What Stays in Vegas

Which is NOT where I went because I cannot afford to stay here:


Which is the most muy fabuloso hoteloso I've ever seen. And if I can't stay at the Wynn, I just walk on by. Besides, gamble with money? Surely you jest.

So, non.

I only LANDED in Vegas so that I could make the fifty bazillion hour trek through the most lonesome section of the Mojave desert known to man and a few coyotes to get to the good stuff in Utah. (Insert here: crickets chirping and a bunch of covered wagon-type women schlumping along behind their husbands going, "John? You dragged me away from my cushy Bostonian town home with the lawn and gardens and ladies luncheons and adorable outfits to pioneer this?") Look, I'm not making this up. Is this not the ne plus ultra of desolate, or what?


And you're talking to a gal who loves her some desert. But this is just wrong. This is mother nature and God pissed off at the same time.

There is some civilization. It's called Mesquite, Nevada, and it's located about twenty-five minutes northeast out of Vegas on the border with Arizona, and it's, like, God really, really on a bender, because imagine the photo above, only with a golf course, a Wal-Mart, twelve Taco Bell Mansion subdivisions, and a casino offering $39 massages and all you can eat King Crab legs – in the desert, Party People – for only $15.95 per person. Oh, and somewhere a few miles right before all this, someone had taken the trouble to hike out into the middle of the dusty scrub and decorate it with a big ol' "Ron Paul for President" sign.

Anyway. That was day one. I was not driving. I was looking out the window and thanking my lucky stars that I wasn't born a pioneer woman.

Okay, so then we get there and there's lots of hiking, climbing, running, jumping, boot camping. And eating. With high heels. And a couple glasses of Pinot Grigio. Well, okay, a lot of glasses of Pinot Grigio. Cause that's how I roll when I spa.

Then, the trip back. More crickets. More me thanking my lucky stars and wishing reading in the car didn't make me nauseated.

Then there is the fifty bazillion hours we sit in the Las Vegas airport. Any of you ever get stuck in this 9th circle of Dante's hell? Used to be, there was nothing to eat here except Cinnabons and $15.00 Wolfgang Puck wrap sandwiches. Now there is some place named something like The Tequilera or something, that serves up surly waiters nicknamed Gucci, $15.00 Cuervo 1800 margaritas, and the most gawd awful food known to mankind, only made fifty million times worse by the fact that there was no salsa to go along with it because of the tomato salmonella scare.

So not only did I end my trip hung over and with a grumbly tummy, I ended it famished.

It's good to be back home.

Vay-Cay!

"Sunshine all the time makes a desert."

And I like it like that . . . Off to adventure among some red rocks and dry desert heat. With spa treatments and wine. I'll be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy!

The Black Hole Ate Moi's Homework

I read a statistic once that postulated that before we die, each of us spends on average, like, 1.5 bazillion hours of our lives either standing in line or waiting for service. Which is fine with me, because, hell, when else would I catch up on my crap magazine reading?

Some places, though, are better than others. At the top of my list: the Jiffy Lube on the corner of Menaul and Wyoming in Albuquerque's Northeast Heights. For a place run entirely by dudes, they nonetheless know their market and thus stock a wide variety of the best evah magazines ranging from the most up-to-date Peoples in existence (no six month lag for these guys, oh no) to Time, Newsweek, O, and even Vogue. Not a snooze-a-mooze parenting magazine in sight. No offense to parents, but really, if you're childless or empty-nested, not even the ads are interesting. And if you're a parent, I suspect the last thing you want to read about is even MORE parenting stuff. Admit it: You'd rather read about Jessica Simpson's botched boob job.

At the bottom of my list: my gyno. Whose magazine selection is all about the OB and never about the GYN. And if you're 5.7 minutes away from having yourself poked and prodded in that particular manner, you want aspirational magazines out in the waiting room. Not ones that remind you of why you're here. Listen, you OB/GYN magazine Nazis: we all know how we got here. So now, take us far, far away. Architectural Digest would be good. And heck, forget Vogue, if that's too much for you. Mademoiselle will do in a pinch. Can't go that girly? How about Golf magazine, fer crying out loud. But my gyno, despite my most gentle encouragements, never catches on. He just smiles and nods in that way that tells me when I open my mouth, all he hears is Charlie Brown's parents. Men.

