Tuesday, Dec 19, 2023
Off to Las Vegas!
We left the house and pets under the eye of The Child, who had returned home from college for Winter Break. Our flight was delayed at the gate for an hour due to another passenger’s medical emergency. We never did find out what was wrong, but airport firemen escorted them off of the plane along with their oxygen cylinder!
We flew over west Eugene—saw Target and then had a view of Spencer Butte and Mt. Pisgah. Then the cloud layer turned white with amber highlight and obscured the view of Southern Oregon and most of the rest of the flight.
It will be different being in Las Vegas over the Solstice—we’ll have to have late Solstice or Birthday Fire! when we’re back home in Eugene. I can’t recall when we were away in late December last… it was before COVID… Arthur was… twelve?… so six year ago (at least).
We landed in Las Vegas around 3:30; there were some light clouds and the sun felt like it was about to set at any moment. As we were walking through the security exit, the guy sitting there looked up, took in my grey-green wool cloak and long hair, paused, and said, “You look wise.”
Mark and I thought that was fairly amusing, partially because Mark was offered a “Wisdom Discount” at a Eugene store recently.
I’d forgotten how close the airport is to the strip. The most confusing visual was The Sphere: it’s so large that it shows up over the tops of all the other buildings long before you actually get to it, and with every turn on your approach you think that surely you’re going to get to its base only to realize that it’s still blocks away.
Las Vegas in winter smells like wet concrete and chlorine; like cigars, tobacco, and cannabis; like potpourri pumped up on steroids and mixed in an old ash tray; like fried food, tequila, daiquiris, and body axe spray; like automobile exhaust, Bounce sheets, and old airport carpeting; very occasionally it smells like mostly empty bottles and urine.
We stayed at a Hilton property connected to The Flamingo. Since it was winter and there was some problem with the pool, there was no obnoxiously loud pool music playing. The Flamingo was between us and the strip, which shielded us from the flashing lights and noise. Our room number was 700, which felt auspicious; the suite was pleasant and laid out so that you could have slept four people without them tripping over each other (too much). We were just above the crowns of some palm trees growing next to the building.
For our first night out, we ate at Giada De Laurentiis. Mark described her as a Food Network presenter who tended to show her boobies, sort of like that one time in that one Star Trek: The Next Generation pan across Dianna Troi’s breasts as she poured tea. I confused her with Rachel Ray.
“No no,” he said. “See?” and pointed to a picture of her prominently displaying some food.
“Oh. Well. That’s a nice blouse, but she doesn’t seem to be showing her breasts.”
Mark said, “John, take another look.”
“Oh. That’s a peek-a-boo top, isn’t it? Hmm.” (I recalled previous non-reactions to Lee Meriwether as Catwoman and Jeri Ryan as Seven-of-Nine.) “You know, I guess women’s breasts are sort of invisible to me.”
We had a very nice meal; I ordered a shrimp dish and Mark had something with the World’s Best Lentils. I ordered a tequila drink called, “The Destroyer.” We had a passible view of the fountains at the Bellagio.
Afterward, we went to a nightclub.
The attendants who admitted us were kind of mean; I’d say some of them came to work looking for problems their attitude created; the coat check staff were nice.
The dance floor was an oval bracketed by two bars and ringed by VIP seating. A series of lighted rings hung over the floor, and a pendulous assemblage of illuminated crystals hung from the center, giving the whole thing the feel of a giant cyborg space jellyfish mother-ship. The widest ring was about twenty-five feet in diameter. All the rings moved up-and-down independently, and could tilt. At times it looked like a mothership was landing on Devil’s Tower, other times it looked like a multi-dimensional portal. Over a hundred LED flatscreens arranged in a checkerboard pattern along the bar’s walls echoed the color scheme of the rings. A marquee player ran along the second floor balcony’s railing.
Mark had read that the club was a multi-level club, but the upper floors were closed that night. It was billed as a smoke free club, but the no smoking rule was unenforced. The dress code of collared shirts and slacks was also loosely enforced. The cover was slightly more than we’d read; and the mandatory coat check was ten times more expensive.
However, we soldiered on and were the first folks on the dance floor. It was fun at the beginning, although the music was a little slow. Mark laughed a couple of times and said, “Well it’s not techno enough,” when I would just be getting into the music, and then it would turn into a slow hip-hop beat and my face would fall (and undoubtedly my eyes rolled). Then the music would get better.
As the dance floor filled, the marquee player would read things like “Happy Birthday Ethan.” The “Congratulations, Class of 2023” did make me wonder if we were at an underage club. A few more birthday greetings ran through. And then we saw a clutch of sequin-spangled women with sparkling flares, flashing light wands, and a large green bottle, strut over to a VIP seating area, shake a flashing cue card which read, “Happy Birthday Josh,” and dance around for thirty seconds while shaking celebratory props over their heads. This happened throughout the night, occasionally accompanied with banners which would drop from the ceilings onto which would be projected birthday greetings like “Happy Birthday Alexis” and a photo (sometimes four) of the birthday celebrant.
