Vacation Part V: "Card Sharking"

I like playing cards...

And I ain't talking about Spades. (Still trying to learn that. And Ilovespades.com is the devil. Just want ya'll to know that).

I like playing REAL cards. I like playing poker.

I've played Carribean Stud in the past at Casinos, and I usually break even.

Not enough for me to go professional or to be a card carryin' member of Gambler's Anonymous, you see.

But while on vacation, there was Texas Hold 'Em games held out near the pool in the Activity Center.

And on the day before we left to come back to flooded out Atlanta, an Oldgirl decided to take a little field trip out to the pool and catch a little action.

It turned out that there was a 20 dollar buy-in...



I could do that. Heck, I'd only spent 30 dollars in tips while there for 4 days. I could spare 20 bucks.

I took a seat at the table and ordered a margarita.

There were trash talking white dudes there. And a couple of European gals, too. One of them threw 20 euros into the pot. (That was interesting. I'd never seen Euros before).

There were 8 people in all... A bit too many, but heck, it was all in fun...

That fella sitting directly across from me... he was talking his ass off. Analyzing everybody and every move. Bragged about playing in tournaments. Yada, yada, yada...



They were all very interesting people. I didn't have much to say. Just listened... and watched, mostly.





I was mesmerized by this tatted fella. I know it had to be painful getting those tats all on his arm.



I wondered what kind of job he had, where he can be tatted up like that. I wanted to ask, but folks who know me know how I am around people I don't know.

I was eerily quiet. Playing and snapping pictures of the action.

(I know they were wondering why the heck I was taking pictures, lol. No one asked.)

Oldgirl had a few chips...



That was my short stack... about an hour into the game.

The chatty fella across from me was hollerin' "Don't count her out! She has a short stack, but she could come back!"

Folks weren't listening.

An Oldgirl stayed in the game while others were being picked off.

An Oldgirl hustled a few more chips...

I kept on playing. 2 hours in, I ordered up a strawberry daquiri with a shot of tequila on the side.

Tapped my feet to an INSANE 15 minute version of Diana Ross' Love Hangover. (I really LIKE that song.)

An Oldgirl knows how to stack chips...



Yep... That Oldgirl knows a little something about chips.

In other words... AN OLDGIRL KNOWS HOW TO STACK THEM CHIPS, MA.

It got down to me and the tatted fella. They were whining about how he and I should split the money.

*crickets*


"N'awl,man... let's keep going, heads up," I said.

By that time, close to 3 hours in, Def Leppard was blaring over the loud speaker. It was really irking me and it was time to push dude. I was ready to go curl up on a lounge chair down at the beach with my book.

Final hand: Tatted dude had a Jack and a King... I had a Queen and a Jack.



LadyLee got them Euros!



LadyLee got ALL the bread!



That's how you do that there. Really.

I had a good time.

Should've been playing the first day I got there, lol...

Vacation Part IV: Sun and Ocean

This post goes out to Miss Celie (Tayari Jones)...

'Cause she scratches out my head when I was ailing.

LOL!

She sent the most interesting text message before she took off for Brazil

"Bye Bye Nettie! Hold it down while I'm gone:)"

Really. I will hold it down, Celie. Whatever that means.

Celie was hanging out all over the Meditteranean last month. Now she's skipped off to South America. It looks like business though. She is lecturing down. Hope they are ready for her, because Celie know she talk fast.

I texted back for her to dip her big toe in the Amazon for me, lol...

She gave me my first pictures of good vacation water. I was so happy to replace hers with pictures of my own...

Safe travels, Celie... Don't forget to write!!!


When we first arrived at our resort, we changed out of our traveling clothes and walked around the property. We happened upon the beach...



We'd just made our way from the Cancun airport through heavy showers, so it was a bit dreary, but also very calm.


The Birthday girl, Kimmie-Kim at the beach...



The way she was looking at the water... well, I thought she was gonna dive in for a swim.

A couple of days later, we got some good sunshine down there. And it was hot, at a crazy 92 degrees...


And that made for some much better pictures. I wanted to catch a sunrise, but I was too chicken to walk down to the beach so early in the morning. I only took a couple of pictures of the sun:

Snapped quite a few pictures of the ocean.

Enjoy!

My favorite one:

Monday, Monday...

I peered out my blinds this morning and saw that it looks all nasty outside.

On top of that, it is cold. Well, cold being 56 degrees.

Cold weather and rain are not a good combo.

Doesn't matter. I'm doing half a day today. I got this perpetual headache going on and I just don't feel like being bothered. It's not as bad as it has been in the past, but I just need to sit down somewhere and be still.

Much of this is due to me being dehydrated... and that time of the month coming up.

Sigh.

So I am laying here in bed drinking water. I just had my morning oatmeal dressed all up with raisins, pecans and almond milk.

And I WILL get through this quart of water this morning.

I don't plan to go in until 2 pm. Work is just horrible right now. Morale is in the toilet, and I do my best to keep my own morale up, but hell, it just ain't working. No one is sure where our boss' head is at. She's pretty much checked out on us as far as I'm concerned. Our ship is floating to and fro in a mighty windswept ocean, with no direction whatsoever. I hope things will get better.
I really do.

Some crazy comment was made about me by someone. I was told about it. Of course, it was a lie. I think people do that type of thing to make themselves feel better or something. It didn't bother me, but it bothered the other person, for they knew it wasn't true. I hate when that type of thing happens. Nothing worse than conjured up drama, you know? I was just glad that the person respected me enough to tell me, and express their opinion. I was very glad I have that respect of that person. And of course, I threw that piece of information on a mental post it note. Good to know what people who smile in your face really think of you. That's a REALLY good thing to know.

