Head in the Sand ... and other unpopular positions Read Online Free PDF Page A

this: We gave him the aisle seat,
thinking that he could then prop his sore elbow up on a pillow
hanging out into the aisle.
    Rethink this: Don’t try this if you are
sitting at the back of the plane right around the only two
restrooms on board. Before we lost count, his elbow had been
bumped, jammed, and poked forty-seven times per hour (all time
zones included) by folks sprinting down the aisle toward the
stalls.
    Gracie is staying with my parents in their spare
room. Well, actually it’s their cat’s room. Yes, their cat (named
Joker—how appropriate for a cat in Las Vegas) has his own room. He
has a daybed (complete with trundle) for when he has guest kitties
over, a closet and drawers to keep all his stuff in, a clothes
hamper (unsure what this is for), a Health Rider exercise machine
(apparently he’s afraid of developing love handles), a phone jack
(for when he gets his own laptop and wants to get online), and a
litter box.
    Anyway, Gracie said when she moved her hands in the
night, the cat jumped her and attacked her fingers. It seems he’s
tickled pink that Grandma and Pappy have given him his own personal
cat-toy to keep in his room.
    Today we toured Caesar’s Palace, which has a huge FAO
Schwarz store complete with a three-story moving Trojan Horse
(everything has that Greco-Roman theme in Caesar’s Palace,
including the Warnerius Fraternius Storius, a.k.a. The Warner
Brothers Store). You can go inside the belly of the horse itself,
where you can be lured into buying all sorts of overpriced Trojan
Horse keychains and hats, plus a one-of-three-in-the-world Trojan
rocking horse for your child, as long as you have $12,500 you don’t
know what to do with. Yes, you read that right: Four times what I
paid for my used Corsica last year.
    Caesar’s Palace has an hourly show at the fountains,
which involve animatronic robots reenacting the fall of Atlantis,
complete with actual fire storms, ice storms, and a gargoyle who
signals the fall of Atlantis at Zeus’ bidding. (Zeus is really just
a hologram video on the domed ceiling, but don’t tell the
animatronic statues. It’ll be our secret.)
    We finished the day with a late-lunch buffet at
Boulder Station Casino. (No one over fifty eats dinner after three
p.m. here. It’s against the law.) None of us will be hungry again
until November.
    The weather today has turned out to be about five
degrees cooler than it is in Pittsburgh. My mother insists we
brought the weather with us. I think anyone who owns an outdoor
Jacuzzi in a gazebo and can wear shorts and a tank top on Christmas
has no right to complain.
    Since I have a husband tagging along on this trip for
the first time, and my parents have a small house, Wayne and I are
staying in a hotel a few miles away. We also have a rental car,
which means I’ve now driven the Las Vegas Strip myself and lived to
tell about it. It’s not for the faint of heart, because sixty
percent of the vehicles on the eight-lane road are taxicab minivans
sporting huge signs of scantily-clad showgirls (which is why I
don’t want to let Wayne drive, lest he inadvertently become
distracted and crash the car into the MGM Grand).
    The rest of the day will be spent visiting my folks,
lounging around their house, taking over their computer, annoying
their cat, eating their food, and changing the channels on their TV
when they leave the room for a minute. Life is good.
    Upcoming events for the week include: Hoover Dam
(otherwise known as “That Dam Tour”), the Treasure Island pirate
battle, the Mirage volcano, the Excalibur casino where we will get
a caricature done for Gracie (which I also had done for her
brothers when they accompanied me here), and—late in the evenings
when we leave Gracie here with my folks and head back to the hotel
in the rental car—more quiet, peaceful time alone than Wayne and I
have had in a long time.
    Well, in a town like Las Vegas, in a hotel that
doubles as a casino 24/7, I suppose saying “quiet,