Gettin' Some-Why I Hate the Gym and Crave Adventure

Something funny has begun to happen to me.

I've never been the most physical of people.  I don't enjoy being out of breath and in pain, and I hate the gym with a passion.  When I go inside, I feel a part of me dying.  It's socially acceptable, institutionalized self-torture!  Like the terrible Greek myth of Sisyphus who is doomed to push a boulder up a hill over and over only to have it roll back down, people run and run and arrive at precisely nowhere, climb stairs that will never, ever end in a rooftop view, and endlessly push their arms and legs against a contraption that is not pumping a well or moving a stack of wood or doing anything at all.

And let's not even talk about the music.  Gym music makes me suicidal.  I know...listening to Nick Drake croon, "pink, pink, pink, pink moon" doesn't make you want to jump around.

I understand that people do it for their body, their health, and that it inexplicably makes them feel good after.  But you know me-I need meaning in everything.  If you want to move your arms, lift roofing materials onto your old neighbor's roof.  If you want to do squats, go help harvest lettuce at the local organic coop.  This is how I feel about exercise; it's great if it's a by-product of actually doing something.  

Super unpopular I know, as my views tend to be.

Well, I don't really know where this is coming from, but lately my desire to push myself mentally and physically has grown.  Quite a bit, actually.

Maybe it's rebellion against the idea of what a mom "should" be like.  Maybe I feel defiant about my age and the complacency that has crept in and made itself comfortable in my life.  I'm tired.  I don't want to be wet or dirty or uncomfortable.  I'm becoming less flexible, less tolerant, and I hate that.

I don't want to grow soft.  I don't want to "go gently into that good night".  I want to rage, rage, and maybe surf or skate into the dying of the light.

So I've been thinking; why don't I bomb hills with my kids?  Aside from a lot of skin surface and my front teeth, what do I have to lose?  Who said I can't?  And if not now, then when?

Suddenly I want to dangle from cliff faces, hike the entire Camino de Santiago de Compostela, jump out of moving things, and plow through heavy surf.  I want to feel the very edges of my physical and mental boundaries...I want to know their contours and textures intimately.

At dinner with friends the other night, I articulated this out loud for the first time and my best friend asked, "Why do you think you feel like that?"

"I don't know," I said,  "I just want to live.  Until there is no life left in me, I want to feel and I want to live."

Anyone else up for some adventure?





............................................

Once...

Dusty photo of Eiffel Tower, 2003

I don't remember anything else about that day.

Deranged by the time change, we probably overslept and then couldn't get a bite of breakfast in any of the old restaurants of the Pigalle. The sturdy husband-and-wife owners would have looked at us sharply and pointed to cold ham and buttered baguette sandwiches, unglamorously piled in plastic wrap on the counter.

If the husband pitied us, he would switch on his great, steaming beast of an espresso machine and bring us an au lait. A few men nursing tiny glasses of late morning wine at the counter would look at us curiously.

The chef was gone...it was not time to eat in Paris. Anyone would know that.

Using flash, film camera, 2003

This day, we probably took the wrong Metro stop again and ended up below the statue of Louis XV instead of above it. We would have hitched our bags up, rounded our shoulders against the climb, and walked in silence, me using the snowy domes and peaks of the Sacre Coeur to navigate.


Perhaps this was also the day I asked the hotel concierge, in perfect French for the first and last time in my life, where was the Opera Garnier, earning me the briefest warmth of an approving smile.


But perhaps this was also the day that I unfolded a shelf of clothes in a boutique and made the clerk grimace; the day a fat waiter told me I would be much more beautiful without my ugly wool hat.

From the window of my hotel, 2003

It was not a good trip in the way you would imagine it would be; two young women in Paris for their first time.

I had picked the wrong traveling companion and things had begun to unravel immediately. She spoke French but refused to.  Refused, in fact, to use a map, learn the name of the street our hotel was on, pick a restaurant, ask for water.

She sulked when, on our third visit to Fuxia for hand rolled pasta with goat cheese and pine nuts, it was me, not her, that the waiter kissed on both cheeks after an animated Frenglish discussion about eggplant vs. aubergine (he was, I think, surprised to find Americans had the capacity for such whimsy regarding the vegetable kingdom).


