Jamie Blau has been my chiropractor for several years and is part of why I can walk despite the constant problems caused by my job and volunteer activity along with weight, aging, and old injuires. She is the boss of Upper West Side Chiropractic over the Fairway on Broadway near 74th Street. 212-496-1630

It was restroom signs that got me started on the 2008 picture project, so I'll end it with one last one, taken 12/26/08, of a restroom that needs a visit from the punctuation fairy.


( What will 2009's project be? )

Noam absolutely adores Alize, the restaurant at the top of the Palms casino, just a little off the strip, so the four of us went there for dinner. It was very hoity-toity, as in "I am Cloud [Claude, I guess] and I will be your sommelier." The views of the strip (all we could really see in the dark) were great, but there was so much rain on the windows that none of the pictures I took were worth saving. The restaurant? Meh, although perhaps if you eat meat you will have a better experience. The escargot appetizer was very good, although it's hard to have anything taste bad if you smother it in garlic butter. The bread was the best I had in Las Vegas. They offered 2 amusees, a foamy sorbet that was just fine and pate de foie gras, which Andrew and I refused on account of the likelihood of animal cruelty. The entree I had was terrible: a $55 special of truffles with seafood/cheese risotto. The truffle was ok, but the seafood consisted of an overcooked shelled lobster claw, which I ate, and a mush-looking but undercooked risotto, which I didn't eat once the truffle grated over the top was gone.

The coffee was merely acceptable. The dessert I got was nice, an assortment of small portions of 4 or 5 different desserts, most of which were sweet and good.


If I went again with Noam or someone else who loved the place, I would get the escargot again, and dessert (maybe a souffle, since Noam's of chocolate peppermint looked delicious), but would get a salad instead of a "real" entree in between.

( After dinner, we visited the Palms Casino before going to the Wynn Casino. )

Please let's pretend it's still 2008, so I can finish posting the signs that I have.



( more from Siegfried and Roy's habitat at the Mirage )

If you click to enlarge it, you'll see that the sign on the right advertises "Tao Bistro" with "spiritual dining" and the one on the right advertises "Tao Nightclub" with "religious nightlife."


Um, ok. What branch of Buddhism involves counting down New Year's Eve with Mistress of Ceremonies Carmen Electra and a bunch of go-go girls?

( To 'Venice' )

Sunday early evening, the four of us went downtown to the Fremont Street Experience. The older casinos were there, and Fremont Street for 2 or 3 blocks was covered by a giant canopy. This was supposed to protect us from the hot sun beating down on us. We found that it worked just as well to protect us from the 45 degree Fahrenheit drizzle.



This was the Las Vegas I heard about when I was younger!

( Many pictures behind the cut. )

I'm really busy today with a new project that I'm sure I'll bitch about here sooner or later, and I have to shower and change to go out with Andrew, so only one sign from downtown Las Vegas: the one we saw as the cab let us out at Fremont Street. Tomorrow, many neon signs and a light show on the canopy over the street mall downtown.

We did not go into Tropicana or eat any legendary lobsters, but we did go here:


( Inside the MGM casino )

We ate breakfast Sunday and Tuesday at Bellagio's Jean-Philippe Patisserie, and it was pretty damn good. They have bagels, crepes, Danish, assorted cakes, boxed candy and cookies that we took home for petsitters and coworkers, and a floor-to-ceiling-and-then-some fountain of chocolate:





( More chocolate, the conservatory, and the lobby behind the cut. )

Besides the fountains, what I noticed most from our windows at night were the neon signs, especially Planet Hollywood with its constantly changing marquee, and Paris's balloon and Arc de Triomphe to its left (see above) and the Bellagio marquee advertising Cirque du Soleil's O, unfortunately closed for vacation, to its right (see below).



( Behind the cut, some daytime views )

Last Saturday, Andrew and I were supposed to get an 8:45am flight out of Newark that would have gotten us to Las Vegas in the middle of the day. However, we forgot to set the clock a half hour earlier, we were running late, and we got to the airport at about 8:10am. The person at the desk said, "You'd better run if you expect to make it." Even being able to enter security on the Elite line (which I can never do by myself, but Andrew travels so much for work that he has that), we still got to the gate at 8:28 am and found the doors closed. Oopsie, too late.

