Looking Like Your Mother

Too Tan

I have picked up five more sunscreens to sample, plus some feet softening lotions, including a Urea 40% solution for the barefoot luxury life I had been living. Ahhh, product. It is good to be home.

I lived with my Biotherm Mexoryl 50 (from Europe), Neutrogena's waterproof 75 with Heliotrope, and Colorescience's Sunforgettable. I also wore hats and UV clothing. I gotta say, the equator is a tough place to stay pale, but I was doing ok. Then the last two days, I got sick of the whole protocol and backed off on my protection. Result? Instant tan, instant skin damage, but I felt like a kid again.

There has to be a better way. I used the sunscreens so much more than I did while skiing at 10,000 feet because with all the sweating, swimming, and oppressiveness of the sun, it was easier to remind myself to reapply. I ended up looking too greasy and kabuki white, especially with my one-time fav, the Biotherm. I didn't feel pretty at all, which kind of defeats a big point of my skin care regimen. The new sunscreens are supposed to address these issues.

You Say Care-A-Bee-An, I Say Can't We Fix The Stairs

"I need to get away."

When a spouse says that in whispered tones through clenched teeth under the covers before sunrise, it really is settled. The family will go away.

The sympathy factor wears thin, however, when that spouse chooses something close to the equator in off-season, low-rent July. "Is this a group suicide mission?" I asked him. "Because I'm not so sure the rest of us are having such bad days right this very minute.

It's the end of day two on the Isle of Granada, which I politically mistook for the Falklands during mental prep time. "Finally. Some place foreign where being an American won't be the worst thing in the world," I said to my husband.

"You are a geology genius, but when it comes to geography and politics, a menace," he replied.

That I am, so I had to do some research.

According to Merle Collins, the Carib Indians migrated off the coast of South America and conquered the Arawaks who         were already inhabiting the island. The Caribs named the island Camerhogue. Another site from Skyview takes us back further, and explains that of the three Amerindian tribes in the region at the time, the Caribs were the most warlike. They sailed over from the SA mainland and massacred the Arawaks, which is bad, but were, by the same vein, well suited to keep European invaders from landing on the island and doing the same to their own people, which, I guess, is good, although this is where I begin to think that women should basically be in charge of the world, but let's not go there just yet.

Contrary to what guide books say, Columbus did not land in 1498 - but simply sailed by. He renamed the island Conception after the Virgin Mary and I guess he gave it that name because it was somewhat apropos of his landing technics: that was more a concept project, too.

To be con't....

Forget the Insight from Breakfast . . .

Food is merely one insight into another's culture. How they eat, when they eat, and what they eat can be enlightening, entertaining, fatiguing, and, well, yeah, disgusting. My own recollections inevitably involve visions of plates of food and flash images of rushing servers, patrons, or passers-by. From Barcelona, I retain images of late night tappas with dome lit food bars and tall dark women in red.Greece gave me plates of red, white and green, sunny blue skies and waving tree branches. Because I am not a true foodie at heart, the memory is always visual, rarely related to the palate.

When it comes to culture, I get a better insight from other countries' hospital emergency rooms. The queuing system, type of health problems, and level of cleanliness, sympathy, and bureaucracy tell me lots. When a disturbing skin rash began taking over my daughter's body, we sat for hours in the Greek ER, despite being the first ones to walk into the facility that morning. The woman across from us at intake sat on the phone for hours. We could not make ourselves understood to her, so her eyes told us to sit and wait. The room itself looked like an unkempt version of a 1950's built public school foyer. An extremely incoherent, toxic looking young 20-something was brought in by his parents and led through to the doctor's area without hesitation, as were two old women in traditional widow black garb, and a couple with an infant. None of my daughter's afflicted skin parts showed. "Can't you look ready to die already?" I asked her.

We sat until I accepted the fact that no one knew we were there despite attempts to make our needs known to the woman on the phone. I sent my daughter over to a cashier, a man who, with his large, drooping, graying mustache and eyes, looked like the kind of underemployed accountant who would either shoo her away or be grateful for the pretty girl's distraction. The man had sturdy English skills and was up for the part of good Samaritan in getting us in to see the doctors.

Except that there were no doctors, only a nurse who spoke English and took what little history we could provide. Without washing her hands from attending to the patient on the other side of the curtain, the young nurse with the big doe eyes touched my daughters skin and wrote out four prescriptions that in combination would likely combat whatever it was we were up against. The entire cost? Fifty bucks for the ER and fifty bucks for the four scripts. My daughter's skin began to clear up within 48 hours. I reckoned the sweet nurse would be dead in ten years from whatever germs she was collecting from work.

