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Struggle in a Bungalow Kitchen
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Monday, August 29, 2005
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I'm feeling much better which is good because there's lots to do this week. Kipp starts school on Thursday and I've got to go through his clothes, shop for the required school supplies, and stock up on lunch items. His first-grade teacher is coming tomorrow afternoon for a home visit. It will be interesting to have a chance to talk to her, since back in 1976 she was my fourth-grade teacher.
So, anyway, much cleaning and organizing is on the docket these next few days. In the meantime, I continue to post my trip diary.
August 2005, Trip to England and France
Day 2: I had chosen to stay in the city of Chichester merely for its proximity to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum which I went to on Day 2. The weather was gorgeous and the place was not crowded at all. As I made my way through laborers' cottages and re-constructed medieval hall houses and kitchen gardens, I came across a handful of filthy pigs wallowing happily away in their muddy pen--and I could relate! I felt just as happy, wallowing away in history. By mid-afternoon, however, my jet lag was seriously slowing me down and the sight of straw pallets and medieval beds made me so sleepy I ended up napping under a tree near the mill pond.
After finishing at the museum, I collected my luggage at the hotel and made my way, again via train, to the ferryport in the city of Portsmouth. I had no time to tour the city, only enough time to hop on the ferry for my overnight Channel crossing to Saint Malo. The ferry, called the Val de Loire, was impressive, more like a cruise ship than any American ferry I’d ever been on. It was a busy place, with four restaurants, a movie theatre, cabaret, bar, shops and observation decks, and so many happy families: English, French, and German. I was the only American on the boat. Also, the only lone traveler as far as I could tell. But I comforted myself by thinking of this journey as a scouting mission and making plans to bring my family with me someday. Everywhere I looked, it seemed a celebration of family.
In the restaurant, the English were all chowing down on huge plates of fish and chips. Trying to fend off any trace of seasickness, I ate a light supper of cucumbers, tomatoes and mozarella, and turned in for the night. My cabin was tiny, but the bed was the most comfortable one I encountered during the entire trip, with a miniscule duvet that was the perfect weight for warmth. Exhausted, I slept the whole night through.
10:23:34 AM 
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Friday, August 26, 2005
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It's raining out and I'm still sick with this cold and trying to unpack, but in between naps and chores, I've managed to write up the first installment of my trip diary.
August 2005: Trip to England and France
Day 1: There may be people who go in for a full day of sightseeing on the day they arrive in Europe from the U.S., but I am not one of them. Jet lag kills me. So I had nothing planned that first day other than a nap, a walk around town, dinner and bed. I flew direct from Minneapolis to London Gatwick, arriving at about 9am UK time. I waited a long, long time for my luggage, wondering why the heck I do this to myself and missing my family already, then took a train south to the town of Chichester, and a taxi to my hotel, The Ship. Fortunately, I was able to check-in as soon as I arrived. My room was small and stuffy, with a view of other rooftops, but I was too tired to care. I flung open the window and slipped between the sheets for a few hours. When I woke up from my nap, I ventured out and was delighted to find that Chichester is a lovely city, and that my hotel was in an interesting pedestrian area full of shops and within a few blocks of Chichester’s 1000 year old cathedral.
Once out on the busy streets, I asked a strolling passer-by to take my picture by the cathedral; the great problem with traveling alone is that you have to rely on others to document your trip. He seemed like a respectable, fifty-something Englishman. One arm, however, was heavily bandaged. As he gave me my camera back he explained that he’d been in the tube bombing, had narrowly escaped with his life and therefore would I like to go out with him. (The other great problem with traveling alone.) No, therefore I would not, thank-you, and I slipped into the cathedral for refuge, wondering if his bandage was some sort of Ted Bundy-like ruse. Resolution: only ask women to take one’s picture.
Back at the hotel, I had a dinner of fishcakes with my companion for the journey, Ms. Rose Wilder Lane. I couldn’t lug a lot of books across the ocean, so I knew I needed one good, dense one. The Ghost in the Little House is a fascinating biography, although the author gives a pretty one-dimensional portrait of Laura Ingalls Wilder as the manipulative martyr of a mother. Lane herself traipsed all over the world, as a foreign correspondent, falling in love with Albania, of all places, but always finding herself unhappily drawn back to the home farm at Mansfield, Missouri. The book is rife with American History, tracing Lane's journey from budding socialist to full-bore Libertarian. I could go on about her story, but for the moment, it’s sufficient to say that whenever I felt discouraged as a traveler, I only had to read about a few of Lane’s tribulations to buck up.
10:05:11 AM
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Thursday, August 25, 2005
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I flew back home yesterday from London Gatwick. As I was boarding the plane, I felt that awful scratch in the throat which meant that the sneezing I’d been doing wasn’t from allergies—or all the perfumes in the Duty Free shop, but from the onset of a walloping head cold. Before the plane even left the runway, I was begging the flight attendants for Dristan, but none was to be had. So for 8 hours I traveled in misery: sneezing, dripping, snorfling, attempting to stem the flow with Northwest Airlines cheapo kleenex. Luckily, no one was sitting beside me, or I’m sure they would have been thoroughly disgusted. I felt so sorry for the people ahead of me, but there was nothing I could do but sit there with a kleenex glued to my nose through three dismal movies; Miss Congeniality Two, Beauty Shop, and The Pacifier. Ah, the glamour of intercontinental air travel.
I got home and went straight to bed, even though it was three in the afternoon, sleeping almost straight through until 5am this morning. Then D. went and got me some cold medicine and I have napped intermittantly on and off today. I’m in such a dopey state and mounds of laundry await. I don’t think I’ll cook tonight, though I am eager to get back into the swing of things, and to do some chronicling of my trip for future reference.
