Resolution - Resolved!
To you the faithful reader of this seldom written blog, I have personal progress to report: Big Smith has been seen, heard, experienced. After careful consideration of the available venues in which to fulfill destiny, The Bottleneck in Lawrence, Kansas was selected. My good friend Amy did her master’s program at the University in Lawrence and I had visited her once and liked the town. It’s always fun to hang out in a college town for a few days now-and-again. It reminds me both of my quickly passing/passed youth and also about how different life and everything has become in the last 18 years (hard to believe) since the epic college road first began.
So, on to the journey. My co-pilot Jamie and I piled into the big, blue station wagon on Friday afternoon after lunching with Mazie. She was left in the ever-loving arms of Grandma Rosalin where much fun and laughter has ensued since our leaving (we’ve kept in touch via mobile phone technology). We drove the 7 hours west and south, glimpsed the ever-greening grass and buds breaking way into leaves as we rolled ever further away from that big, cold Minneapolis place. We arrived at The Springhill Suites in Lawrence shortly before 9pm and after checking out our somewhat strange hotel (it’s built in the space between the railroad tracks and the river, which is just wide enough to house such a hotel and makes for an odd experience) we walked our butts down to the Bottleneck to check out the action.
Blue Mountain, a band Jamie feels affinity for, opened up the night. They were fun and joyous and generally a good time, but made the Big Smith wait longer. Finally at 11:30pm, a mere 1 1/2 hours after my usual bedtime, Big Smith took stage. They opened with a song I knew well and all was good. They ended up playing for 2 1/4 hours, straight, no break. The members were all in top-notch form and the dancing commenced, continued, slowed and finally stomped it’s way into exhausted on-looking. The dancing at a Big Smith show is really amazing. It seems that a certain sameness overtakes the crowd and everyone begins stomping, twirling, jumping and generally behaving hoe-downish. The moves are infectious and I’ve never had as much fun dancing anywhere as I have every time I see Big Smith play.
Conclusion: Things in real-life are rarely as great as memory recalls them to be. I think Big Smith lived up to my memories as well as could be expected. The only let down of the evening was me. I don’t have the same stamina to keep at the dancing and enjoying myself in the wee-hours of the morning that I once possessed. But, despite my general lack of late-night fitness, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was only at 1:30am, 2 hours after Big Smith began plucking and 3 1/2 hours after my normal bedtime, that I wished the evening would just end already. Today I’m tired, but I feel whole and complete, as if the missing Big Smith part of me has finally been returned.
i am resolute
the man kept asking me what my new year’s resolution was. the thing is, i don’t do the whole resolution thing. this idea that this year i’m going to get more sleep or get in shape or learn something new or fly a plane or whatever, is dumb to me (not to knock the millions or trillions of people who make such resolutions). but, today, i was struck with a vision of my new year’s resolution…before the year is out, i shall see big smith play live. it’s been several years since i’ve heard them and i love them profusely. while living in arkansas i first heard and then danced to their bluegrass goodness. every time they were in town, i was at their show. i left arkansas in 1999 and i’ve tried to see them since, but it’s never happened. i’m always looking at their website and getting ready to plan a trip to go and see them someplace, but i’m still coming up empty. MARK my words fair reader or two, in this year 2008 i will see, hear, listen, dance, dance some more and then report back about all that was BIG SMITH LIVE IN 2008.
so, it seems i’ve changed my tune. i guess i just hadn’t figured out how the new year’s resolution thing should work for me in my life. i think i get it now and i’m thrilled.
one cold and windy sunday
yesterday at 8:30am i found myself at the starting line of the gear west duathlon. i was feeling very lucky to have made it there since fifteen minutes previous i had been driving about the countryside completely lost and in a state of despair. but i made it in time thanks to some driving luck and my brother-in-law hector who helped me get my bike set-up and my butt to the start. at 8:43am my wave left the start line and i began my journey. two hours and seven minutes later i finished.
i’ve done a couple other duathlons and while i went slower during this one my endurance is actually better this year. i have hope that at some point during the summer my speed will improve and i will be better than ever. of course my better would still be pretty bad, but i am just thankful to be fit enough to compete at all.
