Thursday, April 19, 2007

Leaving Las Vegas

My friend Bruce asked me a month or so ago if I’d be playing Sheryl Crow’s "Leaving Las Vegas" when I drive out of Sin City. I’m not a particular fan of Crow, whom I accidentally nearly killed once backstage at a Heart concert (another story for another time), and I don’t even have that song in my collection, so the answer was no.



Instead, as I put the Strip and all those damnable California transplant drivers in my rearview mirror, I will be playing the obscure Bryan Ferry delight "This Is Tomorrow Calling." I find that’s the song I’m hearing, sometimes just in my head, whenever I set out on a new expedition. And even though my leaving Las Vegas is technically the end of a chapter, the coming months are full of challenges and unknowns, and will be an even bigger adventure.



If you don’t know the song, I recommend you find a (legal) listen online. I would provide a link here, but I don’t know how and, honestly, I’m too lazy to find out. But I love how it starts out so mellow and twangy and gradually builds to a crazy party with slide guitar and horns and more horns and back-up singers and a cowbell or two. I also, of course, love the sentiment: "This is tomorrow calling/what have I to lose?"



In any case, as I leave Las Vegas with Bryan Ferry instead of Sheryl Crow (a much better deal as I see it), I find I’m really excited. I can’t wait to see my dog Wiley again (he has been living in pampered luxury with Dr. Virago while I’ve been in Vegas). I can’t wait to finally, finally! see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado (I’m stopping on my way back home, even though it’s a day-long detour, because I’ve been obsessed with seeing it for nigh on a decade, ever since I saw a photo of it in National Geographic). And I’m looking forward to the extra-challenging eight months of classes back at cookin’ school that await me.



I have no regrets about coming out here for my 18-week externship, which itself has exceeded my expectations and been a great, if challenging, experience. But I also have no regrets about leaving Las Vegas. If I never set foot in this city again, that will be fine. I didn’t hate it, but I know it’s somewhere I could never live for more than, well, 18 weeks.



As I get ready to hit the road eastward, may I present:



Things I’ll Miss About Vegas



The Weather. While I didn’t like Vegas weather in general (see below), I will admit, after 12 consecutive winters in Moscow, upstate New York or Wisconsin, it was kinda nice not to have to touch the snow shovel, navigate icy sidewalks or watch cars slide haplessly across three snowy lanes of traffic towards me.



The Great Kafka Spirit. That’s what I called the mysterious black cat that would sit in the tree outside my kitchen window and stare at me (see photo). I named it the GKS after my friend J’s dearly departed, slightly psycho cat Kafka, and generally I didn’t mind its interest in me. Except for the early, early mornings when I’d be brewing coffee in pre-dawn darkness to get myself ready for work and GKS would scare the bejesus out of me by suddenly appearing as two yellow eyes in the window, right beside my espresso maker, with a haunting meeooowwww.



Sunflower Market. I plan on making monthly trips to the Trader Joe’s in Connecticut once I get back to school, so I won’t miss the TJ’s here... but I will miss the homey natural foods supermarket that is Sunflower, especially its great produce deals. It reminded me of the organic grocery store where I worked (and shopped) while living in Wisconsin. Plus, my apologies to people who work there, but after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma and learning the ugly truth of Whole Foods’ embrace of industrial organic agriculture (what an oxymoron!), I can’t shop at Whole Foods anymore. And where else am I going to get my bulk red quinoa? Thank goodness for Sunflower Market. I’m sure they buy from people who torture their cows and chickens, too, but at least they have more humanely-raised food products without the distasteful Whole Foods mark-up and smug attitude.

Ali Baba. The best Lebanese food I’ve ever had (that’s saying something, too!) and far enough from the Strip that my visits there were tourist-free.

Most of my co-workers. Sure, there was the occasional bad apple, but I met a lot of people I really enjoyed working with at the hotel, from Boy Wonder the amazing young pastry chef to the Filipino master chocolatiers in the bakeshop who managed to create gorgeous showpieces while singing classic rock and doing a nonstop, raunchy comedy routine. And, but of course, I will miss Chef Lumiere.

The Stuff. Pure and simple, I know I will never again have access to so many different ingredients and high-tech equipment and gadgets. Even at school, the chefs have budgets. Here? I’m sure there’s a budget somewhere for the bakeshop, but this is Vegas, baby. You want one piece of a fruit that’s out of season? Sure! We’ll order a case for you from Chile or Macau or Pluto. Use what you need and don’t worry about the rest.

