The Past 72 hours

What to say what to say?

Stevens in the other room sleeping, while I feel like Ive been sleepwalking for the past 4 days.

Well lets go in order, shall we?

Steven proposed.

Which, in itself was enough of a shock. We'd talked about it a fair amount, but I didn't think it was coming for at least a year. At to it the fact that he had created an elaborate ruse in which I went into my voice over agency for a fake audition, only to be pulled out of the booth by an incredibly serious Steven, to find my parents, his mom, and the whole office standing there. I honestly thought someone had died. It was lovely, but the shock of it all left me in a haze for about 24 hours. Steven loves to plan, and catch you by complete surprise, but sometimes the surprise it a surprise enough!

He'd apparently been planning for months, visiting my parents, exchanging emails with the office...

We'd booked this Vegas trip (where I am now), back in January, and I guess he had decided then. 

I love my ring! I had specifically said "art deco", dragged him to the vintage expo to show him examples, and he got the style perfectly. I like the squareness of it, he likes the hearts on the sides, everybody wins.

 We had already decided we were going to go to Vegas a day early, and had booked a room at neighboring Vdara, with our "real" hotel being at the Cosmopolitan, which we'll check into in a few hours.

In order to go to Vegas a day early, Steven had to not participate in a "cut-a-thon", at his work. There's a raffle, the stylists give free hair cuts and contribute gifts for huge gift baskets, and the proceeds got to autism.

Steven had filled his gift commitment, participated the two years prior, and just wanted to go enjoy life. He wrote both the owners a very nice email the night prior saying his heart won out and he was going to Vegas. They presumed he was getting married, which makes their next actions even more atrocious.

Steven works for two women, who themselves have a unique relationship. I know there are much better examples of this, but the only one I can even remotely think of right now is the Red Queen and her husband, from Disney's Alice in Wonderland. 

If anyone has read Steven Kings "under the dome" (which I'm somewhere around page 800 of), she s big Jim Remmie. One yells, and one cries. One is dominant, and the other submissive. 60 years old, child less, single, and obese, that pretty much completes the mental picture you need.

The meeker of the two first wrote back and said it was wonderful, to go have a blast. 

Hours later on an email thread, she had changed her tune, siding with the Red Queen, with both of them saying he was putting his job in jeopardy, and that his priorities were awry.

Amazing.

A few hours after that he got a call saying he was fired. As it is so much in life, what happened wasn't really what it was about. What the Red Queen didn't know was that we were opening a salon. 

What neither of them knew was we had not left for Vegas yet, but that we had our wonderful friends (and commune members) Lily, Kevin,Greg and Calethia, over at the salon/contrucstion site, helping us brainstorm. I love them all to death. 

They are wonderful, and positive, and helped us come up with quick fixes that can make it look better fast, as  we weren't supposed to open for another TWO MONTHS, and now have to defer Steven's clients there immediately.

Kevin works in construction, and he and lily both built their abslutely INCREDIBLE home in the hills (where I used to live) from the ground up, so we really value their opinion.

Lets take a break for a second, and I'll share some photos Calethia took from yesterday (its Calethias beautiful art we're using for our salon logo):

What's that? Oh you know, just the weight of the world on our shoulders.  I love stevens face .

I have major bitchface here. It's rare and I love it.

Got your unflattering jacket on? Great. Lets roll.

Back to the story.

Once we got home from the salon, they all packed up and took their dogs and ours to the Huntington dog beach, and we packed up and headed first to stevens salon to pick up his things, and then to Vegas. We'd thought about cancelling because we were in a state of total shock and overwhelm, but thats why we needed to come here. 

Our engaement was overshadowed enough for me by the salon, it was already hard for me to feel like I had any time to enjoy being engaged, and now with the pedal indeed to the metal, there really is no time at all.

Its unfortunate that we have to have people in the space without it remotely being completed (all of our salon furniture had been ordered but will take at least 6 weeks), but hopefully people will be understanding and enjoy being part of the process. In six weeks, it will be more where we want it to be, but until that time, we've got to make it work.

We've brought our laptops and are going to have to make this a working vacation, but I'm happy to be here none the less.

I cant wait to check into the Cosmoplitan! For the few hours I've spent here at Vdara, all I can say is that it was built as condos, and it feels like it was built as condos. Its nice, but theres barely a lobby, and the whole things is pretty non descript. I like Aveda products in the bathrooms of our room, but if I'm talking about toilettries, you know its lackluster.

Not sure what tonight has in store, but I know we're having dinner at STK. Cant wait!

I feel like I should be terrified about some of the recent developments, but I feel positively that its all going to work out. Steven is a very calming force, and we never have anxiety about the same things, so if someones melting down, the other one is there to talk them down.

Everything changes.

Onward and upward!