the course was a 5k run, 28k bike and then a 4k run. it was kinda hilly during the bike and we ran a lot on grass; not my favorite course. my least favorite part of the day was the bike. it was so cold and i couldn’t generate enough heat to stay warm. i spent at least 10 miles on the bike where i was pretty miserable. by the end of the bike part of the course my legs were numb from my knees down to my toes, brrrr.
a shout out to the hector-man who saved my butt getting me all set up and ready to race. as i was getting off of the bike and set to run the last 4k, he had already finished. did i mention that his wave also started about five minutes after mine? he’s pretty good at this stuff; he’s training to do a full ironman triathlon this summer. crazy stuff - go hector go!
larger than a piece of chocolate cake
mazie is really into her toes. she spends at least 30 minutes a day examining the space between each toe. sometimes while trying to change her diaper she throws a fit because i want her to put her legs down so i can get the stupid diaper on and she wants to keep her legs up so she can continue looking at the space between her toes.
this is a reasonably new obsession, probably two or three weeks old. it seems that she is interested in finding any dirt or small bits of stuff that might be in between her toes. she doesn’t necessarily want to remove the bits, but she does want to identify that the bits exist.
some say perhaps it is a manifestation of an inherent weirdness placed in her genetic code by me or her dad; we both teeter near the brink of mild ocd. i’d say the perhaps is warranted.
buddy j - a.k.a. the husband
today my buddy turns 35. since it’s his special day i thought he deserved a special post. happy birthday buddy!
…well, he turned 35 a little over 5 months ago. i guess better late than never. i had this idea that on his birthday i would write him a post about how great he was and blah, blah, blah and i wouldn’t tell him and then he would get it in his RSS feed and it would make his day cause i’m not very good at saying nice things. so i saved a draft that i meant to beef-up on his birthday, but then his birthday came and went and i tried a bunch of times to write something nice, but it just never came. it seems i have more problems than i thought.
so, 5+ months after the fact, happy birthday buddy j. i can’t really do the mushy stuff, but i can say i love you and i like that you are my husband. you treat me with respect, kindness and love, you are smart and have lots of interesting ideas, you are full of life, wonder and joy and you are a great dad. thanks for being you.
the green lantern
“just wait until i bring this to a meeting and everyone has their red lights and i’ll have my green light. the most awesomest thing i’ve ever seen”….jamie thingelstad
as random, strange and riddled with grammatical hmm’s and ha’s as the above quote may sound, my husband said it. he was referring to a pen light that he received for his birthday from his mom. it’s a green laser used for looking at celestial things in the nighttime skies. my husband is a gadget man. he loves to buy, receive, talk about, give advice on and play with new, fun technology. sometimes, he drives me crazy.
the end.
Mr. Coffee Grapefruit Coke Beer
Guest post: brickermc is a working companion of the husband. “brickermc” and the husband get coffee together almost daily. He is a slight man in stature, but not in character. He is funny and hardworking and keeps faith in a softball team that has yet to win a game. I am glad to know brickermc.
Some people love their kids, other people love their pets but me—I love my beverages. I don’t just get something to drink because I’m thirsty. I consume liquid as a meaningful tribute to the four beautiful beverages that give meaning and purpose to my life. Allow me a brief homage to each, keeping in mind that they could never be ranked. For indeed, not one of these beverages could I do without.
Coffee makes me smart, coffee makes me funny, coffee makes me frenetic, coffee makes me me. I know it is a stimulant, that it isn’t good for you, that in regular doses it makes you less thoughtful and angry. I know that the times I’ve kicked the coffee habit my life was more peaceful. But it was so boring sitting around thinking about how much I wanted a cup of coffee!
Drinking fresh squeezed grapefruit juice is like meeting your maker. God wanted us to discover the grapefruit, God wanted us to invent the squeezer, God wanted us to chill the results and then, just before consuming a tall glass, God wanted us lightly mix the drink with a spoon. My Grandmother sends a box of grapefruits every December and I greedily count how many remain after each satisfying glass—how long will they hold out? Currently, it looks like I’ll be set until the first week in January.
