November 22, 2010

Day one in Las Vegas.

Before meeting up with our friend, we got coffee and checked out the gardens at the hotel.

Flamingos at the Flamingo, of course. And koi so big they could've eaten the ducks swimming above them!!

We got up and met with our friend for breakfast while we decided what to do for the day. We ate at a little place in the Venetian, since that is where Hubby and Spencer were planning on getting into a poker tournament at noon. So, I was a girl about town...on my own for the day. (Vintage shoes from Goodwill, $6; friend's old vintage '80's skirt kept for years hoping I would fit into it; Forever21 sweater, $12; plain white tee; and, my cute purse that Hubby got me 15 or so years ago at Trump Tower on our first trip to NYC together.)

So I wondered around and made my way all the way down the strip to get to the Luxor hotel to see the Bodies Exhibit. Taking some pictures along the way, of course. There are so many sculptures and water features in Vegas. Every hotel has dozens of them!This one in front of Caesars Palace, I think. And this one, too.

So, it was quite a walk. You can just walk down the strip. The whole length is only 4.1 miles long. I had about 3/4 of that to walk...in my heels. But you have to go up and down and around so much, that it is not a straight shot. To top it off, the side of the street I was on was having a new hotel built and had part of the sidewalk blocked off. (Only for that day, I think, b/c the next time we went down that way, the sidewalk was open!) The detour I took, took me back in the wrong direction. I ended up going back to the blocked sidewalk and crossing the street for the rest of my trip. I saw a CVS pharmacy and stopped for blister bandages b/c my feet were wrecked at this point. And I hadn't even made it to the exhibit!!

When I saw the Pharaoh head in the distance I knew I was close. It was a great show, I'm glad I saw it, but my foot is now wrapped in an Ace bandage due to some sort of injury I obtained from my stupidity!!

This is just a shot of the indoor Venice waterways in the Venetian.

And, yes, there are still pay phones in the world!!

Next installment of Vegas Vacation: Monday night out...a fun night, even with the lack of music.

Back to reality

We're back from out trip. So, here is my first installment of 'VEGAS 2010'...
Our flight out of Boston left on time Sunday at about 6:10 p.m. I had been up at 4 a.m. to work a quick 4-11 a.m. shift at the grocery store before coming home to get Hubby so that we could go pick up our rental car. It was actually cheaper to rent a car one-way to the airport (and then again from Boston to Hyannis) than it would've been for the two of us to get round-trip bus tickets. Well, I guess it was about $10 more, but the ease of driving versus sitting on a bus for 3 hours and then having a 6 hour flight is worth way more than that!! And it is very expensive to leave the car parked at the airport for 5 days, too.
So, we boarded our plane, and then with the time change of 3 hours, we got into Vegas around 9 p.m. 'their' time. We hadn't eaten all day, so we dropped off our stuff at the hotel and headed to Carnegie Deli in the Mirage and had some corned beef. By the time we got back to our hotel and into bed, I had been up for nearly 24 hours. Just 30 minutes shy. I was still up by 5 a.m. Vegas time, 8 a.m. Eastern.
Anyway...some photos:
I always sit by the window, and I can never resist taking pics, even though it's hard to get a good one. This is before I adjusted the settings on the camera. I am very bad at this digital camera stuff, even after all these years. I thought this was cool...kinda like the city is on fire.
Once I adjusted the settings I took these. The Strip is the concentrated line of lights through the center of the shot. And this one...the tallest building is the Stratosphere Hotel/Casino. We didn't go there, as we didn't actually go any further down that way than the Venetian.
We checked in and made our way down the long hallway. Each day, as my feet hurt more and more (we'll get to that tragic story later), the room seemed farther away! I took a picture of our room number because I liked the little bamboo frame, but when I was on my own on Monday, I couldn't remember my room number!! I did remember without looking at the picture, but what a handy thing to have!!

And the views from the room...
The front part of the building, looking from the back part of the building, which is where our room was.
No view of the strip like I was hoping, but we could catch a glimpse of the garden, where the flamingos were. Those weird circle things are the ceilings of one of the restaurants...I think the buffet area, actually. The green 'bands' of the 'hats' are glass. We didn't go to even ONE buffet. We wanted to experience the chic, young Vegas with our dining. The buffet lines were always really long, too. The line for the Paris Thanksgiving buffet was a THREE HOUR WAIT!!

