travel

Coastal Cogitations

/ Diane Henders / 43 Comments

I’m on vacation this week!  We’re on Vancouver Island, and I’m enjoying both the change of scenery and the change of pace.  My senses seem sharpened by the glorious sea air that smells so good I could make a meal of it.

Sometimes the enhanced sensory experience is wonderful; sometimes, erm… not so much.  Here are my observations to date:

My paranoid writer’s mind never quits. Doesn’t this look like a concealed camera to you?

hidden camera

It’s in the ceiling of our hotel room and the rest of the knots are solid, but not this one.  And you guessed it, it’s right above the bed.  There’s even a shiny thing that looks like a lens inside the knothole.

Suspicious as always, I stood on the bed and poked my finger into the hole.  All I could feel was plastic vapour barrier, so I’m hoping that’s the source of the gleam.  But if you happen to discover amateur porn videos featuring Arlene Cherry on the internet, please don’t tell me.  I’d really rather not know.

Pacific loons are the Fonzies of the ocean. Clad in sleek black, they kick back casually on the waves, far too cool for the rest of the seabirds.  When they dive, it’s with a laid-back ease that makes the mergansers look like skinny little punks who are trying too hard.

I love good oysters, but there’s nothing worse than a bad oyster. And once it’s breaded and fried it’s impossible to tell the difference until after you’ve eaten it.  You don’t want to know how I discovered this.  But, as the saying goes, “This, too, shall pass”.  And it did, quickly.

‘Moving’ right along…

I can’t decide whether I like the ocean better…

…in the sunshine when it’s blue and beautiful:

blue ocean

Or under cloudy skies when it looks like molten silver:

silver ocean

I love it when it’s stormy, too, but we’ve had beautiful weather the whole time we’ve been here so I didn’t get to photograph any big waves.  Maybe next time.

I don’t know this for certain, but I suspect that the designer of the Hyundai Elantra’s seats sneaked into my house while I was sleeping, measured every inch of my body, and designed the seat contours specifically to torture me. (Fortunately the car rental company exchanged it for us, or I’d be in serious pain right now.)

No matter how devastating the damage, nature will eventually recover if it gets the chance. I was lucky to have visited Cathedral Grove before the big storm of 1997.  It was still majestic after the storm, but the mossy grotto beneath the towering trees had become a brighter place criss-crossed with the massive trunks of the fallen giants.  Now, nearly twenty years later, I’m happy to see that it’s slowly returning to its green and shade-dappled glory.

cathedral grove

mossy tree

And best of all, the trilliums and daffodils and camellias are in full bloom, along with cherry trees, magnolias, tulips, hyacinths, forsythia, and just about everything else.  I could keep snapping photos all day long, and the scented air is divine!

trilliums

daffodils

camellias

What’s blooming in your neck of the woods this week?

* * *

P.S. We’ll be on the road today, so I won’t have a chance to respond to comments until we’re back this evening.  “Talk” to you then!

P.P.S. If you haven’t had your say on the format for the Virtual Book Club yet, please click here to offer your comments.  The Book Club will start next week!

Un/Lucky?

/ Diane Henders / 33 Comments

Last week I got together with four friends for our annual overnight in Banff, the most beautiful tourist trap in the Canadian Rockies. We had a great time as always… but I couldn’t decide whether my luck was good or bad.

I was still fighting this rotten cold, so that was bad luck. But I’m certainly lucky to have friends who like me enough to put up with me even when I’m diseased!

At the Douglas Fir Resort, we checked into our giant 3-bedroom, 5-bed suite. For a while we sat on our balcony with drinks, enjoying the spectacular mountain view. Then, since I was likely to wake everybody by coughing up a lung in the middle of the night, I moved into one of the private queen rooms with an ensuite bathroom.

Lucky, right? Well, yes… until I realized there was no window, only a skylight. Not so lucky if you’re claustrophobic. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that the first thing I did was clamber up on the vanity to see if the skylight would open.

Nope. Bolted shut.

I comforted myself with the thought that if I was sufficiently motivated (say, by flames licking up the crack of my ass), I could smash the glass with the wrought-iron lamp and hoist myself up and out of the skylight. But luckily I wasn’t forced to test my escape plan.

