Author Archives: Kathleen Fox

Big Brother’s Defensive Driver Training

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

Renewing a driver's license has never been a fun experience. In today's high-tech and security-phobic world, it's about as appealing as an appointment with Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984. In part this is due to the new federal regulations intended to make it harder to forge ID documents, thereby presumably making us feel ever so much more secure.

Yeah, right. First of all, in order to prove you are who you say you are, you're required to show your Social Security card before you can get a driver's license. The only card I found, buried in my jewelry box, was the original one I got when I was 16, a few decades and two surnames ago. (The one, by the way, that still says, "Not for identification" on it.)

So before I could renew my driver's license, I had to get a replacement Social Security card. To get the Social Security card, I had to identify myself by showing—guess what?—my driver's license.

This week, then, I went to the driver's license office duly armed (if I'm allowed to use such a potentially inflammatory term) with the new card, plus my passport, plus a certified copy of my birth certificate, plus a phone bill and a tax form to verify my physical address (and may the god in charge of protecting us from bureaucracy help all those poor souls who get all their mail at post office boxes). I felt sooo secure, until it occurred to me that a really easy way to create a false identity would be to mug someone on the way into the driver's license office.

I filled out the application form. I dutifully punched the electronic gatekeeper gadget and got my number. I sat down to wait, clutching my file folder with all my documentation. There wasn't, of course, so much as a tattered back issue of People magazine to read. Still, the time passed relatively quickly, thanks largely to an air of nervous solidarity among the waiting applicants, rather like the bonding that can occur in the waiting room of a hospital or a prison on visiting day.

Eventually my number appeared on the electronic reader above the counter and the computer's electronic voice summoned me to "Station 2." I handed over my pile of papers and expiring license to an actual person, an impersonal but courteous young woman who shuffled through them, photocopied something, checked my vision, and took my $20. Then she had me sign my name on an electronic reader with a bulky electronic pen.

One of my pet peeves—mostly, I thought, in jest—has been the idea that future generations might think my actual signature was a shaky electronic one resembling something written by a semiliterate chimpanzee with a crayon. That is no longer a joke. Exactly such a signature, purporting to be my handwriting, is what appears on my new driver's license. The only person whose signature would actually match such a wobbly electronic scrawl would be someone way too drunk to drive.

At this stage in the whole uplifting process, of course, it was time to get my picture taken. No wonder so few driver's license photos show anyone smiling.

I've figured that part out, though. The new license makes it impossible to identify people by our electronic signatures. But just imagine being stopped for speeding by the highway patrol. The trooper comes up to the car and asks for your driver's license. You dig it out, feeling embarrassed, defensive, guilty, and maybe a little bit angry. You hand it over. The officer looks at the picture, then at your face. Yep. You'll look exactly like your photo.

Categories: Living Consciously | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments

Love, Marriage, and Navigation

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

It was a great party. The occasion was a family wedding, which is pretty much the same as a family reunion, only with nicer clothes.

Which raises the question: Why do so many of life's significant events take place in uncomfortable shoes? No wonder, once the dancing started, the bride exchanged her dressy sandals for tennis shoes. Another cousin replaced her high heels with her favorite cowboy boots. A couple others were brave enough to ditch their shoes completely before they hit the dance floor. And the nine-months-pregnant cousin had been smart enough to wear flip-flops in the first place.

The wedding site was an ornate 1920's theatre that had been restored to its original Art Deco glory, from the fabulous chandeliers to the swans-head faucets in the ladies' room. The setting was beautiful. The ceremony was beautiful. The bride was the most beautiful of all.

Weddings, of course, are about new beginnings. This one seemed to carry a special commitment to hope, love, and life itself. Perhaps that was due to the memory of the bride's recovery a couple years ago from a brain tumor that turned out to be blessedly benign. Perhaps it was the presence of the bride's frail grandmother, in a wheelchair, at what may well be the last family occasion she is able to attend. Perhaps it was the undeniable vision of the future that was present—a whole herd of well-behaved but energetic small children.

The majority of them spent the interval between the ceremony and the dinner running laps around the balcony that surrounded the lobby of the theatre. After refueling at the banquet tables, they were among the first ones on the dance floor. At one point early in the evening, every couple on that floor consisted of an adult and a little kid. They may have been mismatched in height and age, but their enjoyment of the party and one another's company seemed perfectly in synch.

