REARRANGING AND REMEMBERING

October 5, 2013October 5, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

September is the month to rearrange; wardrobes, patio furnishings, and thermostats. Heaters go upstairs, fans go downstairs, down blankets are released from plastic zip lock bags, and coverlets are removed. We seal the windows with weather stripping and my list notebook follows me everywhere. If you live in the seasons then you understand that the menial work goes deeper as our bodies prepare for winter’s residency.

The interior change, what Anais Nin refers to as; ‘our emotional landscape,’ wakes to a chime of awareness. Now that I’ve completed all those mindless tasks, I’m ready to listen to the chime and renew the organism of emotion. On this brilliant film shooting day in September shadows of light, glaring light, brush the feathers of my wild birds as they tap dance from tree branch to feeder. Between the leaves that drop like confetti from the trees, the New Mexican sunlight feels like ten thousand flashlights in your face.

Summers postcard days flash on and off as I write; Natives dancing at the Plaza in the wildness of fiesta to Latin and Mexican music, while Anglos freestyle a sort of slow rock and roll hippie dance. I meet strangers and we exchange our exaggerated cheer and humor, during festivals, fiesta parades, and the burning of Zozobra. These yearly events chisel the face of Santa Fe into a collage of New Mexico colors; magenta, orange, lime, and yellow surface on paper Mache flowers, streamers, and costumes.

The phantasmagoria of my summer thumped one night in July during a Monsoon thunderstorm. My summer vacation rental guests were in the main house and I was in my casita sitting at the desk writing, with the door open. It was pouring rain, the kind of shower that explodes from the rain gutters like a tub faucet and those huge blue and white La Posada Hotel umbrellas seemed race up the street unattended. When the skirmish between warm air and thunderstorm collided, lightning seared the charcoal clouds and thunder bombed me out of my swivel chair.

How rigid my body felt; like hardened cement, but the phone rang and released me from this state of shock.

“ LouLou, I think we have some issues in your house.”

I rushed over in my kimono (a writing uniform) and found the three of them stiff as statues. Young headlight deer eyes, all piercing me at once.

“ We saw sparks, and all the electricity is out. I think the lightning hit your house. ”

I didn’t’t know what to say; suddenly I was responsible for this rarity of nature’s behavior. They clung to their cell phones, and watched as I feigned authority and calm by checking the blackened outlets. The electronics were silenced, appliances deadened, circuit breaker inoperable. I called my friend, White Zen, who doesn’t fluster easily.

“I have to get help now. Right now! What should I do?”

“I’ll call my electrician. He’s really good. Are you all right?”

“No, not at all right.”

“You want me to come over?”

“No, but thanks anyway.”

A few moments later, she called back.

“ I pulled Phil out of Smiths Grocery. He’s on his way, she said with humor, enough to release a molecule of laughter from me.

“ I can’t believe this. Do you know the chances of being hit by lightning?”

“ No, but don’t take it personally.”

The funny thing is, I did. Other house disasters; like the time the plumbing backed up, or the historic windows wouldn’t’close didn’t’t have any comparison to this cataclysm. Then my next door neighbor, the Architect, and professor of all topics informed me, “ Oh you’re in bad shape; you’re going to have to rewire the whole house.”

Phil arrived within ten minutes, and I greeted him with a hug, more for support of someone’s appearance with tools than anything.While my quests and I tried to answer his questions, all of us at once, he went down to the basement, as we followed behind. Phil replaced something in the circuit breaker, and the lights came back on. I clapped my hands but they didn’t’t join in; they went back to texting.

Then he tried the TV and stereo. The stereo is fried he said, but the television is okay.

“What about our Wi Fi connection?” I asked.

“The surge protector fried too. You have to call your provider. Good luck on that. I’ll come back tomorrow, after you get PNM (City Electric) out here to check which panel.”

“Which panel what?” I said.

He went into a Wikipedia explanation about the two hundred and fortyhouse voltage, and who is responsible for the outage. I followed Phil outside after failing to soft stroke my tenants. What made it even worse is they are musicians with the Santa Fe Opera and live sensitive structured lives. One gal remained board stiff and and unblinking, the young man offered all of his technical support but his hands were trembling. The leader of the pack, who greets life with radiant optimism, was busy eating crackers in rapid succession. I felt the responsibility of a mother, and so I assured them of my competence. Then I slipped into jeans and T-Shirt, almost falling over as I raced across the street to La Posada and gulped a Martini. While I was still trembling, staff and guests gathered around me.