Next stop was the Grizzly House for fondue. Pricey but delicious, it’s an evening’s entertainment as well as a meal. Unluckily, one of our fondue burners began to belch gouts of flame like a deranged dragon, but luckily one of the heroic waiters swooped in to save us before the flames reached the paper placemats. Those guys have nerves of steel and fingers of asbestos – he reached through the flames, turned the burner off, and whisked it away; all within seconds and without a change of expression. Wow.

The next day we went to the Banff Upper Hot Springs. I made a potty stop in the changing room, and just as I sat down my sunglasses slipped over the back of my head. I felt them hit my back. Then I felt them hit my butt. Then… *clink*

I thought, “Oh, please, tell me they didn’t fall into the toilet!”

Yep, they did.

But luckily I hadn’t used the toilet yet.

So I squeamishly fished the glasses out and scrubbed them with copious amounts of soap. Settling them back on my face still seemed a bit gross, but I got over it. But their run of bad luck wasn’t over yet. After we got back from the pool, they fell again… onto the concrete floor of the changing room.

Smash. Frames go one way, a lens goes the other.

But the lens didn’t scratch or break and I picked it up and pressed it back into the frame, where it has stayed ever since.  So that seemed like good luck.

And speaking of good luck, the food was amazing! Buttermilk pancakes with apple compote, candied walnuts, and vanilla cream for breakfast at the Buffalo Mountain Lodge; cheese fondue, bagna cauda, prawns, lobster, scallops, elk, ostrich, and alligator at the Grizzly House with a fruit-and-chocolate fondue for dessert (yes, I was in pain afterward); and even a BeaverTail (I managed to fit that in between my ice cream cone and my candied apple). Yum!

And driving back to Calgary in the eastbound lane of the TransCanada Highway on Friday afternoon, we considered ourselves supremely lucky to not be part of the bumper-to-bumper westbound traffic.

So in the end I had just enough bad luck to make my good luck seem even better. And that makes me feel lucky indeed!

How was your week?

I Love My Job!

/ Diane Henders / 34 Comments

I’m always alert for research opportunities, and this week I was rewarded beyond my wildest dreams.

As you may know, I’m redoing my book covers. I’ve hired a professional photographer to do the main images but I’m filling in the backgrounds myself, so I needed a tractor/trailer unit for Book 8: SPY NOW, PAY LATER.  John R., one of the true Knights of the Road who’s been trucking for 48 years, generously agreed to let me photograph his truck.

Little did I know what was about to happen…

John and me

 

When we arrived at the depot, John offered to move the truck to where I could get a good shot. Then he asked if I wanted to get in the cab while he moved it.

Well, hell, yeah! I clambered eagerly into the passenger seat and peppered him with questions about the gauges and the engine and the air brakes and the jake-brake (engine retarder brake) and everything else, while he patiently explained it all.

I’ve always loved the roar and snort of the big diesels and the bone-rattling growl of the jake-brake, but I’ve never had a chance to get up-close-and-personal with them. Perched in the passenger seat grinning from ear to ear, I basked in the auditory delight while he drove across the yard.

I had finished my pictures and was turning away when John asked, “Do you want to go for a ride?”

Do I? Are you kidding? I was up into that passenger seat so fast I don’t think my feet even touched the steps.

When we reached the Trans-Canada Highway he turned left, which surprised me. I thought it would have been easier to turn right instead of crossing the median with the big rig, but whatever. I was in my glory, and John even indulged me by using the jake a couple of times even though it was completely unnecessary (we were out in the middle of nowhere so it wasn’t prohibited).

At the next small town he turned around to head back, but after crossing the median again to get us on the right side of the highway, he pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped.

Then he said, “Now you’re going to drive us back.” (John has trained lots of drivers for their Class 1 license so this wasn’t as reckless as it might sound, but I’m convinced he has nerves of steel nonetheless.)

After a moment of paralyzed disbelief, I jumped at the chance. My heart pounded so hard I thought I might have a heart attack and I’m pretty sure John’s steering wheel still bears the imprints of my white-knuckled grip, but I drove an 18-wheeler! How cool is that?!?

My short but thrilling trucking career (note the wild hair – we had the windows open so I could enjoy the sound of the engine).

My short but thrilling trucking career (wild hair and all – we had the windows open so I could enjoy the sound of the engine).

