Racing 'Cakes!

Happy Pancake Day! Or Shrove Tuesday... Or Mardi Gras... Or Carnivale... Or... Regular Tuesday... Anyway, enjoy these tasty pancakes of symbolic goodness. And Jesus looked upon the pancakes and said "They are good" and they WERE good, once again proving Jesus knew what he was talking about- assuming he was talking about pancakes.

Technically of course, Shrove Tuesday and everything was yesterday, and you should all be deep in thoughts of penury now, what with the start of Lent and all... I'm willing to pretend and keep eating pancakes though. Such is my devotion to you.

So, yes... Pancakes are good aren't they. Shrove Tuesday pancakes are a sort of crepe-y affair, rather than the buttermilk babies I think of as pancakes, which is perhaps why my mother had such a hard time finding pancake batter mix while she was here at Christmas. But these pancakes are an important spring ritual that can in no way be construed as pagan. They run races with them. In skillets. The pancakes, not the people. And they use them to tell the future. And they nail bits of them inside the chimmney. For Jesus. All of this is for Jesus.

But there you are, yet another British tradition expounded for you Colonials to ponder. It's
like a whole other country- smaller, older, and more similar to the US than any other place in the known universe at this junction. Which rather mitigates any "bravery" on my part. What is really amusing is how different Brits expect it to be for Americans. There seems to be real surprise at the relative lack of culture shock.

I'm already getting misty about the things I'm gonna miss about Britain:
1. Trains - I love trains. I hate air planes. I haven't got a car. I'm gonna miss trains.
2. Concerts - EVERYBODY comes to the UK. A lot of them are even FROM here. And no venue in the entire country is more than ten hours away. I can't even get to Seattle in ten hours!
3. TV - Most of it's crap of course, like anywhere else, but occaisonally there is a really great series that only runs for six episodes- a complete run, mind you. You can really get a handle on something that short.

But of course, none of these things compare to the things I MISS about home, namely all of you! Especially Chewy. I miss Chewy, and I've never even met him... her... it... I swear, finals are the only thing keeping me in this country, the pull of Chewy is so strong. Nobody else get a chinchilla- you're jeopardising my entire academic standing.