Viva Las Vegas!

Spring Break, Part One: Vegas!

It was a low-key couple of days in Las Vegas.  We enjoyed our relaxing time.

We stayed at the Luxor.  I had wanted to stay there ever since it opened and was the gigantic monolith greeting visitors on the south end of the strip.  It was the swank place then.  Now, it is dwarfed by the Mandalay Bay, and isn't anymore the go-to place with all the newer, taller, glitzier hotels up the strip.  Still, it was a great place to stay.  We were on the 22nd floor, and here is our view.  (I found the stitch tool!)

You can see the Sphinx right in the middle, and the airport is beyond that empty parking lot.  The strip is to the left.  I enjoyed sitting and watching airplanes and helicopters take off and land.

And here is our view from our door.  It's a cool hotel.  I liked to pretend I was in Willy Wonka's factory when we used the inclinator!

 Erin and I walked around and shopped, Kevin and Mike went to Bass Pro Shop.

photo by Kevin                                

photo by Kevin

There was a big aquarium full of (ugly) fish!

photo by Kevin

Here is the gang getting ready to walk to Bellagio's dinner buffet!  YUM!

The line was looong (and worth the wait; the Buffet at Bellagio was wonderful!), so we passed the time goofing around.

photo by Erin

photo by Mike

photo by Mike 

On Tuesday we drove to the Hoover Dam.  What a cool structure!  They are building a by-pass highway, including this big honkin' arch bridge.  The bridge is an amazing structural feat in itself, and was as interesting to see as the dam!  It will be neat to go back and walk across it!

Erin doing her thing....

Kevin doing his thing....

It was a little breezy at the dam!

I didn't get too many good dam pictures.  I'll leave you to see good photos at the website.  We took the generator tour, though, and here is a picture of the dam turbines. 

One more of the bridge looking downriver.

The last day, we shopped in the mall in The Pallazo.

Umbrellas at the Pallazo.

And after we shopped and ate lunch, we were off to Zion National Park.....

A New 'Do Two!

Continuing my catch-up in blogging!  Thanks for following along!


So.  My recent medical problem led to iron deficiency anemia, which I did not realize I had until I started researching and putting two and two together.  I'm not so thrilled with my MD who didn't pursue a diagnosis when I reported clear symptoms starting a couple years ago.  In any case, one of the effects of iron deficiency anemia is hair loss.  The hair follicles enter a telogen effluvium.  I knew I was losing hair, and I asked two doctors about it.  After my own research, I asked for thyroid testing, which was negative.  I didn't put the pieces together until very recently.  I immediately put myself on iron supplements, then asked my MD for a blood test which did show anemia.  I've been on iron for nearly 4 months, and my hair loss is starting to slow down.

Long story short:  my hair got so thin that I was compelled to cut it.  I didn't do much to make a 'do, but a couple weeks ago, for the first time since adolescence, I cut off a significant amount of my hair.  I'm hoping that it will start to regrow soon.

Before-before.  This was taken in 1994 at a pumpkin-carving party.  This makes me cry.  My hair was so long and luxuriously beautiful.

10-28-94, from left to right, back:  Cheryl (leaning over), Craig, Evan, Jen.  Middle:  Kevin.  Front:  Mike, Erin, Izzy

This was right before I went to the salon.  This makes me cry, too.  Icky!

And this is after:  Looks better, I guess.  I'm not too thrilled.  I may do more to it, and if I do, you can bet I'll post photos here.  For now, it is acceptable.

Incidentally, another symptom of iron deficiency that I suffered was pica, specifically pagophagia.  You probably noticed that I constantly--and annoyingly to some--chewed ice.  It was a strong craving and was really getting bad.  I constantly had an iced tea near me, just so I could have the ice, and I sought out ice and would go out of my way to a fast-food joint to get some.  A few weeks after I started iron, amazingly, my craving disappeared.  I currently have no desire to chew ice.  When the craving started to wane, I thought maybe it was just a placebo effect, but Wow! What a marked difference!  I'm feeling more normal.  ...and --eeewwww-- feeling thankful that my pica did not take any other form!

Mr. Z

There is a lovely, pleasantly demented man at one of my nursing homes.  He was born in October of 1905.  Yep, that makes him 104 ½ years old!

I went in to check his swallowing (doing pretty well, all things considered) and got to chat with him a bit.  He proudly told me about his coaching years, being an All-American football star at USC, owning half the land in Santa Barbara ("I'm a very wealthy man!") and that he has a building named after him at USC.  I hope when I'm 104, I will have had such a wonderful life, at least in my own mind.... none of this is true! 

After hearing about his accolades, I asked him how old he is.  He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone.  "I'm not supposed to tell you," he whispered.  "I'm looking for a girlfriend."

He told me, though, that the doctors have said he has another ten good years left.

Yay for oldsters!

We recently supped...

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

             --Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

HWB310

That's "Hiking With Bobbie, March 2010."

When BobBIE came to see Erin’s play last month, we got to do a couple of good hikes.  One day, we hiked up San Roque creek.  This is an area that was burned by the Jesusita Fire.  You can see the singed oaks here.

There weren’t too many wildflowers yet, but it was green and growing.  These are some of the things we saw.

We mostly heard the cicadas, but we saw a few around. I didn’t take a picture of the shell we found, darn it.

The Lupine was abundant.

There were a few other flowers, like this Oxalis,

Canyon Sunflowers,

and these little dudes.

We saw lots of lizards!

We saw this ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus) dart into the water when we startled him.  He was fast!

Our reward: nice views of the Santa Ynez Mountains.

On Saturday, BobBIE and I drove up to Figueroa Mountain with Kevin and his girlfriend (Erin was busy with two shows).  It was mostly driving and not much hiking, but it was a fun time.  Lots of beautiful sights in flora, fauna, and geology.

The pine trees dropped huge cones!

Some similar little yellow flowers.

Yellow flowers and yucca:

Blue dicks.

Miner's Lettuce was abundant.

The beautiful California Poppy.

and more Lupine.

Kevin and I were geeking over the cool geology.  Here is just some of it, a neat conglomorate along the river.

Figueroa Mountain is interesting because, as the southernmost part of the Coast Ranges, it was formed from accreted material, so there is a wide variety of geologic features. Our trip made us want to learn more geology!

It was very wonderful having BobBIE hiking along with me!  Yay!

Valentine's Day Goodies

OK, so I was able to avoid a computer crash and too many do-overs and was able to extract my photos from my camera!  Yay!  I'll be doing a few catch-up posts, so keep watch here on Izzy's Net.

Note:  click on each picture for a bigger version, and click on it again for a full-screen version.

On Valentine's Day, I made King Arthur Flour's Cinnamon Rolls for my family. MMMmmmm... cinnamon rolls!

I made the dough and assembled the rolls the night before. I used twice as much cinnamon filling as the recipe called for.  I placed them in this cute pan and put them in the fridge overnight.  I woke up early on Valentine's Day and took them out of the fridge for their final rise.  I went back to bed, and when I got up again they were just about ready to bake!

Here they are before I put them in the oven:

and here is our breakfast table.  Cinnamon rolls, fruit, and Valentine candy!  Yippee!

Slow Blog

I haven't been blogging too much because I have difficulty getting the photos off of my camera to my computer.  Ever since we upgraded the operating system and the printer/scanner, it hasn't been working. My tech person has limited time to help, so I am in a bit of a limbo.  I hope soon I'll get some good stuff up!

But here is a video to hold you over.  I am so happy that Congress did the right thing and passed health care reform.  Obviously the width is too much for my little column, and I don't know how to change it, so you can see the video on YouTube.