Letter From Elba

Bummer Alert:  I know this post’s a downer.  I’m sorry.  I’m just feeling blue today.  It’s January twentieth.  My old wedding anniversary.  I wrestle with this date every year- even when I was happily remarried to other people.  I don’t know why.  Maybe because I joyfully celebrated it for twenty years and I never lost the habit.  Maybe it’s because I don’t know what to do with a date that used to mean so much to me and now has been tossed- along with the marriage- on the scrap heap by some faceless judge.

But no matter what the reason I have always wanted to know what becomes of an anniversary when a marriage of long-standing is over.  Divorced people are supposed to jettison it.  But can widows and widowers “keep” it?  I realize they’re not married any more but does the original meaning of the date itself die along with the spouse?

Does the anniversary of the day you got married suddenly cease to exist if you get divorced?  Are we supposed to pretend that it never happened at all?  If you’re remarried or despised your spouse at the end, does that make the date null and void?  And if you take note of the date, does this put you squarely in the “loser’s corner?”  Does it mean you haven’t “moved on?”  (A loathsome expression to me, for some reason.)  Can you rewrite (marital) history according to your feelings?

It’s undoubtedly a faux pas to even mention it but still I wanted to ask.  So here’s the story:

Thirty-seven years ago today, Bill and I got married.  Earlier that morning, I had attended a session of Illinois divorce court where I successfully off-loaded a very bad guy.  (I was the only woman in court who did not, in the new spirit of Women’s Lib, take back her maiden name in a separate motion. I knew what was coming up in the afternoon, so why bother?)

After court, I went back to our apartment where Bill soon joined me.  We toasted each other with splits of champagne (him) and those cute, holiday-only, mini-bottles of Coke (me).  Then we flew to Las Vegas and got married.  In case you blinked, it bears repeating.  I got divorced and married on the same day.  How many people can say that?  They don’t even use that plot device in Mexican soap operas.  Too implausible.

We had a great wedding.  Sam Brody, our cab driver, was a witness.  The minister was impressed with Bill (and not with me) and with a note of incredulity in his voice at what his eyes were beholding actually asked “Do you, Ellen, take this very good–looking guy to be your lawfully-wedded husband?” Bill charged the ceremony- fifty bucks- on Visa.

I cried with happiness and relief- that I was not married to that s.o.b. husband number two any more.  I tried to call all my relations back home to give them the big news of our elopement.  But it was six o’clock Chicago time and virtually everyone was out to dinner.  I reached no one.  It didn’t matter.

Bill gambled a little and lost.  When he casually announced that he had dropped a thousand dollars at the craps table (more money than I had ever seen in one blow in my life) I cried again and we went to Hoover Dam.

We flew home, moved to Barrington Hills, and two years later had Natasha.  I wanted to be back amongst my own North Shore kind and my old school system so we moved to Winnetka, had Nick, and Bill’s two middle daughters took turns moving in with us.  I found two heaven-sent guardian angels, Mary, and then later, Klara, to help with it all.  I worked on charity boards for Michael Reese Hospital, the Chicago Historical Society and Steppenwolf Theater.  We redid my dream house.  I got a job at Pioneer Press doing the same kind of thing you are reading here now.

These were golden years.  The best years of my life.  And I knew it at the time.  Whenever I would walk into my foyer and see the roses- the same gorgeous roses that had been grown in my very own rose garden- I would inhale their fragrance and give deep thanks.  For twenty years I felt lucky.  And I felt love and gratitude to the man who had made it all possible.  My children, my house, the security that kept a beautiful and comfortable roof over all our heads.

Bill’s financial acumen and hard work had given me the peace of mind that money can buy.  And he bought the best education for our kids, and all the trimmings.  Ski houses and summer camps, French lessons, swim coaches, great trips and books galore. And I loved him.  And not just because he gave great ATM.

For twenty years I loved him because he had rescued me from an awful situation.  I loved him because he was handsome and tall and smiled all the time.  I loved him because he cut a dashing figure.  In his prime no one ever wore a suit better.  (Take that, George Clooney!)

For twenty years I loved him because I admired his business savvy and know-how with a buck.  He was self-made and he had done it the hard way-  one long work day at a time.

For twenty years he was demanding, and um, shall we say “challenging,” but I thought he was worth it.  And I wasn’t exactly a day at the beach either.  I was a handful, trust me.  I used to joke that by marrying each other, we had saved two nice people from terrible fates.

For twenty years I loved him because I thought he loved me- despite all evidence to the contrary.  I wanted and needed to believe it.

That’s how it was- for me, at least.  And today, thirty-seven years later, I look back and have to remember it all.  The good memories along with the bad.  It’s history and it’s the truth. Maybe not the whole truth. Maybe not his truth.  But nothing but my truth.

That’s my story.  And for all of you who also have painful anniversaries to remember throughout the year- whatever they commemorate- my heart goes out to you.

So happy anniversary, Bill.  No matter what.

And for today at least… still thinking of you.

Bentornata!  Welcome back.  It’s 1975 and we’re all still in Florence, Italy.  And I was still sleeping on a couch in my girlfriend Barbara’s living room in a tiny medieval tower.  Each day we’d start out with a latte for her and an hot chocolate for me at Rivoire, the cafe in the Piazza Signoria- the main square of Florence.

