Cokehead

Pass (on) the coke. About a month ago Shana's "sister" in Spain, 26-year old Veronica, tried to sell her some pot. Hopefully, it's not only these college kids going to Alcala each semester, dumping mommy and daddy's money into the economy that keeps the drug trade alive and well. Shana, precious angel, declined. Last night, Veronica hit the town with the U of A gang and upped the ante to coke. Apparently there were no takers. Shana said Veronica couldn't find anyone in the bar with enough money. Supply and demand, huh? Economics 101.

Good to know these kids are learning something - Spanish and Math.

Score!

Shawn scored big today! A last minute, FREE, fourth row behind the dugout (complete with valet parking) downtown at Chase Field surprise. Go Dbacks! Go Shawn! Beautiful, sunny semi-retirement half-day Wednesday, more employees than spectators, fawning all over us, big beers, big burgers, big baseball, big underground secret clubhouse, big breaking bats and a big time fun afternoon.

Waste Not

Waste Not is putting on a month long fundraiser to help the hungry in Phoenix. Starting April 1. So check out the participating restaurants, go eat and help others.

Weather or not

Still crying over my dead yard and now it's already Good-bye Spring - Hello 100 degrees this weekend. After all of the freezes, the snow, the I can't believe this is Scottsdale weather, my trees are ruined. There's my brown jacaranda tree, usually big and fluffy and dropping a blanket of little purple flowers all over the grass every morning. I miss my blankie. So sad.

But, new signs of life today. Green sprouting out of dead bush.

Lily popping up overnight.

Some geranium that will never die.

100 degrees. Bring it on. We're tough. No more crybabies.

Movie Madness - Limitless

What if a pill could make you rich and powerful? Bradley Cooper went from down and out to ruler of the world.

Free Roman Holiday!

Laugh if you will, but walking though the Montelucia resort, with all of the stone and arches and tile and fountains, especially at night, really feels like Europe to me. Tonight they showed Roman Holiday in the courtyard, under the stars on a gorgeous spring night. Shawn at a little cafe table, white sangria and Rome. 

Perfetto!

La Boheme - in the park

My first La Boheme. I've seen Rent a few times, does that count? Arizona Opera's screening on the grassy knoll at the Scottsdale Civic Center started with some amazing, how do they do that, hair-raising singing, bolting it out there on a cool, dark night. Then the movie, incredible.

May Day, May Day

Shana's chucking an opportunity to hang out in Europe for an extra couple of months. Live it up. Explore. Putz around on her last summer before graduation. Said something about being happy to have been able to see so much already this trip, instead, heading home in May. It might have something to do with these people. 

Or, more likely, this character.

I'm trying to be excited. Trying not think about how she may regret this later.  I told her that we'll have so much fun in Phoenix!!!

Summer in AZ is a BLAST!! We can get a three month pass to Big Surf and go ALL THE TIME! And get a kiddie ten pack of Harkins movie tickets! Go bowling! Go to the zoo really, really early in the morning! Slip-N-Slide in the front yard! Go to, oh yeah, SAN DIEGO!!! Yay!

Florence, Athens and Copenhagen will still be there later, right?



Quit Clowning Around

I heard that Ronald McDonald is out. First they ban Happy Meals in San Francisco, then this. Poor clown. Something about Subway and the now thin, would never have a Quarter Pounder, Jared taking over as the number one chain. They want to revamp, focus on coffee-drinking adults, lose the germy ball pits and the primary colors. Here's the crappy Mickie D's I drive by every day, set for

total destruction in a couple of months, rising into a new muted, not so loud inside, mauve-y taupe. I remember the day I got my first pair of glasses, staring out the passenger side window with my Dorothy Hamill haircut and thick purple plastic frames, in awe as I looked up at the bright yellow golden arches and could see "over one million served" for the first time. I remember in high school figuring out with friends that if you asked for something special order, they would make it right then. I remember my first "chicken" McNugget, fries soaked in beef grease, my first vegetarian friend ordering a Big Mac without the meat (thought of her last week at a baseball game, when I got a hot dog without the hot dog). There's my friend with "regularity" problems that goes through the drive-thru to get a cheeseburger and twenty minutes later, like clockwork, problem solved and the always clean bathroom at the Yuma location. There was my guy friend in grad school, working behind the counter for research, learning how to switch the time stamp stickers so the stuff just sits and sits forever under the hot lamps, waiting for the next meat eating victim. Oh, the memories. Now with lasik-ed eyes I can see that even without the clown, some things at McDonald's will probably never change.

I'm Lovin' It

Ladies Only - no lights, no lycra

Ladies Only Dance Party. No lights. No lycra. Hosted by the oh-so-creative Cyndi Coon..
Do you ever wanna just DANCE? You’re invited to do just that! 
bring your gal pals and come dance!

The Devils went down to Tuscon

OMG! What a game!!! The Wildcats BEARED DOWN on the poor Devils, crushing them with speed, talent and brains. Hell yes!

It Gets Better

It Gets Better. What an amazing organization.

Many LGBT youth can't picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can't imagine a future for themselves. So let's show them what our lives are like, let's show them what the future may hold in store for them.

Pass it on...

A Thousand Words

Morning text from Shana.

Book Club - Traveling With Pomegranates

Oh, we all look so much better by firelight. Bonfire at Leslie's Banjo Flats, complete with newly dug by Chris the Cowboy fire pit, ax still smoking. The journey continues always straight to rated-Rville with the look at the boobs, the warty wiener on the fire, the "my don't you have a large uterus," the too close hug rub, the new Russell - you can fire me - Shaw job, the new Denver miner, the rat shoes for the auction, the sitting, and smelling, pretty in the swim practice coat, the are these Cabi pants flammable, check with the dealer, gateway drug - Stella and Dot, the lamention prevention pre-Easter birthday brunch, the stunning weightlifting snatch stance, the you can't eat just one Lay's Potato Chips, the s'mores, the flaming Y in the fire, the stinky, smoky, well worth the trip ride home.

