Next morning I woke up with a horrible headache and still feeling a bit nauseous. Oh no! Was this my first hangover? Not really. The headache was due to my bad neck and the fact I forgot my trusty buckwheat pillow. I took some Tylenol and went back to sleep for a few hours.

We finally woke up and got ready to meet everyone for lunch at a deli at New York, New York. The alcohol from the night before still left me a bit queasy, even after taking Pepto Bismol, and I was not at my most talkative. Then again, I don't think too many other people were, either. I ate about three or four bites of my salad, and let the others go on rollercoasters and play games while I walked back to my hotel. The walk and fresh, cool air did me a world of good, so by the time I got back to Harrah's I was feeling much better. I played a little video poker, broke even, called my dad to wish him a happy birthday and my best friend to see how things were, then freshened up. Just as I was about to go to the Mirage to hunt up a computer (needed to get the cel numbers of the Squishites from my e-mail, which my home printer didn't feel like printing the day before), I ran into Alopekis coming out of the elevator. Everyone had split up and would later be meeting for dinner at the Rio Seafood Buffet.

Again with the napping, the freshening, the meeting of Harrah's Squishites and the cabbing to the next place. (The cab driver asked me if I were from the San Fernando Valley, because of my accent [?] and my sarcastic jokes - I do not sound like I'm from the Valley, I don't, I don't, I don't! But he thought my accent was cute. Awww!) We got a little lost inside the Rio, but found the buffet easy enough, though we were sidetracked by one of the tackiest shows in the casino. And then there was the infamous giant Rio Head, with its video monitor pupils invading everyone's space (not mine, but I'm an incurable ham when it comes to cameras). But I did get a couple of strands of beads, so I'm a happy girl.

After waiting about a zillion years for our number to be called, then another zillion years for them to put together a table that would seat all of us (I tell ya, a riot was brewing, and I think more than one of us thought the people already eating were just actors hired to torture those of us in line), we descended upon the food and nearly scarfed down everything in sight. Well, everyone else did. There wasn't a lot for me to eat, and there was no way I was going to be able to eat nearly $30 worth of food (I can't do that even when I'm at my hungriest, and I still wasn't fully recovered from Friday). I did break down and have some scalloped potatoes and potato leek soup, both of which have tons of dairy. But everything else was pretty much off-limits. I have to admit, that was probably the most disappointing part of the weekend for me, because I really wasn't planning on spending that much money for dinner, especially when I knew I couldn't eat a lot.

The angry, hungry hordes finally satisfied, the braver (or crazier) part of the group decided that riding the Big Shot on the Stratosphere would be the perfect capper to such a repast. I was not one of those people. The saner folks agreed to meet them at the Sahara, where we would continue our grand tradition of kareoke singing.

That was the plan, anyway. Once at the Sahara, we discovered that they no longer had kareoke. Instead, we traveled through the wonders of NASCAR, Anna Beth was hit on at the NASCAR bar, the DJ wanted us to dance and we all looked at each other and said, "Let's get the hell out of here!"

Once out on the street, we saw the sign for Tong's and realized that we had no other place to go. And so we went.

Playing it safe with 7-Up, we sat down just as a group of patrons started, one by one, to sing Chinese kareoke. Wow. Now that was an experience in and of itself. Again, Allison, Hannah and Anna Beth sang just about every other song, Mike wowed everyone with his version of "Eat It", and just before I was called for my first song, the Stratosphere contingent entered. Oh thank heaven. Because then they could hear me slaughter "Papa Don't Preach". If it weren't for Anna Beth saving my ample ass, I would have been totally lost.

I sang two more songs, "The Rose" and "If I Could Turn Back Time", not very successfully, and Pamie crooned "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with KJ Joel (the ladies were fighting over him, and I think Hannah is gonna have a slap down with Pamie). Still couldn't get Fred up there to sing, though I was getting all "Afterschool Special" on his ass (you know you want to, all the cool kids are doing, c'mon, it'll feel real good, do it for the Powderpuff Girls, man).

(By the way, I think I'm in love with Fred. Yeah, I know, he's like eleven years younger and he lives in Michigan and has the same name as my last boyfriend, but he was sweet enough to say that my singing sounded good. Fred, baby, I know you had Hannah and Anna Beth's hearts, but we shoulda found an Elvis impersonator to marry us. I'm just sayin'.)

I ended up drinking only one gin and tonic, then around 3am-ish we walked to the Stratosphere to catch cabs and said our final goodbyes, since some people would be leaving very early.

Sunday was pretty uneventful. Alopekis and I were thinking about meeting up with Tindo, A.J., Carlywei (who happens to be an L.A. girl, too) and Christie, but it never happened, so we got some brunch (where my evil, evil period forced me to eat french toast), got some gas on the outskirts of town, and went on our merry way. Due to traffic it took us longer to get home, and we were both tired, so we didn't chat quite as much as we did on the way to Vegas (we're both usually non-talkers and ended up talking way more than normal during the weekend), but we rolled into Claremont around 6pm. She dropped me off at the Greyhound station, I amused myself by eating something, getting a magazine (now I remember why I rarely read Cosmo these days) and caught an early bus to L.A., since the station was going to be closed an hour and a half before my bus arrived and I didn't want to wait out in the cold. Bad idea. I still had to wait nearly three hours for my next bus, and the L.A. station is scary. I'm not doing that again.

Mom and Dad were waiting for me at the North Hollywood station when the bus rolled in at nearly midnight, and they took me to home, sweet home, where I promptly picked up and hugged and purred to my kitties and profusely thanked my folks for picking me up. Within a couple of hours I was fast asleep, and very thankful that I had taken Monday off, too.

A fun weekend, all told, and there are already talks about doing this again next year. If we can convince everyone that Los Angeles is the place to have it (after all, it is where Princess Pamie lives), we Angelenos can show everyone where to get cheap drinks and good kareoke. Doesn't seem like we need much else.