(This post mostly belongs on FtN which may make a comeback soon.) I had a poker night at my house last night for the first time in what feels like forever, but is actually probably a month. We ended up shorthanded with only four of us at the table, but that actually ended up being rather nice — We only got distracted from the game a couple times and probably ended up playing more hands than we do with six.
My homegame consists of guys from my workplace. Occasionally that means we gossip like bitties at the backyard fence, but mostly it means we are often in similar moods thanks to the current "atmosphere" at work. Let's just say Matt got things rolling when he whipped out the flask I gave him for being my best man at my wedding. He was rolling with a pocket full of Jameson, which eventually led to a rather deep discussion of whiskeys (focusing on bourbon and Irish). By the end of the night Neal has taken a small dent out of my bottle of Bulleit, I have poured myself a couple fingers of Powers, and Dave has had "sips" from pretty much everyone else's cup.
The poker ended up being rather incidental, but for the record:
- Dave and Matt both went through their initial $10 buy-in and re-bought for another $5. Both finished with their five dollars, roughly.
- Matt was peculiarly cursed. He got dealt 6-2 off-suit a record seven times.
- Neal ended up with $11, and I took $29.
- I like to think I'm good at a shorthanded table, but truth be told I caught a handful of straights and several other good hands. I still played pretty poorly — It just didn't matter much last night.
That's the poker. The whiskey's magic had only begun. I slept like I was possessed of demons. I can only hope I wasn't crawling all over my poor, dear wife. I had dreams – the details of which mostly escape me, but it's unusual for me to even remember dreaming – of "test driving" two vehicles, one of which was a large pickup with two steering wheels. I guess in case you wanted the passenger to take over...?
The test drives were also road trips involving a handful of women who seemed to have more drama going on in their lives than the Desperate Housewives (no doubt a dream analog to our back fence gossiping). At one point we were all gathered in my kitchen, which was laid out like my current house but featured the wacky knotty pine cabinets of the house we occupied in Quincy, MA. Why the whiskey devils put me in the position of herding these particular cats, I can't exactly imagine.
I'm just not sure if I want to stay away from the Powers now, or have some more...