Viva Las Vegas

Las Vegas is such sensory over-load.  I'm still kind of in a daze and exhausted.  It is all so flashy and over the top.  I love to get away with just my DH but I'm glad the conferences aren't all in Vegas; I can only enjoy it in moderation. I don't gamble.  I am most certainly not club'n material.  I am frugal to the point of being cheap but Vegas is still so interesting.  It is sad and happy.  It is America at it's best and worst.  It is crazy but safe (mostly).  There is no judgement, which is refreshing. 

Anyway, there is one thing that I absolutely love about Vegas, and it is the hand-holding.  I'm a hand holder.  My parents are hand-holders.  Even my sister and I held hands (mostly skipping, swinging our arms, and whistling the Smurfs' theme song).  I still remember distinctly when my now DH took my hand for the first time; we were at a $1.50 movie, The Addams Family... in late November 1991.  I also remember the first time he took my hand in public; it was a statement that we were together.  His always warm dry hand felt safe.  It felt like it was us against the world. I had dated other people but nobody's hand ever felt like this.

I'm sure it is super annoying to our friends, but 14 1/2 years into marriage (21 years since our first date) we still hold hands.  Partly because I am genuinely short and I get lost easily in crowds, but mostly just because I like the "us against the world" thing.  Our kids are hand-holders too, both of them initiate it, but especially our daughter.  She will hold hands with her friends or with us (even occasionally with her brother).  The thing is that when I look around Suburbia, there isn't a ton of hand-holding. 

Not the case in Vegas.  EVERYONE holds hands; it is so common-place that a couple not holding hands is actually odd; old married couples (way older than us) and unsure young people, gay and straight, day and night, EVERYONE walks around holding hands.  I look at some of the couples and wonder if they ever hold hands in their own home town, they just don't seem like the type. I'd love to take a survey and ask why they hold hands.  Does it feel safe in the crowds? Is it the romance of Vegas?  Is it because there aren't kids around?  Is it the lack of schedule?  or the lack of judgement that comes with Vegas? Do they like it?  Who initiates it? or is it sub-conscience in Vegas? They seem so happy, what makes them NOT hold hands back in Suburbia?   Or is just that only people who hold hands travel to Vegas?  

That isn't much of a conclusion, but it did post at 7:11 -- our lucky numbers (which weren't so lucky this weekend).