I’m Tired.

Madeline Kahn said it best.

Still here…Searching for my Aplomb.

The Family

Yes, I’m here. Looking for a little poise. My aplomb is intact.

I’ve had a bit of a set back. However, I am descended from strong British Irish American Canadian stock and if ever there was a time for a chin up, bear it with a smile and go ahead, I’m here, I’ll catch up, keep calm and carry on, this is it.

It is my white bloody blood cell count again. Way too low, they stopped chemo. No more transfusions. I was feeling very sick. But it’s alright, it’s done now. I didn’t need anymore. And I bought my nurses the BEST gifts. You ladies out there, and maybe some of the guys, will appreciate how wonderful it feels when you get everyone the exact right thing. It’s a great feeling. Unfortunately, neuropathy is rampant and treatment isn’t working very well. Whatever…

It’s all good!

It’s my feet. They are not functioning properly and I can’t have that. So I decided, unwisely as it turns out, to celebrate my last chemotherapy regardless, who wouldn’t, right? I’d just be careful.

Right. So I went to an auction, I love a good auction and we needed some things-well, we did once we saw them there.

Fancy hat could fix me right up…

I felt good. Really. But here’s the facts, it was really hot, I shouldn’t have been on my feet that long, I was tempted and succumbed and I’m not a bit sorry.
I found my little dream car. I can drive again, soon. Road trip here I come.
It’s a Subaru. It has reverse. (I can hear the cheering) I used the rent money (the cheering dies down) but that’s okay because I can make it up by penny pinching for the next couple months. It is a nice little Subaru.

1994 Subaru-all mine

I feel great about that.

On my way out of the auction I injured my right foot badly enough that my sister almost fainted. It was bleeding fairly badly and I started laughing because after all, what are the odds AND I was freaked out AND I had no bandages AND the First Aid tent was way the hell and gone over there on the other side of the school.

Screw it. I was going home, deal with it there. I am not sick anymore. I am well. Damned if I’m not! I had to drive my new little car-which I am christening the Old Bat Mobile because I am an old bat now, (can I get a hallelujah?) and it was great. What’s a little blood. Laugh if you don’t want to cry (and you’re not at a funeral.) I laughed and laughed. I told my sister jokes and I got all my stuff home and I got my poor right foot all bandaged up, with neosporin and hydrogen peroxide and hibaclins and bandages. Hurts like hell, I tore the big toe nail pretty much off.

But the other one (seriously?) the left one had to act up all of a sudden, out of sympathy, maybe? Anyway, last night it went haywire and swelled up. I am now relegated to bed, feet -yes, both of them- elevated and it’s hotter than hell outside.

It’s time to celebrate…

YEE haw!

Me and Hugo last year

Canada Day on July 1st AND July 4th, Independence Day, fireworks, bbq’s, parties, bar hopping, dancing, eating, badminton, the beach bonfire waiting for the fireworks….

Beergardens+Mom+Me and Chubaca

blast it! I stopped myself from using strong language…just barely. But here I am. In bed for my own good. It’s sweltering in here.

I’m supposed to be on a float July 4th and I’m going to be. I’ll get better.

I have felt terrible for the past couple of weeks. It’s blood count crap…but I can face this, THIS i understand. Bloody swollen, torn up feet.

I can do this. With aplomb. I spent the day drinking green tea and planning a fabulous red, white and blue outfit, complete with hat. While lying on my back. With blurry vision. And numb fingers. And no energy…I’m going to show this son of a bitch cancer how it’s done in the Thompson/Davidson clan.

You CAN’T STOP me! I’m done with chemotherapy, how dare you try and wreck my celebration?!

Screw you, cancer. I’m going with a walker and a fabulous dress and if i have to use a wheelchair i will. And that’s that!

But I miss my fabulous shoes…

The Courage to be a Coward

The Friday morning commute to chemotherapy

My posts are intermittent lately because, I don’t mind telling you, I feel like crap. Truly. It’s getting harder and harder. I just want to admit to you all that I am a coward and I am admitting it, here and now. I tell myself I only have a few more to go. I am ready for some good news. I really am. I tell myself that I deserve it. I did everything right and that means I should be rewarded, right?

But it’s not like that with cancer. You can’t hope that it’s going to ‘be nice’ because you did all the right things. It’s not like a diet, where you eat the right things and exercise and you lose weight. No. There is no telling how this is going to go. I’m in a car, buckled into the back seat, blindfolded and I don’t know the driver. But he’s a drunk bastard.

I was hoping to think about everything tomorrow. To write about Europe, because today sucks so badly. But then I thought maybe I’ll write it out. Get it out, but ya know what? To hell with stress…I don’t believe in it. This thing they call ‘stress’? This is my life. It’s not stress, it’s living.

I was stressed about my pets. All 3 of them, two cats and my dog, they’re all dead. If that kind of stress isn’t enough to just carry you off on a flood of tears, like some Alice in Wonderland version of Ophelia, then stress has sweet fuck all to do with whether or not I am cured.

I hear about stress. I hear about how cancer people shouldn’t be stressed and yet I live in a very stressful house, find myself in the most stressful situations, poor and flooded with paperwork and I’m sick as hell and it hasn’t killed me yet. So…

…Things are going to be different. For better or worse, this kind of stress has reached critical mass and I no longer give a hoot-to put it politely. I am going to start, in the words of Tim McGraw was it?, to “Live Like You were Dying.” I really don’t care for that song, but whatever, I’m there now.

