The trip to Denver
I left for Denver on Sunday. The purpose of my trip was threefold: to visit my friends Carrie and Ryan, who just got engaged; to snowboard; and to gain enough miles on United to ensure that I will maintain my Premier member status in 2005. I realize that this last one is a hopelessly retarded reason to take a trip, but I am a Fearful (yet extremely Frequent) Flyer, and am profoundly neurotic about obtaining a spacious Economy Plus aisle seat near the front of the plane. Without my precious Premier status, there is no guarantee that I will not wedged in a middle seat in the back next to a morbidly obese person who oozes over the armrest. I figure anything I can do to achieve a sense of calm while trapped in a claustrophobic and germ-ridden metal tube hurtling through the air with 500 other individuals who will certainly try to trample me in their attempts to escape the burning fuselage after we have been forced to make an crash landing in the mountains or the Salt Flats after one of the engines blows up or splinters apart …what was I talking about?
Oh yes, the benefits of Premier status provide me with a sense of control over my airplane experience, which calms me. And yes, I see the irony – I must fly more in order to become a Premier person. But somehow, in my warped mind, it is worth it.
To a fearful flyer, any prospective flight represents certain death. And after the flight concludes safely, the fearful flyer heaves a sigh of relief, profoundly grateful that she has narrowly cheated death once again. And so, miraculously, the plane arrived in Denver without incident.
Carrie and I headed off to Boulder for the day, where we took a short uphill hike which left me gasping (probably thanks to a combination of high elevation and too many slices of chocolate cake at work), and then drank fancy tea at the gorgeous Boulder Dushanbe Tea House. The cafe is comprised entirely of beautiful hand-carvings done by the talented people of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, which is Boulder’s sister city. Carrie and I speculated as to what exactly Boulder sent to them in return. Whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly be as good. The tea-house’s décor reminded me of the elaborately tiled walls and ceilings I loved on my trip to Morocco seven years ago, and made me think once again about the atrocities of utilitarian American architecture and interior design – how we wind up living and working in these absolutely dull, banal spaces that are seemingly intended to offend the least number of people possible by being entirely bland and sterile. How sad for us.
Later we headed over to Trilogy Wine Bar, where Carrie came face to face with her dream deal: The Bottomless Glass of Wine. This is available for $5 from 5-7 p.m. and comes in red and white. I don’t need to get any more specific than that, because anybody that finds The Bottomless Glass of Wine attractive certainly can’t afford to get too picky. I’m a lightweight, so I stuck with one glass of Whitehall Lane Sauvignon Blanc, which was mighty tasty, while Carrie soldiered on through three Bottomless Glasses. We also ate dinner there, but it was unmemorable.
Carrie struggling to reach the bottom of the Bottomless Glass of Wine.
On Monday, Ryan and I went snowboarding at Arapahoe Basin. He pushed me to try harder runs featuring moguls, which resulted in me falling face-first down the mountain and getting snow in my underpants. I think I forgive him.
That night we went to Cielo in Denver for some nouveau Mexican/Southwestern. Didn’t I just mention in a previous post how I am always underwhelmed by Southwestern? The place was almost entirely empty, but did have very cool video screens scattered around that were playing a loop of clouds forming and breaking apart in blue sky. Rather Lost in Translation of them. I can’t remember what Carrie and Ryan ordered, because by that point I was in a near-coma from snowboarding fatigue, but I had a pomegranate margarita that tasted like Hawaiian Punch for $7.50, and some sticky-sweet chipotle-glazed pork ribs for $16.95. Eh.
On the plane ride home the next day, I opened up my new issue of Dwell Magazine to see a full-page ad starring none other than Mark Miller, pictured hard at work in his top-of-the-line GE Monogram home kitchen. My sister told me earlier that she too had had a long talk with him while he was teaching at Ramekins last week, and that he offered her some advice on turning one’s cooking skills into lots of cold, hard cash through corporate consultancy gigs and so forth. Apparently appearing in ads for GE appliances is also part of his strategy. Happily, the ad encouraged me to ponder this recent brush with semi-celebrity, and diverted my attention from my impending aviation-related death for a pleasant thirty or forty seconds of the flight.
