What is Handel? Hialeah! Hialeah!

I had a good day today. First was our meeting—that lasted hours, and I didn’t get to eat beforehand (plus I ate way-early yesterday), so I actually managed to get queasy in the middle of Fluffer’s yabbering. Not that she ever does that, of course. So I had to dash out to the bafroom, ‘cos I was so sure I was going to throw up. I didn’t, and so I stole over to our overarching program’s Ugrad main office and did stealthily theft and abscond with a huge handful of Starburst they’d put out in a jack-o’-lantern candy dish for the kidlets. Thank goodness that I declared the holiday season to have started by now; without that, I’d have died of starvation. No, rilly.

Okay, okay—so Ancodia steals chirrin’s Halloween candy. Whatevvah. It’s survival of the fittest in the jungle, baby.

Oh, I left some, fer chrissakes.

So I came back to The Meeting Which Hath No End just in time to hear Fluffer pout, not that she ever does that, of course. Emboldened by the fruity goodness, I slapped hands away from my pile of Starburst.

Back the fuck off; go forage for nuts and berries your damn selves. This is *my* pile, I have rabies, and I’ll pee on it if I have to.

Hey, look—I am not being fed on a regular basis, okay? Plus, most of them *had* lunch, and I know that for a fact. The only reason I did not grab something on campus is ‘cos I’m playing it frugal after lending Son-Friend yet another $600 for his October rent. That’s now three months in a row that I have carried over 50% of his rent, and I’m starting to feel the pinch.

Butsoanyway.

So after the meeting, I decide to mooch lunch off Meg. She owes me, anyway. Well, in my mind. Again, whatevvah. I’m a cheap date. So I phone her at work and ask if she wants to meet for lunch. Okay, so I begged and whined. I figured a fast lunch, and then I go type my stuff (haven’t even blogged about that yet), Meg goes and bees a Meg, and everybody’s happy. But Meg says that she’ll only meet me if I go with her on a three-hour junket to (yeah, drum roll) a small-stakes poker tournament. I thought she had to teach tonight, but she says this semester she’s off every Monday.

I swear, no one ever tells me anything.

Okay, so I agree. I’m desperate. Plus, Meg wants to go to this place right by her school that I think is pretty cool. So we go, then I talk her into letting me drop my car off at my house; it may be kind of a double-trip for her, but I wanted to make sure my cats all had food and water and hadn’t killed each other yet.

I’m going to skip the drive, ‘cos it was boring. Except for the fact that I had to go to the bathroom, and Meg wouldn’t let me ‘cos she said I’d wasted all of our extra time. Our? Our? Do you have a mouse in your pocket, Meg?

I’ve already covered the fact that Meg says no a lot. Sigh.

So we get out there, and I went to the bathroom. I’m kind of getting tired of my bathrooming behaviours revolving around Meg’s schedule, but whatever. The place was kind of cool; they had other pari-mutuel stuff, and so I watched that whilst Meg played, ‘cos I was too cheap to enter the tournament. But I did make Meg buy an orange juice for me, ‘cos my leg was aching and I figured I needed potassium. I knew I would be sitting for a while, so I brought stuff to work on, since I did not want to jinx Meg by watching her play all of the time.

So I tried to work on that stuff; I did come up with one explanation as to why one factor was loading the way it did which I can check into later, but the races were too distracting (The WRAAAACES!!). Giggle. So I started picking horses that I would bet on, except that I’m watching my money, plus I don’t bet on horses or dogs—not even wiener dogs—though were I to ever, I’d for sure bet on wiener dogs ‘cos they’re so cute. I once saw one dressed as a hot dog for Halloween, and it was just the *cutest* little thing!

Butsoanyway.

So I pick three winners in a row. I’m not kidding. I am not ambitious, I wasn’t picking who’d place or show; one race, one horse. And I was doing it just by their names! First I picked Bully Hayes, ‘cos that name reminds me of Meg’s cat—he’s a total bully. Next race, I picked Dingle Bay, ‘cos that is just a cool name; it kind of reminded me of lighthouses (which I love), plus it reminded me of dingleberry, and that’s a really funny word. Then I picked StormNtoWar (I may be misremembering that a little), ‘cos it reminded me of Squooshable. And all three of them won!

