Wild Nights

Dinah Fried's Fictitious Dishes: The Catcher in the Rye. Artist's website here. Used with artist's kind permission.


Most mornings here in Carolina are misty and gray, but today the sun broke autumn light through the trees, a rosy dawn. Driving the girls to school I was groggy and dry, having last night put on my butterscotch cowboy boots and leather jacket, caramel, and gone to a cozy restaurant, where we sat at the big oak bar and I ordered a vodka martini with extra olives. I'm reading a book in which they keep drinking olive martinis, and I'm hopeless against things like this. I was in the mood to feel glamorous, so I did. As the night wore on some friends arrived, coworkers of Noah's and their companions in town for a bike race. One man from South Africa who has moved to Atlanta, one man from Atlanta who has moved to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and of course me, missing the west and going backwards against all hopes of my ancestors. The vodka was so cold and pure, the drink of flapper-haired girls from a jazzy age, of women with black eyeliner instead of stockings, but here I am, a different self and a different age as well, so I enjoyed raising that clear, sweating glass to my glossed lips and taking neat sips of the stuff, swiveling the olives for fun. I had enough to drink that I texted my friend about British accents and knowing what to do in my next life, and then I fell into bed and rose hours later to a crisp and chilled Carolina morning, my toes cold beneath the bedsheets. At the school drop-off line, just as she stepped out of the car, Indy, in pigtails, said "Mom, guess what? Oh never mind, I'll tell you later." But she won't tell me later. She won't remember, she is six-years-old, her socks slouch unevenly and paint smears her wrist as she runs in the school doors to a life I don't know. She won't remember, she won't know that once on a night in September her mother wore a leather jacket and drank vodka martinis in a bar, when her skin was still smooth and her hair was dyed cinnamon, that she gazed adoringly at her husband, who told her she was an endearing drunk, and later a man from another universe bid her farewell with a kiss on the cheek.

Asheville Je T'aime

We were sitting in the Asheville Brewing Company when the doubts began to set in. A man with ear plugs and an easy friendliness had just served us a cast iron skillet balanced with samples of foamy beer and Mr. V was talking about possibilities but I couldn't hear a word he had to say. I was trying not to cry.

I had the Rockies on my mind. My people were prairie and mountain raised, pioneers moving ever westward and it's not a thing you soon forget. Your ancestral landscape gets into your blood and like it or not, in some ways you will always be the place you came from. Brevard was beautiful but it was a shock to my sensibilities and sitting in a bright, artsy city, I remembered where I was made. Craving one place and longing for the other, I never know where I might land.

We'd crossed the French Broad river, which I will never say without seeing a smoky-eyed woman pulling up her stockings, and made a right on a corner where The Thirsty Monk faced Jack In The Woods Public House. I might as well have been in Avalon or Paris. The Monk was a bright purple building, packed wall to wall on a string of similar tall facades, the streets loose brick that shifted beneath our feet and meandered around courtyards and bright alleyways, each one brimming with drinking, dining folk facing streetward, a la Parisienne. Plenty of bookstores, plenty of earthy chicks with scarves in their hair like me and legs that go a long time between shavings, also like me. (Sorry, my Californian sisters, but it's true). There were specialty stores for everything from pastries to wine to cured meats to dog biscuits, and this is exactly what I love about Edinburgh and Manhattan and all the great old cities. Asheville is known as the Paris of the south, and now I know why.

In Asheville it seems that the culture is the counter-culture, but no one's feeling smug about it like they are in Boulder. Perhaps because you get the sense that Asheville isn't a place where rich pseudo-hippies have settled because it's beautiful and has a Whole Foods, but a place where eclectic people, people normally on the fringe, have congregated and they ain't smug but so damn happy to have found each other in all this mess, and who woulda thunk but they've made a home.

Driving in to Asheville we'd spotted an old man waving a confederate flag from a bridge, but inside the city there was no such nonsense. The brewery was running over with young families. Mr. V was talking mortgages and I was craving babies, the surest sign of trouble I know. I shook myself back into the present and shifted towards sunny as we walked up Patton, past traveling musicians to Hayward and Battery Park Avenue, where I was reminded that there is history in the south, history involving names like Grant and Lee and Stonewall Jackson. After standing quietly taking in the view of the hills from the portico of St. Lawrence Basilica, my husband decided to take me out for a French dinner and we found Bouchon almost by accident. "This city should be a good place to get French," I said to Mr. V. "Asheville has a lot of French influence." Since this is my blog and we're into being honest here, I'll admit that this is one of those things I say more by instinct than by actual knowledge. But steering by instinct is what landed us here in the first place, so I went with it.

