Saturday - December 28, 2019

Holiday Recap, And If You Don’t Play You Can’t Win

Ok, I’m back. I was forced - forced I tell you - to take a few days off the blog due to holiday activities. We went to the annual Christmas Eve blowout at the cousin’s, and it was wild as always. Tons of food, loads of people. Much noise, much fun. Much alcohol. Got in at least 8 kinds of fish plus lots of everything else. I walked in the door and out came the butter and the bread knife, and this year’s giant loaf I made was eaten up in less than 10 minutes. Her cheesecake was the centerpiece of desert, although those guys were still out in the backyard frying up more fish and squid at 11pm. They go all night. Too much for us. Managed to get home at 3 minutes til Christmas. Did our own Christmas morning opening stuff - I really miss having a dog to “help” with the unwrapping; cats just aren’t into going wild with the piles of gift wrap - then went up to mom’s for a good long visit. Mom really scored this year, with so many things to open that she needed a break. Got back here late in the evening and happily slept until 10:30 the next morning.

And then we baked some more. She made yet another cheesecake - bless our Kitchenaid mixer, it really does the job - to take to our new friends at Cheap League. I made a batch of pretzels for them too, but they suffered a baking mishap so I only brought them two. The damn things glued themselves to the baking sheet, which I now have to soak for a day or so to try and get the crusts off. Pretzels get dipped in lye; that gives them the pretzel flavor. The lye water is caustic. In the past I’ve had brown parchment paper from King Arthur, but lately I’ve been using the white parchment paper that I can get locally. It’s not the same. Back in April, my last batch of pretzels stuck to the paper.  I didn’t use any this time, and they stuck to the baking sheet. Either I have to order a roll of the brown stuff, or try using one of those silicon sheets. I have two somewhere around here. But even with part of their undersides torn off, the pretzels were a big hit. If you like soft pretzels, my recipe is about the best you’re ever going to find. It’s a lot of work, but once you have one you’ll never be satisfied with a store made pretzel again.

~~~

And that brings us, finally, to bowling. The other team didn’t show up last night, and they didn’t pre-bowl. Oh sure, one of them kept calling the alley - “wait for me, I’m on my way” - but he never got there. So we had to roll against their absentee scores. We lost the first game by just a few points, and then went on to win the next two. Our newbie teammate made the 4-7-10 split, a holiday miracle. I called it, crudely, when her ball was halfway down the lane. She was thunderstruck; her ball just kissed the 4 pin and then got the 7, and the 4 pin slid slowly across the deck, not even wobbling, and dinked the 10 pin and they both fell. It’s one of the harder splits to make and a real thrill. So that was awesome. A while later my wife won the score match card game and won the pot that had accumulated for a month. $160. Sweet! The game is simple: Early in the third game a couple bowlers are selected to pick a card from a deck. It’s value, 0 - 9, counts as the first number. The second bowler picks a card from another deck. The two numbers together make up the winning number, and the matching scores from Game 2 win. So if a 5 and a 4 are drawn, then the number is 54, which means scores of 54, 154, and 254 are winners. Even with 40 people playing the game, most of the time there isn’t a match, and everybody’s weekly $1 just stays in the pot. So that was an awesome thing too.

The two of us were up at the lanes yesterday too. I gave her a new pair of fancy bowling shoes for Christmas and she had to give them a try. The place was crowded in the mid afternoon, and the lanes were burnt; used up. Our balls were hooking massively; I had to stand 5 boards over to even make my line, and still the ball was going Brooklyn most of the time. So it was crazy, but fun. I put on my robo-brace for more fun, and was able to rev the daylights out of the ball. And I guess I’m finally ready for it, because the throw felt right, and I was able to keep that feeling and get a bit under the ball last night at Cheap League. So my hook is getting stronger. I’m happy with that.

Our team’s scores weren’t anything astronomical, but they were good enough. So we took the night 5-0. Not 5-2. Like I said, the other team didn’t show up, so they forfeited. Bowling uses an “earn the points” method, which means that if your team is a no-show, you won’t win any points even if the other team can’t beat your absentee score. If you don’t play, you can’t win. And you still have to pay for that night too.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/28/2019 at 09:16 AM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging • Holidays • Christmas •  
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