OMYWORD! Did I Say That?

Study In Contrasts

2011-05-07T16:58:00.000+02:00

It was a pretty comfortable Eurostar chunnel trip back home to Paris from my Guardian Masterclass in London. Unfortunately, I sat in a 4-seat configuration with three other travelers - two women and a guy - and the guy who sat next to me had ants in his pants. He couldn't sit still and his elbows were constantly jabbing me. He kept dropping his phone on the floor and had to crawl under the table to get it. He jumped up several times to walk the train or go to the bar car. The whiff of his beer breath afterwards was nauseating.

It was raining. I'd had a beautiful couple of days in London, with rare sunshine. But as I made my way to St. Pancras station to catch my train, the rain started coming down. Drops of water spotted the train window and the greenery speeding past me was muffled in fog. All at once, there was a rainbow, but the people sitting with me were oblivious - wrapped up in their French hilarity that I didn't understand and didn't want to.

The women were a study in contrast. One had a smart haircut, was slim, tall and fashionably dressed - black mini-skirt suit, low-scooped neckline and spiked heels. The other was puffy-cheeked and dowdy, with an old-fashioned headband and a pale blue cotton shirt, buttoned almost all the way up. But they laughed as if they were best friends. The rapport seemed contrived, like they had to be friendly because they worked together. But once they got home, I imagined they wouldn't be caught dead together. Dowdy would feed her cat in a 6th-floor walkup in the boredom of the 7th arrondissement. She'd put on flannels and go to bed alone. Sultry would call her boyfriend as soon as she got away from her coworkers and soon fall back into his Egyptian cotton sheets while he pulled down her scoop-neck top to reveal her black and red lace bustier. "Leave your shoes on." he'd whisper.

I snapped a few pictures of the rainbow through the window, not realizing that I also captured the reflection of the two women during a lull in their tiresome conversation. Two hours on a train pretending you like someone can be exhausting, I know. The rainbow arcs boldly behind them - an unpredictable natural phenomenon - unnoticed.

From Paris' Gare du Nord I thought I'd take the bus home. It was a direct shot on the 31 bus. I filed through the tourists at the station, feeling a bit cocky because, unlike them, I know where I'm going. I stood at the bus stop and was somewhat taken aback by a handsome older guy who walked up and waited nearby. He did a double take of me, a rare occurrence. Just two days before, I listened to another woman writer in the Masterclass, reading her story of a middle-aged woman who suddenly realized how invisible she had become to handsome men. I found myself shaking my head in recognition, realizing I had also faded into the woodwork. But this surprising glance from a handsome stranger was life's way of teasing me. Or, maybe I hadn't lost "it" completely.

I glanced up at an approaching bus and saw the 3 in what I assumed was the 31 bus. I boarded, following my handsome man. We sat opposite one another. I no longer had the nerve to continue eye contact. Going past his second glance was a bit too risky for me. I watched as we passed through Pigalle. Tourists, sex workers and peep show barkers competed with each other for my attention. Then, the neighborhoods stopped looking familiar. That's when I looked up and noticed I'd taken the wrong bus. I got off at the next stop, trying to seem like I still knew where I was going. The handsome man and the bus faded into the night.

There was a Metro stop right beside me. I boarded the train with a sigh. I could have been home by now, feeding my neighbor's cat then going to bed, alone, in my flannels. Instead, I sat in the glaring fluorescent light, bothered a bit by the loud hissing of the train and the siren that sounds before the train's doors close. In front of me was another odd couple. Two men. They were also talking, so I imagined they were together. One was a dark, long-haired guy, reminding me of George Harrison on the cover of his album, Beware of Darkness. The other man was extraordinary. Asian. Ancient. Glasses. He had a white Fu Man Chu beard that curled up impossibly at the ends. His Paris-style tourist beret sat on his head like a school girl's beanie. His bags were carefully packed and stationed in front of him. His striped umbrella stood upright inside a hidden slot of his suitcase. It matched the fabric of the Metro seats, but not the man who owned it.

At the next stop, George Harrison got off the train, his blue backpack slung over his shoulder, his white bag full of something - God knows what - no longer in view. So, they weren't together after all. Maybe George was just fascinated with Mr. Fu Man Chu and struck up a momentary conversation. I preferred their conversation. It was more authetic than the two women on the Eurostar.

My stop was next. I so wanted to see Mr. Fu Man Chu stand up and leave the train. I wanted to see if he wore a long black dress or matching black pants with a button-up coat, like in the gold rush days of San Francisco's China Town. Somehow, it would have made him more real to me. It was like he was a vision, from another place and time. But he remained where he was, an ancient wizard in this modern contrivance called The Metro.

I stepped off the train, this time knowing where I was going. He stayed behind, not even worried about becoming invisible in his middle age. I envied him. I have a feeling he knows where he's going even when he's in an unfamiliar place. But I think, more importantly, he knows who he is.

Reading List From My Guardian Masters Novel Writing Class

2011-04-17T10:54:00.001+02:00

Somewhere in the vicinity of 290 of my blog fans (actually, only one), asked me for the reading list from my Guardian Masters Novel Writing Class.

So... here are some that we studied; others were mentioned by teachers or students:

The Body Artist - Don DeLillo
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Tom Jones - Fielding
Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh
Measure for Measure - Shakespeare
The Wings Of The Dove - Henry James
Tender Buttons - Gertrude Stein
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place - Hemingway
The Haystack In The Floods - William Morris
Sons and Lovers - D. H. Lawrence
David Copperfield - Dickens
A Misremembered Lyric (poem) - Denise Riley
Ulysses 'Calypso' - James Joyce
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fitte 3
Cold Calls - Christopher Logue
The Capital Of The World - Hemingway
The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy
Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell
Richard Gary Brautigan
Oxygen - Andrew Miller
God's Own Country - Ross Raisin
How Late It Was, How Late - James Kelman
Secret Country - John Pilger
Flowers In The Attic - Virginia Andrews
Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel
Sum: 40 Tales From The Afterlife - David Eagleman
Light Years - James Salter
The Turning - Tim Winton
The Art Of Fiction (essay) - Henry James
"Dog" (poem) - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Translations (play) - Brian Friel

Analysis Paralysis: The Guardian Master Class on Novel Writing

2011-04-16T14:34:00.001+02:00

In my last post, I gave you the back story of how I wound up taking a Guardian Master Class on novel writing. If you haven't read it yet, you should, or you won't get any of my jokes in this post. (You still might not get the jokes, but it won't be your fault.)

Now that you know about my nonexistent sex life...

...we can continue on with more cerebral subjects. Speaking of cerebral, on one of our breaks during the class, I sat there, not saying a word (shocking, I know), waiting for the other students to say how much they hated the class. They were mostly British, so hatred was not forthcoming. (I imagine the same thing might happen in Canada.) But one of the students, comparing the first famous writer who spoke to us (Sarah Hall) to the second (Adam Foulds) said, "Adam is a little more cerebral than Sarah." This is an excellent example of a literary rhetorical effect called, understatement.

Now, don't get me wrong. Sarah and Adam are both brilliant and were super nice to us fledgling writers. But basically, what we did for a day and a half was read samples of famous writers' work and analyze them. We didn't write anything. We didn't talk about how to write a novel. It was, therefore, not a novel writing class. It was a literary analysis class.

Here's what we analyzed with Sarah: Writing dialogue without committing the heinous writer's crime of "He said, adoringly." Check. Making the torture and murder of chickens interesting. Check. Artistic character development: At night, accompanied by a storm lantern and a cat, in preparation for a family party, a man strings lights into the trees of a 300-year-old orchard. He sits at the base of a tree and weeps at the thought of losing his mother, but not before carefully removing, folding and placing his glasses in his pocket. Check. Writing things that make no fucking sense, so as to confuse and dazzle readers with your deep and mysterious obscurity. Check. Showing (rather than telling) poverty through images of hanging meat and a flowered dress/combat boots ensemble. Check.

Here's what we analyzed with Adam: Studium vs. punctum. (Don't ask.) Chyeck. Making the torture and killing of bulls (and the goring and subsequent PTSD of the bullfighter) interesting. Check. Poignancy: A courageous wimp loses in a street fight against a bully butcher and his publican and chimney sweep pals. And colorful imagery: "...the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow." Check. Experimental writing: Retelling a Greek myth using characters who wear flip-flops and outrageous dialogue such as, "Greek, cut that bitch." Check. Showing a husband's devotion through the procurement and grilling of a slippery kidney. Check. More dialogue: Dignifying the t in shit. Self-flagellating would-be poet who sees the writing of poetry as a condition requiring fits. The strength of a parson's rhetoric (stronger, it seems, than his arms) in calming the wrath of an unforgiving squire. How many pupils can say, one at a time, "Good morning, sir." before a teacher named Paul says "Oh, shut up." (Three.) How, if you put the character's name in bold caps above their dialogue, you don't have to use quotation marks or "He said, adoringly." Check, check checkity check. Sentences: Long ones. Short ones. And meaningless ones like this: "A shining breakfast, a breakfast shining, no dispute, no practice, nothing, nothing at all." (Note to my formerly famous former writer boyfriend: the use of commas does fuck-all for this sentence.) Chee-yeck! Then a very long poem that we had to read five times but still couldn't figure out why there was a fucking haystack in there at all. (I've run completely out of checks.)

Thank the lourd we didn't have time to dissect this...

gedered þe grattest of gres þat þer were
and didden hem derely vndo as þe dede askez

...or I surely would have blown my brains out. (Hyperbole. Check.)

I defy you to name the books and authors whence the previous examples came. (Don't mind me. I'm practicing my Oulde English.) The good news about all this is that I now have quite a reading list. Despite my irreverent thrashing above, I liked almost everything we read and wanted to read more than the bits and pieces we sampled.

Needless to say, I've never been big on analysis. I'm action oriented. I learn by doing, rather than reading about what other people are or were doing. All the above just seemed like mental masturbation. (For clarification, see Jazz: musical masturbation.) I have to put a straight jacket on to do analysis (and listen to jazz). The Guardian served us cookies and tea, but there were no straight jackets. So, I fidgeted in my chair, tried desperately to participate and at the end of day one I seriously considered not coming back for day two. But there was one small problem. They were saving Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette, Buddha of Suburbia etc.) for last.

I read Kureishi's bio before I went to London. He started out writing porn. This was promising. He wrote a novel that was suspiciously close to his own story of leaving his partner and two young sons for a younger woman (Intimacy). He created fictional characters and stories resembling his family and upbringing, that were a bit too close to the bone. His sister is supremely pissed off at him because of it. He's controversial. My kind of guy!

Then he walked into the room. He looked and behaved almost exactly like my formerly famous writer former boyfriend. Smallish in stature, biggish in ego. Messy gray hair. Controversial sneakers. He made us all get up and move the chairs into a circle, while bitching about having to be there on a Sunday. I immediately hated him.

And I took more notes from him than I had all weekend. He also made us write and read what we wrote. I liked him, then. I was also delighted and awed by the writing of my fellow students. So was Kureishi. He was mostly gentle with his critique and always generous with his praise.

One of the students wrote about a woman of about my age, who suddenly understood that she had become invisible to men. It was like she knew me. My own desire to fade into the woodwork was exposed. Alas, I'm not the hot little smart girl I used to be. No longer sexual fodder for intellectual, existential, anarchist, skateboarding writers. I'm just smart. Finally smart enough to know that I don't have to sleep with writers to be one. I can just write. I spent about $150K for the privilege of sleeping with my formerly famously writerly former ex. I only had to pay £400 to listen to Kureishi and didn't have to fight off his ex wife, win over his children or argue with him about commas. ... Check!

Sex With Writers, Comma

2011-04-14T11:33:00.001+02:00

Back in the late 80's, my friend Dana and I used to dream about being writers. We were roommates and co-workers, stuck in corporate hell together. But living in Laguna Beach, California was a kind of salve to our wounds. She'd jog or play volleyball on Main beach. I'd sit on the terrace of some beach-side restaurant and smell the ocean and become deeply sad, taking in the vastness of it all. This was my überintellectual way of avoiding any form of exercise. I also hate sand.

Dana and I share a character flaw: living vicariously through other writers. Living vicariously is a nice way of putting it. Sleeping with writers is more accurate, but we weren't only sleeping with them. We were willing vessels of all their writerly emanations.

Dana slept with a famous writer first, while renting a room in another famous writer's home. She was more focused than me. I was busy sleeping with various corporate suits or fiddle players or artists. I was unclear about my career objectives, evidently. But when my last artist boyfriend (and I mean LAST - I was nevereverever going to sleep with an artist again, ever!) ditched me in 2005 on Valentines Day (timing is, of course, everything), I became reallyreallyreally clear about being a writer. Really. Well, I also wanted to be a stand-up comedian. So I took a class from a hot comedy coach. Unfortunately, even though he was a most excellent teacher, he wouldn't sleep with me because I was too old (his age). Fine. I never liked his powder blue cowboy boots, anyway. OK? OK. (Love ya Tony!)

While still trying to sleep with my comedy coach, I finally met my very own artist-in-residence. What I mean to say is that he was homeless, so I let him live in my residence. He was a formerly-famous music critic, or as he would angrily correct me, a cultural critic. He was adorable! He quickly insulted and alienated all of my friends and let me pay the legal fees for his divorce from a formerly-famous rock star. I was so honored. He also couldn't stand living with me in an Arizona backwater, ironically called Carefree. He said, "Nobody's going to hire me as Their Man In Carefree." So I quit my cushy-but-insane corporate job, sold everything I owned and moved us to France, in hopes that somebody would hire him as Their Man In Paris. Then, I could be the girlfriend of somebody's Man In Paris!

At least I was writing. About the time I adopted him, I discovered blogging. So, during the first couple years in Paris, I blogged like a banshee while he ran around in circles, pulling at his hair. He was incredibly supportive of my writing, though. His compliments were valued, since he hated just about everybody and made sure that if he hated you, you knew about it. If he said my writing was good, then it was. But we had huge fights about my use of commas. Verbal brawls about commas. To this day, I have comma anxiety. I either leave them out completely or throw in a few extras to cover my ass.

Once a month or so, he'd write a sentence. I would listen, transfixed, as he read me that sentence. It was always a good sentence. An excellent sentence. And I hoped that very soon, this sentence, or maybe the other three sentences he'd written that year, would become a book, or maybe just an article, or perhaps a pamphlet. And that this book, article, pamphlet would pay our overhead, or at least buy cat food. Just in case, I thought I'd better go out and get a job so that he could write even more sentences.

I bet you can imagine how all that turned out. It used to be his ex-wife's fault that he's the way he is (whatever that is). Then it became all my fault. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to leave him. He is now free to write sentences to his heart's content, without my soul-destroying ~~support~~ interference. I hear he's doing undercover journalism by living on a park bench and reporting on the underbelly of Paris life. Or, something like that.

I still have my university job. In between classes, I run around in circles, pull at my hair, and write 4,378 sentences. Someday, I hope they become a book, or maybe an article, or perhaps a pamphlet.

Meanwhile, Dana's famous writer landlord recently departed this world, with a rigor mortis grip on a bottle of scotch. And while she's still friends with her famous former writer lover, she wonders what in hell she saw in him since he's just a neurotic pain in the ass. Live and learn! I'm pretty sure that neither one of us will have sex again for at least 50 years. This whole wanting-to-be-a-writer thing has taken its toll.

Dana stayed in corporate America, and graciously followed my life in Paris through my blog. She sees me as her hero - somebody who escaped corporate hell to become a writer. I have to say that ~~I don't regret~~ ~~I am happy~~ the jury is still out on this whole sell-everything-move-to-Paris-with-boyfriend-to-become-a-writer thing. But I was very touched when Dana emailed me a month or so ago and told me that she'd gotten a bonus at work and wanted to share some of it with me, to encourage me to write. I decided to not apply this gift to my rent or other expenses, but instead, I registered for a Guardian Master Class workshop on novel writing.

I can see my former boyfriend's not-so-silent disapproval now. "You always think you have to take a class to learn something. Just write." He's right. It's one of the things I hated the most about him. How often he was right, about many things. But, he was just such a dick about it. You can be right. Just don't be a dick, OK? If we were still together, I'd probably say, "Nobody knows, better than you, that I seriously need, to learn about commas."

I just wrote hundreds of sentences and still haven't told you about the writing class. But, (comma? no comma? OK, comma.) I felt like I needed to give you a little (haha!) back story. Stay tuned; soon I'll write hundreds of sentences to report on my class and trip to London. Comments about my comma use will be immediately deleted.

The Lies of Connards and Courtiers

2011-04-06T10:15:00.004+02:00

I went with two friends Monday night to La Java to see an improv troop perform: LA TAVERNE MÜNCHAUSEN Joutes verbieuses et improvisades. It was amazing, even though I couldn't understand a word they were saying, since it was all in French. Well, maybe I got ten words. I laughed a couple of times, so I must have understood some of it. Of course, nobody else was laughing at that exact moment, so... Hmm.

The building is a bit run down but it was built in 1923 and beneath the peeling paint it still has that great 20's style. If Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier (Tank heben fahr leetle girlz...) were willing to sing there, it's good enough for me. Here's an English-language review of the place where there's a great shot of the outside of the building.

ANYhoo - I loved it. There are four main actors dressed in hilariously exaggerated period clothing (Louis XIV era) with white-painted faces and cherry-red lips (on the men it's quite dashing), who sit around a tavern table.

A young waitress, dressed in non-courtly clothes and unvarnished, quietly waits on them, pouring their drinks and helping the ladies arrange their elaborate dresses on the peeling Naugahyde bar stools. She was the same girl who sold me my 12 Euro cheese and meat plate at the bar before the performance.

Standing next to me at the bar, was one of the main actresses (I didn't know it until I saw her appear in costume on the stage) and the three of us had one hell of a time trying to figure out how much change I should get from my 50 Euro bill. Seriously. (50 minus 12 is? Go ahead, see how fast you can do it. Go ahe.. Oh. 38. Well, aren't you the smarty pants.) We gave away and took back and gave away so much paper and coin, all the time counting out loud ensemble, that I think I ended up with 350 Euros in the end. Or perhaps I paid 50 Euros for my cheese and meat.

Luckily, I scraped up some change from the bottom of my purse to stand in the drinks line and get my 5 Euro Planter's Punch. It was the size of a thimble, unfortunately, but was made up of mostly alcohol, fortunately.

But, I digress, as always. The fifth actor was the Emcee, of sorts (Check out his hilarious picture here.). The waitress took a basket with little rolled up scrolls and presented it to an audience member who chose one scroll and read it out loud. They consisted of questions like, "Why did you bring New York butter to Louis XIV?" and "Why did you spend four years inside a whale?" and "Tell us about your magical tooth." and "How did you mistake the queen's necklace for some sausage links?" Then the scroll was given to the Emcee, who sat at the table with the other four actors and read it again. One of the four main actors then had to stand up and, off the cuff, create a fantastical story to answer the question. The Emcee and other three actors would help their friend embellish the story, much to the enjoyment of the audience.

The four main actors carried little silk bags and if they told a successful story, they were awarded coins. If any of the actors insulted the others, coins were taken away. (This happened frequently.) After the break, the audience was allowed to write their own questions and the basket was passed again. The first round was timed, giving the actors three minutes to develop their stories and the second round lasted only one minute. In the end, the one with the greatest number of coins was the winner and the one with the least had his or her head chopped off. (Back stage, so there wouldn't be a big mess, I imagine.)

A couple of times, in between rounds, two actors left their table and mounted the stage with plastic swords and daggers and the Emcee picked a word from the dictionary. The two actors, parrying their weapons, then had to come up with a sentence that ended in a word that rhymed with the chosen word. The actor who couldn't come up with a sentence was the loser.

Even though I've been in intense French-language training since early February, reading the writings of Un Gros Connard (inside joke, so sorry), I had a hard time following this show. I have become proud of my new French vocabulary - Ou est la doudou? Elle n'as pas la doudou! C'est VOLUNTAIRE??? (inside joke #2 - just so that two other people can laugh with me right now, sorry again) - but the lies of a single Gros Connard (who, interesting enough, suffers from "Münchausen syndrome by proxy") and the criminal modern-day intrigue in which I've become embroiled are a pale (and, hopefully soon, distant) charade compared to the comedic prevaricating courtiers of The Sun King.

Arizona Rain

2011-03-28T11:58:00.001+02:00

I've been combing through all my writing in preparation for a writing workshop April 9th and 10th. I found this piece I'd written in 2002, when I was in a relationship with an artist. It was a relationship that was wonderful for five years and then imploded when a deeper commitment was required. It's a shame, because it was the most peaceful time of my life.

Arizona Rain

September 11, 2002

As I sit in my home office starting the workday, I have the pleasure of looking out my rain-speckled window. Drops softly thud upon my roof and when two or more drops gather together on my windowpane, they merge into a tiny rivulet that meanders down the glass to puddle on the sill. I imagine long-thirsty desert plants reaching up to catch every drop. My black driveway shines like a mirror. I watch my neighbor walk by with her umbrella, on the way to the post office. Her old white dog is padding slowly behind her, head hung low, oblivious to the drizzle. I can’t see the cars driving by but I can hear their tires spinning like the water wheels at the old Pennsylvania mills where I grew up. Here and there, a tire hits a puddle and I hear the water splash and then slowly slide back into place.

It’s been raining all weekend. We’ve been waiting for it for months. Both of our monsoon seasons were a complete disappointment. No rain in February, none in August. Now hurricane Fay is dumping the last of her fury on us and we are grateful. In the desert, most of the cactus is lying on the ground, a sickly yellow, dead or dying. The tall saguaros are still standing but their trunks are sucked in like the cheeks of old men.

My boyfriend and I walked into the desert from his home last Saturday after the rain slowed down. We wanted to see the wash, usually bone dry, running for the first time in three years. We saw bugs that we had never seen before – out in hoards. As the first drops of rain hit the dusty ground, thousands upon thousands of termites wriggled out of tiny holes in the ground and flew upwards in a cloud. They looked like golden ants with long wings. We heard that these strange insect clouds were sighted in cities and towns near Phoenix and people didn’t know what they were.

I was drawn out of my reverie by a tiny colorful movement on the ground. I stooped to see a bug I had never seen before. Only a quarter of an inch long, maybe less, it’s back was fuchsia velvet, like a coat my sister wore to her prom in the 70’s. A beetle about an inch long flew smack into my boyfriend’s ear. It wore a somber, black and gray pinstripe suit.

The wash was definitely running, we could hear it as we approached from the house, 100 yards away. When we got to our favorite spot, there were tiny waterfalls, probably 5 or 6 of them, cascading down the caliche and rock, into the running torrent that was only six inches deep. My boyfriend stood on a large rock in the middle of the wash, so that he could see if his stone stacks still stood upstream. People have made stone stacks in forests for centuries. It’s like a meditation, choosing the right size, the right surface, the right color. Stacking them as if they form a prayer, marking your spot and beckoning other travelers to meet your stone totem along their way.

I stood on the edge of the flow, remembering news stories of people drowning from a surprise wall of water thundering down a wash. Soon we heard it, as if in answer to my overcautious thoughts, the surge intensified and the water rose another few inches at the edge. My feet were quickly submerged. No wall came, but my boyfriend made his way back to shore – just in case. His stone stacks had tumbled. But he would make new prayers, later.

I hope it rains for a week. I want to smell the astringent exotic creosote and rinse my body and senses of all the accumulated dust and heat. I am reminded that I live on earth and my feet are planted on moist, verdant soil. The needless worry in my mind clears too. No fear that I can conjure up is as real, or as important, or as timeless as an Arizona rain.

Jurassic Jeeves and the Mâcon Delta

2010-12-24T18:30:00.002+01:00

I set the alarm on my laptop to gently awaken me, at 5am on December 23rd, with Ry Cooder's African Dream. I vowed to close the laptop by 9pm on December 22nd, in order to get enough sleep so that 5am wouldn't arrive like an unwanted telegram. I had a train to catch by 6:40 and didn't want to miss it.

I lay there in the dark, staring into the void. My body wanted to sleep but my mind wouldn't agree. It was time to re-open my laptop and turn to Bertie Wooster for solace and sleep.

Between him and his manservant Jeeves, solving yet another crisis of the idle rich, I knew that they would eventually arrive at the proverbial happy ending. Not the happy ending offered with a Thai oil massage (very popular with American middle-aged men in Chiang Mai), mind you, but the wholesome kind, where young aristocratic British men escape marriage to overly-pushy women and great aunt Agatha decides to put said young man back in her will. It's Jeeves, the valet, who is the learned one in these stories, while the public-schooled Sons-of-a-Viscount are foppish, well-dressed dandies with less than one brain cell shared between them.

Stories like these wouldn't be successful if there wasn't some truth beneath the comedy. I dare say that if Jeeves were running the world, we'd all be in a better place. I used to, and still do, think the same for the secretaries of the world. While their bosses hobnob with clients and abuse the company credit card, it's the secretary who gets all the work done. That's why I support an Ernestine/Jeeves 2012 American presidential ticket. Ernestine can be the public face for the duo and dismiss her critics with "We're the American government. We don't care, we don't have to." (Hey, American exceptionalism, completely misunderstood by Republicans, nervertheless works brilliantly as a battle call for their incredibly less informed base). Meanwhile, Jeeves can ingeniously bring peace to the Middle East and bring North Korea to its knees just like he blithely downed the dictator Lord Sidcup (leader of the fascist group The Black Shorts - named thusly because at the time, other fascist groups had taken all the shirts) by simply saying the one word "Eulalie". I'll leave it to you to look that one up. It's Christmas, by gum. What the fuck else do you have to do?

So, by midnight or perhaps 1am, I not only had watched three Jeeves & Wooster episodes, but also magically developed this new British writing style. Thusly, foppish and all that rot. What what? Right oh! And 5am came upon me like a wild elephant, no matter how gently Cooder's African Queen tiptoed upon my brain. If I only had a manservant like Jeeves to draw my bath and pack my bags and then carry them to the train station for me. But, I don't know where I'd put the poor chap. And I don't have a bathtub.

Unmanservanted, I dragged myself out of bed. I wedged myself into my shower and managed to wash my hair without bruising my elbows on the faucet handles and I even shaved my legs, which is quite a feat, since bending over in my shower is impossible (why, you might ask, would I shave when I will not be getting naked in front of anyone? I don't know, I might answer, perhaps because it's Christmas and I might get lucky with Santa?).

I had packed my bag the night before and laid out my traveling clothes in a big crunchy pile on the floor in front of the bathroom. I dressed, blew my hair to a smoking pulp, put on my Jon Stewart Rally For Sanity hat and two layers of coat and gloves, picked up my bag o' gifts and my backpack and set out in the crispy 5:45-in-the-morning air for the train station.

The train station was surprisingly alive with people, but I found my train easily and felt lucky to find a place for my bags in the luggage rack. I could sit in my seat and feel superior as the Bad Late People had to shove their bags into every available crevice... thus permanently burying my bags and crushing those delicate chocolate eggs, whose price included a donation to disadvantaged children. If those Bad Late People, a.k.a. luggage thugs, knew about the origin of those eggs, I bet they would not have been such insensitive beasts. Or, I think I would be better off if I become a Bad Late Person. At least my luggage would have been on top when I had to get off the train in Dijon. The Bad Late People all stared at me with blank faces as I threw their ten-ton valises into the aisle, desperately digging for my underprivileged eggs.

At Dijon, I waited for my connecting train that would take me to Mâcon, where my friend Helen (formerly of Troy) would pick me up and whisk me off to her Bergundian manor where I would be spending Christmas and New Years with her and her husband, Faustus.

OK, those aren't their real names. And their relationship isn't that tragic. At least, as far as I know.

The train trip was peaceful. I watched the sun break over the hills and the mist rise from the wet, green fields.

Snow clouds hung low and threatening...

...and leafless trees stood as sentries, reminding the earth and all its inhabitants that they will bloom again in the spring.

After arriving in Mâcon, Helen showed me around Faustus' family home. It had been in the family for hundreds of years and still contained many beautiful pieces of furniture, including Faustus' great grandmother's sleigh bed, now used as a couch in the living room. Standing in front of a crackling fire, I admired a giant armoire in the corner of the room.

Helen said, "Yes, that's our Jurassic armoire."
I said (channeling Bertie Wooster), "It's pretty damn big, all right."

If Jeeves had been the room, he would have discretely mumbled, "I believe what Madame Troy means, Madame, is that this family heirloom originates from the nearby mountain range of Jura, which essentially covers the region of Franche-Comté, stretching south to the region of Rhône-Alpes east of the department of Ain, where the range reaches its peak at Le Crêt de la Neige. The southern end of the French Jura is in the northwest of the department of Savoie. The north end is in the very south of Alsace. It is because of this provenance of the armoire that it would be considered Jurassic and is not at all related, Madame, to the 1993 American movie Jurassic Park, wherein, as I imagine Madame must be referencing, many large terrestrial vertebrates, commonly referred to as dinosaurs, cavorted."

I said, "That will be all Jeeves."
He said, "Thank you, Madame."

I Admit I'm Powerless Over Neighbor Noise and Ask My Higher Power To Help Me Find A New Apartment

2010-12-05T11:48:00.001+01:00

Lately, I've been living my life with earplugs inserted. I wear them so much that I have forgotten they were in and wondered, of a groggy morning, why I couldn't hear myself peeing. Yesterday, I almost stepped into the shower with them. On the days when I don't go to school and stay home to work on my book, I never take the earplugs out.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you already know that I live in an 'interesting' building in Paris. Ugly on the outside. Ugly on the inside. Could possibly be condemned some day (like Monday). But I just don't pay attention to all of that because the rent's cheap and the residents will keep me busy with writing fodder for many years to come. But lately, they have forced me into Earplug Overuse.

In the courtyard below my window, there's my partner in crime, 'G' and her miniature daughter, the Divine Miss M. I can hear everything going on down there, including the cat meowing to get back in, Miss M riding her bicycle in circles and crashing into the patio furniture and G arguing with The French Bureaucracy (du jour). When G has a party (in her words, a "cocktail"), I'm usually there, drinking all of the cocktails, so I get to hear everything directly, if a bit slurrily. I haven't minded these sounds very much. It's only once in a while that I fantasize about locking Miss M in the closet.

Across the courtyard from G is Toilet Guy, who we renamed Socket Man, since he is (still) obsessed with G's empty (poor girl) socket. In contrast to the rest of the building's inhabitants, he is so silent that we often wonder if he's dead. But he becomes incredibly, redundantly talkative when you run into him in the hallway and have to have a conversation about electricity with him. This is the only thing he can talk about, along with The Coming Storm and how it could electrocute us all, if we're not careful. We avoid him, and The Coming Storm, like the plague.

Then there are The Moroccan Girls, whom I used to refer to as The Muslim Girls until G told me that was rude. "Would you be happy if they called you The Catholic Girl?" Well, yes, because I'm a Recovering Catholic Girl and accuracy, in the area of religion, is important to me. Anyway, they consist of one Mama and three lovely daughters renting the closet of an apartment that I had rented when I first got here. We've become friends and food borrowers. By renting my old apartment, they also inherited The Masticating Toilet. I can still hear that damn toilet up here on the third floor every time it masticates.

