As promised, here are the pictures from Bingo.  Unfortunately there were no Wen Irs, only Loo Zurs.



The People of Bingo.  There were a lot.  I know the picture sucks but I was afraid of angering them.  I wanted to capture them in their natural state as unobtrusively as possible.  Unobtrusively was me running to the front of the room and taking a quick picture.  I then cursed because I had forgotten to take off the flash and people looked at me a little grumpy.  Eek!  See the red  electronic things on the left-hand side?  Those were the computers.  I believe it is cheating because all you had to do was pay $30 and they handed you a "computer".  The computer kept track of 60 faces and then told you if you won.  The human did nothing but pay $30.  Where is the challenge?  Bingo is hard, just ask Pete.  To put 60 faces in perspective, the most faces these crazy-bingo-playing humans could play were 36, and that was pushing it.  Pete, Steph, and I struggled playing 12.  For the uneducated non-bingo player, faces are little bingo cards.



Here is the front of the room where the bingo caller said things like B4 (my favorite) and announced raffle ticket Wen Irs.  The light up board is a staple at any Bingo hall I have been to.  See on the sign, under the red square, there is a shape like a martini glass?  That is the pattern we were trying to get during that game of bingo.  The sign is very convenient because it flashes the patterns, possible bingos, and numbers called.  It is also enchanting.  You can get lost staring at it's blinking lights (At least I did)



Here is Stephanie with her pretty pink dauber.  This picture is a fake though, I told her to pretend to daub so I could get an action shot.  I am a liar and a fraud photographer.  But, look at the pretty picture!  Steph is playing on of the special bingo rounds.  She has 3 faces in front of her.  (Just to illustrate the face thing again in case some of you may not have understood previously)



Oh, lovely Pete.  This is what happens when you say, "Pete, pretend that you are daubing your paper so I can get a fake action shot."  It  became a real action shot; this is the face he makes while daubing.  (Click here to read how to use a semicolon correctly)



Pete and a strange looking fake redhead.  I will hunt her down!



Proof that I didn't anger all of the natives.  One of the hall workers asked me if I was taking pictures.  I freaked out and tried to make her understand that they weren't pictures of anyone in particular and please don't hurt me.  She laughed, then asked me to take her picture.  So, I did.  See the tv screen with a bingo ball in it?  That is the number that will be called next.  One of the complexities of bingo is that they show you the number that will be called next so you can mark it and have time to look to see if you have a bingo BEFORE they call the number.  If you are lucky and do have a bingo with the next number, you have to wait for that number to be called before saying BINGO! or you will look silly.  See that old lady wearing the vest on the left of the bingo worker.  She called fake bingo once and Steph laughed at her for it.  We should have respected her more because she ended up winning the $1000 coverall at the end of the night.  For those of you who STILL (really?) don't understand faces, the bingo worker is holding a card that has 12 faces.  The end.

so, i was thinking about a good samurai name, because jollykay sounds very piratey and so maybe i should try to find something befitting my new persona...

... and then the strangest thing occurred, DM said it, he said those words i have waited a lifetime to hear, the words every woman wants her man to say, and lets face it, some women are never lucky enough to hear them, and in front of a witness, (CUD), he said...

"i want to go to the mall"

we got into the jeep, started down the road, and it must have dawned on him, his momentary lapse of all reason, he came to his senses and started to criticize my driving, knowing that i would turn around and go back home, (he is a sly one), and thus he would get out of going to the mall after all. i was out foxed. 

how does loo zur sound?

It has been a year in the making but Pete and I are finally going to play bingo this afternoon.  Hurray!  The old lady in me loves bingo and I am curious to see how Pete will do.  Unfortunately my lucky gold sparkley dauber was lost in the move and will probably never be seen again.

Place we are going

I will bring my camera and take many pictures of the people and possibly winning bingo cards.  If only I had a travel mug in which to take some of my delicious tea.

so, you will all be shocked and surprised to know the truth- i am not really a pirate after all. i was wrong. i get seasick when i am out of sight of the shoreline. pirates are skinny, i am far from that. pirates use bad english and have less than lovely smiles, when they smile at all. it is time to face facts, although i admire and respect pirates and their ways of life, and always will, i am just a wannabe.

so, sometime a series of events lead to enlightenment.

it seems that i am, after all, a samurai. the realization came as a bit of a shock to me... samurai are not slender, samurai ride horses, they have the sword thing going for them, they wear great figure flaw concealing robes, and don't forget the tea thing. it all makes perfect sense, and fits me, but it is not proof...

at barnes and noble a fantastic book jummped off the shelf at me- one flash of lightning.(it is about the samurai path) then DM and i watched red cliff. after we got home, guess what was on e-bay... go ahead, guess-  a cobalt blue samurai sword!
 ( it matches my new blue thermos)

then i saw this...

