Hello all and sorry for the prolonged absence...two days in between blogging felt like an eternity! Holiday exhaustion is setting in, and even though we haven't done too much the last few days, we've not sat around like bumps on a log. Therefore, today's blog will consist of Random Bullets of Crap highlighting my current trip to STL:
* 4 Foodie stops: 2 trips to the Fatted Calf, 2 trips to Lion's Choice (both, un-ironically beef related); 1 trip remaining to the Pueblo Nuevo (tomorrow night) and Hunan Kitchen (kind of running out of time for this one). X-mas Eve and X-mas kind of kill the eating out that I can do...
* 3 Good friends seen: most of these visits have coincided with trips to the Fatted Calf--talk about killing 2 birds with 1 stone. It's always great to see Chris, Sarah and Kevin; I loved seeing you all, and hope to get together soon!
* 2 Grandma visits: I've seen both grandmas twice, and we're scheduled to meet up with each one at least one more time. Now that they're approaching that age, you know, it's important to see them as much as possible.
*1 Friend's wedding: one of my best friends from high school got married last night, and TW and I were invited along with 241 other guests--seriously, 243 people were there! It was nice to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones. My brother schooled the open bar: he was on fire last night as he got one phone number, and followed around, with his tongue hanging out, another woman.
* And a patridge in a pear tree: I'm sitting on the couch now rooting on Mizzou in the Alamo Bowl vs Northwestern (I know that Michael Wilbon, of PTI fame, will be rooting for his alma mater, so I'll have to put out my rooting interests as well). Jeremy Maclin is sick, that's all I'll say in the matter...
If I get any sleep at all, I'll try to include another of my "stories." I can think of two good ones: "First Vegas Trip" or "Ripped Jeans (Watch out for the T tracks)." I'll leave it up to you, my faithful readers.
12.29.2008
12.26.2008
"Under the table, Mabel"
For me, the holidays always provide multiple opportunities to play cards. In addition to the tripoly (or Michigan Rummy) game for pennies, which everyone plays, we also have a game of 'kitchen table' games (or dealer's choice), which not everyone can play, for silver: nickels, dimes and quarters. These games are always fun, and the night inevitably ends with people divided between the two games.
The last two nights I've ended up playing dealer's game, although tomorrow night I'm sure I'll be playing tripoly. Seeing as I've been up way too long today, the remainder of this post will consist of a list of my favorite dealer's-choice games:
5) Pass the Trash; everyone knows this one: you literally pass the trash (i.e., the worst card) until it gets to the dealer or someone has a King...the loser pays the pot.
4) Black Mariah; this is Chicago (highest spade in the hole splits the pot w/the highest poker hand) with a twist: if the queen of spades comes face up, the hand is dead and everyone starts over.
3) 5-card draw, Jacks or better to open; when I was just beginning in the kitchen table circuit, I didn't quite understand the "or better" part: I thought you needed exactly a pair of jacks to open. I remember throwing away three 9's in disgust one Thanksgiving evening--ugh!
2) 5.5/26.5; this one's a big pot builder...it's not a poker game at all, but it does have roots in blackjack. You're cards equal their number, w/Aces as 1 or 11 and face cards equal to a half a point. The object is to get closest to 5.5 or 26.5. The hardest part is remembering the name of the game!
1) My favorite dealer's-choice game: "Under the table, Mabel." This is a five-card draw, hi-lo split game in which you don't get to see the cards that you draw. They are placed "under the table" and I'm convinced that my Uncle Jim named this game after my maternal great-grandmother Mabel. It's either that, or he just liked to say, "Under the table, Mabel." Who knows?
Don't forget "Acey-Deucy," "Guts" and "Iron Cross!" See you at the table...
The last two nights I've ended up playing dealer's game, although tomorrow night I'm sure I'll be playing tripoly. Seeing as I've been up way too long today, the remainder of this post will consist of a list of my favorite dealer's-choice games:
5) Pass the Trash; everyone knows this one: you literally pass the trash (i.e., the worst card) until it gets to the dealer or someone has a King...the loser pays the pot.
4) Black Mariah; this is Chicago (highest spade in the hole splits the pot w/the highest poker hand) with a twist: if the queen of spades comes face up, the hand is dead and everyone starts over.
