In Search of Big Foot

In the last blog, I talked about how I love to watch game shows. Well, when John has the remote, the TV’s tuned to football, old movies, or programs about aliens, or Big Foot. He was watching “Finding Big Foot” on Animal Planet a few months ago. I walked through our family room when the team of investigators howled and “Big Foot” howled back. They were all excited. I thought it was just some campers fooling around.

         Our family has had some pretty good discussions about whether Big Foot exists or not. I want to believe that Big Foot is out there. John, with his degree in Biology, argues against it pointing out that nobody has ever caught one, shot one, or found the remains of one.

   I think Big Foot is highly intelligent and manages to avoid humans. After driving around Mt. Rainier and on the Olympic peninsula, I could easily picture Big Foot living out there undetected. In fact, when we moved here in 1990, it was much less developed, and wilder. The population then was 23,878 (compared to 37,022 in 2010). It seemed feasible to me that Big Foot could be living right here in Puyallup.

A couple of months ago, John gave a talk to US Fish and Wildlife in Stevenson, Washington. I tagged along with him. There were quite a few Big Foot souvenirs in the hotel gift shop for tourists.

          The second night we were there, we went out to dinner with a group of scientists. I confess to tuning out a lot at the “scientific” functions when they start talking shop. But this time, the conversation turned to Big Foot. Apparently a few years before this meeting, the invited speaker was an expert on Big Foot. They asked me if John had told me about this. I shook my head no.

They filled me in. They thought this man was a flake. They couldn’t believe that he had been chosen as the guest speaker, and had some fun at his expense by asking him questions that they thought would prove Big Foot was a myth. John was the lead questioner. The poor man didn’t know that John had plenty of experience arguing against Big Foot with me. I’m pretty sure it didn’t change the man’s belief in Big Foot, or these scientists’ disbelief.

I kept fairly quiet as they reminisced about how funny the whole incident was. I only chimed in to prod John into disclosing a fellow WSU professor’s explanation for why no Big Foot bones were ever found: the soil around here is so acidic from all the fir trees, the bones dissolve. And I pointed out that there was a WSU professor whose whole career was spent looking for Big Foot. They were polite.

         Today, Sarah and I took a relative who is visiting from Virginia, to Tacoma, supposedly to visit the Tacoma Art Museum. We left late and made a few stops before getting there. We walked through the Chihuly Glass Tunnel and tried to get into the glass museum, but it was closed for their annual auction. We stopped in at the Washington State Museum store to find out what time the art museum closed and were told that it closed in 15 minutes, so instead, we browsed through the store.

That’s where I found a book titled The Best of Sasquatch Bigfoot. I snatched it up and bought it as a joke for John and we left. He laughed when I presented it to him at home, and said that he thought the author, John Green, was the man who talked at the infamous meeting.

A few hours later, I started looking through it. There is a map of Washington sightings and tracks.  Puyallup had 12 reports. The only place with more reports was Mt. St. Helens, with 16. Hmmmm.

I looked up “Puyallup” in the index. On page 128, there was something extremely interesting:

“Sasquatches may do a lot of screaming, but screams don’t necessarily mean a sasquatch. If they did Puyallup would be the sasquatch capital of the world . . .The screams were most often heard in an area of mixed woods and subdivisions southeast of town . . . They first came to public attention in July, 1972, when a resident of a new subdivision called Forest Green wrote to the Tacoma News Tribune about hearing loud screams one or two nights a month in the woods behind his home.”

The book goes on to say that people recorded the sounds, and that the “unidentified noise is not an ‘eeeee’ scream, but more of a long ‘whooOooOooOoo” or “woopwoopwoop” at a high pitch and with immense volume.”

Background information on why this was so intriguing to me: Forest Green is the development next door to ours. It’s the same distance from our house, as the elementary and junior high school that the kids’ walked to. Our house was built in 1979. If Sasquatch has the same lifespan as a human, he/she could still be around. There have been bears sighted nearby, and a pack of coyotes have been eating pets in our neighborhood. A newspaper article said that they coyotes are living nearby in Wildwood Park. The satellite view on Google Maps shows that there’s still a fair amount of wooded area near us.

John actually unknowingly provided the best piece Big Foot evidence this past winter. He told me that he went out to get the mail, and he heard a strange sound come from our back yard. He said it was really loud, and it sounded like a monkey. He ran back to the house to look out back for it, but didn’t see anything.

I talked to my friend Carol about it. Her back yard and mine are back to back. She said that she had heard the same sound, several times. We still haven’t figured out what animal was screaming.

Big Foot sighting at the Puyallup Fair 2011.

So, does Big Foot exist? Is he roaming around in my own neighborhood? I don’t know, but while I was writing this blog, the dogs went ballistic, and I got jumpy. I’m keeping binoculars, and a camera handy.

Laura Keolanui Stark is keeping an eye out for Sasquatch. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Life Is a Game Show

Whenever I win control of the remote in our house, if there’s a game show on TV, that’s what I’ll be watching. I like Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but my current favorite is Cash Cab. When we visit New York City again, I’ll be looking for Ben Bailey.

         Sarah and I were watching a Cash Cab marathon one day when I asked, “How come it’s always the MAN who gets to be the one to give the answer?”

          We started getting all feminist riled up about that, “Yeah! What’s that about?”