The Surroundings. As much as I disliked the city itself, I loved being able to go 15 or 20 miles out of town and suddenly be in empty, desolately beautiful wilderness. I’ll miss day trips to Red Rock and Lake Mead, and weekend trips to Cathedral Gorge, Zion, Great Basin and all the other wonderful national and state parks within a day’s drive.

The Speed Limit. Speaking as someone who is still deeply bitter about a speeding ticket she received in 1992 for driving 41 miles per hour in a 40 mph zone, I will miss not Vegas driving itself (oh please Lord, never again), but the highway drives, where 70 mph is the legal limit and the cops don’t really notice you unless you’re 20 or 30 miles over it. I also love the straight, flat, empty roads where, aside from the occasional jackrabbit with a deathwish, you don’t need to worry about hitting something if you’re trying to break the sound barrier.

Things I So Won’t Miss About Vegas

The Weather. Yes, I know I’m leaving before it gets "really" hot, but aside from the occasional supercool windstorm, I’ve been less than impressed with the sameness of the Vegas climate – and with locals whining about it being too cold or too hot even though there’s about a three-degree range of difference.

The Dry Desert Air. I will not miss my biweekly nose bleed or the cracks and canyons carved into my desiccated digits, or the haystack that is my hair despite constant application of moisturizers and conditioners.

The Service Industry Attitude. I once worked with a guy named Mark who was boisterous and extroverted among his co-workers but, whenever we had to spend time with people from another department, he became aloof and exceedingly cranky. I asked him about it once and he said "I don’t get paid enough to be friendly." I thought of his comment often here in Vegas where, when people are on the clock and have the chance of hustling a tip off you, they are so happy to see you and so polite and just so thrilled that you have chosen to be in their presence. Off the clock, they’ll let the door slam in your face or cut you off in the employee parking lot. I can understand the strain of being perky for eight or ten hours at a stretch, but common courtesy requires very little effort.

The Driving. Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus. Not since I lived in Moscow have I witnessed such an inattentive, poorly-trained, clueless and angry driving populace. At least in Moscow, where an estimated 70% of the adult population is alcoholic (when I lived there, anyway), they have the excuse of being drunk behind the wheel. In Vegas, while I’m sure a chunk of the population is on meth or the chronic or coke or Diet Coke or whatever, I don’t think the numbers are that high (no pun intended). There’s no excuse for the reckless and often downright zany driving habits of this city. When I’ve mentioned this to co-workers, a few have said "oh, it’s so much better here than where I’m from," prompting me to ask where they’re from.

The answer is invariably L.A.

I rest my case.

California Transplant Drivers. Yes, I’m singling out those Golden State drivers because I believe they, more than meth or cell phones, are the root of driving evil in Vegas. I always notice license plates, and from my earliest days here, I saw Cali plates nine times out of ten on the cars of the people turning right from the left lane across four other lanes, the people backing up in the middle lane of the freeway and then cutting across traffic to get to the exit ramp, the people merrily speeding the wrong way on a one-way road, usually with a cell phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, the people applying make-up while driving 20 miles over the speed limit, hogging two lanes of traffic and, just yesterday, the guy who slammed on his horn when I slowed down in a 10 mph zone to let pedestrians in the pedestrian crosswalk in front of me go by. After honking, he swerved around me and cut me off, nearly mowing down three of the pedestrians in the process, then continued down the street at a 50 mph clip... all of about 200 feet, so he could come to a screeching halt at a red light. It wasn’t the red of the light that stopped him (Californians seem to view red as an attractive accent color for home decor and nothing more). It was the bus and truck stopped in the lanes ahead, blocking his way, the inconsiderate bastards!

Speed Bumps. Or, as I like to call them, The Devil’s Road Warts. Las Vegas planners and parking lot designers seem to think that the more speed bumps they stick everywhere, the better the drivers will be. I believe the opposite is true. I think even decent drivers (such as, oh, say, myself) become so enraged by the bumps that we turn from defensive drivers into offensive drivers hell-bent on getting home and away from the goddamn bumps and Californian drivers as fast as possible. I wouldn’t mind them so much if they were all carefully made and maintained bumps, but too many I’ve encountered have been more like speed curbs. And does one lane in a parking lot really need six speed bumps when everyone is cutting across the open spaces to avoid them anyway?

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