We’d stand at the bar.  Sitting at a table was strictly for tourists.  I had instantly gone native my very first day and I patronizingly distanced myself from all things American from then on.  Like people eating pasta as a main course.  Ugh.  How could they be so disgusting?  What were they thinking?  (Forget the fact that I, too, had done it all my life- until ten days ago.)

Barbara was young, pretty and blonde.  I was young, brunette, and now that I’d had a makeover Italian style, made a good impression.  Maestro, as her boyfriend was known, got a big kick out of squiring us around town.  He showed us off shamelessly.  We went everywhere as a threesome.

But although Barbara and the Maestro were great tour guides, every once in awhile I would give my hosts some privacy and sneak off on a little sightseeing passeggiata of my own.  But Florence is tricky geographically.  Even with the Arno river on one side to keep me oriented, I would often become mired in the labyrinth of its ancient byways and back streets.  Once I got so hopelessly lost that when I saw a moving crowd and heard an announcement from their bullhorn “We are now going to the Piazza Signoria…”  I gratefully joined the throng and went with them.  As I was swept into the piazza by this sea of people, I was greeted by a horrified Barbara.

“What are you doing marching with the Red Brigade?” she cried.  “They kidnap people!  They set off bombs! They’re terrorists!”

“I was lost for two hours and they did announce that they were going to the Piazza Signoria.  What else could I do?” I countered logically.

Days were spent hanging out in the Uffizi or the Bargello or the Palazzo Pitti and Boboli gardens. And butchering the Italian language- the language of hometown hero, Dante.  I became the Charo of Italy.

I’d mistakenly ask for fazzoletti, kleenex, in restaurants when I wanted faggioletti, green beans.  I’d yell Tacchino! instead of facchino at every train station on every side trip.  That’s calling for a turkey instead of a luggage porter.  When I requested a bom- BO-la instead of BOM- bo-la, the shopkeeper fell down.  I had just asked him for a whore instead of a doll.  I tried to buy a pot for my spazzatura (broom sweepings) when I meant “spezzatina.” (Stew.)  The salesgirl was helpful but confused as to why I wanted to cook my garbage.

But the Florentines were always gracious about my mistakes.  They laughed and encouraged me. They were amazed that I, an American, spoke any Italian at all. They simply refused to believe it.

“Inglese?” They’d inquire about my country of origin.  “Francese?”

“No, Amerihana,” I’d try to convince them.  (That “h” in the middle is not a typo.  Remember what I said about the ugly hard C sound?)

In time I became more Florentine than the Florentines.  The only habit I could not lick was my love of Coca Cola.  I drank it with all meals instead of wine. To them Coke was a digestive aid.  So I was essentially drinking Pepto Bismol with all their great cuisine.  My revolting habit earned me a nickname- “Signorina Ho Hola.”  But they said it con amore.

And I got invited into their homes.  This was a rare treat and a genuine revelation.

Most of Florence’s external architecture was created by geniuses so it’s protected by the Belle Arte Commission.  The current owners can never alter one chip of marble.  But inside?  That was a whole different calcio game.  Their native love of sleek design and anything new translated into their furniture.  Florentines were fed up with living with antiquity all the time.  The result?  Exterior by Lorenzo di Medici. Interior by George Jetson.

My nights were spent with Paolo.  He was a successful businessman- a lifelong friend of Alvaro’s.  And long before I ever came on the scene, the three of them would have dinner together three or four times a week.  I was just the house guest who tagged along.  Paolo and I never directly exchanged one word.  He spoke no English and his accent was so Florentine that I couldn’t understand anything he said.

And he was shy.  That’s right, a shy Italian.  Living there exploded many myths for me.

First, I never saw a fat Florentine.  They were too into la bella figura to be fat.  And they all smoked liked fiends.  I never met a poor Florentine.  This is a very expensive city- small and exclusive.  You had to be well-off to live there, no different than Manhattan or Aspen.  The poor Italians migrated to the United States long ago.  They had nothing to lose.  The rich ones stayed there.  Why would they leave?  Where would they go that was better?

In Florence art was sacred and artists were gods.  They loved all things beautiful and all beautiful things.  They loved living well.  They didn’t believe in hurrying.  They savored every moment of the day.  Florentines would enjoy leisurely lunch hours when all the businesses were closed. (A very civilized idea that let them have warm conversations with their friends or passionate encounters with their mistresses or illicit boyfriends. This was pre-divorzio Italy of the seventies, don’t forget.)

And they took the time to appreciate their food.  And what food.   Unbelievably delicious.  Never had I been exposed to food like that.  Barbara’s apartment was conveniently down the street from Camillo, a world-famous trattoria.  We feasted there all the time.  Florence is the home to the exquisite invention steak fiorentina.  And in season, they would gild the lily by hiding a sumptuous filet under a giant porcini hat.