It could have been any one of these grim and beautiful November days in Paris that we left the Metro deep below street level and had to exit through one of those endless, white subway-tiled corridors. We were alone in the corridor, this being a work day in a working neighborhood. The fluorescent tube lights flickered blue against the white tile, reminding me of an igloo entrance.

Red bag, Eiffel Tower

My red bag was slung cross my body as usual, zipped and resting under my left arm. Somehow I felt the weight of one fingertip more added to my burden. I whirled and caught in my hand the skinny wrist of a very young, very beautiful boy who had the corner of my wallet in his hand.


"Bon!" he congratulated. "Very good, very good!" he praised me in English.


He dropped my wallet, bowed, and then this very young boy who had just been ready to rob me blind, turned my hand over, kissed it tenderly, and ran off. At the end of the tunnel his friend peeked out, laughing.


"Very good!" he yelled one last time, turning to wave. And then he disappeared.


It was not an act of aggression or violence. There was no malevolence. My little thief had, in fact, been the most French; the most charming and proper person I had met in Paris.


I no longer have that friend but I do have that bag, and there is still so much I don't understand about Paris.


Pardon me while I grapple with the fact that BLOGGER HAS CHANGED EVERYTHING OVERNIGHT... I was thinking about the idea of "once-ness" when I wrote this down. You know, those experiences that are so singular and so memorable.  They can't be planned or replicated.   I wrote about another "once" moment here.


.......................................

A Week in Which the Internet Becomes Reality

Heather shares her awesome eye of newt recipe with Bianca, Alex, and Jennie!

I nearly poked her in the face to make sure she was real.

But I didn't. I behaved *pretty* normally when I ran into one of my most long-term "internet relationships" at the thrift store the other day. I was looking down, trying to tame my outrageously overgrown Elvis pompadour with some spit and a prayer, when I heard my name. I turned to see her standing there next to the tie rack, adorable and uncertain. The chaos of the thrift store fell away and I approached as if in a dream. We held hands and spun around in a field somehow and then we braided each other's hair.

No, silly. We didn't do that! We chatted about Mexican blankets for a few minutes like normal thrift store ladies, and then said goodbye.

She was smaller and skinnier in real life, just like celebrities are. Joel McHale was on our flight to Kauai last week and he couldn't have been more than 120 pounds. Seriously, he was EMACIATED (and p.s. he totally initiated a conversation with my husband but I was like, hey this book I'm reading upside-down is way more interesting and I'm not even listening to you!)

This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the weekend, because on Saturday I was invited to a gathering of bloggers/small business owners, some of whom I've "known" for quite some time without ever meeting.

I drove with Erin and although we've never met in person, it was as if we were picking up the thread of a conversation that had just been briefly interrupted. I love, LOVE Erin's thoughtful, academic writing style and wish I could be as clear-thinking, direct, and simple in my approach to blogging as she is.

We parked down the street and downed a few shots from my hip flask of Bach Rescue Remedy (I'm just kidding, only I did this) which proved completely useless against my most special talent, social anxiety. I spent the rest of the evening willing myself NOT TO SAY ANYTHING SUPER INAPPROPRIATE, which must have worked because some of the ladies are still talking to me!

There are two major things I took away from the evening:

1) If you want to grow your blog or business or change anything about your life, make yourself uncomfortable and put yourself out there. Go take a class or host an event yourself. You can only go so far in life alone in a room with a computer screen. We are social creatures and we need the creative stimulation of others in order to move forward. Alone with our thoughts, we just get stuck!

2) Women are super heroes . Guys are ok for some things, but ladies are awesome. We get a bad rap for being "catty" or jealous or whatever (gee, I wonder who's responsible for that stereotype!), but in my experience we thrive on helping one another succeed and will even put aside our own interests to do this. The organizers, Alexis and Jules (who came and set up despite having food poisoning!), testify to this.

Attending this event reminded me of how starved I am for some good female energy in my "all-dude-all-the-time" life! So many generous women came up to me or contacted me via email later to discuss certain aspects of what I had said, give advice and feedback, or just be generally encouraging and supportive.

I felt the love, ladies. I felt the love, and I want you to feel it too. But not in a gross way.

The weekend is coming! The weekend is coming! Plus Room With a View recaps!

I'm so excited. I scored tickets to the stage version of E.M. Forster's A Room With a View tonight!

