Mike's last day was Friday (summer subbing is reserved for contracted teachers looking for extra dough), and this party has gotten started.
(Deliberate use of "gotten" there, my flinching friends.)
I can't remember what we did Friday. I think it was... "Chinese" food? Which means Veggie pad thai and fried rice for me, orange chicken and sliced pork for Mike. Movies on the sofa. It wasn't Friday, but I did finally see Hard Candy and Borat. I will justify preferring the latter by making a smooth intellectual comment about HC, perhaps saying that one has to be in the mood for its Mamet-like dialogue tensions, and I wasn't.
Saturday! Mike was overdue for new shoes. You know how, if you wear white sneakers (heh, "sneakers" - howdy 1975!), you eventually (after, say, eight years), tell yourself that they're still white? But then you buy new white sneakers and are ashamed that, until ten minutes before, you were out in public in your old shoes? Mike has that happening right now. These are the new ones:
They were adopted from the Zappos outlet center on Dean Martin Drive. (It and Frank Sinatra Drive still make me smile. And living by Rainbow Boulevard? It's a fantasy out here!) On our way there we passed the digital Zappos billboard plus the Zappos shuttle, so we're probably the last people to discover this place. For women - meh - it's fine if you're a low-rent Carrie Bradshaw. For me, though, the tennies selection is pretty great.
(I'm pushing it with "tennies," aren't I?)
The shoes were recent additions, so they were only marked down from $56 to $40. But! It turns out there's a AAA discount, for a final sale of $36. Nice.
Now where?
So, Mike's friend Darren (and Darren's gf) will be in town for the next two weeks, all the way over from Queensland. So, we didn't want to do anything too touristy on the Strip lest it get old before they get here. But we didn't want to go home, either. How about... the Disney Outlet Center on the "south Strip"?
No multi-XL discreetly branded T-shirts in Martha Stewart colours, alas, but we did get an "06" antenna topper for a penny. At that price, I can replace it every time a student decides to get even for me giving 0s for missing work! Here is Mike, screwing in the antenna (also a sense of occasion):
Seriously, 57 kids sat exams in my classes today. (Several didn't show up.) Of those, only 17 will pass the class. The class. Not the exam - the class.
I already curved the exam;is it fair to force my stats into a bell curve? Let's look at first period: I think 6/32 people turned in novel projects. (There are actually more than 32 students, but I'm just counting those who show up pretty regularly these days. Oh, and the novel project could just be a poster or anything that showed you read and thought about The Outsid*rs or Sp*ak. It was supposed to be creative and fun - poster, diorama, costume, mix CD, whatever.)
Maybe 8/32 turned in papers, of which half were formatted close to MLA style and maybe half of those had quotations from Romeo and Juliet to support the writer's point.
Six of 32 turned in worksheet packets. Easy-peasy stuff: identify which chars are Capulets, write your own R&J wedding vows, write newspaper headlines for each scene. Easy. Two of those packets were given zeroes for word-for-word cheating.
Part of me says, "Should this person really flunk freshman English? Don't you think they have the skills, when it comes down to it?" But then the part of me that is currently in power says, "Who knows, if they never turn in their work? Who knows, if they just copy other people?" Then I feel terrible for not knowing, for not creating the magic assessment that gets everyone excited, for not spending long or even short hours helping eager students revise revise revise until they're just brilliant at sentence variety. Then I remember that no one wanted to revise, as long as they got a D- or higher, and I owe it to the planet to end social promotion.
So, this one's for you, Earth.
And, returning to our program, here is Mike modeling the antenna topper again:
(Why '06? Because it was a penny, duh. Oh, and because that's when Mike emigrated to be with the woman he loves. Like in Coppola's Dracula, when Gary Oldman murmurs "I have crosssssed ooooohshuns of tiiiime." Except the drama in Mike's journey was when he bought Mexican food court vittles at LAX then had to run off and leave them there, thanks to a misunderstanding about when his flight departed. I'm 90% sure this was for the best.)
What you can kinda sorta see behind Mike's arm is the Reebox Outlet Store, which I didn't even notice until downloading the photos. Oops! But hey - one more experience we can have at our supreme leisure this summer. Also planned:
- Cedar City/Shakespeare Festival (as it has been "planned" for the past three summers)
- Mesquite, NV for free resort stay
- Grand Canyon/Meteor Crater (Mike is cooking this one up)
- Tonopah, NV (to see the stars)
- Valley of Fire
- Steve Wyrick and every other frequently-free-to-locals show tickets we can get our mitts on
- Spamalot (because it's going away)
- Misc. concerts (Well, at least the one we have concerts for - details later. Where have all the shows gone? Mandalay Beach has nothing scheduled!)
- Fort Worth
Look at that - no Disney. That's off the table for a few years, until California Adventure's major overhaul is done.
Between Mike's new shoes and the foam cutout bobbing on top of the car, we were feeling so trendy that the car practically drove itself to our first trip to Town Square.
Town Square is right down the road from us, a straight-up fact that has been carefully measured three times in the past three days. In other words, we've kind of taken a shine to it.
Town Square has been open about six months, but I don't really shop-shop, so we've kind of been saving it for summer. Well guess where summer is now, baby? Right here! In my calendar! (Give or take three more days.)
It's not really a mall, though. It really is, well, a town square. With streets and parks and parking meters.
It's located in a stretch of the remaining desert landscape, just a jog down the road from Mandalay Bay. (If you think running a few miles in the blistering sun is the best.)
The shops are a mix of pricey couture and trendy indulgences suitable for the masses, but this is Vegas, so you can wander in just about anywhere in your flipflops and not even worry about it.
On this day (Saturday, remember?), they'd just opened the children's park.
Those pagoda-ish structures house things like Lollicup, Enerjuice, and a "concierge" service for tourists.
Did you know Tommy Bahamas has a cafe?
In addition to attractive lampposts, more utilitarian lighting is neatly embedded into the sidewalks:
Just like at the the District at Green Valley Ranch, dogs are especially welcome:
Tonight, on our third trip, I noticed some art deco patterning in the lofts. (But I didn't have the camera.) However, the look of TS seems to be a fusion that hints at several styles. (Which I'm not competent enough to name.) Here's a fancy Express:
Wait, I always get "The Limited" and "Express" mixed up. Or did they both sell a lot stirrup pants in 1986? Is "Express" the Sarah Jessica Parker to whoever the actress was who played her friend on Square Pegs?
I'd look it up, but Mike and I are having a contest to see how dark the living room will get before one of us caves and turns on the lamp. So, limited resources here.
Above is the lovely bridge and water area. What you don't see is the sign declaring all the water to be imported and therefore not a drain, literally, on our local H20.
(Ha. Mike gives in. We have illumination.)
It was time for lunch. We chose Brio, a restaurant chain I briefly thought was owned by the BRAVO! TV network. (Okay, visit their website and see if you don't make the same mistake. Also? Express is owned by The Limited, so I don't know who they think they are, putting on airs by the Godiva chocolate shop.)
(Speaking of Godiva chocolate, I, uh, have to go out for a bit. Back in a... um... later.)
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