Driving Miss Mimi

There're some undeniable perks of having a teenager to take care of.

A) it's a her. A female. So no endless wanking into every available piece of clothing that's within the reach, and no aggravated body odour.
B) This species can sleep, man!

With the Christmas done and dusted and NYE still a whole week away, the blessed ones (literally just me and Carol), who were not required to march back to work, found themselves in a sugar and booze loaded limbo, keeping an eye on David's sister Mimi, whilst completely ignoring the carefully prepared playlist of the ultimate Christmas movies, and opting for an endless stream of horror films instead
(Ho ho ho. I guess this year we really honoured Santa's evil twin - Satan Claws.)

Mimi would never descent from her room before 2pm, maybe indulging in some well needed sleep to help finalise all that teenage growing and stretching and hormonal brewing, but perhaps just prolonging the time to come down and interact with the elderly.

That meant mornings were for cleaning up the flat and having coffee* and pizza show-and-tell sessions on the bed (wow, that sounds dreadful) oscillating in topics from the dead-serious, and I'm talking domestic-abuse-type of life trivia, to transcendental esotericism nothing-is-a-coincidence.

*(SEVEN SUGARS FOR CAROL LAWRENCE, who just coincidentally happens to be American, which made me not even wince when she finally admitted every single time she comes to meet us, she stops by a MacDonald's first, just in case there was no food at ours. Side note: There's always been food.)

[Yes. I made pizza for breakfast. But can we please focus on Carol's butter-churning hat?]

We only briefly touched on the ghostly presence in David's flat, that's now been heard (David), seen (me in a dream that might not have been just a dream) and felt (psychic Carol), as it's a bit too scary a topic to us - HORROR BUFFS.

Carol initiated me into the whole healing-meditating crystals thing and because I like to act as oppose to plan and ponder endlessly, the same day we've dropped Mimi in Selfridges to do some browsing and shopping at the Designers Studio, and ventured into the Covent Garden's Astrology Shop to hunt for some eso-power-loaded precious stones

(Apparently you don't choose your stones - they choose you - which probably explains why I was drawn to CARNELIAN, which represents ambition, luck, passion and sex, channels the sense of idealism, community and public speaking - you've been warned).

And because I'm ready to endlessly re-invent myself, I have no problem telling you I am now a person who googles 'vampire facelift on a budget' and minutes later mediate with crystals, that's been charged earlier by the sunlight.

Whenever people get confused by this clash of superficiality and a complete idiocy with depth and wisdom, I advise you to look who's Stephen Fry dating.

Hilariously - on our way to open our third eyes, Carol's psychic intuition's been trampled completely by a sweet-talking-girl, who tricked her into buying a completely scammy overpriced facial scrub (I can't even tell you how much she spent on it at one of these pop-up stores that you've previously seen on an episode of Rip-Off Britain or Watchdog), which she'd been in turn mugged off
(karma, sweet karma) by gypsy kids, whilst walking back and forth in the swimming pool (yes - stereotypically not swimming, walking), cause at least she's sticking to her New Year's resolutions - going back to being as fit as when she climbed up the Kilimanjaro (true story).

It's always same part fun and infuriating to show someone around London.

You notice once again things you forgot you loved about the City. And at the same time you're painfully reminded of not-so-great aspects of London, that you've blocked out and became oblivious to.

The one place that's always fun though is Camden - we have found the perfect fur coat on a discount for Mimi, and spent perhaps a little bit too much time browsing through 18+ only section of CyberDog, me deeply mortified by all the torture/pleasure instrument with hooks and clips and spikes, and Lawrence with a knowing grin, explaining their use to me, re-living all her perverted experiences of about two centuries ago.

One of those days, I took Mimi to the Fashion and Textile Museum for the 1920s JAZZ AGE Fashion & Photographs Exhibition (which is stunning, so go and check it out), followed by visiting our pixie-from-outter-space Corinne at Ziferblat Cafe to try and decipher the rules of several intricate card games, only to eventually give up and end up playing UNO (Mimi completely and mercilessly killing me).

