A Moving Experience

Four years ago, I promised myself I wouldn't go through the horror of moving again - not for a long time. I also promised myself if I did move, it would never be to a city like Houston, the armpit of the Texas coast. To prove God has a sense of humor, here we are, unpacking in Houston and setting up housekeeping.
One of our worries was how to get our stupid, elderly cat here. The vet said it would be easier on the cat to take her by car, because sedating her for a plane flight would be hard on her at her advanced age - so we planned to take her on Thursday, in a Pet Taxi™, even though she'd be locked in the darn thing for eight hours, probably yowling and complaining the whole way. So Wednesday the movers hauled all those boxes and things and stuff into the moving van, and pulled away. And something happened that we hadn't expected - Pearl, the stupid cat, had stayed awake the entire day due to the excitement. Now, old cats sleep most of the time, in case you didn't know. So we're sitting there in the furniture-free living room floor, eating something on paper plates, and getting ready to inflate a mattress to sleep on, when it occurred to us: the cat must be exhausted. Why, if we were to go ahead and load up the car with the rest of the stuff we didn't want hauled by the movers (plants, the cat's stuff, some other stuff), and shove the cat into the Pet Taxi™ and just go, well, mercy sakes, the cat would likely sleep all the blessed way. Sure, we'd be tired - really tired - but the cat is what matters, right?
So we packed the car, and made sure the house was in order one last time, and shoved the cat into the car. Pearl was not happy, and made that fact clear to us. But off we went, toward Garden City, with the GPS programmed to take the shortest route possible. How brilliant of us! How considerate of us as pet owners! How...
Stupid. About an hour into the trip, both cars were braking constantly, which woke the cat up and started her yowling again, because every square inch of open land between Midland and Austin was crowded with herds of deer. Big deer, little deer, deer grazing just within the reach of the headlights, deer strolling leisurely across the highway, deer carrying signs that said "Go ahead and shoot me, fool, we both know it's against the law." Forty freaking miles per hour. The trip took us eleven hours! Eleven hours of desperately trying to stay awake while the cat is threatening to call the ASPCA, or PETA, or Johnny "I-passed-the-bar-somehow" Cochran.
And to make it worse, the GPS takes it literally that you want the shortest route, and when we got to the Houston area she took us through the back neighborhood streets to save maybe twelve inches of traveling distance. (note to self: always select quickest, not shortest).
It took several days to find the camera and some paper for the printer, and about a third of my office files, but they finally turned up in a box marked "books." We're still looking for two of our three table lamps.
Now, on the positive side. Since we arrived here, we have eaten the best fish tacos ever! We have hi-def on our cable system, on all the network channels. My internet speed is 4.9 megabits, and the cat is even happy - now that she's here and allowed to sleep peacefully.

You do have to make use of the toll roads here, so we got EZ passes for our cars, so we can blow through the toll stations. I'll still avoid driving outside of my little area, but I'll need that pass if any of my friends fly into Hobby and need to get picked up.

It could happen.

And you have to give a little credit to harB - he's been a great little supervisor, checking off all the boxes with their little green stickers as they come in and get put where they belong. We still haven't found box number 160, though. That one's a mystery.

vacation in Vegas, and I'm no Vegan

So GA and I went to Las Vegas for our 25th anniversary. No, that isn't really until the 18th, but on the 18th we're going to be busy trying to get moved into our new home in Houston. In fact, we had planned to take a romantic trip to Hawaii, to see the island that Jurassic Park was filmed on, but we canceled that and instead took a week in the home of organized crime, gambling, topless revues, great overpriced food, and the most shameless waste of electricity in north America.

