Summer Reading List

I know that summer technically started a week ago, but the last six months have felt like an eternal summer to me. When I arrived here in January it was in the 70's everyday. That's summer back home in Washington! Then the temperatures got hotter and hotter and now we are 105 to 110 every day. So when everything started popping up with summer reading lists I was initially confused. Isn't summer almost over? Isn't it going to start cooling down soon? No and No it turns out.

I read. A lot. When I was a kid they used to tell me I was going to hurt my eyes I was reading so much. Now, I read because I have eyes and I can still use them. When my vision was impaired back in January I was so freaked out about how long it would be wonky for.  And when would I lose it again? Vision symptoms are the most common in MS and I will lose it again in the future, even if it's only temporarily. The first thing we did when my vision was well enough that I would leave the house was go look at art. Seriously. It took another week or so before focusing on anything as tiny as paperback print didn't make me exhausted but I got back to reading voraciously as soon as I could.

You can find me on Goodreads ( www.goodreads.com/angelinarocks) now,if you want to see what I am reading. I'm currently reading WAR by Sebastian Junger and my current book club selection In One Person by John Irving. These two books make the 24th and 25th books I have read in the last six months and I highly recommend them both.

I'm going to share with you my summer reading list. Maybe you will see something that interests you, maybe you think I am pompous and don't care. If you regularly follow my blog you know how much disdain I have for the book 50 Shades of Gray. That book will NOT appear on this list.  In fact I am going to link you to two other summer reading lists that do not recommend you read 50 Shades.

Here's a link to a great infographic that will help you find a new book:

101 Books to Read This Summer Instead of 50 Shades of Gray

As well as the annual Summer Reading List of one of my favorite authors, Jen Lancaster:

The Summer Reading List ( on Ambien)

The First Annual Angelina's Summer Reading List:

1. Dry by Augusten Burroughs- Okay, I know I am 8 years late to the party, but I just finished reading this and I couldn't put it down. His memoir about becoming sober and trying to maintain it in the face of other personal challanges with very emotional and raw.

2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky- Again, I am about 13 years late to this party that is hardly a party. I read this book in one night. I was instantly hooked on Charlie's life and finished the book bawling my eyes out. When I posted this on Facebook I found out that it is one of several friends favorites. Reading a 15 year old's observations about friends, family, love and loss had me glued. I think I will always carry a piece of Charlie in the back of my mind.

3. Man Made by Joel Stein - A hilarious non-fiction tale about what it means to be a man in this modern world. Stein had me cracking up on everypage. Seriously, every single page. Chris is going to read it soon and I recommended it to everyone I know to buy for their men for Father's Day. He learns to shoot, fight, hunt for food, smoke a cigar and variously other "manly" activities.

4. The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman - An easy 200 pages of mystical romance. The librarian ( who is never named) is struck by lightening and meets a man who struck also in this modern mystical fairy tale. And if you just need a good sex scene, this is the book for you. Both The Librarian and Lazarus Jones have some emotional and physical trauma as a result of their strikes. This book engulfed me.

and here's the books I will be reading this summer...

5.America, You Sexy Bitch by Michael Ian Black and Meghan McCain- I have never read one of Black's books but I really enjoyed McCains's Dirty Sexy Politics. In this non-fiction book, the two drive around America in an RV discussing politics and life in general. Black is the athiest comedian raised by a lesbian mother and Meghan is... well she's Senator John McCain's daughter.

6.The Fault in Our Stars by John Green- I've had this on my Kindle wish list for a few months and even though my bookclub declined to read it, I'm going to . This is the story of 16 year old Hazel  who is two years post cancer when she meets Augustus, a fellow child cancer patient. They learn about the meaning of life and death together. This book is on Jen Lancaster's reading list too. She said it's possibly the best YA book she has ever read,  and she was awestruck when she actually met John Green. This is a good enough recomendation for me.

7. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See - Several years ago my bookclub and I read Peony in Love by Lisa See. It was haunting and story that we all were surprised at loving so much. I just picked up this copy of Snow Flower and can't wait to read about women in 19th century china. They developed a secret code for communicating and drew it on fans, stitched it. on clothes to communicate with each other. Be advised, there will probably be a brutal foot binding scene like there was in Peony. But that doesn't make the book not worth it.