When tomatoes were at their peak, they would be celebrated in pappa al pomodoro, a kind of bread and tomato soup.  Divine.  And I had my first taste of panzanella, a bread salad, and crostini, kind of a heavenly chicken liver on toast thing, and ribollita, a peasant soup fit for the Medici.  And lasagna made with bechamel sauce.  And that whole antipasto thing.  It was lovingly and artistically laid out as a still life on your plate.  Florentines made a vegetable-lover out of me.  The ways they could prepare carciofi– artichokes- and zucchini sent me swooning.  Before Italy, my idea of contorni- side dishes- were overcooked string beans and Niblets canned corn.

We also frequented the fabled Harry’s Bar.  Pink table clothes, high prices, great service, and petti di pollo– chicken breasts that were my favorite main course.  And I don’t have enough cyberspace to discus the wonders of their pasta.  Night after glorious night, we four would go to these legendary ristoranti.  And still Paolo never said one word to me.

I never stopped loving the United States but I had to give Florence its due.  Americans knew how to work but Italians knew how to live.  This was no cliché.

I’m getting hungry. I’m off to find some cannelloni.  See you Sunday with a change-up.  Arrivederci!

Get out your passports and fasten your seat belts, my friends.  Today we are in viaggio to  Italy.  And patienza– patience- will be required as this journey is going to last four posts.  (Did you think you could cross the Atlantic in one?)  But don’t worry.  I’ll do two, then change topics, and then post two more.  I hope you’ll hang in there with me.  I think you’ll find it a trip worth making.  Buon Viaggio!

I learned to cook and eat and live in Florence, Italy.  I was twenty-five years old, separated from my second husband and I had been cooking and eating and living for years.  Or so I thought.

In re the second husband separation scenario:  I came home from Goucher College one December afternoon to find that he had taken all my jewelry, sold my car and had scarpered to parts unknown.  When the shock wore off I moved back to Chicago.

It hadn’t taken long to pack because he had already cleaned out our bank accounts and stolen everything portable- including my dogs, my late grandfather’s watch (the only heirloom he had left my father- who, in turn, had entrusted it to me) frozen food and the pills from the medicine chest.  The house looked like it had been hit by a tornado.  Everything inside of it was destroyed- even the mattresses had been slashed.  He had even taken my typewriter.

On Christmas day the Baltimore police called to tell me that my husband had been shot.

(I found out later that he had gotten himself in serious financial trouble and he had arranged the robbery for the insurance money.  The undesirables he had hired later voted against giving him his share.  So they shot him in the back.

And I found out much later that some of the proceeds were also designated to go to a mistress of longstanding.  Whom he actually “married” in a lavish-though-not-quite-legal ceremony in this very house while I was in Italy.  I discovered this dual betrayal when I accidentally stumbled upon a diary, guest list, and telegrams wishing the groom (him), and the bride (not me) a wonderful wedding and a happy life together.  But these awful revelations were still in the future.  As of Christmas 1974 all I knew is that I was homeless, broke, and destined for singlehood again.)

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“No, ma’am,” the policemen told me. “He survived.”

“Too bad.  Now I’m actually going to have to spend money to divorce the son of a bitch.”

But not yet.  All I wanted to do was get out of Dodge and luckily I had a girlfriend in that most glorious of getaway spots, Florence.  Barbara lived there with her boyfriend, a famous painter, and she had invited me over many times.  But I had always been too busy or too married to go.  Now I was neither.  So I called her.

“I’m getting a divorce but I’m not depressed,” I assured her in the understatement of the year.  “Can I come visit?”

Barbara’s answer was si and my parents bought me a forty-five day ticket.  Armed with a big suitcase and a little dictionary to augment my high school and college Italian, I flew to Milan.  No sooner had I landed, the entire country shut down.  No planes, buses, trains, porters, cabs, niente.

All my puzzled- and then frantic- questions were answered in one word- “sciopero.”  And that word wasn’t in my little dictionary.  But finally, through pantomime, I got it.  “Sciopero” means “strike,” and no one knew how long it would last.  I hitched a ride to Bologna and sat on my big suitcase for six hours waiting for the trains to start running again.  And finalmente, twenty-six hours after I left Chicago, I staggered up the stairs into Barbara’s apartment located in a medieval tower on the Borgo San Jacopo.

I was ravenous and dead tired.  Alvaro, her boyfriend, fed me some dinner.  (Even in my daze I registered how incredible the food tasted.)  Then I reeled over to the couch in their living room and passed out.  I woke up the next morning and stepped outside.  And a miracle happened.

As I gazed around at my surroundings (I hadn’t seen anything of the city because of my nighttime arrival) I was thunderstruck, not only by its legendary beauty, but by the unshakeable feeling that I had been there before.  This was an absolute certainty that I had just come home.  A torrent of emotion came rushing at me.  In that first moment I knew and understood the city, the people, the culture, far better than I ever had in the entire four years that I had lived in Baltimore.  I can’t explain it.  I just knew I was a long-lost fiorentina.

Still Barbara had to put me wise to life Florentine-style.

The Florentines, fanatically and justifiably proud of their jewel, took enormous interest in painting, eating, and living with elegance.  Firenze was, after all, the home of Leonardo Da Vinci, Dante, the Medici, Michelangelo, Ghiberti, Bruneleschi.  This was town that invented the Renaissance.  They have high standards.

