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.
Monday, November 26, 2012
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.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Speed Dating with Books in Hand
I wake up very late Tuesday morning, leading into the opening minutes of the afternoon, not expecting to see Skyfall later that afternoon at Regal Boulder Station 11 (one of the best Bond movies, but On Her Majesty's Secret Service is still the best), not expecting to double my money on Coyote Moon, my favorite slot machine, at Boulder Station, after the movie, not expecting to go to Wing Stop for dinner that evening, and certainly not expecting to hear from my mother what I hear after I've dressed and walked into the living room:
"You're going speed dating!"
What? Me? Speed dating? Hola. Mi nombre es Rory Aronsky.
Let me back up to 3 a.m. Tuesday morning. I went to bed in the bed that I know is my bed, with all those books on the floor from the library and those which are my permanent collection. I know all those books.
I woke up in the bed that I know is my bed, in the room that I know is my room, pulling clothes that I know are my clothes from the closet that I know is my closet. Everything seems the same. When did speed dating decide to stroll on in?
After I shrug off the shock that feels like five minutes more than the two seconds it took to do so, Mom tells me that she found it in the View section, which is expressly written and printed for all the different areas of Las Vegas. We live in the Sunrise/Whitney area, so we get that section every Tuesday inside our regular Las Vegas Review-Journal.
She tells me to pick up that section of the paper, which is already on top of the rest of the paper, folded out to show the "Arts & Leisure" page, the bottom of which has the "Book Briefs" section. And here is the blurb that I read:
"DATE MY BOOK TO RETURN
Find love among the shelves at the Date My Book event scheduled from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Friday at the Gibson Library, 100 W. Lake Mead Parkway. Singles are invited to bring a favorite book and chat with other readers in five-minute sessions. For more information, visit mypubliclibrary.com or call 702-565-8402."
I wasn't sure how to react. I'm still not sure how to react. As Mom put it, "It's better than a bar or any other place like that," and that's true. It's in a library, my place of worship, and I'd like to meet other bibliophiles like me. Mom wasn't pushy about it, not hinting that I should find a date, just that I could talk books with people for a while. She doesn't read a great deal, not finding a comfortable spot to do it in yet, Dad picks one or two books a week from the new books section of the Whitney Library, and Meridith reads steadily, but not to the extent I do. Three, four, five books a week, maybe more? I've done it countless times. I'm still writing, I still want to write the books and novels that are always swirling about in my head, but there are just some weeks that I want to chuck all those plans and just read. Perhaps this event would be good for me. I follow Mom's viewpoint about this, and I stick to this about the other possibility: If it happens, then I'll work from there. If not, that's fine. I don't discount the possibility, but I'm not actively searching for a relationship. I've got an enormous city and region, and eventually state, and other states, to explore, I've got books I want to read, and books I want to write, and that's enough for me.
Right now, my library card is at its limit. 50 items. All books. My holds are at the limit of 25. I hope to meet those who do the same as me, who keep the library system running. At the Whitney Library, every Saturday or Sunday, or sometimes Monday, I walk past the other shelves full of holds to get to mine, and I look for the first four letters of those last names that appear as often as mine do, wondering about that person, how many books they read in a week, what their interests are that keep them coming to the library. This may be my chance to know more about them, no matter that this is under the jurisdiction of the Henderson Libraries system and not the Las Vegas-Clark County Library system. In fact, reading the blurb, I thought I could return the then-three, now-five books that I'm done with, before realizing that I'll have to wait until Saturday or Sunday to do that because neither the Gibson Library, nor any other Henderson branch for that matter, will accept my books because Henderson and Las Vegas are separate systems.
They say to bring a favorite book. I know exactly what I'm bringing: The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. These two novels are always locked in a Battle Royale to become my favorite novel. I've read each one nearly ten times, with more re-readings to come. I'm sure I can talk about a lot in five minutes, so I want to include that. Other topics I have in mind are my love of presidential history, my lifetime goal to read all the Star Trek novels ever published (not as a Trekkie, but as a science fiction wanderer), my other favorite books (Naturally, I don't have just one, and a favorite novel, if that battle is ever won by either of those two novels, would not be my overall favorite book, since I'll never have one), those times I just have to pre-order or order a book from Amazon because I don't want to wait for the library to hopefully get it in, and whatever else might pop up. My side of the conversation will not be pre-planned. I will not have an outline in my head.
I know exactly what I'm wearing: Jeans, both pairs of which I'll put in the laundry today to determine whether I want to wear the lighter-colored jeans (they're not that bright blue, and I could never see myself wearing that kind of brightness) or the darker-colored, and this shirt, called Lose Yourself. After I agreed to this speed dating excursion, I determined which of my four book-related t-shirts would be most appropriate, not only for this event, but also because I'll be wearing it to see Christopher Cross at 8 p.m. that night at Sunset Station. No going home to change. "Lose Yourself" would be best because it's more detailed than my other shirts (save for the rainbow in this shirt) and is suitably low-key for the other outings of the evening, which also includes Fazoli's for dinner (across from Sunset Station), and then the 10 p.m. Spazmatics show also at Sunset Station, inside Club Madrid, where Christopher Cross will just have finished performing before they come on.
I still feel a bit weird about this, not in a resorting-to-meeting-people-like-this way, but because I have my city, I have my state, I have my books, I have my favorite movies, so what else do I need? But you know what? For nine years in Santa Clarita, there was really nothing to do. To even do one interesting thing in a day, you had to leave the valley, but because of the enormous stretch of freeways to get to Ventura or Burbank or Anaheim, you had to make a day of it. Now that I'm living in Nevada, in Las Vegas, I want to do many different things! I want to experience all there is to experience! I want to see if there are any female bibliophiles who are as passionate about books as I am.
And if I do feel a twinge of something upon talking with one of those bibliophiles, well, what better place for it to happen?
Always an open mind. That's how I've lived for two months here, and it's going to stay that way. So I'm going to enjoy myself and let go. No expectations. Just the joy of talking books with those who hopefully flood the holds shelves like I do, who come to the library with big canvas bags to stock up for the week. They're my kind of people, and I should meet them! And so I will.
"You're going speed dating!"
What? Me? Speed dating? Hola. Mi nombre es Rory Aronsky.
Let me back up to 3 a.m. Tuesday morning. I went to bed in the bed that I know is my bed, with all those books on the floor from the library and those which are my permanent collection. I know all those books.
I woke up in the bed that I know is my bed, in the room that I know is my room, pulling clothes that I know are my clothes from the closet that I know is my closet. Everything seems the same. When did speed dating decide to stroll on in?
After I shrug off the shock that feels like five minutes more than the two seconds it took to do so, Mom tells me that she found it in the View section, which is expressly written and printed for all the different areas of Las Vegas. We live in the Sunrise/Whitney area, so we get that section every Tuesday inside our regular Las Vegas Review-Journal.
She tells me to pick up that section of the paper, which is already on top of the rest of the paper, folded out to show the "Arts & Leisure" page, the bottom of which has the "Book Briefs" section. And here is the blurb that I read:
"DATE MY BOOK TO RETURN
Find love among the shelves at the Date My Book event scheduled from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Friday at the Gibson Library, 100 W. Lake Mead Parkway. Singles are invited to bring a favorite book and chat with other readers in five-minute sessions. For more information, visit mypubliclibrary.com or call 702-565-8402."
I wasn't sure how to react. I'm still not sure how to react. As Mom put it, "It's better than a bar or any other place like that," and that's true. It's in a library, my place of worship, and I'd like to meet other bibliophiles like me. Mom wasn't pushy about it, not hinting that I should find a date, just that I could talk books with people for a while. She doesn't read a great deal, not finding a comfortable spot to do it in yet, Dad picks one or two books a week from the new books section of the Whitney Library, and Meridith reads steadily, but not to the extent I do. Three, four, five books a week, maybe more? I've done it countless times. I'm still writing, I still want to write the books and novels that are always swirling about in my head, but there are just some weeks that I want to chuck all those plans and just read. Perhaps this event would be good for me. I follow Mom's viewpoint about this, and I stick to this about the other possibility: If it happens, then I'll work from there. If not, that's fine. I don't discount the possibility, but I'm not actively searching for a relationship. I've got an enormous city and region, and eventually state, and other states, to explore, I've got books I want to read, and books I want to write, and that's enough for me.
