topotales

The Pnut and I are, technically, already married.  That is, we have a certificate saying we are married, and we spent some time in front of a judge and four family members last June.  But this October 3, when all of our close friends and family meet up in Val di Mello, is the day that we look forward to.  We know that marriage isn’t easy.  We know that life isn’t easy.  And we are looking forward to the love and support of all of our friends and family on the day that they witness us commit our lives to each other, and during the years to come.  And we look forward to doing this in a place that is holy to us.

Pnut and I have shared some of the most wonderful moments of our time together in Val di Mello.  

That includes the epic when we were caught in the dark on the descent from Luna Nascente, sleeping in a cave on our ropes for warmth and sporking with Heikino. 

Last year, Amy and Filippo celebrated their wedding there.  We have spent so many evenings (and mornings, and rainy days) with our friends at the campsite bar that the owners are like family (which means that -yes- that is where dinner (sans donkey sauce) shall be gobbled down and -yes- there shall be Italian karaoke… again).

Basically, Val di Mello is the most beautiful, most glorious valley imaginable.  The kind of place that brings you to your knees in awe of its inspirational beauty, its kind residents, its sparkling waterfalls, granite peaks and science-friction climbing and bouldering. 

Even if you’re not coming to our ceremony in October, if you’re ever in Italy this is a valley well worth a visit, any time of year.  Be sure to stop by the campsite for an amazing home-cooked meal… and karaoke.

Apparently there are some things about me you should know. The Pnut would like to provide you with the following information before we continue our relationship lest it be all in vain. That is, … before you and I, dear reader, continue our relationship, not P and I. It’s too late for him, he’s gone and married me now.

Clean!  And Garlanded!

1.) She is the most annoying person to fly with. First of all she claims the window seat as if it was some sort of right, and just to sleep the whole time. If you want to have a glance outside or just go to the bathroom you’d get in trouble because you are moving, and since she’s laying on you to be more comfy and sleep better, you are waking her up. After she eats she drops all her wastes on your little table-tray and keeps on sleeping; She only wakes up if there’s a Bollywood movie or during landing or turbulence when she almost dismembers your arms.

(In my defense, more airlines should offer Bollywood films for viewing!)

2.) She believes she’s the great bastard granddaughter of some Portuguese king ruling Goa in India back in the days. Therefore she claims she’s a princess.

(Because it’s true! My mother’s parents were from Goa, India. It is well known family lore that one of my great-great (and maybe one or two more greats) grandfathers was the bastard son of a Portuguese king!!!  Now where’s my fucking crown?).

3.) She snores and talks on sleep. Like big conversations. When we started dating I though she wanted to talk so I was used to reply. Now I know better…

(I don’t snore. The rest is true though. I have also been known to walk around in my sleep from time to time.)

4.) She hates horror/ thriller movies or books. If, after hours of bitching and moaning, I manage to watch a ‘”scary” movie with her usually she has to have total control of the Dvd remote control…to fast forwards the scary parts (so that she knows what happens and she won’t be scared to watch them at normal speed…) or to mute the audio.

5.) She is a talented climber. When we stay off climbing a while and we go back to the wall I feel like a jelly tight to a rope, she climbs even better then when we stopped. That’s super annoying.

(This from the guy for whom any pile of Dolomite choss is “good rock”. I’m not sure I want to know what ”jelly tight to a rope” looks like!)

6.) She doesn’t like to be called “rospo”: toad. I use this nickname to call her when she’s been naughty or when she did something bad (happens pretty often…).

(”rospo” is NOT A NICKNAME. It’s an insult. I refuse to respond!)