Lesson:  Even if we plan on being self contained within our group and the hotel people speak our language, get a translation book for emergencies. I should have at least had that to try to communicate with the woman on the phone. Opinion: Compassionate, tough, and worn.

When I miscarried in Sweden, it must have been at an hour when no one as was at the hospital. I only remember pristine walls, windows, and doors (lots of all of them) and no bodies. I entered the waiting area, took a number from the number machine, and sat. The number machine looks like the ticket giver at every large grocery store deli counter in America, and everything in Sweden runs from those machines. When my number was called, my husband explained the situation and we were led to a large white room containing one female doctor. Yes, I was losing the fetus. Now get dressed and go home. No I didn't need any other treatment. Women had been miscarrying for tens of thousands of years she said, and now it was my turn.

Apparently I had checked into the Ice Hotel by mistake.

Within a week and back in the States I could barely climb a flight of stairs. My body kept trying to cleanse itself of the failed attempt at procreation and I was losing lots of blood, which of course earned me a ticket to an ER room at home. I kept hearing the Ice Doktor say "Women have been doing this for tens of thousands of years," except for not me. This woman - me - really sucked at losing things, at being natural, and I hated the doctor and the big white room with its sonogram equipment.

Lesson: Always get a check up when I return home from hospitalization in Scandinavia. I am a wimp compared to them, and will probably die from the things that that group of folks just handles with a band aid, if they even have band aids. Opinion: Spotless, efficient, and without a soul.

Standards for Men

We had been arguing about the proportions of Michelangelo's David for weeks. No really, we were. I thought David's legs were too short, that his gluteus maximus muscles rested too low on the frame. My husband, who believes that his legs are too short in relation to his torso, insisted that David was set up just fine.

I see a copy of the David statute every morning when I run the dog through the dog park. The dog always stops and barks at the menacing David. I agree with the dog's assessment, although I know that this makes me seem ridiculous. Who else in the world has issues with David?

But it probably helps to understand that once you see Thorvaldsen's gigantic Herkules on a landing high above you as you walk from the ground floor of the museum in Copenhagen to the next, you understand what proportions men were most likely supposed to have before the introduction of burritos and cases of beer. 

Oh, and supermodels no longer annoy me. I jhave found the uberstandard and it should haunt all guys.

Off the Jetway

When you have been on the road for over two weeks, nothing feels as good as plugging the laptop into a familiar outlet and hearing the wireless connection bluu-oop like the old Pop Up Video info bubbles, and work. I've been living off of borrowed wireless because my new laptop wouldn't accept unfamiliar hardware. As for the borrowed wireless, I would like to thank all the wonderful people in the world who aren't paranoid enough for encryption. I love you.   

So, what I have I learned.

Why of course Vera Wang is selling to Kohls. It fits the new economy: lines for the very rich, and then lines for the rest of us. The Lord & Taylors and Macy's, even the Nordstoms of the land will eventually disappear, so don't bother stopping at those locations on the designers' bottomward expansion path.  Go straight to the discount houses, watch and wait.
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It is really possible to sit next to someone on an airplane, watch them pick their nose and flick whatever onto the tray table in front of him for an entire flight, and not throw up.  It's tough, but possible.

It is not possible, however, to - after two airplane bottles of wine - watch Efter brylluppet  After the Wedding and stay dry-eyed.
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The San Diego Hat Company's Fall 07 line is full of hats that are so sick. And by sick I mean perfect. Serious hats, in traditional styles, done in a way that makes them look sophisticated and hip. But trust me, order the catalog and shop from that. The online site doesn't give the same appeal. Just be sure to check the return policy. It looks like store credit on returns only, so unless you know how a hat looks on your lovely head and face or can negotiate other arrangements, go slow.
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Is it just me, or is there something rather sick, and by sick I mean perverse, about the recent bout of troubles China has had with pet food contaminants, toothpaste containing anti-freeze, and now lead-based paint adorned Thomas the Tank Engine toy trains? Have they gone so completely free market capitalistic as to thumb their noses at safety regulation?
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Skins Footwear might work, and not be seen as just an elaborate orthotic, but I'm not seeing the killer skins yet. Maybe if part of the bone shows, something like how Bjorn Borg underwear is supposed to peek out from atop the low rise jeans, the shoe would be a hit. Yeah, that's what I think. The bone must show.
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I can state, completely unequivocally, that I will never be a freegan.

Desert Sun

I adore Arizona. I stood in the sun for 4 minutes without a hat and the part on my head started to hurt.