I plan my days carefully while I’m lying in bed. Going to get a cup of tea, not too hot, because it hurts my mouth. Seeing how my drawing goes (not too good-but maybe a different style will come out of this.) My writing…drink tea. Look out the window at summer. It’s here. Listen to the silent house. Just the sound of the fish tank pump kicking in, a bird call. Silence. Cars and trucks driving by. The chickens start a fight. Silence. It makes me wonder why I stressed out. I have nothing to lose. My life is not important. It isn’t even lived lately. And I’ve had such a wonderful, interesting, fulfilling life, with so much love and beauty.

I’ve seen Halley’s Comet rising from the ends of the earth from Joshua Tree Nat’l Monument. Just me and the geeks from Cal Tech, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. I watched it and we drank and danced and THAT alone was a night to make all the rest of my life worth living. Even when the guys from Norton Air Force Base did a low flyover at first light. I thought the frickin’ comet had hit the earth but it was just a bunch of pilots 30′ above our heads in their F14’s. Ha fuckin’ ha guys…very funny.

I’ve seen David Bowie, The Stones, Springsteen and The Who. I saw U2 play on top of the roof in downtown LA and my boss almost fired me when I ran out to see them. I said go ahead, I’ll be back in 1/2 hour. Music, I’ve seen so much good music. I saw Benny Goodman play with Joni Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl.

I’ve met Steven Hawking and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. I met Chuck Yeager! I shook the hand of the man who broke the sound barrier. His hand! I’ve drank with Ann Miller and I still think watching her dancing to Shakin’ the Blues Away from The Easter Parade is one of my favorite tap dance routines.

Ann Miller

I ate in the same restaurant, at the same time as Fred Astaire, at Ma Maison and almost passed out I was so excited. My blase date was mortified when I forgot where I was and gushed to the waiter. This yahoo, who was supposed to be a sophisticated architect, couldn’t understand why I was so excited to see that little old man (his words!) I ordered a double Mai Tai just to annoy him. In the best French restaurant in Los Angeles and I think our waiter was a fan of Mr. Astaire’s, too. It came with an umbrella and an orchid (a frickin’ ORCHID!? Where the HELL did they get an orchid?)and it was so beautiful that heads turned, including Mr. Astaires, as it came to the table.

I shook Katherine Hepburn’s hand and I’ve eaten dinner with Barry Gordy. I’ve toasted with Milton Berle and made him grin and had a very famous man pinch my bum and laugh when I slapped him. Actually we both laughed.

I’ve been a waiter, a bartender, a postal clerk, a cook, an accountant, a construction worker, a barista, a bouncer, a manager, a clerk and a housewife.

I’ve picketed for unions, marched for civil rights, women rights and acted as escort to women trying to enter abortion clinics. I proudly spit at those evil men who were trying to force women to step into the gutter to get into the clinic. I’d do it again. I’ve been arrested, sorry Donofalltrades, it was for littering and thats another story, beat up and slapped around and not once did I lay down and cry about it. I got up, sometimes dizzy, sometimes bleeding but I got up-and usually went home, cleaned up and went out dancing.

I’ve lived in Hollywood

and in Canal Flats (pop.900)

Canal Flats

I’ve swam in glacier lakes and oceans and rivers and streams and I’ve jumped bonfires and fell asleep in the desert with nothing but my sand covered lover in my arms.

I didn’t stress out.

I’ve figured out stress management. Just accept that my life is crap right now, it has been for quite a while and I am not going anywhere. The part that I miss? It’s the courage with which I faced my day. Every day I did it. I faced things and I smiled at adversity and all that shit. Courage. I wish I could just scoop some up and eat it. I’d like to roll in it, like it was a glittering silver sand, douse myself in it. I imagine it as a warm golden syrup that absorbs into your skin leaving you glowing, brave, warm and ready to face the world-and the stress it generates.

I don’t have much courage left right now. I just don’t care as much as I used to. That courage I had has seeped away. It has been replaced with some kind of ‘reality’. One that leaves me lying in bed and trying to find the stupid courage to not lie. Not to myself, not to my family, not to my friends. But I’m a coward. I’m so incredibly tired of this. I’ve had such a good life. I need to be done with this and heal and I really really really need a vacation. To gird my loins and marshal my forces and assemble the generals and address the troops.

‘Never interupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.’ N. Bonaparte

I want courage to fall in love again.

I want to have the courage to own a dog again. That will be hard. I really miss Haida. I wish I had gotten him when I was healthy, not like this. I saw him born. I didn’t know what a shitstorm was about to rain down on me. Haida was only 2,almost 2. It was his birthday on June 16th. He loved me. Even when I was sick. He saved my stupid life and I couldn’t return the favor. He never saw the good side of me. He only really knew me when I was sick. I can throw the hell out of a ball. I can run in the sand. I can take him to the Redwood Forest. I could have done all this with him. I could have.

Haida

I want courage. This is breaking me.
The courage to face what they tell me. Whatever it is. The courage to face a short life. Or a long life.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.” ― Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

So where oh where did I leave off…somewhere in Frankfurt. It was great. In fact, Frankfurt was fun but it was kind of like being in the States because I was on the Air Force Base quite a lot.

Visiting my brother, Martin

They had american grocery stores and american fast food and lots of americans there. We went to a gigantic car show in town, visited Wagner’s birthplace, laughed at a town called Bad Homburg, had some great German food, did the trip up the Rhine on a boat, which led to the strange vision of a tugboat with hot pink trim covered to the brim with snarling Rottweilers.

Naturally by the time I got my camera out we were past it and I didn’t have a zoom on it. It was a disposable. I used them for the whole trip. Yeah this was 1991, ALSO before cheap digital. But I got some good shots anyway. Leszek was into photography so I thought it would be enough if one of us had a fancy, high powered camera. Little did I know…

Naturally when everything goes as planned nothing is worth writing about. So I’ll skip Germany and only say I am going back there some day to see Berlin and the rest of it. It was great…danged greatness!

