Immersions & Adaptations
Writing a weekly blog is an interesting challenge.
Some weeks the words almost write themselves and I have to rush to catch them in type before they drift away on the wind. Other times it’s a struggle and I have no idea what I’m going to say. The words almost have to be pulled out, coerced from their cave like a stubborn donkey into the light.
And finally there are times like today, where everything goes in reverse and the piece forms itself from the outside in, almost like an artist painting pastels from dark to light. I start with one idea, it moves to another seemingly unrelated one, and this goes on until the final picture suddenly comes into focus somewhere down the line.
In a way it makes sense, given the way this week has progressed.
It all started with my foot which is transforming into some kind of reptilian art-piece, that somehow led me to think about how Polly is adapting to life here, and eventually bought me around to the thing I actually planned to blog about which was an outing we did in the big city yesterday afternoon.
So in that light, this week is about immersions and adaptations and how we make a blog post (and a life) out of all that….in reverse, reverse. Make any sense? Let’s see, shall we…
First, A Brief Weather Update
Those of you following the on-going weather sagas in France will have seen the rains that came this week. In fact not just rain but floods.
It was a boon for controlling the fires that have blasted us recently, but it was a difficult experience for the cities. And likely to become more common as we run between the extremes of months of high heat & sechreesse followed by intense storms that are no longer able to be absorbed by overly-dry ground.
Those of you who live in flash flood areas are familiar with such things, but in Europe all of this is new.
In France this week torrential rains flooded parts of the metro in Paris, violent gales hit Corsica, grey hail covered Saint-Étienne and the equivalent of 6-months of rain fell over a period of a few hours in Marseille. All the storms came fast, were unexpectedly intense and dumped loads of water that had nowhere to go.
We’re OK in our area, touch wood and all living things.
As usual most of the rain this week fell in a biblical circle all around us, although we did see a decent amount on Thursday. And of course despite this we remain in a deep state of drought. It’ll take a lot more rain (and unfortunately a lot more flooding throughout France) before we see the end of that.
So We Immersed Ourselves in Art
While the crazy weather of Aug 2022 continues, one of the things we’ve been trying to do as we struggle through (and attempt to maintain our sanity), is to have at least one new experience each week to throw ourselves into. This week that adventure took us to the big city and a rather intriguing “Immersive Van Gogh Exhibition” in a 2000 m2 canal-side space that doubles as an exhibit hall and a 1888 hydro-electric plant (which is still in operation!).
The whole thing was rather fun.
Going into Toulouse is always quite exciting, especially coming from a little quiet, rural corner of the world as we do. Like all beings we adapt to the environment we live in, and four years in the countryside has made us dare-I-say-it country folk. So the city becomes a huge contrast with its bustle and noise, buildings and restaurants, scooters, cars and limitless activity. It’s intense and a smidgen overwhelming, but also so very familiar.
I love the contrast though, I really do.
The exhibit itself was also pretty cool. There was an in-depth section on Van Gogh who was an incredibly prolific artist in the mere 37 years he was alive. Over 900 paintings, 1,100 sketches and 844 letters, some of which now sell for tens of millions of dollars (not that he saw that kind of cash while he was alive). Of course those who know his story, also know it isn’t a happy one. The man was tortured by his own mind, spent a year in an insane asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and died far too young of his own hand.
Yet his paintings are sublime….
Personally I think genius and madness are often linked, and Van Gogh’s bold and dramatic strokes, his intense use of color and the way his paintings seem to move and flow certainly reflect that. There is nothing quite like him and the immersive experience is all about that expression.
For the majority of our visit we sat in a large room where the story of Van Gogh unfolded around us in movements and transitions through his work (with music and words to accompany). The “add-on” option to all this was a VR headset experience where you literally go inside his story and move through the places he painted. Both are kinetic experiences, both literally and figuratively.
We enjoyed both and although I wouldn’t call it mind-blowing, we truly had an enjoyable visit. In particular I’d never tried VR before, so it was a pretty trippy experience, albeit a little unnerving and motion-destabilizing too. And it really was fun to see all Van Gogh’s paintings in such large formats.
A very cool, immersive outing!
Note/ The Van Gogh Immersive Exhibit has been touring since 2017 and is currently in 23 cities, so it could be in a spot near you! You can check out tickets and schedule HERE.
My Foot Is Transforming
Speaking of living art, I imagine you are all dying to know how my foot is doing since my epic tumble and twist last week.
Well, I think you’ll be happy to hear it’s reduced back to normal size and I can now walk/limp more or less like a normal person. However I still have some pain driving, can’t walk long distances and am having to watch in horror as my skin tests the yet-to-be-released (altho’ I’m sure it’ll be madly popular) Reptilian Pantone color range.