I'm going with my best cousin Jess, with whom I watched the movie version every weekend for about six straight years, at midnight, so we could swoon in private. And. I know it by heart. Which could be a problem if the actors don't.

Opening scene:

Lucy Honeychurch throws open the windows in her Italian pensione and pouts, "But I thought we were to have a view of the Arno!"

But she says it "AHHH-no" and is impossibly adorable. I want to be impossibly adorable. I am not British, so this is impossible.



Enter George, who is a crazy hunk.




And he plays with his food! But he's kind of crazy. The food question mark means he's really deep, which plays to my 13-year old presumption that handsome British guys dressed in all white who run amok on the lawns of great estates are deep (later proved wrong by experience).





Lucy plays Beethoven and gets all melodramatic on her piano, but mother doesn't like it when she plays that modern Beethoven, because it makes her "peevish".


Which is pretty funny to me at the time, because I PLAYED BEETHOVEN REAL LOUD AND GOT ALL MELODRAMATIC ON MY PIANO!! And my mom was like, could you please play something a little more....restful??!! Beethoven was the original rebel music!





Anyhow, Italy happens! And we know what that means: sexy time in lavender fields!





I don't know what makes you think this is my favorite part.





Later there's a fat, naked Mr. Beebe, which makes my mom think the movie is pornographic. Thus the watching at my cousin's house (where things are so lax they have sugar cereal, Barbie dolls, and cable!)





There's a skinny, gruesome Cecil, who is Lucy's "intended". He's gross and farts dust!





George tells Lucy that Cecil is "the sort who can't love anyone, least of all a woman".


And she's like, oh dude you just blew my mind!


So she conducts a little experiment and asks Cecil to kiss her. He obliges by banging his spectacles against her face and rubbing his waxed mustache on her, and thus Lucy knows George is right about him. Bad kisser, doesn't play with his food, never ran naked with Mr. Beebe. Sayonara sucka!





Lucy dumps Cecil. Cecil goes all cross-eyed, has a tuberculosis attack, and goes off to pin butterflies in the library.

No, I don't know where he goes because all I care about is Lucy is GOING TO GET WITH GEORGE!





The story has a pretty satisfactory resolution. No one dies, they end up in Italy, and their passionate necking is sanctioned by church and state, and thus my mom, for they are now man and wife.

I am free to observe their passionate wedded bliss. If only I could get Mr. Beebe out of my mind.

Awkward Family Vacation Photos

Super dorky, I know. But at least give me some credit for not writing it in the sand and taking a picture.



Maybe it's a little tacky to post a bunch of family vacation photos in a public forum. It's like the 21st century version of serving your guests cocktail weenies and making them watch Super 8's of your trip to the Great Lakes, I guess. Actually, that sounds kind of fun. Cocktail weenies are totally underappreciated, I think.

The thing is, this is all I've got. It's what I've been doing and besides, when's the last time I had my digital photos printed? Never. At least this way, one day when I'm old (and that's super far away, just so you know) I can excavate this blog and show my grandchildren old family photos.

Waimea Canyon is at the southern end of Kauai, and called the Grand Canyon of Hawaii for obvious reasons. Like the real thing, you just can't imagine how awe-inspiring and vast it is unless you're there in person. The contrast of Kauai's famous red dirt and all the deep greens was stunning.





Do we look like the kind of family that just drives to the look-out point?? Why do I look like a body-builder??





Everywhere. The pigeons of Kauai.





We did a pretty strenuous hike up into the canyon, to a set of falls and pools.

Just FYI, 12-year olds do a lot of deep, pensive thinking. Pretty much all the time. At least when they're not busy eating, crying that "it's not fair" or being awkward.

This is the pool at the smallest upper falls.








At the ends of the Earth. See how hazy the background looks? It was actually a perfectly clear day, but they're so far away the mountains appear to be hazy.








I'm perfectly O.K. with you teetering on the edges of cliffs. I'm not even hyperventilating. I'm just out of breath. From the altitude.








This looks like some Mayan ruin, right? It's a natural formation, though. Some book I was reading said it looked like something vulgar, but I just didn't see it. Believe me, I tried.





So, another round of cocktail weenies? What have you been up to?



...........................................................

Let's shop for vintage clothes in London today, shall we?

