Wild Gem

Jewelweed, Fort Point State Park, Stockton Springs, Maine.

A few weeks ago I got into a discussion about poison ivy with Dirk, founder & spectacularly gifted massage therapist at MassageSpecialists.com.

I mentioned that jewelweed, which often grows near poison ivy (in the East, anyway), is a natural antidote to it. My stepfather is, in medical parlance, "exquisitely sensitive" to P.I. and would get it all over himself, just from petting the cat. My mom used to collect masses of jewelweed and boil it down into a tincture, in which he'd soak in the bath. (I changed his life by giving him a bottle of TecNu Poison Ivy Cleanser, but that's another story.)

Dirk had never heard of jewelweed. Last week I backed into a patch of it while taking the 2nd photo in Bella Everywhere. So I picked a sprig, meaning to press it in a book and take back to Denver to show Dirk. But within 15 minutes, the flower had collapsed into a little wad and the leaves had withered into dust. That's when I thought of taking a photo (DUH!) of a living stand of jewelweed. Being a few minutes early for my lunch date at the Royal River Grillhouse, by the Yarmouth marina, I walked the perimeter of the parking lot till I found a section of trickling brook shaded by trees. And voila! a bunch of jewelweed, which thrives in damp shade.

I took some photos, but they didn't look so hot. Two days later, I was at Cape Jellison in Fort Point State Park, where the woods were full of gorgeous stands of jewelweed.

Look out, Georgia O'Keeffe!












Sometimes Nature makes the best floral arrangements.
Asters & jewelweed, Fort Point State Park.

Apostrophe's on the Move

An eye-opener in the food court at the Denver airport. Two days later I found Martini's on the menu at the Tugboat Inn, Boothbay Harbor, ME.

Bella Everywhere

Here are some souvenirs I picked up on my trip to Maine.





Cosmetics shop, Denver airport.








Off South Street, Freeport, Maine.

Signs of the Times

Poor Mr. Ed! What the locals didn't mention on my trip last week.

Bumper stickers on the rear of a white sedan in Simi Valley, CA:

On left: McCain.
On right: Obama.
In center: Can this marriage be saved?

A Good Laugh for the Trip

On Wednesday morning, when I flew to LA, the airport shuttle van came five minutes early, so it sat while I finished tearing around the house. My street is narrow, with parking on both sides, so there was very little room for other cars to maneuver around the van. When I got in, a woman at the wheel of an SUV was reaming my driver out for blocking the way and making her late to school.

All she had to do was back up a few feet and pull into a space by the curb so we could pass, and everyone would have been on their merry way. But NOOOO..... she wasn't about to give way to anyone. So there we sat while she ranted and railed.

"Use your head," she yelled at the van driver.

"Use your car," he retorted, though with none of her venom. I and the two other passengers roared with laughter.

More ranting, then she grudgingly backed into the space. We drove north; she drove south. I pity her students.

On the Road Again

The most beautiful place I've given a workshop: the courtyard outside our meeting room at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church, Westlake Village.

I've been in (mostly) sunny Southern California since Wednesday. The official reason for the trip was to give a Book Promotion 101 workshop yesterday, sponsored by the Tri-Regions of Southern California chapter of SCBWI. I decided to take a couple of extra days, which I crammed with visits to friends old and new in Santa Monica, LA and Venice.

When I left Denver, it was about 30 with a couple inches of snow on the ground, forecast to shoot into the 50s. When I arrived in LA at noon, it was 72, with bougainvillea and roses blooming everywhere. Bliss!

The weather here was balmy thru Friday, when I spent a couple of supremely happy hours at El Matador Beach, just north of Malibu. I enjoyed the clime even more when Baby Brother filled me in on the wretched time he was having with the ice storm in Maine. (Schadenfreude is a great sweetener. And Baby Bro's power is back on now.)

Baby Bro's icy front yard in Topsham, Maine.
(Current temp: 28F. Denver: 1.)

The last laugh's on me though: It dropped to 40 last night in Simi Valley (home of the Reagan Library--guess where I won't be going) and there's no heat in my hotel room. (Yeah, there's a thermostat, but it doesn't do anything.) I slept in a sweater zipped up over my nightgown and the covers over my head.

Better/worse still: It was ZERO and snowing in Denver a couple of hours ago; it'll be maybe 5F when I touch down tonight. I am soooo glad I'm taking a shuttle van home, so I won't have to shlep through the frigid, snowy parking lot in my lightweight LA clothes. And I am soooo going to drink in all the greenery and flowers in my remaining few hours here. (Next stop: Topanga Canyon.)

Update, Dec 15:
It was -14F (FOURTEEN DEGREES BELOW ZERO!!!) when my plane touched down last night. You should have heard the shrieks and groans when the pilot announced the local weather. As of noon, it's warmed up to all of +1F. I mean, seriously, WTF?

The Sound of Waves

Before throwing ourselves into the BookExpo hurly burly, last Wednesday afternoon Darling Husband and I had an enchanting two hours at El Matador State Beach (above), north of Malibu.

Enjoy...


Pelicans from the cliff top.









