Category: Daily Life

On Sunday I woke up at about 5:00 a.m., long before my husband could be expected to get up.  I packed my suitcase and the garment bag and took the elevator down to get my morning Starbucks fix. 

Ranging about the casino floor were numerous groups and individuals who were still up from the night before.  As you might expect, most of these people were quite drunk and provided me a great deal of entertainment as I sipped my caffeine and ate my cherry danish.

Our friends K. and M. arrived at 9:00 a.m. to take us to the airport.  They had a flight home on Southwest;  we were headed back on America West because I’d gone the "bargain" route with Expedia.com.

We had a good hour before our flight took off and that seemed like plenty of time judging from our airport experience on the way in.  We walked through the terminal doors and were greeted with a scene that gave the impression that everyone in Las Vegas had been ordered to evacuate immediately.  The lines snaked around in all directions and I wasted valuable time trying to check in at an electronic kiosk, only to discover that I had no choice but to stand in a different, long line to check in personally.

It took a while to get boarding passes that would allow us to sit together, so by the time we checked our bags and reached the line for the security checkpoint, our schedule was getting tight.  We made it through (no underwire this time – she CAN be taught!), boarded the plane and walked to the back to find our seats in the 23rd row.  Unfortunately for us, the plane in question didn’t actually have a 23rd row.  We and four other frustrated 23rd row passengers were herded back off the plane and it wasn’t long before we watched it take off without us, carrying our luggage to various destinations that none of us would see anytime soon.

It was still early in the morning, so the whole thing seemed like an unexpected adventure.  We each received a $100 flight voucher and the airline staff worked feverishly to find us another flight.  After a pretty good wait, our gung-ho airline rep told us to RUN! to another gate with her.  She’d gotten us a connecting flight to Dallas (instead of Phoenix, our original connection destination).  We ran as fast as we could on our pain-wracked feet and ended up sitting in separate rows among the many Texans who’d spent the weekend in Las Vegas at a big rodeo.  The flight was supposed to take off immediately.  Instead, it sat on the tarmac for an HOUR before it finally took off.  I was reading and dozing the whole time, but my husband was fuming.  He hates to fly and he’s tall, so his discomfort level was off the scale.

When we finally arrived in Dallas, we had less than 20 minutes to get to our connecting flight home.  It was in a different terminal.  An airline employee told us that we could get to the next terminal if we walked "just around the corner and up the escalator" to a tram.  "Just around the corner" turned out to be about a quarter of a mile.  We finally boarded a noisy, bumpy, rickety tram which inched along the track…until it stopped altogether.  By then, we had one minute left until our flight took off.  We imagined we could see it taking off as we waited.  I called my dad and told him not to swing by our house at 7:00 p.m. because we wouldn’t be there.

The tram finally started up again and we reached the gate that would have been ours if our plane hadn’t been long gone.  My husband was a roiling cloud of low blood sugar and elevated testosterone levels, so I asked him to stand aside while I went to the counter and used the "We need your help" approach (which worked wonderfully).  The woman at the counter got us on a flight leaving less than an hour later, which gave us time to eat some frozen yogurt and drink some water.  At the airport magazine shop I had my only celebrity sighting of the entire trip:  Anderson Cooper from CNN.

Our boarding passes for the final flight were for seats in separate rows again, so I approached the desk at the gate and asked if there was any chance we might be able to get seats together.  Not only did they manage to seat us together, but we ended up in bulkhead seats right behind First Class.  That meant my husband could stretch out his legs in the aisle and I could put my feet up on the wall.  Hubby was very impressed with my powers of persuasion.  I credit my sister with teaching me her motto:  "If you want something, you might as well ask."

The flight was brief, relatively comfortable and uneventful.  When we reached the terminal, we had to search for a while before we found our luggage, but we managed to retrieve it and we finally got home around 9:00 p.m.  K. and M. had beat us home by probably 7 hours.

All in all we had a great trip, but I think it will be a while before I manage to get my husband on another plane.  I’ll have to start thinking of our next destination…somewhere within driving distance.

