Las Vegas Diary-Last Day

All good things must come to an end, so it is with the Vegas trip.

Church begins at 8am. If you're ever in Vegas and want to visit a great church, visit New Antioch Christian Fellowship at 3950 Las Vegas Blvd (702) 644-7373 under the leadership of Dr. Naida Parson, PhD. She's an excellent speaker and minister, the church is loving and they treat my nieces very well.

After service we go home and snack while waiting for the Hush Puppy to open. My niece Shauna suggests I buy a wig like the one she's wearing so we head on over. I thank the lady for playing Gospel music and she gives me $11 off my order! Hey!!

Next we get to the Hush Puppy. I order all-you-can-eat catfish and fried shrimp. I never get to Vegas and not eat here but today they're not serving all-you-can-eat boiled shrimp. I eat about two pieces of catfish, some green tomato "cha-cha", some hush puppies, a mess of friend shrimp and get sick. I mean the sick where you can't leave the cafe, you have to use the restroom there.

I think my body just got fed up with me putting all that stuff in there and decided to remind me who's boss. I made it out alive but was glad to get to the girls' home to really sleep before heading out to the airport.

I hate leaving my babies! But they're grown women now with lives of their own. I'm just so grateful and glad they temporarily put those busy lives on hold to see about me these few days. I'm glad they're all in the same church and they're each going to school to get their degrees. Shauna & Bean have graduated college, Wilhela's in a Nursing Program.

They drop me off at the airport, Bean & Shauna. Wilhela says she's too sad and depressed to come with us so she stays at home. Bean & Shauna are heading up some of tonight's activities at church which starts at 6pm so they can't be late. They drop me off at 5:30 and I make my way to the terminal. I'm not as depressed as I thought I would be.

The lines here are not long at all. The ground crew is nice, no one gives me any trouble. I meet a nice woman and we swap email addresses. Everything's pretty ordinary until this drunk guy shows up, but that's an earlier post.

I'm glad to be home. Just like Dorothy told Toto, there's no place like home.

If you check out my Flickr badge down on the left you'll see some of the Vegas pictures.

Las Vegas Diary-Day Three

That full night of sleep is just what the doctor ordered. It's about 7am but I know if I wake the girls this early I'll have puncture wounds in my neck and upper torso. So I chill, read O, listen to the iPod, watch mindless t.v, read some more. I hear someone get up to use the restroom so I make my move. It's actually Bean who's been out to get an oil change. She's brought breakfast so the other two sleepy heads get up and we start reviewing today's plans.

Agenda:

-pedicures and manicures. Check. My plump little toesies look so cute.

-lunch at Chapala's. Check and yuck!!

-home to rest. Check. We never did sleep though, too much to talk about:-)

-be at the Paris casino by 5pm to pick up tickets to see "The Producers". Check. Too bad David Hasselhoff got kicked out. Oh well, the show must go on and it was soooooo good!

-cruise the Strip and let me try out my new camera. Check.

-dinner at David Bertch's. Nope. Lines are too long. How about Bahama Breeze right over there? Check.

-What's next? Are you kidding me? I'm sleepy! Take me home!

Yes, I did publish a picture of my feet. Hey, I'm the lady who never gets a pedicure so I'm proud to show them off.

Las Vegas Diary-Day Two

I let the girls sleep as long as I could but it was 11:00 am and I was antsy to get going. Shauna let me have her bed while she bunked w/Wilhela. I crept into their room and sorta screamed, "So, what are the plans for today?" They both looked at me curiously (or was that pure hatred) but got on up.

Bean had to work today so it was just Wilhela, Shauna and myself and we headed to my favourite place-The Biggest Souvenir Shop in the World. I found souvenirs for my team at work and we headed to Treasure Island.

My friend Pete had seen Mystere here and he wanted a tee shirt. I offered to pick one up for him. I found a great tee and decided to throw in a Mystere baseball cap too. Pete went to Hawaii and was kind enough to bring me a great souvenir-a Coach bag! Buying a tee and cap is not too much to do.

