Feed Them (Pretty Much Anything …) and They Will (Still) Come

You know what we all should be in the business of selling in order to get rich? Even in this crappy economy?! We should ALL sell fast food! All of us! It seems to me that no matter how bad the publicity of all the fast foods is, no matter how scandalous the lawsuits, how many bypass surgeries they have to pay for, no matter how bad the food is, fake, plastic, greasy, poisonous, deadly, no matter how many times they screw up your order … we all keep going back!

We keep them all in (very successful, bazillion dollar making) business. Did you notice how McDonald’s stopped counting?! They now don’t tell us exactly how many millions of burgers they sold, they just say “millions served”. I guess Seinfeld’s wish has been fulfilled after all …

It’s the biggest mystery yet, to me. We all complain about bad service pretty much anywhere, even WalMart - although, like I said before, you just set yourself up for failure if you walk in there expecting good service. But we don’t ever promise to never go back to say … McDonald’s. Even if they give us the wrong drink, no ranch, no plastic ware for the salad, bacon when we want sausage, even when people find human thumbs in the chili (sorry, that was Wendy’s) or bugs in the tacos (T. Bell) – we go back … Always …

So, here’s my most recent experience at the now (unfortunately) legendary establishment.
There is this “ritual” in my new office – every Friday, my “team” goes somewhere fast for breakfast. Most usually, they go to McDonald’s because it’s faster, closest (of course, they’re on every corner in America, you knew that!), bla bla bla …

I seldom eat any fast food. Unless I am on the road to somewhere and I am in a rush, I never visit them. But, I am new in the office, didn’t want to be antisocial, so, I go along for the ride. I usually get just a plain biscuit and a cup of coffee. I figured, it’s the least poisonous stuff in the freezer, right?! I never liked fast food much, but since Morgan Spurlock’s documentary , I am even more consciously avoiding them. So, anyway, back to my sheep: they go to McDonald’s every Friday … I (most) times join them.

Today, I didn’t have much of a breakfast at home, so I figured, I can get something on my biscuit. And I decide I don’t like sausage, nor bacon (not today, anyway), nor steak, there is no chicken option, nor ham, so I’ll get just a cheese and egg biscuit – but that is very dangerous, because there is no such thing on the menu. So, it’s a custom order. I am nervous, but … here it goes:

Me: "An egg and cheese biscuit and a regular small coffee" (there is no “button” for my order, you see).
Teenage chick, who looked new and lost, in a foreign accent: "Hhmm... you want an egg biscuit?"
Me: " Egg and cheese, please"...
Her: "Oh, ok." She punches something in the register ... and repeats just to make sure she got it right: "OK. An egg biscuit." - looks all happy of herself. " And a coffee??"
I give up and say: "Yep. Egg biscuit and a coffee."

I was secretly happy she kept missing the cheese, since I really don't need it anyway ...

She puts it in the system. The lady from the back comes with the order in the bag. The cashier confirms with her she got an EGG biscuit, not anything else ...

I am all happy ... We drive back to the office, I sit down and open the sandwich. And surprise-surprise: I got not only egg AND … cheese on my biscuit, but sausage, as well. Although the word “sausage” never once was spoken.

Apparently, whoever Subway is using for their egg provider is in business with McDonald’s, too, because the eggs are square, and they taste like cardboard. That is not a metaphor, mind you … they really, do taste like you just licked the back of your pizza box! Really. Honestly!

So, I peeled off the sausage AND egg AND cheese off the bread, and ate my usual plain biscuit. Now, I am kicking myself for paying $3.00 for all that, when I should have just started with a plain biscuit (they didn't screw that one up yet ... ) and paid $1!

I am contemplating this office Friday "ritual". Should I risk being unpopular and a stick in the mud and just not join my co-workers?! Too soon to decide that, I think, but I can definitely not be on the McDonald’s Friday diet, for reasons so many the entire infinite web space is not roomy enough to host! So, I’ll refrain from listing … “Sigh”.

Time and Times Are Slipping …

Nothing is new, and yet every year it all feels freshly different …

Cats are hovering over warm vents in the house and get fatter… The furnace kicks in at night … We grab jackets from the coat closet on our way to work … We turn blue on our daily walks…We remember we have a closet just for coats …

I walk into Hallmark just to smell the “harvest” candles … Pumpkin pie … Apple and cinnamon … Autumn wreath … I dream of fires! Grapes are sweetest … Another year – another new wine …

Dogs get spunky and thicken their coat … They eat more … Cats snooze more, if that’s ever possible …

God-awful, cheesy Halloween décor shows up on lawns … And pumpkins … Christmas trees are in the store front at Lowes … *sigh* …

We’re craving and cooking the “warm and cozy” foods … Mashed potatoes … Mac and cheese casserole … We roast a whole chicken in want of Thanksgiving … We’re baking more bread and feasting on its warmness … We’ve retired the salads …

The smell of freshly chopped wood floods the morning drive through the neighborhood … Piles of wood greet us at the stores …

People at the office exchange recipes for squash dishes and pumpkin soups … It’s “orange food” season … Kids go apple picking and drown in cider ...

We go shopping for new books and reach for a blanket … Make the book thick. Make the blanket soft …

Autumn rugs are lying on earth once again … yellow and red and brown and purple … It’s raining more… It’s dark longer … The sun has lost its bite …The rocky peaks jumped the gun into snow already …

Things are slowing down and quieting down to get ready for “the big sleep” … All things but the wind. The wind is howling in the dark void of leafless valleys …

It’s fall and we’re going with it …

Oct. 5, 2010 - first hint of snow, outside my kitchen window.
Please click on picture for more fall pictures along the Alpine Loop, in Uinta National Forest

Cranky Saturday

The Life is good saying of the day is timely and fitting: “nothing is happy proof”.
But I wonder sometimes, after a day like today, if that’s really the case … Hmm… still debating. But let’s see what happened today to make me doubt this!

We were looking forward to this weekend, because we both had crazy weeks. So, we set off to a fun day, we thought, of harvesting and shopping and eating out and just being together. And the day turned out a bit stressful, to say the least!

We stopped by Sundance , where the Harvest Market was going on. They advertised on the site that there will be a local wine and beer tasting at this market, so I was hoping that kids would be scarce, since you know, alcohol is still the devil in Utah and such a bad example to youngsters, thank God!

Well, I was wrong. The whole place was flooded with them!

When we reached the upper parking lot (which seemed like a mile away from the actual market!), we almost ran over five or six of them, because they were roaming free, with no adult supervision, all over the overly full and rapidly filling parking lot! My husband stopped maybe half of a foot of a three year old girl, not even seeing her, because of her shortness, before she looked all surprised that she was that close to a car. The mother was smiling at the sky, and adjusting her purse strap somewhere not nearby enough …

When we reached “the market” there were no written signs of where and what was going on. We saw food being cooked, we saw people with wrist bands, but we had no idea where or how to get either … We roamed about, looked at crafts and found out the workings of the place, only after we asked a person with a name tag.

And we found out pretty soon that the name “harvest market” was loosely used: there was no “harvest” related merchandise or décor there – the only “harvest”- like tent (only ONE!) had tomatoes and peaches in it. No pumpkins, no gourds, no corn, no hay, no wreaths! NO harvest!