3) 5-card draw, Jacks or better to open; when I was just beginning in the kitchen table circuit, I didn't quite understand the "or better" part: I thought you needed exactly a pair of jacks to open. I remember throwing away three 9's in disgust one Thanksgiving evening--ugh!
2) 5.5/26.5; this one's a big pot builder...it's not a poker game at all, but it does have roots in blackjack. You're cards equal their number, w/Aces as 1 or 11 and face cards equal to a half a point. The object is to get closest to 5.5 or 26.5. The hardest part is remembering the name of the game!
1) My favorite dealer's-choice game: "Under the table, Mabel." This is a five-card draw, hi-lo split game in which you don't get to see the cards that you draw. They are placed "under the table" and I'm convinced that my Uncle Jim named this game after my maternal great-grandmother Mabel. It's either that, or he just liked to say, "Under the table, Mabel." Who knows?
Don't forget "Acey-Deucy," "Guts" and "Iron Cross!" See you at the table...
12.25.2008
A picture is worth a thousand words...
Me, my mom and brother spreading a little holiday cheer!
My mom and her twin sisters, along with my Grandma and Aunt: notice that Grandma bought her daughters the same sweater that she's wearing!
"One of these things is not like the other..."
Not mother and daughter, but niece and Aunt...with a little bailey's fueling the fun!
Brothers-in-arms...(literally).The following shots are from Tilles Park, a lighted drive-thru park in St. Louis that TW and I went to the other night...lots of fun!
Mice decorating the tree...
Not quite Frosty, but close!
The best scene there,
TW's attempt at an 'artsy' shot!
My favorite...Happy Holidays,
Celexo
Celexo
12.24.2008
"To defend everything is to defend nothing"
Family holidays often include lots of games/competition: we have ping-pong and pool in the basement, and a wide range of board games as well. Since I've been home we've played Cutthroat and 8-ball, ping-pong, poker, dealer games and our on-again, off-again favorite: RISK.
Now the last few games of RISK were short, as our Dad would always fortify and hold Australia and attempt to win from there; the remainder of the family, naturally, would just gang up on him, and after wiping him out, we would just quit. But yesterday, we actually completed an entire game; and there was a little more interest in it because we had five players, instead of four (can't forget TW!).
The game started w/the five of us claiming general areas: I was in S. America, my brother was N. America, Dad of course in Australia, Mom in Africa and TW in Asia. My plan was the lay low a little bit and hope that other people would get delusions of grandeur and march off to battle. My brother was the first to attempt that as he went east, through Greenland, and west through Kamchatka. His battles never really conquered much, but they certainly increased the ire at the table.
I made a few thrusts and parries: north into N. America and east into Africa, but never much to hold an entire continent. In fact, it was TW to get the first continent as she swept through Australia with ease (way to go, TW!--welcome to the family...).
The tipping point came when my brother was a little too overexposed after one of his 'boredom' attacks; I decided my best opportunity to win would be to wipe him out and take his cards. In an almost even fight, I roled big and took him out fairly easily.
After that, TW and my Mom made one fatal error. I was in the same position as my brother: over exposed after a battle and holding N. America with little-to-no armies at the borders. Neither TW or Mom saw the opportunity to break my chokehold on N. America and they stopped their rolls at my (weakly defended) borders.
Now for TW's point-of-view: "In my defense, I did see that celexo was in a weak position, but his Dad was also weak - only holding 2 countries. Whichever one I attacked I was trying to eliminate to take their cards. In the end I picked Dad because he had fewer countries. Unfortunately for me, he started rolling 6's and I stalled my attack because he was just too hot. I suppose I still could have come at celexo from the other side of Asia, but I just wasn't thinking about it after being decimated in Eastern Europe."
[How about a big round of applause for TW's inaugural appearance in the blog? Look for her "X-mas in STL" wrapup coming soon.]
Anyway, from my position of strength in the Americas, I was able to sweep through Africa from behind and wipe out my mother. At that point, I held 10 cards and had to immediately turn them in (per the rules), which garnered me 50+ armies in which I could fortify everywhere, luckily!
TW tried to take me out, but my stronghold in Europe held--it's those pesky Krauts, you know? From there I was able to sweep throughout the entire board and wipe out TW.
