That Fetching Cat

I am deathly allergic to cats so there's some irony in the fact that I am currently cat sitting two friends' felines (Turtle & Finn).

Plus the people I babysit own a cat named Savi that I have to see every day. To be honest, I secretly loathe her (and she not so secretly can't stand me since she hisses and tries to claw me every single time I walk by the little bitch.) And she leaves fur balls all over the house, which make me sneeze incessantly.

This is her...

Hell cat.

However, this is Shauna's cat, Finn...

... who has the same coloring, but he's way bigger with shorter hair, even if you can't tell in this picture.

And... he fetches. And he loves to eat and chase marshmallows. And he likes me.

So he was deserving of this video...

Note the cat teeth marks on the marshmallow when I hold it up! Haha.

Rat Farts, You Tube!

I'm annoyed.

My blog entry today revolved around a video upload, and You Tube is down for site maintenance, it's 11:35pm, I have to wake up at 7am, and I am tired (literally) of waiting around for the site to work again.

Perhaps it's for the best, as I wanted to include another photo that I don't have yet but will get tomorrow while cat sitting.

I know the suspense is killing you...

PS - And since this blog entry is short and sweet (unlike my usual ramblings), I should break it to you now that this blog is going to die in a month. I leave for DC on July 28 and figure that's as good a time as any to end this written chapter of my life. Maybe I'll start another one with my DC activities... not sure yet if I'll have time... but perhaps I can be convinced by my five or six regular readers...

Vegas Recap... The Grand Finale

In the last "Vegas Segment" of the week, I present you with the activities of Day 3, AKA Sunday, June 24...

Woke up late. Waited for Ingrid. Went downstairs. Met up with Pete. Waited for Krista and Ben. Sat around. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally found them.

Took photo on Fremont Street "The Vegas Experience" outside of Bunions...

... Oh wait, I mean "Binion's," where I won $66 the day before. (And really, it does seem appropriate that with my horrifically knobbly and bunionated feet, I was a winner at Binion's/Bunions).

We then found the $9.99 All You "Care To" Eat Paradise Buffet.

While Pete and Krista supped on cottage cheese, salad, and strawberries, Ingrid and I went crazy on the Mexican Pot Pie, Au Gratin Potatoes, Scrambled Eggs, Sausage and Bacon. I mean, if I want cottage cheese & salad, I can raid my own refrigerator... the Paradise Buffet (featuring a total of eight culinary stations, one of which was "The Pacific Rim") was something to overindulge and feast upon.

You will notice that I did not mention the Boff yet. This is because our dear friend Ben fell into a completely different category, never seen before even amongst the most enthusiastic of buffet hounds (judging by the looks he was given), better known as the All You "Can Creatively" Eat.

Allow me to show you a small sampling of Ben's (second or possibly third) platter...

This untouched pile of yellow and orange is what Ben described as "a homemade omelet." Despite the fact that there was a chef on the premises making custom-ordered omelets, Ben decided to do it his own way by taking a smattering of scrambled eggs, two greasy squares of colby cheese, a spoonful of salad bar bacon bits, and two tomato slices and piling them upon one another to form his "omelet." Appetizing, no?!?

And then he discovered the King Crab legs, which led to another debacle...

... especially with no crab claw mallet.

In order to crack open the pile of crab legs he had grabbed, Ben devised a system of hammering the shell with the end of his knife. Soon he was spraying crab meat all over the table, into our orange juices, and onto my arm and eyeglasses...

Look at the table. Just look at that!

This was his third plate of crab legs too. In the meantime, Ingrid and Krista escaped by going up to the room to pack their bags, Pete excused himself to take a dump (clearly the better option to watching Ben spray crab meat all over Vegas), and I -- faithful friend that I am -- got stuck alone watching Ben attack crab legs for another good 20 minutes. Indeed, it was quite the spectacle.

But alas, the party ended, and it was time to head home.

Ben couldn't fit all of his stuff into his suitcase because he was hauling so much of Ingrid's gear...