By this time the girls are hungry so we go into The Coffee Shop in Treasure Island. Beware of this place! The menu is pricey (a burger costs $12!) so we left. I did ask the hostess if there was a buffet in this casino and she kindly pointed it out. Now this buffett was absolutely, hands down, without a doubt wonderful! Here I ate:

-tamale

-saffron rice

-seafood stew (mussels, clams, shrimp, scallops)

-sushi

-roasted chicken thigh

-scoop of vanilla ice cream

-two to three chocolate balls

The girls even pigged out at this one. The price is $15 a head before 4p. After 4p the price goes up to $25 but there are different selections added to the dinner choices. I will definitely make this a routine stop from now on!

Next we head home for more resting, more laughing, more talking and wait for Bean. She and Shauna are going to choir rehearsal then the Youth Ministry is treating the youngsters to see "Shrek". Now my idea of a fun night in Vegas is not strolling through Texas Station casino w/a bunch of hooting and hollering adolescents. Wilhela and I beg off and stay at home. We're still pretty full from the buffett so we snack on yogurt and fruit and watch t.v. I've never seen "Conan the Barbarian". It's on and I enjoyed it. Then I'm off to bed. I'm bushed.

Las Vegas Diary-Day One (cont'd)

Here I am at the Vegas airport. The flight was quiet and short with great views. I de-plane and try to find my way to the front of the airport. I finally figure out that Southwest's passengers have to board a "monorail" type of carriage to get to the main airport. This is fun and new!

An older lady who's as confused as I am boards w/me but she doesn't hold on to the pole so when the train starts, she almost lands in my lap. Funny! We laugh about that and find our way to the ground floor where I meet her son and his wife and child. We part and I call to see where my ride is.

Bean answers and says she & Wilhela are about four minutes away so I walk on out to the passenger pick up area and sit and wait.

Now I'm excited!

Sure enough, after about four minutes I spy the brandy-coloured Kia pulling up and I start screaming, startling the other people waiting for rides. After some quick hugs and kisses we jump back in the Kia and try to all talk at once.

I'm so glad to see my babies. It's been about six months since I've seen them and even though we speak three or four times a week it's not the same, you know? I ask where their sister Shauna is, she's got a new job so she'll join us this evening. "Well Debo, what do you want to do first?" Bean asks. Like she doesn't know the answer. "Find me somebody's restaurant 'cause I have not eaten anything this morning and I've been up since 5:30a.m.

The girls want to take me to the Orleans to try their new buffet line. We get there and there's already a line. It takes us about fifteen minutes to get in but the food is worth the wait. I eat:

-two bowls of menudo

-two catfish fillets

-one beef rib

-a whole mess of boiled peel n eat shrimp

-1/2 slice of cheesecake (don't want folks thinking I'm a pig now do I?)

align="justify">After lunch it's off to the house to rest up and catch up and that's just what we do 'til Shauna gets there and it starts all over again. Bean has class tonight so Shauna, Wilhela and I will find something in the kitchen to snack on 'til she gets out. That meal is at Blueberry Hill. I eat:

-one 1/2 pound sirloin burger (no bread, pickles onions)

-two scrambled eggs

-1/2 side of hashbrowns

-1/2 order of pancakes

We're now full, I'm sleepy and we head home for sleep.

Las Vegas Diary-Day One

As you know I went up to Vegas to spend a few days with The Triplets-my sister's three daughters who live there. I thought I'd share my diary of the three days over there just to make my life seem a bit more exciting:-)

Day One-Thursday:

Arrived at the airport two hours early to avoid the morning rush. Although the lines to the security checkpoints are long, everything's moving pretty quickly. I'm traveling w/carry on luggage (my first time) and I'm hoping there will be room in the overhead bins to stow it. I've made sure to pack my cosmetics in small tubes/containers so they won't make me throw any of it away. This stuff costs too much money to lose flying.

