My husband Michael called me while he was on his daily walk with our French Mastiff yesterday. Being the social creature that he is, he stopped to chat with someone down the road that he had never met; they had a nice porch (we like porches), he has a very friendly aura about him, and that, as they say, was that. Bill and Joy liked him right away, and asked him to invite me over. They apparently had seen me rolling around town on my Harley and had waited for an opportunity to talk to the crazy chick with dreads that fly in the wind.

Remembering how much Michael enjoys show-and-tell, I decided to take the truck instead, bringing along our Boxer. I was surprised to see that Bill and Joy were cat people - EXTREMELY cat people - but Joy was a bundle full of cool, and invited us to stay for dinner (which smelled absolutely wonderful). Wanting to take the dogs home first, the four of us hopped back into the truck and drove to our house to clean up a little and chat about this potential new friendship.

Knowing Michael as I do, I anticipated that he would tell me to bring some show-and-tell stuff back with us, so amongst other things, I grabbed my travel case of rose-themed chips and tried to put it in my sling bag. But I forgot that it was already full, so I pulled the last edition of the CC&TN out of the bag and thumbed through it as we went back to Bill and Joy's house. The magazine caught Bill's eye and he asked me about it. I explained that I was a chipper and a part of the CC>CC; Michael's eyes started rolling, but Bill told me he collected stamps and coins, so he understood my enthusiasm.

Then Bill did the coolest thing while we were talking to Joy: he went into his bedroom, came back with these babies, and gave them to me:

Being a Michigander, I of course want to have at least one chip from all the past and present Michigan casinos as I can find, so I was thrilled to get the Saginaw Cardroom chip. The only other one I've ever seen, sadly, is buried under lucite on someone's bar top. I already have all the Kewadin chips that I need, though.

Susong, if you're reading this and if I'm not mistaken, you don't have this version of the blue .50¢ chip, right? I looked on chipguide.com and see that this is CG18099, Linen Finish, Non Fading Version. If you still need it, let me know. As for the pink chip, if anyone else would like to trade for it, let me know this also.

Oh, and the dinner? It rocked.