Value wIT

Fasten your seat belt; it’s going to be a politically incorrect ride. 

There is just no way to write about a small town water park without sounding like Eliza Elitist, but there is also no way that I can kept the images I saw at such a water park locked inside my head. If you could help me heal my mental damage by absorbing the visual details as I pour them out, I would be most grateful. Thank you in advance.

Let me get right to the point. There should be two types of water parks 1) Hygienic People Water Park and 2) Not Hygienic People Water Park. 

Stop barking - I hear the cacophony of voices howling in retort that a separation of water park people sounds exclusive, discriminatory, selective or just plain snobby.  Maybe so, but should people with exposed wounds swim with people who do not have open sores on their bodies?

Your first response (I know you) is to tell me this discussion is a matter of economics and that I am bating a class war.  I encourage you to rethink that position and consider that if one can afford plastic breasts to the tune of at least $3,000, then one can afford a $1.69 pair of toenail clippers.  Truly, should an unsuspecting water shoot rider be accosted by the thick, yellowed, and extremely long toenail of another water park guest?

And back to those breasts – wtf?  How can every Misty, Jerilyn and Hope afford new titties?  This is how: Misty scraps together $10,000 for a butt suck and boob blast and when it’s time for her children to go to college, Misty’s children get financial aid.  Meanwhile, I buy a Target bra to hoist my sagging breasts and bank $10,000 in the college savings account. My reward, aside from naturally sloppy breasts, is that my children do not qualify for financial aid, and I get to pay full price for college while Misty claims lower income and gets discounted college tuition. 

(This fact is somewhat tangential to this conversation, but because it’s so amazing I use every chance I get to tell anyone who will listen that this year we are paying $78,000+ in college tuition for two children.  Let that soak in for a minute.)

Truly, at the water park there was a meemaw looking woman wearing a t-shirt and jean shorts with her “hard-as-a-rock” breasts staring right at me at every turn-style.  Meemaw looked like she just got out of Jed Clampet’s truck and was on her way to a senior citizen porn audition.  If she could afford those breasts (and fake teeth), then why couldn’t she splurge on a bathing suit?

Not only did open wounds and gnarly toenails put me off my feed, but the smokers who punctuated their nasty habit with a “hocka-pa-tooey” on the ground in front of me completely grossed me out.  Walking behind Carruso (I know that’s his name because it was tattooed across the entire span of his upper back) and trying to make sure my asthmatic son avoids the smoke billowing out of Carruso’s body, I stop in my tracks as Carruso hocks up a big loogey and spits it on to the cement where the entire water park population walks BAREFOOTED. 

My skinny 4-year old son has no body fat, and therefore felt like the swim-up bar filled with warm water was the best place for him to be during our water park visit.  How much I enjoyed sitting on a cement stool in the swim-up bar amidst the warm water that was busy breeding disease. Emphatically, the most disgusting water park guests gravitate toward the hot, still water. So wisely, smoking is allowed IN the swim-up bar so that immensely overweight people prop themselves up against the walls of the hot tub and hold a mammoth can of Foster’s beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other hand. 

The hot pool is not restricted to adults; there are plenty of children in the warm water eating ice cream and dropping it in the water.  In retrospect, I am certain there was a pinched look on my face as I watched cigarette ashes and Dippin’ Dots fall into the pool.  I could feel all the drunk people slurring about how uptight I looked – may their waterborne diarrheal infection never end.

In short, I am not asking for a water park that will go so far as to cull out the run of the mill strippers who wear jeweled charms on their bikinis (my son enjoyed fondling those charms while striking up a conversation at the swim-up bar). Also, I am not making a case for weeding out the guys who don’t wear bathing suits but instead wear shorts that reveal startling shots of their wieners.  And while I would love to legislate that all water park goers first adhere to an intense skin exfoliation, I am willing to concede that standard as well. All I ask is that we ban open wounds, gummy toes, blowing one’s nose in the pool, disposing of cigarettes in the water, expectorating bodily fluid on the ground, and eating turkey legs with less than a full set of teeth.

P.S. Watch this.

I’m a little disgusted as I absorb so much luxury – certainly more than my fair share and most certainly more than I deserve.  Reclining on a white lounge chair with awning stripped fabric, I sit by a fat, rectangular pool filled with perfect turquoise water and watch my delighted five-year old play with a little girl who speaks no English.   Apparently, language in the kid-world is not such a significant communication tool.

