Excuse (me)

One minute I can remember proper placement of an adverb, and forget about the same rule two sentences later. It comes down to a lack of sufficient rigor, a lapse in mindfulness, or just happy to be here. I could blame it on foreign language classes, the same way I defend my run-ons, the victim of reading too many translations from the German. More caught up in the moment, oblivious to what casual disregard does to others, and therefore perceptions. Some days, I don’t really care.

It doesn’t mean I care less for my gentle readers. Really. Of course, what value has my plea for mercy from those abused?

Home games can suffer the same. Familiarity and conviviality.

I have K3s in middle position. I limp with a host of others. The flop comes A3J rainbow and Mike bets out from EP, I choose to fold and Santa calls. The turn is another 3, lucky me. Mike bets again and Santa 3-bets. Phil says, “Looks like a desperation bet to me.” Santa gives him the Stink Eye. Mike calls.

The river is a Q. Mike checks and Santa throws out the same amount, $20. Thinking Mike has folded, R says something about the hand. Santa goes ballistic, mucks his hand, cashes out and heads for the door. (Had I called the flop, all of this could have been prevented.)

Not liking the Phill will that is now in the air, I suggest to Phil and R that they go apologize to Santa. Being men, they decline. Phil’s reasoning is that the same has been done to him on numerous occasions. Santa drives away and R’s girlfriend suggests he write Santa a nice email. No response.

A discussion ensues and after some speculation/rationalization about Santa’s mood in general, some resolve is made. The casino doesn’t allow it, and we shouldn’t either.

Things are a bit quieter at the table thereafter. I’m thinking about going home or some such thing that takes my attention away from the hand I am not in. I look up to see a sizable pot with three people in the hand. R’s girlfriend bets out $3.

“That’s a mighty small bet for such a big pot.”

Me.

“I can’t believe I just said that.” I beg forgiveness. R’s girlfriend readily gives it after the other two players fold. The men don’t miss an opportunity to give me immense amounts of shit.

Philling (sic)

I just sneezed. Twice. I normally wouldn’t give it a second thought were it not for a conversation I had at R’s game tonight. L, a woman who I’ve met and played with once before was to my right. L likes to talk. L likes to drink. I might say that she talks more when she’s drinking, but I don’t have a non-drinking L to compare against.

L asks me, “Are you sick?”

“Me? No.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a cold? I’m very sensitive to such things. If you’re not sick now, you will be tomorrow. I’m always right about these things, It just freaks D (her boyfriend) out.”

I get up to take a leak and she goes for a smoke. The conversation continues, or rather, she repeats herself in any number of ways. I make sure to wash my hands thoroughly.

Back at the table she continues to press the issue. “I’m sorry if you took offence.”

“No, I’m not offended. But I will be freaked myself if I wake up with a cold tomorrow.”

I take a big pot from her with a rivered boat, tens full of eights to her pair of Queens. She says, “I thought you were bluffing.” Not yet.

What she had missed about the hand that others might have noticed was that I had opened my game up tonight. I figured I had driven home my nittiness in previous sessions, so tonight I added some suited connectors/gappers and called light. I was playing Fuck Phil’s game. R opens from early with a 6 x BB raise, and by the time it came around to me, two people had called. I looked down at Q9d. Sure, why not? Two more people called. The flop came with a nine. R checked! So did everyone else, including me. The turn brought another nine, checks around and I bet 1/2 the pot. Discussion ensued but I took it down then and there. I was up playing like Phil and was up about 75% of my buy-in.

 Phil, who later called my 6 x BB raise from the button with 5-6 off in the BB and cracked my Aces with a straight on the turn. (I didn’t pay him off.) Phil, who limped as I did and hit a bigger straight on the river. I figured him for the seven, just as I had, just as R had. I tried to blow them off of their hands with a Button value raise. What I didn’t figure was that Phil had what I was representing.

Miracle of miracles, I left up 18 bucks.

I dug out my hand sanitizer gel as soon as I was in my truck.

F’Art*

On an early spring day two years ago, DW assisted me on a video entitled “I Like Art but.” The end of the video shows me covering a compost pile with a green tarp. The tarp remained on the compost for the next year.

Due to the decomposition of its components, which were (as one can see in the video) a dead coyote, ten years worth of “ArtForum” and “Art in America” magazines, plus whatever plant matter remained from earlier decomposition, the tarp began to fit less and less snugly on top of the pile. But that soon changed, as it was evident plants were growing underneath. I did not bother to look to see what types of plants had managed to get a foothold, and by the following autumn, the tarp had once again flattened out.

And so the tarp remained, spring returned, and so did plant growth. I removed the tarp to find what appeared to be two squash plants. I had an idea. I watered the plants and they prospered in the fertile soil.

As is often the case with unfenced vegetables, the deer soon found the squash plants and in the course of one night ate them back nearly to the ground. Unwilling to give up on the plants, nor construct a seven-foot high fence around the pile, I instead placed a number of tomato cages around the plants, to no avail. Although the plants began to flourish, eventually the deer were no longer inhibited by the prospect of getting their hooves temporarily caught and returned to dine. My solution was more tomato cages, which did the trick. The picture below is the fruit of that labor.

