A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Part I

I should really be asleep right now; however, I have had relatively no rest this weekend and it has thrown me off a bit. So I thought I would put myself to work and work on this here blog for a change. I'm warning you, though, this is a long one, so I'm breaking it up into multiple posts.

My weekend excursion to Las Vegas started on Friday the 13th. You can pretty much guess the way the rest of the weekend went...ha! It was interesting to say the least. There were a few good moments sprinkled throughout, though. For starters, the reason I was in Vegas was to attend my sister’s wedding. Her name is Carrie. Her husband’s name is Kerry. Yes, it gets confusing when you are addressing them verbally. The wedding itself was on Saturday, so lets take a step back to Friday. Sorry if I bitch a little bit. :o)

The day started off well enough. My friend drove me to the airport, and that ended up being the highlight of the day. I haven’t flown since the whole “no liquids” thing went into effect, so, yes, I tried to bring all my toiletry items in my carry on. The guy was nice and let me run back and check the bag, though, but, on the way back, I was stopped for the random screening. The flight went better than I thought, and, surprisingly, my iPod w/ video playback actually lasted nearly the entire flight! It was nice to be able to catch up on Grey’s Anatomy and some other shows I’ve missed this past week. Then I got to Vegas. I always thought that DFW was bad when it came to luggage, but Vegas was just plain horrible. In Vegas’ defense, unlike in Dallas, baggage claim isn’t too close to where the planes are. All in all, it took over thirty minutes for the baggage to start coming out, and another 15 before mine found its way into my hands. At my mother’s suggestion, I decided to take a shuttle to the hotel (Imperial Palace). Bad decision. I sat in the freeeeeezing van for another 45 minutes before the driver decided it was time to leave. I never left the van cause he kept coming back in every five minutes and sitting down as though we were about to leave. But I digress.

My sister asked me to join her and some friends for drinks that evening, which I really needed considering I had just spent an entire day w/ my mother. However, they ended up just gambling. This would have been fine if I had money to throw away. Or if I liked to gamble. I spent the majority of the time out trying to track them down, as they were casino hopping. I eventually gave up and called it a night. Besides, I wanted to be well rested, as, on Saturday morning, I would be seeing my biological father for the first time in nearly 8 years. Which leads me to Saturday…

We wake up early to get ready for the big breakfast (The bride and groom treated everyone to breakfast prior to the wedding since they wanted to hit the casinos and other stuff - you know what, I don’t have to write it). I should let you know that I was sharing a room w/ my mother and aunt. Big mistake, but saved me a few hundred that I don’t have. So they spend over an hour each preparing for the day and leave me w/ less than thirty. As I was rushing to get ready, my mother wanted to leave telling me that I could just get a cab on my own. So nice. I managed to finish just in time, though.

At breakfast, I saw my father. I shook his hand and he immediately started asking questions about my life so he could get caught up. His wife, whom I despise, tried to come in for a hug. I deflected it and she had to settle for patting me on my arm. It may sound harsh, but these are people that have told me they don’t approve of my life, why should I go out of my way to be anything more than civil w/ them? It wasn’t really as awkward as I imagined it would be. While I did answer their questions, I did not ask any or offer additional dialogue w/ them. They seemed to get the hint that I wasn’t comfortable and began mingling w/ the other guests. I, too, would have mingled, but I think I had been stressing over the impending reunion far more than I convinced myself I was. A headache sprouted and was shortly followed by nausea. I took some Advil and felt a little better. On the way back from breakfast, I got sick to my stomach again. Our female cab driver was a total racist. My mother was recapping our disastrous cab ride around the city the previous day, and the cab driver, assuming the driver was black, said that was quite typical of those Ethiopian n******. Had we time to spare; this is the point where I would have requested she pull over and let me out. I simply do not approve of that type of language, at least not when used in that context. What upset me even more is that the rest of my family continued talking to her and telling her that they wished she could drive us to the ceremony if only they had not rented a car. Then, to top it off, when trying to get into the drop off zone at our hotel a woman let us in, our drive smiled, waved and, talking to herself but out loud, said, “how very white of you…even though you ain’t white!” I did jump out of the car at this point, but we were already at the hotel. Thankfully, I ended up not feeling sick by the time of the wedding.

TO BE CONTINUED...