Bouchon was at the end of hill where we'd spotted a Japanese chef plucking herbs from his garden to use in whatever culinary mischief he was up to. We sat in the cobblestoned alley, filled with greenery and umbrellas and summer soiree lights. I ordered my first pate and my first Kir Royal and thought, if I can't have Paris yet, at least I have this. Mr. V ordered the canard a l'orange rubbed with cocoa nibs and I stuck to moules-frites. They tasted of the ocean and I sucked them down, happy as any sea star nestled in its proper bed.

We left Bouchon and were headed up the hill when the skies just broke right open, faster than a prairie thunderstorm. Look at that cute little cloud, I thought, and then suddenly the rain was too torrential to see in. We were standing just in front of a brewery, so having one more drink was the only thing to do. There was a deep covered patio, perfect for sipping and breathing in the scent of rain, the bright light on the art deco buildings just across the street, and smiling like we'd won the lottery. This is my favorite thing about traveling. You're just going along in your life and suddenly serendipity blesses you so certain you know there is good in all this limping, stuttering earth. I grinned wildy at Mr. V over a salty margarita and told him how I loved it when this happens. That's when it struck me that I've always said I want to live in a lively city and in the middle of nowhere, and that maybe in this part of North Carolina I could have both.

There are things I haven't told you: there is a Starbucks in Brevard, but it's inside a grocery store and while the local coffee spot makes a creamy, nutty latte, it has the ambiance of a Furr's in foreclosure. Mr. V says that when I saw his first paycheck from the brewery, I cried. I have no memory of this but I don't doubt it. What I know is that in the end, anywhere I go is going to become one more place I want to leave.

The next day it was time to head home. We traveled over four hours in the rain from Brevard back to Atlanta and when we got to the gate at 2:35, after running faster and farther than I have since college, our 2:40 departure had already left. We sat half the day in the Atlanta airport, so overstimulating I curled up on the floor with headphones in my ears and closed my eyes. I stayed that way until Mr. V brought me a frozen yogurt and it was time to board the plane and fly west, west over prarie, west toward home. We passed over a spectacular lightnight storm and watched great thunderheads light up rhythmically from the top side, clearer now than ever the way those clouds answer each other, a nebular call and response. Departure was at the tail-end of evening and a strip of electric blue sunset hung stubborn in the sky. We chased that last light of sun all the way home. We never did catch it.

L.A. Lady

(Please forgive the image issues in this post. The HTC EVO phone I had on the trip makes everything--everything--impossible. This was the best I could do, let's just leave it at that.)

You know last time I flew some where it was kind of an ordeal.

But not this time. I Mele Kalikimake'd myself into a state of aviation bliss. By that I mean that I played the Bing Crosby song on repeat for almost the duration of the flight, easing myself into a Paradise State of Mind. I also ordered a glass of wine on the plane.

Best five bucks I've ever spent in my life.

I arrived at LAX and spent the next four hours there. I didn't mind, honestly. I had a new smart phone that hadn't yet proven itself to be an epic and grotesque technological failure. Southwest had lost my bag, my girlfriend's flight arrived an hour late. Whatever. I had things to tweet. If the tweeting didn't get done, who knows what might occur?

Long story short: we rode a shuttle bus to pick up a car, and while we were on the bus my girlfriend showed me Facebook's "check-in" feature. But why would I want to check-in where I actually was? That's boring, and it's not like LAX is giving you free drinks for it. So we checked in at Nudes, Nudes!! and later, at the Grilled Cheese invitational. I don't know. It seemed the thing to do. We drove the rental car twice around the LAX terminal before finding Southwest and my bag.

We drove to downtown Los Angeles.

It was lit up like El Dorado. The high rises and searchlights glittering in the night. Lights on palm trees, lights on Christmas trees.

I was in love.

There were homeless people sleeping in tents on the streets.

There were parking lots advertising cheaper rates for film crews.

There were stretch limos and doormen wearing long jackets and hats.

There were posters at the hotel displaying the movies filmed there.

We stayed at the Westin Bonaventure. Like "good adventure", I guess. All I know is that it decidedly was not named the "Westin Bonavart"--like, Bone of Art--as I told everyone ahead of time.

