A Great Way To Endure A Storm

Laughter is good! Family coming together, of course, corny but true. We lost power from the very beginning until Friday evening at about 6:30 pm, right after having made up our minds to eat dinner at Goldern Star. Warmth and seeing people other than each other. Cabin fever in the dark but man the moment those lights came on! We ordered Chinese take out, ate in and watched Teladegga Nights on the movie screen.

While the lights were out we played Balderdash and laughed and talked and also played statute of limitations. You know that game? Its when adult children tell their parents things they did while growing up and we all judge whether or not the statute of limitations has run out on the crime or if punishment can, in fact still take place. As children punishment was swift and the crime, usually, forgotten. As adults the crime takes on disporportionate sinister overtones, as if it had to be worse than that or you would have revealed it sooner. There is never a statute of limitations on revealing that you hold the record for driving the wrongway down every street in downtown Seaside within one hour w/o getting a ticket.

I'd rather talk about Balderdash. Funnnny game. The way we play it is without the board. If you (the reader) hold the card you pick to read aloud either the word, or initials, or the name, or the date or the movie. The players make up a definition, what initials stand for, a bio, what happened on this day or a plotline and write them on a slip of paper containing their name while the reader writes the truth. The reader then collects all of the papers and reads them, convincingly, aloud. The players vote for the one they think is the truth. The more convincing that the reader makes the others sound the more likely the players will vote for one of them. If NO ONE votes for the truth the reader gets four points. If someone does pick the truth they get two points. Each person that writes a convincing fib that someone mistakes as the "truth" gets one point.

It is hysterical! Some of ours from the other night: NPBOA> Nanny's Problems Brought Out Assoc or National Party Boat Owners Alliance? Six Lessons From Madam La Zanga> A lovely 46 year old woman gives piano lessons to a student who learns to play perfectly until a freak accident involving a firetruck and a rubber duck leaves the student with amnesia. Can his teacher help him struggle to the answer? OR A Cuban night club owner causes a commotion on a cruise ship?

We had blocked the kitchen in with blankets, keeping the heat from kerosene and propane lanterns and our bodies contained to one area. At the outset of the dire warnings we had boiled water and put it in good hotpots and thermoses so we had tea and hot cocoa and made a few runs to the coffee stands. Later in the evening we wrapped in blankets and watched The World's Fastest Indian with the portable dvd player plugged into to the car starter.

The wind howled, the rain poured. We lost a little bit of wood off the house. We watched the wicked witch of the east sail past our window. We watched a 67 year old man with prostate problems and angina set a world record for the fastest streamlined motorcycles under 1000 cc that still stands today on a cycle he built himself! We held hands a little, quarrelled a little, laughed a lot, snacked a lot (couldn't let it spoil) and were sooooo happy the dang phone couldn't ring.

I hope the storm didn't cause too much damage or other's pain or loss. It brought some inconvenience here and a lot of fun and laughter.