We celebrate The Husband, my mother and daughter #2's birthdays, all in August. And these celebrations come right on the heels of the three birthdays our family celebrates in the month of July. Summer is always a busy time, but throw in six big birthday celebrations and it becomes more like a Birthday Blitz. Here's part one of the tale of The Husband's birthday celebration...
This year The Husband decided he wanted to go stay at The Borgata in Atlantic City for his birthday. I can't tell you the last time he and I went away alone, sans kids. It might have been two years or three. Neither one of us could even remember, which means, we really needed to go.
Atlantic City is not my first choice of a romantic get away spot, but it wasn't up to me. We started out by checking into our room, and then going to stow our luggage in it. The room was nice, with a pretty view. It seemed so foreign to see a room with only one bed in it, since we are used to no less than two and extra cots and cramming in as many kids and people as you possibly can. I was also kind of surprised to see a sign in the bathroom that said if you so much as touched the samples of soap, shampoo or toothpaste, you had to pay extra for it. I always bring my own, so it wasn't an issue, but I thought that was kind of stank. Maybe this is a common practice, but I've never run across it before. Charging extra for the soap was nothing, compared to what I encountered at the vending machine.
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This was the view from our room. |
I was thirsty and wanted a water, so instead of going all the way down to the lobby to one of the restaurants, I decided to purchase a water bottle from the vending machine. The machine had the label of water, but black covering the window of what that water bottle looked like. I should have taken that as a bad sign. But I went ahead and forked out a whopping $2.25 in quarters and waited. What dropped out, was half of a half of a water bottle. I couldn't believe it! The older man behind me, waiting to use the same machine, (in typical Jersey style) started cussing and shouting real loud, outraged on my behalf. He yelled, "You gotta be f-ing kidding me! That's what you get doll? For $2.25! Forgettaboutit! I'll walk down 28 flights before I pay that. What a f-in rip off!" Then he huffed and cussed his way down the hallway and all the way back to his room. Oh well, lesson learned. From now on, I won't be buying any more water bottles from the vending machines. By this time, The Husband was really itching to go, so I gulped down my one sip of water and we were on our way.
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My favorite penny machine. |
The Borgata, is set up in a circular pattern, which is a good thing for someone like me. I tend to get lost and distracted by all of the bells and whistles and people watching and I always wind up forgetting where I am. But at least I know when I'm here, eventually I will wind up back where I started. I'm not a big gambler. That comes from being poor. Every time I put money down on the table or in the machine, I realize I'm never seeing it again. And that's hard for me to swallow. Yes, I know there is a possibility I may get more back, and maybe even win big but that possibility, rarely becomes a reality. That's why I like to spend most of my gambling time, in front of the penny machines. It doesn't hurt as bad, when I loose pennies. (At least that's how I justify this to myself) Besides, I can sit at those for quite a while before I loose everything. My favorite machine to play, are the penny slot Wizard of Oz. They are fabulous! Those machines are loud and glittery, and they sing and dance and make all kinds of noises. I lurrrve it! As I'm sure you may have guessed already, The Husband, not so much. He was torn. He doesn't like leaving me alone in AC. (He says when he walks away from me in a place like AC it almost feels like he's leaving one of the kids behind, LOL). I told him to go and gamble at the testosterone filled tables, where he would enjoy himself much more and I would meet up with him in time for dinner. Besides, (as per usual) I had already bonded with the gays playing the Wizard of Oz machines, to my right and my left. I would be fine. :)
There are many fantastic restaurants in Atlantic City to choose from. We narrowed our choices down by agreeing that neither one of us wanted to leave The Borgata. I thought an earlier seating would be best because we had tickets to a comedy show that started at 9:00 and we didn't want to be worried about rushing back for that. Since it was The Husband's birthday, I left the choice up to him. And, surprise, surprise, he choose a steak house. Of course, he felt like eating a steak. When doesn't he?
