My Personal Crash of 2010

No it's not the stock market - although we're still taking punches from that. But I feel it in my gut just the same. It's my hard drive.

I am a photo person. I love photographs. They ground me. But more than that, they tell me my story and at the risk of sounding completely self involved, I feel rather lost without photographs.

I bought my MacBook in 2007 to help me with a specific project. When my girls graduated from high school, my gift to them was something I spent a full year working on - with the help of their God-mother (the talented Taydn): an 80-page, 12"x12", hard-cover, perfect-bound self-published, personalized album of photos and narrative, chronicling each of their lives from family tree roots to their own graduations. I spent hours, days, weeks, scanning photos of each of them - as babies, as toddlers, through school, on vacations, during holidays, major events, with family, with friends, with pets, with life. I know they were appreciated but I loved them so much, I ordered one of each of them for myself as well.

The ability to organize and put the whole family story together got intoxicating. I was addicted and soon I was spending free time scanning and inputting only a fraction of what is literally thousands and thousands of photos. I have photos going back generations from my family, Bob's family and Anne's family - to say nothing of our own family. I purchased a scanner that could scan multiple images at a time and still, I could only make a dent in the archives I possess. The best part of digital technology was that anything new I could simply upload directly to my computer without having to bother with having anything "developed". In fact, my camera acts as a video camera as well and our trip in 2008 to Cancun was captured that way - (including me cliff diving!) I tried several times to create a back-up on CD (I did not purchase an external hard drive), but it was time consuming and more often than not would "fail due to disc error". In the end, I had over 11,000 photos and videos stored on my hard drive.

And then, on Monday, it crashed. And several attempts - including with a very expensive company that specializes in retrieving data from the the most messed up hard drives - proved futile. It was gone. All of it. Roughly 4,000 photos and movies were strictly digital transfers so they are lost forever. The guy at the Apple Store said I was the first person he ever knew of who couldn't get their data back. Lucky me.

I received a new hard drive from Apple at no cost but purchased an external drive this time. And I'm starting again. But I will do it better. I will take the time to organize them as I upload them.

And so I begin. Again. The 7,000 I have to re-enter and then on to the thousands in storage. I am "The Keeper of the Photos". I wonder if anyone cares outside of me?

REUNION!

I'm planning to go to a reunion this September. My 35th High School Class reunion. Class of '75. How bizarre is that? (Well, for me anyway.)

I was a junior in high school when my mother went to her 20 year reunion and what I remember most about that episode was that I could not believe how old she was! Twenty years out of high school? Ancient! Truly. I couldn't fathom it. And now I have a mere 10 year old - 5th grade! - and I am going to my 35th. She must think my name is Methuselah. But it feels like yesterday.

Anyway, it has been interesting and fun and wonderful to hear from a lot of my old friends like Carey and Barbara. Sharon and John and Bill. (Some of us actually go back to Jr. High - 39 years ago!!) And some I didn't know well at all. But as their names pop up on Facebook and I see their photos, I think to myself "Now wait a minute. I know that name but I can't place the face at all. Who is that?" So I pull out the old year book and look them all up and GASP and GAWK. Because while most of them look pretty damned good - many of them are still completely unrecognizable to me. And then it occurs to me. I must be unrecognizable to them. Which means that not only did they age, I did too.

But that of course, is impossible!

And the weather is lovely here in The Land of Make-Believe.

Oh Craps! I'm in Vegas

I know I am in the minority but I'm not a fan. Never have been. Yet here I am, so that I can attend the FMI Show. That would be the Food Marketing Institute show and I am here representing my magazine, YUM Food & Fun. With that said, I am still not a fan.

