Mono Human

I dunno. Maybe the socks take this look over the top?

Vevey to Aigle

Via Francigena #5 of 20

I need to become bi-armal as a result of yesterday’s fall. I have to use my right arm predominately to heave-ho my backpack up over my shoulder until the injury heals on the left side.

Considering this I take stock and decide I’m a mono human. No judgment, but I’m a right handed, cis-gendered, white woman who speaks one language. The “bi-ness” in my life is mostly supplied by my bi-racial husband and bi-racial daughter. I tease Madison and insist that since I carried her I should get some sort of Filipino honorarium. Eye rolls always.

I have conversations with her I never had with my mother. We were at Crossroads Trading Company, a store that buys and sells clothing, and I spotted a cute dress:

Madison: You can’t buy that mom.

Me: Why not?

Madison: Because it has a traditional Korean Collar and yer white. It’s like that other dress you sold here.

Me: You mean the Mandarin collared body-con dress with the Gisha’s graphics that I quit wearing because it now represents cultural appropriation and I’d get flambéed on social media for wearing it?

Madison: Yes, that one.

Me: Well this one only has the Korean collar. No Geishas. Would you be seen with me in public in this dress?

Madison: <Silence>. . . . yes.

Me: Okay then. I’m trying it on.

No possible fashion appropriation now, but I’m flinching because Sandy and I are starting to resemble those couples who look like each other because of the similarities in their outfits. Camino wear has that effect. I wondered aloud to Sandy how people would tell us apart:

Sandy: You’re the one with white hair.

Me: I’m the one with the hair.

We forge ahead in our matching baseball caps through Montreux, “playground of the rich and famous.” There are sculptures everywhere. Seeing a particularly delightful one I start squealing at Sandy;

Me: I want that one, daddy!

Sandy: No! You’re getting a frickin’ pony, just like everyone else.

See below for photos and captions of natural as well as man-made wonders along the shores of Lake Geneva, including a pic of the statue that turned me into Veruca Salt.

©Theresa Elliott, All Rights Reserved

Can you tell us apart?

My Varuca Salt moment. I really want this for my back yard.

Amazing houses.

I so want to call this bucolic, despite the oddness of the word.

Romanesque Church near our final destination. We stayed in a small room in what must have been support staff rooms, aka, servants.

This has become my favorite salad. Some kind of hog with some kind of chèvre or egg with crisp lettuce, tomatoes and creamy balsamic vinaigrette.

That is more than a half inch of chèvre on crostini that showed up on a different fab salad.