I've worn sandals that are easy to unlatch and have no metal and everything goes through w/no hassles. All in all it takes about 40 minutes to get to my gate. I sit and start people watching.

Sometimes, traveling makes me feel so lonely. I don't know why. Even though the terminal is filled with business people furiously punching into their Blackberries, or shouting commands into their cells, it's the people traveling together that catch my attention. I focus on the couples walking along hand in hand to their next gate or the parents trying to reign in their toddlers with one hand while balancing Starbucks in the other. This morning I just feel lonely.

The ground crew is friendly except the guy taking the boarding passes. I'm preboarding because I've bought two seats so as he's assisting a lady in a wheelchair I follow behind. When we board he leans over and asks me if I'm aware of "Southwest's policy that people who can't fit into one seat might have to buy two seats if the flight is full?" I nonchalantly reply "I've bought two seats, you just took them outside, remember?" He's suspiciously apologetic but I sneer at him and sit down and get comfortable. The loneliness is gone, replaced with irritation and little traces of "Please don't make be become a cranky passenger with a name that rhymes with witch this morning. Please don't!"

Soon enough the plane is boarded and we're off. I crank up the iPod and stare out into the big blue Heaven. I breathe in and out several times, willing the tension to ease out and the relaxation begin.

To be continued....

Letter To My Fellow Passengers

To the passengers of Southwest Airlines flight #### from Las Vegas on Sunday night:

I want to take this time to tell you that we, all of us, every single last one of us INCLUDING the two big black dudes who sat in the back are cowards, from the tips of our toes to the tops of our heads---we are all cowards.

We all knew that drunk guy was going to be trouble when we saw him staggering and bellowing as he waited w/us to board the plane. Did we think he was going to immediately fall asleep when we took flight? Did we assume the crew would handle him? Naw, we knew those two things would have been too good to be true.

Okay, so we let him board and tried to ignore him. Did we really really think that drunken idiot was not going to affect us all? The moment he boarded and started complaining about how pi--ed he was for having to walk all the way to the middle of the plane we knew he was going to make that one hour of our lives miserable.

At first we all felt sorry for the two people he chose to sit in the middle of, but his loud, booming baritone echoed so throughout the plane it made each of us feel we were sitting next to him. I was never so glad to hear a baby wailing than last night on the flight, only because it was drowning out the drunk.

I personally feel the airlines should allow passengers the right to confront and handle poorly behaved passengers. Not only when they're threatening our safety but when they're like that guy-who made us listen to his drunken tirade on how the casinos are unfair, how smarter he is than them even though he admitted to losing money, how he'll never go back to Vegas because the Indians give more money away in their casinos to stick it to the White man.

So, my fellow passengers aboard the plane last night. Consider these my words. The next time we encounter this behaviour and the crew's ignoring them, I say let's get these people shoved in the cargo holds 'til after the flight so we can relax in peace and try to ignore the stranger who's sitting so close our legs began to mold and conform to each other's.

In Memoriam

In loving memory to the following:

Evangelist A.C. Coleman, Sr.

Pastor Alfred Bowens, Sr.

Elder Cleophus James

Pastor E.T. James

Deacon Delloyd Harris

Mr. Alton Coleman

Pastor Arthur Strong, Sr.

Mr. L.C. Jenkins, Sr.

Pastor Mae Gratis Bowens

The men & women who've given their lives for Freedom

Viva Las Vegas!

I'm on my way to Vegas for a few days. Gonna visit my three nieces who have lots of activities planned:
-pedicures
-seeing "The Producers"
-shopping at the Strip Mall (it's the name of a real mall y'all)
-church

I've got a whole 'nother list of activities too:
-eating at the Hush Puppy on Nellis blvd
-eating at the buffet at The Orleans
-eating at the breakfast buffet at Texas Station
-finding a snack at Tacos Mex
-lunch at Cooke's barbeque
-oh yeah, I probably have to do some of that other stuff the girls want to do. Just depends on whether it interrupts my eating time. I'll keep you updated.