You had first class? (Credit card points used this way after too many times finding no way to get an available free flight) Aww, we gave your seats away long ago.

They offered to see if there were 2 seats left in economy, not necessarily together, and I would have been ok with that, but Andrew was too embarrassed to hold the plane and go through all that, so we went home and came back at 4pm for the 6pm flight.

The evening flight went without a hitch, and we got into Vegas at about 10pm.


I liked the clocks in the airport.


( Saturday night at the Bellagio, behind the cut. )

They are friends, but their closeness is probably due less to their interest in each other than to their shared interest in The Red Blanket.

The subway platform in the public service poster is dreary but very clean.

The platform the poster is hanging above is a different matter.

I got back from Las Vegas at 2 this morning, and miss Noam and tmcay already.
Pictures should commence by Sunday. Until then, clearing out the old stuff from Brooklyn. Las Vegas pictures may take us to the end of the 2008 Year of Signs.



( Close-ups behind the cut )

I cannot read the Hebrew, but the English text underneath says that the event (a fight, I think, as the window is part of a martial arts studio) will be at the New Utrecht High School.

In the middle of a vacant lot on the border of Williamsburg and Bushwick, nowhere near the water. I couldn't get very close to it, but if you enlarge the picture, you will see that the boat is named "Justa Nuff."

The rhinoceros who omitted the apostrophe in their name also copy-edited their website.

Example:
What is unique about Natures Finest is our lower tiers of management. Compared to huge, nationwide security companies, Natures Finest is able to be less rigid regarding our client’s specific needs. In most cases one of the companies owners personally consult with the clients to find out what aspects of our services are most important. We than match up the skill level, talents and personality of the guards based on the best suspected fit.

Nothing about poisonous vines, venomous snakes, or grizzly bears?

...so 2 more pictures from Master Lou's Bakery on Bedford Avenue, one for only-just-yesterday and one for almost-tomorrow.

We finished up the day with a look into Macy*s windows. The 34th Street side was the same old "Miracle on 34th Street" windows, wonderful the first couple of times you see them, but after 20 years, not so magical for us. The Broadway windows were very strange. The theme was "Believe" and the window scenes seemed to be an encouragement to believe in robots and space aliens.

Andrew and dj_rose_red went inside, opened up a Macy*s charge card, and saved over 50% on a pile of clothing for her. I was exhausted and went home to walk the dog, remembering as I got to my front door that I hadn't brought my keys. Fortunately, the dog's 3x/week walker was at work at the vet a few blocks away, and he loaned me his key ring, but it meant my rest was delayed as I had to return the keys after walking the dog. Still, it beat the alternative.

dj_rose_red went home December 2 after going with me to Chinatown, walking around while I got acupuncture, and joining me for dim sum at Jing Fong, which I much prefer to Golden Unicorn. We tried a new dish for us: snails in black bean sauce. They were very tasty, but they take a long time to remove from the shell and eat. Thus, I would not order them again unless I was with a large group, because the portion size is large and ours were cold by the time we had consumed 1/4 of an order. No turnip cakes, but we did get taro cakes and their wonderful shrimp-stuffed Chinese eggplant.

( Three Macy*s pictures behind the cut. )

On to Saks Fifth Avenue, directly across from Rockefeller Center. The first time we did the walk, about 20 years ago, we went upstairs to, iirc, the ladies' coat department where there was a small little-known window that gave a spot-on view of the tree. We haven't been up there since then, and I don't know whether that window is still accessible to the public. (We also saw a fabulous Xmas tree on the 2nd floor of Gotham Books on Diamond Row, and we went to the bookstore for several more Xmas walks even though they never had the tree again after that.)


The Saks Fifth Avenue windows this year feature scenes from NPL member Mr. Tex's latest children's book, A Flake Like Mike, about how long ago all the snowflakes looked the same and fell all at once in a WHOOMP instead of gently flaking down, until Mike decided to be different. The sign on the window says that if you buy the book at Saks, they will donate $2 to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

( From Saks Fifth Avenue down to Lord & Taylor, behind the cut )