cha-cha-changes

There’s No Place Like Home, There’s No Place Like Home

Posted on January 8, 2010
by Karen Fayeth
4 Comments

Man oh man, yesterday at gate B20 at McCarran airport, I was clanking my ruby slippers together so hard the sparkles fell off.

No worries, nothing a little love from a glue gun can’t fix.

I love to travel, I always have. Ok, I’m not some big international world traveler, I’ll admit. I’m mainly a domestic flight gal, but still, I manage to travel maybe three to four times a year, usually for fun to see friends and family.

The adventure is always worth the price of admission. Even going to somewhere I know well, it gives me a chance to break out of my routine, get out of my head, and be different.

The best road trips are when I feel like I’m a different person by the time I come back home…meaning, I’ve grown or learned more about myself along the way.

My recent travel was one of those sorts of trips. I won’t share all the ins and outs and what-have-yous about the epiphany I had in front of a quarter slot machine at the Four Queens casino, but suffice to say, there was one…and it was good.

Sometimes getting out of my non-thinking monotonous routine and into “hey, where am I staying and where are my bags and where am I going to have something to eat?” is entirely exhausting.

And my god air travel wears me slick. Could people *be* any ruder when flying?

By the time we made our way to our happy little casa last night, I was beat. I mean, so tired, I was damn near catatonic.

But as Annie says in Bull Durham, “Total exhaustion can be spiritually fabulous.”

So as tired as I was, as happy as I was to sink into my bed and let the sandman have his way with me, at 4:30 this morning, my eyes were open and the brain was rolling.

Ideas. Lots of them. Flowing like, well, coins from a slot machine after hitting double-double-double on the payline.

At first I fought it. Rolled over and begged for sleep to come back.

Then I thought…why? How often am I blessed with a fire hose blast from The Muse? Why pinch off the ideas? Hell no, let ’em flow.

So since 4:30 this morning, I’ve been cranking away at the iMac. I mean CRANKING the whole time. And damn if I didn’t get a LOT accomplished (not the least of which was cropping and uploading my new profile photo…take a gander to the left and you’ll find it.)

So now, some four hours later, my eyes are burning, I’m a little shaky, and I may need a nap today. But mostly, I’m happy.

While travel is fun, and for this old musty brain, might just be essential, at the end of the day, there really is no place like home.

Viva Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Mi Vida.

Posted on January 5, 2010
by Karen Fayeth
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Ah Las Vegas, I return home to you once more.

That sparkling town, Las Vegas, has been an integral part of pretty much all of my life.

Yes, Vegas and I are irrevocably entwined.

Sure, everyone likes Vegas, right? Well…right?

For me, it’s a lot different than it might be for you.

Let’s flip the toggle switch on the WayBack Machine. Let’s go back, oh, say a bit over forty years.

It was the swinging sixties, baybee, and my dad, a hardcore engineer, was working at the Nevada Test Site.

That’s the place you might of heard of…you know, where they blow up nuclear devices underground?

Yup.

Oh, also…waaaaaay over in the back corner of the Nevada Test Site is a little place called Area 54. (In later years I asked the old man about it, but got no answers)

So while Dad went to work out in the middle of the freaking Nevada desert, mom stayed home at their place in Las Vegas and tended to her three kids.

Yes folks, I have actually lived in Las Vegas.

It was only for only a brief time and I have only vague memories, like that you could see the Landmark Casino from where we lived. I used to love to stand in the backyard and watch the lighted elevators go up and down.

My folks really liked living in Las Vegas. And they liked visiting the town too. They made an at least once a year visit, seeing friends and family, a couple shows and they would gamble a bit. It was their favorite vacation destination.

Sometimes they would go just the two of them. Sometimes we kids got to go along for the fun.

It sucked to be a kid in Vegas prior to the construction of Circus Circus. There was little to do other than swim in the hotel pool and follow mom around when she hit the slots.

By law I had to stand at least six feet away from any gaming device. Stand there. With nothing to do other than whine at my mother that I wanted to go swimming.

But all of those years spent in Las Vegas and I find I have a deep history with this town that not many people have. I can remember, “oh that used to be the ____” when I pass the current kitschy themed hotels and casinos.

I am kind of ticked off at Las Vegas for demolishing all of the old and rather fabulous casinos and replacing them with these new garish harpies.

It’s just not the same.

Coming to Vegas is, for me, like coming home. I was remarking to The Good Man on the plane ride over that for me, going to Vegas is a bit like going to Albuquerque. It’s a get away, but it’s also a going home. A nice trip but also so comfortable and easy.

I don’t know Vegas quite as well as I do Albuquerque, as I lived in Vegas only a couple years and I lived a lifetime in ABQ.

But it’s a part of me. And it is an even deeper part of the history of my parents.

Vegas and me, we belong together. And it’s not about the casinos or the neon or the obnoxious part of it.

I see this painted showgirl for what she is. Behind the mask of makeup and face paint, she’s a thirsty and tired old desert town that has grown too fast, aching from the growing pains.

