Last Day

This is all we did today (left).
As far as large beach resorts in Mexico go, this place is fabulous. The staff couldn't be more friendly or accommodating. Frankly, they seem to love me here. Nearly everyone has commented on my name and felt the need to tell me that Fernando is a man's name here in Mexico; weirdly, nearly all the staff we've interacted with have commented on it. But because of that, they remember me and I'm getting rather fond of being addressed as "Miss Fernando" everywhere I go.

So, that's it. I told everyone at home we'd probably never leave the resort, and we didn't. And now it's time to go and we're ready. We spent every moment we could outside, caught up on some reading, got much needed doses of sunshine, spent an entire day in a beach cabana while our personal butler brought us whatever we wanted to eat or drink, and we saw whales frolicking in the Sea of Cortez. Done.

Copa Cabana

Today brought relaxing to a whole new level. Part of our package was the use of a cabana for the day. We saw the cabanas scattered around the beach and I was pretty psyched at the idea of spending the day outside, looking out to sea -- from a bed perched on the sand...while a "personal butler" attended to our every need. And that's how we spent today. We had breakfast around 8:30, worked out for an hour, then I took a dip in the pool and met Cheryl in our cabana. Jonathan, the pool manager whom I had met yesterday (and who told me that if anyone at the resort was causing me any displeasure, he would "take care of it," "I can make it look like an accident," he said), came by and introduced us to Carlos, who was going to be our butler, and would take care of bringing us anything we needed. Here's the list of things Carlos brought us: a banana-mango smoothie, Diet Coke, Perrier, a bowl of fruit (actually, Alejandro, the pool-boy from yesterday brought that to us), ice cream, and lunch. Most times when he came up to check on us, he addressed us as "princessas" (I don't speak any Spanish but the translation is pretty easy). It was a great way to spend the afternoon, especially when we realized that there were several whales hanging out in our direct sight-line. We kept seeing the spouty-spouts (I don't know the marine biology term for when they spit water up from their blow-holes, "spitty-spouting"?) and then once when I was looking past Cheryl, I saw a mighty splash and knew I was seeing a post-breach water show - I had just missed the main event; however, about half an hour later, I was staring straight out and I saw a grey whale come almost completely out of the water and flop over - it was in the distance, but I saw it clearly. There's a lifelong dream achieved.

View from our perch.

We left our domain, once again only because we were due at the spa, so off we went, Cheryl for a massage, me for a detoxifying (and anti-cellulite I was told, twice), moisturizing, marine algae, body-wrap. I love me a body-wrap, but the marine goo from this one was especially... authentic, and even though I've showered twice since having it done, my skin still smells like sushi. There are worse problems to have (although perhaps not for whomever is sitting next to me on the plane tomorrow).

a Day of Doing Next to Nothing

Our time-share presentation was painless. We met our tour-guide-saleman, an affable guy from Brazil (with frosted hair) who had worked first in hotels in Cancun before moving to Cabo with his wife, a Canadian professional beach volleyball player. He took us to a very nice breakfast buffet which looked out over the Sea of Cortez (as the whole property does); we could see a whale in the distance, spouting and flipping its tail up. If we had to listen to a sales pitch for something we had no interest in buying, that was the place to do it. He asked us our travel habits and we were honest with him, telling him that staying at a big beach resort doesn't hold any special appeal for either of us, and that being tied to a vacation plan - regardless of the number of properties we could choose from around the world, just wasn't the way we want to travel. He asked us why we had signed up for the tour and we told him we did it for all the perks we had been offered; can't be the first time he'd heard that. He gave us his spiel anyway and showed us a couple of the condos, he ran down the cost (exhorbitant), we politely declined, and were on our way. We got all the cash promised to us back, we got a voucher for our taxi ride back to the airport, and we got the cash value of two hour-long massages credited to our room. We went directly to the fitness center/spa, worked out for an hour, made our spa appointment for the next day (we already had booked hour-long massages for today which were part of our package deal) and then we went to the pool. We found two empty loungers right nex to the infinity pool, went for a swim, and sat on the loungers for the next several hours. Our spa appointments were for 5:30pm which was the only reason we got off those chairs (we ate lunch pool-side).