Sodas come in all flavors, but for me there is only one worth drinking: Coca-Cola. A perfect fountain Coke, one poured out of a sixteen ounce glass bottle into a tall glass of ice, the can that comes out of the cooler—they all say: prepare to be totally satisfied. I could go on and on about the virtues of a Coke and a Snickers bar for lunch (Dad calls it “the Surgeon General Special”) but either you know this pleasure or you have totally wasted your time on this planet to date.
Last but certainly not least is beer. Sweet, sweet beer. I drink about one beer a day, but I’d drink one beer with every meal and a few in between if I could somehow keep from becoming an alcoholic. In fact, I often drink non-alcoholic beer and I actually enjoy it. Not as good as regular beer, but one zillion times better than a glass of milk. I like all kinds of beer and admire places where beer is given proper respect. Like in England where they do a good job making it and serving it, plus—it’s totally acceptable to have beer at lunch.
Sure, it’s trendy to say that you are defined by your family and possibly more true that you are defined by your job. Some people are defined by their music, their books, their hairstyle or their car. More than any other part of my life, I believe these four beverages define who I am. You can call me Mr. Coffee Grapefruit Coke Beer.
if you hit me again, i'll hit you back 10 times harder...
this was a popular refrain in my childhood. i was four years younger than my older sister and i loved to taunt her. in turn, she loved to hit me back 10 times harder. she was nice about it, she would warn me. i would hit her and then she would chant the words that my little self loved to hear, “hit me again and i’ll hit you back 10 times harder”. the words were both thrilling and terrifying as every time it set into motion a chain of events that i couldn’t bare not to follow through with.
there was just something about the challenge. i knew after i hit her again, she would at some point hit me back. i don’t know if it was always 10 times harder, but it was always hard, painful and almost tear-inducing. the anticipation of waiting for the hit, cause you never knew when it would come, was a big part of the fun.
every week i go to the gym and workout with a personal trainer. i would highly recommend this activity to anyone; a workout induced by a trainer is so much different than what you would do on your own. one of the trainers that i work out with has been determined to make me hurt in the days following my workout. each time i see her, she asks if i was in pain after the last workout and i always answer that i wasn’t. this drives her crazy because she thinks that unless you are sore for a day or two after a workout, you haven’t worked out hard enough.
yesterday morning i went to the gym and met up with this trainer. she decided that today was the day that i was going to feel pain. she put me through the paces and made me whimper and scream. i realized at some point during the workout that the two of us have been playing a game much like the game that i used to play with my sister. each time she asks me if i am sore after a workout, i am proud to answer no. it’s sort of a “is that all you got sister?” kind of thing, even though i know in answering as i do that it’s going to cause me future pain. i essentially want to egg her on, get her to kill me and then i want to tell her again that no, i didn’t experience any pain.
so, am i sore today? no, of course not : ).
toilet paper
i intended this website to be full of interesting topics and discussion. what seems to be happening so far is that i talk about things that aren’t very riveting. i’m not going to call my website boring or intellectually challenged, but someone else could and i wouldn’t want to hit them. i had my hopes set high on the people i know. i feel privileged to be acquainted with quite a few smart people and many of those smart people are talented writers. i thought they would be sending in post after post of stuff that would make your head twirl. so far only honeybee has posted and try as i might, i can’t convince anyone else to do the same. okay, that’s not entirely fair, TwoStep did send in a contribution but i shot it down. you see this TwoStep guy is a very talented writer and his submission while lovely and poetic, was short, oh so short and i was hoping for more. my point in going on about all of this is that this here post, this current post, takes my high-minded website ideas and grinds them to a halt. i’m writing about toilet paper and i actually feel some need to write about toilet paper. obviously, my mind is small.
here goes…
i buy seventh generation toilet paper. i feel good knowing that i’m doing some small part to help the planet by wiping my butt with 100% recycled paper. i like the company and i like the toilet paper. even though it costs two or three times more than the plushiest, terrycloth-like toilet paper and it feels like the cheapest generic stuff on the market, it gives me a strange satisfaction. i’m so used to this toilet paper that the stuff at other people’s houses feels almost vulgar. but, this is not the point of my post.
