Vegas, Baby!

Everyone survived the first parental trip without the munchkin. Momma and Daddy didn't ruin a vacation by worrying and guilt-tripping. We kept our calls to two a day and half the time Drew didn't want to talk to us (he's out of the phone phase, apparently). Drew was perfectly happy to be hanging out with Gramma and Grampa instead of Momma and Daddy. He did miss us, but he never got too bent out of shape about it. And Gramma and Grampa had a blast with Drew, though they were still very happy to hand him back to us upon our return.

As for Vegas itself, it was a great trip. We even learned a few lessons:

1. Generic less drowsy dramamine is not nearly as less drowsy as the real thing. Thus I had to take a nap just two hours into our time in Vegas.

2. Spending $12 or $13 on a drink is well worth it, apparently. I've never had a drink so well mixed. In fact, I've got a new favorite drink. It's called the Vixen: Glenlivet 12, vermouth, sweet & sour, and honey. Yummy.

3. Apparently the Venetian took seriously their theme and made the hotel float on pretension. At least, that's the vibe we got at the restaurant we selected for dinner. It takes a decent sized pair to bill a restaurant as fine dining and then try to cram seating for 80 into a room barely bigger than our living room and kitchen combined. It's also remarkably crass to interpret a reservation for "as secluded a table as possible" into "here's a seat less than a foot away from another occupied table when there's only three other couples in the entire albeit cramped room." I ordered the cheapest meal on the menu. We ordered only two glasses of wine, and we declined desert. The service was great and the food was good, so we didn't stiff on the tip. But we certainly won't be recommending Valentino's to anyone. Not that they care as we and our circle are most decidedly too middle class for that establishment, apparently.

4. On the other hand, the Luxor seems designed for folks more from our walk of life who want to live it up a bit and have budgeted their vacation accordingly. Mark and I can't stop talking about the fabulous experience we had at Fusia. Sure, a meal with appetizers, entrees, desert, and drinks will set you back at least $200, but man is it worth it. Everything was delicious. The service was superb. The manager was making the rounds and chatting with everyone eating there. Sure, we had people sitting all around us, but this place had maximized their space and there was plenty of room to feel like we weren't sitting on top of our neighbors. If you are in the mood for some high quality food the next time you're in Vegas, go to Fusia. The only downside this place has is that it's closed Wednesdays and Thursdays.

5. Drew's birthdate (the 4th) is our luckiest number at the roulette table. Paid off three times, including once when I had on a whim told Mark to put a second chip on it.

6. Slots aren't nearly as much fun as I used to think. And I'm just not all that into the table games either. Guess I'll be gravitating more toward the shows on our future trips. My age. It shows.

7. The casinos are in the timeshare business. We were accosted several times in several casinos by folks wanting to give away gambling money and discounted show tickets if you'd just take a look-see at this lesser known property of theirs on the south end of the strip. These folks were awful. Anyone they saw that looked to be a married couple over 21 was a target. It got so bad that Mark and I couldn't walk around holding hands or even just side by side in certain areas.

So, a great trip, no trauma to be seen on the part of either the 'rents or the kid, and tips for future such trips. When can we do it again? :)

On the Recent Silence

I wrote a good 2000 words in a couple of hours Sunday night, and it seems that those 2000 words were most of my allotment of words for the week as everytime I've sat down to write since then my brain has produced a dribbling, novocain-lipped, incoherent babble that rapidly degenerates into "Ugh". Hence the silence. And it seems like it's going to continue as my in-laws arrive tonight to visit and help us celebrate Drewbie's 2nd Birthday tomorrow. (I will manage to drag a nice coherent post out of my gray matter tomorrow for that.) Maybe on Sunday I'll get back into the swing of writing here.

Vacay

The in-laws will be arriving tonight and leaving Tuesday morning. After that, Mark, Drew, and I are taking our first family trip to the Grand Canyon (there will be many more over the years). I won't be back until Thursday, so ya'll have fun without me.

