Last week I was in Utah at the Sundance Film Festival. By happenstance Sundance coincided with a therapy trip for me. Seriously. I have lymphedema in my left leg and well, it’s a long story but if you are interested in medical stuff, you can follow up on my lymphedema blog. My surgery and follow up treatment are documented. But I digress.
Tom and I have reached our limits with running the Lake Chelan Boarding House for wayward teens. I don’t really like to cook and preparing meals for 15 plus people is my idea of purgatory. Our solution to this kitchen drudgery is genius—each of our three kids has their turn at a meal. How fun for them! Sort of like a new funny game. This of course includes, planning the meal, shopping, setting the table and of course, dish duty—no paper plates allowed and cold cereal does not make a meal. The first meal was rather tasty, teriyaki tri-tip, salad, and a fondue disguised as fettuccini.
Okay, my first spa treatment is accomplished…….barely. Who knew that visiting a deluxe spa could be so stressful? Enter a “quiet room” which is the equivalent of a quiet tomb before my scalp massage treatment. Anyone who attends the movies with me knows that I am not able to maintain silence let alone hold still for more than two minutes at a time. I pay good money for a movie ticket and believe it is my right to repeat aloud the lines I find most amusing. My husband disagrees and we don’t go to movies much anymore. Take a banana from the fruit bowl, a perfect pre-spa snack. Begin peeling banana which makes a very loud cracking sound. Old man in comfy looking chaise lounge gives me the hairy eyeball. Ignore him and commence to chewing. Good God, what has happened to my chewers? They have suddenly become obnoxiously loud. I am sounding like my daughter, Smackers. Try a sip of my water and find that I am unable to sip quietly and in fact have soiled my nice robe. Look longingly at old man in divan next to me; he has the perfect pre-spa chair. Make mental note to arrive earlier for next treatment.
My husband, Tom is a “regifter.” It’s the Christian thing. My thoughtful presents (to him) of Christmas past pop up like wayward boomerangs for the next celebration—baby shower or birthday, the occasion doesn’t matter. He is recycling. Recycling is big in our house.
I recently returned from The National Society of Newspaper Columnist Conference, which was held in Ventura, California. My new writing group, BFF, Karen Rinehart, award-winning humorist and author, cajoled me into attending and I have to say I enjoyed every minute—except for that one time I waited in a long line for a drink, ordered a delicious beverage only to find I had no money, but I digress.
I’d like to say that I hung with all of my contemporaries at the Crown Plaza Hotel, but reality bit when I met Jeff Zaslow from The Wall Street Journal and co-author of “The Last Lecture.” I mean really, I write the humor column for the b-town blog (not that there is anything wrong with that) and I don’t recall winning any awards recently or for that matter have any other credentials that allowed me entrance to such an esteemed society. But times are hard and Karen said, “It doesn’t matter, they need people to fill the conference room, all the newspapers are shutting down or going Chapter 11, you could be a graffiti tagger and they’d let you in.” So I went.
Studying with Natalie Goldberg in an “new” school gym proves to be a funny story about returning to school.
T.I.T.S., a questionable acronym for “Thunder in The Sun,” a late summer festival held in Manson, Washington. Perhaps the acronym alone drew the two hundred or so Harley riders that surrounded us in the vast field next to the withered grass of barely playable MA-8 golf course.
This past month in Sun Valley, Idaho, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed at the new Sun Valley outdoor pavilion to a full house.
The entirely volunteer choir travels every other year. Half of the 360 strong choir consisted of red-robed women and the other half are made up of tuxedo-clad men.
