Chalet Shenanigans - Chapter 15

Wherein We Meet Attila the Hun

It is that time of year again when Mr. Big makes his annual jaunt to Israel.  You will remember, (or, if you are a newbie, you need to go read the blog post from a year ago) that I did not fall in love with Tel Aviv as I was hoping I would when I agreed to accompany him last year, which is the understatement of the century.  It was, actually, the first and only time that I have requested to be flown home THAT VERY MORNING instead of staying for my allotted long weekend.  I have a chill just remembering the atrocity that was Tel Aviv.

The reason he goes to Israel (and other cities in the Middle East which don’t like to be spoken in the same sentence with Israel) this time of year is because everybody in the Western world is on vacation.  Here, in Europe, this weekend is called Pentecôte, or, Whit Sunday.  Which simply means Three Day Weekend in English.  In the US, it is Memorial Day.  Which, again, means Three Day Weekend.  Anyway, you will remember last year at this time, in the Tel Aviv Airport, Mr. Big was explaining to me why he had two separate passports, not unlike Jason Bourne.



This year, he got caught.  We had arranged to meet in Frankfurt.  I was flying from Switzerland.  He was flying from Tel Aviv.  We were going to meet in Frankfurt, (which I think must be the biggest airport in continental Europe) and fly onto Budapest, Hungary for a long weekend because it is on my Bucket List.  Poor Mr. Big got off the plane from Tel Aviv looking like a war-torn refugee.



Me:  What in God’s name is wrong with you?  You look like you’ve just gone six rounds with Mike Tyson.



Poor, dear Mr. Big:  They caught me in the Tel Aviv airport.



Me:  What do you mean they caught you?  They caught you smuggling human body parts?  They caught you spying on Israeli business practices?  They caught you soliciting a Jewish hooker?  What?



Big:  They caught me with two passports.



Me:  Oh My God.  What happens now?  Are you going to be dismembered and mailed to me in small packages?



Apparently, he was interrogated in the Tel Aviv airport by Mossad agents as to why he had two passports, (TO CIRCUMVENT EXACTLY THIS SITUATION, YOU IDIOTS!) and they scrutinized every single, solitary trip he has made in the past two years, (which was like, um, over a hundred).  They went through his wallet and scrutinized every single, solitary business card he was carrying, (which, unfortunately, included a number of Arab sheiks’ cards), and they concluded that A)  he was a legit American business guy who did business-type things all over Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and that B)  he was not out to massacre Zion.



Well, that’s a relief.

We had a 50 minute layover in Frankfurt wherein I made Mr. Big drink two beers and rubbed his head which always calms him down.  (I’m sorry the Mossad is after you, honey, here, let me rub your head a little).  Whatever.  It worked and on we went to Budapest.



Y’all are chuckling, but this is my Corporate Wife life.  Massage head.  Go to Budapest.

I had been told that Budapest, Hungary was like Prague, Czech Republic.  Wrong.  Wrong. Wrong.  Prague is achingly historic and tremendously picture-worthy in a Jeez-Can-You-Believe-This-Is Real sort of way.  Budapest, on the other hand, is a vibrant, modern city of 3 million people with ancient buildings, merely old buildings and brand new buildings all thrown into the mix.  It was a veritable metropolis compared to Prague or anything in Switzerland, for that matter.

On the way there, while Mr. Big was still recovering from his Customs experience, I was mentally reviewing everything (very little) that I actually knew about Hungary.  I knew Zsa Zsa Gabor was born there.  I knew they invented paprika, which I knew was just ground-up dried peppers, and I knew that the national soup was goulash.  That’s it.  That was the extent of my knowledge about an entire country, which is 2x more than I know about the Maldives and 3x more than I know about Chad, so there you go.

Ah, Budapest.  Here’s the funny thing.  It is a city divided.  Literally.  On one side of the river, you have Buda.  On the other side of the river, you have Pest.  Not kidding.  I wish I lived there, in Pest.  I just like saying it.  The dividing river between the two is the Danube.  The historical part is in Pest, up a hill (take the funicular, don’t try to walk) and the more modern part is in Buda, got it?

We slept on the Buda side at the Kempinski Hotel Cornivus and it was very, very modern and nice and just steps away from the main shopping street and the Hard Rock Café which was hopping because Bruce Willis was in town shooting another Die Hard movie.  What are we up to now, Die Hard 15 or so?  Anyway, the Buda side was all abuzz because of this movie being filmed.  They had streets blocked off and certain buildings that they were shooting in were closed altogether and it was just bedlam.

