Travel Notes, the Desert Edition

Just got back from sun & fun in Phoenix, which is habitable about 1/2 of the year. Somehow, in three days, I packed in 2 airplane rides [on underserviced Southwest planes, no less], 1 trip the Phoenix zoo [dug the giraffes], 3 baseball games [Angels won 2, woo hoo! Go Torii!], 1 hockey game where I got to sit behind the goal, a movie [the delightful and oddly emotionally resonant Semi-Pro], a trip the mall, breakfast at a wonderful small restaurant, and saw two old friends - one who I have not seen for over 20 years. So it was a great trip, very relaxing and went off without a hitch.

Only downside was that we did not go see the dogs run, nor did we go slick cart racing. Maybe next year.

In the airport, on Monday night, two notable conversations were overheard. A couple of young women, kind of typical 30-ish women, neither model-thin nor chubby were heard talking about Hillary Clinton, "Yeah, she's one of us. She's got a butt on her." So now, we're tracking the "Girls with Butts vote" ...

Other conversation was between this guy, about 40 who was talking with a rather nice unassuming housewife-looking woman, in her mid-50s. This guy was blabbing on about how he worked as a trainer for marines, he was in charge of this and that, he was Mr. Bigshot marine trainer dude ... finally, after boring this woman with what he expected was a pretty impressive resume, he asked her what she did. She matter-of-factly said, sounding very much like Mary Tyler Moore, "Oh, I was a flight surgeon in the Army, after I got out of medical school in the early 70s." Blabby jarhead boy wasn't so talkative after that.