One More Meme

Little brother Kiyo-yo tagged me for this meme which is surprising for two reasons: I've never known him to complete a meme and second, he has tons of readers yet he chose me. Probably because he knows I'm one of those people who has to please everyone so of course I'll do the meme. So, not as eloquent as his and Edog's but here are MY FIVE REASONS FOR BLOGGING:

1. It's my own private thing where I can let my hair down.

2. I'm free to use words I seldom use.

3. I can flirt outrageously with strangers.

4. I can follow the daily lives of people I'll most likely never meet.

5. I learn new things.

This list is sooo weak, but really, I don't have any other reasons for doing something I like doing. During my year of blogging I've run upon bloggers that I've enjoyed and others who were so full of drama I had to stop reading them.

I know, I know, blogs are our own personal creations so our posts are our own electronic 'voices', unique in our own right. But some of these people were just too over the top for me to continue reading. I read family quarrels, self-mutilation, abstinence and people vying for "Slut of the Month".

And, I've been politely asked not to post comments on sites. I remember posting this great comment on this ladie's site and the next time I visited my comment wasn't there. I reposted the comment and noticed that the writer had began moderating her comments so mine didn't show because she didn't want it to show. So, hearing her loud and clear, I stopped visiting her site.

I've never begged anyone to comment on my blog except a certain young Produce Manager who shall remain nameless. He probably was weak from eating so much soy.

The blogosphere is like a television to me. If I don't like the program I turn the channel. If I don't like the blog I simply click "next blog" and be gone. If it's something that catches my eye, I'll bookmark it and visit a few times, leaving comments most times. I do have some blogs that I continue to visit and they've never posted here which is fine. Television programs don't reply to comments so I don't expect those authors to respond here but I will continue enjoying their sites.

I don't use a sitemeter because I'm not that curious to know how many people stop by. I do pay for Neoworks because I like the way it looks (it's bright and shiny just like me).

I'm doing this for fun and if there's something I need to do, blogging will most always be the last thing I do, but when I can blog, it's an all day thing. I enjoy my "regulars" and am always humbled when they stop by and comment because I've seen their lists, they're huge!

So, here's an explanation of why I blog. Wow I didn't know it would get this long.

Crime Fighter

There were reports that a Peeping Tom was in our neighbourhood, all women were warned to close their blinds and curtains to preserve privacy. Most of my neighbours, especially the women, were startled at first, because we have a pretty quiet neighbourhood. As more and more neighbours began to report being spied on, that nervousness began to turn into fear. I knew that I would have to do something to help my neighbours and my family. And I'd have to do something soon.

It was a surefire plan, one that could not fail. I would be the "unwitting victim" and trap Mr. Tom and I set about my plan with glee. I did feel a little guilty, like the fat cat in a classic cat & mouse game but the euphoric high I received from the all the planning drove all guiltiness from my heart.

Thursday night the plan went into action. I came in late one night and went straight to my room. I had left the blinds open during the day and 'casually' forgot to close them when I came home.

I lighted a few candles, big ones that give off a good, sensuous light.

Next, I left to shower and re-entered my room some 15 minustes later, ready to begin my evening ministrations. Suddenly I heard a slight rustling outside my window. At first I thought I had imagined it but I heard it again. Smiling to myself, I began making a show of choosing the body lotion I'd put on (I should own stock in Bath & Body Works).

Finally, deciding on my fave-Moonlight Path- I went to my bed and began applying the lotion to my legs, lifting my bathrobe higher with each application. My position on the bed was in direct line to anyone looking outside my window and the faint sound I was hearing indicated someone indeed was there. Good, right on plan.