The lobby was a zen paradise. The beds were a dream, heavy white comforters, everything clean as a whistle. The views were stunning. The guts of the hotel were bare concrete and full of sad little "Japanese Steakhouses" and "Korean BBQ". The guts felt like someone had set up ethnic fast food in a parking garage and abandoned it.

We ordered mimosas in bed. We watched L.A working twenty stories below us, people draped in hats and scarves and thick coats for the 55 degree weather.

We ventured out late for lunch. It was L.A, it seemed the thing to do. People strutted past us in only the finest business wear, perfectly cut jackets and pressed, tailored pants. The homeless circled among them in strange harmony. It looked like a movie set. It felt like a movie set. The streets were clean. Everything was black and bare and glinting in the sun.

Our waitress was getting in to fashion design.

Two fish tacos were fourteen dollars. The burgers were sixteen. We drank Bloody Marys. We ordered off the "600 calories or less" menu.

A set bus drove by our window. Town cars in front of it. Lights and cameras mounted to the outside, facing in. Police cars behind.

"There went Nathan Fillion", I said.

Mark my words.

Hotel. Change clothes. Cocktail hour. Change again.

The doorman hails a cab. Asks us if we want to share with two gentlemen.

My Blood Sister A flirts smoothly the entire six minute trip to the Staples Center.

The gentlemen pick up the tab.

In through the VIP entrance (Thanks Blood Sister A).

How to fit this all in?

We sit at the bar, where we're told Jay-Z and Kanye won't be going on for at least two more hours. We open a tab. Eventually the crowd begins to surge behind us, elbowing for room at the bar, for the bartender's attention. My Blood Sister A chats everyone up. A girl in a fuzzy red vest who looks like a model turns out to actually be one. She was there to shoot the video for "You Know Who In Paris" that afternoon. She lets me snap her picture. We meet a man--"Are you gay?" says my Blood Sister. "Are you Latino?" Wrong on both counts.

He's Greek,I say.

He is. Persian-Greek. Scoffs when asked if he too is a model. He is an entrepreneur. We meet an aspiring web designer, see fashion disasters, stress out the barkeep.

I love L.A.

Everyone here has a dream.

I feel like I fit in. No need to apologize for trying to be something.

Everyone here is trying to be.

In Colorado, they are aspiring to have lovely homes and happy families and good recipes. So often, I feel foolish. Aspiring to be other.

I don't feel foolish in the City of Dreams.

The bar tab is outrageous. We can only laugh.

Jay-Z and Kanye take the stage. It is a spiritual experience. I believe there are many facets of the divine. I believe that a performer can become a vessel. Challenge a divine energy, make an entire venue--the massive Staples Center--thrum and pulse with it. With an energy that goes beyond the day-to-day range of human experience. This is why some rock stars burn out, overdose, fall to pieces. Die. They don't know what they're channeling. They think it's them. This is what I'm talking about when I say that a Tori Amos concert was the most spiritual experience of my life.

Tori knows what she's channeling.

So, it appears, do Jay-Z and Kanye.

They do the encore ten times. The audience is sweating, exhausted. The energy shifts, becomes bacchanal. Orgiastic without the sex. It is an out of body experience.

I love the City of Dreams.

After the show, I am completely wrung out. Empty. I collapse in bed.

The next day there is only time for coffee and curried chicken salad at Cafe Primo, which is bustling and full of sleek business people on lunch hour. A young woman--blonde, exquisite dress suit, beautiful--whom I fully expect to be a complete bitch, offers to share her table with us. She hates L.A, she says. She says, nobody talks to you.

But all we've done is talk to people, everywhere we go.

Even the girl running the counter casually chats me up.

She's saving up for film school.

The taciturn brown-skinned barista makes art in my coffee.

The dreams are hanging heavily in the air.

I can feel them. If I had a butterfly net, one swoop would capture hundreds. Thousands.

The city is alive with wish.

In Denver, people ask me what I do, and I stammer. The baristas at Starbucks want to know if I'm studying or working, and I, nervous and uncomfortable, quietly confess I am writing a book.

In L.A, I feel I could say it.

I'm trying to be a writer.

I'm trying to get into writing.

Like everyone in this cafe, I have a manuscript.

Like the doorman at my hotel, I have a screenplay.

Like everyone in this city, I have a dream.

Four Breweries and a Wedding

So, we partied down.

