I spent yesterday at my salon. Well, not all of yesterday, but a good chunk.

I'd promised myself a facial to help my skin recover from the airplane trips to and from France (air travel really dehydrates me), so Erin spent the day alternately painting my face with cool masks, and steaming them off, and doing deep massage of my neck and shoulders. I tend to avoid massages, even though I love them, because I'm not very comfortable with strangers touching me, but I liked Erin from the first. She's old enough that I don't feel like I'm dealing with a teenager (I hate that), and really gentle. And she doesn't lecture about not moisturizing, and stuff. This is key.

So, what I love about Aveda products is that they're all natural and nothing smells perfumey. Even the perfume. And they ask if there's anything you don't like, which means, I got to have lots of Citrus and Mint smells, and absolutely no Jasmine or Sandalwood, both of which I detest. And when I told her I was phobic about pressure on my eyes, because of 17 years of contact-lenses and then lasik, she noted it, and made a point of being careful. Go, Erin.

She did a foot mask, as well, and we chatted about how feet are totally unappreciated, and I said that my feet totally dictate my mood. (The foot massage helped loosen up a lot of the congestion in my sinuses, too, yay for reflexology, as did the actual facil massage).

After a break, and some of their mint tea, I had a manicure. No polish, just shaping and buffing. As Fuzzy or can affirm, the average sixth-grader has bigger hands than I do, so colored polish usually just makes my hands look even smaller. (I do love OPI's color # N11, though. It's sort of a mauve with copper glitter. And in summer I use OPI red on my toes.)

Afterward, feeling all goofy and relaxed, I met Fuzzy at the creperie in the square. I love that it's January, and we can still eat outside, although I was grateful for the patio heaters at the end. We went to Best Buy to start looking at TiVo stuff, but haven't actually bought it yet. I'm reluctant about it, and not sure why. I think it's because I'll find out that I watch more television than I think I do.

Chicago the movie based on the musical, opens at Camera Seven this week, so we might go see it. Or we might not.

I know got this from others, but she's the person I got it from, although, after I started, I changed to the formatting used by .

100-91: Things About Infancy
100.) I was born in a military hospital in the middle of a heatwave, and other than the maternity ward, the entire place was filled with veterans from Viet Nam. I'm told they loved to see the new babies, because it gave them hope.

99.) I was born three years before the Roe v. Wade decision, and my mother who was single, and part of a Catholic family, had been planning to give me up for adoption. She later decided not to.

98.) The red leather wing chair in my guest room was the chair my grandfather used to sit in when he held me, as a baby. I remember it as it was in my grandmother's house, sitting in the red-carpeted living room, in the corner near the picture window, surrounded by stacks of National Geographic and Model Railroader magazines.

97.) Every cousin in my generation has some kind of chronic ear-nose-throat problem. My mother was the only cousin in her generation who didn't smoke, and who gave up caffeine while pregnant. Of my cousins, I'm the only one whose issues did NOT include having a cleft palate.

96.) The result of my e-n-t issues was that for the first year or so of my life, my ears didn't drain properly, and I couldn't hear correctly. When I was one, I had tubes put in my ears, and instantly, “Boppy” became “Mommy.”
95.) My first word, other than Mommy, was “beach.” This is appropriate, as my mother had been on the beach mere days before I was born.

94.) Despite the above referenced ear issues, I have perfect pitch. When I was two, my mother and other family members took me to Christmas Eve Mass, where I heard the opening bars for The Hallelujah Chorus, and started singing it. (The priest thought it was cute.)

93.) My favorite toy was a Fisher-Price car, which I loved to drive down the three steps from the dining room to the foyer in my grandparents' house. Typically, they hated this.

92.) When I was learning how to talk, and watching Sesame Street, and babbling back at the television, my grandfather made his first pledge to PBS because some of my babbling was in Spanish. They sent a plush Big Bird toy, which I still own.

91.) Among the ornaments in my Christmas ornament collection are a wooden angel from the mobile that was in my room when I was little, and a tiny ballerina, which was on my very first Christmas present.

90-81: Things About Early Childhood.
90.) I stopped watching cartoons when I was six years old, and ever since, I've disliked animation.

89.) With the exception of my husband, I've always had a thing for older men. When I was seven, I had a crush on Shaun Cassidy. The same year, I had my first “boyfriend,” Gil. He was nine.

88.) I remember being in kindergarten and thinking nine was /old/.

87.) I attended Palo Alto Pre-School, in Golden, Colorado. My teacher, Ray, was living with my best friend Ben's mother. Ray is one of the most influential men in my life, and probably the best teacher I ever had. He always challenged us. Snacks would be a handful of Alpha-bits Cereal, and we'd have to spell words of at least two syllables before we could eat them.

86.) I've been terrified of losing an eye ever since Pre-School, when one of the other kids had a plastic eye that didn't fit quite right. A couple of times it came out during nap time.

85.) As young as four, I would skip naptime and read instead.

84.) I was the only second-grader in the fourth-grade musical in elementary school. The play was Really Rosie, and I still remember most of the songs. But I was ten before I realized that the line “I can tap across the Tappanzee” referred to the bridge.

83.) By the time I was seven, I had already gone to two preschools and three elementary schools.

