Ze2NonBlondes: Vegas, Baby

While you were gone, we celebrated my mother's 50th birthday. Although if you ask anyone on the trip, they will swear that she was celebrating her 80th. It's my fault really. She didn't want to go to Vegas, she wanted to go camping at a KOA in San Diego. Spending 7 days in northern Minnesota, (in a brand new cabin fully loaded with amenities), with my mother was so much fun that when we returned to the Twin Cities I avoided her the rest of the trip and didn't see her again until we got home to California. So why on God's green earth, I asked myself, would I volunteer to rough it, sleep in a tent, have no kitchen, tv or internet for four days? Especially when I would have to live with the painful knowledge that home was just one short 45 minute drive away? Consequently, when she told me what she wanted to do for her birthday, I openly agreed, and immediately started plotting a way to get her to change her mind. God only knows how I did it, as the woman is as stubborn as a mule. The trick was to make it think it was her own idea. Even then, the night before we were supposed to leave she was stressing and having an anxiety fit, texting me with a "I can't deal with this...We're not going." Of course, that meant I had to call her and find out what was wrong. The kitchen wasn't clean, the living room was a mess, no one was helping her, and the IRS was going to garnish her wages because of a tax liability Greg left on the business. After letting her vent and doing my best to reassure her, I hung up and told David that the trip was still up in the air. Five minutes later I got a text that said, "Fuck it. We're going." I should have known then...

Between the heat, which honestly wasn't so bad (I expected 112 degrees to feel much worse), her arthritis (which apparently flares up when she tries to walk any sort of distance), the crowds (she gets claustrophobic), her not wanting to spend any money (unless it was on shopping), we were all ready to declare mutiny and tie her to the bow of the ship that sits in front of Treasure Island - during the nightly pyrotechnic part of the show where it goes up in flames...

Now you might not think that's very nice of us to think. But no sooner did we leave our hotel the first day, (on our way to the Bellagio to see the botanical gardens and then the Mirage to see the white tigers) and she charges off down the strip at a lightening pace and manages to put one block of distance between me and my kids and siblings (though she had Emma with her), so much so that we could barely see her. We eventually caught up with her in an outdoor shopping forum where she had collapsed on a bench next to a vending machine selling water. "What on earth are you doing?" I asked her, puzzled.
"I'm trying to get to where we're going as fast as possible before the heat melts my shoes to the pavement or my arthritis makes me feet swell, because then my shoes won't fit," she snaps.
Right. I know my mother and can tell how quickly this is about to take a turn for the worse. So I take control of the situation and change the plans. I sell my plan thusly: "Let's get mom a wheelchair or I'm going to strangle her." We walked and she limped her way into Treasure Island, where I dragged us all to a concierge desk that had two cherry red electric wheelchairs sitting in front of it.
"I need one of those," I plead the man behind the desk, worried that they might only be for paying guests of the hotel. Lucky for us, they were for rent. Ten minutes later, we're cruising out of the hotel from a side entrance, trying to find our way back to the Strip. With Sophia in her lap, my mother, being my mother, decides to cross the side street instead of driving a little further to the cross walk. Not wanting to get separated, we all ran across the street, shouting after her - "What are you doing?!" We make it to the sidewalk, just as she realizes that she's in a wheelchair and needs a ramp to get back up onto the sidewalk. Thus, she is forced to drive down the rest of the street, into a turning lane, now with a car behind her, with Sophia in her lap, trying to make it to the cross walk ramp. I swear I didn't know whether to pee my pants laughing or strangle her. Of course, my camera batteries were dead, but I do have the video on her Droid. I'll have to upload it somehow.

15 minutes later, Ashley claims she can't walk any further because she's wearing shorts. We look, and sure enough her skin between her thighs is bright red and beginning to blister. Now we take another detour into Caesar's Forum looking for a pair of pants for Ashley. For the love of Pete!
You will find it hilarious to know that my mother's wheelchair eventually begins short circuiting, and would go from traveling 10 miles an hour to a dead stop. We had to call Treasure Island who sent someone to come pick it up, only he couldn't find us, so we had to walk all the way back to the hotel with my mother riding the wheelchair, stopping and going in abrupt spurts. There are Treasure Island, she says we're taking a cab back to the hotel so we can eat. Not wanting her to waste the money, I tell her to take a cab, and we can walk. She insists we take a cab, I insist we don't need one, go ahead without us. To make my point, I walk away, only to have her follow us for another two blocks before she drags us into a cab line and hails two taxis. "Get in the taxi," I am told.
We never made it to see anything we had set out to see. And that was the end of the first day.

The next day was a little better as I acquiesced to all her wishes. We went to the MGM Grand, watched them feed the lions, which was really cool. They would throw raw hamburger meat on the glass right in fron of where you stood, and the lions would come lick it off. William and Sophia both got meat on the glass in front of their faces. We hit the M&M store, did some shopping, had lunch at MGM Rainforest Cafe, and then that night we dressed up and had an "Old Time" photo shoot, after which the kids went to the amusement park inside out hotel, with rollercoasters and such.
And now, some random pictures...