Who Needs Santiva When We Have Shackleford

The last time Eddie and I doubled with S and R was during the Kentucky Derby. It wasn't to celebrate the horse race, but happened to be on the same day of. Coincidentally, or more serendipitously, S and R had their first barbeque the day of the Preakness. It's becoming a trend. Eddie and I went on over to meet up with them and S's friend L in their backyard to see their new patio furniture and their large grill in action. L had brought over a citronella candle at the request of S when L asked what she should bring. I added another candle to the mix, recalling when S and R were shopping around for patio furniture and had a conversation about how to keep bugs away. So now, they are heavily armed against bugs.

The flames of the candles whipped and whirred around with the wind. The sky was half gray. We sat and willed the weather to stay clear and nice, but it got chillier by the minute.

Incidentally, this was the day of the supposed rapture. At 6 PM, we were still standing and nothing happened.


Eddie and I headed inside at race time. I still do not have any interest in horses. However, I'm becoming slightly intrigued with horse racing. Earlier in the morning, I looked at the contenders and decided that Shackleford was my horse. Why? Because it's fun to say.

The race was about to begin. The announcers were say how Shackleford was looking confused and unfocused. Great. One horse at the end, however, would not get into his gate. I was happy I hadn't chosen him.

Then they were off! Shackleford was second in the pack. The whole way. Until the home stretch. I was jumping up and down and yelling out, Go Shackleford! Go! Go!

Shackleford? Won the Preakness. Yeah, that's right! Eddie and I were high fiving. S said that the BBQ was now on me.

We went back outside to eat. R had the meat on the grill and S brought out all the condiments and the salad and the dressing. And that's when the rain began. We grabbing everything and brought it inside, leaving R to finish grilling in the rain. We ate. It was yummy. And then the rain stopped. Of course it did.

All was not lost. We took a walk to the ice place, Uncle Louie G's. Eddie ordered a shake. They didn't have the milk for the shake. Eddie ordered soft ice cream. The machine wasn't working. Eddie turned to me and was like, I don't like this place. Heh heh. I got a lime ice and Eddie wound up eating half of it because he liked it so much.


Then came the game: Clue. Playing Clue with five people is a lot different from playing Clue with only two people. You have a lot less to go on. In the first game, it took me about six rounds before I actually got into a room. In the second game, everyone kept taking my piece into a room across the board where I didn't want to be so that they could accuse me. Everyone had very interesting systems of keeping track of who had which card. By the end, everyone knew I had the library because everyone had landed there or saw other people land there more than once and have me show them the same card over and over. And everyone knew Eddie had the lead pipe because his way of showing R the card was to hold it up over everyone's head as if that somehow prevented everyone else from seeing it. P. S. I won both games. I think the high from the Shackleford win sent me into a kind of Zenned-out focus to figure out the mystery rather quickly. Or it was a little bit of luck.