To escape the madness of Buda, we hiked over the Danube to Pest.  (I love saying Pest, can you tell?)  As we were crossing the bridge, I was amazed to see the size of the cruise ships that go up and down the Danube.  Now, I was well aware that people take cruises up and down the Danube, but somehow I had been picturing small boats that looked like barges.  No, no, these were legit cruise ships.  They had swimming pools and huge sun decks, etc.  Me, I’m not grown up enough yet to graduate to cruising, but someday, like when I reach the stage where I have one of those flip-top plastic pill containers with the days of the week printed on them, it might be fun.

While in Pest, ha!, we found a hotel where I wish we’d stayed.  It was beyond cute.  Mr. Big says he tried to book there but it was full.  I am sure that he was lying and he was just trying to avoid having me walk on up into the lobby to switch hotels right then and there, (which I have been known to do).  I let it go.  See how nice I am, sometimes?  But for the rest of you, if you like ambiance and charm, stay in Pest, ha!, at the St. George Hotel. 


Also, up in Pest, ha!, you’ve got your requisite palace, your requisite cathedral and you’ve got the President’s pad.  Out in front of his house/office, you’ve got your requisite Honor Guard, in this case, Hungarian soldiers.  Just about the time we arrived in front of the building, they had a Changing of the Guard, which held Mr. Big’s interest for about 30 nanoseconds and then he was ready to leave.

Whoa, there, Big Guy!  Don’t you see what they are doing?  They are goose stepping!  Mr. Big, who hasn’t read a book since 1981 when his English 101 professor made him read To Kill A Mockingbird, could not have cared less.  Me, I was fascinated!  Not having grown up behind the iron curtain, I have only read in books about how the Nazi soldiers marched.  I didn’t think anybody did it anymore, but, obviously, I was wrong.  Just for the record, the Honor Guard outside the President’s digs in Budapest are still doing it.  I hope I don’t get them into trouble.  I tried to get a picture just when their legs were at the apex of the swing but I couldn’t get my durned timing right.

Before you leave Pest, ha!, you must eat kurtoscalacs.  Yeah.  I know.  I can’t say it either.  But it is the most magnificent pastry on the planet.  Basically, it is a pastry originating in Transylvania, (who doesn’t love that?), where they wrap dough around a ceramic cylinder, bake it in an oven right there in their little booth and then roll it in cinnamon and sugar.  It is delicious.  Find one at an outdoor kiosk somewhere and then just sit on a park bench and bask in its delectableness.

We spent more time on the Buda side the next day because that is where the Antiques District is located.  As all of you know, I love saying “Antiques District” more than I love saying “Pest”.  For those of you going to visit, find your way to a street named Falk Miksa.  I’m not going to say too much about it because a lot of my friends who are dealers read this blog and they will go and buy all the good shit before I can get back there with a truck.

THERE’S NOTHING THERE TO SEE, DEALERS.  WASTE OF TIME.  MOVE ALONG.



It was during our search for antiques and other goodies that we stumbled upon Attila.  The Hun.  Yes.  We walked into one gallery because it had laaarge paintings.  I have a design weakness for buying one giant painting and making a whole room work around it.  It’s just how I roll.  Anyway, the dude in the shop saw us looking at one of his paintings and we started to chat.  Well, we chatted in English and he chatted in something that was sort of close to English.  Let’s call it Hunglish.

He could tell that we were interested in one of his paintings and that we thought it was priced right, (read Eastern European bargain that we all dream about but rarely obtain).  The problem we have, Attila, is that the thing is the size of a king size bed.  That sucker is not going to fit in the overhead.

No problem, says Attila.  I have a guy.  (My favorite people on the planet “have a guy”.  I want to be the kind of person who “has a guy”).  Attila’s guy, will, for 170 euros, build a box for the painting and drive it to our doorstep in Switzerland.  OK, people.  170 euros is the equivalent of a nice dinner.  It is the equivalent of a pair of shoes.  It is NOT the equivalent of making a four day round trip through 6 or 7 countries.



I guess our eyes were popping out of our head, because Attila quickly explained that “He is Serb, my guy”.  Well, that explains everything.  Obviously.



At this point, it was up to Mr. Big to seal the deal because that is what Mr. Big does, he seals deals.  This was the actual moment when Attilla gave Mr. Big his business card with his name on it and it was Attila.  I was swooning.  Swooning!  No, sir, your name is not actually Attila?  Yes, yes it was.



