The Bidet Drinking Fountain

There was a band that pre-dated Lawsuit. It was called The Heffalumps. I sometimes get confused about which were Heffalumps songs and which are early Lawsuit songs. But I know "The Bidet Drinking Fountain" was Heffalumps.

I knew what a bidet was, of course, but I had never seen one (and so had a completely different mental image) until this trip, when we had a bidet in two of our hotel rooms.

This was our bathroom in St. Margherita Ligure and then our bathroom in Siena had a bidet as well.

Some of the women on the trip were repulsed by the idea of a bidet (Char said that she remembered a group that found it convenient for washing feet). I couldn't understand how a bidet was any more "disgusting" than a toilet would be.

I decided that when in Rome (or other parts of Italy) you should do what the Italians do, so I gave it a try. I became a bidet enthusiast. What a civilized, logical invention. I think this country should go with a platform of not only a chicken in every pot but a bidet in every bathroom.

Of course many of us in this country have tiny bathrooms. To put a bidet in our downstairs bathroom, for example, we'd have to give up any space to put your feet at all.

I recently bought this clever little doohickey that holds toilet paper. You hang it on the side of the tank. I thought that was really a good idea, not realizing until after I got home that there isn't enough space between the tank and the wall to hold the darn thing--so it sits on top of the tank.

If you can't put something the width of a roll of toilet paper next to your toilet, you sure as heck aren't going to be able to install a bidet.

However, we Americans are inventive people. And we're always up for improving something that seems to have worked for hundreds of years.

I did some research on toilet paper and discovered that it dates back to the Tang Dynesty in China (618-907 AD) when it was written, "They (the Chinese) are not careful about cleanliness, and they do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper."

The 16th century French satirical writer Francois Rabelais in his series of novels Gargantua & Pantagruel, discussing the various ways of cleansing oneself at the toilet, wrote that: "He who uses paper on his filthy bum, will always find his ballocks lined with scum", proposing that the soft feathers on the back of a live goose provide an optimum cleansing medium. (There are all sorts of problems I can envision if one is going to use live poultry to wipe one's bum!)

The Toilet Paper Museum (you just knew there had to be such a thing, right?) has pictures of early rolls of toilet paper (the first paper for sale for that use was folded flat sheets...my mother still recalls using pages of the Sears Roebuck catalog and I've heard references to corn cobs).

But there is nothing invented that can't be improved upon and the people who have brought you things to clean your toilet and your bathroom tub have now come up with "Comfort Wipes," a new method "to provide sanitary cleanliness."

"For over a hundred years we've been using toilet tissues the same old way. Now there's a better way with the extended reach and comfortable to use Comfort Wipe™. It grabs and holds the toilet tissue in perfect postions so you can easily wipe yourself. When you're done, just dispense the soiled tissue right in the toilet with the press of a button. Comfort Wipe™ extends your reach a full 18" while the anotomical design follows the contours of your body for perfect cleaning. It's perfect for everyone, especially if you have trouble easily reaching because of physical limitations such as bad shoulder or other mobility litimations. Now you'll never have to touch a dirty toilet tissue!"

I dunno. I'm kinda used to handling toilet paper and if I had to choose between the "Comfort Wipe" and a bidet, I'd take a bidet any day.

Long Day's Journey into Night

I love my mother. When everyone around me looks at me like I'm an escapee from a TB ward, she waves them off and says "she's had that cough since she was a little girl..."

And I have. Every single time I get any sort of respiratory "thing," whether serious or trivial, the ultimately settles in my lungs and stays there for at least a couple of weeks, sometimes as long as month, gradually working itself out over time. And so it is that on the end of the Trip Bug, I have the traditional cough, something I have not had for a blissful 2 years. Which is OK because I am used to it, my mother is used to it. I know that it's not nearly as serious as it sounds and I also know that there is no medicine which will help break it up--in 66 years, I have tried 'em all, believe me!

But the down side, of course, is, first, that people look at you like you have the plague, and second, it's difficult to sleep when your body wants to turn your lungs inside out.

