Medium essay about statelessness

I had some post-election thoughts--about my refugee grandparents, the election, and vulnerable populations, so I wrote them down here.

Booty from Jaffa markets in Tel Aviv

Last week in Tel Aviv, I explored the markets in Old Jaffa. The olives and dried fruit made me drool, but it was overwhelming with so many to choose from. So, I confined my purchases to an olive sampling and some irresistable dried roses--that cost mere pennies--pictured below. They smelled divine, and now that they're smuggled home (Tel Aviv security either didn't see them rolled up in my t-shirt, or decided not to care), I'm not sure what to do with them, apart from making sachets for my lingerie, sock, and sweater drawers. I'm taking ideas!

Custom Perfumer in Tel Aviv

I'm in Tel Aviv for a travel story, and went to this Jaffa perfumerie, Zielinski & Rozen, that offers custom-blended perfums based on not only your scent preferences, but also one's own personal scent and lifestyle--exactly the way I like to pick out scent. It's tucked away on a side street, (and basically doesn't advertise), so going inside feels like discovering a secret. The owner, Erez Rozen, compares building an individual scent to building a pyramid, using the traditional concepts of high, middle, and base notes. Apart from the Dead Sea and the desert fortress Masada, this was probably my favorite experience in Israel. 

Mud Baths in Calistoga, CA

Photo from http://www.drwilkinson.com

I love spa treatments, and over the course of my life I've done a lot of unusual ones: Aromatherapy "color baths" with light lasers, a gong bath, cupping, a facial with a "tesla wand," high-end seaweed wrap, no-touch reiki massage, etc. But immersing in a 4-foot tub of volcanic-ash mud last week in Calistoga, CA was by far the oddest treatment I've ever undergone. Dr. Wilkinson's has been around for over 60 years, and the retro look and feel of the buildings and locker rooms doesn't hide this fact. 

Here's the procedure: You lock up your things, grab a bathrobe and are escorted by attendants (of your gender) into a large tiled room that has two large, rectangular tiled baths, mounted a few feet above floor level. They're filled with sulfuric-smelling "volcanic-ash" mud. THIS IS NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH. You strip down and the attendants assist you into the oozing, bubbling, stinky tubs, while reciting some science-y factoids to try and convince you that this is not the most disgusting thing that has ever happened to you.

 Sinking into the mud is not as easy as it sounds: It's very thick (and did I mention BUBBLING), and it takes about a minute to get yourself fully immersed, up to your neck. If you're me, this is where some mild panic sets in, (AS THE MUD SINKS INTO EVERY CORNER OF YOUR BODY). Your attendant then gives you a pillow to rest your head on, and places cucumbers over your eyes, and instructs you to relax for ten minutes (easy for her to say). Once the time is up, you are escorted out of the tub and proceed to take the most complete shower of your life. Next is the wet-sauna (the attedants hand you glasses of cucumber water through a little window), for another ten minutes. Then, you head to an old-fashioned clawfoot bathtub behind a curtain (in the same room), which is being pumped full of hot-spring water. Last, the attendants have you shower one last time, and lead you to a relaxation cube, where you're wrapped loosely in towels for ten more minutes, while your body temperature returns to normal. 

You can't take pics inside the spa of course, but my pal and I stayed in one of the cottages Dr. Wilkinson offers, and hit the outdoor tub later that night. And if you're curious about what the tubs look like, you can see images here.

The below pic is of a late-night moonlit tub, which we welcomed with some local CA bubbly. 

Natural Botanical Perfumery class at Chicago Botanic Gardens

I've taken soap- and candle-making classes at various organizations including Abbey Brown, and I'm also very interested in natural botanical perfumemaking. A year ago, I read a wonderful book about the history of NBP, Essence and Alchemy, by perfumer Mandy Aftelier. Among other things, it goes into the "primal" nature of scent, the history of perfume and why she chooses not to use synthetics (a unique perfumery choice.) 

Today's natural botanical perfumery class at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, taught by the talented and generous Jessica Hannah, (who has studied with Mandy and is influenced by her). I learned so much, and love the vetiver-heavy custom perfume I made today.  Jessica spoke passionately and emotionally about the proper and sustainable use of essential oils, and got me even more excited about delving into this world of NBP.  Now, I feel ready to make some blends of my own; starting with a mosquito-repelling blend (using things like cedar, lavender, citrus--all proven to repel the pests).

Punk Planet; Book Review; Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs

The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs
Written by: Irvine Welsh
Review by: Gretchen Kalwinski

In Bedroom Secrets, Danny Skinner is a rakishly handsome, carousing restaurant inspector living in Edinburgh, plugging away just fine until Brian Kibby arrives as his co-worker. Kibby is seemingly unthreatening--quiet with "cowlike" eyes and a bit of a mama's boy, but generally inoffensive. However, Skinner immediately hates Kibby with an intensity that even he doesn't understand. Via his contempt and competitiveness, some of his long-languishing problems, long-clouded by booze begin to rise to the surface and throw his whole life into upheaval and disarray. He begins to pester his formerly punk-rock mother about his father's identity, (which she'll only jokingly give as Joe Strummer of The Clash), and throws away whatever was left of his relationship with Kay, a beautiful dancer who's been finding his drinking bouts increasingly tiresome.

Skinner eventually puts a curse on Kibby that results in the Star Trek and model train-obsessed boy beginning to suffer the damage of Skinner's abusive lifestyle. This sets in motion Kibby's declining health and Skinner's gleeful indulgences in even more booze, drugs, fighting, and sexcapades. Simultaneously, Skinner's search for his father's identity takes him to San Francisco and back via information he learns in a book penned by an obnoxious TV chef. Once he returns home, Kibby starts approaching death and begins to learn the ins-and-outs of the curse and how he might be able to reverse it.

This is Welsh's eighth novel centering around gritty, urban environments and one common critique of his work is that he's never departed from stock characters and themes from Trainspotting. It's true that the ho-hum-by-now grit is Welsh's schtick, but he's also got substance in spades. For all of his stock use of transgressive
content -- booze, drugs, orgies, sickness (and gratingly flagrant use of the c-word, by the way) -- Welsh knows how to tell a story in the old-fashioned sense of the word, a narrative that subtly builds tension in increasingly complex characters, delivers unexpected plot twists and resolutions, and conjures a reader's genuine investment in outcomes. Few writers handle the-beauty-of-ugliness themes as well as Welsh and the warm humanity of his deft language coupled with his insights into ego and the dark side of human nature makes Bedroom Secrets a compelling read.

--Gretchen Kalwinski