Across the hall from The Moroccan Girls is The Ululating Slapper. He sings and chants and slaps himself at 6:00 every morning. Luckily, I don't hear that anymore.

That's because King Kong drowns him out. This is the building's maintenance woman and all I can say is that she enters the scene at 6ish every morning and throws open the courtyard door, throws open the trash room door, roars when she views our collective filthiness, angrily drags all four trash cans out, then bangs them, one at a time, through the courtyard door, along the corridor and then out the front door. Then she returns to the building and takes a mop and slams it into everybody's door as she pretends to clean the stairs. After 7ish, she retrieves the now-empty bins and bangs them through the front door, bumps and scrapes them against the hallway walls, throws open the courtyard door, upends the trash cans and sprays them down with the hose, throws open the trash room door, smashes the trash bins inside, slams the door closed, then raises her fists to the sky and curses at us all before she thankfully leaves. I don't know how she manages to do all this with Fay Ray struggling, like a tiny Barbie doll, in her hands.

On the first floor is a petite tonsured man whom G calls My Future Husband. He's a private chef, evidently. And very nice. But not my future husband. No. Not at all. Just erase that thought from your mind. I never used to hear a thing from him, but lately he's decided to learn Italian. Perhaps he's decided to join the priesthood, with his monk-like hairdo and all. So, I get to learn Italian with him (Uno, due...), depending on how loud the masticating toilet is.

Next door to him and just below me is The Hot Tan Girl. She really is beautiful. One of G's guy friends, who was visiting from Los Angeles, would do pushups in the courtyard in the morning, hoping that Hot Tan Girl would notice him. His wife, sipping coffee inside G's apartment, would roll her eyes and yell, "Good luck with that, Chunky." In the past year or so, Hot Tan Girl has had a few parties, with music and loud fun-having. But it's been pretty rare. She does have the habit, before she goes to sleep at night and right when she wakes up, of slamming her metal window covers open and closed. This sounds like an explosion, until you get used to it. Which I have not. But, then, a few weeks ago, she got a boyfriend. I am delighted for her. She's really nice and sweet and deserves to be loved. But does she really deserve to have four orgasms, four times a day? Does she deserve a boyfriend who doesn't have his orgasm until she has been reduced to a wet noodle? Yes, she does. We all do. I just wish I wasn't reminded of it every single day. Perhaps this is The Coming Storm which Socket Man has been warning us about for so long. Anyway, I pay attention to the frequency (and not the content) of their emanations, knowing from experience that the ohhing and ahhing will eventually slow down and "Why the fuck did you forget to buy toilet paper?" will eventually take their place.

Across the hall from The Coming Storm is an apartment that is provided as a temporary haven for women escaping domestic violence. A few times, that violence followed them here, in the form of two robberies. Unluckily, I didn't hear anything, though I was here both times. The robbers even rummaged around in G's outdoor toolbox and then took the maintenance ladder off the wall of the courtyard and plopped it against the building and climbed up to the apartment's window and broke the window lock with G's screw driver and climbed in and then climbed out, leaving a trail of the current resident's underwear as they descended. How in the hell did I miss that? I didn't even know how to use earplugs then, let alone own a pair.

Next is my floor. I used to have a guy on the other side of my wall (our beds are separated by a 4-inch-thick, uninsulated sheet-rock wall. Isn't that cozy?) who came home from work every night and turned on The Simpsons (Les Simpson!). I enjoyed hearing the song. Then his iPhone would ring and I would jump up, looking for my iPhone. Then I remembered that I only have three friends in Paris and they never call me. So I'd sit back down and listen to his conversation (I had no choice). I could have learned all sorts of things about him, if I spoke better French. But alas, he remained a mystery. I never heard anything else from him, though. No moaning or anything. (Thank God.) Then, a few weeks ago, he moved out. And a nice young girl moved in who keeps her TV on all night, listens to Hip Hop all day and when she goes away for the weekend, she forgets to turn her alarm off and it starts BEEP BEEP BEEPing at 6AM and doesn't stop for, well, hours. On the weekends when she stays home, I think she invites her friends from out of town to stay with her. They are party animals. The music is on full blast, so they have to shout at each other to be heard. They have a lot to say, so they keep on shouting until 5 or 6AM. Ear plugs are insufficient, so I now open iTunes on my laptop, set it to permanent calm-but-boring music shuffle, at full blast to drown out the Hip Hop, insert my ear plugs and somehow go to sleep. I have been tempted, when I get up the next morning and they're all snoring, to play 80's Madonna music at full blast. But that's passive aggressive behavior and... downloading her music was too expensive.

Last month, the Hot German Guy across the hall from me moved out and the Hot Tall Dark-Haired Guy moved in. I only know this because he came over with his landlord to ask if I had any moisture. At least that's what I thought they said. I answered, "Well, not as much as I used to. I'm over 50, you know." But then, through sign language, I figured out that they wanted to see the brown water stains on my ceiling because they have the same stains and need to know if it's coming from the apartment above us. I showed them my stains but they didn't show me theirs. I didn't hear much from him after that, until his tall pretty girlfriend knocked on my door and asked for a tire-bouchon, which I thought might mean toilet plunger but when she demonstrated its use, I figured out she wanted a corkscrew. After I gave her the wine plunger, they had a wild party. I could hear it through my ear plugs. I thought someone was being murdered. I jumped out of bed, ready to run out there and save the day in my Super Girl socks, but when I pressed my good eye against the peep hole, I saw many happy people laughing and drinking in the hallway, all wearing fashionable leather jackets. I'm glad I looked before I ran out there. I would have been sorely under dressed wearing only my Super Girl socks.

Up above me? Other than the water seepage, there is a nice husband and wife with a little two-year-old boy. He runs back and forth, back and forth, like an elephant on the wooden floor until precisely 9PM, at which point, I imagine, he is drugged and laid to rest. I am happy that my upstairs neighbors' parenting skills include sticking to the bed time rule. Now, if they would just fix their leaking shower.

So, between cat meows, child bikes, bureaucratic argueings, crashing mops and trash cans, masticating toilets, Oh OH! OHHHHHHHHing, Ah AH! AHHHHHHHHing, Italian lessons, Hip Hop, TV, child elephants, alarm clocks, robberies, dripping ceiling sounds and leather parties, I now know that everybody has a life, except me.

Earplugs have saved me from the onslaught of other people's lives. But as an added benefit, I now know what my body sounds like from the inside out. Earplugs block the outside noise but reveal the gurgling, hissing sounds of my corpus. There's a constant hum to it. Maybe it's the blood running through my veins. Sometimes I forget I have a body, so it's good to know that it's still there, miraculously functioning on its own.

Moral of the story? There really is no such thing as silence. Even in a people-less forest, you can hear squirrels cracking nuts, mooses mating, streams gurgling and from time to time, that annoying one hand clapping. If I moved to the forest, the night owls would be pissing me off to no end. I should probably just get out of my apartment more often. Or, start learning how to play the drums.

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Five: Seamen, Baggywinkles and Le Havre's Sensual Inlet

2010-10-29T14:38:00.001+02:00

Based on my photos, Galadriel and I were good girls on the fifth day of our Normandy chateau inspection trip. On this day, I have no food or wine porn pics, which means we must have been very serious. Of course, that's probably because it was the last day, so we had to "catch up" on all the places we didn't get around to seeing because we took so much time taking food and wine porn pics at all the restaurants along the way.

Speaking of serious, do you see what I see in this picture? If so, you have a filthy mind, just like me. And Galadriel too, it seems. As she was chatting with the manager in the lobby of the first hotel we visited, Les Voiles, I was busy behind her, snapping pictures of the sexual bits of the Normandy coastline that were just hanging there, right on the wall, for all the world to see. Or maybe some people might just see it as an old map of Le Havre harbor. But they have no imagination (or, they've never done the mirror thing).

Galadriel, with a look on her face that said, "What are you doing NOW?" (this was day five, after all - she knows me now), nudged me as the hotel manager passed me by to lead us on the inspection tour. I silently pointed to Le Havre's Secret Garden of Delight and only had to lift one eyebrow and she got it, right away. Perhaps I even whispered, "What does that look like to you?" I don't remember. But I just have to say that the entire day, as we made our way around the Vajayjay of Le Havre (We even crossed it! I extended a respectful salute to the clitoris on the left side of the bridge.), I couldn't cast off the feeling that I was going where too many sailors had gone before.

Hotel Les Voiles is on the northern thigh of Le Havre's, er, inlet, in a beach-side town called Sainte-Adresse. Other than the map, I didn't take any pictures of the hotel. It didn't float my little-man-in-the-boat. (Oh my. I just realized that I've now set the tone for this post and must come up with an endless amount of metaphors for female genitalia.) The hotel had a sort of contrived nautical decor, with portraits of old seamen, some baggywrinkles and of course, a whipstaff. (I'm making this part up.) Based on where it was situated (at the top of the hill, beginning of the town, overlooking the beach) and how it smelled (not terrible, but they may need to clean the bilge more often), it reminded me of the old Laguna Shores hotel (Laguna Beach, CA - here's an old post card), long before it was renovated.

The hotel manager was anxious that we also inspect his other hotel (Hotel des Phares), just a few blocks away, because it was in a more authentic historical building. He must have sensed our lack of enthusiasm with the faux seafarer's life. We were... thrilled to go see it. (Not.) But what the heck, it was pretty. Well, the historic building part of it was. The other buildings? Les Annexes? Not so much. Plus, the people the hotel manager called to ask if they could greet us and give us a tour, were just as thrilled to give us the tour as we were to be there. (Not.)

So, other than the fact that I had discovered an ancient, little-known sea passage into the Garden of Eden, I was underimpressed. But I have to say that neither hotel was terrible. Hotel Voiles had a restaurant and bar overlooking the ocean. I'm sure I could at least get drunk while watching the sun set. And if I wanted to have a room overlooking the sea to sleep off the grog, I could book the "Non-Commissioned Officer's Cabin" (if I'm lucky, he might not have deck watch that night) for only 150 Euros a night. (What? I should be able to sleep with the Captain for that price.) Or, I could stay here (our next stop on our trip) instead, for the same price. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Four: Domaine Saint Clair Le Donjon - Étretat

2010-09-26T15:46:00.004+02:00

As you've been reading in the last few Normandy Chronicles, day 4 on our B&B inspection trip had been long and action-packed, with stormy skies, fabulous lunch and wine, some foxes (Mr., Mrs. & Little Mister) and one American.

Well, I didn't write about the one American we met, because he was totally disinterested in the fact that I was American and instead spoke to Galadriel in French... with a New York accent. He has a B&B in the area and to be fair, he only talked to Galadriel because he wanted to be in her B&B guide (or not get kicked out of it...I'm not sure which). He was all business. But still, it was disconcerting to just follow them around the place (me and the cats) without him at least once saying, "So, where are you from in the states?" I could have fallen off a cliff and he wouldn't have noticed.

French B&B owners at least realize that I'm a friend of The Inspector General and so they smile at me (if they don't speak English) or try out a little English with me, just to be polite. So, Mr. American and his brand spanking new Hammam and strange retro 70's decor (of both he was quite proud) will be punished by the lack of mention of his B&B in this highly influential blog of mine. I didn't even take any pictures. So, there.

Meanwhile, darkness was descending and my belly was full with Mr. & Mrs. Renard's cake and tea. My head began to loll as Galadriel drove with her feet so she could simultaneously thumb through three or four guidebooks and make telephone calls.

Moi: (not-so-innocently) So, where are we staying tonight?
Galadriel: (ever-so-guiltily) Um. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

It was, like, 9pm. I admit that this is lunch time for French people but I'm usually asleep by 9pm. Even though I might be sitting in a smokey bar somewhere, late at night or in the wee hours of a polluted morning, discussing Nietzsche's philology and how the aphorism 'Mediocrity is forgiven more easily than talent' proves that we the gifted (i.e. everybody at our table but NOT everybody in the bar) suffer so, I am actually asleep. Because I can discuss Nietzsche in my sleep. As a matter of fact, I'm sleeping now.

So, just like Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus (I'm Mary and Jesus. Galadriel can be Joseph), there was no room at any inn.

Moi: How about we go stay at one of the places we inspected today? Except the American guy. I hated him.
Galadriel: We could... But I'm afraid they'll all be in bed by now.
Moi: But, French people never go to bed before dawn.
Galadriel: How would you know?
Moi: Because I wake up at dawn and I see them all stumbling home, smelling of Poire William and cigarettes.

Galadriel began to list our choices. One of them she described as an old chateau that was kind of expensive. My eyes lit up. I like kind of expensive, especially when I'm not paying. Let's go there! Well, since she visited it last time, it had been purchased by somebody new and she didn't know if it was any good anymore. Well, of course it's good! Her head agreed but her eyes didn't. This is when I know that there's something about this thing I want to do or see that's against Galadriel's religion. Like my usage of wet wipes. But, I ignored this subtlety and commenced to ooh and ahh all the way up the hill to Domaine Saint Clair - Le Donjon.

Until I got to the reception area. Oh my. I had been trying to explain the term 'clusterfuck' to Galadriel for a few days. As the very friendly woman at reception found us a room, I pulled on Galadriel's little linen shirt and said, sotto voce, "This is a clusterfuck." and swept my hand from one corner of the lobby to the other, like Vanna White showing a gasping winner their new kitchen, vintage Camaro, fully equipped gym and lion cub. The winner might have her hands clasped in front of her ecstatic face, jumping up and down and screaming with excitement, but in the dark crevasses of her mind, she's thinking, "Holy shit! Where am I going to put all this shit?"

Well, I think she put it all in the lobby of Domaine Saint Clair and Saint Clair is turning in her grave right now.

Let me walk you through the experience...

This is what you see through the doors at the main entrance and lobby. Yes. This is the main entrance. I really like the coat hanger thing. It speaks of the old chateau world, of luxury... and winter coats... in the middle of June. And what's behind the coat rack and carved oriental screen?

This.

I like the pastel faux velvet armchairs kind of shoved together every which way, surrounding a plastic pool-side table. I'll call this little nook The Asian Poolside British Grandma Knitting Nook.

Let's move on through this gigantic lobby, where we now approach the two-story-high stone wall of the chateau, graced by a thousand-foot-long leather couch, more plastic pool-side tables and ultra-modern-retro chairs from Mars.

I think they were going for a theme here, but I'm at a loss as to what that theme might be.

And finally, just before we reach the door leading out to the pool and meeting/wedding tent, we have this little reading alcove, with newsprint-covered chairs, a giant vase filled with empty Badoit bottles (French mineral waters known for their hangover-healing properties) and a bronze sculpture of god-knows-what on a wooden platform with peeling paint. Behind me, not seen in the picture, is a pastel-colored impressionist painting on an ornate gilded easel. I call this The News Room.

As far as the rest of our lucky Wheel Of Fortune contestant's winnings, the Camaro is probably hanging from the ceiling and the kitchen was across from the News Room and the gym is in the meeting/wedding tent when they aren't holding any meetings or weddings. But the lion cub was nowhere to be found.

Oh wait. Here he is, looking rather nonplussed. I found him curled up in the center of the room on a cracked black lacquer and yellow faux velvet couch.

So, as a friend once wisely told me - "They never treat you better than on the first date." - this probably was an indication that things were going to go downhill from here.

We were given a choice of two rooms. They were both hilariously full of mismatched furniture that is made to look expensive but is really thrown together in sweat shops in some distant banana republic. Galadriel's nose was so bent out of shape that the ever-so-nice receptionist's smile began to crack like all of the furniture in the joint as Galadriel asked me in English, "They're both terrible. You choose." I refused to decide. There was no way I could win. At the moment she handed the receptionist her credit card, Galadriel had broken every standard of her highly evolved religious fervor for natural surroundings, simple comfort and real people. If I chose one room over the other, she would be horrified that I could have chosen any of them at all. So, I made her do it.

We ended up with this place (the telescope was extremely useful), probably because the bath tub was giant and when Galadriel the Mermaid can't jump into the ocean daily to wet her little fins, she must immerse herself in water somehow. So, while she washed away the now-vivid meaning of clusterfuck, I headed for the back porch to smoke 42 cigarettes in anticipation of how bad our dinner in this hotel's 'Restaurant gastronomique' would be. Galadriel has a way of asking questions about the wine list and menu that send waiters into rehab for months.

That's when I found the home of the Pod People. This giant contraption took up 1/3 of our patio. It was either a covered wagon or a barbecue. I couldn't be sure. I waited for Galadriel to emerge from her water treatment so she could help me take off the cover.

It looked like this inside. A giant love seat. Or a portable harem. Or it's where I Dream Of Jeannie was filmed. That little towel was there because the bottom cushion was stained and soaking wet. Very appealing. There was something strange about this thing. It had a presence of its own. You could not be on that porch and ignore it. It's like the gaping mouth of a whale or Pacman just before they swallow you whole. Once we opened up the mouth of death (and couldn't put the cover back on), we could not go out on that porch again.

In the lobby of our room's building, we encountered more decorating aberrations with the combination of large black and white-tiled marble floor, a stained-white silk whore house couch, a Chinese kneeling soldier statue, a Japanese Buddhist meditating monk picture and a merry-go-round rocking horse. OK, I have to upload those pictures too. I just want you to all be horrified with me.

Soooooo. Off to dinner we went. It was actually quite nice. The food was delicious and they had one bottle of natural wine on the list. We watched the sun set on the water and relaxed. (This picture of me watching the sun set was taken at 10:01pm. I love how long the days last in the summer here.) The female maître d' was unceasingly pleasant, as was our waiter. This is the one thing that still stands out about this place. All the people who worked there had an impeccable service attitude and friendly demeanor.

Even the poor young guy that worked the breakfast room the next morning. There were so many disasters that I can't remember them all. Somebody dropped a plate and it broke all over the food table and floor and I think there were little bits of china in the food. Galadriel brought a hard-boiled egg to the table and when she broke it open it had never seen a pan of boiling water in its life. The waiter apologized and took her messy plate and brought her a new plate and egg and she proceeded to open that one and it hadn't been cooked yet either. The only indication of his exasperation was an under-the-breath Mon Dieu! as he ran back to the kitchen to try and get the real hard-boiled eggs.

Oh, and one last thing. I took a little walk the next morning down a pretty path that had a great view of the ocean below but also was the secret stash for the hotel's discarded furniture. This lamp base is simply awesome.

Stay tuned for Day 5, where we visit three hotels - a beautiful chateau in Eure, currently owned by an Englishman, but also has a rich and juicy history dating back to 1606 and involving an unscrupulous step-father who discarded his new wife's children to try and steal her money and estate. The children came back to retake their fortune with the aid of Catherine, Empress of Russian, but lost it again by spending too extravagantly in expectation of the Empress's visit. We also toured a very nice hotel in Deauville with a garden where we had tea and then a very artsy and colorful hotel in Calvados. Adieu!

Ain't No Cracks In MY Cheesecake

2010-08-24T21:02:00.002+02:00

I interrupt this program of The Normandy Chronicles to talk about cheesecake. Not the kind where girls show their ankles. But the kind where girls eat so much that their ankles swell.

Besides, I am very far behind on The Normandy Chronicles, which will soon be enhanced with my Brittany chronicles and then my Languedoc chronicles. I am still deciding if I want to turn all my chronicles into a self-published book called 89 Vacations In One, since that's what it's turned out to be. If I go this route, I'll probably offer the book as a download for a small price and also serialize the book for those who don't have a few dollars to spend on a book and don't mind waiting for the next installment. I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I'm still hanging out in Brittany with Galadriel at her home near the beach, since I don't really have to go back to Paris until I start teaching again in the Fall. There's another friend staying here with us. She's a French-Russian (mother is French, father is Russian) and she asks me many questions about America (some for which I know the answer and most for which I make up answers). Par example:

Frussian: Which states in America are sexy?
Framerican: Definitely not Ohio.

My apologies to Ohioans. But really, do you think your state is sexy?

Oh, and about those Russians. I forgot that Galadriel is Frussian too - her mother is Russian and her father is French. So, now that that's cleared up...

The night before last, the dinner conversation turned to typical American food. I mentioned hot dogs (many French sounds of disgust, something akin to phlugh!). Then hamburgers (No reaction. It could be they like these things but they are afraid to admit it).

Talking about food in France is dangerous territory, of course. French people are, rightfully so, very proud of their gastronomy. It's the main topic of conversation in everyday life, with the second most popular topic being the wine which will accompany the food. They can talk (and argue minute details) for hours on these subjects. Why, just the other day, we went to visit some friends who own an art gallery in the resort town of La Baule and I stood for what seemed like hours, waiting for some gallery visitors to leave. After all, they said they were leaving. We all did the double-cheek kiss and everything. Now, why weren't they leaving?

Well, it's because somebody brought up the subject of lobster. Off they went to the races. Canadian lobsters have no taste. The Norwegian lobsters are too pink. But the Bretagne (Brittany, i.e. local) lobsters - oh lah lah. (I just made all that up. The only thing I know is that they were talking about lobsters. For months.) Finally, they solved the Great Lobster Question and we all had to do the double-cheek mwa mwa kiss thing again. (It's a peculiarity of the French that they have to kiss everyone when they enter a party or somebody's home or run into each other in the street. I find myself reluctantly kissing many cheeks. Of people I don't know and sometimes, of people I don't particularly like. This can be disconcerting for a girl like me who likes to hide from people. When I'm around a bunch of Americans, it's always such a relief to not have to kiss anybody.)

So, as you can imagine, it's difficult for French people to think that any food can be good and of course, never can any food be superior. So, I moved the conversation deftly to dessert. This is safe territory, since French people love sweets and don't mind tasting sweets made by infidels. So, I mentioned pineapple upside down cake - a 1950's American favorite. Then baked Alaska. They were (somewhat) fascinated. Until they both decided that they were just like their own desserts called je-ne-sais-quoi and je-ne-sais-rien. Then:

Frussian: Ohhh! I know! J'adore Cheesecake! Can you make cheesecake?
Framerican: Yes. (Liar. Well, not necessarily. CAN I make it? Well, of course I CAN. HAVE I made it before? Wellll, yes. IF you consider buying a pre-made graham cracker crust and pouring in a quickly thrown together cheesy batter - from a boxed mix - and freezing the poor thing until it hardens into a cheesy rock. Yes.)
Frussian: Oh, can you make it for us? Please, please?
Framerican: But, of course!

So, the next morning, I scrounged around the internets, looking for the recipe for Junior's New York Cheesecake. I remember going to Junior's many years ago and walking back to my sister's Brooklyn apartment, carefully holding that five-ton precious cake. There's nothing quite like it, to be sure. I wanted my Frussian friend to experience that very same thing. Then I saw the recipe (linked above) and gulped with fear. Ever since I gave away the keys to the kitchen to my last boyfriend, I've lost my Cooking Confidence. It didn't help much when I was staying with Galadriel's friends at their bee and donkey farm (a story yet to be told) when I offered to make soup and while digging in their cabinets I found some Cayenne pepper and just TAPPED the bottle over the soup and inflicted merely a sprinkle upon the huge cauldron. Well. It was hot as a mother trucker. Mr. and Mrs. Bee-Donkey-Farm were polite, but Mrs. Bee did choke a little. Kind of like a Barbie choke. But choke, she did.

So, I gave up on Junior's. It just seemed too...complicated. I also began to realize that all the recipes I was finding were not in metric amounts and they called for things like a spring-form pan. "Do you have a spring-form pan?" I asked Galadriel. "A what?" she countered. "Oh, never mind." In addition, heating temperatures were given in Fahrenheit versus Centigrade and Galadriel's gas stove is calbrated in "gas marks" - 1-10, with 11 thrown in there for good measure. (If you're a musician, you know what 11 means. Try not to lust.)

Finally, I found a cheesecake recipe that handily provided Centigrade and metric measurement equivalents. Galadriel told me that 10-11 was equal to 300 degrees Centigrade and 3 was about 90. Close enough for government work.

So, Galadriel went shopping and brought home goat cheese to substitute for Philadelphia cream cheese and crème fraiche to substitute for whipping cream. You can't find graham crackers here, so I used spéculoos cookies. All set? Well, kinda. The girls left me alone in the kitchen. Thank God. Because I had noooo idea what I was doing. Was Galadriel's round baking pan 9 inches? I dunno. (I could make a joke here, but I won't.) I just looked at the pan and decided to cut the recipe in half. (Maybe because I have years of experience telling the difference between 6 inches and well, four. Sorry, couldn't resist.)

So I decided to crush the cookies. Any zip-lock bags? Nope. OK, a plastic grocery bag? Yep. Rolling pin? Nope. Galadriel brought me a rubber mallet from her tool shed. Perfect. Cookies duly crushed. I melted the butter, added it to the cookies and flattened them into the bottom of the pan. So far, so good. I shoved the pan in the oven to cook the crust.

Now, for the goat cheese. The recipe calls for freaking 2.5 pounds or 1.1 kilograms. Hmmm. Does Galadriel have any measuring cups or a scale? Nope. Okkkk. So I dug around in the cabinets and found an empty sauce jar whose label claimed it contained 300 grams of something. So...how many grams are in a kilogram? It's been YEARS since I bought illicit drugs, so I've completely forgotten. Frussian tells me that there are 1000 grams in a kilo. (Do you KNOW what the street value of 1000 grams of coke are these days? Neither do I.) So that meant that I needed about three of those jars stuffed with goat cheese to make almost one kilo so half of that would be a jar and a half. Et voilà.

I didn't tell you this would be easy. So, carry on.

Galadriel had a hand mixer but it was taken from a space alien ship or is also used by Roto Rooter to clean out the toilets. Whatever. I rinsed it, ok? And I clomped all the goat cheese in a bowl and tried desperately to make it creamy and it wasn't budging. So, I threw in the crème fraiche to liquefy things. I know, I know. It's out of order from the recipe, but too freaking bad, ok?

OK?

Then I threw in the sugar, salt and eggs and a little squeeze of lemon and then realized I didn't have any vanilla. Galadriel handed me some vanilla sticks. Oh. Hmmm. OK. They were hard as rocks. I snapped about an inch off of one. I threw it into a little pan of boiling water to "soften it up." I forgot about it. It burned to the bottom of the pan. I got the vanilla seeds out of it anyway. They tasted like plegh. So I didn't use them.

I also forgot about the graham cracker crust that was supposed to be cooking for only 10 minutes in the oven. Oops. It was, uh, golden brown. That's ok, it was going to be covered with my cheese mix. That mix whose consistency was worrying me. It was a bit, well, wet. I thought it should be kind of thick. So I added three tablespoons of flour. What the hell. I did the little drop-bowl-o-mix-on-counter (to get the bubbles out - why I have no clue, but mine is not to reason why) and then poured the mix on top of the crust. It filled the pan. I was right to cut the recipe in half.

I want this recorded. I was right.

As a last-minute fling, I sprinkled little bits of lemon zest all over the top of the cake. (Sacrilege! I'm sure.) Then I put it into the oven at 11 (rock star heat level) and this time, I set the timer for 10 minutes. I actually was near the timer and heard it... and knew what it meant... even though I was drunk. This is a miracle. I then turned the oven down to 3 and set the timer for 100 minutes. 100 minutes? 100 minutes.

Then I read all the comments under the recipe about all these people wringing their hair out about cracks in their finished cake. If that cake tasted remotely like cheese cake, fuck the cracks. OK? My biggest fear is that it would burn on the outside and when cut, would dribble egg yolks and wet cheese all over the place. I sat, in fear, for minutes. 100s of them.

I also read that after pulling the cake out, it had to first cool on a wire rack for an hour or two and then cool in the refrigerator for 4 more hours. It was 7pm. Frussian was hovering, asking, "Eez eet cayk-uh yet?" Everyone wanted cheesecake after dinner. Uh-oh.

The cake puffed up beautifully and then as it was cooling, it kinda sagged. (But I have years of experience with that too, so it didn't bother me.) But, there were no cracks! I shoved it in the fridge after an hour. We made and then ate dinner and we disobeyed the recipe and breathlessly cut into the cake after only two hours of cooling. It was fabuloso. Really. It was fab. I was thrilled. It wasn't as high as Junior's cheesecake, but it tasted great!

So, there's a lesson here, somewhere. Something about saying no to cracks? But, it's really about taking a risk and clusterfucking yourself to cheesecake glory. Anybody can do it. Even moi. Here are some pictures to prove it:

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Four: White Cliffs of Étretat and an Architect Named Renard

2010-08-17T21:59:00.000+02:00

We were late, as usual. I don't remember why, but I can almost guarantee it was because we got lost in the pleasure of something. Lunch. Wine. Sitting by the sea. (Lisa checks her pictures to remind herself of where she's been.) Oh yes, we had just finished eating a fabulous lunch at Le Garde Manger while Men In Boots tested out the floodatiousness of the fire hydrant five feet from our lunch table.

Then we wandered back to the enormous white seaside cliffs of Étretat, to see why Monet felt the need to paint them 125 years ago. Here's a picture I took of the cliffs and then enhanced in iPhoto so that I could be just like Monet. Ahem.

It was raining and the storm clouds over the sea were beautiful. That kind of somber light always makes the colors pop. I couldn't leave without taking some pictures of the boats upended on the beach.

We drove up a winding road that gave us an amazing view of the cliffs below and green rolling hills above. Our destination was Les Charmettes, a classic 19th century villa that has been the home of four generations of a family named Renard (In English - Fox). Of course, I didn't know any of this before I got there. (Galadriel doesn't tell me anything. Of course, she'd be right if she said, "Lisa never asks me anything.") I also didn't know that we had to visit another bed and breakfast in Étretat and that we had not yet reserved a place to rest our weary little heads for the evening. Ignorance is bliss.

Monsieur and Madame Renard met us at the end of the lane leading up to their villa. They were taking advantage of the fresh, rain-soaked air to walk with their child in his stroller. That baby had great big fat cheeks and an addicting smile. In contrast, Monsieur Renard seemed as serious as the cloudy day. Uh-oh. When I meet men who don't smile, I immediately think I'm in trouble. But I was soon to learn that this was not the case.

We parked at the base of the villa and walked up a hill and through the beautiful gardens to the front entrance. As we walked in, I encountered a smell from my childhood - graphite. My father was a mechanical designer and taught me to be a draftswoman. I worked for him in his office before computers took over the design field and his office always smelled like graphite, vellum and oak.

To the right, off the main entrance hallway at Les Charmettes (still paved in original tiles), was a typical architect's room, with an old-fashioned oak drafting table. The sliding straight edge was positioned towards the bottom of the drawing table and vellum was scattered on the desk and stored in flat files. Monsieur Renard is an architect, as was his father, grandfather and great grandfather.

Madame Renard and her sweet child left us with her husband so we could tour the home. The guest rooms were comfortably furnished, but what captured my attention was the incredible art and sculpture that we encountered at every turn.