Right now, my library card is at its limit. 50 items. All books. My holds are at the limit of 25. I hope to meet those who do the same as me, who keep the library system running. At the Whitney Library, every Saturday or Sunday, or sometimes Monday, I walk past the other shelves full of holds to get to mine, and I look for the first four letters of those last names that appear as often as mine do, wondering about that person, how many books they read in a week, what their interests are that keep them coming to the library. This may be my chance to know more about them, no matter that this is under the jurisdiction of the Henderson Libraries system and not the Las Vegas-Clark County Library system. In fact, reading the blurb, I thought I could return the then-three, now-five books that I'm done with, before realizing that I'll have to wait until Saturday or Sunday to do that because neither the Gibson Library, nor any other Henderson branch for that matter, will accept my books because Henderson and Las Vegas are separate systems.
They say to bring a favorite book. I know exactly what I'm bringing: The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. These two novels are always locked in a Battle Royale to become my favorite novel. I've read each one nearly ten times, with more re-readings to come. I'm sure I can talk about a lot in five minutes, so I want to include that. Other topics I have in mind are my love of presidential history, my lifetime goal to read all the Star Trek novels ever published (not as a Trekkie, but as a science fiction wanderer), my other favorite books (Naturally, I don't have just one, and a favorite novel, if that battle is ever won by either of those two novels, would not be my overall favorite book, since I'll never have one), those times I just have to pre-order or order a book from Amazon because I don't want to wait for the library to hopefully get it in, and whatever else might pop up. My side of the conversation will not be pre-planned. I will not have an outline in my head.
I know exactly what I'm wearing: Jeans, both pairs of which I'll put in the laundry today to determine whether I want to wear the lighter-colored jeans (they're not that bright blue, and I could never see myself wearing that kind of brightness) or the darker-colored, and this shirt, called Lose Yourself. After I agreed to this speed dating excursion, I determined which of my four book-related t-shirts would be most appropriate, not only for this event, but also because I'll be wearing it to see Christopher Cross at 8 p.m. that night at Sunset Station. No going home to change. "Lose Yourself" would be best because it's more detailed than my other shirts (save for the rainbow in this shirt) and is suitably low-key for the other outings of the evening, which also includes Fazoli's for dinner (across from Sunset Station), and then the 10 p.m. Spazmatics show also at Sunset Station, inside Club Madrid, where Christopher Cross will just have finished performing before they come on.
I still feel a bit weird about this, not in a resorting-to-meeting-people-like-this way, but because I have my city, I have my state, I have my books, I have my favorite movies, so what else do I need? But you know what? For nine years in Santa Clarita, there was really nothing to do. To even do one interesting thing in a day, you had to leave the valley, but because of the enormous stretch of freeways to get to Ventura or Burbank or Anaheim, you had to make a day of it. Now that I'm living in Nevada, in Las Vegas, I want to do many different things! I want to experience all there is to experience! I want to see if there are any female bibliophiles who are as passionate about books as I am.
And if I do feel a twinge of something upon talking with one of those bibliophiles, well, what better place for it to happen?
Always an open mind. That's how I've lived for two months here, and it's going to stay that way. So I'm going to enjoy myself and let go. No expectations. Just the joy of talking books with those who hopefully flood the holds shelves like I do, who come to the library with big canvas bags to stock up for the week. They're my kind of people, and I should meet them! And so I will.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Radios Playing to the Air, the Stillness, the Kitchen Counter, the Coffee Table, the Patio Door
What does an employee in the front office of an apartment complex do when they arrive in the morning? Maybe they get coffee, shuffle a few papers on their desk to see what has to be done first and what can be pushed to later, call maintenance to find out if there were any repairs done during the night, if there is 24-hour maintenance.
I wonder about that only as I remember what I saw yesterday on a family tour of two apartment complexes in Henderson. Mom wanted to move only once, from Santa Clarita to Las Vegas, but our mobile home park is inconvenient in many, seemingly unsolvable ways. For one, there are a few stairs leading to the front door, and to the back door. Mom doesn't use the front door often, but we all use the back door because the PT Cruiser is right there in the carport. Being disabled, she has to walk down those steps to the car, and if we've been out for hours, into the evening, and she's tired from all of it, she still has to climb the stairs to get into the house.
Maintenance doesn't come as often as it used to when we first moved here, and we were told that whatever we request has to be on the work order. If it's not on the work order, they don't take care of it. And to get it on the work order, we have to wait, and wait, and wait. The screen attached to Mom's window in her and Dad's bedroom fell off the other day, and I just put it in the shed. We're not ready yet to request that it be re-attached because how long will we have to wait? A week? Two weeks? There are also other things in our house that have to be repaired, that fortunately aren't hindering our daily life, so we'll request attention on those, and hope that they end up on the work order.
I kind of like the area that we're in. It is a little barren, as would be expected in the desert, but it's not a far walk to the convenience store at the Rebel gas station on the left corner, nor the McDonald's and Terrible's gas station together on the right corner, after you make a right at the end of our block and walk down that long sidewalk to get there. It takes 40 minutes by foot to get to Sam's Town, and I like having a neighborhood casino, though I'm ticked at it at the moment because neither Flight nor Skyfall is playing at the Cinemark Century 18 movie theater there. Skyfall is more critical since the James Bond series is my Star Wars, but what good is Century 18 as my neighborhood movie theater if it can't provide me with what I want? I guess, having it at Boulder Station, which is generally nearby, but requires a car to get there (I've no trouble with that, but I like walking to Sam's Town), they didn't want to put it in two places so close to each other. Still, I lose out on this, and I would think that Century 18 would like to get in on that because they would make massive money at the concession stand that first weekend, being that Skyfall is basically printing money in the U.K. right now. The slight consolation in all this is that since Century 18 is showing Wreck-It Ralph in 2D and 3D right now, I can count on Monsters, Inc. 3D to be there in December. Plus, they are showing Lincoln next week, and I've got to see that too.
Our section of the mobile home park is not really a neighborhood. People really keep to themselves, and we had that a lot already in the apartment in Valencia nine years ago and then the house in Saugus for the following eight years. I have met some nice people, but haven't seen them since. It's not the kind of place where you simply knock on doors. You wait for the opportunity if the person happens to be outside.
I know people are busy, and I know that our city has a lot of transients, people who are here for a while and then leave for another state. I understand that. I accept it. But I lived too long with people just drifting and floating by me to endure that again. I'm ok with not seeing certain people for a time, because we're not in the same circles. The higher-up in recruitment in the Clark County School District who's helping me through the application process, I appreciate what she's doing for me, and I'm always glad to see her (not only for that, but she's also a genuinely nice soul), but I don't see her often because we don't live in the same area, nor would I be working in the district office once I get hired. I'd be working at a middle school. That's fine.
Same with the people we gave Meridith's princess bed to for their little niece. I don't recall their names, I do remember that they perform in a band in various casinos (the woman we met is the lead singer), but I don't remember what their band is called or where they've played. I haven't seen them since the day they came to pick up all the parts of the bed, but I liked them, and was glad to meet them. Simply put, I'm not fond of living in a neighborhood that seems to be populated by air. That's not to say that there's no personality in the mobile home park. Each home has its own paint job and decorations, undoubtedly decided by whoever lives in each of them. It's obvious that people live here, just not sociable people, I suppose. I like bumping into people, saying hi, and having a conversation for a bit, or going on with my day. There's not much of a chance to do that here.
We moved here because it was the only development that would hold a unit for us while Dad tried to get into the district and finally succeeded. That was most important because we couldn't fathom coming here and having to temporarily move into Hawthorn Suites, or some other extended-stay property, while the dogs stayed in a kennel. We are grateful for that, but we need more. We need an actual neighborhood, somewhere that truly feels like home, that we could see ourselves there for years and years. We thought it might be this mobile home park, but once we settled in, we found out it was not so, not what we hoped.
As it turns out, Mom's first choice was Pacific Islands, an apartment complex in Henderson that she really liked, but we could never get in to see any of the units because they were always closed when we'd finally get there. On the way back to the 15, to California, from the Galleria at Sunset mall, we stopped by there, and unfortunately it was 6 p.m. and they were already closed. Mom and Dad have seen it many times before Meridith and I did on Tuesday, and I see what she likes about it. It's an actual property, with actual thought in the design. There are trees all around, and grass, and such a peaceful atmosphere that includes a well-maintained swimming pool with a large rock formation from which a waterfall flows. It's about as much as we're paying now for rent, but most important to me, I saw people walking around! It wasn't a fluke! And then the biggest surprise of all was when we went to where the sand volleyball court is, and a heavyset guy in an upstairs apartment named Justin told us how nice it is to live there, that he's lived there for seven years, and loves the atmosphere, loves how well the management maintains the property, and when you need something fixed, they're there. There's no "It has to be on the work order," or anything like that. You need it, they'll do it. You need a dryer replaced in the outside closet where the washer and dryer are, you only have to make sure that that closet is clean enough so that maintenance can pull out the faulty dryer and replace it. That deeply impressed us.