I was really happy. I couldn’t tell Meg, because there was a rule that if I talked to her, she got disqualified. So I tried to post to this blog, but I couldn’t get a good data signal on my phone, or any other signal for that matter. So I had no one to tell, which was very frustrating, ‘cos when I want to tell someone something, I want to tell it NOW. So I went outside to smoke a cigarette (I’ve meant to quit, but the M-F’ers at the Camel Cigarette Company came out with new flavours just as I was going to drop it again. I don’t even *like* Camel, but their flavoured cigs are faboo; I wish to god they’d reintroduce the margarita one, but their Blackjack Gin one is almost the same kind of citrus-y, salty tangy taste.), and maybe tell someone out there.

Smokers come in only two varieties. They are either chatty (in which case they’ll talk your ear off), or they are sullen non-conversationalists (in which case it’s like talking to a Swede…or worse, if that can be imagined. If you are Swedish, pretend that I have instead typed “Norwegian” in the previous sentence. If you are Norwegian, please omit this sentence, and the one before it. There—see how easy that was?). Well, there were only two people out there, and they were so very sullenly non-conversational that they weren’t even talking to each other, so I came back in. Grr. I’m so hyped I’m bouncing, damn it!

So I sit my butt back down. I decided to avoid watching any more of the races (The WRAAAACES!!!), ‘cos then I’d do something stupid like get all hubris-filled and go lose money. I know a freakish coincidence when I see it, and I’d like to think that I haven’t been collecting all those copies of Skeptical Inquirer for no reason. But I didn’t want to work on the stuff I’d brought; I was bored. There was a fight at Meg’s table, but it was quelled before it became interesting. So I entertained myself by trying to make an origami horse out of the papers on my table (even though I don’t know the first thing about origami, ‘cept that it’s done with paper and involves folding, but in my mind I thought I could make a really nice stylised Chinese kind of horse, like the big nice pretty ones that are at the front of PF Chang’s) and singing It’s A Simple Little System from Bells Are Ringing. Twice. Complete with Otto’s accent, and the blowsy “Roc-king-HAAAA-amm”.

I was starting in on the third time when I finished the horse (it sucked) and looked around. There was a row of five older men sitting side by side, looking at me. I don’t know. Maybe they don’t like Judy Holliday. Or maybe they were travelling origami experts scoffing at my lack of talent. You can’t please *everyone*.

So I shut up, and I think about then I fell asleep. I was awakened by this older lady who worked there; she touched my arm, and that woke me up. Then she handed me a Werther’s, and I said thank you! That was awfully sweet! She seemed very nice; I had smiled at her when I’d passed her going out to smoke earlier. Then she handed me another one, and told me it was for my other hand. :-) Maybe I was snoring, who knows. Anyway, it was nice of her! Plus, it was close to what would be time for food if I ever got fed on a regular basis. So I woke up and ate one, and decided to pretend to read one of the articles I’d brought and watch the races (The WRAAAACES!!!) some more. And I finished off my orange juice, which doesn’t mix with Werther’s, and I wouldn’t recommend trying it.

Then all of a sudden, this fantastic way to develop a certain argument for a point I will be trying to make just hit me, and I went to write it down on one of the papers on the table (there were racing papers *everywhere*!) before I forgot it. It’s not like I’m ‘tarded, it’s just that when you glom together a handful of tiny nuances, they’re sometimes hard to memorise immediately. So I launch into my writing, and then Meg walks up on break and wants to know who was singing. I told her I didn’t know; I mean, I don’t think I was being *that* loud. She had to be talking about someone else, and I don’t get into other people’s business. No idea who was singing.

Now, I’m a nice person, so I try to give Meg my second Werther’s. Meg immediately demands to know where I got it—like I’m her child, or something! I told her that a nice lady from one of the booths gave it to me, and can you believe that Meg said that I was lying?!? She insisted that I had taken them off her washing machine the last time I was over at her house. WTF? I told her no, and asked her why I’d steal Starbursts earlier if I already had Werther’s, and then turned around and waved at the nice lady who, once she saw me, waved back at me.

