The Shredder

Hi. Let me introduce you to one of my dogs, Odys (aka The Shredder)
As you can see from this picture, he looks very innocent and sweet, I mean look at that face! Trust me, it's a practiced pose. Well, he is 2 years old now and is very good in the house, except on rare occasions. Like when he shredded my Rachel Ray cookbook, but I can't blame him for doing it. I sure didn't have the heart to throw away a book, even though it was full of disgusting recipes. Then he has the nerve to shred my NASCAR magazine. For those of you who know me well, that is a HUGE mistake in my book, but I got over it. So we've gone for months without incident until tonight when I got home from work. I need to add that when he shreds stuff he knows it's bad, but is so proud of his work, he will greet you at the door with it in his mouth. So, anyway, I came home from work today and was greeted by Odys with the box that your checks come in. No biggie I think. Well I was wrong. I found my bank checks (that I just got!) shredded all over the house! There was not a single check book that was salvagable. While I am cleaning up the mess, he grabbed a check book that was shredded and came up to me and was like, "look, aren't you proud??" I told him to go away.


Now I have another dog whom I call a free spriit/granola dog, her real name is Aspen. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body. If only he could learn from her......




The kids...

Watch OPRAH next Monday, May 14!!!

The first of two episodes of OPRAH featuring MIRAVAL will be airing next Monday! You so need to watch. I am really excited to see it, I haven't seen anything on it yet. It's actually pretty cool that Oprah found Miraval a few years back. I guess she came and talked about it on one of her shows, and the phones started ringing at the resort like 5 minutes into her talk. This time is crazy, though. She had a contest and brought 60 women (plus Gail) to the resort for a week in March ( or maybe it was early April, before I started anyway). She filmed the whole thing and I am soooo interested to see how it all comes together on her show. She flew like 20 people from work out there a week and a half ago (yeah they left me behind, "in charge," my second week there!) and they got to sit in the audience and stay in Chicago for 2 nites and they even threw them a special cocktail party, which O and Gail attended. Aside from the fame stuff, from what I understand, I think they are really going to showcase what Miraval is about (aboot). I mean, you can make it about anything you want...but it is a really special place. It's not just a resort for the "spendy" richies to stay at. It's a place where you can learn and heal and chill and get in touch with yourself. It's special. They call it Miraval Magic. I really really hope that the show can get that across to the viewers. AND they decided to make it into 2 episodes when everyone was in Chicago taping! So it's cool. WATCH IT!!

Did I mention that I got cactus needles in my armpit? Ouch. It hurts.

Ventana Canyon

Today was certainly my most adventurous hike yet. The way I've been going about picking my hikes has been to search online, google places I've heard of, read up on several different sites to compare reviews. So I decided to take the Ventana Falls Loop, which takes you off the trail and up the creek bed to the "falls," then you find the trail and take that back down. Some of the notes on this hike intrigued me: "For those who are a more adventurous and would like to skip the crowds, its possible to venture off the trail and do a bit of canyoneering in this wild and scenic place." FUN, right??



So the creek bed was really dry, indicating the "falls" may not be running much at all. The site stated, "As you head up Ventana Canyon, you will have to scramble over some large boulders choking the streambed." Scramble?! I was literally climbing and pulling myself up over these huge boulders. But it was cool.







One thing about hiking out here, and today was the worst yet, is there's these really annoying bugs that swarm you when you hiking. Like little flies of some sort. They stick to your arms & legs & try to go in your ears and it gets really irritating at times. It's good to keep moving. So as I am "scrambling," I finally get to some small pools of stagnant water. Covered in this green mossy stuff. And hundreds of wasps. I was able to climb around the first pool, but the second one gave me no options: I had to literally step over it. A few feet of stinky water and all these wasps!! And when I stop moving to consider if there's any other options, the flies start to land and drive me wild, so I just had to take a deep breath and pretend there were no huge wasps below me and step over them. But I succeeded!

So after I have been climbing up this dry streambed for a long time, I start to wonder if I missed the falls, if they were so low I climbed over where they should have been, and if so, then where the heck's the trail to take me back?! I am supposed to see these Maiden Pools, and I climbed around some pretty good sized pools, but it's not like they're labeled or anything. I finally get to where I decide must be the falls, not much more than a trickle today, but I could see how it could be impressive if the water was flowing more. But now I am at the bottom of this canyon and I need to find the trail. It's just all rock face around me. I remember the review saying, "Getting past Ventana Falls is the final obstacle of the trip. Pancho Doll claims that a rappel is necessary to access the base of the falls, but I disagree." I am AT the base. So I need to figure out how to climb UP.

Bushwacking uphill in the desert is not very fun. I tried several times to climb up the rockface, but seeing as I have never rock climbed before, I have no safety equipment, and it was a damn long way up...I knew I needed to head through the scrub. Which still involved rock climbing and going straight up. Everything in the desert hurts, no matter how soft it may appear to be. I was on all fours, climbing over cactus and dirt and rocks and yeah.....but I finally made it up. Then I had to bushwack more to get up to the highest point and try to see the trail...which I spotted, across another canyon. So down I go, back through the hardscrabble. Needless to say, I finally made it to the trail.



If I could draw on this photo, I would show you that those green things in the center/right are actually full-size trees, and I had to make my way from the bottom all the way up to where those brown rocks are, which were about 15-20 ft. tall. The pic does NOT do it justice.

Anyway, I was so happy to find the trail! Then it takes you up to this ridge and I stopped to take this pic of Tucson:

...and I stuck my butt right into a cactus. Seriously, I was already so scraped up and full of catcus sticky prickles, I didn't need more on my ass. I just dropped trou right on the trail and tried to get the things out of my butt and my shorts, yeah, I was almost a naked girl on the trail. Sheez.

