Pink in Monet's Garden

I've missed Pink Saturday for several weeks. I've missed visiting you, too!

I thought I'd take you to Monet's Garden in Giverny, France (and hope that I didn't use any of these on my earlier post back in late June!)

Here's is Monet's house -- or rather, an upper window! All pink and green, like the garden!

You can't talk about Monet without mentioning water lilies!

At this time of year, pink was the predominant color -- well, next to green.

My favorite flowers were the pink poppies. I'd seen lots of red ones before, but none this color.

It was, indeed, a magical place.

I've saved a bit of Giverny (the town) for a future Pink Saturday. Meanwhile, for lots of other lovely pink things, please visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

Julie and Julia at Chopsticks and String!

No new post on the Gypsy today, but click here for a new post on Chopsticks and String (my other blog) about the film "Julie & Julia" and my take on Julia's "My Life in France."

And learn what I got for my birthday this week!

(Oh, and if you are interested in my take on Julie Powell's "Julie and Julia book from way back when, you can see it here!)

A Bit of Japan in Canada

Once upon a time Jeanie and Rick went to Japan.

Rick had been many times before and on his first visit he had met Yuka. She taught English in a Japanese school and she was a wonderful host who introduced us to Kamakura on my first full day in that beautiful country.

The Daibutsu (Big Buddha) was one of my favorite stops on the vacation. As one walked toward it, towering over everyone, the only word that applies is awe inspiring.

We could go within the stone body, but first had to wash our hands at an altar outside. And we also say many bits of paper with prayers and wishes written on them, left for the Daibutsu.

After returning home, I wrote this poem for Rick.

Daibutsu

We stood in the shadow of the

Big Buddha
And felt very small.

Such a tiny part of history are we
Compared to the one who has
Been here for centuries.
Millenniums?

We wash our hands,
For we must be clean
And pure
To honor Daibutsu.
And incense hangs in the air
Like a pungent, fragrant mist.

Inside Daibutsu, it is cool.
Quiet.
Almost dark.
And yet, when we touch
The stone wall,
It is warm, from the morning sun.

We are so young
And all we hold dear is almost
As young as we.
But Diabutsu knows more.
Has seen more.
And still, he stands.

It was an extraordinarily spirtual experience.

I never forgot Yuka or her kindness. Or the wonderful dinner we shared with friends old (to Rick) and new (to me) where I had my first -- and last -- raw quail egg, along with a feast of other divine foods, all new, the flavors of which were enhanced by the warmth of the conversation, even though I really couldn't understand very much of it. I didn't have to. The smiles said it all!

So, when we learned Yuka would be in Windsor, Canada, at the time we were returning home from Myrtle Beach, we knew we had to visit!

We crossed over the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit and easily found the house where Yuka and several other teachers were staying while they tended to high school students visiting Canada.

It was a wonderful reunion, with the exchange of omiage (gifts from our countries), and lots of photos. (This is Yuka.)

Tomoki-san, the art teacher, shared his work. This is one of his watercolor sketches; the postcards of his works on paper are amazing.

While Rick and I caught up with Yuka and spoke with Naoki-san, who managed the tour, Tomoki, Akiko-san (the biology teacher) and Manami-san (a first year English teacher) made dinner.

We adore Japanese food and it's even better when prepared authentically! We enjoyed somen noodles, miso soup, fresh corn and okonomiaki, which is like an egg-pancake.

Of course, we had to show them our art-kid Greg's blog and the Marmelade Gypsy!

After dinner, we walked across the street to take some farewell photos.

With the Ambassador Bridge in the background and the sun behaving perfectly, it was like having a backdrop just for us!

On a lovely cool evening, just looking across the river at the Detroit skyline in the background was a perfect way to end the evening.

And so, we say goodbye to Canada, goodbye to Yuka and new friends, and goodbye to vacation!

(Coming soon! A kindred spirit I never knew I had!)

Beach People

What can be more fun than to park set out your beach chair, haul out a big bottle of frozen water to thaw in the hot sun, and open a really good book! (In my case it was the wonderful "My Life in France," by Julia Child.)

I love watching the people. The children are a hoot.

This pair of boys kept building a sand castle in the same spot.

And then boom! The big waves would knock it over! And they'd start again. (They reminded me of the folks who repeatedly build on the same spot after the same national disaster has wiped out their home.)

I loved this little guy. He'd just pick up things and throw them. All of about four feet!

Color is everywhere, but nowhere more vibrant than in the toys on the beach...

And in the bright colored swimsuits!

The pickers were in force when I went to the beach early on our final morning. At low tide all the shells that so hurt our feet in the water were high on the beach and every early riser in Myrtle Beach was picking. Young, old, and everything in between. It was my best shell year ever.