          After a few episodes, we realized it wasn’t a gender thing. Whoever sat in the seat that was not directly behind the driver got to be the one who answered for the group. Most of the time, it was a man in that seat because men are chivalrous and let women and children get in the cab first. We felt a little stupid.

         Then I started wondering, if the winners split the money evenly when they got out of the cab, or if they divided it according to how many correct answers each person gave?  Who would I call for a mobile shout out? Could you choose based on the question?

          It’s always interesting too, if they haven’t gotten kicked out of the cab, to see if the contestants will take the double or nothing gamble at the end of the cab ride. And, it's refreshing to see how polite New Yorkers are.

          Years of watching game shows meant that I was fully prepared on one of the first sunny days of summer last year. John had played hooky from work and we went to eat lunch on Ruston Way, Tacoma’s waterfront.

           Afterwards, we walked out onto the end of a pier to look out at the water. That’s when we spotted an old piling sticking up out of the water covered with coins, mostly pennies. John dug in his pocket, and I dug in my purse for pennies. We were tossing coins, trying to make them “stick” to the top of the 6” diameter piling, watching them bounce off or miss entirely and plunk into the Puget Sound, when a couple walked up to us and issued a challenge.

          They were about the same age as we are, but not married. They were dating—long enough for the guy to feel comfortable launching passive aggressive barbs at his girlfriend and her supposed lack of intelligence. 

          Then he turned his spotlight on me, “I bet YOU can’t name the colleges in the Pac-10.”

           I had no choice but to start naming them, from north to south along the west coast. Mr. Obnoxious held up fingers as I rattled them off. The girlfriend got more excited the more I named. At eight, I stalled. He started gloating.

         John threw me a hint, “Our friends, Pat and Stephanie, moved to . . .”

         "Got it! Arizona and Arizona State!”

          Quiz guy was disappointed. His girlfriend high-fived me.

          Then I turned to him and threw my gauntlet down, “OK, now you have to name ten designer handbags.”

          His girlfriend beamed, “Yeah! Yeah! Name ten designers!”

          He looked stunned, “Calvin Klein?” I held up one finger.

          John looked at me, “What’s that one? The purse that you got for Sarah in China? Dooney & Bourke!”

          “OK, that’s two.” The girlfriend was practically jumping up and down. We waited. They had bupkis. 

         Together, she and I came up with eight more. I was glad she knew because to tell the truth, I was bluffing just to watch him sweat. I buy my purses from Fred Meyer’s or Penneys.               

         We left that day, and I thought the Ruston Way game show was an isolated incident, until a couple of weeks ago.

         Sarah and I were in downtown Tacoma to do some shopping. I was feeding coins into a machine to pay for parking. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man walk up. I thought he was waiting to buy a parking ticket too, but instead, he was running his own impromptu game show.

         “I bet you can’t tell me who invented penicillin.”

         Sarah looked around for a camera. Maybe we were on Jay Leno. I was trying to figure out how many minutes we’d get for a quarter, how long we were going to be, and how much change I had. Without turning around and looking at him, I answered, “Salk.”

         “Wrong! But you were headed in the right direction. It was Alexander Fleming.”

          Dang it! I pulled the ticket out of the machine. Salk cured polio (and NOT with penicillin either). All I saw of the random quiz master was his backpack as he walked off down the street. And, I’d bought 30 minutes more parking time than I needed. Dang it again!

           So if you go to Tacoma, be prepared. As my teachers used to say, “make sure you take your thinking cap with you.”

Laura Keolanui Stark is hoping she’ll make it to the bonus round. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com. (The Pac-10 consisted of: Washington State University, University of Washington, University of Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, California, UCLA, USC, Arizona, Arizona State.)

The Story of a Cat

   I never wanted a cat. I’m a dog person.

        Thirteen years ago, a feral cat had a litter of kittens under our house. She had a litter every spring. That particular spring, she chose our house. Then, for some reason, she left one kitten behind. The kitten was too small to jump over a cement perimeter. We could hear her crying through one of our heating vents.

         Two days later, John and the yellow lab mix dog we had then, Lucky, crawled under the house. As soon as she heard them, the kitten quit crying for her mother and hid. After playing the waiting game for a long time, she started crying again, and they found her wedged in between a supporting beam of the house and part of the heating system. When John reached in to get her, she went berserk—hissing, growling, clawing.

  No fool, Lucky bailed out right away. John yelled out to us, “Get the leather gloves.”

        Just to make things more interesting, when I handed the gloves to him, I asked, “What if it’s a cougar cub?” He was not amused.

         A few minutes later, John emerged from the crawl space with a fluffy black kitten. He said she’d finally given up when she figured out that if she didn’t, he was going to pull her head off. Inside, she looked up at him with big adoring eyes as if to say, “If I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have put up such a fight.”

          We fed her milk with an eye dropper. She couldn’t get enough. Of course, the kids begged, “Can we keep her? Can we keep her?” I told them I didn’t want a cat. We had a dog.

          Later, we took her to the vet because her eyes looked bad. The receptionist asked what our kitten’s name was. I explained that she didn’t have a name because she wasn’t our kitten. We weren’t keeping her.

  We asked the vet if she could tell if the kitten with no name had been weaned. The vet put some cat food on a dish down in front of the kitten and she climbed up onto the plate to gobble it up. That answered that question. She had an eye infection, so we got some medicine for that.

I asked everyone we knew if they wanted a kitten. I even announced it at the weekly Cub Scout meeting. Everyone agreed that she was adorable. Everyone held her and snuggled with her. Nobody wanted to keep her. The kids begged relentlessly. I stayed firm. No kitten.

