Vespa....mmmmm...not

G man wanted to rent Vespas while we were in Rome. He thought we could navigate the streets easily, even though the streets of Rome have two rules.......stop for pedestrians unless one can swerve around them.....and stay on the right side of the road. There are multiple lanes of traffic but no designated lanes...no lines painted on the roads to distinguish which lane is for turning, or even a lane for just going straight. Drivers can proceed as they wish, as long as they stay on the right side of the road. It's is harrowing and confusing. The streets are sometimes very narrow alleys, and street signs are scarce. I opted not to rent the Vespas, so did Jenny G and Double G. Needless to say G man was disappointed.

After our trip G man pulled from the back of our garage a motorized scooter Double G bought when he was 15. The thing never worked. After some tinkering G man managed to get the scooter to run. He brought it down to the cottage. G man weighs 225lbs. The scooter is made for someone maybe 150 tops. But G man is undaunted and rides the thing to our friends cottage and the marina. He imagines it as his Vespa.

Men and their toys!

Last week G man had to work while I had a few days off. Jenny G worked the store for me. Nice! I took my camera with me on a bike ride. The ride usually takes G man and me about 45-50 minutes, depending on the wind. But this day it took about 2 1/2 hours becasue I took my time and photos. Hope you enjoy Canadaguia Lake and the surrounding area.

Dark Knight

Last night G man, Double G, Cousin Eric and I went to see the new Batman movie. We loved it. Heath Ledger was incredible. I love all the new bat mobile, motorcycle and gadgets Batman uses. The morals in the story are fantastic. I highly recommend this movie

After the movie we experienced a creepy moment on the sidewalk outside the theatre. A small brown bat was flying under the awning of the outdoor mall along the side walk we were using. It was a little creepy.

Abstinence is so hard

I am back in Barnes and Noble. This morning I bought Voltaire's "Candide" and James Lee Burke's new book "Swan Peak". Last week I bought Dean Koontz's "Odd Hours" and James Lee Burke's "The Tin Roof Blowdown".

G man is aware that I LOVE to read. But the cost was getting out of control, according to his standards. So I agreed in January ( I think it was January) to try the library instead of spending money at the bookstore. The library was a no go from the beginning. I am a visual person and need to see the cover of a book before I can decide if it looks interesting enough for me to even bother picking up to read the jacket summary. I tried used book stores too. I have read most of the books in those stores.

Many of the books in my possession have been read by me several times. My sister in law took without my knowledge or permission books I stored in our back hallway to re read and has not returned them to me. A phone call to her is required.

I need to get projects going to prevent me from going to Barnes and Noble so often. Once my store is finally closed I will have time to get the gardens in order at the house and the cottage. Look for new recipes for veggies and salads. Tweak my cookie recipes and go to the farmers market during the week. That is the fun stuff. I still have to prepare our tax stuff for the October filing. Not so fun. At least I will have my time occupied and not have so much for reading and buying books. Besides I am running out of the kind of books I like to read. The authors just can't keep up with me.

choices

Jenny G told G man and me some astounding information about a girl we know. We saw with our own eyes that the information was true.I feel bad for her parents and brothers. Although her father always was hinkey and had a small amount of creepiness around the edges of his personality. Nothing I could define, just an intuition I kept getting from him.

The choice this young girl of 20 has made is not a choice I would make and know my daughter never ever considered. I can't imagine why she chose the lifestyle she is currently living, and wonder if her parents still include her in their life. She is a beautiful girl, was a cheerleader in school and very shy.

Her mom and dad were on the same community youth sport parent committees as G man and me. That is how we know them. Both of them were smokers and usually smelled of alcohol at the committee meetings and sport events. They tried to be warm and friendly, but the smoking was the number one reason I could not become a friend to them. The drinking did not do much for developing a friendship either. I am not a snob or tea totaler by any means. But I know better then to smoke on school grounds and to not bring beer to a youth football game or show up late to committee meetings stinking of booze.

I do not know if her home life "caused" her to choose this particular path in life or maybe her brain is just wired so that what she does is normal, like people who become writers, computer geeks, lawyers or doctors. Because I have never known anyone or been exposed to her job on a professional level I feel sad, actually embarrassed for her and her family. I can not explain why I feel that way. Porn is not a bad thing as far as I am concerned. I think it should be mainstream and regulated. But society has not allowed porn to be an acceptable form of employment or mainstream. How society views porn is another post for the future. Perhaps I am embarrassed because I know her, because in my mind she is till the shy cheerleader from a few years ago.

