..six day without a cell phone...

...so i am home now. but Toasty, my blackberry, did not make it. he decided to become an airline hostess, and stayed on the plane from istanbul. toasty escaped from my bag, and when i realized, right about passport control, they said, nah, you can't go get him.
what if it had been a pacemaker, or perhaps, my passport itself? anyway, nobody turned him in, so i am without any phone numbers, yes, i didn't back up my info. & will i do that again, no. maybe i should have been nicer to him...? ah well. toasty two will reap the rewards of my new behavioral learnings.
...anyway, what this means is that i had a real vacation with NO cell phone, went up to northern CA to meet drew on the timberlake tour, and since the shows were cancelled, we went to see a camille rose garcia exhibit, a raymond pettibon exhibit & i got to meet cheryl & sven's baby levon.
we drove down the astoundingly beautiful pacific coast highway and stopped at the mystery spot. pretty impressive....ok, who knows what the real story is??? (like the guide says, then it would be called "the solved spot")
tonight we are going to the hollywood forever cemetary where they show films (tonight: the exorcist) on the crypt walls, and i will go say hello to johnny ramone's ghost.
meanwhile, miss Heather had her baby last night (this morning?) Welcome little Eli!
when i get a longer minute, i will post photos, and i will report on the last part of the tour, which was a bone-crushing four in a row, but we made it, barely, i am still falling asleep in the middle of sentences...off to the grocery store, which has been like a dream coming true, shopping for my OWN cereal etc. did i mention i was in Greece, home of my half my heart? (the other half lives in Ireland....)
rambling ending now...

the ocean at my window

two days off in Biarritz, France, a big surfing town. this crew really needed a stopover, we had a half day off in Frankfurt, Germany but we needed to get off the bus for awhile and step into a town. Renee & I found this little shop in Frankfurt. Where could we get away with these outfits...? sadly, i left them there...
these goldfish swam above our delicious grilled dinner...

Back to our two days off...luckily for us, there was no room anywhere else for us but Biarritz. A seaside town in France, up by the border of Spain, it was a slice of beauty, with French Mexican food & their version of margaritas... and lovely people. We whirled around the resort and spent our euros with no regrets. Our hotel, Tonic, was seated next door to a pub with a boat theme, delicious pizza & the boys were all in love with the saucy French waitresses.

Walked the beach at night and i slept with my window open, hearing the surf hit the shore over & over. put me into a deep deep sleep.

The next day we found little treasures in vintage shops, but oh so expensive...i mostly window shopped & day-dreamed. Resting up for the next bout of shows... Spain, I was so sorry not to have more time in your borders. Next time.

after that we went on to do another co-headliner with NIN in Italy, we even shared the production office with them, it was a cozy little family. The Trail of the Dead guys were there too, **shouting out to Leroy! The convergence of the crews was such a blast...

today we have a show day in Zagreb, Croatia....former Yugoslavia. Our production office looks like a true war room, we have a conference table that is a big wooden circle & we are on the phones constantly today, sorting out every little detail that can go wrong on this final four in a row of shows...I will download photos that I took next post, Zagreb, a truly amazing city, with millions of beautiful people and skies of electric blue. This morning though, show day, i woke to pouring rain in the hotel...Tomorrow Serbia, and we lose our tour buses. Charter plane to Athens and then Istanbul and then a ka-billion hour flight home...home sweet home...