7.) She’s as delicate as a little elephant. With her around gravity is a dreadful enemy for any of your belongings. It’s a strange effect, really…

(Yeah, I’m Chunk from The Goonies. And the more expensive the item, the less time you have to wait before I smash it. Three… two…)

8.) She loves t-shirts with weird messages (I think her favorite ones are “I scare my family” and ” I’m like a f*cking ray of sunshine, aren’t I?!?”. There was also one about a d*ck, but I forgot what it says…)

(It says “Suck my dick”. But my favorite all time t-shirt I ever owned says “Your mullet just winked at me” - you know, for the lesbian bars - but it didn’t fit so I gave it to Paolo.)

9) When we have to go out, and for some reasons we want to dress up, she changes idea 558738758564 times about what dress or combination of clothes she’s gonna wear. Eventually she chooses the same old pair of jeans…

(The jeans are super comfy! Plus, they make my butt look cute)

10) Once, when she was a teenager, she ran away from home with a friend to be caught some time after on the same moment and place by the cops and the Mafia…

(whachyagonnadoabowdit?)

11) She is food jealous. Let me explain: you are there, enjoying your meal (you prepared it yourself after checking 10 times if Topo was hungry, “no thanks” is usually the answer). All the sudden you don’t hear any Topo-noises anymore, you look at her and see that she’s cross-armed, crooked-lipped and looking enviously at your meal. At this point here’s the typical conversation:

P: “what? Want some?”

T: (with the sweeeeeetest voice) “yes pleeeeeeese” (big smile);

P:”but…you said you weren’t hungry. If I knew I would have cooked for you!!!”,;

T:”I know, I wasn’t hungry. Now I am. Can I have some of the EXACT same kind? Otherwise I get jealous and I won’t love you no more”.

12. She has funny looking pinky toes.

They do look slightly like boiled shrimp, but I swear it’s from the climbing shoes!)

As you can see, we have embarked upon married life with our usual mix of very high expectations and dirtbaggery. Coming soon… a list of things you should know about the Pnut.

‘Sup, we’re married!

(Photos are courtesy of this wonderful photographer who popped by for a whole five minutes and took about 100 amazing photographs.  I’ll link her in as soon as I find her back!)

 

Friday night:

Hansosan, his daughter and I head down to Fontainebleau to catch up with P.  The hansosan has decided to come along despite an extremely painful bursitis of the elbow.  About a half hour past Paris I ask him to pull over so I can vomit copiously at a gas station.  I’d forgotten my meds.  Ten minutes back on the road, and his daughter faints in the car.  This is not something unexpected, as she has spent the last year battling unexplained fainting fits that look a lot like epilepsy but haven’t been properly diagnosed.  We finally roll into the campground around midnight, and the gates are locked.  I call P and he helps us chuck all our packs and bags to the tents.

Saturday:

It is now day two without my meds.  This was a bad idea.  A very bad idea.  It rains most of the day.  P, of course, manages to climb anyhow.  I spend the better part of the afternoon making moss-fairy boats.

The fairy’s name is Esmerelda, by the way, and if you can’t see her then you don’t believe.

I curl up with the dogs and pass out.  I should have brought my meds. 

When we get back to the campsite I notice a few ticks on Charlie.  I pull them out.  Then I notice a few ticks on Scapi.  I pull them out.  Then I realise that the lovely afternoon nap was had in a tickbed.  I rush to the tent and call P in to do what true love requires.  Luckily, no ticks in my ass.  Unfortunately, one has embedded itself close enough to my hoo-ha to make me scream and yank it out before P can reach the tweezers.  I burn the sonofabitch.

Saturday night:

I’m twitching and jerking all over the place.  My brain feels something like fireworks if they could make them into a yo-yo.  I hold myself together reasonably well and we have a lovely birthday dinner for the hansosan.  His daughter faints again on the way home.  This time, it’s a long episode.  We sit up with her for an hour or so, until she feels well enough to go to the tent.  We all go to bed.

