Quick Post -- Loose Ends

1.  So, didja watch "Amazing Race"?  Didja see zorbing?  Isn't it cool?  Innit?

2.  And why didn't I go sledging?  Harumph.

3.  Oh yes, I'm sane.  That's right.

4.  I was away this weekend.  Spent Labor Day with my folks in Arizona.  Missed my cat something wicked.

5.  She may or may not have missed me.  She meowed for me around 4 in the morning last night, which I'm pretty sure was just a check that I was still here.  Then again, she bit me (hard) tonight for no reason.

6.  Labor Day with my folks was fun.  I think the highlight was the horseback ride.  It was at sunset.  Watching the sun set from horseback in Arizona is pretty darned spiffy.

7.  And my Dad came with me.  Onna horse.  Said he hadn't been on a horse since his honeymoon 43 years ago.

8.  Which is pretty funny, as he and my mom were married 45 years ago.  (Someone got chewed out for that, let me tell you.)

9.  This, by the way, gives me about five years to plan one heck of a party.

10.  Oh!  And the place we stayed at had a waterslide.  Weeeeee!

11.  And we went to a nearby casino.  Dad won about ten bucks playing blackjack. 

12.  This was very nearly enough to pay for breakfast for the three of us.

13.  I sorta miss those $3.95 breakfasts in Vegas.  Nice to know they're still in business at the Native American casinos.

14.  Oh, and speaking of Native Americans -- did you know you could buy Dreamcatchers and Kokopelli jewelry and all sorts of Native American trinkets at the Phoenix airport?

15.  Excepting they're all made in China and clearly marked, "NOT MADE BY NATIVE AMERICANS."

16.  And I'm wondering exactly what sort of good a Dreamcatcher is going to do when it was made in some factory in China.

17.  Not that China doesn't have its own perfectly good spiritual traditions and all.  Just that -- well, to the limited extent I believe any of this stuff works -- I can't imagine that something can be instilled with whatever powers the Native Americans think it might have, when it was constructed by folks who themselves don't believe in it.

18.  Come to think of it, I think that the powers that Dreamcatchers have are pretty much based on the user of said Dreamcatcher believing in it.  And since I wouldn't believe in it unless it was actually crafted by folks for whom it was something more than a cheap piece of junk to sell in an airport, I'm going to say that such Dreamcatchers would be totally useless.

19.  Good thing they were marked.  I wonder if there's some sort of law in Arizona:  If you're going to sell something that people might assume was made by Native Americans, you have to say if it wasn't.

20.  Note how nice and politically correct I am, making every effort to say "Native American," instead of "Indian." 

21.  A point that was clearly driven home when the family who accompanied us on our horseback ride was actually Indian.  Y'know, from India.

22.  So our Sioux guide was all, "You're Indian?  I'm Indian too."  Heh.  Just look at the linguistic confusion born from one minor little navigational error.

23.  Oh!  And we saw actual wild horses.  The real thing.  Mustangs.  Very cool.

24.  Well, I probably wouldn't have found it all that nifty if I hadn't seen Hidalgo.

25.  So, y'know, there can be an educational payoff to lusting after Viggo Mortensen.