If you write a blog long enough, as I have these past three years, you befriend fellow bloggers in different parts of the country and/or world. Susie Lindau is one of my blogger buds. She resides in Colorado. She’s a very upbeat person, a devoted wife, mother, sportswoman and nature lover — basically my complete antithesis, but somehow we click. Go figure. This weekend she emailed me from her smartphone:
Susie: I am skiing right now!
I emailed her back in-between trips to and from my Chinese laundromat
Me: Barf.
I utterly loathe skiing. I skied once in Vermont fifteen years ago with my ex, Voom. That trip was a near total disaster. I say I skied but to be truthful, based on one lesson that lasted half the length of a sneeze, I almost required airlifting off the bunny slope. As humiliating as inching down a minor grade was for me, the lodging was the ultimate nightmare.
We stayed at a lesbian-owned and operated inn populated by ultra crunchy women. They looked at us, two city slickers in J. Crew attire that arrived in a red convertible Miata in the dead of winter, with sheer contempt. The hate was so palpable we felt like the enemy, i.e., honorary heterosexuals.
Voom, possibly under the influence of one too many martinis, booked this lodging. When I saw that the sign outside the place spelled “woman” w-o-m-y-n, I had a sinking feeling. The house was inundated with cats. There was a cat in every room for every guest. I am fiercely allergic. Needless to say, kicking our cat out — an angora the size of Rhode Island — invited more resentment.
You stay on your side of the glass and I’ll stay on mine.
The first thing we wanted was booze, but they were anti-alcohol. We couldn’t even pull a Kitty Dukakis and cut turpentine with Coke. They didn’t have Coke, for they were also anti-caffeine. If they had any alcoholic cleaning products on the premises, they probably locked them in a vault. There was no herbal essence, either. We couldn’t drink or smoke, and since I could barely breathe in that cat-infested environment, we couldn’t get frisky with each other, either.
Horndog me had the genius idea that we should just open the window so we could hump each other wicked fast. It was frigid cold outside so the temperature in our room plummeted from 70 to 10 in about three minutes. Voom couldn’t climax. She was certain that someone was outside our door listening. A lifelong romantic with the gift of speaking in poetic verse, I said:
Me: You’re crazy. Relax. It’s probably just a fuckin’ cat.
She insisted I go to the door and check out what was going on. As soon as I opened the door, a pygmy-sized lesbian that probably lived in a bookshelf devoted to the study of mulch scampered down the hall. I seem to recall on all fours. I doubt that the sight of me in the altogether was what drove her away. That was the time when I was still under forty, flab-free and fit, but I’ve always been alabaster white. Possibly the glow from my pelt was blinding.
The next day at the communal breakfast we learned that they only served goat’s milk. They raised goats. I recall making eye contact with one outside a window.
Not this particular one.
The pancakes they served were also made with goat’s milk. I like goat cheese, but the pancakes tasted gamey. It was an acquired taste that Voom lacked.
They only had herbal tea. Since I am a tea drinker, I was okay with that. Voom is a huge coffee drinker, especially first thing in the morning. She was nearing her breaking point. They dug up some Nescafé, but I imagined that it had been sitting deep in a well going back to the Carter administration.
One of the other guests, apparently a longtime visitor to this labor camp, said something stunningly insensitive about the Holocaust. The hosts agreed. That was the last straw. Voom is Jewish and even though I am predominantly Italian I am a bit Jewish on my mother’s side. I expect with my ever-growing schnoz I’ll soon be a dead ringer for the love child of Golda Meier and Lillian Hellman, but I digress. I knew the remark was aimed at us and I simply would not let that anti-Semitic crack slide. I detonated. They refunded our deposit and asked us to leave. When my significant other heard that, she finally had her long-delayed orgasm. It was so thunderous I recall snow shaking off tree branches.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t take off as fast as we wanted. What prompted the delay was the goat’s milk products combined with that ghastly instant coffee brew that they served my inamorata. The breakfast rocketed through her system at warp-speed. As I was packing our bags, she was in Sappho’s sitting room purging such a whale of a deposit she clogged the plumbing. As we drove away, Voom revealed the plumbing problem that awaited them, declaring:
Voom: Victory is mine!