The music went through an uninspiring phase, and we left the filling dance floor to rest. Mark ordered a simple rum drink, and had to tell the bartender how to make it. I took a look at the light show, which took turns looking like a cool oscilloscope display and possibly a flow cytometry display. The music turned back into something one could dance to and got louder; we happily put in ear plugs and squeezed back onto the dance floor.
We danced for a little while more. Mark is adorable when he dances; someone even complemented us. Then another couple asked us if we had extra earplugs and Mark gave him his extra set. Then some guy decided I was a stile he could use to exit a roped off VIP seating area and onto the dance floor.
It became more crowded and more difficult to dance. Folks brought their drinks to the floor with predictable results. While some folks danced in tight little circles, others just stood on the floor chatting in clumps. Vapers were everywhere. Two girls lit up blunts next to us and Mark managed to back them away. The music turned into anthems featuring the word “way-oh;” the accompanying movement was for folks to shift their weight between their feet, flex their knees, raise one hand, and point in time with the syllables of the song, which they sang. Apparently this is how twenty-somethings dance. People got pushy.
The music got a little more danceable and reached for a climax. Mark maneuvered us beneath the rings, which rose and rose and rose and then dropped and tilted. Spotlights like retro-rockets fired, and the crystalline assemblage lowered to just above our heads. Cold theatre mist blasted from horns surrounding the dance floor and reduced visibility to six inches. At first I thought Mark was using the mist as a cover for some scandalously dirty dancing, but he was really ducking and closing his eyes, nose, and mouth against the vapors.
We concluded going to the club was like trying to dance with smoking and vaping children at a Chuck E Cheese’s—but with an amazing light show.
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Today we did a lot of sightseeing, starting with a viewing of live flamingos, a walk to The Sphere, a monorail trip to Mandalay Bay, working our way through the Luxor and Excalibur and back to the High Roller (and more Sphere viewing) and off to a mystery show.
The Flamingo Casino has a wildlife area wrapped around wings of the building. Eight flamingos live on an island in an artificial river shaded by palm trees. Mandarin Ducks, Grackles, White Faced Ducks, and Hummingbirds are in the sanctuary. Koi, Catfish, and Sturgeon swim in the waters. I believe the sturgeon was thirty years old. We visited the flamingos at least once every day.
Getting to The Sphere was challenging; the monorail passes by it and the nearest stop is blocks away, so we did a lot of walking along side busy roads and construction zones. The Sphere is a giant computer screen wrapped around an eight story sphere. The pixels on the sphere are rings of LEDs about a handspan wide and about four feet from each other. From a distance, all of the LEDs blend together like a Seurat painting. Sometimes during the day, you can see through the skin of the Sphere, which covers a concert hall. We didn’t make it inside, partially because the Sphere wasn’t open and partially because any apparent motion caused by the inside’s display would have made Mark sick.
We wended our way back to a monorail station. Singing “Monorail!” we boarded and zipped to the other end of the strip. Our aim was to have a 2PM Afternoon Tea, but all of the Really Nice Tea Places were already booked. Mark located an alternative venue, which turned out to be a Irish Pub Sports Bar. We confused t he waitress with talk of Ceylon OP and Bergamont, (“We’re a sports bar, not a tea house.”) but she brought us a very tasty Irish Breakfast tea. In lieu of savories and finger sandwiches, we ate sports bar fare.
The Luxor twenty years ago was more of a faux Egyptian museum exhibit than it was during this visit. Mark was aghast at the giant “Doritos” advertisement taking up one triangular side of the casino’s pyramid, and I’m pretty sure the hieroglyphics on some of the older set pieces are pretty gibberish. The newer construction did have the Middle Kingdom word “miw” or “cat” in hieroglyphs, so there’s that.
After some selfies with the Anubis statue, we moved on to the Excalibur Casino.
The Excalibur was very simple, and we concluded that it was probably easier to clean than some of the more elaborate casinos.
We ended our sightseeing with a ride in The High Roller; a London Eye-like ferris wheel with encapsulated gondolas. It’s 550 feet high and takes thirty minutes to do a complete revolution. We boarded a capsule with about nine other people, a family of four and a group of two couples.
We chose an excellent time, around 4:30, to rise above the strip and The Sphere. The sun was set behind scattered clouds, turned the western horizon orange, and lit up the Sierra Nevada mountain range. High-rises glowed in the deepening shadows, and we had an unobstructed view of The Sphere for most of our ride.
The mystery show turned out to be “Love,” the Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage Casino. “Love” gave me a greater appreciation for the post World War II culture and counter-culture in England.
The opening was a dance reenactment of the Blitz, complete with Blue Meanies and tumblers leaping off of exploding brick chimneys. The show was mostly dance and aerial work, with lots of tumbling. I liked the transition into “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which filled the performance space with glittering LEDs. There was a fun sequence where sheets streamed out of a bed, which rose and became a circus tent; we were seated above the tent and saw aerialists dancing upside-down beneath very large beach balls. The contortionist bothered Mark, but I thought he was cool.
After the show, we wandered past the Mirage’s volcano show. The heat from the flame made me wince.
