Dawn’s Thoughts

Deceber 27, 2008 (Saturday)

Picked up Mom’s chest of drawers. Went to Main Street Antique Mall, which has several rooms, and reminds me of our closest antique mall, until it went belly up. Always good.
Met Ernie at Haufbrauhaus for dinner. Have I mentioned how good this place is? Good German red cabbage and great sausages. Apple strudel was half the size of last year though. They had a christmas tree in the corner. They have a hall, like the long room in Basque places, also with long benches, though at the Haufbraushaus, they have benches instead of chairs. This is fortunate because otherwise a great number of totally drunk folks would have fallen over if the benches hadn’t been joined at the back, because the band played the Star Spangled Banner with a Alps horn and everyone had to stand on the benches with their glasses raised. And then the man with the horn said he would lie down on the table and play, and he did that too. It sounds like a saxophone. And then he said he would balance the horn on his face, still lying down, which he did, even though it was as tall as someone standing. Then everyone cheered and clapped and the man carried the horn off.
Went to Bass Pro Shop in the evening. I love the Bass Pro Shop. Something must be a bit wrong with my culture if I get excited about going to the hunting store, especially since when I mentioned archery at school, people feared for their lives and wouldn’t let me take it, but I do like it at the store. I thought they would have sausage making books, and they did of course, because Mom was just saying we need to start eating tofu, which I don’t like, but I just saw a book on Tofu at the Stanford booksale, and when we first came to Vegas I said wouldn’t it be nice to find a tofu book that told how to make everything. Then of course I found it. But, getting back to the Bass Pro Shop, tofu means sausage making and last time at Cabela’s, which is like the Bass Pro Shop, there were tons of sausage books. I found a very good book with no nitrates or dyes in it. Also wandered around the food, book and clothes aisles, as well as hunting and fishing. There’s a Jeff Foxworthy Incomplete Hunter film that might be good. Searched for the baby carriage with a shotgun case on it that I saw last time, but no such luck. Only standard game carriers around.

They aren’t as funny to look at.

By the way, there is apparently such a thing as a quail harness. Let me say that again: a QUAIL harness. It’s probably if you want to use one quail to lure others, but good Lord, I had trouble enough putting a chicken in a harness, and then being run all over. I’d hate to try shoving a quail into one.

Mmm…cartoons…rednecks with shotgun baby carriages and quail harnesses….
December 28, 2008 (Sunday)
Breakfast at Wild Wild West, soon to be Denny’s unfortunately. Stole showers at Ernie’s motel, watching bits of the House marathon on TV. Said goodbye to Ernie. Mom and I hugged him and Dad shook his hand, which made everyone laugh. Got dog kisses.
Shopped at market and took a good nap after lunch. Took the shuttle to Bill’s casino on the strip. After the state of the buses last year, I was worried they might leave us stranded altogether, but the shuttle came back after we wandering through two or three casinos, and took the ped bridge across the highway to some others. A very cold night. Had dinner at the buffett and stuffed ourselves as usual. Very good. Then took the shuttle, after making periodic mad dashes outside to see if it had arrived, as staying outside permentantly was too cold, and loitering in the wind break entrance was too far from the bus stop. But we got home regardless and went to bed.

December 29, 2008

Shopped on Maryland Parkway today. Looked at Barnes and Noble and the mall. Wanted to get some things at Barnes and Noble 50% sale but couldn’t find anything or what was on sale, except for usual bargain crap, now red tagged and on sale. At the mall, got several good shirts and jacket at Bonworth, which we can only find in Vegas. At the FYE store, found a film for Aunt Helen and called her to see if she wanted it, which she did. Also found a 50% DVD for the cheapest yet which I wanted, but still think it could be cheaper somewhere. Went to one thrift store which had four bookcases with verying levels of old books. Found an old one with rhymes and stories from the thirties.

Went home, had tea, watched more Grey’s anatomy. Had dinner of smoked chicken and plaintains. We figured out from the plaintains (!) at the buffet the other night that they are boiled, then fried, which makes them flexible. Really good, especially with cider mix over them. Ate candied pumpkin which was not as sweet as other candied fruit, and some unidentifiable form of candied fruit as well. Went to bed.