I pointed out that they helped pack our car. I interpreted that gesture as our hosts being contrite considering that we did bat on the same team. My partner had a more jaundiced view of the last minute hospitality: she thought that they could not get rid of us fast enough. Looking back I think her take was spot-on.
We headed to a bed and breakfast run by a warm British woman named Ruth that brought to mind Mary Poppins. We gushed our tale of woe. She made us hot cocoa and knit us both mittens.
Charcoal and black – perfect colors to highlight the bloodshot in my eyes!
She made us feel so welcome that we asked her to adopt us.
Lame Adventures 
Good one!!!
LikeLike
Thanks R!
LikeLike
It sounds like that ski resort was run by nofunians rather than lesbians. Talk about the “House of No.” I can do without alcohol, but I’m betting that even though it was Vermont, they’d have a problem with the sweet sweet cheeba. Talk about no fun. I’m glad their plumbing was ruined.
The Holocaust gag is really mind-blowing. It’s amazing to me how in some circles you’re expected to bleed for all of suffering humanity, but it’s still cool to kick the Jews. Racism with a master’s degree.
I don’t have to ask if Voom’s first name is VaVa. Did you read a lot of comics as a kid? If that sounds like a dig, I assure you, it’s not–your names are wicked awesome. So do you have any bad exes who are named for villains?–the Laughing Skull, perhaps? KillGoddess? The Shrug?
LikeLike
Also, I think it generally speaks favorably of a person when they speak favorably of their exes. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes for whatever reason you might pick a dud, and I don’t expect people to speak glowingly about a jerk.
But sometimes, when every person that somebody has dated is an abusive ass, you have to wonder, what is it about you that you would be attracted to these awful people?
Speaking well of the people who once meant so much to you speaks, I think, to a pretty well-developed sense of self.
LikeLike
Awwwwwwwww, thanks Smak. That’s sweet.
LikeLike
“Nofunians” — you’ve got that right, Smak! I don’t think that Voom’s emission was enough to destroy the plumbing, but there was probably some very unpleasant plunging to clear the clogged pipes.
The sub-title when our breakfast mates at that table made that rude comment was “New York Jews”. We did return to Vermont four years later. Roman Polanski’s The Pianist had just opened wide. It was a completely sold out screening at my Upper West Side multiplex, so Voom suggested that we just catch it in Vermont. There were three people including us in the theater. Voom waved her hand at the sea of empty seats and announced, “I present you with all the Jews in Vermont.”
I read Mad magazine religiously in my youth. Looking back, it was my religion.
Those are GREAT bad exes names! Fortunately, almost all of mine are good peeps. Even the single difficult one from Way Back When seems to be on Chill pills now.
LikeLike
Okay. Hil-fuckining-arious. Sorry to hear about the goat milk issues. Love the fact that she clogged the pipes, though. A girl after my own heart!
I’ve had my 1st SB beer(okay 1/2 a beer cuz the Bride used 1.5 in her chili recipe). So this may be harder to put together via iPad than usual. Which, in itself is embarrassing that I type so poorly stoned cold sober.
I have a lot of issues with B&B’s. not all are negative, mind you. But they are issues nonetheless. Like how loud is acceptable when in the throes of passion? As a self-professed member of the enemy (I.e. heterosexual) we only do B&B’s when we are kid free so we are more inclined to get our freaks on in a responsible Republican sort of way. Okay, that might be a little oxymoronic or just plain moronic, you tell me. No, I can’t really tell you what Republican freak is like fully cuz the Bride is actually a Democrat.
Also, in terms of skiing, I am a bit of a snob in that I only ski in The Rockies despite growing up in the foothills of the Berkshires. Rachel Maddow land. New England Appalachians. Small hills relative to Beaver Creek and Vail. Nevertheless I am closer to you, dear LA woman, in that learning to ski late in life has severely retarded my development on the slopes. Just ask my family. They will stop laughing long enough to tell you in detail.
The anti-Semitism stuff is hard to fathom in what should have been a more sensitive group. How different is a pink triangle from a yellow star, anyway???
Gotta grab another beer.
