It has been a while

It has been pretty busy at TheMark lately. I apologize for the few of you out there that actually read this crap. So here is an update:

The result of January's LPN was very much the same as previous month's. I drop in 3rd or 4th and MrsBlood & IceT take the $ home. I have concluded that I have hit a dry spell in my poker playing but I am hopeful things will turn around. They always do. At the very least the ladies had a fun evening laughing at me....just ask AcesHigh. She thought it was a most comical evening. I had some back pain that I had taken medication for on that night and was extremely talkative at the table. I usually don't talk too much with the ladies or even with the guys now that I think of it. I try to respect each players play and let them play it. I don't like to be one of those players that annoy the shit out of you until you want to reach over the table and rip their throat out (Mike the Mouth) but when I am drinking or medicated I am less controlled. Oh well... we all have our moments....apparently it was one of my funnier ones...

Last Wednesday, I went with some ladies to the Bon Jovi concert in Charlotte. It was excellent! Best concert I have ever been to. He actually played for almost 2 hours straight. Any man with that kind of stamina ought to be immortalized. There are a couple of men I'd like to witness such an endurance test. That will have to be for another blog. I am getting exciting just thinking about it. Anyway , the ladies and I planned to spend the night for many reason but mainly just because we can. When Mrs Blood and I got there the room wasn't ready so we went to the mall to kill time and enjoy ourselves. We met up with the posse and went back to the hotel around 4 hours later. This time our room wasn't available apparently the guests that occupied the room before us decided to stay. So, the fine hotel was gave us 2 standard rooms for the price we were going to pay for our 1 suite. As I continued to think about it, it didn't seem right that even though we were getting 2 rooms we were paying our suite rate. They weren't doing enough to compensate our inconvenience. Then one room had left over food still in the frig., and the other a dirty "funky spunk" rag from the cleaning staff. So I called and spoke to Craig the front desk manager. He gave us about $50 off. Which I thought was pretty reasonable. I didn't expect to get the room for free for minor problems. We got ready, grabbed our free drinks for happy hour and headed to the bar. The bartender served everyone except asked for my i.d. I was shocked at first but then realized I had dressed very young looking in my new "thug" outfit that perhaps I did look 18 or he just wanted to see how old I really was. Either way, I had to go back up to the room to get it. Once we were done with that we walked a few blocks to dinner and then off to the concert. WHAT A BLAST!
All was cool until the AM. Mrs. Blood looked at the bill slipped under our door and was surprised they had finally got something right. When she went to show the other girls they had the same thing in their room. The hotel charged us for both rooms. To put it mildly, Mrs Blood was pissed. I tried to calm her down before heading to the front desk and it seemed to help. I told her that when I spoke to Craig he mentioned wanting to make things right with us and what would it take. So, perhaps she should mention that statement to him and suggest we get it for free due to all these issues. She did and He did. Way to go Craig. We will stay there again. So we got a free night's stay and an excellent concert plus new clothes....what a great night!

Another great night happened this weekend. TheMark and I joined some friends at the Red Cross benefit dinner downtown at the Hyatt. It was my first black tie event in Greenville. I loved it. It had excitement, drama, and wine. We started with limo ride to the Hyatt. The driver dropped us off and the sitter took the kids on a joy ride in the limo before bringing them home for pizza dinner. At the event they had a ton of item to auction both silent and live. The live was most exciting because by the time it started everyone in the room had been drinking so much wine that either they weren't paying attention or bid uncotrollably. The auctioneer had her hands full trying to keep things moving. She even tried stunts on stage by falling down on stages. She actually sat there in the middle of a bid and said " awe, hell nobody's paying attention anyway", or something like that. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. The dinner was good and the company even better. To all the wives out there. I know of a new occupation that you should be cautious of. It is a "Wine Rep." The rep's that I saw were women and it was a green flag to flirt with every married man in the room. That is a bad combination with a room full of southern women that have been drinking wine all night. Can we say cat fight?! As I observed I had to raise a glass in awe of such strength these southern women had. I know this Yankee would not have had the same strength. I would throw punches yet but certainly would have had to say something. There was one lady that sat next to the man with his wife on the other side, asked for a picture, then had the photographer zoom in to cut out the wife. Yes, it was very obvious. Then the same woman, still sitting with the same couple was raising her dress up to show her thigh. Apparently, this couple has to endure this each year they go. Now that is when I would have to step in and say something. Just politely, lean in front of my husband toward her and say: " Excuse me ma'am is it possible for you to embarrass yourself somewhere else. Hiking up your dress or cutting me out of a picture isn't going to get you in bed with MY husband. It only makes you look pathetic." This lady had 10 years on the wife. By no means would the hubby be upgrading.... As you can tell there was all sorts of events going on. What a show! Had a BLAST!