1
Wednesday night most of the colleges had their JCR Christmas dinners - notorious for crazy antics like giant food fights and drunkenness. We walked by the Christmas tree in front of Baliol on Broad Street that night. There was a group of about a dozen very drunk girls standing in front of the tree belting what I think they thought were Christmas carols. It was really, really bad singing.
2
On the way to Hertford today after going home to change after work, I saw a rabbi and two girls in a cherry picker lighting a giant menorah. Really! There's this churchyard and park near the center of town where Banbury and Woodstock Roads split. Andrew and I ate there many times while we were here in the summer of 2000. This time of year Oxford is strewn with Christmas trees. Every college has one or more. But in the park, in front of the war memorial, they have put a giant menorah. When I was walking past, the city had brought out a truck with a cherry picker on the back. There was a rabbi in full garb standing in it. Just as I approached, two young ladies went scurrying into the bucket with him, giggling. I thought maybe they were tourists kidding around or something, but the rabbi smiled and then the guy from the city sent the bucket up for them to set up the menorah. I look forward to seeing it when we go by later.
3
I was walking along in Summertown yesterday running errands when, on the other side of the busy street, an elderly lady started to fall. Her grocery bag fell to the ground and she began to topple forward, but caught herself on her knuckles before she fell. As soon as she started to go, a young couple (probably undergraduate students) was running down the sidewalk to help her. The lady was fine. Just dropped her bag. She really didn't even fall. But these two nice young people ran up and helped her get her things together and made sure she was okay. I thin most people would have. That's how I think people are - not just in England but in general.
4
Yesterday on my way back from grocery shopping in Summertown I walked by this house with a big, fat brown tabby cat in the window. He had a bell collar on and was grinning from ear to ear at me. He practically filled up the bay window he was grinning so big and standing so tall. He said, "I'm in my nice house and it is all warm and cozy. And you have to be outside." I thought it was nice of him to say hello. So I said hello back and looked at him for a few seconds before I walked the rest of the way home.
5
Right now I am in the Hertford library. Simpkins came in with a student and bathed on his desk for a while. Then he started walking around. I tried to get him to come my way, but he settled down on a cardboard box under a desk in the next row. I'm the only one in here now, but I still can't coax him out and can't use that desk because it's full of stuff. Stupid cats and their cardboard fetishes!
Posted by Erin at December 6, 2002 04:40 PM