This is not entirely about Pacific Islands, although it may become more prominent in the future. One more thing I want to mention is that part of the property faces train tracks, and three times a day, cargo trains roll by, which excited our dog Tigger when we told him about it after we got home. He loves trains. I love it too because it'll help me in my writing, in being a constant source of inspiration. When we got to that area and parked the car to look around, I went to a shorter section of wall, and looked out at those train tracks. It's first a deep wash, and then the tracks, and looking at those tracks, I felt the pull of travel. One day, I want to travel throughout New Mexico, visit all the presidential libraries in the nation, and perhaps even visit my old haunts in Florida. Those tracks remind me of that, but they also make me want to write, to conjure up the stories I want to tell, to figure out how I want to tell them. Those tracks are especially beautiful at sunset, which was happening as we were walking to the car to leave. I went right back to that wall and looked at those tracks, dreaming and imagining.
So yesterday, we went to two other apartment complexes. Each had model units available to look at, decorated to show the potential renter where a couch might go, what a working kitchen might look like, what the master bedroom will feel like. I could live without all the attempted interior decoration, though I know that they wouldn't want these units to reflect reality. They want it to be nicely laid out enough to impress potential renters into becoming renters.
Here's where my opening thoughts come into play. When our guide unlocked the door to the unit we looked at at both complexes, there was music playing from somewhere, some radio station that I only listen to at length because it's on all day in this house, and it may not even be that one, but it sounded similar to ours. Where was that music coming from? Was there a sound system somewhere in the living room? No. There was a small radio on the floor in each of the living rooms of these model units, plugged into the wall. Is there any employee who walks to the units at the end of each workday to shut off those radios? And in the morning, do they do the same to turn them on? Or do they just leave them to play all night and all day, even when there's no one who comes to see the units on a given day? It's interesting to me because the singers featured on that particular station have their worst audiences ever in these two units alone. They're basically singing to the nearby refrigerator. When we walked into the model unit at the second apartment complex, Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" was playing. I forgot what was playing in the first unit when we walked in, but after we left, and after our guide closed and locked the door, I wondered what was playing at that moment, and who would be up next to sing to the coffee table.
While we're still going to look at other apartment complexes in Henderson to see if there's anything we want more in any of those, Pacific Islands seems to be the top choice for all of us. It's quaint in many sections, peaceful in all, and there's people all around! A trickle throughout the day. I like that. I like that it won't feel like it does here during a Saturday or a Sunday. People come, people go, but no one really seems to exist. I hope Pacific Islands is what's to come because despite the troubles currently facing the Henderson Libraries, such as the upcoming closures of two branches (including the most unique one inside a small space at the Galleria at Sunset mall) that may somewhat reduce the book choices I will have, I can live with that for all that I will gain at Pacific Islands, creative sparks all around, all the time. That's good enough for me.
I wonder about that only as I remember what I saw yesterday on a family tour of two apartment complexes in Henderson. Mom wanted to move only once, from Santa Clarita to Las Vegas, but our mobile home park is inconvenient in many, seemingly unsolvable ways. For one, there are a few stairs leading to the front door, and to the back door. Mom doesn't use the front door often, but we all use the back door because the PT Cruiser is right there in the carport. Being disabled, she has to walk down those steps to the car, and if we've been out for hours, into the evening, and she's tired from all of it, she still has to climb the stairs to get into the house.
Maintenance doesn't come as often as it used to when we first moved here, and we were told that whatever we request has to be on the work order. If it's not on the work order, they don't take care of it. And to get it on the work order, we have to wait, and wait, and wait. The screen attached to Mom's window in her and Dad's bedroom fell off the other day, and I just put it in the shed. We're not ready yet to request that it be re-attached because how long will we have to wait? A week? Two weeks? There are also other things in our house that have to be repaired, that fortunately aren't hindering our daily life, so we'll request attention on those, and hope that they end up on the work order.
I kind of like the area that we're in. It is a little barren, as would be expected in the desert, but it's not a far walk to the convenience store at the Rebel gas station on the left corner, nor the McDonald's and Terrible's gas station together on the right corner, after you make a right at the end of our block and walk down that long sidewalk to get there. It takes 40 minutes by foot to get to Sam's Town, and I like having a neighborhood casino, though I'm ticked at it at the moment because neither Flight nor Skyfall is playing at the Cinemark Century 18 movie theater there. Skyfall is more critical since the James Bond series is my Star Wars, but what good is Century 18 as my neighborhood movie theater if it can't provide me with what I want? I guess, having it at Boulder Station, which is generally nearby, but requires a car to get there (I've no trouble with that, but I like walking to Sam's Town), they didn't want to put it in two places so close to each other. Still, I lose out on this, and I would think that Century 18 would like to get in on that because they would make massive money at the concession stand that first weekend, being that Skyfall is basically printing money in the U.K. right now. The slight consolation in all this is that since Century 18 is showing Wreck-It Ralph in 2D and 3D right now, I can count on Monsters, Inc. 3D to be there in December. Plus, they are showing Lincoln next week, and I've got to see that too.
Our section of the mobile home park is not really a neighborhood. People really keep to themselves, and we had that a lot already in the apartment in Valencia nine years ago and then the house in Saugus for the following eight years. I have met some nice people, but haven't seen them since. It's not the kind of place where you simply knock on doors. You wait for the opportunity if the person happens to be outside.
I know people are busy, and I know that our city has a lot of transients, people who are here for a while and then leave for another state. I understand that. I accept it. But I lived too long with people just drifting and floating by me to endure that again. I'm ok with not seeing certain people for a time, because we're not in the same circles. The higher-up in recruitment in the Clark County School District who's helping me through the application process, I appreciate what she's doing for me, and I'm always glad to see her (not only for that, but she's also a genuinely nice soul), but I don't see her often because we don't live in the same area, nor would I be working in the district office once I get hired. I'd be working at a middle school. That's fine.
Same with the people we gave Meridith's princess bed to for their little niece. I don't recall their names, I do remember that they perform in a band in various casinos (the woman we met is the lead singer), but I don't remember what their band is called or where they've played. I haven't seen them since the day they came to pick up all the parts of the bed, but I liked them, and was glad to meet them. Simply put, I'm not fond of living in a neighborhood that seems to be populated by air. That's not to say that there's no personality in the mobile home park. Each home has its own paint job and decorations, undoubtedly decided by whoever lives in each of them. It's obvious that people live here, just not sociable people, I suppose. I like bumping into people, saying hi, and having a conversation for a bit, or going on with my day. There's not much of a chance to do that here.
We moved here because it was the only development that would hold a unit for us while Dad tried to get into the district and finally succeeded. That was most important because we couldn't fathom coming here and having to temporarily move into Hawthorn Suites, or some other extended-stay property, while the dogs stayed in a kennel. We are grateful for that, but we need more. We need an actual neighborhood, somewhere that truly feels like home, that we could see ourselves there for years and years. We thought it might be this mobile home park, but once we settled in, we found out it was not so, not what we hoped.
As it turns out, Mom's first choice was Pacific Islands, an apartment complex in Henderson that she really liked, but we could never get in to see any of the units because they were always closed when we'd finally get there. On the way back to the 15, to California, from the Galleria at Sunset mall, we stopped by there, and unfortunately it was 6 p.m. and they were already closed. Mom and Dad have seen it many times before Meridith and I did on Tuesday, and I see what she likes about it. It's an actual property, with actual thought in the design. There are trees all around, and grass, and such a peaceful atmosphere that includes a well-maintained swimming pool with a large rock formation from which a waterfall flows. It's about as much as we're paying now for rent, but most important to me, I saw people walking around! It wasn't a fluke! And then the biggest surprise of all was when we went to where the sand volleyball court is, and a heavyset guy in an upstairs apartment named Justin told us how nice it is to live there, that he's lived there for seven years, and loves the atmosphere, loves how well the management maintains the property, and when you need something fixed, they're there. There's no "It has to be on the work order," or anything like that. You need it, they'll do it. You need a dryer replaced in the outside closet where the washer and dryer are, you only have to make sure that that closet is clean enough so that maintenance can pull out the faulty dryer and replace it. That deeply impressed us.