Of course, while my beloved was busy exchanging cards and email info, etc., I was thinking, “Oh my God, my blog people are never going to believe this in a million years!.  Attila.  The Hun.  With a Guy, who is Serb, who is, someday soon, going to show up at my house in Lausanne with a painting the size of king bed.  I will take his picture, just for y’all.



You just can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Chalet Shenanigans - Chapter 14

We Visit A Farmer’s Cheese Factory, A.K.A. The Kitchen

Oh, Lawd, I need to get my act together and catch up with this blog.  I swear, April and May in Switzerland have been sooo chock-a-block full of holidays that I forever had Mr. Big pokin’ his nose all up in my business from one day to the next and I haven’t been able to get a durned thing done.  You would think that a Trailing Spouse had nothing to do but sit around and eat fois gras on crackers all day, but that is just not true.  I have been busy.  Truly.



Those of you whose spouses travel constantly for work will understand this concept.  I actually don’t ever care where Mr. Big is, i.e. what country, I only want to know what day he will be home for dinner.  Because that means I have to cook something resembling an actual meal.  Seriously, when he is not home, I could not be bothered to cook.  I will snack on whatever random food item I encounter in the cupboard and call it dinner.  ‘Fess up, you other Spouses of Travelers.  Who among us hasn’t dined on the heel of a stale baguette and a sliced tomato?  No?  Y’all are lying like rugs.

I wasn’t always so nonchalant about his traveling.  I remember back in the day when we had three small kids at home, I used to blow a gasket just thinking about him sitting around a pool somewhere drinking Mai Tais while I was at home up to my elbows in toddler bodily excretions.  Our phone conversations used to go something like this:



Big:  Hey, honey.  How was your day?  What’s happening?  Everything all right at home?

Me:  Oh, my day was just lovely.  Domestic Son was suspended for punching someone who made fun of his gelled hair and Small Son is missing.  The police have been called.  How was your day?  In, where was it again, Cabo San Lucas?

Big:  It was horrible.  I shot 5 over par and my nose is burnt to a crisp.

Me:  Well, I am so sorry to hear that, Mr. Big.  Perhaps things will look brighter for you in the morning.  I have to go now because the police are in the foyer.



Now, after 26 years of wedded bliss, our phone conversations go like this:



Big:  What?

Me:  Just checking that you will not be home for dinner until next Friday night at approximately 7:30, right?

Big:  It’s 7:32.  Maybe 7:35, depending on traffic.

Me:  Great.  See you then.  Oh and Small Son is not answering the phone again which means that he needs money.

Big:  Got it.  Love you.  Bye.



Anyway, what with all the holidays interrupting the past two months, Mr. Big was home a bunch and it really threw a wrench into my schedule.  Sorry.  Let’s catch up.

I forgot to tell you about The Great Ice Fishing Expedition and the Cheese Factory Tour that I made my kids experience while they were here for their Spring Break.  Me, I am not one for scheduling things in advance during vacation because one just never knows what one is going to feel like doing the next day.  I like to play it by ear and just get a general vibe of everyone’s mood.  However, these two activities required preplanning and advanced reservations in our little village of Chatel.

Also, this was the first time that Charming Daughter had brought her boyfriend, Seal of Approval, to Europe and, since it was Seal’s first time skiing, I wanted to give the poor guy a break by providing some other activities besides skiing, eating and drinking.  (Small Son’s-girlfriend, In Like Flynn, has been on our family vacations before and she has learned to just go with the flow, i.e. “Here, just eat this, Flynn.  You’ll love it.  Yes, we know it tastes like ass, but eat it anyway”.)

Ok, so, ice fishing.  We have a little lake right in front of our chalet called Lac Vonnes.  Every Monday and Thursday during the winter, if you sign up in advance at the tourist office, you will be met at the dock by an ice fisherman and, apparently, his dog.  He leads you out onto the ice and gives you a 30-second tutorial on how to dip your line into the water.

Kudos to In Like Flynn.  The girl was a trout magnet.  Whichever hole in the ice she dipped her stick, fish magically appeared and she won the day, hands down.  Later, back at the ranch, Small Son cleaned her catch for which I whipped up a nice horseradish dipping sauce and life was good.



The next afternoon, I had signed us up in advance for what was described as “an authentic tour of an Abondance farmstead and cheese tasting”.  Well, this will be awesome, I thought to myself.  Let’s do it!  We will have a nice lunch first, since the tour doesn’t start until 2 p.m., and then go taste some Abondance cheese and watch the whole process.