Monsieur Renard has a passion for art and in addition to his large collection, he's hosted several artists, such as Gail Hood, recently retired visual arts professor at Southeast Louisiana University. She gave the Renards this painting of the Etretat cliffs that she had made from their villa's porch. When I looked her up online, I found this interesting article and photo about a beautiful painting she just created, using some of the crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Hidden at the top of the stairs was a powerful pastel drawing done by one of Monsieur Renard's relatives - I think it was his uncle - of a naked African man. He kept it upstairs in case he had guests who might take offense. But to me, it was beautiful. You can see that it's signed RENARD at the bottom left.

It was in the main dining room, with Monsieur Renard and his lovely wife and child, that we all relaxed while drinking sweet, hot tea and eating a special Moroccan cake that Madame Renard had made just for us. We were still full from our lunch, but we welcomed the tea and loved the cake. It was not only beautiful to look at, but it had a distinctive, delicious flavor - some combination of semolina (I think) and honey.

Monsieur Renard wasn't serious in a brooding way. Not like my father, who my mother used to call Chief Rain-In-The-Face when he would go silent and all of us would watch and wait to see when his storm would break and upon whose head the rain of anger would fall. No. Monsieur Renard was serious because he is passionate - about his family's history, about art, about sharing his home with others. If you ever travel to Étretat and are lucky enough to stay at Les Charmettes, be prepared to feast your eyes on truly wonderful contemporary art, sleep in comfortable rooms appointed with period furniture and share with Monsieur Renard, over a cup of tea, the history of the "Fox" family.

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Four: La Cour Sainte Catherine & Gushing Fire Hydrants

2010-07-25T18:11:00.000+02:00

You know, I really don't want all of you to have a bad impression of the little town of Honfleur. A town with that name just can't be all that bad. So yes, we ate a mediocre dinner while watching a drunk man perform with his pet suitcase. But while we watched this show, we had the pleasure of anonymous camaraderie with the two German ladies at the table next to us.

And yes, we stayed in a B&B where the bed sheets frightened us but not as much as the painting of a car junk yard above our heads. And yes, I had to crawl along the floor and under furniture and finally stick my hand into a black hole in search of an electrical outlet for my Mac. (I felt many strange things while prodding that hole, but nothing at all felt like an electrical outlet.)

But the view of Honfleur from our bathtub in this strange B&B was amazing. I sat there for a while, putting off my descent into the terrors of my impending B&B breakfast-with-strangers. I used all the natural flower-based shampoos and soaps and conditioners and stole them, also too. And breakfast wasn't bad at all. I joined a decrepit little couple at the table and dove for the tea pot each time the sweet little old lady tried to pour her husband more tea, with her gnarled hands shaking from the weight of it all. A black cat cuddled on the couch nearby and the proprietor, in his strange Sherlock Holmes garb (coupled with his dominatrix wife, I had many unwanted images creep into my perverted brain), only looked in on us when we absolutely needed him. (Thank the Holy Unicorn. I just couldn't look him in the eye.)

I'd stay there again, if I didn't know better and if I didn't have Galadriel leading me around by the nose the next morning, to see much better B&Bs in the same town.

As I've said before, I rarely know what Galadriel's agenda is. After all, she's the Elven Queen and only fools would question her intentions. Instead, when she said she was looking for a coffee shop, I figured it was time for a coffee (hopefully served by somebody in a milk maiden's costume because Sherlock and his leather-n-chains wife had scared me), and followed her down a romantic passage, shaded by trees and draped in vines and roses.

La Cour Sainte Catherine is a beautiful B&B, formerly a 17th century convent, then turned into a cider house and now owned by the Giaglis, a friendly couple who spoke English and who showed us their clean and serene rooms. They eventually served us coffee in their cozy breakfast room with stone walls and comfortable leather chairs in front of a giant fireplace. They also own the coffee shop that fronts the street outside their hidden B&B. Check out their website to see more pictures of the building and the rooms.

And as you've probably already gathered, life on the French B&B inspection tour is more about where we will eat lunch and dinner than anything else. And Galadriel had been trying to get to a certain restaurant since we began this tour. She'd heard about it, but had never eaten there. We'd tried to go the first night we arrived in Normandy, calling the friendly hostess and putting off our dinner reservation a few times while trying to find a place to stay. By the time we found a place, it was too late. Now, we'd be eating lunch there and I was dribbling a bit on my chin in anticipation.

We arrived at Le Garde Manger (15 Place Charles de Gaulle 76400 Fécamp, France 02 35 29 36 39) in the town of Fécamp at the very last second, just before they were about to stop serving lunch. Pas grave! The hostess, Julia, greeted us warmly (it was like she was one of the girls since Galadriel had been talking to her on the phone so many times to make, and then break, reservations) and we sat outside on their nice wooden deck, looking out on the town square.

The food was delicious. The wine superb. All organic. I took some food porn pics of our appetizers, but got a bit distracted after that because of the arrival of Men In Boots. With crowbars.

They looked at us, knowingly. We looked back, unknowingly. One guy and his boots sauntered over to a fire hydrant right in front of us and with a big metal ring (crowring?) he cranked the hydrant open. Water gushed out onto the sidewalk and started a small river down the street. The noise was deafening. It was like sitting at a nice little table with crystal glasses and fresh-grilled trout on porcelain plates, candelabras, the whole works - right at the base of Niagara Falls. Good thing that wooden deck was on stilts or our bootless feet would have been six inches under water.

I don't think this was all. I think the trash truck came and parked right in front and ground up the entire town's stinky bits. And somebody with an SUV parked in front and left their engine running so we could have the pleasure of inhaling exhaust with our smoked salmon. Then I think some little kid in combat fatigues wasn't content with using the sidewalk and climbed the railing onto one side of our deck and then climbed the railing on the other side to get back to the sidewalk. His parents looked on, glowingly, as if to say, "Aww. Isn't that just adorable?"

Note to self: Eat inside next time. Since inside looks like this:

Inside or out, the food and wine were great. Julia was hilarious, yet appropriately respectful, as you can see here, when she finally discovers that Galadriel is the true Queen of the Elves.

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Two: Me n' Jesus

2010-07-24T20:44:00.000+02:00

Back when we were at Chateau D'Aument, I told you that there was a trampoline in the garden. After we met the owners of the chateau and settled in our room, we made our way outside before the sun set. I couldn't resist this trampoline. Well, Galadriel just sent me this picture that she took of me, reaffirming my jumping prowess.

Then, I just noticed this other picture she took when we were staying at Jean-Luc Barral's home, a natural winemaker friend of Galadriel's, in Lenthéric, France. (I'll tell that story lay-ter. It's a goodun.)

This is when I realized that I must have a Jesus complex. I don't know. What do you think?

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Three: Honfleur and Run-On Sentences

2010-07-13T16:33:00.001+02:00

I had great expectations for Honfleur, our next stop on the B&B inspection trail. My friend Lisa had rented a car last year and driven from Paris to Normandy and stumbled upon Honfleur. When she came back to Paris she gushed about the pretty port and the little town.

And it's true. Honfleur is a beautiful little Medieval town with its 11th century port, surrounded by picturesque buildings and waterside outdoor restaurants.

But Galadriel and I are different kinds of tourists. We have this pesky little habit of wanting natural wine and organic food, served in quiet little restaurants owned by locals who will spend millions of minutes discussing the pros and cons of different wines for each course.

"Oh, this wine is best with the bread made from ancient wheat and the butter that's churned by the gnarled hands of a bewhiskered farm wife, seated on a three-legged stool (hand carved by her cow-herding husband) with the wooden churn (passed down from her great-great-great grandmother) wedged between her shriveled thighs and her rubber-booted feet planted firmly in fragrant hay in between sun-warmed recently-milked benign cows fed only with wild flowers. Now... what shall we drink with the snails - picked by hand at dawn, just after a full moon, from dew-moistened lettuce by vestal virgins and placed carefully in a mouth-blown glass container full of stone-ground corn meal for two weeks until they excrete only fragrant corn poop, then sent to their deaths, bathed in garden-fresh parsley and garlic and the butter that's hand churned by the gnarled...?"

You can see why it can take some time to select wine in France.

Anyhoo! Galadriel had just that kind of restaurant in mind, as we parked the car and walked with our noses high in the air, feeling like vestal virgins ourselves (well, that's a stretch), past the tourist-infested port-side restaurants, saying "Non, non!" to the waiters as they tried to lure us in with promises of the freshest oysters and crabs. It was getting late. Too late, even for French dinner. In my mind, I'm always thinking, "But, if we keep walking and trying to find this place, won't they be closed and we'll be left, bereft, on the cobblestone streets, as hungry as little beggars?" But I rarely voice these concerns, as they tend to reveal the fact that I'm a big worrier of the never-occurring evil.

"Oh, non!" Galadriel gasped as we turned down a side street and discovered that Alexandre Bourdas' restaurant Sa.Qua.Na was closed. Like corporate travelers, shocked by the fact that first class is full and their gold-card status lacks the power to eject undeserving cretins from the depths of their Corinthian leather seats and the effervescence of pre-takeoff champagne, we were indignant. This restaurant had the audacity to only be opened on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and every other leap year? "The Fooding guide said it was open on Tuesdays, Sundays and every other fêtes de Saint-Eustache!" Galadriel said, exasperated. Reluctantly, we turned our backs on Alexandre Bourdas' quirky opening hours to face the dreaded tourist restaurants across the street and resigned ourselves (well, I resigned myself; Galadriel wasn't going down without a fight) to prefabricated food and waitresses.

It was not pretty. We walked, staring at menus, then walked back, staring at them all again. A dark cloud gathered above Galadriel's elven head.

Me: (feigned cheerfulness) "What are you in the mood for?"
Galadriel: "I don't know." (pouty mouth)
Me: "Pasta? They can't fuck up pasta." (always the delicate speaker)
Galadriel: "Phlegh" (I took that for a no)
Me: "They all have seafood. I'm sure it's local and fresh."
Galadriel: (searing stare that said, "You have GOT to be kidding.")
Me: (my fake smile beginning to crack) "Okaaay. Erm. We could sit outside here and it won't be as noisy as inside and it would be cool and breezy and I'm sure there's something on the menu that's borderline fresh and ...?"

Sit, we did. There were two women sitting next to the only table left empty on the tiny sidewalk, a mother and daughter, with the daughter's baby sleeping soundly in a stroller. The daughter rose, seeing our distress, and moved the stroller carefully so that we could sit down next to them. They were smiley and nice.

The waitress...not so much. Perhaps she could smell our discontent. Or maybe it was the rather pointed questions Galadriel was asking, as she held the menu like it was recently fished out of the dumpster. Of course they had no natural wine. And the sardines had not just been fished out of pristine waters, placed in a hand-twisted twine basket, carried carefully by a fleet runner, barefoot and hair flying behind him in the salt-sprayed wind, directly to the back door of the kitchen and tossed, still alive, into a frying pan. (I'm making most of this up, since it was all in French and you can't trust my translations since I've been known to say to the waiter when he bends down to take my empty plate, "Oui, Je suis fini" which kind of means, "I'm dead, done-for.") The waitress became a bit, well, defensive.

So, the wine was terrible and the food was mediocre. But fortunately, the street entertainment provided a much-needed distraction. Galadriel's longing eyes were torn away from the shuttered Sa.Qua.Na across the street, by the appearance of a drunk man with a blue, rolling suitcase. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, the cheap suitcase rolled along the cobblestones but would suddenly stop, as it's owner staggered a bit and tried desperately to make his head stop moving long enough to focus his eyes on the narrow street ahead. He was heading somewhere important, but I'm not sure he knew exactly where that might be.

We exchanged glances and smiles with the two ladies next to us. Four sets of wise women's eyes followed the one drunken man. I would give anything to see tiny thought and picture bubbles above all of our heads at that very moment.

"Poor thing."
"What's in that suitcase? Cockles? His clown outfit?"
"Who's the lucky girl?"
"He is going to try and kill us."

Guess who was thinking about impending death? Well, actually, those are all my thoughts. I have no idea what the rest of the girls were thinking.

He managed to make it halfway down the street, where a certain amount of foggy determination and a leftward tilt initiated with his shoulder as the rudder, impelled him into a bar. He left his suitcase, its telescoping handle still extended, looking forlorn outside the door in the middle of the tiny sidewalk. A moment later, as a drunken afterthought, he peered out the door, nodded his head at the suitcase as if to say, "Good dog. Stay." and fell back inside.

Content to know that the clown murderer was temporarily busy in the bar, we paid the bill, wished the nice ladies next to us a good evening and walked back up the hill to our B&B. I wish I could write more about this place, but I can't get Galadriel in trouble. And somebody, definitely not my mother, once said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

So, I'll just say that the bed was comfortable (but I couldn't help thinking that the red and black and purple flowered sheets covered up a multitude of sin stains), the decorations artistic (but the painting of a junk yard above the bed inspired several nightmares), the conversation with the little old couple at breakfast was sweet (even as I kept wanting to dive in and help her trembling hands as she tried to pass the tea pot to her husband), the bathtub had a magnificent view down the hill to the village and beyond to the green hills, the terrace outside our room was magnificent and the B&B owners were kind of well, kinky. I don't know why I would think that, other than the fact that there were many erotic photos, circa 1972, of the wife along the corridor to our room and the husband had a strange look in his eye and always, day and night, sported a fedora.

Instead, I'll tell you in the next post about the gorgeous B&B we visited the following day in Honfleur, where we hung out and chatted with the super-nice owners, drinking coffee, petting their cat and taking lots of pretty pictures. À Bientôt!

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Three: The Smell of Horses and The Noise of Water

2010-07-11T17:07:00.000+02:00

Contrast is an amazing thing. During this trip through France, our experiences have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. But without the ridiculous, the sublime would not be as deeply appreciated. We left our lunch at l'Abbaye de Valloires with the taste of good food in our mouths, but tainted by an atmosphere of commercialism. But a drive through the French countryside restored our equilibrium, as Galadriel pointed out the beautiful caramel-colored horses - Henson ponies - that are raised in the Baie de Somme (Wiki).

Even though I lived in Arizona for many years, I didn't know anything about horses until I had the pleasure of meeting Todd Masden of Cave Creek Outfitters. After losing my job and being ejected from my family, I was pretty much a lost soul. But my friend Sharon gave me a job in her art gallery and Todd gave me a job driving his van to Scottsdale resorts to pick up tourists for trail rides out in the desert. I may have been scraping together chicken feed for a living, but I had two of the calmest jobs on the planet. Sitting in Sharon's art gallery in Biltmore Fashion Park (Phoenix shopping center), I was surrounded by peace and quiet and could gaze at the eclectic collection of artists that said so much about who Sharon is and who her friends are: Zarco Guerrero, Robert Miley, Dennis Numkena (RIP), John Boomer, John Soderberg and many others.

Meanwhile, when not working at the gallery, I would show up at Todd's ranch early in the morning and "help" him while he readied his horses for the day and loaded them in the trailer to take them out to the desert drop-off point. Then I'd drive his big van to the first resort, pick up a load of 8-10 tourists and drive them out to meet Todd. They'd take off for their one-hour ride and I'd drive to the second resort and pick up a new load of tourists. By the time I got back, the first group was returning from their ride, so I dropped off the new people and took the first group back to their hotel. This went on all day.

At dusk, after I dropped off the last load of tourists to their shiny resorts, I would "help" Todd return the horses to his ranch and he'd let me brush them. It was awesome to be so close to those sweaty, heaving beasts. I had great respect, a little fear, but much pleasure stroking and talking to them. And Todd was and is the coolest guy on the planet (and not a bad guitar picker, either). He had a lot of patience with me. I'd be yapping about all my ideas for expanding his business, and he'd just smile and tighten some saddle straps. He knew exactly how to run his business - with integrity and great care. That's why he's still in business today.

These were some of the thoughts that ran through my mind as I looked at the French Henson ponies, so far away from the Arizona desert. But in my mind's eye, I could feel their bristly fur, the silkiness of their cheeks, the warmth of their haunches. We lowered our windows and I could smell them, too. It was lovely. Just driving by them, seeing them grazing, remembering my times with Todd and his horses, reconnected me to life's beautiful energy...and erased the sound of tourists in a museum-gift-shop-buying frenzy, trying to reconnect to life by buying more stuff. It's OK. I've done it and still do it (yes, I do lust for an iPad). I just don't want to be around it any more. I'd rather be with the horses.

Or, at le Bruit de l'Eau. I know I got a little sidetracked here, but oh well. Reconnecting to the earth and to my own senses is really important to me now. This trip has given me so many blissful moments where I climbed out of my head and out of my fears and experienced the many pleasures of food, drink, people and nature. Writing about it and sharing it with you gives it the power it deserves and puts all of the worries of supposed "real" life into perspective. The horses were just a visual preparation for the surprise of senses that I experienced in the authentic Japanese garden of Le Bruit de l'Eau, surrounding an ecological B&B which might not be for everybody, but which swept me away into another world, right in the middle of French horse country.

Le bruit de l'eau means "the noise of water" in English. When we entered the grounds and parked, we walked along pathways and heard just that, the noise of water. It's an interesting contrast - associating water with noise - usually a negative connotation. But if you go to the Le Bruit de l'Eau website and scroll down to the bottom of the home page, there's a little audio gadget that you can click on to listen to the sound of this place. You might expect to hear water, but what you'll hear are the animals that live near the water - birds, frogs, lizards I guess... You might never turn it off.

There wasn't a soul anywhere in the place. We peeked into the exhibition kitchen where the owner prepares organic meals while his guests sit at the bar and watch.

We peeked into the main office. It was empty, except for some simple furniture and a tea pot. It was as if the whole place was taking an afternoon siesta or had softly ascended into deep meditation.

We whispered. And tip-toe'd. Galadriel told me that the last time she visited, they were building a Dôjô d'Été (summer dojo) along the water. A dojo is traditionally a place for training, but this room can be rented as a place to sleep. Galadriel wanted to see it, so we wandered the wild paths, into the potager (kitchen garden) and along the spring on a wooden walkway. Beautiful grass, moss and flowering plants filled the wandering streams.

When we found the Dôjô, we became even more silent, in order to hear the cacophony of silence along the water in front of the Dôjô: water sounds, birds flying and tweeting and frog mating sounds.

Here is the inside of the Dôjô, where you can see the sleeping mats rolled up and hints of the mosquito netting that I imagine is a necessity if you want to get any sleep at night (as I said, this isn't for everyone).

If you're sitting on the mats in the Dôjô and the Japanese sliding screens are open, this is what you can see past the deck.

Here is the front "deck." The outside toilet and shower area is on the left, behind the bamboo curtains. You probably have the idea now that this feels like an isolated place, even though it's just a few pathways from the main buildings.

Toilet en plein air, anyone?

Don't worry. They have very comfortable rooms in the main building like the room called Kio-ko, with its private terrace and direct access to the spa. Wifi is available too.

So...this was turning out to be a wonderful day. We almost left this quiet place without seeing anyone. But on our way out, we met the owner's girlfriend and she greeted us warmly, remembered Galadriel from the last time she came, and then told us to enjoy ourselves as she had some work to do. I expected her to be wearing Japanese wooden flip flops and those little white one-toe socks and a kimono. But actually, she was kind of glamorous. Snazzy jeans, hipster haircut, designer sunglasses.

Ahh...the contrasts.

Stick around. Day three isn't over yet. On our way to the sea and our final resting place for the evening, Galadriel and I will visit another Gaycoco B&B which we loved and end up sleeping in an Ohsoso B&B, which we didn't love. Sayonara!

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Three: L'Abbaye de Valloires

2010-07-09T13:15:00.000+02:00

After reluctantly leaving Chateau d'Aumont, we really, really tried to be good girls and visit more than one or two B&Bs in one day, but Galadriel is now addicted to hearing me say "Wow!" (pronounced in French as wauwuh) every ten minutes as we pass adorable little villages and gorgeous old churches and seas of wheat and coffee-with-cream-colored cows and and and.

So, she stopped at the l'Abbaye de Valloires, (Wiki page) where they have beautiful gardens. There is a rumor that they also have a restaurant where all the food is made from flowers and vegetables from the garden and they have...drum roll...natural wine. (I took this picture at the main entrance of l'Abbaye, but we had to get into the car and drive a little bit down the road to get to the restaurant.)

Besides, it was lunch time. This is our classic MO for the trip. Sleep until 9ish. Have breakfast while we look at the map and decide which natural food and wine restaurants we can hit for lunch and dinner, while still visiting the obligatory B&Bs on the map. We climb into the car at lunch time and go have lunch. Sometimes, we have a 4-hour lunch. After all, we have to talk to the chef about each course and discuss which wine is best for each course and then take food porn pictures of everything and then the chef and his wife have to sit down with us at the table to have a glass or two with us and then they have to tell us about the best local places for wine and food and advise us on where to go for dinner. This is very, very important. And then, we have to cram in the B&B inspection visits in time to hit our natural food and wine restaurant for dinner. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

We didn't take the time to visit the gardens at l'Abbaye, because we had our priorities and, um, work to do. We made a beeline to The Gardener's Table for our lunch. Oh boy. It was kind of a disaster. In order to get to the restaurant, you're forced to go through the gift shop, which was full of busloads of tourists, clamoring to buy flower-scented soaps, gardening books, post cards and whatever. It was terrible. Me and Galadriel hated this. Worse yet, the restaurant is in the back of this Altar of Needless Consumption, with just a little portable screen for separation. The noise was deafening.

Galadriel spied an outside terrace, where we ran for cover. There was a table available and a waitress brought us the plastic-coated menus. Galadriel asked her about natural wine and about the menu and the waitress had no idea if they had natural wine and had only a basic knowledge of the menu. Ugh. This did not bode well. You would think that she would be full of information and proud of what the restaurant had to offer, but non. So, we reluctantly ordered.

This is when we had a nice surprise. When the food and wine came, it was all an incredible work of art. And the food was amazing. It was such a shame that it was presented in this environment and we couldn't quite get past our original experience to really love the food. But you can see from the pictures how beautiful it was.

Here is the bread basket, with flowers embedded in the bread.

Here is the appetizer, with a shot for each of us of a nice sweet wine. There were spicy chapatis to dip in hummus and three types of herb or vegetable-stuffed breads to dip in a cool herbed cream sauce.

Here is the vegetable soup.

Here is the main course - roasted tomato, beet salad, fresh asparagus, hummus, grapes. I can't remember what was in the little red pot.

Here is the cheese.

You can see how beautifully presented it was and it was really delicious. We just couldn't stand the atmosphere.

Just across the street was a chateau which was on Galadriel's list to visit, but there was a sign at the main gate telling us that the owner had died and they were having his funeral that day. So, walking in there and asking to inspect the beds and bathrooms didn't seem like the right thing to do.

Stay tuned for my next post, where I'll show you an incredible Japanese wilderness garden and B&B, right in the French countryside. When you enter the grounds, you completely forget where you are. À tout à l'heure!

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Two: First Place Tramp

2010-07-08T19:44:00.000+02:00

After our strange day in The Twilight Zone and cider redemption at Rapunzel's castle, we headed, with a few apple burps, towards Chateau D'Aumont, where we would spend the night. Here is a view of the back of the chateau from the garden.

I don't remember whether it is in Galadriel's guide and needed inspection or if it is new and she needed to decide if it would go into next year's guide. But if I have anything to say about it (and as you know, I will always have something to say about everything), it should be in the guide with a 4-girl rating. (I have no idea if Galadriel's guide has a rating system, so I'll just invent my own: If 4 of my girlfriends would like the place, then it's the bomb.)

We got lost getting there, which isn't unusual on this trip. Out in the country, mobile networks disappear and Mister GPS has a hard time finding his way. (Perhaps we need to find him a Missus GPS...or a guide dog.) But we finally got there and were greeted by the owner - a tall, elegant blond woman, and her two young sons.

First, we toured the guest rooms, which were located in a renovated building off the side of the main chateau. Every room was beautiful. It was modern, calm, quiet and comfortable. Here's a picture of our messy room, which I took the next morning. That bathtub was fab-u-luss. You can see pictures of all the rooms on their website. (The English translation is pretty terrible, but oh well.)

Here's the very cool thing about our stay. We hadn't eaten since breakfast and this Chateau is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Galadriel asked Stephanie Danzel d’Aumont, as we sat in her chateau kitchen sipping tea, if it was possible that they had any food that they could throw together for us for dinner. We didn't care - cheese, bread, snausages. Whatever. Oh, and they wouldn't happen to have any natural wine, would they? I thought Galadriel was pushing our luck with this request. Madame d'Aumont looked a bit stressed. But she said she would see what she could do.

So, me and Galadriel unloaded our suitcases and then ran out to the back "yard" so we could jump up and down on the trampoline. Now, if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I won the prestigious award of Third Place Tramp when I was in Junior High (read it and weep). But I haven't been on a trampoline for 30 years, so this was going to be interesting. I remembered how to "mount" by rolling onto it and within seconds I was jumping as high as a mushroom and then maybe a carrot and soon I graduated to the height of a small dog. et voila. It was damn good fun. Galadriel joined me and we almost jettisoned each other off into the stratosphere, but finally "dismounted" without breaking our teeth.

Then, Galadriel wandered off to speak to the trees and I decided to speak to the big white bathtub in the sky. While I was lounging in a thick white robe, smelling like a daffodil, Galadriel took her bath. I could hear some rustling going on downstairs in the breakfast room and figured the d'Aumonts were setting up our cocktail weenies, Cheez Whiz and Tab. To hell with all of this "natural" stuff. I had ordered real food. I'm an American, damnit.

So, we descended to the breakfast room (which looked like this the next morning) and there, all set up as if by elves, was a really nice dinner. Fresh, cold vegetable soup, a baked dish of ham and cheese-filled crepes rolled up and covered with Béchamel sauce and shredded cheese and baked in the oven - a local specialty. There was bread and cheese and a chilled bottle of local rosé. I don't know if it was natural, but I liked it. Much better for my teeth than Tab, I must admit.

While we were eating, naked under our fluffy robes, the owner's husband came in. Er. Hi! He was very cool, though. He works for Disney, marketing children's food. I'm afraid to ask what that means, but I can imagine that it's awful.

We slept like babies and the next morning the elves delivered a beautiful breakfast. We couldn't leave the place. We sat down in the breakfast room and geeked out on our Macs until Galadriel reluctantly said we had to leave. Onward and downward! Next stop - the 12th century Abbeye de Valloires, an amazing Japanese-style B&B, another gaycoco B&B and restaurant that we really liked and a not-so-amazing B&B where we stayed the night, hoping that the owner's wife wouldn't wander the house late at night, dressed in high boots and a dog collar and carrying a whip.

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Two: Wet Wipes n' Cider

2010-07-07T19:51:00.001+02:00

As we drove away from the twin psycho towns of Le Tréport and Mers-les-Bains, we took one last look from the cliffs that really are the most magnificent part of the area. And from this vantage point, far above, the towns and their dog crap statistics became insignificant.

The sun was starting its descent as we drove along little country roads on our way to the B&B where we would rest our weary heads for the night. We were still feeling a bit like we were leaving The Twilight Zone until we stumbled upon Yet Another Castle.

"Castle! Towers! Rapunzel!" I screamed. "Screeeeech!" Galadriel, ever so pleased to accommodate my fairytale fantasies, slammed on the brakes and did a back-up to the entrance to the fourteenth century Chateau Fort de Rambures. The gates were closed, but we got out and walked up to the ticket kiosk, where we encountered a handsome young man as he was closing up shop for the evening. I left Galadriel to flirt with him while I checked out the scenery. She told him about The Twilight Zone because we needed to know that we weren't crazy. He affirmed that the people in Le Tréport and Mers-les-Bains are very strange, and have had a rivalry going on between them for many years. I'm glad we left them to fling dog droppings at each other into the next century.

I don't know why I loved this little castle so much. Maybe because of those fat round towers in the front or the moat around it. But it really appealed to me. It's been in the same family for 600 years. I wish I could have seen the rose gardens, but I did get to see all the beautiful shades of green - bright green grass, silver-green and blue-green leaves. Lovely.

The only thing that marred the scenery was a goofy setup of mannequins in dishevelled medieval clothing, standing around ancient farm implements. I was taking a picture of a post card in the kiosk window so I could remember the name of the Chateau later, and I didn't realize until now that one of the mannequins is reflected in the window on the left. You can see my face and hair and blue scarf reflected on the right.

It reminded me of Frontier Town in Arizona, with mannequin cowboys sittin' around the campfire, their wagons circled around them, while pioneer wenches served them pork n' beans in tin pie plates. I expected a reenactment of the shoot-out at the OK corral at any moment. Except with armor and chain maille and lances, and stuff.

I also noticed (because my last name isn't Wines for nuthin') the bottle of special cider from the castle which was for sale in the kiosk. I don't know if it's made at the castle or if it's of any quality worth writing home about, but it looked awfully good after our unsuccessful attempt at getting fed and watered with the dogs of Le Treport. So, when I pointed it out to Galadriel, she asked the friendly ticket man if there was any cider available...cold? (Recipe for success: Soften voice. Blink eyelashes, twice). He said sure, and left the kiosk for the castle.

While we waited, I was busy taking pictures and didn't notice that Galadriel had dissappeared. This always bothers me because every time she dissappears, I'm certain that something bad will happen to me. Like the ticket guy on the train will come and demand to punch my ticket. Which is in Galadriel's purse. Which she took with her. Or that the castle man will come back with our cider and I'll have to TALK to him in FRENCH. Or, the scariest thing of all, she will find a great photo opportunity before I do. We (I should say "I") have a small competition in this area.

So, I went looking for her in the parking lot across from the castle. I saw her, flitting in and out of the bushes. Like a bird.

"What are you doing?" I asked, suspiciously, wondering if she'd found a rare Phainopepla and had gotten the million-Euro shot.
"Trying to find a place to pee." She glanced at me sideways, guilty.
"Oh. Uh. Sorry! Do you need my wet wipes?"
"Um. No. Thanks."

Nobody let us pee in The Twilight Zone, either. I probably had to go too, but forgot about my "special" needs when confronted with the awesomeness of a new castle.

Mister Castle Keeper returned with a dripping, cold bottle of cider and two plastic cups. What a guy. Luckily, Galadriel had finished her ablutions and could talk to him, pay him and say goodbye to him while I stood there mute, but eager. It's my new MO in France, when surrounded by French people. Mute, but eager. I do have a brain, and I'm sure everything you are saying is brilliant, and I'm so very eager to know everything you know, I just can't speak. Really. Bonjour. Au revoir.

We paid him and thanked him and went and stood by the car and Galadriel opened the bottle. It exploded all over her dress. Of course, NOW she was glad to have my wet wipes. Even though she secretly wonders about this strange American wet wipe affliction of mine. Just one more reason for us to laugh hysterically while she changed her clothes in the car.

After all, she had to look respectable (and drunk from cider) because we were soon to arrive at this impeccable, elegant place. Ooh lah laaah.

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Two: Octopussy

2010-06-30T11:53:00.001+02:00

Well, that blog post title ought to bring me some traffic.

