I lost a couple hundred of John’s bucks last night at Gertie’s. I entered the early tournament and went out just after the stakes were raised the first time. There was some excitement, though, near the end of the tournament. Terry, the choreographer for the cancan show, was still in when she had to go to work. She asked John to take her place to finish off, but John knew the table would not be ok with that. Instead, he convinced her to let me play for her. We cleared it with the pit boss and the table (everyone was glad to see me back to get more of my chips) and I sat down with barely enough of her chips to enter one round. The stakes had gone up to $50/$100. She told me to just play super tight and not bet on anything other than a high pair. I went a few rounds like that, folding low cards, just hanging in the game, then John called me over to let me know only 10 minutes remained. He said to take one of the next two or three hands and just bet like I’ve got pocket aces. Nothing to lose. So I did. I got a ten, queen and went all in even though I have no idea how to do that. I think a queen came on the flop, then maybe the ten showed up on 4th street, so I just pushed in what chips I had left and bet. Three or four people followed, increasing the pot substantially. I won the hand, then managed to follow it up with almost exactly the same thing for a second place finish in the tournament. Because of the circumstances, though, we split second and third with another woman who was close behind. Terry and I split $114 bucks between us. She was happy. Then, in true Klondike form, I sat down with John to play the free game that followed and proceeded to go through 200 bucks in a couple of hours. Luckily he held his own and managed to break even for the night.

Yesterday afternoon, while sitting on the patio of the office having a glass of wine with the staff, the woman who’s doing bookkeeping “zapped” a wasp with one of those electric tennis racket insect killers. I asked her what the wasp had done to her and she replied, “It might've stung me.” I said that’s exactly how Bush behaves. She denied having voted for Bush, (I have yet to meet an American who did) and we narrowly avoided a heated political debate. Gail laughed, saying she sees why I get along so well with her sister.

One of the waitresses at Gertie’s was showing off a photo to the guy two seats to my left at the poker table. I peered over John’s shoulder to see an enormous, muscular white mountain sheep with iridescent blue eyes, laying down on the ground, a young guy standing behind him holding him by his magnificent horns. How beautiful, I said. “Yeah. He’s really proud of it,” she said. Somewhere in the next sentence, I heard the word “hunting” and it quickly became sickeningly apparent that this beautiful animal was, in fact, a trophy. I was horrified. “Bush is everywhere,” John joked. I laughed hard so I wouldn’t cry.