So after a week my brother dropped me off at the train station and I took a train to Berlin. I needed to change to a train to Poland. I was getting all blase about trains now. I was an international traveller, and trains were just like a city bus to ME. Until I got to Berlin.

Can I just say WOW? That’s one hell of a train station and I got gigantically LOST. I had some trouble finding anyone who spoke english and it was only as I was standing there paying for my ticket that I realized I had only marks, pounds and american dollars, along with a mess of travelers cheques. I had no zloty’s and, here’s the kicker, they wanted you to enter Poland with so many zloty’s so you didn’t deal with the black market money exchange or something. They’d warned me about it in London at the embassy and now here was this clerk asking me if I had zloty’s. I’d kept thinking I was going to get some. Somewhere. A bank or something. You know…get to it.

Well, there I was, having not gotten to it. Standing there with my Walkman earplugs dangling and a little black suitcase on wheels, looking winsome and helpless and it doesn’t fly with those german train personnel. Nope it doesn’t.

I don’t think the push up brassiere would have worked on this guy even if I had been wearing it. It worked once in awhile with older men and waiters…thats about it. People who have those jobs behind windows in train stations and airports that are secure and well paid and boring? They hate travelers.

The train clerk said something about me missing my train and there not being another one going to Gdansk until the next day and repeated the money exchange thing. He pointed out of the train station and actually smiled, like ‘Good luck, you jerk!’ He even looked at my precious visa and laughed at it. Another one of those ‘Don’t you read the papers?!” people. He’d already sold me a ticket and THEN told me (reminded me) about he money thing and said I couldn’t refund my ticket that he had JUST SOLD ME! He was acting like a dick.

I tried to get the clerk to admit there was a money exchange somewhere in the station. There had to be! Or outside of it, close. There always is. Always. But which exit? There were a million in that Berlin Train station.

I looked around a little frantically, I’ll admit it, and found an old gentleman with a young boy with him walking past. You know how you can tell when someone is a gentleman? He wasn’t dressed well, his clothes were old and worn, corduroy pants and a baggy grey suit jacket and a mashy looking felt hat. But he looked clean and so did his clothes. The young boy was about 12 yrs old and they were looking right at me. I went up to him, with about 20 minutes to spare until my train left, and asked the old gentleman if he could point me in the direction of a money exchange. I needed zloty’s. I was going to Gdansk.

He gave me a comprehensive up and down glance, that took in everything from my shoes to my hat, and spoke to the young boy in POLISH! I was thrilled. Except he didn’t speak english to me. But the boy listened to him and said to me ‘I go for you.’ and held his hand out. I didn’t even hesitate. I handed him all my marks, pounds and dollars-about $200 worth-jabbering the whole time about the travellers checks but that I couldn’t get him to cash those cuz I would have to go too and did he want me to go and should I follow him and (OMG what was I DOING handing this kid money?!) he ran off. Just like that.

The old gentleman and I went to a seat near the exit the boy disappeared out of and sat down. I got out my Polish/English translation book and said something along the lines of ‘I’m going to Gdansk.’ and he nodded and pointed at himself. He was going there too. That was his grandson.

10 minutes pass. We don’t speak. Just smile at each other. The old gentleman looks mildly worried. I do too, I guess.
I know we are nowhere near the platform we have to be on. All those lit up signs were for trains going anywhere but east.

THen the boy appears, shoves an envelope in my hand and says something to the old gentleman, who says something to me (I get the feeling it was RUN!) and we all start running. We made it too.

It might be different now. Everything is different now. I’ve learned in the passing years that not all changes are for the better. Still, I think Poland will always remain the ONE spot in Europe where I could relax and be myself. It was a country full of the nicest, sweetest, most fun and hardworking, gentle, honest, hospitable people I’d met in Europe. I’ve decided that when I retire I am going to move to the country outside of The Monastery of Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, Poland, home to the beloved miraculous icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa, and I am going to try and be worthy.

…and raise cickens and cats. I couldnt possibly raise anything nearly as loveable as these kids who all rushed up and posed to have their picture taken with me.

Polish school kids in Gdansk

Yes, Poland was one of those places I’m almost afraid to go back to. It couldn’t have been that great, could it?

Whirlwind photo essay of 1991 Europe…

Welcome to all the MasonBentley crowd. Having a lovely party here and neglected to take pics…so I just posted some of me from my 1991 trip to Europe that I have been writing about…
Cheers to all!

The aftermath of my masonBentley party. MEANT to take pics and instead started partyin’

Me in Paris-somewhere

Visiting my brother, Martin

Poland

Krakow

Trying to be cool and get into Czechoslovakia…all to no avail.

“It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.” Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass’

It was 1991. I spent a lovely week in Paris. Alone and loving it. I didn’t worry about the fact that Europe was exploding around me.

It wasn’t exploding in Paris. At least as far as I could see. Only in Eastern Europe, Russia and where I was heading. And that was okay with me because I didn’t read the papers. And I barely spoke the language. They could have dropped a bomb on Barcelona and I would’nt have known it. I was in my own little heaven. Like some kind of jerk.

But that’s a tourist, right? Oh man. I could go to Syria right now and be placidly drinking coffee and eating fattoush in Latakia while people shot shells across the street because I was ON VACATION! That ticket is NON-refundable and I’m going. Like a jerk. I’d be asking people
‘Pardon me? Do you speak english? Czy mówi Pan po angielsku…no? Not Polish either? Darn it.’ Then I would be sure to shout ‘Where’s the beach? THE BEACH…EL SWIMMING POOLIO…’

‘Oh…I’ll bet they just said that screaming it doesn’t help. That was TOTALLY my boyfriends look when I served the creamed corn spaghetti sauce.’ (HEY! It could have been good. I mixed it with cream cheese and…oh never mind…honestly.)

