Real Londoners?

Are we real Londoners now/ On Saturday night, the end of Diwali, there were fireworks going off all over the city, especially here in Brent where there is a large Hindu temple. Holly and I were planning on going to a library event at the beginning of Diwali. We forgot about it. Then last night, when the fireworks were exploding continuously for hours, I thought about walking in the direction of the most intense concussions to see what there was to see. But we were both nursing colds. Holly has a chapter she's writing, and I'm behind on writing and sending chapters for my novel, so in the end we stayed home and worked.

That's right. Even though we heard the fireworks going off steadily from about six until nearly midnight, even though there was an colorful religious celebration going on nearby, we didn't change our routine. Diwali was just part of the normal background activity of the city. We stayed home. Real Londoners.

Or perhaps, since we were staying home and keeping our noses to the grindstone on a Saturday night, what we really demonstrated is that we are work-obsessed Americans.

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I ran into a neighbor at the corner store. I told him that I was finally getting Internet at home, so he wouldn't be seeing me on the street so much. “The weather's driving you to it at last, is it?” I explained that we'd been trying for weeks to get Internet, but were having a hard time with BT. “What, they won't take your money?” No, I earnestly explained, at first we couldn't get a phone line at all. Then it didn't work. Then...

After we parted, I realized that perhaps he was gently teasing me, and I --- self-conscious about my role as Bruce Bluetooth, Internet pirate --- was taking him all to seriously and sounding far too defensive. At one point, he had re-directed his remarks to Samee (at the cash register) instead of me, and Samee, apparently quicker on the uptake, smiled as if to acknowledge a joke.

British culture is just different enough from my own American culture that I sometimes feel socially stunted here. It's a bit like being a socially awkward teenager again. I miss cues and signals. I understand the words, but I'm still not getting the message. I am the only man on the cricket pitch with a baseball mitt.