Bonjour!

Greeting inspired by Celeste. Who, like the rest of you traitorous defectors, has moved away leaving me to my lone divorcee devices. I’m surprised they stayed this long: after all, three years here is a mission when she was told she was moving from Paris to Chicago and landed here. Way. Not. Chicago. I’m guessing the equestrian farms and Olive Garden on the way into town gave it away.

So now my adorable French friend and her beautiful family have moved leaving me on the hunt for new fun neighbors with nice kids. So as not to set unrealistic expectations, I have lowered my kinship requirements:

• day drinking panache negotiable (baby has a bottle, I have a bottle best delivered with the inimitable “do not judge, it has been a long morning”).
• French accent preferred but not required.

She is the only one I know who routinely brought carafes of rose to school picnics. Speaking of pickling ourselves from the inside out, how’s chemo going? Sure wish I could take a couple of those hits for ya’ (now THAT would catapult me to a stratospheric level of friend).

I should not have brought a white card today as – shocker – I’m writing this from the little league baseball field sidelines on a windy hot day where nine year old uniformed versions of the Tasmanian Devil conjure Grapes of Wrath caliber dustbowls every half inning. The other team is chalk full of puny kids, which seems a little unfair as the strike zone is about the size of an ant egg.

The latest from upscale Mayberry:

Moving onto composite notebook paper because I used the end of the legal pad in my bag for legit work call notes this week. This is what we had left over from Julian’s third grade school supplies. I also just sent you a text. Da X is wearing the same shirt as me. The other parent couples are wearing kind of matching shirts today too. Maybe it was planned – even though I weasled my way onto the team chat (since that’s where they post practice changes too, really guys!?) and suggested eons ago that we all buy the same shirt for away games to find the field easier. with no response. Not like anyone would share the memo with me; I’m just a default twin with doofus. Maybe it will make Julian feel like we have some sort of concert support. We don’t like each other but we are all team kids (at least I am; I’m not ready to give that level of unguarded and not wholly proven kudos yet). Sydney was the first to notice and fortunately stopped laughing by the time we reached the field. He owns all ten versions of the team shirt; I own one. Really?! At least I wear it better. And since he neither speaks nor acknowledges me, no one will realize Julian belongs to these two random individuals.

PLUS, even though the town of Wilton where this modern day red stitched leather sphere gladiator call is transpiring is dry, they’ve got a bar in the middle of the little league fields where you can get your iced tea spiked or unspiked. No more hiding the vanilla rum sweet tea concoctions in Chik-Fil-A cups for this crew!

Other traitor escapees (that we love and miss sorely like you guys) were in town. Alexa – who you may recall recently moved to Tennessee with the rest of Illinois – stopped by with Cian who used to stop by the house Kramer style nightly knocking on the back door looking like a lost dog in need of food and the company of Sydney and the other defectors that moved. Alexa just kept asking “why the hell are you still here?” as they love the lower cost of living and temperate winter. I reminded her that I am the gorilla chained to a houseplant. This town is a noose and Chase is the rope tied to the legal system tree. Seven more years til that rope gets dwindled to a dry-rotted twine. Unless Chase bites it beforehand. Which, if it’s gonna happen, let’s hope it happens before we start high school. Chase effing up is the one thing I’ve been able to consistently rely on when it comes to that man. So here I sit, literally in the spectator seats, waiting to see how the show plays out. Sure, Hampton’s nice in a bubble way: we all sit in the bubble and we are presumably safe in the bubble but there’s bullies in the bubble and people still fart in the bubble. Which is why every now and then we go osmosis ourselves away to the anonymity of the city or some little mountain town to escape for a few days. It looks real nice. But is it? All of it?

We head to NorCal next week. Gonna channel our inner Clark Griswold gone west coastal. Pete has made me send him our hotel confirmation THREE TIMES. After our last California trip (kidless to Calistoga wine country) I’m kind of surprised he trusted me at all with the accommodations.

