Home Again

I had good intentions about writing blogs in Washington but I just seemed to get caught up in the bridge the fun and even a little bit the work that I never did.  I really enjoyed the whole experience starting with the drive down and the teacher’s conference and ending with last night when I went with Luise to the reflecting pool to see the Capitol Building

by night and she took picture balancing her camera on a tripod.  It is a beautiful sight.   And then home again with Ray and Mark Horton solving a lot of the problems of the bridge world during the drive and also discussing the odd deal.

I am, by the way, under a curse.  I have lost about five knockouts in a row by 5 imps or less.  I tried throwing out my notebook after a regional knockout with Colin but that has not removed the curse as I lost the Ladies Knockout by 3 imps.  I have been thinking about ways to appease the great Juju but I haven’t come up with anything quite satisfactory yet.  If anyone has any ideas let me know.

It was great to play with Colin.  We really learned a lot about our system.  We both realized the need to play in person and not just online.  Somehow it just isn’t the same.  But it was also the sheer number of hands with played mostly in good competition that helped us to work things out.  It was a lot of fun and one of our opponents liked our system so much that they asked Colin to send him our notes, exchanging emails with Colin.

The best entertainment at the tournament was the Capitol Steps which are a Washington NABC tradition.  They do wonderful political satire using song parodies.  A very good new one is called Obama Mia.  You can figure out what that means but it is about Obama’s relationship with the media.

Capitol Steps, you will love them
We listened to their latest album on the way home.  We never did have time to go on any of the excellent tours either but everyone but me did some sight seeing.

I also enjoyed playing in the Ladies Knockout although we didn’t get together until just before the event.  As it turned out we were somehow on different versions of the system notes which led to a loss of 5 or 6 imps on the first board.  We fixed the problem and we had a terrific first set so we weren’t worried about it but in the end we lost by … never mind.  The bridge was not of the caliber that I expected although there were some very good European players over for the event.  Colin watched Sabine and Danny for a set and half.  His goal was to watch their bidding since part of our system is based on theirs and he wanted to see how they handled different situations. 

Sylvia and I will play again.  We enjoyed our game.  I played more bridge than I had in a long while.  Coming home Ray asked me what my bridge goals were and I realized the answer.  “Girls just want to have fun.”  At least this girl.