Mostly, I slept.

That's right. Whatever is plaguing my throat is also making me too sleepy to want to do anything else, including take in a flick today. Dan and I had planned to see HOLLYWOODLAND, an alternative story to the suicide of George Reeves, who portrayed Superman in the 1950's TV version Steve and I loved so much. Some say Reeves was murdered by a jealous girlfriend, an angry Hollywood mogul, the latter's wife--but the actor who played Jimmy Olsen opposite Reeves (and was a friend) says he believes it WAS suicide. Depressed because he'd been pigeonholed as a man in a cape, his acting career a shambles, Reeves shot himself in the head.

Sounds pretty sad, doesn't it?

Yeah, really.

Back to work tomorrow, with a feeling that I cheated myself. It was a warm, sunny, perfect weekend, and I mostly slept it away. I guess my body needed it, or it wouldn't have pushed me to run upstairs with Snaps and Bugsy and nap the hours away. But it's just some throat virus! I'm sure everyone around me is thrilled I can't talk too much! It's just odd that it's still bugging me.

If I'm still having trouble tomorrow, a post-work visit to Jacob might be in order. It hasn't gravitated to my lungs, and I'd really like it to go away before it heads down there, because that means antibiotics, and those shitty things always make me feel crappy, so I'd like to avoid them.

Sigh. At least the channel 5 shows are all new tonight, but nothing else. The new TV season will shortly blast into life, and then I'll be forced to choose what I'll tape and what will have to be ignored. Decisions, decisions. Let's hope most of the new TV season sucks. It usually does, doesn't it?

Love, Robin

I'm leaving work soon. My throat feels awful, alternating between sore and tickly. When I speak, it sounds like a cross between a whisper and a croak. One of my male co-workers pronounced it sexy, but to me, it sounds like nails screeching across a blackboard.

Aside from the throat, and a nasty cough, the rest of me feels OK--well, as OK as the usually achey-breaky me feels. Whenever I walk or exercise, it's always in spite of how much pain I'm in. I let the motion and music obscure the pain and slough through, trying to soar above it.

I feel kind of bad taking sick leave when I was off for two weeks, but one really doesn't have anything to do with the other, does it? I'm not faking how crappy I feel. I want to just go home and sleep. The throat tickle hasn't been letting me get much rest this week. The only thing that seems to relieve it is keeping it coated--with fluids or food. But let's face it, I can't keep constantly eating and drinking. Well, I can, but there are logistical problems with that. I also am annoyed because I planned to stop at the gym and exercise on my way home, but I'm going to skip that, too. I hate letting my every-other-day regime get screwed up, but I think getting rest is more urgent for me right now than getting exercise.

Later, my friends!

Love, Robin

Once you're back to work, vacation fades behind you like you're on a fast speeding train, staring out the back window as it rapidly disappears behind you. God, it's not fair--I wanna be retired!!

Thinking back, I can still feel the intense Nevada heat on the back of my neck, smell the smoke in my nostrils, hear the clanging of the slots in the casinos, touch the filthy, metallic quarters running through my fingers at the Trop. Las Vegas is a place that involves all your senses, and I really hope to get back there someday.

Now, I'm back here, however, and everything's pretty much the same. Nancy got a promotion; she's gone from being Gaby's secretary, a whopping 13, to a job in MIS. Karen is training her to do her job, a level 15. Instead of just being happy about it, Nancy is kvelling about how everyone is treating her as a result. I told her flat out to just accept this mitzvah and not look a gift horse in the mouth. Here I am, doomed to stay a level 5 clerk, and I, too, am a college grad. Where the hell am I going with my degree? No where, it seems!
Nancy says she spent her youth fucking for fun instead of getting ahead in the Postal Service. So did I, which I guess explains my low level status. At least she's an EAS employee.

Today was Brad's first day of school--as a teacher instead of a student. My baby, a teacher! I wanted to warn him to sit at the BIG desk in front of the room, not one of the little desks, but I think he'll do OK as far as that's concerned. I just can't quite believe it! It seems like just yesterday he was toddling off to first grade, just yesterday he was graduating high school, and now, he's the one teaching five seventh grade classes, all those kids to be responsible for--tests, homework, grades! He's going to be stern, tough, show them who's boss, but how is that possible when he's just a kid himself?

Dan and I are meeting later at the gym for some exercise. I still have this annoying tickle in my throat. I jokingly call it kennel cough, but it's very irritating.

Connie had jury duty today. I hope she's back tomorrow.

Not much else to say. I just love my little dogs. Bugsy was a real terror for Brad while we were away, refusing to go out on the leash. He bit him, too, when he tried to put the leash on to take him for a walk. What's wrong with that damn pooch, anyway? Brad still seems to love him, despite his terrible moodiness.

So do I.

Love, Robin

Who said, "So what?" That's not nice! You've missed me, you know you have!