Most of the pint-sized dancers were still going strong when I left to take my parents back to the hotel. Thanks to my brother-in-law, I found, first, the parking garage, second, my car, and third, the exit. I drove around the corner and picked my parents up at the front door of the theatre.

Getting back to the hotel should have been simple. It was only four or five blocks away. I had a map which had been thoughtfully provided by the bride. Besides, I had driven from the hotel to the theatre in the first place.

But the earlier trip had been in daylight. I couldn't simply retrace my route, because the blocks around the theatre were a maze of one-way streets seemingly designed to confuse hapless visitors from out of town. The map would have been a great help if I hadn't left it in my hotel room.

I turned onto the first one-way street. Then the next one. One more, and we were heading up a long hill. Finally I knew where I was going—in the wrong direction. We needed to be headed downhill, toward the river. I may have been completely confused as to north and south, but at least I still knew up from down.

With the general direction of the hotel established, eventually we got back to the correct one-way street. It took us back past our starting point, the front doors of the theatre. As we came near, I saw the bride and groom on the sidewalk. I didn't understand why they were outside until I spotted the photographer on the other side of the street.

I think I saw his flash go off just as we drove by, right through the middle of his shot. There's nothing like having photographic proof of your navigational errors.

Oh, well. It was just another useful life reminder for the newlyweds: No matter how carefully you make plans, you'll always need to work around those unexpected interruptions.

Categories: Living Consciously | 2 Comments

Cats, Ants, and Kitchen Etiquette

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

It was ten minutes before the guests were supposed to show up for supper. I had the house cleaned, the food ready, and the table set with the good china. I walked into the dining room to find the cat, up on the table, licking the brand-new stick of butter. Did I mention it happened to be the last stick of butter we'd had in the refrigerator?

I tossed the cat outside, grabbed a sharp knife, neatly sliced off the cat-sampled top of the butter, and put the butter dish back on the table. Yes, I put butter on my mashed potatoes. And no, I never said a word about the minor cat-astrophe. If any of that evening's guests are reading this, please accept my belated apologies, and I only hope you don't know who you are.

For those of us who are neither Emily Post or Martha Stewart, the finer points of kitchen etiquette tend to be a mystery. I know the proper behavior expected of a guest when a meal isn't exactly to one's taste—you sample, smile, and wash it down with lots of water. Except, perhaps, in extreme cases, like the time my uncle stopped at the house of an elderly neighbor and was invited to stay for lunch. The bread seemed to have flecks of whole grain in it, or possibly raisins. A closer look, though, revealed that it was crawling with ants. The neighbor's eyesight wasn't the greatest, and he hadn't noticed. As I remember the story, my uncle brushed the ants off of his as best he could and ate his sandwich. And after that he made sure never to stop by at mealtime.

Maybe he should have said something. But how do you tell someone you've known since you were a child that he has ants in his sandwiches? Even Emily Post might have had a little trouble with that one.

While I've never served ant-flavored bread to anyone, as far as I know, I have pondered bread-related ethics questions. If one slice of bread has a moldy spot on it, do you toss that slice or ditch the whole loaf? If you burn one side of the toast, do you put the scraped side down and hope they won't notice it, or do you try to hide it with jelly and peanut butter? Maybe it's better just to avoid the whole issue and let people make their own toast.

I do have a clearer answer to another matter of kitchen protocol. Is it acceptable to feed leftovers to your guests? Absolutely, especially if you're creative enough as a cook to disguise them (the leftovers, not the guests) as something new. If you're not a creative cook, another approach is to be clear ahead of time that the menu is an "encore presentation."

In fact, leftovers can turn out to have unexpected benefits. I once invited friends over to eat leftover Thanksgiving turkey and to make pie out of some wrinkled apples. Only a few people were able to come, but one of them showed up early and stayed long enough that we eventually got married. It was probably safe to assume he didn't marry me for my cooking. We did, though, debate for years over which of us turned out to be the leftover turkey.

Categories: Just For Fun | 2 Comments

Atomic Oaks

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

We were somewhere in the neighborhood of Carlsbad, New Mexico, at the end of several miles of rough gravel roads. The scenic view consisted of potash mines and oil wells on the horizons and a lot of mesquite in the foreground.

