Vegas Baby!

Have any of you been to Vegas lately? Talk about visual overload! Trust me--if you haven’t been to sin city since Elvis and the Rat Pack were crooning across from each other on the strip, you’re in for a surprise. Even the last ten or even five years have seen incredible changes in the city of glitz and glamor. I happen to live only about 230 miles away and try to get over there at least once a year. Besides the penny slots, I want to bring myself up to date on a very exciting party town which throbs with throngs of happy revelers and families intent on having a great time. There are many new sights to see, amazing stores, roller-coasters, newly invented cocktails, restaurants and of course games to play. Not everything is about buffets or gambling. In fact, there are fun low cost or free things to do with your family or loved ones all over town. Here are my top five favorites:

Guilt maybe, but boredom?--Not in this town!

1. The M&M store. They have a whole store dedicated to just the M&M candies. M&M logos with little M&M characters grace everything from coffee cups to shower curtains. Great prices on cute little souvenirs—by great prices, I mean less than that round of roulette you played the previous evening.

2. The Shark Reef Exhibit at The Mandalay Bay Resort is incredibly well done and a must see. Great white sharks and hammerheads are swimming in an aquarium right above your head! There is a cover charge but again this is going to be a more memorable way to spend twenty dollars per person, while that black jack game might be something you want to put out of your mind—quickly.

3. The free Lion habitat at The MGM Grand is definitely a cat lover’s dream. Big cats eat, play and lounge around behind walls of glass right inside the lobby of the MGM. They spend six hours in this gloriously comfortable enclosure and then are shipped home to their actual sanctuary.

4. The free fountains in front of The Bellagio start dancing to beautiful music in a mesmerizing display of dynamic energy, where water is thrusting and shooting up, up, up and then falling with the rhythms of classical or modern show tunes.

5. I haven’t seen the latest Pirate show, but they do have a free family style show right outside Treasure Island, on the strip where Buccaneer ships, cannons and all kinds of sword fights ensue. When I saw it, the English sank the pirate ship right in front of me! Yeah!


Doesn't it sound like fun?

Judging Spring's Perfect Performance

Spring Talent-“An Actual Love Letter”



I felt like Simon Cowell or Paula Abdul, listening to the song and then it changed getting better and better. Seconds later, another contestant jumped right in, starting a new song and pretty soon, a chorus of unbelievably talented musicians paraded above me, hidden in the spring foliage. A tender but warm breeze made the yellowest daisies pirouette under the blueberry cream sky and I noticed a fluttering butterfly intent on camouflaging into the annuals under a pomelo tree where a hummingbird reached into a blossom with his long, skinny but miniature beak.

Orchestrated to be the ideal day for a walk, under variegated clouds spewing thermal humidity, the weather gently hinted about the approaching summer. Sooner to us than the rest of the world, some of those cucumber-green colored blades will fade to honey-colored sand, and most of those singers will fly north to cooler climes. Steep competition, almost impossible to judge, reminded me that the pageant of spring will fade like an empty stage, becoming our quiet luxuriating summer. Meanwhile, I will remember this walk, not so much, because it was picture-perfect—but because, you were holding my hand.

Rainbows in The Desert?

Suspicious Greenery

Above a valley near a magical grove,
Where a poet grew her words.
Lived a tiny man,
In a charming home,
That shook with the song of the birds.

One day the poet ventured forth
From her lonely, humble cave—
To see what made the fertile grove
Green as the ocean’s wave.

Rain as rare as diamonds--
Enchantment blessed growing stems—
Inspiration climbed so tall--
It needed oxygen.

An angel told the poet,
About the man in the dreamy glen
“Be brave,” she said,
“He’s not like other men.”

Knocking on the little door
Her heart began to pound.
Other than the rain,
She didn’t hear a sound.

“I’m getting wet, open the door,”
Echoed against mountainous rocks-
A rainbow appeared behind her
When she shook the golden locks.

“Get away lass,
You’re making me insane.
My pot of gold is hiding—yonder,
Where I create the rain.”

“You create?” She laughed,
Looking into heaven’s cloud,
“The Almighty does it, you bumbling fool,”
She actually said aloud.

“Get lost,” he barked in his Gaelic brogue—
Swinging open the door in a blink,
Her eyes in shock, facing wrath,
Slippers glued, her cheeks felt pink.

Short and full of fury,
Wee cocked hat on his head,
Golden vase under his arm,
This is what he said:

“Aye, poetess from the desert rocks,
Why d’ya come to find me?
Now I must go somewhere else,
Where naught others be.

Are ye daft about finances?
Rainbows multiply during rain--
The lushest valley gave me away,
Damn desert flowered like the devil’s flame.”

He left in a huff and never looked back--
Though petals wept, wildflowers grew.
Amid shifting sands and migrating hope,
Life finally began to bloom anew.

Arid yet still divine,
Stars sparkling in the night,
Everything is as is should be,
Everything is right.

Above a valley of cacti and citrus groves—
Heat rises in a towering echelon-
There lives a poet in her home--
Once belonged to a leprechaun.






