Another lazy day for the most part. Watched TV and mucked about online (mostly checking out the rules and strategies for poker for tonight’s game.) Brett did head into town to renew his driving license, but discovered he needed his Social Security Number Card to prove his identity (Apparently a US passport is all you need to get into the country, but pretty useless for proving your ID once you are inside. Although since so few US citizens have one, that shouldn’t be surprising)
About 6pm we left for the one hour journey to Corinth, where Brett’s brother Steven and his wife Kathleen live. The whole family had been invited round for a poolside barbeque as they’ve recently finished installing a swimming pool and Jacuzzi. Unfortunately thunderstorms and heavy rain had been forecast and, sure enough, after ten minutes on the road, the heavens opened and didn’t let up all night. Steven has quite an impressive property. It’s set well back from the road in an area where there is plenty of greenery and trees. I don’t think I could see any neighbouring properties. He’s in the process of turning his very large detached garage into a pool house/home cinema. While it’s not finished, it’s obvious that it will be soon and will be virtually a separate house with kitchen and bathroom built in. Very nice. Made me think of ‘The O.C.’
Because of the heavy rain we arrived somewhat later than expected, but the side-benefit was that the food was all ready to eat as soon as we arrived. I was hungry, so I did just that. A very tasty BBQ with long, thick Cumberland-style sausages and big, boneless chicken breasts. A pleasant surprise was the amount of vegetables provided – nice to see someone’s looking out for their health in this land of the deep-fried. Key-Lime pie for dessert.
While several of the kids eventually headed into the pool despite the rain (which was still torrential) most of the adults steered clear. I would have liked to have tried the pool – and the hot tub – but on a somewhat warmer evening.
Over the course of dinner, I had a pleasant chat with Sarah, Brett’s niece, and Chris, Kevin’s partner, although neither of them could think of any really good tourist things to do in town. I guess that’s probably not a bad thing. If there were lots of things to do, I’d probably want to go do them and wouldn’t have nearly as much time to laze around as I do at the moment…
So, after dinner was done, Ali started agitating for the poker game to begin and eventually the consensus formed. The only slightly uncomfortable moment was when the possibility of playing for real money was floated. (Originally I understood it was to be a kind of sweepstake tournament, where we each put in $20 to a pot which was taken by the last man standing. I also wouldn’t have been averse to playing for low stakes.) Kathleen, Steven’s wife, however objected to the idea of gambling with any connection to real money (huh!?) so in the end we just played with chips with nothing riding on them.
It was an enjoyable game and, although I didn’t win big particularly, I played cautiously enough that I was in the last two and only lost because Chris had a better full house than I did, which I view as plain bad luck. I’m kind of tempted to see if I can’t get a regular game going back home. It would be a good way of having friends round every once in a while without requiring too much preparation or clearing up.
After the game was over we headed into the main house (we’d been playing in the Pool House) to watch the evening’s main feature: Carter Comes Home (A DVD that Kevin and Chris had had put together covering their visits to Guatemala and the eventual trip home with their son Carter.) Then it was time to head home.
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