Las Vegas

Homesick

October 7, 2011 By Kirsten

I hate this time of year in Las Vegas. Sure, it’s not so blazing hot anymore and I can go outside without fear of bursting into flames. We’ve had some really cool temps and rain this past week, and the air is crisp and cool and – dare I say it – smells fresh instead of the usual dusty and stale. I’ve been sleeping with the window open a bit and cuddling under the blankets.

The other day, as I drove home, it was raining. It wasn’t a quickly passing thunderstorm that floods one block, as Vegas usually gets. This was a regular old rain, falling on most of the city. At a stoplight I closed my eyes for a second and I could see trees with colorful leaves, clapboard houses with fall decorations on their front porches, and I could almost smell the hot apple cider. But then I opened them again and saw idiot drivers, rows upon rows of lookalike stucco houses with their entrances hiding behind giant garage doors, and sagebrush blowing in the wind. What a letdown.

This is the time of year that is the absolute hardest to be away from New England. Autumn is my absolute favorite season. Things get cozy again after a hot, humid summer, kids go back to school and everyone’s still excited about it, and the holidays start coming up in rapid succession, giving us a lot to look forward to. And holidays, of course, mean family – a family that I am over 2500 miles away from, making it expensive and inconvenient to see them when I most want to.

Right now I’m sitting in front of my computer in my bland stucco house, enjoying the cool air, missing my family, the excitement of fall – my home. I keep thinking about where to go when I finally do move out of Vegas, and every year at this time I think about returning home. Maybe one day I finally will.

Filed Under: Las Vegas, Talking About Myself

Soaked

September 13, 2011 By Kirsten

It’s raining out.

Ok, most of you are like, “So what?” But don’t forget, I live in Las Vegas. That’s in the desert. And if you know anything about a desert climate, you know that it’s not exactly known for precipitation.

Las Vegas is also in a basin surrounded by mountains. There might be rain in the general area, but it’s rare that it makes it up and over the mountains to bring us rain here in the valley. And when it does rain, it tends to be very localized. For example, in the 2003 floods, rain caused flash flooding so bad that firefighters had to be rescued from their truck, but where I was living, it didn’t even get cloudy out. So when we see rain and hear about flash flood warnings, we tend to keep an eye out for flooding in our area, but also take the warnings with a grain of salt since flash flooding in the Vegas valley doesn’t necessarily mean your block.

Last night, we had a bit of a thunderstorm. There was flashy lightening and loud thunder, but I don’t think it rained at my house. This morning as I was getting ready for work, I heard a bit of thunder and saw that it was cloudy out. When I got out of the shower, it was raining and by the time I got to the freeway, it had stopped.

I kept driving, seeing some lightening in the distance but I didn’t think it would rain again before I got to work. At a stoplight, I saw a brilliant flash of lightening, which was followed 2 seconds later by a loud crack of thunder. I continued on my way, stopped for breakfast at a drive-thru, and kept going. When I was just a couple of miles from work, I said to myself, “Gee, I hope I make it to work before it starts raining.”

Then the sky opened up.

I continued on my way, driving carefully because of all the water on the road. That’s another fun thing about Vegas – the dirt is so hard that it’s like concrete, and the ground can’t really absorb all that much before it just starts flowing. The Clark County Regional Flood Control District has been busy trying to keep up with growth in the area and maintaining flood control channels, so the water eventually makes its way out of the valley. Also, since it rarely rains, the roads get pretty slick when they do get wet.

General rule when there’s minor street flooding is to avoid the right lane. Most major roads are 3 lanes in each direction, and the right lane tends to flood first. Lucky for me, my turn was on the left, so the left lane is the one I stayed in. There was a dip in the road right before my turn, but the water was only about 3-4 inches deep and I was able to get thru just fine, especially in the wake of another car. I made my turn, then turned right into the parking lot, going through about 6-9 inches of water there, which was all rushing towards the storm drain. The rain was really coming down hard, and didn’t look to be letting up anytime soon. I parked as close to the door as I could, grabbed my stuff, and made a run for it.

Unfortunately, when it’s raining that hard, there’s really no way to avoid getting wet. The bottoms of my pant legs were soaked, and then a puddle I couldn’t avoid got my feet wet. My company is great about things like this, because one of our maintenance workers was opening the door for people so they didn’t have to spend a second longer than they had to in the rain. I rushed inside, shook off a bit, and went up to my office.

I was able to shake out my sweater and dry that off fairly quickly, but my feet are still wet. I have my shoes off under my desk to try to dry out a bit, but I’m not holding out hope. What I am hoping for is that it’s not raining that hard when I go to lunch.

After 8 years in the desert, I’m not used to rain anymore. I like it, so long as I don’t have to go out in it. I don’t know how I’m going to get used to the weather again when I finally move out of Vegas.

For those who want to see for themselves, The Weather Channel has some pics on their website here.

Filed Under: Las Vegas

Not So Hot

June 2, 2011 By Kirsten

The first of June has come and gone, and it still hasn’t hit 100°F here yet. Not that I’m complaining – I’m in no hurry for the searing heat to come to Las Vegas. It’s just a bit unusual is all. Normally we see our first 100°F day by mid-May, but I can’t recall a time in the eight years that I’ve been living here when that hasn’t happened. Our ten-day forecast doesn’t even show us getting close. Again, not complaining.

