Mitt Romney at the intersection

more Arlington notes

The next Jane Austen book club (about Mansfield Park) will now be on 28th September not 7th September. On 14th September the Shakespeare book club will discuss All’s Well That Ends Well. **These book clubs are now open to everyone. You do no need to pay to attend.**

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At the intersection, an older woman with a wheeled shopping-trolley was looking at my book. “Who isn’t apologising?” The book was No Apology, by Mitt Romney, which I had picked up in a small bird-box library where locals leave books they are done with. “Oh he ought to apologise.” When I asked why, she tipped her nose up. “One of those rich snooty pricks.” That was a euphemism she used a few times, including about “the British”, but she didn’t hold it against me. Although her political opinions were freely expressed, strongly held, and in some ways the result of America’s unorthodox media system, (she is, on some topics of international affairs, a little crazy), she was a pleasure to talk to. And quite unexpected: she was neither right-wing nor left-wing when you added it all together. We went round the supermarket together and talked about the brands. I did the voice over from the classic Maxwell House advert in the coffee aisle and she sang a commercial song she remembered from her childhood. She also told me some history of the area. This morning she walked past my window with her dog (a delightful cocker spaniel) and we had coffee together for a few minutes. I got the French blend with some bamboo filters. It was splendid. Our new vintage cups are a delight.

We are living in one of the many parts of Arlington that has old red-brick houses everywhere, built in blocks. The sun comes down strong but cooled through the tall trees. Because there is no nonsense here, unlike in sweaty London, although the cicadas sing all afternoon, the house is cool and pleasant. An area this historic in England would be impossible: not only prohibitive government rules about what you can and cannot do, but local busybodies running “preservation societies” to snoop on people and make trouble with the council. Here, you simply have to have a storm door, proper windows, an air conditioning system and so on, otherwise the weather and the insects would be impossible. The house is old, but it has good air-conditioning, unlike brand new houses being built today in London, where temperatures can hit 104 Fahrenheit. England is simply not a serious country on topics like this, preferring to whine about its possible and ideal solutions rather than find practicable ways to stop everyone from overheating. If the climate were less hospitable to such time-wasting behaviour, we would be able to have the best of both, like the Americans.

Food is expensive. I shan’t write about the politics of the recent inflation, but food is expensive. Because American food is so often “enriched” — I couldn’t find pouring cream without cane sugar added to it — going round the supermarket is a double job of monitoring prices and trying to find something that is what it appears to be: bread without honey, honey without additional sugar, yoghurt without syrup, crackers without sugar, and so forth. I have been eating ranch dressing every day. John Adams once said (of Jefferson and the other Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress) that “all Virginia geese are swans”. Eating an American salad, one knows what he means. For five dollars in a diner you can get a better salad than in some quite fancy places in London. So fresh, crisp, large, and tasty.

The local houses have a freecycle system among the owners. “We have so little space here” one lady explained. We have to laugh. We are living in something twice the size of our London flat.

God bless thrift stores, and the American attitude of self-reliance, where one citizen is always ready to help another. We got a Cuisinart coffee maker and a Le Creuset baking dish. And one of the other customers helped my wife carry her things to the bus stop.

First thing, from the kitchen window, a rabbit, sniffing and stretching, ears suddenly alert.