Today began with an unusual sight at 8 a.m.: Me getting up before 11, continuing from yesterday when I had to get up at 7 a.m. in order to get to a required CPR certification course by 9. Now that I've got the certification, I can schedule my job interview and soon begin work.
But there was something more unusual than that, at least to this still-new Las Vegas resident, though it's pretty much an average day in Las Vegas. After Dad and I went to Dunkin' Donuts to get three Everything bagels (for him, me, and Mom) and one blueberry bagel (for Meridith), we went to the Smith's that's in the same shopping center as the Chinese counter service restaurant we like, and Las Vegas Athletic Club, to get cream cheese, cereal (which turned out to be Honey Nut Chex), and a few other things. In the bottled juice aisle, where gallons of water are at the end of the aisle facing the pharmacy, I saw a thin older guy who had the hair, the sideburns, the exact glasses, the boot-cut jeans, and the boots. With him was a woman who had the blazing red hair, the hat, the sunglasses, the white outfit. If you merely glanced, you could have sworn that Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret were shopping together. I don't know if he was an impersonator. I didn't ask. I only gawked. I don't know if they were here for the National Finals Rodeo, which started on December 5 at the Thomas & Mack Center, ends on December 15, and has engulfed the entire city, with country music acts and comedians come to perform, casinos offering all kinds of deals for cowboys and other rodeo attendees. It's one of our biggest events of the year because of how much money it brings into the city.
Being that they were getting a few groceries, I also thought that they might live here. Where else would a guy who looks like Elvis get steady work? But imagine that: A thin Elvis and Ann-Margret living together in their later years. There's a story somewhere in there.
After a bagel lunch at home, and a long day out that included the library (I prefer going on Sundays. It's my temple), Target, Walmart, the 99 Cents Only store, and Church's Chicken to pick up dinner, we finally got home, where I could finish The Library Card by Jerry Spinelli, who became one of my favorite authors after I finished his Loser earlier today. I want to read everything else he's written, including Maniac Magee. About 10 minutes ago, I went to the bathroom on the far right end of the house, which belongs to me and Meridith, to put a new pack of wipes in the Huggies wipes container that ran out of Huggies wipes long ago, so we use it for the wipes we currently buy. The Library Card was stretched out like a pooped bird on the counter, since I was reading a bit more of it before I put in the new pack of wipes, and when I picked it up to put my bookmark back in, a piece of paper fell fast to the white tile floor. I picked it up, and found that The Library Card was giving its history to me.
It was a square piece of paper from one of the computer systems used to check out books at the Whitney branch. You place each book on the counter surface which sends the barcode into the computer and the book title appears on the screen. When you're done, you press "Sign Out" on the screen and a list of the items you checked out prints out. This particular square was from June 28, 2012 (Thursday) at 1:12 p.m., and lists this book, and "One juvenile paperback" and another "One juvenile paperback" as having been checked out, making for three books checked out. ("One juvenile paperback," in this case, is what appears when a book is too light on the counter surface to be read by the computer and appear as its title.)
These slips give no indication of how many books someone has checked out on their card. On my inches-long slip, it doesn't say that I have 50 items checked out (49 books and one three-disc Johnny Carson DVD set), nor does this square slip say how many books this kid has checked out. All that's clear is that these three books were due on July 19. I won't ever know what those other two juvenile paperbacks were, but I hope they were also Jerry Spinelli novels. Whether that kid went to the library only once a week or went twice a week or however many times, I hope he or she is still going there, still taking advantage of all the books that are offered, hopefully becoming a writer in the process. Whenever I see kids at the library, I always wonder who among them might become a writer and what they will offer the world in their words. I can't wait to read them, from whoever might write them.
I believe every book on the shelves at my library has history. While I can't possibly know every single piece of it, save for the cosmetic history sometimes (such as the cigarette smoke smell in the large-print Robyn Carr novels), I'm happy to have gotten a little extra from this Jerry Spinelli novel, to see where it's been, and to send it back out into the world next Sunday with my greatest hope that others pick it up and deeply immerse themselves in it as I have.
Books here have history. I've got to get used to that. Not even Subways are for Sleeping by Edmund G. Love, the only book I bought from the Los Angeles County library system because it had been with me for so long and I love it that much, had that kind of history, despite having been in that system for a few decades. I'm always tickled whenever I get a book on hold from the Boulder City library because of how much history is in that building. They're not afraid of taking care of old books over there and they're given the best of care there. Last Sunday, I picked up The Betsy by Harold Robbins (I want to read all his novels, after reading Sin City, which was written in the late Robbins' style by Junius Podrug, while waiting and waiting and waiting to move here back in April), which came from Boulder City, and the age is there. It's bulky, as would be expected from Robbins; it's a little loose, but it's still sturdy and dependable. All these years and the book has not fallen apart. They're not allowed to over there. They're always useful and they will always have a home there. This library even still has its library catalog with the cards!
I'm tempted to put this square slip back somewhere deep in the book for someone else to discover its history. Since it came from the Whitney branch, it'll be shelved right where it came from and I don't think the slip will drop out of it. But what happens with the next person? Will they put the slip back in or tear it up and throw it out? I was thinking of doing the same, but what good would that do? It only denies this book its history. It's 14 years old, and its pages are slightly yellowed, but aging pages do not prove the usefulness of a book. To me, its usefulness is measured by how much it has traveled, the little creases, the bent pages someone made to mark where they were, even the minor accidental stains. A book well-used is an important book.
Just now, I thought I had lost that square slip of paper, forgetting that I had already placed it back inside the book for someone else to discover, to see this book's history. I shook the pages and nothing fluttered out. I flipped through each page and found it cozily wedged in between pages 66 and 67. I can't put my own slip of paper in there because it's way too long. I don't think all the other books I checked out are important in this case anyway. But I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to cut out the listing on my slip for The Library Card, and place it somewhere else in the book. I want the next person to know that it has also lived on here in December. I want to place it between pages 20 and 21, since that's one of my favorite passages, but that's too early in it, and there wouldn't be enough weight on it from other pages. Wedging it in between pages 112 and 113 would be best, since it's when Sonseray, the homeless boy, walks into a library for the first time.
To me, books are sacred, and so are their journeys. When I send this one back out, it'll be loaded with its history. It has lived, future reader. And from that, it has strength enough to live for you. By reading it, you'll replenish its strength to be ready for the next reader, and so on. That's the kind of "chain" anything I can get behind.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
My Galaga Breakthrough
Saturday was Dad's birthday. We spent most of it on the California/Nevada state line, in Primm, on the Nevada side, at the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas. This is where you find your outlet stores, arranged in the round. Start at one entrance/exit and you'll end at that same point. Getting back to where you started from becomes the furthest thing from your mind once you see what's offered.
We were there because we couldn't be there on the day we moved to Las Vegas on that Friday in September, being that we had Tigger and Kitty, and our two finches in the car with us, and we were late to our new home. We had hoped to get there before the manager of the mobile home park left for the weekend, so Meridith and I could finally meet her. We were getting close to the time that she'd be leaving, 3 p.m. every day even though she lives on the same property, but why stay longer than you have to?
So we bypassed it. We didn't get to the Williams-Sonoma Marketplace. I didn't get to see the car that Bonnie and Clyde were killed in, countless bullet holes delivered by angry law enforcement. At that time, I had thought that it had been placed between one section of the mall and the indoor entrance to the Primm Valley Resort and Casino. Having written that, I now think back to when we were last at Whiskey Pete's in 2010, and didn't I see the car then? Hadn't we walked around enough that I spotted it somewhere in that casino? Or has it always been moved between properties, depending on how many visitors each casino and the Fashion Outlets get? I don't know. Looking through the photos in the Whiskey Pete's listing on yelp.com, I find that someone took a photo of the Bonnie and Clyde car, which is dated August 21. So had we stopped at Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas that day, I still wouldn't have seen the car, which was one of the reasons I wanted to stop there.
At the start of this visit, which makes up incredibly for having to drive past on the first day, I still think I'll see the car. But first, we stop at the Nevada Welcome Center, where I have a long conversation with a native Nevadan about the UNLV Rebels, about Jeremy Renner's character in The Bourne Legacy hailing from Reno, about his experiences all his life in Nevada, about his travels throughout, a conversation that lasts long enough for Mom, Dad and Meridith to head into the outlets, leaving me behind to chat some more. When the opportunity's there, I take it. My fascination with Nevada never ends.
