What happens at the Vegas library...

...stays, it would seem, at the Vegas library.

Never mind that it would appear to involve missiles and women from the 1950s. That's some reading room!

It was very warm in the Vegas airport, where this ad resides--but probably not warm enough for these outfits.

I had a two hour layover on my treacherous journey (I did not ford the river; my oxen did not die) west and I did, it would seem, survive. While transfering terminals, going through three times the security as is in the JFK airport ("I would like to request the alternate screening," I said, so surprised by the presence of a body scanning machine I couldn't seem to sound like a human--and so tired from the journey I was not about to play along), I noted several odd things about Vegas:

1) There are videos all over the terminal of middle-aged women--presumably mothers--exclaiming excitedly about how "the women here are just so glamorous!"

2) It's very nearly impossible to find a beverage both diet and caffeine free, but if you ask someone in the Hudson News for help, he will take the time to list every store in the airport that may have one. (We're certainly not in New York anymore!) I eventually found a peach Snapple. Yum.

3) For a city so obsessed with sin, it sure seems to have a strong 1950s theme. One can't help but picture an otherwise well-behaved housewife spending her days drinking and gambling--but still coming home in time to make a perfect pot roast for dinner.

4) Guns! This ad very nearly made me stop in my tracks and ask the nearest person if it was really legal:


In other, probably less violent news, the house smells like pine tree and cookies and, as always, this is the winning recipe. There's been a failed attempt at salted, chocolate caramels (the candy thermometer was, we later found, off by ten degrees--and it has, I noted with some satisfaction, met an untimely death by filling with water in the sink), and later, there will be espresso profiteroles. This is mostly because we found a small coffee shop in a historic windmill--and, on the tables, there were adorable cookbooks. After reading about choux pastry--I'm charmed by the word, and the way that it puffs--well, that seemed a necessary addition.

Mine will probably look nothing like this.

Hope this finds you well, warm, and far away from semi-automatic weaponry.

Happy holidays.