My espresso has been served poolside in a pale yellow antique cup that has been placed on a silver tray.  The pool lawn is dark green and scattered with gray and white bunnies and one donkey. The trees are filled with noisy insects. The hotel was built in 1710 and is the proud site of WWII negotiations to free Marseille from the Nazis.  All in all, the hotel and its organerie is a fine place to be as Israel works its way into the Iraqi war.

The trip didn’t start out nearly so well. Upon arriving at the airport for our overly planned one-month vacation, the airline did not have our reservation, nor did it have any seats available.  Standing at the counter with my pink and green bound trip folder boasting nine tabs and a stripped elastic band holding all my confirmation numbers, directions and details, I was defenseless because my confirmation number meant nothing because I had not paid a service fee on the airline tickets, and the reservations had been canceled in December – seven months earlier.

In all of my organization I had not double-checked the reservations.  Well, not exactly true. After I got an email from the airline entitled “Flight Confirmation” I felt fairly secure. I did call to ask if I needed hard copies of the tickets, “No, you are all set.” Of course, I had not given the reservation number and the customer service representative was anxious to get me off the telephone as she thought I had already been ticketed and seemed to be wasting her time with compulsive over-organization.

The situation would never have happened to my husband.  He would have actually read the tiny text on the confirmation email that said “void if service charge unpaid in 14 days”and would not have assumed that because the email was titled "confirmation" that it was actually a confirmation.  Thus, reading the tiny details he would have avoided the exercise of having to summon tears for the CSM—some type of important airline official that had been called to handle the crisis. 

My husband would have never performed but would have also not made an impact enough to bring out the CSM. However, without an emotional demonstration, I would be sitting in the 100+ degree heat of Central Texas and not in a breeze under a huge tree that my daughter asked, “Is that tree real?”

Only two days into our trip it is evident that the common denominator is the connection my daughter makes with other children:  the child on the airplane, a kid on the train, two Barcelona boys in the pool, a kid on the street in Marseille – most crime ridden city in all of France. No matter where we go, K strikes up a conversation.  The French country hotel/chateau is so quaint and perfect and the sound of my friendly child stating to a new friend, “Bonjour. Je m’appel K” makes me teary. 

All I wanted for my children has already happened.  Before I had children and realized how difficult it was to shape them, I pronounced to my husband that I valued children who were creative and independent and curious and able to develop relationships.  Of course after birthing children and attempting to merely keep them alive, I don’t ever bother to worry about non-essentials like personality traits. However, as K settles in with an older couple from Scotland and introduces them to “Super Napkin” (a paper napkin with a drawn-on mouth and a tail) I know she is most definitely a valued child, in my opinion.

How can one person be having the time of their life and the other person in the same setting be miserable?  It is July 20, 2006 and K and I are on the beautiful beach of Cassis in southern France.  I would include a photograph, but K dropped and broke the camera. She is five, right?

I am watching K as she experiences complete satisfaction and thrill.  Her body is about 50 inches tall and she is riding an inflatable shark that is about 60 inches long.  Over and over the shark crests to the top of a bright blue wave that crashes onto the beach located at the foot of a mountain.  Topless little French girls and bikini clad little boys nestle next to K and pitifully try to cloak their envy with feigned friendliness. While she barks about in a loud American voice and tries to demonstrate her shark riding skills, the children try to watch and simulate interest, but it is all too evident they are not as interested in K as they are in the shark -- the shark that their parents refused to buy.

I’m such a sucker when it comes to giant animal floats and beaches.  It all goes back to one of the best days of my life.  I was about six years old– maybe even four – and I was spending a week at a beach house in South Carolina with my godmother, her Porshe-driving husband and their friends who had two young girls my age. The father of the girls took us into the ocean on a float and played with us all morning.  It was wild fun.  My parents never played with me -- of course, they were older when I was born, but I don’t think any parents played with their children much in the 1960’s.  That beach vacation shouldn’t be so significant, as I never saw that family again, Porshce-man got divorced, and I have not seen my godmother in almost 30 years. I have no idea where she lives.  However, something must have been significant about that day because I frequently recall images of the house, beach, food, children and that fabulous float.  Whenever I see floats I always recall that wonderful week and try to re-create the experience.  I even bought a giant lobster float on my honeymoon.  Alone with my new husband on a tranquil deserted beach off the Agean Sea, I floated on a big red lobster.

So while K races from the sand to the water holding the handles of “Sharky”and thrusting him into an oncoming wave, I sit on the beach – me and thousands of other sun worshipers.  However, I do not want to be a sun worshiper.  I want to be a shade worshiper. 