I wake up in the tent and smell shit.  I mean- I smell SHIT.  Like somebody rubbed my nose in it.  Since I feel a bit like a crackhead in withdrawal, I sense that smelling shit could just be another side effect.  So I wake Paolo.  He is blind without his glasses but finally finds a pile of puke in the tent and cleans it up.  To Charlie’s credit, he actually tried to wake Paolo up several times before depositing the little pile of grass and bile neatly next to our heads.

About an hour later, I wake up in the tent and smell shit.  Paolo’s glasses come out again, but we don’t see anything.  Back to sleep. 

You can repeat that last paragraph two more times.

Sunday:

I wake up in the morning to find that Charlie has projectile-liquid-shit all over my sleeping bag.  And my backpack.  And my clothes.  And my side of the tent.  Everything on Paolo’s side of the tent is perfectly clean.  But I have been sleeping in diarrhea.  I run out of the tent and vomit copiously.  This is not the way to start day three without meds.  Lovely P cleans everything while I writhe and moan in the car.

So, to sum up the weekend: bursitis, vomiting, fainting, tick near hoo-ha, projectile diarrhea, and no meds.  Oh… and we may have climbed a wee bit as well, but I’ll have to let you know once I’m properly medicated again.

So, there’s this blogging game going around.  It’s so neato.  The rules are:

1. You leave me a comment saying, “topo, please interview me.”  … or, you know, something that means that.
2. I will email you five interview questions of my choice, providing, that is, you left me your email address.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions and link back to my original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

Here are my questions from Violet.

1. On your blog, you recently mentioned how it’s possible for people to be talking about things but not in a way that their partner can fully understand.  What subject do you find it most difficult to speak about in a way that makes other people understand (in a relationship
or otherwise)? Why?

I generally don’t have a hard time communicating.  Rather, my problem tends to lie in the overcommunication column.  Dissecting conversations and incidents and people and … well, everything into molecular minutiae is what I do.  I am kind of genius at it, but it’s definitely what makes my partners and friends a bit crazy at times.  All the “why” questions.  Paolo has been a great cure for this.  He doesn’t have many “why” answers, no matter how many times I ask, he just is and he just does. It doesn’t hurt that he’s so laid back he’s horizontal.

2. What’s the last thing you do before you go to bed at night? Is it always the same thing?

I am a total creature of the small habits.  Every night in precisely this order, I pee, brush my teeth (one leg has to be propped up on something… in most of my apartments it’s the toilet but here it’s the bathtub), weigh myself, groan loudly and then hop into bed.  After that, I spend ten minutes trying to coax my dog out from under the bed.  This is exceptionally stupid because I know that as soon as I turn off the light and snuggle in she will come out and plop herself on top of my legs in the most uncomfortable configuration imaginable.

-
3. An internet friend (someone you haven’t met before but who you feel comfortable with) is coming to visit you. What three places in your city/area would you take them to see/experience so they could get toknow *you* better?

-

OOooh.  This is a tough choice.  I suppose top choice must be Fontainebleau , three hours from here and just South of Paris for climbing, hiking, running, biking, playing in the woods, playing in the sand, castle-scoping, etc.  Other than that, Paris itself - not for the Eiffel tower, but to see the Left Bank and stare longingly through the gates of Natalie Barney’s salon.  Perhaps recite some Rimbaud.  If you love history, literature or art you can’t beat Paris for hidden-in-plain-sight treasures.  The lesbian clubs are fucking amazing, too!  After all the poetry and junk we’ll definitely head to Amsterdam (two hours north of here)… to… go to museums, of course… cough… cough…

-
4. In your “about” section on your blog, you note that sometimes it sucks to be an “undercover brown” person.  What’s the worst part?

I find it incredibly annoying that the Indian side of my family still acts surprised that I understand family conversations in Hindi.  Seriously, they’ve known me for 33 years.  NOBODY can POSSIBLY be THAT WHITE.

