Bats and Burros

Far beyond the lights of the Strip, far past the glittery showgirls and bejeweled Elvises (Elvi?), west of Las Vegas, past the last row of cookie cutter houses, there is a little-known gem that brings together two of my favorite things: Theatre and Nature. It might seem difficult to imagine the two fitting together very well – after all, sequins don’t often go with burros and wild horses. But Spring Mountain Ranch’s Super Summer Theatre gives just that.

To get to the outdoor theater, get on Charleston Boulevard and head west. Eventually the houses will turn into cacti, and you’ll enter a spectacular valley of red mountains. You’re driving at dusk, so the red rocks are hazy, backlit by the setting sun. In your backseat are the required items for the evening: a picnic blanket, a bottle of wine, maybe some fried chicken and pasta salad, and a sweater for when it gets cooler.

The tiny outdoor stage is almost rickety in its simplicity – the actors sweat in basement dressing rooms – and the theatre-goers spread out on a huge lawn to eat together in a picnic-audience before the show. Before the sun is completely down, the show begins.

Honestly, it doesn’t really matter what the show is. Or if it’s any good. I mean, if you get bored you can just lie back on your blanket and look at the show Nature puts on nightly; out here, the stars shine more brightly, uninhibited – no longer upstaged – by the lights of the city.

When there is still a little light in the sky, the bats come out. They flutter in patterns above the picnickers, making some people marvel at the “birds” that are flying around. During the show, wild burros often bray nearby, usually during the quietest moments of the plot, when the guy kisses the girl, or while an ingenue delivers a wistful speech. “Eeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh!” It’s not the most romantic of interruptions, but it sure is entertaining.

There are outdoor amphitheatres all over the country, and I urge you to find one near you. I’ll never forget seeing Richard Harris play King Arthur in Camelot in an outdoor theater in Indianapolis years ago. There, the bugs were attracted to his spotlight, and his ad-libbed swats at them brought unexpected laughter. Live theatre always has its moments, but adding nature to it makes it even better.

There are a few more weeks, and a couple more shows, left in Super Summer Theatre’s lineup this summer. Check them out!

Good Medicine

I’m writing this from our back patio right now, while I’m considering going inside to get a sweater or a blanket. And it’s August. In Las Vegas. And it’s all because of the storm that blew in this weekend.

I first heard it during the night, when the rain on our patio roof woke me up. It was perfect – just loud enough to let me know it was there, but not so bad to keep me awake. I fell back to sleep, cozy in bed.

Today I woke to the smell of the rain and cooler morning temps, although the sky above our house was bright and sunny again. That’s how Vegas is – storms often pass through but only show themselves to sections of the city instead of the valley as a whole.

Today I was feeling a little down; my week had been stressful, and my husband was working on what is usually our day off together. So when I heard a few drops outside again I immediately turned off the TV (I was about to sink into an afternoon of mind-numbing Hallmark Channel movies), and went outside with George. The wind was picking up a little, and one whole section of the sky was dark grey while the other part was blue with white fluffy clouds. The few raindrops on the roof sounded like popcorn.

George jumped onto the back of the outdoor sofa where I sat, and I leaned my head against him. My heart wasn’t feeling great. Recent stress was causing the symptoms of my MVP (an annoying heart condition) to flare up a little, and my heart felt tight. In fact, it felt worse than normal. I sat and tried to make my stress go away by taking deep breaths like in meditation. Focus on the breath, ten counts in and twenty counts back out. It didn’t seem to loosen the anxiety in my chest but I did it a few more times anyway.

Then I realized I shouldn’t be sitting under the patio; I should be out in the rain – should get out in nature and let it fall down on me. So I walked around the yard a little bit, raised my face to the sky in time to get a raindrop right in my eye, and I wondered why raindrops aren’t dangerous, since they fall from so far. I liked feeling the rain touch me.

Soon the rain came down more quickly, the drops big and fat. I headed for the sofa again and pulled George onto my lap to get warm during the sudden chilly wind. He and I sat and watched the downpour – it was indeed a downpour – the type of rain that brings people to windows to look outside, the kind that sounded like tympani were being played on our patio roof.

