Hee Hee Hee ..... I Outfoxed The Peasants

It's that time again ... time to wake up and put the brain in gear.  It's a hard proposition after a long night of Bingo.  Even worse if that's followed up by aches and pains from sitting on a tiny tall stool for six hours.  Oh my aching butt!!!  A little downward doggie yoga helps, but not as much as those first few sips of fake coffee.

It was your usual night .. chaos and fighting ensued as we corralled 134 people into our bingo parlor.  There were lots of new people, which requires lots of explanations on how to play.  This is not your one line of numbers bingo ... you have to get what the program says.  Sometimes it's an X, sometimes a flag (a line with four extra spots) ... it's never just one straight line.  

Then there is the 6-4-9 ... you need six together, four together ... you get the picture.  The minimum buy-in is $20, but most spend around $40.  Our ardent players will drop $75 each, not counting the OTHER cards they buy to play even MORE games.  Yeah ... it can get confusing and pricey.  The good thing is it's all for charity.  We donate every dime we make to local charities and activities involving children.  

But first ... once I stand up from typing the morning blog, I'm instantly accosted by this guy.  He gets pretty excited for a 12 year old because he wants to go OUTSIDE.  I have to spell that word too.  

Along the way I spotted this old tractor.  This is what I learned to drive with when I was six years old.  There was the Jeep if we had to go out on the actual dirt road, but the tractor was for changing the water in our pastures.  There were big wooden blocks wired on the clutch and brake and it steered like a Mac Truck ... but boy was it fun to drive.  

I spent the morning working on this same old quilt.  At least I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel now.

In case you were wondering, I've become a pro at ironing.  Not really, don't look too close.  Every time you stitch a seam, it has to be ironed.  The back of this quilt is just crazy!!!

In the afternoon, I ended up cooking.  You know I'm not so good at this, but a friend kept posting these great recipes and dared me to make this one.  Chicken pot pie soup.  I figured if I tried it once and it was bad, she would never ask me again!!

I was shocked that it was so easy.  Chicken from an already roasted one, onions and garlic cooked in butter, followed by flour to make a roux, before adding the liquid.  It called for two cups of cream (I can't believe I actually did that instead of trying to make it "lighter"), along with some chicken broth and Better Than Bouillon (or whatever it's called).  

Lastly I dumped in the chicken, frozen peas and carrots and a chopped up already microwave-cooked potato.  In less than 30 minutes, it was done.  Surprisingly, it got rave reviews from the four people who ate it.  It was a little salty for me, even though I left out THREE bouillon cubes, but tasted pretty darn good!  This is a keeper.

So now I'm off to the Magic Castle for my weekly fill of NO, NO and NO.  NO you can't split a pack, NO you can't take up two seats at the table and NO, the dobbers (used to mark the cards) are not free.

We moved right along as I trained a new gal on the infernal machine ... she did GREAT ... before the fray began.  I understand cranky old ladies, but at least I don't throw money at people.  I work as fast as I can, so you have to be a little patient.  Throwing dollar bills at my face because you have to wait for two minutes, gets you kicked out.  Maybe you should have bought those cards the first two times you came to the table.

We were lucky on this night to suppress a major knock down drag out because the gal came and talked to me first.  That's a rarity. It appears the group of people behind her were not playing one particular game, so they were talking loud, cussing, belching, talking on their phones and otherwise being disruptive and rude.  

The gal said she was going to "go off on them" in the next ten minutes.  I asked her to go sit down so I could see where the problem was, and to give me a chance to fix the situation.  The King and I had a quick conversation, whereupon he did a walk-by, soothing the savages and quieting the troublemakers.  It's always a delicate dance, but outfoxing the peasants is satisfying.

Here's an example of the things spread out on the tables, although this is a small cache.  Every good luck charm they come across for whatever reason, is carried to every single game.  If they don't win, they add to it the next week.  

I would note that this particular pile hasn't worked even one tiny bit of magic in the past six months.  

And so the night ended as I fell into bed, trashing around for the next five hours from nightmares.  Maybe it was the soup!!

I finally received my batteries for the critter cam today, so I'll be setting it up forthwith.  Now to outfox the fox!!