Shells. there's a lesson in them, I think, about the beauty of imperfection. For the most part, we all go for the perfect shell. The scallop that is unchipped, the unbroken half clam shell. In that category of perfect, there are variations -- black, white, orange, multicolored shells; the large and the minuscule.

We pick, sort and reject with a cold eye.

Yet the imperfect shells bring their own beauty to the mix. They've lived hard, and those cracks and sharp edges represent a struggle, as they were tossed relentlessly in the surging surf.

I found a part of a conch shell cousin. Brilliant orange. Beautiful. Was it any less so because it was only partially intact? I don't think so. I found it perfection its own way.

People are like that, too -- or can be. Some just glow with perfection, looking as though they have never been tossed about, quite possibly shielding their past behind their beauty.

Others are less perfect, yet to the eye that is willing to see, reveal a great beauty.

Yes, I was quite happy.

Of course there were other interesting people too -- our neighbors at the hotel from Montreal, the show people (one fellow, who was rather tall had the largest nostrils I'd ever seen; I didn't want to stare, but I couldn't help it.) The show organizer Morgan, whom I called Morgana La Fey, so named because of her similarities to the Morgana of Arthurian legend.

In an upcoming post I'll introduce you to some people we stopped to see on the way back. Myrtle Beach to Lansing via Canada!

Life is a Beach!

Rick may go to Myrtle Beach to work, and I go to help. But I really go to play on the beach!

It's so different from Michigan beaches, and especially those like my own little inland lake, where I see straight across the lake from my beach to the county park.

When you look straight out over the water in Myrtle, you don't see anything but water!

Because we've come here several years now, we notice changes, and one we noticed this year was a great preponderance of shells. Bigger ones, and lots more than ever before. More about that later.

Generally, one can walk out into the water and it's a reasonably sandy bottom. This time, at least when it was during high tide, the shells seemed go go on forever -- sharp, and often broken. Very unpleasant. It wasn't bad when we went at low tide. Then it was the old Myrtle I knew and far more fun to play in the ocean.

It has been much cooler than previous years, which means it is about 85 with 83 percent humidity instead of into the 90s. Nonetheless, it's thick, a little hard to breathe, and the change of temperature -- say from inside air conditioning to outdoors -- will fog your glasses in a heartbeat.

Just wading or dangling feet in a pool is cooling. This woman had the right idea!

I can't describe what I love so much about this beach. Is it that it goes on for miles and miles? That the sand feels so clean -- an accomplishment, given the number of people who park their coolers, beach towels and chairs in a spot and set up camp. People clean up after themselves, everyone plays well together and it's so nice.

To get to the beach from our little motel, we walk across the street, beside the parking ramp and cross another street. Then we walk by the condos and cross a little bridge that leads us on a sandy path by beach grass.

A few steps later, we're there!

On the east, an endless expanse of water. On the west, one condo after another.

Every morning the life guards set up rows of chaise lounges , which they otherwise keep tied up in the evening.

And they put up tall umbrellas, blue, green and yellow, one after another.

Some people bring their own!

(My first purchase is always a folding beach chair from the beach store on the corner. At $14, it seems a frivolous price for something you'll buy and leave behind, but I use it throughout my stay and it's far less expensive than the rental.)

Walk the beach and you will see and hear that endless expanse of blue water, broken only by frothy whitecaps and the very occasional boat. This year the water is rougher than we've ever noticed and the beach is windy. But without that breeze, we'd all swelter. With it, we run the risk of staying out far too long.

The swimming -- once one is past the shells -- is divine. The water is so very warm, and it's wildly salty. As you dive over the waves, it fills you like an enormous neti pot. My sinuses are never so in control as they are at the beach!

The current is strong -- it can easily take a wave jumper a quarter of a mile up the beach. And don't even try to swim upstream! It's not just challenging; it's impossible.

When the waves come -- and it's often -- they are huge and powerful. They come in large, undulating swells, building in intensity, rather like a creature drawing deep breaths, waiting to exhale in a final surge -- in this case, powerful, frothy breakers with a force so strong it can draw one into shore (or if one is already too shallow, knock them unmercifully off their feet, making it profoundly difficult to stand!)

And of course we play, diving into the waves, leaping over others and riding the largest ones to shore.

I didn't know if I would hurt my healing shoulder or if it would be the best thing I could do it it. (I think it was a little bit of both.) But it was glorious.

If you read my story about the Subway girl last time, you may remember the pudgy lifeguard. The day after I saw him at the restaurant, I saw him on the beach!

