Good morning everyone! Hope you're all having a great day. I still haven't gone to bed yet, although I've tried. I just can't sleep.
Nope, it's not indigestion from the Grimaldi's.
I got home a few hours ago from a wonderful night. It all started around 7 pm, when I was putting my shoes on, heading for the door, and Lars called, saying he was already at the bar at Grimaldi's and for me to step on it post-haste. So I may have broken a speed law or two on Horizon Ridge Parkway, and maybe another one on Eastern Ave, but just a few minutes later I was sitting at the outdoor bar, enjoying a perfect spring evening, and sipping on a Bombay Sapphire martini while these two young hotties sitting next to us kept initiating conversation.
Not a bad way to kick off the night.
A few minutes later, RudySwans and his son-in-law Adam showed up and joined us. Lars checked in with the hostess to get us a table, and we were told that there was a 45 minute wait. No biggie, but somebody at the Review-Journal gave their food a thumb's up a few days ago, and the place has been standing-room-only ever since, the bartender told us.
We had another round or two, toasted our birthdays, told a few stories, and eventually had to say goodbye to our new friends at the bar. They were cute and all, but come on, this is Grimaldi's pizza we're talking about. You can't swing a dead cat in Las Vegas without hitting an attractive gal, but good pizza is harder to find than a hot craps table. So off we went to our 'semi-private' dining room. The told us they put all the trouble makers in there, and I began to wonder if the hostess remembered Lars and I from the March Madness gathering...
No worries, though. We all ordered water and iced tea with various types of citrus for garnish, and got down to the business at hand. We ordered three large pies for the four of us. One sausage & mushroom, one pepperoni & mushroom, and one sausage & olive. We kept ourselves entertained by trying to outdo each other on Steven Wright quotes (...the harmonica sounds awesome!) while we waited for the pizzas to cook.
Once they arrived, the conversation basically ground to a halt as we dirtied our shirts and stuffed our faces. Yep--Groundhog Day!--it was excellent. Again.
Even though we stabbed it with our steely knives, we just couldn't kill the beast, and ended up with a couple of boxes of leftovers. The bill for three pies wasn't too bad since there was a birthday coupon for a free large one, so we got out of there relatively unscathed, although Lars was kind enough to cover the substantial bar tab that we'd run up earlier.
Rudy and Adam had to head back down to the Strip, so Lars and I headed back to the Man Cave for a few specialty martinis. The plan was to find a nice outdoor patio, grab another cocktail, and smoke a cigar or two, but during dinner, the wind kicked up to about 25 mph, again, and the temperature dropped about twenty degrees--it was freezing outside. That put the hammer down on any outdoor activities, so we holed up inside with chilled glasses of premium booze for about an hour or so.
But Lars had to get back home to Momma, so he scooted out around 10:30. For whatever reason, I was suddenly dog-tired. Not wanting to miss out on the best part of my evening, I set my cell phone's alarm to go off at 12:45, and gave myself a two-hour catnap.
Before I knew it, I was awake again, so I hopped up off the bed, changed my shirt, took a quick run through some TAG body spray before it hit the bathroom floor, had a belt from the Listerine bottle, and found a pair of matching topsiders before heading out the door.
My destination for the balance of the evening was La Collina, an Italian restaurant/bar down the street that sits on the side of a hill and has a very romantic view of the Strip and the entire Vegas valley from it's floor-to-ceiling picture windows. I got there about 15 minutes before our scheduled rendezvous time, so I entertained myself at the bar with a Captain & Coke and played a little deuces wild video poker. I hit a couple of decent hands, and then got a Wild Royal, so the drinks were paid for.
About that time, my phone started ringing, and the Future Mrs was on the line telling me that she was about a mile away. Staring out the picture windows, I could see her SUV driving along the road below just a minute later.
She joined me at the bar, and the first order of business was to order our new favorite drink. Unfortunately, I can't share the name of it, because I found a recipe for it online last week and the cocktail's name is exactly the same as the Future Mrs' first and last name!
Basically, last week I was doing a Google search for drink recipes that featured Blue Curacao. I have a bottle of it leftover from the Madness, and I have no idea what to do with it. Since I have a martini shaker, martini glasses, and a whole shelf full of mixable booze, I thought I'd spend some of my free time figuring out something to make with it. So there I was happily Googling along on my booze search and HOLY SHIAT, about five or six pages down the list, I saw the Future Mrs' name staring back at me from my computer screen, followed by the word "cocktails". Since she is a cocktail waitress, my heart skipped a beat thinking that there was somebody out there putting her picture in cyberspace.
I immediately clicked on the link, and saw that it was just a recipe page for a drink featuring Blue Curacao. And the inventor just happened to name it, coincidentally, the exact same name as my favorite lady.
So I forwarded her the link, and ever since then we've been talking about drinking them, since the ingredient list looked pretty tasty.
The bartender hooked us up with our smurf-colored drinks, and she wished me a happy birthday. And at that very moment, it really was.
We didn't do much for the rest of the night but play a little more video poker and talk about life in Vegas and life in the past before we knew each other, along with a generous dose of all the stupid little things we have in common that comes from working together in the casino. Funny thing is, she's been thinking about hanging up her cocktail outfit and learning to deal poker, too!
So it was a nice relaxing evening of all-too-rare 'alone' time. And even though several hours passed, much too soon it was over. We said goodbye in the parking lot and headed our separate ways. Sadly, for me, I have to work tonight, and her weekend is just beginning. I won't get to see her again until Saturday.
But last night was pretty good. It should tide me over for a few days.
Mikey
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