She's Back!

Phoenix was lots of fun! My mother behaved and didn't get after me too much about my heavy foot on the petal!! So if you were waiting to here about an 86 year old woman left at the Texas Canyon rest stop in AZ by her frazzled daughter, you waited for nothing.

Would you believe I didn't take pictures of us while we were there. The only one I took of family was the one of my adorable, wonderful almost 21 year old niece, Marisa Kate...she loooves guacamole!! We ate at this great place called Z-Tejas. Food was wonderful and the Long Island Ice Teas were very refreshing!!!!! My mother thought it was a specialized tea and took a sip...hair is still growing on her chest!

Went to Old Chandler, a burb of Phoenix, and visited this really cool gallery called the Xico Inc. Had lots of Latino art and it looked like the sort of place I could display my Muerto Art. Have all the information to contact the exec. director, but procrastination has reared it's nasty little head and the card still just lies very lonely on my big desk. Haven't been to the website, but if anyone is interested it's www.xicoinc.com .

We also went to the Desert Botanical Gardens. Ok, so I live in the desert too and why would I want to see plants that we consider weeds, but it was well worth it. There was also a Dale Chihuly exhibition. His beautiful glass sculptures were displayed in the landscape...wonderful. I have lots more pics of the exhibition, but put that one up to entice you. If any of you have been to the Belagio Hotel in Las Vegas, you'll remember the gorgeous glass flowers suspended from the ceiling in the main foyer...that's Chihuly's work.

We did visit two of my mother's friends while on our way to and back. Tucson is very unusual in that it doesn't have any interstates going through the city, so you get off I-10 then travel on surface streets to get anywhere....aahhhhhhh! Well, let's just say, we saw more of Tucson that we really had planned on seeing. We got lost looking for the first friend, but we eventually found her and it was great seeing my mother and her talk and reminisce. My parents and this couple were golfing buds and went all over the western states to golf, they both admitted that those years were the best of all, sadly, they are both widows! She's a pretty amazing lady in that she's almost completely blind, has little peripheral vision and paints these gorgeous water colour florals. Now the other friend, on our way back, was easy to find, but it took 45 mins. from the interstate to get to her house. The good thing about this one, was that after crossing all of Tucson through the surface streets, it was easy and shorter to get to I-10.

We also had ordered some tamales de elote, made with green corn, a specfialty from the Mexican state of Sonora, where my maternal peoples come from, and waited in this dirt lot right off the road before we hit I-10. People were looking very suspiciously at us and I was waiting for the police to come and arrest us once we made the purchase. Wouldn't that have been a hoot!! "No officer, this is not a drug exchange, but a tamale raid!!!"

Well, I've rambled quite a bit and so now it's time for me to get my fat buttocks into the studio and start working again. Peace out.