After about ten minutes or so of watching the rain fall in a diagonal toward where we sat, it gradually calmed down again, and slowly the sounds of our neighborhood resumed. A few birds flew by, chirping. A car drove by on a nearby street, its tires sounding wet on the pavement. The rain had stopped everything, had forced all to stop, to sit and observe.

And I realized my heart wasn’t tight anymore. The rain had taken away the tension. See, now, why I love the rain?

Leaves of Grass

Grass is a luxury – have you ever thought of it that way? An outdoor living carpet, it brightens up our yards, gives us a place to run barefoot, and in some areas of the country it grows naturally – all you have to do is keep it trimmed.

But we live in the desert, where grass is something to be cherished. Water restrictions have reduced the number of grassy front yards here, but many people still have a small rectangle of it in their backyards, watered by the requisite sprinklers that pop up four times a day and shower it luxuriously.

When you move into a new house in Las Vegas, the front yard is landscaped by the manufacturer, but the back yard is up to you. This means that while you unpack boxes and move around the new furniture, your view out back is of dirt. And I mean it – all you have is concrete block walls enclosing a flat dirt-and-rock yard.

We know that someday we’ll put in a pool, so we’ve been doing our backyard slowly on our own. (Why put money into it when it’ll just get ripped out someday?) We started on the left side of the yard and installed a high trellis to block the neighbor’s house, then we added a gazebo and outdoor furniture, then a stone path and plants. If you hold up your hand and hide the half of the yard that is bare dirt, it looks great.

The one thing we were missing was grass. We had avoided it because we didn’t know how to install those pop-up sprinklers, but finally I found a solution. I went to the nursery and bought five pieces of sod, which we laid in a long strip next to the path and hooked up to our regular watering system, hoping it would stay alive.

Our reason for adding grass to the yard, albeit a small amount? George. I knew he wanted grass – he often walks around the yard sniffing the plants as if he’s looking for it. And sure enough, I was right. As soon as it was laid out, he ran over to it, walked through it, ate some, then peed on it. He was in heaven. And two weeks later, the grass is still alive (surprisingly) and he runs straight to it every morning, first thing. After relishing his patch of grass, he stands at the end of the path – the part we haven’t finished – and stares at the dirt-half of the yard as if saying, “Would you get off your lazy asses and finish this thing?” (We decided that if George could talk, he would cuss now and then.)

I can’t help but feel that that little strip of grass has made our house seem more like home, more inviting, more…normal. Grass grows where families are, where people enjoy their yards and gather together. To me, nothing seems more like summer than the sound of a lawn mower or the whir of a fan in an open window. You don’t hear those often in the desert. And now, my husband can stand out back with the garden hose and water his very own patch of grass, a testosterone-filled ritual that every man seems to enjoy, like barbequing.

In celebration of our new grass, and in honor of the grass lying in your yard that you usually take for granted, let’s join Whitman, and loafe and invite our souls, lean and loafe at our ease, and observe a spear of summer grass. George and I will join you.

Broccoli

When viewing land from the air, trees look like broccoli. And there’s a lot of broccoli in the Midwest, covering huge swatches of land interrupted by occasional rectangles of fields and huge circles of watered crops. Vegas, on the other hand, is just a big populated area surrounded by brown. And while there are trees within the city, they aren’t there naturally - they’re all connected to the water supply by a huge intricate sprinkler system.

In the Midwest, I drive along little bumpy country roads and marvel at the fact that not one of these plants or trees or bushes is hooked up to a sprinkler. And the roads aren’t just lined with weeds – they’re lined with huge groups of orange lilies with huge flowers and lush green foliage. No one had to plant these – they’re here naturally. Naturally.

To get water in the Midwest, you can hook up to the town water supply, or you can tap into a spring or dig a well. When I was a kid, before we got town water, our supply came from the spring far above our house on a hill. When it rained, our water turned muddy. In Vegas, I feel extremely guilty every time I water our plants because I know I am contributing to the draining of the already low Lake Mead. And yet, every plant in Vegas, every palm tree lining those casino entrances, has to be watered by Lake Mead.

When I’m in the Midwest, I drive past greenhouses and plant stands and wish I could go buy some flowers, trees, or bushes for our Vegas home. The plants are varied and vibrant – they just cry out to be taken home and put into the fertile earth where they’ll settle with a contented sigh and happily live their lives with you. In contrast to Vegas where we have to use a pick axe (I’m not kidding) to dig a hole to plant something, Midwestern soil just lies there and invites you to softly dig with a hand spade and add life to your yard. I miss gardens that are supposed to be, plants that want to grow there, and ground that doesn’t fight you with lifeless dirt and rocks. Midwestern gardens don't instill guilt.