Thursday, December 21, 2023
Winter Solstice
We survived the Bacchanal at Ceasar’s Plaace. There was lots of very good food, but no actual bacchanalia! I was surprised that a buffet breakfast could be so good. Mark said the cheeses were obviously well cared for. We had to walk off the meal by visiting the shops in the Forum Shopping area. We loitered a while and saw a very hokey Atlantis Fountain show (old animatronics, hammy voice acting, hokey plot—but there was a fun flaming pterodactyl/dragon at the end), which, sadly was a waste of time.
We made our way back to our room for a brief reset and then I was off to ride a zip line over the Linq Properties. The lines aimed straight at the High Roller. I was hoping to ride like Superman, but that wasn’t an option, so basically I flew over the Las Vegas crowds in a sling (Mark and I had a good laugh at that burlesque image). Mark stayed on the plaza below and captured fun video of me zipping overhead, my hair trailing like a comet’s tail.
My hair (and cloak) keeps attracting attention from valets, cab drivers, show girls, and, most recently, Captain America. Mark’s been a good sport about it, but is wishing my “NYC Don’t Engage” skills were stronger.
We saw “O”, our second (and originally planned) Cirque du Soleil show. It was fun and I remembered much of the show from when we saw it twenty years ago. Like many Cirque du Soleil performances, there’s so much happening that I’m never quite sure where I should be looking, and so performers and props appeared and disappeared while my glance darted all over the stage.
I, of course, wore the World's Most Fabulous Shirt: a shirt covered in small prismatic, reflective squares. When I wore it to a previous Cirque show years ago, one of the clowns nearly broke character to ask where I had gotten it. When we entered the theatre, one of the ushers smiled and said, "Oh my! You look festive!"
"Oh, thank you," I said.
"Frisky?!" Mark said.
The usher and I turned to Mark and said, "Festive!"
"She said I looked 'festive!'" I continued. "Ugh. Here are our tickets."
"Oh, you're seated right over here. Enjoy the show and make sure you two behave!"
It’s hard to say what my favorite vignette was; like a dream, the images blend into each other and the recall is difficult. I enjoyed the four hoop aerialists. Certainly the most gasp-inducing was when one of the catamaran aerialists missed their landing and arced into the pool (they crawled out of the pool and waited by its edge until that act concluded).
The audience was odd; lots of families and groups chattering the entire show, but the weirdest thing was how often folks got out of their seats. In at least three instances The Unseated got in the way of roving performers. Mark attributed it to Belagio “I’m Specialness.”
Afterward, we walked through the Cosmopolitan and weighed having a drink in The Chandelier, but Mark wanted to be outside, so we walked along sidewalks and walked over bridges and managed to find a beer garden which was up over the street and had a marvelous view of the fountain show at the Bellagio. Mark insisted that I eat a salad; we also had cheesy tater-tots and I ordered a blue-tinged drink. The fountain was on a short schedule and we were treated to several shows; Mark’s favorite number was “Hey Big Spender,” when the water gets waved back and forth like legs. Overhead, the waxing crescent moon shone near a brilliant Jupiter.
Friday, December 22, 2023
We had a quiet morning in our room watching wide tailed Grackles forage for bugs in the crown of the palm trees outside the windows.
Breakfast for me was tea, pills, and an In And Out burger. Mark got a Subway salad. Afterward, I confessed my secret desire “to win a fortune in a game” by playing an Egyptian themed slot machine. We wandered through two casinos filled with Asian-themed slots before Mark pointed out a Cleopatra slot machine I’d walked right past. I put in $5 and managed to win $15. Hmm, the agency is wrong on that: I put in $5, set the betting, chose which lines across the slots to play, and pressed the PLAY button. The random sequences generated by the machine resulted a slow bleeding away of my money until there was a substantial credit result. Then Mark reminded me that we had a plane to catch, that I had “won a fortune” three times my initial investment, and that I should cash out.
My hair and green wool cloak continued to enjoy celebrity treatment.
Unfortunately, during our last walk of the strip, I lost my reading glasses somewhere, so while I was journaling on the flight home, I couldn’t see what I was writing very well—luckily, not being able to see didn’t have too large an impact on my penmanship (and my text is legible with proper eyewear). But it was a pain because I’d hoped to get some writing in on the flight. At least I could peer over Mark and see the sunset turning the clouds pink and the horizon green.
It was interesting to see who was friendly and who was gruff on the strip. I’d say the Ceasar’s Palace staff was the most stressed. Cashiers seemed friendly. Hilton at the Flamingo were friendly. Folks who managed queues seemed grumpy. Zip-line staff seemed firm but upbeat.
When we got home, the Willamette Valley was still grey, the house was still standing and the pets were still alive (Aoife was ecstatic to see us), and it was obvious from the over-filled garbage bin (uncollected by the service), dirty dishes (mostly piled in the dishwasher), the wads of blankets and pillows, and a collection of wet mats and towels in the bathroom that The Child had turned the home into a crash-space for some of his friends.
I guess what happens at home stays at home.
