Saint Louis Blues
This guy got on the train as I was writing in from the airport. He’s going to the hockey gam–the local team is called The Blues. Little did I know that he would be an omen for the way the bridge has gone here.
Thursday night we played the Educational Foundation pairs and were just average. Today, we started play in the in IMP pairs and thought it was going alright. We were 3.60 imps above in the first session, then ran into a bulldozer. Our evening session started slow, went downhill, hit rock bottom, and then started digging. It was easily the worst game Mike and I have had in over two decades of playing together.
The good thing about playing with Mike is his even temperament. Although we had disaster after disaster after catastrophe and calamity, we both managed to stay calm, moderately cheerful, and pleasant. Losing is no fun, but you don’t have to make yourself miserable about it. Some of the things that happened were our fault, some of them were brilliancies by the opponents, some were just bad luck.
Last year, we also did not qualify in this event, although not as dramatically. Then we went on to win the A/x pairs the next day. Keeping your cool and soldiering on is the only way to have success in the long term.
Wendy Sullivan, convention planner extraordinaire, put on an excellent opening reception last night. There was music, dancing and food, and the players turned out in throngs. I came here with my dancing shoes and my “Born to Dance” suspenders, so you know I enjoyed myself. Now, every muscle in my legs is sore from all the fun I had. If you can’t play bridge, at least you can dance.
Totally Unauthorized 
You really had me going when you mentioned the players turned out in THONGS!! Guess my coffee had not kicked in yet.
Am sick of St. Louis Blues….where is update?