Mixed in with the mesquite were what our guide told us were oak trees. I had trouble believing this, even after he got out of the car and brought back what was unmistakably an oak leaf. These were nothing like any oak trees I had ever seen. Even the bush-sized scrub oaks at least look like trees. These were only knee high.

The supposed oak trees were dwarfed by the four-foot-high concrete marker that we had driven all the way out here to see. It contained a metal plaque commemorating "Project Gnome."

We were standing directly above the site of a nuclear explosion. On December 10, 1961, 1200 feet beneath this spot, scientists detonated a nuclear device at the end of a tunnel that had been excavated from a vertical shaft some 1100 feet away.

This was part of the Plowshare program, an effort in the 1960's to try to find industrial and scientific applications for nuclear power. Several underground explosions were set off in New Mexico and Colorado before the project was ended in the early 1970's, apparently without finding any practical uses for nuclear explosions.

One goal of the Gnome blast was to generate steam. Steam was generated, all right, but some of it got through the seals in the tunnel and leaked out through the shaft. The difficulty in controlling nuclear explosions may have been one of the reasons for ending the Plowshare program.

At the site of the blast nearly 50 years later, there wasn't much to see besides the marker, the mesquite, and the miniature oak trees. Were they some mutant life form, an unforeseen side effect of experimenting with nuclear blasts?

Nope. Not at all. They are Quercus havardii, or shin oak, described to us as part of the largest oak forest in North America. That's "largest" in the sense of geographic area, rather than "largest" in the sense of mighty oaks from little acorns growing. Their size is presumably a result of adapting to a dry, hot climate, and they were midgets long before anyone ever heard of nuclear power.

And the dangers of strolling through the site of an atomic explosion? Well, in May of 1962, scientists visited the cavity created by the Gnome blast and found it "hot" only in temperature. It was 140 degrees down there, but it wasn't radioactive. This site has been tested regularly over the past 50 years, and it doesn't have any more radiation than your average back yard. (If you'd like more information, check out atomictourist.com.)

The only real health risk in visiting Project Gnome today is losing your broad-brimmed hat in the wind and getting sunburned. Unless, of course, you happen to trip over an oak tree.

Categories: Travel | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

High Jacking

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

There's just no disobeying the law of gravity. As we get a little older, every time we look in a mirror we can't help but notice gravity's effects in various places. As the years go by, things just start to settle a bit.

The same, of course, is true for houses. And whether you are human or habitat, there is only so much that can be done with plaster, paint, and patching. Sometimes it becomes necessary to do something more fundamental to shore up the foundations.

I mean the house's foundations, of course. It has been settling over the 30-something years since it was moved here, sliding ever so slowly, millimeter by millimeter, downhill toward the septic tank. It has made some progress over the years, as evidenced by the cracked drywall in the basement stairway, the gap between the kitchen counter and the wall, a couple of noticeable cracks in the concrete in front of the garage door, and a definite tilt in the sidewalk behind the house.

This must be a bit embarrassing for a geologist, who presumably would like to think his house had been built on a foundation of solid rock. Of course, it would take a hundred years or so before anything drastic happened, but in geological time that is the merest blink of an eyelash.

All this is by way of explaining why the mudjacking guys were at our house this week, jackhammering, caulking, and doing whatever mudjacking is, exactly. They drilled several holes in the concrete, including one inside the garage that was uncomfortably close to the water line that comes in from the well. As the crew leader admitted after they were done, "Yeah, I was a little nervous about that."

But they missed the water line, so we were spared the excitement and drama of our very own flood. They pumped goop into a hole under the sidewalk where water from the eaves had washed out a bunch of dirt, they filled in the cracks in the concrete, and they leveled things out as much as possible. Then they tidied up after themselves and headed off to the next project.

The garage is safe from gravity for a few more years. Right now we're all square with the world, at least that one particular corner of it. It feels so—uplifting.

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Nose Job

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

She seemed like a perfectly nice woman until she came at me with a knife.

First she grabbed my nose with one hand and held it firmly while she stuck a needle into it with the other hand. "This will sting a little," she said. "A deep breath helps."