‘Patiotism is the virtue of the vicious.’ Oscar Wilde.

I am just going to say here that I don’t know what to think about Syria. I think, personally, that Assad should step down. Or be shoved off his perch. But this post is not about Syria. I’ll leave that to the people who know what is going on over there. If anyone over there or here does. Obama and his People seem to think they do. Sending over weapons? Is that good? Is peace at any cost good? Should everyone just let Assad…no no no..I will NOT start spouting opinions as if I know anything or as if I am Jim Nachtwey (have so much respect for him-also tiny crush)

Here is what is germane to this post.

In 1516, the Ottoman Empire invaded the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, conquering Syria, and Damascus was made the major entrepot for Mecca, and as such it acquired a holy character to Muslims, because of the baraka (spiritual force or blessing) of the countless pilgrims who passed through on the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Tourists.

Essentially, they were tourists. Syria is a place I’ve always wanted to go and now I might have to wait!

Did you know that Damascus is the oldest most continuously occupied city in the whole world? As in lived in, not ‘Occupied’. Although they had thier share of that, too. THEY had the first tourists! Poor Damascus…I can imagine them 10,000 years ago.

Some yahoo like me screaming “POOLIO!! EL POOLIO!’
and..
‘Can you draw a PICTURE of me and my husband? Here’s a pen…”
and…
‘Is this SPICY?! I have an ulcer…’
and…
‘Was this fruit washed? WASHED?! DO you speak ARAMAIC!?’

…and there are people there who still do speak it…so there you have it. The literacy rate of Syrians aged 15 and older is 90.7% for males and 82.2% for females. That’s pretty damned good. As a potential tourist I am already ashamed of myself. So…where was I?

Oh yeah…my trip. God what a rube I was. But a rube with a naturally suspicious nature cultivated as a result of growing up in Hollywood
CA and realizing that men were pigs. Sorry men. It’s true. I made sweeping generalizations back then. Now…only some men are pigs. Like maybe 59.87% of them. Don’t give me some knee jerk reaction either. Just read Donofalltrades posts. Sorry Don. Love your blog.

However any European man trying to ‘make the eyes at me’, to quote Granny Mary, was in for a rough time. There would be NO making of eyes.

And then my mix tapes got stolen.

My mix tapes…I don’t have to tell you the magnitude of that theft, do I? This was before cell phones got small and there were cd’s. At least for the likes of me.

I spent months agonizing over songs, the order they played, the cover art. I made mix tapes for potential friends I would make, I made a special mix tape for me and my boyfriend, Leszek, whom I was going to meet up with in Gdansk. Yes…STOLEN!

By some Romany hunk with gorgeous eyes, green as glass, and eyelashes a mile long (I was thinking how like MY eyes they were and wondering if Granny Mary was correct about us being 100% Irish on her side) Yes I fell for the oldest damned trick in the book. As I pointed out the correct train platform (as IF I knew it!) I had my back to my suitcase, with my mixtapes case bungee corded on top, and Swoop! there they must have gone. I didn’t see it. He thanked me profusely and off he went.
While someone behind me stole my tapes. Boy was I mad. Hopping mad. Now I know what that means.

Fortunately, I had one tape in the Walkman and I had two more in my suitcase pocket. One of them was Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison etc…from that era. One of my ‘friend tapes’ to give away. The other was heavy metal, made at the request of Leszek, to give to someone he knew. So I had that. I hated metal. It was hard to make that tape because I had to ask around a lot and find people who had records I could tape off of. Naturally, that one didn’t get stolen. But the Talking Heads did. Van Morrison. Peter Gabriel. Chet Baker…all my JAZZ! Damn, it still makes me mad!

I was in EUROPE with no JAZZ! No music!

All because I didn’t listen to Granny Mary and I fell for the old ‘making the eyes’ trick.

Boy. I am a moron. Because Jazz may have started off in America, but the Europeans took off and RAN with it. There is some wicked good jazz over there. Good music period full stop. Even if they are singing in French. Or Spanish. German rock was…umm..hmmm…scary? They sounded like Rob Zombie, all of them. As if they needed a cough drop. Anyway the jazz was delicious in Germany. I listened to the radio everywhere I went after that and it was brilliant. I want to shake that handsome man’s hand and slap him with the other.

BUt that’s the way it goes. Tourists. I was a tourist and someone out there may have had their first exposure to excellent jazz because of me. And Big Band swing. They may have heard ‘Stompin’ at the Savoy’ for the first time or ‘One O’Clock Jump’ with Gene Krupa on drums and Harry James on trumpet. Or Count Basie or Duke Ellington. Maybe Dinah Washington or Billie Holiday. In return I got Edith Piaf, Djano Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli in France. Germany I heard about Eberhardt Weber. Spain I discovered The Gypsy Kings and Paco de Lucia.

Yes. From bad things come good things.

Right?

So having cancer and sitting here getting a blood transfusion as I write this, Ive been lying here since 8:30 am and it’s now 6:06 and I STILL have blood dripping into me because my white blood cell count is sooooo low, it is a good thing. I know it. I can feel it.

Everything happens so you can learn a lesson. My lesson then? Listen to the radio, stop swearing and watch out for the ‘making the eyes guys.’

My lesson today?

Patience. Soon this too shall pass.

