Back and Bettor Than Ever

Bettor, get it? Cuz I was in Vegas. Oh, I'm a real card.

Getting out of Phillie last Thursday night was the damnedest thing. Our flight was delayed for 2.5 hours while they got us a plane and then a crew. ("We assumed this crew would be your crew, but your crew is coming from Greensboro.") What did we see in those 2.5 hours? A woman at our gate getting attended to by EMTs (she was well enough to board); a felon being extradited to Albany, NY (don't let them tell you they can't open the doors for you because we watched them do it, after they had held the plane for more than 30 minutes for this guy); and a belligerent girl yelling at everyone because we were late leaving for Las Vegas (she was not allowed to board. Period.) Fortunately, my sister had gotten us upgraded to first class. Which is nice, but not as nice as spending time in those airline clubs. You think you don't need them, but trust me, you do.

I was hemorrhaging money Friday morning, so I decided to take a cab to Stitcher's Paradise where they would give me something in return for the bills I gave them. I got two exclusive designs--the Vegas sign (kit) and an M Designs word tree that said Las Vegas (and all the accoutrements to stitch that one). I also Not Forgotten Farm Potted Fancy, Birds of a Feather Kindness Begets, and a Hinzeit Beer chart and a frame for it (my dad is a beer wholesaler). In celebration of having spent/lost over $300 (I had bought breakfast for my extended family of 8) I had the cab driver drive through In N Out. Oh how I miss you double double animal style. I got back to the hotel and ate my burger. Mmmmmmmmmmm burger. Then I stitched a bit. Then I decided I couldn't hole up in my room all day, but I knew I couldn't go by the pool--it was 111 degrees--so I sat my fat ass back down at the video poker machine (the crack cocaine of the gambling world). Eventually, this hand came up: A (C) 10 (C) K (C) J (D) J (C). Normally, I'd take the jacks because that gets you paid and the odds of a royal flush are so astronomical, I thought the one my grandmother got in April 2001 was the only one I'd see. Ever. But what the fuck, I'd only lose 1.25 by gambling, but I could gain $1000. When the queen of clubs came up I seriously thought I was hallucinating. There I was all by myself with a royal flush on my screen. A ROYAL FLUSH. I cashed out and got my chit. (Caesars, and probably all of Vegas, doesn't give real money any more; your machine prints out a ticket of your win which you cash in at little ATM like things. You can, of course, use the ticket in a different machine.) I held on to that ticket like a tornado was going to come whipping through the casino and take it off to the tin man. I called my mom, who didn't answer, and just then my cousin walks in from parking the car. "I won!" I shrieked at her. I was the first big winner, and I didn't put too much of it back. Like enough that when I said to the dude that I wanted to use my winnings to get the Pottery Barn Project Table, he said sure. Almost everyone came back a winner. Which is always a happy coincidence. (Even the dude tied for 2nd in his chess tournament. His rating lept from 1665 to over 1700 because his tournament rating was in the 1800s. I'm so proud. You're my boy, Blue!)

At any rate, besides trying to come up with a good memory of my grandmother at her birthday dinner, things went remarkably well mostly, I think because my mother's schedule was largely ignored. At the birthday dinner, I could come up with lots of hilarious but inappropriate stories. Oh, okay. Like the time she got really drunk at Michael Mina and picked up her filet mignon in her fingers and asked, "What's this, a brownie?" Or when she told my 16-year-old sister, who was waiting tables but cleared the Thanksgiving dishes two at a time, "You can't make a living on your back all your life." Or after my mother was hospitalized with diverticulitis and they were in a public restroom together and a stranger in another stall farted, my grandmother said, "Sounds good since you had it fixed," thinking she was addressing my mother. (That one still sends the dude into hysteria.) But I'm pretty sure you would have figured that any 85 year old who wanted to fly across country to celebrate her birthday in Vegas was going to be some kind of a character. I can't even remember what I came up with but the mussles were fantastic.