Ace of Spades

[jackofallgeeks]

I made $25 in Poker tonight. We had 9 people with a $5 buy-in. Third Place got $5 (their money back), second place got $10, and First got the rest ($30). We played Texas Hold'em. I had some *amazing* hands, and at least twice I pulled a straight on the last flop. I didn't expect to win; I didn't even expect to get 5th. It was a good night.

Also had some drinks: an Amaretto Sour, Mead (rather sweet; I didn't know it was made from honey), and a Redbull and Vodka.

Good times, good times.

Comments

[photoholic62.livejournal.com]

You remind me...

Many years ago ... you were probably still in swaddling clothes ... hubby and I used to keep bees here on the property. We had 2 or 3 hives, iirc. Among other things, we used to make Mead. Honey, yeast, water, a lot of time, and a lot of work. I never could drink the stuff, it sometimes came out rather vile ... and was always way to strong for me. Folks would flock here to drink it though, and we often had giggly drunken friends have to stay for several days, because we would hide the car keys when they opened the first bottle. Yes, just one bottle made one not able to drive. It was homemade, and really strong stuff. (It was legal at that time to make it here, as long as not a drop of it left the property, and it never did.) And, at that time, our phone was on a tiny little post with a hut to keep the rain off, in the woods near the road. Drunken folks couldn't find it even if it was ringing, so they couldn't get transportation off the property.

One of the batches we made ... this is before I lived here full time, still had my own house in a neighborhood about 10 miles from here ... Jeff buried. See, the Mead needs to sit for 30 days after it is bottled and before you drink it. The process was not uniform or reliable, and depended on the temperature outside. We would always make it in late summer/early fall, when the nights would begin to be chilly, and the days were not terribly hot. In Texas though, the weather did not always cooperate. For example, this is December, and it got to about 85 degrees yesterday, too hot for Mead.) Sometimes if we left the Mead just sitting out, the heat would get to them, and suddenly you could hear the lids popping off of them! One time, we put them under the floor that our bed was on. (The floor was about 3 feet off the ground, with a little storage place under there, accessible from outside) One hot day we heard lids popping off ... sounded rather like popcorn in the microwave. When they settled down, stopped popping, we went under there to look. The lids shot off with such force that they were actually embedded into the wood! Our bed was ruined, soaked with Mead!

So, we started burying them. About 5 or 6 feet down where the temperature is more constant, they did not blow at the crucial times. All was well. So, this batch I'm trying to tell you about if only I would stop interrupting myself ... we buried about 3 dozen bottles. We marked on the calendar when the 30 day period was up so we could dig it up and taste test it. (We always tried to have a batch or two ready in time for the October Party, which at that time was a three or four day affair, folks camped out here, brought food, every body cooked, musical instruments, games, kids, a giant fun loving commune type of thing.) As I said, I was not living here full time at that time. So, they day finally arrives .... 30 days, time to dig it up. So, we do.

The boxes are empty!! Not one single stinking bottle in the boxes! My mind is reeling wondering how that happened. I could see finding no lids, and no mead, but how would the bottles evaporate into nothing? The boxes were not wet. I could not imagine a scenerio that would lead to having just emtpy, dry boxes. I look at Jeff with obvious puzzlement on my face, expect to find an obvious puzzlement on his face too. Instead, I see a sheepish look.

"Well," says he, with his head down and his toes shuffling in the dust, "once or twice I dug up a bottle just to taste test to see how it was doing."

As it turns out, 30 or more times he dug them up! He swears he only ever took out one bottle at a time! He swears he didn't realize he did it so many times, and didn't realize he had taken them all! It was so funny! To this day, he will tell you it was the best batch he ever made, but of course nobody believes him because nobody else got even a drop!!

Can you imagine? Digging a six foot hole 3 dozen times and not realizing how often you were doing it? Ahahahahhahahaaaa!

(I might just have to copy paste this to my own journal)