This is not entirely about Pacific Islands, although it may become more prominent in the future. One more thing I want to mention is that part of the property faces train tracks, and three times a day, cargo trains roll by, which excited our dog Tigger when we told him about it after we got home. He loves trains. I love it too because it'll help me in my writing, in being a constant source of inspiration. When we got to that area and parked the car to look around, I went to a shorter section of wall, and looked out at those train tracks. It's first a deep wash, and then the tracks, and looking at those tracks, I felt the pull of travel. One day, I want to travel throughout New Mexico, visit all the presidential libraries in the nation, and perhaps even visit my old haunts in Florida. Those tracks remind me of that, but they also make me want to write, to conjure up the stories I want to tell, to figure out how I want to tell them. Those tracks are especially beautiful at sunset, which was happening as we were walking to the car to leave. I went right back to that wall and looked at those tracks, dreaming and imagining.
So yesterday, we went to two other apartment complexes. Each had model units available to look at, decorated to show the potential renter where a couch might go, what a working kitchen might look like, what the master bedroom will feel like. I could live without all the attempted interior decoration, though I know that they wouldn't want these units to reflect reality. They want it to be nicely laid out enough to impress potential renters into becoming renters.
Here's where my opening thoughts come into play. When our guide unlocked the door to the unit we looked at at both complexes, there was music playing from somewhere, some radio station that I only listen to at length because it's on all day in this house, and it may not even be that one, but it sounded similar to ours. Where was that music coming from? Was there a sound system somewhere in the living room? No. There was a small radio on the floor in each of the living rooms of these model units, plugged into the wall. Is there any employee who walks to the units at the end of each workday to shut off those radios? And in the morning, do they do the same to turn them on? Or do they just leave them to play all night and all day, even when there's no one who comes to see the units on a given day? It's interesting to me because the singers featured on that particular station have their worst audiences ever in these two units alone. They're basically singing to the nearby refrigerator. When we walked into the model unit at the second apartment complex, Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" was playing. I forgot what was playing in the first unit when we walked in, but after we left, and after our guide closed and locked the door, I wondered what was playing at that moment, and who would be up next to sing to the coffee table.
While we're still going to look at other apartment complexes in Henderson to see if there's anything we want more in any of those, Pacific Islands seems to be the top choice for all of us. It's quaint in many sections, peaceful in all, and there's people all around! A trickle throughout the day. I like that. I like that it won't feel like it does here during a Saturday or a Sunday. People come, people go, but no one really seems to exist. I hope Pacific Islands is what's to come because despite the troubles currently facing the Henderson Libraries, such as the upcoming closures of two branches (including the most unique one inside a small space at the Galleria at Sunset mall) that may somewhat reduce the book choices I will have, I can live with that for all that I will gain at Pacific Islands, creative sparks all around, all the time. That's good enough for me.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
The Interesting People of Las Vegas Never Lessen
It was exactly 2 p.m. when I started for the clubhouse near the entrance and exit of our mobile home development, to return Milo Talon by Louis L'Amour to the bookshelves inside, near the pool table (I can't read it yet since it's part of a series), and to see if perchance the mail came early for once.
I put Milo Talon back where a few other Westerns had been, and then noticed that Gennie, one of the clerks of the development (she's lower down on the management totem pole, but among us residents, is the most recognizable face and personality besides Margaret, the manager), was reading across from the door to her office, which is also where people come to at the window to pay their rent.
We started talking about Halloween, the few decorations around the neighborhood, how the rest of the neighborhood probably doesn't want to decorate because it's so much work and then you have to take it down again. There's one home on my block that has such elaborate decorations, including spider webs in the trees in the front, and skulls and cauldrons, that makes me think that they've got to be really passionate about Halloween to plan all that out and then do it. Makes me wonder if they're planning the same detail for Christmas.
Then we went on to the food of Las Vegas, and I don't remember what the segue was into it, but I learned that Gennie is from Bosnia, Croatia, somewhere in that part of the world, and I was talking about how a friend of mine here in Las Vegas, who gave me a lot of info before we moved here, lamented how there's no Polish food here, nothing like he had in Chicago. There's Italian, there's Greek, there's so many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese restaurants that it would take you a few years to try them all. There's even Italian and Greek food festivals, as Gennie told me and promised to give me the flyers for them, and Filipinos in Las Vegas have Seafood City, which offers a massive selection of Filipino cuisine. All kinds of fish that I didn't even know existed until we got here. But no Polish sausage, nothing like Chicago has. I told Gennie that my family and I have the same kind of problem, since there's no White Castle in Las Vegas and there should be, preferably in New York-New York since they have a Nathan's there, which also has other locations in the valley, but it means more at New York-New York, and so White Castle should consider the same, because I know they would make more profit in one day than they do the entire year, owing to the sheer number of New York expatriates here. I've had White Castle on the east coast, where it actually is, on a visit in 1994, and I know what my parents mean with their desire for a location here. It's that good.
After that conversation, which included learning where there's a Bosnian store that sells food from that country (I didn't even know there was one, and Gennie said that they're in the northwest valley, and they don't even advertise enough), I went to check the mail, which of course wasn't there, and talked to one of the maintenance guys who was sweeping, and we chatted a bit about the weather finally getting down to a comfortable temperature, where it's warm, but not overly warm, as it has been the past few days, even when it's just 79 degrees.
Rounding the corner from the mailboxes to the entrance of the clubhouse, I saw Alfonso, the maintenance guy who helped out a lot in our house when we first moved in, making some desperately-needed repairs, and we also chatted about the weather, with me saying that this weather right now will be enough to tide me over until spring, but I dread having to fold up a good number of my t-shirts and put them on the shelf above the hangers, and then bring my sweatshirts down from the same shelf and hang them up. He then asked how we were all settling in, and I talked about how Dad was well settled in, and Meridith was at his school today, meeting everyone, since she'll be working there soon in the cafeteria, much like I hope to be working there soon as a campus security monitor. I then told him about when Meridith and I went to Sam's Town when Mary Poppins was playing for two showings at the Century 18 movie theater there, we went to get players' cards, and we told the person helping us about how Dad was in the school district and we were looking for work in there too and she said, confidently, "Oh, you'll get in. No problem about that." Even the people who don't work in the district know. People are really tapped into their city here.
After Alfonso had to get back to work, I walked up one street, next to the pool, playground and basketball courts, and then rounded a corner and went down the street next to it, between mobile homes that were closer together than in my section of the development. It felt very cozy, and I wondered why we hadn't moved to this area, but remembered that where we were living was only one of two properties available for rental at the time. I liked how neighborly it felt, and there were a few trees leaning over the street a little bit, and it would have been perfect to have a porch right there, to just sit and enjoy the afternoon, to feel the genuine peace that that street gives off. It's like nothing can ever bother you there, that there's nothing that can interrupt that peace. I loved it, but I also like where we are because it's like a gateway to the rest of the world, that there are so many questions asked, so much to be curious about, such as the empty plot of land next to our mobile home, and the other empty plot directly across from us. I remember that Alfonso once said that the plot next to us has been empty for six months and the one across from us for more years than he's been here. Something like that. I would love to know who was here before, how long they lived here, what they did in their lives here.
I may have that chance yet, depending on when I'm outside next, and when he's outside. By he, I mean the apparent patriarch of the Lundy family, who lives catercorner from us. I was at the end of that comfortable street, saw the New Mexico license plate I like so much on an SUV parked in another unit, rounded that corner, and walked past the few parking spaces for guests. The patriarch, a grizzled older man, saw me and said, "I guess that means the mail hasn't come yet?" Mind you, I never met him before this, never talked to him, but it didn't jar me because I like talking to anyone. I said to him, "Nope. I think this mailman straddles a fine line between organized and OCD." You see, this mailman seems to never get more than one section of mailboxes done every half an hour. He's the slowest I've ever seen, and while it is nice that the mail's at least put in our box nicely, you can't expect to have it any later than 2:30 to 3. That's generally fine with me since I don't take a walk to get the mail as often as I did in our first month here, but today I did because I wanted to return that Louis L'Amour book and see if those goodie bags in the front office were available for everyone, or just for us. Gennie told me that they were all gone already, and it was probably for the kids. Makes more sense. Besides, when we moved in on September 14, we already got our goodie bag, which was a huge welcome basket with a lot of stuff in it, that I'm sure I'll write about some time soon.
Anyway, the Lundy patriarch told me that the mailman used to deliver the mail by 10 or 11 a.m. I asked him how long he'd lived here, meaning the city, and he said 19 years. I asked how long he'd lived in this development, and he replied, "Like I said, 19 years." Now this is the man whose brain I want to pick! I want to know what this development looked like all those years ago. I want to know more about those empty plots of land, who lived there, what they were like. I want to know all this history. He's usually outside in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening, especially now that his stepson (who he's not fond of at all) is installing new brakes on his truck, and started on the left side last night, then quitting and saying he'd be back in the morning. Except he wasn't back in the morning and still hadn't arrived when I was talking to the patriarch.