When it was time to get food, both the chicken and the burgers were not done yet. Sure, the barbecue and the hotdogs were, but that’s not what we wanted! So, we had to wait “for a minute” (that is a relative term in customer service!!) for the coals to be added to the grill, and for the food to cook while we were baking in the heat and listening to our waiting partner, an older man, who seemed to be following us around.

When we were done barbecuing … we went to check out the wine and beer tasting in The Owl Bar. OK! We arrive at the bar and there are again no signs about any wine tasting, nor people with samples of anything liquid. There were people sipping real drinks and ordering food, but … no signs. Again, we ask. I guess they offer it, but it’s not very visible, because, again: alcohol equals devil! But it’s a BAR!!!! So, we ask! They have two beers and one wine to taste. $2 for EACH of the beverages! They were advertising it as “local wines and beers”, and they had some Michelob Wheat and some other Michelob beer and also a Parducci white “sustainable” wine from … California! “Local” - my toes!!

We do taste some “sustainable” wine, and then, off we go … After a neat stop at Cabela’s, where we looked at dead creatures and shopped for camping gear – fun, fun!

And then we went shopping at the mall. We got hungry, so we went to Winger’s, which, according to Aa. “have everything”. And they do. So, we sat down, we looked at the menu – I knew I wanted a beer, a glass of cold water, a bowl of soup and some chicken wings! Well … hhmm … sat down we did, and we waited! For minutes on end. And no one showed up to even acknowledge we were there … So, off we went, after about 15 minutes of being ignored … Hungry and pi…ed, but definitely not in the British sense of the word!

I suggested to go to the Winger’s in Spanish Fork, closer to home, since we already knew what we wanted and we could skip the whole “looking at the menu” part. And so we did. Only to find out that the Spanish Fork Wingers … doesn’t serve alcohol! Smaller town, no liquor license, I suppose. Oy!

But we got great service in Spanish Fork, although they were much busier than the Provo mall folks! With stomachs full and still craving beer, we headed home next, only to almost hit another little girl in the parking lot, while leaving Winger’s! Our hearts jumped again: the girl was about 3 with no adults watching her !! I swear I could kill parents most days!

We decided we should stay in tomorrow! Too hazardous out there! And I have not said a thing about the crazy traffic we have been through all day, people with no direction, no signals, no common sense, breaking, cutting off … being stupid!!

But even on such a day, we come home, where it’s peaceful and quiet (for the most part) and we get to just enjoy each other, and the blessings of being alert enough not to kill two kids today! And that, my friends, is happiness!

Life is, indeed, good.

We Didn’t Get Killed, After All

A different camping experience, indeed.

I remember, the first time I came to the Rockies (January of 2000), I promised myself that one day, I would come back in the summer, to camp and hike here. And here I am living here, and camping in The Rockies for the first time.

As always, camping is everything I ever want it to be: disconnecting, refreshing, re-plugging, invigorating, wandering and wondering, all at the same time. Nature never disappoints! Humans, on the other hand …

The campground we wandered to this time is only maybe 15 minutes away from our house: Whiting Campground, in Mapleton, UT. It’s so nice to live in the middle of this beauty and to have it all available at your backdoor. Pretty much literally.

The venturing out was not empty of adventure. We managed to dent our driver’s door when my husband backed the truck into a tree; he lost his watch, and both of us were attacked by flies and bees, and both of us got stung by yellow jackets. We also found out that adults can be a pain in the neck, so much more so than kids!

All weekend, the adults were the ones guilty of all the noise! They were laughing too loud, driving too loud, at all hours of the day and night, revving up the engines on motor bikes, riding horses on sidewalks until wee hours of the night, driving trash trucks, or maybe horse trailers at midnight on a Saturday through the middle of the campground, making a huge fire and partying ‘til 2 AM on a Saturday, only to return to town the same night.

We have found out that one downside of the campground being that close to town is that young people (I know! They’re the ones guilty of living it up, aren’t they?!) stop by for a fire and a hotdog, and a joint, any time of the day, or night, and then drive away. Unlike out East, this campground didn’t seem to have a gate that closes at dusk, so drifters were pretty much coming in and out as they pleased, all day and night long.

Despite these small distractions, we did manage to do everything we planned to do to disconnect and recharge our batteries: we slept in, we made fires of our own ‘til we started smelling like bacon, we hiked, we watched the moon and stars in the night sky, we read, we snoozed in on a lazy afternoon in the shade, we ate beans and dogs, like true cowboys, we made grilled dough, or “brown bears” on the open fire, like camping friends have taught me out East.

We saw hardly any wildlife at all, for some reason! They were probably hiding from the human noise! That didn’t tame down my paranoid fear of bears, however! I lived with that fear the entire 36 hours of living there!

We found out that the hot Utah summer left the river bank dry, so there was no babbling brook there. But the mountain air alone and the fresh, rusty colors of fall were enough of a backdrop for a wonderful getaway.

With all the other mishaps, of sorts, we did have a successful trip – one that is begging us back soon. After all, we didn’t get killed by the bears I was afraid of, we did not break any bones in the very steep hike we took, we didn’t get slashed into pieces by the hooligans that were having a bonfire and a wild gathering in the middle of the night, a couple of sites down from us, either. We survived it all and lived to tell the tale.

So, maybe we’ll raise the danger level next time and go off the beaten path a bit and just be one with nature alone - no campgrounds, just wilderness. Away from humans and all their array of noises… We’ll see.

It was a great trip. As the pictures can always tell.

A Sip of This, a Bite of That ...

A journey through Northern California

California has haunted me for most of my life. I have always wanted to go see it, but I guess I share that dream with a lot of folks.

Growing up, all I knew about America was California and Dallas. OK, MAYBE The Statue of Liberty, but it was not till probably in first or second grade that I knew that was in New York. Everything, to me, was in California. California and America were perfect synonyms. What?! They are not one and the same country?! Well, as I have discovered in this last trip – they are very much not the same country. Most times, anyway.

We started off on a Saturday, on a road trip towards the Western state. On I-80 West of Salt Lake City things are flat. And salty. The Salt Flats fit their name to a tee. Yes, I did have to jump out of the car and taste the soil, just to make sure all that whiteness is salt. It is. The huge mountains of salt being harvested from basins on the side of the roads testify to that also.

Onward through Nevada we had again that Dorothy-like, deserted feeling we experienced in Kansas this year: lost. Just vast lands, big sky and nothing much more than dust. One would tell you that there are only two colors, yellow and blue, for the sand and the sky, but there are so many shades of those colors your eyes hurt! I guess if Eskimos have 100 words for “white” (or is it “snow”?!), Nevadans should have 100 words for “yellow”. In Nevada, because of wide spaces and infinite horizons, you get to see the beauty in the simplicity of the desert. The vegetation is scarce, but the land is vast and overwhelmingly present.

Once you cross the border in California, you literally feel like you are in a different country. People drive faster, traffic thickens and roads are horribly, horribly worse than anywhere else I have ever been. The landscape is different, too: lots of pine trees and junipers are now adorning the sides of the rocky mountains everywhere. Whereas in Nevada the dimension is horizontal, in Northern California you flip your vision by 90 degrees to vertical: there is only one way the eye can look, and that is up, from the winding, narrow valleys of the highways and you see the blue skies. Everything is close up and personal there!

