How to Piss off a King (aka Why you should Always Mean what you Say)

Now that I'm back home, I've been walking at the lake every day again, working off all the pain au chocolate, muller rice, and Pret a Manger brownies that always seem to make their way into my mouth when I'm in England.  The walk around the lake is about 3 miles, and takes me about 50 minutes to complete.  I've been doing it every day, in the evenings when it's not so hot.  Generally I listen to an audiobook - right now I'm listening to one called Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (he so totally got a raw deal in posterity).  But the other day I caught up on a bunch of podcasts from BBC History Magazine - their History Extra podcast is one of my favorites.

If you read Pillars of the Earth, you kind of know the story of Thomas Becket, who was martyred when soldiers sent from Henry II murdered him in 1170.  Poor Henry.  I have a lot of sympathy for him.  To start with, he appointed Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury because he and Thomas were supposedly friends.  Thomas had worked for Henry as his Chancellor.  Then Henry appoints him Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas has a "Road to Damascus" conversion, and suddenly Thomas is fighting Henry every which way.

So for years Thomas is driving Henry crazy, and Henry is stuck with an unruly Archbishop who won't put royal supremacy over papal law and do the things Henry asks him to do, as King.  And Thomas is all, "I'm standing up for the power of God," when he was probably just being a little brat.  Ok, maybe he was partly standing up for God, but there was definitely a part of him that was being a brat.

So then Henry, after years of putting up with this ungrateful man, has a hissy fit.  Apparently Henry used to have lots of hissy fits, and people just ignored him until he calmed back down.  He was seriously emotional  Well, you would be too if your wife was supporting a rebellion against you; one that was led by your sons.  Doh!  So Henry has a hissy fit and says, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"  And some younger men of Henry's, who weren't so familiar with his hissy fits, are all like, "oooh, we will!  we will!  We'll impress the king and kill the Archbishop!"

So they go riding off into the night like a bunch of punks, show up at Canterbury, kill Thomas, and then Henry has to do penance.  He has to dress as a penitent, go to Canterbury on a pilgrimage, and beg forgiveness of everyone so that the Pope doesn't excommunicate him.  At this point, I'm kinda like, "Poor Henry," right?  He was just doing his thing, having his hissy fit, and it got all taken out of context.

Which is why there are two lessons for the day:

First, don't be a yes-man Chancellor, and then suddenly get a spine when you're appointed Archbishop.  That isn't going to be good for you if you like your head attached to your shoulders.

Second, if you're a King, and you're surrounded by yes-men who are eager to please you, watch it when you talk about people you'd like to have killed.  Because you just never know when you're going to have to wear thorns and beg forgiveness of people you can't really stand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II_of_England

BBC HistoryExtra Henry II Podcast:
http://78.152.32.153/cdn.bbcmagazinesbristol.com/bbchistory/audio/HistoryExtra_24thMay12.mp3

I'm a podcasting fool

I'm up late, having just done another episode of the Renaissance English History Podcast, cuz that's how I roll on a three day weekend.  You can subscribe in itunes, or listen online (just click the EnglandCast tab).  Cuz you know you need to know lots of stuff about 16th Century English Art in 10 minutes or less...

And I made these homemade potato chips today.  I'm not really sure that they count as, you know, chips.  But they're made with potatoes, oil, salt and pepper.  So they ain't Doritos...

And since I'm punchy, and today my 32 year old husband tells me that when he grows up he wants to be a guitar player for Big Time Rush, it's time for Funny Local News: Arachnophobia Edition.  Love how the woman tries to take charge.  Leave it to a woman to try to keep stuff moving along.  Bunch of stupid frat boys acting like ten year olds while the woman tries to do her job.  

New Renaissance English History Podcast

If you click on over to that EnglandCast tab, you will see that after a looooong hiatus, I finally did a new Renaissance English History Podcast.  This was spurred on by a listener who emailed me at work, and I checked the stats on the podcast, and dontcha know, each episode has had about 25k downloads.  Yep, that's right.  The same amount of people download my EnglandCast as lived in Washington DC in the mid-19th century.  Pretty sweet.

back to podcasting

Well, I'm back to podcasting after a nearly-six-month-pregnancy-loss-of-pregnancy break...
This week, Edward VI's reign.  Color me excited.
http://englandcast.blogspot.com

Lessons in humility

I've had two things happen that are teaching me to be humble this week. First, I found out I need surgery on my ankle, and I'm going to be in a cast up to my knee for 8 weeks, starting July 2. So there goes my relaxing summer by the lake, right? I'm actually quite freaked out about it - no walking or putting any weight on it for 8 weeks. That royally sucks, especially because there are like 30 steps from our driveway to our doorway, and they're not all nice and easy, either. Our house is built into a hill, so they're uneven, stone, etc. I guess I'll have to scoot down on my butt if I want to go anywhere, even if hubby drives me. That's all I can think. And I'm lucky in that our bathtub is against the wall on the right side, and the surgery is going to be on my left ankle, so I'll still be able to take a bath with my leg hanging out the edge of the tub. But they're cutting a huge amount out to get good tendons to replace the bad ones. So I'll have a big scar, and the idea of it is just really gross. And the whole thing just has me really scared.

But here's what I realized... there are people who don't have mobility all the time. I'm being all dramatic because I'm losing my mobility for 8 weeks. There are people who will never be mobile again in their lives. There are people who lost legs in Iraq. And arms in Afghanistan. And just have diseases that keep them from being able to walk around whenever they want.

I feel like it's my duty to take care of this body, which largely works, in honor of the people who don't have bodies that work 100% like mine does. So that's Humbling Incident Number One.

