Wow! I have a lot of catching up to do. It’s ugly. How many brain cells can I find that will pull together and help me concentrate on memory…kind of like running a hard drive without enough RAM and a processor that’s too small. Besides, I just put in a real dealing shift – in Aruba – and came back to my room to pour a really cold can of Ultra into a glass that was in the freezer compartment of the small refrigerator I requested for the length of my stay. The beer and glass were both so cold that they created a mix of froth and frozen crystals that kept running over the top of the glass. Hell yes, I had to keep sipping to keep it from running over the sides. It was incredible…the taste…crisp, cold, and just what the witch doctor ordered. Yumblie!!!!!

Now that I’ve explained that I’m drinking, I need to catch up so let me start with my view.

That’s any given morning, but check out the sunset.

Ain’t it just too beautiful for words? Kind of makes me feel as if my spirit has taken flight. No…it’s not the icy cold beer talking.

Backtrack to Saturday, the 24th. My buddies (Jim and Wayne) are now ‘the kids across the hall’. We asked for adjoining rooms but I guess all the rooms at the Wyndham were full so it just wasn’t to be…they are directly across the hall though. Their room stinks. It smells like musty mildew and mold that has been processed, canned, and sprinkled all over a room. Do I know why? Hell no! Mine smells all fresh and sparkly new – but theirs is ‘stanky’.

I asked for a refrigerator at check-in. I knew I was heading for a grocery store. After our first night of buying brews, The Kids Across The Hall knew they were going grocery shopping too.

We got up somewhere around 10 or 11ish and hit the restaurant on the beach for ‘brekkie’ before heading for the front desk and a cab.

Believe it or not, these guys are regulars, all over the outdoor restaurants, and we have to watch out for them. But they don’t bite, they like veggies. This beauty was around two feet long.

While we were feeding and watching people, and watching people watch the beauty above, a bird that was roaming the area (lots of them there as they’ve become food sluts…waiting for a handout – just like a poker railbird), flew right onto the rim of Jim’s glass and splashed around in his coke. It was so unexpectedly funny, we all busted up. He tried to drink the coke but we held him back…the bird silly. Jim insisted on a fresh glass.

Our waitress took a picture of us…and then the bitch acted like she was dropping my camera as she handed it back. Hah…hahhhhh…hahhh! Funny! NOT! She was a great waitress but she lost me when the fake camera trick happened. I liked her customer service though.

We headed for Ling & Sons Super IGA Center, a new grocery store on the island. Shopping at its finest. I picked up a little over two cases of Ultra, p-nut butter, graham crackers, broccoli, apples, rye crackers, and shampoo.

This is what Wayne bought:

Jim just stood there. Hell…he was waiting for someone to come in with a forklift.

We finally made it to the Cashier. Each of us left a healthy chunk of change in the registers for the Aruba economy. We had arranged for the cab driver, that delivered us, to come back in an hour. He was there waiting as we filled his trunk with our goodies. And what a system they have, it was cheaper going because he wasn’t hauling anything but us. Go figure!

Back to the hotel, unload, have a bell person load up and take our stuff up to our rooms. We were there waiting. Don’t think we hadn’t already been drinking…we were. We slammed down more brews as we discussed what time we should head over to The Radisson for the dealer meeting.

Suzie Lederer is our group commander in Aruba. She works her butt off getting all the dealers organized and informed and there, and she runs our line-up and works through each shift, staying there as long as she’s needed, to make sure we are taken care of and that we show up and do our jobs. We gathered across two rows of five tables and each row drew to see what we were…butterflies, fish, lizards, porpoises – our row? Tortoises. We were kewl with that. Especially since the Butterflies were going to have to deal live at the Radisson that night. We were free, wild, untamed, slow moving, hard shelled creatures that lived in the desert…ok…some of them live in the ocean. But we did NOT have to be to work until Sunday night at 8:15, then we would be dealing live at the Radisson. But for tonight, we were on the loose again.

I asked Wayne to put his hand out on the felt…the 1st hand.

After we left the dealer meeting, at the top of the stairs, in the foyer of the Radisson, we saw Phil Helmuth – a couple of hitchhikers in tow – heading for the place we just left. He had six champagne glasses in one hand and a bottle of…let’s assume it was Dom Perigon in the other. We exchanged a few words…not that he knows or remembers or differentiates between me and the sand crab out in back of the joint. But he did speak to us.

We hit the Radisson poker room for live play. Wayne and me jumped into a $4-8 Holdem game and Jim went to $15-30. The dealers had no idea – they did know they had a deck of cards in their hand but that was the extent of it…nice people though.

In one hand, three way action, (BTW you can bet $4 or 8 on the Flop. No shit? Yup!), 5s bet, 10s called, the 1s released $8 and reached back for $8 more and then said, “Raise!” as he released the next $8.

The 5s looked at the dealer and said, “He can’t raise. It’s a string bet.”

The dealer pushed back $8 to the 1s and said, “No raise.”

The 1s argued, “I said raise.”

The dealer took $8 from the 1s, stacked it in front of the 1s, looked at the 5s and said, “Raise.”

The 5s said, “He can’t raise.”

The dealer pushed back the $8 to the 1s and said, “No raise.”

The 1s argued and pushed the raise back out. Pointing to the 5s, I said, “He’s right. It’s not a raise.”

The dealer looked at me and then pushed back the $8, “No raise.”

We got past that. No one got a missed blind button…except me. After I’d been playing about two hours, I went to the restroom and came back to a ‘missed blind’. I went to the floor man to find out if that’s what’s supposed to happen. “Yes!”

His name is Mace, him and his brother, Dane, own part of the poker room. Mace asked me if we would all help the dealers as much as we could as they had to be trained. Umnnnnn! Ok.

I finally ended up about $80 winner. I had the best time with Moshi…he was in the 10s and really fun to play poker with. He was on a heater when I sat down and I never picked up a hand to get involved with so I watched the action. He helped me get winner and also took me off a few hands…but that’s poker.

I was tired of playing and my butt was dragging. It was close to 3 a.m. I left The Kids Across the Hall still holding down their section of green felt. I headed for the room. I kept trying to remember if we ‘dined’ that night but the answer is “NO”. We drank that night. I had a lot of Balashi, the local beer, after I took a seat in the $4-8 game.

I made it to the room, had a snack, gave up beer for the night, and crashed. I managed to sleep until around 4 p.m. God…I don’t know how. I haven’t managed to get even close to seven hours at a time since then. But it sure was nice. Sand Woman Land just pulled me in, snuggled me up, and away I went. Good night, Aruba!