Memorial Day

Doesn't feel like Memorial Day here. At all.
Even though it is a holiday. Beginning-of-summer holiday. Bank holiday. Three-day weekend.
It's all more secular here.
In the States, holidays are often about remembering dead people -- Martin Luther King, all the dead presidents, the veterans -- somebody.
Here's it can just be about having a day off.
Bank holiday. Banks closed.
A lot more honest, when you think about it.
Anyway, Memorial Day -- today -- was a big thing the last dozen years I was in Washington. First, there's all the big-deal barbecues, and then in Washington, hundreds of thousands of guys descend on the city on their Harley-Davidsons in a yearly go-to-Washington motorcycle march the capital hosts. Lots of rednecks with bandanas riding real slow on their massive bikes all over the city for three days.
When I was growing up there, there was no motorcycle march. It was mostly about going to the beach then, kicking the summer off with a day-trip to the shore. A sunburn, usually. Fries on the boardwalk. Strip pictures in the little photo booths.
Do holidays happen even if you're not there?
I think so.
My son in Rome and I talked about Memorial Day yesterday.
He was missing it. Remembering the guys on their motorbikes.
Probably wishing he could be home -- for the day anyway. But working.
Lucky to have a good job.
Here's to Memorial Day 2010.
Throw a burger on the barbecue for me. And pass me a Bud.
I can just hear the bikes slowing down on the curve outside.

The Fox Family

I said last year that England didn't really have a night noise, like Italy does. That here, even in busy London, it was the noise of quiet.
Wrong.
It's the sound of foxes. At least around here.
I've been jet-lagged, and my husband's been away, so I've been going to sleep close to three every morning.
I told you about the family of foxes that live in the seemingly abandoned, empty stand of houses across the street from me, right?
I hadn't seen them the first day after I returned from the States. And I was worried.
I like the foxes. A lot. Even if yes, they can be mangy.
They're little. And red. Cute. They lie in the sun scratching themselves.
And where do you get to live among foxes? Seriously? In a city?
They remind me of my dog of a dozen years back in the States. They're the same color. And shape. Just a bit smaller.
The dog we had to put down before we came.
My beloved Lucy. My best friend.
Named after Lucille Ball, that great American red-head.
Back to the foxes.
Hadn't seen them yet. Really wanted to.
Had noticed a big new demolition sign on the front of the houses, though, which used to be a local lumberyard.
The big, once important lumberyard -- maybe 10 houses all together -- is right on the High Road.
We live around the corner from the High Road now, which just goes on and on for miles through one London neighborhood after another.
Never really ends, this continuous London High Road, as far as I can tell.
Whatever you call it.
I'm worried now they're going to take the whole stand of houses down though. That somebody bought it. They would, wouldn't they? The market's good.
The noise we'll have to endure.
And the foxes. Above all, the foxes.
I was still up, magazines and newspapers strewn around me on the bed, when I heard them. I glanced at the clock radio. 2:30 a.m.
A high-pitched wailing. Followed by some more.
A fox fight. Or something.
I looked out.
Two of them were sitting outside about twenty feet apart on our little private road (we live in a weird little gated community in the middle of everything).
They were staring at each other.
Looking kinda chill, though.
Like Lucy could look, all curled up, but still hyper-alert.
What's going on out there, guys?
My next door neighbor, a retired British gentleman who lives here part-time with his wife, told me the foxes run the place at night.
They run along the high back walls.
In the dead of night.
Or along our private road.
When most people are asleep.
This morning -- okay, afternoon -- a fox sat on the roof of the lumberyard's big old shed (please do not take that glorious old wood shed down), scratching himself, hoping the sun comes out later. Like everyone else in the neighborhood.
Hello there! You're still here.
So good to see you.
Please don't go yet.

Immigration UK-style

I'm back. In London. At my new little house. Which I love.
It's sunny, and quite warm for London. Amazing.
So much has happened since I last wrote. I'll tell you about it slowly.
Or risk losing you altogether.
We got back yesterday from two weeks in the States. Went home for awhile.
Although the longer you're away from home, the less like home it feels.
Funny that.
And didn't really go home. Didn't go to Washington. Went to South Carolina and Florida. Not sure Florida counts as anybody's home.
Anyway. Want to tell you about the amazing differences between landing in the US and landing in the UK.
Going home now -- to the US -- has become fraught. Landing has anyway.
With my British husband. Who was completely cool as long as we lived in the US.
Now, we're hanging onto his green card for life.
Who knows when we might need it again -- like soon, even?
Immigration officers quiz him mercilessly on arrival now -- how long has he been out of the country (less than a year, sir), have we filed our taxes (seriously. And the answer is YES.) -- especially in a big southern airport like Atlanta, where there are some SERIOUS immigration officers.
My husband has been held in a little room at Atlanta airport for up to an hour.
We get in eventually, but it's getting scarier.
At least for me.
No, please, I beg you. Can we keep his green card, please?
It took us forever to get it, those dozen years ago now, even though we've been married as long as a moss strand in Charleston.
Don't make us give it back. Please.
We don't know what the fuck we're doing.
Arrived back home (as in here) at Heathrow at the crack of dawn yesterday.
Was nervous at London arrivals for a few reasons.
Lack of sleep.
The experience we go through now every time we land in the US.
And then: I've got this stupid Yemeni visa now, which takes up an entire page of my new Italian passport, a visa I never used, because I didn't end up even going to Yemen. If you don't know, Yemen's been in the news a lot lately as the new Al-Qaeda hotbed.
So, might get some questions from the nice British immigration officer as to why I had an unused Yemeni visa, I thought.
Paranoid? Dunno.
Truthfully, I've always felt like a bit of a fraud, although I'm not, speeding through the EU line at Heathrow on my Italian passport.
Since I am American.
But here, I'm definitely Italian.
Born in Italy.
Love that.
Love being Italian here.
Daniela Iacono.
Back to Heathrow.
Got a Muslim immigration officer, a young woman whose head and body was covered in black. Like in Yemen.
Although not like in Yemen, because the woman's face wasn't covered, only her head, and she spoke in a crisp British accent and had a friendly, open face.
She smiled at me. Checked that my passport photo matched my face.
Didn't open the passport beyond the photo page.
Handed it back.
Another smile.
Ten seconds tops.
How did it suddenly become easier to get in here?