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Last Wednesday Stef called with an offer that I couldn't refuse, purchase a ticket to Vegas and everything else would be covered for the 4th of July weekend. Her manager was flying there with a high roller friend and apparently two hotels were covering all of their expenses. Crazy! They put the two of us in a suite one floor below the penthouse at the Palazzo, the new Venetian towers, with a fantastic view of the strip. We treated ourselves to lots of pool time, the spa and several decadent meals. It was fabulous.
I've known Stef for a few years now but this was the first time that we've done a solo thing together. I feel kind of special that she thought of me for the trip. It was a great time and we got along so well. We're more alike than we first realized and I know this is the beginning of a close friendship. Here are highs and lows from the weekend:
- Our suite came with three flat screen TVs including one in the bathroom, remote controlled curtains and a walk-in closet
- The lounge chairs directly in the pool were awesome. Who needs a cabana when you can sit in the water all day?
- Ran into a friend's bachelor party and got to hang out with friends that I haven't seen in years
- A very drunk girl fell into a friend’s birthday cake and then wiped her hands on my dress
- Went to Jet at Treasure Island as a favor to Stef's manager and discovered it was the "5’4 and under" club
- Pulled an all-nighter on Saturday to fly out at
7:30am on Sunday. I felt a little crazy
at the airport but well that's how Vegas is done I suppose
- My feet still hurt from dancing in heels all
weekend. Heh.
Sometimes it takes a few plays before I really connect with bands and their music. I have a tendency to fall in love with albums long after others have started playing them at housewarming parties and they're on request in jukeboxes around the city. When it finally happens I'll listen to a particular album on repeat until I can't bear to hear another single note from it.
There's been many albums where I've done this going back as far as Disintegration, a time where I was going through the years of "How the hell did I end up with this family?", to more recent memories of drinking wine and dancing to Hot Fuss with my girlfriends. Each of these albums takes me back to a place and time, and reminds me of how far I've come and how much further the road is ahead. This month I'm stuck on Crystal Castles:
After years of going to Vegas for birthdays, getaways, bachelorette parties and one very cold New Year's Eve, I know better than to come into work the very next day. It takes a full day to recover from the excessive drinking and lack of sleep. Almost all of yesterday was spent either in bed or on my couch, minus the hour I spent unpacking and cooking dinner. Today my legs are still sore from all the dancing that I did on Saturday night. It was a fun time despite initial my concern that I was too old to be partying like that. ;)
The roundup from the weekend (includes only details that I could talk about in a public blog like this):
- Stayed in two awesome suites at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay. Very swanky but it was about a mile of walking to get to the pools. We were hooked up with a discount so the rooms ended up being cheaper than staying in Mandalay Bay.
- Average temperature in Vegas was 105 degrees. Such a shame that I only spent a total of four hours in the wave pool.
- My longest stretch of dancing in one night without sitting down? 5 hours.
- Celebrity takeover: Kardashians at Pure nightclub caused the lines to shutdown at midnight. We thought there was going to be a riot since they had a zillion people waiting.
- Bill for bottle service and table at Prive: two bottles of Grey Goose vodka at $450 per bottle.
- Stef's friend hooked us up with a "party bus" that came equipped with a dancer's pole. I would like to note that I did not partake in the pole dancing.
- Met Steve Kim from Chippendale's at Seamless, a new after hours club.
- Missed breakfast every day. But we did dine at Bradley Ogden and Social House.
The latter's tasting menu of sashimi was amazing and worth every
penny. Bradley Ogden is owned by the same restauranteur as Lark Creek
here in San Francisco but it definitely wasn't as good.
- I slept a total of four hours in two days. Woo.
I accidently overdid the day 1 of this week because I was starting off with the day 2 section. It is getting easier but of course that's because I'm not consistently doing double digits yet. Can't wait until I am!
Day 1: 6,5,3,3,5
Day 2: 6,5,3,3,10
Day 3: 5,5,4,4,11
Sarah wasn't feeling well this afternoon so I drove her St. Mary's hospital over by Golden Gate park. I dropped her off at the entrance and then parked the car in the garage. When I walked through the entrance I expected to find a directory but all I got was some girl on her cell phone giving me the dirty eye. It's rather baffling that hospitals floor plans aren't made more intuitive. People come here in times of pain and stress and are left staring at the five million signs wondering which way is the right way to go. They need medical help not GPS.