After our lovely visit to Chateau Miromesnil, I got excited by the prospect of seeing the sea again and maybe eating some fresh fish at a beachside restaurant.

OK, who am I kidding? I had no idea where we were going because I never ask Galadriel. I just wait for her to deliver me unto the next amazing and delicious place, sitting slack-jawed in the passenger seat of our miniature rental car while she drives with eight guide books in her lap and tries to strike a balance balance between doing her job and showing me something that will make me go, "Jumpin' Jehovah's witness! Ah never done seen nothin' lahk that in mah whole doggone lahf." Or something like that.

And that's almost what I said when she took me to Le Tréport and Mers-les-Bains, two seaside villages that are very pretty but the most unfriendly place in France, je pense. Even if they do have very pretty, gingerbready, San Franciscoish, Mexican-colored houses.

We walked along the boardwalk, looking for a nice place to sit and look at the sea and eat some fresh seafood. Good luck with that. Especially when it's after 2pm and all of France refuses to serve you food. Even though Octopussy lured us in with its suggestive sign, all they would serve us were the local gallettes, or savory crepes filled with ham or cheese or both.

I hate to compare America to France, because America generally loses, but in this case, I thought about any coastal town in America, right coast or left coast, and if there are humanoids walking along the beach, restaurants will be serving their full menu. It seemed incredible to me that at 3pm we couldn't sit somewhere, stare out at the sea and have a drink and eat some fish. At least in this case, the score must be Dirty Capitalists 1, Dirty Socialists 0.

At one point, we saw an outdoor seating area, with people having drinks, and walked across the street to the entrance of the restaurant attached to it. Blocking the door, in cop stance (meaty arms folded across ample chest, bulky legs seemingly rooted into the carpet, head tilted up and back, eyes glaring), was the restaurant owner. "Can we get some seafood and drinks and sit outside and eat?" "No." That was it. No. We could have drinks, but no food. We said thanks (God knows why) and that we'd look for another place and continued down to the other end of the boardwalk.

At the very last restaurant, which was directly on the beach, we walked in and asked if we could have drinks and food. The girls behind the counter looked at us in disgust. How ignorant could we be? They didn't say, "Oh we're so sorry, but the chef is gone." They just said no and looked at us like we were very wrong in the head.

Hungry and sad (kind of like these doggies in the posters that were ALL along the boardwalk - rough translation: "Dog Poop: It's not up to them to collect it." - those little signs they're carrying are the total of poops they're guilty of dropping), we started back towards the car. As we passed Monsieur Méchant (translation: Mister Evil - from the title of a French horror movie), he was standing in his beach-side cafe, gloating. "I told you that you wouldn't find any food." I don't know what Galadriel said to him, but I know it was good. Most likely mean, but ever so polite.

As we drove away, we felt like we had been in a horror movie ourselves. Like we had accidentally stepped into The Twilight Zone.

In retrospect, it's apparent that the people of Le Tréport and Mers-les-Bains are much more concerned about the poop scooping, feeding and watering of their dogs (as seen in the photo to the left, where they even have a name for their dog-watering bar), than they are about any outsiders who enter....The Twilight Zone. In your mind's ear, hear the voice of Rod Serling as he says: There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.

Don't worry, though. We escaped back to the real world where we stumbled upon a medieval castle that was closing, so we couldn't visit (and I was disappointed because I was so sure Rapunzel draped her flaxen braids from this very same castle's windows), but whose gatekeeper restored our faith in mankind (with the help of a certain local alcoholic beverage) and Galadriel got her dress all wet. And then, we found what became, at least for this first B&B inspection trip (we're currently on our third), was the best place we stayed. So, stay tuned for the next segment in our continuing series of The Normandy Chronicles.

SOS Help: English Language Crisis Line in France

2010-06-24T08:58:00.001+02:00

I received a request this morning from a great organization in France, SOS Help Line. They asked me to post about them on my blog and spread the word that they are available to help English speakers who may be having an emotional crisis while in France and need a friendly voice:

Feel like talking? SOS Help, an English speaking crisis line in France, is open from 3 pm to 11 pm daily. Call us up to talk about anything on your mind – from loneliness to stress to concerns about integrating into a new culture. We are here to listen! Call us at 01 46 21 46 46 or visit us online at www.soshelpline.org for more information.

Commentosis

2010-06-14T10:21:00.004+02:00

Being a geek, I played with the new Blogger templates and lost my Disqus comment capability. I tried to just allow comments via Blogger, but that doesn't seem to work on my older posts. We'll see if this new post has the ability for comments. If not, I'll try and fix it soon so that you can all participate again in my adventure.

(Image stolen from here, which is one of my favorite websites called Language Log at University of Pennsylvania. I looked around for threatening copyright verbiage and found none. If the U o' P police find me and threaten torture by bad grammar, I will immediately give in and delete the picture. Until then, enjoy.)

The Normandy Chronicles: Day Two

2010-06-12T20:19:00.000+02:00

In my last post, we had finished a long day and no matter how much my traveling companion Galadriel dialed while driving, she couldn't find a place for us to sleep. We had one more B&B to inspect that she had never seen before, so it was a bit risky to think that we might stay there. But it turned out to be the lovely Jardin en Douce, where we slept peacefully and awoke to a foggy view outside our window and the best breakfast we received on our entire trip.

I went downstairs first, a little nervous about having breakfast with the other guests. That's one of the decisions that everyone has to make about B&Bs. Do you absolutely adore meeting new people, trying to speak to them in their native language or hoping they'll speak to you in yours and do you want the curious B&B owners to ask you all kinds of questions about your personal life that you don't want to answer?

B&B Owner: So, Lisa, what do you do for a living?
Lisa: Rocket scientist.
B&B Owner: Oh, er, wow! How nice.
Lisa: But, I'm on sabbatical. I figured I'd caused enough deaths in the world and deserve a little break.
B&B Owner: Um. Coffee or tea?

or...

B&B Owner: So Lisa, do you have children of your own?
Lisa: Well, I could have had two, but I aborted them.
B&B Owner: Uh. Oh! Try the lemon-almond confiture. It's delicious!

I'm not big on meeting new people. You would not know that about me if you met me. Because I can pretend to like anyone. It's a well-honed survival skill I learned in corporate America when I was managing customer service. I can gaze at people wide-eyed with wonderment about everything they are saying. I nod and make the right approval noises, all the while busily plotting my escape. Admitting this means that if you ever come to France and want to meet me, you'll wonder the whole time if I hate you. But Heather over at The Wishful Writer came to Paris a few years ago with her lovely partner April and I loved them. So, just be like them and you won't have any problems.

Meanwhile, back at the jardin, I sat at the breakfast table overlooking the garden and saw the bad kitty napping on the forbidden green and white striped sofa. There was a 40ish-year-old couple sitting with me. We all nodded politely and immediately looked down. Françoise floated in, tan and refreshed, and pointed out all the wonderful things on the table. She really knows what she's doing, since she had two pots of coffee - one strong and one "less strong" - possibly a nod to me being American. But I'm not typical in that I prefer strong coffee, so the first thing I did was pour myself some coffee. Next, I spied a basket full of fresh croissants within my reach, a tiny white butter dish just for me, a tray with four types of confiture (three of which were made by Françoise) and on my placemat was an adorable, tiny heart-shaped brioche, a tiny bowl of fruit compote and another bowl of yogurt topped with prune paste. I ate everything in front of me and pondered death-by-croissant, but decided against it.

Françoise told us the night before that she thought it was "orrible" when B&B owners sit down and eat with their guests. That made me like her right away. True to her word, she stayed in the kitchen but had an innate sense of when she was needed. At one point, she stuck her head in to the silent dining room (me and the couple had not said one word to each other - awkward!) and said in french to the couple, "Please pass the bread." Françoise is a former advertising exec and she knows how to deliver a directive. The bread basket was immediately passed in my direction.

It was at this point that I felt the need to say something to the couple as they passed the bread. So I said in french, "Excuse me but my french is not very good. Sorry." They said, "Quoi?" Er. This is always something that annoys me. I know I whine about how bad my french is, but I actually have a good accent and when I deliver a sentence full of words that I actually know, there's no reason why they should be unable to understand me. I repeated myself and they suddenly, miraculously understood and said, no problem. Then we all looked down at our yogurt again. I hate B&Bs.

Galadriel wandered down to the breakfast room after convening with her elves back at the office and she made all the polite conversation so that I didn't have to. I will never go to breakfast again without her. I took my camera and went outside for one more photo shoot before departure. I can't help but share two photos, the first being huge and gorgeous poppies. They looked like they were made from expensive dress fabric, studded with jewels of dew.

Then I stood under the enormous cherry tree and picked cherries up off the ground to eat. Françoise told us that the tree is a gift for the birds. It's so tall that she can't possibly harvest all the cherries or stop the birds from eating everything.

So, after saying our goodbyes, off we drove towards I had no idea where, because I didn't care. I liked the ability to just drift along and let Galadriel set the agenda.

But sometimes, a deviation is required.

I don't remember how we stumbled upon Chateau de Miromesnil, but stumble we did. It wasn't represented by a dot on Galadriel's map, but it may end up in her guide after all.

As we drove down the tree-lined drive, we saw boy scouts walking on the grounds. There were signs that said Privé here and there, but Galadriel shrugged and drove right into the side courtyard, where the outer buildings of the chateau - probably former stables, barn and gardener's or maid's quarters - were located. There was obviously a workshop or weekend event going on.

We parked and a very friendly owner, Jean-Christophe Romatet, came out to greet us. Galadriel apologized for just showing up unannounced. She explained who she was and he told us that his wife would be happy to give us a tour of the chateau. Yessss.

It was amazing. I have too many photos to show you, so I'll try and restrain myself, but here is the left, front side of the chateau, with the wall that protects the beautiful kitchen garden. Our guide, Madame Nathalie Romatet, whose grand parents bought the chateau in 1938, told us that it was her grandmother, the Comtesse de Vogüé, who installed the kitchen garden. Her grand parents bought the chateau with the idea of having a large place to raise their family for generations, but before they could spend much time living there after they finished updating it (with electricity, heat and running water), it was occupied by Germans, then British and then Americans during WWII.

Sometime in the last few years, Jean-Christophe had a serious car accident and it was then that he and Nathalie decided to move into the chateau and make it into a hotel and event venue. But it's not an easy or inexpensive thing to do.

In the driveway, I spied a stack of black slate, all covered with different white lettering and drawings. I asked Nathalie about them and she told me that in order to renovate the roof, they are selling the chance to own a piece of the roof. So, for 5 Euros, I signed my name and dated it and now I can say that I own a piece of the roof at Chateau de Miromesnil. Guy de Maupassant was born there, so maybe his literary success will rub off on me.

There were several rooms, but this one inspired me the most. I imagined myself sitting at that desk and writing and each time I would get stuck on a word or phrase, I could look out the window on the chateau's back gardens and ponder the history of that place. Since Nathalie and her husband can't afford to restore the back gardens to their original splendor, they cut the grass in different lengths, to outline the diamond-shaped flower beds of yore.

We finally left the chateau and continued on our journey. Check in soon when I continue with tales of the unfriendliest town in France and other adventures of me, myself and Galadriel.

The Normandy Chronicles: Day One Ends Well

2010-06-08T08:54:00.027+02:00

To continue my story of a couple of bad girls traveling through Normandy, we had just escaped hovering helicopter photographers and Rouenistas carrying impressionist painting segments and death by car park, when we began to ascend the hills of Rouen to find the B&B Le Jardin en Douce.

The hills rise above Rouen with tiny streets at precarious angles. Which makes Mr. GPS (I don't know why we think it's a man, but we do) very confused. But we finally climbed a perpendicular hill to turn right on a tiny alleyway that led to the B&B. I got out to ring the bell at a white gate when it was opened by a smiling gray-haired man with glasses. Behind him lay one of the most beautiful gardens I've seen in a long time and from the upstairs window, his lovely wife smiled and waved.

I looked at Galadriel (as in Queen of the Elves - that's my travel companion's new fake name - we'll see how long it lasts), to see if she was thinking the same thing I was - that we had found our hotel for the night. She said, "If they have a room available..."

Marc Lafont guided us into the driveway and as we parked, I saw a pretty table ahead of us, in front of the house and under a climbing vine of pink roses, with a carafe of rosé wine, wet with condensation, and two little glasses. (The picture to the left was taken the next morning, so the wine is gone. Because we drank it all.)

Françoise, his wife, was tanned and elegant in a long gray gauze and lace top and gray and yellow floral slacks. I looked at her and wished I could age just as gracefully.

She led us on a tour, starting with the garden. The picture to the left is the view while standing in the driveway and looking down along the right side of the house into the back garden. It was bursting in blooms of all kinds. She told us that she and Marc do all of the work and that she's "a slave" to the garden, but it's obvious that it's a labor of love.

Next we toured the house, with its comfortable breakfast room, tasteful furniture and art and a cat who sleeps on the couch where he's not allowed (I guess other people are managed by their cats just like I used to be). Our room was upstairs, with a big window looking out at the garden below (I took the picture on the left from the window the next morning, when it was a little foggy and so was I) and a large private bathroom across the hall with a window overlooking the front garden. The cool air flowed through those windows, bringing the smell of roses and greenery with it.

After the tour, we sat with Françoise and Marc at the table I spied earlier and drank chilled rosé and nibbled on nuts and pretzel sticks as we discussed the probability of making the one-hour drive for our 9pm dinner reservation. Galadriel and I were both tired, but after our long day, we really wanted to taste the natural wines and organic foods at Le Garde Manger. But as we relaxed our muscles and our minds, listened to the birds getting ready for bed in the trees above us and enjoyed the conversation with Françoise and Marc, we knew we wouldn't make the drive. There would still be the possibility of going in the next few days, if we were good girls (meaning we would not get distracted by castles and gardens along the way) and visited all the dots on Galadriel's map, we could reward ourselves with a dinner at this delicious place.

So Marc and Françoise recommended a restaurant in Rouen called L'Espiguette, with a simple but tasty menu, where we could sit outside and enjoy the night air. We found our way back to town and parked without incident and walked through the narrow streets of the old town to a small square. On our way, we came across a few tables outside of a restaurant, situated across from the restaurant entrance and against Medieval walls. Just at that moment, a mournful sax player stepped out of the restaurant to serenade the guests.

At the next small square we found our restaurant with busy waiters running in and out to service at least 30 guests, but we were lucky to find a table just outside the entrance and next to lovely, scented trees. Here's a nice picture of Galadriel, contemplating the menu. I just wanted you to see how pretty it was in this old-town courtyard, on a cool summer night in Rouen. So, I had to disguise Galadriel (you can still see the tip of her iPhone which is actually what she was contemplating) to maintain her anonymity because as we all know, now that the press has terrorized us with the audacious communism of Facebook, is a lost cause. Since I already told everybody I used to be a hooker, I don't care. But Galadriel may not want everyone to know that she, er, knows me.

Anyhoo! The menu was simple - only 3-4 starters and 3-4 main courses, so I ordered the salmon tartare and Galadriel, after much Elvin deliberation, ordered steak tartare, which is pictured here, in all its lovely raw-meatiness. The salad was roquette with shaved parmesan and a really wonderful vinaigrette with pine nuts and tarragon.

My salmon tartare was fabulous, with chunks of creamy feta cheese and an accompaniment of what I think was red pepper coulis. Mmmmm.

Of course, we drank a lovely natural wine so that we could tackle the next day's hard work with gusto.

Stay tuned for the next installment, where I will reveal Normandy's most unfriendly town, a castle keeper who healed our wounds, a chateau where I left my mark, a chance to revive my title of Third Place Tramp and my most favorite place to stay of the whole trip.

(The Normandy Chronicles name was inspired by my friend Brian who wrote The Paris Chronicles - a hilarious and touching, day-by-day - or should I say blow by blow - tale of his family's trip to Paris - a must read.)

The Normandy Chronicles: Day One continued...

2010-06-08T08:46:00.000+02:00

So, where was I? Oh yeah, Bad river-front seafood and Gaycoco. You would think that at this point, we'd reached the bottom and the only way is up, correct? Well, sure. If you'd already reached the bottom.

We left Gaycoco behind, after admiring our last whimsical Alice-In-Wonderland turret-topper. Next stop? The famed city of Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. If you've been reading my dribblings for a while, you know my history (real or imagined) of religious persecution. I didn't want to be, so to speak, caught dead in Rouen, but there was a certain tiny hotel that had a big red dot in the center of Poca's map, demanding our visit. So, heavily armored with rice crackers and nut mix, we continued on our very own hundred year war.

Now, don't think for a moment that I'm whining. I get to tag along on a tour de France on somebody else's expense account. But at this point, wining was what I was wanting to do. We'd been driving for a while, we had only a taste of terrible food and a bit of cardboard to sustain us in the car and it was hot and I was sweaty and we didn't have a reservation for a hotel that night (and I began worrying about that at breakfast - you know how I am) and with all of this, a glass of crisp white wine or a cold beer was on my mind. Poca also continued to placate me with tales of a gourmet restaurant with organic food and natural wine, where we would end our day in gastronomic pleasure. But first, we had to be burned at the stake.

Rouen is a big city, which was a nice contrast to the quaint little villages we had seen in the morning. You'd think that Poca would adapt her driving habits to the big city, but no. In search of an underground car park (which I saw way back in the 5th century of our Lord, but didn't say anything until we'd passed it. "Do parking lots here have a big P above them?" Yes, Poca hated me then.), she even drove down a pedestrian-only street. In fact, it's the most tourist-trampled street in Rouen. Just look at their surprised faces. I felt like a diplomat, driving past the drooling peasants. On my way to being burned at the stake. The gold medallion thingy looked cool, though. (Poca slaps her head at my description. "It's the astronomical clock on Gros Horloge Street!" OK, well. Fine.)

We finally parked and walked just a few cobbly streets to our destination, the lovely, centrally-located and inexpensive Le Vieux Carré. We sat in this wonderful courtyard, just off the pedestrian shopping street of rue Ganterie (with clothing I could not afford, alas) and Poca ordered hot tea (smart girl, but not as much of a wino as me) and I ordered a glass of white wine. Well. The glass was huge and the wine was terrible. Even I couldn't drink it and that's a miracle in itself. I sipped and suffered, quietly. Another miracle.

That's when the helicopters started flying overhead. The last time I'd heard that sound was when I was lying in bed in my ghetto apartment in Phoenix and somebody in the helicopter with a megaphone kept repeating, "Get down on the ground now, or we will shoot. Get down on the ground now." They were circling the library parking lot across the street from me, evidently a hotbed for criminals.

But there were no criminals on this day. It was just the Normandie Impressionniste 2010 festival. You can read about the 2009 festival here, with amazing photos taken at night, of impressionist paintings projected on the front of Rouen buildings.What were the helicopters for, you might ask? Well, all these local people carried little puzzle pieces of famous impressionist paintings and at the stroke of a brush, they held them over their heads in unison, while photographers hanging from the helicopters took pictures. Et voilà. No photographers fell from the helicopters into our peaceful courtyard, if that's what you're expecting. But we couldn't hear ourselves thinking all the bad thoughts that bad girls are usually thinking. The noise was deafening.

Poca noticed that my wine was sitting there, unloved. I shouted to her that it reminded me of the "Chablis" they used to sell to discerning (meaning they wanted something other than a shot of Jamesons) biker chicks in dive bars across America. In other words, it was completely undrinkable. But, incredibly sophisticated... if you are a biker chick. Well, that is, if you were a real biker chick in that long-lost era before bored dentists became "weekend warriors" and along with their marketing executive girlfriends bought $8000 His n' Her Harleys, matching leather biker outfits, logo'd Harley biker boots and descended upon perfectly decent dive bars and started asking for Merlot. It was a sad day in America, let me tell you. I much prefer the real biker chicks to the nouveau biker chicks. I should have thrown down the entire glass in a feeble tribute to them all.

Instead, I ordered a beer. After all, how can they screw up a beer? Um. By serving it warm. On a hot day. With helicopters.

Poca went upstairs with the propriétaire to inspect the rooms and left me to my warm beer. That's when the vacuum cleaner started inside. You know that high-pitched sound that scares the cat? It was a perfect accompaniment to the heavy drone of helicopters. I drank the whole beer in one gulp. Poca returned, saying that the rooms are tiny, but the price is right. I waved a drunken wave and mumbled something unintelligible. She also told me that the propriétaire took the wine off of our bill. Another 50 Positive Points for this lovely little place.

"Remember, we'll be eating at Le Garde Manger in Fécamp tonight." Poca said, dragging me towards the car park. Which was closed. It was past 7pm. People were wandering around with their impressionist puzzle pieces, looking very happy, while our tiny car was abandoned and crying, deep in the dungeon of the car park.

With the help of a friendly waiter at a sidewalk cafe, we found the secret door to the dungeon. If we had just walked 22 steps around the corner, we could have found it ourselves. Like the bees who are losing their bee radar and dieing across America from pesticides and WiFi, we were deafened by helicopters and vacuums and couldn't find our way to our lonely car.

"Do we have a hotel yet?" I foolishly asked, after Poca and I had walked for an hour throughout the car park, looking for our car. (It was in spot 2534, across from spot 2001 - which could explain why we were lost.) "Oh, yeah. I should probably see if we can stay at one of the hotels in the guide book." So, as she drove the wrong way through the parking garage, up and down the circular dungeon towers, she balanced the guide book on her lap with her iPhone and played dial-a-hotel while avoiding concrete pillars.

No rooms at the inn. Sorry. This virgin (I can't vouch for Poca's virginity, though) would be sleeping in a manger tonight. Being the enterprising Poca that she is (by the way, both she and I are getting sick of this pseudonym, so be prepared for a new one soon), she called Le Garde Manger, made a dinner reservation for 9pm and asked the friendly hostess if she knew of any hotels near their restaurant. The very sweet hostess said she would call around and try and find us a room (near the beach on a Saturday night in June, mind you) and call us back.

Meanwhile, with 8pm approaching fast, we had one more B&B to inspect in Rouen before we went to dinner and settled for the night. I promise all of you who might be thinking that you will never go to Normandy, if you tune in to my next post, you'll find that Day One in Normandy ends unexpectedly well.

(The Normandy Chronicles name was inspired by my friend Brian who wrote The Paris Chronicles - a hilarious and touching, day-by-day - or should I say blow by blow - tale of his family's trip to Paris - a must read.)

The Normandy Chronicles: Day One

2010-06-07T00:29:00.004+02:00

My friend Pocahontas and I started a week-long road trip through Normandy yesterday. Once a year, she has to visit small B&B's and Maisons d'hôtes all around France in order to evaluate them for inclusion in the following year's travel guide. She invited me to come along and I jumped at the chance. Of course, hilarity ensued.

Poca couldn't find a rental car in Paris, so we took the train to Évreux and picked up the car there. She did all the driving because ~~I'm a chicken shit~~ she knows her way around. Well, kind of. She has a unique way of driving - with two guide books, a huge map with red and green sticker dots on it to indicate each place we had to visit, a green folder with blank review sheets, her computer and her iPhone... in her lap. She used one, two or all of these items, sometimes simultaneously, while driving.

I may have inherited my mother's "OH NOOO! AHHH! WATCH OUT! LOOK AT THAT ASSHOLE! WHAT IS HE DOING?" passenger tendencies (the jury is still out on that one), but somehow, with Poca, I am not gripping the dashboard or slamming on my imaginary set of breaks (very often). It's because I've noticed that seconds before she drifts allll the way into somebody's lane on the ~~autobahn~~ freeway, or runs into a curb or slams into the back of the stopped cars in front of us, or kills the old lady and her dog who just stepped into the crosswalk, she looks up from her iPhone dialing (or texting/map reading/guide-book-flipping/internet-surfing) and avoids each and every impending disaster at the very last second.

And alcohol makes her reactions even more quick-like.

Sooooo, off we went in our miniature car into the wild and woolly Normandy countryside. The first stop was a chateau that was supposedly right on the main street in a tiny town. We drove up and down (and up and down and up and down) the street and couldn't find the place. Poca didn't want to call them, because her visits are supposed to be a surprise. She wants to catch them with their linens down. We finally parked in front of the Mairie, or town hall, and decided to ask around in town. The town was only a few inches long, so we didn't think there'd be a problem. We were also starving to death, and this chateau was supposed to have an amazing restaurant. We needed to find it.

We didn't have any luck. Finally, Poca broke down and called the place. She got a recording. They will be closed until 2011. Hell, we might be dead by then. From hunger. Luckily, we found an organic food store and picked up some "survival supplies" - rice cakes and trail mix. It's a good thing we did that, because we would be called upon to survive a few things.

We asked the girl in the organic store if she knew of any restaurants in town that served organic food or wine. She put on her best "good luck with that" face and shook her head, sadly, saying, "Désolée." So, we decided to go to the quaint little hotel that we saw when we crossed the river into town. It was an old building, painted shiny white, perched right on the river, with an outdoor restaurant. If my sister saw this place, she'd exclaim, "Oh my Goooooooood! It's so cuuuuuuuute!" Well. Things are not always as they seem.

Here was our first clue that ~~the food would be bad~~ things might go wrong. It was at the bottom of a menu display box, below a way-too-expensive menu. In addition to this lovely advertisement for the pianist Stephane, there were two, count 'em two, big-ass signs in front of the hotel advertising their nightly Soirées piano. Piano evenings. Hmmm.

Here was our second clue. Really bad statuary. I should say something here, but I can't think of anything. Really.

Here was our third clue. Dinner napkins that had to have been made from Liberace's discarded satin bed sheets or maybe Bozo The Clown's smoking jacket. The table cloths were made from the same fabric. We ordered the Fruits de mer dish with several kinds of cold shell fish which we needed to eat with our hands. Then we had to wipe our fishy hands on that shiny, polyester fabric. It was not pleasant. And notice the lovely plastic chairs. I'm not a chair racist, but when you pay $75 for a plate with a few shrimp on it, you expect more than plastic chairs and Liberace's fishy sheets.

Things just went downhill from there. The hostess was pushing fifty and had three inches of pancake makeup on her face, plus she had painted eye liner under and above her eyes in a fashion that I have never, ever encountered. I didn't get a picture because I just could not look at her, so I'll have to try and explain. On her eye lids she had the Amy Winehouse cat-eye look but she didn't paint the line right at the base of her eyelashes. She painted it a quarter of an inch higher. Same thing under her eye, but the line turned south. Way south. Just like when I first saw Tammy Faye Baker's mascara dripping in black streaks down her face, I thought to myself, "My God, what magazines does she read that tell her to do her makeup like that?" If Sarah Palin was answering that question, she'd say, "Most of 'em."

We were seated at a table right at the river and the view was wonderful. But we knew our meal would be terrible. A waitress arrived to ask us for a drink order and when she came back with the drinks, we said we were ready to order food. But she couldn't take that order. Maybe she wasn't old enough. Who knows. Cat-eyes came back to take our food order.

Then some guy delivered a little appetizer plate. There wasn't a thing on there that either of us wanted to eat. I especially liked the hot dogs en croûte. Yum.

I think their prices are so high because nine people have to wait on each table.

Our meal continued to be bad, with the fruits de mer plates left mostly uneaten. The shell fish was tasteless. Instead of being caught and served fresh, it had been rinsed so that any taste of the sea was gone. The bread was Wonder Bread dressed in a beret. Completely devoid of taste or nutrition. We asked for cider, which is a specialty in Normandy. It arrived, as orange as the flip-side of Bozo The Clown's smoking jacket. It also tasted like Apple Jacks cereal - fake apple flavoring and too much added sugar.

We asked for the bill before the cheese course, even though the cheese trolley was the only thing that looked good. Cat eyes hated us. We hated her back.

We got back into the car, regretting that we had not followed our instincts. Please learn from this. When your gut tells you to run... run. No matter how hungry you are.

Next, we drove to a hotel that was atrocious. I'm not kidding. It was horrifying. It was decorated in what we could only call Gayrococo, or maybe Gaycoco. I'd seen this decor before when I was living in Laguna Beach, California and would visit some friends of my artist friend, an elderly pair of Queens. Giant fake statues of David draped with plastic grape vines. An entire cabinet filled with a collection of poodle figurines. A bathroom crammed with giant 1950's bottles of L'Air du Temps. The perfume inside was so old, it was brown. Every inch of every wall was covered with either 1970's garage-sale "modern" art (love that avocado green) or pictures of Marie Antoinette hitching up her crinolines to show a little leg. There was so much furniture in every room that you had to climb over it to get anywhere. I didn't see one, but somewhere, I know, was a giant taxidermy bear specimen. Probably a monkey too, dead or alive, with a tiny hat and tin cup.

But we can't forget the cherub on the ceiling. There are no words for those legs.

This experience could have killed us, but no, we hadn't even begun. Oh, and no, we still hadn't eaten. And we will have many more adventures before we finally do. Come back soon for the continuation of The Normandy Chronicles.

(The Normandy Chronicles name was inspired by my friend Brian who wrote The Paris Chronicles - a hilarious day-by-day - or should I say blow by blow - of his family's trip to Paris - a must read.)

A Long And Winding Road

2010-05-16T16:45:00.012+02:00

One summer, when I was about eight years old, I rode up to the top of some mountain in Vermont with my mother, older sister and grandmother. We were in one of those floating hangy dangy cable car things. I remember watching my funny, charming, musical, British grandmother, probably in her lucky four-leaf clover dress and definitely in her sling-back, open-toe heels, sitting on the floor of that hangy dangy thing, terrorized. I don't remember if I was scared too, but I DO remember my sister getting "lost" up there on that mountain and me and my mother trotting along 4-inch wide "expert ski trails," peering over the edge for her remains. That kinda freaked me out.

That same sister, after we moved to safe, mostly flat Scottsdale, Arizona, decided to scare me on a family trip up to the Mogollon Rim, by pretending to trip over the edge of a massive cliff and just at the last moment, grabbing a tree branch to stop her from plunging to her death. This is the same sister who used to secretly put her finger in her mouth and then come up to me and shove it under my nose and say, "Smell. I just pulled this out of my butt."

And I love her still.

I also know that my grandmother once got down on the floor of my parents' car and cried from fear as they drove across some big-ass suspension bridge.

I guess what I'm doing here is trying to prove that my fear of heights is a genetic thing, rather than me just being a neurotic, well I guess I just have to say it, pussy.

But, I used to fly airplanes. (Pussy, NOT!) I took lessons on a dare from my drug-smuggler boyfriend who said I wasn't smart enough to learn how to fly. I soloed when I was 21 years old. After dumping me for a 17-year-old, the boyfriend did a few hundred years in the slammer (now... who was the dumb one again?), got out because they were sick of him suing them and winning and he's now living peacefully with his adorable girlfriend (I'm afraid to ask how old she is, but I wish them both the best). His wonderful son, who was a teenager when I was his Dad's teenage girlfriend, and who now specializes in drug addiction (irony of ironies), is my friend on Facebook. I like how things work out.