It is incredibly difficult for me to write about the paradise that is so close to me – my ideal – because I can’t have it, and I have embarrassed myself trying to get it. Ten feet behind me are about 30 “beds” with bright-blue terry cloth cushions accompanied by weepingly cute stripped umbrellas.  The sign says “Café et Massage”.  When I spotted the area I knew it was going to be one fine day for me:

BEACH+ BED+UMBRELLA+COFFEE+WINE+B00K+MASSAGE= PERFECT DAY!

The sign also mentioned 30 Euros – a little expensive, and I assume that is just for the chair and the umbrella not the coffee and massage.  As I march toward paradise, I rationalize that I have no choice but to pay the approximate $50 because the alternative is the naked sun. What the hell, I decide.  I’m paying the money.  I’m on vacation.

In arrogant English, with a few “merci’s” thrown in, I let the garcon know I would like a bed. He’s a young guy wearing a Bluetooth and a gold chain.  He obviously thinks he’s cool.  He responds to my request in a confused way that carries a tone suggesting I might be too American to come into the paradise, which, by the way, is packed with French titties staring at me.

I am a woman. I know they are just breasts, but, gee, looking at them looking at me is unsettling.  The young, fit girls aren’t so difficult to ignore – their breasts look non-offensive – like what you see inferred in magazines, what you expect women’s breasts to look like.  Then there are the young women without perfect bodies – the ones who look like me.  Oh my God – their breasts are distracting.  Have they been nursing?  Yuck. Giant areolas look like skin-colored fried eggs.  At least eggs have the white/yellow contrast.  Naked, nursed boobies have no contrast, just the color of the skin-colored crayon. Glance away.

The last glance, however, does me in – old titties.  Cover that up!  I would like to think I am a feminist and that all women have beautiful bodies. However, they don’t – 96% of the women should wrap-up and this percentage includes the flat-chested, itty-bitty titty women, the pointed-up hoping to be medium-sized titty women – and, Lord help me, the hairy nipple women.

All these breast thoughts happen in my mind in less than five seconds.  In those five seconds, I realize that my fate is in the hands of the guy who at first looked like a French version of some brainless dimwit in my high school Home and Family class.  Then I get it.  He speaks no English and simply does not understand my request for a lounge chair with an umbrella.  I ditch my American pomposity and muster my French, “Uh, oh, si vous plait, je vais une chaise, por favor. I mean, si vous plait.  Merci.” 

As it turns out, he is not confused. He is disgusted by me.  Me, who is not much older or fatter than these women --well, in my mind I’m not. In reality, I think Mr. Titty-Tender thinks he has met someone outside of his cool titty-tending reality.  I imagine it’s as if he were an American surfer working as a doorman at a hot Los Angeles club, and I am a middle-aged Japanese woman bowing and calling him “Doorman-san” and rattling off something that translates into “Please. I am a chair… unrecognizable language…Thank you.”  His eyes told me, “No eggrolls here, Crazy-San.” 

Another young guy hanging around the Naked-Breast Baking Area was trying so hard to conceal his utter delight in his immediate situation. He was so happy with life that he offers to help me.  This guy looked like the average American college boy:  * Not fat, but not skinny * Hair not long, but not short * Just a guy from Indiana – who was completely aware of the great possibility he would be hooking-up with one of these naked French girls later in the evening. He was at a preview party and was as happy as I would be an estate sale preview party.

College guy sees I am having trouble with my French and says to me, “Oh, you want a bed? Great. I'll ask for you. What about right here?” he points to a spot near where we stand.  I’m thrilled. I’ll be right next to the Perfect Titty Girls, but I’m in no competition. They can tan and drink all day, and I won’t be a bother. I make a note to myself to make sure that K doesn’t get sand in their tanning oil. Yes, this chair placement will be fine.

College guy translates the message to Titty-Tender man, and Titty-Tender man scrunches his face and blows the sound “Puuuuuu”through his lips….you know that very condescending sound that French people always make with downcast eyes?  College guy shrugs his shoulders and smiles and arches his eyebrows at me, “Sorry. These chairs require a reservation. There are no more available.”

I have the same feeling I had in 1986 at the Lamba Chi house when some frat boy tells me that there is no more punch like the Hollings girls are drinking, but there are some cans of Milwalkees Best in the refrigerator. I make my place on the public beach using K's 18x24 inch travel towel.  I have no hat and cannot get into the water as I am burdened with a backpack that should not be left unattended for fear my money, credit card and rental car keys might be stolen. The backpack contains nothing that will be of help on a beach. All I have is sunscreen. I pile loads of it on my body in hopes it will transform into an umbrella.