He's nice enough, but the sort that you talk with once in a while. You do not want to cross him. There was one night before I knew him when the cat had gotten out, and the stepson ran after it, cursing loud enough for the neighborhood to hear, and the patriarch followed, yelling at HIM!
But 19 years, though. He's been in the Las Vegas I've never been in, and I want to learn more from him, especially about my immediate area. Obviously, with him having lived in that mobile home for 19 years, this mobile home park has been around for a while, but what was its management like before Margaret and the rest of the current group? Were the policies stricter or more lax? I hope he's willing to chat more about all that. To me, history is very important in this city, and the more I know, the closer I can be to it.
I got back to our house, and decided to walk Tigger because we were planning to go out right after Dad and Meridith got home. My favorite house is on my side of the street, the last one before that wide area that includes an industrial-size dumpster, and a side gate leading into the senior mobile home park, that some use illegally to go between both parks, and that security uses during the day and well into the night. This house is right next to that area, and I love its porch because it has a few plants dotted throughout, one next to a bench, another next to a table on the far end, and another, a taller one, next to a bench that backs up to the window next to the front door. This is my favorite space in the entire mobile home park, because there's such a wonderful balance that few other porches in this park achieve. For sheer peace, for a sense of place, you can't get better than this. And that's why I walk Tigger and Kitty near there, to look at that all the time, and especially at night, when it's there, spreading its own spirit in the air around it. I feel it every night.
This time, walking Tigger past there on the way back to the house, a man was sitting on the porch and asked me what kind of dog Tigger was ("What kind of dog is it?" he asked). I told him, and we got to talking, and by the end, this man became my favorite in this entire development because of how far he came to Las Vegas, his history, his life. His name's Michael, and he's got 10 years to retirement. He works in construction as a carpenter, going where the work takes him, sometimes in Nevada, sometimes in Southern California, but always steady work. However, his biggest passion is his own woodwork. He makes clocks, he carves family trees, carving names into it, he even carves brass! He likes to go to Northern California whenever we can to collect from rivers driftwood that he uses for his carvings. Whenever he has spare time, this is exactly what he does.
He hails from Charleston, South Carolina, and wants to move back. When he moved out here, his parents asked him if he was sure about being out here. He's been here for nine months (When I told him that we've been almost two months, he said, "So you're in the same way I am."), and plans to give it three to four more months to see what he wants to do, if he wants to stay here longer. When I told Mom about him, she said that Margaret had said that there are a lot of transients here, people who stay for a while, but don't stay much longer than that. I knew of this before we moved, but had never seen proof until now. I understand Michael's desire, though, because he's really passionate about home, talking about how hurricanes barely touch where he lived when they pass through. I told him that I was born in Florida, but am not Southern by blood, being born to parents who are from New York, but I love Southern culture, such as the antebellum mansions that I wish I could have. Then he reminded me of the cost of those, and to maintain them, and they're fine for history, but it's impossible to have them any other way.
Michael's an example of one of the things that I love about Las Vegas: No one really conforms like they do in Southern California, when they're either trying to be something else just to survive or just to be part of the crowd. There's too much of that there. But Michael, in his passion for his art and his life, shows that people are who they are in Las Vegas. They know where they came from, they know who they want to be here, they know what they want to keep from what they were, and what they want to create anew. You can reinvent yourself here, but you never lose sight of your identity.
The transients are just as important as the residents. They bring a little something from their respective cultures and they leave it behind to enrich our city even more. I never thought anything about wood carving before I met Michael today. I've seen examples, but never considered it at length. I never even knew brass could be carved into more than just merry-go-round poles. I've been on a lot of merry-go-rounds, and that's all I've ever really known of brass. And yet here is a man who makes it his life, who loves working at it.
Las Vegas, no matter if you're a tourist or a resident, is about new experiences every day. Each day, you see something new, while also hanging onto what you like every day, and you decide if you want to add that new thing to your life, to hold it, to know it every day. I love the Whitney Library, I hang onto it every day by dint of the books I check out from there each week, and I have a lot of new experiences. But I also get new experiences from what's around me, from the foliage I see, from the rocks and pebbles that make up the landscape of this mobile home park, from the lights of Sam's Town far off, from seeing the Eastside Cannery's lights every evening. Learning a bit about wood carving and brass carving from Michael is new to me, but now I want to know more. I want to add more. And tomorrow, who knows? I may meet another neighbor, or see something I never noticed on one of my local streets, or find a slot machine I've never seen before, even though I've seen a lot of slot machines. Anything's possible here, and the interesting people of Las Vegas help make it that way.
I put Milo Talon back where a few other Westerns had been, and then noticed that Gennie, one of the clerks of the development (she's lower down on the management totem pole, but among us residents, is the most recognizable face and personality besides Margaret, the manager), was reading across from the door to her office, which is also where people come to at the window to pay their rent.
We started talking about Halloween, the few decorations around the neighborhood, how the rest of the neighborhood probably doesn't want to decorate because it's so much work and then you have to take it down again. There's one home on my block that has such elaborate decorations, including spider webs in the trees in the front, and skulls and cauldrons, that makes me think that they've got to be really passionate about Halloween to plan all that out and then do it. Makes me wonder if they're planning the same detail for Christmas.
Then we went on to the food of Las Vegas, and I don't remember what the segue was into it, but I learned that Gennie is from Bosnia, Croatia, somewhere in that part of the world, and I was talking about how a friend of mine here in Las Vegas, who gave me a lot of info before we moved here, lamented how there's no Polish food here, nothing like he had in Chicago. There's Italian, there's Greek, there's so many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese restaurants that it would take you a few years to try them all. There's even Italian and Greek food festivals, as Gennie told me and promised to give me the flyers for them, and Filipinos in Las Vegas have Seafood City, which offers a massive selection of Filipino cuisine. All kinds of fish that I didn't even know existed until we got here. But no Polish sausage, nothing like Chicago has. I told Gennie that my family and I have the same kind of problem, since there's no White Castle in Las Vegas and there should be, preferably in New York-New York since they have a Nathan's there, which also has other locations in the valley, but it means more at New York-New York, and so White Castle should consider the same, because I know they would make more profit in one day than they do the entire year, owing to the sheer number of New York expatriates here. I've had White Castle on the east coast, where it actually is, on a visit in 1994, and I know what my parents mean with their desire for a location here. It's that good.
After that conversation, which included learning where there's a Bosnian store that sells food from that country (I didn't even know there was one, and Gennie said that they're in the northwest valley, and they don't even advertise enough), I went to check the mail, which of course wasn't there, and talked to one of the maintenance guys who was sweeping, and we chatted a bit about the weather finally getting down to a comfortable temperature, where it's warm, but not overly warm, as it has been the past few days, even when it's just 79 degrees.
Rounding the corner from the mailboxes to the entrance of the clubhouse, I saw Alfonso, the maintenance guy who helped out a lot in our house when we first moved in, making some desperately-needed repairs, and we also chatted about the weather, with me saying that this weather right now will be enough to tide me over until spring, but I dread having to fold up a good number of my t-shirts and put them on the shelf above the hangers, and then bring my sweatshirts down from the same shelf and hang them up. He then asked how we were all settling in, and I talked about how Dad was well settled in, and Meridith was at his school today, meeting everyone, since she'll be working there soon in the cafeteria, much like I hope to be working there soon as a campus security monitor. I then told him about when Meridith and I went to Sam's Town when Mary Poppins was playing for two showings at the Century 18 movie theater there, we went to get players' cards, and we told the person helping us about how Dad was in the school district and we were looking for work in there too and she said, confidently, "Oh, you'll get in. No problem about that." Even the people who don't work in the district know. People are really tapped into their city here.
After Alfonso had to get back to work, I walked up one street, next to the pool, playground and basketball courts, and then rounded a corner and went down the street next to it, between mobile homes that were closer together than in my section of the development. It felt very cozy, and I wondered why we hadn't moved to this area, but remembered that where we were living was only one of two properties available for rental at the time. I liked how neighborly it felt, and there were a few trees leaning over the street a little bit, and it would have been perfect to have a porch right there, to just sit and enjoy the afternoon, to feel the genuine peace that that street gives off. It's like nothing can ever bother you there, that there's nothing that can interrupt that peace. I loved it, but I also like where we are because it's like a gateway to the rest of the world, that there are so many questions asked, so much to be curious about, such as the empty plot of land next to our mobile home, and the other empty plot directly across from us. I remember that Alfonso once said that the plot next to us has been empty for six months and the one across from us for more years than he's been here. Something like that. I would love to know who was here before, how long they lived here, what they did in their lives here.