Yet Another Sunday Check-in

Mark's parents were in town, so I didn't have time to post until now. It was a great visit, although very quick. They graciously (hah, they're grandparents--it was eagerly) took care of the Drew Monster yesterday and today so Mark and I could get a ton of packing done. Andrew's room and closet are fully packed up except for the furniture and the stuff we're keeping out for easy use. The hall closet is good to go. All the knick knacks are packed away. It was a great start to the whole move out process. Plus, we got some really good news that a lot of builders in the newer Phoenix suburbs overbuilt recently expecting a lot more buyers that haven't materialized yet. They're hacking and slashing the prices (up to $50K) and tossing in all sorts of goodies to entice folks like us. Mark and I are drooling at the prospect of getting a brand new home for less than what we had anticipated spending on a used home. If the market stays like this, we may end up buying a house very shortly after arriving in AZ.

Things really haven't stopped clicking around here. It's a good feeling.

Off to Entertain

Mark's parents are in town from Buffalo until Sunday, so I'm heading out for some fun with the in-laws and won't be posting until Monday. Have a great weekend, and tune in next week for the very long-awaited "I'm an Ass" post and a few other things that have been cooking in my noggin' for a while.

Adventures in Cincinnati

I had a good two or three posts for last week, but Blogger and I kept having scheduling conflicts. Anytime I was able to blog, Blogger was down. Anytime Blogger was up was a time I wasn't on-line. Go figure. And then I had to travel to Buffalo on Thursday, thus preventing me from blogging until today, when I'm back in Colorado. So the next few posts were originally supposed to be up last week. But not this one. This post had no presence in my mind until I landed in Cincinnati Thursday night.

Last week in general wasn't grand because Mark left ahead of me for Buffalo since when the flights were booked, it was possible I would be working last week and not able to get the time off. As it turns out I wasn't working, and I spent the week husband-less and hearing about his great time with his family in Buffalo. Doesn't make for happy days. Thus I was very eager to be getting on the plane Thursday evening. Because I wanted to get to Buffalo as quickly as possible, I invoked a few nasty clauses of Murphy's Law.

The plane for the flight out of Denver was 45 minutes late getting to Denver. And then a weather cell decided to hang around the airport, keeping us grounded on the runway for another 45 minutes. Add in all the usual delays of deplaning and planing, and we got off the ground almost two hours after we were supposed to. It's a good thing that I called Mark as soon as I heard the plane was late getting into Denver. I only had an hour to make my connection in Cincinnati, so I had called to give everyone a head's up that Bad Things May Be Afoot.

We land in Cincinnati probably just as the plane bound for Buffalo took off. You'd think Delta would've held that plane, seeing as how it was the last one that night and wouldn't it be cheaper to hold a couple planes for a half hour instead of putting a hundred or so people up for the night? But no, they sent all those last flights out of Cincinnati on their merry ways. As soon as I turned my cell phone on when the plane landed, Mark called to tell me that they had already called Delta and were told that I would be staying in Cincinnati that night and would get on a flight the next morning to Buffalo--via Atlanta. This stroke of genius by Delta had me arriving in Buffalo at 1:10PM. And the whole purpose of my visit was for a wedding that started at 1PM. My mother-in-law yelled at Delta after learning this and got nothing but attitude back, including the gem "Well, if she doesn't like this new itinerary, she can fly back to Denver." I tried yelling at the Delta people and was told that every other flight to Buffalo on Friday was booked, including competitor comparably priced flights. When the Ice Queen Ticketing Agent brushed me off, while holding my bag hostage (they said I could get my bag, but it would take a lot of time and effort and would make it more difficult for me to get my bag on the right flight on Friday), I decided to just accept my fate of missing the wedding.

I should mention that I was hopped on Dramamine at the time. And the original formula to boot, not the non-drowsy one. I should also mention, to borrow a line from the fabulous movie Clueless, that I was surfing the crimson wave and all the various accoutrements necessary for such an occurrence were safely stashed in my bag. The one I couldn't get to. Not to mention the fact that my glasses were in there as well, right along with my contact solution. Were it not for a kind-hearted passenger staying at the Hilton with me that night, I would've been both blind and very unsanitary on Friday. As it was, I was only blind.

