi light and sprite. We ate like romans and then played Cranium, girls against guys. Naturally, the women cheated and completely emasculated their counterparts. Even the scottish guy was taken aback by their blatant disregard for the rules. But whatever, we remembered that we could pee standig up. That's what matters in life.

As the evening progressed, certain members, notably John, regressed. He and Jamie got into a nasty "row" about the results of the Cranium match, and John managed his feelings of inferiority by guzzling cans of Carlsberg lager. It was classic Johnny R. He broke out the guitar and began to serenade his wife, a touching show of affection. Unfortunately Jamie wasn't wooed by this, and John wound up strumming the g-chord and singing in monotone. Here are some lyrics I can remember: "Jamie Lynn I love you, even though love is a weird thing and sometimes word are misunderstood. The sky is black and mike ramsburg is wearing a terry cloth shirt. My shoes are comfortable. Stonehenge tomorrow. Music is noise and if nobody listens then its poetry." You get the idea.

You'll be happy to know that the lovers made-up and eventually we all left and spent the night at my parents' rented flat. We woke up at 3:30am and went to Stonehenge. That's a whole other blog.

We are in Devon now, at a gorgeous home overlooking Torbay. It's heaven, really. Everyone is yelling at me to finish. Another Cranium match awaits. This time it's couple vs couple. . .