Bridge Blog 914: Late

I slept late Friday. I was beat from a week of late nights and early mornings. I needed it. When I became aware of what was on the bedside radio, NPR’s “On Point” was taking its first break at 10:20 a.m.

I left the house late. Couple minutes after noon. I hate to hit the Peace Bridge after noon. Sometimes it’s clear. More often it’s not. This time … not. To compound matters, I was directed into a slow lane. Had I been in the line of vehicles immediately right of me, I would have passed through the checkpoint at least 10 minutes sooner.

Even that would have made me late, but not 20 minutes tardy, which is what I turned out to be. It takes roughly half an hour to get from the Peace Bridge to the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines. I passed the checkpoint at 12:48. I got to follow a medical lab delivery vehicle that was hitting 90 mph, which gave me hope temporarily, but only until I reached the first of the three one-lane bridge construction areas on the Queen Elizabeth Way.

Partner Selina Volpatti had received none of my text messages, nor my phone call from the Peace Bridge. Her phone was at home, charging. At any rate, she was able to play temporarily with Agnes Bak, whose partner didn’t show. They’d finished a round and a half – three boards – before I slipped in to the North seat at Table 6.

Once I settled in, it started to feel like a pretty good game, especially defensively. (Our two absolute top boards were defensive efforts.) When the final round was finished and we punched up the preliminary results on the Bridge Mate gizmo, we discovered it was a really, really good game. First in our direction. First time we’ve done that in St. Catharines. 62.65%. 1.5 master points.