Friday, June 09, 2006
obligatory vacation post.
i've been trying to post this for three days. as some of you probably know, blogger's been on the fritz. more interesting data to come.
* * *
i'm back.
because you are dying to know: the first few days of the vacation were problematic only because of the period i didn't seem to be having. it showed up late with no excuses, and i was a particularly grateful flavor of relieved. nothing kicks off a vacation like finding out you're knocked up.
but i'm not. so, good.
there aren't too many great, relatable stories from the trip, only small ones that don't make sense outside my family. i finally made good on the flipside of a horribly embarrassing past tendency and called my dad by the monkey's name. we finished a thursday new york times crossword together, one of those ones that has you rolling on the floor badmouthing will shortz's mom when you finally realize that .1 microjoules is actually an "erg." i went to wine school. i have a terrible nose, it turns out. my mom? actually pretty good. i think maybe smell is improving while hearing goes down the tubes.
i'm starting to see what getting old will look like for her--it's just the hazy outline, but it's sort of a sad picture. she seems sort of isolated from conversations, from people, from the fun that's going on around her. you know when you talk to her that chances are high she'll interrupt you mid-sentence with some sort of off-the-wall interjection, and i think it's because she can't follow what you were saying for lack of comprehension and her attention wandered. the overall effect is that she seems much less sharp than she used to, sort of wandery and selfish, like old people seem sometimes. which makes her seem old to me, and a little pitiful. don't get me wrong, she's not doddering or seeming like she needs one of those ear-trumpets (gargamel had one on the smurfs, do you remember?) or a guide dog. but it's changing her. more than it has to, i think. i hope she gets some better hearing aids, and wears them, and some of this is reversed. she's sort of shrinking into her life.
i should note, though, that she is also still my mom, and we still know how to party down in only the way co-dependent moms and daughters can. we ate potato chips on the balcony and hooted with laughter over old family stories. we got sloppy at dinner and flirted with the waiter. we got in our swimsuits and dunked toes in the pool and then decided just to sit by the side with diet cokes and long books.
what else. i had a picnic in an olive grove and sunburned my back. i ate raw beef. i walked and walked and walked. i took pictures (tk, they're still on my ipod). i decided to see what would happen if i drank a glass of wine every single time i wanted one. (it's good.) i rode a bike with my dad through the dordogne river valley, and we stopped at a french truck stop for lunch (french truck stop. all the workmen sitting down to lunch gave us the austere gallic eyeball as we bellied up to the counter, but by the time we left they were waving and bonjouring us all over the place). when we were gathering our gear to go, my dad did this thing he used to do when i was a child, when he was teaching me to ski. he'd take my little glove and sort of wrinkle up the parts from the wristband until the fingers, kind of the way you scrinch up pantyhose before you stick your toe into the toe part? and then i'd stick my hand in, and he'd help me get it situated. it helped me not get messed up about where the fingers went. when we finished at the truck stop, he picked up my glove liners and scrinched them and held them up for me to stick my fingers into, without thinking. i loved it.
there was something healing about the cicadas and the olive trees and the rivers and the cobblestones. i know; the word "healing" makes me puke, too, but it's true. it's nice, and it's meaningful, to get away from where you are. especially when where you are makes you angry. i always liked going places with fewer buildings, but this was especially good. i never needed it quite this bad before. there were these bushes in bloom all over that smelled like jasmine.
and then i spent a quickie in paris which included the single best coffee i've ever had, at an outdoor cafe outside the comedie francaise, and it was almost seven dollars but completely worth it, one small sunburn in the luxembourg gardens, and then i went home to the monkey.
who is just so good. coming home to someone is so sweet.
* * *
i'm back.
because you are dying to know: the first few days of the vacation were problematic only because of the period i didn't seem to be having. it showed up late with no excuses, and i was a particularly grateful flavor of relieved. nothing kicks off a vacation like finding out you're knocked up.
but i'm not. so, good.
there aren't too many great, relatable stories from the trip, only small ones that don't make sense outside my family. i finally made good on the flipside of a horribly embarrassing past tendency and called my dad by the monkey's name. we finished a thursday new york times crossword together, one of those ones that has you rolling on the floor badmouthing will shortz's mom when you finally realize that .1 microjoules is actually an "erg." i went to wine school. i have a terrible nose, it turns out. my mom? actually pretty good. i think maybe smell is improving while hearing goes down the tubes.
i'm starting to see what getting old will look like for her--it's just the hazy outline, but it's sort of a sad picture. she seems sort of isolated from conversations, from people, from the fun that's going on around her. you know when you talk to her that chances are high she'll interrupt you mid-sentence with some sort of off-the-wall interjection, and i think it's because she can't follow what you were saying for lack of comprehension and her attention wandered. the overall effect is that she seems much less sharp than she used to, sort of wandery and selfish, like old people seem sometimes. which makes her seem old to me, and a little pitiful. don't get me wrong, she's not doddering or seeming like she needs one of those ear-trumpets (gargamel had one on the smurfs, do you remember?) or a guide dog. but it's changing her. more than it has to, i think. i hope she gets some better hearing aids, and wears them, and some of this is reversed. she's sort of shrinking into her life.
i should note, though, that she is also still my mom, and we still know how to party down in only the way co-dependent moms and daughters can. we ate potato chips on the balcony and hooted with laughter over old family stories. we got sloppy at dinner and flirted with the waiter. we got in our swimsuits and dunked toes in the pool and then decided just to sit by the side with diet cokes and long books.
what else. i had a picnic in an olive grove and sunburned my back. i ate raw beef. i walked and walked and walked. i took pictures (tk, they're still on my ipod). i decided to see what would happen if i drank a glass of wine every single time i wanted one. (it's good.) i rode a bike with my dad through the dordogne river valley, and we stopped at a french truck stop for lunch (french truck stop. all the workmen sitting down to lunch gave us the austere gallic eyeball as we bellied up to the counter, but by the time we left they were waving and bonjouring us all over the place). when we were gathering our gear to go, my dad did this thing he used to do when i was a child, when he was teaching me to ski. he'd take my little glove and sort of wrinkle up the parts from the wristband until the fingers, kind of the way you scrinch up pantyhose before you stick your toe into the toe part? and then i'd stick my hand in, and he'd help me get it situated. it helped me not get messed up about where the fingers went. when we finished at the truck stop, he picked up my glove liners and scrinched them and held them up for me to stick my fingers into, without thinking. i loved it.
there was something healing about the cicadas and the olive trees and the rivers and the cobblestones. i know; the word "healing" makes me puke, too, but it's true. it's nice, and it's meaningful, to get away from where you are. especially when where you are makes you angry. i always liked going places with fewer buildings, but this was especially good. i never needed it quite this bad before. there were these bushes in bloom all over that smelled like jasmine.
and then i spent a quickie in paris which included the single best coffee i've ever had, at an outdoor cafe outside the comedie francaise, and it was almost seven dollars but completely worth it, one small sunburn in the luxembourg gardens, and then i went home to the monkey.
who is just so good. coming home to someone is so sweet.