There was another boyfriend, back in the day, whom I convinced to stop working 24 hours a day and take a little weekend jaunt with me. "Where shall we go?" I asked, all rosy cheeked. "I know a back road up to Prescott that you would love. It's beautiful." He said, knowing that if we went to Prescott, he could combine work with pretending to enjoy a weekend with me. "Cool!" I said, already imagining a cold beer at the Palace Bar on Whiskey Row. As he pulled off of I-17 onto a dirt road, I got excited to be out in the wild. But then he kept driving closer to the mountains and I realized Prescott was UP and this was a DIRT ROAD. So I asked, casually, "There aren't any scary cliff roads, are there?" "Oh nooooo. It's not scary at all. It's beautiful." He had to stop three times so I could get out and sit on a rock and cry and vomit and hyperventilate. I don't like how that one worked out.

A few years back, I'd say around 1997, I developed a terrible fear of flying. But only on commercial jets. If I was in a private jet, no problem. I guess I thought that a) I could see what the pilot was doing and b) there's a shitload more you can do in an emergency with a small jet than what you can do with a huge airliner. Unless, of course, you're Sully.

So, I white-knuckled it through all the plane travel I had to do for my corporate jobs, but I was miserable. When I worked for The Gay Guy to launch his skin care line (ZIRH), in addition to managing the company in roller blades and short shorts, he flew us everywhere on private jets (What a relief!) and had us transported only in limos. He had money to burn. I remember saying to him, "Why do you pay for all these private jet flights? You should just own a corporate jet." And he said, "Yeah! And maybe I can get a corporate horse, too!" He was a funny guy.

He also used to give me a Valium if we had to - horrors - fly commercial. I'll always be grateful for that. I would go into total not-caring. "Oh look! We're plummeting towards Earth! Weeeee!" It's why, when my neighbor G took me to her doctor recently because my coughing was keeping her awake (even though she's two floors down), when the doctor asked G if I needed anything else, G said, "Well, she does have a lot of anxiety." and I said, in English, "Yes. A Valium drip would be perfect." The French doc laughed out loud. I was only kind of joking. Only kind of.

So...I went to Greece this past week. (I know this seems unrelated, but I'll pull it all together soon.) G was there already, so me and my friend Lana decided to go see G in her natural habitat. That would be sunny Greek beaches versus cold Parisian streets and musty formerly-smoke-filled cafes. G's a Greek American who's lived in Paris for 20 years. She has 87 passports. She's awesome. And her Dad has a big house on the beach in Greece. I imagined myself sitting in one of those Greek restaurants on the beach, eating fresh cucumber and tomato salad and moussaka and drinking wine that tastes like my sister's finger. Heaven. I did not imagine myself doing any mountain climbing. Silly me.

We were on the island of Kea. This isn't the island where G's dad has a house. It was just an island she had never been to and so, she decided to take us there first, along with three of her friends from Athens (G always travels in a pack). Our first day was fun - traveling to the island after landing in Athens, taking the ferry boat, searching for a hotel for 7 of us and then having our first dinner. But the next day, everyone (but me) had the need to find a more "remote" beach, one where there were NO people versus the FIVE people who were on the beach right outside of our hotel rooms. (I know.) Maps were opened and much discussion ensued. We'd first take this road and then that road and then after a few hours of swimming and sunning, we'd go to the old town for lunch and then back to our hotel on this different road. OK, fine. I didn't pay much attention. I just put on my bathing suit (with my eyes closed) and gathered up my SPF 972 and was ready to go.

Well.

I decided to ride in the smaller car, with one of G's elementary school friends and her 12-year-old daughter. G, her 3-year-old, Lana and Irene were in G's Jeep ahead of us. There was a constant stream of bubble-gum pop music on the car radio, with the driver singing along and chatting, but my eyes soon became glued to the road ahead of us. It was paved, but it was going up and up and up. "Oh! Look at that!" my driver exclaimed. Silence from me. I finally choked out, "I'm really afraid of heights so pardon me if I don't speak." That made her chat even MORE. Then she and her daughter got into some sort of argument, which convinced me that at some point, she'd turn around to yell at her daughter and we'd be flying through the ouzo-misted air. I said, "Can you guys not fight so you can concentrate on driving?" I think she knew I was serious then. It might have also been all that gasping for air that I was doing. But she got real quiet all of a sudden.

G pulled off of the paved road and onto a dirt road and stopped. We pulled in behind her. G said later that she doesn't know why she stopped. She just did. I flew out of the car and burst into tears. My hands were shaking so much, I think I lost weight in my arms. I was completely, babblingly hysterical. Everybody was super, super kind. We discussed solutions. I told G that I almost passed out twice during the first half of the ride, so maybe if I get back in and we start driving again, I could pass out and all would be well. She said, "Either that, or we can hit you over the head." Hehe.

Finally, I decided to WALK. Yep. Me. Walk. The one who gets winded walking a half block to the Franprix to get my groceries. I had a choice - walk back the way we came (12 Kilometers - 7 Miles) or down the dirt road to the beach (5 Kilometers - 3 Miles). I opted for the beach. Lana hopped out and said she'd walk with me.

Did I tell you I'm so happy I had, by chance, a bottle of water and suntan lotion with me? Well, I did. And I also wore my purple suede Allstars instead of flip flops. I am soooo happy about that too. The two cars rumbled down the narrow cliff road down to the beach, leaving us in their dust. It was so beautiful and peaceful and wonderful out there. Just the silence of nature and the sea waaaaaay down below us. Lana and I had great conversations and took pictures.

I stood at the edge of the cliff road, smelling the spring flowers and staring at a monastery perched on a nearby cliff (pictured at left). I know. This doesn't make sense, but fear is not necessarily a sensible thing. I think it's because when I'm walking, I'm in control. When I'm in a car that somebody else is driving, I'm not.

G dropped everyone off at the beach and came back to get me and Lana. Very kind of her, again. By the time she arrived, we only had one corner left to turn and then one precarious, rocky descent to the beach. I was calmer now and could think straight. I told her that if I drove, we'd have a better chance of getting me down the hill. Lana enjoyed the walk so much, that she decided to continue walking. So I got myself into the driver's seat and with sweaty hands and my back as straight as a board and my thigh muscles on full alert, I started the descent. Holy shit. I was scared to death. But not crying. But then I realized that the Jeep was higher on the right side than the left and that the Jeep and I were leaning in the direction of the cliff on my left. I had to stop and get out. G took over driving as I ran down the road, with my arms waving above my head, for some damn reason. After a little ways, I was able to get back in and she drove me to the beach.

There were seven people on that remote beach. And two fishing boats. And two yachts. I'm just sayin'. The picture at left of the beach was taken by G out of the car window as we were leaving to go to the old town for some lunch.

But it was really beautiful. I jumped right into the sea. I was hot after all that walking. It was deliciously cold and refreshing. Then I sat on the beach and ate special Greek bread that looked like onion rings and were flavored with spinach or wine or cheese.

You can see a satellite view of the beach, which is called Spathi Keas, here.

Of course, we had to leave that beach, so I would be facing my fears again. I tried a little psyche trick that my friend Geri taught me, imagining a pencil drawing a line from me, across the beach, across the water and up the side of the yachts. I tried to reframe my fear from falling off a cliff to being excited about seeing new places and hanging out with my friends. I was hoping that it would work. Otherwise, I would be a mess. We STILL had to drive to the old town, which was the highest point on the island. Lovely.

We were all hungry, so we gathered our stuff and I decided to drive out of there. I was a lot calmer and was hoping my head trick worked. I got into the Jeep and we started up the hill. I don't think I ever moved from my rigor mortis position behind that wheel. My thighs were so tight that the next morning I felt like I had sex the night before and had my legs up in the air for four hours.

But finally, I made it. When I got scared, I slowed down to a crawl and cracked jokes or talked about nothing.

Me: "I love those little decorative boxes along the side of the road. They look like little churches. They have them in Mexico and they're little shrines where people stop to pray."
G and Lana: Dead silence.
G to Lana: "French French French French French..."
Lana: "Haha!" Glances at me guiltily.
Me: "OK, I can understand what you just said. They're death boxes and you don't want to tell me. They put them there when somebody dies on that part of the road."
G: "Um. Yeah."

We made it to the old town at the top of the hill. I got out of the car. I wasn't shaking. I was really proud of myself. We walked up the tiny winding alleys (they don't allow cars in town) and found a wonderful place to eat, outside on the main square, our table against a short wall where we could stare out at the homes on the cliffs and the amazing scenery that stretched for miles and miles. There was a pig turning on the spit inside, but that wouldn't be ready until dinner time, so we ate deep-fried tomato balls (fab-u-luss), feta, salad, pork-stuffed pasta in a thick lemon sauce and a baked pork dish in a dark red tomato sauce. We ordered the wine that the owners of the restaurant made themselves. It was served in a used water bottle and it was delicious. I didn't drink much, but just savored enough to make the meal all the better.

Besides, I had some downhill driving to do.

Puccini, Paquita and Me

2010-05-02T16:06:00.000+02:00

I sold my giant villa for 50,000 yesterday, after paying 1,000,000 for it. This would seem to be a terrible loss, if it hadn't been so easy to do online. Just a few clicks and it was gone. One moment I was singing Mimi's part in O Mimì, tu più non torni (from Puccini's La Bohème) from my shady 2nd-floor veranda as I perused my thousands of sheep (black and white and also pink and green with wobbly antennae), horses, cows, bulls (two that I constantly have to separate), goats, rabbits, pigs, chickens, turkeys, swans, ducks, sea gulls, turtle and penguin (just one of each so far)... oh, and I forgot, reindeer. And also, way too many cats.

And the next moment I realized that I just couldn't sustain this lifestyle anymore.

Besides, Mimi dies in the end. Of consumption. And Rodolfo the poet, who abandoned her because he thought she was a whore (or at least that's what he told his friends and her friends and the whole neighborhood), but actually because he knew she was dying, only came back to her out of guilt just before she died.

I'm sorry, but I must interject. I just picked the above opera and song out of the air. Just to add a little context and color for your reading enjoyment. Seriously. I just thought, hmm, I need an opera. OK, Puccini sounds good. I'll go to Wikipedia and get a name of one of his operas. But I end up, by coincidence, with another story of a heroine dieing of consumption. The first story with this very same plot put a mark on my forehead for life: My mother gave me my middle name after she watched the movie Camille in the hospital (read the original Alexandre Dumas story here and weep). Camille died of consumption. She died exactly one day before her lover, Armand, who had abandoned her because she was a whore, showed up to apologize.

Just call me Lisa Camille Mimi Wines. Oh, and Rodolpho and Armand? Fuck them.

Let's just get back to real estate, shall we?

So, I replaced my luxurious Italian villa with a small southwestern adobe bungalow for 50,000. While sweeping the prairie dust from my doorstep, dressed in my home-made coyote-skin dress (made from the exact coyote that His Governorship Rick Perry shot while jogging in Texas), I have now taken to singing Lefty Frizzell's Worried Mind to the rhythmic rat-a-tat-tat of the woodpecker who's sharpening his bug-sucking beak in the dead cactus outside my door.

You promised me love that would never die.
That promise you made, was only a lie.
Now after you've gone, all alone I pine.
For all that I've got, is a worried mind.

On certain mornings, while a southerly wind rattles my nopalitos, I can be heard singing Rata de dos patas ("Two-legged rat") by Paquita la del Barrio as I slap tortilla dough within a 16th of an inch of ~~his~~ its life. In between crushing hot red chilis in my bare hands, I turn to my pet pack rat and say,

"¿Me estás oyendo, inútil?" ("Are you listening to me, you good-for-nothing?")

Of course, I'm not pining, nor bitter about any one man (just all of them). Really. These were just the first two Mexi-ranchera-old-west songs I found in my iTunes. Swear.

All my animals are still around (they promise nothing, but give much), since I need the income I derive from collecting their eggs, feathers, milk, truffles and er, hair. The penguin gives me a regular supply of ice cubes, for which I am most grateful in my new desert home. Now, if I could just get a few more blankies and baby bottles, I might be able to finish building that fucking nursery barn so I can safely store all my colts. I think they're getting cold.

Sigh. I wish real estate and sustenance were as simple to gain and dispose of as they are in FarmVille. And although my male FarmVille neighbors can come and, er, fertilize my crops, they aren't allowed to stay. This, as Martha Stewart says, is a very good thing.

Last week, in "real" life, while drifting along the beach with my gal pals, drinking natural wine, eating Crêpe à l'andouillette and looking for men with fat fingers, I successfully avoided making a decision about my little adobe-style home in Arizona. But, upon my return, I had no choice but to face the music. Other than a few months with my friend Kelsie staying there, the house has been empty for more than three years and I've been paying $2000 a month to sustain it. That's in addition to my expenses here in Paris. Meanwhile, from a high value of $350K, it's descended to a low of about $220K, leaving me upside down by about $50-60K.

And the market isn't going to change for at least 5-10 years. By then, I will have plowed through all of my savings (along with thirty trillion hectares in FarmVille) and probably lose the house anyway.

Last summer, when I was in Arizona, my heart broke as I walked into my little home. Kelsie went out to buy some food for our dinner and I sat in the living room and cried. It wasn't that I wanted to live there again. Nor was it Kelsie's decorating skills (as she probably imagined). It was what the house represented to me. It was my quiet oasis where I could be alone and safe, surrounded by the colorful art and furniture I had collected from dumpsters all over the world. The doves cooing every morning on my back patio. The desert and its animals just a short walk down the street. I cooked and entertained there. I read books and had sex there (not at the same time, although, that might have been ~~more~~ interesting).

This last week, after selling my virtual FarmVille villa at a loss and buying a new adobe bungalow and decorating it with faux cactus, I called the real bank and stopped the automatic payments for my mortgage and home equity line of credit. I'm in the process of filling out the paperwork to have my real estate agent begin the short sale process and negotiate with the bank. If she can't sell it quickly, I will be in default and have to foreclose. I've never walked away from a debt, ever. It sickens me to do it now. All I can hang on to are the kind words of my realtor, when she wrote to console me, "Lisa, this is not your fault."

I hope I can convince myself of this. Otherwise, I'll just have to blame it on Rodolfo and Armand.

Lunch n' Lust With Bio Wine Makers

2010-04-25T20:11:00.001+02:00

I knew I would do this. In promised you a list of future posts and then wondered if I'd ever get around to writing them all. But I'm attempting to do so, even though 43 hundred million quadrillion other blogworthy events have occurred since then. But let's go back to last Sunday, when we arrived back at L's house after a short visit to the beach, hungry for lunch and in need of more wine...

L called her friends over at Le Garage à vins to see if they were still serving their usual wine-tasting fare of sausage, bread and oysters. They were closed to the general public, but invited us to join their little party with the wine makers they had been hosting for the weekend.

When we arrived, we saw about ten people sitting at a long table on the patio to the left of the wine store. We walked into the gate, L leading the way, followed by G in her striped Target leggings and big floppy yellow and white hat and me trailing behind in my new mini muumuu and Target fedora. Discount-store fashionistas on the prowl.

It was like walking into any party where you don't know anybody and they don't know you. They were polite and curious, but not necessarily overcome with the joy of our arrival. I didn't find this out until later, but one of the women looked at G as she entered and asked, "Did you wear your pajamas?" And G, unflappable, said, "Well yes, actually, I did." Because it was true. She did wear those striped pants to bed the night before. But I can attest to the fact that she didn't wear her big floppy yellow and white hat to bed. Otherwise, I might not have agreed to sleep in the room next to her.

Later on, as we were leaving, and once the general fear-of-the-other had worn off (drinking wine with strangers can do that), I saw the women complimenting G on her hat. "Where did you get that? It's lovely!" I think they might have been a tad bit guilty for their first question about her pajamas. That's the only explanation I can think of for the fact that they said nothing about my classy fedora, which I know is much, much cooler than G's sun hat, but don't tell her I said that. (As G reads this and stabs my birds, one at a time, while she feeds the little peckers for me because I chose to stay here at the beach and made her drive all the way back to Paris all alone, her trunk full of all the wine I bought.)

(We interrupt this post for another truly amazing lunch out in L's garden with an appetizer of fresh fish eggs, sauteed in olive oil with parsley and onions and then served with crème fraiche. Then pasta with steamed clams, a salad from fresh-picked rocquette (arugula), fennel, apple, orange and onion and finished off with a round of natural goat cheese, sprinkled with olive oil, pepper and local salt and spread upon thick toasted wheat bread brought in from Grenoble once a week. Not to mention two bottles of delicious cold wine from Le Garage à vins. I'm too drunk to write right now, mais, c'est la vie.)

I didn't take any pictures of the group of winemakers and their wives and children at the table. I felt a little stupid doing that. Instead, after everyone had gotten up and the tables had been cleared, I took a sneaky picture to at least show you the little patio and tables where we had been. Notice the Champagne riddling racks in the foreground.

So, as the small group reluctantly accepted our presence, we three girls just settled at the end of the table and tasted fabulous wine as we ate fresh oysters and the rest of the guests finished their lunch. L went next door and brought back two decadent cakes, which we ate with the sweeter and fizzier wines. The wine we tasted came from each of the winemakers at the table, but the ones I remember best were the wines by Olivier Cousin.

Why do I remember these particular wines? Because I lusted after him, I'm ~~inflamed~~ ashamed to say. Me, who has eschewed men and sex for more than a year. But he was the burly man at the table, with sun-wrinkled eyes. His arms were tree trunks. His hair was in a ponytail. (Why, oh why is this exciting? A throwback from my hippie past? I have no idea.) I looked around and started doing what women for centuries have done...I started counting. There were five men. There were also five women. Shit. So, he had a wife. And...once I knew which one she was - she was really lovely - there ended my lustful thoughts (well, mostly).

Besides, at this point, if I could get a hold of somebody, I don't know what I'd do with him. It's a pleasure to have fantasies. It's terrifying and dangerous to act upon them. But, just for fun, take a look at this guy, tending his natural wines, with his favorite horse, Joker, in the snow. Sigh.

I'll tell you about the "rhythm of the horse" but I would have to make this post x-rated. You'll just have to use your imagination, as I continue to do.

All sex aside (or on the side), I can attest to the fact that bio wine, or wine made naturally, with no chemicals or additives (including sulphites), is hangover-free. I love red wine, but can't drink it because after two glasses, I know I will spend the entire next day in bed, in pain. But not with this wine.

I guess this means there must be an end to my 2-buck-chuck wine drinking. I've enjoyed the crap I can buy in the grocery store in Paris. But now, because of Olivier, I must become (or remain?) pure, unfortunately in more ways than one.

Le Cousin wines are distributed in the United States by Jenny & François. As I researched them today for the first time, I found this 2006 article about how they got started. Two of the pictures of Jenny in this article were taken in my old neighborhood, in the restaurants and cafes that I still love, particularly in the Cave Cafe, one of my favorite haunts. I found a place where you can buy Le Cousin wines online here. Or, you can email Jenny directly.

Please note: This isn't a paid post or advertisement. I truly enjoyed tasting Le Cousin wines and those other wines from those other winemakers, whoever the hell they were. And if I can share some of this experience with you, by letting you know where you can buy the wine, then that's just dandy.

Mental Health Break: Psycho Children

2010-04-22T12:32:00.003+02:00

I love reading Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog on The Atlantic website because he's a Republican-turned-Democrat, an erudite Brit, covered the Iran uprising thoroughly and tirelessly, continues to provide insight into the Vatican child abuse debacle and won't stop trying to chase down the truth about Sarah Palin's son Trig (where the traditional press fears to tread) and is currently educating me on the nuances of the UK general election.

In between all the serious stuff though, he posts "Mental Health Breaks" (like this little gem) and "View From Your Window" (this one will make you say ahhh). I keep wanting to submit a gorgeous window view from France, but the view from my window onto my courtyard isn't very picturesque.

So, in tribute to his mental health break posts, I thought I'd post this advertisement I found on my friend's company website. Even though this magazine's title, when translated from French, actually means Child Psychology, it looks more like Psycho Children to moi.

Reliving My Childhood With The Playmobile Dashboard

2010-04-22T10:20:00.007+02:00

Continuing with my stories of last Monday in Batz sur Mer...

After a brief stint on the beach in the morning, we were hungry, so our hostess L called a friend of hers who owns a local wine store (Le Garage à vins in the nearby town of Le Pouliguen) to see if we could come by and taste some wine and oysters. He was closed, but was having a private lunch with the wine makers of some of his featured biological wines from the D'Anjou region, and invited us to come by. I'll tell you more about the wine makers and the food and wine we tasted in a later post.

As the store owner and his wife were busy cleaning up and the wine makers and their wives were carrying boxes of wine to their vans and packing up for their trips back to their vineyards (they had stayed the weekend), I wandered in the cool, dark store, looking at all the wine labels and the vintage motorized bikes (click to see pictures of examples of a Mobilette and Solex) and other memorabilia.

At some point my eyes wandered to the top of a wine refrigerator and I saw a vintage toy that drew me in. There was something about it that was vaguely familiar. I was having trouble pushing aside the cobwebs of my childhood until my body acted of its own accord. Nobody was looking as I slowly reached up and gently put my hand on its steering wheel, turning it left, then right. I pushed the on-column gear shift up, then back down. "Whoah," I breathed. "Look at this, G," I said. "I think I had this toy when I was little." She came over and was more brave than me. She got up on a stool and looked at it. She told the owner of the store that I thought I had the toy when I was young and his eyes lit up. It had been his toy when he was a boy. He's 52 and I'm 53 years old.

I still don't know if it was my toy, or more likely, belonged to one of my brothers and I was allowed (or more likely, not allowed) to play with it. I'll send a link to this post to my brothers and see what they can remember. It just seems like it would be a boy toy, versus my girly Easy-Bake Oven which my Dad and family friend Mr. Saccas assembled in our basement one Chivas-scented Christmas eve, while we children slept soundly in our beds, dreaming of Tinker Taw (my name for Santa Claus). My Dad and Mr. Saccas later admitted to taking one of the cake mixes and instead of adding water they added Scotch and slid the tiny little liquor-soaked cake under the Easy-Bake's powerful light bulb "to make sure the oven was working."

As G teetered on her stool, she peered at the emblems and logos while I took more pictures. There was a "deluxe" emblem on it and G said another emblem said Deluxe Corp., Reading, PA. I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and Reading was not far from me. How this toy was sold in France, I'm not sure. I came back to our lovely vacation home and did some research on the internets. I found out that it was called the Playmobile Dashboard. One recently sold on eBay for about $450 and another, a store display model, for almost $3000.

It's so interesting to me that I had a body memory of the toy before I had a visual memory. My body remembered that the windshield wipers actually worked and so did the radio buttons.

Later, the store owner took the toy down and we took some pictures of the two of us old fogies "driving" it.

Nightlife's A Ball In La Baule

2010-04-21T11:48:00.007+02:00

I almost don't know how to write about Sunday. It went from drunks and bare breasts at the beach in the morning, to sublime, magical and lustful at lunchtime, then calm, chatty and delicious at dinner (well, maybe the calm part isn't as true since I stood up after dinner and acted out the entire Toilet Guy story), then bizarre and surreal in the wee hours of Monday. As we drove back to our hostess's house at 2:30 in the morning, we tried to come up with words to describe what we'd seen and it was tough. But I'm going to try.

As for the rest of the day's doings, too much happened to put it in one post. I'm going to have to break it up into parts. Here's a list of events and as I write each post, I'll add links:

Bare-Breasted White Girls And The Avoidance of Drunks
Lunch n' Lust With Bio Wine Makers
Reliving My Childhood With The Playmobile Dashboard
Dinner With The Asteroid Family
Nightlife's A Ball In La Baule

Let's begin where we ended...in La Baule. G had already told me about this town. It isn't my kind of town. Or hers. It's resorty, versus authentic. It has a fabulous coastline, but they've ruined it with high-rise hotels all along the water's edge. But behind the hotels, the old town and its lovely buildings are still worth seeing. To get there, we crossed a short bridge; leaving sleepy Le Pouliguen behind and entering into a completely separate reality. Unfortunately, we left our 3-D glasses at home.

It was after we had dinner with The Asteroid Family. They had begun to politely yawn after my Toilet Guy performance. So, we took the cue and said our French kiss-kiss goodbyes. We were happy and full but not ready to go back home. So, G said, "Let's show La Baule to Lisa." The fact that Lisa was a) still awake and b) still awake, was a miracle.

Our hostess drove through the tiny streets and we kept looking for a cool bar that was open. There weren't many. We finally found a bar where there were several people standing outside drinking and smoking, along with a guy in a wheelchair. Some drunk guy waved leeringly at us as we drove slowly by. We reluctantly parked, knowing this was going to be strange.

The place was called B'ollywood. I expected Indian decor, pictures of multi-armed Goddesses and Indian movie stars. Maybe even some dhoti dancing on a wide-screen TV. Nah. Instead, it was full of pictures of Steve McQueen and other obscure H-H-Hollywood movie stars. Not a single B-B-Bollywood item could be found.

In addition, it had a sleazy meat market kind of vibe. Some young, blond drunk guy fell into G and spilled her drink all over her and the floor. He just looked at her stupidly and never offered to help clean it up or buy her a replacement drink. I saw him outside afterwards, trying to chat up some preppy-looking blond chick who wouldn't give him the time of day. When she looked at him, he put on his best drunken suave look and when she looked away, he went slack-jawed and just stared at her, blinky-eyed.

There was a muscular bartender and his faithful giant dog companion. The dog was attached to the bar on a really, really short leash and could only stand up and turn around and lay back down again. He had zero interest in being petted. He wasn't mean and he wasn't cute. He was just... all tied up.

Sitting at the bar was a Nubian princess with a nine-inch forehead, wearing an elegant cocktail dress and casting a sideways judgmental eye, full of doubt and disdain, upon a tweed-jacketed, curly-gray-headed hopeful. He lasted longer than most of the guys who had the nerve to settle next to her. I was staring at her and wondering, "Is that a guy?" when G leans in and says to me, "Is that a guy?"

At the end of the bar, there was a short, tough guy in a black leather motorcycle jacket, standing under the John-Wayne-with-Lariat-n-Chaps photo and with his back to the Steve McQueen poster. He was chatting up a leggy blond. His hands were as big as his head. Seriously. And his fingers? Fat as Snausages. I said to L, our hostess, "There's an old wives' tale about men who have fat fingers." G says, "Oh yeah. And it's true, too." She's such a Ho. That's why I love her. If you don't know what we're talking about, well, look it up.

Since then, our vacation theme has become men's hands and their fat fingers. G and L went to have a picnic at a wheat farm Monday afternoon and I stayed home to get some work done. G sent me photos to my iPhone of the wheat farmers and she made them pose with their hands in full view. They were confused. But their fingers were not... confused... at all.

After one drink in B-B-B'ollywood, the three of us looked at each other and knew we had to get out of that bar. It was such a weird place. As I said, there are no words. If you want to see a video ad for the place, you can click here. When we left, G said, "The coolest guy in that bar was the one in the wheelchair."

On our way back home to Batz sur Mer and before we crossed the bridge back into real life, G told L to at least stop at one of the casinos in La Baule so I could see what a French casino was like. The DING DING DING! KaCHING! WRRR! sounds of Vegas casinos drifted through my brain. When we walked into Casino Barrière de La Baule, there wasn't a sound. You could hear dust settling.

There were three security guards standing menacingly in front of grocery-store turnstyles off to the right of the "lobby." They demanded identification. I gave them my shiny new pink French work permit while G gave them one of her 86 passports. They actually took them from us and spent lots o' time on the computer with them. Maybe they wanted to check and see if we were on the cheezy casino crime watch list.

But this gave me a chance to look around. The place was dead empty. There were about 5 octogenarians sitting at slot machines, but that was it. The floor was covered in dirty red carpet squares. Seriously. It was the cheeziest place I'd ever seen. And I've seen some casinos. Hell, I've been to a casino in Pahrump, Nevada. I even went by boat from Parker, Arizona (a garden spot, let me tell ya) on the Colorado river, to see casinos in Laughlin, Nevada. Ho, yeah. But this place reminded me more of the local dive bars in Henderson, just outside of the Las Vegas strip, where the alchies and gambling addicts play video poker right at their seats at the bar, from morning until, well, morning. At least those places are respectfully dark enough for people to hide their crevassed faces and DT-shaking hands. This French casino was lit up as bright as a day on the beach.

Somehow, after getting past the security guys and their super-secret iPhone headsets, we lost our hostess, L. I still don't know where she went. And G took off like a lightening bolt around the back of the slot machines. "Where are you going?" I said, puffing and trotting after her, hoping that she was going to take me to the "nice" part of the casino. "To the smoking room."

HAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm sorry. I'm still dying laughing. There was a sign above the hallway to the smoking room that said, "We welcome you to smoke in our lounge." It was so... elegant-sounding. G pushed the door open. It was a box, the size of an elevator in a real casino. There were two chairs and one plastic table. One chair was dwarfed by a rather large female. G and I started taking pictures, our laughter echoing against the hard tile floor and bouncing off the blindingly white art-free walls. Our fellow smoker shifted a bit. I thought she might want to escape, but she settled back in to watch the Lisa and G show. L called to find out where we were. Then she came into the smoking room too. Her smile said, "I hate this room. Can we go right now? Right now?"

So, we decided to go back out to the lobby so we could descend to the 80's and 90's disco!!

It was called L'Indiana. I already told you about the terrible restaurant chain in Paris called the Indiana Cafe. Why do French people have this obsession with Indiana? Have they ever been there? Have you? I can't even name one city in Indiana. OK, fine. Indianapolis. But what the fuck is there to see in Indianapolis? Christ, they could just as well be obsessed with Cincinnati. Then they could name their restaurants and discos L'Ohio.

The disco was pumpin', let me tell you. There were more than five people there! And less than seven. The music was terrible. But the red and purple couches had the coolest sparkly fabric on them. I wanted one. The bar was illuminated and the color changed. That was cool too. The three of us danced on a tiny dance floor, off to the side, not wanting to threaten the 5 people sitting on a stage in front of the main dance floor. Then I thought, oh what the hell and ran to that stage and started doing The Bump. Or, something like that. I took a short video so you can soak in the atmosphere. That skinny girl dancing at the beginning of the video is G.

Nobody ever asked us if we wanted a drink. The bartender was as ephemeral as the lighting. The super-macho security guys ran in and out a couple of times, but I'm not sure why. So, after disco-fevering on the main dance floor, my girlfriends decided to do Yoga on the bar stools. I captured the event in pictures and made this calming little video for your viewing pleasure. Oh, and I'll leave you with this little realization that dawned on us, TWO days after our foray into La Baule...the bar is called B'ollywood because...drum roll...it's Hollywood in la Baule. Get it? We didn't either.

He's Obsessed With My Socket

2010-04-18T10:35:00.008+02:00

It all started with my friend G's socket. It hung there... naked... exposing itself to the elements, for way too long. Somebody had to do something, because exposing her socket could get G into big-time trouble. Why, the government could step in and fine her, or possibly even condemn her! But if she continued to flaunt her naked socket, unashamedly exposing it randomly to anyone who happened to walk by on their way to emptying their trash (just think of The Children!), everything, yes, everything, we know and love, cherish and hold dear, could go up in flames.