The spa is beautiful. The treatments rooms, like all the hotel rooms, overlook the sea, and I had one of the best massages ever. Tomorrow, we do it all again, minus the sales-pitch.


If you have to work out, this is the gym to do it in.



"We Absolutely WILL NOT Listen to a Time-Share Presentation, No Matter What They Offer Us!!"

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So we're going to a time-share sales presentation tomorrow morning at 8:30. Having visited resort towns in Mexico before, Cheryl and I agreed that this trip is too short to waste valuable pool time listenting to sales pitches we had no interest in. But we forgot how incredibly persuasive the airport touts could be. We were planning on taking a taxi from the airport to the resort but in order to get to the taxis, you have to pass through the gauntlet of pitch-men, and they are good at their jobs. A taxi would have cost us $80 for the 30 minute ride to the resort (which we were willing to pay [or we could have done a van-share for a lot cheaper, but it would have taken three times as long to get to our destination]) but the taxi-tout offered us a free taxi ride, breakfast at the hotel he wanted us to tour which was supposedly right next to the hotel we were heading to, a one-hour massage for each of us at the spa, and enough cash for us to take a taxi back to the airport at the end of our stay. He wore us down. We gave him $160 in cash for the RT taxi fare, all of which he was going to give us back the next day when we showed up for the tour, and vouchers for all the stuff he'd promised us, and having done this kind of thing before, we knew he was good for it. So we took our speedy taxi to the resort, checked in and then had a chat with our concierge-person, who proceeded to offer us a variety of extras and perks... if we listened to her time-share pitch. We told her we were covered and had already promised the taxi-guy, who had a bunch of our cash as incentive for us to show up, that we would go to the hotel he worked for (we had also promised him we wouldn't discuss the deal he gave us with our hotel staff, whom he knew would try and offer us their own deal); she proceeded to offer us everything taxi-guy had promised us (and we wouldn't have to leave the property), and she said she'd refund all the cash we had given him - DEAL.

So with all that behind us, we finally made it to our room, then directly out to the beach. The afternoon conisisted of reading on the beach, walking around the grounds, making all our spa appointments, dinner, and now TV/computer/books/magazines/bed. We don't need much to be happy.

Fall Colors

Last weekend - camping by the Entiat River with Jenine, Josh, and Arlo, Scott, and Mike Huey. I'm not sure why Mike is the only one who warrants a last name, but that's the way it is.

Arlo and Jenine

New Yorker Festival - 5

It was actually the 11th annual New Yorker Festival, but it was my fifth year in a row attending. Peter skipped this year but I had my lovely friend Jenine for a traveling companion, and we had a great time. Unfortunately, that great time started at 4am on Friday. Our flight was at 6, hence the early start. We landed at JFK around 2:30 and headed for the subway; about 40 minutes later: Times Square. 44th Street isn't my ideal New York City address, but it was Jenine's first trip to NY, so it was kind of fun to be right in the middle of the known universe.

View from our room on the 46th floor.

We hung out in our hotel room for a little while and then headed out to our first festival event: an interview with Alec Baldwin. Alec is a funny guy, and a bit of a flirt. He told Ariel Levy who was interviewing him that he liked her dress (I thought it was ok). It was a fun interview, lots of movie clips (including one from "Working Girl" from 1988 - 22 years younger and 30 pounds lighter), and political chit-chat (campaign finance reform is his pet political cause). He also talked quite a bit about changing the divorce laws in New York state. I've heard that it's easier to kill your spouse and do the time than to get a reasonable divorce in New York; apparently he's using his influence and his experience with the process to affect legislation on this front as well. In talking about comedy and his success with "30 Rock," he gave all the credit to Tina Fey.

AND (and this is the best part), Calvin Trillin was sitting next to me during the interview! I was sort of distracted by this fact the whole time, and I just couldn't quite let it go, so when the interview was over I turned to him and said, "excuse me, Mr. Trillin?" he looked a bit startled and said "yes?" I stuck out my hand, which he shook (what else could he do?) and said "my name is Manomi, I came out from Seattle for the festival, I just wanted to say, I've enjoyed your work for a long time." He gave the smallest hint of a smile and said "thank you," I said, "you're welcome" and then left him alone.