8.The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald- I can't lie. When I first got to Vegas and couldn't read, I watched Gossip Girl on Netflix. Serena constantly talks about The Beautiful and Damned as her favorite book of all time. Naturally, I have to read it. Originally written in 1922 this is the story of Anthony and Gloria Patch, and their tumultous marriage in the jazz age fueled by booze and ambition. Something we all know Serena VanDerWoodsen knows too much about.

So there you go. 8 books. 8 more weeks. If you have any recomendations for me, feel free to share! 

Happy Reading and Happy Summer!

Nothin' But A Good Time!

Now Listen
Not a dime, I can't pay my rent
I can barely make it through the week
Saturday night I'd like to make my girl
But right now I can't make ends meet

Well we worked and slaved every day this week and Saturday night we had to get away from the same old same old. And how could we resist having a good time at the Def Leppard and Poison concert? You know we are on a mission to do everything fun available to us in this life and seeing Def Leppard was definitly a check off the life list. I remember listening to my mom play Hysteria and Adrenalize as a kid. I love Def Leppard! And it turns out Chris was a bit of a Poison junkie as a kid. So this was the perfect mix for us. Plus, I can't remember the last time I went to a stadium concert where tickets were only $25.

Drinks at Lucky Bar at Red Rock Casino. Where we met two very interesting women. One could have been a castmate on The Real Housewives of Las Vegas. Chris and I were drinking Jack but they bought us a shot called a Purple Hooter. I don't think I've had a Purple Hooter since I was 21!

The view from our cheap seats. Which we rather enjoyed.

At this point we had only consumed one drink and one shot, so we were still quite functional. That didn't last much longer. Chris bought these insane big gulp sized drinks at the bar that came filled with insane amounts of Makers Mark. We also had a hip flask of Jim Beam.

When I saw CeCe backstage I was like " Ooohh, CeCe!"

But I then I saw Bret Michaels and I lost my mind. I turned into some crazy screaming fan girl! " Oh my god it's Bret Michaels! Ahhhhhhhh!" or something. I did not see that one coming. Literally lost my mind at seeing Bret Michaels.

 At the drive-in, in the old man's ford,                  behind the bushes, until I'm screaming for more....

       Down in the basements,                                            lock the cellar door, and baby....

               Talk dirty to me!

I'm not really sure what was going on in these pictures, but I'm pretty sure the last one is me pretending I'm Rikki Rocket. I air drum. A lot.  You should see me perform In The Air Tonight by Genesis. Especially while driving.

And this is what I probably looked like to Chris.  Those mugs of Makers Mark are gone by now and we're drinking Jim Beam over leftover ice.

 

Every rose has it's thorn.... just like every night has it's dawn... just like every cowboy sings his sad sad song... every rose has it's thorn....

And the crowd went wild. With actual lighters, not cell phones!

We realize at this point that we need to get a hotel room, because otherwise we are going to be here until 4 am sobering up.

 Whenever Chris is drunk he wants two things: Mexican food and to talk to his BFF Jessica.

Def Leppard was amazing!

         More air drumming!                            

Man, I am more in the zone than Kanye!

Well when the concert ended we decided food and sobriety were the way to go. Chris had his cursory call into Jessica so we headed to get mexican food at Cabo. This where you can clearly see how alcohol is a depressant. Or may be just the lack of Bret Michaels was making us sad.

Those enchilada's never stood a chance. There is a reason I was nicknamed Angelina Enchilada as a kid. I was one Def Leppard and enchilada loving kid. And after 30 years not much has changed.

We didn't drive home until around 1 am. It's nice to be 15 min away from a concert instead of hours on a ferry. Also it's fun to be able to drink at a concert and not have to worry about driving 1.5 hours home. This was an amazing evening. We definitly stood up and kicked love into motion. I had Hysteria about Bret Michaels, who Chris saw on his way to get the car and was glad he left me behind. I would have mauled Bret. In short, we had nothin' but a good time....

....and it don't get better than this :)

Special Delivery

So far, summer is off to an excellent start.

This is what it looked like when I checked my mail on Wednesday.

Cool huh? I knew my books and shoes were coming in but this giant box of deliciousness from Pike Place Market was a surprise. A wonderful surprise.  A wonderful surprise from Chris's cousin Marti.  (At least she's the only person who has claimed her awesomeness so far.)

But we lacked the necessary equipment for cooking up the contents and Chris had a late shift etc etc blah blah blah so we made preparation to feast last night.

And feast we did...