82.) Georgetown, CO, was my favorite place of all the places I lived as a kid. It had all the cutesey home-towniness of a small town, amazing mountains, a reservoir to ice skate on, and Denver was a relatively easy drive away. More than once, we'd arrive at school to find notes saying, “Go home, busses can't get through.”

81.) The most vivid memory I have from second grade is my mother's first husband lifting my baton over his head to hit her. I never touched it after that.

80-71: Things About Late Childhood.
80.) I started playing the cello when I was nine, which is really old for a string player. I'd actually wanted to play the violin, because my friend Jill was a violinist, but they had too many violin students, and not enough instruments. I didn't learn until much later that the instrument my teacher loaned me belonged to his daughter – it was the cello she learned on, before she became a professional cellist.

79.) When I was eight, my mother and I moved back to New Jersey, and my best friend was the granddaughter of a rather notorious mafioso.

78.) We rented an apartment in Ocean Grove, NJ when I was nine, and I could see the ocean from the tub when I took baths.

77.) I had the chance to skip fourth grade, but then we moved back to Colorado before it actually happened.

76.) In fourth or fifth grade, my best friend Cora and I both auditioned for the movie “Annie,” when they were doing their national search. Neither of us made it, but we ended up doing a bunch of commercials for the Denver Stock Show.

75.) My mother thinks it's amusing that I hired hit-men to handle a kid who was bullying me. I find it embarrassing that she brings these things up.

74.) I had my first unsupervised “date” when I was ten, and Jim L. and I went out for ice cream after our opening night in the school play.

73.) I gave up Girl Scouts and Ballet in favor of Cello, Chorus, and Drama, and spent an entire summer at riding camp, which my mother took a second job to pay for, because she knew I loved horses.

72.) In 1981 we moved to California, and it was the first time I experienced a school where the majority of the students were Asian and Hispanic, not Anglo. I learned to carry a switchblade in self defense, but skipped a lot of sixth grade because I was really unhappy. That school was my seventh elementary school in six years.

71.) I think the only reason I survived that school is that my test scores were always in the 99th percentile, and my English teacher was into my mom.

70-61: Things About Being A Pre-Teen
70.) The year I started seventh grade, my eye doctor put me in bifocals because my vision was so bad. He really wanted me in contacts, but was trying to avoid prescribing them to me that young.

69.) Because of Prop. 13, our junior high school didn't have a music program. We finally had to bribe a teacher to act as faculty advisor so we could start a chorus.

68.) Our volunteer chorus won so many local competitions that they made it a regular class with a real teacher in the second semester. The nine of us that formed the auxiliary performing group (Triple Trio) still keep in contact.

67.) I lost my virginity during the week between my thirteenth birthday and the beginning of eighth grade. It wasn't traumatic, and we used protection, and sometimes, we still email.

66.) My math phobia started to haunt me. The only reason I survived Algebra is that there was no well in hell I was going to let Michael or Patrick get better grades.

65.) We were the last class to go through our junior high school without having to take a mandatory computer class. Our computer lab, which was pretty innovative for then, was filled with TRS-80s and Atari 800 and 400's.

64.) After school, we'd go to the computer department at Macy's and leave all the computers running infinite loops that just said, “Prescott Jr. High Rules.”

63.) My mother married Ira the year I turned 12, and I went from being an only child to having an older step-brother. Avram is not quite a year older than me, and while we were only in the same school for one year, it was enough. To this day, the sum of our relationship is cards exchanged on birthdays and Christmas, and polite conversation if we're both at my parents place at the same time.

62.) When my mother and Ira noticed that Avram and I were NOT getting along, they initiated family counselling. Avram demanded that he be allowed to move back to his mother's place when it became clear most of the issues were his.

61.) The year I turned 13, my parents started the Modesto chapter of Amnesty International, and I met Joan Baez. The same year, I performed in “The Fall of Freddie the Leaf,” in a Reader's Theatre workshop at Modesto Junior College, and was part of a group of people protesting the construction of what is now Lawrence Livermore Labs.

60-51: Things About Being A Teenager
60.) I spent my first three days of high school depressed because we lived in Mariposa, which is a whole town full of Christian Fundamentalists, and the voice teacher only used religious music (and I don't mean like Bach and Handel), which I find inappropriate in public schools.

59.) My parents decided to move to Fresno, so I'm one of the few people for whom Fresno was an improvement over a previous location. I stayed with friends of friends for the first two weeks, after I auditioned for the performing arts magnet program at Roosevelt. My class was the first to go all the way through the magnet program.

58.) I reclaimed cello and voice and drama in high school AND because of the magnet program, got to take dance instead of P.E.. Because of this, I actually know how to do the polka and the jitterbug, and still own separate pairs of character shoes and tap shoes.

57.) The unofficial uniform of my high school was a baggy sweatshirt over a leotard and rubber jazz pants. Officially, the dress code said that mohawks couldn't be more than three inches high, and girls had to wear something over their dancewear. I was just thrilled to have contact lenses, instead of glasses.

56.) I completely fell in love with Shakespeare when my Freshman English class spent a week in Ashland, OR. I went back a couple of years later for Shakespeare Leadership Camp.

55.) The summer of my sophomore year, I went to cello camp for the first time. 700 people, all playing cello. It was amazing. Cello orchestra was pretty cool, too.

54.) I still have a stack of three hundred note cards, which represent the conversations between myself and G. during an entire year of Trig.

