Than, Vickie, and poor lil’ ol’ sleepless me… Actually I did manage about eight hours of semi-interrupted sleep on Friday night and it felt pretty good.

Up and raring to go – after all it’s Clan Jam Day – Than and I guzzled coffee and went off to do a few more errands, Vickie married herself to the kitchen – AGAIN! Silly girl! When she arrived I told her we would just go to a deli and pick up potato salad and anything else we thought we’d need – she WANTED to make the potato salad and appleslaw.

After a bit of trying to coax her into taking the easy route, I gave up. Damn it! She was going to cook now or I would have to slap her around. Just kidding. Cook she did! She had a neverending glass of wine just off of her left hand that was on autopilot to her lips and an array of tools which included, but were not limited to, a cutting board, knives, spoons, spatulas, forks, bowls, foil, saran wrap, gallon sized zip lock bags, and more.

Than and I returned with everything we thought we’d need and I finally hit the shower about 1:00 p.m. After all, we were going to be playing poker and dining, best I look like I was cleaned up and shiny for the event.

Tanya was the first to arrive. She came in from Kingman with the poker table tops, the fixings for her favorite dip, and we set up the crock pot so she could cook and visit. Between cooking and stirring, working on the final stages of the yard set-up, Than and Tanya read some of the books I have laying around on poker. Vickie and I did the continual ‘move’ thing, where I swear my butt never hit a seat until “poker time”.

The plan was that Tanya was supposed to crash at my house…hey…I have the air mattress thing going on, so there was room. Than had the spare room, Vickie was on the floor in my room (yes, luxury accomodations), and there was room for Tanya to have her own ‘queen sized’ air mattress too. It was sort of a real “JAM”, in more ways than one.

Jon, Clan Founder, showed up a bit after Tanya, (he arrived for a brief visit on Friday night, and left to find a friend for dinner and sleep).

The rest of the players started showing up.

The BBQ was rocking and rolling, spewing out chickens, waiting to take on the burgers and dogs too. We set up a ten foot table on the main patio and started loading it with every kind of salad and veggie dip tray known to mankind. Deserts filled most of the dining room table. Everyone brought something…the group from TN brought me a flowering plant – Sweet!

Wine bottles were waiting to be opened, dotting the countertops and table in the house, the giant ice chest I had made of concrete that is now part of my back yard – specifically for BBQs – was about half full of ice, sodas, beer, more food, and more food, and more food. Everything was going as planned.

We kicked off a fire in the chimanea on the other patio, people were milling everywhere, eating, chatting – they all had a name tag stuck to their shirts so we could figure out who the hell was who.

Everyone started grazing around 5 p.m. Being properly glutted and so full it was hard to think about anything else, we started to head into the garage around 7 p.m. to set up the poker tables.

Here’s the first glimmer of “OH SHIT!”. We discovered the chairs were barstool height. Lots of quandry here as a few of us put our heads together trying to figure out the best way to have 20 people around two tables and be about a foot higher than the table top. Not to worry! We took the tables out of their cases and discovered they had NO LEGS. Tanya knew that and while she may have relayed that somewhere along the line, I was assuming the legs came in the case. Now we had a three-fold table top with no legs and no stability unless it was placed on another table or plywood.

Hello Ward! He came up with the brilliant solution. I had enough bases to place the table on to make them functional, just needed legs. Ward suggested that we take the spare chairs and use them as the legs. We did. We set four chairs up – seat to seat, set the tables on the backs of them, and they were the perfect height for the tables and us to be seated around them. *toast to Ward*

Rock and roll! Chips were set up, Vivienne took everyone’s buy-in, draw for seating, draw for button, we were playing. I told everyone if Vivienne disappeared she might be leaving with the cash so to be sure to watch her at all times. *laughter*

We had several non-players – one of them was my cutie pie grandson, Riot, and his mom, Sylvia; Carol, Ward’s wife; Jan, Dan B.’s wife. Luckily for me, while we were playing, Carol (I heard and hope I’m not missing someone in the credits) cleaned up the backyard and brought in all the food. It was great not to have to fade that as we had enough food for two armys. People munched until around 4 a.m. but still too much food was left over. My sis always chastises me because I cook/prepare/plan too much food, but I just can’t stand the thought that someone would leave my table hungry.

