A Piece of Heaven in Reno

This past week I was in Reno, Nevada for work. Have you ever been to Reno? Ughh... the downtown area is a wasteland of casinos, ginormous neon signs, shady looking characters, and hotels built circa 1960 that boast of air conditioning and color TV. Color TV, really? That's the best you got?

Well, my coworker had the foresight to book rooms for us in a Residence Inn far, far away from downtown Reno. In the burbs of Reno. Pretty much the same as any other suburb in America... Best Buy, DSW, a mall with Macy's and Dairy Queen.

Yep, pretty much the usual, with one major exception -- THE BEST WHOLE FOODS EVER! I love my neigborhood Whole Foods, and frequent it a least a couple of times a week. But I swear as I entered the Reno Whole Foods I wanted to pack my house up, move across the country, and rent an apartment right next store to the Whole Foods. Why was it so amazing you ask? Well, let me tell you. 1) it was huge, at least twice the size of my Whole Foods; 2) the prepared foods section had the most delicious looking pizzas sold by the slice; 3) there was a dozen of soups to chose from at the soup bar... yum! And the most amazing, bestest thing in the Reno Whole Foods was a make your own trail mix bar. Huge flakes of cocunut, all kinds of nuts, dried fruit including papaya, chocolate, of course, and my favorite--banana chips. Why, oh why didn't I ditch my clothes and fill my suitcase with trail mix?

Who would have thought? A little piece of Whole Foods Heaven in Reno, Nevada.

DC Snow Days

People laugh at DC because we don't handle the snow well. Two inches of snow is enough to send the masses to the grocery store in search of milk, bread and toilet paper as if we won't be able to dig out for weeks. Schools close, sometimes at the mere mention of acculmating snow. Traffic is horendous cause nobody knows how to drive in it. Natives defend ourselves by saying, it's a different kind of snow--wetter and icier. Whatever!

I say, let them laugh! I LOVE SNOW DAYS. I love the anticipation. I love watching the weather report over and over, hoping each time for record snow fall. I love the way snow looks when it's falling and how it looks on the trees. Even though I rarely actually get the day off anymore (oh to be a school teacher) I still wake up in the moring, look out the window, and turn the radio on to listen for all the closings, praying with all my heart that the federal government has closed for the day. The second best thing to the whole day off is a two hour delay. It means a little more sleep. As long as you roll into work by 11ish, it's all good. You can basically wear whatever you want to work--sneakers, jeans, your warmest, most comfortable sweaters. I mean what if you had to push your car out of the ditch... you need to dress accordingly. And when you finally make it into work, you spend the first half hour or so sharing harrowing stories of everyone's commutes to work.

I love all of it. However, here's a special note for Mother Nature: I love snow days more when they happen in December, or January, or even February. How about we save March for signs of spring?

Doesn't my apartment building look cute in the snow?