Anyway, yesterday was doc appointment time por Moi and while in my dermo, I was happily heartened to spot this:



Nah, it wasn't Dwayne Johnson that caught my eye. Although I guess you could make a case for his sex appeal in that shiny-suited, head-to-toe reconstructed way today's porn stars are considered sexy, only minus the highlights and tacky-ass French manicure. I likewise spent only a couple seconds perusing Laird Hamilton's "Surf God Workout." Sweet jeebus, I thought only women were susceptible to fairytale bullshit about our bodies. The workout? Puhleeze. AB could eat Laird for lunch.

Nope, the article that caught my really real attention was on Garrett Lisi, a surf bum physicist who has come up with a totally new unifying theory of the universe that he calls E8, which basically says, String Theory, Schming Theory, where it's at is this: fitting together the four forces of physics — electromagnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and gravity — into an incredibly intricate shape that looks like something you might have created with your Advanced Spirograph kit in the fourth grade.

Another thing about Moi: I'm obsessed with the Big Picture. Every time one of those PBS specials on the universe comes on, I'm glued to the set. But this, ugh, I'm going to need years to grok to this particular bit of information. Go check it out for yourself and maybe together we can process all this into some cohesive understanding.

And while you're at it; riddle me this: Ever since S.B. installed satellite radio in the Mini Coop, it seems I hear Tori Amos's "Cornflake Girl", like, sixty bazillion times a day. So if you can get a finger's grasp on what Lisi is on to, can you perhaps explain to Moi just what in the hell the woman is talking about in this song?

Underrated Friday: Bearded Iris

Bearded iris (Iris germanica), while as ubiquitous in New Mexico gardens as cactus and Gramma grass, just doesn't get the attention it deserves. Drive through any Albuquerque neighborhood between March and May and you'll see stand after stand of this bomb-proof perennial beauty, blooming like crazy in every color of the universe. But everyone's ooh-ing and ah-ing elsewhere: over the roses because, hey, roses in the desert, that takes skill! Or over the show-offy lilac, with its grabby growth habits and heady, Vegas hooker scent. Or on the cactus because, well, you know, zeriscaping is the responsible thing to do.

Maybe we forget about the bearded iris because it is everywhere. Because it is easy to grow. Because it could never, ever rain again, ever ever, and the things would just go ahead and bloom anyway, eternally optimistic that tomorrow, tomorrow, the rain will fall.

But I also think we forget about them because we don't really look at them. From a distance, ooo, pretty. Up close, though, whoa. That's one weird-ass looking flower, beautiful, yes, but in a space-alien-meets-Helmut-Newton kind of way. And then there's the smell: a mixture of damp basement and warm licorice, which, given the flower's fertile form, strikes the nose as unexpectedly austere. Was it just by chance that Vincent van Gogh chose to immortalize the iris in over a half dozen paintings? I don't think so.


Bearded iris have been a perennial in my own garden for over ten years. Their rhizomes were given to me by an ex-client who said they'd been in his family's garden for twenty. He swore they were all deep purple, but each year I'm surprised with a new color - a lemony yellow, a weird burgundy/pink/peach. And I think I spy a couple apricot buds about to burst – a first ever.

I have come to love these flowers more than any other plant in the universe. If I were She, I'd write them a rap-ode. If I were Justin Timberlake, I'd dance a sexy dance in their honor. If I were a painter, I'd pluck them from van Gogh's garden and place them instead in a vase on the counter of some nameless Hopper-esque truck stop on Route 66, their bizarre beauty frozen for all time to give hope to ravage-voiced waitresses and speed-addled long distance haulers and anyone who appreciates the beauty of the bizarre.

Mute Monday: Intoxicating

The Writing on the Wall

Two years ago we had a February/March snow season like few I've seen around here. One storm after the other blew in, dropping twelve, fourteen, eighteen inches of snow at a time. Of course, working at home means I can usually get on the driveway pretty quickly, shoveling it clear in between bouts of work to ensure that I'll be able to escape to the wilds of civilization for Starbucks and sushi sometime before the Second Coming. (What about SB, you ask? Well, Party People, SB is rarely home during these monumental events, spring being the best time for him to go to work moving power across 'merica's midsection. And I have the upper body muscles to prove it.)

