Case In Point

Birthday Girl

2010-11-10T17:52:00.005-07:00

I may have spent the day with intentional infliction of emotional distress caselaw in Missouri, but I am spending the evening celebrating my birthday.

So far I'm getting Yoga accessories, a mixed media piece of art by a local artist depicting Ahwatukee commissioned on my behalf and a made-to-order dinner prepared for me in my home. I am a lucky birthday girl.

My Facebook Wall is full of birthday wishes. I know that very few of those people are close enough to me to keep track of my birthday. Luckily, Facebook posts a helpful reminder right on their feed. They can click on it and may spend up to five seconds writing, "Happy Birthday, Nancy." I still read every one of those messages and delude myself into feeling all warm and fuzzy!

And best of all, even though I'm having a birthday, I am still too young to qualify for senior discounts. I'll just continue to flash my student I.D. for discounted movie tickets.

Surrounded by best wishes and cool gifts, getting another year older isn't too bad.

Being Alive

2010-09-25T14:14:00.008-07:00

Day Ten

Here is my number one best travel tip: Bubble wrap. It weighs nothing and takes up very little space in your suitcase. Making it home with the pottery you spent two hours selecting in some foreign market will save you about a million dollars in emotional costs plus the $10 you actually paid for the stuff.

After carefully bubblewrapping our purchases for the trip home, Tay and I headed out for our last day of sightseeing. Unlike the day before, we actually made it to MALBA. I had to pay our admission fee on my bankcard because the ticket office, like everywhere else in Buenos Aires, didn't have change. These small inconveniences were overshadowed by the terrific collection of modern art. We went through it in a couple of hours and still "Jonesing" for more art, walked over to the decorative art museum down the street.

This museum was in a French-syle mansion built in the early 1900s. The husband was an Argentine diplomat who worked in Paris. Like expats everywhere, they spent a lot of time buying stuff. (Only the stuff they bought were statutes from Rodin and paintings by El Greco and Manet.) They also bought three giant Fleming tapestries. As they needed somewhere to show off this stuff, they hired a French architect to build them a house for back home. The architect never managed to actually come to Argentina and had much of the beautiful interiors (carvings, panelings, etc.) done in France, shipped over in pieces and then assembled here.

The couple ran into a bit of a problem with their three giant Flemish tapestries. (They apparently had not mastered my trick of visualizing where things will fit in your house before deciding to buy.) They solved their problem by including a giant 16th Century English-style Great Hall.

All of this got a little pricey, however. They made an unfortunate choice of cutting costs by not building the beautiful fireplace for the Great Hall designed by Rodin, a model of which is on display. Instead, they ordered one from a catalogue.

The family finished the tour of duty in France and settled into this house with their 22 servants for the next 20 years. Once the Depression Hit, they sold the house and all its contents to the Argentine goverment with the provision that it become a museum. I couldn't feel too badly for them because that is the collector's ultimate dream--to have such wonderful taste that your home and all its contents are forever preserved for others to admire.

Tay and I took a taxi back to our apartment. We got some empanadas and pizza from the neighborhood pizza place which we ate in our apartment while we finished packing. It was the only meal we'd eaten in. The apartment rental service dropped by to check us out and give me back an envelope full of cash containing my deposit. We loaded up our suitcases in the car I'd ordered and drove out to the international airport.

After we checked in, we looked around for that the gelatto place we loved. Unfortunately, it had closed its airport location, so we killed some time by shopping at the international terminal. I was shocked at how low their prices were! In comparison, we'd overpaid for everything we'd bought. Then Taylor pointed out the prices were in U.S. dollars, not Argentine pesos, and were actually FOUR times more expensive than I'd thought. On that basis, we'd paid less than half of what they were asking for here.

Our only purchase was at the gate where I spent $8 for three bottles of water to take on the plane. What I didn't realize, however, was there was a checkpoint in the entryway after they'd collected our boarding passes outside the plane. "Do you have any liquids?" asked the security guard.

"Yes, I have three unopened bottles of water I just bought," I said. I was given the option of chugging all three in the jetway or leaving them behind. Ten days ago, I'd begun this journey by watching people helplessly complain when their honey was confiscated. I just handed my bottles of water over.

As Tay and I boarded the plane, I thought about a study I'd read that said people get more satisfaction from buying experiences than from buying possessions. It has to do with meeting higher-order needs and that our experiences feed our sense of well-being by making us feel more alive. The opportunity to explore Argentina for ten days with Taylor, experiencing the food, the museums, the architecture, the markets--even that dunking in Iguazu Falls--made me feel very alive. And I hope someday to come back for more.

Comparing Football Men

2010-09-19T08:26:00.004-07:00

Day Nine

Today, we were on a mission to find artwork for Taylor. Combining sightseeing and shopping, we strolled along the beautiful Avenue de Julio. We paused to take photos of the Hall of Justice, before walking down to the famous opera house, Teatro Colon. Teatro Colon is considered one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world. Pavarotti, Callas and Caruso all sang here.

Lucky for us, the theater had just reopened after being closed for renovations for the past four years. Unlucky for us, they were not allowing visitors inside. We contented ourselves with admiring the lovely exterior with its sculptured reliefs. While we enjoyed the architecture that day, we were less successful at finding art. In the galleries around Ave. de Julio and Recoletta, we found two broad categories of art: very expensive good art and very expensive bad art. And by bad, we're talking tiger paintings on a black background. As our required category of art was "cheap," we gave up and decided to go see free art at the museums.

We decided to go to the famous modern art museum. After about an hour trek over to San Telmo, I discovered that I had brought us to the WRONG museum. Even worse, this museum was closed for rennovation. But as long as we were in San Telmo, we might as well check out the shops. Almost immediately, we found a Havana Cafe/gift shop. Havana makes very popular Argentine cookies with filling. We decided to bring some back as gifts. The woman behind the counter patiently waited as a I tried to decide how how I would need if I put one in everyone's Christmas stocking that I was likely to be spending Christmas with. I didn't realize it, but I was monopolizing the only cashier and people who were just trying to pay for their cafe con leches were lining up behind me. US $40 later, I paid for my sweet purchases and the line behind me breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Next we stopped at a folk art store. Earlier in the week, I had been admiring these wire figures dressed in native cloths with their arms raised as if someone was making a touchdown. I called them "football guys." Taylor decided to buy one. We spent our usual 15 minutes picking out the best example. Then I remembered I'd seen a shop two blocks away that also had them. So we walked to Shop #2 and checked out their selection, spending another 15 minutes to pick out their best example. Of course, by then we had forgottten exactly what football guy at store #1 looked like, so we had to make another trip back there, then back to store #2, before finally going back to store #1 to make the purchase. (Do we love to shop, or what?)

But in between Store #1 and Store #2 was another folk art store, where Tay and I found a selection of beautiful collages of native symbols. One collage stood out to both of us. When I tried to negotiate a better price for it, the manager asked, "Do you own a store or something?" (Do American tourists NEVER bargain here?). Regardless, he knocked another 10% off the 30% cash discount, and after a quick trip to a bank machine, I bought it for Taylor for his 21st birthday. I was happy to get a good price because I knew that framing something that size in the U.S. was going to be very expensive. But the end result would be a unique piece of art and a sourvenir of our trip that Taylor could enjoy forever.

On our trip back to our apartment, we hit rush hour. The subway platform where we changed trains was packed. People just pushed forward train after train until they eventually were able to board. Taylor was hot and cranky, so we opted to get a cab. We walked up to the street level where we found it was raining. Raining and rush hour are not good factors for taxi availability. Nonetheless, about 15 minutes later we spotted someone alighting from a taxi and we rushed over to grab it.

While the subway could have gotten us back in 15 minutes, a taxi in stop and go traffic took us 45 minutes. We rested and at 10 p.m., headed out to another Argentine restaurant for dinner. We were the first ones there, although a few more people came in after us. The decour was nice, the food was only so-so, but the biggest advantage of the restaurant was its proximity to our apartment. I had no small bills for the tip and the restaurant couldn't change my $100 peso bill ($25 U.S.) I walked back to the apartment to retrieve my stash of small bills. I felt very comfortable walking through the neighborhood alone around midnight. I made it safely back to the restaurant, left the tip and Tay and I called it a day.

The George Harrison Steak

2010-09-12T08:15:00.005-07:00

Day 8: Iguazu Falls to Buenos Aires

While Taylor slept in, I went in search of a free breakfast. Last night, I had noticed the room service menu said that breakfast via room service was not included in the room price. Did that mean that there was a breakfast included in the room price somewhere else? The front desk confirmed my complementary breakfast buffet was downstairs.

My last complementary breakfast buffet was at the Best Western in Long Beach, where I fought for the use of toasters and the make-your-own-waffle machine with a troop of Boy Scouts. However, the complementary buffet here was a pleasant surprise. There were eight large dispensers of fresh squeezed juice, a station with about 20 different kinds of cheeses, a station with a wide variety of fresh fruits and yogurts, another station with a huge array of pastries and breads, various hot and cold cereal choices, and about eight chafing dishes with hot items like grilled potatoes and eggs benedict.

This was actually what I used to call the "standard $25 hotel buffet breakfast," which I've eaten at big hotels all over the world. The price was always $25 and the menus varied very little, except sometimes there was an Asian station. Of course by now, it's probably the "standard $35 hotel buffet breakfast." The Iguazu Sheraton was missing one important station from the "standard," the made-to-order omlet station. I did forgive them, however, as the whole breakfast was INCLUDED in the price of the room.

Tay and I took a taxi back to the airport for our 2 p.m. flight. He was covered in mosquito bites so he refused my offer of a quick hike beforehand. Between Tay's mosquito bites and my reaction to the near-drowning-by-falls, we had both had enough of nature.

We flew into a gorgeous day in Buenos Aires. We left our suitcases at our apartment and headed out for what turned out to be a three-mile walk through several neighborhoods. (I guess we made up for not hiking earlier.) We ended up at the gelatto place, recommended on our first night. We sat down and were handed a menu that did not include gelatto.

We walked over to the person scooping gelatto and tried to order there. That wasn't right either. She directed us to the cashier where we figured out that we had to order by size. After we paid, we took the receipt back to the gelatto scooper who inquired as to the flavors we wanted. The flavors were in Spanish. (If I had learned fruit flavors in one of my college Spanish classes, that knowledge had long departed my brain.) I made a guess and we got strawberry with chocolate pieces. It was yummy. Taylor's reaction was the same as the first night: "We have to have this again!"

Consulting my map, I found the Subte a few blocks away. We followed the subway signs but it didn't "feel" right. Years of being a stranger in a strange land, have taught me to pay close attention to my "Spidey senses," so we didn't board. We later found out this was the train to the outlying suburbs. We backtracked and found another entrance to the Subte line we wanted.

We rested at our apartment before heading out for dinner around 10 p.m. Google Maps had shown the restaurant as being a 50 minute walk away. But when I closed in on the destination, I couldn't find the street the restaurant was on. I pulled up the Spanish website, which showed the restaurant was, not a 50 minute walk, but around the corner from our apartment. I was relieved I had doublechecked and not hailed a taxi to take us to an address 200 feet away!

In addition to being close, Don Julio's was a cozy neighborhood Argentine restaurant. I was very proud that I had made our reservation, entirely in Spanish, earlier in the day. Now, however, they had no record of me. (I did not receive the all-important reservation number from them so I should have realized they had no clue what I was saying.) The restaurant was very busy, but they did manage to fit us in.

We had an excellent steak. Taylor and I decided it was a George Harrison steak. George Harrison is a very good songwriter. But he is often completely overlooked because he was in a group with Paul McCartney and John Lennon, the two greatest songwriters of his generation. So even if our steak at LaCabera was a McCartney/Lennon steak, a Harrison Steak at Don Julio's is still pretty good.

We ordered a better bottle of Malbec. After having a Malbec wine at dinner every night, we were developing a better appreciation for the more subtle versions. One of Don Julio's traditions is to display empty wine bottles autographed by customers. Taylor wrote, "Nancy and Taylor 2010" on our bottle of Malbec and then drew a cow on our label.

If you are ever in Don Julio's, you can look for it.

Up Close in Iguazu Falls

2010-09-04T12:33:00.002-07:00

Day 7: Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls

We had a noon flight which entailed me having to wake up Taylor early. Waking Tay up in the morning is akin to awakening a bear in hybernation. You do it slowly and gently, being ready to retreat if he lashes out. I do not converse with Taylor in the morning. This is is a complete challenge for me as I am one of those cheery, talkative morning people. On the other hand, Taylor is a night owl, slow to wake up but then raring to go until the wee hours of the morning, while I am pretty much asleep at 10 p.m.

The only time our internal clocks ever synchronized was when Taylor worked nights. He would come home at 6 a.m., which after a night of working to him was just very late. Having just woken up after a full night's sleep, it was very early to me. So we were both in a good mood while I fixed him breakfast.

This morning, we caught a cab to the domestic airport, a quick 15 minute ride. We walked up to the Lan counter where the agent looked only at our passports before giving us boarding passes. Waiting to board, we ate breakfast at an airport cafe (mediuluna for me and hamon y questo tostitos for Taylor). I noticed that the rule about leisurely service in Argentina is apparently suspended for airports. They brought the check with the meal.

At the gate, we were boarded into a bus which literally drove us 50 feet before disembarking us in front of the plane. The last flight I took on Lan, two years ago from Cuzco to Lima, the monitor had a hidden camera show involving people dressed in gorilla suits. This flight, I watched another hidden camera show involving people in gorilla suits. In fact, if I EVER encounter a real gorilla in South America, I will probably be killed looking for the hidden camera.

On the one hour flight, passengers were provided with two drink services and a box of snacks with three items. As it was still the middle of the night to Taylor, he slept the entire flight. When we landed, I saw that official signs showed the taxi prices to various hotels. We walked to the taxi stand and ordered the 70 peso trip to the Sheraton. A guy standing beside the table walked us outside to his car, and we were off.

The Sheraton, about 20 minutes away, is the only hotel inside the park on the Argentine side. (Americans need a visa for the Brazilian side.) I was not too impressed because it looked like a 1960s motel. (For this I was paying $275 a night?) We walked inside and saw of wall of windows overlooking the falls. Okay, for THIS I was paying $275 a night. Our room had a view of both sets of falls (the Argentine and Brazilian sides) as promised, but only if you stood in the corner of the balcony. The rest of the window had a view of a large tree. I had paid extra for a room with a view, and I didn't count the view of the tree. I marched down to the front desk and got a room with an unobstructed view.

In the lobby I booked Tay and I on the last boat tour of the day. The agent gave us a brochure marked with the meeting place and told us, "You will get wet."

But first, Tay and I walked over to the trail along the upper falls. The upper falls trail went along the top of the falls, offering really breathtaking views. Actually this park had plenty of amazing falls. There were breathtaking views from everywhere. (And me with no camera!) Along the way, Tay and I watched as a bunch of animals crossed the path in front of us. They looked liked anteaters to me, but we later learned they were some kind of local raccoon.

After our scenic hike, we walked over to the meeting point. There we were loaded into a huge open air-truck with bench seat for the first portion of our trip, the nature jaunt through the forrest. This truck was so noisy that any wildlife could hear us coming from miles away. We finally arrived at the embarkation point, and we walked down to the river. On the way down, we passed a group of young Americans who were taking a break from their whitewater rafting trip. As our obviously tourist group filed past them, I couldn't help thinking, "I'm in the wrong group. I'm supposed to be with the adventurous people, not the tourists!"

At the river, the tour guide loaded us up in a large inflatable boat. We all donned life jackets and put the rest of our belongings in waterproof bag. Some of the other tourists put on rain ponchos they'd brought.
I was excited to see a lot of great rapids ahead of us, but the boat driver took great pains to drive us AROUND the rapids. I almost groaned. Rapids are the fun part. People pay a lot of money of money to go through rapids. Here they were in front of us, and we were driving around them?

After about a ten minute boat ride with minimal rapid contact, we arrived at the base of one of the falls. I had thought the top of the falls were an amazing vantage point, but the bottom of the falls were even better.

We had been told that we would get wet. I'm not afraid of a little water. I've taken the log ride at Six Flags. I've seen the front rows splashed by Shamu at SeaWorld. But I was totally unprepared when the boat took us directly under the raging water fall. Taylor and I were instantly soaked as if someone had poured barrels and barrels of water directly on top of us. As the boat pulled back from the falls, Tay and I were shouting with laughter at the shock. Every part of me, from my hair to the underwear under my clothes, was wringing wet. I was still wiping the water out of my eyes, when the boat driver took us back under the falls for another round.

After that, they drove us to another falls where we had another bracing shower. I was beginning to feel like a wet rat someone was trying to drown. Finally, we disembarked. In the watery confusion, Taylor and I got separated from the group. It was about a 20 minute walk back up to the Sheraton, and I went "squish, squish, squish" every step of the way. My neck and shoulders were beginning to ache from involuntarily trying to wretch away from the downpour.

Back at the hotel, I took a hot shower and wrang the water out of my still-dripping clothes. I collapsed on my bed, under the covers. I refused to leave the room so Tay ordered room service for dinner and we ended up watching reruns of Monk that night, trying to recuperate.

Iguazu Falls is lovely, but I don't recommend it at such close range.

Move 'Em Out, Rawhide!

2010-08-29T07:43:00.003-07:00

Day 6

We went back to the cafe where the day before my camera had gone missing. Despite the fact that I had diligently practiced, "Did you find a camera yesterday?" in Spanish until it was phoenetically perfect, they did not produce the item in question.

We had been warned about theft in Argentina. I actually felt fortunate that only my camera, not my cash, credit card, or apartment keys were taken. Of course, all the latter items were in my Travelon bag which I always kept strapped across my body under my breasts, usually under my coat. To reach that bag, you pretty much had to sexually assault me. Taylor was not a fan of this bag. He claimed it was only one step up from a fanny pack, the epitome of nerdy travelers and I might as well wear sandals with socks while I was at it. However, the only item stolen was the item NOT in the bag, so it was a tradeoff I accepted.

Today was Sunday when the famous San Telmo market is held. I was a little unsure exactly where the market was in San Telmo, but I could hardly have missed it. It went on for blocks. They closed the street to vehicles to make room for the tables, blankets and hordes of tourists.

The San Telmo market was tough for me because I kept falling in love with all the wrong stuff. Some women fall for unsuitable men, I fall for unsuitable accessories. First up, was a beautiful scultped leather handbag. It was expensive for Buenos Aires, more than US$120. But the elaborate patterns made it a piece of art. However, it was a piece of art shaped like a binnocular case. Every time I carried it, I'm sure somone would wonder why I had brought my binoculars. If I'd actually owned a large set of binnoculars, I'd have bought it in an instant. But it didn't really work as a handbag. So I reluctantly moved on.

Tay bought a teeshirt for a friend and was triumphant at finally getting a vendor down in price. (Tay saved a whole 25 cents.) Other shopping for Taylor included looking for a painting. While there was a slightly bigger selection of art here than at the handicrafts market yesterday, it was equally bad in quality.

Most tourists come to Argentina to eat the cows. I, apparently, want to bring them home as accessories. My first big finds at this market were cowhide pillow covers. These were US$19 and I bought one in brown and white for me and one in black and white as a gift. As soon as I paid for them, I knew I was going to be keeping them both!

I also bought a wide leather and silver bracelet. It was too big for my wrist, so the vendor cut off the leather and reattached the clasp while I waited.

Later, I saw a gorgeous black and white cowhide valice. I really, really wanted it. But I remembered the Lesson of the Disco Bag. In China, I bought this cute bag that would be perfect for taking out to clubs. Unfortunately, I conveniently forgot that I never went to clubs. Five years later, I donated the still unused disco bag to Goodwill. Hoping to avoid buying stuff for a lifestyle I didn't actually have, I tried to envision where I would be taking this cowhide valice. I visualized carrying it on a plane. But instead of my face, it was Paris Hilton holding the cowhide bag. Worse, there was a chihuahua with a rhinestone collar peaking his head out from the top of it. I oh-so reluctantly walked away.

I later satisfied this irrational attraction for more cowhide by buying a 4' x 6' cowhide rug. Initially, I had no intention of buying it. I was just admiring it. The vendor could tell this, so she knocked the price down. (I often get the BEST prices on stuff I have no intention of buying.) The rug passed my visualization test. I could see it on the back of my sofa or on the wall in my study. So I bought it with my remaining stash of U.S. dollars. Taylor volunteered to carry "Bessie," his name for my rug, for me as we went back to the apartment.

That night we had dinner reservations at La Cabreza. La Cabreza is so popular that we were only able to get an 8:30 reservation, which now for us was like eating at 5 p.m. The restaurant was within walking distance. But when we arrived, there was line at the door. I gave them my reservation number, and they directed me to their sister restaurant down the street. There we were immediately seated in a very busy, cozy dining room in one section of an older building. The place looked like an upscale, muted "TGI Fridays" with ecletic items scattered on the walls.

We started with a wonderful grilled provolone apetizer, covered with arugula and sundried tomatoes and a bottle of Malbec. We decided to split the most expensive steak on the menu, a Kobe beef fillet. I was willing to bet that our steak hadn't spent any time in Japan, but after one bite, I didn't care about its provenance. It was the best piece of meat I'd ever eaten. Moist, flavorful, tender--angels sang whenever I took a bite.

The steak was served with about 12 different sides. These were one-third cup portions of creamed spinach, applesauce, wasabi mashed potatoes, creamed pumpkin and a bunch of cold dishes we didn't touch. We had also ordered some very good french fries, which arrived in a serving size suitable for at least three tables. But what Tay and I really wanted was more of that lovely steak. However, splitting the steak turned out to be a good move. We left feeling perfectly full, but not overly stuffed. We would not have been able to resist gourging ourselves into a beef-induced coma if we'd had more of it in front of us.

The total bill, which included wine, tip, appetizer, french fries, sides, was $75. I vowed to stop buying the hides and focus more on the meat for the rest of my trip.

Handicraft Heaven

2010-08-28T07:34:00.001-07:00

Day 5

While we had loved the food, the neighborhoods and the sites of Buenos Aires, we had so far sound it lacking in one important travel destination category: shopping. So today, we headed back to Recoleta--this time to the rumoured Recoleta crafts market. I had only found one reference to this weekend market so I'd hope it was still there. Such is my love for handicraft markets, that I was willing to take the chance.

I was disappointed to see that the open area the guidebook indicated for the market was empty. But I saw about 200 tables set up in the park across the street. The first table that caught our eye was filled with small wooden and leather boxes, topped with metal and painted enameld tops in beautiful tribal patterns. We decided the survey the market before buying anything, so we continued on. Taylor spotted silver lightening bolt style earring for me but I didn't reach for my wallet until we hit the table with glass blown earrings. I splurged on three pairs which totaled US$7.50.

I was a bit surprised that vendors here refused to negotiate. I'm not sure if it was because the prices were so low already or if it was because the market seemed to be teeming with Americans, most of whom seem to lack the all-important negotiating gene.

There was a great selection of handicrafts, from pencil holders made of old subway tickets to handknitted scarves. They had some very nice hand-painted coasters made from recycled paper. But paper didn't seem like a durable material for a coaster, so I relunctantly passed on them. Taylor bought a bunch of the thin woven bracelets he likes. They have a short shelf-life so it's good that they are inexpensive and readily available most every exotic place we go, like Peru and Arizona. (Yes, Arizona is very exotic--if you've never been there.)

I had promised Taylor that I would buy him a painting for his 21st birthday, and we eagerly headed over to the section where the meager selection of painting were hung. There we found a collection of really cheesy tango paintings. Would we ever escape the nightmare of the Tango here?

We had better luck with mate cups. These are the traditional cups for drinking mate tea. They are carved out of a gourd and used with a silver straw. These are popular with tourists, and Taylor saw several tables of them. After looking at them all, we went back to the table which Taylor declared had the best quality. From there, Taylor and I narrowed it down to three mate cups in Tay's preferred color and size. We spent the next 15 minutes examining them, turning them in sequences looking for the best gourd symetry on all sides. (This is why I love shopping with Taylor. I'll spend 30 minutes helping him pick out gourds and he'll spend 30 minutes helping me choose earrings.) The vendor was not too thrilled with our slow, careful perusals of three mate gourds, but he perked right up when we eventually picked a winner and Taylor handed him the cash.

We circled back around and I bought the lightening bolt earrings and some tiny ceramic bowls about big enough for one serving of catsup. (After all, you never know when you might need a one-serving size bowl of catstup.) We ended up where we'd started at the market--the wooden box place. We spent about 15 minutes here before I gave up trying to decide what exact size I wanted and just went with the two smaller boxes I thought had were prettiest. Taylor bought a smaller one, as well, for the hammered copper earrings he'd bought earlier for Brittany.

Having exhausted all the possibilities at that market, we stopped at a cafe. Taylor ordered a chicken empanada. (Fun facts: Chicken in Spanish is pollo, which is pronounced poi-yo in Mexico. In Argentina, it's pronounced po-show.) Whatever you called it, it was delicious.

That night we took the Subte across town and walked through the narrow cobblestone streets of San Telmo. San Telmo used to be THE upscale neighborhood before Yellow Fever hit and all the rich folks hightailed it to Recoleta and Bario Norte. We ate at Amiche, an lovely Italian restaurant restaurant off a historic square. Despite the fact it was 10 p.m and the restaurant was nearly empty restaurant, the restaurant staff wanted to know if we had a reservation. We didn't but they managed to squeeze us in to one of the 30 empty tables available anyway.

Based on the food, the place should have been packed. The bread and accompaniments, our arugula salad, and my pumpkin ravioli were all terrific. Tay's pasta was just a bit underdone, but we forgave them in light of an otherwise flawless dining experience.

After dinner, we spotted a taxi that was letting out another passenger. The departing passenger had on an elaborate headdress and outfit and shoes that were so outrageous they might have been designed by Alexander McQueen--that is, if Alexander McQueen had bad taste. The taxi driver informed us that the departing passenger was the star of a local drag show. Having had our brush with a celebrity, we called it a night.

We See Dead People Places.

2010-08-22T07:59:00.005-07:00

Day 4

Once again we started the day at a cafe where I had medialunas (crescents) and Taylor ordered jamon y queso tostido (ham and cheese sandwich). Jamon y queso tostido would be Taylor's go-to dish in Argentina. While he spoke no Spanish, by the end of our trip, he could rattle off, "Y jamon y queso tostito" like a native. After breakfast, we caught a taxi to the famous Recoletta Cemetary.

Recoletta Cemetary is where many prominient Argentines are laid to rest. Most tourists make a beeline to Evita's mausoleum and leave, but as we kind of like creepy, historic places we stayed for a few hours. We bought a map at the door and followed the route outlined.

It took us past rows of masoleums, resembling streets of granite or marble townhouses. Many mausoleums had elaborate statutes, stained glass, domes and grill work. Taylor thought they resembled little churches. He wondered about the locks and chains on all of them. Was the purpose to keep someone out or keep someone in? (I told you we liked creepy.) We did see a lovely marble monument to a girl who was buried alive. The story goes, she awoke from some kind of coma and died inside the tomb, where you can see the marks she made trying to claw her way out. Evita's mausoleum was not so memorable. It was so indistintive we had to be led to it by a friendly American tourist who told us she couldn't fnd it at first either.

After the cemetary, we headed out to find "El Cuarito." This sounds like a mythical hidden city, but it is actually a pizza place. But not just any pizza place: When Anthony Bourdain eats pizza in Buenos Aires, this is where he comes. To get there, we had a 45 minute walk, mostly though the charming, upscale Recoletta neighborhood. I had read that when you ask taxi drivers to take you to a hotel in Recoletta, they assume you are a rich, and naive, visitor. We, of course, were in the cool, if less upscale, neighborhood of Palermo Viejo so taxi drivers had no such illusions about us!

After exploring the cemetary for hours, coupled with the long trek though Recoletta, arriving at El Cuarito actually seemed like arriving at a Lost City. While Bourdain wasn't there, the rest of Buenos Aires seemed to be. The place was packed with locals, both for take-out and dine-in. Taylor pushed through the crowd and found us an empty table in the back although it hadn't been cleared. Within 10 minutes, the waiter cleared the table and handed us menus.

El Cuarito had been around awhile, 75 years, and they retained the same payment policy of cash only. (To be fair, only touristy restaurants here took credit cards). It was the best pizza we'd eat in Argentina. Plus they had Pepsi Light, the only time I found a diet soda on a menu.

We had another long walk past the cemetary again to get to the National Museum of Fine Arts. Unfortunately, we were much more impressed with the pizza place than the musuem. The museum had one Jackson Pollack we admired but that was about it as it seemed to offer a lot of mediocre works by famous artists. You know, even Monet has a bad day, and everything he paints doesn't necessarily deserves a place of honor in a museum.

We took a taxi back to the apartment and rested before dinner. That night we had pre-paid reservations (through Paypal) for a "hidden door restaurant." This is where chefs open their homes to a small number of paying guests once or twice a week. Our dinner was five courses, paired with wines. There were 14 of us, enough for two tables. One table contained a group of scientists and academics here in Buenos Aires for some kind of water conference. The other had part-time MBA students here from Berkeley. I manuevered us to the Berkeley table (and not just for Taylor's sake).

I was excited about the adventuresome menu, which in keeping with the chef's theme for the evening, was Asian-inspired South American food. For example, we had a miso soup sauced cerviche for one course. But the inspiration was much better than the execution; the food just tasted okay. It still turned out to be one of our favorite evenings in Buenos Aires because Tay and I had a great time with the MBAs who were bright, funny and friendly.

At the end of the evening, the hosts called taxis for everyone else, but Tay and I had opted to walked a couple of blocks to the Subte. When we got there, we were surprised that at 12:30 a.m. on a weekend, it had already closed. This is not a place where they roll up the sidewalks at midnight. Serious clubbing doesn't start until 2 a.m. So why does the Supte think its in Oklahoma?