There were three visits to breweries, three visits to brew pubs, don't get me wrong I'm not complaining but I'm starting to think my digestive system is not the biggest fan of beer.


O'Dells is a lovely place to start your brew tour. If you're into that kind of thing. Then head to FunkWerks and try the Maori King. All their beers are delicious but I love the tropical fruit hints in the Maori. If I had to reccommend just one O'Dells, I'd go with the Glider Cider. Brewed with champagne yeast, this baby is light on your tongue, just the right mix of sweet and tart, and goes down way too easy.

Then, stop drinking. Just stop. Your stomach will thank you.

If you can't stop, you're not an alcoholic you're just German and Czech. Make your ancestors proud and continue on to Coop's for the Sigda's Chili beer. Never had a chili beer like it. If, by this point, you find your drinking spirit is willing but your flesh is weak and bloated, ask them to mix you up the Bloody Mary with a touch of stout. You won't regret that either. Look, I swear we do things other than eat and drink when we see our family. We also talk about eating and drinking.

Order the garden salad with smoked salmon if you want to give your body any fighting chance of maintaining it's normal functions. If not, or if this is your first day of revelry and you're still feeling strong, go with the Ring of Fire burger (jalapeno, blue cheese, Frank's, oh my) or the fish n' chips, which Coop's does just right.


I swear my six-year-old is not drinking a beer.

Swing down to Oskar Blues in Longmont. Hit up the Tasty Weasel and order whatever's on tap. There's a good chance it was brewed by Mr. V. There's a better chance it's delicious. What am I saying?? This is why I don't write food/beer/travel blogs.


Next, round the corner to Oskar Blues Homemade Liquids and Solids. These guys have tons of delicious microbrews on tap and do not disappoint. My favorite's were the Widmer Pitch Black IPA, which was caramely and roasty, and OB's Workingman's Stout. Order the fried pickles, which are spicy with a light batter, and the Silo Burger, which is sooo delicious you won't care that you just consumed three kinds of meat. Then be smart like me and let your brother-in-law buy you a cocktail. Get the one with cinnamon and star anise floating on top. Easy as pie. Tastes like it, too.

After we spent two and a half days tasting every fermented beverage northern Colorado has to offer, there was a wedding. Indy and Ayla were tapped to play flower girls. It was touch and go for awhile there, with Miss Indiana Sophie crossing her arms and tucking in her chin and refusing to move. In the end she made it down the aisle just fine. She opted out of the flowers and bore the rings instead. Look, somebody had to. I'm not going to make a Frodo joke. That's because I lost my moxie sometime after switching from beer to cheap, sweet champagne.

I can't say much more about the weekend because I am a dry tap, here. My sweet libations hath all been spilt, my pleasing personality ran for the hills, and I've entered my week of cranky during which I hope to see no one and have sworn to ingest nothing but coffee with soy milk, salmon, and kale. At some point a bird pooped on my head and at another, a group of amazing women danced around me while I shimmied with a bottle of champagne.

Yep. That happened.

The last thing I would like to say is that I loves all five of my sisters and these chicks are welcome to my house any time.

Let's just do wine from now on.

There's going to be a lot of pictures now.


Noah, his Dede, and Ayla at the rehearsal dinner and let me just say, the lesson I learned this weekend is that if you're not at a restaurant that has specialty cocktails, ones they've developed and mix special, just stick with the red wine.


Susie, Sophie, Mercy. Hotness.


Flora, Fauna, Merriwether, flower chicks.







Kojo, Nyenna, Lady Ci, Ayla, Brother Trey in suspenders, and Titus, the only man who asked me to slow dance








The gorgeousness of Lucy and Nyenna.


The gorgeousness of my sisters Mercy and Lucy.


Susie almost drops the wine.


My sister Lucy and her sister Kiah. We're the new nuclear, baby.


My dad, my amazing niece La Violetta, and my mama.


Don't you guys think I am fascinating???


Moi with moi belle whatever is french for sister, Heather.








PS: Next time you're in Ft. Collins, get yourself to the Little Bird Bakeshop in Old Town Square. A latte so delicious it's ruined Starbucks for me, and the best croissant I've had since I departed Paris one sad day, ten years past. I went twice. It was grand.

Bacchanalia

Your mother will have warned you—repeatedly—about bed bugs so after First Things First (that being a stop at In 'n Out), when the bellhop brings the bags to your room, you will pick them up off the floor and place them on the chair. Because you grudgingly told your mother you would.