It’s been getting harder and harder to handle the heat. I’m the kind of person who gets cold when it’s below 80°F, but the heat wears me down quite easily. I also miss having distinct seasons, but I’m not ready to leave Vegas yet. There’s still a lot going on here that needs taking care of, and we don’t know how long that will take. Besides, I’d be crazy to give up a perfectly good job in this economy.

Anyway, heat. I’ll have my summer wardrobe ready, but really it would be nice to have a colder than average summer. I know my wallet will be happy with a lower electric bill!

How’s the weather where you are? Is everyone staying safe with all the stormy weather?

Filed Under: Las Vegas

The Visit

February 16, 2011 By Kirsten

I promised a post about my Mom’s visit, so here it is.

Because of epic snowstorms crippling the eastern 2/3 of the country, Mom was not able to get here on Thursday morning like she planned. She wasn’t able to get here on Thursday at all. Luckily, the airline called her and rescheduled for Friday, but she wouldn’t get in until Friday evening. It was a shorter visit, but I’d still get to see my mommy.

Mom got in on time Friday evening, and since she’d been dreaming about it, I took her to In N Out Burger for dinner. I also picked up a burger for Mister and Greta to share later. Got Mom home, gave her a house tour, and stayed up for a little bit before bed.

Saturday I wanted to do a few things that I had originally planned, so Mom and I headed to the Bellagio for brunch at their cafe. It was delish, and though a bit expensive, well worth it. After that I wanted to check out a few antiques stores in town, but after finding that the first one was filled with overpriced junk, we scrapped that plan. Instead, I took her to the bead store. I bought a few things and Mom bought some tumbled stone beads that she said she had plans to do something with. (I also made Mom a pair of earrings that morning to go with her yellow shirt, but I didn’t get pictures. Maybe Mom can take some?)

After shopping, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some things for dinner, since I really didn’t have anything at home. Then when we got home – Mister cooked dinner! He made lamb, Greek potatoes, tzatziki, and for dessert he tried to make truffles but we ate them too fast, so we really had soft ganache balls rolled in cocoa powder. It was all very yummy, and Mister has elevated himself to “saint” as far as she’s concerned.

On Sunday, my mom was due to check in at a hotel on the Strip, since the original plan had her staying 3 nights at our house and then on the Strip since I had to go back to work. I didn’t end up taking any time off on Thursday or Friday since she wasn’t here yet, so I planned on taking Monday off. Anyway, I took Mom to the Crown and Anchor, a British-style pub here in town that has excellent food. Then we went to check her into the hotel, where I took some cold meds and tried to get rid of the headache that was growing inside me. It didn’t work, so I said goodbye to my mom and went home to rest.

Monday, I had plans to spend the day with Mom on another marathon shopping session, but since I wasn’t feeling to great I begged off and spent the day resting. It really made all the difference, since I knew that if I went and ran myself down I’d never get over the cold. Rest was good.

Tuesday I went back to work, but since Mom was leaving that afternoon, I took a long lunch and picked her up from her hotel and took her out to lunch. It kinda made up for not seeing her on Monday. Mom’s flight home was on time and uneventful, and she called me when she got in.

It was funny to see how Greta reacted to other people in the house. I haven’t been a very good dog mommy and she hasn’t been socialized very much, and this was the first time that we’ve had someone else in the house. Greta didn’t seem to like it very much. She growled at my mom and whimpered a lot whenever Mom was around. On Saturday after I left, I got a text message from Mister asking me why Greta was so stressed. She was actually howling! I think it was because the strange lady was talking to her and then Mommy left with the strange lady and it warped her little doggie mind. No offense to my mom, but Greta was very happy to have her humans back all to herself.

So that’s about it – an uneventful visit with my mom. I’m looking forward to my next trip to New England, because I’ll get to see everyone instead of the one at a time that happens when people come out here.

Filed Under: Family, Las Vegas

In Which I Meet Other Bloggers

September 27, 2010 By Kirsten

It all started with a tweet. Then there was a blog post. I left a comment that basically said, “I’d like to, but I’m a wimp when it comes to meeting people so I’ll pass.” Adam emailed me to say that I should come. So, I bit the bullet and said I’d be there.

It was fun – once I got past the room-spinning, heart beating in my throat feeling. Bloggers are nice people. Also, bloggers don’t think it’s rude if you whip out your cell phone to tweet. I checked Twitter and followed my new friends, but actually didn’t tweet while I was out.

We had dinner at Yolo’s at Planet Hollywood to celebrate Red Lotus Mama’s 30-something birthday. I met her, Lexi and Marco, Countess Mo, Sarahndipitea, and the famous Avitable. There were other people there – I didn’t get all their names or Twitter handles, but they were all really nice.

After dinner, we went to Avitable’s suite for cupcakes. It was a birthday, and the rules say there must be cake of some sort. Countess Mo came with me since she could get me into the rooms area, which was really nice because I would never have found it on my own. We piled into the room, where everyone sat around eating cupcakes, drinking, chatting, and of course tweeting.

I was worried that people would think I wasn’t having fun, but really, I was. I’m not the most social creature when you meet me in person, so I’m usually content to spend my time listening to everyone else’s conversations. If it’s one on one, I do a lot better conversationally. I did have fun – this was my first time meeting other bloggers, people who get it when it comes to putting your life on the internet, and I enjoyed it. I’d like to meet more bloggers next time they’re in town.

And now, some pictures: