Poker in Marysville

There is just something about listening to Radiohead in cold weather. Just like there is just something about listening to (eeek cat smelling my hands) Ella Fitzgerald in cold weather, or drinking Scotch in cold weather. Don't ask me why it makes any difference but in my mind you CAN'T listen to Ella Fitzgerald in the summertime, it just doesn't work, just like you shouldn't drink Guiness on a hot day. It just doesn't appeal (eeeeek cat licking my arm), I'm not sure why but I bet if I was to mix Radiohead, or Ella Fitzgerald with a fine glass of Scotch I might just have one of the better two combinations of things in life. Why Radiohead? I really don't know, but winter time makes me feel nostalgic, and older Radiohead songs tend to make me feel nostalgic. Examples? Ok, what about "Black Star", "Nice Dream", "Fake Plastic Trees", or best yet "High and Dry", I mean come on "High and Dry" is just a great song, a really GREAT song. Then again coming from Mr. 80% (aka Sad Faced Boy) that doesn't mean all that much mainly because I don't really pay attention to song lyrics so much as I listen to the feeling or tone of a song. As I am a sentimental type of person (translated: girl), songs like "High and Dry" really speak to me from a tonal perspective, and I'm not talking about the musical tone of the song so much as I am talking about the tone as in the tone of your voice.

So back to poker in Marysville, normally I would view a half an hour drive out to the middle of nowhere to play some cards as borderline silly. Then again we aren't talking about poker in Marysville with one of my favorite families in Marysville. Let me backtrack here, for whatever reason my previous co-workers at my first job at Worldcom are the guys that I have this strange feeling I would stand by through thick and thin, and it has nothing to do with the miserable work experience at Worldcom that we all endured together. They are all just a great bunch of guys, politics, religion, aside I really just love to hang out with them. I can't really explain it, I mean some of them I have little or nothing in common with, hell half of them were football, wrestling (fill in the blank) stars in highschool while I was a band dork. Some of them are offensive right wing republicans that still support that silly monkey of a President, and you know what I STILL don't care. See because when we hang out we have a good time, not just a good time if I was to describe this like a youth pastor I'd say the communion we have together is singularly different. I wish I could describe or explain the connection I feel with a bunch of people that in my logical mind knows I have very little in common with. Maybe I don't need to and maybe all that need to say to sum it up is that they are my friends.

Back to this poker thing... we had a semi regular poker gathering tonight and it might just have been one of my more favorite poker evenings to date. It had nothing to do with me winning money, having ridiculous hands that required no thinking on my part (which was good in my drunken state). It was the environment of the whole thing, it was talking to my ex-coworkers wife, to his son and daughter, people that I haven't shared more than a dozen hours with over the past few years and even so the whole package together was satisfying. At one point we switched from your garden variety of poker games to a Texas Hold'em tournament and it was at this time where my ex-coworkers wife and his son joined in. For some reason the whole interaction with this ex-coworker of mine's family along with my ex-coworkers created a very enjoyable environment.

Did I mention there was enough boot leather Scotch (translated: Laphraoig) that went around to choke a small mule/elephant/chipmunk. I came with a full bottle of Laphraoig and believe me I left with less than a half a bottle and I'm pretty sure my host had about half of what was drank. The uninitiated Scotch drinkers of world may not realize what a hearty bottle of Scotch can do to the brain but let me make some comparisons. Laphraoig is kind of like a dark red wine, or a porter/stout beer (Guiness/Murpheys), except Laphraoig has peat moss smoke filtered through it. So it has all the nasty particulate matter that red wine or dark beer has but exponentially increased which equates to a nasty wicked hangover. The not so kind thing we were telling my ex-coworkers daughter was how she should wake her father up the next day to cause maxiumum pain. Evil to mention but if she actually does it man will it be funny.

BTW one of the pictures posted with all the blurry lights is me driving, should I have been doing that at 2am in the morning, well no but then again I really dig the blurry light photos.