We planned to make Napa Valley our main base for the short stay, and travel around it, for wine, food, sightseeing and photo opportunities, and of course people watching. I guess I can safely say we accomplished all that. We spent a couple of days winery touring, one day in San Francisco and on our way home, we stopped in South Lake Tahoe (for some WEIRD reason my tongue continues to call it “Lake Taco”) for lunch and lots of photos. It was a beautiful journey, one that I hope I can make another day, a little less rushed, and a little bit longer, so I can see all the beautiful adjacent places to these spots we saw this time.

A few travel notes for next time and for those interested in following in our footsteps.

Food in Napa and around is amazing. Yes, we did spend a bit more for food, because this was a special occasion for us, but even when we didn’t, when we stopped at a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, food tasted delicious. We had lunch at Armadillo's, in St. Helena, a Fresh Mexican food place, and it was like nothing I have ever tasted before! All the ingredients tasted like what they were not like melted cheese under a broiler.

The resorts do a fantastic job of cooking everything gourmet and everything familiar with a gourmet twist. Some of my favorite finds were the cold corn and lime soup at Solbar at the Solage Resort in Calistoga, as well as the herb French fries at Siena, the restaurant at Meritage, in Napa, our home for the trip. Now, two words of caution here: Solbar changes their menu daily, so the soup might be a one day event there, but everything they do is out of this world, so, you're in luck anyway. Siena (our “own” restaurant) has absolutely horrible service for dinners, from what we have experienced. Morning service was OK, but dinners – not so much. Unless you planned to spend at least two and a half hours for dinner and 30 minutes waiting for someone to show up to take your order, I would not recommend Siena. All I could figure was: well, they have you there! You stay there, you come in for dinner because you probably are too tired (or too tipsy) to drive anywhere else, they can make you wait forever – where else would you go?! Definitely below par from what you expect from a highly rated resort.

I WILL have to say one word (OK, maybe several!) about Morimoto Napa Restaurant. For those of you who watch Iron Chef America, you know who Masaharu Morimoto is: he’s this Japanese “iron chef”, one of the original “iron chefs” from the original Japanese show by the same name. You will see him cook on the American version of the show, and as one of our friends put it “he is the one who is always perfect”.

He has a restaurant he owns in Napa . I am not too sure how this whole thing works, whether he comes up with the menu, or ever cooks it, or supervises the chefs through video conference from New York, or even has anything to do with anything in there at all other than putting his name on the place and grabbing a check every month. Not sure how much of Morimoto is involved in the food is what I am saying. But the foods on the menu are pretty close to the tradition he’s cooking in: Japanese, lots of fish, fresh ingredients, original pairings of flavors.

The dinner we had there was definitely an experience of a lifetime! We looked around and no two plates looked alike! Every food had its own kind of plate or bowl, various colors to complement the foods, and various shapes. I had a crème brulee that had blueberries and Earl Grey tea in it, and lemongrass ice cream on top. Now, lemongrass is something you eat in your fried rice dishes, or your glass noodle Thai soup, as a veggie … The whole thing was exploding with flavors and just melting in my mouth. And I hate desserts, mind you! But this was not a dessert. It was a journey.

I had to have some sushi, as Morimoto describes himself as a sushi chef, primarily. I had flying fish roe and then king crab sushi – fresh, sea-like and simple! My fried rice and yellow tail came in this 400F Dutch oven kind of bowl – everything in the bowl was uncooked, except for the rice – the waitress cooked everything in front of me by mixing everything together and allowing every bite to touch the hot walls of the bowl– it was sooo fresh when I tasted it! There were ingredients in there I never had in fried rice before: mushrooms, nori, spinach all “fried” in sesame oil. Again, the rainbow of flavors was amazing: the salty fish with the woodsy mushrooms and the green spinach, the sweet sesame oil and again salty, sort of pickled nori – your mouth didn’t know where to go to describe it all!

My husband had a ginger and peach “martini” that was pretty boozy and surprisingly tasty, for ginger, in my opinion. He also had miso soup and pork chops with kimchi and ginger – in he Japanese tradition of perfect balance, they balance heavier meats (pork) with a smaller, leaner side (kimchi). In an American restaurant, you’d get pork chops AND potatoes AND fried onions on top! His dessert was tofu cheesecake with maple and coffee reduction sauce and maple ice cream. The cheesecake was like chewing on air – so light!

We didn’t have any bad service to speak of at Morimoto’s – the place runs like a scientific experiment – we were waited on by several people and we were showered with attention, although the place was incredibly full! The décor is something else too, but I don’t want to take too much longer here, so, just, please … visit the pictures .

The wine, of course, is plenty in Napa. And that is all I am going to say in the adjective department. Wine, much like any taste derivative, is a personal choice. And my mom always said don’t ever argue about taste! And I won’t. Some wine was good and some was not so good. To us. Some of the wineries we visited were: Domaine Carneros (my first “sparkling wine” winery), Artesa, Folie a Deux and Napa Cellars, Sutter Home, Freemark Abbey, V. Sattui, Joseph Phelps.

I have read a lot before I headed out there, but unfortunately not before we booked the trip: they tell you that Sonoma is a white and sweet wine place (more South, longer summers), and Napa is a red wine place, and a dry wine region – for the most part. Of course, there are various things to be found in both. But yes, they are right: Napa is predominantly “red”. We are mostly sweet white wine drinkers. OK, we’ll give a Riesling and a Pinot Grigio a try once in a while, but we like our “Kool-Aid” on the lines of Muscats and Ottonels . Sutter Homes and V. Sattui had the sweetest Muscat wines, the most perfumy ever! And thus we tasted the difference between Moscato, which is what you can typically find in any grocery store in America (well, except Utah, of course), and Muscat, which is what I grew up with, back home: fuller body, in the sugary content. All grapes, sun and deliciousness!

At Joseph Phelps we had a beautiful surprise because their grounds were by far the most serene and spectacular: just simple, quiet beauty. We were there on Harvest Day, September 7, and they were all looking forward to a wonderful new season, as these folks really get into their trade. The winery is by far the most upscale, and most "technical" of all of the ones we saw - not for the pleasure drinker, for sure: they talk about their wines in “points” and percentage of wines that make a blend. And they offer private tastings with a wine specialist in this beautiful, all wood tasting room. Definitely “up a notch”.

They are off the beaten path of the Hwy 29, but so worth the short trip. Whereas all the wines were anywhere between $5 and $25 at all the other wineries, Phelps’s bottles started at $45 and stopped at $225. They make mainly Bordeaux style wines, Merlots, and Cabs, very “full body” some say … but to us, they are “full of chalk”. And yes, I said that to them, and of course they stopped paying attention to me.

I personally don’t believe in the absolute in wine! There is no such thing as an absolutely great wine. I think it is such a subjective matter of palate and taste that you cannot tell me a full body Cab is the best wine ever produced and a fully aromatic Muscat or a perfectly balanced and smooth Pinot Gris is junk! Because what makes a wine great, after all, if not the taster?! I believe strongly that wine, just like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Phelps also reminded me that price has nothing to do with what you like, either. If it brings you pleasure and you only spend $.50 on it, more power to you, I say! A $225 bottle tasted worse, to me, than any $5 bottle of Muscat I ever bought.
Beautiful place, though. Definitely worth the trip, for the grounds, the trellis work and the largest wisteria in the world hanging off of it. Just don’t mention their wine is chalky if you want to make friends!