All six of us walked down to the village center and had a huge, 3-course lunch.   Then, we walked to the tourist office and met the 15 other people in our group.  Up the hill comes running and puffing, no, not a tour guide, but the farmer’s wife, herself.  MY farmer’s wife.  MY farmer’s wife who chases her cows all up and down my neighborhood in the spring.  Well, hellooo, old friend!

As she is leading the tour group down the hill to her farm, I sidle up to her and tell her that I have five people in my group who do not speak French.  Can she, possibly, pretty please, give the tour in two languages?  But, madame, she tells me, I do not speak English and, besides, you can translate.  Oh, dear Lord, no, Farmer’s Wife, I cannot do this impossible task.  I am catching only about every tenth word you are saying. Her look to me said, “Yeah, whatever, lady, you are the one who signed up for the tour.  Did it say anywhere on the description that it would be conducted in English?  No?  Well, then you, as they say, are deep in the merde”.



First, she takes us to the hay barn, which I understand her to say is the barn where they keep the cows during the winter and feed them hay.  I then think she is saying that the cows are now outside because the weather is nice.



Um, no.  She was actually saying that the hay barn is where they keep the HAY in the winter and the cows, who are down in the OTHER barn will be let loose outside ONCE the weather is nice.  Those pesky little prepositions get me every time.

After visiting the hay barn, she brings us, all 21 of us, into her kitchen.  Yes, her actual kitchen.  She has the table set for 21 people.  WHERE SHE PROCEEDS TO FEED US LUNCH.  It was quite a spread, let me tell you.  Sausage, ham, four kinds of cheese, wine, fresh milk, homemade bread, honey and jam.  And coffee followed by a homemade cake.  Mind you, we have just eaten a huge lunch not 20 minutes prior to this.  But, because we are in this woman’s actual kitchen, we feel like guests and we feel obligated to eat some of everything.  Wouldn’t you?



Alrighty then.  Poor In Like Flynn, who is a miniature person and weighs about 90 pounds, peruses the heaping platters of food on the table and looks like she is going to upchuck right then and there.  Seal of Approval, on the other hand, is eyeing the homemade cake and thinking “at least we are not skiing”.  Meanwhile, I am trying to translate the VIDEOTAPE that Farmer’s Wife has started playing ON THE TV IN THE KITCHEN all about how hubby made the cheese that sits before us and how he sends out his pigs to be slaughtered and made into sausage by the dude down the street.



I cannot relate to you how stuffed we were when we rolled out of that woman’s kitchen.  It was ridiculous.  She then proceeds to merrily lead us into the room DIRECTLY ADJACENT to the kitchen, literally not 8 feet away from where they eat every day, into, you guessed it, the barn where the cows were happily going about the business of being cows.

This is where Charming Daughter lost it.  She and her full belly could not deal with 25 smelly cow butts right in her face.  She grabbed Seal’s hand and said, “We are going no further into this ‘Cheese Factory’”.  That left four of us still standing.  I am at a loss for words to explain to you what a 40 ft. by 80 ft. cement room that has housed 25 cows all winter smells like.  Sort of like if you erected a waste water treatment plant and a paper mill on top of a land fill.  In New Jersey.

Flynn, though, she was a trooper.  She went all the way to the back of the barn and petted the goats and the baby cows.  I was like, wow, girl, for a Yankee, you are one tough cookie.  By this time, both Mr. Big and Small Son had gone outside to seek fresh air.  The only reason I was still in the barn was because I was taking pictures to document the fact that Flynn was still chillin’ in the back of the barn, listening to my Farmer’s Wife nadder on in a language in which she understood not one word.  That’s strong as battery acid, right there, now.



I’m exaggerating, of course, as I tend to do.  The tour was really cool, even if you don’t speak French.  If you come to Chatel or the Portes du Soleil for vacation, look for the signs that say “fromage ici, vente directe au public” or something to that order.  That means that you have stumbled upon a farmer’s wife and her cheese and she is willing to sell some to you.  Beware, though, you might have to watch a video and smell some cow butts.  I recommend that you purchase your cheese BEFORE you visit the cow barn because after you see where it came from, you might not want to own it.



Gotta go, Mr. Big is due home soon and I’ve done my Betty Crocker impression and made a quiche.  Please, Switzerland, enough with the holidays, already.  I’m ready to return to my regular meals of a handful of dry granola and half a jar of sun-dried tomatoes.