My job today, in the absence of a camera is to be a human camera and transmit the beautiful photograph of K leaping in the in ocean on Sharky.  My other job is to ignore the couple sitting next to me. A whole beach and the guy wearing a shirt printed with “God is Enough for Christian Couples” sits next to me. I will not even attempt to exploit that low-hanging fruit…

Of course I missed the train.  Did you expect anything else?  It was fun to miss the train when I was in college – never know where you will end-up. However, missing the train with a five-year old in tow and a three year old and a husband waiting for you after a week apart is not as glamorous.

It was not frustrating at the beginning when we learned that the direct fast train to Geneva was full. In hindsight we should have gotten on the train because nobody ever checked our ticket on the next train that we waited four hours to catch.  Instead of occupying our time at an historic site, I opted to take K on a tour of a seedy French washeteria where we visited with various derelicts and viewed a bum passed out in a “just been sodomized” way. His pants down showed his bikini underwear and K was more fascinated by the site of his underwear than she was impressed by the  human tragedy.

Long story short we ended-up in Italy instead of Switzerland.  G and baby G sat waiting for us in a beautiful Swiss hotel whose meter was ticking to account for its Victorian grandiose.  At first the train was fascinating – cute, old train with private compartments and quaint curtains.  We had a cabin for six persons to ourselves. Giddy, we closed the door and pulled the curtains.  We were five hours late, but what fun we were having.  We picnicked in our suite and read and listened to stories on the iPod.  First class was comprised of three cars and all were empty except for our car with just K and me. 

The fare for first class was only 13 more Euros – I assumed that there were not many people going to Geneva.  Ever in search of the dining car, we trudged through Second Class and then into what I guess was Third Class.  People were packed in the back cars and there was no air conditioning.  The smell could have knocked a buzzard off a gut-wagon.  There was no dining car, but my appetite suddenly left.  Upon returning to our compartment we find a beautiful, tall, skinny, bleached-blonde Italian girl who was about 23 years old.  She had been partying on the Cote d’Azur and was traveling home to Milan with her five suitcases.  Our compartment was packed with luggage, but she is so friendly and forth-coming that we don’t mind and don’t move into one of the many other vacant compartments.

Oh, what I learned from my Italian friend in three hours – her name, however, was not one of the things I learned, but her luggage tag said something like Dvora.  I was frightened by the prospect of missing a meal and jumped off the train at a quick stop and bought two sandwiches – salami and cheese.  As I chomp into my sandwich I rationalize to the food gods that I had no choice but to eat something so fatty.  Delighted with my excuse to indulge (for the millionth time of the trip) I mutter to my svelte friend, “I don’t know how European women stay so skinny when the foods are so fatty – salami in Italy and jambon et frommage in France.” 

I expect her to say what Glamour magazine says – something like, European women drink lots of red wine. They walk and don’t drive.  Something that I can do to counteract my extra fat intake – I will drink red wine and not drive my car while in Europe. Instead, she says with a toothy grin and a “no-no” finger wag, “I would never eat that!”  Blasted.  Hit. Down. Gee, I think as I tear off some more of the super-sized ciabatta bread.  I inquire about what she would eat – not so secretly imploring her to absolve me from bad-food sin because I had no other choice – “On travel days or times I am away from home I just eat a piece of toast, or if I am very hungry I eat a piece of fruit.”  So, she just doesn’t eat all day – easy plan.

Aside from dieting tips I learned much more from my Italian friend.  She was so kind to us as well as the old Italian ladies who boarded the train toward the end of the trip.  She was like a nice southern girl even though she did hold forth on how she didn’t like France or the French (think there was some World Cup issues there) because they were “too, you know.”  Is Italy to France like Atlanta is to New York City or Odessa to Midland or Bouldin Creek to Westlake?  Maybe I’ve gone too far.

Dvora wore on me; however, as more train delays pushed the trip past the midnight hour, so did Dvora’s close existence push me closer to the edge.  She railed on her cell phone at full blast for almost five hours. Good thing she had a battery charger and the train’s compartment had an outlet.  As it turns out, her friend, Vinale, wanted her to return to Monocco and board his friend’s boat, as opposed to his boat, which she had just departed after a week of sailing and partying.  Then Nena called to invite her to Flavio’s place in Ibiza, Spain for two weeks. 