Not for realz, yo! My kids are sick. Otherwise, YEAH I would hop a red eye with you! Get some bangers 'n mash, molest some Queen's guard guys, hang out in some red telephone booths, meet up with Hugh Grant for a nip of whiskey and put my shopping bags in the boot of his Aston Martin. You know, what we USUALLY do when we cross the pond to shop.

Nope, today we will do it American-style, from the comfort of our own McMansions, with our coffee-not-tea, munching on our toast toasted on BOTH sides.

Alright, even I've had it with these weak racial caricatures (some of which might actually be Irish and not English [and based on lyrics by the Police], so...no, I can't even be bothered to be accurate when I'm making fun of people).

So, you ladies-who-read-blogs-thus-know-everything, you know about ASOS right? Kind of similar to ZARA, pretty affordable, purveyors of the orange pants I so unspectacularly blogged about last week?

This fancy lady(famous treehouse designer, member of the Nashville Cats all-female biker gang) got me hooked. Just like Euro cigarette smoke doesn't smell as bad as American, cheap Euro clothes are pretty superior to cheap American clothes and they're not genetically modified because of those progressive EU standards.

But guess what? I found out they have this thing called ASOS Marketplace where edgy British girls who look like they will cut you model some awesome Euro vintage clothing THAT IS FOR SALE FOR NOT A LOT OF MONEY! Most of it is in the $30-$40 range, and shipping is $10-ish.

Here are some of the highlights, but I'm telling you, I only made it to page ten of like 436 pages.

A psychadelic purple panther caftan, the must-have of the season!
The green hair thing and shoes let you know that this is not an American situation going on here...



I feel like Kelly Wearstler would try to rip this dress off your body if she saw you:



A non-traditional wedding dress maybe? For those "wine in Mason jars, bluegrass band in a barn" wedding people?



Who could not wear this dress? It would look good on everyone.



I just know this girl is in an awesome scooter gang. I'll take that body AND the amazing dress, thanks. I think this is going into my "If I ever get my boobs did" scrapbook.



Best for last? Yep. A littler spendier at about $100, as it's 60s Pierre Cardin from back when he was a thing! The details on this dress are superb. I would wear it with purple tights, but I wear purple tights with everything. You would look good in this dress until you're 80. It's just so perfect. Forgive her for not smiling...she's a little angry about the awful drooping bunting on the wall and the giant doily she's standing on.

XII Forever, sometimes

A wholehearted product recommend from yours truly. I just came home from picking this guy up. I had to have a bunch of girls dig through the stockroom to find me one, but I would not (let them) give up.

My husband was stroking out in the cavernous new two-story Forever 21, but I was undeterred. I combed the racks (hey, why no whole shirts? You can only get half a shirt now?) while his eyeballs jerked around in their sockets.



I bought him soup after, so he's ok now.

Embellished tribal clutch, $26.80. Really.

Much weightier and spendier-looking in person than I had any right to expect.

Yep, this clutch is CLUTCH!

RECAP (and obsession confession)

A reader/friend said I was starting to sound like an extreme couponer with all this travel hacking talk of late. Oh heck no. Finding stellar deals or strategizing to travel for free is one thing. Carrying an accordion binder of 30 cents off coupons in my purse is a whole different ball of crazy wax.

But....I do have a slightly extreme confession to make.

Don't hate. I didn't share this offer here because I didn't know if it was any good. Also because I don't want you guys to think I'm an extreme couponer.

American Express ran a "Gift Chain" promotion recently. You registered your AMEX cards, spent $25+ at any of several online stores, and each purchase won a "gift" ranging from a $5 statement credit to $50 American Express gift cards, to 50,000 AMEX points (transferrable to airlines and hotel programs).

I have never, ever participated in these kinds of things, assuming as per my mom's cynical life-training that they're all just "the man trying to screw you." But I've been a lot more points-conscious lately. So I enrolled my cards and promptly forgot all about it. Purely by coincidence I made two purchases that qualified, and within a couple minutes I got "you received a gift from the Gift Chain" emails. One was a $5 credit at Zappos (lame) and one was a $25 credit at Zappos (less lame).