Chalet Shenanigans - Chapter 13

Where I Eat Pig’s Cheeks and Like Them

The week before Easter was bright and sunny in the mountains.  Perfect for some last minute spring skiing and going to the garden center to fix, once and for all, my window box issues.  You will remember that I had 80 geraniums wrapped in burlap hanging upside down all winter just chillin’ in the garage and that my not-too-sturdy planter boxes were, literally, tied with string to my balcony railings.

As those of you who follow this blog on Facebook know, all of the geraniums in the garage were goners.  They were SO dead, they were growing some kind of powdery, grey, lethal-looking fungus.  They were quite scary and they went immediately to the dump before they killed somebody.

Mr. Big bit the bullet at the garden center and pulled out the credit card for 15 heavy-duty planter boxes that screwed into the railing, all the while muttering “one time purchase, buddy, one time purchase” to himself.  I was a little confused as to why there were no geraniums at the garden center and why all the ladies were standing in line with flats of pansies, of all things.  Pansies?  Aren’t you supposed to plant pansies in the fall?  Where are the geraniums, O Giant Garden Center?

Please note that this was Clue Number One that went sailing right over my head.

Leaving my beloved at home cheerily installing planter boxes, I ventured over the border into Switzerland in search of geraniums.  The Swiss are nothing if not timely and regimented.  If it’s time for geraniums, the Swiss will have geraniums.  Lo and behold, the Swiss garden center had racks of them.  They were still in their packaging straight from the nursery wholesaler and were not even on display yet, but I was so excited I pulled four flats of them right off the big rolling carts and rushed to the cashier.

Clue Number Two:  my little geranium spriglets had no price tags on them and it took forever for the clerk to even know what to charge me.

By Wednesday, all my little plants were snug in their new beds and soaking up that glorious sun.  By Easter Sunday, they were dead.  Yes, it snowed a few inches overnight and, even though they were only two inches high to begin with, they now had that rubbery, droopy, frozen look about them.  Go figure.

Well, as you can imagine, I was depressed.  Mr. Big was, I’m sure, just wondering how much those dead little spriglets, which he only got to enjoy for about 72 hours, had cost him.  So, to take our minds off of the fact that it was blizzarding during the second week of April when we were supposed to be getting out the spring clothes, we did what any normal people would do.  We took a road trip to search for sunshine.

France is a big country.  We have been a lot of places in France but we haven’t been to ALL the places in France, if you know what I mean.  There are fly-over “departements” in France just like there are fly-over states in the US.  For instance, I’ve never been to Missouri.  I actually couldn’t tell you one thing about Missouri except it has a big city in it called St. Louis and it’s somewhere in the middle, maybe near Nebraska.  This is the extent of my knowledge about Missouri.

Me:  Dude, get the map.

Big:  Why?

Me:  We are going to Missouri.

Big:  Why?

Me:  Because I am sick of looking at this snow and if I leave, maybe the Geranium Fairy will come and bring my spriglets back to life.

That is how we found ourselves in the region of Auvergne, France.  Basically, you drive south until you finally get out the Alps and hang a right.  Drive due west for 3 hours and voila, you are in the region called Auvergne.  Perhaps you have heard of the larger cities in this region.  Clermont-Ferrand?  Thiers?  St. Etienne?  Issoire?  No?  Well, me neither.  Which was, of course, what made it so perfect.

Before we left, I googled “The Most Beautiful Village in France” and “Auvergne”.  Eleven!  Auvergne had 11 beautiful villages!  It was beyond my wildest dreams.  I was hoping for one and I got eleven.  Who knew?  I jotted down the eleven names for Mr. Big to plug into his GPS and off we went.

The minute we got out of the mountains, the snow stopped, the sun was out, the rolling hills were green and starting to bloom and my spirits improved immensely.  You will remember that I make Mr. Big take only little backroads on these excursions because of my motto that states “Nothing Exciting Ever Happens on the Freeway”, but he was enjoying himself as well.  The scenery and the villages in the middle of France are really special and there wasn’t a tourist within a hundred miles.

It being Easter Sunday, it took some doing before we found a restaurant open for lunch but we did find one in a little town called Vienne on the Rhone river.  The restaurant was packed with big tables of locals with three generations at each table and there were no “a la carte” menu choices available. We were allowed to pick our drink of choice and then decide between two main dishes—pig cheeks or langoustines.   I went out on a limb with the pig cheeks because I’ve eaten beef cheeks and halibut cheeks before and they were both delicious so I wasn’t scared.  Mr. Big played it safe and opted for the shrimp.  The only reason I’m telling you this is because, when Mr. Big’s shrimp course arrived, while it appeared to be both lovely and tasty, it came with, inexplicably, a side of chocolate dipping sauce.  I do not know if this is a local “thing” or if the chef was just trying to be creative or what.  I mean, it wasn’t some Spanish “mole” sauce or some fancy dark chocolate/pink peppercorn sauce.  It was straight ol’ Hershey’s syrup.  Pig cheeks won that round.

