All packed up and ready to go!

Holy cow, it's the last weekend before a major international vacation -- I leave on Thursday for Vietnam! 

As you might expect, I devoted this weekend entirely to travel preparations.  I made many lists: 

• a packing list (in the form of a spreadsheet with items sorted into six columns and categories),
• a shopping list,
• a list of stores that would have the items on said shopping list,
• an "order of operations" to ensure maximum efficiency in visiting each of those stores, and
• a backup list of all the things I thought of while shopping that weren't on my original list.

Thanks to good weather, good planning and good luck, everything went smoothly and I find myself fully packed and ready to go a good four days ahead of schedule.  Maybe this once I won't have to stay up all night before my flight trying to get everything done.  (And if I do, at least it will be for reasons other than packing -- like cleaning the apartment.)

Now if only all of my work projects were in equally tidy shape . . . .



The packing list materializes before my eyes

This one is for Lady and Quynh-Nhu, who will appreciate all these
tidy little bags full of things. The existence of little stuff sacks makes
me want to have more things to put in them.

My captive Boba Fett.  Mark gave him to me 14 years ago when I left on
my mission.  He travels everywhere with me in this little film canister.

And this, my friends, is what I'll be living out of for the next two-and-a-half
 weeks. (I've even set out my outfit for the plane ride to Hanoi --
can't wait till I'm wearing it out the door!)

Container Gardens, Year 3 - Focus on color and texture

Spring and summer are my favorite seasons.  The days are long and bright and warm, and I get to plant my balcony gardens.  I finished all my planting about a month ago and have enjoyed watching them grow.  Every morning I sit on the balcony to eat a piece of fruit and soak in the colors and textures in the morning light.

Every year I try to do something new and a little different.  Two years ago I started from scratch with a red and white arrangement of mostly annuals.  Last year I expanded by adding a few more pots and a water feature; I incorporated more perennials and shifted to a pink and green color theme.  This year, I kept the same basic arrangement (albeit with some inadvertent additions; I have a habit of buying more plants than I have pots for, so I end up going back for more pots) but took a different approach to color. 

With such a shady balcony, I normally rely heavily on impatiens to provide the color, with all the leafy plants providing background texture.  This year, however, there's a nationwide blight on impatiens, and so they are nowhere to be found in the nurseries.  This forced me to get creative and try out colorful alternatives.  The resulting arrangement focuses as much on foliage as it does on flowers (probably more).  The rich-hued leaves of the coleus and Persian Shield provide as much color as the New Guinea impatiens and sprays of astilbe.  It's not a flashy arrangement, instead it feels luxurious and serene.

 

 

 

 

 

Color

All labels are left to right, clockwise.

Amstel begonia "Clara", Persian Shield, wax begonia,
New Guinea Impatiens "Sweet Cherry"

Variegated sedge, coral bells, bergenia "Bressingham Ruby", caladium,
coleus "Wizard Sun Velvet", variegated hosta, astilbe, wintergreen

Astilbe, variegated hosta, caladium, coleus "Wizard Sun Velvet"

Coleus "Wizard Sun Velvet", caladium, golden creeping jenny

Coleus "Splish Splash", coleus "Vino", purple spike, white geranium,
Albert spruce

Texture

 

Things I love: Discovering how two things go together in a way I'd never thought of before

When I was in Morocco last summer, I bought several large ornamental plates.  One of them, with its rich yellow and red pattern and silver latticework overlay, is a lovely piece but very different from the other blue and white ceramics I brought home.  I didn't know what to do with it.  There was no obvious place on the wall and it seemed out of place wherever I tried to hang it.

 

Same thing for a pretty little vintage cloisonne vase that I found in a shop in Colorado (the same shop that had the butterflies).  I loved the shape, the turquoise color, and the floral motif, but I didn't have anywhere to put it that made sense.  Wherever I put it, it just felt random.

