Hi, everyone! If I've been quiet lately, it's certainly not because I don't love you. Mr. Maise and i joined some friends in attending a wedding in Las Vegas this past weekend, and I was in Sin City from last Wednesday to this past Sunday. I would have liked to have been Places Parallel's very own MTV Video Music Awards correspondent, but this proved impossible for four reasons: 1) I'm neither rich nor famous enough to be able to afford to even walk into the places where all the celebrities are staying; 2) my pesky sinuses and my husband's severe hangover prevented us from doing any celebrity hunting on Saturday night; 3) we were leaving Las Vegas early on Sunday, well before the festivities; 4) unlike Kanye West, I couldn't be bothered to give a flying fuck about the VMAs.
But the trip was not without its highlights. The first night, the front desk attendant at Bally's informed us that she did not have a nonsmoking room available, so they offered us a suite for a night. This hotel room was approximately the size of my last apartment. Perhaps larger. It had about seven million couches, a kitchen, a dining room area, an exercise bike, a steam shower, and a whirlpool tub approximately the size of my current master bathroom. It's too bad that we didn't have such accommodations the entire trip, as we could have hosted my friend's wedding reception in there easily.
On Thursday evening, I met up with some friends at Harrah's, and we spent an inordinate amount of time having hilariously inappropriate conversations while sitting at a table in the buffet. Then the husband and I went to dinner at Wolfgang Puck's Chinois (quick verdict: his Postrio restaurant in the Venetian is better) and went to see The Beatles: Love at the Mirage. For those who are unaware, Love is a Cirque du Soleil show set to a specially remixed Beatles soundtrack, and it is fantastic. The music is absolute perfection, the acrobatics and special effects are mesmerizing, and I have to admit that I got a little misty at the end, when we see some filmed footage of the Fab Four. (Confession: George Harrison is only one of two celebrities for whom I have cried upon his/her death. The Crocodile Hunter is the other one.) My husband is not a huge Beatles fan, and he has no patience for the normal Cirque du Soleil artiness, but he loved this show, and I would recommend it strongly to just about anyone on the planet. If it tours, you'd better believe that I would see it again, and I would be strongly tempted to see it again the next time I wind up in Vegas. Afterwards, the husband and I met up for dessert with our very own Ro, who happened to be vacationing with her family, and we talked until the husband was ready to fall asleep at the table.
We had the wedding to go to on Friday, and what a lovely ceremony it was! Notable events included the DJ being fired in the middle of the reception and his subsequent drama and my participating in a "Soul Train line"...badly. Afterwards, the husband and I drank entirely too much, which led to the best gambling moment ever. We were walking out of a fabulous bar, Red Square, in Mandalay Bay, and I drunkenly announced, "I want to play the BIG slot machine!", referring to those enormous slot machines the size of a pickup truck that everyone plays as a novelty. My husband indulged me and gave me five dollars to bet, whereupon I immediately won $90. Gambling and winning is so much more fun when you're drunk and have no idea what's going on. The husband and I partied like rock stars that night, and I didn't get to bed til 4:30 a.m.
But I couldn't sleep in the following morning, as I had a spa appointment. The seaweed goop that was smeared all over me during my "cocoon" wrap allegedly helped me to detox, while my husband detoxed the hard way...with a nasty hangover. Later that evening, I managed to contract a nasty sinus infection, so it was a much quieter night in, and as I mentioned earlier, I couldn't stalk Paris Hilton or whoever the fuck was supposed to be in town that night.
And that's about it...Saturday was followed by an uneventful trip home on Sunday, except my sinuses were killing me the entire time, and the pain was compounded by the changes in pressure. I couldn't pop my ears properly and still feel partially deaf today. We didn't get home til about 10:30 p.m., so I couldn't even see those stupid VMAs.
But I will comment briefly on the only VMA-related topic worth mentioning...the fact that despite all my Schadenfreude tendencies, especially where the rich and beautiful females are concerned, I can't help but feel sympathy for Britney Spears. And it's like, yeah, she's not terribly talented, and she has way too much money and is making a trainwreck of her personal life and has a terrible weave and doesn't have the body of her youth but still runs around in public in a bra and panties (or no panties, depending) and just in general makes terrible, terrible choices...but I just hate the way that everyone piles up on her all the time. Of course her career is falling apart...she can't be sold as the barely legal sexpot anymore, and there's a whole crowd of barely legal sexpots to take her place. Yeah, her performance and that song sucked, but does that mean she deserves to have Sarah Silverman gloating nasally about her failure in the same freaking building?
Clearly, the woman needs Tim Gunn. Don't we all? But it's just so frustrating that someone like Britney manages to make herself look so unflattering all the time. She may not have "the perfect body" these days, but if she just dressed herself well, we'd hardly notice it. And shit, my friend the bride had a better weave than Britney did. And Britney has about 17 gazillion dollars. Why???
Anyone else here feel sorry for Britney, or are there just vast wells of Britney hate out there? Also, how was YOUR weekend?
