Back in Black

Christmas is now behind us, and Vegas has already started removing all token displays of seasonal reminders. Say what you will, but Las Vegas is definitely not a Christmas city. Decor was minimal at best in most casinos around town, except for the Bellagio which did an exceptional job of decorating for the holidays. But now that we've got that whole icky family-togetherness-and-religion thing out of the way, it's back to business as usual. The biggest bummer of it all, besides the fact that the casino is already back to playing that god-awful XM 25 'The Blend' station overhead instead of Christmas tunes, is that our cocktail waitresses have traded in their ultra-sexy and ever so tasty red velvet naughty Santa's helper outfits in and have gone back to the black leather biker-girl look. Not that there's anything wrong with that particular outfit, but the Christmas garb was much hotter. Almost to the point of distraction. Oh well. Only eleven more months until they dig them back out of the closet. I can't wait. It wasn't visions of sugarplums dancing in my head these past few weeks, that's for sure...

Anyhow...

I was really looking forward to having yesterday and tonight off from work, but at the last minute they added me to the schedule for both nights. That makes it six nights in a row for me, and ten overall for the the two-week pay period. I may not be full-time, but I'm certainly working full time. Unfortunately, as busy as we've been, it's been about quantity of players, not quality of players, and our daily tokes haven't been as robust as I've gotten used to. Still, it appears that we're making more than some of the dealers on the Strip, so I can't really complain too much.

I had a great day yesterday--Scotty P and his wife Alice Lee were in town, and we met up around noon for breakfast at the Peppermill. We started with a few drinks in the lounge with my gal Krista, then after our meal we drove down to the new South Coast casino, which just opened on Thursday night, to check it out.

It's a typical Coast property--like a cleaner, more modern Orleans, but still with crummy table games. Double odds on Craps, no fortune bonus on Pai Gow, the usual. But I have to hand it to the Sports Book. It has potential to be my new favorite--lots of space and seats for watching the games, and the degenerates in the race book are kept separate. And the lounge has--I counted them--26 wide-screen tvs placed all around the perimeter, along with comfy leather chairs, so sitting in there and watching games is going to be rather enjoyable. Looks like a great place to spend the first two rounds of March Madness.

We played a little pai gow--Scott lost about $75 while I won fifty. After that we just wandered a bit, then settled in the lounge for a couple of hours for rum, good conversation, and fine cigars. Over all, it was a very enjoyable day. Afterwards, I dropped them back off at the Paris, then hustled in to work for another eight hours behind the tables.

It was a pretty fun night--I spent the first five hours of my shift on one particular Pai Gow table with some good players, then around 1 am I got moved over to blackjack for the balance of my shift. I don't know if it was the medication that put me in such a good mood, but I was cracking one-liners all night that kept everyone laughing. My tables were a lot of fun--it makes work seem not so much like work. Maybe that's why I like dealing so much--I have the freedom to be a goofball. My table is usually like a one-man version of that Seattle fish market everyone talks about. And luckily the people in charge encourage that type of silliness, so it attracts a lot of people just like me. I love the people I work with--they help to keep the work environment enjoyable. Of course there are some losers out there (on both sides of the tables) that sometimes suck the life out of you, but luckily they are the exception to the rule. Overall, I'm very happy to be doing what I'm doing, where I'm doing it.

Anyways, I worked until 4 this morning, then went straight to bed as soon as I got home. I set my alarm for 9:15 though, because I had a delivery scheduled between 10am and 2pm. Yes, the 'big' present from my siblings was finally arriving today. I had just put on a shirt and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes when I heard the telltale beep-beep-beep of a large delivery truck backing up my driveway. By 9:30 my new queen-sized bed had arrived and was stacked up in my hallway!

Apparently, the freight company that did the delivering was authorized for just getting the bed 'across the threshold' and just dropped it off inside my front door. I had to cut off all the plastic and put it my room and set it up myself. Not generally a problem, but I'm fighting the flu bug right now and wrestling the box spring into the hallway and around the corners took damn near all my strength. But I managed to get it all squared away and set up in less than half an hour.

So my plan today is to spend a few minutes thumbing my nose at The Man by ripping the tags off the mattress, then I'm going to give it a test drive for a couple of hours of blissful slumber. Hopefully soon I'll be able to give it a proper christening. And if I'm really lucky it'll be with one of those gals who have the naughty Santa's helper outfits tucked away somewhere in the back of their closet.

Bow chicka bown bown...

Mikey