viva las flamingos
in less than 2 weeks, i will be on my long anticipated trip to *las vegas* with the flamingos (katie, bridget, and jennifer from home). kt has been getting picked on this summer for not having a job, but she wrote a letter to the Flamingo Hotel that won her a $160 discount on our stay and @ least one new friend. awww. to get a (slightly) better understanding of my ridiculous flamingo obsession, read katie's letter...
My name is Katie, and I am a Flamingo. Not literally of course, but I’m the closest thing to being hot pink and standing on one leg as any human not possessing feathers in the freak show of a county fair can get. Please read our story of the Four Flamingos who are ever so anxiously awaiting our stay at your hotel in August. If nothing else, may I attempt to humor and perhaps startle you with our fierce, passionate and meaningful dedication to the Flamingo. What began as a simply unsubtle, tacky, airbrushed bird on a white t-shirt, our Flamingo has transformed into a symbol that has followed and charted the development four best friends. And the second installment begins in August…
We started off as four And four we will always technically be. Erica, Katie, Bridget, Jennifer (not shown)…The Flamingos. The four hot pink flamingos. Others may see it as our desperate attempt to recreate the Ya Ya Sisterhood, an eternal friendship bound by a title. But I can assure you that this stigma attached to us was not entirely all our doing. You could relate us to a sports team…not complete without its mascot. Pride, game plans, a language all our own. But he is more than a mascot, our flamingo. We have become them, or so we call ourselves. And the mere fact that we’ve all become obsessed with the color pink and have adapted a unique talent for standing on one leg, I’d say we are playing the part fairly well.
Although we’ve made our room reservation only a few weeks ago, the planning and the premeditation for this trip to your hotel has been in the works for the last three years. It began the summer before we left for college and inevitably left each other. Being from Dunlap, Illinois, a small rural Midwestern town, population: something ridiculously on the low end, getting out was something we always dreamed of. Even with the windows down cruising on Cedar Hills Drive in Bridget’s Jeep blaring the Dixie Chicks and for a moment understanding how our little town could at times be some what of a little utopia, the buttons were one deep sigh short of popping and we knew we had outgrown it years ago. I, a true small town girl at heart, would move onto yet another small town in Indiana, Bridget would be the first to leave for Missouri, Jennifer would be just a short 45 minutes away in Bloomington, and Erica would be the first to scream “bright lights big city” and find her way in Chicago. Wisconsin Dells was the road trip destination of choice. Well…the perfect road time and distance to settle our parent’s nerves and give us one appetizing taste of the sweetness that was getting out…getting away…growing up.
Three summers ago I was 17, not yet an adult, as my three best friends had already fit and molded into their 18 year old adulthood platform shoes. We wined and dined in the Flamingo Motel in none other than the glamorous Wisconsin Dells. Okay, perhaps wined and dined could be replaced with “ate fast food and drank cherry coke” and “glamorous” clearly referring to the unfortunate fact that our parents wouldn’t let us travel more than 4 hours from home. Anywhere but home seemed glamorous enough for us. This summer we are all 21. Well, all except me, the inexperienced naïve one who never had older sisters to guide me and I graciously accepted and welcomed any advice or guidance that my three best friends had for me…and still do. After much anticipation and wondering where our years as college students went, I, too, will finally turn 21 on August 6th 2004 in none other than the Flamingo Hotel of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Anymore, our time together is limited. It is rare that we are all able to get together. Usually we reunite in groups of two or three, all times being well spent and treasured of course, but not quite complete. Four, though a seemingly small digit, proves to be a hard one to reach most times. Life is so busy, so exciting at this point it is not conducive to keeping each of us within an arm’s length like we had once been. Erica is road tripping around the country with 2 girls and a camera man filming for a PBS show that will air next summer. Bridget stayed in Missouri for a boy (who we think has potential to be “the one”) and is working 2 jobs (a concept we are all getting used to…Bridget Palmer doesn’t really work), Jennifer is finding her niche teaching preschoolers in Bloomington, and staying close to the current love of her life, and I am back in Peoria staying put for the boy who decided to move cross-country for me. An American I met after studying and traveling in England for the past 6 months. The first to take initiative in writing the story of my life…the story that day-by-day turns pages but bookmarks the past for the inevitable rainy day read for wisdom.
After the wonderfully inexpensive and wonderfully tacky stay at the Flamingo Motel in the Wisconsin Dells, we proudly made appropriately tacky matching airbrushed t-shirts. Not only would we be forever branded by the oh so classy hot pink branding boldly proclaiming its presence on the front, but also by the goofy yet charming flamingo the confused airbrushed t-shirt man duplicated 4 times for 4 newly initiated flamingo girls.
Since then, no birthday, no Christmas or even random occasion goes flamingo-free. Charms, figurines, neon stringed lights, clocks, shirts, boxers, purses, martini glasses, cocktail stirrers, pillows, frames, bedding…thongs. Boyfriends keep an eye out for merchandise in an attempt to understand and humor us. Erica sports a tiny flamingo tattoo (you’ll have to ask to see it). Jennifer’s 20th birthday cake was, you guessed it, a pink flamingo. And when Bridget & Erica spread their wings and headed back to the states after visiting me abroad, I appropriately gave them flamingo tissues for their flamingo tears and goodbyes. We’ve pushed the limit and have every intention to refuel our vice, our healthy addiction, our shameless infatuation.
August 6, my 21st birthday, we will all fly in from different cities to meet in the grandest of them all at the grandest hotel of all.
So now, after all of that said and done, do not be startled by the four giddy splashes of bubbly hot pink you will see flitting around your hotel. If we are sporting shades of pink feathers, do not be alarmed. If you find yourself squinting through rose colored glasses with furrowed brows in an attempt to digest the show that is before you, remember that those aren’t rose colored glasses at all. Those are 4 very hot pink flamingos from a small town in the Midwest, with very big oomph and ahhh…because sometimes that is just the only way to describe 10+ years of friendship while stepping into adulthood, hands held, fingers locked with one vision: being connected forever through that one thing that sums us up in a head-turning glance…The Flamingo.
Sincerely,
Katie & the flamingos