No. Not cole slaw. But close...Finally--the weekend is here! That means it's gonna be pretty quiet and lonely around here, with nobody but the hard-core re-clickers stopping by to say hello. I have no plans for the next couple of days--I'm on call today, and there's a slight chance I might get called in, but then I'm actually scheduled to be off on Sunday and Monday.
Since I only had three days of work in each of the past two weeks, I'm living the life of a frugal hermit for another week or so, staying in, reading, doing household projects, and avoiding the temptation to go out and spend money. Granted, playing poker is a positive expectation activity if I'm playing tournaments, meaning that I treat my buy-in money as an investment. But since my run of poor luck and poor play these past couple of weeks has continued, I've decided to take some time off from the tournament circuit.
Anyhow... My Friday at work was another long and tiring day, but again, the money was excellent. Even though I'm only working three days a week now, I'm still making just as much as I was out in the pit. Couple that with the fact that I don't pay hardly any taxes anymore, and my student loan payments have been cut by about 60%, it feels like I've gotten a raise. Even better, I retired one particularly onerous debt in June, so even though I constantly beg my boss to give me more hours, well, I'm still doing ok and managing to meet my obligations. Just think of how nice it'll be once the economy picks up a little more...
But enough about that. When I got to work at 8:00 am yesterday, the graveyard dealer was sitting in the box, dealing to all the old fogas. There was no 6:00 am dealer. And there wasn't another dealer scheduled to come in until ten. So before I sat down, the floorman told me that I was gonna be locked down for two hours--there was no relief coming. I was ok with that, that was two hours of guaranteed money.
When I finally got up from the table two hours later, I swear, my ass was asleep. When I'm dealing, there's no time to get up, stretch, or move around like at the blackjack tables. The more pots I push, the more money I make, so I was in high gear and personal comfort took a back seat. So I was quite stiff when I finally got relieved. I made a quick trip to the head, and then headed over to Fatburger to get a fountain Coke, then back to the poker room to cash out my tokes from the first two hours. It wasn't a bad haul, especially coming from the morning game--in my first two hours I'd made $75 in tips. Things then slowed down for about an hour--we had three more dealers coming in at 11, and I was worried that I'd get sent home, but it was all for naught as we had 26 players show up for the tournament, meaning that all hands were needed on deck. I dealt another half hour at the cash game, then did two tournament 'downs' before getting another break.
By then, the room was hopping. We opened a no-limit game and then a 6-12 cash game. Both were very lucrative and I knew I'd be staying my entire shift. The floor worked it out so that my last table push ended at 3:30, and I got to spend my last half hour doing brush work--seating players, cashiering, running chips, picking up racks, etc. That let me get out a few minutes early, and I had a nice pocket full of cash when all was said and done.
Again, my plan was to go to the grocery store and do my shopping, but again, I was just beat. Besides, it was hot as hell outside, and I didn't want to deal with the Friday-afternoon crowds at the grocery store anyways. So, I talked myself out of it and came straight on home.
I grabbed a cold DCWL out of the fridge, sat down on the floor, and immediately found myself at the bottom of a literal dogpile. The pups were happy to see me! So I played with them for a bit, while my roommate and his girlfriend loaded up the car for a weekend road trip. They were headed out to LA to escape the heat and to spend a couple of nights on the boat. They also took Charlie with them, leaving me to babysit Bear and Stoli for the weekend. Luckily the dogs are pretty self-sufficient and all I have to do is make sure their water bowls stay full.
After awhile, I crawled upstairs, and as much as I tried not to, I promptly fell asleep until around 8:30 or so. I was tempted to drive down to Chicago Brewing Company for some pizza and beer, but I figured it would probably be a zoo on a Friday night. Then the realization struck me that I had no coffee creamer in the house! In my book, that's a mortal sin akin to running out of Captain Morgan, so I finally decided to head to the store, figuring the worst of the weekend shoppers would be gone.
Also, I've been trading recipes with Mrs VJW, and she mentioned a great-sounding dish on her site the other day, scrambled eggs with crab. It sounded awesome, so she sent me the recipe. It required a few things I didn't have on hand, like fresh chives and creme fraiche, so that too facilitated the need to go to the store.
However, as much as people bag on the WalMart market for having a limited selection, Smith's is just as bad. I've looked for fresh chives on several occasions, and have only been able to buy them once. And creme fraiche? Forget it. I'm gonna have to wait and make a trip down to Trader Joe's sometime next week. So I won't be dining on that wonderful-sounding crab dish anytime soon, as much as I want to.
But I got a couple of other things I needed. The other morning at work, I found myself tiring of the usual breakfast buffet where the selection never changes. That was Rob's big beef when he worked on graveyard. He said he was sick of the food in the employee dining room because all they ever had was the same breakfast food every day for his entire shift. But when I was on swing shift, I was sick of the same crappy casserole-based garbage they put out every night, and loved it when they put out the breakfast spread early. But I would never wait around until the end of my shift to eat breakfast--once I punched out, it was bye-actus kye-actus for me--I was out the door in a flash. But Rob used to stick around for lunch on 'Taco Day', even though he was off of work. Me? Man, they couldn't have gotten me to stay one minute past the end of my shift even if they offered up some Grimaldi's pizza served on a naked cocktail waitress. (Well, I guess it would depend on which cocktail waitress...)
Anyhow, I digress.
I was to the point where I was sick of the usual breakfast fare, and I remembered one of the things I saw on the menu at the Peppermill--a fruit and yogurt parfait. So I got a cereal bowl, put a box of granola in it, threw in a cup of Yoplait, and topped it all off with some cantaloupe and honeydew melon. Oh hell yeah it was good!
So while I was at the store last night, I got in touch with my inner hippie and picked up a bunch of Yoplait and a huge box of the expensive granola. I swear that box of cereal weighs as much as a fireplace brick. Instead of the usual stuff like honeydew or pineapples, I got a carton of blueberries and strawberries to put on it instead. And since I got my coffee creamer too, I'm really looking forward to breakfast today.
But even though I didn't make it out for pizza and beer at Chicago Brewing Company, I was still hungry and needed some dinner. I was thinking of quesadillas, but I decided to change it up a bit. Instead of the plain old cheese-and-salsa filling, I decided to make a pizza quesadilla. I heated a big burrito-sized tortilla on the grill, and instead of salsa, I smeared on a couple of tablespoons of that Ragu Pizza Quik sauce. Then I sprinkled on a generous handful of shredded mozzarella cheese, followed by some sliced pepperoni and some canned mushroom stems and pieces.
It looked so good that I decided to make two of 'em!
Not suprisingly, they turned out really great, but it was a much more hearty meal than I expected, probably because my traditional quesadillas never have any meat in them. So I only finished off one of them, and then let the other one cool and saved it in a Rubbermaid dish for later on this weekend.
So even if I don't get called in this weekend, or go out for a nice meal at a favorite restaurant, I'm ok with holing up in my bunker until Tuesday. I've got a fridge full of good grub and Diet Coke, a shelf full of rum and sailing books, several poker magazines, and the internet. Not to mention my meager porn stash... So I could live here quite happily for the next few days, which is exactly what I intend to do.
That's all for now-
Mikey
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