Easy for her to say, from the non-pointed end of the syringe. My relief when she removed the needle only lasted for a minute.

Then she came back with a sharp little knife and started to scoop a divot out of the end of my newly-numbed nose. Even having my eyes squeezed shut didn't help much. It didn't hurt, exactly, but despite the shot I could feel the blade slicing across my face in a very personal manner. Even worse, I could hear it, not through my ears really, but somehow directly inside my brain. It made me feel about three years old and left me wishing that someone, preferably my mother, had come along to the dermatologist's office to defend me.

The band-aid she put on afterward wasn't the little round one I had expected. Instead, it was a regular one, about the size you might use for a toddler's scraped knee. It draped across my nose far enough to stick on my cheeks on either side. It itched. Plus, I could see it out of the inner corners of both eyes, which made me feel cross-eyed and gave me a headache.

I kept thinking of the metal prosthetic nose worn by Patrick Stewart as the villain in a movie I saw years ago. "Conspiracy Theory," maybe? I'm not sure—the only thing I really remember about it is the little tent over his nose.

All this drama was due to a little bump on my nose that appeared a couple of months ago and didn't seem inclined to go away. The doctor said it might be a sebaceous something-or-other, or it might be a basal cell carcinoma. She assured me that it wasn't serious either way and said the biopsy results would be back in about 10 days.

She sent me home with my giant band-aid, a reminder about using sunscreen, and a strong suggestion to wear a broad-brimmed hat. Which I will be happy to do, if I can ever find one that fits my child-sized head. One that didn't make me look like a dork would be nice, too.

The morning after the procedure, I took the band-aid off. At my first glance in the mirror, the spot was hardly even visible. That was reassuring for about 17 seconds—until I put my reading glasses on and could actually see the thing.

As a woman of mature years and perspective, going out in public with a pinky-fingernail-sized spot on the end of your nose shouldn't be a big deal. Especially when you are exceedingly grateful that, medically, it truly isn't a big deal.

Unfortunately, being a lady of a certain age with a dermatologist-inflicted gouge on your nose doesn't feel any different from being a teenager with what feels like the world's most conspicuous zit. You're sure it's the only thing about your face that anyone can even see.

The only saving grace is knowing that all my friends are also people of mature years. They know enough to regard a spot on someone else's nose with compassion and understanding. Even better, without their reading glasses, they can hardly see it in the first place.

Categories: Just For Fun, Living Consciously | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

A Simple 12-Step Program

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

As they all do at first, it seemed like a simple project. All I wanted to do was move the wardrobe in my office into the bedroom as a replacement for my dresser. (The wardrobe is antique; the dresser is merely old. Trust me, there is a difference.)

I'd been intending to get this done for weeks. Finally, Saturday was the day. We set to work.

Step One: Take all nine drawers out of the dresser and set them out across the bed in the guest room. Move the dresser into the guest room.

Step Two: Sweep up the large family of dust bunnies that had been living under the dresser.

Step Three: Take all the office supplies, art supplies, notebooks, software CDs and manuals, file folders, etc., etc., off of the wardrobe's five shelves. Stack them on my two office chairs, under my desk, behind my desk, on top of my desk, and in the middle of the floor.

Step Four: Move the wardrobe (80 inches tall by 40 inches wide by 18 inches deep) through a doorway (79½ inches tall by 28 inches wide) into a hallway (42 inches wide), turn it, and haul it down the hall to the bedroom. This, remarkably, was accomplished without scratching either the wardrobe or the woodwork, breaking the light fixture that was hanging in precisely the wrong place, smashing any fingers, yelling at one another, or resorting to profanity.

Step Five: Sweep up the small family of dust bunnies that had been living under the wardrobe.

Step Six: Start to put the shelves back in the wardrobe. Decide that, since they were originally built to hold office supplies instead of cashmere sweaters, they needed to be sanded first.

Step Seven: Make a trip to the hardware store for sandpaper and wood filler.

Step Eight: Apply wood filler to shelves. Lots of wood filler. Decide they are rougher than first thought and need to be painted.

Step Nine: While wood filler is drying, start rearranging office. Move file cabinet out of closet. Empty small bookshelf in closet, adding its contents to the piles already on the chairs, on the floor, and under, behind, and on top of the desk.

