High Rollers & Lindy
I’ve been so busy catching up with life, that I haven’t had all that much time to catch up with writing about it. So now I’ll get to a little rundown of some of the new stuff for May.
So let’s go back a few weeks ago, when I got a last minute invitation from a friend to join her family in Atlantic City for a day, to hang out a bit, see Jerry Seinfeld do some standup, and spend the night. Apparently her mom’s good friend (and friend’s husband are insane high rollers), and have a free room (which like 8 of us piled into) and free Seinfeld tickets and all sorts of free stuff. It sounded like a good enough adventure to me.
Now, you know the old saying “unlucky in love, lucky at cards” or something of the sort. Well let’s just say that I am the living, breathing example that this particular bit of wisdom is nothing but a load of poop. Like if your unluckiness in love, somehow equated to gambling luck, I should be able to walk up to any slot machine or table, put down one chip and quadruple my money on the first try. Fuck, I should be able to walk into a casino and just have them hand me money. Like they see me walking through the door and it’s like “Oh Lisa! We didn’t see you there, thanks for coming—here’s a $1000 bucks, we’ll be back later with your next installment.” In any case, I’m pretty much unlucky across the board. I don’t ever win from gambling, so I’ve pretty much stopped trying. I only ever played the slots and the money wheel, so when my friend’s mom wanted to try roulette, I figured I would too, simply because I had never done it before and well, I need stuff to tell you about.
I did win the first try by betting on red, then I lost and lost again, so I stopped, because unlike with love, when it comes to gambling, I (along with Kenny Rogers) actually know when “to fold em”. Frankly, I just don’t get gambling—I like my money, I don’t care to lose it and the odds are pretty high it will be lost. I prefer instead, to gamble with things like my heart or sanity. Hmm, perhaps I’m more of a high roller than I supposed.
Anyways, after roulette, we head out to see Seinfeld—whom I have never seen in person (so there we go yet another “new”). I can’t tell you what a pro he is, like I haven’t seen so much stupid heckling since Woodstock ’99 (and that ended in a giant fire, due to the oh so brilliant idea of handing out “peace candles”.) He handled it amazingly well and when he got to this whole spiel about how if you’re planning a wedding, none of your friends or family will tell you—but “no one wants to go to your wedding!” – I swear I almost stood up and cried out Hallelujah. God damn, I can’t tell you how true that is. Seriously, I got two weddings scheduled already this year and my soul, it weeps at the mere thought of them. The bouquet toss alone sends me into a shivering fit. Please people, please—skip the crap and just keep the booze. That’s all anyone can stand at weddings. Please. We single people, we’re fucking begging you. No chicken dance or ridiculously zealous DJ, no garter or bouquet toss, no fucking speeches no one pays attention to as they count down the minutes til they can hit the open bar for another whiskey sour—seriously just give us booze, cocktail weenies and a slice of over-sweet, over-dried cake (you have to keep some traditions). We’ll hand you an envelope with a card and some money, and everyone will be happier. Seriously.
So the next day we went to the buffet (free yet again because of the High Rollers) and I attempted to try some crab legs. Too bad I don’t know how to actually eat them. I managed to get a little tiny piece out and it was okay. But it seems like one of those foods that is just way too much work for too little pay off. I really don’t want to work that hard to eat something—not when things like pie are just so much easier.
Now moving along to this past Friday—there’s been a festival going on in celebration of Frankie Manning’s 95th birthday. Although technically it’s a memorial, since he died a few weeks before the festival was scheduled to start (someone with apparently far worse luck than me). He’s credited as one of the founders of Lindy Hop – particularly famous for his version of the Shim Sham (which is on my to do list of things to learn). Pop his name into youtube to see him in action—it’s pretty amazing stuff.
In any case, there’s been a lot of swing stuff going on with people coming from all over to partake in all the swinginess (and not the kind you’re thinking about, pervert!). On Friday, there was a free swing dance in Central Park just across from Bethesda Fountain. I took an extra long lunch (and skipped my yoga class) to go check it out. I am proud to report I did manage to sneak in a dance with a cute, blue eyed fellow from Seattle named Gabe. I was slightly disappointed that there weren’t any sailors around (as it was fleet week) –I think swing dancing with a sailor would be pretty damn cool—all WW2esque and all that. That’s like hardcore swing dancing cred.
On Friday night, I had volunteered to work the dance at the Hammerstein ballroom. You volunteer for a couple hours and then you can dance for free. Well, their organization sucks—and for someone like me who types up her grocery lists with items organized in sections by type—this is excruciatingly painful to deal with. I ended up spending hours watching a hallway that no one really needed to watch. Fabulous. After it was over, I did manage to dance a bit, although it ended up being with people from my dance school, but the live music was good and I didn’t stand alone all night, so I’ll chalk it up in the success column.
I’m going to attempt to squeeze in one more new thing for May. I’m slated for a fancy work lunch with our VP. He’s taking us to L’Absinthe, and my coworkers and I have all decided to try the escargots. Please say a little prayer that I do not replay the Pretty Woman scene where Julia Roberts tosses one across the room and answers “slippery little suckers”. You may think that is a long shot, but in my world where I constantly do stupid shit and have stupid shit happen to me, it’s a lot more likely than you think.