I was going to have to be brought up to speed in order to make “la bella figura,” that very Italian concept of presenting a pleasing, and well-behaved image to the Tuscan world. Barbara was not going to let me be maleducata- badly brought up.  (Newbies: Just read my September 16 post “Keeping up with the Kardashians” if you want to see the true meaning of the word “maleducata.”)

I thought I knew the language.  Wrong.  Florence has its own dialect.  Because they revere everything beautiful, they have taken the pure Tuscan that they speak and refined it.  They don’t like the sound that the hard C makes.  It’s brutto, ugly to the ear.  So they’ve abolished it and changed all words that start with hard C to an H.

Barbara had neglected to mention this linguistic quirk my first few days.  I had no idea that harne, hasa, and hosa used to be carne, casa, or cosa.  Life and dialogue became much clearer once I understood this rule.  And in this same spirit of beautification, my new Florentine friends changed my name. They found “Ellen” ugly and hard to pronounce.  And they didn’t think it suited me.  I was rechristened “Olimpia” and I loved it.  It was bellina.*

(*Because Florence is a small city, small is considered bellina – beautiful.  In the rest of Italy, bellisisma might be the right word, but Florentines put the diminutive “ino,” “ina,”or “ini”  on their words to make them even more little and precious- just like Florence.)

I thought I knew how to dress myself.  Wrong again.  Florentines are insanely fashion forward.  Men and women alike cared deeply about the fit of their clothes, the dash of a scarf, the elegance of their jewelry, and, of course, in this leather-mad town, their shoes.  My own shoes were hopelessly gruli– grotesque.  The shoe styles in Florentine shops didn’t even make it to the States until three years after I first saw them there.

And can we talk trucca– makeup?  They loved it.  The more the sexier.  My whole look needed overhauling.  I learned to try on jeans by lying on the dressing room floor while two attendants zipped me in and then propped me into a standing position.  Ecco! A perfect fit.  (A look, when combined with the new makeup, that would have gotten me arrested for solicitation in America.)

Barbara also gave me a crash course in cooking.  She shopped every day for fresh ingredients- a concept then unknown to me.  I watched in amazement as she whipped up a sauce prezzemolo, only parsley, olive oil and garlic, for the pasta.  Not a tomato in sight.  And she told me that in Florence, unlike in Roma, small portions of pasta were the correct thing.  And of course, only as a primo.  In 1975 I had never heard of pasta as a first course.

She taught me never to clink my glass in a toast.  Only the comunisti clinked.  Or the other way around.  Now I’m not sure anymore.  And she told me never, ever to put freshly-grated cheese on any pasta dish that contained mushrooms.  The Florentines were convinced that this combination was poisonous and bad for your liver.  She introduced me to my first fettunta.  That’s a piece of bread toasted in the fireplace, rubbed with a clove of garlic and drizzled with a touch of olive oil.

And she forever changed my thinking about olive oil.  Heretofore it was an alien, greasy substance. Okay, maybe I’d use a little in a Good Seasons salad dressing mix.  But Barbara put a few drops of oil in her hands, rubbed them gently to release the perfume, and instantly I became converted to the religion of “good oil.”  She also introduced me to blood oranges, mortadella, linguini, and porcini.

And Paolo.

To be continued.  See you Thursday.  Ciao!

The movie Jerry Maguire has been on television lately.  As I watched it the other night, I was struck by the fact that I had never seen the ending.  When I saw it at Movieland in Colorado, my date and I had walked out halfway through.  (More about why in a minute.)

And that got me thinking about other movies that I had seen that had been prematurely interrupted.  Let’s start with the first one.

In 1968 I was sitting in Westwood, California waiting for an afternoon matinee of Rosemary’s Baby to start.  But before the main event, my attention was captured by the X-rated performance in the row in front of me.

Some blonde chick and a guy were really going at it.  You know that heinous expression “Get a room?”  Well, it was invented for these two stoats.  It was getting practically pornographic and I couldn’t wait for the house lights to dim and bring on Mia Farrow’s controversial haircut, Ruth Gordon’s shameless over-the-top mugging, John Cassavetes’ embodiment of the word “creepy,” and pre-tragedy and pre-controversy Roman Polanski’s deft touch guiding them all through their cinematic paces.

I wasn’t disappointed.  I was heartily enjoying my thrill romp when, out of the blue, the film broke.  The twenty people in the audience waited patiently for a fix.  But soon it became apparent that even though this was Hollywood, no studio flunkie would be riding to the rescue with an answer print.

Finally a disembodied voice came wafting over the P.A. system.  “We regret to inform you that the film has broken, we can not fix it and we have no replacement.  Please see the manager.”  We straggled out blinking into the lobby.  There was the manager waiting for us.

“You can have a refund or a rain check,” he said.  “Which do you prefer?”

And then the blonde makeout artist piped up.  “Money, money, money!” she chirped in an unmistakable voice.  I took a good look in the daylight.  It was Goldie Hawn.  Who still had an Academy Award in her future and was clearly watching her pennies.  (Hence no hotel room.)

I never cared how the movie turned out.  Wasn’t that a better ending than anything Ira Levin could have dreamed up?

