This & That

{april – monday – morning}

It’s Get To Know Your Neighbor’s Trash Day in our suburb this morning.

Monday is trash day here and most neighbors put their trash by the curb on Sunday night.  Last night we had high winds that blew everyone’s trash around the yards and into the street.  So far no one has been a slug about picking up the mess in front of their property.  Yeah!

However, every once in a while we have someone who moves here and refuses to pick up any trash but their own.  We don’t like those sort of people.  They don’t last long here in Mom Trails.  [That’s my nickname for this subdivision.]

Word of the day is slabjacking. I love saying it.  *slabjacking*

It means that our front sidewalk will be “magically” lifted from underneath to make the sidewalk level again and connect with the bottom of the front stoop.  This requires specialized equipment and the expertise of a concrete company.  *slabjacking*

Currently the front sidewalk is uneven and sinking to the right which is dangerous and ugly.  When the company finishes this repair, we will have a level sidewalk and everything will look almost like new.  *slabjacking*

I’m allergic to April.

My allergist refers to my particular allergies as “rose fever.”  I’d be a darned bit less snarly about these allergies if there were some roses on the bushes now.  But the bushes around here are all thorny and dormant with no flowers on them.

I asked my allergist about this obvious discrepancy between reality [no roses in sight] and his term for my malady [clearly based on the concept of roses causing something].  He just laughed, said it was an old-fashioned term, and kept on telling me what to do to relieve my itchy, bitchy, twitchy-ness.  Nothing like modern medicine, eh?

A Weekend In Las Vegas

Last weekend Zen-Den and I went to Las Vegas, a four-hour direct flight from here.  He was going there for work, so I decided to tag along for a 48 hour getaway because I thought that it would be entertaining.  And it was… sort of… in a “well, I guess this is better than sitting home alone” kind of way. Here’s my take on our trip.

The Good: Where We Stayed

Having been to Las Vegas many times before we wanted to see what it’d be like to stay in a non-gaming hotel, so we stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel.  [Not quite as pricey as you might think when booked together with airfare on Travelocity.]  The hotel was clean and quiet and stylish and refined– which was in complete contrast to the smoky and noisy and tacky and loud casinos.  I liked going back to the stillness of our room after the chaos of The Strip.  Very yin and yang.  This was a wonderful choice for us.

The Bad:  Meals.  Shopping.  Shows.

Meals in the restaurants were okay, but very expensive.  Drinks weren’t cheap, either.  Shopping was either high-end designer shops, or the “same-old, same-old” mall stores available all across the USA.  The shows were stale.  Many had been there for years and we’d seen them before;  or they were just another one of those “Cirque du Soleil” shows that all seem the same to me.  Overall, there was nothing special for us about the meals/shopping/shows, so we spent more time in the casinos playing penny slots– which got kind of old.

The Ugly:  Transportation

Getting around on The Strip was slow and difficult.  We didn’t have a car so we walked, used public transportation or grabbed a cab.  Many of the escalators and moving sidewalks were broken.  [I’m looking at you, Excaliber.]  Alternate stairways were dirty.  [Shame on you, Imperial Palace.]  The monorail service was available but it wasn’t easy to find– and inexplicably, it no longer had a stop at the Convention Center.  Tram service between casinos was arbitrary.  [A few signs, clearly posted, with the hours of tram service would be nice, Mandalay Bay.]  Taxis, while plentiful, were painfully slow driving up and down The Strip.   We spent more time getting around Las Vegas than we wanted to and this made us cranky, tired, and not thinking happy thoughts.

In Conclusion:

I used to like Las Vegas because it was so unique and happening, but now it seems like it’s trying too hard– desperate– out-of-touch with the times.  In a world with legalized gambling in 49 states — the ability to have any show delivered to my living room via Netflix — and online shopping, there’s little reason for me to go there anymore.  Sure, we had a good enough time.  But in the future when given the option to go to Las Vegas for a personal vacation, I’m going to pass.  Too much hassle, not enough fun.

[Image above of the Iconic Las Vegas Sign from here.]

[Hello FTC!  So we meet again. Just to be clear, this is only my opinion about my experiences.  I’ve received no money or other compensation for this review. Are we good, FTC?]


Hello World!

Okay then. It would seem that I am ready to start blogging. Right here. Right now.

At least, that’s what WP would have me believe.

I am, of course, a bit less convinced that I am ready to start posting on this blog.

I’m a planner. I must think things through. And then I must dawdle– and worry– and reevaluate– and worry some more. And then, if everything seems like it is in the right place in my mind and on my desk and within my blog template, I might begin to keep a blog again.

It’s a process, really. One that gets me to the proper place where I can start. I do this because in my experience, good things don’t happen without the correct amount of angst.

You’d think that WP would have figured that out along the way. I know that I have.