Ocean-made art.











Looking down.

















Looking up.

From the beach.

Below: Yours truly, snoozing. Ahh, bliss!

Serenity

As a counterpoint to the previous post, here are photos I took in Washington last April at Dumbarton Oaks, in Georgetown. It's been my favorite place in the United States since I first visited at age nine. Above is Lover's Lane Pool (my computer wallpaper); below is Forsythia Hill.

Blast from the Past

Appia Antica, Rome, from Slow Travel Italy

From the late 1960s thru mid-1970s, my father was an Italian movie star, appearing in such unforgettable masterpieces as Per grazia ricevuta and Paolo il caldo. OK, maybe not such masterpieces, nor unforgettable. But he was also in C'era una volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West), in which he played a lovable barman named Max; and an episode of Robert Wagner's "It Takes a Thief," shot in Rome, in which he played a lovable thief named Max. In 1979, after 15 years in Europe, Dad moved to L.A. to play lovable major domo Max in Wagner's TV series, "Hart to Hart." (We named the cat in hommage to Dad, though he didn't like cats, and his mother and sister were felinophobic. Conveniently, Max will only eat Max Cat dry food, so we never forget what brand to buy.)

In September 1973 I visited Dad in Rome, where he was living on the Appian Way with wife & daughter #6. The villa he was renting, formerly inhabited by screen siren Gina Lollobrigida, was down a quarter-mile driveway, lined with fragments of ancient Roman funerary busts. Though technically in Rome, the villa was so far out in the country that it was surrounded by fields of eggplants--not quite the glamourous neighbors I'd envisioned. A sixties-ish couple, Bruno and Rita, tended the grounds and house, and frequently my baby half-sister. Arno, a big white Abruzzese shepherd, ferociously guarded the property and its inhabitants against anyone he considered an intruder; e.g., yours truly, despite my honeyed words and friendly overtures.

The memories of that trip came flooding back thanks to an article in today's NYT about the Appian Way, Past Catches Up With the Queen of Roads. During my visit, I ate a marvelous pasta dish--scrigna, I thought it was--at a restaurant by a nearby ruin, but couldn't remember which one, and a Google search came up cold.

But from the Times, now I know the ruin was the tomb of Cecilia Metella, just down the road (left). Then a search for "Cecilia Metella restaurant" turned up--presto!--Ristorante Cecilia Metella, one of whose specialties is...Scrigno alla Cecilia, which looks exactly as I remembered it (below).

I no longer have the photos I took then, but a search of the house address led to Parco Appia Antica, which has a document containing photos and descriptions of various structures in what is now a park along the Appian Way. One of them is at the foot of my father's old driveway (below):


Tomb with epigraph of Baricha Zabda and Achiba
Past the junction between via di Tor Carbone/via Erode Attico and on the right, opposite number 288, another concrete nucleus of a tower-shaped funeral monument has been preserved, bearing an inscription in front in memory of L. Valerius Baricha, L. Valerius Zabda and L. Valerius Achiba, freedmen of the Valerii family and clearly of Semitic origin.



How fitting that the only Jew on the block lived in a house with a Jewish monument out front! It used to have a little pine tree growing out of it--horizontally--about two-thirds of the way up. I gained an all-too-intimate knowledge of the edifice one day, when Arno decided that I was still a stranger. I clambered up as high as I could go and hung on till Bruno came along and called him off. After that I gave up on the sweet talk and kept well clear of Arno.

Mr. Jefferson's Academical Village

Has it already been a week since I took these photos on and around The Grounds (NOT "the campus") at UVa? How quickly the time passes--especially when one has been in bed zoning out on Valium (for back spasms) and bittersweet chocolate (just because). Click on images for full-screen viewing.




Left, "The Corner" (actually a fairly straight street) by the University of Virginia.





Below, the Rotunda and statue of its architect, Thomas Jefferson.

Above: Glorious magnolia tree and chapel(?).





Right: Flowering quince spilling over a walled garden, as seen through Pavilion pillars.












Left: Courtyard garden by the Rotunda.





Below: Just like home...in my dreams!





















Left: "The Lawn."











Right: Under a portico along The Lawn. Highly prized rooms (given as honors to students, though they're far from any plumbing) are along the left.





Below: Students studying in a Lawn room. I dearly hope that Mr. Jefferson is writhing in his grave, as in his day "Africans" were only allowed in those rooms to clean up.























The gentlemen scholars' servants (read: slaves) were housed under the Lawn rooms; hence the ventilation grill between the threshold and step in the photo below. History isn't always pretty when you look beneath the surface.

The Grass Is Always Greener...in Virginia

I took these photos on Wednesday, my first full day back in beautiful Charlottesville, my late (lamented) hometown.

Left, community garden behind the English Inn, where I used to walk Jenny.

Darling Husband and I picked up Joshua Henkin (MATRIMONY) at the airport on Wed., as he was on a panel that evening at VaBook. We gave him the Anti-Brooklyn Experience by taking him to the sumptuous and über-goyische Keswick Hall for lunch.

Josh Henkin at Keswick Hall. At his back is the golf course, designed by Arnold Palmer.