(You will refuse to go so far as to check under the bedsheets for drops of blood. You hate media hysteria. At least you think you do, until, at a greasy buffet, Le Gourmand Vulgaire points out that anti-bacterial wash is doing more harm than good, and you use it anyway)

You will fall back onto a bed that is more comfortable than any you have ever slept on. Sleep for two hours, three, maybe four. Pile with your husband's family but not your husband into a car and drive down the strip to a hotel casino. When the divorcee's make divorcee-humor jokes to each other, laughing heartily but making everyone else uncomfortable, you will try to make another joke to relieve the awkwardness. No one will laugh.

The bachelor party will have started hours ago. You will go back to the hotel room to get ready. You will have been a little nervous, in the days before, about this party. You won't know anyone there other than the bachelorette. Then you'll get to the party, where they're handing out what can only be described as penis tchotchkes, playing penis games, laughing at penis pictures on the walls. Someone will hand you champagne. Nobody bothers much with introductions because already it's starting to feel like you've always known these people. These beautiful people who are too beautiful to be so nice.

You and a friend you have just met will declare that more alcohol is required if you are to make it through the Thunder From Down Under. There will somehow be both too much and not enough thunder You are embarrassingly shocked, and yet not shocked at all. There are a few naked bums and lots of pirate costumes. The tone feels slightly off. Wonder: What is the RIGHT tone for a male strip show?

You will laugh at the bachelorette, pulled up onto stage, given a private—ahem—viewing. Spirits are high. The last time you partied like this, with a group of other women, you were all dressed like teenagers, like brightly wrapped candies or Christmas presents. Now you all look more like sexy martinis. A bartender will shout for free drinks for the women at the bachelorette party. They want to pour it into your mouth straight from the bottle. When you turn away, shaking your head, the others will laugh good-naturedly.

A man named Lion will escort you to a club, deposit you in a VIP area, reassure you he's going to take great care of you ladies, then disappear. This is your first real club experience, and you're feeling spoiled and important. You and these women get to dance together behind a rope. There are lush velvet benches wrapping around. Men edge their way to the rope, looking in sideways. Like vampires, they cannot enter without an invitation. A tiny blonde woman wearing a warrior princess get-up will come round every ten minutes to refresh your drinks. You ask her to pose for a picture. Later, you will search her out to love-tip her, but she will be nowhere found.

At this point in the evening you are all hot on drink and declaring openly your love. You love them, they love you, they love eachother, everyone everywhere is love love love. Who can blame you? You dance dance dance. You realize it is someone's job to come round with a towel and wipe up all the alcohol you spill. You find yourself in a gogo cage with all the other women at the party. On your raised platform, surrounded by people below watching, it feels as if there's only ever been the group of you. Those of you who are in relationships somehow emit a vibe to the crowd and no one bothers you. Those of you who aren't emit a different vibe, no one minds. You used to be so uptight about these things. Looked down on clubs. Worried overmuch about how you looked. Now it doesn't matter. You are dancing, you are young, your breasts are—it must be said—spectacular, and surrounding you is this unexpected tribe that has never been yours. But is, tonight.

You leave the bar and end up in another. Your group constantly fluxes in number. People leave and come back with unlikely quantities of food. Twenty sausage mcmuffins, fifty chicken nuggets, one order of fries. It is Vegas, it is 2 am, and the only thing open appears to be McDonalds. Two different people will basically fall out of their chairs when they find out you're NOAH'S wife. You're married to Noah??? You watch them stare, searching your face anew, trying to reconcile the person your husband was in high school with what they see now. Your husband is infamous here. Somehow, that night, you end up back at your hotel room. You think you kissed the bride on the head, well, you get kissy at weddings. Your room is on the 20th floor and has a view of the strip. Vegas is glittering. You tumble into bed. Later, much later, your husband comes home. He wakes you opening the door, your eyes crack open just long enough to see it: Vegas at dawn. Dawn is beautiful everywhere.

It will seem there are too many people gathered outside the chapel, but somehow you will all fit into a tiny room. The bride comes out and everyone cries. She is crying, you were not expecting her to cry, and fear you might sob. She is radiant, she is trembling. You all cheered heartily when the groom walked in and now here's the bride and no one can breathe. It is not the polite warmth directed at other brides at other weddings. It is a moment. A holy pause. An intimate room of people, intent on one thing, experiencing one all-encompassing collective emotion. Nobody moves except this bride in her 40's glam, film noir dress, her vintage veil, her lively eyes. Nobody moves until finally she says, 'husband-weird!', and you all laugh.