The concierge said, “The lightning hit your house; I saw it from the window! Are you all right?”

“ On no, a bar guest remarked and rubbed my back, ‘Oh Loulou, something always happens when you have guests, a waitress commented, and another broke out in a euphoric smile and said, Wow LouLou! What was it like?”

“Ahhh. It’s not a humor story Ed; it’s a disaster!”

The electrical company showed up late that night, and poked little metal toothpicks into a box outdoors; a box I didn’t’t know existed.

“Sorry Mam. Our panel is working fine. You’ll have to get the electrician to make further repairs. Wow! That lightning sure hit hard. Have a nice night. ” Ha Ha, I said and stumbled into my room. No Internet, no television and no music. I slept with a pillow over my head.

The next day Phil returned to trouble shoot everything. My television and the house stereo blew out, so did the surge protector to our modem, and the electronic gate was broken. The guests couldn’t get their cars out of the driveway. We pried the gate open, and they backed out in jerky anxious motion.

A week later, in between substantial attempts to behave normally, all of us were still irritable, prone to trip, biting nails, and voices wavering over the tenseness that clipped our tongues. It was never the same after that; our simpatico shared residency turned into staged friendliness.

That’s the thing about lightning, it gets inside of you, and you are involuntarily rearranged. My emotional landscape is naturally in a state of alarm. I startle easily, imagine voices, and see too much in the dark.

Too be continued.

MUSIC and DANCE INSTEAD OF PILLS

September 15, 2013September 15, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS – CUBAN STYLE

SOMETIMES AN INTERVIEW WITH A MUSICIAN GOES DEEPER than a narrative history of recordings, concert calendar and early training. That happened when I met Jorge Gomez; founder, keyboardist and musical director of Tiempo Libre, an all Cuban born Timba band.

We met in a modest hotel room in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he and his six band members were invited to play for the second time at the Lensic Theater. It was steam-bath hot and muggy that Friday afternoon. As I stood in the doorway, Jorge wrapped up a recording session. After introductions’ everyone cleared out except Jorge and Raul Rodriguez, the trumpet player. Raul, propped up against the headboard of an unmade bed, one leg bent at the knee, the other straight out. He reminded me of Miles; cool in his skin and unflappable.

Jorge and I sat at the kitchenette bar, between us his keyboard on the countertop. Eagerness to begin was dilating from his eyes, so I began with my favorite question to all immigrants; how did it feel when you landed in the United States?

“Oh my God! It was my dream; all through childhood in Havana.”

“Do you love America now?”

His arms shot straight up, as he rose from his chair.

“Are you kidding? We love America! How can you not? This is the best country in the world. I’ve been all over: Europe, Asia, Mexico, and Caribbean. You have all the opportunities; you make your own life here, whatever you want.” He shifts his attention to Raul, agreeably excluded.

“You can’t do this in Cuba—right Raul?” Jorge leans forward and I’m struck by the indisputable untainted smile. Jorge continues to dramatize his arrival in Manhattan, with arms and eyes, “I got out because I had friends in New York. They helped me get gigs in the bars, weddings, and then we got into the clubs.” The room is silent except for Jorge’s satin smooth transitions from one question to the next. That alone is reason enough to meet Jorge for conversation.

“We were not allowed to listen to Cuban salsa music, or American music; only classical. I trained at the Conservatory all my childhood. I play all of them; Beethoven, Brahms, all of them.”

“Where did you learn Salsa?”

“From America! Yes. As teenagers we climb to the roof and we to wait till state programmed Cuban music goes off the air at 1:00am. Then we wrap aluminum around the antenna and turn our radio on. We pick up American music; like Gloria Esteban, Michael Jackson, everyone. We listened all night so we’d take the rhythms’ in our heads you know.”

“What’s the difference between Cuban Salsa and Latin Salsa?”

