Las Vegas

The funnniest thing happened to me as I was leaving work this morning (at 5:30 AM). Part of my pilgrimage from restaurant to shuttle bus involves walking down this long fancy hall. (I say fancy because there are ancient-Italian-looking gas light fixtures, marble columns, famous works of art, classical mood music and security guards–it has a fancy aura about it). Anyways, one side of this long hallway is lined with tinted windows. I realized this morning that I have never really looked out these windows. (I’m convinced these windows are here to enforce the Las Vegas Time Zone; read: there is no time/it doesn’t matter what time it is, so you should continue to party and commit sinful acts indefinitely). Feeling curious, I decided to take a peek.

I walked over, chugging down water in a vain attempt to rehydrate after eight hours in the bakeshop, and CRASHED right into the window. Like, seriously crashed. Maybe it was all the flour on my eyelashes that distorted my vision, or the powdered sugar clogging my sinuses that clouded my depth perception…all I know is I snorted about a liter of water up my nose, and got thoroughly wet.

I’m sure the security guards were just waiting for me to turn the corner so they could whoop it up. (Although, I was pretty suave and waited until I got into the elevator before laughing hysterically, so maybe they didn’t notice… ). Ahem.

We have the most beautiful sunrises here in Las Vegas. The one this morning was absolutely gorgeous. I ran the quarter mile to the golf course (on the other side of our complex), and even hurdled the super swank pool to try and get a photo in time, but alas. I think you just have to see them in person. (I guess that means you all have to come visit!!! Hint, hint!)

Cindy and I went to play mini-golf a few nights ago! Woohoo. We realize that it is a totally high school thing to do, but we were both pretty sick of all the adult things to do around here, so we decided to mix it up. It was a great time too! The place we went to had a special deal, so we got to play three rounds of golf, zoom around on the go-carts, take a spin on the bumper boats, and hit some balls in the batting cages! It was quite the adventure.

Thank you to the “handyman” who FINALLY came to fix my toilet yesterday (it’s been flooding from the tank for the past two weeks…). It doesn’t leak anymore, which is good, but it does make loud watery noises at random intervals. It’s great. I am thankful that my floor isn’t covered in water, but couldn’t they make it be a quiet toilet too? Apparently having a super-carpenter-fix-everything-right-the-first-time-Dad has spoiled me for life.

Speaking of toilets, I need to flush this bad attitude right down the tubes. I’ve been in a horrible mood ever since returning from Upstate NY, and frankly am quite sick of it. I’m going to go check out a new library today and take in an exhibit or two. Maybe that will cheer me up!

No more washing windows with paper towels–it’s all about the newspaper. A friend at work shared this trick with me and I promptly tried it out on the humungo mirror in my bathroom–to great success! Never again will I use paper towels to wipe up mirrors or windows! I can’t believe it took me 23 years to discover this trick. I’ll just have to wash windows twice as much for the next 23 years to make up for it.

Another lesson I learned this week is that floating candles in Las Vegas are just not practical. I’ve been trying to make them work for a couple of months now, and am so sick of refilling the water every single day. Plus, the water that evaporates leaves marks on the glass that are impossible to get off unless you use a stainless steel scrubbie (my new best friend). So yesterday I decided to fill the candle-floating-glasses with rice instead of water. Yippeee–no more water refills or hours of endless scrubbing. Plus, I’m saving water and thus doing my part to ameliorate the drought conditions in this freaking desert we live in.

I was going a little crazy with the rice yesterday. I noticed that my sea salt was starting to clump together. Salt is not supposed to clump. Then I remembered a little trick that Mom and Dad use at home to stop the salt shaker salt from clogging the salt shaker holes: they put a few grains of rice in the shaker. Since my bottle is quite a bit larger, I decided to put a small handful of grains in. Bad idea.

My thinking was that the rice would absorb whatever moisture was in the salt (evaporated from the water my candles used to float in…), thus declumping my beloved sea salt. And maybe that will work, but the holes in the top of the canister are so big that the rice comes out whenever you use the salt! Shoot.

I’m going home on Thursday!!! YAY!!! Hansi, our exchange student from Venezuela (who stayed with us my senior year of high school), is visiting for the month, so she’ll be home too! As well as big sis Phoebe with new hubby John and baby Sydney–so it’s going to be one huge family party!! I’m sure we’ll be spending some quality time at The Rock.

It is one hundred and fifteen degrees here.