Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Things I learned / ate / discovered on vacation

1. Nagging works. We were going to spend the day with relatives. Our boys can get a little rowdy when they spend the day with certain cousins. So, before arriving, I turned to Boys and said, 'Hey guys, what are the rules?" Boy2 took a deep breath and said in rapid succession, "No fussing, no hitting, no pushing, no fooling around, no whining, no bickering, no nothing! They managed to have fun anyway.

2. Weird conversations are just around any corner. While buying a vacuum cleaner (don't ask me why we had to do this on vacation), I asked a few questions to the small appliance salesperson about vacuum cleaner longevity. He said, 'Try not to suck things up with it." Isn't that the point?

3. The best butter cookies in the WORLD are made in Pont-Aven, which is also a beautiful little painters' city (Gaugin and many others lived there). Better than Lorna Doones (sp?), better than Scottish shortbread (sorry, Charlie), better than anything.

4. There is a walled city in Brittany I had been to before this vacation. Despite the fact that I had never been there. This isn't one of the those past life things, cause I'm not really buying that, and it's not one of those destiny thing, cause I'm not buying that either. All I can say is that walking down the cobblestone street, my feet were walking in my own footprints. Maybe it was the musicians playing dreamy Celtic stuff on one of the squares or maybe I visited this place in a dream, but, one way or another, my tracks had been left on the snow covering that ground and they never melted away.

7 comments:

Lorraine said...

Funny, I had that very experience on a street in London...

Nicole said...

Lorraine - so my question is, is it a glitch in the matrix, or were we really there?

Christi - Happy Birthday! You're 25 now, start acting like it. Ha ha. I love you my sweet niece. Have a wonderful year.

Eric said...

Hey Nicole Welcome home. I missed you.

Anonymous said...

If he doens't want you to use your vacuum cleaner to suck things up, then what are you supposed to use it for?
I will travel anywhere for butter cookies!

Anonymous said...

Are you sure it was boy 2 who knew all the rules? If so he makes me so proud.

Beth- thanks for the pictures everyone loved the bell bottoms your daughter had on.

Otilia said...

So glad you are back! Being highly suggestible, and having Pepperidge Farm cookies in this house, I am now going to eat them and imagine they are the butter cookies. These are not procurable over the internet?

Nicole said...

Eric - Thank you. It's good to be missed.

Charlie - 2. Discounted.
3. How can you hate shortbread? Careful or I will send you some of my dried cranberry shortbread for Christmas and you'll feel obligated to eat it and like it.

Beth - I think he actually meant stuff you're not supposed to suck up, like curtains or things that make the motor hot.

Zeb - I'm sure it was Boy2. He can recite the rules as well as Boy1 but following them is an entirely different matter.

Edy - Actually, they are! www.traoumad.fr
My favorites are the galettes de Pont-Aven. And what I love even more is that the list of ingredients reads like this - flour, butter (26%!!!), sugar, eggs. And thats it. Nothing you couldn't find in your own kitchen.