Four courses later, we roll our stuffed selves out of the restaurant and continue on our merry way to Auvergne.  At about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Big turns to me, (because it has finally occurred to him that we are, literally, in the middle of nowhere), and says, “Trailing Spouse, which one of your eleven beautiful villages do you think will be our final destination this evening?  Because, Love of My Life, you need to make sure that whatever place we wind up in has the internet.”

Oh, crap.  I had forgotten about the Mr. Big Will Only Remain Calm If He Has Internet Rule.  Yikes.

Maintaining my composure whilst silently thinking to myself, “Man, I am so screwed”, I chirp, “Usson.  It seems to be pretty big.  Big enough to have the internet, anyway.”  Yeah, right.  I was soooo lying!  I didn’t think for a minute that there was a chance on God’s Green Earth that any of those medieval villages were going to have the internet, but, whatever.  It’s a marriage, right.  It involves compromise and an inherent understanding that one doesn’t kill one’s spouse over lack of internet access.

We pull up to Usson at about 5:30 and it is just beyond cute.  Unfortunately, it was really, really tiny.  Think miniscule.  Think hamlet.  Think whistle-stop.  As we get out of the car to go exploring, all I’m thinking is “please have internet, please have internet”.  Y’all.  There was only one inn in this entire village, population 233.  One.  I girded my loins and entered the establishment.  In my mostest, bestest, beggingest French I emplore the Madame to bestow upon two weary travelers a) the internet and b) a spare room.

Voila!  Oui, bien sur, Madame, nous avons l’internet!  (Yes, of course, ma’am, we have the internet!)  Usson, my new favorite place in France.  After I smirked a little bit at Mr. Big and flaunted my fabulousness at finding him the internet in the middle of Missouri, Madame Proprieteur took us upstairs to have a look at our room before we agreed to stay there.  This is completely normal in Europe, especially out in the countryside.  You get to approve your room before you agree to stay.  If you don’t like the room, you just ask to see something else and you wander around the establishment until you find something more to your liking.  Seriously.  It’s true.

Could you see the hotelier’s face in America if you said, “well, I’d like to see ALL your available rooms before I agree to stay here”.  He would kick you out in a New York minute and send you on your merry way to the Comfort Inn down the street.

Seriously, if you ever find yourself in the middle of France in the departement of Auvergne in a region called Puy de Dome in the petit village of Usson, go there.  The inn is called Auberge de Margot.  The food is awesome.  The proprieteurs couldn’t be any nicer.  The views from the rooms are so peaceful.  The history, all about a French queen who was exiled in this tiny place for 15 years in the 1500’s, was fascinating.  Not to mention, they have the internet.  Alright, moving along.

We only made it to 5 of the 11 villages.  The best ones were Usson, Blesle and Montpeyroux.  We found multiple, random chateaux (castles) along the way, just sitting out in the middle of nowhere waiting for a spare princess to come live in them.  The whole area was just amazing.

For example, in the little village of Blesle, founded by nuns and monks in the 800’s, yes, as in the 9th century, you or I or any old John Doe can just meander in the church, look around, touch anything you want, light a candle or whatever.  Hanging on the wall was a wooden sculpture of Jesus that had been mounted in that very same spot since 1100-something.  No ropes to keep you 10 feet away, no Plexiglas, no sign forbidding flash photography.  Just a 930-year-old Jesus hanging on the wall like it was his job.  He was hanging above a marble table THAT I SET MY BOOKBAG DOWN ON TO TAKE HIS PICTURE before I read the engraving in the marble that said that the Pope, as in THE POPE, had donated this table to the nun who founded the Blesle convent in 832 AD.  832 AD!  AND I SET MY BOOKBAG ON IT!

That would never happen in America.  Okay, well, maybe in Missouri, but not in the rest of the country.

I have to tell you one funny story about Montpeyroux before I close.  This is an old, medieval village that sits up on a hill.  The only remaining part of the original fortress at the very tippy top is The Donjon.  Now, I don’t know who coined the term, the English or the French, but they mean two completely opposite things, so there was an obvious mistranslation somewhere back in the day.  In France, a donjon is a tower.  In English, we would call it the Keep, as in where you “keep” the prisoners on bread and water rations until you cut off their heads.

