Some people just can’t handle Vegas

I haven't done a proper trip report for a while now - most of my posts are about drunken degeneracy or just odd players or table talk. So I'm going to do one now - only because it includes my first trip to Vegas with the new Mrs AC. Whilst we've been seeing each other for over a year the amount of time we've actually spent together has been pretty low and we've only had one previous elongated spell together over the summer detailed here https://ayecarambapoker.blogspot.com/2019/09/haggis-hunting-and-scottish-long-necked.html.

So it had been nearly a month without seeing each other when Mrs AC took a Thursday night flight over to London (she lives in New York). After picking her up from Heathrow on Friday morning we had a relatively quiet weekend in London then flew back to New York together on Monday. I had business in NY all week so we only spent one evening together until we took the Thursday afternoon flight to Vegas.

Now as soon as I'm done with work on Thursday lunchtime I'm in "Vegas mode". This usually entails a few drinks at the airport followed by more on the plane. This was no different apart from remembering to grab 2 drinks at a time from the fridge in the AA lounge. It's a tough life!! So when we get on the plane I'm already 3 or 4 beers in and looking forward to a few days off. We're offered a pre-flight drink and I switch to my usual airplane routine of a G&T (too much beer on flights leaves me needing to piss like an incontinent racehorse) and we're served another drink as soon as we're in the air. The meal is passable but completely forgettable but there's a problem. My seat-mate wants to talk to me rather than letting me watch a movie on my tablet. Now in ordinary circumstances I'd just ignore a talkative seat-mate but today it's Mrs AC so I oblige whilst ensuring I'm in no danger of contracting malaria anytime soon by drinking numerous G&Ts.

It's just after 7pm when we land and we take a cab to the Signature - I nearly always stay here when I'm on my own and although I offered to stay somewhere a bit fancier Mrs AC was happy to stay there (secretly I think she's checking up to see if I'm really living the life of Riley when I tell her I'm in Vegas for work). Once we're all settled in we headed out to Morimoto for sushi - very good albeit pretty pricey before wandering through the MGM for an hour or so and heading into the bar in tower one of the Signature for a couple of drinks before heading to sleep around midnight.

Friday was spent wandering the strip followed by dinner at Lago overlooking the fountains at Bellagio - mediocre and overpriced but a great view. Mrs AC was asleep by midnight so I snuck out to watch the England v Argentina rugby which kicked off at 1am (H/T to https://mobile.twitter.com/Mitzula for suggesting a place I could find the game). Mrs AC had no interest in watching the rugby but I was given strict instructions not to be too late or too drunk. Hmmmm. Plan went perfectly until I came back at 3.30am and woke her up by drunkenly falling over a suitcase in the dark room! 

Saturday started badly - we were both up before 8am and watching the English football but my team suffered its worst home defeat for over 10 years. Worse still was that Mrs AC categorically banned me from having a beer whilst watching the game. Probably not a bad thing to be honest but I certainly wasn't letting Mrs AC know that she was right 😃! 

It was actually a change to be in Vegas with someone - I've not been here with anyone for a few years so it was completely different doing touristy things rather than scoping out poker rooms so I'd originally planned on not playing any poker but Mrs AC decided that she wanted some pampering on Saturday. She asked if I was ok spending an afternoon on my own - I'm sure I can manage to amuse myself! So whilst she went to get whatever it is that women spend a ridiculous amount of money on that makes her hurt all over for days I headed to a very unremarkable session at Aria. Literally nothing to report apart from winning about $20 and consuming enough beer to drown a camel. Luckily Mrs AC is in a good mood from her pampering session and we had a very nice dinner at Jean Georges steakhouse at the Aria.

Sunday was Mrs AC's last day whilst I was staying here and heading to LA for the next week so we had a lazy afternoon by the pool at the Signature. Lovely early autumn weather and a virtually deserted pool area made for a very relaxing day (as an aside why in god's name are pool parties so popular? The very idea of being vacuum packed into a pool with 3 million other drunken individuals is my idea of hell).

We had a bite to eat at TAP before heading to the airport at 6pm for an overnight flight flight back to NY. Having dropped Mrs AC off I'm in a cab back to the MGM by 8pm and sat at the poker table by 9pm.

Another unremarkable session ensued and I'm still at the table when my phone buzzes at about 3.30am with a text from Mrs AC (whose flight has now landed in NY) which read "thanks for a lovely w/e. I'm shattered. I don't know how you do it".

Now there's something you need to know about me and Mrs AC - I'm in my early 40s (or 21 with 20 years of experience as I prefer to put it) but Mrs AC is over a dozen years younger than me so she should be the one full of beans and it should be me flagging after a weekend in Vegas - but it's the other way around and to me we've definitely not over done it at all. In fact if I rate this out of 10 on my usual drunken degeneracy scale we'd barely trouble the scoreboard.

But her text is a good reminder that I've got work to do on the Monday morning - not heading to LA until Tuesday although in the past I have done the 1st flight to LA on Monday morning having had no sleep the previous night, which didn't go well. So I do my drunken stumble over to the Signature and pass out just after 4am having had a fantastic weekend, but all the while thinking that some people just can't handle Vegas.