the reason that i’m here writing about toilet paper has to due with the inconsistency of this toilet paper. at its softest, it feels soft to me, but i’m sure to others it still feels like the stuff you get in a public restroom. but it’s not always at its softest, sometimes it’s hard, very hard and then even i wonder how i’m supposed to use the stuff. most times it’s somewhere in the middle, but rarely is it the same from package to package. our household just finished off two twelve-pack double rolls of the hardest stuff i’ve ever experienced, imagine wiping your butt with a tree branch. okay not that bad, but close. it was a struggle. not wanting to place such a big bet this time around, i opted for two four-pack double rolls and i ended up with the softest toilet paper they make. it was such a contrast to go from the one to the other that it made me want to write this post. the inconsistency perplexes me.
larger than a 5 x 7 picture frame
like the song, mazie has a few favorite things. however, her favorite things do not include girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, snowflakes that stay on her nose and eyelashes, and brown paper packages tied up in strings. instead mazie likes shoes, watermelon, banana bread, cats and dogs. the watermelon and banana bread are just temporary likes. she doesn’t stay with a particular food interest very long. next week apples could be the new banana bread and crackers the new watermelon. but shoes, cats and dogs, these items have staying power.
shoes would have to top the list. the child loves shoes. my shoes, her shoes, stranger’s shoes, her dad’s shoes, she isn’t picky. she likes to say the word “shoe”, she likes to play with shoes, she likes to put the shoes on and walk around in them, she likes to take them off, she likes to de-lace and lace them. she loves shoes. i don’t know what this says about her or me or the world, but i’m sure it says something. i’ve asked other people with kids and it seems the whole shoe obsession is not a normal toddler phase. it’s a mazie thing and i’ve come to appreciate it.
mazie lives with two cats. she’s been interested in them since the day she realized they existed. she pets them, waves to them, hugs them, offers greetings and generally makes their lives miserable. i think it’s typical for kids to like animals, but i do think mazie likes or loves them more than most. she fares better with the dog world as dogs are more accepting of the sort of smothering love that mazie offers to members of the animal kingdom. so far she has exhibited no fear whatsoever of any dog or cat. they can hiss, growl, bark, bat, and she just keeps on loving. have no fear, sooner or later she will learn that she needs to be careful and cautious around animals, but for now the adults in her life can bare that burden for her.
that’s all folks…
part of something
today at 8:05am the husband, the kid and myself walked into target to get some wii action. (for those of you not in the know, which would be me if not for the husband, the wii is the latest console game thingy from nintendo which was released today.) we didn’t know what to expect. what we found was a long line about 120 people deep and a bunch of people with tickets. it seems that the tickets were handed out around 7am to the many people who had either spent the night or shown up in the wee hours of the morning. since we had arrived at 8:05am, we were way past any chance of finding wii action. we stayed in line anyway, just cause, and after a couple of minutes this dude walks by and asks the people in our part of the line if anyone needs a ticket. no one responds except me, which i still don’t understand, cause none of the other people around us had tickets either. so the dude hands me a ticket with a number 9 on it, we walk up to the front of the line, pick out a couple of games and in a few minutes we’ve bought a wii. a crazy stroke of luck.
we made our way home and ever since the husband has been glued to the tv learning the ins and outs of the wii. this is the fun part for him. he has verbalized his fascination and joy many times with “look at this” and “cool” and “ohh, ahh”, but for the most part he has been silently taking it in. he has played a couple of games and i have played a couple of games. it’s a very different type of video game and i think i will enjoy it much more than a typical video game system, but for me the real fun happened at the store.
the feeling of driving to the store not knowing what to expect, walking in and seeing all of the people, learning what’s going on from others and just being a part of something that exists for only a few moments in time and place, no matter how trivial, is fun for me. once the hunt is over, i’m less interested. i wonder if this is a me thing, a female thing, a lots of people thing or what?
Doggone it
Guest post: this is my lovely sister angie. she is quite a bit younger than me and quite a bit taller than me and almost always in a sunshiney mood. she is a nice sister to have.