I took Tylenol PM last night, desperately needing some sleep and it worked. For 2 hrs. By 1 a.m., I was wide awake, but managed to get back to sleep until 3. This is becoming my new normal--sleep 2 hrs, then get up, go back to sleep for another 2 hrs and then be awake for the rest of the day.

It's not so bad when you have nothing to do for the day, but I had a full day ahead of me. In the morning I was going to my mother's to meet with her, her stepson, and her investment broker about the status of her account. I had hoped we could do this tomorrow, when I didn't have a show to review at night, but apparently this was the only day that would work. So I set off, armed with 100+ photos of the trip that I had printed for her, thinking we would have time to go through them all.

As I hit highway 37, the road that crosses the Delta, I hit really, really bad traffic as far as the eye could see, through all the vegetation.

I called my mother to let her know that it appeared I would do the 21 miles of 2-lane highway at 5 mph. (In fact, about 15 minutes later, it finally cleared and I got there quicker than I expected.)

Ed was there and I gave her the package of photos and she said she'd enjoy looking at them later (after I'd gone, which means she won't have a clue what she's seeing and I won't have the fun of reliving the trip with her through the photos).

We eventually had lunch and then took off for the broker's office, discovering when we got there that the office had moved years ago. My mother didn't remember the name of the company, only knew that her broker was named "David" and hadn't thought to bring any paperwork with her, so we drove back home again and called him. It turned out the office moved two years ago, but it was close to her house, so David came over and we went through her portfolio, I got some sort of an idea of what her financial situation is, we agreed to move some stuff around, and eventually David left.

I was already sleepy, but had to rush home hoping to get a nap before I had to go review a show.

Highway 37 was not crowded, but it's 21 miles without any place to pull over and it was such a horrible struggle to stay awake.

(NOTE TO SELF: Michael Connelly is great audio for driving; Dean Koonz not so much. Koonz uses rich language that I suspect is better suited to be experienced visually...It was putting me to sleep!)

It's about 25 miles from my mother's to the first McDonald's. I barely made it, but the Mocha Latte was just what the doctor ordered -- a jolt of sugar and a jolt of caffeine in a big cup filled with ice that kept me awake all the way home.

Coming home, I had an accident. I had pulled into the driveway and thought I had my foot firmly on the brake when I turned toward the passenger seat to disconnect the iPod and gather up all my garbage before turning off the air conditioner. Apparently my foot wasn't as "firmly" placed on the brake as I thought and I ran into the wooden structure that hides the garbage cans. I knocked over the structure and the garbage cans, but fortunately no damage to anything and no dent to the fender of the car.

I needed sleep.

Walt got home shortly after I did and I brought him up to date on my day (and the accident) and then settled into the recliner to get some sleep, which is when the cough, which the Mocha Latte had quieted, took hold and after about 30 minutes, I gave up getting a nap.

The show was OK. It apparently got rave reviews in New York, but I was lukewarm to it, and when it was over, I was very, very sleepy. So it's only 10:30, but I'm going to had off to sleep and hope that I can make it until 3 a.m. (because I know that there is little chance that I can sleep through the night!). I'll leave writing the review for when I wake up and can't get back to sleep again!

Evolving Tastes

I napped this morning, falling asleep during a pre-recorded episode of Leverage. When I woke up, the recording had ended and I was now watching (shudder) Martha Stewart introduce ladies who ran a cupcake blog. Martha and the ladies were comparing their favorite cupcakes and Martha said that her favorite cupcake recipe was a coconut cupcake.

The cupcakes she showed, topped with fluffy white frosting and toasted coconut looked so good.

I realized how my tastes have changed over the years. When I was little, my godfather used to bring us boxes of Sees candy whenever he came to dinner. It always gagged me to unsuspectingly bite into a candy only to find it was a chocolate covered coconut. I hated coconut. It was one of the incentives for learning how to identify the contents of a bonbon by the design on top of it before biting into it (trust me--I know a coconut one!)