53.) The best part about doing props for the Fresno ballet was getting to watch Cinderella and Nutcracker from back stage. The worst was being flirted with by R.V. Ick.

52.) At RD's co-ed sleepover, we spent all night watching movies like Gothic while drinking pineapple screwdrivers. I can't watch Gothic without thinking about those cast parties.

51.) I remember really wanting to go to boarding school, and not knowing how to ask my parents. Now I really regret that I didn't ask.

50-41: Things About Family and Names
50.) My mother was originally going to name me after her brother Merrell. When she was in labor, he called from Canada, where he was AWOL, and told her she could /not/ curse another child with such a name. She found the name “Melissa” in the list of ingredients on a bottle of shampoo.

49.) My mother and I have the same middle name: Annette. In both cases, it's in honor of an 'affectionate auntie,' my grandmother's friend from the war, who was somehow connected to the Faberge family. While I usually only heard my middle name if my mother was mad (you know, in that parental tone?) I'm adamant about using my middle initial. I think it gives balance.

48.) I am not now, nor have I ever been, called “Missy,” and those who call me so risk violent reactions. On rare occasions, I allow people to shorten it to “Mel,” but I've never really understood why people MUST shorten names at all.

47.) Sometimes, Christopher calls me “Lissa.” My cousin Michelle (named after the song)used to call me “My Lissa” when she was little.

46.) I always swore I'd never get married, or, if I did, I'd never change my name. In the end, I changed it because “Bartell” is easier to spell and pronounce than “Klindienst.”

45.) The only thing I know about my biological father is his name, and that he used to be a DJ for a country station in Pennsylvania.

44.) I've always hated my birthday because it's in the last bit of summer and no one was ever – or is ever – around to celebrate with me.

43.) I'm extremely jealous of all my Natale cousins because they have these cool Italian names: Caterina, Nicolo, Giovanni, Giuseppi, Virginia, Annunciata, Anthony. On the other hand, they also have to put up with “cute” nicknames, even though the youngest is now 30: Cathy, Nicky, Johnny, Joey, Ginny, Nancy, and Tony.

42.) My cousin Ginny (Virginia) is really my cousin Cathy's mother, but I was always her “birthday girl” because I was born on her 31st birthday. She died of ovarian cancer a few years ago, but I always have rice pudding on or near my birthday as a tribute.

41.) Even though I joke that my dogs are enough, Christopher and I do plan to have kids someday. We already have names picked: Emily Suzanne or Anthony Christopher (because the tradition in his family is that the first son always has his father's first name as his middle name).

40-31: Reading Matter and Other Media
40.) I have an extensive collection of children's books leftover from my own childhood. Among my favorites are the Pooh books (and indeed, all of A.A. Milne's works), Where the Wild Things Are, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and Fletcher and Zenobia, which was illustrated by Edward Gorey.

39.) When I first read Harriet the Spy I /had/ to try tomato sandwiches. I still eat them once in a while.

38.) I am not a Seuss fan. By the time I was in an age group where Seuss was popular, I was already beyond children's books. However, I love Sidney Sheldon's stuff.

37.) I'm a total child of PBS and the 70's. The first album I ever owned was Free to Be, You and Me

36.) I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings when I was ten or eleven, and haven't re-read them, and won't. I didn't hate them, and I'm quite enjoying the movies, but I don't think they're the be-all and end-all of fantasy the way so many people seem to feel that they are.

35.) Three of my all-time favorite books are Little Women, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Eight.

34.) I own the complete series of Anne of Green Gables and Little House…, as well as the complete Chronicles of Narnia. When I first read Narnia, I visited my grandparents shortly after, and was tickled to be sleeping in a room with an old wardrobe in it.

33.) One of the reasons I hated school was that we'd be assigned a book to study for a month, and I'd have read it years before, or, if it was new, I'd read it in two or three hours and then want to MOVE ON.

32.) One of the first books I owned was a childproof edition of A Child's Garden of Verses, and I still know most of the poems.

31.) When I was five, my grandfather gave me a complete collection of the albums to every Disney movie. They were a gift for buying gas at Gulf, I think. I have NO IDEA what happened to them.

30-21: Things About Me As I Am.
30.) It takes me a really long time to warm up to people. I'm really not shy, I just have to know people pretty well before I open up.

29.) I have absolutely no interest in camping. Yuck. Explain to me why this is fun? My version of “roughing it” is a hotel without room service.

28.) I never finished my degree. I have a zillion certifications, and a real estate license, and I read a lot. Someday, when I'm certain I'm doing it for the right reason, I'll go back.

27.) I love language, and playing with language. If I could take enough time off from work, I'd go back to France and do a French immersion course, just for fun.

26.) If I don't get alone-time, I get cranky and bitchy and edgy and mean. Being alone in one room is not enough. I have to have the house to myself for a couple of hours (at least) every so often. Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't have bought two houses with communicating doors, or something.

25.) I love snailmail. Email is quick, and instant messages are convenient, but nothing is more special than a real letter. This ties in with my stationery fetish, in that I've often flirted with buying engraved stationery because I love paper so much. One of my New Year's resolutions is to write more letters.

24.) I miss singing so much that it's painful. I mean, I sing around the house, but it's not the same. I miss acting as well. But not as much.

23.) My ultimate fantasy job would be to write my own column.