The limousine from the wedding chapel was supposed to pick us up at 4:30 p.m., so we didn’t have a lot of time to get ready.  Fortunately I was having a good hair day, so all I had to do was put on my dress and shoes and apply a little extra makeup.  My husband had bought a new shirt to wear with his suit, but he hadn’t tried it on in the store and of course it didn’t fit.  We wrangled a bit about the desirability of his standard of dress complementing mine and he eventually chose another shirt to wear with the suit.

Our friends, K. and her husband M., called to say they were running late, but we weren’t sure what would happen if they didn’t make it to the hotel by limo time, so I urged them to try to stay on schedule.  We ended up down in the lobby early and it didn’t take long for me to realize that the high-heeled sandals I had on, while very pretty, were going to be foot-killers.

I eventually had to call the wedding chapel because the limo never arrived.  Someone there had apparently mislaid our cell phone numbers, so our ride arrived closer to 5:00.  We enjoyed a lovely nighttime tour of Las Vegas on our way to the oddly-named but phone book optimized A Elvis Wedding Chapel, which I’d found online and chosen despite their website.  (Actually, even the fancier chapels had cheesy websites – I think it’s an occupational hazard.)

I’d deliberately chosen the short ceremony:  two songs from Elvis and the renewal of vows ceremony.  Sure, the whole Elvis thing is kitschy and fun but enough is enough.

We decided to have Elvis walk me down the aisle, which he did while singing a variation of "Love Me Tender."  He then conducted a fairly straightforward vow renewal ceremony, followed by an second set of vows drawn from Elvis song lyrics ("I promise to never treat you like a Hound Dog," etc.).  At one point during the ceremony, I caught my heel in the hem of my dress and it quickly became evident that discreet wiggling was not going to get it loose.  Preserved forever on the videotape of the ceremony is the sight of me awkwardly hopping on one high-heeled foot as I free my heel right in the middle of the ceremony.  Heh.

After all the vows, Elvis sang "Viva Las Vegas" and pulled us and our guests into a kick line.  I’m uncoordinated and klutzy at best and there was no way I was going to be able to spontaneously start a Rockette-style dance routine in a floor-length gown.  Even if the lyrics were, "Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot," I’d probably still be opposite of everyone else.  Thus, I kind of just shifted awkwardly from side to side during the whole song.  I’m sure I look really stupid on the video (which I haven’t watched yet.) 

Anyway, here’s what you would have seen had you been among our guests during the main ceremony:

(You didn’t think I’d sacrifice my anonymity that freely, did you?)

After the limo took us back to our hotel, K. and M. retrieved their rental car and we all went to the Sahara to kill time before our dinner reservation at the Top of the World Restaurant in the Stratosphere.  At the Sahara, I put $1.00 in a "Wayne’s World" themed slot machine and won $10.00, which I immediately cashed out.  It was my biggest win of the trip. 

We decided to have a drink in the lounge and were treated to a performance by Lena Prima, daughter of the late Louis Prima.  She and her band were quite good, but her entire act consisted of songs her parents had recorded (her mother sang in her father’s band), reminiscences about her parents, home movies, photos, TV show clips, etc.  Her entire professional life is the equivalent of a visit to elderly friends of the family that never, ever ends.  I couldn’t help wondering whether, deep down, she enjoys or resents her act.

We had a lovely dinner at Top of the World and the view was indescribably spectacular.  The entire dining area of the restaurant rotates about one revolution per hour, so we got to see all of the lights of Las Vegas as our meal progressed.  It was a delightful end to a full and satisfying day.

Tomorrow:  Can we please just go home now?

On Saturday morning, I woke up well before my husband and decided to go out and see what I could see.  After a Caffe Americano and a pastry from Starbucks, I walked around the casino donating my spare change to various slot machines.  One thing about Las Vegas that I’d forgotten was how many people smoke in the casinos.  Sure they have heavy-duty air cleaners, but every casino still reeks.  A new thing about casinos since my last visit is that the slot machines are much quieter than they used to be.  Very few machines pay off in cash anymore – they issue little printed tickets that you can trade for cash later on.  It’s rather anticlimactic.