We were able to find a taxi on the street and made it home where there was a loud party in progress on the rooftop patio directly above us. I was so tired, I went right to sleep, anyway.

Between Heaven and Hell

2010-08-16T21:20:00.009-07:00

Day 3:

I didn't have trouble adjusting to the service in Buenos Aires cafes and restaurants. The trick is focusing on the fact that a leisurely dining experience is the primary goal. If you want to grab a quick bite don't eat out in Argentina. Allow the waiter at least ten minutes before he saunters by with a menu. Take your time perusing it, because it may be another ten minutes plus, before he comes back to see what you've decided. However, once you've ordered, the food comes just as quickly as if you'd been transported to a TGI Fridays. The check, of course, never comes until you've requested it. You wouldn't want to feel rushed, now would you?

Tay and I ordered the cafe con leche with medialunas special. For $16 pesos (US $4), we received coffee with milk, three sugary crescents, a shot glass of sparkling mineral water and a small glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.

Like typical portenos, Tay and I got a late start on our day. After our leisurely cafe breakfast, I was surprised to find it was already 1 p.m. Argentina is four hours behind Arizona. I ended up following Arizona time in Argentina for meals, and fit in perfectly here.

We then headed out to the leather warehouse district. This necessitated traversing via subway. The subway, called the Subte, was very similar to the metro in Moscow. This made it very easy for me to use. Actually, a lot of Buenos Aires reminded me of Moscow. The beat-up apartment buildings near the airport and the gracious early 1900s architecture were very reminiscent of Moscow. Even the bland but hardy food brought Moscow to mind.

I bought two 10-ride tickets at the subway ticket office. I did not have the exact amount so the person in line behind me had to pay me instead of the ticket agent, so I could get my change. Argentina is one of those countries where they never have change. In the U.S., you'd go through the same experience if you tried to pay for a $7.50 tab with a $100 bill. Only here, even giving someone a 100 peso note ($25 U.S.) to cover a 30 peso bill ($7.50 U.S.) is problematic. I quickly learned to hoard my change.

I fed my ticket through the turnstyle, boarded the train and navigated through a change of lines, feeling like SUCH an experienced old-hand. Finally, we arrived at our station and walked up to street level. But the "old hand" had forgotten her compass and I had no idea which way we needed to go. Luckily, Taylor had his cell phone with GPS and pointed us in the right direction.

While it was interesting to walk through the Villa Crespo neighborhood, the "warehouse" stores were a bust. In the first place, most of the warehouse stores were actually tiny boutiques. While they did have leather jackets for about US$50, they LOOKED like $50 leather jackets. Taylor fell in love with a lovely leather sectional sofa, but it wasn't going to exactly fit in our suitcase.

We gave up on leather and head over to Ave. de Mayo, a beautiful street modeled after the Champs Elysees. Our goal was the Palacio Barolo. Even though it is the tallest building in Argentina, Tay and I still managed to walk past it three times. We signed up for a tour of the building, which was offered only two days a week. We had 40 minutes before the tour, so we walked across the street to a pizza place that also offered take-out service.

I had a lot of problems here as you had to order and pay at one place, get your pizza slices at another place and pick up your drink at another place. Like most Argentine restaurants, this place was busy, and clueless tourists clogging up the system were not appreciated. We finally got the pizza and bottled water and left. I vowed not to return, but I forgave them for everything after one bite. That pizza was really good. It had a light, thick crust and a TON of great cheese. To apparently save room for all that cheese, the pizza had only a nodding acquaintance with any sauce.

Fortified by the pizza, we were ready for the tour. Tay and I were the only English-speakers in the group. The guide deftly switched back and the forth between Spanish and English as he led us around. The Palacio Barola's owner was a big Dante fan. He decided that as WWI was likely to destroy civilized life in Europe, Dante's ashes needed a new resting point. He figured his new office building was the answer. So he had it built designed on Dante's triology. Dante's ashes never made it to South America, but the building remains. The bottom floors were hell, the middle floors were purgatory and the top floors were heaven. The decorations, the number of floors, etc. all had tie-ins.

But even discounting all the Dante tie-ins, this building was worth the trip, simply for the panoramic views of Buenos Aires. Getting to see them however, was a bit of a challenge. From the top floor of "heaven," we had to climb six flights of very narrow winding stairs. They were so narrow that Taylor barely fit. Anyone bigger, would have to turn sideways. The stairs opened to circle walkway, with about eight balconies jutting off. Each balcony only held one person. I stayed long enough to get some pictures of the breathtaking views. Then we continued up about three more flights.

We emerged at the very top of the building in a glass room containing a large signal light. It was like being in a hurricane lantern on top of the city. We all squeezed around the signal light and the guide invited us to have a seat on the narrow steel girders supporting the room. There was no room on the floor and the rest of the place was glass.

Then we reversed the process, heading down to the middle of the building "purgatory" where we looked at an office furnished from the 1910s. We were also invited to be a "Facebook Friend" of Palacio Barolo.

Tay and I took the historic Supte A back to our apartment. It is the oldest metro in South America and featured wooden trains. We rested before heading out to dinner at an Armenian Restaurant. In addition to the Spanish and Italians, Buenos Aires has a big Arnmenian population. We arrived early for dinner. It was only 8:30, but the sign on the door said the restaurant was closed. There were, however, a lot of people eating dinner inside and a man at the door unlocked it for us. I later realized that this was the restaurant's way of controlling entry. When we left after dinner, customers were lined up outside the locked door.

Tay and I split a huge plate of lamb and a bottle of Malbec. American restaurant portions may be huge, but Argentine meat plates are MASSIVE. After dinner we hailed a taxi to the Tango show. The theater was beautiful and the audience, most of whom had eaten the overpriced meal there with lots of wine, were appreciative. This was a highly-ranked Tango show, but as I sat through the same dancers, costumed in 1940s suits, dancing traditional Tango, I longed for my idea of Tango--Jaime Lee Curtis with a rose between her teeth, draped over Arnold Schwarzenegger in "True Lies." Worst for me were the solo singers in between the dance numbers. They over emoted as they each belted out a tragic song, accompanied by a small band consisting mostly of accordian players. The accoustics were terrible and the sound reverberated. For this I was paying US$75 a person? While yesterday I didn't think it would happen, I had found something in Argentina overpriced by American standards.

But while they already had my money, I didn't have to invest any more time. We'd been to heaven earlier. We didn't have to sit through an evening in hell. Tay and I snuck out between numbers and caught a taxi home.

Welcome to Argentina! That'll be $140.

2010-08-15T23:43:00.006-07:00

Day 2:

After deplaning, we were greeted by immigration who collected our $140 per person entry fee. We picked up our luggage and were met outside the gate by Fred, our driver. Actually, Fred was more than a driver. He also served as a porter, taking charge of our luggage; concierge, making reservations for us for a wine tasting and tango show; and bank, exchanging my U.S. dollars for pesos at a good rate. He also served as a tour guide, filling us in on interesting facts about Buenos Aires during the 40 minute drive from the airport.

Our "wheels" were a new Lincoln Continental. Fred informed us that while the Lincoln had an extremely limited cool factor to anyone in the U.S. under aged 70, cars in Buenos Aires were so expensive to import, this was practically the social equivalent of driving a Maserati. I imagined that the Lincoln probably had better trunk space than the Maserati as well.

I had rented a two-bedroom apartment in the very trendy area of Palermo Viejo. Even Fred, who was cool enough to own a Lincoln Continental in Buenos Aires, was impressed with our choice of neighborhoods. I am obviously not that cool on my own. My son, Alec, who had spent a semester abroad here, helped me choose a location.

We rang the bell and the apartment rental agent came downstairs to unlock the door. (There's no buzzing you in in very cool buildings, apparently.) The rental agency, like most in Buenos Aires, had demanded payment in advance--in cash. I gave them two thick envelopes with U.S. dollars, one containing the nine day rental and one for my hefty security deposit. Living in the U.S., I'm lucky if I have $20 in cash. Transporting large amount of cash from Phoenix to Buenos Aires made me feel like some international smuggler.

Alone in our apartment, Taylor's need for food lost out to my need for a quick nap. I offered him my can of mixed nuts (I've learned the hard way never to travel without my own emergency supply of food) and told him to wake me in 30 minutes. Instead, we both slept for two hours. After we woke up, we were both starving. I selected a restaurant from our Fromer's Guidebook based entirely on its proximinity to our apartment.

The restaurant, a quick five minute walk away, was called "T-Bones." We ordered the grilled cheese appetizer, a big ribeye steak and the house Malbec for lunch. The appetizer, a big wheel of provolone cheese was grilled on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside. It was topped with bacon, tomatoes and rucola. It was really good. Unfortunately, it must have been the only thing the Fromers writers ever ordered here because our ribeye was a boring, bland hunk of meat. Taylor commented that this place was expensive. I pointed out that the dollar signs on the menu referred to pesos. With approximately four pesos to the U.S. dollar, you had to try really hard to find anything overpriced by American standards in Buenos Aires.

On the way back, we stopped by a grocery store chain, called Disco, buying cheese and bread we never ate, and some bottled water. Taylor had wanted to get some milk and cereal for breakfast the next day. The store offered cereal, but the only milk they sold were in boxes on a shelf. It's funny that a place with great steak and cheeses, doesn't have fresh milk.

Back at the apartment, we Google Mapped the hotel where we were scheduled for a wine tasting at 6 p.m. (Our apartment included wi-fi so we had all the comforts of home.) It was about a 40 minute walk so we strolled over, using the GPS on Tay's i-phone to track our movements.

The wine tasting was by a local distributor who dealt only with Argentine wines not widely imported to the U.S. Sara, an expat American whose parents lived in Arizona, led us through a flight of six wines, paired with local foods. We started with a sparkling white wine paired with two sorbets. The wine was good, but the sorbets were amazing. These were really gelattos, but as I don't eat sweets I recharacterized them as sorbets for this trip. (Give me a break: I'm on vacation!) Taylor immediately added the gelatto place where these originated to our list of "must dos."

The most interesting wine was a heavy red with a tobacco scent. They actually sold a lot of this stuff, but I just didn't get the appeal of a wine that smells as if it has been swirled around in a dirty ashtray. It was paired, however, with a couple of really good cheeses. (I had heard so much about Argentine beef, why did no one mention the delicious cheeses?)

We finished the tasting with a really good Malbec, and Taylor and I bought a couple of bottles of those to bring home. After the wine pairings and the steak lunch, neither of us were hungry for dinner, which is generally served at about 10 p.m. in Buenos Aires. It had been a long day, and we decided to make an early night of it.

Day 1: Phoenix to Atlanta

2010-08-15T06:39:00.002-07:00

There was no sign of Taylor, who was meeting me at the airport for our trip to Argentina. The intellectual part of my brain knew he was a responsible adult who would not miss the flight. But the panicky mother part of my brain wasn't convinced. When I hadn't seen or heard from him 90 minutes before the flight, the panicky mother part won out and I called him. "H'llo?" mumbled a sleepy voice.

"Tay, our flight leaves in 90 minutes! Where are you?"

"I was just kidding you. I'm at the airport," said Taylor.

While waiting for Tay to get through security, I watched two older women collect their belongings. As one woman sat down to put on her shoes, her companion fetched a TSA comment card. They were both upset that TSA had confiscated the honey they'd bought in Arizona. I didn't know what was more surprising: the fact that they were unaware that you can't take liquids on board a plane or the fact they thought that filling out a comment card was going to have any affect. Did they really think TSA was going to relax security on liquids to accomodate tourists' need to bring home souvenier honey?

Tay and I finally met up and boarded the plane to Atlanta. We watched our fellow passengers cramming their generously-sized carry-on suitcases into the overhead compartments. One women spent 10 minutes energetically shoving before she finally got the compartment to close. Of course, 20 minutes into the flight, she decided to get this same suitcase out again and then spent another 10 minutes of shoving to get the compartment to close again.

But the worst passenger was Miss Congenialty, who had the window seat on our row. We had already watched her run-in with the flight attendant, whom Miss Congeniality considered to be blocking her way.

After Miss Congeniality was seated, she took one look at Taylor and me and asked the flight attendant to move her. "Were there were some seats anywhere on the plane, maybe in the back?" The flight attendant and I would have been happy to move her to the wing, but Miss Congeniality had to remain there. She did warm up later in the flight after I accidently spilled cold coffee on the flight attendant's shoe. (We were, obviously, the Problem Row of this flight and the flight attendant would have preferred all of us move to the wing.)

We landed in Atlanta where Tay and I walked through all six of the terminals, ranking them for design and shopping opportuntities. (With another 10 hour flight ahead of us, we needed to stretch.) For the flight to Buenos Aires, we'd gotten coveted exit row seats. However, our exit row seats were not so coveted because they only reclined about two inches. What they did offer were miles of leg room, which Taylor really wanted. After boarding, I took a Melatonin, ate dinner, and drank a glass a wine. I put on my down slippers, got out my travel pillow and wrapped up in my trusty cashmere shawl. While it was cold next to the exit door, Tay and I still slept for most of the rest of the flight.

My August Winter Wonderland

2010-07-24T15:23:00.011-07:00

Photos by Alec Perkins: Iguzu Falls, Argentina.

I am using the last of my frequent flyer miles to take Taylor to Buenos Aires next month. Yes, I know that it will be winter in South America in August.

I am always annoyed when people point out how August is not the best time to go wherever I happen to be headed. But what they forget is that I live in Phoenix. I guarantee, that no matter how crowded/cold/rainy it is at my vacation destination, it will beat being in Phoenix in August!

I am making my own travel arrangements again for this trip. Really, I do try to take it easy and use tour packages. For example, lured by Alec's astounding pictures of Iguazu Falls, I decided to do a side trip and looked at packages. I found two-day pre-packaged tours at $500 per person. I thought this was pretty reasonable as the Buenos Aires-Iguazu roundtrip airfare started at $300. While reading the fine print, I discovered the package didn't include airfare. For a lot less than $1000, I can arrange airport transfers, a tour and a hotel. So I am.

But honestly, I like doing all the planning. The trip for me starts with the research. For example, after two hours of immersing myself in reviews of Buenos Aires "hidden door" gourmet restaurants, I'm a little surprised to find I am actually sitting in my study in Phoenix. The bad thing is that after reading all those delightful menus, I am starving and the only things in my refrigerator are Half & Half, low carb tortillas and Diet Coke.

I already booked a car service to pick us up when we arrive in Buenos Aires. We could also walk outside the terminal to find a taxi driver and negotiate a good price to take us to the apartment I've rented. I am generally pretty good at negotiating. This attribute does not apply, however, when I am seriously sleep deprived--like after 24 hours of traveling. At those times, I have been known to wander around international airports muttering Gump-like, "Travel is like a box of chocolates."

So I am going with the expensive chauffer who will be waiting for us at the gate. Arriving international passengers are often grossly overcharged by taxi drivers at airports. I, at least, have the advantage of knowing exactly how much I'm overpaying.

So a car service and a trip to Iguazu Falls might be a tad indulgent. But getting out of Phoenix in August: That's priceless.

What Happens in Book Club, Appears Here.

2010-07-19T07:33:00.003-07:00

Now that school is out, and I no longer have to read 40 hours a week, I have time to practice one of my favorite pasttimes--reading. (Do not go to law school if you don't like to read. It's like being a professional pilot if you don't like to fly.)

Putting down my textbooks and picking up novels reminded me that I love to read. (Reading the federal tax code for hours has a way of making me forget that.) I further indulged my love of reading this summer by attending the monthly book club I started ten years ago.

It's an exciting time to be going back to Book Club. This is because my Book Club is dating another book club. We need new members. Their book club is disbanding. We are wooing them to join us.

We invited them out to a meeting last month (discussing Brideshead Revisited.) Before the discussion portion, we made small-talk, trying to get to know each other. Last night we had our second date (discussing My Antonia). The conversation got a little more serious and they ask us what we were looking for in this relationship. I listened as our members spelled out our many Book Club rules: One hour of socializing beforehand, no talking about the book before the officical discussion, the hostess speaks first and then we rotate from her around the circle, etc. What kind of anal-retentive person sets up so many procedures for a book club? Oh, yeah, that would have been me.

My Book Club wanted to know why our visitors' book club disbanded. What book club baggage were they likely to bring to our group? I felt a little better as I saw that rules like ours would have prevented at least some of the issues they'd had.

Those conversations went pretty well, so a third date is in the works for next month (discussing The Nineteenth Wife). Additionally, we made plans to join at Christmas to meet the family (discussing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Every Christmas, Book Club invites husbands/dates to Book Club. So getting together for the holidays is a significant step.

We've all had bad Book Club relationships before. So we are taking it slow. Still, we have high hopes this will be a Book Club match made in literary heaven.

Advice For Incoming Law School Students: What Your Mom Would Tell You If She Were in Law School.

2010-07-15T07:34:00.002-07:00

You can do this. Law school would not have accepted you if you couldn't.
Pay no attention to all that posturing among your first year classmates. Students who seemed THE most confident at the beginning of the semester usually do not end up at the top of the class.
Visit your professors during their office hours. If you are looking for a competitive advantage, both academically and professionally, you'll often find it here.
Befriend 2Ls and 3Ls. You will be amazed at how helpful these people can be.
Everyone has a theory for acing law school. But you are the expert on how YOU learn best. Listen to ideas about effective outlining, study groups, etc. Then do only what is most effective for you.
Get involved in extra-curricular activities. They not only fill up the blank spaces on your resume, they can lead to unexpected opportunitites.
Be willing to be lucky. Even if you consider yourself a long-shot, apply for law review, your dream internship or a prestigious student office. Sometimes, you get it! Then take a few moments to savor the heady thrill of victory. (This is best accomplished with good champagne.) Remember this feeling as it can help sustain you through the not-so-fun parts of law school.

Cool Breeze

2009-09-07T08:29:00.002-07:00

I love law school students. They make me feel, well, normal.

Earlier this semester, I watched as one of my classmates pointed out a grammar error on another classmate’s teeshirt. Now, I have been known to complain to Wells Fargo because its signs say “insure” when it means “ensure.” But even I would not bother to correct the grammar on a young graduate student’s teeshirt.

Did the other law school students in the group roll their eyes over the teeshirt correction? No, they jumped in the discussion, which ended only when someone looked up the fine points of the grammar rule on at least two websites.

These are my kind of people.

All the stuff that is a little off kilter about me: I am so meticulous that I keep my spices in alphabetical order; I feel spontaneous when I depart from my plan to eat at Subway and go to KFC; I don't mind studying 10 hours a day. None of this behavior is particularly unusual in the law school student world.

In fact, at law school, I am considered practically laid back. In the midst of some of my classmates, who treat every single assignment, graded or not, as a career-breaking, life-or-death event, I am a cool breeze.

Even though today is Labor Day, I have my usual detailed agenda. It includes one extended study break where I’ve slated myself to mop the kitchen floor. But maybe I’ll switch things abound and unload the dishwasher as well. Don’t try to stop me. I am Ms. Devil-May-Care—at least in the law school student world.

The Best Day!

2009-09-03T22:24:00.004-07:00

One quarter of a century ago, I had the best day of my life. That was day I welcomed my darling baby, Alec. I held that frail, five-pound bundle in my arms and fervently prayed that I could keep him alive. “Let me have a year with him. Please, I’ll never ask for anything else. Just give me a year.”

But I got much more than that. I am now going-on 25 wonderful years of being Alec’s mother. Even though he’s grown from that tiny bundle into a talented, intelligent, funny and thoughtful man, one thing hasn’t changed—the enormous pleasure I get from having him in my life.

Happy 25th birthday, Alec!

To the Death

2009-08-29T21:18:00.004-07:00

The first year, they scare you to death.
The second year, they work you to death.
The third year, they bore you to death.
--law school adage

I am definitely in the "work you to death" stage of law school. Part of this, I brought on myself with the great “honor” of making law journal and getting to write a 25 page well-researched paper. (Complete detailed outline is due ten days from now.) I also have the honor of doing cite checks, a mind-numbing tedious exercise in proofreading. (And to think, I used to enjoy proofreading. I did it professionally.) My first set of cite checks took me all day last Friday and Saturday, and I have five more sets of these as part of my law journal commitment.

Added to this is a full load of classes. This is mitigated, a bit, as for the first time I actually got to choose what to take. Here's my classes:

Decedents’ Estates

Decedents’ Estates is legal-talk for Dead People’s Stuff. The first really fun fact I learned is the great extent to which Grandpa may go in making people jump through hoops to get their grubby hands on his money. His will can direct them to do anything you see on Fear Factor. As long as there is a sufficient dating pool, he can make his son marry a woman of a specific race/religion/net worth. (The fact the son is gay doesn't matter.) He can make his atheist daughter attend church every Sunday or his vegan grandchild eat red meat. He can make his spoiled widow give up hanging out at the spa and join the Peace Corp. The law will tolerate such huge intrusions because that person doesn’t have to do it. They don’t get Grandpa’s money, but they don’t have to do it. I think Fear Factor works that way too, doesn’t it?

Constitutional Law II

In Con Law, we are learning about substantive due process. As far as I can tell, this means the Supreme Court can declare something is a right protected by the Constitution, even if the Constitution doesn’t say anything about it. We are spending four class hours on abortion. (So you know THAT’s going to be on final.) Of course, not one second is devoted to the moral implications of abortion. Our great controversy is whether this is substantive due process.

Business Organizations

Biz Orgs is law for businesses. Earlier in life, I learned how to read a cash flow statement and a balance sheet so I actually got to coast through part of a law school class for once. Then we moved on to different forms of setting up a business, like limited liability companies and S corps, so I had to turn my brain back on.

Law, Science and Technology

I took Law, Science, and Technology because it covers all kinds of new issues, like nanotechnologies. This is supposed to make me fascinating at dinner parties. I keep forgetting I don’t actually go to dinner parties anymore. My social life consists of grabbing a 30 minute lunch with classmates where, instead of cutting-edge technologies, we all talk about how much STUDYING we have to do.

Tonight, I read about current trends in epidemiology, which is the study of diseases. According to one article, epidemiologists aren’t all that sure what causes cancer. Okay, they’re sure about cigarettes, radiation, a couple of viruses and asbestos. Exposure to those will put you at the top of the recipients for the Make a Wish Foundation list. But for almost everything else, epidemiologists don’t consider the studies conclusive.

With so much open territory, I've now decided to use fear of cancer as my go-to excuse. "I’m sorry. I can't say yes to your request. I believe that activity causes cancer." In all honesty, it’s just as likely to cause cancer as saccharine.

As a 2L, I really hope they don’t decide studying causes cancer. If so, I am dead meat. Okay, back to the books!

The second year, they work you to death.

When the Sun Explodes

2009-08-04T06:51:00.003-07:00

An attorney friend of mine said practicing law is a lot like writing Science Fiction. Like a Science Fiction writer, a good attorney has to come up with all kinds of outlandish “what if” scenarios. While clients expect good outcomes or even usual outcomes, it is the job of their attorneys to take into account the unexpected.

“What if one party changes his or her mind?” “What if someone dies or the business fails?” “What if aliens invade?" Okay, maybe not so much the alien invasion scenario, but you get the point.

This negativity has a tendency to drive many clients crazy. They do not want to spend time and money considering a multitude of disasters that are probably never going to come up. But it’s the attorney’s job to try to imagine all kinds of crazy scenarios just to ensure her client’s interests are protected.

If the sun explodes, it’s pretty much game over. But other than that, a good attorney should have the future covered.

Willing to Be Lucky

2009-08-02T09:24:00.005-07:00

E.B. White once wrote New Yorkers were "willing to be lucky." That's how I feel about much of my journey in law school.

My last two weeks of school were devoted to prepping for and taking finals. During this time, fueled by caffeine and whatever scraps of food I could find in my house, I did nothing but study and take tests, giving in to sleep when my brain refused to function. So what did I do to celebrate the end of finals?

I went through the 33-hour write-on marathon for the Law Journal. I finished my last three-hour final Thursday at 5 p.m. At 8 a.m. the next morning when the Law Journal competition opened, I started working again. I took a few hours off to sleep, but otherwise I worked continuously until the 5 p.m. deadline the following day.

My friend Sara, who was also doing the write-on, had been staying with me the last couple of days. (My house was quieter than being at home with her three young children and a husband.) As I had practically no food, she had been surviving on hot tea and Taylor’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.

Sara provided mostly silent comraderie as it is an honor code violation to discuss anything having to do with the competition with “any human being.” (Had I been alone, I guess I could have talked things over with Zara, my cat.) I met Sara’s family when they arrived to pick her up. Both of us looked like refugees.

That night, I went to bed at 9:30 and slept for 11 hours.

I knew going in that I had a very slim chance of being selected for Law Journal. While my first semester grades qualified me to go through the process, I was at the lower end of those who did. And there was a lot of competition. Gluttons for punishment that we law students are, it was rumoured that over 50 of us went through the 33-hour competition in an attempt to win one of 17 places. We were, in other words, all willing to be lucky.

Follow-up: Forty-five days later Sara and I were both offered positions on Law Journal.

Fireworks

2009-07-03T22:09:00.003-07:00

Ahwatukee was supposed to have a fireworks display tonight. Instead, a monsoon rolled in. We didn't get the rain, but in the distance an impressive lightening storm lit up the sky. It may not have been choreographed to patriotic music, but it was a magnificient Independence Day celestial display.

Bye Bye Boumedine

2009-05-18T09:19:00.002-07:00

Law school professors usually assign reading for the first day of class. For our first Constitutional Law class this semester, the professor assigned 30 pages of reading from our textbook plus a Supreme Court case called “Boumediene v. Bush.” Boumediene was a 2008 case about an “unlawful combatant” being held at Guantanamo Bay. The case was 13 single-spaced pages, full of unfamiliar terms like the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the Suspension Clause, and habeas corpus privilege.

I read the case three times, trying to understand the basics of what was going on and what Constitutional issues it was expounding. (As part of our assignment for the first day, we also had to read the Constitution.) As usual, I briefed the “Boumediene” case, which is writing a summary in a set format. With all this effort, I still wasn’t sure I “got it.” I hated “Boumediene.”

On the first day of class, we discussed the case. Actually, we didn’t discuss anything; the professor randomly called on one student (not a volunteer) who was grilled for about 30 minutes on it. But eventually, I was able to get the essentials of what I was supposed to be learning. The main point is that Congress, through statutes, can take jurisdiction away from an Article III court on habeas corpus issues, as long as there is an adequate substitute procedure.

Last week, during my closed-book Con Law final, I even cited “Boumediene” in answering my essay question. That question was worth 60% of my final grade so I was hoping the “Boumediene” example had to be good for a few points.

A few days ago, I heard on the radio that Boumediene was being released from Guantanamo. Initially, I was surprised to hear his name mentioned outside of class. I forgot that Boumediene is a real person--a person who’s been stuck in prison at Guantanamo Bay. This case was difficult to me because it is so complicated and time-consuming. This case was difficult for Boumediene because it is his life.

For me right now, the law is a purely academic. But Boumediene reminds me that in a few years my application of the law is going to have real consequences for real people. And the lessons I’m learning now may be more valuable than just for racking up points on an exam. So Boumediene, I wish you well.

Finals Review

2009-05-02T09:26:00.003-07:00

The school gives law school students the week off between the last day of class and the beginning of finals. This is a called “Reading Week,” as if we hadn’t reading six hours a day all semester anyway.

My Property Professor has concocted a FOUR HOUR final. You can leave the room and come back but the test is continuous. This test will include the Rule of Perpetuities which is a very complicated formula to prevent dead people from controlling land for too long. We spent hours of class time (plus much practice on our own after class) to master this skill. The rule is becoming outdated, and I suspect they continue teaching it merely as a form of hazing for first years. But I think I got it down now. So dead people, watch out!

Prepping for my Criminal Law final has been more fun. (Murder and mayhem is interesting, I have to admit.) For practice for the test, I worked out the probable charges for the homicides in the song, “He Had It Coming,” from the musical, Chicago. I categorized them first under the Common Law standards and then under the MPC. For example, “He ran into my knife. He ran into my knife ten times” would be Murder 2 under the Common Law. You couldn’t reduce it to Voluntary Manslaughter because it doesn’t meet the criteria under provocation. See, isn’t that fun?

In Con Law, we spent a lot of time this semester talking about How George W and the Gang Trampled the Constitution and the Democrats Just Let Them! To make sure I learned something besides that, I sat through four hours of online generic Constitutional Law lectures at home. But, I got all caught up on my ironing while I watched so I feel pretty good about that time investment.

My Administrative Law professor is using a combination multiple choice/short answer format for his final. Under this format, you choose one of five answers and then explain why you chose it. You get 3 points for the right answer and 7 points for your explanation. So you do much better if you pick the wrong answer but have a good explanation (7 points), than if you pick the right answer but have a bad explanation (3 points). Once again, no one much cares about the answer--even in this case where there are definite right answers. It’s all about getting there.

In law school, like in life, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters. I'll try to keep that in mind as I spend hours trying to prepare for finals.

What I'm Getting From Law School

2009-04-12T16:19:00.005-07:00

Thursday in class, one of my classmates remarked on what beautiful handwriting I had. Who me?

I have long been known for my lousy penmanship. Begining in early grade school, handwriting was the ONE subject I could never, no matter how hard I tried, bring up to an A. Later in life, I just chalked up my horrible handwriting up to my generally poor hand-eye coordination and breathed a sigh of relief when handwriting was generally replaced by typing.

But now, for the first time in my life, someone had complimented me on my penmanship! I looked down at my page of class notes. You know, they looked good. Of course, my penmanship wasn't on the level of my late father's, who had the most beautiful handwriting I'd ever seen. But they were a far cry from the messy scrawl for which I'd always been known.