22.) I'm not a morning person, and one of the things that most annoys me is when the people I work with pounce on me before I've had a chance to clear my desk and plan my day. I used to institute “quiet time” and I might have to go back to that.

21.) I can't sleep in a room that's too bright or too hot. I want cool air, and sheets that are crisp and clean and cool when I slip into bed, but warm up just enough. I'm usually most comfortable with one foot outside the covers, and I like white noise, usually a fan combined with a cd of Gregorian chant. Also, I can't sleep while wearing socks, and I don't like it if the blankets touch my toes. Sheets, yes, blankets no. (Yes, yes, I know, I'm neurotic.)

20-11: Things About Writing.
20.) I never spellcheck LJ or OD entries, just as I never spellcheck paper journal entries. I'm usually a very good speller, and any errors are typos not breeches in knowledge. So, why don't I edit? Because if I stop to edit for spelling and typos, then I start to censor what I write, and that sort of defeats the purpose.

19.) Sometimes, I break grammar rules on purpose, for effect.

18.) While I take most of the quizzes that I see the folks on my friends list taking, I don't generally post the responses.

17.) I suck at writing believable dialogue.

16.) Sometimes I write fanfic, but I almost never share it. The last story I wrote was a drabble for the 2001 Beauty and the Beast conzine. When I do write fiction, I like such challenges as “make it a drabble” or “use the following words” because they add an element of fun.

15.) My favorite writing tool is The Observation Deck. It's a deck of cards with things like, “Open a drawer” or “Make a memory.” Writing prompts, I suppose.

14.) The one writing activity I loved in high school was the five-minute mini-meditation we were were required to do every day in class. I wish I'd saved them.

13.) For my writing class in college, I wrote a paper called The Vampire and the Virgin, for which our professor, Allison, apologized for giving me an A+ because there was “no where to go but down.” I still don't think it deserved the grade, but the exercise made me love lit-crit.

12.) I do my best writing in bed, late at night, with the television on for noise, but not for me to pay attention to.

11.) I have a completely different writing voice when I type than when I write longhand.

10-1: Random Items.
10.) I don't drink enough water.

9.) I hate to practice cello when Chris is home because I don't like him to hear me when I'm not good. He finds this absurd, and he's probably correct.

8.) I am far too reclusive for my own good.

7.) One of my favorite forms of self-indulgence is to have my hair washed. I think it's the scalp massage that does it for me.

6.) I'm extremely ticklish.

5.) I don't feel awake in the morning until I've brushed my teeth. I think it's the mint.

4.) I detest milk chocolate and sweetened iced tea.

3.) I love eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini and bell peppers.

2.) I tend to put my hair in ponytails because I hate having it in my face, and I don't know how to do anything elaborate with it.

1.) This exercise has only cemented the fact that I'm quite likely the most boring person on earth.

I'm usually very nocturnal, but this whole week I've been craving sleep like nothing else. Tonight, I was in bed by ten, and watching endless reruns of Stargate, but turned out the light before midnight. I just woke up, about five minutes ago, from a very surreal dream in which Fuzzy and my parents and I were driving down highway 17 in an RV stocked with gourmet snacks, en route to a vampire hunters convention. I blame the Godiva truffles that arrived at my door this evening.

* * *

Yesterday, I was completely amused by the date – 01-02-03. Okay, that was the day before yesterday, as it's technically the 4th, but fiscally, it was yesterday for me.

* * *
Buffy Season 3 comes out on Tuesday. Which means we have to finish watching Babylon 5 Season 1 this weekend so that I won't have to fight for the good tv.

* * *
I'm spending the afternoon tomorrow (Saturday) having a facial and a manicure. Yay, girly stuff. Being self indulgent is fun.

* * *
I'm still sleepy, and the sentences in my mind are all incoherent, flowing like a James Joyce novel, so I'd better go back to bed. Except it's hot in here. Ugh. Well…night.

I didn't read as much as I usually do in December. I think this is because I was in a movie-watching mood instead, and because a lot of my reading hours were spent on Christmas Shopping, and stuff like that. You'd think I'd have made up for it on the plane to and from France, but strangely, I didn't do ANY reading on the plane, though I did finish three novels while I was *in* France.

Quentins, Maeve Binchy. An indirect sequel to Scarlet Feather, it's almost a series of vignettes with a loose plot holding them together, and the central “character” is really a restaurant.

The Yokota Officer's Club, Sarah Bird: The story of a an American girl who comes “home” from her first year of college to spend the summer with her family, stationed on Okinawa in the sixties. Not a comedy, which so many of my choices this month were, but a great read, especially if you are or have known any military brats.

Visions of Sugar Plums, Janet Evanovich. *Registered at Bookcrossing.com* I'm told that the Stephanie Plum mysteries are hilarious. You wouldn't know it to judge by this book. I handed it off to my mother.

Hello Darling, Are You Working?, Rupert Everett. Yes This is the same Rupert Everett who is so perfect playing Oscar Wilde characters. The novel is a bit stream-of-consciousness, and a lot surreal, but very funny. Or maybe it was the cold meds. I left this at The Tall House.

Wild Designs, Katie Fforde. Another quick read by the author of Farm Fatale, and just as funny.

