Richardson Regional

In our continuing quest for gold, we talked friend/partners Jay and Paula into coming up to Richardson (near Dallas) to play knockouts with us.  We shared much fun, laughter and food and won about 3 gold for which we are most grateful.  Paula and I played together and, one afternoon, two nice ladies sat down at our table for the usual 12/12 boards and introduced themselves as June and Bonnie.  Bonnie was a no nonsense looking woman with a nice thick cane which, I thought, could do some damage if I acted up.  June was a willowy lovely woman with feather cut white hair and gorgeous jewelry.  After the first hand, when June put her hand down as dummy, Bonnie said, "Ah've seen better hands on a washerwoman"! Uh oh.  Paula and I started laughing which is bad because it usually just escalates.  Sure enough, a few hands later, Bonnie said to June, "Yer ahs (eyes) look like two frahd eggs in a SLOP BUCKET! Go get yerself some coffee!"  Well that was it, I was laughing with tears running down my cheeks.  Husband/partner said he heard me from 3 tables down and thought I had badly screwed up a hand.  Nice.

Bonnie said to me, "What are y'all laughing at?  Haven't yew ever seen frahd eggs in a slop bucket?"  When I admitted that I had never seen a slop bucket in my life she said, "Whar y'all from anyway - I thought you said San Antonio?  That's how we talk here in Texas".  I think I lost some credibility there.  So, we finished our twelve boards and chatted while we waited for 10 minutes, as usual,  for Jay and husband/partner to get done.  Director Guillermo wandered by and I asked if he would go give them a kick in the rear.  I added, "or this nice lady probably has a cattle prod you can use".  Bonnie said, "Ah DO!"  I was afraid that cane would do some  prodding  on it's own if they took much longer.

Richardson is a great regional; one of the best we have attended.  The hotel was really, really nice.  The manager met us at the door and was around the lobby every day talking to guests and watching staff.  Hands on management is rare these days and I was impressed with the clean, well run hotel Renaissance.  The free food after the night game was really good and the coffee was sometimes free in the afternoon.  There were plenty of directors and none of them were crabby.  Even when I doubled husband/partner's bid and director Kevin showed up to adjudicate, he simply said, "I've seen him play - I'd probably double him too".  Kevin usually directs in Austin and has helped us several times with great advice over the past couple of years.  I was embarrassed, though, to do such a stupid rookie thing.

My sister in law, Paula, wrote today and said, "well, you said in your blog you wanted rain!" and we had a tropical storm blow through yesterday, 7 inches in the back yard.  I hope the points pour down with friend/partner/new life master Rebecca today or I will have to throw out my beloved omen theory.  I hope I will be joining Rebecca in the near future - about 30 points total to go with 5 of them gold.  It seems doable. Ha.