If I was a dog, I would want to celebrate Christmas with my family. I would like to unwrap a bone or new squeaky toy wearing a new Santa hat my mommie gave me. But I am not a dog. I am the mommie.
I want to bring our dog, Louie, to our immediate family Christmas get-together. I am not one of those crazy people who thinks that Louie is a human–although I’ll be honest that I dress him up for Halloween and we celebrate his birthday. I just think he’s part of the family.
I am not advocating bringing your dog to formal dinner parties, family reunions, wedding, funerals or even your friend’s house, but a casual family get-together seems innocent enough to me. Our dog Louie is very cute and cuddly. He also licks, sheds and eats everything he can get his paws on. We try to control him as best we can, and I think the more exposure he gets to being around big groups of people, the better his behavior gets. To me, family Christmas celebrations shouldn’t be peaceful, boring times of mundane conversation. Kids, animals and crazy mommies make it more fun!
If I was a dog, I would want to celebrate Christmas with my family
all grown-up
i remember watching the made for television movie “the day after” when i was 10 or so. it was a movie about an atomic bomb being dropped somewhere in america and what would happen in the days following such an event. mainly, lots of people died and it was all quite horrible.
i think of that night as a small turning point in my life. up until then i had believed that people older than myself had all of the answers and pretty much knew everything. after the movie i asked my very old and mature 14 year old sister lots of questions, expecting her to have all of the answers, but she didn’t. older people didn’t know everything. i’m sure to some kids this would have come as a relief, but to me it was a very disheartening realization. i ended up feeling more troubled by the realization than the movie.
now i’m 35 and i don’t feel much more informed than i did at 10. adults don’t have all of the answers, yet we are supposed to make the decisions. i never thought i would be one of the grown-ups and it’s still hard to think of myself that way. yet, here i am…all grown-up.
larger than a mushroom
that’s what my kid is. she’s a crazy one year old that can’t sit still and is in a state of constant flux. she’s great and she drives me crazy. for the most part people always described parenthood to me as this amazing and awesome experience that was the “hardest job you’ll ever love”. i wasn’t one of those people that fell in instant love with my kid the second she was born. i didn’t suffer from post pardom depression, but i did suffer from a post pardom reality shift. it’s still really difficult for me to have the selflessness needed to be a mom. not being able to do what i want when i want sucks a lot of the time, but this crazy experience of raising a kid is something that i’m ultimately glad i signed up for.
yeah, that's right, i'm smaller than a redwood...
and so is my landscaper friend, Ann. We came to this realization while talking on the phone, and poof a blog was born.
From the Mouth of Babes or Tammy's as it were...
Jamie asked me to write something on this blogity-blog and so here I am. I asked what he wanted me to write and he asked for reflections about the last three weeks.
New Jersey
New Jersey is a place not really made for me. It’s fine and everything and lots of people live there and like it, but it tended to make me angry and I always felt dumb cause my license plate said Minnesota and my accent said Minnesota and I felt this sense that everyone was always thinking of me as a poor, country bumpkin. Perhaps this all says more about my own “issues” and less about New Jersey, but these are my reflections.
I got the feeling while in New Jersey that most of the state was a forest, field or grassland not that long ago and that when development needed to happen, it just happened without much thought. Maybe the zoning laws are just different than in the Midwest. There is so much country mixed in with so much sprawl and the mix cast a very disjointed pallor on the landscape for little miss me.
The Apartment
For what it was, the apartment was pretty nice. I’m really glad not to be there anymore, but it wasn’t a bad place. The overall look of the place was good, but underneath the good there was some cheap and some dirty.
Favorites
Just a few miles from where we stayed is the New Jersey Garden For Sculpture. It is a very cool place. Jamie’s boss and his wife took us there and then I took my mom and sister there. I enjoyed both of my visits and would recommend checking it out if you are ever in the area. I hate to say it, but it sorta kicks the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden’s butt. The grounds are very well landscaped so that you come upon most of the sculptures one at a time. It has a very intimate feel even though it is quite large.