LikeLike
Congrats on guzzling SB suds early in the afternoon. Pounding not very exciting water over here since rent was due Friday. I would never consider my development on the slopes as retarded. I believe the words incapable, incompetent and inept all apply to me. It was pretty shocking that people that probably baked their own buttons out of dried berries could be so insensitive to their fellow lesbian just because we wore J. Crew sweaters, leather footwear and Voom drove sex on wheels. I like you plenty and you’re white, male, straight, Catholic and a Republican, undoubtedly their definition of Satan.
Pass me one of your brews.
LikeLike
Only you, dear one, can work Golda Meir, Kitty Dukakis, turpentine, skiing, goat’s milk, gamey, Lillian Hellman and Susan Lindau into a post and make it WORK!
LikeLike
Thanks Jules, if I was completely on my game, I would have worked you into it, too!
LikeLike
oh..no need to. perhaps when I come to visit my sister in NJ, we’ll hang out for a day, then you can write about the shenanigans we get into!
LikeLike
Absolutely Jules!
LikeLike
Bah they sound like what my lesbian friends used to call ‘militant dykes’ who seem to think their sexuality makes them better than everyone else and also allergic to meat around here (you should have seen some of their faces when they found out I was ‘only Bi’ hehe). So glad her tummy troubles left them the present they deserved and you found a nice place to stay after that! xox
LikeLike
Yeah, pal, it sounds you’ve met lady-loving ladies like that, too. Voom did time her “tummy troubles” quite well.
LikeLike
Oh yeah, I lived with one who we (her girlfriend and I) convinced to stop being such a muppet eventually!
Shame there are people like that around but some of them are nice underneath all the rubbish 😉
LikeLike
True, but who has the energy to dig through all that rubbish?
LikeLike
I probably would have found the cat to be the only comfort in an otherwise hostile environment. Then again I’m not allergic to cats. I would imagine though that everything in the room would get covered in cat hair…..and if it is anything like my dog’s hair it seems as if it is made of velcro. (I once vacuumed my car for 3 hours and still did not get all the dog hair out.)
LikeLike
When we opened the door to our room, that mountain of a cat was lying right in the center of the bed. I recall sneezing before we even opened the door. I had such difficulty breathing I would have gladly slept in an iron lung. I LOVE the velcro comparison! Thanks for sharing, buddy!
LikeLike
I cannot even believe you tried to stay one minute in that place?? Communal breakfast– NEVER and Cats? oh lordy..how high was Voom when she made these hellish reservations?
And I concur this was flipping hilarious..
LikeLike
At first we tried to be polite, plus we arrived in the dead of night, but it was probably seven in the evening. The dead of night starts around five out there. From that trip on, I was completely informed about where we were going and Voom always asked, “Do you have cats?”
Glad you were aumsed Audra!
LikeLike
I think this whole story could be made into an episode of Portlandia. (That’s the highest complement coming from me, BTW.)
LikeLike
I accept the high compliment Emily! It’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to winning an Emmy award. Highly flattered over here!
LikeLike
Next time, Lame, start with Mary Poppins. At the very least you’ll have warm hands.
LikeLike
Good advice Kate.
LikeLike
Hilarious the second time too and I am not on a cell phone reading it while waiting in a lift line! You crack me up!
But as for the Holocaust remark, I will never understand those that find racism funny….
Thanks for the nice shout! Our interests may be opposite, but I think we share the most important thing – Sense of humor!
Keep those lame adventures coming!
LikeLike
Will do buddy!
LikeLike
I can see you in my mind’s eye inching forwards down a flat ski slope, LA. I’ve never, ever, gone skiing… if I did, I’d probably go uphill!
Glad to hear that you found your Mary Poppins! Sounds much more pleasant than the other place – and I like cats!
LikeLike
Oh, it was Tom! Skiing over age 35 is not anything I would ever recommend.
LikeLike
Love this one! Suppose this means you won’t be coming to ski the Andes? Oh, well, we won’t be either. But we will enjoy LOOKING at them! Hope you’ll come. Mittens on the house!
Hugs,
Kathy
LikeLike
I can handle looking at the Andes with you guys. Milton likes to watch, too. Good to hear from you Kathy. I know you’re swamped these days dear friend. It’s very cool that you made it over here. Thanks!