I walk into the outlets after reaffirming my hope to the Nevadan that the Rebels at least grab onto the Sweet 16 this season, if not make it all the way to the top. I hang a right, and find Mom and Dad walking from Williams-Sonoma Marketplace to Viva Vegas, the souvenir store with everything Las Vegas. Mugs, t-shirts, cigarette lighters, shot glasses, magnets, everything but bookmarks. I still can't find Las Vegas bookmarks. Yes, I know Las Vegas isn't thought of as a literary or even literate city, but we do have libraries, and they haven't let me down yet. I don't expect them to. Plus, we have the Vegas Valley Book Festival every year. However, Viva Vegas isn't geared to residents. I know. It's for the tourists either driving into, or out of, the state. Even so, some tourists read, too. My search for bookmarks continues.
After still not finding bookmarks at Viva Vegas, I decide to go where Mom and Dad have left Meridith: Inside Williams-Sonoma Marketplace. I want to see what kind of mustard they have, mustard that has to be better than the whole-grain French mustard I picked up on our way back to Southern California back in January. I first find smoky chipotle mustard in "collectible European glassware," as it's touted, and it's $8.95, though 30 percent off. Honey pops into my head. I must find honey. I hate walking through the aisle in the supermarket and finding the same kinds of honey I always see, with the same high prices. I know honey costs a lot to make, but the brands aren't all that interesting in Smith's. Here, I find Florida orange blossom honey, manufactured by the Savannah Bee Company in Savannah, Georgia. It's Florida, so I have to get. Never mind that it's $11 and change. When am I ever going to find this in Smith's?
I'm happy in my city. I've so much still to explore, still to read about, still to experience. But those instances of deep satisfaction, when you're absolutely certain of what makes you endlessly happy and you vow to pursue it, don't happen every day. It's not that satisfaction doesn't happen here; it's just that awesome, lasting feeling of knowing what you want and going for it that takes time to find. I want to keep reading, as I always do, I want to write more books, but I need something else, and I think that comes either in career or community involvement. I'm not sure which, yet. It's going to take some time to find.
The overall picture of one's life is, of course, a challenge. Naturally, it's the little things that emerge more quickly. And I found that after we had rounded the corner near Williams-Sonoma Marketplace, walked a little bit longer, and came upon the food court, which I had previously only seen in photos on yelp.com. When we came here as tourists, we thought the side of the mall with Williams-Sonoma and Viva Vegas was all there is. We hadn't realized that there was another side to the mall. And inside this food court was an arcade, which had driving games, and a hoops game, shooting baskets in 60 or 90 seconds (whatever it was, since I didn't look), and comparably higher-tech claw machines. There was nothing there for me, until, as Meridith and Mom were walking to the restroom, they spotted a Galaga arcade machine, actually one of those Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga hybrids, but to me, only Galaga matters.
In late October, at The Orleans, I got tickets for Meridith and I to see John Pinette, one of our favorite stand-up comedians. And in our family tour of The Orleans after I bought the tickets, we went upstairs to the movie theater and found a considerably larger arcade than what Sam's Town offers. Nothing else there mattered once I discovered the Galaga machine, and Mom and Dad and Meridith gamely hung around for a little bit while I played. I don't even remember what my score was, but I do know that I played badly.
Every time I've played, in Nevada, in Southern California, I never could get past Stage 10. As the stages build, the alien bugs get bolder, firing their bombs as they spin upward to join the formation. I always fire at them as they join that formation because I want to destroy them quickly so it's less work when the formation is complete. I don't know whether they won't fire their bombs if I hold my fire while they're getting in formation. But I do know they go at it faster with each subsequent stage, and my bad habit of wedging myself in one of the corners on the left or right side of the screen when the bugs break from the formation and fly downward, their bombs drifting toward me, but not hitting me, becomes more dominant.
When I play Galaga, you can hear me. I furiously bang on that fire button and I jam the joystick to the left or the right to avoid those bombs. I duck and I weave and I jump, as if I was playing Dance Dance Revolution instead of Galaga, like the bugs are firing at me and not my starfighter. I love this game because it invites my imagination to tag along. I wonder why my starfighter is so intent on eliminating these alien bugs, and I make up little stories about who these aliens are and who pissed who off enough to start this war. I remember the movie The Last Starfighter and I fondly think about Robert Preston, that consummate showman actor whose Centauri was his final role in that movie, and who made Harold Hill in The Music Man and Carole Todd in Victor/Victoria so memorable.
This time, however, I'm not thinking about Robert Preston nor the origins of those bugs. I want to finally get past Stage 10. I have four quarters, which means two quarters for one game, and two more to continue that game after my lives run out. I put in all four and start, and by the time the bugs are usually in formation in Stage 1, I have only one more bug to eliminate. That's the fastest Stage 1 I've ever played.
The game goes on, and I duck, and I weave, and I jump, and I bang on that fire button, and I jam that joystick to the left and to the right, instinctively avoiding those bombs, even as they become more numerous. Instinctively. That's never happened before. I remember how I've played past games, but before this game in this arcade in the food court at the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, it's never been as laser-etched in my memory of how to play as it is now. My strategy suddenly clicks. I'm still in the bad habit of wedging myself, but I've never avoided those bombs so successfully before. Experience, yes, but I never expected it to click like this. And I feel it in my head, too, that it's there now, it's part of me now, and I can use it and improve my game even more.
When it's all over, when I've used the other two quarters and finally lose against the alien bugs, I find that I've reached Stage 17! 107,650 points! I've never gone that high before! It's far below the lowest score on this machine, at 240-something thousand, but it's good enough for me.
I take what turns out to be a break to have a banana slushie that Mom and Meridith got for me from Tea Zone, which makes the best slushies, the best Thai tea in Southern Nevada. Unfortunately, this is the only location. The proprietor tells us that he did have other locations a few years ago, but he closed them all and remained with this one because it's so far out of the way of Las Vegas, despite being only 20 minutes away. He couldn't make it against the competition that Chinatown poses in this market. The next time we go to the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, which is guaranteed, we're going back to him. He told Mom that she should look for the sealing machine they have for the cups in order to determine whether an establishment has the slushies or teas, but as Mom said to us at the table, she's had so many different Thai teas already and they're nothing like what she had from this guy. Nobody can make it like he can.
The quarters that Mom gets in change from the slushies and the teas (I don't remember what Dad had) go to me, four of them for another game of Galaga. Same excitement, same movements in the second game. This time, it ends for me at Stage 16, with 101,050 points. More Galaga games will come in which I don't make it past Stage 10 again. I expect that. But now I know that I can get past Stage 10. I know how. I know what I have to do.
I was saving this for another entry, but I'll tell it here since it relates to Galaga: We got a Nintendo Wii, the first Nintendo system we've had since the original, spurred on by Meridith wanting ABBA: You Can Dance and wanting a Wii just because of it.
I can't play ABBA: You Can Dance, because I don't. I don't feel it like Meridith does. But I have tried the bicycling in Wii Sports Resort and the bowling in Wii Sports, and I like it, especially the 100-pin bowling, in which the number of pins builds in each single frame. There are no spares to try to get. You just knock down as many pins as you can.
I thought that I wouldn't spend as many hours playing the Wii as Meridith would. What reason would I have? I have books to read, my books to write, and sometimes a movie, such as it is with our recent library visit, in which I checked out Albert Nobbs, since it was directed by Rodrigo Garcia, one of my favorite filmmakers, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Director's Edition. I want to finally have watched more than just Star Trek: Generations, and I want to do it chronologically.
Why would I need the Wii? But it turns out I do need the Wii, for the best reason I can think of. In fact, I thought of it while I was playing Galaga in that small arcade: I should see if there's any Namco Wii titles with Galaga in them. I've tried Galaga on Nintendo DS, and it's not the same. I need a joystick, or at least something that resembles a joystick.
And I've found it in Namco Museum Megamix, which has an odd variation on Galaga, having to protect Pac-Man rolling down various slides from the same kind of alien bugs in the original game, flitting all about these slides. However, the original arcade version is included in this! Plus, there's a Wii Nunchuck that came with the system that I can use. It has a miniscule joystick that I have to be very careful with, since this obviously isn't an arcade joystick, but now I can strategize at home! I can break my habit of wedging myself in the corner of the screen whenever those bombs get near me. When I played Galaga in that arcade, I discovered that in stages such as 13, 14, and so on, those bombs go right to where I am instead of simply next to me. I was blown up three times by them in those two games.
So I'll be spending more time than I ever expected to on the Wii because when I go back to that Galaga arcade machine, most likely at the Pinball Hall of Fame next, if it's still there, I want to be ready and able to dodge those bombs better than I do now. I want to destroy those bugs as they climb into formation and have lots more stages like Stage 1 in my first game in which there was only one bug left in the full formation. However, in one of the challenge stages in between stages, after Stage 10, I discovered a new bug that, when in a group, separates in a circle when you fire at it. I've got so much more to learn.
After that experience at that arcade at the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I can say without any doubt that besides reading, Galaga makes me endlessly happy. That's two. I know there's more and I'll either discover them or rediscover them in time.
