June 2009

It’s the end of spring & that means it’s time for our birthday/tea party @ Patt’s house. It rained the whole morning leading up to the party. Actually, I think it rained every day that week. Anytime we tried to get things situated in the car, move things around, leave from one house to the other, it would start pouring! It did let up a bit on the way there. When we went out back to see Bob’s Woodland Creature Wonderland, the sun even came out for a few minutes. We had a pretty dry ride home – until we hit Center City. We had lots of good goodies to eat - sandwiches, desserts & salads (oh my). One of the sammiches Kate did was a PB & Honey sandwich on wheat. Probably the simplest one there & it wound up being the one we all raved about. Phyllis couldn’t stop eating the curry chicken ones! We wound up w/ 2 cakes & sugar-free raspberry mini cheesecakes. Phyllis did an amazing basket weave floral cake. Debi thought it would be cute to pick up an official “Happy Birthday” cake & candles. Somewhere between the bakery & PA, the cake was jostled around in the car & got a bit smashed up. While I was taking photos of all the delicious food stuff Debi says, “Make sure you get the good side!” Speaking of getting smashed up – I took a dessert plate home. It was on the floor under my feet. Do you see where I’m going w/ this??? We stopped for a minute & I wanted to grab my phone out of the trunk. As I went to get out of the car, my foot went straight into the middle of the plate! Cheesecake does NOT stand up well to a stomping!

For some reason or another, everything from the decorations to Patt’s gift(s) matched her lovely lady outfit. She wasn’t planning on dressing up, but when she saw us get out of the car looking so lady-like, she decided to change into a 2-pc green jacket/skirt with butterflies & flowers embellishing it. Marge wore a lovely pink ensemble. Cosmo rocked the “Donna Reed” look w/ her blue & white polka dot frock. Phyllis was ravishing in a red floral print dress, red hat/gloves & boa! I was leaning a bit more toward “lady of the night” with my leopard print sundress & matching spotted hat. Peg-a-la wore a very nice pants suit w/ lacy/floral shirt. Everyone was lovely indeed!

Buddha & Bob were wonderful hosts. We had some foam tumblers to decorate & fake tattoos to apply. Spanky was really excited to do hers, but didn’t know how. Since I know a thing or 2 about tattoos, I helped give her “kissy fish”! After Phyllis went to show off her tattoo, everyone else lined up to do theirs. Problem was that nobody @ the party (but me & Debi) knew how to apply the fake ink. I then turned into the official tattoo artist & hooked everyone up. Debi did her own on her arm. Marge (“The Riveter”) did an armband too. Peg put a butterfly on her wrist. Cosmo did a sailor star that matched her outfit very well. When Bob came home, all the ladies showed him their artwork & thanked him for buying them for the party. He was upset because he thought HE would get to be the tattoo artist!

Before we started playing, we had lunch/dessert & opened presents. My gift came from Peg. This is the 3rd time (outta 4) that Peg had me for Pollyanna! I asked for fresh flowers – never considering how I’d get them back home again! Peg thought of all that & had a whole set up. She arranged them before presenting them. They were a lovely combo of roses & lilies. I had Patt (again!). Since I washed her slip, I could only remember 1 thing on her list – sun block! Patt likes nothing better than running off to the beach, so I thought the perfect gift was a “Beach Getaway” bag. Or as Debi called it, “her ready bag”! Everything she could possibly need for a weekend @ the beach house. Funny thing about this gift…I was going w/ this idea for a while & decided to make a door sign. Marge has spares, so I asked if I could have one. I told her what it was for/what I was doing, etc. She started cracking up! Apparently, she had a similar idea for her Pollyanna (Phyllis). Phyllis loves to hang @ her pool so Marge put together a pool bag w/ hat, glasses, pomegranate martinis & a bunch of other goodies. Patt had Marge. She got a gift card. Phyllis had Peg. She gave her a card about humping a leg & eating your cake too! Too funny! There was a special “Shiatzu Blend” of coffee beans (push the “nose button”) & Spanky-crafted purple jewelry (earrings & bracelet). Phyllis says, “purple is for passion”! Kate had Debi this time. She put together a “Crafting Inspiration Bag” w/ 2 bottles of wine. I wouldn’t recommend drinking them both before crafting, or you might wake up hung over the next day finding you’ve glued all your Popsicle sticks to your cat! And, Debi had Kate! She gave her a cheese crumb cake (Kate requested baked goods), detoxifying bath salts (no “nose hole” on this) that had a really nice ginger scent, box of Calgon (take her away), recycled dish towel & body pouf. To top it all off, Debi included a Sham Wow! Very nice!