LikeLike
It’s a wonder you don’t have Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome after that unholy experience! This had me cracking up — I love the two foot lesbian scampering down the hall — on all fours!
LikeLike
Plus remember Sandee that I glimpsed that eavesdropper scurrying while standing stark naked! Glad that you found my misery entertaining.
LikeLike
That place sounds like my personal vision of hell between the cats and the lack of any vices. Your ex was right to blow up their plumbing. The most important part of this story is that you learned not to ski though, because skiing is bullshit.
LikeLike
RG, this comment nails that trip completely, including my feelings about skiing. Good to hear from you pal!
LikeLike
Funny…and I don’t like to ski either. I spend too much time on my ass and it’s too damn cold. I don’t do anything outside in the winter.
LikeLike
Wendy, where you are I imagine it’s even colder than down here. I’d be inclined to hibernate, too.
LikeLike
V,
While I love skiing, had I been incarcerated in the B&B from hell, I probably would have given it up, too. Great post, as always.
Cathy
LikeLike
I am sure that inn would have even tried the patience of someone as open-minded and reasonable as you, Cathy, but you would have had the brains to head to Ruth’s house in the first place. Thanks for checking in!
LikeLike
I love this. Skiing was absolutely disastrous for me and I stopped after the 2nd attempt. I’m enough of a klutz on my own, I don’t need to be cold and wet, too. Uhh, the B&B? It’s like you were me and Derwood, although Lesbians love Derwood. Those womyn sound like the bookstore owners on Portlandia, which is funny in a sitcom but not in real life. Anyone that intense irritates me like a yeast infection. And the Jews comment is bullshit. How’s your tolerance you militants? That’s just awful.
Glad you are writing something because I can’t think of anything.
LikeLike
Hey, Maggie, Emily (Wee Cee’s mom), also compared our experience to Portlandia. You’re in great company. The comparison to a yeast infection is spot-on.
You could write a follow-up football post with your reflections about the Super Bowl, or if you prefer, the half-time entertainment.
LikeLike
I don’t mind skiing. I like it. I don’t like driving to the ski slope, getting out of the car, trudging up to the lift, riding the lift, and getting off the lift. I don’t like the smelly, wet lodges. Someone needs to invent a better way to enjoy that sport. I used to love snowboarding, but it involved all those things, plus an even more hazardous dismount from the lift.
Glad you found a B&B more to your liking! B&B’s should be all about comfort, not a forced march or a prison camp.
LikeLike
If Apple ever makes an iSki app that gets you directly from your iPhone to the slopes I’ll spring for it for you SDS. That’s a promise.
LikeLike
The only way to avoid that hassle is to pony up the cabbage and rent a ski-in/ski-out condo. If you really love to ski then that’s what I would recommend. Of course if you have more sense than that you’d probably pay for your kid’s 1st semester in college with what that would probably cost.
LikeLike
If I could afford that expense, I’d simply tour Europe in spring or fall. Plus I don’t have a kid. I’m at heart an altruist; i.e., no need to taint a child with my genes. My sister pounced on the breeding grenade, and thus far, has done a commendable job raising Sweet Pea.
LikeLike
I sorta had a sense you were offspring-free. I’d meant to direct my comment to Snoring Dog Studio. I’d
hit respond to the wrong comment.
LikeLike
I hate it when that happens.
LikeLike
Love that!
LikeLike
“…the love child of Golda Meier and Lillian Hellman” Ha! Love that line.
This was really funny. I was kind of bummed when it ended, so if you could get this into a novelization, I would appreciate it.
LikeLike
That means a lot coming from a guy that writes one of of my favorite blogs on WordPress, Mike. Thanks! I’m very glad that me looking like the spawn of Golda/Lillian does not produce an image in your mind requiring brain bleaching.
LikeLike
I think someone mentioned but this scenario is straight out of Portlandia’s Women and Women First. Sounds like a great time!
LikeLike
Yes, Mike, that’s been the buzz on this one. I’ve know about that show, but I’ve never watched. It might be time to tune in. Thanks for visiting Lame Adventures-land and for taking the time to comment. As for the time Voom and I had at the first inn, let’s just say that the best thing about it was that there wasn’t any bear traps lying around for us to walk into.