Fortunately, said kind-hearted passenger graciously offered to help me around Cincinnati so I didn't have to squint continuously. And it turned out she was on a 9:15 DIRECT flight to Buffalo. Funny how Delta had no problem getting her on that flight when it was supposedly booked for a piddly peon blind menstruating customer like myself. But, like the dutiful flier I am, I went right up to the gate for the Hated Flight to Buffalo Via Atlanta anyway. I asked the agent there about getting me on the 9:15 flight, prepared to do battle. The agent, however, took about ten seconds to confirm she could indeed get me AND my bag on that flight. And as she printed out my boarding card, I finally squinted at the letters behind her and realized I wasn't at the Hated Flight to Buffalo Via Atlanta Gate at all. I was at the Cancun gate. I almost asked to get on that flight instead.

So I made it to Buffalo by 11AM on Friday, raced to Mark's parents' place, hurried through a shower, and made it to the wedding on time. Where I had to last through a two-hour Catholic wedding on four hours sleep, a barely remembered breakfast (total cost of $12, and Delta only gave me a voucher for $4), and yet another dose of Dramamine pumping through my system. Life is never dull.

Oh, and guess how many empty seats I counted on that booked solid flight to Buffalo. Four. I don't know who at Delta decided to *#$% around with me on Thursday night, but he's going to be a character in a book who comes to a rather embarrassing and unfortunate end.

For Dave

I started to go a little googley-eyed reading this article. But I trust my brother-in-law to wrap his brain around the information and tell it like it is. My biggest question: Does this "consciousness may be a quantum mechanics issue" theory have anything to do with the two slit stuff used to study time travel-ish things? Or have I already butchered that discussion beyond belief?

Time for Some Good News

Actually, the time for this news was Sunday, but I forgot that was the right day and then yesterday was, well, not a good day to say the least. So here's the really good news:

HAPPY 30TH ANNIVERSARY, MOM & DAD ROBIDA!!!!
I could've talked about this a couple weeks ago, too, when I talked about our trip to Buffalo, but I thought it would be better to describe it on the actual day. At the first wedding of the summer, the DJ did a "Anniversary" dance (I think that was what it was called). What happens is all married couples start out on the dancefloor. Then the DJ starts to whittle away at the remaining couples by progressively increasing the number of years you have to have been married to keep dancing. Mark and I were gone by the second measure. But his parents didn't leave the floor until the man said, "If you've been married 30 years, keep dancing." This jogged one of their sons' memories (I can't remember which one - means it probably wasn't Mark :)) that their 30th anniversary was coming up. The sole woman in this conversation, I decide Something has to be done for them. We realized Mark and I would be in Buffalo fairly close to the big day, so we decided we could do Something then. But what? The Boys come up with dinner at a pretty swanky Italian place. I think it's a great start, but we should do More. Figuring we have the whole summer to work this out, we decide that we'll do dinner and come up with the details later.

As the summer drags on, I thought of taking my mother-in-law to a spa while the Boys went rock climbing. Finding a spa in the Buffalo area was an experience. I was brutal with several internet search engines. I combed through whatever I could find on the web. And then I started calling. For starters, the people I talked to seemed disconcerted that I was calling from Colorado. Then they also seemed offended when I asked to schedule a spa package on a particular day. One spa told me that she would need X,Y, and Z to accomodate my request. So I gave her the information she needed for X,Y, and Z. Then she told me she couldn't set up the appointment because Soanso wasn't there today. She asked me to call back the next day. And I scratched their name off my list. The phone number for another spa led to an answering machine that said, "We will be closed for the Memorial Day Weekend...". Considering that I was calling them in mid-July, I scratched them off my list too. Finally I found a professional receptionist that handled my request in stride and we were good to go.

I should mention that we only told the happy couple that they didn't have to plan anything for the Friday we would be in town. We didn't tell them why. You should have seen the tricks Mom used to pry information out of us. Yet we didn't break.