Jenine and I were then supposed to meet my friend Elizabeth who was making the trek out from Brooklyn to meet us for dinner. Unfortunately, Jenine was jet-lagged (having just returned from China and Vietnam a few days before leaving for New York) and not feeling well, and decided to get back to the hotel for some much needed sleep while I went off to meet Elizabeth. We had a nice dinner at Harrison (pricey, noisy, good, not spectacular with the exception of our side order of fries, which were spectacular; I've eaten fries at a lot of places, these must have been fried in duck fat or something equally decadant - they were sublime) and I ended up back in the room about 12:30 - Jenine didn't even twitch when I came in.

Saturday we got up and immediately headed out for bagels, which we got at a little deli near the venue (we were back at the same place we saw Alec). The Saturday morning talk we attended was by Atul Gawande who was speaking on "How to Live When You're Dying" which was the title of his article on end-of-life matters/hospice care earlier this year. I often skim the heavy articles but this one was so interesting that I read every word. Atul is a practicing surgeon in Cambridge, he talked about how some patients choose not to treat their terminal illnesses, but to go home, manage their pain, and live out their days by actually living those days, instead of fighting death with painful and draining treatments. Atul needs to learn to modulate his voice (he's a very monotone speaker), but his talk was interesting, and by the end, several people in the audience were sobbing.

After Atul, we had just enough time to trot down a few blocks to the Chelsea Market and browse the goodies there. We bought some treats, including chocolate covered Corn Flakes (you have no idea...) from Jacque Torres and some savory crepes for a snack, and then headed back to the same theater for the "Fashion Forward" talk. I have to admit, this was the talk we had tickets to that I was least interested in, but that turned out to be the MOST interesting. Four designers, four runway models, and Judith Thurman moderating a very interesting discussion on fashion, the fashion industry, femininity, Michelle Obama vs. Carla Bruni, inspiration, fabric, draping, layering, wool, PETA, and the best part: the Rag and Bone collection (my favorite) featured mittens. No gloves, mittens. The models were all leggy, beautiful, and appeared to completely lobotomized. Jenine, an apparel designer by training, more of an industrial designer by trade, was hugely inspired by the event, and I found it incredibly interesting and entertaining, and it made me think that in my life, which is often totally void of personal artistic endeavors, fashion can be art and expression, and every day can be an opportunity to create a personal artistic statement, even if it's with other peoples' products.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening downtown in Soho: Dean & Deluca, Muji, CB2, Prada, Uniqlo, Pearl River, AND... Jenine is pretty sure she saw Donatella Versace in the Dolce & Gabbana store when we walked by. I insisted she go into the Prada store to not only look at the clothes, but more to check out the Rem Koolhaas architecture and design elements, which are fantastic. It's also fun to check out the sleek salespeople in their sleek clothes, although Jenine did comment about one of the sleekest salesgirls, "I feel bad that she doesn't have a rib-cage." Dinner was at Papatzul - fresh, spicy, Mexican fare which I'd had and enjoyed a few times before. I like going back to the same old places.

Sunday morning was with Steve Carell. Again, lots of clips, and lots of chat about "The Office." He answered my burning question during the interview -- it turns out that the show was in fact very deliberately re-tooled after Season 2 (the change was obvious, and hugely disappointing); the result was more viewers and numerous awards - but the changes rendered the show practically unwatchable as far as I'm concerned. It lost all its charm and all its subtlety while becoming a major hit with the masses. I have to believe all those smart actors and writers are disappointed now too, and that the turn is a contributing factor in Steve leaving after this season, but introducing myself to Calvin Trillin was as much as I could do in terms of confronting celebrities, so I didn't ask Steve to elaborate on the change after Season 2 during the question and answer period.

Our last festival event was right after Steve -- Malcolm Gladwell talking about "The Magical Year of 1975." It turns out that what Malcolm found so magical about 1975 was the fact that that's when Marvin Miller, who was the head of Major League Baseball's players' union, won the players the right to free agency, changing the economics of the game (and possibly the nation - his talk was a little hard to follow) forever.

