Now I understand we all have our scandals, but the latest news rocking New Rochelle, NY caught my attention. Catholic Sister Marie Thornton embezzled $850,000 from a suburban New York City college as Vice-president of finance. It was all for her personal use. Sounds like a Scottsdale story for sure!

Okay, maybe my mental picture of a woman with a no-nonsense haircut devoid of make-up in plain clothes and nurses’ shoes lacks imagination, but what could she have spent that amount of money on? Designer lingerie? Jimmie Choos to roam her stark apartment? Wigs? Jewelry?

Nope! Gambling in Atlantic City! Blackjack specifically. And she must not have been very good at it. The 62-year-old sister of a religious order worked all week and used Iona College‘s money to play on the weekend. The tony school charges $28,000 a year for tuition.

When the college caught her after a ten year run they said she left for medical reasons. Most of the money was recovered and no one would have been the wiser except…for the fact that Iona College filed the losses on their income tax. Hello? You have an employee who steals almost a million dollars and you not only don’t press charges but you create a cover-up and then you put in down as a loss on your taxes? Given that gambling is an addiction like alcohol is there any moral outrage?

By the way, a recent picture of her fit my description perfectly except I missed the eyeglasses.

Garbage and Flowers

I make an effort to go through all our mail everyday, sorting Maury’s golf and political magazines, solicitations from charities, who, once you make a small donation because they got you with a limpid-eyed-child, dog or horse, will never stop, announcements from new chiropractors, cleaners and dentists in your neighborhood and invitations to charitable events that cost $10,000 a table, you realize that a lot of paper is being wasted.

There’s not a solution for junk mail. It’s a free country and people can send what they want. But, it freaks me out. I can fill up a large garbage bag with discarded mail, paper from packaging and plastic that won’t be bio-degradable for 1000 years. If I add, the flowers that have bloomed and passed leaving purple petals on my kitchen counters, their pistons and stamens naked in smelly water, I could probably win a garbage contest. There’s only two of us and an old dog. Wouldn’t it be great if we could opt out of the mail? And then email? And then faxes? I think I’m stressed again!

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My friends, Glee and April, decided to have a holiday party together. Glee, of course, celebrates everything and April is a cafeteria Catholic with a Jewish spouse so she’s not sure what’s up. It doesn’t matter. Whatever holiday you have in mind, she can shop for it. And every occasion requires some form of jewelry. Just like every party has a gimmick.

The event was a Potini Party. “What’s that,” you ask? It’s where you serve mashed potatoes in a martini glass and then have all kinds of toppings for them like sour cream, butter, chives, bacon bits and shredded cheeses.

Maury: Why the hell am I eating potatoes in a martini glass?”

Me: Sssh! Someone will hear you.

Maury: Is this some kind of nonsense trend that’s supposed to fill me up? Every time I dig my fork in some of the sour cream dribbles down the outside.

Me: Maury! The girls worked very hard on this.

Maury: Is the rest of the dinner in martini glasses too? Because if it is–”

Me: As a matter of fact, there’s a main-tini with cous cous and toppings, a seafood ‘tini with shrimp and a desser-tini with chopped chocolate bars.

Maury: Who makes this stuff up? What happened to a nice piece of meat on a plate with a fork and knife?

Me: Stop being a curmudgeon and eat your dinner.

Nostalgia Drinking

As if Baby Boomers didn’t miss their youth enough, two high school friends who reunited on Facebook, have started a company that serves up Adult Chocolate Milk. That’s a mixture of your favorite childhood drink with 40 proof vodka in a fancy bottle that sells for $18-23.

Why do we need this you ask? Because we’re stressed!

Where can you buy it? At every hip club in Scottsdale and Bev-Mo.

How has this become a trend so fast? Because every mother started doing it when the kids wouldn’t go to bed.

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Because it’s 112 degrees today. And you can’t sleep without it. And your clothes stick to your body.

Now I understand it’s hot in other places around the country. I have friends in the Deep South who swear it’s raining inside their house, a few desperate souls from Iowa who claim they’ve lost the ability to lift their arms because the air is too heavy and another group of New Yorkers who are baking like pizzas in their oven apartments. But I’ll match an Arizona heat wave against any of theirs. We have triple digits (with two of the numbers being eleven) and the monsoon season has started. That means high humidity with the threat of rain which doesn’t actually happen. We get dust storms.

Dirt flies everywhere, trees fall down, coyotes howl and Maury complains the storm has ruined a perfectly good golf day. I, on the other hand, recognize in the sweat puddle at my feet that our air conditioning is ineffectual. So, under duress, Maury calls Jiffy, “We Fix Your AC as Well as Your Car Mechanic Would” to give us an estimate. Fric and Frac, two good looking kids with short blond crew-cuts wearing Jiffy polo shirts that don’t cover all the tattoos on their arms, show up and give us an estimate.

Only ten thousand dollars to replace both units today. A bargain. Oh, you could wait or fix them piecemeal but in reality when they find your body in the morning, you’ll just be a fading puddle in the middle of the bed. Want to try to get other estimates or negotiate? Probably not because unless you’re prepared to climb on the roof utilizing a crane and multiple ladders, it’s hopeless. They’ve got you.