Or, at least, that's what Toilet Guy was thinking.

You've already met the other characters in G's and my building...The Hot Girl Upstairs, The Slapper, The Hot Blond Son of The Angry German, The Muslim Girls and of course, My Future Husband. But I haven't written about The Toilet Guy yet, because I'd never seen him. I knew he existed, but he never showed his face.

But G has seen him, sort of. His bathroom window looks out on the same courtyard as her apartment and she has spent more than a few cigarette breaks outside on her patio, pondering his silhouette through the glazed (Thank God) bathroom window. She can see him standing in front of his toilet, just his head, bowed down, contemplating...something...for what seems like hours. But, what? The hopelessness of life flushed daily? The endless, swirling circle of...? If he's like some men I (used to) know, perhaps he is aiming at his discarded cigarette butt, holding his Han Solo special BlasTech DL-44, making ptew! ptew! noises and tallying up the points each time he can hit it and make it go under water.

At least Toilet Guy pees in the toilet. Fiachna once told me a story his French real estate agent told him about an old guy who was selling his apartment and when the realtor entered with a prospective buyer, there were hundreds of jars all over the floor, filled with the apartment owner's sacred pee. What did he plan to do with them when he moved? This question has kept me awake at night.

The other morning, Toilet Guy knocked on G's door and told her that he was worried, with all the rain we'd been having, that some unknown cataclysmic things could happen if she didn't cover up her exposed socket. She answered, "Quoi?" He pointed to the light socket to the right of her door, which she has been meaning to buy a lamp for, but between filling out endless forms for the French government, arguing with her cell phone company about who really owns her phone contract and changing diapers ("What do we have today, honey? Pâté or meatballs?"), she just hasn't found the time.

But G is an old hand at leaving her own thing, and other people's things, exposed. After all, she didn't have a door on her own bathroom for so long that her friends just got used to relieving themselves en plein air. Now, when her friends come to visit, they don't bother closing her new, expensive (that's a story in itself) pocket door. They just do their thing while she flips the foie gras on the stove directly opposite them. Cooking and peeing... family-style!

So, it turns out, that Toilet Guy is actually an electrician. And in between the 6th time he was explaining the dangers of socket exposure to G, she managed to Skype me upstairs (yes, we are geeks) and tell me that Toilet Guy offered to fix her socket for free. Now, what girl in her right mind would pass up an offer like that? (All of them.) And, in addition, also too, he probably would be happy to add an electrical outlet on the wall next to my telephone jack, because I need one. It's SUCH a long story about why I need one. It's SO tempting to tell it now. But, I won't.

So, because I'm not in my right mind, I agreed that G and Toilet Man could come up and survey my lack o' outletness. What in the hell was I thinking? I know. I was thinking... I don't have to find an electrician, call an electrician, speak French to an electrician, pay an electrician. There's one in the building! So what if he stares down into the murky darkness of his toilet for hours on end? We all have our, er, proclivities.

Well, somebody smelled really bad when G and Toilet Man arrived at my front door. And since I'm now familiar, like an old wife, with G's body odor, I figured this new scent was coming from Toilet Man. Ah, but we're in France, n'est-ce pas? C'est la guerre.

After much debate in French between G and Toilet Man (while I nodded off from boredom), it was decided that he would take one of my cheap multi-plug outlet strips, slice off the plug and hard-wire it into my electrical box. Then we'd dangle the cheap thing down the wall and I could plug in my internet, TV and telephone boxes, right next to the phone outlet. I don't know the elegant French word for this, but in America, I think we would call this a clusterfuck.

It's the cheap part of this whole arrangement that became an issue with Le Mec du Toilette.

G left me alone with this guy and went back downstairs to paperwork and meatballs. He fiddled and fussed and asked me for one tool at a time. In between, he'd explain lots of things to me that sounded like this: "fermez toi poisson bourgogne fois chaque pres fils mes quelque chose oui oui?" Uh. I'd smile as I handed him a screw driver. Then a hammer. Then a box cutter. Then a drill. Then glue. Then a paper towel. Then pliers. Then I told him it was fine if he turned the electricity off. Then I told him it was fine if he turned off the electricity. Then I told him it was fine if he turned off the electricity.

Have I mentioned yet that this guy repeats himself incessantly? This guy repeats himself incessantly.

Finally, it was finished. But now, it had to be tested. He asked for my blow dryer. I gave it to him. He plugged it into the clusterfuck. He turned it on full blast. He turned it off. He turned it on. He flipped off the switch on the outlet strip. He flipped it back on again. All the while, he kept touching the wire to see if it got hot. Fine. I get it. The cheap outlet strips aren't very reliable. We need to put a load on it to see if it gets hot enough to burn the place down. Fine. But, I was a nervous wreck. This guy was so creepy, that I could not wait until he left so that I could take an hour-long shower in holy water.

After putting the blow dryer back in the bathroom, and reassuring him that I would clean up the mess he made, I stood, with my hands clasped in front of me, smiling woodenly, as he cleaned up the mess he made. Then, he told me 5 MILLION times, that the outlet was cheap and unreliable, that I should not put anything powerful on it, nor should I put many plugs into it, because it was cheap and unreliable. And if I left the apartment, I needed to not only flip the switch on the outlet strip, but also unplug everything. In case of storms. In case of storms. In case of storms. You know, lightening? Storms. You know storms? Oui, storms. Storms.

Did I tell you he's also cross-eyed?

I was praying now. I also had a tic. That's why I had to hold my hands in a death grip in front of me. Otherwise, I'd be flailing my arms about me, tongue lolling, sobbing. Oops! He forgot to glue the outlet strip to the wall! "Je peux faire cela !" (I can do that!) I said, in desperation. He asks for a screw driver again. He scrapes it across the plastic back of the outlet strip. He scrapes the wall behind the outlet strip. He picks up the glue package. He demonstrates how I should apply the glue. Put some here, on the back. Then put some here, on the wall. Then push the outlet strip into the wall here. Not here, because it's close to the other wires. But here, closer to the door frame. It's safer there. Because it's cheap, and unreliable. And it can get hot. And it can start a fire. And there's the storms, too. Don't forget about the storms.

It wasn't until I held up the glue package and told him 62 times that I would glue the fucking thing the VERY moment he left - right after you leave, oui! I'll do it. I promise! The storms! Oui! I will watch for the storms! - that I finally got him out of my apartment.

I did not glue that motherfucker to the wall.

The next morning, my doorbell rang. I was in my pajamas. I had dinosaur breath. But I figured it was G coming to pick up some French government forms she'd printed. So, I opened the door. Big mistake. Toilet Man was standing there. "Can I come in?" he said, as he walked past me into the room.

"I need to look at your toilet."
"My what?"

He went into my bathroom. I swore, if he started standing in front of my toilet and looking down, I'd... He looked to the left, to the right. He stood there. I'm freaking out.

"This plug?" He points to a wall socket 5 feet away from my shower and sink.
"Yes?"
"It's very dangerous. If you take a shower and get it wet, well..."
"I won't get it wet, then."

My face was scowly. He exited my bathroom and then said, "Je moulin rouge tour eiffel prendre vous allez miens soif dangereuse?" I'm exasperated. "I don't understand!"

So, he says that if I give him a few Euros he'll go buy a light bulb for my entry light (which had gone out about two months ago and I'd never changed it). What do I say? OK. I said, OK. I am insane. Yes, I am.

He returns and gets up on a chair and takes the glass bowl off the light fixture. Then he inspects the socket. The fucking socket. He takes it off. He gets down. He shows it to me. It's cheap and unreliable, he says. It's old. It's not good. It's bad. OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP AND JUST CHANGE THE FUCKING LIGHT BULB OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD! That was what I was thinking; not what I said. I said, yes, it's old. Yes, it's unreliable. Yes, it's cheap. Yes, I need a new one. Yes, here's 6 Euros. Go to fucking town with it. Don't come back.

He came back. It took him a fucking hour to change the socket and put a new bulb in. Then he explained to me that he bought himself a miniature tool set for 2 Euros. He hoped I didn't mind. He pointed to the 2 Euro orange sticky price tag. 15 times. It's just 2 Euros. I bought it for myself. I hope you don't mind. He pointed to the receipt, too. See? Two Euros. For myself. I hope you don't mind.

He had also purchased a fresh baguette. He offered me a piece of the bread. I said no. He pointed to my birds. He said something about them. I said something stupid back. I was holding my hands in front of me again. My toes were turned inward. I was starting to fold in half. Finally, I said, "Merci bien! Au revoir!" He started to leave. He noticed I hadn't glued the outlet strip to the wall. He asked for the screw driver. he scraped the back of the outlet again. He scraped the wall. He told me how to apply the glue. He told me where to put the outlet to avoid a fire. He told me how to turn it off when I leave. He warned me about the storms. He finally left. I curled up in a ball on my couch and shuddered. The shit we women do to get something for free. THERE IS NOTHING FREE. NOTHING! NOTHING! Except, maybe, THE STORMS!

The next day, G and I were finishing our packing and were within minutes of leaving for the beach. My doorbell rang. I thought it was G. No. It was Toilet Guy. And he was holding, I shit you not, a giant wall-mounted heater.

"I don't need that!" I exclaimed.
"Can I come in?" he said, as he started to push past me.
"No." I blocked the door.
"Are you going somewhere soon?"
"Yes, I am."
"Piscine pleurer des voitures et maintenant il y a sucre dans le jardin." Or, that's what it sounded like. I have no idea what he said... as he pushed his way back into my apartment.
"Le blow dryer?"

He had a giant green bugger in his right nostril. (I am not making this up.)

He leaned the heater against my wall near the new outlet strip. He plugged it in. He plugged in the blow dryer. He took off the wooden board that covered the wiring at the base of the electrical box. He made me hold the blow dryer. We turned everything on. Then off. Then on. Then off at the outlet switch. Then on at the outlet switch. He monitored the gauges. He touched all the wires. No fire! (Except, of course, for the smoke coming out of my ears and the fire in my eyes.) He explained how the outlet strip was cheap and unreliable. How I shouldn't put anything powerful on it. There could be a fire. There could be a storm. The building could burn down. And it would be all his fault. He put everything back. All the while, telling me how to glue correctly and how to unplug everything every time I leave.

I had to rest my eyes somewhere other than upon his bugger. I cast them downward and noticed, ironically, that the wire for his heater had been spliced in the middle and was all raggedy and exposed.

If the building burns down, it will be from his heater, NOT from my cheap and unreliable outlet strip or G's exposed socket.

So, I must end this tale, as it's too long. (So unusual for me!) But, I have a funny feeling it's not over yet. The lovely Muslim Girls are watching my birds and G's cat while we're away. I warned them about Toilet Guy. I had a little time with them while waiting for G, so I acted out the entire story to the girls. They were vacillating between laughter and then horror (as I have spent much of my life). I told them that if they wanted to hang out and stay in my apartment, that they had to have a secret code knock, because otherwise, they wouldn't know if it was one of them or Toilet Guy.

The Muslim Girls' mother, after listening to and watching my antics, and getting a few things translated into Italian and Arabic, began to get the picture. She said to me, while nodding sagely, "Ah, well. You know, he's Tunisian." I didn't know what to say. It's like somebody in New York saying, "Well, you know, he's Puerto Rican." And everyone in the room going, "Ohhhhhh. That explains it." But I don't know any Tunisians and I don't know any Puerto Ricans. So, I wouldn't be able to nod in sudden understanding, in either case.

I just know one thing for sure. I don't care how old or cheap or unreliable my socket is, I just don't want him to fix it. Even if he pays ME to do so. And the next time he knocks on my door, I'll tell him what the lovely Muslim Girls and G told me to say, "My Puerto Rican boyfriend is in bed, sleeping. Please do not disturb him."

Blue Cholula And The White Girls

2010-04-12T09:00:00.004+02:00

Imagine being deeply asleep, all snuggled up in your cozy bed, face pushed into a feather pillow, perhaps dreaming of Lady Hor's giant penis.

Then suddenly, all three of your birds start FLYING around inside their cage. This isn't pretty, wistful, chirpy freebird kind of flight. This is three sets of wings furiously pummeling the air, beating against the cage bars, soft feathery bodies crashing into each other as they desperately search for a perch in the dark.

It doesn't end. It takes me a few seconds to wake up, turn back the covers, rub the last vestiges of lust out of my eyes, struggle across the room in my invisible underwear (Have you tried these? No fat lines!!), turn on the light. The light stops them in their scraggly three-toed tracks. They're clinging to the sides of the cage, wide-eyed. I can see their little chests heaving, their hearts beating wildly.

WTF?

Did one of them fall off her perch and scare the living shit out of the other two? I guess I'll never know, because they ain't talking.

Cholula and her all-white-girl backup singers are starting to get along a little better. At least they're not trying to peck each other's eyeballs out or locking beaks as often. One of the white girls has become obsessed with the mirror and hangs upside down and sideways trying to impress her reflection. The other white girl found the bell that Cholula has ignored for the last year and has figured out how she can stand on top of it and yank at it to make it ring. Every morning, now that the weather is a bit warmer, I open the window so they can call and respond to the birds outside. It's all a big scam. If they ever met those wild birds, they'd try and kill them too.

I'm beginning to realize that these girls are never going to work together, either alone or with tiny mice, to sew me a dress for the ball. Hopefully, Prince Charming will be blind.

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Isobel Smith, R.I.P.

2010-04-11T09:52:00.004+02:00

My friend Isobel died last week. I call her a friend, even though I spent only one lovely weekend in Paris with her and then saw her again at another friend's wedding in Ireland. But she left her mark on my heart and I'd like to celebrate that fact in the wake of her passing.

Isobel was a longtime friend of my friend Fiachna, who called us one day to ask if Isobel's 18-year-old son Karl could stay with us in our Paris apartment while Karl searched for a music school to attend. We said yes.

Isobel arrived with Karl and stayed the weekend to make sure he was settled. She and I set out early one morning to shop for Karl's bedding and like me, she enjoyed a bargain, so I took her to Tati, a vast network of discount stores in Chateau Rouge, or what is sometimes referred to as La Goutte d'Or (the drop of gold) and as Little Africa. There she found a beautiful bedding set in blue and white, not very manly but definitely in line with her designer tastes. Karl and Isobel were very close, so he would have been delighted with whatever she chose.

We talked about our lives during our day of shopping and while resting our tired feet and drinking a beer at a rip-off cafe at the base of Sacré-Cœur. She'd been a wild one, just like me. She'd seen it all, done it all, and chose to be enriched by her experiences, rather than ruined. She'd carved out a career in fine arts and created a comfortable life for herself and her son. It was a major transition in her life, to let go of her son and be alone for the first time in many years, but she was up for the change and supported his creative efforts.

Unfortunately, Karl's stay with us didn't work out. It was a difficult time for me and my boyfriend, with financial and other worries. And whether Karl knew it or not, it was a difficult time for him. I watched him struggle with an age-old decision - does he follow the creative career path of music, or study something that will get him a "real job" with more dependable income? I don't know many people who made the "right" decision at such an early age. I know I didn't. I decided to get a "real job" and dismissed my artistic talents as childish pursuits. It wasn't until recently, in my 50s, that I have begun to reconnect with that lost creative person inside of me. On the other hand, Fiachna studied to be a lawyer, as he busked on the streets of Dublin with what would become one of Ireland's most beloved bands, The Hothouse Flowers. He eventually chose music over law, but I'm sure, in the ups and downs of a musician's life, even for one as successful as he, that there were some low points when Fiachna wished he'd taken the lawyer's path.

But one thing I have learned, no matter the decisions we make early in our lives, Karl's path, like my own and like Fiachna's, will take him where he is supposed to go. And if he listens and learns, he will gain insights and experiences along the way, which will mold him into the man he is destined to become.

Before Karl left our apartment, I had many long and philosophical phone calls with Isobel. We felt like we were the voices of reason between Karl, a young man trying to assert himself in the world, and my boyfriend, a grown man trying to impose his will, or what he thought was the right path, onto Karl. Both men meant well, yet stuck to their guns. She and I were partners in peace, trying to find the right path between the conflicts of men. It seems that this is a role that women have played throughout history, and it formed a timeless bond between us.

At the end of that weekend visit, where I first had the pleasure of meeting Isobel, she packed all her bags and we walked a block or two from our apartment to one of our favorite African restaurants, specializing in food from the Côte d'Ivoire. We'd forgotten that it always takes hours to get your food in this restaurant. It's one of those details about a restaurant that you tend to forget because while you're waiting, the people who go in and out, the bustle of a colorful African caftan and matching chignon that you can see now and then from behind the swinging kitchen door, the bottles of Chivas Regal plonked onto the tables to ease the waiting - all this is so fascinating that you forget about the time. Not to mention that the food is well worth the wait.

But this time, Isobel had a plane to catch, so we watched the time tick by and got more and more nervous. At one point, my boyfriend decided to walk back to the apartment and get Isobel's bags so that she'd have time to eat and then go to the corner to catch a cab. When he returned, the food still wasn't on the table. Finally, it came and she had just enough time to take just a small taste of everything that was on the table. Then she and my boyfriend went out to the street to get a cab. They were gone forever. He ended up taking her way down the street to a busier intersection to finally get a cab, and after he returned and we were nibbling on our roasted quail legs and fried plantain, we wondered if she'd even make her plane.

We were still eating when my phone rang. It was Isobel. She was at the airport, standing at customs, and realized she'd left her passport at our apartment. She wanted us to take a cab to the airport and bring it to her. We looked at the time and knew we'd never make it. We tried to convince her to come back and stay another day, which we would have loved, but she had a really important meeting at work the next day and just couldn't do it. She told us she would try and see if she could get on a later flight and call us back.

The next phone call from her was classic. Classic Isobel. She was calling us as she was boarding her plane. "I convinced them to let me go without my passport. Can you just give it to Fiachna and have him bring it to me the next time he's in Dublin?"

Isobel Smith was a class act. She was obviously resourceful. But she was also creative, hip, worldly, elegant, cultured, intelligent, wise, strong and most of all, kind. I'll miss her humor, her scratchy Irish voice and the chance to get to know her better. But one thing is for certain...if she accidentally left her passport to heaven at somebody's apartment during her wild and crazy past, St. Peter finally met his match last week as Isobel waltzed right past him through the pearly gates. She's sitting at the right hand of The Father right now, discussing how she'd like to redecorate a few things (those pearly gates are so gauche, so rococo!) and without a doubt, she and the Virgin Mary are the best of friends, working together on world peace.

And since Isobel has taken up residence, I hear that the craic in heaven is mighty.

(I took the image of the heart at Jerpoint Abbey, a Cistercian abbey, founded in the second half of the 12th century, near Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland.)

Perturbation

2010-04-03T13:51:00.002+02:00

There should be a law. People who speak over public address systems should be trained. You know what I mean. You'll be on a plane or in an airport or in Walmart, and you'll try to listen to an announcement and the announcer is too loud or too quiet or they speak too quickly or mush all their words together. You think you might be missing something important, like, "There's a sale on gizzards in the meat department." or "Cleanup crew to aisle eleven." or "Attention Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now."

I don't know about you, but I hate to miss the day-old gizzard sale and want to avoid slipping in spilled ketchup on aisle eleven. But I especially want to make sure that All Black People are doing what they're told. If I had been in Walmart that day and saw The Black People standing with confused looks on their faces, I would have considered it my Walmart Shopper Duty to point out the nearest door.

But, let's get back to loudspeaker laxity. (How DO I get so distracted?)

In the French Métro, it's just as hard to understand what the announcer is saying, not just because my French is limited, but also because of all the different accents. When you learn to say Mais Oui! (may wee!) in high school French and then hear Parisians say Bah Way!, you're kind of up shit's creek without a poodle. So, if I don't understand the announcement, I just watch everybody else and if they suddenly exit the train, I figure that I better do the same. Or if they leave the platform and go back up to the street level, I figure that there won't be a train coming anytime soon so I better walk to my destination or see if I can get on a bus.

Once, as my train was accelerating out of a station, I was watching the people on the opposite platform. As if on cue, all of them turned their heads towards the front of my train and the tunnel... and screamed. The train squealed to a halt. There was no announcement and I couldn't see what was going on. But I figured somebody fell, or got pushed or jumped onto the tracks. After about three minutes, our train slowly started to move and as we passed the end of the platform, I saw nothing. No police. No medics. Nobody lying on the ground.

It reminded me of the millions of times traffic came to a standstill on the 405 freeway north of San Diego. Everyone would sit in their cars, waiting. Then, traffic would inexplicably resume and all of us probably kept a lookout for the reason for the delay: a stranded car or accident or a silhouetted mommy-daddy-pigtailed-child holding hands and standing in the median, winded from their illegal run across six lanes of traffic. Even though I saw all those yellow warning signs about these silhouette people, I never saw any of them in the flesh. I started to wonder if they really existed. Later, I came to understand that these were The Brown People from the distant land of Meh-hee-co. In retrospect, I can only assume they were desperately searching for the nearest Walmart exit.

If you're a black (or brown) person in Paris, you'll be happy to know that you don't have to worry about missing an announcement, because there's usually a menacing, jack-booted, armed guard with a scary, black-leather-muzzled shepherd or rottweiler ready to give you all the answers you need. Handily, these guards are only on the platforms and in the trains in the immigrant neighborhoods, which seems very helpful of them. I never see them in the tourist or wealthy neighborhood Métros, probably because The Black and Brown People don't hang out there very much and so, don't require guidance and assistance.

As the years have ticked by I've begun to pick words out of the French Métro announcer's gibberish, such as "merci de votre patience." Thanks for your patience. This is a good thing to hear because it means that your train is only stopped in the middle of the deep, dark, graffiti-scrawled tunnel, dug out centuries ago beneath fathoms of crumbling French history, for some totally normal reason that is rarely given to you, even if you can speak the language. You can rest assured however, that in just a few short seconds (or many anxious beaded-sweat-upon-the-brow claustrophobic moments), the train will lurch ahead once again, just in time to avoid being rear-ended by the next train barreling along unwittingly from behind.

I always look at it this way: I need more time to stand crushed into the moth-balled wool coat of the man in front of me, to listen to the indignant French model tell off her loser boyfriend at the top of her lungs on her bedazzled cell phone or I can calm myself by breathing deeply to soak in the aroma of the fetid breath or pee-stained trousers of my fellow travelers. Patience really isn't a choice in these situations, but a moral, or perhaps a patriotic, obligation. After all, if I ask anyone why we're stopped, nobody can hear me through the steamy winter clothes or sweaty summer armpits of humanity. Nonetheless, I mutter in answer to the driver (because of course, I'm building character and one must be grateful for that), "You're welcome."

But even in my early Paris days, the one word that I could always pick out of an announcement was perturbation. Sometimes they even say perturbée. Even with the accent, I figured it meant that somebody was perturbed. Was the train driver telling us he was going on strike at the next stop? (Or more likely, he was taking his lunch break and we have to get off his train and catch the next one.) Was there a fight between some indignant Frenchmen somewhere in the next station? The French have developed a fine art of perturbation. I've seen that perturbée look on French waiters' faces when I ask for butter to go with my bread or a doggie bag (Sacré bleu!) for my food or when I say, "Can I please have TWO glasses, one for my water and one for my wine?" Yes, I know what a perturbée Frenchman looks like. And it's not a pretty sight.

As with all things that confuse me about France, sooner or later I find out what it all means. This time, it was through an iPhone app called Métro Paris. I've downloaded quite a few of these apps, but this one is the best so far. It can locate me wherever I am and then tell me the nearest Métro stop. It can map out a route from one place to another, with choices for the fastest route or the route with the fewest line changes. It even has "augmented reality," which I haven't tried yet, but if it's a new kind of non-surgical, drug-free way for me to be 25, slim, perky-breasted and jowl-free, then I'm all for it. As for how it taught me the meaning of perturbation, I'll get to that in a moment.

Meanwhile, safely home in my cozy little atelier, I watch my two new pure-white parakeets try to intimidate Cholula, the blue bird I saved a few years ago when she flew into my apartment window with her pigtails flying, winded from her illegal bout with freedom in the wilds of Paris. True to her Mexican hot sauce name, Cholula's not taking any shit from those white girls. Because she's been out there and even though those white birds can hang upside down above her, cheeping nah-nah! and pecking at her from behind like the little chicken shits that they are, or shamelessly scavenging for seeds on the floor of the cage where her refined tastes have refused to go, Cholula's the wizened traveler and they're just interlopers who had better stay away from her seed cup or there will be hell to pay. If those white girls dare to perch on the treat stick, Cholula stops filing her nails and throws her head back and says, "Oh no you dih-int!" As I doze off, I wonder if, at some point in the quiet night, I'll awaken to a tiny, bitchy, bird-voice announcement, "Attention bitchezz! All white birds, leave the cage NOW."

Instead, at 5:30 AM, just after a 2 AM worry session and a 4 AM pee, I'm awakened abruptly by the loud buzzing of my iPhone. Half asleep, I flail around for my phone and pushing the crust from my eyes, I see a message on the screen from my Métro Paris app with a big red exclamation point: "Attention! Métro 13 Trafic perturbée." (Traffic on line 13 is disturbed.) Finally, my integration into France has begun. My head tilts back, my eyes look down condescendingly, past my Gallic nose and upon my upstart iPhone (which has the colossal nerve not to wither in shame), and my lips purse in disdain. It's the butter look. The doggie bag look. The I'm-not-going-to-wash-two-fucking-glasses-just-for-you look. I am French. And I am perturbée.

Terrorist Pizza

2010-03-17T11:27:00.002+01:00

When French people ask me why I moved to France, I say, "George Bush." It always gets a laugh. And as a comedian, I go for the easy laughs as often as possible. But, as with all things in life, my reasons are more nuanced than that.

I think my life-long love for France began when I was 10 or 11 years old and my mother took my sister and I on a summer trip with her best friend Marianne McClatchy and her daughter. Mrs. McClatchy was looking for a summer camp for her daughter, also named Marianne. So, we drove around New England and ended up at the exclusive girls' camp, École Champlain, in Ferrisburgh Vermont, where the girls were required to speak only in French while they were there. (Holy crap! Elizabeth Clare Prophet was a camp counselor there.) I saw the gorgeous lake and grounds, the beautiful horses, cuddled with a German shepherd who only listened to commands in French. I really, really wanted to go to that camp. But it was a bit too exclusive for my parents' budget. Mrs. McClatchy was married to a politician who came from a long line of Philadelphia developers. My Dad was in business for himself and was supporting six kids, all in private Catholic schools. There was no way.

On the East coast at that time, if you studied any foreign language, it was French. So I studied French all through grade school and junior high and after my family moved to Arizona, even though Spanish was the popular language on that side of America, I continued to study French in high school. If my parents hadn't sent me to Mexico in between my sophomore and junior year, I wouldn't have fallen in love with Mexico (and a certain man named Pepe) and probably would be fluent in French by now.

When I turned 50 and was looking for an escape from corporate America and Republican America (I would add some snark about the two being the same thing, but corporate America owns the U.S. government, on both sides of the aisle. Just look at the health care and financial industry lobbying right now and you'll see what I mean), I went to Mexico looking for a place to live first. But for some reason, that never came to fruition. On a second reconnaissance trip to Paris, I knew where I wanted to be.

My friend K used to say to me, "I know you'll live in Mexico some day." If you saw my condo in Arizona, decorated in Mexican colors and full of Mexican furniture and art, you would have agreed with her. But, here I am in Paris. I think I've come to understand that I'm not so much in love with one place or another, but am in love with travel and learning and living the nomadic life. I have a feeling that Paris won't be the last stop on my life's road.

And K, who had never traveled outside the U.S. except for a few forays across the border to Mexico, came to visit me here this Christmas. K had been influenced by some narrow-minded people and of course, was subjected to Republican and U.S. media fear-mongering about anything Islamic. So I knew she'd have her eyes opened by this trip.

I just didn't know how wide they'd be opened.

The day of her arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport just happened to also be the day that everyone was coming back from Mecca. I stood at the gate, anxiously surveying the crowds of Islamic people and thought, "Oh boy. This should be interesting. She's going to think that even though she narrowly avoided crashing into the ocean from a bomb on the plane, she's sure to die at the hands of terrorists upon exiting customs."

K's plane was late. There was confusion as to which gate she would exit from. I kept shoving my way through the crowds to try and see her as she came out. All the while, women in long dresses and scarves were offering me plates full of dates. My friend G, who was kind enough to come to the airport with me in her car, was happily eating everything that was offered. Then came the ululating. Oh, the ululating. Each time a person of importance came out of customs, the crowds would surge towards them, offering dates and crying "AY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!" Grrrrreat.

K finally exited customs, but without me seeing her. She went, as I had instructed, to the friendly information desk, and asked them to call my cell phone. I made my way over to the desk and there she was, with her sweet little 3-year-old in her stroller. She looked weary and just a bit wary, but not as wide-eyed from terror as I was worried she might be. "Want a date?" my friend G says to K in greeting. "No Thanks." K says. "I don't take random food from strangers." heh heh.

Off we went in G's car to our neighborhood, full of Halal butchers and restaurants, women in veils and swarthy-looking men who would be instant terrorist suspects in America. The difference is, when there are two or three Middle Eastern men in America, they are suspicious. When you're surrounded by thousands of them, you're forced to admit that they can't ALL be plotting to kill you. Unless of course, you're an asshole. Which K is not. So, as we walked around the neighborhood, shopped in the grocery store and played in the local parks, she began to be comfortable in our multicultural environment.

Luckily, I'd moved upstairs from my first hovel of an apartment, so she didn't get a chance to hear the guy across the hall ululating at the top of his lungs accompanied by Islamic music and, um, slapping himself, every morning at 6:00. Nor did she have to hear the incessant knocking on the guy's door all through the wee hours of the night and morning, as his guy friends came to crash on his floor during Ramadan. If there ever was the makings of a terrorist cell in the imagination of the fearful, that would be it.

A Moroccan woman and her three lovely daughters moved into my old apartment downstairs. The woman wears a head scarf, as does her oldest daughter. K got to see us all kissing in happy greeting each time we encountered each other on the street or in the building's entrance hallway. Those girls are devout Muslims and since K left, I've had wonderful times visiting them, giggling with them about the slapper across the hall (I thought they'd know what he was doing, but they're just as confused as I am) and having serious discussions about the French government's recent burqa ban. Each time I spend time with them, I'm served, with traditional high-pour flourish from a beautiful Morrocan pot, the best cinnamon or mint tea on the planet. And cakes. And almonds. And love.

While K was here, she wore my long black hooded coat. She'd put a wide black headband across the top of her forehead and then pull up the hood of the coat. She looked like every Muslim woman in my neighborhood. I didn't realize this until a miracle happened. We went to see Sacré Coeur and on our way down the steps, heading towards the sins of Pigalle and the Moulin Rouge, we encountered the guys who plant themselves at the base of the steps and try to sell you bracelets made from string. These guys are relentless and I've never been able to escape them. But when they saw K in that coat, hood and headband, they turned and walked away! It made me want to invest in my own burqa.

