Sick of it all (or that WAS the title before another good Mookie. How about yippieKI-A?

The alarm went off at 5:50 a.m. Wednesday, or exactly three seconds after I finally went back to sleep after a hiatus longer than "Jericho."
It started when Kate brought Jayden to bed at 4 a.m. to "encourage" him to drift back into toddler dreamland. It continued with my wife's snoring, who, bless her pregnant heart, is beginning to sound like the mating call of a warthog when she drifts off to dreamland. It was further helped by the big yellow dog, who decided that this would be a great time for a belly rub and maybe he'd better push himself up by my nose to receive one.
It ends tonight, with a suddenly stuffy nose, an achy body and a half-assed attitude toward The Mookie, although I find myself looking forward to it with every second. Something needs to go right today.
It's the perfect situation. If I do well, I get grub, a good time and the admiration of millions of bloggers worldwide. If I suck, I get to go to sleep and help my little white blood cell soldiers fight off whatever seems to think it can just move into my body and take over, like a crack addict moving into an empty building. Squatters rights!

• • •
Made the first break, sitting at T2700, in 8th place. Playing a little too tight, as usual, but won a big hand with a set of 4s on a 2,3,4 flop.

• • •

Top 5 things my wife (who is preggers with twins, in case you didn't know or have chosen NOT to enter the baby pool, which is all of you) has heard this week:
5) Wow, didn't you just have a kid? And now you're pregnant again?
4) Are you overdue (not even close)?
3) Holy cow you've gotten big!
2) Are you having triplets?
1) Are you supposed to be that big.

Here's a hint. Pregnant women don't like to be reminded three times a day that they are huge. They know they are huge. Kate has TWINS in her belly. She knows she is big.
Thanks.

• • • 

Second break I am chip leader after turning into such a card rack that you could hang me in Tiffany's. I bust Fuel, one of my mentors, with AA against his K,Q sooted.

Oh, and speaking of the Mookie...

I'll take 4th and a $42 cash any day.




I've completely forgotten about my cold. This makes three final tables in a row for me at The Mookie. I hope this gives me some much needed confidence in the future. Congrats to Astin for taking down an inevitable title. I knew it was only a matter of time for the raisy-daisy frog.

I'm going to bed. I just started to feel achy again.

A weekend so bad, it made me hurl

OK, so I don't need to go through another weekend like that one for a while.
Like, maybe, NEVER.
It had so much promise. I dropped Jayden off at Grandma-ma and Granddadas and met my brother and his family for dinner at my favorite sub place (and saw my super-cute niece) and was looking forward to a longtime friend's home poker game.
I went up to the counter and confidently ordered a cheesy crab. Now, I've been in love with the Cheesy Crab since I was a freshman in college, or about 75 years ago (drum kick). I used to order it at least once a week, but it was an occasional affair, as I could only get them when I visited Lawrence, Kan.
And then...paradise. The shops chained out and even made Denver. They aren't in Greeley. Yet. So I'm still limited. But not QUITE as limited as I once was.
So I ordered my love. And the counter guy smacked my hand.
"I don't have any crab," he said. "I discontinued that. I'd only sell like one of those a week."
But...but...but...I wanted my cheesy crab!
I wound up ordering a chicken sandwhich with red sauce and quickly discovered that a sub place is only as good as a treasured item (translation, it wasn't nearly as good as the crab).
So then I thought the poker would make up for it. And it did. For a while.
Until I started to feel funny.
Wifey, Kate, had a bit o' the stomach flu earlier in the week, and I really, really thought I wouldn't get it. Ha. I started to feel worse an hour into my arrival, and then, I had to visit the restroom.
And puked and puked and puked.
Nice.
I knew I wasn't going skiing the next day. I really thought I could continue to play poker, and I did, doubling my buy-in, but after a few more minutes, I prepared myself for the miserable drive home.
I drew on every ounce of my past experiences driving home exhausted and sometimes sick after a day in the mountains, and after a stop at McDonald's and waiting 20 minutes for a Powerade after being so thirsty I would have drank from a men's room urinal, I made it home at 2 a.m. I growled at my wife and hit the sack, praying that I could hold down the drink.
I did not get up until 5 p.m. the next day.
I haven't slept through the day like that in several years. I did manage to keep down the drink, and wifey Kate fixed me some grape Jello, which I ate and then ate some chicken noodle soup. Then I played some online poker just to be up for a while.
And I troll around for an hour and make some great folds, including a fold to two pair when I was tempted to push, and I'm rewarded for my effort by getting dealt AA. I'm the last one in, so I raise, and I get one caller, and the board flops J-high.
He bets the pot, $5, and I'm convinced he has K,J or maybe J,Q. So I re-raise, he pushes, and I gladly call.
And I'm right. When the third A hits, I figured I have it.
Until the fourth club comes down, and he wins with J,K os runner, runner, runner, runner FLOOSH, which floooshes down $62 and a good portion of my Ultimate Bet profit that I had worked hard to build for the last month.
Occasionally it's very hard not to get cynical about poker, even as it's going away and I'll miss it when it does. I work hard for three weeks and see all that work get crapped away when my 9-1 favorite doesn't hold up.
What a great way to end the night.
And the weekend.

P.S. The lone highlight was reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. God what a great book. You must read this now.