Mostly in Italian, but in some English, she blathered to Nena about how the Monocco-St. Tropez guy didn’t own her.  Such turmoil.  It just didn’t seem like the right time for me to ask if she had a job. Dvora, where will life lead you?  Flavio won’t marry you when you get too old to be a boat ornament (next year.)  He will move on to another babe.  With no education, Dvora, the best you can hope for is to be a receptionist or the wife of Tony Soprano. Goodbye, Dvora -- thanks for the diet tips, you skinny pain-in-the-ass.

As our unplanned visit to Milan neared its end, thank goodness, I gently awoke K from the twin bed we shared in the $125/night rat-trap hotel room we secured next to the ever-so-populated-with-bums train station.  The telephone in the room did not work – “tomorrow it work” so I spend some time on the street at a pay phone in front of the hotel frantically calling everyone whose telephone number I could remember.  The keys stuck on the pay phone and about 70%  of the time my call did not go through. NObody was home.  Voicemail. 

I had to get in touch with someone who would use the Internet to contact the hotel where G was staying in Switzerland and get a message to him that I was alright and would be there the next day.  Expecting us about 13 hours earlier, I knew he must be frantic.  My friend Shelley answered – yea!  She is not a person to call in case of an emergency, but my big sister via marriage was not answering any of her numbers, nor were my other contacts.  I explain to Shelley in a quasi-panic, how I am standing in a scary part of Milan at 1:00 am and how desperate I am that I have left K upstairs, asleep, in a seedy motel and how my husband must be worried sick. Shelly tells me, “Listen, it’s 5:45 pm and my brother-in-law is getting married at 6:30 – I gotta go. Sorry.” 

Nooooooooooooo. I beg her to call her cousin, Midge, who I know from 20 years ago in college and haven’t spoken to since 1989, and ask Midge to email the hotel (I know the hotel website, but not the telephone number.)  Shelley says she will call Midge. I go back to my room and sit in the plastic chair.  Did she call Midge?  Did Midge email the hotel?  Did the hotel give the message to G? All night I am awake pondering these questions in the twin bed with K as she literally beats me with her flailing arms and kicking legs and aggressive body flips.  The first sign of sunlight and I’m up, dressed and packed. 

It’s 7:00 am and all of Europe is smoking its fifth cigarette at the train station.  Memories of car trips with my parents flood my senses.  We’re in the GIGANTIC Lincoln Town car floating down the interstate.  Both parents are chain smoking with the windows shut tight.  My little lungs and I are in the backseat with the dog (dogs, smoke –why did we spend all that money on allergy medicine?)  My parents won’t crack the window because it would make too much noise and would blow my mother’s hair.  I stretch my body out on the flat, bench seat and stick my nose into the crevice of the gray, velour seat.  If there was only some air from underneath the car that would flow up through the seat …if only one Italian would stop smoking in my face!

I repeatedly and more fervently than yesterday begin to demand a straight answer about when and which train will take me to Geneva. No English!  What is wrong with these people?  Haven’t they heard Bush is supporting “English Only!”

Finally, we are on the train and I have plenty ‘o dollars, 5 Euros and 0 Lira—who planned to come to Italy?  My sweet traveling companion only wants water – this is so good because I can afford one bottle of water, but no coffee for me who has been awake for the past 24 hours. I am trying to give the food-cart guy a ten dollar bill for a coffee, but he’s not taking it. I have 2 Euros left, but the coffee is 2.5 Euros.   No coffee for me – Visa not spoken here.

You might wonder from the last entry if G got the message that we had wandered off to Italy.  Another day on an Italian train brought K and I to quiet a paradise –Glion, Switzerland.  You can’t find it on a map. You can find a small Swiss town called Glion in Eastern Switzerland, but that’s not it.  To get to the town, take a train to Montreaux and catch the funicular up the mountain to find a splendid (times six) hotel filled with real antiques and fine food that is consumed on a mountainside overlooking a lake. 

While G and baby G sat in this expensive hotel worrying about whether or not K and I were alive, we stayed in the creepy motel next to the Milan train station.  Again, the question about G getting the urgent message from Midge, the cousin. Two answers:  no and no. First of all, Shelly apparently never called Midge or Midge never emailed the hotel. I did finally contact another friend, DeAnna, who did email the hotel.  After getting off the funicular and hiking up a hill with luggage and a small child, I enter the hotel and gaze at the grandeur. I give the receptionist my name she says,  “Oh, yes. We got the very urgent message for Dr. X but have been unable to give it to him.” 