Friday rolls around and they still have no idea what's happening. The Boys go climbing, and I give the street address for where Mom and I need to go. That's it. She didn't know what was at that location until she pulled into the parking lot. That was fun. And then she had a massage while I had a facial, so I told the woman where we were going to dinner. And to pass the news on to everyone but Mom. Everywhere Mom went that day, people in the spa kept coming up to her and saying, "Hey, you're going to have fun at dinner tonight. It's a great place." Or just the very enjoyable, "I know where you're going to dinner. But I can't tell you." (The "neener, neener, neener" was implied, of course.)

Dinner time arrived. We told the parental units that semi-formal attire would be a good bet. Then we kids jumped in one car and told Mom and Dad to follow us in another. We got to the street of the really fancy place. Figuring that they might be on to the surprise, we decide to blow right past where we were actually going to eat and pull into a subway joint instead. We even got out of the car and started walking toward the door before we called the joke. Then we all piled into the real restaurant and ate like kings. The restaurant had even set up the ceilings to look like stars (we were sitting right under a shooting star).

So that was how the kids celebrated Mom and Dad's 30th anniversary. Now we'll need to start planning the big 5-0.

Time to Catch Up

Got back from a nice long weekend trip to Buffalo for a wedding and a visit with Mark's family. This means I have about 508 things to catch up on today. And I have so much to blog about. Until I get back on top of things, though, this post that I typed on the laptop over the weekend will have to suffice.

Delayed Posting from Buffalo: I'm writing the following on my laptop at my in-laws' house in Buffalo. Seeing as how the time and date of this post will not coincide with my trip out of state, you're probably guessing – accurately – that I wrote this and posted it later once we returned home.

That being said, I'd just like to mention that it's 2:30AM as I write this. (Note to self: Never, EVER drink half a liter of Pepsi after 6PM; there's a pretty good reason you avoid caffeine in the first place.) So I can't sleep and I've got a million thoughts running around in my head like a mouse in an exercise wheel. Mostly those thoughts are about writing. But a few of them are about how much I hate wet climates. I've spent the majority (4) of the past 7 years in Colorado and Arizona. Two very dry places. A humid day in these areas means the humidity level is about 30%. The other 3 years of the past seven have been spent in Indiana. A normal day there is 100% humidity. I really do love my alma mater. Notre Dame is a great school. It's just in one of the worst locations ever. Most of the students there pray to Our Lady that time can be altered and Father Sorin, the school's founder, will decide to stop his cross-country trek at, say, Hawaii. But, this must be old news. I'm sure I've mentioned before how much I despise the Midwest. In case you missed it, imagine one million camels and llamas spitting all at once. Raise that amount of spittle to the millionth power, and you've started to scratch the surface of my level of hatred for this particular region of the country. Note that I said region, not inhabitants of the region. I live in constant admiration of those who call the Midwest home – and I constantly wonder at the sanity of those who fondly call the Midwest home.

Now, I love my husband's family. They are great people, and I enjoy visiting with them. They just, unfortunately, fall into the latter category described above. (Well, their sanity was questionable before I realized they enjoyed living in wet, flat, gray areas. Afterall, they did produce my husband.) So for them, I'll somehow find ways to work around my incredibly flat, straight hair turning into a frizzy mane with a slight wave to it. I'll deal with the pain as I try to pry the backs of my thighs from the cushionless chair I foolishly chose for the four hours we played cards and board games. I'll manage to eat the chips that became stale after two hours exposure to the air. I'll even keep my mood cheerful when that lovely gray permacloud settles in over the Midwest and Northeast, preventing me from meeting my sun quota for the day.

And with that, I think I'm ready to go to bed. There's a lot more I have to divulge both about this trip and recent writing developments (all good), but blogging coherency levels are about to start plummeting. And I wouldn't want to subject any of you to that.

P.S. I really do admire the folk that live in the Midwest. Someone does need to inhabit that part of the country. And I thank each and every one of you daily (hourly when I’m actually in the region) that you're taking up the burden so I don't have to.