Anyway, I walked around the MGM casino until I saw a sign that said "Lion Habitat."  It turns out that the MGM Grand keeps several lionesses and cubs on display in a big, zoolike habitat.  They weren’t out yet, but the journey led me to an outside door and I discovered that all of the big hotels at that end of the strip are joined by walkways and trams.

I first walked to New York New York, right across the street.  They have a roller coaster that travels around the outside of the hotel and through the casino, but it wasn’t operating yet or I’d have taken a ride.  I walked through various shops and the casino for a while before I decided to go back and wake my husband up.

After another breakfast with him, we went and watched the lions for a while, then walked back across to New York New York.  My husband was determined to fill up his camera’s memory card with photos, so our progress was a little poky.  It didn’t take long for my cripping foot pain to return, so I bought a pair of shoes from one of the shops – a size larger than I would ordinarily wear.  We eventually explored NYNY pretty thoroughly, then took a tram from Excalibur to Mandalay Bay.  Our initial thought was that we wanted to see the aquarium and shark reef at Mandalay Bay, but once we finally made it there, we decided that $15 per person for a potentially time-consuming activity wasn’t in the cards (ha – a little Vegas joke!). 

It turned out that the convenient trams and walkways were only designed to get you INTO the hotels.  Getting OUT of them was another story altogether.  It took more than an hour from the time we decided to leave until we finally made it back to our hotel.  We had a few minutes to rest and then it was time to start getting ready for our big renewal of vows ceremony.

Tomorrow:  Mr. and Mrs. Average Jane meet The King (complete with photo!)

There’s something about Las Vegas that always makes me retain water to a frightening degree.  Once I arrive, my feet are swollen and my fingers look like Oscar Meyer hot dogs within the hour.

This weekend I’d brought only two pairs of shoes (not counting the un-pair of boots).  I thought I’d be okay walking around in my favorite pair of dress loafers.  They have a slight heel, but they’re well broken in and ordinarily quite comfortable.  I had failed to take into account the swelling issue and also the fact that I’d had an extremely thorough pedicure earlier in the week and was thus deprived of the protective callous layer I would ordinarily enjoy.

As soon as we reached the hotel, we checked in, had a quick lunch and set out to entertain ourselves for the afternoon.  My friend K. and I wanted to find cute clutch purses to match our eveningwear and my husband is always up for a shopping trip, so we went to the Fashion Show Mall (I’d link to its site but it blares music and I hate that) to see what we could find. 

The mall is quite large and marble-paved.  As we went from shop to shop I became aware that the balls of my feet were causing me a great deal of pain.  It crossed my mind that I might want to buy some other shoes, but that seemed like too much of a diversion from the plan.  By the time we called a halt to the (fruitless) purse search, I was hobbling and would not have been surprised to leave bloody footprints when I took off my shoes.

We parted ways with K. so she could pick up her husband from the airport, and made our way to the Rio to eat at their gigantic buffet and see Penn & Teller.  The buffet was obscenely enormous and my feet still hurt enough that I kept my food selections to a minimum so I could spend more time sitting. 

Penn & Teller were great.  Seating for their show begins an hour in advance and in the interim there’s a jazz pianist – joined for most of his set by Penn Gillette on upright bass.  The pianist periodically extends invitations for the audience to come onstage and examine two large boxes that will be used in the first magic trick of the evening.  My exhaustion and desire to save my feet kept me from going up to investigate the boxes, but I doubt I’d have had any more luck figuring out the trick than the hundred or so people who did go up.

After the show, people piled out of the hotel and the cab line seemed endless.  In a moment of insanity I suggested to my husband that we walk to the next hotel to catch a cab and avoid the line.  It wasn’t long before I learned a valuable lesson about nighttime distance perspective in Las Vegas.  It turns out that the hotels are WAY farther apart than you’d think.  My feet were a little better than they’d been earlier, mainly because I had removed my sandpaper-like socks and put them in my purse.  Still, we must have walked at least a mile before we reached the Bellagio and hailed a cab.