Long Quiet Highway, Natalie Goldberg. Autobiography of her life up to the time Writing Down the Bones was published. This book is one that lives on my shelves anyway, but I was in the mood for something other than comedy, and re-read it.

Blackberry Wine, Joanne Harris. *Registered at Bookcrossing.com* Another novel by the author of Chocolat. Not as good as Five Quarters of the Orange.

Bread Alone, Judith Ryan Hendrick. *Registered at Bookcrossing.com* I read this book last summer and it inspired me to try making sourdough again. Yum! I read it again while I was in France, because I had nothing else to read and had brought a copy for my mother. This is my official recommendation book from all that I've read in 2002.

Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Sophie Kinsella. One of the lines in this book has to do with foreign money not counting, because it looks like play money. I read this in France and was giggling about it every time I spent any Euros. I'm sure Europeans feel the same way about US dollars.

The Tall Pine Polka, Lorna Landvik. Like her other novel, Patty-Jane's House of Curl, this book is filled with bizarre and yet completely believable characters. I could hear those round Minnesota oh's the whole time I was reading, also. Delightful.

Spin Cycle, Sue Margolis. Another in my seemingly endless supply of BritComs, this one is about an aspiring comedian who falls for the washing machine repairman. Amusing. Good bathtub reading.

Getting Over It, Anna Maxted. Yet another BritCom. Funny and sweet, and total mind-candy.

French Lessons, Peter Mayle. This book should come with a picnic basket. It's subtitled, “Journeys with knife, fork, and corkscrew,” and he isn't kidding. Delicious!

Hotel Pastis, Peter Mayle. Fiction. Yes, fiction. From the man who brought us A Year In Provence, among others. Started it in California, left it at home, and then there was a copy at The Tall House, so I finished it there.

Evening, Susan Minot. *Registered and reviewed at Bookcrossing.Com.*

Despite various jesting comments to the contrary, I really don't like having employees under me, it's just not my thing. Maybe it's because I never got to pick the people I wanted before, and had to just deal with whomever was already around / friends of the boss / cheap to hire.

Or maybe it's just time.

In any case, has only been here for about four hours, and already I feel more productive and less stressed. Already, I can tell we're going to have a phenomenal January, which will hopefully set the trend for the year. I'm so glad W. and B. finally agreed to let me hire someone /I/ wanted, and that timing worked out with the folks he calls the cult. And I'm glad that he was willing to come work here.

I feel bad that today, I don't have time to get him started on anything other than data input, but even that has saved me from having to input and actually PROCESS in one step, cutting my workload in half, at least.

I promise: Things will change, and he'll get more interesting and varied things to do. Really. Soon, even.

Hello everyone, I'm home.
I never got holiday cards mailed. They're going out tomorrow, and will be in various people's hands by Epiphany, maybe. Deal with it.

Within an hour of returning to our house in St. Thibery on Christmas Eve, I had fallen on my knees to worship the porcelain god with the nastiestied flu-ish thing I've ever experienced. Fuzzy stayed home with me but we sent my parents to the Christmas Eve Dinner at Bill & Ben's ANYWAY, because it seemed really pointless to keep a captive audience for /that/. Ugh.

I woke Christmas morning (Barely. It was 11:59 AM) feeling druggy and shakey, but definitely improved. Some of the folks from the party the night before had been out for a walk, so when I made it to the first floor, where the kitchen and dining room were, I found it filled with English people: Jackie, a linguist from Brighton; Paul, a jeweler; and Gordon, a barrister from London who (at a different party) finally settled for the American contingent how two attorneys from the same chambers can represent opposite sides of the same case. Also with them was Paul's boyfriend Jim, from Taiwan, who is working on his MBNA in construction management. They'd brought us presents from B&B: A plum pudding (with instructions) for “The Americans,” and chocolate praline snails (not real snails, just snail-shaped) for me, because Chocolate Cures Everything. They lingered over coffee, and then wandered off, and we made dinner: faux-filet, which seems to be the French equivalent of flank steak, and vegetables, and amazing pain de campagne – this really nutty chewy peasant bread.

We'd agreed not to do presents, since we all had paid for parts of the vacation (Fuzzy and I rented the house, my parents paid for our rental car), but we had small things anyway. I gave my mother a dress-form for her collection, and I gave my stepfather the latest Andrea Bocelli CD. I received 1/2 kilo of Brie, my favorite triple-cream cheese in live, and a purple pashmini (it's a wide fringed scarf), and Fuzzy was told he was getting his present later.)

Thursday, I still felt blechy, but we couldn't waste any more time, so we drove to the nearby town of Pezenas, which is smaller than Bezier, but has much nicer shops. French villages are all twisty-turny streets, with no rhyme or reason, and I kept thinking that any one of them would be a great maze for a video game. It was fun exploring, even if it was rainy – you'd follow an alley a while and pass the church, and then turn a little and there would be a cafe or a brasserie or a full restaurant, or a specialty shop. Like Napa, CA, Languedoc is the region of Wine and Olives, so olive-products were prominent, and more than one store was devoted just to such things.

We stopped for lunch at Brasserie Moliere (Pezenas makes a big 'thing' of being a place where Moliere stayed once – he was only there for a few days, though), where, for 13 Euros each we had three course lunch. The salad was tomatos and Roquefort cheese on a bed of red lettuce, the main course was roasted duck, with new potatoes, and pommes frites (fries were /everywhere/. You couldn't get away from them, but they're done with minimal grease, and with garlic, salt and parsley, and ohhhh, sooo good.), and the final course was a pear tart. We had coffee after, of course, and it was the best cafe au lait I'd ever had.

