A Most Unreliable Narrator Issue #117 Corduroy Season
Travel the world in comfort.
Dear Internet,
Hell to the fuck yes.
We leave for our cruise in a little over 90 days. Hotels are booked in Rome and Barcelona. I’m writing packing lists and list of things to do in various cities. (I’ve been to Rome and Barcelona before, but it was over a decade ago so memory is fuzzy.) I cannot wait to show J all that Rome has to offer like the Vatican Museum, Colosseum, Pantheon, and Borghese Gallery and Museum. I can revel in my Caravaggios once again.
I got turned on to Caravaggio in college (my second Bachelor’s degree is in Art History) and I just love the Baroque period. Many, many of Caravaggio’s works are scattered through Rome so I knocked a lot off my list. The cruise will be stopping at a port an hour away from Florence so seeing his work at the Uffizi is high on the list.
Even though Caravaggio (the bad boy of the Baroque period who could give Byron a run for his money) has my heart, I’m super excited to see the work of Artemisia Gentilesch, Caravaggio’s contemporary. Her Judith Slaying Holofrenes, which is at the Uffizi, is similar but yet better than Caravaggio’s version. I changed my banner for FB and Twitter to Gentilesch’s version. Fuck the man.
We’re on Viking’s (Travel the world in Comfort. Thanks PBS!) Iconic Western Mediterranean from Rome to Barcelona with stops in Pisa/Florence and Marseille. (The opposite direction of the cruise stops in Monaco, but we do not.) I’ve been bouncing off the walls the last few weeks as I make my lists, research, and gaze at pretty pictures on Insta. J is not a person who gets excited about such things, so he is, as he says, tolerating my behaviour. I give no fucks as we have not been on vacation in years. My vacation time is eaten up over the year with stays with friends here and there but a full fledge vacation? Not since 2012. At least.
As I said a few weeks ago, Karen, who is not a Karen, came to visit was the inspiration for me to get back on the WW program. I did say pish it last year because I could not see the difference between it and counting calories and people cheat like fuck on the damned point system. But honestly? This time seems easier. I’m trying to not get wrapped in my head about fitting in the airplane seats come December. Even when I was thinner, flights were still a pain in the ass because I’m tall and I have big hips and shoulders even without the fat covering them. Thinking about it this way strangely takes off a lot of stress about feeling embarrassed asking for an extender.
(Poor J. I verified our flights with Viking the other day and I stuck him on the aisle seat going to and fro. He’d prefer the window, but he conceded that with my peanut sized bladder, it’s probably easier crawling over him to get to the bathroom over crawling over some stranger. He was a pretzel when we flew to EU for our honeymoon and he’s not looking forward to the flights of this trip. (The seating of the plane is 3-3-3 whereas our last European trip was 2-3-2 which gave us our own little aisle.))
I’m not quite two weeks in for WW and it’s going well. My first week weigh in told me I lost 6lbs which I find hard to believe (I did weigh naked in the same spot to keep it consistent). But hey, who am I to argue? I will not be surprised to find this upcoming weigh in to be about the same or maybe even a pound or two heavier. Six pounds in a week seems a bit crazy considering I didn’t skimp on meals and kept within the point system.
I’m trying to think about food as fuel and not as something to do. I really wished I liked ground turkey and chicken (or turkey or chicken sausage) to swap out for beef and fatty parts of pork but it’s just not in the cards. I’ve been doing research on the line for recipes but a lot of them seem to require an air fryer (which we don’t have) and a microwave (which we don’t have at the cabin). There are frozen foods you can eat but with no microwave, it’s difficult. At the cabin we don’t have the space in cupboards and the fridge to do meal prep. We buy food the European way – as we need it. We do small shops every week and a large shop about once a month.
I’m eating so many veggies and fruit my colon hasn’t been this clean since my colonoscopy.
I canceled my online trainer and signed up for Apple Fitness+ which I’m starting this week. I reached out to a bunch of local trainers only they are booked with tourists unless I want to attend a 6:45 a.m. class twice a week which consists mainly of locals. Maybe.
The offerings of Fitness+ has greatly increased since its release in 2021. It’s also significantly cheaper than my online trainer, which granted has a lot of positives, but with interest rates for student loans about to be reapplied again in September, I have to be conscious of where my money is going.
I’ve put a lot of research of what I want from a fitness app and I think I finally hit the jackpot. We do not have an Apple TV but I can do the workouts via my iPad or iPhone which is handy. Considering my online trainer was all through my iPhone, it wasn’t a great impediment that I thought it was going to be.
Once we’re back in KY, I’ll look into a personal trainer there to keep me honest while still keeping Fitness+. Joyn is now all on YouTube which is amazing.
(One thing Best Kate noticed when she was looking at Fitness+ is one of the lead people in the campaign was Rubenesque which helps with feeling seen about fitness and exercise and that the world is not built just for skinny folk. Joyn’s instructors also come in all shapes and sizes which is one of the reasons I want to continue to support them.)
J is running gardening errands and I have a date with Kristin at 1-ish to watch PBS. I will also be planting mums (if J can find them) and getting ready for the week.
Have a stupendous week.
Things I Recently Wrote
If you read #97.5, you’ll recall I’ve ditched the We’ll Read Anything Once (Twice If We Like it) book review blog for a newsletter of the same name.
What I’m Reading
FINISH A FUCKING BOOK LISA BEFORE STARTING A NEW ONE.
The 7/12 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle An Agatha Christie-esque locked room mystery
Reputation Mean girls with Jane Austen thrown in
Dissolution Lawyer turned sleuth in Tudor England
The Widow Queen 10th C Poland. A princess used as a pawn to form alliances, but she has other plans
Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph Biography on John Keats
A Curious History of Sex A very skim the top look but highly interesting, history of sex
These Impossible Things Three Muslim women on the precipice of graduating from college come together and fall apart navigating who they are and what they mean to each other
Glenarvon Byron’s ex-lover was so distraught about their breakup, she wrote a roman à clef about their relationship
Circe A beguiling telling of the life of the goddess Circe
Want to see what I’m reading or watching? Check out my list for 2022!
Wonderful Thing
Fall.
I know we’re in the dog days of summer, but with hoodie weather dominating N. Michigan for the last several months, I’m ready for Fall.
I want cake donuts, fresh apple cider, pashminas, leggings, Ugg boots, and long sweaters. I want hot soups, fresh bread, and the smell of rotting and mulching leaves. I want cozy slippers, waning moons, the squeal of kids on Halloween, and the swish swish of corduroy pants.
And cute little sweaters for the dog.
To pumpkin spice everything,
lisa x