Things Could Be Worse

I'm better today. I have my "I'm overwhelmed" days, and yesterday was one of them.

:-) I'm feeling much better!

I bought (as a present to myself) the Corner Gas DVD collection, and it just showed up today. Oh, joy! :-) Next on my To Buy list is seasons 1 - 4 of Trailer Park Boys, though Meg'll probably steal it. She's not a big Corner Gas fan (how?!?), but I've feeling my TPB DVDs are as good as gone. I'll have to hide them.

A lot of my frustration comes from the fact that Meg's going off to another tournament as soon as her summer term's over, which coincides with my trip. I want to go with her, and she wants me to go. I'll be two states away, but still she wants me to drop by.

Needless to say, visiting a poker tournament is not something that I can write off as a business expense. Plus I'll not have *that* much free time. But she wants me to show up anyway. So I'm trying to make that work. So that's something that's added into the mix.

Romeo's doing wonderfully, though he's being a grumpy and contrary measle when it comes time to take his antibiotics. So I picked up some lobster for him. Yes, I'm resorting to bribery; I can't grab the scruff of his neck and *make* him take it, since that's where he's had his surgery. But I managed to get the tomalley-laden lobster he loves, so that should make him happy. Pain in the ass. But I love him. :-) Even though he's raised being grumpy and contrary to an art form.

As it stands now, I could visit with Meg for about a day and a half (read: I watch her play, maybe play in a cheap satellite or two, and try to convince drunk guys that I'm actually married and not interested), and then go on my merry way. I think this is what I will do, because I like playing, I like seeing Meg do well even more, and drunk guys aside, I actually do like hanging out and meeting some of these people. Earlier this year, I had a blast and drank very little whilst hearing all of the good war stories. Yes, I sat and talked to old guys (as Meg would say). It was great. From all I'd learnt from them, I saved her somewhere along the lines of $80 a night in room expenses, and got her all kinds of free crap. Plus I got her into a private game. Call me the Ambassador of Venial Sins; Ancodia, Your Cruise Director sounds too damn perky.

And I was going through my not-blogging months, so I didn't get to explain in elaborate detail how I started hanging out with The Guys. I was trying to get away from Carl Spackler.

Well, he might as well have been.

And since Meg was mostly busy, I sought salvation in older guys. Really old guys are great. All they want to do is talk, I'm a great listener, and they chase off drunken lechers. Yay, that. So it all worked out, and I actually did learn an incredible amount. Plus they appreciated my helping them--saving seats, holding stuff and whatnot, when I wasn't playing. I didn't play a whole lot, because I'm just not good enough; it's a waste of entry money. So I spent a lot of my time talking to them, playing craps, and trying to dodge Carl Spackler like a gopher. :-D Oh--and trying to trade a recipe for poutine for a recipe for awesome bread pudding after tossing back a few too many sangrias, but that's a whole 'nother story. Let it suffice to say that Binion's didn't see the need for a high calibre poutine recipe, and I *still* think that bread pudding had amaretto as one of its ingredients, a theory that I've not been able to test, but shall eventually. I'm not big into things like bread pudding, but this was freaking *wonderful*.

And I'll print the god damned recipe here when (if) I get it right. Neener.

So speaking of eating, I'll be eating some of the expense of this trip, which I didn't want to do. But I think I'll benefit from the break, even if it's only for a day or so. And I'm still iffy about maybe leaving a day or so earlier, so that I could have a little more time before I have to get to actual work. So this might be ok. But I will miss Romeo, Weebie, and Squoosh. And that will suck. And I'm fighting the urge to go buy a smaller laptop; mine is a widescreen, but a pain in the butt to travel with like this. Sigh. I need to save my money to bail Squooshable out of storage. I don't *want* to put him in storage, damnit. But I'm afraid that if I don't, he might get his clock cleaned by one of the measles and get really hurt. And that would break my heart.

And I have got to get to sleep...sigh.