Last night John and I met up after work at the Provo library where we spent a very long time browsing nothing in particular. I had to return some books, and of course you have to check the DVD section. But on a Friday night there was nothing worth checking out.

We went upstairs to browse the non-fiction. As I wandered among the sections I noticed a pattern in the organization–a very sly one at that. I walked through the women’s health section (breast cancer, pregnancy, gynecological problems, etc.)–a section where almost no guy would willingly linger, probably not even with his wife. I looked up at the signs designating the sections. Guess what was right next to the women’s health section?

Computers and technology. Guy central.

It’s brilliant, really. The husband can accompany his wife to the womany shelves and then casually slip over to the techie section next door. They can stand in the same aisle, she with her Preparing for Birth with Yoga book cracked open and he with the fourth edition of Computer Networks. She feels like he’s supporting her and he can read whatever he wants.

Brilliant, yes?

There was also the sports section next to home and garden, animals next to horror, and history next to travel. The latter is where John and I spent most of our time. He lingered in European history section looking up something about archeological artifacts, while I wandered to the travel section the next shelf over. I browsed books on central America, where someday we might take a cruise, and on England. I decided to check out Rick Steve’s Europe Through the Back Door 2006 guide. It looks like a good reference book for someday when we travel to Europe.

And hopefully someday will actually come…someday.

Last week John and I visited Vegas for the Pioneer Bowl where BYU played Cal-Berkley. BYU lost by one touchdown. Big disappointment. But it was still cool to see a bowl game.

As for Vegas itself… Too much cigarette smoke and noise. It had been two years since I’d been there last, and I don’t feel inclined to go back again anytime soon. The city in general was summed up for me when I walked past two college-aged guys at 9:30 a.m. near the casino at the Luxor. One guy was laughing hysterically and pointing at his buddy–who was puking his alcohol-laced guts into a trash can.

Keep in mind that is was nine-thirty in the morning.

Yeah, I really believe those beer commercials now–it’s just fun fun fun when you drink!

Some highlights in photos:

View from our room at the Luxor.

This was actually our second room. The first night our room had a door adjoining the room next to us, which was occupied by several single young men who were L-O-U-D and swore a lot. Imagine rap music at 8 a.m. turned up so high you could sing along if you wanted to, and you’ll get the idea what it was like.

My sister Tara and me outside the Ethyl M. Chocolate Factory.

You can’t go to Vegas and not stop to walk through the Ethyl M. Chocolate Factory. It’s one of the best free things to do in that town. You get a free piece of chocolate when you walk through the place, and then if you buy a box of chocolate, you can try as many pieces as you want as you pick your selection. It was fun. And fattening. But so, so yummy.

And outside is the Botanical Cactus Garden“>largest cactus garden in Nevada, and one of the largest in the world. Big whoop, you might say. But it really is a peaceful little walk around the place.

John and me at the Botanical Cactus Garden outside the Ethyl M Chocolate Factory in Vegas.

Notice the Christmas lights wrapped around the cactuses? Yeah, the garden was fully decked out for the holidays. There were even lighted gingerbread men and reindeer tucked among the desert foilage.

Very odd, really. But then again, it is Vegas.

…is getting free stuff.

On Friday night John and I ate dinner at Magleby’s Grill in Provo. We’ve eaten there once before and weren’t impressed with the food. But we opted to eat here on Friday because we had a two-for-one coupon and because the restaurant is near enough to John’s office that it was convenient for him to break from work to eat and see me before returning (he had to work late that night).

[SIDE NOTE: I’m going to reveal a little secret of Magleby’s Grill. If you visit the link above to Magleby’s Web site, you’ll notice that it lists Hazelnut Chicken (“Hazelnut encrusted and topped with an orange rosemary sauce”). This Hazelnut Chicken dish is only served on Wednesdays. Do not be deceived as I was, who visited Magleby’s Web site first and then went expecting to get Hazelnut encrusted chicken breast with savory orange rosemary sauce on a Friday night, because you’ll be sorely disappointed and end up reading and re-reading the menu trying to find anything that sounds as remotely tasty as hazelnut encrusted chicken breast with orange rosemary sauce. Remember, it’s a Wednesday-only special.]

Okay. Now you know.

I ended up ordering macadamia nut-encrusted orange roughy with a coconut sauce, which was pretty good overall, even if the mashed potatoes on the side were cold. John ordered steak, cooked “medium.” Instead, it came well done. It was dry and tough, and I could see that John’s night was looking bleaker by the second–overcooked steak and a full night of work still ahead.

I suggested he mention the problem to the waiter, and he did. Our waiter responded immediately by saying he was sorry and that he’d take care of it. John didn’t want a new steak, so the waiter offered to give us the steak free. We told him that we had a two-for-one coupon, so he offered us free dessert instead. Not one, but two free desserts.

We couldn’t turn that down.

John ordered quadruple-layer chocolate cake and I got buttermilk pie. The pie was bland, but the cake was fabulous. It’s the only menu item I officially recommend so far from Magleby’s.

When our waiter came with our final bill, he handed us a $20 gift certificate to compensate our disappointment and encourage us to come back.

Two free desserts ($10 value) and a $20 certificate. Basically, we made off like bandits.

So with twenty dollars burning in our pockets, I guess we’ll be going back to Magleby’s sometime. I wonder how much chocolate cake $20 will buy us….