Then one day I sat down at my sewing machine on the dining room table. I had just started learning to quilt. Suddenly, a little ball of black fluff was sitting on my lap, purring contentedly. She knew just whose heartstrings to play. My anti-cat resolve melted.

Her fur was so soft, we named her Velvet. She was sassy enough to kick Lucky off his favorite pillow, and smart enough to come and get you if she was hungry or her litter box wasn’t clean enough for her. Her tail was always twitching.

In the spring especially, she’d try to answer her feral call of the wild, making a stealthy dash for the door any time someone opened it. Most of the time, she would blend into the rhythm of our home, disappearing whenever a visitor came.

But once she took center stage. We were having a barbecue, and she kept watch so that when someone inadvertently left the screen door open, she made her escape.

We had a bird feeder about five yards away from the house. While everyone at the party chatted and ate, I spotted Velvet running crouched across the yard. Then in one incredibly athletic, graceful leap about five feet up in the air, she caught an unsuspecting bird and brought it down. Women screamed and children cried.

Velvet slinked back toward us with the bird in her mouth and ducked under the deck with her prize. I tried to comfort the kids, while a female guest lectured me about “letting our cat outside” and how cruel we were to have bird feeder and a cat.

Lucky and Velvet

When we moved to this house, she’d cry at the door leading to the garage, and I’d let her out there—a sorry substitute for the real outdoors, but a change of pace for her.

She knew not to sit on me (I shooed her off my lap when I figured out I was allergic to cats). But she’d sit with anyone else sitting on one particular chair in the family room. She’d let you pet her for awhile, and then nip you when she decided that she’d had enough. She took all the other pets in stride, and got along famously with T-Bone.

This past year, she started drinking water constantly, even drinking from T-Bone’s bowl when hers ran dry. He didn’t have a problem with that. Sometimes I’d find her sleeping with her head resting on her water bowl. She looked like a passed out drunk.

In October, the vet told me that she had diabetes. We could give Velvet daily insulin shots, but that wasn’t feasible. She said that Velvet would start to lose weight, get flat footed, and then it wouldn’t be long after that, that she would die. I hoped that she’d hold on until November, so that the kids would be able to say goodbye to her at Thanksgiving.

She lost weight, but she’d been overweight before diabetes, so she looked pretty good for awhile. She was always beautiful: sleek with big green eyes set in a perfectly shaped face, and a little lilt to her nose.

Keeping her water bowl filled and her litter clean got harder, but she came upstairs every morning to sing for some tuna, and to lounge in her favorite spots. She still kept me company whenever I was quilting. She approved every quilt I made after that fateful day when she first sat on my lap at the sewing machine.  

When we left for Italy in May, I told Johnny what to do if she died. In June, I called the vet twice and made appointments to have her euthanized, but then I couldn’t go through with it. Although she was thin, she didn’t seem like she was in pain. She was still making it up and down the stairs, slowly and carefully. Every time I had taken her to the vet before, she had been scared, but looked up to me with those wise green eyes trusting that I would take care of her. How could I “betray” that trust?

John and I went away for a weekend, and when we came back, Velvet had lost even more weight. Her body wasn’t able to absorb the nutrients from her food anymore. She was starving no matter how much she ate. She started missing the litter box. One night she climbed under my desk looking for a litter box that had never been there. It was time.

So on July 1st, more than eight months after we thought we’d lose her, we took her to the vet one last time. When I picked her up, she was so light. There was nothing to her. In the car, she talked along the way. At the vet’s she was calm. I stroked her nose, like I always had to soothe her, and the best cat ever, slipped away.  Someone who didn’t want a cat had a catch in her throat, and tears flowing down her cheeks. Good-bye Velvet, you were well loved, especially by a certain dog person.

Laura Keolanui Stark can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

The Grass Is Greener

They say that trying new things keeps you young. Last weekend I tried something I don’t remember doing even as a wild teenager.

               John’s back is out. He can’t even turn over in bed when he’s sleeping without moaning in pain. He did something wrong while working out. Isn’t exercise supposed to be good for you?

               That’s why on Sunday, I mowed the lawn.

               Johnny mowed it while we were in Milan. When we got home, he told us our lawn mower was “terrifying.” He kept waiting for the blade to come flying off.  We were going to replace it last summer, but just never got around to it. Besides, with two kids in college, it fell into the keeping expenses down category.

               We bit the bullet and went to buy a new mower. We haven’t had good luck with mowers. The last two were horrible: a Sears Craftsmen and a Scotts mower. Consumer Reports lied about those two. Standing next to their mower ratings in Home Depot, we hoped they’d be accurate this time.

               When Johnny told us about the terrifying mower, he told us to get a Honda for our next one. John studied the features. A salesman came by and stopped to help us. He really knew his stuff. While he had one of the mowers flipped over to show us the twin cutting blades, some old duffer came by and offered his two cents, “It’s the finest lawn mower they can make in China.” Then he burst into laughter. Why do so many old guys think that being rude is the same as being funny? We ignored him.  

When the salesman told us that a man had come in the other day and said his Honda mower was still running after 30 years, John was sold.

               We loaded it into his pickup and took it home. John took it out for a spin, and said it was so much better than his old mower he couldn’t believe it. He really liked that the motor could be running while the blade wasn’t turning. He couldn’t wait for Johnny to get home from WSU to show him.