We were there because we couldn't be there on the day we moved to Las Vegas on that Friday in September, being that we had Tigger and Kitty, and our two finches in the car with us, and we were late to our new home. We had hoped to get there before the manager of the mobile home park left for the weekend, so Meridith and I could finally meet her. We were getting close to the time that she'd be leaving, 3 p.m. every day even though she lives on the same property, but why stay longer than you have to?
So we bypassed it. We didn't get to the Williams-Sonoma Marketplace. I didn't get to see the car that Bonnie and Clyde were killed in, countless bullet holes delivered by angry law enforcement. At that time, I had thought that it had been placed between one section of the mall and the indoor entrance to the Primm Valley Resort and Casino. Having written that, I now think back to when we were last at Whiskey Pete's in 2010, and didn't I see the car then? Hadn't we walked around enough that I spotted it somewhere in that casino? Or has it always been moved between properties, depending on how many visitors each casino and the Fashion Outlets get? I don't know. Looking through the photos in the Whiskey Pete's listing on yelp.com, I find that someone took a photo of the Bonnie and Clyde car, which is dated August 21. So had we stopped at Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas that day, I still wouldn't have seen the car, which was one of the reasons I wanted to stop there.
At the start of this visit, which makes up incredibly for having to drive past on the first day, I still think I'll see the car. But first, we stop at the Nevada Welcome Center, where I have a long conversation with a native Nevadan about the UNLV Rebels, about Jeremy Renner's character in The Bourne Legacy hailing from Reno, about his experiences all his life in Nevada, about his travels throughout, a conversation that lasts long enough for Mom, Dad and Meridith to head into the outlets, leaving me behind to chat some more. When the opportunity's there, I take it. My fascination with Nevada never ends.
I walk into the outlets after reaffirming my hope to the Nevadan that the Rebels at least grab onto the Sweet 16 this season, if not make it all the way to the top. I hang a right, and find Mom and Dad walking from Williams-Sonoma Marketplace to Viva Vegas, the souvenir store with everything Las Vegas. Mugs, t-shirts, cigarette lighters, shot glasses, magnets, everything but bookmarks. I still can't find Las Vegas bookmarks. Yes, I know Las Vegas isn't thought of as a literary or even literate city, but we do have libraries, and they haven't let me down yet. I don't expect them to. Plus, we have the Vegas Valley Book Festival every year. However, Viva Vegas isn't geared to residents. I know. It's for the tourists either driving into, or out of, the state. Even so, some tourists read, too. My search for bookmarks continues.
After still not finding bookmarks at Viva Vegas, I decide to go where Mom and Dad have left Meridith: Inside Williams-Sonoma Marketplace. I want to see what kind of mustard they have, mustard that has to be better than the whole-grain French mustard I picked up on our way back to Southern California back in January. I first find smoky chipotle mustard in "collectible European glassware," as it's touted, and it's $8.95, though 30 percent off. Honey pops into my head. I must find honey. I hate walking through the aisle in the supermarket and finding the same kinds of honey I always see, with the same high prices. I know honey costs a lot to make, but the brands aren't all that interesting in Smith's. Here, I find Florida orange blossom honey, manufactured by the Savannah Bee Company in Savannah, Georgia. It's Florida, so I have to get. Never mind that it's $11 and change. When am I ever going to find this in Smith's?
I'm happy in my city. I've so much still to explore, still to read about, still to experience. But those instances of deep satisfaction, when you're absolutely certain of what makes you endlessly happy and you vow to pursue it, don't happen every day. It's not that satisfaction doesn't happen here; it's just that awesome, lasting feeling of knowing what you want and going for it that takes time to find. I want to keep reading, as I always do, I want to write more books, but I need something else, and I think that comes either in career or community involvement. I'm not sure which, yet. It's going to take some time to find.
The overall picture of one's life is, of course, a challenge. Naturally, it's the little things that emerge more quickly. And I found that after we had rounded the corner near Williams-Sonoma Marketplace, walked a little bit longer, and came upon the food court, which I had previously only seen in photos on yelp.com. When we came here as tourists, we thought the side of the mall with Williams-Sonoma and Viva Vegas was all there is. We hadn't realized that there was another side to the mall. And inside this food court was an arcade, which had driving games, and a hoops game, shooting baskets in 60 or 90 seconds (whatever it was, since I didn't look), and comparably higher-tech claw machines. There was nothing there for me, until, as Meridith and Mom were walking to the restroom, they spotted a Galaga arcade machine, actually one of those Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga hybrids, but to me, only Galaga matters.
In late October, at The Orleans, I got tickets for Meridith and I to see John Pinette, one of our favorite stand-up comedians. And in our family tour of The Orleans after I bought the tickets, we went upstairs to the movie theater and found a considerably larger arcade than what Sam's Town offers. Nothing else there mattered once I discovered the Galaga machine, and Mom and Dad and Meridith gamely hung around for a little bit while I played. I don't even remember what my score was, but I do know that I played badly.
Every time I've played, in Nevada, in Southern California, I never could get past Stage 10. As the stages build, the alien bugs get bolder, firing their bombs as they spin upward to join the formation. I always fire at them as they join that formation because I want to destroy them quickly so it's less work when the formation is complete. I don't know whether they won't fire their bombs if I hold my fire while they're getting in formation. But I do know they go at it faster with each subsequent stage, and my bad habit of wedging myself in one of the corners on the left or right side of the screen when the bugs break from the formation and fly downward, their bombs drifting toward me, but not hitting me, becomes more dominant.
When I play Galaga, you can hear me. I furiously bang on that fire button and I jam the joystick to the left or the right to avoid those bombs. I duck and I weave and I jump, as if I was playing Dance Dance Revolution instead of Galaga, like the bugs are firing at me and not my starfighter. I love this game because it invites my imagination to tag along. I wonder why my starfighter is so intent on eliminating these alien bugs, and I make up little stories about who these aliens are and who pissed who off enough to start this war. I remember the movie The Last Starfighter and I fondly think about Robert Preston, that consummate showman actor whose Centauri was his final role in that movie, and who made Harold Hill in The Music Man and Carole Todd in Victor/Victoria so memorable.
This time, however, I'm not thinking about Robert Preston nor the origins of those bugs. I want to finally get past Stage 10. I have four quarters, which means two quarters for one game, and two more to continue that game after my lives run out. I put in all four and start, and by the time the bugs are usually in formation in Stage 1, I have only one more bug to eliminate. That's the fastest Stage 1 I've ever played.
The game goes on, and I duck, and I weave, and I jump, and I bang on that fire button, and I jam that joystick to the left and to the right, instinctively avoiding those bombs, even as they become more numerous. Instinctively. That's never happened before. I remember how I've played past games, but before this game in this arcade in the food court at the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, it's never been as laser-etched in my memory of how to play as it is now. My strategy suddenly clicks. I'm still in the bad habit of wedging myself, but I've never avoided those bombs so successfully before. Experience, yes, but I never expected it to click like this. And I feel it in my head, too, that it's there now, it's part of me now, and I can use it and improve my game even more.
When it's all over, when I've used the other two quarters and finally lose against the alien bugs, I find that I've reached Stage 17! 107,650 points! I've never gone that high before! It's far below the lowest score on this machine, at 240-something thousand, but it's good enough for me.
I take what turns out to be a break to have a banana slushie that Mom and Meridith got for me from Tea Zone, which makes the best slushies, the best Thai tea in Southern Nevada. Unfortunately, this is the only location. The proprietor tells us that he did have other locations a few years ago, but he closed them all and remained with this one because it's so far out of the way of Las Vegas, despite being only 20 minutes away. He couldn't make it against the competition that Chinatown poses in this market. The next time we go to the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, which is guaranteed, we're going back to him. He told Mom that she should look for the sealing machine they have for the cups in order to determine whether an establishment has the slushies or teas, but as Mom said to us at the table, she's had so many different Thai teas already and they're nothing like what she had from this guy. Nobody can make it like he can.
The quarters that Mom gets in change from the slushies and the teas (I don't remember what Dad had) go to me, four of them for another game of Galaga. Same excitement, same movements in the second game. This time, it ends for me at Stage 16, with 101,050 points. More Galaga games will come in which I don't make it past Stage 10 again. I expect that. But now I know that I can get past Stage 10. I know how. I know what I have to do.
I was saving this for another entry, but I'll tell it here since it relates to Galaga: We got a Nintendo Wii, the first Nintendo system we've had since the original, spurred on by Meridith wanting ABBA: You Can Dance and wanting a Wii just because of it.
I can't play ABBA: You Can Dance, because I don't. I don't feel it like Meridith does. But I have tried the bicycling in Wii Sports Resort and the bowling in Wii Sports, and I like it, especially the 100-pin bowling, in which the number of pins builds in each single frame. There are no spares to try to get. You just knock down as many pins as you can.