Somehow, law school had transformed my penmanship. And all it took was handwriting class notes three hours a day, five days a week for eight months! My mom keeps asking me what I'm learning in law school, and I assure her I'm not learning anything of use. But now, I can point to my penmanship. I'm not sure that's worth the $16,000 annual tuition, but at least I'm getting something out of law school.

How to Spend Your Summer Vacation

2009-03-13T21:47:00.004-07:00

In the good old days, if you nailed your exams, law school students were offered lucrative summer internships. You were completely not worth it but large firms looked at it as a way of sinking their hooks in early to top students.

In this economy, those days are gone. There are only a few legal internship that offer any payment--even at fast food wages. This leaves almost all first year law school students trying to decide what to do with their summer.

I have been interviewing for unpaid internships. This is where, believe it or not, you try to get somebody to let you VOLUNTEER at their office full-time in exchange for getting some real life legal experience and, hopefully, if you work hard enough--a letter of recommendation.

Another option is doing a summer externship. In an externship, you earn law school credit working volunteering for a non-profit. There is usually a very good educational/experience component to this. The downside is the college makes you pay for your credit hours. It’s $1,000 per credit hour with a minimum of two hours. So essentially, you pay a minimum of $2,000 to do volunteer work all summer. Because we pay a flat semester rate, the two hour you take this summer doesn’t lessen your fall or spring tuition. It’s money ON TOP of your usual college bill.

Then there’s summer school. There is a terrific intensive legal writing class I’d love to take. But it’s five credit hours ($5,000).

Which makes those unpaid internships look like an awfully good deal to me.

Fighting the Good Fight

2009-02-07T09:53:00.004-07:00

In my legal writing class, we were assigned a fictitious case for which we will be do legal research, draft motions and make oral arguments. As I read the complaint and depositions provided, it was clear to me what the legal issues were. (Gee, maybe I am learning something in law school!) But at this point, my real life brain kicked in. My real life brain said, “You know, these are reasonable, if fictitious, people. We ought to be able to sit down and work out these disagreements.” Real life rewards you for solving problems expediently.

Law school, on the other hand, trains you to dig up more issues, to demolish your opponent’s arguments, and to win a judgment. I understand why. If your case goes to court, as a very tiny percentage of lawsuits do, it’s likely that someone will win and someone will lose. A good lawyer must be able to aggressively and effectively fight for her clients’ interests. And I desperately want to be a good lawyer.

So I am doing my research, honing my arguments and preparing to battle. Real life has taught me to be a good negotiator. Now I’m preparing to be a good fighter too.

High Tech to Low Space

2009-01-26T18:05:00.004-07:00

It's not just laptops that have invaded the classroom. My law school classes are filled with technology. Many of my professors lecture using PowerPoint presentations which are then posted online.

In one class, we are required to post three "substantative" comments on the class's private web page. You are also responsible for any updates to the syllubus which can only be accessed online. The law school still insists you aren't "required" to have a computer but the only way I can see to get around that is to be better at ESP than the Amazing Kreskin.

Two of my classes require the use of a clicker. This is an electronic devise that looks like a small TV remote control. It's registered to you personally. You bring it to class where it electronically records your presence. Professors can also use it to ask a question and display the class results. It's like what happens when they poll the audience on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Of course, rather than asking about characters on the Simpsons, we get questions covering the dense required reading. The professor knows your clicker number so, like Santa, he can track who's been naughty (not being prepared) and who's been nice (who actually slogged through the four hours of material required for each 90 minute class.)

Today in my Con Law class, I had a big techno-shock. My name and clicker number flashed up on the screen behind my professor. That meant it was my turn, out of 60 students, to answer orally whatever set of questions my professor felt like asking. This turned out to be how the Founding Fathers thought about sovereignty as illustrated in the Articles of the Confederation. (Lucky me!) For not looking like a complete idiot in class, my classmates actually congratulated me afterwards.

In my last class today, the professor was forced to send around another seating chart because the one we filled in last week had too many errors. It's a good thing law school students have that technology thing down, because we are definitely flunking spacial relations.

Getting to Insanity: Second Semester Law School

2009-01-23T20:45:00.005-07:00

The biggest challenge for law school students the first day back seems to be the seating chart.

Professors pass a diagram of the classroom around, asking students to write their names where they are seated. (You also need to make a separate note for yourself of exactly where you are as this will be your seat assignment for that class for the entire semester.)

This is likely to be the first thing on the agenda. While law school students may be quite smart in other areas, it takes us forever to figure out how that piece of paper relates to our three-dimensional classroom and write our name on the proper space. In one class, in a diagram which included the podium and all of our seats, we actually filled in the wrong spaces and had to start over halfway around the room. I bet this doesn’t happen in the graduate program in architecture.

My first class this semester was Property where we discussed how Property really isn’t really about property. So what is Property about? Property is about relationships! I may be quite fond of some of my property, but even I don’t consider that a relationship. Actually, Property is about the relationships of people with interests in the property. And by property, we don’t really mean property. Property could be membership in the Boy Scouts, which in one court case was a determined to be a “place.” (Don’t you just love law school?)

Actually, I mostly do. As one of my friends said, “Law school would be fun if only there wasn’t so MUCH of it.”

And there is A LOT of it. For example, I had 100 pages of reading to do before my first Constitutional Law class. Guys like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton are not exactly a quick read, either. While the Constitution was part of the assigned reading, we still need to bring a copy of it with us to every class for reference. I find it’s easiest just to keep my copy in backpack. Nothing makes you feel like more of a legal nerd than going everywhere with your own personal copy of the Constitution. Of course, this is much better than hauling around my Con Law textbook. It is 5 inches thick, costs $150 and weighs more than five pounds.

I have two continuing classes from last semester: a survey course with the Dean and Legal Writing. In Legal Writing, we were each assigned sides in a case, either representing a school for the blind or the City. I was happy to get the school until I read the pleadings and depositions and found I REALLY agreed with the City. I’m stuck making the case for the blind. This probably happens a lot in real life too.

I am also taking Administrative Law. Today in class our topic was “How Laws are Created.” I thought that meant the stuff from the Schoolhouse Rock Song, “I’m Just a Bill.” http://www.school-house-rock.com/Bill.html. But as we only had 90 minutes, we didn’t get around to bills. We really only got to who could create laws, like judges or lawmakers, barely finishing the seating chart by class end!

In my Criminal Law class, the professor told us it was her “goal this semester to reach insanity.” I looked at the syllabus. The last unit is “Exculpation: Insantity.” Actually, it is sort of one of my goals NOT to reach insanity. But with this semester, we’ll see.

Almost Famous

2009-01-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

http://lawlibnews.blog.asu.edu/2009/01/20/450/

Christmas 2008

2009-01-01T08:36:00.005-07:00

Photo: Saori and Alec stretch out.

It didn’t take me long to get right into the swing of inactivity after finals. I’ve not read anything more complicated than a novel whose main character is a former hairdresser named “Bubbles."

I got to spend Christmas at my sister’s house which was perfectly designed for “the gangs all here to go skiing.” It even comes equipped with an adorable mountain dog and a hot tub with a canyon view.

While I only had two days to do all my Christmas shopping, I did manage to find something for me--a full-length cashmere robe, marked down from $400 to $50 at Nordstrom’s Rack. Despite the fact it’s beige and makes me look like a Jedi from Star Wars (Episode 3), I had to buy it. It is just that soft and wonderful.

While Salt Lake was beautifully draped in fresh snow, the skiing was a mixed bag. The first day, the snow was perfect. All that powder made even a bad skier like me look good. I felt like an Olympic Champion as I shushed my way down the green trails. Unfortunately, the afternoon turned bitterly cold and I headed inside. I discovered I am not only a fair weather SCUBA diver, I am now a fair weather skier too.

My brother-in-law commented that in Salt Lake, the weather was almost a class issue. People who can afford to go skiing were very happy with more snowfall. The folks who can’t afford it, see only more shoveling. So expressing glee at more snow might get you branded as an elitist snob.

At my sister’s request, I had brought Christmas stockings for my family. I had to purchase new ones as the lovely beaded velvet ones I’d bought for 75% off at the After Christmas sale at The One in Abu Dhabi had bled all over each other. I had found some less fancy replacements at Target where I had to FORCE myself to pay full price. I knew these would be 75% off after Christmas, but I needed them now.

I love my Christmas decorations, basically because they are all souvenirs. Not too many people use a Hand of Fatima or a miniature carved Ecuadorean lion mask as ornaments, but I think they look great.

I was so busy with finals this year, however, that I did not have time to put up a tree. I compromised by decorating a garland with my twinkly white lights and selected ornaments. It was kind of a Christmas triage. I made time to drag out my hand-painted Russian Father Christmases but the lovely gold Chinese cloisonné ornaments had to spend the holiday in the boxes.

But today it’s all going back in the boxes. Christmas, while great, is over, and I’m now left to deal with no heat, a totaled car and traffic school. (It’s always something.)

Happy New Year!

Photo: David on Christmas morning.

Study Junkie

2008-12-17T21:51:00.003-07:00

I had last my final yesterday. Thankfully, the professor reduced the test from four hours to 3.5 hours. There are no breaks. You can sign out to leave the room, but the test continues.

One of my biggest fears had been keeping up my concentration level for such an extended time. But my practice sessions at home worked, and the only time I lost focus was when my cellphone rang. I had forgotten to leave it at home. Because phones can transmit all kinds of information, bringing one into a test is verbottem. The Law School is VERY serious about the honor code violations, and I had visions of being immediately hauled out of the room by the proctor and thrown out of school. She, however, didn’t even look up as I frantically dug through my backpack and turned it off.

Then I immediately went back to writing about whether or not a contract was formed when the two businesses didn’t agree on the return policy for widgets. (In Contracts, we talked a lot about buying and selling widgets.) My offending cellphone was mitigated a bit by the fact that many of my classmates, including me, were wearing earplugs. These are distributed free before exams.

After completing my last final, I met my classmates at a nearby bar. Lots of things have changed since I was an undergraduate, but college bars are EXACTLY the same. They are still dives with cheap drinks. I ordered a beer and they brought it in a huge glass. Only bars in college towns and Russsia serve beers that big.

I expected to be relieved the semester is over. But instead I feel restless. Law school has turned me into a study junkie. I keep thinking, "Aren't I suppose to be studying something now?" But there's nothing to study. I feel like I'm going cold turkey through study withdrawl. Today, I rearranged the furniture, only to move it back exactly where it was. I need to figure out how to have a life again. At least until classes start resume January 20.

Fighting Forrest

2008-12-12T19:24:00.002-07:00

For the first time in my life, I’m not very smart. In fact, sometimes I feel like the Forrest Gump of ASU Law School. It’s a very humbling experience. So I guess it’s not too late for me to get in some more character-building.

It’s finals week. To stay functional, my brain insists on breaks every four hours, a night off once a week, and eight hours a night of rest. Within those constraints, I pretty much study the rest of the time. This has been my schedule all semester, so finals week isn’t much different.

As I am already at my Sustained Maximum Cruising Rate for studying, the big difference for me is practice testing. All my finals are from 1 to 4 p.m. This is a three hour test in the middle of my body’s lowest energy time. So to prepare, I take practice tests every day from 1 to 4. At 1 p.m., I am a brilliant law student, seeing angles everywhere! By 2 p.m, I’m starting to miss some stuff. But after 3 p.m., I’m Gump again, having difficulty even following the narrative thread of those fanciful elaborate scenarios I need to be insightfully analyzing.

My law school exams are open-book. Professors secretly laugh at that. They know that while you are allowed to bring in mounds of material, you won’t have time to look at it. If you bring in very well-organized materials, students have, at most, time to double check one or two things. Any longer and you won’t have time to finish the test.

You earn points by seeing how many legal issues you can find and discuss. A law professor actually compared it to a “Where’s Waldo” book. This is because unlike other professions, law teaches you to make things as complicated as possible. So the more problems you can find, and the more ways you can argue about those problems, the better lawyer you are.

The other interesting thing about law school exams is that they don’t deduct points for the wrong answer! (Remember, there ARE no right or wrong answers in law school.) However, because your time is so limited, every two minutes you spend writing that “life is like a box of chocolates,” is two minutes you won’t be earning any points.

But it’s my night off tonight. I will be relaxing and playing games with my family. Tomorrow will be soon enough to once resume my search for Waldo, this time in Contracts, while fighting my Inner Gump.

Is Civil Procedures Civil?

2008-12-07T11:52:00.002-07:00

I am currently in the midst of studying for my first law school final, Civil Procedures on Tuesday. It is 70% of my grade. My other two finals, in Torts and Contracts, will be 100% of my grade. No pressure, huh?

Civil Procedures is mostly about learning the rules in lawsuits. For example, we spent DAYS on where you can file suit. First you have to look at General jurisdiction to determine if there’s either personal or specific jurisdiction. There’s a bunch of factors to consider on each. Sorting that out just gets you to the possible states.

Next, you move on to venue, which is what court you want to use. If you want to be in federal court, rather than state, you have to see if your case qualifies either through subject matter or diversity. There’re rules for each of these. And then there’s more rules about what the other side can do (and when) if they aren’t so wild about your carefully-considered court choices.

Studying jurisdiction was less fun than learning Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This was a unit I called “Lawyers Behaving Badly.” Rule 11 kind of puts the "Civil" is Civil Procdures. It covers what the judge can do to lawyers who don’t work and play well with others. One case we studied involved an attorney who threw Barbie dolls at a discovery conference when his client was suing Mattel. Even if you haven’t had the advantage of three months of Civil Procedure classes like me, you probably can guess that this wasn’t condoned by Rule 11 F.R.C.P.

But it occurred to me today, that with all those rules, I hadn’t learned any rules on actually TRYING a case in court. I’ve got two and half years left. Maybe they’ll get to that eventually. And it’s actually a very small percentage of cases that get anywhere near a courtroom. But in the meantime, if the opposing counsel tries to throw Barbie at you, I can tell you it’s not allowed.

Reasoning

2008-11-29T23:23:00.002-07:00

My mother asked me what I was learning in law school. Despite the fact I devote huge amounts of time to studying, I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

But here’s one thing I learned: It's good to be reasonable.

There’s a saying, “What would Jesus do?” Christians are supposed to evaluate their actions by that standard. The law evaluates people’s actions by a standard too. But instead of Jesus, their standard in determining negligence is a “reasonable person.” Would a reasonable person have acted that way?

This is not what’s reasonable for you. For example, because I’m sensitive to sounds, I flip out if I’m exposed to prolonged loud noises. I would consider it reasonable to take a baseball bat and smash to smithereens whatever is making that noise. But the legal standard is NOT what’s reasonable to me. I have to conform to that Reasonable Person, who, surprisingly enough, probably is not inclined to smash things with bats no matter how annoying.

If I’m sound sensitive, mentally challenged, given to fits of rage, inexperienced or really old, the law doesn’t care. In deciding if what I did was negligent, it just compares me to Ms. Reasonable Person. There are a couple of exceptions, of course. (Absolutes are not allowed in law school!) If I have a physical handicap, like blindness, then I get compared to Ms. Reasonable Person Who Happens to Be Blind.

Children are another exception. Kids don’t have to be Reasonable People either. (Parents of young teenagers will confirm that!) Instead, the standard used for children is what’s reasonable for a child that age.

I don’t know what a Reasonable Person would think of all this. But it sounds about right to me.

How Law School Students Celebrate Thanksgiving

2008-11-25T19:11:00.003-07:00

I am emeging from my All Law School, All the Time fog to host Thanksgiving at my house. I have assigned to friends and family: appetisers, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, salad and THE TURKEY! My contribution will be buying the wine and running the vacuum. (And if the truth be told, I MAY not even have time to run the vacuum!)

Law school keeps me busy. A second year law school student said it best: "I study all the time just to try to stay in the middle of the class. I work harder at this than anything I've ever done--just to be mediocre." I don't know anyone in my class, inlcuding me, who's taken a day off from studying since classes started in August.

One of my classmates is sending her family out of state to celebrate Thanksgiving with relatives while she remains in town to study. Compared to her, I am practically Ms. Thanksgiving Spirit of 2008.

This Thanksgiving, I am going to try to take a day to stop and give thanks for my friends and my family who are so dear to me. And while I'm being thankful, as demanding as it is, I'm also happy for the opportunity to be in law school.

My Scary Suburban Life

2008-11-02T17:30:00.004-07:00

We are studying cases about fright in Torts. We got to read true cases about bloodied severed legs in paper bags. This is how law students celebrate Halloween.

Actually, I celebrated Halloween by buying a pumpkin, lighting lots of candles and displaying dancing skeletons on my welcome mat. I decoratively arranged ten pounds of candy in my carved Ecuadorian leaf bowl. Lastly, I turned on my porch light. That was all the time I'd allocated for Halloween so I retreated to my library to study. Taylor was on hand to distribute the treats.

The next time I emerged from my study fog, I realized it was 9 p.m. and we hadn't had any Trick or Treaters! I sadly blew out the candles and turned off my porch light. Growing up, I didn't have computer games, cellphones or text messaging. But I had the fun of dressing up and collecting candy all over the neighborhood.

It's too bad that Halloween has turned so scary.

A Day in the Life of a 1-L

2008-10-16T07:26:00.004-07:00

6:00 Wake up. Feed the cat. Make coffee. Eat breakfast (mixed nuts) while reading the newspaper. Clean the kitchen.

7:00-10:30 Study.

10:30 Pack up my backpack. It’s completely full and weighs about 20 lbs. Still, it's my favorite assessory because it instantly identifies me as a student. I can dress however I want and as long as I have that backpack, nobody ever mistakes me for faculty or staff. Because it suddenly turned cooler, I have promised to bring Taylor a couple of jackets so I put those in a plastic bag.

10:45 Get dressed. Make and eat a chef salad.

11:30 Drive to school. Park on the third floor of the parking garage and walk down the stairs and over to the law school building. Drop stuff off in my locker. (Yep, good school girl that I am, I have a locker.)

12:15 Attend lunch presentation. About three times a week, some organization brings in guest speakers to the law school to talk about various social or practical issues. And if that wasn't great enough, the groups almost always FEED you.

Today the Latino Law students are sponsoring a talk by the local ACLU attorney. He discusses their current cases dealing with racial profiling by law enforcement. Last week, a classmate told me she was not allowed to try on clothes at a store in Chandler Mall because she’s Hispanic! All of this ongoing racial prejudice in Arizona makes me feel very sad.

1:15 Hand off Taylor’s jackets to him as he skateboards by outside the law building.

1:30 Torts class. We have a two hour discussion on various situations trying to determine when people have a common law duty to tell third parties confidential information. It the classic fight on where to draw the line between an individual's privacy versus the public’s right to know.

3:30 Appointment with the WestLaw rep. at the Westlaw computer lab in the law library. WestLaw is an online research tool for lawyers. While I am no stranger to Googling, I am not making much progress on my assigned legal research worksheet using WestLaw. I am secretly relieved when the WestLaw rep has a tough time with my worksheet too. After more than 90 minutes, we decided I should forget online research and just use the books in the library.

I consider this time well spent as I gets lots of one-on-one help with WestLaw. As a bonus, I get a free WestLaw highlighter. It’s orange, a color I don’t use much but I can trade it for another color with a classmate. Yes, my world is filled with lockers, free pizza, softball games, and trading highlighters. Sometimes, I feel like I'm going to the Sandra Day O'Connor Middle School of Law.

5:00 I had planned to study but I only have 15 minutes before I need to leave. I walk back to the law school rotunda and catch up on a few emails, rearranging game night because Alec and Saori have opera tickets. I also schedule lunch on Friday with my student mentor. The rotunda is full of students all dressed in business suits as there is a mock trial competition going on in the classrooms.

6:00 Normally, I would be studying at home again. But tonight I am at trendy wine bar downtown for the Women in Law School's speed mentoring event. Walking in, I notice that almost all of the women over 40 in my class have signed up for this. After an hour of general chatting, I am assigned to a group consisting of four law students and four attorneys. We talk to each attorney in our group one-on-one for ten minutes and then fill out sheets with our preferences for mentors. I try not to notice that almost all of the mentors are decades younger than me.

8:30 Arrive home. Change into comfy clothes. Spend quality time with the cat. Eat some sushi and a bowl of sugar-free ice cream.

9:30 Unpack my backpack. Print out assignments I’ll need for school tomorrow. Make schedule for the next day.

10:00 Bedtime.

The Murky Path Through Midterms

2008-10-05T08:00:00.003-07:00

I had my first midterm last week, an open book test in Civil Procedures. Everyone prepared a class outline and some of these were works of art. Mine was not so pretty, but it did include a handy-dandy index for various Rules of Civil Procedure. You had 90 minutes to complete 12-question-test, which gave you, at most, time for three or four quick peaks at your outline, if you wanted to finish.

I have to admit I spent more time with the old tests and model answers than I did perfecting my outline. From the model answers I saw that you were expected to do more than just answer the question. You had to answer the follow-up questions too. But, here’s the deal: There are no follow-up questions! You have to make them up yourself.

For example, if the question is about if you can depose (interview under oath) a non-testifying expert witness, you should answer that and then throw in information about any obscure exceptions. Even though you were asked about deposing them, you also should mention the rules about getting the expert’s notes and factual evidence they may have collected. Then, you might talk about what rules to use if they refuse or if they simply don’t show up. Then, if you have time which at this point is highly doubtful, you could throw in whatever you know about rules on testifying expert witnesses.

It felt to me like writing around the answer. Like a target, you first answer the bulls eye question and move out from there in progressively wider circles until you've spent as much time as you've dared.

My first major paper was also due last week. I took full advantage of my writing professor’s limited review of our outline and topic sentences. My professor made one change to my paper. She marked out the word “clearly” in my conclusion. This word is verboten. Law school students are expected to wipe words like “clearly,” “undoubtedly,” “definitely” from our spoken and written legal vocabularies. There are no right answers and nothing is ever clear.

After my midterm and the paper, I am feeling that way myself.

I Need a Montage

2008-10-02T08:28:00.004-07:00

It was 10 p.m., my usual time to stop studying and totter off to bed. But I wasn’t sleepy. Law school has left me seriously television deprived so I decided to allow myself 30 minutes just to lounge in front of my big screen. Besides, I seriously needed a break from ALL LAW SCHOOL, ALL THE TIME. I flipped on the TV to find “Legally Blonde,” a movie about law school, already in progress.

“Legally Blonde” is a film about a woman who upon being dumped unexpectedly, up and decides to go to law school. She studies really hard for the LSAT and does well. Although she is very unlike her fellow students, she gets admitted to the law school of her choice. (Gee, somehow this sounds familiar.)

When I tuned in, Reece Witherspoon, who plays the main character, had decided to become serious about her law studies. The movie showed her reading at the salon, reading at the gym, reading in her room. But the whole thing took maybe three minutes. It suddenly hit me: I need a montage! Instead of spending almost every waking hour of my day studying, I wished I could do really well in law school just by hauling one heavy book to various places and reading it for a minute or two.

But unlike Reece, I don’t get a montage. So, I will be in my library tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. with yet another heavy law book on my lap and my sadly neglected cat at my feet, back in my world of ALL LAW SCHOOL, ALL THE TIME. While it isn’t exactly real life either, for the time being it’s my life.

Salzberg to Softballs

2008-09-26T07:26:00.004-07:00

This week last year, I was entertaining newcomers to Abu Dhabi and looking forward to a trip to a Salzberg, Austria. This week, I have a midterm exam and a softball game with my classmates. A lot can change in a year.

Speaking of exams (my classmates will hardly speak of anything else), I reported in my last blog about going to classes on how to study for the exams in my regular classes. But my going to classes for other classes doesn’t end there. This week, I had class to prepare my computer for the exams. I learned how to download, activate and tryout the special test-taking software. This is the same testing software I will use to take the bar exam. And just so I won’t be tempted to surf the Internet during my midterm, this software temporarily disables my computer, leaving only a word processing function. The software also acts as a monitor so when the proctor says, “Stop typing now,” the program will tell them if you did.

You can also ask the test software to alert you when time is running out. This is very useful as none of my classmates actually wear watches. If they want to know the time, they check their cellphones, which of course, will not be allowed in the room during the test.

Of course, you don’t have to use your laptop for testing. You can write everything out in a test book. As I type about three times as fast as I write in longhand, that’s not a good choice for me. Some of my classmates can’t even write in cursive so you know they aren’t going to try to speed print their exams.

The school’s official line is you don’t need a laptop to go to law school. This is like telling someone moving to the U.S. they don’t need a telephone. Yes, you could conceivably get by without one, but it’s awfully handy to have one to communicate with the rest of the world.

After all, you never know what can come up, just as you never know where life will take you. And today, life is taking me to the softball field. Who knew?

What’s on the Test

2008-09-20T09:01:00.003-07:00

The law school held the first of what will be many different seminars on how to take tests. Yes, besides my usual legal classes, I now have to go to classes to learn how to take tests in those classes.

My grades will be based only on one test in each class given at the end of the semester. So it's sort of in your best interests to figure out what's going to be on it. One of the professors here came up with the following non-legal example to demonstrate how we’ll be tested:

A 4-year-old has to try to figure out how to stay out of trouble with her mom based on the following incidents:

Incident #1: The kid takes a cookie before dinner. She gets in trouble.

Incident #2: The kid asks for a cookie after dinner. Mom quickly gives her one, praising the kid for eating all her vegetables.

Incident #3: The kid takes her teddy bear and slams it on the floor. Mom doesn’t get mad.

Incident #4: The kid takes her ball and bounces it in the living room, nearly hitting the plasma TV and Mom’s wine glass. “Get that ball out of here!” Mom shouts.

Using the examples above, you have to make up some rules. The professor formulated these:

Rule #1: The kid can only have a cookie if she eats her veggies at dinner.

Rule #2: The kid can play with her toys any way she likes as long as it doesn’t threaten any of Mom’s stuff.

Here’s your test question:

The kid decides to color on the wall in her room. She doesn’t like her artwork, so she breaks the crayons and throws them in the trash. She’s so unhappy with her wall drawings, she goes into the kitchen and gets out the drain cleaner, which she thinks is a cleanser. Before the kid can burn herself, Mom finds her and puts the drain cleaner away. Is the kid in trouble?

You could just write, “Yes, and how!” But then you’d make a big fat zero on your test, as most professors give NO POINTS for coming up with the “right answer.”

Instead, you score points by going through each of the facts and analyzing them based on the rules. Let’s start with the broken crayons. While they aren’t a toy exactly, crayons are her personal playthings, so they are more like toys than Mom’s stuff. Using Rule #2, breaking them shouldn’t land her in trouble. But how about the walls of her room? Is that the kid’s property? Or will Mom think the walls are part of the house and that belongs to her? To score maximum points, you’d better argue both sides.

Now, how about that drain cleaner? You could write that the rules don’t really address dangerous solvents so the kid wouldn’t be in trouble with Mom. But you’d get very minimal points if you stopped there. The professor, in analyzing this fact, decided to look at the PURPOSE of Rule #1. The purpose is protecting the kid’s health by ensuring she’s eating well. Since the underlying value is protecting the kid’s health, you can now argue it would be against Rule #1 to drag out the drain cleaner as it is a serious danger to the kid's health. Pretty tricky, huh?

No, I won’t really be tested on 4-year-olds coloring the walls. This is a good thing as in that case, it would be difficult to get me off the topic of parental supervision and child-proof safety latches!

Instead, we’ll get legal problems with a lot more facts and complications. The incidents are the actual case studies I’ve been briefing every day. Before the exams, I will need to do a course outline (which I’ll ALSO go to classes on how to do) for each class. To make my outline, I’ll compare and contrast the cases and hypothetical situations my professors talk about in class. And I’ll formulate my own rules with all the conditions and exceptions. That’s what I’ll be studying before exams.

I’ll need to know all those rules and examples because I’ll use them for the framework to anaIyze whatever unique hypothetical legal situation my professor comes up with as my exam question. I'll have to argue the facts in as many ways as I can and draw a conclusion. But once, again, the answer doesn't count. This is how they teach you to “think like a lawyer.”

Not a Quick Study

2008-09-13T09:54:00.002-07:00

For each of my two hour class sessions, my only homework is about 20 pages of assigned reading. So why do I have to study all the time?

I do start by reading the 20 pages. It takes a little while because I need to stop and look up all the words I don’t know in my legal dictionary. I keep my legal dictionary in my Chinese water bucket beside my comfy reading chair in my library. Then I pencil in the definitions in the margins. (I am very thankful law books all have wide margins.)

I also use my pencil to underline stuff I think MIGHT be important. But frankly, at this point the material is so obtuse I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be getting. Each reading assignment includes about three cases written by judges at the end of the proceedings, but that number can range from none to six cases. After each case there are questions and notes. I read the questions, but I don’t try to answer them because at this point, every answer would be, “Who knows?”

Along with my pencils, a necessary tool in my law school study arsenal are colored highlighters. Someone at school is always giving out candy and highlighters as these are the treats we love. I can’t eat the candy, but I ALWAYS take the highlighters. This is because I do more coloring than your average kindergartner. So armed with my highlighters, I’ll pick up the book again.

This time, I will go through the case studies I read in the reading assignment and I will highlight the information I think I’ll need. I have four different highlighter colors. I use green to underline the facts, the “what happened” before everybody called their lawyers. This is generally the easiest thing to find.

I use blue to underline the legal history up to that point. This is for all the stuff that happened after they called their lawyers but before the judge writing the opinion saw the case.

I use orange for the “question,” which is what is the court trying to decide. This is the hardest to find because we read a lot of appeals cases. So you usually aren’t talking about who’s right between the millionaire’s heirs and the mill worker who saved his life. Instead it’s stuff like, “Whether the earlier judge erred in not using the defendant’s motion in issuing jury instructions.”

