Viva something or other
Let me say at the outset that Barb and Vegas are not particularly mixy things. I don’t gamble, I very seldom drink, and I don’t have a lot of extra money to go shopping with. Window shopping is fine up to a point, but past that point, it’s just frustrating because I CANNOT HAS. That pretty much exhausts the possibilities. So five days in Vegas? Not my dream vacation. And when my period started the day we left, I knew I was doomed.
We flew in Sunday night (our flight, of course, was delayed). We were staying at the Bellagio for the first two nights, which is a totally gorgeous hotel. (Kathy’s mom was footing the bill for all this, since she gets freebies and discounts through the Player’s Club, or something like that.) We finally collapsed into bed some time around one in the morning. Or I did; Kathy’s mom wanted to explore. I swear that woman is some kind of futuristic super-being; she never stops moving.
The next morning we got up bright and early and Kathy’s mom asked what we wanted to do. “There’s an exhibition of Modernist paintings at the gallery downstairs!” I said. Because come on, who doesn’t love the Modernists?! Especially when you have menstrual cramps? Apparently, not Kathy’s mom, because she looked at me more or less as if I’d suggested that we go out and get our molars extracted without anesthesia. “Let’s go to the spa!” she said.
So I chugged a bunch of Advil and we went to the spa, which was all very decadent and luxurious and stuff, with hot tubs and showers and bowls of complimentary fresh fruit, but first we went to the gym. I have nothing against gyms, except that they’re full of intimidating computerized tangles of chrome and rubber and steel which I have NO FUCKING IDEA HOW TO USE. Also, exercise is boring. Really boring. Especially if you suck, as I do, at all forms of physical endeavor. But I got on a treadmill and treaded, succeeding in developing a blister that took approximately half the skin off my left little toe. Then I staggered away and used the luxurious, decadent, etc. shower. Then I lurked from room to room, unwilling to get back into my gross, sweaty gym clothes, and equally unwilling to prance nekkid into the hot tub room with a bunch of total nekkid strangers. Maybe if I hadn’t been bleeding out my hoohah I’d have felt differently, but I’m betting no.
Kathy’s mom wanted to go right out and Do Something, but I convinced them that I needed to go back to the room and change, and Kathy and her mom went out to get me tampons. The rest of the day is a blur, but I think we went somewhere and looked at stuff. At some point, Kathy’s mom gave me a twenty and directed me to play the slots, which I did. As soon as I got slightly ahead of the game, I quit and cashed out, because duh, in the long run you can’t win at the slots. This behavior greatly astonished Kathy’s mom, and apparently convinced her that I was some sort of lunatic who had to be treated gently, because she gave up on the plan to turn me into Diamond Jim Brady.
She also assured me that since I was visibly limping, on the following day we wouldn’t do much walking. Somehow or other, this translated to “Let’s walk over to the Forum shops, and circumnavigate them completely!” The aforementioned Monster Blister tore at some point during this expedition, which really fucking hurt. Since I was favoring my left foot now, my right foot started aching too, where the possibly-broken toe was mostly but not completely healed. At some point I must have looked so miserable that Kathy’s mom broke down and allowed that we could go see the exhibition of Modernist art, which we did. And it rocked. Afterwards I attempted to explain to Kathy’s Mom why non-representational art is worth looking at, but she was giving me the humor-the-crazy-woman look again, so I gave up.
Wednesday we moved to Treasure Island. Excuse me, TI. Because it’s for adults now. And also, KFC is 110% healthier if you don’t pronounce the word ‘fried.’ Kathy and I managed to get away from the Strip and go to an outlet mall that had normal-people prices, and I got a couple of pairs of jeans and tops on sale. There was some amount of poolage on all these days, but I tended to cut that short because I didn’t want to get massively sunburned on top of everything else. In this I mostly succeeded, at the cost of further convincing Kathy’s mom I was some kind of weirdo.
Thursday, more walking and more looking at pretty stuff I couldn’t afford. While we were in one of the snooty shops in the Palazzo, I accidentally knocked over one of those little glass animals (a twee little penguin holding a fish), which broke. Of course I offered to pay for it, cringing inside, both because it would take up the entirety of my discretionary cash, and because I was being forced to buy a twee little penguin holding a fish - I mean, dear ghod, couldn’t I have broken something I’d actually want to buy in the first place? Thankfully the clerk (after looking me up and down and obviously deciding that I probably wasn’t good for it anyway) said that the glassblower could repair it, so I didn’t have to. I slunk away before further disasters occurred.
I did see one thing that I really, really wanted to get: there was one shop that was mostly masks and costumes, but back in one corner they had a wall full of these miniature bookshelves, with miniature books and wine bottles and busts of Socrates and whatnot on them. One of them had half a dozen ceramic cats perched all over the books, and I had this mad vision of rearranging and re-painting the bedroom and getting a better desk, all so I could hang this thing over it and look ever so cool and literary. Yes! I would re-decorate our entire bedroom around this objet d’art! This plan went poof the minute I asked how much it cost, because I could have bought a freaking bed for the same price, but for about sixty seconds there, I had class. Or potential class. Whatever. I really wanted that stupid thing, enough that I actually considered putting it on the pay-off-Sam credit card. Luckily I came to my senses. Have I mentioned that I hate window shopping?
Maybe I can build one.
Then we saw Jersey Boys, which was really good, though probably not a show I’d have picked on my own. But if I’d been on my own, I couldn’t have afforded to see anything - heck, I couldn’t have afforded to be there at all - so I really can’t bitch.
Friday we went to Madame Tussaud’s, where I narrowly escaped being photographed with Elvis. And then we came home, and the cats were very glad to see us, and Sam was very glad to be let into the house. And my blister is starting to heal. So yay.
Originally published at Barb C's Journal. You can comment here or there.