I Like Casinos

I like casinos.  I would have expected, having led a healthy, non-smoking, thrifty, intellectual life, to be disdainful of the whole idea of a place full of smoke where people spend incredible amounts of time and money sitting in front of  noisy machines, pressing buttons and hoping to “hit it big”. 

My casino adventures started with my first trip to Las Vegas in 1994.  My husband’s Mom and Dad invited us to meet in Vegas and to stay with them at Circus Circus.  They drove from Ventura, California and we flew in from Seattle.  Michael’s Dad, Lou, met us at the airport, which was surprisingly filled with slot machines and advertisements for Vegas shows, including the long-legged showgirls in red, scanty, sequined outfits, showing maximum amounts of probably enhanced boobage.  I realized right then I was in a bizarre land. 

My husband’s Mom and Dad had been going to Vegas for many years, even taking their kids in the early days.  They had been staying at Circus Circus for decades. It was inexpensive, and right on The Strip.  As we road in Lou’s boat of a car, a Monte Carlo with wide, cushy bench seats, he told us about how things had changed over the years.  “Mike, this used to be a vacant lot, and now they’ve put up another casino! You used to be able to drive in this town, not any more.”

Circus Circus was new and shiny once, but by the time we saw it, it was getting dusty and shabby and the smoke smell was heavy.  The rooms were papered in garish pink, with clown paintings on the walls.  Thank goodness it was before the bedbug scare of the 21^st century or I would have developed a psychosomatic itch.  The rooms looked overused and abused; cleaning couldn’t take the ancient stains out of the carpets anymore. 

Lou had brought coffee, a coffee pot, mugs, sugar. Michael’s Mom, Anta, had brought a cooler full of lunchmeats, tomatoes, mustard, lettuce and bread for sandwiches. Their trip was all about saving money wherever they could so that Anta could spend more money at her gambling.   Even though they were better off than they had been when they brought their kids to Vegas, the habits of those years still persisted.  Aside from the breakfast coffee and lunch, we spent very little time in our rooms.  Anta is Greek and her time schedule is the same as it was when she lived in Athens.  She goes to bed at 2:00 in the morning and doesn’t get up until 11:00 a.m.  Lou never adjusted to her habits and so he was up at 7:00, ready to take us to Ethel’s Chocolates or the discount mall, complaining, “Your mother isn’t up yet. Let’s go!”

Later we would come back to the hotel room, have the improvised lunch and then take Anta out to find a machine she liked, while Michael and I would find other things to do.  We’d meet for dinner and try a new buffet every day.  In the 90s the buffets were a bargain, but as hotels in Vegas became more extravagant the prices of the buffets rose from $10 a person to $20.  We still tried them; Paris, The Venetian, The Bellagio.  They were fancier than the less expensive buffets, with Ahi and shark along side the more common prime rib and turkey.  Lou particularly liked the desserts and would load his plate up with cheesecake, brownies, cookies, apple pie, while Anta scolded him for taking too many.  She, on the other hand, filled her plate with beef, turkey and lamb.

Michael and I explored the newest casinos, went to Hoover Dam, visited the dolphin habitat behind The Mirage, watched the Treasure Island pirate show, the Bellagio fountain show and watched people.  There is no better place to see a huge variety of people than Las Vegas, from the oldest, most poignant looking to prosperously decked out young business people and everything in between.  It was shocking to see men and women in wheelchairs in front of slot machines, or very elderly people with oxygen tanks in tow, inside the smoky casinos.  At the more posh places, like Paris or The Venetian we’d see designer dressed and artfully coifed women in extremely high-end stores like Prada or Christian Dior.  Minorities, mostly Latino, worked the buffets and were the maids who cleaned the rooms.  Young men on the street passed out fliers for sex shows or call girls.  We once followed a tall, beautiful blond young woman, carrying a red rose, as she met with what looked like a businessman in the lobby of a hotel.  We were convinced he was meeting with his paid escort.  Most of the people we saw, though, were like us—from small towns, dressed in ordinary clothes from Penney’s or Target, awed by the glitz, glitter and glamour of the bright neon Strip. 