The next time I didn’t see the ending was in 1996.  The place: the Esquire Theater, Oak Street, Chicago.  My then husband and I had ambled up the street from our tony co-op on East Lake Shore Drive to see a movie with Cher and Chazz Palminteri called Faithful.

About a quarter of the way through, he got uncomfortable and restless.  The movie wasn’t that bad but still he kept pressuring me to leave.  (A first in the twenty years of our married movie-going.)  He kept whining and I couldn’t say no to his hectoring.  We left.  I never saw the end.

I had no recollection of the movie’s plot.  So, as I was writing this post, I went to IMBD and here, verbatim, is what it says:  “A depressed housewife, whose husband is having an affair, contemplates suicide, but changes her mind when she faces death by a killer hired to do her in.”

OMG!  I couldn’t make that up!  No wonder he was squirming.  (And let’s just say that he did finish me off in divorce court August 28, 1996.  And I didn’t see that ending, either.)

Which leads us nicely to Jerry Maguire that very same year.  I was there on a date with the stunningly-good looking guy who had stopped to pet my dog- the adorable scottie, Andy- but stayed on to ask me out.

He was very handsome and very persistent.  And very young.  And I was old, lonely, and if you saw that blonde hair and those blue eyes rimmed with black eyelashes, you wouldn’t have said no either.  The hell with the age difference.

We started dating.  He was on sabbatical from school (University of Washington.  I may be a cougar but I’m not Mary Kay Le Tourneau, guys.) and was scheduled to take the whole year off on a work-study program he had submitted to the powers-that-be back in Seattle.  And believe it or not, he was falling hard.  I swear.

We were both looking forward to a year of unbridled romance.  (Well, no, not exactly “un.”  More like bridled- by the presence of Nick.  My young swain was absolutely terrified of my son.  And hid from him all the time.  It was cute.)

But as we sat in Jerry Maguire he suddenly burst into tears.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he sobbed.  “I just found out that my work-study program has been rejected and I have to go back to school by the first week in January.  I can’t watch this any more.  We have to leave.”

We did.  I sent him back to school with a good-bye kiss and a promise to help with his English homework.  And I turned my sights on more realistic romantic prospects.  But even today, I can never see the ending of that movie.  In his honor.

I didn’t have to wait long for my next experience with cinematus interruptus.  1997.  Titanic.

Mike and I went to see this blockbuster.  And we both hated it.  (I’m an old Titanic history buff, and as such, I did enjoy James Cameron’s wonderous CGI rebuilding of the ship.  But the creaky, hoary love story gratuitously grafted on to this tragic confluence of greed, hubris, class warfare and monumental stupidity was tedious for me.  And why gild the lily with the story of two fictional people?  There was more than enough real heroism and cowardice to go around.)

But Mike and I gritted our collective teeth and stuck it out.  We had paid hard cash and we’re bitter-enders.  And just as Jack was turning blue and clinging to an ice floe and begging Rose not to give up and she was pitching him the same claptrap, the screen suddenly exploded into a bright orange fire ball. We watched enrapt, as before our very exhausted, water-logged eyes, the film burned up.

The R.M.S. Titanic and Titanic had spontaneously combusted at the same time.

The management gave us rain checks but we simply did not have the wherewithall to go through all of that all over again. I do hope Rose and Jack live happily ever after on the proceeds of that necklace she was wearing.

In 2004 I walked out of Troy and into the night for a breath of air.  The movie was awful and besides, I had read the Iliad and knew how it all turned out.

My latest husband was blissfully watching it.  (Another young one.  When will I ever learn?)  But when I finally decided to return to my seat, the exit door wouldn’t re-open.  I couldn’t get back in.

Finally, after twenty minutes, a mall cop saw my plight and drove me around to the one unlocked entrance.  But the movie had ended by that time.  And the husband?  He had been so enthralled that he hadn’t even noticed that I had gone anywhere.

So what have I learned from all this?

As I watch the movie of my own improbable life unfold, I now know two things.  First, I will always stick around to watch the ending- no matter what.  Endings are important.

And second, I like happy ones.

Just the other evening I met my son for dinner in downtown Chicago. The dank, gray, gloomy, winter weather was making itself felt in many unpleasant ways as we walked towards the restaurant.  Out of nowhere, a cri de coeur burst from my soul.

“I miss Colorado, Nick.”

Instantly he whirled on me.  “And you think I don’t, Dude?” he asked accusingly.

“But you go to Cali (fornia) every other week,” I countered.  (Nick’s wife, Melissa, works in Los Angeles and he commutes.  Very post-modern marriage.)  “I know you like it out there.  You’re always saying how the weather is great and you love the ocean and skateboarding and stuff… I didn’t think you thought about Colorado much any more.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Nick admitted.  “Southern California is pretty nice- the weather and all- but compared to Colorado it’s just… it’s just…methadone.  If you know what I mean.”

I knew EXACTLY what he meant.  He had chosen the perfect word to describe SoCal and how it’s a poor, synthetic substitute for Rocky Mountain junkies like us.  As lovely as it is, Southern California is just an artificial crutch to wean off your dependency when you can’t score your drug of choice.  In my case, Snowmass, Colorado.