Luckily I declined the previous offer from TW for a royal marriage uniting the world; instead, I crowned myself Emperor (much like Napolean--Bonaparte, not Dynamite) and ruled the world! Fun times, as always...
Now the last few games of RISK were short, as our Dad would always fortify and hold Australia and attempt to win from there; the remainder of the family, naturally, would just gang up on him, and after wiping him out, we would just quit. But yesterday, we actually completed an entire game; and there was a little more interest in it because we had five players, instead of four (can't forget TW!).
The game started w/the five of us claiming general areas: I was in S. America, my brother was N. America, Dad of course in Australia, Mom in Africa and TW in Asia. My plan was the lay low a little bit and hope that other people would get delusions of grandeur and march off to battle. My brother was the first to attempt that as he went east, through Greenland, and west through Kamchatka. His battles never really conquered much, but they certainly increased the ire at the table.
I made a few thrusts and parries: north into N. America and east into Africa, but never much to hold an entire continent. In fact, it was TW to get the first continent as she swept through Australia with ease (way to go, TW!--welcome to the family...).
The tipping point came when my brother was a little too overexposed after one of his 'boredom' attacks; I decided my best opportunity to win would be to wipe him out and take his cards. In an almost even fight, I roled big and took him out fairly easily.
After that, TW and my Mom made one fatal error. I was in the same position as my brother: over exposed after a battle and holding N. America with little-to-no armies at the borders. Neither TW or Mom saw the opportunity to break my chokehold on N. America and they stopped their rolls at my (weakly defended) borders.
Now for TW's point-of-view: "In my defense, I did see that celexo was in a weak position, but his Dad was also weak - only holding 2 countries. Whichever one I attacked I was trying to eliminate to take their cards. In the end I picked Dad because he had fewer countries. Unfortunately for me, he started rolling 6's and I stalled my attack because he was just too hot. I suppose I still could have come at celexo from the other side of Asia, but I just wasn't thinking about it after being decimated in Eastern Europe."
[How about a big round of applause for TW's inaugural appearance in the blog? Look for her "X-mas in STL" wrapup coming soon.]
Anyway, from my position of strength in the Americas, I was able to sweep through Africa from behind and wipe out my mother. At that point, I held 10 cards and had to immediately turn them in (per the rules), which garnered me 50+ armies in which I could fortify everywhere, luckily!
TW tried to take me out, but my stronghold in Europe held--it's those pesky Krauts, you know? From there I was able to sweep throughout the entire board and wipe out TW.
Luckily I declined the previous offer from TW for a royal marriage uniting the world; instead, I crowned myself Emperor (much like Napolean--Bonaparte, not Dynamite) and ruled the world! Fun times, as always...
12.22.2008
"Remember, It Can Be Used as a Weapon" part II
This is part II of a story that I began yesterday (for more, click here):
Great advice there, honey, thanks! So, The VET and R&RM take off for their trip back to the Woody. I, on the other hand, embark on my trip to hell; or that's how I remember it now, I'm sure it wasn't that bad at the time. It takes about 10 minutes for the MWLVR to prepare the van for actual transportation: I don't think that he'd moved it for quite a while; there were blocks under the wheels and string tied from the roof to a neighboring tree.
And we're off! Not quickly however, because it takes a while to knock off the rust on this van, you know? But he finally gets it up the big road out of the state park and onto a dusty state road that will (eventually) lead us to a main intersection, and thusly into town. As we approach this intersection, the van slows to crawl and eventually stops. Without saying a word, MWLVR gets out of the van, which he's turned off, and disappears from view.
Here's a recap of my mental process: "He's walking around the van--I can't see him; is he going to just kill me here, leave my body by the side of the road, and then go back for The Vet?" I wish you could have seen what I looked like at those moments when he was walking around the van: my head was on a swivel so fast, it would've probably been a blur to the human eye. Eventually he came back into sight, through the passenger-side, front window, and completed his circuit of the van. He didn't say a word about stopping, or walking, or being deranged...to this day, I have no flippin' idea what he was doing.
After MWLVR dropped me off at a 7-11, with a pay phone, he left. I was freakin' out because I actually thought he was going back for The Vet. I called AAA and tried to make it abundantly clear that there was a psychopath on the way back for my girlfriend, and so it was in everyone's best interest that they hurry the heck up, but they took what I'm sure is their average response time.
