Five Crazy Things: Travel Bag

Barbara: As travel has been a theme here the last few days, it seems apropos to include a new travel-themed Five Crazy Things! Aside from the usuals (toothbrush, clothing), are there 5 things you can’t live without when you stray from home (or even 1 crazy thing)?

1. Face creams. Phil is always rolling his eyes at my travel case: few clothes, but bulging bag of toiletries.

2. Essential oils. Yup, as stated here before, I need my lavender for germs and calm, and my oil of oregano and peppermint oil for possible bugs (travel or stomach).

3. A book. It’s like my noing-noing. I need to know it’s there—even if nine times out of ten when I’m traveling I don’t have time to read (or fall asleep too quickly).

4. Baby powder. The cornstarch kind. It’s the perfect, easy hair cleaner. Just shake a bit in my hand (I transfer it into a small glass herb jar), massage it through my hair, then brush it out.

5. Tea bags. Morning green and evening herbal. Like with the book, these are often not used, but I need/like to know they’re there.

Deb:

1.FACE PRODUCTS, ADVIL, etc! I’m with you, Barb!

2. My Thumper! Which is my neck massager (and it’s big! BUT it goes everywhere with me!)

3. A book. Never read it!

4. Vanity Fair. Always read it on the plane.

5. My computer. Always. 

Paris Diary: Day One

Barbara: For the next week, instead of our usual blog posts, I’ll be blogging from Paris! I’ll post my experiences and photos, and Deb will chat with you in the comments section below. I’ll catch up with the comments when I get back, but—if I can get to the comments while I’m here—I will happily take Paris recommendations from you! Not sure what time of day the posts will go up, but I will try and schedule them so they correspond with the usual 8am EST.

So, why am I in Paris, you ask? Well, some of you may remember that my newly-graduated fashion design daughter is doing an internship here. And one of the perks of having a husband who travels a lot: flight and hotel points! How could we miss the chance to see our girl in action in one of the most romantic cities in the world? Well, we couldn’t. So we decided to do what we’d never before imagined doing: going all the way to Europe … for only 5 days.

Jetlag be damned, we are having an adventure!

Okay, before I get to the juicy Paris stuff, can I just tell you how I totally “Barb-ed” my packing? (We’ve blogged here before about the verb Deb and I affectionately throw around—“to Barb something”, “you’ve really Barb-ed that”—which means, in a nutshell, you’ve done something in the most complicated, least logical way). So, inspired by Deb’s dedicated packing lessons and by the fact that my daughter is a fashionista and also that we’re going to Paris, baby, I decided to prepare what I was going to take on my trip, instead of throwing a bunch of clothes into my suitcase and hoping for the best. My choices would be important as I need to be comfortable for all the walking we’ll be doing, the weather is cool and damp, and I still want to look somewhat together. I took a page out of Deb’s pointer list and chose the outfits and photographed them ahead of time. How did I Barb it? Well, I tried to photograph the outfits ON ME, and without using the sensible girl’s tactic of photographing my reflection in the mirror (or asking someone else to do it), I balanced my iphone against the teakettle and tried to snap. This is me trying to get as much as I can into frame while still engaging the shutter button…

Silly, huh? It only took me SEVERAL DAYS OF CONTEMPLATION to realize that I could … lay the clothes on my bed and take the picture. This is especially Barb-idiculous given that DEB’S EXAMPLE IS WHAT INSPIRED ME—AND SHE LAID THE CLOTHES ON HER BED AND TOOK THE SHOTS (see our old post)!! Anyway, I figured it out.

Tuxedo-ish shirt. And, no, the jeans will not be unzipped...

Lapis necklaces from my grandparents.

Barb-reposterousness aside, I’ve never felt so prepared for a trip before. No more staring forlornly at my suitcase and wondering why I brought that stupid t-shirt when I really need a warm sweater!

So Phil and I land in the lovely country of France, in the unparalleled city of Paris, and of course, only have eyes for our beautiful daughter. Stefanie was able to get a few days off and has organized a full itinerary for us. Not that we need to follow it exactly, she was careful to point out, but Phil and I were really looking forward to seeing the city through her eyes.

So this is our Paris loveliness, Paris through our Stefanie, and Paris en famille!

Ahhh, the flowers and produce of the markets...

The beautiful shop windows of Paris!

This is a Paris must-see: Shakespeare and Company. Yes, famous for being a Hemingway hangout, featured lovingly in his marvelous "A Moveable Feast", but it's fantastic in its own right. A warreny, magical, mysterious bookshop, filled with the new and the very old. With little side-rooms dedicated to poetry (leave your own!), with scraps of paper tucked into books that you're encouraged to find and assemble into your own story, with a writer's room upstairs where a writer reads his work so fellow reader/writers can remark and give feedback, with an utterly knowledgeable staff, we couldn't get enough of it. We had to drag ourselves away, and left energized and inspired.