(I’ll throw in Aspen and Denver, too.  Nick would add Silverton, Boulder and Jackson Hole- even though that’s Wyoming.  But he loves it because it reminds him of what Aspen used to be like.)

We’re hooked.  We’ve got it bad and that ain’t good.

I first got my first “taste” of the Rocky Mountain high in July of 1976.  The bi-centennial summer.  Bill and I drove out there on a belated honeymoon- along with his three adorable daughters- Julie, then fifteen, (she would turn sixteen on the sixteenth as we were driving back to Chicago.  The first time I had ever heard the expression “magic birthday.”) Patti, then eleven, and Amy, nine.  And Dorothy, friend of Julie and also fifteen.

We stayed at Lift One.  Aspen Central.  We did all the regulation summertime Aspen things: white water raft trips, barbecues, (I have a great picture of Bill trying to goose up the fire with a hair dryer) fishing at Maroon Bells, hiking, and horseback riding at the T Lazy Seven ranch.  Bill tried kayaking.  The girls and I opted for the more dangerous sport of high-end Aspen shopping.

It was fun, of course.  But the addiction did not set in then.  If anything, I was a little unsettled by the “rich hippie” vibe of stores like Therapy, and the outlandish-even back then- prices at Donnie’s Hot Dog Stand.  And I found the people we met pretentious, arty and generally weird.  They were like poser flower children self-consciously playing Cowboys- and no Indians.

But the second time we went back it was winter.  Casimir Pulaski Day, March 1990.  Nick had used his veto power to hijack the family plans for another unremarkable sojourn in Longboat Key and he had turned it into a Colorado ski vacation instead.

By that time we had many good friends who were fortunate enough to have second homes there.  And they were all going to be in them over that peculiarly-Illinoisian holiday long weekend.

The snow gods blessed the venture from the start.  The Ross family headed to Snowmass.  (A bedroom community of Aspen.  Equipped back then with a teeny mall, a tiny post office, a so so food market, and one very big kick-ass mountain.)

Natasha and Nick already knew how to ski.  (Nick, if you happen to read this, sorry I let your secret out of the bag.  I know that you would prefer- in the time-honored tradition of boarders everywhere- that I never mention the fact the you were ever a two-planker.  But I am sworn to uphold the truth here.)

And I think Bill was a never-ever.  But he was going to giving it a try.  When in Rome after all…

I had tried it once in high school at Wilmot- a small ski area in Wisconsin.  I cluelessly had gone in jeans and I can still remember how frozen they (and I ) were after several skirmishes with the bunny hill.  Once was quite enough, thank you.  Or so I thought.

But I have never flinched from a shopping opportunity, and when I saw my flat, unremarkable behind encased in tight-fitting Bogner ski pants bought especially for the upcoming Aspen excursion, little unathletic me thought “I’ve found my sport!”  I was determined to give skiing another go.

And Bill dared me.  The night before we were scheduled to hit the slopes he said, “I will if you will. I dare you!”

Well.

Fate led me to Hays, a godsend of a ski instructor.  Sandy-haired, blue-eyed Robert Mitchum lookalike, he was infinitely patient, truly funny and an all-around great guy.  And from my first timid run down Fanny Hill, I knew that I was in good hands and more importantly, I had found my sport.

Terror or not, I loved the feeling that skiing gave me.  A heady mix of adrenalin and free fall.  And after one half-day lesson when Hays asked doubtfully “Will I see you again tomorrow, Tiger?” I found myself- to both my astonishment and his- answering “Yes.”

Meanwhile, as I was negotiating the rigors of the t-bar lift and the complexities of the ski boot fastenings, Bill had been busy too.  He had spotted a small condo development right on the way to the mountain and had studied the units from the outside.  Long story short, when we returned home four days later, the Ross family had been forever transformed.

We had gone out casual visitors.  We came home: one new, mad snowboarder (Nick), one graceful, sunshine-only skier (Natasha), one “I’d rather be playing golf type (Bill), and one “I love it all!  I want more!  When do we come back?!  OMG!” (Me.)

And now we were Snowmass condo-owners to boot.  They were going to build us one in phase two of the twelve unit-only site and it would be camera-ready for Christmas.

Nick echoed all my sentiments.  And when we did return the following Christmas to our very own mini-chalet, he looked around it in awe and rapture.  “I’ve waited all my life for a ski house in Colorado,” he murmured reverently.  (He was all of ten at the time, but still, I got what he meant.)

It was for him- and me- a pipe dream come to life.  We both were hopelessly hooked from that day to this.

And, as we continued our cold, dreary walk up that windy Chicago street the other night, Nick concluded his “methadone” comment with the universal wish of addicts everywhere.

“You know, Dude?” he said dreamily. “If I ever win the lottery I am buying a place in Woody Creek.”

“Not Snowmass, Nick?” I queried.  “You loved it there.”

“Nope,” he was adamant.  “Woody Creek. I want space.”

But I barely heard him.  I was already gone, nodding out in a haze of longing, memory, desire…

“Okay, Woody Creek it is,” I vaguely agreed.  But one look at my son told me that he, too, was off somewhere else now, chasing the dragon. He was lost in a world of epic, back country uncharted powder, azure blue skies, first tracks.  I didn’t want to break the spell.