Flash forward a very nervous 45 minutes for me, as I see the two truck fly around the corner. A fairly large woman, whom I'm calling Bertha for the shear irony, pops out and says, "Hi, are you Celexo?" I answer in the affirmative and gets things rolling, literally. Bertha's actually the wife of the driver, whom I meet as I get inside the cabin. I have to sit the middle, which is slightly awkward because the tow truck is a stick shift, and this particular driver has only one arm (for more on the def leppard drummer with only one arm, I particularly enjoy this song for a bit of nostalgia), and of course which arm does have? The left one...
So, here I am squeezed in between a one-armed stick shift driver, who's always reaching over w/his stump to shift and his rather large wife as we barrel around these country roads to come to the rescue of The Vet.
And for the climax of my story, the three of us arrive the stranded Woody, with The Vet and R&RM all intact. As soon as The Driver sees The Woody, he says "You know, there's a 4-wheel drive switch in the car, right?"
Um...no, we didn't try that!
As a bonus story, and because this story just isn't long enough yet, I've got to add this little nugget: later that night, after we made our tent by flashlight we heard what sounded like the end of the world coming from inside The Woody. The dogs were barking and I was refusing to leave the tent. In the morning it turned out that we had left a window open inside and a few raccoons were making a meal for themselves out of our marshmallows!
Great advice there, honey, thanks! So, The VET and R&RM take off for their trip back to the Woody. I, on the other hand, embark on my trip to hell; or that's how I remember it now, I'm sure it wasn't that bad at the time. It takes about 10 minutes for the MWLVR to prepare the van for actual transportation: I don't think that he'd moved it for quite a while; there were blocks under the wheels and string tied from the roof to a neighboring tree.
And we're off! Not quickly however, because it takes a while to knock off the rust on this van, you know? But he finally gets it up the big road out of the state park and onto a dusty state road that will (eventually) lead us to a main intersection, and thusly into town. As we approach this intersection, the van slows to crawl and eventually stops. Without saying a word, MWLVR gets out of the van, which he's turned off, and disappears from view.
Here's a recap of my mental process: "He's walking around the van--I can't see him; is he going to just kill me here, leave my body by the side of the road, and then go back for The Vet?" I wish you could have seen what I looked like at those moments when he was walking around the van: my head was on a swivel so fast, it would've probably been a blur to the human eye. Eventually he came back into sight, through the passenger-side, front window, and completed his circuit of the van. He didn't say a word about stopping, or walking, or being deranged...to this day, I have no flippin' idea what he was doing.
After MWLVR dropped me off at a 7-11, with a pay phone, he left. I was freakin' out because I actually thought he was going back for The Vet. I called AAA and tried to make it abundantly clear that there was a psychopath on the way back for my girlfriend, and so it was in everyone's best interest that they hurry the heck up, but they took what I'm sure is their average response time.
Flash forward a very nervous 45 minutes for me, as I see the two truck fly around the corner. A fairly large woman, whom I'm calling Bertha for the shear irony, pops out and says, "Hi, are you Celexo?" I answer in the affirmative and gets things rolling, literally. Bertha's actually the wife of the driver, whom I meet as I get inside the cabin. I have to sit the middle, which is slightly awkward because the tow truck is a stick shift, and this particular driver has only one arm (for more on the def leppard drummer with only one arm, I particularly enjoy this song for a bit of nostalgia), and of course which arm does have? The left one...
So, here I am squeezed in between a one-armed stick shift driver, who's always reaching over w/his stump to shift and his rather large wife as we barrel around these country roads to come to the rescue of The Vet.
And for the climax of my story, the three of us arrive the stranded Woody, with The Vet and R&RM all intact. As soon as The Driver sees The Woody, he says "You know, there's a 4-wheel drive switch in the car, right?"
Um...no, we didn't try that!
As a bonus story, and because this story just isn't long enough yet, I've got to add this little nugget: later that night, after we made our tent by flashlight we heard what sounded like the end of the world coming from inside The Woody. The dogs were barking and I was refusing to leave the tent. In the morning it turned out that we had left a window open inside and a few raccoons were making a meal for themselves out of our marshmallows!