My pink marker highlights what the court decided, the “holding.” This might boil down to something like, “That lower court got it all wrong. Try again.” It would be nice if they actually wrote it in my book that way. Instead, if I’m lucky, I get “Judgment reversed and remanded.”

Then I use yellow for how they justified this decision, including old cases, laws and sometimes any old opinion they feel like throwing in (called dicta because in law everything has to have a fancy name).

While I am racking up mileage on my highlighters, I keep my pencil handy too. Because I am “special” in my lack of three-dimensional ability, I sometimes have to draw a diagram of the buggy wreck from my highlighted facts just so I am clear on what EXACTLY happened.

Later, I will move my heavy law book into the dining room where my computer is set up on the table. Starting with my highlighted information, I’ll write a paragraph outline, called a brief. This is where I synthesize all the information in a case, putting it into a standard format. Since this is a tool for me, I put whatever I think is important, but I usually start with my highlighted information and clarify it from there. Each brief takes me anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on how much information there is. (Remember each 20 page reading assignment has an average of three cases I’ll need to brief.)

At the end of this process, I have a pretty good understanding of the details of this formerly obtuse information. So I’ll take a few minutes and try to understand the bigger issues. Hammer v. Sidway is about an uncle promising his nephew $5,000 for not drinking, swearing and gambling until the kid turns 21. Future lawyers have been compelled to study this case for the last 100 years. What makes it so landmark?

The day before class, I’ll reread each case one more time. (For lawyers, the devil is in the details and I have to know exactly the length of that wire the 12-year old boy was wielding when he was electrocuted.) I’ll also now go back and read the questions, most of which I can now venture an answer to. Further into the semester, I will be adding a step of picking one question to answer on paper with an in-depth analysis as practice for exams.

But for now, I am pretty much prepared for my Monday Contracts class. I just have to start all over and do the same thing for my Monday Civil Procedures class and my Tuesday Torts class. Wednesday, I have Contracts and Civil Procedures again, so I better have my new set of reading assignments done for them and for next Torts class on Thursday. Oh, and I can’t forget my research and writing assignment for my Friday Legal Methods Class.

So, what have you been up to? Me? I’ve just been studying.

Me and Sandra D.

2008-09-12T19:22:00.002-07:00

One of the really cool things about the law school at ASU is that it IS the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law. Even better, is that sometimes Sandra Day O’Connor actually shows up! On Tuesday, she addressed my Dean’s Session class.

Former Justice O’Connor spoke about how difficult it was to find a job after she graduated. She was at the top of her law school class at Stanford, but all the law firms insisted that their clients would refuse to work with a female attorney. She finally got a job by working for free for the government in an open space she shared with somebody’s secretary. After three months, they finally started paying her. She did a brilliant job. (She is, after all, Sandra Day O’Connor.) She moved to Arizona and took some time off to raise her kids. When she was ready to go back to work, she STILL couldn’t get a job, even with her now proven professional track record.

This must have sounded like science fiction to my female classmate. After all, today many law partners and their clients are women themselves. But while we’ve made a lot of progress, women aren’t quite there yet. Women still make only 77 cents to every one dollar of their male collegues. And yes, we have a female vice presidential candidate. But she is has been criticized for being a working mother. Nobody’s asking Obama about his choice to work outside the home.

Almost half of my class is made up of women, but we are attending the ONLY law school in the country named after one. (William and Mary doesn’t count!)

Sandra Day O’Connor was back at school today for her portrait unveiling. I made a point to be there too. Former Justice O’Connor and I have one big thing in common: We decided to go to law school because weren’t quite sure what else to do. It turned out okay for her.

They handed out postcard pictures of her new portrait. I propped up mine up in my home library. So when I’m tired of studying, I can look up and be inspired by the first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice, whose namesake school I just happened to attend.

The Dog Ate My Homework

2008-09-05T22:39:00.005-07:00

I always thought if you caused some kind of accident, you were responsible for it.

Now that I have two whole weeks of law school under my belt, I’ve learned that’s not always true. You are only responsible if you screwed up. For the past week, we’ve been studying a case about a guy who blacked out unexpectedly and caused a bunch of damage. Guess what? The courts held it wasn’t his fault because his blackout was unpredictable. He doesn’t have to pay a cent. As for his completely innocent victims, tough luck.

Injuries of various kinds are called torts, and I have a whole class about this subject. Torts sounds like something you eat so maybe this is why I am always hungry after that class. Actually, I am always hungry after ALL of my classes, so I can’t blame that on torts.

Torts is different from my other Monday/Wednesday class, Contracts. Contracts is a lot less forgiving. You blacked out unexpectedly, your grandmother died, the dog ate your homework... This time the law doesn’t care what your excuse is because YOU made this bargain in advance. You pay.

On the other hand (in law school, we are ALL about “on the other hand”), the other side has to prove you had a contract. Now, if you are presented with a jillion pieces of legal sized paper filled with lots of incomprehensible goobley-goop and there's little sticky notes indicating where you are suppose to sign and date, chances are pretty good you're looking at a contract. (And you don't even need two weeks of law school to know that.)

But no self-respecting law school professor would EVER give his or her class a clear cut situation. Instead, we get stuff like this: My dad used to promise Alec and Taylor money for every A they made on their report card. Is that a legally enforceable contract? Or is it just a gift with a condition?

What if, instead of my dad, it’s the school district promising them money? And what if, instead of cash, they promised them in a job after graduation? How about if they post this policy on their website? Is that a contract? Why or why not? And just for fun, let’s throw in a whole bunch of new twists to see if you change your mind. And don't forget, there are no right or wrong answers to any of this! As an attorney, it's your job to be able to make a factual-driven argument for either side.

This is my contracts class. This is also why, at the end of the two hour session, my blue spiral notebook doesn’t have very many notes. The dog really could eat my notebook and I really wouldn't be any worse off.

But I’m not worried. If I don’t do well in law school, I’ve got that unpredictable blackout excuse all ready to go. Think anybody will buy that?

Law School by the Numbers

2008-09-01T15:35:00.003-07:00

ASU received more than 3,000 applications for this year’s incoming class of L-1s. They accepted around 600 of these. That’s pretty selectitive.

The average law school applicant applies to six schools, so not everyone accepted will choose to go to ASU. Over 400 people either decided not to go to law school or to go to law school somewhere else.

My incoming class of L-1’s is made up of 183 students. The median undergraduate GPA is 3.6. In my dean’s session class, which has all 183 L-1 students and lasts for 90 minutes, nobody’s cellphone ever rings. How is that possible?

ASU divides the 183 of us into 12 groups. While we all have to take the same subjects, all the people in your group have the exact same professors and class schedule. One person in my group was Alec’s best friend in elementary school.

Only 14 L-1s are over 40. But I am not the oldest. One of my classmates is 65.

To keep up with the work, you need to read at least 4-6 hours a day. This includes weekends and does not count time you spend in class.

So my favorite ASU law school statistic is this: Among my classmate, my LSAT score was in the top 25%. I think of that when I have to reread a page of some obtuse court opinion three times to try to eke out some meaning. This is hard. But I can do it.

Spiraling Around

2008-08-25T20:18:00.004-07:00

In the olden days when I was an undergraduate, we took class notes by writing them out in longhand. Of course, back then, we all knew how to write in cursive, a skill not all my computer-generation classmates have mastered. At the beginning of every semester, I would go to Target and buy three-ring spiral notebooks, with a different color cover for each class.

There were no laptop computers. There were no desktop computers either. Assuming you could get some big institution to lend you one, taking a computer to class would have required renting a truck.

Today, every class I attend is accompanied by the soft click, click, click of my classmates tapping their keyboards. Looking around, I can see that while some of them seem to be taking diligent class notes, practically transcribing, some of them are reading their email or checking out Facebook. To accomodate this laptop explosion, the classrooms have lots of electrical outlets built-in under the desks.

Modern graduate student that I am, I was clicking right along with the best of them. But in reviewing my class notes, I noticed something strange. I had attended my first Legal Methods class without my laptop and took notes the old fashioned way. And I remembered what I learned in that class much better than subsequent classes when I used my computer. Part of it was, I wasn’t distracted by incoming email (Ooh, Talbots is having a sale!) so I paid better attention. But part of it was the physical act of handwriting, outlining, and drawing notations on the page made it clearer in my mind.

Still, having all my notes on computer would make my subsequent course outlining much faster. I needed a second opinion. Taylor was the perfect choice. First of all, he is a whiz on all the high tech products. He literally text messages fast than most people my age type. He also did very well in college last year.

“So, Tay, do you take class notes on your computer?”

“Nope, I do it by hand. What you need to do is buy one spiral notebook for each class with a different color cover…”

“I’ll pick some up for both of us at Target,” I offered.

Understanding the Amoeba

2008-08-23T07:21:00.003-07:00

Guess what they don’t set out to teach you in law school? The law!

I'll learn some law on an incidental basis, but it's not the big concern. I always thought the law was a stated set of facts, probably written down in one big book somewhere. Isn’t that why they call it “laying down the law”? I was wrong.

In my first week of law school, I learned the law is a living, breathing, moving thing—sort of like an amoeba. So focusing on the law would be like learning the dimensions of an amoeba. No matter what you remember about that amoeba’s last known whereabouts, you always have to look up where it is right now. And you have to try to figure out in what direction it is likely to head.

Yes, there’s plenty of middle ground in that amoeba that stays the same. But folks generally don’t consult a lawyer about cut and dried issues. Instead, lawyers rack up billable hours by handling with all those floppy amoeba-bordering issues. Could your client’s particular situation be considered inside that amoeba or outside it? That’s what law school want to teach you to do.

They teach you, not by lecturing, but by telling you stories. The class is then expected to dissect these stories from a multitude of points of view. Professors want you to look at “On the other hand…” Once you think you’ve thoroughly exhausted every hand that scenario offers, the professors throw new wrinkles in the story and you start over.

And these don’t even have to be stories dealing with the law. My class yesterday had a one hour discussion about grocery store employees having to decide what produce goes in the window.

While you are eventually expected to draw a conclusion but there are no right answers. What’s important is how you got there. It’s the journey, not the destination that counts. And with the fluidity of that amoeba, for me it’s going to be a long and interesting trip.

What I've Learned in Law School So Far

2008-08-17T08:20:00.001-07:00

As part of my pre-law school homework, I had to take two online learning style assessments.

The first one told me that I liked to learn by reading. Gee, what a revelation. ALL of close friends and family could have told you that about me. And they wouldn’t even need to see the 44 item-multiple choice questionnaire I had to complete on the subject.

The second test revealed that concepts were more interesting to me than facts. Yes, I think applying ideas is a lot more fun than rote memorization. Who doesn’t?

Luckily, my other homework turned out to be a lot of reading about concepts. I hope I will be doing a lot of this in law school as it’s obviously something I enjoy, and I have the learning style assessments to prove it!

Mock On!

2008-08-16T17:35:00.002-07:00

Even though law school hasn’t started, I still have assigned homework. I have a few issues with this. First of all, I have shelled out almost $600 for books for my first semester, but almost all of my assignments are from readings off the Internet.

How did I find out about these future assignments? They were posted online. You HAVE to have online access as that is the ONLY way the college of law communicates. The school rightly assumes that this is how people in the 21st Century get information.

So why do they require me to purchase these obscenely heavy hardback textbooks at $150 a pop? Why can’t I just pay a fee to the author and just download this stuff as an e-book? My wallet and my back would be grateful.

Much of my homework has to be completed prior to orientation. First year law school students have three full days of orientation before they let us start classes. I’ve had plenty of professional jobs that didn’t require that much training.

You would think that having graduated from college with a good enough g.p.a. to get into law school, incoming students would be smart enough to figure out law school on our own. But apparently, we need more training before they can turn us loose.

Part of orientation is a mock class. I don’t really mind that. I mean, it has been a while since I was chiseling my college class notes on my limestone pallet. But what gets me is that we have HOMEWORK for our mock class.

I think if we have a mock class, we ought to only have mock homework. You know, like pretending to read some weighty required law school book, but really perusing the People Magazine cleverly concealed inside.

See, I haven’t even been through orientation yet, and I am already raising objections. It could be a long three years.

The Happy Hour

2008-08-15T16:39:00.003-07:00

I mentioned to Taylor that I was going to Happy Hour to meet some fellow incoming ASU law school students.

“You’re going to a bar?” asked Taylor. “Have you ever been to a bar before?”

Alec was equally appalled when I called him to asked directions to Dos Gringos in Tempe. “You’re going there?” he said. “Mom, it’s a dive!”

I have news for them. My social experience goes beyond embassy balls and elegant dinner parties. I have been to bars, EVEN to dives. Did they forget that once upon a time I was a college coed?

And, surprise, surprise, I am a college coed again. But after attending happy hour, I was struck by the similarities, rather than the differences, between the polished newcomer events I’ve attended as an expat wife and happy hour with the graduate students.

Both functioned as networking opportunities. Both gave me a chance to meet the people who like me, were trying to figure out how to get stuff done. Even the conversational topics were along the same lines. Where are you originally from? Did you find a place to live? How are you settling in? What was your major? Okay, maybe not the major question, but everything else I was asked last night was eerily familiar to those standard queries batted around at your average American Women’s newcomer coffee.

There were, of course, a few differences. The students wore jeans and flips flops and sipped Coronas out of bottles in a dive. The expat wives wore tailored outfits and pearls while sipping coffee out of china cups in an elegant hotel.

But just like those coffees, we chatted and moved from group to group, getting acquainted and sharing advice about getting established in this new life. Conversation topics included how to get around, where to buy things you needed, and the best way of dealing with the school. The same kind of things we’d talk about at coffees in Abu Dhabi or Moscow or Beijing.

Yeah, everybody at the bar was a lot younger. But we’re all in a new place just the same, trying to figure out how to function in this foreign world called law school.

Photo: Nancy and a classmate at Happy Hour.

Polishing Off Peru

2008-08-12T21:44:00.013-07:00

Photos by Nancy Case and Alec Perkins: More pictures from our 11 days in Peru.

Day 11
Lima to Phoenix

On our last day in Peru, Taylor and I got to sleep in, at least comparatively. He and I didn’t have to leave for the airport until 4:30 a.m. Alec and Saori had to leave at 3:00.

Our taxi driver was late and I was starting to get a bit concerned. I didn’t really want to be flagging down a random cab in the wee hours of the morning. On the other hand, I couldn’t miss our flight. Luckily, the driver arrived and got us to the airport in plenty of time.

There were about 200 passengers lined up but we went directly to the front for first class check in. I may be an adult, but sometimes I just can’t stop my inner second grader from thinking, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!”

As a further bonus, the gate attendant gave us an “invitation” to the VIP lounge. We cleared security (no first class line there) and ran into Alec and Saori outside her gate. Saori’s plane was delayed.

Tay and I headed off to the lounge, but I stopped to look at a display featuring a vicuna coat. I’d been listening to the musical version of “Sunset Boulevard” for years. It featured a line about “a simply marvelous coat made of vicuna…” and now I actually could see one! (I know, sometimes I’m easily amused.)

With tunes from Sunset Boulevard lodged in my head, we waltzed into the VIP lounge where they were serving a continental breakfast. I fixed myself a cappuccino while Taylor checked out the self-serve fresh squeezed orange juice machine.

You toss a couple of oranges in the top and watch as the machine peels and then squeezes the oranges, streaming the juice into your waiting glass. “Hey, this is pretty cool,” remarked Taylor. “I could use one of these for my room.”

After we got bored with the beverage machines, we headed over to the lounge’s computer room which offered free Internet service. And if we didn’t get enough shopping in, Alec and I did one more round of the stores in the international departure round.

I found some beautiful woven pillow covers. But at $50 each I wasn’t tempted to buy. If I’d found them in the local markets for $10 each, that would have been a different story. I did buy some throat lozenges as the Lima pollution was irritating all of us.

Our flight was running late, so Alec and Taylor and I played cards in the comfy lounge until they finally called us to board.

The first class section was only half full and service was very good. (Were we STILL on Delta?) An hour after takeoff, they served a hot breakfast. The flight attendant offered me a choice of egg crepes or pancakes. “Which is better?” I asked.

She just shook her head. Both choices were bad. I guess we really were on Delta, after all. The movies shown were “Leatherheads” and “Maid of Honor,” both notable for their terrible reviews. Forewarned is forearmed so I didn’t watch either.

Instead, I spent hours putting together my new schedule. I made a diagram penciling in my class time, study time, commuting time and three hours a week for working out. With only these activities, my schedule stretched from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with Sunday afternoon and evening off for laundry and grocery shopping. What have I signed up for?

As I flew off into the sunset, I realized was ending one big adventure and beginning another.

Photo by Alec Perkins: Nancy and Taylor take a break from the llamas and the hiking at Machu Picchu.

For more of Alec's fabulous photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/desertcrow/sets/72157605422700320/

Eighteen Hours in Lima

2008-08-12T07:56:00.009-07:00

Photo by Alec Perkins: Plaza de Armas in Cuzco

Day 10
Cuzco to Lima

This morning, Saori was the one hit by the altitude. It was her turn to rest at the hostel while the other three of us went out in search of a hearty “American” breakfast.

What we found was our worst meal ever. Not just the worst meal in Peru, but our worst meal ever. Even now, I cannot write about it without gagging. But let me just say it involved more than one black hair.

Back at the hostel, we settled our bill and the owner presented Saori and I each with a long-stemmed red rose. (Just what you need for air travel. It was a sweet gesture though.) We dragged our flowers and our luggage out to the street. As if they were waiting just for that moment, two station wagon taxis immediately pulled up. We engaged both of them for the 15 minute trip to the airport.

At the airport, we found the Lan counters were swamped. Hundreds of people were lined up to check-in. But thanks to yesterday’s Internet download of our boarding passes, we were able to get into the considerably shorter “Baggage Drop-off” line.

On the short flight to Lima, Lan showed a comedy show filmed in Canada. It was perfect for international audiences because it was all visual practical jokes. No translation needed. You dress up an unsuspecting guy in a gorilla suit to film him with a camera off the back of the truck. Then the truck drives away, leaving the guy in the gorilla suit forlornly waiving his bananas. (I guess you had to see it.)

There was no sign of the driver promised by the hostel at the Lima airport. But we were approached by one of the official taxi drivers who quoted us a better fare. Alec pointed to our five suitcase and the driver insisted he had a van. Eventually, he did. But first he had to strike some kind of quick deal with another taxi driver to use it.

As we stretched out in the van, I noticed a big smile on Alec’s face. Back at sea level, he finally felt better. We took off for Mira Flores, a more prosperous area of Lima and the one area of town touted for its safety.

Larry once said that all third-world cities look alike in certain ways. With its pollution, dingy buildings and poverty, Lima was no different. It reminded me all at once of Beijing and Moscow and Mexico City.

As promised, Mira Flores looked better. We drove past the beaches where despite the cold, we saw surfers. When we arrived at the hostel I warned everyone, “Remember, this place is $32 a night.”

We were met by the charming owner who insisted on giving us a 40-minute introductory talk on Mira Flores, circling the highlights on a map he provided us.

We had read a lot about crime in Lima so I asked him about safety. He told us not to worry. But don’t walk around at night. And don’t take a taxi unless someone you trusted ordered it. I also noticed that his front door had three locks and a thick board you pulled down to barricade the door.

As a bonus, the owner also gave us his standard earthquake safety preparation speech. His very practical advice was to get to the street because your biggest danger comes from things falling on top of you. It was good advice but I wasn’t sure how I was going to get there past those three locks and the heavy barricade of the front door.

The hostal was completely full that day. While there was a spacious, airy room on the second floor for one pair of us, the only remaining room was essentially an oversized closet stuffed with two twin beds on the ground floor.

Not wanting to drag my luggage up and down stairs, I opted for the closet. Like all our accommodations, it did have an adjoining bathroom. What it lacked was any kind of a window. It was so bad, the gracious owner actually offered to take us to a hotel. But I decided it was fine for the one night we’d be staying.

Finally settled, we set off to explore Mira Flores. We’d need a good three days to cover the owner’s suggested itinerary, but we couldn’t resist trying his recommended restaurant for the best cerviche in town.

I navigated using the map the owner had given us. (He had also thoughtfully written menu suggestions in the margins.) My constant referral to the map as we walked the zig-zag course made Alec a little uncomfortable. He pointed out, correctly, that it really marked us as tourists.

Taylor jumped in, “Oh, like without a map, Mom really looks like a local.”

The restaurant was only open for lunch and even at 2 p.m. when we arrived, there was line. But the hostal owner had said we could go to the handicrafts store across the street while we waited. And that’s exactly what we did.

The store had a huge variety of lovely Peruvian handicrafts at about four times the prices we’d found in Cuzco. After an enjoyable look around, we went back to the restaurant where we were immediately seated on the second floor of the Colonial-era building.

The menu was extensive. Alec and Saori wisely ordered the cerviche which was wonderful. Cerviche is made with fresh seafood, which is pickled in a citrus marinade. Alec’s order had some kind of a red sauce and it was amazing. It was hands-down the best cerviche I’d ever had. I was sorry I didn’t have an extra day in Lima just so I could come back to this place and order that cerviche for myself.

Our drink orders were served with a bucket of ice cubes. “Don’t use the ice,” I warned Taylor. He decided against my sage advice and suffered the consequences later. So his memories of that restaurant were not as fond as mine.

We tried to order dessert, highly recommended in our map margin notes, but the waitress never brought it. That’s when we noticed the place was deserted. Obviously, lunch service was over and we should take the hint and leave!

Outside the restaurant, we hailed a taxi to the town center. It was about a 20 minute drive through a dismal cityscape. Finally, we were rewarded by driving into a lovely Spanish colonial section. It was such a contrast it felt like the whole area had just been suddenly air-dropped in.

We were too late to tour the catacombs but we were able to walk around the Inglesia de San Francisco, admiring the church’s elaborately carved wooden altars.

We were on our way to yet another Plaza de Armas, when we noticed a crowd of locals beside a churro shop. Churros were sold everyone on the streets but only this place had a line. How could we resist?

They tasted much less sweet than the ones I’d had before. But they had a secret ingredient: a cream cheesy-filling. They were suitably yummy.

Lima’s Plaza de Armas has been the center of the city since 1535. The surrounding buildings are painted a goldish-yellow with white trim. Just outside the square, we stopped for a glass of Chilean Malbec at a nice sidewalk bar. I ordered “papa frites” to go with my wine and they served it with two interesting local sauces. It was beginning to get dark and they brought out a space heater for Saori and me.

It was time to head back. While gas is very expensive here, taxis are relatively cheap because there is so much competition. So I was a little concerned when two taxi drivers refuse to take us back to Mira Flores. Finally, the third driver agreed.

Safely back at the hostel, we ordered hot water for our showers. (Like a pizza in the U.S., it would be delivered within 30 minutes.) In our closet room, hot water came out as promised in time. But Alec had some problems with his in the nicer room upstairs. Regardless of the water situation, we all went to bed early as we had very early flights out the next day.

Photos by Alec Perkins: The Plaza de Armas in Lima.

From Tourist to Backpacker

2008-08-11T09:43:00.007-07:00

Photo by Alec Perkins: Cuzco

Day 9
Agua Caliente to Cuzco

At 5 a.m., I woke to the sound of rain on the roof and backpackers heavily tromping outside my door. It felt decadent to be able to rollover and go back to sleep.

Our train didn’t leave until after 9 a.m., so we went out for a leisurely breakfast. A restaurant across the square was open and I had “pancakes,” which turned out to be crepes. Taylor’s order of the “local” breakfast turned out to be the best. It was a tasty combination of meat and potatoes. Everything was accompanied by the round, flat Peruvian bread that we were served every day without fail for breakfast.

We strolled through the market on our way to the train station and Saori bought a llama Christmas ornament. (It will look good hanging on the tree next to Alec’s miniature Prius ornament.) It was a good thing we arrived at the station early because we found out our train didn’t happen to be leaving from there.

Instead, we had to walk across town to catch our train in front of the police station. When we arrived, the tracks there were sWarming with locals loaded with bundles and tourtists with backpacks.

It took awhile, but eventually I tracked down someone from PeruRail. I learned that the train for locals would be departing first. We pesky tourists needed to get off the tracks and go wait on the sidewalk.

Eventually, the Backpacker train arrived, and we boarded. Once again, our numerically ordered seats had us in three different rows, but we were able to switch and sit together.

Ninety minutes of beautiful scenery later, we were back in Ollyanta. We hadn’t noticed it on the way in, but down the street from the train station was a huge parking lot loaded with taxis, buses and combies. They all seemed to be heading for Cuzco. Alec and Saori were keen to hop on the next combie but 90 minutes in a combie didn’t sound like a good plan to me. Before I could object, Taylor insisted on finding a bathroom.

This parking lot didn’t offer a trough so we took off down the street toward the main square. A taxi driver on his way to the parking lot, stopped to see if I wanted to hire him to take us back to Cuzco. “How much?” I asked.

He quoted me 40 soles (about $12). “Forty soles total for four people, right?” I confirmed. “Okay, meet us outside the toilet.”

While the driver was turning around, I explained his offer to our group. It sounded very cheap but the guy had obvious come from Cuzco, dropping off passengers for the train here and needed a paying fare back.

After paying one sole to use the bathroom, the standard cost here, Tay and I climbed in the backseat of the taxi. As Saori and Alec were loading their backpacks in the back of the station wagon, the driver decided to raise his prices to 50 soles to deliver us back to our hostel. As the hostel was actually closer than the center of town, this was clearly a ploy to extract more money. Alec and Saori were ready to call off the whole thing and take local transportation back.

But Taylor wasn’t budging out of that back seat. Eventually, they settled on 45 soles for our delivery to the Plaza de Armas. The driver wasn’t going to waste any more time so we set off at record speed. Taylor, Saori and I were like metronomes in the backseat, being thrown one way and then another as we went around the hairpin turns.

But that drive was quick. Within an hour we were back in Cuzco. I replenished my cash supply at an ATM and offered to buy everyone lunch at Inka Grill.

Inka Grill is a lovely restaurant on the square. I was a little put off to see so many tables of 20 set up. (That meant tour group lunches–generally not a sign of culinary delight.) Fortunately, the food was wonderful, ending with a delicious chocolate dessert.

We checked back into the hostel and reclaimed our luggage. Afterwards, we walked to an Internet place. Only two computers were open so Alec and I shared one. It took us a full 15 minutes, but he and I were able to download and print all our boarding passes for our Lan flight the next day.

Then, Alec helped me log on to the ASU website and get a new password. From there, we navigated two different ASU websites simultaneously so I could actually retrieve my class assignments and register for law school. Yea!

Saori and Alec then left to find a bar that was selling C.D.s by a local artist Saori had heard. Tay and I headed out for some last minute shopping.

After nine days in Peru, taxi drivers were now giving me really low quotes on fares. This was about 3/4th of the fares they quoted us originally. Somehow, I was looking a lot more like a backpacker and a lot less like an upscale tourist.

Now, when I admired the handmade tapestries, the vendors would steer me to the cheaper machine-made ones. Tay and I went to a boutique to buy Saori’s birthday present, only to be ignored. I had to use my, “And how much if I pay you in cash right now?” to get their attention.

On the way back to the hostel, I got a phone call from Alec and we planned to meet for dinner. Thirty minutes later, Alec called again. Dinner was off. He had another bout of altitude sickness, and he and Saori were on their way back.

Saori, Taylor and I left Alec sleeping at the hostel and went to a Japanese restaurant Saori had found. The restaurant had good soba noodles but bad service. It took 15 minutes to get a bottle of water. Fortunately, I can forgive a restaurant almost anything if the food is good.

After dinner, I repacked. I carefully surrounded the six pottery items in dirty clothes and placed them with our artwork and Taylor’s wooden frame in our one hard-sided suitcase. (Why, oh, why, had I not brought my usual supply of bubblewrap with me?) Tay and I loaded my rolling duffle with everything we’d need in Lima. So far our hostel rooms were up flights of stairs and I was hoping to park the rest of the luggage somewhere secure on a lower floor.

Little did I know that I’d end up sleeping in the first floor baggage storage room, but that’s a story for tomorrow.

Photo by Alec Perkins: Taylor and Nancy now get ignored at nicer stores in Cuzco.

We Really Do Machu Picchu

2008-08-10T11:39:00.015-07:00

Photo: Our overview of Machu Picchu from the Huayna Picchu trail.

Day 8
Agua Caliente

We decided to meet for our complementary hostel breakfast at 5:15. Unfortunately, the breakfast at Gringo Bill’s was not as charming as the rest of the place. They had just left juice, bread, coffee and tea on a table. But there was a sign advertising, at extra cost, a “Hungry Man Breakfast.”

I ventured into the kitchen to order it for Taylor, who was awfully tired of the wimpy continental breakfasts we had been served at our hostels. The staff informed me this meal cost extra. I told them I would pay. They then told me I couldn’t order it anyway. I’m not sure why (my Spanish isn’t that good) but the answer was definitely no.

We picked up the sack lunches we’d ordered at the front desk and set off in the dark to catch the 6 a.m. bus. We were astounded to find a line of hundreds of people waiting. With this huge line, there was no way we could be at Machu Picchu before dawn. Alec was greatly disappointed as he had always wanted to watch the sunrise over Machu Picchu.

Finally, the empty buses started arriving. They loaded two buses at a time but it still took us about 30 minutes to make our way to the front of the line. After another scenic drive, we’d arrived at Machu Picchu.

Even if we’d missed sunrise, it was wonderful being there so early. Machu Picchu is so big that we felt like we had the place to ourselves, especially as we walked along the empty “out” trail in. In addition, we had a crisp, clear morning to enjoy it all in.