Over the space of 7 days my foot has transitioned from translucent greens to dirty purples and muddy browns. I would take a picture and share on the blog, but a friend of mine pointed out that the colors sounded rather vomit-inducing and after reflecting on the matter for a few days I had to agree she was right.
Perhaps not the tone we want to set here…
Inspired by Van Gogh however I have decided to “own it”, so yesterday I painted my toenails purple in a bold and artistic flash of color inspiration. It was a minor pleasure and a small measure of control in a matter over which I have none. Much like a chameleon I’ve decided to adapt to my environment, and much like an artist I’ve decided to enjoy the colors for what they are.
Kinda fitting, no?
Polly Is Adapting Too
I haven’t talked much about our old lady recently, but Polly is thriving in her rural life here in SW France and this week she showed us just how much she has adapted.
Polly has always had a strict routine that she has worked tirelessly (her entire life) to keep us in line with. Walks, food and snacks are all carefully scheduled events and if we happen to mess up the “guilty eye” stare has been honed to a fine art. In fact she’s become an expert at the latter, so much so that if I’m reading in bed and a feeling of deep unease suddenly comes over me, 9 times out of 10 it’ll be because Polly is standing at the door staring me down for a meal that’s a few minutes overdue.
Alfred Hitchcock could have done something with that, I tell you…
But our girl is really just a gentle old soul and she’s been loosing her sight as she ages too, so she mostly sniffs her way forward these days. Walks that used to be brisk multi-km trots are really just putz-n-sniff strolls now, and the search for food is a nose-forward job where she skims the floor and the top of the kitchen counter with her snout for tasty morsels that may-accidently-drop-from-heaven. Her eyes may be poor, but her nose is so good that we have to be careful to keep things she shouldn’t eat out of reach….just in case.
Which is why we got rather concerned when her stomach acted up earlier this week.
Suddenly she seemed to be doing poorly, not physically mind you, but with what was coming out the other end if-you-get-my-drift. For days we scratched our heads on what might be going on, scrutinized what we were feeding her, worried she might have caught a bug somewhere or eaten something bad on her walk. It wasn’t until one morning where she was conspicuously missing that we finally figured it out.
As usual the door was open to let in the cool morning air, and Polly was outside. Today she wasn’t asleep on the tiles however. Her nose had woken her up and led her towards the veggie patch which had an enticing, new scent. Something sweet was there, rows upon rows of it, and although she couldn’t really see what it was, she knew it had to be good. She sniffed around to locate the absolute best-smelling morsel and then tested with her mouth, wrapping her teeth around the oblong treat. A quick tug and much to her delight and surprise, it popped right off. Mmmmmm….juicy and delightfully tasty…in handy ready-made-for-doggie-snack-form no less. This was going to be fun!
When we found her she had a half-eaten tomato in her mouth and a look of absolute joy and innocence in her cloudy eyes.
“Check out at all this free candy” she seemed to say
Our discovery explained a lot. Not only the many ripe tomatoes that had gone missing over the past week, but also the half-eaten ones we’d found in the potager and the subsequent doggie stomach issues. Clever girl, is all I could say, clever girl.
If that’s not a dog that’s adapted to country life, I don’t know what is LOL.
Thus, We Come Full Circle
Like a spiral that reaches its end, or a mandala that’s finally complete we come back to the beginning of my blog and the immersion that has been.
There are clouds on the horizon tonight and more hints of rain, but also the possibility of another heatwave ahead. It’s hard to believe we’re already near the end of August and yet the taste of June is still with us. Perhaps the weather, just like me, sometimes goes in circles to come back to where it’s supposed to be? I’ll leave you with that thought, and a vision of the Pyrenees because the mountains always sooth me no matter which way things are going. Hopefully they will for you too.
OK my blog-loving friends I’m dying to know. Do you paws eat anything odd, or weird that they shouldn’t do? Have you caught them in the act? Do you have to hide certain things? DO share your paw-stories below. I know they’ll make us all happy.
Our 2 year old kitten loves to eat everything. Whether it’s yogurt, spaghetti sauce, dog food, cheez-it’s, lint, other cats fur, bugs, the kitchen blinds, etc…if it fits in her mouth you will find it there.
I’ve been following your blog for several years now and still love it!!! Thank you for sharing your adventures and gorgeous photos!
HA! That’s incredible. Both our cats were SUCH picky eaters. How fun to hear LOL.
Nina
Our first pooch Andy used to loooooove those little green Canada goose turds … the park across the street from our house in Denver was FULL of them. Gross eh?!
