Let's Get Metaphysical

 This building used to house a music store where we bought

the tall boy's cello, strings and rosin.

It is nestled cozily next to a Circle K

(where you can get a thirstbuster for $.79 in an insulated cup)

but now it fills a higher calling.

I get goosebumps when I drive by...

 

just like I used to when I went in the music store 

and heard the brand new violin students

sawing away on their screechy E strings.

If You've Got It, Flaunt it Arizona!

If Adam and Eve had been kicked out of the Garden of Eden into my Arizona spring, they might not have noticed...until Eve sat on a cactus and Adam tried to pet a rattlesnake.

 

Soon the Ocotillo spears will burst into red flames at the tips for a few glorious days.  

Inevitably though, the Arizona sun will burn brighter and hotter

and I will move indoors to hibernate during the long hot summer.  

Today I am enjoying my own desert garden of Eden.

Smash or Splash... That is the Question

You poor little darlings.  

Did you set your DVR to record

and end up with

???

TV-land is tough to navigate 

when this season alone

you have to choose between...

• SPLASH!  A flock of jobless celebrities are trained by   jobless and aging Olympian Greg Louganis to see who can do the biggest belly flop wearing the most inappropriate diving costume ever.  Think Louie Anderson in a Speedo

• SMASH  The cutthroat world of Broadway where something ludicrous happens every second and everybody sings about it at the top of their lungs with their heads thrown back til their necks crack

• HASH Competition heats up in a diner in West Virginia where 8 toothless hopefuls vie to create a champion hash using only ingredients from the dumpsters in back of Piggly Wiggly

• GNASH  Documentary filmmaker Lars Leukensnout films a young boy named Toby night after night to show the devastating effects of teeth grinding.

• HEAT RASH Competition heats up as the football teams of Arizona State University and University of Arizona practice through the summer heat to prove who is the itchiest

• HOT FLASH Ladies in Purple Hats with red feathers go to lunch and fan themselves with laminated menus

• STASH  A fascinating look into the life of of pack rat in the high Arizona desert juxtaposed with a revealing look under the mattresses of high school sophomores in Beverly Hills, CA

...and coming next season

TRAILER TRASH

SOUTH MASH

FORTY YARD DASH 

MUSTACHE

 

If Spring Ain't Broke, Don't Try to Fix It

It is a strange feeling to be running out of children.

In the harried, hairy, hair-raising middle of raising five children, sometimes the days seemed longer than the years, and the years of mothering stretched down the highway into infinity with no bathroom breaks.

Now, in a blink, it is almost over.  Our fifth child is in the last few months of her senior year, ready to go to college (BYU Idaho), determined to go on a mission (only the Lord knows where) and suddenly each day is gone in a blink and I can see an end to what seemed like endless years of everyday mothering.

Which is how I convinced my husband that we needed to have a fun fling during our last spring break this year.  Work kept him from leaving for the whole week so Corinn and I bit our lips and soldiered on without him.  GIRL TRIP!!!

We hopped a boat in Long Beach for a trip that you could probably paddle in a canoe, but that stretches out for 4 days by putting along at 1.2 nautical miles per hour.  But then, who cares when you're not driving and cheesecake is available 24 hours a day.

 Catalina Island was foggy and mysterious.  

The spirit of Marilyn Monroe lives on here.  

Especially on coffee mugs.

 

My little mermaid grew legs on the rocky shore

The flora was succulent, the fauna  was mostly noisy sea lions

 

About 30 minutes out of Ensenada, Mexico is a zip line at a place called La Canada.  Surprisingly, no one spoke Canadian, but everyone was fluent in Spanish.  I became bilingual as I yelled "Aye yi yi yi when I was shoved off a towering platform to zoom over a lake protected only by a diaper made of straps and a fisher price helmet

This is not me.  I refused to be filmed in case I peed my pants.

The series of zip lines actually turned out to be quite fun, but nobody told me that this course involved five, count em, FIVE swaying, crazy trembly suspension bridges that left my mouth dry and my stomach clenched.  I only traversed them because I did not want my daughter to see me trudging  the dusty "walk of shame" through the ravine while she agilely crossed above me.

I want my daughter to to leave home 

believing that she has a brave mom.

Larainy, Where Art Thou?

So sorry to concern all you dear Larainy readers who have been worried 

about my long, unexplained absence. 

 First of all I need to put to rest some wild internet rumors.

a.  A golf ball size chunk of meteor from Russia ricocheted off an unnamed peak in the Ural Mountains, pinged skyward into a satellite where it zinged off back through our atmosphere and knocked Larainy off her bike while she was riding around the block spying on the neighbors.






b.  Larainy was on the red carpet at the Oscars taking photos and making notes so she could make herself feel better by belittling beautiful starlets in outrageously expensive designer gowns when she caught sight of Hugh Jackman, forgot to breathe and spilled her cherry Icee on George Clooney after which, was beat to a quivering pulp by the Cloonsters date/bodyguard, who proved she can body slam while wearing Dior









c.  Due to the "sequester", Larainy's daily ration of government cheese has been severely cut back and she is too weak to write.

d.  The outrageous ending to Downton Abby, season three sent Larainy on a wild journey to find and throttle Julian Fellows and when that proved too difficult, sent her to bed with a malady called "Downton Depression" which is treatable only by a Maggie Smith movie marathon , 4 lbs. of butter cookies and a bone china tea cup full of Earl Gray.

 The truth is much more outrageous.

a.  I had the flu for two weeks, coughed up a lung, stuffed it back down through that tube thingy that goes down the middle of my neck, coughed up the other lung, rinse, repeat.

b.  I have been working on my novel, feverishly revising, slashing, burning, fine tuning and communing with my characters. You can't wait to read it!

c. I had a small chunk of precious Larainy-part removed for study under a microscope to make sure it wasn't toxic.  Had it been toxic I would have been able to take this blog a whole different direction with brave posts about my hair falling out and radiation.  I would have been courageous, humble and witty throughout the whole ordeal, but turns out I don't have the big "C" after all so this blog is going to keep going the same direction it always has...straight downhill.

Which is exactly the direction I went hiking with both my lovely daughters.