The alternative title for this post was going to be - It's Saturday Already???
After being up way too late on Tuesday night (well, Wednesday morning) doing some IM roleplaying, I hightailed it offline until today. Decided I needed a real break from online if this was going to be a true vacation.
Well that, and I worked hard to finish The Eyre Affair so that I could start Paladin of Souls. Eyre Affair was quite fun, and I'm looking forward to diving into the other two when I get home. But Paladin of Souls is just ... amazing. Ista shows once again that Lois McMaster Bujold knows what to do with women who believe themselves past their prime, on the shelf, not good for anything anymore.
Plus, she knows what to do with gods who have the ability to directly touch the humans who act as their bridge between the world of matter and the world of spirit. Or the world of humans and the world of gods. The Bastard is such a wonderful god, and Ista is quite the match for him. Oh yes.
I can't wait to see if there are more stories to be told of Chalion-Ibra, and if she'll choose a character we've seen to tell them. Can't wait.
Lots of games were played, though I'm not a big board gamer, so I sat most of them out. We did have an "adult's night out" on Wednesday, wherein we all went to the local Ruth's Chris, and Jack treated us all to the best steaks Lou and I have had since the Ruth's Chris we went to in Indianapolis after GenCon. (Well, Texas Roadhouse is also very good, too.) It was the Gaineys's first trip to a Ruth's Chris, and will likely not be their last, though of course the cost makes it reserved for special occasions, only!
The cheesecake slice I had was nowhere near as large as the whole tiny cheesecake I had had in Indy, but it was still very tasty.
Turkey Day itself was fun and filling, with weather pleasant enough that I took myself outside on their tiny deck to read my book. And then food was had, and it was good.
Yesterday, I succumbed to the lure of the game, and played two games of Pitch Car, which was a lot of fun. You have a race track that is modular, with edges and curves and straight-aways, and you have little wooden disk cars that you flick with your fingers around the track. And not all the track pieces have sides to keep you on the track, so much careful flicking is needed. I started the first game in last place (we drew pieces out of a bag), and finished there. The second game I started in pole (1st) position, and ended up in third. Three laps around the track is a race, and we had 7 players. Tons of fun.
The rest of the group played Puerto Rico afterwards, which was deemed very good. Also played at various times this week were: Warcraft: The Board Game (deemed a problem game for a variety of reasons), Balloon Cup (declared successful), Flea Circus (declared successful, especially by the kids!), and of course, Formula Motor Racing was brought out to play. Lou had never won a game of that until the first game this year, wherein "Fernando" and "Juan" beat the pants off of everyone. It was my understanding that his adopted accents for the "drivers" of his cars made the other players laugh so hard, they had to take multiple breaks so that they could breathe. I firmly believe that he won because Alex was not here, as all the other times the games have been played, IIRC, Alex was there.
Most amusing event that I was not witness to: Lou, Jack, and Grant went out at 7:00 a.m. on Friday morning to WalMart, to pick up a GameCube. Jack offered to go in almost halfsies with us on the purchase of one. Jack has a thing for the Zelda games, and bought a GameCube some time ago so he could continue to play them. WalMart had a special, from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m. Friday morning ONLY, that consisted of a GameCube and a package of the first three console Zelda games (now able to be played on a GameCube) for $79.44. This meant that we could get a GameCube for $45.00, with Jack paying $35.00 for the Zelda games. How could we pass that up?
The amusing part of the event was listening to the men describe their experience of THE BIGGEST RETAIL DAY OF THE YEAR inside one of the biggest retail chains of the US. We usually stay home on Friday and play lots of games, but the sale drove them (and not me, I wisely chose to stay in bed!) out, and now they know WHY we stay home on Friday. I am not going to try telling their tales, because I'm not good at retelling any of their amusing anecdotes. Plus, you lose out on the whole effect because of missing the stunned and horrified expressions on their faces as they tell their "war stories."
Oh yes, after dinner on Thanksgiving, Grant pulled out the EE of TTT, and we watched it all. Probably not a good thing to do after all that tryptophan, but we managed to make it through with a break between discs. Some of the cuts should have been there (Faramir warning Frodo and Sam of the dangers of going to Cirith Ungol before Gollum's She bit is out of place, but the rest of Faramir's extended scenes were definitely welcome), but I enjoyed watching the longer bits. And of course, Brego being Theodred's horse, and Aragorn talking to it in Elvish makes Brego showing up later on mean more than just "random horse showing up because Arwen did some mystical shit."
This morning was a Target run, to pick up Neverwinter Nights for $9, along with an electric kettle to replace the Gaineys's very old stovetop kettle, a new teaball (theirs had broken, and I've been unable to have the wonderful Russian Caravan loose tea I bought from Tealuxe earlier this month), another GameCube controller and memory card, and X2, widescreen.
The rest of the day is for relaxing and a bit more game-playing (Flea Circus is starting up again, Bridget is next to me on the couch, playing on her GameBoy Advance with a Hamtaro game picked up at Target, Grant is working hard on coming up with a scenario for us to role-play while we're here), and likely more Starcraft-playing (Lou challenges Ryan and Lucinda every year, and every year he gives them the usual smackdowns), along with a trip to 35 Chinese for dinner (a Chinese buffet that the kids like, as well as the adults). nc.rr.com keeps going down, so connectivity is still an issue here, though we've resolved everything and are now running off of the Gaineys's wireless and have taken our Airport Base Station out of the loop.
Oh yes, and the late-night Apples to Apples game must take place tonight. I need to stock up on silliness, as last year I was laughing - at myself - so hard that I couldn't breathe. However, where else are you going to get the chance to put down Alan Greenspan for the choices of Gorgeous and Edgy - and get the judge to pick your card!?!? Oh yes, I think I need to save some of the hard ciders for tonight's play.
Am so far behind on blogs that I'll likely wait until we're home to try to catch up, especially with the connectivity going up and down every five minutes as I type this up. Tomorrow will likely be some more roleplaying, board game playing, and preliminary packing. We'll be leaving very early Monday morning for the long drive back, and Tuesday is a day off.
Friday's my birthday, and a party is planned for me at the apartment on Saturday, at my request. Should be fun!
I hope everyone's Thanksgiving (for those who celebrate it) was fun and enjoyable, and not too stressed out by family hassles!