Roadtrip! Ithaca, NY

Earlier this summer I started the wedding season with a bang as I took a bus 5 hours upstate to Ithaca to witness The Pollock and Oxford Comma tie the knot in a beautiful outdoor garden.

I stayed with my Chicago-era friend The Coffee Goddess in her fantastic two-story house (a real HOUSE!), where we had gluten-free beer (surprisingly delicious) and late-night tea on her back patio as we tried to avoid mosquitos while listening to the sound of laughing water from the nearby river. In a too-short but much-needed reunion, we fell back into our old, comfortable routine of discussing 42 (or, as it's more commonly known, "life, the universe and everything"). My lovely hostess took me on both a driving and walking tour of the streams, rivers and waterfalls, even as the rain drizzled down on our heads. Happiness is...sharing raindrops with an old, dear friend taking a break from studying for the bar exam!

The Pollock and Oxford Comma's wedding was a small gathering of friends and family, and even though I knew no one but the soon-to-be-married couple, I was made to feel welcomed and included by everyone.

Happiness is...seeing two fabulous people who truly love each other come together for what you know will be a contented forever.

After the short, refreshingly non-religious ceremony, we all made our way to the reception for a de-LISH vegetarian dinner. One more reason I love The Pollock and OC: They are sincerely conscientious of the animal kingdom, putting their money where their mouths are and doing all they can to help make the world a better place for all creatures great and small.

Fun Fact: So while I'm not a huge clubber on a nightly basis, we all know how much I love to dance at weddings, dragging anyone and everyone onto the floor with me to keep the party going. There was an interesting moment during the first dance wherein I scared off one of The Pollock's high school friends by asking him to dance. No really, I literally scared him off: When we were all called to join the newlyweds on the floor, I of course dragged the only other single guy at our table into the dancing crowd. After breaking off midstride before the song was even finished, the poor boy left and never came back! Maybe it was my sorcerous French perfume...?

I came prepared to give a speech in case The Pollock needed a stress reliever, and while my anxiety-ridden nerves were slightly relieved that this turned out to be unnecessary, I thought it would serve a bit of closure to use my words in my infinitely more comfortable writing voice:

"From the dull clink of the paper cup 'cheers' at our first liquid lunch I knew Val and I would be lifelong friends. Actually, if you measure how long Val, John and I have known each other in real time it might not seem like very long, but in my heart I feel as if it's already been ages, which is a warm fuzzy feeling I don't have about many people. Although we will be half a world away from each other for the foreseeable future, at least we've already established a pond-hopping habit now that we've celebrated our first of many international (and meatless, natch!) Thanksgivings. (We'll always have Paris! haha!) I love you both so very much...everyone should be so lucky to have such a strong, loving relationship like yours was, is, and always will be! Happy wedding!"

Final Parisian Events Part Un: London

OK, more random events from the last weeks in gai Paris:

Trip to London:
Took a bus to London. That's right, I said BUS. heh heh
The trip started off a little shaky--I was going through my travel bag, making sure I had everything I needed and came across my passport. I took it out, looked at it, and decided I didn't want to take it with me because I wouldn't need it and I didn't want to get robbed and lose it. Yes, I took my passport out of my bag and PUT IT BACK IN MY DRAWER. (Borders, say wha...?) Needless to say, when I tried to check in and get my place on the bus I wasn't allowed because I DIDN'T HAVE MY PASSPORT.

Go on, say it. Le sigh.

Well, the bus left in 32 minutes. I was about to admit defeat and wait around for the next bus (which left 4 hours later...gah!) when my feet, of their own accord, started running back to the metro. SOMEHOW I made it back to my apartment after three train transfers, a seriously crowded market maze, through the rain, uphill both ways, and back to the bus station with passport in tow, where I breathlessly arrived 29 minutes later only to find that the bus driver himself was running about 6 minutes late. It's really fun being the Very. Last. Person To Board.