Noooooooo….. not goose poop candy!! I know the type though. Theres a dog here that loves cat poop, and lives with a bunch of cats. Unlimited snacks lol.
Nina
Quite a few years ago, for a football team money raiser, my sons had to sell chocolate bars with almonds that had a foil packaging. There were 18 bars. Our dog managed to open a zippered backpack and eat the candy. Chocolate is a no-no for dogs, after calling the vet, we had to watch him closely for a few days. Besides the expected diarrhea, he pooped foil and almonds for several days. Luckily, he was fine. Lesson learned in backpack storage!
Wow!!!! 18 bars!!! Yes chocolate is a huge no-no…what a sneaky fiend! So glad he was ok. I’m sure that incident was both horrifying (at the time) and yet quite funny (in retrospect).
Nina
Mea, our cat, cruises the counter looking for anything. Bread, bacon fat, milk, butter, hamburger, tuna, are just a few of the things she will sample. after preparing a meal but before eating, we will put anything edible away and put cooking utensils in the dishwasher.
I love your blog and your style. Thank-you for the entertainment and sharing your life as you do.
Incredible that your cat will eat all that. She’s adventurous!
Nina
I continue to marvel at the parallels of weather you are experiencing there that we have in the mid-Hudson Valley in NY! Our skies are like the parted Red Sea (albeit blue) as the rain clouds, dark and heavy, slowly slide by drenching areas sometimes just a few miles north and south of us. Our area has declared us to be in phase 2 of a drought so farmers may still water produce but other than that we are limited. I have to say, I have come to appreciate our dishwasher for the scant amount of water it uses. The hydrangeas are now muted tones of purple and mauve instead of their luscious blue, the leaves hang down preserving whatever moisture there is. Same for the Viburnum, Rose of Sharon, etc. Many wildflowers have gone to seed. The heat has me changing the hummingbird feeder every day but a very brief rainfall the other day resulted in butterflies all over the leaves of many plants drinking those precious drops. The only benefit I see, from a selfish human perspective, is that the deer want nothing to do with the dry greens in the form of shrubs and trees in the yard so they are leaving them alone.
As for pets! Our dear departed Springer, Phoenix, was known for her love of cauliflower. She could be asleep on the third floor of our house and if I so much as chopped off the stem of a cauliflower I would hear her bounding down the stairs to sit beside me, eyes ever hopeful. (Yes, she got the parts I discarded because they never had any bad affects.) But, growing up on St Croix we had an assortment of cats and a number of them loved different vegetables. Avocados, asparagus, broccoli and a few local greens were all favorites of various cats. But, our dog who had a penchant for cat poop (gathered from the litter tray) made me lose my love for those candies called Almond Roca because of their resemblance to those tasty morsels coated in litter. Yuck.
Nina, have the torrential rains made any difference in the reservoirs in the Pyrenees or the level of the Garonne?
We saw the Van Gogh Experience in Albany in the old Armory and some of the same reactions going from our rural area to the “big city” I loved the VR part but am experienced with it because our son has one and I “play” tennis as well as something called Beat Saber on it. His friends are quite impressed with this septuagenarian’s abilities to whoop their butts but I just love the exercise.
Oh, and I can’t remember if I told you but y brother and sister and law are doing the Frances in October and LOVE your blog entries about your prep and observations that I have forwarded.
Cauliflower! I would never have imagined that one. Thanks for sharing that wonderful memory.
The rains are helping the reservoirs, so that’s good news. We still need a lot more of course, but I think we can avoid any water shutoffs now. Fingers and paws crossed.
Nina
Mazzie used to regularly cruse through the greenhouse snacking on the cherry tomatoes. Best wishes.
I can just see it. Those cherry tomatoes are just perfectly dog-sized little sweet treats. And Mazzie was a super smart doggie.
Nina
Here goes! When we were first married and living at the farm we had a HUGE vegetable garden and two golden retrievers. If left to their own devices they’d harvest the perfectly ripe cucumbers without ever disturbing the prickly vines. Later, when we lived at the lake we wondered why our cherry tomato plant (in a pot on the breakwall) seemed to lose the little tomatoes just as they were about ripe to pick. Where did they go? Were the birds picking them? Possible, to be sure, but one afternoon we watched our golden, Miss Rose, climb out of the lake, shake herself then saunder over to the pot of tomatoes. She looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching, and then carefully plucked tomato after tomato off the plant without dumping the pot into the lake. Apres swim snack!
Another tomato fiend lol!!! That’s so funny. And I’m super impressed your dogs were able to eat cucumbers off the plant. They can indeed be super prickly. Smart doggies!