You're not supposed to take photos on the "first" floor (which is my "second"), but this was a sneak shot from
the inside of a writing booth. I figured since everyone else was taking shots,
and since this space is maintained by the public, I could sneak it.

Thousands of "love locks" on the bridge over the River Seine

Hotel de Ville

Art in Place Vendome

Us being "glamorous". Did we succeed?

This was an incredible first day. I was so worried about the jetlag, what with only 3 1/2 hours sleep on the plane and a 1 hour nap in the hotel, I was sure I would be dragging myself through the day. But I felt amazing! And then to top off our perfect first day, what better luck than to meet up with two of our dearest friends in the world (friends for over 30 years!) because they are in town to pack up their old apartment?! Meet Mike (far left) and Josée (left of Phil). Josée is the culinary genius behind Epicurious Generations (link here and on our sidebar). We had a final nightcap (after an "haute gastronomique" dinner) with them and their friends at our hotel before falling into bed at 1:30am! Divine, mmmmm....

Going To Seed

Barbara: Hey everyone! I’m back! And because there’s so much I want to say to you, I’ve decided to not just focus on one single “topic of discussion” today, but to ramble a bit in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way. You guys can pick which of my ramblings you want to speak to in the comments section below.

First of all, I just LOVE you all for your wonderful, ingenious, and thoughtful musings last week on the blog. I mean, I always love the stuff you say, but there’s something truly special (as I discovered) about being sequestered in an airport for 3 hours with nothing to do but troll the ‘net and realizing (as I did) that there’s a week’s worth of loveliness on the blog that could entertain me, and then immersing myself in this—our—world and reading every post again and then every comment. Here’s what amazed me: how this community of relatively like-minded friends could also have such surprising and disparate views and ideals and dreams of the world. I mean, I know this is true in fact, but to read the details of individual experience as they play out, one commenter at a time, is really refreshing.

Okay, and here’s the other thing that really amazed me—and this thought might even be worthy of a whole post on its own—is the responses in the 5 Crazy Things posts. Did you notice that so many of you had alternate lives choices that ran the gamut from introvert to extrovert? It seemed to me as if we were all channeling that yin/yang thing within us that wants (and maybe needs) to represent both sides of reality: the quiet, cerebral thinker (or horse whisperer or writer or scientist) to the flamboyant noisemaker (or actor, or actor’s friend (that one made me laugh), or stand-up comic, or Nathan Fillion girlfriend). I think for all of us, one type or the other probably predominates, but still most of us could at least imagine—and maybe covet—an “opposite” kind of life.

And last and possibly not least, I come to the title of this post. “Going To Seed” is a play on a recent theme in many discussions I’ve been having lately about “Going Fallow”. Have we talked about this here before—I can’t remember??? A number of people in my life have brought up the notion that for each of us, a period of fallow (as in the farmer’s field “fallow” where they let their fields run wild—without purpose—for a few years to regenerate nutrients in the soil) is extremely important and invaluable. This time of not thinking, not creating, not planning, conceiving, or seeing-through, allows us to come back to our work later with much more power.

Well, as you know, I was gone for my holiday for the last week and this, if there ever was  perfect time, was the perfect time for going fallow. After all, I had spotty internet and Deb had offered to be here full time on the blog. I couldn’t really Facebook or email, certainly couldn’t phone. I had a real chance to fully wallow in the fallow. But I was also really keyed up to do some revisions on a novel I’m working on (it’s a psychological thriller that I need to get just right before I send it out in the hopes of landing an agent and/or publisher).

But if I’m revising a novel, I’m not really going fallow, am I? And hence, we come to my play on analogies: I decided in the end to “go to seed”. I would let everything else go and I would see if the peaceful environment and lack of responsibility would provide me a clean slate to (let the buds that have blossomed for me keep growing and) do those final tweaks. I mean, no meals to cook, no groceries to buy, no house to clean, no laundry to do, no phones to answer, no auditions to prepare, no computer to cater to. Phil was busy most mornings till early afternoon (pursuing his passion: diving):

... and I could do as I would with my time:

So here’s what happened. I did grow my flowers, but I did it in as gentle and free way as I could. I’d eat a very early breakfast with Phil and then go to a quiet pavilion in the beautiful gardens with a cup of tea and my paper manuscript. I would read and tweak until I got too hot and then I’d swim and think. As I bobbed in the water, soaking up the sun, amazing insights would come to me. I’d let them “go to seed” and waft around me. I would admire or dismiss them. Later, I would incorporate some of these discoveries into my story. It wasn’t work at all. Believe it or not.

So, yup, I think that’s it for my ramblings (and hopeless analogies). Hope you can make some sense of this—holiday brain is sure to be playing a part in what I have (or don’t have) to say!

Five Crazy Things: Places

Barbara: Deb and I thought it would be fun to launch a “Five Crazy Things” theme from time to time on our shorter Tue/Thurs post. The idea is that we would share our five first thoughts on whatever the topic of the day is.

As I’m out of town this week and don’t have much internet, Deb is handling the more substantial posts and I will post today and Thursday’s “quickie” and check in when I can.