Back in the room, my bare feet were Little Mermaid sensitive.  I’m talking Hans Christian Andersen "at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp
knives" Little Mermaid – not happy, Disney Little Mermaid.  I rubbed them thoroughly with lemon and beeswax cuticle cream and went to bed, but not before I warily eyed the dainty, high-heeled dress sandals I’d bought to wear the next evening.

Tomorrow:  Exploring Las Vegas in one short afternoon.

As you may remember from my canoe trip late last summer (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 – and if you’re curious but pressed for time, Part 2 is the funniest installment), I like to milk a weekend trip for a whole week of blog entries whenever I get the chance.  Thus, I’m going to break up my account of this weekend’s Las Vegas trip and stretch it out from now until Friday.

We’ll start with last Friday’s events.  My husband and I got up early to finish packing, feed and medicate the animals, grab breakfast at McDonald’s and head to the airport for our 9 o’clock flight.  I really wish I’d packed my suitcase the night before because I ended up with two mismatched black, left-foot boots when I unpacked.

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare.  It wasn’t particularly busy, which might be why they decided to flag my boarding pass for "special treatment."  Then – hey, what a coincidence! – they did the same to my husband’s boarding papers. 

"Special treatment" means they rifle through all of your checked baggage, squeezing the pillows, poking through the cosmetic bags, etc., etc.  If you think they re-fold your clothes when they’re finished, think again.  Oh, but the fun doesn’t stop there!  When you get to the gate, they do the same to all of your carry-on baggage.  Yes, all of your personal items are removed and displayed to the traveling public one by one.

Then it’s time for the wand.  First you sit in a chair while a security person runs a metal detecting wand over your stockinged feet.  Then you stand in scarecrow pose while the wand is passed over your entire body.  I foolishly wore a bra with an underwire, which is a one-way ticket to being felt up by the security guard in front of everyone.  In fact, she offered the option of a "private screening" behind a curtained area, but that seemed even creepier somehow so I declined.

We didn’t get the Bonnie and Clyde treatment at our layover destination.  I presume we must have been deemed harmless by then.  We got into Las Vegas around noon, met up with my friend K., and proceeded to the MGM Grand to begin our weekend of cheesy Vegas fun.

Tomorrow:  Why, oh why didn’t I bring more comfortable shoes?!?

Yesterday I had a day of meetings and then traveled all evening to return home to chilly weather and a house that’s no doubt inferior to the lowliest maintenance shed on the Ritz-Carlton property.

I always find it interesting to get a glimpse of the life that wealthier people enjoy.  The hotel was everything you might expect:  beautiful decor, outstanding customer service and superb cuisine (I was especially impressed by the sorts of desserts I’ve only ever seen on television, garnished with gold leaf and thin squares of highly-patterned gourmet chocolate).  In the lobby there was a gingerbread house covered with huge lollipops, thick candy canes and every bright-colored accent candy you can think of.  It was large enough for Santa Claus to sit inside, and the smell of gingerbread permeated the lobby and mezzanine of the hotel.

The service level was particularly noticeable.  As we moved from meeting to meeting, there were always hotel employees stationed at key areas to give directions to the next room.  Every night someone filled the ice bucket, turned down the bed and left two chocolates and an orchid blossom on the pillow.  Unlike most of the hotels I’m used to, there were no signs in the rooms attempting to guilt the guests into saving water and energy by reusing their towels.

On the other hand, when my friend and I strolled the beach sipping pina coladas during our afternoon of free time, we discovered that guests had to pay to sit underneath a beach umbrella.  As we were not dressed for the beach and only planned to stay until we finished our drinks, we chose chairs in the sun and left as soon as our pasty, Midwestern skin began to look pink.

Also on our free afternoon, I enjoyed a spa pedicure  – one of the "bonus activities" available to meeting-goers.  It was lovely, but I couldn’t help but think that it’s a credit to my nail salon at home that their $20 pedicure is not substantially different than the $85 pedicure at the Ritz.

I’m back today for a brief dose of my regular life before heading to Las Vegas tomorrow for our anniversary celebration.  Today’s our 10th and I know my husband reads this, so:  Happy Anniversary, Honey!