I probably still wouldn't go and buy a Mounds or Almond Joy bar today, but if I bite into a coconut candy I eat it, and I cook with coconut, loving the Indian and Thai dishes whose taste comes heavily from coconut milk, which tastes so much different from packaged sweetened coconut.

The Martha Stewart experience got me to thinking about the kinds of things that I never ate as a kid and now consider it a real joy to eat.

As a little kid I could not eat raw carrots.

It wasn't necessarily that I didn't like them, but I simply could not physically swallow them. No matter into how many tiny pieces I chewed them, they refused to go down my throat, even with the help of water.

My mother eventually stopped giving me raw carrots. I don't know when I was finally able to eat raw carrots, but ranch dressing is a powerful inducement, I guess. Now I can easily process raw carrots and though I don't cook carrots a lot, I do like them.

Mushrooms were another story. I don't suppose I had any problem swallowing them, but I hated them. Slimy things that nauseated me if I knew that I was eating one. I think that part of the resistance of kids to certain foods has something to do with being able to identify them. My kids, for example, hated zucchini but never had any problem choking down zucchini bread and had no idea when I hid zucchini in meat loaf or in soup.

Now I love mushrooms. I stuff 'em, sautee 'em, and add them to lots of foods.

One of my recent favorite fresh herbs is cilantro. I remember when even the smell of cilantro made me run from the food. It was that soapy flavor that I really hated. I suppose it was the whole explosion of Thai food that made me rethink how I really felt about cilantro. Now I can't get enough of it. I love it in most Mexican foods and love it in Thai food.

I really would like to say the same thing about goat cheese, but I just can't stand the taste. Or perhaps I haven't tried a mild enough brand. There was a girl in the dorm where I lived while I was attending UC Berkeley. She had grown up on a sheep farm and couldn't stand lamb in any form because she told me it smelled like an old sheep. I guess that's how I feel about goat cheese -- it smells like an old goat. I did have something recently (not on our trip) which I loved and later found out was goat cheese, but it sure wasn't the goat cheese I've tasted all these years.

Before we left on our trip, I watched the Rick Steeves video on So. France and was amused when a local woman took him into a fromagerie and had him smell a type of goat cheese which she became ecstatic about and told him it smelled like "the foot of an angel."

Look. I don't care if those feet never touch the ground as they fly around the heavens, but somehow the idea of eating something that smells like anybody's feet, whether earthly or heavenly, just isn't going to sell me on trying it!

Brunch with Bri

Tom, Laurel and Bri came to town this weekend to go to a 1st birthday party for Bri's cousin. We were able to catch up with them at Ned & Marta's for brunch this morning.

Walt had seen Bri recently, when he last went down to Santa Barbara (for Tom's beach BBQ while Jeri and I were in Italy), but I hadn't seen Bri since her birthday weekend in March, I don't think.

She's in gym classes now and loves playing with the exercise ball

She was also intrigued by Ned and Marta's treadmill.

Marta made a nice breakfast with something I'd never had before, believe it or not--biscuits and gravy. I know it's a staple in some parts of the country as a breakfast food, but I don't think I'd ever had it before. Yum-o, as Rachael Ray would say.

Ned and Tom showed off their respective children's tricks.

And Ned had fun with his newly toothless state.

(When Ned was in Little League, about age 10, his front teeth were knocked out during practice. Fortunately, his coach was a dentist and rushed Ned off to the office where he reimplanted the teeth. He said that they would probably always be discolored and would probably have to be replaced when he was about 18. Well, the teeth lasted him to age 40, but the time is now and he's started the process of implants. Brianna was fascinated by the gap in his teeth!)

And of course they couldn't end the day without Ned taking a movie, trying out Brianna on his new green screen.

I'm sure a Superbaby video is in the making!

It was really a fun morning and we were so happy to have a chance to visit with all the kids, old and young (and 4-footed!)

So What Now?

Well, I had my chocolate croissant this morning and determined that it just wasn't right without the Mediterranean in front of it. Kind of like a hot dog never tastes the same unless there's a ball game in front of it, cotton candy is only good at a fair or circus and popcorn never tastes the same in front of the DVR as it does in a movie house.

