Three beers with dear Mike and Alan in the best bar in Amsterdam (during which I am regaled with hair-raising stories of Thai ladies with ginormous breasts, stocky transvestites and late-night disco dancing clubs), are enough to distract me for a while. But after they are gone I slump into a despondent heap, stirring only to consume some strangely unpleasant noodles and throw a cat at Titanic, which I have never seen and do not intend to start seeing now. I am looking after a very beautiful flat (and the two cats inside it) for a week for some friends so impossibly glamorous they make me feel like I smell, even if I am freshly bathed. Their flat is on the corner of a pretty street and a beautiful canal; its two outside walls are mainly windows ("glass windows", as I helpfully described them to Mike), and the cats sit in the windows. What happens then is that tourists come by and tap at the glass windows; they are not put off by the fact that I am seated mere inches away, pulling on small clay pipe and dolefully inspecting the bottom of a glass of absinthe.
Yes, dear readers (regular and otherwise): I am doleful. I do not wish to be here, you see. I am feeling the lack of a self-haircutting veterinarian pathologist (currently building a terrace and counting hummingbirds and rotten blackberries some miles outside Montreal), and the few remaining weeks of my employment stretch ahead of me like an extended bout of gastric influenza.
But there is hope! For on 11th August - i.e. in under three weeks - I shall be boarding a KLM flight to Paris, where my flight will land at the same time as the pathologist's flight arrives from Montreal! From Roissy we will travel to the Gare de Montparnasse (via, perhaps, a café au lait and a croissant*, depending on the time of day), and from there to Angoulême, where we will be met at the station by MonkeyFather and MonkeyMother (if she is sober) and their two small dogs, Curses and Transplant.
That evening, we will attend the Festival Hippie in Matha (Pop. 2,167); the next day, blinded by entire hours spent watching Genesis tribute bands, we will wave goodbye to MonkeyFather and MonkeyMother (both of whom will still be drunk), and make our way to La Rochelle, where we shall stay for one night (and one night only) in an exquisite hotel. But what is this? A cursory glance at the hotel's web-site tells me it is run by a bearded lady and her husband!
But enough of this nonsense. Tonight I must sleep and prepare myself for a trip to Frankfurt on Tuesday. But in the meantime, there are six Dutch men in white tie standing outside my window drinking beer, and I must throw a cat at them to shut them up.
Pip pip!
* this is what people in bad novels set in France and written by Americans eat the whole time when they are not eating roast peppers, chocolate mousses, etc.
6 comments:
Yes! We should form a non-Titanic watchers club (I have not seen it, either, and have no desire to.)
Here's to the next three weeks whizzing on by...
I've seen parts and bits of this Titanic film, mainly because it's on the American TV something like every other week-end, running for about five or six hours with commercials, and I dare say I found the commercials less shallow.
Throwing cats at people is, indeed, a much greater activity.
I once innocently let a whole bunch of smallish schoolchildren watch that Titanic film. I thought it was about a ship sinking. How was I to know it had naked ladies in?
Hold the phone... a self-haircutting Canadian? There are others? And here I thought my husband was the only one. When dating, it was endearing in a thrifty kind of way. But then I heard myself say: "Perhaps Love, for our wedding, you might consider letting a professional hairstylist give it a go?"
Hairs were cut, people were married, and lovely photos of well coiffed couple were taken, so it worked out. I'm just just sayin' - you might have to speak those words if the pathologist does his own manscaping.
la rochelle is super duper duper. i'm quite sure you will enjoy it - despite the obviously hirsute ladies. we had lovely fish soup and oysters and things when we were there. have a lovely time. take some immac, as a little gift. perhaps.
There is something deeply illogical about your schedule, especially regarding La Rochelle. When you have a moment to put your glass and pipe down, I think we should communicate via the telephonic aparatus.
Post a Comment