This girl's parents must know what their daughter is doing. I wonder if they have embraced her career choice? She obviously has gotten over her shyness as well.

G man had about $37.00 in his pocket Thursday last week....over the weekend the money went missing at the cottage. He thought maybe I took it, no not me....maybe Jenny G....no she did not either. Maybe he dropped it. No not him, he is very careful.


Uh huh.....like the time he dropped a fifty in the restaurant and a guy returned it, or the time he dropped a twenty in the parking lot at the grocery store which I found, or how about the time G man dropped a twenty at Tom Wahls burger place and Double G handed saw it and gave the twenty back, or the time in Florida he dropped a roll of bills in the aisle at Costco. Or how about the many times you dropped a bunch of money at the crap tables in Vegas.....ok maybe those Vegas drops were legit.....but what about the other drops? Yep you are really careful.


Yesterday on my way out the door to the car I noticed an unusual pile of dog poop on the sidewalk. Normally I just step over piles of dog poop that I have not yet picked up. Except yesterday's looked intriguing to me. There was just a few little turds and one longer papery looking turd with poop smeared over it. This pile of poop was begging to be looked at closer. I started to laugh and called G man over so he could conduct the investigation.


He looked at the turd, then at me, and said no way. Yep it is. The missing money. Well part of it anyway. After G man put on a pair of disposable gloves and examined the money with a pair of pliers he discovered that only $7.00 made up the money turd, and not all of the $7.oo was there. Some of the 2 singles and a 1/4 of the five were still missing. The twenty and ten were no where to be found.

We think our Cavalier, Belly, ate the money. He has been known to eat 25 feet of hemp string( which resulted in $1500.00 worth of surgery), bathrobe ties, cardboard, paper, latex gloves, and thong underwear. So chances are fairly good that Belly is the culprit. Plus G man remembered he placed the money, his cell phone, sunglasses, and a variety of other items from his pockets on our bed before he took a shower. Belly was "sleeping" on the bed at that time.

G man has been looking around the yard for the other bills, I have been watching Belly to make sure he does not appear sick. So far the dog is good. G man has not fared so well. He has not found the other part of the missing money. In a few days G man will give up and accept that the money is gone. At least this time he did not drop the money. Well,..... in an indirect way he did.

Small things can add up

I had G man change several of our lights in the cottage from just lights to ceiling fans with lights. The fans were only $20.00 each at Lowes and are the style we like, contemporary. We changed 3 of them. I also bought the new light bulbs that use less energy to put in the new ceiling fan/lights. The fans are nice because they help move the air, which helps to reduce the need to run the air conditioner. This lets us have more money in our pockets..... eventually.

Doing these small changes made me feel good. And you know what happened when I looked in the mirror this morning? I thought I looked a little greener. I just hope I do not turn into a tree hugging granola head.

More pictures

The Tower of London

London Bridge

The Queen's Horse Guard

West Minster Abby

A face on West Minster Abbey. I like this guy's smile, he knows secrets. His eyes show he has a mischievous side to him.

The London Eye in the back round. I really like the chimneys on this building and thought the London Eye behind the chimneys made for an interesting photo

Big Ben...Big Ben is a clock but it's main purpose is a bell tower. Big Ben chimes on the hour, smaller towers chime on the 1/4 hour. I was lucky to be near when Big Ben chimed...the sound was beautiful

Guarding the Queen....the guys with the red coats and black hats do not work when the Queen is not in residence...instead we get the men in boring blue/grey...... no changing of the guard either......but the "bobbies" guarding the queen were very nice to talk to

An extremely fat pelican in St.James Park

This man sits on his bench in St. James Park and waits for a tourist like me to come along, ask to take his picture with the pigeons........he calls Susie the pigeon over and she eats out of his dish of seed......I gave him 2 pounds to which he said "Cheers"

G man, KT on the left and Jenny G on the right goofing around. These phone booths are all over London. This one was near 10 Downing Street, which no one can get near. 10 Downing Street is protected by gates, Guards with machine guns, assault rifles, bullet proof vests, razor wire, and cement blockades. The "bobbies" outside the gates are polite and will answer questions and allow you to get close to the first gate in order for you to crane your neck a certain way to try and get a glimpse of the door to 10 Downing Street. I tried but could not see the door.