I also cooked the trofiette we bought in Margherita Ligure with home made pesto and it was OK, but it needed Portofino to taste right.

The prosciutto and melon wasn't nearly as good with the thinner, dryer American prosciutto and the thrill was gone.

I also finished editing all the vacation journal entries, updating them with additional information and adding lots of photos. I'm slowly posting videos, not so much "videos," but more snippets of moments in the trip probaby more interesting to me than anybody else.

I guess I really have to admit it: after a year of planning, my vacation is over and I need to do something else.

It's time to realize that I'm home again and find something "normal" to do.

Actually, we DID do something "normal." I've reviewed two shows this week. "Thoroughly Modern Millie" at Music Circus was difficult because I didn't realize I was on the verge of getting sick and it was so hard to stay awake. Fun, silly show, but Walt had a full time job poking me to keep me awake. I came home, wrote the review and went to sleep for the next three days.

"Picked" was a modern day adaptation of the standard fairy tale at the little Barnyard Theatre on the outskirts of town. It's a group that puts on one show a year, when its members are home on vacation from their college curricula. When it started, the founder (and director of this year's show) had just left high school; he's now in Yale's graduate program for technical theatre. I'm wondering what will happen to Barnyard Theatre as the original founders (who still perform) start their adult lives.

Ellen (of Ellen and Shelly) was at the show and we talked about vacations in general and she made the profound statement that it's always strange to come home after a 2 week vacation and realize that while you feel this profound sense of having Been Somewhere and Done Something, people at home have just gone about their daily lives and it doesn't seem nearly as momentous a thing to them as it does to you. I felt that way myself when I was driving around town buying groceries. I realized that if it had been Walt who had been gone, the two weeks would have flown and I probably would hardly have noticed the time. But for me, the two weeks seems like a huge amount of time because it was so packed with adventures.

But life moves on today. Tom, Laurel and Bri are passing through town and we are going to get together with them at Ned & Marta's house. I have silly little mementos for everybody and this will give me the opportunity to get most of them off of the dining room table in one fell swoop. It will also be fun to see Bri again, since I don't think I have seen her since her birthday in March. Walt has been to Santa Barbara a few times and so has seen her more recently.

And there are things coming up in the coming week -- two more shows to review, a meeting with my mother, her lawyer and her stepson on Wednesday (going over the provisions of her trust, in these sadly changed financial times), and on Sunday we hold the 23 G.R.U.B. dinner, remembering my friend Gilbert's life.

France and Italy are fading into the background now, almost like a dream. But it does leave me with a sense of worldliness. I watched an old Jean Seaberg movie, set in Paris, last night and in it her lover wants to take her away for a quiet weekend of romance in St. Paul de Vence. In the next scene the two are lying on a boat, floating along calmly. I've now been to St. Paul de Vence and know that it is a hilltop village not very near the ocean! It bothered me the whole movie, as did the very Malibu looking beach house supposedly on the Riviera in the movie that followed it.

(I also watched The Duchess yesterday afternoon, amazed that Keira Knightly's character marries, gives birth to two daughters, has two stillbirths and two miscarriages, has another child by her husband and one by her lover and at the end of the movie looks as fresh and as young as the day she wed. Isn't movie magic wonderful?)

There's one more bit of "vacation" that I still have to take care of. I was trying to order some prints for the kids I sponsor through Compassion, Intl. and the Longs upload feature hung up every time. A couple of people recommend the Costco printing service and I realized that I could print up a whole bunch of photos to take to show my mother (and leave there for Cousins Day), since her web service is not available now and she hasn't been able to see any of the photos. (She also likes pictures she can hold in her hand.)

So since it is now nearly 2 a.m. and I've been awake for an hour (never go to bed at 9:30, even if you can't keep your eyes opened!), I'm now uploading photos yet again and will pick them up on the way home from Ned's.

Then I think I can finally put this trip to bed.