After the wedding, the air actually crackles. Cocktail hour passes on a balcony that makes you dizzy. It is warm, it is evening, the lights and eyes are bright. Someone will indicate that it's time to progress downstairs, to the dinner. You will cram with an impossible number of people, including the bride and groom, into an elevator. You are all a bit dizzy, you are all much too loud. The elevator stops early, the doors move open—to Dede, the patriarch, and Shirley, his wife. The passengers raise their hands, spill their drinks, cry an uproarious welcome. As if by cue you will all take up the cheer: "Dede, dede, dede, dede!" You are making the elevator bounce and no one is afraid. Dede is a Czech, he likes a good party. "Free drinks for everyone!" he will cry. You holler like the pagans you've become.

Again, you feel spoiled and exclusive. An elegant room, behind dark glass. Visible to but apart from the hoi-polloi. Waiters bring tiny tasty sushis and glasses of spirits. These people have shown you the best of everything; you know you'll never return to Vegas again because why slum a city after you've done it like a queen? Eat, drink, the love fest is on again. This wedding, these people. So intimate. Everyone is a cousin or a friend from way back. You'll keep telling them they're so beautiful, you can't help it, they are. Your husband strikes up a bromance, what better a place? Everyone is overcome. They are pulsing and rolling around you, swelling like a warm, joyful wave. A bride, a groom, a long time coming, a love, surrounded by love. You declare it openly because of the drink, but the feelings aren't false. This is your husband's history, his other life. They seem to accept each other as they are. You will ask them to be your surrogate friends. They will throw wide their arms and cry, they are your real ones. They open up and envelop you. It is warm, the air is thick, there is always room for one more.

They next morning, in the day light, everything has changed. You end up at a buffet, greasy serving spoons, the scents of too many foods intermingling and upsetting your party-tummy. You're all exhausted, you've wrung yourselves dry. The next day you will repeat, get me out of Vegas. You hate Vegas, the people, the excess, the waste. When you get home the dark prairie will sooth and comfort your eyes. But it doesn't matter, none of that matters. You are wasted, but before that was something else. Other cultures have names for what you encountered, what you touched. A clan, an energy, a raucous, reveling joy. You've felt it at other weddings and once at a Tori Amos concert. Something wild, something maybe primitive. The words spirited away come to mind.

Anything good that Vegas has to offer, you have had it. Maybe someday you will have a little more, but for now, this was enough. Good food. Good drink. Good people. Wild nights. Wild joy.

Love.


I am Vesuvius, and when I panic I say, "Grey Goose".

Maybe I'll Elope

I secretly believe that my brother by law, Le Gourmand Vulgaire, was inspired by The Hangover and so it is that we are going to a wedding in Vegas.


I'm so happy it's Z getting married because you know there is going to be good food.

Delicious food.

This bride and groom know how to have a good time.

I have my Marie Claire and People magazine and my Jacqueline Carey novel (the one Nathan Fillion reads to me) all ready to go. I have a black dress and a slinky top and a big flashy Vegas cocktail ring. And I have a new set of makeup to beat. (Thanks mama!)

Now if I could only get it packed. I think it's gonna be a late night. I can't get anything done with the girls around and I've given up.

So: Here is to weddings and babies and haircuts from your sister and moms who buy you new make up even though you're 29 years old.

Here's to Z's reception dinner, which is gonna be a knock-out.

Here's to S, le belle bride, who is, I believe, of French ancestry and so pretty and petite that I always feel like the hulking Nordic giant with the missing eyes when I am with her. Really it is a testament to how much I love her that I am willing to be seen with her at all.

Here's to traveling without kids. (Love ya kids. See you Sunday! Don't forget to tell Gramma your knock-knock joke with the non-sensical--I mean, adorable--ending at least four thousand times).

Here's to hoping for a few hours by the pool with Mr. V.

To the few hours where I have heard we are getting free non-alcoholic drinks.

And to the one meal where there is also rumored to be free world class sushi.

Wish me luck!

(I'm not gonna gamble, but isn't that what you say when you go to Vegas?)


I am Vesuvius, and I don't bet on cards but I do bet on cock fighting.