PDA drawings

The Palm T|X has a little graphic notepad. I never used it for much, but over the past few days I've been experimenting.

I've been intrigued by the work of Doodle Bean, whose daily PDA drawings grace her eponymous blog and her Facebook page. She obviously has some sort of graphic program -- it's time to explore the Palm catalog again! But until then, I find notepad drawings can be quite satisfying.

Shards of wildness, even here

1.
Rockville Pike roars at my back.
There, past cement, a flash of yellow:
Goldfinch, balanced on a seed-head.

2.
The storm rolled in while we were at the movie --
Beyond parked cars, the rainbow's limb was
Crossed by lightning-slash.

3.
Gray squirrel, spooked,
Jumps onto snow fence, falls,
And burrows skull-first
Through the rigid orange mesh.

Superstition

Casinos exist in a perpetual twilight, ambient light diminished so the machines can shine. There are no clocks; the seasons of the day are marked by the ebb and flow of patrons, and by early-morning maintenance, oddly mundane in glitter-chiming, stochastic Xanadu.

The old man appeared as I worked a dollar single-play 9/6 Jacks machine at the end of a row near the high-limit area. He reminded me of an older, more eccentric Alex Trebec -- tall, fastidious and careful in his movements, razor-thin, overdressed for a casino. He sat down at the machine next to mine -- an odd choice, since players tend to space themselves out. I glanced at him, and instantly hit my first set of quads in the session.

On that machine, quads return a hundred twenty-five dollars; I had been playing for some time, and was sorely in need of them. "Oh, you have brought me luck!" the old man exclaimed. An odd statement, since it was I who had just won. He turned back to his own machine, and his next hand was also a set of quads... dealt. His next few hands included a straight flush, and a second set of quads. He cashed out for five hundred dollars and stood to leave.

I remarked on his astounding good fortune. "Oh, I won eight thousand earlier today," he said casually. "I am having a good day." As he left, I hit my second set of quads. I hit no more quads for the rest of the session.

The next day, after breakfast, I was back at the same machine. It was the last day of our trip; I was moderately discouraged that I had hit nothing larger than quads in four days of heavy play. I was approaching my loss limit, something that hadn't happened for several trips.

I didn't pay much attention as I held the Ten-Queen-Jack of hearts. Three to the Royal comes so often, and fills in so seldom. And the Ten makes it seem, well, less royal somehow. I hit the Draw button. The Ace-King filled in on the left. I just had time to recognize the Royal Flush before the machine locked and the bells went off.

On that machine, the Royal Flush pays four thousand dollars. Enough to require a hand pay, and tax forms. More than enough to turn a losing trip into a highly profitable one.

"Congratulations," said a voice behind me. I turned to find the old man. He had been walking past my machine when the Royal hit.

"You brought me luck!" I stammered, grasping his offered hand. He just smiled, and walked away.

The way the world increasing knits together

It would have been rude to take a photograph. But here is what I saw, in the cental business district of DC, about three blocks from the White House: a small brown-skinned woman, in the uniform of a popular coffee house, with a shopping bag in her left hand, her half-eaten breakfast pastry in her right, and on her head, perfectly balanced, an enormous, plastic-wrapped platter of croissants. She passed me with the easy, rolling walk of a woman from a third-world village. Which she must have been, to have learned that skill so well. The platter barely wobbled. I stared after her in amazement and, yes, envy.

I hope she does well here.