Like I even know what in the hell Meg hoards on top of her washing machine. Or even care. Then Meg explains that she eats Werther’s (yeah…you, me and about twenty million other people, Meg), and when she accidentally leaves some in her pocket, she puts them on top of her washing machine before she washes her clothes, and she was really just acting like a weirdass rabid freak ‘cos she didn’t want me to poison myself with stale Werther’s.

Ummm…yeah. Whatever. No, Meg; people just give me candy and stuff ‘cos they’re nice, and I’m nice, El Grumpo.

So then she had to run to the bathroom, and by then her break was over. And then I remembered that I was supposed to be writing something before I forgot it, and here I’ve forgotten it, what with the Saga of the Werther’s and all. Damn it. So I started writing, hoping that as I blathered on the points would come back at me. I was up to two pages when Meg came back over, ready to go ‘cos she’d just lost her empire because a Travel Channel Player with a shit hand had out-drawn her on the river. Poor Meg. I hate it when that happens.

So we left, and talked the whole way back. Poor me. ;-) And she *raced* home! The trip seemed to take *half* the time! Then she invited herself over to my place for dinner (welcome to soymilk and microwave burritoland, Meg), so that we could watch the WSOP on ESPN. In truth, Meg wouldn’t have made it home in time; that’s why she stayed…and raced home. Geez, you are so transparent, Meg. Though I guess it’s really a good thing in this world to be as-advertised, eh?

So then we watched that (and Meg called for delivery when she realised that I wasn’t kidding about having no food. I showed her that she could have soymilk, water, about six different types of diet pop—none of which she drinks, except the water—and din-din was going to be a burrito, pizza rolls, grapes, or something in my refrigerator that I couldn’t identify, but which I told her she was welcome to eat if she wanted. I think it might have been old Squoosh Chow that had come out of the can and I had stored in a baggie). So we had delivery.

Doyle Brunson won. Yay! Meg knew this; I didn’t, and told her not to tell me who won. I was thrilled—THRILLED—to see that. Besides being one of the biggest poker talents ever, the man has class. The way he dealt with Layne Flack being a wee bit of a dork was worthy of applause. It’s sad to say, but the kind of talent, restraint, and good sportsmanship—along with humility and humour—Brunson has is sorely lacking these days. At least in my neck of the woods.

Plus, this gives Doyle his tenth bracelet—leaving Phil Hellmuth as being the only one without a tenth. That alone is rewarding, but I would have liked them to interview Hellmuth so that I could hear his whining and kvetching like a little bitch. :-) What can I say? It brings me joy. I mean, this is the man who made some comment to the effect of, how, if luck were to be taken out of the equation, he would win every hand. Ha, ha, ha. Ummm…yeah. Or—even better—when he was heads-up against Annie Duke, as he was pondering what to do next, making the comment to himself, “She obviously doesn’t know how powerful I am”. Oh, heavens…I damn near wet my pants. And how Duke kept a straight face, I’ll never know; were it to have been me, I would have responded that I could smell him just fine, and collapsed into a gale of giggles. Meg and I still use that quote. Priceless. Then he started kicking things backstage when he lost to her, and throwing a temper tantrum that was so entertaining that the camera spent more time on him than on the winner! Hee.

Then Mom called and told us to turn on AMC (?) ‘cos Esther Williams’ movie, Dangerous When Wet was on, so we did ‘cos there’s no saying ‘no’ to Mummers when she wants you to do something like that. Mom wanted to *be* Esther Williams when she was young (my parents had me way-late), and she was in the mood to *share*. So I gave the phone to Meg and made her talk to Mom for the rest of the movie, which was more than halfway over by then. Ha, ha. And I went back to typing up my brilliant idea, which I believe has now been fully recovered. Yay. I even found some of the references I was thinking of, which makes me feel better about having lost so many hours in reading all the stuff I’ve been reading for the past year.

So today was cool…I did get some things done, and I did kind of have fun. And now I kind of have to get some sleep, so that I am not passing out in public so much. :-)

G’night.