Random Things Heard at Bunco Last Night

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Smart-a$$ery (It's A Technical Term)

More than 90% of my readers have never met me.

About 10% of them probably wish they never had.

Except my mom. She didn't really get a choice. She had to meet me at least once.

So, since many of you have not met me, you may wonder, "Does she really talk like she writes? Or is she just making this stuff up?"

Well, even if you haven't, I still have proof that I do, in fact, communicate in real life the same way I write.

This is an actual e-mail from me to my friends concerning Bunco tonight:

Ladies,

Once again time has escaped me and Bunco day is almost upon us.

We were scheduled to play at Alexandra's. Unfortunately, my many attempts over the last two months to reach Alexandra have been unanswered so I will be hosting this month. Lest, we show up at Alexandra’s door, find it locked, have to play on the porch in this heat, and end up with the beer getting warm.

My address is 15 Happy Trails. In case you don’t know, I’m the red two story that sits all by itself at the back of the Island District. If you get lost on the way, you can call me at 123-456-7890.

Because Alexandra hasn’t been responsive, I can only assume at this point she does not want to participate in Bunco anymore. To that end, I have asked Lara to replace her as our 12th member. Thankfully, she’s enjoyed herself enough the past few months and said YES! Whew! I was sweatin’ it because I can be pretty gosh darn scary and could have frightened her away.

Anywho, bring your five bucks and beverages to my house around 6:30 this coming Monday (August 23rd). Good grief, I need to figure out what I’m going to feed you people. Hmmm, liver & onions? No? How about my famous made in the oven in my home (thereby constituting homemade) chocolate chip cookies?

Please, please, please let me know if you are not going to make it. If I don’t hear from you, I will hound you all weekend (part of that whole being scary thing) to find out. Don’t make me do that because I’ve got a whole lot of sittin’ on the couch planned and I wouldn’t want to exert too much effort lifting the phone to call you a couple hundred times.

Can’t wait to hear from you!

Yours Truly,
P, The Maven of Madness

On a side note, I better not get any phone calls from those who "got lost" because almost all of them live within two blocks; everyone else is within a quarter mile. And everyone of them have been to my house before. If they want to see scary, they should call me at 6:25 claiming to be lost.

Silver Lining:

1. Everyone got back to me the same day I sent out the e-mail except for one person. I only had to make one phone call, and thankfully, I made it on Friday so there was uninterrupted couch sittin' time this weekend. Well, not really because I had to pick up a bit since I would be "entertaining" on Bunco night. I'm always entertaining, it's just that I don't do it at my house.


2. After 30-some years I've perfected my communication style. I know this because the responses I got were, "I'll be there." or "See you Monday." There wasn't one, NOT ONE, smarta$$ comment. Perhaps they're saving them all for tonight so I have new material for tomorrow.

Semi Charmed Life

Doot, doot, doot. Doot, do-doot, doot. Doot, doot, doot. Doot, do-doot, doot. Doot, doot, doot. Doot, do-doot, doot. Doot, doot, doot.



You just can't help singing it once you hear it. It's one of those songs that sticks in your head all day long. I've heard these are called ear worms, but ick!

Anywho, that song came on last night during Bunco.

As happy a song it is, an argument ensued.

I was singing along, "Doot, doot, doot . . . I love this song. I remember working at Domino's when it came out."

My teammate made fun of me making pizzas.

I didn't make pizza, I was a delivery driver. I was 23 or 24.

You're not that much older than me. I'm 36 (which happens to be my age) and I distinctly remember this song coming out when I was in high school.

Well, I remember sitting in a drive thru with my Domino's uniform on and one of those light up do-dads on my car. (I was probably getting hamburgers plain with salt for my boss at the time. As weird as that is, I still married into his family - the kids might be doomed.)

[With a neck swagger] Maybe that was the first time you heard it . . .

I threw one of my dice at her. It bounced off her glasses. But impressively, she caught it even after drinking half a bottle of spiced rum.

She pitched it back at me. Bounced it off my glasses and I caught it too - with my boobs. It was quite the bank shot. Impressive indeed.

Silver Lining:

1. I'm not a loser as implied. The song came out in 1997. So if what she was saying is true, she was 23 and still in high school. Hmmmmm . . .