...so he had to carry his shoe.

Unfortunately we got assigned to "Seating Group C" at the airport before our Southwest flight back to Tucson. (FYI: Southwest does not give you an assigned seat... it's first come, first serve.) That meant that all the good seats would be snatched up by Groups A and B, and we'd probably each be stuck in center seats between strangers. Ben spotted a sweaty man weighing at least 300 pounds wearing a ragged tank top and immediately concluded that he would be his seat mate. I figured we would all suffer similar fates.

Not to mention, the A/C in the terminal was broken...

I was trying to show how hot the terminal was here, but all I have ended up conveying is that I am often a retard.

Luckily, however, the men standing next to us didn't think so... they were part of a group of about eight guys in their 40s who were flying back to Tucson from a "boys golf weekend" in Vegas. They had been drinking at the bar, when one of their friends (Bill) got a little tipsy. One of them got the bright idea to request a wheelchair for him... and a marvelous idea was born.

So here's Bill, the "handicapped passenger"...

He and his friends were all supposed to be in Group B.

HOWEVER... because he appeared "handicapped," he got to pre-board with one of his friends, and they saved seats for all of us.

This led to a series of hilarious conversations in the gate area, while we all waited to board:

1. Bill had to pee terribly but could not get up to go to the bathroom.

2. Bill wanted a "nurse" to care for him aboard the flight. I had to interview with him and I won the position (earning me a seat next to him on the flight and several free drink coupons).

3. When I asked his friend if he thought the gate agent was getting suspicious, his friend just looked at me and said, "Look, we're not rookies here. You don't fuck with the handicapped." (Good point, they could never accuse of him of faking being a cripple! The plan was fool-proof!)

4. When I was taking Bill's picture (above), his friends said, "Don't smile, you idiot... you're supposed to look dejected," at which point Bill stared at his knees for the rest of the time, which made me laugh even harder.

5. He was finally allowed to pre-board and got his first pick of seats, which sent a howl of laughter up from his other friends in the waiting area and about 10 other passengers who had caught on to the clever act.

6. Bill later informed me that he tried to grab an exit row, but due to his "disability," he was unable to meet the exit door requirements.

7. He bought me drinks and made me crack up the whole way back to Tucson. Meanwhile, Ingrid and Ben were several rows behind me with another of Bill's friends, who apparently was equally funny.

And that's it... a perfect ending to our Vegas weekend!

Vegas Recap... Part Two

Last Saturday started off well...

Anna and I woke up at 9:30am and a half hour and several Ibuprofens later, we found ourselves getting a craps lesson in the Golden Nugget casino. If you've ever played craps before, you know how confusing it is when you don't know what you're doing.

I still don't profess to know what I'm doing, but I always play the pass line, I typically bet on "6" or "8" above the pass line, and I pray that someone is a good roller.

Luckily for me that morning, I happened to be the star roller at the table, even prompting the guy next to me (who described himself as an "addicted gambler") to place some bets for me with his own money. It's great to be female in Vegas. That's all I have to say about that.

Anyway, here I am after my first round of winning...

... wearing a bleach shirt hand-crafted for me by Ingrid, who had a matching top. And honestly, who cares if our birthdays were really last month?

To celebrate our good luck (Anna won some cash too!) we headed out to the hotel pool, which features a brand new $30 million SHARK TANK and WATER SLIDE that goes through the shark tank...


This is the end of the water slide, where it turns into a clear tube so you can see the sharks just before you get launched into the swimming pool. There were some big sharks in that tank too. I was impressed. (I also must mention that the man with his back to me on the lower right side of the photo was one of the cheesiest, skeeviest guys I have seen in a long time... he seriously hit on every single woman at the hotel -- clearly, we all rejected him carte blanche -- plus he reminded me of Stuttering John from the Howard Stern Show.)

Here we are sunbathing (or shade bathing so the case may be) in between water slide rides...

One older man at the pool insisted on saluting Ingrid every time he walked by.

