A Road Less Travelled

(Ralph, this is for you.)

I got home from the camp out on Memorial Day, staggered inside, took a shower then headed back out to Ralph and Ruth’s house for our traditional Memorial Day picnic.

Ralph and Ruth like to spoil us when we come over. We like to be spoiled. It is a match made in Heaven. Our theme for the year was American Imperialism so we had food from all over the world to enjoy. German chocolates, Russian vodka Jello shots, Mexican beer, chips and salsa, baklava, Lebanese tabbouleh salad, Vietnamese satay (which was probably this finest thing I ate that day. The meat was tender, juicy and on a stick. It don’t get better than that.) and another Lebanese dish I can’t remember the name of, but am highly in favor of. It was ground meat mixed with grain, wrapped around more meat and deep fried. Very, very good.

We ate, we talked, we laughed and then I took a nap. There was a game on the horizon and I wanted to be awake for it. I curled up on the love seat and somehow managed to fall asleep with all the hustle, bustle and children. This love seat’s big brother lives at our house now and is not very comfortable to fall asleep on because it’s a sectional, but thankfully the love seat is just different enough from the couch. I got woken up to the strains of the old Superman cartoon. “Da de da! Da de da da de da da de da!” That show is awesome even when you’ve just woken up from a nap.

We played Wealth of Nations which all of us except Seth had played once before. I lost. Badly. I didn’t come in last, but that’s only because Seth had never played before and it wasn’t his thing. I was aiming for fourth, but no, I came in fifth. I’d really like to claim I was robbed, but I think I just really am that bad at this game. Which makes it curious that I enjoy it so much. It’s a crunchy economics game that requires lots of brain power. Not usually my cup of tea, but I really like Wealth of Nations. Ah well, some mysteries will never be explained.

After the game we ate our traditional meal of grilled steaks and corn on the cob. Mmmm, steak…. This is the only part of the “picnic” that actually takes place outside. We ate together and laughed loudly. It was after dark and the deck was lit with candles and dim light. Seth commented that this time we were the people drinking and being loud. It’s a nice break from living across the street from those people. We analyzed James’s explaining tick, watched while Ralph was deeply disturbed by the asymmetry of the lights, agreed vigorously with five-foot-tall Ruth when she said she wasn’t short and I got voted the coolest woman Moriah knows apart from her mother.

We finally left at what felt like way too late o’clock, but I was running on not nearly enough sleep. It was a marvelous feast, er, picnic. Thank you again, Ralph and Ruth.

(There Ralph, you got your own blog post. Happy?)