Anyway, the Donjon in Montpeyroux is still standing and available for visitors to explore.  Let me just tell you that if you are A) fat or B)claustrophobic or C)scared of heights, you need not apply.  Getting to the top involved the skills of both a rock climber and a cave explorer.  I felt like Katniss Everdeen.  So, here’s the funny part.  The toidy, the toilette, the lav, the loo, the potty for the prisoners is still intact.  Apparently, the prisoners perched on a board that was situated about 500 feet in the air and let ‘er fly.  The hole in the board was/is, (although it is now covered with a sheet of Plexiglas so that no one attempts to test it out), positioned OUTSIDE of the rounded stone walls of the tower.  Yes.  Picture it.  So, if you were a prisoner in 1075 in Montpeyroux, your feet and lower legs were inside the donjon, but your butt was hanging off the edge into space.  Get it?

Can you imagine?

Hey, Missouri, you got anything like that?

Chalet Shenanigans - Chapter 12

Where We Attempt To Not Burn Down the House

Mr. Big and I made a mad dash to finish up a few renovation projects at the chalet before the kids arrived for Spring Break so that the house didn’t appear to be quite as much of a wreck as it actually is.

As per usual, most of the projects ended up about 90% complete, but at least the kids got the general idea.  I found myself saying over and over again, “Well, NEXT time you come, this will have x.y.z…” or, “When you come back for Christmas, THIS will be/not be here,” or “Try and picture x.y.z…”.  Work in progress, people, work in progress.  At least they all had clean towels and no one had to sleep on the floor.



One of the things we really pushed for before they came was installing the new fireplace.  You can’t expect someone to come for a ski holiday and not have a fire.  This was a huge undertaking.  The chalet came with a perfectly good, working, functioning fireplace, which I, of course, hated, and began to sledgehammer almost immediately upon arrival.

Most Swiss husbands come home from a long, hard day at the bank and ask their well-manicured Swiss wives, “Gleebenarbeiten Gleibenachstellerung Glaubenausfahrtich?”, which in Swiss-German means, “Hi, Hausfrau.  Did you have a lovely day with the ladies grazing through the Zurich stores?”  To which Frau will respond, “Ja, Ueli, Gebensterichtnicht und Drubenzeibenglaubengloben”, which translates to “It was fabulous.  I picked up a new Bally bag and a snappy pair of alligator pumps.”****

My poor fella comes home on Friday from a hard week in Vienna or Birmingham or wherever and, literally whimpering in fright in anticipation of my answer, whispers, “Hi, honey.  Did you destroy or throw away anything this week?” to which I reply, “Well, actually, I did go to the dump once or twice and, um, the fireplace is gone and, uh, I threw away all the lighting on the second floor and installed new ones.”  It is usually at this point that Mr. Big’s hoarding gene starts to twitch and he runs out to “his” garage to see what I’ve thrown away that I consider junk but that he considers “treasure”.



Then I get to hear, from the garage, “TRAILING SPOUSE!!!  WHERE’S THAT PIECE OF 50 MILLIMETER PLASTIC TUBING THAT I WAS SAVING?  AAAH!  WHERE’S THAT CHUNK OF CONCRETE THAT USED TO BE RIGHT THERE BEHIND THAT ROTTEN PIECE OF PLYWOOD?  FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, WOMAN, WILL YOU PLEASE JUST STOP TOUCHING MY STUFF?!!!”

He gets over it by Sunday.  Stop worrying.  If I didn’t make my weekly, clandestine trips to the dump, our new French neighbors would start to think the cast and crew from Deliverance had moved in next door.  As a matter of fact, it’s one of my favorite things to say to Mr. Big.  He knows when he hears the magic sentence, “Dude.  It looks like rednecks live here,”  that he has about 85 seconds to save anything that might remotely be considered “salvage” because I am already loading up the back of the truck for a dump trip.

Anyway, back to the fireplace.  So, I dismantled everything that I could lift by myself, that is to say, everything but the actual flue, fire box and a couple of pieces of 300-lb. concrete.  Then, I just left the rest for Mr. Big.  This is how I operate.  I get rid of the thing that’s bothering me, to the best of my ability, and then he has ZERO choice but to finish the project because his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will not allow it.  Well, apparently this whole fireplace thing was just a massive task that I massively underestimated.  The demolition continued up through the next floor into one of the bedrooms and then up into the rafters and, finally, out onto the roof.  This project overwhelmed me and I am not easily daunted.