A while back, Peg gave Marge a cross stitch of a gang of cowboy cats. As Marge was doing it, she realized there’s one cat for each of the Pokeno ladies. She had Jacob pick out what cat was for whom & stitched our names underneath. Across the top she did “The Pokeno Cats”. Whoever is hostess for that month will proudly display our freak flag when we play, keep it for the month & be responsible to bring it along to our next game to pass along to the next hostess.

Before the game started, Phyllis & I were outside enjoying a cigar in between raindrops. Phyllis starts telling me she “has a feeling” that she’s “gonna take everyone’s money”! I do remember that during the game, Spanky “spanked” us a bit. Big winners were in the first round. The 4 corners pot had the same amount as the cover all! I can’t believe we went a whole game without one of us hitting the 4 corners at least once! Marge won the super fat 4 corners pot & Kate won the cover all for that round. I gave up after that & don’t remember who won the other cover all. All I know is one of you ladies have quite a few of my dimes! All in all, everyone seemed to have a really good time – as usual!

MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT

(Horn noises) Doo doo do doo, do do doo doo do! Use your imaginations people… We had an unofficial game in May because the Sarge & Major Juggs were cruising the 7 seas. So, the rest of us gathered @ my house for a super relaxed game. Peg called me ahead of time (as proper Pokeno etiquette requires) to see if it would be ok to bring her friend Lori. I’ve met her before & I know she’s cool, so I had no problem w/ her joining the group. Spanky promised to be on her best behavior.

Lori fit in perfectly right away & we all had such a good time that we decided to put up an official vote to add her to the group. As you know, Pita is no longer playing and it’s been a year since what’s her name came back to play for a few months before deciding to remove herself from the table. That means we’re technically down 2 players. Adding one more player is a good thing. Even though those of us @ the May party all agreed, this is a democracy & we had to consult w/ the other ladies. I am pleased to announce that Lori’s membership was put up for a yes or no vote & EVERYONE said “yes”! Who says you can’t get 7 ladies in a room to agree on something? Lori’s first official game will be next month @ the Toga party. There’s a heck of a way to be inducted. But, I guess if you can handle that – you can handle anything!!!

TOGA TIME!!!

For July’s party, Spanky will once again be hosting us for a toga party. Wear your tunic (hopefully you’ve saved it from last year) & your bathing suit. Here’s hoping this year will be far less drama filled than last year. No party crashers this time please! Spanky promises there won’t be any beatings (unless of course you’re into that kind of thing). Now that we’ve all been officially sworn in as sisters – we don’t need to go through the hazing process again.

Come to Phyllis’ house SATURDAY, JULY 25TH. If you’d like to go swimming or just hang out a bit early, get there @ 5:00. If you’d rather not swim/can’t be there that early/etc. please get there for our usual 6:00 start time. We will be dining on steamed crabs, burgers, fried tomatoes, corn & other goodies.

MYSTERY BOX

Debi was responsible for providing the Mystery for the month of June. She again managed to salvage some of the paper from the last 2 Boxes, plus the bow from the last Mystery. While pointing out her recycling skills, Debi told us that she took an afternoon w/ her granddaughter to plant some of the seeds from her Box – hence the big muddy kid-sized hand print on the side of the Box! She also said that some of the seeds have started to sprout! Pretty cool!

Anyway, we went around the table & picked. For some reason, I think we picked twice. The hostess luck sure was with Patt this time as she was the big winner! I don’t think she’s won in a while. So Debi passes off the Box & says, “Here you go, it’s redundant!” Huh??? As Patt starts going through the Box, we start to notice a theme VERY similar to Patt’s b-day gift! It was a box full of summer goodies - book for the beach, towel, sun block, etc. She can dump that stuff into her beach bag & be twice as ready for a weekend getaway!

RANDOM FUNNIES

Cruisin’ – As you may have heard, Debi & Patt went on a Caribbean cruise this month. They were nice enough to bring all of us back a little bit of paradise with our own flip flop key chain. Thanks again ladies! They said the cruise was nice. However, the Norwegian food that was offered wasn’t so appealing. Lucky for them they found a place to get burgers/pizza. We all got to see pictures before we left. Beautiful sunset shots from a rum cruise. Other shots included towel animals, beaches, cabana boys…just kidding! A good time was had by all & they highly recommend that we all take one.

Can a Seahorse get a lap dance? After the first cover all, Phyllis felt she needed a bit more luck. She decided to steal the Mystic Seahorse from Peg. She put it on her chair, sat on it & proceeded to give the seahorse a “lap dance”. Does a seahorse even have a lap? Maybe it should’ve been a tail dance?

And with that, I will end this month’s Rag. I don’t know about you ladies, but I’m looking forward to that conga line next month! See you then!