And I STILL don’t have anything to complain about…all I have to do is imagine the day there is peace in the Levant and I can go there and scream

“DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH??”

It makes me smile.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” Alice in Wonderland

So there I was…wondering which way to go from here. Do I keep this up? Do I continue writing regardless of what is happening? How I feel?
Maybe…I can’t sleep and I feel horrible.

Writing is meant to take you away from yourself. Whether you are writing or reading, it isn’t always about lessons. Sometimes it’s just about forgetting. If I could, I would write a fantastic romance about a girl who has had bad things happen and then she overcomes everything and there is a happy ending. And she wears wonderful clothes and only cries because she’s happy.

I could write that. But then again I had my trip in 1991. The year that Europe was doing what the Middle East is doing now. Blowing up and rearranging itself. And there I was with my sensible ballet flats and all that plaid that I bought in London because I thought plaid was the coolest thing ever. Plaid and Branston Pickle. I really must try and take some pictures of my travel pictures and post them. Maybe tomorrow.

Plaid and Branston Pickle

Tonight it’s late. Tonight I will tell you how I got Valerie to stop dogging my steps through Europe. It was remarkably simple and I didn’t have to resort to telling the truth either. Sometimes the truth hurts and telling Valerie I didn’t particularly like her wasn’t something I could bring myself to do.

So I went back to the Hotel. What was the name of it? Rue de Henri Marten? Something like that. I went back after the Louvre and I washed and brushed and went to sleep even though it was the middle of the afternoon. Valerie was still asleep which told me that she wasn’t exactly sleeping comfortably in that youth hostel.

On the River Seine

I was supposed to be in this shot. It’s kind of cool looking though so I kept it.

I woke up a few hours later, because Valerie wasn’t the type to move around quietly. She was awake and that meant I should be awake too. We went out. It fit into my nefarious plan. I sussed out quickly that Valerie didn’t want to be taken for a tourist. When I asked her to take a picture of me in front of a monument she gave a quick surreptitious glance around and hastily snapped a pic in my general direction. It didn’t turn out, none of them did, as it turns out. These were the days before digital cameras so one had to be thrifty with the film. I had 5 rolls of Kodak colour film, 36 exposures. But I was willing to sacrifice a roll of film.

I would loudly call out to her ‘HEY Val, take another. Make sure you get some of the background people in. Lots of French people.’ and ‘OOh ooh there’s a bee! eek!’ and I ran around the fountain with a juicy orange screaming and making a spectacle of myself. Valerie was dying of embarrassment.

The top of my head was in this one- I cropped out the bad parts when I got home and they look ‘arty’

Hah, a picture with me in it. Blurry and dark and far away-but that’s me.

When she wanted to know where we were going to eat I insisted that we go to the Gare de L’est because there was a (gulp) McDonalds there. ooh…I am soooo bad. She put her foot down. She really did. So we ate at a cafe that had a prix fix meal near the hotel and she ordered all wrong-and I let her. I’m so bad. I ordered perfectly. Nothing. Nothing at all. I whispered loudly that the place didn’t look clean to me. I wouldn’t eat out of a dirty kitchen. THe waiter was thrilled, as you can imagine.

I bought a bag of cookies and milk to take back to the hotel and slept like a baby with the sodium vapour lights shining in my face and Valerie tossing and turning and muttering. Like a baby, I slept the sleep of the innocent.

In the morning Valerie got up extra early. She wanted to check out fast and get to the youth hostel so we could get a good bed. Yuck. So I told her I was leaving for Frankfurt that morning. My brother was shipping out or whatever they do in the air force and I had to cut my Paris stay short. (My brother was stationed in Frankfurt at the time and I was going to visit him and his wife, Karen, and my nephew. Looking forward to it, too. Only thing is,they were expecting me the following week.)

So she insisted on taking me to the station and that meant I had to pack. Not so bad. I managed to pay for my nice little twin bed at the top of the hotel for the next 5 days. I had to take my luggage but Al knewI would be back. He was disappoiinted in me. I knew I was letting him down. But Valerie was watching me like a hawk. I had to buy a train ticket. Can you imagine the cowardice?! I bought a ticket to Frankfurt for the following Friday. I waved the ticket at her and stowed it away in my purse and told her she should take off if she wanted to get that good bed at the hostel. I kissed her goodby and told her I was going to McDonalds for breakfast and she practically RAN away from me. The Ugly American tourist. I never saw her again. Sad.

Policemen at L’Orangerie

Notre Dame

this was the clincher for Valerie. A fanny pack…in front of a sex shop. She was done with me.

Yes, I believe that I would rather ruin someones image of me rather than ruin their image of themselves.

Paris was wonderful.

Haida is Gone…

Haida at a hat party.

My dog is gone.

Last seen May 27th, at 8am, running into the bushes behind the house to retrieve a football. Today it will be two weeks. I’ve spent the ensuing days searching for him. I’ve done everything, including keeping my hopes up and thinking positive and looking and looking and driving around and looking and putting up posters and talking to people.

Please do not condole with me. Please just accept that this post is a lousy one, that my dog is gone, like my kittens, and that I am hoping that by putting this out there it will stop hurting me so badly.
I know you feel for me. That’s accepted. I really couldn’t feel worse at this moment so I am not going to read any comments attached here or come back and look at this post. I’ve spent the past two weeks thinking positive and I was so sure I would get him back for the first 5 days. Then hope turns to doubt. Then the worry turns to agony. And you stop believing and start thinking horrible things. I can’t look at pictures of him yet.