               Now for some background, for those of you who don’t live in the Pacific Northwest. For the rest of the country, the timing of mowing is no big deal. You mow the grass on the weekend, when it’s convenient and fits into your schedule.

               Here, it’s more complicated. You have to wait until it’s not raining, which has been a rarity this spring. The flipside of the rain problem is that the more it rains, the faster the grass grows, and the more saturated your yard gets. As soon as the sun comes out here, you can hear lawn mowers cranking up throughout the neighborhood.

               It had been a couple of rainy weeks, and the grass was getting high when John’s back went out. Johnny is still over in Pullman, so I told John I’d mow the yard. He scoffed, which made him wince from the stabbing pain in his back.

               Now, you may ask why I have never mowed before. Aren’t I a liberated woman? Why yes, I am. I pump my own gas. I made sure my daughter played sports growing up. I even vote!

               The reason I have never mowed is because I’m a delicate flower. I have severe allergies. I tested off the charts. I’m allergic to trees, weeds, ferns, cats, dogs, dust mites, and most of all, grass. I took allergy shots for years. I carry antihistamines in my purse at all times, in case I ever start to go into anaphylactic shock.

               So last Sunday, I took an antihistamine. Twenty minutes later, I suited up: jeans, long sleeved shirt, hair tucked under a hat, sunglasses, bandanna over my face. John tried to make me wear ear protection too, but I refused. I’d reached my protection limit.

               I had asked John if I could use the old-style, push mower. He said the grass had gotten too long. I had to use the new gas mower. I pushed the new gassed up mower up the driveway while waving him off. He wasn’t used to me “driving” his mower. Old habits die hard.

          Then we stood in the yard as he gave me a lawn mower lesson about throttles, speed, the drive clutch, engaging the blade, mulching, not mulching, bagging, or not bagging. He stood on top of one of the sprinklers, hidden in the high grass warning me not to hit it. He was more nervous than when he taught the kids how to drive.

               Finally, I got to pull the cord. The engine sprang to life, sputtered, and then died when I pushed the shift lever toward the handlebar. A few more tries, and I was off. So was the lawn mower.

               I hammed it up and acted like the mower was going way too fast for me, my tennis shoes flying up behind me as I ran for my life.

               John yelled, “Let go of the handle! Let go! Let go!”

               I found this hysterically funny. I let go of the drive clutch lever, opting to push the mower myself instead of letting it pull me along. Our house is built into a hill, so the self-propelled feature will be great for the guys who won’t let it get away from them.

          John supervised me pointing out patches that I missed. He overlooked the places I buzzed. I was flinchy about getting too close to the sidewalk. I didn’t want to be the first one to run the blade into cement.

          The whole job didn’t take long. Our front yard is small. I think the instructions took longer than the actual mowing.

               What was interesting about this new experience was the crowd that my lawn mower performance drew. Before the mower even started, during the instructions, one of our neighbors suddenly had to come out and hover in her driveway. A friend of hers pulled up in his pickup and felt compelled to honk. Then they both stood there observing intently.

               After I wheeled the mower back down the driveway, we noticed our other neighbor lurking in the bushes between our houses watching while we hosed the lawn mower down.

               They are so weird! Haven’t they ever seen a masked woman mow the lawn while her husband directs her? Take a picture, it lasts longer (plus you can post it on Facebook)!

Laura Keolanui Stark will not be starting a landscape service anytime soon. She can be reached at stark.laura.k @gmail.com.           

Postcard from Milan, Part IV

Ultimo Giorno (Last Day) 

          My alarm went off at 4 am, after four hours of sleep. It was time to start the journey home. I zipped my suitcase up and wheeled it down to the lobby.

          Up until this point, all the taxi drivers we’d had were calm, older men. This driver was a 6’6” body builder with a shaved head and tattoos all over. He looked like the evil character in a super hero comic book.

There was confusion because although John walked me down, he wasn’t going with me to the airport. (He would leave later that afternoon to go to Germany for a few days, then onto France, then England.) The hotel desk clerk chased John outside, worried that we were skipping out without paying. The cab driver asked me in Italian at least three times, if it was just me. “Sí.”

          I settled into the van. I was glad that I put my seatbelt on. He was hitting speeds up to 50 mph. All the traffic lights were blinking yellow on the main thoroughfares so he barreled on through, and I held on, scared that we’d get broadsided. I didn’t know how to tell him to slow down; we were early enough that there was no rush. It was definitely not a slow sentimental last ride through Milan.

          At Linate airport, I wheeled my luggage around in search of Air France. The check-in counter was dark, closed. I was the first in line. I waited about five minutes, then noticed that there was a bustling snack bar open. May as well get something to eat, while I kept an eye on the check-in counter.

         The man in front of me was ordering a cappuccino and pastry. He debated between a crema or cioccolato pastry. He settled on cioccolato. I copied his idea when it was my turn to order and got the same thing, but with tea. I paid and took my pastry over to the counter where you picked up drinks.

         A gregarious barista in his 40s asked in Italian what I had ordered. I answered, “Tea.”

         He acted flattered, pointed to himself, and asked, “Mi????” with a rascally twinkle in his eye.

         I immediately realized my blunder. In Italian, “ti” means you. I could tell that he knew I got his little joke, so I played along, “Oh, sí! Ti!” I nodded, and pointed flirtatiously at him.