Hello all!  I’m writing this from a room at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Florida that overlooks two swimming pools, a vista of palm trees, and the ocean.  I’m here for a business meeting, of course.  My personal travel usually involves a room at Motel 6 with a view of the parking lot.

I spent most of yesterday traveling here and I didn’t get to bed at all the night before last, so I’m still playing catch-up on sleep.  There’s something about 230 thread count sheets that makes up for a lot of that, though. 

My blood sugar is plummeting because I slept through breakfast and then missed out on lunch thanks to a meeting that ran late.  Thus, I’m going to cut this short and seek out something to eat.

Yes, only I could whine about sleep and food when I should be out enjoying the tropical paradise.  That’s it – I’m off to take advantage of the beautiful weather, gourmet food and breathtakingly gorgeous surroundings. 

My four-year-old niece stayed overnight on Friday and amused us all evening with her firm opinions about everything she encountered.  Most of her observations are delivered at top volume these days;  her parents are going to have to really work on the concept of "indoor voice" before her baby brother arrives next spring.

On Saturday, my sister came over and we headed to the local giganto-mall so I could buy a fancy dress for my trip to Las Vegas next week.  In my mind’s eye, the ideal dress was flashy, tacky, cocktail length and preferably red.  Also in my mind’s eye, I hadn’t gained an extra 10 pounds over the past few months.  What are you gonna do?

My niece insisted on barging into the dressing room while I tried on dresses.  The first couple of dresses I tried were drapy, gauzy numbers that fit me like sausage casings.  My sister tried to convince me that they would look better with different undergarments.  My response, "But I’ll still be fat – the trip’s next week!"

I had much better luck at the next store.  Of the four dresses I tried, all were pretty good and two were particularly flattering.  When I tried on my favorite, I called out to my sister in the hallway, "I think this one looks really nice."

My niece piped up, "But you’re still fat!"

I burst out laughing at hearing my own words thrown back at me and my niece tried to backpedal and say she was "just joking" as I repeated the whole exchange to my sister.  I realized I need to do a much better job of watching what I say if I want to send positive messages about body image to my little relation.

The dress I bought is black, evening length and covered with so many beads and sparklies that it’s actually heavy.  It’s way classier than what I’d originally envisioned, but it minimized all of my figure flaws, so it was the winner.  I figure I’ll let Elvis handle the kitsch at our renewal of vows ceremony and I’ll take the more elegant route so I’ll look good in the pictures. 

First, though, I have a three-day business trip to the opposite end of the country and one work day at home in between.  What a week!

I spent the morning digging through an enormous cardboard box that contains all of the mail our household has received over the past several weeks.  I fished out all of the bills and paid them – except for a phone bill from a company we haven’t used since mid-October.  It took three phone calls to get them to acknowledge that our relationship is over, but I think I managed to drive home the message at last.

I have a huge, time-consuming and thoroughly horrendous report draft to complete today at work, so I’m going to need to leave the house early for a bracing dose of Starbucks to help me face the day.

I have a 5:50 a.m. flight out of town on Monday, but I’ll try to write next week’s posts over the weekend and seed them to appear each morning while I’m gone.  Have a lovely weekend!

It’s hard to believe that December begins tomorrow.  November went by so quickly that I barely had time to acknowledge it (much to my creditors’ disapproval, you can be sure).

This December promises to be so busy that I’m not sure when I’ll prepare for that rather significant holiday lurking several weeks in.  For starters, I’m headed to a three-day meeting in Florida next Monday.  I’ll get home late Wednesday evening, work on Thursday (if I’m up for it) and leave town again on Friday to celebrate my 10th wedding anniversary in Las Vegas before coming back home on Sunday.

After that, the month is an endless parade of holiday parties (I’m missing my office party – and lots of other parties, too – while I’m in Vegas), perhaps a bit of shopping, and maybe even some work.  Even work will be somewhat interrupted when our company takes a day off to volunteer on a Habitat for Humanity house.

I’m certainly not complaining about my full schedule.  It just tells me I have lots of great friends and relatives who’d like to see me.  If I have to forego some decorating or cookie baking to make it all work out, it’s a small price to pay.