Goodness, I wonder. Why not – did he not make it?  Is he wandering the street looking for us?  I proceed to room number ten and open the door to find the G's sitting and waiting and worrying.  I am still unsure why the hotel was unable to deliver the message. I never asked, but when we checked out two days later, they gave G an envelope marked “urgent” and in the envelope was a printout of the email to the hotel explaining the emergency and a note to G from Deanna explaining what happened.  Oh well – all that ends well.

However, the snag in the travel plans that diverted K and I to Italy was small compared to the next disaster.  Of course, the problem was completely my fault, as I planned the Swiss part of the trip.  My goal was to spend time in the Graubrunden region near the land of “Heidi.’  I researched small, quaint towns, but all the hotel rooms looked like they were renovated in the 1960’s– what you generally expect, but that’s not what I wanted.  I wanted thoroughly authentic but not $500/night finery.  Finally, I found the answer in Kunkelspass.  In fact, check out www.kunkelspass.ch --so much German. I had to use www.freetranslation.com.  I identify the word zimmer and know there are beds. I see a picture of cabbage, and I imagine there is good German food.  I decided to telephone, but the woman who answered the phone spoke no English at all.

I know this hotel is what I want so I employ the services of Language Link at $5.95/minute to telephone the establishment and make my reservations.  It’s a “lage” she says – no electricity or hot water. Yeah, yeah that’s what I want – the photographs are so beautiful.  We set off from our uber-refined existence in Glion and head toward Kunkelspass.

Switzerland is such a small country that my husband anticipates a short drive.  Well, it was the Alps he forgets to consider -- hours of hairpin turns on the side of mountains at 13,000 feet. Ghosts, storms, Rednecks, airplanes and snakes don’t scare me, but heights are another matter. Looking out of the window again and again I imagine our tiny Volkswagen falling off the mountain with my loud children. My stomach turns.  It takes thirty minutes to go ten miles.  It’s getting very late. Finally around 9:00 pm we reach a tiny village comprised of about 30 residences.  There is a dirt road with a sign depicting a French horn with a line through it. Hmmm, I think. No French horn playing allowed here?? Not a problem for me.

On down the dirt road I begin to think we are headed for the Swiss version of Deliverance – what would that look like? My husband, Dr. I-Speak-German-But-Am-Not-Telling-Anyone, sits in the car while I pantomime to a village lady. Finally, by taking her arm I drag her to the car to my husband and motion for them to converse.  He whips out some perfect German to her and listens and nods and bids her farewell. 

The upshot of the conversation is this: No cars, only bicycles are allowed on this “path” from the village to Kunkelspasss.  Kunkelspass is a resting spot for bicyclers.  There is no hotel – only a big open place for people to sleep.  Special permits are needed to enter Kunkelspass. We are S-O-L.

G is such a nice guy.  What a picnic marriage to me must be. Even thought it’s dark and we are in an unknown location with no hotel within miles, sleeping children in the backseat, and five nights of room and board already charged to our credit card, he laughs it off and drives us to the next big town.  For a mere 250 CF we secured the last room in Chur. One bed, a rollaway bed, no air conditioning and plenty of night time road construction. The concierge telephoned Kunkelspass, and as it turns out we were probably five miles away when we were in the village. However, those five miles could only be walked or biked. 

We set out the next morning for Kunkelspass.  It took almost two hours to drive our obnoxious car past dedicated cyclists up and over a mountain until we reached a barn with a restaurant and deck.  AB-solutely nothing else was in site – no houses, no stores, no cars, no light poles.  The barn (our hotel) featured 20 mattresses, ten on the top and ten on the bottom.  So that’s what “lage” meant!!

To say this isolation was anything less than spectacular, unspoiled beauty would be an understatement. Our loud American children piled onto the little deck and began to argue and turn over water and whine as if to say, “Hello, tranquility,  We’re here!” A large beer, some dried meat, a big hunk of cheese and some homemade bread made the noise subside. 

We directed the children to run about the hundreds and hundreds of acres of meadows and wildflowers. They did.  We let them out of site and by the time we caught up with them they were at the crest of a hill. Baby G waited for us and K motored ahead. When we reached G, K was a quarter of the way up a mountain.  It looked so impressive to see her forging ahead; so I stared.  Then she was half way up. I was scared – a tiny little body on the face of a mountain.  I watched her climb in horror of what I had let happen. If all our film wouldn’t have been lost I would direct you to a corresponding photograph of the mountain with K (the dot) at the top. 