You get two blocks off the strip, and you see behind the curtain. The streets are dirty and grim people look both tired and sad. There is an ugly dark side to all that glitz and show.

There are real people with real jobs trying to make a living. The casinos are but one facet of Vegas.

It’s been a couple years since I came to see this charming old lady of a town. On my last trip, I got into an intense conversation with the cab driver who had been raised here in Vegas. He was so happy to find someone who knew, who remembered, and that made me happy too.

Today, I’m looking out over the Spring Mountains to the west and plotting how to spend my day. The Neon Museum is closed for construction, so that will have to be another time.

I’ll probably find myself downtown where places like the Four Queens and the Golden Gate harken back to another time. My time.

Maybe I’ll pull the handle of a one armed jack and I’ll remember….

Spring forward? Yes, please! Fall back? Bah!

Posted on November 2, 2009
by Karen Fayeth
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Have I ever mentioned that I *love* daylight savings time? Love it. Looooove it.

I can hardly wait each year for the time to change, for the days to grow longer, for it to be warm and sunny and I get to wear cute sandals and short dresses and the feeling of optimism pervades.

Every year, I dread with equal force when time changes back. It’s a concession to fall-turns-into-winter. The days grow shorter. I have to wear a freaking jacket. In the Bay Area it’s probably raining and pessimism, Seasonal Affective Disorder and endless gray skies pervade.

Last night, at ten minutes to six in the evening, it was pitch-black dark outside.

It won’t be long before it’s pitch-black dark outside by 5:30.

Ugh.

Everyone chirrups about how “we get that hour back!” and “it’s an extra hour of sleep!”

Yeah, even the promise of more sleep can’t warm me up to this time change.

At all.

I may be a human, but I’m basically just an animal. The Feline can’t tell time. She doesn’t really understand why the kibble isn’t dropping into the blue bowl at the same time it did two days ago. I mean, she *really* can’t understand.

She’s yowling at me as I write this. She’d like you to call Kitty Protective Services and report an abuse. Indignant is the adjective that best describes her demeanor.

And really, I can’t blame her! I’m hungry too! My internal clock is all off. Sleep isn’t happening right. Food is out of whack.

All of my external clocks are a mess too! Some of them fix themselves automatically. Some of them fix automatically, but we wired to make the change a couple weeks ago. Some I have to manually adjust.

What the $%#@ time is it anymore? I need a little precision, people!

Don’t even get me started on the people who will lecture that time is but an illusion, a made up method of marking events. Bah! That makes it worse. We made up this measurement device, and then we fiddle with it.

The Feline has it right, I think. She wakes up, she’s hungry. Bam. Done. Why we gotta make it harder than that?

While we’re on the topic, I’d like to ban alarm clocks. I think it’s unnatural to wake your body out of a perfectly nice sleep with a jangling device. I think we should all get to sleep until we’re done sleeping, and then get up and face the world.

It would be a much more civilized place if we did.

sigh It just ain’t the same

Posted on October 14, 2009
by Karen Fayeth
3 Comments

While visiting with my godkids last week, I had occasion to lament how fast they are growing up.

The oldest of the two is soon to be ten. TEN! Wow. I remember when she was just a little preemie baby, yowling when the wind blew across her little face. She was adorable, tiny and rather sour of disposition.

Now she’s a bright, effusive ten year old, full of life and energy and fun.

She’s been facing some rather grown up issues at school, which breaks a Nina’s heart. I’d like to go to that school and give some folks the what-for.

Seeing my little girl growing up so quick made me think about a lot of things that change, drastically, as you age.

For example, I recall when goddaughter #1 was going through potty training. Her folks worked with her quite a bit to get that going. (pun sort of intended)

One evening, there were several friends visiting at the house, and goddaughter #1 came racing out of the bathroom right to the middle of the crowd. She had not a stitch of clothing on, threw her arms in the air and yelled, “I pooped in the potty!”

Well, we all applauded and congratulated and hugged her. It was a very proud group of adults.

This doesn’t happen when you are 40.

If I came racing out of the john naked, right into a dinner party exclaiming my poopy prowess, well…for sure I’d not be invited back to the party. They might even see about having me talk to a “special” doctor.

Ya get no applause for bodily functions when you get past the age of, oh say, five.

How about birthdays? When you are five, you get a pile of fun presents to unwrap, your friends come have a sleep over and when they put the cake in front of you, first you blow out the candles and then everyone giggles when you put your face right down into your cake.

RIGHT down into the frosting!

Nobody thinks it is funny when you have cake all over your face when you are a grown up. People just look at you like you’ve lost your marbles.

It isn’t fair.

Oh! And how about naps? When you are a kid, naps are required! Oh yes, much enforced! Must nap, do it now! Here is your special blanket and stuffed friend and a kiss on the forehead.

Today? A nap is a luxury. Stolen moments. Time I could have used to do something more productive.

The ubiquitous “they” say that being a grown up is a good thing.

Generally I might agree, but sometimes………..