I certainly didn’t perform any great feats of driving skill – John shifted the gears from the passenger’s seat because I couldn’t figure out the split-shift and keep my eyes on the road at the same time. But I kept it between the lines and I made the two turns off the highway and onto the yard without dropping the trailer into the ditch, so I’m going to call it a success overall. And it was a giant thrill!

Have I mentioned lately that I love being a fiction writer?

I really, really do!

Many thanks to John for my big adventure, and to his wife Nellie for documenting it with photos!

Where’s Diane?

/ Diane Henders / 22 Comments

I’m on vacation!  Can you guess where?

crown isle gc

The perfume of hyacinths floating on cool misty air was absolutely sublime!

raindrop tree

Even the raindrops are beautiful!

dinner

Don’t worry, I haven’t turned into an oenophile – I had my beer for an appetizer. Counterclockwise from top: Painted Turtle Sauvignon Blanc from Oliver BC, Salt Spring Island mussels provençale, pan-fried Fanny Bay oysters, Greek salad. Yum!

shells

I’m usually not much of a shell-picker, but I’ve never seen a moon snail shell in such good condition. This one’s nearly four inches in diameter.

ice cream

Caught in the act, ice cream cone in hand. But you wouldn’t expect any less, would you?

Ready to guess?  If you said “the west coast”, you’re right!  The first two photos were taken at the Crown Isle golf course clubhouse in Comox, BC.  The food is from Deez Bar and Grill in Qualicum Beach, BC, and that’s me on the shore of the Salish Sea, ice cream in hand.

We’re on Vancouver Island for the week, soaking up some humidity and smelling the flowers while it snows in Calgary.

Our hotel is right on the shore, and from our window we’ve already seen harbour seals, a sea otter, bald eagles, common loons (the avian variety, though we’ve seen a few of the human sort, too), and thousands of surf scoters, black scoters, white-winged scoters, greater scaups, harlequin ducks, and of course, seagulls.  Herring roe is lying in drifts along the shore, and the washed-up seaweed looks as though it’s been encrusted in yellow pearls.  (Fortunately it’s not smelly.)  I’m envying the stand-up paddleboarders and kayakers, but I’ll save that adventure for another trip.

We have lots of day trips planned, but we always have to go to one of my favourite places in the world:  Cathedral Grove.  This little pocket of old-growth forest is right off the Alberni Highway (#4), an enchanting few acres of giant trees that are hundreds of years old.  No matter how often I go there, I still stand in awe.

cedar

Just in case you thought I was using a bit more artistic license than usual when I described hiding inside a cedar tree in Book 10 (oops; correction:  Book 9.  I’ve got Book 10 on the brain!)… there’s room to hide an entire baseball team in here!

big tree

Here we are in front of the tree that BC Parks has designated the biggest, though there are several others close to this size. Notice the “small” tree lying behind us – it’s actually the top of a fallen giant, only about 5’ in diameter at that point.

big tree sign

Kinda puts it all in perspective, doesn’t it? This sign was placed around 1992, so that means the big guy is coming up on his 900th birthday.

Yesterday we made it to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre and the World Parrot Refuge, and still on our to-do list are trips to Englishman River Falls, some wineries, and any other interesting side trips that catch our eyes in passing.

And best of all, the weather has been perfect so far.  As the joke goes, “Weather is here; wish you were beautiful”.

Hope you’re having a good week – we are! 🙂

* * *

P.S. We’re out and about this morning, but I’ll be back to reply to comments later tonight or tomorrow morning.  “Talk” to you then!

Prickly Neighbours

/ Diane Henders / 33 Comments

I’m not a talented travel writer like my blogging buddy Sue Slaght, but here’s what we’re doing this week:

That’s Hubby mugging with our new neighbours, the saguaro cacti (also prickly pears in the foreground)

That’s Hubby mugging with our new neighbours, the saguaro cacti (also prickly pears in the foreground)

Yes, we’re on vacation this week, and it’s made me realize I don’t get out much.  It’s not that I don’t know what the outside world is like; it’s just that I kinda… forgot.

I had to laugh at myself when we got off the plane in Phoenix, Arizona.  I was harbouring a mental image and expectation of barren desert.  Which it is… outside the city.

And I was thinking Phoenix wasn’t actually much larger than Calgary… which it isn’t, until you add in the urban sprawl that includes about fourteen cities, all of them around the size of Phoenix.

