It was a wild kind of Valentine's Day 24 hours. I hung out with the best friend for a while to get away from this building and then he decided to go to poker with me and try his hand, so to speak. (He is really pretty good. He actually took me out in the first round, and he made the final table. I'm proud of him.) But when we got there, we found out that the house of some of my usual poker buddies, including my really connected massage giving friend, burned sometime yesterday afternoon. All of the people and the dogs are safe, but they lost everything, including their reptile and fish friends.
My massage giving friend lived in the basement, so most of her things are called salvageable, although I'm not sure to what degree. But her three male roommates who lived in the main part of the house literally lost everything except what they were wearing. So on Monday, people are bringing whatever they can to help. At first I didn't think that I was going to be able to contribute, but I've been going around to people here and making them aware, so I should have quite a little pile to bring. This makes me feel much better. All of the people affected have been good friends to me. Very fortunately, the landlord of the place next door to where they were has offered them the space. It made me think about how at times like these, people learn who their true friends are. And I was very happy to see how my little sometimes dysfunctional chosen family took a break from the usual pettiness to pull together to help some of its own.
Afterwords, we went back to my friends house to relax. But when he answered one of his mother's messages, he found out that a family member, one of his favorite aunts, died yesterday evening. Apparently, it was expected, but still very sad, and I'm glad I was able to be there for him. I will probably go over there this evening again after what passes for dinner here. My roommate is getting more confused by the minute, so it's really hard to sleep here at night or really any time, so my nerves are pretty frayed, but no word yet from the next place. March 9 will be a year here.
I guess that's all for now. Oh, for the curious, I made sixth place at last month's poker final, which is not bad but still three away from a trophy. Catch you next time!