MOYNA'S RAMBLINGS (3)

Hi Everyone...it's been quite a while since my last post, but I'm sort-of incapacitated, so I thought this would be a good time to do a blog entry. Fred & Freddy have been watching college football games all day, so I am able to use the computer! I'm not moving too much because of a wrenched back. I've been going, going, going all week, and have just overdone it. When I can manage a couple days of rest, my back will be fine and I'll be ready to hit it again - I just have to find some time to rest!! With the holidays in full force, it will be hard to find some "down" time. We have just finished putting up all of the Christmas decorations... it went pretty smoothly this year - at least for us. Since we've spent the past two Christmas seasons in California, this is the first time in 3 years to decorate. I really have TOO MUCH, so it's a job for us to get everything up. It always takes a couple of days! When Fred gets tired, I just remind him to be thankful that we don't decorate outside!!

This has been a nice Thanksgiving week. Freddy is home, which is always nice having him here. I know he is probably happy to have a week off from school!
In between going here and there - like to the movies as much as possible - there has been a lot of watching the college football games - as they are doing right now. We are QUITE happy in this household over the "BIG GAME" - Auburn's defeat over Alabama - 5 in a row now!!!!! It makes for a much happier Thanksgiving.

Tuesday will begin the Christmas season for me. I will spend a couple of days wrapping gifts - I've done ALL of my shopping! I HATE the traffic during the holidays, so I always try to have my shopping done. If I need something, I just send Fred out for it - he LOVES that!! I will then begin to do some "kitchen" stuff - like making the 50 dozen peanut butter balls. Freddy says it's just not Christmas unless we (meaning he) have peanut butter balls. I then have to do about 10-12 pounds of spicy almonds. Then the trail mix. And all the different cookies - tubs & tubs of cookies!!! People have told us they come to our home during the holidays just for the treats - if that doesn't make you feel like you're loved... One year a friend (and his family) came to lunch. He said he was only there for the peanut butter balls; unfortunately, I didn't make them that year - and I never heard the end of it until the next year. I haven't made that mistake again!
Freddy has already put in his request for haystacks & sno-ball cookies - in addition to the peanut butter balls. I told him he can make the haystacks - one less thing for me to do. This is one time of year I'm happy Fred has the job he has; he can take plates of goodies to all of his depts. so that they're not sitting here for us to munch on...we definitely don't need all the sweets. But it's a fun time of year and I love to do all the baking!!

One thing we always look forward to when we stay in Alabama, is our Christmas get-together in North Alabama with our nephew & his family!! It's ALWAYS a great time to be had. Our niece (in-law) Dawn always does WAY TOO MUCH cooking. You would think the entire neighborhood was coming to eat! But, looking on the bright side, we always get to bring home some good cookin'!!
I like to spend Thanksgiving with just our immediate family and then do the family get-together at Christmas. It seems to make for a little less hectic holiday season. That's it for this rambling...

Family News (8)

We visited our cousin Faye yesterday in Mobile. Faye had her right leg amputated recently. She is in Mobile Infirmary now for rehabilitation. We ask for your continue prayers and thoughts as she continues to recover. Her spirits are good; Faye is a very resilient person.

Poker and Poetry

I often play poker on Friday nights at Crazy Al's. It's about a twenty-five minute drive, down Highway 92, in Douglasville. Tonite I drove there, hoping for my usual kicks shuffling cards and winning chips. On the way, I thought about poker, as I usually do - how I haven't played much recently, the beats and good hands, and about poker generally. I didn't get to play last week because I went to a couple football games that weekend, but I did play the Friday before, where I finished fourth and second in the two tournaments that nite. I was looking forward to playing again.

For some reason, Crazy Al's was closed. No poker. Disappointment. When I got home, I was still thinking about poker, as I got a bottled water and put on The Sound of Music. What's interesting about all this poker pensiveness is that poker is more than just something I love to do. Every since I came back from Canada two summers ago, which is when I think I really began playing poker, the game has been a constant: of escapism, of remedy, of catharsis. Whether it be my struggles with A, or my frustration during internship last spring, or the problems with teaching, poker has always been there to help me get away, have fun, without worrying about anything else going on in life. All that matters is whether that guy's bet means he's bluffing or whether my raise will get him to muck his cards.

I began thinking too about Tony Hoagland, probably a favorite poet of mine. This poker stuff reminds me of a marvelous poem of his called "Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet."** Basically, I think the poem is about when things are bad or your lost. Or as he says,

Imagine a century like a room so large,
a corridor so long
you could travel for a lifetime

and never find the door,
until you had forgotten
that such a things as doors exist.

When you can't find a way out, or you don't know there is a way out, and you're stuck in a big mess, Hoagland tells us that rather than losing sight and remaining static, it's better to at least have something: some force, some passion, some guide, no matter what it is:

Better to be on board the Pequod,
with a mad one-legged captain
living for revenge.

Better to feel the salt wind
spitting in your face,
to hold your sharpened weapon high...

What a relief it would be
to hear someone in the crew
cry out like a gull,
Oh Captain, Captain!

Sometimes it seems enjoying poker as I do is too much of a good thing. There are more important things, I think to myself. Maybe it's even maniacal, obsessive, or downright misguided. Perhaps. But I guess, like it or not, poker has been my Captain Ahab. And at least I have something, and it's nice to have that in your life.

**http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/hoagland.html