When I was a little girl, I remember once driving through Vegas at night with my parents. Coming over the grade, far off in the distance, a small strip of colorful lights appeared like a fairly land in a sea of darkness. I thought it was the most magical thing I had ever seen and couldn't wait to be there. Well, my reaction to seeing The Strip has changed considerably since then. Thousands of gold tinted hotel windows sparkling in the sun like sequins from a drag queen's closet, flashing neon, hookers for hire, and row upon row upon row of noisy, glowing slot machines and poker tables - tacky, tacky, tacky.

It is only for work that I am embarking on this journey to Mars. Leaving Sunday (Mother's Day!) I departed from the Burbank airport where I was randomly given a hand dusting. Something caused the machine to go off (really!?!) and I was taken to a room where I was fully frisked. Yes indeed, this was going to be a fun trip! I passed the pat down and soon I was Vegas bound on what had to be one of the bumpiest flights I've ever had to endure. It made me very nauseated. While others were white-knuckling their chair seats and counting Rosary beads, I was fanning myself with the emergency instructions card and praying like mad I wouldn't throw up - which I very nearly did. Could it be that I don't travel well anymore? Is that part of menopause too? Or was it simply a subliminal reaction to knowing where I was headed?

Ah, I'm livin' the life, huh?

At last we landed and I "de-planed" into the casino that is otherwise known as the Las Vegas airport - where you can gamble with your boarding pass. (This is true.) On route to my hotel, the taxi passed a homeless man at a stop light begging with a hand-made cardboard sign. He was not unlike other homeless people you might see on any given freeway off ramp were it not for what he had written on the sign: "Why lie? I need a beer". Yes, with all due empathy for the plight of the homeless, I was definitely in Vegas.

Booked at the Luxor - the giant blue pyramid, I walked in and even with smoking zones and air purifiers I was immediately assaulted with the smell of cigarettes and cigars - but your senses adjust to that quickly. I viewed the casino floor on my way to the room. I believe that Vegas is the only place left on earth where you can find little old ladies still sporting blue hair. They clutch their cups of chips and coins and look a little lost as they wander the aisles of slot machines looking for the one that is calling their name. I find the whole town depressing.

The elevators at the Luxor are weird too. Since the building is a pyramid, they travel up and sideways - giving even a sober passenger like myself the sense of being drunk. I guess drunk passengers don't even notice. And there are plenty of those. There used to be a day when you could come to Vegas and get a delectable all-you-can-eat buffet for seven dollars. Now a bowl of Cheerios is eleven bucks.

The room is bleak. I turned on the TV and the "hotel channel" comes on immediately. I learned within my first 2 minutes of viewing that I can watch all the porn I want without worry as no movie titles will ever appear on my bill! "So what are you waiting for?" the announcer asks me. Well, frankly, a cold day in hell.

There is no complimentary coffee in the room. Possibly because there are about 14 Starbucks located throughout this hotel alone. I venture downstairs to find a cup and see the friendly, welcoming image of a young woman in a black leather, butt-showing, bikini and heels dancing on top of a table. Looking the other direction I spot a 30-something paunchy man in flip-flops and shorts wearing what looks like an electric blue, 3 foot long bong held on with a strap around his neck. But even in Vegas you can't just walk casually through the halls smoking pot so on closer inspection, "the bong" has the name of a bar on it and he's just wearing 3 foot long bong's worth of beer. Oh the glamour!

Here's the thing - there are much better hotels here (Mandalay Bay, right next door, for one) but you cannot, no matter where you go on the strip or outlying areas, escape the seven different songs being piped into the casinos at one time or the "ding, ding, ding, ding, ding" of slots paying out, or the people who have come from all over the world in their Vegas best of low cut blouses, see through white pants with thong underwear showing through, gold chains, too much makeup, and considerable lack of self awareness (yes darling, you do too look your considerable age), or aging cocktail waitresses, or drunken college students, or over-priced menus, or worst of all - the depressing ragged, expressionless faces of gambling pros who look like they are spending their last nickels playing three machines at once. It is a cacophony of ugly and I cannot understand why anyone ever comes here on purpose. Even a decent Broadway show is $250.00 per ticket. It would be cheaper to get a good fare on Jet Blue and see it in New York!