Fast forward five months later and the new fireplace arrived just three days before the kids.  Now, the new fireplace design calls for it to be suspended from the ceiling.  And, it rotates 360 degrees.  It’s freakin’ cool, I tell you.  Let’s not even go into how many metal drill bits and metal saw blades Mr. Big consumed in the installation.  Let’s not even talk about how I finally suggested we get the jack from out of the back of the Defender to hold up this monster while we screwed it into the ceiling.  (The jack idea was mine and only mine after I discovered that Mr. Big thought it would be keen if I GOT ON ALL FOURS AND HELD UP THE STUPID FIREPLACE ON MY BACK while he screwed it into the ceiling.)

Form a mental image, please, of some 2 x 4’s spread across a gaping pit in the living room floor, upon which a tire jack is precariously balanced and extended.  Now place on top of the jack a thousand pound iron fireplace with a 6-foot flue coming out of the top that must be matched up oh-so-precisely with some pre-drilled holes in the ceiling.  Then picture a frantic Mr. Big and Trailing Spouse hanging off both sides of one ladder madly screwing in two dozen bolts before the whole thing falls like a house of cards and crashes into the basement.



That was such a fun day.

Once the cursed thing was hanging where it was supposed to, it became a simple matter then of Mr. Big just clicking the pieces of the chimney flue back together on up through the bedroom upstairs, up into the rafters and then connecting the flue to the part that sticks out of the roof.  Well, that was the plan anyway, but as so often happens in the Land of Mr. Big, something went awry.  The poor man was short about 3 feet of tubing due to, ahem, a miscalculation that his engineering-self will still not admit to.



Me:  So, does this mean I can’t light a fire?

Him:  Honey.  Can you not see the 3 feet of empty air in Small Son’s bedroom where the two ends of the pipe are not touching each other?  If you light a fire right now, you will burn the house down.

Me:  Well, technically, no.  One cannot SEE empty air, can one?  Is this situation Duct Tape fixable?

Him:  Please help me, Dear Lord, to not strangle my wife on this or any other day.

To make a long story less long, it took another week to get the right parts.  Finally, two days before the kids LEAVE, we are ready to light a fire.  We all stand around basking in the magnificence that is the new fireplace that spins oh-so-gloriously, (note that we are standing because the lounge chairs that are supposed to go around this wonder are on backorder), as Mr. Big puts match to kindling.



Oooh!  Aaaah!  It’s so cool!  But, wait.  What is all that black smoke pouring out into the room?  And, why does it appear to be, well, there’s no other way to say it, MELTING?

As Small Son runs for cover into the kitchen with his shirt pulled up over his nose to get away from the noxious fumes emanating from the fireplace that he is convinced are going to turn him sterile or worse, Charming Daughter steps up to assess the problem.  Remember, Charming Daughter works for a giant paint company and she is the Queen of Coatings.



“Hmm,” she says.  “I believe you have a faulty primer coat here.  See, see all of these bubbles on the outside?  See how they are popping and I can just rub away the paint off with my finger?  The manufacturer didn’t use a high enough heat-resistant paint.  You got gypped, Dad.  You shoulda called me before you bought this thing.”

By now poor Mr. Big’s eyes were bulging out of his skull.  He had both of my oven mitts on his hands, (because this sucker was HOT) and he was poking and smearing and cursing.  Oh, was he cursing.  GET THE CAMERA, TRAILING SPOUSE!!!  DOCUMENT THIS, THIS *&%*$ PIECE OF %$#* FIREPLACE!  THESE $%*&@S ARE GETTING AN EMAIL FROM ME LIKE THEY HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!

I’m sure he scared the living beejayzus out of Small Son’s and Charming Daughter’s girlfriend and boyfriend.  No doubt they went home and told their parents, “The skiing was great but the Dad is a lunatic”.  To try and distract them from the meltdown of both the fireplace and my husband, I had all the kids go around and open the windows to air out the house.  So much for the marshmallow roasting I had planned.  That would just be the icing on the cake to send them home with a nice case of esophageal cancer from consuming toxic marshmallows.

I’ll keep you updated on what, if anything, Mr. Big hears back from his ranting email.  Lawd knows if they even understood it.  Mr. Big runs all of the emails that he sends to French and Swiss people through Google Translate to magically turn them into French before he sends them.  I have tried to tell him that Google Translate is notorious for getting things wrong, so we’ll see.  For all we know, the fireplace company thinks he has some problem with his shirt (chemise) and not his fireplace (cheminee).  If he gets a free shirt in the mail, I fear for his sanity.

****I, of course, have no actual knowledge of Swiss German.