Travels with Poppy, the Glamour Don't

Greetings, Internet. I'm blogging from a Best Western in Elyria, Ohio, which is just as glamorous as it sounds. We drove for 14 hours today, and I'm makeup-free. And I'm wearing my summer travel outfit: a black t-shirt, a pair of olive green cargo pants, flip-flops, and piles of jewelry.

The jewelry breaks one of my own rules, because I firmly believe that it looks younger and/or hipper to resist the temptation to pile on jewelry. But what happens when you've finished packing the car and find your favorite bracelet and ring next to the kitchen sink? You put them on and clank around all day.

The flip flops are for ease and comfort and for those moments when I want to stick my feet up on the dashboard. Everyone knows it's tacky to keep your shoes on when you put your feet on the dashboard.

The black t-shirt is for when I'm drinking a full cup of coffee and hit a bump in the road. OK, it doesn't look so hot, but it beats wearing a bib. It's pretty sad the way I can predict spilling food on myself. Sad, but accurate.

And the cargo pants not only give me a place to put my phone when I'm pumping gas, they also give me a place to stash the other stuff I discover that we've forgotten to pack. Which is why I spent a good part of the day carrying around a big tube of toothpaste. "Is that a tube of toothpaste," Mr. Buxom asked, "or are you just glad to see me?"

Obviously, I need to face the facts: 1. summer is almost over, and 2. I need to clean up my act!

backfromoutoftownjusthaveaminutetopost

I always think I'm going to do a real trip report, or actually, you know, discuss something I've been doing in some depth. I mean, when was the last time I was in a synagogue listening to someone chant the Torah? It's been 40 years, people. You'd think I'd have something heartfelt and meaningful to say. An observation or two. But actually, I don't.

Anyway, since we last spoke, I've been to Princeton, New Jersey, New York City, and Rhode Island. I've hung out with my husband's extended family, whom I last saw in 2008 at the hippy wedding in California. I've seen my husband's first cousins once removed become B'not Mitzvah.
(I've seen a squillion 13 year old girls in spaghetti strapped minidresses and platform sandals reading congratulatory letters and squeeing.)

I've eaten in the Yankee Doodle Tap Room at the Nassau Inn, where the painting over the bar is by Norman Rockwell, and Michelle Obama has been added to the Princeton notables on the wall. Which kind of balances out the Donald Rumsfeld picture, if you ask me.

Princeton is the prettiest Ivy League campus I've ever seen. And the town has fabulous shopping.

Then there's New York, and again, I should have something to say about that, but here you go: Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, Times Square, The Lion King.

For food there was Sarge's delicatessan, Markt for Belgian beer and frites, Moco for great sushi and yummy cocktails, Fagliolini, and Sardi's for supper after The Lion King.

I had raw tuna at Markt and steak Tartare at Sardi's. Two raws in one day. And yet, I live.

We bought a couple of bottles of wine at The Wine Shop on Lex. It was a tiny hole in the wall stuffed with racks of wine. The owners were Asian and the only other customers were burly Russian construction workers buying nips of vodka. There was classical piano music playing in the background. We stopped into Winfield-Flynn, too--this time to get a present for my husband's father. Their stereo was playing jazz. (Honestly, the liquor stores were so civilized, I could have shopped for booze all day.) Anyway, they turned us on to Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur.

After that we drove to Rhode Island for Thanksgiving with my husband's parents, and give my father-in-law his liqueur. We stayed in a hotel that is trying really hard to be hip and chic, but let's face it; it's Rhode Island. When a groovy loft-style hotel throws a pajama party and people show up practically naked, it doesn't seem fresh and unexpected; it just leaves Mr. Buxom wondering whether prostitution is legal in Rhode Island. After all, prostitution always seems to be legal in places where nobody would otherwise want to go, like Nevada and Amsterdam. And Rhode Island.

And then today we flew home and I have a mountain of laundry to do.

But I also have a mountain of Buffy disks to watch, so once again, it balances out.

We interrupt this series of trip reports for a brief announcement

I'm still in Salisbury, but in about an hour I'll be boarding a bus to take me to Heathrow and home.

I'm sorry to leave England.

But I'm not sorry to not be drinking English coffee.

You would never believe I'm on vacation

Because yes, I'm still in New Hampshire, but I have no pretty pictures for you. I'm too busy discovering the difference between renting and owning.

