Rene and I met during our first week of college at William and Mary (late summer 1989), when we became suitemates on Dupont First West. Memorable freshman moments include not only the usual navigations (studying without a parent enforcer, budgeting without going broke on mozzarella sticks), but also madly dancing across beer-slicked fraternity floors and employing hazardous amounts of multiple cleaning fluids to blast the mold out of our shower stall.

Now we’re middle-aged and haven’t hit a beer slick since sophomore year, but we’re still close, sharing a love of good fiction, geekish pop-culture, and anything/anyone that makes us laugh. We serve as each other’s blog editors, swapping posts before posting and, this week, fill each other’s pages while we’re both out of town.

Rene is in England, where she attended an Olympic dressage event ("the UK won gold and it was electric!") and saw War Horse on the London stage ("absolutely bloody brilliant"). She'll spend the rest of her visit catching up with friends. Susanna is in Connecticut with her daughter, visiting family, battling hand-foot-and-mouth, and cowspotting.

To keep you entertained, we’ve each chosen a post to share from the other person’s site.

Instead of choosing a favorite, I’ve chosen two posts that exemplify why I love Stranger In A Familiar Land: the amusing differences between the U.S. and England, the importance to Rene of language, and the easy way she has with a story. I always learn something from her posts, always laugh, and usually want to add an item to my to-do/to-try list.

So first, enjoy Home is Where the Food Is, then head back again for A Few of My Favourite Things.