So as a result of these comforting delusions I was semi-expecting an airport approximately the size of Calgary International, which, while not tiny, has lots of wide open spaces and is relatively easy to navigate.

When I got off the plane I nearly turned tail and ran back to beg them to take me somewhere less crowded.  Holy shit, there were a lot of people!

I know you seasoned travellers are laughing at me now, because Phoenix Sky Harbour is small compared to lots of other airports.  But my regular comfort zone is about two people per thousand square feet and I really prefer two people per square mile, so two people per square yard was a bit of a shock.

But I comforted myself with the knowledge that we’d be getting on the interstate freeway and heading out into the desert on our way to Tucson, so I’d soon be on the wide-open road.

Or not.

I10 from Phoenix to Tucson is not ‘the wide-open road’.  Just sayin’.  That’s what rush-hour city traffic looks like where I come from.

And I’m not really an ‘interstate’ kind of person.  I like the back roads, where I can get close to the fields and untouched places and see the indigenous plants and birds and critters.  You don’t see much of that from the interstate.  I glimpsed some big areas of saguaro cactus, but they whisked by in a blur at 75 mph.  I spotted some cotton fields, but they were blurry with speed and distance, too.

Fortunately I’ve had a chance to go out and poke around in the desert for the last couple of days.  I’ve bought my obligatory field guide, and I’ve been having fun trying to identify all the native vegetation.  I recognize the prickly pear cactus from home (it does actually grow in some areas of Alberta), but around here it looks as though it’s on steroids.

We’ve been doing the tourist thing around Tucson, seeing the Pima Air and Space Museum and the Desert Museum and the Colossal Cave so far.  The Biosphere 2 is still on a tentative list, and I’m sure there are lots of other fascinating things to see and do around here.

And my life is complete because I’ve now met a saguaro up close and personal (but not too close – I’m not crazy about cactus spines).

What’s new and exciting in your world this week?

Dear Truckers…

/ Diane Henders / 25 Comments

Dear Truckers,

I just got back from driving another 2,400 km trip across the Canadian prairies, and now I’m sad.

I always looked up to you as professional drivers. I admired your skill and courage as you pushed through summer storms and winter blizzards. I respected the personal sacrifices demanded by an exhausting job that kept you far from your friends and family.

I loved to watch a semi starting up from a dead stop: the cab of the tractor torquing with sheer brute power; the big diesel engine growling and snorting. I always enjoyed the sight of your big rigs gobbling up the miles. I liked the thought that in each of those cabs was someone who loved the open road as much as I do.

But my last couple of trips have ended all that.

Maybe some of you are still dedicated professionals, but too many of you are downright dangerous. I spent my drive in dread of having to pass you. Five different truck drivers nearly wiped me off the road; veering into my lane and weaving back and forth. One even drove down the centreline for several miles at a time. If I’d had any safe place to pull over, I’d have called 911 and reported that guy, but I didn’t dare stop in case he caught up and actually succeeded in killing me on his next try. 

I always give you lots of space and make sure I’m driving consistently so you don’t get any surprises.  I know cars can be hard to see from where you sit so I always make sure I’m visible in your mirrors, but that didn’t matter because these guys weren’t watching their mirrors.  Or the road.

Years ago we rarely saw a wrecked semi unless the road conditions were truly fearsome, but I saw three fresh wrecks during this trip. There was bright sunshine and unlimited visibility. A long straight four-lane divided highway on flat prairie. Perfect driving conditions. I don’t know what you’re doing up there in that cab, but you’re not paying attention to driving. Maybe you’re texting or talking on the phone or, like one guy I saw, reading a book propped against the steering wheel.

Why would you do that?

You know you can’t stop an 80,000-pound vehicle on a dime. You know what happens if you run into a smaller vehicle.

When I was young, we called you Knights of the Road. You looked out for us little folk, and you were heroes to stranded motorists. In a blizzard, we knew if we could find a semi and follow its taillights we’d be okay. Now you’re just as likely to lead us over the edge of a cliff.

I’m so disappointed. I feel as though the big brother or sister I’ve idolized all my life has turned out to be a fraud.

I know the days of stopping to help other motorists are long gone, made impossible by your ridiculously tight schedules and the added dangers of armed nutcases and heavy traffic. But do you really care so little about your professional pride and the safety of other motorists that you won’t even bother to drive a straight line?