Mimi must be the nicest teenager I've ever encountered, she seriously elevates the score for the rest of them.

But boy, the shopping, oh the teenage lust for shopping.

There's no end to it, it stretches from horizon to horizon, so usually you'd find me and Lawrence collapsed on the sofa in Primark/Urban Outfitters/American Apparel/House of Vans, and thanks god they put sofas in there, they know why.

One of those post-xmas days I took Mimi to MAC, so Ola can have a go at her armed by the makeup brushes..and all sassy and frighteningly grownup looking, sent her off to see the Thriller Live! with David (my birthday gift to her) to groove to some good old Michael Jackson tunes.

In the meantime I visited my favourite clan of Fishers in Acton, who's household had been subjected to an unexpected visit of one Meryl from North Carolina, grandad's second wife, who's just randomly reached out to them inviting herself over for Christmas, which is completely American-cheeky, but understandable - as she now lives in a retirement home called Forest (or located in a forest - not entirely sure now), and who'd want to spend their festivities in a company of dinosaurs (mind you, regardless you blocking all of such notions from a conscious mind, there IS a lot of sex going on in the retirement homes much to the horror of nurses and staff - thanks to a combination of all the erection support medicine readily available, boredom and loose morals fed by the concept of time running out - and the rate of STDs in elderly is actually at its historical highest point).

And that's probably the best thing about London.
The absolute stark madness of encounters it keeps ushering your way.

Like the little ginger music journalist student from Kansas with a nose-ring, who we befriended on a tube and just in few short minutes in between Baron's Court and Green Park discovered how London is her refuge from the insanity of the Midwestern U.S. Every time she visits her homeland, something dreadful comes down, like the last time on Halloween - first she'd run into her ex at a party (not so bad) where her friend was almost raped later on (really bad) and on the way back to the airport her mum revealed she had 16 months to live (really really bad). I suggested that perhaps USA is just not meant to happen for her. Take a hint, girl. I don't need crystals to see that.

And then there was Andrej. We met him on a night-out, brought back to life (and beyond) by my special signature drink (mixing LOTS and LOTS of vodka with my watermelon pre-workout caffeine+aminos energy powder), and cause he was alone and Polish, visiting UK for just a few days, we took him for a dance. All of my naughty Polish expressions left him completely cold, not a single laugh, and his weird lie would be revealed a few cocktails later. Andrej was (and perhaps ashamed to be) Russian.

Carol Lawrence demanded we'd find him a boyfriend. Andrej said he liked bears.

Of course telling us in a not-so-perfect accent, made Lawrence think he's into beards. Hence why we spent the rest of the night tugging on the beards of various male specimen in a club indicatively called G-A-Y, to see if their real, and much to his horror presenting poor Andrej with our selection.

The fake (and un-stereotypically sober) Polak Andrej observed these shambles quietly with a wide-eyed wonder, and I'm sure that after this unfortunate encounter with our Suicide Squad, he's been more than happy returning to the cuddly warm embrace of the motherland, known worldwide as the friendliest place in Europe.

We concluded the night by shoving fistfuls of the most disgusting chips (Carol put sugar all over them mistaking it for salt and claimed she liked it that way more anyway - did I mention she's American???) down our throats, and with a series of unfortunate events unraveling on our way home. To cut a long and painful story short, David managed to accidentally snap a spine of a rodent in the Underground (who bled from it's mouth, yes, I will never forget that sight) and later on, when almost crying, depressed and teased about it by Carol, again - accidentally - snapped her glasses in half.

Those are the type of insane things with the most insane people in the leading role that goes down in London in between the Christmas and NYE. Fake Polish Andrejs, despaired Kansas gingers, Meryls from North Carolina, American's deadliest export Carol Lawrence, androgynous pixie Corinne, mouse-murderer and Absinth connoisseur David and well...Me.

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

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