Nightswimming

I like swank hotels. I like mints on my pillow. I like nice little bottles of toiletries and lots of fluffy towels, and toilet paper folded into aeroplane ends, and people making my bed for me and turning it down. (though, apart from the chocolate mints, which are delicious, I think turn down service is ridiculous – as if people are really too fastidious to come into contact with the coverlet on the bed, or to turn back their own sheets. I can’t think of anything more silly except perhaps this)


I like people calling me Miss all day long and making my stay “more comfortable.” I’m not saying I think it’s good for my soul. I just like it.

I’ve had a great few weeks where I got to catch up with old friends and new babies, and I saw a few of them in Phoenix. I had a conference out there, hence the swank hotel, but I arrived early to visit las amigas. It was a lazy, hot holiday weekend and I wandered round in a sort of responsibility-free daze. After a looonng nap on Sunday, Bryn dropped me off at my conference hotel, and following a few preliminaries, I went for a swim at dusk. It was one of those warm evenings after a hot day when you aren’t sure whether the water or the air is warmer, and you glide around enjoying the reprieve from the hot-oven-blast daytime temperature. There were pink clouds, palm trees, the electric sound of what I believe are cicadas, and flaming braziers above the spotlit pool with little fountains and sprays all over the place, and only the occasional dive-bombing French child to break the serenity.



The only downer was that it was actually a pretty fantastic conference, so I had no excuse to blow off a session or two and go sightseeing. Ah, my unswerving dedication to duty. Ruins my vacation at every turn.

(Speaking of the conference, one of the highlights for me was when they showed a clip that I have been trying and failing to find on youtube. It’s where a well-known anti-tobacco advocate throws water over an industry executive’s cigar when he’s smoking on TV in violation of fire code, and the executive gets really mad and tries to start a punch up. It’s made funnier by the fact that the executive hits like a…well, like someone who’s never hit anyone before, and while I’m all hurrah for pacifism, it does point to the fact that starting your career of violence on television at the age of about 60 (hm, he’s probably actually 45 and looks older because he SMOKES) isn’t the best plan. )

The only reason I can think of to live in Phoenix is so I could be called a Phoenician, because that does sound fascinating and exotic. I realise it’s not news to anyone that Phoenix is hot in July, but I can’t help mentioning it. The air just feels thick with heat. And it just doesn’t get cold at night. Which actually made late night and early morning swims delightful.

Bryn probably thinks I don’t love her because I never take pics of her self or kids when I stay with her, but somehow the camera never leaves the bag.

So here’s Britt’s spawn. He looks like he’s about to cry, but I promise he loved being tickled.



Britt and me out for life-saving gelato.




And here’s Phoenix at night.







And this is the Dial building, which apparently was built to look like a bar of soap. Can you see it?

Lena Goes to the Doctor and Nothing Happens

I think it’s important to note at the outset of this post that I do NOT have fungus growing all over my body. Got that? Lena = No Fungus. If anyone asks “what is Lena?” you will all chorus “fungus free!”

Having said that, this would be a better story if I DID have fungus (which I don’t!), but in that case you can be sure that you would never, ever hear about it, so be grateful that I don’t (no sirree!).

So I went to a dermatologist this week for a long over-due skin cancer screening – where they look you over and photograph your moles and make sure nothing nasty is growing. I know at least two people my age who’ve already had melanoma, so it’s not a bad idea to do it.

While I was there, the dermatologist noticed a couple of patches of dry skin on my torso that made her pause – she took a scraping, as she said that it might be “tinea verylongword,” a fungal condition that is hereditary and can OVERSPREAD YOUR BODY. Fungus. All over your body.

So, while there is totally no shame in having this condition which I personally do not have, you can imagine I wasn’t thrilled. She said the good news is that it’s totally treatable. You just take a pill, go and exercise really hard, then don’t shower for 24 hours. Then repeat the process in a week.

While waiting for the (negative!) test to come back, I was thinking two things. One, that that bit in Bridget Jones where she tells her smug married friends that the reason so many girls after thirty aren’t married is that, under our clothes, we all have scales over our bodies, and which is really funny when you read it and think “that’s what I’ll say to my grandmother next time she asks,” isn’t so funny when it might be true. The second one was: “what kind of a crazy medieval witchdoctor cure is THAT?”

A friend said that it reminded her of the bit in the Bible where the guy with leprosy has to go and dip himself in the river seven times.

Fortunately, I don’t have to compromise my hygiene through not showering, sitting in dirty rivers, or waving dead chickens over my head because I don’t have leprosy. Or fungus. Or skin cancer. Which is nice to know.

Capitol Reef

Ah, nature. Don’t you just love nature. Behold



I joined la Familia D in Capitol Reef Thursday eve. We had dinner, lounged around a bit, played with my new headlamp (I heart camping gear) and retired to our tents. I was sharing with Littlest Niece, so we read Mr Sneezy together before bed. (One day the Smithsonian will beg for her unmatched collection of Mr Men books).

I awoke to birds singing and leaves rustling, and felt at one with nature, free from schedules, bereft of limitations and constraints – well, until my brother told me to go and put a bra on.

After fortifying ourselves with bacon and egg sandwiches, and ritual moleskin and sunscreen application, we spent the day hiking. We walked through the streams, drank warm plastic-flavoured water, slid down waterfalls, swam, ate trail mix, and generally had a delightful day.

The kidlets had spray bottles for cooling purposes, and amused themselves by spraying every animal in sight. The deer actually took it very well. One lizard seemed a bit surprised, but we decided that it probably made the lizard’s day, and that he will probably remember that day as when the Miracle of the Cooling Spray occurred, and next year you will see thousands of lizards round the rock upon which it happened, with little lizard crutches and eye-patches, hoping for more lizard miracles.

[Please don’t email me if you’re a member of PETA and want to explain to me that the lizard was trying to get WARM on the rock and we RUINED its day. I kinda don’t care].



Nephew cooling off




Littlest Niece can climb all by herself.



Georgie Girl




More cooling



Rocks



Indian smoke-house



Sulphurous rocks



The Kingdom of Gondor.



The "Sheep Dip."


Georgie and Mikey

We got back to the campsite and were immediately hit by that floppy kind of tiredness that gets you after hiking, where all you want to do is sit around and eat your dutch oven dinner. We played rummy, and argued gently over how many coals should be on the dutch ovens, who needed to get up and light the citronella candles, and whose tent is the best.

Camping is worth it, if only to make you appreciate modern conveniences, like when you go home and wash off the squashed bugs and what you thought was a nice golden tan in a nice hot shower. (Littlest Niece was the only one who remembered toothpaste, otherwise we would all have been even more disgusting than usual). But camping holds additional blessings, including reminding me that this crazy kind of landscape is mere hours away…