I began lotioning my thighs completly moving my bathrobe higher, allowing me free access to my thighs when the groaning began. As I slathered my lotion on my thighs I moved up to my stomach, again opening the bathrobe and exposing my stomach. Now the moans were clearly audible. By simulating that I was still lotioning my stomach I dialed my sister, waiting in the other room. That was our signal that the culprit was outside and to call 911.

Soon, the moans turned into a thrashing noise of some sort, as if someone had fallen and were trying to make a hasty exit. Closing my robe I rushed to the window and looked out but could see no one.

The next morning, our neighbour Mona came and told us that the police think they had caught Mr. Tom about a block away lying in a fetal position moaning over and over "Make her close the blinds! Make her close the blinds!" No one could tell what he was talking about but the cops think he had seen something so awful that it temporarily thrust him into a frightened state.

My work here is done.

Seven Things You Never Knew About Me

Jeni's given me a task to give seven facts about my life. I'm supposed to tag seven others but I'll just leave it up to you to decide if you want to play. So, without further ado:

1. When I turned 30 I went to Paris alone because I couldn't find anyone to go with me. I was befriended by a group of Phillipinos who took me around with them for the whole week. I still keep in touch with at least two of them 12 years later.

2. I am a germaphobe. I don't shake hands with people, I won't allow anyone to use my writing pens, I swab my keyboards each day w/a cleansing wipe.

3. I hate my job.

4. I seldom go to the movies. Maybe once a year.

5. I do not rent movies.

6. I watch about four hours of television a week (Smackdown, MadTV, Frontline).

7. I'm very frugal (no pedicures, new shoes, new clothes) but will spend $15 dollars for lip gloss or $500 for a purse. Hey, a girl's gotta have her priorities.

Roll It! Don't Squeeze It!

I know how to find out if a person has the potential to become a stark raving, mad, lunatic who savagely beats his/her family to death.

I have not taken classes to discover these traits, I have not watched hour upon hour of T.V. to help identify the usual suspects. Neither have I studied police or therapist's reports on the subject. How am I, a mere mortal able to do this without any formal instruction or training? Simple. I share a home with people who squeeze, rather than roll the toothpaste tube.

My brother and sister, the two that have recently moved in with me, are making me crazy because every morning I have to reform the plastic tube that holds the whitening, breath-freshening, plaque-eliminating essence which is toothpaste.

I used to tease my then boyfriend that he must be stressed alot because his tube of toothpaste looked as if he had taken all frustration out on it because it was so horribly bent out of shape. Back then, I wish I had some prophecy that the way he treated his tube would be the way he thought he would treat me. Luckily for me, and unfortunately for him I was not going to be squeezed, pinched and roughly handled. A few bruises and carefully aimed scratches to his face taught him that, but I digress.

I used to believe that people who squeezed their tubes were ultimately able to kill a whole family of kittens, boil rabbits alive and shop at Cabela's. Now I know better. Living w/my brother and sister again after so many years apart and having to re-form the tube every morning is sending me down a dangerous path.

So, in an effort to reduce starting each morning too stressed to be blessed, I have purchased my own toothpaste with explicit and clear instructions that if it is squeezed, even a bit, the whole tube will be force fed to the guilty culprit.

Now excuse me dear readers. I have to find directions to the nearest Cabela's. There's some stuff I've been wanting to buy.

It Only Took Me A Year

It's official, this is my 100th post!

Yay!

And it only took a year to get here. I know, I know. There are some of you out there that blog up to 5 articles a day like Empress. She probably hit 100 in her 3rd week.

I still wish my writing could be as interesting and humourous as Bob's, Ryan's and Melon's or as colourful and unpretentious as Sarala's, Maria's and Lizza's or as thought invoking as Dragon's and Dave's.

Oh well, you'll just have to read about my life in plain text. One thing I have done, and that's shortening the average read length from three minutes to one minute. In case you have more time on your hands, you can always stop by Jeni's and read about her village life. Make sure to have something to drink:-)

Wordless Wednesday #4