Of course, what really makes the beach fun is all the other people who are there! You'll see some of them next time!

Work and Play

Visiting Myrtle Beach -- it's one thing we have done every summer for the past five years. It's Rick's second-largest trade show, and usually one of his most successful.

The jury is still out on how well this year's will shake down. It was awfully quiet on the floor this year -- lower attendance, and those who were there didn't seem to be buying all that much.

Even the folks with the big trucks didn't attract the crowds they usually do.

His job is to tell people about the software program he's designed for well drillers. My job is to be the "body snatcher" and rope in potential clients.

He also taught a class on a different program he's developed to help businesses calculate margin, pricing, and that sort of thing. While it's designed for the drilling business, I think I could probably add in things like art supplies, your hourly rate, business expenses, etc. and come up with a totally dismal and depressing look at how one must price to succeed financially.

Do I really want to know how much I undercharge for that felted bag when it seems pretty unlikely I could get more? And when I'd knit it anyway, just to have something productive to do while I watch telly?

But I digress. All work and no play makes Rick and Jeanie dull! So, we find our ways to play.

Of course there is the beach -- that time in the sun, playing in the waves. I'll talk more about that next time.

But there are also the meals out...

Rick had a nice little smile on his face when I took this photo on the last night of our visit at Dirty Don's Oyster Bar. Unfortunately, he wasn't smiling at three in the morning when Dirty Don's grouper came a calling again -- for the next 24 hours. I don't think he much wants to go back there, which is too bad, because the crabcake was great!

Walks on the beach in the evening...

A stop at the Pier.

(We ate at the restaurant here our first year. It was nice, but not a once-a-year thing. A walk on the pier, however, is always worth it!)

Take a look at those snapping flags! It was very windy out there!

There are lots of folks fishing and this fellow caught a shark.

Of course, everyone had to crowd in to see it up close and take pictures (present company included, of course!)

I think I like the pier in part because it adds something different to the landscape. Myrtle Beach is one condo after another on a long expanse of beach. The pier, jetting out into the Atlantic Ocean, breaks up the landscape, offering a break in the action.

We made it home just before the sky opened up with one of its many cloudbursts.

This is something I found interesting and different about Myrtle Beach this year -- every day we were there, it rained. Hard. Relentlessly. And relatively briefly. We very nearly were caught more than once, but managed to elude it.

Here's a great story about one of the people we met, although unfortunately, I have no photo. You'll have to imagine it.

On the first day of the show, en route to the convention center, we stopped at the nearby Subway to share a sandwich. It was a busy place, and behind the counter was a young woman, maybe 18 or 20, but with the snappy comebacks of a seasoned New Yorker. She was African American with naturally colored bangs and a faux-pony tail that was a combination of part maroon, part fuschcia. Her wide grin and sparkling eyes lit up the sandwich shop and despite the thick humidity and warm day, her deep chocolate skin looked cool as a cucumber.

While we eat our sandwich, she does a riff with a customer from South Africa. "You're not from Africa," she tells him. "I'm from Africa!" When asked what he is doing over here, he says he has three wives at home who support him. She'll have none of that! He asks her to be his fourth. As they rib one another back and forth, as smoothly as any skilled comedy duo, we listen and smile. Now and then she catches our eye with a big grin. It's all in fun.

As we leave, I say to her, "You're great!" and she flashes that brilliant smile right back -- "I love my job!" she replies.

We leave the Subway, the sky threatening with those dark gray clouds. We are ten feet from the convention -- after a walk of several blocks cutting through a parking lot -- when we feel the first drops of rain. Moments later, the sky opens up with a torrential dounpour so loud that the sound becomes a din as the water pounds on the roof and the thunder adds its sound effects. We just made it.

So, the next day at lunch, I ask Rick if he wants food from the convention hall or if he prefers I go to Subway. "Go to Subway," he says. "You'll have more fun."

She's there again, and as I walk in she greets me as though we're old friends. "Did y'all make it over there before the rain hit?" she asked. "I was worried about you. I kept wondering..."

I assured her we were quite all right, ordered our sandwiches, and sat in a booth to eat mine, eager for a break from standing at the show.

They were busy again. A pudgy, blond lifeguard, deeply tanned with blond, spiky hair, walked in, wearing a sleeveless yellow t-shirt, baggy shorts and carrying a walkie-talkie.

"Teriaki?" she asks. "You remember!" he says.

Six other lifeguards walk in and they, too, banter as delightfully charming and relaxed as the talk the day before.

What ever they are paying her, it's not enough.

A glass of wine and some trail mix on our hotel balcony made for a good way to relax after a long day.

Next time, you'll see what I love most about going to Myrtle Beach!