Just Another Foggy Monday

I suppose the heavy fog is pennance for the sunshine that we enjoyed yesterday. It is a heavy ground fog that coats your car with a layer of water as you cut through the dense, wet and cold mist. The trees are dripping water and the ground and lawns are thick with moisture. We had a lighter fog yesterday morning and the sun finally burned off the fog about 1:30 in the afternoon after trying for an hour and being a large, bright halo in the sky behind the fog.

This was the poker and golf weekend and I had a blast. Darla unfortunately had her plans cancelled by Joni in Marin. Darla doesn't know what's up with Joni, but is tired of worrying about it. You can't force friendship and unfortunately I don't think Joni ever got over our marriage. They had a "Lavene and Shirley" friendship where they did everything and anything together and were inseperable. Joni actually had moved to the Bay Area prior to Darla and I beginning to date. Marriage can and does change friendships. Joni is still one of Darla's best friends, but from my perspective, the reciprocal is in question.

Ah well. Poker was a success at my house. We had six players and I managed to take $58 from my friends and finance a nice dinner out with my wife on Saturday night. One of the players, Steve, is a friend of mine from the golf club and he has played in three games at my house and let me know that he's lost a sum total of $220 in those games. He has decided to host the next game on March 4th to try to change his luck. To make matters worse, he had to get up at 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning to commute to a job in the Bay Area. Steve is an electrician and the jobs are often few and far between this time of year. So he got fleeced Friday night, got no sleep and had to commute two hours to work. At least he got double time for working on the weekend. I also invited Greg Meacham, who we had over on New Year's with his family. Greg lost some money, but had a great time and will be back.

Golf was a little frustrating this weekend. I showed up Saturday and was told that the tournament director had made a mistake and the tournament was set for Sunday instead of Saturday. Most of the guys got games together, but I had things that I wanted to get done at the house, so headed home. I called Darla and invited her to lunch and then stopped at the store to pick up some fertilizer for the lawn. Darla and I got a package together for Jennifer (we had some mail and she wanted some more shampoo and conditioner) and went to mail that and then stopped at a little Roseville restaurant for lunch. Darla seemed a little cranky and when I asked her about it, she said, "Well this was supposed to be my day and you were supposed to be playing golf." Oops. I didn't even stop to think about that and thought it would be fun to go to lunch. I kind of made myself scarce when I got home, basically by curling up on the couch and getting a two-hour nap in. I then went out and did some chores, working on the spa and spreading the fertilizer on the lawn. Jerry Tuel called while we were sleeping (Darla took a nap on the bed) and when Darla said that we were both napping, Jerry thought he was interrupting something and we were using code. I set him straight there.

We did have dinner with a couple of friends from the golf club and their wives on Saturday night. We ate at Brother Olivers, an old fashioned steak house in Carmichael. Gary and Greg are both wine guys and brought their own bottles of wine and we paid corkage. It was a nice evening and we are planning a trip up to Amador to do some wine tasting in the near future.

We finally got in the golf tournament on Sunday and as I said, we actually saw some sun. We have a new tournament director this year and he made quite an impression on his first away tournament. Not only did he make a mistake on the day of the tournament, but he also had us tee off from the blue tees. Our home course is 6200 yards from the blue tees. We played at Mather Golf Course and the yardage from their blue tees is 6800. They have five par fours that measure over 435 yards from the blue tees, including a 460 yard hole that runs straight uphill. A good drive in the foggy, wet conditions was about 235 yards (no roll, heavy wet air). I managed to have a great round in spite of the tough conditions and shot 41-39=80 and won my flight with a net of 68. The low round of the tournament was 74 and I was third with an 80 out of 32 players. The average score was 91 and the guys were not happy at the end of the day. I won 68 dollars and bought myself some new black Nike golf shoes, a hat and a golf glove with my winnings. It was a great weekend from stem to stern.

David's basketball team struggled without their center on Tuesday and they lost 63-54 to Natomas. We actually had a three point lead at half time, but imploded in the third quarter being outscored 14-3. They came out with a half court press, doubling the ball when it crossed half court and we had turnover after turnover. It was a brutal game to watch. We did manage to whip Del Oro on Thursday night with Ike coming back to lead the team with 18 points and 18 rebounds. David scored eight points and was a force down the stretch hitting key free throws and playing some great defense. They have a bye on Wednesday and play again on Friday night. We are in second place in the league with a 4-2 record, behind Natomas and look forward to playing them with our full complement of players at home in the next couple of weeks.

David had a scout from William and Mary college in Oregon talk to him last week at school. They'd like him to play football for them, but aren't offering a scholarship. At this point, David is concentrating on academics and is only interested in an Architectural program, which W&M doesn't offer.

Well, that is the news for this week. I hope you all stay well and live lives that are a light in God's kingdom. Do something nice for someone today, it'll throw them for a loop. Ciao.