What a nice sleep she had in the lage. The lage was great for sleeping. After a high fat meal of gratin made of cheese and ham (is there other food aside from cheese and ham in Europe?) and a slice of ice cream cake:  coffee, vanilla, and chocolate topped with whipped cream and chocolate chips, we climbed into the top bunk of our beds and closed the Dutch door of the barn. With no electricity or windows it was completely dark and silent.  We went to sleep around 9 pm and the only reason we awoke at 8:00 am was because baby George needed to use the facilities.  After a bountiful breakfast of ….ham and cheese, we were off to Heidiland.

You may think Heidiland is a farce. We, too, thought is was a farce for about three hours. Our family ventured from our bicycle-barn residence, drove to Maienfeld, the town at the bottom of the mountain where the fictitious Heidi lived with her grandfather. I find it hard to believe an old man could make it up the mountain, especially when he carried Clara, the little girl from the book who was in a wheelchair. We had our own Clara – baby G in a stroller.

For hours we hiked deserted trails with the occasional sign stating “Heidihutte.” The promotional materials for Heidiland were vague – “often Peter, Heidi and grandfather are at the house.” Sure. We hike these trails for hours and can’t even find the house – surely there will not be characters in the house. At least three times we go back to the fairly deserted town and start at the original Heidiland sign and vow to follow the directions to the letter. Oddly, a tour bus filled with Japanese tourists stops and a guy bolts out the door and asks George how to get to Heidiland. With a totally straight face, G points the guy and his busload of Japanese friends the wrong way! Just when you think you know G…

Exhausted, baby G and I opted for a latte (first one in two weeks) and a playground while K and dad would not be denied a view of Heidi’s house. Apparently, it was a little hut with a real chicken and stuffed Peter and Heidi dolls propped up at a table. K thought it was fantastic and well worth a trans Atlantic flight and three hours of hiking.

I mean, really, what is vacation?  Is it resting in the afternoon?  Sleeping late and eating pancakes?  Dancing until dawn?  Exploring historical sites?  Meeting new people?  Should one feel renewed upon returning home?

It’s Day 18, and I want a vacation from my vacation.  Instead of spending time with my children, I would like to drop them off at school knowing that they will be taught something worthwhile instead of something I have to research. I don’t want to scour country number seven and extort the top ten historical sites and teach my children about them. Today, I do not want to go to a basilica that was built in the 7th century on top of Roman ruins and explain why the statue of Jesus has blood on it and why God killed his son.

On my vacation from my vacation, I want to drive my clean, big car with its air conditioner blasting my hair instead of dragging luggage and children on to subways, trains, buses, airplanes, boats or taxicabs. Today I want to shower and wear clean, soft clothes instead of clothes that are crunchy because they have been washed in a sink and dried over a door.  Furthermore, I want to see my family dressed in clean, fresh clothes. 

What city was it that my husband sat in bird poop?  Oh, the castle back in France, -- four countries ago and he’s still wearing those shorts!  He washed them out, but I still see the stain.  My husband is a wonderful man, and I love him for a jillion reasons – including his sense of economy.  He brought more than one pair of shorts, but I have yet to see anything other than the olive khaki ones he continues to wear.  He drives himself crazy trying to keep them clean so he doesn’t have to break out the fresh pair.  I know him well.  We’ll return to Austin, and he will unpack the clean shorts with a tremendous amount of pride.  He gets great satisfaction from not being dependent on anyone or anything –weakness in his mind.  Again, I know him well and understand and even admire his efficiency and economy, but FRESH SHORTS ARE NOT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS!

I guess vacation is waking up in a barn (remember the lage?) at 7:00 am when 300 Swiss soldiers march two feet away from the barn door. The mountain pass where we stayed obviously hosted some military manuveurs, as well as some professional bicycle rider training.  The 300 soldiers – that’s a super duper long line when they are in single file – were marching from Chur to Bag Ragaz over the mountain. It was shocking to wake up to the soldiers talking right outside the door and then opening the door and glimpsing armed people marching two feet in front of the door.

It put the children in a silly mood trying to see if soldiers would smile at them. As we drove the car away from the mountain, baby G began to sing in a weird, hilarious, giddy, indescribable voice.  The words to his song: “OOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo  [PAUSE FOR ABOUT 15 SECONDS] There is a grandmother in my….[PAUSE] Butt.”      [PAUSE FOR POSSIBLE SPANKING, BUT LIFT EYEBROWNS IN HOPES OF CHARITABLE TREATMENT.] G and I looked at each other in shock for about a second and then burst out laughing. K was so relived there would be no punishment and released her howling laughter.  The morning insanity and ridiculousness and irreverence make us laugh until we gasp for air. 