Yes, I may be a tree hugger who hates wasting water, but my desire to create an escape in my backyard – a mini Midwestern oasis to remind me of my roots and take me home – will force me to continue to hook up sprinklers and make my husband get out the pick axe. My apologies to Lake Mead and my husband.

Proud to be a Tree Hugger

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Park Ranger when I grew up. I envisioned myself in deep forest green, protecting wildlife and wandering in the woods. My Ranger Rick magazine was eagerly anticipated each month, and I envied the kids in the ads for summer camps in the national parks. Grizzly Adams was one of my favorite TV shows; who couldn’t love a guy out who lived out in the woods and had a bear for a best friend?

As I got older, my career goals changed, influenced by dance lessons and theatre rehearsals. And I realized in high school that the science classes I would need to save the environment weren’t my strongpoint – I excelled all things creative – a very different path.

Although my job has never been environmentally related, I have retained my love of nature. My husband calls me a tree hugger, a term he jokingly uses as a slam but one I embrace wholeheartedly. Oh, if only the world were full of tree huggers, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.

But my purpose for this blog is not to incite anger or to begin a political debate, so I will only generalize my urge to protect the environment. I just hope there are people out there who feel as I do. Does the oil spill in the Gulf make you feel panicked like me? Do you get angry when you see people filling up their grocery carts with plastic bags of food? What about the population increase that is slowly taking over the planet, sucking up its natural resources – the very things we need to survive? Does that worry you?

I believe it should. This isn’t an issue of saving a couple of animals or trying to have a Suzy Sunshine outlook on the world. We have one planet - only one - and I’m afraid that everyone else won’t join in my panic until it’s too late. We need a sense of urgency - for the species of animals that will eventually be gone – for the oceans that are our trash cans – for the wide open spaces that will no longer be.

Sometimes when we walk George at night, my husband points out the fake grass in some of the neighbors’ yards and laughs at me when I say I hate it. And yes, that fake grass is saving water. But the reason I hate it is because for me, it’s a scary omen of our future. Fake grass. Fake trees. Fake animals. And all of these as our only option – not as our choice.

Our planet can only take so much. We humans have to make smart choices now, before it’s too late. And I’m talking about more than just recycling a few cans or using reusable grocery bags – while good, those are just a drop in the bucket. I think we all need to look at the big picture and start to panic a little.

Okay, now I will step off my soapbox.

Bug Season

I stood in the backyard this week and stared at the lavender that is growing tall and blooming bright purple right now. There were five bees enjoying them, too, their buzzing punctuating the air as they moved from blossom to blossom, their engines starting and stopping every time. I watched them for quite a while, marveling at their little wings that make such noise.

I don’t think I’ve ever been stung by a bee; surely I would remember if I had. More likely I was stung by a wasp – a much less appealing bug compared to the adventurous, hardworking bee. Wasps are silent and fly around slowly, awkwardly, with their limp legs hanging blow them like bug zombies. Or maybe they’re not legs, but I imagine them to be.

Some bugs gross me out, such as centipedes (which I’ve only seen on TV) and those huge fat green tomato bugs - I don’t even like to look at them. But coming from the Midwest, where bugs are part of life, most bugs don’t bother me. It was okay to pick up a Daddy Long Legs by the leg and throw him outside if he happened to wander indoors; I don’t think I’d want to touch many bugs in the same way, but who could resist one with such a friendly name?

And a lightening bug was fine to catch and hold cupped in your hands so his light shined through your fingers, then open your hands up to watch him walk around for a bit before spreading his wings and flying off again.

Lady bugs are fine to touch, but don’t squish them because they stink. And rolly-pollys are fun to poke lightly with a stick so they’ll roll up into a perfect tiny grey ball.

So far I can’t find any fun bugs in Las Vegas. Like the desert, bugs here are big and harsh and hardy, sometimes with spikes and weird shapes, looking like aliens. So I will continue to watch the jovial bees in our yard and will continue to plant flowers and bushes that they, and their hummingbird friends, like. I want to invite some nature into our yard, even in the middle (or outskirts) of the big city.