Positives

So even though yesterday didn't go so well, things are good. I suppose it's a good thing that I didn't do the MRI last night. Because then I would've heard the results by Friday. If they were bad, I wouldn't have been very good company for Beth's wedding this weekend. So now I'll be able to truly enjoy myself in Atlanta this weekend, and be happy for Beth and Tim.

Also, we've been getting more news about my brother's return, and it seems to be sooner rather than later. It's possible that my brother will be assigned to the troops that will escort their equipment home via ship, which would delay his return but also give us more time to prepare for his arrival. But right now, we're all starting to plan on his coming home within the next couple of weeks. We're arranging for rides or flights and hotel rooms, etc. And I think tonight I'll start making a big sign to wave around and really embarrass him when he gets off the plane. *VEG* Something using my "Baby Bro" nickname for him that he's never been overly fond of. :) And this flurry of email planning within my family as allowed me to start communicating with Brad's fiancee. So that's been nice.

And for my last positive, the Director's Workshop was great. Not only did I realize exactly why I often get frustrated with my chorus, but I also found out that the other key players in the chorus feel the same way and want to do something about it. And I was told by the directors of two very successful choruses that I have a lot of tenor (bright) quality to my lead (melody) voice. Nice to make that ego swell. Especially when it comes to my voice, something which was a bit trampled in my college singing experience.

So I may be a dizzy blonde with a lot of worrying now, but life is still good.

Death

For once, the grey skies and rainy weather are welcome. Mark and I found out last night that his cousin Raes died Sunday night. He was 23. He was racing ATVs with a buddy and missed a curve in the fading light. Hit a tree. He wasn't wearing a helmet and, quite frankly, I don't want to know if the helmet would've saved him. In that knowledge lies the madness of "what if." He didn't die instantly, but was able to remark to his friend that he couldn't feel his legs. So we can hope that perhaps he couldn't feel the pain either.

Having just joined Mark's family a little over six months ago, I didn't know Raes very well. But I was able to spend a decent amount of time with him during our Thanksgiving visit. The day after Thanksgiving, we had a big family gathering with Mark's Dad's side. And Raes had a tape of his training to be a corrections officer in Georgia. He showed us his favorite clip a couple times - footage of him and three other officers getting zapped by a taser gun (part of their training is to experience the weapons they have at their disposal to use on the inmates so they know what sort of pain they're inflicting). All four the guys started on their knees and ended prone on a mat. But Rae was the first one back up.

Mark and I spent our last day of that trip with Raes, waiting for our flights. We played cards and board games at Nana's house, watching the Bills game on TV. And then we went to the airport and watched a blizzard pound against the runways. Raes, being a tall, baldish guy travelling alone, had been pulled aside for the "random" screening. And the security guard had slammed his bag around, breaking his bottle of Tommy cologne. I remember sitting with Raes at our gate, breathing through my mouth and helping him fill out the complaint form (Mark and I were listed as witnesses). We hunted all down that terminal, trying to find a plastic bag big enough to hold his stuff and another to seal up the doused bag. When that was finally taken care of, Raes and I realized that we had both been overseas at the same time, and that we likely ran at track meets together. I remember thinking - in my mushy newlywed state (OK, so that hasn't changed) - that Raes was a connection from my past that led back to Mark.

These are the things I remember about Rae from the very brief time I knew him. I wish I knew more. Godspeed, Rae. And love, thoughts, and prayers to your family and friends.

Great weekend! I didn't go to rehearsal, I didn't write. I just sat on my butt and did whatever came into my head to do (well, mostly). I lounged around in a robe, I played video games, I cleaned up the house, I started picking things up for our new place. It was great. I feel very much refreshed and ready to deal with writing and singing again. Well, at least ready to deal with singing until the end of the month. I'll think about after competition later - namely, after competition!

And congrats to my brother-in-law John for defending his title in Buffalo's City Hall race. This is a competition dedicated to timing how fast a person can go tearing up God knows how many flights of stairs. Mark tells me that John's set his sites on a similar race - set in the Empire State Building!!!!! Well, all I have to say is, "Better him than me!" Congrats, John!