Anyway.

Not only does snow pile up on our driveway, it also piles up on our satellite dish. Those of you who work at home know how muy importante it is to have working television at all times. So, on with the snowsuit, the snow boots, and the long broom to make the dangerous trek out back to knock the snow off the dish. Halfway there, I heard it: a rumble like distant thunder and then a swooshy sound like sand being pushed by a wave breaking on shore. The sound was coming from above me and I looked up just in time to witness a huge chunk of eighteen inch high snow come rushing down off the roof to land on top of my head. The force knocked me to my knees, the snow covered me completely. But within seconds I put those shoveling muscles to use and was able to burst forth into the sunshine. And complete my mission to free my satellite dish from being likewise smothered so I could spend the afternoon watching Fashion Television.

Since people die in roof avalanches, come summer, we did the responsible thing and called ABC Roofing to install all new gutters and snow breaks. No more roof avalanches.

But I'll never forget that feeling – however momentary – of being buried alive. It sucked. But that's how I feel this week. Part of what I do for a living, other than coming up with my own words, is making the words of others sound much better(er). And that's what I'm doing this week. Fixing other people's words. Lots and lots of them. Which can actually be harder than coming up with ones of my own. Hence, the buried feeling.

So I got nothing much else, except to tell you that I'll be posting about Muffins on Da Baking Blob soon. Oh and this:

Beyonce and Jay-Z got married this weekend. Did you hear they had 100 bazillion Thai peasants pick with their 1,000 bazillion nimble Thai fingers over 100 trillion perfectly bloomed orchids to decorate Jay-Z's Tribeca loft as part of their Twu Wuv ceremony? Sweet jeebus, that's excessive. Even by Moi's whack ass excessive standards. Then again, what else would you expect from a woman who never met a prom dress gone horribly wrong that she didn't turn into a personal fashion statement?


About Jay-Z I have nothing to say. Except that it looks like he buys a lot of shiny, silky stuff. Does he rap?

Mute Monday: Mother Nature

“They cannot scare me with their empty spaces between stars – on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home to scare myself with my own desert places.” – Robert Frost

Mute Monday: March

Happy V-Day

Once I stood to lose her
And I saw what I had done
Bowed down and threw away the hours
Of her garden and her sun.

– Eddie Vedder

Mute Monday: Pinnacle

A Fruit By Any Other Name is Boring

What plant we in this apple tree?

Sweets for a hundred flowery springs
To load the May-wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard-row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;
A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple tree.

– William Cullen Bryant

And not, Party People, with the banana tree. I don't care if Mr. Smarty Pants Dan Koeppel spent the last five gazillion years chewing his fingers to bloody stumps in pursuit of his thesis that the banana is, in fact, the fruit that really changed the world.

When you go to the grocery store to buy apples, what happens? Most likely you spend a wee bit of extra time tapping your foot in front of at least a dozen different varieties. There are eating apples and cooking apples and baking apples and apple sauce apples. Apples for broiling and baking and candlestick making. For tossing and dipping and wrapping and snacking. But there's only one variety of banana. It may be green, it may be brown, and if it's ripe, it's a mellow yellow, but it's still one single variety. Ho. Hum.

And not very much fun. Have you ever strolled through an apple orchard in the afternoon of a particularly mellow spring day, when the perfect storm of sun and wind conspire to coax the tangy-sweet scent of apple blossom out from the flower and into the air for speedy delivery straight to your olfactory system, and if it weren't for the fact that every honey bee in a five-county area were at that very moment also inebriating themselves giddy on the scent, you'd gather up an armful of blooms to press to your face and inhale until your senses shut down from sheer gorgeousness overload? No? Try it sometime. And then try it with a banana bush.

So while I'm always in favor of a good bit of paradigm-busting research, in this case, I say: meh.

To Moi, the apple will always be the quintessential foodstuff of the civilized world. I mean, really, Eve bite a banana? How obvious.

Move Along Moi's Vegetamarian Friends; Nothing to See Here

Last week, Doris Rose wrote about a little incident she’s having with critters setting up house among the insulation of her pool, and making themselves a snack of the plumbing while they’re at it.