And, as I nodded out in my own private reverie, I had one last, sweet, semi-coherent drug-induced thought.

That ranch better have an awesome mother-in-law apartment.

Us junkies need to get high together.

It’s an old tradition that when someone you love moves into a new house you bring them bread and salt as a housewarming present.

Bread so they’ll never go hungry. Salt so they’ll always be blessed with good luck.

I was thinking about housewarming gifts recently because my brother Kenny and his wife Mary Lu have just moved into a new apartment.  I was going to make my first state visit and I wanted to start things off right.

So before I stepped across their new threshold I wanted to bring them a great gift.  But what to buy?  After thirty-seven years together they have everything.  Knock wood.

As I was pondering this challenge, my mind wandered back to another housewarming present of many years ago. It was for their vacation home outside of Scottsdale, Arizona.  (Now sold, I am sorry to say.  I loved that place.  And its warm, dry desert climate is really looking good to me right about now.)

It was 1998 and Kenny and Mary Lu had invited Mike and I down from Colorado to see their new digs. A week’s stay was graciously proffered and we jumped at it.

For those of you who never had the pleasure, let me introduce you to Mike.  I married him in 1997.  Parted ways many years later.  (But we’re still friends.  Not all my divorces crash and burn.)

A gifted natural athlete, (an eleven letter man in high school- four for skiing, three for soccer, two for baseball, and two for track) there was no sport at which he didn’t excel. Mike was a longtime ski instructor for Aspen Skiing Company and coach of the Snowmass ski instructor’s demo team.  To watch him go down the hill was like watching frozen poetry in motion.

He skied as soon as he could walk.  He literally had no memory of life before he could schuss.  As opposed to yours truly.

I learned at forty, loved it from my first white knuckle snowplow, and struggled with it for a long time until I got decent.  As my son, Nick, liked to point out, “You know, Dude, the best thing about your skiing is that you suck but you know it.”

But before Mike became a ski instructor he had been a Marine.  (I never call him an ex Marine.  There is no such thing.)  He did two tours of duty in Viet Nam, rescuing and flying the wounded by helicopter to Norita, Japan for lifesaving treatment.  (Readers:  I made a mistake with this last bit.  It’s Zama, not Norita.  Please see Mike’s comment below for further explanation.)

And after the war, the Marines flew him around the world to helicopter crash sites so that he could investigate the causes.  He was a one-man NTSB.

And though modesty and sad memories forbade him from bragging, I can report that he was incredibly brave, a highly-decorated war hero and one very tough m.f. (Which are his initials, come to think of it.)

My kids and dog loved him.  And he was handsome, (I used to say he was so Irish even his eyes were green) funny and blessed with the gift of one who has bussed the Blarney stone.  He was liked by all- but men, particularly, responded to him.

When Mike and I first started going out in early ’97, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t making a post-divorce-trauma-induced mistake.  I wanted to double check on his rep.  So, as I went around Snowmass and Aspen- two very small towns- I would casually mention that he and I were an item.

The women were happy for me.  But the men would invariably respond with the same reaction.  Upon hearing my news, every guy I told would playfully punch me in the arm and say “Yo, Mike!”  (This is the universal “thumbs up” of jocks everywhere.) So “Yo, Mike!” and I were married that May.

But Mike had one other string to his bow.  Along with his gift for anything physical he was a talented painter.  He could really make with the oils and the brushes.  He could paint anything.  Several art galleries showed his paintings.  He had had many exhibitons.

I found this left brain/right brain thing amazing.  How many guys do you know who are Golden Gloves boxers and can also dash off a vase of flowers or a Colorado sunset- with horse?  I can’t box and I can’t paint.  So I tip my hat.

Back to my brother and sister-in-law’s winter getaway place…  It was the perfect second home for them (and their occasional house guest- me.)  Beautifully done, comfy beds, great proximity to all kinds of fun, cozy, warm- all in wonderful desert colors.

We were wowed and I wanted to bestow upon it a heck of a housewarming gift.

To that end, Mary Lu and I went cruising the Scottsdale art gallery scene and then I saw it. It was a painting of a Native American brave riding his horse towards the viewer.  A background sunset of glowing hot orange was burning away behind him. (I can not describe art.  You’re just going to have to trust me on this.) It would look awesome hung over their new fireplace.

After a brief conference with Mary Lu- who loved it and agreed that it would grace their house perfectly- I looked at the price tag.  Gulp.  It was pricey.  But a solution was reached.  We went halfsies.

Mary Lu and I were both beaming as we schlepped it home.  It was gorgeous- all pink and red and orange in the twilight of the desert afternoon.

Much too soon it was time for Mike and I to bid adios to Don and Charlie’s and Mastro’s and Pishke’s Paradise and the Teepee- and oh yeah- our landlords. We headed back to our mountain house.  (Nothing too shabby with this scenery, btw. I aways say Colorado is where God goes on His vacation.)

I was glad to be home but it had been fun and I missed Kenny and Mary Lu already.