I stayed at the gorgeous resort and spa, and spoke to a lawyers association about the beauty business. More specifically, I showed them how botox, fillers, and lasers work.

"When your clients tell you they want to develop a medi-spa, this is the sort of thing they are talking about."

They were much appreciative.

After the program I joined my husband and the six year old out by the pool. My husband was trying to finish the last 10 pages of a book. The six year old was fluttering atop the water on a flat float. Two slightly older girls asked her if she wanted to play. Of course she did, and then I watched the game of "We'll pretend we are sharks and flip the little girl off the float and then take it from her." I hate that game. I hate kids who think up games like that even more. 

So to make my daughter feel even worse about it all, I got into the water and asked them if they had her permission to take the float. I started hearing all the jammering and blabbering that accompanies a save your butt explanation, and I cut it off with, "If all you intended to to was to take the float, then what you did was wrong."

"My Mom's a lawyer," one of the girls said.

"And your logic genes you got from your father?" I began thinking, along with how loud I could get, how far I might be able to throw her, how much I could probably beat up her mother . . . but then demonstrating an unusual amount of verbal and physical restraint, I ignored the non-sequitor and said simply, "What matters is what is right and wrong. You should not have taken it from her."

Then other girl said she was sorry.

My own daughter was extremely uncomfortable about me getting in the mix, so I told her that I was sorry, too.   

"I didn't do it so much for you," I explained, not sure if that made things better or worse in her mind, and even less sure if it was true. "We parents sometimes think our own kids are perfect, and don't always see it when our own act out of line. They were acting like bullies and needed to be told. I was doing it for their sake, not yours."

My husband, who for some reason still had 10 pages to go, whispered to me soto voce, "There are over 400 lawyers at this convention. We've gotta get you out of this sun."

Travel Advisory

Yesterday I was on the road exploring a new spa, and I got a bag full of some killer expensive product. I ran back to the airport and on the way realized that I had a serious TSA problem. How was I to get it back home? I didn't have any luggage to check, and the most expensive bottles were at the evil mad scientist weight, exceeding the 3 ounce limit by multiples.

I entered the terminal and attacked two female TSA officers. They would understand. "Look what I have," I said, opening the bag. Is there a place I can buy one of those ziplocks?"

"Sure, but if it's more than 3 oz, it won't matter. We have to throw it out," they explained.

"How about if I get a plastic container and pour half of it in that? This stuff costs like gold."

"We go by what's on the container. If it says 6 ounces, we throw it out, no matter how much is inside."

I could pour all of it out into many mini-containers if I could find them to buy, but I would never be able to remember what was what, unless I could also buy a Sharpie and find some counter space to make the transfers. This was so taking the glam out of it all. There there was the time issue. "What if I give the oversized stuff to you?" I finally said. They were nice, and I was getting tired.

"We can't accept it," they said in unison like a pair of Doublemint Twins. "See if you can check it in."

I love Jetblue, their counter people, and their check-in anything boxes. You could fit three men's suits in one of those things and they brought one out for my bag of make believe skin care miracles. Everything arrived in great condition. Now I suppose that I should find a bag that I can travel with that stays small until I need it for emergencies like these.

I also needed a lead on a luggage piece I have to write. See? Life is copy, as well as a good excuse to buy a Tumi.

Control Freak Gadgetry

I'll be hitting the road soon to do some presentations on spas and medi-spas, and that means a power point presentation, which in turn means - yuch - depending on someone to connect my computer up to the room system. I'd rather depend on something like this Toshiba mobile projector, instead. I'd even promise to leave the portable screen at home for practicing shadow puppets.

It's tough enough to take the stage. Stressing about whether the presentation can keep up with me or whether the pa system is compatible with my 'puter can so likely to result in zits. I'd just as soon do it all myself.

Well, yeah, control freak.

Tummy Tucks on Parade

I'm so excited. I have my press pass to the 2007 Convention for the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. They aren't going to let me in on the new surgical techniques classes, but I'm aiming for a front row seat on "Hot Topics" - what's new this year. I've walked trade shows before, but I'm having a hard time imagining the Javits Center filled with silicone breasts.

Well, not really such a hard time. 

