Good afternoon!

Bridge again ... ... played with Evelyn Berger today, and we had a very nice game - a touch over 58%, and just a whisker (we had 58.17 and the overall winners had 59.13) shy of capturing the whole thing overall. There's a story behind our getting together, and it's a good one.

You might recall that I was looking for someone early last week to make a fourth for our team in the tournament? Well, I called Edna Kelly (a former student), for one. I called several people, actually, and kept getting voice mails. Left a message every time. One of the messages I left was on Evelyn Berger's machine. I listened keenly to her greeting, asking myself the whole time, "Is this the right Evelyn?" I finally decided that it was and left a message, but qualified it with, "If you're the wrong Evelyn, if you're the Evelyn I've reached in error before, I apologize for being in error again and there's no need to call me back."

Well, it was the wrong Evelyn, but she called me back anyway and we had a nice visit. I decided that, as long as we'd had two very pleasant telephone conversations - albeit both as a result of my forgetting Evelyn James' last name, we should really get together for a game and then - hopefully - I wouldn't make that mistake a third time.

Don't you just love that story?

Sweet lady. Only plays during the day. She had cataract surgery on her only good eye last month and has trouble seeing the cards. I've heard this story bunches of times before and I'm tellin' ya, folks, I'm not looking forward to having cataract surgery later on this year or early next. Not the teensiest little bit.


I have one nasty thing to report from today's game. We were defending a contract and I had just taken the last trick. I was taking a little time thinking about what I was going to lead to the next trick when I heard from my left - in a tone of voice I hadn't heard since the last time I was robbed at gunpoint while driving a taxicab - "Let's go, the round's been called!"

When you're driving a taxicab, you never want to hear that tone of voice - it's scary! I wasn't the least bit scared today, but memories just came flooding back over me and I began to shake. I was almost livid with anger. I said nothing and made no comment. Didn't call the director, either, altho I was well within my rights to do so.

(Just took the time to look up what we did against her and her partner ... yes, it was a she who was acting that way! Twelve was "top" on each board, and we had gotten a 9 1/2 on the previous board. I guess she was ticked. "Tough titties," my mother would have said. On the 'tone of voice' board, we got a 10. Ha! Double ha!!)


Tomorrow I'm scheduled to play with Rick Barrett. Now that's a name from my far almost-everyday-bridge-playing past! Am very much looking forward to it. We've exchanged a couple of e-mails already, talking about our general approach to the game and what we prefer, etc. and blah. We'll be playing at a venue that is new to me.


Milwaukee did not lose last night, and so the National League's Central division is not nearly as tight as I optimistically envisioned.


Later, gators!