There are a couple of places to get a good steak in The Borgata. There are the chains and big names, like Bobby Flay and Wolfgang Puck but then there's also The Old Homestead Steakhouse. Which is a restaurant that a couple of brothers from the meat packing district in NYC started way back in the day, and that's where The Husband wanted to go. They seated us on the beautiful second story balcony, overlooking the restaurant and I was quite pleased. I love being up high and being able to see everything like that. The Husband started by ordering his favorite appetizer, fried calamari. It came with a pad Thai dipping sauce that was out of this world. I honestly wanted to lick the bottom of the dish. IT was fantastic. I started by ordering a Rose Sangria. It was, hands down, the best sangria I have ever tasted. And I've tasted a lot...
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Me and my Rose Sangria. Yum. Although I'm certain it looks like I've had more, I only had room in my tummy for one. |
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Caution: Objects in this picture are actually even larger than they appear. |
The only thing I wish I did differently, was I wish I asked more questions about the menu, because if I did, I NEVER would have ordered what I ordered. Unless I knew five other people were also going to eat my entrée, with me. For some reason, once The Husband said he felt like steak, I felt like it too. I almost always order the sea bass when we go out. But I decided to change it up and ordered the prime rib. When they brought it out to me, it was a Fred Flinstone-sized side of beef that was so obscenely large I just stared laughing. I thought I was being punked. This had to be some kind of joke, right? The cute, classy little blonde at the table next to me, looked over and said, "Holy crap, you ordered that?" Yep. Yes, I did. And now I was going to act like I knew this place was going to put forth an entire side of a cow on my dish. From the taste of what I managed to gnaw off the sides, the prime rib was delicious. I decided to try and make a respectable dent in it. But after a few minutes, I got the meat sweats so bad I felt like I was going to die. We couldn't order dessert or coffee or anything else, because I was full to the rim with meat. I needed to go walk off the meat sweats, STAT.
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That's some serious meat. Note: See the cute little blonde I told you about at the table next to me?
She was smart enough to have a salad and order only one entrée, which she shared with her husband. |
The Borgata is connected by some high end shops to The Water Club, so we took a stroll down the corridors and cruised around through all the stores. But I didn't stop to shop; I couldn't. I felt like a shark that had to keep swimming or else it might die. I thought briefly about taking the stairs, instead of the elevator up to our room on the 28th floor...but that thought was fleeting. So I kept walking and The Husband stopped every once in a while to gamble here or there. Before you knew it, it was almost 9:00 and in was time for our comedy show to begin.
Most of the time I am really skeptical about going to see comedians. For those of you who read this blog regularly, I like to think I have a pretty good sense of humor and can take a joke. I also don't take myself very seriously. But I have had bad experiences in the past with going to comedy shows. Once, (a very long, long time ago) I saw George Carlin and he was so disgusting and just flat out rude to the people in the audience, I walked out. I didn't find him funny at all and I was shocked by his later success. I'm sorry to speak ill of the dead, but I thought he was a complete tool. Anyhoo, this night wasn't about me, it was all about The Husband. But I'm not beat. So I went to the bathroom WAY before the show opened, so not to become a target, and I made sure (although we were early and totally could) NOT to sit in the first few rows. Then I waited... The comedy show surprised me. The first comic was from Texas, and did a whole thing about that. He didn't mess with the audience at all and I thought that was a good sign. He was OK, I laughed a little at a few of his jokes, but overall that's what the opener is. Just the opener. Then came a guy I think I had seen before on Comedy Central- and he was hilarious. I laughed at all of his jokes. But then the headliner came out, and I waited for the torture to begin. He didn't torture the audience, but he definitely messed with a few women in the front row. I overheard the lady next to me whisper to her husband, "I'm glad we didn't sit in the front." Overall, the show was much better than I expected and I was glad we went. On another happy note, I had finally overcome the meat sweats and I was ready for dessert.
Another giant bonus for me, besides the circular layout to the Borgata is that they have a Ben & Jerry's in their basement! And that's where The Husband wanted to go...um. No. Honestly, nope. That's not at all where he wanted to go for dessert but he knows how much this Bird loves her some ice cream. So we went. By that time it was really late and we were super tired. We decided to call it a night and went back up to our room. And that's where I'm going to cut this off. Cause I'd like to keep this a PG blog :) Stay tuned for Part Deux of The Husband's birthday weekend extravaganza to find out what we did on his actually birthday.
Happy Friday Everyone- Hope you all have a great weekend!!