So, I stay pretty much in my dark room, where, in the four nights I stayed, they never changed the sheets once. Now at home, I can deal with that. But at a hotel? Really?!?!? Yet it beats "the scene" so I stick it out - unless I am eating or at the FMI show (which is a welcome relief from the room). And it was worth coming for the business. That and seeing my old friend Marc who was also here on business. I recently re-connected with Marc again (yes on Facebook). We had dinner together and caught up on about 30 years and it was a lovely evening. We had been in a couple of plays together during my days at the San Jose Civic Light Opera and we had stories and people to talk about for 4 hours. And we had changed but we were the same and that was very nice.

Oh! And I did decide to go to the Titanic exhibit at the hotel where I saw an impressive amount of artifacts recovered from the ocean floor. It was extremely interesting although I don't know why I wasn't prepared for how it would impact me emotionally. I was very saddened by it in the end. Of course the exit door dumps you straight into the Titanic gift shop where you can buy replicas of Titanic china and soap and deck chairs and throw blankets and I thought: "and someone would want to serve dinner on Titanic china - why?????" And you could even buy a locket necklace with little piece of coal from the Titanic debris pulled from the wreckage for $30.00. I'm trying to think of the occasion I would want to wear that to. Uh, none.

But I have to find something nice to say so here it is: The most wonderful thing about Vegas is that you get to leave it.

Stranger in These Parts

When I was little, I remember my dad often talking about wanting to go somewhere and "sleep under the stars" - but I don't remember doing it. Don't get me wrong. I've been camping a relatively small handful of times. But I'm no pro and frankly, its not my thing. At all. I mean really.

The first time I remember camping was when I was about 5 - with my cousins from Texas and my sister Linda caught a frog with a borrowed fishing pole. Someone got a fish hook in their eye as well. Second time, when I was about 7, we went camping with our neighbors, the Rays. Dick Ray was a big "he-man" kind of guy and Linda was his very sexy wife - even at 7, I could tell that. Dick and my dad went fishing and left my mom, Linda, and us kids at camp when a biker group - presumably after having spied Linda, rode up and parked. They had big nasty smiles on their faces until Linda went into her tent and came back out, smiling back at them. With a shotgun. They left quickly. True story.

When I was about 25, my then husband and I went camping with my then brother and sister-in-law, Steve and Cathy. Within hours of setting up, like from some apocalyptic scene from the Book of Revelation, we were descended upon by a swarm of flies so dense that we could barely take down the tents and run back to the car. I was totally freaked out!

And I've done a few Girl Scout camps. Not for me but with my girls. Today I came home from a two night camp out know as Kaleidoscope. It is a bi-annual Girl Scout event where girl scouts of all ages from miles around convene to be scored for their competencies in a variety of camp/survival skills. They acquire points which determine "levels" and they get a patch based on their levels. A patch I will iron on to Grace's Girl Scout vest. The one she never wears.

Getting ready was a no-brainer in terms of packing. They provide a simple list. Getting ready mentally is a completely different story and I had been preparing for weeks. "I said I would go. I said I would go. I said I would go..."

So Friday, Grace piled into the minivan driven by her leader, Jeanette, and the other 4 girls that comprised her troop, while I followed solo in the Camry. I had borrowed a sleeping bag and an inflatable mattress pad from Janice and stuffed my gym bag with a few essentials (I knew that bag would come in handy one day!) I drove up the coast with Joni Mitchell playing, talked on the phone to my friend Jane about Leslie's birthday party which I was missing, and looked at the Pacific Ocean to my left and lush green landscapes to my right as I headed to Santa Barbara County and what idiot could ever complain at such a marvel of nature! (Well, me, apparently.)

So we stop at Carls Jr. on State Street for a bite and let me just say - don't ever order salad at fast food. Go for the burger. I did not.