The answer, my friend...

Lately it has not been hat weather in Las Vegas; I pity anyone who tried to wear an Easter Bonnet this week. The wind has blown and blown, turning anyone who dares to go outside into Medusa.

Vegas does have great weather – you can golf year-round and can plan outdoor picnics and backyard parties without much fear of rain. But instead of rain, beware of the wind. In regards to enjoying the outdoors, wind is to Vegas what rain is to the rest of the country.

This week the roof our backyard gazebo ripped off its supports and flapped in the wind, forcing my husband to brave the whipping canvas as it whirled around him and tried to tie it down. I had trouble sleeping, afraid that it might come off completely and land on a house a couple of blocks away.

Our trellis also got blown over, its sad vines cowering down in the dirt, another victim of the wind. Every pillow on our back patio ended up against the block wall on the side of our house. And a patio plant blew over and rolled across the patio until it got wedged between the patio table and a chair.

Not wanting the wind to thwart my plans, I took George to the dog park one morning when it was really gusting. I stood in the completely empty park while he ran around, and as the wind literally blew me off my feet, I thought about how crazy I was to be out in the storm. But it was also a little exhilarating. It’s not often that you stand outside and let nature unleash on you completely, and you can truly feel her power.

I stood there quite a while, until another person entered the park and hunkered down on a bench to endure the wind while his dog explored. I was glad I wasn’t the only crazy (or brave?) one.

When it’s windy, at night we have to turn on the bathroom exhaust fan to drown out the noise outside – the clangs of pots as they turn over, the patio curtains that whip around and hit the wall of the house, the whistle of the air as it gets sucked through our window cracks.

And please kill anyone who hangs wind chimes outside their house in Las Vegas. It's a very, very dumb idea.

"The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man." ~Author Unknown

To celebrate Las Vegas’ recent gorgeous weather, George and I took a stroll around Floyd Lamb State Park, a literal oasis in the desert with lakes, trails, towering trees, ducks, and peacocks. In addition to nature, the park also has historical value: it is full of fossil remains of mammoths and other prehistoric animals, and it is a dude ranch where women used to go in the 1930’s to wait for their divorces to become final. All types of history!

During the same week, I heard an interview on NPR with Richard Louv, the author of the book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. He discussed the fact that kids (and adults) are getting more and more disconnected from nature, as time goes by and kids spend more time in front of computers and TVs and we pave over more and more of our environment.

Kids who don’t go outside tend to be more overweight, but this wasn’t the main focus of Louv’s interview. Instead, he stressed the need we have to be in nature. We don’t need to learn more about nature in a book or google search; we need “hands dirty, feet wet experience.” I so agree.

If I go for a while without being among trees and green, I start to lose a part of myself. This probably comes from growing up in a rural area, where at any moment I could run out the back screen door and into nature. Our house was surrounded by rolling hills and dense forests. On the weekends I explored the hill behind our house; our tradition was to walk to the very top of our property, and we weren’t allowed to turn around and look at the view until we got to the uppermost part where the fences of the bordering lands met. There, out of breath, we suddenly turned around and surveyed the view, all the way across the valley, past tree-covered hills and lined cornfields, to the farm in the distance with its black dots that were cows.

On our land I had many adventures. I flew kites and had picnics. I followed the cow paths to wherever they might lead, and I played around the spring that overflowed when it rained and created a river across our yard far below the hill. In the summers I stomped across the tall grass with my cat; in the Fall we harvested vegetables from our garden; and one winter, we met our cousins on top of the hill for a snowy, nighttime campfire. It was my wilderness.

My husband also had freedom in nature as a kid in New Jersey. He and his friends would leave the house in the morning on their bikes and wouldn’t return till dusk, having filled their whole day exploring nature (and probably getting into trouble, too, but at least they were outside!).

Someday when we have kids, I hope to give them the same experience in nature. While they might not have it right outside their back door, I want them to feel that it is nearby, and part of them. I may have to drive them somewhere to experience it, but it’s worth it. According to Louv, being in nature increases kids’ attention spans, reduces stress, and gives a sense of awe and wonder. And adults get the same benefits that kids do.

I think we’ll be taking a lot of trips to Floyd Lamb State Park.