I think the funniest memory I’ll have from the wine journey will be the fact that when sales people were asking us where we’re from at the wineries, and we said Utah, they would make this very sad face and add “Oh, I am SO sorry!” – because they knew about our silly alcohol rules up here. But I will have to say, we got out of being upsold on memberships and “wine clubs” by telling them “hey, we’re from Utah, you can’t ship alcohol there”. And they can’t. And they were bummed. And we weren’t. Although the Muscat from Sutter Home would make my day every time it would arrive in the mail! For sure.

And speaking of Sutter Home – they also have beautiful grounds, although on Hwy 29, smack dab in the middle of traffic! They have the most gorgeous gardens. And that’s the thing about California: the vegetation is amazing! You get thousands and thousands of acres of vineyards, of course, but then you get olive orchards, and orange trees and lime trees and bushes, and lemon trees, and pomegranates, and palm trees and cactuses, and … pine trees …and what NOT?! It’s beautiful, and diverse, and lush green and fresh! The roads leave a lot to be desired, for sure, but what a delight for the eyes the hills are!

Till you get to San Francisco that is! Well, maybe I am once again biased here! You see, I am not a big city girl! I am one of those people who’ll tell you that NYC is “great to visit but not to live in”. Same thing in San Francisco! Man, what a zoo! And yes, surely: part of the zoo was the fact that we drove into it on Labor Day (Monday) and the place was abuzz with tourists, but part of it is just San Francisco: traffic, and more traffic, and pushy merchants, and crazy hills to drive on, and no parking and … metropolitan jungle at its worst! And I said nothing about the tourists everywhere – because the only other place I ever saw that many tourists, their bikes, go carts, kids, strollers, dogs and funky fashion styles was in New Orleans. Very colorful!

We had lunch at Lolli’s Castagnola’s in the Fisherman’s Wharf, and we had the world’s weirdest waitress serving us. We were perfectly sober, but we could not tell whether she (“Jennifer”) was a man or a woman, nor whether she was sober, drunk or high … She was something else … She started by saying she will make us “the world’s best Long Island Ice Tea”, as she is a world renowned, award winning bartender first, and a waitress next. And everything after that was “the best”, “the mostest” that we ever had, according to her … She had to “flirt with the chef for extra shrimps on my sandwich” and that alone almost killed my appetite. The seafood we had was definitely fresh, but not spectacularly cooked. The Long Island Ice Tea, however, was apparently amazing, according to my husband who did take her up on the offer.

We took a boat tour of the San Francisco Bay, and floated by The Golden Gate and Alcatraz Island, and just peeked, away in the distance, at the San Francisco – Oakland Bridge. I always love bay cruises, because they put things into perspective for you. I do enjoy riding through a city (or walking it, like we did a bit, too) to get a feel of what that city is, but I love seeing it from afar, too. After all, when you see postcards from New York, San Francisco, Chicago, etc – it’s always some skyline shot from some body of water, isn’t it?! So, seeing it in real life for yourself kind of gives you the feeling of “Wow! I have made it there!”.

The bay tour was great, I thought. Gave us perspective and a nice, relaxing way to look AT the city. And they don’t call it “the Fog City” for nothing! It IS foggy! All our pictures can tell you that! We didn’t visit Alcatraz, but I was shocked by the amount of decay we could see from the boat. I visited Ellis Island, and I was moved at how everything looked like it must have been many years ago, when it was a working island. I don’t know the history of Alcatraz that well, so I am not sure why it could not be preserved, but … it felt very depressing, and not just because of the fact that it’s a prison island. It felt like staring into a skeleton.

On our last day, we drove back home through Lake Tahoe. And what a beautiful trip back home that was! The Tahoe area is gorgeous. I am not sure how else to put it – but it’s just one of those places you just NEED to go to before you die! It’s beautiful mountain landscape at its best – breathtaking, raw and wild. Between the simple and tall beauty of the pine trees and redwoods, and the bareness of the rocks and the clear of the lake, you don’t know where to look for simple amazement!

The California part is nice and landscape - coordinated, all log cabins and stonework. No building almost violates the beauty of the land. You cross over into Lake Tahoe-Nevada, though, and as my husband said “you get lots of cheese in a hurry” – casino signs and billboards out of this world!

Nevertheless, the beauty of the mountains and the lake endures, and no human cheese can really temper that!

We had lunch at an Irish Pub and just drove along the shore of the lake for pictures. We stopped in the canyons for more photo opps, of course! It was like an extra breath of fresh air (in more ways, literal and not) before our long and relatively boring drive through Nevada, back home. But as any traveler will tell you: any corner of the world reserves a surprise, and we were lucky enough to once again be speechless when we almost found the “pot of gold” in the desert . Must have been that Irish blessing we got at the pub in Tahoe.

We loved our trip, and if we were to do it again, we would do it in a heart beat! We would like to go back to Tahoe right away, just for a longer weekend, or so … California was naturally gorgeous, but humanly weird, I guess. People are not friendly. They are always in a rush, and always want to sell something. Whatever it is about Napa, they’re trying to sell you on two things: wine and spas! And they’re really pushy! The roads are horrible and in a state with toll roads and 9% taxes I am not sure why they can’t fix them … The overpopulation feeling definitely kicks in in California. I come from North Carolina which does seem more crowded than Utah, but California is like Time Square at the size of a state. OK! I have not seen the whole state of California, but everything between Sacramento, San Francisco, and Tahoe is way too tight, population wise.

Another characteristic of the area is that there is a lot of “green initiatives” – more than I have seen in any other states: lots of solar panels on the houses, traffic lights, wineries, lots of windmill power, lots of “green” in restaurants (no ice, tap water, real, cotton towels to be reused, etc).

Like anywhere in the Southwest, there is a huge Hispanic influence here – and that was actually one of my favorite features! All our Hispanic waiters and waitresses were by far the best, friendliest and worked hardest. Just a side note, but an important one to me, when I will look back!

The small Western towns are a gem, if you can navigate the traffic to get into them. Old buildings, and lots of live oaks and palm trees. Nice houses, sort of Mediterranean in architecture, with overgrown gardens that offered much needed shade and privacy. These settlings are an oasis of small town feel in the middle of madness. St. Helena and Yountville were very quaint and quiet.

And what is California without star sightings, right?! So, apart from being in an internationally renowned chef’s restaurant, we also were seated at the table next to Tyler Florence , another chef, and his entourage, when we dined at Solbar. I will not go into the details of our eavesdropping, but suffice it to say, the conversations involved cooking with “aromatic herbs”, the kind some people in Amsterdam smoke. Or so I thought I heard.

It was definitely a fast forward trip, with the long drive and the not many (five) days we spent there. But it was an experience in more ways than one: cultural, culinary, oenological, geographical and definitely psychological!

I cannot find a better ending to this than the statement my husband summarized California in: “The experts have determined that Pluto is no longer a planet. California is in no danger of such a re-classification - it is a planet unto itself.”

Just GO! It’s worth it! And remember to take a camera, too. This way, you’ll end up with 2000+ pictures, like we did. Enjoy some of them here .

Running Loose Wednesday

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear here: I do NOT hate kids! I am not sure how many more times I need to repeat myself, but no, I do not hate kids. I hate some parents! And I can say that because I know many a parents who do it right. They have kids because they want to be involved and to make a difference in the world with a successful kid, not because “it’s the thing to do”. Some parents (the kind I hate) have more interest in reproducing than in parenting, which I think should be a crime, of some sort. And I am positively sure that I am not the first human to say “there are people out there who should not be allowed to have kids”.