When we arrived at Live Oak Park, our camp site, I was happy to find it sat right next to a golf course - so how bad could it be? Well I must be honest, it was quite pristine and beautiful but it wasn't ON the golf course. It was a little more "natural". We pulled in and took our place in a caravan of cars, waiting for parking directions. They gestured me in to what looked like an unploughed farm field. Once parked, I grabbed my "gear" and stepped out into what can only be described as an inspiration for a major allergy attack and started hiking out of the parking lot. Meeting up with Jeanette - a little further ahead - I jumped into her van, trailer in tow and we were given pass to proceed to the campgrounds to unload. There were 5 little girls and two adults packed for 2 nights and when we finished unloading it looked like we were on tour with a rock band. I stayed with the bounty while the girls ran off to find an open patch to set up camp. There were tents and girls as far as the eye could see and I thought to myself: "Oh man. I'm really doing this."

The girls found their site and we made trips back and forth to bring our stuff over, I huffing and puffing at the labor of it; they prancing and laughing and running like so many fairies who had just been released from a bell jar. By the time I came over with the last load, the girls had pretty much set up their tent. I was amazed. Jeanette was still finding parking and so I began to try to pitch our tent. (Stop laughing!!!) After much struggling, we finally had it up - a smallish "dome" shaped tent that fit two - but we could not pound the stakes into the ground as the girls had apparently claimed the only patch of bedrock on the premises. I went in search of something to anchor it when a big gust of wind came up and - I kid you not - the dome lifted off the ground, just like an old space ship - straight up into the air and then off toward the road. Fortunately a gaggle of Brownies came to its rescue and held it until I could drag it back to its launching pad. (Oh, had I only been in the tent when it took off, it might have taken me all the way home!) Immediately I threw sleeping bags and camping mattresses inside to hold it down and I crawled in with my purse and gym bag, struggled to the ground and sat, holding tight to my blackberry and the latest issue of "Vanity Fair". Grace Kelly is on the cover. (Did she camp?)

It quickly grew cold and dark and of course the flashlight I brought had a nearly dead battery so when I needed it, it cast a very small, brownish light that threw about 2 feet ahead of wherever I was. I felt like the camping loser that I was - the pathetic dead-weight mom, walking around with limp wrists asking if anyone needed help and praying they didn't because then I would have to ask: "How?" Here amongst a sea of sturdy, athletic, outdoorsy women (and even a few men). Poor Grace.

She didn't know I was there.

As there is absolutely nothing to do after dark with no light I got ready for bed. Sweat pants, flannel nightgown and a jacket. Then off to the bathroom. And here is where it gets really ugly.

I knew there were no showers - but neither were there sinks. Previously at Girl Scout Camps there was always a building of sorts, with bathroom stalls and a sink or two. Not here. There were about 100 port-a-potties set up around the campground. My first experience was in the dark with my dim flashlight so I could barely see what I was doing (a tender mercy). And it was what your most horrifying imaginings can conjure. Let's just leave it at that. A hand sanitizer dispenser was hanging on the wall. There should have been a special one to sanitize your memory.

On the way back, I got lost. It was dark and there were no landmarks. Just hundreds of identical tents for acres. "Jeanette" I called. "Jeanette!!" Oh, it was a night to remember.

When I did find my way back, I decided to go to bed. Seeing the sleeping bag rolled out in front of me, it looked like a mummy wrap. I imagined myself getting into it and dying right there. Once in and zipped up, I prayed: "Dear Lord, please, please let me get through the night without having to make a trip to the bathroom. Amen." Mercifully, my prayer was answered.