Come back, Knights of the Road. I miss you. I miss the joy of driving and the sense of safety you used to give me.

And I don’t want to become a grease spot under your wheels.

With sincere sadness,

Diane

* * *

Sorry it’s not my regular foolishness today. I usually love driving that trip, but those drivers really spoiled it for me.  I guess I’m lucky they didn’t spoil it permanently.

Just to show I haven’t completely lost my sense of humour, though, I’d like to share a little personal revelation I had somewhere around the middle of Saskatchewan.  I was singing along with my music as usual when I suddenly realized that I am incapable of screeching out high notes without simultaneously clenching the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip and contorting my face in a horrible grimace.

Between my awful caterwauling and my scary expression, it’s no wonder the truckers try to run me off the road.

P.S. Something weird is going on with either WordPress or my domain today.  I’m sorry if the blog won’t behave – I’m trying to figure out the problem.  In the mean time, as they say:  “Call me if you don’t get this message”.

Karma’s Dicking With Me

/ Diane Henders / 45 Comments

As you may know, I’ve got a big birthday coming up next week. So since my friend Swamp Butt also turned fifty a couple of weeks ago, we decided to get the gang together and go to the mountains for a joint birthday bash.

A good time was had by all, and a better time was had by a couple of us who shall remain nameless. The obligatory insulting age-related gifts were given and received with varying degrees of grace, and somebody might perhaps have had a shooter:

shooter

When the waiter arrived bearing a martini glass full of whipped cream and told us it was a Muff Dive, I declined on the grounds that I bat for the other team. But once he explained that there was a Blow Job submerged in the cream, it was all good.

The object of the game is to slather the victim in equal parts whipped cream and humiliation by forcing them to drink the shooter hands-free. I think I took the fun out of it when I inhaled the cream and tossed back the shot so fast they barely had a chance to snap the picture. (Swamp Butt didn’t fare quite so well. Apparently whipped cream is not a comfortable sinus rinse.)

Hubby and I had splashed out on a fancy hotel that night, so we put on our best behaviour and checked in trying to look like responsible adults.

And guess what I saw when I went into our fancy-schmancy king suite?

First the expected granite counters, leather furniture, yadda, yadda:

hotel room

Then this:

dick window

Yep, somebody had drawn a dick on our window. The rest of the suite was absolutely pristine, and that’s partly why the smudged window caught my eye. I probably wouldn’t have even identified the subject matter if I hadn’t been lying on the couch at exactly the right angle to see it against a dark background.

Summoned by my uproarious laughter, Hubby asked what was so funny. When I pointed out the misplaced genitalia, he agreed that this was clearly another instance of my bad hotel karma. Things like this could only happen to me. In fact, I challenge you to find anyone else who’s experienced both a rappelling nudist and a dick-print on a hotel window, in separate $200+ per night hotels in two different countries. (Though I guess the statistical probability of seeing both at the same hotel might be higher.)

But karma still wasn’t finished with me. When I went into the bedroom, I discovered the hotel’s scratch pad and pen lying on the writing desk. And guess what their slogan is?

“Sleep with the best”.

I nearly laughed myself sick. It was all I could do not to print ‘Complimentary dick with each night’s stay’ under the tagline.

But I didn’t. It’s that whole ‘responsible adult’ thing.

And speaking of which, I had actually intended to clean the window before we left so the hotel staff wouldn’t think we were the guilty parties.  But then I thought, “Nah, what the hell. Why not share the joy?”

Besides, I was a little squeamish about touching it…

What’s your funniest hotel experience?

* * *

By the way, if you ever get the chance, eat at the Grizzly House in Banff, Alberta, Canada. It ain’t cheap, but it’s a blast. A holdover from glory days of the 70s, it still retains the original telephones at each table so swingers could call each other from across the restaurant if they liked what they saw. The night we were there, a complete stranger dialled our table and sang ‘Happy Birthday’! The fondues are delicious – everything from traditional cheese to exotic meats. I went for it all: wine, salad, cheese fondue, bagna cauda, shrimp, scallops, lobster, Brome Lake duck, and kangaroo, with the traditional Toblerone chocolate/fruit fondue for dessert. YUM!!! (And ouch. I kinda hurt myself. But it was good pain.)