We wandered in and out of shops for the rest of the day, looked at Fabric and housewares, but didn't really love anything. (Sorry, , it was all Provencal prints, and I didn't think they were appropriate for what you'd mentioned.)

Minor note to the 7th Sea crew: The milk brand was Montagne, different spelling, but, it made us smile.

Friday, FUZZY was sick, so I mostly hung out and took care of him, and read a lot. It was kind of cozy, really, being in the 2nd floor lounge with the view of the street, drinking tea, and reading and watching the locals walk their dogs. Ira and I took a ramble around town after dark, over to B&B's to reserve spots for Saturday's dinner thing, and then over to the Abbey, which was built in 1509. It was an amazing building, so beautiful, and with the moonlight and the mist and the pigeons cooing in the bell tower, it was like being inside a gothic novel.

Saturday, our last day in France, was our busiest. I was up at dawn, and made breakfast: sausage and omelettes and more of that yummy bread, and then we went to Carcassone, which is a medieval walled city dating back to the Visigoths. It's the 2nd most-visited place in France, after the Eiffle Tower, and we were surprised when we got there to find that it wasn't just a museum and ruins, but an actual working city. They've modernized the rooms inside the walls – I dubbed it Castle Mall – and there are tons of nifty shops and cafes. We poked around in them for a while, then took a tour of the chateau, the castle proper – Christopher took about a zillion pictures inside – well, 250 – and then more stores, and finally we went to a cafe for cappucino and my new love Chocolate Anciennes.

Chocolate Anciennes is this: You get a pitcher of molten chocolate and a pitcher of steamed milk and a bowl of sugar cubes and a mug. You place one cube of sugar in the bottom of the mug, pour in the chocolate and milk at the same time, stir, sip, and totally bliss out.

We left Carcassone and made it back to St. Thibery in time to rest and change for the party at Montblanc, hosted by Bill & Ben, and Robert, the owner of Montblanc (which is another B&B). Most of the folks there were English ex-pats, and some locals. We were at the “cool table”, and the four of us were surrounded by Gordon, Paul, Jim, David and John (an English couple who gave up suburbia to move to a teeny French village and become potters) and, alternately as they rested between courses, Bill, Ben and Robert. The food was AMAZING, and David decided I was his date for the evening for some reason, which was a blast because he knew all the gossip on everyone, and we had fun doing fashion critiques and talking about baroque music. Gordon just started cello lessons, as did Olga, the woman who acts as caretaker of the Tall House, and David kept saying, “But none of you brought a cello. That's not fair. You were supposed to serenade me, darlings.”

There's TON'S more to tell, but we went from the party, back to the house to pack, and then directly to the airport for our 6:30 flight from Montpellier to Paris this morning. Paris time is nine hours ahead of California time, and at this point, nearly 5 PM Pacific on Sunday, I've been awake since 9 AM Paris time on Saturday, except for a five hour nap on the plane, and while I can't go to bed yet, I do need to go sit somewhere still, because I'm so dazed I feel like the chair is bouncing when I type.

Pictures will be webposted eventually. Probably on the 1st.