2. Nobody's glasses got broken.

Bunco - RTT Edition

Random Thoughts Tuesday. Hmmm, this seems like a good time to get out all the Bunco stories I’ve got rambling around in my brain, but haven’t had a way to bring them together in a coherent story. Thanks Kat (3 Bedroom Bungalow to Let in Crazytown) for turning me on to this.

If anyone else wants to join in, click the button above to get to Keely's blog for all the "rules" and to grab your own button.

In case you don’t know what Bunco is, it’s a dice game requiring twelve players. I belong to two different groups – one with mostly ladies from church and the other with my Pleasantville neighbors. Bunco has been referred to as “Drunco” because, let’s be honest, you get twelve women together without kids & husbands, alcohol will be involved.

Also, don’t think the church group is different from the Pleasantville group. They can get just as loud and raunchy as any other group. For this reason, I don’t feel like I actually have to differenciate between the two for any of these random thoughts – you can make up your own vision.

I have another post about Bunco. To get a little more understanding, you can read it here.

Anywho, here we go.

Misty has these “Native American Story Teller” dolls littering her family room. I didn’t think the one's she had looked as much like Native Americans as I thought they looked like those Russian nesting dolls, but that doesn’t matter. So these dolls sit there with their mouths open holding babies. Apparently, the more babies these dolls are holding, the more valuable they are – what a scam, you could just glue as many babies on as you wanted to make more money. Their mouths are open because they are supposed to be telling a story, but I gotta say, I don’t know if they are telling stories or offering blow jobs – they totally got their “O” face going on. Maybe this is how they get so many babies.

One gal carries a vibrator around in her car, just so she can say that she does. You never know. It may come in handy when there is an extra long light, or an accident that totally shuts down the highway.

There is a lot of counting in Bunko – adding is not allowed. Do you know how hard it is to add 2+5 after two or three hours of drinking margaritas? When we roll the dice (there are three), we count out the points (just go with it & don’t ask questions):

Roll 1: One
Roll 2: Two-tree (two points here – it’s a U.P./Northern WI thing – it’s always “Two-tree”)
Roll 3: That’s it

“That’s it” is a common phrase.

Why we feel the need to announce, “That’s it,” when we don’t score any points is a mystery really. Everyone at the table can see that, duh!

It’s like playing Poker and losing all your money. “Well, guys I’m out of chips, I guess I’m out of the game.” Really? You think the guy next to you with all your money isn’t thinking, “Ha, ha sucker – that’s because it’s all riiiiiight here.”

Also, after a few drinks just reading the dice can be difficult.

One night, Dusty rolled a 4, 5, 6 and the target number was three. When we said, “That’s it,” she got all up in arms. Dusty said, “Well, it was close to a three.” Hmmm, 4-5-6, yah that’s close.

And finally for this Random Tuesday Thoughts Bunco Edition, the bean dip at the last Bunco night was so delicious we gobbled it up with everything. It was like cheese to a Wisconsinite (cheese goes with everything to us). We had the dip on top of nachos, with the tortillas, just chips themselves, strawberry shortcake, Reese’s Peanut Buttercup cookies, margaritas. Nothing was too sacred for the bean dip – it’s the whore of dips.

Silver Lining:

1. I’ve got several more score sheets with notes to fill a book – although some of the notes, I’m not sure I understand anymore. Remember, they were taken under the influence.

2. Bunco isn’t going to end anytime soon. There will be more stories.

PS – If you like me. If you really, really like me, please click on the red button in my side bar. Vote for Life Makes Me Laugh for the top ten Babes in Blogland. You don’t even have to really like me, you can just sorta like me – I’ll take the vote anyway.

I'm a Glutton for Punishment

Here I go again – thinking I’m organized enough to whip something up for an event!

A new Bunco group was starting up in New Town and in LI style, I wanted to bring something homemade.

I had just gotten a cookie press for Christmas. It’s super cool because it runs on batteries. The cookie press came with recipes for both cookies and appetizers/crackers.

I make cookies for my other Bunco group, but I didn’t want to do the same thing. So flipping through the recipes, I chose as appetizer called “Gougeres”.

That’s a fancy-schmancy way of saying Basil Cream Puffs! The recipe book even has them titled as Gougeres and in parentheses, Basil Cream Puffs. It’s like the Wilton people putting the recipe book together decided to include Gougeres, but the editor said it was too high faluntin’ when it’s really as simple as Basil Cream Puffs. I’m sure there was a huge outcry by the Julia Child Fan Club about this, and after heavy debate, a compromise was reached. The recipe would be titled “Gougeres (Basil Cream Puffs)”. There, I hope everyone is happy.