Traveling with the Divas, Traveling with Pomegranates. Journey across the world to discover themselves.

FYI - another great read...

Ciao Bella

Me: Hi honey
Shana: Hi
Me: What are you doing?
Shana: Eating soup
Me: Oh. How about tomorrow?
Shana: Going to Venice...

SXSW

Small Beautifully Moving Parts hits the big time! Annie's film was accepted in to the SXSW (South by Southwest) film festival in Austin!! Congrats!

Here I am "umbrella-ing" Andre. I had a blast!

Movie Madness - Jane Eyre

After seeing Jane Eyre, I have no recollection of ever reading the book. But, what a great film - gorgeous England, amazing acting and one kick-ass girl, strong, so self-assured and unwilling to accept anything less than what she deserves.

The Mission

With cathedrals like these, who needs a church? Sunday sermon started at The Alhambra in Spain

with an email from Amy, sitting on a terrace at sunset with Shana - "I love, love, love your firstborn! Please have one more," she said. My feelings of being left behind faded as I saw Amy from her I-can-say-anything-and-you're-stuck-with-me-clear-view-perch, how much she means to Shana and how today I can't get in the way. Moved to The Mission,

with it's adobe, been here forever (for AZ) walls, for some sustenance and social security, surrounded by parents with their precise, but never preachy, presence. Getting to Gammage, stunning 

monument growing up out of the desert, built just Wright as a place to worship Maya Angelou, so full of life and wisdom, who told us how the people in our lives, the "rainbows in your clouds," make it possible for us to teach others, as I sat next to a mother who has given me poetry since I could read. Enchanted evening ending at a Cave Creek labyrinth

 on a cold desert night, full of community, the smell of rain on Palo Verde trees and a beautiful gong, vibrating the day down deep.

Maya Angelou

I'm all out of grandmas, so here's the next best thing. She showed us her Medal of Freedom.

 She sang. She recited poetry, hers and others' from memory. She told us stories. She made us laugh. She made me cry.

Eurocheapen

What can you get for $495? Eleven day Spring Break trip: plane from Madrid to Paris, train to Brussels, train to Bruges, train to Amsterdam, ferry to London, plane to Madrid, lots of nights in hostels, several thank-God-for-friends free nights in Paris and London and all the walking around your feet can handle, says Shana.  Throw in some baguettes, Brie and beer and you're pretty close to 50 bucks a day.

Spring Equinox Labyrinth

 SPRING EQUINOX

LABYRINTH 

at the

Lanser Labyrinth

with a

Balinese Temple Gong

Equinox is a time of balance and harmony when the days and nights are equal in length. This is one of the four major power gates of the year when celestial energy floods us with                    opportunity.  Labyrinth walk at sunset to the accompaniment of a Balinese Temple Gong. Judy and Jon Foster will lend their beautiful gong to enhance our meditation  The evening will close with a very special musical interlude with Dr. Harold Moses and his viola

pic me, pic me

Spring Fling three day weekend hookie playing with Shawn at the new ipic theater. Whoa. Fancy, fancy. All alone in pre-assigned seats. Pillow, blankie, free popcorn, reclining plush seats, nice waiter bringing lunch and drinks, a bathroom I could live in and oh yeah, a movie. The Lincoln Lawyer. Not too bad, either.

Green Lipstick Call

O'wow, what a crowd! The bagpipe players, the Riverdance-like dancers, the bands, the shepherds pies and corned beef and cabbage smells wafting through the air and all the new friends. Here's my new BFF,

made while waiting for my own crew to show up. She's got three cats, fuzzy leprechauns on her shirt, a dad that looks exactly like Donald Sutherland (go way back, well, maybe half way back, think Animal House, another beer-themed event) and brought her own green food coloring. I love her!! We hung out, met even more new peeps and celebrated this good old Irish holiday in style.

Got lucky at the Dubliner Pub.

Seeing Red

My heart goes out to the people of Japan, feeling helpless out here in the desert. Away from fault lines. Away from oceans. But 50 miles from a nuclear power plant.

Maybe it's time to go green.

Dog Days

I'm not really a dog lover and thirteen (fourteen?) years after bringing home a lost and found tiny white ball of fluff,  I still can't believe that I actually own one. Nameless after a couple of weeks, I just put "SULLIVAN" on a dog tag, put it around his neck and he's been Sully ever since. He follows me around, begs for food, whines, snores, poops, jumps all over anybody that comes to the door, can't take a walk without acting like a crackhead, dragging his nose all along the path and is an overall anxious wreck. We've gotten used to each other, but I could swear that sometimes he looks at me the same way I look at him, sort of smiling and nodding his way through the relationship, knowing my heart's not in it, really deep down I'm a cat person

and I'm not faking it very well. But then we go for a walk or I break out the food and he seems to love me all over again.

Dbacks vs Giants

The Dbacks were on fire for tonight's Spring Training game at the brand new Salt River Fields at Talking Stick vs. the Giants. The night was perfect, stunning sunset, cool grass, state-of-the-art facility. We got there early for some hot dogs (double dog for Shawn, my once a year ketchup, mustard and relish fest on a bun fix) under the stars and headed home early. Seems like the fire went out when we left as the Giants pulled out a win in the end.