Today's Bridge: It was a thin crowd, so I rounded up new player Anna to join us. I think she overbid quite a bit, but it was her first time, and the contracts were pretty interesting. We even found a 4S pre-empt (she overcalled Jerry's strong 1C with 1NT, Dan H. doubled, and I had S J-10-x-x-x-x H A-x-x-x-x D x C x), which pushed Jerry into 5C. Anna doubled that, and while we scored two aces and a club in her hand, there was also a diamond ruff available when she found my singleton on the lead, but when I got back in with the ace of hearts and switched to spades, she missed the signal and led another spade. She led another diamond when she next got the lead, but I was out of trump by then. Nobody made a contract, but I think it was an instructive day.

Today's Work: We had a big discussion about our top priorities now, and managed to find a path forward on each that seems pretty reasonable. One of the problems seemed particularly intractable, but I think we've got a good solution. It's just going to take a lot of work.

My neck still hurts, although I think it's faded a bit over the course of the day. That also might be all the medicine. I think I'll give it another rub-down with Ben-Gay and hope I sleep a bit more comfortably tonight.