Hello everyone, I’m home.
I never got holiday cards mailed. They’re going out tomorrow, and will be in various people’s hands by Epiphany, maybe. Deal with it.
***
Within an hour of returning to our house in St. Thibery on Christmas Eve, I had fallen on my knees to worship the porcelain god with the nastiestied flu-ish thing I’ve ever experienced. Fuzzy stayed home with me but we sent my parents to the Christmas Eve Dinner at Bill & Ben’s ANYWAY, because it seemed really pointless to keep a captive audience for /that/. Ugh.
I woke Christmas morning (Barely. It was 11:59 AM) feeling druggy and shakey, but definitely improved. Some of the folks from the party the night before had been out for a walk, so when I made it to the first floor, where the kitchen and dining room were, I found it filled with English people: Jackie, a linguist from Brighton; Paul, a jeweler; and Gordon, a barrister from London who (at a different party) finally settled for the American contingent how two attorneys from the same chambers can represent opposite sides of the same case. Also with them was Paul’s boyfriend Jim, from Taiwan, who is working on his MBNA in construction management. They’d brought us presents from B&B: A plum pudding (with instructions) for “The Americans,” and chocolate praline snails (not real snails, just snail-shaped) for me, because Chocolate Cures Everything. They lingered over coffee, and then wandered off, and we made dinner: faux-filet, which seems to be the French equivalent of flank steak, and vegetables, and amazing pain de campagne – this really nutty chewy peasant bread.
We’d agreed not to do presents, since we all had paid for parts of the vacation (Fuzzy and I rented the house, my parents paid for our rental car), but we had small things anyway. I gave my mother a dress-form for her collection, and I gave my stepfather the latest Andrea Bocelli CD. I received 1/2 kilo of Brie, my favorite triple-cream cheese in live, and a purple pashmini (it’s a wide fringed scarf), and Fuzzy was told he was getting his present later.)
Thursday, I still felt blechy, but we couldn’t waste any more time, so we drove to the nearby town of Pezenas, which is smaller than Bezier, but has much nicer shops. French villages are all twisty-turny streets, with no rhyme or reason, and I kept thinking that any one of them would be a great maze for a video game. It was fun exploring, even if it was rainy – you’d follow an alley a while and pass the church, and then turn a little and there would be a cafe or a brasserie or a full restaurant, or a specialty shop. Like Napa, CA, Languedoc is the region of Wine and Olives, so olive-products were prominent, and more than one store was devoted just to such things.
We stopped for lunch at Brasserie Moliere (Pezenas makes a big ‘thing’ of being a place where Moliere stayed once – he was only there for a few days, though), where, for 13 Euros each we had three course lunch. The salad was tomatos and Roquefort cheese on a bed of red lettuce, the main course was roasted duck, with new potatoes, and pommes frites (fries were /everywhere/. You couldn’t get away from them, but they’re done with minimal grease, and with garlic, salt and parsley, and ohhhh, sooo good.), and the final course was a pear tart. We had coffee after, of course, and it was the best cafe au lait I’d ever had.
We wandered in and out of shops for the rest of the day, looked at Fabric and housewares, but didn’t really love anything. (Sorry, technocowboy, it was all Provencal prints, and I didn’t think they were appropriate for what you’d mentioned.)
Minor note to the 7th Sea crew: The milk brand was Montagne, different spelling, but, it made us smile.
Friday, FUZZY was sick, so I mostly hung out and took care of him, and read a lot. It was kind of cozy, really, being in the 2nd floor lounge with the view of the street, drinking tea, and reading and watching the locals walk their dogs. Ira and I took a ramble around town after dark, over to B&B’s to reserve spots for Saturday’s dinner thing, and then over to the Abbey, which was built in 1509. It was an amazing building, so beautiful, and with the moonlight and the mist and the pigeons cooing in the bell tower, it was like being inside a gothic novel.
Saturday, our last day in France, was our busiest. I was up at dawn, and made breakfast: sausage and omelettes and more of that yummy bread, and then we went to Carcassone, which is a medieval walled city dating back to the Visigoths. It’s the 2nd most-visited place in France, after the Eiffle Tower, and we were surprised when we got there to find that it wasn’t just a museum and ruins, but an actual working city. They’ve modernized the rooms inside the walls – I dubbed it Castle Mall – and there are tons of nifty shops and cafes. We poked around in them for a while, then took a tour of the chateau, the castle proper – Christopher took about a zillion pictures inside – well, 250 – and then more stores, and finally we went to a cafe for cappucino and my new love Chocolate Anciennes.
Chocolate Anciennes is this: You get a pitcher of molten chocolate and a pitcher of steamed milk and a bowl of sugar cubes and a mug. You place one cube of sugar in the bottom of the mug, pour in the chocolate and milk at the same time, stir, sip, and totally bliss out.
We left Carcassone and made it back to St. Thibery in time to rest and change for the party at Montblanc, hosted by Bill & Ben, and Robert, the owner of Montblanc (which is another B&B). Most of the folks there were English ex-pats, and some locals. We were at the “cool table”, and the four of us were surrounded by Gordon, Paul, Jim, David and John (an English couple who gave up suburbia to move to a teeny French village and become potters) and, alternately as they rested between courses, Bill, Ben and Robert. The food was AMAZING, and David decided I was his date for the evening for some reason, which was a blast because he knew all the gossip on everyone, and we had fun doing fashion critiques and talking about baroque music. Gordon just started cello lessons, as did Olga, the woman who acts as caretaker of the Tall House, and David kept saying, “But none of you brought a cello. That’s not fair. You were supposed to serenade me, darlings.”
There’s TON’S more to tell, but we went from the party, back to the house to pack, and then directly to the airport for our 6:30 flight from Montpellier to Paris this morning. Paris time is nine hours ahead of California time, and at this point, nearly 5 PM Pacific on Sunday, I’ve been awake since 9 AM Paris time on Saturday, except for a five hour nap on the plane, and while I can’t go to bed yet, I do need to go sit somewhere still, because I’m so dazed I feel like the chair is bouncing when I type.
Pictures will be webposted eventually. Probably on the 1st.

I am writing this from a net-cafe in Bezier, Languedoc, France, on a funky non-QWERTY keyboard (the most annoying difference is the 'q' being where the 'a' is on US keyboards. And you have to shift to use periods.

Our flights were all fine, all pretty painless – our row-mate, a woman from Rome, said we were brave to trust our luggage to Air France – we were half an hour late landing in Montpellier because of weather, and apparently they didn't feel like doing formal customs screenings yesterday, because we only had to walk through Immigration, where they give your passport the most cursory of glances, only.

After 16 hours of air travel, we were tired, and I have a cold, so my parents, who got here ahead of us plied us with onion soup, triple-creme cheeses, excellent wine, and cafe au lait, and then we went to bed.

The Tall House is seriously tall; with marble stairs that twist like the stairs of a lighthouse. Our room is on the 2nd floor, with the 'good' bathroom. The bathroom consists of a funky cast-iron tub with a hand_held shower, a sink, and a bidet; the toilet is in it's own room.

Today we breakfasted on fruit tart, cheese, and brioche, and then went to Bessan for money and gas. We stopped to take pix of a really cool castle, and then for cappucino and pear tarts. I speqk almost no French, but we're so close to the Spanish border that almost everyone speaks some combination of Spanish or English. The qdvent of the Euro has totally helped in shopping, because I don't have to have help making change.

