Yesterday was Friday the 13th. And as luck would have it, my Friday-the-13th’s are generally good days, and indeed yesterday was a good day. Why? Well, it was the first day of my 5-day weekend/vacation/getaway. And let me tell ya, there are good things lined up this weekend: I’m going to Vegas!
Okay, so let me start by saying that Vegas seems generally kind of over-the-top and tacky to me. In Ocean’s 11, you don’t see the stumbling drunk people, the seedy strip bars XXX GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS XXX, the people lined up on the side of the streets trying to hand you “censored” “escort” calling cards. And who actually goes to Vegas to get married? I’m painting such a picture that suddenly I’m getting un-excited about my trip, so I’ll stop right there. Let me start over.
I’m going to Vegas! It will be a college apartment-mate reunion—whew, that’s a recipe for disaster, isn’t it? No tagging in Facebook photos, guys. Just kidding; the movie Hangover makes me wary of drinks (or friends that would accidentally roofie your drinks) lest Mike Tyson’s tiger ends up in my bathroom.
Anyway, as most girls know, a trip to Vegas doesn’t really start with Las Vegas, NV itself. It starts with a prior week of I-don’t-have-anything-to-wear, since we work at an engineering firm and not, say, Sephora at the mall. So Linda and I have been shopping around and yesterday, we got our nails did.
I’m still getting around to the point of this blog entry, which is not about, as you might have guessed, Vegas. Yesterday, oh yesterday, to kick off this awesome mini-vacation, Reid and I drove up to Walnut Creek to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised!]. Now, I watched a video of this performance back in high school in the 12th grade. On occasion, I’ve been Googling (how is “Googling” not a word accepted in Wordpress’s spellchecker?) about their tours. Finally, 4 months ago I introduced Reid to some of their work and it just so happened that I found that they were going to perform in the Bay Area for 3 days, and tickets would be sold in a month!
I called the first day that tickets were available and landed us some 6th row seats to the show. Let me tell you: it was possibly the best $45 I have ever spent. Sure, most of the script was verbatim from their taped performance, but it was amazing live. They engaged the audience (with audience participation!) and delivered clever lines and witty puns with incredible comedic timing. The fact that I knew what to expect didn’t matter; I laughed so hard that I cried! I find it hilarious that so many, as I once did, consider Shakespeare to be irrelevant and stuffy. Only some people realize that these Shakespearean plays were written for the common folk and were riddled with slapstick comedy and sexual innuendo. These guys captured the spirit of Shakespeare wholly.
You’ll just have to watch it yourself! This is their Romeo and Juliet. Watch it and try to tell me it’s not hilarious!
Before our show, we went to Va de Vi Bistro and Wine Bar for dinner. I think the restaurant is described as an Asian California fusion tapas bar. Basically, what my mom makes like this, wonderful in taste and familiarity:
…Va de vi interprets into this:
Delicious! Okay, now I’m off to Vegas!