I’m here!

Well, actually, I’m still here.

I came up to the country to spend Thanksgiving with both of my sisters, my brother, and my mother, but it didn’t turn out as I expected. Mom was hospitalized two days before Thanksgiving with a platelet count of 12 (normal is around 200) and pancreatitis (infection of the pancreas, which can lead to diabetes). Four blood transfusions, one platelet infusion, and a week of intravenous antibiotics and she’s looking pretty good. It’s amazing how she keeps fighting. I decided to stay a few more days than I had planned because she looked so ill. What a difference a week makes!

So although she couldn’t eat Thanksgiving dinner with all her kids, she did have them all visit her in the hospital, and we have one more thing to be thankful for.

The cold is proving to be one of those visitors that just don’t know when to leave. I’ve done the dishes, turned off the music and most of the lights, yawned obtrusively, and yet it still sits comfortably at the table, sipping yet another glass of wine and telling stories. A week of pretty much anyone is enough for me, but a week of a cold is too much. I’m beginning to think I’m just going stay sick forever.

This Sunday morning, I was awakened by the building manager not exactly taking the Lord’s name in vain, but rather, performing an impassioned monologue wherein he used the word “fuck” with a fluidity and number of variations that was truly remarkable. Like a really raunchy and furious Shakespeare hero.

The cause of the early morning theatrics was this. Somehow, overnight, person or persons unknown had somehow managed to wedge the sad remains of a once-proud piano up the stairs and right outside the building’s main door. Equally mysterious is how it got there and how/if it can be removed. I can understand the building manager’s horror when he realized that this little problem is now his. He might want to consider just letting it stay there, like the cold. It makes quite a conversation piece. Or at least a monologue.

I’m Sick Suzy. And not in a fun, pervy way, but a sneezing, coughing, drippy-nosed, whining-even-more-than-usual way.

It seems especially unfair, since I just had that sinus infection last month. Last month! I know the illness season, hand in hand with the holiday season (no coincidence there), is upon us again, but even for someone as known for excess as Me, two illnesses in two months seems a bit much.

I’m convinced it’s a parting gift (or insult) from the plane: “Here’s a little bug for you, and thank you for playing our game!”

One of my neighbors took pity on me, though, and brought me a care package of popsicles (for sore throat); grapefruit juice (vitamin C!); Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup (childhood remedy); and a copy of the new Eminem CD (for boredom).

Almost as good as room service! I feel better already.

Seen in the food court at the airport:

- A woman saying grace very earnestly (eyes closed, hands clasped, lips moving) over her tray. At first I thought, “Is fast food really worth praying over?” Then I figured it could use all the help it could get. There was something both touching and absurd about the whole thing.

- A man with a club sandwich, cut into the traditional triangles and held together with toothpicks (no festive tassels on the end, though: utilitarianism rules in food courts, my friend) before the guy removed all the toothpicks. He then proceeded to take a toothpick and spear a bread triangle with it and eat it from the toothpick as if it were a canap&eacute. This was followed by doing the same thing with all the bread, then all the tomatoes, etc. Piece by piece by component, all eaten one piece at a time from the toothpick. Really creative, or really weird? Or both?

Viva Las Vegas!!

You never know what a Suzy* will get up to when you’re not looking! I will try not to lose all my money or marry an Elvis impersonator or become a showgirl, but I’m not promising anything!

It says right on it that Vegas is fabulous, and it is. Here are some fabulous things about Vegas:

- You have to love a place that’s known as Sin City. Everyone says, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Carte blanche to do whatever your evil little heart desires. After all, it stays in Vegas and never happened in the real world!

- Despite the Sin City nickname, the town was founded by Mormons and is still a heavily Mormon town, sin and all. Are you as surprised as I am?

- When I opened the drawer in my hotel room, seeking a phone book, I found the usual bible (even in Sin City - but then, maybe they need it even more there), and right beside it, the phone book opened to what is euphemistically called “Massage Services”.

- It’s not just for weddings anymore. You can get married *and* divorced there. Just ask Nicky Hilton. It’s a full-service town. So pick your marital status and go for it.

- Bugsy Siegel did not build the first casino, according to a native Las Vegan (Las Vegans are much more fun than plain Vegans, I find). He says that there were already two others, one built in 1905, and Siegel just paid the last 10% on a project that had stalled for lack of cash, and then took it over.

- There are still actual cigarette girls! They walk around perched on hazardously high heels with little trays full of cigarettes around their necks, which are perilously poised on their cleavage, which often precedes their arrival in a room by several inches.

- The Elvis-A-Rama museum, complete with, you guessed it, Elvis impersonators.

- The Strip, where I fell and acquired an unseemly scrape on my wrist and elbow, and several rainbow colored bruises. I seem to be gravitationally challenged. Or maybe it was those $1 Margaritas.

- The Neon Museum (most signs now are electric, not neon).

- You can rent a machine gun and merrily blast away at a target, imagining it to be your boss or your obnoxious neighbor, and then take the target home. Quite the unusual souvenir.

- When playing the Butt Game, I almost always won. Pretty much everyone’s butt is bigger than mine. Or yours.

- 24 hour everything, including shops for evening dresses and shoes. No more worrying about those late night fashion emergencies. ~Whew!~

- The ATMs dispense $100 bills.

- The people watching is some of the best on earth. Don’t forget the hotel pools, where you must wear full pool makeup and jewelry, and lots of it.

And now, some words of wisdom on leaving Las Vegas!

*Seen here in the indoor tropical rainforest at one of the casinos. I’m not kidding. And wearing no makeup! Very, very scary!

Note to self: Dang, girl! Do something about those roots!

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November 8, 2004

Made my day:

A little girl, riding on her father’s shoulders (how I loved that when I was a kid!), calls out happily, “Hi, there, doggie!” as a Golden Retriever and his guardian pass by.

Every adult in sight, no matter how faux, burst into smiles and/or delighted giggles.

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November 7, 2004

How Not to Entertain:

1. Spend a delightful afternoon giggling with your most fabulous friend and playing with her most fabulous dogs and drinking chocolate martinis.

Have you ever had one of these good/evil concoctions? Remember those cartoons where there’s an angel on one shoulder urging the conflicted cartoon character to do the right thing and a devil on the other urging him/her/it (it’s a drawing, right? Or several of them) to do the fun thing? Well, it’s that in a glass. It tastes soooo goooood, but it’s entirely composed of booze, so after one you’re pretty much smashed and recounting tales of your youthful misdemeanors.

2. Go home and nap off the martini until your dinner guests (visiting from out of town) arrive, thus ensuring no time to put in contacts, apply makeup, brush hair, or put on a better outfit. Oh well.

3. About five minutes after they arrive, get phone call with bad news. Go outside and pull yourself together. Come back inside to discover that guests have not only brought dinner in those reheatable aluminum dishes favored by caterers, but wine, dessert, and napkins(!). One guest is making salad dressing for the salad she brought and the other one is setting the table.

While this is the easiest possible way of entertaining, it kind of hovered on the edge of unflattering. If they’d brought dishes as well as napkins, that would have tipped it over the edge into totally unflattering.

I guess everyone knows how very domestically disabled I am.

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