Friday, 7 November 2014

2014 - Day 10 - Third USA Trip - Now its the bath tubs!

We are staying at the Marriott Grand Chateau in Las Vegas which is about a block back from the strip.  The Bear and I have no interest in staying on the strip with its bright lights and drunken adolescents. Las Vegas is the only city that I am aware of that is legal to walk along the street with an open alcohol container, and when young adults (for want of a better word) come to Las Vegas they use these freedom to the max.  The end result is overflowing waves of inebriated young guns spilling out onto the roadways and making one hell of a racket. 

The Grand Château would have to be the nicest hotel that we have ever stayed at.  The rooms are suites and seem to be tailored more for the “older“ person.  By that I mean that there is bingo at night,  coffee and wine tasting daily, and does not have a single slot machine anywhere within cooee of it. The suites are spacious, lovely and supremely comfortable.  The strip is only a block away should we need it, but the Bear and I simply do not have an interest.  We are here for the shows and shopping!

I do have one small gripe however and that is with the very modern shower that is in the room.  Rather than have a single shower rose where the water comes out of – instead it has two square panels of holes that spray the water from the wall. There is no way that the square panels can be moved to direct the flow elsewhere.  These panels sit at approx 6 1/2 foot high and when the water sprays out, it obviously does so in an arc with the water landing on the rear glass at approx 5 foot 2 inches in height.    I am 5 foot 2 inches in height.  This clearly means that when I step in the shower, I am immediately set upon by dual water sprays.  I cannot duck below the water, I cannot step aside from the water, I cannot stand on tippy toes to avoid the water.    My one attempt at having a shower was met with me doing something that similar to the robot in “Lost in Space”.  With soap in my eyes and dual torrents of water going straight into my face, my arms flung stiff and wildly. Had I have repeated “Danger Will Robinson” or “Crush, Kill, Destroy” I would have definitely passed as the robots evil twin.

This meant I had to find an alternative means of bathing.  No problem, this gorgeous hotel has a large bathtub in the suites…..in the bedroom (WTF is the go with that????) no less.  I hadn’t had a bath in a good 20 years (I had showers all of you smarty pants!) however this was a tub that looked like it could house a bum even of my size.  With the bath run, it took a little bit of doing to get into the thing, because as I have pointed out above, I am short.  The side of this bath was as tall as the top of my thigh yet I was still able to step into it carefully without splitting my difference.  I sunk into the warm water and actually quite enjoyed it.  I found myself asking why I had not had a bath in so long, before remembering again the size of my tush.  Question asked and answered.

I was not sure what sort of time frame was appropriate to spend in the tub but once I had all but exhausted my shower gel and made as many bubbles in my hands as I possibly could I felt that it was probably time to get out.  Pulling the plug I remembered my own words of safety that I would tell to my children when they were growing up.  You know….don’t stick your fingers down the hole….don’t sit over the hole or it will pull your bowel out through your bum….that sort of stuff…..and I smiled at the memory.  As it turned out, the joke was going to be on me.

I went to stand up in the tub.  No can do.  My shower gel had made the bottom so slippery my feet went out at odd angles.  Not pretty.   I tried again.  Same deal.  I figured I might try to get on all fours, like I would do if getting up off the floor as four limbs are better than two.  No so when your knees do the splits because this pretty much deems your hands useless.  I am fairly sure I invented a new aerobic move.   I could have at this point called out to the Bear for assistance, however this would have meant admitting defeat and that is something that I do not take likely….even if it means that the end result could be needing to have a proctologist remove a faucet from my behind.

Using my head (because seriously, that was the only part of me without the potential to slide) I ran a little bit more water to try to clean excess shower gel off the bath tub floor before trying the whole FRUSTRATING DAMNED PROCESS yet again.   I was a little more successful this time….getting to the point of something akin to a graceful new born giraffe, whose bandy legs waver and buckle before they finally give way and they fall in an undignified heap. 

At this point, I nearly gave up and would have sought assistance, when a light bulb went off over my head.  (Actually it was the Bear turning one on in the lounge room but it happily coincided with the answer to my dilemma)  I reached over the side of the bath tub and retrieved the bath mat.  I put the bath mat in the bath tub, which allowed me to stand and climb out….very delicately I might add.  Success!! 
 
Tonight we went to the Venetian for the second time (we went last trip as well) to see the " Motown" by Human Nature.  As some of you may know, Human Nature are a boy (now men) band from Sydney who had hits in Australia back in the 1990s.  Music recorded under the Motown label is by far my favourite genre of music so we take the opportunity to enjoy the songs of Motown at every given opportunity.  Human Nature have been very successful in Las Vegas and have done the Motown show for a number of years now.  We enjoyed it so much on the last trip here, we decided to go again.

I found myself sitting next to a lady and a husband from Detroit.  Of course this is not unusual given that we are in the USA so obviously we would find ourselves surrounded by Americans.  Usually they are remarkably friendly people who just love Aussies. And I love them.  The lady beside me.....not so much. This woman had a face on her like a bucket of smashed crabs and spoke just as eloquently.  She was three shades to the wind having consumed obviously too much Passion Pop and whilst she danced in her seat as though she was having a major fit (I nearly asked her husband if I could call 911) she clearly had a dislike of the Australian accent and our jargon.

If I ever hear this when we are travelling I tend to raise my voice so that I can let the offending person know that an Aussie is within earshot, however this was pointless given the loud music.  Having seen the show before, I also knew that an opportunity would arise where I could make our home country known.  During a set of Motown songs, the boys.....I mean men.....always sing one of their own songs that was a hit in Australia.  They chose "Every time you cry" which was a song they did with John Farnham and reached Number 1 on the Australian music charts.  At the end of this song, they said to the audience that they probably were not familiar with the song, as it was one of the songs that reached Number 1 in their home country and was recorded on one of their 13 albums.  Following this they ask if there are any Australians in the audience. 

Only those that are closest to me will know just how "out there" I can be (and I will take this opportunity again to apologise to Alyx for my doing so at her University Graduation) so will totally be able to imagine me launching myself from my seat, arms in the air, with an ear piercing "Wooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooo".  Sitting back down in my seat my glance at the woman said "get that up ya!" and there was not another snide remark about the Aussie accent or jargon.

Just while I think of it, today we went back to Walmart to pick up some things that we forgot yesterday.  I would like to make mention of our checkout chick, “Bessie”  who was 150 in the shade.  A dear old woman, who looked just a little bit worse than my poor Nana as she lay in state, served us while she talked about moving from San Diego in 1952. (She had heard me mention San Diego as I was talking to the Bear about the city as that is where Nicco is at the moment)  I watched her with admiration wondering why a lady of this age should be working at this point of her life, and in a position where she has to stand up all day. If I could have shown her a comfortable chair and taken over the register for her, I most certainly would have.  I admire Walmart for employing people that are over 18 years old, unlike chain supermarkets in Australia, but I really have to wonder if the elderly in America are looked after worse than in Australia…and that is saying something.