Jenny G and KT in lounge chairs at St James Park. All the parks provide this type of chair.......for a price.

The Louvre

I really enjoyed the Louvre. We did not spend more then 3 hours inside......so much to do and so little time. We took an express tour of the highlights, the most popular paintings and sculptures.






Outside the Louvre

One of my favorites, The slave by Michelangelo

Mercury ascending with Psyche, this was incredible

The Wedding Feast at Cana

Mona Lisa...this is behind glass and is only about 16x20. The crowd to see the painting was enormous, but I managed to elbow my way to the front and shoot a few pictures without having another boorish tourist's head in the picture. Later G man wanted a photo of himself near the painting so he could show everyone he actually was in a museum. Unfortunately I was not able to get a shot because a very obnoxious French school teacher barreled ahead of everyone with her 2nd grade entourage in tow and screamed, yes SCREAMED at me that "one should look with eyes not take pictures" She and I were in an intense shouting match for about a minute and a half before G man pulled me away. I could have taken her I know it, Damn it!

Winged Victory, one of her wings was glued back on

Venus Di Milo, I elbowed my way through a group of Japanese tourist to get an unencumbered photo of Venus. I discovered that the Japanese tourist takes a rude amount of time to get the "perfect" picture, uncaring of other fellow tourist trying to get a "decent shot".

I just liked this picture, the colors were magnificent. Sorry I did not rotate it.

G man and KT admiring a painting

a bronze sculpture of Taurus...G man is a Taurus

Venus aka Aphrodite

I like to photograph faces, this mask was particularly interesting to me because of the detail of the mouth

obviously these photos represent a minuscule portion of what is inside the Louvre, and only some of what we saw. I would love to go back and see more.

gypsies, tramps and thieves

begging for money outside the Forum in Rome

Before we left for our trip over the pond I did some Internet research and came across several warnings and articles regarding gypsies and how to prevent becoming a victim of their ploys. I told Double G about the gypsies and advised him to be on the look out. He humored me as a 20 year old does with, "yes mom I 'll be careful." Jenny G and G man were warned by me as well, I received from them the same as I did from Double G. Although G man was very vocal about his doubt that gypsies really existed.

Double G went to Paris before we began our trip and reported no problems or sightings of gypsies. London for us went well. No criminal activity of any sort seen. Our first trip to the Paris metro did not go as planned. The train was idle due to "Police intervention a stop ahead". We got off the train and caught a cab to our destination.

Our second day in Paris we tried the metro again. The underground stop was crowded. When the train arrived the crowd moved towards the doors as riders wee getting off. Two teenage girls stepped off then as I was attempting to get on, they turned to get back on blocking the door and my way. I said "pardon me" 4 times before pushing my way past. G man was behind a few rows of people and finally managed to get on just as the doors were closing, Jenny G and KT got on the train before me.

G man was in a corner, I was holding onto a pole, Jenny G and KT were in seats behind me. The two teenage girls stood in front of the closed doors, the compartment was crowded but not so we were on top of each other. I noticed that the teenage girls were inching their way closer to G man. My brain began to fire up that something was familiar and not quite right. I looked at one of the girls in front of the doors and she STARED at me with her brown eyes. Her green cloth handbag clasped in front of her body with her left hand. The second girl turned her back to me and asked G man if he knew the time. My mind clicked faster, I kept looking between G man at the girl with the green handbag while he was trying to show the other girl his watch because she could not understand what he was saying. I knew something was not right but could not put it together until I saw the shoulder of the girl with the green handbag move. I knew then what was happening, and remember thinking why isn't G man getting this, why is he still showing his watch to the other girl instead of moving away?.....After the shoulder movement I flicked my eyes to my husband's waist and saw the left hand of the girl with the green handbag reaching from behind her handbag into G man's front pant pocket.

