Bend It Like the Beard Boys

For this new post, we're leaving Las Vegas and going home (to Austin) for a whirlwind visit with friends and family. And it was a whirlwind trip, that's fer shure, fer shure! Originally it was to be a 54-hour visit, but then I missed my flight out of Vegas. That could have been disastrous, but it actually wasn't that much of a problem, though it did cut down my time in Austin by three hours.

So let's start there. Flight out of Vegas at 8:30--well, really, 8:25, and in this case, those five minutes were crucial. I had NO IDEA what a madhouse McCarren Airport was, even on a fairly normal Friday morning. We'd been hearing about the chaos at the airport early in the week, because of the NBA Allstars game, which was held here for the first time in either a long time or forever. But I had no idea that chaos reigns supreme in Vegas at ALL times! Anyway, I got there--to the airport--with enough time to make the flight--if it was Austin. But it was Vegas, and there were hundreds and hundreds of people there, going through security four abreast in lines that stretched for miles, it seemed.


By the time I got to the gate, the door was closed and a few seconds later, the plane pulled away from the gate, leaving about ten of us standing there, sadly watching as it left (thoughts that I wouldn't have as much time as I'd planned in Austin to see "my boys"--there are two of them right here: Jason with his dad--made me really sad!). That was a bad moment, but it didn't last long. The people at the gate were very helpful and got us all on planes that, at least in my case, delayed everything by three hours, but was otherwise a fine solution. The bad news was that I had to amuse myself for 3 hours in the Las Vegas airport (which, for those who don't know, is FULL of slot machines! PLEASE don't throw me into that br'ar patch, Br'er Bear!). And I missed my haircut appointment in Austin on Friday afternoon. The good news was that my suitcase was already in Austin when I got there, so I didn't have to wait for it. And Karen flew into Austin from Dallas just when I did, so we hitched up there, I got my rental car, and we went on to pick up the boys.


Had a nice evening with Karen and Jon-Michael and Jason: we started out playing "throw the ball over the garage" (here's Jon-Michael showing off his arm), dinner at Schlotzky's, and then a trip to Barnes & Noble. Then back to their house, to play some games and then, at 11:30, to watch a movie. The movie was "Eight Below," about the eight sled dogs that were left "below" in the Antartic. Jon-Michael bowed out early and went to bed with a good book. But Jason, Karen, and I toughed it out to the end of the movie. The plan was that I would sleep with Jon-Michael, while Jason slept with his folks. But Jason had a better idea: "Mom," he said, as he and Karen started up the stairs, "I know: Grandma could sleep in the middle of the bed with me [i.e., between Mom and Dad!]." Lovely idea, young man, but I don't think so!


The next day was soccer practice: I got some great pictures of the boys, especially Jason, and I'm going to share a few more here, no matter what you say. Here's Jason, the Ham, before his practice. What a guy! Jason, with his nine cohorts (half in black shirts, half in blue) followed that ball up and down the field like a flock of birds, all turning in unison when one of them connected with the ball. Jason's eyes never left the ball--it was amazing to watch!


Jon-Michael's game was later in the afternoon, after I had a lovely lunch with Nancy VandeMark. It was fun to catch up with her, after her recent trip to Florida. Then it was back down south for Jon-Michael's game. Here he is between periods as he's heading over to us. How's that for stylish sports attire. And I'm especially envious of his head of curls. What a guy!


I had my re-scheduled haircut after the game--my friend Pam, who's also my hairdresser, accommodated me and we had a great time catching up. Then it was off to the Wegers, Kurtis and Lisa, whom I've missed SO much since I left. Here they are, caught just a bit off-guard, after a great meatloaf supper. Our friend Jiexia (who is Bob the Good Boarder's special friend) was also there, though Bob was in Los Angeles and couldn't be there.


One of the big items for me was meeting Lisa and Kurtis's new dog, Gizmo, a little (seven tiny pounds worth) toy poodle. Here's Gizmo in Jiexia's arms--what a special little gizmo he is! They found him on Craig's List--amazing! The listing had only been there for an hour when they found it and followed up. So now our dear Bart, Lisa and Kurtis's dog who left us late last year, is looking down and, we're sure, approving highly of this new little member of the Weger household.