It's bad to take a two week vacation; you start to get that "Weee! I'm retired!" kind of feeling and think you don't have to return to work--but you DO! I still have tomorrow and Monday, and despite the crappy weather (thanks, Ernesto!), I am going to tell you how I spent my summer vacation--in Vegas.

Four days in Vegas may not sound like much, but it's plenty of time-- time to lose a lot of hard-earned money, time to watch your skin blister from the heat (fuck that "it's not the heat, it's the humidity shit; when it's 110 degrees, the heat is HOT ENOUGH)! Wandering from highly air-conditioned indoor areas where you need sweaters to counteract the chill to outdoors, where the son is hot enough to bake your flesh is very disconcerting to the body. Even at night, when the son goes down, it's STILL 95 degrees! Everyone warned us that August is the worst time to take a Vegas vacation, and we said,
"Yeah, we know," to all the naysayers, but once you're slogging through that HEAT, you're wishing it was December. Actually, they claim it even snows there, and temps can get below freezing in winter. I think I'll visit then.

As for our gambling, well, we lost about $150 altogether, at least we think so. I lost everything in my wallet at the airport when we landed, so it didn't take me long to get into the loser swing of things. We stayed at New York, New York, one of the most famous hotels on The Strip, and it was a really nice place--but not too nice to us, gambling-wise. Dan and I found ourselves plugging money into the one-armed bandits (slots) for a full day and a half before we started winning anything, and that wasn't until we took a bus to a casino off The Strip called Orleans, where I hit on the Wheel of Fortune game for 1000 quarters. $250--a big win for us! Yeah, stop laughing, you many thousand dollars winners. We're conservative bettors.

Back at NY NY, we sat down at this gigantic penny Wheel of Fortune, a game so popular, we had to wait until someone else gave up their seat before we could play. On one of my wheel wins, I spun 10,000 pennies! I was screaming and jumping up and down--until I realized it was only $100. Still, we cashed in right away, since we'd won $113 on a bet of $20. That's how it seemed to happen--we'd win, we'd lose, and ultimately, when we cashed in everything, we found ourselves about $150 down from where we started. Not bad for first-timers.

On the first day, on promises of two free Rita Rudner show tickets and a $30 food voucher to the Nine Irishmen Restaurant, we were roped into a two-hour time share presentation. They ferried us over in air conditioned buses, gave us cold water, fruit, chips and cookies, and presented their spiel (which actually sounded like a great deal--until they mentioned the 17.5 interest rate). We turned them down despite their manager's hard-sales tactics, and walked off with our freebies. The restaurant had authentic Irish cuisine, none of which appealed to me, and Rita Rudner was hilarious and resplendent in a blue gown, but by the time we saw her 9 PM show, it was 12 midnight to Dan and me. He fell asleep in his seat and I had a hard time concentrating, but tickets to her show were going for $60 apiece, so we felt pretty good about giving those two hours to the time share people. As for the $30 at the Irishman, it was barely enough for the two cheap entrees we chose, and mine was just lettuce with four pieces of chicken breast thrown on top of it. Sheesh!

Dan and I took a shower together in the gray marble shower, which was big enough to accommodate both of us. That was fun, and I won't say anymore about that.

We spent quality time at NY NY's gorgeous pool, where the water was nearly warm enough to boil lobster. Crowded, but delightful. They have this amazing roller coaster, where screaming humans brave the curls and loops at 70 MPH. This contraption goes right through the hotel itself. We could see it from our room, and you could always count on the yelling above your head when those on the coaster hit certain frightening points along the ride. Dan knew he wasn't going on it before we ever arrived in Vegas. I kept trying to push myself to try it, to no avail. Brad and Ali went on it during their week there, and I say more power to them!

Nathan's hot dogs. Therein lies a tale! One of them costs $3.49 in the most expensive part of the Las Vegas strip. Regular size fries are $4.99. A regular size soft drink is $2.99. We saw a family of four spend $95.00 on lunch. I guess they assume everyone in Vegas is winning big enough to afford such prices for junk food. In the NY NY hotel lobby were kindly souls handing out coupons for free Nathan's hot dogs. Dan and I started collecting them, and just about every lunch time found us eating free hot dogs while we shared one soda. We found that Tropicana, one of the other hotels that shared the "four quarters" with NY NY, had a reasonably priced brunch for $10.99, so that's where we dined for breakfast. I threw my diet to the winds, and when I went to the gym today, the scale reflected that. Fucking scale!

We often found ourselves walking through the MGM Hotel/Casino to get to the Trop. MGM has lions and tigers in a manmade habitat. They bring these tame, gorgeous animals out at 11 AM every day, so tourists like Dan, me and thousands of others can gawk and take pictures. It was amazing to watch them toss balls around and play with their keepers, purring like little kittens (but sounding a lot more growly).