Step Ten: Sweep up community of dust bunnies in the closet.

Step Eleven: Take bookshelf downstairs to exchange it for larger bookshelf that is in the closet under the stairs. Empty big bookshelf of Christmas decorations and old geology magazines. Drag it out of closet. Vacuum up mixed community of dust bunnies, dead moths, and spiders. Move small bookshelf into closet. Replace geology magazines and Christmas ornaments.

Step Twelve: Haul large bookshelf upstairs, put it into office closet. Look at stuff piled all over office. Decide to take a break and have some chocolate in order to gain strength before starting to put it away.

Fast forward, mercifully, to Monday morning.

The office furniture is rearranged. The bookshelf in the closet is full. The computer and both chairs are uncovered, but most of the available surfaces, including my desk, are still cluttered with miscellaneous small objects waiting to be put away.

The wardrobe—empty—is in the bedroom. The shelves are downstairs in the workshop waiting to be sanded and given their first coat of paint. My clothes are still in the dresser drawers, which are still arrayed across the bed in the guest room. It's kind of handy, really, to be able to see exactly what's in each one.

But the closet under the stairs is clean, organized, and looking great. If I need any old geology magazines or have an urge to put up Christmas decorations in May, I know exactly where to find them.

Categories: Just For Fun | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

Who Has More Feet–Gene Kelly or a Giant Earthworm?

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is Gene Kelly dancing through the puddles in "Singin' in the Rain." That doesn't mean I'm one of those people who think it's romantic to walk in the rain. I find it decidedly unromantic to squish along in wet shoes with cold water dripping down the back of my neck.

Nor do I find it romantic to hop, skip, and tiptoe over all the earthworms who are driven out of the ground by the rain. I don't have any particular aversion to worms; I just don't like stepping on them. (They didn't seem to bother Gene Kelly, but then he was filming inside a studio.) What I really hate, though, is all the pathetic little mummified worm bodies left stranded on the dry sidewalks after the sun comes out.

When I was growing up, after a rain the hard-packed dirt of the farm yard would be crisscrossed with countless meandering worm tracks. It always looked as if they had enjoyed quite a party—or maybe they were just trying to escape all the early birds showing up for their own party.

Sometimes after a rain we would dig up a coffee can full of those worms and go fishing. I remember one time when the worms were so big that their weight was enough to pull our bobbers under. This made it a little hard to tell whether the fish were biting. It did give us kids an excuse to pull our lines in every few minutes to check them, which was more interesting than just sitting there waiting for a fish.

Those fat worms, though, were merely average compared to the "fabled giant Palouse earthworm." For the first time in 20 years, scientists have captured two specimens of these critters, who inhabit the Palouse region along the Washington-Idaho border. Stories had claimed they could spit, they smelled like lilies, and they could grow to a length of three feet. Most of the people I know have never even caught a fish that long.

As so often is the case, the reality fell short of the legends. The two worms being studied at the University of Idaho haven't done any spitting, and they don't smell like lilies. Even worse, the adult worm whose photograph appeared in our local newspaper on April 28 was only about a foot long when "fully extended," while the juvenile one was only six or seven inches long. Soil scientist Jodi Johnson-Maynard said one of her colleagues "suggested we rename it the 'larger-than-average Palouse earthworm.'"

It's nice to see a scientist with a sense of humor (which is probably a useful attribute to develop if one studies earthworms), but the conclusions may be a bit premature. For one thing, how do you tell whether an earthworm is an adult? Did it have an ID card or a birth certificate? Or even a fishing license? It's possible the 12-inch specimen is only an adolescent, and in time it might grow a couple more feet. Well, not exactly grow feet—just grow longer by a couple of feet. You know what I mean.

Maybe we'll get updates from the scientists in Idaho, who presumably are still studying their two giant—er, larger-than-average worms. Or maybe not. Maybe the temptation was too much, and they've all gone fishing.

Categories: Just For Fun, Wild Things | 6 Comments

Free To Be . . .

Posted on April 23, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

The program described it as a "modern classic of children's literature." The children's theatre group with our local community theatre recently presented "Free To Be . . . You and Me." It was created by Marlo Thomas way back in the olden days of the 1970s, when nurses and elementary teachers were women, cops were men, and people were arguing about "women's lib."

