My trip into Vegas and visit with Gary and Marie was great – ride to the airport – on the plane by 1pmish and in the air a short while later.  Before I knew it, we were landing in Springfield.  So began that start of my 10 day visit.  Our  Thanksgiving feed consisted of some fantastic pita bread – heated – from the local organic food store, sliced avocado and tomato, with my favorite hummus.  Yummmeeee!

We’ve been out to eat, to a piercing shop to replace the hoop that has made me crazy in my upper left ear for over a year now – nice little opal with a flat back fitting where the tube goes through the ear from the back, and a small post with the stone is crimped into it from the front.  It seems to have settled well and I’m happy.  Jennie picked up some exotic, large geometric designs for the lower hole in her ears that have to be twisted and turned to get them into the lobe to hang properly, and replaced 8 other small rings in various places in her ears so we came out of the shop happy with our choices…no new piercings, just new jewelry.  If your in Springfield and looking for new jewelry or a place to put it, go see George at the High Priestess studio.

We’ve eaten at several joints that are pretty laid back and appear to carry more of the organic/natural foods, and that’s what my diet has consisted of since being here.  And Josh got me started on Kombucha.  The jury is still out.  I’m on day 5 of it and would like to give it a 30 day trial to see if I honestly feel anything changes in digestive, sleep, alertness, etc.  You have to get past the smell…and then learn to deal with the taste – even in different flavors it’s pretty harsh.  Of course I know there’s no drink that will cure the poker blues.

On the subject of poker, we played our PokerWorks Family tourney on Sunday, the 30th.  Josh played also and pulled third out of 8, I believe I was first out again.  Bad beat there…being first out out of 8 players.  We had a nice crew and just missed having Alcan’thang with us.  We changed the start time of the tourney to later and that’s where the confusion happened.  We will be starting at a later time from now I believe.  We missed you Grupper.

PokerStars Tournament #216853883, HORSE
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50 USD
8 players
Total Prize Pool: $40.00 USD
Tournament started 2009/11/29 22:30:00 ET
Tournament finished 2009/11/29 23:43:19 ET
1: clearspine (Boulder), $20.00 (50%)
2: PokerHack07 (Red Bluff), $12.00 (30%)
3: joshuasouth2 (springfield), $8.00 (20%)
4: cmacc85 (waycross),
5: Alexe55 (Marina Del Rey),
6: ekimco (New York),
7: djhomeschool (Denton),
8: PokerWorks (Pahrump),

Yes, in looking at the finish, I was definitely first out.  Of course I got SUCKED OUT ON by the best player at the table, Clearspine, read his blog and there will be no doubt who the best is.  The Good Witch was horribly ill that night and we were lucky she made it.  We had a new face – ekimco – that was very nice.  I watched the game until the end.  For the 1st time djhomeschool was out close to me, he usually finishes quite well…must have been an off night for limp wrists. *play with us if you want to know more*

Leaving poker behind – which is mainly what I’ve done since flying out of Vegas, the first day we were on our way to Area 51 Tattoos and Salon where Josh works, cruising down the main street of Eugene, when a bald eagle suddenly flew in a downward swoop from the left, about 15 feet off the ground, moving at an extremely fast rate of speed after something on the right.  I just had time to catch what looked like a duck going down into a fast food parking lot with some low trimmed shrubbery.  Another eagle was trailing about 20 feet right behind the first.  I don’t like the duck’s chances.  The parking lot was empty since it was Thanksgiving and the joint was closed.  It made me feel slightly ill in my weird sort of way.  Yah, I know it happens all the time…spare me the drivel. We drove on.

Rain refuses to just be my little buddette, which is strange to me because I’ve never had an issue with little kids not wanting to play with me, sit on me, or hang on me.  Oh well.  She loves purses, even ones that are 3 times as big as she is so she’s drug my camera case around, my handbag around (after I emptied it because she can unzip everything), and she has her own bag that we picked up at Walmart for her.  When we hit the checkout stand, she wouldn’t let go of it so the clerk could scan it…screaming…a solid steady scream like a horror movie chick that’s being attacked by monsters…and shaking from head to toe. I laugh every time she does it.  I don’t think mom and dad find it as funny as I do.

Umnhssshit…I had planned a few photos but the image manager is being a little bitch.  Next time!