Daniel and Richard are on the left, you just can't see them.

So, I live in Las Vegas now. Here I am, a dyed-in-the-wool California girl in the desert… if California girls wore wool. I’m sitting on my familiar couch, typing on my familiar laptop, watching my familiar TV in a totally unfamiliar house and a mostly unfamiliar city.  We dropped Daniel and Richard off at the airport a couple hours ago, Mike just left for work and it’s just me n’ the bun, getting to know this place.


Some things I’ve discovered thus far, in a handy unordered list:

• Drink a lot of water because man, it’s dry.
• This is a lot more house than I remembered and  despite my griping about how much stuff I have, it’s not enough to fill two-thirds of this place.
• Lupo by Wolfgang Puck at Mandalay stops serving at 10pm and one of the hostesses is a snatch.
• Liquidity at Luxor makes a really good martini… after you send back the first one and your waitress rolls her eyes at you.
• I can see the snow capped mountains from my office.
• There is a beautiful view of downtown, the Stratosphere and a bit of the Strip from the master bedroom.
• Lulu was calmer during the move than I was.
• If you live in a certain lovely gated community in San Diego, don’t park your UHaul on the street, even with a parking pass.  You’ll get towed and have to pay $228 to get it out all the while freaking out that your stuff has been stolen out of the back. But you can’t park outside the main neighborhood either because that’s  violating some other rule, so I guess they expect you to levitate your truck a mile above the earth until you’re ready to leave. Bollocks and a half.
• No one makes king-size fitted sheets, only Cal-King. I love you, California, you are my home state, but the whole world doesn’t revolve around your bed size.  Let’s pick one, shall we?  Twin. Full. Queen. KING. Just the one. Cripes.
• It takes three men and a handful of martinis to put together a king-size IKEA bedframe.
• My best gays are truly the best, all around. They drove the moving truck, they bought me vodka, they tolerated my crazy and still love me. And they didn’t even mind that I made them use mismatched towels.
• Don’t listen to virtual strangers when they tell you should look out for scorpions because apparently, this is not a problem. I was also told to wear shoes in the house, just in case I stepped on one, which had me in a tizzy and freaking out for Lulu’s safety and our own. Turns out, there are people who have lived here their entire lives and never seen one, let alone in the house. So that guy can suck it and pay for my therapy.
• There are strippers, minus the strip, that dance around in the middle of the casino floor in the Luxor.
• Speaking of strippers, Little Darlings off the 15 has actual footage of their (still clothed) strippers dancing on a massive screen. It’s no wonder there’s traffic congestion.
• Thanks to the Internet, what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay here.  Girl, please. They really need to retire that campaign.

That’s all for now. I have a few photos and when the house is presentable and doesn’t look like the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock, I’ll post a little tour.  Now I have to go find what box I put the thing in that allows me to do something that is probably in another box that doesn’t contain what I need. In the garage.  Next to an alleged scorpion.

So, we get there and it’s closed. But not “hey, we’re closed for a private party” or “due to the economy, we’re now closed on Sundays”. Just… closed. The “dark, silent, not answering the phone” kind of closed. Very odd.  We decided to go to another place down the street in Little Italy called The Glass Door, which was at the top of the Porto Villa hotel.  Lovely little place, but still pretty new. Great view of the bay and sunset, but the martini glasses were those kind without the stem — just this big clunky chunky glass. It kind of takes away from the martini-drinking experience if you ask me, but the martini itself did that in spades. It was way too ‘dirty’ and mine had large bits of olive floating in it. I declared, “Mine’s got flotsam!” I don’t know if Richard was so lucky to get chunks in his drink. Daniel smartly ordered an appletini which was apparently good.

We decided to go over to Bing Crosby’s where the blue-hairs were hoppin’ last night!  It was wall-to-wall Geritol, but they were having so much fun it was more like American Bandstand. There was a guy playing Nat King Cole on the piano and singing when we came in. But then he kicked on a backup track and played along to My Heart Will Go On with a soprano sax. I swear, I thought my ear drums were going to burst from my ears. It was like a Kenny G singalong.

The man was talented, don’t get me wrong, but there was something really cruise-shippy about his whole schtick. After that he busted out an alto sax and played along to At Last. And then it was Robert Plant and the Honeydrippers version of Sea of Love.  Lots of Billy Joel and then came the Creedence Clearwater Revival.    Seriously?

The place is called Bing Crosby’s, for pete’s sake. I don’t deny the man had chutzpah and clearly was a gifted musician, but it felt more like one of those dueling pianos places instead of a fine dining lounge.  But the crowd was salivating over him. Some old guy got up and rained dollars on the performer’s head at one point.  He was hocking his CD on top of the piano… it was just… surreal.

Of course, that didn’t stop us from joining in on the rousing chorus of “Sweet Caroline”.  We’re no fools.

A woman on the prowl sauntered up to our table at one point and asked, “Do you smoke?”  We all responded that no, we don’t.  She looked incredulous, “NONE of you smoke?”  When we shook our heads, she said, “Well, that’s uh… very good.” and walked away. She trolled every table, it seemed like. Then later, another older cougar-y type in a big fur coat stopped by our table to tell us to “have fun, kids”.   I’m telling you, the people-watching was ripe last night.

When we ordered our drinks, our server — a very perky, perky, perky woman I’ll call “Sunny” — informed us she was not only out of Grey Goose, but Kettle One, too.  Very strange, considering the lounge is known for it’s martinis. But whatever, we got Belvedere and moved on with our lives.  Then they ran out of blue cheese olives.  Now, I realize this may be one of the most pretentious statement on earth, but you can’t offer blue cheese olives and then run out. Every single time I’ve been in there, I get one drink with blue cheese olives and then they tell me they’ve run out.  You’d think if they always ran out, they’d plan accordingly.

I realize people are starving and there are holes in the ozone and gas prices are creeping up and it’s been like, a whole month since Lindsey Lohan did anything gossip-worthy, but if you’re going to offer fancy olives, don’t jerk a girl around.

This weekend was some of the best fun I’ve had in a long time. And the most stuff I’ve done in a long time, too. We had very full and busy days the entire time she was here. From the moment her plane touched down, it was lunch at the Prado, Grey Goose and a piano bar at Martinis Above Fourth, karaoke at the Lamplighter, TMI about a stranger’s areola, some eggs benedict, a harbor ferry, an almost-purchased Dr. Seuss painting, a bunch of maritime crap, a whole bunch of laughing, a lot of “Yay!!”-ing and clinking of glasses, a dash of Eurotrash, some twigs and berries, one hangover pizza and a handful of girl movies.  Oh, and excessive quoting of the movie “Knocked Up”.

I think the best part of Kathy being here was spending time with her (of course!) and many of our friends. Our cocktail party at Lei Lounge was faaaabulous and I think a more-than-good time was had by all. Much, much more. I’m not naming names or anything, but the offending drink was pink.

I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. I really, really needed that. Thank you to everyone who was able to make it — it meant a lot to have you there.

Naptime is imminent, but I will close with a little gem that Daniel and Richard shared with us. We can’t stop quoting this either.  If you’re sensibilities are delicate, you’ve been duly warned.  Don’t bother trying to make sense of it, just enjoy.

I’m a pirate.