December 24, 08

Today Mom and Dad went around to look for other places to stay, but didn’t find any because they were all expensive or too close together. They took me, but there was nothing to do, and I hadn’t known we were only driving about, so we went to the thrift store as well. Then we went to the Pet Kingdom USA, which I love, because last time when we found it, it had marmosets, monkeys and some strange animal (maybe a biterong, except not black, I can’t remember), with a dog muzzle and raccoon hands, with was black and white and clowned all over his cage. This time they had the marmosets, but the bushbabies were hiding. The bunny cages were each housing a sleeping store cat, in addition to rabbits. There was also such a beast as the Ass Face Frog. I REALLY wanted to see what that looked like, but it was very small and hidden partly in the plants, so I couldn’t see what it’s face looked like at all.

What a shame.

In the car, we speculated as to how many very small dogs you could fit in a truck’s very small very long bumper tool box. At last count, it was three dauschounds or ten Beanies (Aunt Kathy’s 1 pound dog).

I am not sure exactly why you’d want to put 10 daschunds, but I suppose if you were very very bored…

After the pet store, we had lunch at the King Ranch Market, a Mexican market, next door. They had regular tamales, but also Cuban and Central American tamales. I had the Central American, which was wrapped in banana leaves, and had chicken and potatoes inside. This market was a bit different from Bakersfield’s. First off, there were great piles of green folded banana leaves (for tamales) piled everywhere. There were several fruits like nance or nameme (?) that I didn’t know. And instead of cow heads the had pigs in the packaged meats.

December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas! This morning we went over to Ernie’s motel room, with presents. The dogs had their Beggin Strips wrapped in a box, and naturally tried to knock them all about the bed before they needed assistance. Then they inspected each other’s boxes and swallowed their beggin strips whole. Then they rassled.

Ernie and all of us went to the Mandalay Bay Aquarium, which is always good. They had a golden Crocodile, which was kind of mottled gold and grey and which had a partially gold tail. I spent some time at the Pacific Octopus cage (twice), because the octopus kept crossing the tank and dancing for me (also twice). It had gills very different from fish gills, because instead of layers there was only a round flap that opened and closed. And also its’ legs were webbed along the sides, like a flying squirrel, which probably helped it to float along. It had a very large head and very small eyes atop the head, and then I think it went to sleep because it stopped moving, and leaned its head away from the glass until only its legs were splayed out like a starfish.

The starfish that shared the tank was moving quite quickly (about ¼ inch a minute or less), to wrap one leg around the rock it was sitting on. (As a side note, when we were in Paso Robles I discovered why the chicken crossed the road. He did it to protect his territory on the other side, because I saw him do it).

We wandered around Mandalay Bay casino and then had Christmas dinner around 3 or 4 at the Orleans buffet. They had prime rib and lamb in the buffet for the regular price, and we ate too much. We had dinner with Ernie and then he went home, and we laid with our bellies up from 5:30 PM until bedtime and watched TV (more Grey’s Anatomy). It was very good.

December 26, 2008

Today Mom and I went thrifting. Mom found her back-room craft chest she wanted. We went looking for the Salvation Army with the yard and finally found it. They had a little sauna out there, about the size of a closet, with all the controls, locks and off-switches on the outside. I suppose that’s so you can torment the person entirely who’s dumb enough to sit inside such a small thing. Personally, I’d want more than one window in the thing myself. Saw a very proper wooden pool table with claw feet. Must have cost quite a bit new.

Went for lunch at Jerry’s, where they had very good gyros. Then we met up with Ernie and Dad to watch the LED show on Fremont Street. this is a souvenir mall with a great white metal roof over the top, which is where the LED’s are projected. Very colorful computer animation and projection, but did I mention it’s very loud? It’s so loud you can hear it through both hands clamped around your ears, which is how I was. But it’s all scyrochonized to music and, as was explained to us, the ads afterwards often have better effects than the show.

Then we had soup and sandwich at the Las Vegas Club. They had a Manhatten cream-style clam chowder, which I’ve never had before. It was very similar to the white clam chowder because of the cream. And the sandwich was good as well.
Watched more light shows and walked around the Nugget. Went to Jerry’s for dessert. They have the best desserts, made with cream so they stick to the roof of your mouth. We found them by complete accident last year. Dad had a chocolate cake, Mom and I had the brownie cheesecake and Ernie had the Boston Cream pie. These are all the size for three people anyway.

went home