Two Degrees of Separation

“Two Degrees of Separation”

If you’re able to lift up your pasty face from your work long enough–and just look at you there, triturating your keyboard, plunging your hand repeatedly into a bag of Doritos Late Night All-Nighter Cheeseburger Flavored Chips, hacking away at your deconstruction of Apple’s missteps in releasing its iOS 4 during the summer of 2010 before posting your Apple-Is-A-Weenie synthesis in the Dribbleware chatroom–

you may want to pay attention.

Because I’m about to mention a Monty Python cast member.  And I know how important that kind of stuff is to you.

Even better, I’m going to mention that Monty Python cast member at the end of a rousing round of the hit parlor game of 1994:  Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.  Of course, because the point here is Monty Python, we’re not going to mention Kevin Bacon at all (outside of noting that he did well when he married that Kyra Sedgwick twenty-two years ago).  Rather, we’re going to play Six Degrees of Michael Palin.

It’s going to be a quick turn, this game.

First, we start with Jocelyn.  I’m sorry.  I know she’s a piece of work.  But we have to start somewhere.

Next, draw a line to a Cappadocian couple (you choose if you want to poke your lead into the husband or wife, depending on your personal poking preference).  The husband is a German anthropologist, and the wife is a Turkish spitfire.  They own an amazing guesthouse of restored cave rooms called The Fairy Chimney Inn.

From them, draw a line to Michael Palin, who stayed at The Fairy Chimney Inn in 2007 when he was shooting his travelogue called New Europe (and writing his book of the same name).

Hey, wait.  That’s it?

Yea, that’s it.  There are two degrees of separation between Jocelyn and Michael Palin, which pretty much means I’m famous.

You see, I, Jocelyn, am sitting in the Fairy Chimney Inn right now, typing this post.  Thanks to a delightful confluence of events (the owners wanted to go to Germany to visit family, and we were, um, in the area, looking bored), our family has been invited to inn-sit until March…basically keeping the furnace going, feeding and walking the massive St. Bernard, and reveling in the perks (hot water right out of the taps, in-floor heating, wireless Internet, a three-foot television, an oven big enough to bake a cake, and a Call to Prayer so remotely sung that inhabitants can sleep past sunrise).  Currently, there are no guests staying here, it being the low season and all, but if anyone shows up or calls, we’re on duty to turn out a morning breakfast and to fluff their pillows (which, I believe, Palin identified as a highlight of his visit).

So mostly we’re baking and feeding and walking and Internetting and sleeping.  Plus, sometimes the kids take turns ringing the intercom down at the gate and buzzing each other in…or taking each other’s orders for onion rings.

And all of this unforeseen fun is taking place in the midst of one of the world’s most spectacular settings.

No, really, it’s staggeringly cool.

Just ask my friend Michael Palin.

——————

(or take a look at this slide from a New York Times article:  http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/12/23/travel/20071223_WHY_slideshow_index.html?ex=1199595600&en=c27ab52b638b4190&ei=5070&emc=eta3http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/12/23/travel/20071223_WHY_slideshow_index.html?ex=1199595600&en=c27ab52b638b4190&ei=5070&emc=eta3)

(or you can look at these photos I took yesterday out the back door…):

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18 responses to “Two Degrees of Separation”

  1. secret agent woman Avatar
    secret agent woman

    As long as it's not Sarah Palin, that's cool.

  2. Jocelyn Avatar
    Jocelyn

    Imagine what I could see out my back door if it were Sarah Palin: Alaska!

  3. Pearl Avatar
    Pearl

    And I know YOU so it's like me and Michael Palin are buddies now…

    🙂

    Pearl

  4. haphazardlife Avatar
    haphazardlife

    OK, so that puts me at 3 degrees from Michael and 4 from all the other cast members. *swoon*

    … you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.

    But you can walk the St. Bernard.