I was kind of expecting the emergency room to open up in front of me when I exited the elevator. Kind of like in the movies where there's this huge room with patients shuffling back and forth. Not quite. After turning two corners and ending up in the radiology section, I asked a nurse where the emergency room was.
"Um, it's behind you over there." He said with a tired look.
Oh, I completely missed the white double doors that said "Emergency Room" on them. Heh. I tried the doors but they were locked. An old man walking down the hall kindly yelled out, "Dear, you have to hit the intercom before they let you in..there, hit that button." An intercom? What if I was having a heart attack?
After they buzzed me in I figured this was where I would see the big waiting room. I ran down the hall past curtained rooms, empty gurneys and medical equipment and somehow ending up in another lab section. WTF? Since the emergency room was on the bottom floor, there were really low ceilings and no cell phone reception, so I couldn't even call Sarah.
I turned down two more hallways and then circled back around to the nurse's station out of breath, "Have you seen my friend? She just came in..she's about this tall, um.." The nurse looked at me like I was crazy. ".. Um, do you have a waiting room or something??"
She pointed me to a set of white sliding doors that I just ran past. OMG. I finally find Sarah and we spend the next fifteen minutes sitting in a tiny waiting room flipping through brochures about medical alarms and hospital billing options. There's an 80s cop movie playing on the crappy TV and the guy beside me is picking at the wound in his knee. Lovely stuff.
Finally she got checked out and I went back to the waiting room which was now filled with too many people. After five minutes or so, the guy behind me decided to rest his feet on the seat next to my head. Um, so gross. I sat perched in my seat watching the knee guy fidget back and forth. After ten minutes of this I couldn't take it anymore and bolted for the sliding doors. Except um, they didn't slide this time. Push. Nothing. I turned to see one of the ladies in the room staring at me stupidly. I looked at the doors again and saw the fine print, "Doors do not open on their own." Seriously? Why the hell not? I turned back to the check-in desk, "Um, the door doesn't open on it's own???"
The nurse rolled her eyes, "No they don't." She hit a button and the doors opened up.
ARGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Sarah was treated with medication through an interesting plastic breathing contraption. I almost took a photo but it looked kind of phallic and I was sure she'd kill me for posting it. She's doing better now and despite the craziness of that hospital, we did get a good laugh about all the things we saw but couldn't txt anyone about.
I've been working on a new painting. It's been awhile since I've been inspired to do something but I saw a Monet in the window of a bookstore and decided I wanted to do flowers. Cherry blossoms rather than his lilies and in a brighter turquoise than the painting's pale blues. The thing with oil painting though is that it's a process. A process of layering on several shades of gray, then complimentary colors, and then redrawing the objects in charcoal. With each layer, you add more and more paint until you're at 90/10 ratio of paint to mineral spirits.
Initially you'll have a lot of "runs" in the paint which is good because it allows the varying levels of color to mix. You can see a lot of them to on the right side of my painting. While I'm not close to being done (there's a lot of highlighting to do and well it's not turquoise :P), I kind of like where it's at. Maybe I should start on another until I'm inspired to change this one? That's the brilliance of oil. Retouch it with paint in a few weeks and it'll come back to life.
Summer has made it's way to the bay and with it comes the onslaught of weddings and festivities. On my coffee table are the first set of invitations with another two still on their way. One invitation sadly went from having Nick's name to just a singular "1". People sure like to punish the single folks. Ha. I really thought everyone was done getting married years ago but they just keep coming. I'm looking forward to each of these especially the ones out of the city. The first couple will be married at Wente Vineyards in Livermore, the second at a private estate in Palo Alto and the third at one of my favorite restaurants, Yank Sing.
This weekend I'm headed to Vegas for Mel's bachelorette party. I've been to Vegas more times than I can remember so I'm only looking forward to the part where I hang out with girlfriends by the pool. In July it'll be Suzanne's cocktail bridal party at a french bistro in South Park (btw, I love this idea since it's neither a shower nor a bachelorette) and then in August I'll be taking a Napa wine tasting and spa trip for Sarah's shower. It's going to be a busy but fun summer. I'm looking forward to the time spent with friends.
I wasn't as sore yesterday which meant I should have been able to do more, but it was too freaking hot in the apartment to do anything:
5-4-4-3-8. Ready for week 2... and the cooler weather.