Jess – who grew up near wine country and has far better taste than me – recommended we stay at the heartburn inducing $980 a night Solange Resort. I checked the travel sites and found a much more palatable $500 a night Larkwood Inn, but thought I’d better run it past the big guy 1st. Pete said book it, so I go back online for the contact info and type “Calistoga Lark” and up pops “MeadowLARK Country Inn”. Which sounds A LOT alliteratively like LARKwood, so I booked it. Both included breakfast, were on the town outskirts with beautiful grounds, both adult only and identical top notch reviews. Notably, NOT a single one of those Tripadvisor reviews mentioned ANYTHING about either being a nudist haven. Plus, MeadowLARK was $385 a night when I pulled it up, so I figured the price had dropped in a good travel timing karma way. I mean, how many places in a three mile radius are gonna be named “lark”-anything, right?

We fly into Sacramento, drive to the Inn where I notice A LOT of masculine (as in huge plaster bust to torso sculptures of dudes with mongo dongs abutting the clothing optional pool and hot tub, and inside there are framed photos of men sporting ascots standing next to Great Danes abutting large wooden garden figures with huge mammary type art). The few folks we see are absolutely clothed. We have a nice night in town and the gorgeous room. The next morning we go to breakfast where Klaus is holding court. Klaus owns the Meadowlark with Leon, works very hard at maintaining his Austrian accent despite having lived stateside for 50+ years (he is about 75 y/o). He sits at the head of the table where we are welcomed and learn quickly that we are the only ones NOT repeat customers. Three other couples join us. While Pete is talking about hot air balloon rides with folks at HIS end:

[insert breakfast diagram]

A tall Chinese American guy named Phil asks me “Have you two always been nudists” in the same way I would ask you to please pass the salt. I say “we’re not nudists.” Phil, Mrs. Phil and Klaus are stunned trying not to drop their utensils.

“Vell, how ont ert did you vind us?,” asks Klaus.

“TripAdvisor, you guys get great reviews. Lots of compliments about the great breakfasts,” says I, loud enough for Leon who I suspect may be Klaus’ gimp, to hear.

“Well, we’d sure love to see you two at the hot tub for happy hour,” says Phil.

“Best convos happen in the hot tub,” chirps Mrs. Phil.

Pete is all the while still enthralled talking about ballooning with the Xs and Ys.”

Back in the room, I tell Pete about MY convo. He says his first thought was concern about all of them wanting to see ME naked, until he realizes his bigger concern is all of them wanting to see HIM naked.

After a great day of cycling through vineyard wine tastings, we don our swimsuits back at the resort with hopes that taking a 3 p.m. hot tub dip is early enough to shirk the elusive 5 p.m. happy hour. However a ballooner breakfast guest was already there and even with the jets on high, we could see he was clearly naked unless you count what appeared to be a large grey poodle morphed with Hemingway’s beard pubefest anchored to his crotch as clothing. No hot tub for us. On the walk back to the room, Pete’s only comment was, “Honey, I love you, but you’re on travel planning probation.” He is an awfully good sport!

Wish I could say that was the end of our questionably fun Calistoga adventures. But on our last day I booked us two non-refundable reservations for “world famous mud baths” at a place in town called Dr. Wilkinson’s Med Spa & Resort. I envisioned milky mud water, lukewarm, offset by lavender infused rain showers. Au contraire. The “mud” is a thick mossy peat tub and is NOT changed between guest clients. It is super hot by your feet and they use shovels to mix it up. You quicksand style sink in and are told to “just relax.” I was anal wink puckered the entire 20 minutes for fear something awful might seep into an orifice reserved for my exit only functions. Someone could have dropped dookie in there and between the putrid wet woody stench and texture, NO ONE would EVER know. I went in my birthday suit (since nudity was clearly this trip’s call to arms). Pete wore his swim trunks to no avail as there was nothing capable of containing the ilk. You climb out and take a normal shower head shower. I have never done such a thorough deep dive of my kaslopis in my life. The sandiest of loose suits on beaches got nothing on the after math cleanse factor of this place. After the shower, you sit in an old school bath tub with clean water and bubbles infused from a circa 1842 contraption one can only imagine is a repurposed iron lung machine.

Not to sound snotty, but next time we are sticking with the more predicable Sonoma.

Gotta run – game over (onto round 3 tomorrow). Syd and Julian are excited to get home and play flashlight tag with the neighbor kids. There was even talk of catching fireflies.

Swooooooon! Gotta love those Midwest summer kid moments. Counters the tainted bubble factor in the best best best way!

Hang in there – xoxox, Stormy