    – Jazz

  5. kmkat Avatar
    kmkat

    To continue this line of connectedness: I know you (virtually, but still) and I saw Michael Palin once in the Crystal Room at Tavern on the Green in Central Park, NYC. I think those double lines of separation make us all third cousins or something. Or at least unable to marry each other. Not that I would want to marry Michael Palin. Or you, although I might consider a wild weekend.

    Thanks to you and the Google, I now know what triturate means.

  6. Green Girl in Wisconsin Avatar
    Green Girl in Wisconsin

    Really! That's amazing.
    That last house looks so hobbit like that I want to hug it.

  7. alwaysinthebackrow Avatar
    alwaysinthebackrow

    What a wonderful adventure! This looks so cool, I would love to stay there. Could you book me a room when Mike (I think I can safely call him that, since we are so close now that you are only 2 lines away) will be there as well? Clean linens and fresh coffee in bed would also be nice. The St. Bernard also could bring some alcohol if s/he so desires.

  8. yogurt Avatar
    yogurt

    What an amazing countryside – and did you know Michael Palin is a writer of books? Or at least one. I read it a couple years ago. Hemingway's Chair, I think it was called.

  9. ds Avatar
    ds

    Michael Palin. Inn-sit, You?! (cue rim shot) How very cool. How very beautiful. How very lucky!
    How very educational–am heading now toward dictionary to verify meaning of "triturate"…

    Take care of St. Bernard, fluff a few pillows, provide some breakfast, you can't even claim to be repressed… (cue hook) Enjoy!

  10. Jenn @ Juggling Life Avatar
    Jenn @ Juggling Life

    That? Is amazingly cool and you all totally deserve a little time with some modern luxuries.

  11. monica Avatar
    monica

    wow – how cool is that!! sleeping until past 4.30 am! Makes one consider to pop down , ring on that intercom and demand newly fluffed breakfast.. and insinuate one is a Michael Palin type of person, and if you don't treat us the way we want we might write books about it… LOL!!!

  12. geewits Avatar
    geewits

    I think this is so cool. First that one couple offered you a place and then wanted to charge you out the aspirin. Then this other couple makes a genuine offer that is fun and you are all having a good time and enjoying life. Yay for the German couple! That other couple can suck aspirin.

  13. Mother Theresa Avatar
    Mother Theresa

    If I had a little more money I'd be booking a stay at your Fairy Chimney Inn right this minute…because, wow, that is seriously cool!

  14. unmitigated me Avatar
    unmitigated me

    I have the books of all of Michael Palin's BBC travels! And for Christmas, Jim got me the DVD box set of all the BBC videos of same. Love me some Michal Palin! If you get a chance, I highly recommend the books, just so you can see the beautiful photos by Basil Pao.

  15. jess Avatar
    jess

    That's it, I am coming to visit you the second I win the lottery.

  16. Pam Avatar
    Pam

    "…the owners wanted to go to Germany to visit family and we were, um, in the area, looking bored". I am obviously in the wrong areas looking bored.I have to work on this!

  17. Deborah Avatar
    Deborah

    Well crap. I read this post and thought I had left a comment. But seems I just creeped you and snuck off.

    You have a remarkable talent for approaching your topics from the most obtuse angles. Half the time I don't have a clue where you're going to go and am then amazed at how you got there.

    'And Now For Something Completely Different'was probably the third movie I ever saw in a theatre. I was 12. I went with my pregnant sister-in-law (22) and the most memorable moment was when she hissed at me to put my hand on her bump 'cause my nephew Mark was kicking.

    Well. I just did some fact-checking and apparently this is untrue. I did have a SIL who was preggers and we did go to a movie together and I was agog in an eeww sort of way to feel an unborn baby kicking my SIL's navel, but the film apparently wasn't anything to do with Monty Python since this would have been in 1969.

    And you think YOU get sidetracked??

  18. lime Avatar
    lime

    so like maybe if you get bored you could re-enact the french taunting and add a turkish twist to it?

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