I love my dad, to be sure. But sometimes I loathe that along with all his wonderful genetics he passed to me his big-feet gene. He wears size EE (which, for all those shoe-size-illiterate people out there, is really wide). I wear size D (which, for those same folk, is a notch or two under really wide, but still pretty darn wide).

I didn’t realize my feet were extra wide until high school. In elementary school and junior high I was going through a moccasin phase (hey, it was the late 80s and early 90s after all), and moccasins are made of thin, soft leather that stretches easily to fit any width feet. It wasn’t until high school when I bought my first pair of nice, preppy brown hard leather shoes that I realized there was something wrong with my feet. I remember walking up and down the aisles of JC Penny to try on the new preppy shoes, my feet burning in pain, telling my mom that they hurt my feet.

“Leather stretches,” said the sales girl.

“We’ll take them,” said my mom.

“There’s an unearned commission,” thought I.

I wore those shoes for two years. Two years. And did they ever stretch enough to stop hurting my feet? Nope. (Darn sales girl.)

My first pair of shoes that fit were Dr. Martens that I got in high school. I still can’t remember how I managed to talk my mom into spending $100 on a pair of shoes. Probably complaining about the awful rip-off preppy shoes and convincing my mom that my feet would be permenantly deformed as a result. And it would be her fault.

Getting that first pair of Dr. Martens was the best initial investment I (ok, my mom) ever made. I still have those shoes. The traction on the soles rubbed away completely about four years ago but I still wear them (just not when it’s icy outside). Now I have five pair of DMs, and over the years I’ve expanded to also wear Birkenstocks (love them) and Danskos (kiss kiss, hug hug). I’ve discovered that New Balance makes their athletic shoes to fit all widths (God bless that company). I have been a faithful annual contributor to New Balance sales ever since.

The only type of shoes I haven’t had much luck locating in extra wide is dressy, high-heeled shoes. I want a classy pair of black pumps (closed toe) for church and dressier functions. I’ve never owned a pair because I’ve never found them in 7D. Nordstrom’s has shoes worth drooling over, but do any of those fancy schmancy designers ever think of using their big bucks and designing teams to come up with a to-die-for size D shoe?

Apparently not.

Anyway. I’ve been looking. I checked out Nordstrom’s Web site and was disappointed. Not surprisingly, I might add. I was actually impressed to find any shoes in my size. They were mostly New Balance shoes, with a few eskimo-ish boots thrown in, and some strappy high-heeled sandals. Not what I’m looking for. They do have closed-toe high heeled shoes, but they’re awful. The dyable kind. And sling back. And pointed toe. Gegck.

So I’m still looking. Anyone who knows where to get classy dress shoes (closed toe) for size 7D, let me know!!!

Today, for the first time in my life, I shoveled snow off my driveway.

(Pause while readers absorb this momentous statement.)

I know some of you might be thinking in disbelief, “How can this be your first time? Didn’t your dad make you shovel snow when you were a kid? Isn’t that the point of becoming a parent, so your kids can shovel snow for you?”

But it’s true. I grew up on a farm in Iowa, and when it snowed my dad or big brother would hop on the front-loader John Deere tractor and plow our long gravel driveway. They leapt at the opportunity to do this. I think tractor-driving is somehow connected to manhood. In any case, I never had to lift a finger.

It snowed last night and throughout today, and when I came home from work in the near-darkness of five-thirty at night I looked around the neighborhood and discovered that our driveway was the only one covered in snow. Every other house had an immaculate, dry driveway and sidewalks. Ours were three inches deep in powder and ice.

So I grabbed our $14.99 snow shovel that John and I bought from K-Mart on Friday with the express intent of faithfully shoveling our driveway and walks when it snowed, and I spent the next half-hour breaking it in.

And breaking my back. It turns out that my upper back and shoulder muscles don’t take especially well to heaving ten-pound loads of snow repeatedly onto the side of our driveway.

But let’s focus on the bright side: our driveway is no longer covered in three inches of powder and ice. Mostly just ice with a thin covering of snow that I was too sore to scrape off completely.

I am a driveway snow shoveler. I am One Who Shovels Snow. I am The Lady with the Snow Shovel. I am the Woman Who Must Now Go and Rest Her Back.

For more such funny cartoons see The Iceman Cometh Web site.

…looks aren’t everything. When you’re a kid you learn the saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Funny how at 24 I’m still learning that.

I had lunch the other day at a local restaurant whose business thrives at night but is dead during the day. I went there at one o’clock and was the only customer for about twenty minutes until one other woman came in. The advantage of being the sole customer is that you’re the sole focus of the employees who work there. The manager waited on me himself and when I wanted to order something from the menu but asked for several special changes to it, so it only remotely resembled the orginal item in the menu, he said, “No problem. I got time.”

He was a really nice, young guy. Probably in his mid-to-late twenties. Great smile, good looking. I didn’t chat with him much, but I overheard most of his conversations with the other woman who had come in after me (hard not to eavesdrop in a large, nearly empty, echoing room). I learned that Smilely Guy was from California (which I could have guessed; sometimes Californians have a certain way about them). He used to be a student at UVSC but now worked full time. He had been working at a branch of the restaurant up north, but his boss sent him to Provo to fix the serious customer service issues that were plaguing the business’s reputation. (I give him an A+ for his service to me, by the way.)

The woman asked him if he was married. (To clarify, this woman was older middle-aged; she wasn’t trying to pick him up, but was just one of those friendly people that can get a life story out of anybody.) Smiley Guy said no, but he had a girlfriend. He paused. Then, “But I used to be married. I’m divorced.” (more…)