“Everyone claims this is their Salsa; it’s Latin, Marenge, Colombian… it is a blend of many cultures and musical influence. We take from each other. All the instruments I learn come from listening. They teach me everything; and I teach them.”

“Do Americans play Conga different than Cubans?”

“It depends on the person. See if the person is open to learn everything then he push through. For example we have been playing all these places like Michigan, Minnesota, Minneapolis…all those places that are so.” He pauses to express it precisely. Cold he says, laughing out loud.

“And I’ve seen American band playing Cuban salsa so so good, my God, so well. Blue eyes and blond hair.” Jorge breaks to howl out his enthusiasm and surprise, and demonstrate the memory.

“Who do you like to listen to do today?”

“I don’t know the names, but I have a lot of friends, and they call me and say, ‘I have a band, you come and hear me.’ So I go to the club and Wow! This is good music! Everyone is dancing. I love to see them dancing! I want to see them happy. If they want to sit and listen, good, if they want to sing along, good, they want to dance good. Everybody have a different reaction. My job is to transfer the energy to the person; that’s the idea. Not to play the music for me; I want them to be happy.”

“ How do you do that?”

“ Sometimes you are sick, and no matter how many pills you take you are still sick. Right?”

I nod and watch his facial expressions twitch in thought.

“Then let’s say I come and say, Wow! You look so good man, you are looking good, and he claps’ his hands and pantomimes the joy he’s transferring. ‘You wanna a coffee cake and coffee, yea, come with me, (clapping again) you want to sit here? Yea sit here and see the sun.’ Suddenly, you feel good.” He nods his head. “Trust me.”

Jorge is toe tapping in place, his arms positioned in a warm world embrace.

“You forget all about the pills. Trust me, that is the kind of energy I give.”

“I suppose you don’t get sick?”

“Never. For sure. Never. I don’t know what this head pain is… how you say, headache? Like friends say I have so many problems, so many headaches, I can’t go out. I say, ‘What! Come on we go the beach, to the sand. Bring your conga. What are you crazy! Come on!’ So he comes and we play on the beach in Miami.”

Jorge drums on the counter top. “Have a beer, have another.’ And everyone on the beach comes to us. The whole idea is to forget your problems. So my friend says to me, ‘I had the best day of my life.’ Yea! Be happy! This is youth; this is how you stay young. Life is so big.”

I shake my head, “Not in America; we concentrate on sickness and misery.”

“Yea! You don’t have sickness yet, but you are going to get it.” He ruptures into laughter, and takes a sip of beer. My father tell me one time you have to hear your body; your body going to take you in the right direction. Just listen and you are going to feel so good. Sometimes I can’t go to sleep at night. All the songs and ideas in my head and I can’t sleep. I must write it down, and the next morning I feel so good, because I didn’t go to sleep. I drink beer because I am too happy-over happy.”

“Where did you learn this happiness?”

“From all the difficult paths I have in my life. Childhood was very difficult;no food, no water, no electricity, no plumbing. What you going to do? Party, go outside, dance, play basketball, baseball. I get my friends and they say, my problems’ are bigger than yours. Bla bla bla.”

I’m laughing now as Jorge continues to articulate his life philosophy.

“ At the end of the day you are so happy because you see people less fortunate and some more, and you are in the middle, and you want to help those people, you can’t go it alone.”

He chuckles again. His smile is broad as his cheek line. A streak of sunlight crossed the keyboard, and Jorge’s eye and brows are in motion, as much as his legs arms and hands.

“ What you’re going to hear tonight is a lot of crazy crazy energy, good music, a lot of stories. You’re going to see a lot of soul. When Raul plays his trumpet you’re going to turn inside out.”

“What is Timba music?”

“A mixture of jazz, classical, rock, and Cuban music.”

“Sounds like a musical.”

“Yes, Yes! We are in preparing for that.”

Four hours later I was in the Lensic Theater, twelve rows from the stage. Lead singer Xavier Mill, Jorge, Raul, Louis Betran Castillo on flute and sax, Wilvi Rodriguez Guerra on bass, Israel Morales Figueroa on drums and Leandro Gonzales on Congas opened the set, and five minutes into it I was below the stage. Two and half hours later I was still dancing, along with half the audience. That’s entertainment! http://www.tiempolibremusic.com

The three-time Grammy nominated band will perform Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at a Special Event at the Arts Garage in support of AVDA, Inc. Arts Garage in Delray Beach, Florida.