“…drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.”

When I was a kid, the idea of a tumbleweed was a foreign, romantic thing. They were those weird round things that blew across the road in old Westerns, across the brown landscape before the camera panned to Clint Eastwood who chewed a piece of straw in his firm-set jaw. So imagine my surprise last night when I drove home from work, and due to the recent windy weather, along one stretch of road there were ten or more tumbleweeds lined up along the sidewalk, some as wide as five feet. In Las Vegas tumbleweeds are common, but this many in one place caught my attention and I wished I’d had my camera.

So I wondered, how many things that used to be exciting or exotic are now commonplace or every-day? Or vice versa? Those tumbleweeds were so novel that after visiting me out West one summer, my Mom took a tumbleweed back to Indiana in the trunk of her car. She shared it with her rural Indiana elementary students and then hung it from her porch ceiling, where it stayed as a sort of natural art display.

Palm trees are another exotic element of my daily life; we have two in our front yard. But as a kid, I remember driving to Florida for summer vacations and leaning forward from the back seat, trying to be the first person to see a palm tree. They symbolized the start of our vacation from normalcy – the beginning of swaying palms and salt water.

The other day I saw a robin sitting on a tree branch outside my office window at work. It was the fattest robin I’ve ever seen, and I stopped and watched him for a long time. I’d never seen a robin in Las Vegas before – I thought they didn’t live here. It was nice to see this little touch of home, and it reminded me of seeing these orange-bellied birds in Indiana and knowing that the first time you saw one, it meant Spring was here.

So, FYI, Spring arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday, March 4.

Once again, the Universe has sent me a little nudge to pay attention to the little things – to remember those things that used to give me childish excitement. To recapture that feeling by noticing what I have. This summer, I think I’ll add a palm tree to the back yard - might as well bring some more vacation to our everyday life.

In Praise of Vegas

My Las Vegas-born husband did not like my last post, claiming that in it I bashed Las Vegas. I assured him that the stereotypes I discussed exist everywhere – they are just more prevalent in Las Vegas. But he still seemed miffed. And I don’t blame him – I don’t hide the fact that I don’t like Las Vegas and would rather live somewhere else. But because I am an optimist and always try to see the bright side, I sincerely would like to like Vegas. Seriously. I know that if we moved away, I would see more of Vegas’ virtues and I would miss certain things. So in honor of Las Vegas, and in an effort to appreciate it more, I will devote this week’s entry to trying to see its good points.

1. The first thing that comes to mind is that Las Vegas does not have many bugs. In the Midwest, it is impossible to sit outside at night near a light because of the huge swarm of ugly bugs that fly around. In Vegas, hardly anything comes near a light.

(I am trying very hard to avoid pointing out that the reason there are no bugs here is because nothing grows here for them to feed on. Oops…a negative about Vegas. I digress. I will avoid these for the rest of the post, because there is probably a “but” to everything I list.)

2. In Las Vegas, you can plan an outdoor event very easily. Wind is usually the only thing that might ruin outdoor plans. But generally, outdoor events like parades, festivals, and picnics are a great thing in Vegas. In fact, we love to go out to Spring Mountain Ranch in the summer to see their outdoor shows - they’re hardly ever canceled due to the weather.

(But this is because we never get rain, never have a thunderstorm, never have a good old cloudy-curl-up-at-home kind of day. And I LOVE rain! Oops. I did it again. I will keep the buts out, from now on.)

3. You can get anything you need at any time of the day in Vegas. Need a pair of shoes at 3am? Go to the 24-hour Target. Need more sugar at midnight? Go to the 24-hour grocery. Alcohol is sold on Sundays, and you can go to a movie at 2am. If you’re a night owl, Vegas is the place to live.

4. When the weather in Las Vegas gets too hot, Mt. Charleston is a short drive away. There, the temps are always at least 20 degrees cooler, so you can find relief in the summer or play in the snow in the winter. And it’s a tiny mountain community that provides a convenient getaway. How many other cities offer something so completely different, so close?

5. Because Las Vegas is a tourist destination, friends and family tend to visit more often.

6. Las Vegas is an open-minded city but also has a conservative side. Any type of person – any extreme – can find a community here.

7. Las Vegas is a major airline hub, so it’s easy to fly to any city. And the ocean is a four-hour drive away. A good weekend trip.

