From Your Royal Correspondent

As a typical Brit, I'm the first one to moan about my homeland. After all, if I liked it that much I'd still be living there and this blog would be called Living the American Nightmare. One area where we can't be beat though, is pageantry and history. Living in a city which is yet to celebrate its 200th birthday, I can now see why the Americans get so excited when they visit London. Gosh, we sell food older than their entire country.
This week excitement has been building on TV towards next Friday's Royal Wedding. Personally I'd be a bit irritated if my big day was constantly being compared to my late mother-in-law's, but I guess they have a way of getting in there even if they are not physically around any more.
I've seen film of London streets decked out royally with huge Union Jacks, and blooming tulips bobbing in the sunshine. Considering here its pouring with rain and freezing cold, for once it feels like a bit of role reversal.
If you watch American TV regularly, you'd be forgiven for thinking there was no other country but this one on the planet, so its interesting that there are daily updates from London and documentaries about the preparations.
I'm delighted that the Naperville Sun has asked me to write a column about the big day, so I'll be awake at 3 a.m. next Friday, watching, blogging, talking on the phone to London and facebooking. Not sure if Kate has ever visited Naperville, if the Prince buys clothes in Deans or buys gifts for his grandmother's corgis in The Two Bostons, but if there's an angle I'll find it.

Spam a lot

Since the advent of e mail, we've all got used to dealing with more spam than the entire British army could digest during the Second World War. But today I discovered that it does actually have a funny side. It all started at 4.30 a.m. when my new smart phone bleeped to tell me I had an e mail. To be honest, if it were that smart it would know to wait til a decent hour, but I digress. The message was from a friend saying she'd had a message from me that looked suspicious and said she wouldn't open it until I okayed it. Quite what she was doing checking her e mails so early I have no idea, but I checked and realized it was spam.
By 6 a.m. I had over 100 e mails telling me my message couldn't be delivered. They, of course, were computer generated so not very interesting, but if I had only known the response I would get if I decided to say "hi" to everyone I have ever e mailed I would have done it much sooner.
First was an old work colleague who now lives in Greece. It prompted her to tell me the Greek word for Easter was very similar to Passover. I didn't know that. I didn't really
need to know it at 6 o'clock in the morning, but hey, I was up anyway.
By 10 a.m. I had had another 100 'out of office' e mails, which means I'll hear personally from all of them after the Easter holidays in England.
I've had several from people saying they couldn't open my message, and asked if I could resend. A contact at Naperville Library said she had a real belly laugh from my message about gastric bypasses, and another contact said she was flattered she was still on my list and pitched a story.
All the emails from my account are different so I'm not sure what they say, but I've had 50 orders for my penis enlarging medication, three offers of marriage and an offer from a porn movie director and it's only lunchtime.
I'm even getting celebrity responses. Recently retired Dick Tracy artist Dick Locher told me he'd wait to order my ice machine until the weather hits 95 degrees!

Driving Through The Pain Barrier

I have to report a potential emergency today. I had to stop all my Passover preparations to take Grumpy to the chiropractor. He's had a pain in his leg all weekend and was not happy. The mere fact that he allowed me to drive shows the pain he was in. The fact that he even said he was comfortable in the car seat shows how delirious he was. He'd seen the doctor on Saturday, but this time she suggested he needed more help. A pain specialist. I went pale. This was terrible news. As designated driver I would have to take him to see someone else! I only went to see her because her office is in Naperville. Anyone who knows me knows I won't drive out of the city. "That's terrible," I said to the receptionist. "Wh...wh..where is his office?" "Don't worry, I think he'll live," she replied, mistaking my selfishness as caring. "He has one in Naperville and one in Romeoville," she said. "We'll get him the first available appointment." I had no idea where Romeoville was. Somewhere near Joliet, I guessed. (Think about it Shakespeare fans). Where ever it was, we wouldn't be in Naperville any more. "The first? Oh no, I think we should wait for Naperville," I blabbered. "Don't want to hurt him any more than we need to." My luck the pain specialist could see him in an hour in Romeoville. We got in the car and I cautiously typed the location into my GPS, taking car to avoid freeways, tollways, speed limits higher than 25 miles an hour, crosswalks and traffic lights. Strangely enough it still told me the journey would only take 20 minutes. Turns out I only had to drive five minutes on an unknown route. Of course by then Grumpy was back to reminding me about the speed limit and which side of the road to drive on. The good news was that he now has some drugs to take. If they don't work they'll try a nasty epidural injection with a light sedative. Personally I don't mind that at all. The procedure will be carried out less than a mile of our house.