REVISION IS THE RIGHT WAY

July 30, 2013July 30, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

There are more reasons to quit than not to quit: rejection, isolation, uncertainty, bills! The one reason that hovers above all else, is that every thing we do in life needs revision. We are never through evolving into more thoughtful, loving, or wise human beings. Everyday, there is an opportunity to leap into a great attitude. It is the same with manuscripts; they do get better!

THE ORDER OF DISORDER

July 23, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

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THE ORDER OF DISORDER.

THE ORDER OF DISORDER

July 23, 2013August 16, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

Whispers of The Past (Photo credit: tj.blackwell)

The order of this week is disorder. Not the trivial disorder of a closet, or a work in progress; this week is the unraveling of the self which comes with separating from someone you love dearly. It is the subject of: poetry, theater, film, literature, dance, visual arts and music — all forms of music from opera to rap. For all of you who have mothers’ and fathers’ close to death, and you don’t want them to leave.

Adults protect you from the brutality of death when you’re very young. They keep it behind locked phrases like ‘she had to go away to a better place; you’ll understand when you grow up.’

The camouflage of death may go on indefinitely until one day, you are hit over the head with a block of ice, and it splits you right down the middle. You can see your guts spilling out, and everything is all out of order. Walking is an effort. Thinking clogs with the big question: Why? Why can’t we all stay here together and live forever?

Flashback to 1966 — I was very young, not so much in years, but when I was 13 my mental and emotional age were more of an 8-year-old. I don’t know if I was ADD or DDT because those acronyms were not in vogue yet.

My development was arrested because I was raised on a fantasia of false identities, fiction, and privledge. I thought we were rich, happy, and would live together forever. The fantasia of falseness was abruptly taken away on June 19, 1966. On that day, I saw for the first time, my father weep uncontrollably. I was told my mother was in heaven. My father was seated on my mother’s avocado green sofa in our tidy mid-century apartment in Westwood. Nana — mother’s mother — was seated on the sofa next to my father. Nana and Dad had reconciled for the period of time my mother was sick with cancer. They both were sobbing. I was not. There was nothing inside of me but resistance; a blockage of emotion that remained there for so many years.

I was left in my father’s care. He was busy out chasing government subpoenas’ and running the Fontainebleau Hotel in Florida. He kept a command post on my emotions. He would not tolerate my grief, because he could not tolerate his own. So, I had to chin-up, chest out, walk up and down Doheny Drive in Hollywood where he lived and pretend I was going to be fine.

When I turned eighteen and left my father’s apartment was the first time I was free to unravel my feelings. The emptiness filled with confusion, anger and drugs. If college was supposed to be my best years, then I missed that chapter. Looking back, the real leap to personal growth came at that time when I was left unattended to wander through life with my own eyes as guardian, and my heart as my compass. That is when I missed my mother the most. It was my fortune to have my father back in Los Angeles, throwing his weight around from a distance. He kept me under radar by having a friend’s son working in the admittance office of Sonoma State College.

I remember days when my mental attitude needed electric shock therapy. Miraculously, I did find my way home, and to the matter of my mother, and growing up with gangsters. From a wafer of stability, very slowly, I’ve built a nice lifeboat to keep me afloat. My screaming, cantankerous, and intimidating father who loved me beyond measure is in this imaginary boat, and my mother who loved with a silent gentle hand she gave to me whenever I needed assurance.

All I have to do is look at her photograph placed in every corner of my house, and I regain momentum in my lifeboat. When I am particularly insolvent with life’s measures, I recall the years she spent fighting cancer so she could continue to hold my hand. How can I disappoint such a woman? I cannot, and I know that with more certainty than I know anything.

We all have a basement strength that rises up and balances us when we need it. Each time we cross that unpleasant road, and say good-bye to our friends, our pets, our parents, or our siblings, we have to find our basement strength.

You can read poetry and essays, listen to opera or rap and find five-thousand ways of expressing the same painful stab of separation. If the comfort comes in just knowing — we all have that in common — then all you have to do is tap the shoulder of the man in front of you, and ask, “How did you handle it?”