The situation of poor parenting, I believe, is worse than anywhere I have ever been in Utah. Because, especially in Utah Valley, virtually everyone between 18 and infinity is a parent of multiples. If a family is done breeding, the minimum amount I have seen is three. Usually, it’s between 9 and 16. And when you have that many offspring, I am positive you cannot handle it all easily.

So be it, but why do all the other people have to be exposed to your chaos is what I don’t get. There is no restaurant we can ever go into without being around screaming kids. Traffic is crazy all the time, either because the mom is tending to the five drooling toddlers in the back or the dad is rushing towards home so he can give mom a break for the evening. The absolute worst are stores like Target and WalMart – I have never seen that many running around kids, away from their respective families like I have seen in WalMart here. Apparently, the missing kids of America horror stories have not made it here!

Every time I am at any grocery store, I have to dodge kids. A friend of mine ended up with one of the rug rats hanging on to her cart instead of his own mother’s, just because the kid was not paying attention, and the mom … well – where was she?!

Tonight, a woman almost crashed her cart into several shoppers, because she was running (while pushing her cart!) into a speedy sprint to catch her three year old screaming daughter. That was right before her teenager son decided to pitch an ice cream carton into the buggy while absorbed in his Ipod listening, only to miss the cart and make an ice cream splash on the floor, splattering everyone and his mom’s groceries with vanilla ice cream. NO apologies, of course. Self absorbed and carrying on, she moved right along to the bacon shelf, wondering what will she do with the smeared groceries in her cart. Forget everyone else!

And I am not saying that kids cannot have fits, and what-not’s and misbehave. But DO something about it: take them outside? Talk to them, maybe? Don't leave the house if they didn't have their nap? Anything, but ignore them or act like their misbehaving is OK!

The disrespect for everyone else in such parents is appalling to me. If you so much as look at them asking for some kind of decency, they stare back at you with this “what?!-isn’t-this-my-right-to-have-my-10-kids-own-the-place?!-what-is-your-problem?!” look that you’d rather be buried alive than be looked at like that! The sense of entitlement for their brood to take over public places is unreal to me!

We all have to live in this world, and what would happen if we would all behave like that?! I mean, why would other adults have excuses to behave politely themselves when they don’t have kids around to do it for them?! Let’s all do it! Just kidding.

One more proof that I don’t hate kids is that I do try to watch for them in stores, and not kick them intentionally (you know how easy that would be?!) nor ram my cart into their faces! But deep down inside, I know it’s not their fault. Deep down I’d want to do that to the parents. Just to see if they wake up.

I am not telling people how many kids to have if whatever their beliefs and life style are tells them to have 100. But all I am saying is: have them if you can handle them. Whether you have one or 10 – make sure they can live in this world safely, with respect towards all of the people around them, at home and in public, and make sure they will become functional, contributing adults one day. That is your job as a parent. Your job as a parent did not stop when they came out into the world on their birthday. That’s when it started.

That 3 year old running around had the age as an excuse, but what excuse has the 16 year old playing basketball with Ben&Jerry’s?! None. Just like he won’t have any when he’ll be 20, and pitch something hard to your head. And you know what: I don’t even believe it’s that hard. You know how I know? My own parents did just fine! And they’re wonderful people, but not superhuman.

When the Earth Breathes – A Full Moon Ride

“This is the place where it all started.” (Robert Redford)

There are many, way too many, my memories of growing up in the mountains … There is a whole lifetime buried in their rocky peaks and grassy sides. There are land chores, and foods, and cyclical seasons and many a people that could tell the story of a girl growing up by city life the rest of the year, and by mountain sides in the summers. It’s who I was then – just a mountain girl, “part time”. Nowadays, I might become “full time”.

Today, that I live in the mountains, and an ocean, two continents and several thousands of miles away from my original ones, I never cease to be amazed at how much I find, again, right here, in my new home of what I have learned way back when in my childhood about living in paradise.

The air smells familiar, the people walk just as slow as then, and the time seems to have stopped for a bit, to savor in the sights. There are many favorite times of day and of night and of seasons to me, in the mountains, but if one time stands out, that is the very short pause between when the sun goes to bed and the moon rises.

Back in the day of my childhood, that’s when things, and our lives got a chance to slow down. And breathe. Along with the tired earth, everything quieted down and relaxed for the day. You could almost hear the grass sigh. The cows sighed the loudest, as they laid down in the stables. And the chickens were quiet, for once! There was nothing, almost, moving, not even the pine needles in the trees. Nothing speaking but the crickets and the occasional frog.

Once the sun sets, the air gets crisp and fresh. You breathe in and you breathe pure health. None of the day’s heat and exhaustion is left. Only peace, restful and refreshing.

This moment, between day and pure night is one of those few times when I can almost see heaven!

Last night, Aa. and I went to Sundance, the place “where everything started”, and all these amazing sensations and peaceful feelings were there, as we took a lift ride under the full moon.

Everything was perfect after that ride – as everything looks more beautiful and more tender in the soothing light of the moon. The mountains were once again protecting us, and the sky was a cool, clear blanket over our worries, massaging our temples with clean air of wellness …

I left all the drain of a day and the load of a stressful life lately into those peaks. They all seeped through the tall branches of the pine and aspen trees, and returned to the earth, where they belonged. And as the good mother that it is, the earth exhaled once more, and said warmly and familiarly: “you’re welcome”.

Felt so good that after all this searching I could return home once again … *sigh*.

That very moment of "crossover" between day and night: can you hear the silence?!
(Please click on the picture for the whole album)

Babies, and Then, They Talk ...

I have said this before, and I will say it again: I am just never going to be done being amazed at how babies develop into toddlers and then into real humans. It’s a mystery to me how they figure everything out to become more or less integrated adults. Just fascinating how their brains work to understand the mysteries of life around them.

I know it’s just the course of nature, and life, but watching it gives me chills and humbles me.

It's almost hard to find a picture of him not smiling with his entire face. He is a happy kid.

I have not written about my nephew for a long time now, and I have kind of missed it. I think of him every single minute of every day, and I talk about him often, as I await, hungrily, for the news to come from my sister with new details of what else he did today. He’s a bit over two years old now, and as you can imagine, a handful.

He was here for my wedding this April and I could not get over the fact that he was a totally different kid than the kid I last saw just the fall before: you could communicate more with him, you could talk at him and he could actually understand you, although in April he was not able to say too many words.

A rare "serious" moment. He is fearless around animals.

And in just four months, it seems like years have passed! He is talking almost in full sentences now, and he can communicate with all adults around him, family or not, to tell them what his needs are. There are many milestones in the life of a human, and I guess discovering full sentence speech is a major one. And trust me: it should be, because it’s amazing! It’s not just that you hear full sentences where cries and whines were before, but it’s the thought behind those sentences that’s mind boggling!

On a mission: "Someone, please feed these animals NOW!"

As my sister was noticing, his “terrible two’s” crises are virtually gone now. Because instead of thumping his food and having a fit when he wants something, he communicate now, in our own language and he now asks for it by name.

It’s amazing to me that he is indeed the same kid that was just born two years ago, frail and small, and just figuring out how to breathe yet! He has come so far in seemingly no time at all, and has evolved into this “real human”, as I call them … (and, yes, I realize they are all “real humans”).

