Friday, July 10, 1998

        I'm sitting in the dining room looking through to the kitchen, and Pyewacket is up on the countertop. She came in while I was making Bob a cup of tea because she heard me open the teabag. Any time she hears paper crinkling, she gets excited.

        She picked up the crumpled-up wrapper in her mouth, jumped off the counter, and trotted upstairs with it, taking it to Bob. He was in the office, and I heard him tell her hello, then that little weird screaming noise she makes when she launches herself after something thrown. For most of this week we've been playing fetch with a wrapped Starburst candy. Strawberry, I think. She took it out of the bowl on the coffee table. She would have taken more, but Bob put the bowl on the mantle to keep it away from her.

Later . . .

        It's evening now. Bob is home, and he just walked into the kitchen dangling a used teabag by the string. Apparently Pyewacket got into the sink and retrieved the teabag, and took it to him to play fetch with. Uh, no.

        Last night there was a party at one of the casinos put on by a mortgage company that Bob uses. All of the agents affiliated with the company that holds Bob's license was invited. That's an awkward way to describe it; he's an independent contractor, he doesn't actually work for the company, but real estate agents and brokers have to be affiliated with a managing broker. So although they're not employees, they are all part of the same team.

        Anyway, there was a party. It was supposed to start at seven with dinner at one of the restaurants at the casino, followed by gambling. We got there are 7:00 and were the first ones there. Other people eventually started showing up, we ordered drinks and stood around and talked for awhile. Actually, we stood around and talked for an hour. Everyone was getting hungry and getting anxious to go out and gamble, so several of us sat down, hoping that everyone else would get the hint and maybe we could order dinner. Around 8:30 we got appetizers--platters came out with several of the restaurant's appetizers already arranged on them. I got one mushroom, one shrimp, and a piece of artichoke heart. Barely enough to sustain me for the next hour while we waited for our food.

        Eventually, at a little after 9:30, we got our dinner. We ate, and then we waited, and waited, and waited, for the waiter to come around with the dessert tray. Most of us finally gave up on dessert and went out to the casino area.

        I had never been there before, so I asked Bob to get me started before he took off. He plays craps mostly, but all I really wanted to do was play the slot machines. I figured those wouldn't take much skill or thought. The people who were giving the party gave each of us $10.00 to gamble with, so I changed that into quarter tokens, and Bob picked out a slot machine for me (I don't know what criteria he used), then he disappeared.

        I started putting quarters into the slot, and hitting the button. Not much happened, except that I was losing all my quarters. I was getting down toward the bottom of the bucket and feeling a little disappointed and discouraged, when bells started going off, and the counter started counting up, up, up, to 200. I had already figured out that that meant 200 quarters, not 200 dollars, but still, that was pretty cool. So now I had plenty of money to play with. I just kept putting in the quarters, and pretty soon I won another $50.

        Now I was really beginning to get interested, and feeling pretty pleased with myself. Bob had come back to check up on me by this time, and I showed him my bucket full of quarters. He was impressed. He said he hadn't been doing very well at the craps table. He sat down at a slot machine a couple over from me and started playing, and before long the bells were ringing at my machine again--this time I had won 200 dollars. I was only playing one quarter at a time, which Bob said was dumb--if I had played three, I would have won three times as much money. Yeah, but I might have run out of quarters before I got to that point. I wasn't worried. No point in being greedy.

        But still . . . There was a possibility of winning a lot of money, and I thought I might as well try, so what I started doing was, every time I'd win a small jackpot, like $20 or so, I'd leave it in the machine and bet 75 cents. That way it didn't seem like as much as if I put in the quarters myself. I didn't win any more big jackpots, just two or three dollars at a time and a couple of twenty dollar ones. We cashed in a midnight to come home and I ended up with $196, without spending any money of my own. Pretty good, I'd say.

        I can see how it can become addictive. Once I'd won a little bit of money, I didn't want to leave the machine. I really wanted something to drink but I didn't want anyone else to sit down there and maybe win my jackpot. I was feeling a great affection for this machine. And I liked carrying the buckets of quarters up to the cashier. Bob asked me if I wanted help, but I carried them myself. It's probably a good thing that the casinos aren't closer to home.

        I kind of went nuts at Michaels and Hobby Lobby this week. After I started painting the little chairs, I loved it so much that I went and bought more. I have, I think, two rockers (I typed "rockets" again), either three or four straight chairs and a bench. Oh, and two stools, a birdhouse, a shelf and a little cabinet with chicken-wire in the door. Along with paint, brushes, decals, decorator stamps and stencils. I tried regular rubber stamps, but they didn't work very well. They're too hard, and the paint doesn't adhere to them evenly. So I bought a package of decorator sponge stamps--a coffee cup, coffee pot, silverware and a salt shaker. I'm having a great time. I figure I can give them as Christmas gifts. I mentioned that at dinner last night and Bob got a really weird look on his face. I said, "Well, I won't give one to you."

        One year I bought his mother a little twig bench and chair for her birthday or Mother's Day or something, and he thought it was extremely weird. I knew she would love it, though, and she did. He also doesn't understand trying to make something new look old. I remember my mom spending hours out in the garage antiquing and distressing some piece of furniture to make it look old. My dad never understood it, either. I bought a book from the clearance table at Borders today on antique wood finishes. I'll probably distress some of the little furniture. I bought some antiquing glaze.

        It's just a fun thing to do. I'm really enjoying it. I know Bob probably thinks it's on a level with basketweaving, but sometimes you just need something to do that's not quite so mentally taxing. It's relaxing and not stressful at all. And if I get something pretty out of it in the bargain, then I've done well.