I watched him be born. I could hold him in my hand. I taught him to play games. He was really smart. He learned ‘Target’ where I would put a plate or a toy or anything on the ground and point to it and say ‘This is your Target’ then I would walk away and he would be bouncing around, excited, and I would call him over and have him sit and then I would say ‘Go see your Target’ and he would run over and touch it with his paw. He learned that game so fast. It was a good one cuz we could play it in the house. I would put his target down and go into another room and say ‘Go see’ and then we would both run over to whichever room it was in because sometimes he would just tap in the direction of the target, he wouldn’t touch it. That was cheating. So he would smile at me, he knew he was supposed to touch it, just trying it on to see if I would let it slide this time. He had learned all silent hand signals for ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘come’ and ‘go see’ which meant he could go see the people or dogs he wanted to go see at the beach or where ever. He learned voice command by the time he was 2 months old. Sometimes I would be feeling horrid because of the chemo and he would lay his head on the bed and sigh really loud. Just staring at me and looking so worried. He would bring me things to make me feel better. Gross dog things. His drooly toys, his bone, his deflated football…

his chewed up bone, sure fix to make me feel better

How do you get over these things? It’s so wrong. I had good numbers and now my white blood cell count is so low they are thinking of stopping or delaying chemotherapy. That was my good news yesterday. I was boarderline so they gave me it…and now we are waiting and seeing and I can’t help them because I am so stressed out and unhappy. But I can’t keep on like this.

I have run out of pre-written travel posts. I have to write about other things and start to accept this. I just feel like I’m letting him down.
I’m never going to give up, though. Never. I’m going to write about other things and when I go out for my daily drive to find Haida I will put up more flyers and do my crying then.

I will never give up hope. He might come back, but after two weeks, I no longer believe he will. Someone had him or he’s dead. I hope it’s a nice someone but frankly, who would steal someones pet dog. He was wearing tags etc…he’s dead or someone horrible who would steal a dog has him. Oh god…no. I can’t think of it. He’s probably dead or something…right?

I’m not the only one who misses him. Otis is Haida’s brother and he is partially blind. He used Haida as a seeing eye dog and frankly it was because of the bond between the two that I chose to keep Haida. That and because I loved him so. And Otis needed him. Now, Otis lies on the floor at the foot of my bed and chews all his fur off. I can’t make him stop except by putting vile lotion on it and he hates it and now he cringes when he sees me. If I take him out he runs in circles. If I take him to the beach he digs a hole in the sand and lies in it until we leave. It’s breaking my heart. I can’t be his eyes.

Otis is very sad

They were never too far from each other.

Vanished like Shizuka. I’ve resigned myself to her loss, as I’ve done with Maru. At least I could bury Maru. At least I have certain knowledge of where she is and what happened to her. Horrid knowledge. But I accepted it. With tears. To this day. I cry.

Maru

But when you lose a pet and you can’t FIND her. When she gets out a screened window and you never see her again, you wonder. Every day you ask yourself what happened. Was it fast? Did it hurt? Was she scared? Is she still out there? Is she lost? Hungry? Does someone have her? Maybe she has a better home. Maybe she is alive and well. Maybe…
but you know she isn’t. And you wonder…again. Was it fast…

Shizuka

Now my dog is gone.

Haida and my nephew

Where is he? Why is this happening to me? Why are my pets disappearing?

Swimming at the beach. He loved the beach.

I have put up signs, I have posted his picture on line, I’ve gone to the SPCA. Where is my DOG!? WHAT HAPPENED!!! I’m totally not equipped to deal with this right now. He was the reason I got out of the house. I have to take Haida for a walk. I have to take Haida to the Commons for a biscuit. Haida needs to go to the dog park, the beach, the library the market the ice cream store he was my dog. He was my dog. Haida went everywhere with me. If I started the car he got in. There was no question of leaving him beind. Ever. Except now he’s left me behind.

Haida wondering why we haven ‘t gone to the beach yet.

So you ask yourself was it fast? Did it hurt? Was he scared? Is he hungry? Is he out there? Where is my Haida pup?

Why is this happening to me? Why?

“You would have to be half mad to dream me up.” Alice in Wonderland

Crying? In public? It’s sure way to get noticed by a mime. Playing ‘Somewhere My Love’ on an accordian.

I got it together rather quickly.

I admired the Pei Pyramid. I thought it looked a little out of place but when there’s THAT much space to fill, really, it didn’t take up that much of it. It’s a big place, the Louvre courtyard. I mean, when you think of the price of real estate…the Pyramid didn’t bother me much at all. The practical side of me applauded it. The impractical side wanted to see raging mobs of rioting sans-coluttes or some French aristocrats doing something heinous.

If it were Hollywood the whole place would be FULL of people dressed up and acting as if thier life depended on it and I were Steven Speilberg. If it were Vancouver, everyone would be planning on how to fit another 40 story apartment building in. Paris? It was empty at that time of the morning and HUGE. Hugely empty. Except for the accordian playing mime.

I made a beeline for the entrance and that’s where the crowds were. Inside the pyramid. Trying to get downstairs and buy a ticket. And figure out which entrance is which. There are a bunch down there and they all go to different places. I bought a ticket from one kiosk and then tried to figure out which entrance led to the pictures. Or the Winged Victory. Or the Mona Lisa. Or even a statue. Anything. There were people in uniforms taking tickets at different places and I wasn’t sure if I could get out if I got into the wrong wing. Its a big place. And I was tired. I was kind of drunk, maybe. I think I was stressed. Okay there’s no excuse.

I lost my ticket.