Afterwards, we all hung out for a bit out on Fremont Street...

... which is where I won the rest of my craps money.

And then we returned to the Golden Nugget...

I was feeling pretty lucky by this point.

Before dinner, Ingrid, Anna, and I decided to head down to the real strip...

... where we got wine and cocktails at the Parasol Down Lounge at the Wynn Hotel, which was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. We were looking out over a waterfall and a splashing lake here.

Dinner was not quite as classy...

... but far more Old Vegas awesome. Please check out the Peppermill. God, I love this place.

Ben & Krista fit right in...

... thank god for his model hot looks.

Ingrid, Anna, and Stirling had mega-drinks...

... or rather, the very SERIOUS signature drink of the Peppermill called "The Scorpion."

There are other Scorpion drinks out there on the market, but I can assure you that you've never had a real Scorpion till you've had the Peppermill's Scorpion. It consists of massive amounts of liquor, a ginormous straw, comes in a goblet the size of a basketball, and it only costs $18 (for what we figured is the equivalent of six drinks)... in other words, the best deal in Vegas.

Here I am sucking down the liquor with Pete...


Here's a better view of my new favorite alcoholic beverage...

... which we were all still drinking even after we moved to the Fireside Lounge, which you can see has a centerpiece of bubbling water and fire. Could there be any other reason why this lounge has been voted the U.S.'s #1 Make-Out Lounge by Nerve magazine?

Here's a view across the flames...

Ingrid looks like she's being singed. I thought that was kind of a cool special effect.

Here's a better shot sans the fire...


And on the other side of fire, Pete insisted on taking this photo...

... which he dubbed "total decadence."

And here's Pete with his ladies...

Krista and the Moos.

After determining that no one but Pete and I were able to finish our Scorpions, we hopped on the double decker Deuce shuttle bus to the Stratosphere, where Ingrid wanted to go to Polly Esther's for 80s dancing...

I must admit I was pretty sloshed after that unbelievably gigantic drink and decided to photograph the upper level of the bus and some of its passengers...

Here's Pete & Stirling (and a little of Krista) behind me...


And the best part of the ride... Ingrid totally lost her shit...

... she was literally crying from laughing so hard. Seems that in my drunkenness, despite a half empty bus, I parked myself in a seat way up front next to some random guy and his bachelor party friends. I think the Moos did the same thing. Ingrid loved it.

Once we got to Polly Esther's (free of charge, thanks to Ben's canoodling with a shady character on the strip that afternoon), the Moos and I posed for our requisite Brady family photo...

Wasn't that Alice's spot? I always kind of liked Peter until he got all trashy and lame on VH1's "Surreal Life" and married that faux model.

Anyway, I was three sheets to the wind for a good part of the night, especially after the Tom Cruise "Kokomo/Cocktail" bartender (who actually looked a lot like Max Headroom) flipped about 10 bottles of vodka into a drink he called the "Top Gun" for me.

Although I forgot to take pictures of any of us at the club actually dancing, I did get a shot of Ingrid & the Moos washing their hands at the full-service bathroom station, complete with attendants...

Clearly, I live a low-class lifestyle... getting excited enough about a full-service bathroom that I felt the need to take a picture.

I also took one last picture of the "free shots" moment at the bar...

... when half the 80s dance room ran up to the bartenders, who then poured tequila into their waiting mouths (Krista confessed later to being one of those people).

I, on the other hand, was feeling slightly nauseous from my "Scorpion" and "Top Gun" drinks and wanted nothing but water by that point. Not to mention, I questioned the sanitary conditions of drinking out of a random liquor bottle shared by what seemed to be hundreds of scabby Vegas goers.

And really, let's just be honest here, as you can see from the clientèle in the above photo, Polly Esther's is not exactly Tryst or Jet or Pure. It's pretty easy to make it past the velvet rope.

I pooped out around 2am. This old body just can't party like it used to... and as much as I love the 80s, the DJ was spinning way too much Beastie Boys and Bon Jovi for my taste (if it's not New Wave, I can't dance!!!).

