I'M BACK FROM VEGAS!!!

Hi there

Did you miss me?  Did ya?

Well, I did everything I wanted to do, and saw all the sights I wanted to see.  In and out of all the sightseeing and the doings, there were plenty of traumatic happenings.

I got jet lag for the first time ever, and for five and a half days, I walked around in a state of full zombie-ness. And, also, from the second I stepped off the plane in Los Angeles, I was on-and-off deaf in one ear.

On my last morning in Vegas, I woke up to complete deafness in that ear.  The deafness still hasn't let up.  I am going to see the pharmacist today.  But everyone in Vegas was nice about it.  I had so many suggestions from strangers as to what to do to hear properly.  A bus driver handed me his smart phone (while he was driving) - he had found a list of how to get rid of temporary deafness and wanted me to read it.  First on the bullet-list was "jump up and down".

Then I had a blocked nose and a sore throat for four days until I turned my hotel room's air conditioning off at night.

I got bitten by a donkey......   (Bet you weren't expecting that??)  :

I was in the small western town street of Oatman, out of the Las Vegas area.  The town has loads of wild donkeys roaming the street, only we are not allowed to call them donkeys - they are burros.

"They're perfectly safe," said our group's guide.  "You can pet them, and love them, and feed them."  Blocks of alphalpha could be bought.  We were not to feed them carrots.  Carrots brought out large cancer lumps on the donkeys'-sorry-burros' necks.

I petted a few donkey-burros, then looked for a rubbish bin to throw away the remnants of the picnic lunch provided by the tour company.  A donkey stalked up to me, staring intently at the square plastic container of left-overs in my hand.

"Shoo!  Shoo!"  I backed away, scared.

That donkey-burro stalked me.  I turned left.  He turned left.  I turned right.  He turned right.  He began to nudge me.  There was a vicious look in his eyes.

I was standing beside a car and the occupants hurriedly opened a door, trying to put the door up between me and the donkey-burro.  The donkey just swerved around it.

I stumbled backward up onto the boardwalk.  It followed.  I was backed up against a shop window.

And the burro bit my arm!!!  With both sets of teeth.  Blood was drawn.

I dropped the lunch box and ran away, crying like a seven year old.

I hope I don't get rabies.  Or tetanus.  Or burro-breath.  If I turn into a a were-burro at the next full moon, I will be so distressed.....

 above: the Oatman street.  Donkeys (I mean burros) roam on shop verandas.

above: a baby.

Above:  approaching Oatman, a friendly donkey (I didn't know about them being burros then), happy to see us, put his head in the car window, in greeting..  I should have paid more attention for future reference. 

 above:  me, five minutes before The Episode.

above.  a happy stranger surrounded by friendly burros.  I don't know what happened to her later.  I fled the scene after taking this photograph.  (Oh, and quite a few burros were pregnant.)
***

Another thrilling What I Did On My Vegas Holiday coming up soon.  I promise no more donkeys-er-I-mean-burros.  This time the horrifying story will be about ... horses!

Viva Las Vegas-yee-ha!!!

Hi there

Well, I'm off tomorrow to Las Vegas!  And today I  hopped on my neighbour's scales, and I've lost 10lbs  since 24 May which was a cause for celebration.  So I got myself a Pepsi... and it tasted awful.  My goodness, has dieting ruined my tastebuds?  I can't allow that;  I mean I intend to buy a 24-hour seven-restaurants  all-you-can-eat buffet voucher the second I hit Vegas.  I hope, fingers crossed and my stomach co-operating,  to get in four buffets in the 24 hour period.  I have read of some people who have managed the whole seven.

Obviously I will return home more buxom than when I left.

See you in two and a half weeks.  Sorry I won't be writing a blog when I'm away.

The Domino Effect with suitcases

Hi there

My friend arrived from Auckland last week, to housesit while I am in the United States.  This morning we tripped happily along to a department store to look around. 

"Oh, look, there's a cabin bag the same as my one," I exclaimed happily, pointing out a small case.   "I wonder how much they're charging for it-""

The bag was sitting on a high long table in a cluster of about eighteen other hard-backed wheelie cases.  I attempted to move a bag in the front row of four deep to get at it.