I approached a ticket man and held out my empty hand. There was no ticket in it. I looked at the floor, at my hand, at my feet, at the ticket guy. I backed off and started looking around. No ticket. I looked in my pockets, maybe I put it in my pocket. No. Maybe it was in my purse…no. Maybe I dropped it. I started looking around at the floor again. I could feel a stupid smile spreading over my face. I couldn’t help it. I was going to cry/smile. It was pathetic.

A man in uniform came over and said something in French and I told him, in english, bad english, that I had lost my ticket. And two big cartoon like tears fell out of my eyes. I told him I was jet lagged and my room wasn’t ready and there was someone sleeping in my room. I took a deep breathe and tried to speak French.

‘Je’m’appelle la horreur. Ju suis desesperee. Jai perdu ma passe’ At least I think that’s how it sounded. Laura=la horreur.
I am called Horror. I am desparate. I have lost my past.’

The man swallowed really hard. I think he was trying not to laugh. He took me over to the lady behind the window who sold me the ticket and spoke French to her while I kept my eye’s really wide open so no more tears would fall out. I tried not to breathe too many white wine fumes at her.

She actually smiled at me. I think the guard told her my name was Horror and I was desperate and without a past. At that point they just wanted to get rid of me so they could guffaw in private without risking me breaking down in public. Who says the French are rude? I had only been there a few hours and I’d met the nicest people imaginable.

He took me over to a ticket taker and they shoved me down a hallway and I think I heard them laughing but I didn’t care. I was IN.

Embarrassed, but in.

I walked around in a daze. Literally. I was operating on a Branston Pickle sandwich from the wee hours in the morning, a nice, crusty roll, a tiny cup of coffee and a quart of wine. I remember standing in front of a GIGANTIC painting of a Battle from Hell. Probably Waterloo, and being fixated on a bug eyed guy who’d had his arm cut off. It was lying in front of him. OFF! It was bleeding and he was staring at it in horror, reaching for it and a horse was about to totally leap onto him from behind and crush him…it was horrible AND lifelike AND practically LIFE sized. I wanted to give him a heads up. ‘LOOK OUT! That war horse is going to land on you. Your arm is the LEAST of your problems right now!’ He was in the right front foreground. I’ll never forget it. I finally tore myself away after what felt like an hour of walking up and down in front of that painting. Jeez…too much.

I stumbled into the room with the French Crown Jewels by accident. They even had Napoleon’s Crown. Very tasteful, I have to say. Very French. How in the world they kept that collection together, I’ll never know. I guess it’s kind of hard to pawn the French Crown Jewels.

There were burn marks on the wood floors which I thought was rather slipshod housekeeping until I realized they were from the fires set by those rioting peasants during the Revolution. They cooked their meals there. Right on the floor! Of a palace. Sheesh…sort of thrilling to see though. Tacky bastards.

I went in search of the Mona Lisa and found it. Just as some yahoo snapped a photo of it and all the lights around it went out, leaving it in darkness. For a long time. Everyone drifted off and I just stood there behind a velvet rope, it seemed like forever, waiting until the lights came back on. Damned if I was going to miss seeing the Mona Lisa. Which is very small. And it looks just like all the reproductions. I don’t know why I thought it would be different. Or thrilling.

I did want to see the Winged Victory of Samothrace though. That was a must see for me. I followed the map. I found the place. No Winged Victory. I went down the stairs and looked around…the thing is big. It’s like 10 feet tall or something, right? You can’t miss it. If you’re in the room with it, you’d know. A headless statue. With wings. Maybe it was off for cleaning or something. But there wasn’t even a plinth big enough for it. I wandered around looking at other things and sort of fuming a bit. All this way and it wasn’t here. I finally got my nerve up to ask a guard.

‘Pardonee moi, mais ou est la victoire la samothrace.’ And I believe I got it right that time because he didn’t look as if he were about to burst out laughing. He just smiled and pointed over my shoulder.

And there she was.

I had walked right past her.

She was just as beautiful as I imagined. Just as powerful. Just as graceful. I’d seen a million photo’s but there was nothing like seeing the original.

Sorry Mona Lisa.

I burst out crying.

“Keep your temper, said the Caterpillar.” ― Alice in Wonderland

The continued adventures of Laura in Wonderland (meaning 1991 Europe)

This traveloge left off with me just arriving in Paris after a harrowing bus trip. Then finding my stalker room mate standing in the lobby of my Paris hotel.

Valerie.

I am such a dyed in the wool phony that I said ‘Valerie!’ like I was happy. ‘Valerie…wow what a surprise. You. Here. In Paris. I thought you were going to Aix.’

Meanwhile I was freaking OUT! Valerie found me in Europe. She must have been paying attention when I was making plans. Somehow. Like by listening to me yak and yak about it before I left. Even down to the hotel I was staying at. Me and my big mouth, right? But she SAID she was going to Aix en Provence. To improve her French. I didn’t even really believe she meant to go, honestly.

She’d already been in Paris for quite awhile at this point. Turns out she left Vancouver before me and I’d spent a week in London. Or more. It’s all kind of vague. I think I was hyperventilating. While remaining polite. I’m a Proud Canadian.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t fooling the guy behind the desk. He was Algerian. He was good at reading faces. He said ‘So, you need a room for two now? We have one room with one bed. You want that? Right?’ I could have murdered him-even if he did say it in French and I sort of understood him and was TOTALLY thrilled. Valerie took charge. Of course she did. She switched my cute little room at the top of the hotel with a twin bed that overlooked a courtyard to a cavernous room on the street side. Valerie insisted that we see this room before we commit to it. So up we went, me still expressing some sort of half assed surprise, stunned.