Maybe.

Health Again

I woke up without a fever this morning, though still feeling weak, since I'd spent 3 days pretty much doing nothing but sleeping. However, by mid-morning, after a real breakfast (I'd eaten almost nothing for 3 days), and actually walking around, I felt human again.

I finally got myself upstairs for the first time since I'd been home. I hadn't really felt like I wanted to climb stairs ever. ever again, so, especially since I was sick, I hadn't even taken a shower (no wonder the dogs stayed away). But having had a bath and washed all the grease out of my hair and getting dressed for the first time in 3 days, I felt so human, I even went to the store.

It was the pesto and the croissants which drove me. I really needed chocolate croissants and was eager to make pesto for the trofiette we'd bought in Italy.

Something happened to my system on this trip. I found that I craved greens and fruits and really didn't go for the pastries as much as I thought I would (except for the breakfast croissants). I also ate at regular times and was too busy wiping sweat from my face to eat between meals. Since I've been home, I've noticed my appetite is much less than it was before I left. I've been drinking more water (I vowed that I'd never be thirsty again!) and eating less food. The 3 days I was sick, I ate hardly anything at all.

I bought chocolate croissants which we will have for breakfast tomorrow morning but, you know what? I was literally appalled at how big they were. They are easily 1-1/2 times the size of the ones we had at the hotel. No wonder we're such a fat country, she says, sitting here drooping fat off the sides of her chair. Apparently Europeans don't deny themselves treats like flaky pastries because the pastries are just enough to satisfy the appetite and not overstuff the stomach! We are not only the nation of "supersize me" but also the nation of "eat all your food...there are starving children in Bangladesh (or the country du jour)" So you can't just eat half of one of these enormous croissants or some child in Bangladesh is going to collapse from hunger.

I've been noticing how I feel the past couple of days, with respect to food. Oh, I know that it won't take long at all for me to forget everything I've learned subliminally on this trip, but it's interesting to notice that I do, for one brief moment, feel different about food.

Tonight I finally cooked the trofiette that we bought in Margherite Ligure, and I made pesto (even bought pine nuts, which I never put in pesto, even though you're supposed to), and I used the "good" olive oil. Then since I was craving melon I bought some cantaloupe and prosciutto. When dinner came, I served myself less than half of the past I would normally have served and then only had a few bites of that. The melon and prosciutto filled me up.

Our dinner tonight

It would be lovely if I could keep up the momentum, but I know me and it will only take a few days to get back into the old habits, but it's been an interesting food experiment.

Someone on Facebook asked me what "ACIS" was, so I went looking to see what the letters stood for (I never did find out--it's the group that booked our trip). I did, however, find an interesting description of their adult trips:

• Itineraries that are moderately paced, with the perfect balance of free time and inclusions that appeal directly to adults' sense of exploration.

• A theme-based Limited Edition trip crafted by our team of expert tour managers themselves, a Classic trip that offers a new perspective on some of our favorite destinations, or an At Home trip that allows for deep immersion into the daily life and local culture of each destination.

• Sample hotels provided for every city on your itinerary, with double rooms standard.

• Wine with meals and hotel porterage built in.

• A welcome reception and special farewell dinner to extend our hospitality.

I want to know where those "moderately paced" trips are that give you so much "free time that appeal directly to adults' sense of exploration."

I also want to know where the wine is with meals. We got wine a couple of times, but most times we had to buy our own wine. And you'd kinda think that if you're going to spend $6,000 on a trip, they wouldn't pass the hat to make you pay the 5 euros for the subway, would you?

I filled out the evaluation form for the trip today and while I loved being there, loved the hotels, loved everything I saw, I did say I would not recommend this trip to anybody else and aired a few complaints, specifically relating to pace and time to explore and the wine with meals (even though I generally drank water anyway, it still seemed cheap to give us a meal and make us buy our own drinks).