Nina
Emmi has never been given people food except for little bits of plain boiled chicken as a treat. With that said if something is dropped on the floor she will sniff the morsel, put in her mouth and more often that not, spit it out! And sometimes people will want to give her a dog treat–like in Home Depot–and sometimes she eats them and other times she spits them out. Picky pooch–embarrassing for her people! Funny little dog! Glad your foot/ankle is improving!
Ahhhh, Emmi is a picky girl! How very cute. It’s funny actually but Polly is quite picky too, when she wants to be. She will always sniff anything we offer her first, just in case it’s not good enough. Ripe tomatoes apparently make the list tho lol.
Nina
Another dog story. One day, having done my grocery shopping, I placed the bag on the counter in our motorhome. Some time later when we began to put the groceries away, we were missing the zucchini we had purchased. You know what happened to them. Our miniature schnauzer ate them as his predinner appetizer. We were very concerned and the next day called the vet. No problem. Dogs love them and suffer no side effects except perhaps as a laxative.
Thanks for all your posts. We love reading them. Unfortunately we sold our 40 ft. motorhome a couple of years ago and our lot in Palm Springs. It was just before COVID so the timing was great for us in Canada.
Only problem is we really miss it now. My husband loved driving it and I loved living in it.
Zucchini eh? That’s so interesting. I did know a dog that was crazy about carrots once. So vegetables can be the “thing” lol.
Oh and I totally understand what you said about the motorhome. It’s a special kind of life. Perhaps part-timing in a smaller RV could be in your future?
Nina
I have recently inherited a semi-blind, loving and affectionate, obedient, and well behaved golden retriever. Her favorite snack is cat poop. Just like the dog you know. She knows she’s not supposed to do it, and looks furtive while she’s doing it and “who me?” when told to stop and come away. Then smacks her lips. And like Polly, she has a very clear sense of what should happen when in regard to food, walks, naps, etc. A friend says dogs are like Marines, they have a strong affinity for schedule. (Oops. Guess you’ll hear from some Marines now.)
Awwww….she sounds like a lovely dog (well apart from the cat poop obsession lol). BTW I find it incredible how well dogs do without their sight. Our vet told us that many owners often don’t even realize their dogs are blind unless they change their environment or move furniture around. They just have an incredible sense of space, and of course incredible noses.
Nina
I volunteer with Guiding Eyes for the blind as a puppy raiser and my first puppy loved to eat tomatoes off the vine. Luckily they didn’t make her sick! What was super sweet was the following year after she had gone back to Guiding Eyes I had tomato plants popping up in all of my gardens. She had pooped out tomato seeds all over my yard!! Made me smile every time I would discover a new seedling!
What a great memory!! And it’s fun to know that Polly isn’t the only tomato-dog-thief out there.
Nina
We have had four fine wonderful great dogs in our life but out new 8 month old Aussie pup takes the cake!….ha…get it? lol Anyway, we have never given out dogs people food and they have all been pretty much fine with it and never seemed to care. Until Luna, the Aussie. came along. She is obesessed with food! which we have learned is an Aussie trait. Sometimes we feel so sorry for her we almost give in! But not quite!
Oooo that’s a tough one. And Aussies are super smart too. I bet her puppy-dog “feed me” look is something else :))
Nina
Our Scooter (a dachshund) loved food. But one day she figured out how to get from the back of the couch to the kitchen counter. And discovered butter. She ate almost a whole stick before I caught her. Loose (very loose) poop was the only side effect but furniture got moved around. She also loved carrots. Miss that pup.
Ooooooo butter! Polly loves butter too. We give her a little sliver as a treat every now and then, but I could see her eating the whole stick too lol. Thanks for sharing Scooters story.
Nina
Our cat Merlin loved almost everything but especially lettuce and tomatoes but his absolute favorite was corn, preferably on-the-cob. It was very funny of course to hold it up and rotate it for him while he would be gnawing away. Unfortunately he developed diabetes when he was 5 (and happily lived another 13 years on insulin) and he wasn’t allowed any anymore, but I’ve always felt a little guilty letting him eat that sweet corn!
Never knew a cat that liked corn. How absolutely fascinating. Thanks for sharing his story.
Nina
We had a horse years ago that would stick his head through the garden fence and eat all the squash he could reach! He was always on the look out for new snacks. : )
That’s incredible! And squash have such hard skins too.
Nina
Years ago we had a cat that would sneak up and steal green olives off of pizza. No meat, just the green olives. We have to watch one of our current cats as she will steal and eat lettuce. If you are making a sandwitch with lettuce or a salad she will steal the lettuce. We also have a cat that will help himself to lemonaide from an unattended glass.
How fascinating!!
Nina