Saturday: The afternoon was the Greenwood Isle picnic. As always, the weather was lovely:
asdr83 seems to have an in at the weather-control office. Once again, I failed to actually cook anything; I atoned for this particular sin by buying way the heck too much good bread, cheese and other such stuff at Whole Foods. And as usual, we had enough food that we were thanking the folks who showed up later and did not bring much. The highlight of the food was the one item cooked for the picnic itself, an apple pie in the shape of a flounder that matildalucet came with. The spicing was curious, but very well done, with unusual highlights like just enough saffron to provide an edge to the flavor without warping it.I brought a good collection of games, and used several of them in the afternoon. I pulled out my bocce set, and taught Lakshmi how to play (she proved to have a knack for the game, and we won). I ran a Game of the Goose, although it was a bit too small to really be fun (six players -- I've concluded that I like it more with around ten). And of course, we had a game of Seven-Sided Backgammon, which wound up with Lakshmi and
asdr83 way too evenly balanced (each with a hammer/anvil formation), so the endgame took a while.A very pleasant afternoon out, with a good crowd of people. Didn't really draw in much outside interest (and didn't get any of the newbies from the Colleges of the Fenway fair, which was disappointing), but enough fun that I'm willing to cope.
The evening was the organizational meeting for Duncharloch. That went a bit imperfectly: we didn't get as many people as the provosts were hoping for, and several people were a smidgeon on-edge from having just gotten to the end of the Yom Kippur fast. But it does look like there are at least a few folks who are genuinely interested, so I continue to be hopeful. I do have to gently impress on the provosts that they don't need the club to be huge to be successful -- they're used to HRSFA and how it does business, so they think in terms of critical mass and formal organization more than is really needed. (I think that at least Elisabeth gets it intellectually, but needs a while to really internalize the difference.)
Sunday: Main activity of the afternoon was auditions for Silicon Theater,
metahacker's radio play project. That was fun, although slightly disconcerting to see that some of the people trying out really are better than me. (hakamadare was particularly brilliant in the character roles, as usual.) Spent essentially the entire rest of the day making chili -- the Cook's Illustrated recipe I use is quite good, but very labor-intensive, especially at the beginning. It generally takes an hour of shopping and 2 hours of prep if I make it faithfully, without shortcuts. (Plus a couple of hours of simmering, of course, so the bulk of the work has to happen in the midafternoon.) Tasty, though, and it gets better as it ages.
Exchanged some email with the provost of Duncharloch. We're talking about having them host Low Company for the time being -- the members of the borough are pretty games-focused anyway, and the peripatetic wanderings of the Company haven't done it any good. So I've been trying to find a consistent location, and they bounced eagerly at the notion of hosting it, so we're going to try that out. We're tentatively looking at 4th Tuesdays, at Harvard, starting in October.
Today: Was planning on spending the heart of the day at work in an interesting technical meeting with a potential partner, but that didn't materialize. Pity: while it meant looking a little more respectable than usual (no button for me today), I was looking forward to the discussion.
Upcoming Events: Life begins to get a little saner for a while, at least on my weekdays; weekends remain nuts. Over the next week, I can hopefully catch up on non-Demo-Season related email, and claw back a little of my sleep debt. Then it's on to other projects that are hanging fire.
This weekend: Coronation. I'm bringing Viking-related games for Harald, and running kitchen cleanup. Anyone willing to help me with the dishes? I've gotten a couple of volunteers so far, but I could really use more.
Next weekend: Falling Leaves. I'm providing games for a project there, and generally going to try to introduce the burghers to each other. And I'm going to cook something interesting for the feast, dammit. (It's looking like
msmemory will be down at Crusades, so I may as well spend Friday evening cooking.)The following weekend:
ladysprite's wedding. No official responsibilities, save to help push people onto the dance floor.The weekend after that: Cook's Guild reconvenes, hosted by
mermaidlady. This should be fun.The next weekend: Crown Tourney, up in the north country. We're planning on taking the whole weekend up there, so that we can be bright and cheerful as we try to herd the cats for the march of precedence. Hopefully I'll still be able to feel my toes by the end of the tourney. And presumably our annual Halloween date, somewhere along the line.
And then: Macbeth.
msmemory is stage-managing, and I'm supplying games and instruction for the afternoon, so I expect us to be busy.Followed by: A quiet weekend? Can it be? Well, maybe. Christine Lavin is reportedly playing at TCAN, so we might go to that; we'll see. Regardless, a mostly-quiet weekend...
