Crazy Signs

Ahhh.... we're back from our long-anticipated week at Club Med Beldi in Antalya, Turkey. Yes, Turkey and yes, Club Med. Our transformation to European Yuppies is complete. See, we had decided some time ago – really, after last summer's Italian adventure during which we realized that without child care, trekking through endless churches, baptisteries, and cobbled squares wasn't a vacation, it was just a trip – that this summer we would finally splurge on an all-inclusive, warm, beachy vacation. Between Jeff starting his new job, the move, the endless shopping and furnishing, the entertaining, we all needed one.

Italy, Schmitaly - watch Rome fall for a second time, moohahaha....

I spent April and May poring over the various family vacation websites – Thomson and Mark Warner here in the UK, the not-at-all-poop-suggestive babyfriendlyboltholes.com, etc. My SIL had always raved about Club Med –they go to the Dominican Republic every year, so I called to see if they had anything available with child care for the under-3 set. As it was late May, the only one with any space left was Turkey. Watching helplessly as Josie "painted" the new coffee table with strawberry milk before decoupaging it with Disney Princess stickers, I ponied up our Amex number toute de suite.

We knew it would be "hot," but having spent most of the summer in England I think our bodies all forgot what really HOOOOTTTT is. We stepped off the plane in Antalya in our long pants and fleeces and were nearly knocked out by the fiery, humid air – and that was at 9:30 p.m.! We woke up the next morning in our spartan, but serviceable, suite, walked outside, and WHAM. Yup, still hot. Still sweaty-in-your-shorts, every-hair-frizzing, Mr.-Heat-Miser HOT. Our dreams of sprinting around the tennis courts like Connor and Evert? Poof. The schedule of aerobic and "body conditioning" classes? Disintegrated. Bathing suits on, pretty much never came off the whole week.

Our vision of the truly relaxing vacation did, surprisingly (given how many of my visions/delusions are completely off-track) come to pass. Josie sprinted off to Petit Club Med "camp" every morning around 9:30. Jeff and I would swim, read until our tailbones ached, and swim some more. We took a remedial sailing lesson (mostly in French) and then added a morning sail to our repertoire. Aha, but that brings me to... the French issue. We told everyone we were going to "Turkey" for vacation, but where we landed was a tiny, purely French oasis on the Mediterranean. This, apparently, is standard for Club Med in Europe. 95% of the guests are French. 98% of the general announcements and conversations are French. And the ambiance and daily (and nightly!) entertainment? Oh, strictly French! It all comes down to a little something called "Crazy Signs."

What, you ask, are "Crazy Signs?" Likely you are picturing something like this:

Seen somewhere in Canada - don't mess with our badass meese!

And while that sign is indeed crazy, and not beyond the farcical French sense of humor – many of those Canooks are French after all – it is a mere shadow of the freak show that is Club Med Crazy Signs. It took us a few days to catch on, but as Jeff and I lounged in the shady chairs we had woken up at 5:30 a.m. to mark with various scents and personal items, we began to notice a strange occurence every day around 11:30.

Gawky 12-16 year old boys and the cooler, 12-16 year old girls gathered at the edges of the pool and on the pool's island. The smooth-jazz music that had provided such nice background to Mikail Blomkvist's endless consumption of coffee and sandwiches suddenly turned into booming French house music. And the hunky six-pack kids' sports counselor (they were all called G.O.s, while we guests were called G.M.s, boy was Jeff crushed not to have found himself in some Lost-type wish-fulfillment fantasy, somehow magically managing the Yankees from a Turkish fishing village) appeared with a LOUD microphone yakking some kind of Frenchy rap jibberjabber, inciting the teens to synchronized arm-waving and terrible-relegated-to-off-camera-Soul Train dancing. But why even try to describe this debauchery when I can show you? Check it out.