So, that's the start of the trip. I'm not gonna bore anyone with a ridiculously long post. I'm too antsy to type it, so I can expect you to want to read it all at once, either!!
Until later, then...

here we go...

Okay, I'm sure you're all (all...haha!) tired of hearing about it, but the day is finally (almost) here!
tomorrow, after my 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. shift, we will be on our way. I will be on vacation.

The next time I post a blog, it will still be about vegas, but it will have pictures (I hope) and fun stories!

Later............................

how embarrassing!!

Today's post includes some graphic pictures. Very embarrassing pictures. It is a story that needs to be told due to it's hilarity, but I'm warning you...if you have had enough of girls in tight jeans...look away!

Here's the story:

As with every morning I work at Trader Joe's, I got in to work at 5 a.m. and put product up shelves for a couple hours until the guy in charge, this morning, asked me to start cleaning the floors. This means going around and sweeping and then washing the floors. We have a machine, called the Zamboni, which is a great help in washing the floors. You fill it with water, it has a spinning scrubbing underneath and a squeegee at the back. As you push it across the floor, water comes out, the spinning brush cleans, and the squeegee pulls away the excess water (think window washers). It's great. But ours is broken. We are waiting for a battery. So, in the meantime, it's mop and bucket for us. Well, it's not that big of a deal, I'm a pretty good mopper, and I don't mind it.

This morning I went to the task of filling the mop buckets. That is when it happened. The hose was in the bucket, water was coming out, but as I let go, the water presser got stronger and the hose flew out of the bucket! I grabbed it as it hit my leg, but I couldn't think fast enough to hold it away from my ...well...my self. I was soaked in a way that I can only describe as a child who is recently out of diapers. This happened to me before!! But last time, it hit me up top, and finding a dry shirt is a lot easier than a pair of pants!!

I stopped my boss as she came back to get something from where I was, and said, 'I think I have a pair of scrub pants in my car...' She of course said that I could go look...but they weren't there!! I went back inside (this whole time, in soaking wet pants) and told her I didn't have them. I honestly didn't know what I could do. I thought, maybe I could go to the discount shop next door and hope they had sweatpants or something...P.J's even! She said, 'there's a pair of jeans in the break room. I don't know who they belong, because they've been there forever, and no one has claimed them.' I went to look, praying that they had belonged to one of the 'bigger girls' or one of the guys. I held them up and thought...'nope'....but I tried them anyway.

It took a lot of struggling...they were button fly, and from the very first one, to the SIXTH and final button, I thought each one would be the last I could fasten. Some how I managed to get all those buttons buttoned. I could barely walk at first and I felt ridiculous! There were jokes all day of course. By the end of my shift, my pants were still a little wet, so I wore the jeans home. I could barely lift my leg up to sit in the seat of my car!

Luckily, I was at my register for most of the day.

Here come the pictures, so look away, if you have a weak stomach. These were actually nice Ralph Lauren Polo jeans. If they had fit better, I might have kept them!! There was no size, or any tag at all actually, inside. I don't know what size they were, but they were smaller than the size I should be wearing!!

Here they come...

last chance to close this page...

Ready?...

Okay, here goes...

As you can see, from the side...not too bad, but WOW! did those suckers suck my ass in!!

But, oh dear!! Show us your Underalls, indeed!! Every step felt odd...so tight!!

I thought, 'well, maybe my shirt was long enough to make them a little less obvious...

...not so much, I guess.

Well, I'm sure the ribbing at work will go on for some time, but thank goodness I got to take those things off when I got home!!

new heels

I went shopping today for some last minute trip things. My #1 concern was making my lucite heels more safe. I had done some research on replacing vintage heel 'taps' but didn't like any of the solutions...you can't jam a post up a clear heel...that's just silly! But I read somewhere about cork being used...so, today I found little adhesive cork circles.
I cut them to fit the heels and try them out...PERFECTION!