 

Then one day I started focusing on the space between the ceiling and the top of the bookcase in my bedroom.  I didn't like it.  It felt empty; a little awkward.  I stewed and stewed.  Then it dawned on me:  "What if I did this . . . "

 

Oh yes.  Yes, yes, yes.  

 

Things I love: Coming up with an idea before I see it in the magazines (and then seeing it in the magazines)

Last December I bought a giant blue Peruvian butterfly that caught my eye in an ecclectic Colorado shop.  Now it hangs above a shelf in my bathroom.  I love the richness of color and elegance of form that it brings to the space.

Now, here we are six months later, and guess what shows up in this month's issue of Elle Decor . . .



 

and also in the April issue of Vogue Living Australia (which I just read over the weekend) . . .



Butterflies!  The very same giant blue Peruvian butterflies. 

One of the reasons I read design magazines is to develop my eye.  In fact, Edith Wharton, in her book On the Decoration of Houses, said that the best way to develop one's eye for beauty is to look at other beautiful things through travel, visiting museums, displaying them in your house, etc.  There's a difference, though, between imitating the taste of others and developing your own.  And sometimes, when you do something that you haven't seen others do, it's easy to worry that what you've done is tacky and that no one but you would like it.  Seeing, after the fact, that others have done similar things is reassuring -- proof that you aren't totally off track. 

Not that I really thought I was off track with this butterfly.  I mean, look at that blue!

 

Things I love: Trying out what I see in the magazines and having it work

If you read design magazines, you've probably noticed that nearly every photograph of a room will include fresh-cut flowers -- more often than not, they're peonies.  The heavily petaled blossoms offer such rich color and texture that they bring life and interest to any room.  

I've been keeping fresh flowers in my bathroom for quite a while now, and I love them.  But unlike the designers and stylists in the magazines, I'm at the mercy of the flower section at the local grocery stores -- and that means no peonies. 

Until today, anyway.  Look!

They won't last long, but they're glorious while they're here.  Makes me wish every season was peony season.

Things I love: Old family photos

My Dad just sent me this wonderful historical snapshot.  It must have been taken in 1958 (or earlier), so he would have been at most 6 years old at the time.  He didn't give any other background on the photo, other than the email subject line, which suggested that the snapshot was taken in connection with a trip on horseback -- not surprising, since the McKays were/are horse people.


Back row, left to right:  John A. McKay (Granny's oldest brother); Ernest R. McKay (Granny's dad, i.e. my great grandfather); David O. McKay (Mormon prophet at the time); unknown; the last one is probably a son of David O.
Front row, left to right:  Jim McKay (John's son, my first cousin once removed); unknown; Ernest C. "Bud" McKay (Granny's middle brother); Jack J. Davis (my paternal grandfather); and probably another son of David O. 

The only two people that I, personally, have known are my grandfather (the original JJD) and Jim McKay.  I can't recall if I met the others before they passed away; if I did, I would have been very young.  But I've heard their names forever, and I've seen things they passed down.  For example, I remember playing with Ernest R's white cowboy hat when I was a little boy. 

I love photos like this.  They make connections between the folks I know and the folks who have gone before.  And they help me feel connected to my heritage by linking faces to names and specific historical context (even if all I know about that context is that these men all went horseback riding once).

 

Desert wedding -- El Paso and Las Cruces

I can honestly say that I never thought I'd go to El Paso, Texas.  Especially not for a wedding.  Double especially not for a Jewish wedding.  But I did!  And it was wonderful and fun.

 

I went for the bride, Kristin, who is one of my good friends from law school.  She's originally from Las Cruces, New Mexico (about an hour from El Paso), and went back after graduation to clerk for a judge -- and now, five years later, she's got a life and career and brand-new husband all set up there. 

 

I flew out with Amy and Judy, also friends from law school, and part of Kristin's circle of friends.  We coordinated so that we'd be on the same flights, and then we shared a car and hotel rooms.  It was tons of fun to travel with them and to see Kristin again and meet her family.  None of us had gone to our five-year class reunion at NYU last month -- this was so much better!

