The Usual Suspects

There were a few missing (and missed) faces in yesterday's lineup; Pete lives in SoCal and Larry just moved and was getting settled into a new place.  Deb, Craig, Dave, Pinto (Dave's housemate), and Clay came up and immediately the cards came out.  Note:  my stacks of red and blue chips are bigger than Clay's whites, but I'm not bragging.  It's not hard to tell from body language in this photo who were losing at the moment.  At any other time, I was laughing too hard to take pictures.  This Wild Bunch are quick-witted teasers and no one, not even the exalted Mother, is exempt from the jibes.  Anyone out of the game for a minute was assigned a kitchen task, so dinner prep was easy on everyone.

Dave is the appointed carver in the family, a job he relishes because it gives him first dibs on tasting.  The ham that Deb and Craig brought this year was particularly good.  Pinto is learning that every holiday here calls for a traditional menu that never varies from year to year.  Yesterday I did add an appetizer of dates stuffed with (homemade) goat cheese, wrapped with bacon and broiled, but all other dishes were, in Tevye's word, Tradition!

After the meal, the table was quickly cleared so the poker game could continue.  We watched a pretty impressive thunder storm over the mountains as we played, but the threatened rain was a wimpy squall of a few minutes when it passed over.  It did rain during the night, just enough to give another spurt to the weed growth.  I see more days of mowing in my future.

Probably from time immemorial, gamblers have cried, "Baby needs new shoes!" as they place a bet.  Well, I got new shoes.  As I told Deb, I could get used to having a personal shopper.  She and Craig were able to find the pair that I'd been looking for.  Now that's painless shopping!  It just added to the pleasure of an already great day.  The house seems so very quiet after the last Kid leaves.