texas hold 'em

the other night the plan was to go bowling as a last activity before people went separate ways for the summer. so we walked or rode bikes over to the bowling alley that was on the third floor of a building and had four lanes. we got there to discover that children under 14 were actually not allowed to play, no one else was there but us (this rather large group of foreigners), and their computer system was broken so we couldn't play. so after riding bikes in circles in front of the building for 15 or 20 minutes and talking aimlessly, we decided to make our way to someone's house to play games. (the way back involved a detour of giving boys rides on the back of bikes back to their house, and then waiting for their dad to also arrive who had walked--more riding bikes in circles.)

when we got to the house, we laid out a bunch of games, but decided to put the real very nice poker chips to use that someone brought from the US last summer. of course we didn't play for money, but we had lots of fun playing. i won one significant hand, and then went all in and lost the rest of my chips later in a hand that i played well and had no other choice, so that was all i needed to make myself happy about the results of the game. here's us in the middle of our game:
why is their popcorn all over the middle of the table when you are playing texas hold 'em, you might ask? the cards that everyone is supposed to be able to see are under the popcorn!! one of our friends can make excellent popcorn, this time flavored with onion powder. we were all digging into the giant bowl of popcorn, and our friend who had already lost all his chips was holding it hovering over the table at various locations so that people could reach to take some, but that is not why there is popcorn all over the table. somehow when the bowl was just sitting on the table, someone was just about to move it, it somehow tipped the wrong way, and there we go--popcorn covering the community cards.
we proceeded to eat it off the table and then continue to play... =)