In the Hole, Final

The Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Review 

As much trouble as I was in physically (six weeks post ligament repair) and as intermediate a skier as I will forever be, I am - for reasons I haven't quite sorted out yet - eager to go back. Some reasons seem plain enough. The Jackson Hole ski resort seems surrounded by a wide area populated by ranch owners, ranch hands, worker-bees, and rich folk who made it elsewhere but have come here to find a different kind of life. It's supposed to be a red state, but the bumper sticker on the truck parked outside our Teton Mountain Lodge hotel all week read "Bush's Plan; Leave No Child a Dime."  Teton Village and the ski runs that feed into it strikes me as more the place where people want to escape the office and come to ski the wild mountains, then the sort of place where one jets away from the office for a sec to be seen in town in the latest ski wear. If I were to describe Jackson Hole skiing in three words, I guess I would choose genuine, tough, and beautiful.

People on the lifts would actually say things like, "It doesn't matter if it is marked blue or black, you'll be ok as long as it is groomed."  Well, no, not really. Or, "Whatever you do, keep heading right." Actually, I needed to go left. "The toughest part is the face-plant in the powder, 'cause it's so cold." If I landed in a pile of powder I would just as certainly die of asphyxiation, so, quick, say something else, say something else. But the real reason I mention these tips we got is that they came from serious, 50 and 60-something men of varying sizes who could have been in any kind of business back home, just trying to help us navigate the map. These were guys out there alone or with their sons, with snow encrusted hats, skiing a tough place because they loved it and because they could. It unnerved the daylights out of me, how much these guys looked like they were six-years-old and had been tumbling in the first snowfall of the season, but at the same time, it helped me to understand that this place was the coolest, ever.

To say that I wanted to cry every other run would probably be an exaggeration, but an emotionally difficult part for me was having to tiptoe down hills that I would have attacked in earlier years. I didn't always have access to sports lessons as a kid but there was always some type of equipment around, so we would pick something up and learn to play a sport, as they say, ugly. So with skiing, I never mastered lanky, suave parallel turns until later, sort of, but nothing stopped me from attacking a mogul hill with bent knees, a nod to gravity, and a big smile. On this trip, however, I looked at all these hills with all this snow and all this vertical drop and I had to keep saying to my ski mates, "I can't do it."  Maybe I want a year to see if I can get into better shape and go back and actually do it.

The last morning, I grabbed the bus into town. I sat up front by the bus driver because I was alone and could eavesdrop or ask questions without embarrassing anyone in the family. I learned that Jackson doesn't get too crowded in Winter because most people don't like cold, but it gets wicked jammed in the Summer with everyone spilling in to see the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. The bus drivers talked amongst themselves about what side-work they were going to do to make extra money then, cook or dump truck driver or beer pourer. The locals can't afford to own property in Jackson because most of the property is part of the national park system. Whatever isn't, is so expensive, only rich folk can own it, so the tiniest home is a million dollar item. A real local is someone from a ranch. Another kind of local is more of a service worker, like the bus driver, a hotel maid, or a construction worker. A third kind of local is someone who works the sport tourist trade who has been around for a few years, but generally has an accent from California or the Northwest or the Southeast. If they work the ski resort and wear a name tag, that information may or may not be accurate. Sometimes the guys make up fake identities. For sex purposes, I guess. The sport locals dress more like tri-athletes because they really are more like tri-athletes and are very proud of the fact that they can do almost anything better than anyone else because there is practically no oxygen in this part of the world, and they can run and bike and climb mountains and have sex without the need for oxygen.

I need oxygen.

I went into a clothing store for the ranch locals. I didn't think those kind of cowboy clothes were for real. I went into The Bootlegger, a shoe store, with shoes from Denmark, Israel, Italy, and the US. I fell in love with a tall black cowboy boot that felt like butter and cost $700, but cowboy boots don't seem to be a big item on the website, and what I am going to do with a pair back East during the Summer, anyway, wear them in the garden with a pair of shorts and look like some outsized toddler? If I still lust after them by Winter, I will see . . .

I need that boot.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming is the home of Cloudveil, a hot sports clothing company. The brochure shows lots of people clinging on the sides of mountains. There is a sport I will never understand. I guess even immediately after birth, I was just never that young; I was born with a personal relationship with the concept of mortality. But certainly the Cloudveil clothes are nice and look like they would hold up as I walk the dog around the park.

The family stayed at the Teton Mountain Lodge because it had the largest suite accommodations along with a great ski in and out set up from the more difficult mountain, but we seemed to spend more time over at the kiddie ranch area, which is where the Four Seasons hotel and restaurants were. Maybe I got too drunk with relief on our last night in Teton Village, but there was something about the Four Seasons restroom that led me to declare to the restaurant manager that when I die, I want to spend eternity in a Four Seasons bathroom, or something like that.

See, the kids' lack of filtering device that plagued me through this trip, is genetic. I think they get it from their dad.