I spent a lovely night (my first!) at the Wegers, and in the morning I had--finally--one of Lisa's special 2-hour (almost) massages. Boy! Have I missed those! It was on to my condo, to see Chris, my renter, who served me spectacular Danishes that she made herself (she's SO talented!), and then to the Novels in Progress group that I've been a member of for 2-3 years now. It was great to see them and catch up with all their activities.

One more hour with Karen and the boys, back to the airport, return the rental car (great news there: instead of $83, only $63 for a weekend rental! Can't beat that!), and no hurry this time: caught the plane in plenty of time--AND had a great trip home watching Studio 60 and Lost episodes on my iPod. It was a pretty full flight, but I must live right, because there was no one in the middle seat, so I had lots of room. We landed about 10 minutes early--and within 35 minutes of touchdown, I was climbing into my motor home. That's the upside of living about 6-7 miles from the airport!


Okay, I know this hasn't been one of the more exciting of my postings, but I do have pictures, so I hope that helps you get over it. Here's one last one that I couldn't resist. Jason just has to show off the happy face that his dad drew on his hand. So we all wish you a great day, and we'll see you next time.

Deliverance--Part Deux

Back again. Here's the promised view of the kitchen. It's light cabinetry, so that, even though there's not much natural light in there, it's not as dark as it might be. There's a dishwasher, a stove, a refrigerator (with ice-maker) and lots of cabinets. I'm not going to have much to fill them up with right now, because I was selective in loading up the motor home, but I don't care. It'll be nice to have empty space--for a while, at least.


Now if you walk a step or two further into the apartment and look the length of the living and dining areas, you look out onto this little patio. My camera was shocked by being aimed out the window, so the picture was very dark, and I tried to lighten it up. I think that my apartment faces east, so I'll have morning sun but shade in the afternoon and evening. From what I hear about Vegas temperatures, it gets VERY hot in the daytime, but it cools down very nicely in the evening, and there are no bugs--YAY!!! So I expect I will be sitting out there with my laptop doing writing of one sort or another. I LIKE that image!


The bedroom is just a square room, BUT it has both a large closet with sliding glass doors AND a walk-in closet (I remember saying, when I bought my condo, that I would NEVER again live in a domicile without a walk-in closet! Well, except for the motor home!). And it opens into one part of a two-part bathroom, with a counter with a sink and a bathtub/shower area. It's pretty big, really amazingly big, considering, and it has a door that opens into the other part of the two-part bathroom, which is really HUGE (please note that I'm standing IN the bathroom when I'm taking this picture), and has a toilet and a sink. So that second part is available to guests who don't need access to the shower part of the bathroom. It's a really clever floor plan, one I've never seen before.


Back in the living room, take a look at what's called the "entertain- ment center," those two "caves" at the far end of the picture. They're molded into/out of the wall (I think they call them "radius walls"--at least that's what the rental agent called them. They're stucco or plaster, but the corners are all rounded). Anyway, the upper cavity holds up to a 30" TV and the bottom can handle cable, DVD, stereo or whatever. I was thinking I'd have my stereo shipped from Austin, but I don't know where I'd put it, so I think I'll just get a small one (a Bose, maybe?) and ship out my CDs. In between the two tables that you see there, by the way, is the doorway into the bedroom. I'll probably put a small desk where the table is (maybe I'll have my grandmother's writing desk shipped out), and maybe even a wine table like the decorator has done.


The final photo is taken from the parking lot in front of the rental office, and I'm looking across Town Center Drive at one of the buildings in the 10-building Yucca Mountain Project complex. It's your first real look (but it won't be your last!) at the mountain range that looms over my office. And that big impressive green glass facade is where I went on my first morning here (just one month ago yesterday!), to get my temporary badge and an escort to the building where I would actually work. From the best of my figuring, my office is pretty much directly under the light pole that you can see--on the far side of the four buildings that form a sort of circle on the far side of the block. The building you can see is part of a similar circle of buildings, so I'll be walking to the other side of that block--should be about a 10 minute walk to and fro every day. I'm not sure that I'll walk home at lunchtime, since they only take 1/2 hour lunches (I got spoiled in the rest of my corporate career--I've always had an hour for lunch). But I can microwave something and eat at my desk with no problem.

