04.10.2001
feeling kinda
well, silly tho it may seem, given my current state of disrepair, i went out to the poker game tonight. while it may not have been the best thing for the body, it was certainly good for the soul. and i could use some of that. it's been far too long since i've seen the gang.
stu and i walked back after work and raided his garden for things to contribute to dinner. he's gotten quite a bit out of this little garden plot. we came up with a whole bag of tomatoes and three carrots. okay, so the carrots looked kind of silly. but hey, there were only going to be four of us for dinner. i scrounged up some salad dressing, in the hopes that we could have harvested some greens. didn't happen, as they've mostly gone to seed by now. but it worked out well.
wayne had steaks for us, and jason brought slaw, which was quite tasty and i suspect was homemade. we ended up slicing the tomatoes in half and dribbling them with sesame shitaake dressing. i think one of them may have used the ranch dressing on the carrot sticks, but i'm not sure.
it was lovely hanging out on the deck with a drink (echinacea tea for me, beer for them), grilling and relaxing. what i don't get is how there are still midges biting away. aren't we past no see 'um season by now? guess not, as i got a bunch of bites on my ankles. it was still lovely. nice weather, good company, gazing up at the trees, sniffing all the good aromas coming from the grill - yeah.
we did move inside for dinner. very casual affair; i'm not sure if the man has any napkins of a proper sort. i think i ended up with a face cloth. :) the steaks were tasty tasty. he got them at some fancy schmancy provision sort of place. well worth it. geez... and i only brought some salad dressing. i swear, i'm going to have to be a bit more organized next time and bring some dessert, or a proper side dish. like maybe red beans and rice.
i had to laugh... i was done, mostly, with my dinner and had turned to say something to wayne when all of a sudden stu is eating off my plate. i turned back to him and said 'why yes, i *am* done! feel free to help yourself!' *giggle* can you tell we've been friends for a while? just eats right off my plate.
cleaned up after dinner in a half assed sort of way, and meandered out to the shack for some poker and port. it was a nice turnout; we ended up with two full tables. warm enough that we didn't need the wood stove, cool enough that it was quite comfortable. people kept showing up in ones and threes, beer arrived, port was drunk, and poker was played.
now. i had my stuff all arranged on the table. beer on the right, plate of cheese and bread in front of me, chips to the left, cards in my hand. imagine my surprise when i saw jason ante from my pile of chips! hee hee... first my dinner, then my chips... let me tell you, i hung on to my beer quite closely after that, because you know these things happen in threes.
i was pretty proud of how i played my hands, despite the fact i kept getting dealt cribbage hands. yeah, i could have watched the other hands more carefully. and yeah, i could have called one or two of the wild card hands a bit better. i was offered a do over on one of them, but stuck with the original call, because it didn't seem like fair play to switch after someone else pointed out my mistake. but i still held in there pretty well. bought extra chips at one point, then came back rather nicely on one or two hands and split the pot on another.
i'm still laughing about one of the last hands, tho. can't even remember what the game was, but i ended up with 5 of a kind. 5 of a kind trumps pretty much damn near everything, so i didn't even look at what else was put down when we called. i eyed the very generous pot in the middle of the table, and said 'well, i'm pretty sure all of that is mine.' huh. yeah. unless someone else had 5 of a kind, too. i had 5 eights. they had 5 nines. sadly, the pot was not mine. and didn't i feel like a dorkus malarkus? hey, i guess three glasses of 1985 vintage port will do that to you. :)
and there was Belgian bittersweet chocolate to go with those '85s. ohhhh.... um, if you ever have the chance to mingle a good vintage port with some kick ass chocolate? do it. i'm just saying. nummy.
and earl is back in touch! we have a dinner planned for this weekend. :) i was so scattered when he called me at work that i couldn't really talk to him properly; 15 windows open, people asking questions, me trying to wrap up the day, and oh yeah, cold meds. so i'm glad that we're hooking up this weekend so we can catch up properly.
