A Tale of Two Treadmills

Stage Three of THE PLAN has been implemented.

Exercise.

We are finally back in a regular exercise routine. This includes regular visits at the Las Vegas Athletic Club.

One of the "perks" of joining the LVAC was the ladies only gym. Sounds nice right? A place where I can go work out and sweat in my sweaty sweat pants with other sweaty broads in sweaty sweat pants while we listen to Sweatin' to the Oldies.

I was under the illusion that this would be a section of the gym where the rest of us oldies and fatties were segregated. Free from the lowered self esteem of ellipticalling next to 110 lbs of perky. Free from the thoughts that we are about to get bench pressed by 250 lbs of spray tanned guido.  Free from working out in front of no fewer then 15 televisions playing sports. ( Seriously, the cardio room looks like it should come with lauch codes there are so many screens.)

But I wasn't prepared for what was in store...

Pastels.

From the sea foam green walls to the lavender and white strength training equipment.

The three televisions playing MTV, Fox News, and Lifetime.

The Mariah Carey playing overhead.

I thought I could deal with this. I blamed the gym for stereotyping women. Clearly some muscled men in tank tops sat around a table and discussed what they think women like.

 Purple. Scented stuff. Lifetime Movies. Cool jams. Pink 1 lb weights.

(These guys should run for congress because clearly they know more about women then women themselves and could draft some really awesome legislation. Ha!)

So I got on the treadmill, turned on Pinky MciPod and .... crap.

I forgot that the last time I used Pinky MciPod was during my infusions in January and it no longer contained Angelina's Totally Radical McWork Out Mix. Instead it was playing  The Tobolowsky Files podcast about open heart surgery. Not exactly what I wanted to listen to. Especially since it reminds me of those fatefull days in January. So I unplugged and focused on what was going on around me.

And thats when I noticed something that made me embarrassed to be a female.

5 women were reading 50 Shades of Grey. You know you know what book I am talking about. Now yes, I do not-so-silently judge people who think that is a "good" book. I was very interested when I first heard about it and read the sample Kindle chapters before I purchased. And thank goodness for that! That was one of the worst chapters of anything I have ever read. It was so dull and Anastasia is stupid. Her inner monologues were boring! My inner monologues are quite pithy and I just didn't identify with the character at all. Plus, there is nothing sexy about discussing vice grips and clamps at the hardware store. Nothing.

I take that back. While typing that I had a mental image of Joe Manganiello in a tool belt discussing vice grips and clamps at the hardware store. But I digress...

So here is my problem. I'm not trying to be judgy about people who read crappy books. I'm being judgy because I dont' think these women would be reading crappy erotica on the equipment in the public part of the gym.  And 3 of these women were on cardio equipment but two of them were on strength training machines. Specifically the one where you spread your thighs open and close to resistance. You get where I am going with this?

I watched this women for the full 30 minutes I was on the treadmill. Opening closing opening closing. Stoping to turn the page.Opening closing opening closing. Then she would get to a good part and stop opening closing opening closing all together because she was so engrossed in the book. Then she would start up again. The other lady was laying on her stomach bending her knees up to her butt. Seemingly inconsistantly but probably to the rhythm of the chapter so to speak.

This is so inconsiderate! 30 minutes hogging a machine! What if another lady wanted to use it? You know, as part of a healthy workout? And is it just me or do you find this whole reading erotica at the gym thing highly unsanitary? Had the opener closer vacated the machine before I left I would never have used it! There are no amount of paper towels and sanitizer that will make me feel that it is clean of strangers. None.

Am I just being neurotic? Or are you horrified by this too? If you don't know about the 50 Shades of Grey book I am not linking it here. I do not promote it. I do however promote this Blog about it, http://lucysfootball.com/2012/06/14/truly-i-am-a-marionette-and-he-is-a-master-puppeteer/. In fact I promote her entire blog! Read it! But this post will tell you exactly what 50 Shades is about. And why you shouldn't read it.

And in other 50 Shades of Sad-for-culture news, this happened at Target yesterday.

Target Lady: Well this book has a pretty cover. What is this? A Clockwork Prince? What is it about?

Me: Oh it's set in victorian England. Do you know what Steampunk is?

Target Lady: Ooooh. Is it steamy?

Me: Not really. I mean it Steampunk so there would be steam and cogs and clockwork and stuff. It's about some teenagers trying to stop a clockwork army.

Target: Ooooh.. So it not about steamy punks? Like that 50 Shades book? Is it steamy like that?

Me: No. Have a nice day.

Ballin' on a Budget

It's very true that once you actually live in Las Vegas, you never go down to the strip. In the few months I've lived here we have only gone down a handfull of times. Mostly when we have friends in town.