(I just noticed that two of my good points about Vegas are about getting out of town. Probably not the best things for this list.)

8. There is a huge amateur theatre community in Las Vegas, so anyone who wants to perform has an opportunity.

That’s honestly all I can think of. And I sincerely, honestly, am trying. Really. I may end up living here forever, so believe me, I really want to learn to love this place. I would love to have a list of reasons I like Las Vegas, without any "buts".
So, I beg of you, would you help me add to my list? I am a glass-half-full kind of a girl, and I truly want to love where I live. Please point out any of the good things that I may be missing! Thank you.

p.s. I thought of number nine on the way to work today. The view of the city in the morning is gorgeous, when the silhouette of the Strip’s buildings are hazy against the mountains in the distance, and the sky is huge and blue above it all. There is no “but” to this one.

Encounters

Going to the dog park, and sitting at Starbucks as often as we do, presents George and me with many opportunities to happen upon interesting people. And this week we had three interesting encounters.

At the table next to us at Starbucks early in the week, a girl and her grandfather sat waiting for a meeting. The girl, in her early twenties, was dressed in business attire, her hair smartly styled, and the grandpa wore a t-shirt and baseball cap. I typed at my computer and tried to act like I wasn’t paying any attention, but I noticed that there was an important vibe to their Starbucks visit that day. And sure enough, soon a young man came in the door, dressed in a tan military uniform, and they introduced themselves and sat together at the table. I listened while she told the recruiter all about her background, including a story about wanting to be a dentist since she was five years old. Every now and then the grandpa interjected with an anecdote from his military days, sometimes which related to the conversation but most often did not. The interview ended, they all shook hands, and after they left I sat and wondered what would become of this girl whose important moment I had witnessed, but who I would never see again. Her enthusiasm for her future put me in a good mood.

Later in the week I happened to speak to a man at the dog park whose dog was named Cowboy. Cowboy may look like a normal Yorkie, but in fact he is a seasoned traveler with his own passport. He and his owner will be going to Italy for a few months, and I couldn’t help but be envious of Cowboy, who has been to the Caribbean twice already. Now that I think about it, he did strut around the dog park with an air of self-importance.

The third encounter happened at home instead of at the park or Starbucks. One morning George followed me to the front door when I planned to walk outside and get the mail. I opened the door, and about two feet in front of me, hovering motionless in the air at chest-height, was a hummingbird, staring straight at us. He stayed in that spot for about 20 seconds, just looking at us, as if he had been waiting there for us to come out and play. I love encounters with nature.

I think a week that includes a caring Grandpa, a motivated young woman, a Globe-trotting Yorkie, and a feisty hummingbird is pretty good, don’t you?

Cousin Larry

This week there has been a lot of activity at the hummingbird feeder outside our kitchen window. One bird in particular likes to sit in the vines growing up our patio cover, and one day he sat there for probably ten minutes, grooming himself.

Have you ever seen a hummingbird do this? He ruffled up his feathers as if he was airing them out, and he kept shifting his weight back and forth, using his beak to clean under his wings. I could even see his long tongue retracting every time he took a break and turned to the other side.

This hummingbird must have had an itchy neck, because suddenly he raised his tiny hind leg and scratched his neck like a dog. He kept scratching, and his feathers ruffled up in scraggly peaks until he turned to the other side to satisfy another itch. I don’t know that it truly was an itch, but I couldn’t help comparing him to George, whose furious neck scratching verges on ecstasy.

We always had a bird feeder in our rural Indiana backyard when I was a kid, and there are many photos of bright cardinals or blue jays at our wooden feeder in the snow, or at our back door where Mom sometimes spread birdseed so the birds would come closer. Now, after a year of filling the feeder at our house in Vegas, we finally have regular hummingbirds. It took them that long to claim our yard as their territory. Every winter I put up a finch feeder (a regular feeder would attract pigeons) and enjoy the feeding frenzy outside our door. I take it down in the Summer, however, so I can get rid of all the bird poop on our patio! (Grandma calls bird poop “bird dirty.”)

When I had my first apartment in Vegas, there was a sparrow who regularly came to my balcony railing to sit and torment my cats. He would face my sliding glass door and sing loudly as if calling to my cats. When they finally showed interest, he would fly away to a nearby tree and then start the game again about an hour later.