He is determined and stubborn, he is a fast learner and a helpful little hand around the kitchen. He loves to wash dishes, and help out. More than anything, he loves to talk! He truly is sprung from genes my family provided, for sure. We’re never at a loss for words. And yes, he blabs! About everything around him, and things he makes up. He is even asking his daycare lady to let him tell the story for “story time” and asking my sister the same at night – he remembers stories and wants to retell them “himself”, or invents something when he feels like it, and he has a pretty rich imagination for a two year old.

"Patrick, the Clown" - the kid has absolutely hated pacifiers since he was a day old. Has never used them, but he will pick one up to make adults laugh and get a reaction. And of course, his best friend: the ball!

He is a clown in school, performing for the rest of the class and making them laugh while standing up on a table. As it has always been the case, he also loves music. He dances and watches “ So, you think you can dance “ on TV intently. He loves sports, especially soccer and tennis, now. He watches hockey. And he is so good at them, too! He is so poised when he kicks a soccer ball! I wish I had a video of that, but some pictures are telling of how focused and agile he is when kicking a ball!

"The soccer star" - focusing on the next kick.

He prefers playing tennis with his dad to whom he announces that “mami can’t play tennis”, when my sister just attempted to play it with him. He also has a refreshing curiosity that we adults have so long ago lost! He is a venturesome eater, and whereas kids prefer pizzas and burgers and mac and cheeses, he eats everything from sausages, salmon (which is his favorite), broccoli and yogurt. As agile as he can be with a soccer ball, he is a klutz on the playground, falling and breaking skin every chance he gets! He is not a very graceful faller, either. His knees are full of scrapes and his forehead, nose and lips are usually blue, bruised or busted somehow. And yet, he picks up and tries again, of course, there are things to learn and discover yet!

Yummy broccoli! - eating all by myself!

This week he’s made a statement that as simple as it was and superbly funny, it was a milestone for us around him. He had fallen on the grounds, in the park, and hurt his backside. When my sister asked him to sit in the stroller, so she can wheel him back home for the day, he sat himself down in the “vehicle” and turned to her and said, matter-of-factly: “Push slow. My butt hurts”. So, now, he can tell us! So, now, he won’t scream for 20 minutes while adults are trying to force him into the stroller to take him home, wondering “what the heck is wrong with the kid? He’s changed! He’s fed! WHY won’t he want to go into the darn stroller! WHAT is his problem?!” …And now, he knows that pushing harder and faster makes the bumps in the road hurt his back. And he can tell us. In human words!

A new era has come, for his parents, I am sure: one where he has perfect reasons for doing or not doing things! I am sure it’s refreshing, “cracking the code” and saving the drama, but also challenging, for when he’ll start giving them fairytale reasons for not eating his veggies.

Either way, every day is a miracle, and a mystery. And we are so blessed to see it through him.

One of the pictures I have in my head when I fall asleep at night: the world is a beautiful place with Patrick's smile in it!

Taming the Desert ?! Well, ...

Plants are an investment. I have learned that quick and early all the way back in first grade. Mom wanted to teach us how beans sprout. So, we put dried beans in cotton balls, watered them and waited to see what happened. Sure, then, it was just a water and time kind of investment, but extrapolating that experiment through planting various things during later years, I have learned a lot about growing plants. I have learned that you put time, money, effort into your yard, and something will come out, and another thing will not, and a whole different thing will come out only to die a few weeks later.

And for some sick reason, as filthy cheap as I usually am, I do spend cash on plants and soil! Now, sure, some folks out there (husband included) don’t get it to save their lives. I guess it’s just the (very hidden and small) mother in me or something that loves to nurture and care for “something”, and since God didn’t put the bio clock in me, for me, it’s tending to plants. I love to see healthy, beautiful flowers, trees and herbs, and just … any greenery around me that it’s the direct result of my efforts to keep them healthy. I love to work for it, sweat for it, and wait. Yeah, me, who also hates waiting, love to watch plants grow and bloom. Go figure!

You do remember, perhaps, that when I moved to “the desert”, back in May, I had to learn not only a new way to garden (because of the dry climate), but a new way to handle a very different kind of soil: a hard, rocky, sandy, dirty, debris filled soil … I was sure it’ll take me years to have just grass growing in it … Well, several months later, and trying not to pay attention to the husband’s (or the friends’ or the neighbors’) rolling of the eyes and serious doubts that I can in fact grow anything around us, I am happy to say the place looks a bit different. Not much, but to me, some.

Our small flower bed, in front of the house

We do have grass! Alas, we have grass AND weeds growing on this bald spot that used to be a dumping site for the neighborhood … And I did venture out to have one flower bed. A small and contained bed, manageable for now. We also have beautiful, custom made, wooden planters (my awesome husband’s contribution to my “yard project”), full of healthy, gorgeous, green plants, some desert loving, some lush. We have pots and planters around the home, and even a tomato plant, upside down, because I went crazy trying to find home grown tomatoes in this area, so I finally decided to plant my own, late and hot as it may be right now! Our dill and basil sort of fried out there in the sun, and so did the ice plants. But everything else looks pretty healthy, as you can see.

Detail on wooden planter (built by Aa. from scratch) with healthy greenery in it.



I think my favorite: frail and healthy (fast growing) ivy and cedar detail.

The still very frail and timid presence of these “live” things just makes me smile and makes me feel like I am finally at home.

We will get good soil, along with fertilizer, in the fall, but till then, our pots and planters have healthy dirt that will keep the very few things I have planted happy. I hope. And just like investment goes: you gain some and you lose some, but you can always count on learning a good lesson! And so, I am learning, day by day … the challenges and the beauty of having plants in the desert. And I am not done yet. This is merely the beginning …

Color, color and more color!



Can you smell it?! Probably my second favorite: lavender.



No, you don't need to flip it around: topsy-turvy tomato, or "the new kid".



Details from planter and flower bed, respectively: they call these "hen and chicks", but I call them "desert roses". They are sooo pretty!

"Hello, Utah - Good Bye, Privacy!"

Or: Confessions of a Bad Neighbor
Warning: offensive to most "good" neighbors


“Hello, all. My name is Alina and I am a bad neighbor”.

No, not “bad” in the sense that I would throw my trash into your yard, or blow my leaves there, for that matter, not “bad” in the sense that I will let my dog (if I had it) or my cats (if they were ever outside) pee on your landscape, nor my kids (if I had them) scream and shoot hoops in the driveway till 2 AM , but “bad” in the “not so friendly” sense of the word.

I do not want to share my life’s story with you, as a neighbor, nor am I interested in hearing about yours. I have friends and family, thank you very much. I just live here! It’s just chance that you and I share a fence, or a street, not a cause to celebrate! As much as I will be able to make it possible, I will try to live so that you can see and hear as little of me as possible.

I have never been really good friends with neighbors, anywhere I lived. I have not invited them over for bbq’s, nor offered to baby sit their kids or pets. And as convenient as I admit this might have been to do, sometimes, I don’t ask them any favors either. I won’t knock on the door to ask you if you have an extra egg, and I will not ask you to look after my house when I am on vacation. I am definitely never going to ask you to buy anything that I might be selling. And I would appreciate if you reciprocate!

