Vegas

Damn

I drank a large Diet Coke at 4 pm.  9 times out of 10, this doesn't impact my ability to get to sleep.  Tonight happens to be the 1 time out of 10.

Vegas

We had a good time in Vegas, and more importantly, got a nice break from being parents. The trip had its ups and downs.

Ups: lots of rest and relaxation for me; great food; two trips to In N Out Burger; D breaking even on poker after being severely down heading into our final night there; going to a Kathy Griffin show; and, of course, spending time with Vic & Mike. We started calling Mike my Vegas Husband and Vic D’s Vegas Wife (and vice versa). Mike doesn’t like to play poker either, so he and I played a few games of Scrabble, attempted to read by the pool, and drank at the bar while D and Vic were at the tables.

Downs: the hotel was not to our liking. We stayed at Caesars Palace for the first time figuring we’d try something new. The rooms were nice. In fact, the bed was the most comfortable hotel bed in recent memory. The poker room was a good one according to Vic and D. The problem was with the rest of it. First, it’s huge. As could be expected, Vic and Mike ended up in a different tower than us even though we’d booked to be in the same tower. That made for lots of walking through the smoky casino. Second, the general ambiance of the casino was icky. Or maybe Vegas has just gotten more icky. I don’t know. Either way, we’ll not be staying there again. I think we all realized that we like Bellagio best.

I couldn’t believe how much Vegas has changed just since we were there last in October. They finished up City Center with these huge condos and shopping. Nearly all of it is completely empty. The sheer size of the empty buildings is shocking. And there were lots of towers of hotels that I didn’t even recognize. Granted, we generally stick around whatever hotel we happen to be staying at, but I’ve been to Vegas something like seven or eight times, so it’s not like I’m not familiar with it.

Reentry

Today was a good reentry day. Avery and I chugged right through the day keeping ourselves busy. Nolan came over in the morning so I could babysit him while Rachele took Elise out on Mommy/Daughter date morning. Following a nap, Avery accompanied me to my dentist appointment. This was the first one with our new dentist. I liked him well enough. He seems to have fully embraced all possible dental technologies, so I suppose that’s good. Anyway, not shockingly, my clenching and grinding has taken a toll. I’ve got minor bone loss and some other issues from it. They’re relatively minor, but I guess having them makes it slightly easier to swallow what I find to be an insane cost for professionally molded night guards. FWIW, if you think you can just use teeth whitening trays for clenching or grinding relief, think again. Apparently, that I used them probably made my grinding worse. Because those trays are so squishy, they act as a sort of stress ball for your mouth and encourage grinding. Ugh.

Following the dentist and a stop at the grocery store, Avery and I headed home to make a dinner of trout, pasta, and broccoli. Avery loves all of those things, but she is more easily distracted at mealtimes now. She’ll rush through and say she’s done after taking just a few bites. D and I pretended that we were going to eat her broccoli if she left it on her plate. She then raced to eat all of it. I think this is probably a trick that will work maybe one more time. 

Books

I have managed to read a few more books.  The most powerful and the most brutal was The Road of Lost Innocence.  I can handle reading about a lot of human suffering (though cannot stand to read about any animal suffering), but this book, by far, was the most difficult thing I've ever read.  Gut wrenching.  While I know it's not fun material, I do highly recommend it to anyone who is willing to give it a whirl.

Immediately following that book, I read another book about Cambodia.  When Broken Glass Floats is written by a woman grew up in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge regime.  Having just read The Road to Lost Innocence, I had a firm grasp of the role of women and girls in Cambodian society.  That gave me insight into the rareness of the attitudes of author's father towards women.

Prior to those two books, I read Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur.  Slave: My True Story, which I'd read a few weeks ago, also took place in Sudan, so I was familiar with the customs and traditions of the area.  I highly recommend this book if you want a better grasp of the Darfur genocide from the point of view of someone who has escaped.

I also read Fingersmith just to get all crazy and read a fiction book.  It was OK, but I wouldn't rave about it.

Now I'm reading Feather in the Storm about growing up in China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.  I'm about 15% of the way into it.  So far, it's holding my attention very well, which is my main goal with a book.