Having birds come to my house makes it feel like home, bringing nature to a nature-starved girl. And they connect me to the greater world when they fly far above us, stopping at one house and then another, and then returning again to visit me the next day. They are mysterious, delicate, lofty, yet also ever so simple. They come to my yard and become my little friends.

I think I will name the itchy bird Cousin Larry, in honor of local Hoosier celebrity, legendary Boston Celtic, Larry Bird. Everyone in Southern Indiana claims to be related to him. But he really is our cousin. I swear. Just ask my Grandma.

It smells like rain...

When I was a kid, my friend Hilary and I convinced her mother to let us go camping in the woods behind her house one night. By “camping” I mean sleeping in the woods in a sleeping bag on the ground. We must have been pretty young, because we only needed one sleeping bag, and we were not worried when it started to rain; we just propped an umbrella over our heads and went to sleep. After a few hours Hilary’s sister was sent out to find us and bring us back in the house. My memory of that night isn’t the uncomfortable ground or being brought home early; instead I remember the novelty of sleeping out in nature. The sound of the raindrops in the trees. The smell of the wet earth. The dark that encircled us warmly, protectively.

Rain has always been special to me, especially now because I live in the desert and always yearn for a good thunderstorm to give life to the dry city. But it was special to me even before I moved to Las Vegas.

Rainy days during my childhood meant it was time to snuggle inside and work on a sewing or drawing project at the kitchen table or help mom make a pie or batch of cookies. Or I would stand at the back screen door and watch it come down in a comforting stream until the spring on the hill behind our house overflowed and caused a temporary creek across our yard. Once the rain slowed, I put on my boots and grabbed my umbrella and floated boats in our driveway puddles.

In college, rainy days gave a welcome break to the daily monotonous grind of classes and homework. A day with an umbrella roof, spent ducking from one building to the next, forced students closer together and was therefore cozy and more fun.

I think George has “inherited” some of my rain-love. Even if it’s coming down hard, he will paw at the car window until I roll it down for him. Then he sticks his head out the window and shakes from head to toe every minute or so. The other drivers must think I’m nuts, but I just drive on, humming a tune to the beat of the wipers, with a wet dog hanging out the window.

Rain in Las Vegas is always welcome, but it’s different than Midwestern rain. The desert sky is so stark and huge, and often you can see that other areas of the valley are getting rain while the sun shines on your area. (Rain envy!) Usually the sky teases you with a few drops on your windshield, then nothing. When it does actually rain – real rain that forces you indoors – I always run outside under our patio and just listen, and watch, and inhale. Nothing is more soothing than the steady fall of rain. Musty. Cleansing. Romantic.

I’m writing this from Indiana, and tomorrow’s forecast is a 60% chance of rain. Heaven.

Moments

You know those dates in history when people remember exactly where they were when they heard the news on that day? Like JFK’s assassination, or the moment war was declared? My generation remembers where we were when the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded (sitting in a high school class, I remember staring at the speaker on the wall in surprise as the principal announced the news), or when we first heard about the attack on the World Trade Center (our friend who lived in Philadelphia woke us up and told us to go turn on the TV).

But there are other moments in life, completely opposite to these disastrous ones. These I call my Magic Moments. These are the ones in which suddenly I am completely aware of my surroundings and seem to wake up and notice the magic in that single, simple, unforgettable moment.

One of these moments happened at the dog park last summer. George and I were alone at the park and he ran around while I sat enjoying the quiet. A butterfly flew by me, its white wings glowing in the sun. Then there was another, and another, and before I knew it the air around me was filled with thousands of white wings, glimmering against the blue sky. The large "flock" of butterflies took probably a minute or two to fly by me, and I sat there the whole time with my mouth hanging open in surprise and a goofy smile on my face. I kept looking around for someone to share it with, but I was alone in the large park – the only one to witness the parade of nature passing by me.

My Mom once told me about the Magic Moment she had when she was about 25 and flew alone to Korea to stay with my Dad who was stationed there. When the plane flew over Japan she had a full view of Mt. Fuji from her window. It was so beautiful she kept thinking she should reach down and get her camera, but she didn’t want to take her eyes from the beautiful scene in front of her long enough to get it. It was that entrancing to her. Definitely Magic.

