Where Am I Going, And Why Am I In This Handbasket?

Monday, October 17, 2005

Sunday Nights


Sunday night BBQ with The Village (as in “It takes a”).

The weather has finally gone lovely. It’s official. Our moods seem to travel a parallel path and we are enjoying new dispositions.

Everyone's kids had been ejected to places unseen. There was a smooth polleny breeze floating around us, and fans gusting. Carrie and her glass-blowing boyfriend were with us on Paul’s patio. Kelly, Chris and I filled out the deck. I’m especially content because Paul introduced me to a yummy new beer called Chimay Ale, brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium. Those holy men in their monasteries – apparently the most productive people on the planet – what else do they produce? Libraries, art, beer, books, wines, cheeses, bourbon fudge – all the components to a happy existence. (Or the perfect example of the accomplished life one can achieve when not Hampered By Sex. Whatever.). And now I’ve decided that I want to be a monk when I grow up. Is it too late?

I digress.

So we ate deliciously, as usual when Chris is at the helm. And we drank deliciously, as usual when Chris brings home several bottles of wine or Paul introduces a new beer (I love monks!). After the dreamy salad (Hawaiian opah, salmon, swordfish, scallop & steak - Life is good when you’re lovin’ a Foodie), three bottles of tasty pinot, a case of Newcastle, and a couple liters of the scrumptious ale (hey I really like monks), we threw the dishes in the kitchen with a flourish and ambled back outside, closing away the indoors again with a loud determined click of the patio door. We sat around the table on Paul’s darkened porch – crowded with dilapidated candles, dozens of half-empty bottles, ashtrays, smudgy glasses, and the laptop we were choosing post-dinner songs from (Thievery Corporation was on). The desert we then smoked fully complimented our digestion and our dirty toes flickered as we leaned back and propped our feet on each other’s chairs. We talked aimlessly, over each other.

Someone brought up Haunted Houses. Kelly mentioned the building on 19th Ave & Northern, which now exists as an Albertson’s shopping center. What did it used to be? None of us could agree about what the building had been in its first life, but The Villagers all recalled that when they were teens they’d all done some great drugs in there, sneaking into its abandoned spookiness latenights. So, great drugs. Swell. I was probably getting my braces on that day.

I declared that my recollection of the building had to be correct because an old nun told me in high school. Paul claimed to have a similarly reliable source. I called Bullshit. No one beats a cranky old nun. We all argued as to its original purpose until we spiraled and the story could not continue. Paul threw his hands out and sliced the air, telling us to shut up. We needed a consensus.

He pointed at me. What did I think the building used to be?

Me: A catholic home for pregnant teens
He pointed at Chris: A convent
Kelly: A catholic boarding school
Paul: A catholic insane asylum

Kelly points out that we all actually agreed on one thing. What was it?

CATHOLICS!!!! we all shouted merrily in chorus.

Our warped memories agreed that it had at least been a catholic enterprise, whatever the hell it was. Laughter and high-fives traveled around the table and we were pleased enough to stop quarrelling. Then the hoots died down and we relaxed back into our chairs and passed the next Round o Poof.

What about that Fake Castle on 19th Ave and Peoria, Paul wondered? What the hell was that? The gigantic four-walled brick structure, a strange presence next to the mountain, surrounded by a modern plastic-looking lavender auditorium-style non-denominational church, an empty dusty lot, low-end homes built in the 1970s, and concrete buildings that look more like prison dorms than the retirement apartments they currently were. How many incarnations has the Phony Citadel had? It was a church when I was little. And a furniture store. I remember walking around it back then. Chris said it used to be a bar. Now it’s a fitness club. Is there nothing we can't recreate, no matter how tacky?

Who cares. 'Rome' was on in 2 minutes.

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Friday, October 14, 2005

Border Bandits, Toilet Papers, and Steppies

I have recently returned from 2 lil visits south of the border. My first was a day-long meeting in Nogales, Sonora. One of our major concerns in Arizona's tourism industry is that the post-9/11 climate and the creation of Depts of Homeland Security have raised The Wall even higher. How do we comply with these new security provisions and still welcome legitimate travelers to AZ? Yadda yadda yadda. So I attend this meeting south of our clusterfuck of a border and have a productive day with our counterparts and Border Gurus and our local DHS folks. I took the state van because I have no desire to tack on even more miles to the 28,000 I've already put on the barely year-old Element. On my way back to the US, however, the van is stoned by border punks and the window blown out, and the windshield cracked from the INSIDE as the rock, which was the size of a piece of pie, bounced around inside the car. I was a little put out. I now had to ride all the way back to Phoenix with a 100-degree wind blowing in my face and glass shards in my crack, and only speckles of blood and tiny cuts all over me, which once I washed left no evidence of any trauma hahaha. I didn't shed enough blood to milk it. But to maintain my Pollyanna mood I keep chanting It's Not My Car It's Not My Car all the way back. I felt better. Upon depositing the sad van back at the office, I brought the fucking rock inside with me as CSI evidence and left it on the desk of the beleagured office manager that now had a mountain of paperwork to process. Hee. Paperweight.

Last week I was in Hermosillo for a big ol AZ Showcase 2-day PR/trade/media/consumer event. I should have known my luck would turn here as well, after mocking all the delicate nancies that whine about The Water In Mexico and refuse to eat even salads because they're rinsed in Mexican water. I brag that I can brush my teeth with the water from the sink, that I can handle a couple of chugs here and there. Welllll, something went wrong, terribly wrong, and I haven't assigned blame to the food or water or whatever quite yet - but the Boom in My Bowels lasted days and days, even through the day after I returned home. UGH. And to end the trip with a flourish - my customs docs disappeared as I was on my last leg of pushing through all the immigration gates, and after an extensive search of the tiny space we could have possibly occupied between one Guy Who Stamps You to The Other, after keeping a dozen tired colleagues waiting for me, I find the fucking papers in the toilet by the luggage carousel. The TOILET! I usually hate overly-aggressive automatic flushing toilets (they splash my legs if I can't jump away fast enough) but this time I was rather relieved that my papers had a clean(ish) bowl to land in, however the fuck they managed to jump out of my purse. After fishing the papers out with only 2 fingers (formidable), wrapping them in wads of paper towel and running all the way back to the customs guards - he barely glanced at the faded document and sent me through. I offered to let him keep the form (because they're supposed to) but somehow he didn't want to. The guards and my colleagues were all cracking up, and a couple of my girls were crying with laughter. The effect I am always going for as a business person.

And now I know how to smuggle anything I want.



(...maybe I just ate too damn much on the trip?)







But if Blasting Bowels weren't the perfect end to a long week, here's a lil potrait of my domestic bliss. Wrap your head around this: the oldest steppie had his Homecoming Dance on Saturday. ACK ACK ACK. Nick went to his first high school dance and Chris and I fought all night about whether or not giving him a condom was a good idea. Of course I'm a total hag and demanded that Chris temper his realistic vision of teenlife with the overarching theme of Don't Fucking Think About It when having the Pre-Dance Talk, but it was stressful nonetheless. I'm not interested in becoming a stepgrandma before I give birth myself. I'm only fucking thirty! His little date had braces that took up her whole mouth, which was the only comfort I had to block out the vision of her shortshort dress and hooker heels that I could never aspire to walk in myself. It gave me an ulcer just wondering what they were doing all night. It didn't help that we went to see The 40 Year-Old Virgin with Carmela, who was somehow surprised that it was just a little bit raunchy. She seemed to be blaming me for it with her disapproving huffs, I could tell.

So there's a week in the life. ACK ACK ACK



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