More on exciting new developments at work in the next post. No, I'm not kidding, entirely.
Oh yes, the benefits of Premier status provide me with a sense of control over my airplane experience, which calms me. And yes, I see the irony – I must fly more in order to become a Premier person. But somehow, in my warped mind, it is worth it.
To a fearful flyer, any prospective flight represents certain death. And after the flight concludes safely, the fearful flyer heaves a sigh of relief, profoundly grateful that she has narrowly cheated death once again. And so, miraculously, the plane arrived in Denver without incident.
Carrie and I headed off to Boulder for the day, where we took a short uphill hike which left me gasping (probably thanks to a combination of high elevation and too many slices of chocolate cake at work), and then drank fancy tea at the gorgeous Boulder Dushanbe Tea House. The cafe is comprised entirely of beautiful hand-carvings done by the talented people of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, which is Boulder’s sister city. Carrie and I speculated as to what exactly Boulder sent to them in return. Whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly be as good. The tea-house’s décor reminded me of the elaborately tiled walls and ceilings I loved on my trip to Morocco seven years ago, and made me think once again about the atrocities of utilitarian American architecture and interior design – how we wind up living and working in these absolutely dull, banal spaces that are seemingly intended to offend the least number of people possible by being entirely bland and sterile. How sad for us.
Later we headed over to Trilogy Wine Bar, where Carrie came face to face with her dream deal: The Bottomless Glass of Wine. This is available for $5 from 5-7 p.m. and comes in red and white. I don’t need to get any more specific than that, because anybody that finds The Bottomless Glass of Wine attractive certainly can’t afford to get too picky. I’m a lightweight, so I stuck with one glass of Whitehall Lane Sauvignon Blanc, which was mighty tasty, while Carrie soldiered on through three Bottomless Glasses. We also ate dinner there, but it was unmemorable.
Carrie struggling to reach the bottom of the Bottomless Glass of Wine.
On Monday, Ryan and I went snowboarding at Arapahoe Basin. He pushed me to try harder runs featuring moguls, which resulted in me falling face-first down the mountain and getting snow in my underpants. I think I forgive him.
That night we went to Cielo in Denver for some nouveau Mexican/Southwestern. Didn’t I just mention in a previous post how I am always underwhelmed by Southwestern? The place was almost entirely empty, but did have very cool video screens scattered around that were playing a loop of clouds forming and breaking apart in blue sky. Rather Lost in Translation of them. I can’t remember what Carrie and Ryan ordered, because by that point I was in a near-coma from snowboarding fatigue, but I had a pomegranate margarita that tasted like Hawaiian Punch for $7.50, and some sticky-sweet chipotle-glazed pork ribs for $16.95. Eh.
On the plane ride home the next day, I opened up my new issue of Dwell Magazine to see a full-page ad starring none other than Mark Miller, pictured hard at work in his top-of-the-line GE Monogram home kitchen. My sister told me earlier that she too had had a long talk with him while he was teaching at Ramekins last week, and that he offered her some advice on turning one’s cooking skills into lots of cold, hard cash through corporate consultancy gigs and so forth. Apparently appearing in ads for GE appliances is also part of his strategy. Happily, the ad encouraged me to ponder this recent brush with semi-celebrity, and diverted my attention from my impending aviation-related death for a pleasant thirty or forty seconds of the flight.
More on exciting new developments at work in the next post. No, I'm not kidding, entirely.
posted by cindym at 11:51 PM
1 Comments:
OH. MY. GOD.
I never thought someone else would admit to doing the same thing I did this year (except I flew to Washington DC!!).
I was Premier Exec last year (and my hubby still is), and I'm feeling a bit like a 2nd class citizen this year. Sigh.
So glad I found your blog!
Fatemeh
http://sfmcclures.blogs.com/gastronomie
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