We stayed in a time share hotel owned by the Hilton folks, located just north of Circus Circus, which is to the rest of the casinos as Odessa is to Midland. We spent some time in Circus Circus simply because of its proximity, and because it's just so irresistibly charming - even if we did have too many teeth to really fit in. The bartender was rude, but I'm pretty sure he didn't spit into the drinks. They have cheap circus acts at intervals throughout the day, mostly high wire and trapeze acts imported from former "Republics" of the Soviet Union. It's free, so the only price is that you have to get your seat early to beat the rush of 23-child families swarming over the creaking bleachers. The best attraction that Circus Circus offers, though, is its indoor amusement park, complete with roller coaster - I think it was called the Canyon Blaster. I don't know if it sets any records for speed, but I can tell you that it's a very short ride, maybe a minute at the most... but it doesn't waste any time picking up speed. After the climb, that thing is double looping and slamming your head against the padding constantly until you screech to a halt and stumble out of the cars to make room for the next victims. It runs fast, and I do mean fast. Yes, we rode it twice.

We took in several shows. We saw "O," which is the water-themed Cirque show. It has all the wonderful acrobatics and grace you expect from those people, plus the amazing fact that they make their entrances underwater. Imagine being in a show where they call "places!" and you draw a deep breath before you wait for your cue.

GA let us go see Jubilee, which is the topless revue. Yes, blog friends, I finally saw my first topless show. And there were the most fabulous costumes, the most spectacular sets, and the most beautiful bre-- er, women you can imagine on that stage. Men, too, though I am sure most or all of them were gay - GA didn't care, they looked great. Yes, they were topless too. Now, I emphasize that we were there for the sake of performance art, and not to see the exposed nipples and skin. That would be so cheap and disgusting, to stare at those soft lovely curves and drool or something. I would never do that. Besides, it was tastefully done.

We even took in a stand-up comedy show. You know, I was afraid I might be a smiler, but all three comedians had me laughing out loud. And the comedy show was actually a freebie, as it turned out. We were in this casino, the Riviera, on the last day, and we figured we'd go find out what our points were worth. I asked what the "Mad Money dollars" were for first, because that kept showing up on the slot display, and the young lady gave me an answer that made no real sense at all. But she told us that we had enough points for a free buffet, a comedy show, and 10% off the second admission on the show. We went for it, of course.

When we got the tickets to the show, we realized that my ticket said "$10 off" instead of "10% off" - and indeed, the price was reduced by a full ten bucks. Well, who am I to complain? We enjoyed the show. Later, we found out that we didn't have nearly enough points for either a buffet or a show, and that Mad Money dollars was part of a promotion for November, and nothing at all what the young lady had told us. Apparently, you can sometimes come out ahead because of problems with English.

As for the slots: we came out roughly even. Most of the time our money slowly drained into the machines, as is normal. But there were several unexpected payoffs which were completely against the odds. The most spectacular was this time - in the Riviera, of course - when we were about to leave to go back to our room, but we had this credit slip worth a few dollars, and we couldn't find a redemption machine nearby. So we picked out a machine called "Valhalla" and fed the slip into it, and pressed 20 lines, one bet per line (20c per spin, in other words). We immediately hit a Bonus, which is something you want to see when playing the slots. The bonus in this case was 15 free spins. And one of the first of those spins hit yet another bonus, so 15 more spins was added to the queue. Before much longer, yet another bonus popped up. We kept sitting there, watching the credits add up, and when it was all over, our 20c spin had turned into $35 and some change! We hit the "collect winnings" button and hiked to the nearest redemption machine.

Another machine, my favorite, was the Reels o' Dublin, which is a spiffy little model that lets you play normal slot action, or you can press the red Hot Hot Penny button and play 30c a spin rather than 20c, and in return you can get extra action in the event of two bonus symbols appearing. In this case, the other three reels get respun, and if you get a third bonus, it goes nuts and starts playing a little Irish jig while you enjoy 15 free spins with double payoff. I usually lost my money in that one, but one time my $20 investment turned into $80 - which, of course I promptly lost again, which is how gambling usually works, and why the Native Americans build casinos when they can.

Now... you're probably wondering if I took advantage of the fact that prostitution is legal in Nevada. Of course I did. And I only charged the going rate.

OK, that last was a joke. But if you like the idea, call BR-549, and have your credit card ready.