         He laughed as he handed me my cup of tea. Lesson learned two days before: I stood at a high table to drink my tea and eat the chocolate pastry, while I watched the empty Air France counter.

         When I was done, there still wasn’t anyone manning Air France, and nobody was waiting in line either. I went and asked a woman working at another airline about it. She told me to go to Air Italia. When I showed her Air France on my itinerary, she told me that Air Italia handles Air France’s first flight of the day. Then she directed me to Area 1.

          In Area 1, I wheedled my way in front of a Japanese tour group to ask where I should go. Once I found the right counter, everything went smoothly, including getting through security. I bought a water bottle for the 12-hour odyssey to Seattle.

          Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris was a whole different story. Getting through that airport is a grueling test to see how badly you want to fly. First of all, it’s huge so buses, trains, and moving sidewalks are involved. Second, they are don’t trust any other airport’s security, so you have to go through theirs even if you haven’t left the airport. Third, their security procedures are even more ridiculous than ours and slower too. You can’t put your passport away because you’ll have to show it three to five different times. And to top it off, if you plan on buying anything, it’s so expensive that you might need a second mortgage on your house.

I’ll admit that I have a chip on my shoulder about airport security, but it’s not paranoia if they really are after you. My purse has been searched at least 90% of the times I have flown. I should start wearing a t-shirt that says: My purse and carry-on have been rifled through in: Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, New Orleans, and Paris, but not in Italy, and not in Beijing, a communist country. I’d have to leave space on the shirt to add more cities. 

In Paris, on the way to Milan, John walked right through. I got a full body pat-down. After that, they took my purse, and pawed through it, dumping everything out. Two female guards kept asking me in weird (Haitian?) French, if I had a knife. I kept saying no. They made rude comments to each other about the contents of my purse thinking I didn’t know what they were saying. Then, in a seldom-used pocket, they found a 1” pocket knife that they were giving away at Cabela’s grand opening. Aha! It’s more like a nail file than a knife. There was an argument between them about what’s allowed. I kept telling them to just take it. They finally did.

So, I wondered what I would have to sacrifice to security this time. No matter how hard I try to avoid it, I always get the overly zealous security person. This time the woman was nearly hysterical telling everyone that they couldn’t have ANY electronics in their bags—no laptops, no cameras, no I-pods, no nothing!

I ransacked my purse. I took off my jacket. I wasn’t wearing the watch that set off the metal detector last time. She ordered me to take my shoes out of a bin and put them directly on the rollers going through the x-ray machine. I wasn’t allowed to carry my passport in my hand; it had to go in a bin.

She spotted the $8, sealed bottle of water that I’d bought in Milan and wryly told me that I could drink it right there, right then. I dumped it in the garbage. That was my offering to the security gods. I bet they take all those confiscated, sealed bottles and re-sell them.

The elderly man in front of me was frazzled after his itinerary got lost somewhere in the x-ray machine. My belongings made it through, minus one shoe. I gathered everything together, and held my one shoe up. They looked at me. I held the shoe up high, and said, “Une!”

The woman with the hand-held metal detector gave me a look that apologized for her obnoxious co-worker. Then she reached her arm over a plexi-glass screen and used the metal detector to fish for my missing shoe. I slipped my Cinderella shoe back on for the long walk to my gate. No glass carriage was available for me.

Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France.

I did manage to buy some perfume for myself and the two Sarah’s at a store in the airport, but first I double-checked with the saleslady if there would be another security checkpoint where they’d take it from me. She assured me that I’d be able to keep it. At a newsstand, I bought another bottle of water, some Toblerone chocolate for the flight, and a bag of the best store-bought cookies I’ve ever eaten. If you ever see Bonne Mamon Sables tout chocolat, buy several bags. You’ll think, “Merci beaucoup!” to me with your first bite.

At the gate I discovered a bank of computers that I could rent time on. Our cell phones didn’t work in Europe, and I knew that John was worried about me flying solo. After several attempts to figure out how to get online, I was able to email my family that I’d made it to the Paris airport, through security, and was ready to board the plane. I clicked SEND as they called my section to board the plane.

        The 10 hour flight home was pleasant.  Johnny would pick me up from the airport. He and daughter Sarah would be especially happy to see me.

The first time the kids Skyped us in Milan, they told us that we had only been in the air for about an hour when Suzie, the dachshund we share with Johnny’s girlfriend Sarah K., jumped off the couch and hurt her right front leg. She’s so long and low to the ground, she couldn’t even limp. Johnny was taking her to the vet.

Milan is nine hours ahead of Washington. We told them to call when they got back from the vet. We were sleeping when they Skyped again and told us that Suzie had broken her leg and was in a cast.  They held their laptop’s camera so that we could see Suzy and her broken leg. Dachshunds can make the saddest of sad faces.

Suzy and her new pink cast.

Before we left, I gave Johnny $100 cash for emergencies. (Pizza and beer are not emergencies.) I was only going to be gone for five days. What could happen?

Fortunately, Sarah K.’s mother had met Johnny at the vet to help with Suzy. She’d paid the vet bill and bought a play pen for Suzy to recuperate in since Suzy wasn’t allowed to jump up on furniture, climb stairs, or chase cats anymore. It is so sad because one of the things I love the most about Suzy is that even though she doesn’t have the graceful ballerina body of a leaper, she has the heart of a leaper and didn’t let that stop her. Now we’ll have to stop her for her own good.

