Vegas with kids

Of course I knew what it would be like, so my complaints are absurd. I stuck a day in Las Vegas onto our Death Valley trip simply to pander to my children, offering fake pyramids, temples, castles, cities, and islands to entice them to accept my own interest in a real desert.

During our one-day, catch-every-sight-that's-free trek up the Strip, my 7-year-old daughter was entranced by The Sirens of TI, an unabashedly cheesecake spectacle combining shirtless pirates with dancing women in fancy bikinis. And they're not doing a quadrille, mind you.

The pirates fire cannons and plunge dramatically from the riggings, the sirens summon hurricanes with lightning and fog, the ships catch fire and sink... Actually, it's pretty cool for a free show.

Bailey asked, "Why do girls always win?" because she's six and that's what she sees in modern kids' movies and books. In some weird and creepy turnaround, I had to reply, "Well, they don't always win in real life," wondering how to explain that sex appeal is one of the lousier powers on which to depend. It looks pretty potent in Vegas.

And my 11-year-old daughter was much quieter, on the verge of adolescence and absorbing commercial values and messages like a sea sponge.

While I know they have to live in this world, and that they'll cope one way or another with the deranged values of this commercial, anti-human culture, sometimes I dream of pulling a Grizzly Adams and just stealing them away from it all.

Or perhaps I could start by just avoiding the obvious pits of despair...

shikata ga nai

Recently I was trying to write a brief email message in which I expressed concern to a friend about her fatalistic attitude toward some self-destructive behaviors. But that's another story. As is often the case with me, I experienced the tip of the tongue phenomenon while writing. For some reason, I was convinced that there was an expressive French phrase to replace "fatalistic."

I asked several colleagues for assistance, but they were unable to help. Then I perused a long web page of French expressions which was fascinating but could not offer an answer. The closest I came was laissez-faire and c'est la vie, neither of which sounded serious enough. Later I realized that que sera, sera was closer, but on thinking about it, I couldn't quite figure out exactly what language that phrase represented. According to this Wikipedia article, it's a bastardization of a bastardization, which explains my confusion.

In all my searching for fatalistic phrases, the Japanese language won hands down with shikata ga nai, which can be used to describe either a courageous endurance or a fatalistic helplessness according, once again, to Wikipedia's entry.

My friend has now adopted Que Sera, Sera as her theme song and shikata ga nai as her life philosophy.

maybe a site on visiting a dude ranch?

I can't wait for my Texas vacation.
These are some great dude ranches:

• The Silverado
• Double L Guest Ranch
• Circle T

A neighbor writes:

Our mayor knows nothink he is dum.

Another semester and still not done...

Maybe I should do a blog on traveling with medium sized children. Or on surviving as an eBay widow, although that's probably all over the web by now....

Welcome to my final website creative process

I'm thinking about cadaver dogs. Who isn't?