So, needless to say, I made it back down. Every hiking website tells you to bring the necessities: water, food, sunblock, etc. I want to add a few: a bandana, to pull down over your ears and try to keep the flies out. A backpack, to cushion the fall you may take when you're bushwacking downhill (yeah that happened, too). But the best reason to have these extra items is to surround your body with extra layers if you need to climb up rocks through catci and under catci and around catci. I have cactus prickles (there must be a real name for them) in my shoes, socks, legs, BUTT, shorts, shirt, arms, HANDS, backpack, and bandana. I have spent tonite with a pair of tweezers and a needle, trying to dig these things out of my body. So that's the last thing you should also bring with you: tweezers.






Close up of a hummingbird!

Black Flies & Ticks

I HATE BUGS!!! They gross me out like no other. Top of the list grosso's are spiders, flies and ticks. GUESS WHAT. IT'S BLACK FLY AND TICK SEASON AT ANNA'S HOUSE!!!. This morning I pulled 2 ticks off my legs. I came home from work and found a billion black flies all over my windows. I nearly fainted. There is nothing more sickening to me than a black fly buzzing by my ear. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! And Rachel Ray talking.... Anyway, I've bleached everything I could put my hands and the damn things are still are over the place. HELP!!!

THANK YOU!!

That was so FRIGGIN' sweet! I won't tell anyone so you can maintain your tough guy hard-ass image. HA!!

OH! I almost forgot, another naked man!

Well, it's not as exciting as it sounds. If that sounds exciting to you. But this lady at work was telling me about a good hike to go on and she says, "Once I saw a naked man up there." My asst. manager, Lin, and I look at each other and we're like DUUUUDE!! What is up with the nekkid hikers in AZ?! I hope they use sunblock OUCH


This is me & Lin & his wife last Saturday at this bar where his daughter's band was playing. Guess what the band's name is? Megan's Law........fo real, yo! And they ROCK

Seven Falls, Sabino Canyon

Here, learn something on the internet! sponsored by Odd Todd, Pringles & Fudge-Striped Cookies, Inc.


"The Saguaro Cactus grows very slowly -- perhaps an inch a year -- but to a great height, 15 to 50 feet. The largest plants, with more than 5 arms, are estimated to be 200 years old. An average old Saguaro would have 5 arms and be about 30 feet tall."
This guy was massive!! Imagine how long he's been living in this canyon? He must have been at LEAST 35 ft. tall...and I know 30 ft. from Why High and Quatum Leap challenges, thank you very much...It takes them nearly 10 yrs to reach one INCH tall.


This little guy was so cute! He did these little push-ups:

"Humans aren't the only ones inclined to athletic displays in love and war
Lizards don't sing. Instead, they do push-ups.
Much as birds chirp their threats and come-ons and commentaries, sagebrush lizards in the western United States communicate through little flex fests. Both male and female lizards rise off their bellies and bob up and down, quick as a recruit slamming into the ground at the feet of a bellowing marine sergeant.
During the past decade, Emilia P. Martins of the University of Oregon in Eugene has led a search to decode sagebrush lizard athletics. "They're incredibly complex," she marvels. Depending on the details, a set of push-ups may indicate something like "Get your presumptuous rear off my rock this instant" or "Be mine, you gorgeous creature."
The nuances of all this bobbing and flexing give scientists another world of communication to explore, with intriguing comparisons to bird songs and bee dances."

Dang, I got hit on by a lizard!!


Blooming La Cholla, or The Jumping Cactus. If you get too close, its needles will "jump" out and launch into you! Crazy. I think this is just one type of La Cholla; there's others that are more poofy and fuzzy and painful.
K, the internet just told me this is a Staghorn Cholla. Sweeeeet.


Some big bug. Sorry, I don't know what this guy is! But he looks cool. And he was big.


This guy didn't hit on me, he hid in the shadow of a Saguaro. I still thought he was cute!


Top of Seven Falls


Looking up from Sabino Canyon


Doesn't it look like the one Saguaro is giving the other one a bouquet of flowers? Awww! They are like 75 yrs. old before they even grow their arms.


Prickly Pear Cactus in bloom. Preeeeetty.


The Saguaro Cactus Flower is AZ's state flower. It's cool. Birds live in the cactus. It's like me, a multi-tasker. And prickly if ya piss me off. WOW I am getting way too much fresh air...

Baby Bunnies Abound!

Suddenly there's baby bunnies everywhere, at work, by my house, and they're so dang cute. They're not afraid of anything yet b/c they don't know any better.




Someone at work said to me, it's like all these babies were born at Miraval and they think they're in heaven!

Cracker Barrel Flashback

So I finally found the Tucson Cracker Barrel. I still had to return the excellent Books on CD that we rented for our journey. I know I already spent enough time rhapsodizing about this fabulous establishment and how it's sort of weird...like entering a time warp when you pass thru those doors b/c they all look exACTly the same. But tonite...I about had a panic attack when I walked in and up to that counter, the counter that's in the exact same location, in a room set up exactly the same, with every single same piece of merchandise set up in the SAME SPOT. I was like, Whoa, I am back in Iowa, no Indiana, no Nebraska, wuuuut??? Then there was the stupid rat-like toy, I guess you'd call it, in this cage on the floor. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was a WeezleBall. Ewww! Almost worse than the breathing cat thingy!! It was this tail-looking thing rolling around a ball and banging up against the walls of the cage, for why?? Weird. I had to get out of there. I don't know that I can ever frequent a CB again, ever.