But before we could linger, we needed to get to the other side of the site to get our ticket to climb Huayan Picchu. Huayan Picchu is the steep mountain beside Machu Picchu. It takes only an hour to get up but most of that is straight verticle, using Incan-constructed tiny steps on a trail carved out of the mountain jungle.

Only 400 people get a pass to climb it each day, weather permitting. Half go up at 7 a.m. and the other half go up at 10 a.m. By 7:30, all the permits were gone.

There is no direct route through Machu Picchu, practically no signage and we didn’t have a map so getting across to the other side was more complicated than it sounds. Finally, we arrived at the ranger station and found ourselves at the end of another line.

Taylor volunteered to scout ahead and reported back that there were hundreds of people lined up ahead of us. But in about 10 minutes park personnel came by and stamped our Machu Picchu tickets with a hiking permit.

Our permit was for 10 a.m. The long line ahead of us were the people going at 7. This left us a couple of hours to explore before we’d need to be back here to stand in line again.

Taylor and I transversed Machu Picchu once more (getting lost at least once) to get back to the entrance where there were bathrooms and food outside. There’s no bathrooms inside Machu Picchu ,and food and drink are not allowed. But everyone pretty much ignores the no drink rule and brings in their own water bottles.

Just outside Machu Picchu is the five-star Sanctuary Hotel. If you really want to be the first one at Machu Picchu you have to stay here. But you have to REALLY want to be close as rooms are more than $700 a night. I thought it might be a nice place for a relaxing breakfast.

Unfortunately, we were not granted Sanctuary. The hotel would not even let us step into the lobby. As we stood on the steps outside, we were informed that only guests staying at the hotel are granted access. The door guard instead directed me to the Sanctuary snack bar. The snack bar is located well off the grounds of the hotel, but they retained their Sanctuary prices. A six ounce bottle of water here was 10 soles ($3.30). The going rate for the same brand every place else in Peru was 1 soles for an 8 oz. bottle.

At the snack bar Taylor got an overpriced cheeseburger and I ate part of our sack lunch. (I’m hungry in the mornings!) After that, it was time to go back inside to meet Alec and Saori for our hike. So Taylor and I walked the entire length of Machu Picchu for the third time that morning.

We made it back by 9:30 and found Alec and Saori already in line. As we waited I had a long time to stare at that steep mountain I had gone to so much trouble to be able to climb. Did I really think I could do this? But if I didn’t try it now, when would I?

At 10 a.m., they opened the trail again and hikers started trickling slowly through. There wasn’t a crowd on the trail, because first one ranger had to examine your passport, entrance ticket and hiking stamp.

One problem: We’d left Taylor’s passport back at the hostel. I’d brought mine only because I wanted a Machu Picchu stamp. Alec and Saori also had theirs. Who knew you’d need a passport to hike?

Luckily, Alec talked Taylor’s way in (in Spanish). I think because they were obviously brothers and Alec had I.D., the official decided Tay was okay. We signed in at the big book provided, noted the time and were ready to start.

It was a beautiful hike, well worth the effort and one of the many highlights of this trip. The views of Machu Picchu were just a bonus. I took my time but tried to keep moving so I wouldn’t fall too far behind the rest of the group. It was difficult, but not really much harder than Camelback Mountain in Phoenix.

The absolute worst part to me was the cave. (Nobody told me I had to go through a dark, narrow cave.) The exit for the cave is a hole, about 2’ x 3’ you have to squeeze through. Taylor had to take off his backpack to make it.

I am slightly claustrophobic and was not happy to be stuck inside the cave behind a couple who were taking their time removing their backpacks and snapping photos. I needed out of that cave now!

I managed to wait while they maneuvered out and finally it was my turn to crawl through.

A short while later, I made it to the top. The top consisted of an outcropping of huge sloping rocks surrounded by big bugs. Taylor was already there, spraying on copious amounts of Off. There was little else to do. You could hop from rock to rock but you risked sliding off a 500 foot direct drop.

Alec and Saori made it up and we took a few photos before heading down. Luckily, the downward route did not involve any tiny caves. Instead it routed us past some ancient Incan dwellings used by astronomers. We ducked inside one to eat our lunch out of view.

After lunch, Taylor moved ahead quickly, making it down in about 30 minutes. All that physical labor at Fry’s really keeps him in shape. I brought up the rear, treading carefully downward and very happy with the holding power of my new Reebok trail runners.

I proudly signed in again showing I’d made it back down, noting my time.

We sat down to rest for a bit. But it was time for a bathroom again and that meant still another trip across the park. By now, Taylor and I were getting much better at finding more direct routes. The four of us made it back across and bought some more overpriced drinks at the Snack Bar.

Having been at Machu Picchu for hours, Tay headed back to the hostel. But I didn’t want to leave without learning more. So Alec and Saori and I decided to get a guide.

We asked one group of guides who pointed us toward a freelancer. The freelancer passed Saori’s English language skills test (a requirement our group instituted after we hired a guide in Qoricancha whose English was so weak we understood her better in Spanish).

The guide gave us a two hour tour of Machu Picchu. The crowds who had swarmed Machu Picchu while we’d been climbing had left, but unfortunately so had our energy. It was late afternoon and we were exhausted. Our guide was exhausted. We must have been his third or fourth tour of the day. At one point, I was almost not able to resist being toppled down the stairs by an overly friendly llama.

The guide did take us to a few spots we’d missed, including the stairway that Hiram Bingham, the “discoverer” of Machu Picchu had used to arrive. We learned that most of the artifacts he found were still at Yale University in Connecticut.

Interestingly, the guide seemed to think that Machu Picchu represented the peak of civilization. (As for me, I like living in the age of computers.) Around 4 p.m., after 9 hours at Machu Pichhu, we paid off the guide and stood in line for the bus to take us back to Agua Caliente.

“If there was a button for doing everything at Machu Picchu,” said Alec, “we would have earned it.”

“Sort of like the ‘I Did It All’ button you earned at Camp Geronimo,” I smiled.

So what did I think of Machu Picchu? The ruins were cool, but we’d seen great ruins all week. It was the natural beauty of the setting that really sets Machu Picchu apart. And while I think it is worth seeing, I have to admit I thought Luxor was more impressive. And to me, nothing can compare to the magic of Cambodia’s Ankor Watt.

We went back to the hostel where I was anxious to wash off some of that ancient Incan dust. Agua Caliente means “warm water.” Unfortunately, it was warm water in name only. Our shower was freezing. I went down to the front desk, armed with my room number in Spanish to explain our agua caliente was agua fria.

They sent a guy who literally spent 20 minutes running in and out of our bathroom testing the water. Eventually, he gave up and got another guy to come. The second guy got the hot water running in minutes.

And when I say hot, I mean hot. The shower was scalding! Only by constantly turning the hot water off and on was I able to get clean without boiling myself. My hair, of course, wasn’t going to dry in the rainforest. Next time, I’m bringing a blow dryer. I popped on Taylor’s "alpaca" hat over my wet hair to go to dinner.

Chez Maggie’s had a branch in Agua Caliente so we decided to head there. We couldn't find it and eventually stopped to ask someone. A friendly local told us we'd passed it and added that it was closed. We should try his recommended restaurant.

We'd been around the block a few too many times to believe the "your place is closed, go to my place" story. We backtracked and found Chez Maggie’s was open. Alec and I split a Maggie’s special which consisted of an egg, a banana and ham pizza.

Saori bravely ordered the cuy. It arrived looking like blackened roadkill. The body was flattened with the feet still attached. And if you weren’t grossed out enough, the head, while not attached, was also part of the presentation.

I forced myself to try it. It tasted like greasy chicken. After dinner, we played some cards and went to bed early. There was a lot of noise outside our room, but I was so exhausted by Machu Picchu that I could have slept through another Spanish invasion.

Photo: Saori, Alec and Taylor at Machu Pichhu. The mountain in the background was the one we climbed.

Trains, Buses and Combies

2008-08-09T19:09:00.008-07:00

Photo: Taylor and Alec on the train to Agua Caliente.

Day 7
Cuzco to Agua Caliente

The hostel owner agreed to store our luggage so we took off with just our backpacks for our two day trip to Machu Picchu.

We took a taxi to the local bus terminal. Taylor decided to use the “restrooms” there. For men, this was a trough out in the open. The trough did have some privacy as it was behind a bus. Of course, as Taylor was using it, the bus pulled away.

Alec bought the four of us tickets (about 50 cents per person) for the two-hour bus trip to Ollanta where we’d catch the train to Agua Caliente. Our assigned seats on the bus were in the first row. At least we thought that was the first row. It turns out we were on the second row as the first row was a bench seat you shared with the driver. To get to the first row, you have to climb over the seat from behind.

I sat next to the window with Taylor beside me. We joked he had the “exit” aisle as he had extra legroom as his seat opened up into the loading area of the bus. However, as the bus loaded, every bit of that extra room (and more) was taken by the standing room-only passengers.

Taylor learned first-hand that South Americans have a very different sense of personal space. As more people kept getting on at every stop, he had various locals draped over him. One little girl was practically in his lap.

The bus also had a monitor, positioned by the door, to let people on and off the bus as we traveled. This process didn’t seem to slow us down at all as the bus hardly stopped for these exchanges. People would give the monitor a few coins and hop off with their large bundles as the bus slowed. As soon as the person was halfway off, the monitor would give the word to the driver and we took off again.

At Chinchero an enormous extended family got off the bus, finally clearing out the aisles. Half an hour later, we were at the changing point. We got off the bus and walked through a store to an adjoining courtyard. We were looking for more buses, but all we found were combies.

Combies are crowded minibuses used as local transportation the world over. In the courtyard, combies were continually being loaded up. As soon as one was full, another appeared. These are not the safest way in the world to travel. But we had a short way to go so piled in the next one.

We were fortunate to get seats in the back. These were not very big seats. In fact, they were too small to fit Taylor. But these seats were much better than the two rows of facing seats in the middle where anyone without a seat was smashed in. Like a bus, a combie runs a route, picking up and letting off passengers along the way. You pay the driver when you get off. Apparently, there is no limit to the number of people a combie can pick up.

Ours was fully loaded at the bus terminal. But this didn’t stop the driver from halting along the route to load more people in the middle section. Even the shortest of locals didn’t have room to stand up. Instead, they wedged in, bent over. Saori described this as a “human tetras.”

Much to my surprise, the combie did not seem to stop at all to let passengers on and off. It just seemed to slow down. Fortunately, a few people did hop out on the way, so we never seemed to have more than three or four peopled smashed into the aisle in the middle.

In 20 minutes, we pulled into a parking lot off the main square in Ollanta. Lucky for us, that was the final destination and the combie came to a complete halt so we didn't need a running start to hop out. At that point, I was ready for some civilization. I had spotted a “Whole Foods” sign at a restaurant in the square and I dragged our group in for a belated breakfast.

We were waited on by an American woman. We learned the restaurant operated solely as a fund-raising effort to help local women and children. They also sold textiles woven by these women. My transportation adventures had not killed my apetite and I ate very nice pancakes with fresh bananas.

After breakfast we left the picturesque square for the not-so-picturesque area next to the train station. I love to travel by train. No security, no lines, no having to be there hours in advance. We showed our ticket and boarded our train immediately.

The train had two seats on each side of the aisle. PeruRail sells tickets in numerical order. As luck had it, while our seats were numerically in order, they weren’t together. We had one seat on one row, two together, and another single. Luckily, we were able to change with another party.

Unless you plan to hike in (and you have to have a permit booked months in advance to do that), the only way to Machu Picchu is by PeruRail. They have four different types of trains. The cheapest is to go by local train, but that option is only opens to locals.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Hiram Bingham train. Inkan slaves must be at your beck and call the whole way because it costs a whopping $294 roundtrip. In contrast, the Backpacker train, which we took, is $48 roundtrip and the Vistadome train is $71.

The Vistadome has glass cut-ins on the ceiling for a better view. You also get a free snack. Unfortunately, the view train means no overhead space, so Vistadome travelers are limited to one bag each.

The Backpacker train has no bag limitations. Besides being cheaper, the backpacker train also offers a lot more legroom. (I have no idea why.) I stretched out my legs and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful scenery for the 90 minute ride.

All too soon we arrived at the station at Agua Caliente. Agua Caliente has to be one of the most touristy places I’ve ever been. But with that fabulous scenery of the surrounding mountains, it was touristy in a really scenic way.

It was lightly raining when we arrived. How had I missed the fact that Machu Picchu is in a RAIN FOREST? We were there in dry season, but somebody forgot to tell the weather that. It rained a lot.

We wandered around in the rain until we happened upon the main square. This wasn’t hard as the town is really small. Our hostel, Gringo Bill’s, occupied a corner of the square.

Gringo Bill’s was an open-air multi-level boutique hotel with pebblestone pathways. It was the second most charming place in which I’ve ever stayed. (It was edged out of first place only by that inn in Africa with the guestrooms in trees connected by rope bridges.)

Alec had made the arrangements and I tried not to be nervous because the hostel had only confirmed our first night. Fortunately, when we checked in, they were able to confirm us for both nights, canceling another party that hadn’t left a deposit. Taking no chances, we hit an ATM and paid for both nights in advance. (None of the places we stayed on this trip took credit cards.)

Our plan had been to head up to Machu Picchu and spend the afternoon there. It’s a half hour bus ride from Agua Caliente so we went down to buy bus tickets. That’s when we found out that the last bus up for the day had already left.

We bought bus tickets for the next day and then went the Cultural Center to stand in line for our tickets to Machu Picchu. Agua Caliente was beginning to remind me a lot of Disneyland. It was this fakey cute place, where you stood in lines for the big attractions and everything was overpriced.

Afterwards, Taylor and I found a combination Chinese restaurant/internet place and I logged on to get my emails. It took five minutes to get into my accounts. I think they must have converted every electronic impulse into Morse code and back.

There was an e-mail from the law school telling me my deadline to register for all my classes was two days away. There’s no way I could do this even with a decent internet connection as my logon and password were in a file folder in Phoenix. I wasn’t happy but I’d have to deal with the consequences of late registration when I got back.

We had some time to kill before dinner so the four of us went to the café/bar and sampled the famous Pisco Sour. I expected something like a Whisky sour, but this was made with Pisco, a Peruvian brandy, and lemon juice, bitters and egg whites. As Taylor would say when I served something he hated, “not my favorite.”

After dinner, we met in Alec’s room to map out our Machu Pichhu plan of attack for tomorrow. We’d have only one day there and we wanted to make the most of it.

Photo: Taylor on the patio roof of Gringo Bill's.

Mountains and Markets

2008-08-08T08:21:00.012-07:00

Photo: View from the road to Pisac.

Day 6
Roundtrip Cuzco to Pisac

Our driver showed up at 8:30 as promised. Alec and Saori were feeling better so we all piled into the late model station wagon taxi for the scenic drive to Pisac.

In addition to its market, Pisac is also famed for its Inkan ruins in the mountains above. (Is there ANYPLACE around here without fabulous ruins?) We decided to head there first.

It was a good decision. With every other tourist in the area at the market, we had the ruins practically to ourselves. But we couldn't resist a brief stop on the way to take some photos of the terraces built into the mountains.

The ruins were spread out over an extensive area and we spent the next 2.5 hours hiking and climbing around them.

It was a lot for fun, but at that altitude, the way back up was a struggle. When I finally, finally emerged back at the top, a vendor twirled his wares and asked, “Wind chime?”

“Agua!” I panted. The line of vendors, like a well-choreographed chorus line, all immediately pointed me in one direction. A water vendor emerged, selling me four bottles of water for 2 soles each, double what I paid in town. From the looks of me, he knew I wouldn’t be haggling.

I handed the cold water to Taylor, Alec and Saori as they came up behind me. We sat down the only place we could find, a rock behind a blanket filled with souvenirs for sale. “If anybody comes by, I’ll make them a good deal on this stuff,” I joked.

Our driver, who must have feared we were lost forever in the ruins, appeared. He had given up on meeting us at the appointed place.

We were happy to be found and settled back in his taxi. It took him awhile to get out of the parking lot. He had to maneuver past all these huge arriving tour buses. Finally, we were on our way down the mountain to the village.

Pisac is a picturesque town, centered around a square. The town pretty much disappears on market days as stands and canopies emerge from everywhere. Fortified with a coco mate break, we waded in.

The market had a lot of same things we’d seen in Cuzco, just a bigger variety. Lured by the smell of roasting meat, we wandered into an open courtyard to find spits of guinea pigs over open flames. Off to the side was a large cage full of the live furry critters. Taylor walked up to the cage, asking, “Okay, who’s the fattest?” Taking no chances, the animals all immediately scampered into their hutch.

We weren’t really tempted to eat. Instead we wandered around, giving most of our business to a small art gallery which featured watercolors of traditional Incan and Andean symbols. Saori, Taylor and I all made purchases there during the day. While wrapping up my artwork, the vendor remarked that guy helping him was the artist.

After a few hours, we headed back to Cuzco. Alec and Saori found it, but I never did see the local food market.

For dinner that night, we ate Peruvian food at Papa Llama, a restaurant in San Blas. It had a lovely courtyard with a wood burning oven. Unfortunately, it also had aggressive pigeons. With my bird phobia, we had to sit inside.

I felt bad about dragging everyone inside until ten minutes later when the temperatures started dropping. The cold would have driven us in anyway. Our dinner included clay pot chicken parmesan served without the clay pot and alpaca.

After dinner, Alec and Saori ended up at a German Techno bar which played Moby videos. Tay and I went out to buy a carved wooden frame for his angel picture. We ended the evening by trying on, but not purchasing, fluffy llama fur slippers.

Photo: Alec and Saori by the terraces.

The Pizza Man Cometh

2008-08-07T06:57:00.010-07:00

Photo: Nancy, Alec, Taylor and Saori explore the Inkan ruins at Qoricancha.

Day 5
Cuzco

A Do-Not-Miss on almost every tourist agenda was the Sunday market at the village of Pisac. People in Pisac, having figured out they had a huge tourist draw have expanded their "weekly" market to three days a week. The orginal Sunday market, however, was the only day that featured local produce. And that was the one we wanted to see.

But first, we needed to figure out how to get there. Pisac is a 45 minute drive outside of Cuzco. Our options were to hire a car or take a local bus. (Taylor strongly favored hiring a car.) Alec had discussed both with the hostel owner.

Alec was in the process of getting directions to the bus depot when the owner’s daughter, interrupted. “Did anyone order pizza?” she asked. Pizza? At 10 a.m.? Not us.

It turns out it wasn’t pizza, but Pisac. A taxi driver the owner had contacted was outside, offering to chauffer us to Pisac tomorrow. We agreed to talk to him and much to Taylor’s relief, struck a deal. For $40 he would take us to Pisac and back, being at our service all day.

With tomorrow’s plans all set, we tackled our next logistical issue: picking up our train tickets to Agua Caliente, the town outside Machu Picchu. At the PeruRail office, we got in line behind eight other people. Fortunately for us, the line moved quickly. I then noticed the speed was due to the fact that no one was buying any tickets.

This is the ONLY way to get to Machu Pichhu. I was thankful we had planned ahead, getting through the complicated Verified by Visa qualifications, to buy our tickets online. We had only to exchange the vouchers I’d printed out at home. As we checked our train tickets for accuracy before leaving, I noticed the line behind us had grown to at least 20 people.

Our next stop was the cathedral. Alec and Saori wanted to walk there. It seemed a long way to me, particularly at this oxygen-robbing altitude, but I figured after we got tired I could talk them into grabbing a cab.

There was no need. When traveling by car in Cuzco, you almost always have to take the long way because of one-way roads and/or narrow passageways cars can’t traverse. Heavy traffic also slows you down. But traveling on foot means no delays and you get to take the most direct route.

We stopped on the way at an Internet place so I could e-mail relatives my Peruvian cellphone number. I also looked up the Delta baggage claim phone number in the U.S. Taylor’s bag was still missing. Over the past few days, I had called the Delta baggage number in Lima dozens of times at all hours and no one ever answered.

Nearing the Plaza, we stopped at a restaurant for a coffee break. I had heard the siren call of their cappacino machine frothing milk and found it irrestible. We sat outside in the warm sunshine, continually waiving off local kids who wanted to shine our shoes and women with babies on their back selling little dolls.

We each took advantage of the restaurant’s beautiful bathroom. You know you’ve been in a third world country too long when you all start gushing about how nice a bathroom is. It was such a pleasant spot, I settled in to call Delta in Atlanta about Taylor’s bag.

This was a very long process. The guy at Delta insisted I give them the Delta ten digit tracking number assigned to our lost bag. I would have been more than happy to comply, but the Delta baggage claim people in Peru where we’d filed our claim hadn’t given me one. I did have every piece of documentation Delta had given me.

The Delta guy then insisted I call Delta baggage in Lima to get this required ten digit number. I informed them I had called Delta baggage in Lima dozens of times at all hours and no one EVER answered. I offered to stay on hold, while HE called to see if they could get through. The Delta guy told me he wasn’t allowed to call long distance. Frankly, if he worked for me I don’t think I’d trust him to call long distance either.

I calmly but firmly asked for his help multiple times in multiple ways. “Please. I just want to know how to find my suitcase.” But his one solution was to give me a phone number that was never answered. Finally, he suggested that I personally go to baggage claim at the Lima airport to try to get the tracking number.

“Lima is a 20-hour bus ride from here,” I said. When he had no reply to this, I asked for his supervisor. After 20 more minutes on hold, the supervisor came on and told me our bag had been flown via Lan to Cuzco three days ago. No trips to Lima and no ten digit tracking code needed.

With the bag situation hopefully resolved, we decided to walk to Qoricancha. This is the site of the ruins of the ancient Inca Temple of the Sun. Qoricancha actually means golden courtyard. The Incas thought that precious metals should be reserved for the gods. Gold was for the sun and silver was for the moon. As for themselves, cocoa leaves were more highly prized.

Eventually, the Spanish conquistadores arrived, ransacking the temple, melting down the gold and then building a convent on the ruins. Once again, the intricacy of the Inca construction was amazing. The baroque Spanish church built adjacent seemed unimpressive in comparison. But the convent grounds did offer some lovely colonial religious paintings from the Cuzco school.

Inside the church we found large banners with local children portrayed as the traditional angels. It was a bit disconcerting to me seeing one of them with a giant sword.

At this point, Taylor was ready to find “an ancient Incan bathroom.” After that, we headed for the exit and stopped at a display of ceramic whistles in animal shapes. The two vendors were charming musicians and could coax amazing sounds from them. Unfortunately, the more interest we showed, the higher their prices went.

Eventually, we opted not to buy, deciding we could find the same thing for much less in the markets somewhere. (We were wrong. This is probably the ONLY Peruvian item that you can’t find in the markets.)

While Alec and Saori elected to explore Cuzco more, Taylor and I headed to the airport. At the Lan counter, we showed them our documentation. They made a copy of Taylor’s passport and much to my relief, produced his missing bag.

We went back to the hostel and found that while all of Taylor’s clothes were there, his toiletries and his electric razor were missing. I bet the first thing the Delta will want on the missing item claim form is that ten digit number.

Later that afternoon, I called a group meeting to review the pluses and minuses of our trip so far. We all agreed we liked the leisurely pace, the hostel and our itinerary. Alec asked me to do more of the translating duties. (I had been slacking off since his Spanish is better than mine.) While all the restaurants on my “recommended” list were good, Saori wanted to eat more like locals do.

In keeping with that feedback, we went to dinner at a local chicken place around the corner recommended by the hostel owner. We ordered grilled chicken and French fries to go. We took them out to the adjoining square and watched the local teens dancing. (It was Saturday night.) The kids danced in large groups, boys on one side and girls on the other, like an Indian music video. Occasionally, one group would dance through the other group for excitement, assembling on the opposite side.

The chicken and fries were a little greasy, but delicious. We had a couple of children come by with trays of cigarettes and candy but everyone else ignored us. The young dancers, flanked by hundreds of lights dotting the surrounding hillsides, were wonderful entertainment.

We walked back to the hostel and played cards until our usual bedtime of 8:30. The music from the nearby square continued to blare into the wee hours, but I was so tired, I fell asleep immediately.

I was awoken by someone knocking on my door. I ignored it. They knocked louder. I still ignored it. Then I heard, “Mom?” I got up and opened the door to Alec. He had altitude sickness. He was short of breath, his heart was racing and he couldn’t sleep. He wanted to know if I had any altitude medication left.

I did. About 80 percent of Cuzco’s visitors have problems with altitude sickness. Those were odds I hadn’t cared to face. So I had gotten Diamox. Taylor and I had taken half dosages since we left Phoenix as a preventative. Having taken full dosages of the stuff for my trip to Tibet, I knew I could tolerate it well.

It’s a good thing my doctor made me do the research on dosages for Diamox so I knew exactly what to “prescribe.” I had three pills left and I gave them to Alec with instructions to take a full dose twice a day.

The medication wouldn’t take effect for 24 hours. But much of that time, we’d be in Pisco, which was several hundred meters lower. We’d have one more night in high-altitude Cuzco and then we’d leave for the lower climes of the area surrounding Machu Pichhu.

After playing Dr. Mom, I crawled back under my stack of alpaca blankets and went right to sleep.

Photo: Alec, Saori and Taylor entertain themselves with the finger puppets they purchased in the market.

Cuzco on the Rocks

2008-08-06T10:39:00.014-07:00

Photo: View of Cuzco's Plaza de Armas from Sacsayhuamán.

Day 4
Cuzco

The four of us took a taxi over to the tourist office to buy our Boleta Tourista. The Boleta Tourista is one ticket which covers many of the major tourist attractions in the Cuzco area. The ticket costs about $43 each (cash only).

Surprisingly, we seemed to be the only actual tourists buying the Tourist Ticket. Everyone else was from some kind of tour agency.

Before continuing on, we decided to stop for a mate de cocoa (cocoa tea) break at one of those restaurants overlooking the Plaza de Armas. Cocoa tea does comes in bags. But the best way to drink it is to loosely scatter cocoa leaves in the bottom fourth of your cup. Pour hot water over the leaves and let it steep a few minutes before drinking.

Cocoa grows wild all over the place here. These are the same cocoa leaves that are the source of cocaine. In fact, Peru is number two in the world in cocaine production. (First, is Columbia.)

But it takes bushels of leaves and exacting process to convert the cocoa to cocaine. The main effects of the tea we drank was to settle our stomachs and give us a mild caffeine hit. It’s a very pleasant drink. But forget brewing your own back home. It’s illegal to import cocoa leaves to the U.S. in any quantity.

After drinking our tea, we needed to find a bathroom. The restaurant’s restroom was located down two flights of rickety stairs. Then you step inside a small area surrounded by scratched-up plastic walls, exit that through a dilapidated swinging double half door. Tucked into a darkened corner under the stairs was the toilet. Getting there felt like an Indiana Jones adventure.

From the Square, we took a taxi up narrow streets to Sacsayhuamán, loosely pronounced “Sexy Woman.” Sacsayhuamán really means satisfied vulture, although we could never find out exactly how it came by that moniker.

Today Sacsayhuamán is the remains of an Incan walled fortress overlooking Cuzco. The City of Cuzco was shaped like a puma, one of the Incan’s sacred animals. Sacsayhuamán is the head of the puma with its zig-zag shaped walls as the teeth.

We accepted the services of one of the local freelance tour guides hanging out at the entrance to show us around. He got a B- for his English ability, but an A for knowledge of the site.

While we had two in our group, you didn’t have to be an architect to appreciate the Inka building methods. Large limestone rocks were cut to fit exactingly together without mortar and engineered to withstand earthquakes.

When Cuzco suffered devastating earthquakes (in 1750 and 1950), everything built on top of the Inkan walls collapsed. But the Inkan-construction held firm. I was reminded of that phrase I’d heard in Egypt: “Time laughs at all things, but the pyramids laugh at time.”

We took another taxi back down to San Blas, the former Bohemian area of Cuzco. I had really wanted to stay in this picturesque section of town but couldn’t find anywhere available in our price range. But after negotiating the very narrow stairs adjoining the very narrow streets, I was happy we didn’t have to deal with this every day. Really, your average overweight American would have been sideswiped by every passing car.

After the taxi drove off, Alec discovered his wallet had fallen out during the cab drive. While he lost $100, the wallet didn’t have any credit cards or I.D.

We went to Heidi’s for lunch. Heidi’s is run by a German family with a farm outside of town. Heidi is the name of their cow. The restaurant’s decor was modern European, sort of like an upscale Ikea. Service, however, was typical Latin American “whenever we get around to it.” But the food! I ate the lunch special (menu del plata) which included a perfectly grilled trout that was so fresh it had to have been swimming hours ago.

For dessert, Alec and Taylor ordered “Nelson Mandela” chocolate cake. They liked it but it was more of a light chocolate mousse confection than they had expected. Alec joked that it should have been called “Hallie Berry” cake instead.

The food was all so wonderful I could almost forgive the fact it took them at least 20 minutes after we twice requested to give us our check. At this point the restaurant had people WAITING to get in. In Latin American restaurants, one is expected to lounge for hours after every meal.

After finally paying our bill, we continued exploring San Blas. At a small art gallery, I bought some of the black and white Chulucanas pots. These come from a village in northern Peru. They are handmade and baked in a kiln with mango leaves. The soot from the leaves dyes the unpainted portions black.

After all that hiking, we were getting tired so we headed back to the hostel for a siesta. I immediately went to sleep while Alec, Saori and Taylor played cards in the other room. At 4 p.m., they woke me up to go to the Inka Museum.

The Inka Musuem was highly recommended by all our guide books. But apparently, these people must have gone to some OTHER Inka Museum in Cuzco. The place we went had few English captions and lots of bad photos of exhibits, rather than the real items.

The only real attraction was the mummy room where actual skeletons were displayed in ghoulish positions. The skeletons also included those of children. And just so Junior gets a good look, they had special cut-in views at eye level for young children.