God bless America, springtime, and especially Mr. Jefferson's University (that's UVa to you). The statue of TJ, as the locals call him, can be glimpsed on the far right.

They're Gonna Love These at Whole Foods!

Swag from the SHOT show.

That's what I said to Darling Husband when he showed me the tote bags pictured above.

"That's why I got them," he replied. Great minds think alike! (But really: Adult precision air guns? Shudder...)

While getting ready to tuck into enormous slabs of meet at Lawry's Prime Rib on Saturday night, DH's coworkers talked about the creepy things they saw while walking the aisles at the show. There were several purveyors of Ghurka knives (left; photo lifted from Bob Tice Knives); one showed a video of a knife being used to hack a side of beef to shreds. "Ewww!" everyone shuddered. "Yeah, and their pitch line is, 'We sell lots of these in Sierra Leone!'" I said, not so sarcastically.

There were also many spears on display, with one exhibitor running a video showing a man stabbing an extremely lethal-looking spear deep into a big block of wood. I'm trying to figure out why your average sportsman or deer hunter would need one.

And then there were the Playboy bunnies modeling Tasers, which really gave the guys the willies. My tagline got a good laugh: "Don't tase me, ho!"

I Love the Smell of Jet Fuel in the Morning

Views from outside my hotel.

Keep left!



The Las Vegas airport terminal is visible in the center background, right.

Actually, the smell of jet fuel has always made me queasy. My hotel, the hyperbolically named Alexis Park Resort, is near the Las Vegas airport. So near, I discovered on my way back from breakfast, that the terminal is a straight shot out the back of one of the perimeter parking lots. Said parking lot, I also discovered, is in the flight path for approaching jets.

Hence the overwhelming stench of fuel in this morning's damp and stormy air, and periodic thunderous roaring, which I'd been mistakenly attributing to the hotel's heating system. (My windows face an internal courtyard planted with tall pines and grass, so the surrounding views were new to me.) The planes come in so low I bet the passengers could see me wave--or duck and pray.

Today's news flash: Las Vegas has real weather!

It's been blowing like mad all day and this morning was even spitting rain. Now it's up to 57F, but when I first went out it was in the upper 30s. Britons would have felt right at home.






(left) Hard Rock casino, Sunday morning.










(below) There's a construction slump?
Who knew?

Through the desert on a horse with no name

Nevada's Moapa Valley from horseback.

What's the first thing you think of when you plan a trip to Las Vegas?

Horseback riding, of course! If you're me, anyway. That's the first thing I think of when I plan most trips. Before I left Denver, I bookmarked a bunch of sites for trail rides near Vegas.

Yesterday, I went for the Jesse James Sunset Steak Ride offered by Sagebrush Ranch. We saddled up for a two-hour ride, to be followed by a "cowboy dinner." (Naturally it included baked beans; shades of "Blazing Saddles.") I was put on a very furry and wonderfully responsive chestnut quarter(ish) horse.

"What's his name?" I asked. No one remembered. So now I can truthfully quote America (whose songs I never could abide).

My experience was unlike the songwriter's, however. For starters, the desert was chill, still and dead quiet. Though there was "no one for to give you no pain," there were plenty of thorny shrubs and ultra-spiky cactus to avoid. And other than a distant helicopter or airplane, the air was NOT "full of sound." We didn't hear any animals or birds, though we saw bobcat and coyote footprints. In fact, the only visible wildlife was a bee that briefly hitched a ride on the wrangler's shirt back and an eagle that silently soared into a treetop at the end of our ride. No flies either. Bliss!

To misquote another song, I love to see that evening sun go down--especially when I'm someplace wild and beautiful. And QUIET.

Fear & Loathing, Shock & Awe

Above left, baggage claim at Las Vegas airport. I passed many slot machines on the way. Right, obelisk at the edge of the Bellagio garden atrium.

On Thursday evening, after watching the Democratic debate and having delicious tapas at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, Darling Husband drove me around The Strip. Everyplace in Vegas, I discovered, has speakers blasting music: restaurants (no wonder I nearly lost my voice over dinner), sidewalks, the Bellagio parking garage, the unused swimming pools at our hotel.

NRA caps abound this weekend, as the SHOT show is in town. I stood by the Glock van at the airport while waiting for DH to come 'round in the rental car. (He's displaying his wares at the show, though nothing related to firearms.)

Imagine Times Square--only louder, taller, brighter, flashier and plastered everywhere with images of skinny white girls with big tits--spread out as vast as Los Angeles, surrounded by crenelated hills of brown dirt. That's Las Vegas.

"Oh My God," I kept exclaiming. "Our civilization is doomed."

And then on to Bellagio, where after slow traffic allowed us a nicely heated view of the Dancing Waters (with blaring soundtrack, natch), we were puzzled to find a lavish Chinese display in the atrium garden, per pix below. WTF? Then DH recalled that it's Chinese New Year; apparently the Year of the Rat. An Asian family, complete with baby in arms, posed for pictures.

Bugsy Siegel was onto something. So was Hunter S. Thompson.