We’d eventually meet with his parents who would end up at New York, New York or The Alladin, where Anta would have found a “good” machine she didn’t want to leave.  Good meant it was giving her back more than she was putting in.  She always played the 25-cent video poker machines, because she felt her skill at poker would help her win and it usually did.  She would bring $200 to gamble and always took home more than she’d brought.  Lou spent his time fetching coffee for her or watching high rollers at the Craps table.  Sometimes he would play, but not often.  When it was time to meet for dinner it was hard to pry her away from a machine that she was having luck with.  “How can I leave now?” she’d entreat.  “It’s geeving!”  We learned to approach her long before we were really ready to eat.

These early days were when I developed my fondness for finding an interesting slot machine to play.  I would look for good graphics or a whiz-bang twist—a machine that started spinning wildly when certain symbols lined up.  These were still the days when you put real coins in the machine and you pulled the “arm” of the “bandit”.  The excitement of actual coins falling, clang, clang, clang into the tray was hard to beat, even if they were only pennies or nickels.  I didn’t gamble any more than $20.  I didn’t have that much extra money to throw around and in those days, playing nickel machines, $20 lasted for days.  Every now and then I’d win.  The first time it happened was in Treasure Island.  I was putting in nickels.  The machine started to make all kinds of ringing and clanging noises and the light on top of it started to flash.  I didn’t know what was going on.  I thought the machine was broken until an attendant came by with a chit to receive $45 from the cashier. This was after only the second nickel so I really did get a windfall.  I bought a Cirque de Soliel sweatshirt with my winnings and still had money left over.  Most of the time, though, I’d end up gambling and losing my $20 and that was alright, too, because I was entertained.  $20 wasn’t that much to pay for a couple of days of being amused. 

We have gone to Vegas many times since that first time in 1994.  Until the last couple of times it was always with Michael’s parents.  Lou died in 2005, so now it’s his Mother and us.  She longs to be there and it’s always a popular suggestion.  “Want to go to Vegas, Mom?”  She’s almost packed by the time we get off the phone.  The same routine follows:  my husband and I go around to all the new places, visit some of our favorite old ones, do a little shopping and check in with Anta at “her machine”.  Michael is the one who brings her coffee now and cashes in her credits.  She doesn’t bring the lunch fixings or the coffee service anymore.  I guess she must feel a little more prosperous now or maybe all that was Lou’s idea.

 For several months before she came to visit us last Fall, we scouted casinos in the  Puget Sound area.  We tried out Snoqualmie, Little Creek, Muckleshoot, Suquamish and 7 Cedars casinos.  We checked to see if they had her video poker machines, which they all did.  We took her to all of them when she was here and she found a good machine in all but the 7 Cedars.  The video poker machines were not “giving” up to her standards but she found a Black and White slot machine that gave her jackpot after jackpot.

Now the machines are automated and it has taken me a few years to get used to the new, cartoonish graphics.  There is one based on “I Love Lucy”, another has lots of weapons and explosions, there was a Lucky Charms game with shamrocks and leprechauns for a while, but I think that one has gone out of favor.  Every year there is a new crop, but all are based on the same old theme—get symbols lined up in a row and you win something.  Get lots of symbols lined up, or a special symbol lined up and you win something better.  I look for machines that have classic illustrations, like Neptune’s Kingdom or Rembrandt’s Riches or Secrets of the Forest, so that the game is pretty to look at while it’s eating my paper credit, which is what you get now in place of real money.  The machine tries to make sounds like the pennies or nickels clang, clanging into the tray, but it’s all illusion.  They play music now and have screens that come up to give you bonuses. If you get three treasure chests in the Neptune game a screen appears that allows the player to pick several chests that will give you free spins or multiply your winnings.  That always gives me a surge of happy adrenalin.  But the old clicking, clanging machines are a thing of the past.  And so are the dirty fingers from handling the coins.

My husband and I have now started to go to local casinos by ourselves.  We up the ante a little by making our visits overnight trips, giving us a getaway along with the slim chance of going home with more money than we came with.  Most casino hotels in the area have hot tubs and pools, though they lack the lions and dolphins and lavish stage shows of Las Vegas.  Tulalip Resort Casino has outlet stores within walking distance, not as much fun as the Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden behind the Mirage, but still a draw for a bargain hunter.  True to tradition, I do the gambling and my husband makes sure I am hydrated with water and coffee.  He can’t make himself gamble.  He’s much too frugal.  Like his father he observes and enjoys watching me hopping from one machine to another while I look for a good machine, one that will give.