The tournament play was fun. I can’t even begin to go into the play of the hands and what happened where. I took photos in order of people going busted but then it got all messed up because I saw other pictures I wanted and took them. My sis laughed at me the next day and told me I didn’t get her when she went bust. Shit! She didn’t want me to so she didn’t say anything. *brat*

Everyone dealt their own deal, when Ward busted out of our table, he dealt for us. Sweet!

About 10:30ish, Tanya busted out and then asked the harsh question, “Linda, Do you care if I leave and go to the UP for their midnight tournament?”

Well of course I care. We were having a Clan Jam. But it’s not place to stop people from doing what they want. I told her there was no way I would give her a key and then have her come back around 6 or 7 a.m. and expect to find a place to sleep. She said it was no problem, she would just drive on home. My sis was totally tanked by this time, she popped out with, “Good. That means we don’t have to blow up that air mattress for you. Get the fuck out of here!” *gales of laughter*

Hey, us girls from MT can be pretty outspoken at times, drinking or not. It was funny…still is!

Tanya went out the door, under good conditions, hugs, good luck, etc.

The tournament was ending. Blaize took third, Ari took second, and our winner, Charlie – one of the kids from TN.

The kids from TN were toast…anyway the girls were, they were asleep on the couch and love seat in the front room. They were ready to go and gave Jim a ride back to the Strip with them. People were starting to drift or get ready for a dealer’s choice $1-2 game.

The diehards remained to play – Will, Murph, Vickie and Than (they didn’t have any choice they were staying with me), Ward and Carol (Carol did play for awhile), Dan and Jan (Jan was Dan’s sweater), and Chad. Eventually we all faded into a pile of poker dust and the game broke up around 4 a.m.

Some of us were picking up debris, food, and the mess in the kitchen and dining room and my sis started carving up veggies to make a chicken soup. GET REAL! I queried, “Vickie, what are you doing?”

“I can’t let these go to waste.”

Me, “We don’t need more food for God’s sake.”

“I can’t let these go to waste, people in China are starving.”

Me, “Ok, you eat it and see if it helps them.”

Nothing I said mattered, she argued as she chopped and brewed. I gave up…how do you talk to a drunk? You don’t. She was hysterically funny and I have no idea how she tanked down as much wine as she did and kept moving. I joke about drinking wine but I’m a ‘piker’. I could never keep up with her and I don’t even try.

Finally…we hit Sandman Land around 6ish a.m. I slept like POOP! It was awful. Gave up and got up around 10 a.m. I went directly to my next door neighbor – Benny’s place. They are a delightful, wonderful bunch of people that have a full family, all kinds of kids-in-laws, brothers and sisters always there, and I asked if they would take all the spare food. They did! Yippee! I was thrilled to find a place for it because throwing it out would have bothered me but I could never eat it.

Darian, my son – father of Riot, and his family came over. We went to breakfast. After we arrived home, I took Than on a road trip up through the Red Rock Canyon Loop. Then we headed for Bellagio. Than had never visited Vegas. We cruised the perimeter of Bellagio and went through the edge of the Poker Pit. As we entered the shop/pool area, we ran into Annie Duke coming out of the guest elevators.

She immediately stopped, “Hello, Linda. This is my friend, Joe,” as she opened her hand to her companion.

I shook his hand, said hello, and introduced Than to both of them. She asked what we were doing, I replied we were just slouching around.

She asked if I was going to Aruba this year, replied yes, and we exchanged have a good day kind of thing and moved on.

It was fun…especially I think for Than. It was also great that she recognized me out of dealer clothes and immediately stopped to introduce her friend and say ‘hello’. SWEET!

So…Than went to the airport on the night of the 6th to head back to his family, Vickie went home on Monday, the 7th, I went back to work. Exhausted…still dragging ass but having had a hell-uv-a good time and glad that everyone made it. YOO HOOO – Clan Jam – you rooool!

Pics coming of everyone…just give me a little bit of time and I may need to sleep somewhere in between.

AND – Vickie cleaned up the ashtrays before she left this time…true love!