It was a chopped in half living room or dining room. Probably in it’s illustrious past it had been quite something to see. Now? It was scary. One bed. That’s right. One bed with a big dip in the middle that we were going to share. One toilet in the room, with a bidet and NO WALLS around it! Not one wall. Just sitting out there, flapping in the breeze. A sink and a linoleum table that someone had cooked on. And chopped on. And slept on, maybe. The windows were heroic. Nothing to do about the windows, except perhaps only curtain the bottom 1/4 of them and make sure they had towering buildings that looked into the room from across the street.

I took one look and died inside.

But I didn’t say anything. The Algerian guy was staring at me. I could feel him staring at the side of my head. Like willing me to SAY SOMETHING. Complain. Say NO. But I didn’t. I said ‘Wow. Look at the toilet. There are no walls.’ He said I had to pay extra for a toilet in the room. And the extra person. I had to pay MORE for a horrid room. So I said ‘um…’ and Valerie took charge again. She said we’d take it. Just for one night. Then we were going to stay at a youth hostel.

ME!? In a hostel? Youth? I was 31. I had money. More importantly, I had reservations! Valerie may have been on a tight budget but I wasn’t. She assured me I was going to love it there. Really. Why spend money on a ratty horrible hotel if you were only going to come back to it long enough to sleep? Right?

Valerie started unpacking, it seems you have to take all your stuff with you when you leave the hostel for the day (What?!) and I went downstairs to pay for the room.

Remember this is like 6 am or something. The Algerian guy filled out the paper stuff and took my credit card and I just stood there silently. My thrilling smile was gone. My feeling of being in Paris for the first time was gone. Valerie was in my room and she was going to dog my footsteps all through Europe. I just knew it.

Algerian guy said, in beautiful English, ‘This is a friend of yours?’

I blurted out the whole story of her wierdness. Clinging to the front desk like it was a life preserver, I told him the mouse story, that my friends didn’t like her and even though she was perfectly nice and all I was having a hard time liking her too. That’s not like me, I said. I like everyone. Basically, I said ‘Help me!’

He pointed at a chair and said ‘Sit’ so I did. He did the exchange of the night to day shift thing with some guy and then said ‘Come’ and we went out for coffee.

He took me to a place right by the Sacre Couer, which was close to where I was staying. I was in Montmarte! In Paris-the artists quarter, right? I read ‘Nana’ and ‘Germinal’ and all that Zola stuff. I was starting to feel better. He showed me how to order coffee in Paris. Leaning against a scarred wooden counter, under an awning, the smell of bread baking, he bought me a coffee and a roll and pointed out The Moulin Rouge and the Sacre Couer up on this hill. I was feeling better and better. Then we went to another cafe, almost next door, so I could practice how to get a waiter myself.

You see, there’s a trick to it. You ignore the waiter. Don’t turn around. Don’t look for him. He knows you’re there. They are like sharks, he said. And the blood in the water? You, looking as if you are going to stay a long, long time. So spread out your papers, open a book, set up an easel, take off your shoes and stare off into space introspectively. You’ve got time. Lots and lots of it. Paris waiters are special. They are like beautiful women, he said. Ignore them at your peril. The more you ignore them, the more they want to be noticed.

I opened a book. My friend stared majestically off into space with his feet on a chair.

Within moments a waiter was there. My friend, I can’t for the life of me remember his name, I’ll call him Al, said, in english, ‘Don’t order in english.’ I panicked. All my french was gone. POOF! Well, most of it. I said ‘Duex vin blanc, si vous plait’ which almost gave the show away, that ‘si vous plait’. Plus ordering wine at 6:45 am was a little weird. Al continued to stare into space and I did too. The waiter was puzzled. He was SURE I was a tourist, sure of it. But I was ignoring him. He fired off a question in rapid French, which totally went over my head. But I remember Al saying to me ‘If you don’t understand, stare at them as if THEY don’t understand and repeat yourself very very slowly.’ So I turned and gave the waiter my best 1000 yard sniper stare and said ‘Duex. Vin. Blanc.’

It worked. Except we both had a whole carafe of white wine to drink. At 6:45 in the morning. Al thought it was funny and he drank it even though I don’t think he wanted it. We talked and talked for 2 hours and drank our wine and he told me about Algiers, which he loved and hated and missed, and I told him about Los Angeles and Hollywood and Vancouver, which I also loved and hated and missed. We talked about politics and when he heard I wanted to go to Russia he laughed and said I should and good luck with that. But he wasn’t sarcastic. He was my life saver, Al. Finally we got down to Valerie. This guy should have been a psychologist. Maybe he was. It was brilliant. He said tell her the truth. Nicely.

He saved my little room. He really did. I had it reserved for a week. He told the day guy I was checking into it tomorrow morning. He had faith in me. He knew that I would be able to explain to Valerie why I wasn’t staying in a youth hostel and why I wasn’t traveling with her. It was crazy, but he said, tell her the truth. Spend a night, if you have to take that long to make it clear, but tell the truth.

So simple. I told him I would let him know how it went when he started work that night and I went back to my weird room. I was tired from the bus ride and the white wine but when I saw Valerie asleep in that awful bed, I left her a note and took off again. I had Paris at my feet. And no Valerie.

I went straight to the Louvre. Of course I did. I found it too. First try. I never had a problem again while traveling. Never got lost. It was London that threw me. No other city in Europe, only London. It’s all court yards and side streets and oddities. I loved it. It made every other city look like a grid. Paris was easy!

I got off the bus and walked into the courtyard of the Louvre and all of a sudden the whole morning caught up with me. I was at the LOUVRE museum. I was going to see the WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE. I was going to see the MONA LISA! I was in PARIS. Oh my GOD!

I started crying like a baby. Really. I just sat down on the ground and started crying. I was here.

I made it.