Chilling in Warm Phoenix

Wednesday Morning and I get up relatively late. Graeme and I go for breakfast and some shopping. The kids have only half day of school so we pick them up and go to the Five Diner for a traditional American lunch. I drop them home and go for a mooch. That night Mexican but not my taste. Apparently I ordered badly - prawn cocktail which was buried in spicy tomato salsa and mushrooms with melted cheese - what came there was a full tray of melted cheese with maybe one mushroom. Penny complained so they took it off the bill.

Next morning, Thanksgiving, everybody gets up lateish, I do my washing which was amazing with no humidity it was dry in three hours on the line. We go to Chompies, a very Jewish restaurant for brunch. Having been here before I resist the Matzoh Brye not wanting a whole packet of Matzoh for breakfast so just a smoked salmon bagel for me - especially as we were going to Thanksgiving for dinner. At 15:30 we head off visiting some of their friends on the way.

We arrive at Penny's brother's place which is located a little way up Camelback Mountain with magnificent views back across Phoenix. The house is deigned in the Frank Lloyd Wright style and is extremely interesting. Anyway down to the job at hand - eating. We, around 10 adults and six kids, are plied with magnificent appetizers. They had engaged a chef for the day and as Penny's two brothers are keen chefs, he was describing each of them and how they were prepared. A few good ideas including mushrooms stuffed with sundried tomatoes and goat's cheese.

Then the main affair - Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, beans and gravy - very traditional and very well done. For desert Apple Tatin with custard ice cream. All excellent I must say. Everybody leaves for home all with take-away containers with left overs.

Back home to pack and get ready for departure tomorrow morning. Up at 06:30 to say goodbye to Penny and the kids as the kids have two soccer games each today (which they win 10-1, 9-3, 2-0 and 4-0). They hug me three or four times each and are sad that I am going (always nice to be loved) but I will see them again for a week next May and they will be staying at my place in June for a few days.

Graeme drops me at the airport where I have a smooth check-in and pay $25 for my baggage - I go to the toilet just in case they charge for that too. Plane is chockers and I am seated next to a lovely young lady and just as the doors close man mountain comes and sits on the other side of me. I find myself leaning to one side the entire flight and try to do so not to end up with a bad back but being a 53 minute flight all works out OK.

To the hotel for check-in where I run into Nye/Ally and Auryn and the Krochmaliks. We have a buffet breakfast - will be my last as I am very bad value and ready oursleves for 13:00 bridge. We pay our entry fee ($US20 a session) and start play 15 minutes late - not surprising as they take entries up to game time. They are very civilised here running a creche which allows Ally to leave Auryn there and watch some bridge. This is available during the entire tournament.

We have a 50% session. There were two boards I should have done better on but apart from that not much else we could or should have done.

The session finishes at 17:00 and restart at 19:30 so early dinner. Now this will be the regime the whole tournament - 13:00 and 19:30 sessions so not possible to have a long relaxing dinner. Interestingly 72% of players voted for no evening play but here we are with evening play EVERY SINGLE DAY go figure.

We stumble on the hotel's fine dining restaurant, Sally's which was simply outstanding being well appointed and very un-rushed. It is sushi and seafood where we shares crab cakes and tempura prawns for appetizers and I had lobster bisque and salad and we shared desserts. We will certainly be there again especially as it was very reasonable including an excellent fixed price meal for $35 which was Nye's choice.

That night I played pretty poorly and we scored 50% again and missed qualifying by 88 points or four tops. Results can be found here
http://www.acbl.org/nabc/index.php?a=2009&b=Fall&c=daily_bulletins

The way things work here is that there are continuous and multiple events going on the whole time so we may play in a single session Teams event tonight with Ally and Tonje and then play in a new main event tomorrow.

I get to bed at 1:00am after dealing with emails etc. and wake up at 07:00 to go for a walk and watch Manchester United play Portsmouth - currently 1-1 as I sign off from San Diego.

Will put in a few hands when the hand records are available.

Be well
Best
XX David