We had an awards ceremony last week, to which I didn't go. I had too much paperwork. The boss told me I needed to go. This fell on deaf ears. It is all some type of trick to me. Lately, when I take time to go to extra stuff like that (as I'm instructed to do, mind you), my clock gets cleaned, i.e., I get in trouble for not getting my work finished.

So I may as well get my clocked clean over something like a meeting like that.

Here's the kicker: I didn't know that it was an awards ceremony. And I was getting awards. My bad.

Not sure why I'm getting awards, since I am made to feel like I'm sorry as hell. That really confuses me. It's like you just negated your strange treatment of me. Why would one do such a thing. Makes them look bad, not me. Very confusing.

It may be some reverse psychology thing.

I am too old for that. Let me sit at my desk and get my work done. Before I am made to go off and help other people get there stuff done, that is. Thereby posing further delay in me getting my own work done. Resulting in me getting dissed.

A vicious cycle, no less.

I see an interesting pattern in all this.

Interesting. And that's the end of my workplace rant. Most important lesson I learned from the week: Some things you just have to hold up in prayer. Period.

My weekend. I was bone tired after a long week, so the weekend was welcome.

I went to church on Friday night, as my usual custom. Not as of late, but getting better at it. Just because I'm bone tired don't mean I need to skip out on Church. I attend one of the super megas, so Friday night is a good 100 folk, in the small chapel, and I get to hear from some of the assistant pastors, who I think frankly are much better than my own pastor, so that was good thing. So I came away with a good set of notes very much related to my strange week, and a good plan of action. That's all I can ask for, and I am thankful for that.

I hung out at Nikki's family house on Saturday night. I think they have sort of adopted me or something, and that is fine by me, lol. Anyway, they have these amazing Pokeno games from time to time, and I got in on it. $1.25 buy-in per game, so I spent times going through my change for a gang of quarters for playing. I baked up a few batches of cookies and went on over there. As usual there was a gang of food. Apparently someone cooked it up and Nikki's Ma went and picked it up. I carried some of my veggie stuff with me, but I had some VERY good green beans and hush puppies. (I told the man that cooked all that food that the beans were good, I just had to kick that pork out of my green beans, lol).

Nikki's brother 'Swad called from Cali. Someone said the phone was for me, which I found odd, since I'm at someone else's house, lol. But I talked to him. He's been vegetarian for 10 years and has been really helpful, happy to answer any questions, sort of mentoring me along the way. We yacked about that. So I have some new really good ideas of where I want to take my lil' vegetarian journey.

At the end of the night, I'd won 89 bucks in the final Pokeno game. I hadn't won anything all night, but that last game was my game. I was happy about that! I may just go put all of that in the debit account that Grandma has under my name. Call up grandma and tell her to go have a good time at the Family Dollar store she loves so much, lol...

Sunday was a good day. I went to the Farmer's market to do my shopping. It was crowded down. I don't like crowds, with all that pushing and maneuvering around. I may have to change my shopping day to a weekday... I also hit the white people's Kroger and picked up my prescriptions. I spent the rest of the day watching football, reading and crocheting. That's what I call a GOOD Sunday! Well for me, anyway.

Not sure what this week holds for me. No telling what's going to be going on at work. I plan to plan my work and work my plan the best I can. I always get things done during the week. My goals are lofty, but I'm going to start celebrating that which I do get done. That's a good way to look at things.

This week is going to be a good week. I'm saying that on purpose. Period. I'm gonna let the B.S. be simply what it is: B.S.

Stay tuned for more vacation pics: the ocean, the food, the beautiful landscaping... amongst other things, lol.

Ya'll make it a good week, too.

Vacation Part IV: The Pool

Our room was a stone's throw from the pool... I did't get many pics, only a few.

I had a terrible problem with my camera, as it would take a minute for it to adjust to the heat and humidity. But if you look at this closely, you can appreciate the scope of the pool. It was huge.

The landscaping around that pool was quite nice.

A picture from when we first got there. The pool was quite crowded.


I am down for this swim up bar idea.

A gang of liquor at the swim-up bar!

It was very busy. Spent a little time over there. They make some STRONG drinks.



In this pic, A storm was about to blow in. Those palm trees were whipping around pretty hard.

As you can see, the people are still out there having a good time. And they stayed in the pool through the brief showers.

Someone yelled for me to get in the pool. Uh, no thank you. Not with that lightning going on. Not safe and not a good look. I was just trying to order a frozen pina colada from the bar.

I spent a good amount of time out at the pool... There's nothing like chilling in a lounge chair under a straw cabana.

But I also spent some time at the beach...

To be continued...

Vacation Part III: A Room with a View

We had a really nice room, with a nice balcony.

I didn't spend much time out there, as the mosquitos were out doing the salsa something terrible. I didn't get bit up, but they feasted upon Kimmie-Kim something terrible. I had 2 mosquito bites, one on my temple, and another on my butt (not sure how that happened). That was enough for this Oldgirl to keep her tail inside as much as possible, lol...

But I would go out in the early mornings for a little quiet time.

Here's the view from our room.

Uh, no... it ain't an ocean view. The rooms with ocean views were TOO far from all the action. We needed to be close to food and activities, lol.

I do like this view, though.

My Mama always said when there are reddish overtones like that, well, it meant it would be a beautiful day. That's probably and old wives tale, but I think of that every time.

Not much to see here, but it do look like we are sitting off in the middle of the jungle. Yes, this place was VERY remote. There was no sneaking in or out, that's for sure.

I did not catch a sunrise. That would've meant walking down to the beach, past the jungle. Uh no, not by myself, man.

Very "jungly" indeed.

Here's a clearer picture in the daytime.

That path is interesting. It leads straight to the pool area.

To be continued...