Sealed With A Kiss

Shawn, The Man, Babycakes, Sailor Boy, WZUPDC, Speed Racer is having a happy, happy, happy birthday today.

MMMmmmwwwwwwaaaaaaa!

Toasted

Snuggled on the cozy leather sofas, toasty by the fire at great winter-in-the-desert place Camelback Inn for a little (too much) tequila, some red rabbit balls, some carnival worker age guessing, some boyfriend of Christmas past right next to boyfriend of Christmas present, guy named Dooley, the did she just wink at me and where's the doghouse couple of hours out on the town.

Soleri Bridge - Opens Today

The bridge is done! Shawn and I peeked in through the fence before din din on Monday and it looks incredible, especially with a pink and purple sunset behind it. It's nice to live near Paolo Soleri, his amazing mind and his bells and maybe someday even his ultimate way of life will come to fruition. For now, there's a Celebration and official dedication of his bridge down at The Waterfront. Activities Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but looks like Saturday at noon is the historic moment.

Movie Madness - The Tourist

Call Amex and gather up your frequent flyer miles - we're going on a little trip and, for a post-birthday Movie Madness treat, even this guy is coming (eat your heart out, Johnny),

my all-time favorite travel companion, well, Shana's tons of fun, too - there they are on top of the Eiffel Tower. What are you doing, Dan Harkins? Want to come, too? And maybe, please, please, please bring me a nice, new Harkins 2011 Souvenir Cup, maybe one for my birthday boy, Shawn, too (remember, he just loves popcorn, so a t-shirt would be great as well).

Update - Dan never showed up. Maybe I should stop begging, stalking, wishful thinking-ing. Even Johnny Darling looked a little weird. But at least we'll always have Venice...

They say it's your birthday...

TGIF! TGFS (thank god for sue)! Big b-day party for Sue. The stories around the table were lively - talk of the old days when instead of sitting around the table, she danced on it. She's still got it, though, stuffing all of the tissue paper from the gifts you-know-where...

Happy Birthday, Sue!

Nido Vacio

Look what came in the mail today. Pass the Kleenex. Just when I thought I had the whole Empty Nest thing (nido vacio) figured out, it came around again. We're sending her off. Seven months in Europe. Go learn something for a semester in Spain, then putz around for awhile, little chick-a-dee, have fun, grow up, figure out all of the answers and, just to make sure you don't forget about your loco padres,

we'll be bringing the nest to you...

Cookie Monster

The other day during a writing workshop we were given a prompt, something to make us think of the holidays, some old-time recipe, some tidbit from our childhood, perhaps, of warm apple pie baking in the oven as we passed around a container of cinnamon. It smelled so good. I wanted to grasp some memory, but all I could come up with were the directions to Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Boil water, add pasta, cook, drain, add 1/4 milk, 1/4 butter and then mix in the "cheese" packet. Total yummy goodness every time. So when I got the notice that book club was doing a cookie exchange this year, I stressed. I looked up an incredible Double  Chocolate Meringue Cookie recipe my sister and I had at Miraval. Low cal, one point each, sort of. Perfect for the new Weight Watchers, going to get through the holidays without gaining any pounds, goal. I bought all the stuff. Before last week I had no idea what parchment paper was. Or cream of tartar (sounds like it goes with something else from my youth, fish sticks), but now I know you get it in the baking section and it's not cream, it's a powder used to help make meringue fluffy. I made the cookies. Not good. A little charred. I tried again last night. No better. Flat, too crispy. Shawn and I and one of his patients that's a baker at AJ's reviewed my plight and figured that maybe it's the chocolate chips. Maybe they are pulling down my cookies. So I tried again. It's for the book club after all, needs to be good. I did the Miraval deep breathing. It's sort of like climbing a telephone pole and jumping off. It's all in your head. Just believe. It's only a bunch of egg whites. Really, how hard can this be? So I beat the crap out of them tonight and skipped the double part of the double chocolate meringue. Better. Chewy, chocolatey enough. I did it. Shawn finished them off. Tuesday book club, no more store bought loser stuff from me. I'm a baker now.

Upcoming - Taliesin and Herberger Lunch

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin has some tours of the student's homes - the Desert Shelter Tour. Looks cool.

Saturday, December 4th at 1:15

Herberger Lunch Theater

11/2 - 11/11

I'm going Wednesday, November 3

Happy Baby Yoga

A little Happy Baby yoga on a Tuesday.

Baby Yoga

Then the real thing...water-themed yoga in the Sanctuary tonight, almost pitch black except for the candles. I could see the outline of a Christmas tree and some presents and the walls of the room sort of wave, look like they are moving in the flickering light, really beautiful. Mary focused on how we are mostly water and that we need to flow more, move it around, twist and turn, shake your money maker, gonna get low, low, low, low, low, low, low, float through life moving like a ball, just roll wit' it, guru. We even partnered up at the end, "paddling" on each other's backs, then "raining" down at the end. Yoga with Mary - just dive in.

Pass The Moolah

OK, let me get this straight. You start with a balanced budget about a decade ago with taxes pretty low and unemployment low and Social Security nice and safe, then let the corporations take over with the banks and the drug companies and the insurance companies and the Haliburtons of the world posting bigger profits than ever (but for some reason they have stopped hiring people), start a couple of really, really expensive wars with a billion here and a billion there - oops - gone missing every month or so (not to mention the lives lost and the legs and arms and minds of our young troops) and watch as millions lose their jobs and their homes and their insurance and then the folks that thought up all these super great ideas win an election by promising to balance the budget, no more debt unless it's paid for, really, we promise on our tea leaves, we've got to get this under control, and oh, by the way, we're not going to even talk about anything for the next month or so like immigration or Don't Ask, Don't Tell, because we are unable to do more than one thing at a time, and that one thing is to give the rich more money. And since you won't get any Bush or Boehner of the world to hire anybody with their little quarter million gift from you and me, borrowed from China, chunk of change, we'll be left with even less than when we started. Is that right? Is that how all of this works?