Spade Smackdown...

Friends, Sonya and Mac and their son Micah came over for pizza and Spades on Saturday night. We fixed two pizzas, the first with a basil pesto base, turkey pepperoni, onions, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, goat cheese, mozzarella cheese and mushrooms. The second pizza was tomato based with sweet Italian spiced turkey sausage and similar other ingredients. The food was pretty good!! One of these days I will learn to make pizza crust instead of buying it but this was not that day. Too bad the pizza disappeared before I remembered the camera.

After dinner, we were ready for Spades! It has been over four years since we last shuffled a deck of cards together and John and I have not played since. The Cissnas, on the other hand, were on top of their game and arrived like they always did, talking smack with a bottle of wine under each arm. We were sunk before the first card was dealt.

Sonya cracked open a brand new deck for the game. The cards, a gift from her daughter-in-law, were manufactured as a breast cancer fund-raiser. Damn if all the cards weren't pink and white and it was near impossible to discern between the suits. Everyone at the table was reduced to wearing reading glasses and we laughed a lot as we exposed secrets in our hands when a spade was thrown down for a heart and vice versa.

Sonya laughing as she tries to separate her pink clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds

Mac, with an almost empty glass of "Strong Arms" Shirz 2007, is analyzing his "tricks"

John can't believe he is playing with pink cards. He did keep up with Mac on the wine, glass for glass

I am just tickled to win a trick or two, this was a lot of fun

The note pad says it all. We (BJ-left column) stayed close for a while, at least within striking distance. We were blown out of the game on the last two hands when Sonya went Low 50. We will be gunning for the Cissnas on the next game, I think we have our card legs back!!