The second one is that I got busted using Wikipedia on my Renaissance English History Podcast. I say "busted" like I was trying to get away with something, and that wasn't the case - I'm just super-embarrassed because I know better than that. Soooo.... that's humbling incident number 2. Lesson learned. No more wikipedia without fact-checking.

The other thing is that I'm engrossed in Agincourt: A Novel about the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. I've never ready anything by Bernard Cornwell before, but I'm definitely going to become a fan. It is just all-consuming. I find myself sneaking a sentence at a red light. Not very safe! But happy to find a new author I love.

More cool stuff (and I really need to schedule time to write)

So this was my second day on my own with Hubby gone and I made good use of it. Woke up early with a bed full of snuggling cats who missed their human-papa. Went out early and took pictures with my schnazzy new camera. That was super-fun. I took a lot of pictures of sunflowers (notice the bee in this one??). Then, because there was more fun to be had, I went to the lake and paddled around in the water, which was much warmer than it was last week, thank goodness. Read my book, listened to some podcasts, and ate a hot dog. Yay for hot dogs.

This afternoon I worked on my Renaissance English History podcast and put out a new episode of that on the Pilgrimage of Grace. Those silly northerners - thinking they could follow their own conscience and defy Henry.

I've been thinking a lot about my productivity lately - there are so many things I'm into, and I just don't seem to have enough time to do them all, and yet I know that's not exactly true because I seem to have time for facebook. If you have time for facebook, you have time to follow your passions. So I've been poking around discovering online productivity sites like inboxzero, which is rocking my world, and then yesterday I found 43folders, which is also filled with tips, inspiration, and ideas on how to make time for what's really important.

So this week I'm going to actually schedule time to write, and not just take it when it comes, so to speak. And I'm going to work when I'm at work and make sure my evenings are free of work. Gotta figure this stuff out now because when a little one comes, whenever a little one decides to come, it won't be any easier...

Ok, I'm going to sound like a grumpy old person now...

One of my favorite podcasts is the BBC Americana show, a British perspective on American culture, society, history and politics. I love it. And I was so disappointed this week when they were talking about Alexis de Tocqueville, walking along the streets of Washington DC, asking people what they thought of this guy, who so shaped our view of ourselves, and the world's view of America. The original road-tripper. He did the American Journey of Discovery a century before Jack Kerouac. I'm no expert on de Tocqueville. I believe I read Democracy in America in school, or at least skimmed the Cliffs Notes, and I don't expect for people to be able to quote him. I don't even expect for everybody to know who he was. But for pete's sake...on the streets of our capital, where people are running our country, and are supposedly smart, nobody knew his name. One guy was even like, "why don't you ask me about politics?"

Listen, dumb*ss, asking about de Tocqueville is asking about politics.

Reading his quotes on religion that are excerpted on Wikipedia makes me think that the Tea Party folks could do with copies of Democracy in America sent to them. Oh, yeah, he's French, so they probably wouldn't read it anyway.

I'm so seriously disappointed.

Cool Things

My life is brimming with coolness lately. It's a very fun experience.

First off, I finally did a new podcast episode, and I'm getting cool ideas about future episodes. The thing I've noticed about myself, and life, is that the more I put something off, the harder it gets to do it. But then when you finally do it, it's so not nearly as difficult as you think it's going to be. It's like the whole Newton thing. Body in motion stays in motion, etc. I get lazy and then, unless acted upon by an outside force (a la Landmark) I stay lazy and don't do the things I say I want to do.

Second, I was driving on Sunday afternoon and caught Speaking of Faith, which reminded me how much I love that show. Coming from Amish Country (though no, I'm not Amish and never have been) I have a funny relationship with religion. I always thought that religion meant deprivation. You can't dance. You can't make fun of things. You certainly can't watch Jon Stewart. So for a while I dropped out of religion entirely. I stopped talking to God. I decided the whole thing was a sham. But then I realized how I had collapsed the conservativeness of where I grew up with religion in general, and God in particular. When I lived in London I went to church all the time. Literally. I said it was for the music, but I also loved feeling close to heaven. I miss that. Not having a church is really something that is missing in my life. Note to self: Finish 2009 New Year's Resolution and Find A Church. In my own lame defense, I will say that a lot of it is because I live so far away from everything. But that's lame and I need to get over it.

Here's the super cool thing of the day - over 270 people have joined the Meetup Group that I started last week in the Ontario airport. Sweet!

Oh, and I spent 2 hours in the Fontana DMV today. Hope I don't have to have that experience again for a long time. It wasn't so bad. People were pretty friendly. But I can think of nicer ways to spend my time. At least that's off my list though. It feels so good to cross things off my list.

More stuff to keep up with

I've been playing around with Google Reader, finally. I haven't shared everything that I'm following yet, but I'll keep sharing stuff on my public shared page. I love the idea that Google Reader lets you subscribe to any website, whether they have an RSS feed or not. For example, I subscribed to the BBC History Magazine today, and it doesn't look like they have an RSS feed, but with a little bit of Google magic, I can keep up with what they're posting on their site without having to remember to go to their site all the time. Presto! Magic! I love it! EXCEPT...

...there are currently 385 unlistened-to podcasts sitting in itunes right now. About 120 emails. In a world where information is everywhere, it becomes very difficult to not feel pressured to keep up with everything. So I'm going to have to be very judicious about deleting stuff, and not getting down if I suddenly have 100 unread items, and simply deleting them.

Renaissance Schmenaissance

New episode of the Ren Eng Hist Podcast. Yay for podcasts!

Podcast Fun

New Episode of the Renaissance English History Podcast up.

http://englandcast.blogspot.com

Yay for Podcasts done in front of the fire and christmas tree.