Pondering the world

my opinion of Halloween

I shouldn't try to post a blog at night--I'm too tired and not very creative.  So last night I didn't.  I had wanted to post something on Halloween, but all I could think of was that Halloween is now my least favorite holiday--all the hype, and people being really stupid about stuff like smashing pumpkins.  It's still a pretty cool thing for kids because they get to dress up and be someone they're not and get candy in the bargain.  However, sometimes it's not okay for adults because they get to dress up and be someone they're not, and do things they wouldn't normally do because they're "incognito."  Sort of like Vegas--what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Enough said.

So this morning I thought "there must be something still fun and funny about Halloween out there."  I went surfing on youtube.com and found a bunch of videos.  Yes, there is still fun and funny stuff out there.  I got a good laugh out of some of these, and I hope you will too.  Here's my favorite video (just click on the underlined link). 

Happy Halloween!

Emmy awards for tourism

Steve has been attending the Governor's Conference on Tourism for the past two days. 

Last night we attended the big dinner event, and it felt like attending the Academy awards.  It was a real who's who in tourism in the state.  Not that we're anybody important, but many of the other folks were.  And what a production it was!  It started off well, with a musical blessing by Andrew Thomas, a native American flute player (we know him).  Then a spoken blessing in the Laguna Pueblo language by Ron Solimon, director of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (we know him, too).  Then they let us have dinner, which was great, before all of the presentations began. 

At that point, it really did become like the Academy awards, which I view as a bunch of people who know each other giving awards to each other.  This is definitely a club and we're not in it.  Not because it's exclusive, but because we just haven't been in the tourism industry long enough.  Most of these people have been in it at least 20 years, so they share a lot of history and experiences together.  There was the obligatory slide show of photos, history and people in the Tourism Association of New Mexico (TANM) for the past 20 years, which included lots of inside jokes and references that we didn't know anything about.

Then they had photo opportunities with the sponsors, an auction, and additional "entertainment" by some of the TANM members.  We could easily have done without all of that and decided that next time we'll leave right after dinner. 

I'm glad Steve found the conference itself to be valuable.  Next time, I would just watch the Academy awards on TV--I'd probably know more of the people and the dresses are fabulous.

eavesdropping at Halloween

Yesterday I was in the dressing room at Goodwill trying on khaki pants (three "new" pairs--hooray).  While I was in there, I overheard two men talking.  Here's how the conversation went:

Man 1:  "If this costs more than $75, I'm going back to the other one."
Man 2:  "How does it fit?"
Man 1:  "I don't know; I can't get it on yet."
Then a woman came in.  "Honey, does it fit?  Let me see."
Man 1:  "No, don't come in here.  I can do it."

(back and forth along this line for a few exchanges. She wants to come in and see, he says no.)

Man 1:  "Man, I can't even get this over my shoulders."
Man 2:  "I told you you should go for the strapless."    [what the heck?]

At this point, it becomes obvious that these guys are going to a Halloween party as bride and groom.  The "bride" is having a hard time finding a dress that fits.  His wife has brought him to Goodwill to find a dress.

Wife:  "Honey, let me come in and help you.  Let me see."  (no, no, no)

By this time I'm laughing so hard I can't see straight.

Me:  "Man, this is a really interesting conversation I'm hearing here.  Hey, let ME see!  I gotta see this!"

By then everyone in the dressing room was cracking up and enjoying a good laugh for the day.  Sometimes it pays to eavesdrop.

cell phone went for a swim

After using the ladies' room at Lowe's and getting ready to open the stall door, I lost my grip on my cell phone and it fell in the toilet.  Just wanted to go for a swim, I guess.  At least the water was clean.

I grabbed it up and started drying it off, but it was too soon to tell yet whether it would survive.  At first I couldn't even turn it off.  It rang but the buttons didn't work, and then it feebly tried to tell me I had a voicemail message.  Eventually the battery ran down and it turned itself off.  I let it dry off for a while and plugged it in to re-charge. 

It's not dead but definitely crippled.  It turns on but the screen is blank, so I thought it would work the same, I just wouldn't be able to read the screen.  It's midnight and I just tried to call myself--who else would I call at this time of night--but was really surprised to have Manny of our security service answer (sorry about that).  Even though I keyed in my own number, it's obviously scrambled inside.

Rats.  Now I'm trying to remember all the numbers I have stored in my cell phone, and I know that some of them I don't have saved anywhere else!

looking forward to a little down time

It's been a busy, record-breaking October.  The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta had a record number of visitors this year.  We had more rooms booked as well, all but three room nights during the whole 10 days.  In addition, we were very busy before then and have been quite busy since.  We've been almost completely full the past few nights and have even needed to have two seatings for breakfast.  It looks like we'll break a record, with this October being our busiest month since we started.

But we're ready for a break or at least a time when things are a little slower.  There's a lot going on here this week with several conferences as well as the National Arabian Horse Show that draws 10,000 people.  Interestingly, we have no one checking in tomorrow night, and it's a very quiet weekend.  So far it looks like everyone will check out on Sunday and we have no guests that night.  We may just block off the night and not take any reservations.  It would be a rare and amazing thing to have a day completely off.

thinking about friends in the path of the fire

It's easy to insulate myself here.  I don't watch TV news, hardly ever read the newspaper, and only get to listen to the news on NPR until I jump out of bed saying, "egad!  I've got to get going!"