Renting means that if there are problems with the septic tank, they are someone else's. Owning means you are delighted to discover that you can actually buy Septic-Aid (or whatever it's called) on Amazon.com. I didn't really know much about septic tanks, and oh, Internet, I didn't want to. But now I've discovered that I can have it delivered in 24 hours--plenty of time for the millions and millions of bacteria to convert the contents of the septic tank into sweet-smelling yogurt, or whatever it is that these bacteria turn things into--before a bunch of guests arrive on Saturday.

See, I still don't know much about septic tanks, but I beleve someone has been flushing penicillin or some substance that septic tanks don't like, and now our toilets feel mournful and sluggish. And so I will be giving them the equivalent of a spoonful of Geritol, and you don't even know what that is, Internet, because you are too young.

I will never be as young as you are, Internet.

My sister's getting married on Saturday, did I forget to tell you? Well, it's right that this is coming as something of a surprise to you, Internet, because I just found out that I have to give some kind of luncheon on Saturday. Luckily for me a couple of local catering joints have what quaint elderly types like me call An On-Line Presence, so I can shop for caterers while I drink wine and try to decide whether I'm just imagining things about the toilet.

And now, to end on a more positive note, the Plat du Jour.

I took this picture while I was on my way to Sears to buy a new dryer, as the old one is acting even older than I am, and it's time to send it off to the Bide-A-Wee Rest Home for Discarded Appliances and install the hip young trophy dryer. Naturally, I was not in a good mood. Another time when I was feeling like a home owner, and not in a good way. But then! I saw this:

It's a Ford Cobra. And check out the plate!

I did really well not to rear end him while I was trying to get close enough to take the picture.

Things to do when you can't seem to get off your lazy fat ass

Start by not waking up until 11:00. And then let it go downhill from there.

1. When you're a lame-o, the laptop always beckons. With a cup of tea at your side, and still wearing a pair of cornea-searing hot pink Lilly Pulitzer pajamas, get straight to work.

2. Check Bloglines for updated blogs. Head over to Badger's. Read and enjoy.

3. Methodically go through Badger's links. Add everything promising to your Bloglines feeds.

4. Worry that so many people are dealing with cancer.

5. Upload pictures from camera to laptop and from laptop to Flickr.

6. Answer telephone. Find out sister wants to bring the kids to the beach.

7. Go to beach.

8. On the way to the beach, try to decide whether you're more of a lame-o for giving up a thriving career as a pajamas blogger, for spending so much time on the computer, or for doing what your big sister wants you to do.

As it turns out, I don't actually like long walks in the rain.

My pal L. came and visited with her daughter--even though they were here last year. A vote of confidence, yay! I'm not the world's worst hostess!

L. likes to go for walks. We always brought our cameras. L. has a fine eye for the picturesque.
So from time to time she ordered me to take a picture.


Above: a window filled with cranberry glass. Below: part of a headstone from a local cemetery.
It was lovely. But the clouds looked threatening.


Just after I took this picture


of the oldest house I've seen yet, the rain clouds burst open and we scurried to hide under a tree. We ended up under a little place that was sticking out over someone's garage door.

A few vans passed. I wondered what was wrong that these people didn't ask us if we needed help, but I figured it was because they were commercial vans and didn't have time. I decided to flag down the next car. The driver might have a cell phone.

A car came by. A van, but a passenger van. It was That Stud Muffin I Married come to rescue us. He'd driven all over the island looking for us.

He took us to the lobster place where we bought half a dozen lobsters.


All ended well.

You don't get to go out until you've unpacked.

First you have to get your stuff out of the Poppy bag and put it in the fake Botticelli dresser. Everyone knows that.

Then you get to go out for a walk.



Everything is very scenic.



People around here like window boxes.



Say hello to the history museum. It's so little and cute, you'd never guess there was actually a lot of history around here. But there is. A 1774 Revolutionary War skirmish where colonists stole gunpowder from Fort William and Mary, and the signing of the 1905 Sino-Japanese treaty. So there, doubters and nay-sayers!

If you don't have a purple front door, you are no one in this town. NO ONE.





And of course, you have to remember not to act like a

Update on the stolen purse and my current state, which is of such an anxiety, mon Dieu!

So, just on a whim, (because you all know I really want to climb back onto a plane and fly to Paris to pick up my recovered bag at the stolen bag holding facility in Paris) I sent an email to a former professor of mine, who, from time to time, spends a year in Paris running the junior year abroad program.