I thought that I wouldn't spend as many hours playing the Wii as Meridith would. What reason would I have? I have books to read, my books to write, and sometimes a movie, such as it is with our recent library visit, in which I checked out Albert Nobbs, since it was directed by Rodrigo Garcia, one of my favorite filmmakers, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Director's Edition. I want to finally have watched more than just Star Trek: Generations, and I want to do it chronologically.
Why would I need the Wii? But it turns out I do need the Wii, for the best reason I can think of. In fact, I thought of it while I was playing Galaga in that small arcade: I should see if there's any Namco Wii titles with Galaga in them. I've tried Galaga on Nintendo DS, and it's not the same. I need a joystick, or at least something that resembles a joystick.
And I've found it in Namco Museum Megamix, which has an odd variation on Galaga, having to protect Pac-Man rolling down various slides from the same kind of alien bugs in the original game, flitting all about these slides. However, the original arcade version is included in this! Plus, there's a Wii Nunchuck that came with the system that I can use. It has a miniscule joystick that I have to be very careful with, since this obviously isn't an arcade joystick, but now I can strategize at home! I can break my habit of wedging myself in the corner of the screen whenever those bombs get near me. When I played Galaga in that arcade, I discovered that in stages such as 13, 14, and so on, those bombs go right to where I am instead of simply next to me. I was blown up three times by them in those two games.
So I'll be spending more time than I ever expected to on the Wii because when I go back to that Galaga arcade machine, most likely at the Pinball Hall of Fame next, if it's still there, I want to be ready and able to dodge those bombs better than I do now. I want to destroy those bugs as they climb into formation and have lots more stages like Stage 1 in my first game in which there was only one bug left in the full formation. However, in one of the challenge stages in between stages, after Stage 10, I discovered a new bug that, when in a group, separates in a circle when you fire at it. I've got so much more to learn.
After that experience at that arcade at the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I can say without any doubt that besides reading, Galaga makes me endlessly happy. That's two. I know there's more and I'll either discover them or rediscover them in time.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Randall Pound: My New Hero
My list of heroes grows as often as the books I proudly own, which is not all that often. They have to make such an impact on me, and garner my undying admiration in such an unshakeable way that I can't imagine living each day without being reminded of them in some way.
Thus far, my heroes are Neil Simon, Stephen Sondheim, Quentin Crisp, Noel Coward, Johnny Carson, Jeff Bridges, Aaron Sorkin, Benny Binion, Diamond Jim Brady, Helene Hanff, Joshua Kadison, Mike Royko, Sam Shepard, and, in the fictional realm, Andy Capp, Baloo the bear in The Jungle Book, Murray N. Burns (Jason Robards) in A Thousand Clowns, Judge Harry Stone (Harry Anderson) on Night Court, Lord John Marbury (Roger Rees) on The West Wing, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) in the Back to the Future trilogy, The Dude (Jeff Bridges) in The Big Lebowski (I'm wearing a t-shirt with a drawing of him that has the banner "He Abides"), and Brian Hackett on Wings.
Recently, deciding to branch out from The Memory of Running, one of my favorite novels that features two of my favorite characters in American literature (the overweight Smithy Ide and the wheelchair-bound Norma), I set out to read Ron McLarty's three subsequent novels: Traveler, Art in America, and The Dropper. I finished Traveler yesterday, and to my list of heroes, I add Randall Pound, whose description can only come from McLarty himself. I transcribed every scene featuring Pound so I'll always have it long after I return Traveler to the Whitney Library. All of it follows below. Renee, Jono's girlfriend, is a New York City firefighter, to give context to the bit from page 48:
Pg. 25-27 – “I pulled some beers, mixed a Tom Collins, and blended a frozen margarita. Getting the orders over the reverberation of the front room requires a great deal of concentration. I’ve become a passable lip-reader. I pulled two more McSorley’s, and the sandwich was here. I squirted a glassful of club soda and took it to the end of the bar, where Randall Pound spilled over his usual stool.
“Hey, Jono,” he said quietly.
Randall put a dog-eared paperback down on the bar and sipped an espresso. It’s amazing to see the tiny cup on the edge of his fingers. Randall Pound is a shade over seven feet tall and proudly keeps his weight at 390. His neck is surprisingly long for a man of his great size. A contemplative, almost aesthetic Slavic face sits on top of it, with huge green eyes, long proportional nose, and thick shiny black hair combed tight into a short ponytail. At thirty he carres an agelessness about him. Seven years ago Lambs entered into a frustrating period where bar fights and loud, aggressive customers were becoming a nightly occurrence. After I tried to break up one fight, both the combatants turned on me. The next day, nose flattened, both eyes black, and reeling from a mild concussion, I ran an ad for a bouncer in the Village Voice. A lot of impressive men turned up (and one woman with a black belt in karate). But it was the quiet, dapper Randall Pound who won the job. The interview went like this:
“I’m Jono Riley.”
“I’m Randall Pound.”
“If guys start getting out of line or fighting, what would you do?”
“They won’t.”
“They won’t what?”
“They won’t get out of line or start fighting.”
He always wears a tailored sharkskin suit. He owns seven of them. All metallic blue. He sits on the corner stool like he has every evening, without fail, for the last seven years. At the first sign of a problem, a waitress or a bartender will whisper to the offender and point down to Randall, who will slowly wave and smile. He was right. No one gets out of line. No one fights.
“You’re early.”
“We only did the first act,” I said. Then I added, “Audience walked out.”
Randall nodded thoughtfully. “I enjoyed it, Jono. I thought you rose above the limited material.”
“Thanks.”
“Theater, the printed word, language in the general sense has entered into a decline,” he said quietly. “I attended a seminar at Columbia just last week where Bill Gates’s futurist talked about the inevitability of fine and performing arts being marginalized.” He held up the paperback. It was a copy of Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. “Tell that to Lewis. Tell it to Hem or Billy Faulkner,” he said.
“Is that the last one?” I asked through a mouthful of tuna.
Randall is a true eccentric. His life plan, as he has explained it to me, is to experience as many varied occupations as possible while devouring the whole of American literature.
“Our Mr. Wrenn is the last of Sinclair’s canon,” he said. “It was his first book. It’s going to be the last one I read to complete it. After Babbitt, that is.”
Randall’s ten-to-four shift at Lambs is the only constant in an inventive and eclectic career that has included truck driving, construction working, hot-dog vending, supermarket stocking, bank telling, box-office managing, flower arranging, copywriting, street sweeping, census taking, and I forget what-all, but it’s still only the tip of the iceberg.
“How come you never tried acting?” I asked.
He looked at me, concentrated and serious. “Because I’m an odd person doesn’t mean I’m mentally challenged.”
I nodded, took some fries and soda. He took a delicate sip of the espresso. I must have been wrinkling my eyebrows or something.
“What?” he asked.
“What, what?”
“You’re pensive. Something’s bothering you, all right.”
“Uh-uh.” I chewed.
“Look, it’s reasonable to feel uneasy. You have chosen a dangerous profession. Peter Brook rather darkly ruminates about the deadly theater in The Empty Space.”
“You read that?”
“I found it unsettling. I thought about you. It made me sad.”
I held up my hand while I finished a bite. “Randall, I like it. It pisses me off a lot, but mostly I like it. Actually, there’s something else on my mind.”
I gave him a brief rundown of Cubby’s letter and some background. When I finished, Randall sighed thoughtfully.
“O’Casey says it correctly,” he said. “ ‘The world is in a terrible state of chassis.’”
Pg. 48 – “A half hour later, I hugged Robert and Jeff, and then Renée and I strolled over to Astor Place and took the Lex uptown to Lambs. I got two coffees, and we went to an alcove behind Randall Pound. He swiveled in his chair, and Renée got tippy-toed to kiss him.
“How was it?” he asked quietly.
“The audience stayed,” I said.
“He was great,” Renée said in her sort of serious way. “He is such a wonderful actor.”
Randall held up his espresso in a silent toast. He sniffed. “You been to a fire?” he asked Renée.
“Yeah, nothing much.”
He sniffed again. “You smell like toasted raisin bread.”
“Yeah?” she said.”
Pg. 224 – “We crossed the street and headed down to the Biltmore Bar, where there was a phone next to the men’s room. I punched in my calling card and my 917 service code. I had two messages. The first one was Randall Pound’s soft voice.
“Hey, Jono. I finally finished all of the Sinclair Lewis canon. Just now closed Our Mr. Wrenn and wanted to tell somebody. I’m on to Fitzgerald now. Making progress. Say hey to Renée. I’m on my stool and we miss you at Lambs.”