Hungry again, we wandered back over to Chez Maggie for some garlic oven-fired pizza which we washed down with cocoa tea and limonada. Why can’t the U.S. restaurants produce so perfect a lemonade? Ours are always too fizzy, too sweet and not nearly fresh lemony enough. Oh, well, the U.S. has great tater tots. That’s some concession.

As Taylor had been wearing the same clothes for days, I bought him an Inka Cola teeshirt for $3. Inka Cola is the carbonated beverage of choice in Peru. It has the sickly-sweet smell of bubblegum and is, apparently, an acquired taste.

I also went to a store specializing in rugs. Taylor and I looked at probably 30 before narrowing it down to two choices. Saori and Alec wandered in just in time to weigh in. The rug with the condor, another Incan sacred animal, was the unanimous choice for those three. I wasn’t completely sure, so I made the salesperson a lowball offer in cash. I had been pricing rugs all over town, so I knew this was a longshot, particularly for a rug of that quality.

Cuzco, incidentally, is not a good place to negotiate. There’s probably too many tourist who think everything is a good deal. Earlier, I’d asked the price of a llama fur teddy bear. The vendor told me 25 soles, about $6. How much if I buy two? “Quanta questa por dos?” The vendor quickily replied 50 soles, no discount whatsoever.

So I was fairly shocked when my lowball offer for the rug was accepted. It was late and they must have had a very bad sales day. Anyway, I had my souvenir.

Photo: Incan symbol rug.

Acquiring an Angel

2008-08-05T10:30:00.006-07:00

Photo: Alec, Saori, Nancy and Taylor pretend to be "locals" for our hostel owner in Cuzco.

Day 3
Cuzco

After all that sleep the previous day, the next morning, Taylor and I were ready for–more lounging. We had our usual hostel breakfast of toast, cocoa tea and scrambled eggs. This was included in our $50 night room price.

Alec called me at around 10 a.m. to tell me he and Saori had arrived at the Cuzco bus station. A few minutes later, they showed up at the hostel, in great shape after their 20-hour bus trip.

Alec and Saori loved the hostel. Alec informed me that the stairs were not to code, but the hostel scored high on his authentic factor. While others of us seek amentities such a shower with hot water, Alec is all about authentic. This trip was a compromise between the two.

After being served breakfast and forced to dress in local clothes for pictures by the amicable owner, Alec and Saori were shown to their room. They settled in and then the four of us took off to have lunch at another restaurant from my list. It was off the Plaza de Armas, down a passageway which led to a courtyard. The restaurant was on the sescond story. Taylor, however, spotted the sign from the street, which made it easy to find. He loved the upscale atmosphere and Italian menu but I was unimpressed with my beautifully presented but slightly undercooked local trout.

We walked off lunch by strolling around the Plaza area. It is full of doorways crammed with stuff for sale in narrow passages. The narrow passages often lead to courtyards with even MORE handicrafts to buy. Way too much of it is junk, such as the “baby alpaca” scarves for $12. (Having seen the real ones for sale at $80 plus in the upscale shops on the square, it was easer to tell the difference. )

Actually, I was not much tempted by alpaca, regardless of price. You don't often wear wool, no matter how soft, in Phoenix. But we were in Peru in wintertime and the temperature was dropping. Taylor only had the light warm-up jacket he’d worn on the plane. So I bought him an “alpaca” hat and scarf. I also bought a scarf/shawl for my sister, in a teal blue, which would highlight her eyes. Unfortunately, I got so cold, I wore “Brenda’s” teal scarf constantly my entire time in Peru. Sorry, Sis. Soari and Alec also bought scarves.

Now a bit warmer, we walked over to the government-sponsored handicrafts exhibit where vendors were selling their works in a colonial building. Taylor had been attracted to the religious oil paintings we have seen there last night. We went back to the booth with the best quality canvases and he carefully selected a 30 x 40 cm. one of Raphael. He bought it for a negotiated price of about $20. They rolled it up and wrapped it up in newspaper, the packing material of choice here.

I am pleased that Taylor is following in our footsteps of buying art as a souvenir. Art is a great reminder of the trip. It is also a very affordable way to decorate your home, which you just can't do with a teeshirt or a postcard.

At the exhibit, I admired a beautiful handmade tapestry table runner. The woman who made it (it took her four weeks) was ready to negotiate and sell it for $33. But I was holding out for one of those beautiful geometric rugs I'd seen at the nicer stores. I just needed to find the perfect one.

We stopped for a cocoa tea break at one of the tourist restaurants with a balcony overlooking the square. In my normal life, I cannot have a drop of caffeine past 3 p.m. or I am up all night. In Cuzco, however, I can drink all the highly caffeinated cocoa tea I want and STILL sleep ten hours. Maybe it’s the 11,600 foot altitude.

We then walked across the Plaza to the Cathedral and took the audio tour. So much for the free live guides my Fodors said were available. The church had beautiful carved wooden altars, one of who contained a “black Jesus.” The wooden statue of Christ had been colored black by years of candle soot. This was deemed the Jesus of Earthquakes so he gets a lot of attention.

I was also impressed with the way the Cuzco artists had localized their wares. A painting of Jesus and the Disciples at the last supper showed cuy, guinea pig, as the main course.

We took a taxi back to the hostel around 6:30. Alec and Saori picked up some sandwiches at the bakery at Mega Mart across the street. They brought one back for Taylor but he was already asleep! He woke up long enough to inquire if the sandwich had mayonnaise on it. Taylor hates mayonnaise. It didn’t but he immediately went back to sleep anyway.

The rest of us were asleep by 8:30. As much as I liked Cuzco, I was ready to nickname it, "The Cure for Insomnia."

Photo: Taylor stops for cocoa tea in his new hat.

Coming to Cuzco

2008-08-03T15:53:00.011-07:00

Day 2
Atlanta to Lima to Cuzco

Photo right: The view from our hostel.

While we made it to Lima, Taylor’s bag did not. Instead, we found an abandoned suitcase the exact same color, brand and size as Taylor’s. Unfortunately, it belonged to someone else. I was furious that someone would have been so careless that they’d taken Tay’s bag by mistake.

After waiting in line an hour at the baggage counter, Delta did a bag trace and informed us that Tay’s bag was still in Atlanta. I considered this very good news as it meant Delta knew where the bag was and was still responsible for getting the bag to us. If someone had taken it as I orginally suspected, Tay’s bag could have been on its way to anywhere in South America.

We filled out the bag claim form and gave them the phone number of the Peruvian cellphone I’d just rented. (At bag claim, Alec and I each paid $10 for two cellphones for the 10 days we were there. Local calls cost 69 cents a minute. I thought it was worth it so we could stay in touch.)

Our wait at the bag counter had eaten up all our layover time. Taylor and I said a quick goodbye to Saori and Alec who were traveling onward by bus. We cleared customs and rushed through the terminal, which resembled a large mall, trying to find the gates for domestic flights.

We finally found the entrance but the security personnel wouldn’t let us let us through without the departure tax sticker on our boarding passes. We backtracked to that window, paid our $6 departure tax fee and got the requisite stickers. At the same time, I realized that while Tay’s bag was AWOL, my large roller duffle was still at my side. I needed to go back and check it.

We ran back through the mall/terminal to Lan check in. I had printed out my boarding passes on line previously, so we went to the shorter “equipment drop” line. At the counter, we were told our flight was departing in 15 minutes. “It’s too late to check your bag,” the sympathetic airline employee told me. “You have to take it with you. Run, run, or you’ll miss your flight!”

What was she thinking? My roller duffle is way too big to use as a carry-on. I figured she meant it would be tagged at the gate, like a stroller. So once again, Tay and I ran through the terminal, arriving at the gate in time to board with the other passengers. No one gave my duffle a second look. Surprisingly the overhead above our seats were empty and Taylor stuffed my roller duffle in with a hard shove.

For the 50 minute flight to Cuzco, the Lan flight attendants offered us a beverage and a snack. As Taylor had slept through the cereal offered business class passengers as breakfast on Delta, he ate all of his snack and most of mine.

We landed at the airport where a local band was playing at baggage claim. I was hoping our hostel would send someone to meet us but no such luck. Instead I struck a deal with a taxi driver to take us there. It turned out to be a TERRIBLE deal, 20 soles or a little less than $7. I learned later this was four times the going rate.

On the way there the driver tried to talk us out of the hostel. “It’s too far away. Let me take you to a hotel that’s closer.” I insisted on our chosen hostel, as one of my most cherished rules of international travel is: Pay no attention to the advice of friendly local strangers.

The taxi driver did take us to the hostel, which was hidden behind a corrugated tin door which was painted green. Inside was an ugly concrete courtyard with several doors. One of them led the Ochoa Familia Hostel, our destination. The staff met us at the door and escorted us to the second floor where the charming owner chatted with us while his wife served us breakfast.

They spoke very little English so my Spanish got a real workout as we chatted about our travel plans. I managed phrases such as, “Mi hijo y su novia va aqui manana.” My comments were all in present tense as I couldn’t remember how to conjugate verbs in past or future tense at that point.

They also served us our first cups of cocoa tea, a drink we would adopt throughout our stay. After breakfast, the owner invited us up to the fourth floor for a view. Once there, he proudly outfitted us in local costumes so he could take our pictures.

He strictly advised us to be sure to rest “a minimum of one hour.” This was no problem for Tay and me. Between the high altitude zapping our breath and the lack of sleep on the plane, we took a four hour nap. Eventually we were driven out of our room in thirst.

We went to the well-stocked Mega Market across the street. We bought bottled water and some local snacks that looked like giant pieces of dried corn. Then we took a brief walk around the square behind us. Some kids were practicing for the upcoming national day parades.

Thus fortified, we returned to our pleasant room and once again feel asleep! We woke up at dinner time. I gave Taylor the sheet I’d complied from various sources on the Internet with restaurant reviews. He chose Chez Maggie, a wood-fire pizza place. It was located near the Plaza de Armas, the main square.

I asked the owner for information on taking a taxi. Instead, he hailed a cab and jumped in to escort us himself. He even paid for the cab. We don’t get that kind of service at the Sheraton.

Plaza de Armas was charming, with narrow brick streets, a stunning Cathedral and lots of Spanish colonial architecture. Cuzco is surrounded by the Andes and as it was now dark, we would see lots of twinkling lights on the hill. It was pretty magical. Or at least it would have been had we not been assaulted so often by touts in the square, trying to sell us tours or get us into their restaurants. The square also had multiple handicrafts stores.

We stopped off at several high-end stores. I don’t generally buy anything from there but I find it’s helpful when picking your way through all the junk in the markets to know how the expensive stuff looks.

Eventually, we shopped our way over to where the pizza place should have been. We had to backtrack. There are so many doorways, we just missed it.

We took a seat at one of the long wooden tables. The waiter handed us menus and asked Taylor, “Where are you from? England? Ireland?” As Taylor wears form-fitting stylish clothes, he is often mistaken for being European.

We told him we were from the U.S.

“Cerveza?” asked the waiter.

“No, agua y mate de cocoa por dos,” I replied.

“Oh, you just arrived today,” he said. Water and cocoa tea are the beverages of choice to avoid altitude sickness, which plagues a whopping four out of five visitors here. Alcohol, which dehydrates, makes this condition much worse.

Tay and I ordered the “pizza familia,” Chez Maggie’s largest size pizza which was about the size of a small at Pizza Hut.

The wood-fired wafer-thin crust pizza didn’t taste like Pizza Hut. But it was really good and hit the spot. After dinner we wandered around shopping a bit longer before it got way too cold for me and we hailed a taxi (3 soles/$1) back to the hostel.

I tried out the “24-hour hot water” in our shower. Yes, we had hot water, but it was so inconsistent, I had to constantly adjust the temperatures, a process I got much better at as time went on.

Oh, well, we had a room with a view in a charming hostel in lovely Cuzco. I crawled into my twin bed loaded with alpaca blankets and went right to sleep.

Photos: Plaza de Armas in Cuzco.

Gracious Living Crashes on Delta

2008-08-03T09:45:00.004-07:00

Day 1

Phoenix to Atlanta

Photo right: Alec patiently waits at the Phoenix airport to board.

We checked in without a wait at Delta’s first class line in Phoenix. I was disappointed to see there was no waiting at their coach check-in either. What fun is flying first class if you don’t get to feel privileged?

But privilege and Delta first class don’t belong in the same category anymore. Checking in, I found that Delta had closed their First Class lounge in Phoenix as a budget-cutting measure.

I understand that Delta, like most American airlines, is losing money like the sub-prime mortgage business. But is alienating your best customers really where you want to make cuts?

First class passengers still get wider seats and a little more legroom than coach. But that’s about it for the perks. The first three hours of our flight, we were served…filet mignon? Nope. Chicken penne pasta? Nope. A fajita wrap sandwich? Nope. The first three hours of our flight, the only food first class passengers got was… a bag of peanuts.

Suddenly Southwest Airlines, the “no-frills” airline, which offers free checked bags and peanuts in coach is looking pretty gracious compared to its competitors.

Delta first class passengers get real glasses, but it didn’t do me a bit of good as mine was almost always empty. I had to leave my seat several times to try to find a flight attendant to get my water refilled.

Other than trying to track down a flight attendant, the only entertainment available was one movie, a forgettable children’s film called Nim’s Island.

About an hour before we touched down, first class passengers were offered a turkey sandwich and a package of Oreo brownies. I guess I’m lucky Delta doesn’t make us clean the bathrooms before exiting the plane.

We had a four hour layover in Atlanta so we went to the Delta Lounge there and played cards. We had to leave, however, as the lounge, whose only food was pretzels, closed at 10 p.m. This is even though Delta had numerous scheduled flights that left later.

And tonight there were lots of first class passengers kicked out at closing. With weather problems elsewhere, every Delta flight listed on the board was delayed by one to four hours. In fact, out of 50 flights listed, only OUR flight to Lima was listed “on time.” Could we really be the only on-time departure at that airport that night?

With no place else to go, we arrived at the gate early. The Delta check-in counter person told me, “The plane is here and the crew is here. We’re leaving on time.” And so we did.

I quickly brushed off the lack of service and food. When you are traveling by air, leaving on time is the best perk of all.

We were on our way to Peru!

Photo: Even though they got a real glass, Taylor and Alec are underwhelmed by Delta's first class service.

In the Know

2008-07-20T12:38:00.003-07:00

No matter where I am, someone is always stopping me to ask for directions. One of my children said this is because I always look as if I know where I’m going.

I was asked for directions at the law school at U of A when I was visiting for the first time. (Of course, I can answer because I always travel with a map.) I was also asked for directions in the Paris Metro and EVERYWHERE on the streets in Moscow. (Draped in all that fur, I must have looked Russian.)

And if I can, I am always happy to assist--even if I have to do so in my broken Russian. But for some reason, my willingness to help disappears when it’s a commercial establishment asking. I believe that if I am providing a service to a business, I should get paid. That includes surveys.

I used to have a lot of fun with this years ago when businesses would called me in Scottsdale.

Business: “Do you have a few minutes to answer some survey questions?”

Me: “Maybe. How much do you pay?”

Business: “It’s a survey. We don’t pay anything. We just want to improve our services.”

Me: “I’m sorry. I only do volunteer work for charities."

Nowadays, in my quest to make the world a little nicer, I just say no.

But my local Mazda dealership is having a tough time getting the message. After my battery flunked its 15,000 mile inspection, I took the car to Mazda, who replaced the battery at a pro-rated charge.

Within a week, I received two computer calls asking me to answer their questions on service. I hung up. Then I received a call from a real person. I politely informed her that I don’t do surveys. Finally, I received a call from the service person, again asking about my “experience.” I told him it was fine.

And it was fine. But thinking about it later, if that Mazda dealer truly wanted to impress me with their service, it wouldn’t be by calling me four times. It would be by not making wait ten minutes in the driveway with my car to check-in when I arrived promptly for my scheduled appointment.

And it would be by not returning my car with the antenna missing. After I pointed it out, I had to wait an additional ten minutes for them to try and find it somewhere in the back. Yes, these are minor complaints. But if Mazda really wants to know what I think, they should send me a coupon for a free oil change or something.

I have information, but it’s not free. Unless, of course, you need directions to the train station in Cuzco. Then I’ll be glad to show you where it is on my map.

Photo by Alec Perkins in Kiev: Nancy, who while dressed in red fox is often mistaken for either a Russian woman or a large gerbil.

Travel Amnesia

2008-07-15T22:38:00.003-07:00

A gynecologist once told me that immediately after giving birth, the mother's body is flooded with chemicals to make her forget the pain. I think independent travel is like that.

After all, it was only two years ago that I organized our trip for six people through Egypt. But did I remember the pain in setting that up? No, I only remember the joys of tromping through the amazing wonders of Luxor and climbing the base of the iconic pyramids in Cairo.

So I am huddled over my computer working along with Alec to book every individual piece of a 10-day vacation in Peru. I’ve already arranged the frequent flyer flights to get us to Lima and back. But from there we need to get to Cuzco, an ancient colonial city which is the jumping off point for Machu Picchu.

As the crow flies, Cuzco and Lima aren’t that far apart. However, the two are separated by the Andes. To get there, we have a choice of an 80-minute flight or a 19-hour bus ride.

Alec and Saori have decided to do the 19-hour Peruvian bus ride for “fun.” This does not sound like fun to Taylor and me. After 15 hours of flying, the last thing I want to do is to hang around another 10 hours before taking a 19-hour bus ride. I wouldn’t want to do a 19-hour bus trip in the U.S. where I know I'll find clean restrooms. Plus I find it a bit unsettling that Peruvian bus advertisements feel the need to highlight that their drivers aren’t drunk driving through the mountains!

So I am forgoing the adventure of a bus trip through the Andes for the adventure of trying to find a decent airfare between Lima and Cuzco. This flight is actually easy to book online–if I were willing to pay $411 per person for the roundtrip flights.

Instead, I scoured the Internet, finally finding the same flights for half that amount on the Peruvian airline’s Spanish website. At last, I am getting some money back for all that college Spanish I had to take!

I completed all the online forms in Spanish, only to get a message that my credit card wouldn’t go through. Wouldn’t go through? This is a credit card I have used in Russia, Cambodia, and the Middle East. If I wanted to charge something in Nigeria, the capital of fraud, the credit card company would put it right through.

So I called the Peruvian airlines who told me, in annoyance, that the fares on their Spanish website were for Peruvians only. They only accepted credit cards issued in Peru. I was fresh out of those, but I was not out of ideas.

Next, I tried a Peruvian travel agent. They came back with a quote for their five day Cuzco-Machu Picchu tour group package of $840 per person (which I didn’t request). This didn't include the roundtrip Lima to Cuzco flight, which she would book for an additional $411 per person.

I discovered the Peruvian carrier had a frequent flyer partnership with American Airlines. So I called American to see about using miles to get me there. Unfortunately, there were no frequent flyer seats available from Lima to Cuzco until the polar ice caps melted.

After another couple of hours of looking, I eventually booked the flights for $330 each. And this is just one aspect of our trip. There’s train tickets to Machu Picchu, airport transfers, and accommodations in Lima, Machu Pichhu, and Cuzco. So why are Alec and I going to this all trouble?

Besides saving money, we do it because we want to do what we want to do.

When our guide in Cairo called to inform us the van would be outside our hotel at 7 a.m. I was able to tell her, “You can have the van there any time you like, but we aren’t starting until 9.” This is one of the MANY advantages of traveling on your own.

Another is avoiding the “factory” tour. The factory inevitably consists of a small section where you can watch a craftsperson or two making something. If you are really into this, it is good for maybe 15 minutes of entertainment.

After that your group is shephered into the factory store, a giant area where you are LEFT for two hours while your bus driver and guide disappear. They are somewhere in the back plotting how they’ll spend their kickback money from whatever overpriced items you end up buying out of staggering boredom.

When you travel independently, you can skip the factory store. This leaves you all the time you want for places you really enjoy. So if you want to spend four hours thoroughly visiting the DaVinci’s home and grounds as we did in Loire, you can.

You decide when the tour is done. Ready right now for a cold drink, a hot shower or a nap? It’s up to you.

Yes, it’s more work than handing someone $840 and getting on and off the bus with 20 other people. But to me, it’s worth it. Besides, soon enough travel amnesia will kick in again and all I’ll remember was the great hike on Huyan Picchu or the delicioso cerviche place we stumbled onto one evening. And just like the mother of newborn, I’ll be posting the pictures soon.

Cat-astrophic

2008-07-10T10:18:00.004-07:00

Not everyone liked Suki’s new do.

In fact, Alec was none too pleased I turned his dignified elderly cat into a “French Poodle,” especially as I did not wait to hear back from him before proceeding. For that I am sorry. If ever have grandchildren, Alec will never entrust them to me. I'd probably get them all tattooed, or something.

I like Suki's new haircut. She reminds me of a Supermodel at a ski resort with a skinnier body; big, furry boots; and a furry scarf. As Taylor put it, she looks like a Catwalk Cat. And that's probably puns enough for one blog.

The Mane Attraction

2008-07-06T08:46:00.004-07:00

While Alec is in Oklahoma, giving Saori the cultural tour of mid-America, I am cat-sitting Suki. One of my self-appointed tasks in this capacity was trying to detangle her thick fur.

Suki looks like a bear. When we first adopted her as a kitten eight years ago, the humane society had classified her as a domestic longhair. But after she grew up, it’s clear there were more than a few hulking Maine Coon cats lurking in her family tree. There’s no other way to account for the fact that even as a female, she’s huge and has 6 inch long gray striped fur.

She doesn’t particularly like to be brushed. And the three minutes a day she would deign to sit still for this process was completely insufficient for the task. So I took her to PETsMART to be de-matted.

The groomer took one look at our Mongo cat and suggested an extreme makeover: a lion cut. “What’s that?” I asked.

“We shave the body. We leave fur around the face, like a lion’s mane. We also leave fur around the feet and at the bottom of the tail,” the groomer explained. “I have a cat like this and I did it with him.”

I agreed and she whisked Suki off to the grooming table where she was secured only with a strap lightly tied around her neck. I stood outside the picture window in the store looking into the grooming department and watched.

As the groomer worked, I was reminded of one haircut Taylor had in China. As a joke, Alec had made a buzzing noise when Taylor first sat down in the chair. The Chinese stylist, who spoke no English, took this as marching orders, whipping out his clippers. Before I could open my mouth, the stylist had shaved a large swatch off the top of Taylor’s head! (Taylor actually looked really cute in his buzz cut. Much better than his unruly curly mane of today. Maybe I could take him to PETsMART too.)

The PETsMART groomer shaved large patches off Suki. There was a pile of fur at her feet, enough to knit matching sweaters for the entire grooming staff.

Surprisingly, Suki didn’t object too much. But she had already endured the worst trial known to catdom–riding in the car! I cannot emphasize how much Suki hates this. This is a quiet cat whose only sound is a steady purr or a single short, demanding meow if you aren’t paying enough homage to her.

Put her in a moving car, however, and she howls loudly whenever the car is moving. This is a noise that goes unabated whether you are traveling one mile or 1,000. She howls as if someone has jabbed a needle in her eye. This, incidentally, is also how YOU feel after having to listen to this unceasing mournful racket.

To Suki, having your body shaved in a strange room full of people and dogs is nothing compared to that HELLISH CAR DRIVE.

Back at PETsMART, Suki was quite an attraction. I was joined at the window by various customers, each briefly stopping to watch the transformation. They all wanted to know what kind of cat got THAT big and THAT furry. Suki may have come in looking like a lamb and but she went out looking like a lion.

While it was a bit strange at first, Taylor and I really liked Suki’s transformation. And with all that fur gone, she looks a lot less fat. She now looks like she just needs a few more months on a kitty Jenny Craig rather than in need of a kitty gastric bypass

It just goes to prove that a good haircut can do wonders for a girl.

Photos: Suki shows off her new lion cut.

On the Inka Trail

2008-07-01T23:34:00.004-07:00

Photo right: Machu Picchu.

As Alec pointed out in his last blog, I’ve said that if you are waiting for your dream trip to be convenient and affordable, you’ll never go anywhere.

So I’m going to Peru next month. But in a way, this trip actually is convenient and affordable. With the commitment of law school looming ahead, this will be my last opportunity for an extended getaway for a long while. And with my stockpile of airline frequent flyer miles, it will never be more affordable for me to get there.

Having made the decision to go, I was a bit concerned that I would have to make the trip alone. With hiking the Inka Trail in mind, I first offered a free ticket to Alec.

Taylor objected immediately. Why hadn’t I chosen him to be my travel buddy? I reminded him that as a young teenager, he said he wouldn’t mind hiking if it didn’t involve all that WALKING. In the ensuing years, his attitude on hiking hadn’t changed. I assured him that were I going to a luxury resort, he would have gone to the top of my list.

And he was still First Runner-Up. If Alec were unable to go, Taylor would be jetting down to Lima with me.

What I’d neglected to consider was that Taylor had grown up to be a history buff. (Like any parent, I do keep forgetting sometimes that my sons aren’t boys anymore. They are, however, very good at reminding me of that fact.) And while Taylor wasn’t much of an outdoorsman, he really wanted to go to Machu Picchu EVEN if he had to hike with me four days to get there.

After carefully consideration, Alec surprised and delighted me by saying yes to the trip. But I found I didn’t want to leave First Runner Up behind either. So I coughed up ANOTHER 70,000 miles so the three of us could go.

Had I been planning months in advance, I might have been able to secure the Supersaver 35,000 mile roundtrip fares. But the airlines exhausted their always meager supply of these seats long ago. However, the Supersaver first class tickets were still available for certain days. I was able to book first class flights for the same miles as I would have had to now spend for coach.

I was disappointed to discover that while we could get to Machu Picchu, we couldn’t hike in. Apparently, that trail is as crowded as rush hour on the I-10. You have to have a non-transferable permit, and these sell out months in advance. But Alec was able to secure space for two nights at a Gringo Bill’s, a nearby hostel, giving us plenty of time to explore there.

Yes, we’re staying in a hostel. I much prefer to spend my money on artwork and handicrafts. It will be an interesting contrast. We’ll be flying down (a 15 hour journey) in the luxury of first class: “Yes, I will have a glass of champagne, thank you”; and then staying at hostels with the International penny-pinching backpackers: “What time does the hot water in the shower turn on?”

Actually, in Cuzco we are looking for a small bed and breakfast as it will be our base of operations most of the time. We’ve agreed it must feature quaint Colonial Architecture (for Alec) and be spotlessly clean (for me).

As the family budget traveler expert, Alec is doing most of the legwork for the trip. I am happy to turn over the Official Tour Director duties to him. Saori, Alec’s girlfriend, became so enthused that I’m happy to report she has now decided to fly down on her own and join us.

So while I was resigned to going alone, our group has now blossomed to four people–all of us on the trail to Machu Pichhu.

Fuel Stop

2008-06-30T06:53:00.001-07:00

Tay and I were strolling the aisles of the warehouse store, stocking up on his usual staples like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Mountain Dew. These are Taylor’s version of the Breakfast of Champions. We turned down the soft drink aisle to and found a woman sampling energy drinks. I don’t remember the name of the product, but it was something more appropriate for rocket fuel, like Mega X5000.

“Would you like to try this new energy drink?” the woman asked. “It’s loaded with sugar, carbohydrates and caffeine,” she enthused.

Loaded with sugar, carbohydrates and caffeine? These are all things I go out of my way to avoid. If they could just add tar and nicotine, it would be a perfect cocktail of legalized things I don’t want in my system. And it costs about $2 a can.

I picked up a case of the antithesis drink, Caffeine Free Diet Coke. But I don’t feel too smug. Although it has no sugar, carbohydrates or caffeine, it’s probably every bit as unhealthy in its own way.

No Breakfast at Tiffany's

2008-06-14T16:07:00.004-07:00

I was walking on the sidewalk of Kierland Commons, when a woman with an accent stopped to ask me directions to Tiffany’s.

You know you’re in Scottsdale when strangers ask how to get to Tiffany’s. Even in Ahwatukee, I am much more likely to be asked directions to Target.

I thought it was interesting that she had picked me to ask, especially as I was wearing no jewelry! But she chose correctly as I did, in fact, know how to get to the closest Tiffany’s. (It's inside Scottsdale Fashion Square which is south on Scottsdale Road.) It’s not often I get to channel my Inner Holly Golightly.

Like Holly, I never buy anything at Tiffany’s. If I were in the market for some bling, I’d hop Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong to go to Mariane's. It’s way more fun. At Tiffany’s you are greeted by a doorman, hired for his snooty demeanor. At Mariane’s you are greeted by Mariane with free beers for the grownups and soft drinks for the kids. This is a welcome relief to the unbearable heat and humidity outside.

Even if you haven’t been to her shop in years, Mariane will flip through her Rolodex-like brain to come up with your name. It's a small shop but anything Tiffany’s has, Mariane can have made. Of course, you don’t get the little Tiffany’s label and you don’t get that cool turquoise box. But you do save enough money at Mariane's to cover a nice vacation (including airfare) in Hong Kong. As far as perks, that beats any box.

After shaking myself out of my mental detour to Hong Kong, I continued walking to Sur Le Table. Sur Le Table is a gourmet cooking supply store. Their Kierland Commands store has a kitchen where they offer cooking classes. I had signed up for the Basic Knives Skill seminar that evening. While they usually offer classes on things like Vegetarian Thai Night or Coctail Party Hors D'oeuvres Night, they added basic skills classes when they couldn’t help but notice how many of their aspiring gourmet cooking homemakers couldn’t cut up a tomato without major risk of hitting an artery in the process.

While I had so far managed not to slice any of my fingers off at home, I did notice that my prep time was routinely DOUBLE whatever the recipe stated.