“It was great, wasn’t it?” I wistfully sighed as we were unpacking.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed.  “I loved the desert and Kenny and Mary Lu are wonderful hosts.”

“And wasn’t that the perfect housewarming gift?  How good did that painting look in their living room?  It was a knockout, don’t you think?”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said my resident art expert.  “You really liked that painting, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I ruefully admitted.  “I loved it.  And it would have looked just as good here.  But you know, there was only one in the gallery, it was very expensive, and besides, it was their housewarming.”

Mike’s shamrock green eyes took on a wicked gleam. “You like that painting?” he asked again.  “You want one?”

(Did I happen to mention that among his many talents, Mike is a diabolically clever forger?)

So that’s how Mary Lu and Kenny’s new Arizona house and my old Colorado one got the same housewarming gift.

And today I wish my brother and sister-in-law lots of bread and salt and love and laughter in their beautiful, new apartment.

And Mike can make a copy of that picture any time he likes.

For all of us.

Happy 2013 everyone.

Author’s Note:  I am well aware that the following post is probably missing accent marks and cedilles galore.  Quelle dommage.  I can not, for the life of me, figure out how to accurately type in French.  And I’m sure that I have made many fautes.   Hélas.  Excusez–moi.  Allons!

What’s the toughest, scariest, most dangerous occupation you can think of?  A job that takes a cool head, fearless single-minded determination combined with nerves of steel. Would you say coal miner?  Lion tamer? Rattlesnake wrangler?  High ironworker?  Test pilot? Marine boot camp drill instructor?

If you ask me, my francs are on the elementary school French teacher. That daredevil occupation makes all others seem like potage de canard.

In Dix-neuf cent soixante-et-un, as a sixth grader at the Avoca school in Wilmette, Illinois, I was introduced to the glories of this beautiful language by Mrs. Martha Wright. (Did you ever hear a name more Anglo-Saxon than that?  She was pure Midwest and I was too young to know that her accent was less Françoise Sagan and more Katey Sagal.)

But she was tough-minded and gifted enough to drum the basics into me and somehow, magically, she gave me entrée and I fell madly in love with French.  It’s been a grand folie å deux ever since.

Her teaching introduced me to the world of Colette, Baudelaire, De Maupassant, Balzac, Racine, Voltaire, Flaubert, (“Madame Bovary, c’est moi.”  A touchstone phrase for me) and la divine aforementioned mademoiselle Sagan elle–méme.

(Another author’s note: Everything I have ever learned about love has been taught to me by les maîtres, Colette, Sagan, and Flaubert. Which might account for quite a bit.)

So, naturellement, when my children were petites, I wanted the same experience for them. And I also knew “the sooner the better” when it came to learning another language.

So while they were both lisping out their ABC’s, I signed up Nick and Natasha with kind, patient (and truly French this time) Madame for once-a-week lessons chez elle.

Madame was sweet and her tried-and-true teaching techniques worked well with Natasha.  Nick proved to be more of a challenge.  His mind wandered and he spent most of the class time playing with her dog.  True, he did learn to say “Give me your paw” in flawless French, but try as she could, Madame could never fire him up for anything else å la français.

Nick’s only interest in things with French accents were French fries, French’s mustard, French onion soup and Mario Lemieux.

Every Saturday he’d whine and beg and plead to ditch Madame.  But I held the barricades like an extra in Les Miz , and refused to let him out of the Bastille.

“Why do I have to learn French?” he’d wail. “I don’t even know how to spell in English yet!”

Here were my answers.  (Feel free to borrow any/all of them if you find yourself in the same bateau.)

You need to speak French because:

1. So you can read a menu.  You wouldn’t want to order tête de veau when you really wanted a hot dog, n’est-çe pas?

2. If you don’t speak French how can you appreciate the films of great cinematic auteurs Louis Malle, François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and Jerry Lewis?

3. It’s the sophisticated language of love.  What little boy wouldn’t want to emulate Charles Boyer, Jean Gabin, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Belmondo or Alain Delon (sigh)?

4. What if you needed to join the French Foreign Legion?

I’m not kidding about rule 4.

December’s issue of Vanity Fair- the one with the cover of pouty Kate Moss doing her best Brigitte Bardot impersonation (another reason to say Vive La France!)- has a harrowing story about the FFL.

The reporter goes behind the scenes and uncovers the hardships, the cruelties, the intense training, the breaking down of mind, body and spirit that goes in to turning your average depraved escaped convict into a loyal Legionnaire.

And all parties interviewed told him that, by far and away, the hardest part of the regimen was learning French.  Sacré bleu!  This is incroyable!  I bet Mrs. Wright could have whipped those legionnaire wannabes into shape at a drop of a kepi.

So I want to take this opportunity to say merci beaucoup to all out there who toil relentlessly- and sometimes thanklessly- to teach our chers enfants this noble tongue.

And when these kids grow up and spend semesters in Paris, or ski at Les Arcs, or blow a king’s ransom at Hermes or L’Ami Louis, or summer with friends at villas in Provence, or want to honeymoon at the Hotel du Cap, they will think back on their professeurs and be grateful to them.

Your wallet, on the other hand, might not be so comme il faut.

C’est la vie, mes amis.