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The Monday Morning Epistle |
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12 Nov 2007 |
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Oh goody: more sick children! Just about the time that Alex rejoined the human race and returned to school, Garion woke up from his nap with a fever and a soggy cough. Mary & I split days off to be at home with Monkey-Boy, then both worked a full day on Saturday to make up the hours. On the bright side, our dog no longer needs to wear her satellite dish, and nobody has thrown up on anybody else…yet. Thursday night was ‘Hell Night’ at Spaghetti's again, and it was my turn to spend the evening restocking the pasta bar or working in the dish pit. Continuing my tradition of “Will work for beer…” I asked the bartender for a Black & Tan, which he drew with admirable skill; the two-toned drink also delighted several waiters, all of whom wanted to try and pour one as well. For the rest of my shift, my beer glass typically disappeared as soon as the last swallow was gone, and was returned a few minutes later with yet another first-timer's attempt at a Black & Tan. Not all of them were successful—it's a difficult drink to build, particularly when pulling Guinness from the tap—but I dutifully drank them anyway. Let's just say that by the end of the night, it was a good thing that Alex was driving us both home! A few weeks ago, we asked Jacob how he wanted to celebrate his 14th birthday (which happens to be this Wednesday) and he asked for a ‘family poker night’. A colleague of mine is also one of the top players in a local casino poker league—where the table stakes are measured in thousands of dollars—so I asked if he would teach us poker etiquette and some simple strategies. Will accepted the invitation without hesitation, and Saturday night found Jacob and the adults at the game table upstairs, while Alex was in the basement watching Garion show off in front of Will's three daughters: Afton (7), Ava (4), & Aubrey (1½). I think it surprised Will that he had to pay cash for his chips, but he cheerfully bought $5 worth without comment; Mary has insisted that we always ‘pay to play’ because we want the Gleeful Threeful to understand that playing cards for real money is never to be taken lightly. Even so, from Will's point of view we were all hopeless beginners, but I had prepared little cheat sheets listing the different hands in order, so we managed to avoid any truly embarrassing questions. After an hour or two, everyone had the basics of Texas Hold'em down and vaguely understood terms like ‘pre-flop’, ‘river card’, and ‘kicker problems’; we had also learned how to stack chips properly and when to handle (or not handle) our cards. While I was more adept than Mary or Jacob at computing odds, Will also discretely commented that I “…wear my hand on my sleeve” which tends to offset any advantage better math gives me. It also didn't escape our notice that Will consistently ended up with most of the chips, so while we are planning another family poker night later this week, we will probably not be inviting the semi-professional poker player to join us… KidBit: Both Jacob and Garion had Religious Education class yesterday, and it was rather comical watching the two diametrically opposed attitudes: Monkey-Boy was eager to go and was clamoring impatiently to get in the car, while Grumpy deliberately dragged his feet and made excuses! 
PotW: Our favorite superhero reveals his secret identity.
2007.11.18-16:27 |