As a junior in high school in the late 1960's, I wanted to take the mechanical drawing class. Sorry, I was told. That class was just for boys. A boy who dared to be interested in taking home ec would probably have known better than to even ask.

Forty years later, things have changed so much that songs and skits about gender equality seem almost beside the point. Still, the show was great fun. Two newborn babies tried to figure out which of them was the boy and which was the girl. A dainty young thing's cry of "ladies first!" backfired when she and her classmates met a group of hungry tigers in the jungle. A strong-minded princess didn't wait to see which young man would win her hand; she entered the competition right along with them.

Gender equality? Absolutely. Let's hear it for female astronauts, diaper-changing dads, and teachers, doctors, and presidents of either sex. It makes the world a better place.

Of course, "equal" doesn't mean "identical." We were reminded of this during the "Free To Be" intermission. A little boy came down the aisle with a manly four-year-old swagger and what seemed to be a growth sprouting from his face. It was a snap-type clothespin, clipped between his upper lip and his nose.

Why? Who knows? Maybe he was pretending it was an elephant's trunk, or maybe he just wanted to walk around looking as if he had a booger on steroids. Whatever his reason, it was definitely male. Walking around with a clothespin on her face is something a little girl just wouldn't do.

Certainly not the little girls who came to my daughter's face-painting booth at the children's fair last week. One of them, especially, was dressed all in dainty pink from her shiny shoes to her hair ribbons to her frilly tutu. My daughter asked what design she wanted on her face, expecting a pretty butterfly or some delicate flowers. The little pink princess said, "I want to be a vampire."

Thank goodness for a world where little girls in pink tutus are allowed to be vampires on the side. And where we assume a little boy will grow up knowing his way around the laundry room—but in the meantime he is free to find utterly little-boy uses for the clothespins.

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By Any Other Name

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

When I was 12 or so, my family received a wedding invitation from a relative who lived in Rapid City. The reception was to be held at the Pretty Pines Party House.

Since we didn't go to the wedding, I never had a chance to see the inside of the Pretty Pines Party House. Still, I always remembered the name just because it was so annoyingly cute. Years later, when I moved to the Black Hills, I drove past the place and was amused to see what a plain building sat behind the silly name.

One of the problems with "Pretty Pines Party House" is too much alliteration. Like eyeliner or garlic, alliteration works best when applied in moderation. Its repeated sounds ought to flow gracefully, not belabor you about the head and shoulders with repeated blows.

Speaking of blows about the head and shoulders, how about that hockey team? At the local game we attended this year, the Rapid City Rush played the Amarillo Gorillas. Our team—not that I'm prejudiced or anything—has a well-chosen name. It combines a bit of alliteration with an implication of power and speed that also serves as a nod to Mount Rushmore.

The Gorillas? Not so much. Just try saying "Amarillo Gorillas" two or three times. It doesn't quite work. Not, at least, for a Yankee tongue, which wants to say "Amarillo Garillos." Of course, in Texas, there isn't a problem. The local pronunciation for the town is "Amarilla," which rhymes quite nicely with "Gorilla."

I wonder why they didn't name the team the "Amarillo Armadillos." It abounds with alliteration. Better yet, it's trilingual alliteration. It flows smoothly off the tongue, no matter which language you use. In English it's "Amarillo Armadillos," in Spanish it's roughly "Amareeyo Armadeeyos," and in Texan it's "Amarilla Armadillas."

Given the padding that hockey players wear, it seems to me the well-armored armadillo would be a perfect mascot. I suppose, though, a gorilla has a tougher image.

I ought to understand that perfectly well from high school, where our teams were the Gregory Gorillas. When girls' sports were started not long after I graduated, they were called (unfortunately, I am not making this up) the "Girl-illas." Now they are the "Lady Gorillas," which at least has the virtue of being oxymoronic rather than just moronic.

It does, however, raise the question of why the boys' teams aren’t correspondingly called the "Gentleman Gorillas." Gender equality and alliteration at the same time—it should be an unbeatable combination.

But back to the Pretty Pines Party House. It's still there and still a place for parties, just under a different name. Now, as the "Buck & Gator," it's a biker bar.

Categories: Just For Fun, Words for Nerds | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

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