scene: capital grille, las vegas. thad, parker, myself, and ken are waiting in the bar (parker with a white wine, thad with water, and ken and myself with the 'stoli-doli' house martini) for asian, who is supposed to meet us for dinner shortly. we're seated at the bar, with parker closest to the entrance, then thad, then ken, then myself.

a girl walks in, maybe a little older than us. i don't pay much attention, as ken and i are taking in the smoothness of the martini. the bartender recognizes her immediately - "ah ms. kennedy! the usual?" that was kind of weird, but then she started talking to me on her own, which was really weird.

we exchange idle chit-chat as asian joins us and starts mocking the martini drinkers. i can't really hear their conversation, and i'm hoping we get seated soon because i am STARVING. now rather than attempt to recreate this conversation i had with this girl (who started talking to me and walked into this place alone, remember) let me just hit the highlights.

me: are you meeting people here?
her: no, i'm just kind of hanging out.

me: my name is niv, this is ken
her: my name is marie. it's an old woman's name
me: eh, i don't know any maries
ken: my mom's marie

me: (after establishing that she lived in vegas) what do you do here?
her: i entertain people

at some point before this exchange, parker had already bet asian/thad that she was an escort. well done, parker. also, i have a feeling we didn't get our table right away so marie could take a stab at getting me to buy her a drink (which of course i didn't). actually, that was a pretty funny exchange:

her: what are you drinking?
me: the house martini
bartender: stoli doli!
her: it looks interesting... i've never had one of those before
me: (pretty much done with this person and ready for a steak) well, you should try one sometime

she gave me her card, which i gave to asian later in the night. the card identified her as a 'consultant'. parker said a lot of places in vegas have informal arrangements with 'consultants' so i guess it wasn't that random of an encounter.

capital grille was amazing, as usual. our waiter was from somerville, which was spectacular (and led to us getting a free coconut cream pie), and the ribeye was to die for. lobster mac and cheese and the richest mashed potatoes ever made were the sides that caught my attention, too. man, i love capital grille. now i'm hungry. great.

vegas again in 5 weeks!