The class was conducted by a very nice culinary school chef who first spoke about various types of knives. Of course, she promoted the high-end knives sold by, surprise, surprise, Sur Le Table. (Tonight only, here’s a coupon for 15 percent off!) I was not to even THINK about those cheesy knives you buy in blocks at Costco or, heaven forbid, ordered from the Cutco rep. I was suddenly glad I hadn’t had a chance to ask about those plastic vegetables choppers. I’m sure I would have been asked to leave the class in disgrace.

We also got to see the Ferrari of cutting tools, a shiny stainless steel mandolin slicer (on special for $375). After the requisite time at the knife display, the chef took us back into the classroom kitchen where we washed up, donned our white aprons and started chopping.

We spent the next hour learning how to cut, producing pounds of matchstick carrots, diced onions, minced parsley, and completely skinned orange slices–which the chef mixed into two pretty nice salads that we ate at the end of class.

It turns out I had a myriad of issues:

1. My 8” chef’s knife was WAY too big for my hands.

2. My knives were dangerously dull and I had to be extra careful.

3. I was using the wrong cutting techniques.

In other words, my current knife skills were about as effective as using a child’s safety scissors to chop vegetables.

We learned so many knife safety techniques I felt I deserved a merit badge. How do you catch a dropped knife? The answer is: You don’t. Let it hit.

The next day, I sharpened my knives, choked up on my 8” chef knife for a better hold and practiced all my new techniques by chopping vegetables for lentil soup. I’m not ready for Iron Chef, but I am a little faster and a lot more precise. Just a cut above, you might say.

Men in Black

2008-06-04T09:46:00.008-07:00

Photo left: The Night Stalker in the required black attire.

Taylor has taken a summer job as a vampire. His official title is Night Stalker (night stocker) at a grocery store chain.

First of all he keeps vampire hours. He’s goes to work about 11 p.m. and doesn’t come home until dawn. He admitted he liked the fact that he could now sleep until noon and I wouldn’t complain.

And when he does comes home, he’s hungry for blood! Well, not blood, exactly. But certainly protein. I fix him a huge breakfast which this morning included Italian sausages, eggs and waffles. Afterwards, he shuns the daylight, retiring into his coffin of a room with all the shades drawn.

He is exhausted (you might even say "dead" tired) because, as he told me, he has the Hardest Job in the World. Gee, I thought that was motherhood.

Because he’s spent every summer overseas, this is Tay’s first job. I consider him lucky to have landed a job at all. This is the worst recorded period ever for summer employment for kids.

But few of them are living in Ahwatukee. Ahwatukee is the area of Phoenix where my house is located. It is bordered to the north by the beautiful South Mountain Park, on the east by the not-so beautiful Interstate-10, and on the south and west by the Gila River tribal lands. Due to lack of access points, Ahwatukee has been called the world’s largest cul-de-sac. (If we were a building, some fire marshall would have closed us for insufficient escape routes.)

While Ahwatukee is no North Scottsdale (Snobsdale), it is affluent enough that retailers here have to pay their hourly workers a premium. Taylor’s store pays an extra dollar an hour. While Tay may refer to this area as “Ah-wa-Kiss-My-Tukee,” he's not complaining. After all, a vampires gotta eat.

Photo right: Ahwatukee, the world's largest cul-de-sac and current home to my favorite Night Stocker.

You Gotta Have Friends

2008-05-27T11:55:00.006-07:00

Photo right by Sharon Kelley: Ivette and me.

My friend Ivette gifted me with her recipe for guacamole. That alone, was worth the price of a plane ticket to Houston.

So I now hold the world’s best guacamole recipe. Don’t bother to ask me for it. I cannot pass it on without being forever stricken from her list of “special friends” with whom she shares her wonderful recipes. That's a pretty dire threat!

Ivette is a category killer cook. That means that almost everything she prepares is the best version of that dish you will EVER eat. I am awfully loyal to the Dr. Atkins diet plan, but when confronted by such culinary mastery, I abandon ANY pretense at a low carb diet or even a pretense at moderation. I joyously dig into whatever gynormous plate of food she presents with nary a thought that I am easily eating a week’s worth of carbs in one meal. It's worth it.

Ivette’s cooking was only one of the many delights I enjoyed last week. Another was going to the Talbot’s Outlet with my firend, Sharon. Not many people would cheerfully keep me company as I spend more than four HOURS perusing this medium-sized store, offering good advice about how something REALLY looks on me. I am, obviously, very lucky with friends.

The Talbot’s Outlet has substantial markdowns. I bought a great $218 jacket that was on sale for $37.50. The prices are so good here, they bring out the competitive shoppers. I noticed one woman hanging around the dressing room for about an hour. I had thought she was waiting for a friend. Instead, I discovered she was waiting for a skirt!

The Talbot’s Outlet has a holding area to put all the clothes you’ve collected to try on. (You can only bring eight items at a time into the dressing room with you.) This woman had spotted a skirt she wanted in her size in someone else’s stash in the holding rack. She was patiently waiting for whoever had first claims on that skirt to emerge from the dressing room.

She had a long wait. I saw her 30 minutes later on the sales floor. She had finally tracked down the woman in the dressing room and followed her out to ask permission to try on the skirt! If there is a markdown serious enough to warrant STALKING a skirt, Talbot’s Outlet must have it.

Of course, the highlight of my trip was hanging with Sharon and Ivette at the beach. We took long walks along the shore and dined al fresco on the veranda of the well-appointed beach house we were borrowing.

We sipped margaritas specially concocted by Ivette. No mixes for her--only fresh juice will do. And don't be jealous, but along with a pretty shell and that great jacket, I also took home the margarita recipe.

Photo above: Ivette, Nancy and Sharon on the beach.

Photo left by Sharon Kelley: Taking life easy on the beach house's veranda.

It's A Girl

2008-05-21T07:18:00.003-07:00

Photo right: Taylor and our new roommate.

Taylor and I got a new roommie, a three month old tortoiseshell kitten. We selected her from among all the feline roommate applicants available at the Arizona Humane Society.

I filled out mounds of adoption paperwork which included trick questions such as "Was I going to have her declawed?" I wasn't sure this was still politically okay anymore (turns out it isn't). Fortunately I sidestepped that one by checking "Not sure" and just got a small lecture.

We still ran into some issues and ended up having to contact my landlord in Mexico to get his official buyoff. (He agreed subject to a small pet deposit and a picture of the kitten.)

We chose our cat based on the high scores we assigned her on sociability. (The fact that she was the cutest kitten there didn't hurt either.) But sociability does have its downsides. She cried this morning because I didn't hold her while I was making coffee.

While she does know how to use the litter box, we will have to train her not to lick our faces, especially in the middle of the night while we are trying to sleep.

Tortoiseshell cats, also known as calicos, are considered good luck omens in most cultures. They are almost always females, which presented a bit of a problem as Alec and Taylor had wanted to name the kitten Cesear.

I suggested calling her Prudence after jurisprudence or naming her Sandra Day O'Connor. (I am obviously STILL jazzed about being accepted to law school.) These names were justifiably vetoed by Alec and Taylor, along with my cutsie-pie suggestions of Sadie and Kiley. We gave more consideration to Keiko, Petra and Zuni, but have now narrowed it down to either Zara or Chai.

Whatever you call her, she's one cute kitten. And one who is impatiently waiting for me to stop typing this blog and pay some attention to her.

Photo right: Zara/Chai makes herself at home.

BMOC

2008-04-29T17:44:00.002-07:00

Because I moved to Arizona, the State granted Taylor’s petition for in-state tuition. But this does not mean that I qualify for in-state tuition. My mother, afterall, lives in Oklahoma.

So once again, I had to fill out forms, gather various documents and notarize statements to be considered an official resident of Arizona for tuition purposes. (Just living here wouldn’t do it. ) And I couldn’t just copy the thick pile of stuff I had previously submitted for Taylor. The University wanted different information from me because I’m not a dependent. It was a lot of work, but it should save me $20,000 on tuition. I computed that the five hours I invested in the documentation would net me $4,000 an hour. Not too many attorneys earn that!

I dropped off all the completed documentation at the Student Services building last week. And as long as I was on campus, I decided to stroll over to the law school. (I didn’t go inside as I didn’t want them to think I was stalking them.) Instead, I continued on to Vista del Sol. Vista del Sol is the new apartment complex Taylor is moving to this fall. It was built as a partnership between ASU and a developer specializing in upscale on-campus living. Taylor’s current dorm, Manzanita, is an example of downscale on-campus living.

Vista del Sol is only a 10 minute walk from the law school. Whenever I am feeling particularly evil, I tell Taylor I am thinking of moving there so we can be neighbors and I can come over all the time to borrow a cup of sugar. The complex offers an aerobic room, poolside cabanas and tanning booths. But the amenity which interested me was their parking garage.

Parking is at a premium at ASU. There’s one parking garage about five minutes away from the law school and every law school student at ASU is automatically entered in a lottery to buy a slot there. Your chances of winning, however, are slim. Most law students have to buy a parking space clear across campus and take a shuttle in. I heard about one guy who converted to Mormonism just so he could use the parking at the LDS center on campus, but I am not that desperate.

Vista del Sol is only a 10 minute walk from the law school. As a resident, Taylor can rent a parking place there. I found out that afternoon that this courtesy does not extend to residents’ mothers. But as it’s easily cancelled, I reserved a spot for “Taylor” anyway. We’ll work on getting me through security there, if necessary.

So what else have I done to prepare for school? Well, I bought a new “back to school” backpack. And I invested in a hoodie. It’s what all we cool college girls are wearing.

And I got something else good for school today: a letter from the registrar that I’d been approved as a resident for tuition purposes.

Yes, I’m well on my way to being a BMOC (Big Mom on Campus).

Pry Me a River

2008-04-23T21:38:00.004-07:00

Photo: The guide, Nancy, Taylor, Saori and Alec white water rafting on the Salt River.

We left the hotel at 7:30 a.m. for our white water rafting adventure day. This is, of course, the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT for night owl Taylor, who did a fairly good job at keeping his grouchiness to a minimum.

We followed the directions to the meeting spot, a parking lot which seemed to serve all four of the commercial rafting companies licensed to work on the river. We wandered over to Mild to Wild where we had to sign not one, but two forms promising not to sue no matter what they did to us. You know it’s got to be good if you have to sign TWO releases!

They gave us the requisite safety lecture which consisted mostly of, “Whatever you do, if you fall out of the boat, don’t stand up!” I decided to avoid all that by not falling out of the boat. We shoved off and immediately hit a rapid.

White water rafting is incredibly fun. Keep your roller coasters, rapids are the ultimate thrill ride. Unfortunately, our day on the river was too little Wild and too much Mild. On the whole, I didn’t mind the non-rapid portions. I was more than happy floating downstream in the midst of the stunning scenery. But I sure could have done without the headwind which reduced us to hard paddling the last hour or so of our eight hour trip.

It was so hard, our guide moved to the front of the boat and asked the weakest paddler (guess who?) to steer. This is called prying and despite our guide’s constant directions to me, I couldn’t get the hang of it. Eventually, I traded places with Alec and we finally arrived at the takeout point.

We changed into dry clothes for the trip back. I enjoy four wheel driving in the wilderness and I would have really enjoyed the ride back if I hadn’t been so cold and exhausted.

Back at the car, we compared sunburns. As the rest of us was covered, only our legs were hit but they were roasted. Even Saori got sunburned, a new experience for her. As the Sunscreen Queen, I had somehow managed to avoid sunburn on my left leg, but missed a giant swatch on my right shin which was now an ugly red. Other than sunburn, our other souvenir was the great photo, seen above, of us.

We'll soon forget the sunburn, the strenulous paddling, the long drive home. But we'll remember the excitement of being together, conquoring the white water.

Photo by Saori: Alec, Nancy and Taylor pack up in Globe.

Globe Trotting

2008-04-22T08:11:00.006-07:00

Photo left: Taylor, Alec and Saori explore downtown Globe.

In honor of mother’s day, I wanted to go white water rafting with my family. I was surprised to discover that practically the only white water rafting in the U.S. this time of year is on the Salt River outside of Globe, Arizona.

I signed us up for a “Dash of Salt” trip with Mild to Wild. This rafting trip covers 25 miles, the same ground as the company’s two day trip, but skips the camping in between. As Taylor’s idea of camping involves being at a luxury hotel with a concierge and turn down service, this seemed like a good option.

It was a long day, however, and Alec suggested we drive up the day before and explore the town of Globe. (We kept making jokes about being Global explorers.) It was about a two hour drive from Phoenix and much more scenic than my last road trip, which was the deadly dull drive to Tucson to visit U of A.

We checked into the Comfort Inn and were told our two rooms featured a pool view and a mountain view. This was a bit of an exageration as our “mountain view” room overlooked an ugly hill.

Globe was founded in 1876, after the army succeeded in driving the locals (Apaches) out. Silver was mined here for a few years, but copper quickly became king and copper mining continues today. Globe has about 7,000 residents and along with mining, the town is dependent on recreational tourism.

We decided to pass on town’s most famous tourist attraction, the fake Indian pueblos, and headed into downtown. Except for the bars and Tae Kwon Do schools, downtown had closed at 3 p.m. It was so deserted, I half-way kept expecting to see two lonely gun fighters heading towards each other on the dusty street. Yes, I’ve definitely seen too many Westerns.

We then headed off to checkout downtown Miami down the road. There was a lot more action there they were holding some kind of Boomtown fair. This featured a display of noisy engines and a kiddie train that looked like a steam railroad. The fair also had plenty of booths selling cheap plastic souvenirs. I see this same junk at every street market I’ve been throughout the world. I’m sure it’s all manufactured in China.

As a bit of Americana, I stopped to buy Taylor a funnel cake, as he’d never eaten one. Funnel cake is a sugar and fried dough confection. It is a perfect street food as you can eat it with your fingers and it has absolutely no food value. Funnel cake must eaten hot as when it cools, it congeals into a greasy mess. Hot, it is still a greasy mess, but it is a delicious greasy mess. One funnel cake was more than enough for the four of us, especially as it immediately sank to the bottom of our stomachs and expanded.

We wandered on past the festival to look at a lovely Mission style church while trying to get all that funnel cake powdered sugar off our clothes.

That night, we had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. We decided we’d had enough of going Global, and retired to our hotel.

Photo right: The mountain view from our hotel room.

Miss Popularity At Law School

2008-04-21T11:05:00.008-07:00

For me, there were two parts to being accepted to law school. The first part was the application process. You do massive preparation for the LSAT test, fill out forms, gather your transcripts, ask for recommendation letters and track the process online like some drug addict after her next score.

After you confirm that all your required documentation is accepted, comes the worst part: waiting. Your day revolves around checking your mailbox as you wait to hear something, anything from these schools. In the meantime, you start to second guess yourself. Were my rec letters okay? Should I have rethought my personal statement? Will my top choices want me? Will ANY law school ever want me?(Law school seems to only attract those of us who are obsessive-compulsive worriers by nature.)

The second half of the acceptance process is much more fun. One wonderful day you’re notified you’ve been admitted, and suddenly everything changes. You go from being Left Alone to being Miss Popularity. This is because once a law school chooses you, they go to great lengths to get you to choose them back.

They immediately start inviting you to all kinds of events: admitted students days, legal forums, online chats. And your mailbox becomes filled with letters from various people at the law school telling you how great their programs are and how much they are looking forward to a terrific person like YOU being a part of it. And please, please contact them anytime about anything with which they might be of service.

Some schools even send you t-shirts. Does anybody really choose a law school because of a free t-shirt? This didn’t seem like much of an inducement to me, but I don’t really wear tee-shirts. A pair of designer shoes would have been nice, though. “Congratulations on being accepted to our law school. We’ve enclosed a pair of Manola Blahniks.” That definitely would have gotten my attention.

After three months of waiting, I was finally notified of my acceptance to ASU's School of Law. They immediately invited me to their admitted students’ day the following week.

This kicked off with a reception where I was encouraged to bond with my fellow admitted students. The first two women I met were seniors in college in their early 20s. While our life experiences up to that point were very different, we still had plenty to talk about. Applying to law school is a great unifying experience. We actually spent about 10 minutes chatting about specific questions on the December LSAT. (I TOLD you law school attracts obsessive-compulsive people.)

ASU’s law school is a relatively new program. At 40, it is younger than me. One disadvantage of their relative youth is that they don’t have the ample scholarship funds like ancient moneybucks U of A. In fact, during the financial aid segment the next day, ASU made a blanket announcement that they couldn’t match your scholarship offer at U of A. So don’t even ask. On the other hand, they took pains to point out that with ASU, you get to live in a real city with lots of opportunities for externships and networking.

Most important to me, it’s a city with Alec and Taylor and my friends and my house. As impressed as I was with U of A’s law school, they can’t match that.

Photo left: Miss Law School Popularity (and her copper pots) are staying in Phoenix.

Taylor Tales, Part 3

2008-04-10T14:58:00.001-07:00

I was on a mountaintop in Tibet. It was a desolate landscape and the only sound I could hear was the flapping of the rows of battered prayer flags in the wind. I was thinking, “I have to be in one of the most isolated places in the world.” Suddenly, a buzzing disturbed my reverie. It was from my cellphone inside my backpack.

I had given Taylor, who was in fourth grade, my number to use in case of emergencies. His emergency? “Hey, Mom. Where’s the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?”

The box was in its usual place in the pantry. I guess isolation, as well as emergencies, are relative.

Taylor Tales, Part Two

2008-04-09T06:29:00.001-07:00

We were having lunch at Whataburger at the Singapore Zoo with my parents. Taylor, a second grader, was squirming around and knocked over his soda.

“Taylor,” I admonished as I tied to soak up the mess with paper napkins, “you have to pay attention to what you’re doing.”

“Oh, Mom,” he replied, “I was distracted by your beauty.”

This resulted in the rest of us laughing so hard, we practically spilled OUR sodas too.

Taylor Tales, Part One

2008-04-07T09:04:00.003-07:00

In honor of Taylor's 19th birthday, I will be recording the Greatest Hits of Taylor Stories. These stories have long been retired, meaning we no longer get to repeat them. But Taylor has given me permission to post them here one more time for posterity. Happy birthday, Tay.

Larry and 10-year old Taylor were sitting outside by our pool. "You know, Taylor," Larry said, "when I was your age I hardly ever got to go swimming. We didn't have a backyard pool." Back then, Larry's parents had barely scraped by and were living in a trailer house.

Taylor looked up with a puzzled expression. "Why didn't you just go to the Country Club, Dad?"

Gone With the River Winds

2008-04-06T15:27:00.009-07:00

Growing up, I formed all my ideas about casinos from James Bond movies. I thought casinos were ultra-glamorous European places where men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns played strange cards games for extravagent sums of money.

The casino I went to this week wasn't like that. Instead of being on the French Riveria, the River Winds Casino is just south of Norman, Oklahoma on I-35. Instead of men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns, the required attire seemed to be sweatshirts. And rather than exotic cards games for extravagent sums, people played penny and nickel slot machines.

It happened to be Senior Day at the River Winds. Seniors were lined up to collect $10 each for being over 65. This is an effective promotion as there were a fair number of seniors. There were FAR more overweight people, however. I'm not sure WHAT day is Obese Day at the casino, but as far as I can tell it must be every day.

The passing coctail waitress, addressing the entire aisle, belted out, "Hey, anybody wanna drink?" Even James Bond wouldn't have hollared back, "Yeah, martini, shaken not stirred."

And if gambling, drinking and gluttony aren't ENOUGH sins, the casino also allows smoking. I didn't think you could smoke anywhere inside in the U.S. anymore. Even pubs in England have outlawed it. But you can still light up at the River Winds Casino and I have the red eyes to prove it.

I was fortunate enough to be in the company of two of the classiest seniors in Oklahoma, my mother and my mother-in-law. The three of us ate a very nice and affordable lunch at a sports bar there named after some famous athlete of whom I've neve heard. (The world is full of famous athletes of whom I've never heard. I would do better if bars were named after famous Broadway musicals.)

Afterwards, my mom and I spent about half an hour blowing a total of $2 on the slot machines. I was saved from further losses by my contact lenses which were demanding fresh air. So we not-so-high-rollers headed for the stadium-sized parking lot and took off in our late model Lincoln. (The Aston Martin DB5s must have been in the shop.)

The Garage Sale's Farewell Performance

2008-03-31T19:43:00.002-07:00

Tempted by the offer of 50 percent of the profits, Taylor held another garage sale Saturday with the stuff leftover from our last garage sale. Although our merchandise was now a bit picked over, we actually managed to unload an additional $250 worth of these former family treasures.

For example, the bowling ball has a new home. It was sold to a woman who wants to use it for some kind of craft project. Yes, a craft project. (Would I make this kind of stuff up? Actually, I would. But in this instance I didn’t.)

Taylor asked me to keep him company while he minded the store. Customers were a little suspicious of a college kid holding a garage sale with items older than he was. A mom on the premises lent an air of respectability.

At least I did for awhile. Then I sort of blew the whole respectability thing. A woman, looking at an Olympus camera, mentioned it still had film in it. “That’s okay,” I said. “We only do our porno shots with the digital.” Taylor smiled but the woman’s jaws immediately dropped.

“I’m just kidding,” I offered, but she dropped the camera as if it were contaminated and made haste to vacate our driveway, which had obviously become some kind of hotbed of iniquity to her.

Our most interesting customer was a Hispanic woman who apparently only knew two words of English: "Fifty cents." Regardless of what was on the price tag, the woman would demand, "Fifty cents." I think Taylor told her no on an item actually MARKED fifty cents just to get her to leave.

My old shoes, which had been a big seller last time, didn’t garner much interest. Luckily, my old handbags made up for it. And I was surprised to watch as my size 4 pants were all bought by women who were AT LEAST a size 10. This was definitely a case of their waists being bigger than their eyes.

Eventually, it got hot outside and our business dried up. Taylor loaded the remainders into the garage to await a pick up from whatever charity I can convince to the haul the rest away.

And I am declaring an official end to garage sale season.

Great Clothes and Good Parties

2008-03-28T09:16:00.005-07:00

At parent orientation last year, an ASU counselor told us that students tended to pick majors based on popular TV shows. Because they've been watching "CSI," students wants to go into forensics. Or they do until they get the bad news that majoring in forensics involves studying lots of science.

Years ago, incoming college students wanted to be lawyers. When the ASU counselor asked them why, she would get vague answers about wearing great clothes and going to good parties. This was the vision of law as advanced by the TV show “LA Law.”

I want to be a lawyer to promote justice. While my reasoning may be higher-minded, it is equally vague. The sad fact is that although I have been accepted to law school, I have absolutely no experience with the legal system. Your average “Judge Judy” fan probably knows a lot more than me.

Luckily, law schools don’t care about this. In some cases, they prefer ignorance as they want you to be a lump of clay for them to mold. They are keen to train you to “think like a lawyer.”

I’m not sure yet what thinking like a lawyer does for you. I know it doesn’t prepare you to pass the bar exam. After three years of law school, you will need additional study, and preferably an expensive private course, in order to become a licensed attorney in whatever state you wish to practice.

But I thought it might be a good idea to learn a little bit about what real lawyers do. I would hate to invest all that time and money for law school only to say, “Never mind. This wasn’t what I want to do, after all.”

So this week, I did a volunteer stint at a free family legal clinic downtown. Actually, volunteering is the wrong word. It implies I added some value. I am so useless, I just observed. I sat in a tiny room with a volunteer attorney who met with various indigent clients. In one morning, I got enough material to fill a couple of blogs. Unfortunately, I had to sign a confidentiality agreement so I don’t get to write about any of it!

With three whole hours of experience under my belt, I thought being a family lawyer looked pretty fun. It was a lot of listening and problem-solving, along with heavy doses of filling out the right form. Sounds sort of like being the mother of a high school student, doesn’t it?

But family law is only one type of specialty. I also need to learn what business and immigration lawyers do. And while we’re at it, I wouldn’t mind observing those attorneys who specialize in wearing great clothes and going to parties. But I’m not sure where I have to volunteer to get that gig.

My Egg-cellent Day

2008-03-23T18:48:00.008-07:00

Today I hosted a traditional Easter dinner celebration. Although I had spent hours making and assembling the stupendous Frog Commissary Carrot Cake, it was my Mile High Biscuits (which took all of 15 minutes to prepare) that garnered the biggest praise.

Adding to the egg-citement, Alec and Saori and I had decorated Easter eggs using my Russian Easter egg kit. I had to remember how to do these as the instructions were all in Russian. It wasn't difficult. You take a hard boiled egg and place a printed cellophane wrapper around it. You then hold it over bowling water and the design shrinks onto the egg. This is as close to doing crafts as I get.

While Saori was eyeing the polka dot ones, Alec talked her into choosing the Russian Orthodox art design. So we had decorative medieval Madonna and Child eggs which we displayed along with my Cambodian Buddha. (I seem to offer equal opportunity on religious symbols.)

Easter was Saori's first opportunity to participate in an Easter egg hunt, as this is not a big activity in Japan. This event was short-lived as it took her, Alec and Taylor less than five seconds to find the special eggs filled with candy I had carefully hidden for each of them.

When it comes to eggs for Easter egg hunts, I want to say one word to you. Just one word: plastics. When Alec was 5 years old, he ate a hardboiled Easter egg he found in our yard weeks after Easter. It’s one of those Panic-Stricken (!!!) Mother Moments you remember clearly regardless of how much time passes. So for any Easter egg hunts since, only the garish plastic eggs will do. Madonna and Child could just be the eye candy.

After lunch, we sat around the table, relaxing and playing cards. In effect, we were doing our own impersonation of an egg--an over easy one.

Photo right: Cambodian Buddha holds Russian Orthodox egg.

Not So Easy Rider

2008-03-20T08:59:00.002-07:00

In between pricing stuff for the garage sale, Taylor and I also checked out a bunch of classic 1960s films from the library. (It was spring break so all the current classics were already checked out.)

No matter. Neither of us had seen “Midnight Cowboy,” which was WAY better than “Michael Clayton,” even with that annoying “Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me” song played at every opportunity.

Taylor, found “Dr. Strangelove” a bit slow. Meanwhile, at the other end of the sofa, I am laughing out loud at such classic lines as, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!” And it didn’t matter one little bit that I’ve seen this film at least ten times.

After Taylor went back to school, I watched “Easy Rider.” It starred Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, all looking impossibly young. It reminded me there was a time that people actually became violent over hair length. (And we aren’t talking about stabbing your salon stylist with her scissors over an especially bad haircut.) I was especially taken with the scene of Fonda and Harper driving though the desert on motorcycles to the tune of “Born to Be Wild.”

Man, I’d like to do that. Wait a minute! Me, riding a motorcycle through the desert? What’s wrong with this picture? I realized that as much fun as it looked in the movie, in real life that ride meant hot desert winds and the dead bugs accumulating between your teeth. And instead of that hard-driving 60s soundtrack, I’d be hearing LOUD motorcycle noises.

Still, I do enjoy tooling around in my quiet convertible sports car listening to my “Hairspray” soundtrack. I guess my version of “Easy Rider” is just a tad bit easier.

Cheaper by the Yard

2008-03-18T08:45:00.002-07:00

Last weekend I made $650 by letting random strangers clean out my garage. Yes, I had a yard sale. I said adios to such family treasurers as Disney VHS tapes, my 30-year-old golf clubs, and a rusty machete.

Most surprising to me was the popularity of my old shoes. I marked them at $5 a pair and sold all but one pair for full price. (I did let my 7-year-old hiking boots go for $4.)

One guy stopped in front of my driveway, which was full of old sporting goods, linens, and furniture to ask, “Is this the yard sale?”

I wanted to say, “No we just like to haul all our old stuff outside for fun.” But I guess that’s not a very welcoming sales technique.

I was most happy to get rid of our old 18th Century-style buffet. Larry and I bought the massive piece used 15 years ago and it is hardly in pristine condition.

When a woman stopped to admire it, I pounced. She spoke practically no English which, of course, was no problem for me. I am USED to bargaining with people who speak practically no English.

But I did try to find out what language she spoke as my translators happen to be on hand: Taylor for Russian, Saori for Japanese and Alec for Spanish. My buyer was from the Ukraine and was thrilled to chat with Taylor in Russian. Warmed by that experience, she offered me only 10 percent less than my asking price for the buffet.

“Yes, yes, yes!” I screamed inside. But I made myself hesitate a few seconds so she wouldn’t feel she could have gotten it for cheaper. “What do you think, Taylor?” I asked. Taylor, right on cue, paused for a moment, and then said, “Hmmm, I think you should let her have it.”

“My son says yes,” I said, “So okay.” She practically jumped for joy. Negotiating is such fun.

But not all our customers were so enjoyable. Taylor got stuck with a woman who spent 15 minutes trying to decide if she wanted to buy our computer speakers. They were all of $3. She finally decided it was too much of a financial risk before taking off in her new SUV.

And I got stuck with a woman who, like the Ancient Mariner, felt compelled to tell me the entire history of Perkinsville, Arizona.

At two o’clock, we took down our signs and pulled our leftovers back into the garage. With as much as we sold, we STILL have enough for another sale. So if you’re interested in that monogrammed bowling ball, mismatched coffee mugs or a ratty bookcase, you’re in luck. We’re going to do it all again next month!

Playing Hooky in Pumpkinville

2008-03-17T12:12:00.002-07:00

Thursday, Taylor and I met Alec for lunch at a trendy uptown bistro. We had so much fun, we talked Alec into playing hooky with us for the rest of the day. Of course, rather than heading out to the old swimmin' hole, playing hooky to us consisted of touring downtown and listening to Alec talk about architecture.

We ended up at the State Capitol Building which is located across from the Wesley Bolin Memorial Parking lot. Okay, technically it is an “urban plaza,” but it looks exactly like a parking lot. This being Phoenix, it has actually been named a Phoenix Point of Pride. I can see that. After all, how many cities have a memorial parking lot? Folks in other states like to have parks and hospitals named after them.