And guess what? It turns out that he wasn't running the program, but he happens to be in Paris this week, and he's agreed to help.

So right now, he and I are busy emailing back and forth. I've sent him scans of the letter from my new French boyfriend, Chief Inspector Dreyfus of the Recovered Handbags Department, and a scan of my passport, and a letter from me, telling the French police--in French--to pretty please hand my purse over to my former professor. (Which my former professor had to write for me, because as everyone who reads this blog already knows, I speak some French, but I am not tres fluent.)

So at the moment, I am COMPLETELY mental with a combination of excitement and suspense. Strangely enough, I'm also retroactively loving my vacation more and more. My daughter feels the same way. Like all of a sudden our vacation has morphed from this horrible ordeal where cruel French thieves conspire to make clodhopping Americans miserable to a warm and whimsical scene from a Jacques Tati movie. Can you hear the accordions playing, mes amis? Because I can.

Why you won't be seeing any pictures of my trip to Paris

Today, as I was perusing the menu at Les Deux Magots, in the St. Germaine-des-Pres neighborhood of the chi-chi Left Bank, some shithead came along and stole my purse. The black one that you can see on my bed in the picture just below.

In the purse (thank goodness, a cheapie from Target) there was:

my wallet (not cheap) with 150 Euros (and about 50 dollars, too)
my driver's license
about four credit cards
all those stupid cards you use at the grocery store, health club, etc.
my check book
my prescription sunglasses
my favorite lipstick case with my favorite lipstick
my camera with about 60 photographs of Paris, including cute ones of my kids posing in front of the promotional signs for the new Simpsons movie

and

MY FUCKING PASSPORT.

It's Saturday. So I won't be able to do anything about getting a new passport until Monday. So I probably won't be able to go back to Chicago until Tuesday.

And no, I didn't do this on purpose.

Packing

I'm packing. Not just my clothes, of course, but my children's, too.

And then I thought--hey, people are going to expect pictures. (They won't get them, but they'll expect them.) So I'd better, you know, charge the camera. And try to remember how it works. And upload all the pictures that are already on the memory card so I don't get to Paris only to discover that the memory is full.

So. Here.

And I'll just say this really fast and then go away for a week: I found a ton of pictures from Spring Break that I had totally forgotten about. So don't expect to be seeing shots of Paris any time soon.

Back to packing. Bye!

When you're a professional whiner, luxurious Bahamian cruises can't cramp your style

I thought I would take advantage of the free wireless internet service at the Orlando airport to copy and paste a rant from my Sent Email folder. I begin by replying to my friend's pleasure in my having to pay big bucks to read emails from her. And then I segue into a more general rant.

Aboard the Disney Wonder, At Sea

... I'm also paying to read myself. And I don't seem able to log the fuck off this expensive network, so even when I'm not using my laptop, I'm getting charged for connect time. Naturally I'm not happy about that. Sure, I enjoy throwing money around like all that water out there, but I'd like to get something for it, and unused internet connect time doesn't qualify.

The seawood wrap/massage thing I did this morning was pretty unpleasant. The seaweed wrap part of the event means you get painted all over with green goo in a chilly room, then wrapped up in one of those foil blankets they put on runners who have just completed a marathon, with some cotton blankets on top of that. Then I got a foot rub instead of the scalp massage because having just spent $45 on a shampoo/blow-out, I was damned if someone was going to rub oil all over my scalp. I suppose the foot rub was pleasant enough, but I spent the whole time thinking about the invitations I haven't yet ordered for the fundraiser I'm chairing in June.

Then I had to drag my seaweed-covered body into a shower stall while trying to keep a towel on my head to protect my hair from the shower spray, not to mention the seaweed. Where I used some kind of shower gel and then some kind of scrubby shit to get the seaweed off. I could have hung out in there for a long, long time because it was warm, unlike the room with the seaweed.

Then the masseuse gave me a back and lower leg massage. The parts where I was lying on my stomach were not excruciating, but not comfortable, either, since my boobs got in the way, and I couldn't really breathe with my face on a terrycloth-covered donut. I think my head ended up a bit lower than my torso, and my sinuses took the opportunity to fill. So there I was, mouth breathing and trying to prop my head up while holding my breasts off the table. And then, the masseuse found some knotted muscles and beat them up for a while, and then, when that wasn't enough torment for her to inflict, she went at my right scapular like a terrier with a bone.

