What happens in Vegas....

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were talking about taking a trip, or not taking a trip. I wanted to stay home... he wanted to go somewhere.  He suggested Scotland, being that we had been to England twice in the last three years. I told him that I didn't want to be flying over the Atlantic again unless we were having tea in Nottingham and browsing bookstores on Charing Cross Road.

Then my husband suggested the west coast... Oregon, California, Seattle.... we have been to California a bunch of times, Oregon and its waterfalls don't interest me because we have been to Niagara Falls, and Seattle is too rainy and drippy most of the time.  Then he mentioned fishing in Alaska... I told him that he needed to do that sort of vacation with another guy who likes fishing on big boats in the middle of an ocean because nothing in Alaska is calling my name.

A week later, after much Internet searching by my husband, he walked into the TV room and told me he could get great seats for Barry Manilow's show at the Westgate in Las Vegas.... and I asked him when we were leaving and immediately took the suitcases out of the storage closet and called the boarding kennel to make a reservation for Savannah.

Well, that's one way to get me on a plane willingly without too much fuss.... tickets to see Manilow.

And so we did.... and for two people who do not gamble, not even pennies at the penny slot machines, we were in Vegas for three nights and four days, the highlight of the trip being Manilow's show at the Westgate (formerly the Hilton, where we saw Barry about eight years ago).  Never mind that we just saw Barry in February in Houston.... he has a new show in Vegas and true to Manilow's form, he never disappoints. The show was fabulous... just fabulous.

We also saw comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham (hilarious, love his characters and his sense of humor) and Carrot Top (some current material, lots of well-worn gags... funny, but I wouldn't see him again because he gets too raunchy for my taste... silly works, raunchy doesn't).  My husband found The Pinball Hall of Fame, and the Museum of Hollywood Cars... vehicles featured in movies and driven by celebrities... and we went to two bookstores (another highlight for me). We stayed at The Luxor, and walked around some of the other hotels... mega-glitz, mega-priced merchandise, but fun to walk around in air-conditioned comfort because it was 115 degrees out there.

Vegas is fun....surreal but fun... people-watching is an art there... honestly, the outfits on 90% of the people there would not pass muster by the Fashion Police. And the people so willing to put money into slot machines that are pre-set so the house always wins, with your odds of winning probably being a zillion to one.

Nice to be home... Manilow was magnificent, as always... I never get tired of his shows, and I thought that having gone to about 15 of Barry's shows over the years was significant. However, I sat next to a woman at the Vegas show who had been to 75 Manilow concerts since 1989. Well. I have been following Barry since the early 1970s. I have a lot of catching-up to do.... so... where are we going next? Should I leave the suitcases out of the closet.... should I send Manilow a postcard and tell him we'll be back?

Handymen are us....

Due to the lack of handymen up here who actually show up and work (I can name only one at the moment but he has a full-time job now and only works here occasionally) my husband and I re-stained the two-tier deck in the backyard. The afore-mentioned handyman stained it last Spring, but the Thompson’s product barely made it thru last winter. My husband got a refund from that company and purchased a stain made by Behr, which seems to be better. I have determined, however, that if this product does not last thru the Texas heat, then the gods-that-be just do not want the wood deck to be stained. I have hung up my outdoor paintbrush for the last time.

The gray cat is still making himself at home on our porch and in our barn. I am surprised that he has not yet gifted me with a dead mouse, but I am most thankful that he hasn’t.  I have not seen any field mice around the yard, so my guess is that Buddy-Kitty is doing a good job of keeping them away. That name Buddy-Kitty.... I nearly changed his name because he reminds me so much of Gatsby, a large gray cat that we found here the year we moved in.  Gatsby was a gentleman cat, so much so that we named him The Gray Gatsby. He has since gone to that green kitty-light in the sky, but memories of Gatsby gave me the idea of naming this gray cat F. Scott Fitzkitten, with apologies to Fitzgerald. But Buddy-Kitty will have to make do with that name.... he already answers to that when I call him, and with an outside cat, one never knows how long he will stay here.

In the middle of June already.... and the temperatures feel like August out there. Day after day of relentless heat and sun... and to think we were out there on the deck with paint brushes and even a spray-thing. Nuts. We are completely nuts. It’s even too blessed hot to sit on the deck, much less paint the dang thing.

Six weeks of Harry Potter....

Just finished reading all seven volumes of the Harry Potter books, a result of a promise to the students in my Magic Wand Book Club.  The grand prize for the best Book Club student was a full hardcover series of the HP books, and I hope the girl who won the set has begun reading them also.  That's what prompted my promise to re-read those books... the winning student asked me if I had all of the HP books, and when I told her that I did, she asked me if I would be reading them over the summer. I told her I would... and I did.  Different experience with the HP series, to read them one after the other, without a break inbetween each volume.  The creativity and imagination of J.K. Rowling still shines as brightly now as it did when the first HP book was released.

Summer has hit us with a vengeance... we went from a breezy and comfy Spring to sweltering hot temperatures. So hot already that the flowerbeds have to be watered every day just to keep the blooms healthy and pretty. I have rocked-in four of the smallest flowerbeds... friend C did two of them, and I watched what she did and then repeated the process on the two smallest ones. Tiny rocks and big flat rocks, and now there are white ceramic ducks sitting in the middle of the pebbles instead of flowers that have to be watered every blessed day. Why didn't we think of this sooner?

The gray cat who has been sleeping on our porch for months now.... he is officially our cat, and I've named him Buddy-Kitty.  He started life at the across-the-road neighbor's house, and she had named him Tom.  Then Tom got her female cat pregnant and she ended up with kittens... she got the female cats fixed, but when she tried to get Tom into a carrier-crate for his trip to the vet, he raced away from her property and found his way to our porch. Of course if there is a stray cat out there, I'm going to feed it, and this gray cat was the skinniest thing on four paws.... so I gave him Fancy Feast. And he stayed... sleeping in the little wicker cat-house on the porch, which I covered up with warm quilts in December and January... and now the re-christened Buddy-Kitty is sleeping on the biggest lounge chair in the shade of the porch. He is a sweet cat, and he has eyes like our very wise Gatsby had.  I would still like to get him fixed... but I'll wait a while so he doesn't go running away to yet another porch where no one cares that he is intact and ready to make kittens.