I also find it super annoying to have the same conversation over and over.  It usually goes like this:

Random person: Woah, you went travelling in India?  Wasn’t that incredibly… hard? Did you get sick (this conversation also ccasionally also begins with “That’s a unique name”)

Me: Well, I’m half Indian and I spent my childhood there, so I don’t find it that hard, and I don’t get sick too bad.

Random person: Really?  Are you sure?  You don’t look Indian.  (occasionally followed by) You have light eyes… and you’re white!

It’s a bit of snobbery on my part to be annoyed by this because obviously I know I don’t “look Indian”.  But, you know, you’d say fuck it and get annoyed too after the 567th time.

-

5. Is there anything in your home that’s totally out of place (either aesthetically or incongruous to the sort of person you are)? What it is and why do you have it?

The television set!*  I haven’t watched any actual tv in over ten years (except for a brief six-month period when I dated a guy who couldn’t live without one… during which I watched EVERY episode of That 70’s Show and Friends EVER made… which, now that I think about it, may say something about that “relationship” that just hurled it into the unhappy land of between quotations).  So I have a set that doesn’t get any signals, but we do rent hella videos.  Anyway, now I know what direction to point all the furniture.

*Interesting side note here, you actually have to PAY for television in Belgium.

………………

SO?  WHO’S NEXT?  HMMMM???

Didier Berthod is a hero despite zee veeerhhhy strounggghh and ehm, ok- slightly annoooyyyinggg frenzch aczzeeent. I’m glad he finally figured out (mankind, are you listening?) that the combo-move with the whole hand and not just the finger curl alone was the secret to…”blovvwing maaind”: know what I mean, ladies?  Not to mention that it finally fit… climbing… the crack… ah… nevermind.

Climbing and ethics aside, I think (in case you hadn’t guessed) it’s critical to point out: any woman could appreciate this video. YUM!!

(But Didier - saving seconds - even just a few - isn’t the greatest way to stay in it in real life.  Being first and solid is, as you say, universally important.  I guess egos are egos no matter where the crack resides.)

This evening on the way to the climbing gym, again the same conversation when we pass the outdoor tennis courts:

me: I keep telling you, we should play tennis sometime!  I’ll be all Whoosh! [I make flailing arm motions with the right arm], Swish! [flailing arm motions with the left arm]

Paolo: Topo, you don’t change hands in tennis.

me: What?  Why?

Paolo: …

….    ….

[AN AIRPLANE FLIES LOW OVERHEAD]

me:  … oooOhhhh.  Well, whatever, we should play tennis!  I’ll kick your ass!  [flailing arm motions with both arms]

Paolo: [following the flailing arm potential ball trajectories with his eyes] Jesus, I just hope there’s an airline strike that day.

So some friends of myself and Paolo were married earlier this month, and plan to celebrate the tying of the Gordian knot in their (and my!) favorite valley.

I highly recommend Val di Mello for many reasons if you get the chance.  As a matter of fact, it was in my long-term blog-o-plan that I was at some point going to list all the reasons I love it, but then we got this email inviting us to the wedding celebrations and really, I couldn’t possibly put it any better than this…

Some excerpts from the bride’s (American) translation of the invitation:

“Dear friends from near and far…Here’s my translation of Fxxxxxx’s original
message, which serves as an invitation …We will eat, we will drink, and if the rain gods
agree, we will climb… it’s important that everyone comes equipped for eating and
drinking. Moving on… Val di Mello offers stunning landscapes, enchanting
walks, excellent rock, terrifying…sgambate?? (damn useless
dictionary!), pizzocheri, bitto, and gnocchi with DONKEY sauce (yes, that
is the correct translation)… ps. Axxxxx was gracious enough to tell me the
meaning of the word sgambate.  Here is what she told me: “big
movement with legs and it can also mean that the swimming suit is cut
very high on the legs so all your body hairs will be visible.”

Don’t you wish you were going there RIGHT NOW!?  I mean, I was already in favor, since my superior Italian dictionary informed me there would be DONKEY sauce, but the sgambate translation clinched it.