You wanna bet?
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
I've just returned from Las Vegas and I feel like I've been doing inter-galactic space travel. To be in Ramona one minute and Las Vegas the next is mind boggling!
It isn't like I haven't been to Las Vegas before — I have! However, it was 25-30 years ago and the place and I both have changed! It was morning when we drove out of Ramona and early afternoon when we flew into Vegas. Ramona with not a single car on the road. Vegas in non-stop traffic jams. I was so glad we opted out of the rental car world and went straight to a taxi.
We didn't go to Vegas to gamble — or at least I didn't. Tooltime Tim, my partner in crime on this expedition did say afterward his favorite thing there was the fun of gambling away money with that quicksilver anticipation of obtaining real quick silver.
My reason for going and my great delight was to see my daughter. Jana was a contestant in Duel in the Desert — an international fencing competition held annually in Las Vegas. This was my first time to see my daughter-the-fencer (let me brag a little) who was ranked #16 in the top women fencers, actually compete. I'd seen her teach, watched her practice, but never fence. It was great and I was this soccer-mom with the video camera.
Jana wasn't betting on anything in Las Vegas. She is relatively new in the world of fencing competitions and was sporting a new ranking level — just barely — which meant she would be competing with women who were A and B level fencers. Level A fencers are Olympic Team try-outs — if that gives you a handle on the competition.
In between our duels in the desert we saw the sights Las Vegas is famous for — non-stop gaming tables, bright lights, show girls, comedians, and cards. We played cards in our room during an afternoon lull — Hearts, Hand and Foot, even Kings Corner. We laughed a lot and didn't even wager on the outcome.
We got all gussied up (in Vegas they probably call it "dressing to the nines"), called a taxi and ventured downtown to the MGM Grand (which is definitely GRAND) to see Kai — a Cirque de Solei performance, which if you haven't seen one you should and I definitely cannot begin to explain!
While TTTs new experience was looking all spiffy — wearing a suit, mine was eating Ethiopian food. Both were great for me — he could have done without either. "Although I do notice people approach you differently when you're all dressed up," Tim said with a sly grin.
The whole weekend was a gamble! Win some, lose some. We hedged our bets at the quarter slots. Jana did well in her elimination trials and edged up the charts a few notches. She took comfort in the fact that the gal who beat her — but barely — and knocked her out of the competition was the fencer who dueled it out for the number one spot in the finals — and lost to an Olympic contender.
The biggest gamble I ever took was to buy land in Ramona and eventually leave my California license plates behind. I gambled away my job, my home, a big piece of my past life, and took a chance; but where the heart is concerned I'll always take chances! And still we hedged our bets. Would this gamble change us, cost too much? Would the rest of the world pass us by and leave us behind, completely out of touch? Would we be happy in such a small puddle? Would I end up a country bumpkin and a boring one to boot? Yes, this was a gamble and here I thought I wasn't really a gambler. For sure the odds were not in our favor — but we knew where to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. We won — you can bet on it!
We all came away winners after our Las Vegas excursion this weekend with a little less cash but happy hearts as we headed back to Kansas with our souvenir cards, tourist T-shirts, and ticket stubs. It was actually quite nice to head for home with my high-roller hopes of spending (extravagantly) just another day in the country.