Goodbye, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Taylor died.  I have to keep repeating it in order to believe it.  She has been part of my life for so long, on my mind now and then for as long as I can remember.  She was certainly on my mind in the 50s, when I was a kid and my Mom read movie magazines Photoplay, Modern Screen and Motion Picture.  I was so interested in her glamorous life that when the magazines began reporting that she and her husband, Michael Wilding, were going to divorce, I sent Elizabeth a letter saying that I didn’t believe the gossip.  It was the only time I ever wrote to a celebrity.  I received a postcard in response, with an obviously canned statement like, “Thank you for your support”, or something like that, copied in whatever way copies were made in those days.  The pictures of Elizabeth, Wilding and their two small boys were so sweet, romantic, homey, that I couldn’t believe there could be a divorce—divorce didn’t happen in my world.  I didn’t know anybody who had ever divorced.  It was the fifties, after all.

Over the years, though, we all got used to the way Elizabeth lived her life.  Divorce was part of it, but so were love, passion, incredible beauty, opulence, indulgence, gigantic jewels, drinking, husband stealing, fighting, tragedy, illness, and always DRAMA.  She lived her life so large, so much bigger than anyone else’s, how could anyone not be eager to know what would come next?  What would she do after Mike Todd died? How could she marry such a small time actor/singer as Eddie Fisher?  How long would the passionate marriage to Richard Burton last?  Was he her true love?  Marry Senator John Warner?  Why?  Larry Fortensky?  Huh?  But I always cared; I always wanted to know what she was doing.  I saw all the movies even when they were bad ones like “Divorced His/Divorced Hers”.  When she got fat during her marriage to Warner I knew she was unhappy and was sad for her.  When she got thin again, I was glad.

She had unworldly beauty, but she ate whatever she wanted and she battled her weight because of it, just like a normal person.  She followed her heart, like we all wanted to do.  She flaunted her jewels.  She showed off her fantastic bosom.  She nearly died, many times.  She was reported to be bawdy and in television interviews we heard her raucous, boisterous laugh.  After the 5-year marriage to Larry Fortensky, there were long periods of time I didn’t hear much about Elizabeth.  Occasionally there would be something about her Aids charitable work, a photo taken at a speaking engagement.  In the past ten years there hasn’t been much at all.  Last year I searched the web for a picture and found that she was photographed in a wheelchair.  She was wearing a red dress, her hair died back to it’s dark color, lavish jewels at her throat and on her fingers, red lipstick, still glamorous at 78.  I printed out a picture to show my Mom, who has always been a fan, too, and is exactly 10 years older.  I was glad Elizabeth still looked pretty good even if she couldn’t get around very well anymore.  Not long ago there was an article about her in Vogue, with quotes from the newest book about her and a picture of her from the 50s on the cover.  My best friend called to tell me it was on the newsstand and the next day I bought a copy.  It was a treat to be reading about her once again.  It was like the best ice cream.

I think what I, and many people, loved about Elizabeth Taylor was that she lived her life exactly the way she wanted to, without apology.  She truly was the Last Movie Star.  What actor or actress is left that was as famous as she was?  She allowed us to see her, in all her glory and with all her faults.  She didn’t hide from us. She didn’t destroy herself with drugs like Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe or go into hiding as she got older, like Greta Garbo.  She showed us who she was and said “take it or leave it”.

I’m going to miss having her in the world, but the silver lining in her passing is all the old interviews I’ve been seeing on television, the thousands of pictures that were taken of her over the years, showing up in magazines, on the web and during the news.  On April 10^th American Movie Classics is going to have a 24-hour marathon of her movies and I’ll have it on all day.  Elizabeth Taylor is dead.  I still can’t believe it.

The Meaning of Life?

My husband is always asking me, sometimes seriously, sometimes jokingly, "What is the meaning of life?"  I never have an answer for him, but this quote, that was on my grandson's Facebook page recently, might be the answer.

