Girl Scouts

Shana never made it to the Girl Scouts, dropping out after one year as a Brownie and never looking back. It may have had something to do with my lack of gung-ho, lack of creativity, lack of craftiness. I could always appreciate the importance, the camaraderie, the lessons, but camping and wilderness and meaningful craft ideas and pushing Thin Mints and corralling tons of screaming youth in one room was never my forte. Plus, those vests. That shade of green doesn't really look good on anyone. Until now. Shana got a job! She'll be doing some promotion, some recruiting and some leading with the Tucson Girl Scouts. I think I still know how to make a Gods-eye and a hanging macramé plant holder if she needs any advice.

You go, Girl (Scout)!

Hot sunset

A little reward for living in this heat.

Five minutes later and turned around, this.

Sunset at the park.

FREEdom

What do you get when you give some marketing company all of your personal information just to get into a movie for free? More free stuff! Look what appeared on my doorstep in a FedEx box today courtesy of Focus Features - a One Day towel and notebook and charm necklace and two free passes to see the film!

Crabby

I love a sale. I also love crab legs. So when I saw a half price Groupon in my inbox to the always favorite local Salt Cellar, I was overjoyed. I don't get down there much. It's such a cool place, underground down south on Hayden Road, right across the street from a cemetary so I always wonder what everybody else is doing six feet under just a few yards away. My mouth had been watering since watching some show on the food network a few days ago about seafood. The massive, juicy Alaskan King Crabs, the butter. OMG. So the Groupon seemed like a sign from God. I logged on about 7am and noticed that over 2,000 had been sold. By the time I did a couple of other things and fetched my credit card, it was up to 4,000-something and when I entered my info, the page flashed "this Groupon no longer available" even though it still said over a day left to purchase. I knew it was too good to be true. Crabby, crabby, crabby.

Moving Day

This is it. Packing up the Wildcat and heading south for the last year. I was talking to new since the first college moving day BFF Laura about how we bonded when our girls moved into the same dorm room four years ago. We decorated. We cleaned. We shopped. This year I'm just along for the ride, not even planning to lift a finger, really. No urinals for us to hide this year.

Time flies.

Following Shawn in his big, black, borrowed truck, Navy knots and all.

The almost finished room at "The Jacubus" adorable house, perfect roommates, walking distance to the main drag

After a productive day...Wildcat pizza celebration

Tuesday Night Sunday Dinner

The early birds, the fajita fiesta grilling guru, the Eskiho, the red toe, the new boyfriend, the perfect pie(s), the Jordanian taxi driver, the summer recap.

Disney Days

I hate Disneyland. The lines. The commercialism. The rip-off. I was excited years ago when I realized that I didn't have to go with Shana anymore. She could go with her friends. Preferred it, really. But yesterday, stuck at work, knowing Shana was there for the day, I missed it. I got a few texts "only ten minute wait at Soaring Over California!" "cool fireworks!" "great water show!" and I wanted to be there. Back to the castle. Waving to Snow White. Watching Shana's eyes light up on It's A Small World.

Movie Madness - Sarah's Key

I didn't want to see this movie. The book was a beautifully written story about a horrific time and I just didn't want to go through all of that again. During World War II in the middle of Paris, the French arrested thousands and thousands of Jews, forcing them into inhumane living conditions, separating them from loved ones and then murdering them because of their religion. Whenever I think about that, or the Holocaust, it's hard to comprehend how something so disgusting, so heartbreaking, so unjust could have happened so few years ago. I was watching a documentary about the Titanic the other day about how all of those lifeboats were sent out to sea half full, leaving all of the third class passengers to drown. Nobody wanted to volunteer their lifeboat. In the film yesterday, characters spoke of watching the atrocities outside their Parisian windows and not doing anything. I just started reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks about cell research (and so much more) and came to a part about a man in the early 1900s who had a wish to create a white race, sterilize the minorities, the poor, through this type of research. Present day - government-sponsored Texas prayer vigils for Christians only, watching the world's wealthiest countries sit by as thousands of African people starve to death and, in the papers today, the bloodiest day in Iraq, over a hundred thousand dead this decade because big white government decided to come in and blow up the place. Some things never change. Nobody wants to share their lifeboat.

Faker, finally

Look quick! Quicker. OK, we know that's not Shana, but hopefully in a dark bar some 250 pound bouncer won't know the difference since all the girls at U of A pretty much have this same general appearance. It's wierd. The years long search and yearning to be older, to hang with her crowd in the clubs has finally come to and end. Shana couldn't bare the thought of spending her final time in college alone in her room as the gang bar-hopped through T-town. So good friend, K---, succumbed (illegally, watch out for the identify theft police) to the pressure, went in for a new photo, gave it her best "Shana look" and answered the poor kid's prayers. Shana says it's not for drinking. It's for the social aspect. Right. Smile. Cheers.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Holy Moly! Excellent production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the always spectacular Mesa Arts Center.

Keep on dreaming!