Child of the Corn
1. So I’ve been in Paris and London for two weeks.
2. Where I drank a good deal of wine, saw gorgeous things from the past 3000 years of human history, made inroads on French employment, petted a pelican in Hyde Park, was cat-called in Les Halles, fell in love with Waterstones bookstore, was mistaken as French, saw an exhibit of the most amazing nature photos ever, discovered fondue and veal liver, wondered why the French all have fashion sense, saw The Merchant of Venice and stood on Chaucer and Darwin’s graves.
3. The night I returned it was fifteen degrees below zero with ten inches of snow. I was still wearing Europe shoes, which is to say not sensible. The driveway was impassible, requiring a walk. I was about five minutes from frostbite by the time I made the house. There is a lesson here about what things mix and what do not.
4. While we were gone a mouse made a nest in our stove. No, not the woodstove. There is a reason the house smelled like a hamster cage when we made muffins.
5. Yesterday the power went out for several hours. Phone too. I was reading by candlelight and heating water to wash my face. At least I grew up without running water so some things aren’t new.
6. When it’s this cold the Internet only works when it feels like it.
7. In Iowa we legitimate living through such circumstances by claiming that it “keeps out the riffraff.”
2. Where I drank a good deal of wine, saw gorgeous things from the past 3000 years of human history, made inroads on French employment, petted a pelican in Hyde Park, was cat-called in Les Halles, fell in love with Waterstones bookstore, was mistaken as French, saw an exhibit of the most amazing nature photos ever, discovered fondue and veal liver, wondered why the French all have fashion sense, saw The Merchant of Venice and stood on Chaucer and Darwin’s graves.
3. The night I returned it was fifteen degrees below zero with ten inches of snow. I was still wearing Europe shoes, which is to say not sensible. The driveway was impassible, requiring a walk. I was about five minutes from frostbite by the time I made the house. There is a lesson here about what things mix and what do not.
4. While we were gone a mouse made a nest in our stove. No, not the woodstove. There is a reason the house smelled like a hamster cage when we made muffins.
5. Yesterday the power went out for several hours. Phone too. I was reading by candlelight and heating water to wash my face. At least I grew up without running water so some things aren’t new.
6. When it’s this cold the Internet only works when it feels like it.
7. In Iowa we legitimate living through such circumstances by claiming that it “keeps out the riffraff.”