Las Vegas in Pictures

I'm in a funk this week and it's just no good. I know what I need and I can't do it, but I can dream about it. What I need is a rainy afternoon in the fall. Nobody needs me to be anywhere. Glazed donut holes. Louisville High School sweatpants and a sweatshirt that's too big for me. Nichole Nordeman's cover of "Time after Time" on repeat.

That's it. I can't have that though, and I am in a funk. In the meantime, I'm going to tell you all about Las Vegas. Last weekend we drove the four hours up to Nevada, a state Aar and I had never been to before, hurrah. My sister Jen and her husband and his brother are there this week for a convention so we went up to see them.

Please to enjoy the picture show.

Jen and I at dinner

Garden in the Wynn

 


New York New York. We rode the roller coaster.

 

Jen and I, the Wynn pool which was delicious



tulip sculpture - I think at the Palazzo?

 


A sleepy Aaron Michael and I shopping (and spending way too much money at Anthropologie) at Caesar's Palace, and a tower of delicious cupcakes. I got the Snickerdoodle and oh my. Yes to that.

 

Rainbow on the way home



Hoover Dam and a storm













Bullet Points Episode 4

1. Hi. We went to Ohio for Thanksgiving last week. It was wonderful as usual. The best part was all of it. Here is a picture of the new family dog playing football with Aaron and Joey. Her name is Rosie and she lacks all social grace and judgment and will immediately lick your face upon meeting you, not unlike Aaron. I like her but hope for an improvement in manners when I see her again at Christmas.

The rest of my family was fine, too, though not without their own manner issues (I think my brother cheats at Trivial Pursuit but the investigation is ongoing.) Here is ol' Pops carving the bird, which was delish. Isn't it weird that turkeys say "gobble gobble" and that's what we do to them? (That joke fell uncomfortably flat at Thanksgiving but I know how good it truly is.)

2. We flew home last Sunday and I immediately went to Paradise Bakery to get us some healthy soup for lunch because my stomach was so full of sugar and icing and icing made out of sugar, and stuffing and gravy and icing, though the icing was not on the gravy nor made out of gravy. As I was in line, a wondrous thing happened. There was a nice lady. She was very prim and proper. She was probably in her 40's. She was wearing a nice floral-printed skirt and had presumably just come from a meeting of a religious nature, it being Sunday around 12:00 pm and all. And there she was, very feminine and polite as she ordered her sandwich, and then she looked over her shoulder, and then went for it. She picked a big ol' wedgie, ya'llsies. IT WAS AWESOME. I know, lady. I know. There's something just unacceptably uncomfortable about underwears right up your butt. Sometimes you weigh the social unacceptability against the discomfort unacceptability and the discomfort is way more unacceptable. We're pragmatic, you and me. I applaud you and I bet you were super comfortable while you ate your french onion soup.

3. After the soup and a brief nap, Christmas threw up in my apartment and I wasn't even mad. We have stockings and a tree and a wreath and a little ceramic Christmas train (there are always trains! Do trains come out at Christmas?) and I even made Snickerdoodles, though that had less to do with Christmas and more to do with my debilitating sense of guilt after our neighbors watched Jethro while we were in Ohio and wouldn't accept payment, so I gave them Snickerdoodles instead. Nonetheless, they featured green and red sprinkles so the Christmas spirit was still very much alive.

(Jethro acted as if he had done all the work. Unlike us. Unlike Aaron. I...I didn't do anything.

Also while we were decorating we tried out a new grilled salmon recipe on the, you know, grill. It's surreal to grill outside in shorts and socks while hanging tinsel, but I don't want to start being someone who overuses "surreal" and I feel like I'm getting close to that, so let's just call it "life." It was life to grill out while hanging tinsel.

Before I wrote this post, I made an outline of it, and yes, it was as grand as you're imagining.

Bye!

To California: A Narrative

This weekend we drove to Pasadena to hang out with Aaron's cousins. We left early-ish on Saturday and drove the lonely, dusty I-10 through the windmills that make me ponder my own mortality and all that I waste my time on, and then we got to our hotel and immediately set back out in the warm sun.

We met up with Scott and Amy and drove out to Santa Monica, where we were greeted by this.



and I was like, man California. I want to marry you, but why does your gas cost $4.50 a gallon? As we pondered this and other of life's questions, we then proceeded to eat lobster at the aptly named "Lobster" on the pier, while Scott told awesomely awesome stories about his awesomely awesome job as a writer and producer for Dexter and Amy and I made plans to do Thanksigiving together next year.

The next day we went to Hollyweird.



The sun was so warm and the breeze was so nice and little Audrey and Zane are too fun for just a weekend. Listen to "Lovers Carvings" by Bibio if you want to know how the day felt.



Then I realized Will Smith and I could totally swap shoes.