Or as Henry Miller said, “All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.”

Any dice to throw, e-mail it to folliesls@aol.com.

LOOKING BEYOND

July 14, 2013June 20, 2014 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

What if we entered the day without the purpose of attainment for ourselves, and rather brought gifts of friendship, attention, and comfort to others.

QUE SERA SERA

June 28, 2013June 30, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS

is going from my 2500 square foot five-bedroom home with a garage movie theater, private garden and roomy front porch into a 265 square foot bedroom without a kitchen. It’s not permanent, but there is no end date either.

The big house we converted into a Vacation Rental as a means of income, and so I had to move out a month and two weeks ago. My room, I coined the Wild West Room, is brick red. I covered the walls with yellow and red original movie posters, and furnished it with a slot machine, two tables, two lamps, a TV with western saddle draped over it, a double bed, and a four drawer plastic dresser. The closet is tiny; so I only brought my best summer clothes; twenty hangers is all.

Waking up to have coffee on my petite patio laced with roses and a canopy of vines, settles my nerves after the mini coffee maker falls off the edge of the sink, and other accidental maneuvers. Living in a doll house requires tremendous gentleness, one swift wrong move, and things start tumbling.

My refrigerator has inspired a new diet. I call it the mini-frig diet. I can fit one bottle of wine, one 8oz bottled smoothie, one juice, my Aloe Vera, cream, three condiments: green chili, horseradish mayonnaise, Red Chili Jelly, a small tub of washed lettuce or spinach, two cheeses, tortillas, olives, tomatoes, smoked salmon or chicken strips and that’s it.

The only catch is that it is in arms length of the bed, and within four feet of anywhere in the room. Snacking is just part of the atmosphere.My own unimportant theory on eating, is I eat less poison if there is a bowl of chocolate covered nuts, gummy bears, and chips in the house.

I prefer to eat on dishes then paper, so I wash them in the bathroom sink, but I wash the delicate wine glass when I’m showering. All my meals, usually one a day, are outdoors on the patio, under the new Overstock.com umbrella that works perfectly. I’ve had a great experience with them on a return as well.

My house faces a busy street in Santa Fe, NM. The street connects upper Eastside to the downtown Plaza, and across the street is the La Posada Resort and Spa. I can walk to the gym, and pool, survey the clientèle, drink wine in the bar, and talk to the staff at the front desk. I’m there everyday; and as ying goes with a yang, I tolerate their side of the street being the loading zone. There are pick-ups, and drop-offs, and a lot of racket that I bear with my earplugs.

It’s in the high nineties, and we’re in a stable between three burning fires. The heat clings to me, like a saran-wrap; it’s also sort of Chaplinesque. I keep changing; to go on the patio. I can’t go in a slip, so I change a lot. Then there’s the marvelous terrifically considerate and talented guests in my house. They are three principal musicians’, with the Santa Fe Opera this season. When I water I hear them practicing.

My shrunken life has forced me out more, eliminated hours of cleaning, shaved time off dressing, rearranging furniture, over-achieving unimportant tasks, watching the birds in their nest, and feeling complacent.

That is the most important of all; I realize it is time to bolster up, make sacrifices, and use this little room as the place to write my way out of here. I see myself in Portugal, or some place I still haven’t discovered. This miniature living reminds me of the first studio I rented in Los Angeles. You can’t imagine what progress came from that disappointing address, at the corner of Little Santa Monica and Westwood Boulevard. ‘ Que sera sera.’

WHERE DID SHE GO?

June 16, 2013June 16, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 4 Comments

I feel myself crossing the double yellow line,

into the lane of a demon woman and full of hellish fire. It is the line that divides those that still care from those that just, whatever.

Never thought I’d be a don’t care, no dreamer, no hope woman
but I am there. What is God telling me? What is the message?

Why am I meeting pitiful people? Do they reflect me?
Do they mimic me? Do breasts mean everything?
Was my youth my only charm?

Why are men blocking instead of
buying me drinks?

Why do they
prick, instead of prune?

Only when they are detonated with insults do they respond.
Is the strong female driven Hollywood character
emblazoning every commercial, film, ad, and song
Stolen the testosterone?