So it was somewhat easy not to know, except in passing, that there are big fires in California which have now gotten so big that hundreds of thousands--and now they're talking millions--of people are being evacuated.  At first I thought of a few people I know actually in the San Diego area (Jack and Patty Lou, maybe Gary and Jan in Ramona) and then others (no, Jim and Gayle are in Camarillo outside of Los Angeles, so they should be okay).  Then when I did grab up the paper, I found that Ramona is where one of the really big fires is and it sounds like the whole town has been evacuated.   And the fires are not just in San Diego, they're kind of all over, so lots of people are in jeopardy.

I pray for the safety of our friends and relatives in the area.  May they be spared or escape from danger,and may their homes be out of the path.  Be safe and be well.

winter arrived yesterday

On Saturday it was an unseasonal 88 degrees.  By late afternoon the wind had picked up, a front moved in, and the temperature plummeted.  The high on Sunday was 53 degrees as the wind continued to blow.  When the wind finally dropped, it went below freezing last night.  Today was a little warmer than predicted, but it didn't get any higher than 60.  We may bounce up and down again with a few warmer days, but fall is quickly heading into winter.

On a more wintry note, they've already had a dusting of snow in Santa Fe and Taos, and on an errand yesterday I could see snow falling at the base of the mountains.  It's amazing how that makes visitors freak out, and they suddenly decide that they won't make that day trip to Santa Fe because "it's snowing!"  Well, no.  It was snowing a little, but it melted immediately.  It will take another month or so for the ground around here to really start freezing enough for the snow to stick.

In the meantime, the ski areas and those working in water management are hoping for an early, heavy snowfall year.

being a tourist where I grew up

I'm convinced that when you're a kid, you don't know much about the place where you live.  Even if your parents take you places and try to teach you some of the geography and history, you probably won't remember much about it.  It's not until we get older that some of us start to appreciate things like history and architecture.

I haven't lived in southern Delaware for 33 years, and there were towns around that I never visited or didn't know much about.  Who knew that Milton has a Federal Historic District with 198 historic homes?  Not me.  Several of them are bed & breakfast inns, the Governor's Bed & Breakfast and The Victorian Jewel.  I had no idea that Milton was named after the poet John Milton or that it was a ship-building town.  Wait a minute... isn't Milton inland?  Yes, but it's on the Mispillion River, which dumps into the Delaware Bay, which goes out into the Atlantic...

Then there's Milford, with the Causey Mansion, The Towers Bed & Breakfast and the Acorn Inn.  [I'd include a link to Milford's town website, but it's very institutional--how to pay your utility bills and junk like that.  They give lip service to their history, but then go on to talk about how progressive they are.]

The town of Lewes dates back to 1631 and is an architecture buff's delight.  I'd like to swing by and take a look at the John Penrose Virden house.  I'd also like to go by the Bellmoor Inn in Rehoboth Beach because they're a Select Registry Inn (one of only two in the whole state).  [We'd still like to join Select Registry someday--best of the best B&B's.]  Rehoboth has some historic houses, but mostly it's all about visitors to the beach.

I probably won't get to do all of this during my short visit in December.  So much to see, so little time.  But it would be a nice itinerary for a field trip.

So... where do you live?  When's the last time you acted like a tourist in your own town?

cleaning out as catharsis

I love that word, "catharsis."  I think I've talked about this before.  Obviously, it's a recurring event in my life, this need to clean out major messes and feel better for having done it.  Of course, a catharsis is different for everyone.  For some, it's keeping a journal to get all that stuff out of their heads and onto paper.  For others, it happens when they've scattered the ashes and cleaned out the last box of photos of a loved one.  For a lot of people, it's just spilling their guts and venting to a friend.  But for me, it's almost always cleaning and sorting things out.

Today's task was to clean out a linens storage area in one of the guest rooms downstairs.  It doesn't sound like all that much, really, but it is satisfying to get to the end of it and say, "so there.  Done." 

There's a funny saying:  "I have so much on my to-do list, I can never die."  It sort of feels like that for me.  But I can also envision the end of my life, where I have the time to finish up those loose ends and get to the point where I can say, "so there.  Done."

anyone have a wand?

I just finished reading all seven Harry Potter books.  Amazing, incredible, creative beyond belief.  It's not that the writing is complex; it couldn't be, otherwise all those kids wouldn't be able to read them.  It's that the plot builds over the entire series, and every seemingly insignificant detail is carefully woven into the fabric to become an important point later on.

Obviously, J. K. Rowling either took Latin in school or has made a careful study of it.  The incantations and spells are completely believable because they come from Latin roots and make perfect sense for what they mean.  Expelliarmus is the incantation to disarm someone by taking their wand away ("expel"); lumos is for creating a light source; and levicorpus allows a wizard to levitate someone ("levi"