Anyway, I hope you can see why I'm so excited about this final move. I say once more that I love the motor home--in its place. It's great when all I have is time--and when there are lots of resources around if I need help. That has NOT been the case here, and it only took me a month to find it out. And not too much money, either.

Okay, that's it for now. More on this as I figure out what's next. But I think my next blog is either going to be about casinos (the pink elephant in the middle of the room that I haven't mentioned) or about some of the sites I've been hearing about nearby.

Deliverance--in One Month

I've done it! Yep! I've done it. I've rented an apartment, my brother is going to drive the motor home back to Maine so it'll be there when I'm there--and where there is plenty of help and time to deal with motor home problems (see "The Motor Home Chronicles," recent blog). I'll store it there very near Scott's home (for only $62 a month, quite do-able), and whenever I'm in Maine (3-week vacation this summer, I believe, and when I leave this job, whenever that turns out to be), I'll have "my own front door," as I did this summer.

Charlie (my brother) will be here on March 9, I believe, and my move-in date is March 10, and I'm going to rent some furniture while I look around for pieces I like (or have them shipped from Texas, if that works out), and I just couldn't be happier. The motor home, as I've said, is an adventure, but with my work schedule and my moonlighting activities, adventure is going to have to wait.

But let me tell you--and SHOW you--my new apartment. First of all, it's in the Falling Water Luxury Apartment Home complex. And the apartments are, indeed, VERY nice. I looked at a 2-bedroom, but I really don't think I need that much space. In the 1-bedroom, I have about 185 square feet less than in my condo in Texas (1005 vs. 1190), but I have 2 fewer rooms and one fewer bathroom, so the square footage in this apartment appears to be--and is--much more spacious, as you'll see. In fact, I like my kitchen more than the condo kitchen (not that I'm all that familiar with the condo kitchen)!


Okay, here's the view from the back of the golf cart that whisked me away to the model apartment so that I could take pictures (for this posting and for figuring out what I need to rent to fill it up). You're looking at the office, the ubiquitous palm trees, and the mail hut (complete with mail truck). We'll revisit the view in this direction at the end of this little tour, and you'll be even more impressed.

Inside, I want to show you first the kitchen, to prove my point that it's nicer than my condo kitchen. In the model apartment, it's to the left of the entrance, and to the right is a laundry room that's considerably larger than the one in my condo, that INCLUDES a washer/dryer (YAY!!) and that has a painting on the wall. Va-va-va-voom!!! Pretty classy, right? Well, I WANT to show this to you, but I don't seem to be able to pull pictures in one at a time, so I'm going to quit this posting, and start Part Deux. THAT one will include the rest of the photos.

Back in a mo', as they say elsewhere.

The Motor Home Chronicles

It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry, folks, but it has been a time full of little fires to put out. And a time of a BIG decision. Oh, and a little bit of fun, and a continued appreciation of this dramatically beautiful place. Let's see, where to start?

A couple of observations: First, this area is gorgeous! These days, I get out of work sometimes right after sunset, when there's a pale green glow behind the mountains. And the silhouette of those mountains is just dramatic, all toothed and craggy. And then, by the time I get up to the 215 for the drive down the west side of the city, it's dark and I can see the whole valley (the "meadows," I assume, for which the city was long ago named), and it stretches from the range of mountains to the west to the range of mountains to the east, and all down the valley as far as the eye can see, and it's lit with millions (literally) of twinkling lights, and it looks exactly like a magic carpet of lights. It takes my breath away. I want to pull off and stop and just soak it all in. Instead, I get to see it every night on my way home. At least now I do: when the days get longer, the nightly carpet will elude me.

Oh, and have I told you that, shooting out of the middle of all those twinkling lights is this intense beam of light aiming up into the heavens? It comes out of the top of the Luxor pyramid and I guess it's on all the time--or at least all the dark part of the day. You can always tell where you are relative to the Strip--at least, at night--if you can see that beam.