I yelled loudly "what are you doing, why do you have your hand in his pocket." Her brown eyes went wide, G man yelled "you do, you do have your hand in my pocket." Jenny G inhaled sharply and extremely loud......both gypsy girls raised their hands and shook their heads from side to side to indicate they were not doing anything. I yelled " I saw you with your hand in his pocket, I saw you, you know I did." The entire train compartment was quite, the doors opened and the girls ran out. I asked Jenny G to check the outside zipper part of my backpack and sure enough it had been opened and rifled through. Nothing of value was in it all my money, credit cards and Id were inside several zippered compartments out of pick pocketing reach. I followed the advice of the warnings and articles I read online. My backpack must have been opened when the gypsy girls blocked my way onto the train.

The other passengers went back to their conversations, G man, Jenny G, KT and I chatted excitedly amongst ourselves, reviewing the attempted pick pocket, with G man finally admitting that gypsies really do exist and that maybe me doing research does pay off.

G man was skived for a few days after, he kept going over the incident trying to figure out why he was targeted, why some gypsies steal, how old the girls were, why they were raised to be thieves, what other scams do they attempt, were other gypsies on the train watching, and many many more questions that will never get answered. He even tried to warn other Americans we met, but came off as a psycho. G man refused to use the trains after that in Paris and then in Rome. We walked and took taxis.

Whenever we saw gypsies, which are plentiful in Rome, G man would stop walking and just watch. He waved them off 2 young American girls that the gypsies tried to give roses to while we were in Rome, and lectured a woman that accepted roses while the husband was tying to make sense of the rose scam. G man the pro was in full swing at the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. On guard against the evil empire of thieving gypsies. Actually it was funny to watch G man the now "expert" on gypsy scams. I have several pictures of him watching the gypsies and one picture of him lecturing the American women that took the roses.

We laugh about how I reacted, Jenny G's sharp inhale of breath being her only reaction, KT not being able to do anything and G man's new found expertise of thieving gypsies. He now has an interesting story to tell anyone that will listen, with a few embellishments of his heroic deeds of trying to prevent others from being victims.

Jenny G and Gman being approached by gypsy at the Trevi Fountain

G Man watching gypsies

A gypsy at the Spanish Steps

a gypsy begging on the streets of Rome

Food 2 not pictures just comments

The Europeans have it over us.....they eat the most incredibly FRESH foods......all but one meal was made with fresh veggies, fruits and meat, ok maybe 2.....the chips ( french fries) in London may not have been from potatoes that were picked that day....but everything else was....I asked the waiters if the food was fresh and they assured me it was......they could have been telling me what I wanted to hear but I doubt it...the food was so delicious, crisp, colorful with incredible flavor it had to be fresh......... waitresses were few I remember only 1 all the other wait staff were guys, mostly handsome guys to boot......but that is another post with a few pictures of my favorite waiters......even the Indian meal we had in London was made with fresh, from the farmer or market picked that day vegetables. The chicken we had in Paris was called farmer chicken....the bird was slaughtered that day!.... the snails were fresh that day... I thought maybe frozen but our French/American waiter assured me they were fresh that day......The South Wharf market in London was like nothing I have seen or experienced....our farmers market is dirty, small and the food is usually wilted......the South Wharf market was clean, gigantic, had all ethnicity's represented, the displays were beautiful, and the food was FRESH.....not wilted...it was incredible......I want to go back to London just for that market.....AND the market was open everyday. The cheeses were plentiful and tasty. Sausages we tried were different, made with boar from the border of France and Spain. The wine was smooth, no sulfides so I could enjoy......The beer in London was served warm just the way I like it, pint or half pint, and cool in Rome, pint bottles "prego Peroni". We did not have beer in Paris only the wine. I want to go back just to have more of the foods we tried and to experience new tastes and textures.

I am so hungry now.

Food......yumm

a sandwich display in Rome


breakfast on the Chunnel London to Paris
fruit cake from a Jewish bakery in the ghetto in Rome

My favorite Italian beer....

Meat pie, chips and veggies Oxford England
A Tunisian candy store in Paris......KT having a difficult time making a decision

House beer I drank in the pub at Oxford

Malt vinegar for fish and chips and Stella beer at the Kensington Arms pub Kensington England

our first taste of Roma pizza

my teeny tiny cup of coffee...espresso

cheese and sausage plate in Paris...and the wine very smooth

part of the candy counter at Harrods

meat pies at the South Wharf out door market...I have never seen a market like this one

fruits at the South Wharf market

a veggie stand at the South Wharf market

I tried snails in Paris....not bad tasting but I do no think I will eat them again, just because they are snails

more later.........