Sarah K. was in Pullman, taking a summer course, so she was just as upset as we were about not being able to get to Suzy. Johnny and Sarah S. sent us (and Sarah K.) pictures of Suzy in her playpen with her purple cast.

When I got home, Suzy was better than I expected. Johnny and Sarah had taken good care of her. She did her happy dance for me even though it was a little thumpy with the cast. The kids were worn out from taking care of her. Suzy doesn’t understand why she has to stay in the play pen and is still full of energy, so she’d been crying and whining a lot. Johnny explained her medication schedule to me, and showed me how to cover her cast up with a baggy to keep it dry when we carry her out.

T-Bone and Suzy with her original purple cast.

They also had to take care of Velvet our diabetic cat who is not doing well, Java our ditsy Manx cat, and T-bone, our steady older dog who’s very good about going with the flow.

As I was flying home, Sarah K. was driving toward our house to spend the weekend with Suzy. She got in few hours after me. We were both relieved to see Suzy and took over pet duty.

In the meantime, I’ve re-lived my Milan trip by writing this blog and looking at my pictures. Going to Italy had been on my wish list for decades. Before I left, when I told people I was going to Milan, they’d say that I should go to Florence, Venice, or Rome instead.  I got the feeling that Milan was the Tacoma of Italy. The short time I spent there more than lived up to my hopes. But, I like Tacoma too. Neither Tacoma, nor Milan is a huge tourist destination. Neither one is pretentious. Each of them gets overlooked in the shadow of a showier, bigger city. Milan more than lived up to my hopes.

Suzy will get her cast off in four weeks. My memories of Milan will last a lifetime.

Arrivederci,

Laura

Laura Keolanui Stark is eating a gelato bar from Top Food. It’s good, but not quite the same. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com. 

Postcard from Milan, Part III

Terzo Giorno (Third Day) 

 

Joel and Amy suggested we tour The Lakes north of Milan. We were fine with the idea, as long as we got back to Milan at a reasonable hour because I had to catch a plane home very early the next morning, and John’s talk at the conference was the next day.

        We met at their hotel, and caught a cab (yep, skipped on the tram) to the Cadorna train station. The train was not crowded. It was a relaxing ride through the suburbs and industrial areas of Milan into the countryside.  

Amy and I in Laveno, Italy.

        An hour and a half later, we arrived in Laveno on the banks of Lake Maggiore, the second largest lake in Italy. It was a picture perfect European village complete with a red roofed church steeple. It looked like a scene you’d see on a jigsaw puzzle.  

 Over a leisurely lakeside lunch, Joel told us that he’d lived nearby for a few months while he was on sabbatical. We were there at a good time, tourist season hadn’t started yet. 

Amy and Joel Baker, Lavena, Italy.

The ferry was almost empty. It was a great day to be out on the water, sunny, but cool enough for jackets. At each dock the crew would tie the boat off. Then the land crew would carry a ramp over, and place one end on the boat, one end on the dock. There were an impressive number of females working, but one that particularly stood out. 

I nudged Amy, “Check out the dock worker’s shoes. Do you think those are standard issue?” With that, she struck a pose in her black, high heeled, tango shoes. They say French women have style. Well, the Italian women are no slouches.

       When we got to Isola Bella, Joel told us this island was one of the best ones to explore. He was right. We wound our way up a labyrinth of narrow, walled, stone steps. In tiny alcoves, vendors had set up shops. We would shop on the way back down.

        At the top, it opened up to reveal a huge castle that was so big it looked like a hotel. This was the home of the Borromeo family.  The most famous family member was Saint Cardinal Carlo de Medici Borromeo (1538-1584), who was the Archbishop of Milan, Italy. The Borromeo’s transformed an old fishing village into a Baroque palazzo with a terraced Italian-style garden. It also had six grottos underneath the “house,” that were decorated with shells and pebbles.

Isola Bella, Italy.

         The dining room table was set with sparkling blue Murano glass dishes, service for 50? I collect blue glass, so of course I whipped my camera out. That’s the only picture I took inside because a woman rushed over to tell me that pictures were not allowed, but it was worth it. Notice the chandelier over the table. That’s also all made of glass. There was a unique, handmade (blown?) chandelier in each room of the mansion.

          The garden was gorgeous, sitting high above the lake. One walkway was lined with roses. An albino peacock strutted around the grounds. The only thing I didn’t care for was that I thought there were too many statues. There were many rare plants, and everything was well manicured.

Mussolini and Napolean had both visited the Borromeo estate. Now, the Starks have too!

We left Isola Bella, took the ferry to the town of Stresa, and got vague directions in Italian to the train station-- something about going up the hill and then going right. Let the trudging begin. Three miles later, we ran into two moms walking with five young children, and asked them in English where the train station was.

They asked us, “Espanol?” When we nodded, they told us in Spanish that we were close—turn right at the next street. At the arch turn left, then right again. Go straight ahead for awhile, and the train station will be on your left. A cute 4-year-old in their group enthusiastically and proudly told us, “Good Bye!” in English.

Their directions were exactly right. We cooled off with Italian beer (6 Euros each, $8.55 US each) while waiting 45 minutes for the next train. In the corner of the train station café, Shakira’s video of “Waka Waka” came on the TV set. I wondered what the Italians in the station would think if I started doing the Zumba routine to it. I decided that they probably wouldn’t care, but John, Joel, and Amy might. I restrained myself to fancy footwork under the table.