I have been 'super cleaning' my house in preparation for our housesitter. Actually, he's a friend of ours who, when he's home for the holidays, would have to stay at his parents house...with his sister's family there as well. We don't like to send our little Moxie away when we're gone, so this way everyone wins...Rob gets a place to stay, Moxie gets to stay home for the week we're gone! Yes, I work at a place where Moxie and Hanzo could stay while we're gone...but I would only do that as a last resort...it's like sending you kid to jail while you're away!! Not that the animals get treated badly, but it's so sad that they are just left alone all night...with no one to snuggle with!!

That's a fine 'how do you do?'

This is what I woke up to this morning. Is it snow? I guess...sort of. It's basically been raining (again) since yesterday afternoon. At some point during the night it started to freeze. When I got up for the day (at 5 a.m.) it seemed like it was turning back to rain, but was still coming down in those big 'what is that' kind of drops.
Driving to work will be fun...walking dogs this morning will be even more fun. Rain?...fine. Snow?...fine. Cold mix of snow and rain?...a bit harder to deal with.

Anyway, I am still truckin' along with my weight loss project. I'm up to 12 pounds lost. That's 2 pounds over what I was hoping to lose by vacation, but I'm gonna keep going towards my next goal of 15 pounds until we leave. I had about 5 days straight when I couldn't fit in a workout, but I'm back on the horse.
Right after my workouts, I've been sneaking in some music practice too. It's not my usual creative outlet, but I haven't had one at all for so long, that it is nice to 'make' something pretty. Although, to be quite honest...it's not that pretty just yet!! I am definitely glad I spent the money on the clarinet. I think it will help me get back into other forms of creativity again, eventually.

In other news...well, there isn't any really. One of our friends may end up meeting up with us while we're in Vegas. He's been at the hospital almost non-stop with his mother who had some sort of brain trauma a few weeks ago...she had to have a shunt put in to drain fluid (which she will have forever now) and is now in rehab for a few weeks. He just wants to get away for a few days so is possibly going to spend a couple days out west with us. He's still not sure, though.

I have a few last minute 'loose ends' to tie up this week on my day off, then I'm not sure what the next week will bring, schedule-wise, but we're leaving in two weeks and I can hardly believe that time is finally here!

My, how the days get away from us

I remember when I used to blog almost every day. Now, I have to go back to see what my last post was about!! (and this time it wasn't pretty...complaining! yuck!)

Anyway, my long tiresome 15 day stretch of work came to an end at noon on Thursday. And then I had Friday to myself...to run errands and do chores and get my hair cut. It was a good day, though.

Wednesday was the longest of all the days, but that didn't make it the worst. Even though I had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to get to work, I was heading out to a dear friend's birthday party for the rest of the day, so there was an element of fun. I surprised her with my new clarinet, though I told her i didn't have it when she asked. I wanted it to be a surprise later, when my sister brought out her flute, and my friend's husband sat at the piano and we played 'Happy Birthday' for her. It was a terrible rendition, but it was fun anyway!

She is a vintage '50's gal and so we tend to were our most '50's inspired outfits when we get together. I was excited to wear my new shoes (again), and my new sweater.

Next to me is my baby sister, my friend (our aunt), and the middle sister of us three girls. The sister on the end (in the yellow hat) baked the cake from scratch. I had to leave before the cake was cut...it was after 8 p.m. and I was SOOO tired and and had to get up the next morning for work again. It was banana (I don't dig bananas), but I was going to try it anyway...but i didn't...

We played cards and music, made pizzas and drank beers. It was fun.

Then Friday afternoon, I got my hair cut. At one point my hairdresser said, 'I'm gonna rinse you out again, because of all this hair.' I said, 'are you scolding me for waiting so long to get my hair cut?!' she laughed and said, 'yes'. (joking of course)

Before:

After:

It's VERY short, and as usual (as I expected) I am waiting for it to grow out a bit to get to that super cute stage...right about the time we go on our trip!

What's funny, is she gave me this tub of hair paste/putty. She said, 'you can both use it'...since Hubby and I get the same hair cut! :) I almost never use product, but he goes through it like no body's business!

And, yes, I'm packed and ready to leave...

ugh!

WARNING:
This blog is about what a crappy week I'm having. A lot of self pity to follow. Do not read if you'd like to keep the illusion that every little thing makes me happy!