This Bunco group is on Thursdays so on Wednesday night I did the responsible thing and fetched all the dry ingredients we had in the kitchen and checked the supply of everything else. I made a tick mark by any ingredients I needed to buy at the grocery store. I wasn’t so responsible as to go out and actually buy these ingredients that same night. I was just going to do it on my way home Thursday.

The grand plan (in this order) was to:
* Bust it out of work right at five
* Stop at the IGA for ingredients
* Pick up the kids at daycare
* Get home & start the oven
* Cook up the dough, pipe the dough onto cookie sheets & throw them in the oven
* Make up the cream cheese spread
* Feed the kids PB&J
* Dig out the centers of the cream puffs & fill with cream cheese spread
* Head off to Bunco at 6:30-ish

Well, I didn’t leave work until almost 5:15. I pulled into the IGA parking lot & got out the recipe (to make sure I got all the tick marks). I needed parchment paper, cream cheese, dried chives, & goat cheese – GOAT CHEESE!?!?!?! Oh, crud! The IGA is good for staples and a decent selection of basic meats, but GOAT CHEESE??

The first three were fairly easy to find. In the cheese section of the dairy department, I found cheddar, American, mozzarella, Gouda, feta. A glimmer of hope rose up, but alas, no goat cheese.

For occasions such as this, I have the New Town Market, Marsalla’s, as a contact in my cell phone. I gave them a quick, frantic call and breathed a sigh of relief – they had goat cheese.

OK, I picked up the kids without incident (by some miracle), got the goat cheese and got straight to work as soon as I got home. The ovens were on and I started preparing the dough (which wasn’t as hard as I was lead to believe). I piped the dough onto cookie sheets, opened the oven to pop them in, but there were no racks!

Rob had cleaned the ovens a couple of nights ago and the racks were still sitting out. Fortunately, that was an easy fix.

Whew, I was in the home stretch. The rest of the process went pretty smoothly and I made it to Bunco just before seven. What an exciting (though time crunchily stressful) couple of hours!

Silver lining:
1. Thank heavens for Marsalla’s Market. They have saved me numerous times before.
2. I have a new recipe to share. Without a stressful time crunch, I would definitely make these again. http://lifemakesmelaugh.blogspot.com/2009/01/gougeres-basil-cream-puffs-herbed.html
3. At Bunco, I met some new people, got to know others better & had a grand time with my friends; new and old.

Rhymes with sit, fit, zit . . .

Cupie is in the goofy phrase/rhyming stage.

She says things like, “Twinkle, twinkle little house” and laughs hysterically.

She also makes up words like, “Whack-corn” – what is that?????

Lately, she has really gotten the concept of rhyming too. It’s not just the repetition & parroting of Dr. Seuss type books that you see from younger children. She is taking one word & figuring out what rhymes with it – sat, cat, mat, etc.

Saturday night, while I hosted Bunco, Hubby took the girls to McDonald's for dinner & to get a movie out of the Red Box. Now, Cupie was probably babbling on rhyming or thinking up goofy stuff and Rob wasn’t really paying attention until she asked him, “We’re going to get a tit movie, right?”

I’m sure the blue hairs sitting near the Red Box about had a heart attack!

Silver lining:
1. Hubby did explain that "tit" is not a word nice girls use.
2. They did not get a tit movie.
3. McDonald's Red Box does not carry tit movies.

BUNKO!

On the first Saturday of each month, I play bunko with a group of ladies. We are all different in age, personality, and level of obnoxiousness.

Everyone brings a dish & $5.

I'm usually the one who makes dessert, but I was hosting and I ran out of time. I had store bought cookies, cake, & pastries - I figure I made up for lacking in the home-made department with volume.

The five bucks is to contribute to the ante - there is $60 bucks total, the most of which you can win is $50. The remaining $10 goes to the loser. This is one of the few games where when you just can win, you go for the losses to at least come out ahead. It turned out to be me this weekend. My husband pointed out that the money spent on food & alcohol amounted to more than the $10 in winnings so I actually came out in the hole. Blah, blah, blah. It's not about the money, it's about the fun (well, maybe it's a little bit about the money).

