Saturday morning I awoke from a very intense dream, in which I was driving through Shenandoah National Park and the mountains were volcanoes and they were erupting all over the flippin’ place. That seemed like a rather odd dream to have, especially given that the only negative issues that I had in Shenandoah were those creepy deer. It did have the benefit of putting me on edge enough in my sleep that when I woke up I was wide awake. I always appreciate that, so long as it doesn’t happen in the middle of the night. (Later on I realized what had triggered my dream. Among her Mad Science gear, Stephenie had a small model volcano sitting on the floor of the computer/guest room. I assume I spotted it, even if I didn’t realize it, and subconsciously absorbed it into my dream. The brain is a funny thing. Volcanoes, on the other hand, are not funny. You never laugh at a volcano.)
We had no major plans today, until a game night this evening, so Steph and I proceeded to enjoy a very leisurely Saturday (alas, Evan had to do some work to make up for the time he missed seeing to his not-a-wedding the previous day.) There was a little wedding planning talk, and when we got around to the subject of dresses I mentioned the infinity dress (I think there are a variety of names, but essentially it’s a dress that can be worn in a variety of configurations.) After some Googling for pictures Stephenie seemed interested and she went to find her fabric stash. In it we found some sheer black fabric with a red glitter design all over it and some old green curtains --- we were about to go a little Gone With The Wind with things.
Steph and I are both fairly resourceful when it comes to the making of something (I mean, have you seen our Christmas stocking work?) but we were kind of working without a net on this one. While we had a decent tutorial to go from, we lacked an actual pattern, and the tutorial did not give us any direction as to how to make the circle skirt portion of the dress. There was much fabric folding and measuring (with a string, not a tape measure) and we did a couple of practice runs with a piece of paper so we finally got it figured out, cut the fabric, and Steph began sewing the skirt pieces together. (It would have been really handy if we’d had a giant compass.) Once that portion was assembled, Steph slipped it on, but it was slightly big --- as in we needed to cut out more than one fourth of the entire skirt. Still not sure how me messed that up, but better it be cut too big than too small. We attached the two long strips that make up the top of the dress and began playing around with wrap-and-tie options. I think there were a few glitches in our very quickly made prototype which were minor hindrances, but in general we got the idea. Even if it’s not a good design for a wedding/bridesmaid dress, it’d be good for an everyday one. The major downside of this whole production --- the red glitter fabric left it’s little glitter babies all over the damn apartment, and us. We were noticing the shimmery bits on each other when Stephenie told me that Evan’s dad calls glitter the herpes of the craft world. Never were truer words spoken.
(*No pictures of the dress are included because (1) there are still some kinks to work out and (2) the whole bottom half was made of sheer material and there’s no need to be lewd on the internet, now is there.)
Craft time being over, we settled in on the couch for an educating exploration into one of modern America’s most intriguing anthropological studies --- Beauty and the Geek. (And yes, I mean the reality show where the hot girls and the dorky guys are teamed up in a battle royale for semi-generous cash prizes. And no, it’s not still on the air --- we were watching season one, which Steph has on her hard drive.) Evan did not join us for this portion of the afternoon, though eventually he did emerge from the computer/guest room to insist that we get out of the house (in a “let’s go do something” way not in a “get the hell out, bitches” way.) We made our way to Evan’s car (the doors of which I always slam, for some reason) and decided to head out for frosty beverages. While imbibing we got into a discussion about names, and I may have named Steph & Evan’s future child --- rest assured it is not “Carrie.”
We made a beer run and returned home to ready ourselves for game night. Stephenie has been talking about playing The Settlers of Catan for the past couple years, really giving me the hard sell on its greatness. While my board game comfort zone is generally in the realm of Trivial Pursuit, I was expecting to be developing a society on the island of Catan this evening. Things took a slightly different path. Sean, a friend of The Gang’s (how have I not started referring to Stephenie, Roxane, Evan, and Jerimee as The Gang from Raleigh already? It’s so adorable.) brought over a game called Trumpet, which is evidently one of those games that board game playing connoisseur’s enjoy. Trumpet is both a board game and a card game, and I was told that the principles are similar to Hearts or Spades. The problem there is that I’ve never played Hearts or Spades, so I failed to grasp some of the basics, for example how to not “cheat” in the very first round/hand/whatever. (I still maintain that it’s not really cheating if you don’t know that you’re cheating. Others disagreed, so I threw some mens rea at them (lawyered) and we moved on. My cheating didn’t help me anyway.) By the second round through Jerimee had gone outside to play with some kids, Roxane saying that he just did that because he didn’t like the game. I contemplated joining him, but decided to stay the course. Even after several hands I’m still not really getting it, but I have managed to avoid any further “cheating” scandals. I am having a hard time not referring to the Club suit as “clovers” or “shamrocks” --- they are green, after all. The game is coming to a close, and some how I’m in the equivalent of second place (truly I have no idea how that happened) but Stephenie wins it all. No offense to Sean or the game’s creators but my entire self worth has been shaken by my inability to understand this damn game. I could try to blame it on my being an only child and having limited card game playing experience (aside from Solitaire and playing poker with my grandfather during my formative years) but I’m actually wondering if my being a far cry from a card shark (“card sharp” is also an acceptable term) is why I don’t have a job. (I understand this is an absolutely ridiculous and illogical leap, but you never know.)
Once we’ve finished up with Trumpet we break out Cranium and bust up into teams. I am anticipating feeling much better about myself during the second half of game night. I may not be awesome at Cranium but I at least understand the basic concepts of blind contour line drawing and trivia questions. Cranium went well, which is to say that the team of Stephenie, Roxane, & Carrie totally dominated. After our win we decided to just keep going with the charades portion, and boy am I glad that we did. I never knew this before, but I’m kind of awesome at charades. Not so much the performing part, but the guessing stuff I got down. One of the Jason’s (I believe there were three there) had to act out Afternoon Delight and I actually guessed it. I was proud. (Right now I kind of feel pathetic about the level of pride I felt, given that we are talking about charades here, but it’s the little things that make life worth living.)
Charades eventually succumbed to entropy (a word I truly love, but rarely get to use) and various peoples returned to their homes, their cars, or the homes or cars of others. A few people lingered, among them “The Gang’s” friend Dave, who asked if I’d ever seen the honey badger video. I had not, but was hesitant to volunteer this information due to the number of times I’ve been psychologically scarred by someone ambushing me with an unsettling YouTube video. I owned up to my unfamiliarity and the computer’s web browser was directed to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg . Do yourself a favor and watch this if you haven’t already. You will not regret it, unless you’re like Steph and have a nightmare about snakes later. (BTW, I just rewatched the honey badger video and it’s still good even when it’s not 3 am.)
Bed.
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