I suppose I ended up all relaxed and shit, but it's been an hour and I'm already back to my usual tense self, complete with my signature loudly crackling shoulder joints. Not to mention that I'm supposed to be drinking water to help flush out toxins, but I hate water, so I'm on my second latte. I figure I might as well give the water some more toxins to flush, in case I they all came out in the seaweed wrap.

So the relaxed/detoxed effects lasted all of twenty minutes--but what's a girl to do? I suppose I should just stop typing and mousing and using the internet. Also, I guess I should knock off sitting upright, brushing my teeth, or using my facial muscles in any way whatsoever.

Because basically, everything I like to do makes me tense. Life makes me tense. Tense is my natural state.

But natural is good, right? So what's with all the seaweed and oil? I feel like a cross between a maki roll and one of those shallow saucers they fill with oil in"Italian" restaurants because they don't think you like butter with your bread. Because, honestly, more oil please; I simply can't get enough of the stuff. Don't stint, JUST POUR SOME MORE ON.

And another thing. Do they all absolutely have to try to sell me seaweed bath salts and cellulite oil and other ridiculously unscientific mumbo-jumbo-laden overpriced products?

Are you getting the idea that I loathe spa services?

Well, I bought some AHA cream and some night cream. And a bottle of some kind of greeze (grease with a Southern accent) for my cuticles and heels and even hair, should I become emboldened to greeze up my head with it (only to have to spend an hour in the shower scrubbing it out ...)

All in all between the services, the tips, the products, and the gold Disney Cruise charm and chain I bought myself because I fucking felt like it, plus the expensive internet time I can't manage to turn off, I expect I added about $1,000 to our credit cards.

ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

xxx,
Name Withheld Upon Request

p.s. It's been an hour and a half and I'm still slippery.

If you're reading this, you should know this:

I'm not. My internet access is all but non-existent.

So I'll have to save the thrilling tale of our journey to Walt Disney World for one of those long winter evenings, as this is my first internet access since Wednesday, and I doubt I'll have much time for composing witty blog entries while on board a cruise ship.

BUT you need to know two things:

I have been hanging around with the Jokes.

And I'm staying in Tuvalu.

If you're feeling like shit / And you need a quick lift / Caffeine

I'm completely freaking out over EVERYTHING, but especially over other people's caffeine levels. Or the lack thereof.

Blackbird says she hasn't had caffeine in 22 years. That's a long time. I haven't known how to drive a car that long, but I've been driving around like the bat in the adage for a fairly long stretch, and always in a highly caffeinated state, or at the very least, wishing I were. I cannot imagine doing without for 22 years.

Then there's Joke, who claims to always drink espresso. With which, frankly, I can't be bothered. The cups are so small. The coffee, while robust in aroma, is frankly, pallid as to caffeine level. And the whole experience is over so soon. You might as well try to stay awake by sniffing the aroma from someone else's cup.

How on earth do they get anything done?

Me, I've got fifty-million things to do, and I'm pumping seriously heavy mugs of coffee to try to keep up with at least some portion of my to-do list. Which at the moment, includes the following:

1. Do laundry, empty refrigerator, tidy house, pack for Spring break.
2. Don't forget the sunscreen.
3. Do any of my spring clothes fit?
4. Crash diet time.
5. Where are our bathing suits?
6. Passports!!!!!!
7. Oh my GOD is it too late to call Disney and book shore leave or whatever they call it?
8. The Jokes are going to join us in Disney World. But are we going to eat any meals together? Probably not, since no one has called Disney Dining to book tables for eight incredibly noisy people--HEY--at least seven of which are not I, so don't look at me, OK?
9. Fundraiser 1: review invitation copy; deal with invitation list; deal with caterer.
10. Fundraiser 2: compose invitation copy, find sample invitation that has been lost for weeks, find similarly lost check from corporate donor, freak out, nag committee members to do their jobs.
11. Inform all teachers who scheduled tests for Friday that (neener neener!) my son and daughter won't be here to take them.
12. Tidy house again so the turtle sitter won't think I'm a slob.
13. Book eyebrow and leg wax, manicure, pedicure, shampoo and blow out for Wednesday morning.
14. Freak out some more.
15. And then some more, for good measure.

You can see why I marvel over other people's lack of caffeine consumption. And that's exactly what I'm doing right now, while drinking yet another mug of coffee, and blogging like a squirrel on crack.