Weapons Of Ass Destruction

/ Diane Henders / 33 Comments

So, this morning I was thinking about toilet paper.  (Never mind what I was doing at the time.)  And it occurred to me that toilet paper is the keystone to civilized behaviour in the western hemisphere.

You know I’m right.  All you have to do is walk into a public washroom that’s out of toilet paper, and you realize how superficial our veneer of civilization really is.

I know lots of countries get along just fine without TP, but I want to be there to see the expression on the first westerner who finds nothing but a pitcher of water in the bathroom instead of a cottony-soft roll.  Or, hell, I’ll settle for seeing their faces while they watch this video.

You know what bothers me most about this?  Water might be “very-very clean”, but it’s also very-very wet.  And there’s nothing to dry off with… except maybe the hand towel… if there is one… not that I’d want to touch it…

Yep, toilet paper rules the modern western world.  All our technological toys are as nothing next to it.  People may profess utter dependence on their electronic devices, but would you rather be caught without your technology or without toilet paper?  I’m thinking that sleek new iPhone isn’t very absorbent.

Centuries ago, people used whatever was at hand.  Apparently wealthy Romans used silk or goose necks.  (I presume the necks were no longer attached to the geese.  I’ve been around geese enough to know you don’t wanna let those suckers anywhere near your tender bits.)

Grass, leaves, and pine cones worked for indigenous people, though I assume their elders passed down critical wisdom like ‘leaves of three, let it be’ and ‘use the pine cone with the direction of the scales unless you need a hemorrhoidectomy’.

In earlier America, corn cobs were a common choice.  Apparently they were quite comfortable when fresh, but after they dried they became weapons of ass destruction.  No wonder everyone heaved a sigh of relief when Sears and Eaton’s started printing their mail-order catalogues.

Today, toilet paper engineers are the unsung heroes of the western world.  These amazing folks create a product that’s strong enough to withstand zealous scrubbing of regions better left undescribed, yet designed to fall to pieces seconds after contacting water so your toilet doesn’t plug.  Soft enough to prevent abrasion, yet not so soft as to leave Klingons circling Uranus.

And it’s not just the engineers who should be lauded.  Then there’s the next step:  convincing consumers to buy.  First the marketing geniuses have to come up with umpteen ways to say ‘our product wipes your ass best’ while avoiding any scatological reference whatsoever.

Then they create ads inexplicably featuring fluffy kittens and cartoon bears.  Those commercials bring out the worst in me.  Every time I see them, I think of the joke about the bear and the bunny taking a dump side by side in the forest.  The bear turns to the bunny and says, “Do you have a problem with shit sticking to your fur?”.  The bunny says, “No”, and the bear says, “Good!”, grabs the bunny and wipes his ass with it.

I can just see the tagline:  “Soft as a bunny, strong as a bear”.

And now you know what it’s like to live inside my brain.

Sorry about that…

* * *

I’m driving 800 miles again today so I won’t be able to respond to comments until tomorrow.  “Talk” to you then! 🙂

Confessions Of A Vegas Swinger

/ Diane Henders / 38 Comments

I’m going to make an embarrassing confession, and I hope you won’t lose respect for me when I reveal my dark secret.  It’s something nobody would suspect of me.  In fact, it’s so secret, even I didn’t know about it.

Yes, despite fifteen years of happy marriage, apparently I’m a swinger.

Maybe I was so ashamed that denial blotted the memory from my mind.  Or maybe now that I’m pushing the big five-oh, my short-term memory is shot to shit.  No matter the reason, I was confronted with the damning evidence yesterday, so I can’t deny it anymore.

I was cleaning out my wallet when a slip of paper fluttered out.  It wasn’t the usual sort of paper I stash in my wallet; not a credit card receipt or a business card or a grocery list.  No, it was a small slip of paper, blank except for unfamiliar handwriting in blue ballpoint pen:  “Troy”, and a phone number.

I stared at it in blank incomprehension.  In fifty years, no guy has ever slipped me his phone number, and it seems highly unlikely that’s going to change at this stage of my life.

But it definitely wasn’t my handwriting, nor Hubby’s.  And I don’t know anybody named Troy.

The mystery deepened when I looked more closely at the phone number.  Area code 702.  That ain’t from around here.

So I looked it up.  Nevada.  Specifically, Las Vegas.

Well then.

