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Paradise lost (and found)

MontezumaMontezuma exacted his revenge on me starting Friday. I think that’s hardly fair, since I have precisely zero conquistador blood in me. Whil Cortez and his band of merry murderers were plundering the New World, my ancestors were probably eking out a meager living off the land in rural Italy and, according to some research I have done, making bells in Liepzig, Germany. Either way, hardly major contributors to the extermination of a great civilization. But old Monty is evidently somewhat indiscriminate in his punishment.

I’m not sure what the source was of the affliction. DPaul and I never
ate outside the villa, and were the food we were served especially
tainted, it seems like everyone would have been as afftected. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s not recommendable. But, however strange it may sound, I didn’t mind so much, because it didn’t prevent me from doing the things I set out to do: Relaxing, reading and getting lots of rest.

I got to see my first green flash while bobbing neck-deep in bath-warm bay waters. I slept upwards of 10 hours a day. I plowed through Michael Pollan‘s fascinating The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which has truly given me a wealth of food for thought. (Although there were just enough mild inaccuracies and typos including a persistent problem with the word "prosciutto" to make my inner editor squirm.) And because I happened to be up during Saturday night (for reasons that do not need to be repeated), I got to watch one of the most spectacular electrical storms I have ever seen over the course of several hours as it crept out to the west.

So, if I had it all to do over again, I probably still would. It was a cloud with many silver linings.

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This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. lucky you for seeing Perseids meteor shower. I couldn’t see it very well where I was, darn it.

  2. Oh … actually I didn’t. It was a thunderstorm I saw on Saturday, not a meteor shower. In fact, I wasn’t aware that the Perseids were going on (though in retrospect I should have checked the celestial forecast).

  3. I was going to insert a hackneyed pun here regarding your warrior curse, but I’ll skip it and instead just welcome you back home!

  4. I am am paranoid about corn since reading that book–and obsessed with the idea of owning a tiny grass farm, sigh…

  6. Tejal: Totally … I suddenly see corn everywhere. Yesterday a friend of mine picked up a tube of butterscotch topping that was sitting on the counter in our office, and I said, “You know what that is, I bet? High-fructose corn syrup, corn starch and brown.” Add a couple of flavoring agents and preservatives, and it’s dead on.
    As for owning a grass farm, well, I want to visit one that is owned by someone who has the fire in the belly for it. I’m a city boy, personally. Why we don’t have scores of these here in foodie-libertine NorCal, I don’t know, but I yearn for some guilt-free meats.

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