I know I am the freak here, though, because everywhere I have lived, neighbors want to know my business and want to share theirs with me. Mind you: other than “hello” and “good bye” when they make eye contact, I am not interested in chatting with them at all! But they ask me everything: anything from where I am from, am I married, do I have kids, what I am doing this weekend, or if I want to buy cookies from their kids. Once, one of them asked me to drive her and her toddler girl to the ER at 9 PM, another one asked me to sit their cat over the Christmas holiday (I evidently had no life!), and one even gave me money and a shopping list to do her shopping at Wal-Mart, when her car died.

And whereas I did come half way on all these requests, and I did all of them as asked, I did so begrudgedly, and hoping I am just trying not to p…o… Karma! But you have to be really lucky to get me while I am between my car and my door to ask me to do any of these, because I have been known to not open the door if you ring or knock. Unless you’re ridiculously persistent. That is, unless you were ridiculously persistent, because that changed when I moved to UT. Here, my dear neighbors, I am tempted to not ever answer the door even if I smell smoke on the other side of it!

Let me explain. When I moved here, my husband (also a “bad neighbor”) reminded me that we live in a (large) family kind of neighborhood, in the middle of super Mormon country (aka Utah County), with an LDS church in the middle of the carefully planned out, cookie-cutter kind of community (yeah, some people have a community pool, a tennis court or a club house in the middle of their suburban neighborhood, we have a church!). As a result, he said, we will get knocks on the door frequently from people to ask us to buy things their (many) kids sell at school (like cookies, chocolate, wrapping paper, what have you), or from people to “kindly” invite us to church, or give us cookies to welcome us to the neighborhood AND invite us to church.

I figured “well, how bad could it be?!”. Well, I am here to tell you, dear people, that it’s BAD!
Every day, rain or shine (who am I kidding?? We live in the desert. There is NO rain here!), someone knocks on the door. They don’t do it on Sundays (they are hermits out here on Sundays, as I’ve said before), and Saturdays, we’re usually out doing something, but every single weekday, I get at least one knock on the door, or sometimes up to three or four in the same day! Every single day! I am not kidding, nor exaggerating!

It started with just unanswered knocks and they’d plainly leave. Then, they began leaving all sorts of stuff at the door. Sure, I have gotten your regular pizza or Chinese special flyer before in other places I have lived, but this is very different.

Anything from pieces of paper to announce their “cause” or social event to bags asking us to fill them with stuff for the needy; from plain colored pieces of paper (if we have a natural disaster, we’re supposed to put a plain red piece of paper in the front window if we need help, but a green one if we’re OK! – no, I am not making this up) to FOOD! Yes, you read it correctly: food. One day, we found a paper bag full of what looked like leftovers from a family: used, beat-up containers of sour cream and butter filled with “taco fixings”, we think. We just chalked that up to someone having the wrong address for meals-on-wheels, but seriously: if someone you know needs food because they can’t go to the grocery store is not answering, either call 911 or check your address!

Since our yard is only partially fenced in, we get many visits from other “folks” in the neighborhood as well: like dogs who seem to have made our yard their home – there is a small one across the (very busy!) street in the back of our house that crosses the street with all the crazy traffic on it JUST to come to our yard to pee. And then he crosses it right back! Another big black dog tracked across our yard the other night. Kids throw their ball over the fence between our houses and then just prance in the yard, and pick it up just like it’s theirs or like the fence were a volleyball net or something (we did keep one ball, but ... they have more than one!). Some days I just feel like we’re all living on a compound and we just share our yard and our front porch with the entire community! Not very cool, nor funny!

So, Aa. and I are trying to think what kind of sign we could put in the yard to keep at least humans away! The one to four knocks on the front door, the bags and loads of papers to clean up need to stop! We don’t need cookies, we’re on a diet. We have our gods, so we’re looking for none of those. We don’t need “savings cards to local stores” (one of the solicitors offered that for sale one day when I was working in the yard), we would pick them up at the very stores, if you should need them! We don’t need to help other people’s causes, because we have our own causes to support, and it’s a recession, people, there is only so much spare cash to go around!

So, what kind of sign can be friendly enough (we don’t want our house burned down next time we travel!) but clear enough to keep those folks away?! Sitting out there with a rifle in our hand is not an option, either! So, we are both at a loss – and yes, we’re taking ideas! We’re willing to make it “nice” and maybe like a “decoration piece”, but we do need to send the message loud and clear, that they all need to move right along. Or maybe we should make our own "Beware of (bad) neighbor" or "Bad neighbor" since we don't have a dog. How many people would get it?!

And no, the fact that we never answer the door although our cars are visibly there, and they hear us talking on the other side of the door does not stop the knocking! Not at all. Since May, when I moved here, the knocking has not ceased!

I guess, in a way, I should stop bitching, as it’s all a very “democratic” affair: they have the right to knock on people’s doors whenever they so please, I have the right to not respond. Everyone’s happy. But there are business in town with “no solicitation” signs in the window, so why would those signs be frowned upon when on a private property?! Not to mention that the littering needs to stop!

Welcome home: three of the neighborhood "offerings" left behind one day this week.

A “Silly” Weekend

"The best things in life are silly." (Scott Adams)

Well, it was not really a whole weekend of silliness but Sunday was pretty chuckly!

I have seen this street festival in Park City advertised everywhere ever since I came to UT – it’s called “Park Silly Sunday Market”. And I kept wondering: “Now, how silly can Utah be?! Really!”. True, Park City is not the “mainstream” Utah, it is more hip, with lots of arts and open minded people, lots of hippies and even breweries within less than miles from each other, a tourist town, too, with ski slopes descending right down to Main Street where people from all over the world flock in the winter to get a feel for “the greatest snow on earth”. So, I guess it has some potential for something other than kids and straight up Mormons which we’re seeing around our neighborhood!

But still, this was a Sunday, when everything else is dead in Utah, so, how riotous can it get?! Well, there was only one way to find out. We headed up there and what follows is a sneak peek into what the streets showed us.

Save from some brief comments, I’ll let the pictures tell the story. Hope you find our little journey as silly as it wanted to be.

Out of all the many “silly” puppies at the event, this was my favorite! However cliché this might sound, he was a poster child for Beethoven! Just everything you ever think of a Saint Bernard and then some. All 250 pounds of it!

Book in the window of a store, or … Utah in a nutshell?! Made me smile to picture “lonely” surrounded by 1000 screaming kids!

As explosively delish as this sounds, I like the disclaimer above it better: “All ingredients are organic, in season, local, whenever possible”. I am SO GLAD there are people our there who do not take all this “organic – local – all natural – I am better than you for eating tasteless dirt” mumbo-jumbo so seriously sometimes!

I thought I saw it all a few years back when I had garlic ice cream! But this is a close contender to that. One question though: WHY in the world would you ruin precious, delicious pig with chocolate, pray tell?! Oh, that’s right: ‘just to be silly’, perhaps! *Eye roll and sigh*

Now, I have never tasted “passion” nor “integrity”, but they smelled pretty good!

Well, at least you can’t sue them for false advertising!! – on a T-shirt in a gift store.
*Chuckle-chuckle*

We did have some street food at the festival, as it was mandatory, of course – bbq pork, smoked sausage and corn on the cob lathered in butter. But the true gastronomic win of the day was indoors: Wasatch Brewery (or is it Squatters??? – don’t get me started, it’s confusing!) had this coconut beer (ale) battered shrimp on green papaya (and carrots) salad with red chili aioli. Oh, my God, was it a trip between tastes in your mouth: savory-and-sweet-and-tangy-and-spicy-and-…YEAH!!! The beer find was great, too: they call it “nitro cream ale”, and it has no fizz, it’s almost room temperature and it’s just like drinking a smoothie – VERY creamy!

