Strange Pulse

More shots from the Valley of Fire. Really a remarkable place.

Sometime soon I want to get to this place:

Vasquez Rocks

One of the coolest things about hiking out around the Vegas area is the petroglyphs and petrographs you can see. Ancient Indian carvings and paintings.

This is the start of one hiking area called Mouse’s Tank in the Valley of Fire. It’s named for an Indian who hid out here. There’s lots of crevices in the rocks that gather water, I guess.

Really an awesome place.

These were all taken at the Valley of Fire, about an hour NE of Vegas, last week. I love this place. It’s really seriously wonderful. Can’t wait to get back there—want to take the kids camping there sometime. I think spring might be the right time—not too hot, not too cold, but I’ll have to verify that!

Cat and I were driving in the car listening to a mix cd I made and the song “Wolves” by Jesu came on. I was thinking about what a great, uplifting song it sounded like to me, and I said, “Do you know what this song makes me think of?”

She said, “Death.”

“Uh—no!” I looked at her weird. “Just the opposite! It makes me think of ice and snow melting to reveal a small budding plant.”

She said, “I hear—death.”

Then came the phrase that always stabs me in the heart: “Can I turn the radio on?”

I’ll post the song to the radio.blog. What’s your verdict—life or death?

Daniel took the kids snowboarding on Monday. Well, the two youngest. Nathaniel and I stayed home. We’re so much alike.

Cat tried to go off a jump. She landed on her butt. Daniel said she was doing pretty good, going down the bunny hill. Better than Elijah, anyway. You should see him skateboard—he’s left-handed, and mongo-footed.

Next week Daniel and I are going to Vegas for the snowboard trade show. We went last year as well. Should be fun. I might try to do some sightseeing away from the city this time, take some pictures. We also have tickets to Tom Jones, and Daniel is soooo excited. He loves Tom Jones.

This will be our anniversary celebration as well. It’ll be 18 years Feb 4th.

My brothers will kill me for this one.

It’s weird to see this picture because of all the things in it I can remember so clearly, now that I see them again. The kitchen clock. The phone, with one of those Napoleon Dynamite long cords on it. (OK, maybe not that long.) I think I still remember my best friend’s phone number. The calendar; the puppy dog bulletin board. The toaster; the tablecloth. I think that’s a Clifford book on the counter.

I wonder what they were singing.

Big Star - “Try Again”
Keane - “Try Again”

I’m really liking Keane’s latest album. It sounds just like U2 and Coldplay, of course…and even more like Muse. But it’s still really good.

And no one compares to Big Star.

Since it’s MLK Day I’m gonna post a couple U2 songs to the radio.blog.

My husband says MLK Day is the holiday all the rich white people get off.

We used to live in an inner-city neighborhood in Tacoma, WA. The streets going one direction were named with letters—we lived on L Street. When we lived there, they changed the name of K Street to Martin Luther King Street. I thought that was cool, except it seemed kind of weird. Naming a street in a ghetto after him. Like that was somehow supposed to make the fact that the ghetto existed ok? There was also a tiny library in that neighborhood named after him. I always had to laugh because it was the smallest library I’d ever seen, with the longest name—it was called the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Branch.

Here’s one of my favorite Martin Luther King quotes:

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

He was such an amazing man.

I got home from work kinda late last night, almost 8pm. But I felt like going out and doing something with Daniel. Our daughter Cat was really bored, so we took her out to eat with us.

So we went to a Thai place I love called Phuket Thai. It has a giant sign that says:

PHUKET THAI
(Pronounced poo-ket. Don’t ask me why.)

But we like to mispronounce it…as “Puke-It.”

It’s seriously the best Thai food I’ve ever had.

When we left the restaurant, we couldn’t believe how cold it was. We’re having a cold snap just like the rest of the west coast right now. I said, “It feels like Seattle!” We were convinced the temperature had to be in the 30’s. Then we drove past a sign at a community college that told us the current temperature: 46 degrees. Man, are we wusses now.

When we were stopped at a traffic light, Cat said she chose to sit up front because the heater would keep her feet warm. And if she got too hot, she could put her hands on the door window. Which she did for a moment, with her face up close to the glass, peering between them. The guy in the passenger seat of the car next to us saw her and pointed her out to his wife, who was in the driver’s seat. But when she turned to look, Cat had her hands down and was just looking at them vaguely like nothing had happened. It was hilarious. The guy started demonstrating to his wife what Cat had been doing, and Cat just looked at them like she hadn’t done a thing.

Cat mentioned to us that there had been an unplanned fire alarm at school that morning. I said, “So someone probably got in trouble, huh? Is it true that those things get ink all over you when you pull them?”

Daniel said, “No.”

Cat said, “Yes it is! My friend pulled one once and he had to take off his jacket because it was covered in ink and scrub it all off his hand.”

Daniel said, “Well, um…I’m sort of in a position to know about these things. There’s no ink.”

Cat said, “Maybe not when you were in school, but there is now!”

Then Daniel shared a story about a fire alarm being set off during high school. I think I remember this happening. He was the Choir T.A. and had gone out into the hall to talk to someone about something. He leaned his shoulder up against the wall, with a fire alarm right in front of him. When he touched the wall, a piece of the alarm pull fell off and dropped right at his feet. And the alarm went off.

I remember hearing that he’d pulled the alarm. But he said no one who was there gave him up for it. So he didn’t get in trouble. He shouldn’t have anyway, since he hadn’t pulled it. But he was always pulling pranks and getting in trouble.

I mean, this is the guy who once ordered pizza when he was in in-school suspension.