The Las Vegas Day Drinker is starting a facebook page. And is attempting to link this here tumblr to it (Las Vegas Day Drinking, in case you were wondering/searching frantically for us on fb).
The question now is: but will it post?
People often wonder what those of us who live in Vegas do. As is “But what do you DO?” Usually closely followed with a “How did you get to VEGAS anyway?!”. I won’t even pretend to answer the second, but I’d like to take the first part first and answer: we drink.
And slide (with varying speeds) into alcoholism. But, before it gets all Nic Cage sad (wow that now works on so many levels), please understand that there are many good not so much salad as simple syrup and soda and rum and whisky days!
Today being one of them. Starting the day at noon with an Andre mimosa is really nothing to argue with. (okay okay, grammar voice in my head, you win: nothing with which to argue.)
I know there are those of you who are going to judge the Andre choice. ”What are you still in college?” or “I’ll bet you drink boxed wine too, huh?” Yes, doesn’t everyone?! (You just have to be selective in your grape juice box choice- just you wait, this is going to be a thing soon, and you heard it here first.)
But, in defense of the $5 bubbly (available at your finest local convenience store) once you mix it with a high quality fruit juice (or even better home squeezed fruit juice- there are times to be snotty- fresh squeezed is one of them. That really does just taste better. As does anything with lime in it.) it is quite delicious. And headache free. I cannot say the same for the last batch of Dom I was subjected to. (to which I was subjected)
Perhaps the problem there was that I partook at night. That might have been the problem.
Quick side note on that: the Dom was during cocktails, by the time I sat down to dinner, I the rip-roaring headache had arrived. I made note of this fact to my dinner table at which point the dapper Indian gentleman seated across the way from me told me he was a neurologist who specialized in headaches! How brilliant! ”What should I do?” “Stop drinking alcohol.” “Hahahaha what else?” At this point he leans over and hands me… his card. This only caused the headache to worsen.
Quick follow up: I switched to Riesling and sea urchin and felt much better.
Yes, it was a rough day for the Vegas Day Drinker. And there’s no better way to pick oneself up and dust oneself off than by heading to the White Cross for booze in a brown paper bag. Like I said, it was one of those days. Or so I thought, until what to my wondering eyes should appear, but “Four Loko”! 
For those of you unfamiliar with Four Loko, it is “premium caffeinated alcoholic beverage”. This particular Four Loko was of the Cranberry Lemonade variety. Be advised, this can packs a sucker punch. Good lord. They very cleverly have made the sipping hole over-sized so you have to gulp the swill, which is actually the better way to go as this is not the sipping sort of beverage.
In fact, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I wasn’t able to make much of a dent in the can and had to sheepishly return to my sugary Mike’s Harder Cranberry Lemonade.
But it is of Four Loko I have dreamed ever since…
Now I know that as a Vegas Day Drinker, it is implied that all my beverages are alcoholic. And they are. But that doesn’t mean the Day Drinker can’t go to a Tea Party now and again to reconnect with what they tell me is “real” America.
I knew it was real America because there was an enormous American flag (though there were plenty of smaller Gadsden flags too) and they were only selling Budweiser (though it pains us all they are no longer an American company, they are at least still made in America, and I have family in St. Louis, so there).
(a plastic bottle at that!)
Now this is not a political blog, per se. Our primary focus here is to “learn how to stop worrying and love Las Vegas” but I will say this: I admire the Tea Parties. I do. I think it is admirable that Americans wish to be a larger part of their political process.
And I think that when you are fed up with what you perceive to be the same bullshit on both sides then yes, absolutely, get on up there and shout about it. But, that being said, it is always much easier to critique than it is to govern. Ever so much easier to destroy than to create.
And while I believe the good people of Henderson who showed up to listen to Ann Coulter really do want to have a legitimate debate where their voice can be heard and they can share their views on the ballooning budget and their enormous frustration with the “Wall St.” bankers and the unemployment rate, that was not what happened at the Henderson Pavilion.
Ann Coulter got up and did what amounted to a late night opening monologue (which seems to be all the rage for the right of center ladies these days: see Sara Palin on Leno) which, while mildly amusing (although really? You’re still making Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton jokes? Really? I wasn’t even born when Jimmy Carter was in office- and I can legally drink!) didn’t do much in the way of offering any new ideas. Or even solid old ones for that matter. And that, is a bit of a shame.
But, for what it’s worth, the sun was shining, the grass was green and my beer was cold.
God Bless America.
While sipping a coconut margarita, lounging on the bed in the laundry room (a story for another time), I was startled when the lights went out at 2:30am. The black-out probably wouldn’t have been quite so troubling had it not been coupled with the whine of the police helicopter, which also on its own wouldn’t have been too worrisome (living downtown, it is a sound we hear on more nights than not), but the sound plus the shining of the light in the backyard was enough for me to put down the drink and, after trying three different flashlights all with their batteries dead finally laying hands on the one working flashlight (thank goodness for items in quadruple) and running outside where the police light had been replaced with an unidentified flickering on the back wall, which upon further inspection proved to be the reflection of a large column of fire that was shooting up from down the street.
Quickly donning my sparkly kicks (handed to me by my “gentleman” friend), I ran out the front door (stopping to lock the gate) and down the street where I was stopped by a guy in his pick-up truck who shone his headlights on me and told me that a tree had burst into flame and fallen into the house down the street where, he claimed, he had tried to help “that poor lady screaming for help”. He seemed more than a little suspect so I nodded and smiled and continued on my way towards the still flaming trees.
The fire department was already on the scene, but the po-po were no where to be found. Debris littered the street but I must confess, I was a little upset to realize that it wasn’t the meth house that had gone up, but some other house, the occupants of which I do not know. Ever since the ten year old daughter of the punk band on the corner came trick or treating at my house dressed as dead Marilyn (“Hi, I’m dead Marilyn. I live on the corner. My dad’s in a punk band. You can come over if you want.”) we’ve been meaning to have a neighborhood mixer, but like many things in Vegas, they seem like (and in deed may very well be) good ideas, but they don’t often actually materialize. Such is life. Just go with it. Have another am drink. Who knows, maybe next time the lights go off, it will be the meth house that’s burning. I’ll drink to that.
