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No longer on the river and, again, an empty nester. Back to living on Fleming Island and making some more friends!

Friday, November 21, 2008

A day at the races

Or rather, a night! Last night was our Palace Third Thursday social event held at the Orange Park Kennel Club. We had a room just for our group, and the dogs ran a race themed "The Palace Classic". We got our picture taken en mass in the upstairs room rather than running down stairs to do it, which worked out well as one of our group, an elderly man, was in his wheelchair. The Hostess is going to e-mail it to me for use in the newsletter. Jessica also had her camera along as a back-up to the Hostess' photo.
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With a total of 16 people showing up, those I would consider our "usuals", as in any organization, we had great fun and lots of laughs. A representative from the Club came up and instructed us on how to place wagers on the dogs, showed us the stats of each racer, and how winners are chosen, etc. I had no intention of doing any betting but as I read through the lists of Owners and Trainers, there was the name of someone from church who owns kennels and trains racers. Now, I was wagering! In my first wager, I spent $2 for the Crowe dog to win and and I won, too! $6!!! Whoooeee! In two more races she had dogs running so I could use the "proceeds" from my winnings to wager, but this time, her dogs didn't win. I had my original $2 which we used half of in placing a group bet, but that didn't work either. My last dollar went to place a bet, at the coaxing of Hugh, as he insisted I wager on a dog named "Tulin Kim". Kim didn't do too much toolin', making me at a loss of a dollar for the night.
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The whole event cost me $1 because my lovely upstairs neighbors bought my meal and drinks to thank me for the all the work I put into getting the evening publicized and such. This was totally unexpected, and Travis told me he did it because I was a "cheap date", as I only ordered an appetizer and had one adult beverage. Some of the folks had difficulties with their meal service, such as undercooked prime rib steaks or having bacon added to a salad when it was requested otherwise. The Management was appalled at such a think, therefore, comped us all free dessert! I brought that home, too, as well as Chardonnays uneaten prime rib, baked potato, and half of my appetizer feast. The onion straws I ordered were not straws at all but Jessica liked them and helped me out with them. I am quite the connoisseur when it comes to onion strings so thumbed my nose at these onion peels. I wonder if that's why we were comped the desserts?!?!?!
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Ever since Monday I've been trying to track down this young lady who came to church on Sunday and Bible study on Monday. She used to work in the church office when Pete was there, and, due to a falling out of sorts, her family sort of left the congregation. This wounded me because she had been quite supportive when Timmy died and afterward, and I simply adored her sons, especially little Joshua. He was the cutest little thing when he was born and when he was in the preschool, I'd always get special hugs from him, as shy as he was. They sort of disappeared for a while and now, ta da, here she is again. When I saw her come in, a bit late, Sunday, church had already begun but I went anyway to where she was seated in the back row and we hugged each other a nice long time. Good! Monday she stayed after Bible study to talk with Pastor so I didn't get a chance to speak with her then either. The search begins!!!

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