11 August, 2011

To fill in the blanks

What a wild ride these past six days have been!  It's almost a relief to be back at work.

The wild ride started at 2 pm Friday afternoon.  I was attending a meeting, then I was going to finish up and head home to walk Tink and take her to the kennel, then pack.  All in a leisurely manner to start the birthday weekend.  However, as I was sitting in the meeting with the chairman and several faculty members from another department that I had never met, I all of a sudden saw what can only be described as plumes of blood in my left eye.  Or to put it another way, all of a sudden there were lots of new floaters and they were huge and red.  NOT something one would typically see.  I was completely freaked out and excused myself and went to talk to a couple of women in the office, one of whom used to be a nurse.  We all decided, with a bit of help from Google, that it would be best to head to the emergency room.  I'll cut to the chase - all is well and it looks like it was a natural phenomena, but definitely out of the ordinary and I was right to seek help.  But the worst part was that the ophthalmology on call was at Harborview, so I had to take a cab home, get the dog and take her to the kennel and then drive in rush hour all the way downtown to Harborview.  I didn't get home until after 7 and I had all my packing to do.  That was not how I wanted to start the vacation.

Next morning I drove to my friend's house and parked my car and then we three hiked up the hill to the light rail and took it to the airport.  It was easy and very cosmopolitan.  The flight to Las Vegas was uneventful and we got there around lunchtime.  My friend McGarrah was already there and we met up for lunch and away we went.  That evening Kelli and Mike and I went to see Ron White perform.  He was hilarious.  However, a woman behind me had gotten sick .... made it a bit hard to sit through the show. 

It was BRUTALLY hot down there.  The Mandalay Bay has a wonderful area with pools and things but it was absolutely too hot for me to be outside and the place was crawling with kids!  Who brings their children to Las Vegas???  Ridiculous.  On Sunday my sister was busy putting a little party together so the rest of us went to old Las Vegas and that's fun.  We played blackjack and I won.  Perfect.  That evening my friend Anne and her husband were there as well, celebrating their wedding anniversary so we had a lovely little drinks party in Kelli and Mike's room then later we all went out to eat at a burger bar.  It was a large group so we had to split up and wait for a big table.  McGarrah and I went to the back of the place for a drink and I pointed out a large table of young men wearing hats and said, "They look like Jersey Boys".  Later Mike went back and asked them and got them to come to the table and sing Happy Birthday.  Adorable.  It was so fun.

Day of the birthday I had a nice slow morning, and then a lovely massage.  And that evening my sister and Mike went home, the nephews had driven out earlier that day and I was tired.  We were going to see a show but I just wanted a nice Italian meal and a quiet evening.  ha!  I got the nice Italian meal, but then McGarrah and I hit the tables.  I won at blackjack and I won at roulette!  It was insane.  And fun.  So much fun that it was a chore to get to the airport for that early flight.  I made it though and as soon as I got home and got Tink from the kennel I had a nap.  And kept a low profile yesterday as well.  I feel good though. 

I got a wonderful birthday phone call yesterday and bonus -- I got to play a message when I got to work.  But now back to reality.


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