Now to be sure, not everything here in France likes me. I ate a delicious hamburger yesterday at a little snack place perched high above Villefranche along the Moyen Corniche. We love the place for the incomparable view and the biker-gang-sassy server and part owner. The meat was cooked rare, barely on the north side of raw, and I should have sent it back to the chef, but it was so good. I also should have remembered my last visit here and the similar malady that overtook me after the burger. Today, everything from yesterday was in a race to leave my body like greased piglets at a county fair. But monsieur le pharmacist took care of me (yet again) and I am right as rain for a mere three dollars. You travelers already know that the pharmacists in Europe are the bomb. During mushroom season they will even pick through your basket to identify the YES-eat and the NO-tummy-ache or worse items. Our own pharmacists in the U.S. receive similar training in school (well, except for the shrooms) and could be doing a lot more to keep us healthy and treat our ailments if our states would allow them.
As we all know, our bodies and the environment around us are teeming with life forms that keep us clean, help turn certain foods into delicacies, help us digest our foods, and even bond us together. Of course, there are a few baddies that make us sick and we all try to keep clear of them. I heard a few days back that each kiss we grant our lovers carries eighty million of our personal fauna both directions. Some of those we already have; some of the rest we might need. Amazing creation we have here!
The jellyfish, medusa in local parlance, are back in small numbers, sublimely swaying in the water just above the sea grass. A beach goer netted about twenty of them yesterday and placed them for display on the sea wall. It didn’t look to me like anyone was paying them much attention, though. Swimmers and waders were abundant. Jann took a couple of plunges into the warm water and, during one, a delicately purple medusa seemed to follow her back to the rocky steps. Of course, why wouldn’t it, I ask? If I were a fish of any kind, I would follow the beautiful red-haired mermaid anywhere.
Okay, it was kind of a slow day. It’s vacation and I like slow. Good sleep, warm nights, gelato. I can’t improve on that.