Eve Gaal
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Little Green Beans

Every week, I work with third graders and we practice the words they accidentally stumble upon while reading. I make them flash cards with the word on one side and a sentence on the other side. (I am not a teacher, just a volunteer in a literacy program.) This sentence is something we both create together. For example, if the word is “kind,” then I ask them if they know someone who is kind. When they say their mother is kind, I write on a 3x5 card: “My mother is kind.” Of course, if the word is “huge,” we never, ever, mention their mother and I'm secretly worried those doe eyes are hiding the obvious sentence, "The volunteer lady is huge." Holding my arms apart I ask, "What is this?" To which they reply, "Big." Good, but this word is huge and when I point to the word they say, "Huggie."  Remember "cute?" Yes, they smile and I tell them to say the u in the same way. Finally, we have success.

 Yesterday, we had the perfect word for March. The word was "green,"  and we were reading a  book titled,“Green Beans and Other Silly Poems.” My personal challenge was trying to describe the difference between a familiar pinto bean and the strange long green bean that is somewhat rare around here. Obviously, the fact that the ee sound is exactly like the ea sound in certain words didn’t make things any easier. 

Unfortunately, they rarely study their little cards because family life and fun get in the way. Third grade is full of fabulous cool stuff and actually, I don’t blame them. I mean come on, by the time they grow up, not only will they have spell check, but also word recognition programs that will make people like me obsolete. You’re reading a book? Ha-ha, ha! You’re writing with a pen? That is hilarious. Well, I always wanted to make people smile, but maybe not laugh at me.

 Anyway, the point is that even adults make mistakes and we're never too old to brush up on our spelling. Not really meant as a test, I thought I'd share some common difficulties.

1.       Which is the correct spelling?

a.       Counterfeit

b.      Counterfit

c.       Countierfet

2.       Which word is misspelled?

a.       Judgment

b.      Handkerchief

c.       Cordoroy

3.       Are these all correct or should they all be two words?

a.       A lot

b.      Already

c.       All right

4.       The ‘I before E’ rule can be confusing. Which one is wrong?

a.       Freight

b.      Ceiling

c.       Counterfiet

                                         

5.       One more time—which one is spelled wrong?

a.       Cemetery

b.      Lucubration

c.       None of the above

6.       Which word means 'you’re exceptionally smart?'

              a. Genealogical

              b. Genius

              c. Genocidal

              d. Gentry

              e. Genus

Aren't we lucky we have spell check?

Dangerous Career Options in My Spam File or Facing Rejection With Humor

   

      Thank God, I have choices, albeit some more dangerous than others. Searching for an escape from the throbbing headache caused by one too many rejection letters, I found myself actually fishing through my spam file before deleting it. Chock full of opportunities, like how to obtain my Pharmacy Assistant Program certificate or training to be a massage therapist or a police officer. How lucky can I get? Who are these people who judge me and think I’d make a great police officer? Do they read my posts and go, "Yeah, she’ll never make it. Better send Miss Shakespeare our ‘Start immediately’ email now."
      Did I accidentally submit my latest story to the wrong place? No wonder, I never got a reply. One quick glance at my writing and they looked at each other and said, “Yup, she’d make a great masseuse.” After all, I did type an entire 80,000-word manuscript several times. Does that mean my fingers could learn to do Shiatsu and deep tissue massage?

      Maybe it happened the day I sent off my query letter to the agent who wrote she liked the writing but she would pass on my project. Maybe pass means alert the spammers? Don’t you think it’s coincidental these vocational schools are sending me spam ever since? Wiretaps? Eavesdropping devices? When the hackers see the code word ‘pass’, that’s it--open season, baby. Can’t you just imagine these recruiters sitting at their computers, laughing their gonads off?

      “Here’s another one George. She thinks she wants to be a writer!”

     “Don’t they all? Wait, look the dumb ass wrote some mystery book, I guess she wants to solve crimes.”

     “Send her the Police Academy email, the masseuse email and the Pharmacy Assistant training and let her pick. We’ll inundate her until she finally caves. It’s like being on the bottom of a slush pile honey-- except we’re right here on the top of yours! Ha, ha, ha.”

     “That’s funny George--remember when you wanted to be a writer?” At this, both of them burst into hysterical convulsions.

       Why a Pharmacy Assistant? Perhaps it’s a trap set up specifically for despondent writers? Don't they know even Gone With The Wind was rejected 38 times? Do they think I need substances to keep me focused on my goals and dreams? Is this a way of gently insinuating I might need Prozac and Zoloft as a means to an end? Even the world’s best writers were self-medicated or inebriated and they didn’t get offers for Pharmacy Assistance certification.(Maybe they did.) Those poor old pharmacists don't want soulful, angst ridden assistants who stay up late writing every night. Will the pharmacy give me a discount or will I resort to sneaking pills home from the supply cupboards, so I can stay awake, subsequently getting arrested, taken to jail, and then finally writing my memoirs from behind bars? Maybe I’m delusional, but I can almost hear the excitement of the agent reading the query letter. “No, it’s not chick lit. She’s writing from San Quentin or something, I can’t wait to sign her!”

Yes, that's me visiting
 Al Capone's cell.
 Perhaps a good place
 for writing memoirs.

      Too bad, I prefer fiction, over personal autobiographies and diaries.  

    

     Meanwhile, spam is still spam and I refuse to give up. Sorry, you late night spam stalkers, but if you have nothing better to do than send me your ‘exciting opportunities’ for advancement, enhancement, improvement and development, you might as well forget about it.  I’m staying undeveloped, unenhanced and my manuscript will (for now) unfortunately, remain unpublished.