Viva!

Hello! I'm off to Vegas in an hour, I've cleared out the camera phone in order to take lots of blurry pictures for you to enjoy. But for those of you who have never been to Vegas, and don't know about my family there...here's a crash course.

Vegas is a city of contradictions. People win big and lose hard. My siblings and I don't usually like to gamble as much as we like to harass the Prince impersonator at the Boardwalk Casino...but we've thrown our fair share of quarters into the proverbial slot machine. Well, not proverbial so much as literal.

Here is Vegas in all of it's shining glory...wait a minute...that's just a desert with buildings in it...yes my friends, I've decided to share with you the true face of Vegas today. You see, the strip during the day is like a celebrity without make-up.

This is not our house. But pretty much all of the houses in the burbs look like this so I thought, "What the hell?". What's really cool is that most houses, including ours, have a pool and palm trees. What's not cool is that since they look so similar you never really know which house is yours. Well, I don't anyway since I'm only there about once or twice a year. Good thing Sheila and Tizzy are so smart and never seem to pull into the wrong driveway when they are bringing me home from the airport. You can tell it's our house right away when you walk in because Sheila loves hot pink...more on that when I get there!

So, my grandparents used to live in Vegas too, until Dad died and then they moved to Oklahoma. But when they were in Vegas, they LOVED this place called Skyline Buffet. It's a place where elderly people like to eat at 4pm. It was strange, and very sad...lots of old people eating alone. And the food glowed like it was filled with chemicals under the lights. Everyone was terrified of the food, but you have to be respectful to grandparents...so here was how it went down...

Dad: Had to eat off the buffet and eat the specials. Count Dad out for the rest of the day.

Sheila: Under the guise of "on a diet" would pick the harmless things off the buffet and order a salad. Sheila would be safe, albeit hungry, for the rest of the day.

Lowell: Lowell would eat off the buffet, and eat the specials, and go back for seconds, and talk about how great it was the whole time. Car ride back to the house = Lowell muttering obsenities and then he would be confined to the guest room for the remainder of the day.

Tizzy: It is well known that Tiz is a very picky eater, so she got away with minimum harassment from the grands with ordering a burger off the menu. Tizzy would be safe for the rest of the day.

Tater: Tate would eat off the buffet and eat a lot. But he avoided the specials. Actually, I think Tate liked the food. He never seemed to have a problem. Tate is a little bit like a garbage disposal though, I feel like you could give him fried sock and he'd just slop some ketchup on it and go to town.

Me: I tried for a couple years. I was able to selectivally choose the things off the buffet that seemed harmless. But one year Mama (my grandma) said, "Brookala, you have to try the Salisbury Steak, Baby...it is good good good!" (you have to hear my grandma talk one of these days, she has the best way of talking, she's from Portsmouth Ohio...that's a whole other blog) and so I did try the Salisbury Steak...and it was cheeseburgers off the menu ever after.

Craigen: He was just a little. So he got away with chicken fingers off the menu and stuff like that. Dad and Lowell would look at him with a slight tinge of jealousy as they swallowed whatever green gelatinous desert was featured that day.

What I'm trying to say is this...the food in Vegas is not stellar unless you are rich and can eat somewhere fancy. So it's yum yum fast food city!!

Now, I'm going to miss my flight again (yeah...I was accidentally supposed to go yesterday and didn't realize it...but all is well now) so I have to tell you about one more thing in Vegas and then I'm closing up blog.

Animals.

In our house there are a lot of animals. I don't know where they all came from. We didn't have a lot of animals growing up. But my sister is a manager at a pet store and has always had this affinity for animals and so has Sheila...so there are a lot of them now...a lot.

Blue-Jacket: The Big Red Dog we've had since I was a kid. Irish Setter. I'm always a little surprised to see him when I arrive...you know what I mean? He's sweet though. I don't really like dogs that much but I love him. I loved my stepdads dog Ruby, who was a collie, too...way to go stepparents and your awesome dogs.

Jasmine-Blossom: This was dads dog. She's a big chocolate lab. I particularly don't really like labs (my moms yellow lab Phoebe who she continually refers to as "my sister" especially drives me nuts) but this one is ok since she was dads...as long as she doesn't jump all over me.

Blueberry Sasparilla: Sassy is Tizzy's dog and she is a bull dog/pit bull mix with a heart of gold, although she's a little barky and jumpy. I used to be afraid that she would tear my face off in my sleep, but she's nice.

Baldwin and Garfunkl: Hairless guinea pigs. No I'm not kidding. Sheila fell in love with them and transformed her whole bathroom into a guinea pig wonderland. I have zero opinions about these pigs and try not to get real close to them.

Marigold and Isabell: Mice. In a big cage. In the tub. You're just going to have to go with me on this here, folks. This side of my family is a little...different.

Ok, that's all for now, it will be easier to describe everything once I'm there. In the meantime, wish me a good movie on the plane!