View from the roof of the Gansevoort Hotel.
And that was the end of the festival for us. We spent Sunday afternoon walking down the High Line Park, stopped for a cocktail ($15) at the bar on the roof of the Gansevoort Hotel, made our way back to Times Square, and on a tip from our doorman, ate dinner at John's Pizza ("best pizza in the City!")

Monday morning we got up and went to Zabar's for bagels, chatted with some Israeli guy in the cafe, walked from there to Central Park through light rain, and took a stroll through what eventually became a torrential downpour. I thought we were heading south through the park back toward midtown, but at some point I realized we were actually heading north, so given the time and the fact that our bags were at the hotel (south) and we were taking the subway back to JFK, we hightailed it out of the park and to the subway on Lexington Avenue and made our way (running late) to the airport. We were so late that we got to jump the security line (escorted by a Delta agent) and made it to our gate only to find that our flight was delayed. We finally boarded and sat on the plane for two hours while a new flight path was cleared as ATC had just closed the runway we were waiting for. It was a long trip home after a super-great weekend. Can't wait for next year - I hope Jenine will go again and Peter will be back on board.

Ashland, OR

Ah, Oregon. It’s population still insists on tie-dying their clothes (at least those which didn’t come straight from Guatemala), and appears to be existing primarily on raw goat milk. Never before have I seen a more fashion-generic population than during the three days I spent in Ashland. I’d always wanted to go to Ashland to see the plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival – an odd name for the venue given that plays run for nine months of the year, and only a fraction are by Shakespeare. 2010 is the 75th anniversary of the fest, which is one of the oldest and largest professional non-profit theaters in the nation. It employs 325 people full-time, 175 part-time, and utilizes 600 volunteers. One of the most impressive things about the festival is that they produce so many plays during a season. In 2010, eleven plays will have run on the three stages, often overlapping on the same stage, meaning one play might run on the Elizabethan Stage one day as a matinee, but the techs will break down the set before evening and a different play will run on the same stage that night. Even more impressive is the fact that actors may be in three different shows during a season. We saw Twelfth Night on Saturday, a play with two female leads (one of whom was embarrassingly dreadful), and one of the leads (the not-dreadful one) had the second lead in the musical we saw on Sunday night. Peter and I (critics that we are) determined that while the actress whom we saw twice wasn’t dreadful, she was a one-trick pony and her performance as Lady Olivia in Twelfth Night wasn’t particularly different from her performance as Miss Ritter, a 1930s shopgirl, in She Loves Me. We thought the performances in general were good (better in She Loves Me than in Twelfth Night), but not particularly stellar compared to performances we’ve seen elsewhere in the country. Those actors work hard though, and I’m sure the OSF is a great gig to get for an actor starting out. We also took a backstage tour given by one of those hard-working actors. Our guide, Kate Hurty, told us she started out as a scientist doing cell research after graduating from Swarthmore, and did community theater on the side before deciding to ditch her lab coat to pursue an MFA in acting. She was very vivacious and cute and gave a very interesting tour. She was starring in Pride and Prejudice which we didn’t see, but also had a small role in She Loves Me (in which she got to wear absolutely beautiful 1930s-style dresses, hats, and coats – the costumes in this show were wonderful).

I got a little bored with the Shakespeare, which I expected, but She Loves Me was delightful. It’s based on the movie Shop Around the Corner, which takes place in Budapest pre-WWII, and is the movie that You’ve Got Mail was based on.
Ashland is a very nice, tiny village, with nice shops, decent restaurants, and a lovely park on the edge of town. Peter and I also drove the two-and-a-half hours to Crater Lake to check out the azure blues, and they were as advertised.

The B&B where we stayed was very nice, we had a big room and big bathroom and the breakfasts were good. I was sort of expecting extraordinary, but I’m sticking with good. The ladies who ran the place were very nice, helpful, friendly, etc., and the other guests we dined with at breakfast were the same. Really nice weekend.