I'm pretty sure I said, " Pose like you're cooking!"  This is Chris telling me " Uh... I am cooking."

" Here. Pose with the crab."

Chris posing with the crab.

This is also Chris's My-wife-is-crazy-she's-lucky-she's-cute Face.

I has crabs!

 

The spread. The wonderful box contained two whole dungeness crabs, giant pieces of Salmon, a bottle of wine and a box of Frans Chocolate salted caramels, our favorite. We steamed corn and I bought a hunk of Beechers Flagship cheese. Which sells for the ungodly price of $13.95e per pound down here. I guess that makes up for the cheap watermelon prices.

Here's me going " I pinch! I pinch!" with the new crab crackers.

There was also lots of playing with the crab claws and saying

" ooooooohhhh, the claw..."

Chris with our Bacchanalian Feast!

I pinch.

Salmon with a sundried tomato pesto butter

In case you didn't know, we eat on antique china every night. On the left is a Noritake Windsor pattern we have been collecting. We have a 5 piece service for 7 so far and a bunch of random pieces. The piece on the right is one that I found here in Vegas when we needed plates.  They coordinate pretty well. Both designs were made by Noritake in the 1950's. We have a set back home that dates to 1933, some platters from 1931 and a few pieces still marked Nippon. We also eat with actual silverplated silverware. Some is date stamped to the 1890's. Thrifting pays off!

A totally contented Chris. Stuffed full of crab.

As evidenced by his shell bowl. LOL.

So much carnage and so many left overs! Salmon salads on Friday and Crab Fettucine on Saturday night!

Cheese, chocolates, crab, salmon, wine and true love. What more could a girl ask for?

And although we kept saying I pinch all night, we couldn't remember what it was from. But I found it today.  How fitting that it is an advertisement for Ariel Speedwagon. ( Fyi, Ariel Speedwagon is my car. And yes, I name everything.)

And I already finished one of the two books that arrived Wednesday. 

And I'm currently breaking in the heels that arrived. And drinking whiskey.( I call it cross training for the adventure that is the Def Leppard and Poison concert tomorrow night.)
 

Happy Friday!

House of Flavor

For some reason I had the insane idea that I never talk about restaurants on here. Skimming back through the archives I realized I talk about restaurants... a lot. It appears that we do nothing but eat out. But that isn't true. I just don't want to bore you with the mundane details of making pork ribs for dinner. I promise we do stay home 80% of the time.

But sometimes something truly Las Vegas catches your eye.

In this case it was Flavor Flav's House of Flavor.

Right? How could you not want to go to?

It is by its own description a southern style take out restaurant. Chris and I always intended to go and one day it showed up on Groupon and we knew it was meant to be. Our Groupon was $12 for an 8 piece mix of fried chicken and red velvet waffles.

So one Saturday night I was waiting for Chris to come home from work and I decided to search for website to see what other offerings they had. Strangely, I could only find news articles and blogs about it. One looked promising so I took a chance at reading the review that another LV local had posted on her blog. Her blog was hilarious! And she swore it was some of the best chicken she had ever had. She even pointed out that as a self proclaimed "Fat Girl" she had sampled her fair share of fried chicken. I trusted her opinion and grew even more excited.

I am not linking her blog or review here. As I continued to read her blog, I became more and more horrified. While the one blog was funny and helpful, the others were horrifying. I started to question her judgement and get nervous. This was a blogger who posted that artificial flavorings are superior to natural flavors because they are designed by smart men in lab coats to taste just like the real thing but without the harmful side effects that natural flavors can sometimes have.

I swear to you I am not making this up.

Also "Fat Girl" is a serious understatement on her part. She chronicled eating 7000 calories a day which involved eating 2 lbs of bacon "like chips".

I'll give you a moment to digest that. Because I know I'm vomiting in my mouth just recalling this.




......So I did what any sensible person trying to achieve balance in her life would do....

I walked to the gym.

Seriously called Chris and told him to pick me up there, walked 1/2 mile to the gym and stayed on the elliptical until he got there. I want that damn fried chicken! But somethings just cannot be unseen!

So here's my review/experience at Flavor Flav's House of Flavor. From start to finish because this was definitely and experience.

First, If you are ever in Las Vegas and want to make the short trip off strip to Maryland Parkway and E. Desert Inn, I highly recommend it. I just want to make that clear. That being said, when we arrived at the House of Flavor the counter girl informed us that she was out of chicken.

