Friday

First things first--I'd really like for you to read the eleven page article here. Dear Kathy Dobie, we love you. Thank you for juggling depth, warmth, and a bittersweet conviction that the monstrous ultimately owes us something meaningful, something useful, for otherwise wasting our time and hurting us. I read the linked item over forgotten and cooling coffee in our apartment building's lounge this afternoon. Then it was off to Sunshine's office Christmas party, very nearly located on the green field where the US Embassy used to be back when South Vietnam was a country. Today we had the first rain we've seen in thirty days, odd because we are solidly into our dry season here. This is probably because the Christmas party was supposed to be outside in a field, huh? We ended up in the adjacent covered parking lot. It was a fine party, though: with presents, raffles, and kids swarming the poor man dressed up as Santa--head-to-toe red velvet in the Ho Chi Minh City steam. Something I didn't get around to mentioning yesterday: during my city meandering I found five playing cards laying on the ground, one after the other, at the corner of Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa and Lý Tự Trọng Streets. So, added to my pair-flush of diamond Sixes and the King clubs, are the Eight clubs and the Ace spades. The first three cards of the House hand are the Jack spades, the Queen spades, and the Nine clubs. Wow. It looks very much like the City of Ho Chi Minh is shooting for the royal straight. My rules for suited pairs: the hand equals trips (flushed three-of-a-kind equals four-of, etc.), so the House needs three sevens or higher in the hierarchy of hands to beat my pair-flush Sixes. [Cavin]