On that sad note, I must be going... tomorrow is the last Vegas update (and will include details from perhaps the funniest airline flight I've ever taken).

Vegas Recap... Part One

I took about a zillion pictures in Las Vegas. Too many for one blog post... So I'm breaking it up into three blog posts.

Here was Day One (last Friday night)...

Pre-partying at Moos's house...

Anna G., Moos, and me were all on the same evening flight.

We had a few drinks at the Tucson Airport then hopped on the plane.

Here's Moos in her seat next to me...


Lucky for Anna and me, she met this guy, Craig (who she kept calling Greg, which I found pretty hilarious at the time), across the aisle...

In typical Moos style, even though she didn't know his name after he told her five times, she still got him to buy all three of us drinks. We love our Moos.

This is what we looked like after about six alcoholic beverages...

Maybe I should drink before/during flying more often. I was having a lot of fun.

We all thought our flight attendant was pretty scary...

She's probably been featured in one of those "plastic surgery gone wrong" specials. Anna was calling her Michael Jackson.

Anyway, once we landed, we headed to our downtown hotel via a shuttle bus... "Thank you. And Good Luck." (That was our shuttle bus message, taped to the front of the bus. Moos turned around and wished all of our co-passengers good luck making it to their destinations.)

Our home away from home... the Golden Nugget!

Since we were the last of our friends to arrive, we had a party waiting for us at the Nugget...

The Boff & the Moos snuggling (I should mention that just prior to this photo, Ben decided to crap in our room after eating at a cheap buffet and stank it up so bad that we had to use his bathing suit to prop open our window and then move to HIS, Krista's, Ingrid's and Stirling's room next door because our's was so disgustingly polluted. I'm pretty sure he caused permanent damage to my olfactory system, as the stench was so horrendous that I honestly got the gag reflex -- like I did once changing a smelly diaper while babysitting.)

Anyway, after I recovered, Ingrid and I donned our Vegas-style sunglasses in the other room...


And Stirling modeled the lavender wig...


Pete is actually moving to Vegas in real life next week so he was there house hunting...

... and drinking with us.

THE BOFF IS HAWT!!!...

(Even if his insides are rotten.)

We went out to some downtown bars like the Griffin and the Beauty Bar...

Stirling & Anna hit the dance floor, while a guy who looked just like Richie Sambora DJ'ed some punk-hipster rock.

This Puerto Rican guy (a seriously drunk x-ray technician) muscled up to Anna on the dancefloor...


But he took it a step too far when the shirt came all the way off...

... at least for Anna.

Ben, however, took things to a whole new level...

... who knew he had so many pubes?!?

DOWNTOWN VEGAS ROCKS!!!...

I was pretty happy we were at the Nugget instead of the Goose.

At the end of the night, we ran into these crazy, wasted Mexicans while walking back to our hotel. They wanted photos with girls... so of course, Ben volunteered...


They commandeered me into this picture...

I think I'm in some gang photo here actually.

The guy on the right was soooooo drunk that he dived into a policeman on a bicycle right after this picture was taken...

He literally dove under the bike, fell on his face, and was bleeding before he ran away from the cop and an ambulance sitting on the corner.

However, the good news is that he gave me a $20 bill before he did that. Or actually, I should say that I refused to take it so Anna grabbed it and gave it to me later. I should also mention that I used it the next day to gamble and walked away with $86 (after winning another $34 earlier in the day) playing my favorite ever Vegas game, craps.

So thanks, Mexican gangster man!

More to come tomorrow...

OFF TO VEGAS!!!

I'm off to Vegas tonight with the Tucson/San Fran Party Crew!!!

Here we are...



Krista, Super Anna G., The Moos, The Boff, Pete, Ingrid!, and Yours Truly. (No photo available of Stirling, who lives in Palo Alto... but rumor has it "she's a wild one.")

So think of us this weekend and the total debauchery that is soon to be had... VEGAS, HERE WE COME!!!