I can sort of relate. We have a famblee of squirrels who for the past nine months have nestled their homey headquarters somewhere in the insulation of our outdoor swim spa as well. Thankfully, they have yet to gnaw their way through any of the piping.


But that doesn’t mean they’re not causing Moi to stamp her feet in frustration. That’s because, as SB is fond of saying, I insist on establishing Snow White’s freakin’ fairy land around here. I mean, why eat PVC when you can nosh luxuriously on $5 bazillion a pound gourmet birdseed?

Yeah, yeah. I bought a squirrel-proof feeder. But this is how the relationship between Moi and technology usually goes: I buy the correct thing, but then I position it improperly. So, no, the squirrels most definitely cannot climb the feeder. But they can drop down on it from on high. And yes, there has been talk of moving it . . .


Anyway.

Given that SB has himself a shiny new toy, I suggested that perhaps we should just go ahead and kill the little fuckers.


After all, while I love all of God’s chillrun (well, except cockroaches and politicians), I am not above putting them out of Moi’s misery under two very specific circumstances:

1. My life is in immediate, you-can-for-damn-sure-bet-on-it danger. But that’s never really happened. (I don't count the time I was vacationing in Bermuda and had the bad luck to sit my bikini bottomed ass on a patch of ground wherein lived a particularly virulent band of Bermudan Fire Ants who promptly bit me to hell, causing me to spend the rest of my gloriously sunshiny days fighting a fever and stomach cramps. But you know, what was I going to do? Hobble over to the nearest food vendor and scream, “Raid, my good man; I need a can of Raid!”?)

2. When I’m hungry. Look, I did not stagger my way up the food chain in these here high heels only to be presented with nothing but vegetables. However, I do not take being a carnivore lightly or for granted. Instead, I like to take what I call a Sioux Indian/Fat Bastard approach to meat-eating. In other words: "Thank you O Great Creator for the bounty you have bestowed upon this earth and thank you O Great Angus Beef Dude for giving your life and hide so that I may live and also look stylish whilst doing so. Now, get in mah belly (preferably with a nice side order of garlic mashed potatoes and a perky Riesling.)"

But no. SB won't kill the squirrels. And not because, silly, you don’t hunt squirrels with a Winchester rifle. But because:

1. “You know you’ll just end up crying like a pansy ass girly-girl.”

And

2. “Besides, you don’t know how to cook squirrel.”

True.

Except, wait! What’s this? Oh, my. I almost forgot what my in-laws bestowed upon Moi for Christmas:


And lookie here:

Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008

how do you like your blue-eyed boy mr death?

And tell Moi: what mavericks do we have left?

Smells Like Vacation To Moi

Every year out here in the Rocky Mountain Southwest, winter storms blow in from the Pacific, gathering force as they move along across California and Arizona with the result being that, by the time they reach Colorado and New Mexico, more than a few hapless outdoor adventurers manage to lose themselves among all the sound and fury.

Far from being tragic in IMHO (can you say, thin the herd?), these incidents instead inspire mucho chuckling and head shaking from the denizens of this here household. ‘Cause look, Party People, in this day and age of insta Internet access, anyone who ventures out into the wilderness without first checking the forecast on weather.com? Well, Room For Rent simply must be tattooed across their foreheads at the first available opportunity. Just so those of us who encounter these dimwits have sufficient notice to give them wide berth.

Of course, the press just lives for these kinds of stories. Take this recent incident in which a six-person, two-family team of merry funsters got lost snowmobiling in the mountains north of Chama, New Mexico this past Friday. Everyone was in a panic for days.

But yesterday morning, the news broke: Thank gah and glory be. The two families have been found! enthused a shiny-eyed CNN reporter, bundled like an overgrown papoose in her $5 bazillion North Face puffer parka. They put all their survival skills to the test and made it through!

Uh-huh.

Which prompts Moi to ask this Zen-like question: If, in getting lost in a blizzard, you find your way to an abandoned cabin, break in, discover a propane grill, blankets, food, and thus proceed to whittle away the hours cheerfully playing Pictionary and stuffing your face with popcorn until one of you eventually hoists himself out of the cushy cabin sofa to climb the hill at the back of the property to suss out a cell phone signal and call for help, well, now, can you honestly say you survived anything?

I think not.

Mute Monday: Winter

What is Mute Monday?

P.S. The praline recipe is up.