Other Magic Moments in my life:

• Driving in a taxi in the middle of remote Chile and stepping out onto a dirt road to look at the stars with four reknowned astronomers


• Sitting on a wall of the Acropolis and noticing the sounds of the city below me – an occasional dog barking, the distant hum of traffic


• Walking in line to get my Master’s diploma during Commencement at Regis University in Denver and almost crying because it hit me how lucky I was


• Sitting in the audience of a musical in Louisville when I was nineteen and realizing everything that truly mattered to me in life was right there in that building: Mom, my friends, and the theatre


• Waiting in the wings in the white-blue light before my entrance in The Nutcracker’s Snow Scene, amazed that I was about to dance in the very show I had seen every year as a child


• Waiting in my high school hallway, in line for our first commencement rehearsal, and hearing "Pomp and Circumstance" inside the gymnasium for the first time


• Walking to the train station in Vicenza, Italy at 5am, through deserted cobblestone Medieval streets, hearing our footsteps echoing for blocks through foggy silence

Of course many moments in my life have been magical, such as getting married to my husband in Hawaii, getting my first professional theatre role, or simply being at home with my husband and feeling lucky to have what we have. Those are of course magical, but those aren’t what I’m talking about. My Magic Moments come out of the blue and hit me in the gut, awakening me in a different way. For me they come as a welcome surprise.

I'm wishing you all many moments of peace, butterflies, and Mt. Fuji.

George at 8,000 feet

I have lived in Las Vegas for almost fifteen years, and while I appreciate many things about it – fewer bugs, easier planning of outdoor events, and…okay that’s all I can think of right now – the Midwesterner in me desperately misses living somewhere with four seasons, trees, and real thunderstorms. So whenever I need to feel like I’m anywhere but the desert, my husband and I take a drive up to Mt. Charleston, a little mountain town only a thirty-minute drive from our house.

The drive out of town takes you past the last subdivision of Vegas’ cookie cutter houses, where desert shrubs dot the landscape across the expanse of valley, until you take a left at the sign pointing to Mt. Charleston. This two-lane highway twists and curves across the desert, and Lance and I always marvel at the houses out there. They really are in the middle of nowhere – ranches and modern houses with no neighbors and no trees - so stark and lonely as we fly by with George’s head sticking out the window.

Soon the drive gets curvier, the shrubs taller, and the distant mountains bigger until you finally reach the little mountain community in the desert. They have a fire department, elementary school, library, and church, but no grocery or gas station. Their houses are cabins nestled in the trees in the valley or perched on the side of the mountain far above, accessible only by scarily-steep roads with names like Kris Kringle Road and Jack Frost Drive.

Lance and I always drive to the very end of the highway, which climbs and ends at Mt. Charleston Lodge, where we have breakfast in the A-frame restaurant. This week we took George with us and sat at an outdoor table with a complete view of the tree-covered mountains around us (I like to pretend we’re at a lodge in the Alps.). This is where I come in October to smell the Fall air and see true Autumn color while Las Vegas is still in its Summer. (Fall-ish weather comes to Vegas in December!) Or we’ll drive up in January and throw snowballs so I can feel like it’s Winter. Or in the summer we’ll drive up and hike one of the many trails to escape Vegas’ hot months. On the trails, just 100 yards off the road all sounds of traffic are gone, leaving only birds chirping and the wind in the trees.

One Spring, desperate for an escape from the city, I drove up to Mt. Charleston and hiked on a path for a while with George. The snow was still lying in the shadows of the trees, so I had to step gingerly to avoid slipping. Finally I found a thick patch of snow covering a dry river bed, so thick it made a mattress in the sun. I took off my coat, laid it on the snow, and then laid down on it while George looked at me like I was crazy. But it was great. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the cool snow through my jacket, and I laid there for a long time, trying to absorb the nature around me.

Lance and I ate our breakfast in our mountaintop seats and then took George for a walk around the Lodge, past the horses waiting for carriage rides and Native Americans selling jewelry, and through the small side streets lined with tall poles that in the winter let people know where the roads are when they’re covered with feet of snow.

George’s head was out the window of my car for the whole drive back to town. For a few hours, we had mountains, birds, towering trees, and an occasional chipmunk. Where do you go to escape?