That’s what vacation is about. Of course, the 55th time baby G tries to sing the song it’s not as funny, and I begin to dream about dropping the kids off at school.

Remember the People magazine photos and stories of Rene Zelweger gaining weight in order to play the role of Bridget Jones?  Renee and I have rapid weight gain, gluttonous eating and Texas in common. 

I spent October 2005 to January 2006 losing 20 pounds, and I have spent the past three and a half weeks gaining it back. You think I’m exaggerating, but I am totally confident that I have gained about 15 pounds in a few days less than a month.  Can that be possible? (Actually, the final pound count was only 7 pounds.)  Here are some of the examples of what I would eat in one day:

Switzerland Day

Breakfast    Meat (fatty bologna type)    Cheese (big hunk ‘o Munster)    Baguette (butter and jelly)    Pain au chocolate (at least one plus any that the children left)

Lunch     Meat (cold, sausage like you get at Christmas but better)    Cheese (gooier than at breakfast)    Beer (dark and heavy)    Bread and butter (until it’s all gone)    Pickles

Dinner     Gratin – much ham, much cheese, noodles    Vegetable mix - potatoes, carrots and peas (weird, all carb vegetables)    Salad with buttermilk heavy dressing    Bottle of wine (split with George)    Bread and butter    Ice cream, chantilly and chocolate

Add up those calories and fat!

Germany

Breakfast –  More meat, cheese, bread, butter    (I never stop eating the bread or the children’s bread until the whole basket is gone.)    Three pain au chocolates (smaller in Germany)    Milk (whole)    Cappuccino

Lunch  Jaggersnitzel (pan fried with lots ‘o gravy)    Salad with more heavy dressing    Two beers (number increases as the trip goes on)    White bread    Bites of the children’s desserts

Dinner  Salad with oily dressing    Fruits de mer (swimming in heavy cream sauce – so rich I almost can’t eat it, but I manage to clean the bowl.)    Croquette de pomme (deep fried, mashed potato sticks)    Bread and butter    Three scoops of ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream    Wine    Coffee with little cookies

Can you even tally that many calories? Once we got to Paris, my food obsession diminished to a degree.  Just being in a big city with lots of people moving about shifted the food focus.  Not to say I didn’t everything that was offered, but I stopped going out of my way to wedge in an afternoon stop by the patisserie and marvel at the artisan desserts.

I remember wanting to throw K off the Eiffel Tower, but I can’t recall why. It’s a fact that the kids have gotten on my nerves at various times during this vacation, but I can’t seem to recall any of those negative emotions. The pictures that come to mind are of K wearing headphones and listening to every word of audio through the entire Versailles tour.  When we asked her what she thought of Versailles, she said, “It’s a good story.”

I remember baby G wanting to be carried through the Louvre and after the fourth hour my shoulder almost coming out of its socket; however, the biggest memory I have is of his great interest in the paintings and when he grabbed my face and turned it toward his face and said, “Mommy, I like you.” Baby G’s interest in art – especially religious art is weird. 

We were in an old abbey in Luxembourg and there was a wooden crucifix – maybe not a crucifix, but just a face and half-body of Christ.  We stopped and looked at it and left. When we were almost out the building he says, “Take me back to Jesus.”  We went back and looked for a while – silent.  Unsure what to say or do, I asked him, quizzically, if he wanted to pray.  He did.  I knelt with him and after a while I asked him if he was ready to leave. In a whisper he says, “no.”  Fine.  We stay longer and K came to us. Her main motive, I know, was to provoke G in a way that would make him say something funny and then scream in a quiet place, which would then trigger their father or me to admonish them and threaten to take away the next trip to the park.  Of course, we never wanted to take the park trip away because we knew they would go insane without it. Thus, we would go insane.  Baby G really didn’t acknowledge K but continued to “pray.”  K tried to pray too but she and I kept catching one another’s eye.  It was clear she was forcing it and gave up after a few minutes. Finally, G was ready to leave. Was he talking to God?  Is he connected?

When we were at the Louvre I was subjugated to being baby G’s assistant, I think. He had to look at every religious painting.  If there were two paintings of Jesus in the same room he had me push his stroller back and forth from one to the other as he studied Jesus.  He would silently look at the paintings and occasionally ask a question like, “Was Jesus dirty?” Neither G (the father) nor I know what to make of this other than if I say “Oh, Jesus Christ” in exasperation, baby G wants to know “Where?”