  

as you can see, this samurai woman is my exact double, probably modeled after me in a past life.
i have no sword; i make no mind my sword.

"butter is not a survival food", DM strongly asserts.

all i have to say is, who wants to survive an apocalypse without butter.

thank goodness i am not a hoarder.

                                       

you know, i think it doesn't matter how many times a person steps in cat puke, it is just an experience that you never get comfortable with.

so, the price of zhu zhu pets is a lot lower now that the holidays are over. i really got price gouged at x-mas time buying pipsqeak and mr. squiggles on ebay. it seemed logical to me that by buying two more zhu zhus, at a below retail price,  it would bring down the average of what i spent and make it all better somehow. anyway, chunks and numnum have joined the family.

abi and skyla helped me open up the new arrivals yesterday evening. the new hamsters had a sticker on their backs, "keep away from hair" which i happened to read outloud... so, of course, skyla promptly held chunks to her head, and chunks little wheels rolled her hair right up into the gears or whatever zhu zhus have on the inside. "kyla, keep zhu zhus away from your hair from now on", says i after freeing her. in response, abi placed her zhu zhu on her head...

i have $73 invested in that tea so far, right? (oops, almost forgot the tea strainer i bought at jungle jim's- $7.99)

so, that tea, it is really yummy. i have about two or three cups a day. i think the spices in it are keeping me healthy, DM just had a cold, i didn't get sick, i am sure it is the cloves or some other magical ingredient that is responsible.

the first day i tried to bring a cup to work with me, it spilled, of course, very sad... jeeps are not made to transport mugs of hot liquids. so, i had to buy a travel mug,

• travel mug $12.99

well, i found out the first day using the travel mug, you have to remember to bring the mug home with you after work, or else you will not have it to transport your tasty beverage the next day. or, you can have multiple mugs, so if you forget, you still have a spare mug to use. sounds like a good idea to me!

• pretty blue travel mug $15.99
• different cute blue travel mug $13.99
• really beautiful blue thermos thingy $9.99- (i would have only bought this one if i had seen it first)

then of course, DM is drinking up all of my tea, so i had to order some more online,

• visa payment to teavana- $32.65

it really is yummy, if you come over i will make you a cup.

    Once upon a time, there was a girl who was about to go do a stupid fourteen hour day from hell, and the last one two weeks ago was a nightmare (refer to myspace about carrying massage equipment half a mile and later climbing over a wrought iron fence after putting up with people's shit all day).... 
   She really didn't want to do it anymore, and suddenly as she was walking in to work, she realized that life was too short to be doing something like that....
    And she said, "Fuck you, and you, and you.  And you.  I'm out of here."
    And then she went to work at McDonald's.
   
  (And she still had to work for those guys, but at least she could spit in their food. )

so, there was nothing to do today because DM 'had to' get wood in and the babies were taken care of... so, nuwanda wanted company on an adventure to easton, so i had to go with. anyway, i was out of saffron and they have it cheap at trader joe's... that was my sole purpose for going...

of course, a body cannot go into trader joe's and buy just saffron, there was fresh pizza dough, and curry sauce, and applewood smoked bacon, and other great stuff i had to buy.

then nuwanda wanted to look for a cd at barnes and noble, and she had a cup o' joe at the starbucks there. i was looking at the over-priced teas. nuwanda insisted that i had to check out a tea shop in the mall, and dragged me to it.

so, we walked about ten miles through the mall, to the tea store. out front they were giving out free samples. i tried a blend for losing weight, anti-aging and increasing energy.... super duper yummy, best damn tea i ever had, perfection, heaven, i could go on and on...

so i had to buy some and take it home... they sell the loose tea by the ounce, and because it is a blend, i had to purchase both kinds and mix them...

• white aruvedic tea blend-$16
• samuri tea blend-$10
• special airtight tea tin to store pricey tea-$14 (tea cannot be stored in plastic or it will degrade) (clerk told me this)
• super cute horsey shaped tea pot- $30

with tax it was $73.
don't tell DM.
(but the tea is very yummy, did i mention that?)