The Jersey Shore was also lots of fun. We visited a town called Spring Lake which had a two-mile boardwalk along the ocean and a cute little downtown. The shore had a very different feel than the rest of New Jersey I visited. The streets were wide and tree-lined, the houses were huge, old and cool and the beach had baby’s-butt-soft sand, big waves crashing into the shore and very few people.
My new favorite restaurant is El Vez. It’s in Philadelphia and it’s super yummy. The food was spicy, interesting and packed with flavor and the mojitos were oh so mmmmmm. Jamie and I ordered about half of the menu, but we would have liked to order so much more. As it was we had way too much food, but it was worth it. I think I would come back to this area just to eat there again.
Jamie’s Work
Going to the Dow Jones campus in New Jersey was a trip. There is a security gate that you have to get through in the car. Once you park and walk to the visitor’s entrance you have to buzz to be let in the door. Once inside they take your driver’s license, put your stuff through a metal detector, take your picture, have you sign in and give you a visitor pass with your picture on it. Crazy stuff. The inside of Dow Jones is pretty much as one would expect. Big, big, big, with lots of cubicles and out-of-date decor.
The first two weeks that we were in New Jersey, Jamie spent a fair amount of his awake hours working. I found this to be annoying and let him know so on perhaps a few too many occasions. We even had a fight about it. All is well that ends well they say, and so all is well. The last week had Jamie back to a regular schedule and me very much happier for it. Sometimes I am a little less than understanding. I try and work on it from time to time, but so far I haven’t gotten very far in my search for understanding. Sometimes it’s difficult not to be selfish and only see the world through your own eyes.
The Ear Infection
It’s Sunday and my ear has been hurting since Wednesday. It’s lame and I’m hoping to turn the corner any day now. I got some water caught in my ear in the shower on Wednesday and that somehow turned into a very painful, outer and middle ear infection. My empathy level for those suffering from ear infections on a regular basis has greatly increased in the last few days.
Vacation
It officially begins tomorrow. Woo-hoo! See all of you crazy MinnEsotans back there in MinnEsota land in a few weeks.
ARR!
Tammy here again…
One week ago today, Mazie had a blast at her very first birthday party. All of our family that lives in town were invited and everyone did their best to dress and act like the pirates that they know they are. We beat at a parrot until it spilled its guts, made clothespin people walk the plank and dive into a shark pail, and were merciless in our pinning of an eye patch on a poor pirate over and over again. Mazie’s friends from across the street came to help with the fun.
After all of the fun and games we sat down to our spoils and enjoyed the very best pirate cake ever! Mazie blew out her candle (with a little help from her friends) and got involved good and dirty-like with her cake. She squished and gushed chocolate frosting all over her little self just like a good pirate would do. Presents were next and Mazie was pleased with all of the treasures she received. She balanced on top of her new rocking chair like a circus star, flipped the pages of some stellar books, and reveled in the beauty of her new fashions.
In true Pirate fashion we then kicked everyone out! See the pictures!
Mazie's Birthday
Hello, Tammy here. It was Mazie’s first birthday today! Whee… I have been looking forward to this day since before she was born. I finally have a kid that’s one. I don’t know why that matters, but to me it is a big milestone. Jamie took the day off of work to help celebrate. There were pancakes and a visit from the neighbors and our favorite landscaper, a trip to the beach where Mazie found her sea legs in preparation for her pirate party on Saturday, lunch with my mom, her friend and her friend’s granddaughter, and then off to the Minnesota Zoo. Mazie thought that all of the animals at the zoo were interesting, but the pigs were her favorite. I think she fancied the snorts and other fun noises they made.
After Mazie hit the sack, Jamie and I headed over to our neighbor’s house for an evening of ART! We met a local artist that our neighbors know, saw and helped in the hanging of the really cool paintings that they purchased from him, and had lots of fun talking and looking at art. It was a great way for the two of us to celebrate the passing of our first year with little Mazie.
Thanks to everyone who emailed, called, visited and sent Miss Mazie birthday wishes. She very much appreciated all of the love that she felt today. Mazie’s first birthday rocked! Jamie uploaded some of the pictures from the day which include several shots of Mazie wearing her fabulous birthday hat.