Pg. 259 – Chapter 36 – “Everything I wanted to keep after thirty years in New York City filled about half of the small van I had rented. Discards of my life flowed over cardboard boxes and plastic bags piled high in front of my old East Eighty-ninth Street walk-up.
I slid into the passenger side. “It’s like I was never here.”
Randall Pound nodded behind the steering wheel. “You were here, Jono. Things are things. They’re not important. Remember what Mrs. Joad said when the preacher asked her why they had brought everything they owned to California?”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘I don’t know.’”
We took Eighty-sixth Street over to the West Side. The apartment was in a brownstone on West Eighty-seventh between Columbus and Central Park. It had taken the two of us all day long and ten trips, the van bulging, to get Renée’s things up from Chelsea and a half hour for mine. I handed Randall a Coke. It became miniature in his enormous hands. I took one, and we drank in silence, our eyes swinging around the sunny room.
“It’s a big thing. Moving,” he finally said. “It’s like death and it’s like birth.”
I laughed.
“No, really, Jono. Any way you look at it, it’s something new. It’s an adventure. Sandburg, in a lot of his work, points out the essential insignificance of people. In the long term, I mean. These are the kinds of things that put the lie to that. You and Renée moving in, I mean.”
I dropped Randall off at his place and returned the van to a garage on West Twenty-third across the street from Pier 63."
Thus far, my heroes are Neil Simon, Stephen Sondheim, Quentin Crisp, Noel Coward, Johnny Carson, Jeff Bridges, Aaron Sorkin, Benny Binion, Diamond Jim Brady, Helene Hanff, Joshua Kadison, Mike Royko, Sam Shepard, and, in the fictional realm, Andy Capp, Baloo the bear in The Jungle Book, Murray N. Burns (Jason Robards) in A Thousand Clowns, Judge Harry Stone (Harry Anderson) on Night Court, Lord John Marbury (Roger Rees) on The West Wing, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) in the Back to the Future trilogy, The Dude (Jeff Bridges) in The Big Lebowski (I'm wearing a t-shirt with a drawing of him that has the banner "He Abides"), and Brian Hackett on Wings.
Recently, deciding to branch out from The Memory of Running, one of my favorite novels that features two of my favorite characters in American literature (the overweight Smithy Ide and the wheelchair-bound Norma), I set out to read Ron McLarty's three subsequent novels: Traveler, Art in America, and The Dropper. I finished Traveler yesterday, and to my list of heroes, I add Randall Pound, whose description can only come from McLarty himself. I transcribed every scene featuring Pound so I'll always have it long after I return Traveler to the Whitney Library. All of it follows below. Renee, Jono's girlfriend, is a New York City firefighter, to give context to the bit from page 48:
Pg. 25-27 – “I pulled some beers, mixed a Tom Collins, and blended a frozen margarita. Getting the orders over the reverberation of the front room requires a great deal of concentration. I’ve become a passable lip-reader. I pulled two more McSorley’s, and the sandwich was here. I squirted a glassful of club soda and took it to the end of the bar, where Randall Pound spilled over his usual stool.
“Hey, Jono,” he said quietly.
Randall put a dog-eared paperback down on the bar and sipped an espresso. It’s amazing to see the tiny cup on the edge of his fingers. Randall Pound is a shade over seven feet tall and proudly keeps his weight at 390. His neck is surprisingly long for a man of his great size. A contemplative, almost aesthetic Slavic face sits on top of it, with huge green eyes, long proportional nose, and thick shiny black hair combed tight into a short ponytail. At thirty he carres an agelessness about him. Seven years ago Lambs entered into a frustrating period where bar fights and loud, aggressive customers were becoming a nightly occurrence. After I tried to break up one fight, both the combatants turned on me. The next day, nose flattened, both eyes black, and reeling from a mild concussion, I ran an ad for a bouncer in the Village Voice. A lot of impressive men turned up (and one woman with a black belt in karate). But it was the quiet, dapper Randall Pound who won the job. The interview went like this:
“I’m Jono Riley.”
“I’m Randall Pound.”
“If guys start getting out of line or fighting, what would you do?”
“They won’t.”
“They won’t what?”
“They won’t get out of line or start fighting.”
He always wears a tailored sharkskin suit. He owns seven of them. All metallic blue. He sits on the corner stool like he has every evening, without fail, for the last seven years. At the first sign of a problem, a waitress or a bartender will whisper to the offender and point down to Randall, who will slowly wave and smile. He was right. No one gets out of line. No one fights.
“You’re early.”
“We only did the first act,” I said. Then I added, “Audience walked out.”
Randall nodded thoughtfully. “I enjoyed it, Jono. I thought you rose above the limited material.”
“Thanks.”
“Theater, the printed word, language in the general sense has entered into a decline,” he said quietly. “I attended a seminar at Columbia just last week where Bill Gates’s futurist talked about the inevitability of fine and performing arts being marginalized.” He held up the paperback. It was a copy of Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. “Tell that to Lewis. Tell it to Hem or Billy Faulkner,” he said.
“Is that the last one?” I asked through a mouthful of tuna.
Randall is a true eccentric. His life plan, as he has explained it to me, is to experience as many varied occupations as possible while devouring the whole of American literature.
“Our Mr. Wrenn is the last of Sinclair’s canon,” he said. “It was his first book. It’s going to be the last one I read to complete it. After Babbitt, that is.”
Randall’s ten-to-four shift at Lambs is the only constant in an inventive and eclectic career that has included truck driving, construction working, hot-dog vending, supermarket stocking, bank telling, box-office managing, flower arranging, copywriting, street sweeping, census taking, and I forget what-all, but it’s still only the tip of the iceberg.
“How come you never tried acting?” I asked.
He looked at me, concentrated and serious. “Because I’m an odd person doesn’t mean I’m mentally challenged.”
I nodded, took some fries and soda. He took a delicate sip of the espresso. I must have been wrinkling my eyebrows or something.
“What?” he asked.
“What, what?”
“You’re pensive. Something’s bothering you, all right.”
“Uh-uh.” I chewed.
“Look, it’s reasonable to feel uneasy. You have chosen a dangerous profession. Peter Brook rather darkly ruminates about the deadly theater in The Empty Space.”
“You read that?”
“I found it unsettling. I thought about you. It made me sad.”
I held up my hand while I finished a bite. “Randall, I like it. It pisses me off a lot, but mostly I like it. Actually, there’s something else on my mind.”
I gave him a brief rundown of Cubby’s letter and some background. When I finished, Randall sighed thoughtfully.
“O’Casey says it correctly,” he said. “ ‘The world is in a terrible state of chassis.’”
Pg. 48 – “A half hour later, I hugged Robert and Jeff, and then Renée and I strolled over to Astor Place and took the Lex uptown to Lambs. I got two coffees, and we went to an alcove behind Randall Pound. He swiveled in his chair, and Renée got tippy-toed to kiss him.
“How was it?” he asked quietly.
“The audience stayed,” I said.
“He was great,” Renée said in her sort of serious way. “He is such a wonderful actor.”
Randall held up his espresso in a silent toast. He sniffed. “You been to a fire?” he asked Renée.
“Yeah, nothing much.”
He sniffed again. “You smell like toasted raisin bread.”
“Yeah?” she said.”
Pg. 224 – “We crossed the street and headed down to the Biltmore Bar, where there was a phone next to the men’s room. I punched in my calling card and my 917 service code. I had two messages. The first one was Randall Pound’s soft voice.
“Hey, Jono. I finally finished all of the Sinclair Lewis canon. Just now closed Our Mr. Wrenn and wanted to tell somebody. I’m on to Fitzgerald now. Making progress. Say hey to Renée. I’m on my stool and we miss you at Lambs.”
Pg. 259 – Chapter 36 – “Everything I wanted to keep after thirty years in New York City filled about half of the small van I had rented. Discards of my life flowed over cardboard boxes and plastic bags piled high in front of my old East Eighty-ninth Street walk-up.
I slid into the passenger side. “It’s like I was never here.”
Randall Pound nodded behind the steering wheel. “You were here, Jono. Things are things. They’re not important. Remember what Mrs. Joad said when the preacher asked her why they had brought everything they owned to California?”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘I don’t know.’”
We took Eighty-sixth Street over to the West Side. The apartment was in a brownstone on West Eighty-seventh between Columbus and Central Park. It had taken the two of us all day long and ten trips, the van bulging, to get Renée’s things up from Chelsea and a half hour for mine. I handed Randall a Coke. It became miniature in his enormous hands. I took one, and we drank in silence, our eyes swinging around the sunny room.
“It’s a big thing. Moving,” he finally said. “It’s like death and it’s like birth.”
I laughed.
“No, really, Jono. Any way you look at it, it’s something new. It’s an adventure. Sandburg, in a lot of his work, points out the essential insignificance of people. In the long term, I mean. These are the kinds of things that put the lie to that. You and Renée moving in, I mean.”