I wasn't falling all over myself to get more of these "buy something, get something gifts" since they basically work to make you spend more money (man=screwing you). But, due to my diligently obsessive research, I found out there was a no-purchase way to enter (write your name, address, email on an index card and mail it in). I had a bad cold, so while I sat around in bed one night I filled out ten entries each for all six of our American Express cards and mailed them in. What? I don't do relaxing.

I was a little shocked as the results started pouring in via email.

Total gifts:

$530 in American Express gift cards

$122 in American Express statement credits

$128 in credits at Zappos

(plus some other stuff I won't really use, like small credits at Pottery Barn, etc)

A little bit better than 30 cents off a jar of Ragu, I think.

Also, did I just beat the man at his own game?

Next time, I promise to share. Unless you're not interested?

S0 last week we took our getaway to Newport Beach (to earn our 100,000 Club Carlson points).

Has anyone else done their "stay"?

At first I was a little irritated with myself. Had I gotten carried away? Had I just paid real dollars to get in on some points action that I might not really need? Were we going to have to suffer a cheesy, run-down hotel stay just to get our points?

Nah. It was a perfect weekend.

The hotel was SO MUCH better than I expected. Sort of retro on the outside and "swanky corporate" on the inside. We were upgraded to the executive floor/executive room without asking, and the wi-fi, parking, and coffee was free. No "forced" incidental costs.

We slept (way) in and had peach cornmeal pancakes and Mexican eggs benedict here.

POOCHES!

PRETTY POOCHES AND POOCHES IN BAD 80s CLOTHING!

Then we caught an insanely good exhibit of experimental California art from the 60s and 70s at one of my favorite little museums, the OCMA.

[INSERT VISUAL OF WEIRD HIPPIES DOING PERFORMANCE ART HERE]

We wandered around for a few hours, completely alone, until we were done with thinking (and being frightened by the 60s). Then we headed across the street to Fashion Island...probably the least offensive mall I've ever been to. It's pretty, has ocean views, and some interesting indie-type shops that I actually want to shop at.

BAD CELL PHONE SHOTS

We watched the new Sherlock Holmes movie in a theater that served alcohol and had massive leather recliner seats.

We hung out and talked over margaritas the size of my face.

And the next day we woke up early and drove out to meet our family at some desert hot springs.

[HIS NEW THING IS "HUMANS WEREN'T MADE TO WEAR SHOES AND I WANT TO CLIMB EVEREST"]

[HIS NEW THING IS GROWING A CUTE LITTLE MUSTACHE AND SLEEPING]

Travel Hack-MOVE FAST!

Do you like status? How about gold? Then you will love GOLD STATUS!

This travel hack is too easy and I forbid you to ignore it. You can get gold status for a full year at Hilton, which means free upgrades (possibly to suites!), free breakfasts, free wi-fi, access to the locked upper floor executive lounge with drinks and food, free parking, etc. (depending on the property).

Hilton Rome Cavalieri...so it's not the Ace, but it's a place to crash

Oh, I KNOW, you stay at the Ace almost exclusively. Fine. But people do crazy things to attain gold status at Hilton and this is an opportunity to get it with a mouse-click. If you DO find yourself staying at a *GASP* chain hotel at any point this year, you'll be glad you did this. And Hilton foreign properties are amazing and often in cool historic buildings, so it's not such a "corporate experience" abroad.

"Hello, I have gold status thanks to MODERNHAUS. Keys to the executive lounge overlooking the Vatican, please!"

If you don't have a Hilton HHonors account, get one here. Takes a second.

Not the Ace Swim Club. Try to cope.

Then click here and enter the number "411945" into the "Visa" box. Then your HHonors member number and below that, the pin code Hilton gave you. You should get instant gold status.

It's a weird loophole that Hilton will probably close...very soon. Bon chance!


*FOR SOME THIS IS WORKING INSTANTLY AND OTHERS ARE GETTING AN ERROR MESSAGE. If you get an error message, clear your cache and and try it again. It WILL work!

AMERICAN PICKERS

This past Sunday we went with some new friends (a trio of Glamazon sisters that have befriended our oldest) to our local mountains for some fresh air and apple picking. It was a perfect day, in that way that perfect days can only spontaneously occur. The kind that no amount of planning can replicate.

And there was pie. Glorious, apple-berry, crumb-topped pie.

How was your weekend?



in miniature



Snow White

cousins

killer apples

beating the system

Renaissance girl

orchard worker

wildlife