K and I welcomed 2010 at our favorite local, owned and operated by two handsome Iranian brothers and their gorgeous sister. K and one of the brothers had been flirting with each other for a few weeks prior to New Years Eve. I'll avoid saying anything about sleeping with terrorists (by saying... sleeping with terrorists), but K extended her stay in Paris for some reason. I thought it was because she couldn't stand to leave me. Or because she'd fallen in love with Paris. Um. Well, yeah.

Since I moved to this neighborhood, if I'm too lazy to cook or have a hankering for pizza, I'm lucky to have a place right on my block where I can walk in, order and wait just a few moments while they make the pizza from scratch and put it into a wood-fired oven. The guy who owns it is Middle Eastern, in his late 20's or early 30's and sports something between a 5 o'clock shadow and a closely-trimmed beard. His swarthy friends hang out with him, clad in their leather jackets, sitting on bar stools in front of the counter and watching Al Jazeera on TV.

It could be a little intimidating to go in there, if you're an American who sees a terrorist around every corner. But every time I've stepped in the door, the young owner smiles at me and takes my order. Once, when he had run out for a moment, his friends went behind the counter and started the pizza until he came back. I sit and watch Al Jazeera with them while waiting for my pizza, or gaze at the framed photo they have on the wall, of our street in the 1800's. It was from that photo that I learned that the small parking lot inset in front of the Franprix grocery store used to be where the horse-drawn carriages could turn around.

To this day, I don't remember the name of the pizza place. Instead, I say to G when we're starving and lazy, "How about some terrorist pizza?" It's terrible, I know. But, it's funny, also too.

K returned to America, tainted. She cried all the way home on the plane. She told me she couldn't stop talking about Paris when she returned. But nobody wanted to hear about it. One guy said, "Why do you want to go there? The French hate us." And my sweet friend K said, "I've heard more hatred from Americans about the French since I returned here, than I EVER heard from French people about America while I was there." Amen, sistuh. So, in the end, she shut up about Paris. She feels lonely, now that she's different. Now she knows how I always felt when I lived in Arizona. I was a stranger, in a strange land.

K wasn't crying on the plane about missing her Iranian conquest. Because her reasons for loving Paris and wanting to move here, are more nuanced than that. Her tears were about her discovery that the world is such a big and amazing place, full of people from foreign lands, where there's always something new and different to see and do, new friends to make, new words to speak. Where you can stand in awe in front of Notre Dame's rose window and freeze to death in a line outside the French health administration building, while her friend, that would be moi, was in the last throes of the beaurocratic hell called "getting your French work visa." It's a magical place with exotic food and wine at bargain basement prices.

And of course, in a pinch, there's always Terrorist Pizza.

The Enchanted Forest

2010-03-14T10:42:00.005+01:00

I wanted you to know I've made progress on my box of letters. I cataloged them by year and they start from the first letter I wrote to my friend on the plane from Philadelphia to Phoenix in 1971 and they end in 1977. I also started a document where I'm researching all the references I made in the letters to music, movies, books, TV commercials and other events during those times. It's been a wonderful trip of discovery so far. When I first got the box, I was kind of horrified at how little I could remember, but as I look things up, memories are beginning to come back.

One of the most joyful discoveries I've made is the spirit of Lisa Wines. I'm beginning to realize that I was funny ("I know you must think I'm insane, but aren't you glad I use Dial?" - a reference to a soap commercial that only other people of a certain age will remember). I was open, creative, curious and most of all, bold. Even though I accepted the negative programming from my mother ("She's our smartest child, but she has no common sense."), I keep seeing evidence of my own young wisdom and being surprised by it. For instance, I discuss the fact that my boyfriend at the time was pressuring me to have sex, but I didn't want to because I knew he'd be going off to college, would probably meet other girls and I would get my heart broken. If I had a daughter at that age, this would be the kind of advice I would give her. I wouldn't be saying that sex was a "sin" or telling her she was "obsessed with sex" or shaming her. I'd be telling her the same practical realities of life and love that my 15-year-old self already knew.

One of the interesting surprises is the fact that even though I told my best friend the most intimate details of my life, when I was raped in college, I told her, just two days after the rape, only that I had a terrible urinary tract infection and the doctors at the student union gave me some tests and I was waiting for results so they could tell me what was wrong. In fact, I went to the hospital only because an old friend found me in my dorm room in shock, and then I was verbally shamed by the doctor, and sent home with medication for the infection. I wasn't waiting for any "results." It was here that I made a turning point in my life. Where I decided that my rape was my fault because I was so open, too creative and way too bold. I decided also that I would never have been raped if I had stayed inside my family and agreed with them and did what they wanted me to do.

My next paragraph in that letter was all about me having to go get a job. Industry would save me from the evils of my creative self and maybe erase the shame of the rape (that my mother said I deserved, because of the way I dressed). If I just worked hard and long enough, I'd finally get the respect from my parents and acceptance from the "serious people" of the world and I could stop myself from foolishly thinking I could be an artist. The tone of my letters changed from that point onward. And I've denied myself the pleasure of my own spirit ever since.

Of course, you can't keep pushing the truth aside forever. And you can't keep dating men who are artists to avoid being one yourself. I made myself sick trying to be a "grown up" and worked myself almost to death. I kept trying to fit into my family, but always failed. At 50, I finally decided I'd had enough and ran away to Paris, with no idea where it would lead me. But it led me back to myself and I'm falling in love with this young, brave girl every time I open a letter. My parents say I'm crazy now - "She's living over there with all those other Socialists." But the sad truth is, they would and will never value my spirit, or my "difference."

So, while I continue my discovery, I thought I'd post one of my drawings I made in my Big Chief tablet in 1972. It's called The Enchanted Forest.

The Pain Unable To Explain

2010-03-08T11:58:00.007+01:00

Just before Christmas of 2008, I wrote a blog post about my childhood friend Dina (pseudonym), who found me on the internet and then sent me a magical box filled with every letter I'd ever written to her. She thought it would make a good book one day. So do I.

When I first started coming to Paris, I had recently made a final break with corporate America and decided I would finally, at 50, become a writer. I'd been in denial and avoiding this precious part of myself for way too long. I blogged religiously, finding my voice. But I never worked on my book ideas, some of them quite developed. I had, and still have, an inordinate fear of taking this big step in my life, daring to legitimize myself as a published writer. The devil on my shoulder continues to say, "Who the hell do you think you are? Calling yourself a writer. Pffft!" Instead, I allowed myself to get distracted with other people's problems (my forté) and when I found freelance work, I dove into it with the same obsessive overworking that almost killed me in my past career.

A difficult relationship breakup, a writing contract for a PSP game, a teaching contract at the same time, a multi-year French work permit application process...all combined with my terror of finishing and publishing a book...made me hide in my apartment in a paralysis like I have never before experienced. I stopped blogging. I stopped living. I was just surviving from day to day, as I gathered enough nerve to go to the grocery store or to work, literally gagging from fear at every step.

Last week, I finalized my French work permit and suddenly, just as Paris has been drenched in sunlight for seven rare days in a row, I felt lighter and full of hope. I wouldn't say I'm without fear, since fear has been my nasty little habit for such a long time. I will have to retrain every cell in my body before I could dare to call myself fearless.

But this morning I finally took down the box Dina sent me, from the top of a dusty tall cabinet. It's the first step in cataloging the letters and figuring out how I will present this little gold mine. In the box is a Son of Big Chief writing tablet, filled with letters, poems and my drawings. According to Wikipedia, these tablets were printed for more than 80 years, but died a quiet death in 2001. However, I share the use of Big Chief with other literary luminaries: "In John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces, the protagonist Ignatius Reilly pens his philosophical ramblings on Big Chief tablets." What's hilarious about this Big Chief tablet cover, is the fact that because of the time that I bought it (circa summer of 1972), there's a hippie Big Chief instead of the standard Indian.

So, to get me started, I'd like to share one item with you, a story I wrote spontaneously, built around a drawing I made. It's obvious, based on my own drawings, that sometimes I copied other people's art as a way to teach myself. And this particular drawing looks like one of those copies. I named the character "Fwed" and wrote the following story when I was about 15 years old. (I didn't edit the punctuation or spelling.)

This is fwed. Fwed's my buddy. We met in a Chinese hairdresser salon while he was having hairs inserted above his ear so that he'd look like he'd have hair if he wore his cap. (I won't tell you what I was doing there...) Anyway Fwed and I started a lasting relationship over our fortune cookies and bamboo shoots. He was a master at chopsticks in any form and he lovingly instructed me of their use as he noticed most of my meal down my blouse and dribbling down the chair legs whenever we went out to eat. "Tsk Tsk" he'd say (he's got the cutest way of saying that!) and he'd wipe it all up to use as leftovers. He was the swankiest person I ever met - and high society? Whew - you name it - he was there. Remember the 1968 garbage collector's ball that was so highly publicised - Well - I was there - along with Fwed of course. I owe it all to him. He was so suave and debonair (to add a little of that "parlay-vu") (tee hee) that night. He almost swept me off my feet. I'm glad he didn't though - the floor was awful dirty - it needed it more than I did.

Fwed was a professional olive stuffer but out of business since the last pimento strike he's been free lancing as a Presidential campaign delegate - all just night work you know - so I haven't been able to see him lately. During the day he's free though and we go to all the dog shows to see if we can find his lost doberman pincer - the one who chewed up Fwed's round bed and headboard. Fwed was so mad that he scolded "pooch" cruelly which brought on an attack of shame to the dog along with "sticky-paw" (the pain unable to explain). Pooch took off for the mountains - on invitation of course - by the Don Juan of dogs himself whom no one has ever really seen. His sticky-paw dissapeared after a few days of nursing by those sexy poodles of Don Juan's. And the shame? Who knows - hopefully he's forgotten - we wouldn't want him to have a nervous breakdown. I know all this because pooche's girlfriend, smooch, travels to this area once in a while and visits my dog, mooch who in turn reports the latest. Fwed still thinks that pooch is lost and caught an attack of amnesia which stops him from coming home. His taste has become more educated and he prefers satin slippers and the like to round beds.

I've known Fwed for a while now and have gotten to know all about his personality - bad and good. He's the most different person I've ever met - to put it mildly. Why, he sleeps on top of his kitchen counter at night - due to the fact he has no bed anymore. I once asked him how he managed to stay up there all night without falling off. He claims there's a bottomless pit below which explains why he jumps onto the chandelier every morning and makes a dive for the couch which also was a surprise to me because I was sleeping on the couch. I don't know how he ever had anything to eat because the bottomless pit was right in front of the stove, sink, and refrigerator. I also wonder how he gets up on the counter to go to sleep at night - the chandelier is only a one-way deal. Yes, Fwed is a very peculiar person.

But I like him just the same. I would never marry him I'm afraid - I wouldn't be able to stand listening to that garbage he plays on the radio.

The End.

As I read this story, I can see all of the influences at the time I was writing it:

I had a best friend in Arizona whose swingin' single mother had a round bed...covered in deep purple velvet, no less.
My father used to say he wouldn't eat Chinese food because he hated eating "grass and bamboo shoots."
My mother hated rock n' roll and frequently called it "that garbage on the radio."
When my mother looked at my skinny brother, she'd say, "I don't know why he can't gain weight. His stomach is a bottomless pit."
"Suave and debonair" was a favorite saying of my brothers, for some reason, who pronounced it like this: swave and dee-boner.

I have no idea where the following line came from however, but I know I must use it someday, somewhere in my writing: the pain unable to explain.

French Work Permits, Xanax And Finally, Spandex

2010-03-04T14:59:00.000+01:00

This week we had a tempête in France, where more than 50 people died. Thankfully I wasn't one of them. Most of the problems were in the West of France, but Paris received her dose of pouring rain and howling winds. So, when I woke up Tuesday morning, I was very happy to finally see blue skies and bright sunshine out of my window.

Since I'm from Arizona, where rain usually comes only twice a year during monsoon season, I actually don't mind the rain. But this particular morning I would be dealing with the French government and since this almost always means standing outside in a long line for hours, only to arrive at the reception desk to be told that you're missing one document, or the 6th copy of another document, or some other strange thing that you couldn't possibly know about even if you had the divination skills of the Oracle of Delphi, I wasn't looking forward to getting soaked and blown about with 75 other people outside of the OFII office (Office Français de l'Immigration et de l'Intégration) as I waited for my last step of my visa and work permit process - the Visite médicale obligatoire. This is the step where the government doctor screens you to make sure you're not carrying the bubonic plague into France.

My appointment was at 9AM, way across town near Bastille, where the July Column in the center of Place de la Bastille marks the place where the peasants stormed the prison and started the French revolution. The Bastille was built during the hundred year war as a fortress, later to be turned into a prison by Louis XIII. I can't help but feel like I've been in a 100-year war myself, trying to make it through the French visa process without, well, losing my head. At least they let me eat cake while I was waiting.

And I've been in my own prison of sorts - paralyzed by dread and anxiety as I awaited the verdict at every convoluted step. I think that the French have a certain affinity towards torture-through-bureaucracy, as if all my waiting and document gathering and xerox copying and line standing and number taking and stamp buying and phone calling (to phones that are never answered) builds character. If that's the case, then I could start a shop and make a fortune selling all my extra character. I might as well sell it, since I've become a twitching, drooling mess and couldn't use all that character if I tried.

I actually started this process more than 9 months ago, when I hired a great attorney (and blues guitar player) to help me figure it all out. I gathered old birth certificates and divorce decrees and took pictures of my work space and made a million copies of bank statements and even had a nice policeman in Carefree, Arizona write a letter verifying that I wasn't now, nor had I ever been, a criminal. Of course, before I went to the Carefree police station to pick up the letter, I was absolutely positive that they'd be waiting to arrest me for some minor offense that I'd forgotten about, but for which Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the FBI, CIA and AARP had been hoping to catch me for years but just couldn't find me (across the street from them).

Even though you're allowed to pack a pistol in Arizona public buildings, no guns were drawn when I arrived at the police station/town hall and the nice receptionist just handed me the letter and the cops were nowhere to be found. I had 21 glasses of wine to celebrate.

When I finally had a 4-inch-thick dossier compiled, I confidently contacted the American representative of the French consulate in Arizona, to ask for my interview. He was quite impatient over the phone and couldn't possibly understand how I could have ever imagined that I could get a French visa:

Him: Are you marrying a French man?
Me: No.
Him: Did a French or American company offer you a job?
Me: No.
Him: Well, what are you going to do, then?
Me: Write and publish books and collaborate with a French university developing video online courses.
Him: Well, I just don't think this is going to fly. Send me the cover letter of your dossier and I'll email the consulate in Los Angeles and see if they will even consider your case.

I guess the idea that an unmarried woman in business for herself was outside the realm of possibilities for him. I looked him up online and he's an older gentleman and a Mormon, so I began to see why he might think this way, even as I became overwhelmed with fear that I was heading for one more religious persecution in my life. For some damn reason, I attract Christian zealots like fly paper.

The very next day, the Arizona honorary consul forwarded me an email from the Los Angeles consulate. The LA consul said that, not only will he receive my case, but that I qualify for a much better visa, the three-year Compétences et Talents visa. It's a good thing I do qualify for it, because getting this visa has taken me 9 months and if it was a normal one-year visa, I would have to start the visa renewal process NOW. I don't think there's enough Valium in France to get me through it again.

Needless to say, I was tempted to say NAH NAH NAH NAH NAAAH NAAAAAAAH! to the Arizona honorary consul, but I avoided the temptation since I was scheduled to interview with him the following Monday. Instead, I had 42 glasses of wine to celebrate.

For my appointment, I dressed like a Mormon. I looked like I hadn't been laid in 20 years (unfortunately not too far from the truth): pleated knee-length skirt, puffy-sleeved blouse buttoned to my chin, don't-come-fuck-me pumps. He didn't notice. He was impressed, instead, by the thickness of my dossier, and the two professionally-bound copies obligatoires. He said, "Wow, you're serious about this." Uh. No. I'm just a fluffy girl without a brain in her head who thought she might want to live in France so she can drink wine and eat cheese. Jayzuz. (OK, the wine and cheese part is true but I'm definitely not fluffy.)

He asked me about 6 questions and then told me to send my dossier and my passport to Los Angeles and wait for their review and approval. So, there I was, without a passport, hoping they would send it back to me with my visa in time to catch my flight to Paris in less than 6 weeks.

I had 842 glasses of wine (and a few shots of tequila) while waiting.

I was in Las Vegas visiting my friend when I received a voicemail from the French consul in Los Angeles. I wish I had kept the voicemail. It was soooooo French (i.e. cheerfully threatening): "Hello Madame Wines! This is the French consulate calling! It is obligatory that you send us three copies - not two! - of your dossier. This is clearly stated on our website! If you do not send the third copy to me by Friday, you will have to start the visa application process all over again. Tank you!"

I overnighted the third copy and then I can't actually remember how many glasses of wine I drank, trying to drown my terror that he'd find one more thing I had forgotten to send him. But when my brother called me a week later and said I'd received a package from the consulate with a new shiny visa inside my passport, I had 685 glasses of wine to celebrate.

Back in Paris, I had exactly three months to go through the rest of the steps to get my carte de sejours (work permit) before my visa expired. That was July. Days and weeks crept by, and I never heard anything from anybody. Nada. Finally, two weeks before the visa was to expire, I asked a French friend to call the immigration office for me. After multiple tries and many hours on hold, she finally got through. They had never heard of me. She persisted. They finaly found me in the computer and said that they were waiting to receive my dossier from Los Angeles. My friend asked them what I should do if I needed to go in and out of France (i.e. to England with my brother and his girlfriend when they visited me in November). The immigration official said, "She'll have to apply for a new visa." So, I was stuck in France.

I emailed my friendly Los Angeles consul and used my best indirect, polite corporate-speak and said, "The Paris immigration office informed me that they can't process my visa until you send them my dossier. Since my visa expires in two weeks, if I can do anything to facilitate the mailing of my dossier to the Paris office, just let me know." I received a very brief reply in all caps: I SENT THE DOSSIER TWO MONTHS AGO. Oops! So sorry! Gulp.

I bought 8 bottles of cheap wine (they don't have any good tequila here) at Franprix and drank them all in one go, sitting in my apartment, in the dark.

A couple of weeks later, I received a letter, telling me I had to go to the prefecture (police station) to start the work permit process. I went to my neighborhood police station and the line was all the way out the building and around the corner. I turned around and went back home. A few days later, after fortifying myself with...coffee, I went again. No line! I breezed right through the front door, up the steps to the immigration room, and as I fumbled with the ticket machine, I looked at the 85 people waiting in chairs in front of one tiny reception desk. Good thing I had nothing to read.

Since my French is bad and all of this is new to me, I just watched what everyone else was doing while I waited for my number to be called. All of a sudden, a guy at the reception desk started yelling. And slamming his fists on the counter. And yelling. All 85 of us stared. The lady behind the desk was nonplussed. She kept repeating herself - something about the fact that he had the audacity to show up ONE DAY after his visa had expired. He was yelling that it wasn't his fault, that he had been sick. She remained obstinate. He screamed and pounded. People came out of offices behind the desk and just stared at him. We were in the freaking police station and this guy was flipping out. After what seemed like hours, two big cops sauntered in and casually placed themselves on either side of the guy and listened to him yell. They quietly asked him a couple of questions. He yelled again. They quietly answered him. Finally, he calmed down. He and the two cops casually sauntered out of the room. And the receptionist started calling numbers again. And my visa was way more than one day expired.

Finally, it was my turn. I really only had to wait about 15 or 20 minutes....to find out I was in the wrong place. I had to go to the MAIN prefecture, downtown. The receptionist kindly wrote down the address, and the room number, where I needed to go. I didn't yell at her. Or pound my fists on the counter. I was excited about having the chance to stand in another line.

By some miracle, when I arrived at the downtown prefecture, there was NO LINE. There has always been a line outside of this place. They even constructed an awning along the side of the building so people don't die from sun stroke or frostbite or malaria, depending on the season. But nobody was there! I ran inside, found a place where 85 people were waiting, and figured that was the place for me. I took a number. Then I looked at my little piece of paper that the other prefecture had given me. I was in the right building, but the wrong room.

When I found my designated room, there was NO LINE! Just 3-4 people sitting in front of desks. I was called to the desk in less than 10 minutes. This, I thought, was where the rubber met the road. This is where I had to supply 900 more copies of my entire life (and all the same damn documents I had given to Los Angeles, in triplicate) so that they could give me my work permit. Of course, I had 899 correct copies but didn't have a copy of document number 900, which I didn't think they needed. I gave them the original. They said, "Don't call us. We'll call you."

I think something was lost in translation. I think they actually said. "Don't call us. We won't call you."

Keep in mind that I was already working, without a work permit. My school was actively paying me and paying the French government's social taxes for me. But I didn't have a work permit. Awkward!

November, and my brother's visit, was looming. I'd booked three tickets for us on the Chunnel for a day trip to London. I had visions of being stopped at the border and not allowed back into France. I drank more wine. And shot some heroin.

Three days before my brother and his girlfriend arrived, I got a phone call (!!) from the downtown prefecture asking me to come in and get my work permit. I actually answered that call and actually understood her French and actually spoke French back to her. Woohoo! I went downtown the next day and went to the little office and waited for 5 minutes and when I met with the guy, he gave me an official-looking paper with my adorable mug shot affixed to it, but it wasn't that laminated carte de sejours that everyone else has. I thought I was finished. And alas, I was not. It was just my temporary work permit. "You go here," he said in English, as he pointed to the address of the OFII. "You bring these things." There was a nice and easy bulleted list that I was sure I would be able to figure out. I nodded and told him how happy I was! He grunted.

The temporary work permit was fine for my London trip and my bro and his girlfriend and I had a blast. After they left Paris, my pal Kelsie arrived mid-November, so she and I got ourselves and her little daughter all bundled up and we made the trek by bus all the way to the OFII office at Bastille. We stood in line outside and froze to death, me with my lovely documents, including one timbre (stamp) worth 15 Euros and one worth 55 Euros. I don't know why they make you go to a Tabac (tobacco store) and buy stamps instead of accepting other forms of payment, but mine is not to reason why, mine is but to do or die (of alcohol poisoning).

Finally, inside at the reception desk, I did my best "Bonjour Madame!" and handed in my papers. She stared at them and got angry with me in French. I didn't have a clue what she was saying, but she kept pointing to the one thing I didn't have - the medical certificate. Well, I was standing in line that day to GET the medical certificate. How could I bring it with me when I was there to get it from them? I was so confused. She finally said in English, "You work?" Yes. "You got a boss?" Yes. "Tell your boss he must do this." and Then she shoved my papers back at me and went on to the next person in line. I showed her my timbres. She ignored me. That hurt. I was proud of my timbres.

I was very depressed on the way home. I decided to have 1,276 glasses of wine. And some Xanax.

The next day, I took all my documents to the admin guy at work. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. We made some wild guesses. "Maybe they want you to send me to your official doctor for my medical exam and he'll give me a certificate to take back there?" "But we don't have an official school doctor." "Well, can you make me an appointment anyway?" "Well, OK." And...he never did. He's a busy guy and he forgot about it.

So, I called the director of the school and sent her all my docs and she spent an entire day trying to call the OFII office. They never answered the phone until late in the day. They told her that when I got my papers from the prefecture downtown, a letter was supposed to be sent to me automatiquement that gave me the date and time for my medical exam. I had never received that letter. She told me that I had to call them and remind them to send me the letter.

Oh sure. I'm capable of that. 7,832 glasses of wine might give me the courage to try it.

Finally, I begged for the assistance of my neighbor and partner in dinner-party crime, G. She spent one week trying to get through to the OFII office. They never answered the phone. She called nine other government agencies and they all told her to call OFII. Then, in my documents, she saw a filled-out form and asked me if I had sent it in. I said, well, no. She looked on OFII's website and found out that I was supposed to have sent this form in order to get that freaking "automatic" letter sent.

So, since I was waaaaaaaaaay expired on alllllll my deadlines and, according to the threats written in my official documents, would be hanged at noon from the Arc de Triomph for this crime, G suggested that we put a yellow sticky note on the document that said, "deuxieme envoie." Yes, my friends, it said that this was the second time I had mailed the document to them. Technically, this is a bald-faced lie. Since nobody told me to send the damn thing and only told me to go to the place. But I figured that one day in line and getting yelled at by the OFII receptionist was the same thing as sending the form in.

Two days later, I received the appointment letter. G's my hero. We took a bath in wine. Now, it isn't only our teeth that are stained red.

Oh, and by the way, I received the appointment letter last Thursday. I worked on Friday. My appointment was for Tuesday at 9AM. The letter told me all kinds of new things that I had to bring to the appointment. All of them were different than the original list that was given to me by the prefecture. You know those 15E and 55E timbres? Well, I didn't need ONE of each. I needed NINE 15E stamps and THREE 55E stamps. That would be 300 Euros in stamps. Oh and I also needed a chest X-Ray and records of all my vaccinations and hospitalizations. I had Monday to make all of this happen.

I stopped in at my local, L'Insolent, for a feeling-sorry-for-myself drink. I told Afsanet, my friendly barmaid, of my problems. She handed me a card and said, "The X-Ray place is down the street." Just go there. And it was. And I did. And they took me right away, without an appointment. And it only cost me 35 Euros ($50). And I found my vaccination record from when I was a baby. I know. Incredible. But I haven't been in the hospital lately - not since I had a boob job and nose job 30 years ago and my uterus boiled 4 years ago. I don't have those documents. I figured I'd just show the doctor how I can make my boobs dance and that would be enough.

By this time in the process, I didn't have great expectations. In fact, Tuesday morning, I was nauseous and only remembered to breathe when I noticed I was turning blue. During my sleepless Monday night, I imagined the following things:

The Metro would be late and I'd miss my appointment
I'd arrive and the line would be wrapped around the building and it would be pouring rain
I would need TEN 15E stamps and FOUR 55E stamps (instead of 9 and 3, respectively) - the two from the original letter and the 12 from the second letter
They would throw me out because I didn't have any record of hospitalization or because I'd never had a vaccination since 1957
I hadn't made enough copies or I didn't make copies of the right things
They'd finally notice that I was way past all the deadline dates for this process and my temporary work permit was expired
I actually do have the bubonic plague

Luckily, my ex-boyfriend volunteered to accompany me on my mission, even though he wanted desperately to argue with me about why I wanted to leave my apartment at 7:30 to get to a 9:00 appointment. "Humor me," I said. "Like you never did when we were together... Darling." He was not offended. Thank you.

And we arrived a half hour early. And there were 50 people in line. NAH NAH NAH NAH NAAAAAAAH NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! OK, I didn't say it. But, I wanted to.

The line moved like The Roadrunner with Wile E. Coyote on his ass. We were inside that building in a flash. I wooden-smiled my way up to the reception desk. She looked at my letter and told me to go RIGHT UPSTAIRS TO THE DOCTOR. Everyone else had to wait. Holy shit!

I had my finger pricked and was told my blood sugar was awesome. I was weighed - with my boots, heavy coat, hoodie, shirt, jeans - and didn't even try to take it all off. That's because happily, I don't know Metric measurement. As far as I can tell, what I saw on the scale made me think I should start looking for modeling jobs. As I stood on the two blue-painted footsteps and tried to read the eye chart, I couldn't explain in French that I had laser surgery, with my right eye adjusted for distance and my left eye adjusted for reading. That's why I couldn't see anything when they asked me to cover my right eye. They didn't let me explain. This was a factory and I was just one more widget to shove along the line. They noted on my chart that I was blind.

Then they sent me to get undressed for the...chest X-Ray. Now, why in the fuck, if they were going to do it there, FOR FREE, did they put in the letter that I had to bring one with me? I waved my X-Ray envelope at them and they let me move along down the assembly line.

Next was the lady doctor. She was very cool. She smiled at me! I wasn't just another cog in the wheel! She even spoke English. And I didn't have to show her my boob trick. She examined me and asked me a couple of normal questions and told me I had to get a few vaccinations. My heart sank. "So, do I have to go to a government doctor to get them?" "No. If you have your own doctor, you can go there." "And then, afterwards, how many millions of copies do I have to make of my vaccination receipt and where do I send them or do I have to come back here and stand in line to hand it in...and then after I do that, THEN can I have my carte de sejours? Or do I have to do 43 more things?"

I didn't say it exactly like that. But, close. She laughed. "No. Just take these documents from me and wait in front of that desk over there and she'll call you and tell you what to do next." I shuffled my black lungs out of the room and frumped my model-like body on a seat next to my ex. My name was called. I approached the desk. She mumbled something that I didn't understand. Then she pointed down the hall and said, "Third door on the left." Off we went.

Now, this is when it gets interesting. (That is, if you are still reading this epic.)

The sign on the 3rd door on the left said "prefecture." Thankfully, I didn't have time to process the fact that there's a police office in the OFII building (and that they probably were sending me there to get arrested). There was an L-shaped counter. Two chubby, gigantic-breasted, older women sat at desks behind the counter, facing each other. They were deep into a discussion of the pros and cons of buying clothes with elastic. They greeted me with chubby and friendly Bonjours! And one of them, still discussing spandex, stood up. She kept talking while she opened up a Tupperware container. Her friend laughed. Then she offered her a chocolate and then she turned to me and offered me one. Holy shit! I said no thanks, but in retrospect, I should have taken such a lovely gift.

She kept on talking to her friend as she made her way to the counter and took my documents. She continued to talk to her co-worker, standing there waving my documents to make another joke. She then went to a bookcase and found my file, still talking. Her friend laughed again. She came back to the desk and asked me for my stamps. I held my breath as she pasted every single one of them all over my pristine documents. Then she handed me my laminated carte de sejours. Holy shit again!

I was not expecting that. I really thought that I would have to wait for another three months and come back and stand in line and be told I didn't have the right documents and to come back with all the right stuff and then maybe, if I could recite the French alphabet backwards, I could get my card. But there it was, all nice and shiny and pink.

She went back to her desk. "C'est tous?" (That's all?) I said. "C'est tous!" she said.

I left the room in a happy daze. My ex looked up from his book, sitting with 25 people who were waiting outside the office. I put a depressed look on my face. His face fell, but then he quickly settled into a keep-your-chin-up mode. Then I flashed my card at him, with a big smile. His eyes lit up. I said, "Let's get out of here before they change their minds."

It's been sunny for the last three days. Even though it's still cold, Spring is in the air. Parisians are sitting outside at cafes, or lying in the brown grass in parks, soaking up the sun. And I have my carte de sejours. For three years.

My ex called me this morning, to play me a song about being in the darkness and going out into the light. He knows, better than anyone, how difficult and scary this process has been for me and how much I have been paralyzed by it and hiding in my apartment. He said, "You know, if you think about it, you and I are in the Winter of our lives, but we are in the Spring of this moment." It's pretty amazing that he and I started this journey together and despite our huge differences and a very difficult breakup, he happened to be with me on the day that the journey was completed. I'm very happy that I could share it with him...and that there is plenty of good cheap wine in France.

