Bandolero by Day

LAST WEEKEND

Chest x-rays: DONE. No blood clots. That's just super. It's hard to stretch out like a ballerina when you're wearing a lead apron.

Hair: CUT. Picture to follow below. My barber Rex was impressed by my grades and tells people that I'm going to be a rocket scientist. He is a doll.

Sunday: CHARITY. I wrangled in shinikius and sakibombshell to come with me, but not mko for she had the plague. We got to my office at 7 a.m. where I showed them my desk of misery and my snowglobe pen of not-misery and my GIANT INBOX THAT IS ACTUALLY LARGE TABLE COVERED IN PAPERS. I win for biggest inbox.

The actual charity event was rather poorly organized, and it seemed like we did a lot of sitting around. I mean, there was actual physical labor on our part, but the whole event was largely too many volunteers and not enough direction. Shinikius says that this is what working for the Salvation Army during the holidays was like. I suggested we all do a soup kitchen next year instead.

I discovered at the event that all volunteers were required to wear a red shirt with "Jesus is the reason for the season" printed on it. I take the fact that Sakibombshell and I did not burn to death when we put the shirts on to be proof that God loves heathens. WE EVEN HAD SHINIKIUS SNAP A PICTURE OF US SAYING "CHEESE-US", AND NOTHING. I think I will create a new proverb for Miscellatheism that states "What humans call blasphemy, God calls comedy".

Post-charity: THE HISTORY BOYS. I think the movie was trying to communicate two things: 1) Oxford and Cambridge are overrated, and 2) all British schoolboys, past and present, are either gay or bi-curious. A good movie, though. It made me want to see the play, so apparently I must have enjoyed it.

THIS WEEKEND (SO FAR)

Ballet: THE NUTCRACKER. (or as my mother called it, "The Man-hater") The tickets were my gift for Shinikius and Sakibombshell and Mko (who did not have the plague this time!), and we went to a matinee showing at Phoenix Symphony Hall. Even though we were last row center, PSH is such a well-constructed venue that we still had a fantastic view. I wish I could describe how beautiful the costumes and the sets were, but all I've got is "It sure LOOKED like a $1.8 million production".

I want Russian Trepak dancer action figures.

When we left the venue at about 4, the bells at St. Mary's Basilica were playing "Noel". The combined force of the bells and the ballet were enough to kill the Scrooge in me for a little while. I wasn't ready to go home (which means that no one else was either, at least in my mental universe), so we strode off towards the basilica, which has a gift shop. I never noticed the gift shop before. For that matter, I never noticed all the bronze statues of dancing nudes in front of the Herberger Theater before. I commented on the fact that most of the statues were female, and Mko suggested that this was so that the sculptor wouldn't have to mould too many bronze penises. A good point. I'm glad that the bronze statues of Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa and St. Francis at the basilica were fully clothed.

We went past the basilica to Heritage Square because I was hoping to stop by the Teeter House, but they were closed. Way to not put up any "closed" signs during your regular hours of operation, Teeter House! If you did not have the greatest chicken salad and strawberry shortcake and chocolate espresso tortes on the planet, I would SO be boycotting you right now! WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LOVE YOU???

So we walked back towards the PSH and ate at The Matador. It's a damn good thing alliath came to visit in October, or else I might have passed up The Matador and gotten stuck with Pizzeria Bianco instead.

Oh, and I gave Mko the Jesus shirt. She doesn't like the slogan so much, but she's a big fan of the J-man, so I think she'll appreciate it more than me.

I will note that mko and I WERE going to go see X3 on Friday, but after reading madeupwordhere's spoilers, I suggested we see "Over the Hedge" instead. Upon reading further FL reviews, I do not regret this decision in the least, especially since "Over the Hedge" was pretty good. So, I win.

( Anyway, pictures. Pictures in REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. )

So we drove to Vegas, taking us through one of the only parts of Arizona that I have not previously driven through. It was beautiful and fairly desolate, and the Joshua Tree National Park was a sight to behold.

