Just another day

Or maybe not. I actually got to *do* something!! :-D

Saturday is our out-and-about day, when the errands are run and we go out to a mid-afternoon meal. (We haven't decided whether to call it lupper, linner or dunch.) The things that we needed to do were to go to the yarn store and pick up another skein of yarn for my current scarf and to go to the cable tv office to get a replacement remote controller. This second thing was the impetus for the rest of the day.

The cable office is in the town just south of us, about 10 miles away. Another 10 or so miles down the road is the Muckleshoot Indian Casino. We haven't gone very often and hadn't been in at least a couple of years, but when I mentioned that we needed to go to Auburn, Jim got that mischievous twinkle in his eye and said, "And then we could go to the Muckleshoot to eat."

Yeah, right. To eat. :-) Well, they do have several nice restaurants in there, so we could eat, too, but there's no point in driving all that way and not doing a bit of gambling.

So I got my yarn, which they wound for me, and then we got the new remote. Then off to the Muckleshoot. Since we were last there, they added another building. Impressive. The new building was the closest to where we parked, so we started in there, but the restaurant were we wanted to go was at the other end of the place. This new building is separated from the old with an enclosed, but unheated tunnel. I did notice that the new building was completely non-smoking.

As we walked into the old building, the smell of cigarette smoke hit me. I had noticed that there was a "no smoking" sign on the door that we went into, so I was a bit confused at first. Then I remembered that the smoking part is just the other half of the building. Somehow cigarette smoke doesn't pay much attention to signs. I normally wouldn't have noticed, but I think the fact that I haven't been around any smoking at all for a couple of years has made a difference.

Still, the place where we wanted to eat was in the smoking section, so we forged ahead. Had the best bacon cheeseburgers ever! The people there are always so nice, too. I know that when you work in a gambling establishment, you have to be nice to the customers, but these folks just generally seem friendly above that. Whoever does their hiring does a good job.

After our meal, we played video poker for a while. There were a couple of different people who sat at the machine next to me who were nice and Jim, the stranger and I would all root for each other when we had the potential for a great hand. Finally we ran out of what we had intended for video poker and the smoke was starting to get to me, so we went back to the new building where the air was clear.

We sat down at a "Three-Card Poker" table and played for a good two hours. Jim did better than I did and had to pass me over some chips. Normally when I'm not doing that well at a table, I get up to leave, but the dealer was a very friendly person and I like the game. \

About 7:00 fatigue hit me and I suddenly needed to go home. Good thing we had headed toward where we were parked so we didn't have too far to go. Jim cashed out his chips and we came home.

Today, I'm feeling the effects. :-) My muscles are sore and I've got a bit of a sore throat, probably from the smoke. But I'm so glad we went. It's the first real day out I've had since we met Steph in Spokane two years ago for the film festival. Also, we did our part to stimulate the economy, probably paying the wages for several workers for several days. Patriotism, you know. ;-)

Today we're off to Jim's mother's place. She has bought herself a refurbished laptop and needs me to set it up for her. I just don't know how I'm going to deal with such a social calendar!