The above mentioned indoor "feast"

And as everywhere in Utah … there were a lot of short people! All running around getting caught in stranger’s legs, and tripping on even shorter puppies! Whining about the heat, or munching on street fare. Trying to “navigate” the sea of little ones is always my (and not to mention Aa’s) biggest challenge! No, it’s not their fault, it’s the mindless parents, of course! And this is why this sign made my day and was my favorite silly note of the trip. It was like whoever made it heard my pain loud and clear:

“Take them home, now, lady mom and mister pop, sir, and YOU deal with them!”

After walking around in smoldering heat, we sought refuge in the Kimball Art Center which displayed three galleries, of various media (paint, photography, quilting, digital printing, food art etc). I always love checking out local galleries in places I travel, because almost always you find things you would never see anywhere else. The exhibit of various wall hanging quilts was my favorite, but Bridget Conn’s art was truly unusual, and unforgettable, in a skin – crawling, jaw - clenching kind of way, at times.

When I first told people I am moving to Utah, they all told me “Wow! Well, that’s great, but don’t expect much diversity there! It’s all one color in every way”. And weekends like these make me prove them wrong every single time. So much to see, so little time! And despite popular belief: we are lucky to have them so close to us!

Click on the picture to see the whole album of the “Park Silly Sunday Market”.

I Did It!

I keep waiting for the day, as I grow older, where nothing will be such a big deal to me anymore. I am waiting for the day, when I won’t get nervous about a job interview, about meeting someone new, when I won’t have knots in my stomach when I fly over the Atlantic or pack up for a weekend road trip, when I don’t think that someone will break into my house every time I head for the grocery store. The day when I’ll stop worrying for trivial things like these.

One of the things I hate most about myself is being a worrywart! Hate it with a passion. I was brought up to believe that if there is anything that can go wrong, it will go wrong and I need to be five minutes smarter than life to be prepared for everything. It’s really a curse! And it’s a rotten way to live, I am telling you! I blame it for my high blood pressure and chronically accelerated pulse! My migraines, too!

I have lived in Utah now for over two months. And for that long, every day, I have dreaded the day I will have to go in and get a Utah driver’s license. I know – it’s comical! 16 year olds do it! 15 year olds get a learner’s permit! And I was literally sick to my stomach, afraid of going in and applying for one! Why?! Because in Utah, along with a loooong laundry list of documents you have to provide, they also make you take the written test all over again.

So, to me, it was like having a real exam. And I hate exams! My nerves hate them more. So, like a pathetic, self doubting fool that I am, I have been keeping up at night, worrying that I might miss too many questions to pass, I might not be of “legal enough” status for Utah to apply for one (they ask you for proof of citizenship, and whereas my passport does say I am an American, it still stays I was born elsewhere!), I have feared that they won’t like the bank statements which are the only “bills” I have in my name with my Utah residence on them, and they’d like to see a mortgage bill or utility bill, which are not in my name… and so forth!

So, for weeks, I have studied the road book – yes, I have read it cover to cover – and I have panicked! My poor, amazing husband has put up with my *yawn* boring stories about what the book says and how easily one can miss a question, because everything in that book is so relative, about how I don’t get what the heck a CFI is nor a single point urban interchange … and the likes.

The fact that the exam is open book meant absolutely nothing to me! What if I am too nervous to be able to find the answer in the book? What?! They let you use an actual book? Well, if it were in pdf format, on the computer, you could do a Ctrl+F and find what you’re looking for, but in a book?! The fact that there was no time limit on the exam, and you could take three hours to answer all the 25 (I know: 25!!!) questions meant nothing to me. And as I have said – the fact that ADHD children of 15 PASS this test every day, without having 12 years of driving experience behind them like me meant nothing to me also.

Worry. Worry. Worry. That was the only thing I did for two months.

Till today. Because I did brace myself, closed my eyes and “jumped” sorta - kinda, a couple of weeks back when I made an appointment for the DMV for today, to go pass the darn thing! And I did. After having “the breakfast of champions” (mom always told me to eat a hard boiled egg every time before an exam – “it will keep you focused”, she said – and I listened) and several cups of coffee to make sure I am awake when I browse that book, I drove to the only town in our county that allows you to obtain an “original” Utah driver’s license and that facilitates “the exam”! I got 100% of answers right, and I only looked up in the book maybe two of them, and just for double checking. And miracle of all miracles, I did find them in the book! Must be all that coffee.

I wondered all this time whether there was more behind this irrational, unexplainable fear. Maybe secretly I was not ready to say “good bye” to my (always) beloved NC, and my second home on this planet. I am still not completely sure that there was not more to it. But truth is, from where I saw it, it was complete and utter, paralyzing fear of failure and having to deal with the consequences of re-taking the test and all and bureaucracy of it.

But it’s over. I did it! I passed it, and now, my NC license has two punch holes in it to mean it’s not the “real” one anymore. And I have a temporary, paper Utah license in addition to it - with my new Utah Address and everything. I feel just a little bit more legal in my new home state. And just a little bit less worried, maybe?! Well, let’s not push it quite yet!

Registering the car in UT is next, and the fear of … oh, I don’t know … not passing inspection, maybe, or making my insurance agent mad when I cancel the NC insurance and get on Aa’s UT insurance is next too … Are you chuckling and shaking your head?! Remind me one day to tell you about how I felt when I had to go in for a heart cath! Which I had put off for FIVE years before I built the courage to actually do it! Now, that’s a story …

As I have said: still waiting for that day when I grow up and grow out of the worrywart stage and become more … blasé. Man, what a celebration that will be!

The proof: the "hole punched" NC license, and just a hint of the new temporary UT license underneath.

The Dollar Tree Experience ...

... and not the kind you'd think ...

I remember distinctively my last trip to The Dollar Tree store on Lawndale in Greensboro, NC. The dialogue between me and the sales lady went something like this:

The Lady (big smile, eye contact and all): “How you doin’, honey?”
Me: ” I am fine, thank you. And you?”
The Lady (with the same smile, head shake and Southern drawl): “Oh, I am great, baby! Thank you. A bit tired. My momma collapsed last night in the bathroom, and I had to drive to Wilmington this morning to see her in a hospital, then back, ‘cause my shift was startin’, so I am a bit tired. But thank The Lord, she’s all right, and I am just great.” (bearing white teeth at me in a large smile to probably convince me that she is indeed “great”).

Didn’t know what to do with all that. Just mumbled “feel better and have a nice day” as I was hurriedly grabbing my change and rolling my inside eyes, with a (fake) smile on my face, of course, like a (then) good Southern gal.

Today, at another Dollar Tree store, in Spanish Fork, UT – the experience was a bit different.

The (other, serious, Utah) Lady: “How are you?”
Me: “I am good, thanks. You?”
The (U) Lady: “Oh, I am fine. (pause). Well, no, not really!!” - frowns and shakes head.
We both stared at each other, me smiling, she, still serious.
She continues: “Oh, that was not nice, was it?! Well, but it was true!”

We both burst into laughter and wished each other a better day.

Changes in altitudes and attitudes, indeed!