I was in Vegas last fall.  And I guess ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ must apply to memories, ‘cause apparently I left that memory there.  Maybe I had more fun than I thought…

I racked my brain for who the hell Troy might be, and why he would give me his phone number.  Well, aside from the obvious reason, which was improbable at best.  For one thing, I’m sure Hubby would have noticed if I didn’t show up at our hotel room one night.

We did go to a happenin’ club one evening, but we hung out with our friends and left early ‘cause let’s face it, we’re old fogies now.  And it was so friggin’ busy I didn’t even get a drink, so that ruled out the possibility of an alcohol-fuelled liaison up against the bathroom wall.

The cocktail waitress took a shine to me on our last day at the casino and plied me with free highballs, but I was pretty sure her name wasn’t Troy.  Though it might have been.  Three vodkas in quick succession left me slightly uncertain about my own name, so who knew?  But it seemed unlikely.

Then at last, I remembered.  Troy!  Late thirties, maybe early forties, with the most devastating Irish accent.  I’m a total sucker for Irish accents.  And, yes, he did give me his phone number.

At this point I’d love to relate a spicy story involving Troy and his lovely accent, but the sad truth is this:  he was the taxi driver who drove us from the airport to our hotel.  And unlike our last cab driver in Vegas he actually possessed rudimentary driving skills and we didn’t require medical intervention to restart our hearts after riding with him, so we asked if he could pick us up the next day.

And he jotted his name and phone number on a slip of paper because the cab drivers aren’t supposed to circumvent their dispatch system.

So much for swinging in Vegas.  It was fun while it lasted…

Passport Photo Purgatory

/ Diane Henders / 46 Comments

This weekend Hubby and I went for passport photos.  Yikes!

If I was a customs border guard, I wouldn’t trust anybody who looked like that.  Clearly, the people in our photos are deranged criminals.  That soulless, dead-eyed stare.  Those inhumanly expressionless features.  God, they give me cold shivers.

Before, whenever I saw mug shots on the news I always wondered why they all looked like criminals.  I thought maybe it was self-fulfilling, like the child with the surname ‘Foote’ who grows up to be a podiatrist or the guy named Titzling who invented the bra (okay, that one’s an urban legend, but it makes a good story).

My point is, I thought maybe if you’re born with a face like a mug shot, you pretty well have to grow up to be a criminal.

But now I understand.  Criminals don’t actually look any different than the rest of us; it’s just that mug shots are done by passport photographers.

A proper passport photo begins with the right photographer.  It’s important to find a photographer with that precise level of sociopathy whereby he can just barely function in normal society without actually committing indictable crimes (though I’m pretty sure our photos qualify as a crime).

The photographer must be incapable of comprehending human emotion.  He is not allowed to have a sense of humour, and if he has one, it’s confiscated when he registers as a passport photographer.  He is also required to be expressionless and barely civil, ideally replicating the exact blend of arrogance and subtle threat exhibited by border guards.  This sets up the correct atmosphere for the photo.

After that, it’s all about technique.  The photographer grunts and points imperiously to a small uncomfortable stool, and the victim client perches on it as if awaiting a firing squad.

This is the photographer’s cue to make the victim client as uncomfortable and unattractive as possible:

“Chin up.  No, down.  No, up!  Look over here.  Stop smiling.”

You’d think it would be impossible to summon a smile at that point, but I’m pretty sure the only time I’ll not smile is if I’m dead (and even then I wouldn’t bet on it).  But, chastened by the photographer’s grumpiness, I try to control my obstreperous lips.

The victim client is now suitably uncomfortable, so the photographer’s next goal is ‘unattractive’:

“Put your hair behind your ears.”

“I never put my hair behind my ears.  As far as anybody else knows, I don’t even have ears.  This photo won’t look anything like me.”

“Put your hair behind your ears.  I have to see your ears.”

So I cram ten pounds of hair behind each ear, making them stick out so far that I look like a bat stalking some hapless insect.

At last I’m cranky enough to eliminate any trace of a smile, and the photographer snaps the picture with his first and only hint of visible satisfaction.

The deed is done and the woman in the photo looks as though, if she hasn’t already committed a crime, she will any minute.

No, I’m not going to post the photo.

Because… ummmm… for security reasons.  Yeah, that’s it.  It’s not because I’m totally humiliated.

It’s for security.