Settled in my window seat, I spent several pleasant hours staring out at plowed fields with powerlines planted massively through the middles, looking for all the world like another Indiana landscape until I caught occasional startling sight of giant metal windmills, red clay rooftops and road signs en français. We were making good time until we hit Calais border patrol, where after the third time getting off the bus for more security pass-throughs, les Frenchies grumbled loudly about the "stupid Brits, they are doing this to us because we are French!" (Imagine, if you will, a fabulously fake Kevin Kline French accent for that last part. It makes it way funnier.)

Anyway, skipping the rest of that butt-numbing ride (I'll just say that the bus-toting ferry going over was awesome, the windowless bus-sized dumpster bin loaded onto the very underground and rollicky TGV going back was NOT), I arrived in London just in time to meet English Rose and her friends for a much needed drink, at which point I was (willingly, natch) coerced into attending a concert at the (in)famous Roundhouse Theatre.

And who should be performing at this historic event?

That's right, DangerDoom.

OK, so I know this dude is a music producer (why I know this I have no idea. Bob Boilen?), and I vaguely recall that he does some sort of hiphop nonsense, but really, no clue, kids, no clue. HAR HAR!

Standing in the awesomeness that was the dimly lit roomful of funny-accented Brits and really loud incomprehensible music, I thought of precisely six people:

1. Willis, because I was drinking Strongbow out of a plastic cup (happiness-in-a-can-baby!).
2. Hoonie, McMolo, Simms and BBB, because I could see them grinning and shaking their heads in disbelief-yet-belief that OF COURSE kK had ended up at a DangerDoom show of all places.
3. Seth Green, speciffically his Italian Job character who finally gets speakers so loud they blow women's clothes off.

I was, in fact, surprised to walk out of that place with ribs and lungs still attached, much less my purple Parisian t-shirt. It kind of reminded me of the Metallica/Godsmack concert I went to a few years ago, less one very important pair of earplugs.

(Now you know what it looks and feels like to be surrounded by DangerDoom tunes.)

The rest of the lovely long weekend was blissfully restful and un-touristy...late night giggling attacks, late morning coffee and music breakfasts, afternoon visits to a couple of libraries, and one very important dinner:

WAGAMAMA! WOOHOO!

God save the world's best dumpings!

Wastin' Away: Part Deux

So I've been wanting to go to Mont Saint Michel since I was a cute, innocent étudiante in Aix-en-Provence. (How many years ago? LOL) It's a little difficult to get there because there's no direct train or bus or whatever, so you basically need access to a car in order to even think about going.

Saturday afternoon at le château it was announced that we were going to take a road trip to ... yar, MONT SAINT MICHEL for Sunday mass! woohoo!

Again, I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking:

Surrounded by intermittent quicksand (apparently someone dies every year on the pilgrimage to this place, what the waht!), this churchy fortress spent time as a prison after the French Revolution, and you can still see the pulley-thingy that was used to wheel up food to the prioners.

My favorite room, of course, was the scriptorium, where the monks used to laboriously hand copy books 'n' stuff. It's empty now, but I filled in the room weird-half-animated-movie style with all the necessary deets: 8 thick wooden desks spread with stacks of books and piles of loose paper, with one monk at each bent over in their brown woolen robes and ink-stained fingers leaving streaks on their cheeks when they absentmindedly reach up to scratch a faint itch. It's silent but for the crackling fire at each end of the enormous room, a scratching of feather-pen on parchment and an occasional cough. Although seriously, maybe those monks sweating over a manuscript just let out a scream now and then, getting to the last of the page and then find some typo (hando? lol!) and were all, "sheeeet, I gotta start over! Again! For the third time! Whatves, I'm just gonna leave it in, no one will notice it should read 'celebrate.'"


It felt like the monastery went on forever and ever ... all the different levels and beautiful cavernous rooms ... it was quite fantastic. The music was awesome (love me some organ tunes), and even though I heart the morbid, I was still freaked out by a darkly-hooded monk slo-mo pulling a fat rope attached to the somberly-ringing bell. muaaahhaahahaha!


Thus concludes kK's quest to fulfill a long-held dream visit, and also the weekend Wastin' Away Again in GreatBigChateau-Ville.

kK