My Year in Running

Well, well, well. Another Thursday rolls around and I haven't posted crap over here since last week. I've got ideas, I tell you. Ideas! Just like the guy in the Royal Bank of Scotland ad who sits there saying "Yes, I'm quite sure our friend needs the Heimlich Remover," while his friend sits there choking. So now you're just getting the core dump. The log entry. The blog entry. Sue me. It's free.

Item One. Last night we checked out the First Grade Circus. It was impressive in that "holy crap, how do they get them all to do the same thing at the same time?" sort of way. The joyless, tuneless chanting had me looking around for secret police. Oont you vill now say ze Clown Poem or you vill visit us in ze pahty hetqvahtahs for eine kleine chet! I made a crack to Jennifer about Hitler Youth, and I think the lady sitting in front of us heard it. She turned around a little and saw me looking all sporty with my four day beard and the six inch strategic rip in my jeans I like to call my vajeana. Then she turned back around. There was no flash photography for medical reasons.

Item Two. Saturday is the big end of year dance recital. I sent Soph to the blocking rehearsal with the wrong color tights, and no fewer than three of the other mothers clued me in that they were SUPPOSED to be TAN. Tan tights? Like a Hooters waitress? I told the last one I'd paint them. (I bought tan ones yesterday.) If you are a camcorder thief, get your guns, saddle up your posse, and head over to Lexington this Saturday. I bet you could score about 100 camcorders in one shot. Leave me one of the cute little digital ones. That's my "cut," bizneeyotch.

Item Three. She Who Must Blah Blah Blah and I are on the South Beach Diet. Yes, yet another lifetime plan for eating. This time it's different. Really. No, really. The good news is that I've lost my sugar addiction. The bad news is I CAN'T STOP YELLING. I hope I'm not taken hostage by terrorists, because I'm guessing they might not be too careful about the glycemic index of the foods they slip under the door to me. From now on I'm wearing a money belt jammed full of skim milk cheese sticks. 24/7.

Item Four. Big tax override vote coming up here in Lexingtonbergville. The town is completely festooned with signs that say "YES" and "NO". It looks very very silly, as if we're having some sort of intratownal struggle between the primordial forces of positivity and negativity. I considered making a sign for our yard saying GLASS HALF FULL, but I'm too lazy.

Item Five. There is no Item Five.

Item Six. My have mounted a campaign to compel me to take them to Shrek 2 this weekend. Lord Jesus, if it is already in your Divine Plan that I suddenly expire sometime in the next year, let's just go ahead and move that up to tomorrow. Super. Thanks.

See you next week (barring any unscheduled inspiration).

It's not a bug, it's a feature

Those of you who know me in the real world probably know that among my idiosyncracies are a couple of quirks involving playing cards. Basically, I'm fascistic about only playing with new cards, and also about protocols for shuffling, cutting, and dealing. It's kind of like OCD, but in a very narrowly defined subject domain. I'm an excellent driver, yeah, excellent driver. I'm not exactly sure how I got this way. It may have something to do with playing with soggy cards while on rained-out family camping trips. The horror. You can imagine my distress last Friday when I arrived at a poker game I've never played in before only to find that the cards were old, one of the old crusty dudes I was playing with had a habit of strip shuffling (as opposed to riffle shuffling, yes, I know the names of different shuffling techniques, I told you I was a little nuts about this), AND he did it with the cards facing UP, AND there was another guy who instead of dealing like a normal human, going around the table as many times as the number of cards each player needed, would just deal all of each player's cards to him in an evil unrandomized blob and then move on to the next player. Mother fuck. Too bad there's no video, because I must have been twitching visibly. Too bad also that it was someone else's game and my first time there, because if it happened in my game, there would be repercussions. With pitchforks and whatnot. I can't be 100% sure, but I'm 99.44% sure that I've scared new people out of my home game with my card mania. But these guys were nice and the game was soft and I got ridiculous cards, so I had to be content with taking all the money. I want to be invited back because the game was fun and lucrative, but I'm going to need to take a muscle relaxant and bring my own cards and my daughters' automatic shuffler next time. Hope the crusty dudes dig the Powerpuff stickers.

My own cards. Usually (meaning always, for the last 20 years or so), "my own cards" would refer to a brand spanking new, which is to say unopened, shrink wrapped pack of Bee "Club Special" Number 92 Regular Index playing cards, manufactured by the United States Playing Card Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. NOT the Jumbo Index, the 77s, mind you. Hebbens. Those numbers are huge. The good thing about 92s is that they are the Cards Supreme. They're the right size (poker as opposed to bridge), they're nice and thick, with a satisfying snap to them, and they don't have any goofy bicyclists on the back. They've got the "cambric finish." I don't even know what that is, but I need it. The bad thing about #92s is that they cost a relative fortune. I don't want to know how much money I've spent on new cards over the years, but at $3 a pop, it's a lot. We're talking close to diaper money. So anyway, I got it into my head recently that it might be wise to buy my cards wholesale in bulk, rather than in onesie-twosies at CVS. Just the idea of A GROSS of virgin shrink wrapped #92s in my very own home is almost more happiness than anyone should have. I might have to sleep with them. But as I was researching this little project, another intriguing yet unsettling thought surfaced: What about plastic cards? A gross of Bees was going to set me back a couple hundred bucks or more, but for $30ish I could buy a set of Kem poker cards (favorites of people who know) that would theoretically last FOREVER. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday it's a no holds barred steel cage deathmatch between my card mania and my cheapness! No bends, no folds, no sogginess, and they're WASHABLE ferchrissake. Maybe I wouldn't even have to wash them by hand. Maybe I could get one of those ultrasonic denture cleaner dealies and just throw them in there overnight, and voila, no more yucky hand oil or skin bits. Or, maybe if I did that, they would dissolve. Nooooooooooooooo.

I ordered a set of Kems. I almost hope they don't make it here.