Jumping on the Bed at Hilton Southern Hills

I really should be doing dishes or laundry or taking yet more quizzes on Facebook to find out what kind of animal I'll be in my next life, but I'd much rather reminisce with you all about what I got to do on New Years Eve.

Everyone knows that I make a list, sometimes rather long, of the most exciting Tulsa places to see and be seen on the weekends, right? Well, to do that, I spend a number of hours (let's not talk about how many - when I put a number to it, I'll have to have three brownies and an extra teaspoon-full of sugar in my afternoon coffee) scouring the Web and making phone calls to ensure that I can bring you a quality, completely and totally non-lame list of things to do each week.

When I can, I like to lighten my workload by signing up for e-mail blasts, especially when an event center offers them. That way all the weekend's events are loaded into my inbox and are ready to go on Tuesday, the day I usually start to put the rundown together. It's not too much extra effort to navigate to a site and do a little scrolling and switching between screens, but still. I'm lazy, and so are you. Let's be still in that truth.

So, when I saw that Mabee Center, on the Oral Roberts University campus at 81st and Lewis, offers e-mail blasts, of course I signed up. Unwittingly, I also signed up to win what Mabee Center called The Ultimate New Years Eve.

In the package was two tickets to see B.B. King in concert on New Years Eve at Mabee Center; one night's stay at the newly renovated Hilton Southern Hills, right across the street from Mabee Center; dinner and two midnight glasses of champagne at Legends Grill, the restaurant at Hilton Southern Hills; breakfast at the same; a humongoid flower arrangement from The French Bouquet; some primping in the form of a shampoo and blow-dry at Arcs Salon; and our faces thrown as tall as our house on a screen next to the stage at Mabee Center before the B.B. King concert.

So, I won the giveaway. As you can see.

The moral of this story is, even though TashaDoesTulsa.com is your source for your weekend itinerary, it's worth your time to visit the sites where the events are originally posted every once in awhile. Lots of them host contests and giveaways, just as Mabee Center does from time to time, and it's easy to enter. Most of the time, all you need to submit is your name and your e-mail address. Plus, as you're doing your Web-trotting, you're bound to learn about something new to do around town.

So. The concert? Fabulous. Dinner? Mouth-watering. Breakfast was just the way I like it: Huge and chock full of calories from fat.

But, more about all of that later. Right now, I want to talk about the hotel.

As is my tradition anytime we stay in a hotel, I jumped like a maniac on the bed in our room at the Hilton Southern Hills. I could jump as high and as long as I did only after noticing that we'd been given a VIP suite, complete with a king-sized bed, two rooms, two TVs and two bathrooms.

See? Told you.

Here was our view out of our giant windows:

Perfect for getting riled up about the concert across the street, let me tell you.

Before we caught the hotel shuttle bound for B.B., I poured myself a little drink at the bar:

And admired our flowers from The French Bouquet:

And spent a good 15 minutes honing my bathroom mirror photography skills. Except, I wasn't in the bathroom (did I mention we had two? A bathroom for each person - swank! And, I might add, effective in the stench detection prevention department). Still, it works.

That's my I-know-what-you're-hiding-under-there face.

That's my you-mean-there's-chocolate-nearby??!!! face.

That's my I-really-must-rethink-my-underwear-choice face.

If I ever interview you for a story, you'll know I'm listening and making notes when you see this face.

My that's-the-worst-idea-I've-ever-heard face.

My that's-the-BEST-idea-I've-ever-heard face.

Thus gussied, it was time to head downstairs to catch the shuttle.

Well, almost. I had to stop at the bar downstairs for one of these.

Check out the bar:

I would have been happy all evening long sitting with my husband on a couple of those barstools over there, but we had a totally rad, insanely awesome concert to get to.

We went straight to dinner after the concert, toasted midnight and promptly crashed. I blame the Morning Show kids at KRMG - they were nice enough to let me stop by at 6 o'clock that morning to talk about what to do in Tulsa on the last night of the decade. Anyway, we didn't wake up Friday morning until 10:30, which was just enough time to get downstairs for breakfast and check out, so we didn't get to enjoy our room as much as we'd wished. We didn't even have time to play with the cable television or jump on the couches or turn all the lights on and off to the tune of She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain.

Next time, Hilton Southern Hills. Next time.

Next I'll tell you all about the B.B. King concert. Not next as in right now, though. You'll just have to wait until tomorrow to hear about all of the awesomeness to which we were subjected. I'll tell you this, though: We had B.B. riffs stuck in our heads for days. We can't help but to put on some B.B. King tracks at night when it's time to fix dinner. Heck, we're practically radioactive after such an atomic explosion of bluesy goodness.

But, more about that later.