My Name Is Josie, and I Approved This Message

Some of you might have noticed a paucity of references to Josie in our recent posts. The simple explanation is that our daughter, at twelve, is no longer willing to have her every adorable utterance broadcast to the world. She has also become extremely selective about which photographs can be made public -- and when the camera can be pointed in her direction at all. And when we checked, we discovered to our dismay that the International Blogger Mom Code of Conduct does indeed grant censorship rights to any child whose shoe size exceeds her mother's. We were doubly delighted, therefore, when we were able to extract permission to share with you some rare Josie footage, captured in a Canadian diner over New Years.

A bit of background: Our family had repaired to Harrison Hot Springs for the long weekend, in an attempt to find a little peace & quiet after our marathon holiday season. The resort was nice, in a Corporate-Luxury-Meets-Public-Transportation kind of way; the room was slightly cramped, in a Simon-Will-You-Please-Stop-Jumping-From-Bed-To-Bed?-No-Because-There's-Nothing-Else-To-Do-In-Here-Except-Watch-Gerbil-Movies-On-Pay-Per-View-And-You-Won't-Let-Me! kind of way; and the swimming pools, soaking tubs, and steam rooms were fabulous, in a Fabulous-Pretty-Much-Says-It-All kind of way.

Other activities were somewhat limited, but we ferreted out a few. When I told Simon I had seen signs in the lobby indicating the existence of a Game Room in the basement, and offered to take him down there after dinner to use up our Canadian quarters, he wanted to know: "What kind of Game Room? Do they play Tic Tac Toe in there, or what?" (This is the kind of thing Josie would never let us tell you about, but fortunately Simon's feet are still smaller than mine and thus he's fair game.) Simon's fascination with the Game Room's assortment of battered video games outlasted our quarter supply, but not by much. We also discovered that if you stood in line for a really long time at the front desk, you could borrow a chess set or a board game. And when it wasn't raining you could go out and have a look at the gorgeous mountains ringing the lake.



While Josie got her pedicure and Andrew his massage, Simon and I sat in the lobby -- a somewhat surreal expanse of plush carpets, giant chandeliers, marble columns, roaring fireplaces, and huge overstuffed chairs, through which squadrons of dripping, dreamy people in bathrobes would troop at irregular intervals on their way back from the the pools -- and built the snap-circuit AM/FM radio kit he got for Christmas (thanks, Grandad!). Here he is listening to the Canadian news -- en Francais, bien sur.



Early on the younger members of the party began lobbying for Room Service, an option the adults were mostly unwilling to entertain, because a) our three meals a day afforded three unassailable reasons to leave the hotel room and avoid the whole Gerbil Movie question, and b) the idea of introducing silver trays of hot food into our dimly-lit, damp-towel-strewn, double-trampoline environment struck us as utter madness. "No Room Service," we said. "Absolutely not."

Then we looked at the menu, and there it was: crème brulée. We've never been able to resist this particular delicacy, which for some reason appears on every Room Service menu and almost nowhere else. (Or maybe that's just our imagination?) We began to formulate a tentative plan, which Josie summarized:





In the end we had our crème brulée, and ate it too. In the restaurant. Some hotel room fantasies just don't mix.