my Midwest accent

I enter this hidden hollow of a mountain town excited for its beauty and how I know I will feel. I’m excited and drive a little slower to savor my entering remembering the hope, calm, and anticipation of days past spent in this place. This time though I struggle with sadness. Sadness in that I had hoped a friend would have joined me here for a weekend get-a-way. Sadness that my great road trip is coming to a close.

The veil is quickly lifted when I get a call from a girlfriend in town who gives me instructions on where to meet ASAP for dinner with more friends.

Seeing my friend and her daughter is a great treat and her friends are very genuine. The one young couple is so sweet in announcing they’re trying to have a baby. I find it so odd when people tell me this. I understand of course, but directly they are telling me they are having lots of purposeful sex. The husband goes on to tell me why this mountain town is so special to he and his family. He further tells me the story of their engagement talking so eloquently and gently. It was refreshing to hear such a touching –and gushing account from the man.

I stay overnight with a friend who informed me twenty four hours prior that he could no longer honor his commitment to accommodate me for the weekend. I can stay this first night, but that’s it. I understand, though I feel somewhat duped.

The first full day I have an ion-cleansing treatment whose purpose is to remove the impurities I harbor in my body through the meridians looping through my body. The woman who administers this is fabulous in that we always have great conversation and have fun sharing our failed relationship stories. She gets a big laugh out of the Bangkok wedding date experience.

After a bowl of soup in my favorite coffee shop, several hours in the library working on getting new business, a soy decaf latte, and moving my suitcases around to a hotel, I find myself again with friends at dinner. This is an important dinner on two parts. I need the couple to sign an agreement for a project I’m working on and I need to help the husband realize how lucky he is to be married to my friend having learned the day before that he is possibly stepping out on her..

Skiing with my friend the next day, I relay the conversation. She is surprised that he did not talk badly about her. We meet up with the couples from Thursday and I end up skiing with the newlywed’s wife. She’s from my state also and skis at about the same level. We try to get as many runs in as possible actually bombing the hill our second to the last run to try to catch the lift before it closed. Our favorite run had taken us almost twenty minutes to get down. A direct route with no stopping, no moguls, at high speed, and with thighs burning at the bottom took us five minutes! We were happy as teenagers high-fiving and giggling. We were meeting her husband and the rest of the Thursday group mid hill for après drinks thus it was critical to make the last chair. The five year old daughter of the other couple aptly notices and comments that my voice is the same as (my new skiing friend). We decide that it must be our Midwest accents; the father confirming this and adding that it’s very noticeable! Having recently heard myself recorded on video and not liking it, I’m afraid he’s right. A few months ago in Asia, I had a man from Sweden tell me how funny it was that he would be speaking Thai with a US Midwestern accent from learning from me! I begin to think that it’s good I pick up other accents so well to disguise the slur and perhaps lazy pronunciation of vowels learned from my youth.

This silliness and sense of accomplishment of our hill bombing feat quickly fades as I listen to locals at dinner last night talk about their back country skiing where they hike one to two hours to ski fresh powder, where the first few turns they have to hop a little to try and release the snow in front of them in case its ready to avalanche lest it release above them threatening them wholly. One girl whines that she had to show some visiting friends the mountain and ski within the ‘area’; the area being the in boundary skiing of the ski resort. I try to understand how they feel wondering if skiing within the resort is a little like cycling on a multi-sport-use path. I keep this thought to myself and relish how open they are in their conversation including me and offering visions of how I might ski if I move to this little town.

slowly poisoned

Staying with my friend and her family was so fun its hard for me to describe my confused heart so unfamiliar with unconditional family love. She integrated me into her life so lovingly dropping off her kids to school, buzzing through the classrooms, having coffee with her friends, celebrating fat Tuesday, doing yoga, and a little shopping, as well as visiting different parts of the city for fun shopping, site seeing, or cool things like U2’s U2 3D music video film. Having sangria at lunch time my last day was hilarious too. I forget that I can drink at lunch time! We ate really healthy as she’s even more conscious than I am choosing organic and low to no sugar items for her family. Butter was used on fresh baked loaves and steamed asparagus. Salt was hardly sprinkled and even less desired. Snacking wasn’t really necessary as the meals were so fulfilling and we were active. They even took care of their waste in a responsible way having four, no wait, five garbages: paper, other recycled items (plastic, metal, etc), a compost (beautifully captured scrap food in a small shiny stainless container until it could be taken outside), the sink disposal, and of course what ever remained went into a standard catch all which didn’t fill up very fast.