All of the above pictures are ones my boss took, because I only got about four of the Hoover Dam before my camera started making claims that the memory was full, which must be LIES and DECEIT because those were the only four pictures on there.

I'd forgotten how massive the mountains outside of Vegas are. They make the strip look truly unimpressive when one's driving in from Boulder City. Mt. Charleston still had snow on its peak.

Although we all knew that driving on the strip is fool-hardy and shouldn't be done if it can be at all helped, it couldn't be helped, so we moved slowly through Vegas-by-day at about negative five miles per hour, and it took us SIX EONS to reach the Flamingo. As I mentioned, the Flamingo is pretty downstairs, but the rooms are mediocre and the service outright blows. The fact that we arrived at three and still had to wait an hour for our rooms wasn't so bad, the fact that they gave us separated smoking rooms (very recently evacuated and still smelling like burnt ass) instead of connected NON-smoking rooms wasn't so bad, it was just the fact that they acted as if was somehow our fault. In sum: fuck you, Flamingo. I feel sorry for the birds that have to live with you.

Actually, the maids and other service people were very nice. It was primarily the people behind the desk.

Anyway, once we were settled in our rooms, we got dressed (my idea of dressing up being orange pants, the fire boots and a black shirt with flames on it) and walked down the strip to the Bellagio. We had tickets to Cirque du Soleil's "O" which was playing there, you see. The Bellagio, by the way, is the most beautiful hotel on the strip, inside and out. My powers of description are sort of dead in the water right now, but you can get some idea of what it looks like from their website, though even that fails to do justice. We picked up our tickets, had a drink in the sports bar and then entered the O theatre.

Our seats were in the loggia, on the left side facing the stage. While we sat waiting for the show to start, I said to my coworkers, "This is going to sound weird, but it smells like an aquarium in here." Clearly I had no idea what I was going to see, because they informed me that "O" was a water show. And what a show. In many ways, Cirque du Soleil is the epitome of modern performance art (a skeleton! a sad clown! a girl in a red dress whose sole purpose is to stumble drunkenly across the stage! WHY??), but for me that's part of what made it fun. Besides that, no number of stumbling girls in dresses can overshadow the physical feats and abilities of the performers. Also, there were men in thigh-high boots and garters. OMFG yes.

After the show, we went to see what we could see on the strip. We saw the fountain show (which is beautiful at night), then made our way to the New York casino. That one probably wins the prize for cheesiest casino, but the roller coaster is fantastic. We're talking major theme park quality here. After that we stopped at one of those seedy little t-shirt/lingerie/bong shops because one of the girls wanted a henna tattoo, and from there we hit the mock Eiffel Tower. It's only half as tall as the real tower, but it's still one of the tallest structures in the city, high enough that the wind would blow you off the narrow viewing circle on top if it weren't for the cage around it. Took for-fucking-ever for the elevator to get up there, although the elevator girl told us that we were moving at eleven miles per hour. "Trivia: that's faster than all the cars on the strip," I said. I'm a fucking comedic genius. Since the mock tower is directly across from the Bellagio, we got to see the last fountain show of the day from 460 ft. up.

I found this to be absolutely hilarious: during the last fountain show of the day (about 12:30 a.m.), instead of the classical music they usually play in the background, the play the national anthem, like an old-fashioned (well, not THAT old) T.V. signoff. "This concludes our broadcast day. Goodnight America, and all the ships at sea!"

We had intended to ride the gondolas at the Venice hotel, but since most non-drinking attractions close at about 12:30, we went back to the hotel instead for the graveyard special. "Graveyard" is very appropriate here, as my coworkers were all zombies at that point.

The next morning we had breakfast at the buffet (okay food, beautiful scenery), hung out in Margaritaville for a little while, and left, but not before I stopped at one of the roulette wheels. I hadn't done any gambling yet (or ever), so I walked up to the table, took all the cash I had in my pocket (which was only $45) and put it on black. And won. Because I rule. In fact, I technically won back all the money that I spent on food for the trip, so I returned less deep in the hole than my coworkers, who'd all lost money.


And all of that happened two weeks ago! Because I'm no good with the LJ-keepy-up-y stuff.