On the other hand, I spent more than 45 minutes tonight, driving around the streets near where I live, trying to find--a grocery store! And I couldn't find one. Anywhere! There was a Target--but not one with a grocery store. And there was something called Food4Less, but it was sort of like a run-down Sam's, with everything in bulk, or at least in quantities of more than one. I wanted a bag of salad greens--Nope! I wanted nonfat milk (1/2 gallon)--One left, and I almost missed that. I'm really amazed. There's just nothing within miles of where I live! I guess, if I want groceries, I'm going to have to shop up near where I work, where there are several really nice shopping centers with Albertson's, Vonn's, and Smith's grocery stores.

Speaking of where I work, it's time to talk about little fires, which have been the story of my life for the past 3-4 days. If it's not one thing, it has been three others. Let's see, I don't think I mentioned that I've had sewer problems. Last Tuesday morning (still wet from the shower), I responded to a knock on the door (it was 7:20 a.m.!), and let John from Master Mobile in. He was carrying a 3-foot length of plastic pipe, and he went straight to work. Within 5 minutes, he had poked a hole through the pile that had built up in my toilet, and once again things were flowing. Hurray, I thought, as I handed him a check for $120 (by my calculations, he's making somewhere around $700/hour at that rate! Mother should have told me to forget about college and marry a plumber who makes house calls!)

But that was not the end of it. Things "flowed" for a while--John had instructed me to always fill the toilet bowl twice--FULL--whenever I used it, so as to flush stuff down thoroughly. Well, that worked for the first day or two (though there were always air bubbles making geysers every time I flushed. But by Friday, I COULDN'T fill the bowl twice: If I did, it wouldn't go down, because the pipe was full. After a few hours, I could put more water down, but again, that would need several hours to drain. By Saturday evening, I couldn't put even one full bowl of water down there! I was NOT a happy camper. It was just one (but the biggest one) of the fires, but this was one that I had already paid someone to fix--and it hadn't happened!

So today, I called John and did my version of reaming him out! I think it worked: he's coming tomorrow or Wednesday (I'm going to leave my door unlocked, since I can't be here), I hope he'll do a REAL job of clearing things out of the pipe and the tank, and so far, he has not mentioned that I need to leave him a check for any amount.

Next little fire: ON Thursday, I felt a crack in my denture. Panic in the streets: I had had my denture break during my 2-1/2-month stay in South Carolina, and I tried to patch it myself with no luck. But finally I took it to a dentist that a local recommended to me, and she patched it with acrylic, and it's been perfect ever since. In fact, I think the patch is the strongest part of the denture. So, figuring that someone here could do the same thing, I got a recommendation from a local for a good dentist here. However, this dentist was out of the office until Monday, so I crossed my fingers and tried not to bite down, hoping the denture would last till then.

Nope! Friday night, in the middle of a great Quizno's sandwich, I heard the crunch, and I knew it was all over. I could still wear the denture, but the broken edge was sharp and it was very uncomfortable. So, as much as I could, I traveled without it. To give you "the rest of this story," I went to the dentist this morning. I liked her (she's British, tall, thin, blonde, and probably 35. I will probably stay with her (I also like her staff; it's a small office, so I already know everyone there, and I like that).

However, there's more to tell: the denture came back an hour early--yes, you heard me, "came back." This was not just applying some acrylic to put the two pieces together. This was getting the pieces picked up by a lab, worked on, and sent back, for a total of $632, of which I paid $366. THAT was a surprise, let me tell you! I asked about it (DUH!), and was told that they put NEW teeth on the denture. But we looked, and the teeth were NOT new--in fact, all they'd done was exactly what I had asked in the first place. Anyway, the dentist agreed that the lab had overcharged, and I got $91 back. I'm happy with the dentist, but I hope I don't have anything more to do with that lab. Anyway, bottom line, I can smile again!

That was fire #2. Next fire: I've had a light on my dashboard (spelling "BRAKE" that's been intermittently on and off, and has lately been on all the time. I needed an oil change (Kurtis, if you're reading this, it was 90,978, just 22 miles short of the 91,000 miles at which I was due. I'm a good girl!). Try and find a Jiffy Lube! Just try!!! Finally I found a Terrible's Lube. Yep, that's right: Terrible's. They're all over the place here, gas stations, car washes, convenience stores (with full banks of video poker and slot machines in every store), and, yes, lube joints. They changed my oil ($35--Kurtis, you sure have spoiled me!) and, when I asked them to check out the fluids, they said everything was full (including the brake fluid). Their guess was it was malfunctioning gauge in the fluid container. I'll have to go get my 90,000-mile check up soon, and I'll have Toyota look at it. But that took most of Saturday afternoon.

