Day 3: The best of meals, the worst of meals

Saturday's lunch was a fiasco, the details of which don't need to be re-hashed; suffice to say, by the time K. arrived with my Renato's cheesesteak (an hour later than expected), both of us were short-fused, and we had the rare kind of argument that ends with both of us stomping off in opposite directions to stew. I sat on the bench just downhill of Clothier and played guitar, with great angst and glowering, until Miriam happened by and bravely made a semi-successful effort to cheer me up.

Dinner, by contrast, was fabulous. showergrrl, assisted by many able and capable elves, organized a cookout on the Hallowell patio, and it has become clear to all that a tradition was born that day. There were burgers and ears of corn and hot dogs and s'mores, all delicious, all consumed in a stressless and convivially crowded atmosphere. I decided two years ago that I don't enjoy the monster group dinners of Alumni Weekend; this was a perfect replacement, for my money, in that we could accommodate the same number of people without the attendant stress. Hooray for Lisa (and everyone who helped)! ( This is what it looked like. )

It was during this BBQ that we browbeat cajoled wheedled tricked assisted sinsofthedove into taking Drew's place on the SWIL vacation, however many pairs of pants she'd failed to bring, mostly through the method of looming at her every five minutes and saying, "You are coming." And so she did. We also tried to create a live-action SWIL incest web, simply by reaching out and grabbing the closest people who fit the bill, but it never got very far. Which is probably for the best.

Between the meals, I played for patio dancing, along with stowaway_geek, jMr, and Larry M., and it went very well, apart from a couple of stumbles. After the BBQ I played a simply amazing game of Ticket to Ride: Europe with uncleamos, reldnahkram, Randy, and think_too_much (unless that's yet another Chris, which it might be). It was a knuckle-biter right down to the wire, which had reldnahkram on his feet and pacing, and at the end there was exactly one point separating the two leaders (myself and Randy, and does it really matter which of us won?). showergrrl arrived with Nifty 50s milkshakes just as the game was ending, which capped the experience perfectly. Mmmmm, gamingasm.

Everyone was planning to gather at 9AM to clean up the SWIL detritus in the Math Department, but it occurred to me how pleasant and amusing it would be if they discovered when they arrived that elves had already been through and tidied everything. So I spent a couple of pleasant hours rearranging tables, gathering garbage, consolidating piles of games, chasing the bats away with a broom, &c. It gave me something to do while the Evil was happening—the Evil that involved a half-naked Dan Blim, a bottle of wine, and franzeska removing sinsofthedove's only bra. I wanted no part of that, no-sir-ee! I'm a good boy.

( But I did take pictures. )

Day 4: Onancock

I woke earlier than anticipated on Sunday, and was finally able to get some snuggle-time with Miriam in her room, beside the Large Alarming Stain, which I did my best to ignore as it attempted to ooze toward us.

I had my first dim sum today, and was underwhelmed. Partly, this was because one of the first things I ate was a sweet-and-sour spare rib, the "rib" part of which crumbled to a horrible dry mealy wad in my mouth when I bit down on it. *shudder* That pretty much turned me off food for the rest of my life. But, really, dim sum seems to be...Chinese food. Lots of Chinese food, early in the morning, when I don't really want to eat a lot of food. I might enjoy it as an evening buffet, but I wasn't hungry enough to justify the cost, and it wasn't sufficiently distinct from the Chinese food I'm used to to make a trip into Philly worthwhile.

Once back at Swat, K. and I hopped into the car with superbacana and stowaway_geek for Outer Banks Road Trip 2005! Woo! Thanks to the discovery of a handy guitar-hole in the back seat of K.'s Honda, we were able to fit four people and their luggage quite comfortably. K. and superbacana swapped off driving duties, and the miles scrolled by under our wheels. ( We saw some stuff. )

We arrived shortly after dark, and to shake the road-tension I went for a glorious nighttime swim in our very own Red Drum pool. It was not exactly deep—I could stand with my head comfortably clear in the "deep" end—but I had a lovely time sloshing about. Afterward, still wet, I hiked down the road to Above It All, the house that became the de facto gathering place for the week, to meet and greet my fellow vacationers. showergrrl, sinsofthedove and I went for a hike along the beach, looking for the bioluminescent microorganisms I'd seen last year; they never turned up, but we had a pretty blissful time of it anyway. The whole dark night was above us, the whole dark ocean beside us, the whole dark world around us, and there we were. Right there. Laughing a lot.

There was more fun back at Red Drum, tailing off into the wee hours, until only two of us were left. sinsofthedove kept me up until dawn out on the Red Drum couches, completely shooting to hell my plan of adhering to a reasonable sleep schedule on this trip. I surrendered to the Fates, who told me to give Chronos a big ol' wedgie.