I am going to look for the eighties woman I was. She was

full of laughter, confidence, romance and aspiration.

ONE DAY AT A TIME

June 9, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

Reader View: Random chats make life sweeter

Luellen “LouLou” Smiley

Posted: Saturday, June 8, 2013 10:00 pm

By Luellen “LouLou” Smiley | 0 comments

One day at a time. People with terminal illness, suffering from a shattered romance, a death of a friend, a natural disaster, always say the same thing: One day at a time.

Walking up Palace Avenue on a day spread with sunlight, and a continuum of power walkers, bikers and runners, passing by in whiffs of urgency, I took my time. I didn’t feel like flexing, just evaporating into the shadows and the moving clouds. I walked by a little adobe that once was a dump site for empty bottles, cartons, worn-out furniture and piles of wood. A year later, the yard is almost condominium clean. Just as I was passing the driveway, the little woman whom I’d seen walking up Palace with her bag of groceries, appeared like a gust of history in the driveway of her adobe casita. She wore her heavy, blanket-like coat and a bandanna on her head. Regardless of weather, she’s bundled up in the same woven Indian coat and long wool skirt. I stood next to her, a foot or so taller, and she unraveled history, without my prompting. She told me about the Martinez family, the Montoyas and the Abeytas, all families she knew, all with streets named after them.

Estelle asked me my name, and then took my hand in her weathered unyielding grip, “Oh, I had an Aunt named Lucero, and we called her LouLou.” She didn’t let go of my hand, and then she told me that the families, some names I’ve forgotten, bought homes on Palace in 1988 for $50,000, She shook her finger to demonstrate her point. “You know how many houses they bought? Five! Then they fixed them up and sold them.”

I could have stood there in the gravel driveway listening to Estelle all afternoon. She owns the oral history I love to record; but it is difficult to understand her, she talks with the speed of a Southwest wind. We parted and I thought about the times in my life when the smallest of interactions elevates my spirit. In older people, who are not addicted to gadgets and distant intimacy, I’m reminded of how speed socializing has diminished the opportunity for a sidewalk chat.

Luellen “LouLou” Smiley is a creative nonfiction writer and award-winning newspaper columnist.

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Posted in My view on Saturday, June 8, 2013 10:00 pm.

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LAS VEGAS WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

June 5, 2013June 5, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

I wasn’t allowed in the Copa when the Rat Pack performed; I listened to the uproar

The Sands 1963 (Photo credit: D’oh Boy (Mark Holloway))

from outside the door, and caught a glimpse when Uncle Jack let someone in. It was a wild charade of slapstick, improvisation, and politically incorrect slurs, swearing and insults, all dressed up in comedic song and dance.

That’s how I remembered Las Vegas. When I returned for the grand opening of the Mob Experience Las Vegas, I bounced into the spot lights, press conferences,

introductions, and interviews in a shiny aquamarine pants suit, I hadn’t worn in six years. Congregating with the sons and daughters of my Dad’s associates, who were raised in a similar fashion of privilege and secrecy, was my homecoming to

Las Vegas. There I was, speaking into a microphone about my father, who obsessed over me, as I was now doing in Las Vegas. What was the importance of this seventeen year battle? To re write history that was written about him, by people who never even met him. They couldn’t get the camera off of me, “Luellen, we’ll turn it over to the station now,” while I am still stating the case of Allen Smiley. What would Meyer and Dad and Roselli think of all this. They’d say, “Wish the Brain (Arnold Rothstein) could have seen this racket.

REVERSE THE SPENDING.

May 17, 2013June 20, 2014 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

Big spenders, rich or poor, are learning like me, that spending more than you have, like the US Government, follows you until your legs break over the debt line. I used to spend everything, before the check even arrived. Now, I am stimulated by resisting my fav delicacies, the extra beauty clutter, the wrapped $6.00 soaps, luxury bath salts and body creams, and the RLauren sales. I love to walk into a shop and leave with the one essential item. As I’ve moved into a 300 square foot no-kitchen casita and rented out the house, there’s no room for new stuff. I live with art, music, a few books, and a bulky 32″ television. There is a mini frig that suits two bottles, three condiments, pre-washed lettuce, and sliced cold cuts. Love the condensible lifestyle–so far.