Everyone seemed to know the crazy signs, and accompanying nonsensical rap – something about let's go, let's go! I am tired, and so I will sleep, sha-ma sha-ma! [My favorite is the little kid just to the left of Monsieur Six-Pack – gazing up at him, thinking, "Eef I can do ze Crazy Signs, I too weel haf beeg muscles and win all zee chicks."] It was like a classic 50s musical – or that Oprah where the Black-Eyed Peas got 5,000 people to do the same dance. We sat, mouths agape. We had lived peacefully among these stoic, immaculately groomed and always-appropriate people for 18 months – and yet, clearly we really didn't know them. The drycleaning lady, the Cranky Potato Pancake Man, the Snippy Top-Floor neighbor, doing Crazy Signs? Ce n'est pas possible! OK, Mr. Dried Fruit Man, I can totally see doing Crazy Signs. But he's a special kind of mensch.

There's only one answer we could think of – it must be incredibly difficult to live 350-odd days a year as a French person, dressing just so, tolerating the strikes and Sunday closures, conjugating all those verbs, holding your face as though you'd just smelled something really foul (of course we are not referring to the completely laid-back French we hold as dear friends - and you know who you are). The yearly antidote? Crazy Signs! I can see some medicin writing it up now: "Fifteen minutes/day of semi-nude, quasi-epileptic wriggling, two weeks per annum."

Not even by going on a terrible, sick-making "sunset cruise" could we escape the insanity. As we clung, green and trembling, to the boat's rails, whispering quiet thanks that the familiar chairs and umbrellas were coming into sight, the skipper and accompanying GOs summoned us to the upper deck for a Very Special Throwdown. The network has issued the following warning: the footage you are about to see is extremely disturbing, and probably should not be viewed by anyone over the age of three.

How classic is that dad working the camera? I dare you to picture Martin Scorsese getting that level of freak on behind the lens. All this joking about the wacky Frenchies aside, I have to say it was really nice to be among our "other peeps" again. I realized how much I had missed being able to tune out inane conversations thanks to utter lack of comprehension. And honestly, we ended up chatting (with great effort) with more French families than the 2-3 British families there. I felt quite nostalgic making French small talk, eating Pains au Chocolat, and yes, even feeling like a schlub aside the impeccably-dressed French mothers. It didn't help that I was reading We'll always have Paris (and Provence) by Patricia Wells, and remembering with fondness our move to the City of Lights.

We even got caught up in the craziness – I was recruited, along with some other (French, of course) parents to do Crazy Signs onstage (oh, the humanity!) as part of the "Movie Marathon" show one afternoon, dressed in a red fright wig and sparkly toga (what the French think constitutes a "Saturday Night Fever" ensemble), and Josie, of course, appeared in the Petit Club show. Not sure why our daughter is the only one not wearing actual clothing, but she had a blast.

A star is born

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation and one I would highly recommend. The beach, as you'll see in the photos posted, was beautiful – not only much cooler and breezier than the pool, but incredibly peaceful with rolling mountains rising behind it. The food was incredible - each evening's meal was more creatively executed than the last, with huge, fresh fishes filleted and grilled before your eyes, piles of salads in every combination of fresh vegetables imaginable, yogurts, baklava... I think the intense sweating was the only thing that prevented us from gaining twenty pounds. I never worried for a second about Josie in the care of fun and completely attentive Petit Club workers. I read three books! Josie threw rocks (see right) And Jeff and I got some much-needed alone time. Everyone had fun - now that's a vacation! CRA-ZY!

I haven't even had time to blog about our wonderful visit with the Roger Rothman family, during which we saw the sights of Bath, the Cotswolds, and a nice chunk of the beautiful English countryside that surrounds our humble abode on Pulteney Street. I'll post the pics with descriptive captions, anyway.

Tomorrow Josie and I are joining my Parisian pal C and her children for one last hurrah at the beach in Devon. Sadly, the forecast is 50-60 degrees and cloudy/rainy. Still, I'm thrilled to see her and the British coast. It's our last "Bank Holiday" weekend of the summer, before school starts next week. Our summer started out a bit slow, in a new country with no friends, but now I feel as though it's really flown.

Makes me want to savor that last bit of summertime - crank some Bananarama, watch Kelly and Dylan fall in sweet, illicit love, sip a gin and tonic. I'm sure C will be up for at least 2 out of 3!