12.21.2008
"Remember, It Can Be Used as a weapon" part 1
In lieu of an actual blog, in which I describe the series of travels I have undertaken in the past 24 hours, I'd rather include here one of my many "stories." I'm sitting on a plane, in the second leg of my journey home, and the atmosphere in very conducive to (not) writing (my dissertation). These stories are formative moments in my life--all events described herein are true events, although I'm sure that the rough edges have been thoroughly smoothed out in my memory. TW insists that my penchant towards hyperbole ruins such stories, but I believe that any good story needs a little juice here and there.
The players in this story are:
Celexo, a college sophomore home for summer break, on a weekend vacation down in the Ozarks with his (then) girlfriend;
The Vet, a college freshman, whom as her name implies, is "animal crazy;"
The Woody, an ancient Forerunner that The Vet's dad had just purchased for her--it was so-named because of the faux-wood panels running down the outside (not quite this color, but exactly the same wood panels;
Rio and Rio's mom (R&RM), two Labs that The Vet brought along on every camping trip;
Man, who lived down in a Van by the River (MWLVR), self-explanatory;
Driver, from AAA and his wife Bertha, who came to the rescue
The setting:
Inside the Woody, as Celexo, The Vet and R&RM drive many hours south from St. Louis.
"After a few hours, The Vet pulls into a gas station--yes, she was driving as this was her inaugural trip in The Woody (this info becomes in important later, trust me!). In addition to filling up the tank, go figure, we head inside to--I swear to God--to fill out my application for a fishing permit. Apparently, all you need is $15 and the ability to read & write (and all those years I was afraid of the multiple choice test). Beaming from my newly minted status as a (redneck) fisherman, I jumped back into the driver's seat: this allowed The Vet to pull out the map and find our destination for the weekend.
I forget the name of the river we were at, but shortly before dusk we pulled into the state park and we settled on a particularly nice setting. I followed the dirt road, which led us directly onto the rocky riverbank, and settled on a nice bend in the river. I put the Woody into reverse, yet nothing happened; I tried the gas a little harder--no movement...shit, we're stuck in the rocks.
As I mentioned earlier, this was our first 'real' trip in the Woody so we were a little uncertain about its off-road capabilities. Before we messed around with the jeep itself, we tried digging out the back tires--no dice; we tried putting the floor mats under the back tires--no dice; and we even dug around for some planks of wood--no dice! At this point, the sun is setting and I've got no cellphone reception down in this canyon. I'm seeing images of flash floods shooting around the bend and washing the Woody away.
So, what do we come up with? Well, The Vet and I decide to go find someone else at another campsite and have them drive us into town so that we can call AAA and have our car towed. Now, at this point, Celexo, The Vet, and R&RM, armed with only a hunting knife strapped to The Vet's leg and a huge-ass Maglight flashlight, strike out for someone else's camp.
We stumble upon MWLVR at the next campsite over from us. We turn the corner, still about 100 yards away from his plot, and check out the surroundings: in the middle lies a smoldering campfire; a clothesline is strung up between two trees near the river, with a long-sleeve shirt still hanging there; a lantern sits on a log stump at the base of the clothesline. Parallel to the clothesline sits an old, beat-up van with a pop-up roof and a window-unit air conditioner coming out of a whole cut into the driver's-side halfway back of the door. Other detritus lays around the van: a pair of boots, a milk crate, etc...
Freaked out by the obvious parallels between the scene just described above and any number of bad horror films from the 80s, I stop from entering the campsite. "Perhaps we should try the next one over..." I suggest, weakly. The Vet, tough as nails, denies the request and prompts me further in toward the van. I stop short and voice an awkward, "Hello. Is anybody there?" No response; I take a few steps further and knock on the door. Finally, a fairly short and very round older man comes out the sliding, rear door on the passenger's side. It takes a few minutes to convince him of what I need, and during this conversation the MWLVR says fewer than five words. In fact, it's a little unclear if he understands me at all.
Fortunately for The Vet, and most unfortunately for me, the van that MWLVR lives in and drives around only sits one person--me! I can't sit in the front passenger's seat because that's where the MWLVR's dog sits, and nor would I want to because it looked (and smelled like) it hadn't been cleaned in years. Before I get in the van, The Vet gives me one lasting piece of advice: she hands me the huge-ass Maglight and says, "Remember, it can be used as a weapon."
Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion in tomorrow's installment...
The players in this story are:
Celexo, a college sophomore home for summer break, on a weekend vacation down in the Ozarks with his (then) girlfriend;
The Vet, a college freshman, whom as her name implies, is "animal crazy;"
The Woody, an ancient Forerunner that The Vet's dad had just purchased for her--it was so-named because of the faux-wood panels running down the outside (not quite this color, but exactly the same wood panels;
Rio and Rio's mom (R&RM), two Labs that The Vet brought along on every camping trip;
Man, who lived down in a Van by the River (MWLVR), self-explanatory;
Driver, from AAA and his wife Bertha, who came to the rescue
The setting:
Inside the Woody, as Celexo, The Vet and R&RM drive many hours south from St. Louis.
"After a few hours, The Vet pulls into a gas station--yes, she was driving as this was her inaugural trip in The Woody (this info becomes in important later, trust me!). In addition to filling up the tank, go figure, we head inside to--I swear to God--to fill out my application for a fishing permit. Apparently, all you need is $15 and the ability to read & write (and all those years I was afraid of the multiple choice test). Beaming from my newly minted status as a (redneck) fisherman, I jumped back into the driver's seat: this allowed The Vet to pull out the map and find our destination for the weekend.
I forget the name of the river we were at, but shortly before dusk we pulled into the state park and we settled on a particularly nice setting. I followed the dirt road, which led us directly onto the rocky riverbank, and settled on a nice bend in the river. I put the Woody into reverse, yet nothing happened; I tried the gas a little harder--no movement...shit, we're stuck in the rocks.
As I mentioned earlier, this was our first 'real' trip in the Woody so we were a little uncertain about its off-road capabilities. Before we messed around with the jeep itself, we tried digging out the back tires--no dice; we tried putting the floor mats under the back tires--no dice; and we even dug around for some planks of wood--no dice! At this point, the sun is setting and I've got no cellphone reception down in this canyon. I'm seeing images of flash floods shooting around the bend and washing the Woody away.
So, what do we come up with? Well, The Vet and I decide to go find someone else at another campsite and have them drive us into town so that we can call AAA and have our car towed. Now, at this point, Celexo, The Vet, and R&RM, armed with only a hunting knife strapped to The Vet's leg and a huge-ass Maglight flashlight, strike out for someone else's camp.
We stumble upon MWLVR at the next campsite over from us. We turn the corner, still about 100 yards away from his plot, and check out the surroundings: in the middle lies a smoldering campfire; a clothesline is strung up between two trees near the river, with a long-sleeve shirt still hanging there; a lantern sits on a log stump at the base of the clothesline. Parallel to the clothesline sits an old, beat-up van with a pop-up roof and a window-unit air conditioner coming out of a whole cut into the driver's-side halfway back of the door. Other detritus lays around the van: a pair of boots, a milk crate, etc...
Freaked out by the obvious parallels between the scene just described above and any number of bad horror films from the 80s, I stop from entering the campsite. "Perhaps we should try the next one over..." I suggest, weakly. The Vet, tough as nails, denies the request and prompts me further in toward the van. I stop short and voice an awkward, "Hello. Is anybody there?" No response; I take a few steps further and knock on the door. Finally, a fairly short and very round older man comes out the sliding, rear door on the passenger's side. It takes a few minutes to convince him of what I need, and during this conversation the MWLVR says fewer than five words. In fact, it's a little unclear if he understands me at all.
Fortunately for The Vet, and most unfortunately for me, the van that MWLVR lives in and drives around only sits one person--me! I can't sit in the front passenger's seat because that's where the MWLVR's dog sits, and nor would I want to because it looked (and smelled like) it hadn't been cleaned in years. Before I get in the van, The Vet gives me one lasting piece of advice: she hands me the huge-ass Maglight and says, "Remember, it can be used as a weapon."
Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion in tomorrow's installment...
12.19.2008
"We Have To Go Back;" or, The Frozen Donky Wheel
Although most of my favorite shows are on hiatus until the beginning of February, they are mostly (let's be honest) placeholders until LOST returns on January 21st. For the newest teaser, please see below:
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