I may have that chance yet, depending on when I'm outside next, and when he's outside. By he, I mean the apparent patriarch of the Lundy family, who lives catercorner from us. I was at the end of that comfortable street, saw the New Mexico license plate I like so much on an SUV parked in another unit, rounded that corner, and walked past the few parking spaces for guests. The patriarch, a grizzled older man, saw me and said, "I guess that means the mail hasn't come yet?" Mind you, I never met him before this, never talked to him, but it didn't jar me because I like talking to anyone. I said to him, "Nope. I think this mailman straddles a fine line between organized and OCD." You see, this mailman seems to never get more than one section of mailboxes done every half an hour. He's the slowest I've ever seen, and while it is nice that the mail's at least put in our box nicely, you can't expect to have it any later than 2:30 to 3. That's generally fine with me since I don't take a walk to get the mail as often as I did in our first month here, but today I did because I wanted to return that Louis L'Amour book and see if those goodie bags in the front office were available for everyone, or just for us. Gennie told me that they were all gone already, and it was probably for the kids. Makes more sense. Besides, when we moved in on September 14, we already got our goodie bag, which was a huge welcome basket with a lot of stuff in it, that I'm sure I'll write about some time soon.
Anyway, the Lundy patriarch told me that the mailman used to deliver the mail by 10 or 11 a.m. I asked him how long he'd lived here, meaning the city, and he said 19 years. I asked how long he'd lived in this development, and he replied, "Like I said, 19 years." Now this is the man whose brain I want to pick! I want to know what this development looked like all those years ago. I want to know more about those empty plots of land, who lived there, what they were like. I want to know all this history. He's usually outside in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening, especially now that his stepson (who he's not fond of at all) is installing new brakes on his truck, and started on the left side last night, then quitting and saying he'd be back in the morning. Except he wasn't back in the morning and still hadn't arrived when I was talking to the patriarch.
He's nice enough, but the sort that you talk with once in a while. You do not want to cross him. There was one night before I knew him when the cat had gotten out, and the stepson ran after it, cursing loud enough for the neighborhood to hear, and the patriarch followed, yelling at HIM!
But 19 years, though. He's been in the Las Vegas I've never been in, and I want to learn more from him, especially about my immediate area. Obviously, with him having lived in that mobile home for 19 years, this mobile home park has been around for a while, but what was its management like before Margaret and the rest of the current group? Were the policies stricter or more lax? I hope he's willing to chat more about all that. To me, history is very important in this city, and the more I know, the closer I can be to it.
I got back to our house, and decided to walk Tigger because we were planning to go out right after Dad and Meridith got home. My favorite house is on my side of the street, the last one before that wide area that includes an industrial-size dumpster, and a side gate leading into the senior mobile home park, that some use illegally to go between both parks, and that security uses during the day and well into the night. This house is right next to that area, and I love its porch because it has a few plants dotted throughout, one next to a bench, another next to a table on the far end, and another, a taller one, next to a bench that backs up to the window next to the front door. This is my favorite space in the entire mobile home park, because there's such a wonderful balance that few other porches in this park achieve. For sheer peace, for a sense of place, you can't get better than this. And that's why I walk Tigger and Kitty near there, to look at that all the time, and especially at night, when it's there, spreading its own spirit in the air around it. I feel it every night.
This time, walking Tigger past there on the way back to the house, a man was sitting on the porch and asked me what kind of dog Tigger was ("What kind of dog is it?" he asked). I told him, and we got to talking, and by the end, this man became my favorite in this entire development because of how far he came to Las Vegas, his history, his life. His name's Michael, and he's got 10 years to retirement. He works in construction as a carpenter, going where the work takes him, sometimes in Nevada, sometimes in Southern California, but always steady work. However, his biggest passion is his own woodwork. He makes clocks, he carves family trees, carving names into it, he even carves brass! He likes to go to Northern California whenever we can to collect from rivers driftwood that he uses for his carvings. Whenever he has spare time, this is exactly what he does.
He hails from Charleston, South Carolina, and wants to move back. When he moved out here, his parents asked him if he was sure about being out here. He's been here for nine months (When I told him that we've been almost two months, he said, "So you're in the same way I am."), and plans to give it three to four more months to see what he wants to do, if he wants to stay here longer. When I told Mom about him, she said that Margaret had said that there are a lot of transients here, people who stay for a while, but don't stay much longer than that. I knew of this before we moved, but had never seen proof until now. I understand Michael's desire, though, because he's really passionate about home, talking about how hurricanes barely touch where he lived when they pass through. I told him that I was born in Florida, but am not Southern by blood, being born to parents who are from New York, but I love Southern culture, such as the antebellum mansions that I wish I could have. Then he reminded me of the cost of those, and to maintain them, and they're fine for history, but it's impossible to have them any other way.
Michael's an example of one of the things that I love about Las Vegas: No one really conforms like they do in Southern California, when they're either trying to be something else just to survive or just to be part of the crowd. There's too much of that there. But Michael, in his passion for his art and his life, shows that people are who they are in Las Vegas. They know where they came from, they know who they want to be here, they know what they want to keep from what they were, and what they want to create anew. You can reinvent yourself here, but you never lose sight of your identity.
The transients are just as important as the residents. They bring a little something from their respective cultures and they leave it behind to enrich our city even more. I never thought anything about wood carving before I met Michael today. I've seen examples, but never considered it at length. I never even knew brass could be carved into more than just merry-go-round poles. I've been on a lot of merry-go-rounds, and that's all I've ever really known of brass. And yet here is a man who makes it his life, who loves working at it.
Las Vegas, no matter if you're a tourist or a resident, is about new experiences every day. Each day, you see something new, while also hanging onto what you like every day, and you decide if you want to add that new thing to your life, to hold it, to know it every day. I love the Whitney Library, I hang onto it every day by dint of the books I check out from there each week, and I have a lot of new experiences. But I also get new experiences from what's around me, from the foliage I see, from the rocks and pebbles that make up the landscape of this mobile home park, from the lights of Sam's Town far off, from seeing the Eastside Cannery's lights every evening. Learning a bit about wood carving and brass carving from Michael is new to me, but now I want to know more. I want to add more. And tomorrow, who knows? I may meet another neighbor, or see something I never noticed on one of my local streets, or find a slot machine I've never seen before, even though I've seen a lot of slot machines. Anything's possible here, and the interesting people of Las Vegas help make it that way.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
The Neighborhood Opens Up
Most visitors to Las Vegas will dart between casinos on the Strip and maybe see what lies beyond the Strip, into the actual, real-life city of Las Vegas, but they may never know the supermarkets Las Vegans shop at, the Walmarts they visit, the businesses they work at each day. Not everyone in Las Vegas works on the Strip or for casino corporations.
The tourist's view of Las Vegas depends solely on where they've been and where they might go the next time they come here. The view from various points on the Strip is expansive, but all of Las Vegas itself can only be truly known by its residents. I am one and so is my family.
When we were tourists here, we had that exact mindset. We had to go here, we had to go there. Even when we were in Las Vegas to seek work for Dad, we still dashed. We, and then Mom and Dad, slowed down only long enough to figure out where we were going to live. And now that we live in Las Vegas, this city, this valley, this desert expands even more than we had thought possible. We thought that as tourists, we had covered a great percentage of Las Vegas. We had seen it, we had played it, we had experienced it. As residents, I don't think we've covered even one percent of what Las Vegas offers, but that doesn't cause despair because now we have time. We don't have to go back to Southern California after a few days here. We live here. We are here for good.
We're now month-old residents (we arrived on Friday, September 14), and the frenetic zigzag of moving has mostly faded, save for still decorating sections or our mobile home. I still have to get a bookcase, a lamp, and a reading chair for my room, and some kind of couch and lamp for where my TV, DVD player, VCR, and sizable DVD collection is, in a separate room for all of it, next to Meridith's room. I haven't found what I want yet, but all that is workable. It takes time, but we have that now. And being settled in, so much more of the city is possible to explore now.
Take Sam's Town, on Boulder Highway, which is only 5-7 minutes away by car, and is therefore our neighborhood casino. We went there for the first time in our second week as residents. On our first day in Las Vegas, that Friday, Dad had gotten back from the bank with cash to tip the movers that had helped move all our stuff in. And this was after a four-hour drive, starting at 7 a.m., from Santa Clarita to Las Vegas, with stops in Barstow and Baker on the way, with two dogs and two birds in the car. Mom and Meridith and I had been chatting with the movers while we were out, and one of them mentioned players' cards that you can get for free at casinos all throughout Las Vegas, on and off the Strip. I'd heard about them, but was unsure because even if it was free, wouldn't they pressure you to play more? I don't mean having the card would pressure you, but the casino itself. Wouldn't there be some kind of hidden charges later on? A former co-worker of Meridith's in the cafeteria kitchen at La Mesa Junior High is a heavy-enough gambler that she's gotten so much comped in Las Vegas, including hotel rooms, meals and shows, and she has cards to so many casinos. But even so, aren't those cards for people like that woman? Doesn't seem like they'd be for us. The mover said he has a few and he uses them for discounts at buffets, restaurants, and other things. I still wasn't sure.