Yep.

She said she only had 5 thighs and some chicken strips available. The food truck hadn't arrived and she didn't expect it for at least 30 minutes. We had anticipated waiting anyway. One of the selling points of HoF is that they freshly prepare the chicken when you order it. It's take out food, not fast food. There are no heat lamps.

We told her we had the Groupon and we would take whatever she though was equivalent. We're not picky. We are hungry and adventurous and willing to wait. She offered us chicken strips, the 5 thighs, or extra waffles. We told her to pick whatever she though was fair. It should be noted also that the cook came out to apologize to us for running low on chicken. He was wearing his white Le Cordon Bleu chef's coat.

When the counter girl rang us up she said that we just had to pay the tax, $1.10. Sounds good. She checked off our Groupon took our $1.10 and when we asked to add a drink she said there was no charge because of the inconvenience. So Chris sat down with our 2L of Strawberry Crush (seriously when was the last time you saw Strawberry Crush?) while I snapped some photos for you guys.

Floofy Floof meeting other celebrities.

The Jamaican restaurant next door. Next time I'm craving curried goat and manish water I know where to go.

Yes, they had a stream of Public Enemy videos playing for us. This caused me to say Fight the Power over and over again for days. Including while jaywalking to the craft store. Because that is how rebellious I am.

Chris and his strawberry drink. It has so many artificial flavors that it must be one of the least poisonous foods available.

See that little Flavor Flav icon? Chris wouldn't take my picture posing with it. :(

Despite the dinner of Fried Chicken and Strawberry Drink, look at how much weight Chris has lost!

Interesting thing is, none of the other patrons you see in these pictures got food. The counter girl told them they were out of chicken and they left.

Then a red SUV and a Chrysler 300c roll up in the parking lot. Two really well dressed and wealthy looking black men enter and go strait to the back of the shop. Chris and I are eyeballing each other. We had already been discussing how we think this chicken shop with a lack of chicken is just a place to launder drug money. I don't know that I should even write that on the Internet but we were definitely whispering about it. After these two gentlemen roll in, I comment that I feel like we are in the presence of someone really important and we just don't know it yet. These guys were Tag Heuer watch and leather shoe fancy. Not Floyd Mayweather's Rolls Royce Motorcade scary fancy. ( And yes, Chris has seen that first hand.)

When the gentlemen leave one of the comes up to us and asks how we heard about the House of Flavor. He wants to make sure that we are happy and apologizes for being out of chicken. He tells us to try the new sauces. He seems very genuine and when he leaves Chris says he must be one of the partners. End of story? No. I continue to look at all the photos on the celebrity wall and I spot one of the same man and Flavor Flav shaking hands. So I ask the counter girl who he is.  " Oh that's one of the partners, Farrah" she says. Then she gives us a coupon for the 8 pieces assorted so we can come back and get what we were supposed to have. We insist that it isn't necessary. She insists it is.

Then she gives us our food. 3 big to go bags of food. We are stunned. What is all of this? She tells us to take it. We do. Since she refunded our Groupon with the coupon we paid $1.10 for three bags of food and we don't even know what is in there.

And we feel like the biggest assholes because three families came in and left without any food.

It was definitely a surprise when we opened those bags.

That's 3 Red Velvet Waffles, a pint of Mac and Cheese, an 8 pc wing basket, 4 chicken tenders, 5 chicken thighs, sauces and a 2L of Strawberry Crush.

The chicken really is some of the best fried chicken we have ever had. Seriously. The chicken has flavor, not the breading. Apparantly they marinade the chicken for 24 hours and fry it in only flour. And unlike other fried chicken, the breaded parts stays attached!  The Mac and Cheese was heavenly. It looked like some frozen banquet crap but was incredible. And you could taste the real cheesiness. The waffles however were crap. I took two bites and since Chris can't eat waffles, we tossed them out.

We went on a 1.5 mile walk after dinner. It was a nice cool 92 degress so we felt like pieces of fried chicken ourselves.  We had watermelon for dessert  (but hold your racist comments, we just happen to live where watermelon is 8lbs for .99 so we ALWAYS have watermelon.)

So in short, delicious food and over the top customer service. Go there.

And I couldn't leave well enough alone. Something was bugging me about that Farrah guy. Some quick googling told me exactly who he was. And I was right, he is somebody important. He turns out to be Dr. Farrah Gray. Seriously.