Cupcake visits Aspen with Janine Part One

Saturday morning was a little slow moving due to the soup consumption on Friday night at Soupskol. I had to skip skiing again in order to clean the house before my friend Nicole arrived with her buddy Janine. I know that's a lame excuse but it's the truth.

Picked up the girls on time at the airport and we did a mini-tour around Aspen and got them situated- naps and showers and then headed out to watch the Winterskol torchlight descent and fireworks. We missed the torchlight part but saw some amazing fireworks at the plaza in front of the gondola. (I think I've seen more fireworks in the past three months in Aspen than in the past ten years anywhere else.) Then we got a chance to check out the snow sculptures in town.

Afterwards we wandered around looking for a place to eat and settled on Blue Maize. The best thing I can say about Blue Maize is that the fajitas were not bad. When we first walked in, we were greeted with strange stares and vacant looks and still can't figure out what the problem was. Then we couldn't get any of the staff to greet us so we just sat ourselves after a few minutes. Then I went in search of someone that could help us, and found a waiter who acknowledged that we had come in but looked at me blankly when I asked for someone's help. After another five minutes, we got another waiter, only because I got up again and grabbed the next guy I saw. He looked at me like I had three heads when I asked for menus, but eventually complied and threw some menus at us.

I would say that another fifteen minutes went by before we could order, and we asked for three margaritas. We had to ask him to fix our margaritas several times because they were so bad- it was like drinking water and tequila-and each time he kept adding more tequila but it only made it taste worse. We eventually gave up and stuck with water. My shrimp fajitas were fine and Janine's tofu looked really great. Nicole had chicken fajitas and she said they were good....but it really was a very unusual dining experience. It's entirely possible that everyone but us had a powder hangover, to give them the benefit of the doubt.

After BM we tried to get into Belly Up but the show was sold out so we headed over to Campo for a glass of wine. It was there that we met the guys who gave Nicole her new nickname, Cupcake. Janine and I agreed that it's perfect for her.