So the topic for today—an EASY one (and not very “crazy”), I think, which is designed to get us rolling so we can see how it goes—is to share the five places you’d most like to go.

Barbara:

1. The Great Wall of China

2: The Pyramids of Giza

3: Victoria Falls

4: The Taj Mahal

5. The Great Barrier Reef

Deb:

1.  The Isle of Skye

2.  The Arctic

3.  Bethlehem

4.  Jordan

5.  The Great Wall of China

6.  Barbara’s other ones!

Now tell us yours!

Hate-On For Hogtown

Deb: I am from Toronto. I am a very open-minded open-hearted traveller. I have never been anywhere where I didn’t find many or at least some things to like about my destination. I am kind, respectful, friendly, and I do my part to stimulate local economies—heaven knows! I go out of my way to tell people when I travel how much I love their city, town, country, or hamlet. I am a fan of the planet, what can I say. And yet....

Yet....

I am from Toronto.

The hated, despised Toronto. It is the city the rest of the country loves to hate. In the U.S., I believe that city is New York. In Canada, it’s Toronto. I guess every country has to have a whipping town. No point in saying I am sick of it because that isn’t going to stop it. No point in saying I am hurt by it because the people who would bash my city to my face think that I have no feelings. They think that because I am from Toronto.  They think that I when you are from Toronto you are a self-centred, head up your ass, don’t care about anyone else in the world, cold-hearted, narrow-minded, city dwelling knob. They apparently think this of every single person who resides in Toronto. I can only assume that this includes animals and children.

First of all, no one in Toronto thinks these things. It is the rest of the country that assumes we go around thinking we are the greatest. What we are really thinking is what YOU are thinking: how do I pay my mortgage, raise my kids to be good people, keep my career going. We are thinking what the whole planet is thinking and yet...

Yet...

I was in a taxi in Vancouver last February. Vancouver (my home away from home—my husband’s home) was in full spring bloom and I was thrilled to be there. As we drove along I had a lovely chat with the cabdriver, asking him what part of the city he was from, if he was born there, and generally going on about the sheer beauty of this lovely city. Until he finally asked me where I was from. Do I need to tell you the rest? This time the irony of the about-face was just too much for me. When I got out of the cab, I pointed out to him (peeing a little, shaking a little) the following: I said, “Jim,” (Yes, Toronto snob that I am I had asked him his name when we met. For the record, he did not return the courtesy.)To continue—I said, “Jim, I got into this cab and engaged you in conversation. We had a lovely chat and I think you judged me to be a nice person. When you found out where I was from, where I was born, where the fates had decreed I hail from I became the enemy. Every single thing you saw and heard with your own eyes, you decided to shun. So, Jim, I would like to say that I am a nice person, a good person. I am from Toronto. Please remember that and please remember that even after your very hurtful, very rude display, I GAVE YOU A TIP!”

And here’s the kicker—HE HAD NEVER IN HIS LIFE SET FOOT IN MY CITY!!!!

So many bashers I have been victim of have never been to my city. Others decide they will hate it before they come here, leaving no room for open mindedness. Other people come here and it is just not their cup of tea. Or they come with an open mind and still hate it. Fair enough. You have the right to hate it. I am not saying that it does not have its flaws. Truth be told, I have never been anywhere on this planet that does not have its flaws ... Okay, maybe the rainforest. But the fact is, we are all from somewhere. Whether we stay there or whether we stray, it is still home. So when you are bashing someone’s home remember, it’s someone’s home.

I have friends around the world who live in areas that would never make me happy. Places that I would not live in only because they do not suit my style, they do not serve my needs. And when I visit them or when I am talking with them I sing the praises of their home sincerely for all the beauty I see in it. What is the point of the put-down? If it isn’t right for me does that mean it is an awful place? Why would I say something nasty about it? Yes, that is exactly the right word. People are nasty about Toronto. To my face, on Facebook, on Twitter, at parties ... They love the hate of Toronto. They feed off of it. And just so you know, I am not posting this looking for the Toronto the Good stories. But nor am looking for Toronto the Bad stories. If you hate my city then please feel free to talk behind my city’s back. But to my face, it is simply rude. It is my home.

And like everything in life, and believe me I have had to learn this lesson of the city judgment (although in fairness I had the decency to talk behind said city’s back), maybe we should step back and try, just try, to look at any  place we hate with fresh eyes. Maybe through our preconceived notions, a glimmer of something else will slip through. Maybe we will open our minds long enough to enjoy something we have decided to despise. This also applies to creamed corn. Toronto the Good has lots of Good about it. And you know what they say: if you can’t say something nice about a geographical location, say nothing at all!

Barbara: Yeah, I'm familiar with this phenomenon. It's very weird. Phil travels across the country a lot and has had many people tell him to his face that Toronto sucks. We've lived here for a long time now (after living in BC and Montreal--both sexy, wonderful cities). Toronto is awesome. It's my home and I'm proud to call it that.