I dropped Randall off at his place and returned the van to a garage on West Twenty-third across the street from Pier 63."
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Thomas & Mack After Hours
The basketball game just ended on the radio. 85-57. The Rebels won soundly. My neighbor, Michael, two houses down, with the rough but not nearly calloused hands of the woodworker that he is (always a handshake either when we meet up or when I've got to bring one of the dogs back to the house), is either getting ready to go to work or is already at the Thomas & Mack Center, but not necessarily for the game. Maybe he was there that early, deep in the background, not at courtside, not in any of the seats. He, the South Carolina native, is a member of the crew that cleans the arena after everyone has left. He's one of many who tosses discarded food into the trash, who sweeps the detritus, the wrappers, the soda cups, whatever's around that people have either brought with them or bought at the stadium, but leave behind.
Yesterday, while Tigger was with me on his leash, I talked with Michael for a while, about the city, about where he came from before Las Vegas (Playa del Rey in Southern California, and he told me that he misses the beach, being right there, being able to walk to the shore like you'd walk to your mailbox. In our first conversation, he talked about how he misses South Carolina and even though he's been in Las Vegas for only nine months, he wants to go back. But to South Carolina or Playa del Rey, I'm not sure. Something tells me he'll be here for a few months longer at least, because the work is steady, and we all need that in this hoped-for economic recovery), about the hack job the maintenance guys did on the bushes (He trimmed the bushes around his property himself, and he did a far better job than those guys did), about his motorcycle which he won't be able to ride in the cold of winter, and, of course, about the Rebels, lamenting the post-Thanksgiving game in which they lost against Oregon, but becoming hopeful again after their win over Iowa State. We both agreed that the team can't keep shooting three-pointers arbitrarily. They need to have a far-reaching plan for the game, adjustable as the minutes tick off, but only when they're sure they can make the shot, then they should take it. We talk every couple of days, usually sooner after a Rebels game, and that seems to be enough. With him on the graveyard shift, we don't cross paths every day. But it's more than I ever had when I existed in Southern California.
I'm not sure what he'll be driving tonight. It was pleasantly warm today, but he'll probably keep both motorcycles at the end of his driveway, under that awning, since neither come with heat, like a car would. So it'll be whichever car is his, the one that isn't his wife's. But he may be there already, waiting for the crowds to clear out. Either way, he's faced less traffic than he would have much earlier. Or maybe he is there already. Why battle with the traffic coming out of Thomas & Mack after the game? He told me that when he did get to Thomas & Mack after the season opener against Northern Arizona two weeks ago, people were still trickling out because that game had drawn the biggest crowd in UNLV Men's Basketball history. On the day of the game, there were only 500 seats still available in an arena of 18,776 seats.
I haven't been inside the Thomas & Mack Center yet, but I love walking through empty spaces, and I'm looking forward to seeing the cell phone photo Michael's going to take of the inside of the arena after everyone's left, before the cleanup begins. I'm curious about exactly how much of a mess is made, if it's bigger on more crowded nights than sparsely-crowded ones, and if this matches the season opener, which was apparently very messy.
And what still amazes me is that this is only a minute crumb of one evening in Las Vegas. But it's just as interesting a crumb as all the others that make up my city.
Yesterday, while Tigger was with me on his leash, I talked with Michael for a while, about the city, about where he came from before Las Vegas (Playa del Rey in Southern California, and he told me that he misses the beach, being right there, being able to walk to the shore like you'd walk to your mailbox. In our first conversation, he talked about how he misses South Carolina and even though he's been in Las Vegas for only nine months, he wants to go back. But to South Carolina or Playa del Rey, I'm not sure. Something tells me he'll be here for a few months longer at least, because the work is steady, and we all need that in this hoped-for economic recovery), about the hack job the maintenance guys did on the bushes (He trimmed the bushes around his property himself, and he did a far better job than those guys did), about his motorcycle which he won't be able to ride in the cold of winter, and, of course, about the Rebels, lamenting the post-Thanksgiving game in which they lost against Oregon, but becoming hopeful again after their win over Iowa State. We both agreed that the team can't keep shooting three-pointers arbitrarily. They need to have a far-reaching plan for the game, adjustable as the minutes tick off, but only when they're sure they can make the shot, then they should take it. We talk every couple of days, usually sooner after a Rebels game, and that seems to be enough. With him on the graveyard shift, we don't cross paths every day. But it's more than I ever had when I existed in Southern California.
I'm not sure what he'll be driving tonight. It was pleasantly warm today, but he'll probably keep both motorcycles at the end of his driveway, under that awning, since neither come with heat, like a car would. So it'll be whichever car is his, the one that isn't his wife's. But he may be there already, waiting for the crowds to clear out. Either way, he's faced less traffic than he would have much earlier. Or maybe he is there already. Why battle with the traffic coming out of Thomas & Mack after the game? He told me that when he did get to Thomas & Mack after the season opener against Northern Arizona two weeks ago, people were still trickling out because that game had drawn the biggest crowd in UNLV Men's Basketball history. On the day of the game, there were only 500 seats still available in an arena of 18,776 seats.
I haven't been inside the Thomas & Mack Center yet, but I love walking through empty spaces, and I'm looking forward to seeing the cell phone photo Michael's going to take of the inside of the arena after everyone's left, before the cleanup begins. I'm curious about exactly how much of a mess is made, if it's bigger on more crowded nights than sparsely-crowded ones, and if this matches the season opener, which was apparently very messy.
And what still amazes me is that this is only a minute crumb of one evening in Las Vegas. But it's just as interesting a crumb as all the others that make up my city.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Stratego
Every day here at home, whether in Las Vegas or Henderson, or hopefully Boulder City one of these days to walk around again, I look for little pieces of life. Sometimes I like absorbing an epic arc by what I'm reading or if I briefly meet a particularly charismatic person, but most of the time, I like the little things. I don't need much to be satisfied.
During Black Friday, Meridith found out that Toys R Us was selling "ABBA: You Can Dance" for Wii. She's wanted it for a long time, even though she doesn't have a Wii, but that's coming soon, possibly from Best Buy, which advertises a black Wii with "Wii Sports" included, for $119. Normally, "ABBA: You Can Dance" is $39.99, so she had to grab this. Since she doesn't transfer money into her checking account all that often, and I wasn't sure how long this sale would last, I decided to order it. It wasn't for a surprise since she already knew about it. Besides, I eventually want to see what it's like, too.
$8.98 was an online-only price, but it could be picked up at a Toys R Us in our general vicinity, which meant the one on West Sunset Road in Henderson. Yesterday, I received the e-mail from Toys R Us that said it was ready for pickup, Dad printed it out today at his school, and he, Meridith and I went to Toys R Us late this afternoon since I was the only one who could pick it up, since they required not only the printed e-mail, but also a photo ID.
A woman was in front of me when we walked in, trying to figure out with a Toys R Us employee behind the counter how she was going to get the huge box of something she bought to her car. The employee had a hand truck with her, which tells you the challenge that was looming. Plus, the employee obviously wouldn't be there with the hand truck in tow once the woman got home.
But that wasn't the piece of life I found interesting. When I got to the counter and was waiting for someone to take my printed e-mail and check my ID, a man was next to me with four boxes of the board game Stratego, which I've only ever heard of. I've never played it and probably never will. When I was a kid, Guess Who, Life, and Connect Four were pretty much it. Every other game we had was either on the Nintendo or the Game Boy.
He put the boxes on the counter and explained that he had bought the game for his Boy Scout troop, but it wasn't the original Stratego. The employee helping him said it looked like the original since it said "The Classic Board Game" on the box, but he explained that it didn't have the same number of pieces that the original had. It had more. And then he went on to explain some intricacies of the new game versus what the original had, evidenced by one of the boxes that he had opened previously to check out the game, and I didn't catch any of that.
The employee helping me said that it would be 15 minutes before I could pick up the ABBA game, and so Meridith and I walked to the video game section so she could see if there were any more copies of the ABBA game, and there were none, which is lucky, since we apparently got the last copy, at least for now at that location. Then she asked the guy at the video game counter if they had any more Wiis, and they didn't.
Back at the Guest Services counter, which is nearly pressed against the entrance doors, the employee had a large, clear plastic bag containing the game, and first thought it belonged to the woman who had left with the huge box, but finally she turned around, saw us there, and knew that it belonged to us. I didn't mind that she might have momentarily forgotten, as long as it was there and as long as Meridith now has it.
Before we left, the Stratego guy was standing behind another customer who was also at the counter, holding four tin boxes of the 50th Anniversary edition of Stratego. That must have been the one he was looking for, and now he could exchange the not-original-Strategos for those ones. Now those Boy Scouts can know what real Stratego is.
