Interesting Stuff

Wow. Stuff has been happening here. Some good, some bad, but it’s definitely been happening. New Years was an absolute blast. We went over to Cassie’s house for her usual shindig, and everyone figured that they’d leave when they got bored. Well, Cassie finally kicked us out at 5:30 AM (she had a plane to catch the next day, so this was quite justified). We played Set, and Mafia, and Cassie did Tarot readings. Bathroom philosophy, piano, watching Conan, lots to talk about, including world news (which was wonderful, even if we did intimidate Emily a bit)… it was wonderful.

Then, January 2, we drove to Chicago for Debbie’s funeral. That was quite a switch. However, it was a very nice funeral, and I think it suited her very well. Rabbi Woolf came down and did most of it, since he was a close friend. Rabbi Abramson also came down, though he didn’t do much. It’s really too bad to see her go, since she was such a fantastic, vibrant person. At the same time, she’s finally through suffering, which is a bit of a silver lining to this.

So, we get back into town this afternoon, and I find that Jim from bridge club called me yesterday, wondering if I could play this evening. So I go. Due to an accident on the Crosstown, I barely got there on time, and we didn’t get a chance to review our conventions… that was a problem. He forgot what discard system we were using, and I forgot what 2C response we had. My mistake was much worse than his – I opened 2C on a hand I should have opened 3NT. He responds 2H, and I, with 3 hearts, jump to 6H. Jim did quite well, but still went down one for bottom board. Had I remembered that his bid meant he either had one ace or a pair of kings, I would have gone to 6NT, which makes an overtrick for average (one pair actually bid the 7NT, but I don’t see how they could have). We had some good hands too – Jim opened 1C when I had 6 diamonds to the Ace-Queen-Jack. I bid 1D, he responds 1S. 2D, 2NT. I pause, and bid 3NT on 7HCPs (counting on distribution, rather than strength). Jim makes it for one of the highest boards (I think we were third out of eleven there). Overall, we had a 47.22% game, and took 8th place out of 11 E-W pairs, but 1st in Division C (2nd in Division C overall, though). That doesn’t sound like much, but we earned 1.30 Master Points! So, this evening, I more than tripled my Master Points (I now have 1.79). \/\/00T!

While I was in Chicago, Jeff got his wisdom teeth removed. He’s coming over tomorrow to hang out, but I might go to his house instead. He doesn’t seem to be in shape for moving around much yet. This evening, he, Lily, and Emily watched the extended edition of Return of the King, and I’m a bit jealous. I want to see it too, but I’m not sure if I’ll get around to it for a while if they’ve all seen it already. Well, I’ll get around to it eventually. If nothing else, there should be a FNMG marathon of LotR sometime this semester.