Fight the good fight!

Fight the good fight!

So we arose (and I wasn’t the last fecker up) and my tummy seemed (fingers crossed) fragile but better so we gathered the troops and headed out once more to catch a bus and head in the opposite direction to where we went yesterday. We had all slept well (apart from E who had spent the best part of the night looking for Kestrel eggs) and we were heading to the Stratosphere at the other end of the strip and the bus was busy with locals at this time of the day and not tourists, we ended up on the top deck and we got separated, so instead of chatting to my compatriots I people watched and listened to the local Patois! There was a couple of girls laughing and saying how it had kicked off at a house party the night before and some girl had brought a knife and was going to stab somebody but couldn’t find the person she wanted to stab and these girls didn’t know why she wanted to stab this other person so they were going to ask her at church today (WTF)! I also listened to the youth (about 15-16 I would say) sat next to me who was even at this time of the morning using all the tricks in his not inconsiderable arsenal to get in his girlfriends pants (boy have I led a sheltered life) the wife had to shout at me twice (well I am deaf you know) as we arrived at our destination.

I have to admit that the Stratosphere end of the strip was a little like home (sad and rundown) but we had a job to do and we were going to do it(gamble that is) we had a wander and it was ok and I didn’t feel the need to visit the rest rooms at all (result) we headed back out onto the strip again for a late breakfast early lunch and we ended up at IHOP which made the wife happy mind you the family (army) of Mexicans who demolished their table thankfully left because I think that E (with all mothering oops sorry I mean smothering instinct) was about to go out and buy a bat to settle their hash the noisy little blighters! (Cue much hissing!) at this point I was hungry and didn’t care I wanted a Philly cheese steak sandwich and was going to have one whatever the cost (at that moment in time I didn’t realise that I didn’t have my medication with me brave or stupid you decide?) but we ate and lived to tell the tale although I was a good boy and waited to make sure I wasn’t going to explode(which thankfully I didn’t) although I did try the rest room although at this point in time for the first time standing in this holiday!

We strolled in the heat back up the way we came and we found a small block of shops and a great off licence although we were good and didn’t buy anything, we had a bit more of a gamble (at Circus Circus I believe) and then wandered off up the road where we ended up at the Riviera which when we got in looked like a working men’s club on a Tuesday  afternoon (empty and desolate) I nearly got knocked on my ass by the bloody tumbleweeds and it really was sorry to see what was once a great hotel in a bad way( when I got home I googled it and the hotel is in administration  owing over $250 million mainly due to the collapse of the building industry as all the hotels around where pulled down with new ones to be built and they never were so consequently the pedestrian traffic has virtually dried up) we did a little gambling had a drink and moved on we ended up at the Wyn next and golly gosh jeepers this was wonderful they even had a huge singing frog in one of the restaurants  for the rich people we just stayed at the windows and gazed in again I googled the hotel and it is one of the top three hotels in the WORLD and I can believe it.

It was at this point I wandered off by myself and got a bit teary as I thought about my mum, I hadn’t meant to and if you have read the stuff I write I don’t normally do emotion (I blame the wife me for trying to get me to open up and be all touchy feely bleurgh)I was looking in the shop windows (one thing I did notice purely because I work primarily in the retail business how empty the shops were some staff and if you were lucky one bloody customer and this was in all of Las Vegas) and in amongst all this splendour was a shop selling Oscar de la Renta clothes and I just wished my mum could have been there again if you have read some of my earlier stuff my mum had it hard and again didn’t want for anything but she would have loved being here and the one thing she ever said that she wanted was a dress by Oscar de la Renta(which she never got and here was me standing outside one of his bloody shops), I just felt like I had been punched in the (already sore) stomach, when the wife caught up to me and saw being weepy I think she was more shocked than I was, it was over as soon as it had started but it caught me completely by surprise. But it was nice to have such good memories of her all we needed would be to have had the song Danny Boy play in the back ground and I would have been sprinting up the bloody strip!

As we wandered around and back towards the hotel a lot of people were actually staring (and why not) at my Buckets t-shirt one guy even fell off the kerb while trying to read it and not watching where he was going hey mister watch out that’s how accidents happen hahaha! E reckons that I should charge the buckets for all the free advertising (have a word with my business manager guys) although in all honesty I’m probably too much of a hippy to be that interested in materialistic thing (as I get beaten about the head and shoulders by my new business manager E) but in the city of t-shirts with many weird and wonderful slogans my buckets t-shirt is standing head and shoulders above them all, me and E might just call back to the Bellagio to see if we could get the Buckets a residency!

As the day was coming to a close and I had been such a good boy with regards my stomach and the requirement for rest rooms I split from the herd while they wanted to actually see the pirate show from outside the hotel as opposed to watching it at a height within our rooms, my knees had kicked in although if I’m honest (I’m telling you if I was a pet I would have put down about four years ago) they were sore from the get go but my Klack Valve issues had taken precedent, I went to the room while the wife went off in search of a sandwich but when she arrived back wind (not mine) had caused the cancellation of the noisy bloody pirates so we kicked back and chilled (and I wrote some notes for the day) and got ready for the next day of mystery and mayhem!