Tammy over and OUT
Tammy Speaks
Jamie is always clicking and clacking away at this thing and that’s great…the man can’t get enough of the ‘puter. I decided that perhaps I should take a spin at the keys and finally speak on the bloggity-blog-blog too. So, here is my take on all things tripish.
Le Plane
The flight over was uneventful, scary, but somehow manageable. I did a much better job managing the flying fear than I’ve been able to muster in my adult past. I didn’t stomp my feet or talk fast or beg to get off; I calmly accepted my fate and fear as best I could. Jamie was most thankful; the last (and only other flight he’s ever been on with me) was a taste of my flying medicine that he didn’t want to ever take again. I think the saying goes: quite a handful. They now have these groovy things on the international planes where each seat has their own little screen where you can rent movies and play games. The games are free and quite entertaining. I’m sure that most of you are aware of this, but the last time I flew internationally no such thing existed. Enough about the plane already…
Le Tour
I must say that I enjoy watching the tour much better on T.V. There are far too many people milling about in the world of live tour coverage and all of the coverage is in French. It’s hard to figure out what is going on. And the French, they don’t know their junk food very well either. Missing in action at the finish line was any sight of cheese curd, mini-doughnut, or other fried creation. There were usually two or three food stands in total at each finish that serviced a huge multitude of folks. They sold weird hamburger and hot dog things, french fries and beverages (most of the French bring their own food to the tour stages). It was a far cry from the commercialism that I’m sure would have been present if Le Tour de France was Le Tour De America. So it goes. Tis both a blessing and a curse. The French seem very different to me as a people. They seem more content, more able and willing to experience life and not have to control it.
Being at the tour stages in person was not as big a thrill for me as it was for Jamie. I had imagined being able to stand right by the side of the road and watch the tour come through, but you have to arrive at least a day in advance and be willing to sit by the side of the road for all of the those hours to do that and I was not willing. So, for the most part, Jamie and I watched the tour come by 8 deep in a pack of tour-loving folks from all over the world who were excited just to be there and didn’t care that they were seeing the peloton through a crack in the crowd.
For me the great part about the tour part of our vacation was bicycling. I’ve never had a better time on a bike. The scenery was so beautiful I was ready to move to the French countryside. The whole experience was like something you would see in a movie and think I want to go there. The tiny towns dotted the landscape every couple of kilometers and they were quaint and peaceful and so pretty with flowers, flowers everywhere. The landscape rolled and the mountains were big and everything was grand and wonderful. The motorists make you feel secure on the bike; you know that they aren’t going to hit you. They love the bike. Riding on the tour routes was also a very special thing. That is where I felt the excitement of the tour and felt most at home at the tour.
Pizza
The French make some good pizza. If you are in France, give it a try. Mmmmm.
Art
We got an Art yesterday and I love it. It’s sooo perfect and lovely and divine. I think Jamie has put a picture of said Art up on this bloggie so that all can see how friendly and happy it is. It might be my favorite painting ever.
Ice Cream
The French eat a lot of it and so do I. I love menthe (peppermint bon-bon).
Paris
I dunno. I feel like I could take it or leave it. I loved the countryside and in comparison Paris was not a shining star. Our hotel was great, shiny and modern and comfortable with lots of rich woods and warm tones, a bathroom to die for and it was just the right size. The housekeeping people were amazing; we never saw them, but they were in our room all of the time cleaning things and giving us towels. The gallery where we got our art was also a highlight. The rest of the place was alright, but nothing to write home about. Okay, I know that’s a harsh thing to say about such a lovely city, but it’s kinda dirty and loud. I’m not really a big city sort of girl.
Switzerland
This is the part of the trip that I was most excited about initially. Hiking through the Swiss Alps and staying at nice inns along the way sounds like a good trip to me. We officially start hiking in two days, until then we are hitching rides on trains to get where we need to go.
The End
Guess that’s all I have to say. Jamie is much better at this writing stuff than I, which is why I leave it to him most of the time. Thanks for the ride, see you at school.