In our second week, we went to Sam's Town to get one of those players' cards, called B Connected, since Sam's Town is one of many Boyd Gaming casinos. We went to the B Connected desk and Dad got his card, but I didn't get one, because I still didn't feel comfortable about it. Then we went to the Mystic Falls area to watch the water-and-laser show they have in the evenings, and I loved it. I loved the animatronic animals, the lasers showing images on the rocks, the loud music, everything. I felt very comfortable here right away, feeling that this could become a regular haunt for me. Yet when we walked through the rest of the casino that night, past the blackjack and roulette tables, I was a little overwhelmed by it. Not because I didn't like what I was seeing, but it just felt strange. Was I really here? Do I really live nearby? Is all this actually available to me whenever I want? When you've spent five years trying to get here, it takes a little time to believe that you're here, and you don't have to leave the next day.
At South Point last week, where we went to Steak and Shake for the first time since Florida, I saw on the digital billboard on our way out that the Century movie theater there was showing a few classic movies. Gone with the Wind was the first on October 10, and then I was stunned: The next movie to be shown was....Mary Poppins! I couldn't believe it. But more than that, I needed tickets! I needed to go to see my favorite movie on a bigger screen with bigger sound!
The next day, I found out that Gone with the Wind and Mary Poppins were part of a five-film series put on by Cinemark, called the Cinemark Classic Series. And even better for me was that one of the participating theaters was Century 18 at Sam's Town. Of course I needed to go, but I debated when to go. It was showing at 2 and 7 p.m., on October 17. Yesterday. The 7 p.m. showing meant that Dad could drive me there, or me and Meridith if she wanted to go too, but we'd get out at 9:30. Far too late to do anything else, since Dad works the next day, and we're residents, not tourists.
The 2 p.m. showing had more possibility. Sure Meridith and I would have to walk to Sam's Town, but at least the scenery is more interesting here than it ever was in Santa Clarita. We could either walk the front end, passing Taco Bell, Fresh and Easy and other stores along the way, or the back end, taking a right after we walk out of one of the gates at the front of our neighborhood, across from the clubhouse. There's more dirt and empty land on that route, but still interesting to see, plus less traffic and therefore safer. Most important was the weather, the temperature. If it was going to be 91, it would be taxing on us. But in the 80s would be better, and I found out it would be 83 on the Wednesday that we would go.
And then Meridith remembered that each ticket stub from the movie theater is good for a free game of bowling at the 56-lane bowling alley downstairs at Sam's Town. So we could go see Mary Poppins and then go bowling! What a way to spend a Wednesday afternoon!
So fast forward to late yesterday morning. Meridith and then Mom looked at the Sam's Town website to be reminded of what kind of eats they offered there, and Mom suggested maybe the Firelight Buffet at lunchtime. Two Saturdays ago, we went to the breakfast buffet there. My rule of thumb about a breakfast buffet is that if there are grits, it's ok by me. And it was. It also happened to be the second day of the Age of Chivalry Renaissance Festival at Silver Bowl Park, near our home, since the festival's regular location was undergoing refurbishing and new construction. At the table behind us were a troubadour with a guitar, a court jester, and a large woman who looked like she'd work at one of the pubs in olden times. They were all dressed in full costume, even the court jester with the crazy hat. But what made the morning most delightful was that because all three were performing at the festival, the troubadour, in order to warm up before it was time to go, strolled through the dining areas, strumming his guitar, and singing. Find me this anywhere else. Find me any other city where people are totally unafraid to be themselves, to live their lives out loud if they so desire. San Francisco may be one, but don't they spend most of their time worrying about rent?
A few minutes before 11:30, we set out for Sam's Town. Meridith asked which way I wanted to go, and I asked her which way she wanted to go. Automatic impasse, but then, not really, because in our first full week, we both turned left after we walked out of one of the gates, walked down that sidewalk, made another left, and walked all the way down to the intersection that has a Rebel gas station on the left, a Terrible's gas station/McDonald's combination on the right, a 7-11 right in front of you, and a shopping center to the right of that. We walked to see what was further down from our immediate area, and found that Fresh and Easy, in 91-degree weather, which is not as comfortable as I thought it would be, mainly because there was no wind. Just a blazing sun at the end of summer.
So we turned right out of the gate. In the past four weeks, we've driven wide roads, wider than I ever saw in Southern California and even Florida, but I've never actually seen them. When we walked to what we found was Fresh and Easy that first time, I was looking at what was in front of me, directly ahead, not the road itself. I never looked down, never noticed the lanes, the ease of the cars moving from lane to lane, or turning at the intersection. I was just amazed that all this was mine, that I could do with it whatever I wanted, within legal reason of course.
Walking that long sidewalk to a nearby intersection and then crossing the street to the sidewalk on the other side for more shade, I was in awe of this road. It was so wide. Even without having a car right now, I know I can drive these roads. I can make those turns, I can change lanes, I can make u-turns. Just don't ask me to parallel park, because I would like to go through the rest of my life without ever doing that. I believe in parking in a regular space, and then pulling out, aiming the car at whatever exit I need, and driving away. I want it that simple.
Meridith reminded me that the entire population of Nevada, a little less than three million, is less than the population of Los Angeles. No wonder we have museums devoted to city and state history. No wonder people seem more relaxed here. We have time. We can do whatever we want. We can take each day and steer it wherever we feel like going. Time is never an enemy here because we use it all up. Casinos open all the time are proof of that.
It took us 43 minutes to walk from our development to Sam's Town. And in that time, I finally knew where I was going, because the weekend before, when Dad drove the same way we were walking, Meridith and I studied every inch of it to figure out how to get there and what would be the best way. It turns out that the only difference between walking the front way and the back way is that you have to cross two streets on the back way to get to Sam's Town, whereas with the front way, you only have to cross once. Both are the same distance.
When we drove those roads in our first week, having to go to the Walmart Supercenter across from Sam's Town to get a few things, or going further out just to see what was around, I only knew that when I saw the post office next to the Terrible's gas station, we were getting closer to home. I hung onto that because I didn't know any of the other roads around us, or how to get to the Smith's on Sahara which is in the same shopping center as a branch of the Las Vegas Athletic Club, Capriotti's sandwich shop, and a counter-service Chinese restaurant whose name I keep forgetting. I think, with how much I read about Las Vegas in the five years before we finally arrived, and reading all the issues of The Henderson Press up until we moved, that I expected to know everything right away, know where I was, know where I wanted to be often. That was definitely an egregious assumption. But now, four weeks later, these streets and sidewalks have gone from intimidating to comfortable. I know more about my area, I know where the streets away from it goes. I'm not yet sure how to get back here from anywhere in Henderson, but I'll get there. I almost know how to get back here from the Strip. I've seen it many times.
It's like any neighborhood in Las Vegas is suspicious of you when you move in, not yielding an inch, making you prove yourself, that you're not going to be moving in the next few months, that you're here to make a life for yourself. And then when it senses your honorable intentions, it shows you just a little more, and then the next week, more still. That's what it felt like, but I'm relieved my neighborhood has finally opened up to me, that I know where I am, who I am here, and how I want it to be. So far, it's working well.
The tourist's view of Las Vegas depends solely on where they've been and where they might go the next time they come here. The view from various points on the Strip is expansive, but all of Las Vegas itself can only be truly known by its residents. I am one and so is my family.
When we were tourists here, we had that exact mindset. We had to go here, we had to go there. Even when we were in Las Vegas to seek work for Dad, we still dashed. We, and then Mom and Dad, slowed down only long enough to figure out where we were going to live. And now that we live in Las Vegas, this city, this valley, this desert expands even more than we had thought possible. We thought that as tourists, we had covered a great percentage of Las Vegas. We had seen it, we had played it, we had experienced it. As residents, I don't think we've covered even one percent of what Las Vegas offers, but that doesn't cause despair because now we have time. We don't have to go back to Southern California after a few days here. We live here. We are here for good.