 



Moi, Judy, Kristin, Amy

I was particularly excited to be part of a Jewish wedding.  Kristin wasn't raised Jewish, but she converted after she started dating David.  The ceremony resembled Christian weddings in some ways (the rings, the vows) and differed in others (the huppah, the Hebrew chanting, the bride walking around the groom, the smashed glass).  It was beautiful and I loved it.

 

 

I particularly enjoyed having to wear a yarmulke in the synagogue. The last time I wore a yarmulke was in high school when I played Motel the Tailor in Fiddler on the Roof. This felt so much more authentic (and yet, the depiction of the Jewish wedding in Fiddler is not far off at all).

 

Next time I want one of those neat woven yarmulkes with all the colors.

I have a video on my phone of the Hava Nagila dance, where the bride and groom are carried aloft on chairs in a wild and exuberant dance -- but I can't figure out how to get it off my phone and into this blog post (Flickr has clearly changed something since the last time I posted video). Oh well.

The wedding festivities were only part of the weekend. When we weren't celebrating, Amy, Judy and I went exploring. We decided to focus on Las Cruces, New Mexico, since it had a better reputation than El Paso (which really is kind of an armpit). We started with nature -- and by "nature" I mean the brown, parched, sun-drenched desert spreading in every direction as far as the eye can see.



The hills near Las Cruces are particularly rugged and had an appealingly named "Dripping Springs" hike that offered a ruined sanatorium and a mysteriously murdered hermit.  Turns out there are neither drips nor springs at Dripping Springs, but the rest was all true -- and we met a very enthusiastic volunteer in the visitors center who gave us the whole history. She also warned us about rattlesnakes ("Just walk away") and mountain lions ("Scream like a girl! But DON'T run -- they're like big housecats and will think you're a mousie!"). When she heard where we were from and saw that we had no water with us, she rolled her eyes and went into the back room, emerging a few minutes later with bottles of deliciously cold water for each of us. She clearly had no intention of letting a bunch of idiot city slickers hike to their death by dehydration on her watch.

The hike was hot, dusty and short. And despite our best efforts we had no occasion to scream like girls and not run away.  Quel dommage.

The alleged Dripping Springs

The murdered hermit's cave is out there.

Cacti amidst the ruins

HEEEEERE KITTY KITTY KITTY!  WHERE AAAARE YOU?

Nature wasn't the only thing worth exploring. What these cities lack in charm and culture and beauty, they make up with delicious food. Tex-Mex cuisine isn't famous for nothin' -- and with the border just a stone's throw away, it doesn't get much better than this. Especially the green chile sauce. As you can imagine, we basically spent the rest of our non-wedding time eating.

Lunch at La Nueva Casita Cafe in Las Cruces

Pork chimichanga with red chili sauce, guacamole and sour cream

Brunch at La Posta in old-town Mesila

Posole (gosh I love that stuff)

Chilis rellenos, with green sauce and refried beans

Sopapillas (because everyone knows you can't go wrong with fried dough)

Breakfast at the hotel -- because of course waffles in Texas are shaped like the state...

Second breakfast at D'Lox:  Migas (scrambled eggs on crispy tortilla strips with refried beans, rice and cheese

The craziest -- and neatest -- thing about the weekend was just how exotic and familiar the place felt.  I've spent the past few years traveling the globe to visit places that are equally hot and dusty.  There were times when I felt like I could have been in Turkey or Peru or Morocco -- and in those moments I had that same feeling of vacation get-away that I love in those places.  At the same time, it also felt very similar to Las Vegas, where Lady and Dad have been living for the past five years.  All those baking strip malls and parking lots, the earth-colored houses, the improbable tenacity of civilization in an inhospitable environment.  So in that sense I felt at home, or at least in a familiar land. 

Of course, we wouldn't have had to go far to be in a foreign land.  Mexico was just across the railing.  But we didn't go there.  Getting murdered and kidnapped by drug lords would have been kind of a downer in an otherwise delightful weekend.

There's Mexico!