I MEAN IT...



First off, I'm saying it again...15 days of work in a row! It's now Tuesday and I have, after today, two more days before my day off. Now, I thought I was doing pretty good. I only had a couple days where I had to work ALL DAY (5a.m. til 6p.m.), most days were just half days (6 or 7 hour shifts instead of 10 or 12). But with each day, things just get worse. I don't know if it is because I'm getting increasingly tired and I don't pay attention to details like I normally would? Maybe I'm tired and cranky and things that happen all the time are just rubbing me the wrong way so I am noticing their annoying presence more? But whatever it is...I don't like it and I want my day off!!
In the last few days every morning gets worse...from my hot cereal boiling over, the coffee pot dripping because I was careless and didn't push the pot all the way under the basket, dropping my entire cup of coffee on the floor of my car as I missed the cup holder. Then there are the bigger issues...days that should just be normal days end in some crazy emergency tracheotomy at the end of the day, or a seizing dog which turns my 12 hour day into a 13 hour day. Of course the animals are WAY more important than me getting home on time, but come on!! This sort of thing has happened ONE TIME since I started a year ago...now all hell is breaking loose because the full-time tech assistant is on vacation and I'm working 60 hour weeks!!
So each night after a day like that I go to bed thinking, 'tomorrow I start over...forget about all of today's nonsense.' Then I get up to check my phone to see the time (it is also my alarm clock), and nothing...blank screen! I just charged the damn thing two days ago!! And I just checked the time...well, at 3:30! I jump out of bed not knowing how long I had been asleep since last checking my clock (on days when the alarm doesn't wake me, I still wake up early and then have a nasty habit of checking the time every half hour or so...with a little more sleep in between. It's kind of like taking several naps, in a row, through the wee hours of the morning...speaking of crazy!). It was 4:40 a.m. and now, because my 'alarm clock' is broken...I'm up for the day. Even though I don't have to be to work until 7 today. so, I plugged my phone in, hoping it just needed to be charged again (for whatever reason)...and now it is charging. Maybe I need a new battery? I am confused how it lost all of its charge overnight...I'm pretty anal about making sure it's charged. I never thought I'd say it, since I've really only had a cell phone for a few years, but what would I do without it!? I was actually thinking the other day how much easier vacation will be ...it is very hard to lose people nowadays. I mean, Hubby and I will be together the entire time, but the night he's playing his poker tournament, I'm not going to be sitting by his side the whole time, so it will be nice to just enjoy myself, instead of having to stay close to keep checking to see if he's still playing.

So back to these last crazy days of work...my grocery store job has been stressing me a bit these past few weeks, too. Mostly it is the schedule. For MONTHS I have had the same schedule: Thursday off, and 5a.m. to noon the other 3 days I work. So, I took a chance and offered to work Thursday at the kennel...so the grocery store scheduled me off on SUNDAY that week!! of course. and Sunday at the grocery is time and a half! So I had to find someone to work my Thursday shift which lost me another day there. I do get paid more at the vet, and it was an hour longer shift, so I didn't miss out there, but I lost my time and a half 6.5 hour shift to a day spent going back and forth a.m./noon/p.m. to take care of the animals for a grand total of 3.5 hours!! That sucks.
So this week, it didn't really matter my schedule because I'm just waiting for Friday...a day off AND a hair cut!
EXCEPT...this week I got scheduled the 4:30 am. shift on Wednesday! No biggie...though I am going over to spend the day, ending in a pizza party, with my family that day. If only I had gotten Thursday off, but I didn't and after working Thursday morning...I have to go back to the vet at 5 pm. for a staff meeting!! I will probably fall asleep while Maria is cutting my hair!!

And in the middle of all of this, I have not had even 25 minutes free to do my quick workout...I haven't worked out since SATURDAY!! I feel gross! On top of that, I just got my new clarinet and haven't had time to play it...unless you count the few minutes I took it out, put it together, tried to get some sound out but couldn't, so I put it away until I can actually sit and mess around with it...
It really sucks not having even ONE MINUTE to do something fun. These early hours in the morning are nice...sitting with my coffee and computer, but it's no time for working out or playing clarinets.

Sad story over...