We're now month-old residents (we arrived on Friday, September 14), and the frenetic zigzag of moving has mostly faded, save for still decorating sections or our mobile home. I still have to get a bookcase, a lamp, and a reading chair for my room, and some kind of couch and lamp for where my TV, DVD player, VCR, and sizable DVD collection is, in a separate room for all of it, next to Meridith's room. I haven't found what I want yet, but all that is workable. It takes time, but we have that now. And being settled in, so much more of the city is possible to explore now.
Take Sam's Town, on Boulder Highway, which is only 5-7 minutes away by car, and is therefore our neighborhood casino. We went there for the first time in our second week as residents. On our first day in Las Vegas, that Friday, Dad had gotten back from the bank with cash to tip the movers that had helped move all our stuff in. And this was after a four-hour drive, starting at 7 a.m., from Santa Clarita to Las Vegas, with stops in Barstow and Baker on the way, with two dogs and two birds in the car. Mom and Meridith and I had been chatting with the movers while we were out, and one of them mentioned players' cards that you can get for free at casinos all throughout Las Vegas, on and off the Strip. I'd heard about them, but was unsure because even if it was free, wouldn't they pressure you to play more? I don't mean having the card would pressure you, but the casino itself. Wouldn't there be some kind of hidden charges later on? A former co-worker of Meridith's in the cafeteria kitchen at La Mesa Junior High is a heavy-enough gambler that she's gotten so much comped in Las Vegas, including hotel rooms, meals and shows, and she has cards to so many casinos. But even so, aren't those cards for people like that woman? Doesn't seem like they'd be for us. The mover said he has a few and he uses them for discounts at buffets, restaurants, and other things. I still wasn't sure.
In our second week, we went to Sam's Town to get one of those players' cards, called B Connected, since Sam's Town is one of many Boyd Gaming casinos. We went to the B Connected desk and Dad got his card, but I didn't get one, because I still didn't feel comfortable about it. Then we went to the Mystic Falls area to watch the water-and-laser show they have in the evenings, and I loved it. I loved the animatronic animals, the lasers showing images on the rocks, the loud music, everything. I felt very comfortable here right away, feeling that this could become a regular haunt for me. Yet when we walked through the rest of the casino that night, past the blackjack and roulette tables, I was a little overwhelmed by it. Not because I didn't like what I was seeing, but it just felt strange. Was I really here? Do I really live nearby? Is all this actually available to me whenever I want? When you've spent five years trying to get here, it takes a little time to believe that you're here, and you don't have to leave the next day.
At South Point last week, where we went to Steak and Shake for the first time since Florida, I saw on the digital billboard on our way out that the Century movie theater there was showing a few classic movies. Gone with the Wind was the first on October 10, and then I was stunned: The next movie to be shown was....Mary Poppins! I couldn't believe it. But more than that, I needed tickets! I needed to go to see my favorite movie on a bigger screen with bigger sound!
The next day, I found out that Gone with the Wind and Mary Poppins were part of a five-film series put on by Cinemark, called the Cinemark Classic Series. And even better for me was that one of the participating theaters was Century 18 at Sam's Town. Of course I needed to go, but I debated when to go. It was showing at 2 and 7 p.m., on October 17. Yesterday. The 7 p.m. showing meant that Dad could drive me there, or me and Meridith if she wanted to go too, but we'd get out at 9:30. Far too late to do anything else, since Dad works the next day, and we're residents, not tourists.
The 2 p.m. showing had more possibility. Sure Meridith and I would have to walk to Sam's Town, but at least the scenery is more interesting here than it ever was in Santa Clarita. We could either walk the front end, passing Taco Bell, Fresh and Easy and other stores along the way, or the back end, taking a right after we walk out of one of the gates at the front of our neighborhood, across from the clubhouse. There's more dirt and empty land on that route, but still interesting to see, plus less traffic and therefore safer. Most important was the weather, the temperature. If it was going to be 91, it would be taxing on us. But in the 80s would be better, and I found out it would be 83 on the Wednesday that we would go.
And then Meridith remembered that each ticket stub from the movie theater is good for a free game of bowling at the 56-lane bowling alley downstairs at Sam's Town. So we could go see Mary Poppins and then go bowling! What a way to spend a Wednesday afternoon!
So fast forward to late yesterday morning. Meridith and then Mom looked at the Sam's Town website to be reminded of what kind of eats they offered there, and Mom suggested maybe the Firelight Buffet at lunchtime. Two Saturdays ago, we went to the breakfast buffet there. My rule of thumb about a breakfast buffet is that if there are grits, it's ok by me. And it was. It also happened to be the second day of the Age of Chivalry Renaissance Festival at Silver Bowl Park, near our home, since the festival's regular location was undergoing refurbishing and new construction. At the table behind us were a troubadour with a guitar, a court jester, and a large woman who looked like she'd work at one of the pubs in olden times. They were all dressed in full costume, even the court jester with the crazy hat. But what made the morning most delightful was that because all three were performing at the festival, the troubadour, in order to warm up before it was time to go, strolled through the dining areas, strumming his guitar, and singing. Find me this anywhere else. Find me any other city where people are totally unafraid to be themselves, to live their lives out loud if they so desire. San Francisco may be one, but don't they spend most of their time worrying about rent?
A few minutes before 11:30, we set out for Sam's Town. Meridith asked which way I wanted to go, and I asked her which way she wanted to go. Automatic impasse, but then, not really, because in our first full week, we both turned left after we walked out of one of the gates, walked down that sidewalk, made another left, and walked all the way down to the intersection that has a Rebel gas station on the left, a Terrible's gas station/McDonald's combination on the right, a 7-11 right in front of you, and a shopping center to the right of that. We walked to see what was further down from our immediate area, and found that Fresh and Easy, in 91-degree weather, which is not as comfortable as I thought it would be, mainly because there was no wind. Just a blazing sun at the end of summer.
So we turned right out of the gate. In the past four weeks, we've driven wide roads, wider than I ever saw in Southern California and even Florida, but I've never actually seen them. When we walked to what we found was Fresh and Easy that first time, I was looking at what was in front of me, directly ahead, not the road itself. I never looked down, never noticed the lanes, the ease of the cars moving from lane to lane, or turning at the intersection. I was just amazed that all this was mine, that I could do with it whatever I wanted, within legal reason of course.
Walking that long sidewalk to a nearby intersection and then crossing the street to the sidewalk on the other side for more shade, I was in awe of this road. It was so wide. Even without having a car right now, I know I can drive these roads. I can make those turns, I can change lanes, I can make u-turns. Just don't ask me to parallel park, because I would like to go through the rest of my life without ever doing that. I believe in parking in a regular space, and then pulling out, aiming the car at whatever exit I need, and driving away. I want it that simple.
Meridith reminded me that the entire population of Nevada, a little less than three million, is less than the population of Los Angeles. No wonder we have museums devoted to city and state history. No wonder people seem more relaxed here. We have time. We can do whatever we want. We can take each day and steer it wherever we feel like going. Time is never an enemy here because we use it all up. Casinos open all the time are proof of that.
It took us 43 minutes to walk from our development to Sam's Town. And in that time, I finally knew where I was going, because the weekend before, when Dad drove the same way we were walking, Meridith and I studied every inch of it to figure out how to get there and what would be the best way. It turns out that the only difference between walking the front way and the back way is that you have to cross two streets on the back way to get to Sam's Town, whereas with the front way, you only have to cross once. Both are the same distance.
When we drove those roads in our first week, having to go to the Walmart Supercenter across from Sam's Town to get a few things, or going further out just to see what was around, I only knew that when I saw the post office next to the Terrible's gas station, we were getting closer to home. I hung onto that because I didn't know any of the other roads around us, or how to get to the Smith's on Sahara which is in the same shopping center as a branch of the Las Vegas Athletic Club, Capriotti's sandwich shop, and a counter-service Chinese restaurant whose name I keep forgetting. I think, with how much I read about Las Vegas in the five years before we finally arrived, and reading all the issues of The Henderson Press up until we moved, that I expected to know everything right away, know where I was, know where I wanted to be often. That was definitely an egregious assumption. But now, four weeks later, these streets and sidewalks have gone from intimidating to comfortable. I know more about my area, I know where the streets away from it goes. I'm not yet sure how to get back here from anywhere in Henderson, but I'll get there. I almost know how to get back here from the Strip. I've seen it many times.
It's like any neighborhood in Las Vegas is suspicious of you when you move in, not yielding an inch, making you prove yourself, that you're not going to be moving in the next few months, that you're here to make a life for yourself. And then when it senses your honorable intentions, it shows you just a little more, and then the next week, more still. That's what it felt like, but I'm relieved my neighborhood has finally opened up to me, that I know where I am, who I am here, and how I want it to be. So far, it's working well.
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