We all took turns nodding off on the train ride back to Milan. It got more crowded the closer we got to the city. In Milan, the train stopped, and everybody got off, except for us. This wasn’t the train station we’d left from. The sign said, “Garibaldi,” not “Cardona.”

We sat there for five minutes or so, then looked out the windows and noticed that the tracks ended in front of our train. This was literally the end of the line. Off we got, then looked for a cab. It ended up that Gariboldi wasn’t much further from the hotel than Cardona.

At Joel and Amy’s hotel, we sat down to an elegant, expensive dinner followed by made-up desserts that weren’t on the menu. Amy ordered tiramisu. Then Joel ordered the carmelized banana, and even though there wasn’t any on the menu, asked if they could put some vanilla gelato on top of it. The waiter checked, then came back and said that they could do that. Suddenly, John and I were ordering gelato too: chocolate and pistachio. Crazy Americanos!

It was late, almost 11:00, as we walked through the Piazza Fierenze (the last time for me), and I still had to pack.  A cab was picking me up bound for the airport at 4:45 the next morning. Today’s trip to Lake Maggiore had been a last taste of la dolce vita (the sweet life).

Buona Notte,

Laura

The next postcard will be the final one from Milan.  Laura Keolanui Stark can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

              

Postcard from Milan, Part II

Secondo Giorno (Second Day)

          Today, John spent his day at the conference center in Milan attending the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) meeting. That’s the whole reason we are visiting Milan. 

          I spent my day with Amy, the wife of a University of Washington-Tacoma professor who was also at the conference. She is a scientist too, but wasn’t attending the conference.

          I walked over to meet her at The Enterprise hotel on the other side of the Piazza Fierenze. Yesterday, she and her husband Joel had gone to the Duomo, but hadn’t gone inside. Last night, I skimmed through the book I bought there, and found out that you can go up on the roof. Amy and I agreed to go back to the Duomo.

          She had ridden the tram yesterday, and knew where to get tickets. I had seen ATM signs, but thought “Automatic Teller Machine,” not “Azienda Transporti Milanesi.” We walked over to a diner, and bought one-way tickets because that’s all they sold.

          When the first tram came along, we hopped on. Fifteen minutes later, the streets didn’t look familiar at all. The tram had veered off west of the Duomo so we jumped off, and consulted our map. It looked like the Duomo was fairly close by.

          In the meantime, there was a big brick church in front of us, and a sign with a picture of Leonardo da Vinci out front, so we headed in. We had accidentally found the Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of The Last Supper and the largest collection of Leonardo’s drawings. We approached a counter decorated with many signs in many different languages, stating that this was an exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings, NOT The Last Supper, which was around the corner somewhere. John and I had tried to get an appointment to see The Last Supper, but it didn’t work out.

Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy

The drawings were just fine with Amy and me. We happily plunked down 10 euros each. Inside a darkened chapel, we studied each sheet of parchment paper filled to the edges with Leonardo’s drawings of inventions and figures, doodles of people’s heads, and notes. One page had a list of what he packed when he moved to Milan. I’m guessing that paper was a lot harder to come by back then, so he used up all the space he could on each sheet, no margins.

          There were also paintings hanging on the walls behind the drawings. The wall behind the altar and the ceiling were covered with frescoes of angels. I wondered out loud, “who painted those?” On the way out, Amy asked at the front desk. They replied, “Leonardo da Vinci.”

          We u-turned right back inside to admire the paintings and frescoes paying more attention this time. What a precious exhibit to stumble upon!

          Then we were off in the general direction of the Duomo. We cut in back of some buildings on a service road. A guy in a small truck started backing up and almost hit Amy. She dodged and slapped the back of his truck at the same time. He leaned out the window, and spewed irritated Italian. She answered in irritated English. Hands were thrown up in the air—the universal sign of exasperation, followed by exaggerated Chip ‘n Dale motions of “You go first!” “No, you go first!”

          We kept expecting to see the Duomo as we came around each corner. It reminded me of the way Mt. Rainier hides in cloud cover for most of the winter in Washington. Eventually, about a crooked mile later, the Duomo did appear.

          At the entrance, I turned around and Amy was gone! I thought she was right behind me. She’d been waylaid by street vendors hawking 6” pieces of string as “bracelets.” Back at the entrance, I started through, but the “gatekeeper,” told Amy she couldn’t go in because she was wearing shorts.

          We left, and went to eat lunch nearby, planning to shop for a skirt or pants for her afterwards. At a sidewalk café, she had pizza and I ordered lasagna. The waiter got annoyed with Amy for ordering “sparkling water” instead of “acquata gassata.” Extremely slow service followed. We decided to take off the string “bracelets” thinking they could be tourist markers.

Amy sitting behind our bottle of acquata gassata.

          After lunch we went in search of clothes to get her into the Duomo, but we were in the high fashion district. We found a pair of Adidas running pants, but they cost 80 Euros or $114 U.S. Could we tie a scarf around her to look like a skirt? Maybe she could wear my skirt, then come back out and give it back to me to wear in. In the end, she said she’d wait outside for me, and tour the Duomo a few days later. She was staying in Milan longer than I am.

          I went in and looked all over for the elevator up to the roof. No luck. At an exit that I hadn’t noticed before, I pantomimed my quest for the roof to a cathedral guide. He pantomimed back to go around the corner to a separate building to buy a ticket for the elevator.