Jet Blue has really cut down on its amenities to passengers, let me tell you. The flight over was fine, except for the surly stewardesses. They had no pillows or blankets (to save money, we were told), but that didn't explain why, when I was handed a warm bottle of water and requested a glass with ice, a stewardess snapped,
"In a second!" "I'll be right with you," in a pleasant voice would have worked a lot better. Whatever happened to the friendly skies?

Our return trip wasn't as pleasant, but I'm going to recount that--and lots more--at another time.

Love, Robin

PS - I did want to mention something we did before we left for Vegas that I left out of my last post.

On the first Saturday of our vacation (two weeks ago today, boo hoo!) Dan and I went to a fund-raiser and adoptathon at Little Shelter, where adoptable animals are saved from death row and hopefully, find new homes with animal lovers like Dan and me. After careful consideration, we decided to bring Bugsy and Snapple on their double leash. They were both excellent, and although we had to warn people against petting Bugsy, as soon as we explained that he was blind, they were very understanding.

They were having a Chinese auction with so many excellent prizes, we didn't know where to drop our tickets first. They had freebies, reasonably priced hot dogs and hamburgers (we just bought some water for us and the dogs), karaoke and a lot of other animals and animal lovers.

A few days later, we had to return to Little Shelter--to pick up our vouchers for Mets tickets and free bowling at Dave and Busters. So our $20 investment paid off nicely! Hopefully a lot of dogs and cats found new homes that day, and Little Shelter raised plenty of money to continue their worthy causes on behalf of deserving animals everywhere.

I know, I haven't posted in a full week. Well, I'm on vacation, and I guess I felt that meant a vacation from blogging, too. The weird thing is, I've been writing this blog in my head all week long, mentally thinking about what I wanted to tell you all.

Mostly, we've been doing a lot of errands! I know, not the fun shit you expected, right? Hey, not the fun shit *I* expected! Today we did something fun--we went into the city to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. It's my third time there, Dan's second. I enjoyed the train ride. I used to abhor the train, but I've grown to like it, passing by familiar and unfamiliar stops, enjoying sitting beside my husband on the comfortably air conditioned train. Of course, it's ridiculously expensive, off peak or on, but we keep allowing ourselves the expense by saying, "Hell, we're on vacation!"

Madame Tussaud's was a lot of walking, but how can you not enjoy standing beside wax figures of such favorites as Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford while someone snaps photos? Dan grabbed the boobs of everyone from Britney to Paris, while I sat beside George Clooney and flipped a double bird in front of our dear Prez Bush. They had a scary trip through a House of Wax exhibit, complete with real people chasing us with knives. We screamed! The final exhibit showed Brandon Routh as the new Superman, Dan flew as Superman on greenscreen (we bought the Hilarious results on a CD for $18.95), and we agreed it had been a great time all around. It was, as always, incredibly crowded in the city, and I had a little boy step on my big toe and an Oriental gal bang into me with enough force to nearly send me sprawling. Too many people!!

I bought two losing Lotto tickets (and I'm usually lucky in Manhattan). Dan and I were so exhausted, we both fell asleep on the train ride home.

What else happened this week?

We made arrangements to lease Dan a new car--a Toyota Camry with all the bells and whistles. Three grand down (ouch!), $380 per month. We wanted to buy it, but frankly, couldn't afford to; the down payment would have been impossible. So after three years, we start all over again. This car is going to be midnight blue, and I suspect Dan will have a hard time giving her up at the end of the lease. We had one salesman we didn't like at all, but Toyota persisted, set us up with a different salesman, and we bought the car from him. I can't help but feel we've been bamboozled, but when we went to Honda to see the Accord the next day, their deal was a whopping $9 less, and Dan preferred the Camry over the Accord by a wide margin.

We had Snapple clipped, and he looks fantastic.

Terminex stopped by and told us the tiny creatures bugging us are flour beetles. We threw out just about every single grain-based food in our cabinets, which is where we believe the infestation originated, and hope this is the beginning of the end of our problems with bugs. I hope so, because Dan has been driven nearly insane by these infinitesimal invaders.

We've been eating every meal out, of course, no cooking for the gal on vacation!

Brad and Ali returned from their trip to Las Vegas. Ali was a winner, Brad a loser, but they had a wonderful time--plus, they were allowed to share a bedroom by Ali's parents. I guess they accepted the fact that these kids--young adults--have been doing the deed for quite a while already and it's time to accept the fact as fact.

Dan and I will be leaving for Vegas ourselves Saturday, and we're really excited. Before that, however, tomorrow, Dan undergoes an MRI for a cyst on his liver. Our doctor believes it's nothing to be concerned about, but that's never stopped Dan's family from worrying thoroughly about anything in the past, and it won't stop 'em now! I really have to get packing! I can't believe I'm leaving the day after tomorrow--and very early, too!

Hey, I hope you have all been having a wonderful week. The weather has been pretty nice, I must say, although it's raining now.

I have been faithfully going to my gym every other day, mostly going on the rowing machine, side by side with Dan. We're two rowin' fools, I tell ya, rowing and going no where!

Love, Robin