Our bunko group requirements:
Minimum of 12 ladies - sometimes dancing ensues
Three sturdy tables - just in case dancing ensues
Nine dice - three for each table. It is a dice game so it's good to have these as a requirement.
Fuzzy dice - must be light weight & easy to throw
Bell - to tell everyone to sit their butts down and get to the business of rolling the dice
Lots of food - duh, since when can a bunch of women get together without food?
Something to drink - when you're in my house, it's strong alcoholic concoctions

Speaking of which, I promised to share the recipe for the Limeberry Smash.

Original:

• One can of frozen limeade concentrate (the only brand I’ve ever found was Minute Maid)
• One can of Bacardi strawberry daiquiri mixer (although we have substituted other brands with equal success)
• One can of lemon-lime soda (Sprite, Sierra Mist, 7-Up, etc.)
• One can or bottle of beer
• One of the 12 oz juice concentrate containers re-filled with tequila
• Combine all of the ingredients in a pitcher and stir until well mixed. You may also choose to use a blender to mix it up; beware, though, that even a 64 oz blender pitcher has a hard time holding all of the mix (most glass blender pitchers are smaller than that), so you might have to split it up.

The variation served on bunko night:

• One can of frozen lemonade concentrate
• One can of frozen limeade concentrate
• One small container (8-10 oz) of frozen strawberries
• One can of lemon-lime soda (Sprite, Sierra Mist, 7-Up, etc.)
• One can or bottle of beer
• One of the 12 oz juice concentrate containers re-filled with tequila

Although the strawberries weren’t blended the other night (perhaps I had already been hitting the liquor to not think of that?), I would suggest blending at least some of the ingredients together in order to chop up the strawberries.

Sometimes this has come out more tart than others, for whatever reason, so you could add a little bit of Splenda (or use sugar or whatever is your preference) to help sweeten it up a bit.

This is sooo yummy and considering the amount of tequila in it, you can imagine how the descriptor "Smash" became part of the name. Let's just say the pitcher went pretty fast and the party really started rollin'!

On that note, let's talk about Debbie. She has what some would say is a generous bossom - I call 'em honkers. I can say that because I've got 'em too. Alcohol has a tendency to make her warm up and she was sucking up the Limeberry Smash. Next thing you know, we need to turn up the fan because her boobs are sweating.

Now, with the fan going on high, the throwing of the fuzzy dice could become a hazard. Every time someone got bunko, the first words out of my mouth, were "Watch the fan!" Those fuzzy dice take flight between the last & the new bunko winners, because why walk the fuzzy dice over to the next person with a bunko, when you could flick them across the room?

Another requirement is background music. Background my a**, when you've got Sandy around. Apparently, she has basic television at her house. I didn't think that actually existed anymore, and one would only find reference to it in the Smithsonian. I'm sure it's right there, next to the TV dinners and Fonzie's jacket.

We happen to Dish Network with all the Sirius radio stations as well as a universal remote. She was in the mood for 80's so I gave her a brief tutorial on how to operate the remote and then left her to fiddle. The whole "guide" thing was not sinking in so she would just use the arrows to move the channel up and down so there was all kinds of music spewing from the speakers.

Of course, once we were on an 80's channel, there was something really good and we cranked it up. I had the standard satellite remote and slowly turned the music down because not everyone appreciated Prince's "I Would Die For You". Come on, admit it, if you grew up in the eighties, you just did the little hand motions - don't forget to bring the one shoulder up & out. You probably threw in a wink too.

This episode prompted a request for 60's music. May I remind you, Sandy had the universal remote & I had the standard remote. Sandy & I had just a tiny bit of alcohol in us (if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you). I, as the fabulous hostess I am, was joyously willing to oblige. Sandy was not. We had a little battle of the remotes until I grabbed the universal one and stuck my tongue out at her.

The 60's music coincided with a new round of play; thus, the first target is a "one" on the dice. That made me think of "One is the Lonliest Number". I only know the chorus on this one, so once I've had a little bit to drink, I repeat this over & over every time the target is "one". I'm famous for it. Well, may not famous outside the bunko circle, but amongst 12-15 ladies, I am.

The night was fun and I highly recommend that everyone find at least 12 people to play bunko with (click the title above for a link to the basic rules). It's awesome for stress relief - and a good excuse to kick the guys out the house and have "Ladies Night In"!

Until next time, that's it!

Silver lining:
Don't really need one! Bunko rocks!