During Black Friday, Meridith found out that Toys R Us was selling "ABBA: You Can Dance" for Wii. She's wanted it for a long time, even though she doesn't have a Wii, but that's coming soon, possibly from Best Buy, which advertises a black Wii with "Wii Sports" included, for $119. Normally, "ABBA: You Can Dance" is $39.99, so she had to grab this. Since she doesn't transfer money into her checking account all that often, and I wasn't sure how long this sale would last, I decided to order it. It wasn't for a surprise since she already knew about it. Besides, I eventually want to see what it's like, too.
$8.98 was an online-only price, but it could be picked up at a Toys R Us in our general vicinity, which meant the one on West Sunset Road in Henderson. Yesterday, I received the e-mail from Toys R Us that said it was ready for pickup, Dad printed it out today at his school, and he, Meridith and I went to Toys R Us late this afternoon since I was the only one who could pick it up, since they required not only the printed e-mail, but also a photo ID.
A woman was in front of me when we walked in, trying to figure out with a Toys R Us employee behind the counter how she was going to get the huge box of something she bought to her car. The employee had a hand truck with her, which tells you the challenge that was looming. Plus, the employee obviously wouldn't be there with the hand truck in tow once the woman got home.
But that wasn't the piece of life I found interesting. When I got to the counter and was waiting for someone to take my printed e-mail and check my ID, a man was next to me with four boxes of the board game Stratego, which I've only ever heard of. I've never played it and probably never will. When I was a kid, Guess Who, Life, and Connect Four were pretty much it. Every other game we had was either on the Nintendo or the Game Boy.
He put the boxes on the counter and explained that he had bought the game for his Boy Scout troop, but it wasn't the original Stratego. The employee helping him said it looked like the original since it said "The Classic Board Game" on the box, but he explained that it didn't have the same number of pieces that the original had. It had more. And then he went on to explain some intricacies of the new game versus what the original had, evidenced by one of the boxes that he had opened previously to check out the game, and I didn't catch any of that.
The employee helping me said that it would be 15 minutes before I could pick up the ABBA game, and so Meridith and I walked to the video game section so she could see if there were any more copies of the ABBA game, and there were none, which is lucky, since we apparently got the last copy, at least for now at that location. Then she asked the guy at the video game counter if they had any more Wiis, and they didn't.
Back at the Guest Services counter, which is nearly pressed against the entrance doors, the employee had a large, clear plastic bag containing the game, and first thought it belonged to the woman who had left with the huge box, but finally she turned around, saw us there, and knew that it belonged to us. I didn't mind that she might have momentarily forgotten, as long as it was there and as long as Meridith now has it.
Before we left, the Stratego guy was standing behind another customer who was also at the counter, holding four tin boxes of the 50th Anniversary edition of Stratego. That must have been the one he was looking for, and now he could exchange the not-original-Strategos for those ones. Now those Boy Scouts can know what real Stratego is.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Hack and Slash
A few minutes after 12:30 this morning, I walked Kitty and then I walked Tigger. I walked them to the bush across from the porch of the house of the neighbor who I talk Rebels basketball with, and then to the pebbles-and-dirt patch under the streetlight near the back door of a house diagonal from that neighbor's house. Then to a small stretch of bushes with light violet flowers on a few of them, facing the guest parking spaces. Then onto the dirt in that island with the stop sign planted at the head of it, facing drivers who approach that turn in the early morning.
I like those flowers. And I also like the reddish flowers that are on the bush in front of the house belonging to the Lundy family (indicated by the sign on the outside wall nearest to their screened-in porch). And I know that winter's coming and therefore changes must be made. When I went to walk the dogs again a little after noon, I saw that the leaves on some of the trees seemed to have turned red overnight, winter charging in rapidly, though not as fast in the air since it's cooler, but not as bitterly cold as it was two weeks ago.
The stop-my-walk-completely shock came when I looked over to those bushes at the guest parking spaces as I walked Kitty to that same bush across from my Rebels neighbor's porch. The flowers were not only gone, but so was the dignity of those bushes. There had been no trimming, no clipping, no topiary care of any sort. Nothing to ease the transition of these bushes into winter. Yes, I can understand that there would be no leaves on them, that they would be bare, that the small petals of those flowers would have gradually fallen onto to the dirt, but it looked like branches of those bushes had crashed violently into one another, the top ones slamming through the rest, a confused jumble of sticks that looked like a Jenga game played by hyper toddlers.
This is a fairly nice neighborhood. A few residents are decorating for Christmas, and the one two houses down that decorated elaborately for Halloween, with spider webs draped over their front-door walkway and all throughout the tree in front of their two windows, is doing the same for Christmas. The streets here are kept clean, no streetsweepers coming through, but there isn't that much debris anyway. There is such peace at night, nothing that makes you uncertain of whether you belong. I can see the Stratosphere from where I stand at the end of our driveway, and at night, I can see the lights flashing in different colors, and the red beacon at the top blinking on and off to let aircraft know that it's there. I like that. I like that I can also see the colors undulating on the Eastside Cannery building from a certain spot near my neighbor's house, which is next to the empty patch of land right next to us. It's us, that space, and then the neighbor's house. I also like seeing just a tiny bit of the Boulder Station sign from far off, and of course my solid red beacon on top of Sunrise Mountain, which I look for every night.
Flowers can't survive in winter, at least not here. I know that. But I'm still disturbed by that hack and slash job done on the bushes. I've been trying to see the beauty in it, some order to it, but I can't. It's like someone placed a tiny bomb inside it and blew it outward from the inside. What bush here deserves that? Being Las Vegas, we don't have the market cornered on greenery, but what we do have, I always appreciate. I hope they come by later on or some time before winter's over to fix it up, to make it right again. When I walked Tigger, I went to the huge, long dumpster that's next to my Rebels neighbor's house, and is also next to the side entrance to the senior mobile home park, both of which are run by the same management. I saw the branches in there with leaves still on them, the branches with flowers also carelessly dumped in there. It's not right. You trim, you take off what the forthcoming winter doesn't need. You give it a little lift for the holidays, making sure that when the weather gets warm again, it can continue where it left off. Not like this. Not as awful as this.
I like those flowers. And I also like the reddish flowers that are on the bush in front of the house belonging to the Lundy family (indicated by the sign on the outside wall nearest to their screened-in porch). And I know that winter's coming and therefore changes must be made. When I went to walk the dogs again a little after noon, I saw that the leaves on some of the trees seemed to have turned red overnight, winter charging in rapidly, though not as fast in the air since it's cooler, but not as bitterly cold as it was two weeks ago.
The stop-my-walk-completely shock came when I looked over to those bushes at the guest parking spaces as I walked Kitty to that same bush across from my Rebels neighbor's porch. The flowers were not only gone, but so was the dignity of those bushes. There had been no trimming, no clipping, no topiary care of any sort. Nothing to ease the transition of these bushes into winter. Yes, I can understand that there would be no leaves on them, that they would be bare, that the small petals of those flowers would have gradually fallen onto to the dirt, but it looked like branches of those bushes had crashed violently into one another, the top ones slamming through the rest, a confused jumble of sticks that looked like a Jenga game played by hyper toddlers.
This is a fairly nice neighborhood. A few residents are decorating for Christmas, and the one two houses down that decorated elaborately for Halloween, with spider webs draped over their front-door walkway and all throughout the tree in front of their two windows, is doing the same for Christmas. The streets here are kept clean, no streetsweepers coming through, but there isn't that much debris anyway. There is such peace at night, nothing that makes you uncertain of whether you belong. I can see the Stratosphere from where I stand at the end of our driveway, and at night, I can see the lights flashing in different colors, and the red beacon at the top blinking on and off to let aircraft know that it's there. I like that. I like that I can also see the colors undulating on the Eastside Cannery building from a certain spot near my neighbor's house, which is next to the empty patch of land right next to us. It's us, that space, and then the neighbor's house. I also like seeing just a tiny bit of the Boulder Station sign from far off, and of course my solid red beacon on top of Sunrise Mountain, which I look for every night.
Flowers can't survive in winter, at least not here. I know that. But I'm still disturbed by that hack and slash job done on the bushes. I've been trying to see the beauty in it, some order to it, but I can't. It's like someone placed a tiny bomb inside it and blew it outward from the inside. What bush here deserves that? Being Las Vegas, we don't have the market cornered on greenery, but what we do have, I always appreciate. I hope they come by later on or some time before winter's over to fix it up, to make it right again. When I walked Tigger, I went to the huge, long dumpster that's next to my Rebels neighbor's house, and is also next to the side entrance to the senior mobile home park, both of which are run by the same management. I saw the branches in there with leaves still on them, the branches with flowers also carelessly dumped in there. It's not right. You trim, you take off what the forthcoming winter doesn't need. You give it a little lift for the holidays, making sure that when the weather gets warm again, it can continue where it left off. Not like this. Not as awful as this.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Only We and the Librarian Showed
In a modest room off the entrance of the James I. Gibson Library, four middle-sized long tables made a square that suggested more of a less intimate AA meeting than speed dating. On a table near some empty book racks were a few bottles of water and a few books selected by the librarian in charge of the program to show off. And there was the librarian, 23 years old, one of many librarians here surely, but the one who spearheaded this program in hopes of bringing some of the community together, having done this once before.