          I went in the opposite direction to get Amy. Maybe they’d let her on the roof in shorts. At the ticket office, they told us that shorts weren’t allowed up there either.

  I took my 8 euro ticket for the lift to a little area at the back of the Duomo, (Yay! No line!) and walked through a metal detector. Security guards directed me to a ticket scanner. I put the ticket in, and got the red buzzer NO! sound. Turned it around—NO! Then the young soldier who was part of the security force came over, took the ticket out of my hand, flipped it around, and re-inserted it correctly. His sigh and eye-roll was exactly like my kids’ reaction whenever I’m in this kind of situation. Ah, the international language of la gap generazionale. But, he did have to cross the hallway to help me. His mama raised him well.  I thanked him, “Grazie!”

          “Prego.” (You’re welcome.)

All roads lead to Il Duomo.

Looking down on a lower level of the Duomo roof.

   The view from up on the roof was worth the hassle of getting up there. I could see the street spokes of Milan leading toward the Duomo. The maze of sloping walkways and terraces above the city made the spires, statues, and gargoyles seem within reach. It was not clear enough for me to see the Alps, but I trusted that they were out there.

It’s mind boggling to think that the all the architectural engineering, heavy marble, and intricate carving that went into creating this magnificent cathedral happened centuries ago, without today’s technology. How could that be possible? Yet my feet were standing on it.

To inspect the outside of the Duomo, two construction workers rode a coffee table-sized platform raised on a hydraulic lift. They pointed to me and waved. They were totally comfortable, but it’s not a job I’d want.  Being from Washington, and therefore, being used to doing everything in the rain, I imagined being up on the Duomo’s roof sliding around on rain-slick marble, or worse snow!  I was extremely grateful for the sunny weather.

Back down on earth, I met Amy and showed her around the fashion district. We darted into a fancy bakery. She ordered a cappuccino while at another counter, I got a chocolate gelato cone. Then we made the mistake of trying to sit down. After being denied three times, a waiter finally gave up, and seated us at a booth. Apparently, you’re supposed to stand at the counter with your cup and saucer to drink cappuccino. We were doing the American Starbucks thing--if it’s not in a disposable cup, you get to sit down.

We’d had a busy day. Time to buy a return ticket for the tram. Amy spotted a little convenience store that she thought would sell tickets. When she asked the man at the counter in English, he was short and to the point, “No.” When she followed up by asking if he knew where we could buy tickets, he gave another terse “No,” and waved us off.

We wandered around some more until I saw a place with lottery ticket signs. Inside, people were gathered around a TV, waiting for them to pull the winning numbers. I stepped up to the man behind the counter, said, “Bon Giorno,” then pulled my old tram ticket out, and gave him a questioning look.

He answered, “Si. Quanto?”

“Due.” I paid for two tickets, and out we went. Amy was impressed. 

I don't speak Italian other than a few phrases I learned from a "Learn to Speak Italian" CD that stopped working about 10 minutes into the lessons. I did take Spanish through junior high school and high school, then a couple of semesters of college French. Ultimately though, I'm pretty sure that I got away with a lot in Milan because I think the Italians thought I was Italian until I had to have a real conversation. But by then, they’d already opened up to me.

We looked for a tram stop. I reasoned that we needed to cross the street, so that we could catch a tram going toward the Piazza Fierenze. Amy knew that we had to catch the #1 tram. We scrambled aboard one.

Then Amy’s ticket wouldn’t work in the scanner. I took it from her, and turned it around every possible way. A man took it from me, just like the soldier at the Duomo, and tried. He told me in Italian that it had expired. I told him in English that that was impossible, we’d just bought it. He told me in English, “OK, just sit down.” So we did.

We sat down anticipating a 20-minute ride. We got more than an hour’s ride. My bright idea of crossing the street to catch the tram was a mistake. We made room for elderly ladies carrying shopping bags with designer names on them so they could sit down. Office workers rode standing holding onto the bars above us. We sat with mothers and their elementary school children riding home from school. We saw the city center, nice neighborhoods, the Asian section, and areas where there were lots of massage parlors.

We waited, with only one other passenger, for fifteen minutes through the changing of drivers. We watched the new driver ring the bell, and tell a car to get off the tracks. We eyeballed the signs at each stop and made sure that “Corso Sempione” was listed on the sign. I looked in my purse for the address of the hotel, so we could catch a cab home if this went on much longer. And then, we saw the castle. The streets looked familiar again. It was 6:30 when we got off a block away from Amy’s hotel, exhausted and relieved.

               I planned to take a shower and put my feet up when I got back to my room, done for the day. Amy had the same plan. However, when I got back to the room, I found out that only part of my plan was going to happen. The shower part.

Dinner at La Bufala restaurant with scientists from the SETAC meeting.

          John told me the real plan included more walking to meet about 50 other scientists and graduate students, from around the world, for dinner. At the restaurant I sat beside a student from Finland. Across the table were a professor from Poland, a student from China, and a professor from England. On the other side of John, that professor was from Germany. There was one other American there. The discussions were lively, and thankfully not political, and for the most part in English, so I didn’t have to use my pantomiming skills too much. I was finally meeting people that John had worked with, and told me about for years.

          It was a long day filled with adventures in Milan. I slept well my third night in Italy.

Ciao,

Laura

The next “Postcard from Milan” will be from The Lakes of Northern Italy. Laura Keolanui Stark can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.