"Oh, noooooooooooooo.........."

The bag in front of me wheeled to the side and, in the process, knocked the bag beside it.  That bag knocked the next bag to it.  A third swayed precariously until - craaassssh!  Down to the floor, the three bags fell, but not before one of them had knocked the bag behind it, which in turn knocked the bag behind that one which also knocked the next one.  These bags fell off the other side of the table-

As my friend said to me after we'd raced, red-faced, out from the shop, "Wow, that's one in-store video the employees will definitely hoot over at their next Christmas Party ..."

****

J and I did 10 swims in July.  Today (1 August NZ time), we got in a swim in the rain.  Extremely cold.

cookies, both sorts

Hi there
The blog people have told me I must mention that they have a cookie on their blog site.  Goodness, I hardly know what a cookie is, outside of the obvious kind that you eat.

I well remember the Andy Williams Show on tv back in the sixties (where The Osmond Family were first introduced - Donnie was such a tiny little tyke!).  Andy had a bear friend that kept demanding cookies.  So popular was this weekly segment that our biscuit company came up with Cookie Bear biscuits, biscuits that are still selling strongly today.  I wonder if the biscuit people got permission to use Cookie Bear, an  obvious steal from the Andy Williams Show?

Miramar Murals and art

Hi there

I like looking at the art work that seems to be cropping up around the suburbs.  On my walks around Miramar, there are several that I love.  There are a few on fences but I adore the murals that are on the front of those big electrical box thingees. 

Here's the latest electrical-box-thingee mural.  It's still being painted, and is on Miramar's main street (on the way to Weta Workshop).

And here it is again, from another angle.  You can easily see the door in it:

Here's a dinosaur in front of Worser Bay School which is at the top of the hill that leads down to the bay.   This school, over the years, has taught the children of various celebrities living in Miramar:

This dog and bone mural is at the bottom of the Worser Bay hill:

I'm just looking, thank you!

Hi there

I mosey on into a clothes shop.  Today, I will buy nothing, and nothing will deter me from my non-buying quest.  This is to be a fact-gathering mission.

"And how has your day been-?"

Several times before, and just for the fun of it, I've actually told an astounded sales assistant, in excruciating detail about my day, starting off with getting out of bed, choosing an outfit, eating my cereal, waiting for the bus...

But, this time, I'm too tired for any of that-

"I'm just looking, thank you," I say.  It's an old phrase taught to us by generations of ancestors.

"Those are lovely ear-rings you're wearing," the assistant gushes.

And just like that, the assistant and I bond.  I tell her where I bought the ear-rings, how much they cost, how I love them. 

I let myself get talked into buying a lovely summer jacket that I truly don't need in the middle of winter.  I am assured, however, that it's "new summer stock, just come in".  I have to buy it because the assistant and I are now ... friends?

I began to get suspicious about this bonding-with-shop-assistants-thingee when three assistants in three different shops over the space of two hours waxed deleriously over my various accessories, two of them loving my ear-rings (obviously a popular choice), and one my watch.

I guess, nowadays, retail shop managers believe in sending staff to "How to train your Customer 101".   I can testify that this soft sell totally works.  Darn-it.

Whoops, my carparking incident

Hi there

A few weeks ago, I drove into the Countdown Supermarket Carpark in Kilbirnie at 11.30 a.m, and I left their carpark at 12.25 pm.  The parking notice said I could park for an hour and a half.

I reached the beach at 12.32 pm to discover a parking ticket flapping away under my car's windscreen wiper!  Unbeknown to me, and by some magic trick, my car had sat in the Countdown carpark for over the legal hour and a half.  Naughty car, I would have to smack it's bottom. 

(I had been told several years earlier  that the Wilson's Carpark people patrolled the Countdown Carpark one day a week;  I wonder if one day a week is still the case, or has the situation been amped up?)

Anyway, I wrote a letter to Wilson's and pleaded my case.  They informed me that after deep reflection they would waive my $45 fine.  Phewww!

Just to let you Wellingtonians know.  Be alert ....