Home Sweet Home

San Francisco was lots of fun - 5 days away from everyone and everything was just what Morgan and I needed. We walked eleventy billion miles, ate lots of good food, saw every inch of the city from beggars to Tiffany (two days to clean silver pieces? Ridiculous!), I got lots of presents - and we never have to go back.

There's nothing better than coming home.

The more places I see, the more I appreciate Los Angeles in all its imperfect glory. There are only two places I ever want to go back to - New Orleans and Vegas. And of those two, Vegas is the only one I don't want to leave when it's time to go home. Which, in my mind, means it's the only other place I could live...and the one city that's more surreal than L.A. Maybe that is the draw for the Angelenos...Vegas is the one city that is less real than ours. Of course, that's a sweeping generalization. My Vegas friends have everyday jobs (well, one of them does, at least) and live a whole life that doesn't involve the gaming/resort industry. Although I'm not sure that designing New York Pretzels and Nathan's Hot Dogs would be considered glamorous to the average Okie who visits Vegas once in his or her lifetime. Oh wait - they're the ones who eat there.

And that leads me to another point - people who come to Vegas to experience Paris, Venice, New York, or whatever else is done in scale model this week. Granted, foreign travel is expensive. I can't afford to go to Europe at will, and if I could I certainly wouldn't be blogging on a Wednesday morning while babysitting the phones that don't ring. But, I digress. I wonder how many think that the Vegas experience is authentic. Because dude, Pepe Le Pew Paris is nowhere near the real thing. It's totally missing the dog poop on the sidewalk. It makes me vaguely sad to think that people will only see the Vegas version of Italy or France or whatever. But then, it's better than nothing, right? And you can lose your life savings right there at the same time.

That said - I'm off to Vegas tomorrow to see the Moody Blues - I got out of the Kenny Chesney show on Saturday. It was a close one.

Free Haagen Dazs for me! Knowing the architect who designed them all pays off sometimes.