Sha-ma, sha-ma mes copains!

2 weeks in MI, and all we did was beach, beach, beach

Wow, sorry for that long bloggatical, but Josie and I just spent a steamy, sunny two weeks in the Moustachigan (so-named by my pal Jeff Hannah) and were just too busy, and sweaty, to blog (seriously - I tried but my fingers kept slipping off the keys, and my laptop's "condensation alert" light kept blinking). We had a wonderful time; Josie was reunited with Nom, Bee-pa and Unca Andy, and we saw bazillions of friends, played with puppies and explored most of Southeastern Michigan's finer cuisine. I'll try to hit the high - and low - points.


Boy did we pick the right time to go – total Americana week. It all kicked off with the newly re-branded "Boat Week" parade (now centered around the annual Port Huron to Mackinac Sailboat Race) in Port Huron, which was a bit different than I recall from my childhood (the Crossbow Float? the Walking Organ non-float? what happened to Girl Scouts and Shriners riding around in those little cars?) but jolly fun anyway. The next day, four generations of Davidson women met at the Golf Club pool for some swimming and lunch (thanks Gramma and Aunt Peggy!). Then my dad and I hit two Boat Night parties, seeing lots of friends old and new, high school, college and beyond. Boat Night is good, clean American fun...mostly. There was that priceless moment whilst waiting outside the Yacht Club for my friend M's husband to fetch the car and pick her up.

M: This was fun, I wish I didn't have to go so soon!
Me: Me too!
(six feet away, man is wrestled to the ground by two officers, tasered & cuffed for public urinating).
Man: Let go of me man, it was just a piss!
M: Yeah, maybe it is time for me to go.
Me: Yeah, I hear that.

Don't get me wrong, it was a terrific time. I only had to use the Port-a-John once, and now they provide hand sanitizer! And thankfully, Dad and I were home before midnight so that we could bounce up early with Miz Jo for my favorite Race Weekend activity, the Pancake Breakfast and Boat Parade. Wolfing pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausages, we would always watch the boats go out of the marina, under the bridge and down the river to the lake. I had not been in fifteen years (at least!) but it was great. Something about those big boats, festooned with flags and hunky, hungover deckhands really melts my butter.

Watchin' the boats go by

Race Day itself – everyone gathers on various beaches to "watch the race," usually a bit difficult as the sailboats are miles out, so it's really to swim, drink beer and eat fried food – was terrific, spent on the same beach with the same friends who've hosted us since I was four. Fried chicken, potato salad, seven-layer dip, even cookies shaped like sailboats. Unca Andy continued Josie's 2-week private swim tutelage and MAN is that girl a mermaid-in-training. She loves, loves, loves the water –lake and pools equally– and reaaally loved her first powerboat ride in a 1927 somefin-fancy-wooden-schmiffen-wiffen cruiser. We all loved that, actually. Thanks Mr. S.

The next week was a whirl of friends and children and beaches and pools. My friend A and I (one of the infamous Lemon Sisters) trucked to Ann Arbor for a very mini college reunion. It was the perfect 24 hours: late lunch at Dominick's (they no longer sell Amaretto Sours by the pitcher, we were both disappointed and relieved to discover, but they do still have the peel-and-eat shrimp Bethie!), stroll through campus, bit o'shopping, massage, used-book shopping (it is still us bookworm-nerds), and gorgeous dinner at Eve, a new restaurant opened by a former Top Chef contestant. Dinner was followed by a Nostalgia Pub Crawl, from Ashley's (so crowded we couldn't get in the door), to Cottage Inn, to Rick's (we may have been the sole patrons that evening), to Goodtime Charleys, where we made a BadIdeaJeans decision to order crazy college drinks in big Ball Jars, filled with all kinda crazy alkools like Maliblue Rum, Mocha-Chocalua, and possibly every ingredient contained in both the Slippery Nipple and Cement Mixer. Still, after stumbling back to the Campus Inn, we were able to stay up and chat until the wee hours. After a gorgeously greasy breakfast at the Broken Egg, we traipsed through the Art Fair, visited our respective sorority houses and our senior year group house, lazed on the grass eating Stucchi's, and finally headed back to reality –and our children– for a splashy play-date at the Troy Aquatic Center (SO fun! Those are tax dollars well-spent!).