Anyway, we parked at the “urban plaza” and walked over to the capitol where we were just in time for the daily tour. The price was right (free) so we decided to tag along. The guide told us that Phoenix was originally named Pumpkinville. It became the state capitol when Tucson and Prescott were both fighting for the honor. Legislators being legislatures picked Phoenix so that nobody was happy.

But the fledging state needed a capitol building. The problem was, nobody wanted to pay for it. The federal government thought that if Arizona couldn’t cough up the funds, maybe they were just too poor to join the Union. The legislature solved the problem by building the cheapest building they knew how. If a state could have had a mobile home as a capitol building, the legislators would have thought that was a fine idea.

As that didn’t occur to them, they hired an architect who brushed off plans for a federal building he’d already designed in Texas. No point in wasting money on a new design. Once building started, the legislatures found other ways to cut costs. For one thing, why buy furnishings? Everybody could just bring their own chairs. And do we REALLY need an elevator? No, let’s just leave a giant shaft in the building where we had planned to put it. The empty shaft remains today.

The first floor of the capitol features a mosaic of the state seal, which got completely screwed up. The seal was supposed to incorporate all five of the State’s five C’s: climate, citrus, copper, cattle and cotton. But two of them got left out. The artist pointed out the state had approved the drawing and if they wanted it fixed, they’d have to pay for it. They didn’t.

The capitol does have an impressive copper dome. The legislators had decided the copper industry could pony up for that. The copper industry just said no. Finally, in 1974, the legislatures picked an easier target: Arizona school children, who collected pennies pay for the cost to finally get it installed.

The statue on top of the dome was easier. They just ordered a standard one out of a catalogue.

The last stop on our tour of Arizona’s Dollar Saver Capitol building were rooms devoted to the Battleship Arizona. Battleship Arizona was sunk at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese got lucky and hit an ammunition magazine below deck, causing a cataclysmic explosion. The ship remains sunk in Hawaii, but they salvaged the silver service which was on display here.

It’s a great honor to have a battleship named after you. (I’d certainly prefer that to a parking lot.) But while the federal government built the ship, they expected the State to provide the silver. As Arizona couldn’t find any at garage sales, they did the next best thing and cut a deal with some silversmiths hungry for more commissions. The silversmiths agreed to give Arizona a discounted price, as long as the silversmiths had complete creative control. The State, who thought getting art out of catalogues was just fine, quickly agreed.

The craftsmen traveled to Arizona, researching what made us special and incorporated unique Arizona patterns into their beautifully detailed designs. The results were something to gush over. Most impressive to me was the silver and copper punchbowl with etched scenes from the Grand Canyon. Pumpkinville really scored. And so had we, learning a little more about the interesting place we live.

Invitation to a Frisk

2008-03-11T12:02:00.003-07:00

When Alec was a senior in high school, I took him to Tucson to check out the University of Arizona. As I walked around campus with him, I remember thinking, “I still feel like I should be the student. How did I get to be the parent?”

Yesterday, I got to be the student again–the prospective student, anyway. I attended U of A’s Admitted Law Students’ Day. Six years ago, I was impressed with U of A’s grounds and traditional red brick buildings. Apparently the law school isn’t on THAT part of campus. The biggest landmark around was the multi-story concrete parking structure.

I arrived a bit early and wandered around. They are remodeling the law school so it is currently a fenced-off construction site. The law library and classes have been shifted elsewhere but the complex will reopen, just in time for me, next summer.

At the appointed time, I wandered over to the specified building and picked up my name tag and information package. I ended up chatting with other prospects, answering questions like “What’s your major?” One of my fellow prospects had a 25 year old son, so I wasn’t the only one who could remember life without a microwave oven, cellphones, or the Internet.

Almost everyone I met, including me, is still considering other schools. U of A accepts only the top 15 percent of all applicants and we have choices on where to attend law school. The school was well aware of this. The day was a nice mixture of useful information interspersed with rah-rah comments about U of A.

ASU ‘s Law School had marketed themselves as a private school quality education for a public school cost. U of A talked about how they were the Cactus Ivy League. (Huh?) U of A emphasized the quality of their faculty and the community environment within the law school. They seemed to see their competition as higher ranking schools out of state.

As part of the program, we sat in on an actual class on Civil Procedures. I heard these constant click, click, click noises and realized it was the law students throughout the room taking notes on their laptops. At the end of class, the professor invited us to a “Frisk Down” the following day in the parking lot. The local police would be demonstrating proper procedures for being frisked. This may be a "Procedure." I'm not sure how "Civil" it will be.

While that was the only class we attended, we did hear from many other faculty members. The criminal law professor told us he requires his students to spend one night driving around with the police. Oooh, I don’t even like to watch police reality shows on TV. Whatever kind of lawyer needs this kind of experience, is not the kind I want to be. Maybe I can hang out with some nice victims or some immigrants who need help with their visas instead.

U of A served us a fairly good Mexican lunch. (But it’s Tucson. They better get Mexican food right.) Law school students joined us for lunch for more one-on-one conversations.

After lunch, we heard a few more faculty speeches on things like financial aid and job placement. U of A closed out the day with a panel discussion of current law school students. As about 20 of them filed in, the faculty left the room. Prospective students asked about a wide range of things including if there was any time for a life outside of law school. The answer was “Yes,” but you better be good at time management.

The students also praised the faculty’s accessibility and U of A’s sense of community. The incoming law class will have 150 students, divided into sections of 25. They described sections as being kind of like homeroom. You have most, if not all, of your classes with this group. Third year students said that they still hang out with people in their section from the first year.

When asked about how to prepare for the first year, we were told, “Do fun stuff now because you won’t have time later.”

The most memorable comment for me came from a third year law student. She said, “Has anyone ever lived overseas? Going to law school is exactly like that. It’s a completely new culture.” So maybe I’ll do okay.

Music of the Night

2008-03-09T08:26:00.002-07:00

Alec invited me to join him and Saori at the opera Friday night. I readily accepted, knowing that unlike in Abu Dhabi, an evening of professional opera meant a strong performance where you could count on the costumes arriving and the scenery not falling down.

On the other hand, at least people in Abu Dhabi know how to DRESS for the opera, unlike Phoenix, where many seemed to have wandered in off the streets from a PTA meeting in sweaters and khaki pants. (And those are just the women.)

We drove downtown to Symphony Hall, lingering outside to watch people walked by. I realized how much I enjoyed the energy of the city. I don’t get that much in Ahwatukee. Lingering in the Safeway parking lot just isn’t the same.

Years ago, when we were living in Scottsdale, I took Alec and Taylor to Symphony Hall for their first opera. Taylor, who was in fifth grade, remarked, “I didn’t know Phoenix had a city!” He also pronounced his new dress shoes “no good” because it was harder for him to take the steps three at a time inside the concert hall.

Tonight’s opera was Mozart’s Magic Flute. Mozart definitely wrote this one for the cheap seats. The opera was full of silliness and the Arizona company took full advantage of that. But the story and the music seemed disjointed to me, as if Mozart gathered up all his leftover material (it was his last opera) and threw it all in with only the flimsiest of connections.

The highlight, of course, was the Queen of the Night’s aria, an acrobatic event for voice that’s Cirque Du Soleil-level impressive.

Taylor came over to do his laundry today and we watched Made. Made is an MTV show where young people get to be “made” into some fantasy. In this edition, the high school theater gay theater geek wanted to be a pro-wrestler. Taylor asked me what I'd like to be “made” into. At first, I thought I wanted to provide back-up for a soul singer. For example, if Gladys Knight had an opening for a Pip, I’d like to apply.

But now I’d have to consider being a diva, being lowered onto the stage riding a wooden camel and belting out an almost impossible combination of notes. I wonder if MTV is interested?

Happy Trails

2008-03-01T16:57:00.009-07:00

Photos: Bajada Trail at South Mountain Park.

It's wildflower season in Arizona, reason enough for a photo safari.

I slathered myself with sunscreen, donned my Maiden Aunt Camp Counselor attire (long shorts, new hiking boots, thick socks, backpack and goofy-looking hat), and met Alec and Saori at South Mountain Park.

I felt a little unprepared as I didn't have my space blanket, emergency whistle or first aid kit. I cavalierly decided just to live dangerously for the duration of our three mile daytime hike. (I'm a wild woman. Don't try to stop me. )

With over 16,000 acres, South Mountain Park is the largest municipal park in the U.S. There are 51 miles of hiking trails. One trailhead is even a five minute drive from my house.

All those law schools in cold and nasty places can just keep their brochures. The desert has great appeal to me. And never is it more appealing than when the wildflowers are in bloom.

Photo right: Saori and Alec.

We'll Always Have Paris

2008-02-13T16:26:00.004-07:00

My lucky sister-in-law, Ashley, is headed to Paris with her mother next month. Ashley emailed me asking if I had any advice about great lunch places and interesting little shops.

I wish I could have helped her, but I never went to THAT Paris. We went to Paris with our two sons in tow. So we visited the Paris of pre-teen and young teenage boys.

This was the Paris of skeleton-filled underground catacombs and ancient mummies at the Louvre. The Paris of Disney-theme parks in the suburbs and lunch from street vendors, not little cafes.

Someday I’ll go back to Paris and I’ll see the gardens at Giverny. I’ll dine at the hot new restaurants and sip fine French wine for hours on a sidewalk café. I’ll shop to my heart’s content at quaint little boutiques.

But the whole time, I’ll probably be missing that little boy who got lectured by a snooty Champs Elysee waiter for spilling his ice cream. And his older brother who insisted we go to the Paris Sewer Museum. These were the guys who wore their matching berets all over the City of Lights. They’re the ones who, for me, made Paris magical.

Acceptances and Antibiotics

2008-02-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

I got a thick envelop from the University of Arizona, accepting me to their very fine law school this fall.

I heard back from them so quickly I'm not sure they even glanced at my file. “Numbers good? From Arizona? Not a convicted felon? Okay, she’s in.”

They can skip my whole application if they want. The bottom line is they accepted me!

I would have been wildly excited if I hadn’t been felled by a bad sinus infection. When I heard from U of A, any wild excitement I might be able to summons was reserved for when my head stopped pounding.

Here’s how I cured a sinus infection when I lived overseas:

1. Walk to the drug store and buy Amoxicillan.
2. Take Amoxicillan and feel better.

Here’s how I cure a sinus infection in the U.S.:

1. Find a doctor and make an appointment.
2. Drive to the office.
3. Fill out all the paperwork.
4. Wait around the waiting room.
5. Get weighed and have my blood pressure checked.
6. Wait around examination room.
7. See the doctor.
8. Get a prescription for Amoxicillan from the doctor.
9. Drive to the drug store.
10. Wait 20 minutes for the prescription to be filled.
11. Buy Amoxicillan.
12. Take Amoxicillan and feel better.

My new doctor commented that I questioned him “like an attorney.” I told him I was, in fact, starting law school this fall.

He took this as an open invitation to pound me with lawyer jokes. Looking back, I think he must say this to ALL his patients, trolling for some lawyer to pounce upon. But I am NOT a lawyer. I have not yet spent one minute in law school, and I already have to put up with lawyer jokes? I guess lawyers don’t get to be sensitive little flowers.

After my less than tepid response to his lawyer jokes, the doctor asked me what kind of law I wanted to study. I was very tempted to say “Medical malpractice, of course,” but I wanted my Amoxicillan.

No Rolls Royce

2008-02-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, class. We’ve previously discussed how getting into law school is all about the numbers (LSAT and GPA). But it’s not just the applicants sweating these numbers. Law schools must keep their incoming students’ LSAT and GPAs at least as high as last year or risk dropping in the national rankings.

So if your scores fall below the school’s 25 percent mark, you have to be pretty special to make it in. They might make an exception if you, for example, discovered a cure for cancer, are a member of some underrepresented minority, or if Grandpa is a big donor. (Even then, the school is looking for FUTURE donations. If Grandpa has kicked the bucket after donating his millions to Save the Whales, you are out of luck no matter how much money he previously donated.)

Why am I bringing this up? Because I have been getting very expensive brochures from highly-selective law schools.

I’m not trying to sell myself short. I think I will be a brilliant law student and a fine addition to the profession. (I wouldn’t be applying to law school if I didn’t.) But these schools don’t know how wonderful I am. All they have are my numbers. And my numbers would put me in their “presumed deny” category as my scores are substantially lower than 75 percent of their current students.

So why are they soliciting me? Did they just have a bunch of extra brochures? It’s like the Rolls Royce dealership sending me a brochure. However much I like the car, I won’t qualify for the financing!

I’ve noticed that these information packages do not include offers of application fee waivers. So I would have to pay almost $100 per school for the privilege of being rejected. Is this some kind of strange fund-raising project for them? Or maybe they are trying to boost their selectivity percentages by encouraging people they won’t take to apply.

I’m sure this won’t be the last mystery I encounter on my journey though law school.

More Than You'll Want to Know About Applying to Law School

2008-01-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

We had a duo celebration this weekend. Taylor made the Dean’s List at ASU and I was accepted to law school. I popped open a very nice bottle of Piper-Heidsieck as Chandon or Korbel was just not going to do.

Baylor University School of Law accepted me via e-mail. Go bears! Now I just have to wait an additional two months to hear if U of A wants me and four or five months to hear from ASU. Why are those guys so SLOW? I feel like a six year old, waiting for Santa to come.

I am only applying to three schools. Most law school students apply to at least six. But my sister told me it was rude to apply to schools to which you would not actually go even if accepted. As I am constantly working on raising my graciousness quotient, I am heeding her advice.

Law schools are ranked by U.S. News and World Report (USN), mostly using the incoming students’ undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores. Law schools hate these rankings because it forces them to pay a lot of attention to GPA and LSAT scores in admissions.

USN provides a numerical ranking, but it’s more useful to group these into tiers, beginning with the Top 100. The higher the tier, the pickier the schools can afford to be. The top 15 or so schools in the Top 100 are referred to as T-14s. Yale Law School, at the tippy-top, turns down 93 percent of its applicants. So you better have a grade point average close to 4.0, at least a 170 LSAT, and a lot of good karma going for you to get in there.

I applied to law schools ranked around the middle of the Top 100. These schools are well-known in their geographic regions. They turn down 75 percent of their applicants. You have a good chance to get in to one of these with a 3.5 GPA and a 160 LSAT.

You’d think you should choose the highest ranked school that will take you, but that’s not always true. If you want to practice in Arizona you are better off going to a lower ranked school Top 100 school located in Arizona than a higher ranking one out of state. This is because law firms are very risk adverse and they want to hire people from schools they know. They will, however, suspend that rule for T-14 graduates. Harvard and Stanford grads get to go to the front of the line on hiring.

There are also Tier 3 and Tier 4 schools. Tier 4 have much lower median GPAs and LSAT scores and they still turn down 35 to 50 percent of their applicants.

I was reading about how some sneaky Tier 4 schools are offering full ride scholarships to people with high LSAT scores in order to boost the school’s rankings. This is sort of like a really rich, but ugly guy dating a really beautiful woman.

Like most scholarships, this one is conditional upon making high grades. The bad part is, the faculty is then instructed to give high grades to only the top two or three students in each class. The other scholarship students LOSE their full-ride. And they can’t transfer to another law school because they have low grades at a Tier 4 school. Talk about bait and switch! If this is true, there ought to be a law…

Scholarships are attractive because law school is expensive. Even applying costs you between $50 to $75 per school plus $12 each for your LSAT report. So when a school offers to waive their application fee, that’s a good thing.

I had received a few fee waiver offers, mostly from Tier 3 and 4 schools. This week, however, I was surprised to get THREE offers of application waivers (two from mid-range Top 100 schools). The amazing thing is that these schools both have application deadlines of this Friday.

I guess they didn’t get enough applications from the 90+ percentile LSAT scorers and are now courting us 80+ percentilers. I sort of feel like the average popular girl who gets all these last minute invitations to the prom from guys after they gave up on the cheerleaders. Thanks, but I already HAVE a date. Champagne, anyone?

Stepping Out

2008-01-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, all of my muscles were achy. Was I coming down with something? Then I remembered: It wasn't the flu. It was Pilates. Pilates is the most devious exercise class I’ve ever attended.

It doesn’t look like much. There’s just a bunch of people lying around mats breathing while making precise little movements. I used to wonder if I got any kind of a workout at all. But the next day it hits me. Muscles I didn’t even know I had are making themselves felt after being “awoken” and “engaged” during Pilates. I'm stronger and more toned.

I thought Pilates was originally developed to be practiced on expensive machines for ultra-skinny rich women. But, in fact, it was developed by Joseph Pilates as a method of rehabilitating veterans of WW1. (There it is folks: Your Useless Fact of the Day.)

There are lots of tortury-looking devices with which to practice Pilates. But really, all you need is a mat and a sense of masochism.

My Pilates class has quite a few people over age 45. The younger women tend to attend the class before, step aerobics. When I’m early for Pilates, I watch them through the glass, bouncing over the steps, hair flying, sweating dripping. I used to be one of those women, back when I didn’t know my knees came with a limited-use warrantee.

I kind of miss step classes. They are great fun and good for the heart. But even with all that exertion, I actually get much better results overall from making all those itty-bitty movements on the floor. And I have the sore muscles to prove it.

The Complete Truth

2008-01-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

I received an e-mail today letting me know that I am now complete. (And you didn’t know any of me was missing, did you?)

The e-mail was not referring to me being complete in any metaphysical sense or in the Tom Cruise “You Complete Me” way. Instead, I was informed that I am complete in the applying-to-law-school sense. This means the law school has received ALL the application documentation (application, resume, transcripts, LSAT report, reference letters) they need to make a decision about me. Yes, they even have the official transcript from the two hour pass-fail college course I forgot I took in 1977 at Northern Oklahoma College. Couldn’t possibly consider me without that vital piece of information, huh?

Now that I am complete, I can expect to get an answer back sometime between the next three days and the next three months. Yes, that is the timetable. And, depending on the law school, it could be in the form of an e-mail, an envelope in my mailbox or a phone call.

I am not good with this kind of uncertainty so I checked out a website called lawschoolnumbers.com. On this site I can follow the progress of people, who like me, are actually applying to law schools now. Each applicant, using a code name, has a page that shows where they applied, when they went complete, when they got an answer, whether they got in, what kind of scholarship they were offered, and where they decided to go. I can see their GPA and LSAT scores, and many list their “soft” factors. Soft factors are basically anything else, like winning a Noble Peace Prize or speaking six languages, which might make you stand out more than the applicant with the part-time waitress job at Red Lobster.

I did a search for my doppelgangers, people with the same LSAT and GPA as me, to check out how they are doing. On the website, they call each other “numbers twins.” One of my twins is a military guy currently stationed overseas. He just got accepted to U of A which gives me hope. Good for you, Drew84ABNVD!

Application information is also organized by schools. I can see who’s applying to Ye Olde Bartending and Law School, for example, who they’ve accepted and rejected, and long it took for them to get an answer out.

Of course, this information is far from complete. That’s because it is all supplied by law school applicants themselves. Each year, individuals applying to law school have to find the site and then volunteer their information.

Only law school students are this obsessive compulsive. There’s no medschoolnumbers.com or MBAnumbers.com. I know, because I am so obsessive compulsive I checked! But say what you will about me, I am, at least, complete.

Arizona Dreamin'

2008-01-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

As I now actually LIVE in Arizona, I am hoping Taylor qualifies for in-state tuition. As his mother, you’d think I could just bring ASU my last electric bill and be done with it. But in fact, petitioning for residency, as it’s called, encompasses a multi-page application with an array of supporting documents. I think they are hoping you will just give up and pay them the extra $10k a year.

But they can’t intimidate me. I’ve applied for residency in China, Russia and the U.A.E. I’ve even applied to law schools; a process which, if you don’t include the LSAT, was only slightly less onerous.

Arizona’s residency petition requires notarized signatures from both the student and the parents. To find a notary last spring, we had to drive off island in Abu Dhabi to the U.S. Embassy where we cleared three levels of security. We then took a number and waited to be called to a little window where the notary charged us $25. To get our money’s worth, she not only carefully examined our passports, which had previously been carefully examined by the Embassy guards, but also made us raise our right hands and swear. I forget what we swore but at least she didn’t make us seal the deal by spitting afterwards.

In contrast, this week we drove about two minutes to the bank where the notary didn’t even bother to watch Taylor sign the forms. Of course, for bank customers, the notary service was free.

But there was another price to pay. Taylor had to endure yet ANOTHER credit card solicitation from them. Apparently, on the basis of his very low three figure checking account, the bank keeps trying to give him a credit card. Taylor has no real assets and NO source of income. As he is 18, the bank can’t even look to his better-heeled parents to pay his debts.

I just don’t get it. Regardless of HOW much interest you charge, loaning money to people who can’t pay you back doesn’t seem to be a good business practice. Didn’t those guys learn anything from the sub-prime mortgage debacle?

I dropped Taylor back at the dorms and headed for home. With my convertible top down, I enjoyed the stark beauty of my desert surroundings. In-state tuition is not the only allure Arizona holds.

Ready to Read

2008-01-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

Now that I’m done with LSAT Prep books, I am reading books about law school. One of these asks you to evaluate your fitness for law school by seriously evaluating whether you can stand to be all by yourself reading for four hours a day.

Could I stand it? What is more fun than reading for four hours a day? Throughout my life, I’ve had trouble with reading too much. And it runs in the family. One of my mother’s most vivid dreams was about being unable to alert my sister to a fire because my sister had her nose stuck in a book.

During a parent-teacher conference, Taylor’s fifth grade teacher was outlining ways I could encourage Taylor to read. I admitted I LIMITED Taylor’s reading time. His shocked teacher said, “I’ve never heard of a parent limiting their child’s reading time.” Okay, but how many parents have kids who would read for six to eight hours a day?

As a working mother, I looked forward to business trips because at the end of the day, I got to go back to the hotel room and spend time alone READING. Reading has always been an indulgence. I don’t think that having to read four hours a day is going to phase me.

Of course, law school texts aren’t exactly John Grisham novels. The most mind-numbingly boring work I’ve ever read were the reading sections on the LSAT. (Stuff I had to read by William Falkner in high school is a close second.)

Prepping for the LSAT did have one effect. It severely lowered my standards for light reading. At my December book club, I was practically the only person who liked the book. This was surprising as I usually am the only person who doesn’t like the book. Everyone else thought it was too detailed and dull. I realized that I had spent so much time with LSAT reviews that the book club selection was very entertaining reading in comparison. Maybe I ought to try Falkner again.

Worldwide Proofing

2008-01-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

With a decent LSAT score secured, you’d think I’d be all set to get into law school. As important as that is, it is only Step One of the process. Actually, that is Step Two. Step One was to graduate from college with a good GPA but I knocked that one off in 1980.

Next on my law school admissions agenda was getting letters of recommendations. I had plenty of people who could vouch for my skills at things like parenting, being a wonderful hostess, or at dragging novice travelers around places like Egypt or Thailand, but I don’t think that’s what the law schools were looking for.

I also had to put together a resume and write a personal essay. I had a hard time with the essay. This is surprising because I AM a writer. I can easily give you five pages on any subject in an hour. The personal essay, perhaps because it has the ability to shape my future, was tough to write. Only by throwing lots of time at it, did I eventually whip that thing into shape. It’s now out for proofing.

Proofing is critical because typos on your essay makes law school admissions people mighty cranky. So cranky, they might decide they never want to see your face and reject you and your good LSAT score. While riveting subject matter is a plus, good grammar is more important.

You know the old adage about the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client? The same applies to proofreading. As a professional proofreader, I know better than to try to proof my own work. So I emailed my essay to friends all over for what I call the “Worldwide Proofing Effort.” I have already received responses with corrections, such as I wrote “Russian” when I meant “Russia.”

I keep thinking of that phrase, “It Takes a Village.” I have my own “village” helping me get into law school. These include: my sons who are so convinced I’ll succeed they bought me an ASU sweatshirt and a law dictionary; my family members who cheerfully accommodated my heavy LSAT study schedule in the midst of Thanksgiving; the people who willingly volunteered to write recommendation letters on my behalf; and now, all those folks who are carefully reviewing my essay and letting me know I used “out” in the first paragraph when I should have said “our.”

My friends and family have continually offered me encouragement that not only can I do this, I will be great. To all of you: Thanks and Have a Happy New Year!

She Shoots, She Scores!

2007-12-21T17:09:00.000-07:00

I got what I really wanted for Christmas: a 161 on my LSAT. This puts me in the 84th percentile of everyone who took the test. This is pretty amazing, considering that going to law school was not even on my radar screen three months ago.

Of course, a 161 is not high enough to get Yale or Harvard law schools to take a second look at me. But, frankly, who needs three years in the cold Northeast? My 161 is probably high enough to get me into ASU, my first choice of law schools.

Santa must have known I’ve been a very good girl, studying hard, so he brought me just what I wanted for a happy holiday.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Making the Grade

2007-12-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

I received an e-mail today that the LSAC, the clearinghouse for collecting law school application information, had received my college transcripts. I eagerly signed on to their website to find out how I did.

It’s been so long since I graduated, I had no idea what my g.p.a. was. I thought I’d done pretty well but was pleased to see I had a 3.66 which will be helpful in being accepted in some law school. Kiddies, let that be a lesson to you. Make good grades because you never know WHEN you may need them.

And speaking of good grades, with all but one class results in, Taylor has made straight As! I wonder if ASU sells an appropriate bumper sticker for proud parents. No, if they had, I would have already covered my car and my sweater and the cat with stickers celebrating Alec’s undergraduate grades. Maybe I should just follow Taylor's example and get a tatoo.

The LSAC also informed me that I had one unregistered transcript holding up my file. I then remembered that I had taken a summer course in Ponca City from Northern Oklahoma College. The ONLY reason I remembered this was because the teacher misquoted media theorist Marshall McLuhan. As a journalism major and budding know-it-all, I, of course, pointed out his error. The teacher insisted he was correct and I got it wrong.

After the course was over, I went back to OU and found that I was, indeed, right. A few months later, the Oscar-winning film “Annie Hall” was released. In the film, Woody Allen bemoans the fact that the guy waiting in a movie line in front of him was misquoting Marshall McLuhan. When Woody challenged him, the guy told Woody that he taught communications and understood Marshall McLuhan very well. At that point, Woody Allen pulls Marshall McLuhan into the frame. McLuhan chastises the professor and tells him he isn’t qualified to teach anything. Allen looks straight into the camera and says, “Boy, if life were only like this.”

Boy, if only! Where was Marshall when I needed him in Ponca City? That’s the kind of thing I remember from college which is much more colorful than my grades.

Does Mother Theresa Need a Makeover?

2007-12-18T17:08:00.000-07:00

The other night, I flipped on the TV and watched an American show called, “Ten Years Younger.” It seemed vaguely familiar. I realized I had seen the British rendition of this show a couple of times in Abu Dhabi. The two versions had the exact same format: Some haggard-looking woman was trotted out to strangers who all guessed her age at somewhere between decrepit and death.

The woman was then taken to the dermatologist/dentist/hairstylist for expensive and painful treatments in the relentless quest to appear younger. At the end, the woman was again paraded before strangers who now all swore she was barely out of kindergarten.

But there was an important difference in the two shows.

The American version featured women who were recovering from chemotherapy, who had neglected their looks to buy medication for their elderly parents, or who were injured going into a burning building to rescue baby seals. If Mother Theresa had been up for a makeover, this show would have wanted her.

The British version, however, featured women who ruined their looks by too many years of junk food, cigarettes and drinking at the local pub. In about ten years, Amy Winehouse or Kate Moss would be great potential candidates for that show.

I guess in America, we feel that only the truly worthy are deserving of public humiliation followed by a free painful chemical peel.

A Tale of Two Performances

2007-12-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

This week, I took Alec and Saori to one of the Phoenix Symphony’s performances of Messiah. (As the Queen of Useless Information, let me point out that the oratorio is properly called “Messiah,” not “The Messiah.”)

The Phoenix Symphony and Chorale performs this at churches all over the Valley before Christmas. We chose a performance close to Alec’s apartment. Green may be a traditional Christmas color, but it’s also the way Alec strives to live. After fortifying ourselves with hot chocolate and some of my homemade Christmas cookies, we were able to walk there.

Incidentally, my cookies this year are wonderful. It’s amazing what I can produce now that I have ready access to American baking ingredients and an oven that bakes at a constant temperature.

Along with goodies like Gold Medal Flour, Phoenix also offers me a wide variety of professional-quality live music. Unfortunately, I haven’t been taking advantage of this. The last time live music I heard was a production of Madame Butterfly at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. It was the first Western opera performed in the U.A.E. but I swore it was the last time I’d get suckered in to buying another ticket there.

The Emirates Palace is a completely over-the-top hotel that still manages to be refined and gorgeous. I tried to console myself with the opulent beauty of their theater to distract myself from the stage, where bad singers in boring costumes were standing around a set that was slowly falling apart. Taylor dealt with it more effectively by sleeping through the entire second act.

We had just the opposite problem with Messiah. Other than one racing violinist who must have had critical Christmas shopping to do that night, the performance was good. The problem was the venue. While the church was beautiful in that typical Southwestern-Frank Lloyd Wright inspired way, the acoustics were not. Sitting in the back was sort of like listening to Messiah from down the hall. You could clearly hear the music but you didn’t feel surrounded by it.

Next year, we may have to jump in Alec’s Prius and use a few gallons of gas to get to a church with better acoustics. Still, homemade goodies, a Christmas performance of Messiah and a walk home in Phoenix’s cool, crisp evening. Not a bad way to celebrate the season. It’s enough to make me sing “Hallelujah.”