LikeLike
Well, like we always say when something sucky happens: at the very least it’s blog fodder.
LikeLike
WE do say that over here, too! Do we know each other? Or, just happen to speak the same lingo?
LikeLike
Hmm…I don’t think we do know each other, but we may just be on the same wavelength. Nice to meet you 🙂
LikeLike
Ditto!
LikeLike
I love your nicknames for people. I think a friend of mine must have been at the same place in Vermont because she said it was a nightmare. Full of Birkenstock-clad, natural fiber-wearing womyn with their cats (she’s a dog person). She pulled up in her car (and it was a Subaru!) and got the Evil Eye. Suffice it to say she didn’t enjoy herself there.
LikeLike
That does sound like the place! I remember the goats, but I don’t recall seeing any dogs. Did your friend see goats? Voom and I are dog people. The name Voom fits Voom. She always had to drive some cool kind of wheels and was rather va va in the appearance department. She was always quite a character, too. We were once in a market here on the Upper West Side that wasn’t Fairway (a rare occurrence) and we couldn’t find the butter. Thinking hard, I said, “If I was butter where would I be?” Voom suggested, “Slathered all over your body.” A grandmother-type looked at us with wide eyes.
LikeLike
The odd (or sad) thing is that I am often wandering around my house utilizing the same idiom when trying to find lost items. The sadder thing is that Nobody ever suggests it would be slathered all over my body.
LikeLike
Maybe the time has come to stop waning and start waxing.
LikeLike
I guess that’s in response to my off-line comment re the sweater. Touché.
Sent from my iPhone
LikeLike
That comment didn’t exactly bring Sasquatch to mind …
LikeLike
I said sweater, not floor length mink coat. Thank you very much. Feisty tonight, aren’t you?
LikeLike
Feisty? I’m not going to go all Jim Harbaugh on you. Then again, feisty is not the same as insane.
LikeLike
I know u don’t watch much commercial TV. But Jello Pudding is doing a great tie in with the Super Bowl giving away tons of free pudding tomorrow in SF–stating that they are the big winner, not Baltimore. I saw it last night during the follow-on show on CBS.
LikeLike
Yes, I saw that ad, too. So are you cutting work tomorrow to fly out west for a Jello pudding cup?
LikeLike
I’d fly just about anywhere for free pudding. Except Butterscotch.
LikeLike
Maybe it would easier to scratch that itch if you just drove to your neighborhood Pathmark.
LikeLike
It’s 50-50 on whether the lure is the pudding or the “free.”
LikeLike
If it’s still made with dairy, which I suspect it is (along with a ton of chemical additives in the processing), the lure is gone over here.
LikeLike
It is so hilarious that a tiny text from Susie could bring on the crazy cat-infested Nazi Bed and Breakfast memory. Sorry about the rough trip, but you have a way of cracking me up even when you seem to have a bad day. At least you met a nice Mary Poppins Lady in the end and got some mittens in the process 🙂
LikeLike
This post truly came out of a few email exchanges with the Wild Rider loving skiing. Gee, maybe if I hung out with her in real life I would have written a hit TV series by now; my own version of Portlandia.
LikeLike
Sounds like your hosts were experts at injecting hostility in hospitality. Why is it that ex-people (ex-smokers, ex-fat people, ex-carnivores, ex-drinkers) think they have a license to stick their nose in the air and feel a whole lot superior to anyone who has not followed their same rose-petal-strewn path? They tell me skiing is fun, but I can find plenty of ways to soil my underwear without falling down an ice covered mountain. To those who enjoy it, go for it, have fun. I won’t be judgmental or critical of your choice of hobbies, just don’t look down on me when I’m playing Dixie on a kazoo through my left nostril.
LikeLike
I feel the exact same way about sanctimonious types Russell even though I lack your impressive dexterity in the department of making music by nostril. That would be a YouTube video with the potential to go viral.
LikeLike
Loved it. You truly have the gift of (gutturally torn away layers of) delivery. Another travel classic is in the books. Cheers!
LikeLike
Awwwwwwwwwww, thanks Bob.
LikeLike