Thursday my mom and I headed back to Ann Arbor for une vrai Art Fair promenade (hitting every booth, including the State Democrats and the Lemon Slushies), and Friday night began my 20-year high school class reunion weekend. It having been so hot, I'd had no time for shopping, and of course my husband was back in England, so I was dateless and had nothing to wear – just like high school! Thankfully, my friend E was at the ready as my escort (E and I have known each other since we were four and fought over her Hollie Hobbie colorforms, but really became friends at our 10-year reunion –proof there is value in going to these things) for both Friday night's "meet and greet" and Saturday night's main event. I had volunteered to help with the "class trivia" speech, and E valiantly offered to co-pilot; while giving Josie a bath earlier in the week I had decided it should be a song (in true Fanny Brice fashion, hoping if they laugh with you, they're not laughing at you). So E and I cooked up new lyrics to our class song, "I get by with a little help from my friends," full of references to stonewashed jeans, Motley Crue, and a bizarre Port Huron tradition called "Funeral," in which, before the football game with our crosstown rivals, we would construct fake corpses (of said crosstown players) and tie them onto the fronts of our cars and cruise around town. Aaahhhh, the good old days, before morbid pastimes like gang-violence video games and Facebook bullying took over kids' free time.

I had actually been dreading the reunion a bit... meant to lose ten pounds but in some strange fit of psychological subterfuge had actually gained ten (probably all the seven-layer dip and lemon slushies). Again, no time to shop so only had the probably too-dressy Parisian frock from last summer in my suitcase. But in the end it was quite fun – got to catch up with friends from early childhood through high school, even spending the afternoon prior on my friend A's beach with all her children (mine had refused to leave her new Beauty and the Beast dress). The white zinfandel was probably flowing a bit too freely, but hey – every 20 years or so is that really a crime? And the trivia song performance wasn't too much of a train wreck, thanks to the recruiting of our friends E, an Episcopalian priest, H, a vocal coach, and D and J, who were part of the original 1990 rendition.


The 2-week sojourn closed with more family fun, including a bbq styled by Unca Andy and a superfun trip on the Huron Lady, Port Huron's very own Bateau-Mouche (Josie called it a "Pirate Boat," of course, her obsession with Captain Hook remaining strong in our nautical village). I recommend this Lady to everyone living in or visiting the Port -- I learned some fun facts about ancient Native American lore, the production of fake rubber in Sarnia's Chemical Valley (yeah, thanks for all the cancer, eh?) and of course, hometown genius Thomas Alva Edison. Perfect way to round out the trip.

I should probably save the painful deets of our trip home for another post, save perhaps to reminisce wistfully about the good points – how one Continental staffer repeatedly paged me as "the lady flying to Brussels, with the small child, who was just here;" how yet another, when I dared ask about partner carriers that might carry flights later than the Bristol leg I would surely miss, directed me to go find out where Lufthansa flies and come back; how yet a third told me in response to my sweaty and exuberant thanks they didn't hold the Bristol flight for me, they never wait for passengers (um, thanks). Oh, and let's not forget the woman posted at the inter-terminal shuttle who told me to relax, and take my time, because the Bristol flight was delayed an hour (it wasn't). Good times. Can't imagine why this route has been canceled effective November '10.

We're back, safe and sound, but there's nooo rest for the wicked as Jeff's bro Roger and family arrived yesterday for lots o' gobsmacking fun. With the cheesetastic Bath Bus Tour and fascinating Roman Baths themselves under our belts, we've got 4 days left to cram in Cotswolds beauty, ale tasting, bike rides on the Avon, and lots of curry.

We'll close with Josie's latest favorite song, a ditty sure to battle Katy Perry and Snoop for the summer's top hit. It's "Wind the Bobbin Up," here on BATH 23FM, signing out.