23 years old. It made me wonder what the hell I did with my 20s, for a few seconds until I remembered that I wrote my first book and saw it published. She did remind me by just a recap of her life in Henderson (since she was 2 years old), that I need to haul ass on the rest of my writing projects, make them happen.
"We" was Meridith and I, Meridith having gone with me out of curiosity and bringing the Bobby Flay Mesa Cookbook to tell people about her favorite chef, if there were people who would come to this. There wasn't. There was only me, Meridith, and the librarian, whose name, incidentally, I forgot to ask.
The librarian told us that she put on this event once before, but the few people who came all knew each other, and it works better if people come who don't know each other. That would have been true if there had been more people there than just us three. And I know the librarian would have made sure that Meridith and I obviously don't get paired up to chat.
When I wrote on Facebook about no one showing up to this, I got one comment that was incredulous that I was looking for love in Las Vegas. Well, no, it wasn't that at all. I wanted to see if there were other bibliophiles in Southern Nevada who are as devoted as I am. I wanted to see who else called the local libraries home or a temple or a place of worship like I do. I wanted to get to know others who are just as content as I am sometimes reading two or three books in a day. Logic would dictate that I shouldn't have expected it in a state with a total population of 2.7 million, the majority living in Clark County. But then, I should, since the majority is here. And I know Las Vegas is a transient city and all that, even though this was in Henderson, but I do get a sense that those who live in Henderson are here for a long, long time. So I would have also hoped to meet those who call this city home.
I liked the aim of the program. I still believe in it. In fact, the librarian said that the next time she puts on this program, she'll call us ahead of time to let us know if anyone else has signed up. I'll be there again because this one librarian is trying to gather members of the community, to make the community stronger. I believe in it. I believe Henderson needs that more than ever, to fashion a stronger community, and this is one way to do it.
I'm not disappointed. I have my books. I have my ideas for future projects. I'm not going to start haunting Barnes & Noble in the hopes of finding another voracious reader. Mom says that I may find that person when I least expect it. Well, I don't expect it. If the chance comes along, it might be nice, but if not, I've got this enormous region to get to know intimately by visits to all kinds of places I still haven't been to and places I want to go back to (I desperately want to walk around Boulder City again, visit the library there, which I love because of its respect for old books, and to walk around the UNLV campus), and to study by way of the books that have striven to define it, both historically and by personal feelings. And all the stories around me every day, all the interesting people to see! What better city to spark creativity?
One night last weekend, I saw a Virgin Atlantic 747 sitting on a taxiway, waiting to be cleared to taxi to the runway and to takeoff. I saw Air Force One in the daylight, sitting at a far end of McCarran, back when Obama was preparing for his first debate in Henderson, and I'd seen a Virgin Atlantic 747 fly over me to land at McCarran, but I'd never heard one with its engines idling. I love that sound.
One day this past week, after we picked up the Michael Buble CD and the $25 gift certificate to the Ravella spa in Lake Las Vegas that Mom had won on KSNE, and after we went to two Barnes & Noble to find the connect-the-dots daily calendar Mom wanted for the new year, we went to dinner at The Hush Puppy, which has the weirdest rules, such as if you order one of their all-you-can-eat specials, you can't take home what you don't finish. I didn't get it either.
Anyway, at the table behind us, one guy was speaking loudly and I learned a bit about some of the trees we have in Las Vegas, including mesquite, and that guy being impressed by the crew that came to cut branches off of one. It was actually pretty interesting to listen to.
So I have all this. And I'm going to the library later today to pick up 15 books on hold, including The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (I like to wait for hype to pass), and Sanctuary, the seventh novel in the Decker/Lazarus series by Faye Kellerman (I've read the previous six). There's so much to do that if that person happens to come along, and I'm taken enough by her, I'll ask her to come along with me. Ideally, I'd like her to be of this area, of Henderson or Las Vegas and to have lived here for enough years that she knows so much that I don't, even with how much I know so far.
But if she doesn't, well, I'm ok with that. I'm not searching, I'm not going to search, and there's so much to do as it is! It's a good life here, a worthwhile life, far more than I've ever had before and more depth than ever.
23 years old. It made me wonder what the hell I did with my 20s, for a few seconds until I remembered that I wrote my first book and saw it published. She did remind me by just a recap of her life in Henderson (since she was 2 years old), that I need to haul ass on the rest of my writing projects, make them happen.
"We" was Meridith and I, Meridith having gone with me out of curiosity and bringing the Bobby Flay Mesa Cookbook to tell people about her favorite chef, if there were people who would come to this. There wasn't. There was only me, Meridith, and the librarian, whose name, incidentally, I forgot to ask.
The librarian told us that she put on this event once before, but the few people who came all knew each other, and it works better if people come who don't know each other. That would have been true if there had been more people there than just us three. And I know the librarian would have made sure that Meridith and I obviously don't get paired up to chat.
When I wrote on Facebook about no one showing up to this, I got one comment that was incredulous that I was looking for love in Las Vegas. Well, no, it wasn't that at all. I wanted to see if there were other bibliophiles in Southern Nevada who are as devoted as I am. I wanted to see who else called the local libraries home or a temple or a place of worship like I do. I wanted to get to know others who are just as content as I am sometimes reading two or three books in a day. Logic would dictate that I shouldn't have expected it in a state with a total population of 2.7 million, the majority living in Clark County. But then, I should, since the majority is here. And I know Las Vegas is a transient city and all that, even though this was in Henderson, but I do get a sense that those who live in Henderson are here for a long, long time. So I would have also hoped to meet those who call this city home.
I liked the aim of the program. I still believe in it. In fact, the librarian said that the next time she puts on this program, she'll call us ahead of time to let us know if anyone else has signed up. I'll be there again because this one librarian is trying to gather members of the community, to make the community stronger. I believe in it. I believe Henderson needs that more than ever, to fashion a stronger community, and this is one way to do it.
I'm not disappointed. I have my books. I have my ideas for future projects. I'm not going to start haunting Barnes & Noble in the hopes of finding another voracious reader. Mom says that I may find that person when I least expect it. Well, I don't expect it. If the chance comes along, it might be nice, but if not, I've got this enormous region to get to know intimately by visits to all kinds of places I still haven't been to and places I want to go back to (I desperately want to walk around Boulder City again, visit the library there, which I love because of its respect for old books, and to walk around the UNLV campus), and to study by way of the books that have striven to define it, both historically and by personal feelings. And all the stories around me every day, all the interesting people to see! What better city to spark creativity?
One night last weekend, I saw a Virgin Atlantic 747 sitting on a taxiway, waiting to be cleared to taxi to the runway and to takeoff. I saw Air Force One in the daylight, sitting at a far end of McCarran, back when Obama was preparing for his first debate in Henderson, and I'd seen a Virgin Atlantic 747 fly over me to land at McCarran, but I'd never heard one with its engines idling. I love that sound.
One day this past week, after we picked up the Michael Buble CD and the $25 gift certificate to the Ravella spa in Lake Las Vegas that Mom had won on KSNE, and after we went to two Barnes & Noble to find the connect-the-dots daily calendar Mom wanted for the new year, we went to dinner at The Hush Puppy, which has the weirdest rules, such as if you order one of their all-you-can-eat specials, you can't take home what you don't finish. I didn't get it either.
Anyway, at the table behind us, one guy was speaking loudly and I learned a bit about some of the trees we have in Las Vegas, including mesquite, and that guy being impressed by the crew that came to cut branches off of one. It was actually pretty interesting to listen to.
So I have all this. And I'm going to the library later today to pick up 15 books on hold, including The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (I like to wait for hype to pass), and Sanctuary, the seventh novel in the Decker/Lazarus series by Faye Kellerman (I've read the previous six). There's so much to do that if that person happens to come along, and I'm taken enough by her, I'll ask her to come along with me. Ideally, I'd like her to be of this area, of Henderson or Las Vegas and to have lived here for enough years that she knows so much that I don't, even with how much I know so far.
But if she doesn't, well, I'm ok with that. I'm not searching, I'm not going to search, and there's so much to do as it is! It's a good life here, a worthwhile life, far more than I've ever had before and more depth than ever.
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