So just know that if it’s warm at your place we have two new air conditioners with ten year warranties (I should live so long as my mother would say) in case you want to stop by and have a cold beer.

Some Things Never Change

Maury is my hero. I adore him. He is the most interesting, hoarder of obscure facts of any man I know.

But that doesn’t mitigate the fact the man still has ADD. We have returned from vacation to look for car keys (doesn’t everyone leave them in the garage for the car thieves), credit cards (somewhere in his brain he though it logical to leave the pertinent ones at home underneath his sweat socks in the back of a drawer), and pass codes to all our accounts (which are not really necessary unless you want to withdraw money for food and air conditioning).

Yesterday, to make sure that I was completely aware that we were indeed home in sunny Arizona and not on the island of my dreams, he went out to bring in the newspaper ( so I could get excited about the wonderful cast of characters on our state) and left the front door wide open. Then he left for the office while I was upstairs unaware that our front door was inviting in the outside world and leaking out what little AC might be oozing out our vents.

Don’t worry. It was only open for two hours. Just long enough for me to disappear into a puddle.

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Besides being the plastic surgery/frozen face capitol of the world (okay, maybe Brazil has us beat), we are now the frozen head controversial Nut Place of the United States. We all remember the controversy around baseball legend, Ted Williams, who signed up to have his head cryogenically frozen. His body had to be dug up because his wishes were not followed. So imagine my sarcastic surprise when I learned frozen heads were back in the news again!

Believe it or not, there’s a guy named Orville Richardson who requested the same thing of Alcor, only one of ten places in the U.S. that freezes people. In Scottsdale Airpark. Which might happen anyway if you wandered in on a 115+ degree day from one of the wholesale furniture places when you saw the prices of uncomfortable leather sofas in buttermilk and puce. It seems Orville‘s brother, David, says he was buried before his wishes could be carried out, even though other family members say he changed his mind.

Consequently, Orville is being exhumed . . . so Alcor can cut off his head and save it.

Never mind it’s supposed to be done two minutes after your heart stops or within the first fifteen. What if you “buy it” at Fashion Square in Barney’s when you see the tag on the dress you tried on? The ambulance would have to be really fast to get you to north Scottsdale! And saving your head’s a bargain!

Only $80,000. Or $150,000 if you think your body is so fab that you want to freeze that too.

Now I am not in favor of this no matter what science says about advancements. If Maury stays and I go, the last thing he’ll want me to do is remind him to close the refrigerator door or stop making buttered popcorn and leaving the remnants all over the family room. Which is probably all I’d have to say from the other side.

And, if my mother learns this important news she might decide this is a good way to control the family from afar.

“Jean, all of me may not be there but I can still see although my hearing is not great and even without my glasses I can tell you’re grooming is less than satisfactory. It’s inappropriate to wear hiking shorts and sandals to the store no matter what the temperature. And, please call a hairdresser. My roots are showing.”

But I don’t have to worry: the doctor said her heart and lungs are so healthy she’ll live another twenty years.

So if you’re looking for some place to dump your money, join the other 84 heads that are already stored or the 865 who are waiting for the inevitable event. And get a haircut. Nails and hair keep growing after you expire. No, I am not making any of this up. Only in Scottsdale!

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I’m not talking about thong underwear! Maury, my laconic golf-obsessed, History Channel watching husband floats through his days without ever raising his voice or getting upset. Except if he’s talking about companies sullying our environment, which he’s passionate about, politicians he doesn’t agree with, and personal injury attorneys. Today he stormed into my office where I am attempting to blog discreetly because he has no idea I’m sharing our personal life online. I have found sharing with all of you and reading your comments makes my stress level go down to a six on a scale of 10. I usually hover around 8. He waved a newspaper at me and ranted about new Scottsdale residents who are stressing our environment. “Did you know the U.S. is the #1 trash producing country in the world? Each person makes 1600 pounds per year! And these people are adding to the carbon footprint!” I took the paper from him to see what got my lethargic spouse so provoked. Raised voices give me a headache and can push me toward a 9 on the Stress-O-Meter.

“Top Home Sales in Scottsdale”

In a column with a picture of a mansion decorated with faux stone on the front and Greek columns (they fit into our desert landscaping so well) was a list of recent purchases. One couple purchased a 3.5 million dollar home with more than 6,000-square-feet in the Desert Highlands Golf Club for cash. Who has that kind of money lying around? A trial attorney! Maury says there’s a special place in hell for attorneys. Now I won’t give you his name because he could come after me and then Maury would really be pissed because we’d have to use our life savings to hire another attorney to defend me. What do two people do in all those square feet? Does thong underwear help?

And There’s More!

The next couple purchased a 7,600-square-foot home in Paradise Valley Country Club, Scottsdale‘s neighboring city for almost three million in cold hard cash. That one has Venetian finishes, handcrafted cabinets and a lazy-river pool and spa and gazebo with swim-up bar. Guess what he does? Personal injury attorney! And I’d love to know what a lazy-river pool is!
Now Maury’s not a socialist but he sees things from an environmental point of view.”Do they really need 61/2 bathrooms?” he asks me. “If you have to go in that many places then you have a medical problem. See a doctor.” And don’t say you’re an attorney.

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