Then I went to visit with my mom’s friend. By my fourth night I’m used to her now and more comfortable, not really knowing my place initially. I hadn’t spent very much time nor had been interested in my youth in this amazing woman. My mom insisted I visit and I’m so glad I have. She’s hilarious sharing many stories of her life which she volunteers only in basic conversation. Probing wouldn’t get you anywhere and certainly wouldn’t bring up gems like this one.. She’s had 85 years of crazy living as a beautiful strong woman. On a business trip in her early 50’s she met some other well dressed women who thought she might be in their industry. Being so well dressed, she assumed initially that they were also in the clothing business. After a long flight befriending these women, she discovered that they were indeed a lesbian couple whom were high priced call girls making a very good living. They were on the same flight to LA from Texas and invited her to their party that night for Senator Andre Dulles! Can you imagine if anything had happened at that party? She would certainly have been written into the movie recently released about him.

She and her husband, who was a pilot in WWII though a real curmudgeon bordering on socio-path, live simply between their original home in the middle of Michigan and a cute little cottage on a hilly wooded peninsula in western Washington. Fog sits over the lake their cottage sits in the morning so thick its hard to imagine what the day will bring, yet by nine, it’s lifted and the sun shines brightly everywhere.

Sadly, they eat very traditionally. I guess it goes to show that eating unhealthy perhaps isn’t so unhealthy at all.. they both at 85 with no significant ailments of any kind a part from poor hearing and diminishing eyesight such as a 60 year old might experience. They eat sliced manufactured bread, apple sauce sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, margarine, sweet white wine, PBR, heavy sweet breads in the morning, and Splenda sweetener for breakfast and on tomatoes! I limit the margarine to just a taste lest I have to eat the potato completely plain. I spritz lemon juice on it which helps greatly for flavor and neither comment on this weird little ‘habit’. I feel likely I’m being slowly poisoned, the artificial food stuffs surely settling permanently in the folds of my intestines.

The kicker was the snip-it I caught from a morning show recently about dollar store warnings as far as what to buy and what to avoid. As much of these items are imported, their safety of ingredients and coatings is not guaranteed and more than likely horribly bad for you. The warning was, if it can go in your mouth or is meant to be ingested, don’t buy it. The product likely contains hazardous or US prohibited ingredients.

My second night, my host treats me to a hot chocolate before turning in for the night. It’s a special sugar free mix she tells me after I’ve cheerily committed to sharing with her and all I can think of are the labels I’ve compared in grocery stores past where I end up buying the ‘regular’ kind to avoid all the artificial crap that’s included to make the fat and sugar free varieties taste ok without the presence of well, fat. I’m also guessing it will taste a little bad so when she suggests sweetening it with Splenda as she starts with her mug; I quickly retrieve from my room a packet of Stevia to add sweetness. At least something will be healthy in my drink. Then she pulls out the ginger snaps which are a perfectly flat and crisp wafer which is not only delicious but quick to eat. We’re happily munching on several of these with the hot cocoa which they compliment better than one might think as she’s telling me that they are also good dunked when she shares that she bought them uber cheap at, you guessed it, the dollar store.

I wanted to throw up. I pictured saw dust, phixolzylene, polysaturated something, transfats, rat dung, and lead dissolving in the hot chocolate swallowing in my throat. I’ve eaten six little cookies by now. How am I supposed to leave the remaining three on the plate with them tasting so good and my host going on and on about how great they are? Its like eating ground beef from your hostess at a small intimate gathering in her home.

It was only last week that my friend included me in a special private couples gathering at another friend’s home to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It was a big deal as that hostess was adamant to announce previously that only marrieds are allowed; no divorcees, no halves of a couple, definitely no singles, nor the like. Feeling pity on my traveling situation and wanting my friends to come, she allowed my presence then went on to serve meat loaf. Now I like meat loaf like everyone else on the planet and possibly like every one else, my grandmother made the BEST meat loaf around. I’d given up eating ground beef eight years ago however upon reading the book, Fast Food Nation. It’s a good idea. Denying food a gracious host provides however is not. You’ve got to suck it up and hope that she cooked the loaf hot enough to kill the germs in the ever present feces. You’ve got to suck it up and hope that she picked a high grade of ground that has little to no intestines, butt skin, fat, lips, tits, nor ears.

I’m really not sure how the US mainstream diet can stomach all the chemicals and foreign matter in our food. I have two to six days until I’ll be subjected to a host’s cooking and plan to fast the poisons of the week out of my body.

Sweet beautiful friends.

Insanely treated food.

Yhechkkk.