Note that all photos are now posted to Flickr and I've started going back to the original entries and redoing them, adding more details and lots and lots of photos. Not that I expect anybody to re-read anything--they are more like a scrapbook for me. But in case you're feeling masochistic. I've only gotten that part of the project finished up to the 26th, so I have several more days to go of the project.

Return to Memes!

While my temperature is lower today, hovering in the mid 100s, and while I'm feeling better, I still haven't done much but sleep all day. So I thought I'd cop out and print a meme that I meant to post after our last Cousins Day...but we had to postpone Cousins Day so it never got posted.

This one came from Fickle in Pink, who has a few interesting and different memes on her site.

1. Why the heck did you come back this week to do this meme?
I like doing memes. I don't have a clue whether people enjoy reading them or not, but I think they're fun to answer...also, when I'm stuck for an entry for the current day, a meme is a cheap way to get an entry done!

2. Ever whiten your teeth?
No. Cindy (my dentist) feels that it's not good for your teeth and says that the yellowing that comes with aging adds character to a person.

Whaddya think? Full of character?

3. Do you drive the speed limit?
Pretty much always, unless I'm on a road where the flow is faster and I'm not watching the spedometer. I can get up to 90 on I-5 without realizing it, and can drive 50 on I-80 without realizing it (maybe I should pay closer attention to the spedometer!)

4. Did the dog eat your homework?
No. But I did have to explain to a clerk at the medical lab that the dog had eaten the orders for my blood test! (I had the half-eaten orders in my hand to prove it. The clerk didn't even crack a smile, When I asked her how often she heard that story, she said I would be surprised at how often!)

5. How many bites does it take to get to the center of a watermelon?
None. I cut the melon up and eat the center first!

6. Did you eat paint chips as a child?
I don't believe so, but I obsessively used a bobbie pin to chip bits of rock off the outside of the church that backed up on our school's playground. (I didn't eat them, however.)

7. If someone rang your doorbell/knocked on your door at 1 a.m., would you answer it?
No--I'd make Walt do it!

8. "Amazingly Smooth" makes you think of what?
Satin or a baby's skin.

9. What was the last stupid thing someone said to you?
"Wow Bev, did you forget this is a community theater with actors working FOR FREE and the love of theater? Your review just makes you sound like a bitter hack."

10. Would you eat a stick of butter for $100?
Definitely. (Can I have bread to put it on?)

11. Find the nearest fabric tab, not counting the clothing you are wearing. What does it say the object is made of and where was it made?
The nearest thing with a fabric tab on it is a stuffed Kangaroo that Chippa (Peggy's dog) gave me before I left Australia and it says "100% Australia owned. All new material. Made in China."

12. What is the strangest name you've ever heard someone name their child (or a person you met... however you want to answer it)?
Oh that's VERY easy. Our kids were in nursery school with the Seed Family and their three children: Huckleberry, Caraway, and Sesame.

13. Why is some toilet paper really soft and others are really hard?
Because some people are masochists and some are hedonists? Actually, I think it's because the toilet paper that's good for the environment is rough on your tush and all that double-ply, super soft tissue is causing global warming. Or something like that.

14. How many of your friendships have lasted more than ten years?
Everybody in the Pinata group, many from the Compuserve groups, several from the Lamplighters years, and even Peggy and Steve are coming in on 10 years. I am blessed at having so many long-term friends in my life. (I wish more of them lived closer!)

15. Which of your current friends do you feel will still be important to you ten years from now?
All of them, of course.

16. It's Friday evening and you're planning your weekend. What's on your agenda?
Well, actually it's NOT Friday evening; it's Wednesday, but I am reviewing a show on Friday night and we are going to brunch at Ned's on Sunday.

17. What was the most recent movie to scare you or give you the creeps?
I don't usually watch that kind of movie, so I can't even remember.

18. The new cast and movie of Star Trek are out. Excited or indifferent?
Somewhere in between. Not exactly "excited" but much more than "indifferent." I hope I get to see it in the theatre (though I think I'm too late for that now)

19. Do you have any nervous habits?
I bounce my legs up and down.

20. Do you swear in general?
Hell no. What a damn stupid question.