2:22:27 PM
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Friday, August 12, 2005
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Various items on the eve of departure:
- Today I saw an obese woman at Target buying a copy of Frenchwomen Don’t Get Fat. I felt immense compassion for her. I just wanted to say “I know. I know how it happened, why it happened. You were born in the wrong time, in the wrong place, under the wrong star.” Yet she still has hope, and maybe there’ll still be enough time for what she learns in that book to help her in her quest.
- This evening I finished watching A Very Long Engagement. Couldn’t take it all in in one draught. I had no idea the domestic story was filmed on the windy, rocky shores of Brittany. It seemed a large coincidence, of all the movies I could have rented from Netflix, to have this one arrive and give me a glimpse of a landscape I’ll be seeing in just a few days. I fly to England on Sunday, but then soon after will be taking the ferry across the English channel form Portsmouth to Saint Malo. From there I’ll head south, towards the Côte de Granit Rose. Kipp is very concerned about my taking the ferry. He thinks it's going to be the Titanic all over again. I told him icebergs were not in the picture.
- I almost failed on the all-purpose shoe front. I ordered a pair of shoes from Zappo’s, as some of you suggested, but when they arrived, they did not fit. Then I completely balked at having to drive to the Twin Cities just to look for shoes. Turns out I didn’t have to. I happened to stumble across the last and only pair of a size 8 beige Born slide, right here in Red Wing (on sale, even!). They're very comfortable, with good arch support, and I've been padding around in them to break them in, although no real breaking seems to be required. The advantage of shopping in a small town is that you never have to dither very much over choices. I figure if a shoe makes its way through the world to me, right here, in the place where I live, then it was meant to be.
- Now I am tired, full of journey pride, which I think is really just nerves. But how many times in my life have I had this same case of the jitters and it always augurs well. In this case I think I’m going to need all the good foreshadowing I can get, since I happened to book my plane ticket on Northwest Airlines. The mechanics aren’t scheduled to strike before I depart. Getting home, on the other hand, may be a problem. But at least I’ll be staying with friends so if there is a delay, it won’t cost a fortune in extra lodging.
11:46:37 PM
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Thursday, August 11, 2005
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I’ve been having an underwear revolution around here. After nearly forty years of pretty much wearing the same style of underwear, wear and tear on a certain body part—I’m not even sure what to call the body part, but it’s that crease where the leg joins the body, where all elastic tends to rest, dig, chafe, or gouge, as the case may be—has caused me to begin looking for underwear that comes to rest in a different spot. I’ve been open-minded to all styles, provided they come in natural fibers, trying boy shorts, mini boxers, even a thong (for about 2 ridiculous seconds) but they’ve all been problematic: thick, uncomfortable, bunchy or even more prone to dig.
It seemed silly that I was the only woman in the world ever to have this problem, so I started doing a little Internet research. A place called Staplesonline sold all silk-underwear that looked promising, but their elastic situation was no better, and besides, they were outrageously expensive.
I continued the hunt.
Finally, at a place called The Vermont Country Store I stumbled across some very old-fashioned type underpants with something called a ‘comfort-leg’ band. I ordered a few pair and I think the revolution is over.
A few years ago, as the reality of aging hit me, I’d look at older women and just wonder how you get there. How do you get from age 35 to age 85? Well, now I know. You start by ordering your first pair of comfort-leg underpants from The Vermont Country Store and the next thing you know, you’re on to the support socks, heavy-duty toenail clippers and muumuus & floats. Step by practical step. That’s how you get there, (with a few wildly impractical side-steps into discreet shops for special occasions.)
But I don't mind at all being pragmatic about my underthings. Being pragmatic is apparently a hallmark of my generation, the 13th generation, at least according to William Strauss and Neil Howe. Their book about the history of the American future arrived yesterday and I'm finding it a lot of fun to read--except for the part about a terrible crisis supposedly occurring in the year 2020. They predict widely differentiated sexual roles in will occur here soon (I think it may already be happening and wondered, when the Space Shuttle landed, if I'd live to see another woman as commander), with the masculine being exalted in public life, and the feminine in private, thus setting the stage for a feminist renaissance come mid-21st century.
That ought to be interesting to watch from the comfort of my wide-band underpants.
11:00:20 AM
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Wednesday, August 03, 2005
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Terrorists might try to go through your phone line too (especially if they are still trying to fax each other.)
From today's edition of The Red Wing Republican Eagle: (Yes, that's what our local newspaper is called.)
2:42:02 PM
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Monday, August 01, 2005
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There’s nothing like an upcoming trip to make one’s wardrobe seem woefully inadequate.
My wardrobe is perfectly adequate for my day-to-day life. Lots of printed skirts to the knee, colorful t-shirts and various-colored sandals for daily errands; big t-shirts and shorts and cropped pants for indoor and outdoor housework; bike shorts and tank tops for working out. But for traveling? For sitting comfortably for hours on an overseas flight, and walking all day in an open-air museum? (Yes, I’m finally going to tell that woman I want her job!) For traversing the mud-flats off the coast of Brittany? For visiting cathedrals and monasteries and castles?
Did I mention I really only want to bring one pair of shoes? One all-purpose, neutral-colored, comfortable, rugged pair of shoes that will also look just fine with a skirt.
Can it be done?
I suspect a very serious shopping expedition is in order. Serious, not mammoth, or frivolous, or bank-account depleting. Serious as in a hunt for just the right things, which, when it comes down to it is just another exercise in imagination.
5:04:25 PM
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© Copyright
2005
L. L. Adams.
Last update:
8/29/2005; 10:38:42 AM. |
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