Blog | Gibby's Girl

Playing Catch-Up

What have Jiggle Puff and Chucklebutt been up to? Check out this video to see where we went this weekend:

Have you seen the movie “Swingers?” I love it! Our adventure reminded me of the boys heading from L.A. to Vegas. At first we’re all like, “Vegas Baby!” and completely stoked. Six hours later, we’re not so excited. Crazy eh? Good news, though, Hecate got us up and back despite a few over-heating moments. Thank God that Chuck is handy when it comes to all things dealing with engines. Were it up to me, she’d been in a shallow unmarked grave in the desert. Here we are waiting for the car to cool off.

Chuck surprised me with the trip and we had a blast. We stayed out until after 2am each night, and for those of you that know me, that’s incredibly late. I didn’t even have a nap!!

Friday night, we got there just in time to see the fireworks at Caesar’s Palace. It was really pretty and oh-my-gosh there were so many people. Later, we ate at Joe’s Stone Crab for some yummylicious crab claws.

I swiped this photo from the net, but I wanted everyone to see the crabs. I can’t tell you how good they were. Afterwards, we walked around the strip and then crashed hard. By the time we checked in to our hotel, they had given our room away. They upgraded us to a huge suite. We weren’t staying on the strip and our hotel didn’t have a casino in it — a big plus in my book. Our suite was so big, it was larger than any apartment I have ever had. It was better than the Motel 6 (Chucklebutt’s stand-by) but was not as pretty as the Briar Patch Inn. There were three swimming pools, but we were so busy that we never got a chance to enjoy it.

On Saturday, we headed back to Caesar’s (I just love Caesar’s) and had lunch at Sushi Roko. It’s soooo good. We’ve been there before and I love the view and the food.

Not too special of a pic, but it’s what we could see as we ate. Pete Rose sat at the table right next to us which was a little surreal. Apparently he has some gig with a sports memorabilia store in the Forum. The past three times I have been to Vegas, there has been a sign which reads, “Meet Pete Rose Today.” Jokingly I told Chuck I wonder if Pete would be hanging out at the store. Sure enough he was. I guess times must be tough for him. Too weird.

Chucklebutt is so silly! The sushi was great. The dish closest to the camera was an octopus appetizer with capers. OMG I love capers!

This is a picture of our dessert. It’s my favorite part of the meal. I’m from the South and that’s how I know the meal is over. 😀 Chuck had chocolate wontons and I had ice cream surrounded in some cool doughy thing. After lunch, Chuck went cruising the casino and I went shopping at Anthropologie. It’s one of my favorite stores — both for clothes and home stuff. We have one in Scottsdale, but I hate driving out that way. Anyway, I hit their sale room but was a bit bummed out when I couldn’t find anything to fit me. You can’t be a big girl and shop at Anthropologie. Poo. I guess the plus side is I saved a lot of money! So I guess the real question is, should I lose weight or worry about going broke? Ah who cares. Pass me another chocolate wonton!

I did find some groovey aprons. I have a lot of Chuck’s mother’s old aprons and I am really digging that whole farm girl style. I know that Somerset is coming out with a new magazine — “Apronology” — so I’m just jumping on the bandwagon.

Mary Jane’s Farm eat your heart out!

Aren’t they too cute?! I think I’m going to have to have a “wear-your-favorite-apron-day” at work so the ladies don’t think I’ve been smoking crack when I show up wearing one.

Anyway, Saturday night we saw two shows. The first one was at the Flamingo:

Morris Day and The Time!! They rocked the house! If you remember “Purple Rain,” the Time was Prince’s nemesis. I didn’t realize that I actually knew them. I’m so uncool. Anyway, we originally had balcony seats, but Chuck slipped the usher a tip, and the next thing I know, we’re sitting on the floor, just a few feet from the band. The theatre was old school Vegas and I felt like I had slipped back into the 1960’s. The margerita was perfect and the band was awesome! Big showmen. Oh yeah! And we saw Luenell who is a kick-ass comedian that performs with Kat Williams. She sat two tables in front of us and was hilarious in all her divaliciousness!

After that, we headed up north to the Stratosphere where we caught the late night showing of “Bite.” It’s an adult show about vampires. It’s a topless show and my very first. The women were phenomenal dancers and you could tell they were classically trained — but as soon as they whipped off their tops, all I could do was giggle. I turned to Chuck and asked him if he knew there would be “nakedness.” Everyone else was so serious in the audience. I thought it was hilarious! There were naked vampires on stage dancing to “Cat-Scratch Fever” and apparently I was the only one who found this amusing. Ah Vegas! Gotta love it. It was actually a good show and there were quite a few unexpected twists. We took the Monorail back to our car, and then proceeded to wait about thirty minutes at a stop light because of all the crazy traffic. The cops were out in full force and the paddy wagon was locking folks up left and right. Vegas after 1am is pandemonium.

On Sunday, we slept late and then I headed to the antique mall while Chucklebutt headed to the craps table. I bought a little and he lost a little. Fair enough. We decided to head home once the sun started setting. Hopefully that would help with the overheating. Sure enough it did.

I hope that everyone had a great Fourth of July. I know that I did. I’m still recovering.

I’ll leave everyone with some pics of my latest project. I found the idea in a book one of my residents gave me.

I bought some old Brownie Kodaks for cheap and then added picture frames to the flash section. Since Chuck is so into photography, I thought that would be a neat accent for his bookshelves. He was thrilled and immediately started taking them apart. The one laying down still works and actually came with an expired roll of film. This is the book I got it out of:

Well I’m pooped. Good night everyone! I promise to be better about keeping up with my blog.

What’s That Smell?

Pretty uneventful day on my end, however Chucklebutt had a bit more excitement. He finally got his bike put back together and bravely ventured out into the 110 degree weather to get his bike inspected. The emissions testing facility has a webcam so you can check out how busy it is. When he looked online, there was no one there. Alas, by the time he made it out to the center, each lane was six cars deep. DOH! There are signs everywhere that say you cannot leave your vehicle. Now for the average rider in their air conditioned car, that’s not a big deal. For Chuck who has no protection except for that 30 pound suit he wears, it’s a very big deal. In fact, I am pretty sure he became dehydrated. He’s been complaining of a headache all evening. Thank goodness for Gatorade.

So while he was waiting, he began to smell gas. Actually he smelled it as soon as he left the garage, but he disregarded it. After it took 3 men to read his vin number (don’t ask), he headed to the DMV. While there, he got behind a confused old lady who held up the entire line. He told me that all the lanes were empty, but nobody could talk to any of the agents until they talked to the front desk (where the woman was holding up the line). All in all, he spent 4 hours out in the crazy desert heat. Once back home, the smell of gas was pervasive. He lifted his tank bag and saw gas fumes spurting out of his tank (is that even possible?). The gas was so hot, while not boiling, was vaporizing rather quickly. It ruined his paint job on the gas tank and left Chucklebutt really peeved. He tried siphoning the gas out of the tank, but had a very difficult time because it kept vaporizing. Eventually he did, and was left with a serious funky odor. I told him perhaps my doll had crept into the garage and bathed in his gasoline. Giggle. To make a long story short, he had not driven this bike since our Daytona trip. Hence the gas was over three months old. Who knew that gas had an expiration date? Apparently heat speeds up the process. Silly Chucklebutt!

I’m going to leave everyone with pics from my mom’s latest endeavor. She made a gorgeous book for one of her sisters. The photos are less than perfect, but the book is amazing.