Sunday, I was nervous (toilet and denture problems hovering over my head), but I figured I could make it until Monday. And then, it started. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Omigod! What now? It seemed to be coming from the LP gas alarm, which is near the floor of the hallway, next to the bathroom door. But the only light (of three) that was lit was the "Operating" light (green, a good sign). The "Alarm" light wasn't lit, and the "Fault" light (amber) wasn't lit. But a couple of hours earlier, when I'd been sitting with the doors open, eating my lunch, I thought I'd smelled gas. So I did what I was told in the Operator's Manual, and turned off the LP gas, and got down at the level of the alarm to see if I could smell it--and no, I couldn't smell anything. But the alarm was still beeping.

So what did I do? What would YOU have done? Right. I left! I went to the movies. Yep, I spent 2-1/2 hours enjoying Helen Mirren's outstanding performance in "The Queen." I figured, if the motor home was going to blow up, it'd be better if I wasn't here. Don't you agree? I went to a theater about 5 miles away, so that, if it blew up, it wouldn't spoil the movie for me. And when I got back home, everything was still as I left it, with the alarm beeping away. So this time I walked further into the bedroom--and that's when I realized that it wasn't the LP gas alarm at all. It was the carbon monoxide alarm--beeping because the battery was running down, I assume. So I tried, and I tried, and I tried, and I COULD NOT unscrew the gadget so that I could check out the battery. I could push the button to turn it off, but after a few minutes it would come back on. This time, though, the beep came about every 20 seconds. I can live with that--once I could stop worrying about an explosion, I could get some sleep. But it does get annoying. And I don't have any idea whom I can get to come in and manhandle that cover off. I just flat can't do it.

Well, my brother's coming in 5 weeks. Maybe by then there won't be enough juice in the battery to even operate the beeps. I can hope, can't I?

One more small fire: I got up this morning to take my shower (after a bad night of beeping), and there was no hot water. It was the last straw! Of course, it was my fault: I'd forgotten to turn the water heater pilot light back on after turning off the LP gas. Pushed that button this morning, and had plenty of hot water in about 10 minutes--but no longer enough time for my shower, unfortunately.

Okay, now to the Big Decision. Can you guess what it was, after all this? I've decided I've had enough Adventure for one year. I've decided that a motor home is a great place for a man or maybe for a younger single woman. But for me, at 65, with a full-time job, a book to try to edit in the moonlight, and nobody to call on for help when things go wrong (unless I can hire them--but things always seem to go wrong on the weekends, when no one's around), it's just too much stress and not enough fun.

So here's my decision. I'm going to spend the next month (until Charlie comes around March 9th) finding and renting an apartment, hopefully near my work. In fact, there's a nice complex right across the street from my office that has fairly reasonable rent. And I'll rent enough furniture to take care of basic needs until I can replace it with non-rented stuff--and Charlie has agreed to drive the motor home back to Maine, where we'll store it until I can use it again the way I did this summer. That was really, really fun, living there and enjoying all the Bonney-Hogg family, but having my own front door. And meanwhile, Scott and family can use it on occasion, and I may even be able to rent it out now and then.

So. How's that for a turn-around? Oh, yes, I have decided that, even though that big newer motor home would have been great, and beautiful, and much easier to deal with on many of the issues that have been a problem with this one, it's still a motor home, and the problems I've had with this one could occur with that one. Unless it comes with a "handy man" as a built-in, I'd still be stressed out trying to take care of stuff. So I'm giving up on that idea, though I'm sad. It'd be great to have such a nice place to live in and travel around in later on. But I don't think I want to spend that much money for a part-time home.

Enough for tonight. I'm DEFINITELY going to have pictures for y'all soon. It is SUCH a gorgeous area. I can't wait to show it off to you!

Not sure where this blog will go next--but hopefully it'll be soon. Tune in for the next chapter. . . .