The plants have died back from the cold. One can see squash that were damaged by the deer. Yet, those that remain appear to be two varieties: the ones at the top are Delicatas, and the ones below appear to be Spaghetti. I say “appear” because I cannot be certain. They have the same very subtle linear markings that Spaghetti squash have, and the shape is the same, yet they are much smaller, which may be a “bonsai” effect from the early predation.

If I were to harvest any of these squash, I would choose the Delicatas. We might eat them, despite the fact that they were nurtured by the remains of a coyotes and glossy stock paper. Or we might not. I am, however, going to harvest the seeds from both varieties, as there is sure to have been some cross-pollination. I will plant the seeds next spring and hope to get a hybrid, which I will call the Beuys, in honor of the artist that inspired the initial video.

*Farm Art

DW stands up

Yes, she does.

My cell phone rang. It was the doorbell ringtone, so I knew it was DW.

"Can you come and get me? I've been arrested."

The tone of her voice let me know she was kidding. Having left the protest at the Blue Cross building, she was now standing across the street watching events transpire. She had tried to go into the building to use the restroom, and they wouldn't let her in. It might have been her ballcap that read " I *heart* Universal Health Care."

"I'm a card-carrying member of Regence Blue Cross and I can't use their bathroom? What's this world coming to?"

School buses had arrived, which to her (and she was correct) meant that arrests were about to be made. Then the police on horseback arrived.

"The horses are so pretty. I wish I had some carrots to give them. Next time I go to a protest, I'm bringing carrots."

The Friends Network

 I’ve reconnected, if that’s what one can call online chat, with an old friend from Chicago. He doesn’t live there anymore, and we lost track of each other until social network searches found me, and in turn, I found him. He’s a fairly well known artist, and, as it turns out, a poker player.

I know I can find him online at a certain time of the day, and enjoy chatting him up. Problem is, he plays poker on the social network’s free poker site, and we chat while we play.

The play on this site is atrocious. Simply atrocious. At least in the small rooms. In the span of perhaps a month and ten hours of play, I have built a roll from $5,000 to nearly $300,000, and a third of that came yesterday as I made a bad play by playing way past my roll.

My buddy plays in bigger rooms than I. Yesterday I found him in a 100K room and sweated him for a couple minutes just to see what went on in the bigger stakes rooms. In fact, he was in over his head, playing with 1/4 of his roll on the table. I let him know I was sweating him, and he offered to find a smaller room in which I could comfortably play. I wrote that it wasn’t necessary, that I could buy in short and play snug.

When I clicked on a seat and hit enter, I misread my buy-in amount. I thought I was coming in for 10K when in reality I had just put 1/2 of my roll on the line at 100K.

This software lacks in so many ways. There is no hand history, and unless someone is all-in at showdown, one does not have any way to see an opponent’s cards. One is blinded in no matter what when first sitting down, which to my mind says, “What the hell, it’s free, and has little value.” And if one so much as farts, free chips are given, including just for logging on.

Shit play thusly encouraged… oh it’s just not worth my time, or, quite frankly, yours.

My friend took a pounding. One can push with Kings in the hole but it doesn’t really matter, yet to min bet with them is equally problematic. So is jamming with AK. Tilted.

I had limped for 1K UTG with a suited Ace, the next player made a raise to 2K, seven callers, and my buddy jammed for his last 17K. Knowing that I wouldn’t be the only one to do so, I called. The flop gave me the FD, and it was checked around. On the turn my buddy typed in “it’s mine,” with all small cards suggesting a straight. Of course the river gave me the flush, I bet, everyone folded and he showed 3-9off.

He’s pissed. He says to meet him in Las Vegas. I tell him I will be there in March, to email me and I will give him the particulars. It will be nice to see him again.

The Horror. The Horror.

At first I didn’t recognize the approaching vehicle was that of our good neighbors. I was headed into town, and they, I presume, coming home from the weekly Sunday brunch. Their car is relatively new, but I know the make, model and color well enough to know that it is theirs when I see it. I was preoccupied, and, as it just so happened, they were part of the little scenario I was constructing in my head. And to fulfill the part they would play, I phoned them when I was stationary. The wife, S, answered.

“Sorry I didn’t recognize your car. I was deep in thought.”

“I didn’t notice you either. K gave a little wave and I asked him who he was waving at.”

“I was thinking of calling you anyway because the BAD NEIGHBORS HAVE GOPHER MOUNDS IN THEIR YARD!”

She laughed, “I know!” As the GNs’ property backs up onto the north side of the OCD couple, they have a good view. I had seen the desecration from the road as I drove by.

“Pity the poor gopher.” In the six years we have been here, I have never seen a gopher or mole mound on their property, and I assume for good reason. In that they mow with a heavy tractor at least once a week from February to November, regardless of weather, theirs has got to be the most compacted soil in the county. “Not only for the carnage that will undoubtedly ensue, but for that rodent’s front paws. Can you imagine how difficult it must have been for it to penetrate the surface?”

Again, she laughed. “The traps are still set so I don’t think they’ve caught it yet.”

“If he doesn’t skin it and hang the hide on his work shed, he’ll probably throw it over into our yard, assuming that the interloper came from us.” I have been negligent this year and both the gophers and moles have had their way on our property. I say I did it for the owls. In actuality, I am waiting for the rains to come and stay, for I have a plan.

Stay tuned.

Finding context

Water Hole