Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
Day 2
First of all, we went to Fidelia’s for breakfast, which essentially serves a mix of Americana foods. Is it my fault that I had the berries with honey and the quesadilla? No. Is it my fault that my stomach started to hurt because I also had some of Margherita’s breakfast, and a shake... with the ginseng shot? No. But it was so good, it was a good stomach hurt, I explained.
This led to the excuse of walking around the mall to burn off the meal. Basically, from the center of the aforementioned waterfall is a "wing" going in each direction. On the end of each wing is a casino. It doesn’t have the typical clothing shops, but the odd and different shops that one can’t always find. Smelly candle places, and stores that sell knick knacks that don’t serve a purpose, but they claim do. They have a Brookstone with toys to play with that distracted us for a while. Clearly I had to do a lot of walking to burn off the multi-layered breakfast.
The next activity was more confusing, because Margherita had booked a massage: The Strawberry Moon Bath and Couples Massage. Already when they’re combining produce and lunar effects it gets me nervous. First, they put us in a bathtub with flower petals and stuff. Margherita explained that this is supposed to be romantic.
"Honey, what are we supposed to do now?" Margherita asked after feeling bored in 10 minutes.
"We’re taking a bath in a bubbly tub with rose-petals." I said with a sad grunt. "It’s romantic."
To some it’s romantic; to others sharing a bath is merely an effective means of bathing. My wife had fun throwing rose petals around; while I explained that an even more effective means would have been a shower. It’s faster and easier.
Then it was time for the "Couples Massage." A petite woman walked up to me and explained that she would be my massage therapist and led me to her official massage table. To my left was Margherita’s table. Towering above Margherita was the 300-pound man who was to massage her. She stepped a foot back in fear to which he responded, "I’m a teddy bear, don’t worry."
"Fear not honey, he’s just a very, very big," I said with the words emphasized, "teddy bear."
So here we lay with a different therapist pushing and prodding each of our bodies. It was one of the only moments that I was okay with my spouse being touched by a member of the opposite gender.
Okay, we’re already midway through the day, and I need to remind you of the best part. I’ve not mentioned our car. We visited and did all of these romantic date things and never left the building. It made the wife happy, plus I was extra-bathed today.
In the afternoon there was a farmer’s market on the roof of the garage. We picked up some plants and such. The food was a bargain out there. A dollar for a hot dog, you can’t go wrong. Every Wednesday they start the festivities with the farmers market and end up with the fireworks later. After seeing the crowd building up on the garage roof we decided to see the fireworks from our room.
For dinner, we went to the fancy, fancy, fancy restaurant Rain. I say fancy three times and I mean it. To go with the "rain" theme there’s water falling down the walls, and Margherita felt it was the prettiest restaurant she’s ever been in. She noticed details like the table top being of tortoise shell. I noticed that the steak was all sorts of decorated with vegetables. She liked the fact that the water glass was never empty, and I was happy that I got a clean glass. Our yin and yang was always at a balance.
After dinner it was off down the hall to the cabaret. In the Cabaret, Nancy Wilson was putting on a show for a three-day stint. Right after the show, Margherita learned that she now loves the song, "God Didn’t Make Little Green Apples." She plays it in the car, ad nauseum.
I should remind you of the point I brought up two paragraphs back. We still never left the building. Farmers Market, to food, to mall, to show... all in one building.
Chihuly's Towering Masterpiece
Anyway, we ran up to the room to see the fireworks from our window. At first we were nervous as it wasn’t the official place to see the fireworks; however, we were on the 30th floor, and were hoping we’d have a good view. Fortunately for us, like most objects in this world, fireworks are affected by gravity. As such, they can only accelerate up to a certain height before they explode and head back down. In this case the apex of this vertical climb was roughly 30 stories. So now picture it: We’ve seen a jazz show, eaten a gourmet meal, had relaxing massages, (after bathing in rose petals) and now we were relaxing in our chairs looking out our window at fireworks perfectly aligned outside.