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"  


George Eliot

Thinking about Japan

It's hard to think about anything but Japan and the struggle that is taking place there.  I keep trying to imagine what it's like to be living out in the cold, in front of your destroyed house, scrounging for water, building fires to cook your food, wondering what the future will bring.  The Japanese are known to be resilient but what must it be like to not know what has happened to your relatives and neighbors, to ponder how many people are beneath the wreckage?

As we were coming into Seattle on the Winslow ferry the other day, to take my granddaughters and daughter-in-law to the airport, I noticed the boats along the waterfront.  If a tsunami as large as the one that hit Japan had hit the Seattle waterfront, those boats would have been resting on top of the Alaskan Way viaduct.  All of the tourists on Alaskan Way would have been picked up by the water, carried inland or back out to sea.  I can't shake the vision of the hundreds of small, white cars being carried by the power of that huge wave, the houses being swept along--were there people in the houses?  Did they survive?

And now there is all the speculation about the radiation from the nuclear plants, there was even a run on iodine pills here.  Can you trust what is being said about no danger to us on the West Coast or do you believe those that are saying otherwise?  All through the 50s we were taught to duck and cover, we were so afraid a bomb would be dropped on or near us.  Who would have predicted nuclear power and earthquakes as a scenario for a new radiation fear?

My heart is heavy for the people of Japan.  I will be contributing money through World Vision as my very small way of helping but it won't seem like enough.

http://www.worldvision.org/#/home/main/quake-tsunami-devastate-japan-1-1360

 

Oh, joy!

This was sent by one of the people who actually read my blog:




"Recent studies have also found that the typical off the shelf coffee, like Folgers, Hill's, MJB, etc. have two benefits for the liver. The first is that the typical store bought packaged pre-ground coffee can actually help clean the liver. The second is that this same coffee can aid in the rebuilding or regeneration of the liver. The liver is one of the few organs in the body that can rebuild itself. There have been successful transplants of part of a liver, which after transplant, grew to a normal size adult liver in the patient. People that drink significant quantities of alcohol tend to have far less liver problems if they also drink coffee. The studies indicate that up to 4 cups per day is beneficial. More than four cups does not seem to create liver problems but more than 4 cups also does not show any added benefit. Just another good reason to enjoy your coffee." 

I knew it!!!!

Coffee Reduces Stroke Risk in Women

Posted by Amy Sue Andrews on March 12th, 2011

The research journal Stroke reports that women who drink a cup or more a day of coffee have a reduced risk for stroke.  Greater consumption did not reduce the risk further.

The study followed 34,670 women aged 49 to 83 and found a 23% to 25% reduction in incidence of stroke compared to those who drink little or no coffee.  During the 10 year follow up there were 1,680 strokes among the sample population.

So far, the mechanism in coffee consumption that effects strokes is not known.

 “It is quite clear that coffee consumption at moderate to even high levels does not increase risk of stroke,” says Eric Rimm, ScD, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Roger Bonomo, MD, director of stroke care at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, says that giving up coffee to protect your health is not a good idea.

“Eliminating coffee isn’t good for your health,” Roger Bonomo, MD.says, “Keep your coffee
 habits at a steady state.”  He is the director of stroke care at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York 
City.


This is the best permission to drink coffee I've ever had!  Hallelujah!  

Anybody Out There?

I wonder if there is anybody that actually reads this blog, besides Mail Guy.  I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, because I am so inconsistent about posting things here lately.  I have all these lofty goals of writing at least once a week, and STUFF always intervenes to keep me from it.  Stuff like doctor appointments for my Mom, shopping for groceries, mopping the kitchen floor, making dinner, going to the movies, watching TV and most importantly, writing for my writer's group.  So when someone comes here looking for something new, there's hardly ever anything they haven't already read.

I apologize, I'll try to do better, I'll strive to make time.  I know how it is--I have a friend or two who have blogs and who don't write in them on a regular basis and it is always sad to go to one of their sites and not see anything new.  It's like calling a friend and getting a message machine.  Not even that good, really.  At least you can leave a message on the machine and hope to get a call back.