Every Friday and Saturday night in our apartment complex tells a slightly different story though. At least for the apartment of guido's upstairs.  Around 9 o'clock you can hear them rouse and get ready for the clubs. The leave around 1030 and you can sometimes hear them come back at 4 or 5am. We are always wondering what they do when they go out. We have investigated the clubs on the strip and find it way out of our price range. While I can afford to pay $15 for a martini at Lavo, I refuse too. That's just silly. And bottle service? Don't get me started. As a veteran server the whole idea of only serving bottles is very appealing. I mean, it's a lot less work for the servers and they get an automatic 20% on a $250 bottle of Smirnoff. But as a customer? Sure you don't have to wait in line for drinks anymore, but $250 for a bottle of vodka? No way.

As a local Las Vegan there are promotions to get you going out nearly everywhere. A big one is the Station Casino Family. They are all off-strip casinos that cater specifically to locals. Since we still aren't banking in this state, I cash my checks there every other Friday. You get points on your members card or prizes for cashing your paycheck there. I often get vouchers for a free well drink or a dining credit. So when we go out we usually go to Red Rock Casino, way off the strip.  Two weeks ago we went out to Green Valley Ranch (another Station Casino). We had so much fun! We had a wonderful dinner at Terra Verde. I was drunk on $6 martini's and when our server said " Oh our new Chef moved here from Milan. He went to school there." I very sarcasticly replied with..

" Oh really? Did he go to the Olive Garden Culinary Institute?"

I can't believe I said that. But I've been in the business and I know what's what.

But this weekend we headed down to the strip. I'm also an avid Groupon-er and we had a voucher for dinner at Holsteins at The Cosmopolitan that was set to expire soon. I've been looking forward to going to Holsteins for a some time. Vegas really does have some fantastic restaurants, on and off-strip.

Holsteins was no exception. We loved it. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was cool. Chris and I both love this graffiti style of artwork. The artists name is Juan Muniz. My favorite painting is below. I had a burger called the Gold Standard. It was beef, goat chedder cheese, smoked bacon, tomato confit, and arugula heaven. Minus the bun of course...

We loved this painting. It's Chris, mourning the loss of hamburger buns from his diet. Chris is the no-bun boy now. Their buns contained eggs :( It's a sad day in McKennaland. What we are discovering from Chris's allergy is this: quality foods tend to contain egg. Egg is an expensive ingredient. Yes, he can still eat Wonderbread, but we don't eat Wonderbread and we're not going to start now. When the server said they make the buns fresh and they contain egg he looked so deflated. It's bad enough that several of the burger varieties had fried eggs on them ( which he loves) but the buns are off limit too. So he ordered a chef salad. Then the server came back and the only dressing or sauce in the house he could have was red wine vinegar. Oh man. He looked like she stole his puppy. So he had a lamb burger, with no bun, and tzatziki sauce. I went bunless too and skipped my aoili in solidarity.

But the main appeal of this restaurant to me was the desert menu. Oh man. It's so creative. I went in with a plan of ordering a homemade blueberry poptart with roasted corn ice cream ( Sounds awesome right?) but I decided on the homemade candy bar. There server said most of the desert menu was off limits for Chris. They had a lot of ice creams and Chris can't have ice cream anymore. ( Well real ice cream anyway. Quality ice creams are made with eggs. He's now stuck with the crappy nestle variety that aren't made with real ingredients. Like Dibs or ice cream sandwhiches.)

My solidarity ended right here at homemade candy bar. What you see is a chocolate mousse and caramel candy bar in dark chocolate with a salted pretzel crust, a chocolate dipped potato chip, homemade marshmallows, and a butter sauce. And yes, it was heavenly. And yes, Chris stole my marshmallows.

And yes, I did make Chris take my picture in the giant shoe. I really wanted to sit in the shoe like a race car driver but he was having none of that. Plus there was line of women waiting to photograph the giant shoe.

This was my first trip to The Cosmopolitan and I liked the atmosphere. However, when we crossed into the Aria and Crystals shopping center, I felt very out of place. I felt so cute when I left the house in my Liberty of London dress, then I felt like a pauper walking past Balenciaga. Oh well. Looking at this picture, I did look cute. And for a lot less.

We also went to The Bellagio to see the new exhibit at the Conservatory. This is one of my favorite places in Vegas. And seeing the exhibit is free. It changes every few months and I have seen 4 now.  The current theme is New England and they recycled a lot of elements from the Dutch exhibit but it's still gorgeous. I encourage all of you to come see these installations if you are ever in Vegas. A lot of work goes into this. And as always, you can click on any of the pictures to see them larger.

Once all the Sunflowers bloom I will have to go back.

These Egrets are made of live flowers.

Poppy Parasols and Bees made of flowers.

I loved the hot air balloons.

Flower markets

Le Carousel

Hi Mom!

Hi Mom!

We still ended the night with some VIP action and bottle service. In the form of our living room sofa and a $12 bottle of Jim Beam.

Date night on the Las Vegas strip for under $50 :)