Now we're back in Phoenix and the moral of the story is:

1. I've created a monster in buying myself a photo-ready iPhone

2. California is so wonderful except for a bottle of lemonade costing $3423240394

3. Aaron's cousins are super awesome and super fun and I'm super excited that we live so close to them; also I like 'super.'

Have you taken any fun little trips lately?

A Chocolatey Christmas Eve

Hot chocolate, brother, husband, and storybook lamp lighting. Happy Christmas break from our flannel-clad home to yours.

The Raisin Version

In one of my favorite blogs to read, Natalie Lloyd always includes what she's listening to and a quote or lyric she is liking at the moment. In full belief that imitation is indeed flattery and not cheating, I love the idea and think I might implement it here...in a Maria sort of way, if you will. So.

Listening to: Sports Center's Top 10 plays of the day. Comes with the territory of being married to Aaron, friends. :)

Lyric that has been nagging me lately (in a good way): "...because my comfort would prefer for me to be numb; and avoid the impending birth of who I was born to become..." -Brooke Fraser

Now.

I got back to Phoenix on Saturday from Myrtle Beach. I got...a bit of a tan. Trust me, I used sunscreen - I am quite terrified of the sun, after living in Arizona for 9 months. Nevertheless, I believe I may have inadvertently become the raisin version of Maria.

Oops. But anyway, I also bring back from Myrtle Beach fresh perspective... and a nervous belly.

I had such a great week with my family... we were all bummed Aaron couldn't make it, but he will come next year. But even without my Brown Eyes, It was so cathartic to be around my dad, my momma, my sister, her awesome hubby, and my sweet brother all at ONE TIME. (And Frank! Frank is brother Joey's friend.) We napped in the sun every day, ate lots of cookies and other things that don't quite qualify as real food, yet are sinfully delicious (read: Zebra Cakes) and played card games.

I went running along the beach a few mornings, too. On Thursday, after my run, I even wandered over to the pier and happened to see a huge family of dolphins giggle and jump their way down the Carolina coast...it was so lovely. One of those moments that was unplanned and unforeseen but so graceful. If we could always remember how joyful it feels to actually live in one moment - not thinking about the moment before it or the one that's coming - we would do it all the time, dont you think? But we forget too quickly.

Being on vacation seemed like only a moment itself, and now I am back in Phoenix. This is what gives my belly the nervous feeling. It's not a foreign sensation - it is exactly the one I had when Mom dropped me off in Colorado by myself a few years ago to study for 12 weeks at the Focus Institute; and the same one I had when I was 8 and she dropped me off at Girl Scout camp for a week. It is not a pleasant feeling. It is a panicky, "wait-where-is-she-going?!"- feeling. A "but-i'm-so-far-away!" feeling. And it makes me physically sick to my stomach - and I mean that literally. I won't go into details, friends. But it is that kind of a weird, steady panic.

Don't get me wrong - I am with my husband; the love of my life and the guy I would follow to Pluto if I had to, because he is my husband and I love him, and I promised I would. And we have an adorable little puppy and a nice, unassuming little life right now in Scottsdale, Arizona, and that's just the way I like it. I do love the Hispanic culture here, and the beautiful mountains, and Phoenix's lovely downtown. But the truth is I really can't stand being away from Mom and Dad anymore. It just doesn't work with me. I wasn't built for it. Things are too different out here. Dirt replaced grass, posh apartment buildings and strip malls replaced decades-old brick courthouses and a ceratin... west-coast-ness? (insert: snobbery) replaced humility. I know that's a generalization, but you must trust me when I say the culture in Arizona is night and day to Ohio. I am not lying. One is not neccesarily better than the other. But one is most certainly more Maria than the other.

I used to fancy myself someone like Belle from Beauty & the Beast - wanting adventure in the "great wide somewhere;" and not one of those ignorant townspeople who were content to just bake pastries all day. (That's what French people do, right? That and sing all the time, in unison?) But now, I don't think that skipping town makes you sophisticated, in the same way that sticking around doesn't make you pitiful. Why did I ever make that assumption? You can be lazy and unadventurous in the town where you grew up or you can be lazy and unadventurous 3,000 miles away. And you can dream big and do big things 3,000 miles away but you can do them next door, too.

All that being said, Aaron and I have talked about it, and it is not time for us to leave Arizona yet. We both know that, and so we stay. But we will be back one day, Ohio. We have come to a little adventure out here, but we will be back. And we will have a big blue house with white trim, a basketball hoop in our driveway and a comfortable proximity to Mom and Dad. Because my belly can't take it anymore, and because I was a fool to think I always knew exactly how I wanted my life to look. Jon Krakauer might make fun of me, but then again, he never got a Papa Fisher hug. And I know which one of us is missing out.