I am awake. At 5:30 a.m. thanks to the calling of wild turkeys - or something else wild. Just getting out of the sleeping bag, off the ground, upright and balanced and through the 4" opening of the tent burned a full days worth of calories I am sure. Do that a few more times and I should be a size 10 again in no time! Jeanette was up and started coffee - oh the treasures of life! - and I eyed the outhouse, deciding to postpone the inevitable for as long as I could. The girls got up and made a breakfast - which tasted better than a regular breakfast for having been made outdoors. I looked around me and there were uncountable moms, hovering over camping stoves, doing just what we were and it occurred to me that I had no idea that there were this many women in the world who knew how to do this. But it was very pleasant to be a part of this early morning, outdoor breakfast ritual. Coffee and sausage in the crisp morning air on a blanket of green grass under hundreds of oak trees is very nice.

Time to dress. Another major effort. There was a nice sun but fortunately for me a cool enough breeze to warrant a light jacket all day long. Good thing because I had forgotten my sun screen. We were all given bandanas and I fashioned mine like a tent to shade my face as I was wearing Jackie-O sized sunglasses and I didn't want to burn and wind up looking like a raccoon since I had to go to a black-tie fund-raiser event at the Reagan Library the very next evening. I looked like an idiot. Grace told me not to walk near her.

Shortly thereafter, having brushed out teeth at the outdoor spigot, we began our day, following our girls from one event to the next. They entered in: fire starting, compass navigation, first-aid, knot tying and bird and plant identification. I got excited every time they were victorious and felt defensive for them on the tow occasions when they did less well than they had expected, but I was very proud of all of them at the end of the day when they achieved a high level of success.

In the midst of all these Girl Scout challenges, several sanitation trucks rolled up to clean up the port-a-potties. I was grateful for that and thought to myself - after they pulled away from the few straight ahead of me "Now is the time to go. It has been cleaned, to the degree it can be." Venturing in again, this time in the light of day, I was M-O-R-T-I-F-E-D. And I thought about the men who's job it is to clean these. I truly believe that there is nobility and honor in all work, but I honestly stopped to pray for those who were payed (no matter what - not enough) to do this job. And then I found my prayer going further. I prayed that technology had advanced to the degree that the sanitation trucks in total could drive into some big space station somewhere in the desert and be launched directly into a black hole. In a different galaxy.

In between events, the girls went to craft stations. At one, they made beaded lanyards. I heard Grace telling the other girls that she had made a mess of hers and she didn't want it. Shortly after that, she came up to me to tell me she was giving it to me as a Mother's Day gift. I looked directly into her eyes and with all the love a mother holds in her heart for her child I said, simply: "I think not."

By day's end, everyone was tired. Walking back to our site we spied a large tent that we could see inside. There were portable beds that were off the ground! There was a table and chairs set up inside! And a really good camping lamp that lit the tent up! One of our girls remarked: "That's not camping." Ooooooooooooh, I beg to differ.

Dinner was provided that night - we didn't have to make it ourselves. Walking to the food arena, I took my place at the end of the line. Behind 2,000 girls. Waiting for a hamburger. By the time I got mine, it was cold. But delicious nonetheless. And I gobbled it down as if it were a Girl Scout racing event I had entered.

Happy for the day to be over, I tucked in for the night - far ahead of the girls and their leader - who, I must say, I have tremendous respect for. She made it through with no complaints. Of course she had a Kindle. THAT was inspired! But I was asleep by 9:00 latest.

We all awoke at about 7:00. I had my coffee, helped take down our tent, made a farewell trip to the outhouse and got on my way, leaving early as I had to prepare for the fund-raiser. I drove back down the coast, lush, green landscapes to my left and the Pacific Ocean to right. Beautiful at 8:30 in the morning. I thought of the girls. I was proud of them and I hoped that Grace would retain her love of camping, unlike her mother. I was also a teeny bit proud of myself. I can't say I was much help - but I did go. And I survived, in spite of the conditions.

When I got home (only an hour later-I was this close to home???), I got into the shower and with the nubby side of the wash cloth, scrubbed until I nearly bled. And I stood under the shower head until I drained all the hot water from the tank.

And I thought: I am truly blessed!