Pardon moi, while I celebrate.

Would I, If I Could

2010-02-14T09:47:00.005+01:00

Would I, if I could, remain distant
From the relentless desire around me
For love, or its counterfeit

I stand back, alone
And watch the pursuit of fleeting pleasure
That has no depth or meaning

Would I, if I could, pass no judgment
Of humans and their folly
Without remembering my own

I stand back, alone
Muffled by layers of clothing and resistance
Gagging at the thought of a lover's touch

Would I, if I could, remove the layers
And stand naked in the fray
To try, once more, this human game of tryst

Yet I stand back, alone
Knowing the risk is too great, too personal
My heart, like my aging skin, is no longer resilient

Would I, if I could, know for sure
If in the quiet of my aloofness
I've created a haven or a fortress

All The Corners Of The World

2010-01-20T20:26:00.001+01:00

When I was a little girl, my parents would cram all six of us kids into the station wagon (real wood panels!) every summer and drive us from our home in Pennsylvania to my grandparents' farm near Ontario, Canada. There's an old family legend about me during one of these trips. At some point during the long drive on the turnpike, I said, "I have to pee!" and my Dad kept saying, "Just hold it in for a little bit longer. There's a bathroom just around the corner." I sat there wriggling desperately in the back seat for a while until I said, "But Daddy, there aren't any corners on this road."

You see? I was a genius way back then too.

Move forward about 225 years to this December when my lovely friend K came to Paris with her little three-year-old PJ for Christmas and New Years. Some of my friends here put some money down and bet that I would not be able to handle having a three-year-old in my tiny apartment for six weeks. Hell, I even put money on that one. You see, I never had kids because I never wanted kids. They're little foreign objects with mysterious things called diapers.

As a matter of fact, I was in my friend G's station wagon recently, late for something or other and barreling down the peripherique, and her child started bawling from her car seat. G says, "Can you climb in the back seat and find her sippy cup and give it to her?" (Knowing her, I'm surprised she didn't say, "Can you climb out the window, onto the roof, unstrap the skis and snowmobile and find my pink Samsonite luggage and get her sippy cup out of it and then open the cooler and get some milk and pour it into the sippy cup and then climb back in the window and give it to her?" But, she didn't.)

I looked at G in my best you-gotta-be-shitting-me eyebrow lift and she simply smiled back at me. She knows I'm a sap. I said, "I hate children." and climbed into the back seat to do my duty.

ANYhoo, even though I'm a certified child hater, we all lost the bet.

Because PJ is kind of special to me. I used to talk to her while she was in her mommy's belly and I was even allowed to hold her when she was just a tiny baby. One time, K took the risk of leaving PJ in my care for an hour or so and I managed to almost kill PJ by leaving her on my pillow-top bed. I surrounded her with extra pillows, but three seconds in the kitchen and I returned to see she had climbed right on top of the pillows and was staring down at the floor 500 feet below, just ready to do her best tuck and roll. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I screamed. She almost died from that, too.

I climbed into the bed with her and held on to her for dear life. She was delighted that I was there to play with her, but after a while she started to cry. Uh-oh. Bottle? WAHHH! Guess not. Vodka? WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Ok, OK! You're right, PJ. Not funny. (Please god, please don't make me change a diaper.) WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Just hang in there, honey! The bathroom's just around the corner. WAHHHHHHHHH! OK. I guess I'm going to change a diaper. Holy crap.

K came back and the fresh new diaper was on PJ's head. Well, that was just a diversion so that PJ couldn't tell that I had NO idea how to put a diaper on. "Stop watching me!" I said to her big, serious eyes, while her chubby legs languished lazily in the air. "Here, play with this." And I gave her the diaper. Finally, I managed to put another diaper on her "area." But when K returned, she told me it was backwards. It was all ok in the end, though. No spillage occurred on my watch.

When K and PJ arrived in Paris, PJ took one look at the metal ladder up to my suspended bed and she scrambled right on up. No fear. No stumbling. Then she would hang her head over the edge and show us her hair. I'm more grown up now, so I didn't scream when she did all that.

But PJ? She screamed. Yes, she did. But only 39 a few times during the entire stay. This happened when Mommy took away her DVD player and told her to go to bed. Or when Mommy gave her lunch and said, "I don't care if you don't like pasta, you're going to eat it." Or when her Mommy told her she could NOT wear her glass slippers on our trek to the Louvre and to put on her pink princess boots instead.

Sometimes, these crying sessions would be quickly solved, since K is the calmest Mommy on the planet. But other times? Not so much. It went like this:

K: If you don't stop crying right now, I will put you in the corner.
PJ: WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
K: OK! That's it! Get in the corner!

I'd be in the kitchen thinking, "Is there an official bad-child corner in my apartment? I'm not an official parent. So, I can't possibly have an official, designated corner." And I'd come out of the kitchen and there PJ would be, sitting with her back against the wall and her side against my tall cabinet. Or, she'd be in my entryway, with her back against the coat rack and her side against my closet doors. Well, I guess those can be considered corners. PJ thought they were. And that's all that mattered.

She'd be sitting there wailing, her legs kicking the wood floor, her arms outstretched like a 50's sci-fi B-movie robot.

PJ: MAAAAAA-MAAAAAAAA! HOOOOOOOOOLD MEEEEEEEEEEE!
K: I won't start the clock until you stop crying. So, the sooner you stop crying, the faster you can start your one minute in the corner.
PJ: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!
K: OK, now it's three minutes.
PJ: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (Legs in a blur, slamming the floor. Arms still outstretched in take-me-to-your-leader fashion)
LISA: Wow. She's gonna hurt herself.
K: Nah. She did this in Newark airport right before we boarded the plane to Paris.
PJ: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
LISA: OMG. You're kidding!
PJ: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
K: Nope. I just put her in the corner until she finally stopped.

I'm in awe, thinking, "There are CORNERS in Newark airport TOO? Wow."

I guess I just got a little peak into the esoteric Mommy world of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny...and corners. PJ didn't believe us when we told her Santa was going to come into my apartment to deliver her gifts. She said, "There's no fireplace here." Uh-oh. It's just a matter of time. Pretty soon she'll say, "But Mommy, these are not REAL corners." And K will have to make some new shit up to stop PJ from throwing a fit.

I'll be on the roof of G's car at that point. Hanging on to the corner of the luggage rack for dear life, missing K and PJ like crazy.

Wanna Know What I've Been Up To?

2009-12-26T17:43:00.001+01:00

For those of you who follow me and are wondering what I've been up to, I wanted to let you know that I'm entertaining my friend K and her 3-year-old P at my tiny apartment here in Paris. She wanted a way to record her first trip to Europe, so I showed her how to blog. She's writing about what we do every day, if she can find the time to sit down and do it, with pictures and videos that we've both taken. I'm hoping that you will visit her blog at http://mommakandpj.blogspot.com and encourage her with comments, etc. She's a bright person and a brave person - a single mom and a former high-tech recruiter and excellent sales person who lost her job AND is a recent cancer survivor. I'm grateful that she's living in my condo in Arizona while she looks for a job and tries to get her life back in order. This means my condo doesn't sit empty while I sit out this terrible downturn in our economy. It also means that she and her child are safe and cozy while she finds her way. She's a testament to public-option health care, since she would not be here if not for the fact that Arizona has a good public plan (called Access). When I think about why I pay taxes, I think of her.

I hope all of you have had a wonderful Christmas or holiday and may we all look forward to a New Year full of love, joy, health and community. Without our friends, close and far away, we are adrift. I'm grateful for all of you that I've met along the blogging way, who have delighted me with your own writing, and inspired me to write some more. Much love to you and your families in this holiday season.

Tiger's Wood: Woops!

2009-12-14T09:01:00.008+01:00

Inspired by my new friend over at Jayne's World and her Sunday Recap post, I thought I'd do a little Mish-Mash of My Own Musings...

This morning I put cumin in my coffee instead of cinnamon. I took a sip and thought, ok, I can do this. I took another and said, um, no I can't. Last week I put the coffee on and stood there bleary-eyed and when it was done, I realized I hadn't put any coffee in there. I think I have a few things on my mind.

I've been super busy with school - creating & updating course modules and then standing up to teach them. I finished my first video course module on Thursday and other than a few perfectionist changes, I like it very much. We'll see what the students think of this grand experiment when they see it this week.

I promised in my last post that I'd tell you about the pumpkin clusterf*ck I made for Thanksgiving. It could be a whole post in itself, so we'll see if I get it done by next Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow I pick up my friend K and her little daughter P at the airport. I'm very excited. They're coming in to Paris for a few weeks to celebrate Christmas and New Years with me. They've never been out of the US except to Mexico, so it will be so cool to show them around Paris. After 4 years living with Ebenezer Scrooge, it will be fun for me to once again have a tree and celebrate a holiday I've always loved, with people I love. I've been itching to get a tree and decorate, but am waiting for their arrival so we can all do it together. Now, if I could just get Santa to make an appearance...

My illustrious government is getting closer and closer to finalizing the healthcare bill and killing my grandmother. I would be very worried about this, except she's already dead. Whew. I wonder where they'll be setting up the new death panels? Will we all have to make an appointment at our local town hall and defend ourselves in front of The Socialists? I can see all of us pleading, "Please let me live, Mr. Marx! I still have so much to contribute to the world." Well, all of you will be pleading. I'll be enjoying The Socialists' medicine over here in France. So far, based on all the grandmothers I see out on the streets, they haven't implemented death panels. I'm sure it will start any moment, based on what Sarah Palin has been telling us.

Tiger Woods is getting crucified in the press. I imagine they'll set up impeachment proceedings at any moment, and start inspecting cum stains and soggy cigar butts for evidence. All the righteous funda-mental-ist Krishtians will rise up in indignation about that black boy who has the balls (and very large cock, of course) to fuck white wimmens and models. How very stereotypical of him. Thank The Lourd there's no black boy in the White House, or we'd be witnessing flagrant rapaciousness upon the well-groomed White House lawns and atop George Washington's desk and even the satanic growth of watermelons and pig's feet in the White House garden. What's that? Oh. Woops!

Meanwhile, back at The Family C-Street ranch, David Vitter is fucking prostitutes and wearing diapers inflagrante (no, that's not a flaming French dish, and from what I hear, she wasn't either), Mark Sanford receives a get-outa-jail-free card as his wife divorces him so that he can run off with his Argentinian paramour. But it's true, tear-inducing love, dontcha know, so that excuses everything. Nevadan son-of-a-casino-owner (or son of a something else) and silver-haired (and evidently -tongued) John Ensign gets one-upped by the cuckolded husband of his fuckee. Woops! Chip Pickering got into a Pickering Pickle, also too. Chip n' Mark n' John all voted to impeach Clinton, so I'm sure they will vote to impeach themselves at any moment. Oh, and we can't forget Conservative California Republican Michael Duvall's bragging to embarrassed colleagues (on tape! how unfortunate...for us) about his girlfriend's dripping, cum-filled eye-patch undies. What a Panty Pirate he turned out to be! Yo ho ho and a bottle of Yum!

These are the conservative Krishtian white guys whose peccadilloes get a smattering of press coverage and who stay snugly in office so they can fight to the death to "preserve marriage" by denying the civil rights of gay people to marry. And where is the Krishtian outrage at their behavior? Uh. Nowhere. Because, of course (Lisa slaps forehead), all they have to do is say they're sorry (very very sorry) and they're forgiven! This all makes a lot of sense to me, as I'm sure it does to you.

Ahhh, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

Speaking of Woops! (Back there, a few paragraphs, I said it. A couple of times. Pay attention now, children.) I was packed like a sardine in the Metro the other morning and when the door miraculously closed without cutting off anybody's body parts, the train lurched to a start and threw a woman into me. She said, "Woops!" and she was French. I didn't expect this. I expected Oop-lah! She must be tainted by foreigners. Any moment now, she'll be watering down her coffee.

I'm just noticing that I said f*ck when referring to pumpkins and fuck when referring to politicians. It must mean that I feel more respect for pumpkins than for politicians. I'm sure this surprises you. I also just realized that I wrote about politics and religion in my Life And Times Of Lisa Wines blog, which is a no-no. I try to separate church and state from my sordid life, I really do. But I have failed, just as my government's representatives do on a daily basis. Oop-lah!

Thanksgiving In Paris 2009

2009-11-29T15:22:00.009+01:00

I worked all Thanksgiving day. The French don't celebrate Thanksgiving because they didn't murder American Indians and steal their land and shove the whiskey-sotted, small-pox-scarred survivors onto reservations. Oh, I'm sure the French murdered somebody over the last 100 years or so and at least tried to steal their land (after all, it's a country that has been and still is run by white men, so it's an easy bet) and they have their own celebration for that. And in America, I imagine we don't recognize any other country's traditions, either. Other than Cinco de Mayo, but that's just an excuse to get drunk and eat chips and salsa. And if we happen to encounter anyone from another country in a shop or on the street, we say, "Speaky dee Eenglish, wetback?" Or some such thing as that. So much for the "Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free." Oh, I forgot, the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French. Damn socialists.

But, I digress.

It was a long day - standing up and bloviating in front of students from 9-5. But it was satisfying, since they laughed at at least one of my jokes and I got to say the word "bullshit" in reference to corporate America. Some might call this heaven.

As I trudged wearily but happily home, I stopped off at my local, fittingly named L'Insolent. I used to go to the other local, Desperado's, but they have new owners and a new name, and I don't feel as welcome. I used to tell people that I lived somewhere in between Insolence and Desperation, but now I can't say that any more.

Thomas and Teddy, the Iranian-born, French-raised owners of L'Insolent were in the midst of their shift change but welcomed me to the bar and gave me a Picon Bierre (beer with a dash of orange bitters). I perused the menu and lo and behind, the special was Dinde Normande. "Dinde?" you may ask. So did my former boyfriend when we first arrived in Paris and would spend hours exploring the exotic magic of the local grocery store. "What do you think din-dee is?" He asked. I shook my head, fixated on the fact that I knew he was slaughtering the pronunciation and wondering myself if it was pronounced danduh or dahnduh. You might think you could look at a piece of flesh in the grocery store and know immediately which animal it came from. But you would be mistaken. Well, dinde is turkey in French. And Dinde Normande is turkey in a Normandy-style cream sauce.

The turkey was lovely and tender. I could cut it with a fork. I ate and watched the constant horn-honking, near-death traffic confrontations on the busy corner and all of the people scurrying home in the rain. I had warm apricot tart for dessert and Thomas, who is always trying to make me stay longer so I can keep him company, plied me with some Armagnac. Finally, it was time to go home and I realized I'd forgotten my umbrella, so Thomas gave me his. It was kind of him, and also it was like girls who leave their underpants at a guy's house. It's an excuse to go back. Thomas wants me to come back, and so I will.

Earlier in the week, one of my students asked if she could make a short announcement in the class, and I said yes. She said, "You guys...(such an American phrase)...I'm having an American Thanksgiving dinner at my place Friday night, so please email me or come talk to me at the break and tell me if you're coming, so that I'll know how much food to make." I raised my hand a tiny bit and said, "Um. Can I come?" Ha! Inviting myself! Terrible. Of course she's going to say yes. Poor girl. But I was lonely for a Thanksgiving meal and therefore, had no shame.

She lived right near the Eiffel Tower, so it was a bit of a trek for me. And as usual, I suffer from the always-early disease, and left my apartment an hour ahead of time. I stopped into my local Franprix and bought a bottle of Mercier, a Champagne that I love. There was an "incident" somewhere along line 13 (yawn, tell em something new) and the crowds on the platform and in the train were massive. Me and the Mercier were crushed in between woolly coats, listening to everyone breathe.

Finally, I popped above ground right along the Seine and the Eiffel Tower was sparkling in blue and white lights, as it does every hour on the hour. I walked across the Pont d'Alma and watched the wind stir up waves in the Seine. As I walked past the Quai Branly museum, someone came up behind me and said, "Is that you?" It was one of my students, a handsome Brazilian. We walked the rest of the way and when we got inside the building and into the beautiful glass and wrought-iron-filigreed elevator, we got stuck. It was stopping halfway between floors, so the door wouldn't open. He kept pushing the buttons and we'd go up to the 5th, then down to the 3rd and up to the 4th, but no luck. I started to think that we might just have to sit down and start drinking my Mercier and his beer. But alas, we finally got to the ground floor and escaped. We were relegated to the winding, red-carpeted stairs.

Inside the apartment, a few people had arrived before me (thank you!) and it smelled like heaven. There was a huge roasted turkey on the counter, two roasted chickens, creamy mashed potatoes, au gratin potatoes, lentils with fried onions on top and stuffing. Other students brought dishes from their own countries - Japanese sushi, Moroccan eggplant (incredibly good) and a green vegetable soup with chick peas. In the end, I think there were about 40 students there, et moi. I was honored that they included me.

The coup de gras was dessert. My student announced that she had New York cheesecake and pineapple upside down cake, among other things. Oh my. Now, I've actually had Junior's cheesecake in New York and my mother used to make pineapple upside down cake all the time when we were kids, so I was drooling. And I wasn't disappointed. Both were delicious and authentic. When I complimented my host, she was happy to know that her food was authentic and said, "I just went to Thanksgiving.com and got the recipes. I couldn't get Philadelphia cream cheese, of course, so I used mascarpone." Well, there ya go. Student ingenuity at its best.

The familiar sound of American football was never in the background that evening, like it was when I was growing up. But suddenly there was loud salsa music and a Venezuelan student started teaching the girls to dance salsa. "Madame Wines! Madame Wines! You must dance." They didn't have to twist my arm. I got up and moved my hips as if I still felt sexy, which I don't. So it was a nice change for me. Recently, bad-boy Teddy at L'Insolent told me as I was standing at the bar that he'd be right back and then he'd throw me down onto the bar. He says things like this. Strange, but true. I said, "OK, I'll go home and find my sexy body and be right back, too. I know it's somewhere. In a box probably. But I'll try real hard to find it."

So, I danced and sweated off the huge meal and had a grand time. I talked for a while with one of my students' boyfriends about mortgage-backed securities, debt risk tranches and the worldwide financial crisis. He works at the same bank where they busted that guy for his risky trading. I can't tell you what he told me, but if you were following the case at all, you'd know what he said. Then I spoke to a Chinese student who is from the town where they had the terrible earthquake last year. We laughed about cultural differences - Chinese, French and American. Another student's boyfriend was from College Station, Texas, where I know I've been at some vague point in my corporate life, probably staying in a no-tell motel on my way from somewhere and going to somewhere else. I probably got stuck there on the way to Waco. Who knows. But when I said, "Remind me of where College Station is." he showed me on his face. Houston was his left cheek, Austin his right cheek, and College Station was his nose.

Another student's boyfriend said, "I think it's amazing that you would come to a party thrown by students. French teachers would never do this. They think that they must maintain their distance in order to maintain respect and control." Ah. And they're probably right. But I see my students as fellow human beings, who have as much to teach me as I have to teach them. Unfortunately for me, I've always seen titles - like Professor, Vice President, CEO, etc. - as illusions. Which means that I never gave corporate owners and managers the bloated respect they desired. I have respect for all human beings, because they're human. If I suddenly put on a suit and call myself a Professor, do I instantly require respect just because of the title? If I do, it's a mirage. If I teach them something worthwhile, that they can use in their life and career, then I am a Professor.

I decided around midnight that I'd head home and leave them to their partying. Filled with wonderful food and the graciousness of my students' hospitality, I walked back to the Metro. I'm thankful to have the opportunity to live here, meet and talk to students from all over the world and hopefully give them some useful tools that will serve them well.

This wasn't the only Thanksgiving meal I had. On Saturday night I was invited to a lovely feast, that I'll tell you about soon. Especially the hilarious clusterf*ck of a pumpkin dish that I made. But for now, I'll sign off since I have to prepare for school tomorrow. À Bientôt!

Miracle On Taitbout Street

2009-11-27T10:32:00.005+01:00

OK, so...Remember how I told you all about the big bad French post office? Well...

I had a fun little experience courtesy of my young Irish friend who worked at a horrid Paris restaurant called Indiana Cafe this summer. It's a terrible place, so don't go there when you visit Paris. Of course, if you're in Paris, you want to go where the Parisians go, not to some fake-ass supposedly American-style eatery. Right? RIGHT? OK, now that we have that sorted out...

It's an easy place for the Irish girls to get jobs for the summer, since Indiana evidently only hires girls for waitress jobs and only hires boys for management jobs. Another reason to hate it. But the girls need their spending money to buy 1.20E wine bottles and .75E baguettes and go sit on the steps of Sacre Couer at 3AM and celebrate their Irishness. I'm all for this kind of behavior, even though I go to sleep at 9PM and can only dream of being Irish.

At the end of each summer, the girls went back to Ireland, undoubtedly without their virginity intact, and one of them asked me to go over to Indiana and pick up their last paycheck BECAUSE ALL THOSE SMART MANAGER MEN CAN'T FUCKING FIGURE OUT HOW TO PUT A CHECK IN A FUCKING ENVELOPE AND PUT A FUCKING STAMP ON IT AND MAIL IT TO FUCKING IRELAND.

Well, neither can I. And I'm afraid of the post office, also too.

So, I put it off. And the penniless Irish girl had to sustain herself on a diet of Guinness (that's ok, it's like drinking bread) while she waited for me to gather my courage, find the restaurant on my map, figure out the Metro trip, walk completely around Place Clichy looking for the damn place, walk in and ask, in French, for the check. And then, of course, I had to PUT THE FUCKING CHECK IN AN ENVELOPE AND BUY A FUCKING STAMP AND MAIL IT TO IRELAND. In other words, go to the dreaded post office.

My poor little Irish girl was growing faint from months of Guinness and pleaded with me to go get the check. I enlisted the help of my friendly ex-pat G, asking her to go with me on this trek into the wilderness. She said, "We better call them first." This is why we all have friends. She called the "manager." He said, "We have no record of any person named Lisa Wines being given permission by said former girl employee to pick up said check." G had the temerity to ask the "manager" why he couldn't just PUT THE FUCKING CHECK IN AN ENVELOPE AND MAIL IT TO IRELAND." He said, "I know. It isn't me, it's my boss." Weasel. So, I had to ask my Irish girl to write a letter - the manager actually said he would accept a print-out of an email from her to me - giving me permission to pick up the check.

Then I had to print the mother fucker. I don't have a printer. So I went down to G's place and her printer wasn't working. It took me two days to get a printer, plus I had to go enlist the aid of my friend from Kazakhstan, who has a van. Twice. Luckily, she needed a printer, also too. But she doesn't drive. So she got her French pal to drive us to the store. Twice. This is because Madame Kazak called the store before we went, to make sure the printer was in stock. (If you're starting to see a theme here, of always calling first before making the trek, you would be right.) And after cursing our way, in French, English and Russian (OK, don't ask me why Madame Kazak curses in Russian. It's a long story), through Armistice Day holiday traffic, jumping out of the van with horns a honkin' and sending Mr. Van Driver off to park, we found out that there were no printers in stock.

It took our pal longer to park the van than for us to find out there wasn't a printer to be had.

We did get the cashier at the store to make sure there were two printers at their other store waaaaaaaaaaaay across town, but it was too late to make our way over there. So we reconnoitered the next day and bought our printers.

Now I had my printed letter and my passport in hand, because they also told us that I had to show them my ID. SHOW THEM my ID. OK? Just show them. I arrived at the restaurant and walked into the glory of orange plastic booths that instantly brought me back to 1965 and all the Pennsylvania Turnpike roadside Howard Johnson's we stopped at on the way to my grandmother's farm in Canada. Except this time, I didn't have to pee and I wasn't in the mood for fried clams or one of their 28 flavors of ice cream. Just gimmee the freakin' check, K?

"Je suis ici pour la cheque de la Irish Girl." (Fab French, n'est-ce pas?)

I hand the boy manager my passport and the printed letter. He says, "I have to have a COPY of your passport." #@! and furthermore, &*^??!!! He says, "I know. It's not me, it's my manager." Well son, you suck, and so does he. (I didn't have time to look that up in my handy dandy iPhone French translator which I haven't downloaded yet God knows why.)

I walked around the corner and made a copy of my passport and returned with my jowls wobbling angrily about my frownie mouth. This always scares people. I'm not sure why.

So, Lisa, you might be saying, what about the post office? Ahh.

After addressing the envelope with a typical Irish address...

Miss Irish Girl
Just down te rowd, past the big tree and after the leprechaun, up the wee creak and across the mill bridge
Old Cotton Mill, County Doohickey, Ireland

...I was late for work so I shoved the envelope in my purse and ran to the Metro. After work, I realized that there was a post office right down the street from work. So, with trepidation (because I had to BUY A STAMP! OMG!), I walked in the door.

There were no lines. The place was huge and sunny and clean and shiny. A very nice middle-aged man smiled brightly at me and started babbling happily in French. I just stared at him because he was wearing postal employee garb and he was actually OUT FROM BEHIND THE DESK and like, smiling and shit. My mouth was open as I pushed my envelope into his hands. His eyes lit up. "Ah! l'Irlande!" Wow, I thought. He's a Frenchman and he knows where Ireland is even though it's closer than New York is to Philly? Amazing. And then this nice man walked me over to the little machine and put my letter on the little scale and dialed up the postage for Ireland and pointed to the coin slot and smiled at me so I'd put my money in there.

Freaking amazing. I felt so loved and welcome, that I didn't want to leave. For a second, I even thought I'd ask him if I could close my post office bank account and get my 6.95E. But I figured that would be pushing it. I waved goodbye to my new best friend and walked back to the Metro in a daze.

Last week, I had a friend in the states ask me to go buy something (I can't say what. He might kill me.) and ship it to him as fast as possible. I started to gag at the thought of this great feat, until I thought of my nice man at the post office near work. I actually got excited about going back. But my natural pessimism won out and I figured that he was so cheerful that they'd already fired his ass.

I walked in with my package and I had no idea how to send anything big internationally and quickly. I stood in the middle of the huge place and scanned the room. There were all these pretty mailing boxes of different sizes and in pretty colors. A very nice young girl came up to me, "Bonjour Madame!" Then she said something that looked like she wanted to know if she could help me, so I told her, "Je voudrais envoyer ceci aux Etats-Unis." I looked it up ahead of time and repeated it 87.6 times on the way there. I even knew how to say that I wanted it to get there fast, but not cost me too much. She pointed to one of the boxes and its reasonable price, then took me to the desk where the nice man from the other day was standing and helping a lady. I waved goodbye to her and stood waiting. Until a really nice middle-aged woman came up to me smiling and asked if she could help me TOO.

They all got into the act. The women stood on either side of me while I filled out the shipping form, with the guy behind the desk chatting away. They corrected my spelling on my contents description. They had typical French side conversations about whether or not I should get additional insurance or just take the normal 30E. It's like they do in restaurants when they argue about the perfect wine for each course. It can take an hour before they decide, but the right wine is always worth it.

As the man was ringing up my purchase, the other woman showed me these cool gift cards that the post office is selling for the holidays. She showed me all the participating stores and how much money my lucky friends could save using the card. I ohhh'd and ahh'd and said I'd think about it. And she smiled and said, "Certainement!"

So, this wasn't a dream. Because I've been there twice, and both times, everybody was nice as pie. Warm, buttery, apple tartish kind of pie. Here's the address, in case any of my Paris compatriots want to behold the miracle: 78 Rue Taitbout, 75009 Paris

Solitaire

2009-11-11T10:59:00.001+01:00

I found this unfinished blog post today, which I started this summer while staying at my brother's place in Arizona. I thought I'd finish it off and post it.

I was sitting in my brother's TV room this morning with my laptop. If my brother had to pay the annual French TV tax, he'd be broke. There are 7 TVs in his house. And yes, you have to pay a TV tax here, whether you're a renter or own your home. Since my TV is my laptop, I can get away with not paying...for now...until the gendarmes get wind of my lawlessness.

My brother was in the nearby office on the desktop computer and my brother visiting from Philly was standing at the kitchen table in front of his laptop. All three of us were silent, while others in the house were chatting and bustling around us. Misc T was probably slaying some bees or driving a rented back hoe into the back yard to dig for a pool. I don't know. I just can't keep up with her. Lovely Reggie was probably doing her hair...again.

I tore myself away from my laptop to make a trip to the bathroom and then get some water in the kitchen, passing both brothers on the way. That's when I realized that all three of us were doing the same thing. Playing solitaire. What a revelation.

I've been playing solitaire on my laptop for years. I play plain old solitaire. I use it in between work sessions to clear my mind. Many, many times when I'm writing, I get stuck. So I just play solitaire until a solution bubbles up to the surface. It always does. Once, when I was still working in corporate America, my boss walked in while I was playing solitaire. I didn't bother to hide it, because it's a productivity tool for me, not a distraction from my work. He burst out laughing, but it was a sardonic laugh. He was really saying, "I can't believe, with all we have to do, that you're playing a game." I said, "You know those 30,000 pages of software specifications that I pumped out in one month while I also tested the software and wrote all the website content and the marketing emails? I did that in between playing thousands of games of solitaire." In other words, shut up.

But, I digress.

My brothers play a more complicated form of solitaire, which requires thought and strategy. I'm not interested in that. Nor do I keep track of my winnings or losses. I just want to click and click and click and I don't care if I win or lose. I need a mindless activity while my subconscious processes my stuckness.

But I suddenly realized, when I saw what the three of us were doing, that my two brothers and I are solitary souls. We keep to ourselves and join others when we're required to do so - out of social or familial or work obligation. Most of the time, we'd like to be left alone. When I used to travel for business and stayed at my brother's home in Philly, I'd wake up at oh-dark-thirty (my Arizona brother's phrase) and find him sitting on the couch in the dark, with a coffee cup in his hand. "Hey," I'd say. "Hey," he'd say. I'd get my own cup of coffee and then go back up to take a shower. I know he was sitting there thinking about his life, hoping his kids didn't have to have a back-breaking job like he had, worrying about paying the bills, regretting his past. Once he said to me, "I'm not a priority in my own home. First there are the kids, then the cats, then the gerbil, then me." Ah.

Staying with my Arizona brother this time, I've gotten up before sunrise to find him downstairs in one of the loungers in the TV room, flipping through channels or watching a movie. Escape. Escape from the worries of his mind. Will his business survive the recession? Will his kids find their way? Will my father fall down in the shower again or what will my mother do when my father is gone? Will that damn sister of his ever get her crap out of his garage? (I just added that because it's one of my early-morning worries.)

Solitaire. It's comforting, mind numbing, necessary. For my brothers and for me. What would our lives be like if we emptied the worry from our minds? Would that new form of silence be deafening? Would we worry that without all of our worrying the world, and all the people we love, would fall down in the shower? Will planes lose their lift and come crashing down into the earth? Is our worrying the only thing left that keeps the world from exploding?

I'm afraid to find out.