We walked through a Christmas market on the way here, and bought chestnut torte for Christmas breakfast, and then through an open-air market where I bought aubergine and framboises (eggplant; raspberries), and was startled to find that the lobsters arrayed on ice were still squirming.

Tonight we're going to a dinner hosted by Bill & Ben, a gay English couple who own the bed and breakfast in St. Thibery, the town where we're staying. Tomorrow, we're cooking at home, and then going to the beach to bask in the frigid water of the Meditteranean in winter; and Friday we'll be exploring the ruins of Carcassone, the old Roman fortress.

Highlight of the day: Being more adept then my stepfather at reading French ATM instructions, and, despite my abysmal French, having the owner of the cafe compliment me on my accent.

Greetings, and Joyeaux Noel!

I am writing this from a net-cafe in Bezier, Languedoc, France, on a funky non-QWERTY keyboard (the most annoying difference is the ‘q’ being where the ‘a’ is on US keyboards. And you have to shift to use periods.)

Our flights were all fine, all pretty painless – our row-mate, a woman from Rome, said we were brave to trust our luggage to Air France – we were half an hour late landing in Montpellier because of weather, and apparently they didn’t feel like doing formal customs screenings yesterday, because we only had to walk through Immigration, where they give your passport the most cursory of glances, only.

After 16 hours of air travel, we were tired, and I have a cold, so my parents, who got here ahead of us plied us with onion soup, triple-creme cheeses, excellent wine, and cafe au lait, and then we went to bed.

The Tall House is seriously tall; with marble stairs that twist like the stairs of a lighthouse. Our room is on the 2nd floor, with the ‘good’ bathroom. The bathroom consists of a funky cast-iron tub with a hand-held shower, a sink, and a bidet; the toilet is in it’s own room.

Today we breakfasted on fruit tart, cheese, and brioche, and then went to Bessan for money and gas. We stopped to take pix of a really cool castle, and then for cappucino and pear tarts. I speqk almost no French, but we’re so close to the Spanish border that almost everyone speaks some combination of Spanish or English. The qdvent of the Euro has totally helped in shopping, because I don’t have to have help making change.

We walked through a Christmas market on the way here, and bought chestnut torte for Christmas breakfast, and then through an open-air market where I bought aubergine and framboises (eggplant; raspberries), and was startled to find that the lobsters arrayed on ice were still squirming.

Tonight we’re going to a dinner hosted by Bill & Ben, a gay English couple who own the bed and breakfast in St. Thibery, the town where we’re staying. Tomorrow, we’re cooking at home, and then going to the beach to bask in the frigid water of the Meditteranean in winter; and Friday we’ll be exploring the ruins of Carcassone, the old Roman fortress.

Highlight of the day: Being more adept then my stepfather at reading French ATM instructions, and, despite my abysmal French, having the owner of the cafe compliment me on my accent.

I've never met my birth father. While this has never caused much more than curiousity, it means that the line for Father's Name on my short form birth certificate is simply non-existant. When we started the process for going to France, we began accumulating documentation, but, then, we bought a house, and were half-convinced France simply wasn't going to happen.

Finally we decided we /really/ need the break, and so we bought tickets, but by that time it was too late to do the normal passport procedure of paying money and waiting a couple months.

No problem, we were told after calling an expediter, if you do A-B-C you'll get it in 24 hours. So we did A-B-C, well, after I finally got a LONG FORM birth certificate with the Father's Name line on it but blank, so that it would match when I wrote N/A on the passport form. And after Fuzzy got a long form of his birth certificate as well, since he didn't have an original.

(Note: You have to have originals. If you don't, they're useless.)

So we did the expedite thing, and while we could've taken a day off from work rather than paying the expediter to handle the paperwork for us, neither of us had a clear enough schedule to DO that.

Wednesday, we got email that our stuff had been received, and we had a FedEx date of Thursday. Close, but no problem. Thursday we got an email that they'd been sent, and a tracking number was provided. I looked it up Thursday night, and it said it wasn't in the system yet.

This morning, I checked tracking again, and the package had mysteriously arrived in Soda Springs, near Lake Tahoe. Um, yeah. Very helpful. We called the expediter, in case they'd provided the wrong tracking number. They hadn't. They read the address, and everything was right. So, after numerous phone calls made between FedEx and the expediter, all done by my far-more-polite-and-patient-than-I-could-ever-be husband, we were told they'd TRY to get them here tomorrow, but since there's massive SNOW in Truckee they can't get anything in or out, and they don't actually have STAFF in the Reno facility during the day to help, and our best bet was to go to SFO, and plead with the regional officers, w/o an appointment, if the guards would let us in.

Maybe it was because it's the holidays, or maybe it was just a Friday thing, but the guards were helpful, and the will-call guy was helpful, and they processed “replacement” passports for us without us having to pay any more money.

We did have to wait around in SFO all day, to pick them up between 3:45 and 4 PM, and it was rainy and blechy, and we were both tired and stressed, so that was less than fun. But, we have passports.

And of course, since we have them, the original documents will show up tomorrow, right?

Ah well, such is life.

If I don't update again before I get back on the 29th, may everyone have safe happy holidays, surrounded by loved ones.