Medi-sins

Nando came back from France with the medications that both of us are supposed to take. He has one to take, I have three. Since the information is in French medicalese, I haven’t a clue what they actually DO, but they all appear to be for allergies, strangely enough. One of them is supposed to be taken for five days before the intervention. But Nando got back three days before, so I will be missing two days prior to the operation. Is this a bad start or what? All the medication is not to be taken with alcohol. No problem. I have lived in France and Italy for 15 years and still, if I drink a glass of wine a WEEK, that’s a lot. I do like to accompany great food with good wine, but if I had to choose between wine and mineral water at the table, I invariably opt for the latter.

French Camelot

Having just come back from Southern France, Nando assures me that the weather is great. Although the trip from Milan to the Italy’s Riviera Ponente (the Italian Riviera north of Genoa to the French border) is only 75 minutes, the weather changes dramatically in winter. It’s day and night. You can be driving through snow, fog and cold en route to Genoa and you pass through a series of tunnels to the Liguria region and suddenly you are in the land of eternal spring -- blue skies, clear air, birds chirping, expanses of green vegetation framing the blue of the Mediterranean. And the weather seems to improve the closer you get to France. Then you cross the border, with Monaco less than 10 miles away, and it’s as if Prince Rainier had ordained gorgeous weather for his little principality and its surroundings. I have made that drive hundreds of times and I always think of the lyrics from Camelot:
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.

Pros, cons and calories

It’s true, there are plenty of lovely places to visit in Provence, but it's hard to make a decision:
1. We haven’t nailed down a budget so I am uncertain where to book price-wise. Hotels in France are generally less expensive than their counterparts in Italy, so one is tempted to trade up to a nicer place: flowers on a sunny balcony, fluttering lace curtains in the room, fresh croissants and steaming cafe au lait served in a breakfast garden. That is the image the tourist board wants to promulgate anyway.
2. But I don't know how I will feel. What's the point of an inn near the Camargue if I don't feel like walking? What's the point of an in-town relais if I look gasp-awful and don't want to be seen?
3. I don't know about the driving. Since my eyes are part of my intervention and ALL of Nando’s, we may not want to drive at all, and that would mean staying in Marseille the whole time.
4. I don't know about the eating. Nando is trying to lose weight (he needs to, for the diabetes) and me, well, the aftermath of an operation, ANY operation, is an ideal time to take off a few pounds. So is the hiatus before the holidays. Therefore, why pick a place known for divine food if we won't want to be tempted?

Considering the falloff in tourism just now, with everyone traumatized in the wake of 9/11, and given that early December is low season anyway, I may just bring a guidebook or two and wait till we get there -- then decide day by day.

Language lovers

Dr. Delos entered. It had not been a long wait. He was an attractive, charismatic man in his late 40s or perhaps early 50s -- possibly my age, I thought with a start. He had a thick shock of dark hair, barely lined with gray, and a handsome craggy face. He sat at his desk facing us, while we faced him and the sea.

The first thing to be discussed was what language to converse in. We started in French but explained that we were coming from Italy. "I speak Italian and love to practice your language," he volunteered. "Parliamo in italiano."

No return to beauty

I have seen bella figura in many guises. I have lived in Milan, the country’s business capital in Lombardy; in Bologna, the large regional capital of Emilia-Romagna; and in Treviso, a small provincial capital 12 miles from Venice. Right now I live in Busto Arsizio, Varese, Italy, a small city of about 100,000 some 20 miles north of Milan. It is a quintessential provincial city of Northern Italy.

Nevertheless, for me the onus of bella figura is a good reason NOT to do something. This obsession is all about appearance, surface, superficiality -- what other people think about you, not so much what you think about yourself. It’s a small town mentality blown up to country-wide proportions. In the U.S., maybe Hollywood and the fashion and cosmetics industries are obsessed with superficial externalities, but I am not.

Besides, I don't have the vanity pretensions of many women who started out as great beauties. I was never drop-dead gorgeous so I had no urge to return to something that never existed. My hair is a chemically-assisted brown, my eyes are brown, my figure could charitably be described as average, and I am short by current standards. I don’t want to resurrect a make-believe past, or attract younger men, or do as Pamela Harriman did when she pulled her face together so she could get herself a third husband (it worked for her, though).

From white to tan, with curves

Five centuries after the Renaissance, white-powdered faces have given way to golden tans all over the body (no strap marks, please!). Botticelli’s Venus and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa gave way to 1950s and 60s icons like Sophia Loren, Gina Lollabrigida, and Claudia Cardinale (my namesake, but no other similarity, alas), all still with round breasts and buttocks and long hair -- not necessarily blonde. Today, Monica Bellucci is a contemporary representative of the world attraction of this kind of beauty standard. She was named the most desirable woman in the world in a men’s survey a few years ago (www.AskMen.com).

From central Italy (Umbria), she embodies the best of the beauty standards of North and South Italy, which are historically different. If Florentine and Venetian women were blonde Botticellis, Southern Italians have always exalted classic Mediterranean beauties -- curvaceous, full-lipped, dark-haired and sultry. Northern Italians instead gravitate to "European" standards with fair skin, light eyes, and chiseled features à la top model-turned-singer-turned-wife-of-French-president Carla Bruni or slender, long-limbed prima ballerina emeritus Carla Fracchi. Bellucci has both: full lips, fine features, sparkling Latin eyes, slender body and seductive curves.

So I decided to record my experience

When I was thinking about getting a facelift, I looked for books that would explain the experience so I would be prepared for what lay ahead. The books all seemed to fall into one of two categories: technical texts written by plastic surgeons, or breathless burbles about the wonders of a new face by famous, or almost famous (and in any case publicly-prominent) celebrities. Since I didn’t want the former and didn’t fit the latter, I decided to keep my own records of my adventure, thinking that other women might be as curious as I about what a facelift is REALLY like.

These entries won't take you through the process scalpel stroke by scalpel stroke. Nor will they supply a list of the best doctors in France and Italy whom you might want to consult. But it does help you understand what the effects of a facelift might be, and it suggests how you can identify the surgeon most appropriate for you. Plus, hopefully, it’s fun to read.