Etc. etc. etc.

First off new poll.

Second, yes Julie, I did get your letter and will be mailing one back sometime between tomorrow and Thursday.

Third, weirdest thing happened when playing cards with Rich; first of all this is a spooky deck of cards because no one knows where it came from, I just happened to find it in the pack rat mess of a room that I call mine and they were already opened and shuffled, however I don't recall ever buying a pack of cards... So the first time I found them I kept getting winning hands non-stop, so Rich announced that it was the "devils" pack and creeped out I put them away.
I got into playing texas hold 'em a few weeks back and wanted to teach Rich how to play... rummaged up the cards again, blah blah blah. Then he was reading the little writing on the joker's card and it said something about if this was a defective pack then send the Ace of spades to the manufacturer. I was in the midst of playing my own version of solitaire poker when Rich asked me to hand him the Ace of Spades to which I replied, "just a minute I'm not done playing with the cards" and when I was done I said jokingly, "here's your card," and with a flourish pulled off the top card from the deck and what was it? the Ace of spades. Rich and I were both a little "whoa-ed". So then I said, here, let's try an experiment. I told him to think of a card as I shuffled the deck three times (name it out loud so we could both visualize it) and then I spread them out across the bed and used my finger as a divining rod and asked him to pick a "quadrant" (my own term, they really weren't in quadrants at all... more like thirds), then he would call out "stop" to which I would gather the ten cards, place aside the others, spread the ten and ask him to pick the half he wanted, and from that half we'd have five cards and then we'd use the divining finger to pick the card. We did this four times and had the card every time! By that time we were scared a little. Finally Rich got up and announced that he would not do it any more, so I said, "one more time to break the spell" but his theory was that if we kept it up then the evil magic would only get stronger. But I did it anyway and we didn't get the card we wanted. I think it didn't work because Rich had gotten up and broken the bond. Or the law of statistics finally caught up to us... I don't know, you decide... One final note, we tried the "royalty" cards later on and found that they refused to be found, even the joker card denied us the pleasure of finding it. Fussy little things aren't they? But if gave me the idea of writing a scary story about a deck of cards...
Oh I'm kinda uncomfortable right now. It's so hot and sticky and just plain ole icky. I have two fans blowing at me and I need a nice cool shower. The problem with summer is that if it gets too hot and humid I just end up feeling lethargic. At least it was pretty out. They got the pool opened yesterday and it was nice to look at it from the porch, although in reality I only used that pool less than twenty times last summer. You would think I would have used it every day or something. I like to go swimming later in the day (like around 5 or even 6) for a few reasons. First, I'm used to it because Mom never let us in the pool during the day because she was afraid we'd get burned (yeah I know, we're brown but I have had a sunburn before and it was killer... that was from not listening to mom's advice) and second I have Rich watch me swim because I'm not that great and if I were to get in trouble I need him to save me, but he's terrible under the sun... talk about sunburn... so it's better for him later in the day, third, the pool is inhabited by the other members of the family earlier in the day and I like the pool all to myself. Okay that's enough odds and ends for now. Be good, have a good day!

Me