Make Haste for the Wine, Swine and Dine!

The wind chimes outside my window usually wake me up early, especially when its blustery and cold like today.  Their tinkling woke me around 6 this morning, and I slowly opened an eye up to see the chimes dancing and the snow falling behind the lilies that Jack brought me on his last visit.

I like to wake up early but stay in bed for hours when I can.  Today, before heading to the daily bath, I took full advantage of lazy Sunday.  There were phone calls and fantasy's about joining my friends at the Sundance Film Festival, and tofu scramble from the big jolly potluck brunch yesterday. And then, the bath.

Today's bath was a shorter affair than I'd typically like.  Katie is making various borscht shots and other gourmet farm share samples for a slow food wine and food pairing at the Damiani Winery on Seneca Lake.  Its almost starting but my roommate and I would both like to bathe before hopping in the truck to head up to wine country.  Graciously, he let me go first.

Short or no, the bath was rejuvenating - simple, but still maybe my favorite this week.  Leonard Cohen wafted in from the living room speakers.  I swished out the last of my L'Occitane rose bubble bath (a perfect bath gel, in my humble opinion).  Then I added half a packet of Aura Cacia's milk and oat salts.  The resulting basin of water was nice and hot and cloudy, with delicate rose bubbles and lots of steam rising out of the milky water and curling off of a leg  or an arm that gets held up here and there.  The window at the base of the clawfoot tub fogged, but the ivy flying around in the wind and the snow flakes pouring sideways could still be spied from the steamy room.

For reading it was another poem in The Paris Review.  The Paris Review is a new discovery.  It's particularly nice in the bath, because its fun to have a short poem or short story to read, and then just revel and think as the bath water melts the heart and relaxes the limbs.  Thats my current idea anyway.  Historically, I've tended to read novels in the bath, or sometimes, when necessary, legal briefs and other work related material.

But these days its the Paris Review.  Today's poem was about a Jujitsu instructor who leaves the Dojo and has only one student, a guy with a thick black Steven Segal style pony tale.  It wasn't going so well for the instructor, or the student really.  Nice poem - funny and in a different style than most I've read.  Sort of informal like a blog poem.  Maybe amateur? I think so, but good anyway.

The beverage choice (its very important during bathing to have a hydrating beverage or two on hand) was orange sparkling water - naturally ice cold from sitting in a case on the floor of the kitchen.  Unfortunately the heating in some of these rooms has not been on since the work crew disconnected it last week while framing out rooms for the hotel.  This house is going to be a hotel soon.  My friend is opening it and we live in an apartment at the teetering top of the gutted drafty beautiful white mansion.  Its covered in Ivy.  There used to be a flag out front.  Now there is a yellow sugar shack that is closed for the winter.  Home sweet home, at least for a few more weeks...boy will I miss this bathtub when I'm gone.